#YES THIS ONE IS A STRETCH I KNOW

[malinthebodyguard]

August Quotes the Godfather: betrayal, vengeance, and loneliness

I’ve always just slightly annoyed at August saying this, whenever someone asks why the Erikssons  are at the party : 

And yes, I know 80% of the things he says are slightly annoying and goddamn Malte for his excellent delivery of the shittiest comments. 

But still, he’s quoting the Godfather at a Gen Z High School party. Of course,  ‘Keep your friends close but your enemies closer’ is now  just a phrase people say, often with no connection to the film that made it popular. 

 But the fact he’s specifically saying it in English makes me think that August was intentionally quoting the film. And it makes sense that he’d know this films enough to reference them. The protagonist is a sly, attractive man, wealthy enough to disregard the law, all while wearing a stylishly pulled-back hairdo  These films are the stories of  rich men, who control everyone and everything around them. Men who make offers that cannot be refused. Men whose pulse doesn’t shake if they have to avenge their father or kill the brother that betrayed him. Female character are either objects of desire or victims of violence, with little to no agency. 

 August quoting this is telling us, the audience, that he’s the kind of person that values and admires this kind of film. But also that to a certain degree that he wants the people around him to know that of him. He knows these movies, and wants to be perceived as someone similar to its leads not just by quoting the film, but by claiming to adopt one of its most famous tenets. 

 We as the audience also know that  this is a performance for him . August didn’t invite Simon and Sara  so he could ‘keep his enemies closer’. His motivation for lying here is strange to me. Yes, Simon is someone he considers below him, but having Simon get him booze from outside is not something that preposterous. It’s even something that another character suggests. But August had asked Simon that favour out of desperation, because he had no way out. I think his unwillingness to admit that is telling about how much August values his perceived power and ability to get what he wants. We also see how meticulous he can be about maintaining it. 

But I think this quote is also a foreshadowing for what’s to come for August. The quote is something Michael Corleone says in Godfather II, a film that examines the rise and downfall of the Corleone family. Betrayal and revenge are some of the key themes of this story. Michael is betrayed by some of the most important people in his life.  The biggest betrayal of all is his brother Fredo’s. 

Fredo is Michael’s weak and easily manipulated older brother. His betrayal of Michael is one of the driving forces behind this film’s story, the revelation that he’d done it the climax. And in the film, Michael has  to punish his brother’s treason:

I think it’s easy to see how August might identify with this character . By episode 5, August thinks of himself as someone who's been betrayed by everyone around him: his mother, Felice, and Wille.

Of course, we know that’s not exactly what happens  But as far as August is concerned , then this is very accurate description. Felice’s interest in Wille, even when it’s platonic, is a betrayal to August’s own feelings. His mother’s request to sell their art is a betrayal to August’s legacy

The worst betrayal of all is Wille’s. Because Wille doesn’t just  reveal his financial problems, but in doing so he actively destroys the image of power and wealth that August had so carefully constructed. Simon is part of that betrayal as well, since he’s the only person who knew the truth. 

The only way August can take back what Wille ruined is by following along the model he was already emulating. It’s not just that the betrayal must be punished, but that August is justified in doing so.  

But August didn’t watch the film till the end, it seems. 

Michael Corleone is a powerful man, sure. But he’s a lonely violent man, who had the opportunity to escape his family’s expectations and instead chose to embrace them to his own detriment.  

The film ends with Michael alone, surrounded by memories of a family destroyed by his own acts of violence and sitting by himself on a dining table. 

August is seemingly starting the next season in a very similar place. Completely alone, dealing with the consequences of his own actions.

Revenge has been quoted as one of the key themes of this next season, and I’m interested in seeing how this is going to incorporate August into it. 

[medicalunprofessional]

wunderbar !

[ducktracy]

a short placing heavy emphasis on Hungarian Rhapsody No. II is a rite of passage for golden age cartoons. Bugs Bunny did it! Tom and Jerry did it! Daffy and Donald! but one thing Woody Woodpecker has above the competition is that he is held hostage by a group of gangsters and is forced to entertain, lest he get executed. amazing

[geekynightowl1997]

Okay- but...

Has anyone else noticed that at least with Dean Devlin- Christian Kanes characters all have some sort of ties to each other?

I mean:

Eliot Spencer; A military bred, mercenary trained, with multiple aliases- with a specific skill set, con-artist.

