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cirilla-fiona-riannon · 7 months ago

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My Yakuza Man

Translations may not always capture the exact nuances or tone of the original text. Expect grammatical errors and inaccuracies.

One night, after missing the last train due to overtime, I chose a different route home and found myself frozen on a pedestrian bridge.

Nobunaga: "To think I'd run into the likes of you in a place like this."

Ahead, a group of men dressed in black stood at the top of the stairs, glaring at each other.

Shingen: "Pretty weird coincidence, isn’t it? Though, I would’ve preferred meeting a lovely lady rather than a bunch of scruffy men."

Kenshin: "Stop talking nonsense."

Kenshin: "It's not just the executives; even the leaders of the clans are here. This is a perfect chance for a fight."

Masamune: "The same goes for us in the Azuchi clan."

Mitsuhide: "Yeah. Shingen and Kenshin of the Kasugayama Clan. And Kennyo, who's rising as a third power."

Mitsuhide: "Plus, we have the arms dealer Kicho and Motonari. Quite a gathering, I must say."

Kennyo: "The location isn't ideal, but it looks like there's no avoiding a fight."

Motonari: "Ha! If we're going to do this, let's do it with a bang."

Kicho: "Seems there's no escaping a clash."

(Are those swords they're holding? Are they filming a scene?)

(There's no one around right now, but…)

Mai: "Ah!"

I backed away and lost my footing on the stairs.

???: "Whoa!"

A strong arm reached out and caught me from behind.

Keiji: "You alright, miss?"

Mai: "Y-Yes."

Keiji: "If you stay on the edge like that, you might fall again. Come here."

The man who helped me smiled brightly and guided my confused self to the center of the pedestrian bridge.

Keiji: "You're lucky I'm here, huh?"

Hideyoshi: "You’re late."

Kanetsugu: "If anything, this woman is unlucky for ending up in a situation like this."

Keiji: "Hey, don't be like that! We'd all feel bad if an innocent woman got hurt because of us, right?"

Sasuke: "You have a point."

Ranmaru: "True!"

Mai: "Um, excuse me."

Mai: "Are you guys civilians?"

They looked at me with blank expressions.

Mitsuhide: "Oh? Do we look like ordinary citizens to you?"

(Ugh, now that I look closer, they're all pretty handsome but have an intimidating vibe.)

Ieyasu: "If you think we're just regular, law-abiding citizens, then you're seriously off the mark and not paying attention to the danger around you."

Mai: "So, in other words, you're not ordinary, law-abiding citizens?"

Mitsunari: "Yes. That's how it is."

(He's the kindest-looking one, and he confirmed it!)

Kenshin: "Ridiculous. Woman, get back. You're in the way."

Hideyoshi: "Lord Nobunaga, please step back!"

Nobunaga: "I'll leave it to you, Hideyoshi."

The man called Nobunaga was about to strike, but Hideyoshi unsheathed his sword and blocked the blow.

Yukimura: "Hey, you! You're gonna get hurt!"

(What am I supposed to do with that warning!?)

Keiji: "Don't panic, princess."

Keiji: "We need you to stay here until we're done, okay? We need a witness."

With a sharp breath, he thrust a spear from behind me.

I was startled, but the tip of the spear was stopped by a man standing in its path.

Yoshimoto: "Good grief."

The spear's sharp trajectory was expertly deflected by an iron fan.

Yoshimoto: "Keiji, you're a scary man."

Keiji: "I’ll probably lose to you, for sure."

Despite their gentle, almost otherworldly voice and bright smiles, the two men kept fighting.

(These two are really scary!)

Motonari: "An opening!"

At that moment, a crack suddenly appeared in the concrete beneath my feet.

I cautiously peeked down and saw a bullet lodged in it, making my blood run cold.

(There's no sound, though. A silencer?)

(But the power behind that shot—wait, this isn't fake!)

Ranmaru: "Geez, that was close."

The young man who avoided the gunshot jumped up onto the railing.

However, his slender body seemed to wobble for a second.

(Watch out!)

Instinctively, I forgot my fear and jumped toward him.

Ranmaru: "Whoa!?"

I pulled him with all my strength, and we both rolled to the ground.

Mai: "Are you okay!?"

Ranmaru: "Y-Yeah."

Mai: "Thank goodness."

Kenshin: "What are you doing?"

Mai: "I should be the one asking you that! What the hell are you all doing!?"

Mai: "You have to value your lives!"

A wave of relief hit me, followed by intense anger.

Seeing them stop their fight in shock, I came back to my senses.

(I yelled without thinking.)

(But I don't think I said anything wrong.)

Kennyo: "This young lady has a point."

Mai: "-----!"

Kennyo: "If we continue fighting in a place like this, we might end up involving others."

With those words, the others started nodding in agreement.

Kicho: "I agree. We've gotten a bit too carried away; perhaps we should save this for another time."

Motonari: "Tch, guess the moment's ruined."

Mitsuhide: "Value your lives, huh?"

Mitsuhide: "To bring up such a normal principle in this situation is interesting."

Yukimura: "It's so normal that it actually makes her stand out."

(Wait, am I being teased? Or are they just exasperated?)

Nobunaga: "You're an amusing woman. I like you."

Nobunaga: "How about becoming the woman of the Azuchi Clan?"

Mai: "What?!"

Everyone: "----!"

Mai: "N-No, thank you!"

Masamune: "Now, now, hold on."

(Ah!)

The man with an eye patch casually lifted something from my chest.

(My employee ID! I forgot I still had it on!)

Masamune: "Mai, huh? Cute name."

Mai: "G-Give it back!"

Masamune: "Nah, don't feel like it."

Mitsuhide: "Not only are you a witness to tonight's events, but you've caught Lord Nobunaga's interest."

Mitsuhide: "We can't just let you go."

Hideyoshi: "You guys, take it easy on her. Hey, are you hurt anywhere?"

Hideyoshi: "We owe you for helping Ranmaru. We'll have to thank you properly later."

Ieyasu: "You're way too reckless. Are you an idiot? I've never seen anyone like you."

Mitsunari: "Indeed. Your brave actions really moved me. I want to know more about you."

Ranmaru: "Thanks for saving me earlier, miss! I was so surprised."

Mai: "U-Um."

Keiji: "Haha, you've become quite popular! I'm feeling a little jealous."

Shingen: "You're a brave and kind-hearted young lady. It must have been fate that we met tonight."

Kenshin: "Hey, woman. Mai, was it? I'll remember you."

Sasuke: "Lord Kenshin, you're scaring her. Sorry about my boss. Maybe I could apologize on his behalf sometime?"

Yukimura: "You're like a wild boar, huh? No offense."

Yoshimoto: "Indeed. The look on your face as you ran to protect him was beautiful—captivating, even."

Kanetsugu: "You're a reckless woman. You should've just ditched everything and run for your life. Are you a little pup who acts without thinking?"

Kennyo: "But that honest spirit of yours shines brightly to people like us."

Motonari: "Agreed. You're so pure and sweet that I almost feel like crushing you underfoot."

Kicho: "You poor thing. You're getting all the attention from these troublemakers. You've even got me curious now."

(This can't be happening.)

They spoke to me one after another, leaving me in shock.

Nobunaga: "Don't think you can escape, Mai."

Mai: "…..…"

I finally realized that these men, clearly part of the underworld, now knew my face, name, and workplace.

(What's going to happen to me now!?)

#ikesen jp #ikesen translations #ikemen sengoku #ikesen #cybird

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genericpuff · 2 years ago

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All That Glitters is Not Feminism - An Analysis of LO's Brand of "Feminism" and What Remains of its Fanbase (A Prologue)

So I referenced a certain article in a recent reblog/ask response and I just need to talk about it because what the actual fuck-

This has to have been written by either a bot or a hater who's reached peak god tier level at playing the long con sarcasm game because NOTHING about this feels sincere or even factual. Much of it almost has to be read in a mocking tone for it to make any real sense.

It says "Lore Olympus" (literally in quotations) in just about every single paragraph over and over again and every single talking point revolves EXCLUSIVELY around Persephone, which I suppose comes as no surprise considering that seems to be all the comic - and its fanbase - cares about at this point.

I really love (/s) how Persephone's "evolution" is being naive and then 'blossoming' into an independent woman who relies entirely on the rich man who groomed her to solve all her problems.

Also all she's done since becoming Queen of the Underworld is abuse lower class people. That's the stuff feminist dreams are made of <3

While we're talking about the main leads, "poster child" is definitely a word for Hades, I think a more appropriate term would be "literal child". And boy howdy, 'god of consent' sure is a title to give the guy who ripped out a lower class satyr's eyeball and beat him half to death.

This man owns slaves, btw. And both he and his "powerful wife" are equally horrible to lower class people, especially women.

This is hands-down the funniest section of the article and we're only three bullet points in.

Thetis and Persephone have never even so much as spoken one word to each other outside of the courtroom that Thetis technically put her in after plotting against her for an entire season.

Eros is a man. Nothing wrong with that but it comes with the unintentional icky hilarity of implying that because Eros is the gay best friend, that means he's a woman.

They literally don't read this fucking comic-

Everyone always relies on this weird talking point of Demeter not being able to "let Persephone go"... y'all, she just didn't want Persephone to outright move to Olympus, she wanted her to commute. That was it! That was literally the only problem! She wasn't preventing Persephone from pursuing a higher education or telling her she wasn't allowed to work, she literally fucking encouraged it! And with the added later context of Persephone killing a bunch of mortals - and, ironically, the fact that Persephone was assaulted/put in harm's way by TWO SEPARATE MEN in the first two days of her time in Olympus - yeah, I don't blame Demeter for not wanting her daughter to move cold turkey actually LOL

Also hilarious that they claim Rachel has turned "tradition" into "innovation" when the only thing she's managed to do is set back modern feminism in her young adult readers by 80 years and re-establish misogynist brainwashing in her adult ones. Rachel, your fanbase was literally shipping a victim of abuse with her abuser just a few days ago.

oh boy this is uh

this is some cult shit ngl

and the "rewriting the script of Greek mythology" part is VERY concerning knowing what we know about Lore Olympus and who it was written by. This is literally cultural appropriation, full stop, and it exists because Lore Olympus - and works like it, made by people like Rachel - exists.

I can't even commit to the original theory that this was written by a bot because it all feels very pointed and intenetional. This is being written by someone who, at the very least, REALLY sucks at media analysis and writing, because the entire article is just "Lore Olympus, buzzword, Lore Olympus, buzzword, buzzword, Lore Olympus", it's like a white knight incantation for guilty virtue signallers who have zero clue what they're talking about. And at worst, yes, it's appropriation from someone who doesn't mind taking a culture's stories and myths and promoting their erasure by people outside of the culture like Rachel.

And that's it, that's literally the article lmao

*EDIT: There was a section here before addressing the writer of the article from a very opinionated POV that, while isn't unusual for what I do here, did feel necessary to remove after I was contacted by the article writer who addressed the flaws in their original article and is now seeking to correct them with revisions/an article rewrite. So I felt it only fair as a compromise to at least remove that section as it really doesn't have a whole lot to do with this post as a whole and can be removed without entirely ruining the flow of this analysis. If/when that article is rewritten, I'll be revisiting this post and my overall analysis !

And honestly, it's all really telling, because this does accurately reflect the state of the LO fanbase.

