#and I *know* studios influence movies that's a given

[ct-hardcase]

getting in one of those moods where I can hardly wait for the tros tell-all when someone's NDA finally expires

[catbountry]

It's been a year since the premiere of Trigun: Stampede. The series, despite the fears of the fans of the '98 anime, actually turned out really good; Yasuhiro Nightow is a big superhero comics nerd, and wanted to have this new anime adaption be an adaption similar to the adaptions of the MCU, back when those movies were consistently enjoyable, and I daresay a bunch of the people watched Trigun probably were either already anime fans, or they were nomad fans who may have been really into the MCU at one point.

I have a lot of thoughts on an American perspective on Vash the Stampede as a character, with a lot of comparisons to American comic book superheroes. And while Trigun wasn't my first anime, I was hooked on it, as someone who grew up around Batman and Spawn's 90's popularity. During my first Otakon in 2001, I must have seen a dozen Vash's and Wolfwoods. I remember the year there was a Wolfwood cosplayer whose Punisher gun was shaped like the Star of David instead of a cross, making him a rabbi. That shit was amazing. The larger point is that I've loved this character for more than half of my entire time being alive, and I haven't seen a lot of discussion of Trigun viewed from a more political lens, and why it resonates so much with Americans (or at least me, who is an American) in particular

Buckle up, kids, this is gonna be long and rambly.

There was a period of time where I watched nearly every single new MCU movie in the theater. It was exciting seeing adaptions of comic books that would have probably never gotten a movie before the success of The Avengers. And I don't think it's a mistake that the most comic book-y of the movies are usually the best; Guardians of the Galaxy and its sequel remain as probably my favorite MCU movies. Nightow was working directly with the studio making a new Trigun anime and reportedly got the crew to watch a bunch of Marvel movies to set the tone for the anime as an adaption; it's why Vash got a completely new redesign that freaked all us old fans the fuck out. Though it appears that once again, Trigun tried and failed to get that massive Japanese audience that most successful anime have. But boy, oh boy, do us westerners fucking love Trigun, especially us Americans. Nightow's love of superhero comics bled into Trigun, and it just so happened that he was incredibly influenced by Spawn, Hellboy and Batman as much as he was influenced by Akira Toriyama and mechanical art. McFarlane Toys released a Vash figure that is McFarlane'd the fuck up. Nightow loves all superhero comics but especially the Blade trilogy.

Just look at this and imagine being 13 years old and seeing this on a screen for the first time with the instrumental hard rock opening.

Also, I wouldn't actually get around to reading Spawn until I was an adult, but you know what? It's pretty good. The writing is definitely weaker than the art, but holy shit, that art goes hard and I still think that shit's cool as fuck.

As stated before, around the early 2000's Trigun was considered peak anime, though it's been more overlooked in recent years in favor of Cowboy Bebop, an anime that has aged gracefully by comparison. But while Bebop has that sort of timeless cool and level of quality that drew the attention of filmmakers like the Wachoski sisters, Trigun has that very specific kind of adolescent sense of coolness that comic book fans get, especially back in the 90's before this sort of thing would be smothered to death by MCU's Joss Whedoning of superheroes. Spawn, Hellboy and Batman are still cool. And Trigun also has a shitton of guns, obviously, given that Vash being an incredibly OP gunslinger in a world where everybody has guns.

And America loves guns.

I think the contrast of Vash's pacifism while still wielding a gun is extremely interesting because it's not something you see very much (I bet if I watched more westerns, I'd have a better idea if this is a trope in them at all). Batman does not use guns and doesn't kill people, which is why there's still discourse around Tim Burton's Batman films to this day still; I don't think Kevin Smith has budged on this. Other more morally grey superheroes will use guns (by this definition I'm counting The Punisher even if he doesn't have any superpowers, unless you count severe PTSD as a superpower). And a lot of them had huge surges in popularity in the 90's around the time Nightow was making Trigun. Vash posed like Batman or Spider-Man looking brooding (like the gif above) happens a lot in the earlier issues even though that's not really his character.

Several years ago, there was an attempt by a conservative thinktank to discredit a bunch of Hollywood actors saying that gun violence in America is a serious issue and contrasted their statements scenes of them shooting guns in movies, but if we're being real here, gunplay in movies can be really fucking cool. Again I invoke The Matrix, or movies by Robert Rodriguez and John Woo. Look at video games, and compare the decline in violent crime that's been happening here since the 70's and 80's, as culture warriors bemoan movies and video games for becoming more violent. Remember when Wayne LaPierre, vice president of the NRA, brought up fucking Splatterhouse as a reason why Sandy Hook happened? Do you know what Splatterhouse looks like?

It looks like this.

You know how these guys constantly say the only way to counter a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun? Usually, the inference is that if the "good guy" with a gun shoots, he's shooting to kill. Deadpool and the Punisher would shoot to kill. But Vash is constantly trying to avoid it. And I remember as a teenager finding that really cool? And the manga and anime don't shy away from how impractical Vash's pacifism is. It's a bit more realistic than Steven Universe's ending, but also Steven Universe was made for children.

I know Avatar: The Last Airbender is often invoked when criticizing Steven Universe's philosophy, but I haven't really seen Vash's similar philosophy criticized in the same way, and I think a lot of that has to do with the presence of Wolfwood, who is the "I think we're gonna have to kill this guy" guy. I'm honestly surprised I haven't seen art of this yet. I may have to get on that. I already drew Vash horrified at the Trolley Problem.

Vash is a character designed with maximum coolness in mind, but also an overpowered being who is capable of killing millions, and in the anime, he somehow destroys July City without killing anyone directly, but the destruction of the city led to a bunch of people dying. He's so deeply committed to not wanting to kill anyone that he's probably killed more people than he would have if he just shot Knives. The best Batman stories acknowledge that Batman's refusal to kill Joker has similarly results in the deaths of people Batman could have prevented if he killed one guy, and this could also apply to Vash's relationship with his brother Knives, who was kind of destined to be a mass murderer with a name like that, let's be real.

Online, we tend to joke about bringing out the guillotines, or justify not feeling an sympathy for billionaires who die in a sub trying to view the Titanic. But if you were given a gun and a real human person begging for their life, what would you actually do? Do you honestly think that you would be the ethical Death Note user?

Vash has guns but he chooses not to kill people; he prefers to not even use them unless he has to, instead opting to run away and look cool doing it somehow.

He really, really doesn't want to kill people. He doesn't become numb to people dying. It hurts him every single time he watches someone get killed. In reality, most of us that aren't sociopaths would be distressed at the thought of killing someone. The only reason armies in real life work is that they become inoculated to the idea of violence and dehumanize the enemy. Vash is no soldier. He is idealistic, he is empathetic, and he sees every human being as a person worthy of life. Batman refuses to use guns, as that's how his parents were killed in front of him. Vash has to use guns in order to protect people from getting killed. He has the ethics of Superman but the tools of a comic book antihero. He's the logical conclusion of an shonen anime protagonist in a world that chews up anyone with that kind of optimism and hope and spits them out. And yet... he still keeps going. He remains committed. He's still cheery, goofy, lovable Vash.

Batman used to kill people, in the earliest comics. With the Comics Code Authority, no superheroes could kill people. In the 80's, comics were getting darker and edgier, taken more seriously. While Alan Moore's Watchmen delved into the moral complexities in a world with superheroes that was similar to ours, Frank Miller was keeping Batman consistent, even as Gotham got darker and uglier.

Batman is a vigilante. The police can be helpful or they can fuck up everything, depending on what's needed for the story. In Batman Year One, there's a scene where Batman crashes a party attended by the elites of Gotham, politicians and mobsters mingling.

Seeing this during the Bush presidency blew my mind. I don't want to get into just how perfectly the members of his administration seemed to resemble a rogue's gallery of sorts with the shared goals of making a lot of money and bombing the shit out of Iraq and Afghanistan. I was extremely anti-war even before the 2000 election as a very opinionated 14 year-old watching, Jon Stewart on The Daily Show and feeling relieved that a grown-up was able to see through all the bullshit; it helps when the guy who's against the war and killing people is funny. I remember writing in my diary at 12 years old after Columbine happened that I wanted to take all of the guns and melt them down in a pot, similarly to that scene in Superman IV where he throws the entire world's nuclear arsenal into the sun. But also that same year I would fall in love with The Matrix... and not long after that, Trigun.

Again, we come back to the idea of someone using a gun, a weapon designed to kill people, and using it in pursuit of the exact opposite. That resonated with me. I myself was very idealistic, and the political climate of my teenage years seemed to do almost everything to stamp that out of me. Things feel just as fraught two decades later, but in slightly different ways. Pacifism is looked down upon, as indicated by the backlash to the ending of Steven Universe, and how one crazy lady called Rebecca Sugar, a Jewish person, a Nazi for writing it that way. But for Steven, things worked out. For Vash? Well, he still has hope somehow, despite everything. I think the fact that he strives to protect human life, even when someone is a complete monster, is admirable in that it cuts to the very basic desire to not see people hurt. But we're also selfish, and scared, and sometimes it's hard to conceive of a solution to a problem that doesn't involve violence. Seeing dead bodies on TV or the internet upsets us, but we're often paralyzed by feeling like we can't do anything, and even if we tried, we'd likely perish in the attempt. We desire revenge, punishment for those who transgress by inflicting violence, and we can rationalize using it against the right targets. Vash the Stampede would have a fucking breakdown dealing with the state-backed violence that's been a part of geopolitics pretty much as long as there have been states and geopolitics. Vash would try and solve the bombings of Gaza with an impassioned plea for both sides to stop fighting before he would somehow wind up making things worse and it would eat away at him inside, no matter how brave a face he puts on as he tries to find some kind of hope in a hopeless situation. And... you know what? I kind of wish more people would be like that. Maybe if there were enough people like that, these sorts of things wouldn't happen in the first place. I wish more people could look at human suffering and feel compelled to try and stop it, not discriminating against one side or the other, trying to understand why people are doing what they do. Seeing anti-war protestors in Tel Aviv brings back memories of protests against the start of the War on Terror, and how hated America was internationally during those years, even when most Americans approved of the war. Michael Moore was booed at the Oscars for condemning George W. Bush and the War on Terror. It's terrifying that those in power want us killing each other and have conditioned us to support it. I want so badly for human beings to come together to just stop the violence, but it feels impossible, like we're destined for failure, like we might somehow make things worse or become worse versions of ourselves full of hatred and ugliness. But we should want to try, even if it's hard or unprofitable or we have no idea how to even do it. Somebody actually dedicating themselves to trying to fight our violent impulses out of love is appealing, and if they're more powerful than use, and can do more... well, I want the biblically accurate angel with every mental illness willing to martyr himself over and over again. But it is more fun when he's Bugs Bunny about it.

[nickcarr-scoutstories]

Hi everyone, I hope you've had a good year. It's been quite a while since I was last posting here regularly - I think maybe February or March. A number of you have written to me over the past many months to ask if I was OK and if I’d be returning with daily updates about scouting, and I’m sorry I haven’t gotten back sooner.

The simple answer for why I haven’t been sharing stories and pictures from my life as a movie location scout is that, since March of this year, I haven’t been a movie location scout.

As you may have heard, the film industry had two major strikes this year. The first kicked off on May 1 when the Writers Guild decided strike; the second on July 14, when SAG joined them on the picket lines.

But if you look at the timeline, something’s off. If the strikes didn’t begin until May, why have I been out of work since March?

When you work in film and TV, you go from project to project, as opposed to working directly for a particular studio. In January, I was just wrapping up the final season of FX’s Snowfall, one my favorite shows I’ve ever scouted for (you really get to explore your dark side when you’re asked to find creative places to stage murders and drug deals on a weekly basis!).

Typically, there are always a number of new productions gearing up at the beginning of the year, and it rarely takes longer than a few weeks to hop on something. Except, as I started reaching out to see what was on the horizon, something became starkly clear: there was nothing.

It quickly became apparent that the studios, anticipating that the strikes were likely to happen, opted to simply halt all new productions. That meant that by the time you heard about the writers strike in May, thousands of below-the-line crew like myself had already been out of work for months, with many more months to go.

I know hindsight is 20/20 and all, but I still kick myself for not predicting what was likely to happen in advance. Ha, in fact, as proof of my ignorance, when my five-year-old camera finally broke toward the end of Snowfall, I decided it was the perfect time to treat myself to a brand-new Sony set-up. That new camera has sat unused on my shelf laughing at me ever since.

Once I realized the severity of the situation, two things became clear: one, the strikes were going to last for a long time. And two, there was absolutely nothing I could do about it, other than to find a way for my family and I to survive until everything resolved.

As part of this effort, I made the conscious decision to focus my attention only on things I could control, and that were positive influences in my life. For that reason, I had to turn away from anything industry-related (a good decision in hindsight, as roughly 95% of the media predictions and insider sources about the strikes turned out to be wrong).

And by extension, I also stepped back from posting here. It was just too sad to try to write with my normal enthusiasm about scouting and exploring when everything about my work was in such upheaval.

Both strikes have now come to an end, and despite all the pessimistic naysayers, both unions wound up with extremely good deals that the studios initially swore were simply not possible. Though I’m neither SAG nor WGA, all of the benefits and protections I have from being a Teamster only come from working in an industry with extremely strong unions. If there was any question, 2023 made it undeniably clear.

My family has made it through, our credit scores bruised but otherwise happy and healthy and looking forward to a much brighter 2024. I was able to accomplish several projects that would have literally never happened if not for the strikes, including one creative endeavor that may be the best thing I’ve ever written and I can’t wait to share with you.

Hollywood has been slow to re-open, and I’m still waiting to put that camera to use on the first post-strike feature or TV show. Thankfully though, some print advertising work in the past few weeks has given me an excuse to finally take it off the shelf and wipe the dust off. And there are growing rumblings that the TV/movie floodgates should burst soon.

Finally, I wanted to end the year on a positive note by putting out the delayed third issue of my Scout Stories publication. This one is for you Scouting NY fans, and focuses on my all-time favorite “hidden in plain sight” locations and finds on the streets of New York from my ten years of scouting there. I’ll have the big announcement with purchase links up either later today or tomorrow, and they will definitely come in time for Christmas, should you be looking for a unique stocking stuffer!

So that’s what’s happened, where I’ve been, what I’ve been up to, and what’s ahead. If you asked me to sum up 2023, I’d say that financially, it was terrible! But in all truth, it was a happy year, simply because I made it a point to focus on the things that brought happiness.

Sharing my work as a scout with you has always made me happy, and I’m very much looking forward to doing a lot more of it in the coming year.

Happy holidays!

Nick

[archer-kacey]

Joey Drew is Gay and there's no way around it (Pt 4)

After Henry was gone, Joey moved forward building the studio, expanding slowly and snatching up any poor hapless bisexuals he could trick. This brings us to Sammy.

