#which is annoying!!! why are they hidden!!!! how fucked am I gonna be if I miss those

[midnightwind]

every time I return to the Lighthouse and see the bubble over Lucanis' head has me like

[briarberrythornedhart]

When you have Pocket Aces you don’t bluff

🦇 ♦️ 🦇 ♣️ 🦇 ♠️ 🦇 ♥️

Contains: fluff, Eddie Munson x reader

Your new roommate - or apartment mate - was a great guy.

He did dishes, he kept the bathroom clean, was uncannily good at fixing things, he made a lasagna that tasted like heaven, he never failed to cheer you up after shitty days at work, always paid his half of the rent on time. You truly had no complaints.

Except the one.

He was so hot. Too hot. But you could deal. You could be a good friend and roomie and not lust after his fine person constantly.

Probably.

Unfortunately- He was a big flirt. At first you thought it was just his usual way of speaking. Clearly he couldn’t help it. Or he was so pretty that everything out of his mouth seemed extra salacious.

But, after weeks of watching Eddie flirt at Steve, Argyle, Vikki, Murray Baumann, and the Sinclair siblings’ MOM -

until she told him to watch his fool mouth and be respectful!,

and recently with Joyce AND Hopper at the same time, well…

“Why don’t you flirt with me?” Came popping out of your mouth when you couldn’t take thinking about it silently for another second.

Eddie took a guitar pick out of his mouth. “Sorry? Say wha- now?” He’d been focused on practicing guitar - percussive playing with harmonics or something... but now you had his undivided attention. He turned toward you on the couch, eyebrows up high - hidden by his curly fringe.

“You flirt - a lot - with a lot of people - but not with me, what gives?” You leaned into it, damage already done by bringing up this thing that had been bothering you. “You’ll just sit on Argyle��s lap, you’ll tell Vikki she looks mega hot, You asked Steve if his lips tastes as good as they look...”

You watched Eddie swallow/gulp and he rubbed his fingers on his thighs. “I can’t just… “ he licked his lips, “...say whatever comes to mind with you, I’d go too far... you’d get mad.”

“Try me.”

Eddie’s body language transmitted his reluctance - like a full-body whine. “I really can’t tho!”

“Ah.” You took a breath. “Because you just... can’t think of me that way.” You said flatly. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have pushed. I should probably go do some laundry or something...” You needed to get away from this situation. You felt too vulnerable, too sad. Too foolish.

What the fuck were you thinking even bringing this up?? Things were so good! Why’d you always pick at scabs??

“Nooo!” Eddie scooted closer, stood up, too, put a hand on your arm which stopped you from running away. “It’s not that. Look. I love living here. You’re really the only person that will put up with my bullshit, other than my Uncle. Did I tell you he used to sleep on a cot - the man is nearly 50 he deserves his own real-ass bed. And if you get annoyed with my bullshit, I’ll be on his couch and...”

“I’m not sure what ‘bullshit’ you are referring to, you are a great roommate, actually.” He was.

“You are a great roommate, too.” Eddie twirled a lock of hair around his finger. “I know it looks like I’m hitting on lots of people, right? But It’s not serious. I’m clowning, because it’s safe. How I feel about you... is serious. Real. We are really close and it means the world to me. So I don’t ask you if those lips taste as good as they look - and they do look good - because...”

“Because you know I’d say ‘why don’t you find out?’ and call your bluff and it’d be a whole thing.” You sighed.

There was a dreadful silence - it felt like 50 years passed, but it was probably only 7-10 seconds or so.

Eddie bit his thumb. “You look really pretty today.” He said, nodding his head forward like a little bow.

“So do you. For the record.” you informed him.

“This outfit looks great on you.” he traced a finger around the neckline of your top.

“It’d look better crumpled up on your bedroom floor.” You suggested.

“If I fireman-carry you to my bed, and call your bluff, you gonna kick me out of the apartment?”

“Of course not. I’m not bluffing.”

“Neither am I.” Eddie licked his grinning lips, bent low and plowed into your stomach, picking you up and holding your legs to his chest. He stood there for a moment holding you- until you poked him in the back. And then he laughed and carried you to his bed.

[chaos0pikachu]

Two Flavors of Japanese (BL) Cinema

Recently I came across a post that proposited that Japanese cinema hadn't changed since the 1950's and came in, essentially, two types. 

Let's discuss that. 

I can’t go into the history of all Japanese cinema in a singular blog post like that’s just not possible, there’s literal books and classes you can take on this subject, and I will be linking further reading down at the bottom of the post so you can do just that. 

This fact alone, should already disprove the point that Japanese cinema hasn’t changed since the 1950’s. Other than the fact that like, Japan isn’t a static society that is forever unchanging because human beings do not work like that. 

Which is why I’m writing this essay at all. 

I love cinema, I love storytelling and filmmaking. And, frankly, I may not be an expert but I am annoying. I own that. 

Japanese cinema has held influence over many directors, writers, animators, and so forth. 

Just watch this playlist of Sailor Moon references across various cartoons. Or how Satoshi Kon influenced the work of Darren Aronofsky and Christopher Nolan. Or how James Cameron and the Wachowskis were both influenced by Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 Ghost in the Shell. And then there’s Akira Kurosawa who’s been cited as a major influence for directors like: Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Martin Scorsese and a slew of others.

I want folks to know there’s a slew of amazing films from Japan and that distilling the industry - the blood, sweat and tears of its creators - to a strict dichotomy of this or that, either/or is disrespectful at best and xenophobic at worst. 

It’s also just a shame because, like, guys there’s so many great films from Japan! There’s also probably a lot of great live action shows from Japan but I’m not super knowledgeable about them - I mainly watch anime so that’s not a great metric in terms of Japanese television - so I’m just talking about films in this post. 

Ok so main points I’m gonna address: 

Japanese Cinema hasn’t changed since the 1950s 

Japanese film style falls under an extreme dichotomy of cinematic/sweeping (described as “atmospheric”) or cartoonish/slapstick (described as “live action manga”)

Baby does any of this have to do with BL? (no, but it IS more gay than you think)

With these four films: The Hidden Fortress (1958), Lady Snowblood (1973), Gohatto (1999), and Kubi (2023). 

I picked these four because they’re all “period pieces” taking place feudal Japan - or with the aesthetics of feudal Japan, The Hidden Fortress nor Lady Snowblood aren’t based on actual historical events, like Gohatto and Kubi are, however loosely, but take place in an amorphous 15th to 18th century Japan - and I think they strongly show the development of this singular genre in Japanese cinema. 

Plus the latter two films, Gohatto and Kubi, are gay as fuck and I know my people. 

[you can also read this post on this blog post which includes additional links as tumblr has a limit and for easier readability as this is a long post]

The Hidden Fortress 

Released in 1958, directed by Akira Kurosawa it’s probably the most well-known film on the list. It’s a film that exists within the “Golden Age” of Japanese cinema alongside films like Kurosawa’s own Seven Samurai (1954), Yasujirō Ozu’s Tokyo Story (1953) and Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu (1953). 

It was also the era where, after the American Occupation post-WWII a boom of movie distribution took place with new film studios such as: Toho (y’all know them from any Godzilla movie ever made), Toei (if you know One Piece you know Toei but they’ve done a ton of films both animated and live action) and others. 

The story is straight forward, two peasants, Matashichi and Tahei who bicker their asses off like an old married couple the entire film, happen upon a Very Hot Man with the Only Thighs Out (Toshiro Mifune was a BABE) named Rokurota and his companion a icy young woman named Yuki. 

Matashichi and Tahei have just escaped like, a ton of ~circumstances that include failing to become samurai, being broke as fuck, getting captured and forced into servitude - don’t worry that lasted like 6 hours tops - and then find gold hidden in a stick on a mountain. 

Turns out Rokurota has all the stick gold they could want! So they team up neither realizing Rokurota and Yuki are actually part of a clan that’s been recently wiped out and they’re on the run from a rival clan who has wiped theirs out. Yuki is the princess of said clan and it’s only survivor, while Rokurota is her samurai general and retainer. 

Tahei and Matashichi, living in ignorance of these facts, try to steal the gold away from them because they live that hustle life until the end when all is revealed and Yuki grants them both with a gold piece to share (this is a really big piece of stick gold). 

There’s other things that happen, like a fight scene between Rokurota and rival clan member, Yuki owning every single scene she in - I fucking love her - but that’s the gist. 

The story is, again, pretty uncomplicated, it balances the comedy of Tahei & Matashichi with the stoicism of Rokurota and Yuki well, and all the acting is strong. In terms of its film style, by modern day standards it’s not especially “cinematic” Kurosawa doesn’t favor fanetic camera movements, his camera is often very still and the movement he employs is often in individual character ticks, and/or background set pieces. This film has a lot of great set pieces. 

Kurosawa didn’t employ camera techniques like panning, he doesn’t really do extreme close ups, there's no swooping shots or fancy tricks, I’d say a majority of the camera shots in The Hidden Fortress are a combination of mid, and wide, with a few mid-close ups. One thing to notice is Kurosawa’s use of scene cuts; instead of a cut he used pan sweeps to change scenes. If you’ve ever watched a Star Wars film you know exactly what I mean. 

The Hidden Fortress, first and foremost, is an action adventure film. It has more in common tonally with Top Gun Maverick or Star Wars A New Hope, in that it's straight forward, sincere, and grand in scale, grounded by a very honest set of characters who are strongly motivated. 

I feel like in modern day discussions we association “action/adventure” films in a sorta of negative way; this is probably due, in part, to the oversaturation of the high budget blockbusters of the last ten years - oh MCU, how you’ve fallen - that are overly bombastic, overly complicated, overly connected, and the root of what audiences connect with - the characters - tends to be lost. 

Scott Lang's motivations in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania are to protect his teenager daughter and the family he's built, which are simple, strong, and relatable character motivations. However, they got lost in the conventions of the plot, the frantic energy of the film, the simple amount going on around Scott that his motivations become less a central focus and thus he becomes small within his own film. We, the audience, become distant and it grows more difficult to connect with what's happening. This can still work on some level, the Fast and Furious franchise isn't successful because it's sophisticated, but the Fast-chise has embraced it's cheesier conventions and spectacle, while blockbusters like the MCU's output, simple juggle to much all at once. It also helps that while the cast keeps growing in the Fast and Furious films, there's still less than ten characters you have to actually know and care about. To fully understand and connect with the characters of The Marvels, you have to watch Ms. Marvel and WandaVision on Disney+ and the task becomes more akin to homework than simply the enjoyment of watching a movie. 

The epic scale grows so large it feels daunting, rather than exhilarating. 

I think this is why a film like Winter Soldier, more so than most MCU films of the last decade, has continued to be a fan favorite of the universe and of blockbuster lovers whether you are a fan of the MCU or not. At its root, Winter Soldier is character driven, with deeply motivated characters,  which is what makes the action and adventure aspects stick. 

The Hidden Fortress is similarly character driven with a simple and straightforward story that is about honor, loyalty, a princess, a loyal samurai/knight, rebuilding a decimated clan, and two “normal” characters to keep everything grounded and relatable. Which in turn, helps make it timeless. While the filmmaking itself isn't grandiose as what modern audiences may be used to, Kurosawa knows how to direct a scene and more than that, direct his actors. Mifune is commanding as always, but for me, it's really actress Misa Uehara as Princess Yuki that steals the movie. 

Lady Snowblood

Released in 1973 and based on a manga of the same name by Kazou Koike and Kazuo Kaminura, directed by Toshiya Fujita, Lady Snowblood and its sequel Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance are considered cult classics. Lady Snowblood, famously, is Quentin Tarantino’s inspiration for his Kill Bill saga (like, a freaking lot). 

Lady Snowblood is a part of the era of “new wave” and “pink films” that were emerging in Japan and elsewhere. Stateside I think a close equivalent to both the style and content of Lady Snowblood and other films like it are exploitation films. In fact while watching Lady Snowblood I couldn’t help but get exploitation film vibes just off the aesthetics and thematics of the film itself. 

To break down Lady Snowblood’s plot it goes like this: Yuki is tasked with getting revenge on four people who had a hand in her father, and older brother’s murder, and her mother’s rape (which is seen on screen so warning for y’all this is def a Does the Dog Die movie). 

Yuki’s mother kills one of her rapists, but is imprisoned before she can kill the others and while in prison she purposely gets pregnant so her child can carry on her revenge after she dies. Yuki is born, and raised by one of the fellow inmates and a priest who trains her in martial arts. She’s raised as a “demon”, whose only purpose is revenge for her mother, father, and brother. And boy does she get revenge the film is violent and graphic (even if by modern day standards the blood looks fake as fuck the emotions are there). 

Like The Hidden Fortress this film is very character driven, with a highly motivated protagonist but it’s also revels far more in it's violence and the spectacle of that violence. Yuki, in comparison to her earlier counterpart Princess Yuki, is the driver of the action in the story. She's an active participant in the plot, and the story centers around her. Princess Yuki is commendable, she's compassionate, and she makes decisions, but the story is more about what she represents - a fallen princess - than what she does. She's symbolic, the embodiment of a leader, a samurai spirit of nobility who becomes a leader worth following. Yuki, on the other hand, needs no protection from others, she's a much more direct and active part of the story since the story is hers - and her mothers - she's more elegant than regal, and there's nothing necessarily 'noble' about her.  She's not seeking to rebuild her clan as a leader, her motivations are singularly about her revenge quest to fulfill her mother's dying wish. 

In some ways, they're very similar - Yuki also feels compassion for another woman who's been used by the men around her as Princess Yuki does - and in others they are very different and speak to the changing expectations and idealizations of women from the 1950s to 1970s. 

Lady Snowblood is also way more violent than any Kurosawa film I’ve watched including The Hidden Fortress. While there is action in The Hidden Fortress, it’s all employed with specific purpose. Which is one of Kurosawa’s strengths as a director. It’s calculated and singular. Yes blood spurts up in Yojimbo but it's limited; quick and efficient, with more in common with John Wick or Collateral than the more fantastical and aesthetic Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez fare. 

Lady Snowblood revels in the aesthetic violence, there’s no “purpose” for Yuki to cut an already dead person in half, she does it out of pure frustration and for the glory of showing the audience that internal rage. Of a body hanging, dripping blood and gore onto the clean floor as the curtain draws to a close. 

The film also features on screen rape, sex, and nudity which The Hidden Fortress does not. There’s an implication that characters in the film would assault Princess Yuki if they could, but nothing ever goes beyond brief implication (still gross tho guys come on). Whilst in Lady Snowblood, the rape is brutal, the violence is brutal, and the emotions are far more intense because of it all. 

The allowance - for lack of a better term - of this kind of material showcases a cultural shift overall in the terms of visual storytelling filmmaking began experimenting with in telling, and in what audiences were responding too. Lady Snowblood was a beloved success for its overall low budget. In comparison to the two, The Hidden Fortress is filmed better, with more technique and focus, Lady Snowblood almost seems rustic in comparison, but it's a sort of rustic that speaks to experimentation. 

Low angles from a characters pov staring high above her, extreme zooms on Yuki's burning eyes, the oversaturated colors of red-orange blood or green walls or white clothes, the starless pitch black sky as powdery snow falls. The images are arresting even if at times they're choppy, and while the film opts for non-linear chapter breaks to create a story flow in comparison to Kurosawa's iconic screen swipes and straight forward narrative, yet, both work. 

Gohatto

Behold, the promised gay cinema I promised. 

Gohatto is a 1999 film directed by Nagisa Oshima based on the short story, Shinsengumi Keppuroku by Ryotaro Shiba. 

Gohatto is a pretty late entry in the new wave/pink films of its heyday but those films were Oshima’s bread and butter. Often dubbed as one of Japan’s cinema outlaws for his anti-establishment films, one of his films, Night and Fog in Japan (1960) was pulled from theaters all together. Most people in the west will probably know him even tangentially for his queer film Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence starring David Bowie and Beat Takeshi or for this absolutely banger quote from the New York Times article, A Japanese Film Master Returns to his Cinema: 

(If you’re a BTS fan, the composer Suga and RM like, Ryuichi Sakamoto, both starred and composed the main theme of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence Forbidden Colors, he plays the guy in love with David Bowie’s character)

Gohatto combines the setting of a Kurosawa film, with the more experimental storytelling of Lady Snowblood, whilst imbuing the film with more surrealistic elements and more complexity. And making it gay like - for real for real. 

Gohatto goes like this: it’s the late 18th century in Japan, everything politically is on shaky ground, and the shinsengumi are looking for newbies to join ranks. Welp, they find two promising newbies and wouldn’t ya know it one newbie, Kano, is like, hella pretty. He’s got bangs. 

He’s so pretty in fact that all these other dudes in the shinsengumi crew wanna smash, I mean down bad like the Taylor Swift song or whatever I don’t listen to Taylor Swift. 

This is all treated with a lackadaisical normality; there’s teasing about “I never considered sleeping with a man before, but damn that Kano kinda…” but there’s never a moment of “omg they’re GAY?”

Beat Takeshi’s - who’s also in this film, he’s been in a lot fo queer films I'm noticing - character Vice-Commander Hijikata Toshizo often asks other characters not if they’re attracted to Kano - the implication being that they are - but rather if they are in love with Kano. Because lust is fleeting, but love is dangerous to your duty. 

Kano also might be a spy, or a murderer, it’s all very ambiguous and the ending isn’t a “happy” one. This isn’t a film about a love story of any sort, it has more in common with erotic thrillers than the action adventure of The Hidden Fortress, or the rape revenge fantasy of Lady Snowblood. Where as the former films have definitive endings, Gohatto ends ambiguously. 

