#good for the person anyway but man. the 2020s have really fucked us all over

[isaacathom]

i miss when the 'get this post to x notes' stuff was about like. buying a chicken

#good for the person anyway but man. the 2020s have really fucked us all over #yall even remember the chicken. do the children remember the chicken. am i even remembering the chicken #my point is that they used to be in a more like. trivial fun spirit. not heyy do i practice mon mental health. hm. #then again i am and have always been particular bitter and jaded towards a post that feels guilt-trippy so like #again man. good for them! get that self care! wishing you the best. im not getting involved in that

[birdbrainedboy]

I’m obsessed with this show and fear a hyperfixation anyways here are my thoughts on every character in the show

Edwin Paine: forever my favorite, even back before the show when I read the comics! I think it’s funny that basically every man in the show wants him? I’m intrigued by his character arc throughout the story regarding his sexuality as despite dying in 1916, he seems to have had time to slowly become more accepting of gay people (I’m guessing in part due to Charles, who is pansexual), to the point where there’s only mild internalized homophobia if at all, which just exhibits itself in him denying any possible feelings for Monty. I love how face-value and logical he is while still being a sweetheart

Charles Rowland: he has a pan flag pin on his jacket which confuses me bc can ghosts only wear clothes they would’ve worn when they were alive, or how do ghost clothes work? Because he died in 1989 and I’m near positive he didn’t wear that pin back there. Anyways I do love him but I wonder about some design choices, like the one earring (not sure why it just kinda annoys me). That was more a rant abt his design than his character, which I have nothing notable to say abt since I LOVE HIM he’s so real

Crystal Palace: sometimes she was a bit annoying the way she was trying way too hard to pry into everyone’s lives, but honestly that was just momentary annoyance since nothing could make me hate her. I love how her past was slowly revealed (as someone who already knew it from the comics) and how she came to terms with the person she used to be vs the person she is now. She’s so cool!

David the demon: honestly kind of caught me off guard at first bc the person I’m dating is named David but I actually enjoyed his character. LOVED when Crystal dealt with him in the end. He was very interesting

Niko Sasaki: I love Niko, but I have some problems with her character. First of all, I feel like ditsy anime-loving cutesy Asian girl with dyed hair is a weirdly common trope? But whatever my main issue is that it feels like characters who normalize the fetishization of gay men are so common. Like if Niko had been a guy obsessed with lesbian manga evb would be weirded out, so why is it different? If we ignore all of this tho I absolutely adore her and I’m actually praying she’s in the next season bc she was one of my favorites (esp her relationship w Edwin)

Jenny: She is so hot and cool and funny I’m in love with her

Esther: oh my god words cannot come close to describing how much I love her character. She felt powerless and weak in the past and now she’s become obsessed with making sure nobody has that power over her ever again. She was so fun and I loved her attitude! I’m sure she won’t show up next season, as she was the main antagonist of s1, and while I love her, I kind of hope she doesn’t since I think her arc was finished.

Monty: His personality was like 2020 “soft boy” who acts nice and dumb but is lowkey a manipulator. So obviously this kind of made me like ☠️ bc why is he acting like that… but I still love him to bits because he’s just a crow guys he didn’t ask to be human,, Anyways yeah his personality annoys me but also I love him so much so? It’s confusing. ITS COMPLICATED. I will cry if he’s not in s2

Kingham and Litty: I honestly thought they were annoying but I can’t lie they were so fucking funny. Every time they were on screen I laughed.

Cat King: oh my god. He is so camp. I love him. There’s honestly not much to say he is simply iconic. Love how he’s afraid to be alone so chases after other people, he’s so real AGHH I love him

Night Nurse: Ruth Connell the woman you are… 😍 she reminds me of Muriel from Good Omens, in a way, and I love her! I really hope we get to see more of her in relation to the guy in the fish, and see her get to better understand human emotions and why they choose to cling onto the human world rather than pass on!

#dead boy detective agency #dead boy detectives #charles rowland #edwin payne #crystal palace surname von hoverkraft #crystal palace #niko sasaki #david the demon #neil gaiman #esther #monty crow #cat king #night nurse #good omens

[bistaxx]

JINX !! tell me why you ship Quackity x Luzu and why you dont ship Quackity x Wilbur I need to know the Lore

Hiiiiiiiii Vin! oh gosh- I'll try to condense this as much as I can OKAY SO...

yeah I don't vibe with tntduo 😭- I already talked about q!tnt so I'll just explain about c!tnt instead:

Why don’t you ship it: The Fandom. Listen I hate saying it but it really is 90% of the reason why- I always try not to let annoying fandom stuff sour my opinions but like... MAN- Because like I actually did really use to enjoy /r tntduo fuck man I was shipping it back in October 17th 2020 after the moment in the button room and especially after the famous Niki's birthday stream like- idk I just liked the dynamic and the chemistry it was fun! I was even still shipping it when I first started getting really into the c!fiances and was hyped when Wilbur and Quackity met up again... but then. IDK- something about the fandom take on their dynamic just didn't click with me it didn't feel like the same characters I enjoyed ESPECIALLY IN REGARDS TO THE WAY C!QUACKITY WOULD GET TREATED- like GIRL- Quackity would not cave and be visibly annoyed or flustered by the first jab Wilbur makes hello-??? or the fanart that would portray Wil as like completely disregarding Q's personal space as this 'teehee funny flirty' thing like I HATED that shit- I also just hated how when I tried to look up c!fiances content I had to filter like 5 million tags to actually find what I was looking for because there'd be so many c!tnt fics that had the fiances tagged in them and 50% of the time it was just so Quackity could break-up with them for Wilbur 😭 I also just like got sick of seeing it everywhere when I wanted to find c!Q content it felt like it was inescapable and that people only cared for my favorite character solely to mischaracterize him in a ship I was quickly growing tired of... yeha I think that sums it up-

What would have made you like it? Um.. All of the above not happening LMAO-

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it? Like I said earlier I DID really like it and I have tnt shipping mutuals who do the dynamic justice even if I got super burnt out on it (shoutout to Thes)

... So anyway uh- SO LUCKITY-

(this will be a lot shorter despite how much I have to say about Luckity I'm just really tired rn SORRY 😭)

This will be about k!Luckity specifically cuz I rly don;t have much of anything to say about q!Luckity outside of finding Arinckity cute

What made you ship it? Started for the fluff and stayed for the toxic ship 😈- GOD Quackity and Luzu fucking outdid themselves with Luckity in Karmaland V like dude it's just so good- like looking back on it the writing was already on the walls that they were so doomed from the very start- like they somehow manage to be both "it's tragic because it didn't have to end this way" and "it's tragic because it was always gonna end this way." if that makes sense. But god at the start it was just so easy to overlook the blaring the red flags because they'd give us just enough hope that it'd end well only for the rug to get pulled during the elections and the whole dynamic get's flopped on it's head but now instead of cute fluff or funny flirting it's this Angry passion and resentment- from start to end they were devoted to each other whether in hatred or in love. The build-up and payoff were both just amazing even if I felt miffed about the ending of the arc at first I've since come to love it because really it's just the cherry on top of their tragedy leaving the possibility they could just end up doing it all over again yeah <3 They were The Moment yeah!

What are your favorite things about the ship? A lot of things but like- I love that they're sun and moon coded <33333 I remember associating them with sun/moon imagery before they took those iconic photos with the sun and moon and like I was so hyped when that happened <3 my toxic sun/moon boys yeah <3

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? Not really no- but HEY check out this web weave I made about Luckity that I'm still super proud of and debate remaking one day: X :3

#vvindication #tntduo neg #ask

[spookyboywhump]

I can relate to the frustration, but assuming this is about politics, I don't think "lesser of two evils" is a deep moral statement people believe in on a philosophical level, but just a way to cope with begrudgingly voting for a party that's the obvious choice given the only realistic alternative. It's a roundabout way of signaling how bad the implied "greater evil" is, and it pops up every election season, only to die down, since it's rooted in pragmatism rather than some serious moral shit. When (progressive) people in the US vote, don't they do it with an understanding that at the end of the day they'll either have to live under a government led by the "war crimes and some welfare here and there" party or the "50x the war crimes and also we need to start killing as many trans people as possible" party? Even in terms of foreign policy alone, there is not a single thing on the republican agenda that wouldn't be like, at least ten times worse (unless someone's idea of "good" is just maximizing the amount of brown people that die). And domestically? Holy shit. I don't want to spiral down into a rant on how fucked the mind of an average conservative lawmaker is, but we both know that for some marginalized people democratic rule vs. republican rule is literally life vs. death.

Just to be clear I ain’t trying to start an argument or nothing this is just my opinion on shit going on in the world.

After seeing so many people say “I know he’s committing genocide and I don’t like it either but you HAVE to vote for Biden, you HAVE to vote for the lesser of two evils” I cannot take it anymore. After seeing people yell “four more years” over people protesting an actual genocide I cannot take it anymore. I am tired of Biden being treated like he can do no wrong, and any wrong he does do should be ignored simply because “Trump Worse™️”.

I have reached the point where I don’t give a shit who wins the presidency, I care about pretty much everything under that down to small local elections. It ain’t really that I’m one of those people who thinks voting Doesn’t Work, I think it can, I think people need to worry about more than just who becomes president though. I think both candidates are evil, and I want the people who represent me and my state to be there when they’re committing evil to speak out against it. I want smaller politicians who actually have to listen to the people voting for them to run in the best interests of those like me and I want them in power in whatever office they’re running for. I think people put all their effort into the presidential candidates and ignore other elections that can still make change, even just in their home town.

I personally however cannot put my support behind this bastard after watching all this. I am tired of watching people defend him, when he wants to bypass all this shit to send weapons to Israel it’s whatever, but when it comes to Roe v Wade being overturned, when it comes to states trying to criminalize transgender people existing at all, when it comes to kids in cages, suddenly he’s “doing his best” and he “doesn’t actually have that much power”. I find this to be a somewhat selfish take given the severity of things in Gaza and other places but all that money he’s sending to Israel could work fucking miracles for those vulnerable minority populations here. Everything I was told to fear would happen in 2016 has happened since 2020. Everything we were told would be fixed in 2020 was swept under the rug and any criticisms of it were met with “Oh, so you’d rather have Trump as president???”.

I’m a mixed Mexican transgender man. I live in Texas. I’m capable of bearing children. I am becoming more disabled by the day since October of 2023. And I don’t trust neither presidential candidate to protect me and those like me, I don’t trust neither one as far as I could throw them. I know people are gonna vote for Biden anyway, I can’t realistically tell people what to do and who to vote for, but I do think we have a responsibility to hold him accountable, we should speak up against war crimes, as long as he’s saying the US stands with Israel, we need to be shouting that we sure as fuck do not. We cannot continue to let this fear of trump hypothetically becoming president make us feel like we have to look the other way when this president is currently, actively helping to commit genocide.

#there’s my political rant #that’s just how I feel about shit I guess #I think the two party system sucks and I think the two candidates should [for legal reasons this part was redacted] #I really ain’t trying to start an argument I’m just giving my position on matters at hand #not whump

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

(belated) reading update: may 2023

upon realizing I was over a week late on my book report for May I considered just waiting until the end of June and rolling the two together, but thing is that I have a Theme for June (spoilers: it's the very predictable theme of only reading books by and/or about queer people) and lumping them together will really throw that off, so! onwards we go.

I should also say that this will be a real shorty, tied with March for the LEAST amount of books I've managed to finish in a month so far this year. in March that was because the month mostly revolved around a weeklong vacation to crash at my mom's place on the beach with a gaggle of friends, which was very fun but seriously cramped my time to read for pleasure. May ALSO saw a very exciting weeklong trip to a brand new city (WHAT'S UP NEW ORLEANS) as well as genuinely some of the shittiest and most harrowing events of my adult life so far so. can't blame a bitch a bitch for slipping!

ANYWAY.

what have I been reading?

People From Bloomington (Budi Darma, 1980; trans. Tiffany Tsao, 2022) - a strange short story collection set in the Bloomington, Indiana, where the Indonesian Darma studied during the 1970s. these stories take the mundane drama of Americana and turn it on its head, crawling deep into themes of alienation and ostracization and the ways they turn people against themselves. over and over again Darma tells tales of lonely boarders driven to obsessive and antisocial behavior by the loneliness that eats them alive amid pleasant-looking suburbs. the prose is overall a little on the dry end for me to really love it, but I do think about how fucked up these protagonists are, like, constantly.

High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America (Jessica B. Harris, 2011) - a delight! an absolute gosh dang delight! Harris is a PUN FULL INTENDED delectable writer who takes you on the most unexpected tour of how African foodways have shaped the culture of US cuisine. beginning with the obvious roots of the transatlantic slave trade and journeying on to America's first Black restaurateurs and sit-ins at diner counters, there's no facet of culinary life too small to be interwoven with Black American history, and Harris eagerly explores them all while painting a vivid picture for her readers. this book will absofuckinglutely make you hungry, so it's a good thing that recipes are included in the back.