Not only do many of the people who defend this comic like it's their job not pick up on the blatant misogynist tones that are going on in its narrative (I can't even call them "undertones" anymore, they're no longer that subtle) but whether or not they even read the comic at all is up for debate with how much stuff they tend to get wrong in their own arguments and justifications. And this is something that's VERY regularly seen in the fanbase discussions, readers will constantly be unaware of things that happened because they skimmed through it at lightning speed just to see if Hades and Persephone kiss and so they can get the top comment on Webtoons so they can be "ahead of the fanbase". It's no wonder that Rachel has gotten used to getting away with retconning things because her fanbase didn't even read what she established the first time.

Rachel's fanbase was literally defending the romance ship of an abuser and his victim on the newest FP episode preview. When that FP episode came out two nights ago and Hera said, point blank, that he didn't love her but abused her, I could only think of that portion of the fanbase who was very audibly simping over Kronos in the IG comment section. Are they actually having their moment of shameful clarity now? Or are they just gonna move the goalposts and pretend that didn't happen?

I don't want to say anything bad about Shelby here because she really seems like she's fighting for her life on this site that she's trying to get off the ground, but a lot of her other articles also come across as very one-note while being peppered with buzzwords that make it seem like what she's talking about is "progressive" when it really isn't. Case in point, Lessons in Chemistry has been commonly criticized for not actually appealing to the demographic that its Mary Sue-ish main character is supposed to represent - women in STEM career fields.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Lore Olympus is not 'feminism', it's white feminism that is designed to appeal to predominantly heterocis white women who think the solution to misogyny is to willingly submit to it and accept the status quo - that it's "empowering" if the woman is smiling and having all her needs paid for by a man. Sure, I can accept that different women will be looking for different relationship dynamics, some women genuinely are happy being in a relationship where they support their husbands first and foremost. But can that truly be called feminism? Or is the real feminism the choices we make along the way that we should be given the freedom to make?

It says a lot about the folks who tend to regularly prop up LO on a pedestal like this as some "revolution in feminism" despite the contrary after spending more than just 30 seconds skimming the attention-grabbing art, and Shelby is just one of many. She's not the worst of the bunch, though.

That goes to someone else who I want to give proper light to in their own essay. Someone who definitely earned a good stern talking-to this past week and has, thankfully, had consequences dished out to her for her horrible actions towards queer POC writers.

If you know, you know. If you don't, buckle up.

#lore olympus critical #lo critical #anti lore olympus

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forthegothicheroine · 8 months ago

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Ah, Waxwork (1988)! The epitome of "I didn't say it was good, I said I liked it." A trashy horror comedy which became infamous among a very specific community of monster fuckers: those too hardcore for Edward Cullen and too squeamish for Pinhead.

I was going to just make a bullet-point list of my thoughts upon rewatch, but there's too much to say, so you lucky people get a full recap!

Our protagonist is Mark, a rich boy who for some reason attends community college. He lives under the thumb of his ridiculous sitcom-villain mother, and has to rely upon his butler sneaking him coffee and cigarettes. I suppose we're seeing what Bruce Wayne's life would be like in a world without alley muggings.

Mark getting sexually rejected will be a running theme in this movie, so let's meet the women who will be doing the rejecting: China and Sarah! These college classmates of his are that improbably 80s horror movie duo, the evil slut and the sweet virgin who are for some unexplained reason besties. China has exchanged Mark for a football player, and she smokes and wears sunglasses and comments on boy's bodies while Sarah acts mildly scandalized. They walk to school, discussing boys and just how promiscuous is too promiscuous, when they see something at the side of the street- a new Waxwork house!

Little do they know what darkness and delight await them inside.

Isn't this a bit outdated, the girls ask each other? You're telling me, I respond, as a former actress at a tourist attraction that was next door to Madame Tussaud's, I have no idea who buys tickets.

They are welcomed at the door by holy shit, David Warner? I really hope he filmed this directly back to back with The Company of Wolves. David Warner invites them to come to a special private opening with a group of up to six people- any more would be too crowded! And China, apparently having nothing better to do as a sexy party girl in the 1980s, agrees. Thus, the rest of the friend group is roped in to attending.

Mark is there, mostly to be hurt whenever China talks about how much fun she's having sleeping with guys who aren't him. There's a dating couple who will show up now and again late in the movie but don't really matter. There are, of course, China and Sarah. And then-

Oh my god. I hadn't seen Twin Peaks yet when I first saw this movie, but oh my god, that's Bobby from Twin Peaks. Doing the same movement tics and vocal cadence that he did as Bobby from Twin Peaks. This is so distracting, you have no idea how much.

Anyway, the gang go to the waxwork house and speaking of Twin Peaks, they are greeted by a small man doing the Peter Dinklage bit from Living in Oblivion ("Make it weird, put a dwarf in it!") We don't have too much time to dell on that, though. The kids hang out for a bit so China has more time to sexually insult Mark, and then they are finally allowed into the wax museum itself.

The waxwork is, all in all, actually pretty cool! It's a bunch of scenes from "history", by which we mean classic pre-80s horror movies. There's the Mummy, there's the Invisible Man, there's Audrey II, there's Jack the Ripper. Keep in mind that all of these exhibits, not just Jack the Ripper, will later prove to have been taken directly from real life events. The sequel muddies this with horror movie scenes that take place in alternate dimensions in a cosmos that weirdly resembles Moorcock's Eternal Champion mythos, but we're not talking about the sequel right now.

I wish I could write a novelization of this movie and just go nuts on the worldbuilding. My speculations would make for an epic of Tolkienesque length.

Bobby from Twin Peaks is the first to go exactly where you're expecting: into an exhibit to get killed. He stumbles into a scene from the Wolf Man (which oddly enough looks a bit like the 2010 Wolf Man but they're obviously trying to do either the original Universal or Hammer version.) He bitches about this, how it must be a hologram and a super lame one at that because there are, like, no girls in bikinis or anything, just some dick in a cabin telling him to run for his life!

(Put a pin in that, by the way.)

He should have listened. But hey, someone has to be the first bit of canon fodder.

The Wolf Man is, of all people, John Rhys-Meyers! He pleads with Bobby to run, but it's too late- his transformation has begun! This is not a bad werewolf look, as practical effects go; he's got a snout and everything. The extremely long ears are what bother me. I felt this way in the Into the Woods movie as well- Johnny Depp just looked like a really sleazy rabbit. But this Wolf Man is a real deal monster, and while Bobby cowers after taking a flesh wound, he sets upon a pair of hunters who have tracked him down, ripping the younger one in half straight through the head.

As goofy as it is, Waxwork gets pretty damn gory.

The older hunter, who's clearly supposed to be Peter Cushing as Van Helsing, ends his reign of terror with a silver bullet. And when the wounded Bobby starts to transform as well, Van Helsing puts a stop to that with a second shot. Fade out to the waxwork exhibit, which now has a half-transformed victim beside the Wolf Man.

So much for Bobby. But eh, fuck 'im, he wasn't much of a character. China, on the other hand...

China notices a display with a particularly handsome villain. She takes a step over the velvet rope to take a closer look, and thus seals her fate.

(Side note: I don't know if I'd survive the movie or be first to get killed, because I would be going "But we're not supposed to touch the exhibits!" the whole time.)

China emerges into a Christopher Lee-worthy dark castle, wearing a white prom dress that's good enough period attire for this sort of movie. Thus begins the Dracula sequence, the first reason this movie has a very specific cult following.

As a teen in the '00s, I frequented web rings of blogs that reviewed old science fiction movies. There was one sight which was dedicated to cataloging every vampire movie the author could find- her favorites were The Lost Boys, Mr. Vampire and Interview with the Vampire- and she listed this as the single sexiest depiction of Dracula on film. Naturally, I spent the next several pre-streaming era years hunting down a VHS.

And who do we have playing sexy Dracula? In yet another 'you're not gonna believe this' casting choice, Miles "How Much Keefe" O'Keefe! The man known to all MSTies as Ator, and to other shlock aficionados as Tarzan! I have no idea why they cast him, but you know what? That barbarian warrior cleans up pretty damn well.

China is too stunned by her surroundings to quibble, and takes the part of a gothic heroine staying at the castle, whose fiance "unfortunately had to leave just now." Dracula introduces her to his lovely lady friends and his brooding adult son Stephan, and serves her a meal of steak tartar in salty red sauce, the suggestive setup for a rather gruesome payoff later.

In-character, Sarah is cornered in her room by Stephan, who says that his father wants her for himself and that he'd be banished from the castle if it was known he put his hands on her first- but before he can get past the fangs-out stage of his assault, she flees down the hallway, as far as she can run, until she reaches a room out of a Saw movie poster, half-dungeon and half-kitchen.

Her fiancee- that is, the fiancee in whatever real-life story she stepped into- is chained up, with one leg gruesomely cut down to the bone to serve to his captors and his own unknowing bride. China tries and fails to unchain him while he runs her through a quick explanation of what vampires are and how to kill him, just in time for Stephan to catch up with her.

China is surprisingly heroic in this scene, given how completely unsympathetic the movie had set her up to be. Son of Dracula goes down with a cross burned into his forehead, while she takes out a few Brides via wine bottles through the chest. When the chained up fiancee turns, though, she flees, sobbing, though the castle, her white gown covered in blood.

"Going somewhere, my beauty?" Dracula asks. She turns and looks into his eyes- and now it is too late. She falls under his hypnotic trance, and he lowers her to the floor, ending her human life in an ecstatic kiss.

It's a better way to go than she would have gotten in most other dumb horror movies of this era.

Mark- remember Mark?- has finally noticed that two of his friends (such as they are) have gone missing. He figures they must have gone off to hook up, but that doesn't feel right- for some reason, he knows that Bobby is the one man that China would never ever want to fuck. Sarah is less concerned, as she's focused on a statue of the Marquis de Sade looking like a sexy pirate. When Mark does get her to leave with him, he shoots his shot, but Sarah says that while he's a nice guy and she likes him a lot, she's looking for something...different.

Sarah's whole deal, as you may have guessed, is that she's a virgin at least in part because she can only be satisfied by BDSM, a desire she learned about through secretively reading de Sade but has no contemporary sex ed language to talk about. To the film's credit, this very Clive Barker plotline isn't used to make her unsympathetic or deserving of death, but rather to enhance the theme of Mark getting sexually rejected.

(Also, Mark paid his ESL housekeeper to write an essay for him, which was demanded by a history professor who was weirdly into Hitler. To his dismay, the essay read "I do not like dictators. They do the shouting and wear the small mustaches."

Well. She's not wrong.)

When China and Bobby fail to reappear the next day, Mark and Sarah go off to investigate. A mean cop tells them that lots of people have recently gone missing, and ends up investigating on his own- an investigation that ends with him being killed by the Mummy while the theme from Swan Lake plays in the background. (The title music in Universal's original Mummy and Dracula! The music I walked down the aisle to at my wedding! It's a little detail I liked.)

China's jock boyfriend also shows up to get killed by the Phantom of the Opera, while David Warner shakes his head in surprise to learn that he knew the character from a movie. "They'll make a movie of anything these days!" he says. However, I found myself focusing on the brief close-up where we saw that the Phantom had a mustache. A well-maintained mustache. Half-covered by a half-mask. Does he shave and maintain it on the deformed side, too? These are the kind of questions my novelization would go into.

