#Who knows! A clown's secrets are not to be revealed until the grand finale!

[yeonban]

G. Nikolai sc. ft. @autymns!

❛ What a nice afternoon this is, isn't it, my good sir! ❜ A tip of the hat follows the statement as he continues to walk past the executive without a care in the world, and objectively speaking it is indeed a perfect day - neither too warm nor too frigid, neither too windy nor too humid, the sun seems to cradle the base in its protective embrace rather than wish to turn it into ashes. Subjectively speaking, however... it perhaps isn't the best of days for the protectors of the night, given the resident clown's idle stroll through the halls of their headquarters as though invited to partake in their hosted children's party and presently retiring from it after finishing a fulfilling day's worth of work.

[eroguron0nsense]

The Mysterious Mysteries of Mr Sir Crocodile (Character Analysis)

(Apologies in advance for discrepancies from my usual tone and for holding off on everyone who voted for this on my last poll. Honest to God I hope y'all enjoy this in some capacity because I've been procrastinating on this meta so long it's derailed ALL my other One Piece writing and I only accomplished it through addy-fuelled mania)

This was such a fucking pain to write. I really wanted to say something about Crocodile and what makes him so fascinating that wasn't like, another fan theory or just a set of headcanons, but that's easier said than done?? We could boil it down to immaculate design, screen presence, attitude, or just the fact that he got brought back as an unlikely ally who shocked everyone by saving the protagonist, but I don't know that those factors in and of themselves make for a villain who's become such an object of fandom obsession.

Whatever it is, it's certainly not backstory or depth, because 24 years and hundreds and hundreds of chapters after his introduction, we still know nothing about Sir Crocowani's past beyond a vague confrontation with the Late Great Edward Newgate (that apparently like, ruined his dreams or something?), and some totally-not-just-a-threat-to-out-him-if-he-betrayed-the-alliance blackmail material the Queen of the Queers is holding over his sandy reptilian ass. I was born and grew into adulthood in the time it took Oda to tell the world fuck all about where he's from or his inner thoughts, or his actual honest motivations and traumas.

All we have about this character are questions. Why did he save Luffy and Ace –very conspicuously after both of their lineages were revealed to the world– against all logic and reason? Does he have ties to the revolutionaries? Is he the long-lost son of Rocks D. Xebec? Did he bounce on Comrade Dragon's Monkey D and squirt out the fucking Warrior of Liberation? I assume Oda's going to tell us more about him, but at this point, he's managed to keep a tighter lid on Sir Crocs, Inc.'s past than the fucking Secret History

You may be wondering, dear reader: what the fuck is my point? What is there, at this final stage of Long Running Pirate Manga, for me–Frankie EroGuroNonsense, OP Tumblr Community Z-lister with like, 7 mildly popular meta posts under my belt–to write about the legendary Sir Krokorok that hasn't already been said or theorized? What eagle-eyed observations did I make while rereading Alabasta and writing toxic Crobin fanfic? Am I going anywhere with this? Sorta. Yeah.

Let's start with listing things we actually know about Crockpot, in roughly chronological (??) order: –attended Gol D.'s execution way back when he was my age, along with anyone else who's anyone from his generation.

–At some point, met and was known well enough by Iva that she could effectively blackmail him

–Made it far enough on the Grand Line, somehow getting to the New World, and managed to pick up an 81,000,000 bounty (low end for a warlord, presumably scouted fairly early in his career)

–Wanted to be Pirate King until he gave up on it, not 100% explicitly confirmed but most likely due to getting his ass beat so badly by Whitebeard that he settled for picking off small fry and racketeering behind a government desk job. This makes him profoundly relatable to the rest of us depressed fucking losers who acquiesce to our own mediocrity.

–At 30, after presumably licking his wounds for a hot minute, sets up shop in Alabasta, comes up with a clever evil plan to quietly build up enough arms to conquer the world with a WMD, and then gets his years-long bioterrorist coup attempt foiled by a 17-year-old.

The rest we know: after a brief moment of glory as the unsung MVP of Impel Down/Marineford, he immediately reverts to Failguy Mode, gives all his money to a literal clown, and consequently gets roped into the neverending uncontrollable PR nightmare that is Cross Guild. It's still super vague and we know little to nothing about his past before the Alabasta Saga (for all we know he had a fling with King Cobra)

...Onto his personality and mannerisms. This shit's a lot more revealing. Superficially, he's everything: immaculate Bond villain levels of charismatic villainy, unbelievably ostentatious, dripped out like a Pimp, constantly smoking cigars, absolutely dripping with smugness and grease and disdain. Owns exotic pets and a giant casino, and spends every waking moment either grinning like a maniac when he's got the upper hand or storming around in a fucking mood when anything goes mildly wrong.

He's also pretty hardened underneath all that, obviously couldn't have lived a day on the grand line or survived Impel Down Torture otherwise. But even in Alabasta, Crockery gives off an air of being distinctly more grounded and willing to get his hands dirty than other flashy, established villains who flaunt their wealth and status. A big part of it is just his really hyper-masculine indomitable tough guy persona, but even early on he's very much micromanaging his operation, fighting people hand to hand in (as opposed to, say, Doffy, who literally puppeteers people while lounging around) and makes a point to keep almost all of his followers at a distance and rely on them as little as possible. He rants a bit about how dreams and whatnot are pointless follies, as One Piece antagonists tend to do, and repeatedly taunts Vivi about how her idealism can't save her, but with the context that he wanted to find Laughtale himself, it feels a lot like projection.

The character trait that's harped on a LOT in canon, and probably the most pertinent one to whatever demons he has, is Croconaw's profound pathological distrust for everyone around him. It's a huge part of what makes him a good early foil to the Nefertari family and the Straw Hats, whose collective strength is derived from organic human connection; Crocalor, by contrast, makes sure that up until the very last moment, he keeps most of his people so distant from him that they genuinely have no idea he's even their boss. His relationship with Robin is interesting, but he turns on her immediately when he realizes she either can't or won't give him the location of Pluton and has his dramatic stabbing/"I forgive you" lines about how he never trusted her or anyone from the start. He says the same shit to Mihawk when he suggests they join forces, even citing their mutual distrust as a kind of paradoxical justification for why they'd actually work well together.

Arguably the only exception is Daz Bones, but even that relationship is still a pretty reserved one; one of the few traits Daz exhibits is a similar avoidance of human connections to his boss and even though they've ironically formed a bond despite it, I can't imagine that they're emotionally close. I find these more explicit declarations of paranoia a lot less indicative of what's actually going on in Croconut's head than subtext, but I feel inclined to mention them just because it more or less tells us that his background/trauma has something to do either with betrayal or alternatively just being jaded and deprived to the point of self-isolation.

Krookodile's character gets a little bit more interesting when we get to see him again in Impel Down being a smug little manipulative rascal right up until he gets blackmailed by his endocrinologist, which is definitely medical malpractice but also funny as hell. I also appreciate that literally the first thing he does after getting out of his cell is change into a big coat and cravat to keep up appearances, but it's not until Marineford proper that things get really complicated. Saving Luffy and Ace is the first selfless thing we see Crobat do–while yelling at Luffy that he needs to protect what matters to him properly, no less– and he just keeps fighting for them after that, teaming up with his most hated rival crew to cover Luffy's retreat and telling the entire WG to go fuck itself multiple times over. He fights everyone on sight with no regard for his own safety, talks mad shit to Doffy, and demonstrates a genuinely compelling amount of honest to god chivalry.

For a short time, we see Crocomotive less as a really entertaining cartoon villain and more as a person with hidden, profound emotions and a confusing moral code that's seemingly incompatible with the vicious little creature we met in Alabasta. We come to understand, in a few very brief lines that give us way more questions than answers, that Cromagnon has deep-seated, emotional convictions he actively suppresses, and that whatever baggage he has is probably tied to wanting to or failing to save something of his own. His resentment of Newgate, who he really really wants to have a go at (despite theoretically no longer caring about the ambitions of his youth) is indicative of a desire to revisit the fight that probably ruined his dream and ego, but it's also tinged with a deep-seated grudging respect for a living legend.

Crock–Afire Explosion's obvious seething hatred of Doffy also gives us a few more insights into what's wrong with him. On a surface level, it makes sense that he dislikes a profoundly obnoxious, even flashier fellow warlord who achieved more or less the same goal he set out to in a shorter time, fucks with his business, and then mocks him/tries to recruit him right after his very public defeat and imprisonment. He postures a lot, especially with his lines insisting he's on a higher level and that Doffy could only ever join him as a subordinate, but he's visibly steamed in their initial encounter and clearly hasn't liked him for quite some time. I bring this up because if we stretch our interpretation a little (for the sake of my argument), Croc Holliday's distaste for someone who's (outwardly) so much like himself and embodies all of his villainous characteristics from back in Alabasta might also suggest that deep down, he doesn't actually like the things they have in common; he sees right through Doffy because he's done the same shit and he hates what he sees.

Having gone over all that, I've come up with some key characteristics of Crocomelon that I'll use going forward:

–Extremely performative: puts an ungodly amount of energy into maintaining a carefully curated persona, and projecting a certain amount of power, masculinity, and prestige. Not necessarily an unnatural or inauthentic one, but a constructed and purposeful one nonetheless

–Deep-seated paranoia, hidden secrets; probably intertwined. Keeps personal details on tight, tight lockdown, probably afraid of being known.

–Constant projection of his own insecurities and failures onto other people, making a point to be uniquely cruel in Alabasta to an idealist who loves her people and a dreamer who wants to be the Pirate King.

