#actually i think if he were a teen during the years one direction were really big then he’d be a louis stan

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

I was thinking about the Harry Styles/ Ben Winston CBS sitcom, Happy Together.

When I was a Larrie, the show seemed like a vehicle to erase any trace of Louis: the show was saying, Harry and Louis never lived together; Harry always brought girls back to the Winston attic to bang (or as Ben Winston heavily hinted in the GQ Australia interview, Taylor Swift hung out nude in his kitchen).

In retrospect, the show was HSHQ’s transparent myth-making propaganda. Its purpose was to establish the myth that One Direction might have been a passing teen fad, but Mr. Harry Styles was the real deal, the rock ‘n roller, the genuine It Boy, the natural star. He was the looker, the talent, the charisma. He carried it all; the rest were hangers-on.

[btw this strategy is still HSHQ’s modus operandi, and most of the public bought it hook, line, and sinker.]

Unfortunately, Ben Winston’s hamhanded incompetence with the show’s storytelling crippled any chance of popularity with the general public, and of course 1D fans hated this myth (Harry’s fandom was still majority OT5 and Larries back then).

But they tried. How they tried!

Harry had the urtext rock journalist, Cameron Crowe, writing his first Rolling Stone cover story. Rob Sheffield and Shirley Halperin followed up. Harry had one of the decade’s biggest and most accomplished producers, Jeff Bhasker, lushly delivering a blend of Laurel Canyon/ White Stripes lite sound for his first album (Harry’s fandom still can’t tell that HS1 was a complete Rock Lite ripoff). Bhasker invented Harry’s protean musical taste.

The old money men behind Harry Styles tried to fabricate a rock star legend before there was any actual product. They tried to establish the bandleader-boyband-breakout myth before Harry had released a single solo song. Eight months before Harry’s first single, he was interviewed by Sir Paul McCartney, an actual living legend with sixty years of music lore behind him, as if they were already on par.

And yet…

And yet…

Harry just couldn’t land it. He just didn’t have it in himself, not without the hoopla, without the window dressing, without hands inside the puppet moving the wooden parts. He couldn’t get the big awards or sufficient numbers his first round. Harry failed. He was an embarrassment. He couldn’t do it until Louis was sidelined for two years, and Zayn disappeared from media, and Liam’s mental health destroyed.

With dramatic irony, the go-ahead for Happy Together was discovered on the same day (July 14, 2018) that Louis made his Twitter video, announcing he would be a 2018 X Factor judge, and specifically mentioning that this would, in no way, interfere with his musical career. What an interesting, transparently sad way to announce a judging gig.

What an interesting coincidence, as well, that Louis’ very first solo interview was with Dan Wootton, back in 2017, specifically for the purpose of denying Larry— a fact that Wootton heavily promoted. This took precedence over the discussion of Louis’ solo music, his album, his tour, One Direction dirt, his personal history— of anything else, really.

Denying Larry is something that Harry Styles has never done. Not once in 13 years. (Interesting, as well, that Harry had to do an interview with Wootton for the release of HS1, but neither audio nor video were ever released.)

What an interesting coincidence that when offered the chance, during the Cooper Lawrence interview for Sweet Creature, Harry clumsily tried to play both sides instead of denying Larry. He couldn’t bring himself to say the words. It took him six full years to explicitly dedicate it to his sister. Six years! Baiting his fans is far more important to Harry than Gemma ever will be lol.

What an interesting coincidence that Jeremy O. Harris tagged Harry in the infamous Euphoria episode depicting Larry fanfiction, which made Louis angry enough to tweet about his lack of consent, yet Harry stayed silent. Throwing Larry, and by extension Louis Tomlinson, as fresh meat for Harry’s fetishizing, fantasizing, mostly heterosexual female fans was, and is, a major HS marketing strategy.

I think about Harry’s new-found “best friend” Mitch Rowland, the pizza-parlour story sticking around long enough for Harry’s fans to forget he had 1D bandmates, about Harry’s never mentioning 1D except as “the band,” his mocking tone calling Zayn “Ringo.” “They’re not here, are they?” he had said smugly, triumphantly on SNL, “I am.”

I think about Harry’s statement that making his first album in Jamaica was the “happiest” he had ever been in his career. About Sir Paul McCartney “interviewing” Harry in 2016 (for Another Man) as if Harry were already in the pantheon of legends.

In 2023, Harry’s 1D bandmates are supposed to be gone and buried because they are no competition whatsoever for his natural genius, the entertainment supernova, the quadruple threat to music and movies and stage and television, this one-man theme park, a soulful poet and universal gift to womankind. One Direction was supposed to be just a back story for Harry, the way NSYNC was for Justin Timberlake (the parallels), or The Police for Sting, or Fleetwood Mac for Stevie Nicks (same management tricks).

[And yet, despite the industry shutting him out, despite BBC Radio pretending he doesn’t exist, or Billboard’s misleading headlines, or Greg James saying fans bring tomatoes to throw at his concerts, or Roman Kemp making fun of Louis and 1D, despite Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, and many other media outlets never reviewing an album that debuted No. 1 in the UK and No. 5 in the USA, despite all of that, Louis Tomlinson has survived. He’s made it. He is an industry presence. He’s thriving, with indie artists and bands appreciating his generosity and genuine support. Louis’ opinions and person are respected. Fans pay attention to what he has to say. Critics can no longer ignore his actual value. His judgment has weight. He has gravitas, personality, intelligence, creative talent. And most important to the music industry— Louis brings with him a big fanbase, and the potential for impressive revenue.]

In retrospect, the contortions Harry went through to be an entertainment juggernaut are both gristly and amusing. His chosen personal friends: James Corden, Ellen Degeneres, Kim Kardashian, Rande Gerber, Irving and Shelly Azoff, Lizzo, Jann Wenner so influential in rock journalism— embody a list of the most entitled, narcissistic, abusive traits of the Hollywood rich, but Harry, famously, habitually, lamentably— stays silent. He sides with the abusers and colonizers, because that’s where the money and fame are.

Has it been worth it for him? Harry is certainly one of the most famous entertainers in the world at the moment, surrounded by hype, desired by millions, someone every media outlet wants to interview. His career is lava hot, yet in the midst of this glory, Harry’s story is built on a core of brutality and cruelty, underhanded behavior, an amoral, depthless hunger for fame, transparent sexism and misogyny, a willingness to smear colleagues and partners on his way to the top, good old classism, a talent for politicking and sucking up to power, and an unblinking drive to steamroll everything and everyone in his way. And his worshipful, gullible, obsessive fanbase often imitate Harry Styles’ ethos. His H/Larrie fans have persistently tried to snuff out solo Louis fans and paint Harry as a victim. Multiple Tumblr, Twitter, IG Harrie accounts follow Louis’ every move and stalk solo Louies and Larries by the second. They attacked Liam Payne to an extent that made him feel suicidal. Harry is still young, but has the face and body language of a middle-aged industry player. How long can he be sustained by negative, rather than positive, motivators for his work? How much is enough for him? For a person who craves to be loved (his TPWK motto is aimed mostly at himself), how long can Harry Styles be satisfied with a manufactured, datamined, inauthentic, pretentious façade of a life, where his every thought and action are aimed toward marketing?

In retrospect, Harry has achieved everything he set out to achieve, and seems very happy with the bed he made for himself. One can argue that nothing is consequential in the world of some celebrities except fame, wealth, and power. We know so little about their motivations other than a tiny fraction of the outcomes of their actions. But we do see this fraction, and the fractions add up over time, no matter the data scrubbing and the Google search manipulations and the second-to-second Columbia Records datamining. One Direction is old history, which also means there are lots of fans who have been here forever, and 1D fans do not forget.

Whatever history has in store for Harry, it can never change Harry himself. Throughout his solo career, Harry has made a habit of passing off other people’s work as his own, conflating personal and business relationships, and siding with oppression and greed. That is a truth— good or bad— he’ll have to live with.

#harry styles #one direction #louis tomlinson #liam payne #zayn malik

[a-queer-seminarian]

Hey Avery, I love this blog and the binary-breakers blog. They’ve both been a great help to me as I reconstruct my faith. But I’m struggling with something: my fiancé and I are scheduled to light an advent candle during the Sunday morning service at his church. Initially I was really looking forward to it, but by chance I was curious about how old Mary was when she bore Jesus, and when I looked it up I learned she could have been anywhere from 13-16. Moreover, some traditions put Joseph as being much, much older. It’s just hard not to think in a very . . . sinister direction when considering that context, especially as far as God’s role in this is concerned. What did you learn about this topic in seminary, if anything? Is there any hope that my “problematic” interpretation is unnecessary/invalid?

Hi there! I think it's lovely y'all are going to light an advent candle tomorrow, and I hope it's a meaningful experience! I also totally get your dismay about Mary's age at Jesus's birth.

To start with the facts: yes, Mary was almost certainly a teenager when betrothed to Joseph. The Bible doesn't give any confirmation of her age, but in both ancient Jewish culture and Roman culture, girls were usually married off not too many years after they started menstruating.

When it comes to Joseph's age, I do have some slightly relieving news — he's unlikely to have been the old man he's often depicted as in medieval art. (I actually had a fascinating conversation on this topic with queer Catholic art historian Amy Neville on my podcast that you can read or listen to here!) He almost certainly would have been older than Mary, but it's uncertain how much older.

In ancient Jewish culture, the "ideal" marriage was actually one between a man and a woman who were both in their teens, with an expectation that a man marry by age 20. Being able to support a wife & kids was a key indicator of manhood, so men were expected to get married as young as they could. But in practice, it was more common for men to marry in their late 20s / by age 30, which does mean that their wives would often be a good ten or fifteen years younger than they were.

The Bible doesn't tell us what age Joseph was when he and Mary were betrothed, but it's unlikely he was older than 30, just as it's unlikely she was older than 18.

So maybe that's not quite as discomfiting as the image of a much older Joseph, but by our modern standards, it's still pedophilia. So what do we make of that? And what did God think of that??

__

I believe it is an act of faith to be troubled by elements of scripture that should be troubling, rather than shrugging them off as being "God's will" just because they're in the Bible. I highly recommend Rachel Held Evans' book Inspired on this topic, which has a whole chapter on grappling with difficult biblical texts (you can read a long passage from it here).

While exploring our emotions and giving them holy space, it is also important to accept that biblical cultures are two thousand or more years old — the ancient world had completely different understandings of morality from us. That doesn't mean we shrug off displays of sexism or xenophobia in scripture — bigotry is bigotry, whether an ancient iteration or what we have today — but learning about biblical cultures enriches our understanding of why certain things, like slavery or women having little say in whom they marry, are present in the Bible (and often completely taken for granted by its human authors). It can help us distinguish between what is truly God-ordained, versus what the humans writing down their experience of God presume is God-ordained.

I appreciate how womanist theologian Wil Gafney explores the complexity of appreciating the Bible as an ancient human text while looking for Divine truth "between the lines":

“There is liberation in the gospel even though it is sometimes obscured by the structures of power that benefit from holding people captive. There is also a story in and between the lines of and behind the text we hold so dear that points to a liberation that not even the authors and editors of scripture were able to see clearly or, see their way to record.

Jesus was a rabbi, he would have never wanted us to cling to the letters and syntax of these texts as though they were his very body and blood but rather, his spirit and the Spirit of God, blow through them, ruffling and disturbing them and permitting us to read new truths in and out of them and, not lose sight of the ancient stories that are also part of our shared heritage."

___

When it comes to Mary's young age when betrothed to Joseph and approached by Gabriel to request her "yes" to carrying God's child, your question of God's "role" in that is a vital one to ask.

