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upheavalofmemory · 1 year

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pick a pile || random things about your future spouse

welcome to my newest pick a pile reading! this reading is some random things about your future spouse/partner, although it can be your next relationship or current relationship if it resonates.

this time, images are inspired by vultures~! images are not mine.

masterlist

decks being used:

The Dark Mansion Tarot by Taroteca Studio

Pile 1

Hi pile 1! As I shuffle the cards, I'm feeling quite stubborn energy, the cards were pretty straightforward, and I feel that your future spouse is as well. I heard fixed? They might have some fixed signs in their chart, although I am not keen on astrology. I feel like they're absolutely in love with you! When I saw the first card I went "aww" since the imagery on the four of wands in this deck is so cute and romantic. I feel like they've went through some troubles in their life and they never had expected to be in a loving relationship. The relationships in their family may have been bad and they simply just expected to fall back into the same cycle, but they're so glad that they broke the chain and found you <3. They might have a lot of struggles, they might struggle with depression or something sleep-related like sleep paralysis but they're working through it and they wouldn't let you be affected by it (I'm getting that they don't let people see their struggles? Make sure to check in on them sometimes pile one, they don't open up easily but they'll appreciate your presence). I get a big underlying presence of sadness.

You are their world. You guys may eventually move out from where you are and it'll bring you a lot of abundance, you both will be very happy in the end I'm seeing. They might also be from another country or very well-traveled and they can't wait to share that experience with you.

They might be wearing red when you first meet them or their favorite color is red. Appearance-wise, they might dress very classically and they look well put together. They might thrift for their outfits? Cool, we love someone sustainable! Although I'm feeling it's more that they struggle to find clothes that match them in normal stores. They might be a little bit more eccentric but classy. They might have hair that's light brown or a dirty blonde to reddish, and I'm picking up on freckles and/or moles as well. Also, blue eyes might resonate.

4 might be an important number by the way.

Pile 2

What's up pile 2! I'm feeling super pumped for this reading! Your future spouse seems to be quite radical, quite the positive thinker and your definite cheerleader! If you don't like positive people, you might change your mind with this person because they'll truly make your heart flutter <3. While I was shuffling, I couldn't help but sing! But I feel like this super cute and lovely aura hides something...darker? Not in a bad way, but they might be more serious than you expect them to be!

I'm getting like, positively aggressive? They want to kill the world with kindness and nothing is going to stop them. They're very family oriented and love their family and friends, I'm seeing a very good relationship here with both. They'll do anything for the people they care about, even running someone over with a car!!! To be clear, the imagery I got in my head was some sort of zombie apocalypse where they're driving their friends through a crowd of zombies or something...they might be a SciFi fan lol.

Don't expect them to cut off their family or friends for you though, they love them greatly. They may still be in good ties with their exes or something like that, they're a hard person to hate! But don't expect them to be a pushover. If someone treats them or their friends badly, they will CUT! THEM! OUT! You might hate them at first and then realize that they're actually not that bad. They're a very just person and value fairness to a T.

If you know anything about MBTI, it's giving ENTJ and ENFJ.

Despite always servicing and helping others, they really do love you. Sometimes they need to be dragged back to you or back to home but they're really not trying to hurt you, just let them know what you need!! They might really wear themselves out but for you, you are their rock and place of healing. They love being around you when the world is too much for them to bear because they feel like you'll always be there for them. Remember your boundaries though pile 2, communication is super important. They're hopeless romantics though, they really love you they just don't always have the time to give you everything but they want to give you the world and they hope that if they aren't enough to be your partner then they hope to be enough as friends... aww :,(. They may have had this pattern before but it's just their nature to help people. You might help them with setting better boundaries and not letting themselves get to their breaking point.

Appearance-wise, they may have dark hair (brown to black) with possibly tanned skin. They might be taller, they may have a v in their name, they like apples :)?

Pile 3

hii pile 3 uwu <3

Not sure why I felt like I needed to say it that way, they might talk to you that way as a joke? Both of you sending cute emojis and stuff back in forth and saying "nya" and "uwu" shit as jokes, ya'll are funny lol... it's giving the energy of that one couple who is constantly on each other in middle school, everyone hates them because they're head over heels for each other. The couple post that people post comments of "aww how cute *jumps off a bridge" and shit like that. Sorry, not sure why I keep swearing in this one, seems like two different energies here. That might be how they actually are, they might swear a lot.

Ooooo they're sneakyyyy. I thought I felt ENTP (mbti) vibes at the beginning, you might be stuck with an ENTP or someone just hella sarcastic and funny. Anyways with the sneaky part, they're not sneaky in a bad way, they just always keep you on your toes. They might scare you/play a prank on you randomly one day and then come home with a kitten the next, I have a feeling you guys really like cats for some reason. They're gonna steal your heart (and you're gonna like it >:((), they really like you and you really like them. A stupid (affectionately) match made in heaven. They're an inventor, a thinker, always coming up with new and innovative ideas. You really aspire to be like them, they might be the top of your class or something and you have no idea that they like you. But the are EYEING U UP, READY TO STRIKE !!! Your night in shining armor, your best friend <333 if anyone tries to hurt you they'll beat them up immediately (or go cower in a corner and tell you to fight them yourself... smdh they think they're funny). Also they might be an Aries? Or a Capricorn, I see a ram/goat like creature here, maybe you guys go and do goat yoga or something.

Appearance, they may have long dark hair, facial hair maybe, they like wearing dark colors. I feel like you call them emo as a joke, something like that but they're not and they're just dark or something. Might have a mischievous look to them, they might also be very generous. i also got that they might be a politician uh... they might do underhanded things??? watch out if this is for you LOL don't get involved in dirty shit 🤨. People might think they're a drug dealer???? Is this person playing with me 🤨?? real funny guy.

Pile 4

Greetings, my lovely final pile! This person is giving me very regal vibes, they might be very careful with their words but they always have a lot to say!

They might live by the water, they love ponds. They might be an environmentalist or activist or zoologist. They find comfort in the stillness of the water and the balance of life (woah?), very deep person. You also won't find them in shallow water, both literally and figuratively. They do their shadow work, always improving themselves and their well being. Their body reflects upon the rest of the world so they take great responsibility in being careful with how they express themselves.

This is a vey diferent energy than the last pile for sure. They pull their weight (accidentally typed eight if that resonates), they're an important member of society and they take that very seriously. They might work in construction or some public services area, they are important to their community and they put in a lot of work to make a difference. They may not have a high-paying job but their character reflects more on the people around them, they might be people's favorite person, someone that people absolutely adore. They might be an immigrant, they worked extremely hard to get to where they are and they don't take anything for granted. They have everything they want in life because they put in the work for it. The people in this pile might be older or your fs might be older, they feel very calm and mature <3. You might meet them when you are older also, maybe you were married before and this is a remarriage, take what resonates.

They definitely see the fruits of their labor or will see it soon. If you're looking for someone safe and stable, they are yours. Appearance-wise, lots of grey hair or black hair in these cards. They may have really long hair. Facial hair is also on the cards. and they might have really pale skin, almost ghostly. They may not tan? 🤷🏽

No doubt though, they do love you. They might be initially hesitant to let you in and share their abundance but they'll be glad to let you in once they know that they can trust you. They want to spoil you, they've been waiting their whole lives for someone who they can trust <3.

Finished~

Thank you for reading! Once again if it doesn't resonate, let it go <3 This was a lot longer than my previous reading, and if you'd like to leave a tip or if you'd like to purchase a personal reading (pay what you want), feel free to contact me! Thank you so much once again <3

#pick a card #tarot reading #oracle reading #pac #pac tarot #pick a picture #pac reading #tarot pac #pick a pile reading #love tarot free #love reading #fs reading #future spouse tarot #future spouse pac #future spouse pick a card #upheavalofmemory #uomTAROT

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magnusbae · 1 year

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okay but (about your tags on cuubism's post about hob not being special for being immortal) i feel like hob's optimism ISN'T super special, either. like... hate to say this but the majority of the world isn't sad all the time? at least not in my experience, i mean. like, in stories and to a lesser degree online, there's this very pessimistic outlook that's become the norm, and so when we see hob not becoming pessimistic, we think that's special, that's unique, that's surprising. but... idk, maybe i'm naive about this, but i feel like most people DON'T feel sad and bitter about life. it's not just that most people don't want to die, it's that most people find joy in things. most people can laugh. most people can be happy. hob just has the opportunity to do that on a longer scale than anyone else. he's unique for having that chance, not for taking it.

i feel like that's part of what makes hob such an interesting foil for dream. because dream is exceptional. he is special. he is everyone's dreams, everywhere; he is powerful beyond imagining. which is why i LOVE dreamling: hob is a completely normal guy who dream can look at and understand that life is good. people are happy. dream can be happy, too.

(it's dream's unique depression vs. hob's everyday positivity that gets me asldkfjhaskdjfhs)

anyway i haven't even seen the show or read the comics so like. take this with a grain of salt. but i really like the idea of hob as just a completely normal person who was lucky enough to be overheard by death at just the right time.

(Ref Post) Now see, let's start from the fact that in fanon, you're allowed to experience the ship in any way you personally enjoy. Many people genuinely love and prefer seeing Hob as absolutely normal guy versus Dream's sepernatual status.

If we discuss our philosophies in general about real people, I'd agree with you that generally on the internet, or more specifically on tumblr, a pessimistic outlook on things in the norm.

However in your example you had omitted a few key points. You've given the average person's day to day life as an example to people who are happy and generally optimistic. You do not take into account the events Hob had went through: pandemic on large and horrifying scale, battlefields, murders and starvation. Then even on a more radical scale, losing his wife and both his children, being drowned alive but unable to die from it (which is torture on a scale human's can't understand) being the only being of his kind aside from a stranger he meets once a century (alienation and loneliness) etc etc

Now those are not precisely your day to day experiences that most non-tumblr people would be cheerfully okay with, yes?

Most normally people would struggle to live with even one of those events, now, consider the fact, Hob lives with ALL of those events with little to no change to his personality, outlook on life and general functionality.

That is not your average human behaviour, simply aint.

Some people enjoy seeing Hob as 100% normal, some people like me, enjoy seeing Hob as batshit crazy too >:D

Like, yes, near Dream of the Endless, almost anyone, supernatural or not, would seem rather dull and normal, and it does not take away from the reality of things, Hob is still human, Hob is still RATHER normal near Dream.

But if you take Dream away from the equitation, and inspect Hob solely as an individual character, he is far from being normal.

By all means, he'd be considered the demigod of the story if other gods/endless were not introduced.

A character who does not age, die and who has no payment to pay for his boon, no secret Achilles' heel? Who lives century after century without allowing anything change who he is the core? (for better of worse he stays generally true to himself) like, frankly, that's not normal.

TLTR while I agree with you that tumblr's outlook on life is rather gloomy and most folk wouldn't be this blue, I would also say that most people would have severe reaction to trauma and loss, and wouldn't be able to carry repeated trauma through decades and centuries.

#msg #Anonymous #BIG TALKS MUCH THOUGHT #hob gadling #hob #the sandman #buns.hc #buns.all

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puthyjuth · 2 years

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sometimes im angry that people have such radically different views from mine and then i just remember we are all gna d*e anyway and it literally doesn't matter and people will find their own sources of coping and happiness and thats what matters. and even if they don't, that's out of my control because at least i tried

buuuuut at least to you, i want to rant,

it does kinda annoy me and make me want to change someones mind when literally they only really care about money but not like the stability money can provide in a im broke and literally can't afford my basic needs way but the power structure and act of accumulating it and having/winning this fake quantifiable social hierarchy. and they seek to win within their own family, their shitty friends, random ppl they meet, just anyone

the other thing kinda pet peeve i have is when ppl really belittle mental health and looking at it from a bigger perspective than just im sad im happy idk like when they attribute really shitty things that happen to them not as a traumatic thing that affects the way they live and make decisions day to day but they just say oh thats just a generational thing like basically saying these beliefs are out of anyones control

like. im not even hating bc im belittling them, i just feel... so sad for them that. because they think like this they will literally never find what they are looking for or truly heal and its genuinely really sad to me because even if you did "win" there will always be richer ppl than you, ppl with a bigger house a better car there will always be more and you will never be satisfied. and the second one, i also feel sad bc these ppl also leave themselves in shitty situations but they defend themselves and everyone who hurts them, and it sucks bc these ppl are also super kind

like when i talk about how things hurt me and i set boundaries and leave when they are broken, they project and defend themselves so deeply when i wish they could just see im trying to say you should leave too lol

i know this is super specific but yeaaaa idk i feel like it applies to a lot of ppl- ppl who kinda just wanna be rich n ppl pleasers who never stand up for themselves. maybe bc these things deeply affected me once and i realized how hopeless things feel

BUUUUT who knows maybe i am really just someone who doesn't really like it when others have different perspectives than me

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sokumotanaka · 2 years

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X-men and MHA should never come up in comparison and here’s why:

Okay so I think we need to address this massive elephants in the room while simultaneously addressing the fact that people severely miss two separate points that they’re are multiple elephants trapped in a room with us is more IMPORTANT to address than why they’re wearing silly little hats.

vvv Read more vvv

What am I on about? My hero academia’s badly put together Quirk discrimination and why on EARTH anyone is comparing it to the X-men is beyond me! Now before I start this I want to say a couple things, 1. I ask that you hear me out, its very easy to get upset when someone judges a thing you like but this is not with contempt for the series but the sadness in which Quirk discrimination is handled. And 2. I don’t read the manga, I don’t have the time nowadays so the anime is easier to watch when I’m doing desk or house work and my time is very stretched thin so even that is hard sometimes.

Now that that's out there, Let’s summarize: My hero academia is about a kid named Izuku who wanted to be a hero but was born without a super power, but through hard work is gifted one of the most overpowered super powers around.

X-men is about a series of people who all awakened to a mutant generic in them and struggle to fight for their civil rights, the mutant powers are an allegory and there are plenty or episodes that explore racism and anti-mutant people and some of them just hate different looking people and get rightfully schooled for it and some push past their prejudice to help mutants live and find happiness in our world. Not to mention some mutants sadly get hunted and killed sparking a more radicalized mutant faction in magneto’s side; and sadly as time went on he went from “I’m gonna liberate and protect mutant lives.” to becoming a weird terrorist.

Regardless the summaries here will help flesh out and support the argument, now Let’s look at some mutant Quirk users, Ojiro, Froppy, kota and even spinner.

Spoilers for the most recent chapter of MHA: In the most recent chapter of the series the league of villains used Spinner as a foot-hole in the final battle by trying to spark an uprising among the “heteromorph” quirk users (Which is the mutation quirks that physically change a lot of people in MHA) with Spinner s the figurehead. SPOILER END!

Now I wanna say this, I’m caught up with the anime and its in its late seasons, towards the end of the series in fact and I KNOW for a fact no talk of Quirk discrimination was talked about, in fact AGAIN; Ojiro and Froppy aren’t treated any differently than their other classmates, except by people in our real world who think Ojiro is too ordinary while praising the kid with the fire and ice powers; and Idk about you but fire and ice are so generic and ordinary you can’t throw a stone without hitting a small group of elemental super heroes, I’m much more interested in seeing mutant quirks and how they triumph with the powers given to them.

And it’s a shame too cause the message of MHA is anyone can be a hero and the other message that the characters and series tries to push is that hard work can beat natural talent and genetic gifts, it’s one of the lessons Deku explains to Todoroki, his genetic don’t mean that the Quirk isn’t yours and yours alone.

Yet they decide to teach us the lesson of “Hard work can beat genetic gifts” by having the three strongest characters be two guys who had great genetics and got two powerful quirks and Izuku’s power being a genetic gift in which he gets MORE super powers gifted to him while Ojiro or Kota or Froppy have to work their asses off to be told by the fanbase they aren’t as interesting as stoic white bread Todorki or Dabi. Hell Quirk discrimination makes zero sense when like the number 2 hero by the anime is a handsome guy with wings and one of the top 10 being a bunny girl; and even gang orca is high up their despite being a 7ft tall whale man; MHA is so bad at the discrimination, and it’s weird that it would exist. Let’s talk about another part of the manga I came across on accident. So on my way to my chiropractor's appointment I decided to scroll the internet and on twitter ran into people thirsting over this furry girl, and idk what she is if she’s a fox or a whale or whatever I don’t care, what DID spark my interest was the lack of reaction from Izuku or ANY of the heroes when she came up to Izuku and explained how she wasn’t allowed into a shelter because they said no mutants when….this is japan right? This is the same state that accepts and even has fan girls/boys in universe lusting over Hawks and Ryuko but this girl can’t get into a shelter? Now I know it mimics real life to a degree but they say that these heroes are unanimously picked there’s zero complaints, and the many times our heroes could have something to say about it.

HALF of the are mutations, you’re telling me Jiro the girl with the headphone jack ears is treated differently somewhere? Someone is gonna call her a slur? Are you serious? Or the fact that Jiro and Ojiro and tokoyami and so on are all friends but not a single one of them piped up about Quirk discrimination….ever??

