#the whole opening sequence was incredible

[warblogs17282]

Satan, the courts and classism against imps.

My mind is going through 50 different thoughts right now, so I thought I'd make a post on the classism seen within the courts.

Short answer: Satan and the people within the courts are quite classist, with there only being a few examples of people not being classist within the court sequences.

Long Answer:

Let's start with the first instance of classism we see within the courts, Loona gets treated differently because she's a hellhound. Sure while they share a few rough similarities with dogs, and people do put muzzles over dogs to prevent them from biting, that really isn't needed here in the slightest, it just really feels like Loona is getting degraded here, being treated worse than the imps, with Loona having more restraints than the imps purely because she's a hellhound and nothing else.

Blitz objects to what Andrealphus is saying, and he's almost instantly told to shut up, having a magical gag or whatever that this placed over his mouth, not letting Blitz make his own arguments, with the courts instead letting the higher-up Goetia speak his mind without allowing Blitz to object to any of it.

Same thing happens again with Moxxie, Moxxie objects to what Andrealphus has to say, and he also pretty much instantly gets told to shut up as well, by Satan himself.

Even further unnecessary restraints on Blitz, because he's naturally objecting to what Andrealphus is saying, further showing that he doesn't really get a voice in the trial, not being allowed to speak his mind and object to what Andrealphus is saying.

A bit of corruption as well, what this shows is that deals like this can be made with witnesses to give testimony, which just opens up a whole can of worms of corruption, considering Andrealphus knows that the witness is lying here, he's basically told Striker to go against Blitz in exchange for immunity, when they both know Stella hired him.

So, while I do admit only Striker and Andrealphus were the ones that knew Striker was told to commit perjury, it still proves the system is inherently exploitable for the people of higher-class, screwing over the people at the bottom in most cases. The court system is rigged for the upper-class. Hell, everything I've mentioned so far shows that the system is rigged against the lower-class, and I'm getting back to this point later in the post.

This scene is the only example of anyone who actually speaks up in favor of Blitz, the only one, and it's incredibly short-lived as Mammon very quickly interrupts the two to make a classist statement.

Mammon instantly proceeds to interrupt them by saying they 'enjoy slumming it with the lower class plebs.', and calls Vortex a 'mutt', purely because he's a hellhound, more casual classism in the court, although they both do fire back at Mammon because well, Mammon is being a cunt here.

Satan calls Blitz an 'Imp bastard' and instantly proceeds to ignore any possible due course that should come with court proceedings, aka, the 'hours of testimony' purely because he's hungry and wants to eat lunch. Instead being completely willing to execute an 'imp bastard' with zero due course because again, he's hungry and wants to eat his lunch. Only Bee, Asmodeus, Moxxie, Millie, Loona and I presume Vassago as well actually want the due course to happen, with literally every other demon in the room (with most of them being Goetia members) voting to prematurely execute Blitz, an 'imp bastard' as Satan puts it. (Yet another example of how the court system is rigged against imps and the lower-class)

'You should've remained in the place that is expected of a low-class imp.' is basically what this scene amounts to. 'When lesser demons try to step out of line.'

And we having people literally celebrating the execution of a few imps and a hellhound, which really gives me the vibes that they're being incredibly classist here as well.

'To remind all imp-kind why you should never challenge the people above you in the hierarchy, why you should never challenge the more powerful people to you, why you should never challenge our authority.'

This screams of authoritarian behavior (is that the right word in this context?), to attempt to scare the imp-kind into being little obedient creatures to them, to scare the imp-kind into staying in their expected place in hell's society, which is obviously very much classist.

Even if Satan is completely lying about this claim, it is still incredibly fucked up and classist that he says he created them to be obedient, just straight up admitting that he expects and demands obedience from imps, not being afraid of using his powers to do so as well.

Outside of Satan just straight up saying he doesn't give a shit about Blitz's final words, Blitz drops a mention of the hierarchy, the hierarchy enforced by the Goetia and above, the hierarchy that forces imps and such into the place that the Goetia and above want them to be in, and that Blitz was trying to rise above that place that them all forced him into.

This alongside Satan admitting that he doesn't care about Blitz's final words, just further shows us how little Satan, and by extension, how little the court system cares about what the lower-class have to say, with that being something I've shown multiple times throughout the post already.

Stolas does lean into the inherent classism the Goetia has during the song, although he's not being classist here to be a dick, it's all an act to save Blitz from execution, but it does to add the general classist vibes of the court, and you clearly see Blitz getting quite pissed off during this part of the act as well.

And Satan quite literally just says that he's the judge, jury and executioner in the courts, leaning further into the authoritarian behavior that I mentioned earlier, because he literally says that Satan himself is the law, which is obviously quite authoritarian.

'You are demon royalty, sooooooooooo... your life has actual worth.', which quite heavily implies that Stolas' life only has actual worth because of the fact he's royalty, a prince. Which also implies that anyone below demon royalty, such as imps and hellhounds for example, their lives don't have any actual worth as Satan calls it. Plus, Blitz gets executed for the same crime Stolas took the blame for, and Stolas' punishment is lesser, only losing his powers, title and such for 100 years instead, and while you can't apply Stolas' punishment to Blitz, the fact the punishment is different for the two of them shows a clear double standard, all because Stolas' life has actual worth, while Blitz's does not to Satan.

Finally, we have the news article Blitz pulls up on his phone, "making them the first hellborn to ever survive after being sentenced to death by a deadly sin.", Blitz is a historical exception, a true one-of-a-kind here, but the fact Blitz is the first, purely because Stolas took responsibly for it still speaks volumes to the lack of care and lack of due process within the courts, and further speaks to Satan's ruthlessness and classism as well. With this further backing up my point that the system is generally rigged against lower-class demons, like imps.

In conclusion: I have shown in multiple ways how Satan, and most of the people within the courtroom contain very classist views, making the court system extremely classist as a result, and I also believe I've shown pretty well that the court system is generally rigged against against lower-class demons, and generally rigged in favor of higher-class demons, like demon royalty for example, with me showing exactly how Andrealphus' and Striker's deal inherently makes the court systems exploitable and corrupt, again, generally in favor of the higher-class demons.

Yikes, even Phoenix Wright couldn't save this kangaroo court, and that's saying something if you've fully played through Spirit of Justice.

[thewistlingbadger]

Things I loved about season 2 arcane

Jinx slapping Vi. Oh man was that shit deserved

Ekko and Jayce interaction. I love that they let them interact, especially since they're who started it all. Ekko's tip led to everything.

Jinx and Viktor interaction. I prayed for times like these and we got it.

The scene with Sevika's arm was so much fuckin fun

Jinx's reaction when she saw that Vi was an enforcer. The fact that she couldn't pull the trigger.

The return of Jinx's episodes

The interactions between jinx and Sevika, and jinx Sevika and Isha. I wished we got more of their dynamic they were a highlight

The music and animation of the final moment of the show. That shit was mind-blowing

Mel's new design and her power was the moment!

Seeing Kino!

Certain moments with Jinx and Silco. That opening in ep2 S2 had me sobbing. It's so tender and sad and God can you tell she loved him. Every moment she returned to his office was incredible.

Seeing Vander and Silco's hideout. The jackets. The fucking letter. Oh it hit me like a train.

Jayce mother fuckin Talis. He is everything. I love the focus he got in this season. I loved everything about him this season as well as his arc. This man kept getting more and more attractive as we saw him on screen.

The relationship between mel and jayce. They were so sweet and soft with each other. And in the end they parted on such beautiful and respectful terms.

Certain phrases and vocabulary. "Inextricably Bound" "you will never be a passenger" "you are the wolf" Felicia's monologue and Jayce's final monologue

Seeing grown up Mylo and Claggor was cool.

Jayce's reaction to seeing Viktor after the explosion was heartbreaking

Jayvik, Jayvik, Jayvik. Man did they steal the show for me. Seeing Jayce worry about Viktor, "it should have been me," their first hug, their first separation. All the way to that beautiful finale. Oh man it was everything.

Renni was an amazing addition at the start of the series. Her design, her weapon, and her ability to thrill the audience was amazing. That scene where she was looking for jayce? Chilling. The fact that she landed a back injury on him was crazy

The conclusion to act 1 s2 had my jaw on the floor. The reveal. The presentation. The music

Singed's whole storyline was awesome. I loved getting more information on him

The opening of act 2, with Jinx looking directly into the camera as a match announcer. That was so fun.

The blisters and bedrock flashback. I so wasn't expecting that and I was flailing about when I first saw it. Yeah it has its flaws but I loved seeing it. It recontextualizes everything for better and worse and I love that we have it even though it causes problems

Jinx's reaction to seeing everyone rally behind her. Babygirl needed that

Seeing more Sevika was nice, same with seeing more of the undercity as a united front

Designs just went hard this season. Ambessa, Caitlyn, vi, etc.

Ekko saving the day with his Z drive was epic

In ep1 s1 it was really sweet to see the way Caitlyn relied on Vi

The caitvi kiss was pretty cool

The Caitlyn betrayal. I wish they would have done more with this bc it was cool

Maddie saying "I appreciated the warmth." That line was COLD.

The Jayvik fight sequence in the council room

LEST!!

Some of the humor in this season was really funny

I love how they really said without Silco, everything falls a part

Please tell me what you loved about Arcane season 2. What parts really resonated with you on the most fundamental level? What made you feel with your whole soul and body? What parta made you think about the show for days after as you stared at the nearest wall?

The more I think about it, the more I just see the things I disliked about it, and I really really want to love it as much as I see others do, and as much as I loved it when I first watched it

[brontios-helm]

Destiny 2: Spear, Sword, Shield, Shard

[velvetjune]

i played the remastered alan wake a while back and am replaying the original on steam, and, honestly, they’re so similar, I couldn’t tell which is which if you held up comparisons. ive come across reviews about the game looking outdated and bad (mostly compared to other releases in that time), but the original looks great and I like the hazy dark lighting for both this and awan

[starleska]

73 Yards has devastated me and i have some theories

we all agree that 73 Yards was a genre-defying, harrowing episode...and i think there's some really interesting themes and ideas going on here. tw for discussion of trauma, abuse, neglect and abandonment:

i hope we're all on the same page that the Woman seems to represent Ruby's fear of abandonment, brought to life. always present, always out of the corner of her eye, and whose primary mechanic is to drive people to scorn and leave Ruby without explanation. even people who do not know her, or people she's just met, or who are incredibly warm towards her...they speak to the Woman, and they look back as if to confirm their suspicions, and then run away, maddened and horrified. it is an unbelievable stroke of genius to make the Toymaker's breaking down of the boundaries between science and fantasy bring Ruby's abandonment into being...and for Ruby to weaponise her. but that's it - as soon as Roger ap Gwilliam was taken care of, we expected the Woman to disappear, right? but that could never happen, because Ruby's fear of abandonment will never disappear...no matter how purposeful her life is, or how much she distances herself from others. the use of the cruel, distant individuals in the Welsh pub to set up Ruby sympathetically is excellent...and then, we see people approach Ruby at all levels of emotional connection, when time and again she is considered untouchable, as if her very being is contagious. and all this time, we have the fairy circle being broken and hope vanishing...with hope being the Doctor. the one man who potentially holds the key to uncovering Ruby's deepest desires - to find out why she was abandoned, and by who. and at the end of it all...even in death, Ruby doesn't find peace. she is transported into a neverending hell-loop where she is her own abandonment. the two are inseparable, inexplicably the same, because Ruby's very existence as herself is built on the bedrock of abandonment. and i think this resonates heavily with any trauma survivor...the way that our trauma and our very real anxieties brought on by that trauma are inextricable from ourselves. i think the plot with Roger ap Gwilliam shows off a very real symptom in trauma survivors: we often daydream that our hurt and pain will be useful one day - functional. and not only does Ruby get to do that...she gets to be the quiet, unsung saviour of the whole world, protecting us from a world-ending terror in spite of the abuse and neglect she's faced. she endures menial work and constant fear, while only confiding quietly in one other person...Marti, who i believe is coded as another trauma survivor due to her response to Roger (who she describes as a monster). if Ruby can't receive love and affection from anyone else, at least she can feel satisfied that she served her purpose. on a practical level, the presence of Mrs Flood and Susan Twist in this episode AGAIN gives me pause. my theory that someone here is another of the Toymaker's Legions, and is the embodiment of Story, has only deepened. the fact that we had a cold open without the title sequence, we met Susan Twist very quickly, we seem to have flipped genres for the show and Ruby was able to embark on a self-destructive wish-fulfilment saviour fantasy in real life...it all indicates to me that the boundaries between reality and fiction are fully collapsing. when Kate says things are trending towards the supernatural lately, i think we've only hit the tip of the iceberg. on a broader level: my God Russell T Davies, what a brilliant script!!! this is one of my favourite ever episodes of Doctor Who, and is absolutely my highlight for the season. huge kudos to Millie Gibson for giving such a killer performance...i am now terribly endeared to, and protective, of Ruby, and hope against hope she gets the happy ending she so deserves 💖

[pucksandpower]

Roll the Dice

Charles Leclerc x Reader

Summary: You and Charles throw your own private celebration after one of the best races of the season

Warnings: 18+ content

The roar of the crowd still rings in your ears as you make your way through the paddock to find Charles. Your heart is bursting with pride after watching him fight his way to a hard-earned P2.