Ironically, he demonstrably respects and defends two people–Luffy and Whitebeard–who theoretically embody everything he hates or scorns (ambition, goodness, love, connection, romanticism, greatness in the traditional sense) and he intensely dislikes the villain most like himself, or at least the one who shares a lot of his worst characteristics (ostentatious manipulative scheming rat bastard backed by people stronger than himself) –The Grinch's heart grew three sizes at Marineford because of like, the compelling power of brotherly love and reminders of his youth or something

SPECULATION, CONCLUSIONS??

The difficulty with writing anything definitive about Crocko's Basilisk is that he's such a mystery, which functionally lets the fanbase project literally whatever weird personality traits, potential backstories, or anything else they could possibly come up with onto him. So I want to be clear that I have absolutely no interest in theorizing about the specifics of his past or secret identity or potential baby daddy or anything along those lines; I'm only interested in what we can infer about his personality by extrapolating from canon. And the conclusion I keep coming back to, the one that I'm convinced is true on some level, is that Crocodile is living a lie and he fucking hates himself. Everything he does, from how he acts to what he claims to believe, is a desperate effort to cope with his own insecurity and failure and cover up a past version of himself he's deeply ashamed of.

Now, unfortunately, Oda did not conceive of Crocodile as a trans man but stories belong to the people and we can do what we want let's forget about that and play it straight because he's constantly performing gender as a means of compensating for a deep-seated shame and self-loathing from whatever traumas and secrets he keeps hidden. Even assuming he's a cis man, he deliberately chooses a hypermasculine persona with a Capital V Villain moniker and pimp outfit and speech pattern he's carefully curated to project masculine power–physical, political, and financial–and we know it's performance because we see him break kayfabe and get legitimately fucking angry whenever he's confronted by a person like Luffy, who's crazy and brave enough to try and do what he couldn't and risk everything for love and hope that he cannot bring himself to feel for another person, or reminders of the past he tries so desperately to bury.

The lessons he's wrongfully obtained from his past are as follows: Idealism is a weakness. Dreaming is a weakness. Connections to other people and being known are crippling liabilities (If he is, in fact, trans and closeted, that's all the more reason to be existentially disgusted by what he used to be). All the hope he brought to the Grand Line, all the excitement of trying to carry on where Roger left off, needs to be purged and buried because all he got to show for it was loss and humiliation. But he can't stop wanting more, and ironically, after he gives up on conquering the Grand Line, he ends up chasing the same fucking poneglyphs and weapons because his ambition's still there; it's just compromised and much more jaded.

Everything he does that's seemingly contradictory makes sense when you realize that Crocodile resents his failure and wants to avenge himself. He makes a big show of talking down to Luffy and Vivi's petty ideals and shit-talking Newgate and his family, but he still wants to fight Whitebeard like he did way back when and help Luffy protect what matters to him. He hates Doffy, who's honestly just a more successful schemer than he is because it's a constant reminder of what he settled for when he took that warlord post and fucking gave up. He claims to trust no one, but he keeps Daz by his side and rewards his loyalty because he can't help but trust someone who respects him so deeply and follows him to the ends of the fucking earth long after losing the material incentive to do so. He claims to look down on people who aim for the stars and fight for love and joy and freedom and yet, in his most vulnerable moments–not in the face of violence or imprisonment, but when he's emotionally compelled to defend a child and help save his brother–we see how badly he wants that for himself.

TLDR: Crockman Holic is deeply insecure in his masculinity, desperately needs psychological help, and his character/potential redemption arc in One Piece is just dealing with his midlife crisis.

[judyhopps934-mt-zd]

Thoughts on Lies

Warning: Spoilers! And possibly having your heart torn into pieces. Other than that, have fun!

We open up with Marinette figuring out the recipes for the power ups as the new guardian.

I am disappointed that she still has not stopped oogooling over Adrien when he appeared on the news. Especially since she was allegedly with Luka by then. (I'll explain what I mean in just a minute)

Adrien was tired after the day he had as Adrien, which is a contrast of what Marinette believes his life is like. But being Chat Noir is the highlight of his day...

...only to not see Ladybug show up for patrols. And we see that it was all due to her figuring out the powerups.

Also, the patrols are a thing in cannon and I am still not over it after "Truth".

Chat Noir hoping for an akumatization so he can escape his civilian life radiated the same energy as Alya asking for akumatizations to interview the temporary heroes on her IG post. I get it, but still! We do not have people in danger for our needs.

Plagg being the one who announces any voice messages for Chat and asking for cheese through the feature on the Chat Phone brings me a whole other level of life.

Also, the whole milk thing at Le Grand Paris bar counter. It was hilarious, but also very sad. He really missed his m'lady

He ends the patrol after he saw Kagami training with her mom. And the smiles on his face! *Cries in Marichat and Ladynoir*

Plagg is the one that encourages Adrien to move on from Adrien, just like he applauded him from doing so in Loveater.

Kagami apparently said that fencing lessons are scheduled an hour in advance and Adrien (with that goofy grin on his face) knew what was up!

Both Ms. Tsurugi and Gabriel are very pissed at one another for the schedule change. That's hilarious, although everything comes at a price.

The parallels! Kagami is apparently learning Russian at her mother's request. Truly is a reflection of Adrien, civilian life wise.

Kagami? Lying???? The hell???? Who are you and what have you done to Kagami????? (Why am I surprised, y'all did this in Desperada)

She lies to their parents and the teacher to be in the art room with Adrien. I get it, teenage rebellion after being under an uninvolved parent, but still!

I like how the writers gave Kagami another dimension by saying she loves art, but her mom does not like her passion for drawing.

To Kagami's mom: WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOUR DAUGHTER IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH???!!! HER DRAWINGS BELONG IN A MUSEUM!

Also, art reflecting the truth? Hmmm.....

Since people like mentioning that Marinette has a thing for people with absent parents after "Truth", I will now say that Adrien has a thing for people who are great at drawing. I do not take criticism.

Kagami is hinting that Adrien's civilian life is not his true self (thank you for understanding him!)...

...but also says that being a "clown" (it was the Chat pose) is also not who he really is. The fandom would disagree with you. Although that brings up the question of whether both personalities merge to form who he really is and cannot be seen completely by anyone in any part of his life. But he is more like Chat Noir regardless.

Also, I want to see Adrien and Kagami spend more time together prior to this episode to see why she was not pleased with him being a clown if that's who he truly is, because her repositioning him against the wall made me feel like she is trying to place Adrien into a mold that reflects the image she might have created in her mind. (I don't know, this was just the first thought that came in my mind.)

They almost kiss, with Adrien being taken into shock (not terrified as we thought) until the alarm saying they have fencing lessons starting interrupts them and Adrien runs out, not before BLUSHING LIKE HELLO?!?!?

This is what I referred to in my second point and confirms what everyone was saying about this episode: this is "Truth", but through Adrien's perspective. Finally, an Adrien-centered episode!!!

To continue, every time Adrien and Kagami are together or were about to kiss, a sentimonster appears, with Ladybug trying to do something about it. Just like Lukanette, just like Adrigami: being a superhero affects your love life as a civilian.

Chat being thrown off the roof by accident and being rescued will never get old or less funny lol.

Montages continues up until the boat scene, where Adrien missed the intro to the performance, but I will never get over the fact as to how Adrien made it there before Marinette. It is beyond me.

Kagami not letting Adrien stay for 5 more minutes. Hmm...

Their cute moment together was what will lead to the demise of Adrigami as Kagami noticed he dropped the infamous lucky charm bracelet. *le gasp!

Why *le gasp*? Because 1) I fear it symbolizes that something will happen to Adrienette or that Adrien has forgotten about her, and 2) Wait until later.

Kagami revealed she lied so she can spend more time with Adrien alone, lying about leaving rehearsal earlier, lying about the fencing lessons rescheduling, and who else knows what else so she can be with him.

She tells him she loves him. But Adrien notices Ladybug and an Akuma. Oh boy, he wasn't able to give her any attention.

Because he left towards the direction of the boat (and said he left something there), Kagami used that to conclude it had something to do with Marinette. Oh boy.

Either I missed an entire scene about Ladybug knowing ShadowMoth's name, or we were not supposed to know how they know until this episode. It feels out of place to me, but oh well.

"I..am...AN INCREDIBLE SWIMMER!" still cracks me up even when I know how important it was in protecting her secret identity.

Happy Birthday Prince Ali!

Apparently, Kagami lied that her mom was in charge of watching over Adrien (or maybe not? I can't tell at this point.)

Yep, Kagami believes that Adrien is going after Marinette and probably resents them both if her facial expression says anything

We get to see that Ladynoir moment from "Truth"!! I love these two and their banter.

Adrienette stans, not much has changed. Adrien was concerned that he lost the Lucky Charm bracelet, for real. But said again because he though he would be clear of the lie since he thought he had it on him.

Kagami confronts him with it. AND THIS IS HIS SHOCKED FACE SCENE FROM THE TRAILER!!!

Thinking that she lies to get out of being with her, she leaves. With the bracelet. The leaving part is understandable, especially because she does not know about him being Chat Noir or what entails him to do. But why take the bracelet???

Adrien is also saddened by what happened. He also liked her.

We've never seen that part of city hall. Well designed in my opinion.

She was the akuma in City Hall with the glowing sphere! We were right!!!

Adrien feels guilty, though it is not really his fault. He has a duty to Paris!

Why is the music sounding different in French.

