#update; this is absolutely correct for movie them

[writerbuddha]

Not just a Star Wars issue?

In 2020, a vibrant, colorful video essay appeared on YouTube, titled, “The Lion King Explained: Let the Darkness In.” To summarize its main conclusions: Mufasa was fundamentally flawed and his flaws resulted in his death and the fall of his kingdom. He refused to see and confront evil, ill intentions and darkness. He gave no means to Simba to deal with his severe trauma, or to address the unpleasant, apart from pushing it away. This resulted in Simba repressing his emotions and running away. His naive refusal to confront ugly truths left his kingdom weak and untested. What's more, he is an absolute and even god-like monarch, thus Scar's anger over not being king echoes valid critiques of his society’s injustice and inequality. However, his only solution is hate, anger and destruction. Only Simba, the young, conflicted, new king is able to confront the darkness that his father explicitly refused and denied to do so, becoming a better, stronger king, addressing the injustice and inequality in Mufasa's kingdom.

And what is one of the most popularized reading of Star Wars today? The Jedi lost their way, they turned a blind eye to the fact that the Republic is ruled by an oppressive elite, they gave no means to Anakin to deal with his severe trauma, they taught him to repress his emotions, they feared and ignored the dark side of the Force. Anakin turned to the dark side due to the Jedi neglecting and mistreating his traumas and teaching him to push away his emotions. He actually had a point, so does the Sith, but they offered only hatred, anger and destruction as an answer. Thus, the Jedi contributed to their own demise, which was sad and largely undeserved, but necessary. Luke, after proving the old Jedi Masters wrong in their black-and-white morality and thinking, by embracing his emotions, confronting the dark side, reforms the Jedi Order, which is stronger, better, more equal and healthy than the old one.

Can we point out a pattern here?

The old and their old ways created problems like inequality and injustice due to their black-and-white morality and thinking inherent to them, and now they're unable and unwilling to address and solve them, which ultimately causes their demise. Then, a young hero arrives: the old are trying to get him to suppress his emotions and continue their old, flawed ways. This young hero is traumatized or otherwise struggling with their mental health, that the old are systematically neglecting or even contributing to it and leading to severe consequences. Meet our villain: they actually have a point, however, the hero shouldn't follow their footsteps, because all they offer is rage, destruction, hate and so on. It's only the young one, who can surpass both emotional repression and anger, hate and destruction, who corrects and educates the system, the old ways and the old ones. 

I start to think that what we witness is a "Gen Z narrative" starting to invade fandoms, drowning out all the original messages and lessons of these stories, replacing it with "Old = fanatic, bigoted, dogmatic, black-and-white and myopic, and Young = progressive, tolerant, spectrum-thinker, rationalist, updated" - people almost compulsively trying to locate this new trope in the movies and books they love, because they need this view validated, they need their ego boosted, even if this means ignoring the actual stories they allegedly "fans" of.

This narrative is often tangled with Western-centrism: what was unknown to the West, was unknown to the world as a whole, thus, the Gen Z Hero, equipped with Western psychology, philosophy, values and cultural and social costumes, is inherently superior, communicates new, never seen before, life-changing revelations to the previous generations, wherever they go. And this seem to attract certain millennials as well.

It started somewhere around the mid-2010s and now it peaks.

Where will this lead us?

#luke skywalker #star wars #fandom #yoda #the lion king #gen z problems #tw trauma #jedi order #disney #star wars fandom

[dukeofriven]

So I haven't watched Spy Kids for probably 20 years? It came out in 2001, I never saw in theatres, but my stepbrother had it on VHS. I remember watching it several times when my step-mum and father first started dating but never after they moved into a house together, which I think cannot have been any later than 2003. The podcast How Did This Get Made just got me to watch 2004's Sleepover staring Spy Kids' Alex Vega, and it had me going 'man, I should rewatch Spy Kids, a film I used to love—hell I should watch all the Spy Kids movies because I've only ever seen the first and Robert Rodriguez is a director whose work I want to dive into' and since its 2023, with a little bit of effort I can easily do that. (Also, I always thought, based on a vague knowledge of their similar poster design, that Spy Kids 3D and The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl were the same movie, but apparently not! Also, Sharkboy et al. had a 2021 sequel? That was popular? And is getting its own sequel? Will have to investigate.) Thoughts on the opening ten minutes of my Spy Kids rewatch:

This production logo is so ugly it causes me physical pain. I hate this boy with his Kate Moss arms (Miraculous Ladybug arms, for you youngsters out there), his ugly beanie, and unbearable smirk.

Also, the telecine weave on the production logos is very noticeable, they're bouncing all over the place and it got me idly musing as to when more modern image stabilization techniques simply took that away. Not that we really noticed in 2001 because even with auto-tracking, gate-weave and other playback artifacts were just accepted as a given on your eight hundred pound convex CRT TV with 480 Ps of resolution that output enough radiation to kill grandma with a Jeopardy marathon. Do young people know about VHS tracking, auto or otherwise? Does the above paragraph make any sense to them at all? Do they know the pleasures of laying your hand on a still-warm television screen and having your whole body shiver as the static discharge runs through your unresistant flesh? Kids today with their big pants and their blue-tooth hula-hoops and their fancy PSPs just can't understand.

The opening shot of the movie is so under-exposed (or, more likely, over-exposed and then over-corrected in post) that Rodiguez's 'written and directed' credit is unreadable. You can see its blur to the right of the red 'FILM' there. It's so bad I thought there was something wrong with my copy so I... uh... found a new copy with a larger file size and it turns out that, nope, it actually just looks like that. Even in fancy 1080p this is just a terrible ærial shot. There's some fantastic shots and cuts in this film so to open with such a stinker is bizarre. Was it bad coverage that day, only one good shot in the can, did somebody fuck-up the film in the lab? I am curious.

Carla Gugino is so cute in this movie it's criminal. Not to be a lesbian but oh my god oh my fucking god. 12 year-old me was all about Carmen but adult me just wants 90 straight minutes of Carla Gugino in casualwear wandering around her lovely home smiling coyly. I would buy a BluRay player to own that movie on BluRay. I'd not picked-up that she played the mom on The Haunting of Hill House because she had long styled hair instead of this absolutely flawless textured pixie cut. 10/10, no notes.

I would like to spend an hour talking about the incredible tilework in that bathroom and nothing but the incredible tilework in that bathroom. I will update you if the film has any further shots of the incredible tilework in that bathroom but I fear it does not. As as an aside, kind of furious that this film was not more influential in the field of home decor. Two decades of effing shiplap and cold grey suburban blandness—what if we'd given up on bloated cookie cutter micro-mcmansion shitboxes and instead gone all-in on brightly coloured Andalusian rough plaster and stonework? What if we all had great tilework in our bathrooms, like the kitchen sink in Howl's Moving Castle?

You know what I mean, you depraved tile nerds.

I don't want you to think Antonio Banderas is not also a total smokeshow in this movie. Because boy howdy. He's a goddamn hunk.

There's a four-second long shot of Banderas flicking this ring box along the coping of the Eiffel Tower balustrade, and all I can think of how hard it was to get to get that box to stay in a straight line, how completely frictionless the box must be (did he shellac it?), and if his marriage prospects would have been ruined had it—in all rational likelihood—gone flying off the railing and smashed into the Champs de Mars.

You know you're in for a rollicking good time when the helicopter perfectly slices-off the stone heads of the two statues, but it's the padre giving the benediction while attack choppers go roaring over head that gives you chills.

A particular shout-out to this lovely unnamed bridesmaid on the left here who not only takes 'putting a parachute on the bride' in stride but looks gleeful and fabulous doing it. Where's her movie?

In 2001 we really thought computers were going to be cool and fun instead of machines that sold our personal lives to corporations and gave children crippling anxiety disorders.

Carla Gugino has a track built into the floor so that her vanity-computer chair can slide backwards across the room so she can have face-to-face chats with her husband. From this we learn two things: 1) she does this so often she's automated it for maximum efficiency, and 2) Banderos, in an ordinary desk chair, never attempts (or knows better than to attempt?) the reverse. To be continued?

#spy kids #spy kids rewatch #antonio banderas #carla gugino #robert rodriguez #alexa vega #shiplap #interior design #andalusia #tile work #howl's moving castle #miraculous ladybug #telecine #films #weddings #spies #kate moss

[kindlythevoid]

Okay, so I was watching the latest episode of Percy Jackson and I was thinking it over when it hit me— Percy Jackson is a Greek Myth.

Now bear with me here, I know how it sounds.

Yes, Percy Jackson is based off Greek Mythology, and the subsequent series(es) are based off their own respective mythos. Yes, the Percy Jackson books follow specific Greek Myths, we all know this. Odyssey, as it was so elegantly pointed out in the newest episode, Theseus in the Labyrinth, etc., etc. Someone else has mentioned this before, so I won’t get into because that… isn’t my point.

My point is that the story of Percy Jackson also functions as a Greek Myth. Tell me your favorite Myth. I’m sure a lot of you will have an overlap. I’m also sure that a lot of you will be telling the story differently. Same story, different details. We all know the fifty different versions of Persephone/Hades, Orpheus/Eurydice, the whole Achilles/Patroclus fiasco… the list really could go on and on. Books have their own takes on it, movies have their own takes, hell, there’s even a few musicals that have thrown their hat in the ring. Even the writers, the orators, whatever you want to call them, back in the day, thousands of years ago, had differing interpretations! And, here’s the kicker, because of its genre as a myth, because it’s about themes over details… at their core, all of them are valid.

Did Persephone wander into the Underworld? Was she wooed by Hades in a pasture? Did the earth swallow her up on Hades’ command? Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. In the end, it snows. Crops die. She’s there for a few months out of the year, every year, and so the seasons change. You can play this game with every myth.

Including Percy.

Now, I must admit that ideas like this have absolutely been floating around; the idea being that the show and the book share the same themes, just updated for a modern audience. I’m just doing my best to expound on that.

