#this like franchise has helped me if I ever had a panic attack

[erodasfishtacos]

Digging A Deeper Hole || MLB ||

Prompt: Harry is going through a rough adjustment to his new life. At twenty-one, he was the face of a massive franchise, a father, and a husband with millions watching his every mood. He starts to feel it. Word Count: 7.8k Warnings: Depression, Anxiety, Angst - please keep in mind H is young here so he’s a bit more immature than one shots where he’s older. He’s still figuring stuff out

AUTHORS NOTES:

There is 5 more part to this up on patreon (17k words, a 25.1k fic overall)

I upload a piece of writing every 1-3 days (usually two) consistently// currently updating abo!roommates

All writings are accurately and always added to the organized folders in the collections feature

There are currently 300 + pieces available to read

It only cost $3USD —— thanks for any support and check me out here!

========================= Harry had the weight on the world on his shoulders.

The past year had been the best but most stressful time that he has ever had in his life.

He hadn’t had a break, it was go, go, go.

At the age of twenty-one, it felt like he had responsibilities that most people never had this amount of.

He had expectations from every side, especially from work, though it sounded like a dream to be the new face of Major League Baseball, to be the highest paid rookie to start, or the fact that he was a projected to be one of the best players of all time.

It came at a cost.

A really fucking big cost.

It took Harry a while to realize that he was experiencing some depression, the pressure of his coaches, the team, the public, and on top of that, he was navigating being newly married with a baby.

++

”Styles, get off the phone!” His assistant coach shouted from the field, he should be jogging onto the mound because practice was nearly over, and everyone was ready to head back to the hotels.

“Hold the fuck on!” Harry shouts back without looking up, waiting for the FaceTime call to connect, he had thought he had more time before they started up again.

Harry’s heart leaps when it connects, his perfect baby in the camera view, blowing raspberries between chewing on teether that looked like car keys, “Say ‘hi’ to your daddy!”

Easton is too little to quite comprehend the phone but he blinks in confusion at the screen before blowing another wet raspberry towards his father.

”Hi East, look at how handsome you look,” Harry croons, trying to memorize every little feature because he’s only going to be this small for a little while, “Your daddy misses you so much.”

YN pulls the phone to her face for a moment, “I took him on a walk around Central Park earlier today and he saw a group of pigeons. He squealed so loudly that they all flew away in a flock and he started giggling. I wish I would have gotten it on video.”

”He really does love the pigeons-“ Harry begins but is cut off.

”Styles, final warning. Get off your phone or I’m locking it up! Now,” The other coach yells, starting to actually get pissed, and Harry has to resist the urge to flip them off.

”H,” YN says knowingly, it was pretty common that he was getting yelled at, “Go practice.”

“I want to be home with you,” Harry frowns, he truly means it.

”I know,” YN agrees with kind understanding on her face, “Go kick some ass for us.”

++

He didn’t get to spend the time he wanted at home with his family, the away games caused him to panic, and he was starting to have anxiety attacks as he steps onto the private jet.

Harry was blowing YN’s phone up at any free moment he got, asking to FaceTime to see her and Easton, and YN had noticed how much more he was asking for reassurance, it was frequent.

++

”He’s sleepy. He just fed for almost an hour,” YN murmurs, tired herself and her eyes were heavy, it was undeniable that she had a lot on her plate with taking care of Easton by herself.

YN did see Anne once or twice a week but she was adamant that she did not need help raising her own baby, that she was fully capable of taking care of Easton by herself when Harry wasn’t home.

Easton was ten-months at this point, splayed on his mother’s chest with a milk-drunk little smile as he laid his small fist on her neck, easily starting to drift to sleep.

Harry feels a pang of disgusting, gnarly guilt and disappointment that he’s not there to lay in bed with them, and he felt like a piece of shit for sitting in this swanky hotel room by himself.

”Harry?” YN asks after he doesn’t respond, he was just watching the screen as his wife ran her fingers through Easton’s soft baby curls, silky smooth.

Harry swallows harshly to avoid the tears prickling, “I love you so much. You know that?”

YN smiles at him, soft and warm, “We love you so much. We miss you and cannot wait for you to get home. We both want so many cuddles with you.”

Harry’s jaw clenches, scrunching his nose, and feel the pit in his stomach get deeper, darker, rawer, and it felt overwhelming as he sat alone with his family on the other side of the country.

It felt suffocating that he wanted to go home but he couldn’t because he had a contract, a job, he had to provide, and he worked his whole life to be where he’s at.

He’s in a position that billions would want to be in but all he can think about is being with his family, he would give up everything he’d ever accomplished to cuddle with them every night.

But he couldn’t, deep down, he knew that it was his emotions getting the best of him, and it’s disappointing that he’s not enjoying baseball like he thought he would right now.

“I…I’m sorry,” Harry sniffles, rubbing his eye roughly to catch the tears before they fall any further.

YN’s smile falls which makes him feel even worse, “Baby, what’s wrong? Why are you apologizing?”

”I’m not there to help you,” Harry presses his face into his forearm to try to stop the tears, “I’m just sittin’ here in a hotel room, I’m fuckin’ useless to you.”

”Hey,” YN says firmly, lips going into a straight line, “Harry, you are not useless. How could you think that? You’re providing for us. You make it possible for me to stay at home, in this beautiful home, with everything we’d ever need, and spend every moment with Easton. That’s because of you.”

It makes Harry feel a bit better, that perspective on the situation because he hadn’t looked at it like that, “I’ll always provide for you two.”

”You’re the best provider. We love you so much. We are so proud of you. Easton is going to be so so proud of his daddy and what a good man you are to us,” YN tells him confidently, thter’s no wavering in her voice as she watches Harry’s reaction.

Harry hangs his head, done trying to stop the tears, he didn’t feel good.

He had felt depression a few times in his life, the most when he was going through his struggles with his sexuality, and it was starting to feel like that again.

”Harry,” YN’s voice is soft, careful, “Are you okay, baby? What made you so upset?”

Harry wipes his face with the back of his hand, he didn’t want to worry YN.

She had so much on her plate right now that the last thing she needed to worry about was his mental health because he needed to pull it together and stop being so emotional.

”I just miss you,” Harry tells her, it wasn’t a lie but it really wasn’t the full truth, there was so much more to it than what he was letting on but he could handle it on his own.

Lord knows he had enough time while he was sitting in this hotel room alone or had a flight on the private jet.

++

Harry felt like a car ran him over, twice, and then backed up over him.

He did as good as everyone expected him to do during the games in San Diego, he won all three of the games with too many strikeouts to count, and two home runs to get them scores.

Harry was able to shut his mind off during the games, all he was thinking about was his job, and what he needed to do to make sure that they won the games - that was it.

Afterwards, the creeping feelings that had been haunting him especially hard this past month or so wouldn’t wait very long to pop up again after the games.

He started demanding a flight home the night of the last game, everyone else always waited until the next day because traveling right after playing was near torture with the exhaustion.

Harry felt like death as he landed in New York City, his bones were heavy as if they weighed a thousand pounds each, his arm was sore from how many pitches he had to throw, and he hadn’t been sleeping well when he was away from YN and the baby.

His heart was a bit lighter as he opened the front door to their home, the smell of his favorite brownies hitting his nose, and a peel of bubbly, angelic baby giggles echoed through the hallway.

Harry needed to see them, he dropped his bag and didn’t care that his cologne bottle most likely just shattered inside because of how careless he was being.

No, he was making his way toward the smell and sounds, and when he found what he waas looking for - his stomach untwisted just the slightest and everything didn’t seem so bleak for a moment.

YN turns around, having been alerted to his entrance by his bag dropping, Easton was on her hip and had a spatula in his hand, gnawing on it happily.

”Who is that, East?” YN bounces him up and down, “Is that your daddy?”

Harry wants to cry tears of relief when Easton drops the spatula, letting it clatter onto the tile, and starts to cry.

He was the cutest little thing.

Whenever Harry got home from work, Easton would start to cry because he wanted him, and was sad like he just realized that he had been missing him all day and he was finally home with him.

”Oh my goodness,” YN hums as Easton wiggles, starting to reach out for him with grabbing hands, dramatic tears running down his face as his pouty bottom lip wobbles.

”No tears, bub,” Harry coos as he steps forward, taking Easton out of her arms, and giving him the biggest hug he can manage as he presses kisses to the side of his face, his hair, his nose, “I missed you so much. I hate being away from you, East, miss you every moment.”

YN is watching with a content smile, patiently waiting her turn as he blinks over at her, his voice still soft and raspy, “Hi mama.”

”Hi H,” YN whispers back, stepping forward to cup his jaw and bring their lips together in a kiss, her thumb rubbing the stubble of his jawline and her other squeezing his hip, “I missed you.”

Harry hates that he feels the lump in his throat, “I fuckin’ missed you so much. I can’t explain how much I hate being away from you and him. I am so grateful that you’re so good to me and East. You know that?”

One of YN’s love languages was definitely words of affirmation so to hear such nice compliments really did mean a lot to her because she didn’t always feel the most secure either.

It was a lot to have her husband traveling all the time, where if he wanted, there would be unlimited opportunities for him to make bad choices because there was not a shortage of men and women who would bed him without a second thought.

YN had complete and utter trust in him.

It wasn’t ever a real concern but when Harry was as gorgeous as he was, it was hard not to feel a bit of insecurity when people often let it be known how much they found him attractive.

”Thank you, H,” YN brings him in for another kiss, “Dinner is almost ready. Brownies are also baking in the oven. Easton was my little helper but was trying to get his chunky fingers in the raw batter which he had an attitude about when I told him ‘no’.”

”You better listen to your mama,” Harry hums at his son, munching at his neck until Easton is giggling and pulling at his curls to keep him close, he loved his father so much, “Be nice to mama, Easton Robin.”

YN reaches forward, “Go get a shower. Settle in a little bit.”

Harry passes Easton back but frowns, “Darling, I can take him and manage. You have had him for the last week.”

YN waves him off, “I got him for a few minutes longer. Get showered, dressed, then we can eat dinner, and cuddle. Okay?”

”Sounds like a dream,” Harry replies because it really does, all that he wants is to be able to hold them in his arms, and start filling this hole that starts to eat away at him every time he has to leave.`

++

After Harry showers, he tugs on his briefs, and sits on the edge of the bed.

He doesn’t know how he fell asleep like that but it seemed to happen nearly as soon as he plopped down on the plush of their bed because he hadn’t slept in nearly twenty-four hours, after an exhausting game and seven hours of travel.

The next time he wakes up, it’s completely dark in the bedroom, and he blinks his eyes open to see the alarm clock reading that it was three in the morning.

YN was fast asleep on her side of the bed, baby monitor on the side table, and Easton was sleeping in his nursery on his back with a binky halfway out of his mouth.

Harry squeezes his eyes shut, putting his fists to them for a moment as he grits his teeth, “Fuck fuck fuck.”

He gets out of bed, not wanting to disturb YN, she looked so fucking pretty while she slept and Harry was in disbelief of what a fucking idiot he was.

YN not only watched Easton for the past week, she managed everything else for their household, made Harry dinner and dessert, all for him to fall asleep.

She needs a break from the baby, YN should have gotten one last night after all her hard work, and Harry just went and fell asleep like a bloody teenager with no responsibilities.

He grabs the baby monitor so that YN won’t be woken up, hoping that she will sleep in for as long as possible in the morning, and Harry can take on baby duties.

Harry’s plan was to clean the house, the least he could do as an apology but everything was near spotless thanks to his wife, and when he went into the kitchen to clean the dishes from dinner.

There were none, YN had put all the leftovers away, wrapped the brownies, and cleaned all the pots and pans - as well as all of Easton’s bottles.

”Fuck me,” Harry grunts as he resists the urge to hit something, instead slamming his fists on the countertop, and staring at nothing as he feels the deep hole become bigger, “Such a fuck-up.”

Harry doesn’t even know what he can do to repay her, to make it up to her, and the mixture of his anxiety and depression had to be the gnarliest combination because they were kicking his ass.

His anxiety starts taking over and an intrusive thought starts to pop into his brain and he can’t shake it.

What if she leaves you?

What if she doesn’t think you’re a good enough father?

She does all this for you and you treat her like shit the moment you come home?

You don’t deserve her.

Harry’s throat tightens up, it feels hard to breathe for a few minutes as he tries taking slow, deep inhales before repeating the process to help try to regulate his breathing.

He had to make this up to her.

++

Harry manages Easton by himself, that wasn’t an issue, and he was even able to run out to grab YN’s favorite donuts from a few blocks down before she was up.

Harry was currently in the living room, laying on the floor with Easton as he played with these soft, big blocks, and smiled at his father with only two little teeth showing on his bottom gums.

”Morning, well afternoon,” YN laughs as she looks at the clock on the wall, it was nearly twelve and she was able to catch up on all the sleep she desperately needs, “You didn’t need to let me sleep for that long, H. I appreciate it though, felt super nice to be able to get re-energized.”

”It’s the least I could do,” Harry replies, the enthusiasm that was usually in his voice was missing, and he struggled to meet her eye because he was embarassed.

YN knows something is off as she sits down next to them, scooping Easton up and tucking him under her big shirt where he can excitedly start to nurse - he very begrudgingly used a bottle but it was always a bit more difficult to get him to eat with one.

”Are you sure you’re okay?” YN frowns as she rubs his knee, “You seem down. Did something happen?”

”I’m a piece of shit,” Harry chuckles without humor, throwing his hands up, “Isn’t it obvious? I leave you at home with the baby and then the minute I get home, I fall asleep and don’t do shit to help you. On top of that, you made dinner and I didn’t even eat it.”

YN’s frown turns into more of a scowl, “Harry, what has you talking like this? Did someone say something to you? I don’t like when you talk like that. You were exhausted! You were just away for a week, training and playing, and have so much other than that going on. Do you really think that I’m mad about that?”

“I’m mad about how I acted because it effects you,” Harry grits back, his anxiety and depression had a tendency to make him cranky in a way that he normally wouldn’t be, “It’s no excuse. You get no excuses. I need to do better.”

”You need to stop talking like that,” YN retorts as she stares back at him with a twitch of her brow, “Everything is fine. We are fine. Nothing is wrong. This is how our life looks sometimes and that’s okay. You are doing this to take care of us.”

“It feels pretty fuckin’ selfish right now,” Harry shakes his head, standing up and trying to hide the wince from how achey his muscles were, he should do a cold plunge but he’s not going to take anymore time for himself - he dosn’t deserve it.

“How is it selfish?” YN is getting frustrated, her leg shaking slightly but then she stops when she realizes that it’s jostling Easton and he whines in displeasure.

”I get to get a full night’s sleep in a luxury hotel room, you’re here.”

YN scoffs, licking over her teeth, “Yeah, Harry. It’s a massive hardship, living in a three million dollar home in the middle of the Upper East Side. I think I’ll survive.”

“That’s not the fuckin’ point,” Harry cracks his neck, his anxiety made his heart rate feel like he was constantly running a marathon, it was hard for him to keep his composure.

”Don’t talk to me like that,” YN raises her voice, moving to get up with Easton still suckling away, “This isn’t how you show appreciation, Harry. I’m just trying to have a conversation and you have an attitude.”

Harry knows that he’s just going to continue to dig himself a deeper pit than he’s already in if he keeps talking.

Most of the time, he did not feel like like a twenty-one year old despite his boyish looks but right now, he felt like he was acting his age and it wasn’t a good thing.