There are a lot of moving parts in the "Sammy Chapter", but they all work together to paint a...not very straight picture.

Joey approaches him at a party and they start up a conversation. Sammy recognizes him because he always sat in the front row of the Grand Cinema where he played, and the conversation then turns to Joey recruiting Sammy.

Joey wasn't even thinking about the music department before he ran into Sammy, only knowing that he needed "some musicians."

Of course, Sammy was undoubtedly talented, but I find it VERY interesting that Joey was so quickly inspired to get him on board. Hell, Sammy insists on seeing the studio right after meeting him, and he has to quickly pretend to have his shit together long enough to keep him interested.

It's worth noting that, given the way Joey (likely) felt about Henry, he's very quick to slide in a "look at my special new super talented and AWESOME (boy)friend that you could never be!!" whenever he gets the chance.

See, Joey actually goes on a very bitter tangent about Henry in the middle of talking about Sammy, and IMMEDIATELY follows it up with "Sammy Lawrence was one of my best decisions." (which...???????)

Joey reminisces quite a lot (and with a certain romantic charge) about Sammy, how great he was to have at the studio and how talented he was (sprinkled in with the occasional weirdly specific comments on things like his hair.

Please get back on track sir, you have the attention span of a gnat.)

And to cap off the "Sammy Chapter", we see a very strange but endearing interaction between Joey and Sammy.

Cut to a couple pages later, and we're hit with this line,

Not only did Sammy inspire him to start the music department, he also fed into an unhealthy god complex in Joey, which I'm sure will pan out just fine.

Sammy doesn't have to exert any effort for Joey to take a very keen interest in him. Joey even mentions how he was so enthralled when Sammy performed at the Grand that he wasn't even watching the damn movie. Our favorite banjo man seems to have this odd, almost siren-y effect on Joey that not even Henry had.

Oh, don't forget Sammy also defended Joey Drew to the press when the studio was facing allegations, as told by the Employee Handbook;

On top of the aforementioned, there are some minor details as well, both from the original game and the books.

Firstly, a note from Joey's apartment, which seems to be written by him based on the handwriting and the content. In which case, he literally drew the equivalent of hearts around his crush's name. I'm disappearing.

Tucked in Illusion of Living, where Joey details his day-to-day schedule, lies the Joey Drew and Sammy Lawrence math problem- a window of 10 minutes where Joey and Sammy are alone in a room together every day at the studio.

And finally, the classic "Joey's Lunchbreak", where Sammy is slotted in conveniently fifteen minutes beforehand. I'm not saying Joey wanted his lunchbreaks private for any particular reason, but...

He seems to not want to be disturbed regardless!

Besides Sammy, Sinclair, and Henry, there is still a huge male presence surrounding Joey. Donaldson and Eckhart, his military friends. Nathan Arch, his best friend and confidant. Bertrum Piedmont, both a friend and business partner. Joey's own father, who inspired his boundless, mischievous imagination. Men have influenced, befriended and inspired him at about every turn in his life.

So, you may be wondering, what about the women?

Well, if you can believe it, there are some women in Joey's life!

PART 5>>

[sideprince]

I wrote a reply to this post but OP has deleted it and even though I should probably leave well enough alone, it got to me that I could have sworn I saw this post months ago and then realized it was actually from yesterday. This is a long reply so I'm putting it under a cut, but after I went to OP's blog and saw a post from them complaining how mean everyone was to them on this post, I replied to say I'm sorry if they got any anon hate I don't know about but otherwise none of the comments on this post were mean or hateful, they just disagreed with OP. I pointed out that this is partly because they cited non-canon events as canon, and OP immediately blocked me (this may be why I can't reblog the post even from another user, though that's not how tumblr usually works so who knows). I can't help but feel that OP's post was made in bad faith, as a result, and I've seen enough people on this hellsite who are more interested in protecting their egos than admit when they could have been approached something more thoughtfully, so I'm diving in. If you're going to say a character "is very interesting to study" while doing the exact opposite, then you'd better have the critical analysis skills and textual evidence to back it up.

I think OP has some misconceptions that are frustratingly common, and seem to stem from people not having read the books, or not read them for a long time, and conflating the movies with canon. While I mostly agree with the replies above, I want to take this opportunity to cite the text to refute some of OP's points. I often forget details from the text, but I choose to either look them up before asserting unconfirmed points as fact (Potter Search is a great tool, or you can just do a ctrl+F search if you have the books digitally), or else I usually state clearly that I'm not sure if I remember something correctly and don't have the spoons to look it up.

I saw OP say in the comments in response to someone arguing their points:

"that's your interpretation, I have mine, I think both can coexist within the material we are given."

It doesn't sit right with me that so many people think that referring to their subjective memory of what the text meant to them is the same as actually citing it and offering an explanation. OP's interpretation can't exist within the material given, because some of it doesn't exist in the material at all, and you can't interpret what isn't there. OP is essentially claiming to have done critical analysis, and although no one is required to always critique a text analytically on a tumblr post, I find it upsetting when people claim to do so while failing to cite a single source to support their argument. To me it sounds like someone trying to pass off a creative writing essay as an academic research paper, and in an age of rampant propaganda and knee-jerk reblogs that eschew critical thinking, I feel an almost compulsive need to go through OP's reply and argue it with the textual evidence they conveniently avoided, if for no other reason than to show why it's important to discern between loosely formed opinions and informed ones.

I also want to explain why I don't accept the films as canon, because while I do think that canon can exist across several mediums (such as with Good Omens, in which at least one of the writers of the text is directly involved in writing the TV series), I don't think that applies to Harry Potter because the original author was only marginally involved in the films, in only a consultant role, and had little input on the writing. The HP films are an interpretation as written from the perspective of Steve Kloves, except for OoTP, which was written by Michael Goldenberg. I've gone into it on other posts, but suffice to say these interpretations did not prioritize story and character development and were often influenced by pressure from the studio to prioritize marketing opportunities over storytelling. Important elements like foreshadowing and themes were not carried over from the text to the screen. These changes affected the storytelling significantly and left out crucial elements. This, combined with the films having been written with little to no involvement from the original author, is why I feel the films can't be taken as canon. This doesn't mean they can't be enjoyed by any means, just that they scenes that appear in the films but not in the text, or are presented differently on screen than in the text, are not a reasonable basis for character analysis.

And now, on to OP's ask:

"I think he is a very good representation of a man who felt insecure in his manhood; his male ego was permanently wounded by James' bullying and he decided to make it everyone else's problem by being the most insufferable teacher at Hogwarts."

The first thing we have to establish is that the books are told from Harry's perspective, so we have to take narrative bias into account. Calling Snape "the most insufferable teacher at Hogwarts" is a subjective statement and I can only assume it's based in Harry's biased perspective as narrator, given that he and Snape have a bad relationship from the outset. I have a brief analysis here about how Snape dislikes Harry because in their first class together he interprets Harry's ignorance of the course material as a lack of curiosity and appreciation for his gifts as a wizard, while also recognizing something of his own experiences with childhood poverty and abuse in Harry. Harry, being ignorant of these factors, just feels singled out for hate by a strict teacher, and their relationship deteriorates throughout the rest of the series, until the end of the final book.

To pull back from the narrative bias, let's look at some of the other teachers are Hogwarts:

McGonagall:

“Miss Granger, you foolish girl, how could you think of tackling a mountain troll on your own?”  Hermione hung her head. Harry was speechless. Hermione was the last person to do anything against the rules, and here she was, pretending she had, to get them out of trouble. It was as if Snape had started handing out sweets. “Miss Granger, five points will be taken from Gryffindor for this,” said Professor McGonagall. “I’m very disappointed in you. If you’re not hurt at all, you’d better get off to Gryffindor Tower. Students are finishing the feast in their Houses.”

Philosopher's Stone, Ch. 10.

“I’m disgusted,” said Professor McGonagall. “Four students out of bed in one night! I’ve never heard of such a thing before! You, Miss Granger, I thought you had more sense. As for you, Mr. Potter, I thought Gryffindor meant more to you than this. All three of you will receive detentions — yes, you too, Mr. Longbottom, nothing gives you the right to walk around school at night, especially these days, it’s very dangerous — and fifty points will be taken from Gryffindor.” “Fifty?” Harry gasped — they would lose the lead, the lead he’d won in the last Quidditch match.  “Fifty points each,” said Professor McGonagall, breathing heavily through her long, pointed nose.

Philosopher's Stone, Ch. 15

In just the first book we see McGonagall punish Hermione for successfully defending herself against a troll and take house points, then sends her back to her common room without getting medical attention, as if a ten year old can be responsible for assessing how badly they're hurt. A few chapters later McGonagall takes several hundred points from students in her own house (more than we see any other teacher do at one time throughout the series), and assigns the students detention on top of it. As we later see in the same chapter, the detentions aren't even served with her directly, but instead the children - again, ten years old - are sent into the Forbidden Forest at night with only Hagrid to protect them, to hunt down whatever creature is vicious and cunning enough to kill unicorns.

Although it's said that Snape favors the students in his own house, he doesn't seem to be the only one:

“Potter's been sent a broomstick, Professor,” said Malfoy quickly.  “Yes, yes, that’s right,” said Professor Flitwick, beaming at Harry. “Professor McGonagall told me all about the special circumstances, Potter. And what model is it?”  “A Nimbus Two Thousand, sir,” said Harry, fighting not to laugh at the look of horror on Malfoy’s face. “And it’s really thanks to Malfoy here that I’ve got it,” he added. 

Philosopher's Stone, Ch. 10

Not only did McGonagall make an exception to school practices and allow Harry on his house Quidditch team despite being a first year, she used either school funds or her own (unclear) to purchase a first-rate broom for him. We know the school has brooms, as first years are not allowed their own and they are provided for flying lessons, and because “Harry had heard Fred and George Weasley complain about the school brooms” (PS ch. 9). And yet, McGonagall ensures Harry has his own broom, and an expensive one, new enough to be the show model in a shop window in Diagon Alley a few months earlier:

“Several boys of about Harry’s age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. ‘Look,’ Harry heard one of them say, ‘the new Nimbus Two Thousand - fastest ever -”

-Philosopher's Stone, Ch. 5

If we're discussing which teachers are Hogwarts are the most "insufferable" then we also have to talk about Hagrid, who might mean well and be affectionate, but is also irresponsible and dangerous.

In Philosopher's Stone, Hagrid:

Punishes Dudley, a child, for his parents' offenses, the final straw being his father insulting Dumbledore (Ch. 4). While Hagrid acknowledges that he shouldn't have lost his temper, he also admits that his intention had been to turn Dudley fully into a pig.

Hatches a dragon in his cabin (Ch. 14), tries to raise it illegally and against the animal's need of care, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione (again, ten year olds) have to fix the situation and get Ron's brother to find some friends to take the dragon away safely and prevent Hagrid losing his job (Ch. 14). In the process Hagrid endangers himself as well as the children, and it's because of this that McGonagall gives them detention and deducts hundreds of house points. Hagrid not only allows the children to endanger themselves for his sake, but to be punished and subsequently ostracized by their peers also for his sake.

The reason he even has a dragon is, as we find out in Ch. 16, because he was foolish enough to accept it from a faceless stranger in exchange for unwittingly divulging the secret to getting past the three headed dog guarding the Philosopher's Stone (and the stranger later turns out to be Quirrel/Voldemort).

In Prisoner of Azkaban, Hagrid:

Starts his first lesson with a volatile creature (Ch. 6) and, although Malfoy acted irresponsibly, Hagrid was nevertheless the teacher and responsible for providing course material consistent with the experience level and maturity of his students' age.

Gets drunk and has to be taken care of by Harry, Ron, and Hermione (again, children) (Ch. 6)

Skipping ahead to Order of the Phoenix ch. 30, we find out Hagrid

Compromised his return from the mission Dumbledore sent him on by bringing a giant back to England.

Brought said giant into the school grounds and left him in the Forbidden Forest.

Asks Harry and Hermione (still children) to look after him if Hagrid is sacked.

Although Hagrid means well, his actions are consistently thoughtless and irresponsible, requiring those around him - often Harry, Ron, and Hermione - to fix the damage he causes. Although I think it remains subjective which teacher at Hogwarts is the "most insufferable" I think Hagrid is a strong enough candidate to qualify OP's interpretation of Snape holding that title as extremely contestable. Of course, since the books are presented through the lens of Harry's narrative bias, and he's fond of Hagrid, respects McGonagall, and dislikes Snape, an uncritical reading could lead one to OP's conclusions. However, a more objective analysis of the text shows that many teachers at Hogwarts are strict, punitive, biased, and wreak havoc on students in ways that make the Snape's actions look fairly tame, or at least the norm. And this is excluding an analysis of various DADA professors like Lockhart and Crouch/Moody, who were insufferable in their own rights (Lockhart was smarmy and dishonest to the point it risked students' lives; Crouch/Moodly transfigured a child into a ferret and humiliated him with torture as a disciplinary measure and deliberately triggered Neville's trauma in class).

OP continues their reply to say:

Add to this that he is a halfblood and only his mother was around, iirc?

They don't recall correctly. Snape, whose father was a muggle and whose mother was a witch, was indeed a half-blood (as is evidenced by him being revealed to be the Half-Blood Prince - I assume I don't need to cite a source as this is a pretty well-known fact and the literal title of an entire HP book, but should you need a reference it's in Ch. 28 of HBP). Both his parents were around in his childhood:

Snape staggered - his wand flew upwards, away from Harry - and suddenly Harry’s mind was teeming with memories that were not his: a hook-nosed man was shouting at a cowering woman, while a small dark-haired boy cried in a corner …

-Order of the Phoenix, Ch. 26

‘How are things at your house?’ Lily asked. A little crease appeared between his eyes. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘They’re not arguing any more?’ ‘Oh, yes, they’re arguing,’ said Snape. He picked up a fistful of leaves and began tearing them apart, apparently unaware of what he was doing. ‘But it won’t be that long and I’ll be gone.’ ‘Doesn’t your dad like magic?’ ‘He doesn’t like anything, much,’ said Snape.

-Deathly Hallows, Ch. 33

We know that Snape's father was around because he's mentioned both in Snape's memories in OoTP that Harry accidentally invades during an Occlumency lesson, and when we see in Snape's memories that he gives Harry as he dies. Lily asks about his home life by referring to both his parents, implying that his dad is a consistent presence at home. We also know from JK Rowling that Snape's father "didn't hold back when it came to the whip" but this is supplementary and not mentioned in canon, so I don't expect anyone to refer to it when analyzing the text, I'm just adding it as bonus material.