Let me try my hand at this, and correct me if I’m wrong.

Percy Jackson is about a boy, a pawn of the gods in a game he doesn’t want to play except not playing means that everyone he loves suffers. His fatal flaw is loyalty, so he plays along.

Annabeth Chase is about a girl who wants permanence. She’s smart, viciously so, but because of how she looks, people demean her. Her fatal flaw is pride, which damns her as much as it helps her survive.

Which one am I talking about? The book or the show? The musical? It shouldn’t matter, they all have the same core theme.

It doesn’t matter whether Hermes is in the Casino or not, it doesn’t matter whether Mrs. Dodds tries to kill Percy in the Museum or right outside of it. The important part is that the Casino delays their trip, and they get a taxi to make it the rest of the way. The important part is that Dodds is Percy’s first vivid experience with the Greek world.

Anyway, I won’t beat a dead horse (anymore). I just think it’s cool that Percy was able to evolve into the exact story he was emulating.

#:) #hope it made sense! #just yelling into the void #percy jackson #annabeth chase #percy jackson show #percy jackson and the olympians #greek mythology #mythos #mythology and folklore #I feel like I’ve already said what I’ve needed to say #Just hope I got the point across ha ha!

[lakesbian]

ok i was going to read 1.3 and then say things about 1.2 but i'm sleepytired again so i will read 1.3 tomorrow. world's slowest bookread ever this thing is far shorter than worm and yet i will manage to make it take forever via power of being distracted easily

first of all: i have once again lost the fucking plot. lost in the sauce of bad things happening. i respond to horror like a baby watching keys dangle. so long as bad things are happening to blake i am going to be watching and clapping instead of thinking carefully. that's a lie i am absolutely still thinking carefully but i am primarily more invested in the bad things happening

ok no seriously though. ahem. as for thoughts on the universe thus far: no groundbreaking updates in that department. we're obviously getting more on rose but i do not have solid thoughts on her or the mirror world presently. watching and looking and contemplating but we'll get there when we get there.

i presume blake is correct abt the horrors being given specific instructions vs acting entirely autonomously--presumably others sent after him by whichever random enemy no 234325 he inherited. i'm aware "people can make pacts with magic guys to go do things" is an absolute nothing-statement when it comes to a universe called pact that runs on fairy-logic and we've already seen an example of it previously but my point is that i presume there are other specific ppl and/or entities w/ more character responsible for directing the attacks, and we'll meet them sooner or later.

exceedingly endeared to the atmosphere in this. as always wildbow will write one million redundant poorly phrased little sentences and then somehow it results in a genuinely compelling atmosphere. love the visual of blake driving the car around The Horrors & then it breaking down in the snowy darkness. the lights slowly going out et cetera.

also particularly endeared to him hauling down on the car mirror, getting the tire iron, going on a little monologue to himself about conserving heat, and then immediately having his Horror Movie Protagonist Preparations do nothing and go to shit and then he panics and runs into the woods and trips and almost dies. and he also starts crying near-immediately. and then going "that's fine. that's because of the wind. crying because of the wind. i'm fine" to himself while hysterically screeching at The Horrors he just very unsuccessfully attempted to beat back with a tire iron. he's not doing bad but he's not doing good either. literally just an extremely normal average guy who throws his back out running. it's fantastic. like whatever fantastical circumstances happen to him he still has the heart and soul of a Normal Guy who should be sipping his 7 dollar latte while he walks to art college instead of crying while trying to beat the shit out of fairies. and that's so funny. blake crying throwing up vibrating back and forth saying every swear word he knows in alphabetical order because he has to sew his own hand up So so fucking funny. taylor hebert could do pact but blake thorburn could not do worm. i was right that he could not handle having a juicebox poured on him without calling someone a cunt and slamming doors around about it.

i do hope i find out more about what caused his [pokes around in his brain with a spatula] Issues sooner or later bc it's more interesting to pick him apart if i know what exactly was going on there. but he looooves not thinking about let alone talking about bad memories and he might be a little too busy experiencing New bad memories to ever wheel 'em out for my pleasure. so we'll find out. holding off on any firm thoughts about him until i see if we get any more detail but either way he's interesting. certainly a guy ever. very endearing i like him

#pact time #pact lb

[starrybouquet]

20 questions for fic writers

tagged several weeks ago by @doodledrawreblogs - thanks cy! and sorry this is late lol

1. how many works do you have on Ao3? counting drabbles, 77 works!

2. what's your total Ao3 word count? 127,611 (yes, most of the works are oneshots)

3. what fandoms do you write for? I have AO3 stuff for Stargate SG-1, NCIS, Top Gun, and RPF!

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

I thought this would just be all the multichaps I've written (or started) but I guess there's something to be said for older stuff because it's actually all Stargate! I suspect penny!fic will eventually appear on here if I ever get off my butt and finish it

In All Duty and Service (T, Stargate, S/J, 13k)

4am (G, Stargate, S/J, 2.4k)

for here I am sitting in my tin can (strike him down) (G, icemav, 7k) - 964 kudos

and ease my mind (G, icemav, 533) - 947 kudos

so put me where I belong (G, mavdad, 3k) - 853 kudos

5. do you respond to comments? Originally, I responded to every comment. Then I started getting the inevitable daily/weekly "please update" or "update" or "are you going to finish this??" comments and now I don't respond to every comment. If your comment says something nice, though, I'll do my best to respond to it eventually!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Uhh...nothing yet, I think? I'm really way worse about saccharine-sweet, syrupy, TERRIBLY FLUFFY endings.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I wrote a 200-word ficlet that is literally only the happy ending! Just Like in the Movies

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not yet, but all my more ~controversial~ stuff is safely in my GDrive still, so....*shrugs* all my current AO3 stuff is pretty bland.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Nope. Every year I threaten to do it and then I just get all embarrassed about it and never share anything.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Not yet, but if I had a good idea for one I'd absolutely write it!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Stealing Cy's answer for this because it's so true lol. I don't...think so?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Not that I know of! (If you would like to translate anything of mine, please go for it! There's not much to work with right now though lol)

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Nothing that's on AO3, only super-secret stuff that may never see the light of day!

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? is this question asking for an OTP? Because I have two: Sam/Jack, SG1 and Janeway/Chakotay, Voyager.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Gah, all of them. Uhhh, there's a marriage-of-convenience SJ AU where Sam and Jack have to be married to be on the same SG team that @carothepoet and I brainstormed years ago, and I doubt we'll ever finish?

16. What are your writing strengths? Silly dialogue, short fics! That's...um...it.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? WRITING VOLUME. It's not that I can't do it, it's that I don't ever prioritize my writing enough to find the time. In terms of actually putting words on the page...description is hard. Plot is hard.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? Honestly, I'm just insane and "what the hell, it's a hobby not a job" enough to Google Translate something if I really need to have some dialogue in another language. Obviously I'd put a disclaimer that I have no idea if it's correct. I like making fun of the "everyone speaks English" TV trope though, so I'm far more likely to just have the aliens randomly speak English XD

19. First fandom you wrote for? The first thing I published was for Stargate. The first stuff I wrote before I knew what fanfiction was? God, probably...actually I have no clue? percy jackson? chronicles of narnia? who knows.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? I am choosing to be an optimist today: I don't think it's been written yet!! I do, however, have a special fondness for Chapter 3 of Letters to Archie for, yes, its pettiness and fluffiness, and also for in for a penny, in for a pound because it's fun!

I haven't been on here in ages so I have no idea who to tag. I'm just gonna tag a bunch of people and hope some of them are actually active. Uh, no pressure tagging @malewifebillcage @tommyjop @curator-on-ao3 @mylittleredgirl @mrv3000 @delicatelie89 @ladywaffles @sluttyhenley @redbelles?

#tag games #on writing #this was fun #thanks cy!!!

[ahemerson]

Simattle is ready.

This is a massive unoccupied world I’ve been working on since April. I have play tested a previous version of the world for months simultaneously and have fixed numerous quirks along the way.

“A very large world for the Sims 3. It has so much to do for the Sims who get bored easily. Plenty of skill building activities in walking distance of the school, and a lot of beaches to enjoy the prime location! Build your own home or move into one of the exiting houses and have fun!!”

World Size: Large

File Size: 105.4 MB

File Name:  Simattle 0.2 Simattle v2 

Name change and updated file. Lesson learned, do not put punctuation in your world file name. ( The 2.0 v2 is because I have a previous iteration of this world I have used to play test. )

Move-in Ready Homes: 65 ( 9 High Rises, 4 Single-Sim Starters )

Empty Residential Lots: 33

Developed Community Lots: 73

Empty Community Lots: 15

World Textures: Grass x2 Rock x2 Sand x2 

Spawners: All spawners are present other than World Adventures and Into the Future.

Required Expansions: World Adventures, Ambitions, Late Night, Generations, Pets, Showtime, Supernatural, Seasons, University Life, and Island Paradise.

Required Stuff Packs: High End Loft, Fast Lane, Outdoor Living, Town Life, Master Suite, Diesel Stuff, and Movie Stuff.

Required CC: Absolutely none. No store content, no custom content. Was my goal from day one to keep all CC out. 

DOWNLOAD (SFS)  

Note, the festival area is the one from Bridgeport, and when the skate ring appears it glitches through the ground, it’s hilarious. I meant to delete it before exporting, but then there would be no festival grounds in this world. It has zero effect on the game, my sims have skated on it just fine lol

Also, I have plans to build a festival ground on a pier that I needed Simattle v2 to have the correct lot. Some of the community lots are built into the cliffside making them only playable from 3 sides. If you want a screenshot from that 4th angle just use TAB mode. None of the residential homes suffer this issue though.

Lastly, I built this world to play with my 2021 upgraded computer and so far has ran great for me. 

