#iirc they trashed the room too
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So @skellydun is back and doing let’s plays on youtube now--if you like low res horror w/ funny charismatic hosts definitely check him out, he’s really good--and his latest video brought back a memory that I haven’t really thought about for a very long time, and thought I might as well share with the internet.
So growing up we couldn’t afford full destination vacations. Mostly when my dad had time off, we’d stay at home, play games, maybe do a few things nearby or find something cool and semi-touristy we could do in a day trip. But my mom has always had a deep and abiding love for the beach, which was just far enough to make day trips a pain. So what we ended up doing a handful of times in my tween years was go, stay for a couple of nights, be very frugal while we were there, and go home.
But as I said, we couldn’t afford much. And by couldn’t afford much, I mean the decent hotels around our usual beach were by far out of our reach. What we could afford was a couple of nights at a cheap motel. Back then (I’m talking late 90′s) it was still a pretty family-friendly area, even still, but...yeah. There were some that my mom took one look at (or one smell) and walked right back to the car. (Fun fact: one of the ones that actually met our low bar made the news a couple of decades later for an outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease!)
If you’ve never stayed at a run down motel, I actually recommend trying it at least once. Not alone. Especially not alone if you’re a woman. But it’s an odd, liminal experience that I don’t know if I’ve had anywhere else. You can’t sleep. You won’t. (If you do, it’s not that run down.) You’ll watch old tv and sit out on the balcony in the middle of the night in a space where everything’s transitional and time has no meaning besides ‘not light yet.’ It kind of sucks, and is kind of magic, and you’ll be glad when it’s over and you’re drinking coffee at sunrise and moving on. (Also bring your own pillows, don’t walk on the carpet in your bare feet, and wear sweatpants to bed, trust me on this)
So after a while we did find a decent spot that was fairly clean, didn’t have too many problems, and wasn’t too far from the beach, and we went back there a few times. It was nice, and I have plenty of good memories of that place.
Except the last time we went on one of these trips.
It was high summer and our usual place was full. I don’t know if my parents forgot to make reservations, or if it wasn’t something we usually bothered with, but there we were with our bags in our car and doing our old routine of trying to find a place that wasn’t too moldy or visibly stained.
Fortunately up the same road a little bit was another motel that wasn’t full. It even looked similar to the other one, it may have been built at the same time. It even was clean. So we took a room, went off to have fun, and didn’t think too much about it.
Until it was night and we were trying to sleep. And the guys in the room next door (I think they were college-aged) apparently thought this was a GREAT time to have a party! Loud, thumping music, yelling voices, all up against our wall. We were annoyed as hell, but did our best to ignore it for a while.
Until they started banging on our door.
They banged loud and long, and started shouting for help. There were several of them. Maybe they actually needed help, god knows. They definitely sounded drunk and/or high. But yelling and pounding on the door and trying to peek in the window of the family next door was NOT the way to get us to open up.
We absolutely did not help. We sat there with the lights off, trying to be completely silent, hoping they’d think we were out somewhere. My mom was by the bed trying to figure out the motel phone (press these series of digits for an outside line! Then dial the long number on the back of the phone card you have purchased at any convenience store in the area!) so that we could call the cops, but couldn’t get it to work. As I mentioned before, this was the 90s, so no cell phones. So we just...hid. And hoped they’d give up trying to pound down the door and that nothing worse would happen.
They gave up pounding on the door.
In the morning, we got the fuck out of there.
I was already in the car, so I heard this part from my mom secondhand (I don’t think she would have wanted me there anyway): As we were putting our stuff in the car, my mom bumped into the lady who ran the place, as she was already starting to straighten out the rooms. (Again, these were small, cheap places that didn’t have a lot of (or any) staff, maybe 7-8 rooms total.) My mom, of course, told her what happened. Naturally she was like “what the fuck I don’t run a place like that” and right there and then, with my mom, she took her master key and opened up the guys’ room.
The boys staying there were already long gone. Their room was covered in blood.
#don't even know what to tag this really#cw: blood#cw: creeps#true story#iirc they trashed the room too#so yeah we didn't really do vacations after that
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Is there any truth to bloody mattresses being pulled out of that Hasidic tunnel in New York or are people just being antisemitic?
I hadn't heard anything about it one way or the other, most people that would pull out nonsense like that already have me blocked so that may be it.
Best bet is it's either people blowing things out of proportion for the sake of comedy or Antisemitic garbage possibly at the level of "Blood Libel" given that blood is mentioned so it would depend on how they say that blood got there.
Accusations of murdering Christian children to put their blood in their bread is the origin of the term iirc.
But let's look.
A Jan. 10 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) shows a screenshot of a post on X, formerly Twitter, by the same user about a tunnel discovered in New York.
"A synagogue in New York City was discovered to have underground tunnels beneath it," reads part of the X post. "There were old, stained mattresses inside along with booster chairs for young kids."
The Instagram post garnered more than 13,000 likes in two days, while the X post accumulated more than 9,000 likes in the same period. Similar versions of the claim were shared on Instagram and Facebook.
Our rating: False
The description in this post paints a false picture of the tunnel discovery, which was reported to police by synagogue officials. City officials said there was one tunnel, not a series of tunnels. It was adjacent to the synagogue, not under it. Mattresses shown in a viral video came from behind wood paneling inside the synagogue, not from the tunnel. An unverified video shows what appears to be a high chair, but it shows only one such seat, and it was located amid trash, clutter and dirt in a basement room, not in a tunnel.
There's a section after the bit where the false is, talks about the reasoning behind the tunnel and what all was going on, link provided if you feel like checking.
Looked up the dude who made the claim, he's a ambulance chaser out of Atlanta that gives (likely bad) legal advice online in places where he's not licensed to practice.
For good measure, this is a secondary source with their sources linked.
Hope this helps
One other fact check in there for later in case you see them
Fact check: Video shows tile removal tool, not Israeli method to destroy Hamas tunnels
This one is hilarious
This isn't the account I thought it was, thought it was these guys
location "right behind you" good stuff, these guys run a fun account too.
I can't get a solid conclusion on the other account so fact check is good to do, if they're a troll account they've got lots of people fooled so I'm not sure here on them.
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Hi hi it's 1am here and the thoughts are Not Great so scroll past if you don't want to see the pettiest vent in your life 'k thanks ♡
So you know that post about me being scared about sharing my work if it isn't the popular opinion or anything generally commonly appealing? Yeah so as I was typing out the tags my brain threw a core memory at my face and went "you absolutely know why"
Anywau basically like, i was an undertale fan during the undertale renissance (is that how you spell it?) And i was fucking OBSESSED over glitchtale (until early season 2 + before camila was outed to be a shitbag) and thought glithtale was very very cool
Ankther thing is that i was a chronic deviantart scroller at the tjme (also on google images) and i love lovr loooooved looking at people's art
So i was like "hey i could do that too!" And started making fanart for glitchtale, specifically that final battle part where they're in The Orb™ in s1
I was doing it in school because at this point everyone was basically just hanging out (my elementary's system was 1st grade to 6th grade (i was... 5th grade iirc) And also had this weird systen where the younger half of elementary would go home 2 hours earlier than the older half (1pm), idk why) and like, because there was literally just 4 people here because small school, i showed my wip to the other 3 people present in the area
They made fun of it
Yeag,,
They made fun of. Basically Everything.
The thing that primarily stuck with me was how they teased about frisk's posing and the overall edginess of the piece, but mostly how frisk looked stypid (which, 1. Y'all play fnaf and brag that you're cool though kids you don't have room to talk; 2. It was The Orb™ fight,,, of course it was gonna be edgy,,,,)
It's somewhere in a landfill now, i threw it in the trash and never fished it out... probably decomposed by now, it's been 8 years (holy shit it's been 8 years)
I... think they apologized? Idk i just know they had a "wait shit no-" moment when i threw it in the trash but i was already mad about it so, yeag
Like... i like to say that it doesn't affect me that badly anymore but i'm pretty sure it still is? I literally can't look at my art anymore without thinking of how bad it looks compared to everyone else's and i also am physically unable to Not agree with others (i literally forced myself to hate homura akemi pmmm because a friend didn't see the nuance in her character and just relegated her to "bitch" lmao) and Good Lird i have crippling perfectionism because if 1 person hates it then everyone does right??? Lmao
Deadass nowadays i just can't bring myself to make or share any ideas or pick up anything creative because i HAVE to get it perfect in 1 go otherwise i'll be ridiculed for it; I'm Trying to outgrow these problems but it's jist So Dicking Hard akfjshdjdhr and it seriously doesn't help tjat there was a seperare (smaller) incident where i found one of my drawings crumpled on the floor by someone
Man i'm kinda fucked up am i?
