#almost sitcom esque

[maruyaaya]

THANK YOU AHAHAHA i pride myself on going through emotions so fast it gives everybody whiplash. i’ve grown so attached to neo he’s like my son i want to ruffle his hair and tell him it will all be okay. i wanted to give him a little grace in this fic bc he’s always treated so awfully by every retelling. in the iliad, after patroclus’ death, achilles talks abt how he wanted patroclus to basically adopt neo after achilles dies to go to skyros after the war and take neo to see phthia i love them so bad :(((.

TELEMACHUS TRULY IS HIS FATHERS SON LMFAO he’s def a bit of an asshole in this fic bc i’m kinda mixing together epic’s characterization of him and his characterization in the actual odyssey. he’s a little shit srsly i love him

are u sure ur not the one writing a neo character study here BC THE WAY U TALKED ABT NEO AND ASTYANAX IN THE TAGS MADE ME SICK SICK SICK IM SO UPSET

talking about my neoptolemus/telemachus wip bc idk how to shut the fuck up!!!

SO the dynamic between neoptolemus and telemachus in my wip is essentially that neoptolemus is in love with telemachus from their first meeting, but he’s convinced that telemachus is too good for him and that he destroys everything he touches so he masks that with cruelty and pretends that he hates telemachus. telemachus is at first, drawn to neo and really likes him, but then neo starts being cruel in his attempts to push telemachus away and that gets telemachus to genuinely hate neo. it’s like a one-sided enemies to lovers. neo wants really badly to hate telemachus, but he can’t find it in him to not love this boy who he thinks shines like the sun. telemachus, on the other hand, just hates neo and he blames neo for ruining this friendship that they could have had.

their relationship basically flips back and forth between neo saying some unintentionally soft shit and when telemachus is like “what” neo just immediately says “but you’re also a weak dumbass so. fuck you.” neo is such a girlfailure in this fic he doesn’t know how to handle emotions AT ALL. he’s grown very special to me in the course of writing this fic which is very funny bc prior to starting this fic, i actually did not care for neo in the slightest before i started writing this fic. i only cared abt him as an extension to achilles bc achilles is my fav greek mythology figure ever. THEN AGAINST ALL ODDS, neo charmed me while writing this fic. like these are some tweets from my priv twt where you can see me progress from not caring at all abt neo to seeing him as my little babygirl son

so yes, i was charmed by my socially awkward son neoptolemus. he’s such a little freak. my favourite headcanon is that maybe in another less angsty fic than the one i’m writing rn, neo wants to flirt with telemachus and bc he’s emotionally inept like his father, he decides the best way to do that is to ask telemachus to spar with him and bc he hates losing, he goes all out and beats telemachus up. it’s like

neo, internally, after punching telemachus in the face: yes, our courtship is progressing magnificently

telemachus, clutching his bloody nose, trying to figure out why neo hates him:

LIKE THEYRE SO FUNNY TO ME!! i love them sm.

but anyways back to the specifics of my fic. they don’t get to be quite as silly in my fic. essentially what happens is that neo hears of odysseus returning to ithaca and decides to visit. there, he meets telemachus and is immediately charmed because he’s such a little loser. telemachus invites neo back to the palace for dinner and neo ends up getting in an argument with odysseus that ends with him going “I WILL TRAIN TELEMACHUS.” and odysseus does not want that to happen so ofc, telemachus says he wants neo to train him.

and the plotline is basically neo and telemachus’ relationship progressing as neo trains telemachus. it’s full of a lot of really sexually charged sparring and angry arguments.

some of you may be wondering why i refer to neoptolemus as neoptolemus always and not pyrrhus even though pyrrhus is his original name. well in my head, pyrrhus is the name that he’s given at birth by deidamia and neoptolemus is the name he takes up when he goes to war because he feels like he’s become a different person. neo struggling between his two names is actually going to be quite a plot point in this fic

because this fic is just as much a character study of neoptolemus as it is a ship fic between neo and telemachus. i spend a lot of time exploring his relationship with his parents and also his relationship with odysseus. it’s neo’s desire to piss off odysseus in the first place that gets him to stay in ithaca with telemachus. i really want to spend a lot of time exploring neo as a character bc so often, people write him as just being needlessly cruel, but i feel like it’s important to remember that he was just a kid when he was brought into war. he has this legacy from achilles that he needs to live up to, but he’s never even met achilles and how are you supposed to live up to the legacy of the greatest of the greeks? how would it ever be possible to make someone like achilles proud? neo’s grappling with his self-worth and identity a lot during this fic.

so far this fic is about 22k words and it’s very special to me. in the vision i’ve created in my head, we’re about 1/4 done but i make no promises because you all know me and how awful i am at sticking to the word counts that i imagine. it could be much shorter, it could be much longer. i don’t make plans. i just sit down in front of my google docs and bleed.

i’ve also been making plans for a little modern au neo/telemachus fic BECAUSEEE i really want to write that little neo and achilles exchange that i mentioned in my last post abt neomachus (teleneo? idk what their ship name is but i like calling them neomachus). my vice is creating wips and never finishing them tho so idk when (or if) i’ll write that modern au.

i guess i’ll end this little infodump off with some fun exchanges between neo and telemachus that i really like in this fic. they’re just so special to me <3

i will absolutely talk abt this fic more in the future as i continue writing bc im so obsessed with it rn. i will do my best to finish it asap but every time i think more about it, it gets longer.

(ALSO the title of the fic is “someday i know you’ll come to your senses” which comes from the song senses by mico who is, yes, the guy who plays telemachus in epic the musical. what can i say? i like it when things come full circle (it’s also a really fucking good song. everyone stream internet hometown hero by mico))

(none of these excerpts are edited or anything btw. if there are any typos please keep that to yourself or i might die of embarrassment)

[scootersscooter]

Idk guys Mighty Med was just such a good show. The characters were incredibly well rounded and had a lot of personality. The show had incredible relationships between the characters, especially when it came to Kaz and Oliver's friendship (and dare I even say the budding romantic relationship between Oliver and Skylar). The world building was great and easily lent itself toward both serious and goofy situations. The plot had lots of twists and turns that never felt like too much. I feel that it's very overlooked, especially when competing with Lab Rats, but I think that Mighty Med does a lot better with less time while managing to have better characterization and character development than Lab Rats could ever dream of having. Go watch Mighty Med guys. Please <3.

