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muldxr · 5 months

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@pscentral event 22: 2023 wrapped ↳ 12 films i watched this year

image description below the cut:

The main header is a gif banner. It has a black background with white ashes falling like snow. Extra bolded text reads "2023", with a light blue-grey gradient. Across its middle is a black banner cutout with a smaller, white, all-caps font reading "Wrapped".

Then, 12 main GIFs are divided into 4 groups of 3 rows/images. Each row is a clip from a movie. They all have light contrast and a de-saturated filter. Above each clip is a white banner background and black font naming the title of the movie clip.

First GIF: Emphasized blue and grey tones. 1. Spirited Away - Sen is riding Haku in dragon form away from the camera into the sky. There are big, soft, blue clouds, and a moon shines on the right hand side. 2. Us - The doppelganger family stand in a line outside on the Wilsons' driveway. Green pine trees surround them. A streetlight is behind them, shrouding them in darkness. Red claps, and the other three doppelgangers begin to move. 3. The X-Files: Fight the Future - A body is on a table with a sheet covering it. Scully is on the left hand side of the screen, looking at Mulder who is standing on the right hand side of the screen. Soft light comes in from the frosted window behind Mulder. Both of them are wearing black suit jackets.

Second GIF: All gifs are much paler, near grey. 4. Westworld - A white coat moves right to unveil the cowboy android, wearing a black hat and lying on a table (table not visible). The android's face is removed by a lab technician to show wires and computer chips inside. 5. Arsenic and Old Lace - The camera follows Martha Brewster as she places a large, elaborate wine decanter on the table. The liquid inside swirls around. (This is a B&W gif.) 6. Dial M for Murder - A medium rolling shot of Margot on the phone, in a dimly lit apartment. She has blonde hair and is wearing a nightdress.

Third GIF: Stronger tones of blue and red. 7. That Thing You Do! - The Wonders are waiting in the stage left wings for their performance. They are in red suits reminiscent of the 1960s, and the curtains around the stage are blue. Their manager, Mr. White, is talking to them. 8. Final Destination 3 - A wide shot of the roller coaster stuck at the top of the loop-de-loop. There are two people hanging from their seats. To the left is more of the coaster structure. 9. Miracle - A USA Olympic Hockey player (Johnson, #10) looks up at the clock as he skates across the ice with great effort. His uniform is white with red and blue accents. The scene cuts to the clock and the scoreboard, showing 1:01, then 1:00. The score is USA 4, URS 3.

Fourth GIF: A mix of desaturated hues. Most notable is the pink in the Barbie gif and some blue in the Rent gif. 10. Catfight - There are many people in an art gallery, looking on as Veronica angrily tears a large portrait from the wall. Veronica then runs away screaming, carrying the painting with her. 11. Barbie - In an outdoor cafeteria, Barbie looks at a group of girls and says, "I'm Barbie!" while throwing her arms out jazz-hands style. She is wearing a hot pink western outfit and a white hat. 12. Rent - A dark scene shows Mark on his bike, traveling through a wide alley. The camera pans to a pole with several 'eviction notice' papers on it. Other strangers linger in the background.

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space-blue · 1 year

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Heartfelt Recom Quaritch x Parker Selfridge shipping—a dissertation

OK so I was on discord discussing how unlikely it is for Parker Selfridge to be interested in Recom Quaritch, if only because he was the one being actually racist in A1. Calling the Na'vi fly beaten savages who live in trees and 'blue monkeys'. He also had a (mostly deleted) falling out with Quaritch before the final mission, and that mission's failure meant going home in abject shame and losing the mines.

We know that Selfridge is due to reappear in the next film from footage of them filming in their suits, and I maintained we could get them to fuck, and not just mean hate fuck, but meaningful past life strangers to weird friends to lovers sort of fuck. Fuck with feelings.

Buckle up for this unwanted Ted Talk hidden under the cut :

Parker goes back to earth and is in a very sore spot due to what happened. Footage leaked maybe? Quaritch is too dead to take the heat. Parker is forced into some serious introspection and the company does NOT have his back. His money is gone, his respect obliterated. For a while he's untouchable. There are inquiries. Bad times.