Mark and Sarah get a quick rundown on everything from a professorly type of guy in a wheelchair who's basically the Criminologist from Rocky Horror. He tells them that via something something dark magic, victims are being given to evil men who are long dead to revive them and then something something destroy the world. For all I joke, it is my fondest dream to be this kind guy- a librarian who could give the protagonist exactly the book they need to fight Dracula.

Remember that pin I had you put in the Wolf Man pleading with Bobby to run? That brings up the question of what this movie considers "evil men". The Wolf Man really didn't want to kill anybody, but his body was taken over by the curse! And what about Audrey II? I'll grant that the plant sure was a dick, but was he a man? And what about all the ghouls in the zombie exhibit? The first time I watched this I also quibbled about the Marquis de Sade being here alongside actual murders, but I'll let that slide this time- the sheer scale of his imagination for evil was impressive enough, even if he didn't get to do most of it.

Mark and Sarah go to burn the waxwork down, but the temptation to fuck the Marquis is too much and Sarah just willingly goes right into his wax exhibit. Mark falls into the zombie exhibit, where it goes black and white in a pastiche of Night of the Living Dead as he fights off walking corpses and crawling disembodied hands.

Sarah has a better time. Now we see the second part of why this movie has a very specific cult reputation.

The Marquis de Sade, as portrayed in Waxwork, is dashing man with long dark hair, a puffy shirt open to reveal a very hair chest, wearing leather boots and gloves and always carrying a whip. He is entertaining a man (blonde and similarly good-looking, played by the director) whom he calls "your majesty", who will later to be revealed as Prince George of England, the future George IV. This struck me as absolutely hilarious.

For the prince's entertainment, he offers the sole virgin in his stable of beauties- Sarah, of course, stepping forward to have her arms affixed over her head proudly and eagerly. He leans in and whispers his intentions to Sarah- to whip her bloody, hand her over to George and his men for their enjoyment, then torture her to death- and she kisses him and swoons into her chains.

This scene is interesting because of how it's shot. There's no nudity in this movie- the only skin Sarah proceeds to expose is her back. I don't want to use terms like "male gaze" or "female gaze" because the former is a greater scale film theory term and the latter isn't really a term outside of tumblr, but this scene and the one with Dracula are presented as bodice rippers. Whether or not women went to see this movie, let alone enjoyed it, both scenes but especially the one with Sarah and de Sade are portrayed as female sexual fantasies. We don't see much of Sarah's body, but we see many close-ups of her face, perspiring and biting her lip as she waits for each sting of the whip.

Britain's "Video Nasties" list from 1984 banned many gory horror movies as obscene. Waxwork has far less gore than Evil Dead or Bay of Blood. As far as I know, it has never been banned under any obscenity laws.

By the time Mark (remember Mark?) gets out of his exhibit and into Sarah's, we are told that she has taken more whipping than any other woman the Marquis has ever seen, and enjoyed every bit of it. Mark saves her, but she pushes him away and runs back to the Marquis, kneeling at his foot and grasping at his boot. No, she protests, she wants to stay here! Smirking at the polo-clad dork from the future, de Sade said the line that dropped my jaw to the floor when I first saw this in my impressionable youth.

"Don't be angry just because she had her first orgasm at the end of a whip and not by your touch!"

Somehow not shriveling up and dying from that insult, Mark persuades Sarah that they should go because this setup did kill their friends and Your Mind Makes it Real and ugh, fine, Sarah will go back and save the world if she really has to. de Sade promises Mark that they'll meet again, though. ("How much did the Marquis de Sade know about this whole time and/or dimension traveling thing?" is another great question I would have expounded on in my novelization.)

But the kids have not yet saved the day, and their two friends from the very beginning are sacrificed in their places. The stars are right, the sacrifices have been made, and it's time for all the monsters and assorted villains to come to life and something something destroy the world! Thankfully, backup has arrived in the form of the wheelchair-bound expert from before and a while gang of his elderly and heroic friends, including Mark's totally-not-Alfred butler. Let the big chaotic fight scene commence!

Blood sprays left and right. Mark kills a zombified former friend, and weeps when his butler kills the vampirized China. Sarah tosses the small minion guy right into Audrey II. Dracula gets perhaps the lamest death onscreen he's ever had, surpassing even Scars of Dracula where he was randomly hit by lightning.

And the Marquis de Sade, who apparently is quite the swashbuckler, is flitting around with rapier and whip, having a grand old time. (At least it's better than what he supposedly did during the storming of the Bastille...) He beats Mark easily in combat, but makes the mistake of doing a gloating monologue before driving his blade through the boy's throat, giving Sarah the chance to break his spine with an ax. Let's hope Mark appreciates the sacrifice.

David Warner still must be confronted, however. Mark demands to know why he wants to destroy the world, and he smiles and responds "Somebody has to."

I guess you can't argue with that.

The elderly gentlemen give their lives to kill Warner, and the whole building goes up in flames. The only survivors are Mark, Sarah and a crawling disembodied hand who is off to set up the events of the sequel. Mark and Sarah embrace, but nothing more, at least not until the sequel.

Is Waxwork good? No. Is it scary? Some of the gory bits did make me wince. Is it funny? Sometimes on purpose, sometimes probably not on purpose. Is it offensive? We see a brief glimpse of what looks like a very racist tableau with an evil witch doctor or something, the role of the small minion is not exactly a great part, and China and Sarah were plucked right from the virgin-whore archetype with only somewhat more depth.

But do I watch it, fascinated, as if it is an esoteric text containing the secret alchemical formula for gold? I sure do.

#horror movies #waxwork

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greenplantlizard · 3 months ago

Text

super hero taisen

i have now seen it, and surprise surprise, the movie everyone says sucks ass sucks ass!!! wow

some of these bullet points are made by me live, because i just have it open in miniplayer as i look at other tabs i am so disinterested in the slop i and i alone have decided to force in front of my eyeballs

look how they massacred my boys

literally all of them

i dont think a single character in this movie is done right

when they're not wildly off-base they're just kinda,,, flat

i also have no idea who's movie this is supposed to be

you'd think it'd be about fourze and the go-busters, but nope

you'd think it'd be about decade and the gokaigers, and you'd be,,,, more,,,, right???

why is joe like that

i will give this movie props for komathunder being there, objectively funny kaijin pick

i was right about not needing to see go-busters, other than their aesthetic i have learned net zero info

ooo's ultimate power is not his medals, fuck off

oh they called goseiger boring

i will admit i chuckled

why would you bring back old villains if you're going to do zero with them, im extending this question to a bunch of other stuff too, but like,,,, why are warz and ackdos accepting marvelous as leader? why is zangyack 'returned' when it hadn't quite entirely dissolved? what the fuck are rider particles? is that narutaki, im genuienly unsure because even his most memable traits are nearly entirely absent, he's not even flanderised right, that's the level this movie is on

why the fuck is the den-liner here, let den-o die im begging you please, ive had enough of it being dragged into shitty movies

so its about the timeslot thing?

what

i see we're taking the lets go kamen riders approach to lore concistency

that is to say, we aren't

i would read this as a kid playing with their ungodly huge figure collection, but that reading would imply a story id have more fun with than whatever is happening here

hina has just been standing around staring at everything

at least blink, girl

maybe revealing that everyone's not actually dead would work better after the big reveal that the villains are actually the vilains

what the fuck are sentai particles

the big machine? like in the kamen rider manga by manga artist shotaro ishi(no)mori? i who have read the manga am now happy because they said the name of something from a thing that i read and enjoyed

yeah i figured this was a ruse, although with how this movie writes everyone i would also not have been surprised if there was no reveal

ah yes the three original heroes, kamen rider #1, akaranger and kamen rider ooo

has gai been there the whole time? i literally did not notice

anyway its time for the big final battle, so its time to sit back and watch a sea of colour mindlessly wash over my screen

should at least be fun, the action has been good when the fighters have lasted more than 30 seconds

y'know what, actually really enjoyed that last battle

wait why is there more left

kaito what are you doing

kaito no

kaito one astronomically dumb idea will not heal your heart of the damage cause by another astronomically dumb idea

i think the rock great leader from let's go kamen riders specifically should have been stepped on by the big machine, it would be funny

wow look at that its a new crossoevevresvsjvna mechahacb ncx forma aenaebahvb haevhebbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb

oh bye narutaki lol what the fuck

wait what kaito that wasnt your motivation for doing whatever it is you were doing

bad kaito sit in the shame crater and think about what you've done

does this mean its over please tell me its over

i mean,,, it's not my current least favourite rider movie

just

onigashima warship was more painful

anways, time to pretend this never happened, because none of it matters :D

#tokusatsu #kamen rider #super sentai #super hero taisen #liz's thoughts

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specific-dreamer · 6 months ago

Note

it’s me…. the ghost of askbox-mas past…… back to offer you an olive branch for cheating on you with everyandanything that one time 😭😭😭😭😭

I’ve tortured them enough, I must return to my original victim 🤝 so I bring you…… a resurrection au……….. there was a show I was obsessed with when I was like 12 where a bunch of people in this small town started coming back to life still at the same age they were when the died and I- recently found it again and ofc had 8million thoughts bc I can’t consume anything without turning it into an au including my favorite characters 👹 the idea quite literally has nothing to do with the show except for the coming back from the dead thing but regardless !!!!!! let’s get into it… and by it I mean 😏 bare bones bullet point excerpts 😏

johnny cade hath risen ! he wakes up in the water, the sun almost red as it begins to set, cold and alone and dark beneath the surface he kicks through, the thin layer of frost settling over top breaking over his head and melting away. he can’t tell whether he should be panicking or not, he most certainly remembers slipping away in the hospital small and dead staring at the bright lights in his room, he recognizes the trees as he pulls himself out of the cold water and onto the scratchy half green half yellow grass. that big one with the sparse but curly leaves used to mostly hide behind a rotting wooden steeple…. if he sniffs the air he might be able to smell fire, it almost dries him up, those imaginary flames, the church… the kids… the trees. windrixville? but how? how was there water here… a storm maybe? most of all, as he rolls onto his back letting himself catch breath that he didn’t realize he’d been missing out on, how the /fuck/ is he here? why? his heart or something like it hammers inside him a million different memories hitting him at once.