[dave-hates-your-abuser]

most of the time, i think that i’m lying about being abused, because it “wasn’t that bad,” and then occasionally i get flashbacks and remember why i call it abuse

[screamingintotheneverendingvoid]

I’m crying at the thought of nurse!reader and Carter having to fuck in his dorm room 😭 You tell him, beg him, are just like please just move in with me why you figure everything out and then you can start paying things, it’s fine really, I got you baby, but he wants to be independent. So they’re having to stay over in his RA dorm room in that small ass motherfucking bed 😩 Having to be quiet because you know those walls are thin as hell, you get interrupted by students no matter the time for the worst things imaginable when you just want to rock your boyfriends world and go to sleep after a hard day at work but it’s probably one of those almost sitcom-esque moments where John goes to deal with it and he comes back to you fast asleep in bed.

[petercapaldi-press]

Reposted from @dawnlestaffs [Original post here.]

INTERVIEW

May 30, 2009

[transcript under the cut]

Out of the Loop

He went from pop star to pop has-been, Local Hero to zero, Oscar winner to TV-show extra… But it took the role of a foul-mouthed spin doctor in the BBC’s hit political satire The Thick Of It to transform Peter Capaldi’s fortunes

As the frerocious spin doctor Malcolm Tucker in the biting BBC political sitcom The Thick Of It, Oscar-winning actor Peter Capaldi has demonstrated a talent for swearing that would make Alf Garnett blush. In person, Capaldi, whose talents have found a wider audience following the success of the recent big-screen spin-off In The Loop, barely cusses at all. The air only really turns blue as he warms up to a rant about the world of politicians.

‘Politics is a whorehouse,’ he says. ‘It’s a brutal world where there’s no place for the thin-skinned. I’m not saying that all politicians are awful. I don’t know any of them well enough to say whether they’re awful or not. But almost every day you find out something about them that’s appalling. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised any longer. But it’s still a shock to find out about Damian McBride sending emails filled with very unpleasant allegations about members of the Conservative Party. Like everyone else, I’m tired of all this. It’s a terrible way to behave, a completely disgraceful way to conduct any kind of business.

‘It shouldn’t be encouraged. There’s nothing smart about it whatsoever, but it’s part of the mechanism by which things are achieved in politics. Whatever anyone pretends, it’s not just McBride behaving appallingly and it’s not just Labour. It’s going on all over the place. The idea that David Cameron and George Osborne are going to come in and clean all this up is, frankly, laughable.

‘Forget it. Because it’s going on already. You can’t blame anyone for being cynical about politicians. I wish someone like Obama would come along and say, “Believe in me.” We’re in dire need of someone with a sense of honour, because I don’t see any honour out there. Personally, I have as little to do with politicians as possible. The ones I’ve met I’ve found very boring. They’re extremely egotistical, incredibly self-important. If I can help it, I try to stay as far away from them as possible.’

As he admits, this has become increasingly difficult since he introduced Malcolm Tucker to the world in 2005, when The Thick Of It first hit our screens. Directed and co-written by Armando Iannucci, the show followed a team of government ministers quaking under the rule of Tucker, a spin doctor with an Oxbridge degree in foul-mouthed intimidation. To ensure Tucker’s lines are as sharp and obscene as can be, a special swearing consultant is kept on the payroll. ‘He’s a mysterious chap called Ian who possesses a genius for creating grotesque insults,’ says Capaldi.

The show was hailed as both a brave new chapter in political satire and the funniest thing on TV since The Office. By the time it had been extended to two hour-long specials, Tucker was being wildely discussed as belonging to the pantheon of classic British comedy creations, alongside Del boy, Alan Partridge and David Brent.

Everyone involved with The Thick Of It has maintained that Tucker is a composite of several government spin doctors. Even so, Capaldi’s character is frequently compared to Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s communications director, who is famous for his Tucker-esque short fuse and use of industrial-strength language.

Campbell himself seems to have few qualms about being associated with a character so profoundly monstrous that he’s at his most courteous when telling a special adviser, ‘If you don’t go and get me some cheese, I’m gonna rip your head off and give you a spinedectomy.’

While acknowledging Tucker is ‘a devious, lying, bullying, truth-twisting, warmongering psychopath,’ Campbell has also conceded that he is ‘to an extent, based on me’.

Given that Capaldi might sooner settle for a ‘spinedectomy’ than endure the company of politicians, imagine his delight when he attended a Channel 4 political awards ceremony last year and found himself sharing a table with Alastair Campbell.

‘It was a very strange evening,’ says Capaldi. ‘I had no plans to sit next to him and the first I knew about it was when I arrived. It was extremely rude of Channel 4 to have set it up that way. Equally, it would have been rude of me to have walked away from the situation. I never wanted to meet Campbell, because I knew he’d be very charming.

‘It was very entertaining to watch him in action. He provided a running commentary on the night’s proceedings which had its Tucker moments. Certainly lots of swearing. It was a riotous sort of night. Having attended comedy awards, which involve drunken losers getting more and more horribly drunk, I thought I’d seen the worst kind of bear pits. Nothing compares to being in a room full of politicians screaming abuse at each other all night. It’s hilarious but also a bit terrifying.

But Capaldi has come closer to the centre of power than that. While making The Thick Of It, he spend a day filming at 10 Downing Street. There, to his grim bemusement, real-life Malcolm Tuckers queued up to have their photo taken with him.

‘Number 10 could not have been more welcoming,’ he says. ‘They threw open the doors to us and gave us the grand tour. We ended up sitting in the Cabinet Room, thinking how bizarre the whole experience was. They all seemed very happy to have us around. The real-life Tuckers weren’t nearly as colourful as ours, but obviously they were all on their best behaviour.