Gay Bar: Why We Went Out (Jeremy Atherton Lin, 2021) - a heady powerhouse of a read, seamlessly blending the historical with the editorial with the personal. Lin's on a journey to resurrect the history of the gay bars that shaped he and his husband's intertwined lives - from their roots before his time, the state he found them in as a young man searching for a place in the queer scene, and their apparently dwindling status in the 2020s. Lin's writing is dreamy and grimy, unflinching and romantic, horny and bored all at once. this isn't an uncritical glorification of the gay bar but an interrogation, the pressing question of what community even means and where on earth it's going.

D'Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding (Chencia C. Higgins, 2022) - that's right, still on that kick of reading one romance novel a month. if you spend any amount of time perusing lists of LBGT book recs, particularly LBGT romances, it's inevitable that you'll run into D'Vaughn and Kris. this book has so much #representation that it's pretty much catnip for list compilers: both leads are Black lesbians, D'Vaughn is fat and not yet out to her very Christian mother, and Kris is a butch Afro-Latina (and also part of the most marginalized community of all: influencers). but what about the story, is that actually good? straight up no, not at all; I feel pretty comfortable saying this is maybe my least favorite of the romance novels I've read so far. totally aside from lackluster writing, clunky exposition, and slapdash plotting, this book is uninterested in engaging with its central premise - Kris and D'Vaughn meet on a reality show where they are paired up to plan a wedding in 6 weeks without letting their families figure out that their relationship is a sham - to such an absurd and infuriating degree that I have to wonder why Higgins even bothered.

that's all for now, June will hopefully be MUCH more full considering I've already finished three books and still have nearly three weeks to go + a whole heap of queer books checked out from the library! xoxo

#reading updates #bookblr

[thefisherqueen]

Notes on Granada's Sherlock Holmes: the last vampire

This will be a tough one to follow for me! I barely remember anything about the story, except that it had something to do with blood, that a woman was wrongly and for rather racist reasons accused and that instead a young boy turned out to be the attempted murderer

Someone is burned alive in the opening scene? What? I don't remember this

"I'll stop if you let me kiss you". Wait. Isn't this her actual stepson? *a few minutes further* ok, that is not the mother, so not her stepson. Still very creepy behaviour from this boy. This comes a bit too close for comfort to me personally. People very rarely talk about it, but children can be the perpertators of sexual violence sometimes, as was the case for me

Ok, the next scene cheers me up. Laughing so hard about Holmes dressing up as a vampire and scaring the hell out of Watson

Why is everyone so scared of that grave looking man dressed in black? Don't understand that yet

Holmes, highly randomly: "This cup and saucers has been here for three days" he's so ADHD

Holmes: "Everything is better than this stagnation" *flops dramatically down in a chair* *assumes even more dramatic pose*

Poor Watson, he just wants some tea while Holmes is infodumping

Seems like Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke had the time of their lives acting this whole vampire scene, I love them so much

Holmes: "The world is big enough for us, no ghosts need apply" Ah, I remember that quote!

Why am I not convinced by Holmes' reason for being in possesion of vampire teeth? Never heard Holmes say 'uhm' so much *mind goes wild with possibilities* I really want to know that the team's thoughts were! Watson: "Did you put them to use?" Almost convinced Watson discovers he has a vampire kink here

Client: "Thank you young man, I'm not quite in my grave yet" Haha, love a fiesty old man

I adore Brett and Hardwicke exchanging glances and trying not to laugh as the forgetful client rambles on

Ah, there's the first death. Looks quite dramatic with all the blood! And oh, that stranger really had bad timing. And he's a descendant of a hated, cruel landowner who the villagers burned alive. Plenty of reason I guess for the villagers to be suspicious

So the baby died as well (they made this so much darker). Holmes and Watson go to the village to investigate and keep the village calm. Good concept, actually. Great expantion upon the canon story

Village life has changed so little over a hunderd years that I forgot for a while that this movie takes place in the victorian age, lol, until Watson named all the young influenza victims. Yeah, that was a thing back then. Not entirely related, but I wonder now how long it took before child deaths in villages really started to go down. The installing of sewers and clean drinking water supply made a huge difference here... but I wouldn't be surprised if it took a long time before all villages had the same fascilities as the cities. Anyway, as tragic as it always has been (and I read a lot of proza and poetry written by grieving parents), a baby's death still was nothing out of the ordinary around 1900. According to this graph on child mortality, 228 out of a 1000 children died before they were five years old in the UK in 1900. (compared to 4 in 2020. That's an astonishing difference)

Ohh, bats living in the countryside with lots of old buildings, suspicious!

The writer is very relatable. I, too, have a tendency to horrify the fellow people at my table with marcabre history and uncomfortable questions

Love the way Holmes enages the whole fucking pub. Loudy: "Surely there is no crime in this part of the country!" *dead silence*

The influenza epidemic running in the background really adds to the panicked atmoshere, that was a clever choice

What was that sudden hallucination (??) at the ruin? *some time later* Oh, all right. Glad they went with actual optical effects this time

I love the scenes where we get to see Watson in his role as a doctor, visiting patients - calm, caring, competent. Such a wonderful exploration of that side of his character

Oh, the writer himself is dead now too? That was quite sudden and unexpected. Damn. I liked him. He was creepy but in a good way. Third death and counting, because of course it's not over now

I hate how realistic this whole panicked reaction of the village feels. People see causal relations where they don't exist and do wild, irrational things when they're scared, we've all seen it over the years. I can easily see a group of conspiracy theorists digging up a just burried man in the dead of night and moving him

I like how it's not necessary the Peruian artifacs and beliefs that are portrayed as in themselves creepy, but what they become in the hands of two white people. I think you can certainly argue it's a portrayal of cultural appropriation

The finale felt a bit rushed compared to the middle part. Still satisfying, but why kill the boy off? (at least I assume he's dead). I would have loved to see closure in the village, especially for the parents because holy shit they lost both their children, and a bit more reflection from Holmes and Watson

I really loved this episode, it was so well done and may become one of my favs. Nice build up, delightful characters, a good balance of fun and eerie things. The only thing I can find fault with is that the timing was just a bit off, the middle part a bit to long and the ending a bit too short. Classic period horror movie meets detective story

#sherlock holmes #granada holmes #the last vampire

[runthepockets]

Being a geeky black dude in the 2000s was hard, but more than that it was just plain weird. Getting called an oreo for liking Metal music and getting called homophobic slurs for not liking the "right" Metal music was a world of its own, but the main war I was fighting was the culture war between Hip Hop heads and Metalheads.

Obviously the former group was in the right in the majority of these arguments. I mean, even if Hip Hop was all "kill violence murder do hard drugs and fuck everyone", who cares. It's music. Good music, at that, with the kind of production and subject matter and witty lyricism that people write wordy reviews about on niche music forums. If you're doing a bunch of shady shit cus some random rappers who you don't even personally know alluded to it in a couple songs, odds are you were probably predispositioned to doing those things anyway, which imo is an indication that we need better financial and interpersonal support networks, not more shaming and alienating.

At the same time I could never quite get behind the Metal shaming, either. I mean, to me (and Mos Def) Hip Hop was the heavy metal of the black community. Both are made up of a bunch of angry young dudes trying their best to express themselves and their individuality and navigate masculinity in a way deemed acceptable, be it by talking aggressively over dense beats about guns and fast cars and hot girls or talking aggressively over dense riffs and basslines about barbaric warriors and shambling ghouls with acidic spit, and I have a lot of fun listening to both and feel empowered by both for pretty similar reasons. Being male dominated genres, they both have their misogynistic moments, but the former experiences more scrutiny over it because....black dudes do it? Even though it's been shown time and time again that we're more likely than any other male demographic in the country to vote for women during election seasons and advocate for things like drug decriminalization, police abolition, and testifying for how much the feminist movement has benefitted women in the US rather than hurt them.

I bring this up because, for some reason, these debates still happen. There are still racist Metal dudes and there are still Hip Hop heads who consider you a sellout for liking "white music", and it's baffling. I thought in this era of Metal / Hardcore bands ala Full of Hell and Primitive Man and Drain integrating synthesizers and trap beats into their discographies and Rappers ala Denzel Curry covering Rage songs we'd have been past this already. I mean fuck man, Wyclef Jean was at Woodstock in '99, Tech N9ne collabed with Chino Moreno and Stephen Carpenter 12 years ago, Ice-T and Riley Gale collabed on a Body Count song in 2020, and Ho99o9 toured with Slipknot last year. Like there's really nothing else to say. The wandering tribes are united. We're all chilling and smoking at the skate park.

[patricia-von-arundel]

Dear Scott Adams,

First of all, you, sir, are an absolute dickhead, and another unneeded example of why straight, white, rich, conservative men who mistake success and/or self-described "expertise" in one area as indication that their inherent great wisdom and insight is just what the rest of the world needs (see also: Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, etc etc etc etc etc) are really fucking irritating and should honestly all be locked up together and filmed in a Battle Royale-style slap-fight to the death. (I'd watch it.)

That said, you seem to have gotten your racist, sexist, not-half-as-funny-as-other-white-conservative-men-think-you-are self shitcanned, finally (something anyone who is not one of your cohort of fellow straight, white, rich, conservative men has been waiting for for 20+ years). And you did so by oh-so-wisely calling Black people a "hate group" and saying white people should move away from them, because for some completely strange, obscure reason, Black people are a bit put out by white people being absolute buffoons about their own history, their families' potential involvement in upholding not-so-distant past atrocities, and their regular whining about reparations, affirmative action, cops murdering POC, rap music, Black women's hair, Colin Kaepernick, Barack Obama being a secret Kenyan Muslim KGB-plant Alpha Centaurian lizard-person, and having to say they're sorry for all the young Black men they, their parents, their grandparents, their great-grandparents, great-great - you get the idea - killed and continued to kill for daring to exist and be Black and male.

Huh. Why in the world would these things bother anyone??? Weird.

ANYWAY -

Mr. Adams, you list your location on Twitter as Pleasanton, CA. As of the 2020 census, Pleasanton had just under 80,000 people (and was, coincidentally,the wealthiest city of its size in the US) . It is about 67% white, and less than 2% Black or African-American.

That means, Mr. Adams, you are one of roughly 47,000 white people in Pleasanton. Compare that to less than 2,000 Black or African-American people. Even if we also looked at mixed-race inhabitants (without even considering that it is possible to be mixed race without being Black), we add in another 5% of the population, or roughly 3,300 more people. Okay - so about 5,300 people who are either Black or mixed-race. Compared to, again, 47,000 white people.

Now - I am white, too. As far as we've been able to determine, we probably had one Black man or woman in my family, likely sometime in the late 1700s or early 1800s, but as far as I'm aware, nobody has actually been able to pinpoint who or where, just assume based on some family lore and ancient photographs from the mid-1800s. This would have been through Harmon Chavis, my great-great-great-grandfather (I think?), who died in 1869. And clearly the single possibly-Black person in the family did nothing to improve the family as a whole, because both Chavis and his son-in-law (Anderson West) were from slave-owning families. (People in my family don't seem to learn - one of the first to arrive from England in the 1600s, a William West, got his stupid colonizing ass slaughtered by Native Americans. Good riddance, you asshole.)

(And to give a shred of credit to the women in the family, there's a picture where someone quite deliberately cut out ol' Anderson. I'm not crying over it...

And yes, I know, this is probably enough information to figure out exactly who I am, but I also have the "fuck around and find out" gene, and it's very strong.

And hey, the general racist and colonizing idiocy has improved somewhat. When my aunt found out Chavis was likely half or a quarter African, she was fine with that! The real shocker was that we had a Zinn in the family, and thus might have Jewish ancestry! The pure horror! 🙄

His name was Hieronymous Zinn, which is the most awesome name ever, and if given a choice, I'd take him over my aunt.)

ANYWAY -

My point, Mr. Adams, is this: my family is 99.9999999% WHITE AS FUCKING SNOW (or as white as a Welsh-Swedish-French family is likely to be!), but where I live, the population in the metro area is roughly 600,000 people. Of that, about 53% is white, roughly 318,000 people, and 45% is Black/African-American, or roughly 270,000 people.

Mr. Adams, I have lived here (in either this metro area, or elsewhere in the state) for all but approximately five years of my life. (Though god knows I'm hoping to get out soon, because heat and I do not get along...) I am not some great expert on racial history, politics, psychology, or reconcilation. I've taken some courses on sociology and cross-cultural psychology, and have worked on studies looking at racial demographics and health outcomes, but that doesn't make me particularly knowledgeable.

But see, Mr. Adams, this is where I differ from straight, white, rich, conservative men: I know and recognize the limits of my knowledge.

However, if we consider just base knowledge based on something as simplistic as where each of us currently lives - I'm much more familiar with living alongside the Black community than you are, Mr. Adams. I have had far, far more negative experiences from your type (especially the straight, white, male parts) than from anyone who is Black. I have had no problems going to school with, teaching, working with, or living alongside the Black community. I've been harassed, stalked, physically attacked, and sexually assaulted by... straight, white men.

Do you believe I should say, then, Mr. Adams, that it is best that I live apart from straight, white men? Would that seem a fair statement to make, based solely on my own experiences, rather than considering broader historical, cultural, societal, and economic factors?