So when I see people saying that its on par or better than X-men I feel like you’re missing the point of both series. MHA was never about Quirk discrimination to the degree it affected the main characters, we have a mention from a background fox girl and not Hawks or Froppy or even Ojiro! The cast don't react to fox girl's statement, and discrimination talk would be nice to see, seriously it be nice to see the others back them up cause they don’t stand for that crap and it be nice to see Izuku or others have more reactions to give than a passing glace or a slight glare, discrimination is a SERIOUS topic and it’s one of the things ruining our world today and X-men is LEAGUES above MHA in that regard, the only time it happens is when SPINNER FREAKNING SPINNER gets to make other mutant quirk uses radicalize for the bad guys to become meat shields to bar the heroes and not the heroes fighting to protect people of all different walks of life.

Deku and Todoroki always talk about how they wanna redeem cold blooded murderers who aren’t at all sorry but talking about racism and the mistreatment of their friends with tails, nah. What about those mutant characters getting screentime? Nope not at all.

Say what you will about X-men but the viewer at least gets to see other mutants get screentime, there are people who have powers too weak to work alone who thrive on teams and still get their own chapters in their comics or get to shine in video games amongst other media; and IF FOX DIDN’T OWN THEM! We could have had more X-men. (But that's an entirely different and painful topic for later) but let’s not pretend MHA is about discrimination on the Level of X-men, cause X-men had it’s discussions on prejudices and alienation and even had some causes the heroes overlooked and apologized for and then got to work making it up to them.

But MHA? Come on the elephant that is X-men is a completely different type of elephant than the Mha one and to compare them is like saying a tiger and a cat are the exact same creature and their upbringings and surroundings don’t factor in to two completely different creatures or stories, see? I tied it back in!

And the reason why the elephants are wearing hats is because their circus creatures, like the people who came up with this asinine comparison, Frankly I’d LOVE for MHA to talk more about these things, but a random background character bringing up in passing and a minor villain even in his own group being used to hold the line with the bodies of the discriminated is...awful when you don’t even let the cast have opinions on discrimination, its easier to root for X-men cause they don’t tolerate that crap but it seems like the MHA cast through the writers and producers want to pretend it’s not even a real issue.

If you read this far thank you, if you disagree please take your elephants and return to the circus from where you belong, thank you very much!

I love MHA but it has an issue with how sudden and crammed in the Quirk discrimination plotine came out to be like when the fox said that I was like “wait they get discriminated?” and this was before the villains were unlocking new powers which kinda spits in the face of the hard work message when Ojiro and octopus guy can’t catch a break but like the blood drinking girl can now use other people’s powers huh? Seems completely fair, what does spinner get? Nothing? Okay!

Anyway I personally think that Horikoshi should of addressed this plotline from the start, maybe make it like froppy or Ojiro’s motivation, maybe make it that they don’t make proper clothing for people with wings or tails or that hawks is the 10th hero and despite being so powerful never rises above that rank for some reason, it just that this is a too little too late situation, and I don’t wanna start patting him on the back for the bare minimum of screentime dedicated to the fact some people just don’t have it as well off as you or I may have it.

Anyway thanks again for reading this, protect black, Asian, Pakistan lives among every minorities lives and treat them the way you’d like your loved ones to be treated and have a nice day, I hope this gave you something to think on.

#mha #my hero academia #bnha #quirk discrimination #mha quirks #mha manga

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minghellafine · 3 years

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Full interview below.

The first thing Max Minghella does when he joins our Zoom call is ask me about the weather. It wasn't just a conversational cliché though, he really wanted to know what it was like where I was. I tell him I'm in New York City, where spring can surprise you with a day that's colder or warmer than it looks. This particular day was chilly. "I'm always cold," he interjects, "I'm reptilian. My body finds a way to keep me cool." He shivered as he spoke, sitting in his sunny backyard in Los Angeles wearing a T-shirt. I checked the temperature right after our call. It was 80 degrees in L.A.

Despite any discomfort, Minghella is just really happy to be at home. Unlike the millions of people who spent 2020 in quarantine, he was working on season four of The Handmaid's Tale throughout the spring and summer."I'm sort of jealous of people who have this moment to pause and reflect," he says soberly. "Even with all of the trauma it's caused and all the things that obviously were detrimental, I know a lot of people who've had big life changes in the past year."

He acknowledged, however, that creating something in a time when everyone wished they could escape was ultimately a lucky thing. "There was a ubiquitous sense of gratitude," he adds.

Outside of the global pandemic, the dynamics on set had shifted — this season, his co-star Elisabeth Moss (or "Lizzie" as he affectionately calls her), was a director. "She was amazing on set," he explained. "Just very in control and it ran super smoothly. When I saw the episodes she directed, it just kind of blew me away. Her style — it's very cinematic and it really underlines the sci-fi elements of the show. It has a real kind of scope and confidence to it. I think she's a real filmmaker."

RELATED: Marvel's New Face Danny Ramirez Has the Range

Minghella's character Nick has an interesting arc this season too – he's realizing his role as a senior member of the Gilead ruling class, but also still in love with June [Moss]. It's a complex character that challenges you as an audience member. He is the brooding love interest, and while you may root for him and June to be together, you also have to see him for what he is: an architect of a world that kidnaps women and uses them for childbearing.

What made the previous three seasons of the show even harder for viewers to digest was the fact that people so badly wanted to believe there could be a good guy defector — maybe even Nick — in a room full of bad guys. During those years, many people felt that the dystopian elements of the show were reflective of the nationalist agenda being put forth in the United States by the Trump Administration. So much so that a group of protesters famously wore Handmaid costumes to protest anti-abortion bills and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings. Without saying much about the parallels in the show — other than chalking them up to "pure coincidence," Minghella felt the Handmaid's Tale, whose protagonists are anti-Gilead, are "on the right side of history." He added diplomatically, "Ultimately, I'm most proud because I think it's really great fiction."

I get the sense that the pursuit of "great fiction" is something that consumes Minghella. He's someone who appreciates art (he got his big break in 2006's Art School Confidential), and his parents are Anthony Minghella, the late award-winning director of The Talented Mr. Ripley, and actress Carolyn Choa. He loves details (see our earlier weather conversation). Even the way he talks about Los Angeles has a story-like quality. He tells me about how he knew when the city became his home after a feeling he got driving past the Silver Lake 7-Eleven. As he told it, I pictured it like a scene in an indie movie starring Zach Braff.

"I had this sort of pathological obsession with movies from birth. [My mother] worked for the British equivalent of the Motion Picture Association, so she would watch three films a day. By three or four years old, I was just kind of an obsessed movie person." It's his favorite movie, Beverly Hills Cop ("I think I saw 100 times by the time I was eight years old," he says) that inspired another big role he was working on during quarantine: Minghella stars as a detective opposite Chris Rock in the Saw franchise spin-off Spiral: From the Book of Saw.

"The movie was so serendipitous for me. I feel like I almost manifested it in my life," Minghella muses. "There's a line very early in the movie where we're investigating these crime scenes and we come to a grizzly one. My character looks nauseous. Chris's [character] says to me, 'Are you okay?' And my character says, 'Yeah. I mean I'd been dreaming about this since I was 12-years-old.' And that was a very kind of weird line because it's just true."

Now at 35 years old, Minghella is feeling settled. He is still a "film nerd" that gets giddy with each new opportunity, but he's less anxious about the results. Next thing on his list? Vacation.

"I'm hoping in May once the movie comes out I can run away somewhere."

Read on for his cheesy would-be campaign slogan, his fast-food weakness, and the time he escaped a tornado while working on a film with Blake Lively.

Who is your celebrity crush?

Mary Tyler Moore.

What's the last thing you do before you fall asleep?

I listen to 1950s radio shows. Usually Dragnet. I was researching a project in that period briefly and got sort of into the radio culture of that time. And now I find it incredibly soothing.

Favorite villain?

Hans Gruber.

Describe a memorable dream.

I had a recurring nightmare as a child in which my grandmother turned into a cat. So Tom Hooper's Cats was very traumatizing to me.

First album you ever owned?

My mother bought me the Top Gun soundtrack on audio cassette.

If you were required to spend $1,000 today, what would you buy and why?

I would do anything to help a distressed dog.

If you ran for office, what would your slogan be?

Some kind of tacky pun using my first name. "Take it to the Max," or maybe "Max on, Max off."

Name one place you've never been but have always wanted to go.

Easy. Japan. I went when I was one, but I don't think that counts.

What's the most uncomfortable outfit you've ever worn?

I did a film called Art School Confidential and I had to wear a beret and I found every moment of it truly humiliating. I remember being completely traumatized by it.

Describe your first kiss.

My first kiss was at a bus stop. I was 14 and I lied and told the girl that it wasn't my first kiss, but I think it was probably immediately evident that it was.

What's one dish you're always tempted to order if you see it on a menu?

There are so many things. That's the sad answer. French fries is the truth.

Favorite on-set memory?

I did a movie called Elvis and Anabelle with Blake Lively like 100 years ago and we shot in Texas. There was a tornado one night that forced us to evacuate the set and we had to sort of drive off in a hurry. I put on this song by The Knife called "Pass This On" in the car which is very dramatic and cinematic. The tornado was sort of in pursuit of the vehicle while we were speeding away. And it was just far enough that it wasn't life-threatening, but also a radical visual. That's one of my favorite life memories.

The Handmaid's Tale season 4 premieres on Hulu April 28, and Spiral: From the Book of Saw hits theaters on May 11.

Photographs by Emily Malan. Grooming by Sonia Lee for Exclusive Artists using La Mer. Polaroid Photos by Max Minghella. Special thanks to Polaroid. Production by Kelly Chiello.

#max minghella #the handmaid's tale #saw #spiral #elvis and anabelle #the social network #interviews #*

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warmau · 4 years

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kick it!au x nct 127

more like punk!au 127, but it’s inspired by the n version of the album!

taeyong

only heir to one of seoul’s biggest tech businesses, but no matter how much his parents try to get him to act like one

he really could give a rats ass about it

sometimes his parents think he’s doing it on purpose - the over the top outfits and the heavy music

the skipping out on important meetings, the hanging out with people who don't even imagine what kind of tax bracket his parents are in

but taeyong just cant bring himself to want to give his whole life away

to slaving over some company in some high office in a building so far off from the wonders life has to offer

he’d rather run around and experience what he can while he’s young and his body can handle it

so for a while, he just runs away - it sets of a massive panic throughout the city of seoul as his parents send out search teams and private investigators

and the police are put on the case

you watch the news and sigh, spotting taeyong spread out like a comfortable cat on your couch

“you know sooner or later they’re going to find out you’re here.”

“no they won’t. you were an intern in our legal department - you never even officially met me.”

he answers, playing with the threads off of his holed up tshirt before sitting up

“hey - if you really don't want to be involved in this, just run away with me to London like i offered.”

you take a bite of toast

“won’t that just get me more involved - we’ll both become fugitives. well i will, you’ll probably be saved by your parents money.”

taeyong’s eyes darken and his beautiful features fall sullen

you hear him hit the back the pillow with a soft thud

“i wish i wasn't living my life on the back of my parents - it’d make everything so much easier.”

you get up, leaning over the couch to look down at him

you met him when you’d gotten fired from your internship actually

why? because you threw hot coffee on some creep manager trying to feel you up and taeyong, who’d been passing by the floor, had watched mesmerized as you’d yelled at him for even thinking of touching you

it was the most badass thing he’d ever seen and when you were dragged away and tossed out of the building

he’d run up to you and offered to help you out

you thought he was saying he’d get you your job back - which you didn’t want because you didn’t want to work with creeps

but taeyong had actually meant getting you a favor at another company

even if he was a punk kid with no interest in business, he was still pretty charismatic with the other kids his age with parents in high places

he was the reason you had a comfortable life now - so when he shoed up on your doorstep you couldnt say no

now you’re looking at him and he’s looking up at you - the lost look in his eyes makes you so sad

“i cant run away with you anywhere, but you’re welcome to stay here for as long as you want.”

his lips turn up in a smile but before you can pull back he leans forward and you feel the softness of his mouth brush yours

you freeze with your hands digging into the couch and taeyong puts out his own palm on your cheek

“what if i wanna stay here with you forever?”

his tongue runs along the outline of your bottom lip and you feel the strength in your arms sort of fade

“are you doing this just to piss off your par-”

you start when you pull back, but he shakes his head and taeyong is not good at lying

“no. im doing all of this because i do want to be with you.”

jaehyun & johnny

guitarist and drummer of their garage punk band that they started in highschool together

to be honest, johnny had suggested it as a way to get themselves more popular - and jaehyun had thought it’d be a fun way to pass the long summer days

but now they’re actually pretty well known in the underground scene

and have went on to play booked shows in packed bars and events

they even have self designed merch which is kinda,,,well,,,,their fans love them anyway lol

you’re actually a server at one of the bars they play pretty frequently, and even though most of the crowd is pushed up on the stage when they play

there are some stragglers or bored significant others who occupy the tables in the back and who you have to deal with

they usually complain to you about the loud, thrashing music - but you have to say - you kind of dig the duo’s chaotic energy

plus jaehyun always looks handsome in leather black jeans and hair slicked back, while johnny looks just as enticing with disheveled brown long bangs and a right sleeve full of tattoos

you think some of the people in the crowd don’t even fancy the music that much either - the two musicians are pretty much a sight to enjoy on their own

you actually favor,

jaehyun - the guitarist and the main singer who always looks cold and put together

you sometimes akin him to more of like a businessman than a punk musician

but he really does have a lovely voice when he isn’t screaming into a mic

also - he tips better than most people - when he comes back to the bar to get a drink after the show

fans usually follow behind him like ants on honey

but he always makes it a point to get a few minutes before them so he can chat with you

his questions are usually about how you like the songs, you have the sneaking suspicion he’s the one who writes them

and you always enjoy the moments before his hoard attacks him

one evening you collect his bill and are surprised at the large tip again - but also at his number scrawled at the bottom and a question

thinking of writing my first love song, i think you can really help with that.....if you’d want to.

johnny - the drummer and the wilder part of the two

he’s got tattoos and is always jumping around and throwing drumsticks into the crowd

he looks like a mess when he’s up there, feeling the music and going insane with the fans cheers

but when he gets off stage he has those long sweaty bangs in his face

and usually is missing a part of his shirt that either tore or was torn off

he always finds you after, when you run back to the kitchen which is beside the back of the stage

usually for more snacks for the bar - and he always coaxes something free out of you

you like his one-liners and genuinely happy smile so you dont mind

and sometimes he tells you about a new tattoo or a new city he’s going to get or visit

one evening he stops you when all you’ve got is a wine bottle in hand and asks if you have a second

you agree and follow him into a part behind stacked speakers and almost drop the wine when he pulls his shirt up by his teeth

through muffling you understand him saying “look, i got my first hip tat!”

you see the tiger that’s disappearing down below his belt

“how big is the whole thing?!”

you ask and he winks, letting his shirt fall back down

“well if you want to see the whole thing - why don’t i wait for outback later?”

you agree - only to think about it ten minutes later and be like

taeil

employee at the local vintage records shop

the owner pretty much entrusts all of the store to taeil, whose music taste is highly respected in the community and is also very very,,,,,,,very specific

but unlike most people who love to come in here and argue about what genre or band or artist is the best

he just likes to,,,,,,,,vibe

which is why people feel either comfortable around him - because he’ll listen to them rant with a smile as he checks them out

or kinda weirded out because like - does he ever raise his voice above a softhearted whisper?!?!

pretty cute with his blonde mullet and pretty silver earrings - a loved flannel over his shoulders

because of taeil’s work and the general popularity of vintage records as an aesthetic, the shop gets a little more busy

and so the owner hires you - who unlike taeil who favors ska-punk and beach vibes

you are a strictly heavy metal person

the grimier - the better

and when you start working your job, you cannot handle taeil’s playlist

and you can’t handle his laidback attitude to match

so you always have something to say - half because you mean it but also half because you want some reaction from taeil

but taeil never does, if you spend half an hour shittalking the album he picks he just kind of shrugs it off

if you put on some swedish death tunes - he just lets you play the music without a comment

you guys look kind of funny next to each other because he’s just punky dad chic and your wardrobe is bleak and black

people can tell where your favorite sections are and they are on opposite sides of the store

one afternoon, you’re begging the store owner to buy copies of this obscure band most people dont care about but who you LOVE for the store

he keeps saying no because he’s pretty sure no one will buy it

when taeil strolls in for his shift

the boss turns and asks taeil for his opinion and you give up completely because

there’s no way he’s gonna ask the boss to order a heavy metal record-

“yes, let’s order it. i trust their taste.”

taeil smiles your way before turning the corner

the boss sighs and pats your shoulder, promising he’ll put it on the list for the next order

you just stand there, before breaking from your shock to find taeil

you do - he’s unpackaging new goods - and gives you a soft, happy smile when you call out his name

“why’d you stand up for me back there? you hate my music.”