‘It might seem odd that the find the show so funny. Maybe the spin doctors all see themselves as victims in some way. They work under tremendous pressure. Unlike most other office workers, the fruits of their day’s work have far-reaching consequences for all of us.

‘There are no health-and-safety regulations for what they do. Nothing is laid down in terms of how they should treat people. There are no restraints. Essentially they’re gatekeepers, the tough guys who ensure that politicians are protected from the media. Their position in the chain of command is not defined, but it’s understood that their task is difficult and vital. As such, they enjoy enormous liberty in the corridors of power. They’re free to dish out random b*****kings nd make them as savage as they like. If anyone feels that they’ve overstepped the mark, they can’t go to a tribunal and claim they’ve been abused.’

But not all politicians have seen the funny side of the satire. Conservative MP Michael Portillo has dismissed In The Loop as ‘exhumed satire, hopelessly dated, deeply boring’.

‘Portillo’s reaction was extraordinarily angry,’ says Capaldi. ‘It should have reminded us how much we all hate the man. He’s been through an interesting cycle. We all used to hate him and, to the fierce delight of a generation, he lost his seat in 1997. Then he became a lovable TV personality. Now we can hate him all over again.’

The film has a stellar cast, including Steve Coogan, Gina McKee and Tom Hollander. But none is more impressive than James Gandolfini in his first film since his eight-year run as Tony Soprano came to an end. For a hardened Sopranos fan, working with Gandolfini was the thrill of a lifetime.

‘Waiting for him to arrive, the anticipation was electric,’ says Capaldi. ‘Then he walks through the door and his charisma fills the room. I kept thinking that this is what it must have been like to spend time with Sinatra: everywhere he goes he’s recognised and everyone wants a photo or an autograph. He’s incredibly gracious with everyone he meets.

‘We finished filming in New York and an end-of-shoot party had been arranged at this fabulous steakhouse in Brooklyn. It’s very hard to get a table there and there’d been a miscalculation. The actors had been put with the producers, but make-up and wardrobe had been put in a separate room.

The maître d’ was very resistant to the idea of putting us all together, explaining that the table we needed was occupied and it would be bad form to ask those people to move. When James arrived I explained the problem to him, but even he couldn’t persuade the maître d’. But James became aware that the people at the table were looking at him in complete awe. So he walked over to the table and, of course, they were happy to do anything he asked, so long as they could have their photo taken with him. The way he dealt with it was so cool. He’s a real class act.’

Capaldi is no stranger to working with screen royalty, beginning with Burt Lancaster, with whom he starred in 1983’s Local Hero. ‘The thing I remember most about Lancaster is that he was a great swearer. It was my first film and I was a gauche 24-year-old. Meeting him for the first time I was nervous and doe-eyed. I asked him how his hotel was and he barked, “The hotel’s fine, but the woman who runs it is a ****.” At the end of the filming he turned to me said, ‘You have a good instinct for acting, but I can’t understand a f***ing word you say.”’

Before his acting career took off, Capaldi had a brief stab at rock stardom, singing in a Glasgow punk band with future US chat-show supremo Craig Ferguson on drums.

‘Originally we were called the B******s from Hell, but we figured that a name like that would prevent us from becoming as big as the Beatles. So we changed it to the Dreamboys, possibly the worst band name of all time. It made us sound like a bunch of oiled-up musclemen who stripped off at hen parties. We did manage to put out one single, though, which was called Bela Lugosi’s Birthday. The definite highlight for the Dreamboys was playing third on the bill at the Camden Palace to three rows of skinheads who kept threatening to kill us.’

He came close to missing his shot at an acting career. Having failed to win a place at drama school, he enrolled at Glasgow Art School, where he studied graphic illustration. One evening he came home drunk to find his landlady, a costume designer, chatting with director Bill Forsyth, then riding high on the success of 1981’s Gregory’s Girl. Forsyth decided there and then that Capaldi would be perfect for the role of Danny in Local Hero.

This lucky break would prove to be the first of Capaldi’s false dawns. He moved to London, confident that plum roles awaited him. Instead he spent much of the next decade working in repertory theatre and landing bling-and-you-miss-them parts in shows as diverse as Rab C Nesbitt and Poirot. Then, in 1995, he won an Oscar for directing his short film, Franz Kafka’s It’s A Wonderful Life. Suddenly it seemed that Capaldi had arrived yet again.

‘The feeling of success was very short-lived,’ he says. ‘Collecting an Oscar in front of my heroes, people like Steve Martin and Robert De Niro, was unreal, like being on an acid trip or something. For the next couple of weeks, I was invited to every big Hollywood party. But it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. I’d find myself at some swanky do being introduced to Al Pacino and finding I had nothing to say to him beyond, “I really admire your work.”’

Returning to London, he kept plugging away at writing scripts. When Miramax expressed interest in a piece he’d written called Moon Man, Capaldi once again thought his ship had come in.

‘I flew out from Heathrow having being assured that this was a goer. Unbeknown to me, the project was cancelled while I was up in the air. I landed in New York and took a cab to the company’s Tribeca HQ, imagining the popping of champagne corks and the handing over of a very large cheque. I gave the cab driver a massive tip and marched into the building. Within 30 seconds I’d learned that it was all off. So I got back into the cab. The driver felt so sorry for me that he handed me back the tip. Then I returned to London to direct dog-food commercials.’

For the next ten years he worked mainly as a journeyman actor, putting in solid but uncelebrated performances in TV shows such as Foyle’s War and Judge John Deed. By 2004, he chances of Capaldi landing a career-defining acting role seemed to have finally eluded him. Then Armando Iannucci happened to see him play a hot-tempered professor in an episode of Peep Show and invited him to audition for the part of Malcolm Tucker.

