#this scene was actually so hard to watch in context

[ms-scarletwings]

The kitten chapter was particularly hard for me to get through, personally. Honestly, I don't know how the turtle bit can be so bad for anyone considering everything that preceded it and its context. Especially when it’s people who finished the book and bring it up after the fact. Like, you made it through about 12 things worse than that specific scene AND still a lot of other brutal ones to come later, and after the entire book the turtle scene was the lowest point you’re still thinking about?

I think I kind of get why though. It was one of the few animal harm depictions that genuinely involved no malice on the part of the perpetrators. It was something many of us may actually even have a comparable experience with IRL for some empathetic reference. For me that made it easier, but for others it probably added to the upset because it’s very easy to put yourself in Max or Newton’s shoes for it. To feel like you’re there helplessly watching with them. I saw what was coming with the turtle from about a mile away though, because I already understood and knew the point that scene was trying to get across. There wasn’t a single thing unexpected about how badly that entire scenario was going to go before they even caught the animal. It didn’t hit me any differently than the bird nest story did.

Meanwhile, the chimp scene put powerful feelings of dread in the pit of me though and I did have to take a break there.

That damn chimp part was placed so perfectly where it was for maximum impact, too. The shit in the plot had not REALLY hit the fan yet, but the chimp chapter was horrific in how it was used as a foreshadowing of just how dark things were about to get. The queasy pull in your body you feel on the uphill climb before the roller coaster drops. It said “here’s a scenario that is already horrific and more viscerally upsetting than you were prepared for… in a controlled lab setting with a non-human victim. Now get ready to see what happens when that cycle repeats unrestrained and onto these main characters you’ve built up some familiarity with over the story so far.”

I don’t blame a single person for picking that place to reconsider if they wanted to stay on the ride. The kitten scene actually does the exact same thing and that’s why my shock and my dismay for it did not stop after the chapter did. It’s also why I really don’t like when people criticize it as randomly inserted cheap gross-out with zero point or contribution to the story. The kitten scene was fully intentioned to stay in your mind as you directly segwayed from that flashback immediately to the present where its implications were about to be followed through. “Here’s what this monster is capable of when he has power over something weaker than himself and he has to be careful and secretive…. Now brace for what’s about to happen when he has that same power over a child (and later on, other scouts), has no one to hide from, and he’s no longer worried about being so careful.”

Cutter was insidiously effective at what he was going for and if nothing else I gotta give him kudos for that much.

I love reading impressions from people after they've finished 'The Troop'. They always fall into a few specific categories, them being they couldn't finish the book on account of the turtle chapter, or that the chapter featuring the chimpanzee caused their time with the book to come to a sudden halt.

The turtle bit didn't really tend to register with me much, but man, the chimp chapter was some of the best literature I've read this year. I would love to see more stuff like that.

[burninlovebutler]

examples for faith @cryingabtab to help inspire her to write sub!austin smut where he cries:

👹👹 i want him to cry like this 👹👹

[nomidreams]

god i finally watched new episodes my honest reaction is jgiwoaoKzmxmkwkakkak

[x-crowmancer-x]

then they Morbed all over each other. the end.

[langernameohnebedeutung]

Honestly, I'm beginning to think film adaptions of books should include a "watch after reading" or "watch before reading" label

[isaacathom]

my friend and i watched more eps of firefly, jaynestown through war stories, and far out man. i really like the show. its very fun to come back to it as someone who knows it doesnt get to Resolve and go 'damn. its real good though'

[gloryinthunder]

I used to really love the first romance scene with Astarion (and I still do) but it hits so much harder after you know why he's doing it. That he's purposefully seducing you for protection and blood, that he's forcing himself to sleep with you, and this is a mask he's wearing.

It's a sexy scene and really feeds into the vampy (pun intended) jump-your-bones version of him you get at the start of the game. The whole thing starts out with him being so confident and suave, saying that he's wanted you ever since he set eyes on you and how you want to be known and tasted. It's like everyone's perfect vampire romance novel.

He's laying out the bait that's worked thousands of times over and luring you in. And you can just get right to the kissing if you want.

But, you can also stop and ask him, "And what do you want?"

And for just a moment the mask drops. This is not the same cocky seductive face we've had up until now. This is vulnerability showing. When has anyone asked him what he wants? When has anyone cared? Does he even know the answer to that question?

So he pivots. The mask snaps back into place immediately. He turns back into the master seducer and feeds you a line about shared ecstasy to get you back on track.

And then comes what is, to me, the pivotal moment. He asks you "That's what you want, isn't it? To lose yourself in me?"

Looking at his body language he seems unsure at first, maybe questioning his previous tactics. Then he slightly cowers back, lowering himself as he asks the question. The total opposite of his confidence from earlier where he's standing with his arms out wide.

He's not sure what you want anymore. You're not playing by the rules he knows. Why haven't you taken the bait yet? Why haven't you thrown yourself at him?

And when you finally Nod in agreement, confirming you're here for sex?

This. This is the face he gives you. He just looks so damn sad. To me, it hearkens back to "Of course it'll turn me into a monster. What else did I expect?"

Whatever momentary blip made him question why you're there with him, he's just been reassured about both of your roles in this situation.

He sounds so quietly resigned when he answers: "I thought so."

And then the scene transitions into the actual act. I do like to think Astarion enjoyed himself as I'm sure the PC did, but it's hard for me to watch this scene now that I know his story and history without being uncomfortable.

Just that line "lose yourself in me" is so difficult to hear. Because on paper it's so sensual. Who wouldn't want a lover to feel that way about them? But knowing the context of what Astarion expects and believes in this moment is just... oof.

And to me, this is what makes this scene brilliant. The writing, voice acting, and the mocap/animation are all just SO GOOD. It's so delicately done and Astarion the character is so good at playing a role that you can completely gloss over the deeper stuff. But once the mask is eventually stripped away you can't help but see what was there the whole time.

And as we've established, being seen is a whole aspect of Astarion's romance arc.

