#this is because of the trailer and them working together but specifically the part where only she is with grogu

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

All I'm saying

#star wars #the mandalorian #the mandalorian season 3 #din djarin #bo katan kryze #meme #my meme #kay can i just catch my breath for a second #this is because of the trailer and them working together but specifically the part where only she is with grogu #like he would never leave grogu with someone he didn't trust voluntarily #and for goodness' sake the man is aroace let him BE! #i am manifesting canonically aroace din djarin let's GO!! this is the year!! #1k #2k #3k

[jo-harrington]

Team Building (Eddie Munson x Store Manager!Reader)

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

Summary: No one does Halloween quite like the Hellfire Club, and you just so happened to have promised to join them.

Previous Part: Closing Time

Warnings/Themes: AU where the Upside Down doesn't terrorize Hawkins. Reader works at the Claire's at StarCourt. Eddie works at TapeWorld. Mutual Pining and Slow Burn, Fluffy Fluff, Trick or Treating

Note: HAPPY HALLOWEEN and welcome back to the Store Manager Verse. I actually wanted to be further along with my chronological releases but it just never happened. This one is definitely probably one of the best timed releases with the holiday but there's a minor note that there's...maybe a reference to a yet-to-be published installation of the story. Eddie and SM are gonna be going on a little road trip at some point and will meet some of SM's family. DONT EVEN WORRY ABOUT IT FOR NOW. Just enjoy the shenanigans.

You can find my masterlist here for more featuring our resident Store Manager and all of my other writing.

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

Enjoy!

---

"You look cute today."

"Thanks!"

"You need to look less cute next week. We're doing zombies, remember?"

"Got it."

Every day.

"Did you pick up that fake blood from Melvalds like you promised?"

"Yeah it's at home."

"Ok great because...because I was a little afraid you were gonna forget about our plans."

"Don't worry Eddie."

He reminded you every day.

"Ok so we're meeting at Gareth's at 4 on Thursday."

"Alright I'll be there."

"No, uh, glitter makeup? We're going for realism. Shock and awe."

"I swear to god!"

Every day for an entire week, whether he was scheduled to work or not, Eddie showed up at Star Court to remind you that you had promised to go Trick or Treating with him and his friends.

It was cute endearing.

October--and more specifically Halloween--was one of your favorite times of the year at work. It was laid back and fun. No pressure from either Back to School or the Holiday rush, you could "dress up" with little costume pieces or fun makeup every day, and you could have a bowl of candy at the cash wrap that made everyone's day a little bit brighter.

And outside of work, you'd really embraced the season.

Correction, Eddie made you embrace the season.

Before moving to Hawkins, Halloween had always been incredibly...commercial. Costumes and decorations from the little seasonal aisle at the drugstore. The biggest display of candy at the grocery store that you needed to stock up on unless you wanted your house egged.

And your social life consisted, mainly, of outings with your coworkers. Pumpkin patches and haunted hayrides almost always became team building activities. That wasn't to say your coworkers--new and old--weren't your friends too.

But with Eddie...it was different.

A harvest festival outside of Muncie, horror movies late at night during a thunderstorm, warm apple cider at Merrill's Farm while looking for gourds that were shaped like your heads. Pumpkin carving on the porch at the trailer, cutting out bats and cats from black construction paper, and now Trick or Treating with his friends.

You thought, early on in your friendship, that it was just some throw away comment. But knowing him as well as you did now, you realized that he really meant everything he said.

Every promise was purposeful, especially when it came to the people he cared about. Which was why you were sure he was determined to make the night perfect. Not only for you, but for everyone.

Especially the handful of little sheep that were newcomers to Hellfire.

"The freshman," he explained on Sunday as you worked on your costumes together. "They're little turds but...I dunno, they have potential."

You'd already heard about them at the beginning of the year as Eddie gushed about his new recruits; younger brothers that Eddie sort of always wished for but was thankful he didn't actually have.

"They're not gonna think I'm some like...weird old person right?" you laughed self-consciously, thinking back to Jeff's comment when you said you wouldn't buy them beer. And sure you were not that much older than Eddie, but you were sure you were ancient to a bunch of 14-year olds.

"You're the coolest person I know. And I'm the coolest person they know."

"You saw how my brother is though," you waved your hand dismissively. Jimmy's words--who would have guessed your boyfriend's not lame like you--wouldn't stop echoing in your head though.

Boyfriend. Boyfriend. Boyfriend.

Eddie still wasn't your boyfriend.

They must have echoed in Eddie's too because his cheeks flushed and he immediately became bashful. He ducked his head into his shoulder a little bit and refused to meet your eyes as he hacked away at the sleeves of the old flannel in his hands.

"Your brother," he finally replied, "is a little turd too. I'm sure the kids will worship you. More than they worship me. I promise. Everything will be alright."

---

Before you knew it, Thursday rolled around.

You were running late to get to the Emerson's to get ready thanks to a last minute visit from your DM. Who knew that pictures of you and your team for the company-issued costume contest would take so long?

Still, to save time, you decided not to change costumes until you got to the house. Seeing as Eddie had grand plans for everyone's face paint to make them look as close to Day of the Dead as possible, you figured you would be fine.

However, you were not expecting the entire gaggle of boys to stare at you with stars in their eyes as you stepped out of your car, duffle bag full of torn old clothes and gallon of fake blood in-hand, done up like a glam metal superstar.

Or as close to it as you could get with the accessories you carried at the store. Rainbow hair extensions and glitter spray, layers of chain jewelry, and too much cheetah print.

"You," Eddie began as he pushed through the group to get to you. His face was already a ghastly pallor thanks to a layer of facepaint from melvalds, exactly as he had envisioned. "Are a traitor and a turncoat, a disgrace to the uniform, and your status as Corroded Coffin's number one fan."

"I've literally never heard you guys play," you rolled your eyes at him.

"Did my lesson about the different types of metal mean nothing to you?" he clutched a hand over his heart and then reached out and fiddled with your jewelry. "And didn't I say no glitter."

"I just need to use the bathroom to wash it all off. Then you can make me gross and moldy like you."

"It's not mold. It's rot. Get it right." You flipped him off and he grinned. "Hey sweetheart."

"Hi."

"Nice of you to finally join us."

Eddie threw an arm around your shoulders and led you into the garage. You said hi to Jeff, Gareth, and Dave, and then he introduced you to the sheep.

Mike and Lucas and Dustin and Will.

They were all a little bashful as Eddie went down the line; it was reminiscent of when you met the others, except less fun facts and more silly tidbits meant to embarrass the kids.

Will the Wise whose worst stat was intelligence. Dustin who had a girlfriend in Utah--

"She's real, I swear."

--Mike who had already gone through two new characters because he couldn't roll to save his life. Literally. And Lucas who liked sports.

"Oh my god," you scoffed at Eddie. “You make it sound like sports are a scourge."

"They are."

"You like hockey."

"I," Eddie paused. "Tolerate hockey."

You grinned triumphantly and said hello to each of the boys before ducking into the house to get changed.

"Dude, she is way out of your league." you could hear Mike whine, followed by a dull thud of a fist hitting an arm.

"That's what we've been telling him the whole time," Dave cackled.

---

Eddie and Will were the masterminds behind the zombification process--bickering back and forth about what scar went where and how gross that pus should look as they applied facepaint--but all the boys tossed in their creative input.

"Oh my god, do you still have that rubber eyeball from lunch? We can glue it to Jeff's hand."

"What if--don't touch my hair--what if we--don't touch my hair."

"More blood! More! MORE!"

Before you knew it, two hours had passed, it was dark out and gaggles of Trick-or-Treaters were already filling the streets. Gareth's mom had set herself up on the porch with a bowl full of fun-sized candy and wished you all farewell as you took off down the sidewalk.

A veritable hoard of the undead, with ripped clothes, foaming mouths, blood-soaked hands, and pillowcases to double as treat bags.

To your surprise, there was a lot more to Trick or Treating than you had initially thought. All your childhood, you'd just gone door to door for a few blocks, rang a bell, got some candy, and at the end of the night traded treats with your brothers or your friends.

To Hellfire, it was just as involved as any of their DnD campaigns. And it's how you learned more about each of the boys, and surprisingly, more about their fearless leader.

Lucas and Mike were the perfect strategists and, as you began your trek, listed off neighborhoods that gave the best candy. You got the in-depth analysis between full-size and fun-size candies, chocolate versus peanut butter versus nougat, and you made a mental note to be more mindful of the choices you put out at the cash wrap for next year.

Dustin and Eddie were the navigators mentally mapping the distances between each neighborhood and how quickly and efficiently the group could get around.

"We should have just taken the van," Eddie scoffed when Dustin suggested Loch Nora first, the furthest trek of the night.

"No, then we'll end up back at Gareth's by 10. We just need to walk fast, it'll be perfect."

"And my mom is making a casserole for dinner," Gareth piped up. "She said you're all welcome to stay."

"Why don't we end at my place," Mike suggested. "We can just hang out in the basement and my mom will order pizza."

"No one wants to sleep in your dusty ass basement Wheeler," Dave scoffed.

"We're definitely skipping school tomorrow," Eddie pointed at all of the kids. "I hope you all know that."

Dave and Jeff, much to your surprise, were the "war generals" as they so graciously called themselves. They had a few rolls of toilet paper and a carton of eggs tucked away in their pillowcases, in case they came across--

"The enemies!!!" The older boys hollered into the starry night sky, quickly earning glares from other kids and parents as they passed.

"And who would that be?" you asked. The entire group looked at you like you'd grown a second head. "I'm sorry I'm not well-versed in Halloween mischief."

"Oh it's gonna be fun corrupting you." Eddie laughed wickedly, and started ticking off examples on his fingers. "People who tell us we're too old to trick or treat."

"I thought you said no one cared!" you exclaimed.

"Most people," he clarified, "don't care. But someone called the cops on us. What was it? Last year? Year before?" He looked at the older boys for confirmation.

"Mrs. Peterson who likes to sic her dogs on the kids who get too close to her rose bushes," Lucas offered next.

"If someone has their porch light on, but doesn't answer the door."

"When someone gives raisins instead of candy," Will supplied, ignoring Dustin's quiet, I like raisins.

The list went on: people who made fun of their costumes, the one house where the guy sat on his porch and douse kids with "holy water" for engaging in devilry.

"And Jason Carver," Eddie finished with a flourish.

They all looked at you for some kind of objection...or maybe your approval? You weren't too sure.

But at your soft nod, they all whooped and hollered and a few of the younger boys even took off running so they could jump and scare some of the kids who were just minding their own business.

"See?" Eddie asked and grabbed your hand in his as you followed at the back of the group. "And you were afraid they were gonna think you were some gross old lady. They're trying to impress you."

"Impress is a stretch."

"Ah ah ah," he shook his head. "I will hear none of it. I told them all that they were to be on their best worst behavior. Make sure you have the best time. That they are mere peasants here to serve the Queen of the Undead."

You let his hand go and pushed him away from you, even though your heart beat a little faster knowing he wanted them to behave around you.

"Go before I gnaw on your brains."

"You promise?" he waggled his eyebrows at you suggestively.

"Go!"

---

It was an eventful night.

You moaned and groaned and shuffled your way across Hawkins, just like the zombies in Romero's movies, to get all sorts of sweet treats. Candy and popcorn and fresh-dipped caramel apples that someone was making in their yard in Loch Nora.

The group successfully TP'd one house, and you'd even personally egged someone's front door after they called the gang delinquents. You were not athletic in the slightest, but you hit your target dead on, and basked in the boy's gleeful war cries.

You were grateful for Eddie's suggestion of sneakers because you'd walked more in those 4 hours than you had during any Black Friday or Christmas Eve double shift in your entire career. You were sure even a day at Disneyland couldn't hold a candle to the Hellfire Club Whistle Stop Walking Candy Tour of Hawkins.

The boys all took to calling you mom pretty early in the night after you stopped Jeff from chomping into a handful of starbursts.

"Your braces," you reminded him, motioning to your teeth. "You're gonna snap a wire; you hate the orthodontist."

He groaned and all of the boys started snickering. Eddie, of course, was quick to shame him.

"Listen to your mother!"