I suspect you'd say "no." I suspect you'd argue that such a viewpoint would be short-sighted, ignorant, and unfair.

And yet, apparently, your experience as a wealthy, straight, white, conservative man living in a very well-off California community with a population that is less than 2% Black/African-American makes you an expert on all Black people, so much that you can call them a "hate group" (for what, contaminating drinking fountains because now you have to share???) and recommending white people should live apart?

I don't know, Mr. Adams. In my own experience, which has involved significantly more daily interaction with Black people through the 34 years I have lived in this state, I think my conclusion is based on a more solid foundation, family history, understanding of cultural factors and psychology, and, of course, my personal experiences. And it is thus:

Eat shit, you fucking bag of broken dildos.

(Also, your comic sucks, and has always sucked. May you face Charles Schulz at the pearly gates, and be found wanting.)

[jackienautism]

going 2 be real for a sec

i usually keep this stuff to myself since its super personal and i probably will just sound like a crazy person bu t i really just want to get something down and post it and MAYBE get some sort of like ? validation. that im not the only one who feels this way or does this LOL

so just. long story short. does anyone get like physically ill over seeing someone else like . engaging and doing "more" with a special interest slash interest youre really really into? like. just like 10 or os minutes ago somethting happened and i started lowkey shaking and shit (but maybe its just bc its real hot where i am rn but idk) and felt sick to my stomach all bc someone was engaging "more" with something i rly rly like and i just uuuuugh

ive had this feeling ever since i got into until dawn and the quarry lol...... this feeling has been occurring a lot less frequently than during like last year. which like. speaking of. when the quarry first came out the feeling came and WEEEENT....... ALLL THE TIME. like i wasnt even into the game that much yet but seeing other ppl engaging w/ and making content for it...... made me feel suuuper ill. or maybe was it when i first started getting into it? yeah i think it was when i first started hyperfixating. but anyway LOL IT WAS A TERRIBLE FEELING. AND IT HAPPENED SO OFTEN TOO

luckily its gotten a lot better in terms of the quarry. especiailly after joining tumblr and all. but until dawn? naaah its still very much there lol. as i said earlier, it doesnt happen as much as it used to (in regards to UD) but. it stilll happens. as i just fucking found out. ive settled down quite a bit now but good god

until dawn is such a dead fandom but theres just some things that when i see it it still makes me go wiiiild (negative). i dont know why. it makes feel so sick. and i dont hold it against anyone of course, it just affects me interacting w/ slash following people LOL! and it mainly has to do w/ sam and emily LMAO especiallly sam as ive come to find out.... i think its becasue ive projected sooo much of myself onto her that im like super protective and shit. like... shes not your fictional public character shes MINE. and thats not your public piece of media. its MINE. you know?

and its liike. i KNOW that there are ppl who are more into UD and have been into it longer than i have. i know that. and htat doesnt always affect me. but tthen therr are just osme other times where it seriously DOES and its just.... man. i wish i werent like this LMAO

i think thats like the. basis of it. im just. man. and its such a hard thing to shake off ): i know im just gonna have to "get over it" and "learn to live w/ it" but man!!!!!!

idk man. just seeing others "understanding" a character "more" than i do and seeing others do suuuuper in depth character analyses just..... ESP if its characters i rly relate to and basically projected every part of ,my being onto........ it makes me ill!!!!!! like genuinely!!!!!!!!!

and its like weird bc like. i was SUPER into mean girls the musical back in 2019 / 2020 and so forth. but i dont ever remember getting THIS BAD over others being "more" into it than i was. and this isnt just straight up jealousy. i know how that feels and its DEFINITELY not that. i truly dont know what makes until dawn / the quarry so different. maybe becasue this was the first time ive engaged more with the fandom? especially on tumblr? i dont know man. i dont kn ow

hopefully this makes sense. im just tired

#mine #text #vents #misc tag #not gonna force anyone to read this but if you do<3 thank u and please tell me im not hte only one who does or feels this LOL #[emma mountebank voice] ok :) i’m done #my thoughts

[milaza]

nine years of drawing with a digital art tablet baeby! i have some older traditional/non-tablet digital pieces as well but i dunno what year they’re from. i’ll make a more complete yearly progress chart next year.

overall, i’m pretty okay with things considering it’s just a hobby.

it’s still a bit frustrating to see that i peaked with pretty stuff in 2018, but as i said before i’ve improved a lot more in other ways and i don’t think i’d be happy with myself if i kept just drawing pretty faces with boring compositions.

before i compiled this, my feeling was that i thought i did really well in 2020. but that was just the year my posts did well on social media (did well for ME). looking back, there wasn’t really anything complete and unique that i liked a lot. and i thought i kinda flopped in 2021 ‘cause i didn’t post all that much, but i’m really happy with my output that year TBH. i want to draw more fun scenes and pictures with deep feelings!

the time i spend on a complete piece has decreased a lot because i’m more concerned with having an interesting atmosphere over making sure the rendering and anatomy is perfect. also, i’ve just gotten quicker at drawing overall. i always try to keep it under 10 hours nowadays unless it’s got lineart... that shit makes it take so much longer orz.

2022 kinda felt like a flop again, aw man. i kinda forgot that i spent a good part of the early year drawing a whole korekiyo dojinshi? i felt really down about it at the time since i was utterly unmotivated (it’s fucking korekiyo i don’t know how i cared enough about him to draw a whole comic about him), but now i’m like... woah... people actually enjoyed that? i sold out of all 28 copies i had printed, so now i’m considering reprinting it again. who knows...

anyway i got an ipad this year and started using procreate so i sketched a good bit more. i finished dai gyakuten saiban, got motivated by my chemical romance, and completed a bunch of stuff i was pretty proud of in a single week. unfortunately completing dai gyakuten saiban also made me fall in love with barok van zieks for some reason so i basically spent the second half of the year just drawing self-ship art and van zieks pr0n. it’s not even crap worth posting.

i feel like i didn’t complete or post that much (at least on my main account) because of that. but actually, i always forget i have more finished pieces for zines that i don’t post... idk if i should admit it but i use zines as a way to motivate myself to finish stuff honestly. i think without that i’d flop even more and not get me to draw anything... but i will stop doing that from now on because i don’t feel satisfied with my artistic output drawing for zines. bleh.

last year i was obsessed with making dojinshi and this year i got into merch stuff since i was tabling at a convention for the first time, but honestly...! it’s a pain in the ass!!! i don’t want to bother with maintaining an online store and i don’t want to create products for the sake of creating products so i’m only gonna make what i personally want from now on.

so i spent 75+ hours rendering a barok van zieks dakimakura.

I WANT TO THROW UP!!! IT’S SO SICKENING TO ME THAT THE PIECE I’VE SPENT THE MOST TIME ON EVER IS A FUCKING VAN ZIEKS DAKIMAKURA!!!! HE’S NOT EVEN IN MY TOP 5 ACE ATTORNEY CHARACTERS!!!!!!!!!! preorder link in my bio btw.

that was just 2 weeks ago basically, but i felt so fucking ill about it. luckily i finished off the year with a nice complete drawing so i’m happy and i love myself again ^_^

i want to focus on 3D art next year, draw more complete scenes, get around to my drawing idea backlog... get into some new fucking media because i am sick of that white man cursing me for the past six months. yep yep!

#text #summary of art #my art

[absolutelyinlove]

let's talk: canon events! how'd you get into the dream team? what brought you to dtblr?

oh god ok my like. origin story of how i started watching dteam is insanely convoluted so i’m going to put it under the cut and like. to preface i just need u to know i’ve never been normal about anything in my life like i am so completely incapable of having passive interests. that is really crucial to understand

ok. So. basically i’ve always been super into mcyt content, i was a Massive cube smp + cube uhc stan back when that was a thing, i was like. 12-14 at the time but i was on stan twitter, wrote rpf on wattpad, experienced the severe trauma of ccs i wrote about Finding my fic and talking about it very publicly. The whole experience. and then when cube smp started to die my overall mcyt interest heavily faded, i’ve still always been incredibly fixated on minecraft itself i used to be super into uhc and other competitive gamemodes but in terms of actually watching content creators that was like. something that kinda faded in and out i’d go through long phases of watching nothing at all sometimes for entire years then randomly get slapped by nostalgia and fall back into it and rewatch old series’, etc.

but anyway. i had other interests, i had a different main fandom, i was still on stan twitter (kpop twitter to be specific) when dream rly started blowing up and. All i ever heard abt him was negative. because i was. on kpop twitter where like everyone was just excited there was a New Most Hated Fandom on the internet so he was an extremely common punching bag and i just Solely knew of him in a negative light and i’d never actually watched him to form my own opinions because (and this sounds so absurd) i also had this very irrational Jealousy toward the like. “new wave” of mcyt stans in 2019-2020 because suddenly it was a COMMON mainstream fandom and it ABSOLUTELY WASNT back when /i/ was a teenager and at my peak obsession so therefore all i felt was very misplaced dislike because How come this massive fanbase wasn’t around when this was My interest ? anyway.

Then like. sometime still in 2020 ? my irl friend sent me a manhunt and was like u NEED to watch this (because all my irls know i am. Very abnormal about competitive minecraft content) and i was like. Huh is it time for me to finally watch this dream guy. and i watched it and well it was very inevitable i got hooked because manhunt is soooo comedically perfect in terms of how me-catered it is, it is Literally everything i could ever ask for in terms of youtube content so it was absolutely over for me and i binged the entire series over the course of like. a week. and at first i really did think i would just be a passive youtube fan, because again. all i’d ever heard about dream was that he was a Bad Person and therefore i really did Try not to get invested beyond just thinking the videos were good but ofc as soon as i finished watching every manhunt that was out at the time i moved onto other dteam videos and i just fell reallyyyyy really in love with their dynamic and it was like. MAN! i had to accept i was growing attached and i Wanted to know more abt them at this point. i watched every single video on dream’s channel by the time i accepted Okay im in too deep now i want to know more.

this is the part that is going to make me sound incredibly fuckin g crazy so i need u to just hear me out. so i started googling dream and looking at the dsmp wiki (because as a youtube-only viewer i knew Nothing about dsmp other than people on my side of twitter hating it) and i was so surprised to realize hbomb was a member i’m crying because i knew him from CUBE SMP!!!!!!! i was like whta the fuck. now i feel Obligated to care like this is my Past combining with the present… it’s like fate… so then. naturally. i Looked up like. Reasons Dream Is Problematic threads on twitter. because i was like if im going to do this i need to know what exactly i am going into here i want to know why this dude is so hated and i unironically went through every single thread and callout post i could find, looking at Every reason someone gave for hating him then looking up the original clip with full context and watching it for myself so i could make my own judgement of it and also looking into how he responded and that was how i realized Oh like 87% of this is exaggerated and the stuff that’s true is either kind of nothing or he seems to be trying to do better. And that was how i decided. He is just some guy who seems very well-meaning and is making efforts to Grow and Now i can allow myself to . watch his stream vods? i know ho w crazy this sounds im crying but u need to understand i genuinely waited to watch any vods and grow attached to his content in a non-casual way until after i was SURE no secret horrible misdeeds were going to catch me off guard and i’d realize i didn’t actually want to support him i’m fucking crying

and then naturally ijust got incredibly fixated on mcc when i discovered That and that was what led me to watching a ton of other streamers, i was never super into dsmp but i Did get very into watching non-lore dsmp vods and just. tons of vods in general. i got severely fixated on mcsr around this time too which was awesome until it Wasn’t and i made a lurker account on twitter like literally a priv with 0 followers where i only followed ccs because i didn’t want to follow them from my acct with all my kpoptwt mutuals and get Called a freak for supporting dream. i also kept up very closely with any drama/situations involving dream even before being on dttwt in any capacity because again. i just like to have full context for everything so this was like. when i was unfortunately a very active dwt2 user because that was mostly how i stayed in the loop with things and tbf at the time it was actually a pretty good place for nuanced discussion this was before it got terribly unbearable but. Yeah. i started reading heat waves “ironically” while it was ongoing like i was reading it bookclub-style with my dranti friends and pretending i knew nothing abt dream or george outside the context of the fic (I AM TERRIBLE) but i ended up getting curious about what other fics were out there and that was how i started reading dnf earnestly.

i didn’t start writing until wayyyyy later after i came out of the dream stan closet to my friend reyna (still the only one of my kpoptwt-era friends who knows i am. the way that i am) in like. mid 2021? and i got them invested in dteam too and then in december 2021 we made our ao3s + new twitter accts together and both started writing fics

as for dtblr in specific i am relatively new here i guess ! i have been a long time lurker as i’ve always preferred tumblr for fandom discussion compared to twitter but i was always too shy to actually make my own account andddd because i started on twitter and had exclusively used twitter in my previous fandom it just like. Came more naturally to me and it’s so good for fic promo i just. Accepted it. but then after october several of my friends and like at least half of my mutuals at the time all became antis and once i was back to feeling. normal about consuming fandom content in like late october early november i desperately wanted to have a place where i wasn’t being made to feel GUILTY constantly so i finally made an acct over here so i’d have at least one space where i could Talk Freely about fandom things without expecting 10 people to tell me to kms for it. (don’t worry i eventually did finally make a new priv and i’m no longer held hostage by ex-stan mutuals on twitter but it was ROUGH at the time like so many of my friends have told me they assumed i’d just lost most of my interest and was only still in the fandom for the sake of writing because i never talked abt anything anymore for so long IT WAS BAD I JUST FELT SILENCED but im free now i promise) so yeah.