I originally romanced Astarion for the same reasons I'm sure most did: he's a hot, sexy vampire elf (i.e. everything that's on the surface). But, I keep coming back to him over and over again for the person I know is waiting for me underneath the mask.

[blagueofchaos]

I feel like you need to watch the scene for the full emotional weight of I'm Still Here. Look at that beautiful space footage and all that emotional pirate bonding!

Underrated Disney Songs Tournament Round 1 

I'm Still Here (Jim's Theme) - Treasure Planet

Propaganda:

"This song rocks. This movie rocks. If I could I'd nominate the entire score to this movie"

God Help the Outcasts - The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Propaganda:

"Every song in Hunchback is so good, but I feel like God Help the Outcasts specifically is underrated. It's slow and beautiful and very emotional."

[nostalgebraist]

Honestly I'm pretty tired of supporting nostalgebraist-autoresponder. Going to wind down the project some time before the end of this year.

Posting this mainly to get the idea out there, I guess.

This project has taken an immense amount of effort from me over the years, and still does, even when it's just in maintenance mode.

Today some mysterious system update (or something) made the model no longer fit on the GPU I normally use for it, despite all the same code and settings on my end.

This exact kind of thing happened once before this year, and I eventually figured it out, but I haven't figured this one out yet. This problem consumed several hours of what was meant to be a relaxing Sunday. Based on past experience, getting to the bottom of the issue would take many more hours.

My options in the short term are to

A. spend (even) more money per unit time, by renting a more powerful GPU to do the same damn thing I know the less powerful one can do (it was doing it this morning!), or

B. silently reduce the context window length by a large amount (and thus the "smartness" of the output, to some degree) to allow the model to fit on the old GPU.

Things like this happen all the time, behind the scenes.

I don't want to be doing this for another year, much less several years. I don't want to be doing it at all.

----

In 2019 and 2020, it was fun to make a GPT-2 autoresponder bot.

[EDIT: I've seen several people misread the previous line and infer that nostalgebraist-autoresponder is still using GPT-2. She isn't, and hasn't been for a long time. Her latest model is a finetuned LLaMA-13B.]

Hardly anyone else was doing anything like it. I wasn't the most qualified person in the world to do it, and I didn't do the best possible job, but who cares? I learned a lot, and the really competent tech bros of 2019 were off doing something else.

And it was fun to watch the bot "pretend to be me" while interacting (mostly) with my actual group of tumblr mutuals.

In 2023, everyone and their grandmother is making some kind of "gen AI" app. They are helped along by a dizzying array of tools, cranked out by hyper-competent tech bros with apparently infinite reserves of free time.

There are so many of these tools and demos. Every week it seems like there are a hundred more; it feels like every day I wake up and am expected to be familiar with a hundred more vaguely nostalgebraist-autoresponder-shaped things.

And every one of them is vastly better-engineered than my own hacky efforts. They build on each other, and reap the accelerating returns.

I've tended to do everything first, ahead of the curve, in my own way. This is what I like doing. Going out into unexplored wilderness, not really knowing what I'm doing, without any maps.

Later, hundreds of others with go to the same place. They'll make maps, and share them. They'll go there again and again, learning to make the expeditions systematically. They'll make an optimized industrial process of it. Meanwhile, I'll be locked in to my own cottage-industry mode of production.

Being the first to do something means you end up eventually being the worst.

----

I had a GPT chatbot in 2019, before GPT-3 existed. I don't think Huggingface Transformers existed, either. I used the primitive tools that were available at the time, and built on them in my own way. These days, it is almost trivial to do the things I did, much better, with standardized tools.

I had a denoising diffusion image generator in 2021, before DALLE-2 or Stable Diffusion or Huggingface Diffusers. I used the primitive tools that were available at the time, and built on them in my own way. These days, it is almost trivial to do the things I did, much better, with standardized tools.

Earlier this year, I was (probably) one the first people to finetune LLaMA. I manually strapped LoRA and 8-bit quantization onto the original codebase, figuring out everything the hard way. It was fun.

Just a few months later, and your grandmother is probably running LLaMA on her toaster as we speak. My homegrown methods look hopelessly antiquated. I think everyone's doing 4-bit quantization now?

(Are they? I can't keep track anymore -- the hyper-competent tech bros are too damn fast. A few months from now the thing will be probably be quantized to -1 bits, somehow. It'll be running in your phone's browser. And it'll be using RLHF, except no, it'll be using some successor to RLHF that everyone's hyping up at the time...)

"You have a GPT chatbot?" someone will ask me. "I assume you're using AutoLangGPTLayerPrompt?"

No, no, I'm not. I'm trying to debug obscure CUDA issues on a Sunday so my bot can carry on talking to a thousand strangers, every one of whom is asking it something like "PENIS PENIS PENIS."

Only I am capable of unplugging the blockage and giving the "PENIS PENIS PENIS" askers the responses they crave. ("Which is ... what, exactly?", one might justly wonder.) No one else would fully understand the nature of the bug. It is special to my own bizarre, antiquated, homegrown system.

I must have one of the longest-running GPT chatbots in existence, by now. Possibly the longest-running one?

I like doing new things. I like hacking through uncharted wilderness. The world of GPT chatbots has long since ceased to provide this kind of value to me.

I want to cede this ground to the LLaMA techbros and the prompt engineers. It is not my wilderness anymore.

I miss wilderness. Maybe I will find a new patch of it, in some new place, that no one cares about yet.

----

Even in 2023, there isn't really anything else out there quite like Frank. But there could be.

If you want to develop some sort of Frank-like thing, there has never been a better time than now. Everyone and their grandmother is doing it.

"But -- but how, exactly?"

Don't ask me. I don't know. This isn't my area anymore.

There has never been a better time to make a GPT chatbot -- for everyone except me, that is.

Ask the techbros, the prompt engineers, the grandmas running OpenChatGPT on their ironing boards. They are doing what I did, faster and easier and better, in their sleep. Ask them.

