#I'm a James Bond fan as you may see

[justpendule]

I did not expect Moriarty the Patriot to have so many James Bond references, but I'm absolutely delighted by it.

For instance, in the fifth chapter, when William talks with Blitz Enders, he explains that his brother is working for a company called Universal Trade, even though we know that Albert is now the head of a newly-formed hidden government agency called the MI6.

Well, it turns out that, in the James Bond movies, the agent's Secret Intelligence Service known as MI6 is concealed to the public eye and disguised as a company called "Universal Exports".

I don't think it can count as just a nod to James Bond at this point, but it's so funny to notice the little details!!!

[dreamwritesimagines]

I stumbled upon your Sunshine HC today while jonesing for my fix and absolutely adore them! I can 100% see Logan not knowing what exactly it is about Sunshine that endears him to her so, it just feels like he'd throttle anyone (other than Theo) who rambles like she does but for some reason he just can't put his finger on it it's (gasp!) cute when she does it.

Secondly, I whole heartedly believe that Sir Bartholomeow adopts Logan when Theo is at home on weekends. Logan doesn't want to like the cat, but it just keeps showing up in his room or laundry or just seeking him out in a room full of people to cuddle up and purr next to, and suddenly before he knows it he's in over his head because every member of the Sunshine family just burrows their way into his heart.

Finally, I saw you post that you are not traditionally a Wolverine/X-Men fan and may I say, I'm *highly* impressed by your Logan!! So many fics have him off the charts OOC but I feel like yours is the perfect blend of gruff yet soft *hearts*

As a lifelong X-Men fan, let me tell you that the Fox timeline absolutely sucks and makes no sense no matter in what order you try and watch. They were all over the place and often not canon to one another.

I can offer a few facts about Logan from the comic book-verse just in case your muse is interested!

He was born in the 19th century as James Howlett, his parents John & Elizabeth were wealthy and it's basically all but spelled out that he's actually the illegitimate son of Thomas Logan, the abusive groundskeeper of the Howletts via an affair with Elizabeth. Side note - Elizabeth and John had another son, John III, who died previous and may also have been Thomas'. Thomas was raising/abusing another son he named (no joke) Dog. A chain of events leads Thomas to kill John, and in turn James' mutation activates and he kills Thomas with his claws and flees. He adopts the name "Logan" and for a time is even living with a pack of wolves.

Eventually he ends up fighting in World War I and II and eventually marries and settles in Japan with his wife. Things go badly (again) and his pregnant wife is murdered - he doesn't know it but the baby was "removed" from her prior to her death and its many *many* years before he meets his son, Daken.

Eventually he's kidnapped into the "Weapon X" program and tortured. The program uses his healing factor against him and forcibly bond adamantium to his bones. Eventually he escapes but is left with post traumatic amnesia. It's at this point that he joins the X-Men and becomes the Wolverine we know and love.

And speaking of Logan as a "girl dad", over the years he unofficially adopts a number of girls including Kitty Pryde (Shadowcat), Jubilee, and Rogue. Ultimately he 'adopts' a girl named Laura Kinney, who is believed to be his female clone (X-23). Eventually they discover Laura is actually his daughter.

And just for some muse food that may impact future!daughter Sunshine, know that both of his kids (Daken and Laura - and Laura's clone Gabby) have *very* similar abilities to him. All three have enhanced senses, strength, healing and claws (amongst other abilities). The claws do vary though - Daken has two on top of his hand and one in his wrist, Laura has two on the top of her hand and one in her foot and Gabby just has one on each hand.

And I'm going to shut up now that I've word vomited just as bad as our dear Sunshine and Theo!

Hi loveeee! 🥰

Aaaaaaa I absolutely love this, thank you so so much! 😍 It's so wonderful to hear that you liked the HCs ❤️

Oh you're absolutely right, if it were anyone else other than Sunshine (and Theo) rambling his ear off, he would be veeery annoyed but he's literally watching Sunshine with heart eyes whenever she does it ❤️

Sir Bartholomeow adopting Logan asdfghjkl, cat distribution system 😂

suddenly before he knows it he's in over his head because every member of the Sunshine family just burrows their way into his heart. THIS IS SO ADORABLEEEE! ❤️ I can just see him walking into his room one day to find Sunshine sleeping there with Theo and Sir Bartholomeow sitting by them like he's guarding them ❤️

And Logan will be walking around with Sir Bartholomeow comfortably sitting on his shoulder at the weekend😂

OMG OMG it is so nice of youuuu! ❤️ I was like very nervous about it at first, because I didn't know if he was in character because I didn't watch all the movies and it's like very recent for me, so it's so lovely to hear that he in fact is in character! 🥰

WAIT WAIT I LOVE FACTS ABOUT LOGAN! AAAAA-

Oh noooo his actual father was evil?! 😱

I'm sorry, his father named his son what-

LOGAN LIVED WITH A PACK OF WOLVES?!

He has a son????

Oh that's why he didn't remember the experiments! 😱

Laura is his actual daughter???

Oh that's very interesting! So their abilities are basically the same as his but with small differences aw! ❤️ I wonder what kind of claws his daughter with Sunshine would have🥰 Her strength will shock them too when it first shows😂

Honey I absolutely LOVE THIS! ❤️ You're so amazing, thank you so so much! 🥰🥰🥰

[raidergamerspice]

I typed out a giant thread on Twitter about why I think it's baffling that being a Twiyor can get you funny looks in the Spy x Family fandom, that Nightfall could ever be a likeable character, topped off with how much I hate her. I would bring that over here as well, but honestly, I don't want to. If you wanna read the thread, it's on Twitter.

As for this post, I'd rather talk about something that makes me happy, like Twiyor twins!

Yes, I'm finally talking about them like I said I would. I mean, I feel like I don't have much to say about them, but let's see what spills out of my brain lmao.

First, their names. I'm probably being unoriginal, but I headcanon the Twiyor twins' names being Rose and James. Other fans have had this idea for their kids too, so that just proves how perfect they are. Rose is obvious because of Yor being Thorn Princess. As for James, it goes back to what I said in a previous post about all the James Bond references in Spy x Family, including it possibly being Twilight's real name. Well, I think James would be a better name for their son than Twilight himself (though I do like the idea of James being Twilight's middle name, meaning his full name according to yours truly would be Lukas James Rosenfeld; see my post about Twilight's name for my reasons behind Lukas and Rosenfeld if you haven't already).

Oh, and if you didn't pick up on it yet, I also headcanon Rose being the first born twin. Most fans that headcanon Twiyor having twins usually have the son born before the daughter. But here's me simply going "But what if the daughter was born first instead?" It may also tie in to a relatively popular headcanon among Twiyors that Twilight is very much a daughter's father, or something along those lines.

And maybe as they grow up, they can go by nicknames Rosie and Jimmy 🤔

As for their genetics, I'm kinda torn. I've seen fan artists draw Twiyor twins as blonde and red-eyed for the daughter, and black-haired and blue-eyed for the son. That's a neat idea, but what if it was the reverse? That's just an idea, though. I'm not exactly sure on how I picture them looking just yet 💀

Regarding Big Sister Anya: personally, she would just love having younger siblings no matter what. I've seen some fans interpret Anya wanting a sister, others interpret her wanting a brother, so here's me in the middle once again being like "She would love both!" She would just be happy that their family is growing, and she would make it her mission to be the best big sister in the world.

