#this sequence is everything to me

[kaizsche]

THE GORGE (2025) dir. Scott Derrickson

[itsbasil]

this literally never stops being funny like dog they made starship troopers with the Baby's First Satire cranked up to 11 and these people are still fucking dumbfounded that the creators don't share their politics

[egophiliac]

A-anime?

you know, sometimes I forget that Twst is actually an isekai that starts with the protagonist getting run over by an inexplicable horse-drawn carriage. and every time I'm reminded is a delight because that's AMAZING.

also. look. okay. there's a lot of very fun stuff in the trailer but I am obsessed with that Crowley surprised pikachu face. me when I spend all my keys and gems literally hours before they announce overblot SSRs and drop the anime trailer:

[tawnysoup]

~Reunion~

Replayed the act 6 secret boss last night (to see what happens when you lose) and it made me feel things again. Now i will make YOU feel things!!!! WATCH OUT!!!!

[katabay]

some other fake byzantine empire ocs! completely unrelated to the other ones, these guys are for a story focusing on the viscera of the imperial household

[apostaticlamb]

kicking my legs and giggling over the fact that the turtles so obviously symbolize benitez. ofc we all know the fable of the tortoise and the hare (i know tortoises aren't turtles, but they're closely related enough for it to still work), with its motto of "slow and steady wins the race"- which is exactly how benitez won the papacy, in a way. but also, lawrence mentions that sometimes the turtles stray too far from the pond and get struck by cars in the busy street. near the end of the film, we have a scene of lawrence picking up a turtle and bringing it safely back to the pond; before this was the scene of benitez's confession to lawrence that he's intersex. in turn, the turtle rescue scene so obviously symbolizes lawrence keeping benitez's secret safe and protecting him.

[basilpaste]

"It wouldn't feel right to... do this without giving us both some time, I think."

〔Sif looks away from you.〕

"But!" You stumble over the word, "Um! Later doesn't mean never!!"

〔You clumsily reach for one of your earrings and take it off. Even when you sleep, you wear studs. It feels kind of strange to go without!〕

〔You're not sure why you picked up the chain in the House. But... it gives you the chance to do this.〕

〔You hook it through one of the chain links and carefully slip on the back.〕

"So... until we're both ready. Until we know for sure! How about a promise?"

"A promise?" Sif echoes.

〔With all the caution in the world, you slip the chain around Sif's neck. They don't flinch. And... neither do you.〕

"A promise to come back to it eventually. We have time."

〔You do have time! Real, moving, twisting time! To think about things!!〕

〔Sif clutches the earring around his neck and smiles shakily.〕

"A promise."

[allisonjamaica]

you can’t tell me this isn’t how that scene went

[tatsugiriroll]

I keep seeing posts abt how “the evils of capitalism” is “missing the point” of mouthwashing . you guys Know a game can have more than one theme/message right? You Know the setting was specifically chosen by the devs for the purpose of the story right? Like it’s not just set dressing?

Do you think there would still be a busted vent for someone to get killed in if the company wasn’t maximizing profit over employees? And locks on the cabin doors? Do you think Anya would have had no one else but curly to turn to if the ship wasn’t being run on a skeleton crew, and there were more people onboard? Would Swansea have been able to keep utility off limits as long as he did? Do you think Anya would have reacted the same to her termination news if she had been fairly compensated and did have savings? would Daisuke have been stuck with a mentor who hated his guts if there was more than one engineer on the job? would the psych evaluations have gone over the same if they’d been conducted by a different doctor so Anya could have gotten hers done too? Do you think the injured curly would have been left alone and defenseless in the medical ward if there were more staff? Would he still be laying in his own bloody unchanged bandages? Do you think jimmy would have gotten away with half the shit he did if there was some semblance of employee rights, and no fear of termination or backlash from accusing him?

like guys this is all just off the top of my head. YES the message of “men will cover for their abuser friends until it’s too late for anyone” is prevalent, timely, and important, but the setting is INTEGRAL to what motivates characters and how they react to the story’s events!!! you cannot separate the two!!!!! can anyone hear me !

[bisexualgarrusvakarian]

favourite mcu visuals 2/?

