#i have a billion movies i intend to see but a start is a start

[website-com]

downloading films we only own on dvd and ones from my wishlist for my stay abroad this is like e sex

[wheresmymilliondollarman]

please do a part to the Grayson Hawthorn head canons maybe where he meets eve and that whole mess.

the moment i knew

grayson hawthorne x fem! reader

you're confident in your relationship with grayson hawthorne. that is until a girl who look exactly like emily laughlin shows up at the mansion.

(part of these hcs )

a/n: im SO glad someone requested this bc i had ideas while writing the hcs for this scenario. get ready for some drama and grayson being dumb💯 also finally happy to be back to posting!! been hectic but now i have free time <3 ty to everyone for being so understanding ur all amazing. listened to my sad playlist for the fighting part LOL also i wanted to make this fic format but i was already way too deep into the bullets to fix it.

word count: 7.2k (wayyy longer than intended)

warnings: angst (i love and hate it), swearing, eve, fighting, death threats, final gambit spoilers but also plot changes

dating grayson hawthorne was truly the most beautiful feeling. you would even consider it better than finding out you were going to inherit billions. that's not true, but dating grayson is a close second still.

he was a fantastic boyfriend who cared so deeply for you, and you greatly got along with his family.

the two of you had occasional fights, but it was never anything that lasted more than an hour of being mad at each other. plus, he always caved in first whether you were right or wrong.

life was truly straight out of a movie for you. you were going to be a billionaire, run a foundation, and have a boyfriend. freshman year you would never be able to believe it, especially the boyfriend part.

it was almost too perfect. you should've expected an event to come crashing down at some point. because, after all, this still was the hawthorne family you're dealing with.

the road to disaster was initiated the moment grayson hawthorne left the house. he'd gotten into the ivy league of his choice, harvard and you were more than thrilled for him. but you were unsure of where it put the two of you at. he would be leaving the mansion, while you were forced to stay.

your's and avery's contract had yet to end, you still had a few month to bypass - so you couldn't leave the residence for more than 3 consecutive days.

grayson assured you the long distance thing would work, and he'd visit you as often as possible, then when you passed the year mark, you'd be able to visit and stay with him for long periods.

the plan he formated has eased your worries about your relationship. however, a small, but growing wall had formed between you, and you feared him leaving would lengthen it. you'd begun to notice a distant feeling from grayson at times, it was as if he was still concealing a part of himself. it was a build-up of all the unresolved emotional stresses he's faces - mainly from the death of both emily and tobias.

there were moments when you had attempted to get him to open up - but he either never got the hint or desperately wanted to remain ignorant. you'd decided to leave it as is, and perhaps that was your first error.

before leaving the family had put together a party as a 'farewell' gift. since the night began, you sensed the distant feeling had returned and grayson wasn't entirely there.

when a young girl had fallen into the pool, and grayson was quick to save her, jumping right into the pool in his suit and tie. you were quick to approach them with towels; even after the girl was returned to her family, grayson stayed still with a distant look in his eyes. you called his name and shook him a few times before he finally snapped back. but before you could question anything, he sought off into the house - leaving you on your own.

you gave him time alone since that was what he obviously wished for. you were relieved to see avery return with grayson, so relieved that you were insensible to the tension between the two.

thought things weren't resolved when grayson left, you were still hopeful for the both of you.

it started off great; frequent texts, late-night calls, occasional visits, and even gifts delivered to you. you felt silly for not having faith in the long-distance thing.

but your doubts returned when those daily calls turned into weekly texts and updates and those every other weekend visits shifted to seeing each other once a month.

grayson's excuse had been he was adjusting and had a hard time getting a grip on balancing everything in his life. had it been anyone else, you'd believed it better, but because it was grayson hawthorne, who you knew could effortlessly take on any task - you were growing suspicious. but you had yet to have a serious with grayson about it.

your silence broke the moment avery sat you down and revealed what had gone down in the wine cellar with grayson the night of his party.

she started with her concern for grayson, then ventured onto what happened after grayson ran off. avery had been in the wine cellar getting a bottle at jameson's request when grayson stumbled in. she immediately noticed he was in distress, and it wasn't long before he started breaking down. avery did her best to help, but he just insisted she leave, then went on a tangent about seeing hallucinations of emily and all the stress caused by being a hawthorne. avery's first thought was to get you, but he begged her not to tell him, which is why she was silent until that moment.

you were too occupied on the information regarding your boyfriend to even get a little mad that avery withheld the information. you had an inkling grayson wasn't well, you hadn't known it had gotten as bad as it did, and it was probably much worse by now.

you made an urgent call to grayson the as soon as you got to your room, and it took a couple tries to get him to answer. he answered a bit agitated, but you didn't care and started hounding him for an explanation on everything avery had told you.

at first, grayson was taken aback by both the interrogation and avery betraying him, then he finally confirmed that avery's words were true.

your heart grew heavy, and he confirmed everything. it was silent on the line for a second before you spoke up again. the first thing you asked was 'why?' why didn't he tell you about his trouble, especially the fact he was having nightmares and hallucinations about emily, his ex- girlfriend. and why, why had he confided in someone else instead of his own girlfriend.

you weren't jealous of avery nor did you fret over something happening between grayson and avery, but it hurt like hell to know she was the first he opened up to, whether it was intentional or not.

grayson repeated apologies over the phone, but by then, you were over it and wished him goodnight before hanging up. and once the line went dead, you curled up in bed and cried til you were tired enough to pass out.

grayson called multiple times the following day, and you declined them all. when calls were a bust, he turned to a flux of texts hourly, all consisting of the same mantra of sorry's and 'call me back'. you still didn't budge. you continued that behavior for a week or so, still upset at him.

however, you couldn't help but feel bad - the last thing you wanted to do was add stress to this place. nonetheless, your emotions were also valid; no one likes their boyfriend keeping things from them, telling said secrets to another woman he used to live with at that.

what you didn't expect on your monday morning was grayson to show up behind your bedroom door when you opened it. knowing he came all that way just because you were ignoring him made your heart flutter, however, you kept you solid composure.

grayson begged you to hear him out, so you hesitantly let him into your room and sat on the bed, waiting for him to say something. then grayson gave permission, he spilled his guts.

he revealed to you all of the difficulties he was going through, and you listened with an open heart. by the end of it he was crying, and you didn't hesitate to comfort him in his arms, a gesture he gladly accepted.

when it was safe for you to speak, you told him he didn't have to face all of it alone, there were many people in his life who cared for him.

"hawthorne or not, i'm your girlfriend. you are free to run to me when things get hard. then we can take it on together, okay?"

"you still want to be with me even after i've cried on your shoulder like this."