Finally, I've seen a few fans write Twiyor baby fics where they would have lots of children, both bio and adopted, because they would be great parents and would happily foster more children if it meant less lonely, parentless children in the world. That's a really sweet idea, but personally, I feel like Anya and the twins would be enough for them. Even if they eventually moved into a bigger house for them all to live comfortably in, they would be content with having three children and a dog 🥰

(Oh, and speaking of them moving into a house, I did try playing a Sims 4 household with the Forgers, and I just had them live in a Sim made version of the house from Mr. & Mrs. Smith because that movie walked so Spy x Family could run 😂 Plus, it's a perfect size for them, especially if they did have twins)

Anyway, those are my thoughts on Twiyor twins! What do you think? Agree or disagree? Oh, and if you're interested in that Sim house I mentioned, here's a video of the Simmer making it:

[catboy-jaebeom]

this shapeshifting vessel is a lie

it's been a year already since my last pinned, and I got shadowbanned exactly around that time back then because of course I did, so here's a new one 🩷

I'm Autumn, but you can call me Faon as well. my pronouns are they/ them. ticked all the boxes on the queer registration form, and I'm currently in a queerplatonic poly relationship. I was born in '95. central european & white. future linguistics student. proud plant parent. kpop fan. I really adore vampires and I write original and fan fiction, as well as poetry. I speak english and german, and I'm studying french, japanese, korean and finnish. lover of bats, snakes, horsies, deer and cats, as well as sharks. I sometimes make cat ear edits and vampire edits of idols and actors ( see: my icon ) so if you want me to make one for you, you can DM me.

my interests and hyperfixations change over time — yes, it was a phase, mum! name a constant state of being, mum! — and I change my username every two years, round about. currently I'm really into the quantum leap spin-off, live action one piece show, and I'm watching a couple of kdramas and such at the side. I play baldur's gate 3, vampyr and control, but also 2064: read only memories.

I was very active in the shadowhunters and the dragon age as well as the james bond / 00q fandoms, and I will reblog every single gif of spirit - stallion of the cimarron, it's my childhood movie. also, Jin Oshiro from STRAY (2019) deserved better, thank you. you may know me as leafmiilk, taehdenveri, fliederfuchs or thetevinterelf.

this blog of mine was created in 2012, I was on here already when you could still count on the superwholock people to throw gifs at posts although I was never one of them, which, trust me, was a hilarious feeling in hindsight asjfjahajft. I have one sideblog worthy of note @splittergheist which is my writing blog, and I have a secret sideblog for my omegaverse / miscecanis stuff ( much more the lifestyle, world building and concept than the smut and stuff, I'll be honest, but no hate at all!! ) that I might give out if someone asks nicely and privately.

that said, I tag my posts extensively, and if you ask politely, I will try and tag specific things for you too! please be nice in my inbox or I'll simply delete your ask and block you. 🦈 oftentimes I will message you privately when you've sent me an ask that doesn't seem to be an ask game or such! and while I do post stuff for tag games I'm not a fan of tagging others unless we're, like, really close, sorry ><

relevant kpop stuff can be found under the tag. I also put some "reviews" written by mutuals about my blog there, thank you everyone, you're lovely 💚🌼

and thank you everyone else for reading this, may your days be bright I think we all could need that at the moment. I would super love new people to talk to ( please have your age / some approximate of it in your bio; I'm totally fine with talking to minors but I would like to know I am before I do, thank u ) so message me or reply to this!

kpop stuff

ult group: GOT7

other groups I like: NCT 127, WayV, Red Velvet, ITZY, Seventeen, SHINee, ONEUS; ...

soloists I like: XIA / Kim Junsu, Taemin

biases: Lim Jaebeom & Choi Youngjae; Nakamoto Yuta; Xiaojun; Kang Seulgi; Hwang Yeji; Joshua Hong & Lee Seokmin; Choi Minho & Taemin; Kim Leedo & Lee Seoho; Park Seonghwa & Jeong Yunho; Kanemoto Yoshi; ...

wreckers: Mark Tuan & Kim Yugyeom; Ten Lee; Kim Mingyu & Lee Woozi; Kang Yeosang & Song Mingi; ...

for as long as xitter still lives, you can find my kpop account under: jaebueomgi

blog reviews

@meant-to-be-a-hero wrote on 22nd November:

Shall I compare Autumn's blog to a summer's day? I shall not, because I am not a hack. Equal parts language jokes, kpop boys (and girls, but I don't look at those) and #bitter millennial blogging, there's something for everyone here at Autumn's blog. They are also one of the few people who still write funky things in the tags, a true dying breed on Tumblr. I feel like I'm reviewing a restaurant or something. Either way, click follow, thank me later, because you will. It's a good blog, Bront.

— ★★★★★(★★) [ 7 out of 5 ]

@klutenpetter wrote on 22nd November:

It seems I have misplaced the URL of the blog in question that I was supposed to review.

— ★★★★★ [ 5 out of 5 ]

[stinastar]

20 questions for fic writers

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 101! Wow! Keep in mind many are short, and one is an even shorter poem about eggs 🥚

2. What’s your total A03 word count? 188,209

3. What fandoms do you write for? I honestly don't know how to answer this properly haha. I still have drafts or thoughts for fics for Good Omens, The Witcher, James Bond, and Our Flag Means Death. I'm currently mainly into writing Jason Todd (Red Hood / Batman).

I just looked in my folder and I also have notes for a piece each for Lord of the Rings and Shadow and Bone, but it's unlikely those will ever be finished and posted lol.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? Of Dragons and Heartbreak, we’ll rip up the map by the seams, Which Half?, Sweet Truth, The Dumb Brute and the Bardling. So all for The Witcher, unsurprisingly. I don't think this kind of metric means much, honestly. It just means it was a big popular fandom at the time, I was writing the most popular ship, and these had tropes people were after. I think, at least. I by no means think those are my best works, is all I'm saying.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Of course! I love love love getting comments and so make an effort to always reply to them. If I missed one I promise it was by accident!

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I think that has to be you’ve got a second chance, you could go home. I'm still quite pleased with it. But people really wanted it fixed, so I did write a follow up :)

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I honestly don't know how to quantify that 😅 Maybe Fire Me Up? The fic as a whole is very soft and sappy.

8. Do you get hate on fics? No, not really. I had one nasty comment a few years back from a fan that clearly hated a character and wanted to make that my (and others') problem, lol, and have had a few iffy comments here and there, but.

9. Do you write smut? Not reallllly. But I used to only fade to black, and have started dabbling in writing sex scenes a bit, so we may get there. We'll see. I didn't think I would, lol.

10. Do you write crossovers? No (that one crackfic notwithstanding, lol), they don't really interest me.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of 🤞🏻

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Not that I know of, but what an honour!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? I don't think so, yet? I wrote a fic that went along with others, once, and I have a very neglected draft that I was working on with @ahh-fxck (sorry friend!), but I don't think I have a fic posted that I wrote with someone else...?

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship? You want me to pick between my precious babies?? lol. I honestly really don't know that I have one.

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Pffft, sadly and honestly, so many.

16. What are your writing strengths? Dialogue comes quite easily for me, and I think I tend to do it well. The rest has been a WIP lol, but I think I've been improving!