”Why don’t you take Easton and see your mom today,” YN offers, her voice is still tight but trying to keep it cordial as she brings Easton out from under her shirt.

He was blinking languidly, his lips smacking in satisfaction as his belly was full, and YN hands him over to Harry to take, “Yeah, I’ll get him ready and go.”

It was a good opportunity to give YN a break but he was honestly a bit surprised that she took him up on it or that she didn’t want to come with because when Harry came home, they tried to stay together as much as possible.

He does know that he’s acting like a complete dickhead which makes sense why she wasn’t dying to spend time with him right night, still it was just odd because it’s unlike her.

”Sounds good,” YN pulls out her phone, looking down and fingers flitting across the screen which was also a bit odd, how she was a distracted by it because it was unlike her just like her letting him go alone.

God, Harry was making a fucking mess, wasn’t he? +++++++++++++++++

It stuck out like a sore thumb when Harry was off.

Normally, he was the most easy-going, bubbly, funny person who stole most of the attention when he wasn’t even trying.

It was how he captured everyone’s interest whether it was his big grin that had his dimples showing deep in the pockets of his cheeks, the way he threw his head back and let out these low raspy chuckles, or just how he nodded attentively when someone else was talking.

So when he wasn’t feeling like himself, all those things that lit up rooms disappeared, and it was hard for him to socialize.

Harry was still beating himself up the entire ride outside of the city to his mother’s house, Easton was napping in the back and this would be a nice sleep before the excitement of Nana’s house.

Harry was replaying everything with YN, from the way he was sharp with her to get short with her when she did absolutely nothing to deserve that from him because she was so fucking good to him - all the time.

YN never complained about anything.

She never complained about being at home with the baby alone.

YN never tied to guilt Harry because he was away during the season so much.

It makes it so much worse that he’s not able to hold his shit together even just for YN, he didn’t want her to worry about his mental health, that’s the last thing she needed on her plate.

He was going to figure this out himself.

It wasn’t that he didn’t feel like he couldn’t talk to her, it was more that he knew she cares so much that it might upset her or make her worry when he’s on the road, all he wants for her is to focus on Easton and herself.

Harry normally loves going up to his mom’s, a little lake house that he had bought her with one of his first paychecks, despite how much she huffed and puffed, he knew that it was a dream of hers to live on the water.

It was the least he could do after she did so much to make his dreams come true.

However, despite Harry getting a decent amount of sleep, he felt bone tired and just drained was the best way to explain it - he felt like all the energy that he normally feels has been sucked clean out of him.

He wanted to turn the car around, go home, crawl into bed with YN and Easton, and not have to interact with anyone else for at least a week but that wasn’t possible with his schedule.

Harry should be enjoying his time right now.

They have an off week which meant that he had nearly two and a half weeks at home because the following week were games at their home stadium so he could be home every night.

Harry just couldn’t wait for this season to be over.

And that thought alone alarmed him because he fucking loved baseball, he loved being the best of the best, he loved all the recognition he got but right now his desire was lower than it’s been in a really long time.

When he pulls down the long driveway, a house sat back off the residential road where she had neighbors but there was a good amount of distance between the them to give privacy and seclusion.

He sees that there are multiple cars in the driveway which makes Harry groan because he didn’t realize that his mom was going to call over friends and family since he was coming to visit.

Anne did that sometimes, when Harry called saying that he’d be up, she would call aunts, uncles, relatives, and close friends to come for a barbecue, and it was the last thing he wanted right now.

He was already a bit peeved that his mother didn’t ask him first because he would have very clearly told her that he wasn’t in the mood to entertain people, to answer questions, and talk about baseball for a good five hours.

When Harry opens the back door, Easton’s already awake and smiling at his father with a gummy smile, his two bottom baby teeth made him look so adorable but he knew that more were going to popping through soon.

”Hi, sweetheart,” Harry hums softly as he unbuckles his baby, bringing him up into his arms and into a hug, kissing his temple, “I love you so much, you know that? M’only away so that you have everythin’ you’d ever want. Miss you every second-“

A smack comes heartily on his back, right on his throwing shoulder where the soreness is radiating like a motherfucker, and he has to grit his teeth to not curse and startle Easton.

”Buddy, how much did this ride cost ya?” His Uncle Chuck, his mom’s brother asks obnoxiously, “Saw these things were going for a hundred and some change?”

Harry takes a deep breath, his patience was wearing thin, and he had barely made it out of the car, “I don’t remember how much it cost.”

“That’s what being rich gets you, huh? Twenty-one with a fat bank account and no responsibilities. I would have loved to have a life like yours,” Chuck chortles as he leans up against said expensive SUV, beer in his hand.

“I have plenty of fuckin’ responsibilities,” Harry bites back, scolding himself for cursing in from of Easton, even if he was too young to understand, he tried not to make it a habit.

“Sure you do, bud,” His uncle laughs, clearly not catching onto Harry’s mood, “Last thing I’d want is a baby with everything that you have going on. Growing up too fast.”

“Luckily, it’s not your life,” Harry brushes him off, picking up Easton’s diaper bag on his free shoulder and hikes him up, “We’ll be in soon. Give us a minute.”

His uncle shrugs before staggering off, a drunken sway in his step as he stumbles back towards the house.

Harry buries his nose in Easton’s downy, fresh smelling wispy curls to steady his breathing, he feels a bit emotional as he talks to his son.

“M’sorry, East. Daddy doesn’t feel good right now,” Harry swallows hard, squeezing his eyes shut, “I just have to pull it together. God, I love you. My baby.”

Harry gives himself another minute of grounding before taking a deep exhale and shutting the door, walking towards the house.

Everyone was on the back patio, sipping on drinks, and cheering when they saw him.

Dread settles heavy in Harry’s stomach as his family members as they start asking him about his games, wanting to recap every play he’s made, his sponsorships and his much he’s getting paid.

Harry’s trying to keep up the conversation but all he can think about is how much he didn’t want to be there, and he should have just taken Easton to the park or something more low-key.

When he bumps into his mom in the kitchen, Anne is prepping a salad and smiles back at her son - unaware of his mood.

“Isn’t this fun, hun?” Anne asks happily, sprinkling in some spices as she hums.

“Why couldn’t it have just been us? I have to be around people all the time and I thought it was just going to be you. Now I have to entertain all of them,” Harry’s tone definitely takes her aback as she puts down the tongs she was using.

“Usually you love when everyone’s here, I don’t understand,” Anne’s smile drops, wiping her hands on the dishrag.

“Does anybody ever consider that I don’t love talking about baseball every second of the day or how much money is in my bank account?” Harry’s tone is venomous and resentful, unfairly harsh on his mom when she hadn’t tried to upset him.

“Harr-“ Anne begins to apologize, albeit, a bit confused.

“Easton’s almost ready for a nap,” He cuts her off as he checks his watch, it didn’t really matter what time it was, he was done.

“My bedroom-“

“No, I’m going home,” Harry shakes his head, turning on his heel. He has the decency to look back and say, “Sorry, mom. I just can’t be here.”

Easton was currently being held by his Aunt Jane, he was starting to fuss because he had a bottle not too long ago and he was starting to get cranky.

“Alright, we’re going to head out. East needs his nap,” Harry announces, hiking on the diaper bag, and starting to walk over.

“Oh, we barely see him! Just a few more minutes with this little one. You can hold off his nap for a little!” His Aunt Jane jokingly holds him tighter for a minute and nothing right now is funny to Harry.

Harry doesn’t get loud but his voice gets steely as he reaches down and scoops Easton up from her lap, “Don’t tell me how to take care of my baby, understood?”

His poor aunt is taken aback, just like his mom, and nods.

Harry storms out without another glance back, ignoring the whispers about how odd he was acting and rude.

When he straps Easton in, the dark bubble in belly subsides for a moment- like sun breaking through storm clouds.

“Daaa,” Easton coos, happy but tired, tucking his binky back between his lips.

“Good job, baby,” Harry sniffles, blinking up towards the sky to keep the tears away, “Fuck, get it together.”

Harry had to pepper at least ten kisses on Easton’s warm, sleepy face before he’s able to close the door and get in the driver’s seat.

Harry presses on the console touch screen, calling YN, and he frowns when it goes straight to voicemail which was very unlike her.

He tries again.

Voicemail.

He pulls out his phone, trying to check her location, and it hasn’t updated in the past hour - it was just unusual for her phone to die, always on standby but he tries not to worry.

YN was probably still very pissed off at him, if he was to bet, she put her phone on ‘do not disturb’ so that she could take a well deserved nap and not be bothered.

Harry squeezes the steering wheel, reminding himself once again, “Pull yourself together.”

But in the back of his mind, an anxious thought pops in, well multiple.

What is YN is leaving you?

What if she’s sick of not having you around as much as other wives have their husbands?

First time you see her in a week and you treat her like shit. You really think she’ll stay?

Harry has never once thought like that, even when they’ve gotten in serious fights but god damn, he couldn’t stop his mind from going a million miles a minute, and it felt like shit.

Nothing was wrong.

Everything felt like it’s crumbling.

[thehelltingvilleclub]

Josh Levy - Teddy Bear with a Lightsaber

He's not fat.. okay he's fat AND he's big boned.

Joshua “Josh” Aaron Levy [05/04/80] Secretary of Science Fiction AOL / Online Users: [JediJunkies_80] Theme Songs: Science Fiction Double Feature - Me First and Gimmie Gimmies | Ghost - Mystery Skulls | Aliens Exist - blink-182

Favorite Shit: Star Trek, Star Wars, Dr. Who, Twilight Zone, Kaiju, Stargate SG-1 Battlestar Galactica, Klingon, Alternate Earths, Firefly, Planet of the Apes, 12” Action Figures, Torrent Sites, The X-Files, Babylon 5, Akira, Farscape, Boba Fett

Despite his (well earned) grievances, he still hangs around these fuckers cause he can't really seem to find solace anywhere else, even online spaces. He didn't expect to find any enjoyment out of going to tournaments with Jerry, but an excuse to get good city food and walk around the comic shops they were held in were enough in his book to keep him coming back. He even managed to find a space themed tabletop he likes to play, and... y'know.. maybe other reasons..

But we don't talk about him shit uh IT UH--

Never tell me the odds.

Oh Joshybear my beloved you poor antagonistic shitsmear.

His mom is in the hospital a lot more often or just straight up bed bound, which makes him kind of never want to leave his room out of guilt.

Yes, this dingus still blames himself for it, though it's not like his father helps with that.

Whenever he isn't holed up in his room, he's trying to drag somebody anybody out of the house to do something. Anything to get his mind off of stupid emotional shit--

He often goes with Jerry into the inner city when he has tournaments, especially when nobody else really wants to go. Sometimes he even covers Jerry bus fair or just borrows his mom's car.

However, this fucker HATES driving. It makes him the most anxious he's ever been his entire life. It is nothing like video games and it is nothing like the Millennium Falcon, that's for damn certain.

He also hates trying to park because he is deathly afraid of hitting the side of someone's car with the door.

Josh actually doesn't meet Matt at the same time as Jerry, surprisingly enough. Jerry introduces them when they bump into each other at the shop for a non-tournament related reason.

Josh nearly had a panic attack on the spot but it's fine

The moment he heard Matt had never seen the Star Wars films he nearly lost his mind.

This became the entire basis of Josh's attachment to the dude: "I have to show him the cinematic masterpiece that is this damn franchise."

And that's all it is. Mhmm. Totally. Don't ask why his hands are clammy and he's even more show-offy than normal whenever he's around. Don't.

please?

He works with his dad at their Synagogue as essentially a secretary and sound technician, but hey, it lets him write his fanfictions Reimaginings and scroll through blogs in peace, right?

And it keeps him out of his dad's hair and the house, so it's kind of a win-win-win.. win?

I love him

I want to eat him.

A DOUBLE POST???? HJGDSAJKHDKSJALHDLK You're welcome

Also don't worry guys, you'll get a WHOLE lot more info on Matt soon. He's not an affiliated member of the club and I didn't have many drawings of him (despite my.. excessive notes...) so I'm cranking them out as I post this.

NOW LOVE THE BIG MAN ON CAMPUS DAMNIT.

also hi I know his pants look weird shut up nothing else looked better.

[edward-munson]

trust you | anakin skywalker: episode V

Summary: You go on a mission with Cal... and Anakin. You have a task as a tech engineer, but dealing with General Grievous and his army of droids can be challenging. Ps: There's a character guest in this chapter, remember it doesn't follow the actual timeline of the franchise!!

No warnings, just vulgar language (a lot of it because it's a mission and they're all on the verge of flipping out lol)

Word count: 4.7k

*

(Y/N):

I'm not sure I even had the option to actually deny the offer Cal made. To be honest, he practically begged me and forced me to agree on going with him and his team to a trade with someone with a weird name.

Worst of it all, I had to be their tech guy for the mission. A mission led by none other than Anakin. I wish I could actually have had a choice, because I sure wasn't expecting to see his face this soon.

Especially after he literally threatened me the other day. I don't think I've ever felt this scared in my life. We all know the guy has a temper and he doesn't follow any rules. As much as we all hoped he would change through the years, it seems like it's getting worse instead.

Now I'm sitting next to Cal in his ship, while Artoo is on top of it. He seemed a little distressed, he doesn't show off his emotions a lot because he knows I get worried. But I know after what happened that day he's not getting along with Anakin.

I mean, who would at this point? He looks at you like he's about to rip your eyes out.

And I know Cal didn't want to look like he's only on this mission because of the team itself. He told me he didn't want to collaborate this time, which only made the Jedi Master walk around with a deadly look on his face.

But the redhead never felt intimidated by him in any way. Or at least he doesn't show it. As far as I know, we're heading to General Grievous' spaceship. I feel like I've heard this name before, but I can't collect it.

"So, what's the plan? Leaving me trapped in here with R2?" I ask as he maneuvers into outer pace, a concentrated look on his face as he does so.

He chuckles with dramatic concern. "You'll be looking out for us with commander Poe Dameron first" Cal explains as I nod. Who is Poe Dameron, by the way?

"He's a Jedi as well?" He shakes his head in response. "He's... not?"

Okay, that concerned me. I'm only used to being around force sensitive people, and being a human already scared me enough. Now, knowing I'm going to be around another human makes me wonder whatever happens if we get attacked.

"Nope, but he's a good Resistance's Starfighter Corps member. And a good pilot" He gives me a smile as he turns his head to face me. He can read my panic plastered all over my face and reaches out his hand to grab mine. "We're gonna need you there to break into their system".

So, we'll watch as the trade unfolds and hope for the best first. Do I agree with that? I didn't, but I had no choice but to help them.

"And if something happens, before he drops you there, he'll bring you back to Coruscant" Cal shoots his head back forward as we approach the starship.

Yeah, simple as that, right? If something happens, like, we'll just go back and live it out. Doesn't seem too tragic for me, I love the adrenaline.

Not.

We landed on a hangar, Cal preparing himself up before leaving me out here with only a Droid and a man named Poe. I hope this guy isn't a douchebag like Skywalker is, I won't be able to run away from him if I wanted to.

He gives me a small kiss on the forehead before leaving the ship, sending me a half smile before meeting the others already in formation. I watch as a brunette man walks towards from where the redhead just left and waves back to the others.

He has wavy dark hair, as well as dark brown eyes, and a stubble. Damn, this man looks fine as hell.

Poe steps in and sits down on the seat next to me, looking right up with a kind smile on his face. He finishes buckling himself before introducing himself to me, while I still glance at him like he just came out of a Disney movie.

