#they should do the thing disney used to do with the vault?

[forcebookish]

idk how gmeme's contract with viki works, if they get paid for every stream, but i am never going to buy a subscription so they've definitely lost thousands of dollars worth of ad revenue from me alone lmao

[some-stars]

so my sister is visiting this week and ofc with all four of us here there are a lot of Feelings in the air, and apparently the way i cope with that is to dive deep into my #1 comfort fandom & pairing of all time, which is, of course, dark angel and max/alec, who i will be shipping on my deathbed. the show isn't streaming anywhere and it's never going to be, it's buried in the disney vaults (it was on fox originally) and they're never ever ever going to let it out, but it was SO good and if there were any justice in the world i'd be allowed to see 2024 fandom's take on the greatest and most important OTP of all time ever.

if you have not watched the show and are wondering how a 2 season science fiction/action show from 2000 can possibly have given us the greatest pairing of All Time, you need to think about all the ~energy that jensen ackles brought to supernatural that made destiel the force that it became, and then picture him (8 years younger than s4 of spn) pouring all that energy into depicting how his secondary character was deeply, deeply in love with the heroine of the show, and TPTB had a clear mandate to keep her with her assigned love interest but several of the writers just as clearly shipped her with alec, who was demonstrably more interesting and better to and for her. and then in the middle of all that throw an early cancellation RIGHT after setting up max and alec as the leader & lieutenant of a mutant resistance movement, in a location where the assigned love interest literally couldn't go without dying (also he and max can't touch for sci-fi macguffin reasons and have just spent a miserable season pining after never even getting to fuck once). and alec is just doing that ackles-style Quiet Self-Abnegating Devotion the entire time. it's fucking LETHAL. i never stood a chance.

(also young jessica alba was not half bad as an actor herself! but she's definitely not the driving force behind the Energy between them in every single scene, although her and jensen do have fantastic chemistry)

anyway this is i think the saddest thing in my life, that there's never going to be a second dark angel renaissance (the first was after spn got big, ofc). and since it originally aired in 2000-2001, and then had a second burst of fandom popularity from like 2007-2010, there's not a lot on ao3 either. it's basically just my one fic, a whole blessed bunch of good stuff from victoria_p, and 4-5 other stories that are decent to good. and that's it. for the most beautiful important meaningful in love pairing of all time ever forever. life is not fair. anyway it is available on various illegal streaming sites and also secondhand DVDs and you should REALLY check it out, bc there are many other things to recommend it besides the world's best ship that i did not get into here. season one is objectively better but alec shows up in season two, so i recommend watching both. and then PLEASE come talk to me, i have ONE (1) friend who's into it and i'm dying.

[elvisabutler]

Elvis being sad for whatever reason and reader curls up on the couch with him and tel hey watch Disney movies together to help him feel better

the happiest place on earth is here with you

summary: after a particularly rough day on set, elvis takes it upon himself to rent an entire movie theater out to watch disney movies with you. fandom: elvis presley | elvis ( 2022 ) | austin butler rating: t for a might bit of swearing i suppose pairing: elvis presley x female reader word count: 988 warnings: mention of stress. mention of sadness. elvis being extra. mention of walt disney. author’s note: happy 88th birthday to our favorite man, y'all! first off thank you for the request anon and thank you for making it before his birthday so i could have a little fluff piece to post vs any smut or grand epics i've got up my sleeves. y'all might have to suspend your disbelief a little since film and movie houses did things a certain way but i needed something that wasn't me attempting- and likely fumbling- a modern elvis take. ( seriously @headfullofpresley did some flawless work on that front so go check that out ) but while all the tech was available for him to perhaps have the movies on tape, he would have had to have something to tape it from and if i do remember right when it comes to disney and their vaults and every other thing that is a harder ask than you think. also put this as 60s elvis though trust me y'all it was hard to resist doing big daddy or even widdle 50s baby elvis. choose austin or real elvis for this i am not picky, i truly just wanted to use the robe gif while i am also in a robe writing this.

You are used to Elvis and how sometimes he can get in a mood, after all, you've been with him through a surprising amount of issues that instead of making the two of you pull apart had kept you together. Pulled you closer together, even, and yet sometimes he had a way of surprising you, a way of doing something so off the wall and minorly bonkers that you wonder just what in the hell had gotten into him. This was one of those times. It's not that he hasn't done it before, hasn't rented out a whole theater so the two of you and the Memphis Mafia could just enjoy some pictures all without having to be interrupted by fans that Elvis adores but can also be a bit- a lot- much.

It's more the timing that gets to you, since there was about as much of a lead up or a warning as a sudden thunderstorm in the South. Hell, even the time he chose to do it was a new one since normally it would be a situation that only happens in the daytime. Still, you're not complaining, it's sometimes incredibly tricky to actually find the time to enjoy the company of your boyfriend especially when he's busy filming. If he wants to pick you up in one of his cars and take you to a movie theater well you'll allow it, you'll take it.

Entering the actual theater, you're struck by the fact that there is the barest of staff and only Sonny for a bodyguard there. This was yet again a shift from the normal way he would go about this sort of thing but it was fine, in fact it was a little better than fine you thought as you allowed Elvis to pull you closer to him as he grabbed popcorn for the two of you and some Pepsis among other things.

The auditorium where you and Elvis would be watching whatever planned movie or movies he wanted to is already a little dark but you see what looks like a small little picnic set out on the ground complete with enough pillows to rival even the comfiest couch or bed in Graceland or in California. You can't help but turn to him before even starting to sit down. "Alright, E, what's this about?"

Elvis for his part instantly deflates at the question, it was easy to tell you everything was fine and act his normal way when he doesn't want to worry you. When he didn't want to worry you until you had both settled down and were relaxing. He should have remembered you know him as well as anyone ever has or probably will. His answer comes after a long sigh.

"Had- It was a rough day on set, baby. Stunts were awful, kept messin' up my damn lines, and I jus'- wanna jus' curl up wit' my baby, my darlin' and forget all of it happened. Wanna relax here wit' ya and watch some silly fun movies. Got 'em to find some real old ones, asked Mr. Disney himself for 'em."

Your eyes widen at the last statement, momentarily forgetting that yes, your boyfriend is just that famous that he can casually ask Walt Disney for film reels of his films. A beat passes before you allow yourself to smile gently at Elvis, taking the drinks and popcorn before motioning for him to sit down. "You first then. My head in your lap for the first picture, and then your head in mine until we fall asleep, hm?"

At your response you see Elvis's face light up like a young boy on Christmas or on his birthday. It's as if just the mere idea of what you propose has him giddy and releasing all the tension that was inside of him from the day's events. This is what you loved about Elvis- how he'll help everyone he can and try and make them feel alright and happy to the point of sometimes hurting himself mentally and physically. But when you do it for him? Oh, it's like you've done him the greatest honor on the planet. He doesn't waste a minute settling down on the ground, his back leaning up against the pillows as he lets out a long groan at finally being able to just sit and relax. A smile soft and gentle graces your features as you hand him back the drinks and popcorn and settle down next to him, laying down so that your head rests comfortably in his lap.

"Tell me you've got Mary Poppins first, I've wanted to see that again so badly." You ask as his hand moved to try and fiddle with your hair, almost as if to calm him more than just your presence did.

His blue eyes twinkle when you ask the question full of mirth and sneakiness that have you mildly concerned for just a brief moment before he answers. "Ya jus' gonna have to watch and find out, aren't ya?"

Your eyes narrow before you pull him down to your face for a soft kiss. "I guess I am, Mr. Presley. Hopefully you picked good ones or I'm gonna be the one leaving sad and stressed out."

His laugh- the laugh he's needed to have all day rings out as the movie starts to play. "Trust me baby, you'll be fine. Picked our favorites, not just mine."

Mary Poppins was the third picture and while you both did try and stay awake, truly you did, you both found yourself drifting off to the song Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious as you stroked Elvis's hair in between bites of the little picnic he had made. The theater let you both stay, sending home their workers after they had cleaned up the front. After all, who was going to wake up the Elvis Presley and his girlfriend when they looked that peaceful together?

taglist: @eliseinmemphis, @ab4eva, @blurredcolour, @aconflagrationofmyown and @butlersxbirdy, @lindszeppelin, @powerofelvis @floralcyanide @steph-speaks @mooodyblue swear to god i will actually set up a tag list form for everyone to fill out so i know who to do what to. i just hate feeling like i'm bugging y'all with the tags if you don't wanna read it.

[bunnylovesani]

I know you said that you want to move on from this, but I have to tell you my thoughts because I can’t stop thinking about all of this.

I am a content creator as well, and I write for Anakin. I have been writing for various characters from various shows for years on here, and nothing - nothing - is more toxic than this fandom right now.

From everything I’ve witnessed, I can only attribute it to one person. Indy.

Unfortunately he cannot be helped because of how vain he is, which aren’t even my words. They are his. And it would be fine, if he just left other people alone.

But indy is a bully. A big bully. He polices this whole fandom like he’s got nothing better to do at all. And I’m so sick of it. It makes me and other creators feel like we have to walk on eggshells when we post on here (thus why I am anon. Because god forbid indy sees this, and his little squad of bitter rejects try to ‘cancel’ me too - which, don’t even get me started on cancel culture).

Indy has been called out for creating things before that other people don’t like. His advice? “Just block, don’t read, keep scrolling.” How fucking hard is it to practice what you preach, rather than dragging a new person through the mud each week?

Not to mention, that shit indy was spewing a few weeks back about “not liking how other creators are writing about Anakin because it’s not correct” ? “Be careful with my toy?” “I’m taking him back until you can learn how to handle him correctly?” What kind of entitlement let’s him believe Anakin is HIS to write for only. Anakin is not his idea. He is not his toy. He is George Lucas’s idea that EVERYONE can enjoy, and play with.

And his opinion is not the only correct one out there. I don’t care how much “character studying” he’s done, he can be wrong. Other people can “character study” and come up with completely different conclusions about Anakin. And he can also just let people write what they want to write. Don’t like it? Block, don’t read, keep scrolling. Stop fucking posting about it and laying claim to something that was never his to begin with.

I tried to support indy, because again, he is a phenomenal writer. but he’s way too problematic. It makes me sick seeing his name pop up on my feed, cause that blog literally emits toxic energy.

I am sorry he sunk his claws into you.

Anyways, this isn’t about indy. He was told it was a private matter so he had no reason to butt his big head in anyway. This is about you and Ava.

While Ava may have written an Anakin stalker au, she DOES NOT own it. Nobody own that. Cause nobody owns the ideas of stalkers, and nobody owns the idea of Anakin except GL and Disney. Your work does not resemble hers even slightly. And whose to say someone else hasn’t already written that au in the past? Maybe it’s buried somewhere in tumblr’s vaults. Do they own that idea? Should you dig through years of posts and credit them somehow?