Continuing on with OP's reply:

Snape, Voldemort and Harry all act like foils of each other in that sense, but whereas Voldemort fixated on his blood status as the main reason for his insecurities, Snape fixated on Lily.

So much to unpack here. Firstly, all of this should be backed up by examples from the text, as they are subjective readings that have significant bearing on character analysis.

Snape, Harry, and Voldemort don't act like foils of each other. For one thing, a character doesn't act like a foil, a character either is or isn't one. That being said, I don't know OP's background and there could be a language barrier because English isn't everyone's first language, I'm just being pedantic. Even with that in mind, the statement remains incorrect. A foil is a literary device - a character who contrasts with another character, often with the protagonist. It is not a choice a character makes or an action they take.

In Philosopher's Stone Snape is set up as a foil to Harry in order to misdirect the reader from suspecting the real villain, Quirrel/Voldemort. Snape is presented as secretive, sneaky, and nefarious, contrasting Harry's role as a protagonist who is outspoken, honest, and brave. As the series progresses, Snape, along with Voldemort, are eventually shown to have more parallels than contrasts with Harry. Snape and Voldemort were born into muggle poverty, and although Harry was raised in a middle class home by the Dursleys, they thrust poverty and neglect onto him in a way that parallels his childhood of neglect and want with that of Snape and Voldemort. Snape's father was abusive, as was Harry's guardian, Vernon Dursley. Harry, Voldemort, and Snape all had traumatic experiences growing up in muggle environments. If anything, Snape and Voldemort might be foils to Harry in that they both harbored resentment for their muggle fathers in ways that signified the separation between the wizarding and muggle world, while Harry's experiences with the Dursleys didn't color his image of muggles in a comparable way.

The contrast between Harry, Snape, and Voldemort is in the way each of them deals with their trauma. As Dumbledore says:

"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

-Chamber of Secrets, Ch. 18

This becomes one of the overarching themes of the HP series, Harry, Snape, and Voldemort are all examples of how their choices took them to such different places in life from their comparable childhoods.

At school Voldemort was a handsome boy with talent, intelligence, and the recommendations of his teachers, but he chose to pursue power instead of success:

“He reached the seventh year of his schooling with, as you might have expected, top grades in every examination he had taken. All around him, his classmates were deciding which jobs they were to pursue once they had left Hogwarts. Nearly everybody expected spectacular things from Tom Riddle, prefect, Head Boy, winner of the Special Award for Services to the School. I know that several teachers, Professor Slughorn amongst them, suggested that he join the Ministry of Magic, offered to set up appointments, put him in touch with useful contacts. He refused all offers. The next thing the staff knew, Voldemort was working at Borgin and Burkes.”

Half-Blood Prince, Ch. 20

Snape chose to become a Death Eater for reasons we can only assume. We know he was in Slytherin during an era when Voldemort was in power and many of his allies had children in Slytherin house. At least two of Snape's dorm-mates, Mulciber and Avery, are canonically acknowledged to have become Death Eaters (both are present at the Ministry when Harry and his friends fight the Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries in OoTP Ch. 35). It's unclear whether Snape chose to become a Death Eater out of admiration for them or out of peer pressure, or perhaps a lack of other options, while at school:

'… thought we were supposed to be friends?’ Snape was saying. ‘Best friends?’ ‘We are, Sev, but I don’t like some of the people you’re hanging around with! I’m sorry, but I detest Avery and Mulciber! Mulciber! What do you see in him, Sev? He’s creepy! D’you know what he tried to do to Mary Macdonald the other day?’ Lily had reached a pillar and leaned against it, looking up into the thin, sallow face. ‘That was nothing,’ said Snape. ‘It was a laugh, that’s all -‘ ‘It was Dark Magic, and if you think that’s funny -‘ ‘What about the stuff Potter and his mates get up to?’ demanded Snape. His colour rose again as he said it, unable, it seemed, to hold in his resentment.

-Deathly Hallows, Ch. 33

It's unclear what Snape thinks of Avery and Mulciber, as his reply to Lily is downplaying but doesn't defend their actions. We see Snape's indecisiveness later in the argument he has with Lily after he calls her a Mudblood:

'It’s too late. I’ve made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends - you see, you don’t even deny it! You don’t even deny that’s what you’re all aiming to be! You can’t wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?’ He opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking. ‘I can’t pretend any more. You’ve chosen your way, I’ve chosen mine.’ ‘No - listen, I didn’t mean -‘ ‘- to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?'

-Deathly Hallows, Ch. 33

Although Snape does ultimately choose to become a Death Eater, we see in his reply to Lily about both Avery and Mulciber and later her assumption that they all want to become Death Eaters that Snape doesn't argue for or against her accusations, but instead is evasive and unsure of himself. He opens his mouth to speak when she accuses him of wanting to become a Death Eater, but then closes it again without saying anything - he can neither argue against her point, nor state clearly, let alone with any kind of conviction, that this is indeed his ambition. It can be argued that it's the passivity of his choice that lands him with a Dark Mark on his arm, and it's the active choice he makes to risk his life in order to defect from Voldemort's ranks and turn spy that defines his character and without which Harry could not have defeated Voldemort.

Harry, as the protagonist, is also significantly defined by the theme of choice:

'But, sir,’ said Harry, making valiant efforts not to sound argumentative, ‘it all comes to the same thing, doesn’t it? I’ve got to try and kill him, or -‘ ‘Got to?’ said Dumbledore. ‘Of course you’ve got to! But not because of the prophecy! Because you, yourself, will never rest until you’ve tried! We both know it! Imagine, please, just for a moment, that you had never heard that prophecy! How would you feel about Voldemort now? Think!’ Harry watched Dumbledore striding up and down in front of him, and thought. He thought of his mother, his father and Sirius. He thought of Cedric Diggory. He thought of all the terrible deeds he knew Lord Voldemort had done. A flame seemed to leap inside his chest, searing his throat. ‘I’d want him finished,’ said Harry quietly. ‘And I’d want to do it.’ ‘Of course you would!’ cried Dumbledore. ‘You see, the prophecy does not mean you have to do anything! But the prophecy caused Lord Voldemort to mark you as his equal … in other words, you are free to choose your way, quite free to turn your back on the prophecy! But Voldemort continues to set store by the prophecy. He will continue to hunt you … which makes it certain, really, that -' ‘That one of us is going to end up killing the other,’ said Harry. ‘Yes.'

-Half-Blood Prince, Ch. 33

There's a clear point made by the author through Dumbledore as her proxy here, that choice is what matters, not fate. It's Harry's choices that make him the person he is and lead him to eventually defeat Voldemort. While Snape, Voldemort, and Harry all can be contrasted through the lens of their choices, this does not make them foils, as it is the the theme of choice and how it is exemplified by each character that makes them unique, but their experiences and many of their character traits (boldness, bravery, a personal sense of conviction) that make them parallels of one another. Each of them occupies their own place on the spectrum between the light and dark that the series establishes, Voldemort at the dark end, Harry at the light, and Snape in the grey area between them.

OP goes on to say:

His character is all about male entitlement, he was obsessed with her at Hogwarts and then showed to have no boundaries as he went into her house to cradle her dead body in front of her traumatized kid.

There's a lot to unpack here, and it's particularly challenging because you can't provide textual evidence for something that didn't happen in the text. After the above scene from Ch. 33 of DH in which Lily ends her friendship with Snape, we never see them interact again:

'No - listen, I didn’t mean -‘ ‘- to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?’ He struggled on the verge of speech, but with a contemptuous look she turned and climbed back through the portrait hole … The corridor dissolved, and the scene took a little longer to reform: Harry seemed to fly through shifting shapes and colours until his surroundings solidified again and he stood on a hilltop, forlorn and cold in the darkness, the wind whistling through the branches of a few leafless trees. The adult Snape was panting, turning on the spot, his wand gripped tightly in his hand, waiting for something or for someone …'

-Deathly Hallows, Ch. 33

The scene in the corridor in front of Gryffindor Tower between a fifth year Snape and Lily leads directly into the scene where Snape begs Dumbledore to protect the Potters (which I wrote an analysis of a few months ago but is too long a subject to derail this post for). We see no more interactions between Snape and Lily, and therefore there is no canonical support for the idea that Snape behaved obsessively or failed to respect her boundaries.

There's also no mention of Snape going to Godric's Hollow at all after her death. Snape holding Lily's dead body is only shown in the film version of Deathly Hallows, and as mentioned, the films are not canon. That moment doesn't exist in the text and can't be considered in an analysis of Snape's character. The scene on the hilltop leads directly into the scene of Snape crying in Dumbledore's office:

The hilltop faded, and Harry stood in Dumbledore’s office, and something was making a terrible sound, like a wounded animal. Snape was slumped forwards in a chair and Dumbledore was standing over him, looking grim. After a moment or two, Snape raised his face, and he looked like a man who had lived a hundred years of misery since leaving the wild hilltop. ‘I thought … you were going … to keep her … safe …’ ‘She and James put their faith in the wrong person,’ said Dumbledore. ‘Rather like you, Severus. Weren’t you hoping that Lord Voldemort would spare her?’ Snape’s breathing was shallow.

-Deathly Hallows, Ch. 33

This is the only depiction of Snape immediately following the Potters' deaths. The scene of him cradling Lily's dead body was Steve Kloves' invention and has no basis in canon. If anything, Snape's actions in canon can be interpreted to show that he respected the boundaries Lily set, and that even when her life was at risk he chose to go to Dumbledore - who he thought might kill him on sight - rather than talk to her directly after she ended their friendship. In addition, in all the information the text gives about the night Voldemort fell in Godric's Hollow and Hagrid collected Harry to take him to Privet Drive, there's no mention of Snape whatsoever.

There isn't much in the text to support the interpretation that Snape exemplified male entitlement either. So far we've seen him being as strict, if not milder, than other teachers at the school, his favoritism is also comparable to that of other teachers - implying it's more of a norm than an example of entitlement - and there are no canonical examples to support the argument that he was obsessed with Lily or violated her boundaries. Snape struggles to argue with Lily when she accuses and berates him, and the usual markers of patriarchal entitlement - silencing women, gaslighting, dismissing women's opinions, talking over them - are all nowhere to be found in any of their interactions. The only time we see him lash out at Lily is when he calls her Mudblood (OoTP Ch. 28) which, while inexcusable, he does under traumatic duress, and is not indicative of his usual interactions with her, as exemplified by the fact that she ends their friendship over it. As cited before:

'No - listen, I didn’t mean -‘ ‘- to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?’

There's a clear implication that Snape has never called her this before. An argument can also be made that it speaks volumes of Lily's own biases, or perhaps her own affection for Snape (who, not long before this, was still her best friend), that she excused this behavior from him when it was directed at others, and only took issue with it when it was directed at herself. That, combined with Lily's own acknowledgment that they were "best friends" shows that Snape's relationship with her was a balanced, consensual one even when it became strained, up until their friendship ended.

Continuing with OP's points:

He only saw Lily as a trophy to be possessed, which you can see from the way he hated Harry, because Harry reminded him Lily wasn't his and that Lily had sex with another man.

There's no support for this in the text anywhere and is pure conjecture. I can appreciate it being OP's headcanon, but it's certainly not a result of studying the text and relying on it to form opinions, but rather seems to be OP projecting pre-conceived notions onto Snape as a character and trying to find justification for it. I've written a whole post extrapolating Snape's first class with Harry, but the tl;dr is that Snape, who grew up in muggle poverty and knew Aunt Petunia enough to guess that Harry didn't fare well in her care when he showed up at school bearing signs of neglect, likely expected Harry to have the same hunger for learning that he himself did at Harry's age. Instead, Harry couldn't answer a single one of his questions and showed no curiosity or enthusiasm towards being a wizard as far as Snape could tell.

Nevertheless, even though Snape did seem to dislike Harry, hate is an awful strong word given that it is revealed at the end of Deathly Hallows that Snape has risked his own life to protect him. This isn't particularly surprising when you consider that this goal was established as early as Philosopher's Stone, when Snape protected him, which Harry initially interpreted as Snape trying to kill him:

Harry couldn’t take it in. This couldn’t be true, it couldn’t. ‘But Snape tried to kill me!’ ‘No, no, no. I tried to kill you. Your friend Miss Granger accidentally knocked me over as she rushed to set fire to Snape at that Quidditch match. She broke my eye contact with you. Another few seconds and I’d have got you off that broom. I’d have managed it before then if Snape hadn’t been muttering a counter-curse, trying to save you.’ ‘Snape was trying to save me?’ ‘Of course,’ said Quirrell coolly. -Philosopher's Stone, Ch. 17

Again, the story is told through the lens of Harry's bias, but that doesn't mean his opinions of Snape reflect Snape's character. As another example, there's an implication in OoTP that Snape, having seen some of the Dursleys' abuse of Harry through his memories during Occlumency lessons, passed this information on in an effort to protect Harry, and that this is the reason why several Order members (Arthur Weasley and Moody in particular) show up at King's Cross at the end of the schoolyear and threaten the Dursleys to stop mistreating him. There seems to be no other explanation in the text for why these adults are suddenly aware of the abuse Harry experiences, except that Snape, who was abused as a child himself, and who is an Order member himself, is the only adult in the series who we see witness Harry's mistreatement firsthand. At no point in the narrative do we see Harry complain about the Dursleys to the adults he trusts or ask them for help, merely to spend his holidays away from them without explanation.

While Snape did indeed dislike Harry and often compared him to his father, his dislike for James had much more significant roots in bullying and trauma than in his concern for Lily's relationship with him. It's established in canon that James Potter and Sirius Black dislike Snape from the outset (as in the scene on the Hogwarts Express in DH Ch. 33). In their fifth year, Sirius - annoyed that Snape is so curious about where Lupin goes each month - tricks Snape into following the tunnel under the Whomping Willow to the Shrieking Shack, as Lupin tells Harry:

'Professor Snape was at school with us. ... Sirius here played a trick on him which nearly killed him, a trick which involved me -‘ Black made a derisive noise. ‘It served him right,’ he sneered. ‘Sneaking around, trying to find out what we were up to … hoping he could get us expelled …' 'Severus was very interested in where I went every month,’ Lupin told Harry, Ron and Hermione. ‘We were in the same year, you know, and we - er - didn’t like each other very much. He especially disliked James. Jealous, I think, of James’s talent on the Quidditch pitch … anyway, Snape had seen me crossing the grounds with Madam Pomfrey one evening as she led me towards the Whomping Willow to transform. Sirius thought it would be - er - amusing, to tell Snape all he had to do was prod the knot on the tree-trunk with a long stick, and he’d be able to get in after me. Well, of course, Snape tried it - if he’d got as far as this house, he’d have met a fully grown werewolf - but your father, who’d heard what Sirius had done, went after Snape and pulled him back, at great risk to his life … Snape glimpsed me, though, at the end of the tunnel. He was forbidden to tell anybody by Dumbledore, but from that time on he knew what I was …'

-Prisoner of Azkaban, Ch. 18

From this we can deduce that Sirius intended for Snape to die, or at least get severely injured, and that even as a grown adult Sirius doesn't regret trying to mete out this punishment to him as retaliation for curiosity. We can also deduce that Lupin was unaware of Sirius' intention and did not consent to be used as a weapon. For his part, Snape never did reveal that Lupin was a werewolf while at school, or even during that school year, until after Lupin ran amok on Hogwarts grounds, endangering others' lives, including Harry's.

