#I suspect most people look at the casting as ‘it would be weird to see the twins as lovers’

[wilwheaton]

When you watch The Curse, you are watching two children who were abused and exploited daily during production. No adults protected us.

This was originally published on my blog in August, 2022.

I had a wonderful time at Steel City Comicon this weekend. It was my first time at this particular con, so I didn’t know there was such a huge contingent of horror fans, creators, and vendors who attend.

I love horror, and I was pretty psyched to be in the same place as John Carpenter and Tom Savini, across the street from the Dawn of the Dead mall. Pittsburgh feels like one of the places horror was invented, at least to me.

A number of these horror fans came to see me, and asked me to sign posters and other things from a movie my parents forced me to do when I was 13, called The Curse. I had to tell each of these people that I would not sign anything associated with that movie, because I was abused and exploited during production. The time I spent on that film remains the most traumatizing time of my life, and though I am a 50 year-old man, just typing this now makes my hands shake with remembered fear of a 13 year-old boy who nobody protected, and the absolute fury the 50 year-old man feels toward the people who hurt him.

I told this story in Still Just A Geek, and I’ve talked about it in some podcasts I did on the promo tour, but I’ve never put it out in public like this, in its entirety.

I suspect someone at the publisher would prefer I tease this and hope it drives book sales from people who want to read all of it, but I honestly don’t want to have another weekend like this one where everything is awesome, except the few times people who have no idea (and why should they) put that fucking poster in front of me, and all the fear, abandonment, and trauma come flooding back as I tell them that I won’t sign it, and why.

To their credit, each person was as horrified as they should have been, told me they had no idea (if they didn’t read my book why would they), and quickly put the poster away. They were all understanding. I am grateful for that.

But I really don’t need to tell this story over and over again, so here it is, with a child abuse and exploitation content warning, so I can just tell people to Google it.

After Stand by Me, everything changed. The attention from entertainment journalists, casting directors, and especially teen magazines came pouring in. The movie was a generational hit, beloved by critics and audiences alike, and every single one of us could pick anything to do next.

River’s parents and his agent got him Mosquito Coast, with Harrison Ford, as his next movie. I also auditioned for the role, but I knew even then that River was going to book the job. He was perfect, and I’d have to wait a little bit for my opportunity to come along.

I went on a lot of theatrical auditions after Stand by Me. I had tons of meetings with directors and the heads of casting at every major studio. It was all a very big deal, and I felt like we were all looking for something really special and amazing as my follow-up to Stand by Me.

At some point, a couple of producers contacted my agent with an offer to play one of the leads in an adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space.” The script was titled The Farm. (It would, of course, be changed when the film was released).

I read it. I did not like it. It was a shitty horror movie, and I saw that right away. It was the sort of thing you rented on Friday when the new release you wanted was already out of the store.

My mother, already an incredibly manipulative person, used every tool at her disposal to change my mind. My father threatened me, mocked me, told me “It’s your decision” when it clearly wasn’t. It was all so weird; I didn’t understand why they cared so much.

I told my parents I didn’t like it and didn’t want to do it. I clearly recall thinking it was a piece of shit that would hurt my career.

It wasn’t the first thing that had come our way that I wanted to pass on, and every other time, it hadn’t been a very big deal.

Sidebar: I was cast in Twilight Zone: The Movie, in 1983. The film tells four stories, and I was cast as the kid who can wish people into cartoonland. It was a GREAT role, in a movie I still love. (Note that Twilight Zone had four directors. One of them got three people killed. The segment I was cast in was not that one. I mention this because too many people zero in on this to deflect from what this whole thing is actually about.)

But I was CONVINCED by my parochial school teacher that if I worked on The Twilight Zone, which she had determined was satanic, I would go to hell. (This woman and her bullshit played a big role in my conversion to atheism at a young age, but when she told me that, I was all-in on the supernatural story they taught us in religion class.) I was so scared, more scared than I’d ever been to that point in my life, I cried and wailed and begged my parents to not make me do the movie. And I never told them why, because I was afraid my dad would laugh at me for being weak and afraid. My agent tried to talk me into it, and I wouldn’t budge. It’s the only thing I deeply and truly regret passing on, and I really hate I made that choice for such a stupid reason.

Okay. Back to The Curse.

This time, when I told them how much I hated it, they wouldn’t listen to me. My mother, already an incredibly manipulative person, used every tool at her disposal to change my mind. My father threatened me, mocked me, told me “It’s your decision” when it clearly wasn’t. It was all so weird; I didn’t understand why they cared so much.

That is, until they made me take a meeting with the producers of the movie, in their giant conference room on the top floor of a tall building in Hollywood. All I remember about this place was that it was huge; the table was way too big for the five of us who spread around it, and there were floor-to-ceiling windows on three of the walls, but the room was still dark. There was a weird optical illusion in the center of the table, this thing they sold in the Sharper Image catalog, made from two reflective dishes with a hole in the top of one. You placed an object in the bottom of the bottom dish, and it made it look like that object was floating above the whole thing. They had a plastic spider in it. What a strange detail for me to remember, but it’s as clear in my memory as if I were sitting in that room right now.

One man, who I presumed was the executive producer, was European or Middle Eastern (I didn’t know the difference then, he was just Not Like People I Knew), and I was instantly afraid of him. He was intimidating, and seemed like a person who got what he wanted.

So we sat there, my father who didn’t give a shit about me, my mother who was cosplaying as someone with experience, and me, thirteen years old, awkward as fuck, and scared to death.

I don’t remember what they said to me in their pitch or anything other than how uncomfortable and anxious I was to even be in that room. I tried so hard to be grown up and mature, but I — and my parents — was way out of my depth. I’d done one big movie and that was it. We didn’t have my agent with us, who had lots of experience and would have known what questions to ask.

No, in place of my experienced agent, my mother had decided she was going to be my manager, and she tackled the responsibility with an enthusiasm that was only matched by her absolute incompetence and inability to go toe-to-toe with producers the way my agent did. She was outwitted, out-thought, and outmaneuvered at every turn.

“You don’t have a choice,” my father commanded. “You are doing this movie.”

So we sat there, my father who didn’t give a shit about me, my mother who was cosplaying as someone with experience, and me, thirteen years old, awkward as fuck, and scared to death.

At some point, this man, who is represented in my memory by big Jim Jones sunglasses under dark hair above an open collar, said, “We are offering you a hundred thousand dollars and round-trip travel for your whole family. We will cast your sister, Amy, to play your sister in the movie.”

It all made sense, now. I was only thirteen, but I knew my parents were pushing me so hard because this company was offering me — them, really — more money than I’d ever imagined I’d earn in my life, much less a single job.

I knew that the right thing to do, the smart thing to do, was to say no. There would be other opportunities, and it was stupid to cash myself out of feature films for what I thought was, in the grand scheme of things, not very much money.

It’s incredible to me that I knew all of this. It’s incredible to me that I could see all these things, plainly and clearly, and my parents couldn’t (or, more likely, chose not to).

So after this man made his offer, all the adults in the room ganged up on me, selling me HARD on this movie.

My mother said, “Don’t you want your sister to have the same opportunities you’ve had? Wouldn’t it be fun and exciting to go to Rome? Think of all the history!”

The experience was awful. It was the worst experience I have ever had on a set in my life, by every single metric. The movie is awful, and it is the embarrassment I knew it would be.

I don’t think about this very often, because it’s super upsetting to me. Right now, I’m so angry at my parents for subjecting me and my sister to this entire experience. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

In that moment, I felt bullied and trapped. All these adults were talking to me at the same time, and I just wanted it to stop. I just wanted to go home and get out of this room. I just wanted to go be a kid, so I did what I’d learned to do to survive: I gave in and did what my parents wanted.

The experience was awful. It was the worst experience I have ever had on a set in my life, by every single metric. The movie is awful, and it is the embarrassment I knew it would be.

But here’s the thing: when you watch The Curse, you are watching two children, me and my sister, who were abused on a daily basis. The production did not follow a single labor law. They worked us for twelve hours a day, on multiple film units (while I work on First unit, second unit sets up and waits for me. When I should get a break to rest, they send me to Second unit, then to Third unit, then back to First unit. I was 13.) without any breaks, five days a week. I was exhausted the entire time. I was inappropriately touched by two different adults during production. I knew it was wrong, but I was so scared and ashamed, and I felt so unsupported, I didn’t tell anyone. I knew my dad wouldn’t believe me, and my mother would blame me. Anything to keep the production happy, that’s what she did. That was more important to her than the health and safety of her children. The director was coked out of his mind most of the time, incompetent, and so busy fucking or trying to fuck one of the women in the cast, he was worse than useless. He was a fading actor who was cosplaying as a director, as in over his head as my mother. My sister and I were never safe. Instead of harmless atmospheric SFX smoke, they set hay on fire in barrels and blew actual smoke onto the set. They took buckets of talc, broken wood, bits of wallpaper and plaster, and threw it into my face during a scene inside the collapsing house. My sister is in a scene where she goes to get eggs from some chickens, and they attack her. So they hired Lucio Fulci, the Italian horror master, to direct her sequence. His idea, which everyone was totally on board with, was to throw chickens at my sister. Live chickens, live roosters, live birds. Just throw them at a nine-year-old girl. Oh, and then tie them to her arms and legs so they’ll peck her. All of this happened under my mother’s observation, and with her full participation.

Everything I need to know about who my parents are is wrapped up in that experience: the total lack of concern for my safety and happiness, treating me like an asset instead of a son, lying to me, manipulating me, and using me to get things they wanted, and then gaslighting me about it.

If just ONE of the things I can remember happened to someone I loved, I would have grabbed my kids, gone to the airport, and flown home. Fuck those abusive assholes in the production. Let the lawyers sort it all out. Nobody hurts my children and gets away with it.

My mom says she “had some talks” with the producers. She claims that, once, she wouldn’t let us leave the hotel. (God, what a fucking dump that place was. It was just slightly better than a hostel.) I have no memory of that, but honestly the entire experience was so traumatic, I’ve blocked most of it out.

The movie was the commercial and critical failure I knew it would be. My parents spent the money. I don’t know what they spent it on. I got to keep fifteen cents of every dollar, so . . . yay?

My sister and I hardly ever talk about this. I suspect it was as upsetting and traumatic for her as it was for me. I told her I was writing about it, and asked her if she remembered anything. She told me she’d been lied to her whole life about this movie. Our mother let her believe she had been cast on the strength of her audition. “I was excited to work with you,” she said. She reminded me about some stuff I’d blocked out, including a scene where my character’s older brother (played by an actor named Malcolm Danare, who was kind and gentle, and made both of us feel safer when he was around) shoves my character into a pile of cow shit. When it came time to shoot the scene, the mud they’d put together to be the cow shit looked an awful lot like cow shit. When Malcolm pushed me into it, we all found out it was real cow shit. I was FURIOUS. The director had lied to me and had allowed me to have my entire body shoved into an actual pile of actual cow shit. I don’t remember what I said, but I remember he treated me the exact same way my father did whenever I got upset: he laughed at me, told me I was being too sensitive, reminded me that he was the director and he wanted to get a “real” performance out of me, and concluded, “If it bothers you so much, we’ll get you a hepatitis shot,” before he walked away.

My sister also recalled that, after she survived the scene with the chickens, it was the producers’ idea to give her one as a pet.

Okay, let’s unpack that for a quick second: you’ve been traumatized by these birds, so we’re going to give you one as a pet. That you’ll somehow keep in your hotel, and then will somehow get back to America. It will shock you to learn that neither of those things happened.