#cw: vent#void screaming#not gonna bother correcting my grammar or spelling for this#too tired to do so lmaooooooooooooo#[this is a filler tag to make sure the rest of the tags are put under the read more button]#man i feel like i'm gonna cry lmao#i'm actually processing this by typing it out and now i just realize how fucked up it was#semi-unrelated but did you know i tried to make art for a teacher by tracing over someone else's art?#it's kinda goofy tbh#iiii also have a tendency to get anxious and obsessively check for a response once i post something...#probably also a byproduct of the incident#who knows#my dumbass is defined by people kicking me around#sooo yeah.
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anyway. obey me. belphegor is the youngest brother who has a twin brother (beelzebub) and they're like telepathic its kinda funny. belphie gets stomachaches when beel is hungry and stuff. also they have a song together called 'telepathy' where its just them singing abt each other and its cute.
also the hierarchy of brothers is (iirc) lucifer, mammon, levi, satan, asmo, beel, belphie. they are my silly little guys.
belphie's kinda a yandere guy and is my token bpd guy in om! and is basically just ritsu. has the soft voice and everything. he's the avatar of sloth so he sleeps like 27 hours a day
beel's just a big teddy bear guy tbh like he may be a lord of hell or whatever but he's literally the most chill of the brothers. and the avatar of gluttony so that guy likes him some food.
asmo's lust and can be a perv and also kinda yandere at times and i love that for him. silly little guy.
satan is wrath. he was kinda feral in the beginning but he's more normal now. just kinda likes cats and books and dicking with luci bc tbh who doesn't like fucking with lucifer. he deserves it.
levi is envy. otaku guy. shut-in gamer who likes anime too much. also licherally one of my highest kins bc he hates himself super hard and tends to think he should just be locked up in his room 24/7 and that no one can ever really like him and like if thats not mecore idk what is (do not read into that too hard). little meow meow guy tho love him.
mammon is greed. cares a lot for the mc but is very tsun abt it. silly guy. can be a bit grating on me bc all he seems to care abt is money but he does really care abt his brothers and the main character so like. he gets a pass.
luci is pride. i do not like luci.
anyway. i promise im normal <- is actually just very bored and likes rambling abt games to people
i like the gamer guy too actually they all sound so cool . i will take ur word on the last one being trash-
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Not very familiar with knb but it seemed to be a lot of self loathing for me? Like if you asked Kuroko if Kagami would do something so cruel to Miho and just drop her for maximum psychological damage he'd be all WTF NO HOW DARE. He knows Kagami is a kind person who cares for his team, but he's seen his old teammates change too. And specifically with him, he believes Kagami will help any of their teammates regardless of talent and will help them mentally, iirc Kagami has also been training up the other first years and helping them keep their heads cool, but their mental weaknesses are things like nerves and insecurity. If the other first members struggle Kagami will help but Kuroko will obviously be swept out with the trash if he can't keep up.
Kuroko loves basketball, and a large part of that love is about team play and being with his friends, and then the Teiko disaster happened. So it seems to me(based on the wiki and bil) he made like a detailed plan for things to Go Right this time, how to be a better shadow, but he couldn't be sure how long it would take to find and train a proper light. He was determined of course, the darker the shadow the brighter the light but he must have been aware that it might take a bit to create the right dynamic. And then Kagami showed up and was obviously perfect for the role. But Kagami rejects the whole thing but doesn't reject him, Kuroko's worth is not based on how useful he is, he's more than just a shadow or phantom. So right off the bat Kuroko gets not only the exact kind of player he needed to be paired with to defeat the Miracles and make Seirin number one, but also that kind of closeness and acknowledgment and teamwork that he craves without having to prove himself first. If Kuroko doesn't know what he did to be worthy of this, then how can he know what missteps will make him unworthy? Boy seems like he has a desperate need to be useful at all times, and he is scrambling to try to be as useful to Kagami as possible, both as a player and as a person, but if he can't fully embrace Ball Is Life, will that outweigh his usefulness, make him more troubme than he's worth? He's miserable at the thought of losing Kagami and being distant from the rest of Seirin, but he can't let go of his former teammates either.
From a cold logic standpoint, even though Kagami obviously doesn't care for the Miracle bullshit, he still treats Kise and Midorima kindly despite not as nearly a close of a relationship as he does with Kuroko. Kagami bitches and moans but he genuinely helps Kise and Midorima and is willing to banter, and eventually the whole circus will be in his living room. But you can't just outlogic trauma.
A+, full marks
notes of appreciation:
you went into the wiki and looked things up
references to in-fic events and behaviors
understanding of tendency to allow injustice onto self vs others
you can't outlogic trauma
the need to feel useful as a metric of self-worth
low self-esteem and feeling unworthy of kindness, plus being comfortable in discomfort
#inquiry#Anonymous#on bil#we're done here i think#kuroko pov discussion has exceeded the chapter word count#and that's not including my responses#also thanks for recognizing that si!kagami is very conscientious in how he outwardly treats the clowns#you get to see in his head. he's safe in there thus he can bitch and moan all he wants#but it's about what he chooses to do outwardly#he thinks they are rude and annoying but it's a deliberate choice to not be mean to them#petty? sure. but not mean.#^you know what? it's the same way everyone went on about zhou le for his pov#the same grace extended to other characters wasn't so in his case#just because he thinks how he thinks? are we catholic here?#thoughts are thoughts actions are actions
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""every day i have my love/hate relationship with this man. the only good parasocial relationship #i think he's weird and creepy and i hate him but he's also sexy and jewish and i love him"" NANI????? EXPLAIN YOURSELF. HE IS AN INTELLIGENT, SQUISHY MAN WHO I SHALL NOT HEAR SLANDER OF. (But also, why?)
haha, iirc his girlfriend is around his daughter's age which will always weird me out no matter whose relationship it is, and then he's apparently still gung-ho about doing more txf which is like... my man PLEASE read the room and stand in solidarity with gillian in this 😭😭 give misogynists an inch and they'll take a mile. i hold these against him bc it's a parasocial relationship, it's whatever i want it to be. but he's also a really good writer and one of the fiercest msr warriors so i can't toss him out in the trash lol. and he's also very relatable to me bc he's jewish. i'm ashkenazi jewish like him (we actually have the same jaw lmao it was wacky watching the revival and going ??????????? is he ashki too??????) and he's talked about losing his dad (who was jewish) and i think struggling with finding himself in terms of being jewish and reconnecting with that lost culture. and i get that bc my grandpa died when i was young and he was the jewish one and now that i'm older and have questions i can't ask them, and that makes it even harder to reconnect with that lost culture. and hearing about him playing jewish characters in movies and discovering his history gives me a lot a lot a lot of feelings. grief, happiness, curiosity, etc.
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[unhappy] Story time!
So, back in Ye Olden AOL days, there were pre-made chat rooms for different cities and stuff and you’d get your regulars. I was a regular, everyone else knew I was a kid.
Around that time I found out my mother was having an affair with this dude named Barry, and I found out because AOL was set up in such a way that you could read someone’s emails without logging in if they’d set up their profile to allow that (you’d select their profile from the log in splash page and click a button or something and you could get into emails they’d already read but nothing new IIRC) and I guess my mom had set that up. I was a nosy little weasel that got into everything and went and read her emails (and got in her purse where she had compromising photos of her with some guy who may or may not have been Barry, fuck if I know, and the cigarettes she totally was not smoking, she was just holding them for someone (¬_¬ )).
My step-dad had been suspicious of her having an affair for a while because she kept randomly “working late” and he’d ask me now and then but I had no idea up until that point.
I confronted the dude because she’d broken it off and he was pushing her to get back together with him. I remember threatening him that if he ever contacted my mom again, I’d tell my step-dad.
He did contact her again and she talked to me about it and begged me not to tell dad. I wanted to, though, because I hated that man and would be very happy if they were to get a divorce and I’d not have to live with him anymore.
I also told my mom how I got into her emails and how to disable the no-login email thing.
Anyway I’m sitting in the chat room one evening, and Barry pops in. Apparently he was a regular, too, just at different times than me. I was on in the afternoons and most of the adults at night.
I went quiet and watched him for a bit. He was pretty gross, really, just in general. Like flirty but in a very uncomfortable, heavy handed way.
I remember I sat and waited and at one point I said “This is the kind of man my mother is having an affair with? I thought she had better taste than that.” (which, I mean, I knew she didn’t, she did date my father and married my step-dad).