The whole idea is ridiculous. You credit people for their original ideas if you are inspired by them and have permission to use it. You do not need to ask permission or credit something that belongs to everyone.

I could start writing about, I don’t know, firefighter!anakin right now - do I then OWN that au?

Fuck no!

We are all here for the same reason. To write fake scenarios about fake people. Of course, don’t blatantly steal peoples words and ORIGINAL ideas, but the fact that people are spouting all this bullshit about OWNING these common au-ideas now is crazy. Unless you’ve done some kind of world-building or OC-creating, that shit is not original. It’s been done before and it will be done again. Cry about it.

Now let’s bring the linecook Anakin au into consideration. How is it fair that Tilly can write about it, not credit anyone, and get away scotch free? Why didn’t she get called out like you did?

Granted she took it down, but I still think it’s horseshit. Nobody owns that idea. I’ve seen it used for so many different characters on various platforms. She did not have to take it down for some bullshit law indy place on this fandom.

I really am saddened that so many people got dragged into this. Ava left; an amazing content creator. Tilly deleted her work; also an amazing creator. And indy continues to show his true colors; an entitled asshole who can’t let anyone breathe on here.

I want to go back to when this shit was enjoyable. Now all I see on my feed is people throwing each other around because no one can play nice anymore.

Don’t steal peoples ideas. But don’t claim ideas as your own if they are NOT original.

I am on your side bunny. I think you’ve made some very good points, and I commend you for keeping your work up and for standing up for yourself.

At the end of the day, you are a victim of circumstance. I truly just think people need to stop dick riding indy. And I know if he ever sees this, he’ll try to make some witty comeback that only halfway makes sense. he always sounds so defensive when he tries too hard to make it seem like he doesn’t care. He probably cries himself to sleep over these things. I think he needs that.

DAMN ANON. Wish I knew who you were so I could kiss you.

I second everything you’ve said. Blocking me without giving me the chance to respond or explain to a public post made about me was very high and mighty as well as cowardly of him.

I don’t have much more to add since I said I was done talking but I’m gonna post this masterpiece so others can read it.

Seriously thank you for taking the time to write this out and share your valuable thoughts, much love ⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡

[adamwatchesmovies]

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)

The worst thing you can say about Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is that it occasionally spends more time sowing seeds than dealing with its current story. That's not so bad considering its emotional weight, visuals/special effects, performances (let’s remind ourselves again of how much of what we see had to be imagined by the actors when they were shooting) and the conclusion.

Many generations after War for the Planet of the Apes, humans have become feral and apes have formed multiple independent societies. An encounter with a human scavenger (played by Freya Allan) forces a chimpanzee named Noa (Owen Teague) to wander outside his village, where he encounters a group of armed apes headed towards his home. He rushes back, but arrives too late. His father has been killed and everyone else taken captive. As Noa tracks his clan in hopes of rescuing them, “Nova” (they call all the human females Nova) follows him.

Kingdom lasts 145 minutes. Even with that ample running time, it doesn't feel like everything introduced is fully explored by the end. The villain, for instance. Bonobo Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand) is the self-proclaimed king of the apes and is forcibly assembling them under his rule. We get a good feel for what sort of ape he is, but not enough for us to hate him… even though I think we're supposed to. This new Caesar wants to open this huge, armored door on the side of a cliff. He’s convinced that inside are weapons and knowledge that will allow apes to forever maintain the hold they've gained on the world. Conveniently, getting this knowledge will allow him to continue ruling. Is he power-hungry? Maybe, but there's something about him that's oddly compelling. He’s weirdly charismatic, but it's also that the rightful owners of that vault - humans - are less entitled to it now. Cities are almost completely overgrown. Skyscrapers have been transformed into unusually tall, rectangular mountains covered in vegetation. You see remnants of our civilization here and there, but can’t imagine how it could come back. You wonder if it even should. Apes and other animals have had to endure mankind’s wild ambitions for generations. If it’s so wrong for Proximus - whether he’s good or evil - to have the contents of that vault, then why were humans allowed to create it?

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes feels like two movies that bleed into each other. The first is Noa's quest. The second is a more philosophical story about how we - as partial outsiders - should feel about the world. While searching for his “people”, Noa gains a greater understanding of what role humans played in the planet’s past. Some of the questions that arise have a big impact on him and Nova, but an even bigger impact on us. 

This 10th Planet of the Apes (all of which I think are worth seeing a minimum of one time) ends on a more optimistic note than most of the chapters in this franchise, but I wouldn’t say that it’s a happy ending. It’s uncertain. I’m also going to call it inconclusive, which is a bit frustrating. Then again, the film is well-made, so you don’t feel like it’s just stringing you along. There’s a bigger story being told here, too big for just one movie. I'm willing to wait to see what it is. Am I being generous because of past experiences? Partially, yes, but the fact is, writer Josh Friedman and director Wes Ball want us to sit back and think. There aren’t a lot of big-budget, special-effects-heavy films that do that anymore and I’d like to see it happen more often. Plus, there’s the technical craft on display. I have no idea how much of this film was done on the computer, and how much was done in-camera. Well, the apes, obviously, but when it comes to the backgrounds/environments, I have no idea.

I also continue to admire this series for the way that it manages to make non-human characters so easy to relate to. Before Kingdom, I saw a trailer for Mufasa and was reminded of the live-action Disney Lion King remake from a few years ago. The animals we saw there were these brick walls spouting human-like dialogue. Despite top-notch computer imagery, the whole thing felt fake. The apes we meet in this film feel real.

When Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes shows off its lush forests growing out of decaying cities, you’re happy to let your eyes wander. When it explores the ape civilizations, you’re eager to see more so you can understand how it all works. It propels you through the locations with a relatable story whose conclusion is not what you’d expect (not entirely) by asking surprisingly thoughtful questions about whose planet this is, and who it belongs to. Combined with the performances and special effects that just keep getting better and better, it may not be the best of the new Apes films, but it doesn't feel like a continuation without a purpose. I foresee myself revisiting Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes in the future, particularly when the next chapter comes around. (Theatrical version on the big screen, May 20, 2024)

[wlwofwaverlyplace]

The Secret Good Last Season of Lab Rats!!!

hiiiii I have not posted to this blog in over four years, but I NEED to share that I had a Lab Rats dream last night in which the Secret Good Fourth Season was finally released from the disney vault --- an entire season of Lab Rats that was written, shot, edited, and then hidden for decades in favor of the disastrous Bionic Island.... but justice was served at last, and the Secret Good Fourth Season premiered on Disney+ in March of 2023. Here is what we got:

- A really cool secret part of the original lab is revealed behind a hidden panel, saved from Douglas’s explosion by a bulletproof shell. Here, we find that Donald has shoved in storage a whole bunch of childhood memorabilia from the ABC kids, leading to a memorable Childhood Flashback Episode in the old lab, ending with a present-day twist when Leo finds SOMETHING SECRET (I forgot this part, sorry, but I promise it was a super epic game-changing secret)

- Bree comes out as a lesbian very early in the season and has a whole falling-in-love and dating arc with a non-bionic Aussie girl who encourages her to follow her dreams of global travel/adventure. They kiss in the series finale, obvi

- Leo gets his own two-parter episode mid-way through, very “Zuko Alone,” in which he’s stranded in the middle of nowhere on a mission due to Mishaps and must find his own way back to safety, discovering both his inner strengths as a leader and a new bionic ability in his arm along the way (echolocation!)

- The main season villain is an AI robot created by Davenport to take over his role as leader/mentor in the Lab Rats team so he can retire early (bc he’s still a lil selfish prick, apparently). At first, the kids all like this robot way more because it’s actually really supportive and encouraging of their dreams outside of mission work (oof), but things change midway through when Leo’s mid-season stranding SUSPICIOUSLY should have been prevented by the robot’s sensors but wasn’t. Things culminate closer to the finale when the robot takes it upon itself to remove all four kids’ bionics after identifying them as THE problem to them finding happiness. In a very weird pre-finale episode, the kids struggle with wondering if this is indeed a good thing since they can follow their dreams now, but they eventually resolve to beat the robot after learning that it will do the same thing to all the bionic kids from Krane’s army who’ve been trying to lead normal lives in Mission Creek with different foster families (yeah, this is basically the first time they’re featured all season after only occasionally showing up for a background gag here and there...). Basically, the moral lesson here is consent: it wasn’t right for them to be made bionic as kids without their consent, but it’s also not ok for the bionics to be suddenly taken away without consent. With Douglas’s and Donald’s and Tasha’s help, they have to beat the villain WITHOUT powers, win, and get to make their own choice about whether or not to take their bionics back afterwards. Bree chooses to take her chip back but uses it travel with her girlfriend for a few years (maybe doing some good along the way but mostly taking time for herself), Adam and Leo both choose to take them back and keep doing missions but with Leo fulfilling the role of Mission Leader after a whole season of developing as an A+ planner/leader, and Chase --- in a beautiful culmination of season-long character development --- chooses to shelve his chip indefinitely to pursue his dream of being a lawyer with only hard work and the intellect of his own natural mind to get there. Oh, and they all get sincere apologies from Douglas and Donald........... THE END

(ok, that last paragraph in the dream was literally just rObOT vILLaiN, but I improved it)

[haunted-meat]

Something that you should consider if this seems pointlessly cruel or impossibly lazy of WB They actively want to make this stuff go away. They do not WANT the games to stay on the market, in any capacity whatsoever. Because then they compete with it. See, if you make media, there is this problem where if what you make stays around forever, you eventually become your own biggest competitor.

This is why Disney would "Vault" movies for a long time, and its the main reason behind the fight against piracy, home videos, hard copies, remixes, fair use, and any and all kinds of media preservation. These capital owners are not just incompetent stewards of the media they own, they are ACTIVE and HARMFUL enemies of it.

In a time when data storage is as cheap as its ever been, and movie production is as expensive as its ever been, why are companies actively deleting completely done projects? To make it so you have to buy the new one.

Note that they don't even want to be the sole distributor, like they don't just want a monopoly on what they have made, they want it to stop existing.

They want you to only have the option of buying the thing they are making right now, and when they've gotten your money, they want it to go away forever. If it sticks around, they have to compete against it. Even if you buy it from them, they slowly wind up spreading themselves out storing and distributing all these pieces of art. They just want all art to be a single moment in the present that they control. No history, no memory. The owner class is the active, deadly enemy of art. Always.

They're doing it with video games now :/

[glitter-lisp]

3, 5, and 8 for the new year fanfic ask thing

3. Do you anticipate writing for a new fandom this year? Which one?

Not likely, just cause as a general rule I can only process one fandom at a time and I'm still down bad for the Disney twinks, but we'll see if that changes after I sell my soul back to murtagh tbh

5. Which WIP is first on your list to complete this year? Will you post a snippet?

OH GOD UM honestly it was the atla au, after that I don't think I have a real priority list, it's just whatever stabs my brain the hardest first. Like for sure more juicebox and multiverse updates, but nothing that's desperate for my attention right now.