Jagged Stone. How do I feel about you after learning you purposefully abandoned Luka and apparently Juleka? Also, what's with the song??? (Rhetorical question. Do not answer)

We were wrong about Kagami's power: it paralyzes people who lie, not kill everything in its path.

Jagged, you abandoned your children. And you apparently lied about your age?!?!?! Both episodes show something about Jagged Stone that make him seem like an awful person on the inside.

Ladybug, how do you know about Lies's powers?!?!? There is a hole in the plot here! Unless there were other paralyzed civilians that gave her power a dead giveaway.

Chat Noir, if you lie as a civilian for whatever reason, of course Ladybug will too, since as a civilian, you need to lie to keep your secret identity a secret. Same rules apply to Ladybug, especially as the guardian.

The Lucky Charm is a drone, not a camera like I thought. How the hell did I get into an ivy if I can't tell the difference?!?!

Chat Noir pretending to lie is funny. It might also be his peppy attitude to lying. Also, his funnier version of ShadowMoth's name.

Ladybug finds the akumatized object and gasps. I wonder if its only a eureka moment or also the fact that she recognizes the bracelet, especially if its custom made.

Brutally honest people does not exist (we have all lied at some point, even Kagami who is usually brutally honest with people), but animals can't lie.

Fang being involved in destroying the akuma is cool.

This is the moment that we dreaded so much, yet knew was coming: CHAT NOIR DIES!

JK! He actually is paralyzed by truth because he jumped into the glowing orb. We were right that this is an anguishing scene to watch, but we're wrong about the part that he's killed. Yet, he still unnecessarily sacrificed himself and caused Ladybug to be angst about it.

WHAT IS UP WITH CHAT NOIR BEING HAPPY ABOUT SACRIFICING HIMSELF?!?!? AND DO NOT SAY ITS BECAUSE HE TRUSTS LADYBUG!

Yes Ladybug. Chat is crazy. And also crazy for you. And you are right about the crazy unconscious part. My Ladynoir heart!

ShadowMoth almost won until Fang bit off the charm bracelet. Thanks Fang!

Chat backing away from Fang licking him is a mood.

My favorite Ladynoir moment of the evening: Ladybug telling Chat to stop sacrificing himself and Chat saying she likes her adorable angry face. Her smirk afterwards.. And then their pound it.

But no seriously Chat. You need to stop doing that to Ladybug. She cannot take it anymore

Plagg said that even if Adrien loves someone else, he is likely to go back to Ladybug. Just like he goes back to Camembert. Seriously, despite his cheese analogies, he gives great wisdom.

Not Kagami almost beating up Adrien during his fencing lessons. And Mr. D'Angercourt notices this too as he stopped Kagami's final blow.

Also, isn't it illegal in fencing to push people? Oh boy.

And there's the Adrigami breakup scene: Adrien telling Kagami that he enjoys their time together and Kagami knowing their is sincerity in him. It is sort of unclear who actually ended things when Adrien asks if they could still be friends, but Kagami ends it all by saying that she will let him know once she can face him again. Ouch.

Adrien is hurt and stares at the lucky charm bracelet with what looks like sadness. Once again ouch.

Like Lukanette, I want to see Adrien and Kagami be happy together at least until halfway through this season. The issue is that it will hurt them more in the end.

Also, I noticed the difference between Luka and Kagami when ending their respective relationships. It hurt them both, but Kagami was more forward about it and Luka was somewhat passive. It could be based on what they know about their now exes (Luka knew that Marinette had feelings for Adrien and was not secretive about it even when they were together if the truths her friends said and the opening scene to this episode reflect this, whereas Kagami only has a suspicion and Adrien does not say anything regarding to it.

Also, I really did not like how the breakup on this end resulted in. While more realistic for a lot of people, it did not help that it involved Kagami as there are people who will go after Kagami after watching this episode, and I believe that the writers know this. Kagami is a good person who has a different response to the trust issues and lack of communication, as well as lies in their relationship. Not saying its a perfect one, but an understandable one. In conclusion, don't trash Kagami, especially if you saw this coming.

I take back what I said before; this is my favorite Ladynoir scene. I want to hug them both because they have to lie and keep secrets from everyone, even have some secrets between themselves! But at least they can trust each other! Excuse me while I cry over how much we are being fed. Also, the fact that they broke up with their respective partners makes this both heartwarming and heart breaking.

Overall, this episode is just as good as Lies! It is the first fully Adrien-centered episode, which makes this a first and already exciting. While I did not like how their breakup was handled, it was realistic and showed that honesty and communication are important. Also, can my children be happy together for longer than an episode??? I swear, their pain hurts me.

But at least Ladybug and Chat Noir have each other's company to get them through. May us Ladynoir stans continue to be fed!

[twh-news]

Loki director Kate Herron and star Jonathan Majors on his pivotal character's wild debut

The director/executive producer and surprise finale guest-star discuss He Who Remains' grand entrance, the actor's clown training, and which moments were improvised.

Warning: The following contains spoilers from the season 1 finale of Disney+'s Loki.

Like the Sacred Timeline, Loki's end point was determined from the beginning: The multiverse would be born after Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) reached the Citadel at the End of Time and met He Who Remains, the mysterious and potentially villainous figure who created the Time Variance Authority and lorded over the Sacred Timeline.

"It was always our North star," Loki executive producer and director Kate Herron told EW Friday morning, two days after the chaos-creating finale arrived on the streamer. "What happened [between] when they met him and when the multiverse was born was still on the table, that's something obviously me, the writers, Michael [Waldron, the head writer], and the studio discussed and worked on.... I think honestly, for me and the writing team, we were just like, 'Okay, we'll just keep assuming we're going to get to introduce him until we're not allowed to.'"

Thankfully, no one told them no. Thus, Loki's first season ended with the introduction of Lovecraft Country's Jonathan Majors as He Who Remains — a variant of Kang the Conqueror, the supervillain Majors will play in 2023's Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania.

"We got to do it and what an honor it was to bring him into the MCU. It was a big secret to sit on," said Herron.

"It was one of those moments in one's life, depending on one's occupation, where you go, 'Ah, this is it. This is it,'" Majors told EW when we spoke to him for an upcoming piece about his Emmy nomination for Lovecraft Country. "'All the s--- you talked about wanting to do, [now] there's a door in front of you. Be brave, walk through the door, and leave it on the field.' That was my mentality."

From Herron's point of view, the trickiest part about pulling off the He Who Remains reveal was casting the right actor, because this is the first time the audience would meet this pivotal character.

"[The character's appeal is] in the writing, in the sense that we want to know who is behind the Citadel and who could be there. I think the exciting thing was he tells this story about his past and who he is. For me beyond that, then, it's, which actor are we going to bring in? Because it's got to be an actor with presence that immediately grabs you, because not every actor can do that, and Jonathan is one of the best actors out there. The fact that we got him to do this, I was just so happy because I was like, 'We're gonna be in really safe hands now.' He just commands attention. That for me was the real key thing for me, just getting the casting right," said Herron. "I was so excited that I got to be part of the conversation about the casting of his character with the studio and Peyton [Reed, Ant & The Wasp: Quantumania's director]. It was a massive honor and very exciting, and he's just an actor that we all loved."

Once Majors was cast as He Who Remains (and Kang), Herron thought of a way to integrate him into Loki before we ever saw his face on-screen: Through the Time Keepers.

"Something that was really fun for me was we hadn't, for example, cast the voice of the Time Keepers yet, because you know Wizard of Oz was an obvious reference of ours. I was like, 'Oh, let's get Jonathan to do it, because he's an amazing character actor,'" she said. "We sent him the art of all the characters and it was really fun [because] he was sending us all of these different voices he could do for each character, which was great."

The other obstacle they faced was Majors' availability, because he was working on Netflix's upcoming western The Harder They Fall in New Mexico when Loki was in production. "That was the hard part: preparing [He Who Remains] while leading The Harder They Fall," said the Da 5 Bloods actor, who arrived on set for Loki's final week of production in Atlanta. "It was wild."

"We finished with Loki, Sylvie, and He Who Remains, and it was kind of beautiful in a way because it is also how our story ends. So we filmed with Jonathan for a week," said Herron, who held read-throughs with Hiddleston, Martino, and Majors via Zoom before they started shooting. "Working on He Who Remains, it was really interesting because I started production filming so much of the Time Theatre with Loki and Mobius [in the premiere], and I love how it almost starts with a conversation and ends with one with He Who Remains."

As He Who Remains, Majors was intimidating, for sure, but he was also charismatic, eccentric, and very funny. The actor loved playing the role because it allowed him to draw on the clown/commedia training he learned at the Yale School of Drama.

"There's more smiling in that one performance than there has been in my other performances combined. It's just what it calls for." he said. "I'm a classically trained clown. That's part of my training. I've been at it for a long time, and to be able to exercise that was a lot of fun."

For her part, Herron wanted to do everything in her power to give Majors the room to play, experiment, and forget about the schedule, and the actor took full advantage of that and improvised. For example, the moment when He Who Remains rattles off what his variants said to each other when they met for the first time — "'I love your shoes.' 'I love your hair.' 'Oh, man, nice nose.' 'Thanks, man.'" — wasn't scripted, nor He Who Remains dramatically standing on the desk at the end of his tale.

"He was never meant to get on the desk," Herron recalled. "That was the fun thing with the improvisation. [The camera team] saw him start to move, and Autumn [Durald, the cinematographer] was like, 'Okay…" and then you saw the cameras start to move; it was almost like a dance with him. But that was not planned. It just blew us away because it was just so cool. That was the fun thing with him: I love the way he brought movement to the character in different ways, because I think that was really important as well. Where are we going to go for that big energy moment? Where are we going to draw people in?" She continued, "I love the bit when he sinks into the chair and he's like, 'I'm old and I'm tired,' and you feel his frailness in a way, you feel his aging, [even though] he's obviously a young man."