but don’t worry now i am here less out of “i have nowhere else to go” necessity and actually just because i Do enjoy it and i prefer it immensely to maintwt i am so content now with basically solely talking abt fandom things here and on my privtwt and just using main for fic talk life is beautiful !

sorry this is really fucking absurdly long i am so normal

#incredibly long story but if anyone has ever been curious this is the Full lore of how i got here #sage.talking #ask

[formulaonedirection]

hi nadia, since ur the designated 'crush talk' host i got something for you so buckle up... i've liked this guy since probably last year, i've known him since 2020, as he's a friend of one of my best friends who i currently live with. very smart, intelligent, kind, and so gentle, plus one of his main interests is something that i literally study at university so we have quite a few things in common. since last year i've been noticing these little things, kind of like serendipity, or maybe that's just how i've been interpreting them🤣🤣 just coincidences, most notably we went to the same play at the local theatre but completely missed each other, and also we met on the tram once and since it was packed there was no railing for me to hold onto so he very gently held my elbow (very cute and interesting conversation took place also). he would also often put a heart reaction on my stories whenever i'd post a selfie (he actually did it earlier today as well), and always compliment me whenever i'd post videos of my guitar playing. he once even asked me to play something for him the next time we see each other. so i thought things were going in the right direction... but poor mental health and self confidence really stunt my bravery when it comes to things like this so it's been going rather slowly. he came over when my roommate was throwing a get together the other month but i didn't make it. i've been wanting to tell my best friend about this whole ordeal so that she could maybe put in a good word for her homie but alas i haven't done it. 2 days ago i had a cute but quite vague dream about being in a relationship that had me absolutely wrecked for the entire day so last night i talked to another friend and decided i was going to tell my best friend!! and start making some moves!! fast forward to this afternoon, he comes over randomly just to visit my bestie, i'm over the moon obviously. the 3 of us talk, and then out of nowhere he announces he got back with his ex. what in the absolute dick and balls do i do now

oh my goddddddddd when I got to the end i literally went NOOOOOOOOOOO. I was like. Close to hopeful when you were like I'm gonna make moves but then I remembered this is crush talk and we're all suffering. BLEUGHHHH. Awww man dude that sucks. From the sound of it I'm sure it wasn't all happening in your head cause like he was being all replying guy and liking selfies on instagram guy. I'm sorry but that means something OKAY you can't be A MAN out here liking SELFIES on STORY. Like it's different if you put it on main and the person likes your post but HEART ON AN IG STORY SELFIE??? Nah. If you felt some type of connection I don't think it's fair to assume it was one-sided that's just silly anxiety and insecurity talking. Anyway that sucksssss. Idk how close you are with your bestie roomie but I'd still consider telling her? Maybe in a more casual way like oh my god I totally had a crush on your friend and he got back together with his ex :facepalm: so it doesn't seem That Big Of A Deal that it becomes awkward? Or you could do a proper heart to heart of it. Either way I think if you come out the other side feeling some type of emotional release or growth it's still worth it.

As for Serendipity boy idk try to see if the getting back together with ex thing is serious or if it's just like a fuck it why not situation? Cause sometimes getting back with your ex is truly just an I'm bored, you're bored we know this works in some way so let's just do this again type thing. So I'd say try to get a feel of it before you really lose hope but also more importantly I'm focused on you cause brains are silly and self confidence is SOOOOOO hard like crippling hard. But if the situation changes or another serendipitous man comes along I hope the fact that I'm rooting for you to go for it will help <3 Sorry if this was slightly too woo-woo but I know how hard it is to get over that barrier of your mind telling you NO and just go and get something you want but you're braver than you think! You typed this all out to me and you told a friend about it and you were gonna tell bestie roomie!

#again all advice on crush talk is just purely based on what EYE would do this is not a professional opinion #i am not a professional. in fact i am unprofessional. some might say! #anyway sending you love bestie i hope you see this and it helps in any way!! #as always crush talk is open 24/7 even if I take some time to report back and I always want updates too ok #crush talk

[valenhell]

From the studio that brought you “I can’t find good Byler fics in the ao3 tag”, comes:

"The Definitive Byler fic rec list"

Literally no one asked for this but because I spent the majority of last year (...and 2019, and 2018...) reading byler fics and coping with life, I thought I’d make a list of some of my absolute favorites. 

The other day I was basically starving for some byler fics and the angel @magicalfairy provided me with some of her faves so I thought I’d do the same, because I love reading, and I love all of these fics and I appreciate their writers💗 And fic writers in general, come on!

- This is a mix of long works and one-shots/short stories. - Everything is mostly fluff with a tad of angst and a lot of internalized homophobia conflict.  - Every fic is completed, except for the ones I mention that they are not. - I try my best to lay out the stories in a way that I won’t spoil you the plot but also warning you of some stuff you might don’t like. Either way, all of these fics are correctly tagged by their respective authors/owners, so read at your own risk. For better understanding, in between brackets I denote Rating, Words and quantity of Chapters. - I feel like I should clarify, none of these are narrated in the singular first person. None of that “And I told him...”, no. 

Long fics

a dream always the same (T, 99k, 35 chapters) What happened in those few weeks between the Battle of Starcourt and the Byers leaving Hawkins. Literally a satisfying and very needed fill in of season three, with a good dose of Mike’s thoughts and conflict. Mike’s characterization is specially amazing in this one. The writing style is amazing and I know the author put everything into making it historically accurate, and it was really sweet. You probably read it, it’s by the amazing sevensided here on Tumblr🧡

Spring Break (T, 120k, 14/15 chapters) The slowburn of my dreams. Lots of internalized conflict and conflict with each other. Conflict within the Party (uhh kind of), conflict with Mike and Will. Byers family has moved and the kids are visiting! Chaos. Characterization is on point. Yeah, I know it’s unfinished, but the fourteenth chapter actually serves as a pretty nice ending. 

This is where it starts (M, 148.8k, 24 chapters) Aged up characters. The Party is in college and Will disappears again, but now it’s different. Mike knows he didn’t vanish from thin air, and the discovery he and the Party end up making is pretty insane. Mystery solving/fantasy/third dimension, throw in a bit of D&D and Mike realizing some shit, and you get this marvelous fic. It’s a breath of fresh air. The world building is definitely one of the elements that stands out the most, because it’s very nicely described, it sounds like a dream and it’s completely immersive. Absolute gem of a fic. 

there’s a Starman waiting in the sky (M, 30.6k, 8 chapters) Do I need to say anything? Will is out there living his best life and Mike realizes that wow, umm, maybe his best friend looks a bit too nice with that costume... and wait, is he getting horny? It’s actually really fun and sexy.

The Evening Speaks (T, 23k, 7 chapters) In where Mike is a late-night college radio host and Will is the art student that stays up till late to catch up with Wheeler on the Mic. They flirt through songs y’all, this one is really sweet. 

heads or tails? (E, 24k, 3 chapters) Aged up characters. I know most people don’t enjoy sex in fics and with specific characters but this one is insanely well written. It’s a slowburn that commits to the tension and with every word you are grasping and anticipating their next move. I think you can find the author here on Tumblr as yousaidyes🧡

The Man of Average (M, 56.7k, 5/? chapters) Aged up characters. No but you don’t understand, the writing here is absolute gourmet. The story is exciting as well, it’s super interesting. Weirdly enough, for being very aged up characters, they are well characterized but they don’t feel like teenagers. They are naturally Mike and Will. The author really captured Mike and Will’s essence. I know, it’s unfinished and it’s updated very rarely, but this is the typical fic you can’t believe someone just posted on the internet for free. I will say though, I think it’s definitely not for everyone. Read at your own risk.

Heartstrings (E, 82.8k, 24/? chapters) Aged up characters. By the same author of The Man of Average. A collection of memories, the road to Mike and Will’s happy ever after. And fucking hell!!!!! You’ll cry and get angry, you’ll cheer for them, then you’ll want to crash their faces together because god dammit you love each other!!! But yeah, same thing here. The writing and the way the story is laid out as a nonlinear narrative is brilliant. And I also think this is one of the best Will versions I’ve read. The author might as well be the og creator of this two characters tbh. You can find the author here as mylesimeblr🧡

Sinners behind the walls (T, 1.5k, 1/1) And because I can’t stop recommending this author, a little thing of Mike tormenting himself but also being too deeply committed to Will. 

The Red Envelope series (T/E, 167K, two completed works) Something happens that Will thought was impossible and from there, pure drama and romance. Anything by this author has the potential to become your absolute favorite fic, but this series in particular is amazing. I doubt that any of you haven’t read this, but it doesn’t hurt to put it in this list. I’m pretty sure the author is serendipitous-magic on Tumblr🧡

A New Fight series (T, 91k, two completed works, one WIP) And finally the Star Wars AU that we all needed. But this isn’t your typical “Mike is Han”, “Will is Leia” and “El is Luke”, it’s way more interesting than that, and the author has appropriated the Star Wars world like no other. I’ll admit I’m not a 100% fluent in SW lore but this is amazing to me either way. This author is also on Tumblr, tea-for-one-please🧡

- Yes, most of these are (if not all), in a way, canon compliant/canonverse/canon continuation into fanon. (In a way)

One-shots and short stories

Sundae for Two, Please (G, 4.8k) Steve being the supportive friend and older brother these kids collectively need. (not Jonathan erasure, we love him). Steve is very sweet himself, and this little cute thing through his POV is gorgeous. Yes, it’s byler.

Backstage (T, 10k, 2/2) Jonathan, you forgot to mention to Will how hot your new band’s guitarist is, dude. Now he’s hyperventilating and weirdly flirting with him in the corner. Background Stonathan because why not.

102 Peach Street (G, 3.8k) Established relationship, but not only that, they are married :’’))) PURE fluff. Extreme fluffiness. Diabetes. 

sweatshirts and bottled up feelings (T, 3.2k) Or, Mike thinks that the sweatshirt Will wears looks insanely good on him. And kitchens are for lovers. 

kiss it better (T, 16.3k) Basically one of the best character studies of a few precise moments of Mike and Will’s relationship and feelings. 

will wonders ever cease (T, 11.3k) #i ship will and happiness. Omfg what a beautiful piece of fanfic. Will centric, this kid really deserves all the good in the world.

The Calm After the Storm (T, 1.6k) Tooth rotting fluff, boyfriends in love. Boyfriends being lazy, cuddling, love words, kisses. Boys loving each other’s company... Basically, Mike and Will in their element. What more can you ask for?

neither of us ready to let go (T, 4.8k) That scene from season three, but a bit of a fix it. 

Still in love (G, 1k) Domestic, married life au fluff. Y’all, I’m a sucker for established Byler, even if I can’t find many fics with it. But this is very sweet. It takes place in 2020, but I don’t think there are any mentions of the COVID-19 crisis that I remember.

I Nver Find Out ‘Til I’m Head Over Heels (G, 12.5K) Classic 5+1 fic. If you haven’t read it, where have you been? This is your moment. In where Mike keeps inviting Will to the school dances and Will thinks it’s just a joke until he realizes it’s not. 

Before You’re Gone (T, 5.9k) Will is leaving Hawkins and Mike thinks this is a great moment for a confession. This one I discovered last friday, thank you friend @magicalfairy 💗

You’re weird Wheeler (M, 4.5k) Mike unintentionally starts a tradition of going to each other to talk about their sexual encounters just after they finish. Will keeps getting more explicit with the details he shares, and he makes his best friend interested. This one is really fun y’all.

Out-Of-Town Friends (N/R, 4.6K) It’s not rated. I haven’t re- read it but I’d say it would probably fall in a T rating. So cute!! Will has new friends and sneaks off every friday and the Party doesn’t know where he is going, so Mike decides to follow him and is surprised. 

Snowed Under (G, 1.3k) By the same author of The New Fight series. Mike is spending christmas by himself in college because a snowstorm hits Chicago and Nancy can’t drive to see him, but then he has a surprise visitor. Ahhh just a lil sweet holiday fic. Super cute. 

you love me anyway series (T, 7.1k, three completed works) Literally just the cutest thing ever. Established Byler. Will loves to take pictures and he loves taking pictures of Mike. It’s adorable. 

you wanna be friends forever (i can think of something better) (T, 9k) This one is so amazing. So. Amazing. From Will’s POV, my kid deserves the world and he gets it. 

okay not to be okay (T, 4.9k) Mike is a bit sad but then everything is okay. 

can’t hold out forever (G, 18.4k) Y’all!!!!! 5+1 sweetness. Mike has been falling in love since kindergarten. And it’s long af, you’ll enjoy it. 

even if it takes forever (G, 1.3k) College short AU, they miss each other, they love each other, they promise all to each other. It is sappy y’all.

clear as day (N/R, 18.4K, 4 chapters) It’s not rated, but I’d say it falls in the T category. Strangers to friends to lovers. And also, everyone is pretty gay; we have our dynamic trio Mike, Max and El as disaster lesbians (and gay). Will works at the library and he is also gay. Lucas and Dustin and Will are the best friends we needed. It’s very sweet and the Party is kind of formed here!

