#with the filming being essentially continuous and all Tumblr posts

[the-silence-in-between]

When I sift through my heartbreak about the Agatha All Along finale, the thing I keep coming back to is what a terrible choice it was to make The Road a con.

Now, I've seen folks theorizing (with evidence) that Billy subconsciously created The Road for weeks now, so I'm not going to say that the twist came out of nowhere. The hints were there.

But thematically, episodes 1-7, were about womanhood, sisterhood, and community. We saw Agatha deeply long to be part of a coven, even though she didn't trust anyone and felt so obviously, deeply uncomfortable sitting around that campfire in episode 4.

Episode 8 seemed like it would be continuing that same theme, but once we get to The Twist, episode 9 necessarily has to be all about Explaining The Twist. And so, even though the flashback scenes in episode 9 are truly beautiful, they feel like they belong to another show.

Agatha's Character Development

Think back to everything that episode 1 set up. We've been teased with Agatha and Rio's relationship since the very beginning, but we get nothing about how they met and virtually no backstory for Rio. I had zero illusions that we were going to get some sort of happily ever after for them as a couple, or that the show would be all about them. But this was a seminal relationship in Agatha's life, and given how much the actors were talking things up, I really expected more.

Episode 1 also seemed to set up so much more with regards to Agatha's backstory. There was so much about the Darkhold (and it came back up again in episodes 2 and 3, too), but we never found out how or when Agatha attained it. At one point in episode 1, Agnes tells Rio that every case is always about the specific small town and the secrets buried beneath it, but we don't find out anything new about Agatha's life in Salem or why she was nearly executed, nor do we learn why Evanora thought Agatha was born evil.

In fact, when we look at all nine episodes, Agatha really doesn't have a character arc. Once she breaks out of Wanda's hex, she doesn't grow or change. She doesn't make peace with Rio, or with what happened to Nicky -- she literally chooses to become a ghost because she's too afraid to face him in the afterlife. She clearly longs for sisterhood, but Sharon, Alice, and Lilia are dead, and despite Agatha and Jennifer being incredibly similar as characters, they never make peace with each other. Episode 8 presents Agatha choosing to sacrifice herself for Billy at the last minute as "growth," but she literally drank poison for him way back in episode 3. This was already something we expected her to do.

So we end episode 9 with Agatha in the same position she was in in episode 1, only translucent and filmed through a thick layer of Vaseline. Yes, I know she forms a "coven two" with Billy, but after all the earlier focus on sisterhood, the fact that it's just Billy feels really insufficient. And yes, I know that Agatha will likely return in other MCU titles, but this was her show, damn it, and it felt like a miracle that we even got a show starring a queer character played by a woman over 40. And if Agatha can't even get a character arc in her own show, how am I to believe that she'll get one as a side character?

(On a personal note, I think I have always loved seeing a villain do a heel-face turn because I find something so hopeful about seeing a character overcome and grow beyond behaviors and characteristics that only harm them. I've identified really strongly with Agatha's desire for sisterhood and difficulty opening up and trusting others, and for this show to essentially end with "the only change Agatha is capable of making is dying" is just ... honestly devastating on a truly embarrassing level.)

Breaking the Spell Cast by The Ballad

But beyond the way the need to explain The Twist short-changed Agatha's development, it also retroactively cheapens the ~magic~ of The Road and The Ballad. The Road was presented as a journey that sisters in the craft would embark upon together -- the comics have a really moving storyline where Wanda actually meets her biological mother on The Road -- and in singing along with the ballad, it felt like we the audience were part of that sisterhood, that journey. But now knowing that The Road never existed, and only exists now because of a teenage boy who can't control his magic, it feels like the spell Jac Schaeffer spoke about casting on the audience with The Ballad has been broken. It's no longer something I can sing to make me feel like I'm a powerful witch -- it's something darker and less than what we were promised.

Two Halves That Don't Fit

Because of the shift that had to happen once The Road was revealed to be Billy's creation, so much foreshadowing and character development that were begun in the first seven episodes really seemed to just seemed to have no resolution by episode 9.

Maybe this is the story that the writers set out to tell, with The Twist firmly in place from the beginning. But it just feels like at the 11th hour, someone was like "OMG what if The Road is another hex?" and they shoved it in, sprinkling some breadcrumbs backwards so eagle-eyed fans could spot the clues, but not stopping to make sure that the themes they laid out in the early episodes came to a resolution by the end.

And hey, maybe they originally did that, and Marvel/Disney execs came in and removed stuff at the end to fit better with other MCU properties. (Though if that is what happened, I have very little hope for anyone trying to tell an interesting story within this universe.)

This was obscenely long, and I've begun to ramble. There were parts that I liked about both episodes 8 and 9, but over all I just felt so let down after six weeks of falling in love with this show and the story they told us they were telling. They came so close to perfection and really just dropped the ball at the end.

[rowanthestrange]

So how many members of the Pantheon do you think we’re going to see? Got to be at least five, right? Not necessarily all the main feature of an episode but the term Pantheon has to mean many. This is a large extended family. And obviously the implication of more that we don’t see, but I think we’ve got to have at least five having been on screen to get the vibes right.

[yzzart]

Love your Tom blyth fics an unhealthy amount!!! I’m picturing reader and Tom being all lovey dovey at the premiers but playing it off as really good bestfriends UNTIL she goes to kiss him on the cheek and in instinct he turns his head to kiss her on the lips so they just say fuck it and hard launch there and then x

"An unplanned situation."

pairing: tom blyth x actress!reader

summary: a small gesture, with a sweet intention, revealed a promising secret.

word count: 1.359!

notes: i started this request in the morning and only had the opportunity to finish it a few minutes ago, forgive me for that, anon! — i hope you like it and of course, feel free to share ideas with me!

"Y/N, look here!"

Another request, among others, screams and countless flashes, was directed to you; being, theoretically, almost impossible to identify who had demanded your image. — There were so many voices mixing, not to mention the music in the background, but, you tried your best to pay attention to most of the cameras.

However, it wasn't anything you weren't used to; something that has already been normalized in your life.— And during the premiere of The ballad of songbirds and snake it was no different, and it was splendid; simply perfect. — Not to mention, the feeling of gratitude that grew in your chest.

Cameras and cell phones captured your every movement, your poses and the way your perfectly chosen dress was valued and highlighted on your body. — And how it matched the color palette of the film. — Everything was being recorded, at the exact moment, posted and commented on all social networks.

You had the opportunity to meet, talk and take photos with some of the cast. — It was so pleasant, the company and unity that everyone developed during the filming of the film was inexplicable and so adorable; you were grateful to have worked with so many talented people. — There were some people who were absent, until now, in your eyes, but you would definitely meet them again on the carpet.

And, of course, your eyes roamed the decorated room, matching the elements of the film, and crowded in search of a specific person. — It wasn't exaggerated words to say that you were starting to feel uncomfortable because he was missed; and the cameras recorded it. — Silent questions, which would be written, formed in the minds of the presenters and photographers.

Your boyfriend had yet to appear on the red carpet; perhaps he is giving a quick and curious interview or greeting someone. — That's what was going on in your head.

You and Tom had a secret relationship, ever since you met behind the scenes, in front of the world and all the cameras that may exist in it; something that was so risky and at the same time adventurous. — And that, as incredible as it might seem, you knew how to disguise it in front of your fans; even though they gradually became suspicious with comments, interactions and behind-the-scenes photos.

They were either smart or you and Tom were too far over the line. — This question was not important or essential for the moment. — And you considered each other best friends for interviews or responses to comments; you tried your best.

And so, Rachel sent countless screenshots of tweets, which talked about or mentioned the relationship between you and Tom, to you. — It's impossible to deny how funny it was.

Persisting in continuing to look for him and for a few seconds, your eyes meet his blue and so charming irises. — Its shade of blue was a magnificent and beautiful combination; something you would never get tired of admiring. —And there was no other thing, or anyone, that could take his eyes off you.

As if the only thing that mattered at that moment was you. — And everything around him simply disappeared.

"There you are!" — Tom walked towards you, easily as there weren't so many people on the carpet, and an enthusiastic smile forming on his lips; also accompanied by cameras and intense flashes. — "And so beautiful!"

Holding a part of your long and dazzling dress so as not to hinder your steps, you met him, and without wasting any time, hugged him. — A common gesture, and not so different or strange, for the spectators; so, you thought. — Tom's arms went around your waist, holding your protectively for a little while, while your arms positioned themselves around his neck.

Tom's fragrance, which you liked so much, filled your nose; it felt so good, and you felt your eyes weaken, contaminated by it. — And the british man was aware of that.

"You look perfect, always." — The older man distanced himself, just a little, and brought his face closer to your ear, wanting only you to hear. — "The most beautiful woman that has ever crossed my eyes." — The lenses probably captured a reddish pigmentation on your cheeks and it was not part of your makeup.

You placed one of your hands on his chest, and looking directly into his eyes; that shone at you, and it wasn't just because of the influence of the lights in your direction. — Tom's gaze was sincere, and passionate, intensely fascinating you. — He conveyed what he felt most with just his eyes.

And that was one of the facts about him that you were passionate about and recognized very well.

"Oh, shut up!" — Raising your hand and resting it a little away from your mouth, you laughed a little embarrassed and looked back at the cameras; remembering that they remained there and you knew that later you would see your interaction with Tom on some social media.

Again, a thing and situation you were used to.

"Look at that camera!" — A voice mingled among others, which requested the same request, asking you to take some photos together; something that would feed news, fans and press.

At no point, minute or second, did you and Tom remain distant or apart from each other; always a few steps close, hugging each other for photos and certain looks, completely indiscreet. — Even during brief interviews, as Blyth mentioned you or your character's work, you were silently watching. — One of the interviewers even commented on how cute she thought it was.

Tom's hand was on your waist, holding and almost covering you, making a quick caress in a few seconds and one of your hands was still resting on his chest; and you continued, of course, to be the focus of the cameras.

Quickly, with the intention of changing your pose and trying something new and also to take advantage of the fact that Blyth's face was almost close to yours, you decide to place your pigmented lips on his cheeks. — Such a cute and friendly gesture, and so common. —But, automatically and hastily, Tom turned his face away at the same time, without having in mind what you were, in fact, planning. — God, it was a shock; an absurd and completely intense shock.

For the first time that night, in that place and on those cameras, your lips touched Tom's lips. — It was very quick, good and surprising; and that definitely left a cold, freezing air in your belly accompanied by a desperate feeling in your mind. — Rumor has it that smoke was coming out of his head. — It was a peck, a quick and simple kiss.

When you separated, hurriedly, your eyes met Tom's once again; who were a little wide-eyed, expressing surprise. — Looking for something to say or do, just like you. — And you watched his lips curve into an almost smile, as if he was trapping him.

Shouts of enthusiasm and some possible whistles echoed throughout the immense place, along with some looks and expressions of surprise at what had happened. — And some people were worried if they had recorded the exact moment, of course. — Your fans were probably commenting frantically about what happened.