I remember the chat went silent, and after a bit Barry left without saying anything. Everyone else was like WHAT. WAS THAT. Don’t know if Barry ever came back to the chat.
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They’re still married somehow, even though I’ve always hated my step-dad (he’s an asshole and would use his size to intimidate and physically hurt me to keep me in line), and she kind of doesn’t like him much these days, either.
I wonder how dolphinguy and tinka are doing sometimes. Don’t remember anyone else, really.
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Just remembered another story about my mom!
So this one time she just vanished with my little brother, didn’t say they were leaving I came out of my room and the house was empty, didn’t say where she was going, and didn’t come back. She could do this because my step-dad was both an EMT and fireman and would be away for blocks of a few days at a time. I was very worried. It was pre-cell-phone times so it’s not like I could have called or texted her.
1am she finally comes home skunk drunk and I’m like where’s my baby brother!? I was DISTRAUGHT.
He was at my aunt’s house.
But mom and I got in a big fight, she pushed me, I went to my room and she followed me, took my depression meds and flushed them (cold turkey quit, baybee! followed by 6 years of withdrawal symptoms!) picked up a bag of garbage and flung it all around my room, and then called the cops to come and take me away and told me to pack a bag because I wouldn’t be coming back.
The police showed up and were like “She’s drunk, you’re just a kid... Stay away from each other for the night, we’re not taking you anywhere.” They asked about my room because she had told them I was a slob like that and I had to tell them that no, I’m messy but not like THIS, she did this.
And then I went to my trashed room and cried, but she came down and took away a teddy bear I’d been given that was made with her late mother’s coat. Then she went to bed and I spent the night cleaning my room, because it was covered in literal garbage. Moldy food and......
In the morning she gave me the bear back and didn’t say anything and that was it.
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Same mom that used to throw away everything I owned from time to time to try to scare me into being tidy.
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It’s no wonder that I didn’t turn to her for help when I needed it back in 2005 to get away from That Guy. I’ve been trying to escape him since then and failing.
She still was like, to my son, “If you need a place to go you can come to my house. Oh. You, too.” flippantly, offhand as an afterthought to me.
So.
I’m happy that Son has a fallback if he needs it, but I don’t think I would ever go back there even now.
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anyway i had a dream about playing a video game called vyper & unfortunately i can't rly remember the details too well except that u go into great vast rooms & look for various useful junk to put together. i remember the rooms being like huge stage/sets--one was an outdoor scene with grass & everything--& my tiny ass was picking stuff up not just with my hands but also my tongue, like u do w popcorn.
it had a video aspect about it? like, u find a bunch of camera equipment (including an HDMI cord that, iirc, translates hindi into english). it was a horror game, but one of those fun Bright ones where you don't see the enemies until later in the game.
i remember wanting to play it with my brother, but was worried about crossplay. he wanted to play some other game on my system & i was mad about it bc he likes to 'borrow' things permanently & then treat them like trash, so i instead suggested we play vyper instead. i dont think we ever figured out if we could play together.
and also in one of the rooms, it turned into like a restaurant??? & i was sat in a booth w sanji zoro & i think nami, trying to act aloof & cool (& its dream world so it was actually working????)
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This fella's behavior makes things so much more uncomfortable for his brother too, who's been caught between a rock and a hard place. If u wanna smoke so bad that is perfectly fine with me lol just like idk, make a nice area for that next to the kitchenette. You might not even have to worry about mosquitoes because there's netting there iirc. I've left like, the entirety of the flat to you and the other guys, and whichever friends/boring whores you wanna have over. Understanding that you've had a shit time, and that my room is spacious enough that i can comfortably be in here all the time. Wanna party every weeknight, leave the common areas trashed until the next afternoon, all oso i don't mind. I've even helped you guys clean your trash, wipe the insanely sticky floor, and wash your dish piles wei. You think i was someone poking out 3 emails a day at an airconditioned deskjob at the time ar. Box of litchi i share with you, one box of nice dates i give to you, what else you want? Better i take my sweaty pussy lips out and let you smell la since you're so cranky?
Now that i've been told to just bear with it until the mosquito screen for the living area gets fixed, and intend to do that, u dunnid throw so many bitch fits about it la. Otherwise i go swap some Rohingya people i know in here. They don't get nice living deals and admiring smiles from locals the way you guys do one.
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》》 @swimrule whispered: 💭 🍝 😖 🗒 🤗 😗
💭 𝙼𝙱𝚃𝙸 𝙰𝙽𝙳/𝙾𝚁 𝙴𝙽𝙽𝙴𝙰𝙶𝚁𝙰𝙼, 𝙸𝙵 𝙺𝙽𝙾𝚆𝙽 → mbti is ENFJ the last time i took it, although i do possess a lot of I&S qualities as well (in place of the E&N). my most recent result for the enneagram was 7w6, although my score was pretty closely tied with 2w3 (which is actually more common in ENFJs iirc).
🍝 𝙵𝙰𝚅𝙾𝚁𝙸𝚃𝙴 𝙵𝙾𝙾𝙳(𝚂)? → any kind of pasta dish tbh, although i do like alfredo or cheese-based sauces.
😖 𝚆𝙷𝙰𝚃 𝙰𝙽𝙽𝙾𝚈𝚂 𝚈𝙾𝚄? → unfortunately as a pretty high-strung person it's sometimes a bit too easy to get me amped up about things that annoy me, but generally speaking i try to remain calm and patient. but for things that annoy me specifically it's people coming into my room without knocking, being pulled away from a task that i'm deeply focused on (ADHD go brr), my things getting replaced and reorganized without my permission, and having to clean up others' messes (i'm talking like dishes & trash n things like that specifically).
🗒 𝚆𝙷𝙰𝚃 𝙸𝚂/𝙰𝚁𝙴 𝚈𝙾𝚄𝚁 𝙵𝙰𝚅𝙾𝚁𝙸𝚃𝙴 𝙶𝙴𝙽𝚁𝙴(𝚂)/𝚃𝙷𝙴𝙼𝙴(𝚂) 𝚃𝙾 𝚆𝚁𝙸𝚃𝙴? → tbh i'm kind of a fluff and smut whore (lol), there's something about close physical intimacy that makes me very weak in the knees /pos. maybe it's cuz i don't have that much experience with physical intimacy and it always feels awkward coming from family members for some reason so i kinda reject it?? idk i'm weird i'm in a strange rejection -> want - > rejection -> (etc) cycle or smth atm--
🤗 𝙰𝚁𝙴 𝚃𝙷𝙴𝚁𝙴 𝙰𝙽𝚈 𝚁𝙿𝙲 𝙼𝚄𝚃𝚄𝙰𝙻𝚂 𝚃𝙷𝙰𝚃 𝚈𝙾𝚄'𝙳 𝙻𝙸𝙺𝙴 𝚃𝙾 𝙼𝙴𝙴𝚃 𝙸𝚁𝙻? → honestly?? all of them, including you too ofc!!! a couple things that stop me tho are a. while a lot of my moots are in the EST time zone, not many seem to be in like the northeast part of the USA or southeast part of canada near maybe like the burlington vt/montreal area, and b. i'm not actively working rn so i don't really have the money to spend on gas to travel long distances if i have to cross state lines to meet up with someone. but it's definitely on my to-do list!!
😗 𝚆𝙷𝙰𝚃 𝙰𝚁𝙴 𝚂𝙾𝙼𝙴 𝙾𝙵 𝚈𝙾𝚄𝚁 𝙵𝙰𝚅𝙾𝚁𝙸𝚃𝙴 𝚃𝙷𝙸𝙽𝙶𝚂 𝚃𝙾 𝙳𝙾 𝚆𝙷𝙴𝙽 𝚈𝙾𝚄 𝙷𝙰𝚅𝙴 𝚂𝙾𝙼𝙴 𝚃𝙸𝙼𝙴 𝚃𝙾 𝚈𝙾𝚄𝚁𝚂𝙴𝙻𝙵? → besides writing ofc, i also enjoy singing, playing viola/piano/guitar/ukulele, reading, drawing, playing video games, making origami figures, dicking around on photoshop, doing puzzle games, and streaming shows. i started the impossibly difficult task of watching grey's anatomy with the goal of getting ALL THE WAY THROUGH IT but god with my school schedule it might take me a couple years LMFAO
》》 𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐬!