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

[han-solo-cant-dance]

3 aliens, 2 sisters, a handsome surfer, and a former CIA agent might not be a family to YOU but they are to ME

[respectthepetty]

I love Fight for You. I love these two. I love that they are color-coded boys in love. I love that they are playing gay chicken. I love that the entirety of episode six was just them thirsting over each other. I LOVE IT!

Da Hei is looking disrespectfully at Xiao Bai's Adam's apple as he reverses.

And I love it! Especially because even though Da Hei is still dark and Xiao Bai is still light, they are blending each other's colors into their outfits.

And I love that Da Hei gets to appreciate when his man takes of his tie after a long day, unbuttons his shirt to expose a little of his chest, and rolls up his sleeves so we can see his arm veins.

Yeah, we know buddy. Guys are hot when they work all day and come home to you practically begging for you to rub their . . . neck.

But then Da Hei gets his revenge by giving Xiao Bai a taste of his own medicine.

~Xiao Bai wanted it~

Because I want it. Look at him!

But what I love the most is how soft these two are with each other even when they are upset.

Xiao Bai is beautiful, and Da Hei touches him with a gentleness reserved for fawns just so he doesn't scare him.

So when Xiao Bai imagines more happening, he is also gentle with Da Hei, first touching his eyebrow, then his nose, which slowly leads him to his mouth.

And even in his imagination, Da Hei kisses EACH ONE of his knuckles softly.

Which ends with a light kiss on his thumb!

I'M OBSESSED!

I LOVE THEM!!!!!!!

This dream sequence is giving me everything!

But the problem is it's all just a dream.

So now Da Hei is standing outside the door by himself saying that he wasn't joking when he asked Xiao Bai if he wanted to be with him, and Xiao Bai is in the room getting darker in his blue as he is realizing how his feelings for Da Hei are about to mess up the entire mission.

He might be miserable, but like Da Hei, I'm living my best life because this show is favorite kind of color-coded drug.

Because Xiao Bai is so deep into this that now both of the most important people in Da Hei's life fully approve of him being in a relationship with another man and show it through the pink coloring as they speak to him.

They are a PFLAG family now!

So "Little White" better claim "Big Black' quickly.

Because when this Black Brooder finds out that his Heavenly Human has been lying to him this entire time, more than his chin will be hurt.

And I'm gonna love it!

[nathanbellamy]

It is a two-minute ballet of dexterity and destruction.

Giffing notable moments from the xmen scripts, pt 10

(*, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12)

[fictionadventurer]

Still thinking about Disney's Pinocchio and living in fear that I may never see a movie that beautiful ever again.

[buwheal]

godddd when autism is a disorder that effects me ?! blasphemous.

[nathaniel-underwood-is-an-intj]

Looong rant about chapter 16 Ptolemy's Gate and how being passive can add to the cycle of ab*se.

oof so I just read when Nat goes to see Ms Lutyens and I can't help but be absolutely furious at her??

I know that's maybe a little bit unfair given she's frightened of him as a magician and is obviously angry when she finds out the department he's responsible for, but honestly it kinda brings up the problem with inadvertent bystanders to child ab*se in my mind.

And I'm definitely not blaming her solely for who Nat becomes but it makes me think of all those people in huge child ab*se cases who give interviews to press about all the things they noticed that were wrong but they just...never do anything?

She stood up for him against Lovelace, and when Nat thanked her- "I wanted to say that I know you were trying to save me, and-"

''Yes, and I'm sorry I didn't" Like girl be for real did you really think that alone would undo the years of indoctrination and abuse he's already suffered and prevent years worth of the same in the years to come? And she won't take responsibility - "My job is with children, not the adults they become" and again while it seems harsh to blame her for who Nat becomes, it's so much easier to pass the blame to people who are more directly responsible rather than acknowledging you also play a part.

I think it hurts so much more because it's her specifically- Nat goes to her in sheer desperation, it almost seems like a goodbye- he wants to thank her, tries to set her up in a job that will pay well and struggles to communicate he's trying to help. At this point he thinks Bartimaeus has been summoned by another magician and his birth name will be revealed. He's sure he's about to die and if not he'll be stood on trial and lose everything.

He goes to her because she represents the peaceful moments from his childhood when he got away from his master. He's scared and feeling lost and really it's call for help; but he doesn't ask for anything he just wants to make her feel proud of him- he's looking for that validation that he's been chasing since childhood.