And the nickname just stuck.

Of course Mike--who you noticed tried to emulate Eddie most out of the group of freshman--had a retort.

"If she's mom," he said smugly. "Does that mean you're dad?"

The boys all started making kissy faces and you had to laugh as Eddie got a little flustered.

After watching him flounder for a comeback, you decided to help him out, so you crossed the distance and pressed a quick peck to his cheek before you turned and shook your finger at the boys in a disappointed way.

"Next person to sass your father," you started. "And you're all grounded." They all looked a mixture of confused and worried for a second.

"What does that mean?" Lucas asked nervously.

"It means you start the next session with half of your hit points," Eddie finally recovered, voice growling in a threat. The boys all clammed up and turned to head to the next house.

"Sorry about them," he shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Nah, it's ok," you smiled reassuringly. "They meant well. Still...til death do us part, I guess."

You both froze and you started panicking.

Why had you said that?

Still, Eddie was able to make it all better. He shuffled his feet and cracked a smile, then gestured to your costumes.

"Or uh...undeath. Considering."

Still, you had butterflies in your stomach every time one of the boys called you mom and dad for the rest of the night.

---

By the time 10 rolled around, you were back at the Emerson's house. Gareth's mom greeted you all excitedly with sodas and plates of hot buffalo chicken casserole with crispy tater tots on top, and you all sat in the garage to eat and divvy up your haul.

"So," Eddie slumped on the sofa next to you at some point after dinner was finished. You were tiredly watching Lucas and Dave argue the merits of Three Musketeers versus Milky Way and glad for the distraction. "Did you have fun?"

"Of course."

"Enough to do it again next year?"

"Is this your way of telling me you guys trick or treat every year?" you joked. "Because I kind of picked up on those hints all night."

"More like...I don't know," he sniffed awkwardly. "You still planning to be my friend next year?"

"Stop asking me that," you hit the back of your hand against his chest. "If I got to see you be a big dork with your gaggle of kindergarteners--"

"Hey!" came Will and Mike's whine from a few feet away.

"--and I'm still here, nothing's gonna scare me away Eddie."

He grabbed your hand to stop you from hitting him again, but stayed silent for a moment, eyes darting back and forth between yours as his tongue worried his lip.

You got nervous the longer he hesitated to say something, and once he did, you had the sneaking suspicion it wasn't exactly what he'd really wanted to say in the first place.

You hoped it wasn't what he wanted to say. Hoped it was just something he couldn't say in front of his friends.

"Then you don't mind if we do Alien next year. And before you say anything, I think I would make a great Ripley. I already have the hair for it and I'm pretty sure I have that same underwear."

"Sure Eddie," you agreed a little stiffly. "Sounds perfect."

He smiled, but it didn't quite meet his eyes.

Still, the two of you stayed huddled together on that couch for the rest of the night, surrounded by friends.

Hands held comfortably together.

Next Part: Promotion

#Eddie Munson x reader #eddie munson imagine #Eddie muson fic #Eddie Munson stranger things #stranger things fic #stranger things imagine #Eddie Munson fluff #store manager verse

[lovingseventeen]

Hi!! Hope you are doing well!!

I absolutely love your account.

I was wondering whether you could write a scenario with svt where the boys realize they are in love.

svt realizing they’re in love ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

a/n: hi! and thank you for this request! i’m so so sorry this took so long for me to get out. i always had this in the back of my mind and i’ve been thinking about so many scenarios for the boys.. i hope it’s better late than never.. also SORRy this is a day later than i promised, school got in the way

also trying a slightly different format because the bullet points occasionally make the posts so long.. BUT ALSO ALSO: thank you for 800!!

(established relationships unless stated otherwise)

seungcheol:

he knew he liked you for the longest time, but love was another word that was so big, so strong, it intimidated him to even think of it. but he knew when he realized he was always looking for you

he was driving home and everything he passed by, his thoughts connected them to you a bakery? y/n’s birthday is coming up, i should surprised them with a cake. a billboard for a new movie? would y/n want to go see that? the trailer looked good.. a park? is that the same one we went to when y/n made that bento? even a convenience store: y/n better not be eating ramen again..

jeonghan:

it's when he sees that you don't fall so easily for his pranks. he knows you're on the same wavelength as him, truly his other half.

you're at the airport about to take your first trip together. "baby i forgot our passports at home" he suddenly tells you, pretending to rummage through his backpack.

you look back at him with a half smile, "no you didn't, you're just being silly. c'mon we have to start checking in now." he's smiling back at you even if his little prank didn't work. as he follows you from behind, he feels a little shift in his feelings for you. ah, is this what they mean about love? he wonders.

joshua:

it's when the two of you are in the car and you're singing (half-yelling). he's humming along to parts that he recognizes as he drives, but not without stealing glances to see you passionately belt out every single word.

it's at a red light that he looks over to you and at the same time, you're enthusiastically bumping along to the rhythm in your seat. you point to him as you sing along to some cheesy lyric about being in love except to him, it's not cheesy at all. instead, he feels his heart skip a beat when he realizes he loves you.

jun:

it's so simple, really. this one time, he makes this opera voice to you as he laid out options for dinner.

"so we can order from our usual or try that new place nearby that just opened up~~" he asked, trilling his voice in random places dramatically.

you think out loud, humming, but then replying in the same silly manner as you choose. "i think we can try the new place~~" you sing back, making your voice two octaves lower. you're both laughing after but his smile feels a little deeper to him and he wonders if this feeling is what he thinks it is.

hoshi:

hoshi has never run from his feelings, he's always embraced them.

it's when he picks you up for a date and sees the skip in your step to greet him. you fall into his arms for your usual hug but with a little more accidental momentum.

he laughs as he catches you, "hi pretty" he smiles. your arms are wrapped around his middle and your face is so close to his as you're smiling back at him just as big. this is when he knows. "i love you, you know" he declares, kissing your cheek.

wonwoo:

one night where he can’t sleep, he figured he really needs to hear your voice. he accidentally disregards the time, not realizing he’s been awake for so long and that it’s three am. you pick up your phone after couple rings (it took you a moment to wake up).

“hello?” you asked, voice muddled with sleep. he can't help but feel some kind of relief, some kind of comfort so specific to you.

“i just wanted to hear your voice."

"right now?" you can't help but ask. this is where he checks his phone and realizes how late it actually is.

"oh, i'm sorry" he almost whispers.

"is everything okay?" your concern warmed him.

"yeah, yeah, everything's fine," he assures you, almost whispering those three words so late into the night. "go back to sleep, love." he's never really used that pet name, but he figures it'll have to do for now.

woozi:

it hits him where he spends the most time: his studio. the last two weeks or so he hasn't been able to see you and he's been starting to feel bad. he tries to text you when he can, but he still replies hours later or not at all. somehow, his schedule was arranged down to the hour.

yet you managed to drop off food for him at the hybe building occasionally, brightening his day even a little bit. he was always in the middle of something else, whether it be a dance practice, a going seventeen shoot, a photoshoot, recording, or producing. so it was always a manager or an assistant taking the food from you to bring up to him.

when jihoon finally gets a day off, he's almost rushing to see you. he almost expects you to look unexcited, or even mad, but he's surprised to see you simply happy. he takes you out to lunch and as you wait for your meal, he blurts out what he feels is a necessary apology.

"sorry for what?" you looked back at him, puzzled.

he's caught off guard at your confusion. "um, for not really being around the last two weeks," a nervous hand comes up behind his head, "i feel like i didn't reach out enough."

you take his hand, "weren't you just working? it's a busy time right now, isn't it?"

"well yeah, but still-"

"baby i wouldn't have agreed to dating you if i would have a problem with your schedule," you assured him, "as long as we're still trying with each other, we'll be fine."

"i still feel bad," he sighs, taking your hand in both of his.

"baby, i wouldn't want you to worry about us on top of all of your responsibilities," you tell him. "i'm really okay, honestly, and if anything ever comes up, i'll promise to talk to you."

he sees the genuine look of understanding from your eyes as you sit across from him. he feels his heart hammering in his chest and it's like he's been brought to the months where we was just falling for you. but this time, it's much grander and he knows it's love.

dokyeom:

he knew he was in love the first time he made you laugh. he's probably the one member who would realize it before you were officially dating.

you held onto his arm as you laughed, shaking your head as his antics and this is when he knew. you looked at him with the warmest smile and he was already falling.

far into the future people will ask him when he knew you were the one and he'll be the kind to remember all the details of this encounter: the hoodie that you were wearing, how your hair looked, the joke he was telling, etc.

mingyu:

so you took him to one of those sip and paint cafes so the two of you could have pottery in your home with a personal touch. mingyu is also quite artistic so it would be fun. everything is going smoothly until his large hands accidentally knock over the water cup meant for rinsing your paintbrushes. then as he's trying to quickly clean up, the paintbrush that he set down accidentally touches his mug, ruining his image.

he's whining after ruining his piece, but you assure him that it's still fine. you laugh a little, encouraging that he can probably try to fix it. but, even with an attempt to correct his mistake, the little puppy that he painted is still awkward-looking.

he feels like you're just trying to comfort him when you tell him that you actually adore it. after your pieces are fired, and you're allowed to bring them home, he sees you use his mug. he sees you continue to use his mug with his painting on it weeks after too.

one day you're sipping from it and glancing at the slightly chubby puppy on its front. you smile at it fondly as you hold the cup, "i really love this, you know," you chuckle, finger tracing the puppy's cheeks.

he almost has to stop himself from blurting out, "well i love you." when he catches that thought, he realizes.

minghao:

hao realized he was in love when you went to travel to another country for a week. you sent him pictures from museums you visited of artwork you thought he would appreciate. you sent him food you ordered at a local restaurant, texting him: i'll bring you here one day because you'd like this! or we're coming back to this.

when you finally return form your trip, he helps you unpack and settle back in. however, what you're excited for is showing him everything you brought back for him.

"so i got you a couple things."

one of his hands is coming up to pat your head lovingly, "you didn't have to but thank you." he sits across you as you eagerly open up your suitcase and begin you little haul.

"so i got you this top at this local store there because the mesh has this slightly distressed feeling and you usually look good in these."

"then there were these little pins that i thought would be cute if we had matching ones."

"oh! there's this ring i found at a flea market and it reminded me of your usual jewelry!"

"and the last thing was.. drumroll please," you request and he starts patting his thighs to oblige, "some tea i thought you might want to try."

he's smiling as he picks up and examines the items you got him. when he notices you looking at him expectedly, asking him, "so what do you think?"

he knows it and he can't hold back, "i think i love you."

seungkwan:

he knows it when you tease him and he can't even find it in himself to get annoyed. you two probably have a series on ongoing jokes that neither of you can count.

where he'd usually get annoyed or whiny if one of his members teased him, he can't help but just look at you with adoration and you tease him with that smile. you're lightly teasing him, even bringing your face up close to his and all he can think of is kissing you.

"you're lucky i can't get mad at you," he rolls his eyes.

"you love me," you replies casually, not giving it much thought as you walk away from him.

"yeah maybe i do" he replies in a voice so low you don't hear him.

vernon:

sometimes you'd ask him if he wanted to do something random. so far you've made him watch that very weird indie movie, various weird food trends, and even pole dancing (he genuinely gave it his best effort). you'd ask him if he wanted to go with you on these mini adventures and no matter how weird, he'd usually say yes.

so one day, you ask him if he wants to try this new viral ice cream dessert that's been trending. even though some of these ventures have gotten you both to try underwhelming food, he still says sure.

as you're sitting in the shop, he watches you look at the donut and ice cream monstrosity in anticipation. "ok here i go," you announce, making sure to get a little bit of everything to get that 'perfect bite.'

"how is it?" he asks you, only to smile when your eyes light up. so it's a good food adventure day.