I went overboard with the one-shots, so you must have realized how much I love long one-shots and I favor them over long works lmao but they are all amazing!!! If it’s on this list, I probably read it at 2 am, sobbing in my bed. So. Hope you enjoy it☺️🧡

#these are my all time favorites that i think you should read #it’s a good start #i've been putting together this post since friday #and i just realize that #apparently all of these have angst in some degree #who would i be if I didn’t read angst ajsjsj #but funny thing is that i try not to —but then the best stories are basically made of it #anyway #most of these are what I consider fandom classics #everyone in the byler fandom is so talented at writing😫💗 #is stonathan the actual ship name? lmao #byler #stranger things #byeler #byler fic rec #fic rec #ao3 #st #st.txt #me.txt #long post #stranger things fic

[inkmemes]

this  country  (  2017  -  2020  )  sentence  starters ↪  taken  from  the  bbc  mockumentary.  trigger  warning  for  mentions  of  religion,  death,  sex.  alter  as  you  see  fit  ♡

“i like the underdog.”

“don't be a fucking dick.”

“everyone comes together on days like today and just forgets their utter hatred of each other.”

“everyone who's anyone's going to be there and there are people from my past that would love to see me slain.”

“there's a tea rooms there and under the counter they've got a panic button and if i take one step inside, they can press that. the police will be there in three minutes.”

"he whatsapped me the other day asking us to go laser quest with him and i ... well, i clicked on it by accident, didn't i? so he knows i've seen it."

"i mean, i get it, but it's not making me feel nothing."

“it's baffling. i'm baffled by the entire situation, if i'm honest.”

“what the actual fuck? what the actual fuck? you have fucking lost your head, mate. you have lost your fucking head.”

“when i get hold of you, i swear to god i will fucking deck you.”

"someone's just been throwing plums at my house. i'm going to kill them. i can't believe it. i can't believe it. all over this. plumming on here, plumming on that. plum on the sofa, look! there's nothing left that hasn't been plummed."

“i've had a target on my back since the day i was born.”

“thank you very much, enjoy your free potatoes.”

“do you know how small your brain is?”

“hogwarts is that way, dumbledore.”

“he used to say i looked like the puppet off the dolmio advert.”

“there's a kid crying over there. do you want me to...? i can tell him to shut the fuck up if you want?”

“he genuinely looked like a moomin.”

“on my first day of karate club, karate master goes to me, [name], i don't know why you're here because i can't teach you anything. if anything, you should be teaching me." and just gave me his black belt.”

“you know that little old blind man? yeah, when i was punching him in his face, the lens from his glasses broke and cut my knuckle.”

“some things are just best left in the past, where they belong.”

“what's the point in knocking if you're just going to walk in anyway?”

“it was a miscarriage of justice though, cos what people forget is 12 out of them 20 hostages actually found it funny.”

“i lied so much i still don't know what's real life and what's plain lies.”

“i'm so glad you're out of that lying phase.”

“he likes to be the only person on the road, so whenever he sees a car coming the other way he just pulls over.”

“nasa went through hundreds of them in the '60s. and now every time i see a really bright star in the sky i can't wish on it, cos in my head i'm thinking, ‘that's probably just a spacecraft with some monkey bones in it.’”

“you absolute traitor. that's my cheese - it's my fucking house!”

“don't you dare eat that cheese. you eat that and i will smash this. i promise you, i will smash you with this.”

“fuck! you switched them!”

“yeah, i can see it's fucking burnt, sherlock.”

“i honestly am ashamed to know him, sometimes.”

“if you knock on someone's door, don't take no for an answer. get into their house. if they say, ‘leave my house’, stay. and if they say, ‘i'm going to call the police’, you walk upstairs and see if there's anybody else upstairs to sell to.”

“she looks like uncle fester.”

“right. i'm going to piss in their flowers, then.”

“you really need to go home. your mum's called the police and everything.”

“you're also fired from being my best mate, by the way.”

“in business, there will always be setbacks. i don't drink my own juice, fray bentos doesn't eat his own pies. but that's business.”

“do you know what, i don't actually want to play this any more, because it is actually very, very boring.”

“i'm ashamed of myself, that's not usually me, so don't get the wrong impression.”

“i genuinely think one of them fancies me as well.”

“it's fate her moving across the street.”

“the problem with finding a girlfriend in the village is that most of the girls you meet round here are old-age pensioners.”

“yeah, i am looking for a relationship, but thing is i've just got so many trust issues, yeah, with being fucked over massive in the past, so no matter how much i get close to someone now i'm thinking in the back of my head, ‘shit, am i going to get fucked over?’ because i've been fucked over in the past massively. my last relationship proper fucked me up.”

“i went through a really dark phase. listening to papa roach and just blowing everything up with them little french bangers.”

“shut up, you don't know what you're talking about!”

“i don't like the man. i know he's my uncle, but i don't like him.”

“it's just malicious lies, that's all it is.”

“i'm not saying i've got a cruel heart, but if she ain't willing to take me as i am rather than the monster i've become, then she can literally just jog on back to sea with all the other fish cos i don't care.”

“what do you look for in a boyfriend?”

“the key to dating, yeah, is the two rs and the three ts. 'respect, rapport, and talking, talking, talking.' don't ever let that ball hit the ground. good relationships are built on great conversation.”

“on a date, you've got to tell them all the interesting stuff about you, because that's what they'll be interested in.”

“he said to me, he goes, ‘you can't smoke on here.’ i said, ‘i'm not smoking, i'm vaping.’ the look on his face when i said that. i don't think he knew what vaping… what a vape is.”

“you would make me the happiest mouse if you say yes and become my spouse.”

“here's a tip, [name], next time you take a chick out on a date, don't bore her to tears.”

“roses are red, violets are blue, i've got five fingers, the third one's for you.”

“get out of my way, pipe cleaner.”

“[name] phoned me the other day at three in the morning saying, ‘come quick,

there's a hedgehog in the garden that looks exactly like grandad.’ so i got up, i got dressed and i ran over to [name]'s as fast as i could and then i just stopped in the middle of the street at three in the morning and thought, ‘what the fuck am i doing with my life?’

“you're joking me? because if you are joking me, that is massively harsh.”

“oh, let me get a song up on youtube. you're going to absolutely love this, [name]. here we go… listen to this. oh, for fuck's sake, advert.”

“let's go down the pub and get shitfaced.”

“where do i see myself in five years? well, me and [name] will have a flat in the middle of the village and all of our furniture will be inflatable and we'll have cable and it will pay for itself, because we're going to use the spare room to breed quails, because their eggs are worth fucking shitloads.”

“is this about the calippo, still? because you offered to buy me that.”

“if he wants to go, good luck to him, i say. i reckon he thinks that i can't live without him, which is a laugh, because he went a whole weekend away once and i got on all right. i just ended up following this cat around the village.”

“i've got to do what's right for me, at the end of the day, instead of worrying about other people.”

“how about you say sorry? sorry for the massive knife that's hanging out the back of my back because of you.”

“oh, and while you're stabbing me in the back, feel free to bend down and kiss my arse.”

“can i just ask you an honest question? why would you want to leave the village when we've got a pub and a shop?”

“i think you don't know how lucky we have it to be doing nothing with our lives, like. we're all going to die, anyway, so what's the point in doing anything?”

“i want ownership of the words fucknut and dickmilk.”

“i had this come through the post. and i've got a few concerns about it. firstly, this guy on the front looks really arrogant. not the sort of guy i was expecting, if i'm honest.”

“this is starting to stress me out a little bit.”

“why are you trying to stress me out? you know i'm already stressed out as it is.”

“the bloke that used to live in there, right, kept hearing strange noises coming out of his attic at night. and he'd go to the fridge and find that food was missing from the fridge. so he thought, ‘i'm just going to go up to the attic and check this out.’ and he found an entire family of peruvian panpipe buskers just living up there. and he thought ‘i'm just going to leave them to it, ‘cos they're not really doing me any harm.’ and then, a few years later, he thought, "well, i'll just go up to the attic to check on them. ‘see if they're all right.’ and it turned out they'd all died of asbestos poisoning. yeah, he doesn't live here any more.”

“some people will always be scared of me, and i can't change that, no matter how nice i am. but there's a balance to be had between being nice and being feared.”

“don't really like catching up. it's not my thing.”

“i just watched this video of this girl doing a random act of kindness on youtube. she basically paid for this old man's shopping at the till. and this old man was, like, about 90 years old. and he's so fucking old, like, you could see through his skin. and he just starts bawling his eyes out. he's like, ‘you're fucking joking me, this ain't fucking real life.’ i just thought... i want to make someone feel like that. ‘cos that's... i really… that's what i want to do.”

“i'm not dead. just can't be arsed to text her sometimes.”

“you know, correct me if i'm wrong, but four texts a day is complete madness. no-one can keep up with that.”

“i am doing kind things selfishly.”

“i was at midnight mass one year, right, someone got tipped off i was there. as i was coming out the church, someone tries to shoot me with a crossbow.”

“well, i haven't seen the film, have i? that's why i came here - to watch the fucking film - like a normal human being.”

“i've made an effort by coming here tonight. i didn't want to come.”

“i had to wheel him here from his house in an asda trolley, cos he was just too heartbroken to move.”

“sometimes you don't know what you got until you ain't got it any more. like blockbuster's. i just took 'em for granted - and then, one day, gone, and you spend ages trying to figure out what went wrong, and then you realise it was your fault all along.”

“i thought you said you wanted to fix things.”

“she wanted it to go that way, and it just wasn't gonna go that way. she even got me thinking that they'd get back together… ..but that's manipula.... manipulative people... do that. and he's better off without her.”

“that wasn't much to write home about.”

“it's fucking dead, isn't it?”

“basically, somebody's been sending me threatening letters, and i don't know who's doing it - and i am concerned, because my peripheral vision is poor, so, if somebody attacks me from the sides or snipes at me from an upstairs window, i am fucked - but my hearing is excellent, see? so i just need to spend a few days inside honing my sonar, and i'll be fine then.”

“if you don't like the work, the circus is in town and they're always looking for clowns.”

“his soul is just going to crumble to dust.”

“this really is not a good situation for me. a physical threat is something that i can deal with, but a sexual thing is not my area of expertise.”

“just really fucked in the head, mate.”

“what have i done? i haven't done anything wrong.”

“do you know how sad that is? that is so, actually, sad. that makes me sad for you, that you can't take a joke.”

“i think i just got a bit carried away with the whole thing.”

“your finger's going up my arsehole, mate.”

“i'll hold the back of your head, so you don't bash yourself.”

“when i lie in future, i don't want a massive lecture on how bad lying is, cos deep down, you're the worst of us all, mate.”

“i'd quite like a coke.”

“it's going to be like gluing a breadstick back together, because… like, as if a breadstick's been in a blender and it's all… ...the pieces smashed up.”

“like, this one time i started a fight club in the village hall, and i got a black eye from beating myself up. but it made my enemies think, ‘fuck, if she can do that to herself, what the fuck can she do to me?’”

“i'm absolutely 1,000% sure i've broken it in two places.”

“i knew this day would come.”

“i should be in tk maxx, getting the bargains that i deserve.”

“unlike you, [name], i'm not a fashion disaster.”

“i'm still warm in my grave, and she's sucking off the pallbearer.”

“you know, it took me ten years to get over [name], and i only went out with her for half a day.”

“i swear to god, if i see him here again, i swear to god, i will have no hesitation in just going up to him and just planting one on his face.”

“right, then keep your nose out of my business, yeah? nosy old cock-womble.”

“[name]’s attitude to me is puzzling. if i walk past her in the street

and say hi, she'll tell me to fuck off. yet every year, she sends me a really sweet, nice christmas card. you know, there's just no consistency there.”

“he's good-looking up close, isn't he?”

“don't show me any weakness, because i will take advantage.”

“no, put the brick down, you fucking psychopath.”

“when i asked him, he just said, ‘come to my office now,’ which means we're in the fucking shit, cos we're always in fucking shit.”

“i shouldn't be paying you at all.”

“i've always had a son. i talk about him all the time.”

“he's my son. he's not my dog.”

“it reminds me of the wicker man. i don't really know why.”

“i just find it weird how you can be so close to someone and they can be such a big part of your life, and then the next minute, you're just sort of strangers in the night.”

“i don't want the emotional implications.”

“well, about five years ago, i sold my birthday to my mum for about 200 quid, which means my mum's legally entitled now to never celebrate my birthday ever again for the rest of my life. not even, like, a happy birthday cup of tea, or a moonpig card, nothing - which is the worst decision i ever made in my entire life.”

“he deserves that anyway, because he's been sexting my nan, so…”

“what's this surprise? cos i need to know whether it's going to be worth this walk.”

“i always see them banners above the motorway, and i always thought, ‘who the fuck does them?’ well, now i know. people like me.”