The Thick Of It was officially an ensemble piece, but the main star of the first series was Chris Langham, whose role of bumbling minister Hugh Abbot completely revitalised a fading career and won him two Baftas.

Then, in November 2005, Langham was arrested as part of an investigation into internet pornography. He was subsequently found guilty of possessing child pornography and sentenced to ten months in prison. Though his character has not officially been written out of the series, the actor did not appear in either of the two specials.

Capaldi is the most charming and accommodating of interviewees until the subject of Chris Langham is brought up. Asked to confirm whether the Langham case is the reason for the BBC not showing repeats of The Thick Of It, he says firmly, ‘You’d have to ask them; I don’t know.’

Iannucci is on record as saying that he’d love to have Langham back on the show but he realizes that it would be an impossibility. When asked whether he shares this view, Capaldi’s mood visibly darkens and he fixes me with the flintiest of stares, saying, ‘I’d rather not discuss that.’

The moment passes and he brightens up when discussing how the role of Tucker has transformed his career. After years in the wilderness, he is currently one of the most in-demand actors around. He’s recently starred in Skins, The Devil’s Whore, Torchwood and Doctor Who. So high is his stock at present that, after a tortuous ten years, he’s just received the green light for his pet project The Great Pretender, about the making of a movie about Bonnie Prince Charlie, starring his friend Ewan McGregor.

Our time is almost up. Capaldi is off to begin filming a new series of The Thick Of It and hints that this could be the beginning of the end for Malcolm Tucker. ‘I think this could be the last series with the present cast in it. Labour aren’t likely to be in power much longer. The show needs to reflect the times. So I imagine we’ll soon be gone. Of course I’ll miss it. Most of all I’ll miss getting into the character of Tucker. It’s always such a challenge for me. I’m incredibly mild-mannered and he’s the opposite. I’ve only lost my temper big time on three occasions. I’ve got a long fuse, but when I do go off on one it’s nuclear.

‘It takes weeks to get into character. Before filming I can be found ranting and raving, swearing like a demon in my kitchen, while my wife and daughter cower in the living room. I hope the neighbours realise I’m being Tucker and not simply losing my mind. When Tucker’s gone, I won’t have that outlet. Hopefully the writers have a colourful exit planned for him. A heart attack, maybe, or perhaps they could finally silence him by bringing him down with a nasty stroke. That would be nice.’

[wintergrofyuri]

@wrathful-banette

so. i see all of this as like. post-game. all the voices and the vessels are living. somewhere idk. maybe a reworked construct or another little pocket dimension made from scratch. the voices have their own bodies, the vessels are all separate. ykno, the usual. and ofc, theres the greater vessel/voice polycule. theyre all together in some shape or form.

para and skeptic live together. it was born out of convenience, comparing notes and theories is easier if ur together almost 24/7. theyre all sort of swapping housemates and having sleepovers, but para and skep arent very social and prefer to keep to themselves. like if a small town was a giant polycule.

anyways. its less theyre intentionally acting out a married couple from an old sitcom and more. thats just what ended up happening. like a sick fate thing.

i Do have a 1950's esque film noir au. in that, the princess is a (presumably) singular person that skeptic is trying to find after she went missing. the other voices are people around town he interviews at a bar (called the long quiet) and the different princesses are their accounts of her. like. stubborn describes her as a hot blooded bruiser, but smitten waxes poetic about how sweet she was and how she would never hurt a fly. also para is his secretary. and hero is the bartender.

i could definitely go into that more if you want me to. i know ive already seen a couple film noir related aus. dont wanna step on any toes or smth.

but yeah. just a glimpse into my twister mind.

[riewritten]

in my head nothing absolutely bad happens in monster anime and they’re actually triplets in a family sitcom somewhere

more headcanons under the cut ✂️

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

༘⋆ FOR CONTEXT

no child experiments. no kinderheim 511. their birth sequence would be Johan first, Anna second, and Nina the youngest. it doesn't actually materialize that much in their dynamics (given they're triplets) except that these two oldest are oooooover overprotective of nina. mama vera was forced to labor the three of them prematurely out of stress upon receiving the news of her husband's death. her brother-in-law, klaus poppe, who had helped vera with the kids after the hubby's death, tried to pursue her not long after. and not only that, klaus also tried to lure anna into this silly lil experiment about children which he claimed was for 'work' at the red rose mansion all the while their mother was out. vera almost killed the man when baby johan exposed him while crying. this event led vera to cut ties with the poppe family and valiantly raised her triplets on her own. vera wasn't able to squeeze any info out of anna (on what poppe had done to her specifically while she was out). worried that she might be traumatized, vera got her into therapy. in the end, only johan and anna knew of it, and whatever happened sure left wounds deep inside anna's heart.

SO, that said!

-ˋˏ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ANNA

would be sooooo villanelle-coded (minus the psychopathy of course). like she is the Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss but at the same time she could also be the Female Rage™️. i am absolutely whipped at the thought that she'd have a complicated relationship with johan despite being inseparable during childhood because she's astute enough to know the real him, without filter whatsoever, and she could notice things the naive nina couldn't. no, johan didn't have to be a murderer in this universe for anna to hate him, he just got The Attitude that anna despises. it's jus the typical sibling fight though no worries. it's like there's this modern family-esque interview segments of them talking shit about each other every episode (little do they know, if a war ever breaks, they would absolutely sacrifice themselves to save each other — of course after ensuring their youngest sister's safety first and foremost).

in @suusoh 's head which i claim to be the same as mine because susu is rie and rie is susu, anna is as queer as she could be. and, in my silly lil daydreams, she actually labeled herself queer for clout bc she wanna rebel against societal standards only for it to end up the truest thing she had ever said about herself years later. on top of that, she actually envies her twin brother for having a dick like oh my god girl what the hell is wrong with you. ironically, she tends to be an absolute man-hater sometimes (depends on her mood). she could be a little impulsive, too, especially when she reached the rebellious age. boyfriends here, girlfriends there, and out of curiosity she even tried polygamy that's absolutely not her thing but she did anyway to annoy her conservative christian stepfather.

there's this only moment anna had accepted johan's attitude, remorsefully so, and thats when some girl tried to maul nina at uni (thank god she's good at judo) after mistaking her as anna ㅜㅜ this stranger apparently had her boyfriend stolen by anna during one of her impulsive moments (jesus christ). nina assured them it was all good after anna cried. but johan was absolutely pissed, and anna had a hard time forgiving herself for putting her loveliest babiest angel of a sister in danger bc of her shenanigans.