8. Is there a story idea in your mental vault that you've never been brave enough to try writing? Is this the year? Can you tell us about it?

I think the closest I've come to this is with some of my dead dove fics I've been rotating, which I've put off mostly on the basis of "I should probably do at least a LITTLE bit of research so I don't drastically fuck up writing about this topic" which is to say I cannot talk about them because I have not. Done the research yet. This is an insane rambling sentence I apologize just know that one day I want to kick Eugene so hard that Varian feels it

[animatedanalysis]

That's a good point! I had to fight tooth and nail defending the Collector in discussions with friends after season 2, but there's a really good reason their race is presented the way it is in canon and it comes down perspective!

Everything we learn about the Collectors/Archivists (which I will just be calling "Celestials" for ease) is told via Collector himself, the Titan Trappers, or the Owl Beast via Eda's dream. The Collector was essentially shunned from their older siblings, the Titan Trappers are antagonists, and the Owl Beast also had a run-in with another Celestial that traumatized it (it's also implied that Celestial turned that Owl Beast into the scroll that makes it a curse)

I completely agree that Celestials are likely morally neutral/gray and their book explains it best:

"Should they meddle in our affairs, we'll clean the planet and scorch the air"

It's important to note the dictionary difference between a Collector and an Archivist

A collector is a hobbyist and an archivist is someone who's *job* it is to maintain archives

The Collector is still a child and is very much-so treated that way by his siblings as he's told to go down and play and essentially "get out of their hair" while they work

We don't know how the war between the Titans and Celestials started. It's implied Titans were a huge threat simply because they have magic on par with the Celestials and probably weren't happy with being "preserved". I don't think the Celestials see what they're doing as wrong. After all their role in their society and the greater cosmos as a whole is to "collect" and "archive".

But because they aren't being archived or preserved themselves, they don't empathize with why that would be a problem for other races. When Titans give them a taste of their own medicine and put them in the discs, it's seen as being meddlesome and they become inclined to neutralize the nuisance before it impedes on the work they do.

Nonetheless most sympathetic antagonists have a point where we see their side of the story. None of the Archvisits have a chance to speak except in the dream or the Collector says what they said, but again it's all negative

If we want to take this a step further, at the end of the show, the Collector represents *us*, the audience, the fans of the show. As the Collector passes by, the final send off is to them, but the camera shows the cast of characters from their perspective. We're the hobbyist that interact with the media. The archivists on the other hand could represent a number of things and I won't say one interpretation is more right than another, but it could be any sort of industry professional or critic whose prominance in the industry might make them disconnected from fans or a critic/commentator whose job it is to critique the work. It could even be a metaphor for Disney (and the greater animation industry as a whole) and how projects that get canceled are just their property, locked away and unable to have a new life because it's constrained by copyright. It sits in the vault and collects dust. This interpretation could also be a reason why the Archivists are meant to be more evil-coded

I also want to bear in mind that the Archivists actions *are* evil. They did commit genocide and almost completely wiped out an entire species. They are adults who made that choice while separated from the Titans. Meanwhile Collector spent all their time getting to know all the other Titans. However the mindset behind it isn't malice. They're doing as they were taught or think is best, which while makes them more morally gray at least intention-wise, but still liable

TLDR: The Archivists are portrayed as evil due to framing, perspective and meta-thematic reasons. Them committing genocide is an atrocity, but they do so out of obligation more than genuine malice. Essentially, soldiers going to war to serve their society. They're adults with jobs who send their kid sibling to the planet and thus the kid is the only one who makes an actually connection with their society's sworn enemy. The Archivist vs Collector dichotomy could be a representation of the state of the animation industry as a whole

I don't know why but I don't like the fact that toh the entire collectors race evil expect for our collector, It just felt like that the collector race (what is the name of the actual race? And am I spelling race wrong?) alignment is true neutral or even chaotic neutral it didn't seem like it was full and completely evil y'know?

[earlgraytay]

That does sound pretty assholish but I can't really condone any moral system opposed to "piracy".

I'm just going to quote what @fullyfunctionalminiaturebeehive added to my post:

"Artists are obliged to give us free art" is, in fact, very much a scapegoating of a group of people when the fault lies with a whole fucked up system.

I am not opposed to piracy, per se, but like with all other things on the internet, there's a person behind the screen. you need to consider how your actions will affect that person/those people before you do things.

go ahead and pirate all the ~Disney Vault~ movies and vintage Nintendo games you want; no one's getting hurt for that. watch broadway bootlegs; no one's getting hurt from that. everyone who worked on those movies or games or shows already got paid, and there's no legal way to access them.

pirate all the shit that's never getting published or distributed in your home country; no one's getting hurt for that. use the shit out of sci-hub and work around the academic system however you need to; everyone is getting hurt in academia and if people have made workarounds for it great.

but writers and artists and game devs and animators are people. and even people in "fun", "creative" jobs still need to eat. until we have a better process to help independent creators distribute their work without having to rely on publishers (who have... Whims), and until we have ways to help indie creators support themselves without needing money? yeah, I'm against pirating things from small creators.

hurting people isn't moral, even if information should be free.

[youngbugandtonystank]

And now anti Tony people are blaming him for letting Sam’s family being in financial trouble wtf the man is dead! Let him rest!

Yeah, I saw. 

They’re definitely going to keep doing that, gotta say, the MCU never failed with Tony's character, they created circumstances for him exactly just like Stan envisioned. The ‘love-to-hate’ trope is strong when it comes to him, this is what Stan wanted out of Tony Stark's relationship with his fans/audience. Thing is, the reality of the MCU superhero is that they’re all flawed. None of them are exempt from anything. Why Tony gets more hate than the others?

He’s the most popular character. There’s no discussion in this instance. Popular superheroes that first come to people’s minds are always Batman, Iron Man and Spider-Man. Tony Stark/Iron Man is a pop culture legend and the fact that RDJ got to portray him as great as he did, helped a lot. People are always going to circle back to the character who has more hype and audience. 

He’s the one with the money. The fact that Tony is swimming in money automatically makes him the target of the ‘eat the rich’ mentality. People fail to remember that other characters such as T’Challa (who has more money than Tony would ever wish to see and lives in the most technologically advanced country in the world), Shuri, Thor (a literal king with a kingdom), The Pym family, Danny Rand (he has a net worth of $5 billion and is one of the richest comic book characters of all time), etc exist. And we still haven’t seen the other Marvel characters (in the MCU) that are richer than Tony like Reed Richards, Professor X, Warren Worthington, Norman Osborn, Namor, Doctor Doom, etc. 

Even if some of us see RDJ as attractive and good looking, some people don’t. For them, RDJ is nothing compared to Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Sebastian Stan, etc. It’s easier to hate a character you don’t find attractive. And also the fact that they find those actors relatively younger than RDJ. 

It’s the most shippable character. This also means he must be in the way of some other ships. Even if this sounds unbelievable, many people don’t get their irrational hate for a character until it dawns on them that they only hate him because he either treated one half of their ship unfairly or because he’s in the way of that ship. The more reasons they can find to hate him, the more legitimate their senseless hatred seems in their minds.

People don’t call out characters like T’Challa or Shuri because they’re scared of being called ‘racist’. T’Challa is so rich that Howard Stark could only buy (just an assumption, it’s a possibility he stole the vibranium lmao) only a portion of vibranium to build Steve’s shield, and because is the world’s most indestructible material, his worth is approximately $10,000 a gram (Fantastic Four #607) and Wakanda's vaults hold 10,000 tons of the material (Doomwar #1) T’Challa is not a billionaire, he’s a trillionaire lmaoooo everyone else is a joke compared to him.

Even having all of this info, Tony and T’Challa owe nothing to anyone.

T’Challa helped Bucky because of his principles (Tony offered to do this at the beginning as well until of course, he found out he killed his parents) but because of that, that doesn't mean T’Challa owes Steve, Sam, Wanda, and Natasha money or housing assistance. He didn't give it to them at all and he doesn’t have to. 

James Rhodes: Well. You guys really look like crap. Must've been a rough couple of years.

Sam Wilson: Yeah, well, the hotels weren't exactly five star.

Wanna know why? Because T’Challa knows they’re adults and they make their own decisions. Sam chose to be on Steve’s side, Wanda did too, Natasha too, etc. Adults make decisions and they should deal with the consequences that come with that. Tony was not going to deal with their financial problems because they made a choice and it’s not his problem to deal with. Tony is not their father. People need to ask themselves why Sam was not in the ‘lift the hammer’ scene after the party, because he wasn’t familiar with them, he wasn’t friends with Tony, only with Steve. Besides that fact, they all fought Tony, hurt his best friend, and left him to deal with the rest in CW. They’re not family.

Sam Wilson: No, I'm not actually sorry. I'm just trying to sound tough. I'm very happy chasing cold leads on our missing persons case. Avenging is your world. Your world is crazy. Steve Rogers: Be it ever so humble. Sam Wilson: You find a place in Brooklyn yet? Steve Rogers: I don't think I can afford a place in Brooklyn. Sam Wilson: Well, home is home, you know?

There’s absolutely no reason Steve can’t afford a place. He’s an adult, he has a good reputation, he worked for shield (why aren’t yall on Nick Fury’s ass if he had Steve and the others as employees? Fury set an entire place for Clint, why can’t he do it for the rest of them, he is the founder of the Avengers after all), and was pretty much capable of doing stuff for others. Tony provided them with a home while they were working together, he doesn’t need to concern himself with their personal problems because they’re not actual friends. Rhodey is his friend. Happy is his friend. Also consider the fact that maybe Sam didn’t want his help? 

And let’s also take into consideration that Tony is not only an Avenger, but Tony is also a businessman, an inventor, an engineer, has a company to keep an eye on, he is the one who finances the Avengers’ messes and other superhero messes too by co-owning the department of damage control, etc. He has other things to do. The rest of the Avengers are adults too, they should seek a job that could give them a future too, not just depend on Tony’s money. Tony had a family and he had to make sure they were covered after his death, this includes, Pepper (his wife, therefore she gets his stuff), Peter (his son, he left him EDITH, he’s basically set for life with that given the A.I. has access to the majority of his things including bank accounts), Morgan (his daughter; his responsibility), Happy and Rhodey (I’m sure we’ll see what he left them in Armor Wars). Why? They’re his actual family. 

If some of you know this and you’re still looking for reasons to put the blame on him, you’re failing to recognize you’re obsessed with hating Tony just for the sake of being right. Wouldn’t you like a life where you don’t have to constantly look for reasons to hate on a fictional character, better yet, a character you don’t like at all. Why the effort? You can love Tony and Sam at the same time, I promise you, this is not going to kill you. 