"Hi, I'm Dameron. Well, Poe Dameron but they call me by my last name since I'm a commander" He explains, extending his hand for a greeting. I grip his hand for a few seconds before releasing.

Good handshake, firm and gentle. What am I even saying at this point?

"You're (Y/N), right?" I nod as he looks back at the panel, starting the ship.

"Yes, I am. It's nice to meet you" I say for the first time, feeling like I have never met anybody that gorgeous.

"Likewise. So, you're an engineer? You fix everything?" Poe asks, concentrating on lifting the flight.

"Well, mostly prosthetics and spacecraft. They're already too much to handle most of the time. But I can manage computers and systems as well"

"You were responsible for creating the robotic arm General Skywalker has?" He seems interested in what I do for my living and it kinda distracts me from the mission we were on.

I wish I could not hear this name on a daily basis.

"You know him?" I didn't mean to sound too surprised, but my voice gave it away anyway. "And not really, I usually fix it for him".

Yeah, and the last time I did it he almost got killed and that led to me almost getting killed as well.

"We've been out and about on a few assignments. I'm mostly doing tasks for the Resistance, leading attacks and all that" He sets the ship on standby as we watch from a distance while the group of Jedi gets in the Trade Federation Starship.

"Are you never scared of doing these dangerous jobs being human?" I ask out of curiosity, it gives me such a bad feeling being out for work like this.

He looks at me and grins. How can someone be so good looking like that? This is so distracting. "Kinda get used to it at some point, I chose this life".

I just nod and stare back at the distance. We both had comlink for communication, R2 looking out for any threats as well. I shuffle uncomfortably on my seat, desperate to be done with this mission. Poe notices my discomfort and rests a hand over my shoulder.

"You're going to be fine, they'll protect you at all costs and we'll be on full alert from afar. That's why we have other starships in position" He tries to comfort me and gives me a nod.

It doesn't change anything about this assignment, we all know how difficult they can be.

My sweaty hands grab my duffel bag and I look over the tools I brought with me. I hope this shitty idea works, because I can't be bothered to feel bad for failing their job.

A few minutes later, which seemed like hours, Cal spoke over the comlink and Poe promptly shifted the gears and flew back to the starship. As we land, I see him next to another General all while waiting for me. My nerves are on edge and I feel like I'm gonna fucking throw up.

Before I leave, Poe gives me a sympathetic look and offers a handshake. "May the Force be with you" He says kindly.

"May the Force be with you, commander" I force a smile that might have come out as a grimace and follow along with the other guys.

Cal stands next to me as we enter the enormous vessel, full of bodyguards and droids. He ignites his lightsaber and gets closer to my ear.

"We're close to the vents that lead to this small control room. We'll have to get into their system and gather as much information as we can" He whispers, walking me through a small hallway.

He and the other Jedi stop on their tracks and immediately drop both of the droids standing there. Cal turns on his heels and approaches me, handing me a blaster gun. One I was supposed to carry around but am too fucking scared to do it.

"You might wanna use it this time" He reaches out for a pocket knife strapped on his ankle and offers it to me as well. "I didn't say you'll have to. Just for self-defense".

He glances up at me with a tender look on his face. This man gives his life to protect me and I'd do the same if I could. I mean, I do but not the same way he does of course.

I just nod at everything he says and we look up at the vent. I'm not doing this alone, am I?

If I had a dollar for everytime he uses his force for mind reading, I would be such a rich person right now. "I'm going with you" He adds.

Getting in a vent with a duffel bag is probably one of the worst scenarios I never thought about. We were dragging our bodies while he tried to drag the bag without making much noise, but obviously not being very cautious with the tools, the gears and other objects in there. We get to the room, me behind Cal as he shoots his blaster against the soldiers. I can't feel my legs at this point, and it's not even because we're in such a small space.

He drops on his feet first, glancing around the room, before looking up at me. He shoots both arms up, waiting for me to jump in as well. I don't know how I was able to pull a stunt like that since I'm afraid of heights. And I mean 8 feet is already too much for me. Cal grabs my hips and slowly puts me down, a large smile on his face.

"There you go, James Bond!" He mocks, arching his back as I swat him on the chest.

"Shut up, smartass" I can barely speak as I feel my voice falter from the stress and the adrenaline.

He walks over a large control panel, hundreds of different colored buttons and keys. They have pretty much a huge system for such a small room. I mean, if there's a bigger room then this is just a gist. First things first, I had to disable the security camera before someone came bursting into the door. I sit on the big chair and Cal leans against the desk next to me. I'm sure he has no idea what the hell I'm doing. I use a small device to hack into the system and quickly find the program to the security camera. 

They clearly need a better safety system, because it's too easy to get into their computer. Either that, or it's a trap. But I'd rather believe they're just that stupid. I turn off the cameras, both of us making sure they're all shut down.

Next, I type in a few things on the keyboard, trying to find what exactly they need. Cal uses his pointer finger to make sure he's looking for the right folder, carefully reading every single word on the screen. "We need strategies folders, every spacecraft and architecture project. List of trades and traders they use".

He said it like he was writing down a fucking grocery shopping list.

I try not to send him a glare or even look at him like I'm pissed. So I just go straight to the point. "Might as well just wipe out the entire computer, Kestis. This might take hours!".

"You can just add them to the device you have?" I swear to God, he can't be that serious.

"You're smart, Cal. Use your head. How big do you think these files are? They're all programs, it's a heavy stack of files" I start to get freaked out with the idea of being there for too long.

"Okay, right I'm sorry if I'm a newbie at technology" He adds dramatically. "Can you just drag the list and the strategies folders then?".

I move the mouse right away, bringing everything to my device, waiting for the system to calculate the estimated time. I can't help but tap my fingernails over the desk while I wait for it. Cal doesn't seem too worried like I am, as though he carries a very serious look on his face.

"We've been in for ten minutes. We probably still have a good half an hour left" He says, still leaning next to me, looking at the watch on his wrist.

"Considering this ship can blow up when we least expect it, I don't think it's good" I look at him like I'm not feeling well. He reaches my right arm and folds his big hand around it, giving it a light squeeze.

"We'll know before it happens, darling" Cal reassures me as his hand goes up and down on my arm in a comforting attempt.

Fifteen fucking minutes. I'm gonna throw myself off the ship. He uses his comlink to let the others know, which they all agree. For the first time, Anakin goes in the line and says he's trying to make a trade. It was all a set up as Cal explained.

The remaining seven minutes turned into a disaster, when a loud blast echoed through one of the hallways outside the room. Then an alarm went off and the lights switched to a dim green light. I just wish they won't turn off any other system before I can transfer everything, otherwise this would be just a waste of time and job. We looked at each other, he was gripping his lightsaber tightly waiting for something to happen, while I held the blaster just for the sake of it. There was another loud burst from a distance, the red head sprinted closer to me.

"Is everyone good?" He asked through the comlink, no one answered. "Damn it" He muttered.

"We need to get out of here before it gets worse!" I try to step in and figure out a way for us to get out. He didn't seem to listen. "Cal!".

"We're closing in on the ship. We noticed a few explosions around" Poe finally chimes in, but not with good news.

Why is it never good?

And then Skywalker called out again, this time shouting words I couldn't understand. I twist my head to the side and look at Cal with desperation.

"It's a code, they're attacking us" He immediately watched as I stood up from the chair. "Hey, look at me! I'm here, you're fine okay?".

Definitely far from being fine. He then proceeded to talk but I'm too busy being stunned to care about it. His voice started to get muffled and I felt like my vision was getting blurry. Is this even the right time to faint or have a panic attack? He shakes both of my arms calling out my name, and I slowly blink a few times before staring back at him.

"For fuck's sake, (Y/N/N). Listen to me" He then places his hands over my face, forcing me to look him in the eyes. "Please, listen. I need to go back there and help them. There's a digital lock on the door, they can't get through if you block it. They'll need to blow it up to get to you".

And you think it's hard for them to do it? That won't be enough.

Again, he furrows his brows and keeps holding my face. "Stop with the overthinking, I can hear it louder. Look, I'll manage it. I'll be back in no time, just wait for the files to finish and you wipe out the rest, fuck it. We don't care!"

I try to agree with the plan, but it was just too hard to keep up with everything. Before he turns on his back to leave the room, Poe speaks up again.

"There's a General lying on the floor, he seems to be injured. It's on Block D" He states before going off again.

This time, me and Cal share the same look. Now he seems more concerned than I do. I follow his gaze up the vent we came from, nudging himself up as he grips the edge literally vanishing. I call out to him, but he doesn't answer.

"Shit!" My hands are shaking so bad, I can't even type without missing the keys. "Shit, shit, shit".

Two minutes. Just give us two minutes and we're out. I hear a lot of grunting up on the room, the floor above me filled with noises and shuffling. The locked door starts pounding and I look straight ahead, fright starting to wash over my body.

"Poe" I have no fucking idea what I'm doing. "Are you there?".

"Definitely here, Miss. How are you holding up?" He asks.

"Do you see any of them? There's someone trying to break in and I don't know what I'm gonna do!" My heart is racing and it feels like I'm going to have a stroke in the middle of the room.

"Just talk to me, alright? How long until it's done?" His voice sounds comforting from the other side until he shouts. "R2! Not that guy, he's friendly!".

I have no idea what's going on outside but I try to shrug it off. "Two minutes! My hands are shaking so bad that I'm not sure I can shoot whoever comes in".

"Okay, not so bad" It takes him another second to keep talking. "I remember I learned a breathing technique, we're doing it together alright?".

I forget he's not next to me and I nod, but I feel like he got that anyway because he started counting and walking me through it. Breathe in and count to 4. Then count to 4 breathing out. Repeat.

"Now, hold your blaster up. Focus on anything as a target and breathe. When you inhale, you count one second and shoot. Don't wait, just shoot. If you miss it, just keep shooting" He explains, wasting his time giving me attention instead.

It makes me feel bad that someone has to do it when he could've been minding his own task. But I'm really appreciative either way. I don't know where the fuck Cal is.

"Don't forget to use anything for hiding and leverage. And please, don't forget to bring back the device" Nice one, Poe. Imagine being in danger like this and not even being able to remember one simple thing.

"Okay, thank you, commander" I breathe through my mouth and grasp the blaster.

Looking over the computer screen, I see that there's only forty seconds left and the door is about to burst open. At the same time, I hear Poe for the last time.

"We're sharing a beer when we land in Coruscant. I wanna learn some technology tricks" I barely have time to laugh as I watch the door sling open.

Okay, breathe. One. Shoot.

Shit.

I miss it by inches. From across the room, I look at Anakin giving me a snide stare as the blast just crossed past his shoulder. I gasp from the outcome and the sudden surprise, but he doesn't give me time to process everything as he shouts at me. His eyes are pure angriness and his shoulders are stiffened.

"Come on, I don't have all the time in the world!" Anakin waits by the door as I quickly set the system to wipe everything out and grab the device before we sprinted out of there.

We rushed with him behind me, there was a mess all over the place and the blaring alarm was deafening. I couldn't even aim while running, my hands were sweating and I was afraid of tripping on my foot. He kept dodging the attacks as well as blocking them from coming at me. This is the most attention I'm going to get from him and it's kinda funny given he hates me.

Anakin pulled a hand over my shoulder to guide me towards the hangar, my eyes shifting to take notice of what was incoming. I tried to at least shoot some of the droids but I was terrible at it.

"Grievous just left the hangar with an escape pod" Cal spoke up after a while and I let out a heavy and long exhale. "Knock down these fucking droids and hurry up!"

I didn't understand the seriousness in his voice, the Jedi Knight behind me still hasn't said a word yet and I have no idea what I'm actually doing at this point. Shooting at them and missing doesn't quite help knocking them down faster and I swear I can hear Anakin just groaning in frustration.

Out of nowhere my arm gets yanked back by a guard droid, pulling me over a room and wrapping its robotic arm around my neck. As if I was panicking already, this time I was pretty sure I was going to collapse. I tried to shove myself off from the tight grip, but it only made me flinch more.

"Drop your weapons, Master Skywalker" It said with their gun stuck to my temple.

I looked at him with such fright, my eyes were desperately crying for help. Anakin frowned, using his flesh hand to hold the lightsaber while the other one he used to pull back using his force.

"Let her go!" He screamed, bloodshot eyes and blue irises staring at the droid holding me. "I said let her fucking go!".

"I'm sorry, Master. We have a mission of our own to do" The droid said before managing to leave me unconscious on the floor.

Anakin:

Fuck. Shit. Motherfucker. Fucking cunt.

I kneel in front of her as she lies unconscious on the floor. She seems to be breathing, but I have no idea what this cocksucker did to her. I didn't expect my mission to be such a disastrous piece of shit. As she's still out, I look back at the droid that's staring at me with a puzzling look on its face.

I know how to read droids' faces and it's a gift from heaven. It's easy to trick them when I want.

"What did you do?" I shout and use my hands to shove it back with the force. I tap her face a few times, she doesn't even flinch. My voice barely comes out as a whisper to avoid the other droids to find me.

How much worse can it get?

I grab her, sliding my arms under her torso and lifting her up in a quick motion. At least she's easy to carry. Through my comlink, Cal starts getting riled up and spitting words like he was worried about something. And then I remember about their friendship.

Fuck me.

I try to ignore all the cursing through my ear, at the same time as I pull (Y/N) up on my shoulder, her body swinging as I run faster. I can't dodge all the attacks at once, but I maneuver myself avoiding getting us both killed. My lightsaber slashes them, knocking them down making it easier to get to the hangar.

"I have her, Kestis! Will you shut the fuck up now?" My voice screeches when I yell at him and my throat hurts.

"Why doesn't she answer her fucking comlink, then? Did you kill her, Skywalker?" His voice started to annoy me, my head was hurting from all the situation. I groan loud enough for him to listen.

"Yeah sure, I killed her and now I'm bringing her body myself because I'm just that smart. She's fucking unconscious, relax!"

And now he's just being even louder and insufferable.

Poe spoke up, his voice emerging like an angel sent from God. "Alright, guys. Let's just settle down, we're not at kindergarten".

I roll my eyes at his statement, rushing towards the hangar. The only ship in good shape was one of theirs, and Cal was standing in front of it. He was pacing around, hands on his hips, his forehead was creased and when he saw us he bolted forward.

"What the fuck happened?" The redhead asked in dread, throwing his arms up.

"We don't have time for bickering right now, Cal. Just help me get her up inside!" I swear my head was going to explode anytime soon. "A droid pulled up some shit on her and she just blacked out".

Could've said it sooner, he would probably understand. He looks at me like he knows something, but I don't bother asking.

"It was probably a spell or something. We need to lay her down" He says sternly as we approach the back of the vehicle and drop her on a cushioned bench.

"This is not what I planned for this goddamn assignment!" I mumble before turning on my back to both of them, heading to the cockpit.

"Well she got the fucking device, you should be glad she could do it and not die either!" He spat back, his hands holding her feet as he props her on the bench.

I just turn away from him making my way to my seat, turning on the gears. Hopefully we'll be back sooner than I expect, I just want to take a long shower and be with Luke for a while.

"We're good to go?" Dameron asks, his voice in a relieved tone as he watches us leave the hangar.

"Yes, commander" I mirror his tone and fly off the starship.

My mind eases as we leave it behind, I feel my hands grip the yoke from the ship tight. We didn't get to do the trade, Grievous noticed our plan way before we could get ahead of them. They attacked us in a matter of seconds, bolting at us with no time to figure out an escaping route.