And that shows he still does have that little bit of childhood innocence in him; he thinks she will be proud, thinks she'll see him as the same little boy in the garden gazing up at his teacher in adoration. He can't quite grasp why she's separated the man stood before her from that little boy. Because in that moment the child inside Nathaniel is seeking comfort AND THAT'S WHY it makes me so angry. She's completely given up on him when he's at his lowest ebb, because she doesn't want to be associated with the magician he's become. As if it isn't a massive step in the right direction that he saught her out in the first place- what other magican would bother? I wonder if that's why she reacted so strongly to seeing him again? Before that moment she could go about her life wondering if /pretending her attempt to protect him was enough, and now she realises it wasn't, of course it wasn't, and the image she had of Nathaniel's childhood innocence is completely ruined in her mind.

Or was her contempt for him even grater than Nat realised? She was naturally disgusted by the rhetoric he'd started to repeat from a young age, and gently tried to correct him although she was clearly angry- was she just resigned to the fact that there is little else she could do to change his future? I always thought- couldn't she have looked for him? The Underwood house fire was in the papers and they mentioned the apprentice was being searched for. Did she ever worry about him? Surely something must have been in the papers since- an announcement of new ministers, ANYTHING! Look at how much research Kitty did to find out about Bartimaeus and Ptolemy. I just don't think Rosanna Lutyens cared enough, realistically Nathaniel wasn't hard to find- but he was no longer her responsibility so she could turn a blind eye.

And sadly it's not just her- I know everyone loves Martha Underwood including Nat; but I think her submissiveness to her husband has a negative effect on Nathaniel as well. In AOS when Nat is locked in his room for ages after setting the mites loose, and is forbidden to have any contact with anyone and she won't talk with him. I know she's been told by Mr. Underwood she can't, but it still boils my blood. She's an adult and going along with ignoring Nathaniel because her husband told her to...I can't even begin to imagine the psychological damage that would do to a 10 year old child. (It could be argued she's frightened of the consequences if her husband finds out she's disobeyed him which is fair, he could always be watching through magic- but this is Arthur Underwood we're talking about. He's lazy, oblivious and weak I doubt he'd expend all that energy each day to check up on her.)

And It's even more painful that Nathaniel is often described as fiercely loyal to her and I think to Ms Lutyens as well- he doesn't expect to be treated well by Arthur Underwood but he loved Mrs Underwood and Ms Lutyens so much he started to view them through a rose-coloured lense. He never feels betrayed by either of them, even though they absolutely let him down, because the pedestal he's put them on is too high AND THAT ABSOLUTELY DESTROYS ME.

Would things with Nathaniel have been any different if Mrs Underwood hadn't died? I don't really think so. Do you think she'd see Nathaniel's temper at 14 years old and be reminded of Arthur Underwood? He was awful, absolutely awful to Nat and to her; but he was under so much stress in an underfunded departement, where pressure was being put on him by superiors to accomplish far more than they knew him to be capable of, and he took it out on the easiest target. Nathaniel ends up in exactly the same place and he starts to take it out on the only person around him- Bartimaeus. Would he snap at Mrs Underwood all the time if she were still there? Because he's learnt that behaviour from his father figure, and subconsciously learnt from his mother figure that she'll put up with it. He learnt from the woman he loved so deeply, that if you don't resist, people will walk all over you. So you have to maintain control even if it ends up hurting people you care about because no one will step in to stop the suffering no matter how much you love them, no matter how much you want them too.

It's easy to blame Arthur Underwood and Simon Lovelace and the magicians that actively hurt Nathaniel but I just feel like it's a bit disingenuous not to acknowledge the role of those doing passive harm. It's really mean to say it but even Bartimaeus plays a role- he knows Nat is clinging on to him because he can't 'bring himself to break this last connection' (to his childhood) but instead of bringing it up properly he 'taunts' Nathaniel- a boy who has been taunted for his weakness by his master for years. And even in AOS when Nathaniel tells Bartimaeus he was beaten for the mites incident Bart just kinda shrugs it off. Like I get it, why should Bartimaeus do anything, he's suffered way worse due to the system so he doesn't owe Nat anything right? But from Nat's point of view this is the first and only time he's mentioned to anyone what has happened to him and nothing changes. It's like another lesson learnt: telling someone about it doesn't help. Another nail in the coffin.