You really didn't know what to do but at no point did you move away from your boyfriend — now, official to the public — and keep your hand on his chest; as if it were, in fact, planned.

"A nice way to reveal it, huh?" — Tom laughed, relaxed and without a feeling of discomfort or uneasiness, he still had his hand on your waist; and he still squeezed you, then leaving you with another caress. — "I think." — He didn't look at the cameras, his orbits focused only on you.

They have always focused on you, regardless of what is actually happening; and that will never change.

"A nice way to reveal." — You repeated your words, but, as an affirmation and certainty; maybe, seeing how relieved Tom was, and not showing some kind of distress, your chest calmed down and you felt safe.

And soon, you and Tom became one of the most talked about topics on social media.

[james-bucky-barnackle]

I mean?

Synopsis: On a press tour with your co-star Sebastian Stan, the interviewer asks you a question about another film he did and the answer surprises him.

Pairing: Sebastian Stan x Actress!Y/N

Word Count: IDK I'm too sleep deprived to count.

A/N: Bro I am on a resurgence. Might just fuck around and continue writing more fanfics or whatever.

It’s another busy day promoting your new movie with Sebastian, The Road Trip. It's a funny romcom about two best friends going on a long trip to see another friend who your character is dating. Interestingly enough, the guy who plays him is Chris Evans. The interviews are currently being done in pairs, and you're with Sebastian.

You've always been candid, speaking your mind without feeling shy. Deep down, you're a bit of a pessimist, accepting things as they are. When you first heard from your agent that you were cast in The Road Trip alongside Sebastian Stan and Chris Evans, you laughed hysterically. The idea that you, an unconventional beauty, were chosen to be on screen with those two seemed surreal. You never really think about dating co-stars, which helps with acting in general. The media is impressed with how chill you are around A-list actors, and even though it hasn’t fully sunk in yet, the industry has started promoting you to that list.

The interview has been going on for about 15 minutes when another journalist joins, mostly asking about the experience of working with the cast.

“It’s my first romcom, can you believe it?” you say.

“First?!” Sebastian stares in mock disbelief.

“I know, right?!” You feign surprise.

The interviewer continues, “How does it feel to do something lighter and a bit comedic for once?”

“You mean, a movie where no one dies?” Sebastian covers his mouth at your response.

“I mean essentially,” the interviewer laughs. “Wait, no one dies?!” They nudge you playfully.

“I mean, I’m not sure, no spoilers,” you say, breaking the fourth wall and looking into the camera. Sebastian cackles. “It’s definitely refreshing. It feels like going to school for some reason. Like I don’t want to miss a class just because I might miss something wild happening.”

“What?” Sebastian glares. “What school did you go to?”

“I mean, aside from the learning stuff…” You grimace. “It’s fun, honestly. I’d love to do more romcoms. It’s very down-to-earth and just resonates with you so much. I don’t wanna get too cheesy, but I’m such a hopeless romantic—this is my jam.”

“Sebastian, how’s your experience working with Chris again, this time outside of the Marvel universe?”

“Wait, this isn’t in the Marvel Universe?!” you butt in. Sebastian again, fakes a loud gasp. You two laugh. This interview feels like it’s going nowhere.

“It’s totally fun, as Y/N mentioned—it really is like going to class. But most of my scenes are with Y/N, so she’s like the lab partner I’ve never had. Chris was always texting us, checking which location we’re going to be at, making sure we’re scheduled on the same day. It’s fun when we’re both on set.”

You nod in agreement. “Yeah, we’ve got a good rhythm going. It’s like having a little family on set. Plus, Chris is always the one who brings snacks, so that’s a bonus.”

Sebastian laughs. “Oh, absolutely. Chris and his endless supply of trail mix.”

The interviewer chuckles. “Sounds like you all have a great dynamic. Was there a favorite scene you both enjoyed filming together?”

You think for a moment. “I really loved the scene where we’re stuck in the car during that rainstorm. It was so chaotic, but we had a blast improvising and just playing off each other.”

Sebastian nods. “Yeah, that was a good one. The rain machine was going full blast, and we were just trying not to crack up the entire time.”

The interviewer smiles. “It sounds like it was a lot of fun. And the chemistry definitely shows on screen. Speaking of different roles, Y/N, Sebastian’s been in the movie Fresh where he plays a sociopathic killer who preys on lonely women pretending to be a genuine guy.”

“I don’t like where this is going,” you say, laughing, as Sebastian shakes his head.

“Would you, like Noa, fall prey to Steve’s antics?” This question gets a louder laugh from Sebastian as your face shows pure shock. You hold him back with your hand and say,

“I’ve thought about this, to be honest,” you start, looking at Sebastian as he raises his eyebrows, impressed.

“Oh, you have?”

You laugh and continue, patting his thigh and looking back at the interviewer. “Me and my friend talked about it a while back. And it’s frightening because I would’ve probably ended up on a chopping block.”

“Noooo!” Sebastian shouts, “I was rooting for you.”

“No! But, like, you are incredibly good-looking and charismatic. It would be hard not to give my number at the grocery aisle.”

He tilts his head at your response. “Surely not good enough to get yourself killed?!”

“You’d be surprised how far I’d even go,” you say, as the interviewer laughs with you both. “Oh god, I need to call my therapist,” you add, ending the topic with the three of you gagging.

“Might just have to talk to mine too, after hearing that.”

You can already feel TikTok saving this clip and turning it into a meme.

You notice, after you call Sebastian good-looking, he’s been eyeing you sideways and biting his lip. As if he’s suddenly gone bashful. You can’t help but feel a boost in your ego. Could it be that Stan is shy? You make it a point to tease him for the remainder of the interview.

“What’s something funny or unexpected that happened on set?”

“Oh, there were so many moments,” you start. “One time, we were filming this really serious scene, and out of nowhere, a bird flew into the set and landed right on Sebastian’s shoulder.”

Sebastian laughs. “Yeah, I had no idea what to do. I just froze, and then Y/N started making bird noises to try and get it to fly away.”

You laugh, nodding. “It took a good ten minutes to get back into character after that. Everyone was cracking up.”

The interviewer grins. “That sounds hilarious. It’s great to hear that you all had such a good time. Speaking of moments on set, were there any funny or awkward moments while filming the more romantic or intimate scenes?”

Sebastian raises an eyebrow, smirking. “Oh, plenty. Like the time we were shooting that kiss scene in the rain, and Y/N kept slipping on the wet pavement.”

You roll your eyes playfully. “Hey, it was slippery! You were the one who can’t stop laughing during takes.”

Sebastian laughs. “True, true. But come on, we both know it was because you were so nervous about kissing me.” You notice him biting back.

You gasp in mock offense. “Excuse me, I was not nervous! I was just...distracted by how ridiculously good-looking you are. It’s hard to concentrate when you have that face right in front of you.” He smiles uncontrollably again, feeling defeated by your nonchalance. He wonders, how are you so good at this?

The interviewer laughs, clearly enjoying the banter. “So, who do you think had the hardest time keeping a straight face during those scenes?”

You both point at each other simultaneously, then laugh.

Sebastian leans back, shaking his head. “Definitely Y/N. There was this one scene where we were supposed to be having this deep, romantic conversation, and she just couldn’t stop giggling.”

You nudge him playfully. “Well, you weren’t helping with all your ad-libs! You kept whispering things like, ‘Is that your stomach growling or are you just happy to see me?’”

Sebastian laughs. “Hey, I was trying to lighten the mood! And let’s not forget the scene where we had to stare into each other’s eyes for what felt like an eternity. I swear, Y/N, you blink more than anyone I know.”

You smirk. “Only because I was trying to avoid getting lost in those baby blues of yours.” At this point, Sebastian was laughing hard, but feeling nervous at your jokes. He secretly wished it were all real, his ears were red and hot. He’s already thinking of how to approach you after the interview and get himself out of the friend zone which he didn’t even thought he’d be in, having found a new interest in you. 

The interviewer looks between the two of you, amused. ��It sounds like you both had a lot of fun with it. Do you think all that chemistry will translate to the screen?”

Sebastian nods. “Oh, definitely. I think our off-screen dynamic really helped make the on-screen relationship feel more genuine. Plus, Y/N here is an amazing actress. She made it easy.”

You smile, feeling a bit bashful. “Well, Sebastian’s not too bad himself. It’s hard not to enjoy working with someone who’s so talented and, let’s be honest, ridiculously attractive.” 

Here she goes again .Sebastian grins. “Right back at you. But let’s be real, we’re both just incredibly good-looking people trying to make a movie here.” The internet is gonna have a field day.

The interviewer laughs. “Sounds like a tough job! Any last funny or romantic moments you’d like to share?”

You think for a moment. “There was this one scene where we had to dance together. Neither of us are professional dancers, so there were a lot of missteps and toe-stepping. But it ended up being one of the sweetest scenes because it felt so real and unpolished.”

Sebastian nods. “Yeah, that was a great scene. It was supposed to be this perfectly choreographed dance, but it turned into us just goofing around and having fun. I think it really captured the essence of our characters' relationship.”

The interviewer smiles, clearly delighted by your stories. “Well, thank you both for sharing these wonderful moments. It’s been a pleasure talking with you.”

As you and Sebastian leave the interview room, you head towards the lobby where a few other cast members are mingling. The energy is still high from the fun and laughter of the interview. Sebastian nudges you playfully as you walk.

“Hey, remember in the interview when you called me incredibly good-looking and charismatic?” he teases, a mischievous glint in his eye.

You roll your eyes, grinning. “Oh, come on. Don’t let it go to your head, Stan.”

He chuckles. “Too late. I’m pretty sure I’m going to bring that up every chance I get now.”

“You would,” you laugh, shaking your head. “ It’s not like I was lying.”

Sebastian stops walking, turning to face you. “Well, thank you. And for the record, you’re pretty incredible yourself. Both on screen and off.”

You feel a warm blush creeping up your cheeks, putting a palm to your chest as if to continue the gag. “Thanks, Seb. That means a lot.”

He smiles, his eyes softening. “No, really, it’s been really great working with you. I think we make a pretty good team.”

“I think so too,” you agree, feeling a flutter in your stomach, you realize he’s actually serious now. There’s a moment of silence as you both just look at each other, the playful teasing from earlier now replaced with something more tender.

Sebastian breaks the silence first. “So, what do you say we celebrate wrapping up the promotion tour? Maybe dinner tonight?”

You raise an eyebrow, teasingly. “Is this your way of asking me out, Stan?”

He grins, a little sheepishly. “Maybe it is. What do you think?”

You pretend to think about it for a moment, then nod. “I think it sounds like a great idea.”

“Perfect,” he says, looking genuinely pleased. “I’ll pick you up at eight?”

“Eight it is."

Check my other stuff out too? | M A S T E R L I S T

Feedback, likes and reblogs are appreciated!!!

