#i already love the rome saga

[just-an-enby-lemon]

ED!!! Oh my god, is EDWARD KEYSTONE! My himbo, my sweet lovely Apollo paladin with negative inteligence and lovely vibes. YAY!!First Sasha doesn't die and now Ed!!

#the last couple of episodes have been amazing #i already love the rome saga #it's a rolecoster #also the way Grizzop dealt with Oscar's condition confirms that he would've bullied the archivist soo hard #Grizzop and Basira would tots be besties and I love it for them #rqg #rusty quill gaming #edward keystone #ed keystone #rqg ed #I can't explain why but I've never fanperson? what's the neutral of fangirling? well never did that more here than when apollo breast plate #i swear I exclaimed ed out loud

[back-and-totheleft]

An Epic That Gets Better as It Gets Longer

I had serious doubts before seeing a 3 hour 39 minute version of Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Emperor, thinking perhaps an already indolent film was to become absolutely, luxuriantly, corrupted.

How wrong I was. The director’s cut is surely a richer, rounder film, made to the true rhythm of another time and culture. Certainly many felt that the 2 hour 20 minute version of The Last Emperor was a good film when it was released in 1987; it went on, after all, to win Best Picture, Best Director and six other Oscars. But this bold new version, being released on Dec. 4, is a masterpiece — a fully shaped historical epic that allows us to understand the complex character of Henry Pu Yi, the last Emperor of China, from his proud childhood in the early part of our century (when his excrement is sniffed daily by royal connoisseurs), through his loss of power, imprisonment and re-education, and finally to his destiny as a humble gardener during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960’s.

The literal-minded might argue that the narrative is insufficiently changed now to warrant this extra 80 minutes, and from a story point of view, they would be right. The new scenes expand on Pu Yi’s childhood years spent cloistered in Beijing’s Forbidden City, before Peter O’Toole shows up as a British tutor to change forever the way the Emperor thinks. There is a dance between the Empress (Joan Chen) and Official Consort (Vivian Wu), more on the Emperor’s meetings with the Japanese militarists, and an especially striking scene of peasant women being auditioned for the role of wet-nurse to the young Emperor.

But such cataloguing would be missing the true point of this release, which is to restore in its missing footage the real pace of Chinese Imperial life and by so doing reveal to us a treasure of subtlety and spectacle not seen in a long time in Western cinema. Mr. Bertolucci, it is clear, loves China. He sees it not only with an eye as empathetic as Marco Polo, who first discovered the secrets of the old Empire, but also with the wide eyes of a child gazing into a musty box to find a grasshopper, the Emperor’s pet, which has been living a lifetime in the dark. You find yourself very much floating in this film, there in China. By contrast, the shorter version, although well-edited and thematically sound, lacks the sheer sensuousness of experience in which the longer version enfolds us like a favorite old jacket. Perhaps not since Coppola gave us the restored version of Abel Gance’s 1927 Napoleon have moviegoers had a chance to share in such a visual feast.

Mr. Bertolucci cut his original film without any extraordinary pressure to do so. When asked why in a telephone conversation from Rome, he responded in a world-weary tone: ”Ahhh, I had been through the whole saga of 1900. It was five hours and I had to cut one hour. I didn’t want to go through this nightmare again. The cuts in The Last Emperor did not seem consequential to the story and I was quite happy with the shorter cut.” Has he watched the longer cut again? ”It is too hard to watch. My movies don’t belong to me any more.” Ten years after The Last Emperor and 21 years after 1900, having watched neither of them since, Mr. Bertolucci concludes, ”I have Buddhist distance now.”

Not the usual director’s defense of his cut. But then, nothing about Mr. Bertolucci is usual. To my knowledge, he is the first and last person, without being tarred and feathered, to release a 4 hour and 10 minute film (1900) in the United States. He was also the only director I know of to win a huge Western audience with a Western-financed film about Asia starring Asian actors.

What is so great about The Last Emperor? It is a true epic expressing the fate of the collective — in this case the Chinese empire — intertwined with the destiny of one individual. ”A journey from darkness to light,” as Mr. Bertolucci describes it. ”The dragon becomes man. Emperor becomes citizen.” He quotes Confucius, ”Men are born good, then society makes them bad.”

In that purity, John Lone’s Emperor is the classic confused romantic hero of the Bertolucci canon, an heir to Jean-Louis Trintignant in The Conformist, Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris and the under-appreciated Robert De Niro in 1900 — the boy-man who cannot even tie his own shoelaces. An innocent, he sells Manchuria out to the imperialistic Japanese, convincing himself this is an act of great patriotism. As a result, he is never forgiven by the Chinese and, when captured by the Russians at the end of World War II, he is sent to a re-education camp, where some of the film’s most humanistic scenes take place. There, he is taught to be a person by an interrogator played by the Chinese actor Ruocheng Ying (whom Mr. Bertolucci calls the ”Paul Scofield of Asia”). ”Confess that you are no better than anyone else,” the interrogator says. As with any Bertolucci film, irony comes full circle when the interrogator himself is interrogated and beaten with sticks by the young know-nothings of the Cultural Revolution. In the end, Mr. Bertolucci seems to be saying, all the world comes apart and all meaning is mocked by time.

Supported by his holy trinity of creative genius, Vittorio Storaro (cinematography), Nando Scarfiotti (production design) and James Acheson (costume design), and abetted by a grand international score from Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Byrne, Brian Eno and others, Mr. Bertolucci creates a fantastical lost world for the young Emperor. The boy, who has no friends except his mouse and his grasshopper, yearns like the young Buddha to peer over the walls of his private kingdom into the ”city of sound” outside. It is a world he can join only by surrendering the power of his sacred person to become the playboy ruler of Manchuria. Moving from the warm childhood yellows to the coolest blues and stark whites of Manchuria to the final umber grace of old age during the Cultural Revolution, Mr. Bertolucci astounds us with tumbling images of sensuality: Mr. Lone singing Am I Blue as a sleek roue; playing tennis in his garden before being removed by Chang-Kai Chek in 1919; making love to his young Empress, as servants’ hands, faces unseen, undress them. In the cavernous halls of his Manchurian home, surrounded by Japanese and Chinese cronies, the young Emperor wonders aloud, ”Who are you?” A leering face replies, ”Your Minister of Defense, your Majesty.” This Emperor is impotent, and the deceitful murder of his newborn stepchild (sired by his chauffeur) at the Empress’s birthing bed is one of the most horrifying scenes in a movie often infused with tenderness. In all this imagery one feels the sophisticated sensibility of Andre Malraux’s novel Man’s Fate, which Mr. Bertolucci tried to bring to the screen for several years before making The Last Emperor.

Ms. Chen, as a modern, mannish Empress who must pay the price of her husband’s naivete, has never been better. She almost merges in my mind with Mr. Bertolucci’s quintessential heroine, the pristine and elegant Dominique Sanda, who appears in The Conformist and 1900. One of my favorite shots in Emperor comes late in the film, when the composer Mr. Sakamoto, playing a one-armed Japanese militarist and looking as cold as Godard himself, is filming with a 35-millimeter motion picture camera as Ms. Chen rises, ignoring him at her own peril, to walk the perimeter of a sumptuously lighted swingers’ party. Just watch her expression as she moves.

Finally, when Pu Yi comes to understand the price he has been made to pay for his birthright, Mr. Bertolucci’s detached perspective is beautifully served: at the end of the day, Pu Yi no longer seems to care about anything but his garden. A simple man at heart, he returns to innocence in a stunning shot of a crowd of bicyclists waiting for a traffic light to change in 1965 Beijing; as the bicycles shift forward en masse, the camera languidly seeks out the lonely gardener in the crush of humanity.

So what about the issue of length? Some bottles of wine age differently than others. Where would our culture be without Gone With the Wind (222 minutes, not counting the intermission), Spartacus (184 minutes), Ben Hur (212 minutes), Lawrence of Arabia (221 minutes), Titanic (194 minutes), The English Patient (162 minutes), Schindler’s List (195 minutes) and Dr. Zhivago (197 minutes), all of which have been financial and critical successes.

Yet it seems in the world of the multiplex and the media whining over any film over two hours, the ”event movie” of our youth is gone — and with it the marketing flair of the exhibitor. Swamped by huge marketing costs and vast hype, studios and theater owners have perhaps lost faith that movies can and should be something glorious, important and sacred.

I would estimate that four out of every five moviegoers are impatient with long films and will always say if asked, ”It was too slow.” But sometimes, I wonder, was the viewer quick enough to really understand what was being said on the screen? Sometimes being truly conscious while watching a movie takes us outside of literal time and into dreamtime. Al Pacino once told me in reference to the controversial length of The Godfather Part II (200 minutes) that the film had always seemed longer to him after it had been cut, and that when it had been longer it had seemed far shorter — the idea being that you must allow something to breathe in its right proportion in order for it to have the authenticity that allows time to flow through it and not gum it up; when you spike that sense of flow, the consequences may not be understood and may irritate and bore the viewer without his knowing why.

When asked about the length of his movies, Mr. Bertolucci says he has recently finished Besieged, a one-hour film for Italian television, which somehow ended up at feature-length and will be released by Fine Line Features next year (reminding me of Fellini’s Intervista and Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander, which also elevated television commitments into features). ”Cinema is going through a dramatic, fantastic mutation now,” he says. ”It is at the end of the first century of its life, it is tres fatigue. It has to be fed with new things: new approaches to character, to psychology, to structure. What makes me feel like going on? Since 1962 — 36 years now — I’d have been bored. The most important thing is the invention of cinema, of still trying to discover its secret.”

The man who has achieved ”Buddhist distance” is the first to know that editing is a fundamental enigma. ”Editing is going into an underground mine where you find incredible precious metals you didn’t know were there while shooting. You see things for the first time. It is magic.” Anyone who tells you that they go into that six-month to one-year maze without some kind of Theseus-like thread is either a fool or insane.

”Ars longa, vita brevis,” ”Art is long, life is short.” The essence, we are told philosophically, is the thing — and the hardest thing in editing is to find that ”thing,” to see ”the thing within the thing.” It takes time and refinement for the eye to understand what it is really seeing. Film is very much a looking-glass world because what works on paper doesn’t necessarily work on film, and vice versa. Film is endlessly supple; it can be cut dozens of different ways to reveal. Like music or painting, film is ultimately outside left-brain logic, closer to Eisenstein’s hyperwarp of the senses, long ago described by Hindus as a dreamscape. Cutting finally is not an issue of length, but of pace; not of time, but of truth. How do you cut a dream? And, who, finally, can judge a dream?

-Oliver Stone, The New York Times, Nov 29, 1998

#oliver stone #written by Oliver #the new York times #Bernardo Bertolucci #the last emperor

[gummybearzgocrazyagain]

my hella arbitrary list of fav malec moments ranked, just because i felt so aaaaaaand i have an unhealthy obsession with lists that is definitely diagnoseable but ssshhhhh

37. “you stupid Nephilim“ (c)

36. “I think the autumnal theme would be nice” “ABORT, ABORT, Isabelle, are you insane?” (c)

35. Hall of the Accords kiss in CoG

34. subway mugging attempt from the very first date

33. the way you just know book!magnus enunciates word “Alexander”

32. this absolute gem of an interaction

31. Magnus somehow figuring that enchanting his sister’s whip with magical protections would be the best gift to Alec for his birthday

30. The simple fact of Alexander Gideon Lightwood turning out to be wild AF, and having a certain proclivity to tearing Magnus’ expensive wardrobe pieces right off him, while in throws of passion

29. “Wow, you and Monogamous Bane make me tired. He’s even dumber than you are” (c) Lily

28. When Clary invented a rune to temporary present herself as one’s most beloved, and Alec saw Magnus, even though it happened mere months in their relationship

27. Magnus coming to the Institute to see Alec off to Alicante in CoHF, even though they were broken up

26. “Alec Lightwood loved one man so much...” cause duh 

25. “He is not my warlock” cause DUUUHHHHHH

24. general population of the Downworld sometimes subtly reminding Alec about Magnus being slightly out of his league (e.g. “Punch above your weight a little, huh?” (c), etc.)

23. but at the same time, the journey from “STOP HUGGING SHADOWHUNTERS IN FRONT OF MY PLACE OF BUSINESS” (c) TEC 1 to “Get a room, cute boys!” (c) TEC 2

22. Mere fact that in spite of all the convoluted and complicated history Magnus has had with Nephilim over centuries, he eventually somehow ended up being married to their highest authority figure like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

21. “I do not ever want another love“ how dare you sir

20.  the fact that Alec instantly knew(c) with Max, and Magnus instantly knew(c) with Rafe

19. and that it is physically impossible for them to come by an abandoned child, and stop themselves from adopting on the spot

18. Alec’s behaviour during warlock sickness in TDA

17. 