"oh my gosh, i think i just found my new favorite thing ever" you mumble with the ice cream in your mouth.

he watches as you push the dessert towards him, encouraging him to try it too. while he thinks that it's just a fine dessert, he could feel full watching you eat. ultimately, he feels happy that you're happy, and this is where he realizes.

dino:

in recent days his schedule had been so packed that he could barely see you, even more so since they had a comeback.

of course, he can't let his slight burn out show while he performs, but he can't ignore the weight on his heart. but still, he puts his best foot forward and gets up on stage.

what he isn't ready for is seeing you in the front of the crowd with a headband with his name on his. you've even come with one of those fans with his face on it.

the fans start cheering as they get in formation for the song and he feels recharged knowing you're in the audience. their song opens and he glances at you and sees that you're even participating in the fanchant. he knows his name is last and looks at you as you scream his name the loudest, giving him a wink too.

he feels alive and comforted. his new energy makes the song fly by without mistake and soon enough someone is already giving the camera their ending fairy. his eyes find you again and sees you blow him a kiss that makes his heart swell :')

#seventeen #svt #svt headcanons #svt hcs #scoups x reader #jeonghan x reader #joshua x reader #jun x reader #hoshi x reader #wonwoo x reader #woozi x reader #dokyeom x reader #mingyu x reader #minghao x reader #seungkwan x reader #vernon x reader #dino x reader #scoups x you #jeonghan x you #joshua x you #jun x you #hoshi x you #wonwoo x you #woozi x you #dokyeom x you #mingyu x you #minghao x you #seungkwan x you #vernon x you #dino x you

[moonlessdusk]

Why the MKulia alliance was formed and how it’s so effective (analysis part 3)

Okay now I’m talking about the actual alliance. I’m basically just going to go episode by episode here, touching on points for how they managed to keep each other in the game and why they’ve managed to effectively fly under the radar despite being so threatening together.

So jumping back in to the formation in episode 1 of season 2, MK says:

“And I hope you have a plan in case Bowie only picked you so he and the hockey bros could make you first voted off the island.”

And Julia’s response? She hadn’t even thought of that. This just adds evidence to my argument in part 1 that Julia has a major problem with being short sighted. Meanwhile MK’s plans may be sloppy in execution (something I’ll get back to later) but she plans for the long term. Julia acknowledges this weakness in her strategy.

Now MK could’ve kept this to herself or not taken her comment anywhere but she says “Then I guess I’m helping already,” which is effectively her extending an olive branch to someone who is in a situation where no one else is willing to place their trust in her. And just from looking at who’s on her team, Julia can’t trust Bowie and the hockey bros to not double cross her again (she said so in her walk of shame), nor can she expect any reliability out of Scary Girl, Ripper, or Chase. Thus, her eagerness to form the alliance.

Why would MK be so eager to join? Well, this could be a weakness that was retconned in given her performance on the obstacle course last season, but this season really hammers in how MK is the smallest and least athletic of of the cast:

And we know from her confessionals that Julia’s capacity to be physically aggressive is something MK greatly appreciates:

The way that this alliance has functionally worked as of episode 8 is that the two of them play to their strengths from last season: MK comes up with the plans to cheat and and meta game the challenges while Julia executes things MK can’t physically do with ruthless efficiency while also handling the social game. MK gets a hold of the intern uniform by the end of episode 2 and the scheming goes on until the merge.

Julia’s been doing well the first two episodes but she’s been relying on her brute force method and trying to be a team player. Admittedly, not a great idea in episode 2 specifically considering if they lose anyway, Bowie would still get her out and it’s not a good idea to draw attention to herself. MK’s face here kinda says as much:

She kinda lucked out on having bad teammates of Scary Girl and Chase.

Episode 3 is when the intern plan is put in to use and MK plants the sap remover and bucket of sap just off the the trail to avoid the actual challenge. It also seems to have been her idea to sabotage the other team, knowing that the Rats still have the numbers to beat them. So they spend the rest of the messing with the other team after Bowie gives the okay.

Exactly who they target, what they use, and how they went about it seemed to have been squarely Julia’s idea, which MK praises Julia for. Ultimately the plan does work and Caleb becomes too exhausted to carry his team across the line in time.

MK only gets a chekhov's gun out of the intern briefing in episode 4. In a turn based knowledge challenge, Julia kinda takes a backseat but still has something to do. While realizing the answers must be locked in, sneaking off to the production trailer for the answer, then using hot sign was all MK’s idea, Julia still came up with an excuse on the spot to cover for MK and not make Chris or the other competitors ask more questions for why she’s gone for so long.

This is basically like if what MK did in capture the skull last season actually worked out for her. Great idea to sneak off on meta the game but only possible if she had an ally to vouch for her. Emma did know what she did last season but wasn’t really an ally for MK because she was too wrapped up in her plot with Chase.

Episode 5 makes use of the chekhov's gun wireless hairdryer and MK finding a map of the challenge’s maze. On top of this, she was already thinking one step ahead and brought ice skates to distract the hockey bros.

We get to see Julia working her social game this episode by blackmailing Bowie. Revealing to Raj and Wayne how he lied to them and cheated in the previous challenge effectively sets up a situation where Julia has more room to work with for voting. What she’s probably trying to do is split the trio’s vote, giving her and MK voting power in the likely event they can convince Ripper to vote with them.

Julia and MK both having the idea to hide the other team’s coin is a solid idea but what follows is… shenanigans? Rather than continuing with the argument between Raj and Bowie, they throw a snowball at Julia? Like, it’s on brand for Julia to drop what she’s doing and retaliate, which I assume is why the hairdryer was given to her when MK was just holding it. In character but still kinda odd, logically.

Julia also unnecessarily puts a target on her back by revealing she’s the reason Nichelle left the game. MK was also sloppy with how she put back Chris’ hairdryer. I know narratively the reason this is done is so they can be kept apart the next episode but I feel like Julia wouldn’t have done this if MK was there to stop her and remind her to think ahead instead of having a moment of gratification.

In episode 6, the teams merge and MK and Julia are still in an advantageous position and Bowie acknowledges it. This is the episode Chris ours MK as a cheater to everyone else and MK is basically out of commission the whole episode.

Neither of them win immunity but more importantly, Bowie doesn’t either. Julia says she told the former Rats that the cheating was Bowie’s idea, and between insulting Axel and Damien, plus a vote from Ripper, and Priya likely still being mad at Bowie over last season (and Caleb likely voting with her), this was a very clever and opportunistic way to swing the votes away from her alliance partner.

Episode 7 creates a more dire situation for the alliance because it splits them up, whereas Chris kept literally every other alliance together. Julia is teamed with the hockey bros, which gives her a lose-lose situation where in she’s the most likely to be voted off if she doesn’t win immunity but if she does, her biggest adversaries also stick around. This is what her and MK’s confessional is essentially laying out.

Further complicating things is that team 1 are four friends that would definitely vote with the hockey bros and them winning immunity would put them in a tough spot where if it’s not one of the two, it’ll be one of their pseudo alliance partners Ripper or Axel, and they just lose more voting power.

There isn’t a discussion that we see about it but the initial plan seemed to be to create a situation where team 1 can’t win. Thus we see the two of them target the most threatening members on team 1: Caleb and Priya.

Later in the challenge, Julia’s impulsiveness basically forces herself in a situation where she can’t afford to lose after she sabotaged team 1. Realistically at that point, cutting their losses and convincing team 1 to eliminate Axel was really the only thing the two of them could do because the hockey bros would’ve voted for MK and team 1 would’ve voted together. It’s more beneficial for Mkulia to keep Ripper’s semi-loyalty to them and he is competent in challenges when he’s not distracted by Axel. Even if Julia was already avoiding MK at this point because guilt from her sabotage, that’s still at least 5 votes against Axel vs 2 for MK and the remaining 3 from her, Ripper, and Axel don’t matter. Of course, Ripper is eliminated too so Mkulia are on their own again but I can see what they were going for.

Episode 8 is interesting because it sets an implication for how the Mkulia alliance is more covert than we see most post-merge alliances, with Caleb and Priya being a good contrast to what I mean. (And I’m skipping over “the Owen thing”, I have a different analysis on that.)

This is the first time we have a challenge where there’s nothing to stop them from helping each other and yet Julia only stops for a moment to shout “Hurry it up, girl,” at MK with MK shouting back that she’s trying while she struggles to even drag the coin. That’s the only interaction they have the whole challenge. Given their reaffirmation earlier that they’re a good team, this looks kind of cold for Julia, but I think that appearance is intentional.

Consider how Caleb and Priya have openly been helping each other and everyone knows that they’ve been trying to find the immunity idol together. I’ve glossed over it until now but Priya has also been in danger of being eliminated since the merge and between constant bad ideas, being the reigning champion, and working with the strongest person on the island, she has a target on her back, possibly bigger than Julia’s at this point considering she hasn’t won immunity or even runner up yet.

I think that the two of them are trying to hide their alliance to not get targeted. Like sure, they interact with each other between challenges but alliances usually explicitly help each other during challenges. Them just looking friendly to each other doesnt raise any more suspicion that it would claiming Damien is working with Priya, which we know he isn’t because he hasn’t told her about the idol. I think that gives Mkulia room for doubt with only the hockey bros actually knowing what they’re doing.

This also explains the lack of urgency Julia has with winning immunity. She has one confessional where she contemplates getting the secret out of Zee or going for immunity, initially thinking she’s get both but she ultimately zeros in on Zee, as evident by her score staying the same all game.

At first I just thought this was her being impulsive but it’s actually a case of her playing the social game because even if spilling the secret doesn’t get Zee out, the Priya and Caleb alliance still falls and directs attention away from her and MK.

Meanwhile MK gets to fly under the radar this episode. She’s second to last to get to the pinball and even though she immediately figures out the advantage, her small size and lack of fitness once again leads her to getting walled. So she’s not even considered a big threat and doesn’t need immunity.

So with Zee out of the game and a target on Caleb’s back, my prediction is that Caleb gets immunity next episode just to drag out the drama, then the vote bounces to Damien as the next most threatening on account of winning solo immunity once and doing solid the other two times. He’d then play his idol, which would bounce the votes that do count to Raj. He’s the more competent of the hockey bros and Mkulia’s priority should be breaking them up with Priya and Caleb imploding on its own.

As long as Mkulia is able to break the pairs in these next two episodes, they’ve basically paved their way to the finale. If they pull it off successfully, their alliance truly will be the most efficient and successful one in the series.

#can you Tell I’ve scrambled to finish this before monday #mkulia #td mk #td julia #total drama 2023 #total drama reboot #total drama julia #total drama mk #total drama spoilers

[kinokoshoujoart]

scribbled down a relationship chart for the forgotten valley bros to collect my thoughts after snooping into their dialogue files, because i’m crazy over the barebones scraps of tiny interactions between them that we are given they’re a neat group of lads and i want to see them in lots of wacky situations together

rambling explanation and screenshots under the cut. spoilers for dialogue

gordy and gustafa are bffs and i love them!!!!!