In Mary's world, a woman without a kyrios, a man to be her protector, was in a very precarious position. Mary has to be betrothed to someone in her teens. We don't know whether God "approves" of this cultural practice, but we can see how God works within this custom to ensure Mary's security throughout her life:

when Joseph plans to divorce her after she becomes pregnant with Jesus, God sends an angel to persuade him to stick by her;

when Jesus is dying on the cross, he ensures that his beloved will protect Mary after he's gone.

Throughout scripture, God largely seems to operate within a people's cultural expectations (with key exceptions, like how God insists Their people treat foreigners the same as members of the group, or when God warns against giving the people a king just because that's what all the other nations have). That's what I see here. Mary must have a husband to be secure in her culture, and I imagine God ensuring that that husband will be one who will treat her well.

__

Then there's the question of God espousing Mary — of the Holy Spirit "overshadowing" her so that she conceives Jesus. What exactly is this "overshadowing" act? Why is God getting a teen girl pregnant?

Again, Rev. Wil Gafney provides words that wrestle out the good news with this complexity. When reading Luke 1, she urges us to sit with our distress at the image of a powerful "male" figure (Gabriel) approaching a teen girl to tell her what's going to happen to her body:

"Sit with me in this moment, this uncomfortable moment, before rushing to find proof of her consent, or argue that contemporary notions of consent do not apply to ancient texts, or God knew she’d say yes so it was prophetic, or contend that (human) gender does not apply to divine beings, Gabriel or God, and the Holy Spirit is feminine anyway. Hold those thoughts and just sit in the moment with this young woman."

Our distress is holy; it shows our connection to a fellow human being, our thirst for justice. Honor what you feel, don't discard your emotions, even while you join them to sociohistorical understanding.

I highly recommend you read Gafney's whole article, but here's a little more from it that balances ancient culture with modern ethics:

"Yet in a world which did not necessarily recognize her sole ownership of her body and did not understand our notions of consent and rape, this very young woman had the dignity, courage, and temerity to question a messenger of the Living God about what would happen to her body before giving her consent. That is important. That gets lost when we rush to her capitulation. Before Mary said, “yes,” she said, “wait a minute, explain this to me.” ... Did the Ever-Blessed Virgin Mary say, “me too?” Perhaps not. A close reading shows her presumably powerless in every way but sufficiently empowered to talk back to the emissary of God, determine for herself, and grant what consent she could no matter the power of the One asking. And yet in that moment after being told by someone else what would happen to her body, she became not just the Mother of God, but the holy sister to those of us who do say, “Me too.” "

Because Mary was a teen girl, an impoverished Palestinian Jew living under empire, she can extend solidarity to people across all time who experience similar oppression, whose bodily autonomy is equally precarious. Just as her son, God in human flesh, extends solidarity to all who have ever been arrested or executed under an unjust state through his crucifixion. Divine power is expressed in and through those whom the world denigrates and discards — that's why God chose Mary, and why Mary in turn chose God.

Sorry this got so long and has a lot of complex stuff to wrestle with. I honor your courage to ask the hard questions, and I hope you are able to take time throughout Advent to keep pondering! There are no easy answers, but wrestling can yield a blessing.

#mary tag #advent #annunciation #reading and studying the Bible

[lilflowerpot]

I’m so happy that you share my headcanon of Keith having a crush on James because honestly there was so much unresolved tension between them.

Also, can you please open your fruitful mind cave and please share some headcanons that you have of the two of them please? So i can sit here and giggle uncontrollably while staring at my phone🙃

[original]

I don't really have a whole lot in the way of concrete headcanons regarding Keith & James' past, it's more nebulous ~vibes~, but let me give it my best shot:

So first thing's first, they met upon starting middleschool at the ripe young age of 11 with that delightful hormonal cocktail and all the dysfunctional emotions it entails a-brewing.

Keith's dad had been dead some three years at this point, and his foster placements had gone up in flames enough times that he'd been recently, but rather permanently, placed in a local group home. That in mind, he's all but given up on making actual human connections because these things seem to just never quite work out for him; better that he give up trying altogether, and save himself the hurt, but then... there's James.

Keith's already snagged the desk by the window in the far back—the best spot, as far as he's concerned—and is as happy to ignore and be ignored by his classmates as they file in for sixth period physics, until- until he walks in, all loud laughs and cheeky smiles, with a gaggle of kids hanging off his every word and more effortless charisma than any pre-teen boy should ever really have the right to.

And then gunmetal eyes sort of slide across the room—like he knew he was being watched before Keith even realised he was watching—all lazy arrogance and stupid hair, and he's looking Keith up and down and raising an eyebrow and- Keith looks away, mouth drawn and shoulders tight. Kids like that like to fight kids like him, he knows, and he cannot afford to get chewed out on his first fucking day for god's sake.

But it's not just physics because why would it be, no, over the coming week Keith finds that James Griffin—and it's no surprise to learn he's from money with a name like that—shares at least half his classes, P.E. among them, which is where it truly beings.

"It" being their... rivalry, Keith supposes.

He's not even sure who started it, just as likely to be both of them as neither, but when they're put on opposing teams for a "friendly" game of football, what begins as Keith making the most of his natural dexterity—skirting around lumbering opponents, nimble as a cat—turns into Griffin hunting him and only him down across the pitch like a damn bloodhound. "That's the game kid" the coach tells him, as if, by the end of it, he hadn't been systematically cornered and corralled by the other team irrespective of whether or not he had the damn ball, entirely at Griffin's direction, "like it or lump it". Keith, still wheezing with ribs that protest every breath after a particularly rough tackle, finds himself quite particularly disinclined to lump it, and certainly doesn't like it one bit.

Definitely not.

So Griffin pushes, Keith pulls. Griffin hits, Keith kicks. Griffin scratches, Keith bites.

But it's not bullying, never that: Keith's known his fair share—a scruffy orphan with anger issues is an easy target, he supposes—and this simply isn't it. Griffin evens defends him, once, in the particularly chilly January of their first year when a meat-headed trio think it funny to soak Keith's shirt during gym and leave it out to freeze; without pause or hesitation, Griffin had quietly handled them with more snide diplomacy than Keith himself would ever wield, and though the details of that closing whisper-threat were known only to he who'd received it, the sudden pallor of face and contrition of manner had left quite the impression.

...As did the cozily lined sweater that James—with goosebumps rising on his arms and cheeks already pinking from the chill—had thrown into Keith's arms from across the changing room, citing the pinprick hole in the cuff as reason enough for him to have been planning to rid himself of it anyway.

They're not friends—how could they be? James is intelligent and popular and so annoyingly good at things he damn near makes an art out of breathing—but for the first time since he was orphaned, Keith finds himself with one singular constant that he can rely on to be infuriatingly charmingly stubbornly there: never shying from Keith's sharp edges nor being swayed by the cruel whispers that haunt him everywhere he goes, James is just... James. Disagreeable. Incomprehensible. Unwavering.

And maybe, just a little bit like Keith.

Oh, and I'm also inclined to believe that (both in this au and canon) that past altercation seen in s7ep01 where Keith goes "I can out-fly anyone in this building" and James fires back with "Oh yeah? Is that what mommy and daddy told you before-" [gets punched in the face] was a classic case of projection on James' part: he strikes me as a kid whose parents expect nothing less than perfection—not only that he could be the best, but that he should—so I think that Keith getting the group in trouble, coupled with James just outright projecting his own experiences, led to a cruel comment (and worse for the fact that I believe James didn't actually know Keith was an orphan until after this instance).

#''fruitful mindcave'' gave me a good giggle #but it physically pained me to use 'football' for the objectively wrong sport but they're american so what choice did i have #Ao3 Little Blade #sa screams back #galaxy garrison crew #keith kogane #ficlet #or it almost devolved into one anyway oops #in an adjacent coincidence: yesterday I received a reply to an ao3 comment that I left on a jaith fic //half a decade ago// from some anon- #-literally being SO weirdly aggressive bc i was lightly critical of the jealousy shiro was exhibiting within the fic- #(context: he's dating adam at the time and yet getting territorial over mere //rumours// of keith & james) #-and trying to ''insult'' me by calling me a klance shipper??? which is a HILARIOUS choice bc i'm literally a sheith>klance girlie lmfao #nice to know that the wider vld fandom is still a toxic dumpster-fire in the year 2023 good lord 💀

[carlgrimesloverr]

gorgeous

carl grimes x fem!reader

summary : carl meets the same mesmerizing girl again, and somehow she’s even better this time. (pt. 2 to ‘mesmerizing')

takes place during : somewhere between s5 and s6

warnings : mentions of death/killing, vague mentions of mika + lizzie (slightly sophia)

word count : 498

requested by : @hellokitty-who

"oh, so the new kid’s a sweetheart?”

carl paused his work, already knowing who was standing in front of him and judith without even having to look up.

it was the same girl from earlier this week, the girl who looked almost as if she belonged in the earlier 2000's and not the current year. like she was untouched by everything happening around them. like she never had to think about killing a walker. like she never even had to think.

as carl finally raised his head, he saw today she chose to look more like someone from a heavy metal band advertisement. her hair was tied up, barely visible under a red beanie. her hat matched her red and black tie-dye shirt for some band carl had never heard of (who the hell is ‘pierce the veil’?), and her wide legged jeans had sharpie drawings all over them. she was gorgeous.

"i'm not a ‘sweetheart’.” the teen boy muttered, returning back to playing with his little sister. this caused the girl to laugh. 

god, even her laugh was intoxicating. it was just another thing about her carl found mesmerizing. 

"i know that, grimes. it's just my nickname for you now." she giggled, leaning against the banister and looking down at judith more intently. “who’s this cutie?” she asked, adoration lacing her voice.

“my half sister, judith.”

"oh.. half?” she stopped, looking directly at him with confused eyes.

"its a long story, not a happy one. but i don’t care, she’s still my sister.”

“that’s sweet grimes”

" oh thanks - uh.. i dont really know your name.."

"(y/n). ron didn’t tell you?”

even her name was gorgeous.

“he said you were, uh, ‘too complex’ or something like that.”

“of course the bitch with the daddy issues would say that about me. he’s lived this entire fucking time in alexandria, never seen what the world’s actually like now. never wondered about when the next meal was coming, if it even was coming. never had to worry about other groups. never had to kill.” she huffed, clearly annoyed as she slowly slid down the banister.

“yeah, i’ve met a few kids like that before… they’re- they’re dead now. didn’t make it.”

“in this world, you gotta do whats necessary, ain’t that right sweetie? gonna survive?” she cooed, playing with judiths hands as she spoke.

carl went red, knowing damn well she wasn’t talking to him, yet the words still went straight to his heart.

who calls a person ‘sweetie’ when people are eating each other. 

“you’ve got a weird look to you, grimes.” she laughed, causing carl to snap his head up in her direction. “walkers got you down? they ain’t anything more than suits of dead skin ’n bone.”

“nothings got me down.” he snapped, standing up quickly and dusting himself off.

“if you say so… didn’t know that was possible these days. you’re a strange one, carl grimes”

i’m the strange one?

was this girl even real?

#carl grimes #carl grimes x reader #carl grimes fluff #rick grimes #michonne grimes #maggie rhee #glenn rhee #enid rhee #ron anderson #judith grimes #x reader #fanfiction #fanfic #fluff #twd #the walking dead #the walking dead x reader #bro i miss him #bro i love carl grimes #carl grimes deserved better #hes so babygirl

[nightynite]

I thought this would be neat and precise, but this kind of ended up being a ramble about the Postal Dudes and how their system works. And my interpretations of them, I guess. Anyway, if you're curious to learn about Red, Dude, and Cowboy, click the read more, because I am scared as shit to post something this long without making it easily skippable.

Let's begin, shall we?

