#{ I saw like 3 eps and liked it but then they took it off netflix and put it on the bbc streaming service }

[xflashbastardx]

{ I should finally watch doctor who....... }

[mama-qwerty]

Thinking about Dread again.

Was going through my saved images and came across these, from the third season.

My deranged beloved has become a sad little meow meow.

So pensive. So frustrated. So defeated.

(My favorite image of him in this scene. I love that pose, it's so natural and conveys so much about his mental and emotional state.)

I still think the way they handled his 'redemption' completely missed the mark, and could have been done much better had they planted a few seeds to begin with. But the pacing of the whole series felt so odd, and I wonder if they had something different planned before Netflix (possibly) cut their time shorter.

(For the record, I think that's part of the problem with the Knuckles series. It felt like there should have been more in that, but Paramount told them they only had 6 eps to do what they wanted in 12.)

But Dread? My beloved little gremlin of a pirate? Oh, he had so much potential. He could have been this wild card, this character who continued to be him despite everything, who was so anti-Knuckles it was entertaining and fun and just a joy to watch him have so much fun being a bastard.

I get that they couldn't keep a Knuckles as an absolute asshole, but watching this delightful character go from this

To this

without seeing anything in between was jarring. The last we saw of Dread before season 3 started was him fighting with Ren as Sonic and Nine took the shards away. He was enraged to have lost his Beauty. Again. We have no idea what happened after that, but this descent into depression seemed sudden and out of character.

But considering how he behaved after his first loss of the shard (when he lost his first ship and crew), maybe this isn't that much of a stretch. He ran before, jumping nose first into denial, and tried to cover his feelings of defeat by being a party pirate. Now his Beauty is lost once again, and he's in a strange city, on another planet (in another universe!) and has made himself at odds with the people there. (With his other him.) He couldn't even contact his crew because he'd turned on them before leaving.

So here's Dread, completely out of his element, the one thing he'd lusted after his entire life gone. It would figure that he'd maybe have a bit of Ren's depressive state, and fall into a "What's the point? What I want always seems to be just out of reach. I'll never have my one true desire." mindset.

And maybe, since the shards were all gone, he's feeling some kind of mental shift. I've theorized that the shard's energy was what made Dread so batshit, and now that it's gone, maybe he's starting to think a little more clearly than he'd ever done before. Instead of that drive to "FIND HAVE KEEP" that gem, he's feeling like a failure for not being able to fulfill that quest. That duty. Because maybe to him, it didn't feel like the normal greed of pirate plunder, the urge to just take and steal and collect as much booty as possible. Maybe to him, because he's a Knuckles and they're hard wired to protect, it was something more personal.

That shard, according to his instincts, was his to protect. And now that it's gone, he's a failure and feels empty. He's coming down off that energy, the inexplicable hold the shard held over him, and is essentially going through a withdrawal of sorts, and dealing with the possibly conflicting emotions it dredged up.

There was so much potential for him. And the writers wasted it, by having him simply join in on the attack on Nine without examining his (very likely) ulterior motives. I don't like that they used that Jack character to draw Dread's selfish desires back out - those should have still been there! The whole agreement to join in should have been a plot to simply get him near his Beauty so he could pull a double cross.

This made it seem like Dread didn't even think about his Beauty during the whole battle. WHAT?? Being near it should have made him almost feral with the want to get to it. I would have loved to have seen him be another obstacle to the shard, so the heroes didn't only have to deal with Nine and his endless army of bots, but also this deranged pirate who was overcome with treasure lust.

Missed opportunity.

Ah well.

Just lookit this handsome bastard.

My beloved. Dread is possibly my absolutely favorite variant of Knuckles. I just love him.

[feyres-divorce-lawyer]

um anyways so my brother is watching *shudder* fate and made the grave mistake of calling it a good show within my presence (honestly did he learn nothing from shadow and bone🙄) so of course i had to follow him around the apartment for seven minutes and rant about the gross, grotesque even, disservice netflix did to winx club.

first off, the world. what the fuck happened to magix? netflix what did you do to my house?! the best appeal to winx club was fairies and magic existing in a technologically advanced world that is usually almost always found in sci-fi. magix having flying cars and hover bikes and phones that make earth tech look ancient (thx tecna), and fucking laser guns subverted bloom’s expectations! she thought she would see dragons and wands and wizards because that’s what fairy tales consist of on earth AND IT MAKES SENSE BECAUSE EARTH’S MAGIC WAS DEPLETED BY THE WIZARDS OF THE BLACK CIRCLE AND FAIRY TALES WOULD REMAIN THE SAME WHILE THE REST OF THE DIMENSIONS ADVANCED! they took away magix for some harry potter, dark aesthetic vibe FOR WHAT!? where’s the color! where’s the joy, the whimsy?! bloom had fun when the girls took her around magix because it wasn’t what she expecteeedddd! the otherworld (how creative😒) is just like every other run of the mill magical world with dark secrets, cold stone castles, and mind-numbing rigidity. alfea was blue and pink and bright, and ya killed her for some hogwarts copycat, thx a lot.

next up, the most heinous crime in my opinion, bloom and stella’s relationship. ooooh i’m bout to tweak in this bitch. i watched the show’s like first 3 eps and remember nothing but bloom and stella’s relationship is not at all the same. they’re the best friends ok. the best friends. bloom saved stella from knot, she transformed for the first time thinking she was saving stella’s ring from the trix, stella was the one who introduced her to everything. they’re each other’s defenders. stella helped bloom when she was struggling becoming domino’s princess. if bloom committed murder via arson stella’s helping her hide the body. and what did netfucks do to this beautiful friendship? made them adversaries over a guy😐 sky of all ppl, that bland blonde, “mr. i’ll pursue a relationship with a girl that knows nothing about intergalactic politics and won’t know i’m engaged” ALSO keeping on track with their “change things that subvert expecations” netflix made stella into the exact type of character winx did not. this popular princess, fairy of the sun, is a mean bitchy girl? oh who would’ve thought, no one saw that coming. netflix you owe me compensation

NEXT! um where are my magical girl transformations😐 winx club the magical girl show, with magical girl transformations and banger music (harmonix has the best song fight me). what is this hand waving magic in civillian clothes nonsense. GIVE BLOOM HER SPARKLY BLUE CROP TOP AND GOLD WINGS NEOWWWW. glad the show is cancelled now tho cuz i don’t wanna see how they would’ve butchered enchantix

NEXT! the trix. oh my favorite witches. why why whyyyy would they make all three of them into one person and then apparently (according to my brother he’s terrible at describing shows tho so idk) SHE BECOMES GOOD? NO! the trix are meant to foil the winx. how neither group gives up but one fight to save the world while the other fights to destroy it. how both groups are sisters if not in blood. icy darcy and stormy did not serve cunt in season one to get meshed into some frankensteinian mess because netflix wanted to reboot a beloved kid’s show and then took way all the things that made it beloved😐

and finally, valtor. yes valtor or baltor depending on which version you grew up with. um what they did to him. who the fuck is sebastian and why is he in a baseball cap. valtor terrorized the world in a purple coat and luscious hair that he maintains with his carefully curated 22 step routine. he would NOT wear plain bland clothes with a baseball cap. BLASPHEMY!

anyways, yea netflix i hope you’re haunted by the dragon flame

[haro-hawayu]

One Piece Live Action

I started One Piece LA thinking that I'll just take 2-3 days to watch it.

I binged the entire series in one day... XD

More semi-organized but mostly unorganized thoughts below~

Prior to watching, I had like medium/medium-high expectations for the LA because the trailers looked quite promising and was reading in various places that Oda praised it too. I still had that little part of me thinking that if it flops, then it's okay because surely it can't be worse than uhh... FMA live action (never saw Netflix Death Note which I heard was really bad so never checked it out)??

First episode exceeded my expectations!! I think by episode 4 I was still convinced I wouldn't finish the entire season and still have some to watch the next day, but before I knew it, I was on the second to last episode already LOL. Epic fail on my end for underestimating both the series and my ability to binge.

Cast: I think the cast is amazing!! Going into the series, I wasn't 100% sure about characters like Nami or Sanji, but wow, they were so great. I loved how the actors took in like the "essence" of the characters and kinda made it into their own instead of going for carbon-copy same-exact-thing as their anime counterparts. I think that would have led to more exaggerated/awkward acting which might have been not so good. Like imagine if Sanji was the same exact version as LA, I think I would've been kinda uncomfortable to watch cuz if the actor failed to pull it off, he might've turned Sanji into kinda sleezy/creepy skirt-chaser (works in anime cuz it's funny but in LA, maybe not so much). I found the amount of "comedic" interactions just perfect for the series. The chemistry between the cast was really great too, especially Luffy-Zoro-Nami, the very first members of Straw Hat crew. There were some minor-ish characters that grew on me really quick too even though initially I was kinda meh about them (i.e. Koby and Helmeppo). Oh, another example of a character that was kinda changed/adapted for the series instead of being mainly comedy relief would be Buggy. I really love how Buggy's portrayed in the LA, I would prob say he's my fave villain in S1 lol.

Story: Story-wise, I found the pacing to be just right, esp for S1 with the initial crew and each of their backstories. The amount of plot they covered felt just right imo, esp with first ep of Luffy wanting to set out while he's on his little raft, meeting Koby and sharing about how he wants to his own wanted poster etc, and then we wrap it up with the final episode of the season where Koby sees Luffy off with his Wanted Poster, and Luffy setting out with his crew on his own boat.

Music: I love the music! I loved that one motif that keeps replaying throughout the episodes. I thought it was the same theme, but I listened to the OST after and noticed a bunch of different tracks with that motif playing. It's quite catchy. I loved the moments where they included "We Are"--I legit teared up hearing it when they were setting off with Merry and the music was playing. I never thought I'd get this emotional over a live action adaptation, but here we are.

CG: The CG was also better than expected. Not over the top. I think I was most concerned about Luffy's abilities, but they were done well. I think things to worry about in the future is how they handle other Devil Fruit users' abilities.

Anyways, I would give it like a... 9-9.5/10. There were some scenes that kinda made me go ???? but those were minor things I guess. One was whenever Garp & Koby played Go and the way they held the Go stones made me kinda cringe. Another moment was the scene of young Zoro and his sensei at Kuina's funeral and they bowed to each other. Young Zoro's bow was appropriate, but the sensei's bow in return was kinda ??? when you bow, you usually don't tilt your head up look up at the other person cuz it's kinda rude, so seeing the sensei do that, it's like giving off the wrong vibe. Just itty bitty things that threw me off.

S1 finished strong, but time will tell how S2 will go. Especially for characters like Brook or Chopper... I imagine them to be CG'd in so that might affect character interactions, and if they're not CG'd in, well I hope it won't be too distracting...

[justmeandmyships]

Loving your posts about Control Z! I've just finished s3 and I'm a little disappointed. I felt they rushed everything. I get that Sofia and Javi needed to get each other off their system, but they took so much screentime. And acted even more bland. Like they both know they just don't work together but gonna insist anyway. I felt like the writers wanted to please everybody but really didn't satisfy anyone lol And don't even a kiss for Sofia and Raul? They teased them kissing and they got nothing at the end. Felt very obvious to me that the writers didn't want to give really romantic/sexy scenes between them. They want to let open to interpretation. I don't know, Sofia and Raul are much more popular than Javi and Sofi, so why waste the last season with her and Javi? Maybe the writers had more things planned but Netflix axed the show? Or they didn't want people reacting badly that Sofia choose Raul? Anyway, I've seen few people talking about this season and not having much Raul and Sofia didn't help. And the fact that Netflix forgot to promote the show...ugh.

Sorry for the long message. I got carried away 😁

Don't worry. I love to talk about my shows too!!! ...I mean my whole blog is about me ranting alone about them lol.

First of all, THANK YOU for complimenting my post. I love that you loved them.

I definitely agree with you on Sofia and Javi. Their scenes were very annoying and boring. Many people didn't like this finale season and I think their relationship had a lot to do with it. Literally, it felt like it came out of nowhere and was there in our throats since ep 1. I definitely wasn't expecting it but I guess they did it because since season 1 they were hinting at it but they thought they would have time to go for it but then Netflix was like "Ey this would be your finale season" and they tried to capsule everything they have planned for their ending in 1 season when it could have taken them two.

However, I did enjoy this season because for me was really nice to see how they took all the characters and the storyline to season 1 because season 4 was just season 1 but bigger; with characters more mature and with a different mindset.

For me, it was beautiful to see, especially Gerry's. I hated him in season 1, and for them to be able to show us how he went from a lost guy with repressed homophobia to a guy who doesn't care if they killed him but he would remain true to himself. Not gonna lie, the scene where they beat him up while he screamed at them "I´m gay" made me cry. It was beyond amazing.

Another moment that touched me was when Nata was trying to feel what Maria felt when she drown. It was painful. If you have lost someone, it would hurt even more.

I don't think people realize how hard it is to write all those things. I love to write, so I know that what they did wasn't an easy challenge. To tell the SAME story twice without making it feel like a repetition AND respect the characters and their arcs... not all writers can do it, not even trying it. So I respect them for it. I really enjoy the effort they did.

Of course, it wasn't perfect but like I said I think they were planning to have at least four seasons and everything we saw was for the last season, with the 3 being a preparation for it but Netflix didn't give them a chance.