What actually happened? And why did it happen? What did it all mean, in the end? The film offers no strict answers to these questions, asking instead, that its audience to come to their own conclusions. It’s also much more historical than the previous two films, taking real life historical figures like: Hijikata Toshizo, Okita Soji, and Kondo Isami and asking the question, “hm, what if they all maybe fell in love with this super pretty man before being overthrown and what does that mean metaphorically?” 

The Hidden Fortress doesn’t ask its audience to interrogate society in any meaningful way and that’s not a knock against it, it’s just an observation. Lady Snowblood specifically presents the plight of women, and a slight take on classism within the system, through the lens of violence and destruction. Gohatto is much more metaphorical, it’s not providing the audience with a direct message like the former two films, but presenting it’s thematics in a much more abstract way. The Hidden Fortress is an action adventure, with heroes who achieve their goals and overcome their obstacles. Lady Snowblood is a rape revenge with an understandable protagonist who succeeds in her bloody revenge. Gohatto has no heroes, and offers no straightforward catharsis at the end of its story story. 

Its film style is also far more atmospheric compared to the epic scale and straightforwardness of The Hidden Fortress, or the lower budget charming violence of Lady Snowblood. 

There’s lots of mood lighting, overhead shots of characters dimly lit, camera cuts to rain after two characters have sex, extreme close ups of one character observing Kano’s eyes and lips. It’s not a black and white film like The Hidden Fortress, but it’s not nearly as saturated in color and brightness as Lady Snowblood. 

Lady Snowblood drips with color, and light, even at night there always almost seems to be a spotlight on Yuki with an empty starless sky in the background. Gohatto is much more grounded in realism than high visual aesthetics, opting to create more of a lingering dreamlike trance or fog to the cinematography when the story’s final act begins to unfold. 

Yet, one thing Gohatto has in common with both The Hidden Fortress and Lady Snowblood is its violence; operating somewhere between the two. Like The Hidden Fortress the violence is quick, purposely, and specific, and like Lady Snowblood blood spurts, gushes, and heads are displayed proudly and grotesquely.

Kubi

Kubi is a 2023 film directed by Takeshi Kitano aka Beat Takeshi - this is the third time his name has been dropped in relation to a queer film in this post go Beat Takeshi - based on a novel of the same name that Kitano also wrote. 

Kubi is like Beat Takeshi’s sengoku period slash RPF fanfic come to gruesome bloody (literal, not British) life. A period piece epic; Kubi is both about samurai warlords and a historical event known as the honno-ji incident, which took place in 1582. It features various historical figures like Oba Nobunage - if you’ve watched some anime or played some JRPGs you’ve probably at least heard of this name before - and other prominent historical figures of the time. 

The basic gist of the movie is Oba Nobunage is both really good at his job, so he’s super powerful politically, but he’s also a grade-a asshole whom all the other important samurai lords fucking hate. However, they also all fucking hate each other and all want to take Nobunage’s place and get all that sweet, sweet power for themselves. The honno-ji incident involved one of these guys doing a coup for reasons still unknown today and then pretty much almost immediately dying swiftly after leaving another samurai lord to take over. 

Kubi takes these historical events, and is like “okay but what if we added some gay innuendo and gay sex to this drama?” with more beheadings than a French revolution. 

Out of all the films on this list Kubi is, admittedly, the one I enjoyed the least, however, it’s an interesting retrospective on the growth of both the Japanese film industry and this specific genre in and of itself. 

Kubi’s film style is very modern, it’s beautiful, it’s sleek, it’s expensive looking. And yet there’s specific scenes that feel like callbacks to the Kurosawa era, like the black and white flashback between Nobunage and his fellow samurai lords. One of Kurosawa’s top films was Kitano’s Hana-Bi (1997), and Kitano has worked with Kurosawa’s daughter on costume design on four other films as well, so these references feel not only purposely because of general influence but also referential in a way. 

In terms of story and tone, Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress is sincere and straightforward, Lady Snowblood is experimental and fearless, Gohatto is introspective and suspenseful, whilst Kubi is unrelenting and even feels mocking at times. There is no break in Kubi's violence, there's almost no tenderness or softness, characters are selfish, and self-centered. The selfish, but joyful peasants in The Hidden Fortress don't exist here, and are replaced with a peasant character who murders his own friend and then rejoices over being relived of his family once he discovers they were murdered too. At times, Kubi feels like a subversion of the more glamourous depictions of the samurai in film. Which feels as though following similar footsteps established in Gohatto which also explored, subtextually, the faults within the samurai media persona. 

At times the film feels almost like a dark comedy, it doesn’t glamorize these samurai warlords, nor their clans, nor their ideals in the way The Hidden Fortress does, nor does it interrogate them in the way Gahotto does. Instead the story at hand is presented with a brutal realism, objective if a bit mocking with a side order of gay sex. Which isn’t presented in a mocking way so much as just an everyday aspect of life. 

When Mitsuhide and Murashige are caught by spies sleeping together there’s no shock or awe about it, just a calm report and the bigger issue is Mitsuhide hiding a fugitive more so than him sleeping with a man.

Similarly, when Nobunage is literally fucking one of his vassals in front of Mitsuhide, it’s not to disgust the other man, but rather a powerplay of sorts to make the latter jealous - at one point Nobunage promises if Mitsuhide accomplishes a mission for him, he’ll sleep with him - and it seemingly works to some degree. There’s subtext throughout the film that Mitsuhide might be, if not in love with Nobunage, want him in an obsessive way all the same (including being down to bone). 

Like with Gohatto the queerness is inherent, just a part of the culture. It’s not “romance” by any means, but it is simply a part of life and the culture itself. 

In terms of characters, Kubi's characters couldn't be more different from the characters in the previous mentioned films. The Hidden Fortress characters like Princess Yuki and Rokurota are easy to like, honorable, quiet, steadfast; while Matashichi and Tahei are less outright likable they offer a grounding and relatable to the big presence that are the former two. In Lady Snowblood, Yuki is quiet, calculating and menacing in her own right, truly embodying the idea of cold vengeance which makes her intriguing. In Gohatto Kano is elusive, which adds to his sensual allure, Okita is playful yet clearly hiding a more sinister air about him, and you just feel bad for Tashiro who’s pushy but seemingly sincere in his affections for Kano. 

Kubi has no by-the-by “likable” characters, every character is out for themselves in some way shape or form. So much so that the brief tenderness between Mitsuhide and Murashige is like a balm to a burn. Though I did absolutely enjoy the scene-chewing of Ryo Kase who played Nobunage. While Nobunage isn't a "likable" character by any means, he was so fun and engaging to watch he became a highlight of the film. 

Stylistically, this is a very modern epic film; it’s the type of film in terms of scale I imagine Kurosawa could have made if he had access to the same technology, but also wouldn’t because there’s no stillness or sincerity to it. The violence is also more in line with Lady Snowblood, but with a budget. Heads are lopped off with ease and at times with glee, dead bodies, headless bodies with crabs crawling out of the necks, a literal pile of heads for trophies it’s all here. It’s beautifully and dynamically filmed, it has a similar scale of a Lord of the Rings, or a Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms. 

Big set pieces, big costumes, big landscapes, big battles, and bigger body counts. It also has the largest cast of any film on the list - kinda neat that Kitano and Asano Tadanobu were both in Kubi and Gohatto together - and the best costumes of the bunch. 

It also, in my opinion, has the most complicated plot of all the films because of the heavy political intrigue - though this, admittedly, could be because of the culture gap as I’m not overly familiar with Japanese history. 

Okay so like, where does all this leave us in terms of those original bullet points? 

The Original Bullet Points

Japanese Cinema hasn’t changed since the 1950s 

If there's one thing - well okay many things cause I'm greedy but overall - I hope I've been able to outline here with these four films is that obviously Japanese cinema has changed since the 1950s. And thoroughly at that. Not just in terms of style, but in terms of character presentation, tone, stories technology, experimentation, and a growing reflection of the shifting and developing culture. 

It’s not simply that all four of these films are different stories, but that all four of these films are addressing different aspects of their modern culture via these period pieces, as well as, viewing this time period in ways that reflect the filmmakers own experiences and how they feel or felt about the world. 

Kurosawa was born in 1910 to Kitano’s 1947, Fujita and Oshima’s 1932. Kurosawa’s father was a member of an actual samurai family, his worldview would be thoroughly different from someone like Oshima, or Kitano, or Fujita’s. Some overlap, sure, but also still thoroughly different. 

And I feel that you can see that in their films; Kurosawa’s samurai films are almost referential at times, not always, but his work with Toshiro Mifune often leans that way; in The Hidden Fortress Mifune’s Rokurota is deeply loyal to his lord, the Princess Yuki, to the point that he won’t shed tears over his own sister being executed in her place. He spares the life of a rival because he respects him even though they stand on opposing sides. 

The samurai in Gohatto and Kubi aren’t nearly so idealized nor idolized, there’s very little “honor” in Kubi and even less loyalty. Whilst in Gohatto there’s a deep and subtle interrogation of the strict and oppressive bylaws of the shinsengumi. In one such scene, Kano is having drinks with a man who is interested in him, Yuzawa, who’s passionately talking about how the shensengumi uphold oppressive ideals including classism. 

[And then he jumps Kano’s bones I guess politics got the dude going lmao]

The Hidden Fortress’ Princess Yuki is at first, masculine - in story she was raised as a man rather than a princess - from the way she walks to the way she talks. She’s fierce, and upstanding, while also being compassionate to other members of her clan; even saving a young woman who’s a member of her clan that had been sold. There’s a regal quality to Princess Yuki. 

In comparison, Yuki in Lady Snowblood is elegant, and feminine, before striking out violently. Princess Yuki never has an “action scene” and in fact for a chunk of the film has to pose as a deaf woman to hide her identity. While not a passive participant in the plot, nor does she directly drive the action herself. While Yuki, well the entire movie is driven by her actions and the actions of her mother. The story is first and foremost, hers. 

Meanwhile women just like, they don’t exist in Gohatto or Kubi they’re like, in the ether~~~ they’re drifting, keeping out - or kept out? - of the drama. 

Given the vast differences in both style, tone, story and execution, how can you say wholeheartedly that Japanese cinema hasn’t changed since the 1950s? 

Japanese film style falls under an extreme dichotomy of cinematic/sweeping (described as “atmospheric”) or cartoonish/slapstick (described as “live action manga”)

I’m just…not gonna get into the overall history of Japan's adaptation of manga into live action films cause it would derail this conclusion and I ain’t got the time for that. I would like to note, Lady Snowblood is a live action film based on a manga of the same name - and it is not slapstick. It doesn’t even have comedic elements, it is a violent rape revenge story; I don’t think there’s a single moment where I chuckled. The Hidden Fortress is far lighter in tone, while Gohatto has more in common with Lady Snowblood - deeply and sincerely serious - and Kubi goes for a darker sort of comedy. 

This is just incorrect information. Personally I’m of the mind that “cinematic/sweeping is too broad a spectrum to even quantify as a film genre they are descriptors. 

That said, I don’t think Lady Snowblood is cinematic or sweeping. Gohatto is the only one on the list that’s even close to “atmospheric” though all four films have atmosphere - because atmosphere is a film technique it’s not a genre of film - The Hidden Fortress and Kubi are the only two I could qualify as “cinematic/sweeping” because they’re going for a larger bombastic scale. Though I feel folks watching The Hidden Fortress in the modern day might not find it cinematic because of how static and slow the film can be at times - the first act is long and drags quite a bit. 

To place such a strict dichotomy on an entire industry of filmmaking is simply bad film critique at best and xenophobic at worst given the context here. I’ve only talked about four films in one singular genre, I didn’t mention the countless other new wave films, or the birth of the kaiju genre with Godzilla, the expansion into horror and grindhouse - where does a film like Tag (2015) fit into such a strict dichotomy? -  nor the long, long history of animated works from various insanely highly influential and/or successful directors like Satoshi Kon, Makoto Shinkai, Hideaki Anno, Rintaro, Mamoru Hosoda, Mamoru Oshii, Isao Takahata, I mean the list goes on and on. 

If you expand your horizons you’ll find so many amazing films that do not flatly sit in this one or the other imposed categorization. Think about what queer cinema you may be missing out on by adhering to this imposed binary. 

Baby does any of this have to do with BL? (no, but it IS more gay than you think)

So, in the end, what does this have to do with BL? I would say it has both little and a lot to do with BL/GL which are genres all their own in Japan and other neighboring countries; as such their subject to the same waves, exploration and expansion as the four aforementioned films. 

It’s easy, if intellectually dishonest and academically lazy, to look at The Novelist and What Did You Eat Yesterday and say “BL only comes in two shapes and sizes”. 

There’s chocolate or vanilla and that’s it. When in reality there’s lots of ice cream flavors available, even if chocolate and vanilla are the best sellers it doesn’t mean strawberry or mint chocolate chip don’t exist. 

Where does animated BL fall into this western imposed binary? How does capitalism affect the output of what gets made for the screen and how? How does the political climate affect what’s being financed? Are BL and GL works that are being made somehow unaffected, existing in a stasis state, by the works across the film industry? Even from other queer works of film? What are we, as outsiders, not considering when we engage with this media? 

If we’re only looking at BL/GL for “queer representation” what films and/or television are we missing out on from these countries? What BL/GL are we missing by only engaging with what's put in front of us, and not diving deeper into learning more, expanding our individual knowledge, and experiencing stories that might take some work towards seeing? Stories that might be outside of our direct comfort zones because they don't fall into those strict if seemingly comforting boxes. What exploration into queer identity are we denying or ignoring the existence of because of these imposed binaries? 

I know some folks who are more well versed in BL history that would and do consider Gohatto and Kubi BL or BL adjacent, but I also know most western, especially American, audiences would consider neither of these films BL. 

So where does that leave them?

Further Reading: 

Cinematic History: Defining Moments in Japanese Cinema, 1926-1953

A Brief But Essential Introduction to Japanese Cinema

Filmmaking from Japan: The Golden Age of Japanese Cinema

Nagisa Oshima: Banishing Green

JAPANESE SOFTCORE: THE LAST OF TOKYO'S PINK EIGA THEATERS

The Last Samurai: A Conversation with Takeshi Kitano

The Evolution of the Japanese Anime Industry

Check out other related posts in the series:

Film Making? In My BL? - The Sign ep01 Edition | Aspect Ratio in Love for Love's Sake | Cinematography in My BL - Our Skyy2 vs kinnporsche, 2gether vs semantic error, 1000 Stars vs The Sign | How The Sign Uses CGI | Is BL Being Overly Influenced by Modern Western Romance Tropes? | Trends in BL (Sorta): Genre Trends

[charlie-pippin-faraday]

My danganronpa v3 chapter 6 running commentary:

"MY NAME IS MAKOTO??????"

excuse me you black-haired bitch you're not makoto naegi

bro what the HELL was going on in that cutscene i'm so confused

"if my actions result in your deaths so be it" nah there's something wrong here, that doesn't sound like that keebo i know

keebo's protecting us he's stalling keebo i love you i love you so much

guys i gotta level up my FRIENDSHIP POINTS to move ROCKS

ah shit fam we finally found kokichi's lab. it looks like a door from fallout in a literal tunnel underground lol

kokichi wants to be a batman villain so bad

is kokichi actually the ultimate improv comedian or something what is this

what is the "inconsistency" in the hope's peak academy book that shuichi pointed out but won't tell me? come on now don't leave me hanging. is it that makoto established the academy for normies actually? or is it something to do with the secret DR2 killing game?

i'm not wrong about either of those facts, am i? am i misremembering? didn't makoto say in i think the anime that he wanted to establish the new hope's peak for everyone and not just ultimates? and weren't the events of jabberwock island kept a secret from the general public? the fact that he was trying to rehab the remnants of despair in the neo world program was supposed to be a secret, right? to protect them?? am i wrong about that??

that flashback light only had me more confused

woah you can go outside and watch an action sequence of keebo fighting an exisal that's fucking sick

kokichi has the wax figure of rantaro?? just strung up by his bed?? what the????

oh THAT'S where the caged child document went!

so he really WAS the leader of the ultimate improv comedy group

i bet they do flash mobs

i think a more accurate title for him would be "ultimate little shit"

obsessed with the whiteboard in his room with all our pictures on it. he wrote who murdered whom, then wrote "suspicious" by maki, "weird" by keebo, "trustworthy?" by me, and "annoying" by the monokubs lol

REAL makoto naegi??? in the flashback flesh???

hell yeah we're FINALLY going to rantaro's lab!