16. ELYASS

15.

14. “The Voicemail of Magnus Bane” cause legendary

13. 

12. “Catarina gave Magnus a delighted look over Alec’s shoulder. “At last”, she murmured. “A keeper.” (c)

11.

10. unforgettable “Since I am the Consul now, I guess I make the rules.” [...] “Was that flirting?” Magnus said. “Because I have to tell you I’m more in than I thought I would be.” [...] “Yes.” Said Alec. He paused. “No. A little bit.” [...] ‘’I mean I make all the rules. I’m in charge now”. “I told you already I was in“ (c) QoAaD

9. 

8. I wanna say the entirety of tRSoM, which main plot premise was “two poor clueless idiots are just trying to screw each other in peace, but kept getting cockblocked at every turn”, but am gonna say Rome Hotel Scene, for reasons

7. also, the marvellous fact that the cockblocking torch was passed down from demons/cultists/princes of hell to malec’s very own precious infant heir

6. aaaaaaand of course let’s not forget to mention Simon Lewis in that particular regard

5. the general level of thirst throughout the whole saga

4. Yes, this one, this one fits, after all the stumbling around and searching, and here it is. (c) What to buy the Shadowhunter

3. The Land I Lost (”his first kiss and his last”, “but he could imagine, in some faraway future, the face he loved best”, “hey, my baby”, “once he’d said “my betrothed” and felt like a total idiot”, feel free to stop me at any point)

2.

1. [...] I spent days dying in chains, thinking you would never know this, so let me tell you now. I will love you as long as I live. However long or short my life may be, it seems to me that I could never find time enough to love you as you deserve. Loving you made me believe in eternity. Aku cinta kamu. (c)

#malec #shadowhunters #book!malec #Magnus Bane #alexander gideon lightwood

[dmsden]

A History Lesson - Looking back at D&D’s history

Hullo, Gentle Readers. Well, this is the 5th Monday in March, and that means I get to write about anything I want! It’s also my birth month, which means it’s my anniversary of getting into D&D (42 years!), and that has me feeling nostalgic. Coupled with a discussion I had recently with some friends, I thought it would be fun to look back at the various editions of D&D and give you all a bit of history. I’m not going to get into Gygax vs Arneson or any of that. I’m only talking about the published game itself, not its creators or its storied origins.

The original D&D (or OD&D as it’s sometimes called) came in a small box. It had three booklets inside - Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure, and The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures - along with reference sheets and dice. Each was softcover and roughly the same dimensions as a DVD/BluRay case. The game was pretty rudimentary - for one thing, it assumed you already had a copy of Chainmail, D&D’s direct wargame predecessor. It also recommended you have a game called Outdoor Survival for purposes of traveling through the wilderness. It had only three classes - fighting man, magic-user, and cleric - and nothing about playing other races. It did have the insane charts that 1st edition would ultimately known for, and it was possible to play a pretty fun game of D&D with it, as its popularity would come to show.

The game expanded through similar chapbooks - Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldritch Wizardry, Gods Demigods & Heroes, Swords & Spells. With the exception of the last one, each brought new facets to the game - new classes like Thief and Monk, new spells, new threats. It was clear the game was going to need an overhaul, and it got one.

I consider this overhaul to yield the real “1st Edition”, as so much of the game didn’t exist in those original games. The game split into a “Basic” game, just called Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.

The basic game was a boxed set that included a rulebook, a full adventure module, and dice...or, well, it was supposed to contain dice. The game was so popular and new in those days that demand for dice outstripped production. My copy of D&D came with a coupon for dice when they became available and a sheet of “chits” - laminated numbers meant to be put into cups (we used Dixie Cups with the name of the die written on it), shaken, and a random number pulled out without looking. It was meant to introduce new players to the game, so it was a trimmed down version. Races were human, elf, dwarf, and halfling, and classes were fighter, cleric, magic-user, and thief. The box only included rules for going up to 3rd level, with the intention that players would then graduate into AD&D. This is where I joined, with the old blue cover box set and In Search of the Unknown, before Keep on the Borderlands even existed.

AD&D was the game in its full glory. Along with the races I mention above, we got half-elves, half-orcs, and gnomes. The four basic classes also had sub-classes, like paladin and ranger for the fighter, druid for the cleric, illusionist for the wizard, and assassin for the thief. There were rules for multi-classing, as well as “Dual-classing”, a sort of multi-class variation for humans only, which, when done in the correct combination, could yield the infamous bard...which didn’t actually yield any bard abilities until around level 13 or so.

This edition had 5 different saving throws for things like “Death Magic”, “Petrification & Polymorph”, “Spells”, and so on. It had the infamous Armor Class system that started at 10 and went down, so that having a -3 AC was very good!  It also had specific attack matricies for each class; you would literally look on a table to determine the number you needed to roll on a D20 based on your class, your level, and your opponent’s armor class. It was fun, but it was very complicated.

It also had some, frankly, shitty rules. There was gender disparity in terms of attributes, which my group totally ignored. Because the game designers wanted humans to be a competitive the game, and because non-humans had so many abilities and could multiclass, non-humans were severely limited in the levels they could achieve in most classes. In fact, some classes, such as monk and paladin, were restricted only to humans.

As the years went on, things got a bit muddled. It probably didn’t help that the rules in Basic D&D and AD&D didn’t perfectly line up. In D&D, the worst armor class was a 9. In AD&D, the worst armor class was a 10. All of this led to an overhaul, but not one considered a separate edition. AD&D mostly got new covers and new books, like the Wilderness Survival Guide and Dungeon Survival Guide, Monster Manual 2, and the Manual of the Planes. It got a number of new settings, too. In addition to the default Greyhawk setting, we got the Forgotten Realms setting for the first time, details of which had been appearing in Dragon Magazine for years, thanks to the prolific Ed Greenwood. We also, eventually, got the whole Dragonlance saga, which yielded the setting of Krynn.

In this new version, Basic D&D broke off into its own game system to some degree. Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling started being treated like classes rather than races, with specific abilities at different levels. Higher level characters could be created using progressive boxes - Expert, Companion, Master, and Immortal, each with its own boxed set and supported by Mystara, a completely different setting that got its own updates over the years. It was odd, because D&D essentially was competing for players with AD&D, and I remember arguments with friends over which version was better (I was firmly in the AD&D camp.)

In 1989, when I was in college, they finally brought forth 2nd edition D&D. This streamlined things a little. Armor Class still went down, but now attack rolls boiled into a single number called To Hit Armor Class 0, or THAC0. It made the whole process of figuring out what you needed to roll a bit less cumbersome, but it was still a bit awkward. The classes got a lot of overhaul, including making Bard its own core class. But what I remember best about 2nd edition was the boom in settings. This was the age of settings, and many beloved ones got started, including Dark Sun, Planescape, Ravenloft, and Spelljammer.

It was also the age of the “Complete Handbooks”. They brought out splatbooks about every class and race in the game, as well as books expanding several concepts for the DM, such as the Arms & Equipment Guide, the Castle Guide, and the Complete Book of Villains. There were also splatbooks about running D&D in historic periods, such as Ancient Rome, among the ancient Celts, or during the time of the Musketeers. The game got new covers for the rule books again, and a bunch of books about options started coming out. It was a boom time for books, but many people complained there was too much.

Without going too deep, TSR ended up in severe financial troubles. They declared bankruptcy, and there was real fear of the game going away. And then Wizards of the Coast (WotC) stepped in. They helped TSR get back onto its feet, and they helped produce some modules specifically engineered to help DM’s bring an end to their campaign...possibly even their whole campaign world...because something big was coming.

That something big was, of course, 3rd edition D&D. The game got majorly streamlined, and many sacred cows ended up as hamburger. AC finally started going up instead of down. Everything was refined to the “D20″ system we’ve been playing ever since. Races could be any class. There were no level or stat limits for anyone. After years of the game being forced into tight little boxes, it really felt like we could breathe. I had stopped playing D&D, but 3rd edition brought me back into the fold. I often say that 3E was made for the players who’d felt constricted and wanted more flexibility.

The trouble with 3E, and its successor 3.5, is that it was still a dense and difficult game for newcomers to get into. It’s been acknowledged that D&D essentially created many of the systems we see and know in other games - experience points, leveling up, hit points, etc. But trying to break into the experience for the first time was difficult. The look of 3E was gorgeous, but I understood that it must seem awfully daunting to someone who’d never played.

4E and its follow-up, Essentials, was an attempt to course correct that. They tried to make this edition incredibly friendly to new DMs, and, frankly, they succeeded. By creating player classes and monsters and magic-items that were all very plug and play, they did a great job of creating a game that someone who had never DMed before could dive into with no experience or mentor and start a game pretty easily. Encounter design was given a lot of ease, and there were promises of a robust online tool system that would help out with many of the more tedious aspects of playing.

There was also a lot of shake up in terms of choices. Suddenly, new classes and races were proliferating like crazy. We got the dragonborn, the tiefling, and the eladrin right in the core book, but we said good-bye to the gnome and half-orc at first. Suddenly the warlock was the new class everyone wanted to try. We got paragon paths and epic destinies that would really shape a character as time went on. The game went very tactical, as well, which some of us loved. The concept of rituals came into the game. Later books like the Player’s Handbook 2 and 3 gave us back gnomes and half-orcs, and also gave us minotaurs, wilden, shardminds, and githzerai. We got new psionic classes, brand new class concepts like the Runeknight and the Seeker...

But there was a tremendous backlash. People felt that, in making the game so very plug and play, they’d taken a ton of choice away from the players. Without the tools (which were never that robust, frankly), it was almost impossible to navigate the massive panoply of options. And, worse, it was harder and harder to develop encounters without those tools. People complained that the game had gone more tactical in order to sell miniatures and battlemats. Given that I have never played the game without miniatures and battlemats (since I started in the days when D&D was still half-wargame), I found this odd, but I also understand my style of play isn’t everyone’s.

The one argument I will never understand is that it didn’t “feel” like D&D, or it was somehow ONLY a tactical game and not a role-playing game any more. Again, given that the original game didn’t even call itself a role-playing game, this felt odd. Personally, I roleplay no matter what game I’m playing. If I’m playing Monopoly, I’m roleplaying, doing voices, and pretending to be something I’m not. I honestly enjoyed 4E, and I know a lot of folks who did, too. A lot of it may simply come down to style of play. But I also enjoyed all the games that came before, including Pathfinder. To paraphrase the YouTube content creator The Dungeon Bastard, “Does your game have dungeons? Does it have dragons? Great. I wanna play.”

As a sidenote, in the months leading up to 4E’s release, a lot of internet videos were released by WotC emphasizing the nature of change and talking about differences in the rules. They also released some preview books showing the direction they were heading. WotC must have anticipated that people were going to find this edition very different indeed. They also cleverly brought in some very funny folks - Scott Kurtz from PVPOnline and Jerry Holkins & Mike Krahulik from Penny Arcade - and got them to play D&D for podcasting purposes. Looking back, this must’ve brought in a lot of listeners who might never have played D&D and given them a reason to try it out.

After its release, WotC clearly noted that missteps had been made, as this edition of the game was losing them players. They began work on what they referred to as D&D Next, and, this time, they did massive amounts of playtesting, some of which I participated in.

I don’t feel like I have to describe 5E to any of you, Dear Readers, as you could go to virtually any store and pick it up. I am a big fan of 5E’s simplicity and elegance, and I suspect this is the edition of D&D we’re going to have for some time to come, especially given its popularity. Given the effect of podcasts like Critical Role (and I might save an article on Critical Role’s importance to D&D until my next Freestyle article), D&D is likely more popular now than it’s ever been, with a much wider and more diverse audience than ever before.

I know I’m painting with broad strokes here, but I hope this was, at least, entertaining, and maybe you learned something, Gentle Readers. Until we next meet, may all your 20s be natural.