-ˋˏ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ JOHAN

who is he, indeed, if red rose mansion wasn't that traumatic and kinderheim 511 never existed ? it's also hard to imagine for me, tbh, it's just that i think he'd be a chill lil guy who lives in his own head. nina has a hard time managing countless of confessions from different people in the campus—you see, anna is too wild to approach, johan is too absent-minded to care, and nina is the most amicable of them three. when nina opens her locker she'd expect a bunch of love letters addressed to three people: anna, johan, and then herself. majority of them is addressed to johan, tho.

if anna takes pride in her beauty and charisma while nina takes pride in her congeniality and physical prowess, johan keeps up with his brains. he is constantly the school's top one. he gets sent to other campuses for academic competitions. and back in highschool, a faculty even offered vera to have him accelerated due to his intelligence. johan denied the opportunity because he likes the fact that he's on the same grade level as his twin sisters. they have this sort of bonding where they do homeworks together as soon as they reach home. how would he do that if he's accelerated to a higher grade level? who would help nina manage anna's wild tendencies at school? who would help anna keep up with her acads if nina's too busy with her extracurricular activities?

vera is quite concerned johan is having a hard time connecting with people, but little does she know, her lil boy just doesn't want to. socializing is a chore the same way studying is. unless he has an ulterior motive, he chooses to stay at the corner with his books (boo. bummer. a nerd.)

-ˋˏ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ NINA

is their cute lil baby! she's everyone's favorite. i think her personality in canon monster (before her 20th bday) is pretty much the same in this one, except that it's more chaotic in her house because she has two sibs trying to kill each other here and there. if not for her extracurricular activities and side jobs (which johan and anna tirelessly demanded her to quit so she could have a rest, only to no avail because nina is the angel who wants to help), i think her academic excellence would be in par with johan's. she also has a lot of friends—that's the reason why johan and anna are protective of her. she could indeed defend herself physically, but she's too kind and naive for her own good it annoys the two. if someone makes her cry, they doubt nina would even put them in their place physically or emotionally because she is just that kind—that's when johan and anna enters behind her back. they could be sneaky little vengeful devils if need be for nina. maybe they got it from uncle klaus.

-ˋˏ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ☆ ༘⋆

cutting this before it gets longer lol. thank u for reading! i hope you enjoyed this as much as i did lmao. i had sooo much fan imagining and drawing them this way 🤭

[weclassybouquetfun]

When I'm in a Lewis Pullman fan competition and Danny Ramirez is my opponent.

This is really a THUNDERBOLTS* spoilers filled post, with time out to celebrate the friendship of TOP GUN: MAVERICK costars and MCU newbies Lewis Pullman and Danny Ramirez (FALCON & WINTER SOLDIER and CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD).

Now on to THUNDERBOLTS*. Warning: SPOILERS ALL UP IN YOUR FACE!

-I don't know the reason why Steven Yeun dropped out of the role of Bob / Sentry / The Void, but this was a great opportunity for Lewis Pullman who I have been a fan of since BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE.

He was not in the Amazon with her mom when she was researching spiders right before she died.

Funny enough, the BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE director wanted Tom Holland (who had his own Bob-esque fcuk as bob in THE CROWDED ROOM) for the role that went to Pullman. Second best is good enough!

Lewis with Sentry co-creator, Paul Jenkins.

-I avoid trailers and try my hardest to avoid spoilers, but as I am terminally online I knew that a character dies very early in the film.

What a relief it was only Olga Kurylenko's Taskmaster!

And as the saying, "There's a lid for every pot" is a truism, there were fans of the character that were angry as they were misled in the trailers.

Mate, you were not there.

But her death works for me because at that moment each one was there with a kill order. They are all skilled mercenaries so why wouldn't they complete their - no pun intended - task? It's unrealistic to not lose one of them. And while yeah, it was quick and dirty, at least Yelena honoured her and was defended her. It's really more respect she got in BLACK WIDOW.

-I wasn't sure about the lineup because, outside of Yelena, John Walker didn't wow me in FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER, Ghost was a non-entity to me in ANT-MAN AND THE WASP, didn't care about Taskmaster and Red Guardian is alright; but they were all utilized well and using these disgraced characters to highlight shame and depression and trauma was a good way to give them a redemptive arc.

-I'm glad I don't watch trailers until after I have seen a film because the trailer spoiled Bucky's Terminator / Ethan Hunt motorcycle moment. I was so happy for the disposal of politician Bucky

to badassery Bucky.

I initially thought Bucky was only being used because they needed a big established character in the film, but his inclusion makes so much sense in that Bucky is still dealing with his trauma of being brainwashed; he's just not ready confront that again.

So many hairstyles - almost all stringy and greasy looking.

What l Liked: The fake out of Geraldine Viswanathan's Mel trying to help Bucky. That duplicitous so-and-so. Just like the contessa!

What I Didn't Like: The Contessa. A little bit of that character goes far. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is still acting like she's on a sitcom.

What I Liked: Yelena being the heart of the film; just as in Black Widow. Her vulnerability has always been a part of her, not just something they drag out as needed. And even in her darkness she still had the desire to uplift and save Bob.

Who people are shipping now. I mean, I do get it. But, nah.

Yelena co-creators Devin Grayson and J.G Jones at the premiere with writer/inker Jimmy Palmiotti.

The people have spoken.

What I love about Grayson is that fan outrage follows them wherever they lands. Grayson has made statements in the past about Yelena being ace or aro-ace, which some people took as canon, but Grayson later clarified it's not canon; just their own headcanon; which then people got angry about because they felt Grayson was backing down due to fanboys.