HMU WITH AN ASK IF U WANNA GET TAGGED

Permanent taglist!!! @gracielou0518 / @memory-of-a-goldfish / @thatbitchsaidhi / @xxashy999xx / @queenlouisa2001 / @shliic / @speggehi / @blackdaisybitch / @tuliptx / @m-a-t-91 / @milkshakeslou-blog / @fireboltrose7559 / @justmesadgirl / @makloveswritingofficial-blog / @cocacola-cocaine / @impalatobakerstreet / @laochbaineann / @justakpopfan4 / @kiramotherofsnails / @yknott81 / @heartssick / @thisismysecrethappyplace / @oldwhalien / @padackles2010 / @lolabean1998 / @ayee-style

[pomefioredove]

movie night

summary: vil devotes his time to showing you all the movies you haven't seen yet type of post: short fic characters: vil schoenheit additional info: romantic, FLUFF, reader is yuu, reader is gender neutral, kinda short author's note: I so often think about how yuu is completely unfamiliar with pop culture in twisted wonderland. vil would lose his mind if he found out you hadn't seen a single movie yet. in my heart I know he's a little nerdy about it

It's to be expected.

Of course. Of course you haven't had the time or the means.

It's perfectly reasonable that you'd put your studies and social obligations before leisure time. He understands.

But hearing you so openly admit that you haven't seen a single movie since arriving in this world, let alone one of his, doesn't sit well with Vil Schoenheit.

As it turns out, the mythological being who doesn't spend their free time absorbed in media is real, and they're standing right in front of him with an apologetic smile.

Oh, you poor, poor thing.

Even after the conversation dies and you part ways on good terms, Vil can't shake this odd, itchy feeling.

He wonders what it must be like- not understanding anyone's references, being left out of conversations, still so dependent on a culture that doesn't even exist here.

Is there something wrong with the people you spend your time with? Surely at least one of them would take the time to show you the classics. Just one.

No wonder everyone regards you as naive and innocent. No one's taken the time to explain anything about this world to you. And he's sure that extends far beyond cinema...

"What is this?"

It's the first thing you ask when he opens the door to you. Ever curious, ever clueless.

"Is that a rhetorical question?" he says, looking thoroughly unamused with your naivete.

A projector. A white screen. And a tray full of luxury skincare essentials that he'll be sure to test on you while you're distracted.

"Seriously," you say. "What's going on? Your message was really vague."

He sighs. "Oh, goodness, just come inside,"

Vil sits you down on the edge of his bed and hands you a plush headband to push your hair out of your eyes. He's more than pleased at your lack of protests thus far, and continues to take advantage of your willingness while smearing a sweet-smelling face mask over your cheeks.

"It needs to set before we start,"

"Start what?"

Vil smirks, standing and drifting across the room to a large wardrobe- no, a cabinet. He opens it- no, a shelf. Packed full of DVDs, arranged by date and in pristine condition.

"Wow, Vil. I never took you for a nerd,"

His gaze sharpens. "Hardly. And try not to talk so much right now, you'll crack the mask,"

He hums merrily, delicate fingers dancing over the smooth plastic cases before stopping at a soft white one. "This'll do,"

You watch as Vil returns to your side, carefully inspects your face, and then walks back around to tinker with the projector. You, of course, wait patiently, hands folded neatly in your lap as the screen ahead of you comes to life.

He turns off the lights and sits beside you as a white light illuminates your face, turning the hue of the mask a strange color.

"This is a classic," he whispers. "It's the first film I remember loving."

"It's that good?"

He chuckles. "No, it's quite outdated, and terribly unfunny. I'm just fond of it,"

If there's anything Vil Schoenheit is, it's honest. The entire black and white picture (which you surmise is quite old by Twisted Wonderland standards) is heaped with unfunny and confusing references, terribly paced, and acted like a primary school play.

And yet, there's a sense of warmth that permeates the external terribleness of it, that of which takes form in each of Vil's awkward laughs.

You revel in each of his little comments, his tidbits about the actors, his trivia about the production. He certainly seems to know what he's talking about, and his grace and confidence almost distract you from how nerdy he's really being.

Though, he's really not paying close attention to the screen. Vil seems far more interested in watching you, your reactions, almost as if searching for some kind of approval in the expressions you make. Do you laugh at this joke? Do you ask about this plot twist? Do you enjoy this song?

It's a completely alien experience, having him looking to you for validation, although you make sure to comment on how much you enjoyed yourself. Just to see him smile again.

"Same time next week, then," he says. "One movie won't be enough to catch you up on decades of pop culture, after all."

And thus, a tradition is born.

It's strange for him to think about how you've made yourself a home in his schedule. Wedged between expensive photo shoots and meetings with luxury brands, there's you. One single name in the same spot every week.

He couldn't admit it, but you've quickly become the highlight of his calendar.

"And this is just after they transitioned to movies with sound. It was a grand extinction event, not every studio nor star survived," he says, nodding to the screen ahead.

You hum in agreement. Your eyes are heavier than usual, and you're leaning against your elbow, absent-mindedly agreeing with everything he says.

A part of Vil wants to tease you for finding his taste in film boring, but he's not even sure if you have the mental capacity to listen to big words right now.

"Sleepy?"

"Grim kept waking me up last night..." you sigh. "I'm paying attention, I promise."

He watches you lie through your teeth, and then he watches as your words grow heavy and your body slumps over, awkwardly positioned against his.

Vil sighs- whatever is he going to do with you and that terrible sleep schedule of yours?- and readjusts so that your head is neatly set in the crook of his neck and your body is comfortably fit against his.

He finishes the movie, and lets the screen play the menu sequence over and over again. It's not really worth waking you up over, after all.

You're so cute when you're sleeping.

He hates himself for thinking that. You're perfectly inelegant- awkwardly breathing, practically drooling. And yet, he could stay here for the rest of the night and not wholly regret it in the morning. He just wishes you'd picked a better time to fall asleep on him.

Someday, he'd gladly return to bed to cuddle with you after he'd done his evening routine.

But... just this once, he'll let it go.

[hotvintagepoll]

Do you have any opinions on modern (post-1970s) movies that you feel capture the essence (in a good way) of Old Movies?

No, unfortunately. That doesn't mean I don't like modern movies or that modern movies aren't good, but modern movies—and here I'm really using modern to mean post-2010, so contemporary movies—have different standards for pacing, characterization, budget, and production that make it harder (or impossible) to capture some of the magic of old movies. Even when modern movies clearly try to emulate that old-movie feeling—I'm thinking of La La Land, The Artist, The Shape of Water, In the Heights—they play the homage too broadly, or they ignore crucial components that make the original films work.

There's kind of too much to go into here without writing a full essay, but essentially, the Old Hollywood system—ugly, failed beast as she was—made some movies simply more accessible to make, due to the ongoing storage of props, sets, master craftsmen, crew, and onscreen talent that could move from one movie to the next without pause. If you needed a dancer, he was already on staff. If you needed a fancy bed, it was already in the warehouse. That kind of longterm storage is invaluable if you want to crank out movies quickly and cheaply because it saves so much time on individual negotiation and sourcing. Modern production companies have to work out individual contracts for every actor on every film; crew members have to negotiate rental contracts and source pieces from scratch; if you need someone with specialist skills, you have to contract them specially at a high rate, which a lot of small companies can't (or won't) budget to do. There's sand in the wheels where there needn't be any. It's wasteful, and costly, but that's the system modern movies are made with.

Which all means that even if the modern movie system wanted to make a classic movie musical just like the old ones, they couldn't, because the talent isn't already there—it hasn't been trained up enough, and there's not that breadth of knowledge you can only get from people who have been allowed to work in the same department in the same place for decades. Movies like La La Land fail, for me, because they present themselves as descendants of Fred Astaire or Busby Berkley movies, while missing the bit where Fred Astaire was a master of his craft. When you watch Fred Astaire dance—or Moira Shearer, or the Nicholas Brothers, or Ann Miller—you are watching a true artist at work, purposely showcased by the studios because they already have them on contract. Modern movies, on the other hand, tend to take people who already have star talent (as actors) and try to convert them into dancers/singers—or they pull dancers/singers off of Broadway, but then they don't have the star power built in. You end up with lackluster musicals where no one truly knows what they're doing, or they do but they're not built up enough by the studios to sell. And that's me discussing just on-screen talent for musicals—there is a huge loss behind the scenes, as well, for all kinds of movies, where roles that would have been filled by union crew who moved continuously from one job to the next have been swapped for freelance labor who live with immense turnover, financial insecurity, and knowledge loss. You could hand me the budget and I could try to make an old movie, but the industry itself has changed so much it's impossible to recapture that charm of steady, niche talent, the amazing possibilities of bonkers set design, and the ability to take a risk on a smaller movie because the other films being produced by the same studio can help balance the budget.

I've talked way, way too much about all of this! Sorry, I just have a lot of thoughts—and the one above is just one of them; the talent loss and storage issues are only facets of a much bigger problem that extends to how we watch movies today, how we market them, what we expect of them, and what's allowed in them. It's a crying shame because the talent is still there, but times change and so does the industry, for better or for worse. (And, just again to clarify, I don't think modern movies are bad—they're just missing a lot of the juice old movies got to play with, even if there's more talent available than ever before.)

[dovveri]

the right reasons

bachelorette masterlist - part 1 ▸ part 2 ▸ part 3 ▸ part 4 ▸ part 5 ▸ part 7

synopsis: final stretch of the season. home visits.

warnings: implied sex

w/c: 3.4k

a/n: apologies for late update i have been laid on my literal deathbed with sickness and the brain juices have basically run out for this series so this is a short update to get them flowing again and hopefully i can wrap it up soon 🙏 ty for the support as always!