Las Vegas may be a new circuit but Charles drove it like he had been racing here for years. He made the Ferrari dance in ways you didn’t think were possible, squeezing every last hundredth out of each corner.

You spot him up ahead, finally free from the mob of reporters and post-race press conference. He’s leaning against the wall near the media pen in a rare moment of solitude, eyes closed and head tilted back, no doubt mentally replaying each complex sequence of braking points and apexes.

You take a moment just to look at him — the way his damp curls cling to his forehead, the zipper of his race suit undone and its sleeves tied at his waist to reveal soaked fireproofs that cling to every contour of his chest. He’s breathing heavily, a post-race flush still clinging to his cheeks.

He’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.

As you draw nearer, his eyes blink open and immediately lock with yours. Relief, affection, and something more primal flash through them as a smile tugs at the corners of his mouth.

“Y/N!” He shouts, hurrying over to sweep you up in a massive hug.

You squeeze him tight, not caring at all that he’s drenched in sweat and sticky with champagne. “I’m so proud of you!” You beam.

He sets you down, his hands lingering on your waist. “I couldn’t have done it without my good luck charm.”

You playfully smack his shoulder. “Oh stop, this was all you! I can’t believe the drive you put on out there. You were incredible!”

Charles glances down shyly. “Thank you, mon cœur. It was a good race tonight.”

“A great race,” you correct him, “You drove incredibly. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, watching you battle with Max and Checo like that. It was the best thing I’ve seen all season.”

Taking his hand, you lead him away from the crowds. “Come on, let’s get you out of here. I think it’s time we celebrate!”

A flight in the early afternoon means you both decide to forego the wild Vegas parties and instead make your way straight to the hotel. Once you’re in your suite, Charles heads for the shower while you pour champagne. When he emerges in a billow of steam, you hand him a glass.

“To my champion!” You declare, clinking your glass against his.

Charles smiles graciously but you catch a flash of disappointment in his eyes. “I’m hardly a champion finishing P2.”

You fix him with a serious look. “That was the drive of a champion tonight. You left you heart on the track out there. If it wasn’t for that safety car, you would’ve won. I would have bet my life on it.”

He looks thoughtful as he takes a sip. “You really think so?”

“I know so! The way you managed to regain the lead from Max? And then from Checo? The move you pulled in the last lap to take P2? Incredible. My only regret is that you don’t have a car that would give you an opportunity to compete like this all season.”

Charles sighs. “The team is doing their best with what we’ve got.”

You set your glass down and rest your hands on his bare chest. “I know and you’re so patient with them. But a driver like you? You deserve to be fighting at the front in every single race.”

Looking into your eyes, Charles brushes a strand of hair from your face. “We’ll get there, I know it. This result today, it shows progress.”

“You’re right. It does,” you smile up at him. “And when you do get a car worthy of you, the rest of the grid better watch out. Because you are going to do great things, Charles Leclerc.”

Charles gazes at you tenderly before pulling you in for a kiss. Your lips move together unhurriedly, his hands trailing down your back.

When you finally break apart, breaths mingling, he gives you a mischievous look.

“You know, I never did properly thank you for being my good luck charm today.” His fingers toy with the hem of your shirt.

You bite your lip coyly. “I think the good luck charm wants to properly congratulate her driver on the podium. I want to make you feel good. You more than earned it.”

Charles grins and tugs your shirt up over your head. His lips find your neck as he backs you towards the bed, hands roaming your newly exposed skin.

You fumble with the ties on his sweatpants, shoving them down as the back of your legs hit the plush mattress. He gently lowers you down, hovering over you.

“You are so beautiful,” he murmurs, eyes dark with want.

You pull him down for another heated kiss, reveling in the feel of his solid weight above you. Your hands grasp at his back, nails digging in slightly to leave crescent marks on his skin.

Charles groans into your mouth at the sensation, pressing his hips down firmly against yours. You can feel his arousal even through the thin fabric still separating you.

Breaking the kiss, you trail your lips along his stubbled jaw to his ear. “I want you so much,” you whisper hotly.

He shudders in response, hands gripping your waist. “Take what you want, mon amour. I’m all yours.”

You slip a hand between your bodies, palming him through his boxers. He hisses in pleasure, bucking into your touch.

“These need to come off. Now,” you demand.

Charles obliges eagerly, stripping the last barrier between you away. You waste no time to wrap your legs around his waist, gasping as he enters you in one smooth motion.

You move together unhurriedly at first, simply reveling in the feeling of being joined so intimately. Charles peppers your face and neck with tender kisses as your hands caress every inch of his back and shoulders you can reach.

As the pleasure builds, your hips pick up speed, chasing release. Charles shifts his angle, hitting that sweet spot inside you that has you seeing stars.

“Just like that! Don’t stop!” You cry out, nails digging into his shoulders again.

He increases his pace, pounding into you relentlessly. You feel the tension coiling tighter and tighter within you.

“Charles, I’m so close ...” you gasp.

“Let go, mon cœur. Come for me,” he growls breathlessly into your ear.

His words send you tumbling over the edge with a wordless cry. Your vision goes white as intense ecstasy washes over you. Distantly you’re aware of Charles following right after, your name a reverent sigh on his lips.

As you float back down, Charles collapses on top of you. You hold him close, heart threatening to burst from the love and pride swelling within you.

Charles presses his lips to your forehead. “Have I mentioned that you’re the best girlfriend ever? I don’t know what I did to deserve someone as wonderful as you. But I’m so glad you’re here with me through all of this. I love you so much.”

You grin and pull him in for a kiss. “You deserve the world, Charles Leclerc. And I plan on spending every day of our lives proving that to you.”

[churipu]

can i request the reader being gojo's younger (or little, if that's what you prefer) sister during their highschool days? i think the dynamic between her and geto would be really cute and sweet! meanwhile, shoko would be the tired aunt that has to watch every stupid thing that stsg and the reader does 😭

๋࣭⭑ A CHAOTIC FOURSOME ��⑅ᐢ..ᐢ₎

featuring. gojo satoru, shoko ieiri, geto suguru + gojo's little sister

warning. time sequence is during their highschool days (2006) and i'd say the reader would be younger than gojo by a year, so she's as old as nanami and haibara :D

note. i'm actually like so ecstatic to write this because i have so many assumptions of gojo with a younger sister, thank you nonnie for requesting this, ily <;33

the mother x the dumb x the dumber x the dumbest

no doubt that shoko is the mother of the group, without her the whole group is just well, plainly chaotic. satoru will come up for stupid plans, hence the dumbest. you will undoubtedly follow him, hence the dumber. and geto will think it's stupid, but will follow him, hence the dumb.

"okay, so what if we just — find a way to summon a curse, and sell our soul to it for something in return?" satoru asks with a cheeky grin.

"sounds cool, i'm in!" you replied with a large toothy grin.

"that must be the stupidest idea i have ever heard in my life," geto sighs out, "but let's do it."

"i don't have a soul," shoko mutters out of the blue, sighing out, "and you guys are incredibly stupid, you know that?" at the end of the day, the plan didn't even commence nor did you all talked about it again.

you are the closest with geto, he treats you like a little sister as well — except he's a little less of an asshole than your actual brother.

satoru is an asshole. he's a pain in the ass, no doubt. all three— you, geto, and shoko— can and will admit the fact that out of you four, satoru is the brattiest. however though, being related to him by blood, you were his target most of the time.

"ouch! satoru, did you really just shoot me with a nerf gun? that fucking hurts you ass!" you hiss, rubbing your nape— where satoru just shot with a nerf gun.

"take that, peasant." satoru sings out, attempting to shoot two more bullets at you, one hitting your arm and the other barely missing you.

you ran to shoko who immediately flee, leaving you open to satoru, traitor. before you eventually seek shelter behind geto who was sitting down on a bench, sipping a drink; and oh boy, the bullet managed to hit his face.

"oh shit." satoru mumbled, "it was an accident, suguru."

"damn." you look at geto, before laughing lightly.

geto smiled at your brother before standing up, and the cat-and-mouse chase between them both begin. geto made sure you were alright after, and satoru was— yeah, he survived, just a little bruised here and there.

being siblings is funny, satoru's closet is your closet too.

"y/n, is that my shirt?" satoru asks, pointing at the white shirt you were wearing and you hummed softly, sipping on a carton of milk.

satoru began lecturing you and how you shouldn't snoop in his closet, "lord, save me." you muttered out, walking in between shoko and geto while your brother constantly turned towards you to lecture you about asking for permission.

"are you even listening to me, brat?"

shoko grunted, "make him shut up, please."

"it's not her fault that she looks better in your shirt, satoru," geto laughed lightly, and that somehow managed to shut your brother up for the rest of the day— until he opens the door to your room late at night with a pout on his face.

"my shirt does not look better on you, for your information."

"oh my god, satoru you're so childish!"

as much as satoru teases you, when it comes to protecting you— he's number one, and he will always worry about you. he will not hesitate to tell someone off if they're bothering you.

"so, who is it?" satoru asks, his eyes not leaving the television screen.

you sat next to him and hummed in confusion. earlier you had gotten home with a small bruise right next to your lip, and as hard as you tried to cover it with make up — satoru still noticed the bluish purple outline of the bruise.

"what do you mean?"

"who gave you the bruise?" he asks again, calmly. way too calm for your liking, to be honest.

"i fell."

satoru finally turned to look at you, "doesn't look like you fell, just tell me what happened, it's not like 'm gonna do anything—maybe." he mumbled out the last part under his breath.

you sighed out, knowing the male won't drop the topic unless you tell him about it, "you know that one guy who wouldn't stop bothering me just because i beat him up in middle school for ruining my comic book?"

"the one i already try to tell off last time?" you nodded at him, "damn it, i should've gotten rid of him that time. want me to hollow purple him or do you prefer a more friendly approach?"

you chuckled, "i can fix this myself."

"nu-uh," he rolled his eyes, "hollow purple it is."

"'toru!"

"sheesh, fine friendly approach it is."

shoko and geto tries their best to look after you and satoru, but they don't get paid for this and always ends up giving up halfway and just joins in the "fun".

"oh, come on satoru, this is like the worst plan ever!" you tell him, crossing your arms.

"what? why? is it because i made it?" he argues, crossing his arms as well.

"no — okay, yes, maybe. but still it's a shitty plan, right?" you look over to geto and shoko who only nodded in forced affirmation, in all honesty, they didn't know what was happening between you and your brother or whatever you both were talking about.

"suguru, even you?" satoru whines out, "traitor."