they have mutual respect for each other… gustafa clearly admires and understands gordy’s art, and gordy seems to view gustafa as his closest confidant, he even gets you and Gustafa the new kitchen if you enter chapter 2 without being able to “afford” it yourself

they only really mention each other and don’t have anything to say about the other two boys

no one has anything bad to say about gustafa, which is exactly how it should be. blessed bard. it’s extra sweet to me that he’s the most well-liked bachelor both in and out of the game given one of the npc gossip lines your son can tell you— he grew up without many friends (in the original game the secret was that he was bullied). he deserves all the happiness in the world

matt opinions

matt shares his Opinions (slander) on gordy and rock specifically if you show him your kid with them, but has no slander for gustafa… his line for gustafa is instead just copied from what he says about the bachelorettes’ kids. so i count that as a gustafa win

i had to stretch to find any mention of gustafa by matt, the closest thing is that he comments that he doesn’t usually go to the starlight concert

i want gustafa and matt to interact!!! i want gustafa to give matt a tomato when he’s being gruff like he did with nami (matt: “th-thank you…..*blush* i already have ten billion of these”) matt also has lines about farm work being easier when you’ve got music accompanying you if you show him a record so i’ll count that as a very flimsy positive connection (matt IS friendly with gavin, due to frequenting the bluebird café, but is a bit reticent to make friends on his own)

rock opinions and social diseases

rock is extremely excited about hearing gustafa play music and calls him a wizard at the guitar and says he never gets tired of hearing him play. he also likes wandering over to gustafa’s yurt and listening to his music along with tei on market days (his most normal bachelor to bachelor interaction)

the only guy who gets no positive comment from rock is matt, instead rock goes to town roasting him in his fourth heart event out of envy for a completely imaginary situation and argues that he’s worth a hundred matthew’s (source?). he also likes to go into the already crowded farmhouse at night on market days and make it even more cramped, but he usually leaves right before matt gets home

finally rock has what i can only describe as a really odd one-sided crush on gordy!! he meanders into gordy’s trailer at 12:45 AM (AM) every market day and loudly, obliviously asks why there’s so much “trash” everywhere (you’re the trash, rock!!!!!!). thankfully rock is quite literally beneath gordy’s notice, however this seems to make rock sad and he tries to come up with wacky stunts to get gordy’s attention like drawing on gordy’s face and… holding his breath? (maybe, i dunno WHERE that dialogue triggers). he has a line celebrating gordy finally noticing him, i’m not sure what causes it though (for his part, gordy has no lines referencing rock)

finally, if you show rock your kid he will tease them by bragging that he was waaaay cuter at their age… but ONLY if it’s a bachelor’s child. rock your complex is so obvious that it’s more of a simple

in summary,

rock seems to think highly of each of the guys (except matt), unfortunately this manifests in him making really odd attempts to barge into their houses at strange hours and by trying to assert dominance in annoying ways. thankfully no one really notices anything he does (except matt)

matt doesn’t generally say nice things about anyone except cecilia (which makes the nice things he says, like about nina, more meaningful…) so unsurprisingly he has nothing nice to say about any of the guys, but he doesn’t have anything negative to say about gustafa. however he seems to want friends to do stuff with (he complains about how no one in the valley wants to go swimming…..hhhgg i am desperate to force rock and matt to spend time together. a friendship where you can’t stand each other but you’re the only two people who enjoy doing the same hobby so you put your differences aside and splash around in the water) like with rock no one really seems aware of matt’s existence except rock who is Extrwmely Aware to the point of knowing about matt’s crush on ceci, but unlike rock matt is not exactly jumping at the chance to go socialize with others

gustafa and gordy are friends with each other (and also both are friends with nami) and they support each others ambitions. i have no source but i’m confident that when gustafa visits gordy he’s also bringing him water and soup (he also visits daryl so i think it’s cool and fun if gustafa drops in on the local lost-in-thought creative hermits with hydration reminders and care packages)

#i really love all 4 of these boys i. i clearly have a babygirl but i am not immune to any of them #and each guy is not just standing out from the other 3 but also wildly different from all other bkmn men #the magic ingredient called ‘not designed to be a marriage candidate’ is the secret spice that makes me want to marry bkmn men #also this is why my husband needs to be set loose. please go outside and cause havoc honey you haven’t stepped off the farm since we wed #sos awl #bokumono #will probably make doodles based on some of the dialogue lines #gustafa (awl) #story of seasons #harvest moon a wonderful life #rock (awl) #story of seasons a wonderful life #gordy (awl) #matthew (awl) #sos awl spoilers #sos: awl #extremely sane posting hours #rock tumbling (sos)

[butterflydm]

wheel of time s2 trailer

First: Aaah!

Okay, spoilers below -- casting spoilers and what we know about S2 and spoilers through The Dragon Reborn in the books.

First impression is that everything looks amazing and I am so excited! But before I watch anyone else's reactions, I want to break my thoughts down for myself on what all the moments that we saw might mean:

okay, first: I love this song (Control) and this edit of it is very haunting and good. Nice choice, really works.

We open with Moiraine in Foregate (looking for Rand, I assume). In her severe and fancy Cairhiein duds. "Everyone has a choice."

So it looks like Moiraine and Rand are going to make a stop at Tar Valon/the White Tower? Because there's this shot here of a blue dress in the White Tower. We see later in the trailer that Rand is in his fancy clothes when he's here, so it would be later in the season -- would it be after the girls have already left/been tricked to leave or are we going to get a Rand-Egwene-Nynaeve reunion (Randlayne meeting? Cauthor reunion?).

Moiraine being Sad in the bath -- heartbreaking but we already saw part of this in the teaser, so I'll move on. "And every choice has a consequence."

Rand in a desert-y area in his Fancy Clothes, so this is maybe their approach to Falme?

"We didn't defeat the Dark One; we set him free." Heartbreaking! I mean, I already knew that, but poor Moiraine. We have her hiding from a Fade. I think this might have been in the trailer too.

Ishy looks good. And he disappears real fast. In TAR or was he using something spoilery there that only he at this point has access to?

We have Egwene in an underground chamber doing some weaves. Is she being watched by Liandrin or is that a deceptive cut to Liandrin there?

Brief look at the Darkfriend social. "No one should have that much power."

Nynaeve looking at Alanna, I think. This was in the teaser photos that were released yesterday. Working in the kitchens. Since Alanna maybe doesn't know anything about Rand at this point (maybe...) then she might be being nosy about Nynaeve specifically.

Ishy doing some channeling (air?). And we get a more full introduction to probably-Lanfear coming out of her blood pool vibes.

Seanchan attacking a poor village via the damane. Might be when Perrin & co encounter them?

13. A door being opened up. A vault/secured door of some kind? Ah, it looks like it's the entrance to the Testing chamber and this is probably when Nynaeve is doing her Accepted testing.

14. Perrin riding down a mountain -- this was in the teaser trailer. But he looks good!

15. "Together we face the impossible. But now we're in our separate corners of the world." Rand protectively cuddles Lanfear, likely going by the name Selene. Looks like he's still in more rough traveling clothes at this point and not in his fancy clothes yet. VERY INTRIGUED by Selene wearing blue and not white. Deliberately linking her to Moiraine?

16. Rand walks down a hallway.

17. Lightning lights up a city and Lan rides on a horse in the dark. "Protecting Rand, guiding him, that is the only thing that matters!" Moiraine says to Lan, and we cut to Siuan in her fancy clothes saying, "You can't control him." Talking to Moiraine?

18. Rand wakes up maybe? Already using the Power (fire?). Is this the same scene where he pushes Moiraine up against a wall? Guessing it's after he's separated from 'Selene'.

19. Perrin looking a wolf. "You know you have something inside you." Sounds like they might do some paralleling with Perrin-wolfbrother and Rand-channeler.

20. Rand (air helping him?) pushes Moiraine up against a wall, looking kinda angry.

21. Egwene captured. You can see what a fight she put up. Her cheek is very bloody and her eyes are bloodshot too.

22. Nynaeve is in her shift, covered in blood. Part of the Accepted test?

23. Mat is staring at the dagger. Dagger is on a fancy table, Mat is still in his Two Rivers clothes. He feels the temptation. Is this part of what happens in his plotline with Liandrin? "Something that calls for blood." Yeah, they're connecting all the Emond's Field mains with this idea in the trailer.

24. "I want to know how to control it," Rand says, and we see the Power swirling around him (I don't see the taint -- is Lanfear channeling here?) as Lanfear stands behind him. He's just in a simple shirt, so I think it's earlier in the season.

25. Rand is talking to Logain here, which another sign that Rand is going to be in the White Tower, since that's where Logain is being kept prisoner. Both of them are wearing blue.

26. "The Last Battle's coming," Moiraine says, as we look at the Seanchan dominating a village and forcing them down. We can see Suroth up on a huge platform (mobile throne) and then we get a close-up to see that she's hanging with Ishy and her Voice. The Seanchan design that the show came up with is AMAZING. I've said it before and I'm sure that I'll say it again.

27. Turak opens the box holding the Horn of Valere (though we don't see the Horn yet) and says, "The whole world will be ours". Interestingly, he's not wearing the face mask but he definitely has the nails.

28. The Seanchan attack Egwene & Elayne via damane. I can't tell here if Egwene has been captured and that's what her look of defiance is about or if she's still fighting back at this point. It looks like a burst of power comes from here, so this could be her fighting back.

29. There's an explosion but it looks like this is a Nynaeve scene -- she's back to wearing Two Rivers clothes so I'm guessing this is part of her Testing. Yeah, the style of the building looks like it matches the Two Rivers.

30. Whitecloaks riding horses fades to Liandrin (in the White Tower) looks at... is that the place they melt old & reforge new Aes Sedai rings?

31. Perrin plays with a little girl. Maybe a cute moment before the Seanchan arrive?

32. Siuaraine kiss! Both of them wearing blue. Reunion in the White Tower (when she brings Rand?) or a flashback? Siuan looks very casual here.

33. Egwene hugs Nynaeve. It looks like Egwene is already dressed in her novice whites while Nynaeve is still wearing Two Rivers clothes.

34. More of Nynaeve's Accepted Testing.

35. "If our friends are in trouble why would I ever stay here." Egwene is talking to Elayne, who looks a bit dusty and thoughtful.

36. Moiraine strides out of a doorway. We get the "no conception of the power they wield", which was in the teaser. Brief shot of Lan on his horse, then we hear him say, "You can't do this by yourself."

27. Aviendha veiling up and fighting some Whitecloaks! Perrin is there. Guessing this is when he/we first meet her.

28. "There are many paths to walk through the night," Moiraine says. I think that's a shot of Liandrin (maybe going to meet Fain?).

29. "It's not always the most powerful who write history," we hear over a shot of shirtless Rand.

30. Nynaeve comes back through the Testing Doorway, covered in blood.

31. Perrin killing a Whitecloak with white hair.

32. Egwene screaming in the damane collar.

33. Rand bound to the wheel in the desert (almost certainly TAR).

34. "It's the ones who survive". And we see here that this is Liandrin speaking.

35. Rand in a plaza in Falme! Fancy clothes partially hidden under a cloak, sword on his back. Looks like this is his confrontation with Turak. We hear him say, "I'm tried of being a spoke in the wheel."

36. We get a pull-out shot of him in the desert on the wheel and it looks like he has an audience, someone in front of him. Maybe Ishy? It pulls away much too fast for me to see.

37. Rand runs someone through with a sword of fire, it looks like? Mat stabs someone (still in his Two Rivers clothes). Is that a regular spear that he's using? There's an explosion -- in Falme? Or in Cairhien?

38. "You're not a spoke, boy," Siuan says to Rand (!). Are they in Tar Valon or did Siuan come to Cairhien? I am not certain from the trailer. There are certain things that indicate they go to Tar Valon but nothing definitive, I think? So it could be that Siuan comes to Cairhien. Because that earlier Siuaraine scene could be when she's dropping off Egwene & Nynaeve or it could be a flashback. "You are the water that turns the Wheel itself."

Wow that was a lot! Okay, I'm going to see what other people think now.

#butterfly watches wot #wot #wheel of time #wot prime spoilers #wot s2 spoilers #wot s2 #wheel of time s2 spoilers #wot speculation #wot on prime spoilers #wot casting spoilers #the wheel of time

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Volume 9 Trailer

Hello, everyone!

There’s no real need for introductions anymore, so let me dive right in by saying it bluntly: I don’t think this is a good trailer. Not just when it comes to the story we’re getting, but also in regards to the construction of the trailer itself. It tells us incredibly little while merely looking like a complex, exciting adventure.

Let’s start, as always, with our opening shot.

We saw the whole of this Wonderland in our teaser, but this time the map is accompanied by Weiss narrating all that’s happened to them since they were separated. This tells the audience that a) the girls reuniting will not be a focal point of the Volume’s conflict and b) the journey is highlighted by its comedy rather than its hardships. We learn that Ruby has befriended a talking mouse, Weiss and Blake dealt with killer vines (and were rescued by an army of more talking mice, so presumably Ruby finds them?), and Yang had her arm stolen by a purple raccoon carrying a wagon full of trash.

Do I really need to point out how misguided the tone is here?

Let’s recap: the group just fought their oldest enemy to the ‘death’ and lost, horrifically. Ruby watched her sister fall into a void and Blake had an actual reaction to that presumed demise. Weiss knows that Penny is Really Dead, having been there when Jaune killed her, and last any of them saw Cinder was waltzing off with two of the relics. They may not know that their portals opened into the hostile desert, but the questions of, “Did we succeed? Are the people safe? Where is Salem now? Where is Jaune? Did he make it?” should be haunting them. I literally don’t care if each girl gets a mini-moment of thinking Sad Thoughts pre-reunion---insert Weiss’ wet eyes here

---because the stakes of the story are now so high they simply can’t go back to that lighthearted ‘Look at all these wacky hi-jinks🤪’ tone. These four girls know they just destroyed a kingdom, they know Salem is out there taking out more of Remnant, they know they’re lost in a strange and hostile world, one of them knows a friend was just killed by a teammate... and the best we can do is a deadpan, “Yes. That.” when they come back together? 