[thealmightyemprex]

Hey,I have an idea where I look at a few arcs/issues that are considered the best (Or at least look interesting) for some of my favorite Marvel and DC supervillains(With the exception of Mystique cause I couldnt find a good rec for her ,so doing Doc Ock instead )

Ones I have already picked

Sabretooth:Uncanny X Men 213

Two Face: The Two Face Trilogy (DEtective comics 66,68,80)

Red Skull: Death of Red Skull (Captain Americs 290-300)

Catwoman:Catwoman When In Rome

Doc Ock:Master Planner Saga(31-33)

Brainiac :Brainiac (Action Comics 866-870)

Thanos : Infinity Guantlet

Solomon Grundy :All American Comics (61 )

Magneto :God Loves Man Kills or Trial of Magneto (Uncanny X Men 200) (Havent decided )

Mr Mxyzptlk:Worlds Finest (113)

Purple Man :Alias (25 -28)

Vandal Savage :Flash (1-2) or All Star Western (17-18)(Havent decided )

Green Goblin : The Amazing Spider Man (39-40)

Riddler :Riddle Less Robberies of the Riddler (Batman 179)

Galactus:Thor (!60-162)

Darkseid :The Great Darkness Saga (Legion of Superheroes 290-294)

Kingpin : Daredevil (170-172)

Joker:Going Sane (Batman Legends of the Dark Knight 65-68)

Doctor Doom :Secret Wars

Lex Luthor :Action Comics 510-512

Going to do this on my leisure

@ariel-seagull-wings @marquisedemasque @metropolitan-mutant-of-ark

[i-m-a-leaf-on-the-wind]

I was tagged by @faisonsunreve for a game : Get to know my interests (thanks love ! And just for you : a cute fluffy eycte Alex at Oslo looking sooooo much like Dutronc 🤤)

I'm really sorry but I can't choose just one thing per category. I'm going to add a lot of plurals 😅 MUSIC

Fav genre?: ROCK 🤟 !

Fav band(S)?: The Beatles / The Who / AC DC / The Last Shadow Puppets / Arctic Monkeys (OMG ! This is already so hard 😅)...

Fav solo artist(S)?: Phil Collins / David Bowie / Miles Kane

Last song you listened to?: For No One - The Beatles

Fav decade(S) for music?: 60′s-70′s and 70′s-80′s

Top 3 most listened songs recently?: 

Don’t Let It Get You Down - Miles Kane

John Lennon Is My Jesus Christ - Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard

Used To Love Me - Brooke Combe

ALBUMS or playlists | BANDS or solo artists | SLOW or and FAST songs | LYRICS or melody | ROCK or pop

LITERATURE

Fav genre?: I read a bit of everything

Fav book(S)?: Notre Dame de Paris - Victor Hugo [The Hunchback of Notre-Dame] and Animal Farm - George Orwell

Fav writer?: Victor Hugo

Comfort book?:  I'm with the Band - Pamela Des Barres

Fav biography?: Good question ! I don’t know !

HARDCOVER or paperback | STANDALONE NOVELS or book series | READING AT HOME or in nature | LISTENING TO MUSIC WHILE READING or reading in silence | realism or FANTASY

TV AND MOVIES

Fav tv show/movie genre?: I don’t have any fav genre

Fav movie?: Titanic - James Cameron (Well, I’m a 90′s kid !)

Comfort movie(S)?: Sister Act -  Emile Ardolino and Singin’ In The Rain - Gene Kelly &  Stanley Donen

Favorite decade(S) for movies?: 80′s / 90′s / 2010′s

Fav tv show?: Star Trek TOS (oh yes, of course @faisonsunreve) / Life On Mars / Doctor Who / Sherlock / The Crown /Rome

Comfort tv show?: Same !!!!

5 favorite characters?: Bones (Star trek TOS) / Sherlock Holmes (in -almost- every adaptation) / Luke Skywalker (Star Wars) / Christian (Moulin Rouge !) / Furiosa (Mad Max Fury Road)

TV SHOWS or movies | ONE EPISODE A WEEK or binging | one part or SAGA | horror movie or MUSICAL MOVIE I’m tagging : @orangebuckethat @alex-band-gay-and-the-hurrikane @tightredpants​ and @alexankles​

#tag game

[mermaidsirennikita]

Hello, I hope I'm not bothering you, but do you have any good "enemies to lovers" recs, may they be books or movies?

I neeeever am bothered by people asking for recommendations.  Those are my favorite asks because I am nothing if not in love with my own opinions, lol

Books

Obviously, The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn, the best Bridgerton book, because I’ve been blogging about it lol.  If you haven’t read it, it’s basically “rake tries to seduce the beauty of the ton, beauty’s older sister cockblocks him, he realizes that He Is Into It” 

The Hating Game by Sally Thorne is a classic.  Very light and fluffy contemporary, two people who’ve always hated each other begin competing for the same job and fall in love.

Kate Quinn’s Mistress of Rome series is a saga and the initial big ship of the first book (which you do have to read lol) is not enemies to lovers.  However, the NEXT ship which dominates the last two books of the series (which is four books long, and tbh... I recommend the second book but it’s a prequel and can be skipped technically) is SOOOOOOO GOOD.  It’s really “childhood friends to young lovers to SEVERE ENEMIES still secretly in love” and it’s literally epic lol.  Essentially, the series is set in Ancient Rome and Sabina (very bitchy Roman noblewoman) and Vix (child of a former gladiator, soldier) are friends who I think lose their virginities to each other?  And are in love as kids.  But then she fucks him over and marries the emperor.  Who he actually begins to loyally serve!  But he haaaates Sabina because she.... constantly backstabs him lol.  But he also looooves Sabina and gets off on everything she does.  And she wants him so badly.  And it is delicious.  And I live for it.

Both of the Evie Dunmore books I’ve read, Bringing Down the Duke and especially A Rogue of One’s Own are very enemies to lovers.  In Bringing Down the Duke it’s a bluestocking versus a duke who for political reasons is her enemy.  In A Rogue of One’s Own it’s another bluestocking versus a rake who has known her basically all their lives.  They have to begin working together and fall in looove.

Sarah MacLean LIVES for this trope lol.  Her first true enemies to lovers was Twelve Scandals to Start to Win An Earl’s Heart, in which the heroine is a scandalous young woman and the hero is a duke determined to avoid scandal--and he rebuffed her before the book began, so they hate each other.  But he also has a massive boner around her, of course. 

My favorite MacLean book, A Rogue By Another Name is another “childhood friends turn enemies to lovers”.  The leads, Penelope and Bourne (last name lol) were best friends as kid and he basically fell off after life set in.  Her family now has hold of his ancestral lands, and Bourne essentially blackmails Penelope into marrying him so that he can get those lands, after which she DESPISES him even though they had..... extremely great sex lol.  It’s SUPER GOOD, and it involves borderline voyeurism, which is great.

Then No Good Duke Goes Unpunished is very enemies to lovers.  The heroine was set to become the hero’s stepmother--then he woke up covered in blood with her missing. He then finds out, after years of being despised by society as a presumed murderer, that she is very much alive with a fake identity lol.  It’s WILD.

The Rogue Not Taken is an enemies to lovers roadtrip romance.  The heroine thinks the hero is a horrid rake who purposefully ruins marriages.  He thinks she’s a stuck up brat.  They end up journeying together and he eats her out in a moving carriage.

Theeen there’s Daring and the Duke.  The hero literally thought the heroine was dead (MacLean loves this) and is OBSESSED with her, but she hates him because the man who raised them both basically pitted them against each other after their days of being childhood sweethearts.  It’s very dark and delicious, and there are blow jobs!  Blow jobs don’t happen enough in romances, especially historical romances.  More BJs!  They are fun!

If you’re interested in a dark and BONKERS romance, Desperate Measures by Katee Robert is a retelling of Disney’s Aladdin about a modern Jafar and Jasmine getting together after he takes over her father’s criminal empire.  It’s definitely extremely explicit and a bit fucked up.  The book comes with content warnings; the first sex scene is dubcon.  (Like you’re reading from her perspective and she WANTS IT but she says no.)

Beach Read by Emily Henry is a cute contemporary in which the hero is a literary author and the heroine is a romance novelist.  They find themselves in neighboring beach houses and basically challenge each other to write in the other person’s genre.  Very light enemies to lovers.

A Heart of Blood and Ashes is a fantasy romance by Milla Vane!  Essentially, the hero’s parents were killed by the heroine’s father and he’s out to kill her father and overtake his throne.  Luckily, she’s on board.  But he needs to marry her in order to accomplish his goals.  They do not trust each other whatsoever and torment one another a lot.  For context, within the first fifty pages she gives him a handjob while her hand is covered in her own brother’s blood (and yes, he did kill her brother).  It’s great.

The Worst Best Man is about a wedding planner who suddenly finds herself needing to work with her ex-fiance’s brother... who she holds responsible for her fiance leaving her at the altar.  Very fun and sexy contemporary.

The entire Four Horsemen series by Laura Thalassa.  In each book, the heroine falls in love with a literal embodiment of one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, who is here to bring the end of the world.  VERY heavy enemies to lovers.  Kinda dark at times?  Kinda fucked up at times?  I love it a lot?  It begins with Pestilence; War and Famine have already been released, but Death has not.

From Lukov with Love by Marina Zapata.  It’s a figure skating romance; a down on her luck skater pairs up with a male skater who is extremely successful, and who she’s known for years and hated.  Verrrrry slow burn, but fun.

Movies

The Proposal, of course, starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds.  You’ve probably seen this, but the setup is that she’s his evil boss, he’s her assistant, and she’s about to lose her visa so she bribes him into marrying her so that she can get citizenship.  But ruh-roh, they have to go to Alaska for his family reunion and he’s also got a great body and is like, an Alaskan Rockefeller?  

Obviously, Clueless which is enemies to lovers by way of former stepsiblings, and also by way of the only valid retelling of Emma.  Emma itself is not enemies to lovers, really, but Clueless amps that aspect up a bit.

If you want a super tragic version, warning lol--House of Flying Daggers.  It’s a wuxia movie, so melodramatic to the max.  She’s a blind daughter of the leader of a vigilante group, he’s a soldier who’s gone undercover to follow her to their stronghold.  Many reveals and one of my favorite dramatic love stories ensues.

Princess Diaries 2, duh.  Baby Chris Pine?  Anne Hathaway?  PLEASE BITCH.

365 DNI.  If you haven’t watched yet, watch it and thank me later.  The greatest cinematic contribution of the last decade.

Down with Love.  It’s a delightful take on like, 50s/60s sex comedies in which the heroine writes a book that convinces women to ignore love and men, which makes the hero look bad and makes it difficult for him to get laid.  So he sets out to basically.....  wear a different persona?  And seduce her?  It is one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen, and I adore it.  Renee Zellweger and Ewan Macgregor have great chemistry in it too.

The Thomas Crown Affair, starring extremely hot Pierce Brosnan and Renee Russo.  She’s an insurance investigator, he’s a billionaire who basically is suspected of stealing priceless works of art because he’s bored.  She investigates him and immediately begins fucking him.  Has a scene where she dances with him while wearing a completely transparent dress.  Then they fuck everywhere in his house.  I have never wanted to be between two people more.

The Painted Veil.  A socialite marries a dorky scientist for convenience, then cheats on him.  He finds out and basically forces her to go to China with him, where he is fighting the cholera epidemic, as an extremely long and petty murder suicide attempt.  But they get to know each other!  And the ice begins to melt!  Warning: tragic but lovely.

Casino Royale YES I SAID THAT.  The James Bond reboot movie that explains why he’s such a whore!!!  HE WAS BROKEN!!!  Basically James Bond is not like... a learned man... in this movie.  So he’s a cocky bastard and the Bond girl is impossibly sexy Eva Green as Vesper, who’s the “money man” on his mission.  They begin as bickering assholes and then fall in love.  But also!  Tragedy!