...now that i'm in here i instantly regret it i don't like it in here

how did kokichi know about the vaults in rantaro's lab early enough to leave those notes? did HE even leave those notes? and WHY do the vaults have a monokuma USB in them?

is it gonna have that message from rantaro that we saw in a cutscene earlier?

ha i knew it

ultimate survivor? maybe himiko wasn't joking when she said maybe he went on a bunch of game shows lol. get this man to CBS

"i never imagined rantaro the first victim would come up again like this" i mean, *i* could! at least i was hoping. there were way too many unanswered questions about him

the voice of one of these unnamed classmates in this flashback sounds SUSPICIOUSLY like bryce papenbrook. i've learned never to take his presence lightly in these games

cold sleep room?!

aw hey the whole gang back together in the flashback! man it's been awhile since i've seen some of these people

i'm sorry, kaede has a TWIN??????

bro this game actually game overed me because i spent too much time clicking on people to talk to. I WAS TRYING TO BE THOROUGH IN MY INVESTIGATION!!!!!!! i didn't think it would do that to me, i just thought the time limit would be done once i'd completed everything. ffs

...motherkuma?

oh the mastermind just be making flashback lights to include whatever memories they choose? so yeah they all have to be COMPLETE crap

if himiko suddenly reappeared and is once again being super unhelpful about how she escaped the sealed hidden room, i'm guessing that means there's another door to that room

oh shit fam a hidden passage in the girl's bathroom? hm

hey they repaired keebo's ahoge! which was the key to his inner voice clearly

ha i knew those "small bugs" were actually cameras of a sort

"i'll hit them with my 'all your relationships will end up being love triangles' curse!" damn himiko that's cold. i feel like a remnant of despair would enjoy that tho

you know, if you'd asked me to predict who my final group would be, i NEVER would have guessed himiko and tsumugi. maki absolutely, keebo maybe, but never those two. this is such an odd grouping to be the final one

wait how the fuck do you know about jabberwock island, shuichi? or was that less secret than i thought?

i need to know more about this "previous game" rantaro survived

god how i fucking WISH rantaro was the ultimate game show host that would be so funny

your honor my girlfriend kaede was innocent!!!!!!!

are you telling me that the throwaway joke the game grumps made about the shot put ball landing right next to rantaro and not actually hitting him is what ACTUALLY happened???

i knew everyone kind of brushing off that tsumugi went to the bathroom back in chapter 1 was odd

we're doing a closing argument now? we haven't even hit intermission. i assume part 2 of this trial is just gonna be off the rails then

they're literally all begging tsumugi to tell them she's not the mastermind but she can't do it

dude if kokichi were here he would be tearing her apart verbally

junko the 53rd?! new ultimate despair?

is tsumugi just doing a REALLY effective cosplay rn?

they all keep trying to tell me that kokichi was a remnant of despair but i don't believe he was

don't tell me that makoto went back on his promise to have hope's peak be for normies

i like to believe that toko wrote this book

yeah i knew all those memories were fake as shit. we're in like a hunger games arena i'm calling it now

lol they weren't even hope's peak students? i'm willing to be they're not even ultimates at all, and not a single one of their backstories is real

i like to imagine everyone who's died so far is watching this from another room like everyone eliminated from a season of the bachelor or survivor watching the finale episode

the ONLY piece of evidence leading me to believe anything told to us might've been even remotely real is kaito's strange illness. other than that, i'm fairly certain every single thing told to us about the backstory and the outside world is fake. i bet there is no gofer project, there were no meteorites, there is no disease

what the- HAJIME?????

mahiru? okay this is starting to get a little batshit. felt some whiplash when she turned into hiro and then soda

hey don't you DARE turn into makoto naegi that feels disrespectful

bro does this take place in a different universe from the other two games???

this is getting way too meta

i have no idea where this goes from here if this isn't in the same universe as the other games

wait are we actually in a time loop of sorts, like i'd predicted awhile back?

oh dude i just noticed there are little "V"s and "3"s in the eyes when tsumugi is cosplaying

is this girl really blaming her actions on ~society~?

bro this is getting WAY too meta. like, past the point of being fun

shuichi just shouting at them to shut up is my mood rn

is this a roundabout way of saying they're all quote-unquote actors?

damn even that illness was fake huh

bro not her actually becoming soda to make the tenko comparison 😂

guys i'm not really sure what to make of this. idk where to go from here

like i genuinely feel like a bucket of cold water was just poured on me. like. what the fuck is this

guys i'm gonna be real: this fucking sucks. i've never been a fan of "it was a dream this whole time and none of it mattered or was real" storylines. it's lazy writing. and i really feel it here

bro i got the BAD END??

...or maybe not?

oh my god is keebo gonna be my actual savior??

i knew keebo was the only bitch around here i could trust

hang on am i playing as keebo now?? it's my dream. he had an ahoge for a reason! the TRUE true protagonist! this game is starting to redeem itself

lol of course that was an antenna. and he was basically the first person camera for the audience? interesting

you know this means in the final chapter the audience wasn't watching the rest of us running around finding clues for the situation, they were watching keebo fight exisals lol

ULTIMATE HOPE ROBOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

there's always an ultimate hope at the end of these. and it's very interesting that unlike the other games, they didn't have it be the character i was controlling for a majority of the game. and tbh i think that was the correct choice. shuichi you're great and your heart's in the right place but you're not the ultimate hope lol

oh this is now a battle to save keebo's life???????? oh i am putting my ALL into this

the fuck kind of rules are these? even if we win we gotta sacrifice two of us? huh?

speaking of, what happened to the 11 other people in this game? are they actually dead? or not? that feels very unclear now

i gotta fight shuichi in verbal sword battle? i gotta fight essentially myself?

i was never good at the sword minigames i could never figure out the best way to control it

oh man that poor boy is just so clinically depressed

and the fact that we had that sword fight to clair de lune...oh man

shuichi i am unsure about this logic of yours

oh am i shuichi again now?

yes shuichi we stan a weak king

tsumugi don't you dare talk as makoto you're making a mockery of everything he stood for

wait now i get to be himiko too? i better get a turn as maki by the end of this

oh thank god i do

thank goodness i didn't enable the "more time" skill

did they fry keebo?????????? unforgiveable unforgiveable UNFORGIVEABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

oh my god they took him over i hate this. let me go back to playing as keebo again

THEY ERASED HIS PERSONALITY??????? i'm never forgiving this game. this last chapter is like the finale of how i met your mother

at least he came back to say goodbye 😭

I CAN'T BELIEVE I GOT THIS FAR AND THEY FUCKING TOOK KEEBO FROM ME NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

can't believe i had to fight keebo and not tsumugi in the final battle

"we're friends, aren't we?" oh shut the fuck UP, tsumugi

no votes? thanks keebs

keebo fucking razing the place to the ground and executing everyone else in the process was NOT how i expected this game to end

oh shit they pulled a fast one on me with this epilogue - shuichi and maki and himiko lived?!? damn

they've made it unclear whether or not this is ACTUALLY in the same world as makoto and friends ughhh

i hate that they ripped keebo from me at the last second. they erased his personality and made him self-destruct. he was the hero but at what cost. this is a personal betrayal

could they rebuild him? maybe? all i want is a reunion with keebo and the survivors (VERY small survivor pool this time btw)

i'm going to be thinking about keebo nonstop for days fyi

guys, i gotta be real with you. this was the most unsatisfying horseshit. it felt like nothing mattered, and honestly it felt like they were making a mockery of us for enjoying the previous games and content. i didn't like it. and honestly it felt...lazy? like i had been speculating so much about how this would connect with the rest of the danganronpa plot and how this would build upon the already established story and characters. like you should've seen the theories i had in my head (one of my best ones: tsumugi was a rogue hope's peak student who idolized junko and wanted to do a killing game in her honor. keebo was a plant from makoto and the future foundation/academy to guide the others and eventually help lead to their rescue - that would've been a great plotline tbh). but no, none of that happened, it didn't build on the story, it didn't add to it, it wasn't part of the same story. it was just............nothing. it didn't lead anywhere, it didn't build up to anything. it just went nowhere and did nothing, it wasn't connected. it felt like all the investigating i did to find out the truth was a waste of time, and all the plot twists and turns that happened and all the choices the characters made had no fucking payoff. it was so frustrating. there are so many creative choices they could've made to build on the story in the danganronpa world but...that meta bullshit was not it.

in other news, i have already started writing a fanfiction: an alternate version of v3 that actually takes place in-universe, therefore making all the games connected! and i think what i've thought up is pretty good, ngl. it might be related to that theory i mentioned above. if you're interested in reading, lmk and i'll work to write it faster!

and thus officially concludes my v3 gameplay commentary! i might post here and there about my experiences in the bonus modes as i do them

[yourfatherlucifer]

If I killed someone for you (Yunho)

Yandere!Psycho!Jeong Yunho x Reader

Summary:

He was an amazing man in the relationship, but he had..tendencies..tendencies to do things someone normal wouldn’t do. Like he’s over obsessive. In the beginning he was perfect, flawless even. However, it’s your school reunion, everyone was there, including your old group of friends, which had a few guys in it. Yunho didn’t like it..no..he hates it, he loathes it, the way they touch you when they laugh. Sure, they’re just your friends, but they’re men, men that could steal you away from him. He didn’t want that, he couldn’t have that. Maybe it’s time for his mind to finally break, and give in to his urges. He needs you for himself. What will he do?

Warnings: mentions of violence, mentions of death, overall yandere behavior, possessive behavior, killer behavior, mentions of torture methods, swearing, this whole one shot is a red flag.

(There are several different song lyrics hidden, and I based the high school on the high school I graduated from. And a thank you to @starillusion13 for editing and being my beta reader. I appreciate it so much.)

——

My brown doe-eyed boyfriend was different, he’s perfect in my eyes, he’s everything I ever wanted. He had a sense about him, it was strange, but I thought nothing of it. He'd usually shower me with gifts, took care of my every need, so there obviously couldn't be anything wrong with him. He was the one I always wanted. He was a perfect one except for his possessiveness. I'm not complaining about this but sometimes it goes out of hand and it gets on my nerves. Maybe I'm thinking too much or he is just too caring to which, am just overreacting.

 My mind could just be wrong about him. He's just a little possessive. Right?

“Yunho? Why did you leave your dirty clothes just left in the middle of the floor?” I yelled over his headphones, my tall and lean, and puppy eyed boyfriend sat in his gaming chair.

I assumed he was playing with friends, but this was ridiculous.

I guess he didn’t hear me since he clearly didn’t answer me. How annoying!

Huffing, I kicked his clothes across the room, boring a glare into the back of his head. Jackass.

Whatever, I have better things to do, than clean up after a grown man.

I left our shared room with a slam of the door.

I was getting too frustrated, I should just relax, ignore my boyfriend's asshole self for the time being.

Plus, I have to get ready for a school reunion. I received the text last week and honestly, I didn’t even think anyone from my high school would invite me. I was a loner then, still am.

I suppose I had a couple friends then, not sure they’d remember me though.

-

“What are you wearing?” I heard a voice approach me from behind. The voice had a sharp undertone in it.

“Yunho! Don’t do that, you scared me.” I placed a hand over my chest. Turning around to see him already staring at me with a dark look on his facial.

“I asked you a question. You should answer it.” Why was he always so authoritative to me?

I rolled my eyes at him, “Seriously? So, now I’m not even allowed to dress how I’d like?”

Yunho's eyes glossed over with anger, "Do not back talk to me, why are you dressed all fancy?" That's it. I've had enough of his damn behavior.

"Fuck you, Yunho, you've been nothing but a dick to me lately,always being so possessive. I am going out, I have a high school reunion. If you don't trust me, even though you should. Then come with me. I don't need or expect this from you." I stood my ground, I wasn't gonna take anymore of his bull crap.

He stared me down for a precise moment before he left the room, to our shared bedroom.

About five minutes later, he'd come out wearing a dark blue long-sleeve button up and jeans. The sleeves of his dress shirt were pushed up to his elbows.

When he dressed like this, he was overly attractive, if only he wasn't a dick sometimes.

Rolling my eyes once more, "Oh, so you do want to come with me. Fine, but please, enough with the possessive behavior."

-

When we had arrived at my old school, my gaze was all over the place, it was smaller than I remembered. Still looked fancy in the front. The football field behind the school was visible slightly around the corner and that was where the event had been organized.

 The front banner said, ‘Welcome back, home of the pirates, class of (XXXX)!’

I looked at Yunho, his grip on the steering wheel had turned his knuckles white, "Um..it said the reunion is on the football field, so just head behind the school." With a nod from him, he pulled the car around the large building.

I don't know why, but I felt this looming sense of danger in the air. I really hope nothing bad happens, especially with the way my lover is.

-

"Y/N!"

Who called me? I don't..

I turned my head to the sound of whoever just called my name out, Yunho trailing extremely close behind me.

"Changkyun?" It was my best friend from freshman year, even though he was in a higher grade. I even had a crush on him then, but of course, I couldn't let Yunho know. Who knows what he'd do.

"Hi, dude, it's been awhile." Changkyun had wrapped his arms around me. I could just feel my lover's glare. This wasn't good. So I pulled away as fast as I could from my former friend.

"Yeah, it has, um, this is my boyfriend, Yunho." I turned around, but stepped back as soon as I saw his face. Yunho looked pissed. Like, it was honestly terrifying. I had never seen this look on him. His demeanor radiating a wave of danger to the cold environment of the late evening.

I mean, it was kind of hot, but something about it also didn't sit right with me.

Changkyun looked up, "Damn, you are tall. I'm Im Changkyun, I was Y/N's friend back in school." He held his hand out, but Yunho just stared at him down. Almost like he was threatened by his presence.

I could feel the tension in the air, maybe I should pull him away from this conversation. Yeah that's the best idea.

I grabbed the taller male's hand, "It was nice talking to you, Kyun, but I think we need to go." I chuckled nervously, pulling my lover away.

-

I stared up at him, "What was that, Yunho? Why were you glaring at him? He didn't do anything to you."

"Yes he did."

"What?"

I can't believe him. Was he serious? He did not just blame your friend for welcoming you there. If he continues being such an overbearing person, you might lose your mind before him.

"He touched what is mine, not his, mine."

There was that sense of dread again. MINE. You loved hearing him calling you his but sometimes that made you uncomfortable as if he was referring to some costly property which he wanted to lock it.

"How about this, what if I killed someone for you, Y/N? Would you love me more? Would that get inside your pretty little head, to show you and remind you that you are mine?" All of the sudden, he was leaning down, he had grabbed my wrist.

Oh my god, his grip was so tight, it felt like my wrist was gonna snap right off, "Stop it, Yunho! You're acting crazy! Let go of me, it hurts." I tried pulling away.

He wasn't letting go, and that killer look in his eyes was back.

"I don't care, what do you not understand?"

He was dragging me to the car, "You know, Y/N, I really cannot decide whether you should live or die. I mean, really. You come here dressed like you're going on a date, you let another man touch what is mine." He was laughing like a maniac.

Was he really going to kill me? No, no, he's just upset with me, that's all. I did nothing wrong though!

"Please, Yunho, stop! I love you! I didn't mean to do this, I didn't know he was gonna touch me." At this point, I was a sobbing mess, there was nobody around to save me.

An evil smirk was etched onto his face, after pushing me into the car, he locked the doors. Trapping me in with a psychopath.

As he sped down the road, the radio was almost blasting, he turned to me. "Maybe I should just crash the car, kill both of us! Or maybe, I could bury you alive, pour acid down your throat."

Why was he doing this? I don't want to die!

"Maybe I should just kidnap your little friend, keep him locked up in our basement. I could torture him for days, I could break him. You can watch!"

"Yunho, stop! I am sorry! I won't talk to him again! Please slow down, you're going to kill us." He was ignoring my pleas. The killer look in his eyes wasn't going to fade anytime soon.

"Oh, are you really? You are mine! Not some fucking tiny ass man can give you what I give you!"

He reached over, unbuckled my seat belt. The car sped up faster, this is it. I'm going to die. "Yunho!"

He was approaching a brick wall at top speed, but just three feet from it, he slammed on the brakes. My head smashed into the dashboard, knocking me out.

-

Cold water splashed onto my face, "Wake up, dear."

"Yun..?"

I had a pounding headache, why did my head hurt so bad? Why can't I move?

With my eyes fluttering open, I discovered I was restrained to a chair. My surroundings were definitely very familiar, it was our basement, but why was I down here?

"What's going on, Yun? Why am I tied up?"

The tall frame of my boyfriend was kneeled in front of me.

"Bad girls don't get to have freedom."

"What are you..oh," I remember now, I remember everything, "I told you I was sorry, why are you still doing this to me?"

"Because. I don't forgive you. Until you realize you're mine and stay away from other men, then I will be the perfect boyfriend again."

I shuddered with fear. I was never going to escape this, was I? I will never truly be free from him. I put myself unknowingly into a toxic relationship with a psychopath.

He gripped my jaw to look at him, "Everyday and night, I’m gon’ chase you. I love you, you should only love me."

I wanted to spit on his face, but I just don't know what he is capable of.

Tears were streaming down my face again, "Please, Yunho! I don't want anybody else, I want you! I only want you. I won't look at anyone else!"

He loosened his grip on my now bruised jaw, "That's a good girl, that's what I want to hear." Yunho chuckled, trailing a finger down my cheek.

"Are you gonna be a good girl for me?"

I shook my head up and down so fast, I swore my head would fall off.

'Yes, yes! I'll be your good girl, Yunho! I promise!"

The killer glint in his eyes faded just as fast as I blinked, "Good."

After untying me, he pulled me into a hug, rubbing the back of my head, before leaning next to my ear, "Because you will never escape me."

Oh no..