Then he's given a chance to make it back into the company, because see, they have a job for him. Enter the Westworld deep dive.

You know how avatars mature on the trip over to Pandora? So it takes 5 earth years to make one? And in the video Parker says the recom is 'being grown in a lab as we speak', yet the recoms don't arrive for another 16 years?

Hear me out : Parker is the person who knows Quaritch best at Hell's Gate, among the survivors. Most of the mercs are dead, and Quaritch had no family he was close to on earth. So they're trying to calibrate his recom off of his memories, but it's messy. It's a new technology.

The first recom Quaritch doesn't imprint at all. Messy mental breakdown. So they bring in Parker, start trying to personalise the bodies to make the mind stick. He meets them. The first one who melts down. The second one who stays alive for a few weeks but starts diverging and going insane. And then the third one, who feels like a success compared to the previous ones who destroyed themselves inside out.

Parker gains a brand new appreciation for the hellish, amoral nightmare happening inside RDA labs. And then his job is over, because Quaritch 3.0 was a success. They ship out, and they're already growing Quaritch 4.0

Yeah, so, what do you think happens to Quaritch 3.0, the one that the now almost 40 years old Parker has been working with everyday for months? Yep. "decommissioned". No use for him. Even though he was a sentient being, as far as Parker is concerned. As far as anyone is concerned. He's property. He runs up costs.

That's when Parker signs up to go back to Pandora, on the next flight after the one Q 4.0 was sent off on with other recoms. He won't let this new Quaritch be eaten alive by Ardmore.

He feels guilty. He's the one who convinced Q to sign for project phoenix. It was good money after all, even if not for you at least for family. And Quaritch had Miles junior on his mind. Even if he wasn't close to Paz and the boy at the time, he must have taken the risks into account and figured it wouldn't hurt to have money sent back to earth for the boy.

Of course the boy stayed on Pandora, which Parker knows. And no amount of money is worth what he's been witnessing for the past five years working with proto-recoms.

He also picks up recreational drinking and ruminating. He starts wondering if he isn't exactly the same as the recoms. He's usable. He was turned into a rag when it was convenient, a tool when it suited.

So when he arrives, 40yo fresh off cryo, dressed in no-nonsense practical gear, Recom Quaritch (fresh off the SeaDragon disaster) is taken aback. He expected the racist jackass Parker. The man with the dollar eyes. The little brat.

This is someone very different. Since they used to fuck as humans and those are memories Q definitely has, they might have a... talk. And none of the usual jokes or attitudes get the rise Q expects, which would be deeply unnerving as he'd have no human around him from his old life except Parker.

And yet Parker is so damned different now. So serious and earnest. They'd probably have to talk about what happened at Hell's Gate. How Quaritch undermined his authority with the bombing of Hometree, the repercussion of the final failed mission.

I think Parker couldn't even tell him about the other 2 Qs he's... monitored and worked with. How badly would it fuck with Q's head?

But imagine how confused he'd be, overhearing some human dropping gossip on Parker, how apparently he's back for Quaritch's sake. What does this man WANT? They weren't that close. And post SeaDragon battle things are not going well at Bridgehead and Parker is defending him constantly.

Ardmore would have a field day shredding Parker a new asshole for defending the ghost of the guy who ruined his life. But Parker knows by then that what ruined his life is the company and its total lack of loyalty towards him.

Now have you seen the stills of Recom Q, Jake, and tiny Selfridge together? Imagine Quaritch jumping in to protect Parker. It's this one weird human he hasn't figured out yet and nobody is laying hands on him, no matter how arrogant and smartass he may still be.

So now they've saved each other's skin, or had each other's back, you know. Parker blocking Ardmore, Quaritch intercepting Jake... They've achieved a certain degree of mutual respect.

That's when they have a heart to heart over some drinks, and where Parker admits Miles is nothing like his old self, and that it's reassuring in a way. He's happy to see he's less... uptight and cold. The fire's good. The fire's healthy. Feels like he has a new chance at life despite the memories that still define so much of him.

((flashback to clone Q 1.0 who was too much like his old self, and went incredibly cold and emotionless before slowly falling into a completely silent and catatonic state with Parker unable to help))

And Miles opens up about it being nice to have someone have his back, even if he must admit he is still unsure where the loyalty comes from. Maybe he'd say something about the memories of undermining Parker's authority at hometree and how that decision makes sense still but... it's not something he could imagine himself doing now, and he's a little afraid of what that conviction means for him.