So please, instead of whining about Tony Stark all the time, why don’t yall just enjoy the fact that the show is showing you a vital and important event that happens in life while representing a part of Sam’s life to add to his emotional depth and character development? Especially because he’s a superhero and possibly the next Captain America, it’s good to see someone who is supposed to be a figure (superhero) whose actions or achievements are far greater than what people expect deal with normal things. They’re giving you a background; a solid storyline for his character. Let it be. Enjoy the shows yall, you can’t keep coming back to blame Tony for everything that happens after every single movie or Disney+ show, look for another metaphorical punching bag. The man is dead. 

[jadelotusflower]

It’s Cold in that Fridge: The Case of Nakari Kelen

Since The Case of Mara Jade has been doing the rounds again, I’ve finally gone back to this post that has been sitting in my drafts for literally years. So let’s honour this absolute badass who deserved better:

Once upon a time, the Star Wars universe was but six films (and a tv series) in the story of the Skywalker family. But beyond George Lucas’ story was an absolute boatload of books, comics, games, and other materials that made up the Expanded Universe. When Disney purchased Lucasfilm and the rights to the Star Wars saga, everything in this universe was decanonised and deemed “Legends” - some aspects of this universe were retained or re-purposed, others sit in Disney’s figurative vault and will likely never see the light of day (and seeing how the ST turned out, maybe that’s for the best).

But this transition between Legends canon and Disney canon was not so simple, because the nature of publishing meant that there were novels approved during the time of Legends canon that would be released in the time of Disney canon. In particular, there had been the planned trilogy “Empire and Rebellion”, set between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, with each novel from the perspective of one of The Big Three.  

Razor’s Edge (Leia) and Honor Among Thieves (Han) were released prior to the Great Canon Split of 2014.  But while the Luke-centric novel had been planned, it was not due to be released until well after the Split. So Heir to the Jedi (so called as an homage to the Legends progenitor Heir to the Empire) became one of the first books of the Disney canon.

What does this background have to do with Nakari Kelen?  Perhaps nothing, but I do wonder how the writing process was affected by the shift from Legends to Disney - was the novel a relic of the old EU with any reference the LFL storygroup didn’t like excised during editing, or was it a trendsetter for the new EU, a Sign of Things to Come?  

The most salient point being, of course, that Nakari Kelen - like so many love interests before her - was not allowed to go along her merry way at the conclusion of the novel, but was shoved into the fridge.

If there was one constant of the Legends EU, it was that Luke Skywalker’s love interests couldn’t catch a break. Mara Jade naturally lasted the longest relationship-wise, with almost twenty years of marriage to Luke before some bright spark decided she had to go (as per the aforementioned case study). But before Mara there was Jem, Shira Brie, and Gaeriel Captison (who came close to escaping the curse), and in the Legacy of the Force series they brought back sole survivors Akanah and Callista, only to kill them off for good too (and rather brutally, if I may add).

So perhaps when Kevin Hearne began writing HttJ within the confines of the Legends continuity, he was merely sticking to the status quo, or perhaps once subsumed by Disney they needed to make sure Luke's slate was clean (so to speak).  And I can’t put all the blame on Hearne since I don’t know whether it was his idea, or LFL mandated - but regardless it was a poor decision.

The root cause of fridging, imo, is limited imagination.  How best to cause your male protagonist pain if not kill off someone they love, or at least have strong feelings for? The answer is of course, easily. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The Luke Skywalker of HttJ is fresh from his victory in ANH, a lieutenant in the Rebellion: young, not dumb, and full of...

Nakari Kalen is an absolute Queen a civilian volunteer and crack-shot sniper who loans her ship Desert Jewel to the Alliance. Luke is immediately attracted to her, they bond over a mutual love of fast ships and leaving behind desert home planets, and engage in the inexpert flirting of two nineteen year olds while also risking their lives several times over.

I want to make it clear: I actually really like this book. It's a breezy read, almost serialised as The Early Adventures of Luke Skywalker, and is ofttimes genuinely funny. And credit where it’s due to Hearne, many of of the supporting roles in the novel are female. Other than Nakari, there's Soonta, the Rodian who gives Luke her uncle’s lightsaber, Sakhet the Kupohan spy, and the Givin cryptographer/math genius Drusil Bephorin. In a genre where male characters are often the default for these kind of roles, it was nice to see, but makes the regressive fridging of Nakari even more egregious.

Luke and Nakari make a good team fighting brain-sucking monsters and Imperials, but more importantly they have fun together - she encourages him to work on his Force skills, and he successfully moves objects with his mind for the first time (leading to Nakari adorably dub him "a little noddle scooter"). It's a very sweet, if brief, relationship, and a respite from the danger of the mission. They spend the night together (leaving the reader to decide exactly what happened behind closed doors), and share a kiss before splitting up to try and escape bounty hunters. No prizes for guessing what happens to Nakari immediately after she received the Skywalker Kiss of Death.

I assume there were two motivating factors for why Hearne and/or LFL couldn't let Nakari live:

1. If she survived, fans would wonder why she doesn't appear in ESB/subsequent material.

I recall this bandied about on forums back at the time of the book's release, and to that I say - so what? Fans are always going to wonder, and try to paper over the gaps in canon, to make up their own headcanons to explain any any perceived inconsistencies. It's certainly no reason to kill someone off.

It is in fact possible for two young people to have a romance that just fizzles, or doesn’t work out for whatever reason - it should not require great maneuvering or explanation. If Nakari doesn’t show up in the next book in the timeline, what about it? The reader is smart enough to assume she and Luke broke up, decided to just remain friends, whatever. But it seems that the only way for a female character to exit stage left is for her to die, which is bullshit.

And actually, there's no reason why she couldn't have shown up again. ESB and RoTJ cover a month and a few days, respectively, of Luke's life - just because there was no mention of Nakari doesn't mean she didn't exist at that time, whether or not she and Luke were an item. She could have made an appearance in a subsequent novel, or Rebels, or the comics - she could have become a recurring character, showing up when the Rebellion needed her, or - heaven forbid - even have her own comic/book/show! Her existence in Star Wars canon didn't need to begin and end with Luke Skywalker, merely to service his plotline and backstory and abandoning the richness of her own.

No, the only reason Nakari had to die was to facilitate this:

It was a blow to the gut, realizing what that sudden absence meant. I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, but I had felt Nakari's life snuffed out through the Force, and into that void where she had shone anger rushed in - anger, and a cold sense of raw power and invincibility...I took a step to join in the hunt but stopped, breathing heavily, unaccountably sweating even though I felt so cold inside and the power of the Force roiled within me... I shook with emotion and power, and none of it felt the way the Force had before...I saw what kind of space it was , a black hole that would always be hungry no matter how much I fed it. I might never feel warm again if I didn't get myself under control.

Luke feels the dark side and is tempted by the boost of power it offers him, but immediately identifies it as dangerous and unnatural. I can understand why Hearne wanted to include this - it is a book of firsts after all: Luke's first solo mission, his first time using telekenisis, and ending with story with his first experience of the dark side makes sense. But it wasn't necessary, which leads to:

2. How to push Luke to touch the dark side without killing someone he has romantic feelings for?

Also, obviously, shite of the bull (or nerf, if you prefer). Even if this brush with the dark side was absolutely necessary for the novel's climax, there's any number of ways it could be achieved. At this point, Luke is fresh from losing important people in his life - Owen and Beru, Ben, and Biggs - lumping another death on top of that a narrative trick for Luke to react not only to losing Nakari, but the others as well. But it's cheap, the first card in the deck, and why not show a bit of imagination? Luke is young and inexperienced enough at this point that any number of things could be the catalyst - the whole book he's struggling with his growing powers, why not try and reach too far in the firefight with the bounty hunters, his anger and frustration with himself in not doing enough trigger the dark side temptation? It would work thematically and doesn't involve a fridging that ultimately has very little payoff.

Because Nakari is killed less than ten pages from the end of the book - afterwards Luke grieves, but ultimately chooses to honour her memory and be grateful for what he learned with her, recommitting to becoming a Jedi. It's all very surface level, and once again a female character's death facilitates a male character's development. Was it so imperative that Luke lost someone he cared about as part of this story? Sure, this was a time of galactic civil war, and it's far from unrealistic that these stories have a high body count, but who to make collateral damage remains an authorial choice, and in this case Nakari Kelen was (a) a female character of color, (b) a love interest of the protagonist - not just of this book, but the entire Original Trilogy.

I don't know to what extent (if any) race had to play in the decision. I'm sure there was a segment of the fandom absolutely livid that Luke Skywalker kissed (and maybe had sex with) a black woman. Was her death LFL hedging its bets, or demonstrative of the general lack of attention/respect they show their characters of colour?

In any case this was a chance to stand out from the old EU and it's fridge full of Luke's dead girlfriends, but instead they chose to introduce and kill off Nakari for the sole purpose of Luke's manpain and character development, and that's gross.

And then there's this:

A grisly yet reliable fact about custom bounty hunter ships is that you can always count on them to have body bags stashed somewhere for the easy transport of their kills. They often have built-in refrigerated storage, too.

NAKARI IS KILLED AND LITERALLY STORED IN THE FUCKING FRIDGE I COULDN'T BELIEVE WHAT I WAS READING.

I really hope this was unintentional on Hearne's part, because yikes. He was halfway there, this book was full of interesting female characters who had agency - Drusil in particular was a delight with her super math and inability to understand human interaction. Nakari was full of life and fun - capable but relatable, showing a different side of the Rebellion and those that suffered under the Empire's rule. Fridging her in her first appearance is considerably more vile, because it reduces her to a footnote of Luke's story, a plot device to Help Him Grow, rather than a springboard to tell more of her own story.

Because Nakari was a compelling character ripe for spinoff potential. I would absolutely have read or watched her continued adventures, juggling missions for her father's Biolabs company and trying to aid the Rebellion, shooting her slug rifle and cracking wise, maybe even finding a way to amplify her mother's song Vader's Many Prosthetic Parts to really stick it to the Empire, or try and free the political prisoners on Kessel.

The old EU was made great by allies and enemies of Our Heroes showing up again to help or hinder them, and/or branching out into their own material. We fell in love with them, and followed their stories even as they diverged from the main saga, eager to read more about their lives.

Nakari Kelen never got that chance. In many ways, she exemplified what Disney Star Wars was to become: an exercise in wasted potential.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S5 Ep 18: A Series of Ecological Disasters

Booting up ye old Yugioh, booting up a new aesthetic playlist to type to. (today’s playlist is webcore, which would feel like such a damn fake aesthetic, if it weren’t that every single one of these -core aesthetics are pretty damn fake and everyone knows it.)