‧₊˚ ⋅ 𓐐𓎩 ‧₊˚ ⋅

the next few days are hectic with house visits. because of the contract you had both signed, and the fact that the entire nation has been invested with sana's journey to find love, it was a given that sana wouldn't be able to just drop out of show. that didn't mean she didn't try, in fact you had to pull her back from calling all the lawyers in the district to break her contract, insisting that it was fine to see the show through and that you were going to be there for her no matter what. it took a few more assurances, and a couple rounds of sex, kisses, and promised cuddles before she reluctantly agreed to continue filming the upcoming home visits.

jiwon's family was first. you had both met her younger siblings and her several nieces and nephews that were very young. they were all very sweet and it was adorable watching jiwon entertain the young ones.

fortunately, the classic 'father figure that gives the intruder the i'll kill you if you hurt her speech' wasn't present because it seemed jiwon served as that person for her younger siblings. though her younger sister was a little skeptical at first, she easily warmed up when she saw how great sana was with her kids.

sana and jiwon wrapped up the night with a private talk, one which sana didn't share with you, but you were learning to trust her, even though it still looked like she was dating 4 people and soon to choose the love of her life, you had to trust that it was going to be you after it all ended.

jacky's family was next except since most of his family was back in australia, you actually just had a nice dinner at jacky's apartment with eunji who jacky had nominated as his family stand-in. you had apologised profusely to eunji for not being a better friend and not being there for her on the night she was eliminated but she laughed at you and rolled her eyes, saying it was completely fine. she was also friendly with sana who was a little anxious seeing her again so soon after practically rejecting her on national television, but eunji was extremely cool, and they got along even better as friends.

if you ignored the cameras set up everywhere and the producers running in and out, it was a pretty normal night between 4 friends. you had enjoyed dinner made by both jacky and eunji, drunk soju, sung bad karaoke on jacky's home-installed karaoke television set, and played nintendo switch games all night.

in typical bachelor fashion, jacky and sana also had their own private talk on the balcony towards the end of the night, although it was a little silly watching the producers and camera crew figure out how to film it because it was a small apartment, meant only for jacky to live in, so the balcony was basically right outside the living room where you and eunji had stayed, trying not to look outside and give them their privacy while they were having their mandated talk.

then, the crew had surprised everyone with a flight to japan for momo's home visit. momo had greeted all of you at the airport in a traditional kimono and one ready for sana as well. sana had teared up seeing her and being in her country of birth again. the next few hours were a whirlwind as momo and her sister hana took you all for a tour of their home city, stopping by all the essential places to eat, take pictures at, and had even brought you to momo's old dance studio where they had readied a performance just for sana. the producers were very happy with the amount of content they were getting as you explored the city.

you could tell sana absolutely loved this date. the amount of planning momo put into it showed how much she wanted to impress sana, and how much she understood her homesickness and her love for her birth country. it was hard to be jealous of momo getting most of sana's attention during the date when sana was on the verge of tears at every new sight, sound, and feeling. and momo was a sweetheart anyway, always being inclusive of everyone, making sure she was there if anyone needed translation or help with anything, you adored her as a friend, grateful that she was able to provide this experience for sana during the stressful filming season it's been.

you ended the day at momo's house. you met her parents and although you were a little intimidated by her dad's buff physique, he turned out to be a big teddy bear who supported his daughter more than anything. both her parents were glad to be able to converse with sana in their native language, and easily warmed up to her because of the fact that she was japanese and communication was made a lot easier. you spent a lot of the dinner just watching them, only catching hints of their conversation from your select knowledge about the japanese language, but momo noticed eventually and tried to translate as much as she could which you appreciated very much.

it was only a little awkward when momo and sana went for their end of the night chat and you had to sit with momo's family attempting to make small talk with your broken japanese. it turned out okay when momo's mom smiled sweetly and brought out dessert, turning on the television and flicking to an episode of the bachelorette with japanese subtitles. it turned out to be the episode that heechul had tried to rizz up momo and sana using his almost offensive japanese, and you were all able to laugh as you tried to explain using gestures and your best attempt at charades exactly what type of man heechul was behind the scenes.

although japan and korea weren't far, the crew had let you had some time off in japan and granted a day off after filming the dinner with momo's family so that sana could go home and see her family as well. so that night you had taken the bullet train from kyoto to osaka and sana had held your hand, leaning into you as she talked through her childhood stories softly. it felt like it was just the two of you against the rest of the world.

the next day sana was positively glowing. she practically skipped around you in circles while she took you around her home town. it was clear she was loved and missed in the neighbourhood. sweet old ladies and old friends were stopping her everywhere, asking how she was, if she was going to move back to japan soon, everyone wanted a piece of her.

you had dinner with sana's parents who you'd met already when they flew to korea for sana's graduation. although there was still the language barrier, it was easily overcome when sana's mom started showing you albums of sana's baby pictures and pictures of her throughout her childhood.

sana had squealed adorably, trying to cover up her baby pictures and chasing you around the house while you yelled out comments while rapidly flipping through the pictures before she could catch you.

you ended the night collapsed on sana's bed in her childhood room, cuddled into each other. you never really decorated your room when you were younger, too repressed and focused on your studies to ever find the time or worth in doing so. but seeing sana's walls plastered with old japanese anime posters, idols, her ceiling dotted with glow-in-the-dark stars, and pictures of her friends and family everywhere, you can't help but yearn for the childhood you could've had if you had tore away from the books for a little bit.

you're both laid supine on the bed, looking at the imitation night sky sana has in her room, little do you know sana's gaze is focused on you instead.

"y/n?"

"hmm?"

"thank you for being here."

"are you kidding? i wouldn't be anywhere else in the world right now. plus we just got a free trip to japan, life couldn't be any better. i should be thanking you."

sana giggles and fully turns her body, facing you and draping an arm over your stomach. you have your arm under her neck, supporting it while she nuzzles into you.

when she starts playing with the bottom of your shirt, sneaky fingers sliding up and under it, you squeeze out a warning, "sana... your parents are literally next door."

you can feel her smirk against your neck as she starts leaving light kisses along it, and you're helpless, lifting your head slightly to give her better access.

she hums against you, "you can be quiet can't you?"

you make a muffled sound of protest, "your childhood idols and plushies are watching us right now."

you can't see it but sana rolls her eyes, continuing her way up your neck, "i lived out my teen years in here. you think they haven't seen me get off?"

you squirm at the thought, the image of sana under her sheets, trying to keep quiet while she touched herself to whatever fantasies she had at the time.

"you're thinking about it aren't you? how i looked- coming home after school- do you have a school uniform kink y/n? that's slightly concerning y'know?" she leaves a hot trail of dangerous kisses up your throat with each phrase, intent on driving you absolutely crazy.

"n-no!"

"mm okay." then her lips are on yours and really, you should know better than to alert her parents of your sexual proclivities but when sana's licking into you like that you can't blame yourself for not being able to think straight.

‧₊˚ ⋅ 𓐐𓎩 ‧₊˚ ⋅

the final date is of course, with jihyo back in korea.

you were nervous walking in through the front door, the sight of jihyo's parents and her sisters, all familiar faces from when sana and jihyo used to host parties and get-togethers for the various holidays of the year.

fortunately, jihyo's parents and rest of her family were sweet enough to welcome the both of you with open arms. as if the breakup never happened. you gripped sana's hand tightly knowing she was probably going through a hellstorm of emotions right now, being in an environment that reminded her of the brokenness jihyo left her with.

what you did not expect was jihyo's ex-boyfriend to also be at the dining table, all smiles and big buff arms.

sana's hand tightened around yours at the sight of him, her eyes quickly flashing to jihyo with a mixture of hurt and disbelief. jihyo avoids her gaze, sitting down next to her ex-boyfriend instead.

you hear sana take a deep breath, composing herself before the cameras and smiling, you can see straight through it though, keeping her hand in yours when you take your seats at the table, glaring daggers at both jihyo and her ex.

it's clear the tension around the table is present.

jihyo's mom clears her throat, attempting to strike up a conversation, "so sana... it's been a while since we've seen you. what have you been up to?"

sana smiles politely, "well this entire show has been a pretty big thing lately. although i will say i was very surprised to see jihyo there on opening night. not as surprised as i am to see your ex-boyfriend here though." sana directs towards jihyo, a little harshly, stabbing her food with her fork.

"sungbin. it's nice to meet you." sungbin offers a polite nod, but keeps mostly to himself.

"sungbin is my best friend. i thought if y/n could go on this whole experience with you then it wouldn't be a problem if i brought my best friend along." her tone is cutting, like she knows something you don't. "besides... my family's already met you and given you their approval. i thought the whole point of home visits was to get to know people close to me and see if they like you?"

sana shuffles a little in her seat, her grip on you tightens. "right."

the table falls silent again, only the sounds of cutlery scrapping against plates able to be heard.

it's more than awkward and you can see the producers talking worriedly with each other, coming up with any ways to make this more entertaining.

it's jihyo's dad that clears his throat this time, "so sana... do you think you've found your 'one' on this show? i know jihyo is a contestant on your show but know we still care about you and want the best for you, even if that's not our daughter." he smiles kindly, while his wife pecks him on the cheek for his sweet words.

"dad!" jihyo startles.

"what? just because you decided to break up with sana doesn't mean we wanted to let go of her."

"yeah sungbin isn't nearly as good as you at super mario bros even with all those muscles." jihyo's youngest sister chimes in with a laugh, lightening the mood easily as you slip into old conversations and reminiscing better times. you can see the producers visibly relaxing as conversation starts flowing, but jihyo is still tense, unable to look at anyone except sungbin in the eye.

eventually the night leads you into board games with the family while sana takes jihyo outside to talk. you give her a reassuring look before she heads outside, sungbin gives you a strange glance but you don't bother paying him any attention. regardless of his presence, he was still a stranger to you.

you're celebrating your third pass by the go slot in monopoly when the argument outside starts to get louder and louder, able to be heard from inside the house.

"why would you bring him here!?"

"what do you mean why? don't tell me you haven't been sneaking around with y/n this entire time! you haven't even given this show a chance have you?! you haven't given us a chance!"

"jihyo i told you last time that we are over! we have been over for over a year now!"

"i apologised for that okay! i just thought- i didn't think you'd be the type of person to go on this show for the wrong reasons sana."

"what- what wrong reasons?!"

"you're not here to find love! you've had it! even when we were dating i always thought it was kinda weird how close you and y/n were!"

"what- what are you talking about jihyo?!"

"you know damn well what i'm talking about."

"i don't."

"the fact that you've been in love with y/n since way before we were dating sana."

"wh- what?!"

"yeah. i figured if you're not taking this experience seriously than i give you a taste of your own medicine. that's why i invited sungbin tonight. everyone talks about people only coming on these reality shows for their 15 minutes of fame, i didn't peg you to be one of them sana."

"i am taking this seriously! how can you tell me anything about what i've been doing when you've had tunnel vision this entire time? you've only been focused on trying to get me back after i already told you that we're over!"

"if you are taking this seriously then tell me you don't have feelings for y/n. tell me you're going to end up with one of the final four, it doesn't have to be me, but don't you think you owe it to the others who have been trying so hard to impress you this entire time to give it your all?"

"i- that's not for you to decide jihyo."

"you can't say it can you?"

there's silence for a bit, the muffled sound of sniffling. you can't help but feel like you're intruding, and the fact that everything was being filmed and recorded right now made it even worse.

you quietly slip out of board games night and head towards the producers.

"you're going to cut that out right?"

"sorry?"

"their conversation. you'll cut it out?"

"excuse me, who do you think you are?"

"sana's best friend. who cares about her and her national reputation as korea's most eligible bachelorette."

the producer sighs exasperatedly, "we'll see what we do in the final edits. no promises." he rolls his eyes and pushes past you to go talk to the camera directors.

you hurridely go outside to see sana sitting on the balcony, her head in her hands, jihyo looking out across the balcony.

"sana?"

they both turn to you, jihyo rolls her eyes predictably, scoffing and moving past you back inside. you take the opportunity to step outside and close the door behind you.

"sana sweetheart..."

sana's eyes are watery, barely concealed emotions rampant across her face.

"cameras." she gestures weakly around the balcony where cameras and microphones are still set up.

"let's go home then."

she takes a breath, nodding slightly and taking your outstretched hand, you squeeze it reassuringly, leading her out of the house and offering your goodbyes to jihyo's family.

rather than take the driver back to the bachelorette pad, you insist on driving and giving the driver the rest of the night off. that way, you can at least ensure the both of you aren't under the watchful eye of producers looking to make a buck off sana's misfortune for entertainment.

it also helps that you can take a detour and head to a late night ice-cream parlour you and sana used to go to all the time as college students.

you grin when you see sana's expression immediately brighten when you pull up into familiar streets.