[notenoughdragons]

so i caved yesterday after *gestures* all of that on the other side of the pond, and bought veilguard (meant to wait till the first bugfix patch is out), and i have thoughts

(spoilers for the first few quests)

fucking adore the character creator. overwhelming as heck but God a+

addendum: why tf aren't there different lip/mouth shapes. we have like 30 eyelash options. i'm p sure da:i had diff mouth shapes

THERE'S NO QUICK SAVE/LOAD OPTION???? why on god's green earth

the photo mode is NEAT (tip, get yourself reshade plus the "mod" that allows hiding the UI, so you can do screenshot nonsense in cutscenes too)

it took me like 15 min to get rid of the quest marker bc that shit is hidden in Two diff menus but oh my god so worth it

on that note, i'm Really enjoying the area/level/dungeon design, and traversing it Without an annoying big blue star thing blinking at you is really good

the environments are just. unhinged in the best way. THE CROSSROADS? D'META VILLAGE?? THE OSSUARY???? perfect no notes

have i mentioned the hair? the hair is really good. i'm a lttle obsessed with the style i gave my rook, i didn't think i'd like it this much

okay let's talk plot bc. uh.

see, on the one hand? so far (recruited bellara and got the dagger and fucked around in the crossroads and am currently getting murdered by murdering calivan so lucanis will murder for Me) it… works for me? like it really feels like getting thrown into the DEEP deep end, but it's a kind of. idk. sensible progression?

and oh my god ghilan'nain. i kinda hate how normal she comes across in the memory dungeon lab? (which. AMAZING QUEST) but also i love that SHE'S UNHINGED, that solas clearly held sympathies for her, the way i YELLED when you hear her voice when that dragon shows up in the blighted village??? amazing

(NO fucking idea how this would play for someone who's not familiar with the series, good lord the amount of exposition crammed randomly into codex cards???)

that being said. how the fuck does this connect from trespasser/tevinter nights. solas what Happened to you. like this is (part of) why i'm Not using saar as the inq in this run, bc even pretending they Weren't madly in love, it doesn't work. i don't think it works for Any inquisitor who befriended/romanced him (unless maybe one who decided to go full scorched earth and hunt him down at all costs)

in meta terms i know why this is happening but How is varric our insight point into solas and the connection to him. even if you're not playing them, this Should be the inq. solas doesn't lose a single fucking word about anyone But the inquisitor in trespasser. it's just this really tragic dissonance y'know

also the way this game is frontloaded is so fucking funny (i am also choosing to find it funny). IMMEDIATELY unleash the evanuris. IMMEDIATELY get solas trapped somewhere so he can't use his not-god powers to help you. FIRST "normal" quest is a horror movie walkthrough of The Most Blighted Village You Can Imagine, like okay! solas spends all of da:i being fucking coy about the blight and now it's like 'the evanuris are blighted. yeah they used the blight for power that's why i trapped them. they got out and immediately start spitting blight everywhere For Power. the REST of the blight is trapped in the evanuris prison. yeah the black city IS the evanuris prison. also blight is alive too. uh what else'

sidenote. did. did no one think it was A Little Weird to frame it like 'solas is trapped in the fade' - 'but not like us! we're also trapped in the fade but in a completely different way!'

i do love the fade conversations, it's got dishonored vibes

(and cut-away scenes to the Villains Having Ominous Convos! i liked that in da:o)

also i have hints turned on and the. the little pop-ups. "solas remembers your verbal jab" THANKS GAME

ACTUALLY SPEAKING OF THOSE VILLAIN CONVERSATIONS. we're just gonna drop into a fucking codex that the lyrium dagger IS the red lyrium idol??? SOLAS CAN CLEANSE THE BLIGHT AND WE'RE NOT GONNA TALK ABOUT IT????

basically. the connective tissue to da:i etc is uhhhh. insane. bonkers, even. but also when i ignore that, it's legit fun??

also good lord i'm glad i didn't try to come up with a super specific character/backstory for this, the faction backstories are Real specific, and rook is written with a v definitive Slant (not a bad one! but there IS a slant)

[daizthecraze]

Watched the new Helluva Boss episode that we waited forever for.

Honestly at this point I give every episode without Stolas at least 1 star automatically because I'm so tired of him. He’s as complex as a wet paper bag and it amazes me how he's so popular in the fandom.😭😭

Kesha’s character, whatever the fuck her name is....Queen Bee? Yeah her design confused the absolute hell outta me, more specifically her hair cuz it's like she had a patch of normal-ish hair then the designing team was like “SHE NOT INTERESTING ENOUGH!” and then just slapped that lava lampish kind of shit on her and it just didn't work for me at all.

I also had no clue she was the ruler of the gluttony ring until I read a post here on Tumblr and I just.....WHAT?? she just seems like a regular ass hell hound that they slapped some random goofy shit onto to make her look more “special” and like I read on another post here...SHES DATING A HELLHOUND!? Who are seen as lower than Imps so what the fuck makes Stolas and Blitz relationship so dire and special in the first place!? Like according to levels of authority Blitz and Stolas’s relationship should be better then Queen Bee and Vortex cuz Stolitz level of authority are more closer together than a ruler of the rings and a hell hound..?? This really annoys me cuz with how the show is going I really doubt they're even gonna talk about what's going on with that and why one is acceptable and the other isn't.

Like at least with Fizz and Asmodeus it seems they're keeping their seemingly more romantic side hidden from the general public which looks like it's gonna be addressed in a later episode but with Queen Bee’s relationship she's just public about it...??

Also another note...am I the only one that was confused with what the hell was up with Lonna during the beginning of the episode? Like she seemed nervous then ran into a random ass group of girls who she apperently knew who made her more upset after shoeing a emmbarring photo. Like ok I get what she was upset for with that…but then that ends and she’s continues to be upset through the rest of the first half and I’m like why is she still upset throughout the whole song?? I wish they would give her some fucking dialogue to talk about her emotions other then be so god damn vague cuz I had no clue what the fuck she was thinking and it felt like they wanted her to be upset for random conflict without giving us a reason as to why she’s acting the way she is. After she meets Queen Bee she can’t even be completely shocked and upset cuz she already knew Vortex had a girlfriend cuz he told her in episode fucking 3. The only thing she would be surprised about was that he was dating a leader of the ring….but we don’t specifically understand what the fuck she’s so upset about…

I don’t know. It just really bothered me cuz I was expecting to learn more shit about Loona but I have to remind myself that this show really has a terrible time writing female characters.

Also the ending with Blitz and Loona would of been a decent moment if we didn’t already see that she completely physically beats him and acts like a massive bitch the first time we see her in the next season so 🙃🙃🙃

Episode didn’t really feel all that special….

[borathae]

↳ Index [Chapter 20 - Attic]

Warnings: lots of emotion, they finally talk!, deep and honest conversation, i want them to be happy always

Wordcount: 6.1k

a/n: *in Kookie’s voice* finallyyy

“Princess?” he tilts his head to the side, “what are you doing here?”

“Kook called me and said that he needed help. What are you doing here?”

Yoongi shows you his phone.

“The same”, he says.

“I don’t get it. Where is he?”

Bang!

You both flinch, eyes flitting to the door which just this moment flung closed.

Click.

Someone just locked it.

“What is happening?” you ask, hurrying closer to Yoongi because quite frankly, you were feeling very spooked. He seems annoyed, inching closer to the door, “do you know what’s happening?”

“Yeah”, he says, “hey, punk. What are you doing?” he calls out, banging his hand on the door.

“I’m doing what’s necessary!” Jungkook’s voice sounds behind the door.

“Kookie? What’s happening? Are you okay?”

“Yeah”, he says, “but you guys aren’t, so you are not leaving this room until you are.”

“Oh”, you let out, eyes flitting to Yoongi as everything falls into place.

“Open the door, brat”, Yoongi growls, banging on the door again.

“No! You guys need to talk first!”

“This isn’t funny, open the door before I rip it out of its hinges.”

“No” Jungkook sounds stubborn, “you guys love each other, so stop avoiding conversation.”

Yoongi sneaks a glance at you. The intensity of his gaze makes you gulp.

“This is your last chance”, he growls, wiggling the doorknob violently.

Music starts. Slow romance songs. Somewhere in this room Jungkook must have hidden his bluetooth speaker and now he pressed play on his phone.

“Jungkook!” Yoongi warns, “open this fucking door, you bratty punk.”

“I’ll open this door once you talked”, Jungkook answers him.

“Okay that’s it. I’m ripping it out”, Yoongi says, tugging at the doorknob.

You stop him, placing your hand atop his’.

“Or maybe we could try?” you say quietly.

Yoongi studies your face, jaw tense and eyes dark.

“Please? Maybe?” you whisper.

He exhales loudly, dropping his hand from the doorknob.

“What do you want to say?” he says dryly.

“Apologize, I guess? Say how fucking sorry I am? And that I miss you like crazy.”

“Mhm”, Yoongi acknowledges you. 

“I’m so sorry.”

He nods his head and turns. You watch as he drags his feet to the mattress, sitting down right at the edge of it. 

You hurry to him, sitting down. You give him his space, knowing that he needs it. 

You stay silent for now, wanting to give him the chance to speak his mind.

“I can’t believe this idiot is using my own tricks against me”, he murmurs, “fuck, he’s such a brat.”

“You have to admit, the idea is kind of genius.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Don’t blame the student, you’re just a good teacher. It’s not his fault that he learned from the best”, you say, making him scoff. It was laced with the slightest amount of amusement.

“Yeah, I…I just, fuck-”, he says, head lowered and shoulders sagging, “I can’t do this. This was a stupid idea. I’m ripping the door out”, he says, trying and failing to flee because before he can stand up, you have him pulled back down. 

“I like talking”, you say, caressing his knuckles. 

“I feared you were gonna say that”, he murmurs. 

“Really?” you chuckle even if the air is tense, “why is it so bad that I do?”

“Because I suck at it?” Yoongi lets out a nervous scoff.

“I don’t think you do. Just tell me how you feel, maybe?”

“I don’t know how I feel, okay?” he sounds pissed but you know that his voice is only as harsh as it is because he is nervous and in an unfamiliar situation. His guards are up, that is all, “I just know that I’m still so goddamn upset with you, but despite that it sucks ass to give you the silent treatment. I just…”

He sneaks a shy glance at you.

“I care about you”, he whispers, “you are different, I don’t want to treat you like I normally treat people who anger me. Once people really piss me off, I have no problem cutting ties, but not with you. I don’t want to cut you outta my life.”

“I’m glad you think that way. You’re different for me too. I’m sad when people leave, but it’s okay in the end because I expected them to leave. But with you, I turn into a complete clingy idiot and I want to keep clinging onto you to avoid being left”, you laugh painfully, “giving you your space the past few days was so hard because I missed you like crazy.”

Yoongi scoffs. 

“I know, it’s so childish”, you say.

“No, it’s not, I’m”, he exhales, “shit, I don’t know what to say. How do you talk shit out?”

“I get that. You need time and your thoughts are probably jumbled. Can I tell you how I feel maybe?”

“Yes please.”

“Okay so. I think, I’m so clingy because I really love you? Like actually love you? A-and I haven’t had that kinda love with anyone before you and it’s so epic to feel”, you catch the little nod he does, “but now, I’m really scared that I fucked up completely and you’ll never forgive me. And I’m sorry, so goddamn sorry. That’s how I feel. I feel so guilty and so sorry and so scared that I’ll lose you.”

Yoongi nods his head in understanding. He stays silent as he thinks over what you told him, picking at the skin of his thumbnail to keep himself grounded. There is an owl outside your window. It is making noise, cooing behind the glass at something that will never be revealed to you. Maybe it is the moon, maybe the stars or maybe it is solely doing it for itself.

“This is the point where you say something”, you whisper, studying his features.

“I know”, he answers you just as quietly, looking at you for just a second before he averts his gaze back to his own hands. “You didn’t fuck up completely”, he begins, “I don’t want to leave you. I want to forgive you, I really do. But I just…can’t do this yet. I’m not ready for that, because I feel…”

He shies away, touching the side of his neck almost as if he wanted to soothe himself.

“I’m so hurt”, he presses out, forcing the tremor in his voice to be as quiet as possible, “knowing that you did all of that so easily hurts me. I haven’t slept in days because I keep repeating what happened. I still feel your blood on my fingers, fuck.”

Yoongi looks at his trembling hands. 

You want to reach out and hold them, but you don’t know if you are allowed to. So you look at his hand and feel your heart twist in pain.

“I hate blood sharing so much”, he presses out.

“I hate it now too”, you say.

“Maybe it’s because I’m prude and stuck-up like Jimin said, but I can’t understand this lifestyle. It hurt me every single time in the past and I hurt people too because of it and I guess…”

He lets out an exhausted sigh.

“I guess what hurts me so much right now is the thought that you were willing to partake in the lifestyle which caused me so much harm?” he almost asks the sentence, “maybe it was my own fault too? I know that it’s unfair of me to expect of you to know how I feel about blood sharing when I haven’t specifically told you yet, but I just thought that…that I- I don’t know how to say it.”

He sits up, putting some distance between the two of you. He is fumbling with his fingers awkwardly.

“Just say how you want to say it. It’s okay.”

“Goddamn it, I thought that I had made it clear enough for you to at least connect the dots. You’re so intelligent and always make great connections and yet you couldn’t even think for a second that maybe you wanting to be a, a”, he falters for a second, “a fucking living blood bag could hurt me? I walked in on you being fucked so roughly whilst bleeding out and it makes my heart ache whenever I think about it. Fuck, I could throw up thinking about what they did to you. Why would you want that?”

He looks at you.

“I’m sorry”, he whispers.

“For what?”

“I was being harsh. Y-you told me I should say it how I wanted to, but it sounded harsh. I can’t help it, I’m not used to being gentle.”

“You didn’t sound harsh. Thank you for telling me.”

“Yeah, well”, he turns his head away, touching his own ear, “whatever.”

“I really hear you, my love”, you say, placing your hand on his thigh, “and you are right, I really should have made that connection, but I didn’t and for that I’m really sorry.” 

You squeeze his thigh. 

“You have every right to be upset about what you had to see”, you say, “we went too far. The thing you had to walk in on was too much.”

Yoongi nods his head, balling his shaking fingers into fists. 

“I don’t know if this will help you feel better, but the other times we shared blood weren’t like that.”

Yoongi tightens his fists, biting back a whimper wanting to come out.

“The sex during the sharing wasn’t like that in the past. I wasn’t in pain during the other times and I-”

“Be quiet”, Yoongi interrupts you, “be quiet when all you can do is defend him. Over and over and over again. Fuck.”

The last word was said with such heartbreak that it hurts you just as much. 

“I can’t take much more”, he presses out, hiding his face behind his hand, “please, don’t talk about this. It hurts so much.”

“Yoongi”, you breathe shakily, placing your hand on his thigh, “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to upset you, I wanted to assure you that I wasn’t always treated like that. Fuck, I’m so sorry.”

He doesn’t flinch away, he doesn’t tense up, he doesn’t react. He just sits there, shoulders shaking and face buried in his hands.

“I’m so sorry”, you choke out, scooting closer to rest your cheek on his shoulder.

“Why?” he croaks, “why did you do this?” his voice cracks, “I don’t understand”, he squeaks out and sobs into his hands, “why do you keep defending him? Why do you do that? Why?”

He turns his head, looking at you through the curtain of his tears.

“Ever since you met him he hurt you. He lies to you, manipulates you, controls your mind and gets you hurt over and over again”, he furrows his brows, “and he doesn’t even see it necessary to apologise”, he spits angrily, before sadness washes over his features again rendering him unable to look at you. He buries his face back in his hands, sobbing loudly, “why do you keep defending him? What do you see in him? I don’t understand.”

“I’m sorry”, you press out, “I don’t know why I do, but you’re right. You, you really are.”

Yoongi whimpers, curling into himself as his body begins to shake.

“Hey, my love”, you cup the back of his head in worry, “what’s wrong? You are shaking like crazy.”

Yoongi squeezes his head, “I’m gonna lose you to him”, he croaks, coughing out a sob, “I’m so scared that he’s gonna kill you.”

“No my love, no. He won’t kill me, I know him.”

“Yes he will”, he presses out in a trembling voice, “he almost did so when he fucked you. Oh god”, he retches as if his stomach wants to empty itself, “fuck”, he gags again, coughing afterwards, “I almost lost you”, he croaks, coughing out a gagged sob.

“Are you having a panic attack?”

He nods his head as best as possible, twisting his own hair to the point it barely stays on his scalp. He sobs and gags, convulsing in the intensity of it.

“Okay, that’s- don’t worry, I’ve been living with those bastards my entire life. I know they suck, but you’ll get through this.”

Yoongi wheezes, squeezing his eyes shut. He can barely breathe. His chest is so tight. His tummy keeps tensing up.

You keep him grounded with a soft touch to the back of his neck, massaging him slowly. You have no idea how much this helps, but you hope that it does.

“We’ll do something my cousin taught me. We called it the 54321 game. It’s very easy, trust me”, you say.

“I-I..don’t..want…games”, he gets out.

“It’s helpful. You just have to tell me five things you can see. Then four, three, two until we’re at one. And we’ll repeat the process with all your senses until you feel better.”

“What? How is, is that gonna help?”

“Just try. Go as slow as you need to.”

“No.”

“Yes Yoongi. We have to ground you again. Now come on, tell me five things you can see.”

Yoongi does. He begins with five things, breathing slower once he reached four things. He stops shaking after the three things he can feel and stops clutching his own hair after two things he can hear. He says his tears for one thing he can taste and by that time, his breathing has gotten back to normal and his eyes stopped crying. 

He doesn’t look at you. He doesn’t move. He simply sits, staring at the floor with glassy eyes whilst breathing normally. You know how exhausted he must feel right now. 

“How are you feeling?”

“Better”, he says without emotion. It’s a telltale sign of how drained the panic attack left him.

“Good, that’s good to hear”, you comb his messy bangs out of his face, “I’m glad that you feel a little better, my love. You did really well with the game.”

Yoongi inhales and squeezes his eyes shut, wrapping his fingers around your wrist just to hold something. He pulls your hand to his cheek, making you cup it. Only then he exhales, doing so terribly shakily. His fingertips are cold while his palms are sweaty. You hold him even tighter.

“Please don’t leave me this way”, Yoongi begs in a whisper, “please don’t do that. It would kill me. Please.”

“Of course not. Oh my love”, you say, scrambling off the mattress just to kneel down in front of him, “I’m not going anywhere. I’m here. Feel that?” you press his hand to your chest.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Your pulse is beating against your ribcage, reminding him that you were here. That you were alive.

Yoongi twists a bundle of your shirt so he can pull you closer, feel you better, make sure that what he feels is real.

“Can you feel that?” you ask, squeezing his hand, “can you feel my heartbeat?”

He nods his head.

“I’m still here, my love”, you promise him, “I’m still here”, you repeat the words so he will truly hear you. So that he knows that you aren’t lying. You’re still here and you won’t leave like this.