"The things that come out that aren't scripted only come out because the script is the way it is, and the world is what it is," said Majors. "A lot of it was through collaboration with Tom, Sophia, Kate, and Kevin Wright, the producer. They really let me run. And that's the best thing you can hope for."

As of right now, Majors couldn't say much about how playing He Who Remains affected his performance as Kang in Quantumania, which is currently in production. "You take it a day at a time. That's all I would say about that," he said. "You take it a day at a time and clean your plate and see what tomorrow brings. See what the next story is, and then take it from there."

Loki will return for a season 2, but when? Only time will tell.

[pochapal]

I hate doctor 11 but ive never been able to explain why in like words lmao. He feels like such a mary sue character imo and like theres something about his characterisation that was always just really ineffective (like the stuff about fishfingers and custard or whatever it was). Imo i'd love to hear you give top 5 worst things about the 11 era because i rlly just love when it gets torn apart

i hold nothing but a seething contempt and loathing for that man. every time he appeared on screen i felt ready to snap like a riled up chimpanzee in my enclosure. i am frothing at the mouth and overcome with a desire to start flinging heavy objects. this might be incoherent and inconsistent but i started this rewatch in feb 2020 and only finished this week so i got through 11′s episodes last august/september time and i refuse to revisit it to jog my memory or fact check anything i’m saying here because this man does not deserve the space in my mind for that.

the first thing is i can’t fucking STAND the quirky whimsy timey wimey bit he has going on all of the time. i can’t even say this is because this is a kids show and i was a teen and then adult when i first properly watched him but actually!! when i was eleven years old i’d sleep over at a friend’s house most weekends and it always coincided with the airing of a new season 5 episode and i remember we watched the finale with the dumb time hopping to get out of the box prison that was never explained and didn’t make sense and i thought at the time “this is really stupid”. and before that my only other doctor who exposure was watching the david tennant christmas specials with another friend and throughout childhood my only opinion on doctor who was “this is a tv show that is not for me but is one that all the boys i am friends with like so i will put up with it to maintain our friendships” but at least those episodes were both suspenseful and engaging enough to keep me watching all the way through. like who the fuck does an end of the world sci fi plot and approaches it with an “oopsy woopsy i am a funny little alien man who is going to stop you all by making you do a hecking silly” like it’s unneeded and self-parodies an already cheesy show to the point where it becomes unwatchable and makes it impossible to ever take this man seriously.

next thing that downright sucks ass so badly is the stupid fucking overwritten constantly escalating plotlines. like everything from season 5 up until his regeneration at the end of season 7 is meant to be this grand interconnected cosmic plot about how...the doctor trying to bring back his planet will end the universe or something so all the top powers across all of reality tried again and again to stop him from doing that except he doesn’t know what’s going on so he keeps thwarting these people who supposedly mean good?? i mean i sure don’t fucking know what they were trying to say!! like for some reason we never get the doctor suddenly becomes this superdemon that threatens everything so these people (whoever they are) decide to, in sequence: suck him through a time rift to erase him from existence, trap him in a prison and remake a universe without him, take his companion’s baby and turn her into a perfectly trained doctor killer, form two(!!) secret societies to hunt him throughout history that are only stopped by his companion splintering herself across his personal timeline to protect him, and repeatedly cause reality collapsing events because it’s a kinder outcome for the universe than what he will do. this grand and terrible event turns out to be...he spends a few hundred years chilling by a rift that leads to his home planet and protects a few generations of children from monsters which convinces them to give him infinite regeneration power then fuck off back to their pocket universe. and it’s like!! what is the point of anything that happens in this man’s era when everything is always “the darkest moment” or whatever the fuck!! i don’t care!! we never get a compelling reason to believe this bumbling clown of a man could ever be a universal threat!! the whole thing is so dumb i hate it!!!

thing number three i hate is how the eleventh doctor is ALSO characterised as this abrasive egotistic male supergenius to the point where he becomes genuinely indistinguishable from bbc sherlock. genuinely who enjoyed seeing this guy constantly tell people their tiny human minds can’t comprehend what he’s doing and then basically just wave his magic wand to solve whatever problem each episode is facing. 2012 is the year of human sin because this fucking shitsmear character archetype somehow became both a redditor role model AND a tumblr sexyman and it’s like!! nobody is enjoying this stop making this seem cool! him saying timey wimey thing any time he does anything is frustrating and dumb and locks the viewer out of giving a fuck about anything that is happening! smartest man in the room syndrome is a disease and the eleventh doctor is terminal with it. like remember how they established river as an accomplished scientist (when she wasn’t being a child soldier or a time paradox or whatever the fuck) and every time that came up mr doctor eleven man was like “oh this thing is obvious because i’m a genius and you didn’t realise because your brain is tiny so get out of the way and let the grownups think” or that time it turned out amy had been replaced with a slime clone for half the season and the doctor chewed rory (audience surrogate) out for somehow not realising this fact we didn’t know right from the start and like. this served no purpose other than to draw into severe question why the doctor is also this super beloved magical figure implicitly trusted by all children everywhere like. mr steven moffat is totally allergic to writing and solving mysteries in his tv show and fuck you for wanting to figure things out as you go along based on the new evidence you uncover at strategic plot intervals just let this asshole man use magical thinking to reveal he knew the answer all along and you’re a fucking idiot for not also realising this thing which had no basis or precedent anywhere else in the show.

speaking of dumb things let us not forget the absolute shitshow that was minority representation in this era. i’m not even talking about the low hanging fruit of how genuinely unironically sexist amy and clara were written where each episode moffat either seemed to loathe them or was incredibly horny over them and they had no character growth or arc or fucking anything. i’m talking about how fucking shit terrible the incidental representation was. god remember how every single fucking gay person who appeared in this era was written as one incredibly fucking stupid joke and how the women were all either sexy dominatrix, feeble girl in love, or Mother (or all three in some really terrible cases) and i’m not qualified to talk about this but also how incredibly white this era was and how on two separate occasions we had monarchs reimagined as sexy girlbosses with a gun played by black women who the doctor leched over. nothing about any of this was good ESPECIALLY coming off the back of rtd who was surprisingly forward thinking for 2005 and did a really good job of positing travel with the doctor as queer allegory. in comparison moffat gave us THE MOST heterosexual shlock i’ve ever had to endure. amy and rory could have been interesting characters were they not hemmed into this domestic bickering young straight married couple bullshit that was in no way changed or altered by traveling with the doctor except for the quasi incestuous river song reveal that was dumb and bad and stupid.

the last major mega gripe i have with the series is moffat’s fucking jingoistic boner for british military aesthetics. this carried over throughout his entire tenure as showrunner but was super terrible vomit inducing in eleven’s era. the unironic admiration for ww2 britain and winston churchill is downright wretched. are you incapable of telling a second world war story outside of churchill’s london and plucky blitz fighters. shit gives me hives so badly. and then!!! that weird church owned army that features in the future that end up being bad not for the concept of what basically amounts to an imperialistic intergalactic rendition of the fucking crusades but because they’re part of the nonsense go nowhere puzzlebox narrative that says the doctor is a not good man who will do bad things to the universe :(. remember how rtd’s doctor was a freshly traumatised man hot off the war criminal press who time and time again vehemently refuses to engage in military violence, but who tragically inadvertently turns every one of his companions into soldiers in his own personal army, and he has this moment of complete horror at the realisation and it is this which causes the downward spiral that ends in 10′s regeneration. and then how there’s this cringe line about how there’s a force of people who are “the doctor’s army, always ready to fight his battles when he’s not around” or some shit and then it turns out this is actually massive literal military operation and we’re meant to celebrate this. fuck off.

bonus round because this needs to be said but i have never hated anything like i hated that fucking human tardis episode. everything about it induced violent anger in me from the sickening overindulgence of that softgoth dark whimsy helena bonham carter tim burton aesthetic to the bafflingly terrible evil carny stereotype of those junk scavengers to the overblown sudden tragic shipbait romance of human tardis and the doctor. every word out of her mouth was trite shit and the fact that the death of her body was presented as this super emotional dramatic scene despite there being no buy in or incentive to care and the fact that every single person on tumblr in 2012 ate that shit up like it was fucking gourmet. i loathe every single thing about that episode so much.

[southboundhq]

MEET LILITH,

FULL NAME › Jacqueline “Lilith Adkins” Miller AGE › twenty seven GENDER › Cis woman (She/Her/Hers) FROM › New York City, New York LODGING › Silk Bonnet Hotel PRIOR EMPLOYMENT › Actress NOW PLAYING › Come Wander With Me by Bonnie Beecher

BIOGRAPHY,

trigger warnings: parental abandonment, emotional abuse/exploitation, substance abuse, brief mention of non-fatal overdose

“The only thing you’ve ever been good for,” Jacqueline’s mother used to say, “is zipping up my dress.” And, to Jacqueline, that seemed ever so true. A constant scapegoat for all of the worst parts of her mother’s life, it was gospel: “You’re the reason your father left.” “You’re the reason I can’t fit in my good dress anymore.” “You’re the reason we’re barely scraping by.” “You’re the reason for x, for y, and for z.” As the only constant in Jacqueline’s life, her mother certainly spoke nothing but the truth! Yes, yes – all Jacqueline would ever be good for were her genetics. Yes, yes – one day, she would be paying her bills using the money she received from pornography. Yes, yes – it was true! It had to be true!