One more note: There is a save issue with the first file I put up, so if you can’t reload your save just uninstall ‘Simattle 0.2′ and replace with current download ‘Simattle v2′. You will not be able to load saves made with 0.2, but your new ones with v2 will work perfectly fine. I’ve never had an issue with a custom world so I did not know that this would happen, but if you put punctuation in the world file name it makes that glitch happen. So sorry to those, like, 4 people. 

Here is a screenshot of my CAW layers. I expanded one of them to show that I have layers inside of layers for organization.

#Sims 3 #S3 #Sims 3 Download #DL #Download #Sims 3 World #CAW #Custom World #Simattle #Simderellie #AH Emerson

[datusaguy]

All TMNT Shredder’s Revenge Color References - Leonardo

Other character posts are linked at the bottom.

Here’s another post going over color references. Went through the main turtles and realized I actually did know most of them already and with a bit of research, figuring out most of the rest wasn’t too hard. All the turtles have essentially the same references, so hopefully I can make the other turtle posts quickly.

If you do have any additional info, I would appreciate it. Anyways, hope you enjoy.

# 1 - Default (1987 Show)

# 2 - 1988 Playmates Toys Action Figure - Wouldn’t have gotten this one by myself since I have none of the toys nor do I look into them much. The weapon color here though is a big indicator it’s this specific toy line (also I think it may have been the first toys which would be more reason to put it in the game).

# 3 - 90’s movie(s) - Most likely based on specifically the first one.

# 4 - 2003 Show

# 5 - 2012 Show

# 6 - Rise of the TMNT

# 7 - Archie Comics Intergalactic Wrestling? - This slot for Raph and Don ABSOLUTELY is this specific version of the Archie Comics designs where the turtles fought in some tournament. Mikey also seems quite likely to fit, although Leo’s does resemble his Next Mutation design a lot closer. Since the other 3 turtles almost definitely got their 7th color from here though and I can somewhat see how Leo got this design. I’m putting this design here.

# 8 - This one I’m quite clueless on. The obnoxious green indicates it’s probably from an older game, but it’s too colorful to be the Gameboy. He does have the “whited-out” eyes which implies it’s a game that doesn’t base the designs on the 87 show. Maybe it’s from a game where you could get a power up that makes you glow? It’s seemingly the same green for the other 3 turtles though so I doubt it’s be something like an 03 game. Most of my research has literally just been for this and I can’t find something that looks close enough.

Update - TMNT ULTIMATES Mutagen Ooze Figures - I’m still not 100% confident that this is correct, but out of all the things I’ve thought of that seem close (like the ZX Spectrum TMNT game or the GBC version of Back to the Sewers), this seems by far the closest.

# 9 - Mirage Comics - I do think that this color is likely for Mirage specifically, although it is worth noting that every turtle canonically wore red masks in that version, so maybe it is referencing a different version of the turtles. Most times I’ve seen the TMNT depicted in black and white though, it either is just outright the turtles from the original comic or it’s a reference to them, so I think it’s likely they just added a bit of color to be rad and for some visual clarity.

# 10 - NES - There’s multiple NES games this could’ve been, although all the turtles have the same shade of green which does narrow it down a bit. The first NES TMNT game (that one AVGN reviewed) seems to resemble it close enough which is the example. Something like the NES Tournament Fighters is closer in terms of posing, but that specifically probably isn’t the exact reference since the NES costumes in this game are all the same green colors, whereas that specific game had different turtle colors to help distinguish the turtles.

# 11 - Gameboy - Really any of the Gameboy games could work as the example, but I chose Fall of the Foot Clan.

All other Color References posts:

1. Karai

2. Leonardo

3. Michelangelo

4. Raphael

5. Donatello

6. April O’Neil

7. Master Splinter

8. Casey Jones

9. Usagi

#TMNT #teenage mutant ninja turtles #shredder’s revenge #TMNT shredder’s revenge #TMNT Leo #Leonardo Hamato

[odetoviscera]

Liveblogging Mission: Impossible 2, Inevitably

I RETURN, dragging myself through the slog of longform audio editing, to liveblog about a ridiculous series of movies for the amusement of my betters and tyrants, i.e @leupagus, and also to justify my paramount+ subscription. not gonna pay for that two months in a row, so let’s get cracking on with mission: impossible 2 - sunglasses edition

liveblogging below

first and most important observation: this one came out in 2000, which means i was ten and old enough to conceivably watch this movie as it was airing. i have no memory of doing so, but that’s no proof of anything, i often have no memory of the last week.

important audio update: no more panning drum roll on the paramount logo! vast improvement.

we are in SYDNEY AUSTRALIA at the i-assume-headquarters-and-lab of BIOCYTE PHARMACEUTICALS, which is a very supervillain science name if i’ve ever read one. the russian voiceover talking about creating a monster and namedropping greek mythology while a very shifty scientist shoots himself with a science gun is also telling.

ominous ring-around-the-rosie has transported us to the black-and-white flashback zone? or maybe just the black-and-white Dread zone? unclear.

terrible cgi airplane my beloved. somehow i doubt it’s coincidence that ethan is seated next to the scientist on a self-imposed deadline of doom. 

“you’ll soon be with old friends” okay is that supposed to be creepy or do they know each other?

oh ETHAN is the dimitri of the ominous opening narration. this raises fascinating questions. no plastic mask, so this is a pseudonym under his own face. he is not affecting a russian accent, so what’s the backstory? is this a longstanding cover? was it established by the imf, or is this a personal project?

okay so chimera is some kind of disease/poison/Substance that was in the science gun, shifty scientist infected himself with it for… transportation? to smuggle it out in his bloodstream? raises the question of why he had to do that with chimera if he WAS able to get the antidote/counteragent bellerophon in a briefcase, though. either way, that’s the 20-hour time limit. got it. now my only question is, does this become the actual arc of the movie, or is this the cold open lol.

hmm, turbulence in a spy thriller is never just turbulence. oh yeah no there’s gonna be some kind of gas in those oxygen masks. …other than oxygen. (also a very stock “Group Shock” sound when the masks drop lol. come on guys, you couldn’t shell out for a custom foley on that in MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 2?)

interesting, New Face Detected.  very tech bro t-shirt and blazer situation going on there, i hereby assign him hacker.

holy god this is a wide airplane. did we used to make them that spacious??? this looks downright comfortable.

YEP. copilots just knocked the fuck out, captain’s in on it. aaaand set the autopilot to crash them into a mountain, i do believe.

oh ethan is NOT dimitri. has the science guy never met dimtri in person??? …wait, is this even ethan. OH MY GOD IS SOMEONE USING THE PLASTIC FACE MASK???????????

i refuse to believe my sweet boy who has never fired a gun on screen would break an old science man’s neck for no particular gain, this is absolutely not ethan.

I WAS CORRECT. excellent fakeout, seriously, i bought it. this apparently is our real villain-- head of a four-man squad who apparently feel totally chill about killing everyone in a passenger plane for whatever the dearly departed science man had in his bag.

oof, sorry copilot, there was no avoiding that mountain, might’ve been better if you’d stayed knocked out for that.

there’s my boy! freeclimbing, from the look of him, which-- well, there are other people who consider that an acceptable if not wholly sane hobby, so i’ll reserve judgment lol.

it does admittedly get him a stellar view to admire

llfakjdf;lkasl;kh and a helicopter shows up to fire a non-detonating missile in his general direction lol. i assume this contains another mission. don’t you people have telephones. i know you have secure lines, ethan called one last movie.

oh my god the briefing is on a pair of SUNGLASSES. I WAS RIGHT TO CALL IT SUBTITLE SUNGLASSES EDITION, I JUST SAID THAT BC OF THE BANNER ART ON PARAMOUNT+. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS.

“you may select any two team members” interesting, it didn’t seem like the teams were ad-hoc last movie-- jim’s team seemed like a pretty stable unit.

third member must be “nyah”-- pausing to read her dossier, she seems to be catwoman. expertise: burglary; circumvention of all security, electronic, laser, human, etc.; gemology lol, one of these things is not like the others. prefers operating near galas. AND she’s not even an agent, she’s a civilian thief that ethan has to personally recruit. i assume there is some nefarious reason her inclusion is being mandated.

“if i let you know where i’m going, then i won’t be on holiday” ethan you should carry that ethos into the logical conclusion, which is not answering your emails/sunglasses-based-mission-summons.

oh now we’ve got a ROCK GUITAR version of the opening theme lol. they’re trying really hard to go Harder and Edgier lol. oh john woo directed. did he direct the first one??? no, it was brian de palma. interesting.

fancy party, i assume nyah is here to steal something. also these dancers look like they’re one costume change away from summoning an eldritch entity and i would be here for that alternative movie. gratuitous slow-mo on their skirt swirling lol.

i think ethan is supposed to look Intense and Focused here since i suspect he just laid eyes on nyah but honestly he looks sort of Soulful and Puppyish. it’s the hair. holy SHIT that hair. @leupagus mentioned the blowdrying and she was NOT kidding

here’s our catwoman! absolutely no chance that she is not a love interest, at least temporarily. look at her. oh my god they’re slow-moing the eyefucking across a dancer and nyah disappears behind a skirt swirl lol. holy shit this movie. acquire a single iota of chill.

sorry i have to show you this very lesbian dancing. i’m sure it has a deep cultural meaning for wherever this is but at least one of those meanings has to be “butches fighting over the prettiest femme at the dance”.

meanwhile nyah is sneaking around upstairs and taking advantage of all the stomping to make door-opening noises without being noticed. oh she’s a high-tech thief. comes prepared with Gadgets. and of course ethan has gotten there ahead of her, he is the specialest boy.

ah yes, classic “quick, hide on top of me” maneuver lol. in ethan’s defense, nyah’s the one who pulled HIM down. alkdh;flkahskljgh; “do you mind if i’m on top?” “no. either way works for me.”

df;lakhdfl;kahl nyah why are you trying to pick a lock while straddling this man and expecting him NOT to interrupt you lol

you deserved that knee to the ribs ethan lol. very gentle though. she likes him.

stolen necklace in the cleavage. A Classic. i repeat: she’s catwoman.

nyah my darling, my beloved, the star of my life, you are so pretty and so good at crime, WHY do you have to be flippant in the critical moment that ethan gives you One warning and immediately do the thing he advised against, setting off an alarm. please. please do not acquire a tragic case of damselitis. i am begging. i will do the lesbian dancing to enchant you.

flkahdl;kfhas;lkh okay first of all, ethan’s cover as security engineer? excellent, that’s how they get you. second of all, MR. KEYS??? BIT ON THE NOSE MY BELOVED BOY.

lkdhf;lkahdflkashl oh my god ethan you are such a brat. he’s telling them how to make it harder for her to steal from them. the pigtail pulling. the exuberant shit-taker energy of him. i give it five minutes before he makes her hand the necklace back, which, again-- in her cleavage. YEP there it goes lol.

dalkfhdl;khfa;lkh ETHAN TRIGGERED THE ALARM. babe that’s not gonna endear you to her lol, your recruitment skills are rusty.