She remembered, as I do, the huge fight I had with my parents in our kitchen, where I told them I hated the script and I hated the movie. I didn’t want to do it, and I hated that they were making me do it.

“You don’t have a choice,” my father commanded. “You are doing this movie.”

“This is the only film you are being offered,” my mother lied to me. She made me feel like, if I didn’t do this movie, I would never do another movie again in my life. I had to do this movie. As my father bellowed, I had no choice.

Both of my parents denied this argument ever happened. Can I tell you how reassuring it is to know that my sister, who was also there, remembers it the same way I do?

The makeup department decided they would literally cut my little sister’s face with a scalpel, in three places, and put bandages over them.

But one thing she told me, the thing I did not know, the thing that makes me so angry I want to break things, actually managed to make the entire experience even worse than I remembered it.

There’s a scene after her chicken incident where I check up on her in her bedroom. She’s got cuts and bruises, and I guess we talk about it. I don’t remember and I can’t watch the movie because I’m terrified it will give me a PTSD flashback (I’ve had one of those and I recommend avoiding it). Here’s the thing about that scene: she has some cuts on her face, and those cuts are real. They are not makeup.

I’m going to repeat that. My nine-year-old little sister had actual cuts on her face that were placed there by an adult, on purpose.

The makeup department decided they would literally cut my little sister’s face with a scalpel, in three places, and put bandages over them. My sister told me our mother wasn’t in the makeup room when this happened — honestly, it seemed like our mother was strangely and conveniently absent when most of the really terrible things happened to us on the set — and when my sister told her what they’d done, she “lost her shit” at the production. She was pissed, I guess, which is appropriate and surprising. I wonder what would have to have happened for her to put us on a plane and get us home to safety? I mean, her son being abused daily didn’t do it, and her daughter being CUT IN THE FACE ON PURPOSE didn’t do it.

I just . . . I can’t. I can’t understand or comprehend allowing your own children to be physically and emotionally abused. They were literally selling my sister and me to these people, like we were some kind of commodity.

This was a tough conversation. My sister’s experience with our parents is very different from mine. My sister and I love each other. We’re close. I know it’s hard for her to hear that her brother, who she loves, was so abused by her parents, who she also loves. I was really grateful she made the time to talk to me about it, and grateful the experience wasn’t as horrible for her as it was for me.

As we were finishing our call, Amy also remembered one man, a young Italian named Luka, who was our driver for the movie. I haven’t thought about him in thirty years, but I can see his face now. He was kind, he was friendly, he taught us how to kick a soccer ball, and in the middle of an abusive, torturous experience, he stood out as a kind and gentle man. I mention him because she remembered him, which made me remember him, and goddammit I want at least one small part of this thing to not be awful.

The Curse remains one of the most consequential times the adults in my life failed to protect me. I’m 50. I still have nightmares.

Ultimately, as I predicted and feared, this piece of shit movie cashed me out of respectable films forever. I got offers for movies, but they were always mindless comedies or exploitative horror films. They were never the serious dramas I wanted to work in after Stand by Me. The industry looked at me and River, wondering if one or both of us would become a breakout star. They quickly saw that River was doing real acting work, and I was in this piece of shit. For River, Stand by Me was a beginning. For me, it would turn out to be pretty much everything, at least as far as film goes.

There are thousands of reasons film careers do and don’t take off. Maybe mine wouldn’t have taken off anyway. Clearly, it’s not where my life ended up, and I’m super okay with that now. But when all of this happened, it hurt and haunted me.

The Curse remains one of the most consequential times the adults in my life failed to protect me. I’m 50. I still have nightmares. Everything I need to know about who my parents are is wrapped up in that experience: the total lack of concern for my safety and happiness, treating me like an asset instead of a son, lying to me, manipulating me, and using me to get things they wanted, and then gaslighting me about it.

This annotation is the last thing I wrote before I turned this manuscript in, because opening these wounds is hard and painful. I put it off as long as I could, and I feel like I’m still holding back, because just this small glimpse of the experience has taken me a week to write. I can’t imagine trying to go back and unpack the whole thing. (Note that is not in the book: I’ve made an EMDR appointment to work on this because the nightmares have come back after the weekend).

Fuck The Curse, and fuck every single person who exploited and hurt two beautiful children to make it. You all participated in child abuse, and you all knew better. Shame on all of you. I hope this follows you to the end of your life. I hope that living with what you did to innocent children has been as hard for you as it has been for me, because you deserve no less.

#tw abuse #tw child abuse #tw exploitation #child actor #still just a geek #lucio fulci #trauma survivor #speaking up for the child who was silenced by his abusers

[fireemblems24]

Azure Gleam - Special Chapters

Spoilers for the special chapters below.

SHEZ VS BYLETH

I didn't get the special chapter for SB or GW. SB, I just straight up did not care. GW, I tried, but it involved an "escort Claude" part and he just sat there and didn't move forward, and I didn't care enough to bother with the chapter a second time.

Shez sounds like Arval. Did Arval take Shez over? I'm guessing to go after Sothis?

Oh, cut scene! Shez vs Byleth again.

Byleth holding his own against Arval!Shez. Good to see. Shez is trying to hold Arval back though.

So . . . if we kick out Arval out in these chapters, does Shez loose their abilities/special class, because no :(((((

Felix, Dedue, and Dimitri are worrying about Shez and Byleth (also, awesome to see all my favs). Rodrigue has news about what happened.

Scouts report that Byleth and Shez are fighting. Felix accuses that Dimitri suspected this.

Dimitri tells how Shez worried that TWSITD would take over her. And Dimitri's promise to kill Shez to stop her from killing others.

Oh, we cut straight to the battle and have to defeat Shez. Makes sense. I'm guessing do it before Byleth dies?

My Shez is, eh, a bit stronger than Byleth, so I'm a bit worried. But Dimitri's such an overkill at this point, he's just going to blaze through this chapter like he did the last one.

It's weird not having Shez among my playable characters. I'm using Jeralt instead of Shez for my missing 8th person because he's the highest level (and I can't use Byleth either so).

Edelgard is around somewhere? Claude showed up to hunt her down.

My Byleth is like 10 levels below Shez. It's not going well.

Atrocity is one hell of a drug. Took Shez out.

Defeating Solon feels good. Got a cut scene too. He just ran away though. Wait, Arval/Shez killed Solon? Ohhh, like Solon killed Kyrona. A sacrifice is needed to open Zaharas. Karma I guess.

Claude and Dimitri talking is kinda cool. And weird Edelgard showed up. It's so amusing to me that they wrote themselves into such a corner with Edelgard they just yeeted her brain lamo.

ZAHRAS

Arval is talking to Arval.

Dark Arval created Normal Arval because Dark Arval wanted typical TWSITD nonsense, domination, restore the world to TWSITD, etc . . .

And in the most shocking twist, Normal Arval is programmed to kill Sothis, so therefore Byleth, and while Arval took over Shez.

Oh, Shez woke up! And Claude's there with Dimitri.

So they all got sent to this Zahras place.

Shez doesn't have a lot of memory of what just happened, and tells Claude and Dimitri about Arval, who's gone though.

Now they have to find a way out of this mess.

Dimitri found Edelgard. Since there's like 4 people, no one plans on fighting each other until they get out. Then it's time to kill people.

So Edelgard doesn't remember what happened and got some spell cast on her by TWSITD.

Claude cheerily tells her what a fuck up her country is lamo.

There's this mini map with the 3 lords just standing there, chilling, in this dark abyss place. It's pretty funny looking.

All my other units are gone, but I expected that. Dimitri's my most overpowered unit anyways.

DIMITRI & CLAUDE

Is this like some kind of support?

So AG Claude wants to get rid of the central church and kill Rhea. Like, I'm down for removing any sort of political power from a religious institution, but this fixation on Rhea is weird.

Lamo, is this game serious? Did it really just blame nobility and arrange marriage on Rhea?? OMG.

I knew Claude went completely dodo bird in this game, but he somehow became even more of an idiot?

I'm kind of impressed lol.

He drank the Edelgard koolaide.

Dimitri's like, well, as long as you just dislike the church and not Faerghus.

It's interesting for Dimitri to acknowledge that his personal beliefs and his beliefs as a king are sometimes at war.

He also lays out why Claude's plan is an awful idea. Meaning, all the death and suffering he'll cause.

It's just a classic, Claude is too rash - Dimitri is too cautious.

Claude tells Dimitri that he's too good for him. And that they could've been friends if kingly stuff didn't get in the way.

It's overall a fine support, except this absurd idea that the church is solely responsible for stuff human nature always comes up with, and I think it's more a symptom of a huge flaw in the Fodlan games as a whole than anything else.

DIMITRI & EDELGARD

Dimitri finds it hard to talk to Edelgard because of all the people she's caused the death of. But way more polite.

Edelgard doesn't feel that way. Which, not surprised. She doesn't really care too much about the people who've died like he does.

Lamo, she also is way less polite and is like "you don't want to talk to the tyrant who's gotten everyone killed." See, though, it's acknowledgements like this that make me like this game more. She knows that's what she looks like to everyone not in Adrestia.

Dimitri gets annoyed with her for placing words in his mouth. And good for him. That's always annoying.

Edelgard is less confident than Dimitri that he has no regrets of his actions and carefully considered all of them.

Oh, good, Dimitri asks about Patricia. But Edelgard doesn't know what happened either. So, still no answers about her.

Dimitri wants to just end the conversation. I am loving how much he really doesn't want to talk to her. It's so different from Claude who he was curious about.

She falls down because dark magic place does it's thing, then helps her stand up, and they get a picture, which is cool.

It reminds her of when she fell once and took the help without thinking about it. Now she thinks about it.

Dimitri remembers helping a girl up.

I see where this is going, but it's funny such a mundane thing will trigger important memories, lamo.

Edelgard is like, yeah, knowing you, you probably helped a lot of people get up who fell down.

I'm living for these supports acknowledging that Dimitri's a way better person than the other two lol.

He's like, naw, it was you. Edelgard keeps insisting it wasn't her.

He calls her El at the end.

Is this the same support in SB? It works for AG, but man, this asshole just killed Sylvain (and Annette, and Gilbert, and Ingrid, and Rodrigue, and tons of other people from Faerghus simply bc she wants that land back), so I'd be furious seeing it there.

In AG, though, it makes sense.

BACK TO THE CHAPTER

Dimitri's the only one who asks about Shez's wellbeing. Does their dialogue change in different routes?

Oh, cool, I had some access to stuff like the blacksmith, which makes no sense, but ok.

Bad Arval showed up behind Shez, but she alludes it.

Arval says none can escape. But I doubt it.

Dimitri's like, that's bullshit, bc there's no way they'd build this without a way out, and if they can get out, so can we.

And then Dimitri's proved right when Arval says he'll leave, alone.

Ok, I learned this other Arval's name, but I am not going to spell all of that.

So like, after this, do they all just go back to war? Because if they do . . . lol.

They let you use all the 3 lords, but I'll probably only use Shez and Dimitri. Neither Edelgard nor Claude impressed me much when I started this game (and at the time I started, I liked Claude a lot more than I do now).

Oh, so a dark Hubert, Hilda, and Felix showed up. A bit sad it wasn't Dedue, though. I feel like he deserved to be the BL rep even if Felix is more popular. But maybe it was for variety? Like Dedue is another axe like Hilda, but then switch Claude's people out.

At the same time, Felix makes sense, esp in Hopes. He and Dimitri are practically married lol.

Dimitri's like, that's not Felix. He wouldn't get mad at me for doing this and not avenging people. He's not wrong.

Ohhh, not they're fighting phantom versions of themselves.

They had some throwaway lines explaining why Edelgard is normal now.