This one mission is hours away from Coruscant, so it was going to be a pain in the ass to sit this close to Kestis. The moment I realized I had to be next to him it just made me pissed. I don't care about (Y/N) on the back, she tried to help and she barely knows how to blast a gun.

I won't complain about how Cal helped the team out there, as a matter of fact. But I still can't stand seeing his face, considering we just confronted each other the other day. The guy always means good to people, but it doesn't stop me from hating his guts after what he pulled on me during our meetings.

Almost two hours after we left Grievous' ship, we were almost entering the Coruscant atmosphere. That was when she finally woke, a grunt escaping from her lips as she finally took in where she was. Cal helps her lean against the wall, while she places a hand over her head.

"Holy shit" That's her first words after waking up. She can't help but smile at the achievement she made.

I watch as she still keeps the smile on her face, pulling the device between her fingers and raising the object in front of her eyes. It took me seconds to notice I myself had a side smile against my will. The red head leans for a hug, both of them laughing.

I can't help but clear my throat before I regret doing this. "Uh- Good job out there, geek. The team is proud of you" I barely speak and the guy seems to remark that.

"What did you say? We can't hear it!" He says it out loud on purpose, and I feel my hands balling into fists. "Did you just compliment (Y/N/N)?"

"Don't push it, Kestis" My eyes roll to the back of my head, I push myself off the wall. "Good to see you're up".

They stare at my figure quite shocked, their faces almost the same as their mouths hanging open in such a surprise. I'm very aware that's the kind of effect I cause on people when I'm being nice, and I know I'm not really the golden boy of the year either.

But I can't just avoid the fact that, without her, we wouldn't have information about General Grievous and his army. Even though it didn't end how we expected it, that's a win after all.

Before I walk back to the cockpit, I hear her cracked voice speak up. Like she was embarrassed of talking to me. "Thank you for saving me out there".

My head nods before I turn on my heels, it almost feels like I've switched back to the young Anakin. Real smooth, Skywalker.

@jackie-on-the-loose @adorbzliz @himesuedi @kingdomhate @himesuedi @cl0esblogg

[survey--s]

619.

Did you get enough rest last night?  No, but that's my own fault because I knew I had to be up early and still decided to stay up on my phone until gone midnight lol.

What was the last thing that kept you awake?  The dog snoring.

If you have pets, do they sleep in your bedroom at night?  Archie does, but the cats stay downstairs at night otherwise they chase each other around like idiots over the bed at 3am.

Can you sleep with background noise or does it keep you up?  It depends - quiet talking is generally fine but I generally prefer silence or just the white noise of the fan.

Do you ever take naps? Do you take long naps or little power naps?  I only really take naps if I'm sick or have a really long day at work. They're normally less than an hour long.

What helps when you have trouble sleeping?  Watching random stuff online.

Who was the last person to cook you a meal? What did they make?  I honestly don't remember. Neither of us are really big cooks.

Who was the last person you cooked a meal for? What did you make?  Probably Mike when we had a roast dinner on Christmas Day lol.

Who is your female celeb crush? (If applicable)  I like Anne Hathaway and Amanda Seyfried. Also Meryl Streep in a weird, non-sexual way lol.

Who is your male celeb crush? (If applicable)  Johnny Depp.

Tell me about an interesting article you’ve read recently.  It wasn't an article really, but a story about a YouTube family who have been arrested for child abuse and neglect. It turns out loads of people (other family and viewers) have been trying to alert the authorities for years but nothing happened.

Do you have a favorite Marvel character?  I have no interest in supheroes.

Favorite DC character?  ...

Do you read comic books?  Nope.

Has a horror film ever actually scared you? Which one(s)?  Yeah, The Others really creeped me out the first time I watched it, hahah. I was underage though and decided it would be a good idea to watch it alone in the dark LOL.

What was the last horror movie you saw? I have no idea, it's not really my favourite genre.

What was the first horror movie you remember seeing? What did you think of it?  I don't remember. The Ring, maybe? I can't remember what I thought of it, it was over two decades ago now.

Name a few historical figures you find interesting. Why?  Nah, I don't have the energy for that right now lol.

What is your favorite historical film and why?  I don't enjoy historical films.

Do you usually enjoy historical films?  No.

Name a sequel film (any franchise) you like better than the first film. Why is that?  The later Harry Potter movies are all better than the first ones - with the exception of Goblet of Fire which is just awful, lol.

Which do you find most interesting: Greek, Roman, or Norse mythology? Why?  None of them, to be honest.

Which tale from whichever mythology you listed above do you find most interesting?  ----

Do you collect anything? What was the last item you added to that collection?  Jumpers and wax melts. I got some more wax melts a couple of weeks ago but I don't tend to buy new jumpers until about October-time each year.

Do you have any houseplants?  No.

How do you like your tea?  Milk with two sugars.

Who is your favorite Muppet?  I find the muppets incredibly annoying.

What is your favorite type of bird?  Penguins. < Yes. <--- same! Plus owls.

Which streaming platform do you use the most, if any?  Spotify, Netflix, YouTube, Prime. I use them all equally.

What is a skill or useful piece of knowledge you wish you’d learned sooner?  How to de-escalate a panic attack.

What is your favorite vampire movie?  None of them, lol. They're not really my cup of tea. I did watch the first two Twilight films but let's be fair, they were awful.

Your favorite fictional couple?  Monica and Chandler from Friends.

Do you have a favorite historical couple?  No.

Have you received any good news recently?  I wouldn't say it was GOOD news, but Mike is off work on Monday which makes my first day back at work a lot easier than it would have been otherwise, haha.

Have you learned anything new recently?  Nah, nothing's coming to mind anyway.

[lookanartdweeb]

I am very perfectly normal about the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise...

She says as she creates fanart for the franchise instead of working on portfolio pieces and also consumes and slurps every fact about the franchise like a piece of god damn spaghetti.....

[deathishauntedbyhumans]

i loved the hunger games novels as a kid.

as a middle schooler, those books felt so important. the revolution at hand, the boy and girl in love against all odds, against everything the world was throwing at them. the world-building spoke to me in a way that all of the books that felt important to me at that time did: it made me FEEL something. i loved it.

i was a dutiful fan. i was a part of facebook pages dedicated to the hunger games books, and then to the movies as they started to come out. i spoke to other fans thru those pages. i made friends in the fandom. i started writing fanfic before i really even know what fanfic was. i loved being a part of that space.

and then the third movie came out.

the hunger games, if you’ll remember, was split into four movies: the first two books had their own movies, and then the last book had two, a la harry potter. (bc every franchise desperately wanted, at the time, to be harry potter.) i watched the first two movies with bated breath, and would chitter away in my little fan spaces after seeing the depictions of my favourite series on a big screen. but the third movie…

i saw mockingjay part one in theatres, and i sat thru it with a slowly building emotion that i didn’t have a name for at the time. i was sixteen then, and something abt the dystopia being shown to me struck a different chord than reading abt the horrors that had, perhaps, been beyond my twelve-thirteen year old comprehension.

when the movie ended, i walked calmly out of the theatre, locked myself in a stall in the bathroom, and proceeded to have one of the worst panic attacks i had ever had at that point in my life. i very nearly threw up. i couldn’t stop thinking abt katniss, and the fear she’d been dealing with the entire movie, and the way she’d hyperventilated her way thru the film like she was running for her goddamn life. (say what you will abt jennifer lawrence, but sixteen year old me FELT that.) it resonated in some very primal part of my brain that i didn’t know how to place at the time. i still don’t, not really. but…

there’s something to be said abt a piece of media that evokes such strong feelings in the young people it was made for. it has been said time and time again, but i’ll reiterate it anyway: hunger games was a VERY formative piece of media, not only me, but for an entire generation of young people. it was a story about hope in the face of adversity, but more than that… it was a story abt ADVERSITY. it was a story that said ‘bad things happen. bad things happen, and they’ll keep happening, and while life might go on… it’s going to hurt.’ it didn’t lie to its audience. suzanne collins looked at the world, looked at the terrible, fucked up state of the world in the early 2010s, and said ‘i know it’s going to get worse, and these kids deserve to know it, too.’ i respect her immensely for that. especially now, in this day and age where everyone is trying to sanitise the experience that children have with the world… it’s refreshing, even if it became too much for me personally at the time.

i never watched the last movie. mockingjay part two came out a year later, and my appetite for the hunger games was no longer whet. however, i did move on to interact with other complex pieces of media, things that evoke complex feelings and emotions in me that i can handle and process in a way that is healthy. maybe someday i’ll revisit it, when i can look at the world and see good instead of the current climate of terrible thing after terrible thing beating down on our generation, and the generations following us. maybe i won’t. doesn’t change the fact that i owe the hunger games something for being one of the first pieces of media i had to interact with critically, for being a force to help teach me how powerful a book series, or a movie, can be.

[rainbowwing251]

Oh, curious for the headcanons for the Mario Bros!

I haven’t played too many of the games in the Super Mario Franchise, but I think I can do this!

But first, I would like to make this statement: I am very sorry for all of the Mario fans out there. Fire Emblem fans may have lost a localized Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, but Mario fans lost Super Mario 3D All-Stars (I have a digital copy of that game, by the way. I want to get back to playing it at some point), Super Mario Bros. 35 (which was a very fun game, in my opinion), the Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch, and the ability to upload your courses in Super Mario Maker on the Wii U (though I guess that was going to happen at some point).

Needless to say, you guys have lost a lot. I hope that these headcanons will make you feel a bit better!

Starting off with Mario, I think he would be a ler-leaning switch who is incredibly ticklish. He isn’t as sensitive as his brother is, but he’ll still break down in laughter if someone were to put their hands on one of his worst spots.

Before I begin the lee!Mario headcanons, I would like to make an announcement: Mario is canonically ticklish! This is shown in Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, and Mario & Luigi: Dream Team. There might be more, but for now, these are the games that Mario can get tickled in!

If you want to know how Mario can be tickled in these games, feel free to ask! I got this information from the Mario Wiki, and I would be more than happy to provide the links to the pages that I found all of this information on!

Now that I have gotten that out of the way, I’m going to list off Mario’s worst spots. Those spots are his sides, his knees, and his neck.

His often gets targeted by Luigi, Princess Peach, and Princess Daisy. All three of them love to sneak up on him and launch a surprise tickle attack. He’ll react as if he had just jumped into a pool of lava, and it’s one of the funniest things that you’ll ever see in your entire life.

He doesn’t squirm around or fight back all that much while he’s being tickled. He may prefer to be the ler, but he won’t get mad at his ler for making him laugh, especially if it’s Luigi. Mario seems like the kind of guy who would enjoy a good laugh every now and then, and tickling would definitely help out with that.

If his ler is Luigi, and if he gets in the mood to fight back against him, he will do so, but not out of anger. He’s not going to discourage his brother from tickling him. If anything, he’ll try to initiate a tickle fight so he can encourage his brother to fight back and turn the tables.

He is weak to teasing, but only if the teasing is coming from someone he knows. Don’t try to tease him if you are a stranger to him, he will hate it. A lot. Don’t tease him if you are anything like Bowser or Bowser Jr., either. He’ll hate it even more.

If he knows who you are, then you are more than welcome to tease him while you tickle him. He is especially weak to Peach and Luigi’s teasing. Something about Peach’s tone and the way that Luigi teases him just kills him on the spot.

Teasing is one of the few things that can make him blush. His blush will be a light pink color when you start tickling him, and it will gradually darken as you keep going. Teasing will speed up the darkening of his blush.

Mario’s lers are Luigi, Peach, and Daisy, as I mentioned earlier. The Toads will occasionally join in on the fun if they think he needs a good laugh. In Smash, the first three people in the previous list will continue to target him, but now, they are joined by Link, Ness, the Villagers, and the Inklings.

Let’s move on to ler!Mario headcanons. To me, Mario seems like the kind of ler that will tickle those who want or need to be cheered up. He will not tickle someone into hysterics (unless he is explicitly told to do so), and he will not overstep any boundaries.

His favorite way to tickle someone who’s has a particularly bad day is to lightly tickle their sides and the bottom of their ribcage to get quiet giggles out of them. He’ll keep it up until one of the following occurs:

His lee tells him to stop. He will always comply with this the request, even if he hasn’t been tickling that person for long.

His lee tells him to increase the intensity of the tickling. He’ll do his best to comply with this request without making it harder for his lee to breathe (unless he is explicitly told to tickle them until they are nearly breathless. He’ll hesitate to go through with this request, but he will eventually fulfill it).

His lee has been cheered up successfully. He’ll retract his hands as soon as his lee tells him that they are in a better mood, but if they tell him to keep going, he will comply.

Unless he is tickling Luigi, Mario will not initiate a tickle fight with anyone. He doesn’t know why, but the idea of getting into a tickle fight with anyone that isn’t his brother sounds unappealing to him (though he will occasionally make an exception).

The idea of teasing anyone who isn’t Luigi also sounds unappealing to him (but once again, he can make an exception), so unless you ask him, he won’t incorporate teasing into his tickling. If Luigi is the lee, then he will let loose a flurry of teases that are meant to make him laugh a little bit more than he already is.

Obviously, Luigi is his main lee, though he will go after Peach and Daisy from time to time. In Smash, Luigi is still his main lee, but he will also target the younger fighters. Out of all of them, Ness and the Inklings are the ones that will be targeted the most.

It’s Luigi time, now! He is definitely a lee in my mind.

I recently made a post about the most ticklish fighter for each Smash game, and how they would get into a tickle fight with one another. In that post, I said that couldn’t come up with an idea as to who the most ticklish fighter of Smash 64 would be. After thinking about it, I decided to give that title to Luigi. I hope the upcoming headcanons will make my reasoning clear.

Luigi is FAR more ticklish than his brother is. He’ll jump at the slightest of touches, regardless of whether or not the touch was intentional. He will squeak if you catch him off guard. He might fall over if you tickle his worst spots. And he secretly loves it all.

He doesn’t like to admit to it, but he enjoys being the lee due to the fact that he is getting attention. It’s not like anyone is intentionally ignoring him, but he definitely lives in his brother’s shadow for the most part. To him, tickling gives him the attention that he secretly craves, and it also gives him the satisfaction of making someone else smile, even if he’s the lee.

His worst spots are his underarms, his stomach, and his ears, but you could tickle him anywhere and he would laugh.

He is VERY squirmy! Seriously, he’s worse than both Pit and Shulk, and those two are even more ticklish than he is! If you pin his arms down to his sides, be careful while you are tickle him, because he could knock you down on accident due to his squirming.

Despite all of this, he won’t try to fight back, unless he’s in a tickle fight. If that’s the case, then he will try to get payback on his ler, even if it ends with him getting tickled to death.

Luigi can easily become overwhelmed by tickling, and he might become scared of you if you go too far with it, even if you didn’t mean to do so. This is another thing that you should take into consideration if you want to tickle him.

I probably should have said this earlier, but I can totally see Mario sending the Polterpup after Luigi if he sees him in a bad mood. I can also see him destroying his brother with tickles as payback for laughing at him at the end of Luigi’s Mansion.

Before I list off the names of his lers, I want to make one final lee!Luigi headcanon. Be warned, this headcanon will contain a spoiler for the plot of Luigi’s Mansion (and a possible spoiler for the plot of Luigi’s Mansion 3).