"see? what about we go for my plan instead?" you offered, and satoru immediately declines, arguing with you.

it took you both two hours to finally settle on doing nothing because you got tired, and satoru got too angry that geto had to drag him away.

when satoru was supposedly "killed" by the sorcerer killer, toji. you were fucking destroyed. until he actually shows up, looking more alive than ever.

"oh, you're alive?" you asked slowly, although in disbelief.

satoru chuckled, opening his arms for you to fall into, "don't say it like that, might think that my own sister doesn't love me," not like you spent the whole time crying over him.

"fucking ass. i hate you so much." you hugged him.

"i love you too."

satoru spoils you. and when he does, he makes sure geto and shoko gets little of it too (because you told him to do it so they would feel loved).

"i was thinking — satoru treating us three to shabu?" geto immediately agrees with no hesitation, no thoughts, he just agreed to what you said.

satoru looks at you and smiled sweetly. a fake one. but it was fun watching him like this so you didn't care, "shoko?"

"free food? hell yeah." shoko nods her head with a smirk.

satoru ended up feeding all three of you like a mama feeding her child, and you ended up getting a scolding from him and a threat that goes a little like: "that's the last time i'm spending my money on you, loser."

but you know he didn't mean that. just watch how he'll probably get you something the very next day.

© CHURIPU 2024 , DO NOT COPY OR REPOST ANYWHERE

[tossawary]

Honestly, I don't think the Ents were scary enough in the LOTR Jackson films when they attacked Isengard. Like, it's great! It is great! It was amazing to see the first time; the effects are incredible for their time and they still hold up pretty well! I don't need to be told that they had various animation limitations. (More size variation in the Ents could have been nice. They could have been even bigger. But animation limitations and time constraints and such, I know!)

It's just that a lot of the camera shots were looking down on the battle (they're using bigatures and such, I know), so the Ents looked tiny, stomping on tinier orcs, or the camera is sitting with Merry and Pippin on Treebeard's shoulders, and that angle doesn't really get across how HUGE and NON-HUMAN trees are. I think the best shots in this battle sequence are the ones from the perspective of the orcs, where it's just utter chaos, and then some walking tree appears out of nowhere and it's ANGRY WITH YOU. Ideally, I think it would have been great if the storyboarding had leaned more into that bewildered and terrified human perspective more, getting more into the dirt of things, before then zooming out for the overview of the Ents overtaking Isengard for the end of the sequence. The boarding in the film does a lot of jumping in and out in regards to size and what's happening.

Like, have you ever been next to a massive tree in a windstorm? The sort that looms over the roofs of houses? When the whole tree starts swaying in the wind, hundreds of branches twisting like some kind of tentacled beast? And the rustling starts to sound like a dull roar? And you think to yourself, "Oh, if that tall tree ever goes down, it is taking that entire house down with it, cracking open the roof and bashing down the walls. It would smash that car flat. It would crush me easily and I don't even know how I would begin to get out of its way as it falls, because its branches and leaves would just swallow me."

And if you're ever in a heavily wooded area during a windstorm, it's even worse, because the old trees all around you are bending and shaking like they're about to pull up their roots and start walking. Like, you didn't forget that they're alive, did you? And it's beautiful, of course, but it's also dangerous. It looks like they're dancing in their own way, but the amount of wood being thrown around means that one good branch breaking could seriously hurt someone. And it's just a branch to the tree, the tree might be fine, it might just grow another, but that branch could easily be longer and heavier than a person.

It is cool to see all of the other Ents coming out of the woods to back Treebeard up and then go marching forward. But it does raise the question of "Wait, how did the other Ents get there so fast? Aren't they kind of slow?" (If there is lore explaining this, general movie audiences will not know it.) So, it would be fun if Treebeard made his call and the dramatic speech, all alone, and then we could cut away, so we have the plausible deniability of a time skip. There's also the tension of: "Oh, no, is Treebeard going to attack Isengard alone?"

And THEN we could pick back up with orcs on the walls of Isengard, boredly watching the industry below, before the ground starts shaking and the stone beneath their feet cracks. And a huge shadow looms over the wall as a MASSIVE TREE climbs over, basically falling over, and letting its sheer weight take down everything in its path. Followed by dozens more of these creatures. Making the machinery of Isengard look and all the orcs within feel very, VERY small.

If Ents are ever depicted again in any visual adaptation, even an illustrated version of the novel or a graphic novel, I feel like it should be a goal to really capture that feeling of being small and mortal by comparison. Some of the earlier interactions with Merry and Pippin and Treebeard get this feeling well enough. The LOTR films are over and done, obviously, and they did pretty well. But it could be better! I want to LEAN into those moments of smallness just a little more in future adaptations of Middle Earth. I would love to keep the camera LOW as much as possible and utilize advancements like more detailed models and better leaf animation. (Like hair, leaves are hard!)

We are not the Ents here. We are just witnessing them. You have to go out into a forest and ask yourself, "What WOULD it be like if trees walked around me?"

[brokehorrorfan]

6 Things I Learned from the Lisa Frankenstein Commentary

We don’t get movies like Lisa Franeknstein often, which is a shame because it’s endlessly charming yet delightfully twisted. While it disappointed at the box office, it has "cult classic" written all over it.

The coming-of-age horror-comedy is out today on Blu-ray and DVD. Among the special features is an audio commentary by Zelda Williams. Here are 6 things I learned…

1. Catch Me If You Can inspired the opening credit sequence.

The opening credit sequence, which briefly depicts the Creature's love story from his previous life in the style of Victorian shadow box art, was inspired by Catch Me If You Can.

"We wanted to do something interesting with the credits in this bit. I was really inspired by Catch Me If You Can, which I thought the opening credits were particularly interesting and helped establish the story before we ever got to it. And because Creature doesn't speak this whole movie, I wanted an opportunity to show what his life would have been like."

2. The film was originally intended to be rated R.

Although Lisa Frankenstein pushes the PG-13 rating as far as it can go, it was originally intended to be a hard R. Williams cites the party scene, in which Lisa originally smoked a laced joint rather than drinking a PCP cocktail, as a difficult revision.

"This is where stuff got a little complicated when we were going from R-rated to PG-13. Originally there was a coated joint they were passing around. This is one of the only scenes that I'm not sure I'm as fond of in comparison to the joint stuff. Most of the rest of the changes were fine, but this one I find very strange. It's just a very different reaction and interaction than what used to be there. However, these are the things that happen when making a movie."

3. Creature is an homage to Day of the Dead's Bub.

Not only Lisa is seen watching George A. Romero's Day of the Dead in the film, but the Creature is an homage to its iconic zombie, Bub.

"Creature for me is definitely an homage to Buster Keaton, but he's also an homage to the zombie you just saw on screen, Bub, who was in Day of the Dead, a Romero movie that I'm very fond of. It was an incredibly emotive and a very intelligent zombie and ended up getting revenge against the asshole in the movie. It was one of my favorite monsters ever made, so when I could put that on screen during the movie, it made me very happy."

4. Zelda hid a tribute to her father, Robin Williams.

Williams is the daughter of Robin Williams, and she included his 1983 comedy album, Throbbing Python of Love, among the records scattered on the floor in Lisa's living room.

"Oh, there's Dad! We used one of Dad's vinyl albums because we had to scatter some across the floor." She refers to it as "a little, mini Easter Egg for me."

5. The police officers are named after John Waters.

The police officers in the film are Officer John (played by Walker Babington) and Officer Waters (Sylvia Grace Crim) — named on a whim in honor of cult filmmaker, John Waters.

"They asked me to name the cops, because obviously they needed to have name tags, so I named them Officer John and Officer Waters." She thought no one would notice since they're so small, but a viewer pointed it out at a test screening.

6. The film is sprinkled with movie references.

Williams wore her influences on her sleeve with her directorial debut, and she pointed out several references on the commentary:

A Trip to the Moon (clip featured in Lisa's surreal dream sequence)

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (stylistic inspiration on the dream sequence)

Weird Science (the party scene)

Suspiria (red lighting during drug sequence)

My Boyfriend's Back (camera shot from inside a grave looking up at characters)

Kill Bill (weapon point-of-view shot)

E.T. (a boy on a bike — played by Diablo Cody's son — at the end)

Notting Hill (reading together on a bench at the end)

Lisa Frankenstein is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital via Universal.

[timesomewhere]

in honour of the West End's next to normal closing today I've finally proof-read my 'things I noticed/general thoughts' post that's been sitting in my drafts since I saw it earlier this month. it's very long I'm very sorry.

Act One:

it was really fun watching this show in September given that there's two references to it in the first song

I adore the monologue about the pills that Dr. Fine gives during 'Who's Crazy'. it's rhythmic and funny yet also unnerving. It's such a quick and impactful way to summarise what Diana has been through for the past 16 years

Gabe does a 'one of your French girls' pose on the kitchen counter under the cabinets during 'My Psychopharmacologist and I'

Jamie Parker made direct eye contact with me during the last part of 'Who's Crazy' and it was one of the most intense experiences of my life

I might just be dense but I don't get the point of the neon sign that says 'Fine' which drops down during the Dr. Fine scene. Initially I thought that then one would drop down saying 'Madden' during his scenes to help people differentiate between the doctors but then it didn't so it just feels like a weird extra prop

speaking of random props, shout out to the iPad on the table in the opening scene which Gabe pretty much instantly takes away after telling Diana that she shouldn't obsess over tragic news stories and is then never seen again as far as I remember

Dan in the flashback scene being such an optimist about Diana's pregnancy and the future they're gonna have together... soul-crushing

Caissie Levy's 'I Miss The Mountains.' Holy Shit.

I love how Diana and Gabe are the only characters who sing on/stand on the table. it's as though it's this extra dimension of the house that only they have access to and it's a really neat and subtle way to show that they relate to each other in ways other characters don't

'It's Gonna Be Good' is so underrated. Jamie Parker's somewhat genuine optimism becoming optimism-through-gritted-teeth is incredibly acted

The way Jamie delivers the first line of 'He's Not Here' is devastating. the heaviness of that moment as you feel the audience around you realising what's just happened is something I'll remember forever

Gabe body-blocking Dan from Diana during 'I Am the One' is such good staging. People talk about how Jack Wolfe plays Gabe with a lot of layers and a lot of simultaneous contradiction and this song is one of the best examples of that. how Jack manages to project a character who is goading his father and protecting his mother at the same time is beyond me

also Jack has maybe half-an-inch on Jamie which obviously isn't something the actors control but it does makes Gabe seem just that bit more threatening when he's getting in Dan's face

for the first part of Superboy and the Invisible Girl when it's just Natalie singing, Gabe is actively laughing. He's totally unperturbed by her efforts to make herself seen to her mother. it's only when Diana replies, particularly when she says "you're our little pride and joy, our perfect plan" that you see his face drop and you see him trying to figure out a way to stop her from getting Diana's attention which then results in him kicking her off the melody in her own song

"I'll hurt you" being directed at Dan and "I'll heal you" being directed at Diana as Gabe gently touches her face gets me so bad. but the most painful part of 'I'm Alive' for me is when Gabe looks at Dan as he says "I'm the perfect stranger who knows you too well." that's the first time you realise that perhaps Gabe doesn't just impact Diana, and there's something much larger at play

Caissie and Jack W's voices harmonising on 'Catch Me I'm Falling' was one of my favourite parts of the whole show. Their voices are so magical together and their mother/son chemistry is incredible

The 'I Dreamed A Dance' into 'There's a World' sequence is one of the most tragically beautiful things I've ever witnessed. I went into the show knowing what Gabe was trying to achieve during 'There's A World' and yet Jack's voice is so beautifully haunting you totally forget you're supposed to root against Gabe in that moment

Jamie Parker's 'I've Been' is some of the best acting through song out there. Interestingly my friend and I had very different interpretation's of what Gabe's horrified reaction to the blood meant. I viewed it as him being upset about what he convinced Diana to do - he doesn't like seeing her hurt. Whereas my friend saw it as him being angry at himself that she didn't manage to follow through, meaning that he has failed to regain control over her life

'I'm no sociopath, I'm no Sylvia Plath. I ain't no Frances Farmer kind of find for you' is one of the best musical theatre lyrics of all time. I genuinely don't know why I Miss The Mountains is the 'big song' known from N2N over 'Didn't I See This Movie?', it's just so good

Natalie's 'She trusts you!' line is heartbreaking, I was basically watching that entire scene through my fingers because of how high the emotion was

Act Two:

'Pfizer's woman of the year' will in fact be peak comedy every time. Eleanor's delivery is *chef's kiss*

Gabe having just one line in 'Wish I Were Here', and that line being 'Wish I were here.' Yeah. I feel very normal about that.