As someone who watched the eventual DC Comics banishment of Grayson after a series of things that made fans meltdown, I say to Marvel fans...

-What I Didn't Like - Having "The Fantastic Four Theme" as one of the music credits spoiled the post-credit scene.

-What I Liked: Teamwork! Every joining in to save Bob from The Void smacked of "IT" where the kids join in to defeat Pennywise the Clown. But the film/tv version, not the book orgy version. Although, I would not have been made at them using that tactic to defeat The Void.

And great that they show that - to borrow a phrase from another character's story, "With great power comes great responsibility." Not just anyone needs to have power and Bob definitely did not need power because he was so easy to corrupt due to his hurt. I suspect he will eventually learn how to wield it in a way where he can keep The Void at bay.

Overall - fun; but definitely felt its three hours heading into the third act.

-Next up: AVENGERS DOOMSDAY!

Winston Duke, RDJ, Paul Rudd, Channing Tatum, Simu Liu, Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Mackie.

Hemsworth, Tatum, Liu, Rudd, RDJ, Ebon Moss-Bachrach (with a Flat Stanley of Pedro Pascal), Vanessa Kirby, Duke and Mackie.

[amethystroselily]

House md is such an interesting show because it is simultaneously a parody of Sherlock Holmes and a parody of Hospital dramas while still maintaining genuine emotional weight. Like it’s farcical in the sense that no one apparently has to actually work, they go around committing malpractice and other assorted felonies every day to a comical degree with no actual consequences, they’re always just kind of fucking around with apparently an absurd amount of free time, House always ends up being right in one way or another because that’s the genre and he almost seems to know that, and the show fully leans into that. But at the same time it is also really making you aware that you are watching a man push away everyone who means anything to him while still desperately clinging onto them in some horrible manipulative little cycle he’s created, he’s genuinely miserable, the people around him stop reacting with sitcom-esque exasperation at a certain point and you can feel real exhaustion and resentment from them, there are some actually devastating moments from some of the patients and real sense that some of these people’s lives really are going to be completely destroyed. You can feel that the environment is slowly draining every person there. It exists in such a compelling grey area of sincerity.

[ragnarokhound]

Hi wife! Thinking about you. Should we buy a hot tub? Or a sauna? Or both?

Also thinking about the werewolf fic. I would be delighted if there was full werewolf smut in the werewolf fic👀👀 When will my wife (you) return from the war (writing the werewolf fic)?

Also thinking about the hilarity of tim hearing jason talk about his “time of the month” and ofc assuming it’s about Jason being trans when jason is talking about wolfing out. Picture:

Tim: “-and I brought chocolate-“

Jason: “Are you trying to kill me? canines can’t have chocolate!”

after some confusion they clarify things (jason is trans, not a big deal, he’s a werewolf, also not a big deal). Then (important for plot and character development) they have dirty dirty werewolf sex :)

Hehehe hello darling, you are always near my thoughts <3 And ohhh I could use a dip in a hot tub, especially now that winter has come to my climes >.< Though I fear a sauna would never see its use with me, haha

I am ALSO thinking about werewolf fic. Nigh constantly these days. I am deep in the trenches. I am furiously pondering how to reconcile the idea I had sketched most of the bones of almost an entire year ago with what I think and like now. It's been a bit of a battle. One I am fighting... tooth and claw you might say ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿ (badum tsh)

Alas, while I don't want to give too much away, I feel I must warn you that the kind of werewolf Jason is in werewolf fic is more in line with 'that's just a wild animal' and less 'monsterfucker furry.' So while we'll see some very animalistic behaviors from Jason (what with the scenting and the licking and the biting and the growling etc) and some occasional signs that he's on the verge of wolfing out, there is no actual wolfed out smut lmao OTL. Please enjoy a small sneak peek of what I kind of sort of mean at the bottom of this post <3

For actual werewolf smut you'll want to look forward to the timestamp/smutty sequel I fully intend to write for my vamp!Tim and werewolf!Jay fic, in which he is absolutely the monsterfucker furry kind of werewolf and Tim takes gleeful advantage of that fact lololol (but werewolf fic comes first...! It Is Time. I Will Not Be Distracted.)

And omg yes. I do very much love the trans 🤝 werewolf overlap and metaphors, it's one of my favorite things fr fr (you got me thinking about trans lesbians jaytim now--)

I LOVE assuming there's a mundane explanation for a supernatural secret, that's my JAM (Do know that our early correspondences live rent free in my WIP document and that I would eventually also like to write the goofy sitcom-esque romcom in which Jason isn't quite hiding his lycanthropy from Tim - but Tim's not really clocking it either lmfao)

--and it must be said that dirty dirty werewolf sex will always be VITAL to both plot and character development <33 (it certainly is to werewolf fic, even if the werewolf part of that sex is mostly in the vibes lolol)

Anyway, here's wonderwall a sneak peek leading up to some of the smut in werewolf fic:

Jason snaps his teeth sharply, inches from Tim’s throat. It's not an empty gesture, and Tim wildly thinks through his options, squeezing tight with his knees around Jason’s thick waist so he can’t buck Tim off immediately. Jason is too strong and Tim is too light; he can’t stay here forever. Jason writhes underneath him, looking for leverage. With his shoulders trapped under Tim’s staff, Jason plants his feet and surges his hips in a powerful, cresting motion. Tim sinks back on his haunches to keep him down, then forward again when he threatens to break free. In Jason’s struggle, he rocks up just as Tim rocks down— and they inadvertently grind together. Tim's stomach curls and tangles in an electric jolt of heat at the glancing friction. He realizes with a spike of hot, mortified shame that he's— Tim is hard under his uniform. He sucks in a short gasp, trying to hide it, and Jason— —whines.