"where are we going y/n?"

"somewhere as sweet as you."

"ice-cream?"

"mhm."

she squeals happily, hugging you and you try your best to return it with a laugh while you keep your eyes on the road.

you park and walk into the ice-cream parlour hand in hand.

sana beams when she walks in, excited to taste test all the flavours despite always getting the same thing every time. you let her be childish again to forget all the things jihyo's said to her.

once she's tasted everything you order your usual white crumble pistachio and strawberry yoghurt for sana.

as always, she has to try some of yours and you must try some of hers because she's tried yours so it's only fair. except this time she leans in to kiss you, the flavours mixing on your tongues, a sweet kiss with no cameras or pressure, a moment just for the two of you.

after you're both finished with your cones, she leans into you, placing her head on your shoulder.

"about what jihyo said..."

"it's okay sana. you don't have to explain anything. i shouldn't have been eavesdropping anyway."

she snorts, "well i mean- it's going to be broadcast nationally anyway."

"maybe not. producers said they'll take it into consideration."

"mm. i haven't- i don't-"

you let her think, placing an arm around her shoulder comfortingly, letting her come up with the words in her own time.

"i love you. i told you that already. i don't know for how long- maybe jihyo's right and maybe i've always loved you. that doesn't mean that- it doesn't meant that i haven't put my all into this right?"

"of course not sweetie. i don't know if it was the same for you but i didn't even realise i had romantic feelings for you until during this. in the beginning, i was completely focused on finding the person that would be right for you. and i think you were too. it just so happened that halfway through, we started- well i realised that you were it for me." you turn to face her gently, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear and caressing her cheek.

she rubs her nose against yours softly with a smile, "you're it for me too. i'll figure out how to get through the rest of the season, but i think jihyo's right in that i have to start being honest with the rest of the contestants. none of them deserve to be led on like this."

"i'm sorry i kinda fucked up this whole show for you."

she pecks you chastely, "silly... we wouldn't be here together or have realised our feelings for each other if this didn't happen right? we just have to be selfish for a little more."

you sigh against her, bringing her into a proper kiss, lips trying to convey just how much you felt for her.

[the-promise-has-been-made]

Like with all Mike Flanagan shows, I have to sit and stew on The Fall of the House of Usher for a bit to let it fully settle, and then I'll probably have to rewatch it to get the full picture.

But what I can say now after the first watch has sat with me for 2 days is that compared to Hill House which dealt with grief, Bly Manor which dealt with love, and Midnight Mass which dealt with faith, House of Usher for me dealt with consequences. Madeline and Roderick were offered the deal that they could basically do whatever the heck they wanted, and all the consequences of their horrible actions would not be suffered by them. Which is essentially what capitalist super-rich experience all the time - and we, the ordinary people, suffer the consequences. It's funny that they thought it worked like that, but I guess they saw their father who suffered no consequences for abuse and for mistreating their mother whom he had ann affair with (if it even was that, and not rape) - but he did suffer consequences, he was strangeled to death by a dead woman. And Griswold, who seemingly suffered no consequences for his fraud and the many crimes of his company, except he did - he was literally cask of Amontillado'ed which is honestly the funniest thing! But for the Ushers, the consequences were suffered not just by the anonymous masses, not just by the thousands upon thousands that suffered and died because of their actions (powerfully depicted by the rain of bodies Verna showed Roderick in their meeting in his tower) and not by Madeline nd Roderick themselves, but very directly, very brutally, by their own children - who all in the span of a few days were driven insane and horrifically killed. They were offered this deal, and while Madeline had no children and made sure afterwards that she never would, Roderick already had two children by that point. He signed that deal not for some hypothetical children he might have, but for Frederick and Tammerlane who were already alive then, and for his 4 as of yet unborn children! They barely hesitated. The Ushers TOOK that choice away from their children, they doomed these children before they were even born. And they doomed even their grandchild before she was born. If that doesn't show the crippling consequences of actions we take today, I don't know what does. Every decision the rich and powerful make today has devastatign consequences for generations to come - not hypothetical, but very real and very dire consequences. But these people don't care about that, because it's not consequences they suffer NOW, so it's not their problem. The Ushers are charicaturized representations of that mindset, their children representations of the generations of people fucked over by their decisions. That's why I am torn between feeling glee at the bizarre demise each of the Usher children met (cause let's face it, they were all assholes and messed up) and at the same time feel immense pity for them (because the fact that they were assholes and messed up was almost not their fault but a product of growing up under the trauma Roderick and Madeleine suffered when they were children, and in a mindset where they genuinely believed being richer than God made them immune to cosequence, and because their fate had been decided for them without their knowledge).

But also, Verna gave EACH of these kids an option. They were all going to die, sure, but they were given the choice to do the right thing. Prospero was offered the chance to end his orgy and his filming of incriminating material but he chose to continue. Camille was offered the chance to turn around and go home and instead die peacefully in her sleep. Napoleon was offered the chance not to lie to his boyfriend and bring a fake 'cat' home, and instead go home, sober up, get his shit together, be honest about his fuck-ups. But he didn't. Victorine was offered the chance to say 'no, this treatment is not ready for human testing' but instead she deceived what she believed to be an innocent, desperate woman into essentially signing away her life. Tammerlane could have stopped her jealousy, her envy, and instead reach out to her husband, actually communicate, actually appreciate him, but she didn't. And Frederick, well, Verna spelled it out for him, didn't she? He had to bring her home, he had to bring out the pliers. He CHOSE to abuse and brutalize and mutilate his wife when she was completely defenseless, helpless, and innocent - yes she had gone to the orgy because she felt unappreciated, unseen, and nothing actually happened, she didn't cheat, her only 'crime' was chosing to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He chose to be a monster to her and to their child. All of them could have stopped, could have chosen to reflect on their actions and be better, do BETTER. Instead, they doubled down on their horrific behaviour, and sealed their own fate. All except Lenore, who until the very end chose to be good, chose to be kind, chose to see the best in people. That's why she was the only one to whom Verna appeared with kindness, giving her the certainty that her life mattered, that her sacrifice would save thousands, that her mother would do incredibly good in her name in the future, and she did not die with horror and suffering, she died peaceful, quick, quiet, like Verna had offered all the others. Verna was not so much a demon as she was the personification of "actions, meet consequences".

TLDR: The Fall of the House of Usher is the hardcore version of 'play stupid games, win stupid prizes' and will for me be part of the 'rich people actually suffer consequences for their shitty actions' cinematic universe.

[ewingstan]

I. Introduction

A while ago, I wrote on how Jack Slash was a prime example of how Worm approaches metatextual commentary. Wildbow has a general tendency in his first two serials especially to identify common story tropes and give them in-universe justifications. Jack Slash in particular is a response to the tendency for writers to give plot armor to the Joker and similar sorts of popular villain characters. The out-of-story justification of the authors ("we can't have someone just shoot him, that's boring, besides everyone loves this guy look at him go") becomes an in-story aspect of his powers: an ability to subtly influence other capes behavior allowing him to always escape danger. Plot armor transformed into an in-universe mechanic that characters are aware of, react to, and work against.

Notably, this tendency is never used to highlight the status of wildbow's characters as characters— there is no fourth-wall breaking or attempts to undermine the audience's perception of the story as containing essentially a self-contained world running on its own internal logic. But this certainly isn't the only way you could comment on Joker-type charcter's plot armor: Funny Games covers similar ground using the opposite trick, repeatedly having its home-invader villains draw attention to how they're characters in a story, and that whether they win or lose is determined wholly by the author's will. Director Michael Haneke continually draws his audience into the story only to violently and repeatedly pull them out with suspension-of-disbelief-shattering acts on the villains part. It's The Treachery of Images as a horror movie.

Together, Worm and Funny Games showcase two different approach to explaining why the villain gets to live another day. If you can explain their deal using only the internal logic of the story ("Jack has a power that lets them escape consequences"), then the author is giving a diegetic justification for the trope justified by mechanisms of the story's universe. If you can't explain their deal without reference to them being characters in a narrative ("Paul can talk to the audience and rewind time because he's a fictional character and can do whatever the author says he can do") then its a "narrative" or nondiegetic justification for the trope.

These can be combined. Seidlinger's Anybody Home? used them together for awkward effect: serial killers perform acts that get recorded by some mysterious "camera" that produces a log of their events, which through mystical and mysterious means gets distributed to film producers and adapted into horror movies. Killers have fully "narrative" reasons for following horror tropes—they know they have an audience and are behaving for their benefit. But the story suffers from its awkward in-story justification, its "mechanical" framing: the audience the killers are acting for are other people within the story's universe, not the readers of the book. Characters realize they're "victims" in a story, but they're framed not as existing fully for the story but as normal people who got caught within a story, stuck in it like one gets caught in a storm.

In this post I want to highlight some more elegant ways of combining the mechanical and narrative approaches to metafiction, especially in regards to plot armor. I'll be commenting on wildbow's second serial Pact, Homestuck, and Eidolon DISKA, and heavily spoiling all of them. I've divided them into sections so readers can avoid spoilers or skip over works they're uninterested in, though they're not separate essays. I'd maybe recommend checking out DISKA if you haven't. Its great. Alright then.

II.

Pact and the otherverse gives its characters diagetic reasons for following tropes that align with narrative rules though its magic system. Otherverse magic largely involves telling the universe a story and hoping that your behavior has enough symbolic resonance that it believes you. A lot of the magic spells work on a "I dunno, this feels like it would work" logic.

This means that characters need to be aware of how characters in good stories would act, and often need to behave in a way that is believable if they were characters in a story. The result is that Blake Thorburn ends up purposefully trying to emulate a monster from a horror story, purposefully playing into the tropes of such a character. He acts like a specific type of story character, not because he's broken the fourth wall and knows he's in a horror story, but because he knows convincing the universe that he's a horror villain will likely lead to the universe letting him survive just a little bit longer before he collapses into an exsanguinated heap.

However, Pact's approach to the specific mechanics and abilities of Blake and other monstrous entities of his ilk is much more in-line with how wildbow previously approached Jack Slash. Horror-movie style monsters are a grab-bag of entities called "Boogeymen" within the setting, with little in common outside of previously being people who had fallen through the cracks of reality and climbed out of the abyss changed.

The tropes of slasher movies are once again given mechanical justification: the monster drives conflict and acts unpredictably because being feared gives its more of a foothold in reality. It can't stay dead (and keeps returning for sequels) because it can always climb back out of the abyss again, or be summoned by Scourges to be used against their enemies. Some of the ways the in-universe boogieman mechanics reproduce these tropes are explicitly narrative justifications—they're stronger if the universe sees their ends as especially "iconic," and Blake seems to be empowered the most when he leans into character and goes on a rampage— but for the most part, you could explain their deal without having to refer to their roles as characters in a narrative.