Or, perhaps, there was another possibility for Jacqueline – a possibility her mother had not considered until the casting of an elementary/middle-school play. As with all elementary/middle-school plays of the day, it was no cut – it was, therefore, something to be brushed off when Jacqueline received the lead role… up until her mother witnessed the standing ovation she received, witnessed the secret talent she upheld. Ever the secret idealist, her mother took it as a sign.

She sent for various agencies, various managers, various anybodies-who-could-get-the-child-famous. It was originally a recording, originally a voice her mother exploited, but when the child’s new ego was born… oh, she could capitalize off of anything.

When an agency finally agreed to take her, there was one deal that needed to be struck: she was no longer ‘Jacqueline Miller.’ Nobody ever knew who Jacqueline Miller was. Nobody associated the name ‘Jacqueline’ with anything deeper than itself. Nobody thought ‘Jacqueline’ was the name of a big star. Nobody thought anything of ‘Jacqueline.’ Sure, there were Jackies to be associated with, but there was a different, much more unique name in mind: Lilith Adkins. It was for the shock value, you see – the shock value of a twelve-year-old becoming one of the most sinful characters of them all. As for the last name? Why, there simply had to be disconnect between herself and herself!  

From there on out, it was a whirl-wind. Jacqueline – forgive me, Lilith – had not signed up for the life she was now being put through. She had not signed up for the surrounding of old men in suits at all hours of the day (some much stranger than others); she hadn’t longed to take amphetamines in the morning and barbiturates at night; she had never wanted to sit in a chair for four hours while strangers touched her face, then spend the next ten filming something that would be worth nothing… to her. To her mother, to the studio, to the agency – oh, it would be worth millions, quite possibly! – but, to her… nothing.

- She was always smiling, though. She was always getting good press throughout the discomfort of it all! -

However, with age brought tolerance, and tolerance brought taste. Sixteen and she had developed a taste for this lifestyle – a taste for some of these old men, for all of these strangers, for filming all day and all night. Perhaps it was because there were times she was not filming at all – she had hit New York City, she had hit Broadway. Cast alongside veterans, she received the blessing of playing a secondary role. While the pressure was still there, still looming, she was no longer the top-billed actress. It was a different lifestyle, that she was sure of, but nothing would ever become more different, yet stay so very similar, than it did when she earned the ability to drop her mother from any and all projects two years later.

It was now Arthur Sher, her agent, who was largely in charge of what she did and didn’t do. The flipside of it all was that she actually had input. She had a name now, a name all her own, a name not attached to her mother’s, a name not unknown, and that name would only be seen when and where she wanted it to be seen. She and Arthur ventured back to Los Angeles and time began slipping away. Why it slipped away, she could not say. He fed her so many scripts, so many she wanted her name on, that it became harder and harder to keep track of what day it was, where she was meant to be, what the time was, who she was supposed to be at that moment in time. Why, she got married and hardly remembered it.

For as stressed as she had become, juggling so many projects (albeit, by her own volition), the papers only ever said kind things about her. She was an actress, after all – she had acted in plenty of scenes that required feigned happiness. She was praised in the papers for doing so much and keeping it all together. She was praised for her marriage – apparently it had been expected for a long time, although she had never even thought of this man – this ‘George’ – as a boyfriend. She was praised for her patience with the paparazzi. She was praised for her generosity when she was seen giving a man on the side of the street a bottle of (half-drunk, mind you) water. Oh, she was praised!

So it can easily be said that it had started out perfectly innocent. She would take one pill, as needed, as per her psychiatrist’s instructions. But she began ‘needing’ them more and more, you see. Oh, but just taking a handful of pills was far too simple, wasn’t it? Of course, they always paired best with alcohol. Oh, and the nights her mother rang? Well, she just needed extra then! Oh, and the days she’d have to spend filming something for over ten hours? One, two, three, four, more! To say it had truly shocked Arthur that she had still managed to make it on set every day – on time and fully able to cooperate – was an understatement.

Of course, it was a shock for a reason! At home, things had not been quite as nice. She and George, this man she would now claim she loved (although she was not sure what that was at this point), had gotten into more than their fair share of wars with one another. She would accuse him of infidelity, he would point out the liquor and pills, she would say the latter was prescribed, he would say that maybe someone else was just what the doctor would prescribe for him. It all seemed very over-the-top and dramatic, all very hyperbolic and unrealistic, to Lilith… up until she came home late one night, hoping to make some form of amends, just to find George and another woman on their couch.

He was forced out that night. The couch was cleansed using alcohol and a lighter. She took some extra pills that night, then some more the next morning – I mean, why not? Then she began messing up the shoots. Then she took some more. Then she blamed the best boy, of all people, on why she was doing so horribly (he was distracting her!, so she’d claim). Then she would be let go from her projects, replaced with someone younger as a cycle began to repeat itself. Then the press would turn against her. Then she would overdose. Then she would be forced into rehab by Arthur. Then she would fight it. Then she would get sober. Then she would return to New York City.

There was a show on – a musical – that they figured she was best for. It was all but tailored for her – the songs in her range, the designs perfect for her. ‘Oh, Honey!’ was her grand reintroduction before she had even said yes… but publicity that required forgiveness and sympathy – there was nothing better. Now that opening night… it was impressive! It was almost as though Lilith wanted everyone to hate her, to leave her. Months of perfect rehearsal, months of friendly mingling with her co-stars and understudy, months of learning tragedies she’d missed and still powering through, months of avoiding pills and alcohol, months of perfect preparation and perfect sobriety… all to collapse the night the curtain was meant to go up.

You see, some weeks before, she had found a new psychiatrist, had gotten a ‘different’ medication! …but had made the ever-so-wise decision to abuse it that night. It was to calm her nerves!, she would lie – lie to herself. The second they knocked on the door to her dressing room, telling her the curtain was about to go up – the second she opened it to reveal she hadn’t changed outfits since she’d gotten there – that was the second they gave up on her. George had left her. Arthur left her. Her co-stars left her. She had left her mother. Every bridge she had built, she burned. All she had left was the world, and even they began praising her understudy, beginning to forget it was her name in big letters above the title.

She gave up that night. She gave up the first night. She didn’t have anyone or anything left. She had no reason to be there. She had no reason to be anywhere. So she drove. She took pills and drank liquor and drove, just like the clown she’d always been under that false identity of hers. She drove, high out of her mind, and did not die – was not pulled over… some sort of miracle, yes? She drove, high out of her mind, until she simply couldn’t anymore. She drove, high out of her mind, until she reached some small western town called Boot Hill. She had nowhere else to be. Maybe there, nobody would know her. Maybe there, she wouldn’t have to see what papers said about her (oh, she hoped they were asking ‘Where Is Lilith Adkins?’ as opposed to praising the musical tailored to her that she was not in).

Three months. She has not cared to leave. She has not cared to try. She has not cared to reach out to the outside world. Only when she got fame-sick would she try to see if she could leave and find out just how trapped she was. She had not yet gotten fame-sick. She had to know they were looking for her to become fame-sick.

And they were looking for her. They had to be. They loved her, did they not?

❝ everyone has an identity. one of their own, and one for show. ❞

CENSUS,

FACECLAIM › Elizabeth Gillies AUTHOR › Lucky

[justincaseitmatters]

Rewind: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Dr. Strangelove after 50 Years

Originally Published in KCActive.com in January 2014. On January 29, 1964, the world discovered something that Bronx-born director Stanley Kubrick had known for a few years: that the only appropriate reaction to the arms race was a dirty joke. In the five decades that have passed since then, countries that once frightened the world have fallen, alliances and rivalries have reversed, technologies have changed and Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb has become more enlightening, infuriating and, yes, hilarious with time. The Chess Master I almost feel sorry for anyone who is forced to discover this movie in a manner that's different from the way I did at age 11. For some reason, Kansas City's KCMO (now KCTV) broadcast the movie for a 10:30 p.m. showing, probably on a Saturday night. My mother, my younger brother and I congregated around the used black-and-white TV in my bedroom, knowing only that the film in question starred our favorite comedian Peter Sellers, from the Pink Panther movies, and that it might be important because the local paper said it was.   I was delighted that my bedroom had turned into a mini-theater and that we wouldn't miss any beautiful color images. Gilbert Taylor's cinematography and Ken Adam's grand sets look just fine in monochrome. Other than the fact that the movie was in black-and-white, we knew nothing about the assault that was coming our way. For most adult viewers, Dr. Strangelove states its devilishly comic intents up front. The movie's notorious opening credits by Pablo Ferro feature a phallic arm fueling a plane in mid-air as a soft instrumental track of "Try a Little Tenderness" plays in the background. As the geeky son of a Baptist deacon, these amorous aircraft completely escaped my notice.

My mother curiously remained silent, but soon the three of us were so thoroughly entertained that we stopped caring that Kubrick and co-screenwriter Terry Southern (the mind behind the kinky novels Candy, Blue Movie and The Magic Christian) were about to turn all three of us into "deviated pre-verts."