[lobotomist-at-tabs]

phagenda concept: a sitcom-esque show loosely based on their lives

a show that's basically a satire of what it's like to be in content creation. it follows the basic outline of dnp's career, but retold in an almost sketch-like way. going back to the height of their fame, making fun of their forced projects and weird ass career and the glass closet. i think it would be super interesting to see a recap of their life written by them, but with a silly comedic atmosphere to make it 'theirs'.

[laswells-ashtray]

I feel like you'd get a giggle out of my cod oc's awful luck with houses. His name is Kagan Mansfield. This boy. Oh, this poor man.

He is from poland, weed isn't... properly legal there, at least the time he was there. And military certainly won't like that. he almost got discharged from the military when the military found out that the house he was renting, the guy who owned the it, had a massive weed farm underneath it that kagan didn't know of. She he had to move. He then moved into a different shitty apartment that was constantly broken somehow. Till he finally just left the military briefly and moved to the uk. He much later in life managed to join the British military and met the 141, but i still need to flesh that out.

(He also eventually gets a nice cabin to live in on breaks. Cause the man deserves some nice house for once)

Weed isn't legal recreationally in the UK either but I literally just ate an edible lmao.

Motherfucker has a sitcom backstory and I love it, get this man a Golden Girl's esque theme tune urgently.

[fiendishthingee]

"Everything will be fine..."

Most creative ideas begin with something very simple. It could be someone unusual you meet, somewhere strange you find yourself, a turn of phrase heard in conversation, or a news article you stumble on one morning while trying to roust yourself with coffee. Or it could be cracking open your parents’ high school yearbook on a visit to them in St. Louis and seeing a photo of your father, only to wonder if you would’ve been friends with him had you lived back then. This is what happened to Bob Gale, who immediately thought it was an interesting hook for a comedy and lobbed it over to his longtime writing partner, Robert Zemeckis, who was then in the midst of trying to salvage a chaotic adventure movie with two temperamental stars in the Mexican jungle. Bob Z, in turn, had been thinking of the character of a mother who always told her children what a prim and proper young woman she was when it fact she had been as promiscuous as all get out. The pair quickly fused the two ideas with the concept of traveling through time and set about building the story for what would become one of the truly perfect film comedies of all time, “Back To The Future.”

When the film was released in the summer of ’85 (after considerable script changes and the MASSIVE casting swap of changing the lead actor midway through shooting), I knew nothing about it beyond the fact that it was led by that pipsqueak Alex P. Keaton from “Family Ties” and the effervescently loopy Reverend Jim from a favorite sitcom, “Taxi.” Back then personal computers weren’t a glint in the eye, and all you had to go on were the tidbits you could find in Starlog magazine. One lazy summer day, though, I heard a song from the film on the radio at Lake Nacimiento. This was, of course, the undeniable pop classic by Huey Lewis and The News, “The Power of Love,” and after that I was IN. The film itself was, in retrospect, the perfect summer moviegoing experience. Brilliantly written and structured, flawlessly paced and performed, and shot through with that genuine, indefinable sense of magic that only happens very rarely in films (and as I always say, almost never these days).

On its face, the film’s plot of sounds like something the Big Three networks of the time might’ve based a wacky family sitcom around. What elevates it (and indeed the whole wild and imaginative trilogy) above just being a clever male adolescent fantasy is the way Bobs Zemeckis and Gale took their inspired collision of genres and layered it with heart, captured it with visual ingenuity (humble genius Dean Cundey again) and added a sense of bite and eccentricity to the humor to build something timeless and endlessly rewatchable. They were also gifted with a cast, led by the boundless energy and Harold Lloyd-esque physical comedy of Michael J. Fox and the magical, sentient dervish that is Christopher Lloyd, that included the winsome horniness of Lea Thompson, the fumbling oddball charisma of Crispin Glover and of course the proto Trump, psychotic bully idiocy of Thomas F. Wilson. Topping off the whole grand Lou’s Café milkshake of it all was a sweet, sweeping score by Zemeckis’ longtime musical voice, Alan Silvestri.

For the film’s 40th anniversary, Universal Studios brought the story to life as part of their new “Fan Fest Nights.” The centerpiece of that experience was undoubtably spending time on the small town set of Hill Valley, which still stands on the fabled backlot as a testament to how ingrained in our culture the exuberance of Zemeckis and Gale’s story remains. With prop cars, carnival booths, old fashioned summer food, Marvin Berry’s band and a host of actors breathlessly recreating parts of the film with guests, it was like the block party 10 year old me only dreamt of back in little ol’ Cayucos. The warmth and reverence for the film, and its place in pop cinema history, was palpable and infectious. Whether the films have the same currency in today’s “here today, gone tomorrow” disposable way of engaging with “content” remains to be seen. But for me it will always stand, like “Jaws,” “The Godfather,” and “It’s A Wonderful Life,” as a perfect model of imagination, a loving contraption from some of film’s most creative minds, who came together at a singular point in time and left us all with something joyfully ingenious to share, far into the future.

[vinkumakkara]

when it comes to srr's writing the juxtaposition is the whole point, I Get It. it's a story about your typical group of twenty-something best buddies just trying to balance their everyday lives and oh man work is just a pain in the ass isn't it - their "work" just happens to consist of violence and pillaging and murder. it sure is wacky. but by trivializing what the characters do to such an extent, turning it into a mere inconvenience and everyday drudgery, it makes the player question what the point of it all is as well and the end result is the most tonally dissonant game in the series. and when i say "characters" it isn't even all that consistent, like it's mainly the Mogul who consistently stays "in character" while their friends alternate between being really into the chaos or being shocked by it. it's inconsistent even within the dynamics between the main characters, and when you look at the rest of the world... i don't get it. i can't say Santo Ileso (the city and its people) is exactly understated, it's pleasantly exaggerated and cartoonish, but it's that "pleasant" part that bothers me. it's cartoonish in a sense that would maybe appeal to that more sitcom aligned audience the game apparently covets - nothing too edgy, nothing too controversial, people just casually commit mass murder on a daily basis there, it's just a regular job haha. it's as quirky as it is tonally confusing