"the crying actually makes me like you more." you joke, and he gives a small smile at that.

you felt everything had gotten better after that. you'd manage to knock down another wall grayson had built, and now the two of you were closer than ever. avery's birthday was soon, so any two weeks after that, you'd be able to see grayson much more.

you were going to surprise your boyfriend by telling him you'd been looking at apartments in cambridge and landed on the perfect apartment for yourself. so, as soon as the year was up, you were moving there. yes, it was a huge step for someone you hadn't even been dating for over a year, but there was no place you'd rather be than by grayson's side.

avery's birthday had been, as jameson described, an "introvert's ball." and to be frank, you'd prefer it that way. after the way the last big party ended u, you were happy to have it just be immediate close friends and family.

everyone had a great time, grayson had made time to attend, and the both of you danced almost all night long. by the end, you're feet were blistered and bruised, but courteously swept you off your feet and carried you in his arms and into his bedroom. you were out like a light, but not before hearing grayson say 'love you' when he thought you were sound asleep. you went to bed with a smile etched on your lips.

you would've never left his bed had you known what was in store for you both the next day.

you'd just eaten breakfast with avery when you had both been informed by oren of a visitor name eve. avery looked anxious about it, and you didn't wait for her permission to follow her to the gates.

from the distance, you'd assumed it was rebecca, but as you approached, you realized that wasn't her. the girl in front of you was an exact copy of emily laughlin, more than her own twin.

"what the hell."

you were stunned to see a version of emily in person, and not just from photos you'd seen. avery was shocked, but it wasn't because of her appearance, more so due to her appearance at the manor. you were highly confused and began to think you were still sleeping.

avery had no choice but to confide in you everything that had gone on with toby and grayson's father, and how eve was toby's daughter. it was all much for your morning brain. but you processed enough to know the hawthornes, mainly grayson, seeing eve was the last thing needed. a part of you wanted to halt the meeting for selfish purposes. but the issue with eve being at hawthorne mansion meant a bigger issue; toby was taken.

oren, you, avery, and eve were discussing how to proceed, but there was little time to discuss the matter because the first person to come outside was grayson. the last person you'd wanted to come out of the mansion.

"emily?"

he was, understandably, pale as a ghost. it wasn't every day you saw a replica of your ex-girlfriend. you ran up to him with no plan of action. what could you possibly say? 'oh, this isn't emily this is eve, who just happens to look exactly like emily. and she's toby's daughter. oh, and by the way, your father is actually dead.'

grayson walked closer to eve, the resemblance becoming clear as day. looked to you to verify if what he was seeing was real or another figment of your imagination. you could only nod in response.

grayson didn't look away from eve, even when you tried to pull him back into the house. eve was annoyed by his trance and demanded to be taken inside for a shower after all she's had to deal with for the day.

so it was decided that everyone would gather in avery's room while eve used her bathroom. jameson had already been in avery's room when you four entered. he obviously noticed eve but made no comment until she was into the shower. since eve locked herself in the bathroom, grayson's eyes didn't move from the door. you couldn't lie and say it didn't create a sour feeling inside of you.

you knew it was horrible to make your boyfriend's trauma about you, but you couldnt help it. you were worried eve having the same face as emily was going to bring back unwarranted feelings. you bit back your envy, seeing that jameson was unaffected by eve's face, in contrast to grayson who stared longingly.

"tell me everything, heiress one and two."

avery briefly went over eve's appearance and toby's disappearance. she believes toby being taken has to do with a disk he gave her, one eve didn't know about. she ended it with an open discussion on ideas on how to get toby back.

jameson was the first to recognize how little you all knew about eve, and if you could truly trust her. you were glad someone had similar thoughts and you wouldn't be the first to voice them.

"we have to help her."

you turned to grayson at his words, your lips turned slightly down. jameson and avery also looked at the brother weirdly. was he seriously defending eve because she was an emily dupe?

"gray, we don't know her."

"it doesn't mean we should leave her to her own devices."

eve stepped out of the bathroom with clothes provided by avery,and grayson now had a look in his eye you coulden't identify. you had just about enough and lamely excused yourself to your room.

a part of you stupidly hoped your boyfriend would follow, but he never did.

as you busied yourself in your room reading books of fantasy lands to forget your own reality, avery knocked at your door. you hollered at her to enter, and she did. you continued reading, waiting for her to speak first.

"what do you think of a few welcome festivities?"

you raised a brow, "what did you have in mind?"

"how does chutes and ladders sound?"

chutes and ladder did not sound very fun, and frankly you'd never heard of it until that moment, but avery needed everyone in the game to get eve on board. you were even less enthused finding out grayson had been where eve was.

'you trust your boyfriend. you trust your boyfriend. you trust your boyfriend.' you repeated over and over. maybe you would believe it at some point.

as everyone gathered in the study and took a seat, you took your usual place next to grayson. you clenched your fists in your lap as you witnessed eve do the same.

as xander droned on about the rules of the game, you subtly side-eyed the pair beside you. your attention shifts back to the game when xander instructs the first person to go is the person with the best-kept secret. so that meant each of you had to confess something.

grayson took the liberty of starting off, not before sparring a guilty glance at you, "a girl tried to kiss me at harvard."

your head snapped, "what?"

"seriously, it was nothing."

"i can't believe you wouldn't tell me, i thought we agreed no secrets!"

"i didn't think it matter, it obviously pushed the girl away."

"it was enough of a deal for you to choose it as your secret."

you got up from your seat and opted to sit between avery and maxine. grayson grabbed your arm in an attempt to stop you, but you shook him off and took your new seat. grayson attempted to throw apologies, but you disregarded them.

to lighten the mood, maxine continued revealing she had a tattoo and xander continued telling the room he found his birth father; most of you gasped and asked for more, but xander kept his mouth shut. avery went next, heartfelt, saying she felt tobias made a mistake choosing her. you couldn't deny you didn't feel the same at times.

then eyes shifted onto you, awaiting your confession. you had a plethora to give, but you settled for one that matched the vulnerability of avery's.

"not to speak ill of the dead, but sometimes i think tobias hawthorne is a coward for leaving a game in his will instead of an explanation."

the room was silenced by your voice. you and avery each gave a look toward one another in understanding. you couldn't bare to turn your head in grayson's direction for his reaction. plus, you were still upset at him.

eve took the moment to finish the circle of secrets with her own. she disclosed her relationship with her family and their resentment toward her. you didn't fully trust eve, but you sympathized with her story. part of that sympathy was broken off as you saw grayson lean closer to her without a second thought. you started to think you would explode if the game didn't start any sooner.

as you wished, the game commenced - no surprise to you when eve was decided to go first. then the rest of you followed, and the race began.

you truly had no intention of trying that hard for a game, but it seems your inner competitiveness took the lead when you noticed eve ahead and grayson trailing right behind her.

maybe your anger and irritation spurred you on, but in everyone's, including yourself, surprise - you were right on eve's tail climbing up the ladder behind her.

your next move was a dirty one, maybe even callous, but in all honesty, you hadn't meant to do it. you think.

trying to grab onto the next rung as fast as possible, you managed to also grab the heel of eve's foot - causing her to misstep, lose her balance, and hang off the ladder by an arm and a foot. you utilized the time eve had to stabilize herself to then slide past her. you shot her a sorry look on the way up, and opened the hatch to the rooftop, declaring you the winner.

eve was right behind, grayson and jamseon after, and avery after two minutes. eve shot you a glare but didn't say a word about the incident. grayson was making his way in your direction, but you steered the other way to where jameson and avery stood.

jameson chuckled, "i didn't know you had it in you to play dirty."

"it was an accident, she tripped!" you defended.

jameson gave you a knowing look, but raised his hands in surrender and walked away to where xander and maxine were on the verge of entering. (they got sidetracked by a pillow fight)

you told avery you were off to shower and change; you hadn;t realized how sweaty you got until that moment. she nodded and you made your way to the hatch, but before you went down, she grabbed your arm.

"between you and me, was it an actual accident?"