Natalie's line of "Can I hide my stupid hunger, fake some confidence and cheer?" being pretty much exactly what Gabe has done throughout the entirety of act 1

"And you're not a scary rockstar anymore" got one of the biggest laughs at both of the shows I went to

Dan's desperation during 'Better Than Before.' He is simultaneously trying to cajole Diana into remembering and get Natalie to be more positive. This one song really highlights how he's being pulled in a million different directions while trying to hold it all together and Jamie portrays that so well

Aftershocks. Wow. The way the last word of each line echoes throughout the theatre is great sound design. I've been in exam halls louder than the audience during that song. Holding a room that captive as a silhouette is quite the feat Jack Wolfe you will always be famous

"I don't know where the fucking pieces go" as Diana pushes things off the table as if there's a real jigsaw there that she's rage quitting and choosing to give up on is such a nice detail

"Have you talked of your depression, your delusions and your son?" The gasp in the theatre both times was sickening

the response of "good' in reply to "name?" when technically that was part of his name as they are the "Goodmans". I don't really have a point here I just think it's neat

The 'It's Gonna Be Good" reprise was one of my favourite Dan/Diana moments. Caissie and Jamie are really pushing each other to their emotional limits and they handle it so well

The first "Why stay?" is so fragile as Diana sits against the kitchen island. Also interesting given that Dan and Gabe will also sit against there later when they are at their lowest point in the story. The idea of the characters crawling to the 'centre/heart' of the home when they are at their weakest

"This is one old game that I can play so well" is the line that has stuck the most with me throughout the show. Jack's delivery of it while striding across the kitchen table - seemingly totally invincible - is crazy.

how Caissie manages to deliver "you shrugged and said that no one really knows" with humour and desperation at the same time is amazing

When Gabe and Diana stand on the table and if they let go of one another they'll fall. yeahhhhh.....

Gabe's realisation that Diana isn't going to give up on getting better. Totally collapsing in on himself and beginning to cry. How you manage to feel bad for him after all the destruction he's caused is wild

Diana's "maybe I'm tired of the game" relating back to Gabe's "this is one old game that I can play so well"

the lyrics in 'Hey #3' clearly reflecting things Diana has done, Henry cutting Natalie off at "bleeding in the bathtub"

"I am the one who'll heal you" being said to Dan not Diana this time

"Why didn't you go with her?" is the most devastating line in the whole musical I said what I said. Jamie's delivery of it is heart wrenching

the drums and bass kicking in for the loud part of I Am The One as Gabe becomes desperate to be seen once again

Jack and Jamie's acting in this moment is so intense. there's a moment where it's genuinely feels as though only one of them can make it out of the interaction alive

Jack's emphasis on the word 'loved' in the line "I am the one who loved you" nearly killed me on the spot. how somebody can deliver a line so desperately while remaining pitch perfect is unfair

Natalie coming in to kiss Dan's head at the start of 'Light' like Gabe kisses Diana's in the first scene. I'm such a sucker for a gut punching

the "And are they real?" line about Diana's parent's from Henry gets such a loud reaction from the audience. Some people laugh immediately, some people clearly get shocked out of their sobs. so good

In conclusion, this is my favourite musical of all time and I'm going to be so annoying waiting for the pro-shot to come out

[lo1k-diamonds]

Stellar Behavior 💜 Part 4

“Justice just never sleeps.”

PAIRING: Officer!Yoongi x Mafia (f)reader

SUMMARY: Yoongi makes a decision and gives up on the nicotine gum.

WORD COUNT: 6.8k

GENRE: Gangster AU, Law AU, enemies to lovers, smut

RATING: R (explicit)

WARNINGS: corruption, explosions, fire, blood, threats, arguing, handjob, blowjob, riding

A.N. It's so hard to pick a favorite part, but I think this one might be it... Again, infinite thank yous to @moonleeai for helping me around the clock and being an incredible beta! Enjoy 🔥🔥

Masterlist | Masterpost | AO3 | Wattpad | < Previous Chapter | Next Chapter >

Yoongi sighed as he made his way inside his office, dismissing his secretary when she tried to pass him a pile of files waiting for his review. It was the end of another exhausting Friday, and although he appreciated her commitment, she should have long gone home to her family instead of wasting time on this.

Closing the door behind him, he started a sequence of ceremonial steps: he took off his coat and hung it up, loosened his tie, grabbed more nicotine gum from his drawer, and then sat down, chewing it with a long sigh. The wall behind him had his many decorations, including the latest that landed him there.

Working with you was seamless and smooth, and justice was swiftly served. Not only was he able to recover the agent’s body and bring him home with honors, but the dismantling of the whole operation was a huge success. It gave him honors, medals, a ceremony with Seoul’s Mayor, and lastly, a promotion he didn’t even want. 

He heaved a deep breath; he couldn’t say he loved being Superintendent General. He preferred to be hands-on with the cases he and his team worked on, but he had moved too far up: he made decisions, but was too high in rank to see any of them carried out. He had more responsibilities and dreadful meetings that were more about competition between police agencies and politics than what actually mattered. And so for months, he’d been tolerating the bullcrap from all ends — from fellow Superintendent Generals and their chiefs from all over the country, including his boss, politicians, and Senior Superintendents complaining about the workload and the lack of resources as if he wasn’t in that position himself just months prior. It was exhausting and slow, and he kept asking himself what was the point.

But just like any other night, his ritual wasn’t complete if he didn’t open his locked drawer and pulled out a file with your name. Despite being frustrated and sometimes disgusted by the people in positions of power with so little consideration for the workforce or the people they served, there was nothing he could do. Instead, every night, he stared at your file and asked himself what he should do.

That night was engraved into his brain: you made a deal, he relapsed and asked you to let him eat you out, then proceeded to get so lost in you, that he didn’t even recognize himself. But then, you left him alone in your office, and that was when he saw those files.

He had managed to take photos of a few of them before leaving and had since printed them and worked on them. So he knew what they contained – details of money laundering. They depicted monumental amounts, to the likes that he was surprised even existed, but maybe he was just too naive. There were mostly coded names on those files, so he knew you were handling it for others and not just for yourself. It probably ran much deeper than a few bars or the drugs you were now distributing, safely, like you promised.

And that was the issue, wasn’t it? He groaned with himself, settling his face inside his hands. He used to see things as black and white, but the more time passed, the more he realized there was no such thing. Politicians, among other officials, ran the show, and he knew things were happening behind closed doors. You were as bad if not worse than the people you had helped him put away, but you kept your word: you gave him evidence to exonerate Officer Jimin, an alternative to bring the Klysa conglomerate down without ruining the lives of thousands of people, and gave him the address where he could find the agent’s body, not to mention crucial names that once picked, dismantled the net of dealers quite nicely.

So why was he after you? Were you the lesser evil? Were those exceptions to your usual criminal and selfish deeds? Or were you just deceiving him by pretending to play nice?

He didn’t know how you knew so much, but now he knew you laundered money, and he had evidence. Evidence he couldn’t use without disclosing how close he had gotten to you and risking discrediting himself. Evidence that could get him a warrant, even under heavy scrutiny. He could try to bring you down, even if it meant letting his career implode. His former self would have, but now he was hesitating, convincing himself every night that he should pursue this. If those documents existed, then his instincts about you were right all along and other evidence was out there, too. It was just business; you would throw him under the bus if it suited you, too. Right?

He heaved a deep breath and closed the file, deciding to bring it home and muse over it there this time around. The office was empty, and it was a lonesome way until he reached his car in the underground parking lot. He hated not seeing the liveliness of a police station anymore, but that was where he was now.

His phone rang through the car speakers as he drove, and he picked it up at the second beep, “What’s wrong?”

Something had to be for Officer Jung to call him at 1 AM.

“Remember the one you wanted me to keep an eye on?” 

Yoongi hummed as he maneuvered the car at an intersection; he was lucky with every detective and officer he had had the pleasure of working with.

“Just got the code for an explosion and fire at a restaurant downtown that she owns. First responders are on their way. Apparently, she was in the building.”

“Which one?”

His grip stiffened around the steering wheel and in seconds, he was doing a U-turn under the streetlights. There was little on his mind as he drove way past the speed limit, cutting corners and passing cars to get there as quickly as he could.

He stopped his car next to the police barricade and got out with a shudder down his spine. Una mordidita was famous around those parts; it was the best Mexican restaurant, and it was always booked. The building itself was dedicated to the concept, and he knew the different floors could host multiple types of events. 

Yet now, it wasn’t the center of influencer buzz or a ballroom dancing event, but of chaos. Firefighters were trying to get the flames under control as even the red neon sign above the building got charred by the smoke escaping the windows. The white walls were losing their shine, and the wood decorations giving it a more Latin-American vibe had surely seen better days.

The chaos of shouts, siren lights, and people wanting to see what was happening didn’t disturb him; he had worked through similar occurrences, so he understood the professionals’ logic through the disorder. What got him running towards the Firefighter Captain handling the occurrence was something else entirely.

He smacked the Captain’s shoulder and didn’t even let him recover from the shock of seeing Yoongi there. “Is everyone out?”

The Captain regained his bearings swiftly, “Working on it.”

Yoongi knew better than to overstep, but he was unsettled. He turned to the entrance of the restaurant, where people were running down the stairs, accompanied by firefighters. He didn’t recognize a single one, and so he turned to the captain again with a stiffness in his shoulders, “You need to—”

A loud female voice shouted, and he spun to look again. The Captain’s frown was entirely lost on Yoongi when he saw you almost being dragged out of the restaurant and down the stairs by two firefighters. His feet instantly took him to you, finally allowing him to hear what you were saying.

“Un-fucking-believable!! You let it spread to the third floor?! What the fuck are you all doing?! Let me go and do your job!!”

He met you at the bottom of the stairs, noticing your bruises, cuts, and blood dripping down your temple. Your embroidery anglaise white dress fit your curves in what would have been a dreamy view if it wasn’t stained with black and red spots, letting see how you had scrapped your knees too. You were busy trying to get the firefighters to get their hands off, but they couldn’t let you go until you calmed down.

You were frantic, so you only noticed Yoongi when his hands settled on your shoulders and he spun you to face him. Your voice finally vanished as your eyes widened; finally, he could see you were shaken up under all that fierceness.

“Are you hurt?”

His tone was firm, to the point, but you squirmed, “I have to—”

“Are you hurt?” He repeated, not letting you get away.

“I’m fine!”

You tried to turn around, but he didn’t let you. He wrapped an arm around you, signaling the firefighters that he had you, then dragged you away. You squirmed and hit his chest, clawing at his arm and demanding he set you free, but he ignored you.

You thought you’d gouge his eyes out in frustration, but suddenly, he forced you to sit on a street bench across the street. He kneeled before you, but your eyes flew beyond him to the restaurant. The fire, the smoke, the people, the firefighters, and even the wreck at the back that you couldn’t see from there. The explosion had been in the kitchen, surely. You knew before any reports because that’s where you’d do it if you wanted to send a message. Easily passable as an accident, but strong enough to cause all that chaos. You ground your teeth, vexed to your core, and sprang back up. The more those idiots wasted time with—

“Sit down.”

Yoongi’s tone was incontestable as he grabbed your arms and forced you back down, and this time you faced him. He was like an apparition, crouched in front of you with his dark hair, sharp eyes, and composed demeanor that always rattled you so much. He was a sight for sore eyes, and it confused you.