“did you know you can't get stung by a stinging nettle if you grab the leaf top and bottom, like that? it's only when you touch it on the sides, it stings. agh, actually, that stung, then.”

“pez dispenser, they're cursed. they are, i'm not even joking. honestly, when i had one of them, i had the worst bout of bad luck i ever had in my life.”

“i swear down, it's a short cut. it might be a pleasant walk, we might enjoy it.”

“i'm not scared of the fox twins. i'd just like to sit them down and ask 'em plainly, ‘look, guys, what is going on? ‘cos this has just gotten completely out of hand now. you know, stop walking on your knuckles, stand up straight, be the best version of you that you can be. get a job, even. there's a trolley boy who works at tesco's, you know, who may as well have been raised by wolves. if he can get a job, you guys can walk it.’”

“yes, there has been talk of strange goings-on in the woods, ghost sightings and the like. but… ...they're never from particularly reliable sources.”

“i live with a ghost. there's a ghost in that house. he's like a civil war cavalier, with all the hair and the hat and all that. and every time i walk into the living room, he doffs his cap. and on his shoulder, he's got this crow that barks at me. it means i spend less time in the house, really. not because of him, because he's-he's quite peaceable. but the crow is malevolent. and i'm not having that. i can't share my house with a malevolent bird.”

“that's haunted as fuck.”

“am i going mad here, or does that, to you, look like that's where just ghost will hang out all the time?”

“look at him, little red riding twat.”

“if he's got an attitude with me, i swear to god, i'll just grab the steering wheel and drive us all into a wall.”

“it's a bit annoying, actually. cos this is not the first or the second time i've had to tell you, really, is it?”

“his sparkle has just gone.”

“you know my dad actually wrote the song wonderwall on the back of a beer mat in the space of ten minutes, don't you?”

“i've just got a tiny, tiny, tiny little favour to ask you.”

“when i think of [name], i think of someone who is very loyal. and very, very stupid. sort of more stupid than loyal. sort of 70% stupid, 30% loyal, probably. because she's very loyal. but extremely stupid.”

“do you know what? i actually don't think he loves you at all and i don't think he's ever loved you.”

“all right, that's harsh and unnecessary, but fine.”

“frankly, she is behaving like the antichrist.”

“i literally just got here.”

“you are such an unemotional slab of ham, [name].”

“i've got so much shit on that man you would not believe.”

“there's something in my eye.”

“i just can't quit him, you know?”

“yeah, we might have a fiery relationship,  but when we're together, it's just… it's just pure chemistry, isn't it?”

“i'm not proud of it, believe me. but at the end of the day, i'm a very vindictive person, you know? it is what makes me me.”

“i basically went out and bought an alpaca off gumtree for £500. of all the mistakes i've made in my life, that was possibly the largest. definitely the physically largest.”

“yeah, i really don't wanna talk about that.”

“her only loyalty is to herself, staffies, and the tv channel dave… ...which, in my opinion, is a tv channel made by knuckle-draggers for knuckle-draggers.”

“i can't move on till i've seeked revenge, unfortunately.”

“if that was in france, that would be fine, but we're not in france.”

“the only thing we had in common, really, was stealing, and that was more my thing that i got him onto. but it just goes to show, you know, some friendships last and some friendships don't, but that's just the way it is.”

“you know it was me that got you sacked, don't you?”

“the thing i learnt about friendship is, you gotta accept each other's flaws, no matter how toxic they may be.”

“shit-stirring from beyond the grave.”

#rp meme #rp prompt #rp starters #rp sentence meme #rp sentence starters #this is the nichest meme ive made #but this show is so fucking funny okay

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 292: You Say Jeans

Previously on BnHA: Horikoshi was all “well anyway here’s that Touya reveal I foreshadowed like a million years ago, viva la 2020.” Dabi was all “hello world, I’ve killed 30 people and today I’m going to explain to you all why” before he proceeded to explain ABSOLUTELY NOTHING but everyone was so distracted by his tale of child abuse and hero conspiracies that they didn’t much seem to notice. Can’t Ya See-Kun’s Shark Friend was all “IS THIS THE END OF HERO SOCIETY AS WE KNOW IT”, and Horikoshi was all “STAY TUNED”, and then Dabi set himself on fire and leaped off of Machia’s back like the chaotic evil, I-just-bleached-all-my-brain-cells weird little fire man he is, ready to burn everyone to crispy bits before they could even react properly to his whole big revenge speech. Fortunately he did not succeed on account of THE RETURN OF THE JING, THE JOAT, BEST FUCKING JEANIST, back from the dead by popular demand in what critics are calling “the best fucking comeback since Jesus himself.”

Today on BnHA: Best Jeanist snatches up Machia and the rest of the League with his fiber steel cables before you can say “more like BEAST JEANIST amirite.” Dabi gets all worked up and lights Hadou on fire which is a real JERK MOVE, and is all “THIS RIGHT HERE IS ALSO ENDEAVOR’S FAULT”, which, NOT SUPER CONVINCED ON THAT, BUT OKAY. Anyway so then he burns up all the cables holding him which is crazeballs btw, and then he and Shouto start fighting, and so basically the whole thing is a literal hot mess and we’ll see how that goes. Meanwhile Tomura wakes up and summons some Noumus, and poor Jeanist has to deal with those on top of the still-attempting-to-rampage Gigantomachia, and everyone else is all “we can’t help you on account of we’re all half dead”, and so it’s looking really bad. And then -- and I can’t stress enough how much I don’t even have the faintest idea how to segue into this next part -- the chapter ends with Mirio!?! just sort of POPPING UP OUT OF THE GROUND all, “SURPRISE, BITCH”, and it literally was so surprising that I am still just kind of speechless. WELL-PLAYED, I GUESS, lol wtf.

lol okay so the first page in the RHA scan is just the “three musketeers” movie promo image that we all already saw a few days ago. but it does confirm that (a) it is indeed a movie, and (b) that it’s set for a summer 2021 release! how exciting

okay so now back to our special Dabi edition of Making a Murderer

“ray of hope” oh hell yes. SAVE US MR. JEANIST

I guess he had a TV in his private hero jet or something?

gotta say, “dammit Dabi” does not even remotely sound like Authentic Best Jeanist Dialogue to me though. gonna need Caleb to see to this. well but what do you guys think? does Best Jeanist curse?? I personally feel like he’s one of those guys who NEVER EVER swears no matter what, except under the most hilariously trifling circumstances. like he’s eating an avocado one day and he accidentally stains the cuffs of his beloved jostume green and he’s all “FUCK”

btw how fucking rich is Best Jeanist though that he has his own fucking plane? the thought just suddenly occurred to me, you know? like even Endeavor, whose agency has its own on-site luxury apartment suites for all of his interns, still drives around in a dinky little car that Bakugou has declared to be too small. which, I guess we know why he felt that way now, seeing as the guy he previously interned with apparently gets around in Jeans Force One

anyway so back to the part where Jeanist shows up to save the day!! YEAH JEANIST WOOOOO

ILU JEANIST YOU REALLY ARE THE BEST!! HUGS AND KISSES!!!

lmao we just saw Gigantomachia take out like a hundred guys not ten chapters ago. and Best Jeanist shows up and takes him down in like two seconds. HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES LEAGUE OF VILLAINS. BET YOU’RE WISHING YOU’D TAKEN HIS QUIRK NOW, AFO. GET FUCKED YOU OLD SPUD

KACCHAN IS SO HAPPY TO SEE HIM AWW

SIDE NOTE, IIDA, YOU AND I ARE GONNA HAVE WORDS LATER ABOUT YOU ACTUALLY AGREEING TO PUT HIM BACK DOWN. YOU DO UNDERSTAND THAT THIS CHILD IS STILL DRIPPING BLOOD ALL OVER THE PLACE FROM HIS MULTIPLE STAB WOUNDS, RIGHT? WAY TO ASSERT YOUR AUTHORITY THERE. I THOUGHT YOU WERE THE CLASS PRESIDENT NOT THE CLASS CLOWN, COME ON NOW

LMAO DABI IS FRANTICALLY TRYING TO DO THE PLOT MATH

SHOULDA CHECKED MORE CLOSELY MY GOOD MARK. LOOKS LIKE YOU MISSED THE “MADE IN CHINA” STICKER ON THE BOTTOM. YOU HAVE BEEN BAMBOOZLED. OR ACTUALLY, I GUESS THE MORE ACCURATE WORD HERE IS JAMBOOZLED, AHAHAHAHA. JEANS

HOLY SHIT DABI

I legit almost thought that was Tomura for a second. you two look so alike now with the white hair and the crazy eyes

meanwhile, Shouto is still crying and it’s a lot to take, you guys. lotta feels

ffff come on Jeanist you better do something awesome again here, the mood of the chapter is starting to slip now

YES, GOOD, THAT’LL WORK

WELL YOU TELL ME, SPINNER. I GUESS THAT MEANS BEST JEANIST IS OFFICIALLY THE STRONGEST CHARACTER IN THE SERIES NOW. SORRY I DON’T MAKE THE RULES

ffff now Spinner is trying to wake Tomura back up. nah, how’s about we not do that

OH MY GOD HADOU YESSSS

MY GIRL OUT HERE WITH THE “NO THANK YOU” BOUT TO CURBSTOMP THE BIG BAD WITH HER QUIRK KSFHLKLK WHO HERE HAD “HADOU SAVES THE DAY” ON YOUR WAR ARC BINGO CARDS, YOU LOVE TO SEE IT!!

HEY!!!!

fucking son of a... fffkfkff... someone please reassure me that fire isn’t Hadou’s weakness. someone. anyone. also could someone please dial an ambulance and send them to Horikoshi’s house. but not just yet. first I’m gonna need you to wait about fifteen minutes or so while I take care of some things

well all right then, Dabi. so you wanna go on then and explain to us all how this, too, is somehow Endeavor’s fault?

oh I see, you’ve decided that since he’s responsible for “creating” you, everyone you hurt and kill is in truth really being hurt and killed by him! well now, that sure is convenient as fuck I guess

(ETA: that’s a nice effect with the panel sides getting all warped by Dabi’s quirk though, just noticed that.)

amazing how quickly you used up that sympathy card my guy. Shouto please kick his ass, I’m fucking done lol, you can all sort out the rest in therapy later

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE DIAL BACK DEKU’S EMPATHY STATS JUST A LITTLE BIT, HOLY --

“TODOROKI-KUN IS HURT THE MOST”, HE SAYS, WITH HIS ARM BONES SHATTERED INTO LITTLE TOOTHPICK-SIZED PIECES. I MEAN, HE’S PROBABLY TALKING MORE ABOUT MENTAL ANGUISH GIVEN THE CONTEXT HERE, BUT STILL. THAT’S ENOUGH HEROICS FROM YOU ALREADY FOR ONE DAY

NOOO JEANIST

LOTS OF SMOKE IN THE AIR RIGHT ABOUT NOW AND MY BOY’S STILL DOWN A LUNG. GOD DAMMIT

“if the number one suffers a total loss here, this country will fall to pieces” well okay, real talk though, I think the “country falling to pieces” part is pretty much unavoidable at this juncture. you all are just gonna have to try your best to pick up those pieces after the fact and see what you can do with them. if I were you I’d be less worried about the number one’s reputation and more concerned with the half-dozen child soldier interns who are still on the field and very much at risk of being burned to death should you suffer that “total loss.” please try to keep it together here for them

OH FOR FUCK’S

I really thought RockLockRock was gonna come into play here. USE YOUR QUIRK TO LOCK THE ROPES IN PLACE YOU DIP!! if he seriously just sits there and does nothing when his quirk could be the deciding factor I am cancelling his useless ass cute kid or no cute kid shfkjdls

(ETA: is he even there?? did he and Manual just hightail it out of there?? “well good luck, children.”)

also, we’ll put this aside for now to perhaps speculate about later, but what’s with Tomura remembering his dad’s house yet again in that far right panel?? and being itchy again?? I still have yet to fully work out the psychological mechanisms at work as far as his itchiness goes, so I’ll admit this is intriguing to me. it seemed like it was connected to his decay quirk, but then why is it acting up again now. what is this lol

yuh oh

forgot about these guys. looks like these heroes aren’t having such a fun time

oh fucksticks

excuse me ma’am but I don’t like this. you do know that my kids are all there, right. all burnt and impaled and broken-boned and the like. well except for Iida. he’s fine still. BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN I FEEL LIKE WATCHING HIM GET TORN APART BY FOUR HIGH ENDS, WTF

HORIKOSHI YOU MOTHERFUCKER I SWEAR TO GOD

god fucking... okay look. Horikoshi. you win, okay!? congratulations, you win, this is your show and we’re all just sitting here at your mercy. fine. go ahead and just kill off everyone ever, then!! what am I even gonna do about it. stop reading?? fuck

this whole thing really went from zero to fucked before I could even blink huh. I really thought this was gonna be a turning point chapter for the heroes. shows what I know I guess??

meanwhile this motherfucker is just SCREAMING

ngl, if I wasn’t currently terrified on account of things suddenly taking such a drastic turn for the worse, this would be the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. Jeanist my man, I hype you up like it’s my job because you are the greatest fucking meme character in the history of time, but make no mistake, you are also highkey WORTH ALL THE HYPE AND THEN SOME

seriously, though. don’t fucking mind him you guys, he’s just standing here in the coolest pose of all time taking on Gigantomachia all alone with one fucking lung because the substance pumping through his veins is COLD-BLOODED LIQUID DENIM, and DENIM FEELS NO FEAR

Best Jeanist really needs to get his own theme song. -- oh my god I just finally thought of a title for this post. lmao and it’s the dumbest thing. omg

MEANWHILE THE TODOROKI BROS ARE OFF IN THEIR OWN DRAMATIC LITTLE FIRE WORLD

which one do you think is the Mario and which is the Luigi. well, but I mean, Dabi clearly thinks that he’s the Luigi though and that’s why he’s so mad. nobody wants to be Luigi. what a life

THAT’S IT, SHOUTO!! POINT OUT ALL OF HIS HYPOCRITICAL BULLSHIT, I WANT ANSWERS

JUST TO CLARIFY, IT’S THAT NATSU, NOT SOME OTHER NATSU!! SO WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF!!