Red: Postal 1 Dude, was the host of the system for most of childhood/teen/young adult years. After 1997, he stopped. He's extremely guarded and doesn't like getting to close anyone--something that's stuck throughout the entire system and all the years they've been alive. He's quiet and doesn't like speaking often, and will avoid talking if he can really help it. Sometimes, he'll freeze up mid-sentence and be unable to continue verbally for a couple minutes. Due to how DID works, it's most likely that Red started /existing/ during childhood, and whoever was THE original kid Dude, is no longer a thing. Red formed specifically to take on everything the kid originally had to, and was hostile, reactive, and paranoid to survive. During this time as he was growing up though, along with delusions and hallucinations, he had another voice beside him. Dude, though he has been mistaken for the Demon: Postal 2 Dude, the main host of the system up until the car crash that formed Cowboy, sometimes called Green or Three (usually by mistake, or because Cowboy got too embarrassing), and after the 11 years spent in Catharsis or whatever. The Postal Dude himself, Dude, is a rather... Combustible person. He tries to play along with the people he meets and knows, but is ultimately always dragged down into a spiral of wanting to stop living this horrible life he's in. Something always goes wrong, he has nothing to live for besides Champ, and no matter what he does, he's never been able to escape the Hell that he's been stuck in for all these years. He's mostly selfish, in the sense that he's much more likely to run from a bad situation than help out someone who's in danger--unless there's something in it for him. It's hard for him to care about others, and it's hard for him to meet anyone even remotely sane nowadays. At this point, he's just counting the days until he finally snaps. And snap he did--when he shot himself in the head on Friday and ended up in a twisted hellscape of his own making. Mad Cow Tourettes Zombies are a laughing matter in the face of one million crazy and wacked out Gary Colemans throwing fucking grenades and scissors at you from every direction. I mean, seriously, what was up with that? Were those hospital attendants or just makings of Dude's mind? What the hell was happening? And why the hell were those Colemans so strong? Where the fuck did the grenades come from Anyway, back on track: Cowboy, aka Green, aka Three, aka Loser, aka Dumbass, aka Fuckwit (I'm assuming I don't need to make it any more clear?): Postal 3 Dude, a game I have not bothered playing and instead watched a longplay of because by god, that gameplay is ass. So, he formed after the car crash, and was the first one to wake up. That brain damage mixed with a nuclear blast really does something to a guy, huh? Well, once he was back on the road and fixed up, he went to Catharsis with Champ and did... Some stuff. I'm going to say that stuff was NOT everything shown in the actual game because the story is dumb to me and i think I could rewrite it and make it more fun. Haha, that'd be cool, right? Anyway. Cowboy's the most anxious of the group. He tries to be cool and act like everything's chill and like he's in control of things, when really he's usually not. He's not prone to violence--at least not as much as Dude and Red might be--but he IS going to resort to it if he can't get what he wants in a somewhat tame way. I imagine, if he and Movie dude were to meet, they would like kiss and make out under the moonlight. Who said that Anyway, if you have anything you want to know in particular about these dudes, let me know because I love talking about all my thoughts. and Stuff.

#hi. it's red #talk to me. i dare you #postal #postal 1 #postal dude #postal 2 #postal 3 #postal 2 dude #postal 1 dude #postal 3 dude #postal game #postal 1997 #my hcs #did dude #postal did dude #red #dude #cowboy

[voidfxndoms]

Morning Light // Sterek

Stiles wakes up to see Derek still asleep. He thinks about kissing him, then refrains from doing so, thinking Derek is still sound asleep.

Warnings: none. Just the pure Sterek fluff we were robbed of in Teen Wolf.

W/C: 4,767

A/N: The first one shot is HERE! AND IT'S STEREK (ofc)! Unfortunately, I'm better at smut and angst than at fluff, but I hope this turned out at least okay. Enjoy, and let me know what you think! :)

✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:✧･ﾟ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:✧･ﾟ:

The morning light lazily made its way through the loft's big windows, tenderly kissing Stile's figure. As soon as the dim rays of the rising sun lay on his face, he opened his amber eyes and let out an annoyed sigh.

He hated the loft's big windows. Well, not the windows per se. He hated that there were no curtains to cover them. He always felt observed, even though Derek's house was on the very top of the building. He also hated how bright the place would always be, no matter the time of day. Not to mention the unbearable heat that would lurk in the loft during those California summers. He had tried convincing Derek to get curtains, but he would always refuse, giving the same explanation every time Stiles would bring up the topic.

"I told you already Stiles, I am not getting curtains. This place is only temporary, I refuse to add anything to it.".

He really couldn't bring himself to understand how Derek could sleep so unbothered by the waterfall of sunlight that was now invading the room.

As he lay in the big bed situated right next to the infamous big windows, slowly coming to terms with the fact that there was no way he would be falling asleep again, a grin stretched out on Stiles's face. He realized how long this "temporary place" was being temporary for. Derek had been living there for years now, and there were no signs of intention of him wanting to move out.

Stiles didn't think that Derek didn't want to decorate the place because it was supposed to be temporary, but because he didn't want to get attached to it. So that when the moment came, leaving would be easier. He'd have one thing less to say goodbye to. But Stiles also hoped that moment never came. He hoped and prayed for it not to come with every fiber of his being because he knew that it would be the death of him. It would be the death of them both.

He turned around to face Derek, slowly. He knew the black-haired was still asleep, and Stiles didn't want to wake him. Not yet.

Derek's body was relaxed, his arm still loosely looped around Stile's waist, but his face was tense. His face was always tense. Stiles wondered why. Even asleep, the werewolf's eyebrows were furrowed and his lips slightly pursed in a mixture of anger and disgust.

Stiles looked at him and at how his peculiar features were highlighted by the invasive yet delicate rays of sunshine that had now spread out across the entire loft, making sure to take them all in, to take mental pictures of every single detail that made Derek, Derek.

"Such a sourwolf.", the young man lightly chuckled, amused by the ever-annoyed expression that lay on his boyfriend's face.

Slowly leaning forward to kiss him lightly, Stiles stopped abruptly. Was he actually his boyfriend? Were they dating? They had never made a point to talk about it, but the nights spent together, the lingering stares, the longing kisses, and the hours-long cuddling sessions all seemed to point in the same direction.

Nevertheless, the amber-eyed pulled back, driven by a gut feeling that he may be taking this one step too far, dreading any sort of rejection.

He was about to face the other way when he heard a low grunt. Derek opened his eyes and looked at Stiles. His kaleidoscope eyes shone even brighter, the sun unraveling shades of blue, green, and brown Stiles had never noticed before, leaving him mesmerized. Derek smiled, pulling Stiles back to reality.

"Well," the bulky man sighed, "If you're not gonna do it, I guess I'll just have to do it for you.". And before Stiles could process, Derek's grip tightened around Stiles's waist, pulling him closer. He leaned forward, closing what was left of the gap between the two, kissing the sheriff's son.

It wasn't a greedy kiss. It wasn't hungry, it didn't call for anything more.

It was light, it was delicate, it was tender. As tender as the morning light under which they lay together.

"I need to get curtains," Derek said, pulling away. "This is way too early of a time to be awake, especially after yesterday's eventful night.".

Both men chuckled, and Stiles caressed Derek's cheek.

"Don't.", he breathed.

"What do you mean 'don't'? You've been a pain in the ass about the curtains for the past year." Derek said, chuckling lightly.

"I know, but I like it better this way. I get to see details of you that cannot be seen without the morning sun."

Derek stared at him, and for a second Stiles thought he had crossed the line, and that this was the end of it. But Derek's lips on his were there to prove him wrong, and the following kiss was filled with an overwhelming amount of love.

"No curtains it is," Derek whispered, breaking the kiss before diving right back in.

And in that moment no words were needed for Stiles to understand that Derek wanted the same thing as him.

#derek hale #stiles stilinski #sterek #stiles stilinski x derek hale #derek x stiles #derek hale x stiles stilinski #stiles x derek #teen wolf #masterlist #writeblr #fluff #writers on tumblr #m/m #m/m romance #m/m fiction

[samasmith23]

Evangelion: You Can (Not) Marathon — (Part 10)

Neon Genesis Evangelion, “Episode 10: MAGMADIVER”

Continuing my Evangelion re-watch marathon with NGE, "Episode 10: MAGMADIVER”! For my thoughts on the previous episode, click the link to the post below:

Now this is going to be a very interesting episode for me to revisit since for a lot of EVA fans this is widely considered to be one of the weakest/worst episodes in the entire original series. The most common complaints I’ve seen directed towards this episode include that it contributes nothing to the overall series narrative, that the science involved with defeating the Angel in this episode is completely unrealistic and implausible, and most especially that this episode in particular is loaded to the brim with gratuitous and unnecessary fan-service. I remember reading all of these complaints a few years after I first marathoned NGE back in college and to be perfectly honest… I never understood nor agreed with any of them since… I always personally really loved “MAGMADIVER” and think it’s seriously underrated/overhated. 

No seriously, “MAGMADIVER” was always one of my personal favorite episodes in the original series, right alongside Episodes 4, 19, 22 & 24! I’ll provide my own counter-arguments the aforementioned fan complaints directed towards this episode as I go through it! 

But with all of that out of the way, let’s finally dig into the episode itself!

Oh boy! Right off the bat this episode establishes that it’s going to heavily focus on one of the most important thematic elements surrounding the entire Evangelion franchise: sexuality. 

While themes about sex & sexuality have already been heavily present throughout NGE so far, particularly in relation to Misato’s personality and mannerisms as well as the interactions between Shinji & Asuka in the previous episode, “Magmadiver” is particularly notable in how much it emphasizes developmental feelings of sexual desire as a central tenant for characters like Shinji & Asuka. 

In relation to Asuka, the themes of adolescent sexuality are effectively conveyed in this opening scene where she’s out shopping with Kaji. In addition to Asuka obsessively clinging onto Kaji as they’re walking down the streets of Tokyo-3, Asuka immediately sets her eyes on a provocative bikini in the local department store which she claims that, “Oh come on Kaji, this is what all the girls are wearing,” in response to Kaji’s understandable concerns that Asuka is still too young to be wearing such a swimsuit.

This interaction not only further establishes Asuka’s adolescent one-sided infatuation with the much older Kaji, but it also feels like a very honest and sincere portrayal of teenage sexuality. In addition to plenty of teens in the real-world often developing one-sided crushes on older individuals, celebrities or even fictional characters (for instance, one of my personal earliest childhood crushes was supermodel/actress Rebecca Romijn’s portrayal Mystique from the live-action X-Men movies), several adolescents will simultaneously struggle with wanting to be perceived as being more “mature” and “adult” than they actually are like with Asuka here. 

And skipping ahead a little, but this is something that Kaji acknowledges during a flashback in Episode 22 when he rejects Asuka’s inappropriate advances towards him precisely BECAUSE she is still a 14-year-old girl, stating that she shouldn’t rush into engaging in adult activities like sex BECAUSE she is still a minor who’s developing and learning, and that she should hold onto her youth while it lasts.

“Public middle school?” I thought that Asuka & Shinji were freshmen in high school, since that’s what grade I was in back when I was 14-years-old (they could be in 8th grade, but still)…

I love how naturally the little tidbits of world-building are established throughout this series! We get a glimpse of just how big of an event the Second Impact was, as well as just how much the near-apocalyptic disaster affected the daily lives of every single person on the planet through Kaji’s comment here about how his generation never got to go on school field trips!