But Yoongi doesn’t believe you. This is just a trick again. A trick of the evil entity which has been writing his life and turned it into the lonely, dark play it has always been.

He pulls you into him, lowers his head to your chest so his ear was pressed against it. His eyes close. Your fingers tangle in his hair and scratch at his scalp. The touch sends shivers down his spine.

Tudun. Tudun. Tudun.

Your pulse echoes in your chest. He can feel it too. Rhythmical and constant. Fast because you are feeling just as upset as he is. But it’s right there. Even if fast, it’s right there. The proof that you are alive, that those horrifying images haunting him are just that. Horrifying images which haunt him. You didn’t leave him.

Yoongi releases a shuddering breath, wrapping his arms around you so he can pull you close.

You cradle his head, placing a kiss atop of it. He may seem exhausted to you, but he feels relieved. He isn’t a stranger to panic attacks. They haunted him throughout his whole life and most lasted days. This is the first attack which came and went within minutes and Yoongi knows that it was only because you helped him. He feels so relieved.

“Yoongi my love, I am really so goddamn sorry”, you whisper. 

Yoongi nods his head and lifts it. He leans into you. You cup his cheeks to wipe his tears away.

“I know”, he whispers, staring into your eyes as if they were the only thing he can see.

“What can I do to make it better? I want to fix this.”

“You don’t…” he hesitates and looks away. He pulls you close. You allow him, hugging him when he rests his head on your shoulder.

“Whatever you need, I will do it”, you whisper.

“I don’t know what I need. I’m so…” he lets out a shaky breath, “I’m so tired.”

He hopes that you understand what he means with that. That he is so tired, not only physically but also of making decisions. He can’t be strong anymore, he has no energy left to decide what he needs.

“I understand”, you say and you mean it, “then I’ll hold you for a while, yeah?”

He nods his head, growing soft and incredibly small in your arms. As if all he needed to finally take off the mask of strength were your words of understanding.

You run your fingers up and down his back, play with his hair and reassure him of your presence with soft kisses to his closed lids and forehead. There is no strength holding him up, he rests against you with his entire weight but you don’t mind. He can lean on you for as long as he needs to.

“Why do you still love him?” his voice is barely audible.

“Yoongi…” you whisper, feeling a painful lump form in your chest.

“Why do you still do that? I don’t understand.”

“I don’t know”, you press out the words.

“Does he force you? Like he did back then? Does he know something I don’t? Is he blackmailing you? Why do you still want him here?”

“None of those, my love. I’m just…just…sad.”

“Sad?”

“Yes, sad. Sad because he was so sweet and lovely once and now… now he doesn’t even deem it necessary to see his own faults. This can’t be him. This isn’t like him. I don’t want to accept that this is the real him.”

“Maybe you should”, he trembles in a little sob, “before he kills you. Oh god.”

You squeeze him tighter, hoping that this could stop the panic from rising in his chest again.  

“I’m here my love”, you assure him, “and you have to believe me when I say that I don’t want to bloodshare anymore. I won’t do it again, you have to believe me.”

“What if he wants it again?”

“Then I tell him no. He has to respect my decisions, doesn’t matter what he wants.”

“What if you fight with him because of it?”

“It’s a little too late for that already.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re already fighting because of it.”

“Oh.”

“But that doesn’t matter right now and it’s a problem you don’t have to help me with. Don’t worry about it, my love”, you caress his knee, “I don’t want to blood share anymore, I told him that.��

He lifts his head, staring at you with childish, sad hopefulness.

“Really?” he whispers.

“Yes, my love. Really”, you assure him, “I love you the most I ever loved a person and I would do anything for you.”

“Really?”

“Yes, Min Yoongi. Fucking yes.”

Yoongi nods his head, resting his hand atop yours.

“Thank you”, he gets out in a small whisper, sinking into you again afterwards. You hold him tightly, playing with his hair.

“Of course, I want to hear what upsets you, so I can work on changing it.”

“Me too”, he says, sneaking a glance at you but avoiding eye contact, “can I still have some time? I want to think more.”

“Yes, you can. We talked about a lot of stuff right now, I get it. I want you to be able to sort through your thoughts. You need that, don’t you?”

He nods his head, “sorry, that’s how I function I guess.”

“It’s okay. I respect that.”

“Thank you”, he whispers, squeezing your waist softly and resting his head on your shoulder.

“Can I ask for one more reassurance that you won’t break up with me, though?”

He lifts his head to look at you.

“I, I want to give you time, I really do. But I get so anxious that you’ll change your mind and break up with me. Sorry, I guess I function that way?”

Yoongi nods his head, “I understand, I do”, he says and caresses your waist gently, “I don’t want to break up with you. You’re my love.”

“Okay, that’s good to hear. Thank you for the reassurance.”

“Mhm”, he nods his head. He turns away slightly and looks at the ground, “can we keep the panic attack between us?”

“Of course, my love. You know by now, what happens between us stays between us.”

“Thank you, it means a lot.”

“To me too”, you say, caressing his cheeks, “can I tell you one last thing before you leave?”

“Sure?” he sounds wary, cocking his right eyebrow up.

“And please don’t think that this is some asshole scheme to keep you here, I-I’m just trying to clear s-stuff up”, you stutter.

“Just tell me, ___”, he says, eyes glued to your face nervously.

“Okay so”, you begin, “will it change anything about how you think if I told you that I didn’t want to drink Jimin’s blood?”

Yoongi straightens up, rolling his shoulders back. His eyes carry shock and deep down the first ambers of rage flicker.

“What did he do?” he asks, growling the words.

“It, it was that night at the club a-and I was in the bathroom when he came after me and we, uhm, we uh, did the thing.”

“Tch.” 

“And then he began kissing my neck and then all of a sudden he bit me.”

Yoongi clenches his jaw, staring at you with dark eyes. 

“And because he didn’t want Tae to find out, he uhm… made me swallow his blood. And then cleaned me to hide the blood.”

You stare at him once you finished your story. He is dead silent, eyes dark and focused on you. It makes you nervous to have him look so calm and yet so angry. Every passing second spent in silence feels like hours. You did what you had to do. You told him what Jimin did, just like you promised Seokjin, and yet now that you did, you wonder if it was even the right thing to do.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” his voice is quiet, but you know better than to trust it. Yoongi is boiling in anger.

“Because he told me that if I told anyone, Tae would want him to leave and I’d be responsible for him losing his best friend again.”

“Fucking hell”, he presses out, looking away, “you should have fucking told me.”

“I was scared.”

“Of what? You know you can tell me anything”, he hisses. 

“I felt. No”, you stop yourself, “feel”, you correct yourself, “guilty for what happened.”

“Why?”

“Because I let him kiss me like that and I, you know uhm, orgasmed and I didn’t even stop him until it was already done.”

“Holy fuck, please tell me you wanted him to do this you. Please princess, tell me he didn’t do even more to you than just force feed you blood. I swear if he did, I’m gonna fucking torture him.”

“I wanted the, uhm, naughty things. I guess. I was drunk, so yeah”, it is hard confessing such things, it makes you feel so ashamed to admit it, “just not the blood and the biting. He asked for consent for the dirty stuff, just went too far in the end.”

“Fuck”, Yoongi presses his hand against his forehead, “holy fuck, I’m going to actually kill him.”

“Please don’t do that. This, this is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you, because I didn’t want you to get upset.”

“Upset? I’m not upset, I’m fucking furious”, Yoongi growls, looking at you with ruby eyes, “how dare he do this to you. I’m going to rip him to shreds.”

“Please don’t”, you beg, trying to calm him down by taking his left hand.

“Fuck”, he exhales, hiding his face in his own knees as he folds into himself. He twists the hair at the back of his head, “why didn’t I notice that you smelled like him? Holy fuck!” he jumps up, kicking a pillow across the room, “I’m so angry at myself. I should have noticed!”

“Don’t blame yourself please. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes it was. I failed you”, he says, pointing at you with his finger, “I’m going to kill him. I’m serious princess, I’ll goddamn torture him for what he did to you. I fucking promise you that much, this is not going to go unpunished.”

“Please think about that first.”

“Why should I?”

“Think of Taehyung.”

“Fuck. This. Brat”, Yoongi hisses, “he should still be rotting in his cell. Stupid bastard, I never should have released him.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Give me a goddamn break. I’m tired of this spoiled bastard always fucking everything up and toying with your life. Where was he when it happened? You went out together and yet he didn’t even bother to check when you were gone for a while? Or afterwards when you came back from the toilet? What did he do?”

“I can’t remember. I was pretty drunk”, you lie because you don’t want to upset him with the truth. That Taehyung was happy you had sex with Jimin and that he looked forward to the threesomes you would be having from now on.

“Nothing. Of course. Your lie was proof enough. He did nothing. Fuck!” he almost yelled the last word, gripping a candleholder to throw it against the wall.

“Yoongi please stop”, you prevent it from happening, “you’re scaring me when you’re like this.”

Yoongi lowers his arm, studying your face. Regret fills his eyes instantly.

“Princess”, he says in a soft voice, dropping the candleholder on the floor mindlessly to instead hurry back to you. He cups your face, tugging you to your feet this way, “don’t be scared please. I won’t ever hurt you”, he says, running his thumbs over your cheek before leaning in to kiss them, “I won’t hurt you, do you hear me?”

“I know that. I’m not scared for myself, I’m scared that you’ll end up hurting yourself.”

He shakes his head, “don’t worry about that. I can’t hurt myself.”

“Well then I’m scared for the candleholder”, you joke in an attempt to lighten the mood.

It works. Yoongi lets out an amused scoff, eyes softening.

“Fuck the candleholder”, he says, painting a faint smile to your lips.

“Fine, fuck it”, you say, combing his messy bangs out of his face.

Yoongi inhales deeply and squeezes his eyes shut, wrapping his fingers around your wrist just to hold something. Only then he exhales, doing so terribly shakily. He does so multiple times, calming himself down this way.

“Goddamn it princess”, he presses out, “why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I was scared that you would kill him without thinking.”

“I don’t do that, princess. You know that I don’t. When you tell me to, I hold back. You know that much by now”, he is slightly whining his words, widening his eyes in an almost childlike sulky manner.

“Are you angry at me now?”

“No, of course not”, he shakes his head, caressing your cheeks with his tender hands, “just tell me stuff like this, please. Okay?”

You nod your head, “yeah, okay. A-and I’m sorry for telling you tonight.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want you to think that this is a scheme to get you to forgive me. It’s not that, I just didn’t want to carry yet another secret with me. And I thought that if I told you, maybe I could show you that I’m not a complete cunt. I would never drink Jimin’s blood willingly. Never ever.”

“I know that this is why you told me, don’t worry”, he reassures you.

You caress his hands, pulling them to your lips so you can kiss them. 

“I’m really sorry.”

“Stop saying that, I know”, he whispers, caressing your knuckles.

“Okay I’ll try a-and I want you to know that you can still leave, I also wasn’t trying to make you stay by telling you what Jimin did. If you still need time alone, I understand.”

Yoongi shakes his head, pulling you into a hug. 

“Don’t make me leave”, he murmurs into your neck, picking you up just so he can hold you that much tighter, “you’re staying with me, you silly girl.”

“Okay”, you say, wrapping your limbs around him as best as possible. You feel so relieved to have him hold you like this. It makes you feel as if not all is lost.

Yoongi presses you closer, inhaling your scent shakily. 

“Fuck princess”, his voice is muffled by your neck, “you’re so fucking reckless sometimes. You’ll cost me my last nerves one day.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hush, you idiot. Just let me hold you.” 

You chuckle softly, “okay, I’ll shut up now. You smell really good.”

“You too.”

Click.

The door opens. Jungkook steps into the room.

“See? It worked”, he says, calling both of your attention.

Yoongi lifts his head, placing you down carefully. He keeps his arm around your waist, caressing it slowly.

“You little brat, come here this instant”, he says.

Jungkook follows with a boyish cackle and confident cockiness in his eyes.

“Don’t be mad at me. You know that I’m a genius.”

“You’re deserving of some spanking, that’s what you are”, Yoongi answers him, gripping him by his waist just to pull him close and land a harsh spank on his buttocks.

Jungkook squeaks, falling against Yoongi with widened eyes and his butt chasing his hand.

Yoongi spanks him a second time and then goes to grab his chin harshly, squishing his cheeks in the process.

“Don’t think that I’m done with you. I’m letting you off tonight because I’m feeling gracious, but you little brat will get your punishment”, he says in a dark voice.

“Okay. Good”, Jungkook whispers, gazing at Yoongi with his knees feeling like puddy.

“Now come here, you two”, Yoongi says, picking you and Jungkook up to carry you to the mattress.

He throws the two of you on top of it and drops down himself right between your bodies. Face buried in the pillows and arms snug around your waists, he lays completely still.

“Uhm hyung?” Jungkook asks, trying and failing to wiggle into another position.

“Stay”, Yoongi orders him, “I need a distraction. I’ll kill shit otherwise.”

“I’m fine with that”, you say, snuggling closer to Yoongi. You begin playing with his hair, doing so slowly.

“Me too”, Jungkook agrees, placing his hand on Yoongi’s back to draw patterns on it.

Yoongi exhales shakily, muscles in his arms tensing.

“What are you guys doing to me?” his voice is muffled by the pillows.

Jungkook nuzzles closer to him, “what do you mean?” he asks, running his fingers up and down Yoongi’s spine and forcing shivers over his body. 

“You guys are going to ruin me. I’ve never been that stressed in my entire life.”

You chuckle, Jungkook does too. Yoongi turns his head to the side, sending you a look.

“Don’t laugh at me. I’m really fucking upset.”

“Wait. Really?” you gasp.

Yoongi nods his head. 

“Noo Yoongi Boongie, I’m sorry for laughing”, you say, cupping his cheek, “we’re here now, don’t worry.”

“I just wanna kill him”, Yoongi confesses, looking at you with big, pleading eyes, “he hurt my ___. Everything inside me tells me to go downstairs and rip him to shreds.”

“I know, but please don’t do this. I know you don’t want to hear that, but I don’t want Tae to lose his best friend again.”

“Why not? He’s nothing but a cunt. Taehyung’s better off without him.”

“You’ve seen how he was when Jimin was dead. Tae’s not better off without him.”

“Fuck, I can’t believe you’re protecting someone like Jimin”, Yoongi murmurs and turns his head away, looking at Jungkook that way. 

“Hey, my love”, you whisper, running your fingers through his hair, “I’m not protecting him, I just don’t want Tae to grieve again.”

Yoongi stays silent. 

“Do you understand my reasoning?” you ask him, “mhm?”

He huffs out air, but shivers when you massage his scalp right where it feels the best.

“Yoongi?”

“Don’t ignore her”, Jungkook says, “please you guys just made up, you can’t fight again.”

“I’m not fighting, I’m thinking”, Yoongi grumbles, now turning away from Jungkook to look back at you. He frowns, but slowly relaxes his features as you begin massaging his temple and forehead.

“I won’t kill him. For now.”

“That’s enough for me. Thank you so much, my love.”

“For now”, Yoongi insists, furrowing his brows, “if he acts up again and hurts you, I won’t hold back anymore.”

“I know, thank you for listening.”

“Tch, whatever”, he murmurs shyly, turning his head back to Jungkook. He runs his eyes up and down Jungkook’s features. Like this they are a good hand’s width apart, cheeks squished on the pillow and eyes locking after a second. 

“Since when are you such a punk?” he asks Jungkook, making him giggle.

“I’ve learned from you, hyung”, Jungkook says, “remember when you made ___ and I meet in the gym so we could talk it out?”

“I never did something like this. I don’t know what you’re saying”, Yoongi lies.

“Well, I got inspired by that”, Jungkook snickers, “I think it went really well.”

“Tch, punk”, Yoongi murmurs, rolling over so he was resting on his back. He folds his hands on his tummy, eyes glued to the ceiling. 

“No, but aren’t you glad that you guys are talking again?” Jungkook insists, snuggling closer to Yoongi until his face was hidden in the crook of his neck.

“I am”, you say, touching Yoongi’s temple just to tug a strand of hair behind his ear. 

Yoongi shifts his eyes to you, reaching up to trace your cheek as softly as possible. 

“Me too”, he breathes, running his thumb over your lips. He pulls back, touching his own lips while his eyes soften in fondness. 

“Oh Yoongi”, you say, shimmying closer and snuggling into him. You kiss his lips. Hesitantly and carefully. Just once and then you already pull back, gazing into his eyes. 

“Mhm”, he lets out, lowering his eyes shyly. He rolls to his side so his back was facing you. He wiggles into a comfortable position, sticking his butt out this way. Then he looks over his shoulder, frowning at you shyly.

You understand instantly, closing the distance between you and him. He lifts his head so you could sneak your arm under it and then presses back into you. With a harsh tug on your arm, he makes you fall against him. Your face naturally nuzzles into his neck. 

“Is that comfy, my love?” you whisper, holding his hand tightly.

“Kiss my neck.”

“Okay, okay”, you say and begin placing tender kisses on his skin. “like this?”

“Ye, is nice”, he murmurs and cuddles closer. 

“Then I’ll keep doing that”, you say, whispering your next words, “lean on me, my love. I'm right here and I won’t let go.”

Yoongi huffs out air loudly before those huffs of air turn into quiet purrs and soon you can hear Jungkook match his frequency.

You sneak a glance past Yoongi’s head at Jungkook. He has his eyes closed, hand having come to a standstill on Yoongi’s lower waist. Only his fingers trying to sneak under his shirt lets you know that he wasn’t completely lost in sleep yet.

You hide your face back in Yoongi’s neck, closing your eyes.

Tonight won’t be a terrible night. There may still be a lot to fix and issues to take care of, but at least for tonight you have Yoongi to hold and that is enough.