OH, WELL IN THAT CASE

BUT OF COURSE. THAT WOULD MAKE IT ALL WORTHWHILE, holy shit. okay I’m just gonna go ahead and say it, Dabi is a piece of work. I really thought this arc would make him more sympathetic at long last, but it seems like it’s doing just the opposite?? this is like an anti-redemption arc. I don’t relish the thought of venturing into the fandom tags once I finish reading this lol

(ETA: well folks, I’ve done it. and actually it was pretty interesting because there are apparently like ten different things that people are mad about, and so it’s like. each post is a new adventure lmao.)

so Shouto is all “BRUH HAVE YOU COMPLETELY LOST IT” and Dabi is all “YES”, basically? like, he says he’s completely lost his feeling for anything. omg. but you were so sweet. how does that even happen

“finally I can kill you” okay for real what the heck is your damage bro?? can we not. I like Shouto just the way he is, un-killed

oh shit and now the Noumus are here

cue Bakugou diving in to save his mentor, STAB WOUNDS BE DAMNED!! actually it would make more sense for it to be Iida, but if Kacchan is really fixin’ to go full Shounen Dumbass here then he might as well go all out, y’know

-- unless of course, Deku decides to activate another quirk??

“last I checked, the main character of this series was still me” OH? WELL I SUPPOSE THAT IS TRUE, SO PRAY TELL, WHAT HAVE YOU GOT LEFT UP YOUR SLEEVE YOU SUICIDAL BRUSSELS SPROUT

fucking love how he’s all “HAHAHA WITH MY NEW QUIRKS I CAN STILL DO STUPID SHIT EVEN WITH MY ARMS AND LEGS GROUND TO A FINE POWDER” btw. what can I say. Deku gonna Deku

FMMFHDKUHK W H A T

HOLY SHIT. HOLY FUCKING SHIT. WHAT THE WHAT. QUE THE FUCK

(ETA: okay look, all the love in the world to the brave scanlators who take time out of their lives to translate the leaks every week just so we can read the chapter a couple of days early like the addicts we are. that said, translating Mirio’s signature “POWER!!” -- which was already written in English in the original scan -- to “POG-CHAMP” is just a whole new level of wtfuckery from them lmao. is the Lida person back at it again?? amazing.)

MIRIO!?!?! SHOWS UP TO SAVE THE DAY?!?! POGS HIMSELF UP OUT THE GROUND TO BEAT THE NOUMUS LIKE IT AIN’T NO THING. JUST LIKE WE ALL PREDICTED!? I’M SORRY, DID YOU NOT SEE THAT COMING?? YOU MEAN TO TELL ME YOUR DAILY HOROSCOPE FROM ASTROLOGY DOT COM DIDN’T HAVE THAT ONE IN THE CARDS?? WAS IT NOT OBVIOUS?? TODOROKIS PLUS BEST JEANIST EQUALS MIRIO??

hot damn. Tintin really saw the writing on the wall with the impending Dabi Discourse and was all “NOT SO FAST” lmao. “HERE’S A BRAND NEW THING FOR YOU ALL TO DISCOURSE ABOUT” MIRIO YOU WILD CHILD. YOU GLORIOUS THUG

MEANWHILE LET’S NOT FORGET WHAT MIRIO HAVING HIS POWERS BACK ACTUALLY IMPLIES. HOLY SHIT. SUDDENLY WE CUT BACK TO ALL MIGHT’S OFFICE, ALL THE WAY BACK AT UA. ERI BRANDISHES HER TOKOYAMI-GIFTED BUSTER SWORD, A DETERMINED GLEAM IN HER EYE. “I HEARD YOU WERE TRYING TO HAVE A GIRL POWER ARC WITHOUT ME.” OH. MY. GOD

#bnha 292 #best jeanist #todoroki touya #dabi #todoroki shouto #midoriya izuku #hadou nejire #toogata mirio #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha

[mostlymovieswithmax]

Movies I watched in July

Once again I’m doing my monthly round-up of movies I’ve watched. This was a good month for the cinema getting back on track and seeing new releases including the new M. Night movie, Old and James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. Pretty sure Marvel put out a new movie also. I’m hoping that this list can help in guiding a decision about what to watch (or what to avoid) and introduce people to movies they may otherwise not have heard of or bothered to see. These short reviews are my own subjective opinions on each individual movie and maybe a more informal approach to movie criticism can help include others who are just passing through. Here is every film I watched from the 1st to the 31st of July.

Bridesmaids (2011) - 4/10

Off to a good start. I won’t say Bridesmaids is a terrible movie but I don’t think I’m exactly the target audience. As far as I know, this is a beloved comedy but I just can’t get on board with all the boring, juvenile humour; with Maya Rudolph shitting in the street, with Rose Byrne and Kristen Wiig trying to one-up each other at a toast that went on forever, with Melissa McCarthy shitting in a sink… the conflict is so done to death and makes the movie feel unspecial. I do understand the appeal of the film, especially for women in that before this movie the likelihood of seeing something like this, where women play up the more crass and gross side of comedy, was probably few and far between. But the story is very tired and while I did appreciate some moments, namely a couple of decent jokes and some of the more intimate scenes, for the most part it felt like they wanted to corner a more quiet type of line delivery in a way that was supposed to be understated but very funny so as to not rely on over the top body language or musical cues, and it ended up being super dull.

Spectre (2015) - 7/10

As far as I can tell, a lot of people don’t like this instalment of the James Bond franchise… but I really enjoyed it! I’ve really taken a shine to these Daniel Craig-era Bond movies and while I can’t say any of them are the most amazing thing, I have a lot of fun with them. The biggest problem I have with Spectre is the villain being utterly pointless and uninteresting in basically every way. The idea of every villain Bond has fought before being tied to this one organisation controlled by this one guy is ridiculous, and what makes it worse is that the villain is barely in it! There’s so much that doesn’t come together in this but as it goes, I still had a really good time. Daniel Craig holds the whole thing together; he is excellent as 007 and the main reason I’m up for each of these movies is because of him. Sam Mendes directs again after the previous instalment and for what it’s worth I do think he does a good job with some of the action set pieces and the locations. I’m so ready for No Time To Die.

Shazam (2019) - 7/10

Shazam is a genuinely fun superhero movie that doesn’t take itself seriously at all. I was having a great time throughout and while it could conform to some of the same tropes we’re used to with these kinds of movies, it still remained playful and used the character of Shazam to his fullest potential in a way that showed an understanding of just how silly the idea of a kid who can turn into an adult and shoot lightning out of his hands is.

High School Musical (2006) - 6/10

So as you may or may not know, I co-host a podcast: The Sunday Movie Marathon. It’s a film podcast and every week I get together with my other co-hosts and watch movies. For episode 38, we watched the High School Musical trilogy. This first movie blew me away. I was really surprised with just how much fun I had, and if you want to hear more of my thoughts on the film, please listen to episode 38 of the podcast.

High School Musical 2 (2007) - 4/10

We then jumped into the second and while it’s certainly not as good as its predecessor, there are still some brilliant songs that manage to top the last movie. Again, more of what I have to say can be heard on episode 38 of the podcast.

High School Musical 3: Senior Year (2008) - 3/10

Senior Year was pretty hard to get through. I don’t remember it being as bad as it was, but then I didn’t really remember it anyway. It did however have one redeeming quality, which you can discover on episode 38 of the podcast.

The Piano Teacher (2001) - 9/10

What the fuuuckkkk. The Piano Teacher is horrendously affecting and I was so upset when it ended, maybe not because it’s not what I wanted but because it’s just so fucking dour and unrelenting. This is the second Haneke movie I’ve seen (after the original Funny Games) and I’m so impressed with how well executed it is. Following a woman who teaches piano, we get a glimpse into the life she lives, how sheltered she is from living with her mother at an age where you’d reasonably expect a person to be living alone or with a partner or friends (even going so far as to be sleeping in the same bed as her), and how repressed she is sexually. It’s clear she’s never experienced any kind of sexual interaction or romantic love with another person, so she goes out of her way to take control and make that happen. The upsetting nature of it comes from just what she does in pursuit of it or as a result of her repression, and what is done to her. It is by no means a movie to recommend to your parents but The Piano Teacher offers so much in terms of the ideas it presents (and I’ll admit there seems to be a lot more going on than I think I picked up on a first go round) about women in modern society, and about the portrayal of sex and expectations of people when it comes to how that is represented in a person’s character depending on their gender. I really enjoyed this movie but it is not for the faint of heart.

Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure (2011) - 1/10

My podcast co-hosts decided it’d be a right laugh to add Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure to this episode and that might have been a fun idea for them because they got to watch it together, but I was just watching it alone. Just a 24-year-old man watching Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure alone and having a miserable time, I might add. But for a short and sweet ramble on what we all thought, please listen to episode 38 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast.

Dr. No (1962) - 6/10

A lot of very iffy parts of this movie. A lot of discomfort arising from how black people are portrayed that really didn’t sit right with me. As far as a Bond movie goes, this first instalment in the series is one I’ve seen before and it’s not wholly engaging but it plants the seeds for the rest, with Sean Connery breathing life into the role and making an otherwise lacklustre plot bearable.

Black Widow (2021) - 6/10

I think probably the best part about Black Widow is the experience I had while watching it. It was great being back in the cinema with a couple of friends in a packed theatre. The energy was high and I’m sure for a lot of people, this is the first time they’d been to the cinema since Endgame. For what it’s worth, I did have a lot of fun with Black Widow and I’ve explained more of what I thought about the movie in episode 39 of the podcast.

The Climb (2020) - 10/10

The Climb was added to Now TV recently and I already knew I loved it, having seen it in an empty cinema theatre last year, which I had an absolute blast with. The Climb details the years of a rocky friendship told over scenes filmed as one-shots. Not only is the presentation something to gawk at, but the performances by the two leads playing these friends with a terrifically dysfunctional dynamic is truly captivating. They’re both trying to figure out their own lives and where one can come across as being rather selfish, the opposite is true in his counterpart, whom everyone loves. This is a truly funny and heartwarming movie with a lot to say about how we choose to live our lives and who we choose to be with. It’s a shame the distributors of The Climb didn’t do a very good job because if not for it being available on Now TV, it would be near impossible to watch without forking out more money than is necessary to purchase a film.

From Russia With Love (1963) - 5/10

The second Bond movie. I thought perhaps I’d change my mind on it with another watch, having seen it for the first time maybe a year ago. But no, it’s still largely boring and it treats women like absolute garbage. From Russia With Love is one of those movies I forget as I watch it, and I was trying very hard (in the middle of the day!) not to fall asleep.

The Good, The Bart, and The Loki (2021) - 1/10

I don't usually talk about the short films I watch but for this I'll make an exception. As we all should know, Disney owns The Simpsons now, through their acquisition of Fox, so, coupled with another of their properties, that being Marvel, they decided to make a six-minute animated film wherein Marvel’s Loki is stranded in Springfield. This felt as though it was a minute long due to the horrendously jarring pacing; it is a movie that feels adamant that it needs to exist, while trying as hard as it can to be over as soon as possible. It serves only to stare the audience directly in the face and say “look, characters from The Simpsons are dressed as Avengers”, shit out three credit scenes, then end before you’ve even processed the atrocity you just bore witness to.

Russian Ark (2002) - 8/10

For this next episode of the podcast, we watched a few Russian movies, starting with Russian Ark, a film shot completely in one take as the camera moves about a luxurious museum in a first-person perspective as this main character watches what is happening around him, seeing people moving about the place but unable to interact with them, guided only by another man who seems to be just slightly out of his own perception of reality. This is a tremendous feat in filmmaking and more can be heard about what I have to say in episode 39 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast.

Ivan’s Childhood (1962) - 7/10

For my own pick of Russian movies to discuss on the podcast, I chose the debut feature from one of my favourite directors, Andrei Tarkovsky. It’s amazing that while this is not his best film by far, Ivan’s Childhood is still such a stellar debut, jumping around in its timeline as it details a child’s experience in the second world war. Again, I do go into more depth in episode 39 of the podcast, so be sure to check that out.