(the church set from the movie is underwater in present day so it’s ummm 100% going in the notebook lmao)

he’d been walking for hours now, slowly drying off as he follows the train tracks as best as he remembers back to Tulsa. his legs are shaky, unused for he’s not sure how long, and his fingers are frozen despite tucking his hands in his armpits, the sun leaves behind a few pink clouds as the sky turns dark. he stops beneath a street light and looks out at the town that had snuck up on him, familiar but not quite as inviting, shadows from trees and street signs spiking out on the blacktop as if they don’t want him there, as if they’re keeping his own neighborhood from him, his clothes are still wet but he isn’t sure if his trembling is because of the cold or something different.

it doesn’t take long for him to find the lot, to pass it by and turn down the block. he moves without having to think about it, muscle memory or something he’d heard of, he knows where he wants to go before anything. a patter of tiny feet crunches over the leaves in the street and race beneath a car in some random’s driveway and he about jumps out of his skin, he approaches the car slowly, against his better judgment he supposes, and kneels to look under it, barely able to see in the dark even with another street light above him. two glowing eyes peer back at him and there’s a low growling sound coming from its head. he recognizes her, a little cat he had befriended the year before everything and happened, she’d been scraggly and young and attached herself to him pretty quickly. he calls to her, “missy” psst-ing between his teeth and snapping his fingers softly to coax her out, she comes, sniffing his hand on low-to-the-ground legs with flat ears and spiked back fur before she growls again and hisses, swatting him with her paw. a long scratch down his pointer finger beginning to drip on the sidewalk. he stands and watches her hiss again and swat again this time at his shoe before scampering away into the bushes, tries not to let it hurt his feelings too much that his kitty doesn’t seem to recognize him anymore… or maybe it was that cats could smell death, he thinks he’d heard that before, maybe Two drunk and rambling… or Buck making awkward conversation while waiting on Dal… or Pony… /Pony/… he wipes his finger off on a wet patch on his vest and keeps going on..

at least he can still bleed… gotta count for something right? ghosts can’t… or shouldn’t…

the porch is still lit up at whatever time it is now since he’d gotten out of the church-lake. he reaches over the gate and unhooks the hatch, letting it swing itself open for a bit before stepping onto the concrete walkway with jittery breath caught in his lungs. the old car is still sitting in the weeds but small flowers grow up with them. the screen is closed but the main door stays open and he can hear the commotion inside, laughing, TV, something sizzling on the stove. he hugs himself while he makes his way up the stoop, sucking in air as he taps his knuckles on the spotty black metal. one of the people inside the house calls something over their shoulder, moving through shadow and opening the door, and…

Johnny had seen Darry mad hundreds of times, lots of the time he could understand why too though he’d never tell that to Pony in a million years, but this feels different. the comfortable smile on his face falls away in a second, replaced by /Anger/ and something sort of like disgust, like something in his drink is sour, like he’s three seconds away from throwing said drink in his face. “another one” he calls over his shoulder. johnny steps back confused. “dar-” “we let you boys have your fun but it’s time to stop, ‘know you’re really lucky he ain’t here or I don’t think I’d be able to stop-” he cuts himself off flaring his nose, “I don’t wanna be gettin no kids in trouble but I’ll take you to the station myself if I have’ta”

“dar what’s the-” sodapop appears over his shoulder and makes that same face.

🪦🪱🏚️🍃

…….bye !

first, bullet points my ass. this is half a fic and i am hooked, loudly requesting the rest

wdym another one are the socs doing this often wtf and why was he all the way back at the church omg

second what show is this ?? i’m hooked and now i’d like to watch it akjssj

#the outsiders #outsiders musical #johnny cade #darry curtis #sodapop curtis

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sillyfudgemonkeys · 10 months ago

Text

RoR: Issues with Kyoshi's supposed fate (her power and purpose)

Spoilers for the Roku Novel....obviously (as well as Kyoshi's novels, ATLA/LoK show and comic will be touched on. Lightly touches on Yangchen in her novels but not the plot). TT0TT

I have a lot of thoughts on Kyoshi's fate, but instead of one big post, I'm just going to do a bunch of smaller ones that tie into different aspects of it.

This one involves her power narrative and purpose.

Trigger warning under the cut as well (under the cut cause of possible spoilers)

TW: Suicide/Suicide mention

Ok so basically the novel wants us to be like "She went so far off the deep end, she stopped valuing human life and just found it easier to kill people! But then looked within and realized her time had come and possibly just let herself die. uwu"

So many issues, holy shit. Like....so many things that DON'T add up. It doesn't help that we literally don't go into how the world is shaped by her 230 years, not even how Roku is effected by it! And this doesn't even consider the darn "Every Avatar is made right for that era" spiel.

Now, I'm not against Kyoshi realizing her time has come for that era. Or if she always planned to self exit (both kill herself and just literally see herself out the gd door cause damn did she just....bounce! She really left us guessing TT0TT) because of one reason or another.

But I don't like how it was framed in this story (so far, cause I barely wanna give RR the benefit of the doubt >_>). Mostly cause I think we could've gone about her wanting to leave without vilifying her. I think it's more tragic if she just..... it was just too painful to live. Like she could've kept going, but she didn't want to because she missed all that she had lost.

And the vilifying is less of me being like 'My character can do no wrong!" and more "This doesn't add up with our perception of her later down the road, and it's not like a part of her legacy was hidden like Yangchen's was." Kyoshi is more up front than sweet scheme Yangchen (and to YC credit she schemed for a good damn reason). And it's not like she had a Kuruk to take the damn bullets for her. Kyoshi stood on her business. She never denied or diminished what she did, accident or on purpose. It was one of the few character traits we got out of that Avatar in the original ATLA. What we see is pretty much what we get.

But while the suicide route is viable. I really think we could've just....gone with a bigger hero moment. Maybe she dies by the hand of a spirit? Possibly protecting someone. I feel like that utilizes her extreme godly power to a much better use for the 1) the narrative and 2) "every avatar is made right for that era" mentality.

Cause......let's look at point 2

Yangchen: Was a schemer who stopped other schemey schemes from scheming. Her gentle and forgiving nature giving her a peaceful vibe. And all that accumulated to her navigating the world to peace. She brought balance to an imbalanced human world. The world needed someone who could navigate people into peace.

Kuruk: Was a powerful bending prodigy and amazing hunter. He used those skills to defend the human world against spirits that Yangchen pissed off. The world needed someone who could fight those spirits.

Kyoshi: Because Kuruk had to ignore the human world, corruption and crime became rampant. Kyoshi was born at the lowest rung so she could understand and fight for those who couldn't fight for themselves. She stayed alive for 230 years. We don't really know all the progress she made tho (we do know she failed in some regard, such as changing the Earth Kingdom's views on LGBT, or the fact there is apparently some daofei still hanging around 3 years before her death), but apparently she did A LOT of good. She accumulated a lot of power and.....we don't know what she did with it.

Roku: We're ignoring you :) (partially we don't really.....know a lot of his accomplishments that maintained peace, only really his mistakes, rather than me being a hater. We know he more or less kept the peace tho)

Aang: Ran away right before a war started, securing his people's culture to at least remain alive with/within him. Finished the 100 year war with a way of avoiding having to kill (which kept his culture's values alive). Giving the world a form of hope and peace amongst all the death and destruction.

Korra: A powerful fighter put through the ringer over and over and over. Constantly showing the world that it still needs an Avatar. The world is going through intense constant change, and she was there to help guide it through each change in its rapid current.

Taking what we broke down above and going back to point 1 with the "narrative," Kyoshi just kinda.....dies. There's still stuff she wasn't able to fully see through to the end. She probably COULD'VE but she doesn't, she dies. And her death is a mystery on top of that.

Then there's the fact she accumulated SO MUCH power and.....what was the point of it? Was it just in service for the Avatar state? (I thought the creators chose to make "Prime Raava" to be more powerful and 10,000 years worth of lives???? so what's the point there)? Why make her supposedly so freaking powerful if you aren't going to do anything with it?

I dunno, if she was going to become THAT powerful, it feels like it's building up to something. Someone who needed to suffer for 230 years, get that strong. I really think if they wanted to claim "yeah she got really powerful" then it should be in service of something. She sacrifices herself to defeat a strong spirit. Either dies in combat along with it, or, upon seeing the threat is gone finally let's go because she realizes her time had come (aka she realized that was the last duty she needed to perform as the Avatar).

It's the only thing that makes sense with what we are given. Between the time delay, the lack of knowledge, her having so much power. And the fact the last time an Avatar went AWOL (aka Kuruk) that wasn't because of an injury (aka Korra).....it was because of spirits. Which loops back around to part 2, Kyoshi was the Avatar that generation(s) needed, because it built up to that. The world needed someone resilient to last 230, gain power, and then protect the world from devastation! (....to unite all people within our nation-ahem sorry sorry got distracted >_> still fitting words jkldsajflk;j)

I dunno, maybe I'm too hung up on her being uber powerful. It just feels weird that she may have exceeded past Avatars by a lot and then.....do nothing with that. If they didn't make it feel like she'd basically obtained godhood, that would be one thing....but that's not what they did so. TT0TT

#reckoning of roku #rise of kyoshi #reckoning of roku spoilers #shadow of kyoshi #kyoshi #roku #avatar kyoshi #avatar roku #chronicles of the avatar #avatar analysis #roku salt

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srasdoesthings · 1 year ago

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[MONDAY 5:05 PM] - Wonder Stage, Phoenix Wonderland :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧

Home || Log || Next!

⭒❃.✮:▹Loading Complete / / /

“Please!” A chipper voice pleads with the rest of her troupe mates. Emu bounces from where she balances herself on one of Wonder stage’s seats “It’s a nice story! And I really, really wanna see Nene-chan in a mermaid costume again…”

Tsukasa mutters to himself: “That’s your reasoning..?” before sighing. It wasn’t a bad idea, all things considered. While darker than the shows they had done, it wasn’t too dark that parents would be opposed to showing it to kids. An interesting flip to a story known and loved by people.

With Rui’s writing magic, they would no doubt make the original’s themes of growing up and seeing the truth of the world palatable for kids to be taken along for the ride while giving their older audiences a bittersweet tale.

--Tsukasa had toyed with the idea of doing a more serious and emotional play recently; this could be a good opportunity to dip his toes into this sort of play.--

Though, he didn't want to let that sort of selfish reasoning sway his resolve. As the leader of a troupe, he needs to see to it that everyone is pleased. “It might work. What’re your thoughts? Rui, Nene.”

“I’m fine with it.” Nene’s focus stays on her game, only the slightest glance to the other members before flicking back to the screen. “You did say you wanted to make the new show cooler than others. Up the production and all that.”

“Considering the stunts we’ll have to perform in the story, I've no doubt it’ll be a bigger production that can still be within our means.” Rui smiles from where he’d been jotting ideas. Tsukasa can faintly see a few bullet points already, some circled and some crushed out, others underlined and others annotated. Their genius director was hooked too. The warmth of his smiles changes to that of mischief as he meets Tsukasa’s eyes. “Of course, that’s if Tsukasa-kun is willing to flung around in the air the whole show.”

“FLUNG AROUND!?”

“Duh,” Nene finally looks up properly, a sound of victory ringing from her phone. “You’re obviously going to play Peter. And what does Peter do the whole time?” Mockingly, he slows her words, almost as if explaining to a child.

“That's…true…”

Emu, the ever cheerful soul, attacks Tsukasa with a hug, exclaiming out: “It’s okay, Tsukasa-kun! I’m gonna be the fairy, so we’ll fly around together!‘

“And if we fall?”

Her grin grows brighter and she grabs his hands, lovingly. “Then we fall together!”

Tsukasa sighs again, Emu’s silliness and cheer infects him and he can’t help but smile too, leaning into the smiling girl. “I suppose we will.”

“Now, now,” Rui steps in, a pleasing smile on his face. He holds the two close, draping his arms around them. “No one will be falling, I can assure you of that. Don’t you trust me?” Despite his resolved smile, Tsukasa can see the worry in Rui’s stance and he flashes him a smile back.

“Of course! We’re in the best of hands. Thank you, Rui.”