Lamo, Edelgard doesn't trust herself.

Meanwhile . . . Dimitri . . . is like, really excited about this. Because he gets to kill a version of himself. :((((

Claude's line wasn't as interesting as the other two. I know. Shocking. /s

Dimitri wants to thank Arval for letting him fight and kill himself. I cannot with this man.

Evil Claude just about totaled regular Claude. Edelgard isn't scratched though.

Edelgard and Claude were way more normal about reactions to fighting themselves lol.

I had to make Claude an adjunct. He was nearly dead. It's actually surprising how much worse he is than Edelgard. (Dimitri's not fair to rate against them since he's more built out and not dropped into this map for a one-time battle).

Ok, he summoned more dudes to protect him, and one was a Shez copy the other Dedue. So Dedue got credit too. So now I'm less conflicted about Felix making an appearance.

Shez is upset at fighting herself.

Dimitri feels awful about fighting the shades this time. He's only motivated by all the people he's kept alive in real life.

I defeated Epimedes. That seemed too easy.

Cut scene fight between Shez and Epi. It's pretty badass looking in the dark magic place with falling rocks everywhere. Like, in a cheesy but just roll with it way.

Shez wins. Arval pops back up and they almost hold hands. Arval's never felt more alone :( Honestly, kinda sad things end badly for them. So not recruiting Byleth gives Arval a better ending? Will Arval not be there in the final map before the final battle?

They escaped!

Dimitri's like "it felt like a strange fever dream" and honestly, not a bad way to describe it.

They lost Edelgard and are we back to the normal stuff? Oh, no Shez asks to go back to the search for her and the others. Claude wants to get back to his people too.

Ok, so moving onto the final chapter now.

xxx

#azure gleam #fire emblem #fire emblem three hopes #three hopes #three hopes spoilers #azure gleam spoilers

[rustyvanburace]

Awhile ago, I found sprite rips of nearly the whole cast and NPCs in SMT IV (on Sprite Database). Since I had noticed that the sprites have different heights, and was so enamored by their attentive detail, I decided to make a little height chart for fun and for my own purposes. I even went a step further by slightly rotating bits so the sprites would be standing a little straighter and be slightly more accurate. This was what I had when I posted it (barring Flynn since he wasn't on the sprite sheet):

You'd think something like this would be pretty cut-and-dry. But at the time, I was messaged by someone who was actually bothered to see Jonathan taller than Walter. Their argument was that Jonathan's sprite has noticeably bigger proportions, as though appearing closer, and thus couldn't be an accurate representation of his height. And that since Walter is slouched, he would appear shorter than he really is (which I already did try to correct anyway).

Those are fair assessments and I noticed too that Jonathan's sprite is off compared to everyone else. I was told that I should downscale Jonathan a little to around Walter's shoulders, which I did. But to be perfectly honest -- and I mean this with respect to differing opinions and personal preference -- I wasn't too convinced by their argument and it actually bothered me being approached like that and told how the sprites should be. As though I had made the sprites. They're Atlus's own sprites.

And truthfully, that still bothers me even now. Everyone is of course entitled to their own personal preference and interpretations of characters -- I am hugely supportive of that. But it never sat well with me being told that Jonathan *has* to be shorter and that the game's own sprites were wrong, when I never even asked for their input. It actually left me feeling pressured to portray the characters a certain way in my work.

I don't believe that person actually meant any hostility and I'll ask to please don't bother anyone about this. However, as this did leave a negative impact on me, I would just like to break down my own observations and interpretations of the cast for my own sake.

First, I should add that the in-game sprites were probably not made from scratch, but are most likely downscaled versions of Masayuki Doi's artwork (with some minor edits to give them more natural poses). So of course, the first place to look would be Doi's own artwork.

A lot of this person's argument centered around the characters' proportions, particularly how even Doi's artwork has skewed proportions and are not accurate to scale. Their assertion was that Jonathan's artwork is disproportionately larger and that, when properly measured, he would actually be shorter than Walter.

So I looked into it myself. I took some incredibly high-res artwork of the Samurai -- these are likely press release assets and are the closest I can possibly get to having the unaltered originals. (You can find these on the Fandom MegaTen Wiki.) These are of equal resolution. I lined them up to compare:

(Pro tip: Paint.NET can open WebP files if you wanna compare these yourself. Or just use a site to convert them.)

I asked a couple other people to look at these with me. And we agreed: with all due respect to Doi as a professional artist, the proportions in the artwork ARE weird and (to my eyes at least) are not even equally proportionate to the characters themselves. Others have pointed out that Walter's upper half looks disproportionately smaller to his lower half, and I partly suspect that Jonathan's head is bigger than the rest of his body (even when considering the size of his hair).

Nonetheless, I tried my best to measure the artwork with the 8 heads rule. I even opted to measure a version where I tried to fix Walter's slouching. Granted, not perfectly.

I will fully admit that my attempts at measuring are far from perfect and have issues, as can be seen by the uneven feet measurements (though I partly suspect that may be on Doi). I've also tried measuring these with fixed proportions and found those were even more uneven. If anyone else could take a better shot at this, go right ahead.

But if my measurements can be trusted, then it would appear that they are approximately of equal height. Or at the very least, there wouldn't be a very big difference. Walter could be a bit taller if he straightened up, but I honestly do not think he is slouching too terribly where the difference would be huge if he wasn't.

But also to be frank, these are awful images to measure from lmao. The 8 heads rule really only works for figures that are front or side facing and standing perfectly straight, neither of which applies to these. The angles, poses, and even the uniforms make these very difficult to properly measure and gauge. I honestly don't believe that the artwork are reliable to work with. As I and others have observed, Doi's proportions vary and the artwork may not even have been drawn to scale. This is not at all indicative of Doi being a "bad artist", especially when the proportions seem more purposely stylized for visual effect. I am sure I would find the same thing in Kaneko's own work as well. But aside from this being a good exercise in general art study, my take away from all this is that the artwork just cannot be relied on for a conclusive scale.

All that said, I'm honestly not too bothered by the measurements not working out. Because, when looking at everything else, it's actually clear to me that Atlus had very deliberate intentions in the portrayals of their characters.

As I mentioned earlier, the sprites are doubtlessly shrunken down versions of Doi's artwork. And the sprites actually have some really diverse heights when you look at and compare them all, like Kaga being so small and Skins and Infernal Akira being incredibly tall. Now yes, all of these suffer from the same issues as the artwork in that their proportions vary or their poses would be hard to measure -- but that isn't even the point. The point is that the sprites' heights still vary next to each other and are not all exactly the same. That convinces me that Atlus did take careful consideration in scaling the sprites and had specific intentions for how the cast should be depicted. They're not perfect, but these are hardly what I'd call careless or sloppy.

Yes it can still be argued that Jonathan's sprite proportions are off, because they are. But that doesn't mean that there is no merit to his sprite or that it is inaccurate to what Atlus *intended* for him. The fact they made his sprite as tall as it is tells me that this is the height they intended for him, irrespective of his proportions.

What of Walter then? I do think Atlus actually did take his slouching into account when scaling his sprite (they did for Navarre's sidequest sprite). In that case then, if he straightened up, he would still just be about equal height to Jonathan.

And if so, that would actually align with the game's illustrated cutscenes:

Walter's slouching is a lot more noticeable in the second image, but as already mentioned, I still don't think he'd be much taller than Jonathan or even Flynn if he wasn't.

Since it may as well be brought up, there is also the official side-by-side promotional image as well. This one isn't as good since everyone is in a vaguely triangle-like formation, but this gets thrown around a lot too in debates, so may as well include it for what it's worth.

Now of course, it also needs to be said that Atlus aren't always consistent themselves and there's been instances of character heights varying in other media. Yet regardless, there is a recurring trend that can be observed in the sprites, the cutscenes, and the artwork if my measurements are at all accurate. As far as my own observations are concerned, Jonathan is either of equal height or just a little bit taller than Walter. And to be utterly frank -- I am much more inclined to believe the parent company's own portrayals over someone else's preference.

At the very end of all this, none of this really matters. Fans can portray a fictional character any way they want and there is nothing wrong with that. And -- unless Atlus were to release a book giving the cast's exact heights or were to make a full 3D remake that clearly shows this (both extremely unlikely) -- then who are we to really say what their heights truly are?

No, not even I. Despite my observations made here, I am not going to insist that any of this is true or canon, because I simply do not have the cast's exact canon heights in numbers lmao. This is not meant to tell people how they should portray Jonathan or Walter or anyone else, but merely my own observation. I am not going to tell people how they should portray, draw, or write them. Jonathan or Walter can be short, tall, or in the middle however anyone pleases in their own portrayal and headcanons. That is the beauty of fanworks and personal interpretation of a fictional work.

But just as much as I cannot tell someone they cannot have a short Jonathan, it is also equally not right for someone to tell me that I (or anyone else) cannot have a tall Jonathan. What bothered me about all this was not the person's own personal preference, which is theirs to own and I respect that. But the unsolicited insistence that Jonathan *must* be short, that this is canon, and positioning themselves as right while throwing shade on people who headcanon Jonathan as tall. I frankly found it all very arrogant.

Maybe I am no different by making this post though. But at least I have been able to express my *own* thoughts on the matter when I couldn't before, irrespective of what anyone thinks. Again I must stress to please don't go bother anyone about this. None of this really matters in the end and people are entitled to their own personal interpretation.

And if Atlus does come out and finally gives us canon heights for the cast, then I will happily accept that and be thrilled for new info about my favorite game. But until then or if ever, none of these characters have truly definitive heights and we simply cannot make that call. None of us are "right" or "wrong".

#again this is for my own sake in being able to express myself openly #shin megami tensei iv #smt4 #megaten #rusty's prattles

[butterflydm]

Getting Mat to Falme - some possible paths

This is going to have spoilers for pretty much all the information that we have for s2, as far as I'm aware of it, at least, plus also book spoilers through book 4: The Shadow Rising. I also used @markantonys's post (here) where she pulled together all the various photos & teasers that we've gotten as reference too, because it looks pretty solid to me, plus added some thoughts based on her post here as well.

Because Mat is the big person of mystery -- we know he gets to Falme but how and with who? -- I kinda wanted to lay out the four main potential paths that I see for him and assess my own feelings on their likelihood.

I feel like there are two main branching paths of possibility:

Mat never escapes the White Tower.

Mat does escape (or is released from) the White Tower.

So, where the first path would take us is Mat being brought along with Liandrin, Elayne, Egwene, Nynaeve, and possibly Min. The main factor in favor of this possibility is that Mat is still wearing his Two River clothes in the picture we have that looks like it's from Falme (the background matches one of the Perrin & Aviendha photos).

But that's really the only thing that leans me towards this branch of possibilities -- I feel like that leaves Mat a lot of time where he's just not really doing anything. I do feel like Mat needs to spend some significant time in captivity though, for two reasons: a. it will mirror Egwene being in captivity at the end of the season; b. the show has shown itself to care a lot about setting up Mat's later choices to make sense in context of his characterization, so I think they will make sure to give a solid foundation to his personal fear/wariness towards Aes Sedai and to making it stronger than Rand's or especially Perrin's.

I think we are more likely to go with option 2, where he will get released from the White Tower, much as he does in The Dragon Reborn, either by Siuan Sanche or by the Wondergirls.

Path two gives us some more options about where Mat could go. Specifically, whether he gets to Falme by himself or if he joins up with either Perrin or Rand.

(a.) If Mat is going to Falme on his own, there are a few potential companions that he could have going with him from the White Tower: Verin or Min (since we know that Thom isn't in s2, at least per his actor), or maybe one or both of Elayne's brothers.