[ambrosiagourmet]

In chapter 28, Marcille lays out why the journey she's been on has been worth the pain: because they were able to bring Falin back. The injuries, the indignity, and the mess of it all - they are tolerable primarily in context of destination she believes she's reached at this point.

In truth, of course, the story is far from finished. In fact, I would argue that this is actually where hers really starts. This scene holds the seed of the very thing the Winged Lion will exploit to lead Marcille to become the Lord of the Dungeon. After all, with a desire as far reaching and deeply held as Marcille's, if the only acceptable outcome is success, what other choice does she have but to bargain with the infinite?

So let's talk about this idea - where it leads her, how Laios' path intersects with it, and how they both help each other move forward in the face of failure.

First though, I want to step back and talk about something else: the shapeshifter chapters.

With these chapters recently covered by the anime, there has, of course, come plenty of fun discussions about which version of each character belongs which other character's perceptions, and what that means.

One thing I've seen pointed out a few times is the fact that both Laios and Marcille's impressions of each other are based around Falin. Marcille's version of Laios is larger and more masculine, because those are the traits that stuck out to her in contrast to Falin. Laios' version of Marcille was directly inspired by her appearance and demeanor when resurrecting Falin.

So why is this important to a discussion about Marcille being focused on success? Well, it shows us where Laios and Marcille's relationship starts: built primarily around their shared love for Falin. It's from that shared beginning that they begin to learn about each other on their own terms.

And this is true for the whole group, to be clear. They are united by circumstance - love for a lost companion, a sense of responsibility, a desire for freedom - but they all grow and help each other beyond that circumstance. They help Senshi bury the ghosts of his past and eat some Hippogriff stew. They help Izutsumi open up to mutual love and friendship. And they learn so much about each other: about Chilchuck's family and Laios' love of monsters and Marcille's desires to live life alongside others.

In the particular case of Marcille and Laios, understanding each other is what lets them save each other. It is not through Falin that Laios talks Marcille down from the edge the Lion has brought her to, nor is it through her that Marcille comforts Laios after the demon is defeated, when it is still unclear how everything will work out.

In fact, it is very specifically the unknown fate of Falin that Marcille comforts him about.

She is willing to accept the outcome - willing, now, to embrace the journey itself, rather than only accepting it as a means to an end.

This is a lesson she learns from Laios, and it's a lesson we watch Laios learn, too.

Just before making her deal with the Lion, Marcille recalls everything that led her to that moment. She lingers on the pain, recalling the worst of their journey:

She only pushes through by remembering her goals: saving Falin, and equalizing the lifespans of her friends to match her own.

And yet, 10 chapters later, when reflecting on why she actually wants to see her goals through, it is the good parts of that very same journey that shine through.

There's an inherent contradiction here, one which Marcille doesn't know how to face. How can the suffering that she tolerates also be the love that drives her forward? How can the loss that she's worked so hard to reverse also be the very circumstance that created a world she, now, cannot stand to give up?

And Laios confronts her with the truth. Because it just is.

Losing Falin forced him to open up to others in a way he never had. It forced him to choose what he cares about, and in making that choice, it gave him the opportunity to be seen. To connect with others.

He has already had to come to terms with the fact that Falin's death has given him something - he would not have been able to kill her again if he hadn't.

There is something here that is fundamental to Dungeon Meshi's understanding of what life even is. Like, I don't think it's a coincidence that part of Laios' speech to Marcille in chapter 85 is actually first seen in the chapter where they fight off ghosts.

In 'Sorbet,' while possessed , Laios thinks that it would have been better if the dragon had eaten him, instead of Falin. The ghosts make people lose their will to live - they are dragged away from life.

When he's pulled back from that brink, Laios realizes that he can't move forward without accepting that she is gone. He even compares the way he was holding on to her to being possessed: it pulled him away from life, from the present moment.

To carry on, he must accept what has been lost, and focus on protecting the life that they still have.

Like Marcille, he has to accept the contradictions of their journey. That life means eating, and eating requires death. That sometimes one must be selfish in order to be kind, and that selflessness can easily be twisted into to cruelty.

That loss will, inevitably, lead you to find happiness that you may not have found otherwise.

This is how he gets through to Marcille. And I think part of the reason he reaches her with these specific ideas is because those contradictions are baked so thoroughly into their relationship.

Marcille only met Falin after she had been left behind by Laios. Laios was able to reconnect with Falin because she left Marcille. They both met each other through Falin, and yet they only really got to know and care for one another after she died.

And of course, that's why Marcille uses the same ideas to comfort Laios, in the final chapter. It is because of Laios that she is able to accept the journey for itself, and not need the happy ending to justify its meaning to her.

Together, they help each other move forward, and accept that they may not be able to bring Falin back.

Which, if I'm being honest... I think this is the reason Falin can come back, narratively speaking, without the resurrection feeling like it takes away from the themes of the story.

After all, she doesn't do it for Marcille or Laios - she does it for her own sake. Her own hunger and her own desire to eat are the things that lead her back to life.

All three of them, together, end the story like this: not clinging to the things they are afraid to lose, but knowing they can choose to move forward together.

And, importantly, this happy ending is no longer the thing that gives the journey meaning. Rather, it is the privilege of the journey itself that is her happy ending: the chance to walk alongside others in the time they have, to get to know each other, and to eat well.

[fandsart]

Steve and Nancy's relationship didn't work out because they had different wants and needs so when Steve starts dating Eddie he tries really hard not to have wants and needs of his own. Knowing that Eddie didn't reschedule Hellfire for Lucas doesn't help with this.

He goes to a few metal concerts even though he always gets migraines the next day from the volume, he lets Eddie talks about all kinds of nerd stuff even if it makes him feel stupid when he can't keep up.

It's not even like he's dragging Steve into things that are actively detrimental to him all that often. Just a couple activities things a week. But Steve also feels the need to hide some of his own interests, knowing that Eddie hates them.