While Asuka’s reaction to the news that neither she or Shinji will be allowed to go on their school field trip due to being on standby in case another Angel attacks can definitely come across as overly whiny, I feel that it’s rather effective in highlighting one of the major downsides of being an EVA-Pilot. Namely that because Asuka & Shinji are essentially serving as child-soldiers who pilot giant robots to fight against alien monsters threatening to destroy the world, the two are essentially being forced into adulthood far too early and are unable to enjoy the youth of adolescence like their fellow classmates are. It’s an interesting subversion and deconstruction of the Japanese mecha genre, as while plenty of mecha anime similarly feature teenagers piloting giant robots to combat kaju, EVA actively explores and interrogates the implications of forcing such a heavy burden onto literal children instead of focusing on the escapist power-fantasy elements of the genre. 

Additionally, Asuka’s reaction here also conveys an interesting contradiction in her characterization! While the previous shopping scene with Kaji portrayed Asuka’s misguided efforts to “act more grown-up” by wanting to impress the object of her one-sided crush by buying an inappropriate swimsuit, Asuka’s outrage of being unable to go on the scuba-diving field trip highlights some double-meaning behind her earlier excuse of, “This is what all the girls are wearing,” in that she was not only wanting to impress Kaji but that she also wanted to “fit-in” with her classmates. This not only conveys themes of peer pressure, but also a contradiction in Asuka’s facade of “adulthood” since there is a part of her that still wants to engage and participate in the activities of other 14-year-old girls like herself.

Lol! Asuka’s description of Shinji as a “housebroken male” is absolutely hilarious! It makes it sound like she views Shinji more like a pet than as an actual person. I wonder if that was intentional on Anno’s part?

Also, I just noticed that Shinji’s wearing more a more feminine shirt in this scene! Yet further confirmation to the fan-theories that Shinji is a trans-femme egg!

Double lol! Asuka predicted modern debates about the value and effectiveness of numerical grading within the public education system!

As much as I praise the levels of nuanced character writing for the main cast of NGE, credit should also be given for the little bits of development that Anno also provides for the background extras which helps makes EVA’s universe feel more alive and three-dimensional! For instance, this scene within NERV HQ’s Central Dogma during down-time is heavily effective in how it not only portrays the main staff members Maya, Hyuga & Aoba outside of an intense and chaotic action scene, but distinguishes each of them with their own unique personality traits. This information is visually conveyed to the viewer through their reading material and demeanor during casual down-time at the office, as we see Maya intently focused on what appears to be a regular novel (establishing her a steadfast analysis), Hyuga giggling over what appears to be a Shonen Jump manga (making him the more nerdy fan-boy of the group; in other words he’s essentially me…), and Aoba drumming his fingers to punk-rock magazines (which is in line with his more pessimistic attitude that’s later on display in The End of Evangelion)!

I love Misato’s insightful response to Ritsuko’s questioning about the idea of having a school field-trip during the middle of an Angel invasion: “I guess the idea is to let all of the kids to have time to get out and act like kids.” 

Not only does she make an incredibly valid point here in-and-of-itself, but her words interestingly parallel the aforementioned themes about youth and adolescence in relation to the expectations of the mecha genre. While one could easily argue that Misato’s words are hypocritical since she’s an leading presence in the militaristic weaponization of the EVA pilots as child soldiers, her insight here helps illustrate how in contrast to other NERV personnel like Ritsuko, Misato is willing to continuously question and doubt the ethics of the methods utilized to combat the threat of the Angels.

Also, because Aoba is tuning out to punk rock in this scene, he is therefore automatically on Batman’s crap-list!

I’ll NEVER… EVER… get tired of referencing the dark knight’s all-consuming hatred for rock-&-roll!

I actually never noticed this before, but this underwater shot of Rei swimming laps beneath the overhead nadatorium light strikingly mirrors the animation from the “Fly Me To the Moon” ending credits segment where Rei’s silhouette is spinning in front of the moon in an underwater setting! In addition to directly evoking both the imagery of the end credits theme (as well as the Ocean of LCL during Human Instrumentality in The End of Evangelion), this scene not only further foreshadows Rei’s true identity as the reincarnated soul of Lilith, but it also reinforces the idea that Rei feels more comfortable when submerged in liquid substances like water or LCL (an idea that will be later expanded upon in one of the stanzas of Rei's poem from Episode 14)!

Speaking of the swimming pool scene… oh boy there is certainly a lot to unpack here! 

This scene in particular is easily one of the primary contributors to the negative dismissal of this episode from a sizable portion of the EVA fanbase, as many argue that it exists solely for the purposes of gratuitous fan-service. Specifically, while Shinji is trying to study for a physics exam on a nearby table, Asuka is standing in front of him in the same provocative bikini that she tried and failed to impress Kaji with earlier and was unable to wear on the school field trip, and Shinji can’t help feel uncomfortably embarrassed at the sight of Asuka’s chest as she leans in to help answer his homework questions.

The situation isn’t helped when Asuka answers Shinji’s questions about “thermal expansion,” i.e. the idea that objects will increase in size when heated and contract in size when cooled, since she making a suggestive analogy to the size of her breasts to try and explain the scientific concept to him.

Many critics write off this scene as nothing more than stereotypical anime fan-service tropes being played completely straight, which is sadly symptomatic of a larger criticism that I’ve seen some people direct towards the Evangelion franchise as a whole. Except, while I will concede that the usage of gratuitous fan-service is definitely a problem with the Rebuild movies based on everything I’ve seen and heard about them (which is especially uncomfortable since the characters in question are underage…), I personally heavily disagree with the argument that it’s also problem with the original NGE series and especially The End of Evangelion movie, and that both entries instead actively subvert the usual problematic tropes of fan-service in anime in order to discuss complex themes about sexuality, adolescence, and adulthood. And this scene at the pool is a prime example of this IMO.

The primary reason why I feel that NGE actively avoids perpetuating problematic fan-service tropes largely comes down to framing, and what subjects that the camera chooses to direct the viewer’s attention towards. In the case of the Shinji & Asuka pool scene, the camera & framing makes it very clear that the narrative is critiquing Shinji objectification of Asuka instead of encouraging the audience to do the same. Instead of simply focusing on Asuka’s chest like a lot of other anime do with their female characters, the shots here instead emphasize Shinji’s line of eyesight & POV which directed towards Asuka’s body, along with his visible sense of discomfort and confusion. A motif which is continued after Asuka walks away, as Shinji not only can’t help but continue to stare at Asuka as she bends down to grab her scuba gear, but also blushes and quickly jerks his head away when he witnesses Rei drying herself off. Shinji’s dialogue also accompanies the visual framing, as he attempts to write off Asuka’s innuendo about thermal expansion with, “How should I know?! I don’t think about things like that!”

Essentially, this scene is emphasizing that Shinji is a teenage boy who is struggling with his latent sexuality along with his complicated and borderline sexist views towards women. It also serves to highlight the growing romantic chemistry and toxic tension between Shinji & Asuka which becomes even more prevalent as the series progresses. So while the scene does utilize some close-up shots that you commonly see in fan-service scenes from other anime, EVA’s directing instead places all of the focus and attention onto Shinji’s perspective and reactions.

Additionally, the pool scene also further fleshes out Asuka’s struggles with wanting to grow-up too fast and her developing relationship with Shinji due to the preceding events with Kaji in the episode’s opening. At this point, Asuka is beginning to simultaneously perceive Shinji as both a substitute for her infatuation with Kaji, as a well as a rival who threatens her alleged "superiority" as an EVA pilot.

Essentially, Asuka is overcompensating for these aforementioned insecurities by treating Shinji like a child who’s ultimately beneath her, not only purposefully flaunting her sexuality in order to get a reaction out of him, but also bragging about her more advanced education due to her having previously already graduated college early. And when Shinji dismisses Asuka'sefforts to attempt to feel “more grown-up” than him, she can’t help but disappointedly write off Shinji as a “boring little boy…”

Elements such as these are why I honestly get incredibly annoyed whenever I see others dismiss “MAGMADIVER” as “the disposable fan-service filler episode,” since not only does the framing and blocking of the pool scene instead actively subvert and interrogate the very same problematic fan-service tropes that many people mistakenly believe the episode to be engaging in, but it simultaneously utilizes this subversion of tropes to reveal important information about characters like Shinji, Asuka & Rei in relation to EVA’s overall themes about sexuality.

Also, in addition to all of the rich thematic subtext and character development on display here, the pool scene also establishes the Chekhov’s Gun of this episode, as thermal expansion will come into play 2 more times throughout the course of “MAGMADIVER”! So the scene is also incredibly plot-relevant as well!

Alright! Now we’re getting into the major meat of this episode and why it’s titled “MAGMADIVER”! NERV has just detected the 8th Angel, Sandalphon. Except unlike all of the previous Angels seen so far, Sandalphon is unique in that it is currently still in its embryonic chrysalis-like state. And while Misato & Gendo see this as a golden opportunity to capture and study a live Angel before it hatches, the downside is that Sandalphon’s cocoon is buried deep inside the magma chamber of an active volcano. Which means that Asuka’s EVA Unit-02 will have to dive straight into the lava and enter an environment far too hazardous and pressurized for normal methods of human intrusion to retrieve the Angel egg before it hatches! 

I’ve always loved this premise for an Angel battle, as the idea of the Evangelion essentially scuba-diving inside of an active volcano whilst having to contend with increasing pressure and the possibility of the Angel prematurely hatching is not only an insanely creative concept, but also allows for a foreboding sense of tension and peril with multiple ticking-clocks! Weirdly though, the Sandalphon fight seems to be another strong point of contention for “MAGMADIVER” detractors, arguing that the scenario is scientifically implausible. Except I have to ask… how is a giant robot being lowered into a magma chamber any more scientifically implausible than connecting an entire nation’s power lines to a giant sniper rifle within the span of only 10-hours?! This is exactly the kind of silly yet strategic creativity that I love when it comes to EVA’s fight scenes!

Plus, this episode also gives the viewer some insight into the Angel’s life-cycle that’s not explored in previous episodes, revealing that they spontaneously appear in random environments and enter an embryonic chrysalis stage similar to caterpillers before fully maturing into giant kaju, and that each Angel uniquely adapts to its surrounding environment. 

Also, it’s rather neat seeing Sandalphon in an embryonic stage since the only other Angel we see like this is their progenitor Adam from back in Episode 8 (Sandalphon’s egg even kind of resembles the Adam fetus now that I look at it…)

I can’t help but find it really fascinating how Gendo adopts Asuka’s mindset from earlier in the episode about shifting from a defensive to an offensive position as soon as Sandalphon’s cocoon is discovered. It makes me wonder whether or not Anno was trying to evoke some parallels between the two characters?

Also, SEELE’s Human Instrumentality Committee makes another brief appearance here as Gendo receives begrudging approval for the plan to capture the Angel egg. Haven’t seen them since Episode 2… and I still maintain my previous theory that they’re all secretly Marvel & DC cosplayers in their spare time!

Yeah… I can’t really blame Asuka’s sense of humiliation when it comes to not only EVA Unit-02 being covered-up with bulky and dull-gray D-Type Equipment to help shield the mecha from the crushing pressure of the lava chamber, but also the fact that Ritsuko’s attempts to make her plug-suit more heat-protected essentially make Asuka look like Violet Beauregarde when she transformed into a humanoid blueberry in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory…

Thankfully there are no Oompa Loompa’s to roll Asuka around… or else this whole situation would be even more embarrassing than it already is for her!

Also, I love how just like in the previous episode, it’s once again Rei who triggers Asuka’s feelings of wounded pride, since when Rei volunteers to operate Unit-02 when Asuka refuses to do the mission while looking like Blueberry-Violet (especially if Kaji’s watching), Asuka immediately refuses to let Rei lay a single finger on her beloved Unit-02!