"it was... if you count grabbing her foot and dragging her down as an accident."

avery shakes her head, "can't say i wouldn't have done the same given the opportunity."

walking down the hall, you heard your name being called. on instinct, you turned; grayson was behind you. you figured avoiding him wouldn't work forever.

"can we talk?" he asks, interwining his hand into yours.

you open your mouth the respond, but he cuts you off - "actually, you don't get a choice. i'm going to talk, and you're going to listen."

his tone left no room for argument, so you conceded. grayson went on to apologize for the 'almost-kiss' incident and for the lack of telling you.

"forgive me, angel. it was idiotic of me to assume it wasn't a important matter to communicate to you. you are the only girl i'll ever want to kiss."

you were a sucker for sincere apologies, and his piercing eyes made for a compelling argument. you sighed, "okay, i'll forgive you. but next time a girl tries to kiss you and you don't tell me, i'm kicking your ass, then hers."

grayson smiles and leans in for a kiss, which you accept. as his lips ignite with yours, you can't help but think of how much of a hypocrite you're being by not telling him your emotions regarding eve. 'it wasn't the right time,' you told yourself. it was only her first day, you were jumping to conclusions too soon. everything would work out.

the morning made for a rude awakening; threatening note sent to the gates hadn't been on your to-do list. avery shook you so hard you jumped out of bed, thinking it was an earthquake and smacked grayson's face in your alarm. (he wasn't pleased at that)

the threat contained a photo of toby, and a crypt message you all decoded. everyone started to think of suspects for the culprit behind the kidnapping. number one being skye hawthorne.

however, the investigation proved to be fruitless because she didn't have toby, and the other suspects led to a dead end. the threats hadn't stopped either.

you found yourself sleeping in grayson's more frequently. grayson didn't feel comfortable leaving you in your room, but you also knew it was because he secretly loved cuddling you at night. he held off going back to harvard, claiming he couldn't leave while there was danger lurking. it made you feel safe, but you also wondered if eve had anything to do with it. part of you didn't want an answer to that.

on this night, the two of you were in the pool past midnight. now that you learned to swim, grayson wouldn't stop challenging you to races. you knew what the outcome would be, but you accepted everytime, telling him you'd beat him eventually. (doubt, but it was nice to dream). for every win, you'd award him a kiss per his demand.

on his fifth victory, you leaned in to kiss him, only to ambush him with water to the face. grayson pretended to be annoyed and claimed revenge. you quickly swam away, but it didn't take long for him to catch up to you. he hands attacked your sides, and you were tortured by the ticklish sensation. you begged for him to stop, but he refused and wanted an apology.

you were stubborn, but finally threw in the towel, and accepted defeat. even after he stopped, grayson kept you in his arms as you calmed down from your fits of laughter. for a moment, it was just the both of you gazing into each other's eyes lovingly. at the same time, you titled you heads and reduced the gap between your lips.

before your mouths made contact, the lights, alerting the presence of another, shone. you both quickly turned toward the direction of the light, and grayson made a swift move to push you behind him. you were half expecting it to be another hawthorne brother, or worst-case scenario - the kidnapper.

but instead, there stood eve. she wore a silk lilac nightgown with a small slit that stopped midthigh. you immediately recognized it as your own by the small tear on the strap. 'when did she get this from my room?' had she stolen it or did grayson give it to her? both answers made your blood boil.

grayson relaxed as he recognized her, but you stayed tense. eve apologized for the intrusion, she was walking around the grounds and hadn't realized there were others awake. despite hating the interruption, you assured her it was alright, and she should be careful roaming around at night.

you thought that was that, and she'd just wander off, but it wasn't.

"do you mind if i swim, too?"

"well we-"

"not at all."

you turned your head to your boyfriend and gave him a questioning look, but he ignored it. his attention was now on eve. you had no choice, but to go along with it.

eve was quick to remove her your nightgown and reveal a one-piece swimsuit under. you were a bit confused, didn't she say she was just roaming the grounds, why did she already have a bathing suit on? but you stayed silent.

she jumped from the edge of the pool and landed a few feet away from where you and grayson. for a moment she struggling to reach the top, likely from not expecting how deep the pool actually was. grayson, ever the hero, swam to her aid, grabbing her hand to reel her back to the surface.

at this point, you couldn't even blame eve for these little accidents. you were getting upset at how grayson never failed to aid her when she was in need.

eve laughed, and thanked him for the gesture. then they started conversing about a topic you didn't care to pay attention to. had you just become a third wheel? 'no, no. he's just being friendly. gray will come back to you any second, then you'll both return to his room.'

except that didn't happen. eve asked grayson to race her, and he gladly accepted. even teased her about how badly she'd lose. not once did he turn back your way. no, but as eve swam to the edge, she gave you glance, obviously noticing how you awkwardly floated in your spot waiting for grayson. but she didn't speak a word, and continued to race in preparation for the friendly competition.

you had more than enough at that point. you swam to the pool's railing and pulled yourself out. you stomped out the swimming area, not even bothering to get a towel, and walked back into the mansion. you'd apologize to the cleaners for the wet mess later.

you were more heartbroken than angry. which was worse in your book. you'd been trying not to act like a jealous girlfriend who couldn't trust her boyfriend, and you took grayson's trauma with the emily situation into account, so you made excuses for all of grayson's actions toward eve. but sometimes, you shouldn't deny what's right in front of you.

now, you were cold and wet. you just wanted to go to bed. taking on threatening notes seemed so much easier now.

with all your deep thinking, you missed the sound of running feet from behind you. when a hand grabbed your wrist so suddenly, you were startled, and on instinct - you hand went flying at whoever stood behind you.

seeing now that it was grayson, you gave a small apology, seeing him clutch his face in pain. but you weren't that sorry at all. you probably would've done the same thing if you knew it was him.

grayson collected himself like nothing, "why did you leave?" he gently asks, wrapping a towel, you just noticed he brought, around your form.

you feign innocence, "oh, you actually noticed i was gone? 'figured you'd be too busy racing your new best friend."

"what are you acting like this?"

"i'm tired. tired of standing by as you treat eve like she's a damsel in distress. eve's no better; she clearly knows the effect she has on you."

"you're misinterpreting the situation. eve is one of us, we have to protect her."

"i'm sorry, did we forget you launched a full federal investigation on avery and i as soon as we got here? even after the will reading, i don't remember getting this warm welcome from you."

grayson lips form a straight line, frustrated, "that was different. eve has no one else-"

"she's not emily, grayson."

"trust me, i know that."

"i dont think you do! you see her as your second chance. news flash grayson, she isn't, emily is dead!" you venomously spit out. you hadn't intended for the harsh words to come out, but you wanted to hurt him as much as he was hurting you at the moment.

grayson's fists clench at his sides, he eyes brim with rage toward you, "jealously isn't a good look on you, y/n." the blow cut deeper than you had wished.

"neither is ignorance." you bite back.

you angrily turn your back and storm off in the direction of your room. luckily, it was only less than twenty feet away. you hoped grayson got the hint to not follow.