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Everything else. Ha!! For real though. All the stuff in between dialogue lol. Longer stories. Patience (lack thereof). I'm getting tired because kiddo would not GTFTS, so apologies if I'm becoming less coherent...

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? Thoughts? I mean, I've done it, a tiny bit. I did a bit of researching as well as using online dictionaries etc, and I was lucky to find a native speaker to read things over and give their input before posting.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Good Omens. It honestly happened by accident.

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written? Oooooh. Possibly Wintersong? I'm quite happy with it. What can I say, I love angst. That one isn't my most favourite kind, but I'm proud of it and love it.

Thank you for the tag @aniron48 💗 Tagging @major-trouble @cicerfics @brothebro @girls-and-honey @holycatsandrabbits and anyone who sees this and wants to tag on 😘

[killerandhealerqueen]

Hi! What famous franchises from anime, TV series or movies have you watched? What do you like the most? I have a lot of ideas with crossovers, but I do not know what you watched and therefore it is difficult for me to continue something.

Vita, my dear, hello!

Oh dear...okay. Let me see...

Movies

Lord of the Rings triology

The Hobbit triology

Men in Black triology

Almost all Disney princess movies

Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw

Coraline

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Box Trolls

Howl's Moving Castle

Maleficent 1 & 2

All High & Low Movies

Drama/Movie Masterlist (for all cmovies/kmovies/jmovies)

All Daniel Craig James Bond movies (except for the newest one)

A few marvel movies

Knives Out

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Story

Miss Congeniality 1 & 2

The Shining

Dr. Sleep

Others...

TV Shows/Dramas

Drama/Movie Masterlist (for all cdramas/kdramas/jdramas & others)

CSI: Miami (all 10 seasons but I'm already doing a fanfic with this tv show for K&H)

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (a few episodes/season)

FBI

Hawaii-Five 0 (reboot)

Sherlock

NCIS: New Orleans

NCIS: Los Angeles

NCIS: Hawaii

Will Trent

Chicago PD

The Cleaning Lady

Law & Order (all seasons except for the new ones)

Law & Order: SVU (a few episodes/seasons)

House M.D.

Definitely more...

Anime

Black Butler

Hetalia

Spy x Family

Buddy Daddies

Ace Attorney

Dragon Ball (all series and movies)

(I don't watch a lot of anime...wish I did)

That's all I can think of for now...but if there's something that you want me to headcanon and you're afraid that it's something I haven't seen, just send it anyways! I can figure it out. I don't want you to not send something in just because you think I haven't seen something or you think it's something I may not like (though I'm not really a fan of horror, so maybe don't send that). I'm pretty good at figuring stuff out. So just send away! I always love whatever you send me

[jomiddlemarch]

Thank you, @tortoisesshells for the kind tag! Sorry for the delay in responding-- work conference, Covid recovery, band geek mom triple threat.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

845. You read that correctly. Several proper drabbles and at least two co-authored fics, including the Mansion House Murder Hotel round robin.

2. What's your total A03 words count?

1,453,769. Again, that includes some co-written fic I am not inclined to parse for my exact count.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mercy Street, Foyle's War, Shadow and Bone, Poldark, A Discovery of Witches, Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, The Last of Us, GLOW, Downton Abbey, Frozen, James Bond, Star Wars, The Hour, Ted Lasso, Sanditon, Dune, Leap/Ballerina, Brooklyn 99, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Gilmore Girls, Far From The Madding Crowd, Emma, Betsy-Tacy, and a few others.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

"what it is to be a thin crescent moon" (SAB), "A Wife--at daybreak I shall be" (AOGG), "Point and Click" (SAB, modern AU), "Bear with the truths I would tell you now," (Emma), "The subtlest fold of the heart" (AOGG)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do. At a bare minimum, I try to thank the commenter for taking the time to read. In the halcyon days of Mercy Street, I wrote long, discursive essay-comments because that was our vibe. I am not always prompt, but I do try to get back to people, though sometimes if the comment is very thoughtful, it takes me a while because I want to give an equivalent response.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Probably "Because I could not stop for Death," a Mercy Street fic where I wrote vignettes where I killed someone in each of the 18 installments, though I did end the whole thing killing the agreed-upon most loathsome character. I don't tend to write fics with angsty endings, though I don't mind writing it midway.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

This is tough, because I mostly write HEA. I'm going to pick a relatively deep cut and say "Always a Bridesmaid," the Mercy Street modern au rom-com, since the whole thing is a fairly giddy romp.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

A little. I've received 1-2 negative comments on AO3 and once wrote a gift-fic for someone in the Reylo fandom and got attacked on what was then Twitter and Tumblr by fans of the writer I was gifting, even though I had offered to the writer to take the story down. I now only write gift-fic for people I have some relationship with.

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Yes. It's full of consent, sometimes awkward (who else has written crappy postpartum sex on Tumblr? I may be the cheese standing alone on that one) and almost never results in an unplanned pregnancy as a plot device. I most write cis-het and strenuously avoid using any term for a penis that isn't dick or cock. No straining members (sounds like a bunch of constipated middle management.)

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

OMG, yes! I love crossovers, so this is tough to answer. I'll go with a more recent one, "the better part of valor," Mercy Street/The Last of Us, though I have also used Sesame Street as an AU frame for Mercy Street characters.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of! (Ditto to @tortoisesshells)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Maybe 1? I don't get a lot of offers and feel a bit proprietary, since I can't read it to see how well it's translated.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

You betcha! Shout-out to the Mansion House Murder Party and "We run a very tight ship" the Cruise Ship crack-fest that @fericita-s and @sagiow and I boarded during a phase of the lockdown.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

I guess I'd have to say Mary Phinney/Jed Foster based on the number of fanfics I've written for them, but I don't really play favorites. I have a real fondness for every pairing I write, including the ones with the OC characters I write for @tessa-quayle.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Maybe this will change the course of history, but "what it means to be a thin crescent moon" is sort of hanging out there. I have some ideas for how to wrap it up but need the time and the mojo, which is harder to come by. I'd also like to get back to my zombie road-trip GLOW AU "Music shall untune the sky" but it's tough because that would be purely for me at this point.

16. What are your writing strengths?

(I hope) Witty banter. Strong female characters who have flaws. Description with plenty of sensory details. Use of quotations, math, and chess gambits :) A pithy drabble.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I find plot the least interesting component of writing fanfic and I think it shows. I love to read long-fic, but I struggle to sustain it. The words "so" and "just."

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I mostly stick to endearments or short phrases. I'm not fluent in any other language and no one needs to discover the various ways Google Translate has let me down.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Mercy Street. I started writing late at night after a work conference, literally drifting in and out of consciousness to lower my inhibitions enough to get started. It was a fic related to a WIP I loved and had written to the author about, so it was very relational.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

What is this, Sophie's Choice? I can't pick a favorite. I'll say I look back with great fondness on my Little Women/Mercy Street crossover "What thou and I did, till we loved," which features Marmee and the Star Trek Kobiyashi Maru Mercy Street crossover "It had the virtue of never having been tried," because like I said, I do love a crossover! Honestly, when there are over 800 fic, I'll admit to have forgotten I'd written some of these :)

Tagging: @asteraceae-blue @orlissa @vesperass-anuna @oldshrewsburyian, @ladamedusoif @trulybettyand anyone else who wants to take this out for a spin!