I think Verin is less likely -- I suspect we'll spend time with her in Perrin's plotline (maybe Rand's, but Rand doesn't need 'an Aes Sedai' in Cairhien if he already has Moiraine and only having Moiraine and not having an Aes Sedai who has access to saidar means that Rand would be the one that Moiraine would need to lean on for any channeling, like say for a Portal Stone to Toman Head; and if Verin and Perrin spend time in S2 getting to know each other, then she could simply go along with him to the Two Rivers in S3), though we may briefly meet her in episode one, before she leaves and then reappears in Perrin's plotline.

Min is a distinct possibility if Mat is going off on his own, though. She is likely to be in Tar Valon when the season opens (based on two factors: it's her hometown and her aunt was cast for the second season, and the most likely place for Min to have scenes with her aunt is in her hometown). Min and Mat having a road trip together would also be helpful for the future, since it would give them some time to bond.

The problem with Mat going off with Gawyn is that... Gawyn actually getting involved in all the various ta'veren shenanigans would make him going back to Tar Valon to work underneath Elaida feel kinda weird (unless the split up after Falme ends up being more "a bunch of people go back to the White Tower and then split up again from there", so Elayne, Gawyn, Egwene, & Min all go to the Tower with Verin (who takes the Horn back with her?), and Elayne & Egwene get raised to Accepted in S3, then get sent off again... but then how/when does Egwene ends up in the Waste?).

Mat going with Galad might make more sense because -- well, the Whitecloaks are in Falme directly fighting against the Seanchan. It's literally going to be their Best Look Ever and Galad could join up with them without looking like the worst brother ever, because they actually are trying to help at that point in time.

Going with both of the brothers together potentially solves the "Gawyn knows too much if he goes to Falme" issue -- if Mat runs into the Whitecloaks, he and Galad could get tugged along into heading in their direction towards Falme (maybe even with Mat being a semi-prisoner again, if he's recognized by any of the Whitecloaks as being part of the group from the Two Rivers that was traveling with Moiraine?) while Gawyn takes off on his own at that point (ending up back at the White Tower, while Galad eventually ends up joining the Whitecloaks after the Battle of Falme?).

Now, where would Mat be going on his own?

Straight to Falme seems possible: if Min or Mat overhears/finds out that Liandrin took Egwene, Nynaeve, & Elayne away for sinister purposes, then Siuan could ask them to go to Falme on her behalf; and both Gawyn and Galad would have reasons to want to go after Elayne to try to help her.

Mat could also do the "letter to Morgase" plot and go to Caemlyn, though I feel like it's... unlikely that they would cast Morgase & Co this early on. But it's a possibility, and it would mean that Mat could overhear a plot that would send him in the direction of Falme.

(b.) Mat might join up with Perrin and his group. I have to admit... this does seem fairly unlikely to me, because from the photos and teasers that have been released, it looks like Perrin is going to be running into the Seanchan in episode 4 (5 by the latest, as Loial is already a prisoner and hanging out with Suroth in the episode 5 picture). It just doesn't seem like the pacing would work out for Mat to be captured, held by Liandrin, get set loose (maybe by Siuan), and then find his way to Perrin by episode 4.

(c.) Okay, confession: this last one is definitely my favorite possibility. But I feel like it has some solid backing! It is, of course, the one where Mat goes with Rand to Falme.

Here's how this one would work (I'm also making some guesses at where those leaked episode titles might fall and what they refer to):

2x1 - A Taste of Solitude (confirmed title for ep 1): Mat is captured by the Red Ajah in Tar Valon and secretly held captive. We know he has at least one scene with Liandrin, so I'm gonna place it here. Egwene & Nynaeve arrive at the White Tower; Rand is off wandering on his own; Moiraine and Lan are either doing research or on the hunt for Rand. Mat focused episode in Tar Valon, so that the audience can settle in with "new Mat" right away.

2x2 - Eyes Without Pity (Wolfbrother eyes): Perrin hunting the Horn meeting Elyas, maybe with a quick reminder that Mat is locked up & all other plotlines, etc. This might also be when Rand meets 'Selene', after he's had a taste of solitude in the previous episode. Perrin focused episode.

2x3 - What Might Be (Accepted testing): Probably when Nynaeve is raised as Accepted; maybe Elayne discovers that a man (Mat) is being held prisoner in the dungeons of the White Tower (the lantern image) and tells Siuan, who brings him up to the healing quarters and chastises the Red Ajah (stirring them up even more against her?). Rand arrives in Cairhien? Maybe Perrin & co entering the Ways to chase after the Horn & dagger towards Falme? Nynaeve-focused episode, with some Elayne & Egwene.

2x4 - Daughter of the Night (Lanfear): It looks like this is when Moiraine, Lan, & Rand meet up, Foregate goes up in flames, and Rand probably begins his training, both with politics (Moiraine) and the sword (Lan); I'm guessing that Rand will learn Selene's identity here. This may also be when Perrin & co encounter the Seanchan, when Perrin meets Aviendha, and when Loial gets captured. Rand, Moiraine, & Lan focused episode, with Perrin as the main subplot.

2x5 - Strangers and Friends (Seanchan and Darkfriends): We know that we're going to get some looks at Suroth & Ishamael, and we might learn about the Dark One's plans. This may also be the episode when Liandrin tricks the girls into leaving Tar Valon and Mat finds out about her plans (like he originally overheard Gaebril in TDR) and tells Siuan Sanche, maybe because he doesn't have anywhere else to turn. She sends him to Cairhien with a message for Moiraine (I'm assuming that Moiraine has let Siuan know that she's in Cairhien via a coded message of some kind). Potentially the episode when Egwene gets collared (at the end?).

2x6 - Damane (Egwene in captivity): Mat travels towards Cairhien, either alone or with Min (as per the reasoning in path a), potentially meeting Aludra along the way and getting some fireworks, as she would have been exiled back in episode four when the chapterhouse went up in flames. Another possibility here is that Siuan takes Mat to Cairhien herself; thus giving us a Moiraine & Siuan reunion in the next episode. Focused on Egwene in Falme (maybe also Nynaeve & co run into Perrin & co and they team up?).

2x7: Mat arrives in Cairhien and tells Siuan's message to Moiraine and we may get emotional fallout of Moiraine sending the Red Ajah after Mat from both Rand and from Lan, who does pull away from Moiraine in the books and this would give the viewers a solid reason why he might begin to do that. Moiraine realizes that the only way to get to Falme quickly is to use the Portal Stones, but Rand will have to channel to use them, because Moiraine is still shielded and/or stilled (but my guess is shielded). Focused on Moraine, Rand, Mat, Lan in Cairhien (and maybe Min, if she went along in Mat's plotline instead of going along in Egwene's). I don't have a guess about the episode title for this one, as we only got six potential titles leaked. Siuan would head back to the White Tower at this time, if she's the way that Mat got to Cairhien.

2x8: Moiraine, Lan, Mat, and Rand arrive in Falme and the fireworks go off for everyone, big finale. We don't have a spoiled title that feels like it fits this episode but I've seen people speculate that it'll be "The Grave Is No Bar To My Call" and that makes sense.

(actually, if the show doesn't go in this direction, I might end up writing it as an AU after the season airs, lol)

#wheel of time #wot #the wheel of time #wot speculation #mat cauthon #wot spoilers #wot on prime spoilers #wot book spoilers #the shadow rising #wot on prime #wot s2 spoilers #wot prime spoilers

[kyra45]

Guide to spotting donation scam accounts

I am aware there is multiple guides posted by other accounts but this one is my own based around my posts I’ve made over the months of running this blog. If you already know how to spot scams, then good! Someone else might not.

If you appreciate all the work I did to make this post accurate and easy to understand, feel free to share it and link it to anyone who might need info. If you want to show thanks in another way, I take pocket change by tips. My pinned post also has links to quick access posts that are about scams.

Not all blogs who ask for aid are scammers! Legitimate people do exist it’s just that scammers will take their information and use it as their own in order to get the money for themself. This post is most meant to be a through guide into finding these scam posts more easily at a glance.

So here is a guide to spotting donation scam accounts under a readmore as it is a long post.

Check how old the blog is by seeing if their archive is enabled. You can also guess this by scrolling the blog and seeing if the posts made are entirely random or seem to come from a certain trending tag. Also check the date of the reblogged post by turning on timestamps. Backdated posts are when a user reblogs a post then goes into post editor and tries to make their reblog look older then it actually is. A common mistake is the new date is even older then the post itself was made meaning the user has went and backdated the post to make their account look older than it is. If the archive is disabled, you may only find ~20 posts shared within seconds of the others.

If they sent you an ask to share their post, did it request you to answer privately? People who are requesting aid are generally wanting a public audience to share their post and would not generally tell someone to answer their ask privately unless their up to something suspicious. If your ask says to answer privately, try using tumblr search to see if it was sent to multiple users. An example of an ask is below.

(Image has alt text! But I will still copy/paste the ask below as well.)

“hi!! I hope you dont find this ask strange, weird or whatever you call it :( Just wanted to ask a favor if you could possibly check the post I pinned for my cats? It’s on this blog, please do check if you have a spare time and reblog/boost it. Im so sorry if I did bother you, just need some help. Please do send me a msg to reply or answer the ask privately, please 😭 🙏 🙏 🐈 “

These asks are known as scam asks, though most commonly sent by blogs that are using content stolen from a legitimate fundraiser for a pet that is needing veterinary care. They are sent to multiple users who have shared a popular or trending post and is sent regardless of it the user would share the post or not. As it stands so far, most accounts who send these asks are scams.

Another type of donation scam is when a user will save the medical photographs of someone’s fundraiser and repost them to say it’s theirs. These can be graphic hospital images stolen off Instagram/Facebook and used in a fabricated story claiming it’s the users grandparent or child of who needs help. Most often, though, there is multiple images used that may not match up with the story itself. Scammers may even fake a funeral fundraiser using a similar method of stolen content.

Above all, donation accounts also will steal Instagram photographs to impersonate people and give them made up names. There are cases where scammers have made fraudulent GoFundMe’s with stolen images and made up stories about sensitive topics in order to get money. It’s important to pay attention and see if the suspected scam account is answering questions about their situation or if their asks and messages are turned off. This is usually a sign they may not be legitimate and are avoiding any questions about their legitimacy.

You may also want to pay attention to the support links given that lead to methods of sending cast. If the local currency isn’t matching up with the given information, it may be sign of a scammer. The most common example is someone asking for $USD but the local currency would be something else and they don’t supply a currency conversion anywhere in their post or explain why it doesn’t match. However, this is just a common scam tactic.

In closing, there are other minor ways to spot donation scam accounts. Such as searching their username up in tumblr search or just asking them to send you more information that relates to their situation. Above all, one of the best things you can do is examine the askers blog closely and see if there’s anything suspicious and do your own research before asking around.

And remember, always report confirmed scam accounts for phishing like so:

Report -> Something else -> Illegal uses or Content -> Phishing

#scam #how to spot a scam blog #long post #longpost #psa #important information

[abigail-pent]

ok not to be a bitch about Taylor Jenkins Reid but it is extremely weird that a very solid majority of the protagonists of her Famous Women quartet are Latinx (usually Latinas) who are conveniently disconnected from their heritage. Like the only ones who don't really fit this definition are the cast of Daisy Jones and the Six (minus Camila) and Monique Grant (who is mixed White and Black and appears to feel a disconnect with her Blackness after her Black parent's death).