The animated Anastasia movie is one of the finest enemies to lovers movies of any time, I will defend this forever

Anyway....  Hope this gives you some ideas!  Lol

#Anonymous

[gayregis]

I've listened to the part where Geralt talks with a very ill Cahir about Ciri and vengeance... it was one of the most emotional parts of the book by itself but also thanks to your take about the lost innocence of Ciri ! I felt it thrice hard in the feelings! Also, do you have thoughts on the declared love of Cahir for Ciri? Personally I see it as disturbingly romantic, let's say. Thank you for your commitment to the books and sorry to bother you

omg thank you for the ask. first of all i have to say you’re not bothering me!! tbh i have been loving getting asks because it gives me an opportunity to like bring more discussion to the witcher community... 

i feel like although reblogging pretty gifs of characters/landscapes from tw3 and any good fanart i can find is nice, my FAVORITE thing to do is write or read a really long textpost about the witcher books, i really like the discussion aspect of fandoms where people post their reactions and opinions to the content they like, because you get a bunch of shared reactions and differing opinions.

so no this is NOT a bother at all, and its nice especially to get asks about topics that i have strong feelings about but have not made posts about yet, like this one

ok, as for the actual topic: i hate forced heterosexuality, so you KNOW i hate that canon cahiri! it was out of line from sapkowski and imo, it came out of absolutely nowhere in tower of the swallow, it wasn’t something built up to or foreshadowed at all, so it felt not only weird in context but weird for sapkowski as an author.

my main problem with canon cahiri: i think it’s super creepy!

first of all, let’s discuss the age difference. cahir in baptism of fire is estimated to be “not over 25,” which i see as putting him around 20 to 25 years old, and i usually take the median of this which is around 23. while this “not over 25″ comment is said in the context of the hansa to remark upon how young cahir is (i believe it’s thought of by either geralt or dandelion, and geralt is around 60 years old and as a witcher he looks 45, and dandelion is 38 in tower of the swallow), and how cahir is described as a young man in time of contempt to illustrate that he has a sense of innocence to him as ciri cuts him down, his age gap with ciri is super innappropriate for anything to occur between them, since she is 10 or 11 during the massacre of cintra (as stated by geralt in something more), so she would be around 14 at thanedd, and 15-16 during baptism of fire to lady of the lake. so sapkowski deemed it fit to pair a 23 year old man with a 16 year old girl. this isn’t the first time he’s done something like this, what with essi being “not over 18″ and shani also bein around 18 / college age, and yennefer canonically looking around 20. listen, the man has some messed up values when it comes to women’s ages. we have to take it upon ourselves as people who like the not-weird parts of canon to understand how worldviews and personal biases affect one’s writing, and change it for ourselves to make it right so we can continue interacting with it, if we so choose (tldr: retcon some shit when it’s fucked up in canon).

now, before someone argues that “it’s fantasy medieval world, medieval relationships between men and women were just like that,” believe me, i am aware. i study ancient greece/rome and men who were in their 30s were most often paired with women in their teens as part of their arranged marriages. that is how their ancient societies functioned more than 2000 years ago. the issue is that this is a fantasy world, in which societal norms and laws do not have to conform to real-life earth history, and this is the work of a modern writer writing in the 1990s. it’s not “just how the times were,” it’s deliberately choosing to include an age gap like that to be something canonically acceptable by their society/ies.

also, one could argue that the age gap would be fine once they are older, like, when ciri becomes an adult she is already medievally-style betrothed to cahir so they start dating when she’s like 20 and he’s like 27. eh... that’s still an uncomfortable age gap, at least for when they’re in their 20s. people in their older 20s have more life experience than people in their younger 20s. but at least it wouldn’t land cahir in modern-day jail.

it’s still just an uncomfortably large age gap, and if you think about it, it’s even creepier considering that cahir met ciri when she was a helpless child around 10 - 11 and it just makes the bathing scene excruciatingly creepy too if you put it in the context that he eventually would fall in love with her. it even begins to not be about strictly age, but about life experience, development, and power imbalance within the relationship. i mean, he did literally kidnap her.

cahir in tos calls ciri a “woman” when she is like, 15 or 16 (with the rose tattoo) (to anyone reading, please don’t come at me with that “the age of consent is 15 in poland, just because it’s 18 in the US doesn’t mean your laws and culture apply to everyone” ... please do not try and justify this with laws, legality is not morality. only saying this because i’ve seen it in other posts). like.... hm! don’t like that! she is a teenager... he is in his 20s... this should not be occuring.

sorry for the loooong explanation, but every time someone brings up the subject of age gaps on tumblr it turns into crazy discourse with everyone trying to justify it.

but yeah, CANONICALLY cahir would have been 16-21 (median 18) when he met ciri at 10-11, and 20-25 (median 23) when he declares his love for her at 15-16. that’s ... not good ... to put it more into perspective, these are their ages on a traditional school system path: a 18 year old is a high school senior, an 11 year old is a 6th grader. a 23 year old has been out of college for 2 years, a 16 year old is a high school sophomore. ITS NOT GOOD

my other problem with canon cahiri: it’s boring and contradicts sapkowski at his own game.

all of the witcher is about taking fantasy tropes and inverting them, like you can’t have some random peasant kill a dragon, you’d need a professional, and also guess what, the dragon isn’t evil but a dad trying to protect his wife and child.

all of the characters in the hansa (as well as the four main characters of geralt, yennefer, ciri, and dandelion) are inversions of the tropes they represent. for some examples, milva’s trope is something like the hot action girl who only exists to be the only girl in the company and to be sexy eye candy. instead of falling into this, she is actually an action girl, not bothering with sexiness and appeal to the gaze of a male audience but a “get shit done” type, who also dresses and acts “like a man.” regis’ trope is all vampire tropes ever. he/vampires in the witcher doesn’t/don’t fall into any of the traditional european vampire myths like burning in sunlight, needing to drink blood to stay alive, being disdainful of humanity, having aversions to garlic, belonging to a super-secret orderful society that lurks in the shadows and controls everything like puppetmasters, etc... instead, he is the epitome of redemption arcs and overall “goody-goodiness,” understands humanity perfectly and does things out of his good nature. i already talk about regis too much, so i’ll quit it. 

cahir is an inversion of every knight trope ever, particularly the evil knight. he scars ciri’s memory as a night terror, but actually is not ... a bad person. he’s just some guy, pressured by his family and his society to do what he saw as an assignment like a college kid might see their final essay assignment posted on canvas. except you know. the final exam was to kidnap a girl. and he got an F on that and failed the course (ie got thrown in prison). ANYWAYS, cahir is meant to be this inversion of the knight tropes, so WHY, WHY, WHY make him become the knight trope of being the one to romance and to save a hapless princess? if we’ve learned anything about ciri, it’s that she’s the inversion of the princess trope! she KILLS PEOPLE. she ALMOST KILLED CAHIR. she can defend herself and kill for herself, she doesn’t need the knight trope going to protect her! 

heterosexual romance as the Big Reason and Motivation behind all of a character’s actions is tiring, annoying, boring, and not well-thought out. it’s so base and not unique, it doesn’t fit in with everything else about the witcher.

how i would fix it: not make them fall in love.

cahir already HAS a motivation to find ciri and to help her. he needs to APOLOGIZE. he needs to say, hey, i’m sorry i kidnapped you and ruined your life, i made peace with your dad, he doesn’t wanna kill me anymore, i can only hope that you can forgive me too after i SET THINGS RIGHT. 

as opposed to regis’s arc (i swear i am not playing favorites with regis, i just tend to compare and contrast regis and cahir’s redemptions because they are quite different yet they join the hansa side by side so they’re bound to be compared), cahir actually can find the one (not many) people he wronged, and set things right on his own accord, not go forth with a larger mission to assist all humanity, or whatever.

i think cahir also had this WONDERFULLY UNDERUTILIZED anti-imperialist message as part of his character that pains me to see being swept under the rug for some cheap lame romance story. sapkowski already created some anti-war sentiments with the battle of the bridge in baptism of fire, and he tried to create anti-racism sentiments throughout the book/at the end of lady of the lake. anti-imperialism fits with the rest of the saga as a message.

the fact that cahir was instructed by his family to hate the northern kingdoms, despite the fact that they were related to northerners, is really profound as something to happen to a character, and holds a lot of meaning in today’s society. the fact that he broke, finally, after he lost ciri, just completely lost his mind and had to be restrained because he was wailing so hard, because of the pressure that this society put him under to succeed and achieve pride for his family, is such a great example of the tragedies of society. then he speaks out against his leader and is jailed... and yet, after this, he gets to learn from his mistakes and redeem himself as a good person, and his character has developed SO much. he is not doing what his country wants him to do, he is not doing what his family wants him to do. he is doing what he wants to do because it is the RIGHT thing to do. that already is such a powerful message, he doesn’t need anymore character motivation!

so yep that’s my thoughts on why cahir is a good character asides from all that forced romance biz

#ask #cahir #ciri #master-dellamorte

[cosmiciaria]

Playing with some Assassin’s Creed around

I come from finishing AC: Syndicate,  AC: Unity, AC 2 and AC Black Flag (in that order) and I wanted to do a review for each of the new AC that I’m playing/have played, but I feel like it would drag on for too long, so here are some general thoughts:

Assassin’s Creed is a cool franchise. Period.

I liked Syndicate when I first played it (was my first AC), but with each new installment that I play, I see how lackluster it is and how much they played safe with the plot and characters. I still like it, though, but I do understand why people don’t like it much. I did a review here, though in retrospective I’d change some things I wrote. 

Unity is still to this day my fave AC and I doubt I’ll change my mind about it, because I have too many personal reasons to love it, as I stated in my review. MOVING ON.

Finished Assassin’s Creed 2. I heard only good things about this game. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would, and that’s mainly due to the old gameplay that didn’t age well at all. Parkour in this game is a pain, it’s NOT fun to climb stuff, enemies have an aggro so big the whole city chases you down because you fell on your wrong foot, fighting is dreadfully slow, enemies are HP sponges, Ezio is a Gary Stu (I’ll die on this hill) and the plot was very confusing at some points, like it was losing its north with all these random assassinations. Also, as I played the remaster, sequences 12 and 13 are compulsory now, and 13 was just. A. Nightmare. Filler after filler of things that didn’t add anything to the plot. Also it feels so disjointed since Ezio has that very nice speech about the cycle of vengeance and whatnot, but when you look back you’re like ??? dude at what point did you have that character development?? it’s just so sudden and forced. I did enjoy the music A LOT, the OST is top notch, and the graphics, specially those of water and edifices, are still amazing, even to this day. I also enjoyed the Assassin’s tombs, because it was THERE when I felt all the adventure thing I was expecting to find, and because it had such a Prince of Persia aura and vibes. I do see the origins of the franchise there. 

Started playing AC Brotherhood, and it already feels like such an improvement from its predecessor, with that great opening. Though I put it on halt because I got, like, super tired of Ezio as main character. And the parkour is still painful. Rome looks nice tho. 

Finished Black Flag. At first I wasn’t quite into the ship battles (I have Kingdom Hearts 3 war flashbacks), and the music seemed like a rip off of Pirates of the Caribbean. I also got really lost in regards to characters, I never knew most of them by name, only by faces, but I guess I wasn’t paying too much attention. And the fact that the Assassins barely have an appearance in this game kinda put me off. But - and this is a big but - I grew fond of Edward, his crew, his friends, the inspiration he became to many of his comrades, and the ending is so beautiful and well crafted. It’s a great pirate game, not so much an Assassin’s Creed one, You do live the pirate fantasy, and I’m amazed at how much you can actually do: this game is huge, with a huge map, multiple cities, treasure chests, treasure maps, collectibles, hunting whales or sharks, plundering ships, taking down entire forts - it does reward exploration. For a game that belonged to the PS3, some more modern installments pale in comparison. 

Started AC III, and I’m actually too interested in it. I’ve always had an interest in Connor as he’s a native american, and I want to see his perspective in the American Revolution. But I’m still at the beginning with Haytham, and, although I don’t find him annoying and his relationship with Zio is growing on me, I do want to move on from this part and enjoy Connor as main character. I’m in sequence 3 and I’m still playing as Haytham, and it makes me wonder - when will I see a full assassin Connor in this game? By sequence 5? Considering that I know you play with him as a child and then as a teenager, when do you truly become an assassin and start playing with the real protagonist? Mind you, the game has like ten or eleven sequences only, so it seems kind of unfair for our poor Connor to be on the cover of the game, yet he receives less screentime than other main characters in other installments. Of the little part I’ve played, I can already tell this game improved so much on parkour from the Ezio’s trilogy, and I’m so glad they did: Haytham moves smoothly and there’s flow in his movements. Thank god. Also when you fight you actually feel like you’re damaging your opponent. All improvements are welcomed. 

Watched Rogue’s cutscenes, since I wasn’t interested in acquiring it, the price doesn’t seem to be worth it. Besides, I only wanted to see how the Kenway saga paves the way for the next set of games with Unity. From what I saw, I thought the game would be different: I expected new mechanics as you play with a Templar, but alas, it’s a copy paste of Black Flag, only that with snowy environments. 

Tried to watch AC I’s cutscenes, but I grew too bored. Might give it a try again, because I want to honor Altaïr, without hating him for the gameplay, since I can clearly see I will hate it even more than Ezio’s parkour. Then again, it’s not the game’s fault, but its age the problem. 

Once I’m done with all this, I do want to try some of the newer. From all three (Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla), Odyssey is gaining extra points with each thing I see about it. I want to play as Kassandra so bad! But the open world doesn’t draw my attention too much, and the “options” in dialogues + romancing options do feel like we’re drifiting from an AC game to a Dragon Age or a Witcher game - which I love, but, idk if they fit in an AC game. I will give it a try before judging too harshly, though.