[yourfandomfriend]

hey there is nothing wrong with tom hiddleston characters and also he's sexy and it's not that hard to see him in some of those roles so you are wrong

Uh, anon? I think you might've jumped to A Conclusion. Which is fine, because what I'm about to say may sound crazy...

I'm a big fan of TH's performances and characters. But as the OP of that post was pointing out, it's a strange pattern for so many of his characters to cheat on their s.o. To a casual observer, there's literally nothing about him as an actor that screams "You'll love to watch me have forbidden sex again and again."

I don't think it's on our end at all, or his*.

I feel like, however much range he has, Tom is at his best -- and most loved -- when he's taking advantage of what sets him apart from other actors. His regality (elegance, education, self-control, precision, power) and his vulnerability (talent and skill to project a brittle facade, convey brutally frank emotions, and be so completely devastated as to break the audience in half).

But by and large, the film industry only wants to do two things with a leading man: put a gun in his hand and a woman on his dick. No matter who the leading man is, no matter his strengths, they're always beginning from the conclusion, "so he can shag a woman" and working backward. Other things get added to the search terms, like "and fall in love" or "and shoot a gun," but they're frosting. The "shagging" part and the "woman" part are all that really matters.

But I feel like that's almost at odds with what makes him popular.

Sure, some people want to see him be violent, but you can watch any action star for that. And some people wanna see him get the girl, but, um... through a lens of traditional masculinity? He is the girl. The audience loves that about him. It's not every day we see leading men express themselves with such vulnerability and grace.

So how does the industry think to market someone so loved for being lovely? How do they think to balance out his more princely features and assure a straw audience that he is, in fact, a hetero manly-man? What questions about him can only be answered with, "so he can shag a woman"?

In many cases, his elegance is framed James Bond style, as a blue-blooded facade to hide his true red-blooded nature, a nature that will spur him to take what he desires, even if it's very improper. Because he doesn't really care about propriety. No red-blooded man would.

Why is he so elegant? So he can shag a woman.

I'm not saying he can't play these characters well, or that they aren't good roles in good films, or you shouldn't enjoy them, or even that the directors' visions for the characters match the studios'. I'm just saying, this is the mentality of the industry.

They can't make him take the roles, but they can control what movies are being made, what movies he can star in, and what notes float down the pipeline. And they seem to really wanna see him be naughty.

*I theorize Tom's own pattern is more "guy who secretly wants uppies" than anything else, but that's all I'll say.

[rai-knightshade-art]

Prompt: "This is me trying"

Pitch Perfect RarePair Week 2022, Day 1

Because we all know the REAL reason Jessica and Ashley didn't get much screentime in the movies was because they were busy being James Bond-esque super spies/secret agents and living out their very own Mrs. and Mrs. Smith AU. Speaking of, hey, Pitch Perfect fandom? I have seen ZERO Mrs. and Mrs. Smith AU's for these two yet and I am APPALLED. It's perfect for them! Secret hidden lives, confusion over names (because they've got so many cover identities it's hard to keep track who's who), JESSICA'S LAST NAME IS LITERALLY SMITH THIS FIC WRITES ITSELF.

*ahem*

Anyways, welcome to my first entry (EVER!!) for Pitch Perfect RarePair Week! I rewatched the first movie recently, hyperfixated, and came to the realization that, apparently, it's "oops all rarepairs and hot takes" for me 😅. This seemed like the perfect way to tentatively test the waters of truly joining in, ya know? And so, I offer this drawing as your prompt, oh fic writers of the fandom; if you want to write this AU, you've already got free fan art for it! And my undying devotion.

This is, of course, for Prompt #1, "this is me trying"; I'm sure this was intended to be an angsty, emotional turmoil between partners prompt, but I couldn't help but turn it on its head into a comedic exchange in the middle of a High Stakes Infiltrate-and-Extract job, ya know? YOU try cracking the safe then, Jessica, if you think it's so easy! 😂

Stay tuned for the rest of my RarePair Week posts, and of course check out everybody else's entries over on @pitchperfectrarepairweek as they come in! There's some seriously talented writers in this fandom! As for me, I've got a couple of different rarepairs I've been drawing for, plus (hopefully) one fic for Day 5 that also ties into Day 6 (and, technically speaking, Day 2, though it's not as obvious)... Provided I can, ya know, ever finish writing the damn thing 😅. Though I will warn y'all, Day 2's entry may or may not be late, as I only had the idea for it a couple days ago and I haven't had time yet to draw it 😅 we shall see how quickly I can get it put together!

Links to the other RarePair Week posts and a close up below the cut, Image ID is in the alt text!

Days I'm participating in (and the Entries I've posted):

Day 1 (This is me trying): You are Here!

Day 2 (I've missed you): Link

Day 5 (If honesty means telling the truth... Well then the truth is I'm still in love with you): Link

Day 6 (There's no way that it's not going to happen with you looking at me like that): Link

Day 7.1 (I can't say it, but I'll sing it): Link

Day 7.2 (part 2): Link

Close Up:

[laura-ann-review]

GOTG Vol 3

When your working the day it’s released and want to avoid spoilers during it’s first weekend, you head to an advance screening.

I had sorta been following the hype of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, since the days of James Gunn working on the script and seeing which songs he put with this Instagram stories as part of the script he was working on. Which meant, I went in with an understanding of this is going to hurt like a mothertrucker and I better be all emotions activated.

It has been a hot minute since I’ve seen the first two including the Christmas special, which turns out my marvel fan of a brother hadn’t seen, and I had to explain who the “new” characters were.

Now after seeing the movie, I can absolutely say it’s a perfect way to end the trilogy and acknowledge the future of these characters. Especially with it’s tie up of two closing credits, polaroids of the previous Guardians adventures and a hint of what may be coming next with our beloved.

For me watching this, it was full of adventure, full of laughs and as I heard in the session I was in, a while lot of sniffles.

At the heart of this movie is family, the unbreakable bond of an unlikely squad of misfits becoming family.

This story features heavily on Rocket’s past and who his creator was, this story cameos Adam Warlock; who I thought was greatly underused throughout, and his mother; Ayesha, as well as their capturer.

The cast is not only filled with familiar faces of our beloved characters but also a familiar faces of cameos; Nathan Fillion, Michael Rooker, Jennifer Holland, Elizabeth Debicki and Sly Stallone, but also a list of new faces; Chukwudi Iwuji, Will Poulter, Miriam Shor and Nico Santos.

Just like with any James Gunn film, there is a kickass playlist to match which fits most scenes throughout the movie. Though I did question the scene that Alice Cooper’s I'm Always Chasing Rainbows song purely because I imagine that song more as an end credit scene rather than the scene Gunn has chosen for it.

If that’s my only issue with the film than clearly, I couldn’t find anything bad about it.

The pacing felt pretty quick during most times, there were times that it did pace itself, but I feel that was due to the storyline and them wanted to show the most of what this story was truly about and that was the past of Rocket, rather than trying to fit it all into a montage.

Two end credit scenes, and polaroids of the past conclude our beloved characters. Leaving them to adventures that we may/may not ever see again.

As I mentioned earlier, this is defiantly a perfect way to end a trilogy. 

[hartshorn-and-isinglass]

TwoSet. That's It, That's the Post.