There are other meta posts that go into Lupin's insecurities and vulnerabilities, but in short, he was grateful just to be allowed into the school as a student, let alone to have friends, and was in no position to challenge James and Sirius. Even as a prefect he didn't curb their behavior, as we see when he allows James to bully Snape later that year after their O.W.L.s:

'Leave him alone,’ Lily repeated. She was looking at James with every sign of great dislike. ‘What’s he done to you?’ ‘Well,’ said James, appearing to deliberate the point, ‘it’s more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean …’ Many of the surrounding students laughed, Sirius and Wormtail included, but Lupin, still apparently intent on his book, didn’t, and nor did Lily. ‘You think you’re funny,’ she said coldly. ‘But you’re just an arrogant, bullying toerag, Potter. Leave him alone.’ ‘I will if you go out with me, Evans,’ said James quickly. ‘Go on … go out with me and I’ll never lay a wand on old Snivelly again.'

-Order of the Phoenix, Ch. 28

James acknowledges that he has no real reason to bully Snape and uses violence as a bargaining chip to coerce Lily into going out with him (James' behavior reflects much more entitlement than Snape's, in my opinion). He also chokes Snape with a bar of soap and then assaults him by dangling him upside down and removing his trousers (threatening to remove his underwear but we don't see it happen).

Lily herself refers to James as arrogant, and it's this trait, along with the trauma from James' bullying of him, that Snape perceives in Harry. He doesn't resent Harry for looking like his father because it reminds him that Lily had sex with another man, he resents him for it because of all the trauma James inflicted on him. The conflict-laden relationship between Snape and the Marauders is a significant driver of the story through several of the books and OP seems subjective to the point of being problematic in ignoring it completely and instead focusing Snape's dislike of Harry onto an invented idea of sexual jealousy that doesn't exist in the text.

It's never stated whether Snape had romantic feelings for Lily, or vice versa, only that they were friends. The closest we see to a hint of this is when “The intensity of his [Snape's] gaze made her [Lily] blush," or when “The moment she [Lily] had insulted James Potter, his [Snape's] whole body had relaxed, and as they walked away there was a new spring in Snape’s step …”

Lily's blush could be interpreted as implying she was attracted to him, or conversely that she didn't and felt awkward thinking he might be attracted to her. Similarly, Snape's relief at her insulting James can be interpreted as indicative of his attraction to her, or of him simply being worried about a friend hanging out with people he perceived as dangerous and was relieved to learn she wasn't putting herself in the way of danger by becoming friends with them. Although JK Rowling has said that her intention was for Snape's affections towards Lily to be romantic, and that she may have returned his affection had he not chosen the path he did, this is - like the note about Snape's father whipping him - extratextual and more of an interesting fact than a bit of canon to be extrapolated from the text.

Finally, OP says:

His interest in the Death Eaters was only secondary to his obsession with Lily and I think Lily rejecting him pushed him toward joining the Death Eaters, because, once again, his male ego was bruised and he needed to replace it with something else.

We've already seen that Snape's interest in joining the Death Eaters was a big part of Lily's reason for ending their friendship. Therefore, logically, Lily's decision didn't push him towards becoming a Death Eater, but rather isolated him from having any support system outside of the DEs. She didn't reject him, because rejection is the refusal or dismissal of another person's advances or proposal. They were friends, meaning they had a mutually consensual platonic relationship. Lily therefore didn't reject Snape, she ended their friendship and, as already stated, nothing in canon implies he didn't respect her boundaries.

As we have also seen in canon, Snape was bullied at school and had, at best, a neglectful and dysfunctional home environment in his childhood. In addition, he shared a dorm with students actively interested in becoming Death Eaters, and his one social lifeline away from them was cut off when he called Lily a Mudblood. What OP interprets as Snape's male ego being bruised is actually a much more complex set of social and emotional factors being described throughout the series to eventually reveal the profile of a character - young Snape - who was a vulnerable youth primed for radicalization by a violent faction of zealots. Although the enforcement and upholding of patriarchal norms is often a huge element of these kinds of social movements, that didn't seem to be the driving force for Snape based on everything we learn about his character. Instead, what we see is a boy who comes from abuse, lives in abuse at school, who loses all the support systems that might give him an alternative to the fascist cult he's being radicalized into which - if it's like most hate groups - would have been more than welcome to both take him in and help him cut his ties to anyone else in his life he might escape from them to.

It also goes against the argument that Snape was sexually obsessed with Lily that he continued to risk his life in order to protect her son an defeat her murderer for almost two decades after her death. He knew it would neither bring her back from the dead nor bring about forgiveness, and it goes without saying that sex was no longer an option. Framing Snape's motivation as obsession dismisses the realities of the complex and meaningful relationship we form as people, and the lasting, transformative influence we can have on each other, which is what Snape and Lily's story illustrates.

Finally, OP concludes with:

He remained mysterious up till the end and his back-and-forth with treason was very compelling to read about. So I hate him (as a "person") but he is such a good character narrative-wise and he is very interesting to study

OP openly admits to hating Snape, ie. having a bias against him, while stating he is "interesting to study" - except no part of their answer has shown that they've actually done so. Their arguments are unsupported in several ways, one being that they don't offer any evidence, and the other being that none can be found in the source text. What's ironic is that OP seems to resent Snape's subjective bias against Harry (and misinterpret his reasons for it in baseless ways) while also showing the exact same kind of bias against Snape themselves. You don't have to like a character by any means, but claiming that the kind of unfounded, superficial, and unsupported opinions that OP stated in their response have a basis in any kind of study of his character is ludicrous and an insult to the intelligence of anyone reading it.

[burningexeter]

Since just like with a certain voice actress on a 2000s Cartoon Network show, there's not a lot of information on in this case writer/director Shane Acker, the man behind the dark, twisted, action-horror post-apocalyptic animated film 9 from you guessed it 2009.

So here's all the trivia that I could find on the guy if anyone's interested in reading for yourself:

• In an interview, Acker cut to the chase on why he hasn't directed a movie since aforementioned 2009 and here's what he said — "Have a lot of the movies I've been attached to as director fallen into development hell, yes. But the bigger reason is mainly personal, I've just been living my own life. I would absolutely love to direct another feature or anything really but at the same time, I'm enjoying what I already have in life. I'm kind of a schlub that way right down to the fact that I'd nowadays rather sit back on a nice Sunday, watch football and eat bacon and pepperoni pizza than deal with modern studio executives who probably get higher pay every time they yell and scream in your ear".

• He's already listed The Brothers Quay, Don Hertzfeldt, Jan Svankmajer and brothers Christoph Lauenstein as influences previously however recently he's named Terrence Malick, Edgar Wright, Gore Verbinski, Jordan Peele and Richard Kelly as some of his favorite filmmakers.

• Speaking of favorites, he's given some of his favorite movies — Donnie Darko, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Dredd, The Watcher In The Woods (1980) and The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian (surprisingly).... then he gave some his favorite TV shows — Tales From The Crypt, Bob's Burgers, Squid Game, Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Sons Of Anarchy.

• When asked what was it like working with Tim Burton since he was producer, Acker spoke high praise saying "I would work with him again if the time comes. Tim was a phenomenal producer who allowed for so much creative freedom while at the same time contributing his unique voice and view to the project".

• On the flip side, here's what he thought of the other producer Timur Bekmambetov — "He was very, very, very, very, VERY fucking russian as all hell. I'm surprised he was a Hollywood producer..... he was quite the interesting person".

• He does indeed have an idea for a new project that he not only wants to do but intends on having it be his second film as director, describing it as "The Incredibles crossed with Raiders Of The Lost Ark, it's an animated action-adventure with edge we haven't seen since honestly the early 2010s. I'm still deciding on whether it should be another PG-13 or an actual R".

• On modern media, here's his blatant thoughts on it so tough shit to any dope who reads this and gets offended because of stupid reasons — "I think it's been awful. There's barely any genuine storytelling now and instead it's all politics. It's all about representation, obnoxious wokeness, pandering, subverting expectations and shoving as much modern bullshit themes into them than actually telling stories with characters who you care about".

• He's most certainly not a fan of a certain film called Star Wars: The Last Jedi — "I know this is saying quite a lot since I've only been able so far to direct one feature but honestly I wish Last Jedi was never made at this point. Not only is it a truly terrible movie but it's created so much hostility, so much shilling, so much toxicity that it becomes unbearable. If this is that film's legacy than it's a failure".

• There is however one positive about all of this and it's that the one movie that he's excited for and interested in — what is it....

[scarlet--wiccan]

What would your main influences for your own vision of a Scarlet Witch movie?

This. I obviously don't want Marvel Studios to make a Scarlet Witch movie with Olsen, and if the M C U is going to continue as it is now, then I hope that version of Wanda stays dead and we never see her again.

But if you're looking for an original or stand-alone Scarlet Witch plot, particularly if you want an updated version of her and Pietro's origins, I've been kicking around that story pitch for a few years and that's my go-to answer. For brevity's sake, I'll copy it below.

If by "influences" you mean cinematic or creative influences-- I'm not a film expert. I always want magic-centric superhero movies to have a distinct aesthetic, but I'm rarely satisfied by what they actually put out. I would probably look towards folk horror for a lot of the stuff set in and around Wundagore, but I'm a little nervous about marrying that genre with Romani subjects and perspectives. And I know this film is a bit dated in the way it talks about magic and spritituality, but I still love The Craft and I think it's the gold standard when it comes to making witchfact feel immersive and tangible-- and it does it without all the overwrought energy-beam effects we see in so many M C U titles.

Wanda and Pietro's childhood and adolescence would basically follow 616-canon-- raised by Django and Marya; separated from their family during a racist hate crime; and forced to live on the run for years due to their emerging powers and further discrimination.

They return to Mount Wundagore seeking answers about their powers and their birth mother. They are taken in by the Knights of Wundagore, who, as in Midnight Suns, are an ancient order tasked with safeguarding the mountain and its hidden magic. Little do they know, the Knights have been corrupted by the same villain-- be that Modred or the Evolutionary-- who killed their birth mother and experimented on them as babies.

Wanda is given pages from the Darkhold, which she believes are ancient magical texts that will help her master her abilities. In truth, of course, they are priming her to become Chthon's vessel. She performs spells from the Darkhold to bolster the Knight's powers. Pietro has joined the Knights, believing that they will help him protect his sister-- as in canon, Pietro protective to a fault, because he believes that people are always trying to take advantage of Wanda and her abilities. And he's not wrong!

Agatha Harkness infiltrates the Knights of Wundagore, disguised as an elderly healer. She is an ancient witch whose coven once worked alongside the true Knights to keep Chthon bound while studying the mountain's magic. She has known the Maximoff family for generations, and has been seeking out Natalya's children ever since receiving a premonition of the return of the Scarlet Witch.

Agatha doesn't have the power the stop Wanda now that she is under the Darkhold's influence, so she sends a warning to Doctor Strange that Chthon's return is eminent.

Strange gathers a team of heroes to prevent Chthon's return. This leads to a big fight wherein Wanda and Pietro are technically the "bad guys," which ends with Wanda fully succumbing to the Darkhold. She unleashes a devastating attack against the heroes and descends deep within the mountain.

Pietro find himself abandoned on the mountainside. Agatha reveals herself to him and explains the truth, not only about his family but also about the Modred/Evolutionary situation. Pietro joins the heroes, and Agatha urges him to seek out Django, who she has discovered living in a nearby Transian village.

Django's memories are distorted by trauma and a magical curse that was inflicted on him by the Knights to keep him away from Wanda. Upon reuniting Django with his son, Agatha is able to lift the curse, explaining that their family's legacy-- not their blood, but their love for each other and the gifts they have passed down through their generations-- is the true source of their magic.

Chthon emerges from the mountain, using Wanda as a vessel. There's another big fight, and the heroes are able to get Pietro and Django close enough to Wanda for them to exorcize and bind Chthon within a doll that Django had crafted as a gift for his pregnant sister, Natalya. Django tragically passes away after the battle, but the twins are able to properly mourn him and their mothers. Wanda witnesses the spirit of Natalya and awakens to her true power as the Scarlet Witch.

Wanda agrees to study under Agatha, Pietro joins the hero team, and they both both meet Victoria Montessi, who is going to help them track down the Darkhold pages that have now been scattered to the wind. VICKI + WANDA BESTFRIENDS REAL

[ducklooney]

One question. What do you think Disney from America controls European Disney and must be their canon, what's the matter? Is there something they don't like?

Hi and sorry for not answering this question earlier. You have asked a good question, but I am not sure how to answer it through a long essay or through short explanations, although I will answer it this way.

After all, Disney was created in America by Walt Disney and originally they created all the important characters we know, European writers and artists used them in their comics only later, after the Second World War. Back then, there wasn't so much censorship and writers were free to do whatever they wanted without ruining the originality. And so for several decades until the last decade. Romano Scarpa and Guido Martina created separate comics in their own ways, different from Carl Barks and Al Taliaferro and you have an Italian vision through Topolino comics. You also have Dutch, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish writers and artists who, relying on Carl Barks and the American Disney, made comics in their own way and thus created a separate kind of Donald Duck comics. Yes, you also have Brazilian comics who have written a lot of comics especially about Jose Carioca ever since the movie Saludos Amigos from 1942 was shown. And they created those comics in their own way, which is quite different from American comics. Unlike Latin American and European comics, American comics after the 1940s era clearly separated Mickey and Donald so that they neither see each other nor know each other except at times, since they live in different cities, such as Mousetown and Duckburg. American comics, not counting Archie comics, Peanuts, Garfield, and superhero comics, declined after the 1980s because television took precedence, so many watched television, either series, movies, or cartoons instead of reading comics. So Disney comics also experienced a market decline during that period and then you have the making of the OG Ducktales in 1987 which was made mostly by Disney's animation studio in Tokyo, Japan. And since then, the American Disney has not relied on comics, although since the time of Walt Disney, the differences between the canon in cartoons and in comics have been clearly made.