“Anything else we have to add?” Nene moves closer to the group, phone tucked into her pocket and shuffles beside Rui, joining the odd warmth pile they’ve made and leaning her weight on his shoulders. “Since Mr.World Star here wants a hand at more heartfelt shows, then we have to pay attention to stuff like Peter and Hook’s backstory. Ugh, there’s gonna have to be a bunch of things we’re gonna have to pace out…”

Rui nods “Mhm. And we’ll have to figure out how to convey a good chunk of the show with just the four of us.‘

“I can ask the mascots to be background characters!” Emu volunteers, standing up to jump around in excitement, waving around in joy. “Like in the epic pirate fight scene! And the Epic pirate bombing! It’ll be so wonderhoy to have everyone play together!”

“You sure?” It would be amazing, and it would remove the worry of stretching everyone too thin, but would that be asking too much? “We don’t want to make your brothers-”

“Boo, I’ll just convince them!” Emu grins. She places both hands on Tsukasa’s cheeks, holding to his face with the warmest of smiles. “It’s to make our most wonderhoy of wonderhoy shows after all! And I’m sure we can make it the bestest if we give it a try. So I’ll put my all into convincing them, and making the stages and props and stuff!”

“Ah, that reminds me. Roles.”

Nene shifts, wrapping her arms around Tsukasa’s shoulders and leaning her head on his.“Aren’t they obvious?”

“Yes, but not just stage roles. Our production roles.” Rui Clarifies. “What would they be?”

“I can take care of costumes and choreography.” Tsukasa volunteers. “Since Emu is going to be busy with stage and more business side of things.”

“Ehhh, are you sure? Emu can handle it!”

“No no, it’s fine.” He places a hand on Emu’s own, a smile slipping on his face. “After All, you’ll be in charge of making the stage as magical as it could ever be. And that’s a big job, right?”

“Mmm, true true.” She turns to Nene, grinning. “And Nene-chan will be there to help me, right?!”

The girl smiles, head on Rui’s shoulder. “Of course. I’ll do my best. Oh and Rui, I’ll work on the script, just pass me an outline. You’ll need to focus on the rigs.”

Rui smiles, “thank you, Nene.” He stands. “Let’s make this show amazing, everyone.”

Tsukasa grins. “Wonderhoy?”

They all smile and cheer: “Wonderhoy!”

• • •

The Portrait of Pirate F

Roles:

Tsukasa Tenma…Peter Pan (Choreographer, Costumer)

Emu Ootori…Tinkerbell ( Set Director, Producer)

Rui Kamishiro… Captain Hook (Stage Director, Machine rigger)

Nene Kusanagi… Mermaid (Assistant Director, Scriptwriter, Producer)

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pocket-lad · 1 year ago

Text

CH 13- We Won, Right?

Prev ● Masterpost ● Last

Ian and Sarah sprinted in the opposite direction, no longer concerned with the cargo hold. They needed to get out of there before a T-Rex with a grudge decided to make them supper.

Running. Why was it always running? They were back home, back on the mainland, where no dinosaurs were supposed to exist, and still they were running.

They watched helplessly as the T-Rex took off toward the city with no possible way to stop it.

Sarah turned to the group. “The animal’s dehydrated. First, it’ll go to a water source, then look for the next thing its body needs. All the containment equipment is here. We gotta get it to the dock. The boat might be seaworthy. I know what you’re gonna say. When we brought the baby to the trailer, it came. There’s no reason why it won’t do the same thing here.”

Ian protested throughout Sarah’s speech, but she talked over him.

“Ian, we have to. If not us, who?” Adelaide said.

Ian looked at her in shock. He didn’t expect them to team up on this one, but it looked like he was left with no other choice.

Seeing this in Ian’s face, Sarah turned to Ludlow, who sat on a ledge above them looking utterly dejected. “Where’s the infant?”

“In a secure facility,” Ludlow mumbled apathetically.

“Where’s the facility?”

And with that, they were off again, driving to go pick up a baby T-Rex. Adelaide watched in awe as the world passed them by. Not only was she seeing things she’d never seen before, but the way Ian could just…drive a car like that.

Adelaide didn’t take trips in the car often. She didn’t go places often. It never ceased to amaze her how Beans could operate something so big and complicated, and everyone just did it every day like it was nothing. All those rules, all that technical skill, all that coordination. She didn’t think much of most Beans, but she had to commend them on that one.

Adelaide knew Ian had to be breaking some kind of rules with how fast he was going though, and how he crashed through a gate that had big, red sign that said, STOP. That probably wasn’t allowed.

They kept going until they reached a familiar gateway. It was a little smaller than the original, but in all the ways that mattered, this stone arch was the exact same one they saw when they entered the original Jurassic Park.

Beyond that was a bunch of equipment, and the car came to a screeching halt, temporarily sending Adelaide to the bottom of the pocket.

The Beans wasted no time hopping out of the car and heading toward a cage. The baby T-Rex laid there in a pile of hay, and Adelaide couldn’t help but feel sorry for the creature. It didn’t ask for this. She had to consistently remind herself that they were doing the right thing here, even if it was terrifying.

Sarah hoisted the baby out of the cage and carried it to the car, Ian opening the door for her.

“When the adult sees us again with his baby, isn’t he going to be like, ‘You!’? There may be some uh, angry recognition there,” Ian suggested as he climbed into the car.

“Who knows? He may be just happy to see us,” Sarah countered.

“Hey! What the hell are you doing?” A rough, masculine voice shouted at them from nearby. All three of them turned to see two men pointing guns at them.

Adelaide’s heart stopped. Anything but guns. She’d rather sit down and have a conversation with these two unknown giants. Because not only would a gun obliterate her, it had the power to kill Ian and Sarah with just one bullet. As Adelaide admired Beans for some of their inventions, she really despised them for others.

Besides a faint increase in heart rate though, Ian seemed unbothered. “We’re taking the kid. If you really want to stop us, shoot us,” he said.

Adelaide’s eyes widened. “Oh my god, you’re going to get us killed,” she muttered. Most of the time, Ian’s cockiness was admirable, even entertaining. Now did not feel like the time.

The men held their guns steadfast. They didn’t even blink.

Before she could think about the consequences of what she was about to do, Adelaide shouted, “Hey, hey! Look at me!” She waved her arms and tried to draw as much attention as possible.

Stunned at the sight of such a small being, the men faltered. Their weapons dipped. Ian used the temporary distraction to gun it, slamming on the pedal and sending the car flying backward.

Only when the men were small dots in her vision did Adelaide let herself breathe, but their adventure wasn’t over yet. That probably wasn’t even the hardest part. Hopefully they wouldn't tell their friends about her, but she also suspected nobody would believe them if they tried.

Curious, she dragged herself out of the pocket and up Ian’s shoulder. It took a lot longer than usual with the wind and the jerky movements of the car and the fact that she couldn’t use her left hand.

“Della, not now,” Ian sighed, knowing he couldn’t take his eyes off the road to help her if she fell.

“I got it,” Adelaide insisted, annoyed that he just assumed she would fall.

Once she made it to his shoulder, she stared back at Sarah and the baby in the backseat with wide eyes. It was so little, relatively speaking, and it looked dazed beyond belief. It had the same yellow eyes as its parents, but its pupil was massive.

“Is it okay?” Adelaide asked Sarah.

Sarah looked between Adelaide and the infant. “Yeah, just drugged out.” Then, something caught the woman’s gaze from way up above. Adelaide turned around to follow her line of sight, and there stood the full adult T-Rex, rampaging through the city. That was easy.

Adelaide finally took stock of their surroundings. She wasn’t exactly sure what a city was supposed to look like, but it certainly wasn’t supposed to look like this. Cars littered the streets, some upside-down, some on fire. Glass windows lining shops and restaurants were all smashed in, the glass scattered everywhere. People screamed and ran in every direction. It was amazing how much destruction one animal could cause.

Adelaide thought back to Jurassic Park when another Tyrannosaur knocked Ian into the air and sent him crashing down onto a roof. She remembered how small she felt then. She was feeling something quite similar now. Even together, all these big and powerful Beans stood no chance against it.

“He won’t know we have it unless it makes some kind of sound!” Ian shouted as Sarah tried to wake the baby up. But the T-Rex trained its eyes right on them. It knew.

Ian took off again, leaving Adelaide clinging on for dear life. Still, she was incredibly fascinated by the infant, getting to see it up close. She watched it blink and breathe and wiggle around. It was almost…cute? It was hard to believe it would grow up to be such a giant, horrifying monster.

Eventually, the baby was awake enough to start wailing. It hurt Adelaide’s ears like all loud noises did, but it also hurt her heart. It was scared and alone. It just wanted its parents. She could relate to that.

They raced along for what felt like ages. At any moment, that dinosaur could close in and smash them to pieces. Ian kept looking to his right, trying to find a way through the blurry warehouses.

“Is there a way through?” Sarah shouted.

“God, there could be,” Ian said nervously. Without thinking much about it, he jerked the steering wheel to the right and plowed through one of the warehouse doors. Luckily, the doors gave way and they made it through without injury. Unluckily, the car didn’t fare so well. On the surface, its windshield was severely cracked and the car was covered in scratches. He was sure it was even worse underneath.

Adelaide screamed, but also made it through unscathed. She didn’t even have time to process what just happened before Ian was out of the car and headed toward Sarah and the dinosaur.

“Trade you?” he said to Sarah, and Adelaide knew what that meant. She also knew protesting was useless, but that didn’t mean she was happy about it.

Ian gently took the infant from Sarah, then rolled his shoulder forward for Adelaide to fall off. She screamed again, unprepared for the fall. It never got any easier, falling from heights like that. To Beans, the fall itself was only a couple inches, and it was only over a four foot, maybe five foot drop. Scaled to borrower size, she fell a couple feet over a one hundred foot drop. There was always someone there to catch her, but the brief moment of weightlessness always gave her a mild heart attack. She preferred to have her own two feet firmly planted on solid ground where she could control her environment. But she chose to exist with giants. This was the price she would have to pay.

Adelaide landed with an exhale in Sarah’s soft hands. She blinked a couple of times to regain her bearings and found herself looking up at Sarah’s face.

“I got you,” Sarah assured her, and Adelaide gulped. She did this before. She could do it again. She trusted Sarah.

They ran along toward the wrecked boat, Adelaide bouncing up and down in Sarah’s hand.

“Where’s the Rex? Is it behind us?” Sarah asked.

As if on cue, the dinosaur smashed through the warehouse walls, leaving behind a much larger hole than their car. The sudden noise scared all three of them, but they didn’t slow down.

“Holy shit!” Adelaide hollered, instinctively ducking down for cover. “Sarah!” she called.

“Yup, got it!” Sarah responded, placing Adelaide in her pocket as softly as she could manage while running.

The boat was in sight. Then they were on it. Then Ian was depositing the baby dinosaur in the cargo hold. Then they were running again. Running straight to the edge of the boat.

Adelaide waited for them to slow down or make a hard left turn, but it never came. She realized too late that the Beans fully intended to hop over the railing and fall to the water below to escape the adult T-Rex. It would probably (hopefully) be too distracted by its baby to take any interest in them, especially down in the water.

“ Waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait !” Adelaide cried, but her voice was lost to the chaos around them.

Everyone was momentarily airborne, and then they crashed into the harbor.

Adelaide’s breath was knocked right out of her from the impact, and then she registered the cold. It was beyond freezing. She couldn’t feel anything - her toes, her fingers, her face. It was like she ceased to exist.

She probably would cease to exist momentarily if she didn’t find her way to the surface. The water was not only cold, but incredibly dark, too. Her air was running low, and it was only exacerbated by her panic. Adelaide flailed and flailed, gasping for breath that wouldn’t come. Water entered her lungs instead, which she instinctively coughed up along with the small amount of remaining air. Her grasp on consciousness was slipping fast.