Those are my general thoughts. I’m really into the franchise right now. I don’t like how Ubisoft is treating its female characters, but I guess I will leave that aside and play Liberation instead. Let’s see how Valhalla fairs. 

#assassins creed #assassins creed 2 #assassinscreedunity #assassinscreedsyndicate #assassins creed unity #assassins creed syndicate #assassins creed iii #assassins creed 3 #assassins creed II #assassins creed odyssey #assasins creed valhalla #assasins creed rogue #assasins creed brotherhood #assassins creed revelations #assassins creed black flag #assassinscreedblackflag #ubisoft #videogame review #review

[takiki16]

THOTS (thoughts) on Russel Crowe in gladiator ?? 👀👀

Hoooooo boy.  Hooooooo boy.  HOOOOOOOOO BOYYYYYYY

THOTS

ON

RUSSELL CROWE

IN

GLADIATOR????

LIKE...OKAY THIS NEEDS A CUT

This movie was one of my weirdest early gateways to I Find Restrained Men Hot even before I had the vocabulary to articulate that to myself.  My highschool english class had to make collages for our classics unit and one of the guys had printed out a still from the scene where Commodus comes to visit a chained-up Maximus and stabs him?  The first still above?

And.  Bby takiki16.  Was. FASCINATED.  I had to ask my teacher what the picture was from and just sit there very Confused and Intrigued by the context I could read on the actor’s expressions and going ????  Chains???  Talk??? Shoulders??? Accepting??? CHAINS????

And then I got to see the movie and I found out that the whole thing is just LIKE THAT.  The entire saga of Maximus Decimus Meridius is the saga of a sad subby bottom in a room full of morally grey tops with Issues (TM) who all want to wreck him and have varying degrees of willingness/unwillingness to be nice about it.  EVERYONE!!!! Every single person!  All of them take like ONE LOOK at Russell Crowe’s sad mourning face of “I Will Submit Myself To Abuse Without Protest” and go WOW, is anyone gonna tie that up????

Lucilla’s tragic control in not destroying this man while he was chained to the wall i swear 

Which okay, I could MAYYYYYYBE handle all of the above if Maximus weren’t such a fatal combination of all the tropes that I find attractive in a subby male character?  ESPECIALLY the Good General part, which is less and less common a trope in terms of larger scale formal command.   Not only does Maximus get whumped physically AND emotionally throughout this movie, he is a Great Leader and Loving Husband and Homesick Father and Competent Soldier all rolled into one - all of which makes his suffering THAT MUCH SWEETER in terms of knowing like...the worth of what is being broken?  If that makes any sense?

And yeah, some combination of traits is not unusual among white male action heroes in Hollywood - badass soldiers with a fridged wife and kids are a dime a dozen, and it’s easy to bunch the extras together and have them cheer the lead.  It’s an overused trope.  But when they are well done, it cuts straight to my cold dead heart, and MAXIMUS DECIMUS MERIDIUS, SAD SUBMISSIVE DILF WITH AN ARMY THAT WOULD DIE FOR HIM, I JUST-

(a portrait of the entire royal family of Rome in this movie)

When i talk about Submission as a character trait I find attractive in whumpees and male faves in general, I REALLY CANNOT do much better visually than this deleted scene (shut UP I own the extended version) from the movie where Maximus is chained up talking to the soldier who betrayed him to Commodus in the beginning. Maximus says “Nothing happens to anyone that he is not fitted by nature to bear.”  Which is.  SUCH.  A Stoic thing to say (and for some last paltry pretense at historical accuracy, Maximus would be SUCH a Stoic) and SUCH A TRAGIC SUB thing to say!!!!  He isn’t fighting the chains, he isn’t fighting what’s about to happen to him, he isn’t angry or indignant or even particularly defiant.  Maximus just nobly endures the things that are done to him in the movie with this sad solemnity that is JUST *chef’s kiss* PERFECT for me rather than cocky defiance or screaming rage. 

 What I want more than anything is a fanfic that completely rewrites Gladiator in a D/S AU - they wouldn’t even have to CHANGE much, they would just have to explicitly put into text the things that are already there.  And it kills me that Gladiator was released way too early to spark a wave of fandom content as I prefer it? 

(it kills me that I can’t grok with most of the Maximus/Commodus content on ao3, even astolat’s.  It just kills me.  I’m starving for something that doesn’t exist and I refuse to write it and I’m DYING HERE FOLKS)

I fully understand.  That this movie is cheesy.  I fully understand that it is almost completely historically inaccurate. I FULLY UNDERSTAND that it is directly responsible for several tiresome trends in Hollywood.  But this movie TURNED A KEY IN MY BRAIN that CANNOT be unturned and you all just have to live with me and my THOUGHTS and that is that on that

#gladiator #russell crowe #my posts #you are responsible forever for what you have tamed #THOTS ON RUSSELL CROWE IN GLADIATOR THERE YA GO #rhaeneystargaryen

[annabethisterrified]

Book Review: THE TYRANT’S TOMB by Rick Riordan (The Trials of Apollo #4)

“Today, one way or another, the fate of New Rome would be decided.”

THERE ARE NO SPOILERS UNTIL YOU GO BELOW THE CUT!

Reeling from the loss of Jason Grace and the mounting danger of his mission to stop the evil emperors ascendance, Apollo (aka Lester) and Meg arrive disheveled and devastated in New Rome...with a coffin in tow. Getting into Camp Jupiter is tricky enough, and once Apollo and Meg get caught up to speed on the chaos that’s been wreaked in the Bay Area, they realize that the impending battle will be the culmination of everything they’ve been fighting for. Reyna, Frank, and Hazel’s leadership roles put them to the ultimate test as they scramble to prepare for their final stand against Caligula and Commodus. Together, Apollo, Meg, and the inhabitants of New Rome must mourn who they’ve already lost while simultaneously gearing up for the inevitable confrontation that will seal the fate of their home once and for all. 

The penultimate installment of The Trials of Apollo picks up on the heels of The Burning Maze’s tragic conclusion. Through Apollo’s perspective, the reality of what went down in the third book continues to weigh heavily upon the whole cast, but most of their focus is forced forward to an incredibly dangerous confrontation slated for the Blood Moon. Loose ends from the Heroes of Olympus series are tied neatly yet surprisingly, and the continued evolution of Apollo and Meg’s bond shines as the book’s true, gleaming heart. Apollo’s own recognition of his past failings, his father’s abusiveness, and the reality of what his humanity has taught him all come to a head, setting up what’s sure to be an impactful fifth and final book-- not just for Apollo’s journey, but as a capstone for what the whole saga’s implications about what it means to be a hero, and to be a human. 

The Tyrant’s Tomb is consistently entertaining and heartfelt, but the final third of the story proves to be the most deftly-crafted and meaningful. Though not as heavy as its previous installment, this fourth book gives plenty of focus on some lovely development from our main protagonist, priming the series for its finale next fall.

If you click below, there will be spoilers. 

Hello? Okay. You promise you’re good for spoilers...?

All right, just because of who I am as a person I guess, I’ve broken this down into like ten sections. Ooof. Generally, I will say that I was super pleased with how this story went. My only disappointment was that I’d hoped for more of a prolonged or “on-screen” unpacking of the effects of Jason’s death on the Camp Jupiter kids, specifically Reyna. However, I get that that’s kind of hard to do through Apollo’s perspective. I wasn’t totally sold on the idea that he sang a song haha, but I’m glad that Jason’s loss wasn’t just addressed at the beginning and then “moved on” from. It was threaded throughout, showing that grief is not something that you can check off a list. This is something that will always stay with these characters, and alter how they live and feel about things. It ebbs and flows. In addition, I think there could’ve been just a bit more action in the first half of the story, but it was never boring or aimless. And the concluding battle was expertly written and soooooo amazing omfg. Still reeling.

Anyway, let’s go.

FRANKLY, I HAVE NOTHING BUT LOVE

I’m so happy we got the chance to see Frank leading Camp Jupiter as praetor! He did such a good job, but also acknowledged that this is still a new role he’s transitioning into. I was so pleasantly surprised at how he managed to be both authoritative and gentle, and it was gut-wrenching to know that he intended to take Caligula down with him. When I imagined the fallout of Jason’s death, I always pictured Reyna being the one to tear down the emperors in revenge, which was why I was so affected by Frank’s commitment to honoring his friend. Not only did he order Jason’s designs to be built in like thirty hours, but he was so ready to avenge Jason that he was fully prepared to die. 

What. An. Arc. I LOVE HIM. I’m glad he’s finally free of his burden, and that he gets to keep doing an epic job as praetor (though hopefully during more future peaceful times). Camp Jupiter’s lucky to have him. 

SHINE ON HAZEL

Words can’t express how infatuated I was with Hazel in this book. She’s always been one of my favorites, but she really shone in this story. She was already so strong and developed at the end of Heroes of Olympus, but this book still brought her out better and smarter than she was before. She cannot be stopped. Hazel’s determination and grit make her formidable, and she definitely proved to be Rome’s greatest asset throughout the entire story. 

I think it’s great that she gets to step up and take on Jason and Reyna’s former role of praetor...alongside Frank, too! I didn’t expect her to react with anger towards Jason once she found out about his death, but it hit me hard. She initially took Jason’s death to be a reflection of the Seven’s failings as a team. Hazel loved how powerful the bond between them all was, and when Jason took on the burden of TBM’s prophecy alone without confiding in anyone, I can totally see why she felt like that was a betrayal. UGH hit me hard.

REYNA REYNA REYNA!

Reyna is just objectively an amazing character. I’m so so so glad we got to revisit her in this story, and loved where she ended up going. Starting this book, I had literally no idea how she would be handled. She’s always been the quintessential strong leader, which is awesome, but I’m glad we got to unpack the implications behind her very...layered...existence. Leaving Puerto Rico in a traumatic situation, going straight to Circe’s Island, escaping as a pirate, carving out her path in New Rome, getting roped into the Titan then Giant War? Damn. She’s been through a lot, and none of it of her own free will.

Like I mentioned earlier, I wish we’d learned more of how she dealt with Jason’s death. They were obviously really close growing up, and though it was clear she was devastated and things were referenced “off-screen”, I still kind of wish we’d gotten a bit more. Regardless, I liked that the focus of her presence in this book was about HERSELF and nobody else. 

And hello!!!!! She has a red truck!!!! and goes out hiking with her greyhounds??? makes me so glad. 

And yeah-- that ending, huh? I know it got mixed reactions. Personally, it felt pretty natural to me. I’m so glad she stayed in touch with Thalia after the events of HoO, and knowing that they’ll be on eternal adventures with a bunch of other wonderful girls....happy sigh. Reyna’s right-- this is kind of a much-needed vacation by joining Artemis’s team. No matter how long or short she stays with them, it’s important that she’s able to reclaim her destiny and figure out what and who she’d like to be. 

APOLLO & MEG

These two!!!!!!!!!!!! Holy shit. Their bond was so well handled and I loved seeing how it developed in this installment. They can communicate on an instinctual level-- they can call each other out, and recognize the abusive patterns both of their fathers have over them. They have so much in common, but also have so much to teach one another. I loved that they were both able to tell each other “I love you” and ughhhh yes the sibling dynamic is so epic. (Also, the whole Reyna and Meg ganging up on Apollo about Koronis bit was hysterical.) (And the “I thought you loved me?” “I’m multitasking.”) 

WHERE TO NEXT?

Just because I haven’t said this yet, but HOLY MOLY I adored Lavinia. Oh my god. She was amazing-- hilarious, presumptuous, go-getter, kind...what a star!!! What a joy to read!

Anyway, now it’s onto the fifth and final installment...THE TOWER OF NERO. I’m so happy that we’re going back to where this story started (in both Hidden Oracle and The Lightning Thief)....New York! And it sounds like also a potential field trip to Delphi, Greece? I’m down!

I’m assuming we’ll be able to tag up with Annabeth, since she’s the only main-player we haven’t yet revisited in ToA. And probably also Percy, Nico, Will, Austin, Kayla, etc. at Camp Half Blood. 

There’s a lot of ways this could all go down, but I think this book set up a heart-wrenching conclusion. I’m looking forward to Apollo and especially Meg standing up to their fathers and claiming their own lives. I’m not even sure if Apollo will want to be returned to godhood by the time his trials are up. We delved into some really interesting threads in this book-- he mentioned several times that he’d only ever felt comfortable and “at home” when he was human. What will that mean for his final trial? 