Did… Misato just say, “God’s gift won’t be coming, he’s got no business here,” when Asuka asked if Kaji was there to watch at the Volcano? A very interesting choice of words for someone whose thus far demonstrated nothing but verbal contempt for Kaji…

Speaking of Kaji though… I’m curious as to who the woman he’s talking to on the gondola about “frozen assents” is? This definitely feels like some serious double/triple agent shenanigans here…

Yet another reason for me to hate Gendo’s guts: he’s willing to have the UN drop N² Mines on Shinji & Asuka if they fail to successfully capture or kill the Angel! What kind of a father would be willing to essentially nuke his own son?!

I love how Asuka telling Shinji to watch her imitate a diving maneuver while Unit-02 enters the lava mirrors the previous scene at the swimming pool, effectively conveying that Asuka is beginning ti crave for attention and acknowledgement from Shinji in particular!

Man oh man do I FREAKING LLLOOOVVVEEE the lava-descent scene! This entire sequence is just oozing to the brim with tension! Not only does Asuka have to deal with intense heat and near-zero visibility, but as she continues to descend deeper and deeper into the lava chamber the environment is becoming increasingly more pressurized and starting to take a visible toll on Unit-02, as not only are visible cracks beginning to form on the protective D-Type Equipment and cooling pipes, but the pressure also forces Asuka to drop her progressive knife! And the tension of this scene is only further enhanced by not only the NERV staff calculating the continuously increasing depth level, but also by the lack of background music as well Asuka being forced to defend even deeper than previously calculated due to the lava flow altering the Angel egg’s position. 

This scene also reveals some rather interesting new insight into Misato’s character while she monitors the mission, as she ignores the safety protocols and orders Asuka to continue descending to levels too dangerous for human intrusions. This demonstrates that despite Misato’s previous concern for the safety and well-being for the EVA pilots, there is simultaneously a part of her that is willing to risk the lives of these kids if it means destroying the Angels at all costs. Hyuga’ s look of concern towards Misato perfectly encapsulates the viewer’s feelings right now!

Oh! Two clever bits of foreshadowing here! Not only does Asuka repeatedly express her desire for a shower after the mission is completed (I mean, can ya blame her considering how much of a heat & sweat trap that Blueberry-Violet plug-suit is?), but Ritsuko can’t help but discern how Misato’s aforementioned conviction during the descent and capture of the Angel egg is intrinsically connect to fear of causing another Second Impact! Yup, this will definitely come into play later on in Episode 12!

And things go from bad to worse since the moment Asuka captures the Angel-egg in her electromagnetic cage and begins to ascend back up to the surface, Sandalphon begins to prematurely hatch and escapes from the containment field, immediately shifting this mission from a retrieval-operation into a combat-operation! And to make matters even worser, Asuka is left without a progressive knife as Shinji is forced to drop Unit-01’s knife down into the lava as this Angel with an ultra-thick lava-proof armored-shell along with razor-sharp teeth and tentacles is rapidly swimming towards Unit-02 and begins to bite away at its cooling vents and life-line!

On the subject of Sandalphon itself though, I love how in addition to this Angel being perfectly adapted to this uniquely hostile environment, we never get a real good glimpse at the Angel’s physical appearance in this episode due to it being heavily obscured by both the lava and the heavy red color pallete. I remember being annoyed by this when I first watched it on my original DVD copies due to their fuzzy image-quality, but upon rewatching this scene in HD on the Blu-Ray collection I now feel that this framing helps further add to the suspense of this fight, truly enhancing the zero-visibility conditions of the setting by making obscuring the monster’s appearance to not only Asuka, but to the viewer as well! 

But for the sake of interest, here’s what Sandalphon looks like unobscured according to official concept artwork:

In regards to this Angel’s name, according to Wikipedia “Sandalphon (Hebrew: סַנְדַּלְפוֹן Sandalp̄ōn; Greek: Σανδαλφών Sandalfón) is an archangel in Jewish and Christian writings, although not in scripture. Sandalphon figures prominently in the mystical literary traditions of Rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity, notably in the Midrash, Talmud, and Kabbalah and is generally seen as gathering prayers and passing them on to God.”

Additionally, Sandalphon’s name symbolically correlates with the episode’s depiction of the Angel’s life cycle, as some theological texts depict Sandalphon as being “instrumental in bringing about the differentiation of sex in the embry.”

I’ve seen some people criticize method by which Sandalphon is ultimately defeated, wherein Shinji remembers his physics homework about thermal expansion, meaning that if Sandalphon’s thick armor shell is designed to protect itself from the highly pressurized heat of the lava, then extremely cold temperatures will force the armor to contract make it brittle enough for Asuka’s progressive knife to penetrate its core. This gives Asuka the idea purposefully rip open the pipes to her cooling vents and force-feed a stream of liquid-coolant straight down the Angel’s throat, lowering its internal body temperature enough for its exterior armor to contract and for Asuka to stab its core. Detractors have argued that this portrayal of thermal expansion is scientifically inaccurate, but I’m willing to suspend my disbelief as the entire scenario is just so FREAKING cool!

That moment of horrific realization as Asuka looks back up at her life-line beginning to completely break-apart after severing her cooling vents to kill Sandalphon, as well as the lava pressure crushing her exposed D-Type Equipment? Absolute chills! Tiffany Grant once again nails Asuka’s sense of despair as she quickly realizes that despite successfully defeating the Angel she’s still going to die, almost as if she’s simultaneously reluctant yet accepting of her fate!

And her reaction to Shinji & Unit-01 sliding down the remaining life-line into the lava without protective armor to grab Unit-02’s hand before Asuka sinks down into the depths? Absolute perfection! Not only do we get a quick shot of Unit-01’s eye’s glowing (implying that it entered a partial berserker-mode again), but Asuka’s comment to Shinji, “Idiot… you show off!” 

Despite being an insult, Asuka says that line in such a grateful, playful, and almost affectionate tone (once again, kudos to Tiffany Grant’s voice acting)! It shows a hidden tenderness to Shinji & Asuka’s relationship that we haven’t seen before!

As much flack as we give Kaji, him mailing Pen Pen to Misato and the EVA pilots for their post-mission hot-springs bath was an incredibly thoughtful gesture on his part… though stuffing a live penguin inside of a box seems counterproductive. Hoped he poked airholes in the box at least…

So umm… Shinji overhearing Misato & Asuka on the other side of the hot springs when he throws the body shampoo over the fence and it accidentally hits Asuka, leading to Shinji overhearing a rather… suggestive… conversation where Misato seems to be teasing and tickling Asuka. I’m curious as to how much of that was real, and how much if that was just Shinji’s imagination over-exaggerating it. I know that Misato is very forward with her own sexuality and that public bathing and standards of privacy are very different in Japan than they are here in America, but I’m really hoping that she was NOT doing anything sexually illicit behind that wall. I instead prefer to believe that a lot of what Shinji was hearing was grossly exaggerated by his own perverted imagination as a teenage boy with complicated feelings towards both Asuka & Misato (the latter being a product of his Oedipus Complex), especially since this leads to the final instance of “thermal expansion” in this episode which understandably embarrasses Shinji and freaks out Pen Pen (the poor penguin was just having a good time swimming).

While critics like to also cite the ending hot springs scene as further evidence of “MAGMADIVER” being “fan-service filler trash,” not only does the aforementioned stuff with Shinji continue to convey the character’s struggles with latent and developing sexuality and complicated attitudes about women, but once we finally see Asuka & Misato on the other side of the wall and the two watching the sunset, we get two major pieces of important foreshadowing for both characters! In addition to Asuka noticing a massive scar which runs straight across Misato’s chest, which the latter reveals was a byproduct of the Second Impact, Asuka asks Misato whether she knows about her own past, leading to Misato stating that it’s “ancient history.” 

Not only does this indicate that Misato was directly present in Antarctica during the events of Second Impact, but it also hints at Asuka’s deeply traumatic childhood which serves as the foundation for the character’s struggles for attention as an EVA Pilot and misguided desire to be perceived as an adult instead of the child that she actually is.

Overall, that was NGE, “Episode 10: MAGMADIVER,” and upon rewatching it I still consider this episode to be one of my personal favorites in the series and wholeheartedly disagree with the general criticisms that most other fans lobby against it! Not only does this episode cleverly subvert the usual problematic fan-service tropes that unfortunately plague most modern anime, but through doing so it’s able to effectively communicate interesting and nuanced themes about Shinji & Asuka’s respective struggles with their own developing sexualities, perceptions of adolescence versus adulthood, as well as how the characters perceive themselves and others through this lens. Part of what makes Evangelion stand out among other anime before and after it is how its portrayal of adolescence is so earnest. EVA discusses the more difficult & uncomfortable aspects of teenage growth with careful respect & maturity, instead of creepily fetishizing these issues in a juvenile & gross manner like a lot of other anime sadly do (even the really good ones…). 

So while I can definitely understand other people’s discomfort with NGE’s depiction of these uncomfortable themes, I feel like arguing that the series as a whole (as well as this episode in particular) actively perpetuates rather than subverts negative fan-service tropes like I’ve seen a few critics argue misses the mark on a lot of the insightful themes that EVA is trying to convey through these otherwise uncomfortable subjects. Despite Misato’s running gag in the “Next Episode” teasers about “promising more fan-service,” the original NGE and The End of Evangelion are in fact very critical towards the anime fan-service tropes that were popularized by Japanese Otaku subculture.

Additionally, the lava-fight with Sandalphon was FREAKING phenomenal in just how creative and suspenseful it was, even if the weaponization of thermal expansion used to defeat it is somewhat scientifically inaccurate! So yeah, I definitely still really love “MAGMADIVER” and feel that this episode gets far more hate than it deserves! 

Next up is Episode 11!

#Evangelion: You Can (Not) Marathon #neon genesis evangelion #evangelion #nge #eva #hideaki anno #shinji ikari #asuka langley soryu #misato katsuragi #ryoji kaji #rei ayamani #ritsuko akagi #sandalphon #mystique #rebecca romijn #x men #batman fortunate son #punk is nothing but death crime and the rage of a beast #90s anime #anime and manga #willy wonka and the chocolate factory #gendo ikari #pen pen #maya ibuki #makoto hyuga #shigeru aoba

[gwens-fiction]

Summer Vacation

A My Baby's A Werewolf short, that I thought I posted before but didn’t see it in my tags, so I’m posting it now.

With a long groan, Sebastian dropped his messenger bag and draped himself face down over the couch. "Remind me why I assign final essays and not exams again?"

Cody looked up from his magazine with an amused snort. "Because you’re an English professor? Were they that bad?"

"Not exactly….Just trying to focus on them was brutal."

"You need a break, Seb. When was the last time you got a full night’s sleep anyway?"

"Probably before Evelyn left. You know it’s just been crazy ever since."

"You need a vacation."

Sebastian lifted his head towards him, poking his glasses further up his nose. "Oh yeah? And what am I supposed to do about Amber? Look for hotels that accept pets?"

"I already paid the down payment for us to rent a cabin in the mountains. I picked one in the woods that isn’t close to other neighbors. The three of us will have plenty of privacy and quiet."

"I don’t know, Cody…A cabin in the woods sounds like a setting for a horror story." He sat up and sighed.

"Well, we are bringing our own little monster." He snickered.

"CODY. MY TODDLER IS NOT A MONSTER."

The slightly younger man gave him a very calm, pitiful expression. "Sebastian. Your toddler is a werewolf. By definition, she’s a monster."

"Still, there’s connotation there. Amber isn’t a monster. She’s a…"

"Creature? A little Beas—UMPH!" He grunted as a couch pillow hit him in the face.

Sebastian sighed, shaking his head. "My daughter the werewolf and my brother the troll, what am I going to do with you two?"

"Hey, as your brother it is my birth given right to drive you crazy. Now, the vacation? Is it a yes?"

"I’ll pack my suitcase." He smiled tiredly at him.