WHY IS THERE SLO-MO ON ETHAN STUMBLING AROUND AFTER SHE PEELS OUT IN HER FANCY CAR. JOHN WOO IS THIS YOUR FAULT????

oh wow the motorola car phone lol. every now and then the 2000 of it all is very clear.

listen you have to give ethan credit for determination and chutzpah. look at her. she’s impressed, she’s charmed AND she’s mad about it lol. nobody does it like ethan hunt. it’s the relentless border collie energy.

oh his pitch is to wipe her slate clean. that’s probably worth something.

okay of the two of them NYAH is the real daredevil lol, she just SIDESWIPED this man. d;lfkhas;dlkfha ethan putting his seatbelt on like a good boy. he had it off for his Suave Spy performance. 

ethan’s defensive driving skills really being put to the test here lol. aww, “sorry” at the passing motorists they’re recklessly endangering lol. the goodest of boys. “watch the road, watch the road--”

oh no, damselitis again, she’s spun out and ethan is having to like, bodyslam spin her car with his car to keep her from careening off a cliff-- nyah is really not as good at this as she thinks she is. i suppose this could be a character trait and not an irritating trope. maybe “arrogant to the point of suicidality” is one of her characteristics lol. 

OH MY GOD the slow mo and the fading in and out of the spinning cars and the close-ups and the Soulful Single Vocalist MOVIE PLEASE. WE GET IT. SHE’S THE LOVE INTEREST. PLEASE.

okay listen nyah if you don’t take the job after this man has literally pulled you off the side of a cliff…

he’s already doing the Soft Boy Face Touches he did with claire last movie lol

oh we’re going STRAIGHT to the kisses. and the sex, apparently! get it nyah, he’s hot and ya’ll just trauma bonded.

HOWEVER-- fascinating character moment with ethan here before nyah wakes up. he wakes up, looks over to see her in bed beside him, and makes THIS face. sighs, covers his face with his hand, stares at her for a moment before he wakes her up with more Soft Boy Face Touches. i could peel this scene apart like an onion for the next 5000 words. the Instant Regret™. the hesitance. the cautious tenderness. at first i thought this might have been a bit of honeypot to reel her in-- obviously with some real Romantic Chemistry underneath, we know how it goes-- but with this reaction? no. whatever impulse of ethan’s this was, it was genuine and it overpowered his common sense in ways he isn’t unpacking. how SLOWLY he reaches for her, once he’s resigned himself to the fact of her presence and whatever it meant and is going to mean. distinct impression that this is the first time he’s allowed himself this specific vulnerability since the fade to black with claire, who betrayed him-- was betraying him the whole time-- and who he watched die. it’s like five seconds long. i have a problem and his name is ethan hunt.

i will note we’re 23 minutes into this move and still only one team member in lol

okay we’ve gone somewhere with a festival that involved the crucified christ being paraded through the streets and is that ANTHONY HOPKINS??? is he joining the team???????????

oh no okay he’s the imf boss. can’t say i’m sad to lose kittridge lol.

okay so ethan is seeing the scientist to dimitri message from the opening narration for the first time. and he’s looking a bit shellshocked. Tell Me Your Secret Backstory, Ethan.

oh yeah ethan is willing to drop everything immediately to pick up Mr. Scientist, he’s gonna be Unhappy to find out that he’s already dead. …after being flown on a commercial carrier, the thing ethan specifically says not to do, lol. my boy, so smart, etc.

ooooh my god, the imf set up the villain squad with the ethan mask and vocoder? IMF WHY DO YOU SUCK SO MUCH AT EVERY DAMN THING? WHY DO YOU TORMENT MY BOY?????

yep, sean ambrose is the villain supreme, an imf agent-- they have history apparently, and ethan doesn’t like him.

oh that’s why nyah has to be on the team-- she’s ambrose’s ex and they want her to be their honeypot. yeah ethan’s not gonna love that either.

“she’s got no training for this” “to go to bed with a man and lie to him, she’s a woman, she’s got all the training she needs” THE MISOGYNY, sir. after jim this must just be the imf Culture. oooh, his little SMIRK-- he can tell they slept together and he thinks it’s funny. what a dick lol.

did he just show ethan nyah and ambrose’s SEX TAPES??? okay no it’s footage of the crashed plane lol

oof, first fight. this is a Messy situation lol. interesting little character moment on nyah after the shouting, too-- the way her expression kind of stills and you can see her Construct this little smirk she’s usually wearing, making it clear how much of a mask that is. she’s had an idea for how she can work this angle, and she’s not happy about it, but she’s going to do it, so-- no use continuing to cry about the milk.

okay the scheme being to get ambrose to break nyah out of prison is quite clever. play on his white knight fantasies. nyah is aware of her own damselitis lol.

okay so i guess our other two team members are coming along-- billy, who looks like he might be piloting the helicopter, and-- luther!!! a triumphant return. i wonder if they’ve worked together previously.

dflkahd;lfkhas;lkh luther’s 800 DOLLAR GUCCI SHOES. sir how much do they pay you for spying and how much of that is bonus income from off-the-books hacking.

df;lkashdl;fkhal;k aww billy just wants to break into the Preexisting Camaraderie between ethan and luther and is getting NO traction lol

ambrose looks like he’s gonna cream his pants just seeing nyah on the dock, sir PLEASE get some dignity, you are a VILLAIN, have some SELF RESPECT

…okay i know Evil Airline Captain is probably just suspicious of nyah’s sudden return but the WAY he is squinting at nyah and ambrose’s Reunion is making him look like a jealous friendzoned wannabe-boyfriend watching the object of his affection return to an abusive relationship. keep it in your evil boy pants, sir, ambrose just isn’t that into you.

aaand of COURSE the unrealistically accurate realtime satellite footage the team is watching comes in just in time for ethan to watch them kiss lol

“now there’s a bloke who knows how to give a proper welcome. /nudges luther/ oh don’t get me wrong mate, you were very friendly also.” alright so i’m tallying billy up for bisexual lol

Evil Airline Captain is on the same page as me re: nyah being catwoman lol

god ambrose is creepy. “undress in front of me while i gawk at you.” nyah what did you EVER see in this guy.

giving us the quick and dirty greek myth overview. i often forget that this is not necessarily common knowledge to everyone, so fair enough i guess.

i am TELLING you, either they HAVE fucked or Evil Airline Captain (hugh, apparently) WANTS THEM to fuck and it being thwarted by how extremely straight ambrose is. this whole scene reads like old married couple where the wife is giving husband the cold shoulder and kvetching about his affairs.

oh that cigar cutter is gonna come back for a finger

oh oof, it’s not coming back, it’s taking the fingertip Right Now. ambrose does Not like being questioned. (my “they have fucked” argument is getting yet more evidence on the basis of the Suggestive Poses during this scene btw.)

oh billy is on site! delivering ear pieces! i wondered how they were going to get in contact with her.

hmm, biocyte ceo is here. getting blackmailed for his product?

oh good, nyah gets to do some Thieving!

jesus, hugh is hair-trigger, he didn’t even clock billy as an actual threat before Strangling Him

lol nyah does Not follow instructions well

“what are you gonna do, spank me?” cue luther Awkwardly Clearing His Throat ldkfa;lkdhf;la god these movies are funny. even intentionally, sometimes!

well damn, chimera fucks you up but good. looks like you hemorrhage out of your PORES. seriously guys, why did you have to create a Murder Virus in the first place?

ethan’s telling nyah to pull out, but there’s no way he doesn’t have to go in an extract her

oh no, NYAH, you put the envelope back in the WRONG POCKET!!! babe it’s careless mistakes like this that get you caught by your psycho ex!!!!!!

…we’re focusing a lot on biocyte ceo, i wonder if he’s gonna get chimera infected or something. yeah he’s fussing about the taste of his cigar, can’t roll down his window, his driver isn’t responding-- Dude Is Fucked. not sure WHY, you’d think he’d be a potential buyer, but-- aaaand there’s the aerosol in the air vents, and down he goes. maybe not dead? definitely fucked up though.

nyah if you can’t find ambrose and you’re supposed to fuck off, it is Time To Steal A Boat, not commence further investigations

oh lol yep ethan didn’t wait for her to make her own attempt, he’s already on site to get her

oh huh, ambrose (?) is playing mind games with biocyte guy-- face mask to look like Science Guy, biocyte guy in a “hospital” room. getting more information i guess.

“i needed to know just how bad the disease was in the real world, not just in the lab” jesus, go ahead and kill biocyte guy lol

aha! not ambrose, ethan! that makes much more sense lol, although given the implications that science guy and “dimitri” had some kind of friendly connection, and given how shellshocked ethan was to find out he was dead, playing his friend’s (?) ghost must have been. how shall i put this. Emotionally Complex. more evidence for my “ethan hunt doesn’t process his trauma he just repeats it until it stops hurting” theory.