“i never said i hated it.”

you scrunch up your nose

“so you’re a heavy metal fan now?”

“no, but you are and if you like it then it’s good right?”

you don’t understand, confused you say again - “but you hate it-”

he puts down the record in his hand and turns toward you

he tilts his head and goes,

“but i don't hate you, in fact i like you quite a lot so im willing to put up- i mean listen to the music you like because i know it makes you happy.”

the words swirl around in your head and you feel something warm flood into your veins

“you ,,,, like me a lot?”

“yes, i thought it was obvious how shy i was around you.”

you try not to laugh in disbelief, because you’re pretty sure he’s never even changed his facial expression since you started here

but whatever - you kinda like that (a lot) about him too

yuta

your local back alley tattooer and piercer

not actual back alley, more like in his apartment, but still - does he have a license for this? who knows

he loves doing colorful, crazy pieces - usually with a magical element or a pinup style

and if you give him a big project, he goes absolutely nuts on it

he himself has tattoos up the back of his neck and all the way down to his ankles

he has almost thirteen piercings' in one ear, with his infamous tongue piercing, bellybutton, and two studs above his hipbones

pain doesn’t exist for him - and neither do boundaries when it comes to art or fashion

he’s almost always photographed or stopped when he goes outside

long hair up in a bun, he pulls out one of the sticks holding it and is like “it’s also a pocket knife if i click here-”

thick collar, long skirts or ripped up sweaters

he’s a very fun person to both work with or just be around LOL

you don’t really think that though - actually you’re super nervous when you see him

your friend though, the one who insisted on coming to yuta for their nose piercing, is hyped

she’s buzzing around him - getting excited and also flirting

but for someone reason ,,, he keeps looking over her shoulder at you

“well, let me get the needle ready-”

he starts and you ask if it’s been sterilized

he laughs in response and your friend shushes you

but something feels all weird about this

you lean in to her as yuta gets his instruments ready

“do you really want this? why don’t you just get another ear-”

“don’t worry! it’ll be fine!”

you hear a voice chime in behind you both, “exactly - it’ll be peachy.”

you bite your lip as you watch yuta approach but just as you want to make sure again

your friend sees the needle and

passes out

you catch her - eyes wide and scared

“wh-oh my god! we need a doctor!”

Yuta sighs, rolling his eyes and putting the needle back down

he takes your friend from your arms and lays her down on the couch nearby

“no we don't. ill get some ice.”

“she’s passed out! what do you mean we don’t - we need to call-”

“it happens all the time.”

he disappears and then shuffles back in with an icyhot, he drops it in your hand and you stare at him

he pulls up a chair and sits down in it, “she’ll be back up in a couple minutes. we just have to wait.”

you’re skeptical - now more than ever - but you place the ice on her forehead and sit back up

“sooo, are you also looking to get a piercing?”

he suddenly inquires, leaning his elbows on his knees and giving you a look that makes you feel like you’re being seared under a lamp

“w-what, no. she just asked me to come along for support.”

“you’d look good with a nose piercing, or maybe a lip piercing, or the shy types always get something crazy like-”

his eyes drop down a little lower and you huff, fighting off a weird buzz in your chest

“no! i don't want any, and i don't want to be convinced either thank you.”

he shrugs and sits back

“you sure? not even i offer to do it for free?”

you roll your eyes, “does free mean free or is there a clause missing?”

“free means you pay nothing, but maybe you’ll consider getting coffee with me.”

this catches you off guard - you nearly lose grip on the icyhot on your friends forehead when you turn to him

“s-sorry, are you flirting with me while my friends passed out on your couch?!!??”

yuta grins

“yeah, i am. isn’t that normal?”

doyoung

politically outspoken activist, nazi stomper, no bullshit from anyone graduate student

doesn’t look punk on the outside but put on his headphones and it’s straight up songs about anarchy only

won’t tell anyone where the secret little tattoo he got is, but people place bets on where and what they think it is

jaehyun thinks it has to be like a quote from chomsky but taeil thinks it might be something sappy and sentimental like a flower for his mom

it’s actually just a cool looking sword on the side of his ribs that he got half because he wanted to prove he could take the pain LOL

he really doesn’t fuck around when it comes to his beliefs though - like he doesnt think it’s radical to want human rights for everyone and if anyone wants to get in his face about it

then he will get back in their face about it

and listen he’s gotten into some fights, and even though he’s mostly lank and brains - he’ll take a punch with pride and throw his own if anyone says some dumb shit in his vicinity

“you look more like a prep then a punk” someone once comments and doyoung doesn’t even bat an eyelash to retort “i don't need a mohwak to fight for respect. and ill have you know - i do own a leather jacket so shove it.”

you’re a student in one of doyoung’s classes who thinks he’s really cool, but also intimidating

his dark eyes and lack of humor kind of make him unapproachable, but also pretty attractive

you’re kind of sad that you can’t talk to him about upcoming ralies and class work because you don’t know what you two could have in common

when one day you and doyoung arrive to class early and suddenly the quiet classroom is full of loud, hard, punk rock

you turn around and doyoung’s big eyes are somehow even bigger

“m-my bluetooth disconnected. sorry.”

he scrambles to turn down the volume, but you jump up

“you like rage against the machine? i love them!”

doyoung perks up

“really, usually people tell me they’re outdated and don’t fit well,,,,you know - how i look.”

you shake your head, “who cares what you look like - their music started a movement!”

you move your seat up closer to doyoung and ask if you can see his playlist

he shows it to you proudly and before you know it you two are in a deep discussion about bands and music and shows

the professor and students trickle in and before you know it it’s time for class to start

before it does, you happily exclaim to doyoung

“i didn’t think we’d ever have something in common - im so happy i can talk to you now!”

“you couldn’t talk to me before?”

doyoung takes note of the blush that dusts your cheek and the way your fingers twitch in your lap

“ah - i just, you know it’s hard to talk to someone you like.”

doyoung is about to ask that you say that again, just so he can confirm it and get that giddy feeling again

but the professor starts the lecture

too bad the whole time doyoung can’t help but steal looks at you - counting down the minutes till the class is over and he can ask you to come with him for lunch

you guys can listen to music and,,,,,,,maybe talk about how to change the political world,,,,,together <3

jungwoo

definitely flunking a lot of his classes, but so pretty when you look passed the crazy orange hair that no one blames him for it

he’s always falling asleep behind textbooks

and doodling butterflies or whatnot in the corners of his notes

he loves baggy clothes, decorated with pins and paint, every now and then he’s even got little bandages on his cheeks and fingers

he looks like he came out of a cartoon - delicate features and colorful clothes

he opens his locker and love notes fall out no matter what day it is

and his headphones keep getting confiscated by teachers

he should technically be your biggest enemy

considering he breaks uniform violations, doesn’t do his homework, and frequently hangs out in the halls when he should be there

and you’re a prefect that’s got straight A’s

but you,,,,,,,just cannot be mad at jungwoo

anyone else, you’re the first to hand out detention slips or lug them into the deans office

but with jungwoo - there’s what you’d just call favoritism

people think it’s kind of hilarious though because you’re trying so hard to hide your crush on jungwoo but it’s so obvious

and jungwoo is so clueless about your crush and the fact that you give him so many slides that when people complain about how he didn’t get in trouble but they did for doing the SAME thing

he’s like huh what?

you keep getting told to stop being so lenient with him, he’s not going to learn if he’s not told he’s doing something wrong

but when you’re faced with him again

that big puppy smile and the cute little flower studs in his ears

you just cant

you just shoo him out of the sight of any other prefects or teachers so he wont be caught

one afternoon as you’re checking the halls during study period - you spot jungwoo hanging out on the ledge of the window to the top floor

beside him is a half eaten sandwich and a forgotten book

he looks so picturesque you feel guilty interrupting him

but you know you’re not the only one on duty so you touch his shoulder gently

“jungwoo, kun might find you if you’re just sitting here.”

“you found me.”

he says with a gentle smile

“yes, but you know i don’t want you to get in trouble - so do you think you can go up to the roof?”

he nods, gathering his things and as you turn to leave, he takes a hold of your wrist and tugs you behind him

“wh-”

but it’s too late, you’re already up the stairs and being pulled through the roof’s door

jungwoo twirls you around and you want to tell him you have to get back to your job

when he pulls you against his chest

“j-j-jungwoo?!?”

your face heats up as you squeak in shock

he stares down into your eyes - the usual gloss of dreaminess seems a little more serious

“do you like me?”

your heart feels like it has stopped in your chest - no matter who’d asked you about your crush before, it was never jungwoo himself so it was always easy to lie

“wh-why are you asking me?”

he blinks, long dark lashes in contrast to his bright hair

“i want to know if you like me.”

“but why- y-you’ve never asked me before.”

“because.”

he shrugs, saying it as if it’s the easiest thing to admit in the world

“because i like you so if you like me too - i can ask you on a date.”

mark

skater boy who wants to go pro

spends hours in the park and in lots trying new tricks and just skating because if there’s one thing he loves

it’s the rush, the feel of the board and the air that passes by him as he cruises down the block

he’s pretty oblivious to the fact that he’s the most liked skater, maybe even person, in his neighborhood

because he will jump off his board to help old ladies cross the street and willing to bust it and eat dirt if a kid accidentally stumbles in front of him

he’s always kinda banged up, with something broken or sprained or slightly bloodied from messed up tricks or accidents

but he works it, along with the chino pants and old band tshirts and beanies

he secretly got his nose pierced last summer, but he’s gotta keep hiding it from mom and dad lol

he takes part in a lot of local competitions because he really wants to get his foot in the pro game

and (not surprising to anyone but him) he has a lot of local fans

some are just fellow skaters who love his happy attitude, others are lovestruck teenagers who think the sweet skater is prime boyfriend material (they’re right)

you aren’t a huge skating fan, you actually don’t know much about it, but you sometimes get dragged along with friends to the events

they’re free and it’s fun to pass the time

you’re at one, sipping a slushie and listening to your friends argue about the upcoming show

when you notice a boy in a beanie off the right of the course

he’s practicing flips, his skateboard a strong neon green with what you assume are his initials - ML

“who is that?” you ask offhandedly and your friends all answer in unison - “oh! that’s the favorite - mark lee.”

you are about to look away, but then you end up catching mark’s gaze

when your eyes lock - he smiles and it shows off the sweetness that you can see people would go crazy over

you nearly miss your slushie straw as you try to smile awkwardly back

for the first time, you’re extremely excited to see one of the runs - mark takes his position at the top of the ramp and you edge forward in your seat

your friends comment about it - but you’re not the only one getting hyped - it seems like the whole place is waiting to see him succeed

you hold your breath a little as he lands the first trick, then the next, then the next

its going so well and you think you might even just get up and cheer when right on the last second - he hits a rail and the board flies off - it leaves mark tumbling down

he catches himself with his hands but you can see the pain and shock spread over his face

the crowd gasps - but no one moves

actually, you’re waiting for EMTs or someone to show up - but it’s just mark limping up and chasing after his runaway board

“where are the doctors - or someone to help?”

you turn and your friends just shrug, “it’s not a super big event so they usually don’t have anyone.”

you don’t know what comes over you, you’ve seen people slam before at these things but this just feels different

you get up from your seat and push down through to the back the course

you find mark sitting out near the curb of the parking lot, nursing what you can guess is a pair of pretty hurt palms

and you rush over

“are you ok?”

he looks up at you and you notice he’s abandoned his beanie - black hair a wild mess

“ah yeah, no worries. ill be good for my second-”

all you have are the napkins from your slushie, which you use quickly to dab at the small cuts on mark’s hands

he’s so caught off guard by your sudden makeshift first aid, that mark just stares wide eyed as you try to help

“let me go find some ice or something, it looks like it really hur-”

“its ok! i fall all the time!”

you frown, “but your hands-”

he goes pink at the ears, because your voice is full of real concern, and plus he didn’t just smile so big at you before for no reason

you are as adorable from a distance as you are up close, probably even more actually

“im ok, thanks for worrying but i do need to get back to the course.”

you drop your hands from his and sigh, “ok. but after do you promise you’ll at least get some bandages?”

“promise.”

you nod and get up, watching mark stand with you and wince as he flips his board up into his hands

you still feel worried, but mark suddenly goes

“actually, would you mind coming with me after - i mean you don’t have to if you’re with your frie-”

“they won’t mind. of course ill come, at least that way ii know you didn’t go back on your promise!”

mark thinks your little laugh is the cutest thing hes heard in a while, it rings through his ears for the rest of the competition

and when he humbly places third, he finds you in the crowd - and shakes his board up at you

the whole row you’re in turns your way

your friends all raise their eyebrows

but you’re just thinking about getting him those bandages (and maybe getting his number?)

haechan

skater boy who is a pro

youngest in the scene right now with more than three world championship titles under his board

sponsored by monster energy, vans, hell even companies like samsung are looking to put their money in him

his videos have millions of views on youtube and everyone whose trying to get into skating sees him as an icon to worship

the only person to land some of the hardest tricks known in the sport on his first runs

always bright, with one little braid hanging from his hair - the mullet look was so well accepted by fans that he decided to keep it

(even had longtime friend and fellow skater jeno come over and dye it blonde for him)

and in general, he can take a fall like anyone - but when he does land his tricks he’s always bursting with energy and dance moves out on the course

you know him, how could you not, working as one of the go-pro camera crew for skating events

but when you’re assigned to be his follow along for the upcoming qualifiers being held in your city you almost lose it

because not only are going to get to film THE haechan, but you’re going to be so close to him for the entirety of the competiton too

the fan in you comes to life, but you try to keep your cool when the day comes - introducing yourself with a handshake and a big smile

you’re nervous but what you don’t expect (and don’t actually even notice) is haechan is too

because - oh god, this is the first camera person he’s ever gotten that is on THIS level of cute

you’re so caught up in trying to get the perfect footage of him, that you don’t see how he keeps peeking at you out of the corner of his eye

when he trips over one of his boards and nearly crashes into another skater you assume it’s pre-competition jitters

but it’s actually just because you’re getting quite close to him - and haechan hasn’t ever had butterflies LIKE this

five minutes before the competition goes live, he requests that his manager switch you and one of the other skaters camera crew

it’s so soul crushing - you’re kind of left in a blank shock - until your new skater is shaking your shoulders

you think you must have done SOMETHING,,,,,no one has ever complained about you before??? you didn’t think you were even being the slightest bit annoying - even though you were trying REALLY hard not to ask for at least an autograph??

you spend the entire competition overthinking it until finally - after haechan wins and is done with all his interviews and handshakes

you manage to track him down and immediately bow at a 90 degree angle

“im so sorry if i did something wrong, i really didn’t think you’d ask to switch - please tell me what i did to upset you so i don’t do it again!”

your head is still down and haechan suddenly feels like the trophy in his hand weighs a ton

he clenches his teeth and mutters

“you didn’t do anything,,,,,,your crime is just being really-”

you slam up and your eyes are big and shaking, haechan feels like the worst person on earth as he swallows

“your cime is just being really,,,,really,,,,,really,,,,,,cute.”

“p-pardon?”

your voice cracks, because you’re pretty sure you misheard him

he scratches his head, almost bonking himself on the temple with the trophy

charismatic always silly and shining haechan suddenly looks coy

“c-cute, you’re just really cute and i couldn’t focus on my tricks so - please don’t take it to heart.”

your stomach does a flip, both out of relief and out of disbelief

“o-oh,,,,i-- well - im sorry for being-”

“don’t apologize for being cute!”

you jump and nod, haechan signs and mumbles again

“i made you feel bad didn’t i? well,,,let me make it up to you and take you to lunch,,,”

you nearly drop your go-pro because

holy shit haechan is asking me out on a date,,,,,,in a roundabout way but,,,,,it’s definitely an invite for a date

“sure-id love to!”

haechan tries to hide his grin

but when his manager catches him twirling the trophy around and whistling with a dreamy look in his eyes later that day

well

it’s just obvious

someones in love

#this was so fun to write i love punk concepts thidfjsl #nct scenarios #nct imagines #nct au #nct 127 #nct #give me punk like actual punk outfits or ill riot sm

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leebrontide · 4 years

Text

A true, 30 year, tropetastic, queer love story. (Part 1)

Pls open the link if you'd like to read a 30 year, trope-tastic true queer romance featuring pining, instalove, swords, childhood-friends-to-lovers and a happy ending.

We THINK the story begins in 1991. We know it starts at theatre day-camp for kids, a summer when we were both in elementary school.

The earliest memories are vague- I remembered a super cool kid from the older class with dark eyes who I was desperate to eat lunch with every day.

It's taken us years to reconstruct the timeline. We have figured out I did go to her house outside of camp that first year, because I remember her bird that tried to bite me. We can only guess at years based on camp themes.

Because we were little kids. I was 7. So we lost touch.