But in general terms I'm satisfied. What played against them were the relationships that they presented this season. because I've seen people complaining not only about Sofi and Javi but also about Gerry and the new guy (I don't remember his name, sorry), but as well as I understand why the writers did Sofi and Javi, I understand their relationship. In both cases, they were never meant to last.

In Sofia and Javi's case they show us how, even though, they were kind of happy, they were more using each other as comfort and security after the accident they witnessed. Like in season 2, both of them learned that loving Raúl and Nata was dangerous and a bad idea. Raúl lied to Sofi and Nata "cheated" on Javi. And all that mess ended up with Nata almost dying and an innocent person dying. Both Sofi and Javi experimented and did things that were so out of character for them and the consequences were fatal. THEIR LOVE FOR NATA AND RAÚL WAS FATAL. so, why not to try act "normal" and be back to who they were before. Javi never disappointed Sofia before and vice versa. After a trauma like that, ofc you will want to feel safe. However, even when they wanted to play safe, we have little moments where Sofia was smelling Raúl's shirt when she was about to have sex with Javi, or her being concerned about everything he did. We also have Javi immediately saying "You shouldn't have to go for all that alone" (I don't know if he said that in English because I saw it in Spanish and it was so sweet because he said it like she was a baby who left alone )...so all those little details showed that Sofia and Javi were thinking all the time on Raúl and Nata but they were scared of let themselves to be carried away. They were never meant to last

A similar thing happened to Gerry and the new guy. They were cute, yes but the writers showed us many times that Gerry saw Luis in this new guy and if we go back to season 1, what the writers wanted was to explore and recreated Gerry and Luis's relationship. That's why the new guy betrayed Gerry at the end because Gerry too betrayed Luis. Gerry failed Luis and that's why he forgave the new guy because Gerry understands how it feels to not want it to do something but feel forced to do it anyway because all you want is to survive. It was a sad thing but so was Luis's destiny in season 1.

but the difference lies in the fact that Luis and Gerry's situation led to confusion, pain, anger, and death. This new situation between Gerry and the new guy led to forgiveness, acceptance, and the ability to move on. not only for Gerry but for Luis's mom too. That's top-tier writing right there.

I'm sorry for the long post haha. But I'm just like you. When I got carried away, I got carried away. I guess we also did a full circle too lol. Please come to talk to me whenever you want. kisses.

[kagemajaya]

So much to watch, not enough time in the week - What does Fall 2020 look like?

A list of what looks interesting in the next season and silly reasons as to why

I’m not the sort of person who likes finding out too many (in some cases even a smidgen of) details about anime I’m going to watch, so this will be a spoiler free preview of the season. Here is a list of anime I will try and you can expect to hear about on Kagemajaya.  

Click on the show names to be taken to their MAL pages for more detail.

Hype

Taisou Zamurai

A male cast gymnastics anime from MAPPA (the studio of Yuri!!! on Ice.) Enough said.

Watch the trailer here.

Chuan Shu Zijiu Zhinan

This one’s a bit of a cheat as we’ve already seen 2 episodes of it (3 for those who have VIP accounts on weTV.) However, I was indeed hype for it before it started. Based on a BL novel by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, the author of Mo Dao Zu Shi, this one promises a lot to people who enjoy transmigration, cultivation and a bit of gay. It is also a quite funny isekai parody. The only downside is that it doesn’t share the same visual quality as MDZS, and is entirely 3D. It’s a good thing I’m not much of a stickler for hot visuals.

Watch it here on its official stream. 

Tian Guan Ci Fu

Another donghua based on a BL novel, well-known among the danmei fans also by its English name of Heaven Official’s Blessing. Also written by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (boy, are they busy.) And a big plus: it’s not 3D, so really looking forward to watching handsome men cultivate together in pseudo-historic China. Beautiful setting, beautiful boys. Now one can only hope for an interesting plot too and we are set.

Watch the trailer here.

Cautiously Expectant

Yuukoku no Moriarty

I saw manga adverts for this one all around Akihabara and Ikebukuro last year when I went on a little trip to Japan. The bishie Professor Moriarty was an immediate pull, and as a Holmes fan, I feel attracted to most of its adaptations, despite almost always being let down. The one thing that makes me cautious about this one is that it is published by a shounen magazine that is not GFantasy, so I’m not sure if the bishie designs and the male cast actually mean what I want it to mean. Fingers crossed.

Watch the trailer here. 

Giving It a Shot

Inu to Neko Docchi mo Katteru to Mainichi Tanoshii

A cute looking comedy short about a dog and a cat.

Jujutsu Kaisen

A mostly male cast Shounen Jump affair. Spring 2020’s Kakushigoto also implied that it has a fujoshi fanbase - let’s see what that’s all about.

Maesetsu!

A female cast gag comedy sol created by Lucky Star’s Yoshimizu Kagami. I watched Lucky Star fairly recently and found it quite entertaining with many sweet/funny characters. I suppose we will see if Yoshimizu still has it. Fingers crossed.

Adachi to Shimamura

I try to watch all queer anime as they come, and this comes in from the shoujo ai quota. Looks like a pretty straightforward romance. Hopefully it will have heart.

Kaeru no Pickles: Kimochi no Iro

All I know about this one is that it has a chill looking poster and has a slice of life tag on MAL. I’m not entirely sure whether we’ll get this subbed, but if we do, I’ll give it a shot. 

Kami-tachi ni Hirowareta Otoko

Fell for the slice of life tag once again. This one is an isekai with a soft looking MC. Not entirely sure it’ll be up my alley, but no harm in trying it, maybe for a pleasant surprise.

Sore dake ga Neck

This one seems to have the cool setting of a convenience store. I did initially think this was going to be a sol as well, but seems like that might not be the case. Either way, cool setting.

Hypnosis Mic: Division Rap Battle - Rhyme Anima

Another anime whose source project I saw plastered all around Tokyo. I’m not a huge fan of idol shows but the rapping bit makes me a bit curious.

Noblesse

A manhwa massively popular among female fans which has also received one off adaptations before, it’s finally getting its turn for a full cour among the hype the industry seems to have for Korean webtoons these days (Kami no Tou, God of High School, etc.) I did watch one of the OVA’s years ago, and wasn’t entirely impressed but then again I can’t judge a whole work based on one arc adapted into a single episode. Male cast action stuff. We shall see and judge.

Magatsu Wahrheit: Zuerst

This was chosen entirely on my shallow criteria as usual: visuals with two dudes on them. Now we’ll see whether the German name is a cringe factor or it’s actually interesting.

Sequels

Osomatsu-san 3rd Season

Osomatsu-san has been a consistently high quality production for me since the beginning. The humor is definitely my cup of tea, though as with any episodic gag comedy, some sketches do miss. It is more often than not a hit. The seiyuu cast is a huge huge pull, as this is not them only acting out an already written character but you can actually hear them having fun as the sextuplets. It is also one of the rarer shows where I, as a person who isn’t great at focusing on visuals, appreciate the impeccable quality of animation. So hype for another season of this majorly fun series and to welcome Matsuno’s back home - coziness, here I come.

Quanzhi Gaoshou 2

I watched the first season of Quanzhi Gaoshou (or King’s Avatar) because it was made by the studio of MDZS, and it was the first time I had seen a good looking Chinese animation production. And it didn’t disappoint. Production quality was similar and more importantly, it had a very engaging plot - pro MMORPG players playing MMORPG,  their personal dramas and the actual (surprisingly fun for me) gameplay and action. Its most important quality is still its charming cast for me, a successful ensemble cast, where with the exception of the antagonists, everyone and their relationships are lovely. Mostly a male cast show, it does also have nice ladies. Looking forward to going back to them. My only personal issue (definitely not a flaw on the show’s part but my attention span) is that it has so many teams and characters that I forgot most of who was who. Fingers crossed it’ll be easy to get back into. 

Haikyuu!!: To the Top 2nd Season

Haikyuu is back again, to finish off the “To the Top” arc. The first cour of this season was probably the season that took me out of the Haikyuu hypnosis state where I assumed everything that came out with the name attached to it was great. It was still enjoyable in its second half but I do feel like the magic has worn off now. I hope I’m wrong and the tournament hype will bring it back again. Haikyuu is at its best when it’s tense in-match and funny with character interactions, so fingers crossed for that.

Ani ni Tsukeru Kusuri wa Nai! 4

The Chinese comedy short is back! As mentioned a couple of paragraphs ago, gag comedies are always hit or miss with their sketches, and this one is also mostly a hit for me, though definitely not at the level of Osomatsu-san. The pull of this show is the cute boys and their dumbassery. Looking forward to its easy fun and more Kai Xin. 

Also continuing...

Mo Dao Zu Shi Q, Great Pretender

Have been enjoying both these shows greatly so far. 2 more cours of MDZS Q to go with their cute chibi fun, and Great Pretender’s last case (9 eps) is already released on Japanese Netflix so now we wait for Laurent and the gang to reach us. Really looking forward to the emotional drama of Laurent and hopefully some proper addressal of his feelings for Edamame. Either way, it’ll look gorgeous and will be heaps of fun if the first three cases are anything to go by.

I might pick up other shows and most likely drop some of these throughout the season but here’s hoping it will be enjoyable overall despite the small number of shows I’ll start with. What are you guys planning to watch?

[levinneheart]

Hi! May I pls make a request?🥺 So I saw prompt 23 for third list ("What sinks in water, and floats in air?") And immediately thought of Bokuto( or Hinata or Hoshiumi) who cannot swim and reader teaches them, cracking that phrase as a joke (like speaking of how boi can FLY over the net but cannot swim yo save his life😂) and it is just a lot of fluff, may be just the beginning of relationships so everything is flusteres and cute. Female or gn reader 😌 Hc or scenario (i'd like Bokuto tbh🥰)

Ofc you can make a request, loves! Send as many as you’d like, now that my request is open again! 🥰✨ Thank you for being so specific! I’m doing Bokuto for now since you said you’d like him (same ngl 🤭 I mean, look at that 🎂), and if you or anybody else wanna see Hinata’s and/or Hoshiumi’s just let me know by sending an ask so I can start working on it~ ❤️💜💗💞💕 Love from Levinne

(Gf/n) = girlfriend name

Beach Date

requested on: 5th of August 2020

finished on: 8th of August 2020

➳ Pairing: Bokuto Koutarou x gn!Reader

➳ Genre: Fluff, Beach Ep/OVA we haven’t gotten yet, Established Relationship, Hcs

➳ Prompt: 23 ‘What sinks in water, and floats in air?’ from prompt 3

This would be the 2nd time you guys tried going on a beach date; the first time was rescheduled because of a certain someone that is your boyfie forgot about it and didn’t prepare at all so you came to his house instead to Netflix and chill (not in the way you think, ya pervs 👀)

Later, Akaashi apologized before explaining that your lovely partner did not in fact forgot your beach date but was instead nervous — he was so anxious that he started doubting himself and switched on his emo mode

Your heart went OOP— but you didn’t inform him that his best friend told you that so he’ll remain blissfully optimistic~

This time around you made sure he wouldn’t forget since you invited Akaashi and his gf, (gf/n) so if ever he forgot again Akaashi would give him an earful and drag him to the destination along with (gf/n) who’ll definitely film the whole situation

When you all got there, Bokuto immediately ran off to the water, excitedly yelling “HEY HEY HEY!!!” with (gf/n) following him from behind while taking pictures of the scenery, using her polaroid camera

While you and Akaashi set up a spot of you guys choosing before laying down the blankets, putting up at beach unbrellas and sand chairs before joining your owl like boyfie

He was splashing water on the shoreline and not going deeper than that so you asked him why “I don’t know how to swim, y/n!” He answered, sounding almost proud

You replied without missing a beat, “What sinks in water, and floats in air?” “I don’t know! Tell me, tell me, babe!” “You.” You joked, laughing at the wide-eyed expression Bokuto gave you before he joined in, wheezing loudly when he got the joke

So you taught him the basics of swimming like floating and freestyle in the most easiest to follow instructions — it’s a good thing that his buttlocks helped him from keeping afloat cuz you were red from touching his muscles to help him out

He was surprisedly a fast learner so after a few minutes of practice, he can already somewhat swim — it’s not good enough to swim in shallower parts of the ocean but at least he can swim and that’s good enough for him till he can practice more

You walked back to the spot where Akaashi was reading a book under the beach umbrella while sitting comfortably on the sand chair and plopped down next to (gf/n) as she looked through the pictures she took

“Is blue your favorite color, (gf/n)-chan?” You asked as she glanced up at you before gingerly tracing the camera that she had on her hands before chuckling softly. “Perhaps. It does remind me of Kei’s eyes though.”

Overall, you all had a great time but you tell Bokuto that you guys should go to different place besides the beach and he agrees 🥰✨

[sarkywoman]

I was tagged by @unrememberedskies! Answer 10, ask 10, tag 10 people. Except I’m just gonna answer 10. 

1. What was your first fandom? Are you still a part of it?

Depends. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the first time I engaged with other fans consuming fan content and making my own. That was back when I was about 14. The school librarian thought I was so studious lol, on those computers all the time... alas, I was looking at webrings about Spike and Xander. One could make a case for Red Dwarf, which I loved my whole life, owned merchandise and VHS tapes of the blooper reels and watched every ep, memorised the scripts etc, but I think of fandom as something creative/interpretive, which I never did with RD. I wouldn’t say I’m still part of either fandom, though I never stopped being a fan.