III

The same couldn't be said for Homestuck's take on the serial-killer trope, which is explicable pretty much only in non-diagetic terms. Which is interesting insofar as its one of the only parts of Homestuck that doesn't at least provide a diagetic fig-leaf for a character following a cultural script.

Much like Pact's Otherverse, Homestuck also formalizes many narrative tropes as diagetic, in-universe mechanical laws of its setting. However, it doesn't bother giving justifications for why the setting has such mechanics. There's no equivalent to "they're like this because the magic of the abyss;" Homestuck's mechanical rules are almost more in the Funny Games vein of being inexplicable if you don't accept that they're the consequences of this being a story.

But the narrative rules it draws attention to are often all its own. See, in some ways the setting of Homestuck is meant to be an obvious set of fantasy Bildungromane. The characters enter a game world, Sburb, and are each deposited on a planet with almost stock templates: Land of Wind and Shade, Land of Heat and Clockwork, etc. Each are filled with a population of simple game constructs with little personality outside of what's needed to drop lore tidbits, and a slumbering denizen connected to a personal quest tailor-made for the player. This sense of "generic fantasy world made for a generic fantasy quest" is heightened by Homestuck's constant references to other media containing famous lands constructed from fantasy stories: Peter Pan/Hook, the Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Don Quixote, and The Neverending Story. (That last example makes up not only a substantial amount of aesthetic references, but also structural echoes; as Homestuck copies it by having a second half in which reader-stand ins enter the story, characters go from one world to another, and the role of author and audience gets muddled in a world-threatening manner.)

It seems like the game Sburb created the players different worlds to facilitate a typical Bildungroman adventure. Enter the fantasy land, meet the locals, learn the lore, defeat the monster. Unlike Jacob's Bell, The Lands of Homestuck don't make sense as anything besides a game construct, a way to facilitate this narrative arc. And the character's tendency to sidestep the quests set up by the Lands and skip through or break things feels like a subversion of those typical sorts of fantasy stories.

A complicating factor, though, is that the game was set up with the expectation that the players would skip around and break things. The entire game is composed of a series of time loops, including the characters creating themselves, creating the big bad in an attempt to defeat him, etc. Everything that happens in a game session was engineered to happen "by" the game—including the parts that seem to break the intended narrative arc of the Lands. There's plenty of things that seem to be breaking the "intended" experience: Rose taking apart her game world, Vriska reading the mind of her Land's consorts to find out all the lore they have pre-programmed in, Jack Noir killing the Black King before the players could face him as the intended final boss. But all of these turn out to be essential conditions for the game coming to exist in the first place, for the characters to create themselves, for the Lands to be created as game constructs in the first place. The game creates conditions that require the players to "cheat."

In other words, its not just that the comic is subverting a typical fantasy story. Its that Sburb itself is a game that runs on the narrative rules. Not the narrative rules of a fantasy Bildungroman, but the narrative rules of a subversion of a fantasy Bildungroman. The subversion is expected and built-in.

This subversion-as-the-rule is something Hussie enjoys making the narrative conciet of a story: early Problem Sleuth was written with the one rule that the audience could never be right about how the main character's office worked. Its also a feature of Homestuck's general approach to characters and dialogue. I think a good example of this is Eridan and Feferi's early conversations. They get introduced as the primary examples of a form of alien romance the narrative just got done explaining, a pair of moirails that the narrator declares are "made for each other". But of course, the subversion of that is already built in, as before Eridan's full introduction we learned that he wanted to be in a different relationship with Feferi. So when the first few on-screen appearances of these characters turns out to be their break-up texts, its a "subversion" of the destined romance the narrator set-up, but its a sign-posted and expected subversion.

But back in terms of Sburb's mechanics: players of the game who perform a ritual to achieve god-tier status can only die if their death is either Heroic or Just: that is, they can only die if it’s narratively satisfying. If a powerful character dies without it being a satisfying heroic sacrifice or a satisfying end to a villainous rein of destruction—in other words, if the death is uninteresting and narratively pointless, then the character pops right back up. Like in Worm, plot armor is a mechanic of the setting that the characters can find out about and exploit, and like with Pact's boogeymen, characters become whole new types of beings as part of fitting to a character narrative that'd require plot armor. But unlike in wildbow's work, Homestuck's God Tiers have little in the way of diagetic justification. Hussie knows that there are situations where an audience won’t accept the stakes set out before them—they can tell that the bad thing can’t be allowed to happen, because if it did the plot couldn’t continue or the story would suffer, so they know the bad thing won’t happen. Accepting this, they play around with the trope by having it literally impossible for the bad thing to happen if the story would be worse for it.

But where it gets weird is how this plot-armor mechanic gets applied to Gamzee, in one of my favorite sections of Act 6. Gamzee was introduced as a joke character riffing on the juggalo evil clown subculture, who later goes on a murderous rampage for reasons that are never made fully obvious in-text. He then scuttles about the story as a figure who keeps breaking the story’s rules: both the mechanical rules of how Sburb works and the rules of storytelling generally. This ramps up a lot in Act 6, where he puts on a fake god-tier outfit and starts showing up at times and places he should not be able to be based on the established mechanics of Sburb, which up until then had been incredibly strict parameters on the story. Unlike a lot of the items that loop back in time in convoluted ways, we don’t see how Gamzee appeared on Jane’s planet, or went to the future to raise the cherubs, or all the other shit he gets up to. And we aren’t given a reason for why he’s selling blood like an RPG merchant or why he’s raising the big bad or why he’s doing anything at that point. He becomes a deus ex diabolica, a character whose not really a character at all so much as someone who sets up the obstacles in the story and has no reason for doing so besides the fact that the story wouldn’t work if he wasn’t there to set up the stakes.

One especially odd thing about him though is that even though he never actually reached God tier, he seemingly couldn't be killed.

At first this seems weird. Gamzee is breaking a core mechanical rule of Homstuck: he's immortal despite not being God-tier. But then you remember that the mechanical rule of God-tier immortality was already just a formalization of a narrative rule: a character can't die if the story isn't done with them. Homestuck is breaking its diagetic rules, but following the narrative rules they reflect.

This meta-interpretation of Gamzee's immortality is strengthened by the fact that the above conversation is taking place between Andrew Hussie and one of their characters. Furthermore, said character is a fandom stand-in who later transitions into being an author stand-in. This character (Caliborn) is the main villain of Homestuck, and has been interpreted as everything from the chains of narrative inevitability, to the interface of the webcomic itself, to Homestuck readers with an unhealthy relationship to the work, to the viler tendencies of Hussie themself present throughout the comic.

Not the only such stand-in; nearly all the villains of Homestuck assume some authorial role, as Hussie has an ongoing theme of equating the author role to being a manipulator. Thus the most heroic characters generally are reactive rather than proactive, thus Doc Scratch/Vriska/Dirk/etc all trying to author the timeline or claim causal responsibility for events while manipulating other characters, etc. But Caliborn ends up representing some more of Hussie's specific creative tendencies, and is the only character that Hussie's in-comic self has a conversation with.

Notably, this conversation has pretty much the only instance of Hussie presenting all the weird obstacles of Sburb as something they've set up as the author.

Oddly enough, apart from this, the yellow yard, and the Spades Slick sideplot, "Hussie" as a character has all but no role in the story. Which is in keeping with their (possible farcical?) ethos of all their characters existing as their own entities/character types, with Hussie just expressing them. The Entities in Worm actually end up being more direct author figures than Andrew Hussie's own self-insert, since they at least perform the role of authors (control characters in a way that produces dynamic and interesting scenarios).

This is a part of why the Hussie stand-in apparently lacks knowledge of their own story, and gets surprised by it.

Hussie claims even they don't know where Gamzee got things, what he gets up to, or why he's doing what he's doing. The first two things are probably true, honestly. The actual author Hussie may not have an idea in mind for how Gamzee gets to any of the places he does, since its not really relevant to the story. It feels weird that he doesn't, since so much of the rest of Homestuck is tracking how various objects travel from one point in a timeline to another, but when there's no interesting answer to be constructed by the author none really has to be provided. Again, by this point Gamzee is a plot device that Hussie has dressed up as a funny clown for the audience's amusement, he's not really a character.

But if the Hussie stand-in is meant to be taken seriously when they say they don't know why Gamzee has the keys, then there's a disconnect between Hussie the character and Hussie the author. Since the keys do have a plot purpose that's revealed almost immediately, and that Hussie almost certainly had planned.

A weakness in metafiction generally is that having the author be a character in any real capacity lowers they're ability to be a true author figure. If the stand-in is surprised by something the author wrote, then they're not reflecting the author. If the characters kill the author stand-in, but the story keeps on going, then what the hell was the author representing?

IV

The only piece of metafiction I've seen that squared that circle is EIDOLON DISKA, which mostly suceeds because of its structure as an actual-play. It has a GM who serves as a narrator alongside being the voice of almost all the characters, but all the main characters are acted out by other people. So it can pull a lot of the standard metafiction moves in much more convincing ways. The narrator reveals that he's an in-universe character who they actually know, and whose been writing the story they're all in. When the player characters are still able to rebel and fight against the narrator, it works, because the PCs actually are representing other people making decisions apart from the GM. Even a character usurping the author ends up working, since it just means that character's player becomes the GM.

As you'd expect, EIDOLON DISKA is another piece that blends diagetic and narrative rules. Gods currently writing the story (aka the current GM) can't rewrite portions that previous gods wrote, because doing something so narratively unsatisfying would break their own godhood. Breaking the rules of the Eidolon rpg system also risks being usurped, since they're the narrative rules the story runs on, and the diagetic rules of Godhood are just narrative rules.

This gets most interesting when the characters end up dying, as will sometimes happen in an actual-play of a ttrpg where death is a mechanic. The podcast is divided into two time periods, with the first group being the founding members of their school's mystery solvers club. The second group are the members of the same club 20 years later, trying to solve the murder of the founders. Because the first group's death is a set event that the narrator already wrote would happen at a specific time, every time the characters in that first group die before that point, they have to come back. And once it becomes clear that they're characters, they become aware of this, and start abusing it. They take bigger risks, stop freaking out when their friends get hurt or killed in battle, start getting chatty with the increasingly annoyed grim reaper—in other words, they realize they have plot armor and start acting like it. Since they're aware of and secure of their plot armor, they use it more fully than Blake does. And since its an actual play instead of something written by one person, they're actually able to use that plot armor to be more than a villain thrown into heroes way like Jack Slash or Gamzee. DISKA isn't finished yet, but I have the most hope for it going into interesting places with plot armor out of any of these stories.

[crowleysgirl56]

One thing that I’m just suddenly starting to realise, is the reason why Amazon keeps referring to the 90 minute episode as “season 3”. I know that I’ve changed a bunch of queued posts to cross out season 3 and replace it with finale movie instead. And I’ve also seen a lot of people get mad with it still being called season 3 when it is essentially just one episode. But I think maybe it’s not that bad.

Here’s why this is important. Calling it season 3 implies that it’s a continuation of the story. Think for a moment about Serenity (the Firefly film), or the first Sex and the City movie, or every single first episode of a new season of Doctor Who. What do they all have in common?