[gingersp1ce547]

Shocking to no one, equipe e spends a lot of time with the other Brazilians on the island. In a completely unfamiliar environment, sue them for wanting to feel a little bit at home.

Not that the translator doesn’t work for them. In fact it’s probably one of the most unbelievable things about the whole place, and has helped all of them whose english is not the strongest greatly.

Still, sticking with the other Brazilians is just a bit easier. They can relax and not have to focus as much. The golden trio spend a lot of their time with pac and mike, joui and arthur enjoying their vibes while cesar enjoys getting to work on technology again.

Thiago becomes kind of fascinated with felps like a marine biologist would with a type of fish he’s never seen before. Occasionally he reports back to the group in a “you’re not gonna fucking believe what this guy did today” sort of way. Liz likes to think it’s good for him to have something to focus on that won’t leave him injured.

And then there was cellbit. All of equipe e agreed that there was something odd about him. Something that put them all on edge when he was around. It was as if the fog of a weakened membrane had taken the form of a person.

Liz does not like cellbit, not one bit. It’s probably all the time she spent with the police in her talking but even before she knew about his past, that feeling of oddness still set her off.

She tried to keep it mostly hidden, as did the rest of the team usually to better success than her. He was about to be married after all.

But maybe that feeling of oddness is why when she see’s roier alone staring at cellbit’s castle like it killed his grandpa, she doesn’t bother asking what happened. When she storms in she tackles him the minute he finds him standing on a ritual circle just like the one she found on that paper in the holy cradle.

“What the fuck. are you doing.” She grits out. He’s stronger than her but she caught him by surprise. Even so, it takes all her strength to keep him pinned.

“What the fuck am i doing what the fuck are you doing!?” He shouts back

“Where do you know this symbol! What do you know about the desconjuration?!”

Cellbit is confused, he asks her where he knows this symbol from and after a very tense conversation in which liz reveals that how esoterrorists like him doing these occultist rituals are the reason so many people she loves have died, a consensus between the two begins to be reached.

Esoterrorism does not exist in this world. These rituals, many of which liz had never seen or heard of, Cellbit had created on his own and they were much much less dangerous than the versions liz knew.

Despite this, liz still proceeded to scream at him for the next 30 minutes about trying to raise the dead was not how to solve killing your fiancé’s grandfatheR WHAT THE FUCK SHE WAS JOKING WHEN SHE THOUGHT ROIER LOOKED THAT WAY.

She leaves him be, but still keeps an eye on him. And when he eventually returns to the order, he comes to liz to ask her to join his personal investigations

Finding out how equipe e got here from a whole seemingly different world would be critical to getting off this island. Liz, realizing her investigations will go quicker with help as well as that investigating with cellbit (and roier and richarlyson) gives her a good excuse to make sure he doesnt murder anymore people, accepts with the caveat that the rest of her team can not know.

With that squared away, liz joins there investigations in full.

During them, she begins to learn more about the 3. She learns that Richarlyson is energetic little brat and that she loves him dearly. He may be annoying and well a child but god if he isn’t perceptive for his age and generally helpful during investigations.

She learns that roier is similar in disposition to thiago, if not a more animated version. But the smooth way with words and heart of gold and sorrows hidden under all that bravado is still there.

She learns that cellbit as much as she hates to admit it is reflection of herself in a lot of ways. Their shared obsession with investigation being only one of them.

She tries not to think about how cellbit was willing to do anything to get roier’s grandpa back. Putting the happiness of his fiancée at the time above everything else

She tries not to think of the wellsprings she almost killed before thiago and joui stopped her. She tries not to think about what she would give to keep her boys safe from the horrors of both this world and their own

She also learns that Cellbit doesn’t remember a lot of his past. Just waking up 14 on a battlefield with the taste of blood in his mouth. And immediately liz is reminded of alex, and feels her old friend regret rising from the grave of her body.

She swears to not let what happened to alex happen again.

Its odd, liz thinks, finding another family outside of the order. It’s something she never would have imagined and something that tears her up at night.

She never wanted to do investigation without thiago by her side and yet here she was going behind his and everyone else’s backs, but what else is she to do? Put them all in danger by wrapping them up in another investigation.

No. She refuses.

However, that decision is taken out of her hands when she finds out an egg is in danger and tears herself apart trying to rescue it

[unhingedlesbear]

Okay fuck it yeah I'm making the post idc abt backlash. First of all the hidden agenda fandom doesn't exist anymore so whos even gonna have an issue. But if you do feel called out um. Maybe thats ur problem idk bc I'm not aiming at anyone in particular here.

Anyway long ass ramble abt the tiny dead Hidden Agenda fandom below the cut

This is mainly something I noticed looking through the very limited amount of Hidden Agenda fics on ao3, but it's VERY obvious on there. The vast majority of fics on there are centered on Adam and Finn, which I can understand more since they have an interesting backstory and are well written characters, sure. But then you look at the others and the other characters that are centered are... Riggs and Calvary?

In the actual game ofc Becky and Felicity are the main characters. Both of them not only are pretty objectively interesting characters on their own, and even more so together. On top of this they have the most shipping potential of any two characters in that game, it's literally basically canon, it's not even subtext atp it's literally just text. NO other two characters have that amount of chemistry in the game, and yet there is a noticeable lack of gravey fics in that tag. And I'll stress again bc I know how defensive people got last time I made this kind of observation, I'm not pointing fingers or calling anyone misogynistic/racist/homophobic BUT. but. When the two mcs are women, one of which is poc, and they're implied to be lesbians, and they get sidelined by the fandom despite being the focuses of the game... it's kinda hard not to assume there's some kind of bias there.

And on another point, it's similar when it comes to supporting characters too. In a way I'm disappointed but absolutely not surprised that Adam/Finn is prioritized in fan works over Becky/Felicity, but when characters like Riggs and Calvary are also given more attention than them it becomes way more suspicious to me. Riggs is a fine character, I like him enough and I can see why others might like him more, but wbk he doesn't really have all that much relevance. Calvary is even more confusing bc he basically JUST exists to be a creepy misogynistic asshole and as unlikeable as possible. Thankfully I haven't seen him getting a lot of attention but the fact that I've seen him getting any that isn't entirely negative is... hm...

Now there ARE in fact male characters that can be both relevant and likeable: Tom and Karl. (I talk shit abt Karl bc it's a joke I started with friends, I'm gonna drop that for this post obv bc we're being fr here) these two are pretty obviously more relevant than Riggs or Calvary, they're literally Becky's partners (Tom can even replace Riggs' entire role lmao, and if he's replaced himself it's by Karl) and I'd say they're also both likeable characters on their own too. And yet I'm pretty sure I found maybe one??? fic with them in it? Probably should have mentioned this earlier but yeah, they're both poc.

So like... I feel like it all comes down to what Becky/Felicity/Tom/Karl have in common and then what Adam/Finn/Riggs/Calvary have in common. It strikes me as questionable. But like maybe I'm just an annoying snowflake though idk🤷‍♀️ /s

This turned into more of a ramble than anything and I'm aware i'm also yelling into a void bc I'm posting entirely for a dead fandom that barely existed to begin with, but tbh this stuff applies to most if not all larger fandoms as well, i'm just looking at it from what I've seen in the remnants of the HA fandom. Again I am not attacking anyone here, I am making observations. If you're like mad or something I'm just gonna assume you didn't even read the whole post. Yes ur allowed to like characters, but I am also allowed to address what I've noticed about what characters seem to be more liked than others.

[tootalltech]

tbb s3 review

okay. now that i've gotten a full nine hours of sleep and am probably a bit more coherent, i'm going to give a post summarizing all my final thoughts on season 3 of the bad batch. bc while i am annoyed about the way things were handled with tech, there were absolutely parts of the season i enjoyed as well.

i LOVE royce hemlock as an antagonist and i have since he first appeared. this season continued to show just how far he's willing to go and how completely removed from any empathy or compassion he really is- all hidden behind a cold, calm, scientific front. he ties very nicely into the overarching theme of dehumanization in this show, whether with the clones or the force-sensitive kids he captured. all in all, he's very evil and very cool and i didn't dislike anything they did with him. not even his death (bc get fucked poison boy and also he died about the same way tech did which was very much deserved). 10/10 no notes.

on the subject of tech's death though. it was very frustrating to me that they didn't show crosshair finding out. i feel like it's still very unclear when he even did; i was questioning if he knew or not by maybe the 3rd or 4th episode based off the exchange between him and omega about tech having her memorize all the plans. crosshair discovering he's dead could have been a good moment between him and omega, it could have been a good moment where we get to see just how much he misses his brothers and feels bad about everything if he somehow finds out alone while still imprisoned at tantiss, it could have been a good moment between him and HUNTER if it was discovered before they worked things out a bit more and it would have been a bigger catalyst for their fighting in "the return", etc etc etc. i don't think there was any good reason to just have crosshair find out at some point offscreen. that is his brother.

i thought the cameos from characters we've seen in earlier seasons were generally cool. fennec shand showing up pretty much made sense seeing as the batch already kinda knew of her so i thought that one was fun. cad bane seemed a LITTLE unnecessary (like it could've been another bounty hunter and nothing would have changed) but i didn't hate it. ventress was cool i'm glad omega has a new lesbian aunt and i thought it was funny when the batch decided they were gonna try and fight her because that was SO OBVIOUSLY not going to end well for them.

and then doing a separate thing for other clones bc thats really its own category. i loved seeing howzer again i missed howzer <3 rex is always a winner. wolffe's thing was cool although i feel like he's going to die now? like. if anyone ever found out that he just let them go. yk? and then we got to see gregor for like .2 seconds but whatever. in true tbb fashion the only other named reg clones on the batch's side that we met died or were never seen again within 1-2 episodes. which is fine. it is called the bad batch. no matter how much it functions more as a tcw sequel show...

speaking of the tbb/tcw world though. echo. is just. i don't understand why they make the choices they make with him. him helping rex makes sense, but he also has a good dynamic with the bad batch (especially tech honestly) and he's a part of their squad? like. this is really more of a renewed complaint from season 2 because it continued into this season but. why have him join clone force 99 if he's then going to leave again and just kind of exist in the background occasionally halfway through the clone force 99 show? i wish we saw more of him in season 3. especially after they lost tech, i feel like there was a way writing-wise to have him be with them more. if some corny "we need to stick together" shit is what it takes then so be it. BECAUSE THEY DO.

i'll go back to antagonists now. I LOVED THE ENTIRE PLOT LINE WITH RAMPART. for one thing, the beard looked GOOD on him. he was a dramatic bitch the entire time he was with the batch and his dynamic with them was hilarious. like hemlock, he died in a very deserved way, although i did see someone else say that his death didn't really make sense and i'm... inclined to agree. like, nala se isn't ever going to be redeemed in many fans' eyes and i don't think what they did with her in the finale was going to cut it. and rampart. GET OUT OF THERE DUDE. why would he be so interested in that data all of a sudden? especially given that he famously DOES NOT LIKE CLONES. why would he care? i know he wanted to bargain with the empire, but come on, that would never work and was a pretty stupid idea. it really did just seem like a moderately lazy way to try and show nala se doing something good while killing a villain in the process. i have no qualms with rampart dying, but why not have him die as a result of like. refusing to side with the clones or something? that would make more sense than him making a really dumb decision when he's supposed to be a smart guy. he didn't make it to vice admiral on looks alone remember!

and now for the cx-2/tech rant. i might make this into its own post, but for now what i'll say is that it simply would've made so much sense to have that goddamn operative clone be tech. we never saw his body. hemlock literally taunted the batch about this, which is SO something he would do if he HAD TECH. hemlock had a very hard-to-kick habit of doing weird science fuckery which would ABSOLUTELY lead to him trying to make tech into one of his operatives if he had him. we already know that the clones he tried to condition into being his operatives with this deep-cover program did not have to be willing to do it at all, because he tried it with crosshair. and we know that if the conditioning took, the clones would "come out different", so it would make PERFECT sense for tech to BE CX-2 and have no qualms whatsoever about hurting his old squad and a kind of different voice. like, look what happened to crosshair's hand. there are clearly physical side effects, and the process didn't even work on him. there were also tons of similarities between tech and cx-2 in my opinion, and all in all it just would've been a good choice narratively. he even could've stayed dead! like i said. i'll make a separate post.

finally, i feel like i should devote some rambling to tantiss, crosshair, hunter, wrecker, and omega. in the same way that i liked hemlock, i thought most of the choices with tantiss and the connections to omega were very cool this season. i think they handled crosshair coming back decently although it could've been a little more fleshed out. i liked that crosshair immediately became omega's fifth dad. i liked batcher! and omega's doll going to eva! all the force-sensitive kids were really cute and i liked them. emerie karr was like. alright i guess? i didn't find myself ever really caring about her a bunch but her story still made sense. and onto the male clones, i do feel like narratively they haven't really known what to do with wrecker for a while besides have him like. blow things up. which is unfortunate because i really enjoy him. then again it's just also not always an incredibly deep show and they are all clones who don't know how to talk about their feelings which i've been saying for a while now <3. i liked hunter going back to defending crosshair in "infiltration" and wrecker's "just like old times!" callback in the same episode. and i REALLY like omega becoming a rebel pilot, i think that makes a lot of sense for her and it also is, of course, sweet because tech taught her how to fly and all that. and finally, the scene with older hunter and omega itself was nice although i think they could've had crosshair, wrecker, and echo there. we all know hunter is the main dad, but he's not the ONLY one and the others are also very important. but oh well...

in conclusion. i do still absolutely adore this show and all of these characters. season 3 did not give me everything i wanted but it wasn't necessarily bad either. and i have to acknowledge that i am very biased and never going to get over them killing off tech so i mostly just can't think about that and have to live in denial. but anyway. season 3 was a mostly solid end to a show that started off so strongly i made a tumblr for it, and i will always love the bad batch for being my first ever hyperfixation and the show that really got me back into star wars <3

[thegeminisage]

STAR TREK UPDATE TIME. we have finally watched the voyager pilot! short verdict: nothing will ever be as good as ds9 but i enjoyed it!!

longer verdict: i will go through it character by character, in order of appearance, saving the maquis crew for when they have more than .5 seconds of screentime in the little opening. this feels like a REALLY big cast, by the way?? am i counting right? 11 recurring characters and we don't even have seven yet? tos has 7 with chapel and rand appearing sometimes, tng had 8 with o'brien and guinan sometimes, ds9 has seven with...man, jake nog rom garak AND keiko as recurring extras, and we don't even have worf yet. so i guess ds9's is technically bigger! anyway.

JANEWAY: i was surprised at how janeway sounded...her voice is different than i expected even though i've heard her be flemeth in dragon age. i was also kind of surprised to see her in the bun and her head looked So Big. like dax's in season 1-2 of ds9. i'm used to seeing her with it down in gifs which looks better but personally i also think she could have rocked the kira cut. that said, i like her so SO much. she has a couple of speeches that remind me VERY strongly of kirk - when she's lamenting harry left his clarinet behind and not getting to know him, when she decided she couldn't sacrifice an entire people to get one ship home. she's got the kind of compassion kirk did - when she pulled up a stool to listen to the caretaker's troubles, when she held his horrible little corpse, she was genuinely filled with real sadness for what had happened there. (as a side note, speaking of tos, the ship voyager also reminds me of the original enterprise WAY more than the tng enterprise was - especially their little cafeteria.) i was really surprised she had a boyfriend, because i feel like i've heard she gets with chakotay! sorry to her bf, she is gonna cheat on you (and i support women's wrongs), but the worst part is the dog. if they pull some odyssey shit with the dog i'm gonna be so upset. ALSO, i love that she insists on "ma'am" instead of sir (that always bugged me) and even that will only do in a pinch. YOU WILL ADDRESS HER AS CAPTAIN. even when her hair fell down she fixed it on her way down the hallway. she's such a badass. when she says she's gonna get them home I BELIEVE HER. she's got an iron fucking nerve and balls made of titanium.

TOM PARIS: i hate this man so much it's insane. i googled to see whether he died and found out he was played by one of those cadets wesley got in trouble with...girl, he was in prison, why not just make him the same guy?? anyway, he was kind of shitty to both harry and chakotay (oh boy we are already being racist to chakotay) and i cannot believe THIS is the man janeway is gonna have salamander babies with. he's extremely obnoxious all the time (him harassing that betazoid lady...fuck off lol) and i just KNOW people are writing paris/chakotay slash because of their whole deal which makes him more annoying. the "your life is mine now" thing is racist as hell. i'm not prepared to sympathetically see this man's hidden depths bc i know that as a snarky white man he already has half of whatever voyager fandom happens to exist doing that for him already. sadly, we will have to put up with him for all seven seasons. LUCKILY, aside from the racism, half of which came from this guy anyway, he was my only real sour note.

HARRY KIM: love this dude. i like how he managed to talk sense into b'elanna when she was wigging out and despite my wishing he didn't have to be friends with tom paris him going "i can pick my own friends" was a great way to show that he's not afraid to stand up for himself. i wish i wasn't feeling so anti-quark lately bc otherwise his scene in the bar with quark (and why is it always quark doing these surprise cameos!!) would've been pretty funny. i think it was a nice touch that harry, on his first EVER mission, got to be the one to deliver the news about how far from home they were. i absolutely love his whole deal of being completely green and meeting everything head-on anyway, he is so brave. as i said before, the way he is just charging through despite being out of his depth reminds me a little of chekov, if chekov had brain cells. he's very charming. i think he and b'elanna could get it also.

HOLOGRAM DOCTOR: he is so funny, i love him. like, i don't really know how he works? is all of medbay a holodeck? but it's kind of hilarious that he's sentient enough to get annoyed when people are randomly beamed away and when people forget to shut him off (he needs a nap!)