2. Current self care method(s)?

Uhh, I do to-do lists. Start of the year I set some goals like I was in an MMO: dailies, weeklies, monthlys, an annual goal and the lifetime love: writing. I try and strike off four things a day, changing up what those things are every once in a while to tackle new issues. I suffer hard with depression and doing something makes me feel I’m not totally failing at life. 

3. What are three (3) shows you keep meaning to binge watch but haven’t yet?

I have an A4 page with three columns of show titles to watch... ;_; I have zero attention span for new shows lol, I literally have to put ‘watch TV’ on my to-do list or I won’t do it.

4. Do you stay active in fandoms after a new one catches your eye, or are you more a one at a time person?

Oh, I try. Lord how I try. But no, I move on. Someone actually once posted a fandom secret on LJ about how they hoped my new fixation would crash and burn so I’d go back to writing for my old fandom. I took it as a compliment XD

5. What was the last movie you saw with someone else? What would you rate it?

I think it was Birds of Prey? I enjoyed it, then actually enjoyed it more on the rewatch, once I knew what was going to happen and could look at the themes and appreciate the way they’ve written Harley without being at the edge of my seat growling “WHERE IS HUNTRESS SHE IS WHY I’M HERE?!?!”

6. Favorite guilty pleasure?

Um, I dunno. There are a few people who try to make me feel bad for liking things that they deem ‘childish’ but I figure I’ll just keep making it clear they can fuck right off. I only get one life and it’s not turning out great, if I want to read comics and play computer games in between trying to get tedious adult shit sorted out, then I will.

7. What’s a highly underrated show/movie/book series that you would recommend?

Show: Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. Specifically season one, which was just so damn weird and wonderful and had Samuel Barnett acting his socks off as an adorable sunshine man while telling an unusual story about not being perfect but making the effort to be better. Season two was okay, but didn’t thrill me in quite the same way.

Movie: This won awards and has been critically acclaimed so probably doesn’t count, but I see a lot on tumblr about how Joker sucked or was problematic or whatever. As a neurodivergent person in a few ways, that film blew my fucking socks off. I cried. I went to see it four times. He gets seen, but only once he’s beyond saving. 

Book: Terry Pratchett’s Discworld is the only fantasy I’ve ever felt worth reading. Again, I struggle to determine what’s ‘underrated’, the question probably wants something obscure, but I’m not hipster enough for that XD So I qualify this as if anyone hasn’t read Discworld novels, they’re being unfairly underrated because everyone should read them. I like the night watch ones best and I’m gutted they’re making a show inspired by them that will look nothing like them and carry nothing of the themes and fun. 

8. Any new hobbies you’ve started during quarantine? Any you want to start?

I’m still working :/ Other than that, keeping up with my usual. Writing, studying very basic Law, gaming, tidying/cleaning. This week I’ve cracked out my old roleplay books and started generating UA character templates for fun. Oh, I vaguely started studying Latin too. I read Great Expectations, which was kind of dull. Now I’m reading a book about Nuclear War propaganda in the UK. 

9. What meme do you wish would just die already?

Tiger King ones because I haven’t seen it and I’m out of the loop XD

10. Spread the love to your followers and post at least one link to a fic you’re reading/have read/wish to read/you’ve written yourself/etc.

I don’t read nearly enough these days but All That I have to Lose by @unrememberedskies is a delightful piece of Kliego angst, @spikeymarshmallows recently wrote an OD Kliego bit called a steady beep that’s a bit of angst set in her otherwise-mostly-peaceful/sexy museum ‘verse. Now that netflix is showing Community again let me tell you that @freshgratednutmeg wrote me whore!Jeff once, Transactional Methods and Theories. As for my own fic, it’s on my AO3 here. (My highest kudos work is an utterly self-indulgent vampire Game of Thrones AU called ‘Noble Blood’, go figure, but my writing improves as time goes on. If you’re into Borderlands, I’m still very proud of my Rhack fic, ‘Young God’.)

Tagging: Anyone who wants to do it!

[literaetures]

omg ive never met anyone who likes the medici show!!!!! pls share ur thoughts

you must be new here bc i Love the show! it’s one of my all time fave period dramas (coming from someone who knows nothing about the actual history of the family other than the one (1) page history that was given in her high school history textbook and sporadic wikipedia diving when watching the show— i just love period dramas) and i often quote this post by @hotniatheron when talking about this show (because that’s literally. the whole show)

the cinnamon topography, the sets, the characters the costumes, the d r a m a, the storyline! i love it all! i’ve written a few posts on the show as well that i’ll link here if you want some memes (and usually gifsets i rb are filled with commentary) but if you really care about why i love the show, i’ll try to give you as much of a summary as i can (w o w so this got long because i have a lot of feelings so i’ll leave this under the cut but tl;dr i adore this show and i think about it more than once a week and have tons of half-written meta posts sitting in my drafts fjwkjfewn)

i watched s1 when it first came out and immediately fell in love, watched the whole thing in one day (avoiding a paper i had due lmao) and completely fell for it. i loved the morally ambiguous leanings of everyone in that season— no one was quite Good™️ or Bad™️, they all did things with their own ambitions and their own ideas of what a good future may look like in mind— i loved all the scenic shots and the duomo (the true protagonist), i loved the characterization of “the banker that wanted to be an artist”, the attack and murder of albizzi and his son! in the forest! in slow motion! while the duomo is being consecrated! the mist of the forest combining with the smoke from the lamps! still gives me chills! i hated every moment cosimo wasn’t respecting his amazing wife who rode in oh horseback! in the signoria! just to save his ass! and he completely shunned her for it! i loved lucrezia’s depth they gave her towards the end that was later extended in s2 (where you could Tell contessina took her under her wing and gave her the single braincell of the family) and even more, i loved the multi layered storyline of the season— the coming of age story of cosimo, the murder mystery of who killed his father, the PLOT TWIST of who killed his father!!! (i kept forgetting in my first and second rewatches of the season and every time i forgot it felt like i experienced it for the first time all over again!) but most importantly, i loved the narrative of not knowing what to do in life, that every decision you made is a gamble with outcomes that are both good and bad, but there will be people around you who support you and get you through it

and then. s2. by far the better written of the two three seasons with a more clear plotline and timeline that allows you to really take in the characters and the plotline at once while allowing for more nuance and depth in a way that we didn’t get in s1! here we have the distinct battle between Good and Bad which was shocking after the morally grey complexity that we saw in s1 but made for a fresh new season that i instantly enjoyed! b u t!!! it did not go! where i thought it was going to go! as someone who knows nothing about the history, i went into it completely in the dark and solely began crafting possible endings in my head. i thought. i had pictured. that lorenzo and francesco started off enemies, francesco realizes his uncle jacopo (sean bean) has been manipulating him, switches to the “good” side, hears the acts of betrayal, and instead of falling back into his uncle’s plotting and manipulation, i thought! i assumed! that francesco was playing him! i thought! that francesco would see through the manipulation and the abuse and was in a double agent scenario where he was plotting the “pazzi conspiracy” but he told lorenzo and giuliano about the plot and they’d catch jacopo in the act, give him a trial, and give him a prison sentence! i thought this WHOLE thing! even at the end of ep7! even after the hugs (i thought the extra squeezes was francesco signaling to lorenzo and giuliano that everything was going according to plan (because remember the whole Good and Bad clear divide? i thought this was going to be the grey zone of s1 to remind us of moral ambiguities)) and even when ep 3 “mass” was going. i was sitting there in my clown paint waiting for francesco to get! his! redemption arc! because i forgot! that this! was a historical period drama about real events! and it wasn’t until lucrezia’s scream that i realized “OH. it’s not going to get better” you can imagine. my pain. but i think that’s what made this season so good? anyone could have watched it and fallen in love with the storyline and good narrative they presented that allowed you to get lost in the characters and the story

and as for s3. i’m withholding as much of my thoughts as possible because i will be watching it when it finally airs on netflix and i want to properly give it the binge watch that i’ve given the past seasons to really sit with my thoughts to have fully formed thoughts and onions on it!

in any case, i love this show. so much! i cannot wait for the renaissance project to happen with seasons about all the artists, but g o d am i going to miss this disaster family so! much! (and all those scenic duomo shots) 

i love contessina and francesco (those are my two fave characters from the show) and there’s honestly so much more that i can say but honestly you can scroll through my series tags and see me cry about it because i’m rambling so much i know— if you give me a chance to tell you my thoughts on my obsessions! i’m so sorry in advance!

but i’m sure this is. not the length that you expected, but i hope it’s at least a bit entertaining! thanks for letting me talk about my obsessions for a bit!

[almaasi]

reaction post typed while watching Good Omens (ALL OF IT)

my favourite novel is now my favourite mini-series and IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL

under the cut: a very long, spoilery six-episode reaction to MY NEW FAVOURITE THING EVER

--

may 31st 07:36pm nz

i posted my episode 1 reaction a couple hours ago but that got ZERO NOTES so i assume people are either avoiding spoilers or aren’t interested, which is fine, but i’m just gonna put all my reactions in one big post so anyone who IS interested doesn’t have to read 6 separate posts c:

edit june 1st 04:08am: btw i watched using a free trial on amazon prime, which i’m pretty sure is worldwide. soooo if yOU WANT TO WATCH THIS, YOU CAN, FOR FREE

--

EPISODE 1: In the Beginning

--

04:03pm

idk how much i’m gonna type, whether i’ll post a reaction to the entire thing in one post....... or how much i’ll end up watching right now

kinda want to spread it out and save it as a treat for after i’ve done some writing

but right now i wanna watch before writing

so maybe i’ll do one ep, write something, then return to this?

edit: aahhaha that didn’t happen

-

04:04pm

I’M SO EXCITED

I’VE BEEN WAITING SO LONG

well... since 2011 when i first read the book

but regardless it’S BEEN 84 YEARS

-

04:05

okay first off i did not know amazon prime did adverts at the start of their videos. so i was like SINCE WHEN WAS CHILDISH GAMBINO/DONALD GLOVER IN GOOD OMENS

and then

yeah

no

either way i thought it was a good opening

-

W A R

NING

cool cool cool cool cool

-

omg i’m used to where the netflix full-screen button is, and on amazon prime that’s the “next episode” button so i gotta be real careful

-

dear god my video quality is TERRIBLE

i.......... i might torrent this show and watch it offline

this is horrendous i can’t see a damn thing

i have never seen pixels this big

-

04:11

okay the quality calmed down after a minute

i loooove the intro, i love that it’s basically word for word from the book

i feel like i’d find it funnier if i hadn’t read the book 3 months ago

-

also? god is a woman? yes

-

04:13

is it just me or does the snek have a slightly david tennant-esque quality about it

-

i’m so happy adam and eve are black

-

04:17

omfg. aziraphale said “ineffable” and now CRAWLEY’S CHECKING HIM OUT TRYING TO SEE IF HE HAS ANY JUNK

WOW

...or y’know, looking for a flaming sword. SAME FUCKING THING.

-

also i looove how FLUFFY azi is

-

azi: “do hope i didn’t do the wrong thing”

i fucking love them both uhrgughhhuhuhughuhhh

-

04:21

small sob for cuteness

umbella wings

-

04:23

in the opening titles, crowley just stopped a spaceship and aziraphale turned it into fish

i feel like that was a douglas adams reference and i’m on board

-

04:25

the entire time i read the book, up until i saw video promos of this show, i thought “crowley” was said the same way as spn’s “crowley”, as in “crahwlee”

not “crOhwlee”

i definitely like that they’re different though

both probably named after aleister crowley tbh. all of whom are queer.