"we owe her our loyalty, y/n." grayson calls out one last time in a calm voice - different from the aggravated one from a second prior.

you enter your room and turn to him, deciding your final words before closing your door, "your loyalty was to me first."

part of you expected an apology the following day, but it never came. you were unsure where the two of you stood, and you weren't going to waltz up to grayson door to ask.

you confided your feelings in avery and libby, both defended your stance. avery was also wary about eve, and libby just loved any chance to bash a hawthorne.

you were sure the whole house was aware of the argument, likely the laughlins and thea calligaris as well. news travels easily around here. you didn't even want the know eve's point of view on the whole thing.

you steered clear of grayson, and busied yourself with toby's kidnapping along with everyone else. (which honestly should've been the most important matter.) you ensured avery everything was fine because you felt selfish making it about you when toby was in serious danger.

even without being in the same room with grayson, the tension was painfully evident. you could always sense when his gaze was on you, and it took everything to not return it. when you both were in the same room, you made sure to stay on opposite ends. everyone else had trouble deciding on how to handle the situation, but there were no direct comments, at least not that you heard.

there were nights when you wished grayson would show up at your door and just apologize. you wanted a reenactment of those cheesy romance movies where the guys begs the girl for forgiveness, and then they kiss and makeup. truthfully, you would've taken him back in a heartbeat. but this wasn't a movie, and he never showed up at your door.

you wondered if he even felt half of the heart ache you were going through. by the way eve was still hanging around him, even after the argument, you were starting to doubt it.

the more the investigation ensured, the more you and avery grew suspicious of eve. though whenever you thought you had a smidge of proof, it never followed through. it only succeeded in making you look like the villainous ex girlfriend and eve the innocent protagonist.

you and grayson were in a forced proximity when you had to investigate the wine cellar, along with avery and jameson. it was an awkward situation for all four of you, especially pertaining to the event with avery and grayson. but nonetheless, it proved to be useful because the final clue was hidden in the crystals of the chandelier. 'DON'T TRUST ANYONE'

you shouldn't had been so surprised that it was another vague message.

after critical thinking, you and avery came to the same conclusion - eve. the game started with her, she had to be the one tobias was warning about.

however, jameson and grayson weren't convinced by the conviction. both inferring that it would've stated 'her' instead of 'anyone'. but you persisted, avery backing you up.

jameson sighed, "i think recent events are affecting your judgment, y/n." you were taken aback by the claim, especially it coming from jameson. hadn't he been suspicious of her as well?

"i'm not acting out of jealousy. the old man knew of her, even made a plan in the event she arrived to the mansion, yet failed to mention her to anyone. why is that?"

"y/n." grayson spoke to you for the first time in awhile, "this isn't like you to act so rash. if you gave evie a chance-"

"evie? what, you guys have fucking pet names for each other now? don't you see how she's played you since the beginning!"

"y/n, you're not thinking straight."

you shake your head, "no, i don't think it's ever been clearer than right now. so, i'm going to give you one last chance grayson. to, for once, take my side over eve's. because if you don't, you're going to lose me."

there was silence, a hairpin being dropped could be heard. grayson put his head down and said nothing. and yet, it told you everything. you laughed at yourself for expecting a different outcome.

you scoffed with a humorless grin, turned around and walked away. you heard avery call out for you, but you ignored it. you didn't want to see the pity she'd have in her eyes after that embarrassing debacle.

you made it all the way to your room before crying into your pillow. you finally got the answer of whether or not it was over. the pain of the night at the pool seemed like an easy feat to face compared to your anguish now.

when you calmed down a few hours later, you looked out the window and saw the pool. a flashback of pain seared in you at first, but then you noticed something peculiar you failed to notice before. there was a part of the tiles that weren't aligned with the rest. you likely would miss it if you were close to it, but from far away it was noticeable.

something inside you told you to investigate. maybe it was the need for a distraction, but you followed your gut, not even stopping to change attire.

once getting to the pool, you jump straight in to create enough force to reach the bottom of the pool more efficiently. there, you observed the tile for a second before attempting to move it. nothing happened, and you readied yourself to get a breath of air -but suddenly, a key popped out from a compartment under the tile. you got it and returned to the surface.

without the chlorine in your eyes, you were able to immediately know where to put the key to use; the chapel tobias built for nan hawthorne. you rushed there, not caring for how soggy your hair and clothes were.

luckily, nan wasn't anywhere in sight. you rushed to the statue in the center of the room and eyed it for a moment before finding the intended target, the statue's mouth. you fit the key inside and wiggled it around before hearing that 'click' to let you know it was unlocked. a second later, a small plate popped out and with it it contained a usb. you'd never been prouder of yourself for figuring out one of tobias's stupid puzzles without avery's help.

you pulled out your phone and pressed on avery's contact, and started ringing her. she picked up in an instant, "hello?"

"avery! you won't believe it i-"

your sentence was rudely cut off due to your phone being shot of your hand. by a bullet.

you gasped and snapped your head to the entrance of the chapel. you saw the gun at once and its owner; eve.

"sorry, i think you're going to need a new phone," she says innocently.

you let out a cheerless laugh, "i knew it, you psycho bitch!" obviously not the best choice of words to say to the person pointing a gun at you, but god, did it feel good to be right about eve.

eve rolled her eyes, "i suppose you did, but it wasn't like anyone believed you. i'll admit you and avery almost, just almost, got me. but eventually, i was able to fool her too. now give me the usb and i won't shoot you." she got you there.

you gripped the usb tightly in your palm, "why do you want it?"

"i'm getting what's owed to me, what was taken from my family by that stupid old man. god, was it easy to infiltrate the hawthornes. especially grayson." you flinched at the mention of his name and eve took note of it.

she laughs, "right, he's your boyfriend- i mean ex-boyfriend, oops." there's no sincerity in that apology. "you know, when i heard you two were dating i was prepared to work twice as hard to get his attention.. but it was proven unnecessary because as soon as i stepped on hawthorne mansion - i had him." ouch.

"enough chatting, now walk over here slowly and hand me the drive." eve commanded, emphasizing the gun in her hands.

where was your bodyguard when you needed him?

you followed her commands, and took slow steps to her. she took on hand off the trigger to open her palm toward you. you made a motion to place the usb in her hand, but then quickly charged at the gun.

you both struggled back and forth, moving the gun. suddenly, the weapon flew out of both of your grasps and landed in front of the angel statue.

with the usb situated in your pocket, you ran to retrieve it, but eve was quick and tackled you from behind, causing you both to land on the ground. you were both rolling up and down the aisle, trying to get the upper hand. eve roughly situated herself ontop of your waist, immobilizing you. then her hands slithered to your neck and squeezed hard.

it was getting harder to breathe, but you were a fighter. your armed flayed at her, grabbing whatever was closest. as a last resort, you clawed at her face.

"bitch." you mutter as your nails scratch across her face.

it worked, eve howled in pain and retracted her hands from your neck. you briskly shoved her off your body. having little energy from the lack of oxygen, you still take your chance and crawl toward the gun. but eve had recovered, and dragged you back by your heel. 'talk about karma' you thought.

you're crazily moving your feet to shrug eve's hands off as you continue to painfully crawl. but suddenly the gun is lifted off the ground, both you and eve look up to see grayson now clutching the gun. you're both relieved and worried.

you stand up on your feet, eve does the same. grayson waves the gun toward both of you and both hold your hands in front of your forms.

"gray, thank god you're here. i came here looking for a clue, and found a usb, but then y/n showed up.. s-she took the usb from me then pulled out a gun and tried to kill me." her voice was no longer diabolical, now it was full of vulnerability and fear.