They become a soft reboot of the story.

They take time to establish the world, explain who the characters are, and then set up a plot. This is usually done for the benefit of “new viewers” who may not have seen all the proceeding episodes before it. Can you imagine if they decided they needed to do that for Good Omens? To take 30 out of the 90 minutes to tell us who Crowley and Aziraphale are and explain the hierarchy of Heaven and Hell and then set up the second coming?! The South Downs would become a fucking cliff note! (Pun intended 😜)

The only way I can see this being done well, as a benefit for both old viewers and news viewers is if they start the finale with a flashback to the war in Heaven, and we see Crowley (and maybe Lucifer’s) fall. A trial of some kind. It could very well parallel what happens with Crowley and Aziraphale in the present (another trial for stopping the second coming perhaps).

There is a lot of potential for how good that could be. But I hope to god they don’t do some bullshit reintroduction of characters because Amazon wants to try and make more money off new viewers.

So for now, let’s stay positive about it being called season 3 because it means it will directly follow on from season 2.

[sl-vega]

0.1; retired theater kids-(y/n's squad)

project: love liason! - a scaramouche smau

y/n:

hopelessly in love with childe (has been since freshman year) you are on fairly good terms with him, (even if half of your interactions play out in your head rather than reality)

(ridiculously) hopeful romantic

you were the one who started your friend group after you met everyone else in a drama camp during eighth grade (hence the name retired theater kids)

the "responsible" friend (even though the general consensus is that lynette and navia are the actual responsible ones)

mona:

your best friend and scara's academic "rival". having been forced to have tons of classes together in the past two years, mona and him have been pretty cut throat when it comes to them competing with each other

mona finds him insufferable, and has vented to you about him on numerous occasions, even though you've never even met the guy

super into astrology and zodiacs

she's well known around campus for having scary accurate predictions

"that wasn't on your 2024 bingo card? well it was on MINE."

furina:

president of the drama club at your school, and is often put in charge of directing all of the drama club's shows

she used to be a semi-popular child actress that frequently appeared in famous kids shows, but she took a break recently to focus more on her directing career

was essentially a guarantee for any lead in school productions when she was younger

absolute drama queen

navia frequently keeps her up to date with all the latest gossip so she's a real treat to talk to

lyney:

lynette's older twin brother, and a part time magician for kids birthday parties

one of the girls

also a member of the drama club

both an actor and member of the stage crew as he helps with special effects for productions as well

wants to continue working in the film industry after high school

bounces around as a freelance worker instead of being tied down to a specific gig despite having many offers from several places

says that if he waits the salary offers will get higher

lynette:

lyney's younger twin sister and part time magic assistant

her brother often jokes that she ditched him, but she just preferred to explore her own interests outside of lyney's career

member of both the drama club and science club

unlike lyney she only helps with behind the scenes work

most notably special effects, but she's more interested in the scientific aspect of making it work

navia:

DEFINITION of an fbi friend

knows everything about everyone, does loyalty tests on people's boyfriend's sometimes if they pay her

picks up crazy amounts of info, and has a shit ton of connections to tons of people and places

doesn't disclose how she finds out all of this

the type of friend that can find someone only by their first initial

give her a single piece of info and BOOM

she has their full legal name, all their social media accounts, the location of the grocery store they frequent, and their parent's Facebook pages

currently in a situation ship with chlorinde

additional notes:

profiles are out!

not much I wanna say but yeah :D

i'll try my best to do frequent updates

if you wanna be tagged just send me an ask/comment!

𝜗𝜚 SYNOPSIS: you're head over heels in love with childe, and scaramouche is (begrudingly) smitten with his "rival" mona. and, by sheer divine coincidence, you both happen to be the best friends of each other's objects of affection, so you strike a deal with each other. if scaramouche helps you ask out childe, you'll set him up with mona. so with the annual spring formal right around the corner, the two of you vow to be each other's wingmans so you can end your junior year on a high note (and maybe even kick off your senior year with a new relationship!). between, scheming, planning, and researching, you and scaramouche find yourselves developing a new relationship via helping each other out. now the real question is whether this friendship will remain as a pure platonic bond, or blossom into something more?

< PREV ll MASTERLIST ll NEXT >

🎀 - taglist!;

@agaygothicmushroom, @035814, @freyao7, @sketcheeee, @tsukimara, @shyentsmissingink, @justpeachyteastea, @aries-afk, @lxkeeeee, @sakiimeo, @sugxryratz, @shutingstar, @lalaloveallmydays, @bellflower1257, @haruumei, @kichiyosh1, @littlemisssatanist, @dee-zbignuts, @candyescapism, @crimxeorcremeexistspeacefully

[pandapetals]

You'll Get Used To It

logan howlett x fem!reader - mission, x-men team, slight angst, no y/n used, no reader description, inspired by x1 film where logan complains about the leather suits

Logan complains about the X-Men suits being too tight so you help him.

read on Ao3

The group had gathered in Xavier’s office, the tension almost tangible as Charles laid out the plans to rescue a group of captured mutant children. You stood alongside Scott and Storm, your eyes fixed on Xavier as he spoke, but the weight of Logan’s presence near the doorway was impossible to ignore. Even without looking, you could feel him—his silent, brooding energy radiating from the corner of the room, drawing your attention no matter how much you tried to focus.

Your heart tightened at the thought of him, but you forced yourself to stay focused, eyes ahead. There was too much at stake, too many lives on the line for you to let personal feelings cloud your judgment. Still, the awareness of Logan lingered in the back of your mind, pulling at your attention like a constant, steady pulse.

As Charles continued speaking, outlining the rescue strategy, you felt Logan’s gaze flicker across the room. Instinctively, you glanced over, catching his eyes for just a brief second before you quickly looked away. His eyes held something unreadable—something you had seen so many times but could never fully decipher.

You weren’t sure what had changed between the two of you over the past few months. It wasn’t like you had spent much time together, and yet, the air between you always seemed charged with an unspoken tension, something unacknowledged but undeniably real. You hated that it lingered now, distracting you when you needed to be focused.

“Logan,” Charles said suddenly, pulling your attention back to the present. “Your tracking skills will be essential for locating the children once we’re in the field.”

Logan straightened slightly at the mention of his name, his jaw tightening as he gave a short nod. “Yeah, I got it,” he muttered, though there was a gruffness in his voice like he wasn’t entirely sure where he fit in this plan.

Scott, ever the leader, turned toward Logan with his usual no-nonsense demeanor. “We don’t have time for personal conflicts. We work together on this—everyone’s lives depend on it.”

Logan’s eyes narrowed slightly at Scott, but he gave no response. The tension between the two was palpable, but Logan wasn’t about to pick a fight, not now. He just gave a curt nod, his focus turning back to Charles.

You couldn’t help but steal another glance in Logan’s direction, watching the way he squared his shoulders as if he was trying to brush off the weight of everyone’s eyes on him. You could see the tension there, the way his fists clenched at his sides, the way he seemed just a little more isolated than the rest of the group.

There was always something about Logan that felt... distant like he carried the world on his shoulders but never let anyone close enough to share the burden. He didn’t let people in. Not really. Except—except with you, there were those moments. Fleeting, unspoken, but moments where the wall between you seemed thinner, more fragile.

Charles’s voice brought your focus back again. “Trust is earned, Logan,” he said gently, his tone calm but firm. “But this mission is about more than trust. It’s about doing what’s right. We need you.”

Logan’s eyes flicked briefly to Charles before settling back on the ground. He was quiet for a moment, as if considering his options, weighing his place in all of this. Finally, he gave a sharp nod. “Fine. Let’s get it done.”

The group dispersed after that, heading toward the jet. You followed along in silence, your thoughts heavy with the weight of what was coming. It wasn’t until you were aboard the jet, sitting quietly in one of the seats near the back, that you noticed Logan fidgeting across from you, tugging at the collar of his black leather suit.

He grumbled under his breath, pulling at the stiff fabric as it pressed uncomfortably against his neck. The tension in his body hadn’t eased, and his frustration was palpable. You watched him for a moment, biting your lip to hold back a smile. Even Logan, with all his bravado and unshakable attitude, could be undone by something as simple as an uncomfortable suit.

“Having trouble?” you asked, your voice soft but teasing.

Logan shot you a sideways glance, his brow furrowing. “This damn suit’s choking me,” he muttered, still pulling at the collar like it was a noose around his neck. “How do you wear this thing?”

You chuckled softly, the sound surprising even you. In the midst of the tension and the stakes of the mission, here was Logan, fighting his uniform like it was his worst enemy. “You get used to it,” you replied, leaning back in your seat. “Just part of the job.”

Logan huffed, clearly unconvinced. “Yeah, well, not sure I’ll be wearing this long enough to get used to it.”

A smile tugged at your lips, and before you could stop yourself, you leaned forward slightly. “Here, let me fix it.”

You reached over, your fingers brushing against his neck as you gently tugged at the collar of his suit, loosening the tight material. Logan tensed at the contact, his muscles tightening under your touch, but he didn’t pull away. He just watched you, his eyes softening ever so slightly as you worked to make him more comfortable.

“There,” you said after a moment, your fingers lingering a bit longer than necessary before you pulled back. “That should be better.”

Logan blinked, reaching up to touch the collar, his expression caught somewhere between surprise and... something else. “Thanks,” he muttered, his voice a little quieter now, almost unsure.

You smiled, settling back into your seat. “Don’t mention it. Can’t have you grumbling through the entire mission.”

Logan grunted in response, but there was something lighter in his tone now, a shift in the atmosphere between you. You could still feel the tension—the uncertainty of the mission, the weight of everything unsaid between you—but for a moment, it felt manageable.

The jet engines hummed as the team prepared for takeoff, and you glanced over at Logan one last time. He was still fidgeting with the suit, but now his movements were slower, less agitated. His eyes met yours, and for a second, you thought you saw something soften in his expression. Something unguarded, if only for a fleeting moment.

“You’re going to make a good teammate, you know that?” you said, the words slipping out before you could stop them.

Logan raised an eyebrow, his lips twitching into a smirk. “Is that so?”

“Yeah,” you replied, your tone light but sincere. “For a guy who’s constantly acting like he doesn’t need anyone... you’re not so bad.”

He chuckled, the sound low and rough but not unkind. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

You smiled, leaning back in your seat as the jet lifted into the sky. “You should.”

For the first time in a long while, the silence that followed didn’t feel so heavy. It felt... easy. Comfortable. Like maybe there was room for something more between the two of you. Something real. Something unspoken but understood.

Logan leaned back, his hand resting idly against the loosened collar, and let out a long breath, his eyes closing briefly as he settled into the quiet feeling lighter.

[princip1914]

I recut the kiss from Good Omens to emphasize Aziraphale kissing back. I already posted the longer version (yes, I have made alternate cuts of my kiss alternate cut, yes I know this is ridiculous) but I realized I liked it in shorter gif form better. After the cut is the OG kiss for comparison and some notes on my process.