-

THOSE SWAYING HIPS

i haven’t found david tennant attractive in about 9 years but WHOOOP HELLO AGAIN

somehow attractive for entirely different reasons than before. like. my taste changed but tHEN

-

i’m on crowley’s side, taking down a cellphone network is VERY ANNOYING

-

04:35

crowley: shitshitshitshithsit

:D

i can’t wait for aziraphale’s big swear

-

04:37

i miss eating sushi

sushi was great

-

04:43

this baby delivery thing is sTRESSFUL

“aaaaurthurrrrr”

nooo

poor lady

-

04:45

“little toesie woesies”

where’s the sister mary loquacious fan club and where do i sign up

-

i’m glad they colour-coded the babies and did the playing card explanation because this part of the book always tied my brain in knots

-

05:00

this is reminding me how utterly gross england is

-

“MY POINT IS............. DOLPHINS”

YES

-

05:06

see in the book

i never once realised that the nanny was crowley in disguise

-

05:11

digging the snake tattoo sideburns

-

05:14

and yeah the short hair looks good

-

05:15

fINALLY crowley called azi “angel”

-

05:17

crowley: “oh no no don’t do your magic act, pleeease”

the magic act scene is one of my fave parts of the book <3

-

05:20

aw man they cut out the best part

i mean i get why

the kids shouted a bunch of gay slurs at aziraphale

and there were no secret service people with guns

but aw mannn

AND THEY CUT OUT THE BIT WITH THE DEAD DOVE AND CROWLEY BRINGS IT BACK TO LIFE FOR AZIRAPHALE

THAT WAS MY SINGLE FAVOURITE BIT OF THE BOOK

AND IT’S GONE

;C

-

OH WAIT

THERE’S THE DOVE

OH GOOD

-

aw man aziraphhale just brought it back himself

i liked it better in the book

they sat on the steps outside and crowley comforted azi and took the dove and fixed it for him, and then it flew off

idk i just had such a perfect image of that moment in my mind and this was..... good but not the same at all

could be gayer

-

05:27

good dog

-

05:28

crowley: *snifsnif* something’s changed

aziraphale: “oh it’s a new cologne, my barber suggeste--”

crowley: “no no i know what you smell like”

gayyyyyyyyyy <3

-

05:31

okay that’s ep 1 watched!!! i’ll watch more maybe later tonight :D

ENJOYING THIS SO FAR

not as gay as expected ........YET

needs 400% more “angel” and “dear”

--

EPISODE 2: The Book

07:42pm

pillar of salt guy: “something smells evil”

the fact crowley smells evil and yet aziraphale likes his company regardless says a lot

-

07:49

fully expected crowley to say “i didn’t fall, i sauntered vaguely downwards”

-

07:50

iiiii’m finding the narrator a little annoying

maybe it’s because i read the book so i know what’s going on

but saying “he has four items to deliver in his van. he works for this postage company and he’s making his first delivery in a formal warzone”.... idk i feel like all of those things could be shown visually? saying it rather than showing it probably saved seven seconds of airtime, but damn

-

07:56

i wonder if the narrator was a later addition to this, for new audience clarity? the script for god just seems a little stilted, idk

edit: i kind of got used to it, but it was still jarring, which i’m sure was the opposite of the intended effect

-

08:09

the saddest newt

-

08:13

she’s kind of exactly how i imagined her in the book

and definitely my fave next to aziraphale and crowley

-

08:17

i feel so bad for crowley’s plants

poor babies

-

08:19

for some reason i imagined her as a redhead. kind of more like mrs weasley

-

08:33

these wee children......... so soft.......... so smol

-

08:25

v happy with the casting for pepper

tiny downside is that we lose another redhead

-

08:29

i find the kids’ conversations hilarious because they’re the same age as harry potter when he goes to hogwarts the first time

idk if this is what eleven year olds are like in real life, but when i read the book i did feel distinctly like they spoke like eight year olds

-

08:35

crowley: “i like spooky. big spooky fan, me”

he just sounds like the tenth doctor

-

08:36

YEEE FINALLY CROWLeY DOING NICE THINGS FOR AZIRAPHALE

-

08:48

"you know, crowley, i’ve always said that deep down you really are a--”

“SHUT IT”

DON’T YOU CALL HIM NICE YOU PRETTY BASTARD

-

loquacious: “sorry to break up an intimate moment”

-

08:45

i imagined anathema’s tripod thing to be about 5 feet tall, not a cute little knee-high thing

-

08:48

freddie mercury: BIIIII CYCLE

BIIIIIIII CYCLE

yeah i was waiting for that

-

crowley: “get in, angel”

HE MURMURED

DON’T MURMUR YOUR TERMS OF ENDEARMENT noo

-

09:00

end of episode 2!!! i freaking loved aziraphale vs the book <3

-

the credits for this ep credit konnie huq as someone named pam but idk who that is? i had a crush on konnie huq as a kid when she was a presenter on “blue peter”

OH WAIT RIGHT the lady on the breakfast show on crowley’s tv. aw such a small part. hoping we’ll see her again later

edit: nope. might rewatch that part to pay more attention. obviously i didn’t even recognise her after like.. 15 years

--

EPISODE 3: Hard Times

09:05pm

brb gotta get some food

-

09:14

and now i wait for food

EPISODE THREE LET’S GO

is this the one that’s just crowley and azi’s backstory?

-

09:16

i can’t even put my finger on why but he’s getting more attractive

-

09:21

ah yes

aziraphale is eating shellfish and trying to tempt crowley

“oh... that’s your job”

i love this part of their dynamic

-

09:29

i adore when crowley makes aziraphale smile <3

-

09:43

SAUNTERED VAGUELY DOWNWARDS

YEE

-

i like seeing how crowley’s sunglasses differ throughout history

-

09:36

“if they knew i’d been... fraternising”

this is such a forbidden romance i love ittttt

-

09:49

CROWLEY SAVED THE BOOKS

and SOFT VIOLIN PLAYS

THIS IS A FUCKING LOVE STORY

k this is my favourite part of the show so far <3

-

09:50

this angel just fell in love

right in that moment

i see cartoon hearts around him

-

09:54

just had to pause for a second bc there was some broccoli in my tea :c

-

09:56

awwwwwwwwwwwwww 

he got him holy waterrrrrrr

-

UNIVERSAL ANGLE OF HETEROSEXUAL LONGING

-

definitely feeling a lot of “NOW KISS” right about now

-

09:59

LAUGHING BECAUSE THE OPENING CREDITS ARE LITERALLY HALFWAY INTO THE EPISODE

-

10:03

throughout the entire book azi just came across as the kind of person who wore glasses even though glasses were never once mentioned

I AM GLAD TO SEE GLASSES

-

10:12

i like this colour palette and the gold in their makeup

-

10:27

“we can go off together”

omg the world’s ending and crowley’s all RUN AWAY WITH MEEE

-

10:31

okay then

good eyelashes

edit: i also like how their relationship was explained with a simple tap on the wrist: hurry up, you’re on the clock, i’m a sex worker, finish your call because i’m leaving

-

10:32

episode three DONE

these eps don’t feel long enough

maybe that means the pacing is just right? who knows

i feel like i should be doing something other than watching this but..... why

--

EPISODE 4: Saturday Morning Funtime

10:48pm

aziraphale is SOFT and he’s perfect like that <3

fuck u gabriel and your body shaming

-

10:53

i want delivery guy to be okay BUT I READ THE BOOK

so............... i know he will be...... eventually

-

10:55

how did they get photographs taken in the 1600s

-

oh gabriel’s eyes ARE purple, i thought i was seeing them wrong

-

11:02

“maud i love you”

noo ho hoooo

-

11:09

a little douglas adams, definitely

BUT NO PEPPER POT DALEK

AWW

-

11:10

the season is very much jumping between summer and autumn

though i suppose that’s the point, tadfield is just perfect

-

11:12

“which the internet has begun to refer to as the kracken”

i wonder if good omens inadvertently inspired me to write The Wireless a couple of years back. wouldn’t be surprising

edit: no, couldn’t have, because the internet wasn’t much of a thing (or a thing at all?) in the book, given its publish date

-

11:20

that’s a v nice dress/top combo

gosh she’s so pretty

-

11:30

crowley: “we can run away together!!! alpha centauri!!!”

aw baby

-

crowley: “i’m going home, angel! i’m getting my stuff, and i am leaving. and when i am up in the stars, i won’t even think about you!!”

THAT WAS A V SAD BREAKUP NOOOOO

why has there not been a single “dear” yet :c

-

11:37

oh no, this part

i loved this in the book but i am NOT READY for maggots

damn you gaiman

-

11:39

he’s so cute

and so gay

-

11:42

uriel: “don’t think your boyfriend in the dark glasses will get you special treatment in hell”

he looks kinda delighted uriel called crowley his boyfriend

i would say he looks worried but this shot was used without context in the trailer and it came across as genuine joy, i actually thought he was looking at crowley

-

11:46

i thought it was a strange throne before

a spider at the centre of a web

dark halo

yeah

-

11:51

oh now she’s a redhead???

-

also i’m glad they implied newt and anathema just kissed because the sex thing was weird in the book

-

okay never mind

hmm

-

12:05

aziraphale: “oh.................ffffUCK.”

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAH

-

12:07

oh no

it’s happening

oh no

i hate this part but i love what happens because of it

-

12:29am

i have eaten and now i have tea and i am back from MORE BOOKSHOP FIRE

-

EPISODE 5: The Doomsday Option

12:31

nuuuuuuuuuu

and “you’re my best friend” playing while crowley’s tryna call azi

nuuuuuu

-

“somebody killed my best friend”

jfhsdfjsdj

/sobs

-

12:36

freddie mercury: “somebody find me somebody tooo ooo looove”

edit: the narration WRECKED this. it was so dramatic and visually emotional but the voiceover completely screwed with it and it was SO UNNECESSARY.

-

12:46

crowley: “i lost my best friend”

he says, while crying, while talking to that friend

-

THE ONE BOOK HE WANTS IS THE ONE CROWLEY SAVED

THEY’RE SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL TOGETHER

-

azi wanted to share crowley’s body

and then said they had to get a wiggle on

-

12:52

they cut out the hell’s angels / lesser horsemen

i figured they would, but still a shame

-

1:54

in the book tracy’s “spirit guide” was native american but daaaaaamn that part really needed to go

now she’s irish which is... better, probably

-

01:01

ron: “SHUT. UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUP”

this guy’s having the time of his life

-

01:03

he wave

-

01:05

1926 bentley; sexiest car right next to the ‘67 chevy impala

-

01:08

omg gotta translate and explain the road

-

01:13

OH NO the maggots are about to happen

they changed the placement of this but it worked for the pacing

-

OH NO

-

k well the maggots were gross but not as bad as i imagined

-

01:31

omg the dog turned upside down rather than be picked up

i wonder if that was intentional

dog: I DO NOT WANT UP

-

01:34

pfff he’s reading “american gods” by neil gaiman

-

01:44am

10/10 flaming car

-

EPISODE 6: The Very Last Day of the Rest of Their Lives

01:51am

here we go...

-

01:55

azi so happy that crowley said the dress suits him <3

-

01:57

rip bentley

-

01:59

aziraphale: “we are here to lick some serious butt!!”

crowley: “kick!! kick, aziraphale, for heaven’s sake”

-

02:06

i freaking love the parallel between the Them and the horsemen in the book

and i love that they did face shots to show the parallel

pepper = war

wensleydale = famine

brian = pollution

adam = death

the parallel is less clear for brian and wensleydale, at least in the show. was more obvious in the book. but at the same time i kind of got confused between them a lot, brian was always eating, but wensleydale was named after cheese

-

02:14

pepper: “i do not endorse everyday sexism”

/STOMPS ON WAR’S FOOT

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

-

02:25

shadwell: “anyone who wants ta get ta the hoore of babylon will have to get past me”

earlier anathema said “boyfriend”

may i point out that all the adults are paired up

shadwell & madame tracy

newt & anathema

......and....

aziraphale and crowley

-

0:28

crowley: “we are FUCKED”

these two need a holiday

-

azi: “come up with something... or.... or i’ll never talk to you again”

he knows crowley loves him aww

perfect blackmail material

-

02:32

they went from trying to kill him to being his gay angel parents real quick

-

02:35

thought they were holding hands for a second there

edit: regardless, a whole damn airfield and they’re 2cm apart

-

02:39

happy ending for the postman, hooray~

-

crowley about the bookshop, softly: “it burned down. remember? you can stay at my place”

awwWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

-

02:42

CROWLEY GOT HIS CAR BACK AND YET HE TOOK A TAXI

-

02:45

anathema: “why is your car called dick turpin?”

newt: “dick turpin is a famous highwayman. it’s called dick turpin because everywhere it goes, it holds up traffic”

i laughed

this wasn’t in the book and i always wondered

-

02:51

i wonder if holy water wouldn’t burn him because he’s too good

-

03:00

gabriel: “don’t talk to me about the greater good, sunshine, i’m the angel fucking gabriel”

really enjoying these swears

-

03:03

i thought so

-

03:30am

paused for a bit to get ready for bed

i thought it was after 4am but nope

-

“there would be other summers, but not one like this. not ever again”

that genuinely makes me emotional

i think that’s why it’s my favourite book, i can relive that summer with them

-

03:35

omg

-

OH MY GOD

WAIT

THEY

OH MY GOD

THEY WEREN’T IMMUNE, THEY JUST SWAPPED PLACES

HOLY SHIT

edit: THIS WAS NOT IN THE BOOK AND IT’S BRILLIANT AND I’M GLAD IT’S HERE

-

crowley: “let me tempt you to a spot of lunch?

azi: “~temptation accomplished~!”

THEY’RE SO STINKING CUTE

-

“just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing”

perfect

STILL NO USE OF “DEAR” THOUGH AND IT’S KILLING ME

-

that ending with the bird made me teary-eyed

-

credits: BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH AS SATAN

WOW

OKAY

AKSFJDSF /snorts

-

the end credits and the song i just wanna bawl my eyes out

i loved this so much and i’m so glad it was GOOD

i loved that they added so many people of colour. in the book i imagined crowley played by alexander siddig (star trek: deep space 9 era) but i guess david tennant makes a pretty good crowley too

i’m trying not to be upset that my favourite scene with the dove and aziraphale’s affectionate use of “dear” was taken out

but 

this was damn good regardless. even gayer in places than in the book

-

this nightingale song is my new favourite song

i never got the reference before

“and as we kissed and said goodnight, an nightingale sang in berkeley square:

GAY

SO GAY

i love

-

the end of the credits “For Terry”

ACTUAL OUT LOUD SOBBING

TERRY YOU WOULD’VE LOVED THIS

NEIL DID YOU PROUD

-

oh this was so beautiful

i’m gonna watch it again with my family probably within the week. i’m so emotionally tender now

azIRAPHALE WAS SO FLUFFY AND CROWLEY WAS SO NICE ABOUT THE BOOKS

ugh i love them more than ever

anathema...... i don’t know if i relate to her, want to be her, look up to her, want her to mentor me, live with her, or find her attractive. maybe all of the above. but she was freaking PERFECT. PE R F E CT 

the casting was so... just right. thank you casting people for anathema.

like... i also didn’t mind the newt/anathema thing so much now. it was hard to tell in the book how much of a relationship they had after, but that smile she gave while lying in bed the morning after, that worked, it said a lot. and i like that it was her choice to burn the prophecy sequel rather than newt’s suggestion

gabriel was amusing. like.. i’m glad he wasn’t in the book. but he was great here. also really like michael and uriel. uriel was so damn beautiful.

i also would really have liked to see a mention of the fact crowley and aziraphale are both agender and potentially asexual. not even a hint of it here. buuuuuut it guess i know from the book. so.

my favourite episode was of course episode 3 with crowley and aziraphale’s 6000 year backstory. especially the 1940s bit where crowley saved the books <3

this show was was less confusing than the book too. ugh it was done so well

OH

we didn’t see where the soldier guy went when aziraphale zapped him away!!! in the book he reappeared safely back home and went out to see his family. to be fair i don’t know whether he died and went to heaven, but it was a nice thing to happen

and they took out the Them’s bully/rival gang, who was led by the third baby from the baby swap, and who won awards for his tropical fish. at least that’s what i remember. which meant the parallel about heaven/hell being rival gangs was lost here. but the parallel between the horsemen and the them was stronger than ever and i loved that.

look, i mean, 10 out of 10, EASY.

favourite thing? yes. yes, absolutely.