CHAKOTAY: oh i am already feeling how rough this is going to be. that "can't you use some magic to turn into a bird and fly away" and also the "your life is mine now" were rrrracist. (that said, "you're too heavy" was a really good comeback.) can we please be normal. that aside: i really like him. i like how quickly he came to grips with the situation and i like how much he hates tom paris (NOT SEXUAL!!! NO!!!!!! i just agree with him) and i especially like that he has a set of titanium balls to match janeway's like did we SEE that doomsday machine-esque suicide run he almost went on? he cut it even closer than kirk did and kirk cut it that close ON ACCIDENT chakotay was yelling at them not to beam his ass back until his ship was already on fucking fire. also, he's very handsome. ALSO, when tom paris asked him "you'd rather die than let me rescue you?" i had to laugh because quite literally 10 seconds prior out of mine own mouth was "if it was death or tom paris i might let go." i really hope there's more to chakotay than "tom paris's antagonistic buddy" because 1. a fate worse than death 2. this is not humans and vulcans this is real life racism you cannot spock and bones this. STOP THAT.

TUVOK: ALSO VERY HANDSOME. very like. he reminds me of spock so much because he's extremely bitchy but also very dialed down about it. i like that leonard nimoy was like yeah im gonna go stupid crazy and all vulcan will be like this from now on, including my funny little eyebrow thing, in which girlies will still see spock long after i'm dead. like what misha collins tried to do with cas but it actually worked. tuvok strikes that perfect balance of dignified and kind of above everyone else without feeling stuck up or prissy (though his scene where he tries so hard not to look at neelix's junk was great, he was justifiably a little prissy there), and with that undercurrent of wryness that nevertheless doesn't truly betray any emotion - you don't get the same sense of repression/unease with the self from him (at least in the pilot, who knows what will happen later) that you do from spock so it doesn't feel like voyager is copying tos's homework, and it feels nice to get to know another vulcan who's gonna be a main character instead of a one-off. i hope they are more normal about a black vulcan than they have been about chakotay so far bc we have got to get out from under all of that. i am a little worried janeway might kill him. i feel like i see people on reddit criticizing her all the time for killing some dude who i am pretty sure is tuvok and like. can someone tell me if he dies if he dies i will be SO mad

B'ELANNA TORRES: she is stupid hot. i'm a little "lol" when she's like yeah my klingon half is HARD TO CONTROL!!! (super saiyan scream of rage) bc like worf does fine (most of the time...) but i will never turn down a chance to watch a beautiful woman be insane with rage. i like how she calls harry kim "starfleet" derisively and then goes out of her way to give him breaks when he needs them and help him up the stairs when he can't make it. big tsundere energy. also like that she was questioning janeway's decisions. not that i disagree with janeway's decisions necessarily i just like that janeway will have to earn her respect from some people the way any male captain would. equality. also, potentially, girlfights.

NEELIX: i forgot to add him to "the things i know about voyager" post because i had only heard him mentioned a couple of times and got the idea he was just a horrible little gremlin there for comic relief. a rygel, if you will. a quark, if you won't. was pleasantly surprised to like him better than rygel and quark combined, though that's a pretty low bar. not only is he clever enough to outsmart the slavers, he was brave and caring enough to go back and rescue his girl. HE RESPECTS WOMEN. also, his water indulgence was pretty hilarious, as was, again, his scene with tuvok. i feel like those two could do straight man funny guy all day long. a dynamic duo. i hope they wind up having screentime together. i don't mind horrible little gremlins so much when they're charming and when they aren't trying to take holosuite videos of kira.

KES: i feel like kes hasn't done much yet except lecture her people on the dangers of having a cult-like mentality. but i like her! she's sweet and compassionate and pretty brave. she does a lot to humanize neelix, at least! maybe it's just me but i feel like she was barely in this. for now i am trusting that they do more with her later. or, idk, maybe they don't. we DO have janeway AND b'elanna AND seven eventually so i can't be too mad about it as long as they're not turning her into a holodeck sex toy like poor deanna

other things of note:

BANJOS? i counted three different southern accents in this section. it would have been offensive if it wasn't so funny. the people holding hands and jumping around in a circle like animated robin hood characters was a great touch. so was the corn on the cob. the emotional whiplash from an otherwise very serious episode was. certainly something.

the empty barn reminded me of this side of paradise <3 i love, in general, how voyager just FEELS a little bit like tos. certainly more than tng did, even more than ds9 does. like this FEELS like it's set in the same universe, it kind of bridges a mental gap between ds9/tng and tos for me, worldbuilding wise.

water thing reminded me of mad max. really good.

slaver aliens.......are these guys really our antagonists?? i thought our antagonists were the borg but maybe we don't do that until seven gets here. i feel like possibly a bunch of semi-primitive people in the desert who enslaved and beat (potentially raped, depending on how you want to interpret that dialogue) a pretty blonde girl is maybe um. not the best idea. maybe they'll get written down into side villains and eventually just guys. like the ferengi. siiigh, the ferengi.

that said, i kind of loved the story of the caretaker and the ocampa, enough that i almost forgot the caretaker was choosing to appear as a banjo-playing hillbilly. i like to think him and his wife were from andromeda like those guys from tos...and it's very nuanced that even after he fucked their planet forever he still didn't really learn to value life because he's kidnapping people and letting them die or stay stranded in order to attempt to procreate. NONETHELESS he is filled with remorse, and janeway's scene with him, comforting him that children could learn to grow on their own, was really sweet. i also like that when he died his little horrible goop body shrank down until it looked like a hunk of dried snot. do not take that to the ocampa.

i just like the PREMISE of voyager. a 75-year journey that they have to cut down by any means possible...it's like the odyssey, but it space. in tos and tng they wandered from place to place but always over the same stomping grounds in general. we have the same old players, like klingons and romulans and vulcans and andorians etc etc. in ds9 we stay in one single place and it's to our benefit because we get deep character work. but voyager is going in a straight line back to earth, and we've never been out here before, so whether or not it lives up to the potential right now it feels like anything truly could happen. we don't be running into the neutral zone and we can't call the klingons for help or stop by quark's for another cameo. we are just out here. it's VERY neat.

major concerns so far include of course tom paris and potentially him being handcuffed to chakotay as banter buddies. racism in general but also with chakotay in particular. and perhaps a lack of interesting points re: kes. rip girl.

stuff i'm looking forward to is janeway getting to be a person instead of A Woman, seven eventually, getting to know chakotay and tuvok better, and the salamander episode, someday.

okay. this concludes my voyager pilot write-up. TONIGHT: "parallax" and "time and again."

[sjofn-lofnsdottr]

Enemies to Frenemies to ... Still Frenemies, but Nicer About It

Look out, I'm gonna talk about Baldur's Gate 3 instead of just showing an occasional picture of Dusk. That said, here is a picture of Dusk:

He doesn't understand why everyone seems to think he's a killer for hire. What could it be, that makes them think he fights for a living? And is possibly good at it? It's so strange.

Anyway, I wanna talk about Dusk and his relationship with Astarion. It's probably going to be long.

So! I understand the people who insist Astarion isn't impossible to get positive rep with if you're playing a good character. I understand why they're doing it. They're likely playing a character they think of as at least good intentioned, and likely have the playstyle that they want to make everyone in their group happy with their decisions as often as possible, even if it means bending their character's personality a teeny bit from time to time. And they want to help other people also have good Astarion times. Valid and kind-hearted and well-meaning of them.

BUT. That's not what I go for, when I play a character. Do I want the companions to like me? Yes, because that's usually the gate behind which their personal shit is hidden, and I would like to get into that. But I'm not willing to do things I don't think are in character to do it, these days. I always replay games like this (if they're good, which this one is), so I feel free to fuck around and find out, as it were, and do my best to stay in character no matter what.

In this playthrough, I am playing Dusk, who is the biggest fucking busybody helperman golden retriever you can conceive of. And I made him an Oath of the Ancients paladin to also really drive his hippie tendencies home. He needs no convincing to help people, doesn't even realize he could ask for pay to do so, has no interest in power, and his sense of humor does not run towards the cruel. Yes, I saw times I could've done something that Astarion probably would've appreciated ... but it wasn't Dusk. It wasn't how Dusk would handle the situation, wasn't what he would actually say, whatever. So I didn't pick it, and I had Astarion scowl at the back of his head. Often. SO often.

And I loved it! Everyone else in the party loved Dusk, for various reasons, and it fit, frankly. People generally like Dusk in every setting I've shoved him into. So to have this chaos gremlin feral cat go 'fuck this stupid puppy man' at seemingly every turn was great, because it was an experience Dusk never has.

So it got me thinking about how Dusk would handle it, and the answer was apparently be nice even harder. He kept true to himself and being the man he wants to be, and any time he talked to Astarion, he took the supportive, helpful options, secretly willing this stupid vampire to ask him for help gods dammit.

See, Dusk is always willing to help ... but he waits to be asked, because he doesn't want to accidentally 'help' and mess something up because he didn't have the full picture. And he realized, after taking a rep hit for freeing some slaves, why Astarion was so annoyed every time Dusk helped someone, and once he did, he did it even MORE, because he wanted Astarion to see. To see that no, seriously, Dusk wants to help. To see he wants to help everyone he possibly can, Astarion very much included. To see it was safe to chance asking Dusk to help him.

And eventually, finally, he did ask, and Dusk agreed to help him, and they both acted like it was no big deal at all for either of them, even though it was a huge deal for both of them.

They're a teeny bit at odds currently on what 'help' means, of course, but you know. Baby steps.

Astarion still complains occasionally about what Dusk was choosing to do, since Dusk is still extremely Dusk, but it's starting to feel less bitter and exasperated, and more like he's a little ... concerned? Worried that Dusk is giving too much of himself away, and definitely not taking enough back in return. Dusk won't use the extra tadpoles. He won't take any offer of power presented to him, really. He'll even turn down rewards for doing things for people. That must seem insane to Astarion, especially given what they're up against. Why wouldn't Dusk want an edge, even if that edge is questionable?

This is one of the reasons why, mind you:

This is one of the only times Astarion gave Dusk advice and Dusk took it, because it seemed the less-bad option of the two he was stuck with. I love Astarion's face back there. He knows what he did. In Astarion's defense ... Dusk already knew deep down that choice would go that way, and did it anyway, because it was still better than the alternative at the moment. It just caught up with him way earlier than he expected.

Anyway, I love their weird dynamic, where Dusk is going to drag Astarion to a healthier mindset if it kills him, and Astarion is trying to coax Dusk into having the tiniest shred of a survival instinct. It's a work in progress for both of them, but one I've loved playing through. I'm looking forward to seeing where it ends up.

[morroodle]

Oh god oh fuck I have to make an important decision

Turns out my bed fucking broke a few days ago and I've been sleeping on its corpse ever since. The good news is that I actually already looked into new beds for other reasons, the bad news is I'm stuck between 3 options and am very bad at making decisions. So I'm gonna make people vote for it. Read on if you care.

Option 1: 6 drawers

Pros: has 6 drawers and bonus little cabinet thing that opens to underside of the bed. Tons of storage. Has 5 compartments in the headboard + the top. Could potentially put legos on top and in upper 2 compartments. Has 2 USB ports (my current phone charger does not use USB but that can be fixed)

Cons: I don't like the curve on the underside of the top shelf. Not a lot of space between mattress and start of shelves which is an issue because I like to build a mountain of pillows and stuffed animals. This could potentially render the lower compartments unusable. I could fix this if i stopped being weird but i will not. Not a fan of how the handles look but that is fixable. Would be hard to actually access the hidden door because of how I usually set up my room but not impossible and I would probably not use it for regularly needed things anyway so that's not a real con.

Option 2: big shelves

Pros: 3 big drawers, same as my current bed. I love the look so very much. Big shelves, could potentially put legos on upper shelf compartment and on top of headboard. Has a hole for all types of cords. Could plug in my noise maker :D

Cons: same problem with the distance between mattress and shelves as previous option. Only has 3 drawers and no hidden door.

Option 3: funky headboard

Pros: 3 big drawers. The weird door cabinet compartment things on the headboard deal with my pillow mountain issue while still having a good amount of storage! Could put legos on top shelf

Cons: only 3 drawers and no hidden door. Much less potential lego space. No holes for cords (not actually a massive issue/need)

If you would explain your reasons I would greatly appreciate it :3

I should note that I use the drawers under my bed as my wardrobe (my room is tiny and I don't have space for a real one) so I do need some drawer space. 3 is what I currently have and I make it work just fine but I would love 6 for better organization purposes. Also I hate trundles as I have absolutely no space to open it why are there so many beds with trundles it's annoying.

My current (dying) bed

This piece of ikea garbage. Sorry that's mean it actually served me really well for a while. Pros: drawers. Cons: has a stupid trundle that i literally cannot use there is no space in my room. Has weird walls around 3/4 sides of bed which I liked at first but I hate now that I have grown a bit taller. My feet touch the end wall sometimes and it's annoying. I often try and use the side wall as a shelf for my water but it's not actually big enough and has resulted in me soaking my bed way too many times. Also it is broken.

[babyboybokuto]

hiii cece hope you're having a great day/night ♡ i wanted to return the favor and ask you something !! sooo i wanted to know your favorite characters of all time, like your top 5, and if u want to i would like to know why !! i just think u can learn a lot from someone by their favorite blorbos lol

OOOOOO this is a good one, ok in no particular order (because I just can’t I love them all so much) I’m gonna say my top 5 are

1) Bokuto (obv, that’s my sunshine cinnamon apple)

My best friend was the one to get me into Haikyuu and the first character I actually loved was Nishinoya, but when this himbo ball of light came on screen my heart was like “him, that’s our boy”

Also fun fact I’m actually such a hater lowkey because in my first year of college (before I was into anime) my ex was actually watching Haikyuu and I walked in on her crying over an episode and I looked at her like 🤨 what is wrong with you crying over some pictures (oh how the turnt tables am I right)

2) Gon and Killua (you can’t separate them)

My babies my sons my everything’s , HxH had such a big impact on me and it took me FOREVER to watch it so it was a part of my routine for a while and it sounds silly to say I was inspired by some 12 year olds but genuinely I was I absolutely love their characters and their development throughout the story

3) Nobara (best girl)

From the moment she showed up on screen I have loved this girl so much she’s so sassy and funny and she is so sure about herself her sense of self is something I can only dream to have and she’s such a fucking badass her technique is incredible and I miss her so much GEGE BRING HER BACK

4) Gojo

Riding that jjk train still it’s actually really funny because I actually hated Gojo when I first watched season 1, I found him to be arrogant and annoying, and then I read the manga and I realized that the reason I hate him was not really because he’s arrogant and annoying (which he is) but it’s because I saw myself in him (tragic I know) and then especially after I read Hidden Inventory arc my entire perspective changed and I realized he’s actually a character I treasure very much and I love him

5) Zoro and Sanji (another package deal sorry)

Now hear me out right I am like 0.000001% of the way through one piece (I’m on like episode 140) but the way these characters have stolen my heart is insane, and do I happen to also simp for both of them?? Yes, but the point is that their actual characters are so amazing to me and I know there’s still more of Sanjis backstory that I haven’t really seen and it’s most likely going to break me but I just have such a love for them and their dynamic so I’m gonna say they’re top five for me; the way that Zoro is so dedicated and loyal is something I find to be an incredible aspect of him (not to mention his talents as a swordsman), and Sanji cares so deeply for people and is such a caretaker and the fact that he is able to fight using only his legs is also incredible to me

So those are my top 5 (7?) favorite blorbos and a little bit as to why , idk why I stuck specifically to anime because I definitely have favorite characters from other forms of media but this is just what my brain wanted to supply at this very moment

thank you for the question carmen 🥺🫶🏼

[hanzi83]