“How are you here?”

“Are you hurt?”

“Did you know about this?!” You asked furiously, your anger fueled by the possibility.

But he was impassive, “Are you hurt?”

“Answer the question!”

“You’re in shock, and I need you to calm down.”

“I am fucking calm!” You roared in his face, almost jumping away. “My restaurant just fucking exploded and is on fire, don’t you fucking talk down to me!”

“I know, so calm down.”

His monotone voice was like nails on a chalkboard.

“I’m fucking calm! I need—”

He gripped your wrist and raised it before your eyes, and you jolted; your fist was shaking.

The anxiety crept up on you, and you sobbed under your breath, instantly looking at him in confusion. You were angry, ready to blow on everyone and everything, but suddenly you wanted to cry. Your fear had stayed at bay, but was ambushing you now.

You gripped his coat as you teared up, mouth opening and closing, but nothing came out. You sucked anxious breaths as you looked around, conflicted between crying and telling him it was all so frightening, and getting up and making everyone work hard to save your business.

Your thoughts must have been clear in your eyes because he held you back, grounding you with enough space to let you breathe and process.

“I know. It’s a lot. I promise everyone is handling it, but you are more important.” He spoke calmly, but not condescendingly, and it only made you shake harder. “Tell me: does anything hurt?”

You pulled in a deep breath and frowned, then shook your head. A small explosion behind him drew your eyes, but he guided your chin gently so you’d face him again.

“I’m going to touch you, and you’re going to tell me if it hurts.”

You were ready to cuss him out, but as soon as he released you, you grabbed onto him desperately. There was nothing in his dark eyes as he looked up again, yet you were so embarrassed you could have died. You didn’t want to hold onto him for dear life like that, but it was stronger than you. Your lips trembled, and you suppressed your cry, unable to explain or control what was happening to you, but he had you.

He leaned into you, tugging you in with his elbows on each side of your legs, “I know, I’m here.”

Your frightened eyes showed him enough to anticipate the moment you let go of him to throw your arms around his neck and squeeze tightly. He could barely breathe, but it was secondary; he embraced you slowly, afraid to hurt you. The adrenaline running through your system changed the way you perceived pain, and he’d never risk harming you. Still, you needed to feel safe, so he held you as hard as he could safely. 

You were shaking, maybe even crying, but rightfully in his arms. Despite the chaos behind him, that was all that mattered.

He waited until you pulled away, sniffling and pulling your long hair back, embarrassed to face him. It told him the first part was over, and that now you’d be able to talk.

“We need to get you checked.”

“No,” you dismissed easily. “I only trust my people, anyway.”

He swallowed his exasperation and tried again, “But at a hospital—”

“No, just take me home.” You got up and faced the mess before you with a hard expression, catching him off guard. He got on his feet quickly, ready to try to convince you to go to the hospital anyway, but you looked at him again, “My people can meet me there, and I have calls to make.”

He observed you, clearly not convinced, but you stood your ground. You didn’t want to ask nor admit you needed him right now to feel safe and be able to look that problem in the eye. You’d soon be yourself again, and that moment of weakness was unforgivable, even more so in front of him. But as you faced him and waited for his response, you closed your fists and tried not to wobble on your heels or cry again. You had a reputation to uphold, people to manage, retaliation to prepare, and maybe your knees hurt a little bit.

“Alright.”

He wrapped an arm around your waist and directed you slowly in another direction, away from it all. In other circumstances, you could have thought about the potential danger of going with him, but you dismissed those thoughts. Yoongi was your cop, even if you hadn’t seen him in months. He was there for you, and there was no judgment in his eyes.

You sat on the shotgun seat of his car and looked at your lap. The time it took him to circle the car was enough for you to chastise yourself for being so gullible.

He sat down next to you and got ready to drive, and you didn’t hesitate to ask, “Did you know about this?”

“About what?”

“About their plan.”

He glanced at you, then got the car moving, “I was driving home when I was notified of what happened and drove straight here.”

You closed your trembling hands over your lap again, uncomfortable with how relieved his words made you. Your eyes settled on the rearview mirror, where all the chaos was being left behind, and you sighed. You couldn’t let that shake you; it was just a place, a business, one of countless others. It didn’t matter that you were there, that it happened so close you were deaf from your right ear, that you could have died, that it was way too close for comfort.

He reached to grab your hand, and you looked at him again. You didn’t know what to call this or how to interpret it, but he was there. Yoongi was right there.

His perfume was all around you, and with the lull of the car, the nightly traffic, and his hand in yours, you managed to close your eyes, work through the adrenaline, and doze off.

You opened your eyes when he squeezed your hand, meeting the gate of your private property in Hannam-dong. His window was down, and your housekeeper was asking who he was.

“It’s me, Sooyong,” you raised your voice just enough.

The gate instantly opened, and you stretched lazily. You weren’t shaking anymore, and your judgment wasn’t clouded either. All in all, those thirty minutes had managed to calm you down. Of course, your knees stung, your head fucking hurt, and you would feel your left side for days since you fell on it during the explosion. But fuck, if you weren’t ready to get down to business ASAP.

You told Yoongi where to go so he could park inside your garage, then left the car swiftly before it was even off. You didn’t wait for him to follow you inside, but knew he would; instead, you handed your coat to Sooyong, nodded at your two security guards, and bent down to greet your two lovely Dobermans: Archer and Gunner.

“The medic will be here shortly, and I already asked for a preliminary report of the damage.”

Sooyong was looking at Yoongi with suspicion, but you ignored it, “Get me a phone, I need to contact Hoon Yeong.”

Your butler bowed and obeyed instantly, but Yoongi wasn’t able to think about what he was hearing. The two big goons didn’t follow Sooyong, and your dogs had turned to Yoongi the second you stopped petting them.

In another circumstance, Yoongi could have felt intimidated or at least uncomfortable by the whole situation, but not tonight. You were still bleeding, slept only ten minutes in the car, and were now getting worked up instead of resting.

So he spoke up, “You need to get checked before anything else.”

It didn’t matter that your men looked ready to beat him up or that your dogs were sniffing him too close for comfort. You glanced at him, “I’m fine.”

Then you turned and left, disappearing further inside the house.

He didn’t hesitate to follow after you, ready to insist on you taking this seriously, but he wasn’t able to. You dismissed your guards with a wave before they could grab Yoongi to drag him out, and were already pressing a phone to your ear.

He looked around your big living room, its white couches, carpets, fancy glass chandeliers falling from elevated ceilings, and matching walls adorned with expensive art. You didn’t just live lavishly; you displayed it, too.

You sat on a couch while you spoke with a hand covering your eyes, and Yoongi moved quickly to dim the lights. You were stubborn, but he wouldn’t make things harder for you.

He waited while you talked, disliking the observant butler in the corner of the room. Yes, Yoongi was listening to everything you said, but you could have easily told him to leave. So instead, he kept your two dogs busy with him and quiet while you made one call after another, holding nothing back.

“Secure all locations, increase the bouncers working tonight, and do random checks. Send someone to La Mordidita to account for all our staff, and Thoma to make a sweep before the firefighters start snooping around. I want to know what can be recovered and who the fuck dared to pull this shit off.”

“And? And the product? The insurance? Yes, indeed. Don’t move it, don’t do anything. Keep me posted.”

“Talk to me, Ulan,” you sighed, fatigued from handling multiple people. “I want to know how the fuck does anyone even plan this, and I don’t hear about it.”

You were pacing around with each call; whatever you were learning was not helping you settle. The medic arrived and asked you to sit to work on your wounds, but you were restless. You were trying to figure out who did it, and it was clear to him by the way you started shouting that your people knew and that something had failed.

The medic tried cleaning your temple wound, mentioning a concussion, but in your temper, you slapped her hand away. That was the moment Yoongi decided to intervene; he got up, waved the medic away, and took over.

You were ready to slap his hand away, too, but froze when your eyes met his. His expression was hard, saying without as much as an eyelash bat that you needed to hang up. 

You huffed your annoyance and quickly redirected your anger, “If you know, then get me something. Those bastards found out about it somehow. Get me the mole, and something that will hurt them just as badly. Weren’t they importing weapons illegally to sell to both North and South? Get me something!”

You ended the call and threw your phone to the other end of the couch.

“The fucking audacity,” you spit between gritted teeth, glaring at Yoongi. He worked fast on the wound on the side of your head, but it still stung.

“Does it hurt?”

“Yes, it fucking hurts!”

You exploded and instantly saw the glint in his eyes. Why did he look so dazzling, taunting you like that? He did not react to your outburst whatsoever, so you rolled your eyes.

He started cleaning the cuts on your palms. “Why would they attack your restaurant?”

You gritted your teeth and waved everyone else out of the room, adding a command that guided your darling puppies to their big pillows in the corner of the room. You were annoyed with absolutely everything, and even more with the answer about to fall from your lips, “Because they knew I would go there to secure important goods.”

“Was this personal?”

You smirked bitterly, “Had to be.”

“What were the goods?”

“The product we got last time. Some of it, anyway.”

“How did they find out?”

“A mole, for certain. I moved everything across multiple locations and only disclosed today that a fraction would go to this restaurant for distribution. So unless they can read my fucking mind, they had to learn it from a fucking mole.”

“They could have just followed you if they knew you’d go personally.”

You paused and then chuckled while he prepared the gauze to clean the wounds on your knees. “But they could have attacked any of the venues I was in before, and they didn’t. They had to know what was in this one was worth destroying.” He nodded quietly, seemingly focused on getting your knees clean of debris. You hated the silence and almost growled, “But they have no fucking idea who they’re messing with.”

“No, they don’t.”

His answer was so serene, that it accentuated the silence that echoed the room. He got rid of the bloodied and dirty gauze, looking you over as though he was evaluating if anything else needed pressing attention, and it hit you. “You’re still here.”

He looked at you, “Do you know who did this?”

There was a shift in his tone that made you shudder, “The Russians.”

“Where would it hurt them?”

“Their warehouse downtown.”

“Their boss?”

“Prokhor Evgeni.”

“Where is he?”

“The Evgeni Sports Center in Heungin-dong.”

Yoongi nodded and got up, leaving the same way he got there, and you were dumbfounded.

“Wait!” You got up, and he stopped to look at you. “What are you going to do?”

“You’ll see.”

Some could say that was an abuse of power, but it was too easy.

He realized, as he drove under a sky barely blemished by the rising sun, that when the force wanted to, shit got done in a flash. They said, ‘Where there is a will, there is a way’, and he was in the unique position to have both.

He stopped in a no-parking zone in front of the Evgeni Sports Center in Heungin-dong and made his way lazily up the stairs of the entrance. The big thugs outside didn’t phase him as he asked to speak with Prokhor Evgeni. His tone was dry and blasé, and the men’s reactions were to laugh and joke about it being almost 6 AM. The center was closed to people like him.

“Nothing is ever closed to people like me,” he found himself answering, unmoving.

He saw commotion behind the thugs, where he imagined the security booth was, and instantly relaxed. People like him didn’t have to show identification, his face was enough. He glanced at his watch as he waited, ignoring the quips of the two men, who were increasingly dumbfounded by the situation.

He understood; he would have been stupefied as well. After all, even Superintendent Generals would have security if they wanted to confront the head of a mafia at 6 AM. But as it turned out, Yoongi was feeling beside himself. It was time to start using who he was to get shit done, instead of hiding and praying someone like you could give out a hand. Not this time; it was his turn.

One of the bouncers couldn’t read the room and made a move to touch him, and Yoongi’s eyebrow almost twitched. He just needed one touch to arrest him and get a warrant. Would that be an abuse of power as well?

Fortunately for the small fry, someone from the back called out his name and reprimanded him swiftly in Russian. It was enough for Yoongi to assume everyone was on the same page, and follow when said man — a big, wide fellow with small eyeglasses — waved at him to follow.

Yoongi went up the elevator with the guy in silence, evaluating if anything still needed to be done to wrap this up, but it was just that. And a phone call.