Outlaw (2019) - 1/10

The third movie chosen for this marathon is apparently the fourth Russian LGBTQ+ movie ever made. I’m unsure of the ultimate goal of this movie but what seems to be clear is that it hates the LGBTQ+ community. This is perhaps the worst film we’ve discussed on the podcast to date, so listen to episode 39 to understand exactly why it’s such trash.

Almost Famous (2000) - 7/10

I too love heavy music and also studied journalism so it stands to reason that a movie about a teenager who makes his way onto a band tour, following them through America and interviewing them as they hang out and play shows is going to be a premise that resonates with me. This certainly did. I enjoyed Almost Famous a lot; this kid is living the dream and I was so along for the ride, seeing a lot of myself in what was being portrayed. That said, the story itself is at times a bit by the numbers and I really would’ve been more on board if the visual component was more interesting. For what it is, technically it’s fine enough but nothing in that department ever jumped out at me.

Minari (2021) - 8/10

It’s crazy that this didn’t get a theatrical run where I live in the UK. It feels as though I complain about film distribution all the time but I really don’t understand the process by which a movie gets no cinematic release and yet, months later will pop up on the front shelf of hmv, taking pride of place. But of course I got the blu-ray straight away. Minari has a lot to say about the immigrant experience, specifically in America as a family comes over from Korea and tries to start a business and make something of themselves. You get to see a lot of what you might not think twice about when you think about immigration: the hardship of coming from a place where you know everyone to somewhere rural and sparsely populated, having to make friends with locals and integrate within the community; the strain it can put on a family and on a marriage where this idea is presented about the importance of making it on your own in order to live and not just survive, while also taking into account why you’re doing it in the first place and the value you place on being part of a family that you decided to make because that was more important than money, than economy, than proving you were good enough to make it in a place that gave you very little advantage from the offset. This concept of the promised land, of the American dream is a construct. There are times when it’s not pretty, when you have no running water, or you’re in debt, or a family member is dying and it just feels like you’ve been dealt as bad a hand as you can get. But it is better to know you’re not facing all that alone.

Roma (2018) - 10/10

This was my recommendation for the podcast episode on Alfonso Cuarón movies. Roma is as beautiful as it is heart-wrenching and I would recommend listening to episode 40 of the podcast to find out more about my thoughts.

An American Werewolf In London (1981) - 8/10

In all fairness, London is enough to make anyone a little crazy at the best of times. An American Werewolf in London showcases some fantastically grotesque effects, akin to something like Carpenter’s The Thing, in showing the dead brought back to life and a horrifically gory transformation scene. Although the film is from the perspective of an American protagonist, directed also by an American, the depiction of British culture and climate is something I’ve not seen many films pull off quite so well, and I was pleasantly surprised at the more comedic tone the film has overall, which is something that works more in its favour than straight horror would.

The Party’s Just Beginning (2018) - 6/10

Karen Gillan’s directorial debut is… pretty good! There are a lot of ideas I like in this movie: a woman living life and through convenient circumstances, is confronted with death in many ways. Gillan obviously knows her homeland as well as she can, imbuing the whole thing with an intensely Scottish vibe (though maybe not in the same vein as something like Trainspotting) that makes it a bit more unique than a more run of the mill movie of this ilk, backed up in no small part by her own main performance. The plot itself is no great diversion from the kind of story I’m used to with these smaller movies and for something that’s trying to include messaging about transgender issues and suicide, it probably could have been handled better or done in a different way.

Solaris (1972) - 9/10

Another Tarkovsky joint, one I thought I’d revisit to see if there was indeed more to get out of it a second time. Well, it’s no surprise that yes, there was certainly more to get out of it. Solaris is a crazy trip of a movie and I would liken it to Kubrick’s 2001 in terms of how grand the scale of it feels. Yet this is a film that comes across as deeply personal, choosing to focus on a specific character as he goes to a space station to help those on board who are experiencing some kind of emotional crises, only to feel the effects of the planet, Solaris invading his own mind as it has the crew. To many, I can see this lengthy Russian sci-fi being a tad slow but my personal experience is one of deep engagement. Solaris pulls its viewer in a lot of different directions and it is always doing something unexpected in terms of where its narrative goes. There’s a lot to think about with the movie and thankfully it’s no chore to watch again.

Y Tu Mamá También (2001) - 9/10

Another recommendation for the podcast episode on Alfonso Cuarón movies. This is a very relaxed experience, following three young people as they go on a road trip, visit different places and have sex. Listen to episode 40 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast for more of my thoughts.

Children of Men (2006) - 10/10

My favourite Cuarón movie, one that never stops being tense as its characters are constantly moving towards the end goal. Set in a future where humans are infertile, the oldest living person is 18, and London is the last city in the world that’s still keeping it together, somewhat. This is masterclass filmmaking. Listen to episode 40 of the podcast for more insights.

Minority Report (2002) - 5/10

I’m really not the biggest fan of Spielberg… Minority Report is an interesting movie in terms of its concept of stopping crimes before they happen by way of prediction, but I just didn’t connect with the heart of it. The colouring is way too overexposed in a way that’s supposed to be eliciting a futuristic vibe but instead feels so early-2000’s in the worst way. My biggest problem with Minority Report is just how long it is, clocking in at two hours and twenty-five minutes which allows for a lot of meandering, all while never quite developing characters enough for you to care about.

Caché (2005) - 9/10

Oh god! Another Michael Haneke movie! Here we see a couple periodically sent video tapes featuring hours of footage of the outside of their house. The anxiety ratchets up and the mystery gets deeper with every minute. There’s always at least one moment in any of his films that have so far made me realise just how out of my depth I am. Caché is no exception, and I won’t spoil anything here because I think it’s better just to watch the movie and see for yourself. He is a director that wants the audience to know something and that something is never what is explicitly shown at face value; it is pressed into the fabric of the film - plainly evident, yet hidden. Caché is so stupidly clever in displaying its themes and messaging - making reference to the Siene Massacre of 1961 as well as a deeper study of colonialism - and there’s no way to change a single detail of it without risking the Jenga tower crumbling to the ground. It all works in tandem. It is passion and fury and haunting.

Coco (2017) - 7/10

Pixar had a string of around seven forgettable movies before this point so thankfully Coco emerged to show the company still had something good in them. Coco deals a lot with themes of death and legacy, remembering those who are gone in order to preserve them and while its plotting is quite basic and there are certainly moments that either drag or cannot escape the same Pixar formula, most of what the movie has to offer is a lot of fun, with creative, colourful animation and emotional beats that resonate the way they’re supposed to.

Incredibles 2 (2018) - 5/10

Oh, they almost had it! There's a lot here that could have been explored in far more interesting ways. Setting Incredibles 2 directly after the events of the first movie was not a good idea. If it had taken place five or ten years after, the characters could have been in different places in life and it would feel as though they'd actually changed and developed. But instead of trying to be a film that actually cares about its characters and the journeys they go on, a lot of the film is wrestling with the idea that Bob isn't supportive of his wife and Jack-Jack has to fight a raccoon… They have to shoehorn in a villain that in no way compares to the genius of the original. The ending of the original introduces another antagonist that gets wrapped up within this film's first ten minutes, except they don't catch him and he's never mentioned again. It's a real shame because the animation is fantastic and the acting is superb and there are great ideas sprinkled throughout. It just doesn't come together.

Toy Story 4 (2019) - 6/10

I was rather reluctant to watch Toy Story 4 because from the get-go I’m not really here for sequels being made just for the sake of it. Everyone loves Toy Story and making another one is a sure fire way to make money. This is the first time I’ve seen Toy Story 4 and for what it’s worth, I did enjoy it. The animation is immaculate and that alone feels like a huge flex from Pixar who tend to step up the game when it comes to animation in film, despite not having the best track record for films generally at this point. While it was nice to see these characters again, I found a lot of them to be side-lined (namely Buzz) in favour of a story that focuses mainly or entirely on Woody, who I just don’t like as much as in the previous movies. Generally the movie is good and decent enough but there’s no real antagonist and the plot is quite loose… it doesn’t feel as though it needed to be made from a story point of view.

Onward (2020) - 6/10

And with that I have seen every Pixar movie. And Onward is a fine one to go out on. While I don’t think it compares to the likes of earlier Pixar it’s still pretty fun. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for a medieval setting filled with bright colours and magic! Speaking of which, the animation was super and the medieval quest element is something that hooked me with the film. Again, plot-wise it does feel very familiar and I don’t know, maybe I’m past the point now of expecting Pixar to mix it up where their formula for story-telling is concerned but the movie is quite predictable. Nonetheless, while I’m not rushing back to see Onward I would hardly turn it off or refuse if someone wanted to watch it.

Old (2021) - 3/10

Oh boy! New M. Night movie dropped and my word, was it fun! For more of my thoughts on this… masterpiece (?) of a movie, please direct your attention to episode 41 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast.

T2 Trainspotting (2017) - 5/10

Trainspotting is perhaps one of my favourite movies and I had never bothered with the sequel, 20 years on, because the ending of that first movie is so conclusive. T2 felt more an excuse for these guys to get together again and in that, I probably would have preferred a couple of pictures on Twitter of the main cast and director, Danny Boyle having dinner or something. This is a fine movie - very arty in its presentation but meandering and dull in its story that doesn’t offer much in the way of proof that it had to exist.

Taste of Cherry (1997) - 9/10

What makes life worth living? This is a central question and theme of Taste of Cherry, and one that leaves such interpretation not only up to its central character but to the viewer as well. This film got me thinking about times in my life when I truly have had no answer to hard questions. Because it’s hard to convince people of things they are so adamantly against and harder still to rationalise what you believe if you’re not even entirely sure why you believe it in the first place. We are all of us alive and in recognising that, does that make it precious? And if indeed living is not a happy thing, why then should we fight so hard to preserve it? I felt upset as I watched this movie because I’ve been asked these kinds of questions before and it makes me feel stupid when I’m unable to answer. But the only real answer I can give is, everything. And if you can’t see the point then you’re not looking hard enough. Taste of Cherry is beautiful in its exploration of these topics and in its overall presentation, offering some of the best visuals in any movie I’ve seen - fitting for a feature with so much to say about the beauty of life - and an ending that as much pulls the rug out from under you as it does pull you out of the dark and make you realise just how lonely you’ve felt.

Bones (2001) - 2/10

Snoop Dogg is Jimmy Bones! This film is super funny but I’m not sure it’s trying to be and I really didn’t love it overall. But I do talk more in depth about it in episode 41 of the podcast.

The Duchess (2008) - 5/10

Another recommendation for the podcast. The Duchess was pretty much exactly what I thought it was going to be and there’s a lot to like about it but generally it’s a bit sparse. For more chat on the movie, listen to episode 41 of the podcast.

The Man With One Red Shoe (1985) - 1/10

This was another one for the podcast and man, was it awful. We had to watch it at 1.5x speed towards the end because it just wasn’t getting finished otherwise. To find out more, make sure to listen to episode 41 of the podcast.

The Emperor’s New Groove (2000) - 7/10

Pull the lever, Kronk! Haha! Slays me. I do quite miss this era of Disney, where the animation was hand-drawn and the stories were actually compelling and funny. The Emperor’s New Groove is vibrant, it’s got great characters and memorable moments that will forever be ingrained in the memory of culture. All in all, it’s just a solid flick that doesn’t waste time, developing the standard fall from glory type of arc but smoothly and in an entertaining way.

The Suicide Squad (2021) - 8/10

Oh, bloody hell! They actually made a good one! The Suicide Squad is not only better than the ‘Suicide Squad’ of 2016 in every way, it’s a genuinely great film! This time, James Gunn (director of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies) is at the helm and it seems clear that Warner Bros. basically let him do what he wanted with the movie, as it doesn’t seem to bog itself down with the restrictions of a more family-friendly rating. The result of this is a far cleaner, colourful film with a clearer vision that takes from early Vietnam movies and uses that style to craft a superhero/villain movie that differentiates itself among the copious amount of existing films of the genre.      The Suicide Squad wastes very little time, introducing fun, crazy characters we’ve not seen on the big screen before and isn’t worried about killing a whole bunch of them, with standouts being Elba’s Bloodsport, Melchior’s Ratcatcher 2, Stallone’s King Shark (expertly rendered with fantastic visual effects), and Robbie’s returning interpretation of Harley Quinn.      A lot of Gunn’s trademark sense of humour is laced throughout and more often than not, it hits. The audience at the cinema were truly loving this movie and I’ll admit, I was right there with them. This mix of the gritty, gory and absurd is not something that should work as well as it does but the basic premise of the film is already so silly (and boy, do they know it) that it just works! Certainly one of the best DC movies since The Dark Knight and one I’d be more than happy to watch again. This is what the modern comic book movie should be: just balls to the wall fun!

#july #movies #wrap-up #film #follow for more #Twitter: @MHShukster #children of men #roma #the climb #the piano teacher #solaris #y tu mamá también #y tu mama tambien #taste of cherry #caché #cache #the suicide squad #an american werewolf in london #russian ark #minari #coco #spectre #shazam #ivan's childhood #almost famous #the emperor's new groove #high school musical #toy story 4 #black widow #onward