From what I've talked to others, Walt Disney was also unhappy with the popularity of Scrooge McDuck that Carl Barks created, because a different Christmas comic should have been created. However, the American Disney has clearly indicated that the canon in cartoons is the only official canon, while the comic book is not, except in some exceptions, but that's why they force their other productions where they have ownership to obey and respect the given canon that Disney requires. I think since the golden age of cartoons, the story started about how the official Disney can't really stand their comics, even though the comics took Mickey, Donald and other characters to a high level. Many of the characters we know came from comic books rather than cartoons. I'm not saying this for nothing, since your question just stated that since everything is under the Disney name, although they deviated from the path set by Walt Disney, they still determine the main editorial policy for many comics published in Europe and Latin America. Yes, before, as I mentioned, the authors made independently in their own way, but so that Disney didn't even know, but with the arrival of the Internet, that changed and a kind of censorship had to be done. Sometimes due to public pressure, sometimes due to wrong decisions, although I don't like to talk about politics here, but I think that lately politics has had a lot of influence on it, although I will tell you that politics had a lot of influence during the Second World War as well. Propaganda cartoons are very much the case. But in order not to deviate from the topic, I will tell you a couple of examples where American Disney had a lot of influence on European comics and how the writers still had to respect Disney's canon.

Donald Duck had several girlfriends in addition to Daisy and that the earlier Donald Duck fandom preferred Donald with other people rather than Daisy because Daisy was a bitch who treated Donald horribly, although that's not Daisy's fault as much as the writers who over Daisy mocked feminism. Yes, I love when Donald and Daisy fight over stupid things, but not that Donald constantly suffers from Daisy's impossible wishes that never come true and then kicks Donald like that for her displeasure. Disappointed, Donald finds other people who will suit him better. One of the most common examples with whom Donald is on excellent terms is Reginella, the queen of the planet Pacificus, and she appeared for the first time in the comic "Paperino e l'avventura sottomarina" or Donald and the underwater adventures from 1972 by the writer Rodolfo Cimino and the artist Giorgio Cavazzano when Donald first meets Reginella. Reginella became Donald's new hope and their couple was really great in my opinion and so in several comics. Yes, I love the Donald and Daisy romance, but Reginella with Donald is very special to me and I understand why others prefer it over Donald and Daisy.

However, since Disney found out what other comics were doing unofficially, Disney imposed an unwritten rule that their canon must be respected, so Donald must be with Daisy and no one else. So the last comic with Reginella from August 2021 called "L'ultima avventura di Reginella" or The Last Adventure with Reginella by authors Alex Bertani and Vito Stabile and artist Stefano Zanchi is about the breakup between Donald and Reginella because supposedly Scrooge can't more to finance Donald's trip to another planet, and Donald also admitted to Reginella that Daisy is his first and only love. Yes, Daisy has improved a lot in the last comics and treats Donald differently, but again it was really pathetic that something like that had to be done instead of making some kind of deal to make a clone of Donald and stay with Reginella or something like that. It just tells you that official Disney made the decision that way. However, Reginella appears in two more comics after that and has one comic with Daisy, but I haven't read that comic so I can't tell you exactly. Those who are and who know it, would tell you. Although I would like to see Daisy and Reginella together.

Of course the love relationship between Donald and Reginella is not the only one, but I put it as the most common example that Donald is not only with Daisy as the only "canon" girlfriend. You also have romantic relationships Donald with Lyla Lay (Paperinik New Adventures), Xadhoom (Paperinik New Adventures), Kay K (Double Duck), and others. However, in the comic Double Duck "Agent Zero" Kay K admits to Daisy that Donald's greatest love is Daisy and that they are still friends and Daisy was ashamed of that because before she was very jealous that Donald was with someone else and not Daisy. And there you can see that even though Donald is with someone else, he still stays with Daisy, but it is by no means a breakup under Disney's directive as it was done with Reginella.

2. Canceled characters due to certain things

Dutch comics mostly until 2019 and 2020 drew characters from Song of the South such as Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox and Brer Bear and they even had separate comics and were often represented together with Mickey, Donald and friends because they were anthropomorphic characters that also represented classic Disney. Of course, because of the problems in America related to the African-American population, Disney had to stop it and exclude the given characters because they represented caricatures of the African-American population from the South of the 19th century. The South, I mean the South of the USA, where there used to be a Confederacy that seceded and where the Civil War was fought from 1861 to 1865. Of course, they could have just stated that it was a product of its time and that the value system back then was not the same as today's, but no, Disney banned Song of The South and cut those characters out, and those characters never appeared again, in those Dutch comics. Yes, I certainly condemn racism, but one must know that it should be censored in a different way, that is, to send a warning. Warner Bros. did a good job with Looney Tunes where they just said it was a product of its time and we don't make it anymore. In this way, you respect the old materials, and you also respect other people of other races. That is, everyone is satisfied. However, in the Dutch comics, Brer Rabbit is presented differently, after all, Disney takes the lead and they are not interested in excuses.

Not to mention the censoring of two Don Rosa comics because of Bombie the Zombie. Instead of giving a warning that it was the product of a man who created under the influence of Barks and that Disney had nothing to do with it, they simply banned it as if they were ashamed of the past. And you know who is ashamed of the past and simply forgets it, is condemned to repeat it, but worse. But I would not talk about that, because it is too difficult a topic.

3. There are no dark scenes in Disney comics like before

There are no more dark scenes like gun chases, dark and dangerous scenes as well as related to the depiction of women and ladies in a realistic view, because it is certainly not for children according to Disney, even though those comics are also read by adults, nor should there be anything dark related to Mickey and friends, and you have the Mickey Mystery comics where exactly such scenes appear. Mostly done for security reasons. However, due to Disney's recent policy and knowing what the authors of European comics are doing, they had to take a different approach. It is no longer the 1990s where you could have scary scenes like in PKNA and where you would feel sorry for Donald as if you were watching some dark blockbuster movie, yet the American Disney which supposedly has its main rules and its main say to decide what can be done in comics and what not not. And they deny comic book material, which is really ironic. Although I'm more frustrated about these things that Disney is doing lately, I still partially understand the need for censorship, but not to ban certain characters (especially Hiawatha), but you can't show racist caricatures like before, but it certainly doesn't mean that you should ban them to give the content to be displayed and read, because this negates the past, which is a great danger for future generations. Of course, European comic artists and writers approach these problems differently and write differently, but they certainly have the free right to draw and work, but they must adhere to the main canons that Disney sets. One of the reasons why you don't even get to see Donald's parents alive or the father of Donald's nephews appear and if he even exists.

There is a lot to say, but I think this is enough. I also apologize if I offended anyone with some of my comments, as it is not necessarily aimed at anyone except for certain stupid Disney decisions. I may have been vague, so I ask especially those who know Disney comics to correct me if I made any mistakes and feel free to add what you want to say. I hope these answers will help you enough to know why there are no more dangerous scenes in Disney comics like before. And thank you for asking me and if he has anything to ask me, feel free to ask me.

[moviemunchies]

Another week, another movie about AI.

IN A WORLD where AI has developed with robots since the mid-20th century, robots and humans lived alongside each other until!! Robots nuke Los Angeles. The United States banned AI after that, whereas the freshly-formed New Asia continues to develop AI, and there humans and robots walk side-by-side. The US is unnerved by rumors of “Nimrata”, or “The Creator,” a genius in New Asia creating AI advancements, and uses a military space station called NOMAD to destroy robot bases.

US Sergeant Joshua Taylor was undercover in New Asia, and married to Maya, suspected to be Nimrata’s daughter. When she and their unborn child is killed in a NOMAD strike, Josh swears off of working for the Army. But years later, they approach him with evidence that Maya’s alive, and convince him to go locate Nimrata and his new weapon, an advanced AI… who turns out to be a child dubbed ‘Alphie’. Josh has to retrieve and protect the child as she leads him to Maya.

This movie raised some eyebrows with its prominent use of the term ‘AI’, right when it was exploding in the media. Which is odd; technically, the movie is pro-AI, but it’s clear that what is considered ‘AI’ in The Creator is not what’s being bandied about today. AI in this movie is robots; individuals who are built rather than born. You know, what you tend to think about when you hear about ‘AI’, not the glorified predictive text we have now. It makes the whole thing feel very strange and out-of-step with the modern world, because there is so much talk about AI when it’s mostly kind of adjacent to discussions of AI we’re having now. I cannot blame the director, Gareth Edwards, for this, as presumably when this was written and filmed, AI had not quite yet taken off in the public sphere, though it does feel weird.

There *is* the idea that you can scan your face for an AI to use, which is odd, as it isn’t really portrayed negatively, even though studios scanning actors to use their likenesses in films without their consent or pay is a big issue. Here, it’s mostly used to give some robots their faces, and I don’t know if we ever actually see a malevolent robot on-screen; how it can be misused isn’t really covered.

The worldbuilding is a little odd, too. I remember seeing one review that decided to pick a ton of holes in the world the movie presented, though I don’t know if it’s entirely fair–the movie makes it clear at the beginning that the divergence from the real world happened earlier in the 20th century, meaning that it makes a lot of sense if large chunks of what we see don’t quite match up to what we’d expect in the world. We also see things like robot Buddhist monks, and I am very interested in how that works (I have Ideas on how robots see reincarnation, given that a “dead” robot’s parts can be reused).

“New Asia” isn’t great as a concept. It isn’t necessarily ridiculous that in an alternate timeline, several Asian countries unite, but “New Asia” seems like an odd choice for a name, and the subtitles even tell us that the language is “New Asian”. I strongly suspect that the makers had a vague “Asian” feel they wanted to achieve for those scenes in the film, so they made up a vague Asian country without thinking about the details of how it works or where it is. YMMV on whether that’s silly, or downright offensive.

Of course, it’s not really about robots, is it? If you’ve seen discussions of Gareth Edwards’s other famous science-fiction film, Rogue One, then you probably have an idea that he’s interested in how the US invades other countries. I’ve seen people liken this movie to the Vietnam War, though I think with the bombing of LA, and given what I’ve been alive during in my lifetime, the War on Terror seems a large influence to the depiction. The US goes fanatical about destroying the enemy, not caring about civilian collateral damage, and imposes strict measures about who can and cannot be in our country based on that one time something violent happened? Why, hello, mistreatment of Muslims in an post-9/11 world! 

Of course, again, this feels like it falls slightly flat because we have AI in our world, and they’re not people. They’re programs that are often misused to devalue people and excuse replacing them or stealing their work. So having a “Robots are people, too!” message while using the term ‘AI’ feels bizarre in today’s discussions.

There are some twists in this story, which aren’t really huge twists, which again I’ve seen called out in reviews. This did not bother me; I think Joshua is quite clearly very exhausted by everything going on, so I cannot blame him for not expecting what seems evident to the audience. And I think this is another one of those ‘The twists being expected doesn’t take away from how the drama unfolds.’ It’s not necessarily about how you take those revelations, it’s about how the characters do, and how you respond to that.

The Creator looks spectacular as a film; the effects are pretty darn amazing throughout. More than that, though, it just feels different than a lot of science-fiction. Maybe it resembles some cyberpunk, I guess? A lot of the New Asia scenes don’t take place in cities, though, but in rural areas, and seeing robots interacting with people in these places, mostly just going about their lives, doing everything from monks, to farmers, to law enforcement. I liked the look of this film so much; I want to try to find the artbook somewhere if I can.

Also! This movie is a complete story! Sure, you could do a sequel if you wanted to, but I think the way it ends is enough. There doesn’t need to be more. In A World where everyone wants to make a franchise (a word I hate, as I hate Hell) of everything, it’s nice to see a film that just is.

In the end, The Creator is a far from perfect film. I think in modern AI discussions it’s near-nonsensical, though in a film about science-fiction ideas of robots it’s fine. It could maybe do with some worldbuilding work, and you probably won’t be surprised by any Plot, but I think it’s worth seeing. It’s an original science-fiction film that portrays a unique and interesting world, and doesn’t talk down to the audience. 

See it if you get a chance.

[veronicaphoenix]

“They look at each other like they were almost lovers, like they should have kissed, and made love and laughed in bed together, but they chose to stay friends instead. They look at each other with what ifs and could haves and hearts full of regrets.” —Nikita Gill.

Chapter tags & trigger warnings: best friends to lovers, alcohol intake, sexual content, p in v (protected). | Word count: 5k | Cross posted on AO3. | Series masterpost. ✧.*

General trigger warnings: This work addresses and depicts issues related to addiction and violence, contains explicit sexual content, and explores themes of childhood trauma. Reader discretion is advised. +18

I don't know how we ended up like that. 

One moment we were fine, and the next we were drunk. 

At some point, our brain cells had ceded control to the alcohol. We had lost all inhibition to the extent of finding ourselves in a situation from which, in other circumstances, we would have recoiled without giving it any second thought.

But this time, it was different, and I couldn't take my eyes off Lia, nor my body from hers.

We had started the night with a horror movie. We'd had dinner half an hour before and then settled into the studio with a bowl of popcorn and a couple of beers. For weeks now, I hadn't been in favor of Lia drinking, given her situation and her condition with alcohol, but it was Saturday night, we were alone, and we'd had a good day, especially Lia, who after weeks of not showing any sign of joy, had managed to smile and I'd even heard her laugh. 

I had missed that sound, and every day that had gone by without it and that I'd had to endure seeing the reddened areas on Lia's skin had been days spent in a kind of banal Hell, only soothed by the knowledge that under our roof she was safe. 

So we'd taken two beers back to the studio and had settled in on the pullout-sofa, which had remained open since I'd given Lia my room weeks before and  I had moved into the studio. We had brought a few cushions from the living room and a couple of pillows from my bedroom.

Outside, a strong wind was blowing, but we didn't mind. However, the storm outside matched the mood that Lia and I had set up inside the room, where we lay sheltered under the LED lights and the scent of an incense stick that I had lit a while ago.  

Halfway through the movie, Lia got up and stepped over my legs and hopped down to the floor. She told me she was going to get a bottle of water. She was only wearing the T-shirt I had lent her a few days before and it was huge on her. It was practically hers at this point. When she returned, she had a bottle of water clutched to her chest with one arm and two more bottles of beer in her hands. I looked at her disapprovingly, but I couldn't say no when she gave me that look with puppy dog eyes. 

The second beer became a third, and the third, somehow I can't remember, became a fourth. And by then Lia was already under the influence of alcohol, and I was starting to feel sleepy and a little dizzy. 

At some point, amidst the laughter that was overtaking us as we watched the movie that should have made us jump out of our seats and stop our hearts every random second, I noticed two glasses with half a finger of whiskey and an ice cube about to melt on the small table next to the couch. When had they gotten there?