He ignored everything he saw as he walked the corridors, from the men passing him to the gambling hastily hidden by the doors continuously closing in his wake. Finally, he arrived at the office of the big boss, judging by the cigars, wide flat screens showing multiple sports simultaneously, and the big foreigner man with much more white hair than he would have guessed, sitting behind a desk.

“I couldn’t believe it when they told me,” Prokhor Evgeni laughed before the amusement dropped from his face. “But here you are. You must be lost,” he bit the cigar in his mouth, unable to hide his discomfort.

Yoongi stretched his shoulders a little bit and, on cue, his phone rang. He picked it up, “Got it.” 

He put his phone back inside his pocket, looking at Prokhor as if waiting for him to say something, which only annoyed the old thug further.

Yoongi looked around as if he had all the time in the world, “I’ll wait for you to be put in the loop.”

Prokhor smacked his hands on the desk, getting up with a shout that never came out because his phone rang as well. He sat back down, cursing under his breath, and picked it up. His gaze was venomous as he heard the caller, unable to stop Yoongi when he reached for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter lying on the desk.

The mob boss’ cheeks were getting redder and redder, yet Yoongi was unfazed as he lit a cigarette and took a drag that numbed his senses. He almost groaned then, holding it in for such a long time he lost track. How had he ever stayed away?

Prokhor yelled what were probably obscenities before slamming the phone on the desk, but before he could talk, Yoongi breathed, “Justice just never sleeps.” The smoke exited his parted lips slowly, and the mob boss stilled, starting to understand the situation. “We were lucky too,” he smirked, taking another drag. “Your kids still had the same materials used in the explosives in their car. Otherwise, I don’t know. We might have required a warrant to search for more potentially harmful materials. Say in the warehouse downtown where they were found lounging around smoking weed when they were arrested.”

Yoongi suppressed a smirk as he put the cigarette between his lips, and the mob boss was so red he was about to explode. He knew the kids weren’t found near his warehouse, so the implication was clear.

“Do you have any idea who you’re talking to?!”

He hissed, but Yoongi only kept smoking placidly, “Just try to poke your head out again.”

In a flash, pure anger became bewilderment in the giant’s blue eyes, “No way.” Yoongi didn’t even blink, so Prokhor scoffed, “Bitch really has the Superintendent General on a leash?”

Yoongi threw the cigarette on the garish carpet, “I like it quiet.”

He turned to leave, but Prokhor got up in a fury again, “I have people too! People who can bite your head off!”

Yoongi turned but kept walking backward, opening his arms in a momentary invitation, before leaving that place without as much as a hair out of place.

It was interesting to consider that Prokhor’s threats could hold true, but Yoongi didn’t feel minimally affected. He got inside his car to drive home and reevaluated his thought process. He and the Firefighter’s Captain had a long history, the Mayor called him for favors, and the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency still operated under his direct scrutiny. It was why puzzling the evidence from the restaurant fire had been so easy, especially given that Thoma had conveniently left the place ready for them. Yoongi assumed; he saw a man in the shadows, between the mess, and minutes later, a firefighter had found something. Interesting how explosions in rich parts of town were such a priority for the city; the division of arson investigation could take years to build a case, but tonight, a couple of hours sufficed. The Mayor saw to that as soon as Yoongi called. And the media would love that swift action, earning everyone brownie points for reelection.

Yoongi parked as he scoffed to himself; he was playing a dangerous game. He eyed his house, wondering if he should feel wary about anything happening to him, but he brushed it off. And if it did? He did what he had to do, and he’d sleep like a rock, knowing he had taken care of everything so you could finally sleep your concussion off.

He got inside his house with the first rays of morning, thanking the universe it was Saturday. But he sighed and didn’t throw his jacket too far, only on the nearest couch, before making his way to the kitchen. He would probably still work—

Something cut the corner at the same time as him but from the kitchen, and his reflex was to pull out his gun instantly, taking a step back. You were tranquil, despite the gun barrel on your face, and his eyes widened in disbelief, “Jesus fuck!”

He could barely believe it was you, with no bandages on your head and now wearing a black dress instead of white, but he still put the gun down. Or would have, but you shoved it away first, then grabbed his head to kiss him.

Instantly, he put the pistol down on a nearby counter, just in time before you pushed him back. He hit a cabinet glass door with your strength and immediately caught you when you threw yourself in his arms, frantically kissing him as if there wouldn’t be a tomorrow.

His initial shock didn’t last when your taste and perfume assured him it was you, and with you, insanity was to be expected. He had nothing against you being in his house, kissing him, or coming to him in general.

But he still tried to hold you back gently so he could ask, “Shouldn’t you— be in bed— resting?”

He spoke between your hungry lips, whenever you gave him a split second, and you laughed, “Take me to bed, then.”

Your sly smile died in a small yelp when he bent down to pick you up in his arms. You held onto him silently while he carried you upstairs to his bedroom, and his ego couldn’t have been more inflated after that whole crazy night. What got him wasn’t that he managed to calm you down, met your dogs, or solved your problem by showing some mob boss how big his cock was, no. What got him hard in a split second was that little yelp and your silence as he carried you effortlessly. He might have had an office job, but he still took the time to go to the gym every day, and fuck if it wasn’t worth it.

When he put you down over the bed, he thought you’d actually want to sleep after such an exhausting night, but he should have known better. You got on your knees on the bed before he could open his mouth and started unbuttoning his shirt. His expression must have given away his thoughts because you didn’t stop, but you didn’t push him either. You waited for a clear indication that you could touch him, but didn’t hesitate to get him naked, opening every button. Then, when you pulled the shirt back over his shoulders, he grabbed your head to kiss you.

Your reaction was instant, rushing to get rid of the shirt and unbuckle his belt as he consumed your mouth eagerly. It was hard not getting distracted, especially by the way he easily pulled on your hair to keep you on your toes, but it only served to melt you. Even when he did it with a level of gentleness, careful about your injuries; something that could easily trigger you and turn you off, but tonight made you so eager to be with him, that you didn’t recognize yourself.

You moaned inside his mouth when he sucked your tongue, dizzy from the blood rushing everywhere all at once. Fortunately, you had made your way inside his pants and could anchor yourself to his cock.

It only made you groan harder as you pumped him; he couldn’t get harder than that, and your wet core would be the perfect match.

His consuming kiss along with his soft touches could have gotten you to settle and let him decide where to take this, but you knew what you wanted and your limits. You needed Yoongi like air to breathe, but you were on painkillers and exhausted. You shouldn’t have driven there in that condition, but couldn’t stop yourself. So, you pushed through his addictive, wild kisses and pulled his pants and underwear down, hinting at him to strip fully.

He did so in a heartbeat, falling over you so quickly you didn’t see it coming. Accommodating him over you between your parted legs was everything you wanted, so you sighed into his returning mouth, clawing at his back so he’d come closer. His lips soon made a detour to your neck, and you were overrun by shivers, almost pleading his name with how much you were dying to feel him.

But as he made his way down to your chest, you pushed through your cloudy, horny judgment. You pushed him by the shoulders and got on top of him, straddling him easily. His head fell over the pillow, dark hair contrasting with the white as his equally dark eyes observed you. They were glistening, hungry, but the hands on your hips were patient, and controlled. Min Yoongi wanted to ravish you, but for you, he’d give you the lead. You almost teased him about it, but there was no time to waste.

You had never seen him naked, so you weren’t shy about looking; quickly, but still. You touched every scar you could see — on his left shoulder, under his ribs, on the side of his waist, wondering how he had gotten injured and if it had hurt. Your lips followed suit, lingering over his skin while you sniffed his scent on your way to an untamed delicacy.

You only nuzzled him for a second before starting to lick his balls greedily, and he groaned, “You don’t have to.”

You smirked, laughing with yourself — as if you’d miss the opportunity. “I want to.”

It would be wrong to say you drove across town in that state to give head to Min Yoongi, but it was close to the truth. In your plans, you spent more time working him up — kissing him, dry humping, maybe even twisting those pretty nipples — before reaching his balls and preparing him to give you cum all night long.

But the fucking concussion and pain and tiredness or whatever. It irritated you, your knees hurt, and your head was spinning, and not necessarily from his luscious scent or your insane lust. So, unfortunately, you had to cut to the chase.

Just licking the tip of his dick wasn’t enough; not for you, and not for him. You wanted the thick mushroom tip between your lips, and the guttural groan he let out once you sucked broke the dam for you.

You licked and drooled all over him, bobbing your head to get him further and further inside you with greed that bordered on obsession. The more your jaw slacked, and his taste flooded your mouth, the more you needed to feel him pressing, invading, reaching inside you. His groans matched your moans, his fists around the sheets mimicked your hands holding his hips, and the desperation of his hips, moving to match your head falling on him, almost fulfilled your need.

Until you realized that wouldn’t do. Your wet cunt was throbbing slick, desperate with your need, and you were selfish. You wanted him to bust his nut down your throat, but fuck; you wanted to ride him more.

The drool that fell all over his hard, red shaft was almost embarrassing, but you didn’t waste time licking it. You got off him to slide your underwear off, your eyes never abandoning his, and so you didn’t miss him looking at you with a glint of despair in his eyes.

“I think I wouldn’t have lasted five more seconds.”

You grinned at his confession and got back on him, throwing your dress around so you could align him with your slit, “Good.” You felt the tip of his cock, and so did he, because he gripped your hips as if to stop you. “You better hold it.”

His dark eyes showed a hint of torture, but you were not sympathetic. You pressed yourself down on him, rolling your hips to get him coated in you, forcibly stretching you, making you keen so ecstatically, that you threw your head back. If his thick cock tucked inside you wasn’t enough, then the groans out of his mouth, with gritted teeth and a frown, in deep concentration, would take the cake. You rolled your hips further, slowly in wide movements, seeing every line in his face contorting or twitching under your sweet torture, his strength slowly leaving him as he fought tooth and nail not to come so soon. 

“Your— Your knees—”

You smirked, oblivious about your bandaged knees at that moment. “Shut up, just let me ride you.”

His nails pierced your skin at the hips around your garter, and you moaned approvingly. Just looking at him, the blood rushed to your cheeks, the temperature rising immediately in a heatwave through your body. Every grunt of his was fuel; you couldn’t stop moving, dragging his thick cock across your walls so it could disappear deep inside you and torture him some more. And you, because the more he resisted, the more you wanted it, and the more it got to you too.

You knew you’d come pathetically quick but didn’t imagine it would be this fast. The pleasure burning through you was so overwhelming and undeniable, that soon you were riding him hungrily, not to torture him, but to come with him. He noticed it somehow because he started helping you, meeting you with short thrusts upwards that set your body on fire. You wanted him so fucking bad that leaning over his chest to kiss him before you came became your final act, and you crashed.

Your mouth pressed to his with a shaky moan from deep inside your chest, and he held the back of your head, keeping you in place. He fucked you through your orgasm, your throbbing so intense around him, it took him seconds to spill inside you; to groan into your mouth as he pressed you down, burying his cock as deep as he could.

Feeling him coming was such a delight, you grinned. The silence was cut by your chuckle seconds later, and even when he bit your cheek, you didn’t come down from cloud nine.

[rallamajoop]

On Mia Winters, misogyny, and abuse

As should be pretty obvious by now, I love Mia Winters. I honestly think she’s one of the most compelling characters in this whole damn franchise.

But let me make clear: you don’t have to love her. Mia’s canonically done a lot of shady shit in her time, and her relationship with Ethan has real problems. There are perfectly viable interpretations where the only thing really holding it together is his own denial. Only I never seem to get to read any of those takes, because the most common characterisations Mia gets in fic are an irredeemable monster, or a cardboard cutout who exists only to be written out as quickly as possible. And to write Mia out to that degree doesn’t just do her character a disservice, it does Ethan a disservice, and a big one.