And I like all these characters, I feel bad for them. They're all victims of the system, I think the chapter with Ms Lutyens is just the straw that broke the camel's back for me. All of those little opportunities that are insignificant to the narrative over all; the commoners have it worse, Nathaniel is in a privileged position in society, exerting control over others. He's very morally grey, crossing over into objectively bad person territory but I love him with my whole heart and all of those insignificant moments would have been massive to him whether he was conscious of it or not.

And it goes all the way back to the beginning with Nat's parents giving him up to the magicians at 5 years old. I can't get the image of that little boy sat crying all alone in the government building. And he's not going somewhere safer, or somewhere he'll be happier and more loved. Giving your child over to a total stranger, oh he'll be totally fine won't he? He'll grow up to be a magician and far richer than you'll ever be, he'll be happy and comfortable and be grateful he got to grow up in luxury. There's no way a stranger you've never met, who the majority of society is terrified of would ever hurt a vulnerable little kid right? And if they do? Well you aren't responsible anymore, how could you know? What could you possibly do against the magician taking care of him?

Every little thing is another grain of sand tipping the scale. Did anyone else have to analyse An Inspector Calls in school? It feels like that to me- those BIG moments and all the little moments in between that add onto the pile.

And it goes on to cause problems in wider society too- ab*se is so normalised to the magicians, they casually ask Underwood if he hits Nathaniel like it's nothing. Because to them it is nothing, they've all grown up in the same circumstances and are repeating what they've learnt as children. I can't help but feel a little sorry for them all, especially when they aren't looked at through the black and white lense of 'argh these people are the evil arseholes look at how they treat everyone around them, screw these guys.' When we see those little glimpses of humanity like Simon's anxiety with the amulet; looking to his master and father figure Schyler for reassurance, and what's sad is that Nat is "reminded...of his own master's cold impatience" It's clear Simon looks up to his master, wants to make him proud and loves him. But it seems like Schyler has just trained Simon up so he can get power through him later on. I love the little hints of similarities between Simon and Nathaniel; the anxious mannerisms like fiddling with his hair that Nathaniel starts to develop, the way their master's talk to them. Even though they're actively working against each other in AOS and Simon is placed firmly in the baddies category and Nat in the goodies category at this point in the series; these things always hinted to me they had similar childhoods, how was Simon treated? When he had the imp beat Nat into unconsciousness, was it because he'd had the same punishment used against him? Did he know the magicians in the room would do nothing to stop him because no one stopped it from happening to him? Did he ever have a teacher stand up for him only for it to change nothing in the end because all the negative influences were so much stronger? Is the reason he loves Schyler like a dad because he's almost developed Stockholm syndrome? It looks like love because he's never known anything else.

And Arthur Underwood- who doesn't think his upbringing, and being taken away from his family ever did him any harm- doesn't realise the harm done is that he doesn't even know another way of raising Nathaniel, because he was never shown another way. His childhood may also have been filled with people who hurt him and the people that didn't do enough to intervene.

There are so many psychology studies that show children copy everything they see the adults in their life doing. Nathaniel copies the magicians behaviour towards spirits and on a subconscious level I think he copies all the submissive people in his life. How many times does he end up upset and frustrated with the fact he seems to be going nowhere and how many times does he just hope things will be different rather than taking postive action.

I dislike the actions the magicians end up taking but I also find them fascinating to analyse. I tend to prefer villains in media because they're usually slightly more complex individuals and I love to think about how they ended up that way. They can all be seen as victims of their circumstances in a way, despite all the power and privilege they have had terrible and traumatic childhoods, and if the commoners had no valuable worldy possessions at least they had a sense of togetherness; of love and understanding and selflessness. I wonder if the magicians hated them at least partly because of that. Because out in the sea of faces of the commoners talking about nothing important, doing nothing great and noble- could be the parents that abandoned them. And when your life is on the line daily because of working with spirits, and your colleagues want to stab you in the back, sometimes not being responsible for anything important looks good. But you can't leave your life as a magician, it would be too difficult; you have nowhere to go, no real friends, no one who really loves you. So it's better to stay and be a submissive bystander in your own life because it's so much easier.

Doing nothing is doing something- being passive can be just as harmful.