After the events of Luigi’s Mansion (and possibly Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon and Luigi’s Mansion 3), Luigi would therefore suffer from frequent panic attacks due to trauma. He became afraid of people sneaking up on him, and he fears that something will jump out at him at any given moment. He’s especially afraid of paintings after seeing Mario in one during the first Luigi’s Mansion and Luigi’s Mansion 3.

To help him recover from his trauma, Simon and Richter will tickle him after he makes a full recovery from a panic attack. Overtime, his anxiety will decrease as he begins to replace the terrifying thought of someone coming to harm him with a more positive image of being tickled by Simon and Richter. He hasn’t made a complete recovery just yet, but he is on the right path.

In his homeworld, Luigi’s main lers are Mario, Peach, and Daisy. In Smash, Simon and Richter will join those three, and they will all work together to help Luigi recover from his trauma.

As a ler, he is rather nervous. His nervousness can be compared to Pyra’s nervousness when she was getting used to the idea of tickling other people.

He’s always afraid of something going wrong while he tickles someone. He’s worried about his lee passing out, worried about digging his fingers a little too deeply into someone’s skin, and worried about his lee getting angry at him. Needless to say, he has a hard time with tickling other people, and he might leave his lee lying and waiting on the ground.

If this happens to you, you have two choices. You can either wait it out, or try to help him with calming down. You can even encourage him to tickle you. That way, he’ll know that you are comfortable with him, and he will regain the courage to tickle you.

He doesn’t like to tease his lees (even if his lee is Mario), but unlike his brother, it’s not caused by a lack of interest in teasing people who are not related to him. Instead, it’s due to the fact that he will make himself blush if he tries to tease his lee. He knows that people will take advantage of this weakness, so he won’t tease his lees.

Just like his brother, he won’t engage in tickle fights, unless they involve his brother. However, unlike Mario, he’ll stay away from tickle fights because he knows for a fact that he will likely lose the fight.

In his world, Mario and Daisy are his main lees. This is carried over into Smash, where Simon and Richter will join them (though Luigi tends to tickle them far less often).

And that’s that, I suppose. I’m a little nervous about posting this, but I’ll be brave and post it anyway.

P.S Is Luigi canonically ticklish? I have a feeling that he is, but I’m not entirely sure about that.

[buddaimond]

> Rob’s quotes in bold<

When Robert Pattinson signed on to play the antagonistic Dauphin of France in Netflix’s medieval epic “The King,” he knew it was a juicy role that would give him the pleasure of taunting Timothée Chalamet. Still, Pattinson hadn’t quite figured out his character until he saw hair-and-makeup photos of his co-star Lily-Rose Depp, who was cast as a royal ingénue.

“I was like, ‘I want to play a princess, too,’” Pattinson said.

The hairdresser capitulated by giving him long, honeyed locks, but Pattinson had one more surprise in store: On set, he unfurled a French accent so deliciously over the top that his scenes became charged with a camp jolt. At first, “I couldn’t quite tell, is this ridiculous?” Pattinson recalled. But after the first take, he found another co-star, Joel Edgerton, doubled over in laughter. “And then I thought, ‘I love this! This is the best.’”

There is little that Pattinson, 33, likes more than confounding expectations, and plenty were placed on him after the megahit “Twilight” franchise ended in 2012. Since then, he has reinvented himself as an auteur’s muse, eager to add his mischievous spirit and pop cultural frisson to art-house films by directors like Claire Denis, David Cronenberg, and the Safdie brothers.

His irreverent instincts get their most sustained showcase yet in “The Lighthouse,” a wild, darkly funny new film from Robert Eggers (“The Witch”) that pits Pattinson against Willem Dafoe as 19th-century lighthouse keepers who drink, spar, shout and even cuddle. The Nova Scotia shoot was arduous, and Pattinson’s unusual approach — to psyche himself up before takes, he would sometimes gag and hit himself in the face — often surprised Eggers and Dafoe.

Still, Pattinson found that tension to be helpful. “Even if it’s rage you’re feeling, it’s more interesting than boredom, because you can use rage,” Pattinson told me recently in a West Hollywood hotel, where “The Lighthouse” had just screened for awards voters.

After spending the last few years in independent films, Pattinson is planning another zig: He’s shooting “Tenet,” a big-budget summer movie for Christopher Nolan, and he was just cast as the lead in “The Batman,” a new take on the comic-book character due in 2021. “It’s an entirely different experience from the movies I’ve been doing,” the actor said. “Normally I shoot six weeks, and now it’s six months!”

Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.

Is it fair to say you’re drawn to eccentric characters?

I’ve always thought that the only reason you’d want to play a good guy all the time is because you’re desperately ashamed of what you’re doing in real life, whereas if you’re a pretty normal person, the most fun part of doing movies is that you can explore the more grotesque or naughty sides of your psyche in a somewhat safe environment. And it’s always more fun if you’re shocking the people in the room. If you end up being boring, that’s the lowest of the low.

Do you think you’ve been boring before?

All the time. You can bore yourself! On “The Lighthouse,” I’d do two out of 17 takes that work, and on the other ones, I’d roll the dice in a different direction that leads me nowhere. But it’s more fun doing that than making a plan and sticking to it.

What was the first day of shooting “The Lighthouse” like?

Well, my first shot was this ferocious masturbation scene. It’s always nice to do something massive for your opening shot, and I went really massive on the first take. It was a 180 from everything we’d done in rehearsal, and I could see Robert [Eggers] a little in shock afterward. But I was like, “O.K., cool, I didn’t get told to stop, so I’ll keep going in that direction.” As soon as I’d done that, it was like the road started getting paved.

Why did you feel like you couldn’t uncork that character in rehearsals?

I want to do it different every time, and if you rehearse it 30 times, you have to think of 30 different ways to do it — even if the first way is probably the best way. I just hate it when I do a second take exactly the same as the first take. They might as well fire me.

Doing it the same feels false to you?

It’s just boring! I mean, I’ve definitely seen actors who love rehearsing and are very good, so there’s got to be some benefit to it. But there’s something about that full commitment when you’re shooting, when it’s do or die, that allows you to be more free. Or maybe I’m just lazy and I can’t be bothered to do it until the day we shoot!

Did “The Lighthouse” strike you as a comedy at first?

I thought the script was hilarious when I read it, but I had a similar experience on “High Life” [a space drama about convicts sent to a black hole]. When Claire Denis and I watched that by ourselves, we were pissing our pants laughing — it’s insane, that movie. But at the premiere of “High Life,” there was this deadly silence as everyone watched it. I was like, “Oh God, no one’s seeing the absurdity of this.”

People just assume that if it’s an art-house film, it can’t be funny.

It made me worry that if people aren’t told that “The Lighthouse” is a comedy, they might not feel like they’re allowed to laugh at it. You know, I used to think that doing movies was almost like taking a test, and there was so much pressure to do it right, but I’ve now swung more over to the other side of things: It’s supposed to be really fun, and if you just play it that way, it’s more enjoyable and ends up in a good place. Having a laugh really changes everything.

You’re currently working on Christopher Nolan’s next film and you’ll begin shooting “Batman” soon. How does it feel to have traded art-house movies for big studio blockbusters?

I mean, “Dunkirk” is almost an art-house movie! Chris Nolan is literally the one director who can make an art-house movie for hundreds of millions of dollars, so it doesn’t really feel like a studio thing. With “Batman,” if I’d done it a few years ago, I would have been incredibly nervous, but I’ve still got a few months before we start shooting. Plenty of time to have a panic attack!

You were saying earlier that we should be skeptical of any actor who wants to play the hero, and yet here you are playing Batman.

Batman’s not a hero, though. He’s a complicated character. I don’t think I could ever play a real hero — there’s always got to be something a little bit wrong. I think it’s because one of my eyes is smaller than the other one.

What is it about Batman that excites you?

I love the director, Matt Reeves, and it’s a dope character. His morality is a little bit off. He’s not the golden boy, unlike almost every other comic-book character. There is a simplicity to his worldview, but where it sits is strange, which allows you to have more scope with the character.

You just paused.

I just fear that when I say anything about “Batman,” people online are like, “What does this mean?” And I don’t know! I used to be very good at censoring myself, but I’ve said so many ridiculous things over the years, so I’m always curious when I’m promoting these movies how many times I can mess up. It feels like with every movie that comes out, there’s always one quote from me where it’s like, “How? What kind of out-of-body experience produced that screaming nonsense?”

You’ve said that after you were cast as Batman, you anticipated a vitriolic reaction online.

Maybe I’m just used to abuse by now. At least I didn’t get death threats this time — that’s a plus! It’s funny that people are so very angry about “Twilight.” I never particularly understood it.

When an actor stars in a franchise that’s made for women, there are men who resent that: “My girlfriend likes him, so I don’t.”

They need to think about why they feel that way. Maybe it’s time for a deep soul-search: “Why do you fear what you don’t understand?” But yeah, it’s very strange. All the stuff with “Twilight” was strange. I used to walk down the street with no one recognizing me, and then that changed for four years.

Are you worried that by making big movies again, you may invite that scrutiny back into your life?

People don’t really mess with me in the same way now that I’m older. When I was younger, the paparazzi would be crazy to me — I’d be leaving a place, and people would be screaming abuse — but I can’t imagine it going back to that. Do people really care anymore? The gossip magazines have all kind of gone away, and everyone just puts their stuff on Instagram anyway.

Everyone but you.

Well, I’m old and boring. And I only have abs, like, two weeks a year.

[galacticbugman]

Colorado Fun! Summer 2019 Part 1: Prehistoric Adventures

Greetings from Colorado! It was sure a wild trek I took a few weeks ago. It was so cool to visit some of the old hot spots and the new places. This was a photo of me taken at one of my favorite Dinosaur Museums. This place is called the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center. It has a lot of cool things in it. It may be a small little place but it has quite the collection. Here I am behind a model of a Megalodon’s Jaws. These suckers got huge. They wouldn’t have to bite just to swallow you whole. I am so tiny compared to this set of Shark Chompers. It was kind of freaky yet cool. I got a lot of neat photos so lets get started. Just a warning you will be hearing and reading a lot of Jurassic Park related stuff in this posting. 

Okay so you know I can’t pass up a Jurassic Park post it is one of my favorite movies of all time. This one is at the same place as the Meg jaws. This poster I am next to is an authentic original Jurassic Park (1993) Poster. I have all the movies and now the original books. Jurassic Park has had a big impact on my life and I enjoy the whole series. The movies are great and the books are even better. I have been a big fan and no trip to a Dinosaur museum is never complete without some references to classic Dinosaur films from the Sliver Screen. Did you notice my clothes? I thought you did. Yep I wore my Jurassic Park button down and my Jurassic World Raptor shirt for this trek. I went all out and even wore my fossilized Shark Tooth Necklace. I always have a theme when I got to certain places or at least I try to. 

On the other side of the theater area they have another authentic poster from my favorite JP movie in the series. This is an original poster from The Lost World: Jurassic Park which came out in 1997. This was so cool to see posters from the two best Jurassic Park films ever created. I really enjoy finding Jurassic Park based things. I just crazy about stuff like this. I really enjoy the novels that Michael Crichton wrote back in the 90s as well as the movies. I like both types of media and I know that when this movie came out many fans of the book were pretty outraged by the movie not being like the book like we saw with the first movie which did follow pretty close to the book with a few plot differences and things. Jurassic Park for me is one thing I really enjoyed growing up with I have some of the Toys, a Jurassic Park bed sheet set, all of the movies that does include the Jurassic World stuff. I have the Lego Jurassic World Video Game for the Nintendo 3DS, I have played countless Jurassic Park games including the Rampage Edition, the NES Jurassic Park game, the SNES game, I have played the demo for Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis, I have played Jurassic Park Builder for Android, Jurassic World the Game, and Jurassic World: Alive. i even have the Jurassic Park: Danger board game. I am just a huge fan of this and have several shirts and things that I wear pretty often. I wasn’t able to watch the films until I was older. I was I was about ten or eleven when I was finally able to watch the films. Ever since I was able to watch them my mind was blown and I became an instant fan. Of course I did collect  the toys way before I saw the movies I have several that I might post in post of their own in a collection of my collectibles that I have collected over the years of being a huge fan of many things. Still a pretty cool find in one of the coolest museums on the planet. 

One of the coolest things about this museum is that they have the third Largest Tyrannosaurus-Rex. It used to be the second almost topping Sue; but in recent years there is another one that has been discovered to be even taller than Sue. Still this monster is one of my favorite dinosaurs and has always been my favorite since I was kid and it is one of my favorites in the Jurassic Park franchise. Tyrannosaurus-Rex was not really an active hunter but more of a scavenger. It’s teeth are kind of dulled out and only used for ripping and swallowing whole instead of chewing. What is the deal with the tiny little stubby arms you ask? It has been up for debate for years but some thing that they played a part in the mating ritual of this species but we are not too sure about that. It is just speculation which paleontology is all about. Still a fantastic and giant creature from the last Cretaceous period. 

 One of my favorite shark fossils is this one. This is an almost complete spinal region and skull of a shark. It maybe the only one in existence so far as we know. This is kind of a really interesting rarity. As we know Shark skeletons are made of cartilage and it often breaks down and deteriorates after a while but in this is one of those rare fossils of cartilage. It is kind of neat and this shark may looks small but it is pretty large. The photos don’t really do it justice than experiencing these fossils in person. Lets look at another cool fossil shall we. 

What is this weird creature? Is it an alien? Well it is from a time very different from our own. This is the Giant Ground Sloth and my brother and I saw this guy being put together on a display stand. This is one of the weirdest creatures. You may have heard of the Horse Apple or Bois De’ Arc tree. Well the horse apple was a favorite food of this species as well as the mammoths that lived here thousands of years ago. This one was pretty young and just a little taller than me. I am about 5′ 9″ and these guys could get up to ten foot tall so this guy was not even close to being done growing. This guy is kind of a weird dumpy animal but it is quite interesting to look at. It was kind of cool to see all kinds of extinct animals other than Dinosaurs. There was a bunch of neat stuff at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. 

As a huge Jurassic Park fan I couldn’t help but notice this skull hanging in the prehistoric wing of the museum. You may recognize it from Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. This guy is the Stygimoloch AKA Stiggy in Jurassic Park. Sorry to bust your bubble on these guys but they can’t actually ram each other or solid brick wall. These guys would shatter their skulls if they were to do that. These guys may have used their heads to amplify noise or to show off for the ladies. These guys are still pretty cool to look at. I saw this and was instantly familiar with it. Stiggy is one of my favorite Jurassic World Dinosaurs for the chaos at the auction scene when we was running about causing panic and confusion to buy Owen Grady some time. This was one of the coolest fossils in their collection. This is the first one of these I have seen in any museum collection. 

A cool battle scene between an Allosaurus and a Stegosaurus. You might think of a Stegosaurus to have a pretty good defense due to those big thick bony plates; however this is simply not the case. The plates are actually very thin and were possibly only used for mating purposes. This made the plates more like a blood filled cookie. Still they did have their famous weapon the Thagomizer which was used as a weapon and could really do some damage. I will never forget the scene in The Lost World: Jurassic Park when Sarah Harding gets attacked by the family heard after her camera messes up when she is photographing the baby causing it to sent of an alarm call. Stegosaurus is a huge dinosaur and will always be one of my favorites. Fun Fact: In the first Jurassic Park novel by Michael Crichton instead of using a sick triceratops like they did in the film it was actually a sick Stegosaurus that Dr. Harding was caring for when the Toyota Land Cruisers came up to that point on the tour. That was one of the biggest differences in media but the same thing was going on with both animals in both forms of media.   