The problem doesn’t solely lie in the girls’ comedic attitudes, but in the writers deciding that the follow-up to Volume 8 should be comedic situations. Imagine if post-Volume 3 the girls immediately had some Wacky Adventures following their school’s destruction, Penny’s death, Yang’s lost arm. Imagine how badly that would have come across... and know that we are getting that kind of contrast six Volumes later.

All this aside, the situations themselves look far from engaging to me. Unless there’s some magic at work, you’re telling me Weiss and Blake can’t break away from some vines, even without their weapons? The girls who frequently put craters in the earth with their aura? The teammate who can create a copy of herself to get out of a (literal) bind? And no, we don’t know the whole context, but this isn’t presented as a high stakes situation... which, again, is the point. We’re supposed to laugh at these quirky problems, not grapple with the avalanche of emotions Volume 8 introduced and now seems inclined to ignore.

Don’t even get me started on Yang having her arm stolen. I’ll head off any push-back by saying that no, the problem is not in having her lose the arm, or even having someone else take it. I’ve been saying for years that RWBY should have taken a FMA approach (or, you know, followed their own in-world rules when they introduced Maria’s eyes as being in need of frequent repair) and introduced the obstacle of Yang’s arm breaking down in the middle of fights, reacting badly to the cold, in need of specific parts she can no longer get once she makes an enemy of Atlas’ general, etc. Other characters can also display ableism as a form of commentary, so having someone else take Yang’s arm---especially a non-human somebody that has presumably never seen a person before and is ignorant of their needs---could be really compelling. All that’s okay.

The problem is we’re treating this as a joke.

The takeaway is not that Yang losing her arm is a deeply uncomfortable experience for her that highlights her struggles as a disabled person and may well have put her in legitimate danger, considering she doesn’t know how to fight one-handed. The takeaway is ‘Lol her arm was taken by a raccoon! A purple raccoon! And put with the trash! Everyone laugh at the idea of someone’s assistive device getting stolen and discarded like that! You know what makes for a cool flash-back gag? Having Yang play tug-of-war with her arm. That’ll get the audience laughing after the horrors of Volume 8!’

In another show I’d be more forgiving and say only that they need to make use of sensitivity readers. But after Volume 8 turned our most physically disabled character into the villain, killed off the android after making her human without her consent, and plain forgot about the blind fighter? I’m not feeling charitable towards stolen arm jokes.

The fact that the raccoon looks like an auctioneer type with the ‘trash’ being things he’s collected to sell may add another layer to this mess.

After Weiss’ voice-over we learn that the girls are trying to reach the tree because they think it may help them get home. This is what I mean about the trailer being badly constructed because that’s all we know about the central quest. It’s staggeringly simple and the journey there is riddled with just a few scenes (and numerous side characters we’ll leave behind) getting broken up into small, re-arranged chunks to make it look like more content than it actually is. We have Blake dealing with the killer vines---trapped, reaching for her weapon, pushing through them at the start---which is something we know happens very early in the volume, likely the first half of the first episode:

Yang standing atop that bridge and perhaps coming across Neo in the mountains:

Ruby finding the pile of leaves, with the creature emerging later in the trailer:

And we see the majority of the encounter with this queen-like character. Ruby is playing fantasy chess with her teammates as the pieces, they battle, get thrown off the board, and then the queen is defeated. As I’ve done below, we can rearrange the quick shots to see the structure of many interactions, all of it spliced up to fill the trailer with a ‘variety’ of content.

Given that I just watched the show + given the obvious Alice allusions, I’m tempted to compare all this to Alice in Borderland’s trailer, a text which actually hints at a lot of the conflict while giving very little away, actively encouraging the viewer to come back after they’ve watched the show because many shots mislead you... but I don’t have time for that tonight lol. The point is: others do it better.

Moving on, we see this version of the Cheshire cat who hurts my eyes, continuing the misguided tone, is introduced to us via a butt joke. I mean seriously, imagine something like this back in Volume 3 and early Volume 4. Picture Qrow coming in to talk to Ruby about her rare silver eyes and the destruction of her school... and leading with some fart pun. It’s so juvenile and while there’s nothing wrong with juvenile on its own, following what we got in Volume 8? It simply doesn’t mesh.

This cat---who can apparently move pieces of himself independently---says,“You do not go to the tree, the tree goes to you, unless of course you’re me… you see” and an unamused shot of Blake and Yang shows that no, they don’t see and they probably don’t care. Really, I haven’t been a fan of the girls’ attitude for several Volumes now, but I’m with them on this one. I wouldn’t be in the mood for riddles after everything they’ve been through either.

Beyond the tree and a few stretched out interactions, the trailer gives us only a bit of internal struggle by having a woman (that knight?) proclaim, “You were never the hero” and asking Ruby if she wouldn’t like to shed her identity like an old coat. Now, on the surface I really like this. From the shot of Ruby facing her old self

to the implication that this Wonderland might capture people by offering them the chance to shed their previous lives---has Jaune fallen victim to this after killing Penny?---it’s a compelling setup to finally, finally give Ruby some emotional growth. And it could be great! The only reason I hesitate to applaud it early is because such setups usually herald the revelation that the protagonist is the hero. Rarely do we end on the idea that they could become a hero if they put significant effort in moving forward (again, Alice in Borderland...) and never, to my knowledge, does the story say, ‘Yeah you DO suck and that’s where we’re leaving things.’ 99.9% of the time a ‘Am I a hero?’ question is answered with an emphatic ‘YES!’ by teammates, friends, family, saved victims, the narrative itself bestowing a power or a relic or anything else that only the Chosen One can wield. Coupled with the fact that it’s likely our antagonist delivering these lines, there’s very little chance that Ruby is going to come out of this experience with the drive to radically change her behavior. Because this trope AND the show’s history is firmly on the side of proving the heroes’ doubts wrong. This Volume will likely work as a reassurance. Like Yang confronting Ren out in the snow, Volume 9 will tell us that Ruby did the right thing, actually, and don’t you feel sorry for her, doubting herself needlessly like that?

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m not invested in a story that’s going to push that perspective even harder than it has in the past, not when the heroes HAVE made horrendous mistakes and the show continually wants us to ignore that. 

What else? Much of the dialogue feels stilted to me, particularly Weiss’ “Let’s try to be more logical, shall we?” There’s no mention of Volume 8’s tragedy except for 1. them trying to get home and 2. a brief shot of Penny, again making me worry that grappling with the biggest defeat of the series is going to take a backseat to Wonderland’s silly, distracting nonsense. I question why Blake thinks they’re in a fairy tale when nothing seen here reflects the in-world stories Remnant has, so are we going to end up with another Volume that simply tells the audience how we should be interpreting things, rather than doing the work to show us? The animators have clearly put a LOT of work into the backgrounds, but I’m personally just not jiving with their look. I can’t even articulate yet why I dislike many of them... the color palettes feel off, there’s this odd mix of chaos and order like they couldn’t decide which to go with... I like the thematic implication of the girls not fitting the art style of the world anymore, but actually watching that give me a headache. My preferences aside, no one is going to be watching this Volume unless they pay Crunchyroll for the access, or wait a whole year. If that was RT’s attempt to nudge more people into paying, they’ve failed spectacularly. Anyone not already eager to get First access to RWBY (which, of course, isn’t First anymore) isn’t going to shell out another subscription when faced with such a wait time. They’re just going to pirate it, the exact thing RT is begging fans not to do. That, or they’ll drop RWBY entirely.

Honestly, I’m struggling to name things I like about this trailer--and this situation in general. I admit freely that in a show with less drama going on, I’d likely be more forgiving of the nitpicks and optimistic about the ambiguous stuff, but here everything the Volume 9 trailer has given us feels like it’s reinforcing the franchise’s problems. They don’t have a coherent story to tell. They don’t know what tone they’re going for. They’re not stable and outright admit that, pleading with fans to keep them afloat. All of this is arriving years late as more horrific stories about the employees’ treatment continues to surface. RWBY needed a stellar trailer to capture the imagination of everyone who’s not a devoted, with-you-until-the-very-end-no-matter-what-you-produce fan and, frankly, I think they failed to deliver.

The last thing I want to say about our trailer is that it perfectly highlights RT’s tendency to repeat tropes from more popular media without understanding why those writing choices worked in the first place. Alice in Wonderland is not a ridiculous, nonsensical acid trip meant to show how ~crazy~ the world is. It’s a commentary on what it’s like to be a little girl navigating an adult world. Everything Alice goes through is an exaggerated, metaphorically-laden version of real life: here’s a rule, here’s a different rule, these two rules contradict, someone’s mad at you, you don’t know why, you’re trying, it’s not good enough, here’s a new rule, it still doesn’t make sense, you want to cry, you want to scream, you want to go home to your cat, your body is so small in this massive world and then it’s suddenly it’s too big and then you’re small again and your tears will surely drown you and through it all the adults are telling you to do better and you don’t know how.

Take, for example, Alice and the Cheshire Cat:

“Please would you tell me,” said Alice, a little timidly, for she was not quite sure whether it was good manners for her to speak first, “why your cat grins like that?”

“It’s a Cheshire cat,” said the Duchess, “and that’s why. Pig!”

She said the last word with such sudden violence that Alice quite jumped; but she saw in another moment that it was addressed to the baby, and not to her, so she took courage, and went on again:—

“I didn’t know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I didn’t know that cats could grin.”

“They all can,” said the Duchess; “and most of ’em do.”

“I don’t know of any that do,” Alice said very politely, feeling quite pleased to have got into a conversation.

“You don’t know much,” said the Duchess; “and that’s a fact.”

Alice did not at all like the tone of this remark, and thought it would be as well to introduce some other subject of conversation.

Alice is timid because she’s speaking to an Important Adult and she knows how easy it is to mess that up. Is she even allowed to speak first? She has a good, genuine question, but is dismissed with an indifferent “they all can” and the non-explanation of “and that’s why.” She’s startled by the sudden violence, scared, and then relieved when it’s not directed at her, though it easily could have been. Through it all Alice stays polite and is thrilled that she’s managing a real conversation... until suddenly a cold tone and an insult tears her down and she tries again to navigate an ever-changing, confusing, intimidating world. Alice in Wonderland is not nonsense for the sake of nonsense. It’s a commentary on how we treat our children.

What is RWBY commenting on?

#rwde #rwby #rwby spoilers #mymetas

[cherrygorilla]

Ethan's Basic Info

Name: Ethan Dombrowski

Ok, I both did and didn't struggle with coming up with potential faceclaims for Ethan. I had no idea where to even start with looking for faceclaims for him for specific decades - I just don't think that I have that broad of a knowledge of actors lol. So, instead, I've split it into actors who I think capture more of how I imagine his physical appearance to be (Heath Ledger & Johnny Depp - both mostly for the hair, let's be real haha), and actors who I think could really capture the lovably chaotic vibe he brings to the table (Matthew Lillard & Milo Manheim). Unconventional - but then again, so is he, so I think it works lmao.

Nicknames: As much as he loves to dish nicknames out to other people, he's never really been given one himself. I mean, his parents didn't even think to give him a middle name - expecting them to be creative enough to come up with a nickname was a bit of a stretch. He would get called his surname in school quite a bit (mostly if he was getting in trouble), but other than that he usually just gets 'Ethan'. If anything, I think his abundance of nicknames for others is just making up for the lack of his own. I like to think he's just waiting for the right person to come along and drop one on him though hehe.

Age: 20

Date of Birth: 4th of April (which is very helpful for him, because 4.4.44 is a ridiculously easy birthday for his pea-sized brain to remember)

Zodiac: Aries

Birthstone: Diamond

Nationality: American and Polish

Sexuality: He doesn't care about labels - he'll sleep with anyone that breathes in his direction...within reason lmao

Birthplace: A rusty trailer home in Tallahassee, Florida

Current Residence: A slightly less rusty trailer home in St Petersburg, Florida

Occupation: Production Assistant and Sound Engineer in the TV & film industry, and the entertainment coordinator for a local bar. He's also (according to Mick) a professional idiot.