Anyway, it’s been so long that, I’ll be honest, I thought I booted up the wrong episode:

I usually skip the anime intro, but I try to watch it once each arc, cuz the intros change, and this arc was like “screw it, here’s all the other villains, just pretend this arc isn’t happening.” They had Pegasus, they had Marik, they have Bakura (who is kind of in this shot as well, you can see him phasing in there.) And like...I guess they’re hiding the villain of this arc or something because that was it. Alexander the Great got just nixed from this villain list and that’s a shame.

Just a real weird choice, but since apparently this arc didn’t air in Japan they probably had to outsource this anime intro and whatever studio in charge of it just cobbled together stuff from every other season and then a couple of shots of capsule stuff.

Speaking of capsule stuff: get a load of how many freakin lines the animators have to deal with every time they draw Grandpa.

Bro saw this and was like “oh yeah, this is a Shonen Jump” and yeah. The hair does give those vibes. We got a good look at what Vegeta would look like if he really let himself go.

(read more under the cut)

Sorry, my playlist started playing a song where every single line of the song is “Adrien Brody” and it took me like a few minutes to realize I was listening to “Brodyquest” completely seriously.

Damn it, webcore, don’t betray me like this.

Anyway, this arc does something super surprising: Yugi actually hugs somebody and doesn’t look like he’s going to pass out standing up.

It is pretty fitting that the good Yugi hug would go to Grandpa.

And, as night falls, Joey Wheeler has gotten hungry, and there is nothing to eat but his new best friend and spirit animal, baby dragon. Unfortunately he shares life points with the dragon, and I think if you eat it that just instakills you.

And directly underneath him--since this world is like 100 feet wide and things just conveniently happen--Tea has told everyone that they needed to stop worrying about Joey. Which is a lot coming from Tea, because her worrying about Yugi/Yami getting hurt is most of what occupies her headspace in this series.

But even Tea was like, screw Joey, I guess.

Who kinda just falls directly into them upside down, and shows us what Joey’s hair looks like when it’s sticking straight up.

For reals, admire how long Joey Wheeler’s hair is. If Tea were upside down, she would have the same length of hair.

Also speaking of Vegeta, I am low key concerned that Joey has what appears to be a significant amount of male pattern balding going on for a teenager.

Apparently getting set on fire many, many times did have an effect on Joey, and this massive pompadour he wears is a combover. Poor baby.

Holy crap, if this is what card stress and getting killed multiple times did to Joey Wheeler, can you imagine what’s going on under Seto’s bangs? That’s probably why his bangs ride so low, Seto likely wears a freakin toupee.

Guys, Joey’s gonna lose his hair at 25 at this rate. Those locks just aren’t long for this world. Poor baby.

After Joey rejoins the party, he immediately eats all of their food. Not sure why they can’t just have Baby Dragon eat like...whatever Baby Dragon naturally eats...and then transform that into shared Joey Wheeler life points, but it’s not clear exactly how much of a life-connection they have with their Yugioh monsters. Not like it matters because Joey Wheeler is default starving all the time anyway.

Tristan has decided we should start laying blame, I guess because Duke Devlin isn’t here anymore to be the local kill joy. This doesn’t seem to be important at any point, and most of the characters are just ignoring Tristan because like...once you’re in the haunted game in a haunted tomb in a random part of India--it’s kind of moot to argue about who’s fault that is, youknow?

Joey reminds us that he found this quest item in a treasure chest under a secret waterfall. No one says “that was convenient that you landed there after getting chased through a ravine by man-eating birds after you got your dragon from when you got your crotch injury from getting spliced by that tree.”

Which is when Tea says “Wait! We haven’t had a plot thing happen in like 4 seconds! Wait!”

Hey what degree of “I don’t trust nature” do you have to be to assume that all the flowers are trying to eat you?

Like what level of anxiety is Tea where she not only is like “pretty sure the flowers are going to destroy us?” but also...she’s correct? Like she’s not wrong.

They set the dog flowers on fire, but unlike the Jungle Book this doesn’t solve any problems (which apparently got taken off the Disney+ kid’s menu so...yet again, I make a Disney reference in these recaps that future generations will not understand because so much of the Disney library has been banned from the vault. It’s almost like Disney should let go of that copyright they held on for like a hundred years, because what they’re holding on to is only going to get more racist with time. But nah. Gotta hold on with their greedy mickey mouse gloves.)

So instead of using fire, Tristan used his monster to electrocute the air (?) and blind the dogs. Wisely, the animators quickly jumped to this other scene so we wouldn’t have to analyze why it’s suddenly daytime or why that plan would even work.

Joey and Tristan do a lot of buddy buddy stuff this arc. Usually we see a lot of Joey and Yugi’s bottomless friendship, but we don’t get this much Tristan/Joey love. So shippers rejoice, these two seem to have several coordinated dances and songs...and I’d say that teens don’t typically do that, but I went to summer camp, there are situational places where teens will sing the entire vacation and make coordinated dances.

Weirdly, since Joey and Tristan share so much time together, this also means Tea and Yugi actually sit next to eachother for a lot of this arc, almost as if they were a couple. Mind you, they’re chaperoned closely by Grandpa, but youknow...that’s a different energy than I’m used to seeing.

That and like, they can’t have Tea dance with them because last time she did a dance, it was like a DDR fight and she elbowed some guy like it was a fisticuffs situation. Like there was some sort of dance war going on behind the scenes of Yugioh’s card war, and it came up once and I guess Tea resolved it and the dance fights haven’t come back since.

Overall, if they did a dance with Tea, they would get kneed in the face, so that’s probably why they insist on doing cancans as a duet and not a trio.

After Joey and Tristan freak out over having no food, Tea decides to just start eating in front of them.

and like...didn’t Joey eat that food yesterday? Like last night? The short term memory loss on all these fools.

Immediately after this we realize something weird in the water. That’s right, it’s a massive head.

Yugi seems to have forgotten they lit this turtle on fire and electrocuted the entire sky the night before. Not that it mattered.

There were like...nesting birds on those trees on that island. What the hell? They just killed so MANY of those man-eating dogs that are flowers.

Seriously are land turtles allowed to just...dive underwater for long periods of time? How does that ecosystem even work? It’s like...That’s wild to think about.

Inside the temple, they have to fight a genie or something.

In case you were wondering, the only reason Tea and Grandpa got iced is because they were the closest to the door. The two who were actually standing out of harms way were the closest to harm the whole time.

Bro tells me this is also what will happen to you if you are in the front or the back of the party while playing Cthulu D&D

Anyway, Pharaoh decides to disclose that his big problem of feeling guilty all the time and taking all the blame, which he did all of last season...is still a huge problem he will probably never tackle.

Straight up, don’t be fooled by my caps, everyone else has completely forgotten about Alex, who is still running around that temple up there. They haven’t even asked Grandpa “hey is this your protege? Is this your mentee you never told us about?” Nah. They already forgot. 

How wild is it that Pharaoh thinks this is all his fault when he was the only one who was like “YUGI IT’S A TRAP DON’T GO IN THE- well...OK I guess we’re doing this, fine.” Is he upset he didn’t take control from Yugi and walk back to the plane? Because that’s the only way he could even be partially responsible, He was the only guy who was like “I see the end from the beginning on this y’all, and it’s the massive pyramid in India.”

Speaking of forgetting, they came across this language Pharaoh has decided to have nothing to do with.

This was actually a riddle and it was like...it was a riddle, sure, I guess.

And so Joey Wheeler does not hallucinate his dead wife from a previous incarnation and get on the back of his Baby Dragon to sail away into the sunset. Instead they’re just gonna walk.

Too bad Tea’s orb covered in wings only seems to hover a bit. Every single wing on that weird orb is absolutely useless.

And then Pharaoh’s pokemon is just a fire--which is hard to sit on--and Celtic Guardian...who would allow it, sure, but probably doesn’t fly (I think. He might fly)

And then Tristan’s Pokemon kinda seems like if you sit on it, you will get electrocuted. It can probably fly though. It’s very round. Seems like an anime thing that the more round your mascot character is, the more likely it can at least bounce a good distance.

So, next time, I’m just going to assume that we are going to do even more camping. And youknow, if you told me exactly HOW MUCH CAMPING was in this card game show with super future tech, I would not have believed you. But like...a lot of this series is set in the woods right? Like a lot a lot? I have grown to appreciate the woods.

Anyway, as always, if you just got here, this is a link to read these in chrono order:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

See you next time!

[lovemesomesurveys]

**Blue Survey**

💙 What are three things you like that are blue? : The ocean, blue raspberry slushies, blueberries in muffins or waffles.

😱 What are three things that have shocked you? : What I’ve been through this past month is a big one… hard to compare that right now.

🥶 What are three of your favorite ways to warm up when you're freezing cold? : Coffee, my electric blanket, a cozy fire.

😰 What is one sad song that you enjoy listening to? : I was an emo kid, forever will be. I like a lot of sad songs.

🦋 Do you like butterflies? : Nooo. I’m scared off all bugs.

🧢 Do you ever wear baseball caps? : Yeah.

🐟 What do you think is a good name for a fish? : Depends on their look.

🐠 Have your ever taken swimming lessons? : No.

🐬 Would you ever want to swim with dolphins? : No. I can’t swim for one and I’m a scaredy-cat.

📚 Do you prefer to read fiction or non-fiction? : Fiction.

🚙 Have you ever driven a blue car? : No. I don’t drive at all.

🐳 Name three things you associate with water.: Hydration, ocean, rain.

🥏 Have you ever played frisbee?: Yeah.

👥 If you have a significant other, what is his/her name? : I don’t.

🦕 Do you believe that dinosaurs are extinct, or do you think they actually exist still and teachers/scientists are lying to us? : I think they’re definitely extinct.

🅿️ What are three things in your room that starts with a "P"? : Pens, pillows, plugs.

🔵 What is your favorite shade of blue? : Various shades

🏃‍♀️ Do you like to run? : No.

♿️ Have you ever had to use a wheelchair? : I do use a wheelchair. I’m a paraplegic.

👖 Do you prefer jeggings or skinny jeans?: Leggings over both

👮‍♀️ Have you ever been pulled over by a cop? : No.

🈳 What are three things you have done that you hope to never do again? : Ignore and neglect things I shouldn’t have and should have taken care of long ago but let my fear and stubbornness get in my way…, be in this situation, not take certain things for granted.

👤 Do you like to remain anonymous on the internet? : No, but of course I don’t share certain things for personal and safety reasons.

👕 Do you own any polo shirts? : Nope.

👔 What was the last formal or semi-formal event that you went to? : A wedding about 5 years ago.

🥣 When was the last time you ate cereal? : It’s been awhile.

🌐 Have you ever been to Disney's Epcot? : No, but I’d love to.

🔹 Name three things that the word "diamond" makes you think of.: Shiny, sparkly, jewels.