…WAIT okay, ethan isn’t on the island to collect nyah bc ETHAN IS NOT ON THE ISLAND, THIS IS A GODDAMN IMPOSTER, ethan was off doing that song and dance with biocyte guy, “ethan” is just AMBROSE IN A FUCKING MASK AGAIN. getting final confirmation that nyah’s lying to him (and not just, like, stealing his shit out of habit) and telling nyah to “do anything ambrose asks”. YEAH I BET YOU CREEP.

seriously though how easy are those masks to make lol

Sad Villain Hours. no honour among thieves, you dingbat, get over it. just fuck hugh, he’s (in your words) gagging for it.

oh this is interesting, ambrose and ethan are both breaking down the impending biocyte op from their respective perspectives. that’s a fun way ot switch it up.

this shot is just here bc it’s cinematic and this movie isn’t as fun to look at, generally, as the last one. seriously, there were so many interestingly composed shots with compelling color choreography and clean, sharp lines in the first movie! this one hasn’t felt as interesting to watch from a purely visual perspective.

lol luther is trying so hard to dissuade ethan from the tactic he is Obviously going to choose

“he’ll undoubtedly engage in some aerobatic insanity before he’ll risk harming a hair on a security guard’s head.” is ambrose’s analysis, and this is an interesting observation about ethan and Ethan Stunts, i think. last time, the first real Ethan Stunt was the back of the train chase trying to catch jim without getting dissolved into a red mist by a helicopter. if ambrose’s assessment of the motive for ethan’s upcoming Stunt is accurate-- and i’d guess it is, based on what we’ve seen of ethan’s morals and standards of behaviour-- this suggests that ethan’s Stunts are less motivated by “this is the only way, period” and more motivated by “this is the only way that Doesn’t Hurt People (other than ethan)” and that’s a fascinating nuance to this conversation.

dfl;akhd;lfkhaslkh luther’s terrified, teary-sounding, “ETHAN WAIT”. bless. poor luther is just constantly sitting with his heart in his throat during this shit lol.

imf has all the coolest gadgets. i guess that makes up for their operational incompetence?

finally another interesting shot-- Villain Squad marching in to fuck up ethan’s plan and we’re following their reflection in the Shiny Floor. i’d like more robust colour grading, this is a little washed out, but i’ll take it.

hmm, luther is saying they brought nyah into the building with them, but i didn’t see her with the villain squad… either she’s been kept out of frame for this reveal-- odd choice-- or the transponder has been removed somehow and villain squad is carrying it to fuck with them. (in which case fingers crossed that nyah hasn’t been hobbled, that thing was in her ankle.)

now, see… why would you have laser’s set up over your petri dishes??? what kind of science choice is this??????? i mean it’s convenient, don’t get me wrong, but

aaand we’re down to One Chimera Shot Left, so any minute now Villain Squad will show up lol

oh wait. ethan is having some kind of revelation about the 20-hours thing and the fact that Science Guy injected himself chimera For Some Reason.

ah, whatever realization he was going to come to was interrupted by gunfire. unnecessary floor slide from a goon firing up at him lol

ethan’s first Shots Fired in two movies-- shooting a goon who had just picked up the Final Chimera Shot after ethan dropped it in a hail of gunfire. now, obviously this probably clear from a moral/ethical standpoint even by whatever ethan’s standards (not technically stated, only observed) are, however-- watching this scene, this is clearly just john woo’s influence. the man’s claim to fame is gun fu. this is the gun fu scene. i feel vaguely displeased to have had ethan’s story besmirched by this, lol.

anyway, i have a feeling that now that the Ethan Shoots People seal has been broken, we’ll start to see more of it.

oh damn, someone just planted a bomb on (i assume) luther’s van. LUTHER YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS STOP GAWKING AT IT IN THE SIDE MIRROR AND JET!!!! ILU!!!!!!!!!!!!!

billy screaming LUTHER is me rn

lol ambrose looks so dissatisfied that his goons can’t seem to shoot this One Man

oh my god ambrose really was That stupid? he didn’t realize From The Video Message that Science Guy had injected himself with chimera??? sir… i’m embarrassed for you…

hmm, they did bring nyah. still not sure why they didn’t have her on-screen until this moment when they had luther literally say she was present.

break for Rainbow Ethan!

luther! only slightly blown up and late with his intel lol

so what are the odds nyah pockets the vial somehow? she’s looking very Sainted here which IS concerning from a Surviving The Movie perspective

oh my god she’s going to inject HERSELF. smart but stupid, nyah.

ethan Instantly setting a 20-hour timer has several implications: first, obviously, he’s going to get her bellerophon and that’s the rest of the runtime lol; second, he had that timer queued up, so either intentionally or accidentally infecting himself Was A Consideration

exfil time! Operatic Soundtrack. nyah telling ethan to shoot her! nice try babe but absolutely no chance of that, you’ve engaged his Trauma and he is now going to be absolutely deranged about this

incredibly dramatic exit by ethan hunt lol. nyah left behind to fend for herself bc, you know, no parachute and she’s now worth 37 million pounds.

oh my god the absolutely cartoonish Slap Foley.

the freeclimbing came back with plot relevance! significantly less impressive cliff, though

on my life i cannot get a good screengrab of this but just trust me that this is ethan hunt kicking a man in the face lol. followed by more gratuitous slo-mo of some kind of falling bicycle kick lol, JOHN WOO GET OUT OF MY FILM

ambrose and biocyte guy are making An Exchange-- ethan is here presumably to get the bellerophon for nyah

fal;kdfl;kashdl;kh they’re bargaining for STOCK OPTIONS and setting nyah loose in public to be their living viral bomb to raise an urgent need for bellerophon and raise the stock value. and pairing it with a hostile takeover. Very Capitalism. 

ethan’s martial arts stunts are getting absolutely wire-fu. again i sense the hand of john woo.

ethan is for once taking the direct route to his target and OH MY GOD THIS MOVIE

so are we just saying now that doves are ethan’s spiritual animal? bc you might be able to talk me into that. …oh god i’ve given myself mission impossible daemon au brainworms FUCK

ethan’s response to “raise your hands very slowly” from hugh-- who inexplicably didn’t just shoot him; maybe he wants to deliver him to his boss/daddy/dom????-- is to TOSS A GRENADE. I TOLD YOU HE WAS GOING TO BE DERANGED ABOUT THIS

they’re all underground by the way, so this tunnel system is probably unstable now

ethan has been caught but has, of course, tunnel visioned on The Cure Is Here

…oh my god wait, NO, there was no time for a mask and a vocoder and a WHOLE OUTFIT SWAP, there’s no way that ethan swapped places with hugh… oh my god, “ethan” isn’t talking he’s just making Muffled Noises, somehow he’s been gagged under the mask or something, HOW. HOW. MOVIE HOW.

congrats ambrose you just killed your own guy. notice the finger any minute now-- yep

huh ambrose actually looks pretty broken up about this, can’t decide if he actually liked hugh or he’s just pissed to have missed out on killing ethan (who of course has taken off with the vials)

The Boys tried to pick ethan up but the lz is too hot, so instead he’s Sunglasses Motorcycle Man. why the sunglasses? no idea. where did the motorcycle gang he stole this bike from come from? also no idea.  This. Fucking. Movie.

oh my god luther just fired a bazooka at a car that was pursuing ethan lol

i swear someone just made a checklist of Cool Action Guy Shots to paste ethan into lol

car chase car chase car chase-- honestly this bit is kind of boring, ethan is just shooting at people and stunting on the bike

“she’s only got a little time left” interesting that they set that timer but have not been actually tracking the time except in this very vague way

okay this is an actually interesting bit of the car chase-- ethan does Something (i don’t know i don’t do vehicles) to make his bike throw up a lot of smoke, which obscures the oncoming truck so that the pursuit vehicle drives in front of it and gets t-boned (and instantly explodes, bc… This Movie)

nyah has of course gotten herself as far as possible from a population center in the time remaining to her and is looking like she’s going to cast herself into the sea. not sure if that would pollute the water in any way, or the marine life for that matter, but her options are admittedly pretty limited

oop! ethan’s gas tank was punctured by ambrose firing at him-- didn’t explode, miraculously lol-- so my guess is he’s going to run out of fuel before he can reach nyah

bike standoff with ambrose

oh my god are they bike jousting…

these deranged bastards just LEAPT OFF THEIR BIKES at each other, COLLIDING IN MIDAIR AND CAREENING OFF A CLIFF TO THE BEACH to have a fistfight. nobody makes ‘em like imf

ethan is not winning this fistfight by the way, even before ambrose pulls a knife. he gets a couple of good hits in but he is very much getting his ass kicked. but he manages to overpower ambrose-- only when the knife is very literally millimeters from his eyeball, something something near-death experience adrenaline-- and twist the knife away from him. at which point ambrose promptly begins taunting him about nyah’s imminent death.

ethan throws the knife away! the Ethics make another return i guess? he will probably now win the fight out of The Power Of Love and Moral Righteousness.

luther and billy have found nyah! shame they aren’t the ones with the bellerophon.

god this fight with ambrose is taking forever lol. it’s more evenly matched this time but ethan still isn’t exactly winning handily. ethan’s preferred strategy seems to be Kicks, which is interesting given his upper body strength has to be significant to manage the freeclimbing. the boys have brought nyah in the helicopter!

ethan finally shoots ambrose! probably overdue at this point, but he makes This Face afterwards so i suspect he has some feelings about it that he’s not going to unpack, ever.

more Soft Boy Face Touching

fha;ldkfhal;skh the imf is bitching that it didn’t get a living sample of chimera, ANTHONY HOPKINS YOU FUCK RIGHT OFF

ethan makes this Face whenever he’s talking to imf brass now. it is the face of I Do Not Trust You, and it is well deserved frankly, but ethan, babe, why do you still work for them then

triumphant romantic reunion

OKAY MOVIE AND THUS LIVEBLOGGING COMPLETE. i think this one felt a lot more traditional as an Action Spy Thriller? ethan’s aversion to violence was more a Protagonist Point Of Order than the sort of seamless way it was blended into his behaviour in the first film, where it was never POINTED OUT it was just… a fact. at some point between movies he’s moved from The Face forced into an uncomfortable role as mission leader/soldier by his circumstances, to a more traditional james bond-y action spy who is comfortable with using any weapon at his disposal, as long as it’s against the right targets. some of that i think i can safely lay at the feet of john woo, bc you don’t hire him to direct unless you plan on a lot of Gun Action and Explosions. some of it is probably character divergence as a result of a sequel script trying to pull audiences. cruise is probably the reason the character still feels identifiably like ethan hunt, just ethan hunt in a Weird Place Right Now.

not as pretty, some of the action dragged for me, i wish nyah got to be more Capable, but still some interesting character work to pick apart and i think if i hadn’t just watched the og movie i would be more kindly disposed to it lol.