But here's the thing- we kept going to the same camp. She was always in a class ahead of me, because I'm a year and a half younger.

And every year- apparently without remembering we'd met before? We became summer best friends. Drawn together over and over.

But, being disorganized kids in a world of lesser tech, every year, when camp ended, we lost phone numbers- we lived a good 30 minutes away from each other, so I have to imagine our parent's weren't exactly heartbroken at the loss. It was a lot of driving.

In 4th grade, when I was 9, I made a new best friend, named Meredith. My parents heartily recommended the summer theatre camp to hers, and she was sent with me, the next year.

She, was older than me, so she was in Ty's class. & having excellent taste, also made friends with her.

The three of us played together all summer.

Then came the fall, and the inevitable lost contact. I remember being sad about that much more clearly, that year.

BUT, the big change happened when I was 10.

Again, sent to camp. Again, my friend Meredith was there to.

At lunch, I found them playing together. I went to introduce myself to the obviously cool older girl.

For some reason I tried to shake her hand? Little weirdo.

Ty reacts to me the same way- oh hey! Cool new person! I want to be friends!

Meredith looks at us both like we're out of our minds.

"You know each other. We played all last summer."

And suddenly, the spell of childhood amnesia was broken.

I DID know her. We were FRIENDS.

We HAD BEEN FRIENDS for years.

She LIKED ME.

SHE LIKED ME.

(love with memory disabilities is a trip, folks. And her lil ADHD kid brain was struggling right alongside mine)

We were elated.

But that wasn't the last shock to my little 10 year old heart that 5 week summer camp would bring.

Meredith was, and is, a poet. Somehow she had a habit, at 11 years old, of making up poems about people's eyes.

Weird stuff. I remember a pair of green eyes being compared to a deep sea, were the bones of drunken drowned sailors floated.

Very Anne of Green Gables.

And- I remember this part with perfect clarity. She turned to me and said, do you know who has pretty eyes? Ty.

We were crossing the stage, Ty was carrying a box of props like 15 feet ahead of us.

I said "does she?"

And then, ever the romantic I screamed "HEY TY TURN AROUND I WANNA SEE SOMETHING!"

She did.

And for the first time, I looked into the dark eyes I'd been drawn to for all those years, and saw them anew.

There's a reason cupid's supposed to have arrows.

I swear to you that this is true. It felt like an actual blow to my chest. Like a physical blow.

I was stunned. My little heart was hammering out of control.

I have no idea what I said, or did, or looked like after that.

But I figured out pretty quickly what that was. It was not subtle, even to a prepubescent nearly 6th grader.

But I was a pragmatic little almost-6th-grader.

This was a crush. Middle schoolers have crushes.

And they're supposed to fade over time.

I don't remember if I was worried that my crush was on a girl. I just remember the certainty that this was just a child's crush, and therefor nothing that would last or cause problems.

And when fall came, I lost her number again.

But this time I was devastated.

But, this time a hero saved the day! Meredith, sweet, wonderful, more-organized-than-either-of-us Meredith, still had the number.

And this time, I held on to it.

We became year round besties.

For the first year of adoring her year-round, I didn't worry about my little crush. It'd go away in time.

By 7th grade, it started to be a problem.

We were having sleep overs, and I started to feel guilty about how much I wanted to look at her and cuddle her all the time.

I don't think I told anyone right away. But Meredith was always the smartest of us three.

She's the one who proposed we play "wedding". She presided over the ceremony herself, and her little sister was our wedding photographer.

Oddly, even though I didn't know about this photo till years later, this is a game both of us remember playing.

It meant... something.

Image

I started to feel guilty. We were having sleep overs, talking every day on the phone. I wanted to look at her all the time- I wanted to be with her all the time. I wanted to kiss her, and started to realize she might be bothered by that.

I never wanted to hide anything from her.

So, I confessed my love. I didn't think of this as being especially radical or brave, but in retrospect, I'm impressed by 12 year old Lee's behavior.

She smiled brightly, and said she loved me to!

As her best friend.

I clarified my position.

She repeated that she loved me as her very best friend.

And these feelings were a bit scary and BIG, so that was all good. She still wanted to hang out all the time. Life was good.

By 8th grade, I was starting to worry. The crush hadn't worn off yet. Everyone told me these things wore off.

But I was more in love with her than ever.

And when Meredith moved to Nashville, we got even closer.

We joined the MN sword club. Made new friends. In the way of these things, a whole lot of them turned out to be some evolving variety of queer. Friends started coming out.

I barely needed to, my crush was horrifyingly obvious to all our friends.

Image

I promised you swords. The swords don't feature prominently, but the club was a major connection for us for years, and this detail has always struck me.

I'm not an especially good fencer. Especially then. I was constructed out of raw spaghetti noodles and moved like creaky budget claymation most of the time. I was calculating, but slow.

She was fast, and brash, and more skilled than me. She eventually beat some nationally recognized fencers. We called her "fiery Tybalt" because we're a bunch of big ol nerds who wanted to sound smart. She eventually took her name from that nickname.

Even at only 5ft tall, she should have beaten me handily and reliably. She could hold her own against much better fencers.

But we actually got BANNED from sparring together, because we were so evenly matched we could never get enough points for a win.

My one and only expertise in fencing was knowing her. But she knew me just as well, so there was a stalemate.

Our friends laughed at us.

I confessed my love again in 8th grade.

And 9th.

10th.

11th.

I never wanted to lie to her. It was important to me that she knew what I was thinking and feeling, but it was also important that I not burden her with it.

She always gave me the same answer. She loved me. She loved me SO MUCH.

What a shame she was straight.

Now, readers, let me remind you we're looking at two queer kids in the 90s at this point.

There were pressures at play.

When I was in 11th grade, she left for college. And she was far enough away that long distance calls were expensive. I couldn't call her every day.

What I remember most about senior year was being depressed and lonely.

But also, that after years of my family despairing of my ever learning to type, and eventually getting me the (then very expensive) dragon speech-to-type program so I could type my homework and not fail school- my contact with her was suddenly all in text. AOL messenger.

People have commented at all my workplaces about my typing speed. I type 120 words per minute now.

Specifically because it was the only way to talk to her most days.

I went to college the following year. We both got boyfriends. Both nice boys who liked and admired us.

BOTH broke up with us because we so obviously preferred each other over them. To an embarrassing degree.

The boy I was dating- bless him he only lasted 3 months- specifically told me "if I go out with you any more I'm going to fall in love with you. And you're in love with her."

Slick bastard.

He was right tho.

I couldn't be mad at him.

But this is when I started to really panic.

It'd been 6 years. My first crush was still absolutely roaring. Nobody else came close to tempting me.

And nobody else wanted to, when it became obvious they couldn't compete with her.

And she was still my best friend, so of course I told her. I told her I was miserable, because I was going to be single forever because nobody else would want me, because I was so in love with her.

She felt bad. She loved me so much. So much she'd been dumped to.

Such a shame she was straight.

I wouldn't find out till much later that that conversation had started something on her side, that, for once, she knew to keep from me.

She spent the next 6 months in intense contemplation.

She DID prefer me to all the other boys (and girls) who were chasing her in college.

And there were a lot of them.

She did think I was pretty, and she did love me. And she did want to be with me forever.

She'd been as dedicated to me as I was to her through this whole time. As caring, as invested, as, frankly, obsessed. Everyone could see it.

But she wasn't straight. She was bi.

And ace.

We wouldn't learn that word for many more years. All she knew was that the story of falling in love didn't match the love she was feeling.

But then she realized- she'd never felt the feelings she was "supposed" to feel for her boyfriend, either. She was not more attracted to him than to me. And he was a good looking guy. A catch by most any standard.

And she also hadn't loved him.

But she did love me.

So, my sophomore year of college (her junior year), we were preparing our trip to the Renaissance festival. A bunch of her friends were driving into town for it, and we'd see each other again at last. (we'd been back at school like 2 weeks, so naturally were desperate to meet up)

I am still flabbergasted as the next series of events.

She asked me out. On AOL instant messenger. After over 7 years of my pining, and adoration. After 7 years of choosing the pain of being near her and not being able to kiss her, over the desolation of not having her beside me

She very logically explained her reasoning.

I had a meltdown.

My poor room mate walked into our room to find me crying and throwing things at the computer screen.

I was convinced she was offering to date me because she felt bad for me. Because she loved me and wanted me to stop hurting and feeling alone.

So I turned her down.

That, friends, was HARD. REALLY HARD.

Thankfully, she was having none of it. She insisted it only made sense for us to date. I tried to stay firm. I refused repeatedly, all in that damned AOL messenger.

We reached a compromise- one date, at the Ren Fest, as a test.

And if it failed we'd never speak of it again.

Because the prospect of dating and breaking up was terrifying to us both.

If we were going to be together, we'd be defacto engaged. Neither of us could tolerate breaking up.

The weekend came- my college friends all knew, and accompanied me, made sure I was decked out in the best fair garb we could cobble together.

She drove up with her friends- including the ex- who had no idea what was happening. She had on her finest cape & boots & a swishy dress.

We could not manage to be alone together. Like it was a proper rom-com ridiculousness. All damn day.

But at least we were together.

She came back to my dorm that night, to spend the night, and drive back the next day.

Shout out to my room mate who stayed at her boyfriend's house that night. Love you, Lindsay.

We finally managed to kiss.

She abruptly decided kissing wasn't some weird thing people only pretended to like because it was normal, and was in fact an amazing wonderful thing we should do frequently.

I don't actually remember us deciding that the experiment was successful, and we'd be a romantic couple from then on.

Pretty sure the kissing melted my brain.

It was not like kissing my old boyfriend at all.

She went back to college the next day.

I do remember, that, MORE THAN ONCE, I nervously asked my roomy if this had all really happened. I was truly and genuinely concerned that I'd dreamed or fantasized the whole thing. I'd done both enough times before.

I couldn't just ask outright so I'd say something like. "Hey did anything- important happen yesterday?"

And she'd look at me like I was speaking some alien language, and tell me I was dating Ty now.

I wandered around in a dream-like stupor for a WEEK.

This is a good place to stop for now. More tonight. I need to go snuggle my baby and help my wife with lunch. 💖

Popping in briefly for the next installment.

All our friends knew immediately. Some of them- the newer ones, were confused because they had assumed we were always dating, on account of how blatantly in love we were all the damn time.

We decided tho, to hold off on telling our families. We decided to date a year first, to show that it was serious, and that we meant it.

It was a good year, full of the kind of pining that is regularly rewarded by happy weekends and spring breaks and summers.

The next august, before we went back to school, we each sat down our own parents. Hers were sort of "yeah ok whatever." I was not there for that conversation.

I went to my favorite restaurant with my own parents, and told them I was seeing someone. Dad was enthused. Wanted to meet him.

Well. I said. You have.

Because it's Ty.

#gay love #gay romance #romance tropes #ace love #nonbinary romance #romance tropes tropes love #coming out day 2020

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koteosa · 4 years

Text

here’s some modern au headcanons for the arcana ... it’s something I think about a lot

Asra

gamer memeing shitlord . he majored in minecraft you cannot convince me otherwise

plays A Lot of minecraft but also just enjoys any similar sort of game, sdv, animal crossing, etc. He’s really good at video games but he’s just fucking around . he likes to play online games and try his best to make everyone hate him in a really harmless sort of way . he heals the enemy spy . changes his display name and avatar to be exactly the same as someone else . tells people to go into the console and type unbindall

he plays games with his friends and he’s usually the top player so he just spends his time spoiling the shit out of his friends giving them good items carrying them through dungeons etc but not Julian, he tells Julian to dig straight down in minecraft . Julian doesn’t ever know what he’s doing in any video game so Asra trains him wrong on purpose, as a joke

anyway enough about video games (for now)

Asra lives in a van that he painted the exterior of himself, it was both a fun project and a very smug way to annoy people with this awful fucking hippie van strolling into town, eat shit

it’s decorated with crystals, furs, fairy lights, mason jars full of food For The Aesthetic, books, etc. It’s very cozy, cottagecore / bohemian and it’s ridiculously obvious that he’s into witchcraft. he just lets Faust explore because this isn’t real and I can pretend that a snake is exactly as well behaved as in a fantasy story

basically homeless by choice

drugs tw but I see him as the type to want to try anything and everything at least once so if he’s ever been offered A Drug (and he crashes parties for fun and for free food, so he’s got opportunities) he’ll try it Just To See, and this has resulted in some bad trips before, but Muriel saw him in the middle of one and then after he sobered up Muriel put his foot down and made Asra agree to only do these things as responsibly as possible, like, with supervision from a friend

still drugs tw but I also see Asra as a stoner but in the cbd edibles sort of way, a lot of this is because I headcanon Asra as having ADD (because I do and I want to project a little bit) so it helps him focus but also he just Likes It. the glove box of his car has like, chocolate/lollipop edibles stuff like that

goes between like super healthy elaborate meals with mushrooms and veggies and fresh meat and shit and then just eating nothing but cheez-its all day

style wise I see him as the type to wear a lot of tank tops, like, the loosest of tank tops so it hangs super low and long and you get some nice cleavage out of it, crystal necklaces, gold jewelry, pride pins/jewelry/etc (trans/nonbinary/bisexual flags), oversized hoodies with loud colorful patterns, joggers and other loose comfy pants, and either boots or slippers

he’s got like... the at home look that’s basically what I just described, and then the away from home look that’s got thirty layers and none of it makes sense and he just shows up in orange crocs With Patterned Socks and everyone who sees him just lets out the heaviest sigh

Asra getting home be like (takes off a layer of clothes) (takes off a layer of clothes) (takes off a layer of clothes) (takes off a layer of clothes) (takes off a l

He likes to go on long road trips completely at random and saves up money to go on more extensive trips like, out of the continent. It can be really hard to place him at any given time, especially because he’s extremely slow to respond to texts for a whole multitude of reasons. He just fucking vanishes sometimes and he doesn’t get that maybe people want to know where he is. He’s too solitary

He makes money either via street performances (magic, tarot readings, etc) or selling shit on etsy like handmade tarot decks, crystal necklaces, magic charms, etc. He Has Never Worked A Day In His Life and He Will Not Start Now

Responsibility? Don’t know her

People ask him really obnoxious questions sometimes and he makes outlandish lies to tell them for fun . Why do you live in a van? A house killed my parents

In the fall/winter he lives with Muriel or more to the point, he crashes on his couch for a really long time and Muriel’s landlord doesn’t need to know about it for rent purposes

Julian

he’s a highly paid doctor and your mother would love it if you’d marry him if not for the fact that he looks like he never left his teenage emo phase

PIERCINGS

There’s DEFINITELY at least one piercing on his d

he lives with Portia and Mazelinka and tries to handle all their expenses but Mazelinka won’t fucking let him

soundproofed his room but not because he’s a youtuber or anything but because he uh. y’know what I’m gonna let y’all figure this one out on your own

goes to like............. lgbt friendly bdsm clubs every now and then looking for someone to step on him and call him garbage it’s for his mental health you don’t understand

black turtlenecks . silver jewelry . distinguished but Edgy as well, black boots, winklepickers, doc martens, ohmygod this is my SHIT I’m giving him red plaid pants and a reversed cross necklace and a leather jacket that says some radical shit on the back and Lots of Rings . black jeans with tears in the knees and black eyeshadow, demonia boots, leather gloves, hhhhhhOHmy GOD

catch him at home in black leggings and a my chemical romance tshirt with holes in it . he wakes up in the morning with yesterday’s makeup and he just cleans it up a little and that’s good enough

fairly small bedroom because he’s usually never at home, but it’s still pretty clear what he’s into even if it’s not super decorated or elaborate, kind of just Default Room but with his stuff arranged throughout . band posters, black furniture, a bed that looks like a depressed vampire sleeps in it, a bookshelf but most of the books are scattered around his desk, bed, and the floor. there’s a taxidermy skull on display somewhere because it’s just so dramatic you gotta love it

plays a black electric violin

extremely out of tune with pop culture he still listens to 70-00s music and he doesn’t know what a minecraft is or why Asra keeps yelling CREEPER when he comes into the room nor why Portia yells back AW MAN

I googled it and he qualifies as a millennial but I still see him as such a fucking old man who doesn’t know how to use electronics

despite being a doctor he’s so unhealthy . he eats nothing but depression meals (or just, nothing) unless someone forces him to sit down and eat an actual meal . No Julian whiskey does not count for your daily water intake