--

shoutout to the one time i wrote a Good Omens/Destiel crossover fic The Angel Cake Challenge

IT’S 04:02am THIS TOOK ME 12 HOURS

04:40am AND FORTY MINUTES TO EDIT

congrats if you made it to the end of this!!! thank you for reading <3 AND GO WATCH THE SHOW IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S3 Ep 31: Joey’s Dead (Again)

Ah, it is 5 billion degrees and working has been pretty much impossible, so, lets turn on Netflix and...

Thanks, Netflix.

Anyways, time to go see Joey get destroyed by a bird. On screen. This traumatic as hell kid’s show.

Now, usually this kid’s show is very...kid’s show in quality. The animation has exactly what it needs for most children and teens to feel satisfied--and that’s absolutely fine. You don’t have to make everything look like My Hero Academia, youknow? They were not looking for an award.

But this episode, the one where Joey freakin dies, they decided to bring out their A team. This is the best looking episode of Yugioh that I’ve seen so far, and it was freakin shocking how much better the quality was. Like, I dunno what weird blood sacrifice they did to make this episode looks so freakin good, but kudos to them, everything is more fluid, the shots are composed in a really interesting way, and for once, they actually spend the time to let these characters...react to stuff.

The big twist in Yugioh, at least for me, is when it randomly decides to be quality. It doesn’t happen all (most of) the time, but occasionally, Yugioh will just take a quality swing at me and it’s like “the hell was THAT?” Not that this episode is the best animated episode of anything ever made, it still doesn’t hold a candle to shows that are made in order to be beautiful--but for Yugioh, who’s purpose was never to be pretty (point of fact, Bakura’s hair) and who’s main purpose is to sell freakin playing cards...this is a damn pretty episode. 

They just loved Joey that much I guess.

Anyway, onward for what is also the most melodramatic episode of Yugioh I’ve seen. This episode is kind of a gem. I cannot believe I just watched an episode on this show about cards where 3/4 of it was just so many boys full on ugly sobbing into their friend’s comatose body.

(read more under the cut)

Serenity, this small dot in the next cap here, has only made it to.....this part of the island. She has to now run up like 2 miles of tower. Just remember this fact for later.

Yo so...this is a stupid adult question but like who is paying for the healthcare on all these kids in this tourney? Is it just Kaiba? Is Kaiba footing the bill? I mean, it’s a kid’s show so we’ll pretend that hospitals are free (and in Japan it’s like Universal but kinda inbetween, so I’ve heard, so this would be less of a deal) but as an adult American every time they’re in a hospital scene I’m just imagining how crazy that GoFundMe campaign page would look like.

But, as Serenity starts climbing up this monalith, on the roof of said tower, Joey is at max anime. For the first time ever, his hair is drawn as like separate hairs and not as just some weird backwards anteater tail he wears on his head. And youknow what? Joey has a hellton of hair. Your hair has to be realllly long and full to do an anteater and I don’t give him enough credit.

And so after all that, Joey’s like...still up.

(I mean this is as far as I know, I don’t have Jump Force)

Remember how Yugi stood in front of one single fireball so that Joey wouldn’t take one for Mai? Now that we’ve seen how Joey was still standing after bird fire tornado--he...probably would’ve been fine with the fireball. Just conjecture, but I feel like Joey, despite not having any connection to a millennium item, is some sort of escaped X-men.

And then, like everyone on this show is wont to do, he just randomly hallucinates Yugi. What’s great about this episode is that Joey will hallucinate Yugi not once, but twice. (which will come later)

Also, this “Oh yeaaaaaahhhhh” was a super fluid animation that I might just lift because it was so freakin wild. Like it was kind of terrifying how fluid it was. In anime they tend to freelance out different clips to different animators, so they aren’t really all working in the same studio (which is why often anime will have reallllly nice animation in some parts, and then less in others, while in US studios where everyone works on everything, there’s less of that) But whoever got the Joey saying “Oh yeaaaaaaahhhh” scene must’ve been like “this is it, this is my big break” and spent like half a day making it as fluid as they could compared to everything else going on.

They also had enough time for Yugi to partially disrobe for some reason. I guess it looked cool.

Please contrast the twinkly lights and the shimmer sound effect with what follows it:

It’s at this point that Seto Kaiba actually starts to doubt this whole tourney, but not for the reason a normal person would doubt a tourney that has had several apocalypses and mass-murderers involved in it.

Kaiba was Extremely Upset about this revelation.

Anyway, Since Joey is still standing, he pulls a card, realizes it can kill Marik, slaps it on the duel disk, the monster shows up on the field, and--Kaiba either has the fastest elevator in the world, or Serenity runs a 3 minute mile because, guess who made it to the top of this tower of Babel?

That’s right, supportive Sister, here to walk Joey through the hard arduous task of basically pressing “enter” on your keyboard.

RIP again, Joey, RIP again. I mean it’s hard to get too wrapped up in it because I know he already died...this morning...like two hours ago. Like basically he got turned into stone for a bit, and then after coming back to life, took a nap on the blimpjet and then arrived at this island to die yet again. Joey Wheeler has just had such a very intense couple of days and desperately needs a nap.

But, game wise, Joey played a monster, it was on the field--what else would he have done with it???

But because he didn’t say a word loud enough for other people to hear, this didn’t count???

This game is so weird about what rules it decides are binding and which are loosey goosey. There’s absolutely no time limit, you can strap the other person to a weird wall device and throw fireballs at their face, you can sap their life energy with weird fiber optic cables, but if you don’t say the word “Attack” although the monster card is in Attack position--it doesn’t count? There’s nothing else on the field to hit but Marik himself. There’s literally nothing else Joey would have done with that card. He totally won this match but whatever, it’s Yugioh.

And lets give it up for the one and only adult in the room, everybody. Good Job, Roland. Good freakin job.

I get that he’s a butler/pilot/card referee/bodyguard, but who else is freakin there to parent any of these teens? Ishizu? Is that all we have left?

Sorry, I’ve thought more about Roland and his mysterious dodgy character than the people who made this show.

Anyway, it’s at this point that Mokuba decided to climb stuff.

Again, this episode has so many weird animation details that say a lot about the characters--and I’m just not used to this much love and care.

So another wild thing about this episode--I didn’t realize that Joey was even Shadow Realmed when I watched it through. This episode is super vague when it comes to Joey. Everyone is mourning as if he had died, and so for me, the first time watcher (as well as my Bro who saw it once when he was 13), I just assumed this is because they finally got a completely different but very good animation team on this episode. I just figured this was someone high up saying “maybe you should have the characters realistically react to at least a single death on this show where 183 people have died”

But, turns out this is actually a translation error. Because, in the Japanese version, Joey just freakin stopped breathing or something? In the English version that we’re watching, Joey is just in a coma, and it’s a rather pleasant coma (yet still my definition of a death). But, the reason everyone is reacting like...how they should have reacted the previous 182 times, is because Joey was actually legally dead.

Something they censored out to keep the show mystifyingly Y-7 although...I think I’ve said this a million times, but don’t give this show to your 7 year old. Going off of what my Nephews and Nieces like, Yugioh is a pretty far cry from PJ Masks and Monster High.

Anyway, the show goes totally all out, and everyone does a 150% more than what is ever necessary grief cry, and I think the best cry goes to Tristan although Yugi attempted really hard to steal the gold. Thing about Yugi’s grieving is that he was going more for quantity over quality, but they did a really brutal close zoom on Tristan going through the stages of Grief (mostly anger) and it was like...unexpected for a Yugioh episode y’all. I’ve never seen Tristan go that hard...ever. Tristan is usually kind of tertiary but he just came out of nowhere to scream directly at my face and I was not expecting it.

And this episode does something that I like, although it was kind of unusual for Pharaoh and Yugi--and it shows us how they react in a completely opposite way to the same traumatic event. They’ll both get around to crying but Pharaoh will take his time.

Also, we’ve seen indication of Pharaoh’s inward grief before - and it’s something they usually say but don’t show - but this is the first time they’ve actually showed that Pharaoh tends to bottle everything deep, deep down. He’s got maybe a lot of feelings about being a ghost who doesn’t have a body or a history or...anything, and him bottling up Yugi (since Yugi isn’t going to come out for the rest of this episode) is sort of a proof that he’s used to bottling everything.

Cuz outwardly, he’s just like this (and kudos to the art team for leaving a spot where Yugi’s spirit is currently crying over the corpse/coma victim)

And then meanwhile, Kaiba just has no idea what planet he’s even on. Remember that in the Japanese version, Joey freakin died in Seto’s own tournament. This would be a PR disaster, but does Kaiba...know?

(Yes, I keep a draft file that is just every single death so I can keep track of them, and this is the 4th time that Joey has died)

Then this doctor shows up, which is surprising, because I figured Marik knocked this guy out and stuffed him in a broom closet last season. But nah, it’s the same doctor, he’s back. This poor doctor who keeps having to tend Shadow Realm patients while every single person on this blimp is in the same little hospital room with him, just breathing down his neck.

Speaking of, if this doctor has been here this entire time, then why did Serenity just stay directly by Mai’s side?

They have a doctor.

Anyway, originally I thought I’d make this two parts but like...nah, we’ll just have a really long post.

Lets see how Joey’s Shadow Realm is (which, again, it is super unclear if he is or isn’t, and from when I polled you guys it looked like it was sort of like a “don’t think about it” situation of whether this is a dream of Joey’s, or the Shadow Verse)

I’ve made the joke before that you can tell it’s a dream when they’re at school but...we’re back at school. It’s the only time we see Joey in his school uniform.

Thirsty preteens rejoice, they finally removed Joey from his baggy pajama shirt that he’s been stuck in for 2 seasons. Like, do you think when Kaiba was looking at public schools, he saw that this school had not only crazy card people, but also freakin nuts shoulder pads and he just slammed that “enroll” button?

So...does Yugi KNOW that everyone else dreams about him on a regular basis? Like, does he KNOW? I figure Yugi just has sort of a weird tick related to the puzzle that makes it so people are seeing him, but Yugi has no idea that he’s got an inception method ability, right? 

And especially since this is kind of a magic-onset dream, and Yugi really wants to save Joey, it sort of almost looks like Yugi is doing this maybe latently through the puzzle? But...probably not. I don’t really know what’s happening here, other than Joey’s just gonna go peace out and play this confusing card game for eternity.

That would be my Shadow Realm.

Back at our homeslice, Blimpjet, Seto has sent his little brother to deliver all of the bad news for him, knowing that Mokuba is too cute for anyone to do anything about it.

And so Mokuba decides to radio a helicopter to save him because he’s a Kaiba and doesn’t realize that planes/boats exist. Good to see that Mokuba has finally decided to embrace his job as Battle City Commissioner and figure out a solution to transporting/hiding all these bodies.

Honestly, I’m just shook that this blimpjet is not a blimpjetboat.

Bro told me that in the Japanese version, Tristan just straight up punches Joey right near this scene, and like...that’s probably true. Bro has a lot of spicy headcanons but I can see this show doing that. (bro note: that might have been an earlier Joey coma).

Knowing that, it makes this kind of more funny because Yugi is so absorbed in The Crying that I guess he didn’t notice that whole thing go down with Tristan.

I guess they wanted a throwback to S1, but this episode is so extra that Yugi very nearly stops playing cards. Nearly. He’s still gonna play cards, but I guess as a symbol to show that he’s starting to give into just not playing this game anymore, Pharaoh actually takes this weird contraption off his arm.

To do so he has to like remove the battery or something. I didn't even realize what he was doing because it was so un-intuitive, but you have to pull out this 4 inch battery from the back in order to remove the disk.

Can you imagine!???? Can you imagine wearing this thing in real life and shoving a 4 inch 2 lb battery in and out of this hulking thing every time you had to use the toilet?

Which...I guess they haven’t been, right? Like I shouldn’t go down that avenue but like...they haven’t been, right? There are just so many germs on this disk.

And so Pharaoh decides it’s finally time to lose it, maybe because Yugi wants to give up cards, or maybe because there’s no one else around so it’s finally fine for him to shed a masculine tear or two, but it took him I want to say like 20 more minutes than Yugi to finally react to all this.

And then this happens?