"Means you're becoming your own person. Good for you. I was afraid you wouldn't."

Andddd then Miles is like What do you mean?

Parker puts his foot in his mouth, every corrective sentence just making it worse. Miles just... pins him down. He's almost 3x his size, it's more of an effort to not hurt him than to restrain him.

They were becoming close, but now it's Break Up time.

Parker spills all the beans. How he oversaw the birth and death of three versions of him. Miles is in total disbelief. Parker helped refine the technology? Enabled all of this? How fucked is that? ((but also deep down his loyalty and choosing to drop everything on Earth to follow and make sure he was OK and survived when he didn't have to is touching and it finally makes sense and wow someone needs time to think now...))

Miles is pinning him down as we established, processing the truth of what the RDA did and what Parker did... ears pinned back, pressing harder, teeth bared, just a building RAAAH— sound escaping him out of his control, and Parker speaking faster and faster to get it all out and reassure him he didn't want any of this, that it's not fair, that he used to think it wouldn't be a problem, just like body-hopping, that Quaritch would be brand new and, and... And Miles just flicks his tail, veins popping on his forehead, hissing and looking deep into Parker's eyes and seeing that he seems to mean it.

He orders him to get the fuck away. Just, away from him. NOW.

Parker is like 😐 I'm pinned under you...

Really long awkward moment where Miles is really on the cusp of aggression, some deep seated Na'vi instinct to lash out at what he perceives to be a frightening enemy... But it's anger at the RDA/military/government too. This whole mess is not something he's learned to unpack. He's not even tried. He's been sweeping all of that under the rug recently, just on a single minded mission of getting Jake's ass.

Parker's admission makes him stop dead in his tracks, intellectually. He has to take a look at himself, at the RDA, what signing that contract meant for him (and how he did that for the benefit of a son the RDA abandoned, a son raised by Jake Sully, a son who is kind and patient and brave and loyal, all things Miles values deeply).

And there's also how little the company has cared for the lives of the Marines they resurrected. Bodies never retrieved, service never honoured, just rebaked and sent out again and again until they die a semi-useful death.

Miles stews for days before he finally seeks out Parker to ask for details about himself. He's straight up terrified of what he'll hear.

How much of his personality now is his? Truly his? What does 'his' even mean by now? Was Parker really the best person to calibrate him?

Parker could have a genuine cackle and ask, tongue in cheek, how much of his personality does he owe to the RDA? Because he let the corporate mindset eat him alive, to absolutely no benefit of his own. And he's got Q to thank in the end for opening his eyes, because he was the one so obsessed with loyalty.

It was this thing he valued over all else, and when Parker was back on earth and received loyalty from nothing and no one, despite years of hard work enriching the shareholders...

Yeah. Eye opener indeed. Better late than never.

It's his fucked up need to taste some of that damned loyalty that drove him to accept the recom calibration work. He figured Quaritch would understand. They used to be pretty close after all.

He did become close to Quaritch 3.0 in the end. They talked for hours and hours. And even though he was still Quaritch, he sort of went his own way too, in the end. (before being put down....)

Meeting Quaritch 4.0 and seeing how different he is now, after months of life on Pandora and a new environment, it only served to prove they're all unique people. That Q's memories are just like a tree stump from which new growth rises. It's never from the same spot or going in the same direction.

And it's great, honestly, that Miles is his own person, and Selfridge doesn't want more lives on his hands.

How can Miles not latch onto that strange man? He still values loyalty and isn't that the sweetest sort? Parker is invested in his life, in his survival. They're working together... And Pandora is dangerous for humans—not to forget the very real danger of Ardmore herself. He won't betray Parker again. He can't discount him as he used to.

They're both different, they've both changed, and they're both back together under those new, arduous circumstances, having each other's back.

And THAT is how you make them pine for each other, have each other's back, and finally be a little more open about their situation (and with nobody else), and eventually fuck with feelings.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk on shipping Recom Quaritch x Parker Selfridge as real sweethearts.