Not that he doesn't love being around Eddie, but now that they're dating he's hardly not around, and it's hard to find time to keep up on the teams that Steve roots for. But it's... it's fine. He's happy with Eddie, so he can make the sacrifice to hide these parts of himself. It's fine.

Eddie doesn't realize this is going on because he's aware that he's pushing Steve out of his comfort zone, what he isn't aware of is how Steve far out of his comfort zone he really is, and how he doesn't want to bother Eddie with it, afraid they'll break up over it.

Then he slips up, just a little bit, when Eddie invites him to a concert on the same day he plans on watching a game. This isn't even the first time this has happened, but Eddie usually gives him more of a heads up for this kind of thing. He thought he was close enough to the date that he wouldn't have to worry about it getting disrupted, and it was a pretty big game, so his disappointment is higher than usual.

Eddie is talking about a metal band and is going on a small ramble explaining the context of where they sit in the metal scene.

"And they have a concert in Indy tomorrow," he grins, "and I really want to take you."

"Oh, I was gonna... Yeah, we can do that."

"You were gonna what?"

"It doesn't matter. It's stupid."

"Steve, it's not a big deal. It's not like I'm taking you to a Dio concert. These guys are actually pretty small and relatively local. I'm sure we could catch another one, it would just be kind of down the road."

"Eddie it's fine. We can go to your concert. Whatever you want."

Eddie gives him a look. "I don't want it to be 'my concert.' If you wouldn't enjoy it, I wouldn't want to just be dragging you with me. And I don't want it to be 'fine' I want it to be enjoyable!"

"I enjoy spending time with you."

"Ok, so what were you going to do tomorrow?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Obviously it does!"

They're fighting and this was exactly what Steve was worried about. If Steve could have just gotten over himself, cut the bullshit, they wouldn't be fighting right now.

"Eddie, it really doesn't. Can we just go to the concert and forget about this?"

"No. If you don't want to go, you don't have to."

"If I don't go, will you go without me?"

"Unless you don't want me to."

"I want to go with you, wherever."

"Ok, you know what, I just remembered I actually have to help Wayne with something on tomorrow."

"No you don't. Look, I wasn't gonna do anything. Can we please just go to this concert you want to go to?"

"Look, I have to go to school. I'm already over 2 hours late." With that, he's out the door.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

Steve's not sure what time the concert was even meant to be at, but if he could just get a hold of Eddie and convince him he wants to go, maybe they won't miss it. It's already fairly well into the afternoon and he hasn't heard from Eddie all day.

The first few times he calls, there's no answer, but when he finally gets an answer it's Wayne that picks up.

"You almost missed me," he says. "Make it quick, I gotta to get to work."

"Is Eddie there?"

"Nah, he should be in Indy by now. Did he not tell you? There's some concert down there."

"Yeah, I, uh... Thank you Mr. Munson."

So Eddie went by himself even though Steve told him he wanted to come, and he'd pretended that he didn't even want to go.

Steve watches his game that night, kind of miserable and guilty. He debated not watching it, almost as a point of honor, since he lied to Eddie and told him that he didn't really have anything planned today. They'd both lied about their plans last night and Steve is so ready for Eddie to come back and say that he had a much better time without Steve and it's time they go they're separate ways.

His team loses and he falls asleep on the couch soon after, the tv still playing in the background.

He wakes up in the morning to a knock at the door. Eddie stands on the other side.

"Hey, baby. Did I wake you up?"

"Um... yeah." He wants to bring up what happened yesterday, that Eddie went without him, but he's afraid it will just make things worse. He obviously wanted to go without him if he did so, and bringing it up might just start an argument about how Eddie doesn't need Steve's permission to do things (and he doesn't) reinforcing why he didn't want Steve to come in the first place. He wants to stay with Eddie forever and he's worried the relationship is starting to fall apart. "It's fine. I should be up by now anyway."

Eddie hums almost suspiciously. "Can I come in?"

"Of course." He moves out of the way.

"'Whatever I want,' huh?" he asks, as he walks through the doorway.

"What?"

"Nothing. We'll talk about it in a minute. A few things first. Come on." He drags Steve over to the couch. "So what did you do yesterday?"

"Tried getting a hold of you, mostly."

Eddie chuckles nervously. "Sorry. But did you do whatever it was you planned on doing before?" Steve tenses just a little bit. Is Eddie going to accuse him of choosing baseball over their relationship? He kind of almost did when he first opened his mouth after Eddie first suggest the concert. Is he going to call him out for that. "Relax baby, you don't even need to tell me what it was, as long as whatever it was you were doing wasn't a person."

"No, never!"

"I know, Stevie. I know you're history; I know you would never do that. So I'm not upset. So did you carry out your plans, whatever they were?"

"Yeah. It was disappointing."

"Well, I'm glad you did what you wanted anyway. And since you were busy and couldn't come to the concert, I went and brought you back a tape." He pulls a cassette tape out of his pocket. "You obviously weren't going to admit you didn't want to go, but I still wanted to share this with you, so here. This is yours."

Eddie's more attentive to when Steve seems hesitant to do something after that. Eventually Steve gets comfortable enough to bring up where his reservations stand regarding a lot of these things. Eddie switches up how he talks about his interests, trying to make it more coherent and gets Steve earplugs for concerts. He encourages Steve to talk about his own interests, even when Eddie doesn't fully get the appeal himself. He can go a little outside of his comfort zone too. For Steve, it's always worth it.

[m4tthewmurd0ck]

Tom Blyth x Actress!Reader

TBOSAS Vogue Interviews — Rachel + Tom

(next part will be you and Josh’s interview)

no descriptors other than reader being shorter than tom but i use she / her. click [HERE] for the table of contents for all things tom x actress!reader

for the interviews, rachel and tom are still paired up since they’re the leads, and you’re with josh. sorry hunter hshxhsdi. also in this tbosas has been out for a month so the cast is allowed to talk specific scenes and give “spoilers”

The first bit of the video shows short clips of some answers, but no context as to what the questions are.