#( i STRAIGHT UP almost added sm0king w33d to that last one LMAO )#swimrule#tw: weed mention#tw: smoking#( in tags )#⠀ ⠀ ☪︎ ⠀ ⠀ 𝒏𝒐𝒂𝒉 𝒓𝒂𝒎𝒃𝒍𝒆𝒔 ⠀ ⠀ ╱ ⠀ ⠀ out of character.
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Kix canonically DOES lose his shit and start flipping out and yelling and shooting at droids during one particularly bad battle iirc! (can't for the life of me remember exactly where in the timeline that happens tho. Eh, who cares *throws the timeline in the trash from whence it came*) So that is a pretty on point thought!
Now I'm picturing Kix having his flip out moment, but you know, that kind of thing happens to people during a war. Its not really considered an immediate cause for concern once he calms down and does his job.
No one notices the peculiar way he goes focused, and no one really notices when he slips off after the mad rush of bodies in the med bay and the rest of the usual aftermath, and when they do track him down its been a day and a half and he's magpied a whole bunch of random equipment and half way converted one of the auxillary medical bay store rooms into what is very VERY obviously a mad medical scientists lab.
Rex: O__O;;;
*Kix, completely focused, wires what looks like a disassembled pulse grenade to a data screen wired to something Rex can't even recognize*
Rex is no fool. He sloooowly backs out, quietly slides the door closed, and then frantically calls his general and Cody, because they're maybe gonna need HIS general too. And Jesse, Jesse needs to be there immediately.
Not /another/ one, what are the kriffing odds? *grumbled exasperated cursing*
Have you ever watched "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies?" There's a scene in the latter half where someone enters a morgue tent only to find that someone came through, cut open all the skulls, and stole the brains.
I want you to imagine, if you will, that Rex stops by the morgue to double-check some paperwork, and walks into that scenario. Bone saw to skull, someone just stole a dozen brains from dead brothers. And Rex, man, Rex has seen some weird shit and some Force shit and some evil bounty hunter shit, but this smells like Bio Spark shit.
And, uh, decay. It smells like decay. Whoever took these brains forgot to put the bodies back in refrigeration.
So Rex sighs and comms Jesse to make a shipwide announcement, and the 501st goes into a special lockdown, with the announcement being "Unknown fugue in progress, please stay where you are and, if you find who is fugueing and where, report by comm to Captain Rex."
A few minutes pass, he's gotten a shiny on returning the bodies into refrigeration for later cremation, and his comm pings. Ahsoka knows who's fugueing. She's sending him a name and location.
Oh Great. It's Kix. Kix Is The Guy That Lost Their Mind.
He goes to the right room, stops at the door, finds Kix dissecting brain number eight with a team of shiny medics playing minion, unhinged and angry about it. He doesn't notice Rex. Ahsoka is standing at the door to keep an eye on them.
(Anakin is asleep, and Rex is kind of thankful for that.)
"Okay," he says, already tired. "I'm calling the 212th. Bio is General Kenobi's thing. Hopefully he can make this less of a traumatic mess than most of these breakthroughs are supposed to be."
"Rexter?"
"Keep an eye on them, Commander Tano."
And then he goes to call Kenobi and then there are revelations and now they have to fight a Sith Lord that also happens to be their collective boss as Chancellor, fuck his life, actually.
#captain rex#kix#ahsoka tano#the clone wars#girl genius#crossovers#phoenix answers asks#GG Stewjon AU#star wars#body horror tw#brains#gore tw
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Black Widow ~spoilers
Really, I have almost no complaints; all of those I do have are minor or Known Issues with Marvel.
Lack of women of color in lead/significant roles: this is the one they're consistently at fault for. There was no reason Antonia or Melina or Yelena couldn't be people of color.
Mason, one of the only characters of color: not on screen enough IMO. I loved the implications for him, dearly hoping we see more.
No real attempt to explain the 'Red Guardian is Russia's ONLY super soldier' / 'Bucky was kept in Siberia' situation. Was HYDRA like, renting space from them, as well as a Colonel to control him? What was the deal here. Also no actual indication Bucky trained Alexei, but then again see above.
But as for what I loved/liked/enjoyed:
So, I love Antonia. Massive upgrade for Taskmaster. We have us a woman Winter Soldier, y'all, a canon one, I am beyond overjoyed. I want to write ALL the fic about her. Though it's funny to me they picked a 40yo actress to portray her. Olga Kurylenko is older than ScarJo. That said, IIRC she's well known as an amazing action actress so makes sense they'd pick her given a chance. It's a role with a lot of action moments.
Speaking of which, they wanted to hide Taskmaster's identity and as a result she was in the correct kind of outfit. It had better stay, Marvel.
As much as they didn't have lead characters of color, I appreciated how multi-ethnic the widows were. No attempt to excuse it as 'oh well you see they're all Russian hence white'. It was a great counter-example of how you can easily make this work in a narrative if you're not a racist piece of trash. It becomes a metaphor for sex trafficking, which inordinately targets women of color, and the widows are a diverse lot as would be appropriate.
The Red Room being a floating platform is a stunning choice; a recognition of Russia's own technological prowess, rather than the usual American nonsense about 'teehee in Soviet Russia vodka drinks you'.
SO many mentions of Clint. So many. Kinda sad and morbidly amusing that Valentina is framing him for Nat's death. I wonder if Yelena will fall for it? She seems too smart for that. However I would love an emotionally frought scene of him explaining how badly he wanted it to be him and not her, so this is a win/win for me.
Great movie! Not clear why I had to wait like 8 years too many for it, but really damned good!
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The Boy Movie Timeline or Why Did Brahms Have a Beard And How Long Did It Take Him to Grow It
Again, I apologize for any spelling and grammar mistakes in advance.
Malcolm comes by weekly to deliver groceries. For the sake of simplicity, let’s say it’s a Monday, he delivers grocery every Monday.
**** Week 01 ****
Day 01 - Monday
Greta arrives at the manor, bumps into Malcolm who was delivering grocery and showed him the way to the parlor to meet the Heelshires
Day 02 - Tuesday
The Heelshires goes on vacation
Greta does not follow the rules, including throwing leftovers away. We know that Brahms is watching her all this time - he knows PBJ is her favorite, since he said later he made her her favorite
Makes me actually wonder if he made the sandwich because he watched her doing it or if at some point he fished out the leftover from the trash like the hobo he looks like
I’m personally leaning toward watch-and-then-do, I think that despite living in the walls he is being well-fed by his parents, and he has his own little food storage in his lair, he never needed to resort to fishing leftover out of the trash
Brahms “okay-I’m-hungry-but-I-have-standards” Heelshire
That being said, in the first week not too much happened. Seems like Brahms is biding his time and watching, gauging what will happen next. And clearly he had enough food for a week in his storage to feed himself.
Moved the blanket off the doll, that’s pretty much all the shenanigan he did iirc
Goes without saying, but basically all ten rules have been broken here lmao
**** Week 02 ****
Day 08 - Monday
Malcolm drops by again for his delivery + Greta’s paycheck Malcom asked her out
Greta agrees to go out with Malcolm. We learn that sound is amplified and from the doll’s room, you can hear everything. It’s not clear however, whether it’s just what is being said in the guest room to the doll room (Brahms’ eavesdropping on everything) or whether the majority of the rooms - if not all the rooms - in the house are amplified.
I personally think that everything in the house amplified in some way, maybe some rooms more than the others. Brahms most likely has very good hearing and knows all the sounds and creaks in the house well enough to realize if something is ever off. Plus he’d need to be able to hear everything in case there is the risk of his hideout to be discovered I assume.
Greta gets locked in the attic overnight
Day 09 - Tuesday
Greta is let out of the attic, Malcolm comes over bla bla bla
He also rings the phone once but doesn’t say much beside some heavy breathing.
Must be hard to breathe under that mask lmao
Confirmed here that the reception there is shit and there is no TV or computer and stuff
Day 10 - Wednesday
TL;DR Brahms made her a PBJ sandwich as an olive branch. Greta starts to do take the rules serious and follow the instruction
Day 11 - Day 14
Mr. and Mrs. Heelshire writes the goodbye letter to Brahms
**** Week 03 ****
Day 15 - Monday
Malcom says that he came earlier than usual with his food delivery to check up on her. In the previous scene we hear the phone ringing but Greta decided not to pick up - safe to assume it was Malcom to check up on her. We don’t know whether he showed up a day or two earlier or just earlier in the day. My assumption would be he simply showed up at an earlier time than usual.
Malcolm brings in the post - including the goodbye letter from the Heelshires
Greta’s chalk experiment
Brahms only moves the doll after Greta says that she will have to leave if Brahms won’t show any signs that his spirit is there. I guess that is another nod toward that Brahms as abandonment issue?