This blog is mostly going to orbit around the long 18th, but as I'm too lazy to start yet another social media account I should also warn you there will be occasional TwoSet and Watcher posts which I will make a valiant attempt to somehow tie back to history but look I just stan them okay? Their fanbases have a pretty prominent presence here so it's gonna come up sometimes.

I finally got to watch some of TwoSet's World Tour footage and I really appreciate them refusing to shy away from talking about Tchaikovsky being gay. I'm old enough to remember when that was still a fairly taboo thing to mention in the mainstream, and the only people who ever dared say it out loud were queer musicians. The fact that they're willing to portray that onstage with such tenderness gives me some hope for the future, you know? And I appreciate that they do it despite all the RPS shippers going nuts over it. I guess my one qualm is that I hope they're not doing it because of the RPSers. I didn't grow up with the BL industry so I don't know how that may influence media personalities' decisions to depict queer relationships these days. I know James Somerton is going to do a deep-dive video essay on that soon.

I am not a huge fan of RPS personally. I realize it's gonna happen and l can't magically make anyone stop. But I used to helm a fandom where every time the celebrity in question so much as sneezed in the direction of another person there would be intense speculation about their relationship and he did NOT enjoy that shit because he is an extremely private person. He's basically not on any social media under his own name anymore, he has his publicist handle his accounts. I used to put my foot down about wildly speculating about his private life and folks would get mad, but I wanted other fans to respect his boundaries. I'm a little touchy about that stuff so I don't like it when fans take it farther than the people in question are comfortable with. Even if the celebrities don't mind... like, at least don't send the slash to them!

Also happy that two nerdy Asians are reppin' the culture. Maybe it's different in Australia, but over here in the US there's pressure on Asian men/masculine folks to project a bro-ish flavor of masculinity to counteract anti-Asian stereotypes... so for me at least it's refreshing to see Brett and Eddy embraced as their whole, authentic, often vulnerable selves. I want that for all dudes generally, to have space for being vulnerable, to be emotionally intimate with other dudes, to form close bonds without being told "tHaTs gAy LOL". It's one of the things that motivates my research into how masculinity in the modern era was created. Oh hey, I tied it back into 18th century stuff after all! Okay enough talk, I have a cursed drawing to finish.

[julialouisdreyfest]

Destiny Bond Interview

Destiny Bond is a hardcore band from Denver, Colorado. They enjoy a good craft beer, the occasional CBD gummy, wearing North Face puffy vests over collared shirts, and watching the Colorado Rockies lose. Wait, I'm thinking of my uncle Eric. Destiny Bond probably also likes those things as well. So it sort of works out.

We asked them some annoying questions and they answered them! Read below!

Q: Who is Destiny Bond? 

A: Destiny Bond is the sexy daughter of James Bond who uses seduction to accomplish her missions.

Q: Why is Destiny Bond? 

A: Because it simply must be.

How is Destiny Bond? 

A: Pretty good! You? 

Q: For the Dreyfest peeps who don’t know, where are y’all from and how’d you all meet?

A: We are Cloe, Adam, Rio, Emily and Amos. We all met through playing DIY music in the Rocky Mountain Region. 

Q: I think three of you played the very second Dreyfest, in different iterations! There are a lot of funny photos from that fest, I'll have to remember to bring them to show you. Any moments from that fest stick out in your memory?

A: I remember playing in my old band justinedrugs at that festival and having the best reaction we had had anywhere up to that point. It was awesome! I also played the first Dreyfest with my old band Weather-Control from Cody, Wyoming and with my solo project Oxen Free. -Amos

The first Dreyfest I attended was while my band stoic. was on tour with Adam’s band Caged Bird Songs. There was only room on the fest for CBS, so I just got to watch bands that time. stoic. did return to Dreyfest a few years later, we played under a basketball hoop and it was a slam dunk - Cloe

Q: Favorite city/cities to play in? I've always been a fan of Milwaukee shows myself!

A: Some of my favorites are Cleveland, Columbus, and Minneapolis. -Amos

My recent favorites are NYC, Columbus, and Springfield, IL! I may be biased but Denver is an all time favorite for me still -Cloe

Q: The band has a vitality and energy about them live and on the record - where do you source that energy (rage?) from?

A: The rage is one of the wolves that lives inside me….but honestly it is sourced from every day frustrations living as a transwoman in today’s climate, seeing the marginalized people in my community being trodden upon, and the everyday difficulties of seeing the changes I want to make personally and in the world, but struggling to find motivation for such big undertakings. I want my voice in this band to echo the part of your mind telling you to keep going, to find solutions, and to find them with and in your community in ways that bring others up with you. I want that rage to be turned into a productive and proactive force, rather than adding more negativity to already bad situations. - Cloe

Q: If Destiny Bond were a cover band for a day, who would they want to cover for a set?

A: I would like to do a two song Egg Hunt cover set  -Amos

The Distillers, covering all three albums - Cloe

Q: Hardcore seems to have been making a comeback - any other hardcore bands you’d recommend? 

A: Everyone reading should check out Candy Apple, SPINE, Punitive Damage, Yambag, Bootcamp, Mexican Coke and Skinman - Amos

What Amos said, plus G.O.O.N., Concealed Blade, Jivebomb, Violencia, and Stress Positions - Cloe

Q: If you were given a million dollars, but it had to be spent in ways to directly improve the Denver music scene, what would you spend the money on?

A: Purchase a space to run all ages shows, community events, and affordable practice spaces in perpetuity that could survive any changes that may take place in the city. 

Fuck/Marry/Kill- Chappell Roan, Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter 

Why pit three bad bitches against each other?! Okay, I guess fuck Chappell Roan, marry Charli (the supreme discography of the 3), and very regretfully kill Sabrina, like in the style of the stock image with that little kid crying holding a gun - Cloe

Fuck/Marry/Kill- the Denver omelet, Colorado Style Green Chili, Colorado style pizza

I don’t know what Colorado style pizza is so you can kill that, marry the chili, fuck the omelette - Amos

Fuck/Marry/Kill- Coors, Fat Tire, Dale's Pale Ale

Marry Coors, Fuck Fat Tire, Kill Dale’s - Amos

Q: Favorite 90s movie to cry to?

A: Dumb and Dumber - Amos

The Incredibly True Adventure of 2 Girls in Love - Cloe

Q: Favorite 90s album to mosh to?

A: Satisfaction is the Death of Desire by Hatebreed - Amos

Life. Love. Regret by Unbroken - Cloe

Q: Favorite 90s video game to lose to?

A: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater - Amos

Diddy Kong Racing - Cloe 

Q: Favorite 90s TV show to laugh at?

A: All That - Amos

The Nanny - Cloe

Q: Any gnarly tour stories or experiences with crashing at houses, house shows, car stuff? 

A: We got caught in a really scary snowstorm outside of Rock Springs during a night drive and had to stop and stay in a hotel and then the next day we blew a tire and had to change it and put on a spare in -11 degrees. We got it fixed and made it to the show though! -Amos

I’ll just add that immediately after that harrowing experience, we played a show in a garage with the garage door open in 20° weather in SLC. I played in a hoodie, hat, and gloves, but the show was incredible with kids literally hanging off the ceiling. - Cloe

Q: What are Destiny Bond’s plans for the future? Signing a lifetime contract to be the spokespeople for an up and coming VPN service based out of Singapore that I can get you on the ground floor of no later than the end of this fiscal quarter?