Cody jumped up. "No need! Amber and I already packed it and the car, we were just waiting on you."

"Suddenly, this is feeling less like a vacation and more like a kidnapping."

"Now that’s the spirit!" He grabbed his hand and pulled him up. "Go ahead and load up. I’ll grab her." He gave him a nudge towards the door.

"You know, Cody? You may have been on to something with this idea of yours." Sebastian looked over from the novel he was reading, at his younger brother, who was manning a small, charcoal grill.

Cody pointed a spatula in his direction. "I told you. You needed a break."

"I don’t think I was the only one who needed one either." He sighed, looking now at his daughter, rolling around in a clover patch. "Amber seems to really enjoy it out here."

"Seb, she’s a werewolf. Where do you find wolves?"

"In the woods, I know I know." He rolled his eyes at him. "But this is too far of a commute from the college for me to live out here and work there." He paused. "But more frequent small trips I suppose could be managed during the year. It would be more peaceful grading out here than at my office."

Cody nodded, flipping over a steak. "I’ll keep an eye out for somewhere a little closer."

Sebastian nodded as well, returning his attention to the novel in his hands. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose once more and sighed. As much as he loved a good Jules Verne novel, his focus was gone. He needed to relax and take a break, this is true…But it wasn’t getting him any closer to finding a cure for his daughter.

Werewolves weren’t supposed to actually exist, they were folklore…and yet, here was his toddler, a living example that perhaps folklore may be more real than he and other scholars would want to believe. That being said, real or not, his toddler was not supposed to be one. It wouldn’t be safe for her to grow up into a full fledged one, either. As a werepup at least she was manageable….But what about in the future, when she’s grown up? The teen years has enough drama without werewolf secrets in the mix.

Sebastian was then jolted back to reality as something slimey was dropped on his hand. He nearly jumped out of his chair and dropped his book on the ground.

"Daddy! Look! Look, Daddy!" Amber giggled.

"Oh uh…Thank you, Amy, that’s a nice—" and then he looked at his hand. A long, spotted slug now rested on the back of his hand. "….slug. It’s….very spotty?" He faked a smile.

"Uh huh! Mine." She then took the slug back.

Sebastian watched her for a moment before signing deeply. "Here, Amy, let’s return Mr. Slug back to his home then go wash your hands, okay? I’m sure the slug has a family he’d like to go back to."

"Oh, okay." She nodded and offered the slug back to him.

"How about you sit him right here?" He squatted down nearby and patted a patch of grass. His toddler trailed over and plopped the slug right there with the widest smile.

"Good job, now come on. Let’s get you cleaned up for lunch." He chuckled, scooping her up in his arms.

#mbaw #my baby's a werewolf #thinking of renaming this wip but undecided to what yet #snippet #own writing #think I wrote this either last summer or summer before last?

[roppiepop]

reverse robins au? your choice if it’s jaytim

Aaaaaa thank u for coming in and asking abt it!!!! Reverse robin aus are one of my fave fandom specific concepts!!

Okay, so basic ground here, but my main reference points for divergence are the 4 male robins, just for linerization sake, and just because I’m most familiar with Tim he’ll prolly be the one that gets the most expansion, but i hope i can do this the way i prefer it to, which is w the most consideration i can towards canon changes affected while also letting each of them mostly keep their original arcs!!!!

- To start off i think it could be interesting to have Bruce work/train duke at the start, and the possibilities of how that would affect Bruce’s attitude towards metas in Gotham, and maybe give a little flavor to how it feels being a mentor to a kid that’s still mostly independent from him with his own family. How well this will actually be handled i still dont know.

- having Damian be the first kid he actually has to try and kind of parent right in the early bat years also come with a few considerations, i think. On one hand Bruce is definitely softer, maybe a bit more tempered having mentored before, and damian may be fresh off the league but since there’s no previous robins for him to need to fight his ‘birthright’ for, maybe there isn’t a need for any drastic measures. (I mean he’s definitely gonna fight duke on principle but i want them to gain the friendship they do in canon and since duke isn’t like, Bruce’s direct partner i think that can track.)

But then again they’re still them, and damian still has a lot of hangups on worth and legacies and is in the worst stages of blustered arrogance while bruce still doesn’t know how to communicate his feelings in effective ways and happens to have an eldest child that is equally as emotionally repressed so????? Maybe its still a really rocky road.

(I’d like for Damian to keep some of his friends here, mainly Colin and Maya to start with, maybe. I honestly dont know how likely it is for him to set up a teen hero group, but i think that’ll end up happening once he sheds his robin-equivalent mantle.

We’ll let him have his nomadic self-discovery journey i guess :/// something ala williamson’s robin maybe, but like, with his actual friends xjsbdhssbdbd we can even keep Bruce and Talia’s playing tug of war w him towards their respective ideals as a catalyst, and maybe its a bit cleaner without all the baggage of morrison’s interpretation of her.

Let’s put him at idk, 17/18 at this point.)

- One thing that i think definitely changes with having Damian in the first iteration of the dynamic duo is how the mythos is perceived. The kid is capable and ruthless and for awhile at the start, mostly cared more for animals than whoever they were saving. Definitely made rogues think twice to leverage him over batman, but probably mostly didn’t endear him much towards the ppl they encounter, though I’d like to believe that changed as he did. Though the extent of that change i need to think on lmao.

For Steph I think I’ll have her start a little before Tim’s robin-equivalent, staying as spoiler, right after Damian leaves so it goes a bit before anyone notices.

Tim’s start here might be a bit tricky to speak on logistics, he starts as a nightwing character and i mostly want to keep in spirit with that, so Damian’s got to be the fixation here. There’s not really a signature flip that could reliably be imprinted in Tim’s memory but maybe it can be simpler. Like idk a kind act at a gala during Damian’s early years that made tim take notice of him, of a verbal/physical tell that one day robin-equivalent gets caught doing, idk- but now we’re officially in Tim’s stalker era.

A recap on where the rest of the vigilantes are, i think duke is rlly nice w the outsiders i kinda want him there lol Damian’s just abt to start his shounen battle arc and steph is slowlinh appearing on Bruce’s radar but as like, a minor villain.

Something something Tim tries to find Damian, can’t seem to manage to, ends up going to the manor to ask, gets halted by alfred, somehow ends up spilling everything he knows to bruce, ????? Profit -> he gets the mantle.

(A bit clunky, a but out of nowhere, sure, but considering I’m p sure that bruce called jason ‘robin’ the moment he decided to bring him home u can gleam that the man misses having a sidekick :////)

Steph’s story is intertwined with Tim’s for better or worse, and while i like her better when she’s striking out on her own i think tim trying to prove himself before official training by like, capturing her would be a serviceable segue into Bruce training them both. Or try to at least. Steph resorts to her own resources, Tim’s parents get poisoned in Haiti.

And now with Tim and Bruce- a rocky start on the vigilante side bcs well, he may have played the mentor role before but Duke’s a meta, Damian was a ready-made assassin, and Steph, although neither, was still noticeably more athletic than Tim is, its not a big deal, but his initial benchmark was already kind of screwed (would love for tim to still end up getting unplanned training from shiva, somehow.)

But bcs of circumstances that are oh so v different than the one in canon bruce has the patience to teach him firm but kindly 👍 and since Jack is still in a coma (or maybe just kill him off fr ://) they can form a proper healthy-ish bond.

Tim’s tenure in canon is prolific but also threads through the groundwork that Dick’s run paved, and i honestly dont know how well that would’ve faired without him vouching for Tim, but it could be interesting to explore how the dynamic duo’s perception changes with a robin-equivalent that places heavy emphasis on cooperation and is definitely more approachable than the last one. I would v much like to keep that aspect of tim that knows everyone lmao

Also young justice running around without the teen titans as a precedent sounds like a hilarious concept.

We’ll say Damian finds out when Jon brings up that his little bro Kon is in a team w the new-bat partner?? I didn’t know u had a new one?? So ofc Damian storms Gotham demanding an explanation.

And see, while i definitely believe that Dami would’ve grown as a character the lack of a Dick Grayson influence makes me think that maybe he still wouldn’t be above attacking a kid in righteous anger :///// and like, he’s pissed at Bruce of course, that name wasn’t his to give, but maybe it’s all the more worse just bcs of how,,, Tim Tim is. Took his name and changed it’s association, came into his house and became his father’s partner lowkey son in aspects that never came easy to him, and has the audacity to greet him with a smile????

Oh yeah Damian definitely hates Tim. Needlessly cruel abt the one definite edge he has over the kid. And like, poor tim :/// never meet ur heroes in any timeline i g.

But anyway!! Dami might move to Bludhaven, might be somewhere else or other, definitely not anywhere near Tim if he can help it. He should be there for all those big events though, although I’m not sure which ones to keep in. Maybe Tim and Steph can coordinate for No Man’s Land. Then enter Cass, who’s also gonna be in contact mostly w those two.

This is getting soooooo long but like, then Tim dies, because he has to. We’ll pull it to be a Joker Jr. situation and give everyone that good good character development. And then there’s Jason.

- The logistics for Jason becoming robin-equivalent is also real tricky, there’s definitely the factor of making bruce laugh via attempted robbery, but i think the actual nudging can be helped along by Steph, as like, a fellow crime alley kid, idk.

But well, Jason’s time in the mantle- unfortunately he yet again can’t escape the giant shoes of his predecessor, but al least now he has a full support system in the others. And so does Bruce, this time around. It’d be nice to keep that happy status quo for long.

Enter- ‘Tim wasn’t actually dead but take a guess on who wanted it to look like that so he can take him away.’ Anyways, you know the drill. Ra’s would definitely leverage his remolding of Tim against Bruce, but he wouldn’t send him back, probably. Tim’s at a low enough point to likely agree.

Maybe Tim also didn’t come out the pit right though, maybe his brains still fractured. He doesn’t come out the way ra’s wanted and although he kept trying, one day he could’ve decided to just throw tim back to gotham like a defective toy.

Should we give Tim a villain arc? It could be done, but it’ll always be rooted in duty and the belief of serving the greater good. If he does take it up it wouldn’t involve getting in trouble with the bats, or telling them hes back- unless of course, that serves a goal, but even if tim is jealous and resentful of jason getting things like damians approval and official adoption status his self-worth issues are more,,, the internalizing kind. The ‘batman needs a robin’ ethos stays true and nothing would be gained from hurting him.

A vague idea for Tim’s comeback schtick could be operating in plain sight as Drake Industry heir. Since there’s a vacuum of any oracle position he could also dabble around in that. Maybe as loose as his morals would be its still in the service of keeping batman and robin the symbols they are idk!!!!!

- All said and done we can have Dick as proper robin, coming into the house heartbroken and angry and looking for justice and like, early resonance with Damian and idk sometime after we do Batman RIP.

(But before that we get Jason’s sheila arc maybe, he’ll survive. We could potentially pull a Tim and have his friends die on him back to back to back but idk!!!! This might be getting too bloated!!!!)

On the romance side ty for letting me choose my ideal reverse robin au is probably a damitim LOL its the genuine hatred turned remorse,,,, the obsessive affection turned cold indifference,,,, the care of it all,,,,,

V easy to turn it into a jaytim too though, the lack of murder attempts probably also make it smoother snsnsnsbdbdbd good luck trying to convince baby jay that he’s in that league though lol (the annoying little brother to lovers that could be employed here is rlly cute tho,,,, regardless of anything id def want there to be crushing)

OOF OKAY THIS WAS REALLY LONG!!!!! IM SORRY!!!! I’ve always wanted to tackle this eventually but I haven’t finished my reading lists enough to confidently make timeline decisions djsnsnsns i hope this still read clearly, tysm again for coming in!!!