Talents/Skills: Playing the guitar, flipping beer mats, putting together flat-pack furniture (because he's the monkey they apparently wrote the instructions for - Miles' words, not mine), doing god-awful impressions, giving inanimate objects personalities, and, despite his deep-rooted clumsiness, he's pretty good on a skateboard.

Birth Order: Youngest of two

Siblings: His older sister, Billie (27)

Parents: Dominik Alfred Dombrowski (deceased) & Nadia Ruth Dombrowski

New Family: Hendrix, his rescue dog, and the closest thing he thinks he'll ever get to a stable family unit. He says he's a black lab for ease, but he only looks like a black lab if you squint and tilt your head; in reality, he's a mutt that the rescue shelter couldn't even pin down to any particular breed - that's part of what made Ethan so drawn to him though: they're both as misunderstood in the world as each other. In terms of human family though, his aunt (Janis) and uncle (Ford) took him in after everything went to shit with his parents - and although he doesn't see much of them anymore, it's comforting to know that he does have some sort of a real support system to count on if he were to need it.

Signature:

Height: 5' 7'' (so many of the actors I picked as his faceclaims are tall, so I tried to make it work for a while, but I just couldn't - he's just got such chaotic little-shit/confident short-king energy in my mind lmao)

Eye Colour: Brown

Hair Colour: Brown

Glasses or contact lenses: He probably needs glasses, but he doesn't care enough to go get an eye test

Distinguishing features: Dimples, a burn scar on his right thumb from messing around with a lighter, a scar on his left wrist he usually hides with a bunch of bracelets/wrist bands, and a lot of really dumb tattoos.

Mannerisms: He's always fidgeting - like always. It doesn't matter if it's with a paper straw wrapper, the end of one of his many wristbands, or the piece of skin next to his nail - he'll even bounce his leg if it comes down to it; he just always needs to be moving in some capacity. He's pretty intense with holding eye contact in conversations too (despite them being half-closed 90% of the time) - and the concept of personal space is totally lost on him.

Health: Mild insomnia and depression. His drug habits also aren't the healthiest, but it's not like he's gonna go to get himself checked out; what he doesn't know can't hurt him.

Hobbies: Playing the guitar (what he spends the majority of his free time doing), walking Hendrix, making terrible decisions, dragging Miles into those terrible decisions (either to join in, or get him out of trouble), napping anywhere and everywhere, collecting cool lighters, smoking weed, getting spontaneous tattoos, thrifting bizarre items of clothing, eating Mexican food, and losing himself in an album for 45 minutes. and annoying the shit out of Mick

Greatest flaw (in their opinion): Probably his lack of drive. Whilst how laidback and carefree he is about life can be a great thing most of the time, it does make him feel kind of empty sometimes not having a goal to reach, or some kind of direction he wants to take his life in. Yeah, it makes life a lot less stressful just living it day to day - not having any responsibilities, or commitments to obsess over - but without any sense of ambition it can start to feel a little…pointless, I guess. 

Best quality (in their opinion): His ability to find the fun in any situation. He was dealt a pretty shitty hand in life, but he's never let it get him down. Sure, he may not always cope with it in the healthiest way, but he is coping - thriving, in fact. He floats through life without a care in the world, and will happily toss a pool noodle to anyone that needs one so they can join him. He's optimistic, and authentic, and downright stupid sometimes, but it's those qualities that help people see the bright side in hopeless situations; he draws the fun to the surface, and helps you focus on the simple joys life has to offer, without letting the weight of your troubles drag you down.

Biggest fear: Clowns are his big one - and always the answer if anyone asks. But if he's being totally honest (which is almost never when it comes to serious stuff like this), then it's ending up like his parents. He has a handful of fond memories of his family growing up - his older sister probably has more since she was around for more of the good years - but his unplanned arrival stretched the family's already tight budget razor thin, and it didn't take long for things to go to shit as a result. His dad never had a particularly strong resolve (something he's paranoid about having inherited), and so when things got hard, his already established relationship with drugs became less casual, and more heavily reliant. When the tamer stuff didn't cut it anymore, he turned to the harder stuff, and when the harder stuff stopped helping him feel better - he stopped feeling anything at all. Ethan's mom took her husband's accidental overdose hard, but she found being a single mother even harder. And whilst Ethan knew she was struggling, he's still struggling to forgive her for shutting down on her kids in the way she did. Yeah, fine, lose your job and sleep on the couch all day, ignore your children for days on end - whatever you needed to do to get by - but go out to get your latest fix and go down for 15 years for manslaughter? …That's asking a lot. Like it was mentioned earlier, with his parents out of the picture, his aunt and uncle took him and his sister in, and whilst they might not be the greatest role models themselves in terms of addictive vices, they at least showed him how to open his mind in a safe, supervised environment. Yes, numbing his brain to keep out the bad thoughts is an unhealthy coping mechanism, but it's also beautifully freeing - and there's a lot of fun to be had if you know what's safe and what kind of high you're looking for (which, thanks to his aunt's guidance, he always does). He has a great set of friends keeping him on the straight and narrow now, and his lawyer sister clearly turned her equally shitty hand in life around, but that nagging paranoia about screwing his life up like his old folks did still haunts his thoughts in the wee hours of the morning when he can't get his brain to fall asleep… But that's way too deep and depressing, so he'll stick with clowns - or Miles telling him he's found a new best friend 😢

Hogwarts House: Gryffindor (it was between that or Hufflepuff, but I think he's too recklesss and overbearing to be a Hufflepuff haha)

Favourite Ice Cream Flavour: Cookies 'n Cream

Favourite Colour: Green - but he can be very easily swayed; he thinks they're all fun

Favourite Number: 420 babyyyyy 😎🍃🔥💨🤪💯

Favourite Movie: Wayne's World or the live action Scooby Doo - but his Wet Side Story universe pick would be A Bucket of Blood

Favourite Songs: Ok, this is a really tough category for him, because he has a very deep appreciation for a very broad spectrum of music genres. But, a (slightly) narrowed down list would probably look something like: Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, Creep by Radiohead, Enter Sandman by Metallica, Hotel California by the Eagles, Vienna by Billy Joel, Does Your Mother Know by ABBA, Happy Together by The Turtles, Life Is A Highway by Rascal Flatts, Fight For Your Right by the Beastie Boys, The Muppet Show theme song & Hurricane by Bridgit Mendler

A place they want to visit: Niagara Falls - purely because he wants a souvenir t-shirt

#I finally did it! #it's probably wayyy too detailed #but I just had so much fun putting it together I couldn't help myself lol #I'm starting to get a real soft spot for him #he feels like a scrawny little baby bird I need to nurture and protect lmao #ok - i think that's my cue to get to bed hahaha #Ethan

[bearmemesreviews]

Skylanders Review: Trigger Happy

Oh yes, my first fave. Let's talk about one of the many "subspecies" of Skylanders: The Gremlins. You see, since a major part of the Skylanders are the collectible figures, they would obviously need a way to make manufacturing them easier. So, while each figure is obviously unique in how it's detailed, they will often use a specific body type as templates for multiple figures. Similarly to how Neopets and their alternate forms work. Spyro shares the "Dragon Template" with several other characters, which we'll see soon, but for now we have the "Gremlin Template".

[Image: Trigger Happy is a short Gremlin with a Firey orange and sandy tan color scheme. His body is covered in uniformly orange fur, with the inside of his ears and the entire front of his body/the area acting as his face being tan. He has small stumpy feet and muppety three fingered hands with forearms thicker than the rest of his limbs. He has yellow eyes with black irises, almost always crooked, alongside fur around & in-between his eyes that's orange - making a pattern resembling a domino mask. He is almost always smiling with his comically large tongue hanging out, with teeth that are almost human-like with sharp canines. He wields two large pistols designed to fire gold coins, and in this specific image, he's straddling a golden cartoon missile Dr. Strangelove style.]

With Trigger Happy you'll be able to get what the body type is all about. A neckless and round being, more like the head itself is its entire body, supported by four limbs. There's not many of them, but each one is so unique it really does highlight how you can stretch one body type in so many ways.

Trigger Happy is a mysterious little guy, being the token "crazy loose cannon" as his name would suggest. He simply showed up one day, explicitly role playing as a western hero type, and protected frontier towns from bandits with custom-made guns that used coins as ammo. He's a Tech Skylander, as being an engineering savant is basically second nature to all fictional Gremlins, and he can even bring out a Coin Gatling gun as a special move.

He has a high pitch, kinda grating, voice; but in early Skylanders trailers he has an accent that sounded like an incomprehensible mix of Spaniard and Frenchman - almost like he's a Team Fortress 2 character.

In fact, doesn't that game have its own...

Anyway, I love these reviews because it really does highlight why I love my favorites. Trigger has a simple design, but making one of your playable characters marketed towards children a gremlin packing heat is just instantly hilarious. And it's only today, as I'm writing this, that I realize that the pattern of fur on his face is meant to resemble a domino mask. That really ties together his "Goldslinger aesthetic," though I still think he needed a ten-gallon hat.

Alternates: I don't know if I'll talk about all the recolors and occasional redesigns some Skylanders get, but I feel like I should tell you guys that Tigger Appy gets to wear an Evel Knievel Daredevil's costume for Superchargers, the game where the Skylanders get to Mario Kart with Bowser and Donkey Kong. Both he and the other two I reviewed by now have another-other form, but they're so weird we'll have to review those things by themselves down the road.

We'll get to Gimmicks once we get to Giants.

Trigger Happy is a fun exploration of his trope, and it's nice to know that the Skylanders team had bangers right out the gate considering he's one of the first few original Skylanders designed after the beta five.

Motto: "No Gold, No Glory." - Great Catchphrase, even if it's very obvious that it doesn't apply to him specifically. His lore outright states that the townsfolk that he saves get rich from the amount of gold coins his battles leave behind. I think that concept applies to the NPCs of Mario and Sonic games too, considering those two mascots become ATM machines whenever they walk into anything with a sharp corner.

The same thing happens to babies by the way. 4/5.

Trigger Happy gets 5 Chompies. The first of my personal roster.

Those cowards couldn't even be bothered to arm this child.

#bmoreviewsskylanders #bmoreviews #skylanders #skylanders spyro's adventure #trigger happy #gremlin

[discluded]

I know Mile and Apo fans are their main fanbase and bread and butter but they should have done the press tour very differently if BOC didn't want Mansuang to be viewed as a BL film. Apo and Bas should have been teamed up for the press tour along with Mile and Tong. All four should have gone abroad for the overseas premiers and even if not for one of the big magazines like vogue should have done more interviews and photoshoots together (all 4) for the movie. They should have played around with the pairing a lot more for the press tour. Bas and Tong had massive parts in the movie and according to critics did very well in the movie.They should have been promoted more in their own press tour for their film. The intention of Mansuang was a Mile Apo movie but that clearly isn't what the end product was and they should have promoted it as an ensemble film. This is not even taking into account the actual veteran actors and actresses in the film that got absolutely 0 press. Let the women and older actors in your film actually promote the film to their own fans and that demographic? People don't go to the movies just for young good looking men. They actually had a lot to work with and I think Mansuang would have done a lot better locally if they hadn't completely blown the marketing for this film in a rushed few weeks with overloaded content that followed the BL marketing handbook that they used for KP.

the lack of acknowledgement of the veteran actors on the posters and in the trailer was something @moerusai and I both noticed and talked about. I think we mainly kept quiet at the time because there was soooo much complaining, from the size of the characters on the poster to how often the specific posters rotated at what venues, it just would be piling on legitimate issues on top of petty complaints.

there were well known, well respected actors in the cast who would've been an audience draw. I have a handful of actors I'll go to see a film for, *knowing* they're playing a side character (thinking mainly of Tom Hardy and Ben Whishaw here, who shine as leads and support).