It's not surprising to learn that Kubrick once hustled chess in New York as a young man because he reveals his comic intentions gradually. During the the run up to General Jack D. Ripper's unauthorized nuclear assault upon the Soviet Union, my family and and I thought we were watching a straight nuclear war drama. It wasn't until General Ripper made the following declaration at 24 minutes into the film that we discovered that Kubrick was taking the movie into a direction all his own:

I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

Hearing deep-voiced actor Sterling Hayden utter the word "fluids" without a hint of levity in his voice sent all three of us into hysterics. From here on we knew something was up and that the footage we saw previously was laced with comic venom. We finally noticed Ripper's name and that the pilot of one of Ripper's B52s is Maj. T.J. "King" Kong (played by former rodeo clown Slim Pickens). All Too Real Dr. Strangelove is loaded with characters afflicted with gag names, and sometimes these absurd monikers aren't obvious on an initial viewing. The Soviet Ambassador is Alexi Desadesky (British actor Peter Bull), the President of the United States is Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers), and his top strategist is a former Nazi known as Dr. Strangelove (Sellers, again). While Kubrick and Southern came up with a cornucopia of silly names with sexual connotations, the scenario in Dr. Strangelove is uncomfortably realistic. As more information from the Cold War has become publicly available, the scenario Kubrick, Southern and a Welsh Royal Air Force officer Peter George (from George's 1958 novel Two Hours to Doom a.k.a. Red Alert) cooked up was far from outlandish. Throughout history wars have been started for causes as inexplicable as fluids and water fluoridation, which General Ripper believes has made him impotent. Mental illness and just plain foolishness can strike at anytime  At the beginning of Dr. Strangelove, a disclaimer informs the viewers that the U.S. Air Force has safeguards to prevent the deadly events in the film from occurring. Not really. Around the time that George was writing his thriller about facing nuclear annihilation, Daniel Ellsberg, the future leaker of The Pentagon Papers, discovered that Washington's policy toward who could launch a nuclear attack and when was a mess. In theory, only the president had authorization. Ellsberg, a recent Harvard PhD grad from  working for the RAND Corporation, recalled in his 2002 book Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers:

I learned, for example, the secret that contrary to all public declarations, President Eisenhower had delegated to major theater commanders the authority to initial nuclear attacks under certain circumstances, such as outage of communications with Washington--an almost daily occurrence in those days--or presidential incapacitation   (twice suffered by President Eisenhower). This delegation was unknown to President Kennedy's assistant for national security, McGeorge Bundy--and thus to the president--in early 1961, when I briefed him on the issue. 

In other words, Gen. Ripper and his ilk had already been given a sort of green light. On both sides of the Iron Curtain, only whims of fate seem to have prevented nuclear first strikes. According to David E. Hoffman's The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy, on September 26, 1983, Soviet Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov received a warning on his instruments informing him the Americans had launched a missile strike on his country. His satellites told him that five missiles were on their way to Mother Russia, but there were no visual sightings to match the alarms wailing at his base. Working simply on instinct, he correctly informed his superiors that no attack was taking place and that the warning system was malfunctioning. It's a good thing he did. Doing so prevented an unprovoked Soviet first strike. Petrov's hunch saved countless lives. Sadly, he had only minutes or seconds to make his fateful decision. The Killing Joke Unfortunately, decisions like Petrov's were all too often made at the last minute and in a state of panic. This is one of the reasons Dr. Strangelove is so entertaining and why satire might be a more effective way to point out the horrors of nuclear war. George's novel is a dark thriller, and Kubrick and George initially set out to make a straightforward adaptation of the book. During pre-production, however, Kubrick noticed that some of the situations described in the book, like the President informing the Soviets how to shoot down his own planes, seemed weirdly comic. George was disappointed by Kubrick's change of heart but later wrote a novelization of the film that even included gags that Kubrick didn't film or eventually cut from the movie (like a coda where space aliens wonder how the planet they've discovered called Earth is now a radioactive graveyard). George's later writing focused on the grim potential of nuclear weapons. Sadly, his concern for the subject may have been a factor when he chose to kill himself in 1966. Strangely, in the finished movie, the humor seems to emphasize how fragile a world with nuclear weapons really is. When word of Gen. Ripper's assault reaches the Pentagon, the news arrives, not to a commander ready to deal with the crisis, but to Gen. Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) cavorting with his bikini-clad mistress (Tracy Reed). Actually, he's in the bathroom when the urgent call comes. 

Similarly, the Soviet Premier Dimitri Kissoff (who, curiously, is never seen or heard in the film) is not at his office in the Kremlin toiling to make his nation a worker's paradise. So where is he when the Soviets need his attention the most? "You would never reached him at that number," says Ambassador Desadesky. "Our Premier is a man of the people, but he is also a man, if you follow my meaning." 

I should probably add that he's also drunk. Disasters, whether natural or man made, rarely happen at moments that are convenient for us mortals. Kubrick and Southern spent a great amount of time figuring out where leaders might be and wondered what they might eat or drink during the crisis. That explains the improvised buffet table in the Pentagon's War Room. They also knew that leaders are human beings and that they are as prone to mistakes and panicking as anyone else. In most of the dramas that preceded or followed Dr. Strangelove, world leaders appear as conscientious or calm despite the heavy stakes involved. President Muffley, however, is understandably nervous and awkward in explaining the crisis to Premier Kissoff. Sellers improvised much of his dialogue, and the call between the two leaders is hysterically funny because it's impossible to think of a polite or an effective way to relay the grim message at hand.

Kubrick's willingness to embrace panic eventually influenced more mainstream nuclear thrillers. In an interview I conducted with director Phil Alden Robinson for NitrateOnline.com over his 2002 adaptation of the late Tom Clancy's The Sum of All Fears, he readily acknowledged how Kubrick's comedy affected his own, more serious movie:

Kubrick is the best who ever lived. I have to believe that's what goes on behind closed doors. Once in a while, the President's emotions must get the best of him. Clancy once said, "If you put the leaders of a country in a room and tell them the decisions they make might lead to blowing up the world, only a sociopath would not have an emotional reaction." The most reasonable people in the world, by virtue of their reason, are going to be emotional and distraught and kind of at wit's end at some point.

Why I Still Love the Bomb As I've grown older Dr. Strangelove has become less of a movie to more and more of an old friend. Yes, it's odd that this cynical, fatalistic movie has such a fond spot in my heart. It's no spoiler to reveal that all of the human machinations in the movie fail to stop a nuclear Armageddon. It's also hard to think of a more clever or even nourishing film. Every time I come back to I learn new things. I spot gags that I missed when I saw the movie earlier. Kubrick consulted over 50 books during the making of Dr. Strangelove, and his attention to detail only shows up on repeated viewings. A friend of mine politely told me that Kubrick's movies like Lolita, A Clockwork Orange and 2001: A Space Odyssey are an acquired taste, but those of us who have   picked up an appetite continuously love coming back to his films, waiting for new treasures hidden in their frames. One aspect that does hit me from watching the movie again and again is that Kubrick, contrary to what his detractors have contended, actually could create sympathetic and completely human characters. Kubrick skillfully manipulates the audience into liking the crew on Maj. Kong's B52. When a Russian missile stalks the plane, Kubrick wants viewers to feel for the crew. Unlike their commander, Gen. Ripper, their intents are not tainted by his madness. For the sake of the story, it would be best if the missile sent them to a fiery grave. Nonetheless, watching the crew trying to stay in the air is nail biting. Unlike his make believe characters, Kubrick understands that real people are the casualties of war. Gen. Turgidson is little better than Gen. Ripper because he has no sense of proportion or consequence. He suggests that proceeding with Gen. Ripper's strike would be worth it, even if millions die. "I didn't say we wouldn't get our hair mussed," he says. Curiously, time has actually made Dr. Strangelove funnier. When I've discussed the movie with younger people, they've told me that the reasons we and the Soviets looked at each other with dread now seem remote and ridiculous. They're fully aware that the world is still a dangerous place, but they understandably think that fluoridation is not good reason to risk the lives of troops. Kubrick was only 32 when he made Dr. Strangelove, but he wound up making something that continues to enrich our lives long after his death in 1999. Through his love song to the bomb, he's revealed how far we as human beings have to grow to become responsible stewards of the technology we have. It's doubtful he could have conveyed this message so eloquently with a straight face.  

[greennightspider]

The Cabin in the Snow (Chapter 1)

M’Baku x OC (Akari)

Summary: M’Baku and Akari get stuck in a snowstorm in a cabin during an assignment. What’s a couple of Jabari warriors to do? This fic is based on M’Baku a short time before he became the leader of the Jabari Tribe.

Author’s Note: A note on Akari’s appearance is at the bottooooom just ta give some kind of guidance on my vision for her. In short Akari is thick but she is FIT. Gurl got some muscle in that pudgy-ness. 

Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4

@readsalot73

The Jabari Mountains could be seen for miles in Wakanda. The stark contrast between the white snow that blanketed the sharp peaks and the rest of Wakanda reflected the independence of the Jabari Tribe, who had long inhabited the cold altitude, and much to everyone’s surprise, had prospered. While the long years and decades allowed for the Jabari people to climatise, this did not in fact mean that they were completely immune to the cold, as two young lost souls were quickly finding out.

Barely visible on the Jabari mountains’ second largest summit were two moving dots, barely visible in the snow both covered in furs, one leading the other, the leader making sure to stop every five minutes to remind the second-in-command why they were there.

“I swear to Hanuman M’Baku, I can’t believe you LOST the map!”

M’Baku groaned, rolling his eyes and his head simultaneously before answering the furious female in front of him. “I SAID I was sorry Akari, besides are you not supposed to be the smart one here?”

Akari swore that if she didn’t have to concentrate on trudging one foot in front of the other in this bloody snow, she would have tackled M’Baku and sent both of them flying down the mountain, leaving their fate in Hanumans’ hands.