#roppie gets a question? #jaytim #damitim #reverse robins #long post #im in my car and cant find the read more toggle on mobile im sorry to subject everyone to this shabsbssbdb #embarrassing how much i think abt this!!!! #excuse my cherry picking in the name of linearization thx

[unohanabbygirl]

Hi! This is a question for hiding in plain sight. Could you explain why omegas haven’t evolved some kind of defense mechanism against prime alphas in rut madness? It seems weird that there would still be prime alphas present even though evolution dictates they should have died out since rut madness is so violent that they kill their partners before they can pass on their genes. They don’t seem all that rare which implies that they’re present in the population enough that society isn’t shocked when one pops up. Why hasn’t such a violent gene died out in the abo universe you’ve constructed (other than plot reasons ofc)? It seems too depressing to think of that omegas only defense would be a stronger body/recovery system to help them survive being assaulted

Okay, I love this ask because worldbuilding is my everything and HIPS is still in its early stages with very slow updates so a lot of questionable things are left to the unknown by readers until they’re brought up in the story so let’s get into this.

Prime Alphas in the verse I’ve constructed are actually very rare (its the reason Aemond mentions there being a lot of talking amongst the commonfolk when he first presented as one in chapter 4)

There are many mentions of the destruction caused at the hands of prime’s not because its currently happening but because of the recorded history before they began to die out. To pass on their genes primes oftentimes used to marry or mate multiple partners in case one died during a rut, hurt beyond healing, ended their own life, and the list goes on and on. Think of it like this; people as present as the late 1800’s would have a lot children, I’m talking around 7– 12 or even more. They didn’t have all those kids because they loved children but because the chances that more than half of those kids would die before they reached childhood was more than likely. So to further their chances of continuing their bloodline, they kept having children. However in HIPS a child presenting as an alpha let alone a prime is split if the mother is omega or beta since a child may take on that secondary gender instead. And if that child marries a non-alpha it makes the chances of another prime alpha child less and less likely.

Being as dangerous and unpredictable in their instincts is the reason they’re all so rare. Aemond is the first prime to present in all of Westeros after Corlys who presented over 50 years prior, and before him there hadn’t been an instance of a prime alpha presenting in nearly a hundred years.

Rut madness makes it more than likely a prime will eventually end up killing their partners while they’re still teens/young adults and haven’t found the right medicines to keep their urges more under control like Corlys has. Plus he’s an older man so things have all around slowed down and will continue to until he can no longer go into rut. Think of it like menopause. However, even prime alphas who haven’t found a way to control themselves are still able to pass down their genes when they aren’t in rut aka aren’t as violent. So it’s possible, just not all that frequent making that particular gene very sparse in the pool.

For example, i’ve seen quite a few stories of children being born who look absolutely nothing like either of their parents because of genes from hundreds of years back not making an appearance until recently. What I remember particularly is the story of two African American parents whose daughter was born with blonde hair, very light skin, and blue eyes. They did some DNA testing and it turns out that they were both descendants of slave owners over 300 years prior. Neither had any direct family with these features, so it really was just a chase of genes working in odd ways.

In HIPS, so long as a bloodline has a prime alpha somewhere in there there’s always a chance that gene will make its appearance.

As for Omega’s and defense mechanisms, their bodies can reject a mating/bonding mark when under extreme duress which may not seem like all that much but is pretty much a saving grace if an omega can escape with their life like Luke has. It’s the reason why Aemond’s bite mark has scarred over so badly. Had it actually gone through and created a connection, Luke would’ve been extremely sick being as far away from Aemond as he is and may have died of bond sickness. Not to mention that had the bond gone through Luke would probably be locked up in the keep as a hostage because Aemond would have taken him back with him without question if his alpha felt that connection.

#asks

[rachelbethhines]

60 Years of Doctor Who Anniversary Marathon - McCoy 8th Review

The Professor & Ace: The Left Hand of Darkness - Behind the Scenes

There's potentially several things you can cover in this section during the wilderness years. There's sequels, spin-offs, documentaries, articles, books, interviews, Big Finish, and various unrelated films that have nothing to do with Who but seem to be cast with nothing but actors from the old show.

But for my money, the absolute wildest thing to come out of this period is straight up Bootleg Who.

Same actors, same writers, same basic premise, same characters in all but name.. or even in name in some cases... But it's not called Doctor Who so legally it's not Doctor Who you see.

Man, UK copyright is weird.

There were two prominent bootlegs at the time.

The Stranger, staring Colin Baker, was a series of direct to video films with a few spin off audios. He and his companion 'Miss. Brown' (played by Nicola Bryant) travel through time and save the day... you know, just like in Doctor Who, but they never say their names and you never see their actual method of travel.

The second is The Professor and Ace, aka The Time Travelers, aka The Dominie... yeah this thing had a lot of monikers. It's called the Professor and Ace on Audible where I bought it so that's what I'm going with.

This was an audio series staring Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred as two time travelers, one a mysterious 900 year old alien called the Professor and the other a delinquent teen called Ace... but her real name is Alice in this, not Dorothy, so it's totally a different character guys.

It's insane!

It's glorious!

It's the closest you can get to official Doctor Who with out it actually being officially licensed Doctor Who.

Even the 60s Dalek movies are more canonical than this...

Which is in some ways is a shame as, it's actually good. Or at least the one episode that I listened to was.

The series manages to be mature without being grotesque. It succeeds where I think things like the Virgin New Adventures fails.

There's cursing, but it never feels out of character, or unwarranted, even as Ace peppers her dialogue with the usual kid friendly slang.

There's mature topics discussed but nothing is gratuitous or in your face. It's all real things being brought up like, loss, grief, and trust; bad childhoods and the effects of traumas ... not gory violence for the sake of being shocking.

There's nudity, but only in scenes that call for it in the story... like medical treatment or a bath after running around in the jungle. It's not awkwardly sexullized, but there to add realism to the story and to help ground the setting.

It's basically Who for grown ups, not 'Who for teens that want to appear grown up'. Therein lies the difference... despite what the original cover would have you believe.

Was this really needed, BBV?

Anyways, I've waffled long enough. Let's get down to the actual story shall we?

Ace becomes separated from 'The Professor' and winds up in a crashed spaceship. She's the sole survivor of the wreck and is rescued by a mysterious man named Dorsai.

Dorsai is also a survivor of a previous wreck. A group of scientists crashed landed on the planet that they had originally intended to study. With no workable communications and no hope of rescue from pasting ships due to the remoteness of the planet, the group built a home out of the wreckage of their ship and continued their work.

Dorsai is the only one left now as the rest of the crew have died off one by one. Ace doesn't trust the man, but finds herself reliant on him for survival. Not only because he's the only person around who knows the area and has all of the supplies... but also because she's been blinded by the crash.

(The Left Hand of Darkness By Hisi79)

Like I said previously, this feels more like a continuation of the adventures of Seven and Ace on screen then the actual official continuations we got. Heck in some ways it's an improvement over the tv show itself!

Remember how I bitched about how vague Ace's arc was in The Curse of Fenric novelization?

Yeah, this actually addresses that!

We finally find out why Ace hates her mum. It's nothing we couldn't have figure out with some basic guess work, but it's still nice to actually hear it from the character herself. You know, because it something that effects her and informs her decisions... like why she travels and why she doesn't trust anyone but the 'The Professor'.

We also delve deeper into her blind faith in 'The Professor' and how shaky her strongman act really is, but in a way that feels real and frightening, and not her being manipulated by virtual gods to further some convoluted plot point.

Finally, we address the elephant in the room that I think was set up in Survival but was never fully resolved... Ace going home for real. Not just to see her school mates... whom she all quickly forgets in favor of hot catgirls... but actually returning to where she left off and confronting her problems/past.

Fuck it! This is cannon to me. This is where she leaves the Doctor for real and what she and Seven were discussing in Power of the Doctor. It's my box of head-cannons and you can't take it from me!

#doctor who #classic who #seventh doctor #sylvester mccoy #ace #the professor and ace #bootleg who #the stranger

[nynxhaswritersblockk]

Just a little something I was thinking of while looking through my old Wattpad account and the library I had on there 🙂

TW: Guns, italian Mafia, threatening, kidnapping, yk the drill :3

You always made fun of those cringy Y/N fanfics, "I put my hair in a messy bun and didn't put on any makeup" - It made you laugh. "Sold to Harry Styles, "Sold to one direction", etc. Ofcourse as a teen you read them, typical stuff that a middle, or even Highschooler during your time would do. You remember sitting in your bed when you were 13, it was 2012 at the time, you were reading those "Creepy pasta/ Jeff the Killer x Y/N" stories; Thinking back on it it was a good time, you were young and practically innocent, if not a little dirty minded due to the smut you read, but does it really matter now? Your favorite genre had always been something else though, not being sold to Harry styles or running away from home and joining the creepy pasta; a phase you got over just a few years ago, no it was something else, "Being sold to the mafia." Thinking back it's more cringe than the rest, considering that no mafia boss is a good looking, tall and muscular italian man that would buy you off your parents and call you "Amore", no, the mafia is cruel and if they were to own you, you'd just be a toy to their old, grumpy, ugly and overlooked by wrinkles boss.

You're twenty-four now, wow big age, huh? You have a loving partner and a stable job, engaged even, planning the wedding and all. Currently your husband is on a work trip, it's November third 2023 (remember this date very well), your birthday was just a few days ago and sadly you had to celebrate without your loving fiancé. The couch has become your comfort space, the chocolate lab you own laying next to you, snorting in his sleep. "Lil trashcan" is what you call him, though his actual name is "lucky"; The nickname came from him eating everything, not eating, more like inhaling.

"Lucky," You whistled after, making sure to get his full attention as you turned the TV off. He looked at you with his big brown eyes, blinking stupidly. "wanna go to bed, big guy?" You ask sweetly, scratching that specific spot on his back, the one that make his leg twitch slightly and tail wag faster than usually. You get up and pull his blanket away, he gets up, stretching on the floor and yawning, a loud high whine. You blink a few times, confused as to why your dog was always exaggerating everything.

A quick stop in the kitchen to grab your phone from it's charging station, stupid to put in the kitchen you may think, but useful when your phone is on 5% and you need a Recipe to cook something. You check it, three missed calls from "Mom", one missed call from "Dad" and four missed calls from "Liam", your brother. "Jesus" You mutter out and dial your mom's number, as she is the most calmest when you miss her calls.

"Sweetie?" Her voice calls out over the phone, slightly shaky, you're concerned now. "Hey mom, is everything alright?" She is still for a moment and you can hear your brother say something from behind her. Liam is your older brother, he's twenty-seven and even though you got the usual younger sibling treatment from him, you love him to death. "Mom?" You call out again, snapping her back to the call, "Yes, sorry, sweetie!" She quickly says and begins speaking before you could, "How fast can you be over at our house? We have something to discuss with you" She says, sounding concerned and nervous. You look at the time, it's 1am, why is she still awake? "Uhm.. I can be there in ten?" You offer and she sighs in relief, weird. "Good, see you then, sweetie!" She doesn't say anything, instead hangs up and leaves you just as confused as you had been before.

"Guess we're not going to sleep, huh? Wanna visit granny?" You say to your dog, smiling a bit as you pat his head. You put his leash on him, put on your shoes, grab your coat and pocket your phone, then you head out. After a good five minutes of trying to get your dog in the car, finally managing it, you sit in the drivers seat and start driving. A calm drive in the rainy night, a million thoughts raced your mind though. What could be stressing your mother out so much that she asks you to come over at one in the morning?

When you arrive at her house you spot a black car with a strange License plate on it, it's not an US one, neither is it from any other countries on the continent called America. You shrug, thinking it probably belongs to your mom's neighbour. You get lucky out of the car and head for your mom's door, before you can ring the doorbell it opens and you're met with a man in a black suit, he looks to be in his late thirties, early forties, maybe even older.