"grayson, she's lying, she almost killed me!"

"y/n's been working with vincent blake, she plans on giving that usb to him."

"oh, you little liar!"

"look at what she did to my face!" eve points at the bloody scratch on her face, starting from her left eyebrow and ending at her lip.

grayson eyes went back and forth in observing both you and eve. the gun was pointed in the middle, still deciding its target.

his eyes landed on yours, as does the gun. "y/n. give me the usb." your stomach drops.

"grayson." you plead.

"y/n. now." he held his hand out. you knew that tone. it meant 'no room for argument'.

if he didn't believe in you even now, then you had no choice. you took steps toward him.

"careful, gray, pretended to give the usb to me and then attacked me." eve warned. you shot her a nasty glare.

grayson doesn't say anything and waits for your move. you drop the usb in his hand.

"thank you." you say nothing.

grayson turns his head to eve, "i've always known who to believe." eve smiles at that, "i just had to stall long enough for john to show up."

in an instant, eve is brought down to the floor. oren is behind her, holding her arms behind her back long enough to put handcuffs on her wrist.

you let out a large breath you didn't know you were holding. grayson believed you in the moment that mattered most.

grayson tosses the gun to the ground and engulfs you in a hug. you accept it, and grip onto him like your life depends on it. his hold triggers your emotions, and tears spring out from your eyes. you can't help it when you start crying into his shoulder. he soothes you, cradling his hand on the back of your head.

"im sorry." grayson muttered into your hair. "you were right. i can't let emily rule my life any longer."

"you're an idiot." you say in the midst of tears.

"i am." he agrees

"and i'm still super mad at you."

"i know."

"you're going to have to work really hard to earn my forgiveness, like beg on your knees and hold a boombox outside of my window type stuff." you croak.

"i will, baby." grayson smiles.

for now, you were happy to feel safe and protected in his arms.

bonus:

"is this really necessary?"

"very," avery confirms, "you broke boyfriend code, now your penance must be fulfilled."

"you guys only made up those codes a day ago," grayson counters.

it was true, after the whole eve fiasco grayson was willing to do whatever to earn your forgiveness. you were ready to forgive him, but you also wanted to give him a hard time. it might've been a little evil of you, but you thought it was well deserved. after a girl talk with avery and libby, you came up with a new set of rules you liked to refer to as 'boyfriend code.' inspired by the code the brother share.

"exactly why we ought to use you as an example for future culprits," xander justifies waving a hand in grayson's direction.

grayson groans, looking up at the ceiling, "i love my girlfriend. i'm doing this for my girlfriend." he murmurs to himself.

"that's the spirit" nash cuts in, he lifts his drink up.

avery looks around, "where is y/n, anyway?" she asks.

"here!" you announce, walking out from behind the stage, "i was just preparing the song." you take a seat next to jameson and grin mischievously at grayson, "you'll love it."

graysons eyes narrow, "i have a feeling i won't."

just then, the beginning of a song plays out from the speakers.

grayson eyes widen, and he looks at you, "no."

your smile widens, "oh, yes."

"c'mon gray, we're all waiting." jameson hollers from his seat.

everyone starts egging grayson on, cheering for him to commence.

he takes a deep breath, "guess i have no choice."

as grayson starts to sing the lyrics of "shake it off" by taylor swift, jameson leans over to you.

"gotta say, this is a brilliant punishment for him."

you nod in agreement, "and it'll be even better after when i reveal, i have ten other taylor swift songs for him to perform." specially, 'ME!' was next.

"yikes. remind me to never break boyfriend code."

[olderthannetfic]

Escapade Dance Party 2023 Writeup 2/3

Here is the playlist I ended up with this year, plus my commentary:

First Half

Good Omens | Running in the 90's by Maria Morningstar

Good Omens is so tricky. On the one hand, there are a billion fantastic vids, many with editing that's better than this one. On the other, a lot of the preferred music is syrupy and slow, and GO fans are actively seeking out vids and have already seen many of the ones intended for cons in the English-speaking world.

I wanted something high-energy to open the dance with, and this ridiculous song fit the bill. It woke people up and got them noticing the music had started.

I don't know Maria, but her channel has a bunch of things with cyrillic titles, so I'm guessing she's Russian. That meant a higher chance of this vid being new to people at Escapade.

Tubthumping by Aaronantium

To be perfectly honest, I do not care about this anime, but I was chilling with Aaron at Vidders Chat and discussing my plans, and he offered to make me a vid for his vampire fandom.

I don't generally accept premieres because it means wrangling more people and dealing with uncertainty, but Aaron suggested this song, and it's always a crowd pleaser as is the vid everyone makes to it. This fandom is also unusually perfect for said joke, featuring as it does a repeatedly dying vampire who… well… gets back up again.

Actually, despite it not being most people's fandom, I think this vid got one of the biggest laughs and reactions of anything during the party.

Kirk/Spock | I Knew You Were Trouble by mogo nit

K/S is a perennial favorite with con attendees—more TOS but AOS too. I don't recall why I was specifically looking for it this year. Probably, it ranked best out of things people mentioned on their site profiles.

This is an old-ass vid from 10 years ago, so if people have seen it, they probably haven't seen it lately. It's also a song I love, cliched though it might be for vids.

Word of Honor - Wenzhou - Hit and Run by CelestialMoonDragon

I knew I wanted to include WoH, both for its many fans and for people still dragging their feet about checking out Asian live action m/m stuff. The fandom has a wealth to choose from from vidders all over the globe. The big issue was simply finding vids that weren't too plastered with show audio.

When I heard this song choice, however, I knew it was the one. WoH has some unusual genre elements for wuxia, specifically all the central government focus where wuxia characters usually stay away from politics. The song really highlights that aspect. Those lyric matches! Genius!

【夜访吸血鬼】【莱斯特】【Young and Beautiful】献给我最心中最美艳的吸血鬼——莱斯特 by 欧阳夏右

Obviously, if I was going to celebrate the new IWTV, I couldn't leave out the old movie!

This is a brilliant song choice given what happens to Lestat. It's interesting to me how many Chinese vidders use music I know well. It's always fun to see what they do with a Western source and Western music, and I think bilibili is largely uncharted territory for most Escapade attendees.

【The Sentinel】【Jim/Blair】It's consuming me（Lash视角）美剧-哨兵 同人mv by ozakikaoru

The Sentinel still has monofannish fans, but covering it for a dance party is a pain in the butt. I generally end up scraping the depths of Bilibili, and this year was no exception…

So how excited was I to find this refreshing and freaky take! This audio is apparently from some short film and has become something of a meme amongst vidders, but I hadn't heard it before and I don't think anyone at the con had either.

It's always extra surprising and wonderful to find a more serious and darker vid for fandoms everyone associates with camp and retro cheese. The Sentinel fans I included it for were blown away too. It's apparently a pretty good representation of the episode in question.

Forever Knight Vampires | Darkness, Darkness | Gothic 90s by knightvision1228

Because I had the vampires theme, I made a huge list of vampire fandoms to try to include. Forever Knight was one of my fandoms of the 90s and very popular with het shippers and slashers alike. Finding a vid that didn't look like bad VHS transfer, however, was easier said than done.

This one won out for featuring a rare song from the FK soundtrack that was never released. The vid also showcases the main trio instead of just being Nick/Jeanette het.