“Oh that’s an easy one, my girlfriend,” Tom can’t help but smile.

Rachel playfully slaps him with the card. “I was going to say her!”

~

“Pepper jack,” Rachel shrugs.

“Maybe… maybe a sharp cheddar?” Tom laughs.

~

Tom sighs, “that was quite a hard scene to film. After each take I’d ask if she was alright at least a couple of times.”

“Honestly the games as a whole, because I missed a lot of the stunt training.”

~

THE INTERVIEW —

“Hi Vogue, I’m Rachel Zegler.”

“And I’m Tom Blyth. Today we’re here to ask each other some questions, rapid fire.”

Rachel shuffles the interview cards around. “Okay first question, what would you say was the most difficult scene to film and why? Ooh I have my answer already.”

“You go first, I’m still thinking,” Tom laughs.

“Well for me, the most difficult scenes physically were honestly… the games as a whole. I missed a lot of the stunt training so to have one of my first scenes be me running like crazy screaming for Jessup, it was pretty intense.”

Tom blushes a little. “Sort of piggy backing off of Rachel’s answer, the hardest physically I’d definitely say my scene with Josh when we’re running out of the arena. The first few takes were stopped fairly quickly because either he or I would trip. But the most difficult emotionally, the scene in the cabin with Coriolanus and Nova May.”

“Aww,” Rachel puts her hand over her heart. “That’s was so cool to watch you both but yeah I can for sure see why it would be difficult. Did you guys rehearse it a lot?”

Tom shakes his head. “Not at all actually. We ran through the lines a few times but as far as acting out the whole scene, not until we were on set and they wanted a run through. And thankfully after the third take they were satisfied. That was quite a hard scene to film. After each take I’d ask if she was alright at least a couple of times.”

Off camera, someone asks “how long have you guys been together?”

“Pretty much since we met,” Tom tries, and fails to hide his smile. “So she and Josh were actually cast on the same day in June of 2022. At that point Rachel and I had already been cast, and the 4 of us, it just so happened that we were all in London for one thing or another and we all went out to dinner that night. Knew I fancied her right away, and I wanna say it wasn’t even a couple of weeks later that I asked her to be my girlfriend. Sorry I know I went off topic. To answer your actual question, almost a year and a half.”

Tom and Rachel chat for a couple of minutes as cameras are moved around to capture different angles.

“Next question, something a lot more lighthearted. If you were a cheese, what—”

“Pepper jack,” Rachel shrugs, not elaborating.

Tom bursts out laughing. “You had that answer ready awfully quick.”

“What can I say, I’m a cheese girly.”

“I guess that’s my go. Pepper jack is a good answer by the way. I’ll go cheddar. Maybe… maybe a sharp cheddar?”

Rachel taps her chin as if considering what Tom just said. “Yeah, I could see sharp cheddar. Okay guys sorry they’re motioning behind cameras that we have to speed it up. This is rapid fire and we’ve only answered two questions, sorry!”

“Sorry guys! Okay okay next question. Who is your favorite person to run lines with? Oh that’s an easy one, my girlfriend.”

“I was gonna say her!” Rachel faces the camera. “You guys, she’s seriously the best person for that. She memorizes lines sooo fast. By the end she won’t need a script to help you and she’ll be able to still correct you if you mess up!”

“What — oh wait I’ve already asked that question,” Tom flips through the cards, “okay here we go. If you could play any other character in the film, who would you play?”

Rachel claps and points at Tom. “We were just talking about this! I’d either want to play your character because I think it would be so fun to kind of switch to the villain. Or Nova May because hello she’s a badass.”

“Do you know what, and I swear I’m not making this up, my answers are the same as yours. either Nova May because I feel like she’s the opposite of Coriolanus in a way. Or Lucy Gray because I love that even after the games, she’s stayed true to who she is and she doesn’t let Coriolanus corrupt her.”

Rachel and Tom chat again as cameras and lights are moved around. They each do 2 questions.

“Okay we’ve each got one more question. Ooh this one’s fun! You’re stuck on a deserted island for a month and can have five things with you, what do you bring? And it says people don’t count,” Rachel thinks for a moment, “you go first because I need to give this some real thought.”

“No people, okay let’s see… my phone, one of those solar power generators so I could plug things in, phone charger, a book, and mini fridge. I’m sure I could cook some things up and be able to save them for later.”

Rachel nods in approval. “I am going to copy your first three things because I think I’d go crazy not being able to at least write out my thoughts in my notes app or something, or record what’s happening on my camera. But for my last two things, a guitar now that I can play, and… oh crap this is harder than I thought. And… a surfboard! If you’re stuck on an island that’s the perfect time to pick up a new hobby.”

“I think we’re finally getting the hang of this, of course right at the end. Oh I have the last question that’s right. Let’s see… what three characters from other shows or films do you think would do well in the Hunger Games?”

“I love that question!” Rachel nearly falls out of her chair. “Definitely someone from Game of Thrones — ooh or House of the Dragon! You know what, Juliette would do really good. A bow and arrow can take you really far in the games and that’s her go-to weapon.”

Tom smiles and blushes once again at the mention of his girlfriend, or at least the character she plays.

Rachel thinks about her last two answers. “Joel Miller from The Last of Us, and Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds.”

“Why Spencer?”

“He’s a literal genius. I bet he’d be able to rig a bunch of traps that no one would suspect and he’d be able to eliminate most of the other tributes without any physical contact.”

“Ahh I didn’t think of that. Hmm also from House of the Dragon, Aemond Targaryen. He’s quite ruthless isn’t he, he’d have no problem getting rid of the other tributes. And also Clint Barton, like you said because a bow and arrow is a really good weapon to have. Also… Uhtred Ragnarsson from The Last Kingdom.”

Someone behind the camera says it’s time to wrap it up.

Tom smiles at the camera, “thank you so much for having us.”