Malak probably happened because Julian wouldn’t stop feeding every black bird he saw just for the aesthetic and that was like 17 years ago but they still show up at his window expecting almonds or whatever the fuck . he changes houses but they’re too smart . you try to be a cool gothic thespian with a raven that will pose on your arm ONE time when you’re a teenager and they just never stop coming

sad lonely no friends hasn’t been laid in six years because he’s too busy and no longer remembers how to form meaningful relationships. Portia keeps being like so I met this really hot (insert gender here) and like idk I think they’re into goth dudes............... just saying...................... and he’s like am I really so pathetic that I’m going to let my baby sister set up blind dates for me? Yes

would drive something very goth like a hearse or some shit if not for the fact that his family would make sure he ends up in a coffin in the back of it if he drove up in that shit . please . buy a normal fucking car . Julian . oh my god

he starts quoting melodramatic poetry at the slightest inconvenience . he is that “All you did was betray me as I lay sick and festering. You are the definition of dread. My cat stole my fucking garlic bread” meme

been arrested multiple times for general rowdiness but also for political activism . at this point Portia/Mazelinka will just sigh and pay his bail and they don’t even ask what he did this time . how does he still have a job? I wish I knew

theater kid

Muriel

lives in a rundown apartment in the shitty part of town because it’s all he can afford, it’s quiet, and no one will try to visit him (except Asra) because no one wants to go to THAT part of town . but no harm will likely ever befall him because he’s 6′10 and like three million pounds of raw muscle with battle scars like you gonna fuck with that? really?

even if he got robbed it wouldn’t matter because A) he doesn’t own anything B) Inanna will chase the thief away

depression man staying in his quiet rundown dark apartment distracting himself with idle hobbies and taking care of his dog to prevent the encroaching ennui from tearing him a new asshole

changes jobs frequently both because he never stands out therefore never gets taken on full time after the part time trial period, AND to protect himself from the horror of being known

works mostly things like construction, auto repair, dog sitting/walking/etc, woodworking, mostly hard labor but if he can convince granny to let a very scary but completely harmless man look after her bichon frise for the weekend then he’s pretty happy about that

in a similar manner, he orders everything online so cashiers/etc won’t start to recognize him. delivery workers leave everything outside his door and he just drags it inside after they leave like an itazura kitty coin bank

goes camping a lot because staying cooped up in his apartment is super bad for his mental health and he doesn’t like to take walks through the city for a multitude of reasons. he takes Inanna on walks through the woods instead

Asra is his only friend and that’s fine (it’s not fine)

convinced therapy doesn’t work and he wants nothing to do with it

doesn’t like using electronics and only keeps a few things around his house so Asra can use them when he’s around . Muriel has a phone (that Asra got for him) so he can text Asra, check the time, check the weather, google questions, and like, nothing else

pretty much only happy when something is about dogs. he wants to go to the pet store and look at the dogs but he needs Asra to go with him so Asra can distract the workers and Muriel can look at the puppies in peace

dresses in blacks, grays, greens, and browns for the most part, jacket with the hood up, tank tops, dark jeans with tears in them, brown boots with mud stains on them . functional, not particularly stylish, and if he’s going to be in public he doesn’t want to make it easy for anyone to see his face. at home it’s mostly no shirt + sweatpants/joggers/etc. doesn’t accessorize or put in any real effort. he doesn’t care what he looks like (because he’s convinced he’s not much to look at anyway)

lives that super eco friendly life like Asra does but it’s more that he just feels comfortable living like he’s always on a camping trip

he doesn’t want to eat junk like Asra does but if Asra shows up with mcdonalds then well he can’t really say no

the type who uses something until he absolutely cannot use it anymore instead of just buying a new one

has never been to a doctor, dentist, etc Ever. the most he can do is take Inanna to the vet because he loves her so much

drives a very old pickup truck with like, chipped paint and mud stains. he’d take better care of it if only anything in life mattered

didn’t go to school

Portia

I like to think that she took on a groundskeeping job at Nadia’s very expensive large house and they fell in love and now Nadia pays for everything and Portia just spends her time gardening, playing with Pepi, and like idk running a vlogging/gaming youtube channel

200 videos of Pepi on her youtube channel with 4 million views each bare minimum . takes random videos of cats where she has to audio edit it to shit so you can’t hear her high pitched squeals of delight

minecraft let’s play part 30 where her, Asra, Nadia, and Julian play together and it’s extremely chaotic because Asra and Portia decide to gang up on Julian who does NOT know what he’s doing, and then Nadia surprises them all by not being the bigger person and instead tricking Julian into some elaborate trap where he steps on a trapdoor and falls 15 blocks into some lava and he looks up and all he sees is Nadia’s smug fucking avatar looking down at him

nightcore. it’s just not FAST enough

wears sweaters with cats on them. generally dresses in warm colors + brown/green, it’s like a very soft cozy look that you could go camping in or just generally be outside and get grass stains and whatnot. cute, functional

likes to make Julian do things for her like drive her places etc because like, he will. he always will

really likes social gatherings with her friends; sleepovers, beach trips, sitting at mcdonalds and pouring all their fries into a pile etc. tries to get Julian to go with her but he’s Just So BUSY. she makes fun of him and makes him drive her to it, then manages to convince him to stay

cottagecore aesthetic . she just thinks it’s so cute to have the little mason jars and decorate everything with leaves and flowers and BEES and whatnot . would love to live in a little cottage with a farm if she could

her room has a big cat tree in it . green wallpaper with yellow flowers. pressed flowers into books, an extremely cozy bed, fairy lights, it’s very farmy but also there’s a lot of electronics. she’s got a lot of 00s games, like, right in that ps2 sweet spot

nicknames all of her pokemon

she spoils the ever loving shit out of Pepi. She’s got a little cat harness and they go on walks through the park together

I don’t have a lot to say about the other two I Am Sorry

#the arcana #julian devorak #asra alnazar #muriel #portia devorak #nix hydra #text #writing #modern au #headcanon #the arcana writing

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iridescentides · 3 years

Note

hi again dia! happy first day of december ❤️💚 i wanted to ask you what, in your opinion, are the 5 most underrated dcoms? i remember you saying before that you've watched all of them so i'd love to hear your opinions 😊 - 🎅🎁🎄

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH secret santa you are so good! asking me all the best questions 💜

okay so i literally had to make a list of all the dcoms i consider underrated and then narrow down a top 5. theres lots of dcoms that i love, but that i think got the right amount of attention and care (like lemonade mouth and the teen beach movies, for example), so this list just focuses on ones that deserved more hype for their quality level.

5. The Cheetah Girls: One World (2008)

okay so even as i type this i feel like a hypocrite. i have only watched this movie one time. BUT i can acknowledge that its one of the most criminally underrated dcoms ever, tons of people didnt watch it simply because raven wasnt in it. thats why i avoided it as a child, and i didnt get around to watching it until i did my big dcom binge in 2016. and it was so good. theres a really long post floating somewhere around tumblr full of specifics on why its actually the best cheetah girls movie (my favorite is the second one purely out of nostalgia), so to paraphrase some points from that post:

its a solid example of cultural appreciation, rather than appropriation, as the girls go and learn about bollywood and indian culture together

the indian characters arent treated like props or unimportant sides, they get their own agency and storylines that are important

the songs are good!!!

basically this movie was overlooked and slept on even though in terms of role modeling and social value, and just like the first two cheetah girls movies it was important and impactful.

4. Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure (2011)

okay so as someone whos very neutral and occasionally negative-leaning towards the hsm franchise (mostly bc its overhyped and not really representative of all dcoms), i was pleasantly surprised by sharpays fabulous adventure. this is another one that i know lots of people skipped right over and dont hold with as much esteem as the main hsm franchise, and that doesnt sit right with me.

i do not agree with the “uwu sharpay was the real victim in hsm” arguments bc in their efforts to look galaxy brained the people who say that overlook the fact that she was a rich white woman who used her power and status to exercise control over opportunities that should have been fairly and freely available for all; they were not “making a mockery of her theater” in the first movie, they were literally just kids who wanted to try out a new school activity that everyone was supposed to be allowed to participate in; and despite allegedly learning her lesson and singing we’re all in this together with everyone at the end of the first movie, she literally showed no growth in the second movie as she fostered an openly hostile environment and favored troy so heavily that it literally cost him his friends, all as part of yet another jealous plan to take things away from people who already have less than her. she was NOT the victim in the main franchise, and she did not seem to exhibit any growth or introspection either.

and that!!! is why sharpays fabulous adventure was so important. in focusing on sharpay as the main character, they finally had to make her likeable. they did this by showing actual real growth and putting her outside of her sphere of influence and control. we saw true vulnerability from her, instead of the basic ass “mean girl is sad bc shes actually just super insecure” trope (cough cough radio rebel), and this opened us up to finally learn about and care about her character. throughout the movie we see her learn, from her love interests example, how to care for others and be considerate. she faces actual adversity and works through it, asking herself what she truly wants and what shes capable of. and in the end, when she finally has her big moment, we’re happy for her bc she worked hard to get there. she becomes a star through her own merit and determination, rather than through money and connections. this movie is not perfect by any means, but it is severely underrated for the amount of substance it adds to sharpays character.

3. The Swap (2016)

okay i know im gonna get shit for this but thats why its on this list!!! just like sharpays fabulous adventure, its not perfect and definitely misses the mark sometimes, but it deserves more attention and love for all the things it did get right!

the swap follows two kids who accidentally switch bodies because of their emotional attachment to their dead/absent parents’ phones. and while i normally HATE the tv/movie trope of a dead parent being the only thing that builds quick sympathy for a young character, they definitely expanded well enough to where we could root for these kids even without the tragedy aspect. we see them go through their daily struggles and get a feel for their motivations as characters pretty well. as a body switching movie, we expect it to be all goofy and wacky and lighthearted, but it moves beyond that in unexpected ways.

the reason the swap is on this list is for its surprisingly thoughtful commentary on gender roles. its by no means a feminist masterpiece, and its not going to radicalize kids who watch it, but it conveys a subtle, heartfelt message that deserves more appreciation. the characters struggle with the concept of gender in a very accurate way for their age, making off-base comments and feeling trapped by the weight of expectations they cant quite put their finger on. we watch them feel both at odds with and relieved by the gender roles they are expected and allowed to perform in each others bodies, and one of the most interesting parts of the movie to me is their interactions with the other kids around them. as a result of their feeling out of place in each others environments, the kids inadvertently change each others friendships for the better by introducing new communication styles and brave authenticity.

the value of this movie is the subtle, but genuine way it shows the characters growing through being given the space to act in conflicting ways to their expected norms. ellie realizes that relationships dont have to be complex, confusing, and painful, and that its okay to not live up to appearances and images. jack learns that emotional expression is good, healthy, and especially essential to the grieving process. one of the most powerful scenes in the movie comes at the end where, after ellie confronts jacks dad in his body, jack returns as himself to a very heartfelt apology from his father for being too hard on him; the explicit message (”boys can cry”) is paired with an open expression of love and appreciation for his kids that he didnt feel comfortable displaying until his son set an example through honest communication. this is such an empowering scene and overall an empowering movie for kids who may feel stuck in their expected roles, as it sets a positive example for having the courage to break the restrictive societal mold. for its overall message of the importance of introspection and emotional intelligence, the swap is extremely underrated.

2. Freaky Friday (2018)

this is my favorite dcom, and probably my favorite movie at this point. ive always assigned a lot of personal value to this movie (and i love every freaky friday in general), for the message of selfless familial love and understanding. i know i can get carried away talking about this topic; i got an anon ask MONTHS ago asking me about the freaky friday movies and i wrote a super super long detailed response that i never posted bc i didnt quite finish talking about the 2018 movie. and thats bc on a personal level, i cant adequately convey all the love i have for this movie. so i will try to keep this short.

first lets state the obvious: the reason people dont like this movie is bc its not the lindsay lohan version. and i get that, to an extent, bc i also love the 2003 version and its one of my ultimate comfort movies, and grew up watching it and ive seen it a billion times. i even watched it a couple days ago. but the nostalgia goggles that people have on from the early 2000s severely clouds their judgement of the wonderful 2018 remake.

yes, the 2018 version is dorky, overly simplistic plot wise, a bit stiff at times, and super cheesy like any dcom. the writing isnt 100% all the time. the narrative takes a couple confusing turns. the song biology probably shouldnt have been included. i understand this. but at the heart of it all, this movies value is love. and its edge over all the other freaky friday movies is the songs.

on a personal level, the movie speaks heavily to me. i cried very early into my first viewing of the movie bc i got to see dara renee, a dark-skinned, non-skinny actress, playing the mean popular girl on disney channel. that has never happened before. growing up, i saw the sharpays and all the other super thin white women get to be the “popular” girls on tv, and ultimately they were taken down in the end for being mean, but that doesnt change the fact that they were given power and status in the first place for being conventionally beautiful. so, watching dara renee strut around confidently and sing about being the queen bee at this high school got to me immediately. and in general, the supporting cast members of color really mean a lot to me in this movie. we get to see adam, an asian male love interest for the main character. we have a second interracial relationship in the movie with katherines marriage to mike. ellies best friend karl is hispanic. and we see these characters have depth and plot significance, we see them show love, care, and passion for the things they value. the brown faces in this movie are comforting to me personally. additionally, the loving, blended family dynamic is important to me as someone in a close-knit, affectionate step-family.

but on a more general level, this movie is underrated for its skillful musical storytelling and the way it conveys all kinds of love and appreciation. in true freaky friday fashion, we watch ellie and katherine stumble and misstep in their attempts to act like each other. its goofy and fun. but through it all, the music always captures the characters’ intimate thoughts and feelings. the opening song gives us a meaningful view into ellie and katherines relationship and the fundamental misunderstandings that play a role in straining their connection. ellie sings about how she thinks her mom wants her to be perfect, and her katherine sings about all the wonderful traits she sees in her daughter and how she wants her to be more open and self assured. this is meaningful bc even as theyre mad at each other, the love comes through. the songs continue to bring on the emotional weight of the story, as ellie sings to her little brother about her feelings of hurt and abandonment in her fathers absence. the song “go” and its accompanying hunt scene always make me cry bc of the childlike wonder and sense of adventure that it brings. for the kids, its a coming of age, introspective song. for katherine who gets to participate in ellies body, its a reminder of youth and the rich, full life her daughter has ahead of her. she is overcome with excitement, both from getting to be a teenager again for a day, and from the realization that her daughter has a support network and passions that are all her own. today and ev’ry day, the second to last song, is the culmination of the lessons learned throughout the movie, a mother and daughters tearful commitment to each other to love, protect, and understand one another. the line “if today is every day, i will hold you and protect you, i wont let this thing affect you” gets to me every time. even when things are hard and dont go according to plan, they still agree, in this moment, to be there for each other. and thats what all freaky friday stories are ultimately about.

freaky friday 2018 is a beautiful, inclusive, subversive display of familial love, sacrifice, and selflessness, and it is underrated and overlooked because of its more popular predecessor.

1. Let It Shine (2012)

this is another one of my favorite dcoms and movies in the whole world. unlike the other movies on this list, it is not the viewers themselves that contribute to the underrated-ness of this movie. disney severely under-promoted and under-hyped this movie in comparison to its other big musical franchises, and i will give you five guesses as to why, but youll only need one!

let it shine is the most beautifully, unapologetically black dcom in the whole collection. (i would put jump in! at a notable second in this category, but that one wasnt underrated). this movie was clearly crafted with care and consideration. little black kids got to see an entire dcom cast that represented them. the vernacular used in the script is still tailored mostly to white-favoring audiences, but with some relevant slang thrown in there. in short, the writers got away with the most blackness they were allowed to inject into a disney channel project.

the story centers on rap music and its underground community in atlanta, georgia. it portrays misconceptions surrounding rap, using a church setting as a catalyst for a very real debate surrounding a generational, mutlicultural conflict. this was not a “safe” movie for disney, given its emphasis on religious clashes with contemporary values. it lightly touches on issues of image policing within the black community (cyrus’s father talking about how “our boys” are running around with sagging pants and “our girls” are straying away from god), which is a very real and pressing problem for black kids who feel the pressure (from all sides) of representing their whole race with their actions. its a fun, adorable story about being yourself and staying true to your art, but also a skillful representation of struggles unique to black and brown kids and children from religious backgrounds.

on top of crafting a fun, wholesome, thoughtful narrative and likeable protagonists, let it shine brought us what is in my opinion the BEST dcom soundtrack of all time. every single song is a bop. theyre fast, fun, and lyrically engaging. “me and you” is my favorite disney channel song of all time due to its narrative significance; i will never forget my first time watching the movie and seeing that big reveal unfold onstage, as a conversation and a plot summary all wrapped into a song. the amount of thought and care that went into the music of this movie should have been rewarded with a level of attention on par with that of other musical dcoms.

if disney channel had simply cared about let it shine more, it couldve spanned franchises and sold songs the way that other musical dcoms have drawn in success. i would have loved for a sequel that explored and fleshed out cyrus’s neighborhood a little bit more, and maybe dipped into that underground scene they caught a glimpse of. i wanted a follow up on the changed church community once cyrus’s father started supporting his sons vision. i want so much more for these characters and this world than disney gave them in just one movie.

for its bold, unabashed representation of blackness and religion, subtle, nuanced presentation of race-specific issues, strong, likeable characters, and complex, thoughtful songs, let it shine is the most underrated dcom.

and because i made a full list before i started writing this post, here are some honorable mentions:

going to the mat (2004)

gotta kick it up! (2002)

tru confessions (2002)

dont look under the bed (1999)

invisible sister (2015)

#this took me embarassingly long to write #i cant help myself i literally think about this all the time #youre doing a great job with these questions secret santa!#dcoms #disney channel #answered asks #anons #gcwca secret santa #Anonymous

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lastcrystalwitch · 3 years

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4/11/21

Curbing frustrations due to stopping smoking, *I am constantly reminding myself to be a decent human being, and be decent to others. Its been a while since I stopped smoking. But this is the first time I did so willingly.