7/10, Give Me The Secret Dimitri Backstory!!!!!

#ODE TO IMPOSSIBLE #mission impossible #mission impossible 2 #my mission-- to watch all these movies-- proceeds as planned

[steviesays]

January Fic Recs

I'm back :')

Application of Virtual Systems by inalienable_wright

Fandom: Community

Jeff losing his mind, post-canon, what else is new - I really love post-canon Community fics that center Jeff and Annie and this one is off to a great start!! Its inspired by another one of my favorite Jeff/Annie fics, Everybody Knows, in which they both focus on Jeff trying to cope with being alone for the first time in 6 years and the fact that there was still so much left unfinished between him and Annie at the end of the series. I'm terrified the upcoming movie is going to absolutely obliterate all my headcanons so I need to read as many of these types of fics as possible before that happens :)

Every dog has its day by Pikkulef

Fandom: FMAB

This was a fun little fluff story about Roy and Hayate clashing over their love for Hawkeye Sidenote: please also read everything else by this author including but not limited to Everyone learns faster on fire

Starve the Ego, Feed the Soul by @onthearrow

Fandom: FMAB

Can't even tell you guys how excited I've been for every update of this fic !!! It's post-canon Royai and I'm so sad its going to be ending soon, but have enjoyed the ride so thoroughly

But Satisfaction Brought It Back by Starship_Phoenix

Fandom: FMAB

Second cute animal fic for January interesting ... Roy bonds with a cat against his will its a fun little read

Old Friends by foolishfalls

Fandom: FMAB

I love a little Ed and Riza bonding fic and this one was really great! I really like exploring the parallels between their characters and this story was a lighthearted delve into that dynamic. Extra points for the ending :)

When Thou Shalt Come To Judge the World By Fire by BewareTheGemini

Fandom: FMAB

When I say I love this fic ... so much ... angst, young Royai, their guilt about the war, the tragic romance, like this one has really just been hitting all of the correct buttons and I love it !!!!!!!

The Strictly Professional Series by NothingSoDivine

Fandom: FMAB

Royai smut - these two are so strange and I love them

low stakes by zauberer_sirin

Fandom: FMAB

I actually first read this story a while ago but come back to it every now and then when I want to smile :) Royai bed sharing, my loves

artificial destiny by RoryMarx (AuroraKant)

Fandom: FMAB

Depressing Royai soulmates fic (with a twist !!!!) we absolutely love to see it

The Literary Romanticism in B-Roll by slomyroll

Fandom: Community

This series is kind of a retelling of the show through the lens of Jeff and Annie's shifting relationships throughout it and I've loved it !!!!

cover (but come undone) by tsaritsaa

Fandom: FMAB

Some light post-canon Royai angst ugh we love the resolution of communication issues they cARE ABOUT EACH OTHER !!!!

I actually read a lot more than I thought I did this month haha I'm glad to get back into giving monthly rec lists because I do want to be more active/involved in fandom outside of just liking the occasional post :') a lot of these authors I just linked back to their AO3 page because I didn't know what their blog was, so if you know them, please let them know I loved their fic!! And as always, please feel free to send me your fic recs, I'm always reading and always looking for something new!

#fic recs #fmab #royai #community #jeff x annie

[cosmicbrowniefan]

headcanons for will and mike in college PLEASE bc i personally think they’d major in english and art respectively and need more of it 🙏🏼

YES YES YES i love a good college au omg

you are very correct, they would major in english (mike) and art (will)

mike is roommates with dustin, and will is roommates with lucas

mike gets a job at the campus starbucks and will gets a job at the campus bookstore

and will ends up buying more coffee than he needs to and mike ends up looking at textbooks more than he needs to

and both of them are in the campus comic book club bc. they're nerds ok

neither of them go to parties very often bc mike gets annoyed by being around so many people and will thinks they're too loud

but they do both attend one party together, which is a party thrown by the comic book club after the release of a marvel movie that the whole club went to see together

and will bless his soul has never gotten drunk before

he has approximately two cups of beer before he's absolutely GONE

and he's really funny and sweet and clingy while drunk

and. flirty

very very flirty

and mike walks will back to his dorm that night and will is just flirting with mike the whole time, making mike blush super hard

will wakes up the next morning hungover and immediately panics because he can't remember much from the night before but he remembers being with mike

so will goes to the campus starbucks and mike just stares at him with this smirk and will smiles back shyly and apologizes while he gets his coffee, but mike isn't hearing any of it, and gives him his coffee on the house

anyway. moving past that

let's talk about the boys in class

mike is a very nervous student

as in he tries to write down everything the professor is saying word for word because he's incredibly scared that he's going to miss something

but all of his notes get jumbled and hard to read and that stresses him out even more

and one day he and will are studying together for their respective classes and will sees mike's notes and asks him about them and mike tells him his troubles with note taking

so will says that maybe it would help to take voice memos of the class and go back and listen and jot down the really important stuff

and mike says that he'll try that

and then mike goes to the bathroom and will takes pictures of his notebook

and a few days later mike updates will and says he tried the voice memo thing and shows him his new notes that are a lot neater and more organized and concise

and will smiles and says he's happy for him and then gives him some paper

it's pages of the old notes mike tried to take, but will rewrote it in easier to understand language

and mike just. malfuctions

bc no one's ever done anything that nice before wtf :')

i also have this idea that mike has a pretty popular ao3 account and will has his own webtoon comic

also will draws fanart for the same fandom that mike typically writes for

they're both fans of each other but don't know it bc both of them keep these things kind of under wraps due to the toxic idea that fandom culture is cringe and that you get too old for it (which is very incorrect)

they still have yet to find out that they're fans of each other's work btw

and let's do one more

will draws mike for his class

like. multiple times

and will's teacher just keeps seeing drawings of this boy and is like ??????

so one day this teacher corners will and asks him about the mystery guy

and will just says it's a friend

so this teacher asks every once in a while how his friend mike is doing

and one day will just smiles and turns red and looks down and says that it's actually his BOYfriend mike now

and the teacher is just like. yeah. about time kiddo <3

#stranger things #byler #stranger things headcanons #byler headcanons #mike wheeler #will byers #mike wheeler i know what you are #byler college au

[looseratinthegarage]

First thoughts of Prey

⚠️SPOILERS AHEAD⚠️

I liked it. The premise is good. CGI is okay at times, better at others. But wtf did they do to my boy? They fucking did him dirty. I didn’t like the design in Predators from 2010 either. It feels like directors who know nothing about the franchise keep strolling in and changing shit up. You don’t mess with perfection. The original design is perfection. I was rather disappointed to see that they significantly slimmed down the yautja and made his head “more proportionate to his body” quoted from the director. Director Dan Trachtenberg stated he wanted to make him more “animalistic” I believe is how he phrased it, but correct me if I’m wrong. The fact that this Yautja was “slimmed down” doesn’t make a lick of sense if you look at what happens in the movie and the sort of fighting he engages with. He willingly wrestled a bear and got fairly wounded. He took on one of earths many tanks without weapon aid, why? Because he was fighting on its level. As we’ve seen them do in countless other movies. But why would they make him smaller, therefore weaker, and put him up against such a deadly creature?

Something that peaked my interest was the fact that Dan said this is a more “primitive yautja”, one from 300 years ago. But that just doesn’t make sense. The Yautja can live hundreds of years and evolution takes far longer to happen then in that short time. Try millions of years. If you look at humans you see we haven’t changed almost at all in 300 years, now If we take a look at some long living life forms on earth we see that they don’t really change either, in the millions of years of the species existing. Example, take a tortoise for instance or a crocodile, they live an extremely long time, have they changed very much throughout history? No. Evolution never stops, Darwinism and the theory of natural selection will always be around, but these specific creatures kept adapting efficiently to their environments, making a “near perfect” life form from the combination of helpful mutations. All of this leads me to believe the Yautja have been around far longer then humans if they have such a long life span, as if that wasn’t already obvious with their advanced technology, but I digress.

Now, another problem I have with the movie is a couple scenes.

1). It’s when the Yautja has Naru in between the rocks and was going to decapitate her with his advanced shield-like weapon. Granted I’ve only watched the movie once through, and will have to rewatch it many more times to give a thorough and more accurate analysis; Why didn’t he kill her? He had the perfect opportunity, so why? Was something stopping him? Did his weapon get stuck on the large stones? or did he seriously still not see her as a threat still at that point?

2). He blocked almost zero attacks. I’ll reiterate once more, they made this Yautja weaker, so why did he get so many hits on him? He’s smaller to be more agile, but he really didn’t show that off. When jumping from tree to tree he did not display it either, we’ve seen the larger Yaujta fight as he did from the trees. He is no tank, powerful yes, but he is unlike his beefier yautja brethren who can take more hits.