A close up of a Stegosaurus Thagomizer. 

A cool Hadrosaur fossil that was also at the Denver Museum. They had a lot of cool fossils but I didn’t get a chance to photograph them all. There was just too much and so little time to see the whole museum but heck it was really cool to see some of the Jurassic Park superstars in this museum. Hardrosaurus was not in Jurassic Park but this was one of the first dinosaurs I ever learned about. These guys are also known as Duck-bills for their goofy looking mouths. Dinosaurs had some of the coolest features from weird headgear, to weird mouth shapes, to their wild arsenal of weapons. Even in the time of the dinosaurs biological warfare was very weird. 

A rather cool replica I got on the trip was this cast of a Raptor claw. I am a huge Raptor fan and adding one of these to my collection was really cool. My collection is now in a nice display cabinet with some of my Jurassic Park toys in the mix just to make it more interesting. Fossils are just one of my favorite things to collect and even though this is a fake it is still a nice edition to my educational collections and too I got it reminded me of Alan Grant’s Raptor Claw from Jurassic Park (1993) and I am a huge JP Raptor fan. I will be doing a top ten Jurassic Park Dinosaurs post soon to show you what my top 10 pics are after the trip photos. So stay tuned more animals and stuff to show you from Colorado as my Colorado trip review continues. 

[mysterylover123]

BNHA Rewatch Season 1 Episode 12 “All Might”

mysterylover123

Now to the climax for S1! I’m pretty sure this is the episode (or rather the moment) that made BNHA. The big scene from S1 that showed the world It was Here and the potential it had for the future.

All Might makes his dramatic entrance. I do love how much this series puts an emphasis on the importance, not just of physically saving people, but giving them reassurance that everything’s gonna be ok. The way he carries Aizawa here is very sweet (changed a bit from the manga, where it’s a little less delicate).

Tomura makes this speech that All Might confirms is just him bullshitting but is actually a really interesting notion. “Why do some people decide that some violence is heroic and others are villainous” is a line that pops into my head a lot when I’m watching other franchises. The whole “Protagonist centered morality” thing. It doesn’t really apply to BNHA that much, but there’s a lot of other narratives out there that could use a reality check in that regard. 

This shot looks like a selfie. Deku is the worst at keeping a secret. Carolina is one of all Might’s attacks i really like, because it’s kind of creative and unique. I love the little setup of the fight against Nomu - how they lay out the conditions, and All Might still works within them to pull out a win anyway. That’s BNHA for ya. 

Deku figuring out that All Might needs help...first time around I was waiting for Deku to do something appropriately climactic for the end of the season, and disappointed he didn’t get to. 

But what we do get is pretty striking. On the one hand, we see Deku’s strengths as a character, the inability to ignore someone in need, that burning desire to help that he tries to reason himself out of. On the other hand, he charges in with no plan, and thinks mostly about how much he still needs All Might to teach him, thinking more of his own needs than his mentor’s...this isn’t the moment for him to save his mentor. 

And look who’s pulling off his first Save to Win! Congratulations Kacchan, you did your first good deed in the entire series! While being a grump about it but still, thank you for saving Deku.  

And also being badass AF. Kacchan, Shoto and Kiri making their dramatic entrances. Shoto is just so good at ice stuff guys. Bakugou being smart and outwitting Kurogiri. They’re just too cool for school. (also this angle makes Kacchan look like he has breasts. He’s oddly androgynous sometimes). 

Tomura, of course, is not an idiot and recognizes this, telling Nomu to take Bakugou out so they can go home. I notice Todoroki gets this really panicked look on his face when they make that announcement (probably because Nomu is escaping his ice) but in my head it’s because he’s worried for Bakugo. Small Todobaku sideship here, ngl.  

And Tomura’s full speech on heroes and violence comes in. All Might seems to indicate he’s just trying this philosophy out for size; while I still do remember this speech and find it fascinating in the context of other stories, for Tomura it’s obviously not what he thinks. He doesn’t care. He’s a villain without an ideology. Which is a big part of the diff between him and Stain, which Deku notices. There’s a lot to unpack with Tomura now, isn’t there, the light of the most recent arc? I guess I’ll get to that when I get to it.

YSR is swelling. All Might is going to go beyond. It’s time. We’re here. Thinking about it, this fight feels like the Camino Ward fight in a slightly smaller format. (the whole arc is basically just Baby’s first Camino). There are similar lines, but one bit that sticks out to me is that All Might begins this fight thinking about how he’s a symbol, and in the Camino Fight thinks “I’m not doing this because I’m a symbol” or something like that. Character growth!

And now the bit that launched a thousand memes. For some reason, every YSR Goes with Everything Vid I see uses this specific scene, quotes from it, inserted with whatever it’s being paired with. I guess this is the moment everyone associates with YSR, even though it’s in a ton of episodes. But yes, this particular scene does feel like it captures the whole YSR spirit quite well. 

“Those aren’t just random punches either. They’re targeted. And everyone single one of them...is more than 100% of his power!” “You may have heard these words before, but I’ll so you what they really mean. Go beyond...plus ultraaaaaaaaa!!” (It’s basically the same ideas in the sub, but those are the specific words they used in the dub. They’ve become as much of a meme as YSR itself.)

And it’s so interesting as a way to beat the villain. It’s kind of both outwitting him and out-powering him. Like the appeal of FMA & DBZ combined. 

Basically this episode is amazing. I think I kind of breezed through the whole USJ arc in a day the first time, so it didn’t stick out to me. But on a rewatch it’s a real highly. Very focused on it’s one subject and absolutely astounding to watch and hear. YSR + Fight is always a win. This one always puts a smile on my face.

BKDK Corner

Save to win. Win to save. Katsuki saving Deku is such a quiet moment here, you don’t really notice it, but don’t think I didn’t notice that the first time Bakugou ever saved anyone in the series, it happened to be Deku (and vice versa). The important thing to remember here is that Deku is the one who most consistently brings out the best in Bakugou, as well as the worst.  

“Kacchan! People who aren’t as important because they’re not Kacchan!”  

Deku’s little yell of “Kacchan” is just a small preview of the Training camp Arc-era panic. Dude’s protective. And also loves taking any opportunity he can to gush as well. (And Bakugou refuses to be complimented for something he didn’t do. I kinda admire him too for that) Speaking of the training camp arc, I get some of those “responsible for All Might’s end” vibes from him here.

Holy crap Bakugou is thin. Curvier than half the girls. Anyway, Deku observing him as always.

And taking on the same poses in fear/awe.

Best Girl of the Ep: No new best girls this ep.

Ranker: Best YSR Uses

5. Deku vs Kacchan, Episode 7

4. The movie’s climax - Double Detroit Smash

3. Season 1 Episode 12 All Might vs Nomu

2. Season 1 Episode 2 Deku saving Kacchan

1. Season 2 Episode 10 - Shoto Todoroki Origin

[thefaultinourdefault-blog]

What's the first thing that somebody asks you when you come out to them? If anybody is reading this then you're probably thinking something along the lines of: "Are you sure?" "How do you know?" "When did you find out?" In which case, you're correct. And for me, those questions are always hard to answer because well, I don't think there was ever one specific moment that I knew. Instead, there were a million tiny mini-realizations covered by an intense wave of denial that just built up into another bigger realization. One of these mini-realizations happened at a very young age, Kindergarten to be exact.

So basically, I did the whole Kindergarten thing twice. This is because I switched school districts and my second Kindergarten had a stupid rule about birthdays that my first Kindergarten did not, and now because of it I've always been one of the oldest kids in my grade. For example, by the end of this summer I'll be 17, and around that time I'll also be starting my Junior year, as opposed to all my other 11th grade friends, who will be 17 when they start their Senior year. It's kind of sucky, but that's the education system.

In my first Kindergarten, I learned what a crush was from my teacher. This kid named Timothy would follow me around while singing the ABC's to get my attention. I found it annoying, so me being the tiny asshole I was, I told on him. My teacher just laughed and told me that he had a crush. Something about that made me annoyed by him even more. Now, looking back, I just feel bad for little Timothy. He just wanted some attention, so I figured I owed him a paragraph.

Later that year I told my mom that I had a crush on a boy that we'll call Buck. I didn't actually like him. Id never talked to him, nor did I have any interest to, but during show and tell he showed off his skateboard. I thought skateboards were pretty cool.

When I started my second Kindergarten, I became best friends with a girl that we'll call Clarissa. Like me, she was a huge fan of the High School Musical franchise (the most well put-together dcom series ever created to this day, in my opinion). She said that Troy was cute, so I said that he was too, but my favorite character was always Gabriella. I felt different, isolated almost, when talking to Clarissa about boys like Troy Bolton. I didn't know why, but it felt similar to being left out at play time. This lonely feeling was something that little me would have to get used to.

That year little me started to play church Basketball. (You know the kind where you get participation ribbons and tell Bible verses during half-time and shout "Do it for Jesus!" To get you all hyped up. I wish I was kidding.) Secretly, when I played I'd imagine that I was Troy Bolton and that Gabriella was in the audience, so I played to impress this imaginary Gabriella. It made me feel nice.

There was another boy on my basketball team who had a crush on me. (Not to brag, but I was quite the popular 6 year old. It's probably because I was an "older woman". I've heard that guys dig that.) We'll call him Oliver. For basketball practice everyday, my grandma would put my hair into pigtails, and every time my team would sit in a circle for a juice break, Oliver would come over and tug on my pigtails really hard. It was extremely annoying. When I went home one night, I told my grandma about Oliver pulling on my hair. She smiled and said "He has a crush on you. Boys are mean to the girls that they like." The next day I asked her not to put my hair in pigtails.

One day, my cousin Jane came over to my house to play. She was a year older than me, and so obviously in my Kindergarten mind, she was one of the wisest people in the world, and I just had to follow in her footsteps. She told me on this particular day that she had a crush on a boy from school. She then asked me if I had any crushes, and I wanted to be cool like her, so in that moment I decided that I would have a crush on a boy in my class that we'll call Will. I chose him because he was the only other kid in my class who got straight A's like me. Somehow, saying that I had a real-life crush made me feel less different, and this was something that I still didn't quite understand.

Now let's backtrack to a little detail that I left out, in my first Kindergarten, I had really bad separation anxiety. Every time that my mom would drop me off I'd have meltdowns that weren't just like any little kid meltdowns, but rather panic attacks. Sometimes I would hyperventilate, and then hyperventilating would trigger my asthma. It wasn't fun, and instead of helping me, my teachers would tell me to "just stop breathing that way". A year later, society slowly began telling me (at much too young of an age) to "just like boys". In hindsight, I've always been told to change things about myself that I couldn't control.

So for today's exit ticket, I want to flip the question around on anybody who might be reading this. When did you first realize that there was something about you that made you feel different? Whether it be your sexuality, gender identity, mental illness, learning disability, or anything else, I'd like to know.

Signing off,

~R

[transebs]

am i a "fake spider-man fan" if i didn't like far from home? like, i did not like it at all. it was so traumatizing to watch. it was so overwhelming and i had panic attacks watching it, and i've told my friend about this and she calls me a fake fan for not liking such a "great movie."

You're not ... man you must be living in some sad world bro if you think it makes you a 'fake spiderman fan' for not liking a movie ? And if someone told you this send them to me.

People are allowed to have their opinions, justified or not, it doesn't make you a 'fake fan' for not liking something.

And whilst were here fake fans don't exist. If you like something congrats you're a fan, you don't need to like (Or help even watch!) Any of the franchise. Being a fan means you like something, you don't necessarily need to have seen anything etc from said franchise to go 'I'm a fan of spiderman cause he has a cool suit. I haven't seen the movies tho' THATS TOTALLY COOL

You're allowed to like things fuck anyone who ever calls anyone a fake fan - if they are enjoying it then they're a fan, stop trying to police what others enjoy.

Anyway, no you're not a fake fan. It's totally cool to not like a part of a franchise.

[blueeyeswhitegarden]

Arc V Anniversary Day 4

Day Four: Who’s your favorite character(s)?

I have a lot of favorite characters in this series. I did a list of my top ten favorite characters a couple of years ago and I've wanted to make an updated version for ages, so I figured I'd finally do that here. I keep going back and forth on the order for the first half, but the top five characters are pretty much set. It's going to be long, so I'll put the rest of it under a cut.

10. Sora: My opinion on Sora has greatly changed over time. I initially wasn't too into him due to his smug/cocky attitude, as well as fans hyping him up a bit too much for my tastes right from his first duel. However, his growth in the Synchro arc really changed things around for me. His conflict over having to choose between being loyal to Academia and protecting his friends was really interesting. It showed just how brainwashed Sora was as a child soldier when he didn't see the problem with trading Yuzu for Serena. His friendships with Yuya and especially Yuzu were quite touching, which made the conflict more believable. Seeing him slowly but surely decide that protecting his friends was more important than Academia was really great and emotional. I loved that both Yuya and Yuzu helped Sora realize that staying loyal to Academia wasn't the right choice. Yuya made Sora realize the contradiction in his statement, but Yuzu helped to make him understand about how he was putting more people in danger by helping Academia. It was a nice touch that showed how important both friendships were to him. Sora calling Yuya his teacher during the Zarc battle was also quite emotional and more heartbreaking than I ever would have expected when Sora first appeared.

9. Gongenzaka: I didn't have a negative initial impression of Gongenzaka, but I thought he'd just be a useless supporting character. I was definitely wrong in that regard. I just love his personality. He's so deeply loyal to his friends, honorable and determined to duel in his own style. I also have a soft spot for tough/manly characters who are really big softies and that describes Gongenzaka pretty well. His duel with Yaiba early on in the series pretty much made me like Gongenzaka instantly, especially when he has such a unique deck. His friendship with Yuya is truly heartwarming and while it doesn't get focused on as much, I thought that his friendship with Yuzu was also quite sweet. They do come off as a group of childhood friends. Gongenzaka doing whatever he could to help Yuya, even if it meant putting himself in danger, was quite touching. It made Gongenzaka more likable and their connection more believable.

8. Reiji: I remember initially thinking that Reiji was going to be another Kaiba clone mainly due to how all of the information revealed about him prior to the start of Arc V sounded like a Kaiba checklist. If anything, Reiji is more like the polar opposite of Kaiba. He's calm, collected, isn't focused on defeating Yuya and rarely shows his emotions. The latter also makes him quite different to most of the other Arc V characters as well given that most of them make their emotions pretty clear as well. He's a morally gray character and his actions often made both the characters and the audience think that he was being cold or heartless. Reiji does care about other people of course, but the years of preparing the Lancers and the aftermath of his father abandoning him resulted in Reiji forcing himself to be calm and collected in order to stop Academia. I especially loved how Reiji became more emotional once he confronted Leo. He spent years preparing for this duel, was shown to be a calm and collected duelist and he still wasn't able to defeat Leo. Those moments were so powerful because Reiji's own emotional mask was starting to crack a bit and it wouldn't have worked if Reiji had lost before. His friendship with Yuya was also handled quite nicely. They both became friends out of mutual respect for each other and that was a different kind of dynamic for the main lead and rival too. Reiji is easily one of the more interesting rivals in the franchise for me.