Edited Kiss:

Original Kiss:

On the longer version, I had some people ask what I changed. Essentially, what stood out to me when I saw the original version of the kiss was that it was just so...choppy. Particularly, the cut right before they break apart where we go from Aziraphale's hand on Crowley's back to him waving it around in the air, just didn't look natural to me. The original version seems to splice together several takes of a shorter kiss, with some pieces of the kiss out of order from how it was probably acted:

In the first cut of the sequence we see Aziraphale from over Crowley's shoulder and his eyes are open and he looks shocked and uncomfortable, then he relaxes into the kiss a bit and closes his eyes and his hand comes up to Crowely's shoulder and caresses it. My guess is this is the sequence and duration of the kiss from start to (nearly) finish as it was blocked and acted. But the kiss as it appears in the show is much longer than the acted kiss. From that first cut of Aziraphale's face seen over Crowely's shoulder we go to:

A wide cut where Aziraphale is waving his arm in the air and looks uncomfortable--likely filmed at the start of the kiss from a different angle and then spliced in.

A close up of Aziraphale stroking Crowley's back which seems to me to come from the end of the kiss, once he has relaxed into it. (This is the one all the girlies are gif-ing and yeah, it's a great shot so I'm glad the fandom has gone wild for it!)

Another shot from the relaxed bit of the kiss which is a close up on their faces with Aziraphale leaning in a bit

The last shot of the kiss where Aziraphale's arm has come off Crowely's back again and he's waving it in the air and looking uncomfortable as Crowley pulls away. I think this shot may actually also be from the start of the kiss, or it is actually how the end of the kiss was blocked out, but if so there's a section of it that's missing because we don't see how Aziraphale's hand moves from Crowley's back (shot 3) to waving in the air. This isn't really a continuity error as presumably Aziraphale has been moving his hands around during shot 4 while the viewer was being treated to a close up of their faces, but it registers as a continuity error because the emotional vibe of shot 4 is Aziraphale starting to get into the kiss and lean in, while the hand off the back in shot 5 makes the viewer feel like he is pulling away and uncomfortable again.

In editing the sequence, I simply moved pieces around to try and tell a story that was more emotionally coherent, with Aziraphale starting shocked and uncomfortable, relaxing into the kiss slightly, and then stepping away. I chopped up the long sequence in shot 1 and used the relaxed part of it instead of the beginning of shot 5. I also switched shot 3 and 4 so that we see a wide cut where Aziraphale looks uncomfortable and his hand is visibly in the air, to a close up shot of their faces where he starts to get into it. Then we are in the home stretch with the tender hand on the back and then Aziraphale's face as he holds Crowley close to him (formerly the end of shot 1) before they break apart.

[srbachchan]

DAY 5946

Jalsa, Mumbai May 29/30, 2024 Wed/Thu 1:53 AM

🪔 ,

May 30 .. birthday greetings to Ef Mahmud Chowdhury from London 🇬🇧 .. and Ef Heena Bhambhani .. 🙏🏻🚩❤️

work done for the cause of the general .. for the hopeful understanding of why it is being done .. of the desire to be assured that it may make some sense in the execution of some of the pointers spelt out ..

and then some more .. more ideas that have not been covered and not been drawn in the creative ..

I work for the campaign on Road Safety .. to be able to personally share some of my experiences on how this should be designed and brought to the people in general that have the right and privilege to use roadways , vehicles and the discipline and understanding that road safety in its execution may bring about a better discipline ..

It can never be a statement .. it must contain the psychological temperament of the viewer and the listener .. when you command for understanding it is often taken in the wrong spirit .. a lot needs to be put into the reason for the Campaign and the essential pointers that all motorists and pedestrians must believe and understand for a better temperament and safety on our roads ..

it shall be a long drawn battle .. but like all else, when the cause is understandable .. when the cause is right , then all else falls into place ..

It needs a continuous rendering ..

Talking about it in a formality and then forgetting it as 'job done' is the worst status of its bearing .. you have to persist , persevere , and determine a will that eventually shall work for the benefit of the reason it was done ..

So yes .. I commit myself to the fruition of the campaign .. and shall persist to the best for its victory ..

hand on heart to set the nature for the purity of the mission ..

salutations for them that support and volunteer to assist in the need ..

.. and have the great pleasure of my cute sweet colleague in front of the camera .. tresses and all .. 🤣

yes the moments in pictures are repeated .. for little girls be the sweetest of all ..

and the thoughts go back to that masterpiece of a film GIGI .. and the song

'Thank Heaven for little girls'

the song sung in its most inimitable rendition, by the great Maurice Chevalier .. and starring the most handsome man of the times Louis Jourdan !!

Ah .. those were the days my friends .. sadly lost in the speedometer of modernity and time ..

and my gratitude to the enviable Avinash Gowarikar for his photographic senses and the ability to capture you and make you look grand .. despite the flaws of age !!

I leave my liege

liege

"Since modern populations often ignore aristocracy (except in the case of tabloid coverage), many words once used for royalty are now unusual and obscure. Such is the case with liege. If you refer to someone as "my liege" you are probably playing a game.

Ah, the Medieval era, where we find the word liege as we know it, a term used by underlings for the lord of their land. The word was probably of Germanic origin, derived from the Medieval Latin laeticus. In an interesting etymological twist, the word at one time meant a leader of a band of free men — pretty much the opposite of its eventual meaning as a feudal lord. The word is not used much today, except in jest (see Python, Monty)."

Amitabh Bachchan

[frownyalfred]

So I’ve seen your other posts about Snyderverse!Bruce, and they reminded me of an article I read recently. It mentioned that Zack Snyder‘s vision of Batman is one that suffers from trauma, and, as a result, is someone who looks for other ways to cope (I think we all understood this)

He appeared on Joe Rogan Podcast to discuss his films. At one point, he spoke at length with Rogan about Batman and he basically said this :

“It might be in the theatrical cut, but it’s definitely in the director’s cut. Where he wakes up and there’s some chick in the bed with him, from the night before,” said Snyder. “Because I always say, Batman f— to forget, for sure. Batman’s a drunk, for sure. Because he has huge trauma, and you wonder why he’s a playboy, and anybody…f—— to forget is a common, that’s a real thing. That’s a way to deal with trauma.”

So basically for Snyder, Bruce uses s*x as a drug in BvS.

I think this interpretation only fits Ben Affleck's Bruce Wayne/Batman. I honestly enjoyed watching his performance, it was refreshing to see a new side of the character.

What’s your thoughts on this ? Do you agree with him ? And do you think he understood the character well ?

I've always loved that scene in BVS because, in the span of like 2.5 seconds you see 1) Bruce waking up after sex to some random girl 2) empty bottles of wine worth a small house next to the bed from the night before 3) Bruce taking a handful of mystery pills and washing it down with the aforementioned wine in one gross swallow.

I agree that it fits this particular flavor of Bruce, and not the canon typical version. He's coping using a variety of substances/escapes, from alcohol to sex to pills to violence. He's lost it in almost every way imaginable, including lashing out at Alfred (although this one doesn't leave, though I'm not sure it's because he approves or wants to stay so much as Alfred fears for Bruce's life if he leaves).

How does an addictive personality like that mesh with the hyperfocus and rigor of being Batman? It's an interesting question. We see Bruce, as Bruce Wayne, coping via every method available. As Batman, it's largely limited to violence, fear over national security, paranoia, etc, and rigorous training and intelligence gathering. Is the fear and paranoia a drug, in a way, too? Is it keeping Bruce alive the same way as the other things?

What I really like about the BVS era of Superbat fics is that the good ones really hammer home on that -- the Bruce who will fuck Clark, will take him home, and have it mean absolutely nothing. It's just another coping mechanism. It's not a pivotal reveal of intimacy and vulnerability like in other Superbat fics. You can fuck Bruce, can break his back, can drink with him and fight with him and still never know anything about him.

But that changes when Clark dies. The guilt claws at all of those coping mechanisms. Bruce could've left him in the Kansan dirt, but we see him becoming obsessed with Clark, even more so than before. And that guilt finds a link to the employees who he saw die, Robin he let die, all of it.

And all of a sudden, we see that energy being channeled into building a team. Building tech for the team. Rebuilding Wayne Manor, for the Justice League. It would be very interesting to see if Snyder intended to continue Bruce's issues with alcohol and grief through that period. Does having Clark back help? How does he recover from a period of what was essentially several addictions and massive trauma/grief?

[stra-tek]

Big List of Universes in Star Trek:

Prime

Where most of Trek takes place. TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, DSC, LWD, PRO, PIC, SNW etc. Gets a bit complicated in that the Temporal Wars from Enterprise have explicitly rewritten some events but for the most part it's all one enormous continuity. Just don't ask about the Eugenics Wars

Kelvin

Where the rebooted movies take place, essentially Prime until the day of Jim Kirk's birth, when a Romulan from the Prime future appears and begins wreaking havok, sending events on a familiar but different path with more running and explosions

Mirror

The morally inverted version of the Prime universe. Often the same people in the same place at the same time as Prime except under radically different circumstances. The Kelvin timeline has it's own mirror universe and the Coda books imply they're different sides of the same coin so perhaps every universe has it's mirror. Everyone dresses very slutty and all the women are at the very least bi. Almost as if it was written by men to appeal to teenage boys.

The First Splinter

Where the entire Star Trek novelverse takes place. Essentially Prime up until First Contact, although many events after that tie into ones hundreds of years before so it's all a bit complicated. Hundreds of stories exist here, as varied and amazing and sometimes awful as the TV shows and movies. Erased from history in 2387 but everyone you've loved and read about for years die horrible, horrible deaths first

Megas Tu

Accessed through a portal at the centre of our galaxy, a universe where magic is real and the source of many Earth myths and legends. Lucien is Satan but he's actually a pretty cool guy. Kirk and Spock learned to use magic there.

Parallels

300,000 universes converge, ranging from ones where Worf has a different painting in his quarters to him banging Troi to the Borg having conquered the Federation

Reverse

Black stars on a white void, ships fly backwards, at warp 36, the elderly grow young and live backwards and I'm afraid to ask how this reverse life ends

Second History

From the novel Killing Time. Super gay and angsty. Romulans alter history, leading to Spock being captain and Jim Kirk being a drug addict ensign on the V.S.S. ShiKahr

Renegades

A bootleg version of Star Trek in a fan film universe, altered on day two of filming after the Axanar drama began. It's Star Trek with the serial numbers just barely filed off. The Confederation instead of the Federation, Sector 6 instead of Section 31, Kovok instead of Tuvok, Jemison instead of Uhura, Rigillians instead of Romulans and so on. 2 novels were released which try to differentiate the universes more clearly, and the last Renegades film Ominara re-reboots the whole thing and features an Uhura-ish character and the Star Trek ish sets, but otherwise everything else is different.

Fascistverse

Created by Q to test Jean-Luc and friends in season 2 of Picard, this was along the lines of the Mirror universe but with a divergence point in 2024, if Trump wins the election if Picard's ancestor Renee goes into space or not.

Musical

A crossover with this universe in SNW "Subspace Rhapsody" leads to the quadrant singing uncontrollably, accompanied by music and with full choreography.