🌀 Do you like to draw swirly symbols?: Those were usually part of my random doodles.

🧞‍♂️ What are three things you would change about your life if you could?: I feel like I’ve answered this.

🧞‍♂️ What are three things you would change about your body if you could? : It would be healthy, I wouldn’t be so underweight. That’s all I care about.

🧵 Have you ever embroidered something?: Yeah.

🔷 What is your least favorite shade of blue? : I don’t have one.

🎽 Were you ever on a track team, and if so, what was your favorite part of track (sprinting, long distance running, pole vault, long jump, hurdles, etc.)? : No.

📘 What was your favorite subject in elementary school? : English.

🟦 Name someone you know who's favorite color is blue.: My mom. Well, one of her favorite colors.

🪣 Do you own a blue bucket? : No.

🫐 Do you like to eat blueberries by themselves, or do you only like them in things (such as blueberry bagels)? : Only mixed with things or flavored.

🏧 When was the last time you used an ATM machine? : It’s been yearssss.

🛋 What color is your living room couch? : Gray.

🪁 Have you ever flown a kite, and if yes, what did you think of it? : Not successfully. And I was over it pretty quickly anyway.

🛗 Have you ever been stuck in an elevator? : Nooo, thankfully. That’s a fear of mine.

🖌 What was the last thing you painted? : This cute little ceramic thing I bought for Easter decor.

🫂 Who was the last person who gave you a hug?: My mom.

🐋 Do you like to swim? : I can’t swim.

🚎 What are three things you like about going on vacation? : Going somewhere new and different and just checking it out. Chillin and relaxing, too.

🩱 Would you rather swim laps or tread water? : I can’t do either one.

🏳️‍⚧️ Name one person you know who identifies as transgender. : No one that I know of.

🏳️‍⚧️ Have you ever questioned your gender? : No.

👩🏿‍🔧 When was the last time you had to call a mechanic? : I never have.

👨‍🎤 Have you ever dyed your hair blue? : Nope.

🥿Do you own a pair of blue shoes? : I do not.

🫃Who's one person you know who is currently pregnant? : A family friend’s girlfriend.

🙆‍♂️ What is one song you like that has motions to it? : Uhhh.

🙋‍♂️ Do/did you often raise your hand in class in school? : I avoided it as much as possible.

💇‍♂️Do you need a haircut? : Uh, no. My hair is already really short.

👕 Are you wearing a blue shirt? : A blue gown.

🌎 Have you ever wished you'd been born on another planet? : Nah.

❄️ What is your favorite thing to do in the snow? : I don’t have much snow experience, sadly. I wish I could see it more. But it was nice the few times I have.

💧Do you drink enough water? : No, definitely not.

💦 Do you enjoy rainy days?: Love ‘em.

🌊 Have you ever swam in the ocean? : Nooo. I love being NEAR the ocean, not IN it. That sounds terrifying for someone who can’t swim and has a fear of deep water.

🧊 Have you ever slipped and fallen on the ice?: I’ve never been on the ice.

🛝 What were three of your favorite things to do at recess as a kid? : 4-square, hang with friends, eat my snacks lol.

🎣 Do you like to eat fish? : Ew, no.

⛹️‍♂️ Who's your favorite basketball star?: I don’t have one, not a sports fan at all.

🎭 What's your favorite musical? : Sweeny Todd.

✈️ Where was the last place you flew on a plane? : Disneyland.

💺 Have you ever flown first class? : No.

🛸 Do you want to see a flying saucer? : Uhh, I’m good.

⛴ What cruise ships have you been on? : None.

🗺 What are three countries you don't really have any interest in visiting? : Hmm.

💎 What pieces of jewelry are you wearing right now? : None.

🧿 Do you like to play Uno? : Yes. I’ve actually been thinking about that and wanting to play.

🩻 What was the last x-ray you had? : Just had one earlier on my lungs.

📫 Have you ever watched Blue's Clues? : Yeah.

💤 Do you like to sleep? : Yes. Especially these days.

Ⓜ️ What are three things you like that start with an "M"?: M&M’s, movies, Marvel.

💠 Do you like to make lists? : I do.

🔠 Did you go to morning or afternoon kindergarten? : Morning.

🆓 What is one thing you've gotten for free on your birthday? : Coffee, food.

🇬🇷 Have you ever been to Greece? : No, I wish.

🇬🇷 Do you like Greek yogurt? : Not a yogurt fan.

And last but not least...did you like this survey? : Sure.

💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙

I hope you have a magnificent day! 😇

[frankendykes-monster]

Space Jam: A New Legacy is content to be content.

The original Space Jam was a calculated marketing exercise. Michael Jordan was the biggest sports star of the nineties, and Space Jam capitalised on Jordan’s brand potential while also allowing the athlete to refashion his own narrative into a family-friendly mythology. Space Jam packaged Jordan for a generation, smoothing the wrinkles out of his story by presenting a wholesome family man making an earnest transition from basketball to baseball.

It also helped Warner Bros. to figure out what to do with their Looney Tunes characters, which had largely laid dormant within the company’s intellectual property vaults. There had been a conscious effort to revitalised the company’s animation with shows like Tiny Toon Adventures and even Animaniacs, but those classic and beloved cartoons were a merchandising opportunity waiting to happen. So the logic of the original Space Jam was clear, it was an excuse to tie together two potentially profitable strands of intellectual property.

Space Jam itself was something of an afterthought. The movie struggles to reach its ninety-minute runtime. It often feels like the production team have to utilise every scrap of film to reach that target, with extended riffs focusing on Bill Murray and Michael Jordan on the golf course and with a lot of the improvisation from the voice cast included in the finished film. The movie’s ending comes out of nowhere, and Space Jam struggles to hit many of the basic plot beats of a scrappy sports movie.

The movie itself was immaterial to the success of Space Jam as a concept. After all, the film only grossed $250m at the global box office, enough to scrape into the end of year top ten behind The Nutty Professor and Jerry Maguire. However, the film’s real success lay in merchandising, with the film generating between $4bn and $6bn in licensing and merchandising. Key to this was the success of the six-time platinum-certified soundtrack which remains the ninth highest-grossing soundtrack of all-time.

In some to trace a lot of modern Hollywood back to the original Space Jam. So much of how companies package and release modern media feels like an extension of that approach, the reduction of the actual film itself to nothing more than “content” that exists as a larger pool of marketable material. After all, the unspoken assumption underlying AT&T’s disastrous decision to send all of their blockbusters to HBO Max was the understanding that HBO Max itself was often packaged free with company’s internet. Movies would no longer be their own things, but just perks to be packaged and sold as part of larger deals.

In the decades since the release of Space Jam, the industry has become increasingly focused on the idea of packaging and repackaging intellectual property. It has become increasingly common for films to showcase multiple intellectual properties housed at the same studios. Simple crossovers like Alien vs. Predators or The Avengers now seem positively humble when compared to the smorgasbord of brand synergy on display in projects like The Emoji Movie or Ralph Breaks the Internet.

Interestingly, as Disney have steadily securing their intellectual property portfolio with additions like Pixar and Lucasfilm and Marvel Studios and 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros. have becoming increasingly bullish about showcasing the depth and breadth of their bench. The LEGO Movie imagines a wide range of properties consolidated under one brand. Ready Player One depicted a pop culture user space lost in nostalgia for properties and trinkets. However, those movies also managed to tell their own stories, even as they grappled with the weight of brand synergy pushing down on top of them.

Space Jam: A New Legacy has no such delusions. It understands that it does not exist as a story or as a feature film. Instead, it has distilled cinema down to a content-delivery mechanism. The plot of the movie finds basketball star LeBron James sucked into the “Serververse” and forced to ally with the Looney Tunes in order to play a basketball game with the fate of the world in the balance. However, while the original Space Jam ran a brisk and unfocused ninety minutes, A New Legacy extends itself to almost two hours. There is always more content to repackage and sell, after all.

A New Legacy slathers its cynicism in nostalgia, directly appealing to a generation of audiences who have convinced themselves that Space Jam was a good movie and a beloved childhood classic. A New Legacy is built around the understanding that the original Space Jam walked so that it might run, counting on the audience’s nostalgia for the original film to excuse a lot of its indulgences. After all, it would be a betrayal of the franchise if A New Legacy wasn’t a crash and vulgar cash-in. In many ways, A New Legacy does what most sequels aspire to do, scaling the original film’s ambitions aggressively upwards.

As with the original Space Jam, there is layer of irony to distract from the film’s clear purpose. In the original Space Jam, the villainous Swackhammer planned to abduct the Looney Tunes and force them to play at his themeparks. The implication was that the characters did not want to be sold into corporate servitude, stripped of their own identity and rendered as crass tools of unchecked capitalism. The irony of Space Jam lay in the fact that the entire movie was a variant on Swackhammer’s themepark and the Looney Tunes were dancing to that theme anyway as Daffy puckers up and kisses the Warner Bros. stamp on his own ass.

In A New Legacy, a sentient algorithm – Al G. Rhythm – is cast as the movie’s primary antagonist. The film gestures broadly at a satirical criticism of the modern film industry, with Al G. Rhythm shaping and warping the future of movie-making by suggesting things like computer-generating movie stars and producing a constant array of recycled intellectual property. A New Legacy recognises the machinations of Al G. Rhythm as unsettling and horrifying, with throwaway jokes about the theft of ideas and the violation of privacy, but the villain largely serves as a smokescreen to let the movie have its cake and eat it.

After all, A New Legacy revels in Al G. Rhythm’s plans. LeBron James is turned into an animated figure and dumped into classic Looney Tunes shorts like Rabbit Season and The Rabbit of Seville. The film understands that while the audience might be afraid of the algorithm, they also yearn for it. After all, it isn’t Al G. Rhythm who structures A New Legacy so that the film spends an extended sequence touring the company’s beloved intellectual properties.

A New Legacy is really just an investors’ day presentation that celebrates the sheer amount of content that Warner Bros. own. It’s not too difficult to imagine the film screened investors before the Discovery deal, as proof of just how many viable franchising opportunities existed within the copyright of the company itself. It’s a weird and unsettling showcase, in large part because it feels like that warning from Jurassic Park. The studio were so obsessed with whether they could do a thing that they never stopped to consider whether they should.

The film’s middle section includes a whirlwind tour of the properties owned by Warner Bros. After Bugs “plays the hits” with James, the two set off on an adventure to recover the other Looney Tunes from other beloved Warner Bros. properties. Some of these advertisements make sense: Daffy and Porky are living in the world of Superman: The Animated Series, while Lola seems to have found the Wonder Woman from the Bloodlines animated films. Others make much less sense in a movie aimed at kids, like the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote hiding in Mad Max: Fury Road or Yosemite Sam living in Casablanca.