A: Nah, we won’t be doing all that but we are planning on playing a show in India before the end of the year at the largest cultural festival in Asia. - Amos

Whoa idk Amos, this VPN sounds pretty promising, and “Destiny Bond - Be My Virtual Private Network” has a nice ring to it. Can I access Netflix in other countries with it? - Cloe

Q: What can we expect for Sunday’s set on August 11th at Craft Local at 8:30 PM MST 2024 

A: Uncompromising high octane punk rock fury - Amos

That, and probably one of us hurting ourselves from jumping - Cloe

Catch Destiny Bond at Craft Local on Sunday, at 9 PM.

[jasper-rolls]

Media Roundup (February 2024)

a few days late because my job is kicking my ass lately, but i've got another batch of little reviews of stuff i've been checking out. take a look!

Doctor Who: The Fifth Doctor (Seasons 19-21)

it only took 20 years but this show is truly getting good i think. you can start to see where the DNA of the reboot comes from, especially how davison's performance would influence tennant's - and what a sendoff he got in the end, some really wild shit happening there. not much more to go now

Faraway Downs

a lot more digestible than the movie it was edited from, and makes me ponder if it shouldn't have just been this way from the start. the changed ending feels more in line with the rest of baz's ouvre, given his penchant for tragic deaths - but i'm not sure it's a better ending for this in particular. otherwise, everything from the movie applies, good and bad

Checkmate - Malorie Blackman

a strong conclusion to this first trilogy, about healing from the scars of your past and focusing on the ones who are here now. some elements feel all too real to this day, and it's heartbreaking. believe in something better

Puella Magi Oriko☆Magica: Extra Story - Magica Quartet, Mura Kuroe

boy i just…do not care about this spinoff

Iron Man 3

james bond by way of marvel while grappling with tony's actual damage instead of just libertarian-ing all over the place. disappointing that they did "What If Iron Man But Evil" yet a fucking gain but once i get past my annoyance at that, they do make it kind of work, and tony getting down in the dirt and getting to know actual regular people was really fun. good start, phase 2. try and keep it up please

Ben 10 Versus the Universe: The Movie

this was distinctly pretty okay, definitely far more enjoyable than the nonsense that the live action movies are, and there was some poignancy to it all - gwen and max thinking ben might be dead, ben having similar worries on his end, azmuth's test pushing him to be better than he can be. it may be a bit rote hero's journey stuff, but ben 10 has always been extremely by the numbers - it's no different here. my main gripe is that for being a movie, they really don't push the animation much. this genuinely looks like it could've been split into a 5-6 parter to cap off the last season of the show and there would be no obvious difference, and for all i know it probably is aired this way when the show is in syndication.

The Wolverine

watched the extended edition. man i just zoned the fuck out of this one. some nicely shot action at least but i just didn't have the mental energy to follow the plot and the silver samurai stuff was dummmbbb. very unmemorable

The Mandalorian (Season 3)

the narrative arc must sacrifice all for The Lore. all subservient, all reverent of The Lore. mandalore is back. don't you feel proud? don't you feel serviced? don't you feel clever, for knowing all these things about our brand? we took the narrative arc of our main characters and shot it behind the shed so they could stand around while bo katan, our hidden true protagonist of this season, does all of the actually important stuff, but that's okay, right? you feel good, because you know who bo katan is, and why she's important, and why the darksaber is important, and why its so so sad that moff gideon destroyed this trinket from another series made 15 years ago. look, here's jack black, and lizzo, and christopher lloyd. isn't it fun that they're now part of the Star Wars brand? isn't it great? din and grogu have a house now, all to themselves. that works as an ending, right? this is what you want, right? this is what makes you happy. this is what you crave, fans. The Story is dead. long live The Lore.

Puella Magi Madoka☆Magica the Movie Part III: Rebellion

what if hope doesn't spring eternal?

what if the energy you got from knowing the one you love is looking down and smiling on you wasn't enough? what if you really couldn't live without them? what if you said yes when in your heart of hearts you wanted to scream no, wanted to damn us all and destroy everything because if you have to suffer then the whole world should suffer too?

what if persephone and hades, but make it yuri?

Ben 10 (2016)

honestly really not that bad if you take it for what it is rather than being mad that it's not alien force Like Some People. fun redesigns, some decent comedic writing and mixed additions to the rogue's gallery (extreme pass on breaker 1-9 and nanny nightmare, but xingo, the bugg brothers and tim buktu are fun). don't go in demanding deepness or tight canon or worldbuilding (factors ben 10 as a franchise has never actually been all that good at if we're really being honest) and you can have a fun time

Thor: The Dark World

it should be a crime to misuse christopher eccleston this badly

Mario Kart 7

this must have seemed like a shock to the devs of mkwii but it turns out when you don't entirely fucking explode the player for the crime of existing near first place, the game is actually fun and enjoyable, and i want to play more of it

Star Wars: Visions (Season 2)

not as good as the first season IMO, but still some fantastic and beautiful animation from around the world. the aardman short got me good. i saw you grand day out robot

Nichijou: Original Run (Vol. 1-10)

works just as good in manga format as the anime did, although it doesn't have quite as good an ending. keiichi arawi has an impeccable sense of timing that shines even in manga format, and their ability to take comedy to great extremes in their art is hilarious

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey - The Fate of Atlantis

well that was a load of nonsense. AC's take on greek mythology was admittedly pretty cool to see but it was just a lot of meandering in the end. a surface level tour with some juno teasing at the end which i'm pretty sick of tbh

AD:PIANO VIVACE 2 - Diverse System

pretty good but not stellar. little really stuck out to me as truly awesome, even BlackY's track was kind of a let down. still, nothing actively bad here.

best track: "Flows With Errors"

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

it feels wild that thus far captain america consistently outdoes every other MCU movie. i didn't think i'd be this on board with him when i decided to start catching up. a great spy thriller that managed to contain a ton of engaging plot threads without feeling overstuffed and overlong, and genuinely left me pretty excited for more

Disney Gallery / The Mandalorian (Season 3)

where is any of this for andor. i don't care. i hate this show now

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

there's like, almost a movie here. it starts off pretty good! there's bits and pieces that shine, it feels like it should be better than it is, there's stuff throughout that could absolutely go somewhere exciting and then it just completely fumbles everything. what the fuck

got a longer review on my letterboxd

---

anyway kind of a pingpong month in terms of quality, but the show goes on...

[danganronpasurvivoraskblog]

Hey mod if you are a death battle fan what is your tough about the death battle symbol hints for season 10

//I've just sort of had a look at it now, and here's how I'm looking at it, but I think each symbol represents the upcoming episodes, and is a hint to what we might be getting. So here's what I think:

The atom refers to, obviously, the premiere episode of The Atom vs Ant Man.

The Crossing Swords probably refers to Chosen Undead (Dark Souls) vs Dragonborn (Elder Scrolls) which is another confirmed episode.

Question mark I'm not too sure about, I do however think it could refer to Bill Cipher (Gravity Falls) vs Discord (My Little Pony) which was also confirmed.

The last confirmed episode, Alex Mercer (Prototype) Vs Cole MacGrath (inFamous) I think could be the Yin and Yang symbol, but I'm not sure. It could just as easily be the scales.