—(ADDED CONTENT)—

I feel the need to discuss the predators design further. They elongated his head and reduced its width as well. He looks far too bug like or perhaps resembles an odd fish. The colors are muted and bland unlike the other yautja we’ve seen in movies, comics, and games. I also noticed his “dreads” are much finer, less thick. I’m not opposed to the change of the dreads, I actually like the update, as well as the og thick dreads.

—(END OF ADDED CONTENT)—

But despite my nitpicking I must give credit where credit is due. This is possibly the best film we’ve ever seen come out of the franchise. While the original from 1987 will always be my favorite, this is a very close second. The visuals were absolutely stunning, the camera work was well done, and the casting was awe-inspiring. I would like to thank Director Dan Trachtenberg and screenplay writer and producer Patrick Aison for their wonderful job. As well as the cast and crew who worked on this fantastic piece of cinema.

⚠️This is all my opinion, I am not claiming to be an expert on the subject nor know everything about Yautja canon and lore. Please take this with a grain of salt.⚠️

If you have thoughts on this please share them, I’d love to hear everyone’s opinions. <3

#horror #prey spoilers #prey #prey movie #prey 2022 #predator 1987 #predators #the predator 2018 #alien vs predator #alien vs predator requiem #wolf predator #yautja #yautja lore

[messinwthkid]

OKAY ITS COMPARISON TIME !

i’m thinkin abt the bluesmobile in both blues bros movies and how it sort of changes based on the theme of the movie, characters n such as well. the og bluesmobile is small, quick and sorta aerodynamic ??? its good for jumps n overall stunts, perfect for just jake and elwood and it gets them from point a to point b very very well. it also marks the beginning of a new era being elwood didn’t buy a cadillac like the previous bluesmobile. my own little theory for him sticking to cop cars after the first movie is just sorta “if you can’t beat em, join em” in the sense that he’s able to outrun and outsmart the cops if he’s using the same equipment. that and also dan aykroyd law enforcement autism but shhhhh ........ the bb2k bluesmobile is sort of giving family truckster from vacation energy in the sense that it’s bigger, clunkier and obvs heavier. it’s denser and better for on ground things like crashing through things easily and elwood’s constant swerving around and swing parking. it looks sturdier and suits the 2nd movie because it’s updated and can fit the whole band. [with some exceptions, but it can generally fit a lot more in it] and it does as well as the first bluesmobile with getting from point a to point b but it can store loads more things in there, they have the frigging trunk turned into an entire bedroom !!!!!

okayokay correct me on anything if i’m wrong or put ur ideas in here :] had a dream abt this last night so i absolutely had to make this as a post comparing how both cars fit the theme of each movie. another good contender is the new vs old but i think i’ll get into that later, idk.

#blues brothers #man i srs woke up and chose bluesmobileposting #i just love the car !!!!! #blues brothers 2000 #bb analysis

[rigelmejo]

7/9/2023 update:

Listened to japanese for 6+ hours - 2 hours Final Fantasy X let's play, .5 hour listening to TTS audiobook while reading along, .5 hour watching Dracula musical, 3 hours listening to glossika japanese (on audio 10)

Dracula Musical: i watched this maybe 2 years ago and I remember it motivated me to want to get back into learning Japanese. Because I could follow the main idea (which to be fair, its based on Dracula so of course I could guess mainly what was going on based on the Dracula scene it looked like). Well I watched some of it again tonight: MUCH better grasp of specifics now lol. I'm relying on Kanji words heavily (because I can guess them faster), but the overall effect is still wooh I can follow some lines completely and other lines the main idea at least. Which is a lot more than the last time I watched this! I found it on bilibili with Chinese and Japanese subs if any of you want to watch. Notable features: its a rock musical, Dracula is played by a woman, the 3 brides of Dracula are played by men, Dracula is in love with Mina (like the Coppula Dracula movie). It also has my favorite Dracula ending of the various versions I've seen of the story.

【【荷花】D R A C U L A 熟肉-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/xv3grnN

Guardian TTS with kindle ebook: so if anyone else wants to go on this journey, amazon.co.jp has a lot of ebooks for fairly cheap prices (I think I literally got like 10 of the guardian ebook installments that come in chapters of 4, for free, today, just from points). I think you have to register with a Japanese address, and make sure you either use a different email than your amazon.com/other account OR you use a different password, so that when you log into kindle app you can log into your Japanese account (because if email used AND password are the same, you can only log into your first account you made - I ran into this issue until I just changed my password). To use TTS in Kindle app (on android), go to settings, accessibility settings, Talkback. Enable it. Pick where you want Talkback icon to be, I personally like putting it on my navigation bar so I don't accidentally tap it when browsing. Click Talkback settings, languages and install all the languages you need talkback to be able to do text to speech for. Pick the voice version of each language you most like the sound of. For language detection I suggest you pick Aggressive so it automatically reads the correct language when it runs into text in a new language (such as a web page with english then Japanese text). If you pick conservative, the audio may stay "English voice" even once other language text is encountered. If Talkback stops being able to read multiple languages (or any other app on your phone suddenly no longer can), then you'll want to to BACK into Talkback, back into Google language services settings, and re download the languages you need. For some reason Samsung likes to delete language data every so often if you aren't using it frequently. When Samsung deletes it, suddenly apps that use TTS on the phone have NO audio for non English languages (or non-whatever language your default is on the phone) and the phone will either NOT play audio for other languages at all, or attempts to play the audio with the default language voice (on my phone the English Voice) and it sounds absolutely awful and makes gratuitous mistakes.

Anyway. Once you have the japanese ebooks to your hearts content on kindle app, feel free to read. If you want TTS while reading, then open the ebook in Kindle and flip to the page you want to start on. Click Talkback icon. Then double click the ebook page. Once you've selected the page, Talkback should give directions on turning on Text To Speech (click twice, click twice to confirm). Then you should get a TTS voice from Talkbacks voice option you downloaded.

Actual progress while reading? Well I got through the prologue and chapter 1. For the prologue I just tried to follow the speed of audio (which was brain fryingly fast for me). For the first chapter, I read through it first and looked up unknown words. I confirmed my guess, which is that a lot of the Kanji words (in combination with me being familiar with these chapters plots already) means I'm guessing these words correctly for the most part. The major new words I need to learn: hiragana words! And the "helper" words that use Kanji (and tend to be 4 characters, Kanji hiragana Kanji hiragana). Words like just, suddenly, at the same time, drew back/fell back, and (4 variants for and used!). I also noticed a few grammar patterns that i guess I never studied a grammar guide High enough to either study or understand. 1. Adjectives (or maybe it's adverbs the way they were used?) Were used actually quite similar to the -ly in English or -de in chinese. Id see a descriptive word then a regular grammar pattern and it'd be describing the thing after it. After a few pages it got a lot more obvious when I was looking at a descriptive (which makes life easier). 2. I have had a rough idea of japanese sentence grammar for YEARS at this point. But actually reading I think made it clearer how to rely on the particles, and how much SHITA, DATTA, DEKITA, and SHI after verbs in the middle of sentences, crop up! I mean yeah they're all basic beginner class words. But just like English, do, was, did, doing are real fucking useful. Idk it wasn't like learning something new so much as reading enough I am able to notice This common pattern, which helps make it easier to single out and isolate hiragana only words that ARENT these and combination words that are HELPER words (like in the end, concluded, and then, just, suddenly) that I still need to learn. So basically, brute force making myself read IS Helping with improving my ability to parse words (which again is critical for figuring out hiragana words from conjugation and helper words from descriptives). 3. Word order was not actually as big a deal as... I guess ever? Maybe I've just listened to enough japanese I'm used to it. There was only two sentence where order confused me and it was a long ass descriptive sentence of Da Qing looking like a flattened fat persimmon and denting the car hood and saying it smells like a bomb dropped how did yunlan not notice, and the long ass description of Zhao yunlans messy room including all the items and how even a pig would be offended by being compared to its level of mess. Because I've read the novel I knew those parts so it wasn't too confusing, but they were very long sentences and I think I'd have been lost if it was a brand new novel to me.

#rant #progress #japanese progress #japanese #japanese reading

[darklydeliciousdesires]

Paradise Circus - Chapter Five.

You guys, I’m still absolutely over the moon at the popularity this has garnered! Thank you so much! Also, because I just began writing chapter twelve so I’m nicely far ahead in the writing, I will be able to bring twice weekly updates for definite, going forward. Looking forward to your thoughts, as ever!

Previous chapters - One  Two  Three  Four

Tag list - In the comments

Words - 2,213

Warnings - 18+ content throughout. NO MINORS, PLEASE!

“My god, you are so aggressive! You’ve completely flown off the handle at nothing here!”

“No, I haven’t! I just called you out on something, exactly like I did before and you don’t like being in the wrong!”

“Tommy, calm down, Jesus!”

“Nah, I’m out. Fuck this. You’re insufferable.”  

A simple disagreement in their discussion and once again, things had become heated. Except this time, Tommy was not interested in Darla’s attempt to calm the situation. Oh no. He was done for the night.  

“For fucks sake!” she exclaimed, dropping her hands in her lap as he closed the door behind him. Things had actually been going quite well, until that point, until the tainted conversation had begun. They’d fallen into a discussion about the law after Darla mentioned that her university had excluded a young guy who repeatedly found himself in trouble with the police, his issues stemming from alcohol and substance abuse.  

She had hoped he could be rehabilitated, Tommy staunchly agreeing, saying that perhaps it would be prudent to offer such to more prisoners within the correctional system, in an effort that not so many people were thrown away year by year to rot. Darla had taken a slightly different approach, believing that repeat habitual offenders, especially those who time and time again failed to clean up their act were truly beyond the help a rehabilitation program could offer.  

It was then that Tommy had blown up at her, shouting that everyone deserved a second chance, but it was only in that minute as she sat alone, that she remembered. His father had been an alcoholic.