The amount of Mia-bashing I see out there in this fandom turns my stomach. It’s not just the slash fans who’d rather ship Ethan with another dude. I have seen Mia loudly bashed in tags on het or gen fic in which she does not even appear. I have seen male fans reviewing these games on youtube who treat her the exact same way. But it’s never more frustrating than when that hate comes from the same fans who’ll turn around and talk about characters like Chris or even Lady Dimitrescu (she who canonically abuses her and murders her servants, and, y’know, eats people without a shred of remorse) like they’re perfectly forgivable and have done no real wrong. And don’t get me wrong: I love Lady D, but I love her because she’s magnificently evil. Mia? Mia’s a whole lot more complicated.

But to really explain why this hate makes me so uncomfortable, I’m going to have to start with the start of Resident Evil 7, and Mia’s very first scenes in this whole franchise.

Let me quickly summarise the opening of that game. A man whose wife disappeared without explanation suddenly gets a message about her whereabouts. He travels to an isolated location, breaks in, and finds her. She denies ever sending him that message, and seems incredibly distressed that he’s there at all. They fight. It ends with him sinking an axe into her neck and shooting her several times with a handgun. But see, he didn’t do anything wrong! It was all self-defence! She started it! She was acting crazy!

If you didn’t spot it, the whole opening of RE7 reads uncomfortably like a story about a woman escaping an abusive relationship, then being tracked down and murdered by her ex.

Obviously, I am not here to tell you Ethan’s abusive. He’s not, we’ve got no reason to imagine he is. He was legitimately acting in self-defence.

But the fact the first thing Ethan has to do in this game is find the balls to kill his own wife ‒ that a whole new era of Resi games has opened with a sequence so easily read as a sympathetic justification for how a man might perfectly innocently track down his missing spouse and "have" to kill her – that made those opening minutes into by far the most uncomfortable part of this whole franchise for me. Shit like this really happens. I mean it, I will track down the fucking statistics on women who are murdered after trying to leave an abusive partner if I have to.

What happens to ‘Mia’ in the opening to RE8 isn’t much better: it's as textbook a fridging as any I’ve ever seen. Yes, it’s a fridging that gets retconned away later when she turns up alive, but the fact that’s even possible speaks to just how awful and confusing her death is. The game opens with Mia’s violent murder at the hands of this series’ longest running ‘hero’, and the event is framed entirely in terms of how awful it is for her husband. That's as frigid as a fridging gets.

The eventual reveal that the real Mia was just trapped alone in a cell being experimented on by a madwoman for god knows how long doesn’t actually make it better. The horror Mia goes through in both these games is a footnote, barely explored.

I bring these events up not to condemn the RE franchise, not to say that including these sequences was unconscionable, or that violence against women can never be shown in a horror title. A quick glance at my tumblr should demonstrate how much I adore these games. Tropes like fridging become problems only because they’re so ubiquitous they can come to define almost the only roles women get to play, not because any individual example is necessarily grounds for outrage. If anything, there’s just as much to analyse in all the hate thrown at characters like Ethan Winters (or his predecessor, Jonathan Harker) as a archtypical examples of sexism against men – backlash against the very idea of a male character in the disempowered role of horror victim, usually reserved for women.

But with this context in mind, my god is it uncomfortable to see people talk about Mia as irredeemable monster who deserves to suffer more. People who will valorise the likes of Chris Redfield, who didn’t even bother to stop to tell Ethan that’s not Mia, yet talk about Mia like being shot to death in her own living room was only what she deserved. That is just a whole load of yikes.

And given that both games open with Mia being violently killed by a male protagonist (twice in RE7, with the player in control), it sure is convenient how so many people have managed to ‘find’ the evidence that proves she’s the real villain. You don’t have to think too hard about Chris Redfield as a violent maniac or Ethan Winters being forced to kill his own wife if it’s okay to inflict violence on this woman. “Yes, but she shouldn’t have done [X]…” or even “But what if she’s the real abuser” is a narrative that gets thrown at real women in abusive relationships all the time – especially when the man is a friend of whoever’s casting judgement, or even a celebrity. Real world examples of this shit in the wild run the gamut from wild fan-takes on The Shining ‘proving’ that actually the abused wife was the ‘real’ abuser all along, right up to the ongoing hate campaign against Amber Heard. People don’t want to have to think badly of someone they admire, and will take any excuse to shift the blame. The stakes are infinitely lower when we’re talking about fictional characters, but the same pattern plays out.

And look, I do get it. It’s easy to go into these games and come out with a negative opinion of Mia. She’s the one who lures you into danger in RE7, acts all innocent, and then comes at Ethan with a chainsaw – and when you finally find out her big secret at the end, it turns out she was working for the people who created Eveline from the start! You’re really not given a lot of reasons to invest in Ethan and Mia’s relationship before she’s suddenly coming at him with a knife, and the fact she never does get to come clean to him in canon leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

It’s really easy to go into RE8, note all the glaring signs that Ethan’s relationship with Mia isn’t healthy, and draw your own conclusions about a woman we don’t hardly even see again for most of the runtime of the game. Half this goddamn fandom still seems to think Heisenberg is actually a lycan, ffs – most of what people think they know about Mia is more meme than fact, and the rest is pretty surface level. Basic media literacy is not exactly high out there in the tumblrweeds (let alone the rest of the internet).

But as for the idea that Mia’s responsible for all the horrors Ethan went through, people seem to forget that Mia herself went through so much worse. Ethan spent a day in the Bakers’ property, and a day in the village. Mia spent years trapped in the Bakers’ property, and days at least imprisoned in Miranda’s lab, knowing exactly how much danger her family were in, helpless to save them. She’s no innocent herself, but ye gods has she already suffered for her crimes.

So with all that out of the way, well, what’s the actual ‘evidence’ that Mia herself was abusive? No-one's coming into this one without some bias, but let’s at least give it a fair shake.

Right upfront, I want to recognise that in both fiction and reality, women can be abusers, and men can be victims. Abuse in heterosexual relationships is far more likely to occur with the man as the abuser, but the reverse does happen, and the fact culture at large can be so eager to cast the woman as the villain doesn’t make it any easier for the real male victims of abuse to get recognition and help. Society as a whole is still just really shitty about enabling or excusing real abuse.

But the idea that Mia was abusive has very little to back it up. Whatever you make of “her” interactions with Ethan at the start of the game, the fact remains: that’s not Mia, and the fact she’s acting so strangely is meant to be our clue that something much bigger than a little marital strife is going on here. Knowing all this doesn’t really make the scene where she’s violently executed less disturbing, but you can’t miss the hints we don’t yet know the full story.

So the question becomes, is there any evidence that the real Mia was abusive? I’ve dug into this one a bit before in my post about trying to figure out the timeline of exactly when Mia was replaced, but there are no definitive answers as to how long Miranda's been living in their house. To summarise a long post (and a surprisingly lively timeline of events from the days before the game begins): the most likely intent seems to be that Miranda’s been posing as Mia for less than a week, though a lot of the vibes of the scene give me the impression it’s been several weeks at least. Ultimately, that’s going to come down to your own interpretation.

The Mia mentioned in Ethan’s diary who blew up at him at the hospital could be the real Mia, but more likely isn’t: you can’t really use her to argue anything definitive, one way or another. The Mia from the flashback where Ethan gets the call from Rose’s doctor is the real Mia, but if you think getting upset when your husband brushes off your obvious distress over your daughter’s health makes you abusive, then nothing I say here is going to convince you otherwise.

The only ‘real’ evidence that Mia might be a problem is one line you might hear from Ethan while taking Rose to bed, and it is admittedly a red flag: your mother’s scary when she’s angry.

And to anyone whose whole hatred of Mia has been built backwards from this one line – especially anyone who’s grown up in a dysfunctional household themselves – hell, I get it. It is one really yikes thing for Ethan to say about his wife.

But in Mia’s defence, I can only point out that, well, yes, canonically, she is scary when she’s angry.

Oh, did I say angry? I meant fucking possessed.

And if Ethan’s bringing up the spectre of that time, even subconsciously, maybe that should be an even bigger clue that the Mia in this house right now isn’t Mia.

But what really shows this line for what it is is that we’ve seen the real Mia angry. We’ve seen her cold fury at Eveline, daring to go right back to asking ‘can we be a family now?’ within hours forcing Mia to assault her own husband with a chainsaw. We’ve seen her frustration at Ethan’s own denial, and we’ve seen her stalk out of the room when he blows off an important conversation for a call from work. We’ve seen her advance on Chris after he shut her down, demanding, Where is my husband? Where is my daughter?!

We have never seen her angry without real justification. Her anger is neither violent nor disproportionate. It’s consistently purposeful, focused, and contained. There is nothing scary about the real Mia’s anger, unless you’re threatened by the very idea she might have something valid to be angry about.

There is evidence of tension in the Winters’ marriage from before Miranda’s arrival, but it takes a very different form – most evident in the flashback scene where Ethan receives the call from Rose’s doctor. Far from Miranda’s brusque, dismissive copy of her, the real Mia is anxious and depressed, scared of what Rose’s results might reveal. Here, Ethan’s the one brushing her concerns aside (“We talked about this […] Rose is fine!”) He recognises there seems to be something Mia’s not telling him, says they should talk about it, but then immediately brushes the conversation off when he gets a call from work, while Mia storms out of the room.

You can certainly read Mia as a hypocrite here, getting angry at Ethan for not knowing things she’s deliberately kept from him. But it’s Ethan who decides a call from work is more important than a conversation with his wife – someone who is obviously distressed, canonically still on a regime of drugs after the traumatic events of RE7, very likely suffering PTSD along with Ethan, and maybe even some form of postpartum depression. We don’t know anything about Ethan’s work, so there’s no point in speculating about how much he ‘needs’ to take that call. Mia’s no clear villain here – quite the opposite.

Personally, I tend towards taking this scene as evidence that Mia has tried to talk to Ethan about what really happened to him, but hasn’t managed to get him to face the truth. For all that Ethan supposedly wants to talk about the past, it’s a defining plot point that he’s badly in denial himself.

Or they could both be at some fault here: Ethan unwilling to face the truth, while Mia is reluctant to force him to face something she knows will hurt him and bring him distress. Even when Mia says outright that she ‘tried to keep this a secret, but…’ to Chris at the end of the game, the implication is as much that she’s tried to keep it a secret from people like Chris, who might decide Ethan is dangerous. She’s lied to protect him before, and if she’s still lying to him about her past with the Connections, then the fact that knowing the truth will hurt Ethan is obviously among her reasons. Protecting Ethan has always been among Mia’s top priorities ‒ even at her own expense.

The only other real hints we get about Mia’s inner life come from the glimpses of her we get in Donna’s domain. But I’m hesitant to read too much into these, given how unclear it is how much is just a manifestation of Ethan’s own anxieties. If anything, the ‘Mia’ in these scenes almost seems to have some far worse secret than simply having not told Ethan something he really ought to have put together on his own, and I’d kind of love to see that explored too – at least as long as that goes somewhere more interesting than round umpteen of ‘and that’s why Mia sucks’.

But my point here isn’t that you have to read any of these scenes the same way I do. I do think it’s important to recognise that nothing written for a game like RE is truly character-driven; scenes exist to serve the plot far more than to reflect consistent character motivations or hold up to fridge logic (which, let’s face it, is the real reason for most of Chris’ horrific behaviour in this game, let alone anyone else’s). The result is rarely super consistent, and leaves ample space for multiple interpretations of anyone’s motivations. Regardless, the idea there’s any hard evidence that Ethan and Mia’s relationship is dysfunctional, or that whatever’s wrong is Mia’s fault alone, is going to be incredibly hard to justify.

Any assertion that Ethan and Mia are somehow on the verge of divorce also needs to be weighed against the masses of evidence of how much they love each other – the number of times Mia has said she loves Ethan, up to and including (yes, I’m bringing this up again) how ready she is to die for him in RE7. Her speech to Chris at the end of RE8 states explicitly that being together with Ethan and Rose is the only thing that matters to her. “Mia, I’m sorry, I love you,” are some of the last words Ethan ever speaks – and I can’t help but read into how the moment he finally pushes Rose into Chris’ arms so they can get away with him weighing them down is right after he learns that Mia is alive, and thus implicitly that Rose won’t be alone if Ethan doesn’t make it. And good god does that scene break my heart every time.