Megatron x Optimus (Song: Wrecking Ball) by Mellew

We have a lot of Transformers fans, and it's always so hard to find something I can play in the dance party… well… something that's not a 10-minute compilation of explicit fan art to horny reggaeton. Personally, I'm all about that reggaeton, but I've been looking for actual shipper vids that are a little more representative and a little less likely to make the fans combust in embarrassment.

When I heard the song choice… well… no other vid could compete.

But don't let the literalism and hilarious if one-note joke fool you: this is a fantastically edited vid that makes excellent use of the song's varying tempo.

And yes, I made sure to loudly say "WHY ARE YOU ALL LAUGHING? THIS IS A VERY SERIOUS VID" as the vid started.

BakuDeku AMV - Lucky Strike by caliowl 333

Do I watch BNHA? No. Do people at the con watch BNHA? No. Do antis hate this ship? Absofuckinglutely YES!

I love stupid shonen nonsense, and this fandom provides it in spades. It took a while to find an AMV that wasn't littered with not only show audio but dubbed show audio. (What am I, an animal?!)

I also just really love this song for dance parties.

Dancing on My Own - Robyn (Izzy Hands Edit) by auxiliarywardrobe

OFMD is another tough one. It's not due to a lack of vids: if anything, there are too many. But so many aren't suitable for a dance party and many are already familiar to people.

While I did find this on AO3 (honestly nearly a requirement for finding non-show audio vids in this fandom), it hadn't gotten any attention from people I recognized as an Escapade type crowd.

I loved the indignity of pairing Izzy with this ridiculous song. OFMD was a little anodyne for me in some ways, so the sleazy obnoxiousness of Izzy is a welcome antidote to all of the fluff and angst vids about the main ship.

At the same time, I don't particularly ship Izzy with anybody. I enjoy watching him be miserable, and the song is actually quite a good lyrical match for his impotent frustration.

Do You Wanna Touch Me? [Fanvid] by resurrecho

Okay, this one is cheating on my own rules. I'm sure people had every opportunity to see it… But it's also a femslash vid that is very, very horny.

This one's for you ladies tired of ~dewy flower~ soft bullshit!

Cult of Dionysus - Leverage OT3 - Eliot/Parker/Hardison by leverage brain worms

Leverage remains a perennial favorite and the new show had attendees talking,  but people often request the same tired old vid choice. I went looking for something that hadn't been played at every con over and over.

I liked that this vid was relatively recent. The song with poly lyrics was a fun touch.

HeiHua FMV~|| Hei Ye falling for the Thorny Flower by Black Flower

When I saw this vid, I said to myself: I don't know who they are, but I ship them!

AND GUESS WHAT? SEEING THE SHOW DID NOT CHANGE THAT OPINION!

Yes, this vid is directly responsible for me watching all these DMBJ adaptations.

I knew a lot of Escapade attendees were vaguely familiar with Reunion because of Zhu Yilong, but I didn't think most had checked out the rest of DMBJ, and this vid was so diametrically opposite of both that adaptation and the vibe of the big ship that I knew I just had to include it.

But seriously, this vidder actually has an excellent grasp of narrative. Now that I've seen the show, some of this stuff is repurposed and out of context, but you wouldn't know it from the eyelines.

Cover Me - A Fanvid by TinTurtle

Ah, Pros. The Professionals has the most dedicated fans at Escapade, hands down. They keep the con afloat and keep their fandom vibrant even after decades. Finding a dance vid to include for them, however, is a bit of a trial.

Realistically, I'm never going to find a vid they haven't all seen unless I make it myself, so I look for songs with a better beat than the typical old fandom vids tend to have.

The Fanged Four - Play with Fire (BTVS/ATS) by SlayerVid

People were talking about the Buffyverse again this year. Was it an anniversary of some kind? I can't recall, but it's a big nostalgia fandom for a lot of attendees, and it's one of the bigger vampire fandoms, so I wanted to include it.

While there used to be a billion vids for Buffy and Angel, only a fraction of them are findable online now. I went hunting for something not by a con regular and with visual quality that would play okay on a projector.

This is a great song for its grinding beat, and the vid is both recent and features a variety of vampire characters.

BL | Mobu ✘ Kikuchi S2 || So What by rosenana708

I suspect I found it by looking for Kei x Yaku vids, but as soon as I spotted it, I knew it was a must-have.

Yes, this is full of stupid show audio, but too bad: Nobody at a slash or BL con should be allowed to escape without knowing that A Man Who Defies the World of BL exists.

The Locked Tomb | Fences (SPOILERS!) by peachy 💕

This fandom was the latest hot flavor for many and f/f to boot. I was skeptical about finding a vid, but what do you know!

die for you / beyond evil by butillmissyou

After being pimped in by last year's vid find, I knew I wanted to include it again.

This music grabbed me by the throat. I'd never even heard of LÉON, but the soulful sound is perfect for this fandom.

Personal Jesus by killabeez

I desperately wanted a vid to this song. The cover isn't my fave, but I couldn't turn down the combo of a vampire fandom and this classic.

True, Killa isn't exactly obscure to anyone at Escapade, but this is a relatively less seen older vid and excellently edited.

BTS Vampire FMV | Bad Things (True Blood OP) by GoldenArmy7

I'm so clever.

Yes, this is mostly here so I can follow the True Blood vid with one to the True Blood theme song. Also to inflict BTS on people.

● Ichiro + Shiro | 'dope' (KeixYaku: Dangerous Partners FMV) by xXScarshadowXx

And now some BTS music, LOL

Sadly no longer online from what I can tell

WEDNESDAY | “Sweet But Psycho” Netflix Serie [HD] by SHIK

There are like thirty vids to this fandom using this song. This one blew the others out of the water.

I'll be honest, everyone was trying to push Wednesday/Enid around the time of the con, and that ship is the most boring thing you could possibly take away from this show. I wanted a vid that showcased what's actually fun here, which is not sucking all the creepy out of an Addams Family adaptation, for fuck sake.

ALIEN SUPERSTAR | Wanda & Scarlet Witch by LittleLaceBoots

MCU is still big with attendees, but it's so sprawling that knowing what to choose is hard. I found this music choice quite interesting for how it showcases the weird schtick of this particular show.

A Cowboy's Love by lilly_the_kid

If there's one AO3 vidder I will always play, it's lilly_the_kid! I wanted something for Star Wars, and I wanted it to be slash. This classic and ridiculous vid fit the bill.

Is it appropriate for a dance party? It is IF I SAY IT IS!

Boss Bitch | Lan Wangji (陈情令 The Untamed FMV) by slowparade

Everyone vids this song, but this example is particularly great!

I like aspects of The Untamed a lot. Sadly, those aspects do not include the central ship. I'm always on the hunt for vids that actually work for me. This take on Lan Wangji is hilarious.

Geraskier - Fine By Me by CainnetreIt delights me to find vids to other versions of popular canons. This is such a classic slash vid. It's not particularly danceable, but it's so fun that I wanted to include it, so it needed to go at the end of a section. It's the kind of song you wave your beer around to.

[cienie-isengardu]

Quan Chi's bio states he was basically born to be a slave in the mines. With Shang it's at least debatable whether he 'chose' to be poor of it he was just unlucky but I don't think Quan Chi chose to be enslaved since he was a child and mined minerals for OutWorld's government.