Jacob Stone; An art historian, with multiple aliases, genius brain, eidetic memory (?), librarian.

Alex Walker; con-artist, with multiple aliases, an eye for detail, retired giftshop owner.

The characters might not be the same but there still enough for them to be long lost triplets or something.

[rpfisfine]

aleksa small penis moments

[fist-amidst-the-hands]

hi hi okay imagine. stede wants to brush out ed's hair the way izzy always does. maybe izzy is busy on deck taking note of damages after a raid. maybe they had an infestation and he's going over ration spoilage and inventory with roach. ed is tired and cranky and absentmindedly separating sections of curls and tugging them apart at the bottom where they get stuck together in knots. stede offers to help with the tangles, says he would love to give it a go and help ed relax

izzy walks in a few minutes later and immediately comes up and tells stede he's doing it all wrong but also gently takes the brush from him and shows him the right way - where to hold the hair, how to start at the bottom with little sections and work his way up, when to start with his fingers instead of the brush. neither of them can see it but ed is smiling so much his face might actually burst

[simcardiac-arrested]

[starlooove]

I rlly liked red hood the hill bc besides the gift it completely ignored everything else with the batfam which to meeee I’m taking it as the hill has been overlooked by the bats forever (see Orpheus rising) so yeah nobody there gives a fuck about those people and jason knows better than to bring that shit over there

[maddy-ferguson]

Ngl, I really think that these bylers that are crying 24/7 about "purity culture" or whatever, are playing dumb when they start with their "but Nancy and Steve were 16 and 17 in that scene of s1!!!1" like... We got introduced to these characters at that age and the people playing them were already adults. So yeah, sorry but I think it's easy to see why most viewers would be uncomfortable with a more sexual scene of Mike and Will and it's not automatically homophobia, I think that would be the case with any of the kids since we got introduced to these characters when they were 12 and the actors were babies as well. We literally saw those kids grow. And I'm not saying byler should only get to peck or hold hands, It'd be cool if they have their epic kiss or whatever, but Will hasn't even had his first kiss yet and some of these people are already talking about sex scenes, like... Be for real 😭

funny you should say that...because i've used the nancy was 15-16 in season one argument (last tag) before while also saying that i understand why people find the sex part of their sexualities uncomfortable to discuss. and i wanna reiterate that, again, i totally understand that people feel like they've seen them grow up etc etc and that they still think of the actors themselves as children even thought they're not anymore.

i don't think it's all homophobia because like you said, people would probably feel the same about lucas and max and discussions of sex (i don't know if anyone is discussing that because there's much less discourse to have there and you can't argue that people are homophobic if they disagree with you) but i don't think it would be justified either. the "but we knew the characters when they were little" argument makes me think me of an ancient disney channel/abc show that old people and girl meets world fans who watched it for the first time in the 2010s will know, boy meets world (1993-2000). classic comic of age show, look at these kids. and eric in the back (he's fifteen).

they're eleven at the start of the show and then, what happens in any coming of age story happens, you guessed it...

they grow up. this is them in the later seasons, when the main characters are still in high school i think. they grow up, they talk about sex and about having sex at prom in season five and then they don't have sex right away because they figure it's not the right time yet or something like that, and then they have sex later and get married, the details don't matter. but my point is, who watches a show for five seasons, over years and years and gets upset at the main characters having sex because "this is crazy they used to be children"? isn't that the point of coming of age stories that cover multiple years or that focus on the latter years of adolescence, that they're not children forever and that at one point the characters "come of age" which usually includes their first sexual experiences?

i don't think the having sex part is particularly important in stranger things but also it doesn't have to be for it to be portrayed (see jonathan and nancy), teenagers have sex, it's just the way the world works. i'm not advocating for sex scenes of any kind especially because stranger things isn't a show that features a lot of sex in general, the only "explicit" sex scene being nancy and steve in season one with cuts to barb dying, but i genuinely don't think the duffers would have any qualms about portraying teenage sexuality in general with the party. if they did, they wouldn't have included erica threatening lucas to tell dustin what she found under his bed (it wasn't the communist manifesto) and they wouldn't have had max looking at a shirtless steve for an amount of time that's supposed to make the audience laugh. it's been 7 years. if they do a time jump, the babies will be about 17, played by actors who will all be around 20, the age natalia was when filming season one. the characters are teenagers, babies grow up. it happens to the best of us. i get why people would find it uncomfortable and maybe i would find it uncomfortable too but i wouldn't be scandalized. the duffers had no problem having a child actor portray everything will goes through in seasons one and especially two, i really feel like sex is fine and...not traumatizing or hard to watch compared to every single thing will's gone through lol. and again, i'm not even expecting them to have sex lmao, but i wouldn't cry myself to sleep if they revealed that everyone in the party actually knows what sex is.