When I asked Lia, she leaned forward to see what I meant. She shrugged, but her breath exuded the unmistakable smell of the same drink. She suggested, between funny gestures, that she would take them to the kitchen, as if that would get the drink out of our system, but as soon as she stood up on the mattress, she wobbled. I grabbed her calf, pressing my fingers into her skin. Lia, by inertia, grabbed onto my shoulders to stabilize herself, unsuccessfully. Her hair fell over my face. And finally, she fell on her ass in the same place where she had been sitting. 

Two seconds later, her laughter flooded the studio. It took me a while to react. The part of me that still had my feet on the ground was telling me that I should be concerned and do something before Lia got worse. Since I had brought her home weeks before, she had been medicating herself practically every day to calm her restlessness and keep her nights from breaking down with nightmares of her being back at Mitch's house and her mother, a figure in the distance, reminding her that this was what she deserved, just as it had been with the women in her family before her. I hadn't behaved myself when it came to my drinking either. I feared that if I didn't do something, if I didn't stop her, Lia would continue down a path that rarely ended well. However, there was another voice in my head, the one that belonged to the part of me that had already succumbed to the alcohol that night, and I ended up bursting out laughing as well.

I let go of her leg. Lia said something about how hard I had grabbed her, and looked down at her calf, where there were now red marks where my fingers had been. Her hair was loose and tousled, but even through her locks you could see her smile fall, and for a moment I thought Lia would look at me with terror in her eyes and run away. 

While the bruises on her arms and face had faded days ago, the scars were elsewhere on her body. 

"What are you made of?" She asked then, taking me slightly by surprise. 

I frowned and then raised my hands.

"I just wanted to keep you from falling flat on your face," I replied. 

"That wasn't going to happen," she replied, a half-smile reappearing on her face. 

"Of course it was."

Offended, she picked up the nearest cushion and threw it at me somewhat clumsily. It didn't hurt me, but I threw her an amused warning anyway. 

"Hey!" 

"I wouldn't have fallen face-first! I'm...!" She paused for a second, her eyes on mine, as if she had suddenly forgotten what she wanted to say. On the TV, where the movie was still playing, someone had just died, although the truth was that neither Lia nor I had been paying attention to the story for a while, and the sound was just background music. "I'm fine!" 

"Oh, yeah? Prove it to me," I challenged her. I leaned back against the cushions on the headboard of the couch, and was tempted to cross one ankle over the other, but I didn't because I knew Lia was going to fall.

Grumbling, she braced herself with her hands on the mattress and made an effort to stand up. When I raised a hand to ready myself in case I had to catch her again, Lia pointed at me and told me not to even think about it.

Stubborn girl.

She struggled, and wobbled a few times, but managed to get to her feet and as she stood up there, she looked down at me with her chin raised and brought her hands to her hips, wrinkling the fabric of the t-shirt and making it ride up a tad, revealing more skin from her thighs. My eyes wandered there for less than a second. I couldn't stop smiling. 

"See?" She muttered proudly.

"Very good," I replied, pouting my lips in acceptance. "Now get down from there and take those glasses to the kitchen."

See if you can do it. 

I saw in her eyes that she was momentarily lost. She was blinking repeatedly.

"You underestimate me, pretty boy," she said haughtily, then. "I can do that and much more," she continued, raising a hand and pointing a finger to the sky. 

I would have been lost in the thought of her looking adorable if it weren't for the fact that she was drunk, and that Lia was not the healthy, happy Lia I wanted to see. 

"Which philosopher said that phrase about balance...? "

She was beginning to ramble. She scratched her chin.

I squinted at her from my position. Lia was looking around, as if the sentence she was trying to find in her brain was etched in some corner on the walls around us, in the room where the guys and I had so much stuff piled up, from various computer screens to guitars to countless wires and plastic vines that crossed from one end of a wall to another.

"The balance..." she said in a whisper. "The balance is perfect, I think. Or maybe... Wait."

"Lia..."

"No!" she exclaimed, raising a finger again, this time to stop me. She was off balance again, as the softness of the mattress and her inebriated state didn't match, and she made a couple of clumsy, automatic jumps to the end of the pullout-bed, inadvertently stomping on the TV remote and causing the TV to turn off. 

My body immediately rose up. I grabbed her arm and pulled her up to keep her from finally going face-first onto the floor, and in doing so, I was the one who fell backwards. I took Lia with me, who let out a squeal as her body met mine. She lay on top of me, her chest against mine, and her legs over mine. She shifted until she was prostrate with her forearms resting on my chest. My hands found hold on her hips. 

"I remember!" She exclaimed. Her eyes were wide open.

I couldn't remember what the hell we were doing, or what the plan had been that night. I felt dizzy and out of place. Lia's alcohol breath whipped over me, and it mingled with the vanilla scent of the shampoo she was using and that had found a place in my bathroom since she was living with us. 

"'Perfectly baaaaaalanced, as all things should be.' It was Thanos who said it. We went to see the movie together at the cinema, remember?"

She smiled. She looked very comfortable on top of me. 

I don't know how she was able to remember those things given her state. 

I didn't give a damn who said what. I had long since stopped watching Marvel movies. The only thing I could focus on now was the light brown color of Lia's eyes, a lighter brown than mine and sometimes, depending on the angle of the light, turning the shade of sand at sunset on the beach. It was not only that that enchanted me. The closeness made me lose myself in the universe that was in her orbs, in the grandeur of them, the long, thick lashes that framed them and the flicker of them like the wings of a butterfly, the little wrinkle at the side corner that was pronounced every time she laughed, and the way Lia's gaze itself was softening.

Until I realized that she was looking at me as if she was feeling the same thing I was feeling. 

A minute before, we had been looking at each other with the confidence we had always looked at each other with. Two friends enjoying an evening together. A good movie and a bowl of popcorn. Nothing more.

Now, there was something else that hadn't been there before, (or maybe it had been... but I had tried to keep hidden for both our sakes).

Whatever we had been discussing had been forgotten. It had been lost in some corner of the room until it had managed to escape through some slot leading to the outside and had mingled with the wind increasing in the streets. 

That amusement and yet confusion that had been present in Lia's eyes had dissipated. What was in them was now unfamiliar to me, but at the same time almost well-known.

Her gaze had always been my shelter, although this time, what seemed different was that Lia looked at me as if....

She looked at me as if she had had me in front of her all her life but hadn't noticed; as if she had just found something she had been looking for for years; as if she had been given her breath back even though for a few moments we both held our breath when our faces met mere centimeters from each other.  

As the maddening beat of her heart softened, her light breathing intertwined with mine. I could feel against my chest the rise and fall of her own; how it slowed as our smiles fell and our gazes met in an instant that hung in time. 

Lia's eyes dropped for an imperceptible second. 

They looked at my lips. 

Hers parted. 

It didn't go unnoticed to my gaze because my eyes also went to her mouth.

My hands were resting on her hips, her hair falling on the sides of my face, and the thought that crossed my mind at that instant was that I wanted to have her lying under me, her hair spread out on the sheets like a pile of silk, and my fingers itched as I wanted to reach out and touch her face, her cheeks that were burning from the alcohol and the commotion we had formed in the room minutes prior.

I sensed her hands seeking support on my chest, her fingers wanting to cling to the fabric of my black t-shirt, which clung to my skin as her fingers began to press gently. It was as if she wanted to pull me closer to her without giving it all away, as if she wanted to make me believe that maybe it was just my imagination. 

The more daring part of me was the part that made me roll on top of her to have her where and how I wanted her. Lia held her breath. It was only two seconds.

One of my legs was between hers, and my knee was very close to her groin. Lia was only wearing my T-shirt, which was huge on her, but in that position, and having fallen on the couch and now having me on top of her, the fabric had slipped up her stomach and the only thing separating the wettest part of her body from my knee was the fabric of her panties and the fabric of my sweatpants. 

The thought nearly made me lose my temper. I felt dazed and weak-willed, (at least in regards to the kind of will that made me make sound decisions), and I cursed myself for allowing myself to drink so much; for allowing her to drink so many beers that night and not even have the memory of watching her pour us two glasses of whiskey on the rocks up to the top.  

My vision blurred for a few seconds. As it cleared again, I saw a gleam in Lia's eyes that hadn't been there before. Outside, the wind was rushing, swaying tree branches and blowing objects around the yard and down the street. It was as if the chaos we had created between the two of us inside the house had been replicated outside, and the exhilaration I felt inside me was also a reflection of what was happening outside. The sky had been cloudy for hours, and soon it would start to rain. 

I didn't care, because at that moment, all I wanted was to be petrified, with Lia under my body, her huge eyes locked on me, her breath attuned to mine, her vanilla scent flooding every one of my senses, enveloping me, and the slight flicker of her eyelashes making me lose the last ounce of sanity I had left. 

Lia slightly flexed one of her legs. Her whole body reacted. I don't know if it was on purpose or if it was unconscious. My knee brushed against her crotch. The next thing I saw was her tongue moistening her lower lip. I felt her hands press hard against my back, press me to her, and then she raised her head a little and her mouth caught mine. 

The flare of fire she ignited shot through me from head to toe, and before I could reconcile how dangerous that was, what we were doing and under what conditions, my hands were already on her face, on her cheeks, in her hair, and my mouth devouring hers as if outside there was a hurricane and we didn't know if we would ever see the sun again. 

At least I was aware that without Lia there was no sun, and after that night, I was sure there wouldn't be either if I didn't have her like that, trapped under my body, at my mercy, surrendering herself. Her kisses were desperate, as if she had just reached the surface of a sea in which she had been drowning. I kissed her hard, returning the same passion that seemed to run through her veins. I was aware that it was probably the alcohol, but she couldn't talk sense into me. I preferred to believe that Lia was the one in control, that she was the one who wanted me there, my body pressed to hers as the wind became increasingly aggressive outside, my mouth on hers. 

I slid one hand up to the back of her head, to the nape of her neck, and raised it a little so I could make the kiss deeper, cocking my head to the side at the same time. My tongue brushed against hers, and once they touched, there was no turning back, and our breathing became ragged and labored. Little exhales began to escape from her mouth, tiny noises in which her body begged for air but to which she refused to pay attention, and as the seconds, or minutes, passed, the exhales turned to moans, and the choked sound of them almost made me lose my mind. 

Despite the alcohol, Lia had to be aware of what she was doing. She had to be aware of how much she was turning me on, of the hardness that was crescendoing in my pants and would soon press hard between her legs. 

Fuck. 

Her hands moved desperately up and down my body. They went from my back to my neck, to my face, to my hair. Then they sought the warmth under my shirt, and an electric current coursed through me as her fingers stroked the skin of my back and rib area. I shivered, and almost jerked as her body pressed tighter against mine. This time I was sure it had been on purpose. My erection slapped the spot between her legs and Lia gasped over my mouth, eyes closed. I grunted as I saw her expression. A surge of pleasure had just swept across her face, and I could hardly believe it. 

If it continued like this, it would make me lose consciousness, and I didn't want, being with her, to unleash that primal version of me that sometimes emerged when I was on stage and that people loved in my voice and in the movements of my body. I didn't want to be that person with Lia despite the number of images that began to fill my head. 

She started pulling my shirt up, and I let her take it off me, shaking it off to get rid of it as it went over my head and down my arms. The two seconds our mouths spent apart felt like forever, and when I was naked from the waist up, I descended on Lia again vehemently, holding her face, my fingers tangling in her hair. I moved my body so that I was completely over hers. My erection throbbed in my pants, and it was beginning to ache from being held under the fabric of my underwear and sweatpants.

Unable to restrain myself despite the voice telling me to stop and get away from Lia, I slipped a hand under Lia's shirt, my own t-shirt, the one she had appropriated days before and had been torturing me with day and night, every time she walked around the house showing off her legs and revealing the curve of her ass every time she stood on her tiptoes to reach the cups and the tea boxes in the kitchen cabinets.

Damn you, Lia. 

Her skin was soft, and I sensed it bristle under the touch of my fingers. When I reached for her bra, I slipped my fingers under the seam until I reached her breast and felt under my fingertips the feel of her nipple, which became hard as a pebble. Lia let out a moan into my mouth, and when I pinched her, her nails dug into the skin of my lower back, making me feel a pain that pleased me. 

Lia's body was tiny under mine, and I didn't want it any other way. I could lie to myself all I wanted in the daylight and tell myself the opposite over and over again, but Lia was made for me.

And I was made for her.

The next morning her lips would be dry and sore, but I had no intention of stopping kissing her as long as her lips sought me out. 

I played with her nipple between my fingers, enraptured by the little noises coming from her mouth. When she pulled her head back and rubbed against my erection, I attacked her neck, nibbling at the sensitive skin there. There were so many things I wanted to say to her... The voice in my head wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her, tell her that I was going crazy and that we shouldn't be doing that, that we were each other's best friend, that we had promised.... 

As I kissed her on the neck and branded her, I considered the semantics of our promise. We had promised we wouldn't fall in love with each other, but we had never talked about sex, and people had sex all the time without being in love. 

Keep hiding it as much as you want, Noah....

I shifted my hips toward Lia to quiet the voice drilling me, and let myself go. 

I thought I heard my name on her lips. A whisper. A moan. Her hands dug into the band of my sweatpants, and pressed the skin of my ass, drawing me to her.

We would only stop under one circumstance, and that was if Lia decided she didn't want to go forward. 

Because I definitely did. 

One of Lia's hands slid down the side of my hip and groped the front of my waist. She hastily unbuttoned the knot of my sweats, and probably would have slipped her hand inside without preamble had I not neglected her nipple and grabbed instead her wrist, stopping her.

I lifted my head. Lia opened her eyes, and what I saw in them did not please me. 

I was afraid that wasn't my Lia there.

"Lia," my voice escaped hoarse and raspy from my throat. I was trying to catch my breath, my sanity and my willpower. It was too much, and Lia's body was still under mine, clinging to mine, soft and warm. Lia's eyes darkened, her lips moist, and her cheeks flushed. 

I could have told her anything, reminded her that we were two friends about to cross a line from which there was no return, that she was drunk, that I was a little way too tipsy, and that my head was spinning and I was scared. 

Instead, I asked her if she was sure, and her answer was my undoing. 

"I've been waiting for this my whole life."

I kissed her fiercely, as if I couldn't breathe without her. I told her to give me a minute. I stood up and walked out of the studio, stumbling over my own feet and bumping into the wall on the way to the bedroom. Everything seemed different around me, and as soon as I entered my room I had to stop for a few seconds and lean against a piece of furniture to remember what I was doing there. I walked over to the nightstand on my side of the bed. The fact that I already saw my bed as a shared place with Lia should have set off alarm bells days ago, but I hadn't wanted to assume that, because I liked that one side was hers, that her things were on the other nightstand, her smell on the pillow.

The boys were right. How long it would take for me to acknowledge it in front of them, I didn't know. 

I opened the bottom drawer and rummaged through the shit I had stored there until I found what I was looking for. Just before I left the room, I heard Lia grow impatient. Her voice carried down the hallway and reaching my ears, almost making me laugh despite my state.