This seems awfully deliberate, like how Liu Kang had a hand in Smoke's family dying as a way for him to join the Lin Kuei. Like Liu Kang gave Mileena the life most iterations would kill for and whilst he did cripple Shao, Shao got the better deal compared to Quan and Shang.

I don't think there's a really good way to justify that one. It feels like Liu is punishing an incarnation of Quan Chi for something he didn't even do. Unless someone wants to make the assumption that Quan Chi was born evil...which doesn't make any sense since we literally see a good version of him and Shang fighting against Titan Shang Tsung.

Even if he was born evil, erasing him probably would've been preferable than subjecting him to slavery given how slaves are treated.

Last time I checked mortalkombat.com there was no official BIO for Quan Chi so I can’t address something I did not read yet by myself - not that I don’t believe your word, I just like be familiar with officially released source material and context before I start throwing the stones at any characters, especially since MK1 already proved with Shang Tsung that BIO, story mode and intros may approach differently character’s origin.

That said, I don’t have a doubt that Liu Kang is biased when it comes to certain people as it is visible in story mode alone how he interacts with the Royal Family or his Champions he considered his friends and for example Lin Kuei serving him and Earthrealm from centuries. He on purpose get involved with characters lives, be it choosing Johnny, Kenshi, Kung Lao and Raiden for Earthrealm’s Champions or deciding that Shang Tsung and Quan Chi won’t get a chance to obtain any power (magic) however the same story mode proved that Liu Kang’s plans could be - and in fact were - foiled by actions of others. Shang Tsung and Quan Chi learned magic due to Titan Shang Tsung’s scheming, Kenshi lost his eyesight again, despite Liu Kang’s hope for different means for his bonding with Sento

so it is not like every character’s life is set in stone and the once made Keeper of Time’s decisions won’t change due to outside forces.

My main problem with accusation that Liu Kang intended Quan Chi to be born in slavery or Shang Tsung in poverty is the implication he intended slavery and poverty to be part of his new era in the first place - and with that he chose to doom billions beings to unimaginable hardship solely to punish two people he personally dislike for things done in previous timeline steered by Titan Kronika who cared only for balance between good and bad, not for the living beings who were her own creations. 

Because Shang Tsung is not the only character we could see living in miserable conditions, as the Edenians infected with Tarkat sickness lived in literal poverty, banished and shunned by society, with little food or basic goods to survive on their own. Quan Chi may be a slave working in mines, but we have the whole Umgadi system that literally takes away freedom from the first-born daughters of edenian families, who from childhood are trained and indoctrinated to put Royal Family’s best interest before anyone and anything, because apparently the monarch is more important that the lives of common people. 

If we agree that Liu Kang in fact decided to include slavery and poverty in his new timeline just to punish two people, following that logic we should also assume that by making Johnny the USA’s famous movie star (with all the references to Hollywood and pop culture we know from previous timelines and our own word), he also allowed history to repeat itself with the European colonization of Americas and coming with it irreversible destruction of native cultures followed by unjust and cruel treatment of the indigenous population and ever further consequence: the Atlantic slave trade and the racial segregation that was part of America’s history preceding the official independence of USA (and racism being part of its history for another ages). All just to put Johnny in comfortable life as close to what his friend had in previous timeline.

What frankly, does not sit well with me knowing what kind of person Liu Kang was once and is currently as Earthrealm Protector. He was not a flawless human and definitely he is not the flawless and all-knowing god now - he doesn’t pretend to be one either. And sure, some of his decisions led to bigger tragedies but the fact he stepped down from Keeper of Time’s position to be just a mere Earthrealm’s deity implies he truly wished to allow people make their own choices. Because as Keeper of Time he could manipulate time and events to his own liking at any given time, but as a mere deity he is forced to play alongside the unfolding events and mortals choices - he may guide people, he may punish those disturbing the established peace, but he does not fulfill characters’ wishes or demand to erase the problems of their world because he did not give himself such power, as intro dialogues suggest is the case:

Li Mei: Why permit crime to fester in this timeline? Geras: It was beyond Liu Kang's power to prevent it. 

or

Liu Kang: It is beyond my power to prevent all injustice. Li Mei: Then it shall always fester. 

or

Scorpion: As Time’s Keeper, you could have abolished kombat. Liu Kang: Even a Titan’s power has limits.

or

Kenshi: With Liu Kang's help, maybe they'll find a cure. Baraka: If he could've helped, he would have done so by now. 

or

Baraka: If you're a god, then cure me. Liu Kang: I did not give myself that power.

or

Baraka: Tarkat is a cruel fate, Geras. Geras: As Liu Kang has told you, we cannot cure it. 

My point is: when a god gives mortals a free will then he must also accept that people will choose the wrong, even outright evil things. Not because anyone is born inherently good or bad, but because things like greed, pettines, fear, curiosity, ignorance or love exist and emotions are as strong an impulse, if not stronger, as is common sense. 

As much as I would really like if Liu Kang gave everyone the same, fair chance for a good life, I think we need to take into account that each character's life does not exist in a vacuum and was preceded by hundreds of lives and choices of other people that lead to this point in time. Choices that could get in the Keeper of Time’s way and push events in different paths that he intended. Like Smoke’s family - did he truly decide to kill them to get Tomas into Lin Kuei as the best way of action or did the Lin Kuei warriors, who found outsiders on the protected by them territory, acted too aggressively on their own and their choices lead to unplanned tragedy? Or Shao’s sickness - was it Liu Kang’s choice to prevent the possibility he will raise one day against Sindel but the plan was foiled by one stubborn father who wouldn’t accept his child’s sickness as it was or the iron discipline of father was a part of the plan from the start? My point is, it is hard to tell where Keeper of Time’s will ends and where start the will of mortals that make each day their own choices, for good or bad. 

Sindel is the best example, as Liu Kang intended her to rule Edenia as a firm yet fair queen and for all we know she indeed is one compared to the previous rulers. Yet what we learn from story mode and intro dialogues put a great shadow of doubt on whether she was truly so great Queen, if the sick Edenians are banished and forced to live in poverty, as their assets were taken according to Sindel's own edict, and in general treated like unwanted trashes. Not only that - Li Mei's intro dialogues says that Outworld has organized crime and Sun Do's beauty hides its darker side as it is far from the peaceful city Earthrealms think it is. Since people often are pushed into crimes by the bad circumstances (poverty, seeking refuge from persecutors) rather than inherent evil, should we accuse Liu Kang he planned such misery for those mortals or we accept that Sindel - generally seen as a good person, even admired by vast number of characters, including Liu Kang himself - made a choices that in fact have endangered or literally destroyed hundreds of innocent lives for ages? The Royal Family got rich off the harm of others, its power was secured by people deprived of their own civil freedom (Umgadi, the Palace Guard). Who should we blame for that? Liu Kang who destined Sindel to be Queen or Sindel herself, who had a power and free will to decide?

Like I said, no one lives in a vacuum and there were countless numbers of mortals before our main heroes were even born. Kenshi is dealing with his ancestors’ desperate choice to join Yakuza for protection and born out of it shame and crimes; their choices affect who he is and what drives him. Bi-Han is affected by his father’s decision and decisions of Lin Kuei Grandmasters before him that shaped reality in which Bi-Han lives now and considers an enslavement, because someone in the centuries old past chose to pledge their clan to serve Earthrealm and by extension, Fire Lord. Did Liu Kang intend such a turn of events or is it an effect of countless choices made by mortals preceding Bi-Han and Kenshi existence?