The Dollar Sign symbol could mean more than one thing. It could be referring to bank heist matchup, like Grand Theft Auto Vs Payday or something, or it could be symbolic of money-obsessed characters from other media, like Scrooge McDuck or Mr Krabs (Not a matchup I expect because it's very one-sided in my eyes)

Lotus Flower makes me think we might get some kind of Mortal Kombat Vs Avatar battle, since both franchises have a faction named after a Lotus. Maybe Liu Kang Vs whoever the Bloodbender bad guy from Korra is.

The Skull and Crossbones either refers to pirates or characters who use poison.

The Star is either the Jostar Star, or Captain America's Star. For matchups, I think we could get JoJo Vs Persona 5 for the former, or Marvel Vs Rising of the Shield Hero or something.

I think the Recycle symbol may be referencing Captain Planet. I don't know who his opponent would be, but I don't see it being anything else.

Going back to the scales, I really really really want this to possibly be referring to Ace Attorney Vs Danganronpa. While I'm not expecting most reasonable matchups to win against Phoenix given that he's already in 2 fighting game series, I still want to see it. It could also be referring to heroes with a strong focus on justice, so maybe Judge Dread Vs Punisher or something?

The Half Circle I'm not too sure about, but I think it could be referring to the moon. In that instance I think it could be implying RWBY, Assassination Classroom or Soul Eater. With RWBY Volume 9 now being over and done with, I think we'll almost certainly get a RWBY matchup at some point.

The man in a suit makes me theorize two things. It could be a secret agent face off, but we already had that last season with John Wick Vs James Bond. My personal theory is it could be, going back to JoJo vs Persona, Yoshikage Kira Vs Tohru Adachi.

The Pentagram could also be Bill Vs Discord, but it could be referencing many different franchises, namely Hellboy, Shin Megami Tensei, Devil May Cry.

The lab bottle makes me think of some scientific battle, but there's so many scientists in media, I wouldn't know where to begin.

The wave is definitely referring to some sort of sea battle, possibly something like Kyogre vs Chaos (Pokemon Vs Sonic) but I have no idea where to start with this.

The Shuffle Symbol makes me think we could get something Yu-Gi-Oh/Card game related.

//Anyway, that's all I got. I'd rather wait and see.

-Mod

[gaycey-sketchit]

Hello and happy friday! Today I ask this: what’s your all time favorite pokemon episode(s)? Episodes you could watch- or have watched- time and time again, never getting old? And if you wish to talk about it, why is it your favorite?

Oh I love this question. There's a bunch of episodes I'm a really big fan of, off the top of my head I'll list some of my favorites!

EP063 The Battle of the Badge: This episode first aired before I was even born, I saw it for the first time as a kid, and I still haven't run out of things to say about it. It has Implications and I have written so much about that and its ramifications. Genuinely obsessed. Also it was my PalletShipper awakening.

EP110 The Stun Spore Detour: I love a good sickfic episode. This is a good sickfic episode. Like half the cast is incapacitated for the majority of the episode because Ash managed to knock himself and Tracey headfirst into a Vileplume and meanwhile, elsewhere, Jessie did similar, and I just think that's great. Misty is awesome in this one, the way she handles this whole situation--getting to show that she is strong and capable and also incredibly kind (and in the dub, James and Meowth are so grateful for her helping them help their sick friend that they refuse to fight out of gratitude). Also there is something so funny about Jessie going from waxing poetic about how beautiful things are fragile and she's actually dying to, as soon as she's recovered, throwing her snake through some sick children's wall. One time I watched this episode like three times in the span of a week.

HS15 Putting the Air Back in Aerodactyl: This episode is about three characters I love and love the dynamics between so much (the Oaks and Tracey) and it is so special to me. We get to see a very endearing side of Gary here--he's an insecure kid finding his footing on a new path and doing his best, and he wants to make his grandpa proud of him. Fortunately, Professor Oak already is proud of him and tells him as much in a scene that I have so many feelings about. This episode also features one of Tracey's greatest, wildest moments, grabbing onto a moving Aerodactyl. Literally what possessed him to do that.

HS16: Luvdisc is a Many Splendored Thing: Another episode I watched like three times in the span of a week once. It's cute! It's got good character interactions and very funny moments, and it's about Luvdisc which is a Pokemon I'm very soft for.

AG113 Who, What, When, Where, Wynaut: I like ContestShipping. I like when characters I like get knocked unconscious. I like Wynaut, though that's mostly because of this episode, which I was well and truly obsessed with as a teenager in my most hardcore ContestShipper days. I still think it's a great episode, I love May and Drew getting to be alone together bantering and bonding, and how you can pinpoint the literal exact moment Drew falls in love with May. Good stuff.

AG187 The Unbeatable Lightness of Seeing: I am a big fan of rivalries in Pokemon. This is an episode all about how good rivals are for each other, with Ash and May both being at a low point and their respective rivals pulling them out of it. The Ash and Gary-May and Drew parallel is also made abundantly clear in this one in case anyone missed it. I joked once that considering that parallel, Drew having a canon crush on May means one-sided PalletShipping is canon by proxy.

DP053 Tears for Fears: I'm an abuse survivor who sees a lot of their past experiences reflected in Chimchar's arc, and this episode makes me cry cathartic tears. The way Chimchar keeps remembering its lonely and miserable past with Paul in contrast with Ash and company being so kind, and Chimchar expecting to be punished after losing to Piplup, only to be praised instead and be so overcome with emotion it breaks down in tears... that gets me every time.

Honorable mention goes to JN068 Advice to Goh, which first aired when I was having a bad time and cheered me up a lot. I also just think it's a delightful episode, with Ash and Gary falling so easily into friendship despite how long it's been since they last saw each other, and poor Goh (whom I also love) being a third wheel sulking in the background.

[maxwell-grant]

So, I reread your post on how you aren't too fond of spy parodies in the James Bond vein, and it made me think: what are your thoughts on how TF2 intersects with that kind of pulp fiction or spy fiction?

I don't think I'm "not too fond of" spy parodies in general, really, whatever my thoughts on James Bond himself I'm not adverse to spy fiction or spy parodies, they just usually don't do much of anything for me. Maybe part of that is because I got really, really spoiled early with TF2, which was one of my first big fandoms.

First thing that comes to mind with the idea of an intersection between TF2 and spy fiction is an SFM short called Agent Gunn: Vulkanite, which is fan-made but well-made to the point it might as well be official. It's a short film about this badass superspy Bond character with an ending that shows what happens when you put James Bond in the TF2 universe: He may get to do all that James Bond crap and look cool and stylish and so on, but since this is Team Fortress 2, the Mercs will eventually show up to kick his ass and steal his shit and ride off into the sunset laughing at him. Whether that’s because this is their turf and old-school conventions don’t apply here, because TF2′s parody status demands this to happen, or because it’s the TF2 mercs and this is just what you’d expect them to do regardless, it’s up to you.