Carrie Soto *appears* to be connected to her heritage but imo is not. As a fellow half-Argentine American woman who is extremely hard on herself, I relate to Carrie arguably too much. But the whole time I've been listening to this audiobook I've been really struck by the lack of specificity in her ethnicity. She and her dad have Spanish names, and there's a lot of written/untranslated Spanish in the book, but that's literally it. No context about her father's upbringing in Argentina or choice to emigrate, apart from wanting to be in the US for unspecified reasons. No culturally specific foods - like you can't seriously tell me that a real life Javier Soto wouldn't carry a thermos and drink mate on the side of the court. The Spanish they speak isn't even specifically Argentine Spanish. The verb conjugations are not right for that. And it's just really glaringly obvious to me that Taylor Jenkins Reid has not done the research she would need to do to convincingly write a character with this background.

I suspect this is why *all* of her protagonists of color are divorced from the non-white elements of their backgrounds. Evelyn Hugo is pushed to pass as white, to the point where she nearly forgets how to speak Spanish; the Riva kids are raised exclusively by their White mom; Monique mostly doesn't talk about her own race except to describe what she looks like, mention that she feels good and hopeful about having a Black woman role model at work, and to say that her marriage to a White man made her feel safe from having her Blackness called into question. Carrie Soto, of course, is non-White almost certainly through her mother's side only, as most Argentines are White; and her mother dies offscreen extremely early in the book and in Carrie's life.

Like I definitely think you shouldn't be limited in the characters you write by the identities you personally hold. And I definitely see the effort to provide more protagonists of color in fiction. I just don't think a good way to do this is by essentially pretending that race/ethnicity/culture are all just bits of set dressing that exist for flavor alone. These are real things. They mean a lot to people and they shape who we are, how we see ourselves, how we behave, who we become. If you're going to write from the perspective of a character who's ethnically xyz, at least have the decency and respect to research that deeply and seriously, and think about how their background would show up in their daily life.

[alittlefrenchtree]

Curious Anon again! Sorry to send you so many asks but your mind is so interesting! You also said this on that ask about Taylor acting: "Taylor was so organic as Alex I was almost immediately on board with him. For me, it was everything to do with the sincerity and heart with which he played him, rather than being an award worthy performance or not. It wasn’t perfect but it was perfectly Alex so it was good. And I suspect the very few of my issues with it would fall on the directing and the editing of it rather than Taylor’s work". Could you please elaborate on how you suspect the few issues you have with Taylor's performance as Alex could fall on the directing and editing of the movie rather than Taylor's work please? I have my suspicions cause I've thought the same as well, but I would love to hear what you think.

Please don’t apologize I love these kind of questions 🙏 Thank you for asking them 💜

[yes, I did take photos of my screen with my phone because you can’t screenshot on prime video and I’m too lazy to find a cleaner solution]

The main moment I had in mind when I wrote this was the "Alex is so in love he could die" shot. Yeah, yeah I know. Let me explain before y'all jump in my inbox.

First time I saw this shot, I knew what the movie was trying to tell me but the message never reached me. And it was so weird because I was very much in tune with with Alex’s feeling at the moment. Karaoke!Henry was my Oh. moment about Henry and the moment I, too, fell a bit in love with him as well. So I was very much on board with the projet. And the worst part of it is I see everything Matthew and Taylor have done and why it has worked on most people.

I know how it supposed to contrast with how animated Alex’s face is in every other scene of the movie. And there, everything slow down, quiet down and he’s stunned by the weight of what he just realized. I know, and it’s there and yet it didn’t work on me. It never does actually. And to be honest, I don’t know what could have been made differently to reach me. But I think my issue isn’t with Taylor’s acting because, making Alex’s feelings for Henry very visible on his face isn’t an issue for me anywhere else in the movie. My best guess is that there is another take of this shot that was made for me but has been cut off and left on the floor of the editing room. But I don’t know what the directions given by Matthew were and sometimes, a scene doesn’t work also because of this. And given how many times I disagree with Matthew’s directing over the course of the movie, it wouldn’t be really surprising. 

Like in this?

Who even did the blocking of this scene? Why nobody saw this and said this look ridiculous? It doesn’t make any sense to me.

Same vibe for the reunion hug at Kensington. As soon as I heard "I’m coming to London tonight" I was SO HYPED. I wanted to feel everything with them and— the camera was set a million miles away from them in a very awkward angle and an unpratical setting that deflected most of the intensity of the scene for me?

I’m not sure what was the intention here. I guess there was the symbolism of the stairs with Alex climbing them and Henry running down to him and the parallel with the KP night scene and the idea of being a distant (un-allowed) witness to something very intimate and maybe the idea of making it a bit messy and not hollywoodish for realism? I also imagine Henry collapsing on Alex made more sense on stairs but— I don’t know. I would have been happier with a different setting.

So yeah, these are a few moments I didn't get the feeling(s) the movie was trying to make me feel but didn’t quite succeed certainly because of elements that weren’t related to the cast's work.

Anyway, thanks again for reading my posts so throughtfully and sending these asks, it was fun 💜

#is this the moment when people start to ask if i even like this movie? #probably 💀 #red white and royal blue #rwrb movie #rwrb

[curious-sootball]

Some more Deadlands finale thoughts: what happened to the horses? (and how they sorta helped hide the ending plot twist in plain sight from me.)

Customary Deadlands campaign spoilers warning

No, this isn't a Silas-flavoured conspiracy theory. There are five Horsemen in the campaign, but we only see two horses(or three, if you count the one on M.T. Boudreaux's portrait). Where are the rest? I'm personally very partial to @/a-casual-egg's idea that Horses are in pocket dimensions until their respective riders need them. However, that's also what got me thinking about meta things on my rewatch of the campaign - specifically, Victoria asking the main cast if they know what they brought back to her from the train and Andy's introduction of Ben Bellows: "His horse, its a very light brown color, its almost red". He also mentions that Bellows walks with a slight inward step, but it was the horse description and the fact that I didn't give it much thought the first time around that hit me. Let's put a pin in that for now.📌

So, knowing what we know now, it doesn't seem far-fetched that the horse's appearance is an illusion - its made to look as unassuming as it can. Granted, it may just be a regular horse with an unusual coat, but the first idea seems more likely to me - unlike Victoria, Bellows has acess to his powers: going through the trouble of finding a regular horse(s) of the right color instead of disguising the one he already has doesn't sound like something he would do. Could've been a fun bit of foreshadowing if one or more of the town residents mentioned that the only thing that Bellows likes more than shooting people is his horse. Also, assuming this is true - Bellows seems to be the only Horseman who kept their horse around like that and I find this oddly sweet.

There are next to no mentions of horses in Sublimity Falls - there is one that pulls the senator's carriage, and that's it: Daisy has multiple portraits of herself, but none of those have horses on them(which makes sense: she's posing as the director of the sanatorium and a medical professional, having a horseback portrait of herself would be kind of weird). She probably desummoned her horse to avoid disguising it: ironically, she seems to be the least skilled with illusions among Horsemen. She has to physically hide a giant hole in her skull - I believe if it was something she could've hide with an illusion, she would've done that.

Next, dishonourable judge M.T. Boudreaux: he actually has a horseback portrait of himself! Hanged in a spot where every detained person awaiting trial would see it, no less. I admit, I first thought he was supposed to represent Famine(because of green robes and sickles mounted on his revolvers), and I facepalmed so hard when I looked up the atributes of The Horsemen and saw that Death is often depicted holding brass scales. You know, one of the things Justice is also associated with. Interestingly enough, he seems to have changed the most(compared to his poster) out of the Four - both in appearance and most likely in behaviour(not like you'd actually see this on a poster, though): I still need to look up how hangin' judges work, but I suspect they start out mostly competent and then gradually tighten the legal screws until the town they run starts to dread justice. There must be some passive mind control with a set area of affect at play (like False Hydra's song, which has a set 5 mile effect radius and gets stronger over time) - if even a chill person like Nate put two and two together about how bananas is the justice in Fort Parker, there's no way a whole lot of regular people left someone as unhinged as M.T. Boudreaux in charge of anything. Long story short - not sure if he kept his horse around in disguise, like Bellows, but he seems to be distancing himself from how he initially looked, so desummoning his horse may have something to do with that.

Hildegard Unger - we don't get to see her living space, but I'm pretty sure she doesn't have a horseback portrait of herself: she has this "we're all about reaching into the bright future here" act going on, and horseback portraits seem very old fashioned. I wonder how much she believes her own act - remember how she talks about solving the world hunger when Bison Billy, Edie and Delacy confront her? Yeah. The only horses that get mentioned in her episodes are from Bison Billy's show - and his tent has a horse drawn on its roof; interestingly, Hildegard herself isn't associated with horses at all, so I feel confident that her horse is chilling in the pocket dimension. Or - arguably a darker option - maybe her horse can resurrect itself or get resurrected, sort of like Thor's goats, and she ate it, since she's the Famine. (What if the "wonderful product" that solves the world hunger is just that Horse's meat?)

And that's the Horse theory bit done! Now, to the meta bit, where I try to put my experience watching Deadlands campaign for the first time into words and make sense of it:

📌 Of course Bellows has a cavalry man's gait and rides a red(dish) horse, the foreshadowing was right fucking there!

So I thought: why had I missed it the first time? Apart from the rest of things that happened in that episode - first, I mistook it for a short-term foreshadowing, as opposed to the long-term one: I read The Three Musketeers at sweet impressionable age of 13, so when a horse of an unusual color is mentioned,my initial though is "is that an homage to that particular thing?". I thought it would come up in the episode somehow, and then it just didn't. And second: I skimmed the comment section for those episodes as I first watched them, and it was full of people freaking out over Nate dying(understandable at the time) and different people who kept theorising about Horsemen of the Apocalypse - which sounded like a really far-fetched reaching guess to me back then. It all clicked into place when Andy mentioned in the Q&A that The Horsemen are a big thing in the Deadlands lore (and putting actual Horsemen into the campaign was a bit of a canon crime on his part) - I did not know anything about Deadlands going in; You know the saying "if you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras?" I felt like I stumbled into a zebra believer meeting when i first read those comments. And as the campaign progressed and more bounties were hunted down, I got to the point where I begrudgingly went "damn, the zebra believers were right". I dismissed the foreshadowing almost out of spite.

The sad thing is - it would've been way better if people figured out the plotline and the final twist based solely off the hints in the campaign, as opposed to their knowledge of TTRPG tropes and mechanics. Shifty quest giver isn't the oldest trick in the rulebook, but it is pretty well-known and (relatively)easy to logically figure out, so chances of guessing it early are pretty high. And you guessed it, I almost dismissed this too when I saw it in the comments, until i saw a theory with soundest evidence-based reasoning: "The Red Hand gang implies five fingers, and there are only four bounties. There's gotta be a fifth person, and it is most likely Victoria".

That was the theory that got me thinking "yeah, that makes sense". I thought the twist was going to be that Victoria's story was mostly true - she was one of Red Hand members, decided to quit (maybe disappeared with the gang's whole treasury to fund her new quiet life, as a call-back to Blades in the dark; certainly wronged them somehow), so others found her and killed her husband and son in response to that. I assumed bosses were going to be allusions to The Horsemen - people giving into their worst impulses until they weren't even human anymore.

And then the finale happened and I was floored. My expectations were exceeded, I was on the edge of my seat, I actually gasped when Garnet asked who is Victoria's boss. I may have been told the final destination two episodes in, but actually arriving there was a wild ride and I loved every minute of it. Guess it's about a good execution of a possibly simple core idea. (My only nitpick is the considerably shorter downtime - players even put a lampshade on it a few times; the characters don't get as much time to bond as in DnD or even Blades in the dark, and Victoria saying she grew to view them all as friends rings just a little hollow to me because of that).