I had my heart broke. A close friend of mine turned out to be an enemy. Someone who didn't believe in me from the beginning, lied to my face countless times that I am just finding out about, and told others bad things about me. All I can do, and all I could ever do, however, us just accept this distrust, because that is the person that they want to be and I cant change that. I can only just keep being myself, wishing good for everyone and understand what it is that makes me tick, and focus on my needs. I spent a year and a half doting on that person, taking care of them, bringing them gifts, and trying to make them smile when most of what they did was talk bad about me behind my back, lie to me, and prove to me that they don't respect me, don't care about me, and they are stuck in a childish mindset.

Honestly early drug use in young teens prevents their brain from developing. So perhaps that's the case. You're a lost boy from neverland. And If you want to grow up and stop acting spoiled and entitled, and super selfish, you'll have to try harder than everyone else. But small steps first starting out.

Spirit told me not to burn my bridge with you. That you will grow up, that you will learn, but only after you lose your entire family, people disown you because of your cowardly negligence, and you lose everything. I don't keep liars as friends. And I should have been more careful. They say love is blind. But only the ancients understood it fully. This is why I still love you. I see you for you, and not what everyone else sees. Let me explain.

There are many forms of a persons soul. Spirit, soul, essence, and physical outer spirit, what you show everyone else, are all radically different things.

To help explain this a little bit I borrowed the following list from Wikipedia, which does a fair job at explaining most things. However, there was an exceptional volume written by one of my favorite authors so far, in the early 1800's - and his name unfortunately escapes me. He was a scholar, professor, archeologist, and preserver of ancient history. He had traveled to many many sites from ancient cultures, mainly Egypt, and it is because of his work as a linguist that we were able to get this list together to help others understand there is more to a person than just their spirit and their soul.

1Khet (physical)

2Sah (spiritual body)

3Ib (heart)

4Ka (vital essence)

5Ba (personality)

6Shut (shadow)

7Sekhem (form)

8Ren (name)

So, each one of these is its own separate element that makes up a person. And in this book from the 1800's, the one that escapes my memory - he goes into each of these, and If I am remembering correctly, this is not an exhaustive list; there are more elements to a person. But he goes into each one and breaks it down. I can do my best to explain these, but I feel like I wouldn't do half as much as a good job.

But when I look at a person, I don't know if it is my vision, but I don't see someone's KHET. I see their "ihb", Thier "Shut", and their "Ka."

But that is because as someone who was constantly bullied in my life, by all types of people, beautiful people, ugly people, faking nice people ... I don't look at the way that they dress, or how skinny they are. That is the least important part of a person. The most important part of a person is the part that they show to no one when no one else is there, how they interact with strangers, and how they interact with animals and their environment. Spencer might have broken my trust, but I see his KA, I've always seen it. And his Ka is beautiful, RARE, and so strong. He asked me what I see in him. Many people have asked me what I see in him. He has broken BA, and a very interesting Sekhem. He hates his own Ren as much as I do, and opened up to me as to why. And I know he wasn't lying about that. I enjoy his company because I see who he wants to be. And I see his Shut, (shu*ot) or his shadow. But behind every Shut, there is a light side. And he has the capability to become one of the most successful and influential people I know. He has endless potential which he hasn't even scratched the surface with, and he can change so many peoples entire lives, and doesn't even know it yet. I love his Sah, which isn't easy to explain to someone who has never heard these terms before.

And without which is why I see lots of growth needed for him to do. And he'll get there. It might take him 20 years to stop being afraid of himself, and I say that with so much love. Afraid, not calling him a coward, he is very brave, but he runs away in fear of getting hurt, and in fear of people letting him down, like so many people have done so many times in the past. Your Ka is beautiful. One of the most rare and strongest I have ever seen. As shocking of a presence as being very tall. Someone with a beautiful Ka will always influence others. Always draw attention. They are so rare and unique of a person that instantly others are attracted to them. Instantly they get noticed.

You know what is cute? Someone so tall trying to be invisible. ^-^

They are able to be someone that others depend on, feel safe around, and look up to. People want to be around others with a Ka like that. Always. Even when you're feeling blue. Because when that Ka feels better, when its not sad, when you get out of your comfort zone, set a goal for yourself and get it done, the sun comes out of the darkness. And that Ka starts emanating happiness. People with strong Ka's are like superweapons. They can be the back bone of families. Someone who everyone loves and cherishes. I don't think they know it, but that Ka is the most beautiful part of someone. And it drives me insane to think that he doesn't even know his own worth!

I forgive you for lying to me. I don't accept it, lying isn't good. But I understand why you did it. They were selfish reasons, and I don't use the word selfish in a negative way. Selfish in the fact that you were just looking for a way to get what you wanted, to make yourself happy. So you could have fun, enjoy the day, and smile like you do sometimes.

But you are still a child when it fully understands what it is that makes a person happy. And that's not your fault. You never learned the secret. No one told you because it doesn't exist in your family. It doesn't really even exist in mine, its something that I had to figure out and struggle through myself growing up, and dedicating 15 years to bettering myself and doing everything I could to become the best version of myself;

In order to be happy with the decisions that you make, in order to feel comfortable with you decisions and be proud of yourself, you have to know yourself. When we spend so much time hiding and looping pain around in our heads we spiral down into a circle that never ends. This leads to depression, drug abuse, alcoholism, lying to your friends, lying to your family, and lying to yourself. You'll look in the mirror and not know/not like who you are. To not know yourself.

Take time to practice healthy practices for you. Become an adult. Become who you want to be. You say you wished she'd come out of the blue and make you be someone who you wished you were: Someone confident. Someone happy. You wished you were okay. You said that she'd come into your life and make you stop drinking, stop doing all the drugs.

Be careful what you wish for, Giant. She came into your life. She adored you. She tried to show you how to love. You pushed her away, thwarted her efforts to help you, shamed her, disrespected her, hurt her feelings, tore her soul, made her spend entire nights crying over you and your decisions. She just wanted to trust you. And you broke that trust. YOU destroyed your relationship with select few who really were expecting great things from you.

Because you still need to learn. You still need to try. There is a point, and it is possible. Everything that you want, you can achieve. The only person who is stopping it is yourself. Grow up.

I see your pain. You can't understand that because you can't empathize with others like I can. I know your heartbreak. I can say that because I have a very big heart.

But seriously, grow up. Set a goal. Get it done. You're sitting and rotting in your own filth and its no ones fault but yours. You can blame anyone you want to. Anyone. I can think of seven people you'd probably blame instead of yourself.

Take responsibility for your actions. This is a part of growing up. Accept that you made a mistake. Say your sorry, and try again. When you do something wrong, admit it. When you go out of your way to hurt someone, tell yourself that it is bad. Be a god damn decent human being and the world will be yours. Stop living like a pathetic thief. You're better than that. You're stronger than that. I see your Ka, and I believe in you. Seriously, stop your shit. Just stop. This is bigger than your deep seeded sadness. This is about the rest of your life.

I can't force you to change. You'll either change, or stay the same miserable self you are and end up being hated and shamed by everyone in your family. But its up to you. Its only up to you. She came into your life. You got what you wished for. You had the lock, and she had the key. But you have to be the one that turns the key and opens the door to your own success and future. Sometimes you have to help yourself. Sometimes you have to do things for yourself.

I know you can do it. I believe in you. But it doesn't matter what I say or think, or how I feel. You'll never see it that way, unless you grow up and get your head out of your ass. <3 Be a man, know yourself. Learn what it is that makes you tick. Stop the drugs. They're just a guaranteed trip to self sabotage and unhappiness. Seriously dude, you're going the wrong way on that, and I CAN SEE. So I'm giving you a heads up. It doesn't make you feel better

STOP LYING. Mostly stop lying to yourself. Drugs don't solve anything. What do they make you do? Well, they mess up your kidneys, which always hurt and only feel better when you apply pressure to them. You're rotting your kidneys. You've only got two, and a rare blood type, so the more you drink and the more you do drugs, the higher your creatinine level will be and it becomes like a cutter. You are injuring yourself to the point of self harm. And you do it deliberately to TAKE THE PAIN AWAY.

I know this because I can see your spirit. And there were so many conversations that we have had. So many that I know you don't remember. And after finding out how much you lie, I can't believe all of it anymore. I can't trust you. YOU DID THAT. No one else. And it sucks, but even behind all the lies, the Ka was still there. I could feel your actual hurt as my own, so those 5am talks we had, all those conversations, and the times that you were there for me, weather you were to blind to know that you were there for me and if you even realized it or not, I just want to say thank you.

Thank you for pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and hanging around me sometimes. Thank you for sitting with me on the couch, while I cried because my soul hurt and the world didn't make sense. Thank you for showing me what a kind person and loving friend you actually really are, even if it is hidden under layers and layers of pain and guilt and self loathing. Thank you for letting me get to know a little bit of you, and thank you for making me smile when you know I didn't feel good. Thank you for making me laugh when things were getting too serious. Thank you for sharing your joy with me in my life. You don't know how many times you made me feel better just by being able to forget about all the worlds problems and sing in the car. Thank you for saying things without saying them, and showing me that you are so genuine and unique, there really isn't anyone like you in this world. You are super special, and you've literally saved my life the night you let me come into your room and sit there and watch the fishes. You don't know how much pain I was in. And you were there for me. You helped me not end my life that night. I only walked away with a couple scars. YOU HELPED ME. YOU did. Just by letting me in. We didn't talk. I couldn't. I was crying too much and my Ba and Ka were in absolute shambles. You didn't do anything except be in the right place at the right time, but your energy, as confused as it was at that time, helped me know that I wasn't the only one alone and suffering. And it was okay. and YOU had given me another reason to keep breathing. You'll never know how much you mean to me. Thank you for what you have helped me though.

I hope you can learn and know the Wisdom, not knowledge, that you can do anything you set your mind to, if you want to. I have proved to myself and to you, that you are the only one that is making your life miserable. I have done everything for you. And unless it is served to you on a silver platter, you reject it. You are the only one stopping your life progress. And you've convinced and lied to yourself so much about it that somehow you actually believe it is true.

I wish you could see through my eyes.

Even better, I wish you the courage and strength it takes to change you life and want to succeed better. Because you have all the tools. Shit, I gave you EVERYTHING. The only excuse is yourself. You are what is stopping you.

Life goes on. We never forget them. But we have to live our lives. They forced themselves to be a memory. Force yourself to live. Go live out your own story. Stop lying to yourself. Your a fricking great person! You lie, sure. You manipulate, sure. But I see you! That isn't who you want to be and the time in your life right now is merely a stepping stone for all the endless things that are out there. There are layers of things that you don't understand. I'm not trying to be mean, but trust me when I say there's a lot out there.

Maybe someday we will meet again when you turn into an adult. Because right now I see you as a boy. There is so much out there to look forward to. There are SO many fun things out there in different cultures. You have a journey ahead of you, and I just wished that I could have been part of it with you.

I forgive you. You really really hurt me. And it absolutely is your fault and no one else. But at the end of the day, its You who has to live with who you are. And you can CHANGE and Grow. I have all ready seen the person you are 20 years from now. And you wouldn't believe it if I told you. Rv's, dual citizenship, backpacked across the grand canyon, visited MT St. Helen, been to Yellowstone 3 times, had lots of fun there with friends. Married, divorced. Someone who is comfortable in his own skin. Someone who doesn't feel the need to impress everyone, and who is happy. Someone who has become comfortable in his own skin. Someone who doesn't get offended by what other people think.

In 20 years I see you happy. I see you deciding you're a product of your environment and you wanted to change because everything is not set in stone. Its just what you knew. Past tense.

You can learn from your mistakes.

Just because you've never won the lottery, doesn't mean its not possible. People are winning the lottery all the time. There is hope. Just because you have never felt comfortable in your own skin doesn't mean that its not possible. It just means that you can experience it, and LIVE it, and KNOW it, for the first time, and for the rest of your life.

In 20 years you have more money than you know what to do with, and you have your own place, and like 3.5 cars, 2 that run 2 that don't. Projects. You have goals. You have your own family. You have your own life. People look up to you. You smile more. Your mouth doesn't hurt anymore because you stopped saying, "It doesn't matter." Instead you say things like, "Its possible."

But you have to try. And you have to keep trying.

But first you have to stop with the drinking and stop with the drugs, because you're literally hurting yourself and everyone around you, and you are going to be the only reason that you end up alone and unhappy. The truth hurts. Just like when I found out how much you really did lie to me, after I really didn't deserve it. I did everything I could to help you. I spent hours doing paperwork for you to help you get free dental, researching schools for GEDS, looking at loan and credit repair options, screening background checks to help you find out if you were really hung up locked out of states and not allowed to come back. You're actually not banned from Florida or Texas. There are no warrants out for your arrest by the way, because you never actually did anything super terrible. Otherwise you would have been thrown in jail instead of told to get the hell out of dodge.

There are people out in this world that really do care about you, and really want to see the best for you. But you have to want the best for yourself. You just want to be happy. I don't know how high or drunk you were when we had that conversation, but you just want to be you again. You just want to be happy again.

You can be. You have to do it though. I can't hold your hand like a little boy and do it for you. I tried. YOU were the reason that it didn't work. I did my part. YOU were the one that let yourself down. Literally all you had to do was to sign it. And I see this pattern with you.

Really, lets go ahead and break this down.

You are the cause of your own unhappiness.

Others can literally do EVERYTHING for YOU, and you come up with some kind of excuse and you LIE to YOURSELF, of why it won't happen. You do this to yourself. You are what they call, "A product of self fulfilling prophecies."

That's because you make it happen.

Your success: YOU make it happen.

Your failures: YOU make it happen.

Its really up to you to decide who you want to be. Not the other way around. Really. I'm not joking. I'm being honest. I'm not lying.

You can do it.

But you have to want it.

And you don't have to be alone.

And as shitty as you have treated me, and as terrible as a human you've been to me, doesn't make it ok. That was a really really mean, unnecessary and childish thing you did, for the past year and a half. Manipulating me like you did.

It still hurts because I trusted you, and you shit on me. YOU did that. That was YOUR choice.

But its MY choice to give you a heads up and let you know what you've been wanting to know this whole time, You are the way to your future. If you want to be miserable for the rest of your life, I cannot stop you. If you want to be treated like a little boy, who lies, and who is mean for the rest of your life, I cannot stop you. You are the only one who can change you.

Your entire future and happiness is up to you.

Choose your attitude. Choose your future. Choose to be someone you can be proud of. For once, stop lying to yourself. Its stupid.

#raw truth #my truth #self harm #mental illness #drug abuse #alchoholism #dear diary #self growth #self improvement #taking the first step #hope #true love

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pollylynn · 4 years

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Title: The Other Side of the War WC: 800

“Hello? Is anyone there?” — Jack Sinclair, Demons (4 x 06)

He wishes, a lot of the time, that he could order her up some belief. Stretching all the way back to their interviews with a vampire, it has been his wish that every once in while, she could just cast logic aside and have that it can’t be, it is, it can’t be moment when they’re under a graveyard full moon and it’s practically Halloween and there’s a body with fangs and a stake through his heart. He wishes she had it in her to have that floating moment of suspended disbelief.

But, really, it was a while after that when he really started shopping around for belief delivered to her doorstep. It was with Vivian Marchand’s murder—with her daughter Penny flitting around and delivering her vague prophecies—that his eyelashes, his glimpses of the first evening star, his birthday candles were turned over to wishing a little belief her way.

It’s an imposition, he knows, and one that’s even sillier than usual. His own beliefs, such as they are, tend toward the disorganized. He can’t remember ever really having a good think on what comes next, but every day, it’s his job to take a good hard look around a world teeming with people, and he does look.

He sees first love and heartbreak at the hot dog cart. He sees triumph in the woman who is running beyond late, but manages to slip between the closing doors of the train as it is absolutely pulling away. He sees defeat the kid who wipes out trying to do a kick flip on his board, and determination when he gets right back on.

He looks around a world teeming with people and he sees persistence. He sees stories that are nowhere near finished yet. He believes in ghosts and spooks and haunts and clairvoyants and mediums—psychic and otherwise—because how could he not?

But she does not believe, and he he knows it’s an imposition to want that for her. He knows that her relationship to the whole question of what comes next is radically and ineffably different from his own, and still he can’t help but wish she could believe.