Anyway, remember Ishizu’s Millennium Necklace (not to be confused with the Millennium Puzzle with is also a Necklace, which Yugi also has, but he only wears one, because he just doesn’t feel like wearing 2 chokers at once, I guess)

Apparently the reason that Yugi was given the necklace was to get this one vision of the future. Get ready for it, the entire fate of the world rested on Pharaoh getting this one vision.

Yes, the answer was indeed, cards.

On the other end of the blimpjet, Mokuba I guess got tired of Roland’s poor radio skills and has decided to use the radio himself while Roland kind of just stands there and waves his arms around.

Straight up, does Mokuba have a Ham license? Are the Kaiba’s Hams? So like, Bro and I made Ham radio parts as a part time out of college and while I don’t have a license, it just really intrigues me that these boys do and I really wonder if they ever check into the emergency net and do Ham contesting when they aren’t throwing cards around. Ham people are like...really into their rigs so if you had Kaiba money, your rig would reach the curvature of the Earth.

Also, I kinda just assumed that they’re still in Japan, since Japan has a lot of islands connected to it, and the Kaiba Island does look man-made, but...is it not? Why place this factory in the middle of nowhere if you aren’t actually building a merc-for-hire program like Metal Gear? Like I know we just talked about how Gozobura Kaiba was basically Big Boss, but like...was this island made by Master Miller? Why is it in the middle of the ocean???

Big Boss had a reason to build in the sea, because he didn’t actually align with a country, so he had to be in international waters, but Gozobura Kaiba’s company is Japanese, so why go through all the trouble of--whatever I shouldn’t think about it.

So yeah, they’re too far away to radio to Japan although...that doesn’t make sense to me since why would you build a manufacturing plant so far away from your biggest buyer? But plot. Plot reasons, it had to happen this way.

And then this scene happened and it was...SO MUCH.

THIS WAS SO MUCH.

THIS SCENE WAS JUST SO FREAKIN AWKWARD.

Like it may not come through with the caps but this scene was made up to be extremely serious. The music was swelling, Pharaoh was pausing by Joey’s bedside as if to give a speech. The writers were expecting tears to come out of my face when Pharaoh did..........this

Wʜᴏ ᴡʀᴏᴛᴇ ᴛʜɪs.

Y’all I was DYING.

I had to stop the episode and just like...recover. We had to rewind so I could watch this scene twice. I could not stop laughing at the idea that the writers were like “lets take this very serious and heavy content and then make it super emotional and meaningful by SLAPPING A DUEL DISK ON IT.” 

And what makes this scene even better is that like--barely anyone said ANYTHING after Pharaoh did this. He waltzed in there, did this insane thing, and then just waltzed out as if this was completely normal.

What the hell!?!?

And so while I am kind of reeling from Pharaoh just slapping a duel disk onto Joey like it’s a badge of honor and Joey was shot in the line of duty, suddenly--out of nowhere--Tea felt like reminding us that many episodes ago it was super hinted that these two might actually be approaching a relationship.

And so Tea decides to beg Yugi to stop and stay behind as if she’s a wife watching her husband like march off to the front lines or something. It was so melodramatic and just came out of NO WHERE.

Thankfully, as is this show’s custom, every time it looks like this ship might happen, every other available boy on the show must appear out of nowhere to cockblock the situation.

This episode is a lot of watching Pharaoh try his best to navigate a bunch of very delicate and intense social situations and he does so with the elegance and sensitivity of a bologna sandwich.

This shot of Kaiba on top of the tower ps was so freakin rediculous. This show just knows what it is and goes for it. Completely unashamed. I think that’s what I like most about anime--it has absolutely no shame to just be...waaaay too much.

...why THIS episode? Who was it that worked overtime for months and months just to make this one Yugioh episode look so shiny and nice?

And so the episode ends there, and probably all the character development we’ll have for the rest of the season. I cannot believe they gave me that much content in one episode. Damn.

I’m assuming next episode will be entirely cards and I’ll have like 5 caps of content.

Anyway if you just got here, this is a handy link to read these from the beginning.

[daresplaining]

i cannot get over the fact that spider-man (who i love) has so many animated shows but daredevil has only been in like. 4 episodes across 3 different cartoons and his solo series never took off. we could've had it all and this knowledge will haunt me till the day i die

    I know, right? It’s bizarre. I kept waiting for him to show up in Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, for instance, which had cameos from all over the Marvel universe, but… nothing. I have no idea why Matt is absent from so many of Marvel’s animated properties, and I agree that it’s a huge shame. Heck, Marvel Action Hour: Fantastic Four season 1, ep. 14 is still my favorite Daredevil adaptation: 

    My co-blogger has a theory that the people in charge of the animated properties (or the more recent ones, anyway) might be paranoid about the “devil” imagery, since these shows are aimed toward families and younger viewers. But I’m not sure I buy that. Personally, I wonder if it’s a symptom of the fact that nowadays (and by that I mean… for the past decade-or-so) Daredevil has developed the reputation of being a serious, mature, violent, gritty character, and since animation is seen as a tonally lighter medium (which is a whole other issue, of course), and– again– is generally aimed at younger audiences, the animated side of Marvel has shied away from him. 

    So I feel you– the fact that we almost had an animated DD show kills me! It’s a huge shame, because Matt is perfectly suited to that medium. It’s not only because I am dying for at least one semi-upbeat, swashbuckly Daredevil adaptation (again– not that animation has to be upbeat; that’s just what I would want, personally, and I know it’s more likely to happen in animation), but also because of the very nature of Matt’s character. I’ve always felt this way, but Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse smacked me in the face with just how true it is. My first reaction after seeing it was to turn to my friend and shout “I need this team to make a Daredevil movie!” 

    Matt is a character who works best in a flexible, augmented world. His primary mode of transportation is swinging around on a grappling cable high in the air and bouncing off flagpoles (see above)! There is no way to make that happen in live action because it requires more suspension of disbelief than the medium allows, since Matt doesn’t have super-strength. They tried it in the movie and it ended up looking silly, and they watered it down to a huge degree in Trial of the Incredible Hulk and the Netflix show. But in animation, they wouldn’t need to make those sacrifices! We could finally have an adaptation that would allow for this type of badassery:

Daredevil vol. 3 #1 by Mark Waid, Paolo Rivera, and Javier Rodriguez

    All of the live action DD adaptations have shied away from the fun, adrenaline junkie, daredevil aspects of Daredevil, and part of that comes down to tonal choices (the dark-and-gritty-ness factor previously discussed), but I’m convinced the other reason is logistics. Live action actively limits the accuracy with which Matt can be portrayed.

    Even more importantly… Matt’s power-set demands visual creativity and flexibility. Part of what makes him such a compelling character to me (and, from what I’ve seen, to many other DD fans as well) is the uniqueness of his point-of-view. Being blind and having his other senses super-enhanced means that his experience of the world is vastly different from almost anyone else’s. He is a non-visual character in a visual medium, and creators have spent the past 55 years experimenting with how to most effectively translate his unique perspective onto the page. 

    The live action adaptations have tried, and I do love how Matt’s radar sense is depicted in both Trial of the Incredible Hulk and the 2003 movie. But I also believe that animation is the only medium capable of giving us the perfect adaptation of this aspect of Matt’s character. Into the Spider-Verse proved this to me. That depiction of the Spider Sense? The way you felt it as much as saw it? Hoooly moley! And even beyond that specific example, this movie has reminded the world of just how versatile animation is and how creatively it can be used. And those two factors– versatility and creativity– are exactly what is needed for a visual translation of Matt’s sensory world. If the degree of innovation and imagination shown in this movie were applied to rendering Matt’s point-of-view, I can only imagine how amazing the results would be. 

    So this has been a long-winded way of saying I completely agree, and I hope the next Daredevil adaptation will be animated (or at the very least, I hope they put Earth-65 Matt in the Spider-Gwen movie)!

[paulisweeabootrash]

First Impression: Neon Genesis Evangelion

Get in your robots, audience, it's time for Paul is Weeaboo Trash!  And today, I'm finally watching a show it seems like everyone just... assumes I must've seen:

Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995)

Episodes watched: 8

Platform: Netflix

The idea of something being a "classic" may be in decline in the anime fandom, or at least be getting very specialized, since "anime" no longer implies a narrow interest in specific sci-fi and fantasy subgenres like it used to, but certain shows still manage to pervade the pop culture indirectly.  Neon Genesis Evangelion is one such show, enduring in the modern fandom and general internet culture because of its status as one of those old sci-fi anime classics.  It has contributed memes — not just as in image macros or running jokes, but as in units of culture in the form of iconic quotes or character designs or elements of the plot — to the point that you have certainly been in some way exposed to them without any knowledge of the source material.  But despite its reputation as a must-see cultural touchstone, it has been out of print in America for years.  Used copies of the DVDs sell for absurd prices, and I don't think I knew anyone who owned it when I was a young weeb in the mid-2000s.  I'm fairly sure my family did not have cable during the one specific season it was on Adult Swim, and there's no chance I would have been up at 12:30AM on Thursdays to watch it anyway.  I am not much of a fan of media piracy and wasn't even aware of that option when it was apparently everyone else's favorite pastime to ruin their computers with sketchy torrents.  So there was never a reasonable way for me to watch it, only for me to be dimly aware that this was An Important Show I Need To See.  Until now.  Because it's on Netflix.  As if I hadn't already been awaiting it, I was aggressively reminded of it, because social media and geeky news outlets were soon blowing up with retrospectives and Very Serious Analyses — and fans of the old ADV translation were offering hot takes on how Netflix's release compares.  So let me finally check this out for myself.

We start out in the distant future of... 2015, where UN forces are defending Tokyo-3 ("Old Tokyo" is mentioned and depicted later; no mention yet of Tokyo-2 unless I somehow already forgot it) against an attacking "angel", an immensely powerful alien with barely-comprehensible powers.  Meanwhile, an officer of a UN agency called NERV, Misato Katsuragi, brings our main character, 14-year-old Shinji Ikari, to an underground NERV base under Tokyo-3 on the instructions of Shinji's father Gendo, who runs a secret research project.  Shinji has been brought there to pilot an Evangelion, or Eva for short, a giant robot operated by some sort of neural interface.  In combat.  With no training.  He is, understandably, not happy about this.  After seeing how badly injured the other available pilot, Rei Ayanami, is, however, he agrees to do it — and it works far better than he or anyone else expected.  He apparently has an innately great ability to "sync" with however exactly the Eva's interface works.  But this only gets him as far as starting the thing up.  When he actually engages the angel, he has trouble just getting the Eva to walk, and he feels the pain of the Eva taking damage once attacked, a frankly horrifying feature of the interface.  We cut to him waking up in a hospital, but having surprisingly won because his Eva "went berserk", operating on its own.  A flashback later shows what happened when he lost control of the Eva: it fought the angel by itself, but also took heavy damage, and we see its visor? faceplate? sōmen? of the Eva's armor come off to reveal a fleshy-looking face and a very biological-looking eye.  At this point Shinji blacked out, which is really the only reasonable response to this situation.

Over the next several weeks (the time scale is vague, but since Rei apparently fully recovers from the injuries she had when we first saw her before the time she and Shinji are both deployed, it must be at least 3 weeks between eps. 1 and 5), more angels appear, to the surprise of civilians and UN forces alike.  The Evas continue to be excellent weapons against them (though Shinji himself is still, uh, not great at using them), but despite having now killed several angels, the Evas are considered a ridiculous boondoggle by personnel of other UN branches, and Gendo's sinister superiors seem to be losing patience with his project.  In the words of... uh... that UN navy guy in ep. 8, "Shit!  A bunch of kids are supposed to save the world?"  The alternatives are wildly ineffective conventional weapons and a remote-controlled nuclear-powered giant robot that almost had a literal Chernobyl-style meltdown, which was averted by Misato and Shinji.  Although repairs are expensive, injuries common, and pilots in short supply, Evas indeed seem to be the only effective weapon against the invading cosmic horror, the barely-comprehensible aliens that are impervious to ordinary human technology and also don't fit our concepts of life or... uh... possibly physics.  So, instead, in the words of Misato later in the same episode, "This plan may be insane, but I don't think it's impossible."

While this is going on, Shinji has been adjusting to this new life poorly and slowly.  Despite being a pilot, he is still after all a 14-year-old, so he is enrolled into the same class as Rei at a local school whose student body has dwindled as more people evacuate over the initial angel attack.  He also needs somewhere to live, so Misato arranges for him to move into her apartment.  Some of Shinji's classmates think he's incredibly lucky to live with her, and spend a good deal of their screen time drooling over her, but Shinji is highly uncomfortable around her not just because Captain Katsuragi is his commanding officer, but also because she has a tendency to not wear much clothing around the house and is, er, a bit of a drunk and a slob.  Oh, and she has an inexplicable, clawed, beer-drinking penguin.  You know, all stuff that would make a nervous, lonely, scared 14-year-old completely at home.