7. Serena: I really like Serena's personality. Despite being at Academia all of her life, she still wanted to duel honorably against her opponents. Her reaction towards learning the truth about Academia also said a lot about her true nature. She was horrified to learn that the honorable school she wanted to desperately to duel for was really hurting innocent people. I especially loved that her development didn't drastically change her personality. She was still assertive, confident and eager to duel strong opponents, but that aggressive attitude was never considered a problem. I found that to be quite refreshing for a female character in particular. The only problem that came from her attitude was her struggle to enjoy dueling, which she was able to learn more about through her duel with Yugo. I do wish she could have had couple of more duels, especially when her deck is pretty cool, but I still liked her overall development and personality.

6. Dennis: I really like Dennis' storyline. Even though Arc V had two Academia spies in the cast, Sora and Dennis are drastically different from each other. Sora had his friendships with Yuya and Yuzu to help him turn against Academia, but Dennis didn't really have that. He cared about the other Lancers and said that the time they spent together was the most fun he had, but that wasn't enough for Dennis to  go against Academia's orders. Even though Dennis enjoyed performing so dearly, he still felt like he had no choice but to signal the Xyz invasion the moment he found Ruri. Dennis was too afraid to make a choice. He just opted to follow orders. That's also one reason why Dennis carding himself was such a shocking and powerful moment. Dennis was so afraid to make a choice and felt like he had no side where he could turn to, so it was just easier to card himself. Being that consumed by fear and self doubt made Dennis so much more likable and interesting than I thought he would be. Seeing Dennis be able to fully accept and embrace his true self was so wonderful too. Becoming an Entertainment Dueling teacher much like Yusho for the Xyz dimension offered him such great closure. It allowed both Dennis and Heartland itself to start the healing process from the dimensional war and move forward together.

5. Zarc: I'll be talking more about Zarc later on in the month, so I'll try to keep this part brief. Zarc turned out to be a much more interesting villain than I expected. I thought that he was going to be another typical overpowered final Yu-Gi-Oh! villain, but that changed the moment Crow asked him if he was that afraid of losing. Actually addressing a villain's overpowered cards doesn't happen too often, but this tied in nicely with Zarc's backstory. Much like Dennis, Zarc was consumed by fear, but in this case, he was afraid to lose. He was so focused on appealing to the crowd's desire for violent duels that he didn't want to lose. That desire combined with his anger, along with the anger of his dragons, resulted in the destruction of the original world. That was a far more personal and emotionally driven motivation than I thought we'd get from Zarc. Not to mention losing to Ray and being split apart intensified his fear, which resulted in Zarc’s deck being more defensive as he prepared for his rematch against Ray. I especially liked that Zarc wasn't just an evil version of Yuya. He was more of a dark reflection of what Yuya could have become, and nearly became again, if it wasn't for the support from Yuya's family and friends saving him from Zarc's control. Learning that Zarc wasn't completely evil and that he was at one point a good person like Yuya was really great. It fit nicely with Yuya accepting himself as Zarc, as well as the goal of making Reira smile to ease Zarc's evil heart. Zarc is easily one of my favorite villains in the franchise.

4. Reira: I never thought that I'd like Reira this much. I was worried that they were just going to be the little brother character who barely does anything beyond standing in the sidelines. Reira's backstory changed everything. That explained why they were so terrified at practically everything and were quite dependent on Reiji for emotional support. It was an intense twist and helped to make the relationship between Reiji and Reira more emotionally touching than I thought was going to be when they first appeared. I loved how Reira grew to be more confident over the course of the series, but it also didn't magically fix their trauma. Reira still had panic attacks, flashbacks to the war they were in before and was basically had moments where they were a scared little kid. Becoming a stronger person didn't make Reira unbreakable and I appreciated that. I loved how their development led to Reira effectively saving the world. Defeating Zarc was a real team effort, but that doesn't dismiss the roles Reira and Ray played in that match either. Reira sealing Zarc's evil heart was especially important given that allowed for the cycle to be broken and for Zarc to no longer pose a threat to the four dimensions. Using the En Card did result in Reira being reverted back into a baby, but instead of undoing their development, I saw it as a accumulation of their development. Much like Ray, Reira sacrificed themselves in order to save the worlds and people that they cared about and will hopefully have a happier life starting over again.

3. Yugo: Yugo is just so extremely likable. I remember thinking that he would be this serious character when he first showed up in Yuto's flashback, but then he got upset at hitting a pole and yelling at people who he knocked out cold. He turned out to be such a goofball kind of character and I'm so glad that he turned out that way instead. He's sweet, funny caring and much like Yuya, tends to wear his heart on his sleeve. He tends to get more aggressive and confrontational rather than sad, but he's still a pretty emotional character. Even though they only knew each other for a few days, his friendship with Yuzu was quite sweet and they seemed to instantly connect with each other. His relationship with Rin is really touching. Despite having to primarily rely on flashbacks to showcase their relationship, the audience still gets a good impression of how close they are and why Yugo is so desperate to see her again. Even Yugo's gag of seeing Rin in the other Bracelet Girls has a bit of a sad undertone to it given that he misses her that much. Yugo has some pretty great duels and his name gag is pretty funny too. He's just so instantly likable and fun to watch throughout the series's run.

2. Yuzu: I really like Yuzu. She has such a strong, confident personality. She determined to do whatever she can to protect her friends, but that doesn't mean that she can't be afraid or emotionally vulnerable either. I really liked how determined she was to learn how to use Fusion cards early in the series. Calling Roger out for running away after losing and especially knocking him down to send her message to Yuya were also pretty awesome moments. As much as I would have liked to see her duel more, I also appreciate that she had such a major role in the story and with other characters outside of dueling. Her connections with Sora, Serena and Yugo were all important for helping their own storylines and she indirectly saved Shun from being carded by telling Serena where to find him. Even her relationship with Shuzo turned out to be pretty important given that he was the first one to remember Yuzu after Standard became the Pendulum dimension. Dueling is the most direct way to affect the plot in a Yu-Gi-Oh! series, but it isn't the only way to do it and I don't think that Yuzu gets nearly enough credit for her impact on the overall storyline as she should. Yuzu's relationship with Yuya is extremely heartwarming to see unfold. They do really come off as good friends, which makes the shipping moments all the more believable. Yuzu calling out to Yuya after they had merged with their counterparts didn't come off as a typical female lead calling out to the male lead. It was more like the feelings between these two characters was so strong that not even merging back into their original selves could break them apart. Even though I would have liked to see Yuzu dueling more, I still liked her personality, the role she had on the overall storyline and how she played key roles for multiple characters.

1. Yuya: I'm sure that this isn't surprising to anyone. I talk about Yuya frequently and I've mentioned multiple times in just the first few prompts for this month. He's not only my favorite Arc V character, but also my favorite character in the franchise. He's just so incredibly likable, interesting, relatable and complex. I love how Yuya grows over the course of the series. He starts out being so indecisive and depressed, but he gains more self-confidence through all of his struggles throughout the series. Yuya's desire to make other people happy with his duels despite having a difficult time being genuinely happy himself makes him pretty relatable for me. He's just such an emotional character and that makes it really easy to identify and sympathize with him. They really do a good job early on in the series showing how years of bullying and losing his father affected Yuya as well.

I love that a good part of Yuya's journey is developing better self-esteem, or perhaps more accurately accepting himself. At the start of the series, he valued himself as being the special duelist with Pendulum cards. Finding out that he wasn't special like he thought absolutely crushed him and Yuya was only able to bounce back because of Shuzo teaching him that he can still lead as an example to other duelists as the one who opened the door to Pendulum summoning. Even so, he still saw himself primarily as the son of the famous Yusho Sakaki and that he inherited his father's dueling. That was one of the reasons why his duel with Jack was so important. Jack finally got Yuya to start thinking of himself as an individual and not just as someone else's son. Yuya understood what kind of dueling he wanted to do that was unique to him and he carries that message throughout the rest of the series. Even accepting himself as Zarc ties in nicely with the theme of self-esteem. Instead of burying denying everything that happened to him, Yuya recognizes that he is both Yuya and Zarc at the same time. I just love that Yuya has a better understanding of himself by the end of the series. He knows exactly what he wants to do with his dueling, he understands himself enough to know that he needs to be genuinely happy to make the audience smile alongside him and he has the confidence to pull it off. I also love that Yuya is still a pretty emotional character even at the end of the series. His problem wasn't the fact that he's a sensitive kid or that boys can't be emotional. The problem was that he was dealing with his emotions in an unhealthy manner and not accepting himself. That is such an important and powerful message that I think a lot of people would appreciate too.

It was hard to put the order of this list together and I still feel like some of the orders could change around in the future, but there was never any doubt in my mind that Yuya would own the first place rank for me. I still don't know if this writeup can convey just how much I love Yuya and how much his development/storyline connects with me. So much of his emotional struggles remind me of what I've gone through and how I'd like to hope that I've become a better/stronger person from those situations too. Just seeing pictures of Yuya or thinking about him can make me feel happier. I love so many characters in this series, but Yuya is just really special for me. I loved watching every moment of his journey when I watched the series through the first time. I know that I'll still enjoy it when I start my next Arc V rewatch to experience it all over again.

[thwip--thwip]

I’m a little less incensed now after a nap and a couple hours to process.

Look, I want to say that the movie had it’s moments. It’s not like it was the worst Marvel movie I’ve ever seen. I think the real problem stems from how out of character Peter was at certain moments.

The idea that Peter Parker would ever, ever say ‘no’ to helping, when he has the ability to do so, is so utterly ludicrous that I completely dismiss it as in any way being valid. The fact that they spent time on it and this idea that Peter wanted a vacation? Just. Doesn’t make any sense. That’s Peter’s whole problem, he doesn’t know HOW to take care of himself first. That is one of May’s primary functions as a loving, supportive character, to be a safe place for Peter and show him that he deserves to be a person first and Spiderman second.

The fact that they had May pushing him back out there when he’s having panic attacks at the mention of Tony is INSANE and I’m frothing at the mouth for this insult to May’s character. She’d be the fucking first in line to tell him to put that shit AWAY and focus on himself for more than five seconds. 

HE DIED. HE WENT TO SPACE AND HE DIED AND IT’S BARELY BEEN A YEAR AND MAY IS SHOVING HIS SPANDEX IN HIS SUITCASE AFTER PETER EXPLICITLY SAYS HE DOESN’T WANT TO FIGHT ANY CRIME THIS SUMMER ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME MARVEL THIS IS INSANE

Ahem. Maybe I wasn’t as calm as I thought.

So there’s that. It invalidates half the plot for me, because I’m not watching Peter Parker anymore. I don’t know who the fuck this character is, who has to be tricked into helping avoid the end of the world. Like, I’m sorry, how the fuck do you go four movies telling me Peter will do anything to help, no matter the cost, no matter if he fucking dies in space on an alien planet, and suddenly the world might literally end and he can’t because he’s on a school trip.

Eat my entire ass, Marvel, you don’t even deserve to look in Peter Parker’s general direction.

There are plenty of other moments like this - Peter giving Mysterio EDITH, for a big one. Peter would never. He just never fucking would. He’s not that stupid, and you can’t convince me that he is, especially considering how fast everything feels. He didn’t!!!! actually!!!! bond with!!!! quentin!!!!

They kept saying in press that Peter and Quentin become friends but I’m like??? bitch where??? where the fuck is that development because it wasn’t in the movie I just watched. Then again, am I the fool for expecting important details to be included in a Marvel movie at this point?

Anyway, yeah, prime example of Peter being forced to do something for the sake of plot, at the expense of his character (don’t worry, they don’t stop there). Great job executing disgusting character assassination on one of your most beloved characters. I’m beyond grossed out at this point, thanks.

The other big problem I have is the identity reveal. Hello? What the fuck was that? How the entire hell are you going to dig yourself out of this hole, marvel, you dumb stupid fucks? Oh, wait, you’re NOT.

That scene was what really cinched it for me, that the movie was total unsalvageable garbage. YOU DO NOT OUT SPIDERMAN. Without a secret identity, Peter isn’t Peter anymore (as if they needed to make it any more clear that they were intent on destroying Peter Parker). He can’t have a normal life, or whatever passes for one these days, which is so fucking central to his character. And they just...ripped it away, and how is he supposed to recover from that? The Peter that I know? Fucking panic attacks out the wazoo, but are they going to let Peter be Peter? No, of course not. 

I love Tom. This is nothing against him, I’ve loved him since the moment I laid eyes on him in Civil War. But this Peter is not Peter anymore, and I completely disregard Far From Home as interminable, horrendous garbage. If I had any faith left after Endgame it really is gone now, Marvel. So congratulations on tearing down your entire franchise in the span of two movies. The only thing you even have a chance of selling me now is Ant-Man, and even then, maybe not.

Guess I’ll wait for the reboot. At least I’ll always have Spiderverse.

[drink-n-watch]

  Welcome back, one and all, to our Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba discussion post! I’m glad I get to share this show with you and grateful to Crow for taking the time to chat with me every week. I really do look forward to my Saturdays thanks to this. (ok…so there’s a small chance I would have looked forward to my Saturdays anyways but who can really tell?) Naturally Crow will be bold this week, as it just suits him! Before we get into the episode proper, how was your week Crow? Were you looking forward to this as much as I was?

Absolutely I was! So many unanswered questions last week! And then the preview mentioned Zenitsu sleeping? Forget the circumstances — how’d he calm down enough to sleep?

For those of you who haven’t watched the episode, go watch it! It’s a feast for the eyes! We’re going to get into what happened so there will be “spoilers,” but this week’s Demon Slayer isn’t really the type of episode you can spoil. Nevertheless, if you want to go in completely blind, please watch the episode first!

I’m explaining my post title

We left off with all our heroes (almost) trapped in what seems to be a pandimensional house. That was after the demon slayers met two young children who had their brother snatched by a demon. Tanjiro and the girl were separated from her brother and Zenitsu, and were just about to face the demon controlling the house when they got interrupted by a boar head wearing warrior.

I have to say, the lackadaisical demon sounded fairly reasonable. All he wanted was for people to stop bursting into his house and causing a ruckus. I get that. Ok, there was the kidnapping… This is the first depressed demon we meet. They really range a lot in personality. Did you like him Crow?

It’s interesting you should mention “depressed,” because in my notes, I wondered why the demon was sad! A sad demon covered with tsuzumi was just so unexpected! I mean that in a good way, too. It made the whole situation more interesting. Why was he sad? What path had he taken to get here?

maybe he has body issues…relatable!

I’m going to interject here, after the short opening tag we got the OP and I don’t think I’ve ever taken the time to mention how much I enjoy the music here. And the singer has a really lovely voice. I don’t think the visuals are that interesting but it’s a good tune and I listen to it every week!

As much as I want to dive into the episode, I watch the OP, too. LiSA’s Gurenge is just beautiful, audibly and visually.

After the OP we got back to business and back to boar head. I don’t know his name (your favorite Anilist to the rescue! It’s Inosuke Hashibira — you do prefer Anilist, don’t you? I do, it has stats!!! Girls love stats!). It occurs to me that I assumed he was a demon slayer because he’s human and hunting demons but I don’t think that the show ever made that official.

it is a great design

Turns out he’s another over the top loud guy, but in a different way from Zenitsu. This is the “I’m going to destroy anything and anyone that stands in my way, and be damned the consequences” type. I wasn’t that crazy about him but I do like the design.

Did boar head dude stepping on the little girl tick you off as much as it did me? Tanjiro was indignant as he said, “Don’t stomp all over her!” You go, Tanjiro!