“We hope you enjoyed watching, bye!”

TOM BLYTH x ACTRESS!READER TAGLIST —

@callsignwidow | @spencerstits | @coconut-dreamz | @daenerysqueenofhearts

[vidavalor]

What I love about the cellar scene in the Job minisode is not even that it was Crowley who "tempted" Aziraphale into first trying food but that the scene shows that Aziraphale then took one look at Crowley lounging with a jug of wine getting off on watching him lose his mind with pleasure over eating for the first time and promptly decided that he was extremely into Crowley watching him like that... and that after this night, Aziraphale decided he would keep Crowley's interest more in the future by then becoming exceedingly well-table-mannered for the rest of eternity.

Every single time they have eaten together for millennia since, Aziraphale has been sitting up straight with a napkin on his knee and not a hint of mess and yeah, okay, so he's naturally a bit like this but he is leaning into it *hard*. He's been inviting Crowley to watch him eat since 2500 B.C. and turning it into the complete *opposite* of Job *on purpose*. Oh, a tiny dab of cream at the corner of his mouth? Only there for a teasing second before Aziraphale meticulously dabs it away... He eats every meal like he's being served in Buckingham Palace and on the surface, it might look like he's pretending that the ox rib night never happened but they both know it happened so it's really *referencing* it, every single damn time, for millennia. It's moaning over how scrumptious something is, like he's restraining himself from a full-on food orgasm in public, because he *is* and every time he intimates to Crowley the pleasure he's getting from the food but restrains himself from full-on gorging on it with true abandon, Aziraphale is intentionally reminding Crowley of the one, single time, thousands of years ago that Crowley got to watch him go wild with unbridled pleasure.

It is the exact opposite of what Aziraphale would do if he never wanted Crowley to ever think about the ox rib night ever again. It is *designed* to make him think about it every single time they eat together and Crowley absolutely knows it. He's gone in for it with his eyes wide open. ('Blown wide open' is probably a more accurate description...). So much so that being together is coded for them as high, fine dining-- dining at the Ritz. Aziraphale's been edging this poor demon over oysters and dessert since ancient Rome and that was all fairly evident in S1 but S2 deciding to be like 'actually, Crowley isn't *wondering* what Aziraphale would be like if he let loose over this meal, he's *remembering* what Aziraphale was like the one time he got to see him out of control-- and that he's entirely responsible for Aziraphale's food lust in the first place' is among the best 'new context from flashbacks' stuff in S2.

[lynaferns]

FNAF Steampunk AU

That I never finished because I couldn't figure out what was going to be the story and character dynamics, and the role of each character, and yeah… I also spend many days writing, rewriting and changing thing, I didn't even get to finish the first draft and I got artblock.

I think my problem in the first place was that I wanted to make this AU stick to canon. A mistake, I know lmao. Later I thought of just making up most of the things but having to rewrite what I had already done dismotivated me.

So I thought of at least showing this character height chart I made a year ago. And maybe, idk, some of the wips that I never finished.

Maybe some notes and interactions I wrote under a cut.

If you ever want to ask me about what I had planned for this AU go ahead! Some main things about this story are:

All of the events of the story happens in a week (or so).

Gregory acts a little more scared than what is shown in the game.

DCAs arms can stretch up to 100 ft (30 m). He bends them to write or make shapes in the air.

Sun has some nowlege in animatronic repairs and maintenance due to being abandonent, having to repair himself.

Vanessa/Vanny have a biger role than in the game.

Burntrap also apeared more.

All animatronics are equiped with dart guns (for safety!). There are some places that require to leave the dart guns behind to continu.

Pizza is scuare (this is not important, I just felt like adding it).

Also, first idea and some doodles.

Edit: Now Cassie is in the AU

Gregory gets to escape to the locker rooms leaving Chica behind him. While searching for an exit Gregory gets surprised by Sun who was searching for him, and out of fright takes out the camera and flashes his bad eye damaging him for a few seconds.

Sun- "you were carring an object capable of blinding animatronics with you and you didn't use it against Chica to escape?!"

Gregory- "I didn't remember! I was more focused on running than taking a camera out of my pocket!"

Sun-pointing at himself with his hands- "And you had to remember when you saw ME?!"

Monty grabs Moon by the neck and throws him like a stick doing a spinning motion on the air, Roxy chases after him. She comes back carrying Moon with her mouth.

Freddy has an existential crisis by seeing endos. Moon is there awkwardly watching him. He gives him a pat on the back.

The auxiliary arm of the protective cylinder is broken, Gregory has to repair Sun manually. Trying to put his face plate back the nose falls off and Gregory nervously catches it juggling. They look between each others and the nose.

Sun-"..." "Gregory"

Gregory-"..."

Sun-"come on, say it"

Gregory-"..." "Got your nose~"

Vanessa is explaining something to the group. Moon is behind her copying her movements. The others are trying not to laugh. She notices and throws a flashlight at Moon.

They divide in groups. Moon gets on Monty's backs like a gremlin.

Moon-"go gator boy"

Monty-"I hate you"

One last, this is a whole scene that needs a bit of context. The current team members are Gregory, Freddy, Sun/Moon. They have figured out that the safe mode prevents animatronics from acting weird/hostile (found out the hard way in an encounter with moon and a fuse box). Though Moon seems not to attack Gregory anymore they wanted to test it with the rest of the band and found Chica, some things happened, they left her in her room in sleep mode and went to roxy raceway. This begins when they head to the west arcade to repair the service bot's head and on their way they encounter Chica out of the sleep mode but more normal.

(Forgive my poor writing, this was more of a script)

The four of them stare at each other until one decides to react.