#oxventure deadlands #oxventure deadlands spoilers #i'm also not sure what would be more fun - horses having symbolic names or regular horse names

[moved-aphmau-rewrites]

so lets start from the beginning

so lets talk pdh, right? cuz thats the very beginning. for the most part, im planning to leave s1 of pdh alone aside from upping the intensity of the bullying (to make it more realistic) and just generally feel more like a teen slice of life drama rather than a harem anime where the protag chooses the shittiest love interest imaginable.

im also adding some mental health stuff just to generally make this more realistic! so lets get into it, this is the structure of my pdh rewrite!

Let's start with our leading lady, shall we?

Aphmau Shalashaska is a 14 year old freshman girl who has been homeschooled starting from fourth to eighth grade. She starts the series off as naive, though not as innocent as many people believe. She is known as the school's sweetheart, though many people suspect that she hides her intentions with a saccrine smile. To the people who know her, though, they know that her words are true and her motivations are pure. She is a light in many people's darkness, though her own world is casted in shadow...

basically i changed little to nothing about aphmau's character, aside from changing the years she was homeschooled. i decided to make her more sheltered but not completely sheltered.

i think i'm going to tweak her backstory to make it make more sense. i want her to actually (kind of) know about her father. he sends sylvanna (barely any) child support for her, to which sylvanna just gives it to aphmau directly because it isnt enough to actually do anything with.

im also going to ramp up the bullying and make it actually effect her and how she interacts with people, especially her love interests and friends.

the ending arc for aphmau in s1 is that she grows more confident and learns to rely on her friends when she's having difficulties with things. she wont end up with any of her love interests, but the trio end up extremely close. her and aaron will also end up extremely close and he will be introduced to the friendgroup (i dont like how theyre all kind of seperate) but he'll kind of be the "friend by proxy" because it will take a little longer for them to warm up (not anyone's fault, aaron is just... harder to befriend because he's an awkward dude)

as for her realtionships, here's my general plan for them (i had to split it up so aaron, laurence, and garroth under the cut!!)

Aaron

"It's weird. I thought those two hated each other. But now they seem inseparable. I just don't get it."

"Aaron? Yeah he's pretty weird. He has this whole dark and broody thing going on but he's such a squishy soul! He's like a pitbull! ...People think I hate him? Why would I hate my best friend?"

Aphmau is going to have more of a brother/sister relationship with aaron, they will NOT be the endgame ship of this rewrite. i detailed this in my pinned post, but i will reiterate: i do NOT like aarmau for the creepy, predatory way it is written. therefore i will just simply not include it in my rewrite. dont like it, dont have to read it <3

their story arc will stay largely the same. they meet online as FC/Shu (although i probably will change their nicknames because those are LAME) and meet irl in werewolf class. despite aaron defending her in person, they heavily dislike each other and bicker constantly. aph doesnt know she becomes the alpha female and aaron doesnt know that she is the girl that he's been talking to this whole time.

as FC and Shu they become thick as thieves, absolute partners in crime. they ARE aware of their age gap and there is no romantic feelings. they see each other as siblings and treat each other as such. they banter and bicker and fight but they genuinely care for each other. "i hate you, FC!!!" "i love you too, shu" becomes a daily part of their conversations.

Garroth

"He's so stoic, but around her... He becomes so gentle that it almost feels like he's a different person. She's his world."

"I think everyone but Aphmau herself sees the way he looks at her."

garroth is the first person to fall in love with aphmau. he stays quiet about his feelings for fear of ruining their friendship although he does quietly dream of something more.

garroth was always the first person that aphmau called on. his quiet and more serious demeanor was sought out as a comforting shoulder to listen to. before they knew that they were childhood friends, they had always described themselves as "platonic soulmates" (the word platonic made garroth internally wither and die but he kept that smile)

after, though? they were practically joined at the hip. partly because of their mothers and partly because they just wanted to. there was a select amount of boys that sylvanna allowed in her house (the only others being dante and travis, after many trials of proving that they ONLY have platonic feeligns for her daughter and NOTHING more) and the only boy that doesnt get her heavy surveillance

and that's how aphmau falls. breaking down his serious walls and getting to see his silly and goofy side that he keeps hidden made her fall before she even realized that she was falling

Laurence

"There he goes again, another girl wrapped around his finger."

"Laurence? He's so sweet and gentle! Sure, he's a big flirt, but he means well. I know that he would be by my side if I ever needed him."

if garroth's love is a gentle misty rain, laurence's is a fucking typhoon. strong and loud and passionate. he doesnt fall as fast. he even teases garroth about falling for someone so easily, but he very quickly learns why garroth fell so hard.

when laurence discovers his feelings, he immediately made it incredibly obvious. however, if aphmau flirted back, he'd become a blushing mess.

there was always boundaries with his flirting when they were friends. he never touched her, not in a way that could be seen as romantic. his hands always stayed firmly to themselves. but once he falls? he cant keep his hands off of her (nonsexually, obviously). constant shoulder touches, brushes of the hand that he plays off "oh aphmau if you wanted to hold my hand, you could've just asked!"

cupping her chin and cheeks, leaning in close so he gets an excuse to admire her face. the list goes on and on.

aphmau notices this, but she just thinks that theyre getting closer as friends. what makes her fall for him, however, was his gentleness. he was always the first person to tell her that she was beautiful, how kind she was, how thoughtful she was. he was her #1 fan, her absolute cheerleader. she had never had someone tell her that and now to hear it constantly made her heart flutter.

unlike garroth, she realized that she was falling for him pretty quickly. and that was about the time she realized her feelings for garroth, too.

#aphblr #aphmau #aphmau mystreet #aphmau pdh #mystreet #pheonix drop high #aphblur #aphmaurewrites #zerorewrites

[thebatbites]

so lets start from the beginning

so lets talk pdh, right? cuz thats the very beginning. for the most part, im planning to leave s1 of pdh alone aside from upping the intensity of the bullying (to make it more realistic) and just generally feel more like a teen slice of life drama rather than a harem anime where the protag chooses the shittiest love interest imaginable.

im also adding some mental health stuff just to generally make this more realistic! so lets get into it, this is the structure of my pdh rewrite!

Let's start with our leading lady, shall we?

Aphmau Shalashaska is a 14 year old freshman girl who has been homeschooled starting from fourth to eighth grade. She starts the series off as naive, though not as innocent as many people believe. She is known as the school's sweetheart, though many people suspect that she hides her intentions with a saccrine smile. To the people who know her, though, they know that her words are true and her motivations are pure. She is a light in many people's darkness, though her own world is casted in shadow...

basically i changed little to nothing about aphmau's character, aside from changing the years she was homeschooled. i decided to make her more sheltered but not completely sheltered.

i think i'm going to tweak her backstory to make it make more sense. i want her to actually (kind of) know about her father. he sends sylvanna (barely any) child support for her, to which sylvanna just gives it to aphmau directly because it isnt enough to actually do anything with.

im also going to ramp up the bullying and make it actually effect her and how she interacts with people, especially her love interests and friends.

the ending arc for aphmau in s1 is that she grows more confident and learns to rely on her friends when she's having difficulties with things. she wont end up with any of her love interests, but the trio end up extremely close. her and aaron will also end up extremely close and he will be introduced to the friendgroup (i dont like how theyre all kind of seperate) but he'll kind of be the "friend by proxy" because it will take a little longer for them to warm up (not anyone's fault, aaron is just... harder to befriend because he's an awkward dude)

as for her realtionships, here's my general plan for them (i had to split it up so aaron, laurence, and garroth under the cut!!)

Aaron

"It's weird. I thought those two hated each other. But now they seem inseparable. I just don't get it."

"Aaron? Yeah he's pretty weird. He has this whole dark and broody thing going on but he's such a squishy soul! He's like a pitbull! ...People think I hate him? Why would I hate my best friend?"

Aphmau is going to have more of a brother/sister relationship with aaron, they will NOT be the endgame ship of this rewrite. i detailed this in my pinned post, but i will reiterate: i do NOT like aarmau for the creepy, predatory way it is written. therefore i will just simply not include it in my rewrite. dont like it, dont have to read it <3

their story arc will stay largely the same. they meet online as FC/Shu (although i probably will change their nicknames because those are LAME) and meet irl in werewolf class. despite aaron defending her in person, they heavily dislike each other and bicker constantly. aph doesnt know she becomes the alpha female and aaron doesnt know that she is the girl that he's been talking to this whole time.

as FC and Shu they become thick as thieves, absolute partners in crime. they ARE aware of their age gap and there is no romantic feelings. they see each other as siblings and treat each other as such. they banter and bicker and fight but they genuinely care for each other. "i hate you, FC!!!" "i love you too, shu" becomes a daily part of their conversations.

Garroth

"He's so stoic, but around her... He becomes so gentle that it almost feels like he's a different person. She's his world."

"I think everyone but Aphmau herself sees the way he looks at her."

garroth is the first person to fall in love with aphmau. he stays quiet about his feelings for fear of ruining their friendship although he does quietly dream of something more.

garroth was always the first person that aphmau called on. his quiet and more serious demeanor was sought out as a comforting shoulder to listen to. before they knew that they were childhood friends, they had always described themselves as "platonic soulmates" (the word platonic made garroth internally wither and die but he kept that smile)

after, though? they were practically joined at the hip. partly because of their mothers and partly because they just wanted to. there was a select amount of boys that sylvanna allowed in her house (the only others being dante and travis, after many trials of proving that they ONLY have platonic feeligns for her daughter and NOTHING more) and the only boy that doesnt get her heavy surveillance

and that's how aphmau falls. breaking down his serious walls and getting to see his silly and goofy side that he keeps hidden made her fall before she even realized that she was falling

Laurence

"There he goes again, another girl wrapped around his finger."

"Laurence? He's so sweet and gentle! Sure, he's a big flirt, but he means well. I know that he would be by my side if I ever needed him."

if garroth's love is a gentle misty rain, laurence's is a fucking typhoon. strong and loud and passionate. he doesnt fall as fast. he even teases garroth about falling for someone so easily, but he very quickly learns why garroth fell so hard.

when laurence discovers his feelings, he immediately made it incredibly obvious. however, if aphmau flirted back, he'd become a blushing mess.

there was always boundaries with his flirting when they were friends. he never touched her, not in a way that could be seen as romantic. his hands always stayed firmly to themselves. but once he falls? he cant keep his hands off of her (nonsexually, obviously). constant shoulder touches, brushes of the hand that he plays off "oh aphmau if you wanted to hold my hand, you could've just asked!"

cupping her chin and cheeks, leaning in close so he gets an excuse to admire her face. the list goes on and on.

aphmau notices this, but she just thinks that theyre getting closer as friends. what makes her fall for him, however, was his gentleness. he was always the first person to tell her that she was beautiful, how kind she was, how thoughtful she was. he was her #1 fan, her absolute cheerleader. she had never had someone tell her that and now to hear it constantly made her heart flutter.

unlike garroth, she realized that she was falling for him pretty quickly. and that was about the time she realized her feelings for garroth, too.

#mystreet #aphblur #aphmaurewrites #aphmau mystreet #aphmau #aphverse #aphblr #pheonix drop high #aphmau pdh #rotp #rise of the phoenix

[moviemunchies]

Honestly, so much of this movie relies on its twists, so I’m struggling to figure out how to talk about it. For a brand new movie like this, I don’t want to spoil it for readers who haven’t seen the movie.

I can tell you that the book wasn’t wasn’t written by Taylor Swift, though?