TF2 over the years has kinda blossomed into this ever-more-absurd cartoon of itself in a way that's only made it funnier and more long-lasting than it might have been otherwise, so it's interesting to look back on it's early years, in it's initial design documents, and see a point where they had the design and art style figured out, but not quite the personality down pat. It’s funny to think that TF2′s design was specifically set to be retro-inspired, in many ways more retro than Team Fortress 1 (Classic) was intended to be, because “retro” is not usually an adjective we associate with timeless design, quite the opposite. Team Fortress 2′s approach to design is, or at least was, a bunch of J.C Leyendecker-looking characters duking it out in an 1960s spy movie setting, a combination that feels like it should be in a dated prequel to a modern FPS, not in the sequel to one. 

A lot of this comes down to the fact that Team Fortress 2 was, originally, intended to have that kind of modern warfare aesthetic, and they had 9 years in development to work out a lot of things about this game and change it, ultimately realizing that all their attempts to make this gritty and realistic and serious experience didn’t match at all the actual experience of playing a first-person shooter, which is chaos and nonsense and people dicking around. They ended up instead taking the better road, which was to embrace the chaos and allow for the game to be funny, but most importantly, make it distinct. Making each of it’s characters distinct from each other became the top priority, and it paid off superbly. 

A lot of what sets TF2 apart from most other FPS games comes from the fact that it works with the player experience and embraces it in it’s sheer chaos, and this, I think, also works in it’s favor in regards to how it relates to those two influences. TF2 gets a lot of praise for it’s extremely strong cast of personalities and rightfully so, and it also gets a lot of great jokes out of just playing around with the setting it’s built for itself and how the characters live, kill and/or die in it. The characters are absurd because the world is absurd, and sometimes the world gets so absurd that the characters can even look normal or well-adjusted by comparison. 

I think a lot of it’s strengths are helped by the fact that it’s characters weren’t originally designed to be funny first and foremost, which is why the comics succeed in doing dramatic bits with them, but they all lend themselves to be funny not just because of their personalities, but because they live and participate in this superspy warfare world, and that kind of thing is just inherently bonkers no matter how you cut it. It’s a lot like how, no matter how dark and gritty and aggressively self-important superheroes get, they will never wash away that childish whimsy of it’s origins, and this is not at all a negative. Team Fortress 2 gets to have pretty much most of the great and cool parts of spy fiction, even played as straight as the creators want it to be, or making it even cooler by having you live out those (particularly if you happen to be one of the bastards who plays Spy, which I am lmao), but it also gets to dick around and poke fun at the entire genre/format extensively.

It’s intersection with spy fiction is that TF2 (and Venture Bros as well) is one of the great, wonderful consequences of living in a world where Austin Powers killed James Bond. 

Now, there’s an argument to be made that TF2 isn’t exactly pulling from “traditional” pulp fiction that much, considering that the bulk of it’s inspirations comes from the men’s adventure paperbacks that were specifically not the pulps and were partially instrumental in the downfall of pulp fiction in American circles. But, I can’t bring myself to seriously argue that kind of stuff doesn’t fall under the pulp umbrella (I think most people even call it pulp nowadays), I think I’ve talked enough about how impossible and useless it is to define pulp fiction under those parameters. It’s also not an argument worth exploring in regards to TF2 because, well, it very clearly has pulp love in it’s blood, the biggest reasoning as to why being, the entire existence of Saxton Hale,

who’s sort of Professor Challenger if he borrowed Doc Savage’s workout ethic, and General Zaroff for most of the other ethics. Who initially existed mainly so the creators could get as much over-the-top pulp nonsense humor out of their systems as possible, and who stayed that way even as he was developed into more of a character, still far more absurd than the other characters but with an established personality, as the merc’s comedically insensitive boisterious arms-dealing Great White Hunter shitbag of a boss with this wholly separate world of adventures that mostly don’t show up and don’t matter except for when it’s funny, and who gets away with being a shitbag because he’s funny and the setting has considerably worse villains.

To bring up Venture Bros again, in some ways, Saxton kinda feels like he fulfills a similar role to Jonas Venture Sr, in the sense that he’s painted with broader strokes than the other characters in ways that make him a monument to the pulp side of things that runs in the work’s blood, sort of embodying a part of this universe in a way, and the fact that these two are more of aggressive pastiches than the other characters serves to underline that they are not on the same level as the other characters and also that they lord over them, because they fit in this world in ways they don’t, because they’re cut out to thrive in all this retro superspy cartoon warfare nonsense, if not having outright created or inspired much of it himself. Saxton is practically a saint compared to Jonas but, that has more to do with the fact that Team Fortress 2 is considerably more light-hearted and funny than Venture Bros and it has considerably different priorities for storytelling.

Speaking of the more pulp side of TF2, it’s also important to note that, in the lore of the series, it was established that the conflict between RED vs BLU has been ongoing for decades before any of the mercs were even born, and that the first team of mercenaries (pictured above) hired by the Mann brothers in 1850 consisted of sort of a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen set-up of several big historical figures filling in the roles, most of whom based on real people except for John Henry (who fills in for Heavy), and Fu Manchu (who was the original Spy). A lot of modern pulp works use this approach extensively in order to go for a retro vibe or explore alternate history scenarios and, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have to dig very hard to find one or several examples of “pulp” stories written in modern times where Abraham Lincoln’s wielding a flamethrower or Nikola Tesla kickstarts a sci-fi revolution. 

I will say that I do find the usage of Fu Manchu in this line-up interesting.  The bulk of the character’s adventures all take place in the 1900s (with the earliest date canonically attributed to him being 1880 as when he began a plot spanning 30 years, and PJF attributing his birth year to 1840), and no work, as far as I can find, ever depicted him as a young man, let alone potentially a hero (the comics do emphasize a lot how Spy as a person is nowhere near as much of a bastard as his in-game reputation indicates) and certainly not a team player alongside the likes of Nikola Tesla, and considering the kind of things he does and says as an elderly crimelord, for Fu Manchu to have spent his youth working as a mercenary for rich American bastards? That implies a character arc of sorts. (This seems to be the last named appearence Fu Manchu has ever made in any piece of pop culture, not counting Shang Chi’s father, but a name change doesn’t really make him a different character and plenty of really great modern Shang Chi stories still make use of the Fu Manchu iconography to make a point without making any actual tribute to the character, which is the ideal outcome). This is a largely irrelevant piece of trivia within the context of TF2, just something I wanted to highlight if we’re talking the way pulp shows up in TF2, at least overtly. 

Part of the reason why I did bring up Venture Bros and other stuff is because, and I do stress this everytime I get talking about TF2, but the game has grown so much past it’s beginnings that it’s kind of mind-boggling to get your head around, for the past 15 years it’s been alive and kicking and, much like it’s characters, breaking the rules and defying logic and somehow still staying alive even when they should have been dead and buried a billion times now, even after it’s been followed up by countless shinier and trendier shooters, even after it’s been left to die and plagued with issues after issues, after everyone says it’s dead. I guess to me that’s the most “pulp” thing about it, the way it intersects most with the kind of pulp fiction I spotlight on my blog. 

Not just it’s aesthetics and approach to storytelling and violence and humor and protagonist as unhinged and mercurial as they are human and persistent to the bitter end, but the fact that the thing as a whole just doesn’t die, even when by all means it already has and shouldn’t even exist anymore. It just keeps on finding new ways to live again and again and keep on trucking, as fiction, as a style, as a fanbase, as a meme (as many, many, many, many, many memes, actually), as a dream or goal. It’s still beloved by many and it still has plenty of gas in the tank. It will not die.

...It sure could use an actual goddamn update any second now, though.