In either case, this book was fabulous and I’m so glad we got a chance to learn more about Camp Jupiter and New Rome...and I feel like a lot got resolved, so it felt like a satisfying way to say goodbye to the California crew. I doubt they’ll be in the last book, so it was bittersweet but fitting to leave them as we did!

Now, we wait. One last time! Thanks for reading this if you made it all the way down, haha!

#review #tyrant's tomb #the trials of apollo #rick riordan #toa spoilers

[ashis2gay4u]

A Different Kind of Magic For My Poor Heart

Prompt: Write about how magic is the norm. Some excel at it, some are only okay, and others are against it completely, despite being able to use it. Your main character is the latter.

A/N: I used SAGA instead of LGBTQ+ due to the fact that I once saw a post referring to how it should be the official name instead of LGBTQ+ due to the fact that it's all inclusive, and I personally loved the idea.

Nico di Angelo glared at his reflection, staring himself down. He noticed how his black eyes flitted across the mirror, taking in every little imperfection of his face.

He noticed the bags under his eyes, his extremely pale skin with majorly contrasting freckles, the way his chapped lips looked too feminine for his liking, how his eyes were such a dark brown they were almost black, and not to mention all the scars lining his bare chest and shoulders, the long-lasting bruise around his neck like a choker he can never seem to get rid of or cover up.

A hard knock at his door had him spinning around, quickly putting on his black Punisher t-shirt, pulling his black Joker themed beanie tighter over his long black hair before grabbing and  adjusting his leather jacket.

He opened the door, gripping the strap of his Three Days Grace satchel tightly in one hand as he beamed at his crush, Percy Jackson.

"Hey, dude! You ready for our magical adventure?" Percy asked, his sea green eyes brimming with excitement.

Nico inwardly cringed at the word "magical". He hated magic, especially his own. He felt uncomfortable whenever his friends used their powers, even when Percy did.

Magic was a common thing in this world, but at the time and age he came from, it was looked down upon to use it in public. He still wasn't used to this time and age, his mind was still stuck in that time when magic users, people of color, and people of the SAGA community were all shunned and abused and used.

Nico nodded, exiting his cabin into the cold fall air, pulling his fingerless gloves tighter, hoping to cover more of his slightly exposed wrists.

Camp Half-Blood was a summer and year round camp for "disturbed" children and teenagers, according to the flyers and advertisements. In reality, it was a camp built to help young children and teens learn to better control their powers.

When he was ten, Percy and his best friend Annabeth had found him and his older sister Bianca and brought them here. Bianca instantly jumped on the train, and ended up abandoning him to join an all girls camp. He hated her for it for a while, but then he learned to accept it all.

Except for the fact that he was forced to use his magic everyday in order to keep himself from becoming homeless. That was the only downside.

He shuddered when he remembered how hard it was to survive without using his magic when he had ran away from camp.

He followed Percy to the borders of camp, where Argus, a mute man who has the magical ability to see everything around him, was waiting for them by the camp van.

He nodded at them, and Percy nodded back. Nico felt like a hundred eyes were staring down at him in disapproval, and due to Argus' nickname being the "Hundred Eyed Man" among campers, he wouldn't be surprised if it was the man himself.

He climbed into the back of the van next to Percy, only to have a pair of thin yet strong arms wrap around his neck.

"BABY BAT WINGS!" an excited voice shouted in his ear.

Nico rolled his eyes, "Shut it, Repair Boy," he said, turning to glare at one of his best friends, Leo Valdez.

He noticed that the others were already there, and Nico glared at Jason Grace, who was wiggling his eyebrows at him.

"Awee, but Neeeeeekssss~!" Leo whined, earning a light slap from Jason's girlfriend, Piper McLean.

"Leo, leave the poor boy alone. Look at him, he has depression!"

Okay, low-blow, McLean.

He groaned and sunk further into his seat, clutching his satchel to his chest.

Finally, the door to the front opened, and in a second, one Annabeth Chase became visible.

Nico hated her power most of all. Invisibility, one of the most hated magical abilities from his time period. It was most common among thieves and murderers back then. Worst part is, it's all of both Athena cabin and Hermes cabin that have the ability, and they're both filled with people most likely capable of committing these crimes.

He doesn't like Jason's or Piper's either. He doesn't mind Leo's and Percy's. It still bothers him, but as he knew Leo before camp- he met him when they had both ran away from their respective homes at the same time-, and he has a crush on Percy, it doesn't bother him as much.

But Annabeth... He didn't like her much. She was always nice to him, but he could tell she liked Percy too, and he disliked her for it, because although Percy may be bi, he tended to lean more towards girls than guys.

Not to mention, he knew she could murder him in seconds if she wanted to, so there was also that.

Nico huffed as Annabeth signed to Argus effortlessly, and he responded just as easily.

Miss Perfect, Percy's little Wise Girl.

He put his bag down at his feet and managed to pull his knees up to his chest, earning a strange look from Percy.

He smiled at him, a small smile, but a smile nonetheless, and Percy smiled back so warmly and brightly Nico swore he was from the Apollo cabin, with magical abilities as bright and pure yet dangerous as the sun.

Nico flinched and blushed a deep red when Percy swung his arm over his shoulders. Whether the older boy noticed or not, he didn't say. Nico had to fight the urge to snuggle up against him.

Lo and behold, he didn't have to hold back for long, because Leo- who knew about his crush on the water-bender- decided to be a very unwanted wing-man and climbed to the middle seats where he and Percy sat and sat down next to Nico, pushing him against Percy's side regardless of what his pride and dignity demanded of him.

He could feel Annabeth's grey eyes watching him from the rear-view mirror, and instantly cursed every single god he could think of for this cursed fate.

This... Was going to be one long-ass field trip.

~

Nico huffed as he face planted onto the bed of the hotel room in New Rome, the camp on the opposite side of the US.

He still didn't know who he was bunking with, because as soon as he saw the key-cards he grabbed one and ran, dragging his bag behind him.

He sat up and turned to face the opening door, only for his face to drain of color.

"No, you can not be my bed-mate!" Nico cried, glaring Percy down.

Percy looked taken aback, "But... Leo is staying with Frank and Hazel, Annabeth is staying with Reyna, and Jason is bunking with Piper. I've got nobody else to bunk with, and we only booked four rooms..."

"Who the fuck authorized that?" he demanded.

"Jason did?" Percy said, although it sounded more like a question.

"DAMMIT! I KNEW I SHOULDN'T HAVE COME HERE!"

"...Am I that horrible?"

Nico's head shot up at the cold, angry voice Percy was using. He's never used it on Nico or Grover, but he's directed it at everybody else, including Annabeth, at least once.

"What?" he asked, confused.

Percy's hands shook slightly, and Nico knew if he got anymore angry than he was, toilets and sinks and tubs would start exploding and flooding the place.

"Am I that horrible that the mere idea of me sharing a bed with you makes you wish you never came along? Do you actually hate me that bad? Do I make your skin crawl because I'm not afraid to use my magic? Is that it?"

"N-no-"

"Then what the fuck is it, Nico?!"

There went the sink, two more to go before instant flooding of the hotel room.

"I-I-"

"You, you? You what, Nico?"

The toilet exploded then. One more before doomsday.

So, naturally, Nico lost his shit, and went crazy-mad first.

"I DON'T WANT TO SHARE A ROOM WITH YOU BECAUSE I LIKE YOU, YOU STUPID MERMAID!" Nico finally snapped, wanting to get away. He could feel his own magic run rampant, the room temperature dropping to below freezing, shadows clawing at his clothes and the walls. He could feel the skeletons trying to break free from the ground, trying to come to him.

Percy froze, before making his way over to the bed.

Nico cowered, and put a hand out. Shadows shot from his palms, wrapping themselves around Percy's legs and knocking him down, "S-stay away. I-I know I-I'm disgusting. You like Annabeth, obviously, you always tended to favor her over me before. Sure, you've been really nice lately, but... You always fall back to her and Grover, a-and-"

He let out a hiccup, wiping at the tears he didn't even realize until now he had been shedding, and retracted his hands, the shadows retreating back into his body like clockwork.

The sink and toilet stopped flowing as Percy just sat there, sprawled on the ground still, staring up at Nico, who was now full-on sobbing.

"A-an' I know you don't want a... A pathetic k-kid like me... Somebody w-ho d-doesn't even like magic... And... I just wish you'd l-leave me alone because all I w-want is you but I can't have you and..."

Nico let out a light gasp as he was pulled against a warm, well-built chest.

Percy's chest.

'He smells like the ocean...' Nico thought, feeling all the strength he had leave his body.

He broke down, majorly. Wailing and all.

"Hey, hey... It's okay, Neeks... Come on, look at me..." Percy mumbled softly, rubbing soothing circles into Nico's back.

Nico let out a small sob, and managed to force himself to look up at Percy, who was looking at him with concern.

Great, now you're a charity case.

"W...Why are you still here...?" he asked in a small voice, trying to keep himself from falling victim to a panic attack.

"Because, Ghost King, I like you too," Percy replied, smiling softly.

Nico stared at him in utter shock, mouth opening and closing like a fish.

"I didn't tell you because I wasn't sure you liked me back, not to mention I'm older than you by three years, and..."

"You... No... I... What...?"

"Awe, I broke your poor little brain," Percy teased, and Nico let out a small laugh.

"In your dreams, Seaweed Brain."

"Hey, only Annabeth can call me that."

Nico instantly soured. "Sorry," he spat, "Mermaid-Man."

Percy's face instantly turned into one of apology, "I'm sorry, I-"

Nico laughed, "Now look who got fucked over! HA!"

"You little fuckin'-" He was suddenly cut off by Nico, who had pressed his lips against Percy's in a short, gentle kiss.

He was satisfied by the fact that when he pulled away, Percy was blushing madly.

"So ah... What now?" he asked sheepishly, and Nico grinned.

"One, be my boyfriend. Two... Go on a date with me?"

Percy nodded, "YES!" he shouted, only to seemingly mentally reel himself back in and say, "I-I mean, ah, yes, that sounds lovely."

Nico laughed again, smiling brightly as he wiped away the rest of his tears, "Great, let's go."

"Now?"

"Right now, yes. There's still daylight."

Percy smiled back, nodding as he stood up, helping the other boy to his feet as well.

He didn't let go of Nico's hand afterwards.

They went off, laughing and smiling and exchanging sweet kisses.

Nico may not like magic, but he enjoys how magical the trip turned out to be, he enjoyed how magical the sparks of each kiss he shared with Percy felt, and how magical the tingling of his fingers entwined with the older boy's felt.

He may not like the magic he's accustomed to, but the magic of Percy's hand in his, of knowing Percy is his, makes him hate magic a little less.

Just a little.

{La Fin}

~Ashton Bende

#heroes of olympus #percico #nicercy #percy jackson #nico di angelo #magic!au

[plenoptic07]

Because the WORLD is saved ❤️

volpe puts the WHOLE WORLD at stake

It was only Ezio who got the satisfyingly dramatic conclusion to the saga of Cesare Borgia’s reign of terror. While he got to enjoy tossing Cesare off the walls of a fortress, Machiavelli got paperwork, and paperwork, and then an added helping of, yes, more paperwork. For nearly two weeks after the news of Cesare’s death made it to Rome, all Machiavelli did was write, fielding not only the startled inquiries of the brotherhood and their allies but also frantically penning dispatches back to the Signoria in Florence, advising about their next course of action. Paradoxically, Cesare’s death weakened the Templar Order and strengthened the position of the Papal States, whose newest pope, one Giuliano della Rovere, could sleep easy in his bed for the first time in over a decade. That meant that his sharp mind could turn from worrying about Cesare’s knife in his back to the knives he himself could put in the backs of others. Excellent news for della Rovere. Bad news for Florence.

While Ezio took his sweet time sauntering back from Vianna, savoring his victory—and even Machiavelli would begrudgingly admit that he’d earned it—Machiavelli found himself in the unenviable position of keeping the rest of Italy on course without compromising either Florence or the brotherhood’s interests.  He was tired beyond tired of those interests butting heads, tired of straddling Rome and Florence and simultaneously trying to keep Ezio from burning the whole country down and also trying to appease the Signoria and the Ten of War, whose expectations of him were fast outstripping what was commensurate of any single man’s abilities (to say nothing of his paycheck).

“Settle our relationship to the papacy, Machia,” he muttered to himself, scathingly. “Make gestures of friendship to France, Machia. Oh, and there is the matter of the Milanese and the Romagna and Venetians all slavering over our territories, and of course Pisa is in open rebellion, again, and while you’re at it, Florence still lacks a standing army, Machia!”