Sometime during the day or night Brahms goes and collects the letter and learns about his parents’ passing.
Day 16 and 17 - Tuesday to Wednesday morning
Cole shows up and that’s where everything pretty much goes south
So basically the whole movie spanned across 17 days. We know that on the morning the Heelshires were leaving for vacation Brahms threw a tantrum - it’s not explained why. I personally think is because he doesn’t want his parents to leave him. They did say that they haven’t gone on a vacation in a long time. The way Mrs. Heelshire breaks down and says “Mummy has to go now. You have to be a good boy because you promised us”... oof, it hits hard. It shows that Brahms has been emotionally abusing his parents and the mom sounded like she was at her wits end and just so done with everything (in a very bad way).
Parallel to that scene, during Greta’s escape, Brahms’ voice starts to crack when he says “I’ll be good, I will” and shouts at her to come back. I’ve always felt in this scene he seemed very desperate to keep here there. He didn’t want his parents to go on vacation. Then he finds out that his parents are never going to come back, Greta is there now in their place instead. The news of his parents passing at that point is still very very very fresh.
Now for the reason why I spent 3h this morning putting the timeline together: Brahms’ Beard xD
Tried to find some shots that gives a better angle on just how much beard he has:
The last photo is taken from this article about the cgi mask. I’m 99.99% sure this is James Russell’s face and they were testing a bunch of different masks on him (the eye color and shape of the ear matches) soooo this photo is pretty good reference on how much beard Brahms had under the mask xD
This is where I had to google a lot of things because ya girl does not have a beard so I had to educate myself there. Each beard grows at a different speed.
Based on the volume of his beard, my guess would be that it did take Brahms good 2-3 months to grow the beard? Meaning that well before Greta accepted the job, our boy was already too lazy to bother shaving his beard. He’s living behind the walls and everyone thinks he’s dead, there isn’t really anyone he needs to impress so really, who cares what he looks like. Mummy and Daddy want to see him wearing the mask all the time anyway.
I hope at least he has a decent bear care routine. Again, long beard =/= bad hygiene. Brahms takes care of his hygiene and this is the hill I will die on. Probably orders his socks by colors if he would lead a normal life.
Ending this post with some pic of James Russell with a stubble because who hasn’t imagined shaving the beard for Brahms (I know it and you know it and Brahms’ knows it too):
#The ham talks#brahmbling#brahms heelshire#brahms#the boy#the boy movie#brahms the boy#the boy 2016#james russell
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umbrella academy s2 thoughts
Or you can read here if you prefer. Formatting’s probably easier there and this is like 4k, so be warned.
So, was not much of a fan. (Wasn't surprised to learn none of the S1 writers were retained into this season, either!)
I feel like it's a little early for this show to be separating the siblings into New Lives, considering how little they interacted throughout the first season.
I would have liked more childhood flashbacks, having an additional Reginald subplot in a show stuffed with seven (or six and a half) leads seems a choice when it didn't link into the siblings in any meaningful way.
It also made all the siblings curiously less sympathetic, as Diego and Luther in particular, but also Vanya and Klaus to an extent, are berated for showing any kind of effect of their upbringing; but without much 'showing' of said upbringing (or emotional impact at all from the last season - Vanya's obviously out for that own with the hackneyed amnesia plot; Diego is completely over Patch's death - and Grace's, for that matter, although she does at least get acknowledged; and Klaus for some reason seems to have stopped seeing ghosts 99% of the time.)
I'm very mistrustful, as I mentioned in my S1 notes, that the show will in any way support Reginald's abuse, whether it be the siblings furthering their patterns of copying him without learning to recognise and address this; or by some kind of time loop casuality bullshit.
This season didn't really allay that, just with the general tone - the line Vanya had about sarcastically saying he was loving, or Five calling him 'no boy scout' just seem tonally a very different vibe from S1, like there were already aspects of that where it felt like none of them except Klaus really acted like they'd been raised by a guy who outright harmed them so much as a tough Professor type; and here it seems to double down on that idea.
Five in particular was almost his father's yes man to an extent, he had several lines about how right their father was; although it was intriguing to see Diego reference how Reginald may have become even worse after Five's disappearance with that 'golden years' remark.
I was intrigued by the lizard reveal, though.
So, Luther wise...hmmm.
Also, on shallow notes, the hair and fashion was really lacking from last season, like apart from Allison/Emmy who looked lovely in the 60s clothes (and Five, Ben and Vanya, who remained pretty much the same), everyone looked worse (even Luther had a little Tintin grown out hairdo going on!)
Didn't love the toilet humour, either, but again, YMMV.
He was a little more likeable than S1, I appreciated how he acknowledged his own failings (which iirc, no one else but Vanya really did all season, and since she didn't recall hers at the time, there wasn't as much emotional impact) - although the cocked gun lessened it a little, lol. And the return of that lovely musical score during, too, nice touch.
It was good to see at least two scenes with him and Vanya interacting, and for them to return to the Five/Luther duo.
It was also interesting to see how Luther, like all his siblings, projects his own feelings onto others, (like his first instinct being that Vanya's pulling some 'bullshit game' when obviously, Vanya was pretty upfront when she lost it; whereas it was Luther who was the one scamming her into the hug-n-choke.)
I liked them bonding over Five being an asshole, too.
(Although I think once again, the lack of trust between the siblings was almost contrived, like Luther in particular seems genuinely pissed off that Five didn't, what, let them all die in a fiery death? I get that they grew up in an environment that promoted mistrust and that they don't really seem to understand their own powers or each others, and Five never explains when he makes a mistake, anyway, but I'm just not sure what Luther's ideal outcome here was.)
I'm clearly an asshole also, because the 'Rooming House for Solitary Men' sign made me laugh every time they showed it.
I feel like some of his characterisation was unsubtly telegraphed (although that's a complaint over all, not just him specific) - like they decided 'sensitive' was their key word there, and just jam in everyone referring to him as that rather than showing it. (...Is Luther sensitive? Like, not dragging him, I'd just not pick that at all for him as a description.)
I also didn't much enjoy the pairing of him and Diego, like to be honest, it was never a pairing even from S1 that I was particularly fascinated by, it's such a well-worn dynamic; and while at least they weren't bickering over numbers, the dude bro banter ('women, amirite?!') and matching lack of IQ (I never thought I'd say Diego seemed dumber than cracking a raw egg to posture, and yet...) was just kind of lowhanging fruit.
I also feel like the goon for Jack Ruby stuff seemed inserted purely for plot contrivance to link to JFK.
(This is also a universal complaint, but I really felt for the actors doing promo, like they come up with all these well thought out explanations about why their characters are making these choices, but the work doesn't really show up in the writing or what was shown onscreen. IIRC, Tom Hopper was talking about Jack Ruby as a replacement father figure and how it's Luther's first stab at independence in terms of supporting himself; and there's this whole thing of Ruby saying he treated Luther like a son, when really, he's in like, two scenes and Luther is very clearly a paid goon. Which isn't to say that's not supporting yourself, a job's a job! I just felt like it didn't really go anywhere.)
I liked the idea that he's the only one who looked for their dad; I liked him still eating his feelings, funnily enough, it's just a good character note.
I don't particularly have investment in him and Allison one way or another yet - I don't care about the moral indignation; I just feel like when they're together, it seems one part them being smug about the others, one part yearning based on the same plot as S1 (she's moved on but seems to want to keep Luther as her back up guy.) Like, I'd love to see those two actually interact over something based on their disparate characters (what would Allison have said if she'd heard Luther's little defense of the Feds to Five?)
There's also a return to that odd juxtaposition from S1 of Klaus' drinking with Luther taking drugs cheerfully and to no effect. (I'm not expecting a DARE commercial, it's just all over the place in tone. That, and I thought Luther 'waSN't ReADy for THaT!')
(This isn't Diego specific, either, but they also do that thing I hate in TV, where they purposefully reference someone specifically in the episode before they rereturn, and Diego got the short straw on that one with the Pogo mention apropros of nothing, so we know we'll see Baby!Pogo shortly.)
Diego: Again, lots of telegraphing. (Do you think the writers want to get across Diego has a hero complex? I wasn't clear after he cat leaps through dimensions, stops a mugging, obsessively stalks JFK, and almost everyone he meets literally holds up placards mentioning 'DIEGO HAS A HERO COMPLEX'.)
Diego got a lot more time onscreen, which is a plus, but the haircut combined with his role as plot monkey made it a neutral point.