last question: do we have any indication that jonathan had talked to more than one other girl (the girl at the halloween party being the one girl i'm counting for him) before he got together with nancy. i'm just asking because of your last sentence, because if we don't he should have slowed down also😭

[drygrasses]

🔇-

[bidokja]

hey so like. why did they do this. what was the reason. what is the point if it is not Exactly what we all think it is.

[mr-independent]

you know, its not brought up in fics often but ted is extremely well read. he doesnt brag about it, but hes read everything from f scott fitzgerald's b sides to ayn rand's doorstoppers to the sixteen book Ender series, etc etc etc. Ted reads about as much as we see Beard reading (which. in my head is a trait that was passed on, a new focus to sharpen the mind and keep him out of trouble and his mind off drugs, something Ted offered up as a coping mechanism for when his own dad died, a way to have fun and adventure and escape without ending up in jail like Ted himself had a handful of times before, scaring the bejeezus out of his ma.)

this turned into a mini fic and i lost my train of thought but point is, Ted reads So Much and more people need to pick up on this in fics please and thank you.

[eudico-my-beloved]

look at my splatoon loadout boy....

[tankgotstuckinthecircusgate]

sure fine WHATEVER . rocco related things 1927 -> 1932

[iknowwhereyousleepatnight]

Lavender emerald sepia

hehe :3

[aeide-thea]

have been reading fic & thinking abt my relationship to fic, which is of course also among other things a mirror of my relationship to my own psyche, and like—i think all the discourse abt its being ~internalized misogyny~ to mostly/entirely read m/m is not ultimately, whatever the truth of it, all that helpful, either to readers or to Women! but of course that doesn't stop me from feeling weird guilt abt the fact that i don't read more f/f than i do, because if there's anything i love to do, it's feel unhelpfully bad abt myself on the slimmest of pretexts…

however! i did end up reading some f/f earlier, specifically transfem f/f, and it got me thinking—basically what i'm usually mostly reading fic for is the romance/sex, right? like, don't get me wrong, i love when a fic gives me a gorgeous double helix of, like, casefic and romance twisted together, that's ideal, but fundamentally most of the time the feeling up is what i sat down at the table to eat. so in a complex aegosexual way it's a fantasy i'm—not projecting onto, exactly, i don't want to be one of the people in it; but, like, lurking in the wings of with eyes big love-crumbs, to steal a phrase from a relevantly-named poet. :) and so it's no wonder that mostly i don't want to read cisfemme4cisfemme stuff, because that's not a dynamic that feels like it has any room for me, or even like i'm particularly welcome in the room. but like. if it's trans women? i'm there, i love that for them and for me. if there's a butch? i might get tripped up by our differing lenses on gender feelings and stub my toe a little but even so i'm probably here for it. (thinking here abt that one butch/femme geraskier ~cisswap which is, like, a gorgeous bruise i keep periodically pressing. <3)

so really it's just like. shocker: i'm not personally moved by fantasies abt romance which feature conventionally feminine cis women whom i don't personally find relatable or sexually desirable! and when i put it like that, it really instantly dissolves the weird useless discourse-induced guiltgunk. like. give me a woman who's, idk, tall and charismatic and strong and clever and talented at something (though honestly it's like that siken revised tweet, a lot of those characteristics are ultimately negotiable!), like women i've historically crushed on irl, and then give me a pairing for her that's like. another woman who's also enough of those things, or a man who's—honestly the kind of m/f i'm open to would be its own whole post bc holy shit am i fussy, it very much does exist but for now let's just stick a pin in that one—or somebody nonbinary, which… idk that i've ever actually seen nb/f in fic? i'm sure it exists! but i'm not sure it exists in any fandoms i've been into. pondering the question did get me really thirsty for a good 'farmgirl (of the luke skywalker variety) is absolutely stunned-and-ringing-like-a-struck-bell captivated by confident flamboyantly genderqueer love interest (example wanted)' dynamic, though…