Machiavelli paused midway through a letter to his senior, Marcello Adriani, tapping his pen against the paper and leaving behind a great blot of ink over a particularly inventive curse he’d been using to describe a “collaborator who prefers to remain anonymous” (read: Ezio). It was time Florence had an armed citizenry. Long past time, in fact. That lack had nearly been the death of the republic when French arms swept through Florence in 1494, back when Machiavelli had been young and without office and powerless to affect any kind of meaningful change in the city he loved. But that was no longer the case. Cesare was gone, the Borgia court dismantled, which meant Rome was no longer any of his concern. And if the Signoria tried to send him back to the holy city, God help them all.

The hideout’s door suddenly banged open, and Machiavelli jumped, spilling a container of ink all over his dispatch. He was still swearing when la Volpe came charging down the stairs, his dark eyes wide and bright and his face split into a wide smile.

“Cesare Borgia is dead!” he announced, coming to a halt in front of Machiavelli’s desk, and threw his arms in the air.

Machiavelli stared at him. After a lengthy pause, he frowned and said, “Are you drunk?”

“Entirely sober! Borgia really is gone! Ezio killed him in Vianna—threw him off a bridge!”

“It was the wall of a fortress, actually. And it was two weeks ago.”

Volpe’s smile faltered. “What?”

“I said it was two weeks ago.” Machiavelli dropped his ruined dispatch into the bin beneath his desk and pulled a fresh sheaf of paper close. He rummaged in his desk for a fresh container of ink.

“That’s…” Volpe lowered himself into the chair across the desk, his mouth agape. “Two weeks ago? How am I just now learning of it, then?”

“I don’t know, Gilberto,” Machiavelli said, his tone sarcastic and biting, “perhaps you should attempt to report to the hideout more often, or, dare I say it, even stay in one place long enough that any of my previous twenty letters might have reached you.”

“Two weeks,” Volpe repeated again, his voice faint. “Christ. Where’s Ezio?”

“He hasn’t yet returned. I had a letter from him a few days ago assuring me that he is, in fact, returning.”

“Was that in doubt?”

“It’s Ezio,” Machiavelli said, as if that explained all, and really, it did. He uncapped the ink and saturated his pen, then began rewriting his letter to Marcello.

La Volpe pushed his hood back and ran a hand through his hair. It was beginning to grey at the roots, Machiavelli observed, and he found that surprised him a little. “What have you been doing?”

“Offering my custodial services to the whole of Italia,” Machiavelli muttered. When Volpe stared at him, puzzled, he sighed and waved a hand. “Cleaning up Ezio’s mess.”

“Mess? What mess? A tyrant who plagued all of Italy is finally slain! Why are people not celebrating in the streets?”

“Because as fast as one tyrant falls, five rise up to replace him.” Machiavelli flipped his page over and shook out his hand before taking up the pen again.

“Perhaps as far as the rest of the world is concerned. Will you stop writing for a minute?” Volpe demanded, and reached across the desk to grasp Machiavelli’s wrist. Machiavelli snapped his head up, glaring, and Volpe sighed. “We’ve finally killed the most powerful man in the Templar Order. They’re reeling. We’ve secured the Apple of Eden. We saved the world, Niccolò.”

“We ended the tyranny of an ex-cardinal who failed to mind his pen and pocketbook as well as he minded his sword,” Machiavelli said flatly. “And all manner of princes both just and cruel scramble over one another to occupy his petty throne. Shall we drunkenly celebrate our minor victory while those snakes slither in the dark?”

Volpe smiled, and it was a bitter thing, and sad. “You’ll drive yourself to madness, amico, if you don’t learn to savor even those minor victories.”

Machiavelli snorted and bent back over his dispatch. “I envy you the luxury of your time, Gilberto, but some of us have republics to defend.”

Volpe was quiet for a long moment—and then he lunged forward, seized the letter, and darted to the other side of the room with it held high over his head. Machiavelli stared at him, open-mouthed, pen still poised to jot the next word.

“What are you doing?”

Volpe took a step backward, toward the fireplace at the other side of the room. Machiavelli twitched. “Nothing.”

“Don’t you dare. You’ve already made me restart once.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Volpe said, and took another step toward the fire.

Machiavelli got to his feet. “Gilberto.”

“Niccolò?”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“I have neither the time nor the patience for your childishness. Give it back.”

Volpe was at the fireplace now. He held the letter toward its yawning stony mouth, his eyebrows arched. “Give what back?”

Machiavelli circled his desk, growling. “God damn it, Gilberto, stop teasing.”

“Come here then, and take it from me, if you want it so badly.”

Volpe’s hand threatened toward the fire, and Machiavelli lunged at him. He should have known better than to think he’d be successful in snatching it from the finest thief Italy had ever known, but Machiavelli was nothing if not ambitious. Volpe flicked it out of his reach as easily as a parent might deny a child a treat, and then the thief’s other arm was around his waist, pulling him in close, and Volpe’s mouth was on his. Machiavelli drew up short, startled both by the suddenness of the kiss and by its intensity. Volpe’s other hand—God only knew where he’d put down the missive, probably down the back of his hose, with Machiavelli’s luck—wound tight in his hair, cradled the nape of his neck.

Volpe drew back, smiling into Machiavelli’s stunned expression, and then leaned forward to kiss his slack mouth again. There was such heat in that kiss, so unapologetic, and Machiavelli felt it like a current that travelled from his lips to his toes. He surprised even himself when he leaned into it, seizing handfuls of Volpe’s cloak and pulling him closer, and when Volpe’s lips parted around a soft, pleased note of surprise, Machiavelli swept his tongue into the older man’s mouth.

Volpe grabbed him and turned him around, pressing him against the nearest wall, and Machiavelli let him, growling and tangling his hands in the thief’s hair to tug him down for a kiss that turned rough, almost brutal. Volpe’s mouth was slick and warm, and Machiavelli plundered it with a hunger that surprised even him. When they parted, breathless, panting wetly, Volpe’s eyes were wild and that mouth was grinning. Machiavelli groaned and leaned close, bit gently at the thief’s lower lip.

“Why now?” he murmured, and gathered Volpe’s hair in his hand, tipped the thief’s head back. Volpe let him, and Machiavelli leaned in to caress the older man’s racing pulse with his mouth. “After all this time?”

Volpe chucked, throat vibrating against Machiavelli’s tongue. “Would you have let me kiss you while Cesare Borgia still drew breath?”

“No,” Machiavelli admitted. “But God, the time he’s stolen from us.”

“We have time yet.” Volpe cupped Machiavelli’s face in his hands and tilted his chin up, brought him close for a kiss that was very nearly tender. “Perhaps all the time in the world—which we saved, by the way, in case you’d forgotten.”

“For a moment,” Machiavelli reminded him.

The kiss Volpe placed against his mouth was sharp and full of promise. The thief’s dark eyes glittered as they drew apart to gaze at one another. “Then the moment is ours,” Volpe murmured, and the press of their mouths was so delicious and so intoxicating that Machiavelli almost believed him.

#volpelli #kiss prompt

[metvmorqhoses]

i just came across your blog from your amazing art taste. how did you come to get into such classical striking styles? from your love of donna tartt i assume it carried through to other art forms. what are some of your favourite artists or themes (could be visual, musical, literary etc)?

first of all, thank you from the bottom of my heart because this ask really made my day, you’re a sweetheart.

actually, i think if i have to track down a literary origin point for my art taste (even if it’s not entirely true it all originated in that specific way, it’s truer to state i was born with it, i would roam around the louvre or versailles at six and already feel so in awe and in my element, or i would arrive in rome at nine and feel home), but the real turning point of my artistic taste was the art for art’s sake movement, walter pater and oscar wilde. only ten years later i discovered donna tartt, and i had already graduated from my classics high school and in general studied the classics for ten years - yes, donna tartt added a great deal of beauty in my life, but i was already completely part of that world, so to speak.

it’s so difficult to list all the artists, and styles, and in general all the beauty that daily inspires my life, the right answer would be, “everything that strikes me within and that i find beautiful”, and that can be literally anything, but i can try, for art’s sake :)

art genres and movements:

mythology, classicism, neoclassicism, medioeval art, romanticism, gothic, surrealism, baroque, high renaissance art, impressionism, pop-art, street art, urban art, and photorealism.

aesthetics:

dark magic, classicism, dark and soft mythology, dark academia, pretentiousness and dandyism

authors:

sophocles, euripides, sappho, homer, ovid, oprheus, plato, saint john, catullus, seneca, lucanus, héloïse, petrarch, dante, boccaccio, machiavelli, kyd, marlowe, shakespeare, keats, hölderlin, goethe, byron, mary shelley, shelley, the bronte sisters, walter pater, oscar wilde, baudelaire, de saint-exupéry, hugo, dumas, woolf, joyce, d’annunzio, ungaretti, montale, quasimodo, lewis, talkien, fizgerald, pessoa, saramago, kundera, nietzsche, tartt, pullman, rowling, carey, weis, hickman, bulgakov, nabokov, rushdie, salinger, colli, baricco, pirandello, calasso, kerenyi, proust, my dead poets and, obviously, myself.

books:

the greek myths, the poetic edda, the orphic hymns, the bacchae, iphigenia in aulis, the iliad, the metamorphosis, the letters of abelard and héloïse, the divine comedy, the prince, the spanish tragedy, tamerlaine the great, marlowe’s doctror fausts and goethe’s doctor faustus, macbeth, romeo and juliet, the tempest, a midsummer night’s dream, julius caesar, the modern prometeous, jane eyre, wuthering heights, walter pater’s the reinassaince, the picture of dorian gray, the profundis, the importance of being earnest, the flowers of evil, the little prince, la esmeralda, the count of montecristo, the three musketeers, mr dallaway, the waves, orlando, paradise lost, the dubliners, the pleasure, the chronicles of narnia, the lord of the rings, the silmarillion, the great gatsby, the book of disquiet, blindness, the unbearable lightness of being, the greek tragedy, thus spoke zarathustra, his dark materials, harry potter, the kushiel’s legacy, the dragonlance saga, the secret history, the goldfinch, the little friend, the name of the rose, lolita, the master and margarita, the satanic verses, the greek sapience, oceansea, silk, remembrance of things past, the wedding of cadmus and armonia, the catcher in the rye, the elegance of the hedgehog, dracula, the phantom of the opera, elective affinities, the sorrows of young werther, venus in furs.

painters, sculptors and artists:

caravaggio, botticelli, da vinci, michelangelo, canova, dalì, klimt (who is my absolute favorite), fontana, de chirico, marina abramovich, waterhouse, dicksee.

directors:

lars von trier, baz luhrmann, wes anderson, michael gondry, the wachowski sisters, sorrentino.

movies:

only lovers left alive, her, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, mood indigo, nymphomaniac, dogville, manderlay, melancholia, antichrist, breaking the waves, moulin rouge!, the great gatsby, birdman, beginners, as good as it gets, trainspotting, fight club, amelie, breakfast at tyffany’s, submarine, seeking a friend for the end of the world, frank, american beauty, dead poets society, kill your darlings, the book thief, the importance of being earnest, joan of arc, elizabeth: the golden age, the name of the rose, the best offer, the great beauty, the trials of oscar wilde, the hours, the phantom of the opera, the mask of zorro, thelma, gone with the wind, troy, la haine, orlando, lord of the rings, dragonheart, ladyhawke, interview with the vampire, bram stocker’s dracula, last tango in paris, dangerous liasons, this beautiful fantastic, the dreamers, band a part.

tv series:

sherlock, the young pope, penny dreadful, sense8, kidding, westworld, peaky blinders, the man in the high castle, genius, the tudors, versailles, vikings, the 100, the handmaid’s tale, poldark, outlander, game of thrones, da vinci’s demons, dracula, the originals, the count of montecristo.

musicals:

the phantom of the opera, love never dies, notredame de paris, the lion king, les miserables, anastasia, le moulin rouge,

music:

leonard cohen, medieval organ music, tom waits, lana del rey, helsey, lou reed, bright eyes, all disney honestly, chopin, laura marling, natalie merchant, bjork, roberto vecchioni, the phantom of the opera: 25th anniversary soundtrack, love never dies: london soundtrack, fabrizio de andrè, nick cave, placebo, kamelot, adele, 30 seconds to mars, elton john, ramazzotti, bocelli, evanescence, zucchero, sinatra, garbage, hans zimmer, jeff buckley, david bowie, mina, pink floyd, mumford & sons, oasis, nostalghia, queen, notre-dame the paris italian soundtrack, sia, the cure, the phantom of the opera italian sound track, lucifer’s sound track, U2, wagner.

those are just a few off the top of my head, but i’m sure i forgot thousands. hope you’ll enjoy them tho, and being inspired by them as i am!