The desire—the wish—has grown strangely selfish over time. Back in the Penny Marchand days, it was something of a magnanimous notion. He wished vaguely that the universe would pony up with a sign from her mother, something that would give her some modicum of peace or closure, or even emotion more vague—something that might show up in Popular Girl handwriting underneath a kitten clinging to a branch.

These days, though—the post–swing set days—his wishes for her are constant, they are laser focused these days. He hasn’t been concerning himself with vampires, or mummies shambling toward revenge, or even for Santa Claus. He sort of wishes—he more than sort of wishes—that Johanna Beckett would drop into Mercy LeGrande’s body for some real talk with her daughter. Because her daughter is struggling. Her daughter has set herself some pretty high-difficulty mandatory maneuvers before she’s “allowed” to be happy, and he thinks it’s dumb.

He can—dispassionately and rationally, as though it doesn’t affect the rest of his life—say it’s objectively dumb. He can say with a high degree of confidence, that if Johanna Beckett were to pop by and drop into Mercy’s body, Johanna Beckett would concur with his findings: This waiting until she’s resolved her mother’s murder before she can have a relationship is objectively dumb.

He thinks about Pete Benton living alone all these years with nothing more than high-fidelity memories of the night he started waiting around to die. He thinks of her father and what passes for peace with him. He thinks of Roy Montgomery, his much missed friend and all the things he had decided, in the end, that he couldn’t live with.

He thinks of the people, living and dead, whose weight she takes on her shoulders every moment of a life that she knows—she knows—could be short, long or someone in between. He wishes lately that one of them would push the planchet across the board, write in the fog on the bathroom mirror, and so on. He wishes that one of them would spell out D U M B, over and over. He wishes she could see it. He wishes she would believe.

It’s selfish, yes, but it’s not selfish, too. He sees her, exhausted and sad, day after day, and his heart is full to bursting with all the things he’d tell her if he weren’t afraid she’d run. He sees her struggling toward something dangerous and maybe impossible, and he really wishes Johanna Beckett, in all her astral glory, would show up for some real talk.

A/N: The astral plane. Super not a thing

images via homeofthenutty

#Caslte #Caskett #Castle: Season 4 #Castle: Demons #Kate Beckett #Richard Castle #Johanna Beckett #Jim Beckett #Roy Montgomery #Fic #Fanfic #Fan Fic #Fan Fiction #Fanfiction #Writing #Interrogatives?#Alexis Castle

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geekmedium · 3 years

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Favorite Doctor/Companion Teams

Because I want to spread some Doctor Who good cheer for Christmas. Also, I’m not doing the 9th or 13th doctor because they’ve really only had one team. Anyway...

1. The Original Team

The ones who started it all. They would win by iconography, but even with that, they’re just a lot of fun to watch. This is the doctor at his most curmudgeon; he’s rude, fairly detached, and very much not the hero we’re use to. So they gave him a granddaughter who he cares for, and two teachers who act as the parents and honestly more noble, likable people.

It’s a family dynamic, one which we don’t see often. I appreciate that they were a team who grew to care for each other, but still had radically different approaches to whatever situation they found themselves in. And it is through this team up that the Doctor could mellow out and be a more straight up heroic figure. He learned from them just as much as the reverse.

2nd, Jamie, and Zoe

Where the first team had a family dynamic to it, the second doctor had a more “bro” relationship with his team. He and Jamie are famously close, and if I’m not mistaken, Jamie is still one of the longest lasting companions. They joked around, had each others backs, and were just great pals. While Doctor Who was meant to be a teaching show, I believe these two turned the tone from edutainment into one full of Wonder.

As for Zoe, well I just like her. She was probably the first companion who could be considered of super intelligence. I like the Doctor and Jamie as two bros hanging out, but Zoe can be in there to keep everyone from getting along too well. Her intelligence could lead her to be smug, but she was truly loyal to the Tardis team. And I loved her interactions with Jamie as brother and sister.

3rd and Jo Grant

I kind of like the Doctor with a ditzy companion. Despite not being remembered very well, I think Jo was able to occasionally pull her weight and she worked well with the Doctor. Plus their last scene together, when he says goodbye? Man, you could tell how sad that made not only them, but their actors as well.

4th and Sarah Jane

There were so many choices, but ultimately I can’t help thinking of this one as the best. Not only is Sarah Jane still considered one of the best companions, her dynamic with the Doctor was one of equal love and exasperation. She would often debate with him, grow frustrated with him, but still be with him through some of the most terrifying threats any companion had to deal with. And when it was time to go, she took it with good grace; she would always remember her time with the Doctor fondly, and only asked that he do the same. Magical.

5th, Adric, Tegan, and Nyssa

Here we have the family dynamic back again. I just really like the Doctor acting like a mentor to Adric, with Tegan and Nyssa as best friends who act like the big sisters of the group. I feel that while the first Doctor’s family was a generational thing, with each passing something to the next, the fifth Doctor’s family was a group of siblings. They were kind of equals with each other, and they got into plenty of small arguments, constantly annoying each other, but with a kind of affection that made them want to be together even when they were mad.

I know it’s hard to write Doctor Who with more than 1 or 2 constant companions, but I personally like family dynamics the best. With the 2nd through 4th, there isn’t a ton to say because they got on very well. There were disagreements sure, but for the most part, they were great friends and always happy with each other. A family dynamic, like with the fifth ensured a lot more dynamic back in forth bickering, with everyone's different backgrounds playing off each other in a way unique to Doctor Who, that could bring people from different timelines and planets together.

6th and Evelyn

I’m going to cheat a bit by going off the grid into the audio dramas. No offense to Peri fans, but Evelyn is everything a companion should be. Tough, strongly opinionated, and incredibly empathetic, she provided a good foil to possibly the most selfish Doctor.

But what I loved most about her was that she was elderly. It provided a different dynamic to the Doctor, who occasionally acted the part of student to her mentor, instead of the usual status quo which is the reverse. Even more than that was her role in the story; she wasn’t there to be a young companion who realizes her potential under the Doctor. She was there to show that even if your bones don’t work like they use to. Even if you’re not most people’s ideal of good looking. Even if you’ve lived a life full of joys and sorrows, you’re never too old to start over. To gain new experiences, new joys, new pains, and new love.

I think that’s really beautiful.

7th and Ace

I struggled with if I wanted to add Bernice Summerfield to this team, because she’s great. But then I realized so much of what I like about the 7th Doctor and Ace works when they are a two person team.

The 7th Doctor is believed to be the most manipulative, actively using his own loved ones for the greater good. He can be cold and calculating in a way few other Doctors ever approached. And so that made his relationship with Ace all the more heartwarming. Here was this little delinquent of a girl, who thought she was worthless, and yet she was the only person in the universe who could bend the 7th Doctor to her whim; he loved her like a daughter, and the scenes where they interact is all the more special when you contrast them with the cold Doctor.

Having another companion kind of intrudes on this very intimate bond. I think Ace should be special to this Doctor. The one person who he would sacrifice himself before he sacrificed her. A companion who can be horrified with his more manipulative acts, but nevertheless stuck with him out of a loyalty to the first person who ever took a chance on her. Hurt Ace at your peril; the 7th Doctor will come for you.

8th and Izzy (plus Fey)

Ignore that Izzy’s a fish, she isn’t usually.

This one is pure nostalgia. The 8th Doctor’s comic strip adventures were my first real introduction to the WHO-niverse. So while I’m sure Izzy is probably last on most people’s list (if they know her at all), she’ll always be my companion. She was probably the first pop-culture savvy companion who could offer a quip that stumped even the Doctor with how contemporary it was. She was finding herself on her journey with the Doctor, and had a character arc that I think inspired RTD when it was his time to reboot the series. Plus, from what I’ve read of other 8th Doctor material, he tends to be romantically linked with most of his other companions. Some people might like that, but I think you can tell from this list, I like my Doctor as a more celibate fellow.

Fey is someone who I think of as an intermittent companion. She helps out the Doctor a great deal, and her position within the universe is very unique and imaginative, but I wouldn’t want her in for more than a story arc or two at a time before moving on to another spatial-temporal James Bond style adventure.

10th and Donna

Like the fourth Doctor before him, I had plenty of options. I was even gonna pull a fast one and pick another comic strip companion, the self-centered businesswoman Majenta Pryce. But the 10th Doctor and Donna are special.

Not only is she one of the only companions the Doctor has called his best friend, when you get down to it, she was who he needed at the time. After the last two companions had ended in a sort of tragic romance, the Doctor was walling himself off again. Donna, however, came into his life as purely a friend. Someone to pal around with and banter with. For the Doctor, this must have been a godsend. No drama, no hassle, just true companionship in every since of the word. And she still has possibly the saddest exit for any companion to date.

Goodbye Donna Noble. You definitely lived up to the name.

11th, Amy, and Rory (plus River Song)

The last family companionship on this list, and quite honestly, my favorite Tardis dynamic in the whole series. Why? Because it’s such a glorious mess that should collapse in flames but becomes something that’s just so interesting to think about.

The Doctor was Amy’s childhood crush she never quite got over. She eventually grew to love Rory, but both she and the Doctor were kind of dismissive of him. But does Rory angst and get into a love rivalry with the Doctor? Not really. He grows into himself, faces numerous dangers for them both, and by the end both Amy and the Doctor love the guy to pieces. And then you have River Song, who should turn the whole thing into a kind of Jerry Springer prize winner. I won’t go into spoilers, but what could have seemed creepy is actually a very interesting relationship with the Doctor. Though like Fey above, I think she works best as an intermittent companion who often goes off on her own adventures.

Still, they are the best family and if that’s controversial, it is the hill I will die on.

12th and Clara

The final companions are another friendship. In a lot of ways, this is pretty fun, because the 12th Doctor is an old curmudgeon like the first. But with all that he’s been through, it is interesting to see how they contrasts, especially in their companions. Because while the 1st Doctor was happy to play the cranky grandfather type, 12th had a genuine friendship with Clara.

They didn’t always get each other. They frequently disagreed, and could even be resentful. But when the chips were down, they would follow each other into hell together. The Doctor always tried to be a little more considerate for her than most others around him, and Clara tried to defend him against his critics. And while the end to their companionship could have been handled better, it was still an impactful parting between two friends.

So do you agree or disagree? Who are your favorite teams? I would love to know.

#Doctor Who #friendships

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ariainstars · 4 years

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TRoS Speculation: Maybe It Was Intentional…

All right, since the subject obviously doesn’t let me go, new speculation on my side. WARNING: this is a longer post.

Ever since the 80es, Star Wars has become a universal phenomenon with millions of fans all over the world. And while fans often agree, they more often than not disagree about the characters, the themes, the different turn of events etc. Star Wars touches very many different kinds of people deep down due to the emotions it provokes. Many of us have grown up with the saga, some with one trilogy, others with another. Others have read the EU novels or watched the TV shows first. The saga’s themes are so many that they appeal to all kinds of people, and the approaches are varying. There are very many topics on which we will never make everybody agree. Being the foundation for many fan’s view of the world, the root to a lot of their ideals, the source of many a dream, the saga has become a hugely personal matter. No wonder viewers all over the world can quarrel about it so venomously and get downright aggressive if you only introduce a new line of thoughts. Many fans feel that the saga belongs to them and not to the man who created it and the creative studios who are now employing it to develop new stories.

We have made our mistakes in our fandom, too, in the years since The Force Awakens came out. We were so excited in what we believed was investing into a redemption arc, love story and happy ending, connecting all kinds of dots throughout the saga and analyzing it from almost every angle. Some of us simply thought that who didn’t think like us was stupid. But many other fans believe that this saga is only about Good against Evil and not about human feelings. They keep seeing it as some superhero story, a comforting world where to retire when reality got too much, a place where bad things happen but then the hero eventually comes to take care of it. They stick to their conviction that the good guy (or the one you root for even if he’s a villain) is the one who’s the coolest. Many of them love the OT above all and plainly refuse to see anything positive about the PT or ST because they always expected to see the New Adventures of Han, Luke and Leia. Some of them have waited for literally decades for the OT’s continuation. We, who also love the other trilogies (or at least the sequels) were at times disrespectful and arrogant looking down on them and believing that they simply don’t know what the saga actually is about. And all of us need heroes. We apply our own problems, needs and expectations to them and wait for them to fix the problem as an example for us. That’s also why we expect them to get their happy ending.

I have seen videos and read articles about how highly divisive The Last Jedi was. Some fans (a few of them even with tears in their eyes) openly declared that the saga was ruined for them. Similarly to us, who identify with Ben Solo and / or Rey, they had often found courage in the examples set by their heroes and it was offensive and hurtful to them to see Luke Skywalker reduced to a hermit who drinks green milk, rejects the ways of the Jedi and was personally responsible for his nephew’s fall into his abuser’s clutches. They were entitled to their feelings of disappointment and inner numbness as we are now. I know of people who actually survived many ugly periods in their lives finding solace in the saga. Some in one part of it, some in another. And we all got duped and let down, each by one chapter of the sequel trilogy, like some naughty, sadistic kid was kicking apart our favorite doll house a few days before Christmas.

I assume now that The Last Jedi was an experiment to gauge the audience’s reaction. It touched many a sensitive issue. My personal approach is that in order to like it, you don’t only have to be a fan of the sequel trilogy and its characters in general, or a hopeless romantic who wanted to see Rey and Ben Solo’s love story. You have to accept in the first place what the prequel trilogy painstakingly tried to explain to us (though it wasn’t actually said but more shown): that the Jedi were no heroes but got destroyed by their own hubris, and that Anakin Skywalker was largely a victim and not someone who became a villain because he enjoyed being evil, like the typical Batman or Superman villains. The prequels are not a fairy tale like the original trilogy but a cautionary tale following the lines of “society creates its own monsters.” It was only logical to deduce that if the Jedi were so perfect and the Old Republic so idyllic as Obi-Wan described them to Luke when they first met on Tatooine, Vader’s rise and the creation of the Empire couldn’t have happened in the first place. This was never said as clearly and concisely as by Luke to Rey during their second lesson on Ahch-To:

“Now that they’re extinct, the Jedi are romanticized, deified. But strip away the myth and look at their deeds: the legacy of the Jedi is failure, hypocrisy, hubris. At the height of their power they allowed Darth Sidious to rise, create the Empire and wipe them out. It was a Jedi who was responsible for the training and creation of Darth Vader.”

This is the message of the prequels in a few sentences, and a pivotal change to the “superhero approach” to the Jedi which might qualified if you only watch the OT and never question its themes on a larger scale. If you accept the Jedi’s failure for a fact, all of the rest falls into place - Vader being but a broken, sad old guy, Luke’s disillusion, his decision to give up the ways of the Jedi, his first lesson teaching Rey that the Force is not some kind of superpower, his forgiveness towards his nephew, the glimpses of goodness we saw foreshadowing Ben Solo’s redemption. The prequels also make much more sense this way than watching them expecting to see the Jedi being super-cool heroes and Anakin becoming Vader because he thought it might be fun.

But many fans chose not to see or accept what The Last Jedi actually was trying to say: that things couldn’t continue the way they did, because the Old Republic and the Jedi (though they didn’t actually have bad intentions) were deeply flawed. Leia tried to build another republic without any major changes that we are aware of, and Luke wanted to rebuild the Jedi Order without effectuating the considerable changes their Code would have needed. Both failed. It was e.g. never explained why Luke spirited his students away to a lonely planet for their training, but the fact that they were taken from their families when they were too small to make a choice and stick to it - Ben e.g. wanted to be a pilot like his father and not a Jedi - already shows the same pattern. Luke had not learned from the faults of his teachers until his exile. Logically, Episode IX ought to have continued these themes and showed the ST protagonist finding a new and better approach to the Force. Instead, what we got was another (in my opinion: redundant) Ultimate Battle of Good Against Evil, in other words some kind of superhero film which largely ignores the themes of its predecessor.

Any fan is entitled to his opinion. If someone hates the PT because it shows a stagnant society and the Jedi as highly flawed, because they didn’t get to see Darth Vader becoming over-the-top cool but were confronted, in Anakin, with a deeply compassionate person crushed by expectations he never could meet in the first place, if they judged him a whiny brat instead of an intelligent guy who clearly saw through the flaws of the society he was forced to live in and simply didn’t find the right words to express it: they’re entitled to it. Same goes for not feeling the tension between Rey and Kylo in the ST, for judging Kylo quickly (again) as a whiny brat instead of a complex, tormented character, for not appreciating new characters like Rose on account of not being Star-Wars-y enough. These feelings mostly stem from the fans’ long-standing wish to see an actual continuation of the original trilogy, not a new instalment where a new generation takes over and the old heroes are relegated to the background and, additionally, their characters and past decisions are openly criticized.