As light as her body was, combined with all the flailing, Adelaide’s body found its way to the surface naturally. But the small, calm waves created by falling bodies may as well have been a tsunami to her.

Just when the lightheaded feeling threatened to overtake her, something large wrapped around her body and squeezed tight. It was probably someone’s hand. God, she hoped it was someone’s hand. It would be just her luck if a big sea creature came by to drag her down into the depths of the ocean.

Thankfully, she was right, because not seconds later her face found light and air. Adelaide didn’t even have time to struggle against the hand before it opened. Her body sprawled out across the palm as she coughed up all the remaining water in her lungs. It just kept going, more water kept coming out, and she still couldn’t find air. She thought surely she’d be able to breathe once she left the water, but only after a solid ten seconds of coughing was she able to take a meager breath.

After Ian was sure Adelaide was breathing, he swam toward the boat. He tried to keep her as stable as possible, but it wasn’t easy.

On her part, Adelaide felt like she was going to throw up from all the movement. She felt the waves overtake her body a couple times as Ian swam along, and each time she thought she might drown. After what felt like forever but was probably less than a minute, Ian dragged himself up a ladder and out of the water.

Adelaide thought the ocean was cold. The air was infinitely worse. Her jacket was no match for the cool night air of San Francisco when she was dry, and now she was soaked to the bone. She curled up into a ball to try to preserve heat, but it felt useless. Her body was incapable of doing anything but shivering.

Ian tried to talk to Adelaide this whole time, but she couldn’t hear him over the sound of her own teeth chattering, so he gave up for the time being. As long as she was breathing she’d be fine for a couple more minutes. He cupped her to his chest and followed Sarah up some stairs. Reaching the control panel, he wasted no time in smashing the button to close the cargo hold. Now all he could do was watch anxiously as Sarah readied the tranquilizer.

A helicopter flew by full of men with guns. There could only be one reason they were there - to kill the T-Rex.

Adelaide heard the commotion above and tried to peek out to see what was going on. Uncurling her body let the cold air back in though, and she started shivering more. Ian cupped her closer to his chest, absently shushing her but keeping his eyes trained on the Rex. There was nothing so important going on that she needed to see.

Adelaide didn’t fight it. Something in the back of her mind told her she was supposed to be miffed, but a larger part of her mind said, cold.

Being in such a small space next to a massive being that absolutely radiated heat helped a lot, but Ian was also soaking wet. His T-shirt felt cold and water dripped down his body and onto hers. What she wouldn’t give for a towel right now.

A final clang and the absence of dinosaur noises signaled to Adelaide that it was over. “We won, right?” she called up to Ian. They had to have won.

Ian distractedly looked down at her, then laughed at her over-simplification of the situation. “Oh yeah, we won,” he said. He looked back at Sarah, then back to the enclosure. She successfully tranquilized the dinosaur just before the big cargo hold doors slammed shut. The T-Rex was going home, and so were they.

The ride back to Sarah’s place was quiet. Adelaide remained in place, still trying (unsuccessfully) to warm up her small body. Sarah and Ian were just too shell-shocked to say anything. What was there to say, anyway?

They promptly bypassed and ignored any security personnel who tried to stop them or ask questions. That could be an issue for later, but they were tired, cold, and wet. They wanted to go home.

The door slammed closed as they reentered. “We’re back!” Ian called out, and Kelly only gave them a brief glance and a wave. Then, seeing what they looked like, she did a double take.

“What happened?!” she asked, attention fully on the adults now.

“Oh, you know. Fought some bad guys. Saved some dinosaurs,” Ian shrugged, searching for a hook to hang the car keys on. Sarah snatched them from his hand and tossed them on the table.

“Great! So they’re headed back to the island?”

“You got it.”

For the first time in a while, Adelaide’s surroundings changed. Light filtered in and she whined when she was pulled away from the radiator that was Ian’s body.

She was placed on something mildly soft, which wasn’t half-bad. Then that soft thing wrapped around her body just a little too tight, pinning her arms and legs in place, and she was lifted into the air again.

Adelaide’s eyes whipped open and she violently wriggled in place, trying to free herself of the towel. Above her was Ian’s face.

“You gotta warm up, Della,” Ian said, holding the bundle against his chest and anticipating her protest .

Adelaide tried to stay calm as she spoke, but it felt like her confines were getting tighter by the second. Despite her efforts, her voice shook. “Ian, let me go. I’m seriously…I’m seriously going to freak out.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, setting her back down on the table and unwrapping her so that the towel only draped loosely over her body. “But don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

With that, Ian disappeared. Adelaide took a shaky breath and considered her options while she laid there. She wasn’t frozen anymore, but it still wasn’t warm, especially with the way her clothes still clung to her body. Impatient, she sat up, looking for a better way to dry off. After a bit of searching, her eyes fell on a heating vent down by the floor across the room. If the disturbance of the various objects around it was any indication, it looked to be on.

That settled it. Adelaide stood up, letting the towel fall to her feet. She pulled her hook out of her bag, which now reeked of old, wet clothes. That would have to be a later problem. She turned to latch her hook onto the edge of the table, but when she did so, she was faced with the torso of a human.

Adelaide jumped, but it was just Kelly. How did she not hear the girl coming? Looking around nervously, Adelaide noted that they were alone. Obviously she trusted Kelly, but without another adult nearby…

“I thought my dad said not to move,” Kelly said. There was fascination in her eyes. Now that they weren’t concerned with dinosaurs or running for their lives, Kelly marveled over how cool it was that there was a tiny person living with her dad.

“Well, your dad’s not the boss of me,” Adelaide said, hoping the girl wasn’t going to stop her, but Kelly only smirked in response. Something about the rebellion of it all or whatever.

It didn’t look like she was going anywhere though, so Adelaide was going to have to climb down with a giant studying her every move. It wasn’t like she’d never done that before, but she didn’t know Kelly super well, and it was hard to miss the way the girl emanated, ‘I want to hold you’.

Adelaide gulped, then swung herself over the edge. She gasped in pain when she tried to grab the thread with her left hand. With that hand out of commission, it was much harder to do anything, especially climb. She squeezed her legs tight to the thread and slowly let herself slide down, using her functional hand to steady herself. She should have asked for help, but it certainly wasn’t going to be Kelly, and she vaguely recalled instructions from Ian to stay put.

To Adelaide’s delight, Kelly stayed rooted in place, though it was a little too close, and she could physically feel the eyes tracking her every move. When she made it to the ground, she flicked her hook off the table and eyed the pink socked feet standing less than a foot away. Adelaide steeled herself, then ran toward the heating vent. It took far too long due to her stubborn insistence on sticking close to the walls and refusing to cross the center of the room. The center was where giants walked. The center was a no-go zone.

When Adelaide made it a decent distance, she felt a tremor shake the ground. Startled, she glanced up. Kelly was following her. A comment about 'backing off' was on the tip of her tongue, but that probably wasn't nice. She didn’t know what else to say though, so she didn’t say anything - just took a deep breath and kept moving, trying to ignore the earthquakes in the ground and the massive presence casting a shadow on her.

Adelaide made it to the vent without incident. Thankfully, she was right. It was blowing heat. She collapsed in front of it, thrilled to have some kind of warmth. The towel was fine enough, but the large fibers were scratchy and the moving, heated air would dry her off faster. And it felt so good .

Another longer tremor shook her into active perception and she rolled over to see Kelly laying on her stomach. The girl crossed her arms and rested her head on them, studying Adelaide.

“Can I help you?” Adelaide asked through gritted teeth.

“Nah,” Kelly shrugged.

“Okay…um…what are you doing?”

“Looking.”

“Right,” Adelaide said uncomfortably and a bit awkwardly. She turned back toward the vent, then noticed something along the wall.

Tucked in the corner was a small hole expertly concealed by dark molding. Even Adelaide hardly noticed it, and she liked to think she was quite perceptive. Pushing herself to her feet, she inched toward the hole. It could just be a mouse hole. Or a bug hole. Or just worn due to age. Or…

Even stronger shaking in the ground alerted Adelaide, but when she turned around, it wasn’t Kelly. Kelly was looking back over her shoulder at Ian and Sarah who had just returned.

Ian looked at the empty towel, then at his feet. He didn’t need to panic just yet. He knew when he asked Adelaide to stay there that there was a fifty percent chance she’d listen.

Kelly shot to her feet, not wanting to give Adelaide’s position away. She liked to think they were conspiring. Against what, exactly? Maybe her dad? It didn’t matter, but she wanted to protect her new friend.

Adelaide scrambled back when Kelly was suddenly on her feet and infinitely taller. She blocked the borrower’s view of Ian, but she couldn’t imagine he was very happy.

“Where’s Adelaide?”

Kelly made a noise that kind of sounded like ‘idunno’.

Ian thought his daughter was responsible (for the most part) and very smart. He hated to consider that she might have picked Adelaide up and stuffed her away. “Kelly…”

“I’m down here,” Adelaide sighed. A long lost feeling crept over her - one that she quite enjoyed. She realized that she kind of missed sneaking around, that she missed being this mysterious, unpredictable being who didn’t have to let the giant know when she went anywhere. She really didn’t want to give away what she was doing and she desperately wanted to explore Sarah’s walls.

Ian took Kelly by the shoulders and lightly moved her out of the way. He approached Adelaide and knelt down when he got close. “Why?”

“The vent,” Adelaide explained. “Heat.” She saw he was completely dry again and felt a hint of jealousy.

Ian noticed the hole in the wall behind Adelaide. He reached past her to poke his finger into it. “What’s this?” he asked.

Adelaide stepped back out of respect for the sheer size of his hand as it soared over and next to her body. The feeling of being cornered might have played a part in it as well. “That’s what I’m about to find out…And get your finger out of there.” She didn’t want to hint that there might be other borrowers. That wouldn’t be fair to them if they did exist. It was kind of hard to hide, though.

Ian was going to protest. He really wanted to. But he was trying to keep Adelaide’s request to trust her in mind. It was getting increasingly difficult. “Why don’t we - why don’t we rest for a while…first. You’re still soaked.”

“Vent. Heat,” Adelaide repeated matter-of-factly.

“You’ll have…oodles and uh, oodles of time to explore later. I promise.”

Adelaide could see him fighting with himself in his head. Maybe she would go later while the Beans slept. She didn’t think Ian would poke around, but given his recent protective streak, she wouldn’t put it past him to hover while she ventured through the walls. She also appreciated the effort he put in to not just tell her to stop. Reluctantly, but with a small smile on her face anyway, Adelaide gave in. “Fine.”

Without warning, Ian scooped her up and cupped her to his chest. Adelaide fell back into his palm, trying to stay off her injured hand. “Ian Malcolm!” she complained.

Ian plopped down on the couch with a towel, all of the exhaustion finally oozing out of his body. Adelaide rolled around, trying to get herself upright, then used his arm as a bridge to the arm of the couch. Sarah and Kelly shortly joined them and not long after, Ian and Sarah were fast asleep.

Neither Adelaide nor Kelly found themselves that tired. Kelly busied herself with watching the TV, but seeing it was about Jurassic Park and the incident in San Diego, Adelaide decided to tune it out while she dried herself off. And after a while, even Kelly had to succumb to the exhaustion in her bones. Her head gave one final bob as she nodded off.