I also think Castaneda got the short straw on some of dialogue this year, oof, that Luke Skywalker 'it's a great reference' dialogue felt a bit try hard.
(Sheehan also took a body blow later with the 'Sexy trash!' one, ouch, like that felt very Designed to Retweet/Gif.
No one's topped S1 for blatant exposition yet, though: 'You haven't been sober since you were a teen! Not since you started taking drugs to block the ghosts out.')
Randomly, I liked the decent English accent he pulled out of nowhere. And again, David Castaneda I believe, mentioned Patch's death, so it's neat that he thought about the impact of her death on his character, even though it wasn't evident in the plot.
As I mentioned up top, I think Diego kind of suffered from the same thing Klaus did last year, where upon he seems to be the only one who recalls they were actually brought up in an abusive environment; and yet here the focus seems more generic to Diego's a baby (right down to constantly talking about 'bad guys' like a three year old) who has masculinity issues about his mean pop (who tbh, seems to be presented as entirely correct in labelling him a fuckwit, since he behaves like one pretty much all season: 'We chop off his trigger finger!')
(Also there's that contrived Batman style ethics that came up with Luther last year, where they're like 'We can quip over bodies and we grew up literally murdering people', but for some reason, Diego won't 'kill a man before he's committed a crime' (he can stalk one, and cut off his hand, though?)
Likewise, there wasn't a ton of interaction between him and Allison, like in S1, I enjoyed how they kind of overcame their initial mutual dislike with small moments of bonding; whereas here he has to be prompted to talk to her (and that was an adlib, which again, means the actors were considering something the writers overlooked.)
Last year I talked about how much I enjoyed Diego's character and how they walked a very fine line between him combining his desire to be the stereotypical macho figure with his innate sensitivity, so naturally this season we get him butchified to a factor of ten ('I'm the man, here!' 'You're a big pussy!') and almost zero interactions with Klaus, the person besides Grace who brought that out the most last year.
(What happened to those two, last time we saw them they were pretty much the closest in the family besides the Allison/Vanya link; here, Diego's almost contemptous. Has he levelled up in his mind now he's bffs with Luther?) I wanted to find the scene with him and Ben endearing, since we get so few interactions with Ben and any one besides Klaus, but it wasn't even that personally linked to them beyond 'Remember our one specific memory? Anyways, lolz, u should keep Klaus' body, idgaf.')
Allison Allison I think suffers from a lot of the same problems as she was introduced with - like Vanya, her powers are kind of linked to a lack of control in a way that the guys aren't; and a lot of her development is offscreen.
I actually really enjoyed the episode focusing on her, though, I thought it was one of the strongest of the season.
Her husband got a bit OTT with his catchphrase - where Diego's was 'JFK', Ray's was very clearly ' the movement!' and I found it odd how easily all the siblings but especially Allison gave up on returning to their own time and committed to another relationship built on lies (albeit this time of omission - baby steps!) but I kind of like that, like that's Allison, kind of co-dependent and self-deceiving.
Really, I feel like Allison's more interesting when they plunge into her darker side, I was riveted in the 'more!' scene, as well as the 'I heard a rumour you killed your brother'.
I think it's especially important as she's a WOC, which this season focused on more, like, it's very important not to fall into the common writing trap where the guys are allowed to be vindictive or needy or selfish and the women are there to be the moral guidance (for the same reason, I also loved the Five/Vanya stand-off); and that goes double for the model minority bit.
I was worried that they'd fall into the trap of Allison needing to be twice as good not just with how the sit-ins were portrayed but also generally (she speaks seven languages! She makes extensive notes on the state of race relations with specific regard to Dallas in the 1960s!) and once more, it seemed like Emmy Raver Lampman was trying to put across a more interesting read on Allison in terms of how isolated she was from any awareness of oppression in the outer world, first in the Academy and then through being a powerful celebrity and the contrast that creates for her in Dallas which didn't quite get met by the writing/direction.
It was great to see how she got to become part of a community in a way the others didn't, also, and particularly being protected by the beauty shop ladies when she arrived; like, the imbalance of genders as well as races in the Academy genuinely made it refreshing to see.
(The relapse is also very up and down in tone, like they make attempts at pathos, but it's also accompanied by the Styx soundtrack/60s light effects...)
Klaus and Ben - Probably my least favourite aspect of this season.
There was a bunch of telling not showing (Klaus' three year sobriety being expressed in Ben's expository sentence and that .5 second shot of him turning down a joint) and once you remove the biggest impacts on Klaus' character (the addiction and his power) without explanation, you're basically left with 'Klaus causes problems for himself for comedic value.'
I don't really care about who fights well or which powers are developed (didn't read the comics, don't plan to) but it seems to be like the best portrayals of superheroes show the powers as metaphors for their lives - Vanya struggles to control her emotions, Ben feels powerless, etc. If you take away the powers, you take away the reasoning behind the character.
Why is Ben pretty much the only ghost (particularly when in S1, they seemed ever-present)? How or why did Klaus learn to summon them in the alt-apocalypse?
I liked the scene of Klaus interacting with Ray before they find out he's married to Allison, that was cute.
I also liked seeing him interact with Vanya and Allison (there was an interesting shot where Allison says she has a life she worked for, and Klaus smiles - is that because in contrast, he doesn't? I'd have liked them to acknowledge the link between cults and celebrity, tbh, those two have a lot in common. Or is it because she isn't using her power and neither is he?), and I thought it was cool to note how when the group are reunited, they fall into a power structure right away.
Like, right away, Klaus sells out Vanya and Allison to the guys ('It's usually Vanya!' or mentioning how Allison's being 'involved in community politics'.) Likewise, everyone kowtows to Five, then Luther, over the rest (like when Five says they won't go with Vanya to the farm) and no one speaks up for Diego in front of Reginald.
I want to give the others the benefit of the doubt and say they were kind of shitty to Klaus in particular in this season because they were in a group, because it's a huge downgrade in compassion (especially since Allison was like, covering him with a blanket when they're alone.)
Like, I get sibling culture, I have 'em, but I feel like when you're bringing possible 'seizures' up, you're sort of skirting what's then played as comedic (Luther dragging him, the 'check please' line), especially Diego's: 'He's probably having an overdose.' (Kinda seeing why no one rushed to join Team Zero.)
Like, he and Klaus do just kind of seem contrivedly not communicating - I would think after the isolation, you'd crack through boredom if nothing else.
Ben's kind of an odd duck - I feel like with Steve Blackman's comments, he's supposed to be this philosophical voice of reason; but tbh, he seems as self-involved as Klaus, and if anything, they mirrored each other (that line in S1 about Klaus being cowardly plays a little differently after the revelation 'He was afraid to go into the light'...) rather than separating him into his own person.
I mean, I don't want Saint Ben (or St. anyone!), but Ben does kind of irritate, like it's not like he even particularly gets much wit or personality in his lines (and I doubt Justin Min would be short of inspiration there, so it does seem to be a writing choice) or they give him much warmth or concern (I still like that shot of him walking off in the sixth episode of S1, though - where is he off to?!) In S1, we do at least get to see him panicking and how helpless he must feel that he can't alert the others to danger etc. He doesn't really offer opinions that offer a personal philosophy beyond 'Stop being a junkie' (he was willing to shut off Grace - was that to tick off Klaus for taking the opposite opinion, or is he super pragmatic generally?) or 'Admit it, Klaus, Luther's Okay!' (Again, is this nostalgia for the other siblings, or what? It would have been nice to have Ben interact with all his siblings, considering they included the whole possession plot for less than necessary stuff like 'Ben kisses a girl!' and 'Vomit shenanigans!')
I just feel like his personality was kind of an afterthought still, and it made his sacrifice for Vanya, touching as it was, feel a little unearned.
Why doesn't Klaus tell Ben he wants to go back for Dallas for Dave? Why doesn't Ben tell Klaus he wants to go back to San Francisco for Jill? Was Ben in Vietnam? How come he's gone from using Dave as A Reason to Get Clean to a 'fling' - dark reading of Ben, tbh, like does he want Klaus clean purely for his own gain, and now he is, Dave's of no further value? What does Ben think Klaus is looking Dave up for - he says it's 'selfish', does he literally think Klaus is just there to hook up with Dave pre-death? It's hard to parse whether Ben has a low opinion of Klaus in particular or whether he, like the rest of them, has kind of adopted to a point Reginald's views - it was neat to see a comparison of the two there.