Ellie Conway is the successful author of the bestselling Argylle series, a sequence of spy thriller novels that have captivated the world. Ellie herself, though, is mostly a recluse, with a small social circle, an anxious disposition, and lives alone with her cat, Alfie. She’s struggling to write an end for the series, so she books a train for herself and Alfie to her parents’ house for a brainstorming session. But on the way, Ellie meets a supposed spy, Aiden, that tells her stories are eerily accurate reflections of an actual, real-life conspiracy in the intelligence community. And now some actual bad guys are after her, and Aiden’s the only one who could save her. The line between fiction and reality gets blurry, and Ellie has to help Aiden figure out what’s actually going on.

Alright, so most of the critical conversation about this movie talk about how twisty the Plot is. And it is very twisty, because, well… that’s kind of The Point of the movie. Like many critics, I can’t help but think that it doesn’t quite all add up. At the end of the day, I’m scratching my head, thinking, “Wait, that was the villains’ plan? They couldn’t think of anything more effective than that?” I also suspect that there will come a point when the viewer will see some of the twists right before they happen.

That being said, I think if you can say to yourself, “Alright, this movie is built on ridiculous twists–so bring it on,” you will have a much better time. I certainly did. 

This being a Matthew Vaughn film, there are pretty great action scenes throughout the movie. It’s not John Wick, no, but it’s stylish, cool, and fun to watch. Towards the end you get some fight scenes that are truly ridiculous, and they’re lovely like that. It reminds me of some of the great fight scenes in the Kingsman movies.

One thing that felt a bit odd was the marketing of the film. The first few minutes are featured heavily in trailers, despite them being a version of the action from the book Ellie Conway wrote, rather than an actual event occurring in Ellie’s life. It’s fine that the sequence is there, because it is actually relevant, and it’s great fun. Still, it felt very weird that it took up so much of the marketing, with Dua Lipa being on the poster for the movie when she’s barely in it.

Henry Cavill is one of the people from that opening sequence, and he continues to be through the movie as an active piece of Ellie’s imagination. And he is delightful, honestly. The man is clearly having a blast with his ridiculous haircut and over-the-top fight scenes, and I say that we should let him continue having a blast with roles like this. 

Honestly, the rest of the cast looked like they were having fun, too. Notably, Bryce Dallas Howard gets to do an active part of action scenes! I don’t know how often she does that, so it’s quite fun. Sam Rockwell gets to be a bit silly as a spy who is supremely competent but absolutely tired of all of this crap and would rather Ellie listen to his instructions, thank you very much.

And the cat! I was fond of Alfie the cat! However! I was less fond of how much of the cat is computer-generated in this movie. I get that for the stunts he’s got to be CGI; they’re not going to put a real cat in danger (especially because he’s played by the director’s wife’s cat). There are still scenes, like one in which he’s on the desk in a hotel room, where he’s quite obviously CGI and it’s distracting.

All in all, it’s a fun movie, though it’s not anywhere near as clever as it thinks it is. There’s too many twists that don’t add up. But if you manage to let go and let yourself have a fun time with a ridiculous spy movie, that mostly knows that it’s a ridiculous spy movie, then you’ll have a good time watching this movie.

#Argylle #Movie Munchies #Matthew Vaughn #Bryce Dallas Howard #Sam Rockwell #Henry Cavill

[iconuk01]

I've just seen it announced that Peter Vaughan-Clarke has died, at the age of 66.

Those of you who don't know who that is, who i suspect will be 99.78% of the people reading this, he was an actor best known for being Stephen in The Tomorrow People, not the US reimagining, but the original British early 70's version aimed squarely at kids.

The show was a contemporary show about the spontaneous appearance of the next step of human evolution, with powers emerging at puberty. They were gifted with powers of telepathy (only for communicating with each other, they couldn't read other minds), telekinesis, and teleportation (or "jaunting" as they refer to it), which for anything other than line of sight, required the use of a technological addition, the jaunting belt, a quintessentially 70's design.

There were only a handful of them (Less than a dozen across all the various seasons) and they operated out of a converted disused London Tube station.

At the behest of the Galactic Federation (Earth was not a member, but Tomorrow People appearing suggested it might be, one day) who loaned them some tech (including TIM, their self aware computer) they sought to help protect Earth from external threats, and more importantly, help other Tomorrow People as they emerged because the "Breaking Out" process was potentially very dangerous, as their mind had to cope with adjusting to telepathy (it was implied you might go insane if it didn't progress properly and develop mental shields) and teleportation (some people simply vanished and were lost forever in hyperspace). Tomorrow People were also genetically hardwired to be non-violent.

It had a budget that made Doctor Who look generous, and some of the performances were… not good (producer Roger Price deliberately cast untested actors for most parts, which worked in some cases, but not others). He was also committed to having non-white actors in lead rolds (Which for the early 70's wasn't remotely guaranteed). There's a fun article about some of that here. and another here

Stephen was the audience identification character in the first season. He was the average, everyday kid who "broke out" and was introduced to the weird world of the Tomorrow People.

He's a case where they got VERY lucky with casting. PVC (as he was affectionately known) ensured Steven was a delightful character.

He was funny, snarky, brave, eager, but not foolishly so, and still getting used to his new world. He still had to go to school because he was an otherwise ordinary kid, but would still jaunt to go swimming in the Carribean after school, because who wouldn't? He was the sort of guy you'd WANT to be friends with at school, even if he wasn't a Tomorrow Person.

And even very little icon-uk (I wasn't even upper case in those days) could see that he was a good looking kid, even if I was more interested in how cool telekinesis was as a power, and more importantly, how I could get hold of a jaunting belt)

That last one is a space suit... the 70s were weird for fashions, but not THAT weird.

David Bowie met him when the show was filming and mentioned later that he was "a pretty little thing", and I know from talking to people that he was the catalyst for more than one young lad realising that they might be more interested in other lads than girls.

After the show, his TV career petered out, bur he still did various stage work, acting, lighting tech and the like. He remained in touch with the fandom, appearing at conventions, and when the DVD's came out, he and co-star Nicholas Young did a serisouly outrageously good commentary tracks, simultaneously fond reminiscing, utter piss-take, giggling at the props and effects and pondering why a couple of the directors insisted on dressing some the attractive young actors in as little as possible. (Nothing untoward or disturbing appears to have happened to the cast, I hasten to add, but that director's predelictions do raise an eyebrow)

#peter vaughan-clarke #in memoriam #the tomorrow people

[koispam]

Trigun Stampede x Reader Lake Day AU Headcanons/ramble

Don’t mind me I just really wanted an excuse to write Knives being a fishing nerd ^^

(Also sorry the knives one is a bit mundane, I just think that if you strip away the genocide tendency’s he’s actually a pretty boring guy)

Vash:

Vash spends most of his time running around and slashing people with water. You’d better believe he brought water guns. He’ll find you anywhere you try to hide. It’s fun for a while but it gets tiring being squirted with water from every corner. While Vash is refilling his gun you decide to make your move. You quietly sneak up behind him on the dock planning to pick him into the lake. Your breath hitches and you freeze when you accidentally step on a creaky board. Luckily Vash is humming too loudly to himself tk hear you. You continue to tiptoe forward, quickly closing the remaining distance between you two. Reaching him with a one, two, three! You shove him forward off the dock and into the cold water below. He lets out a girlish shriek and falls in with no grace whatsoever. You burst out laughing and he looks up at you with a pout on his face. Once you stop laughing you offer him a hand and he accepts. However, as you lift him out of the water, his other hand shoots up and aims the water gun at you. Before you can react he shoots, point blank. You immediately drop him back in the lake. Now it’s his turn to laugh. You two spent the rest of the day shooting each other with water guns and pushing each other off the dock.

Wolfwood

The complete and utter contrast between him and Vash is astounding. Yet of course you expected this. It’s just so different after goofing off with Vash to be stuck lounging around with Wolfwood. Not to say it’s unpleasant, no it’s not unpleasant at all. It’s rather relaxing. You look over at Wolfwood who’s got his sunglasses on over his eyes and seems to be sleeping. You reach for his glasses so he doesn’t get a weird tan line when he calming grabs your hand to stop you. You stop moving for a second and when he doesn’t say anything you start to push back, once again vying for the glasses. He in turn increases the resistance on you arm and it’s like a small battle to glasses. Unfortunately for Wolfwood, an untimely sneeze drains him of his capacity to push back and you take the opportunity to snack his sunglasses. His now uncovered eyes glare at you in defeat. They seems to say “that’s not fair cheater.” You smirk back at him sending a message of “since when you you play fair?” He sighs and turns his head back to the sky. You lay back down, content with you small victory. Yes, relaxing indeed.

Knives

You’d never expect it, but Knives turns out to be quite a fan of fishing. You suspect it’s because he prides himself on being a “Hunter” of sorts. So it makes sense that he would enjoy an activity like fishing. When you ask if you can join him he was hesitant at first. However, when you reassured him you wont let yourself get bored he gave in. He doesn’t normally share his hobbies with anyone except the occasional piano session with Vash, however you seem to be the exception lately. When you see the boat you were surprised. It was definitely not the cheap kind. Knives must really love fishing, you think to yourself. You get to the middle of the lake and Knives starts to prepare his equipment. You watch with fascination as he effortlessly strings each piece onto his line. He must have done this a lot to be this efficient. When he notices you watching he starts explaining what he’s doing, probably trying not to let you get bored. You understand little of what he’s talking about but you nod your head anyways. He seems happy that you’re taking an interest in one of his hobbies. He casts the line and then you two sit and wait. Knives isn’t much of a conversationalist so he doesn’t say anything, and neither do you. You two just sit in simple silence and enjoy each other’s company. Knives catches a few fish while you two are out and you decide to bring one home to eat. All in all, a successful trip. You hope to join him again someday.

#trigun #trigun stampede #trigun headcanons #trigun stampede headcanons #knives trigun #trigun stampede knives #millions knives #vash our beloved #vash the stampede #vash trigun #vash trigun stampede #trigun wolfwood #nick wolfwood #nicolas d wolfwood #writing #drabble #writer #tristamp #headcanon

[lunarblazes]

yeah that’s right fuck you and fuck your mom the empires cast mentioned dungeons and dragons one too many times and my hands slipped welcome to a list of my assigned races and classes for each of the empires season 2 characters. objectively i’m right always. explanations will be under the cut in case you are not immediately convinced i’m right

race; class/subclass

gem: scourge aasimar; paladin/ancients

false: kalashtar; ranger/fey wanderer

katherine: high elf; barbarian/beast

lizzie: changeling; druid/shepherd circle

joel: water genasi; sorcerer/storm sorcery

fwhip: darkwood goblin; ranger/horizon walker

sausage: firbolg; cleric/peace domain

scott: lotusden halfling; bard/creation

joey: tabaxi; rogue/swashbuckler

pix: human; artificer/alchemist

shelby: astral elf; wizard/order of scribes

jimmy: human; fighter/banneret

EXPLANATION TIME.

gem is a scourge aasimar because, like, look at her. look at her character’s story. she’s a princess of light. she worships the sun. honestly i also like the interpretation that she is a child of the sun, hence aasimar, and i made her a scourge because scourge aasimar are metal as fuck. sometimes you just gotta bleed light in the name of the sun. as for an ancient oath paladin—that just felt like it worked with her absolutely incomprehensible nature and the idea that yeah sun ancient what’re you gonna do.

false. kalashtar are people… sort of inhabited by reincarnated… dream? spirits? it’s weird and tricky and hard to explain, i’m not fully sure i understand it myself, but i thought a combination fey wanderer and kalashtar would be super fun for false’s dimension hopping thing! kalashtar don’t dream, they see windows into their past lives, and i thought that was super cool for false. plus i just love the fey wanderer subclass, and false always has ranger vibes. her fey blessing would probably be some kind of illusory feathers drifting around her or perhaps reflective coppery eyes!