"Noowaaah!"

There it was, that stupid and adorable way of calling me since she was six years old. 

"I'm here," I replied as I returned to the studio, trying to keep my balance. I had to put on a fucking condom and I had to do it right. At least that had to be done right.

Lia was propped up on her elbows, and looked at me with eyes full of impatience and lust. There was, at the same time, something childish in them, as if by leaving for those thirty seconds I had taken a toy away from her. 

I glanced at her from under my eyelashes. Seeing her there, waiting for me, rubbing her thighs because there was no other way to satiate the heat she felt between them, had me on the verge of bursting. 

I got rid of my sweats and boxers, and when my cock jumped into Lia's view I saw her eyes widen even more if possible, darken, and her lips part. She was killing me. I opened the condom wrapper and put the rubber on, and it didn't take two seconds before I was back on the mattress. Lia dropped down, submitting, her hair creating a halo around her. She let out a little cry of surprise when I grabbed her below the knees. 

"Come here," I said. 

I pulled her a little towards me, and hooked my fingers into the sides of her panties to pull them off. 

Lia was fucking gorgeous, and I don't know what I'd expected, or what I'd imagined, but she was a gift I'd held in my hands forever and hadn't dared to unwrap. 

I lay on top of her. Her hands went to my shoulders, to my hair, and she pushed me by the nape of my neck so that I would kiss her again. 

My cock brushed against her entrance. She was wet. Soaking wet. I rubbed against her repeatedly, slowly, feeling her, reveling in the heat emanating from her and how slippery she was. If only the latex barrier hadn't been there... I needed to find out if her insides were just as slippery in the next sixty seconds or I would die right there. 

She spread her legs further apart, giving me access, and I moved my hips slightly away to position myself at her entrance. I held my cock with one hand and stopped kissing her to direct my gaze to the point where our bodies were about to merge. Lia clung to one of my shoulders. I pushed. She held her breath, her chest swelling against mine. I looked at her again, and as I sank into her, I wordlessly begged her not to look away from me. I wanted to be a bystander in how her pupils dilated, how her lips parted, how she held back the first moan of our union and then let it escape as she relaxed and settled into my length, into the sensation of having me inside her. Her muscles molded to mine so quickly that I considered whether everything we had been through boiled down to the fact that we were meant for each other.

From the time I had found her that spring morning sitting on the sidewalk in front of her ramshackle house to the time I had saved her from that bastard Mitch while I was battling an unknown disease, and every single thing that had happened in between, had led to that moment, to Lia and I lying on the sofa bed in the house I shared with Jolly and Jessie, naked, drunk, and lost in our own and each other's pleasure. 

I was delusional, but at that moment I didn't want to think about any other possibility. I didn't want to think about tomorrow, about the time when Lia would wake up and the alcohol would have dissipated in her veins, when she would realize that she had allowed me to sink into her and that we had both touched heaven when we cum. First her, and then me, following her to a peak from which I never wanted to descend. 

When I started to move, I wasn't sure if it was the alcohol or the pleasure that made me almost lose consciousness. I remember Lia's body under mine, trying to move in sync with mine, the moans escaping her mouth and sneaking into my ears as her hands caressed my arms and back. I remember my name on her lips, and how that was a drug I knew I couldn't live with if I didn't take it again soon. 

Although a part of Lia was far from there, Lia was everything I had dreamed of. Those dreams where I had crossed the line and imagined what it would be like to feel Lia naked under my hands, trembling with my fingers inside her, with my tongue caressing her most erogenous parts, had been close to reality, but this was so much better. When she asked me to go faster, I replied with a "shh" in her ear. I pulled her hand away from my back and moved her arm until I held it above her head. I intertwined the fingers of our hands and continued to torture her in a leisurely, delicious rhythm, my face sinking into her neck, feeling the caress of her hair on the side of my face. 

We didn't last long, and the last thing I remember was lying on top of Lia, in her arms, both of us trying to catch our breath, and hearing her little laugh sneaking under my skin. Her fingers touched my hair, and I think I fell asleep to her caresses.

[ystk-archive]

[Translation] L.D.K. Lounge Designers Killer interview (BARFOUT! magazine vol. 122, Oct. 2005)

(Yes, there's really a long-running arts and culture magazine in Japan called Barfout. Click here to view full-page scans of the feature, and feel free to contact me with any questions/comments.)

What surprising developments took place on capsule's new album!?

I'm crazy about capsule's newest album, L.D.K. Lounge Designers Killer. It includes "Flying City Plan" [Soratobu Toshikeikaku] — featured in a collaborative music video created by Ghibli subsidiary Studio Kajino and directed by Momose Yoshiyuki — for a total of ten songs (perhaps I should mention that video is on the same level as many sci-fi films!). capsule is a creative unit made up of Nakata Yasutaka (producer) and Koshijima Toshiko (vocalist). The two have been entertaining listeners with their extremely poppy releases that'll take you on a virtual joyride through a world of music inspired by interior design and mass-produced goods. That said, I was taken aback by the song "Glider"! Even with their cool, plastic charm, capsule launched a dramatic pop track with a melody that tugs at the heartstrings the minute it begins. If I had to compare it to works by other artists, it's got a similar feeling to Quruli's "Wandervogel" and Supercar's "YUMEGIWA LAST BOY." Geez, I've really been wearing this song out! (At this point, "Glider" is going at #1 on my top ten favorites of 2005!) Including a club-oriented track with an enjoyable guitar sound, capsule's new album is filled to the brim with groundbreaking songs that overflow with human emotion. It'll definitely add a certain je ne sais quoi to your own space!!!

Original interview text by Fukushima Ryutaro, translation by ystk-archive

"From outerspace to the ocean, I wanted it to have a sense of vastness" (Nakata)

barf: How in the world did you arrive at something like L.D.K. Lounge Designers Killer? Nakata: All the tracks on this album definitely make me go "hey, I can make good songs too!" (laughs). barf: The jacket photo is a picture of grass. Nakata: It's fake. The clothes we wear in the "Glider" video are also made out of that. I'm not much of a nature enthusiast, but in Japan we sure do have a lot of state-manufactured parks, don't we? The album cover's aura is sort of like that, how it's natural but somehow artificial at the same time. barf: The first track, "Flying City Plan," was used as the basis of a short film, following the examples set by "Portable Airport" [Portable Kuukou] and "space station No.9." They're even screening it before the movie Touch. Nakata: The first short "Portable Airport" showcases a fantasy town in capsule's type of aesthetic. After that was the resort concept for "space station No.9." So for this third one, we aimed for it to be more visually spacious and panoramic. From outerspace to the ocean, I wanted it to have a sense of vastness, so that's why I went with "Flying City Plan" for the music. barf: It has a majestic feel. Nakata: I tried to give it an easygoing sort of speed. When you're flying in an airplane, you can't feel the wind, but you know it's going by extremely fast outside. So the music follows along those lines, with a relaxed pace, kind of giving off an executive's suite type of vibe. And they retired the Concorde planes, so... (laughs) barf: Did you have any thoughts on the video, Koshijima-san? Koshijima: It's dramatic. She's a damsel in distress (laughs). barf: The second track "Teleportation" sounds so much like capsule's usual while simultaneously feeling quite new. Nakata: That's because, in a rare move, I played the guitar. I've used it before but only for riffs and whatnot, this time I played it more messily. barf: Speaking of guitars, the third track "Lounge Designers Killer" is rather rock-influenced. Nakata: To be totally honest, I was given a guitar. So I was just thinking like, "What if I use guitar sounds for this album?" There wasn't a deep reason behind it (laughs). barf: What kind of guitar did you get? Nakata: The one I used in the music video.¹ After we finished the shoot for "Glider," I added guitars to the song (laughs). Originally I thought it'd be interesting that the video was going to show a guitar being played with no guitars in the music, but since we went through the trouble of getting it, I threw some in the song after the fact. barf: That would've been a bizarre visual element (laughs). I get the sense that capsule is strongly influenced by cool instruments. Nakata: I really like changes of scenery and instruments. With bands, new ideas are sparked by the members interacting with each other, right? I pull my inspirations from instruments and checking out stores I haven't been to before.

"capsule does things without focusing on whether or not it's 'too late' to do them." (Nakata)

barf: "Glider" really comes to life as the seventh track following the science fiction-esque "Antenna." Nakata: I tried to make the transition sound unnatural. There used to be a sense of flow even though songs weren't actually connected to each other, but nowadays there's a high possibility that people will import albums into a computer and listen to everything out of order anyway. I wanted to put something there that would make the listener go "huh?" when the song changed over. "Antenna" starts and ends abruptly: the intro begins and cuts off halfway through, giving the impression that it's broken; it's the same type of weird feeling you get when the TV channel suddenly changes. So I put that in there to make the connection between the songs worse, not better (laughs). barf: "Glider" stands out strongly. Koshijima-san, how was it singing this song? Koshijima: Honestly, my voice was in really bad shape during recording and it was at its worst when we got around to "Glider" — it wouldn't come out at all. But when I got to listen to the song in the studio, I was struck by how long it's been since I heard something so good, and because of that my voice somehow managed to power through (laughs). barf: The title of "Progress and Harmony for Mankind" [Jinrui no Shinpo to Chouwa] feels a bit out of place, doesn't it (laughs). Nakata: It's from the 1970 Osaka Expo. barf: Really!! I didn't make the connection. Nakata: It's so like us to not use the theme from this year's Expo (laughs).² The Osaka Expo happened during a time when people really valued science. They thought like "with science, anything is possible!" Along with the ecological issues, I think the idea of creating another earth is fascinating (laughs). barf: With the kind of rhythm it has, the song's got a cool spacy feel to it. Nakata: That track is close to the type of music that pushed me into doing music. I felt like how I did in junior high, making songs like this when I started recording at home. Koshijima: You definitely did material like this when we first met. It was pretty heavy (laughs). Nakata: That's why when I listen to recent releases, I feel like I've gone back in time. These days, a lot of the songs I hear that people say are "good" are nostalgic. Bands have started making house and electro-ish music with '80s sounds and I wind up thinking, "Can they really do that?" barf: It has gotten like that. Nakata: capsule does things without focusing on whether or not it's "too late" to do them. It's not that I'm bitter about it though; that's just what happens when you do what you enjoy. barf: But if that's how you naturally go about about things, then it's okay. Nakata: It's not a recent phenomenon, but I do think people who create things feel confined. If they do this genre, then they have to use certain sounds — they have so-called rules like that. I make music thinking it'd be nice to ignore those rules.

¹ Nakata owns a Yamaha RGX A2 which he "played" in the Glider music video. I think. I was told that it was actually a different guitar but I guess not! ² 2005 was the Aichi Expo with the theme of "Nature's Wisdom." He's saying this in reference to his disinterest in nature.

[fans4wga]

"Are Influencers On Strike Too?" from the New York Times

By Madison Malone Kircher

"Hollywood’s actors are on strike. Many social media influencers have joined them. So what happens now?

SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, has allowed select content creators to join since 2021 under its influencer program. And many influencers work directly with movie studios and other Hollywood entities, who pay them to promote shows and movies, whether it’s on TikTok, YouTube or the red carpet.

Well, not anymore.

This week, SAG-AFTRA announced specific guidelines for influencers during the strike. The rules are broad. Influencers are advised to “not accept any new work for promotion of struck companies or their content.” That means no TikToks about Barbenheimer or red carpet walks for “Meg 2: The Trench.”

And SAG doesn’t care if influencers are being paid for those posts or not. Any posts about struck work are considered to be crossing the picket line. An influencer who films a “Get Ready With Me” video by putting on a pink dress and heading out to the theater to see “Barbie” could be in violation — and anyone deemed to have crossed the picket line will be barred from joining SAG in the future.

A number of creators I talked to this week see joining the union as a goal, one they don’t want to jeopardize.

Creators are divided. Some have gone full Norma Rae, vocally turning down lucrative deals and encouraging their viewers to support the strike. Others have no interest in joining SAG and will probably be continuing business as usual, or they are dubious that the consequences will ever arrive.

“I just think that’s an empty threat,” Jessy Grossman, founder of the networking group Women in Influencer Marketing, told me. “Enforcement of that is going to be impossible.”

Erin Orsi, a self-described “tiny content creator,” went a little bit viral on TikTok after announcing she had turned down a potential $5,000 sponsored partnership from a company working with a major superhero franchise. For Orsi, who has just under 20,000 followers, that’s a lot more money than she usually gets paid to post. Still, she took a pass.

“I’m trying to push this to be my full-time thing,” Orsi said. “I don’t know what the future holds. I would not want to close the door on an opportunity like joining the guild.”

Darcy Michael, one half of the comedy duo Darcy and Jer, told me a network offered him a $25,000 sponsored deal in the days leading up to the strike. He was initially interested, particularly given that the rate was higher than usual for such work, but he ultimately declined to pursue it further after realizing the impending strike was probably what was driving up the rate. (Michael lives in Vancouver and is in ACTRA, the Canadian equivalent of SAG-AFTRA.)

“I told my team, I was like, ‘in no uncertain terms until the strike is over. We’re not crossing picket lines,’” Michael said.

“I also just feel like this strike in particular is monumental for all industries,” he added. “I think we’re leading the pack in making sure that workers are protected, especially from A.I. intervention. If it means that we’re going to pinch our pennies for a few months, we’re going to pinch our pennies.”

Influencers who indicated in videos that they planned to ignore the guidelines have found the online reaction to be swift and sharp. At least two entertainment creators, including @collinnurrmom and @straw_hat_goofy, have already deleted such videos. The latter now has a “SAG-AFTRA Strong” image as his TikTok profile picture.

“I spoke way too soon on my page and upset a lot of people,” Collin Everett, a.k.a. @collinnurrmom, wrote in an email when I asked about the now-deleted videos. “I do not believe that I am scabbing,” he added.

Some small creators are just plain confused. Rosa Romero runs a TikTok page of memes about TV shows including “The Bear” and “Succession.” “It’s really hard for me to categorize myself as an influencer in this sphere,” Romero said. “It’s really just my personal page that accidentally ended up having 11,000 followers.”

Romero sent SAG-AFTRA an email asking whether it was still OK to post about movies produced before the strike went into effect (specifically, “Barbie”). Still, Romero worries that doing so might generate backlash online. “Any questions or clarification is treated like someone’s trying to cross the picket line,” Romero said. “It’s just unfortunate.”

John Monterubio, a senior counsel at Loeb & Loeb LLP who advises influencers and advertisers, said the firm had fielded questions from influencers and brands about how the strike would affect them.

People who are not in the union and don’t have their hearts set on joining have a decision to make, Monterubio said. “They’re not legally bound one way or another,” he said, “but they have to think about how their decision will impact them in the future.”