Fate obviously had a sense of humor, considering out of all the people she could have been paired with on this assignment, she had managed to bag the class clown himself. M’Baku. Everyone at school knew his name. He was charming, charismatic, and always had a few female groupies floating around him. Oh. And not to mention he was the chieftain’s crown son.

As part of their first year of college schooling, their final winter assignment involved conquering one of the Jabari Mountain’s coldest peaks. While it was a simple task; follow the map up the mountain and back down, this was also a test of endurance in some of Jabari’s most central landscapes. No technology, no communication devices, just a solitary map and two backpacks filled with food, water, and a first aid kit. This was a test not only of one’s map reading skills, but it was supposed to hone the student’s connection to the mountains themselves.

And considering the fact that M’Baku had lost the map halfway through the trek due to a loose flap on his backpack, one could say their odds weren’t exactly great.

The pair had reached a craggy impass which allowed Akari to swivel her feet on the rocks to face M’Baku with a sneer. “And is not a big part of being the chieftain’s crown son being able to actually LEAD people?”

M’Baku scowled, giving Akari her first small victory of the whole trip. She knew M’Baku hated being reminded of his standing, since he always wanted to just be seen as ‘one of the boys’. Akari supposed it was part of the reason why he was so likeable; he wanted to see people for him, not his title.

Turning back around on her heels and continuing forward gave M’Baku ended up concentrating on the only view he had atop this white wasteland: his female counterpart. She was considered tall for a female, although she still only measured just above his shoulder, which he observed when she first found out about the lost map and proceeded to rage at him in a way that only his father could come close to. Curiously she was probably the only person to ever try and rage at him like that.

Akari wasn’t the smallest of girls. She had a strength in her strong build that M’Baku knew made half the guys in their year weary of trying anything suspect. Akari’s normally curly hair was tightly pulled into a bun atop her head, that would come into view when she struggled to pull the white fur-lined hood over her hood onto her head due to the merciless winds that were starting to pick up. Her face was stern even though her chubby cheeks would at first glance say otherwise. M’Baku had to admit her lower half was something else, admiring her wide hips and strong legs that he knew gave her an edge on this trip. M’Baku knew of Akari, hell most of the guys he knew in class fancied her, although he didn’t see the big deal. She was well liked by teachers and students, and she managed to balance being a bookworm as well as an athletic champ at combat sports. And while they were in the same class, he hadn’t given her so much as a passing glance until now.

A sudden cold breeze shook M’Baku out of his thoughts and tilted his head toward the horizon, almost as if the wind was warning him of the ominous snowstorm. “Akari,” M’Baku urged, as Akari turned around and then followed his eyeline, her eyes widening.

“We need to get off this mountain.” 

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Several hours later the two were no closer to their destination, and the storm had well begun to set in. Their furs and gear had done well to help them brace the cold, but it was only meant to last them several hours, not a whole day. M’Baku had agreed to let Akari lead in the beginning, however he knew she wouldn’t last much longer without rest and shelter. Both of them wouldn’t. Akari’s movements we’re becoming slower as her legs struggled to trudge through the never-ending expanse of snow. She would never show weakness, but he knew even with the howling winds that her teeth were chattering.

They needed to find shelter in this snowstorm and fast. As they slowly trudged on M’Baku racked his brain for anything that could help them, trying to peer at their surroundings to see if there were any landmarks. When he was little, his father would often take him and his brothers up these mountains as he had always believed that his heirs, and future leaders of the tribe needed to be one with the elements. As M’Baku tried to remember if there was anything on this particular peak, the words of his father faintly graced his memory.

“Son, on this mountain, hidden behind the second peak, is a cabin…”

M’Baku snapped his head up. He remembered they had passed a peak not too long ago, which meant the second wasn’t too far off.

“Akari!”

M’Baku shuffled as fast as he could to rest his hand on Akari’s shoulder, and his eyes widened when he saw her face. Her eyes we’re hooded and her face was almost frozen when he turned to face him. Her usually full lips were on the tinge of blue. While his memory was hazy, he knew this cabin was important. He knew that it’s location was a secret only known to the families of chieftain, that only chiefs were meant to use this cabin. For what, he could not remember, however at this point he couldn’t care less. M’Baku knew that there would be consequences for revealing this secret to an outsider, and that both of them would have to face his father when they returned. But he wasn’t about to let both of them die for the sake of protocol. Spotting the second peak not far ahead of them, he gripped Akari’s shoulder to brace him for his decision. “Akari, I know of a place here where we can rest, it shouldn’t be too far.”

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M’Baku had to use all of his weight to break the door free from the ice that had settled into its cracks. Akari and M’Baku both rushed in and quickly shut the door behind them, Akari taking the time to finally stop moving and try and steady her erratic breathing. However M’Baku took no time  in scanning the room and finding a blanket. He then stalked towards Akari with his arms out, a corner of the blanket in each hand. “Drop your backpack.”

Akari didn’t object and as soon as her bag slipped off her shoulders M’Baku embraced her with the blanket, wrapping it around her tightly like a cocoon.

“Sit there.” M’Baku motioned to the bench to the right of the entrance. Once she was bundled up and settled he paced towards the firepit across from the entrance. He all but threw his bag down next to him and rummaged recklessly until he found his flint.

As M’Baku worked on getting the fire going, Akari took the time to take in the cabin and to study M’Baku. While he was a jokester, who’s never-ending stream of jokes would get on her nerves, and while she wouldn’t be in this ordeal if it wasn’t for him, Akari couldn’t help feeling reassured watching M’Baku work frantically, concentrating on building the small flame. She knew he hardly ever took things seriously, but when shit hit the fan M’Baku never hesitated to step up.

Looking around the cabin Akari took in her surroundings. The cabin wasn’t grand, but it was more than big enough for two people. She glanced across the room and noticed that almost the whole back wall was converted into a bed, with furs and blankets neatly folded to the side. The hearth that M’Baku was tending to was placed to the left of the bed, directly across from the entryway but far enough away that anyone who opened the door wouldn’t harm the fire. Akari sat on a long wooden bench facing away from the simple table and cupboards behind her.

Once the small sparks had finally blossomed into a raging fire, M’Baku sighed in relief. Akari clapped her hands in appreciation, and M’Baku turned and raised his eyebrows slightly, amused at her uncharacteristic outburst knowing it was most likely the hypothermia but glad to see a smile on her face.

He then stood up and stretched, and Akari would have taken that as the cue to start unpacking their belongings and grabbing the rest of the blankets and bundling up near the fire. That is until she noticed M’Baku was simultaneously taking his shirt off as he stood.

With wide unabashed eyes Akari stared at M’Baku’s now bare chest as he was front and center. She had seen him and many of her other male classmates shirtless before, it wasn’t an uncommon sight at sports games and rituals. However something about watching him now, alone, with his body glowing in the light of the fire made it feel… different. M’Baku then went on to remove his pants, walking around the hearth to drape them on a spare bench opposite him. He then turned to her, almost completely naked were it not for the tight black briefs he was wearing that left nothing to the imagination. Akari, whose mouth was slightly agape, locked eyes with the nearly naked M’Baku standing in front of her. Who then said only two words in a deep, commanding voice that shook her to her core.

“Akari. Undress.”

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AUTHORS NOTE:

Akari’s hair is similar to this pic of Philomena Kwao

And her body-type is similar to this OTHER picture of Philomena Kwao

Hope ya liked it!

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SECRET SANTA WEEK 3!

Thank you to everyone who signed up to participate! And remember if you missed signing up for this week, you have the option to join in for the final week!

Each character participating in this week’s Secret Santa has (at random) been given a holiday-inspired alias. Below the cut is an alphabetized list of aliases and their respective questionnaire answers.

In just a few moments you should receive via Tumblr IM and a Discord message letting you know which alias your character has been paired with to deliver a Secret Santa gift.

Remember that you have until 11:59PM EST on Friday to submit your gift to the Main or April for your assignee.

On Saturday all gifts and Secret Santa pairs will be revealed via April’s blog.

If there’s any confusion or you have questions, please let us know! Happy gifting!

BLIZZARD

Where are three places you’d like to travel? Greece, Bali, Amalfi Coast.  No other reason that they all look beautiful and I adore beautiful things.   What’s your go-to drink order? Soy latte.  Red wine.   Who’s your favorite Disney Princess/Prince/Character? Jasmine! Is there anything you collect? Criterion collection films.  Vinyl records. Shoes.   Do you have a favorite animal? Anything fuzzy and cute.

BLUE CHRISTMAS

Where are three places you’d like to travel? Australia, Ireland or Amsterdam. No particular reason. Maybe to see a kangaroo in Australia, but other than that, they’ve just always intrigued me. Oh, and accents!  What’s your go-to drink order? Water, usually. Coconut preferred. Who’s your favorite Disney Princess/Prince/Character? Is Mulan considered a princess? Mulan or Tiana.  Is there anything you collect? Not anymore but I collected seashells when I was younger that I still keep in a display case.  Do you have a favorite animal? I wouldn’t save favorite, that’s kind of mean…I love all animals but I am biased towards monkeys and sloths….just a bit but I LOVE THEM ALL!!

CANDY CANE

Where are three places you’d like to travel? Oh, gosh. I’ve never really thought about it. I’d love to take a road trip of the United States. There’s so much beauty here that I’d love to see. I’d love to go to Seattle, or the National Parks, or to Disney World. I’ve never been! What’s your go-to drink order? I’m a sucker for a good cup of cocoa. Who’s your favorite Disney Princess/Prince/Character? Rapunzel! Is there anything you collect? Knitting needles, vinyls, anything with an owl. Do you have a favorite animal? I’ve been told I’m like a bunny, but I love owls.