"Uhm Hi? Is my mom he-" *He pulls you in the house, your dog being pulled in with you as he shuts the door loudly, grabbing the leash from you and pulling the dog with him. "Living room." He says harshly and pushes you forward. Goosebumps make it's way on your skin, a lump in your throat and the hairs at the back of your neck standing up. Heavy steps lead you to the living room, your brother is sitting on the couch, a gun held to his head by a similarly old looking man, his pointer on the trigger and ready to press it at any moment. Your parents, old and frail people that devoted their life to raising you properly, stand across your brother, looking stressed out. Tears pricked at your eyes at the sight. "M-Mom?" You mumbled out, looking at her nervously. You hear the gun at your brother's head cock and your gaze snaps to the sound. "What is going on?" You whisper quietly, seeking eye contact with your brother, but he avoids it. "My my, what a sweet young woman, mh" A voice says from behind you, you turn around, your breath caught in your throat. He looks old; wrinkles around his dark brown eyes, a strong jawline, bushy eyebrows, prominent cheekbones and full lips; A creepy smile on his face. "To answer your question, your brother here has given us a slight bit of trouble," His italian accent is thick, not something you would enjoy though, "and I'm giving you a choice now, either you come back with us to our beautiful, sunny italy and I'll marry you to my son, because he's looking for a wife or your brother gets his brains blown out right infront of you and your parents." Time stops around you, you feel dizzy, a weird feeling in your gut that makes you want to throw up. Then everything is gone, the last thing you feel is your head hitting the floor and your mom's shriek as you faint.

A few hours pass by, atleast you think so, then you wake up. Duck tape over your mouth, eyes covered with a blindfold, ankles and hands tied together with rope. Where ever you're sitting is a moving vehicle, your best guess is the car you saw outside your parents's house. You want to cry, tears pricking at your eyes as you breathe heavily, the tape over your mouth restricting your breathing and stressing you out; you feel like fainting once again.

#mafia x reader #mafia boss #yn

[roobylavender]

what are your thoughts on the naruhina dynamic? I adore hinata, we don't often get characters like her

i LOOOOVE naruhina omfg they were my day ones when i first got into naruto.. i used to enjoy fluffier ships at the time so they perfectly fit my modus operandi lol. i think it's a shame how underwritten their relationship is in main canon (in the sense that they don't get as much page time) because the set up is so good and the few moments they do share with each other are incredibly potent. the pain arc was utterly life changing for me and while i loathe the way the anime generally tends to portray most of the female cast this was one occasion where its expansion on the manga was actually so well executed and remains seared in my mind to this day (please watch from 2:06 of this amv it makes me feel CRAZY). unfortunately the ball was totally dropped with neji's death and instead of adapting hinata's full THREE page monologue to naruto the anime reduced it down to one line that she's consistently been mocked for even though her intentions in the aftermath of that event were so sincere.. i'm always baffled by people's hatred of her because they seem to act like she's timid or quiet on purpose as if she wasn't abused by her father for half of her life. and then they act like she's stupid and can only think about her feelings for naruto at the expense of everything else. but if it was anyone out there on the battlefield watching someone they love get absolutely pulverized would they not do something about it too regardless of their own ability in comparison? i don't think that moment ever came down to logic and i don't think it even had to. comparatively when she made a remarkable display of composure and emotional strength in response to her cousin's death everyone laughed at her for subsequently accepting the smallest bit of comfort (and don't even get me started on how neji fans feel about her generally.. they direct more hatred to that poor girl than they do her father lmao it's insane). it's simply bizarre the expectations she's held to and the consistency with which she's underestimated because she's capable of a lot emotionally and the development is there! and a lot of people act like if naruto really loved her he would have reciprocated during the main narrative but i always argue it was unrealistic for any relationship between the teen characters to be actualized during the main narrative because they were literally at war.. i'm an avid hater of the last admittedly but that's because i think it squanders the potential the main narrative immediately set up with naruto and hinata theoretically bonding over their grief and desire to take action to ensure nothing like what they went through ever happened again. i've always dreamed of post-war naruto commencing his education in leadership and diplomacy under tsunade's tutelage and that occasionally entailing long days in the library reading over historical scrolls and the like that happen to sometimes be on the same shelf as a scroll on the history of cursed seals, which of course hinata begins to look into after the war because she wants this branch clan business over and done with for good and if there's a way to remove those seals forever she'll find it. the idea of the two of them on awkward library non-dates that eventually segue into something more and develop a rapport and friendship between them that can bloom into love is simply so special to me like urgh they make me Weepy. i truly love them so so much and most of my naruto fanfiction is actually about them lol i do think a lot of it is cringe and over the years i tried to rewrite some of it but if you're interested in reading all of it is here

#outbox #as an aside you know how i started this saying i first loved them bc they were fluffy #as i rewrote some of my older naruto fics i angstified them.. bc there is so much angst in there if you really think about it #like they're two such deeply sad characters who manage to find healing in each other and there's so much trauma you can write about #in building them up to that moment where they find and take solace in each other #anyway. anyway. as you can surely tell i am compeltely normal about them

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

When did it even become cool to be alternative in the first place?

2010s I'm gonna say. Corresponds with the rise of Marvel and Big Bang Theory making it cool to be "nerdy". You also gotta remember that, unlike original punk and metal subcultures, the 2000s emo/alt scene didn't really have any underlining political or social meaning. They were just sad teens who didn't fit in and liked the same music. Once you get out of high school, most people don't care what you wear or what music you listen to, so they were always more susceptible to becoming "mainstream". As for wider society, pretty much every mainstream group, from corporations to entertainers to artists made the same mistake Obama did when he was elected and assumed there was a massive cultural shift to the left happening. They eagerly adopted all the social justice slogans and threw their verbal support behind the right causes, and once that happened, the so-called counterculture became the mainstream. It absorbed those "alternative" adults because they never really had a cause. They identify with "marginalized" groups because they built their teen and young adult identities around being the outsider. So when all the groups they used to view with distrust--corporations, media, politicians--started saying "all these groups are oppressed" they ate it up and identified with them. Even when they didn't actually belong to any of those groups (which is also largely responsible for the rise of trenders and "non-binary" shit, because that's the easiest way to larp as an oppressed minority). But now that no one is going to call them out, suddenly the outcasts are the ones being pandered to from all sides. Bam. Instant coolness.

But that shift to the left never really happened, just like it didn't when Obama won his first term. At least not to the degree it was assumed. You can already see the tidal wave receding and the pendulum starting to swing back in the other direction. Last year during this time, we were celebrating "Hispanic and Latinx Heritage Month". I don't think I saw a single bit of corporate virtue signaling that didn't use Latinx. This year, it's mostly been just Hispanic Heritage Month, with some adding on "where we celebrate hispanic, latino, and latina culture". Same with the pride flag. I think this was the first there wasn't a new pride flag that got picked up by the mainstream. Most went back to the usual rainbow flag when they did their corporate virtue signaling.

[urupotter]

I think you have mentioned in som meta that we as readers are supppouses to understand the marauders were somehow worse bullies than the proto DE of their time and I admit I struggle with this concept, because these children grew to be racist terr0rists.

I think its part of the reason a lot of people dont have any sympathy for teen snape and quickly dismiss it as sirius and james "bashing a fascist" (which I doubt anyone has a problem with irl),I dont think thats the reason they did it, at least not the main one but its not like I cant see why its a popular position in fandom.

I don't really believe that I've said that, rather my position is that Mulciber and James are intentionally set up as parallels (specifically what James does in Snape's Worst Memory is I believe supposed to be the same thing Mulciber does to Mary Macdonald). In any case we don't see enough of the proto death eaters to do anything beyond speculate. Also extrapolating backwards from them as full fledged Death Eaters is a bad idea, the Death Eaters are an entirely different environment and structure than Hogwarts, plus they are actually under the direct command of Voldemort. For evidence just look at the difference between the way Draco acts before he gets the mark and afterward. He's a dickhead always, but there's a drastic increase in violence/danger. (For the same reason I believe that Regulus Black, only one to be confirmed by canon to have been marked at 16, should be treated differently from the other Hogwarts students in meta and fic, he's much more dangerous than all of them).

Mulciber et al are obviously worse than the marauders purely because they want to join a terrorist group in the future (and the reason for this isn't endogenous to the marauders actions in the way it is with Snape), but that this is mostly down to circumstance and that they demonstrate enough casual cruelty and indifference to the way their actions could hurt others that I tend to attribute that more to their specific environments than anything more innate (except maybe Sirius, ironically enough given that he's the worst of the 4 bar Peter), and that it's possible, hell even likely given what we see, that during Hogwarts specifically the Marauders engaged in more immoral actions. Of course since that wasn't their environment that makes all the difference, but it is something I keep in mind when thinking about their characters.

As for motivations, that's made pretty explicit in text with the "because he exists" line, which is JKR's way of holding the readers hand and making it explicit that the motivations aren't noble. Add to that the total lack of mention of any of the marauders ever clashing with the proto DE along with many mentions of them hexing randoms and it's fairly clear to me that that was JKR's way of trying everything possible to avoid their motivations being misinterpreted as noble. Alas.

As for sympathy... eh? This is probably an unpopular opinion but both Sirius and (especially) Lupin are significantly worse people as adults than they are as teenagers, and I don't find being sympathetic hard at all. Hell, even more unpopular, teenage Lupin and Sirius are more moral than teen Snape (he is indeed a power hungry racist wanabee terrorist) but that flips by the time we get to canon (yes I know Snape bullies children, what Lupin does in third year re:Sirius is an order of magnitude worse and Sirius abuses his slave). Sympathy isn't really motivated by morality all that much to me. It's more related to if I find the character annoying or not.

Snape/Marauders is much better approached from the frame of reference that they're all rather terrible (unless you go utilitarian with Snape but that's niche and not what people tend to mean when talking about good or bad people), but that's irrelevant given that they're also cool as fuck. Lots and lots of great scenes and dialogue and amazing aesthetics and on and on. It's a much better fate as a character to be charismatic and terrible than nice and bland.

[theladyragnell]

Because now I have to know: Beka/Rosto thoughts.

Also Julie and the Phantoms: Julie/Luke, Luke/Reggie, Julie/Caleb in Nick's Body

Beka/Rosto

So, I don't think they were actually that interesting, in the first book, and then he got weirdly dropped after the first book when "Dog is friends with the Rogue" is one of the more interesting conflicts going on in the series, but thematically, it makes the most sense! I mean, I'm saying this in the ACAB 2020s, but Rosto's presence and friendship with her make her a more interesting character to me, and him being her love interest would take that a step further! And would feel like one in the eye for the frame narrative, which irks me to absolutely no end. Anyway, Rosto was introduced and then nothing was done with him! An absolute waste. He makes more thematic sense than Farmer does, basically, however fun Farmer is.

Julie/Luke

Sweet darlings! They remind me of my teen years reading Meg Cabot's Mediator books, only they are more charming and have musical numbers, what's not to love? I really enjoy them! And I particularly enjoy the way their moments of interaction during the musical numbers really do the work of building out their relationship and chemistry, I don't think I've seen a show do diegetic music better.

Luke/Reggie

A fun ship! I was too busy shipping Luke with Julie to really get invested in them, but I absolutely see where people are coming from with it.

Julie/Caleb in Nick's body

While I am wildly resentful that we'll never get a season 2 in part because I wanted to see this plot play out, it is definitely not because I ship this! Very much not my jam, this one, too many consent issues going in way too many directions in an atmosphere that cannot handle that level of darkness.

#anonymous #answered asks