Of course, it’s debatable how much of A New Legacy is aimed at kids, as compared to the kids of the nineties. Its target market seems to be kids in the late nineties who never grew up, because they never had to. Elmer Fudd and Sylvester are hiding out in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. Granny and Speedy have taken refuge in the opening scenes of The Matrix. While the original Space Jam featured odd pop cultural shoutouts to things like Pulp Fiction, at least that was somewhat contemporaneous.

To be fair, there is no art driving these choices. Many of these references serve to point the audience towards established properties. It is a sentient recommendation algorithm for HBO Max and a handy way of stoking audience interest in upcoming projects like The Matrix 4 (December 2021) or Furiosa (June 2023). It is a helpful reminder that Superman: The Animated Series has been remastered in high definition to stream on HBO Max. Foghorn Leghorn even rides a dragon from Game of Thrones to remind viewers that the show is streaming on HBO Max and that there are prequels coming.

It’s all very bizarre, but also strangely lifeless. The climax of the film finds the inevitable basketball game played in front of a crowd of familiar pop culture icons drawn from a wide range of sources: King Kong, The Iron Giant, Batman ’66, The Wizard of Oz, The Mask and many more. It feels very much like a surreal power play, a company showcasing the depth of its own vaults at a turbulent time in the industry. It leads to weird moments, like Al G. Rhythm even quoting Training Day, perhaps the film’s most unlikely draw from the “Warner Bros. Intellectual Property Vault.”

The most revealing aspect of the movie is its central conflict, with Al G. Rhythm cynically manipulating LeBron’s son Dom. Dom is convinced that his father doesn’t understand him, that his father is unable to see that his skill lies in video game coding rather than old-fashioned basketball. Rhythm is able to create a schism between father and son, using Dom’s code and his anger to attack and undermine LeBron James and the Looney Tunes. It’s a very broad and very archetypal story. There are no points for realising that Dom eventually comes around to his father and accepts that Rhythm is a villain.

However, it signals an interesting shift in these sorts of narratives. Traditionally, these sorts of generational conflicts played out between fathers and sons, with fathers presented as antagonistic and sons presented as heroic. The original Star Wars saga is built around Luke Skywalker trying to wrestle and grapple with his father Darth Vader. In Superman II, the eponymous superhero is forced to confront Zod, a representative of his father’s generation and the old world. Even in Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne is set against his surrogate father figure Ra’s Al Ghul.

The metaphor driving these sorts of stories was fairly simple and straightforward. Every generation needs to come into their own and take control of their own agency within the world. Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi ends with Darth Vader dead and Luke staring out into the wider universe. Times change, and each generation has an obligation to try to create a better world than the one left to them by their parents. In the conflict between parents and children, it has generally been children who have prevailed.

However, in recent years, the trend has swung back sharply. It’s notable that the villain in Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens is an errant child who doesn’t properly respect his parents, and that Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker ends with order restored when the protagonist takes the name of the beloved heroes of the older films. Shows like Star Trek: Picard are built around the idea that kids need their older generation of parents to swoop in and tell them how to properly live their lives.

A New Legacy is an interesting illustration of this trend. The movie ends with a reconciliation between LeBron and Dom, but it is very clearly on LeBron’s terms. Dom is manipulated and misled by sinister forces, and his father has to save him while realigning his moral compass. Father knows best. It demonstrates how the underlying logic of these stories has shifted in recent years, perhaps reflecting the understanding that perhaps the older generation won’t surrender the floor gracefully.

As with Ready Player One, there’s a monstrous Peter Pan quality to A New Legacy. It is a film about how the culture doesn’t have to change. It can be recycled and repurposed forever and ever and ever. At the end of Space Jam, Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny parted ways. There was an understanding that the two worlds existed apart from one another. However, A New Legacy ends with the collapse of these worlds into one another; the “Serververse” manifesting itself in the real world. As LeBron walks home, Bugs asks if he can move in.

Of course, with HBO Max subscription, the audience can take Bugs home anytime they want

[goldenraeofsun]

There is Only Try, Part II

Read Part I here!

A love spell - that’s right. Cas is under a fucking love spell.

And like an exquisitely-built house of cards, it all tumbles down. Soundless and devastating.

Dean’s heart skips a beat, and not in the fun way like when he found out that widow housewife was down for an open relationship. He stares at Cas, the blood draining from his face.

“Dean?”

“The love spell,” Dean says hoarsely.

“What about it?”

“You only think you love me because of a love spell.”

Cas throws him a bemused look. “Sometimes I don’t understand you at all. You were right there when Rowena said it wouldn’t affect me in the same way if I already harbored feelings for you. For a moment I was worried you’d -”

“No,” Dean interrupts, “but magic doesn’t affect you the same. None of this is real.”

“What.” From Cas’s tone, it isn’t a question.

“Rowena’s attack dog spell!” Dean explains wildly. “It killed that girl Rowena was trying to recruit for her coven, but when she hit you with it, you didn’t die.”

“Obviously,” Cas says, eyes narrowing as he tries to follow along with Dean’s logic.

“It only dug deeper into you.” Dean exhales, a complicated mixture of embarrassment, rage, and dread settling heavily in the pit of his stomach.

Cas purses his lips. “You’re being deliberately obtuse.”

Dean jerks back, stung. “You’re being… obtuse.”

Cas levels him a flat glare. “I started feeling this way years before we killed that last witch.”

“But what if it’s the spell making you think that? What if this is all because of the magic,” Dean starts, horror crashing down, “and I’m so fucking screwed when you’re back to yourself?”

“This is me,” Cas says, insulted.

“You don’t know that!”

“I actually do,” Cas protests, the faintest stirrings of anger creeping into his words. “This isn’t the spell, Dean.”

But Dean pushes away from the table, shaking his head. “No, no, no,” he repeats, hands balling into fists at his side. “Of course it’s the goddamn spell.” He shakes his head, feeling like the shittiest, lowest person on the planet. No fucking wonder it was too easy.

How messed-up in the head must Cas be to think he’s fallen for a human? For Dean?

Oh yeah, here’s everything Dean wanted right on a silver platter. It’s just, the last time he got a deal like that the little catch was his soul.

Dean’s too old to fall for this crap again.

He can’t look Cas in the face. “I’m gonna go check on Rowena,” he says gruffly.

Cas stands up. “I’ll come with you.”

Dean’s jaw clenches. He holds out a hand. “Don’t.”

Cas’s mouth sets in a hard line. “Despite my feelings for you, I am not yours to command. I will be going with you.”

Dean grunts acknowledgement, spinning on his heel for the door. It’s not like Dean has ever had any real say on Cas’s comings and goings - mostly goings nowadays.

Cas follows, his footsteps nearly silent on the Bunker’s floor.

Dean stomps down all the way down to the vault where they keep their most skeevy ingredients. He finds Sam and Rowena bent over a brass bowl. Their clothing is intact, thank god, but Rowena's hair has like three red curls out of place and her lipstick is smudged, so she’s the most mussed Dean’s ever seen her.

“You got the antidote to Cas’s little problem?” Dean asks brusquely, clomping down the stairs. He already feels claustrophobic surrounded by the windowless walls piled high with pickling jars and boxes spelled shut, never mind Cas boring holes into the back of his head.

Rowena looks up, blinking guilelessly at them. “Of course! It’s one of the most basic spells a witch can learn. I had it whipped up in a jiffy.”

“Then why didn’t you come get us?” Dean demands.

“I thought, while we had a little time, I might as well show Samuel some protection charms.” Rowena casts a sly look up at Sam. “He didn’t know any, the poor lamb. Totally unprepared. After all, you never know when the, ahem, mood will strike.”

Sam goes red in the face.

“Oh, gross.” Dean shudders.

Behind him Cas makes a wordless considering noise, which - Dean can’t think about right now.

Rowena’s gaze slips past Dean to Cas over his shoulder. “Are you ready?”

Cas steps forward, and Dean can practically feel the weight of Cas’s gaze on him. Dean doesn’t turn around; he can’t. He can’t look at Cas and know it’s the last time he’ll be seeing that half-exasperated, half-smitten expression on his face.

Rowena reaches behind the bowl and pinches a stoppered vial between her thumb and forefinger. She shakes it enticingly in Cas’s direction. “Bottoms up, dove.”

Gingerly, Cas steps forward to take it from her. He doesn’t make a move to drink it.

Dean huffs an irritated breath, his heart beating erratically in his chest at the look in Cas’s eye. “Go on,” he says through gritted teeth. “Take it.”

Cas purses his lips, fingers slipping on the cork.

“Christ,” Dean mutters, snatching it from Cas’s lax grip.

“Dean-” Sam starts reproachfully, but Dean ignores him as he opens the cure and thrusts it back in Cas’s direction.

Cas stares at the depths of the murky brownish substance, and Dean’s about to force it down Cas’s throat himself to get this torture over with when Cas finally swallows the potion.

They all watch him, Dean barely blinking not to miss anything.

“Well?” he asks as Cas just stands there, still as a statue.

Rowena waves her hand. “Revelio,” she barks, eyes flaring violet.

Nothing happens.

“The spell has been nullified,” Rowena announces smugly. “No need to pay me. Samuel has already seen to my… reimbursement.”

Dean scowls. “Again, gross.”

“Rowena -” Sam starts, casting an almost guilty look in Dean’s direction. “Stop.”

“Fine,” Rowena says airily, to Dean’s complete surprise. Maybe she’s not such a heinous bitch after all. “I’ve had my fun. It’s like taunting a small child - at some point it becomes all rather repetitive.”

Nope, still a bitch.

But before Dean can respond, Cas grasps him around the upper arm. “Don’t,” he murmurs.

“But she-”

“We need to talk,” Cas growls, almost herding him back up the stairs. “Sam can deal with Rowena.”

“Don’t worry, that part’s already happened, darlin’!” Rowena calls delightedly up to them.

“Hey,” Sam protests, but the next part gets cut off as Cas practically drags Dean back to his room.

In his room, Dean crosses his arms over his chest as Cas closes the door behind them. “What?” Dean says defensively. “If you’re looking for an apology - I’m sorry, okay? I know I fucked up.”

Cas huffs an impatient breath, shaking his head. “I understand our relationship is complicated, but I had hoped -” he breaks off. He leans against the door, keeping as much space as possible between him and Dean.

Unspoken message received, Dean falls heavily onto the edge of his bed, half-facing away from Cas. A riot of feelings he’d rather drink away are duking it out underneath his ribcage, but, in a burst of trademark Winchester forethought, he already finished off his bedroom emergency stash. “We don’t gotta talk about it, man,” he says to his hands.

“We clearly do,” Cas counters, eyeing him like Dean’s an easily spooked zoo animal, “if you don’t trust me enough to take me at my word.”

Dean raises his head. “What?”

Cas sighs. “I told you my feelings ran deeper than a simple love spell. I told you, I’ve admired you, cared about you, loved you since before we ever ran into that witch.”