Mile and Apo both made jokes about how difficult it must have been for the artist who made the Man Suang posters to have worked with Pond. there's many fan accounts of Pond's perfectionism in running KPWT... he often seems myopic on perfectionism to the point of missing the main points (here, having a poster that pleased him over missing the overarching man suang marketing campaign...)

I also miss actor mileapo... 😔

not to make riches out of others' misfortune but the WGA strike and the SAG strike did potentially help in getting them on the map prior to White Lotus scripting and casting. There was already some momentum in getting them into the show as guest actors. If that happened it would be a wonderful way for them to get into a series where they're not doing the heavy lifting end to end of fundraising / script development all the way through coming up with marketing. 🙃

the problem with the fandom and having inherited the attitude of entitled musician / kpop fandoms is the constant hunger for new content and getting to see them. film / series take a lot more time to develop. you can drop a single or music videos in preparation for the launch of an album or just as a stand alone single, and most fans just don't seem to recognize that discrepancy in the lift. there were toxic apc solos complaining in August about how the year is "almost over" and Apo had "nothing" as though he didn't spend the majority of the year working on the movie.

anyway the hunger for content makes product promo much more accessible and bite sized... people just aren't patient enough. so many people were mad and antsy when MA were shooting man suang and trying to limit spoilers by showing very little that they threw fits over there not being new content when MA were literally working on the content that is the main dish of the whole meal.

anyway. yeah I agree. fingers crossed the uni icon product will go through relatively quick production and white lotus will pick them 🤞

#mileapo #mileapo as actors #man suang #man suang promo

[seventeenlovesthree]

Okay, where do I even begin to describe what yesterday did to me? Following all the character descriptions that mentioned these two specifically to be “extremely” busy, I initally assumed that they’d be busy in university related stuff. Thanks to the trailer/other video material, I was proven wrong - and yet, I couldn’t have been more thrilled about it.

So what do we know? A giant digiegg appeared in the sky for approximately the twentieth time by now. And thanks to Takeru, we know that Koushirou has apparently been, once again, suffering from a severe lack of sleep, obviously being very invested in political affairs, explaining and managing the whole issue to the public. And it’s not only him - Taichi is there too, and, according to Hikari, being so stressed that he actively scolded her for calling him while he was busy. Quite the unusual behaviour for the Yagami brother, as Takeru also puts it himself...

Apart from the fact that I wish Toei would finally let these two get some deserved REST, the implications behind the set-up are pretty intriguing. We’ve been discussing whether or not it makes sense that Taichi (approximately 23/24 years old) is already involved in all the political stuff - since this is taking place in February 2012, just one and a half years after the events of Kizuna (Summer 2010), since he had, apparently, just finalized his thesis idea in Spring 2011 according to the end of the movie, but...

I think it makes sense to some degree - because this seems to be an emergency and they needed an excuse for him and Koushirou to not take up so much screentime during the movie again, soooo... Having Koushirou (approximately 22/23 years old) involved at this level is plausible, since he had been publicly invested in Chosen Children related stuff with the community, his company work, etc all the time. And heck... Knowing what direction Taichi was going towards to career-wise, he WOULD have taken him with him to settle things (while the other Chosen did the fighting part), even if Taichi was still in training. 

Because that’s what they are - partners in crime, always have been, always will be. Whether they stop missiles together, save the world(s) or take responsibility on a diplomatic level. And that’s EXACTLY what I wanted for them to happen, for us to actually see them working together due to their linked careers, because, it just makes so much sense.

Also their ties? I was very much delighted by the headcanon that Taichi’s tie is actually Koushirou’s, but the shade seems a bit more yellowish than the orange one Koushirou wore in Kizuna. (That aside, Taichi wearing a blue suit, still loyally rocking his associated colour so persistently, is amazing to me.) And Koushirou’s tie is a reddish-purplish shade, as far as I can tell - but that kind of purple doesn’t seem to be his signature colour. (I really wonder if there is anything but suits in his closet by now, but hey, it works for him.)

Instead, I believe that they represent Agumon and Tentomon respectively - and whether they’re both partnerless in this movie or not... It’d be a great homage. 

That is all just speculation on my behalf and I do assume that we won’t see any more of them in the movie aside from those 3 seconds, but I’m already happy with the (potential) framing. If I could ask for a happy end for the movie though, a scene like this would be very satisfying.

And they were work buddies...

#my doodles #taishirou #taishiro #digimon adventure the beginning #taichi yagami #koushirou izumi #koushiro izumi #I AM VERY EMOTIONAL OKAY??? #i completely lost track of digiweek which i am endlessly sorry about but heck this was such a nice distraction #i am very anxious at the moment so this is making me so unbelievably happy you have no idea #fanart #digimon

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

By the by, regarding all the recent DreamWorks developments: KUNG FU PANDA 4 almost out, THE WILD ROBOT trailer out, the recent release of ORION AND THE DARK (still have to watch it, it's part of my animation ketchup alongside Pixar short SELF and a few other things), etc.

I have no reason to speak of this new MEGAMIND "movie" that's really just a pilot movie to a streaming series made by DreamWorks Animation TELEVISION. Not worth the energy, nothing for me to really talk about. I see some people on twitter all abuzz about it, with considerable fury. How DreamWorks fucked this up so bad! And how DreamWorks is so "inconsistent", how the WILD ROBOT is going to be an "apology" for this MEGAMIN- roflmao are you **serious**? Are you SERIOUS right now?

Different studio, number one... This would be like someone grilling Disney in spring 1994 for THE RETURN OF JAFAR, and suggesting that THE LION KING made up for that or whatever. Do these people hear themselves when they talk? DreamWorks' TV division has been making all sorts of lower-budget streaming fodder for years now, and they've only ramped it up in the recent years. These are the equivalents of the Disney DTV sequels and spin-off things.

But also, there are a concerning amount of animation fans out there who seem to look at DreamWorks - like any big studio - like it's one person. One author directing every movie. A "Mr. DreamWorks" fellow that directed everything from THE LAST WISH to TROLLS BAND TOGETHER to this MEGAMIND direct-to-streaming thing. If "animation is cinema" to you, then you ought to understand WHO is exactly working on these things... Not the buildings where they're being made. And think twice before you use THE LAST WISH as a meter that TROLLS 3 or *heck* any DreamWorks movie needs to live up to. Never mind that each filmmaker has their own aims. Maybe TROLLS 3 or whatever isn't made for *you* specifically, and that someone else out there really likes it. And that's fine. DreamWorks can make fantasy adventures about swashbuckling cats for general audiences, and movies for 6-year-old horse girls, and a lot in-between. Something for everyone!

I know, it's a bit hard for some people because animated features are literally branded like that. It's never Joel Crawford's PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH, it's DreamWorks' PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH. Ditto Walt Dohrn's TROLLS BAND TOGETHER or Kirk DeMicco's RUBY GILLMAN, TEENAGE KRAKEN, Mike Mitchell's KUNG FU PANDA 4. THE WILD ROBOT is getting an extra level of love because it's from a pretty well-recognized animated movie director, Chris Sanders. Some other directors in animated movie-making don't have that pedigree nor level of love, that household name status... They tend to be overshadowed by the studio name, the BRAND.

But I look past that. And each production has its crews, its circumstances. I can only imagine what the people working on the MEGAMIND thing had at their disposal, ya know?

I also get that a legit DreamWorks Animation theatrical MEGAMIND 2 is something a lot of fans wanted. I get that. It's okay to feel that, even as a direct-to-streaming movie and show, there was a downgrade in quality here. But like a lot of various fandoms, I feel it's expressed with the tact of a freaked out horse, kicking its back hooves all over the place. I generally tend to ignore things like this, I kinda know what I'm getting myself into. I grew up in the '90s, when it was not only Disney direct-to-video sequels everywhere, but tons of other stuff too. There was a FERNGULLY 2 and a SECRET OF NIMH 2 and BALTO 2 and a SWAN PRINCESS 3, 4, 5, 6 just kept going, and seemingly a gazillion LAND BEFORE TIME sequels. In addition to other weird random animated bin fodder. And I remember as a kid, them just mostly being... Whatever, for me. That's this MEGAMIND thing. It's not for me. I didn't bother with that BAD GUYS Christmas special, either.

Especially when there are other things for me to worry about in life. I just genuinely don't enjoy ranting about these things, or getting all upset about them. Even when I kinda want to (like with, say, TRON: ARES, a film I'm largely unhappy about), I have to tell my 31-year-old self "No... No..." I try to be fair in my criticism most of the time, especially when talking about - say - recent Disney Animation films or whatever. So yeah... No reason for me to dive into MEGAMIND TV Movie Thing. I guess this was my James Rolfe GHOSTBUSTERS No Review I Refuse moment, lol.

[whatyourusherthinks]

Late Night With The Devil Review

I didn't know anything this movie. It randomly arrived in theater with no fanfare, trailers, not even a poster. It is going away really fast too. Turns out the horror streaming service Shudder put it out for a limited time in theaters before making it exclusive online. The only other thing I knew about the movie was that they use AI art in part of the movie. I will get to that.

What's The Movie About?

The movie is essentially a found footage of the final episode of a fictional late night sketch show as well as behind the scenes footage detailing what went down to make it the final episode.

What I Like.

To start with, I liked all the characters. Most of them are selfish or jerks, but I still empathized with a good chunk, liked their motivations, and was invested with their role in the plot. A highlight for me was the stage magician skeptic character, if someone makes me play Call of Cthulhu ever again I want to play that guy. I quite like the set up and staging of the story, it built tension wonderfully. I also really liked the back drop of seventies cultural revolution, and more specifically, the satanic panic. It does telegraph some of the reveals but there isn't a huge mystery to the story so I didn't mind.

But my favorite thing is thus: Late Night With the Devil is an analogue horror story higher budget. (Or at least a higher budget than the typical YouTube videos that employ this style of horror.) What that means is that the movie emulates older forms of media, complete with glitched visuals and audio, and the movie uses it to find a subtler narrative underneath the upfront story. I really like analogue horror when it is done well. It can create some of the most disturbing ideas and presentations in horror. Some analogue horror can be too vague, where it's just weird shit with no context because the creators figure the fans will piece together anything and that justifies them barely writing a story. It works best when there is a complete narrative with creepier hints sprinkled throughout that imply a darker story. Which is what Late Night With The Devil does. I will say the secondary story might be a bit too obvious, I picked it up on my first time watching and most people I talked to figured it out as well. But I vastly prefer that to seemingly random bullshit that we'll just let the internet figure out what it means.

What I Didn't Like.

Three things. One, there is a coda at the beginning of the movie setting up the movie itself as lost footage being shown as the movie you are watching. But there is no coda at the end. The movie just kinda stops after the finale. It just feels like a loose end that could have easily been tied, and hell, even set up a sequel or connected movie. I'd watch more of these kinds of movies.

Two, while the gore effects are good, the rest are not. Honestly, they are so bad it takes away from the horror of the movie. There was only one scene I thought was scary, and it was because of those great gore effects. But there is a part where a character vomits themselves to death and I wasn't scared at all because of the clearly fake puke.

And three, the AI art. Here we fucking go. When I first heard about it, I assumed it was abstract art. So I just rolled my eyes and said "You really couldn't just splash some paint on a poster board and film it or something? Hell, give a production member's toddler 5 bucks to scribble all over some paper." But watching the movie, the AI artwork is actually supposed to resemble objects, such as a television, owl, and skeleton. Imagine me rubbing my face with both hands when I say Jesus H Fucking Christ. To start with, it looks bad. AI art does not do details properly at all, giving it any amount of scrutiny reveals how bad it is. Also, you couldn't just take ten minutes in photoshop to put an owl on an old tv? Pay a fucking artist to make art, don't use AI! It's objectively not that bad of an addition to the movie, but we can give no quarter on this issue. The moment that corporations replacing job with AI becomes normalized is the moment that we lose.

Final Summation.

I thought Late Night With The Devil was incredibly interesting and quite good. I wasn't being facetious when I said I would watch more of these kinds of movies. Analogue horror is a extremely fun method of story telling, if you do it right. And I think this particular setting could be expanded in quite a number of directions. Or if the Shudder studios want to keep making this kind of horror with different ideas, I would be down for that as well.