like did the question "what if Saints Row was a sitcom" really need to be answered? i see people defend these choices on occasion by calling it "evolution", like fans like me just need to get on with the times, but srr isn't improving on what came before all that much it's just different. completely changing stuff for the sake of it - or more like for the sake of imagined bigger profits - isn't "evolution", it's just like a whole unrelated thing now while still being called the same name from almost 20 years ago. completely removed from its original context while still vying for the wallets of those very same fans who've been let down so many times now. people who defend it in this way are basically saying that artistic integrity is completely worthless, the only value at least these games have is maximizing mass consumption by any means necessary. these games are Products and nothing more and you're a dumbass if you think otherwise. now that's just games in general to be fair but with this series in particular i genuinely think the whole "gta clone" thing is a major part of this perception, like how could you ever value the artistic integrity of this series if you never thought it had or even could have any? anyways idk how i got here i was thinking about that stupid 00s internet humor esque waffle thing Kevin's got going and how that relates to the game being marketed towards "millenials" while people insist it's totally for gen Z audiences instead and i lost the plot completely

[tinstol]

So I’m almost done with the victorious section of Quinton reviews’s series, and it’s very apparent in some of his criticisms that he wants these shows to be something they aren’t.

He talks a lot about how the characters aren’t allowed to grow or change much and how their relationships with each other don’t evolve. Especially with regards to romantic relationships. He repeatedly insists that the audience would rather be watching plot lines about their romances, and lambasts the shows for not having much of them. He even criticizes that episode of Icarly that makes fun of shipping culture, getting upset that the show is telling fans that they’re watching for the wrong reasons.

But that Icarly episode was right. These shows aren’t about romantic relationships. They are children’s sitcoms, the focus is the comedy, not romance. And a common trope of sitcoms is that the status quo must be maintained so that each episode is familiar without having to watch any “previously on…”. So there can’t be overarching romantic plots or big character changes like he wants, because that would fundamentally change the genre. What he really wants to be watching is a Degrassi-esque teen drama and not a sitcom. And it’s fine to prefer that kind of show, but it’s not a good criticism to complain that Icarly and victorious aren’t that when they aren’t supposed to be.

[nneiljostenn]

You know the b99 episode where the dentist who did the perfect murder ends up confessing in a rage because Jake lays down the theory that he was impulsive and sloppy and simply got lucky at every turn? To me Oliver is lowkey the kind of guy Jake described.

i read your ask wrong the first time and assumed something you didn't imply at all and typed out almost a full response. talk about presumption and literacy my god. anyway. to actually answer this correctly this time.

YES. yes exactly. i don't remember this episode well. but oliver quick is impulsive and hungry and horny and confused by his desires. he is sloppy. he is the kind of guy who thinks that of course no one wants him, ugh, poor him, he deserves a sob story because he might as well have been poor and neglected, he felt like he was, so what of it; insecure but compensating by pride. he is also the kind to think that he is smarter than everyone and understands whatever he set his mind to understand better than anyone ever could (i.e. felix, the cattons, the reality of being actually poor, too). he relies on his own perception. once he establishes what he thinks is the full picture, he sticks by this understanding until he gets hit in the face by the concrete wall of reality (e.g. farleigh who keeps defying his expectation and driving him more and more mad).

in his mind, as evidenced so clearly by his monologue in the end, he calculated everything perfectly because he is so smart and everyone else isn't. the truth of it is that the cattons played with him until it was too late. it just so happened that the cattons were also sloppy with their playing, and unfortunately oliver was too impulsive, and too hungry, and never had to face rejection in a way that mattered to him before oxford (because everyone at school was an idiot, clearly, so they just didn't appreciate his genius, and his family, predominantly women, were clearly also too meek to reach his depth of thinking (i am being sarcastic. this is oliver's logic)). he fumbles everything and everyone and then soliloquizes to convince himself (and us, the audience) that he actually didn't. it wasn't actually just a crush that accidentally drove him to something sinister, because oliver quick is a cold-hearted calculating mastermind. if you implied the contrary to his face he'd flip out, probably.

so that's that. but i'll tell you why i first misread your ask. i will also tell you most of what i typed out at first because it is still relevant because of your comparison of b99, a sitcom, and saltburn, an enigma of genre.

by comparing it with a sitcom you're picking up on genre conventions and bringing up, i think, indirectly, a great point about the messiness of saltburn as a film, a cinematic work of art, and the difficulty of defining its genre because of the context of its form. i saw a comment on tiktok in a similar vein, about how saltburn defies the concept of genre and is impossible to pin down, and disagreed with it, because saltburn is fundamentally gothic romanticism, which is, however, largely (if not exclusively) a book genre/aesthetic.

yeah! so like, with this comparison, you're kinda drawing attention to the fact, i think, that oliver soliloquizing his genius plan and recounting everything we've already seen is kind of silly on its own, on a surface level. it is kind of silly because it sounds like it does in marvel-esque flicks, because in those types of stories it's a cliché that works to emphasize the villain's villainy, the pride, the presumption of the win. in those stories we know these dudes are evil (there's nuance, but in general, they are anti-heroes). and i need to stress this: saltburn can definitely be watched and read in the exact same way. surface reading can be completely justified (it is a legitimate literary practice! i have a pdf on hand if you want but here's a citation on researchgate). it's liberating not to dig into psycho- and lit-analysis of a piece and could serve some of us well.

your ask is not about that at all, but i fuckin love the comparison. because saltburn is fuckin silly in a huge part. it has a whole bunch of bits and pieces that it strings together and a lot of people are trying to pin down its genre based on individual bits that they recognize the tone of. but this kind of seeing it is a mistake, because what it does is play into the aesthetics of gothic romanticism. and gothic romanticism can be anything at all, it just has to convey certain themes in certain ways. which is what it does. so it's not that much about whether saltburn is a comedy, a drama, a horror or a thriller. it's more about the fact that it's a gothic story. i fuckin love saltburn.