Bored, Adelaide wandered over to the side table. She eyed the massive phone sitting on a receiver, and an idea came to her. Ian vaguely showed her how to use a phone after they came back from Isla Nublar, and she thought she remembered most of it. If not, she could probably figure it out. How hard could it be?

Adelaide kicked at the phone, but it didn’t budge. Then she leaned her back up against it, using her legs to push backward.

The phone gave way and clattered loudly to the table below. Adelaide fell with it, and pain spiked up her hand. Beyond that, she was fine. She rose to her feet and dusted herself off, glancing at the Beans to see if she’d woken them up. They slept on.

The phone emitted a prolonged noise, and Adelaide absently hoped she didn’t break it.

She dug a piece of paper out from the bottom of her bag. It was soggy and soft and dirty and she could barely read the writing, but it was there.

Slowly, Adelaide clambered up onto the phone itself. It wobbled under her feet and she had to stick her arms out to maintain her balance. Looking from the paper to the phone, she stomped on the corresponding numbers. Then it rang.

Maybe she shouldn’t have done this. Maybe she was being rash. What would she even say? She didn’t know how to hang up though, so at this point, it was happening.

After two and a half rings, the voice of Dr. Ellie Sattler spoke through the phone. “Hello?”

Prev ● Masterpost ● Last

#jurassic park #ian malcolm #g/t #giant/tiny #jurassic park g/t #gt #size difference

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deanu · 9 months ago

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Noumena Playlist Deepdive

(work in progress)

(link to playlist)

Hey Jude (acoustic)

Just wanted female vocalist to emulate Cora singing

Anna Molly - Incubus

I wanted to try and capture early 2000s songs as much as possible and this song really fits the entire vibe of the first book

The Truth is Out There - arms aloft

More doom and gloom book 1 vibes

Monsters - all time low

POV Cora meeting Ampersand for the first time...in her house at night

Lavender - Two door cinema club

Cora getting kidnapped by Ampersand and how she initially approaches interacting with extraterrestrials

Marionette - Flyleaf

Supposed to be around the time Ampersand drugs Cora up to try and overtake the googleplex building, but a recurrent theme in the beginnings of their relationship

Beekeeper - Dessa

A combination of Cora/humans impressing Ampersand/amygdalines and the humans showing them just how much they've developed since last being researched by the superorganism

Magnetic - Flyleaf

the formation and characteristics of Cora and Ampersand's unique bond

Better Call Saul - Junior Brown

play on words for Sol Kaplan

Party In the CIA (Parody ... "Weird Al" Yankovic

More of an introduction as to who Agent Kaplan really is...

Refuge - Northlane, In Hearts Wake

We find out the real reason as to why the original amygdalines were here

Bunker Buddies - Zamir

When Cora and Ampersand hide out in the old military bunker and the chaos that follows

Dancing After Death - Matt Maeson

Cora's bond with Ampersand is toxic at this point. There's a bunch of omission and lack of trust, but they ultimately depend on each other

Hey, It's OK! - Twin

Cora and Ampersand come to more of an understanding and the outlook is more hopeful here.

Hey Jude (Guitar Solo Edy Hafler)

Signifies the end of book 1's plot points. Chose a no lyrics version as a more "ending credits" type vibe

Lost in Translation - Johnnyswim

Cora and Ampersand still struggle to communicate and understand each other, but more efforts are being made here.

Draining - Silversun Pickups

Cora's experience working for the government, PTSD, relationship with an alien that half the country is trying to fight is nothing if not Draining....

Out Of Control - Hoobastank

Double meaning here with Cora's experience as a government operative AND her PTSD-fueled bond with Ampersand. The girl is spiraling a bit.

Make Me Wanna Die - The Pretty Reckless

More cora depression here

Let's Dance - M. Ward

We meet Kaveh! Here's what he's listening to...hm

Tales of Coming News - Bonus Track - The Avett Brothers

The Avett Brothers is mentioned as another Kaveh pick and I simply thought this song was the most topical to the book's environment and what Kaveh may relate to personally.

Asshole - Denis Leary

This is the personalized ringtone for Sol Kaplan on Cora's phone. Enjoy.

Evil Woman Electric Light Orchestra

This is the personalized ringtone for Cora's mom on her phone.

I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman - Britney Spears

Cora not so subtly flirting with Kaveh and this song comes on. Chat is he cooked?

Promiscuous - Nelly Furtado, Timbaland

Remember when clubs played good music? Lindsay Ellis does.

Low (feat. T-Pain) - Flo Rida, T-Pain

More mentioned club music

Just Dance - Lady Gaga, Colby O'Donis

even more club music!

EMP - Ciscaux

oh shit the club went dark (plot point, also good club music. VERY fitting)

Supremacy - Muse

political climate is worsening...oh look a topical Muse Song

Alien vs. Predator Main Theme - Harald Kloser

this signifies the end of book 2/start of book 3

St Jude - Florence + The Machine

He's the patron saint of the lost cause

Sloop John B - The Beach Boys

If it's referenced, I'm putting it on the playlist...welcome! Physiderines...

Bullet With Butterfly Wings - The Smashing Pumpkins

Hello, Paris.

Sirens (feat. Dirty Heads) - Sublime With Rome

What the Physiderines call humans. I also lowkey envision Paris enjoying this song.

Predator Space Ship - Harald Kloser

No lyrics for this one but this is supposed to encapsulate the vibes of the physiderine ship (in my head at least)

Alien Fight - Harald Kloser

Oh. Ampersand and Nikola HATE the physiderines.

Butterfly - UMI

A more Paris-oriented song. Perhaps this is more Cora-to-Paris. Cora has become to Paris what Ampersand was to her when they first met. Withholding crucial information, at least.

The Interview - Saga

Paris meets Nikola...again and/or whenever Paris talks to the juvenile physiderines. Double meaning here.

Biological Warfare - Metalocalypse: Dethklok

I feel like this one is pretty self explanatory if you've read the book.

Helicopter - Bloc Party

He got in the chopper....AND THEN CRASHED IT - Kaplan song

Prayer Of The Refugee - Rise Against

Physiderines and Amygdalines have a lot in common that they don't want to acknowledge...

FRAUD - Jessie Reyez

Nils. Ortega.

Fraud - Hooked Like Helen

Ok both songs were too good for Nils. I really couldn't chose between the two.

Butterflies & Hurricanes - Muse

Paris thinks she's dying (she's right?) And what she might be thinking about Cora and what she could do to save the world.

Help! - The Beatles

We could all use a little help sometimes. Beatles for Lindsay.

This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race - Fall Out Boy

In regards to the president, his general, and the political climate...

Now - Paramore

Kaplan didn't die? AND we get a redemption arc?

#Axiom's end #The noumena series #lindsay ellis

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momentomori24 · 2 years ago

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Ok, ZERO ESCAPE 999. This game was a weird one for me. Definitely great, do not get me wrong--- I LOVE this game to pieces and after finishing this post I will finally start VLR during the weekend (hopefully), and mull over the characterization because what the hell, everyone is absolutely hilarious (Junpei, Snake, Seven and Santa specifically I'm looking at you)--- but it certainly left me with a bunch of questions to which I have no answers. Which makes sense considering the next game will most probably pick up where 999 left off so I won't touch on that too much, but everything really felt like a crazy, confusing, convoluted fever dream. In a good way. But still, very cryptic.

Speaking about fever dreams, June's situation is the most unique circumstance for a character I think I've ever seen. If I have everything correct (and correct me if I'm wrong), she originally died in the present timeline in the incinerator room long ago and somehow the Akane we meet in the Nonary Game exists simultaneously dead and alive at the same time in the aftermath of that event--- so basically Schrödinger's cat. The Nonary Game was set up to make Junpei save the Akane through telekinesis to create either a separate timeline or more likely influence the present one so that she can exist normally. That's why she's doomed to disappear in every ending; Junpei doesn't get to recreate that exact scenario in the incinerator room, so past Akane never reaches him and dies the way she was supposed to, meaning June ceases to exist as a consequence. And the burning fevers she would randomly get are her body reliving the memories being burned in the incinerator room 9 years ago. Did I get that all right? If so, then wow, that's not a twist I saw coming at all. Props to the creator of the game, but also how dare you doom my girl like this.

My biggest question how tho. I know that's not the best question to ask in a game where we are literally on the replica of the titanic, the exact same place where half of the cast along with other kids where brought to almost a decade ago because they were targeted by a supposed medical company and leader of said company is also part of our gang, forced into solving locked rooms while death hangs over their heads until 9 hours are over but our protagonist can turn back time without even knowing it every time things go bad, but still. If it's revealed later on then please don't tell me. If not, go ahead.

This is my second attempt to type this because my first drafts somehow didn't save and I'm too lazy to re-do everything so I'll bullet point:

•What happened to Santa in the true ending? Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think he was present during our car ride. Ace was there, though, despite being taken hostage by him and led away.

•So June is alive, right? Since we rewrote the timeline and helped Akane survive, what happened to her? She vanished on us during our confrontation with Santa, so where did she end up when everything was over?

•Who the hell killed everyone in the other endings? We know Clover goes crazy in one and Ace kills her in another, but what about the rest? We know it's not one of us because every single person we have gets slaughtered in the Sub endings with Junpei last. I did make post about it and I'll stick to what I said, but I guess I'll wait and see if the next game will answer.

•Who is Zero. That's it. I was thinking it was not Santa, to gradually being persuaded into thinking it could be him due to the evidence pointing into direction only for it to have really not him. He is actually more involved than most, but he's not the guy we're looking for (good). Give me answers, game.

Well, rant over for now. I'll probably slightly touch on VLR because I have an assessment to revise for, but I'm excited! I've heard a little about the gameplay and I'm really curious to see how it will pay out.

#momento rambles #zero escape #no proof read I die like my sleeping schedule

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silent-sentinels · 1 year ago

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Plural Asking 100 Questions: Part 1!

we'll be answering all of these, 10 at a time! >:3 (so we don't overwhelm ourselves lmao hkjg :'])

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

1. What is your System name and / or the name you collectively go by? WE ARE THE SWORD IN THE SCABBARD SYSTEM!!!!! shorted to just The Scabbard System, and we also just go by Voli collectively! WE LOVE KNIGHTS AND SWORDS YEAAAA!!!

2. Which word do you prefer to use for your System? (example: System, Collective, Constellation, ...) we're not attached to any of them really, but we've been using System for alliteration's sake. :] we do like constellation because stars were/are a pretty prominent aesthetic for us, but we feel like it's not an accurate portrayal of us.