#Late Night With The Devil #Recommended Movies

[drawnbinary]

It's me again! I hope that you don't mind me chatting you up, just say so if you do, I'll understand! 😅

Do you think that Hassel can be originally from Johto? Since Blackthorn City is a home of probably the most well-known active dragon clan in the series so far (since Draconids, the people Zinnia's from, are mostly gone)? I've seen theories that the little cape Hassel has on his jacket is a call back to the capes "dragon tamer" trainer class has (and I'm mostly agreeing with this). And when I thought about it, I had this idea: What if Hassel's first pokemon wasn't the baxcalibur that's his ace now, but the dragonite he uses in the school champion tournament? Since the dragon clan from Blackthorn mostly uses the dratini line. What if he got that dragonite as a dratini when he was a kid and raised it his whole life, and now kinda retired it after a lifetime of battling? Baxcalibur is his main now during champion assesment, but he brings out dragonite for some friendly competition every once in a while, like the school championship. And, of course, that would mean that Hassel, Lance and Claire are distantly related.

Oh and I think that Hassel is totally besties with Rika. Gay/lesbian solidarity who go to brunches together. I think that it would be a fun contrast between his husband being such a grandiose artistic mind and his bestie being a very grounded and sober-thinking person.

Oh my god, could you imagine if the DLC will allow us to have some kind of a gym leader/elite four doubles tournament like they did in SWSH? If I'll get to see Hassel and Brassius fight together in doubles as partners I think that I will explode.

I'm also super excited to see them both in the anime and maybe, down the line, in masters. And I hope that they will somehow will return/be referenced in the DLCs- the first one is a school trip, so maybe Hassel will go as a chaperone.

And I totally get you about fanfics and such- I'd love to write something for them one day, when I will have a specific concept in mind. I'm thoroughly disappointed that I can't find any character studies for them, my favorite genre 😔 do you have any headcanons you'd like to share? 👀

You're definitely not alone on pretty much all of those >:D

Again, under a cut because I'm long-winded lol

I've got Hassel from Johto, Galar, or a region we haven't been to yet. Regardless of which region, I figure all the dragon clans are connected in some way so he's cousins with Lance and Clair in some sort of way. The childhood dratini -> semi-retired dragonite is definitely one I've seen and discussed before. I think the fic where Hassel rescues/nurtures a sick baby one isn't on AO3 but it's cemented for me that he's had it since he was young <3

The cape is a nice visual to connect him to other dragon tamers and it being short and part of his jacket also separates him from the dramatic looks of Lance and Clair

I think Rika teases Hassel for being old and out of touch but it's just friendly banter. I hope she was the one who told him about "fleek" over a cup of coffee with pastries.

I pray so hard for them teaming up for double battles (my drawing of them in a silly double battle pose) and/or for them to be at the festival at all (I drew them in the outfits from the trailer). I'm hoping for crumbs at most but I definitely want so much more of these two. They're so interesting.

I am so impatient to see Hassel in the anime. Besides that I love him, I also need to see him moving in 2D so I can figure out how to draw him better/more easily because he gives me so much trouble 😅. I want to know what kind of voice they give him too. Brassius' voice surprised me but it worked really well and wasn't distracting

If they end up in Masters, then I will be downloading Masters. God I want to see them put in funky alternate outfits. And whatever else happens in that game.

I'm super self-conscious about writing (and as you can imagine from my drawings, I'm all about that soft, tender shit) so most things I write pretty much live on Discord

I'm a little head-empty right now so the only headcanon that immediately comes to mind is that Brassius being ill and them spending a lot of quiet time together while Hassel helps care for him gave them both time to figure out their feelings and they don't do anything about it until after Brassius is better.

[syntiment]

hello you've got me very interested in edancy, i love a good rarepair ;) im very curious, was there any specific thing that made you ship them, like a moment in s4 or something you read or saw that reminded you? im interested how you came to this ship, its intriguing to me and i'd like to hear your perspective on it!

also LOVE your art it's so beautiful and pretty and so warm and makes me have the warm fuzzies, i love it!!

AWW THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

Welcome to Edancy hell, we have matching jackets. I also call the ship Seven Miles with my friend so if you ever see me refer to that, I'm talking about Edancy.

They have a lot of very subtle moments on screen that really made me interested in their character dynamic. The fact that Eddie just knows that the Wheeler residence is seven miles from his trailer THAT quickly- the ways he's very touchy with her, Nancy's interaction with Wayne and not buying people saying he's a killer immediately. They share a lot of looks that give me a vibe. And also the entire scene with Eddie pep talking Steve "if it were me I would get her back" and then making Steve cover up can both be read as a bit of jealousy which is a fun take on it.

They very much fulfill that opposites attract quota in terms of aesthetics with Nancy being mostly dressed in pastels and seeming very put together and organized while Eddie is in a lot of dark grungier clothing with a more laidback and laissez faire attitude. And yet they have a lot of the same core values with both of them being fiercely protective of whoever they consider "their" people, they have a distinct lack of respect for authority because of being failed by those in power around them often, they both have rather niche interests and are sort of loners even despite the initial appearance (ie: Nancy has enough friends to be counted on one hand, none of whom are very close to her. And despite the Corroded Coffin boys being Eddie's group at school, none of them went looking for him when shit hit the fan). They're both extremely passionate and stubborn people, the perfect types to uplift and encourage one another through the pursuits of their interests and who are both independent and reliant in equal parts to make the balance of their relationship work very, very well.

In short, they have the perfect personality types to make a romance between them really work out long term. Plus, they both can understand and relate to a lot of what the other has gone through. Survivors guilt is a huge aspect in both of their stories.

Eddie needs someone who won't back down and will help him stand his ground and who's motivated and dedicated enough to be able to give him the fire to follow his dreams and stand against the tide. And Nancy needs someone emotionally available and light enough to remind her that there's more to life then the isolation and expectations she lets people press upon her, and someone who will put the wind under her wings when she's getting weighed down by her own self doubt and fears of failure.

And the other is quite literally the exact archetype to achieve those points.

I came into liking Edancy because they had a cute dynamic on screen but I'm also a collaborative creative writer in my free time (which is a fancy way of saying I roleplay really huge DnD scale elaborate storytelling venture epics with friends where we write canon and oc characters in a show/game/movie setting, in this case we're writing our take on Stranger Things Season Five) and my friend and I jokingly talked about them as a romantic relationship, quickly realizing just how good for each other they are. And the more we looked the more we discovered a really strong chemistry and it was all downhill from there basically. We're hooked. Edancy is by far my OTP right now, I'll die on this hill honestly. My friend is here with me, also dying on this hill LMAO.

ANYWAY THIS IS VERY LONG- but yeah, there's a lot about them that just... work very well.

#Edancy #seven miles #thank you for the message!! #In case you're wondering I write for Nancy and my oc Clementine #And my friend writes Eddie

[adamalade]

OSF’S 2023 ROMEO AND JULIET - FUCKING AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OH MY GOD!!!!! I had the privilege of seeing it a few nights ago and it just… wow. It’s a creative take on an already awesome story, and the actors have great chemistry.

It’s set in a modern homeless encampment, which may seem daunting or uninteresting at first, but it adds another layer of interest to the story. It adds depth to the conflict— if they worked together and put aside this senseless feud, they might be able to help each other, but they don’t. It also creates amazing opportunities for setting and costuming. Juliet’s bedroom is truly stunning for how simple it is- just a bed in a room- but the creative way that they constructed the bed, with sleeping bags and cinder blocks and more, as well as the graffiti-style art on her walls makes it stunning. There’s a moment in the balcony scene when Romeo is sitting on the end of the trailer that her room is on top of, and he leans his head against the ladder. It’s so cute!!

The chemistry the two leading actors have is stunning. Ordinarily, I’m like, “right okay they’re getting married tomorrow whatever sure” but with these two, Jada and Jeremy, I can believe that they would get married within a week, because they are truly so admiring of each other. They keep the original script and their chemistry injects new life into it! In the scene after they wake up together and she’s begging him to stay, it doesn’t feel stilted with the 16/17th century language. It feels like two actual young people, putting it off for just a few more minutes so that they can stay together for just another moment. There’s a little detail in the scene where they get married that KILLED me, oh my GOD it was so cute. I know that if I describe it it won’t do it justice, it’ll just sound awkward and stilted, so I won’t, but if you see it you’ll know what I mean.

The acting is phenomenal. All five (?) deaths are stunningly acted; you can really feel Mercutio’s pain- he’s not just walking around, he is dying on the ground, he is dying for gods sake- Romeo’s terror when he kills Tybalt, the fight between Romeo and Paris has fantastic choreography, and Romeo and Juliet’s grief over each other. There’s a moment when Juliet kills herself and another as she dies that just really killed me; I was already sobbing, and it just gutted me.

(Also Jeremy is really cute and Romeo’s romantic lines only enhance that… everyone was fangirling over him during intermission, haha)

If you can afford it, you have GOT to go see this. If you can’t, I’ve heard that they may be selling recordings after the production is over, but that’s all the way in October. I really, truly, cannot recommend it enough.

(I also got to see RENT for the first time, and it was also really cool and amazing- the actors for Roger and Mimi have killer voices, for example- but I’ve never seen it before so I have nothing to compare it to. It’s worth seeing it just by itself however!)

Here are two videos from the OSF YouTube page!

I swear to god, Juliet and Romeo are my blorbos now but SPECIFICALLY jada and Jeremy’s Juliet and Romeo. Leonardo DiCaprio? Olivia Hussey? I don’t know them. Jada Alston Owens and Jeremy Gallardo ONLY.

I got to talk to some actors after the performance, and not only were they kind enough to sign my program, but my group got a group photo with Jada and Jeremy, a couple people got individual pics with both of them, my sibling got a picture with Mercutio’s actor, myself and two others ran into the actor for Tybalt at lunch the day after and got to talk and get a couple pictures, and my sibling got another picture with the lovely person who played Angel in RENT.

Little “spoilers” below — not plot, but little moments that you’ll want to experience live for the first time. My words won’t do them justice.

Characters like Gregory and benvolio making lewd gestures to go along with all the sex jokes in the first part

Mercutio rapping multiple times and doing it like a king!!!

A light-up cross rising up from friar Lawrence’s van. Everyone laughed lol

Balthasar playing his guitar for the marriage ceremony

The aforementioned moment in the wedding

The very, very sharp tone change from the comedic, romantic part to OH SHIT MERCUTIO AND TYBALT ARE DEAD

Romeo trying to not only get the murder weapon away from tybalt and failing so his friend is killed anyway but then trying to staunch the bleeding, only to be pushed away by Mercutio as he’s curled up on the ground

Lady Capulet losing it over Tybalt’s death

When Romeo is in grief over his banishment and Lawrence scolds him, but then tries to comfort him, and Romeo just turns away, because friar Lawrence was who he could trust, and he berated his grief

When Romeo and Juliet wake up together and he tries to leave without waking her to try and spare her from having to watch him leave…… they invented romance

Lord and Lady Capulet’s fantastic acting when they wake to find that Juliet is “dead”

Paris pulling the engagement ring he gave to Juliet OFF OF HER CORPSE

In the Romeo-Paris fight when one of them (I can’t remember which one it was) gets the upper hand and repeatedly slams their opponent’s head into the ground. Yikessssss

The two moments I mentioned earlier: Juliet pulling up with the knife once she stabs herself, plus there actually being fake blood on her—While Juliet is dying, she wraps Romeo’s arm around her, sobbing as she lays down and dies. That was the moment that really got me

#osf #oregon shakespeare festival #Shakespeare #william shakespeare #romeo and juliet #romeo montague #juliet capulet #jada Alston Owens #Jeremy gallardo #RENT #angel dumott schunard #Z infante #also z uses they/them pronouns #and the person who plays mark uses they/faerie pronouns which is just awesome #Jada and Jeremy just use she/her and he/him pronouns #theatre #theater #musical theater #musical theatre #ashland #Ashland Oregon #ashland Shakespeare festival #side note ashland is adorable and i want to move there so bad #Youtube #rec #recommendation #show recommendations #theater review #also Paris is gay I don’t make the rules #lord capulet he is NOT interested in Juliet