The possession stuff was a cool parallel, as well, if underused on the whole - Ben's happy to take advantage of Klaus' body despite his clear ambivalence and then outright refusal; Klaus is happy to take advantage and have sex with his own cult followers.
The cult stuff was even less strong, imho - I said last year how I'd enjoy a darker reading of Klaus, as S1 I felt sometimes was unfair to the others in that we see them being impatient with him; but never how his addiction would have impacted upon them negatively; but here, there's no real exploration of Klaus' narcissism or manipulation (in fact the plot seems to play out exactly the same as Allison's in S1 - we start with all the action about why they pursued fame etc. dealt with offscreen, and begin when the lead has already tired of it all.)
I mean, Klaus is self-destructive, as we saw in S1, but here it's an odd combination, like he's at once both cowardly of physical harm (in a way he wasn't really in S1, even post-Dave, so it doesn't seem to be in reaction to his death) but also running a cult for the attention, but the attention is presented as negative almost exclusively throughout.
Like, I'd get it if it was an interest in money and the finer things in life, even, you could make an interesting point there (and iirc, Robert Sheehan and I think Emmy Raver Lampman have) about how while the Hargreeves were abused, they were also 'spoilt rich kids'; and reflect on that; but it's literally just there for gags.
There's no real explanation for the cult itself (they literally just regurgitate pop culture references) or an exploration of Klaus as a con artist (again - here's where you could show some kind of progression in character, whether it's forward or backwards, and use the powers; and have Klaus working as a shady medium, but nope, it's physical comedy only.)
You could delve into his refusing to even tell the others about Ben's presence, but that's handwaved as much as ever (Five didn't go 'Huh, well, Ben was there when the Soviets came...') not just from the other siblings, but also Ben and Klaus themselves.
‘Cause I could see how Klaus would feel guilty about saying that, regardless; but then Ben's all 'Well, I was chicken to go anyway'
It might have been a little more affecting if Ben's motivation for possessing Klaus wasn't Jill, a character we know exactly zero about, but talking to his family; not to mention a lot more sympathetic towards Ben himself. As it is, it plays more like he's petty and jealous Klaus gets to be alive, rather than frustrated that Klaus is essentially silencing him.
And again, that's fine, maybe that is Ben, he stopped aging at 17, after all, but I'm not sure what the point is of a plot where we don't really get to see much exploration of either character.
Like, what did we learn about Klaus from this specific sub-plot? We knew in S1 he felt guilty that Ben died young, and that he was happy to allow his siblings to believe Ben is gone.
Likewise, Ben? We knew in S1 he was envious of Klaus being alive, and bitter that his position was so powerless.
It was nice to see the teenage actors (did they dub Teen!Klaus??? Odd.) post Ben's death, but it kind of didn't resolve much, really - it seemed like Klaus was supposed to be bullshitting about the 'golden light' and whether or not you can just...'go' whenever you please, but then it seemed like it turned out to be true?
(Might want to have mentioned that, then, like I get he's a Hargreeves and therefore a fail at interpersonal relationships, but you'd think it wouldn't take a smart guy to figure that if your brothers already toying with self-destruction in his teen years, it might not be the most genius move to additionally allow him to believe you're trapped in the 'real torture' of berating him endlessly solely due to his advice; if for no other reason than your one link to humanity is then going to keep up the booze and drugs that blocks you from his presence.)
I was inclined to like the Dave subplot a little more than I did last season, just because something was happening at all (and we got some tiny semblance of Dave's personality, even if it was basic as hell - he likes hamburgers!), but I feel like the Dave recasting thing really stretched credulity.
I would guess it was written backwards, in terms of if Dave was the clearly fully grown adult we saw in S1 a mere five years later, why wouldn't he just go 'Oh, thanks for the tip, dude, I'll avoid all that military jazz'? And why wouldn't Klaus just be like 'Fuck it, can we not just...date now?' Aha, we could make him a little younger, chuck in a Mean Uncle, throw in some manufactured conflict, and zow-pow!
It definitely wasn't the most contrived plot ever or anything (or even on this show), but I did feel like it's weird that again, via the cult, we're kind of asked to see Klaus as this expert manipulator of people, when he seemed almost purposefully stupid here (like, even compared with Luther and Diego.)
Why act as if the only chance you'll ever have to see the guy in the same timezone as you is right that second in front of his crazed uncle? Why say you've tried everything when you met the kid three times (once instigated by him, and I have to say, it's sort of odd, like Klaus is just drinking throughout, like you'd think this would be the one opportunity he'd take to truly and honestly engage without that) and basically just asked him twice, and in the least convincing way possible.
Shoot him in the foot! Burn down the recruitment office! Use your international platform and pull with local government to influence your huge movement towards stopping the war in Vietnam!
Like, if what you're going for is that Klaus is defeatist and unimaginative, fine, but I'm not sure it's not just that they kind of didn't write beyond the circular 'telling him only made him sign up sooner' casuality because it's so Tragic.
(Also, I feel like they're overplaying the iconography of those damn dogtags, like at this point, Klaus looking sadly at the dog tags has still probably had more screen time than Dave himself.)
I liked the scene with him and Vanya facing off?
Five I think didn't really get much more development than S1, he drives the plot forward, but not much else. In fact, in S1, he probably was more interesting, in that he interacted with all of his siblings and showed moments of vulnerability and care (knowing Claire's name, telling Luther not to waste his life, asking Klaus if he was okay) and got to properly react to his siblings' deaths.
Um...it was cool to have two of him?
It was nice and kind of ambigious where he lied to her about the cause of the apocalypse, like you could go by what he said about how he wanted to avert her anger, or you could wonder if it's a rare moment of kindness in his old age, lol.
I also loved it when he said to Luther about whether he could talk to her 'without squeezing her to death'.
I found Sissy probably the most interesting of the new characters (probably her and Lila more so than Lil!Dave and Ray, tbh.)
Vanya I probably have the least to say about. I was satisfied with how they portrayed the culpability of the others, particularly Luther, without erasing Vanya's part in the apocalypse. (I really, really hope this'll end the endless discourse on her emails book now, that got tired fast.
I could also do without the endless 'lolz, Ellen Page was so bad at playing straight they had to write Vanya as gay'. Ellen Page is pretty convincing as an actor - I bought her raping Rainn Wilson in 'Super', for god's sake, I doubt 'heterosexual' is a challenge.)
The amnesia plot was pretty cliched, and it did mean we didn't get so much actual interaction between the 'real' Vanya (so to speak) and her siblings but I really enjoyed the dream sequence of her in the academy.
#the umbrella academy#ua meta#meta#s2#i didn't love it#to warn you#luther hargreeves#klaus hargreeves#vanya hargreeves#ben hargreeves#allison hargreeves#diego hargreeves
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speaking of disk horse
... I just got a comment on one of my extremely raunchy BuckyNat fics by someone lauding how wholesome the sex was, and what a good example it was. “what good sex is supposed to be like” .... it’s an orgy fic with male multiple orgasms in it, iirc. (In other words, Not Exactly Realistic.)
Now, all told, it *is* a fairly wholesome smutfic! Everyone in it has a lovely time and feels sexually gratified and emotionally supported! It might actually be a threesome fic, I haven’t reread it in a while-- I think it’s BuckyNatSteve-- and it’s just good communication and hot sex and everyone being cared for all around, orgasms for everyone. I like writing stories like that.
But this comment was like... lauding me for bringing the tone of “the culture” up with this wholesome smut.
And I’m not specifically offended by the comment? but it makes me... hmmm... a little...
Listen, there’s definitely a need for Wholesome Smut Fics. I absolutely have a need for this, myself, and I do enjoy writing them, and I write them for me and I write them for other people who are having a hard day and just want something nice but not saccharine, and that’s fine.
But I write trash too, I write bad communication and angst, I write self-destructive bullshit and a whole spectrum of stuff. [To be perfectly honest, the only reason I don’t write more miscommunication angst and such is that I get too anxious and can’t make it work because I’m too afraid of Bad Things. That’s not morally-driven at all, that’s Anxiety babey. I read far darker than I write, that’s for sure.] There is room, and need, in “the culture” for all of that kind of thing. And I am certainly not writing wholesome poly smut fic as a how-to for impressionable young readers. Whatever else that stuff is for, it is absolutely not sex ed. Oh my gosh. You are going to be so disappointed, young reader, by the fact that I gave supersoldiers ridiculously absent refractory periods, among other things. [In real life nobody communicates like that either and if you expect it you are going to cry a lot, a lot a lot. the Infinite Bomb Dick is fantasy but the bit where everyone Knows What Bucky Needs And Gives It To Him Without Him Asking is absolutely entirely fantasy, that will never happen to you, my sweet summer child. never.]