katherine is the assignment i love the most and am least willing to change. before i get mauled on this one, i know there’s a ranger class called monster slayer, but this is about eight thousand times cooler. consider, for me, katherine’s story about her parents disapproving of her fighting monsters in a world where she is a high elf. high elves are weird motherfuckers like that. a beast barbarian princess who wears pink and saves fairies is my favorite fucking character ever she can use her rage to transform herself into a fucked up hulking bear creature thing and maul any dark beasts around her. her magical girl transformation is her going into a rage. i’m right on this one.

lizzie as a changeling! i loved this one because in order for her to like keep that weirdly suspicious disguise thing she’d have to be either a really bad changeling or really paranoid. and i mean it is incredibly lizzie to go “how can i make sure people don’t suspect i’m a fey shapeshifter. I KNOW. [pulls out a cardboard box with a bad drawing of her own face on it] nobody will ever notice a thing now!” circle of shepherds is because those druids have an affinity for being able to summon animal spirits to aid them in battle! lizzie’s got her crazy menagerie with her :^)

alright joel is a water genasi because i think it’s cool. he’s made of water whatre you gonna do about it. i knew i wanted to make him a sorcerer from the get go and then i read the storm sorcery page and i was like yeah. this is him. i’m like 85% sure that the wiki page even says you can get storm sorcery magic from a weird fountain. joel girlbossed too close to the sun on this one. like to imagine he just decided yeah im a god now after touching a fountain and suddenly becoming able to control lightning

fwhip’s race is pretty self explanatory! tried my best to find a race that fit the bill for cave goblin, hence darkwood goblins, who are a bit more chill and interested in machinery than other goblins, i think. the class was tough to pick for him, but i figured since he’s sort of a keeper of the end portal and was the one who wanted to solve the mystery of the stronghold, a horizon walker subclass would be good! they protect the intersection of the planes.

sausage’s race was one i struggled with a bit. i don’t know why but sausage just has such human vibes, but i just also really liked firbolg for his gentler homey sort of vibe this season. plus they’re sort of natural druids and i think that works well, as i was also considering making him a nature domain cleric, but then i found out peace domain existed and i went yeah that’s him. his empire is literally called sanctuary. his abilities all center around how good of a relationship his allies have, how well they’re able to get along, and i love that!

i have no justification for lotusden halfling scott. lotusden halflings are sort of more sneaky and tricky than typical halflings, which, it’s scott i think he deserves that, and i don’t know! i just kind of wanted to make him a halfling. scott’s so often a very typically graceful and beautiful race and idk i just wanna see him be a funny little jester with his rainbow empire full of flowers while also being beautiful and graceful anyway. a bard of creation just felt like it fit with his colorful empire, plus scott always has fey vibes and that’s a very typically fey-associated class.

joey’s race is something i struggled with HARD. i thought about verdin, i thought about kenku, i thought about half-elf, i thought about half-orc, but eventually the need to make joey graceffa a stabby murder cat won out. i imagine he’s a tiger-styled tabaxi! swashbuckler is a no-brainer and i couldn’t find anything that fit him better for me, unlike katherine, so he stays a tricksy pirate guy :^D

as i’m writing this i have just watched pix’s newest episode, episode 3, though i made this list on series launch day, and i am feeling VINDICATED. his projector thing!! he made it to help him!! he’s got his gadgets and gizmos to help him out!! i think alchemist was the subclass that encouraged the most sort of curious testing, so that’s why i chose it for him. he’s just a guy with some magic items, uncovering ghosts in the savannah like it’s a casual tuesday!

shelby obviously had to be a wizard with the way she described the system of magic she belongs to! for a bit, i wasn’t sure what subclass to give her, as we don’t know much about her specific magic capabilities, but then i found circle of scribes, and i was like yeah she needs to be part of the nerd ass wizard circle, aka the nerd class. double nerd, double academic pressure, poor thing! astral elf was just because i found it and thought it was sick as FUCK, and plus the image of this regal elven girl made and blessed by stars being exiled to the swamp is so good.

yes the sheriff is a human fighter. what do you want from me. my friend banana suggested a critrole homebrew class called gunslinger for him but 1) i have no idea how to find information on that, it wasn’t on the wiki i was using, and 2) i wanted to stay out of homebrew stuff for this list, so i felt banneret fit him the best! bannerets excel at leading others to follow them, and i think this season jimmy’s got the charisma to pull it off.

#empires #empires smp #empires smp season 2 #yeah that’s right everyone i maintagged this #would love to know what the emperors themselves think of my assignments muahaha #if people are interested i did also assign season one #and i was thinking about doing hc too #though that would probably just be oops all bards #so many bards. god so many

[gemstarstarlight]

I posted 996 times in 2022

That's 996 more posts than 2021!

61 posts created (6%)

935 posts reblogged (94%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@taketwoinink

@9-circles-of-l

@venusqq

@skyisverybored

@jinxneedssleep

I tagged 978 of my posts in 2022

Only 2% of my posts had no tags

#mentality love - 150 posts

#*checks for cameras* - 139 posts

#aroace - 117 posts

#asexual - 115 posts

#pretty pictures - 110 posts

#aromantic - 96 posts

#reblog for posterity - 92 posts

#ace - 87 posts

#aro - 74 posts

#philosophy takes - 66 posts

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#i am forever and always a humanities nerd who actually wanted friends but did not want to fit in and generally didn’t like people who did

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Them: I’m in love with you.

Me: No you aren’t you don’t even know me you absolute dingus *whacks over the head with a baseball bat*

24 notes - Posted September 1, 2022

#4

Matthew Mercer as a robot is about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

27 notes - Posted October 5, 2022

#3

So, I’m watching EXU Calamity.

And I am going to discuss major spoilers, so be aware.

I was FURIOUS when Laerryn cast Blight on the tree. To me it seemed so obvious that it was a protection against something that to destroy it without any attempt to figure it out first was unconscionable.

And I realized I was angry. And I couldn’t figure out why.

Because it’s a story! A great story, a beautiful story, a moving story, but a story nonetheless. Why did I care so much about Laerryn’s choice? I’m normally pretty good at getting invested in a story but not letting it emotionally affect me. I don’t cry in movies. I suspect when I finish episode 4 I’m not gonna cry when everyone dies.

But I was so angry at Laerryn I had to pause the episode and do something else.

Why?

I’ve done some thought, and I think I know why.

Deeply connected to and caring of her work, above relationships. A deep desire to leave a mark on the world, to be remembered after leaving this earth. Talented and, more importantly, aware of her talents. Clutching to her work, her abilities, thinking, “It was worth it, it was worth it, it has to be worth it.” The people she’s left behind. The loves that she lost. Showing people that she cares through her abilities more than what they actually want from her (to stay, to be available, to need them). And worst of all, that single-minded drive that wants to get the most of what she needs and excluding everything else.

I saw way too much of myself in Laerryn Coramar-Seelie. And I’m not sure I loved what I saw.

If I had been in her shoes—me, who ditched my family and friends to see the world, have always been looking for more in life than simply what works, who feels fundamentally different from most people, who truly deeply cares about others but somehow can never put them above my own dreams and hopes, which is the very definition of love in most books—if I had been there, would I have done any different?

Or would I, too, in my own hubris and desperation, made the choice that seemed most right to me, and so completely missed the point?

I think I was angry because I wanted her to make the right decision, and when she didn’t, I felt afraid.

30 notes - Posted August 2, 2022

#2

Wereanimals that aren’t just wolves. The leader is a WereTiger.

I am living.

35 notes - Posted November 11, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Okay, I’m not one for crackships as a general rule, but Fearne and Chetney are too batshit insane hilarious to not get behind. An almost-canon crackship that references Hulk and Black Widow. The wildest will-they-won’t-they between two weird old people. A 100+ year old hippie faun druid and a 400+ feral gremlin werewolf with really strong Chihuahua energy. God bless.

730 notes - Posted November 4, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #I love the massive jump from 35 notes to 730 notes

[queensabriel]

Ok now that s1 has aired here are my thoughts on Rings of Power as a hard core Tolkien fan :3

Spoilers under the cut! (Also just a really long thought dump ahaha)

First of all I went in not expecting a 100% perfect adaptation bc i know how adaptations work and am looking at this show as basically expensive fanfiction (affectionate).

Overall I have enjoyed it very much. I think it's visually beautiful, love the costumes and music, the casting choices were all phenomenal, seeing Valinor and Numenor gave me all of the feelings.

Ismael Cruz Cordova is the most elf to ever elf and if you disagree sorry you are wrong.

The Numenorean aesthetics were stunning.

I'm not going to whine about the short haired elves but it did feel like a kinda boring style choice imo

I don't love all of the lore changes, but none of them like, upset me. My feelings range from "that's a choice" to "I actually love this change." (Like Galadriel's whole story, I generally really like it though I find it hilarious that Gil-Galad talks to her the way he does considering she's literally his great-aunt.)

Don Marshall on TikTok mentioned that he wishes the Tolkien estate had given them rights to use the bits of the Silmarillion that talk about/impact the second age and i agree. The fact that the Silmarils were given only a passing mention when they were a huge part of elvish history felt weird.

(Did anyone else think that the Dwarves had a silmaril and then were disappointed when it just turned out to be mithril)

I did guess who The Stranger was almost immediately and I am pleased that i was right. Daniel Weyman has done a really good job of giving little nods to Ian McKellan's Gandalf in the way he plays him and i like that very much.

Like other people one of my main quibbles is with the pacing feeling weird, and I especially felt that it was rushed in the finale. It really felt like Galadriel went from being BFFs with Halbrand to suspecting him of being Sauron in like, two seconds with zero evidence. Like somehow seeing him get chummy with Celebrimbor made her go 'oh my god this guy i've been friends with might be the Dark Lord' like girl how?

I think the reveal of Halbrand was the thing that fell flat for me just because they did it way too soon. I'm pretty sure that Annatar and Celebrimbor worked together for quite a while before Annatar was revealed, so i'm really curious how he's going to influence the other rings of power if he's not around to help make them? I think if they were going to have Galadriel figure it out so fast, I would have liked it if Halbrand didn't remember who he was, they could have done some really cool stuff with that.

Also we were robbed of the opportunity for the tumblr girlies to get their Celebrimbor/Annatar slash on

Who and what the heck were those priestess ladies?! Were they maiar? Were they just...random....magic ladies? I kept hoping that main one would turn out to be a human form Balrog.

Not nearly enough Disa. Give me 1000% more Disa. She is fabulous and perfect.

Also really need to know how the fuck Galadriel thinks Celeborn is dead. Did he actually die and will come back from the halls of Mandos later? Where is he that she hasn't run into him and he hasn't come to find her?

My two unbelievably nit-picky details which I know why they changed these it was to avoid confusion BUT - The dwarves should have been calling Aule "Mahal" and Finrod should have been calling Galadriel "Artanis" ok i'm done being pretentious.

If we don't get Oropher and Thranduil in season 2 i'll be sad

Loved the Harfoots so much though i was a little perplexed by the hypocracy of their "no one walks alone" except if you fall behind the group or we're mad at you then you can go fuck yourself like i'm pretty sure that's not how nomadic cultures work lol

overall my complaint is that season 1 should have been longer or they should have tried to do less, because the reveal of Halbrand felt way too rushed especially since they revealed both him and the Stranger in the same episode.

But in general I enjoyed it as a fun cinematic canon addition and am really excited to see what season 2 brings!

though why they're moving filming from Aotearoa to England i do not understand.

#The lord of the rings #rings of power #tolkien #lotr #arda