3. What are your Systems origins, if you choose to label them? we are mainly endogenic though some of us are traumagenic! we say endo for simplicity's sake :]

4. Do you have any Subsystems? & 5. Do you have any Sidesystems? we do not! (or at least we don't think so!) it's just the 24 of us plus our lovely Core :D

6. What is your opinion on you& / your& language and similar types? we personally don't use it! idk, we feel like "you" can already be a plural word? we also use "yall" but it seems excessive to use too often? when referring to us, we think "you" is fine, with "yall" thrown in occasionally when it feels appropriate. but we try to use it for others who want that option!! we do like "we/us/ours" though, but that's for us to use lmao hjkgh

7. What methods do you use to keep track of your System and it's Members? the most we have is our discord channel where we wrote down our names, then also our pinned post on here i suppose hkigjh We also use Lighthouse, but this is rare. like we bust it open for official business and headspace thoughts lmao hkjgn but we've been filling out the little informational sheets sometimes. :]

8. What is your Systems ways of communication? we have great internal communication! we're blurian/monoconscious so we just chatter together all the time in a fluid flow of conversational thoughts. if it's getting too loud in our head or we want to get thoughts out, we have this tumblr! we write a bunch of text posts together using bullet points for different people talking :0

we use Lighthouse for this too, but again, usually for official business or big serious plural thoughts. we used to have a google doc too, but we havent used it in a while since that was when we were first coming to terms with plurality. lots of arguing and turmoil in there hkjg it was titled "FUCK AROUND AND FIND OUT" since we were trying to figure it out lmaoooo :P

9. Is communication hard or easy for you (and why is it the way it is)? very easy! you cannot get us to stop chattering (chami can tho lmao) we're very fluid in our internal dialogue. we understand each other even when interrupting each other. again, just blurian/monoconscious things! we understand each other very well.

10. Do you view yourselves as parts of one person or as multiple people in one body? we're closer to parts! facet guys, orbital median system, yayyy!! :] we're not even sure if we make up one person we might be like. parts making up 85% of a person hgkjghg WE'RE TRYING OUR BEST OUT HERE GANG!!!

#we need a tag for this... no songbird we cant keep using hozier lyrics... hgjh but we like hozier lyrics hkjhg #centennial riposte #sure that'll work thanks elle

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super-hero-confessions · 2 years ago

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I don't understand why The Boys supe strength gets disparaged so much when they were originally supposed to be part of the DC universe.

There's a bonus that shows Kimiko ripping Wonder Woman's face off, Wolverine getting tied up and about to be lit on fire by MM, Hulk getting his nutsack cut off by Frenchie. And hell, even Terror gets some action when Butcher tells him to "fuck it!" about Krypto.

I get that it was a bonus with parody elements but the way people act like the characters are just going to be pushovers faced with other universe heroes is damn weird and completely misses the mark.

Even the ending which went a symbolic route and had Butcher use a crow bar to wedge open Black Noir's skull so he could personally crush his brain and kill him doesn't imply these guys are weak. After the fight, Noir was still pretty fucking bullet proof but with some compromised integrity on certain points in his bones and body. That's why the crow bar worked at all.

If Superman were beaten down to thin layers of blood, guts and bones barely still held together after a long and terrible fight with say Zod or Bizzarro. With no yellow sunlight to heal him post? His skull could probably be wedged open with a crow bar too.

The only difference is power origin, recklessness, cheap shots, and people actually dying instead of being saved. But if the Justice League or Avengers or X-Men were a bunch of hopped up junkies and attention whore celebrities?

Results would be exactly the same. Compound V is no joke.

#confession #the boys

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mandalhoerian · 2 years ago

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ayup it’s the person that sent those vera things like a week ago ?? yk the one that made a fool of themself by rambling about ur oc ! anyways i reread it bc ofc i did and. idk. it’s such an amazing fic like genuinely and i felt a need to express it. like outside of how well-thought vera is and how interesting her dynamics with marvin + leon are (and claire ofc) and just. the pacing and story progression. it’s all so well done. and i’m sure someone has told u this in ur ao3 comments but the way ur reinterpreting canon a lil and having vera shake things up is so fun and genuinely interesting which is why i went back and reread it all. it feels like there’s a lot i kinda missed the first time round with the nuances of vera’s character which was. very fun to go back around and see again. hope ur doing well <3

HI OMG WELCOME BACK IM SO HAPPY TO SEE YOU

(you aren't a fool it's my inspiration and motivation juice YOU TAKE THAT BACK🔪)

first of all you are A CHAD. The fic is 100K words oh god I can't imagine -- im happy it was more enjoyable the second time around at least 😭😭😭😭 It's amazing to hear that despite the fat word count, you think the pacing and progression is going well!

Unrelated tidbit but I really didn't know how to introduce Vera before starting the fic and was debating on starting from pre-RE2R in the summer of 1998, spend five chapters and so with Vera assisting Jill in her investigation and unravel things from there. But at the end I was like "literally nobody would read that" and thought what best technique is there by starting right in the middle of action and chaos? And the rest I winged it.

That had to mean I had to go through EVERYTHING about her life and how she got to that point by peppering the events throughout the plot as Leon and her story also progressed alongside it, and I couldn't gloss over anything, so it just expanded and expanded and expanded and I'm sure got boring as hell at places since she hides a bunch of shit from the others and good god do they have to be integrated to the plot of re2r AND UGHHHHHHHH. Thank you for telling me I havent messed up LMAOOOOOOO

About the canon. I have a bone to pick with some of the game and the story, I don't like how they went about a couple of things. This is me trying to lay the groundwork to fix them and everything by tweaking .

For example Leon pulling the "i have to talk to the chief first" bs and saying "Idk what happened it happened to fast" to ada like he was trying to make excuses like a child to his parent really irked me, especially in the original re2 he bent over backwards to get ben out of the cell so he could come along with them. (dont talk to me about how a law-abiding rookie he's supposed to be. that could have been done better. leon simply isn't a person to leave someone like that, and he was hearing about chef irons the writing on that could have been better) And the way Claire and Leon barely interacted when they are the core of re2 together was just not it. The lack of Sherry and Leon together was also weird when Sherry is a big part of why he was taken by the government and stayed, and how Sherry blatantly says he saved her in RE6. (I know they just completely wiped the slate clean off Sherry and Leon with RE4R backstory by just saying Leon just didnt have a choice but like. yeah) and also Ada. God Ada "(to the woman she wants to discreetly capture. since she's A SPY) We're here for the g-virus and i will now proceed to jump in front of the bullets" & "Where's Leon when I need him (has treated him as a nuisance the whole way)" Wong. Im sure there are a lot more things but i cant think of them rn but I am annoyed with Things

SORRY I JUST WENT OFF ON A TANGENT. But like. Having Vera involved and having her existence be a reason on changing things around is so much fun. I could just expand on child experimentation and the truth of the orphanage through her, it was always something wildly bothering me that they kept that plot so subtle in Claire's story. Birkins (or maybe just William. we'll never know) were using children in G-virus experiments WHY DIDNT THEY TALK ABOUT THAT MORE DUDE? That's why canon divergence makes things so much more interesting because it's not just transcribing the game and inserting an OC along the way, it's changing things and making new things up, keeping things fresh

GOD I TALKED SO MUCH SORRY THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE ASK!!!!!!

#an ask for shai #era: no time to die #shai just keep it to a minimum challenge

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walleytopia · 29 days ago

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an introduction

admittedly, i don't expect anyone to read this blog. ever. and that's totally okay with me. i just need an outlet. but, for this to be a blog that serves the function i want it to be, i need ground rules and a little bit to be shared about me in order to see if anything actually works.

so, without further ado and from the stage of my 4 day long bed rot (i'm sick, so for once i have an excuse):

i'm wallace. walley for short.

i'm really particular about the spelling on that last part. i think it's the best spelling of it. i tried going by this name irl, but i got scared and anxious about it. i heard it used once out loud and chickened out, but it's haunted my mind for months. i don't think it's ever left my head in the year since i told my friends to cut it out. i hope one day i can use it properly. anyways. i'm 21 years old and i use they/them pronouns. might try and sneak in a he again, but who knows? that's not for today, and that's okay. aquarius sun, gemini moon and pisces rising for those who are interested.

i'm a rising senior in college who gets a scare nearly every day that i won't graduate on time, and i take it to heart each time. i'm a double major with a minor i can no longer stand, but it's been long since completed, so i'm not dropping it. i instead study writing and art history. it's fun, i like it and i suppose i can see myself having a whole lifetime of this. it's just not what i expected.

and, i guess fun things are in order. i have been getting into manga again, slowly but surely and definitely not at the pace i once was. the only one i'm caught up with is the green yuri, but i hope to refind my place in yona of the dawn and love bullet. i also really enjoy percy jackson and the webtoon hooky. my favorite musician is beabadoobee (hence my blog title, walleytopia). i crochet sometimes, play video games and collect cds. i like fashion and makeup, but i don't think my heart is truly there. i don't know what else i like. and, i suppose that's where my issue lies.

i don't really know myself.

classic. i know. person lists out a bunch of things only to scratch it all off and say "really?" but yes, really. i didn't have a high school experience, i didn't talk. i just sat on private instagram and twitter accounts and infiltrated my favorite fandoms. knew everything but wasn't in the community.

college has killed the artist in me. after all, my first major is now a minor i don't forsee myself using. going to college as an art major tends to kill off anyone who isn't in the fine arts categories, huh? it got me. i haven't drawn in over a year at this point. i think i miss it. and then, college has been a whole other deal. i think i became popular, or at least a face people recognize, to try and make up for lost time, when (once again) my heart isn't truly there. i like talking and i like my friends, but being involved on the level i am is truly exhausted and it just isn't true to me. i'm in the community, but i don't know anything.

so, i want to find myself again.

i want to say i started to get close late freshman, early sophomore year but i became icarus and bit off more than i could chew. so, i want to find a balance. i want my heart in the things i like and enjoy, i want to know what i like and enjoy. i want to draw again, maybe try my hand at art fight again. i want to write fanfiction for the first time.

i've always wanted to be a writer, i wrote original stories on wattpad for years as a tween, so why have i never cracked open ao3 and written like a true fangirl?

beyond me. but, fangirl brings up another point. i have never really gotten a grasp on my identity. gender or sexuality wise. i don't expect to find answers here, i've had eight years minimum of trying. i just want an outlet to journal i suppose.

and that's what i'm going to use this blog as. a journal. i'm going to decorate it to the point of no return, to where i couldn't factory reset it if i tried. like how a few years ago, i decided i was going to use my stickers if i liked it or not. (i've made strides on that one, but there's a select few i still cannot bring myself to use.)

i want this to be a little diary to try and help my memory and help me make myself a person again. i want a place where i can hold myself accountable, to make sure i'm actually trying to better myself. not just on a fun and hobby level with finding old animes i love and all that, but also on a human level. i'm going to post a habit tracker once i'm not sick to see if the internet will scare my depression away and let me be semi-functional. but, the fun stuff is what makes us human too, so i can't go neglecting it as i neglect my health.

i also have a summer bingo card, of which i'm not sharing due to it containing my irl friends' names and all that jazz, but i have a couple of things on there to regain my spark. i'll take you along as i go.

stop one is rereading the percy jackson series.

all of it. i've broken it into sections: percy jackson and the olympians, heroes of olympus, trials of apollo and the three (four?) new books featuring nico di'angelo and the new main series books (chalice and hekate). i'm already at 2/18, soon to be 19. i'm proud of myself.

i've said for the past three summers in a row that i'd reread the series to varying degrees of success. the farthest i've gotten is mark of athena (heroes of olympus, book 3 for those in the dark), and i suppose that progress is meant to be celebrated. but also, i've never cracked open my trials of apollo books and that must be fixed.

but for now, today i started the audiobook of the titan's curse (percy jackson and the olympians, book 3) and i will say, cheers to progress.

for now, good night. my ill body calls for the embrace of my bed, but tomorrow. tomorrow is a new day for more progress. that is, if i don't feel any worse.

if you read this far, thank you. i hope you have a lovely day.

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