Please, children, please, don’t read my fics looking for moral guidance. Oh my god. I do write wholesome filth sometimes, I do, because I like wholesome shit sometimes, but I also write bad things, and I sometimes pepper things with convincing realism (I am fond of writing good awkward sex, that’s a trope I like) but they are not real. My real sex life is nothing like this. Your real sex life will never be anything like it either. Oh my god.
My writing is neither moral nor immoral. It is stories I am driven to tell, because I want to read them, and they are imperfect mirrors of my observations at bestI have no particular agenda in any of them and please don’t infer one.
I don’t know how to respond to this comment, though. Like... uh... glad you found what you needed but uhhhh i also write stuff that you’d probably think drags “the culture” down so maybe don’t keep clicking? IDK man. What do you say?
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Ok thoughts on Six on Broadway fresh out of the theater (2/16; 3PM show):
First and most importantly it totally lived up to the hype that I've been trying and failing to not build up in my head since last year. And this might be the hypest audience I've ever been in. Everyone in line was talking like they already knew what was up and I saw a good amount of people in like crowns and space buns and stuff. And every single time a Queen got burned during the show, everyone “OOOOOOH”-ed like we were on Wild ‘N Out or something.
While I was in line, I’m 95% sure I saw Toby Marlow sprint past me and then return 10 minutes later with a slice of pizza.
I got a pin and I asked the dude for an Aragon pin and he was like, "Is that queen of the castle?" Like lol buddy welcome to your first weekend working at Six.
Before the show starts, they play pop songs but I assume with the keyboard set to organ or harpsichord sounds. The two songs I recognized were Truth Hurts and Havana.
If you’re here looking for intel on the seating situation, I had seats second from the top and way to the left and I still saw everything fine (and I am not a tall person) so I wouldn’t worry too much about where you’re sitting.
Like I said before, it's such a hype show. Like even if you've heard the soundtrack or seen the show through ~other means~ I promise you're not ready.
Right when the show starts, they project out these Tudor rose projections into the audience which is a nice touch. It’s such a nice looking set in general with the lights in the back and the band up on stage. I really like how highlighted the band members are in this show as compared to other shows I’ve seen. It’s a hard job and I bet it’s nice to get the props.
“Live in Consort” is the best pun in Six because it’s a reach but said with such confidence that you have to give to to her.
"Donde esta my crown?" is already a funny line but it’s even funnier when you picture two British 20-somethings conceiving of the line.
Any time Aragon waves at the crowd, which is a lot, she Princess Diary waves which I love.
A lot of people have had a lot to say about the American accents and it's honestly ridiculous. Like, we're already taking these historical figures so out of their original context that could hardly be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Like, Kathrine Howard can sing a Brittney Spears song but it has to be in a British accent? Come on. And I actually think some songs (like No Way and Get Down in particular) sound a little more natural in an American accent considering the artists they’re taking inspiration from.
I can’t believe they do this show without a break. This is like 90 minutes of pure cardio. It’s, “I’m getting exhausted watching you,” choreo. They didn’t stagedoor after and, tbh, good. Go lay down before the 8pm show please. That’s 100% what I’d be doing.
I have heard the Anne Boleyn intro before but it’s a million times funnier watching her actively peace out as she’s being talked about and then take a selfie and quickly stash her phone before the song starts.
They really scrubbed as many of the “mate”s out of the show as possible which I get but I feel like I would have just left them alone since it’s such a common British-ism that I feel like people know.
I was led to believe that in “Wearing Yellow to a Funeral,” Anne is cut off from calling Aragon a massive bitch but lol that was def a hard C and not a B they stopped her after.
“What a weekend,” is also a killer line imo.
Still wild that Elizabeth is never mentioned in this show except indirectly when Anne says when she had a daughter Henry killed her.
Heart of Stone has def grown on me since I first heard it and Abby Mueller is obv amazing but it’s still weird to hear after a song about how this dude literally decapitated someone (“You’ve got a good heart?” Jane, what? Citation needed) and I think it’s good that it’s basically undercut immediately by the, “Severed head,” line by Anne. Also, I lowkey spent most of the song preparing for the cut to Haus of Holbein.
I was not prepared for the cut to Haus of Holbein.
Literally, I could not wipe the stupid grin off my face during the entirety of Cleves’ pre-HoH speech because I knew exactly the nonsense that was about to happen and it still surpassed my expectations.
If I didn’t already know that Boleyn’s line was, “the whole of the Holy Roman Empire,” there is no way I would have understood any of that. The German accents during that scene truly do sound like they were told, “Do literally whatever,” and it’s so funny.
Cleves’ throne rising out of the stage so she can sit in it is such a Moment.
Brittney Mack’s operatic riff or whatever it’s called during the slow-mo part of Get Down is so, so, so fill the room amazing. Man it was so good. Also, I 100% did not realize that on the “take my fur” line, they breakaway rip her little jacket off and it’s this cool sparkly bodice piece under. Based on audience reaction, neither did they.
I feel like everyone always talks about Boleyn’s energy in this show and they should because they’re right but--speaking for the Broadway cast--she’s for sure second to Cleves in terms of raw energy.
During the roast, I think to Aragon, Howard strokes her cheek with the back of her hand which is super funny, as is her shaking her fists at the sky after the, “When will justice be served,” line to Jane.
Not a Surprise: I also Wasn’t Ready for All You Wanna Do.
AYWD is the song I was most curious to see audience reaction to (w/ HoH being a close second) because, you know, it’s an ostensibly fun song except that it’s awful. But I think the mood of the audience kinda followed Howard’s. When she was joking around, everyone kinda felt like they had permission to joke around too--like there’s a part in the choreo that happens more than once where they put her hands on her and she shrugs them off and the first time it happened there was a laugh but when it happened again during the third verse when she’s clearly Over It and dancing in a really rote and exhausted way, no laugh.
(Sidenote: The juxtaposition of Cleves and Howard--arguably the most and least successful Queens--is always to interesting to me. The placement of such a “I’m so Dope,” song next to a, “My life was trash,” song. And, now having seen it, there’s a part in the Get Down choreo where all the other queens have their hands all over Cleves in a hyping her up kinda way and, as, in contrast, Howard is getting touched constantly in AYWD and it’s Bad.)
(Double sidenote: During verse four of AYWD, there’s a part where everyone walks in front of Howard and they duck so they don’t block her and Andrea like basically didn’t duck at all. It was lowkey super funny).
Anyway, the breakdown was rough. By which I mean extremely good but rough to listen to. Like, I know it’s a part of the song so I knew it was coming but I’m so used to the studio version that listening to her full on sob through the last chorus was A Lot. You could feel the air sucked out of the room. Huge props to Sam Pauly.
So, iirc, in the West End version of the show, post Howard’s song is the fight which dissolves into literal hair pulling/having to break people up. In this version, it doesn’t got that far. They get to comparing miscarriages and the Cleves breaks it up and tells Parr it’s her turn. Then, she gets an intro to an upbeat sounding song that we never actually hear because she can’t bring herself to sing it. Then she goes into the same (or at least a similar) speech about, “We shouldn’t do this,” which leads into IDNYL.
When Katherine does the, “Katherine de Valois, I mean I don’t know,” line, Cleves looks at her like, “Bitch what?”
When Boleyn gives the, “Everyone notices that Jane can’t dance,” line, I didn’t catch Jane’s reaction like I wanted to because Aragon immediately breaks into a sidebar with her like, “Right? That’s totally true.”
During Jane’s verse in Six, everyone is actually pretty down with the Tudor Von Trapps line and then she says Royaling Stones and loses everyone.
I didn’t realize that they did the same couples choreo during the Six that they do for Ex-Wives but I like that a lot. Very circular.
It is extremely hard to not sing during a show like Six, especially once you’ve conditioned yourself for the past six or so month to start spitting out lyrics the second you hear any of these songs start. I really really hope they have Sing-A-Long tix at some point because I am willing to shell out for that and I think a lot of people in that audience would have as well.
Some random dude at a light say me holding my playbills and asked how I liked the show because he’d good things which, if an omen for the show’s prospects, is a good one. Opening weekend is probably not a fantastic gauge of show longevity because of course all of the hypest fans would be out now but if it can keep up this energy then man they’re gonna have a hit (well, a further hit).
#six the musical#six broadway#personal#if you have questions feel free to hit me up but my musical memory is so bad. i just internalize the experience and then forget the details
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