You know writing Big Personalities is a bit of a gamble. If you get the balance right, you have an almost guaranteed fan favourite who will be highly marketable and your series can pretty much exist on the back of that character. On the other hand, that balance is very difficult to achieve and if you don’t get it, your character will annoy your audience and risk sinking the popularity of your entire franchise. I feel like the demon slayers, aside from Tanjiro, are an assortment of Big Personalities that the author is just testing out to see what works. I hope they find that balance before it gets too exhausting to watch! Boar head reminds me of the kid in the trial that just wanted to get a sword.

that’s kinda weird but you do you

Did you catch him mentioning that his “Beast Breathing” was self-taught? Is he a real Demon Slayer? He has the right kind of metal in his sword… Dang it, sorry! I’m getting ahead…

That’s ok, I get excited too! But I’m really not sure how I feel about this guy. The latest characters are kind of iffy.

And of course, just as I say that, we get back to Zenitsu and the boy. I said last week that I had hope for Zenitsu, I just felt there was more to his character than meets the eye. And Demon Slayer decided not to test my patience. Sure, he started out with the same old exaggerated panic attacks and cowardly routine, but as soon as a demon showed up, Zenitsu stepped up to the plate and actually protected the kid.

d’awwww

Don’t get me wrong, he did not magically turn into a hero. He was still the same snivelling, whining mess, but he stood in front of that demon to protect the kid even while he was shaking and sobbing. He even told the boy to run and save himself. I was fully prepared to see Zenitsu use the kid as a human shield, so this was a surprise. A great one! And the fact that he was so visibly terrified the entire time only made it better. It’s not really brave if you’re not scared!

Maybe I’m easy to please, but it’s all it took for the character to be redeemed in my eyes. I immediately started cheering Zenitsu on!

I was the same way. Like you said — he was terrified, but he not only tried to put himself between the boy and the demon, he even encouraged the boy to run and save himself. I have to wonder if I’d have enough courage to do that! Sure, he’s no Tanjiro, but who is?

good question

And then he reached his limit. All that emotion was just too much for him and he passed out, leaving the poor child to try and save him. Like I said, Zenitsu is no hero and that is one of the best things about him.

He was even snoring! Man, he can nap waaay faster than I can!

Let’s slow things down a little here and talk about this demon. This isn’t the drum demon who’s the master of the house. It seems there are several demons in here and they so far they are not working together. I really liked the design of this guy (again). The double eyes were particularly successful in my opinion. Once more this show has crafted a demon that looks a little childish, almost cute in a strange way, yet honestly scary and unsettling. The saturated colour palette helps with that I think. In any case, the overall aesthetic is fantastically suited to the story. Ufotable is good with that!

They certainly are! And that demon’s tongue! That thing must have been 10 meters long and it sliced through a tough wooden barrel like it was nothing. Talk about capable of a tongue lashing!

people crawling is always creepy

Back to the action. Zenitsu is out, a fit of stress-induced narcolepsy it seems. The poor kid has his back against the wall and the demon is closing in when… We were all waiting for it, weren’t we? Zenitsu finally has his moment of reckoning. And what a moment it is! I knew he didn’t survive on pure luck! Sure, Zenitsu is no hero, but in his sleep, he’s a Big A** Hero! That scene was just so much fun. I could help but physically clap!

And it also works as a sort of metaphor for the show. It’s a somewhat cliché scene but with some nice twists. You see it coming from a mile away but when it does it’s so well executed that you thoroughly enjoy it. And there’s always just a little extra touch that you didn’t predict to keep you on your toes!

That moment was worth the price of admission. It wasn’t just a simple masterful attack. It was the equal of any strike we’ve seen! The sound, the animation, it call came together. Good stuff! And did you think that Zenitsu was almost the anti-Rock Lee? In the original Naruto, Rock Lee trained and trained and trained. He was a powerful fighter, but one time, he got knocked out. He had trained so much that his body continued to fight! Even when he was unconscious. It’s like he was the anti-Zenitsu or vice versa!

the colours are great 

I was wondering if all demon slayers had elemental powers. It’s starting to look more that way, since Zenitsu has electricity (thunder) based powers and he seems to wield them very well, as long as he’s unconscious! If I hadn’t already been sold a few minutes before, this would have done the trick. I’m a Zenitsu fan now, I want to see more of him.

When all was said and done, it became apparent that Zenitsu doesn’t remember anything. He actually does think he’s a weakling incapable of protecting anyone because as far as he knows, that has always been the case. I like this twist, I’m not sure I’ve seen it before!

It borders on tragic! He probably doesn’t know how he survived the selection match. He knows he’s always getting into danger and thinks he has no way out. Poor guy! You know what? I take back “borders on tragic.” It is tragic!

this happens a lot lately

In the meantime, Tanjiro and the girl have left both the demon and Boar head behind and discovered the kids’ brother. He’s alright folks! It seems the boy has special blood, so when he got dragged away it attracted more demons who all started to fight over who got to eat him. The drum demon got injured and lost one of his drums, which the brother managed to grab and use, immediately bringing him to another room, safe for the moment. Since then, he’s just been using the drum as soon as he sees anything and that’s kept him safe.

This is smart! Really smart! I like that. A victim that desperately needs help but isn’t just a prop or completely helpless. It just makes the character more real, you know?

It does. The little boy’s not a plot device to show how awesome Tanjiro is. That detail made him into the little scared boy trying desperately to stay alive. That’s a ton more dramatic!

yeah!

Tanjiro also thinks this was a great plan because he decides to face the demon alone and tells the girl and her brother to keep doing what they’ve been doing. Banging the drum at the slightest hint of danger. He promises to find them again when the battle is over.

Two things I quite liked happened here. First, the show addressed Tanjiro’s injuries. I still think he is inhumanly resilient, but they do go out of their way to show us that he did get treatment and that he is still in serious pain. Enough to affect his abilities. And he has been in pain all along! We even saw that Zenitsu is the form of Tanjiro’s insecurities which was pretty funny.

The explanation is still a little lacking but at least the story does take it into account. Were you happy with this explanation Crow?

also, he used an ointment, good as new!

Yeah, and I’ll do the opening Kimino thing here: Yes, many of us men are really that much of an idiot. We’ll push through pain just to look tough. Who are we trying to impress? Everyone, of course! Especially ourselves. Even worse? I’m an oldest son. Yes, we oldest sons will often go through stupid pain simply because we don’t want to disappoint mom or dad. It’s why medical folks have to make billboards that say men shouldn’t be stupid and ignore pain — we should go to the hospital instead! Well, this billboard kinda sums it up. So, what Tanjiro did isn’t just realistic. I’ve done it myself (though not with broken leg).

The second thing I liked was the fight itself. This was just gorgeous. That constantly spinning room, with Tanjiro’s clothes, hair and entire body weight visibly adjusting to the shifting gravity. The animation was so smooth and consistent that it was mesmerising. I feel a little bad for anyone with motion sickness, as I assume the quick and constant movement must not have been pleasant. However, I thought it was beautifully done! I’m ok with watching fights that take 3 episodes to get through if they look this good!

I think this is what the word spectacular was invented for. It was such a unique battlefield! Last time I saw room spinning like that was in the movie Inception, and I think it was more effective here!

you had to see it

It might, in fact, take three episodes to get through this fight as episode 12 ended before Tanjiro got the chance to get to the demon. And I screamed at my tv!

The pep talk he needed to get himself to that last moment was fantastic! “My injuries are making me imagine the most awful things!” struck me as powerfully authentic. Like the detail of the little boy clutching the drum, Tanjiro’s inner dialogue elevated him from just another hero to a young man struggling to keep it together. Little touches like that are setting this show apart for me.

As much as I enjoyed this week’s Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba, there was one little thing that kept gnawing in the back of my mind. Nezuko is still all alone out there. Is it still daylight out?

I could be glib and say that in the OP and ED, we see Nezuko in the same frame as Zenitsu and boar head dude, so she’s got to be okay, right? Right? Sigh. Yes, I’m worried about her. Not only is the sunlight a danger to her, but other demon slayers haven’t been as understanding of her situation as Tanjiro…

Reviews of the Other Episodes

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 01: Cruelty

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 02: Trainer Sakonji Urokodaki

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 03: Sabito and Makomo

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 04: Final Selection

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 05: My Own Steel

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 06: A Friend fo All Humans

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 07: Muzan Kibutsuji

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 08: The Smell of Enchanting Blood

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 09: Temari Demon and Arrow Demon

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 10: Together Forever

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 11: Tsuzumi Mansion

just want Nezuko back!

Of course, I took a lot of screencaps! And yes, I would love to share them with you!

  Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 12: Delicatesse Welcome back, one and all, to our Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba discussion post! I’m glad I get to share this show with you and grateful to…

[robdelicious]

ROBERT PATTINSON TELLS WILLEM DAFOE WHAT HE’S TERRIFIED OF By Willem Dafoe Photography Ryan McGinley Stylist Mel Ottenberg

Although his days as a franchise-carrying international heartthrob are mostly behind him, Robert Pattinson’s charisma remains maddening and ineluctable, his face a permanent yin-yang of bemusement and pale gravity mounted onto an industrially honed bone structure. Having graduated from his suburban London upbringing, through the cosmic fizz of superstardom, Pattinson’s career has opened up into a wild, wild world of his own making. The 32-year-old actor has shouldered heavy roles in heavy films by directors such as David Cronenberg and James Gray, before masking himself in a goatee and Queens-patois for the Safdie Brothers’ panic caper Good Time. Any doubts about the sincerity of Pattinson’s craving for low-budget, high-ambition projects have been dispelled in his latest role in Claire Denis’s first English-language film, High Life. The French director’s new psycho-sexual drama puts Pattinson in a prison colony in space, where the inmates are being harvested for their seed by a bewitching Juliette Binoche. (Pattinson’s character calls her the “shaman of sperm.”) Next year, he will star in the A24 horror film The Lighthouse opposite Willem Dafoe, someone who has deftly straddled art-house classics and summer blockbusters. Having never talked on set—it’s a macho actor thing—the pair spoke at length for the first time to discuss the rawness of celebrity and the joys of stepping away from it.

———

ROBERT PATTINSON: I was literally terrified of this interview, and I just did a whole week of them. When I was in San Sebastián, I did one with Juliette Binoche, and I remember thinking, “I don’t even know if people are interested in what I’m talking about.”

WILLEM DAFOE: You come across as charming in the interviews I’ve seen. Is it like a performance?

PATTINSON: I definitely do get a certain high from it. There’s a little gremlin inside of me that thinks, “Just say something shocking. You’re only here for a few minutes, say something terrible.” There’s a kind of perverse glee I get from that. But I’ve given my publicist a number of heart attacks.

DAFOE: What gives you confidence?

PATTINSON: I don’t think it’s a question of confidence. I think it’s more that the best way to deal with pressure is to say the worst possible thing you can say. I’m definitely not good at staying on all the talking points and actually selling a movie. I see loads of actors who are really great at that, but I just seem absolutely incapable of doing it. I feel so embarrassed, because I don’t even know if the audience is going to like the movie. You can talk about your craft, but if the audience sees it and they’re like, “Well, that was shit,” then it doesn’t matter how you got there.

DAFOE: How was the festival in San Sebastián?

PATTINSON: I ended up eating a fish that had an incredibly tiny body and an enormous skull. In fact, it was one of the more off-putting meals I’ve ever had.

DAFOE: But how did it go screening the film there?

PATTINSON: It was great. It was a little scary after the first screening in Toronto. I don’t think that audience was really prepared for it. It was a huge auditorium, and as soon as they walked in, I could see everyone sitting there with popcorn, ready to be entertained. And I just suddenly thought, “Oh, no, a train is about to hit these people in a second. They’re definitely not expecting an esoteric movie about demon harvesting.”

DAFOE: How much do you think about the audience when you’re making a movie?

PATTINSON: When I’m making a movie, I don’t think about who’ll watch it at all. I mean, I do want to help get people to the movie. That’s really the only time I think about it. There’s a part of me that likes the art of marketing. I feel like a lot of actors don’t even want to think about the commercial prospects of a movie.

DAFOE: I do.

PATTINSON: My dad was a car dealer, and I used to love listening to him talk about sales techniques. It’s a performance of reading your audience and seeing where you can lead them. Selling something is pretty similar to playing a character—kind of.

DAFOE: How do you deal with the fact that sometimes you’re making movies that aren’t for everyone? There’s this broad assumption that if a film is not popular, it isn’t successful at being a film. That always drives me crazy.

PATTINSON: But if you make something that is incredibly personal and specific and different, then even if it’s just one person who comes out and goes, like, “I really liked that movie,” it connects with them on a slightly deeper level. It means so much more than them saying, “I had a great time watching your crowd-pleasing movie.”

DAFOE: I’m with you on that. It’s funny, because when you and I shot The Lighthouse together, the conditions were so harsh that we hardly talked outside of scenes.

PATTINSON: I hardly talked to anyone.

DAFOE: I must admit you had me puzzled a lot of the time.

PATTINSON: I realized in the rehearsal period that you understood the script a lot more than I did, so I didn’t want to reveal that.

DAFOE: You clearly weren’t into rehearsal. Maybe it was the nature of the role, but I always felt like you wanted to leap in and not work stuff out, as though it was more real to confront it without any pre-knowledge. I was reminded of the old Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier quote, “Go.”

PATTINSON: My idea for The Lighthouse was that if I don’t really understand this script on a cerebral level, then I’ll try to understand it on a physical level. But I must say that I’ve never seen someone with such a supernatural level of energy as you. I remember watching you and being, like, “How are you doing this?”

DAFOE: I’ll take that as flattery, but I’ll also return it by saying that your approach was fierce. You were a warrior. Do you remember when we were being sprayed with that water and it stung so bad? Those kinds of things never leave you.

PATTINSON: That’s the closest I’ve come to punching a director. However much I love Robert [Eggers], there was a point where I did five takes walking across the beach, and after a while I was like, “What the fuck is going on? I feel like you’re just spraying a fire hose in my face.” And he was like, “I am spraying a fire hose in your face.” It was like some kind of torture. It definitely creates an interesting energy. [Laughs] Just out of curiosity, do you think differently about a part when you decide to do a less commercial thing, as opposed to when you’re doing a huge franchise thing? Are the approaches different?

DAFOE: I really came of age as an actor in a company, so I feel like I’m best when I’m with people who turn me on. I like personal films and smaller crews. I like flexibility. When you’re making a bigger film, it’s a different mentality. With a bigger movie, you have to be more responsible, more assured. The people making the movie also have this pressure to be responsible, and responsibility for art is like death.

PATTINSON: With every single movie I’ve done, I’ve felt a compulsive need to tell the director on the first day that I have no idea what I’m doing. And I think in a larger corporate structure, people just don’t take that well. I don’t think I’m ever going to get to a point where I feel like, “Oh, I’m a professional actor with a set of tools ready, and I’ll be able to tell the story using whatever colors you need.” I mean, I’ll literally do a movie specifically because I think I can’t do it. You just hope you don’t drown. And then when you don’t drown, you hopefully figure out how to swim.

DAFOE: Listen, I think you’re doing great, and I like the choices you’re making. You had this great celebrity with the Twilight films, a celebrity that I’ve never known, and allowing that to help you take the risks you’re taking now is a very smart way to go.

PATTINSON: You have definitely known the same level of celebrity. I saw you walking through Halifax with people chasing you down at the organic grocery.

DAFOE: Well, that’s my crowd.

https://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/high-life-star-robert-pattinson-tells-willem-dafoe-what-hes-terrified-of