#dark academia #cinema #books #lit #books recs #movies recs #donna tartt #oscar wilde #leonard cohen #asks/replies #one and one thousands stories lis told #about me #my aesthetic #happy tag #lovely ppl

[fabien-euskadi]

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1. if someone wanted to really understand you, what would they read, watch, and listen to?

(I am going to copy/paste this one from another reply)

To Read: “Swords I and IX”. If you are going to read something that allows you to understand me, you should read something that I write/wrote (ignore my journalist phase, please). Sadly, I suspect I will die long before the first volume of my saga is finished - being so, I shall die unread and misunderstood, although that perfectly matches what my life has been so far.

To Listen: “Forever Love” (X Japan). There are zillions of versions of this incredibly sad song, but all of them capture my current state of mind -brokenhearted and extremely sad.

To watch: “Branca de Neve”. It’s a Portuguese movie (oh, boy!) directed by a pretentious lunatic called João César Monteiro; no, I haven’t watched it - technically, you can’t do it… and, oh dear, this thing is boring, catastrophically boring… and morally dubious, considering that taxpayers money was used to produce this… um, this film. But this “Snow White” (that’s what “Branca de Neve” means, by the way) has attitude in spades - it’s, most of all, a manifest, a message to the World: “Eat a bag of dicks, suckers”. I couldn’t agree more.

2. have you ever found a writer who thinks just like you? if so, who?

Sadly, not. That's why I felt the need to create my own literature... but that was long before my mental breakdown/severe depression. Now, I ca no longer write and I am started to feel trapped inside my mind - and that's the last place where I would want to be right now.

7. do you care about your ethnicity?

Considering that I am a white European dude, that makes very little sense. Specially when you realize what that means in therms of human migrations. That’s a very USA-centered concept - actually, a very suburban-middle-America concept made to create artificial categories where people like to fit in. Oddly enough, other parts of the globe are also importing that concept that, to be brutally honest, is not only flawed, but also biased - it’s a concept used by European white dudes to prove they are the norm and everything else are minorities. 

15. five most influential books over your lifetime.

- "Wuthering Heights" (Emily Brontë). It made me want to be a writer - it gave a meaning to my life for a while, before I annihilated every single possibility of having a meaningful life.

- "The Maias" (Eça de Queiroz). The quality of the prose of this Portuguese masterpiece is simply outstanding. This is the book that set the bar really high in therms of quality of writing. Eça's prose is, theoretically, unmatchable.

- "Masters of Rome" (Colleen McCullough). I know this is a saga and not a single book. But, for me, it was deeply influential in many, many ways.

- "The Old Man Who Read Love Stories" (Luís Sepulveda). Back in 2014, this one hit me really hard. Maybe, it was then that I really started to feel like an old man in a no man's land - an old man that was condemned to never die by the ants (those who read this novel will understand the reference).

- "Blindness" (José Saramago). This one has everything to do with the times we are living. But if you haven't read this one, please, don't do it until the end of this COVID-19 pandemic - otherwise, you shall feel suicidal. But if you already read this novel, you will remember parts of it quite often nowadays.

17. would you say your tumblr is a fair representation of the “real you”?

It's more like a sketch of a very complex human being. Many parts of my life are omitted and that's the way I want it to be. The book of my life is not a good novel to read and I fear the end will be rather tragic.

Thank you - and, please, stay safe:)

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

What if Star Wars had tanked?

May 1977, 20th Century Fox distributes a really WEIRD movie.  It’s a science fiction fantasy story about medieval knight samurais in space with laser swords and fighter pilots.  Nobody expected it to be a hit, it seemed to be such a niche movie, one that would garner a small cult following then be swept under the rug by the other summer tent poles like “Smokey and the Bandit” or “The Spy Who Loved Me.”  To everyone’s surprise, it became an instant success, rocketing no name George Lucas from a no-name bush-league indie director into the echelon of A-list Blockbusters.  His idea for a decade spanning six part saga (two sequels, three prequels) was greenlit then and there, and the budget for Star Wars 2, now called Star Wars 5, was double what he was given for the original.  Star Wars 1, nor 4, was given the subtitle “A New Hope” to let audiences know it was just the beginning of a series, and the rest is history.

But in 1977, George Lucas was not as confident in his vision as he would soon become.  He figured, as every producer did, that his film would be a flash in the pan genre piece, something that would play in theaters just long enough to make it’s budget back, then disappear into obscurity.  In 1976, he planned for the worst.

Star Wars, like many other films of the day, was being given a novelization.  Before home media became ubiquitous, the only way people could experience the film was to see it in theaters or buy the book version.  Lucas hired a ghostwriter, Alan Dean Foster, to write the novelization of Star Wars 1, AND to create a tentative Star Wars 2 that could be adapted to the screen if the original film failed to meet his high expectations.  Star Wars 2, titled “Splinter of the Minds Eye,” was written to be as low budget as possible; no big set pieces, and for that matter no big sets.  Every scene had to take place in a set that the studio already owned, and couldn’t include any major space battles because there was no guarantee that the special effects would fit into the budget.  On top of that, it meant that none of the characters played by big name actors would be included; no Harrison Ford, no Alec Guinness.  Splinter was a bare bones story set entirely on what would essentially become Dagobah, and would have taken the franchise in an entirely different direction.  None of the story elements from Lucas’ dream sequel were included, and none of the plot twists either; there is no connection between “Splinter of the Mind’s Eye” and “Empire Strikes Back,” and in fact, once Empire was released, Splinter was relegated to secondary canon because the official sequel had overidden it so the story no longer made sense.

But if Star Wars 1 had flopped, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye would have been made into the official sequel, and the story would have had to pick up where it left off; Lucas didn’t plot out a low budget version of Star Wars 3, so we can only speculate as to what may have happened.

In Splinter, Luke and Leia are going on a diplomatic mission to convince some neutral star systems to join the rebellion.  Their ship crash lands on a backwater swamp planet (called Mimban, a name eventually used for the World War I trench planet in the Disney movie Solo), which is roughly analogous to the Dagobah we saw in Empire.  Stranded on the swamp planet, Luke and Leia find their way to an imperial mining colony, get into a scuffle, and escape with the help of a Jedi witch named Halla.  The titular “splinter of the mind’s eye” is a broken fragment of a magical crystal, because this was the 1970s and crystals were a big thing in fantasy (the splinter was called the kaiburr crystal; this name would later be re-purposed in canon as the crystals used for lightsaber and Death Star laser construction).  The splinter is said to focus the force, allowing the wielder to become more powerful or something; it’s a MacGuffin, the book is vague as to what it actually physically does.  After a confrontation with locals, and a duel with none other than Darth Vader (in which Leia wields a lightsaber and Luke cuts off Vader’s whole arm), Halla takes over the role of Luke’s mentor to train him in the ways of the Force.

At this point in the series, Luke and Leia were never intended to be brother and sister.  It was clearly supposed to be a chivalric romance between a knight errant and his courtly love.  He is the royal bodyguard to the Queen of Alderaan (the entire Royal Family was destroyed in Star Wars 1, so Princess Leia should by all rights have been coronated as Queen Leia).  George Lucas added the twist that they were brother and sister well into production of Empire; in fact, in Empire he shot two scenes of Leia kissing Luke (one was to make Han jealous, the other was near the end, right after she rescued Luke from cloud city; I’m glad they cut the second one, because it undermines the fact that she literally just told Han that she loves him).  Han Solo himself is mentioned in passing, not even by name, just as some pirate Luke used to know who took his reward money from the first movie and went to pay off some debts.  If this movie had been made instead of Empire, there’s no guarantee that a Star Wars 3 would even be greenlit.

But if it had been, here’s what would have happened.

Darth Vader is not Luke’s father in this version; that too was a twist Lucas invented after the series took off.  So, in this version of Star wars 3, which I will call “Revenge of the Jedi,” Luke goes on a quest to slay the evil Emperor.  It’s a fantasy movie, in any other setting the point of the franchise would be to kill the main bad guy; imagine if Lord of the Rings had ended without the heroes destroying the ring and defeating Sauron, that would have made no sense.  In this version of the story, Darth Vader is just the archetypal Black Knight; tying back into the Japanese influence on the series, he is an evil Shogun, appointed by the Emperor to be the military dictator.  There would be more emphasis on fight choreography in this version, drawing influence from the works of Akira Kurosawa.  The word Jedi comes from the word for the Japanese film genre Jidaigeki, meaning ‘period piece,’ featuring samuri and ronin (for western audiences, “Ronin” are nomadic heroes, like Clint Eastwood’s man with no name, or the Road Warrior).

Revenge of the Jedi would end with a climactic fight scene in the Emperor’s palace, with Luke battling his way through the many levels, defeating wave after wave of imperial soldiers and those red guards fans love to care about even though they do literally nothing on screen.  The prequels we got in canon were bogged down with boring politics about trade federations and unions and guilds and alliances, but politics can be interesting if done well (and written by someone who isn’t George Lucas; the original trilogy we got was good DESPITE him, not BECAUSE of him).  Revenge of the Jedi would see Leia building an army, the rebellion becoming an actual superpower in the galaxy; the New Republic wouldn’t just be restored after the Empire was defeated, it would be restored during the war with the express intent of rallying neutral systems behind an actual government body against the Emperor.

Darth Vader betrayed and murdered Luke’s father, but more importantly he committed genocide against Leia’s people, the survivors of which now live in diaspora.  Sound familiar?  “The Rebellion” isn’t a great name, but “the Alliance” is perfect because it evokes the Allies of World War II and shows that it is a galaxy-wide phenomena, not just a single splinter cell as depicted in the films in our timeline.  Luke wants to avenge his father, but if you’re insistent that the good guy isn’t allowed to kill the bad guy, you could have Vader go out the way he did in “Return of the Jedi,” turning back to the light side and sacrificing his life to kill the Emperor.  Everyone loves a redemption story, but Darth Vader really was a piece of shit and didn’t deserve to just get a free pass into Jedi Ghost Heaven because he decided to stop being evil five minutes before he died.

Maybe in this version of Star Wars 3, Harrison Ford returns for a cameo as a favor to George Lucas.  If so, he dies; Ford wanted Han to die in “Return of the Jedi,” and only agreed to do “The Force Awakens” if they finally killed him off then.  If he returns for “Star Wars 3: Revenge of the Jedi,” he will sacrifice himself for the Alliance, going out as a hero.  After the Emperor is defeated, the threat doesn’t just go away; suddenly there’s a power vacuum, with all the admirals and regional governor’s vying to replace him.  In both pre- and post-Disney Star Wars, the Emperor had a son (Triclops in Legends continuity, and Rey’s dad in Canon), so he would be heir to his father’s throne; perhaps he is propped up as a puppet for the military leaders, or maybe he surrenders to the Alliance and allows his Empire to be balkanized into dozens of independent powers, as with the fall of every great Empire; Rome (East and West), Mongolia, China, Austria-Hungary, Britain, the USSR, the list goes on.

This Star Wars trilogy would not be the enormous franchise we know today, it would still be a very niche series with a cult following.  It would be a step up from the Planet of the Apes series; sure, people have heard of it, and there have been attempts to revive it in the modern day, but it’s not even close to being a tent pole of the modern cultural zeitgeist.  Nobody looks forward to the new Planet of the Apes movie every year, it’s not a multi-billion dollar multi-media enterprise, there’s no dedicated “Planet of the Apes Celebration,” no cartoons, no streaming service shows that everyone geeks out about online, no triple-a video games, nothing.  This version of Star Wars would be just another weird artifact of the 1970s.  Maybe there would be a push to release a sequel, Star Wars 4, in like 2007, but that would be closer to Rambo IV or Superman Returns or Tron Legacy.

There are dedicated fans, but it’s not the biggest movie of the year.

Star Wars (1977)

Star Wars 2: Splinter of the Mind’s Eye (1979)

Star Wars 3: Revenge of the Jedi (1982)

Star Wars: Journal of the Whills (2011, a prequel set during the Clone Wars mentioned in the first movie)

#star wars #star wars 1 #star wars 2 #star wars 3 #a new hope #the empire strikes back #return of the jedi #splinter of the mind's eye #revenge of the jedi #star wars series #star wars franchise #star wars expanded universe #expanded universe #canon #legends #star wars legends #disney #lucasfilm #original trilogy #fanon #fan fiction