Dean gapes up at him.

Cas meets his gaze squarely. “I love you, Dean. No spell is making me say it; it’s just me.” He inhales a swift breath. “But if you’ve changed your mind, if I’m not -” he pauses infinitesimally before soldiering on, “not what you want, you should tell me now. Before any more mistakes are made.”

Dean gets to his feet on shaky legs, very conscious of Cas’s apprehensive gaze watching him the whole time it takes him to cross his bedroom. He gets right up in Cas’s personal space, and clearly Cas has learned something because his eyes widen at Dean’s proximity.

Dean clears his throat. “I’m not good with words, Cas.”

Cas nods jerkily. “I know, and that’s fine.” He tries to take a step back, but there’s nowhere to go since he’s already backed himself up against the door.

“I don’t remember the last time I told someone I loved them to their face,” Dean says hesitantly, and it’s excruciating to say these things out loud. “Not Lisa. Not Bobby, or even Sam.” And before Cas can stumble right back out the door, Dean reaches for his hand. Dean’s palms feel gross and clammy, but Cas doesn’t seem to care, judging from the wonderful world of Disney look coming over his face. “So if you need that sort of thing, you’re angling to get with the wrong dude.”

Cas licks his lips, his fingers tightening around Dean’s. Slowly, he shakes his head. “A verbal confirmation, while nice, is not necessary.” He glances down at their clasped hands. “But hopefully, you’ll feel comfortable telling me someday.”

Dean shrugs. He won’t write it off completely, but he can’t start this… thing with Cas with any secrets.

“Until then,” Cas says, “I can see your soul. I just didn’t know how to read what you were feeling until now.”

Old Dean would’ve made some stupid quip about personal boundaries.

New and improved, loved Dean, is simply grateful Cas gets to use a cheat code for all the hard parts.

Cas makes the first move.

Breath hot and heavy against Dean’s lips, Cas grips the edges of Dean’s flannel, anchoring him to Cas’s front. His mouth is hungry as he kisses Dean, and Dean can’t help the way his hands reach up to tangle in Cas’s hair, dark and soft, and everything Dean’s ever dreamed of.

Cas makes a little wounded noise as Dean deepens the kiss, nipping at Cas’s bottom lip lightly. Cas’s hands slip under his shirt to grip his bare waist firmly, and Cas must run hotter than the average human because his touch is like fire against Dean’s skin.

Dean breaks away from Cas’s mouth to kiss at the hinge of his jaw, tonguing Cas’s pulse point as Cas gasps for air. He works the skin between his teeth, not enough to bruise or hurt, just enough to show Cas he means business.

Cas scrabbles for purchase against the door, grunting as he almost loses his footing.

“Why don’t we take this to the bed?” Dean murmurs.

“Are you sure?”

“If you are.” Dean licks his kiss-swollen lips. “You’ve done this before, right?”

Cas slowly shakes his head. “Not with a man.” Dean nods, already resigning himself to dealing with his thickening cock on his own, as Cas adds, “But I want to. With you.”

Dean narrows his eyes. “Your only time was with that reaper, right?”

Cas huffs. “In practice, yes. But I spent millennia watching humans copulate. There’s hardly a sex act or position that would surprise me by now.”

Dean grins. “That sounds like a challenge.”

Cas rolls his eyes. “You’re welcome to try,” he grumbles as Dean leads him towards his bed. “But for now, I’d like to bring you to orgasm with my mouth.”

Dean chokes. “You what?”

“I’ve given it a fair amount of thought,” Cas says as he methodically strips Dean of his flannel and shirt. “What I would do to your body if I had the chance. How I would use my knowledge of human anatomy and physiology to give you pleasure.”

“Fuck,” Dean rasps, transfixed by the sight of Cas’s sure hands working open his belt buckle. “Who knew you were such a kinky son of a bitch under that trench coat?”

“You would have known,” Cas points out, “if you’d ever bothered to ask.”

Dean chuckles breathlessly. “But that one time with the hooker - I could’ve spooked you with a strong breeze.”

Cas frowns in the middle of pulling Dean’s jeans and underwear down. “I didn’t want her. I want you.”

Fuck a holy oil molotov cocktail; Dean is going to combust just from that look on Cas’s face.

Dean steps out of his pants, frowning as he takes in Cas, still bundled up to the neck in suit and coat. “Looks like you’re overdressed, angel.”

Cas looks down at himself.

“Let me help,” Dean drawls, pushing Cas’s coat off first. He lets it fall to the floor in a puddle of tan fabric, quickly followed by Cas’s suit jacket. He captures Cas’s mouth in another kiss, blindly undoing the buttons of Cas’s shirt. He lets it flutter to the floor and yanks Cas’s undershirt over his head, laughing softly as Cas has a little trouble with the neck hole.

Cas surfaces, looking almost smite-y around the eyes. He crowds Dean up against the bed until the backs of his knees hit the mattress. “Lay down,” he orders quietly.

Dean complies, blushing furiously. He stares up at Cas, shirtless, belt buckle undone, pants unzipped. He can make out the slight bulge of Cas’s hard cock underneath the dark fabric.

Cas crawls over him, kissing him deeply, and Dean’s never been this turned on in his life. He yanks Cas’s pants the rest of the way off, grumbling as one leg gets caught around Cas’s ankle. Impatient, Cas shakes off the last of his clothing, and he’s gloriously bare, bent over Dean.

Cas slots his leg between Dean’s, his thigh lightly brushing against Dean’s hard cock, and Dean has to actively concentrate not to rut against Cas and shoot his load in thirty seconds flat. He groans as Cas applies a bit of pressure.

“Are you ready?” Cas rumbles.

“To die of blue balls?” Dean gripes.

Cas shoots him an unimpressed look before he shimmies down Dean’s body so his face is more in line with Dean’s crotch. Thank god Dean doesn’t need to memorize this for spank bank material; any recollection would hardly do it justice - the feel of Cas’s hot breath over his cock, the way Dean’s heartbeat is thundering with anticipation, the expression on Cas’s face like Dean is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

Cas actually licks his lips.

Goddamn, Cas hasn’t even really touched him yet, and Dean’s so fucking done.

Dean groans as Cas wraps his hand around him, his grip gentle but sure. He gives Dean a few experimental pumps, and Dean’s in serious danger of letting this all end too quickly.

“Slower,” he says through gritted teeth, “or I’m gonna come.”

Cas blinks. “Already?”

“Yes,” Dean says testily. “You’re hot, and I’ve jacked off to this exact scenario a bunch of times - so, yes, ‘already.’”

Far from looking disappointed, Cas’s expression turns distinctly smug as he sits back slightly on his haunches, slowing the pace of his hand to a crawl.

Breathing harshly through his nose, Dean grunts, “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Cas says at once. “I’ve witnessed plenty of premature ejaculations.”

“So reassuring.”

“Dean,” Cas says, leaning forward so they’re practically nose-to-nose, “If you’re really concerned about coming too soon, I can get you hard again.”

“Dude, I get that you have high expectations, but I’m not a teenager anymore,” Dean says. “I can get it up like max three times in a whole day, and, even then, that’s only with good pacing and a lot of time on my hands.”

“You misunderstand me,” Cas says, pressing a swift kiss to Dean’s mouth. “I wouldn’t leave your erections up to chance.”

As Dean stares up at him, uncomprehending, Cas’s eyes flare electric blue.

Oh shit.

“You can do that? Give me a,” Dean struggles for the right word, “grace boner?”

Cas winkles his nose in distaste, and that’s it; Dean will always call it a grace boner from now on. “It would be no different than manipulating your body’s physiology to speed up healing or render you unconscious.”

“Dude, we have to work on your dirty talk,” Dean says, grinning.

Cas rolls his eyes but ducks back down to get his hands back on Dean’s cock. Dean hisses at the contact, but Cas ignores him. Cas tightens his grip, one corner of his mouth quirking up as Dean’s hips jerk and twist in response.

Dean inhales sharply, his fingers twisting in the sheets, as Cas bends down lower to lick the head. The wet, slick touch is gone too soon, and Dean moans at the loss, “C’mon, Cas.”

Cas laves his tongue over Dean’s dick a few more times, slowly, savoring the taste like a fucking gourmand. Which - flattering, but also totally not what Dean needs right now. He squirms on the bed, trying to get more of Cas’s mouth on him.

Cas doesn’t give an inch. “Patience, love,” he murmurs, one hand splaying possessively over his abdomen.

“Christ,” Dean gasps as Cas licks a long stripe up his cock, root to tip. He gets one flash of brilliant blue eyes before Cas ducks his head, swallows Dean down, and sucks like his life depends on it.

“Fuck!” Dean’s hips buck violently, seeking more of that delicious heat, but Cas keeps him still with a hand that might as well have been made of iron. And, Jesus, if that not pinging all of Dean’s buttons. Dean groans as Cas gives a particularly hard pull.

Cas pulls off of him, licking his lips in a lewd display that sends every last blood cell Dean has left rushing south. “Are you alright?”

“Am I-?” Dean gasps incredulously. He laughs, breathy and not at all sounding like himself. “I’m good, buddy. I’m fucking awesome.”

Cas smiles. “I’m glad.”

Dean's response gets cut off with a low moan as Cas gets back to worshipping Dean's cock. Cas swirls his tongue around the head as his other hand reaches around to pump the shaft in time with the movements of his tongue.

Soon, far too fucking soon, Dean feels the telltale tingles of an oncoming orgasm.

A strangled “Cas-” is all the warning he can get out before he comes with a shout. It feels like Cas’s throat wrings every last drop from him, leaving him in a hazy euphoria.

Cas straightens, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and Dean has never seen anything hotter. “Was that satisfactory?” he asks, his voice raspy from the workout.

Dean gapes up at him. “Yeah.” He reaches for Cas’s hand, tugging him back down to the bed. “C’mere.”

Cas goes, a bemused expression on his face. “Like this,” Dean murmurs, positioning Cas on his back as Dean rolls to his side. He reaches down between them, wrapping his fingers around Cas’s cock. It’s been a while since he’s done it to someone else, but handjobs aren’t exactly rocket science.

Dean’s so used to studying Cas’s normally stoic face for signs of what he’s really thinking, it’s easy as pie to key into Cas’s tells now. He grins as Cas lets out a little surprised gasp, adding more pressure as Cas breathing speeds up. As Cas shakes apart, Dean kisses him through it.

Dean flops back, turning his head to watch Cas bask in his own post-orgasm afterglow.

“That was… very nice,” Cas says eventually.

“You bet your fucking ass it was nice,” Dean retorts. He bites his lip. “You really wanna do this? With me?”

“I love you,” Cas says simply. “Why wouldn’t I at least want to try?”

And when Cas puts it like that, Dean can’t find a single reason not to.