We may claim that fanbros are simply too stupid to understand what the saga is actually about. Well, maybe they are, or they are just too lazy to look at the bigger picture. But they have a right to that. Of course, it doesn’t entitle them to harass the studios, directors, creative team or actors the way they were, mind you: what e.g. Kelly Marie Tran, Ahmed Best and Jake Lloyd had to endure was a disgrace. There are very many fans who disagree with the PT and ST without getting bitter or even vicious.

This doesn’t mean I have changed my mind. I still believe that the Jedi were everything but heroes, that Darth Vader is a tragic figure, that the main themes of the saga are family, hope and new beginnings and not “the coolest ones win, ka-boom, the end”; that what it means to say is that human feelings are in the end more important than power, even an enormous power like the one the Force can provide.

We who are angry and disappointed with TRoS now like to blame how it went that way due to the influence of angry white dudebros, misogyny, Calvinism, racism, the overall political situation, the Mouse only wanting to make money etc.

But we ought to consider that The Last Jedi, which was so deeply controversial, hit theatres only two years ago. Have mentalities, politics and social structures and Disney’s overall approached changed so considerably, in so short a time, to produce two so radically different approaches to the saga within the scope of two years?

Sorry, I can’t believe it. it doesn’t really make sense.

The Mandalorian is met with universal acclaim, no doubt partly due to the fact that it’s a standalone story without the huge dynastic weight the saga has on its shoulders. Being a TV show, it had more time to introduce characters and situations and develop them. And it worked out fine. It had all the Star Wars themes - a lot of action scenes, sure, but it was also about belonging, family, redemption, protectiveness, friendship. Meaning that the studios didn’t lose track or are too dumb to think up a good story.

The Rise of Skywalker seems to bring the saga to a closure, but it could also be a wholly new beginning; the beginning of what I was foreseeing and still believe was in the cards - a new galaxy with a new and better political order kept together by a common belief in the Force as a whole; a new Jedi order where Force-sensitive children are not torn away from their families but can choose whether they want to become Jedi or not; and where Jedi are not taught emotional detachment. This would mean balance at last, a balance from which everyone would benefit. I have no idea how Ben Solo could be revived but I still am certain that he would be an excellent father figure, the perfect foil to his grandfather; and that the best thing for Rey would be to take care of children who are lost and abandoned the way she once was. And with Rey being a Palpatine, there is an interesting ground from which to explore her character’s tendency to the Dark, mirroring Ben’s. The basic approaches for this kind of development were all there in The Last Jedi. But a project like that would be something completely different from the original saga, and it would take a lot of time. Maybe that’s why the studios dropped it in favor of appeasing the angry fanbros who didn’t receive The Last Jedi well at all.

Anyone has the right to think that the original trilogy is the one and only and that the rest is rubbish. But the heroes of that story had their friendship, their family, their adventures, their successes, their happy ending. Even the heroes of the prequel trilogy had their moments, including Anakin Skywalker. Our heroes didn’t. That’s why this ending is so bitter for us and so hard to stomach. Essentially, we were right - we knew that Ben and Rey belong together, that Ben would redeem himself and make peace with his family, that balance would come. What we didn’t get was our happy ending.

The Force Awakens was still more or less accepted, because despite the many new themes and choices it wasn’t subversive and controversial in its approach. The actual wasps’ nest was stirred with The Last Jedi. No argumentation could convince antis that it is actually a well-made film and that their personal approach on the saga is too narrow-minded to appreciate it. They wanted the same villains, the same settings and costumes, the same heroes (or at least rehashes). And they had a right to want that, exactly as we had the right to expect a better development and ending for our new heroes. The hardcore OT fans wanted and expected The New Adventures of Han, Luke and Leia kicking ass. Well, it seems The Rise of Skywalker took care of that, finally giving them what they wanted and ignoring or “correcting” the course of events from The Last Jedi.

So, that’s it now. The OT fanbros got “their” Star Wars. I hope they’re finally appeased. They can ignore anything that happens next. That the saga is finished does not mean that the Star Wars universe came to a standstill.

If fans of the original trilogy felt entitled to ask for The Last Jedi to be removed from canon, or at least to be “fixed” in some way, so can we. In case you didn’t see it yet, the petition is already there: https://www.change.org/p/lucasfilm-continue-ben-solo-s-story

Let’s tell the studios to keep TRoS the way they prefer, but that we wish to have our Star Wars now. Let us not steep down to the level of who made the lives of actors who played characters they disapproved of a living hell (see above) or say over and over “Star Wars is dead” when we don’t know what’s in store for the future. With the Star Wars universe, you always have to be patient. In the meantime, we can write and read fanfiction and other stories and purse our own lives, telling our own happy endings.

Happy New Year everyone. Feel free to reblog. 😊

P.P.S. On a side note: Rey’s last scene shows her where Luke used to be, on Tatooine watching the suns set. The twin suns. In A New Hope, this was shortly before he met the other half of his soul who had been separated from him right after birth - his twin sister. Considering that it was explicitly said that Rey and Ben Solo share the same soul, it might be a hint about the future. I’m not trying to make false promises or to fuel wrong expectations here. Just sayin’. 😉

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magnumdays · 4 years

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Magnum PI 2x20 - A Leopard on the Prowl review-ish

So I watched 2x20 after 2x19 both times and maybe that colored my view of it a little. In a both good and bad way. I enjoyed 19 so thoroughly I kind of just had a good feel going into this ep, since we started with some Miggy with the lads (always a good time) I had high hopes for this episode as well. At the same time I wasn’t sure how it was going to beat 19. Which it solved by not doing.

Yeah, as far as a season finale I’d say this one was pretty weak. Where was Ivan? Where was the personal stakes and involvement? Icepick is not a important enough character for us to care about and while there was some worry for Rick it all felt a tad bit lack luster - for a season finale. If not for the whole Higgins is leaving (which to be honest I was kind of figuring wouldn’t happen even with the way they’d been building it up) this wouldn’t have felt like a finale at all.

So yeah, this should have just been a normal episode. We could have skipped the Vigilant or Love tour ep. and used the Icepick plot for one of those instead and had a totally different season finale...maybe with Ivan? This seasons big bad? Or are they setting Ivan up as the whole series big bad? Because that would suck (as some of you know I found Ivan to be like the lamest bad guy ever.)

Yeah. That’s how I’d have done it but...

On the plus side we did get some nice moments, starting out we got Magnum worrying Higgins will go back to London and decide she wants to stay...maybe she’ll meet someone... (I swear, some lines make me think Lenkov is co-captain of the Miggy ship with me...)

And later when he’s out paddling he admits to himself he’s really going to miss her. We also have Miggy having a little bit of a thing with the “You’re bailing on our partnership - I’m NOT! Turing into a I’m sad you’re leaving but you know I’m still going to bother you all the time while you’re in England...”

I feel like if Rick hadn’t shown up we might have gotten some more emotion here. But he does walk in and I guess that’s a symptom of this whole episode.

There are a lot of things that could have leveled it up but failed to, emotion vise. Like how about Icepick doing the robbery to keep Rick safe because someone was using him as leverage? Instantly I care more about him and there for would care more about everything.

Or actually having Magnum work to “fix” the visa problem rather than just randomly handing it off to Robin. I mean I already winged about this in the 2x19 review a bit but having Magnum actually have to trade some favors or make some promises would have been nice. Maybe having him reach out to some dangerous contact he had at the CIA from back in the days or something that could come back to bite him.

Or radical thought HAVE HIGGINS ACTUALLY HAVE TO GO BACK TO THE UK. I didn’t think this was really a possibility even before watching the episode and while I don’t mind the whole “Higgy now owns Robin’s Nest” (in fact I really enjoy it) it did feel like a bit of a cop out. Like what was the point of the whole visa expiring and fake wedding fake outs? Nothing changed other than that she is now officially Magnum’s boss and own’s Robin’s Nest. Was that what it was all about? Then why not go there straight away and skip the whole fake wedding bit?

We had all this angsty build up with her deciding not to marry Mangum and then no one at all and time running out. It could have been a bit bittersweet and almost fixed the rest of the episode if it had just ended on Magnum and Higgins hugging at the airport or before she gets in the cab after everyone throw her a party. He could have gone “see you in six months” and she’d be all “Count on it“.

I’m not sure if they didn’t go that route because they were worried about not getting renewed and thought this would be their last episode ever and they wanted to wrap it up neatly with a bow on top or what?

It’s not like having a six month time skip would have been that big of a problem, or having the first episode of season 3 be Magnum constantly calling Higgins while she’s in London.

With the time difference this could have been hilarious he’d be phoning her in the middle of the night because it’s day time in Hawaii and/ or the other way around. Maybe there could even be some totally implausible snow. Miggy could also both have matching calendars with the days counting down until she can return... Then we could have had 3x02 in England when Magnum and Gordon (and maybe his son) come for a visit. (I may or may not also already ranted about this and how great it could be.)

So yeah, this was a fine random episode and I’d have probably really enjoyed it a lot as one - but because for this I had “season finale expectations” it didn’t really do it for me. I did try to not even think of it like that on my second watch and that actually made it work a lot better.

I it does have stuff going for it; there are no unrelated off-theme subplots to get annoyed by, Rick gets some actual good reason for being in the story, the investigation is fairly tight if in true Magnum fashion rather unbelievable, the word “laptop-ing” is used, a crazy fight on top of a moving truck, the Ferrari for some reason being able to drive in reverse but not normally (is this a thing? that just seemed overly stupid to me but I know nothing about cars.)

Plus we have Higgins saying goodbye to the lads, which is honestly like in my top ten Higgy moments of this season.

Verdict: My mother enjoyed it.

In end we do get our faves looking adorable (I really love Higgy in red)

Look at my babies being all happy

Seriously I kind of almost like this scene better as gifs because they look really-really happy when you just look at them, even if the conversation was somewhat...not what I’d been hoping for. In fact I actually want to talk about the weirdness of it;

Magnum: “So you’re not going?”

Higgins: “Um, you want me to?”

Magnum: “No!”

Why would she ask that? She actually manged to sound like she’s genuinely worried he is unhappy about her staying - when she knows he is the one that set it all in motion. When he’s been working so hard to make sure she gets to stay. This is either terrible writing or brilliant writing because either they forgot Higgy knows Magnum did this for her OR they’re revealing just how important Magnum’s opinions are to her (and how she’s still unsure he really wants her around). I don’t know, maybe I’m reading too much into it but it seems a rather strange thing to ask otherwise.

Now onto the next part of the conversation which is equally baffling.

Magnum: “I’m just... surprised. What did they do?“

I mean I guess he could be suprised if didn’t check in with Robin but wouldn’t he have called Robin to see how things were going on the visa thing? Shouldn’t he be saying “I knew Robin would come through for us you! What he/they do?” because he basically just trusted that Robin would fix it for him.

By just having this conversation go maybe a little different

“So you get to stay?”

“I do.“

(I’d love for her to say I do at some point because of the whole wedding that wasn’t...Maybe we could get a hug here... like come on guys! If there was anything that could have redeemed the whole thing a Miggy hug is pretty high on my list)

Slightly awkward stepping back moment.

“I knew Robin would come through for us you! What he/they do?”

It would just have read a lot better and given us a tad bit more payoff for the visa wedding wackiness that was the past few episodes. Which I’m still not sure why they did that because they sure as heck didn’t use it for maximum drama. I’d almost be able to believe they did randomly go to AO3 and check the popular fics and decided since Marriage of Inconvenience was kinda popular they should do something like that...and then failed utterly to execute it any kind of satisfying way. (I know I know, I’m giving myself way too much credit...)

Still, over all I’m not sure what I feel about this episode. There was nothing super wrong with it but it really wasn’t a finale. Higgins departure/ visa plot turned out to not really mean or change anything. No one but Icepick seemed to have more than like a second of feels during the whole thing. Some stuff just needed more.

So yeah, that’s my thoughts on the matter. I meant for this to be short because I didn’t think I had that much to say about this episode. As it turns out, I kind of sort of did. I guess that’s to be expected as it was the finale! What did you guys think? Love it or hate it? Somewhere in that even more dangerous “whatever zone”?

#magnum PI #magnum x higgins #magnum pi season 2 #magnum pi 2018 #Thomas Magnum #magnum x juliet #magnum x higgy

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blazehedgehog · 4 years

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Do you feel like dinosaurs are severely under utilized in video games? What video game has the best use of dinosaurs? I was discussing this with a friend and he says Dino Crisis has the best use of dinosaurs - and the more I think about it the more I'm inclined to agree. Sure, Jurassic World Evolution technically has "better" dinosaurs in it, but Dino Crisis uses their dinos more effectively-I suppose trespasser could rank if it wasn't so janky, but I can't really think of other games that rank.

It’s funny, because since you sent this in, a new dinosaur game was just announced called “Second Extinction.” But, honestly, it doesn’t look that interesting to me -- it’s reminding me a lot of Primal Carnage, which started its life as an Unreal Tournament 2004 mod called Jurassic Rage. It was basically just a wave-based survival game against dinosaurs and... it LOOKED really cool in screenshots, but it was really boring in practice.

They tried to add a mode that turned it in to Left 4 Dead But With Dinosaurs but even that wasn’t great. Half the problem was there wasn’t any bot support at all, so when the servers emptied out the game was basically unplayable. That, and even in the Left-4-Dead-esque mode, maps were still arena based.

Anyway, Second Extinction gives me big vibes like that. That and it reminds me of Evolve. I’m probably being too judgmental this early on, given it was just one trailer, but something about what was shown in the trailer is causing my interest to bounce off super hard.

But yeah, this is something I’ve wondered a lot, over the years. There was a period of time in the mid 90′s where Jurassic Park made dinosaurs in to the biggest thing on earth and yet even back then, there weren’t a lot of games that had dinosaurs in them. You had a few games based on licenses like We’re Back and Jurassic Park, and you had, like, Radical Rex. And that was it.

Dino Crisis was good! Turok was good! Carnivores was good! But somehow these games never sparked a wider interest in making games featuring dinosaurs. Even pirates, which I’d consider to be a body of work that was also strangely absent from games, is starting to come in to its own thanks to games like Assassin’s Creed Black Flag and Sea of Thieves.

I guess that’s the thing. There are dinosaur games out there. Your Ark: Survival Evolved, there’s an original dinopark tycoon game hitting Steam soon called Prehistoric Kingdom, there was Dino D-Day. But none of them ever feel right, you know? None of them feel like any of those three games I mentioned in the previous paragraph. It never feels like it sticks, or hits the right notes, or something.

I think about Trespasser a lot. Especially lately. I wonder what a modern Trespasser remake would be like. What it would play like. A few people have made attempts, over the years. There was one I was following probably a decade ago that vowed to remake Trespasser in Crysis that looked visually incredible but never made it to the point where there was any gameplay.

A modern version of Trespasser would probably just be a survival game, right? Like The Long Dark, or Miasmata, or Green Hell, where you’re stuck somewhere and have to forage for food and shelter in between solving the larger mystery of what’s happening in the story.

I also think about how Trespasser struggled to have “real” gameplay. They had a physics system, but all they ever got to use it for was puzzles involving stacking boxes. They tried to get in to having really complex artificial intelligence states for dinosaurs, but I’m not so sure that’s beneficial to gameplay. Does it really matter if an imp from Doom is happy or sad? Is there a visual language within the game that communicates that to the player so they can use it as a tool to influence encounter dynamics? If the answer is no, maybe it doesn’t need to be in the game.

And I remember reading a quote, either in the post mortem I just linked or elsewhere, that said Amblin (Spielberg’s company) didn’t want to make a game where you were killing dinosaurs indiscriminately. They didn’t want Doom But With Dinosaurs. The whole point of Jurassic Park originally was to NOT treat the dinosaurs like scary monster characters. They breathe, their eyes dilate, special attention is paid to their weight, things like that. He was really trying to make them feel like real animals, with animalistic behaviors. “T-Rex doesn’t want to be fed, he wants to hunt! You can’t just suppress 65 million years of gut instinct.” etc.

But I think Alien Isolation really hit on something important. Now, really, it was just building off of what was originally discovered in Slender: The 8 Pages, but it’s that vibe of being stalked. You were prey.

And I think that idea would fit in really, really, really well with Jurassic Park. A big focus of that series is how velociraptors are intelligent hunters. And that was even kind of the best part of Jurassic Park for the Sega Genesis, right. They went to great lengths to make the raptors in that game in to more than just disposable enemies -- they had a range of movement on par with the player. If you jumped in to a vent, the raptors would crawl in to the vent behind you. They were surprisingly intelligent and hard to kill.

So I think you could probably adapt the Alien Isolation formula to work in a Jurassic Park setting really easily. Dealing with a single pack of raptors could be a whole hours-long ordeal, and right when you’ve gotten rid of the last one, maybe you run in to a T-Rex, or some other threat that then begins chasing you for the rest of the game.

Maybe we’ll get lucky and Capcom will move on to a Dino Crisis remaster at some point.

#questions #jurassic park #dinosaurs #trespasser #dino crisis #turok #alien isolation #slender #horror #amblin entertainment #steven spielberg #mattshuku

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