It’s worth recognising that the fact Ethan and Mia love each other doesn’t inherently mean their relationship is healthy, or that you have to love them together as much as I do. Like I said up top, you don’t have to like Mia, and you don’t have to justify not liking her if you don’t. I would genuinely like to see fics where Mia and Ethan’s supposedly-necessary break up feels in character. Where Ethan loves her but just can’t deal with the resentment and the fallout over all the lies she told him, where he's been clinging to his 'happy ending' with Mia after surviving the Bakers so hard he can't face the fact things just aren't working, or where he’s having to face that their relationship only ever really worked because she was away so much. It will break my heart, but fiction is allowed to do that.

But god, it would be nice if people could just take the bashing below an eleven around this place. The number of times I’ve had to sigh and back-button out of reading something, because yet another author has decided to project their own hatred for Mia onto the husband who’s still reeling from watching her being violently murdered in front of him… it gets fucking old, y’know?

I would really like to think that in the year of our lord 2024, fandom would be a bit past this thing where they bash the canonical female love interest in the name of shipping the hero with another dude. People will bend over backwards to try and cast Heisenberg and Chris as guys who really care about consent and worry about Ethan getting hurt, because heaven forbid anyone be caught shipping something slightly problematic. And yet misogyny still somehow gets a pass.

You do not have to love Mia. You don’t even have to like her. But ye gods, the hate she gets is baseless and absurd.

Hasn't this poor woman suffered enough?

(And on that note, I promise I am finally done soapboxing in defence of Mia Winters, thank you for bearing with me for this long.)

[masteraqua]

okay i need to take a break from thinking about it but i still want to share what i've been working on for my kh3 reimagining—now officially named KH3 Retry! get it? re-tri? you get it

so i've been thinking a lot about the kh3 prologue. if you saw my recent complaints about it, then you'll know i find the original sequence to be sloppy and forgettable, resulting in an incredibly weak start to the story. and so in light of that, i'm throwing the whole thing out and starting from scratch.

keep reading to see what i have in mind! 👀

i'm still working out some details, but here's what i know so far:

a teenage xehanort is the central character of the prologue rather than sora. i always found it bizarre that the main antagonist barely appears in kh3 until the finale, and i intend to correct that by starting the game with him, allowing us to get a glimpse inside his head to better understand his motivations and perspective.

as a direct parallel to kh1, we begin with a dream sequence. however, instead of a station of awakening, xehanort finds himself atop a gigantic alba & ater game board floating in a void.

i love the way the board is used throughout the kh3 opening as both a physical stage and a framing device. i'm incorporating both of those angles, but i'm also taking it a step further by making it playable. the tiered structure of the tiles would lend themselves well to teaching physics controls, don't you think?

the height of the tiles will change as the tutorial progresses, depending on what's being taught; walking/running, jumping, climbing, dodging, etc. maybe they'll form stairs or a labyrinth or even a pit if the situation calls for it.

here's some concept art! no i did not draw the board accurately, but you get the idea. baby nort for scale

after completing the mobility tutorials, the ground will begin to shake and towering chess pieces will fall from the sky to fill the board, nearly crushing xehanort in the process. this will lead into the questionnaire that influences the level progression system.

as this is xehanort's dream, the dream weapons this time around will be represented by chess pieces. i need to flesh this part out more, but the basic idea behind it is that everything in life is a strategy game to xehanort; move the right pieces to the right places and you'll win. so you choose which piece to play

here's a low-effort mockup of the pieces that can definitely be improved later

as xehanort traverses the board, setting up his strategy, he will see visions playing out around him of events that have yet to pass—events he will one day be responsible for. this ties in to all the pieces that are now on the board, since they represent different characters. this also has the added function of reminding the player of the story up to this point.

there are several cool shots from the kh3 opening to use as reference here. it's a shame they go by so quickly

after the questionnaire, there will be combat tutorials and probably a boss fight at the end, à la darkside and twilight thorn. i haven't thought it through yet, but i wouldn't dream of leaving out a big monster set piece battle. maybe he's fighting a representation of his own darkness? or somebody else's...

it might be interesting if he's using the gazing eye keyblade during this part, because he doesn't actually have it at this point in his life. i think that'd be very ominous from his perspective.

after taking down whatever metaphysical monster has been conjured by his psyche, the dream will end on a triumphant but foreboding note. altogether i think this sequence would take about 15-20 minutes.

but we're not done yet! continuing the parallel to kh1, xehanort awakes in scala ad caelum. he's sitting by the window in the classroom, game board by his side. he gives it an inquisitive look, still thinking about his dream.

i'm still contemplating what happens next, but the gist is this: playable scala. we should get a proper introduction to the world and be able to interact with the environment in order to learn more about what xehanort's life is like here. i think this is important in the pursuit of humanizing him.

there will probably be some minor objectives to complete, something small, maybe a fetch quest. would it be too on the nose to have a mock fight against eraqus with a score counter?

i have some ideas for how to incorporate story elements from dark road, but i need to think about them more.

this section doesn't need to take longer than 20-25 minutes, i think; it just needs to be enough to get a sense for the world. it's very important to me that it isn't as time-consuming as the kh2 prologue.

the last shot will have the camera follow xehanort's gaze up to the sky, followed by the title card.

speaking of which!!! i made a logo :)

[brontios-helm]

Destiny 2: The Dream Of The Traveler

[fnaf-movie-countdown]

A list of deleted scenes that has been confirmed by a source:

The film was easily over 2 hours in this cut.

1. After the guard in the opening scene was attacked, instead of seeing him in the torture device, we saw a sequence of him being dragged down the hallway to his death, while zoning in and out. Also, they used Foxy's original hum for his scenes, unsure why they replaced it.

2. Max brought her dog to Mike's house while babysitting.

3. The training tape was originally 30(?) seconds longer, showing the animatronics performing to Talking in Your Sleep.

4. Max and Mike had a longer interaction after Mike got home from work after the first night. Mainly Max talking about her love for Abby and hopes for a good life.

5. During Night 2, Mike ended up looking through the office before going to sleep. He found a stack of cassette tapes. He went through all of them, each of them being a segment of a news report about the missing children at Freddy's.

6. The dog was in the car with Max outside of Freddy's.

7. Carl getting his face eaten was a way longer sequence. The whole vandalizing sequence was.

8. Before Bonnie exited the closet, Bonnie grabbed his neck and pinned him against the wall, kind of sliding him upwards with his hand.

9. Max originally asked if the kid was okay, while following him to Freddy. While following the kid, she had to gather herself, but kept on pushing. She looked through the animatronics beside Freddy, before grabbing the chair.

When the hand reached out towards her, we saw her scream and fall backwards before getting pulled into the mouth.

10. When Mike tried to confront Vanessa before Abby touched the guitar, Vanessa began to rant about how he cannot and never will find the guy who killed Garret.

11. During the scene where Vanessa is revealed to be William's daughter, we see flashes off children screaming in a dim area. Young Vanessa is seen watching the whole thing happen at times, and though you never see him directly, excluding the outline of his hands or something, William is the one committing the murders.

12. Golden Freddy originally jumpscared Aunt Jane, knocking her cold to the ground. This was an incredibly quick sequence.

13. When Abby is hiding in the arcade from Foxy, right before Foxy finds her spot, she grabs a shard of glass from off the broken arcade and throws it across the room. Foxy ends up looking away and she runs to the ballpit, watching him before going in.

14. Instead of running out of the kitchen calling for Abby, Garret originally led Mike out of the kitchen and into the archway leading to the exit, which William walked out of.

Similar to the Foxy transition before Abby goes into the arcade.

15. William seemed like he was in a lot more agony during the springlocking. Even screaming in agony after putting on the mask.

[twig-tea]

GL odds and ends 20 October 2024

Still feeling out how regularly it makes sense to do this; first one was 2 weeks ago on 6 October. If you're interested in GL older than that, check out my GL rec list through Feb 2024 and my update in July 2024. New series marked with an asterisk*.

Currently airing (with thoughts up to Oct 6):

Reverse 4 U 7/8 (Thai, Tuesdays 1:00 PM EDT, Netflix / YouTube) I'm disappointed by how this final arc has gone. We haven't really seen any growth for Wa, and the whole plot with Wa and Vivi's father didn't really make sense. I really don't understand why he had to stay away, or why the rules are so different for him than for Wa. The relationship between Wa and Four also feels flat because we've barely seen them together. I was rooting for this one but alas.

Unlock Your Love ep 6/8 (Thai, Wednesdays, GagaOOLala / YouTube [cut version]) The sequence where Rain and Love keep trying to have sex but getting interrupted/hurt was very funny; this show still drags but the core of it is pretty good. I mostly just wish it were tighter.

Chaser Game W s2 ep 5/8 (Japanese, Thursdays 12:30 PM EDT, GagaOOLala) @lurkingshan is already doing a great summary of this week to week in her JQL weekly round-up!

Affair the series ep 8/8 END (Thai, Fridays 11:15 AM EDT, iQIYI/ YouTube) Other than the jealousy in the last 10 minutes of the show, I really did like this ending for the series. I really liked Wan's decision to take time for herself after being disappointed by Pleng's decision again. The plot and melodramatic-ness of this show is not my favourite, but I enjoyed it week to week in spite of that. The acting was so solid, the women so gorgeous, the chemistry so fire, and the writing was great for the genre its in (the story was internally consistent and coherent, and the characters were complex and their motivations were clear. There was even a good plot reason for the 'they might be siblings' twist). If you don't mind melodrama, give this one a try!

*Pluto ep 1/12 NEW (Thai, Saturdays 9:30 AM EDT, YouTube) Starting off with a fantastic kiss and Namtan on a motorcycle is truly an incredible opening gambit. That being said, I don't buy the core premise of the plot and it is making it difficult for me to actually enjoy the show. I'll probably be mostly quiet about this one because the things I don't like about it aren't actually about its execution but rather my taste.

*Apple My Love ep 2/7 NEW (Thai, Saturdays 11:45 AM EDT, GagaOOLala and YouTube) I already shouted on main about ep1 here; so far I'm obsessed with this show. Kris is too gay to function, and the misunderstanding is perfectly executed. Very excited for this one, it's so far fantastic.

The Loyal Pin ep 12/16 (Thai, Sundays 12:15 PM EDT, YouTube) Anin's speech in this episode was fire. I feel for these girls, Anin and Pin are just so desperate to be together and their choices are limited. This show continues to be gorgeous and so well done, and I keep bracing for pain.

Red Whisper ep 4/8 (Korea, [schedule is kinda unpredictable; vaguely every 5 days??], YouTube) Cheating and taking advantage while your crush is heartbroken and drunk is not my fave but is par for the course with these SukFilm short series; my fave so far has been their first GL so if you haven't seen that yet I'd honestly recommend that instead.

Recent One-offs & Side Couples

We finally got the sapphic backstory in The Hidden Moon but it was (as expected) sad and mostly inferred.

We also got more of the Aim as a Lesbian plotline in the new Love Sick 2024 remake (this was not a plotline in the 2014 version and it's one of the changes I really like and that I think works really well)

Sastra film app YouTube channel has several short Cambodian GL series that come out weekly Honestly they are not to my taste but I don't like gatekeeping GL especially from smaller markets. I check in on these time to time and if there are any that I think are great I'll give them a shout-out

Ditto above with JPC media YouTube channel for Thai GL shorts if there are any that stand out to me I'll say so

Starting soon:

The Nipple Talk, [ensemble] Taiwanese, 1 November GagaOOLala

My Ex's Wedding [in theatres in Thailand 14 November]

Mom Ped Sawan, Thai, 17 November [international distribution uncertain; it should be on VIPA app with subs, but that is region-locked]

Petrichor, Thai, 23 November, TBD