Sun–”HELLLLO” Chica– holding her left arm–”A- Hiii, umm” Freddy– “He-hello Chica! What got you here??” Chica– “I-uh…patrol? I- think?? There… There is a child lost in the pizzaplex and we were, like- told to go find him, remember?” “Actually, wait, why are you out of your room? I thought maintenance put you on lock down- And what is the Daycare attendant doing out of the Daycare? it’s not the end of the hour yet- Oh!”–she just saw Gregory behind Freedys legs–”hey! you got the kid-”–flashback of the garbage compactor–”GET HIM”–she points at him with a dart gun– Sun–gets in the way–”WOAH WOAH WOW easy there!” Freddy–”Chica- wait! It’s ok he’s with us” Chica–”T-that-that kid is a menace! He- we should-HAVE to take him to the officer Vanessa–” Gregory–*gasp * Freddy & Sun– “NO!” Chica–”????wha-?

Freddy– “We must not take him to her.” Chica- “You guys kidding?” “These are literal-plain-instructions that you are- just-” “That kid threw me through the garbage compactor!” Gregory–”You tried to kill me!” Chica–”what?! No! I couldn’t do that, that’s against my programming!” Sun–”Uuumm, about that miss-” Chica–”YOU”–points at Sun with the gun– Sun–”?!” Chica–”You were there too!” “You have been with this kid all this time!” Sun–hands up-”Iwastryingtostophim” Freddy–”Chica, calm down, I know what this looks like but-” Sun–”OHMYGOSHWAITGUYS, she’s not hostile!” Chica–”wha-?” Freddy–”what…?” Gregory–”what??” “She’s literally pointing at us with a gun” Sun–standing next to Chica, pointing at her while looking at Freddy and Gregory–”I just noticed! her behavior changed-!” Chica–redirects the gun to re-target him–”you’re getting too close” Sun–ignores that–”She’s back to normal! That means the safe mode worked, we can use this!”

Chica–”What are you talking about?” Freddy–”You’re right! That’s a relief” “right Gregory?” Gregory–”...Yyyyyeah? I guess, yeah” Chica–”seriously, what do you all mean?” Freddy–”Well, It’s a little long story-” Sun–”And we will explain it to you!” “BUT not now, we are in a rush!” “To repair this bot-head so Gregory can ride the racecar” Chica–”...” “‘you serious?” Sun–”yep!” “Say, Gregory! You still want to ride?” Gregory–”uh-yeah” Sun–”Then let’s go!” “TO THE WEST ARCADE!”–grabs Freddy and Gregory and takes them there–”You can come if you want~!” Chica–”...” “OH- GOLLY, WELL” “I guess I’ll just go with you even though I don’t understand what is happening! And no one is going to give me an explanation!” Freddy–”-I promise that I’ll give you a wide explanation once we are done with all this… But in a more private place”

There are actually a couple more of scenes before this one (and after) but I'm not very confident of showing those (or any actually but I don't want this to be buried in my documents and forgoten because I really want to at least make a decent story)

Also, I know that the canon heights for the animatronics are like 6 ft but I prefered my height variety headcanons. Maaaaaybe they are a little too tall looking at it now that I look at it again but, eh.

[bibliophilesince2003]

Transformers One In-Depth Review

Transformers One is a must watch.

I’m tired of seeing a bad review go towards a movie that is actually extremely well done, especially if the reviewer hadn’t taken the time to watch it or considered the trailers enough content to draw a review from.

Seriously, it was so refreshing to see a new take on a franchise that has been around for years. In my personal opinion, it’s better than re-makes that offer even less room for creativity.

I am a huge Transformers fan. I grew up with Transformers Prime, and when I was older, I watched the movies. I’ve watched other shows here and there, and while I may not be a complete expert, I know the lore well enough to have been heavily, emotionally impacted by Transformers One.

I’ll start with the "non-spoiler take" followed by the "spoiler take” which will be “hidden” for those who do not want to be spoiled.

"Non-spoiler" take...

Peter Cullen’s voice is legendary. Chris Hemsworth himself acknowledged this in an interview, mentioning that the goal was to “re-create” and “do something new.” He intended to represent a “youthful, brash, and cocky version” of Orion Pax before he was known as Optimus Prime. This is a realistic representation. In Transformers Prime, Ratchet states that Optimus Prime was more like Jack in his youth. For those of you who don’t know, Jack is a strong-willed, selfless, but slightly impulsive teenager, as all teenagers should be. It is clear that Hemsworth has evaluated “hints” that other movies and shows have provided. Hemsworth wanted to “lean into” a more serious voice towards the end of Transformers One. He insisted “he wouldn’t dare mimic Peter Cullen.” I highly respect his choices, and he does not deserve the amount of hate thrown at him. Now, Orion Pax also comes across as a humble, soft-spoken character in other movies and shows. However, I can see why they would lean into his impulsiveness to better highlight and contrast the relationship between Orion Pax and D-16, especially as D-16’s true colors show. More about that in the “spoiler” section, though!

No, it would not have made sense for Orion Pax to have a deep, majestic voice. That comes with experience; that comes with hard decisions. Quite honestly, Hemsworth is pretty close to what I had imagined Orion Pax to sound like. It’s still slightly deep, and very soothing.

The character development in this movie? Oh. My. Word. Guys, as a writer, I can say that subtle character development – the best kind – is not easy to do. In Transformers One, it flowed naturally. It made me smile. It broke my heart. If you’ve seen other Transformers movies and shows, brace yourself. If you haven’t, still brace yourself. Again, more about that in the “spoiler” section.

The humor in the trailers has been re-posted so heavily I think it’s beginning to lose its effect and people, not knowing the context, are quick to judge. Yes, Bee is funny. It’s Bee. He’s supposed to be lovable, humorous, loyal, and powerful. I found no issue with most of the humor coming from him. There is more humor that is not mentioned in the trailers that is really worth chuckling over.

Finally, the fight scenes were clean, the animation was captivating, and the incredible Brian Tyler produced musical masterpieces for most every scene, some of it connecting to other movies and shows.

"Spoiler" take, now!

I expected to dislike Elita. Really, I did. I knew she was the “love interest” for Optimus Prime beforehand and expected big things from her, because Optimus Prime never struck me as having a “love interest” in the past. Not only that, but I expected her to be the female character I seem to find everywhere these days who strives to be better than everyone else without a lick of experience, complaining about the male figures in her life.