The Entertainment to Far Right Wing Pipeline

I was unsure how I was gonna write this one, I know people might get annoyed with me working my mindstate process while writing a blog when I could just get to the topics, sometimes I have a feeling in me to find motivation to write something that might be thoughtful, but since I have nonstop thoughts going into my head, it is hard to concentrate on staying the course with my topics, which is why there are multiple writers that are well researched by the official narratives, that people should go read and listen to, I never know when someone new might read one of these blogs so I try to throw disclaimers out there, that this is always from the perception of someone who has been dumbed down for most of his life and has always kind of gone along with hive mind mentality and groupthink, and it has come in all forms of entertainment and shit in my life throughout the years, there is so much information being thrown at you and you want to absorb it all but the unfortunate thing is that it becomes hard to retain the information, especially when every day it feels like the movie 50 first dates, listen I have not seen the all the latest movies and television, it is a fucking brutal example but hear me out, it is like I wake up, learn a bunch of shit from the conversations online, all the discourse, the hidden truths in entertainment, and then I don’t remember it and every day I have to remind myself of the same information again over and over before I wake up the next day and forgetting it, maybe there was a better movie I could’ve referenced. I am sure gonna lose the remaining “cool points” that I have to my name, like the site I am posting isn’t enough to discredit me because this is an “SJW” site, I had a Myspace account where I used to post blogs and people were not going on there as much, so I looked up “blog sites” in 2011 and this was the first one that popped up. And I just went with it, and then I never really wrote for the last 3 years but now I feel since I am able to go through my process in my head and put it on display, I can at least articulate my points a lot better than a decade ago. Make no mistake about it, I am still “conspiratorial” but it is more along the lines the last few years of pointing out the conspiracy behind the conspiracy movement as well, when people are not thinking they are viewing shit in a political agenda driven way because they have gotten shit from their entertainment, and the reason it has resonated is that most people can see the rules that are advertised, the continuous patterns of violence, abuse, severe drug use etc have become exploitative tropes and this continues, and the right wing has taken advantage of that shit because the legacy media and some of the alleged progressive media outlets they will just present what regular people and those stats look like then they make the mistake of using a public figure as the relatable cause and then the entire issue gets defined by that public figure when they are usually being used to play these larger than life characters for the social media entertainment, which probably has its own valuable currency to get more clout and to socially climb up, that is why the right wing will win with narratives, because they already make you think online shit is like the 90’s where people on television, and in MSM never mention the internet and they have convinced people that the internet is not cannon, so when they say “No one is talking about Hunter Biden, no one is talking about Biden being incoherent” I am hearing it all fucking day on the alt media, and the “entertainment” podcasts that have larger audiences, most people consume shit from the news, whenever we consume shit on the internet about MSM, it is normally how they did something wrong. “MSM is not covering this” but people are still talking about it, the trope is to have it talked about on other forms of social media so then the MSM plays the WWE role of getting on the bandwagon too late. It used to be common knowledge WWE were in tune with the internet when the mid to late 90’s shit happened, then when social media era started, we erased the old narratives and pretended Vince doesn’t know what a fucking podcast is, because he is too busy slapping his leg in hysterics while watching Something About Mary, it is the same shit with the MSM in the political and entertainment shit. The reason I bring this shit up because if the right wing is targeting people from marginalized communities and people who have platforms have this blind defense to just say it is not true, then the far right uses celebrity examples of fucked up shit that goes on behind the scenes, and since we as a society have somehow made celebrities be the representation for our political views, you can appreciate the solidarity but getting attached to public figures is a big mistake, because most of them will be inivolved with scandals and fucked up shit, not because of their identity, sex, gender, race, religion, etc, but since we love making it seem like celebrities are relatable to us, and yes in certain areas there is some relatability but they play by different rules and are used as representation for the masses on different culture war issues, so if they are guilty of something and they are vocal about the cause, you better believe right wing people will use it to disparage the general communities, because public figures are gonna be involved in fucked up shit, I keep repeating this shit but has there ever been a fucking time where being a pedophile or a rapist has meant less as far as accountability, that shit would get you exiled from society, Milly Vanilli got read their last rights for lip syncing, now there are televisions shows of people fucking lip syncing, but it is like now everyone is a pedophile and a rapist and they are still doing their thing and getting money and still being allowed in “polite society”, in wrestling terms exposing someone for being a rapist or a pedophile would be a big finisher, now it is like a Canadian destroyer in every fucking match and it has less impact, it is like “Oh yeah, that move”. This is where I am losing focus and going in a million different directions, but between the Amber Herd, Jussie, Ezra Miller situations are presented like some random occurrences that just happen to take place, but if most things are orchestrated, even the botched orchestrations have become storylines, and people for many years used Jussie as an example of why not to take anti LGBTQ shit seriously, they use Ezra Miller’s non binary status to tie into his crimes, they use the Amber Herd situation to advance some rooted misogyny, especially from right wing figures who seem like they know their time will be up and be exposed for their abusive shit, but they have to get behind a social media storyline between 2 actors playing their part and the fucking funny part is, the alt media covers these celebrity situations like it is some regular person story etc, like the MSM is shit with their narratives but you would think alt media people would have better narratives to the celeb shit, it makes me realize that everyone eventually becomes a sports entertainer. Instead of exposing how they are using the entertainers as the leaders of these systemic issues going on, we define it by what the celebrity is going through. They have always used entertainment to persuade our thoughts and now they are taking it to another level, when the world feels like it is collapsing and everyone is selling out to go further to the right, because they have made you think the “forced liberal agendas” in entertainment were the be all end all for the agendas, where we think the default is not some status quo regressive outlook in life, and now that the right wing is normalizing itself more and have presented online funded narratives to make them feel like they are victims, their victory comes off as beating the system when they are very much part of the system. 

I am not used to writing, I figured it would be a good time to do a new paragraph. But it leads me into how I am seeing different media outlets that used to be about giving you better analysis than the status quo legacy media, you have other undercover entertainers who pose as regular people online to call out other shitty entertainment so they can then do the shitty entertainment but since it is coming from them it means it is more real. They know they are gonna sell out and before they can let it happen, they have to put out unsolicited opinions while the worst shit is happening to trans people with the laws and rhetoric being weaponized against them, and go on a rant like Ana Kasparian did about this birthing person issue when she did a story about how right wingers will use that argument when it is under a conversation in medical settings etc, and don’t tell me TYT forgot they covered it because they always have receipts for every story they have covered, they love to boast in 2023 about being anti Iraq war, and that is a good thing but it doesn’t mean people knew where the world was headed, and built up credibility to be anti war so that you don’t question their current beliefs, so she puts out an opinion when she could’ve addressed this in private, and wants to get roasted and having her new right wing army defend her, then when people drag her and she did this on purpose to get dragged so she can be another boring right winger like her partner in crime Cenk, who has to do the typical heel promo in pro wrestling “YOU PEOPLE MADE ME DO THIS” this is the best part about being a pro wrestling fan is that now I am seeing its elements being implemented in other forms of media and entertainment and it is not because I am some super genius, but the sports entertainment has become one of the more obvious things in the world, where you have your credibility in whatever field you are in, but it goes out the window when they use their field of expertise to then partake in kayfabed storylines when there are other rules under the table that could be going on. Seemingly good people who are on the actual left keep defending her and using her past credibility to make excuses but when someone is making their grift and their aspirations known then how long do we wait to really call it out, like people online whose main personality trait is “better than the establishment” some of you have helped normalize and give credibility to figures who end up being shitty and are in the same positions in current currency that people who were associated with the right wing entertainment during the Iraq war, and for so fucking long the discredited MSM shitting on the alt media gave the alt media their credibility but now the alt media has become just as much a problem as MSM when all of them seem to want to focus on sports entertainment, promote new villains that are supposed to be in the discourse, knowing full well nothing of consequence will happen to them, I don’t know if it represent faction warfare from different delegations, but it has become just as bad as the establishment shit, everything and everyone feels watered down, they are using things that would’ve been shocking in the 90’s, and then you have the new alti right fascist pipeline with different content creators who have helped diversify white supremacist mentality but through their regressive edge lord shot and depending on whatever group it is, they will match the aesthetic to seem like it is relatable to the community, you can have brown, black, gay, even some right wing trans people, Muslims, Christians, women etc, and I am noticing it more and more and even the embracing in public in recent memory is them promoting they are tied together and they are going to get a big push, Akademiks signed with Rumble. We live in a world where Jimmy Dore and Akademiks could do  fucking crossover. But Akademiks has been going that way for a while, and what helps him and other content creators is that there is some fucked up shit that goes on behind the scenes that people don’t talk about, and because they present themselves as being the ones to talk about it, they can get conspiratorial people on their side while injecting right wing talking points into their conversations, and because people who oppose that will act like there is no such thing as conspiracies at all, it helps the right wing side. Like people currently who want to tout themselves as being progressively minded will always revisit the past and regressive shit going down and they get points and pats on the back, but they never call out the normalized fucked up shit that goes in the industries they fucking cover, they don’t learn lessons from the past, but because in the past it was presented more obvious, we can’t tell the overall normalized way of how propaganda goes, like people are more comfortable with doing soft condemnation of different athletes while they never want a really radical and progressive message in their entertainment at all, because that has become discredited and anyone who spews the funded right wing shit in a post fight interview, it is somehow seen as telling the truth and is not full of an agenda, and no one who is supposed to be progressive with platforms ever advocate for more of  left message. And these people get paid the big bucks, and then get defensive if you take shots at how they might cover shit because at the end of the day the entertainment world is more important than setting people straight. I have less fucking power and I have had to go and self reflect over propaganda that I fucking took in because I became conspiratorial, and going back to how I fell for shit back in the day on more obvious example, in current times, I might be for  a common cause but people within different communities will then normalize their nationalistic message. I still can’t memorize all the rules with gender and all of that, but if I want to learn and it is hard for me to learn, I can barely remember my fucking passwords, people who are regressive and “cool” will think you are pandering like doing the edge lord shit isn’t pandering to a lowest common denominator, but even in like 2019 I was for pro trans stuff but I was also falling for the sensationalist shit from other talking heads and entertainers and for some reason when it is confirming your biases you think it is 100 percent the truth, there are people who don’t care that their favorite entertainer’s material has gone down the tubes, as long as they are declaring themselves a fucking TERF in their art. 

I like to use pro wrestling to make my shit relatable because I can look at the grandview of any legacy entertainment and how they all rebranded and incorporated common themes within their programs and now seeing that shit play out in this era while trying to recapture the magic of the past because back then there was a lot of talented people, but the only reason their entertainment caught traction because they were promoting the lowest brow of misogyny, homophobia, racism, anything that was regressive, not everything about the entertainment was propaganda, but to me that was a huge reason why the stuff that blew up in the late 90’s to the early 2000’s and they all had the same themes that make people think that was freedom when it was just as much forced as the overly PC shit which has always been used by design to get people to gravitate towards a more regressive mind state without realizing it and thinking that we are progressing as a society while presenting actual progressive ideas as the stuff that is regressive. And now people are trying to recreate that time like it was the be all end all, but I feel those elements are really fucking try hard in this current era and we have given ourselves pats on the back for being about safety since bad shit happened in the past and now we make excuses for why the current shit should be able to fly the way it did back then because it is not as harmful just yet, and we always do that with every new person or new thing until they reach a position where they completely become evil. That is why the phrase that I feel is so apropo is we are sports entertaining our way into fascism and they will keep finding more sophisticated ways to get there even if it means everyone has to become a fucking caricature and sell their soul so they can have an audience where they perform their sitcom banter from their favorite television shows and movies, and when everyone is fucking doing it, it just kind of gets old. I can’t be around people in my personal life that do that shit, it is like everyone has been taken by this entertainment bug and they are showing their worst selves, there are people who I know who have literally gotten everything they have needed the last 10 years and they get threatened by any modicum of positive feeling I may have because they think my aesthetic means I should feel like shit. Why would I want to be on this fucking planet? Everyone just wants to become worst, and you can justify it by wanting to supply for your family etc but what good will it be when people you are raising are gonna be fucked up from the fucked up shit you have in your being, they either become like you or they will grow to hate you. That is why I am glad I am not a desirable or someone that people are seeking to have a family with, because I know I have fucked up genes, and I would not want my offspring to be fucked up the same way that I am, knowing that they could grow to hate me like everyone else who has had interaction with me for the most part. We will get more fucking people turning into right wingers and finding their “wokeness” has gotten out of control moment, and the more I call it out, people have stopped making it so obvious but I can tell the trajectory people are on. I wish I didn’t have to live to see it. People have resentment towards me because I didn’t go that route, when they thought from the cookie cutter conspiracies I was buying into a decade ago, I would be a prime target of someone who would end up being a MAGA person. For some reason my spellcheck gives me an error whenever I put out MAGA, they insist on replacing it with MANGA, it also never lets me say neoliberal, they always suggest “liberal”, I don’t know why I am mentioning that but it feels like when I write this on google documents I get these weird warnings from the powers that be I shouldn’t specify, maybe if they think they can frame me for something in the future they can use my “manifesto” and cherry pick rants and irrational behavior to make it seem like the cookie cutter “anti establishment” type of rhetoric since I will anger the brass with these blogs, they can’t do anything too obvious just yet because this blog is not reaching the masses, officially it doesn’t even exist. But this hijacking “suggestions” feels like people who hack my shit and monitor me writing down my thoughts then take me off course by making weird suggestions, and I thought maybe it is just how it operates, but sometimes it will be words that completely make no sense, so it serves as a warning in some way. But again anything I have written is just my perception in which way the world is going. People will solely focus on policy which is valid to do so since the people signing laws are doing dangerous shit, which is why it is funny that a bunch of people like TYT will chastise AOC for saying the Biden Administration shouldn’t follow the ruling and it will set a dangerous precedent for no checks and balances, but it is like people in powerful positions inside and outside of politics are getting away with shit all the fucking time and doing the worst shit to take us into a fascist world, and when someone is fighting back, these pussies tell you do it by the book when the opposite are breaking rules left and fucking right and it exposes that these people want to pretend they are fighting back like establishment baby faces, when literally every opportunity for the right wing to get their shit in with manufactured consent and sensationalism is embraced and seen as being fair etc, and yet you have a problem with someone who is saying they should not follow the ruling and there is valid ground to point out the ruling is not some shady thing on the planet, it speaks volumes while you present yourself as some fucking progressive who wants to show right wingers you are fair when the world is more favored to their beliefs, it just seems like the establishment is more liberal because a fucking corporation has a rainbow and BLM flag hanging on their building. Even their audience who has now become more into what Ana has been fucking say are in the comment section saying the typical right wing things you would find about AOC on Jimmy Dore’s comment section, but people on that side have to fucking keep playing this even Steven shit and balancing it out, it doesn’t matter where you start out, if you end up being on the side of very far right wing fundamentalism, then you are not shit to me. I know these words could haunt me if they try to force me into embracing the right wing mentality so I can get myself canceled and then become a cookie cutter grifter trying to rebrand. It makes me question if other left leaning people will find their common ground and finally go into a more right wing direction, that seems to be the trajectory. I would rather die than ever do that, and believe me over the years they have tried to get me to get on some fundamentalist shit by different aesthetics and I always figure it out when it gets too fucking deep, once you see pushback and aggression for not agreeing with a cult leader they really show themselves. It becomes fucking disturbing. Everyone literally wants to be a sports entertainer in this thing and I feel like I am probably one of the only people who don’t want to and people don’t think the entertainment and other shit we consume can’t change our minds or shape it in way where we don’t realize we are being propagandized and now it is seeping in a lot more transparently in the entertainment we have been fans of. If UFC was having their fucking RNC level reunion with new recruits, that shit is gonna seep into WWE eventually and people will not be alarmed because hating Trump is a hack level thing to do since everyone in the establishment solely targets him and it is by design, because the establishment is discredited, they can work you in many ways, just look at how they work wrestling fans, all you have to do is get Vince McMahon-isms out there that have become synonymous with his his name and people only being able to recognize when he would be back in the creative chair. But when WWE tells you they are not for this talent, it has become a staple and cliched trope to automatically get you behind someone who they perceive is not favored by the system, but the fact they are allowed to cultivate an audience, means it is always a funded point. You will support any fucked up trope in any other promotion but because it isn’t WWE you will let it continue when every company has to do systemic cliches but if it happens under WWE then suddenly people give a fuck and are arbiters of calling the system out while they let other systemic tropes to seep in other places, and I see that with other forms of entertainment, and right now there is no greater entertainment than the political shit and the social media storylines of the celebrities, the actual art itself has become a backdrop that will have some main focal points to focus on but ultimately it is about the online perception. People don’t want to have that conversation, and these are supposed to be people who are smarter than me yet me bringing this shit up becomes a problem because how dare I advance my thinking in unusual ways to see the possibilities while your main personality trait is “IM BETTER THAN THE MSM AND ESTABLISHMENT” and think that will suffice as credibility in 2023. It feels watered down. People in MSM have always ignored the lowbrow entertainment because they needed it under the guise of “This is a joke” so you don’t care that the freaks on Howard Stern deal with mental abuse from the funded fan base, or the abuse that other cogs in the business have gone through and because they want their story out, they might have to cosign political ideology so they have some traction and in recent years I have seen people who have dealt with trauma only be allowed to get it out there if they become more right wing. Anyways I have kind said all I needed to say and I am sure this doesn’t come off well with how scattered my thoughts are and again I am not an expert, I am just a dumbed down guy that lived longer than he needed to and am just trying to interpret shit I know how, not everyone will agree with it and because it falls under the guise of “conspiratorial” it will make people automatically think I am a right winger because you can’t question the system and the ones that claim they do are then upholding other elements of the system in their own way, but when you can barely trust anything and anyone anymore, you need to vent and get this shit out, maybe there are people who secretly feel like me but they don’t want to go against hive mind mentality. Anyways, it doesn’t matter this shit will go unnoticed until it becomes convenient to analyze everything from my life if I anger the billionaires who have their people keeping an eye out on me. But again that is just in my head, remember all the trauma I have faced mentally doesn’t count because they can’t make a documentary on it just yet. But I don’t need to be cosigned, you can track everything I have done and said and know I have never meant any harm to anyone who is marginalized even if I fell for propaganda, it is hard work mentally to realize you have been falling for more propaganda even if at one time these people speak truth. They become sports entertainers and they become another face of the establishment but in this new funded way for online consumption, people can only recognize the obvious problematic shit when it presented in their art in a more dumbed down way, like calling out Hulk Hogan was the obvious example, but we have allowed multiple normalized racist behavior from this industry as a whole and now that people got the gigs they got, they have now dumbed it back down and think anyone that calls out the system is the one who is the problem, but you have credibility because you pointed out Hulk Hogan being a racist, like he wasn’t supposed to become a villain in real life so he can then join the right wing side, it feels they have known how to game the system and rebrand. Now that all the right wing heroes got canceled, it is like they are using it as a reason to put more harm on marginalized communities and they have tokens in the system in all forms to now help themselves out. I would rather be gone than fall for other sophisticated propaganda designed to take me down a regressive path. Roll your eyes and gossip with your group chat but the lifestyle must not be fulfilling if you actively get mad that I won’t join that side. I don’t care if I have to be the last one standing that doesn’t put on an NWO shirt and start playing guitar with Hogan’s world title. Anyways, I am sure some people will secretly enjoy this which will anger others because I am not supposed to attempt creative shit because then it makes people then have to double down knowing the way I express shit could be perceived as being better despite not having the reach that others have. I don’t need the acknowledgement. It would be nice but it seems to bother people more when I attempt anything that was not cosigned.