Neither NERV training nor school guarantee a community, though, and Shinji, isolated and confused, could sure use one right about now.  He seems quite likely traumatized from the first battle.  He keeps ending up in situations that make him wildly uncomfortable while other characters take them in stride.  He repeatedly attempts to quit NERV or at least defy orders before backing out (or... backing back in?) at the last moment.  It would frankly be bizarre that they accept him doing this, except that (1) nobody really seems to take Shinji that seriously anyway, (2) he's the boss's kid, and (3) most importantly, it seems that only a small number of pilots, all the same age as Shinji and Rei, are even capable of using Evas.  (Wife and I are starting to suspect reasons why this might be, especially given the whole cyborgs with neural interfaces thing, but... uh... let's not embarrass ourselves with public speculations about the plot of a ridiculously famous show almost as old as we are.)  He only slowly gains any support or comfort from his new classmates and colleagues.  They don't reach out to him, and he certainly doesn't reach out to them, because who is he supposed to talk to?  His roommate/commanding officer who is twice his age?  His classmates who treat him as a celebrity, not a person, once they find out he's an Eva pilot?  Even if his default state since the very first episode hadn't been basically imploding into despair with no idea how to communicate that anything's wrong, there's nobody that really makes sense for him to try to communicate it to.  Except one person: Rei.  He notices that she's also isolated at school, and especially after seeing her dark, miserable, unmaintained apartment, he attempts to be friendly towards her.  I thought this might be a hint of growth indicating that he understands she is possibly the only person more isolated than him and the only one who might be able to relate to him, but then the next time he threatens to quit NERV after that conversation, he explicitly claims she doesn't know what he's going though, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ maybe he just has bad social skills.

Sigh.

Shinji does start to make friends with Aida and Suzuhara, two of his classmates, though.  And it's interesting because they contrast against him in their reactions to the conflict outside.  Aida roleplays being in the military and finds Shinji's role as an Eva pilot glorious and enviable.  Suzuhara is initially furious at Shinji because his sister was collateral damage — she was injured when Shinji fought the angel — and his mind is changed only after Shinji rescues him (and Aida) from an angel.  Shinji, though, having been thrust into a role he doesn't even understand and about which he is ambivalent and unstable, lacks Aida's optimistic admiration of his role and a full appreciation of either Suzuhara's resentment or gratitude.  He not only rejects their praise, he calls himself a coward during (sigh) one of his attempts to quit NERV.  It occurs to me that this could be seen as indicating different perspectives about the military (ask any American vet who's sick of being "thanked for their service"), or even different perspectives about adulthood itself — I'll bet any millennial who did not achieve their dreams can recognize Aida's "wow this is amazing I can't wait to be a grownup too" roleplaying vs. Shinji's "I am doomed and isolated by the responsibility that has been thrown at me" actual experience in NERV.

Also thanks to the school scenes, we start to learn some backstory, including the famous "Second Impact".  A catastrophic asteroid impact in 2000 melted Antarctica's glaciers, which led to unprecedentedly rapid sea level rise, leading to mass extinction, including that of half of humanity through not only direct climate change impacts like displaced populations and crop failures but also conflict stemming from it.  Or so the official story goes.  It is later revealed that the Second Impact actually involved somehow the previous arrival of angels on Earth, although this has yet to be explained in detail.  (Actually, I accidentally saw spoilers about more detail about this while revising this review, because I went to sanity-check myself about some other detail on one of the fan wikis, so I know part of where this is going, but only part.)

Over the first eight episodes, which must be several weeks at least after the start of the show given that Rei has recovered from her initial injuries (although the time scale is very vague), Shinji fights four angels total and gradually improves, but the biggest improvement comes not from him being an individual hero but from finally working well with others.  For example, the octahedral angel that drills into NERV's base has incredible abilities to detect and counter incoming attacks.  It kicks Shinji's ass on the first attempt, because duh.  But Misato devises a plan to test its abilities and concentrate the power of... uh... Japan's entire electrical grid(?!) at it from a safe distance, and the plan succeeds only because of Rei giving Shinji cover.  An angel attacks a UN ship convoy transporting the third pilot, Asuka Langley Soryu, and her Eva, and she and Shinji fight the angel together in a ludicrous fight that involves both cramming in to pilot the same Eva together (which, interestingly, requires them to give it the same, or maybe just compatible, instructions together in the same language for it to work... yay neural interfaces).  So maybe/hopefully the direction this is going is "the chosen one is a stupid idea and even talented people need both training and cooperation to not suck at things"?

Episode 8 leaves off with Asuka joining Shinji and Rei's school class, and with the dramatic and creepy reveal of an embryo encased in bakelite which is described by Gendo as "Adam, the first human"...  Well.  That comes off as the kind of thing that would drive the future plot, and hopefully all the Biblical imagery will finally start to converge into something coherent instead of just sort of serving to draw extra attention to the fact that the humans refer to the aliens as "angels".  I've been wondering about that since the beginning.  There's the title, of course, but also the sefirot in the opening and on Gendo's office ceiling, the first angel's attacks using what appears to be a directed energy weapon which invariably forms glowing crosses, and the fact that most of the angels themselves are wildly non-humanoid (a choice which echoes the rather... eldritch... classical depictions of angels — see also the seraph in the opening).  NERV's motto is even explicitly, well, monotheistic at least, if not sectarian: "God's in his heaven.  All's right with the world!", which is counterintuitive at best with the idea of calling the alien invaders "angels".

Well.  I'll find out, and I plan to write a followup like I did with Re:ZERO, going into the broad swaths of the rest of the plot and my overall impressions of how they handled things.  Especially given that this show has a famously-controversial ending.  I jumped into this determined to watch the whole series, so I'm not backing out.

I'll just threaten to quit repeatedly then almost immediately come back.

-----

W/A/S: 4 / 3 / I feel kinda bad about this but 4?

Weeb: I mean, anything with giant robots fighting giant monsters deserves a few points just for that, right?  I don't think this requires much by way of Japanese cultural references or assumptions to watch, though.

Ass: Nudity so far has been brief, partial, censored by convenient angles and object placement, and not remotely sexy.  Thanks to another contextless spoiler I happen to have picked up, I expect an infamous later scene that is clearly supposed to be sad and disturbing in context, which is, again, not the kind of thing this scale was originally designed to describe.

Shit (writing): Even though I tend to overall like their plots, I always sort of sigh and eyeroll at the "let's put children/teens in combat and/or experiment on and/or just plain torture them to force them to become powerful" storyline formula that’s been semi-popular for the last few decades, and Evangelion is definitely in that category.  Friends have said the story is confusing or poorly-paced, and I kind of agree but also think some of the confusion is warranted by the choice to enter the story in media res in order to reveal what's going on to the audience at about the same time it's revealed to Shinji.  As for the tendency to have some long shots where literally nothing happens, that does get annoying, and I suspect its primary motivation was to save money, but I think it also usually emphasizes how lonely the whole situation is, at least before Shinji starts to warm up to Misato and Rei to Shinji in the last couple of episodes I've watched so far (which have, appropriately, had much more action and interaction).  Mainly, my writing complaints are actually about translation, because there are some noticeable and consequential differences between translations for the sub and dub.  Yeah, yeah, I've heard of the love vs. like thing everyone on the internet is already upset about, but I haven't gotten to that episode yet.  I'm talking about things like Misato saying "it will work!" in the sub vs. just "okay!" in the dub when Shinji is first able to control his Eva, a choice which suggests very different things about both her level of knowledge of the project and why Shinji has been called on for it at all.  The new dub also feels... uh... too at home as a dub of a '90s anime, as it prioritizes matching lip flaps over flowing like believable speech.  Having not seen the old dub, of course, I can't make any kind of judgement about whether this is a step up, down, or sideways from how ADV did it.  And the sub has many on-screen captions in Japanese are left untranslated — not things like signs in the background, but actual captions the audience is meant to get information from.

Shit (other): Maybe we're spoiled in this age of computer-aided art, but i's surprising to see a show with such limited animation — speech conveyed only with lip flaps, obviously reused shots within the same episode, foreground objects gracelessly sliding against a background to indicate movement — and so I'm willing to give the show a pass on most of that, especially since the characters are distinctive and the setting and aliens and robots so interesting.  Much of the limited animation actually serves to show the vast scale of NERV's facilities and the Evas vs. the humans and/or to emphasize loneliness like the pacing.  But there really are some painful mistakes from time to time in the art: objects and faces that look utterly wrong, like the artists just did not successfully figure out how to draw that particular character or vehicle from that particular angle.  The legendary opening theme is certainly catchy — it’s been stuck in my head almost continuously for the past week — but I just don’t think I enjoy it as much as other people do.  Some of the immediate complaints that were apparently worthy of news media attention were about the replacement of Fly Me to the Moon with a piece from the show's soundtrack as the ending theme.  I understand why people would be upset by that kind of change, but I am willing to take the controversial stand that it's not a bad change.  The piece they chose as a replacement is haunting and tense, which fits in with the mood of most of the episodes so far, while Fly Me to the Moon feels to me like an inappropriate mood change from that.

Content: Actually among the least graphic of the various shows I've covered involving violent or horrifying elements.

-----

Stray observations:

- God it was weird to write this by constantly abbreviating “Evangelion” as “Eva”, considering that Wife's name is Eva.

- A lot of people seem to hate Shinji as a character, but I find him understandable in a way that probably implies uncomfortable things about my own sanity.  I just... I understand that sheer degree of doom and misery and indecision and inability to articulate any of those.  Man.  Ugh.

- I don't know if you've ever seen an undisguised angel, but trust me: they're horrifying.  (link NSFW)

[69annebowlin69]

14/3/19 - 14/7/19 Watching True Detective Episode Six and Seven

7.06

It’s likely that this version of my body - flabby in the centre, bulky around the edges - will be the one i die with, allowing i maintain it properly, and for the first time today i realised it might be ok, that i was so scared of turning doughy and shapeless again that i missed that my body right now might be ok to have for thirty more years or whatever.

7.14

‘Wondering why it took two days to find that backpack’

‘Took god six days to make the world!’

***

17.19

Okay so a few things. First, i only remember the pink room and Vulture is pay-walled now so i can’t  crib from their recaps, which are usually basic but written smartly. Two, i started watching Ep Seven on one of the small screens where the backs of peoples heads should be, halfway through an eight-hour flight. The person reclined ten-mins in. Thirdly i’ve not taken adderall today, in fact i finished the valium we had before boarding. Fourth, I no longer feel comfortable admitting that my body will stay the same til i die (see 7.06, written months ago).

Okee, in the words of Hays, “lets True Detective!!” - that famous and good catchphrase we all love

17.36

Two people have text me that The Beguiled is on Netflix. Looking forward to watching it through Emmy’s account later! Stephen Dorff is in a lesser Sofia Coppola, i think. Where he’s an exiled actor holed up at the Chateau Marmont and his daughter gets dumped on him? I’m looking to watch that one, i love that early 2010s earnest low-concept, major release, arthouse director stuff. Tree of Life core. Basically any trailer where bed sheets are unfurled, curtains billow and there’s a pool, i’m pre-booking.

17.49

Not to dig up old ground…this title sequence is such a downer. Really cools one off after the Previously On.. sequence.

17.53

This man Mahershala really going to be the next Blade. Folks, he’s already been up against Deacon Frost. Folks? I said he’s… oh we did that already.

17.56

First earnest post of the blog: the shot ascending the rusted stairwell towards, first Tom Purcell’s prone legs and then his bloodied body, with Roland crouched over, is a nice touch.

17.57

Emmy has thrush, it’s called Thrush, not a yeast infection, which i keep saying instead, and to which she squirms. It’s not gross, i remember the phrase ‘cottage cheese-like discharge’ from school, which is also not gross. Just, i can’t not imagine a container of cottage cheese, one of the 300g tubs that i used to eat, even though I can’t imagine it’s so much that’s released. We had sex last night and everything was, uh, extremely good. Sex

18.04

This season’s palette is immoveable. That slate grey, wide open spaces of the midwest containing nothing, not terrifying, not hopeful. Just drab. In the first season, there were nuances between locations and eras. When they drove out to the meth lab, Woody wore the Keith Haring t-shirt etc, the bayou was saturated and chemical-bright. Season two a kind of bright shimmering L.A. was counterpoised by seedy neon bars in which Farrell drank.

18.19

Tonally, the voices of Mr and Mrs Hays are at odds. Sonic discord between his steady montone and her fluttering, often close to cracking, timbre.

18.25

Rust and Marty! In the papers! On the laptop! Feels kind of sad. Pizzolato revelling in former glory.

18.28

They should redo s2, with all the same actors, but give someone else the job of fleshing out the story. They should redo s2 every five or ten years. I suppose HBO always do a similar version anyway. Scratch that. Keep up the good-to-middling work, my friends at HBO!

18.31

My man is looking at FLIGHT RECORDS!!! Fuck yes, sound the Epstein alarm. IS Pizz on those flight logs? How does he know so much about this racket? Same question for Stan Kubrick. I read Kubrick made Kidman and Cruise keep things from one another on the set of Eyes Wide Shut, or like set it up so that Cruise was unsure where he stood with Kidman and over time developed insecurities and doubts and misgivings, which transpired on screen, but also in their personal life. Damn. WIld.

The latest on Epstein, there was a comprehensive Daily Beast piece about his ties to Clinton and how their relationship stretched earlier than ’02, which is what Clinton claimed. Epstein actually attended balls or galas in the white house as early as ’92 and donated money to whatever that charity is that aims to protect the white house as a historic landmark.

Anyway, back to these mf flight records.

18.39

This is eerily similar to the Clinton Kill List. All these people, all these suicides, what a tragedy! Such morbid bad luck!!

18.47

Ok the pace of this is course-correcting - less of the meandering stuff and how much of a bummer it is to get old, lose your family and memory etc, and more long and birds-eye shots of cars snaking after one another on eerily empty nighttime b-roads.