“Oh lord. Oh, shit!” she hissed, realising too late how her stance could have come off. He’d touched on the fact that he and his dad had still had a strained, terse relationship at the time of his death, Tommy trying to get him to dry out again after he’d fallen off the wagon, but to no avail. It had been alcohol poisoning to claim his life, something Tommy was likely still quite sensitive about.  

Sighing, she grabbed the two half full coffee cups and took them into the kitchen, washing them and placing them down on the drainer before finding a wine glass and removing the bottle from the fridge. “Okay, so I could have been a little softer, but he’s so hot tempered! He could have explained better instead of just losing it!” she suddenly fumed, honestly surprised at how much she gave a shit about him storming out. He was only a fuck, after all. If at all, now, as the case may have been.

She knew she’d go back and forth about this in her own mind until she drove herself crazy, so instead, decided on one of her favourite comedy shows on Prime and settled down with her wine. Pretty soon, it was like he’d never been there at all that night, apart from when she got up to go grab a pack of her favourite sweet plantain chips and saw his boxers poking out from beneath the couch.  

Picking them up, she threw them into the machine in the small utility room off the kitchen, putting her wash on and filling a bowl with the plantain chips before heading back out, thinking about Tommy all over again as she sat crunching through her first mouthful. She felt a mixture of sad, angry and embarrassed, and none of those emotions sat particularly well with her either. Meanwhile, across town, Tommy sat next to Meadow at her place, watching a movie that he found tame but she had proclaimed to be the scariest thing she’d ever seen, Heather microwaving popcorn.  

Whereas Darla felt sad and embarrassed as well as angry, Tommy was just angry, simmering away beneath the surface, incensed that a woman so progressive could be that narrow minded. It had truly ground his gears.  

“Why are you frowning?”

He honestly hadn’t been aware. “Am I?” Meadow nodded, all tucked up beside him under her blanket, Heather’s need to have the AC on so cold that it bordered on Alaska driving her beneath the swathe of soft fleece.  

“Yeah, you have your angry crease right here.” She stroked the patch between his eyebrows with her fingertip, where indeed he was sporting a frown line. “Why you mad?”  

“Nothing, just stuff.”

“I’m not convinced this is mere stuff,” she began, ceasing her chewing of the piece of red rope liquorice she held in her hand. “Someone upset you, you only frown like that when it’s personal.” Shit. She really did know him too well, being able to gauge what had hurt him by how it played across his face. Mildly irritated was a set jaw and a defiantly lifted chin, but whatever this was, he felt it right down to his marrow.  

“Yeah, they did.” As usual, he was being cagey, so Meadow didn’t prod him for once. She knew it was an exercise akin to poking a rattlesnake with a stick. When Heather sat down again, though, using his lap as a popcorn bowl holder, it took all of fifty seconds resumption of the movie before he suddenly blew up. “Fucking Darla!”

Bits of popcorn erupted from the bowl as Heather jumped out of her skin upon taking a handful, Meadow squeaking in surprise. Perhaps random outbursts of anger were not entirely appropriate when watching something that some people in the room found to be unnerving enough as it was, he realised about five seconds too late.  

Immediately, the TV was paused. “What did she do now?” Heather asked, propping her head against her hand as she turned to look at him, Tommy’s frown deepening more than the average gorge.  

“So, I go round there,” he began.

“For your booty call?” Meadow interjected with.

“Right, and afterwards we were just sitting talking, when she brings up something that lead to us discussing rehab for prisoners who have addiction issues. She’s a let ‘em rot type, and I told her for somebody so progressive, I saw that as a very narrow-minded stance to have. She maintained there was only so much you could do in helping habitual offenders with substance abuse issues, and that pissed me off because everyone deserves a second chance, right?”

Meadow and Heather both looked a little uncomfortable, cringing slightly. “Well, she’s kinda right, Tommy. Coming from someone who works within the penal system, I get guys coming through all the damn time who I know are going to fall straight back down and re-offend, and it isn’t through a lack of help. It’s through them truly not wanting to help themselves. It isn’t their second chances either, it’s like, their eighth or ninth, sometimes more.” Of course, with Heather being a probation officer, she was a wealth of information on the subject.

“Yeah, but come on. Those guys often didn’t have the best starts in life, did they? There’re so many social factors and troublesome homelives you have to work through, surely?” he put to her, Heather smiling through thin lips. She admired his nature there, to be so charitable and understanding, but felt it was a little naïve. The distinction was stark to her, between those who intended to get clean and do well against the hardest of odds stacked against them like he’d just mentioned, who sometimes still failed, and those who repeated the patterns again and again, no matter how much help they were offered.  

“Yeah, but when it’s guys in their fifties and sixties still repeating these patterns, you have to ask yourself if social factors truly do actually factor in to someone’s decision to keep on indulging in the behaviour that leads to them doing time. Surely just that alone didn’t leave you so pissed off that you’re still brewing over it now though, hmm?” Reaching out, she stroked the side of his face kindly, Tommy suddenly feeling a little embarrassed.  

“I kinda yelled at her. It brought up stuff about my dad,” he admitted, Meadow squeezing his arm.

“Your dad wasn’t in an out of prison like a yoyo while continuing to use, or out on the streets dealing poison to kids though, was he? He was an alcoholic who tried to clean up, managed it for a short while too, before he eventually and very sadly lost his fight. Yelling at Darla isn’t going to change what happened, especially when she wasn’t attacking your dad or his attempts at sobriety.”  

He sighed, realising that he’d perhaps overreacted a little. “Me and my damned temper.”

“Yes, you and your temper!” Meadow confirmed, poking him gently with her fingernail before taking another mouthful of popcorn. “No but really, Darla isn’t stupid. I’m sure she just saw that you were triggered by it and just lost your head a little. Sending her an apology text wouldn’t go amiss, perhaps?”

He grunted at her suggestion, but it was more of an agreeing grunt than one of petulance. “Yeah, I will. Anyway, you haven’t crapped your pants nearly enough yet. Back to the movie.”  

Meadow side eyed him, reaching over to the remote and pressing play, their evening resumed. He left as soon as it had finished, thanking them for their company before heading home, sending Darla an apology text on the short walk. He didn’t expect to get a reply with it being quite late, pulling out his airbed and inflating it a little more before flopping down, looking forward to getting the hole in the bedroom floor fixed the following week.  

The house was costing him a small fortune, but thankfully he had a good few grand in inheritance from the sale of his father’s home, Brendan insisting he take his share since the Sparta Tournament winnings had left him and Tess very comfortable. ’It’s time we both put the past to some good, Tommy’ he had said, handing him the cheque despite Tommy’s initial protests borne of pride.  

When he hadn’t received a reply to his message after a couple of days, those days stretching into a week and then two, he figured it was her problem if she still continued to harbour a grudge. He continued with life as normal, the renovations to his home taking his main focus around work and going out with his friends, until Darla became a distant memory.  

As for the lady herself, Tommy was at the forefront of her mind, something she attempted to distract herself from in the weeks following the last time she saw him, focusing on her work, pilates with Aimee and girl’s evenings with her and Chantelle, one of which she sorely needed after a particularly long, tough week.

Arriving at Aimee’s house, she was greeted on the front step, but not by either of her girlfriends.  

“Hello, little man!” she cooed warmly, her squirrel friend darting around excitedly before he ran up to her, awaiting his treats. She retrieved the small container of trail mix she’d packed especially for him in her bag, crouching down to offer him a small handful. “You are so cute, yes! I’m thinking I should give you a name, but what?”

“Hey! Stop feeding the pooper and get your ass back here!” Aimee called, the back gate opening to reveal her, looking unimpressed at Darla’s growing friendship with the small creature she still believed hated her.  

“I gotta go, tiny. You take care, though. Avoid cars and big dogs. Cats too!” giving him a little scratch on his back, she emptied out a little more of the trail mix onto the path for him, placing the container back into her bag before joining her friends, greeting Aimee with a kiss, Chantelle too as she exited the kitchen with a large bowl of chips and a charcuterie board, a little section of vegan treats walled off by a bunch of grapes especially for her.  

“I had a taste of that vegan brie just now, it’s actually quite good!” she enthused as Darla sat down, nodding enthusiastically.

“It really is! Once you get past the fact it smells like feet, but then again, I think regular brie smells much the same,” she observed, Chantelle crinkling her nose.

“And now I don’t want it any more. My belly thanks you for this!” she laughed, shielding her eyes from the still very bright early evening sun. “Babe, you look tired. Everything okay?”

No, everything was not okay, as she knew her girls would pick up on. “I haven’t been sleeping well of late.” Her confession was met with sympathetic faces, Aimee, pouring out the wine, Darla quick to cover her glass with her hand, shaking her head.  

“No, none for me, guys. It ties in with why I haven’t slept all too well in the last ten days.”

Aimee and Chantelle looked between each other curiously, the former setting the bottle down and reaching to rest her hand on Darla’s shoulder as she witnessed her looked more pained by the second.  

“Sweetie, what’s wrong?”

Taking a breath, Darla knew it would become real the moment she spoke it to another soul, and she wasn’t ready for it, but if there was anyone she could confide in, it was the women sitting at the table with her.  

“I’m pregnant.”

A/N - Now, here’s the really, really important part. Did you enjoy it? If so, please don’t just redundantly click that heart. Reblog it. Also, I love to engage with my readers, so a little comment would not go amiss either! Doesn’t have to be long, just reach out. I’m all about building community here and there is nothing more lovely than readers and writers supporting one another!

#tom hardy #tom hardy fanfiction #tom hardy fanfic #tom hardy fic #tom hardy x ofc #tom hardy x oc #tom hardy x black oc #tom hardy warrior #tommy conlon #tommy conlon smut #tommy conlon fanfiction #tommy conlon fanfic #tommy conlon fic #tommy conlon x ofc #tommy conlon x oc #tommy conlon x black oc #warrior #warrior fanfiction #warrior fanfic #warrior fic