DOMINICK THE DONKEY

Where are three places you’d like to travel? I want to go to every single Disney park in the world What’s your go-to drink order? Long Island Iced Tea, what up. Who’s your favorite Disney Princess/Prince/Character? My favorite Disney princess is Loki. Is there anything you collect? Funko pops! I have twenty seven! Do you have a favorite animal? Sloths. They’re so cute. I wanna snuggle them.

DONNER

Where are three places you’d like to travel? Los Angeles - I’d love to run into a celebrity or two, Grand Canyon - it looks so gorgeous in pictures!, Disney World What’s your go-to drink order? White Chocolate Mocha Who’s your favorite Disney Princess/Prince/Character? Ariel, Prince Phillip, Pascal the chameleon Is there anything you collect? Postcards Do you have a favorite animal?  Alpacas are just too cute.

ELSA OF ARENDELLE

Where are three places you’d like to travel? Greece, France, The Caribbean islands. I like sunning on warm beaches, art, and beautiful architecture.  What’s your go-to drink order? Vodka Martini.  Who’s your favorite Disney Princess/Prince/Character? Megera and Lilo.  Is there anything you collect? Old play scripts.  Do you have a favorite animal? Owls.

FRUITCAKE

Where are three places you’d like to travel? Zambia, Paris and Cuba. They’re beautiful places and a couple beautiful stages I’ve always wanted on. What’s your go-to drink order? Horchata with espresso or rum or both Who’s your favorite Disney Princess/Prince/Character? Aladdin and Maleficent. If I were Aladdin I’d be all up on Maleficent. Is there anything you collect? I used to collect sexy ladies but now just some good memories or whatever Do you have a favorite animal? All Jungle cats

JELLY

Where are three places you’d like to travel? Glass Beach in Fort Bragg, California because it has SO MUCH gorgeous sea glass and it just looks like a place of dreams. I’ve always been a fan of the beach. It’s my happy place! What’s your go-to drink order? Tequila shots. It’s a bad vice. Who’s your favorite Disney Princess/Prince/Character? Dug from Up! Is there anything you collect? I own WAY too many mugs. Probably pushing to 30 mugs, I’m not sure. But they can’t be just regular mugs. They’re really weird ones. My favorite mug that I own is one where you can stick legos on it! It’s fun on a mug!  Do you have a favorite animal? Llamas. So. Many. Puns.

JOY

Where are three places you’d like to travel? Nickelodeon Universe inside Mall of America, Universal Studios, and somewhere in Hawaii. Two places to have fun and one place to look HOT. What’s your go-to drink order? Roscato red wine.  Who’s your favorite Disney Princess/Prince/Character? Disney movies don’t come CLOSE to Dreamworks. So I’m gonna bend the rules and give you Dreamworks. Toothless.  Is there anything you collect? Other than my Ninja Turtles EVERYTHING. Does lingerie count? Cuz I got lots.  Do you have a favorite animal? Snakes or turtles.

KRAMPUS

Where are three places you’d like to travel? Dominican Republic, cause home. France, cause accents. Australia, cause koalas. What’s your go-to drink order? Grande iced caramel macchiato with coconut milk, one pump vanilla. Who’s your favorite Disney Princess/Prince/Character? Disney is stupid. Is there anything you collect? Do broken hearts count? Do you have a favorite animal? No.

MILKING MAID

Where are three places you’d like to travel? Scotland because it is most like Harry Potter, duh. What’s your go-to drink order? Tequila (shots shots shots) Who’s your favorite Disney Princess/Prince/Character? Goofy, he’s a clown. You gotta love a clown. Is there anything you collect? Silly strings, just can’t bare to part with them. Do you have a favorite animal? Is all of them an acceptable answer? Though I do love me some small dogs and cats.

NOEL

Where are three places you’d like to travel? The Maldives, Thailand, Bora Bora. I like anywhere tropical, or anywhere I can be in as little clothing as possible. My soul belongs to the ocean. What’s your go-to drink order? Mojito. Who’s your favorite Disney Princess/Prince/Character? Esmeralda or Kida. Is there anything you collect? Magazines, earrings, purses. Do you have a favorite animal? A fox, because I am one.

PARTRIDGE

Where are three places you’d like to travel? Hawaii, California, Europe. I’d like to live somewhere completely different from where I’ve been before, if that makes any sense. I think it would be nice to go somewhere tropical, or somewhere it’s always sunny. I’ve been to Europe twice and I love the energy there. What’s your go-to drink order? Medium drip. Who’s your favorite Disney Princess/Prince/Character? Megara or Elsa. Is there anything you collect? Original Cast Recordings of various Broadway shows. I also collect hand wraps for boxing. Do you have a favorite animal? I do! It’s a canary.

PIPING PIPER

Where are three places you’d like to travel? Iceland, Tokyo, Africa. Or Australia, maybe? And I’d love to see the Rocky Mountains. Basically, I want to see it all.  What’s your go-to drink order? Tea. English breakfast if I had to choose one. Or water. But on a night out I enjoy a cider or a nice cold amber beer.  Who’s your favorite Disney Princess/Prince/Character? Jane from Tarzan. Or Belle from Beauty and the Beast.  Is there anything you collect? Lots of things. Dice. Funkos. Board games.  Do you have a favorite animal? Hard to choose just one but I love badgers.

POINSETTIA

Where are three places you’d like to travel? Tbh I always go where I want to travel irl. So I’m going to pick mythical places to go which are for sure: Hogwarts (because it’s a school that’s a castle, how is that NOT 100% fab), Narnia (i’d be able to give them such good fashion tips especially for the snow), and Atlantis (who DOESNT want to see mermaids?!) What’s your go-to drink order? I love to be wined and dined, so duh, wine is a first choice p much always. Also Cosmos. But since it’s winter I also love a good cup of hot cocoa made with MILK (not water), has cinnamon infused, marshmallows properly melted, a NOT stingy amount of whipped cream + sprinkles. Legit the only alway to drink it. Who’s your favorite Disney Princess/Prince/Character? Princess: it’s a tie between Jasmine and ariel tbh. Prince: prince phillip bc he fights a dragon for his girl which is such lesbian behavior. Character: minnie, duh. she’s the OG queen of disney bitches!!! Is there anything you collect? movie props are such a major must collect, records, personalized celebrity autographs, followers… Do you have a favorite animal? I love ALL animals, even gross bugs. But if it was legal to own a Sugar Glider, then i’d have one of those because they’re a fave

SCROOGE

Where are three places you’d like to travel? This one really good deli in Brooklyn I haven’t been back to in a while. Their sandwiches are awesome.  Washington State because there’s some great camping spots. Hawaii. Going snorkeling would be pretty cool.   What’s your go-to drink order? Hot chocolate, beer, or water.   Who’s your favorite Disney Princess/Prince/Character? Hercules.   Is there anything you collect? I have a little record collection, but that’s about it!   Do you have a favorite animal? Every single dog in the world.

SNOOPY

Where are three places you’d like to travel? california, for the waves and the legalized activities there, hawaii, for the waves and the babes, and canada I guess, because why not eh? What’s your go-to drink order? i keep it simple— a regular cup of joe is the way to go Who’s your favorite Disney Princess/Prince/Character? I don’t know what mulan counts as, but definitely her Is there anything you collect? batfam comics, ducktales comics, some anime funko pops, I might even have a state quarter coin collection but keep that on the DL Do you have a favorite animal? wolves… but also penguins might be a top contender if we’re being honest

STAR

Where are three places you’d like to travel? St. Simons, Georgia, Taos Pueblo, New Mexico, and Telluride, Colorado. There are plenty of places I’d like to go but I’ve heard those are some of the most beautiful small towns in America. I like finding the beauty in home. What’s your go-to drink order? Matcha Tea Who’s your favorite Disney Princess/Prince/Character? Tiana and Merida and Wall E Is there anything you collect? POPs Do you have a favorite animal? Hippocampus

TURTLE DOVE

Where are three places you’d like to travel? Bali. Simply because it looks gorgeous. Paris because who doesn’t want to go to Paris? And of course London, think of all the plays I’d get to see at the West End! What’s your go-to drink order? Chai Latté is my to go most of the time. But I do enjoy a good cocktail or two every now and then. My favorite is the Cosmopolitan. Who’s your favorite Disney Princess/Prince/Character? I’m going to have to go with Tiana. Princess and The Frog is one of my absolute favorite Disney movies. The music is superb and I just love how driven Tiana is. She has a dream and she’s following it, no matter at what cost. Is there anything you collect? Playbills. Do you have a favorite animal? I love quite a few animals. I find Alpacas incredibly hilarious. Have you ever heard them make noises? But I’m really also just a classic cat person.

TWINKLE LIGHTS

Where are three places you’d like to travel?  would love to visit Spain. I think the culture is beautiful and so romantic! What’s your go-to drink order? Latte, any day, all day, heck I’d even settle with espresso. Who’s your favorite Disney Princess/Prince/Character? Rapunzel. I like her hair and she’s headstrong. Is there anything you collect? Coffee mugs, rocks, erasers. Do you have a favorite animal? Dogs, for sure.

VIXEN

Where are three places you’d like to travel? Europe, I guess? Idk, everyone does Europe after college, right? What’s your go-to drink order? Black coffee or vodka soda. Who’s your favorite Disney Princess/Prince/Character? Tinkerbell. Or Marie from Aristocats. Is there anything you collect? Enemies. Do you have a favorite animal? Horses.