Elita, however, is ambitious. She leads. She doesn’t have to prove anything; she’s simply willing to work hard and do her job. Understandably, she gets upset with Orion Pax and the others when they interrupt her progress, though I can’t help but be amused by Orion Pax’s shy attempt to get her attention and adored his subtle acts of kindness. Sure, she’s a tad bit aggressive – she did punch Orion Pax, after all – but I really enjoyed seeing her adapt. When Orion Pax was feeling hopeless, she was there to encourage him. If she had stopped talking immediately after saying “I’m better” I would have been frustrated. Orion Pax and D-16 are the main characters in Transformers One, after all. She didn’t stop there, though. She highlighted the most important aspects of Orion Pax; his good heart, selflessness, and bravery. She told Shockwave and the others to shut up and listen to Orion Pax when they doubted his plan. She encouraged him to speak louder when others couldn’t hear him. She leaned towards the pit when Orion Pax fell.

Not only that, but Orion Pax was incredibly patient with her. He woke her up when she was unconscious and immediately took a punch to the face like a champ. He gently, subtlety smiled at her when they traveled to the surface and Elita announced "it's beautiful." He cried out her name and pushed her out of the way to save her during a battle. He listened to her. He told her to beat Arachnid “gently” when Elita managed to detain her, proving he fully understood Elita’s personality.

I’m sorry, but this kind of relationship takes the cake. If they’re meant to be a couple, I can see the signs. I love how well they work together and build each other up.

Bee is an icon. One of my favorite scenes is him eagerly saying to Orion Pax “I’m going to go cut these guys up, watch! C’MERE!” It’s like a proud kid trying to get their parent to watch. I love how loyal he is to Orion Pax right off the bat.

While they changed some lore in Transformers One, they included everything that was important. Orion Pax and D-16 are miners, but it seems Orion Pax may have been a clerk beforehand. When he broke into the archives, he seemed to know where he was going. When he ran, I can’t remember exactly, but I believe he was muttering numbers? I don’t mind the small twists and can see how they were necessary for the story; key details are kept.

Jazz and Ratchet mention! I was so excited to hear their names. Kind of wish they had shown Ratchet, maybe shouting “I needed that!” to a fumbling worker. Sorry, Transformers Prime reference.

Arachnid had an incredible design.

Sentinel is a well-written, hate-worthy villain. I… did not expect D-16 to rip him in half, though.

Also… can I just mention how epic that particular scene was? The switch from D-16 reaching his peak character development – showing no mercy – while Orion Pax reached his – making the ultimate sacrifice to preserve life and do things the right way; receiving the Matrix of Leadership. The music, the animation, the slow-motion… everything was incredibly cinematic.

Obviously, D-16 took things too far. I appreciated the fact that he didn’t just wake up one day and decide to be evil. It took time. It took motivation. Obviously, any sane person would stand with Optimus Prime, though he does make mistakes from time to time, but it was incredibly neat to actually appreciate D-16’s insight in the beginning, then notice the shift and feel every bit of emotion Orion Pax felt.

People say the ending is rushed, or that D-16’s change came too abruptly without any good motivation. Sure, the ending may be a little rushed, but movies are typically structured this way. Falling action does not have a set speed; it just needs to be well done. Bad things happen in a rush, and this leaves ample opportunity for the “good guys” to react a little too slowly. As for D-16’s motivation… even a person can take their worship of an item or figure too far. Megatronus was someone to look up to in D-16’s eyes. He agreed to Orion Pax’s plans, or at least tolerated them, but his admiration for Megatronus was his own interest. Orion Pax threatened that vision. D-16 wanted to kill Sentinel to satisfy his own needs and desires, not to liberate others. Sentinel deserved death after committing murder, yes. He didn’t, however, deserve a public execution, especially as he tried to get away and was relatively defenseless. Remember, Sentinel told D-16 and Bee that he would execute them in front of everyone. We can acknowledge his promise as brutal, so shouldn't D-16's actions be considered brutal, too? No "reason" could ever justify it.

When D-16 let Orion Pax drop, he proved he no longer cared about loyalty. The least he could do was hoist Orion Pax’s body up or break down after losing what he once called his best friend, but he didn’t.

It’s ironic… D-16 said “I’m done saving you” when in reality, Orion Pax was trying to save D-16 from doing something he knew D-16 should have regretted doing. Normally, yes, D-16 is the voice of reason, but not in this case. For once, this is where Orion Pax’s true personality shines through. His spark – the spark of a Prime – is in the right place. Orion Pax puts joking aside when serious matters arise. It seems D-16 didn’t really know his friend after all. The actions D-16 committed, my friends, are not actions you want to celebrate.

I really, really hope Transformers One gains more attention. We need the sequel! Transformers fans, tell your friends. Give an honest review, which are of more value than the reviews given by those who didn’t take the time to watch it. Hype it up and roll out!

[skrunksthatwunk]

some other adventures from this have been

three CONSECUTIVE scenes of kuwabara going "you're NOT gonna die on me again urameshi :((" during genkai's tournament. they JUST cut to him for that and then cut away it's SICKENING. like heyy reminder that kuwabara was traumatized a bit by yusuke's death teehee and then back to like. exploding shuriken fights

realizing how much they lean into the "fight me fight me fight me" stuff in the rando arc and how much less that's the case with time because like. they actually become friends who have other stuff to talk about now :)

great beasts/maze castle/saint beasts/WHATEVER arc (and genkai's tourny) has just. they're telling each other to shut up Constantly like even more than i thought

i think i mentioned this a while back but im working on an "every kuwameshi" video right (yes it's ridiculous i know somebody take them away from me) and i just need to say im so fucking sick of editing the saint beasts arc </3 pls i love that one normally but this section of the video is like. 70% silent group shots it's so bad and not fun to watch or edit and i hate it :[