An empty, rotting barn lit only by headlamp, gloves, cuts and bruises. The music hitting.

18.56

If i’d paid more attention i might have seen the signs, but i’m not sure that there were clear signs of the rift between Hays and Roland developing over a dead body that they atmospherically had to bury in the backwoods. Always burying stuff in the backwoods at dusk.

18.59

“say it. Say it then, motherfucker.”

“no… i just want you to know that i’m thinking it.”

White HBO crime writers really think they have a pass on saying, writing or alluding to the n-word.

19.00

The complex form doesn’t fit the simplicity of the relatively straightforward story of a child sex ring. We saw the same conspiracy uncovered in s1, with a more interesting narrative structure where Hart and Cole were dishonest to the investigators and we got to see their words diverge from the events of the case as they kept more aside. Their own memories and fragments of what only each one knew, never revealed to the other.

This narration is reaching for something grander, more poignant but it’s hurt by the poor storytelling of the missing children. I don’t care about the missing children, i have a passing morbid curiosity of the details of the child sex ring and dirty underground parlours and pink rooms where the kidnapped children were taken, there’s interest in seeing why this was never uncovered. However, even though they’ve built the character Hays very well, the three different iterations of him that circle round one another, drop in on one another - that’s controlled structure done in a way that suggests chaos, but if there’s nothing interesting to structure, what purpose does it serve?

[modern-sybil]

Get to know me tag game - Magicians edition

I got tagged by @quellthefire (who is a total gem and a great person to bounce headcanons and future episode hopes and dreams off of, btw)

Name: Katie or Miss Berry. I’m missberryisbest on legit every social media platform I have.

When you started watching the Magicians: I watched the first ep way back when it came out and didn’t feel it (BECAUSE I WAS YOUNG AND A FOOL). I started rewatching when season 3 dropped on Netflix and I WAS HOOKED.

favorite season (so far): Season three holds my heart, but if Queliot grows on through season four then I will definitely change my mind. I love this season so far, but I’m too scared of losing good things to claim it as my favorite yet. And the quest theme of s3 was just marvelous.

favorite female character(s): Margo Fuckin’ Hanson. All day every day.

favorite male character(s): Eliot and Quentin are tied. 

if you were a magician, what would be your discipline? (i.e. your specialty). The quiz I took gave me natural magic, which definitely fucks with where I already am at, so I’ll agree.

which of the main characters would you best get along with? Margo. She knows what she wants and doesn’t fuck around and I can dig it.

which of the main characters do you relate to most? Probably Julia, she takes no shit, loves with her whole heart, will fuck you over if you mess with her. I’m pretty sure she is also a Scorpio. And her ability to grow and evolve after massive trauma is something I hella relate to. I want to say Quentin, but he is WAY too open and vulnerable to be a me, lol.

favorite unlikable character/villain: This one is harder than I thought!!! Probably shadeless Julia. She was so pragmatic and she got shit done and I stan a queen.

favorite pairing(s): Queliot. But honestly everyone is so hot and good together I kinda just want one big poly family dynamic. But Marqueliot, kady/penny23/julia and Fengo are my other three main pairings. Queliot is the OTP above all others forever tho.

favorite episode(s): Escape from the Happy Place, The World in the Walls, A Day in the Life, Marry Fuck Kill.... many many many

top 3 fandoms outside magicians: Brooklyn 99, The Good Place, and Buffy. 

dream job: Honestly, I don’t really have one. I just want to be financially secure enough to be a foster mom. Maybe be a super rich and fancy chocolate taster or some shit.

what one thing do you wish people knew about you: I am both the mom friend and the dad friend, many a person in my life refers to me as “parent.” Legit just start talking to me like we are friends and we are. It is that easy.

Tagging my peeps who heart/reblog/chat Magicians at me, if I haven’t seen their post already. If I tagged you and you already did a post, @ me in the comments!! I’ve been reading all of them and following more peeps!! I love this fandom. If I didn’t tag you, I either thought I saw someone else tag you or I thought I remembered reading yours, or I am just a bad potato that doesn’t deserve your friendship. In any of those three cases, consider yourself tagged. If this isn’t your scene, then I hereby untag you and I’m very sorry for the tag, you da bomb!

@duh-vonne @king-quentin-of-fillory @el-and-q @detectiveinspectordonut @official-mermaid @assuredentropy @norabombay 

[peterparkerpatrol-deactivated]

ANOTHΣR SHΦT

Fratboy!Tom Holland | Tom x Reader 

Chapters: | 1 | 2 |

Chapter 2

   You wouldn’t say that you liked Mondays, but there was something refreshing about the start of a new week. The mad dash to get all of your work done on Sunday night often meant you hit a slump in the afternoon, so to cope with the post-weekend crash you’d created a routine that involved getting a large coffee from the campus coffee cart and finding a nice grassy spot in the quad to settle onto and get a start on your readings for the week. It was small, but it was something that helped get you through the day and gave you something to look forward to. This particular Monday was sunny, but a cool breeze would occasionally blow through and gently tug at your hair as you made your way around campus. You walked towards your usual spot at the base of one of the many trees in the quad and settled yourself against its thick trunk. Across the quad, a group of people were kicking around a soccer ball.

You took a sip of your coffee and pulled out your textbook and notebook and started reading, jotting down important things from the chapter as you read. You’d had 30 minutes of uninterrupted reading time when someone suddenly plopped down beside you.

“Hello Y/N,” grinned Tom, a slight sheen of sweat covering the copious amount of skin he was showing in his muscle shirt. “You didn’t text me, I was worried about you,” he said, taking a pull from his water bottle. As he tilted his head up, you got a clear view of his tight jawline.

“I’m sorry. I’m sure it’s kept you up at night,” you responded. “I thought you didn’t live on campus?”

“I don’t, I was just at the gym,” he said, pointing back at the large rec hall on campus. “I’d just finished when I saw you sitting here, figured I’d pop by and say hello.”

“Well, hello to you too,” You said simply, turning to look back at your book.

“What’re you reading?” He asked. You held up your book higher so he could read the cover, still staring intently at the paragraph you were reading. “Student’s Guide to Cognitive Neuroscience? Sounds hard.”

“Yeah, you really need to pay attention to what you’re reading to get it,” you respond pointedly.

“Oh come on Y/N, you can’t honestly tell me you’d rather read that than speak to me,” Tom laughed.

“Yes, I am honestly telling you that,” you said, mimicking his accent. “I need to read this, we have our first midterm soon.”

“Alright, alright,” Tom said, throwing his hands up in defeat, “I’ll make this quick. Sig Ep’s hosting a fundraising event this weekend. We rented the pool for a night and are gonna put a bunch of inflatables in it and watch Titanic. Sound like something you’d be interested in?”

“So that’s why you came over,” you said, barely managing to refrain from rolling your eyes “You haven’t sold enough tickets yet and need a few more people to come or you’ll get fined. That’s how that works, right?”

“Sweetheart if you don’t think I could sell ten tickets then you don’t know me,” he smirked.

“I don’t know you,” you pointed out. “I met you like, two days ago.”

“Fair enough,” Tom laughed “let’s change that though. Don’t worry about buying a ticket, I’ll put your name on the list,” he said as he stood up and brushed the grass off his pants. “You have my number so if you’ve got any questions you can text me. Or call if you’d like to hear my voice more. I could give you tips for your impressions.”

“Wait I didn’t sa-“

“I’ll see you Friday!” He said before heading off, a smug smile plastered to his face.

-

“Why are boys such idiots?” You asked as you tossed your backpack at the foot of your bed. After your encounter with Tom, you couldn’t focus on your reading so you retreated back to your dorm.

“Because they’re boys,” Amanda said simply. She laid in her bed with her laptop on her chest, watching Criminal Minds on Netflix. “You can’t expect a lot out of them. What happened?”

“This guy, Tom, he’s trying to drag me to the Sig Ep event this weekend. But it’s at the pool and-“

“Wait, Tom as in Sig Ep Tom?” Amanda asked, looking over at you. “Tom “look at me I’ve got perfect hair and a British accent” Tom?”

“I mean, yeah, I guess.” You said, suddenly uneasy. Did he have a reputation you hadn’t heard of? He was probably a serial dater. Going out with girls for a few weeks before leaving them for the next cutie in a crop top. He could be the type. “Why, is he-“

“Oh my God Tom Holland is trying to get you to go to Sink or Swim that’s fucking hilarious.” Amanda laughed before you could finish your question.

“It’s not funny!” You said exasperatedly “I talked to him for like, twenty minutes on Saturday and now he won’t leave me alone.”

“And you’re complaining? The guy’s gorgeous. And British!”

“He’s a Sig Ep, Amanda, you know I hate them. I only go to their parties because of you guys.”

“Honey, listen,” Amanda said, pausing her show and moving her laptop to the side so she could sit up and look you in the eye. “I’m not going to say you need to get over your dislike of Sig Eps. After what Daniel did it’s valid. But you need to make an exception for this guy.”

“Why should I? All he’s done is walk around like he’s the king of campus or something and try and flex his snarky attitude at me,” you say, rolling your eyes. “And I guess he called me an Uber on Saturday but that’s it.”

“Woah woah woah wait, Tom’s the guy from Saturday?” Amanda said, “Uh-uh, you don’t get to say he hasn’t done anything for you when he was literally willing to fight Daniel to defend you.”

“Oh my God, Amanda, he was not defending me!”

“He totally was!”

“Babes!” came a voice from your shared bathroom. You lived in a suite with 3 other girls, your two rooms split by a shared bathroom. You and Amanda were in one room, and Emily and Shannon were in the other. Standing in the doorway of the bathroom was Shannon, a patient smile on her face. “What’re you yelling about? I’m trying to study for my French quiz tomorrow.”

“Tom Holland was Y/N’s savior from Saturday!” Amanda blurted.

“No. Way,” Shannon said, a grin spreading over her face.

“Yeah, and he asked her to go to Sink or Swim!”

“What’d you say!” Shannon asked, taking a seat at your desk.

“I didn’t say anything, he didn’t ask me,” You said, pinching the bridge of your nose “Besides I thought it was just a movie screening. It’s not a couples thing or anything… is it?”

“I mean, no, it’s not a couples thing,” Amanda said, “But how many people do you really think these inflatables can fit?”

“I’m not going,” you said flatly “If there’s anything worse than being surrounded by Sig Eps, it’s being surrounded by Sig Eps in a pool.”

“You could sit in the bleachers. No need to get near the water,” Shannon offered.

“I’m not going,” you repeated, growing frustrated. Your roommates could see your growing tension and backed off. They began talking about their own plans for Sink or Swim before Shannon dismissed herself to go back to studying. Now that the seat was vacated, you sat at your desk and took out your textbook, struggling to pay attention to your reading.

-

“So, saw you talking to a girl today,” Harrison said, spreading some peanut butter on a slice of toast. “Who is she?”

“Just a girl I met at the party on Saturday,” Tom responded, grabbing a protein shake from the fridge. “I only spoke to her for like five minutes, are you stalking me or something?”

“I’m everywhere, mate, you should know this by now. What sorority she in?” Harrison asked.

“I don’t know. She’s friends with some Pi Phi’s apparently.” Tom said. He shook his protein shake and sat down at the frat house’s shared dining table.

Harrison walked over and leaned over the table on his elbows in front of Tom.

“Quit your bullshit, dickhead. Gimme more details,” he said as he took a bite of his toast without breaking eye contact.

“Are you two gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes again?” Jacob asked as he walked in on the scene.

“Tom’s fancying some girl and I wanna know more about her,” Harrison said.

“I don’t fancy her,” Tom said, rolling his eyes.

“You’re certainly making an effort with her,” Harrison said.

“Is it the girl from Saturday?” Jacob asked “Because she was cute,”

“Oh so you tell Jake about her but not me,” Harrison said, acting wounded.

“There’s nothing to tell! I’ve spoken to her like twice, it’s no big deal.”

“So you’re saying you haven’t stalked her Instagram yet?” Jacob asked.

“No, why would I?” Tom shrugged, downing the remainder of his protein shake.

“Because she might have swimsuit pictures on there,” Harrison said, waggling his eyebrows.

“Real mature,” Tom said, rolling his eyes. “I think she’s cute, alright? That’s all there is to that.”

“Is she coming to Sink or Swim?” Harrison asked.

“Hopefully. Bought her a ticket.” Tom shrugged again.

“You don’t usually invest in your hookups,” Jacob pointed out.

“It’s $5 that’s hardly an investment.”

“But it’s something,” Jacob countered.

“You guys are annoying, I’m going to my room.” Tom groaned, leaving the kitchen.

“Remember we have thin walls!” Harrison yelled after him.

Once he got to his room, Tom flopped on his bed and let out a deep breath. It had been a long day, and he still had a lot of homework to get done. Despite this he pulled out his phone and opened Instagram, typing in “Y/N”.

He smirked a little when he saw her profile picture and tapped it, his smirk vanishing when he saw your account was set to private. He was so used to people’s accounts being open and available, he checked to see if he didn’t accidentally try and view your finsta instead. But no, there was only the one private account under your name.

“Mysterious girl…” He mumbled, finally putting his phone down and heading over to his desk to do his work.

AN: I’m taking title suggestions for what to call this series! If you have any ideas you’d like to share I’d love to hear them ^^ 

Tags: @iaiabear @just-a-littlebit-of-everything @fijiangecko