Influencers are not the only ones confused, he added: "The different agreements are quite complicated, even for attorneys to figure out.'"

[redtriangle]

Thomas Astruc Seriously? Where to begin? The fact that Thomas Astruc, the creator of Miraculous Ladybug, is mainly responsible for ruining Chloe’s character and the entire show story with his bad writing and influence since episode Miracle Queen, Season 4, and Season 5, if not always been from the very beginning for some longtime fans. When I heard about “Adrien is a Sentimonster” theory even I was still new to the show, I promised myself a long time ago that I will never forgive him if were true. I won’t forgive him. I don’t know if I should say this but given what he have done to Miraculous…  I hate him.

Why draw him you ask? How do I put this?

To put this simply. I need to vent out my frustration through art like I did on All-Americus/All-Ameriquilicus way back. And I want to show everyone who can see this the villain he is; least how I picture him. I mean, look at his face, at those eyes, filled with so much anger, hate, and even arrogance, able to get away with what he have done and do however he like without regards for others as if he’s the Miraculous God.

But as much I hate him, I can still give him the decency to make him a cool-looking badass character as I can.

And just to let you know, this is my AU version of the show’s Astruc, his ‘avatar’ and not the actual Astruc in Real-Life despite the similarities. Thomas Almighty

Basically, Thomas Astruc turned into God, or what he supposed to be.

I’ll admit, I was kind of lazy with his design, his clothes are still the same just turned white. But then again, I’m sure that how he prefer to dress even as “God”.

So basically, he is the Miraculous version of Chuck/God from Supernatural; write his story how sees fit not how bad or the hurt on other people.

I also admit my selection of his exact powers are half-baked. I mean, in terms of reality-warping, what can and can’t do? He is not really a god, he’s a man pretending to be a god, thanks to Hawkmoth. In fact, that’s the overall theme, he is powerful to almost godlike but he is still a man, an irrational man that is.

And his name, I just add “Almighty” like from the movies Evan Almighty or Bruce Almighty.Name: Thomas Almighty

Akumatized Object: Unknown

Cause of Akumatized? Unknown, possibly his hatred for Chloe and for Jeremy Zag and his studio cutting him off or we different direction from his plan

Powers: - Super-Strength - Super-Speed - Super-Durability - High Stamina - Flight - Teleportation

- Near-Invulnerability - Immortality

- Reality-Warping: — Matter Manipulation: Transform, create/transmute, control, and destroy any matter even at an atomic level and on living things physically. — Energy Manipulation: Control, absorb, emit or create any forms of energy; especially pure energy

— Spatial Manipulation: Control spaces and dimensions around him. — Weather Control

— Gravity Control

— Time Control (Limited)

Weakness and Limitation: - Cannot brainwash or mind control intelligent living beings

- Cannot rewrite fate of people or happenings of the world or Universe - Cannot control time entirely or time travel

- Don’t have psychic powers if not low-powered - Susceptible to psychic or mental attacks

These are just the first taste of my Evil!Astruc series.

Miraculous Ladybug made by Thomas Astruc & Zagtoon Drawn by Redtriangle (me)

[quietbluejay]

Dark Imperium 2

Nurglite daemons ahead!

I really get a sense that this whole thing was written with some very specific background music in mind lol

they're such a jolly group at least someone is enjoying the apocalypse

Mort is so dour though, I'm just imagining him sitting there linefacing and all around him everyone is having a party

oh, Ku'Gath is a grump Ku'Gath: EVERYONE SHUT UP THIS IS IMPORTANT

Ku'Gath: Fine. I give up.

I'm starting to see why people like the Nurglites.

More Tolkien vibes

This whole thing should be lovingly animated by an 80s animation studio.

I'm really appreciating how it's showing the villains as not cartoonishly evil bad guys but just…people doing their jobs who think they're in the right the banality of evil and it's both sides i don't think "sympathetic" is necessarily the right word for how anyone is being written but "sensible"? as in, they make sense

This is a great scene it’s doing a lot of heavy lifting - introducing Calgar, showing exactly why people would turn to Chaos, showing how the Imperium is perpetuating the entire state of affairs and also advancing the plague plot a bit

Nurgle calls!

you know, a writer could do something paralleling this and the idea of suffering for the god-emperor

okay so it sucks being a mortal/mutant living on a nurglite ship wayyy more than it does to be on a black legion or thousand son one

MY BOY IS HERE

Mortarion is alone it's just him and his ten million clocks and also the soul of his dad.

fungus XD XD XD XD XD i love fungi

oh mortarion talks to his scythe and also TREATS IT LIKE A PET okay. as you do.

having a normal one I see mortarion: you're the only one who understands me, silence The Nurglite daemons influenced him too much and now he is also stuck in the same paradigm of being an 80s animated movie villain

we're back with Calgar POV Guilliman is back in Ultramar innnteresting so Calgar used to fantasize about Guilliman coming back and fixing everything and then he did and things didn't happen like he daydreamed about his issue is how dare people not just unthinkingly bow and obey Guilliman

Guilliman is gonna build a wall and make the Death Guard pay for it!

Local autocrat still the best option they have

"tentacles for hands" ohhhh I don't like that meanwhile his friend next to him is preparing to star in The Fly remake wait how is Tentacle Hands here firing his gun OH okay his FINGERS are tentacles

I feel like that would make both aiming and firing difficult, if your fingers are both writhing AND vermicular

symbolism! also birb!~!!!!

spicy

I did NOT expect that reasoning, because it implies that if the emperor was all-loving that Guilliman would consider him worthy of worship. i thought it was going to be him talking about the Imperial Truth this is fascinating given my last glimpse of Guilliman's Thoughts On The Emperor was "the Emperor definitely meant for the primarchs to be scattered on purpose, to learn things, it definitely wasn't enemy action, he's too good at stuff for that" i mean that doesn't conflict with this, necessarily, but it felt really different

"The clock loomed over the broken altar like a murderer over his victim" beautiful

Man.

and that is how the book ends woof

I now understand the Ultradepression memes

[catladyoftheyr]

Summer Vacation chapter 1/??

You kissed me in a way that’s gonna screw me up forever

Characters: Bella x Edward

Summary: Bella’s grounded after the events of the first book so Edward’s been sneaking into her room at night to spend time together. They end up kissing and things get a little steamy.

Word count: 839

A/N: my favorite parts of twilight are just Bella and Edward being cute together. I love them doing regular teenage things and I wish Stephanie Myer had given us content of them just being teenagers over the summer. This series is just me writing my ideal summer romance bc I have twilight brainrot. Edward might be slightly out of character idk and idc. This is my MY version of him 🫡

Edward and I had only been dating for a couple months officially. So much has happened since I moved to Forks in January that it’s felt like ages. It hasn’t even been a month since what Charlie had started calling The Incident when I stormed out of the house and told Charlie I couldn’t be trapped here like my mom. I still felt guilty for intentionally hurting his feelings, especially since I couldn’t tell him the truth. “Hey dad, my boyfriend and his entire family are vampires and another vampire tried to kill me in the ballet studio I went to as a kid.” Would probably make Charlie institutionalize me.

I heard my window softly slide open and Edward materialized in my bedroom. This had become a habit since I was still technically grounded. Charlie had tried to convince me to stop seeing Edward, and when that failed he’d declared that I was grounded until further notice. “Hi,” I whispered, unsure if Charlie was asleep yet. “You can pick the movie tonight.” I’d been saving my wages from my part-time job and managed to buy a small TV and DVD player from a local thrift shop. Edward rummaged carefully through the small stack of DVDs and held up a copy of Pride and Prejudice before sliding the disc in. We sat next to each other in my bed and Edward planted a light kiss on the top of my head.

“You smell like coconut,” he murmured.

“New shampoo”

“How long does Charlie plan on keeping you locked up in the house for?”

“Probably forever at this rate. I keep trying to convince him that I've learned my lesson but I feel like he’s not budging. He thinks you’re a bad influence.” I can't say I entirely blamed Charlie. He was doing his best to parent me on his own and I wasn’t making it very easy lately. Still, I wish he’d ease up a little. I leaned my head against Edward’s shoulder, wanting to feel the coolness of his skin. His eyes were focused on the screen but my gut told me he wasn’t paying attention. I wished I could know what he was thinking about, and I know he wished the same of me.

I traced the veins in his hands with my fingers. Edward stiffed and I looked up at him for the signal to continue. He nodded and my fingers continued to tread lightly up his arms. Physical intimacy was still largely uncharted territory in our relationship. I wanted so desperately to allow us to be less restrained with how we touched each other but we both knew the risks. I knelt and turned to face him on the bed and cupped his jaw gently in my hands. Edward was if a marble statue of a Greek God had come to life. He was classically beautiful and his features were stern but gentle underneath. I closed the gap between us and let our lips connect.

His lips were cold at first but quickly warmed with mine on them. Edward didn’t technically need to breathe but I felt cool air hit my face as we kissed. I felt Edward’s hands grip my hair and pull me closer. We broke apart so I could breathe and I locked my eyes in his. His eyes darkened with passion and he let his hands fall from my hair. “Do you want to keep going?” He asked. I nodded fervently and slid his hands down to my hips. Edward lifted me onto his lap and I locked my legs behind him. I was tired of being careful and controlled. I needed to touch him. Our lips met again and I moaned softly. I gripped my hands into his hair and tried to leverage myself even closer. His hands dug into my hips firmly. Even in passion he was in control of himself; he could snap me in half if he wasn’t cautious but I didn’t care anymore.

Edward pulled back to look at me. “You’re so beautiful, Bella” he whispered in the dark before his lips moved to my neck. I gasped and wrapped my arms around him tighter, digging my nails into his shoulders. He sucked lightly, surely intending to leave a mark. He’d told me that vampires marked their mates but this was new behavior for Edward. I whispered as he made his way to my collarbones, planting light kisses all the way down. “I love you” he said softly.

“I love you too. Keep going please” I said breathlessly. Just as Edward was about to oblige my request there were footsteps in the hallway. We both froze and I silently prayed for Charlie to go back to bed. The only sound in the dark room was my breathing and the television. Charlie knocked lightly on my door and I swore under my breath. “Yeah?” I called out.

“Can you turn the volume down please? I have to be up early tomorrow. Goodnight, Bells.”

“Okay I will. Goodnight, Dad.”

[joemarta]

A look at John Williams

John Williams. This name for many people paints a picture of soaring string melodies, brilliant brass fanfares, and vivid imagery coming alive through his music. For those of you who don't know who I am speaking of, John Williams is known for iconic soundtracks to many movies, including Star Wars, Jaws, Schindler's List, and many more classics. Now one may think that a musician of this classical caliber may have a certain type of upbringing or influences, but it may not be what you expect. 

Williams grew up right across the river in Floral Park, New York, to a family filled with musical talent. Growing up in New York alone allows one to have access to some of the most incredible music scenes on the planet, but pair that with an already musical family, and you get one of the greatest film scorers and composers of the past 100 years. New York is home to some of the biggest orchestras, such as the New York Philharmonic, and also home to famous jazz clubs such as Bigs and the Blue Note. Although he is currently known for his soundtracks and classical works, his familial talent lies in other fields. His father was a well known jazz percussionist, as well as some of his uncles. Growing up Williams learned trombone, trumpet, and piano. Coming from such a jazz oriented family, he studied a lot of jazz piano, and made a small ensemble of his own. When entering college, he decided to change his career choice towards becoming a classical pianist as well as a composer. This is where we start to see the John Williams we know. He’s changing from the jazz oriented musician, and shifting gears to a more classical focus. Like many music students, he suffered a bit from the sounds of a practice room. Imagine being in a building that has dozens of rooms, filled with the future Mozarts, Yo-Yo Ma’s and Kenny DeCarlo’s of the world. Hearing all these crazy future stars, he decided to really hone in on his composition and accompaniment piano skills. While in college at Julliard, he was drafted into the Air Force and given the responsibility of creating music for the military bands. Upon returning to the states he finished college and moved onto the next part of his life, where we get even closer to the Williams that we love and know today.

John Williams became what is called a studio musician. These individuals are highly talented musicians that perform for soundtracks and professional recordings of media. He played on films such as To Kill a Mockingbird and Peter Gunn. These opportunities presented him with the idea of composing music for films, which is where we have the Williams that we love and know today. His fame in the movie industry is almost unparalleled, but there is another side to him that not a lot of people know about. John Williams acknowledges that he is older, and unfortunately does not have a lot of time left with us, and decided to mostly retire as a film composer. In an interview with the New York Times,  he states that “Six months of life at my age is a long time”, which is an unfortunate truth. But do not fret, the mastermind is still creating more music, but has shifted to a more classical scene with orchestral and solo works. 

Personally, I am a huge fan of Williams' new works, but many people in the classical world are on the fence. This is where I am going to let out a little bit of my frustrations with the institution that is the classical music world. So many people and orchestras are stuck in the past and will not play new works. Many composers such as myself fight for very few chances to have your orchestral piece played once and then have it be lost to time. The ensembles would rather play old standards than try something new, in most cases. (Rutgers is pushing to have at least one newer orchestral piece per concert!). John Williams is writing incredible new works, such as his 2021 piece, Overture to the Oscars, a piece reminiscent of Gustav Holsts, Jupiter. But, this piece might only get played once, because of the culture in the orchestral world.

Another aspect working against him is that of the classical world having a lack of respect for the film world. I feel like a lot of composers want to push the boundaries of music and lack tonal centers, which quite frankly makes the music less friendly to the ear. There is a reason why classical music progressively faded out of popularity, and it is because it stopped lacking a singable theme. The songs that stay popular and at the forefront of society are ones that people can sing. Find a random person on the street and ask them to sing Jaws, or Star Wars, or Hooked on a Feeling. They can do it because it has a discernable and memorable melody. John Williams does this so much. He represents characters and places with themes, so when that music comes on, the viewer subconsciously knows what is going to happen. For whatever reason, this is looked down upon in the classical world, including some of our very own professors at Rutgers. They would argue that their music has themes and patterns, and which yes it does. But the music and patterns they follow are not particularly memorable, or singable, which is the key difference here. Now I would like to expand upon that this is mostly happening in the orchestral world. In band music, new works are encouraged and are preferred. We have the standards that are played, but many new pieces are also played. There is a reason why I am having 5 different band pieces premieres this semester, and literally no new orchestral pieces being played. I would really like to see Williams venture into the band world, because I think that bands would eat it up and love it. 

Overall, I think that John Williams is making a good move by just writing music to write music and not worrying about deadlines. It allows his true voice to show, and we can see how he developed from where he once was as a jazz pianist to the composer he is now. I think that the culture of the orchestral music world will have to change for Williams concert music to thrive.