And so we come back to Quan Chi and the question, did Liu Kang decide to introduce slavery to his new timeline solely so Quan Chi could end in one or did mortals (Edenian aristocracy/government) at some point make the choice to enslave other living beings, including Quan Chi’s family, for their own gain? Because for Quan Chi to be born in slavery it means:

his parents or at least mother - and that alone may implies Quan Chi's being a result or rape - would need be a slave in the first place and

mother was punished for her son’s crimes he did not commit - and if Liu Kang’s plan had succeeded, he would never have committed either.

We can go on with questions like that but I think it comes down to this one matter: do we believe that Liu Kang would intentionally damn a billions of innocents to either punish Shang Tsung and Quan Chi or secure the well-being of his favorites like Royal Family and Johnny or not.

The game and intro dialogues won't give us a definite answer to that and each of us will need to settle this dilemma for themselves. I myself still debate whether to believe or not that Liu Kang sat down eons ago and wrote out how numberless generations will live so a few certain characters end in miserable (Shang Tsung & Quan Chi) or happy setting (Sindel). I do however believe that within Liu Kang's timeline, the Keeper of Time's choices shaping people's destiny and free will of characters can and are co-existing. I won't cross out yet the possibility that Liu Kang indeed decided to include slavery just to fuck up Shang Tsung and Quan Chi's lives - and I won't do it at least until I read the new source material.  However, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that slavery and poverty are the outcome of bad choices made by mortals living before the heroes and villains were born.

Of course, this is still not the best scenario and there is no denying Liu Kang wanted a meaningless life for both sorcerers and that he did interfere with events and destinies of mortals. But if he set all life in motion and then immediately step down from Keeper of Time’s position, we need take into account that A) he gave up control over people voluntarily and B) he did it eons before Shang Tsung or Quan Chi - and their families - came to alive and for such a long period of time, many bad things could have happened without his participation or ill will (is Tarkat even part of Liu Kang’s plan or did it happen spontaneously, as a result of the actions of unforeseen forces? As the “forces of nature” balancing things out?). The characters already asked Liu Kang why he did not prevent injustice, why he did not abolish violence, why he did not cure the horrific illness, why he did not make his timeline the better place… but I think to do so he would need to take away the free will, so no mortal could commit a crime again or go against his plan. Which is the total opposition of what he wanted and Liu Kang is aware his world did not improved as he hoped:

Liu Kang: This timeline has not improved as I had hoped. Geras: Thoughts like that led to Kronika’s madness. 

But I guess that is the problem with free will, it allows bad things to happen. There is no win-win scenario and someone will always be harmed - if not by their own choice, then by someone else's, because people do not live in a vacuum.

So, unless Quan Chi’s Bio (that I still didn’t see for myself) outright says Liu Kang decided to made his former enemy born as a slave, I’m willing to give Liu Kang the benefit of doubt that slavery and poverty weren’t on purpose added to his new era just to fuck up two people he didn’t like - even if his dislike is well-understandly considering everything that happened. 

It is easy to look at MK1’s story mode and blame Liu Kang for the characters' background but that is looking at this specific point of time the way we look at NRS and blame them for messing up our favorite heroes for drama’s sake alone. In-universe though? There are plenty of factors outside Liu Kang’s control that shaped the world before any of them came into picture. Like I said, it may not be so easy to determine how much for things to be the way they are now is the fault of god and how much of mortals alone.

Also, in regard to why not just erase them from the timeline, I too myself wondered about that. Or why not make them born in Earthrealm, whereas as mere humans they would pose a threat for a 100, maybe 120 years at best and then be safely tucked in the afterlife. Or why let them both live at the same time and not separate them by ages. My working conclusion for now is that erasing people is not such an easy matter, as people - their histories and relationships - are too well connected threads on time fabric. MK11’s Jacqui ending showed that changing one thing may lead to much more serious consequences. She wanted to spare her father from death at Sindel’s hand and following it the life of revenant. But when she removed that event from his history, in result she erased her own existence, as Jax did not meet Jacqui's mom and thus Jacqui wasn't born. Original Shang Tsung and Quan Chi brought more pain and despair to people than anything else, but since we don’t have an idea how time fabric works or how much it is influenced by the countless erased timelines, maybe Liu Kang couldn’t erase them without erasing more innocent and/or important people? Just a thought to think about.

[blazehedgehog]

Given they’re soft rebooting again… what’s your Jurassic world 4/jurassic park 7/ Jurassic animals and also Triassic and Cretaceous animals make life difficult: the movie pitch? I feel like, as fun as the sequels can be, they’ve lost the science parable and horror/thriller elements of the classic - for all its faults; at least lost world has that.

Hmm... I'm gonna think like a movie executive. What's hot right now? AI's hot, right? It's the buzz. I propose a hard reboot.

Crichton's original novel opens with this big screed about a near future where we have "designer genetics." Genetic manipulation gets easier and easier and I think it's said Jurassic Park takes place in a world where it's getting to the point that parents can custom-order what kind of kids they'll have by selecting specific genetic traits. (It's been a while since I've read it)

Jurassic Park the movie shows human beings physically modifying genetic code by hand using VR displays, but Mr. DNA also admits that "a full DNA sequence contains 3 billion genetic codes." So it's ridiculous to assume that a human being could edit the genetic code by hand. One sequence would take years to get right, maybe even a lifetime.

So our story is that we have some 20 something silicon valley tech bro. He got outrageously rich off of crypto and NFTs and was smart enough to cash out early. We frame him as altruistic but around the edges we can see maybe he's not the greatest person. It's suggested he knew crypto was kind of a scam, which is why he got out early, but obviously he was in crypto at all to begin with, which does not bode well. But he's supposedly "one of the smart ones." Now he's rich! And cool! And using his powers for "good." He's beloved in pop culture.

The next wave is here. Neural network LLM Artificial Intelligence. He's all in. It's the next crypto. And he starts a company that uses LLM AI to "solve the genetic algorithm." He spins this out into a financial empire where people can custom-order pets with specific traits. But obviously people with a lot of money start wondering if maybe they can get more... exotic products.

With the realm of cats, dogs and parrots conquered, our techbro begins phase 2: recreating extinct animals. This is a guy who thinks he's going to save the world by restoring lost links in the food chain (without doing enough research to see how that would change our existing ecosystem, since he could be resurrecting an invasive species).

He's going to debut the first of his phase 2 work at an event he's calling Jurassic Park, because he's going to demonstrate the first living dinosaurs in 65 million years. Jurassic Park will continue to operate as a massive nature reserve; a symbol of his control of life itself.

Obviously: everything goes wrong. The AI has never had to change this much genetic code before. It has to make up whole entire sections of DNA. The end result is unpredictable, but techbro is confident that if the AI sequenced things well enough that something could actually hatch from the egg, then it's safe.

It is not safe.

Not only do we not understand anything about dinosaur behavior, these technically aren't even dinosaurs. They're genetic mutants. The on-site dinosaur expert brought in with the press to verify Jurassic Park's claims quickly realizes that while some of these dinosaurs are accurate in some ways, a lot of them have hard deviations away from known science. Muscles that aren't quite right, appendages that aren't the right size, things like that. Maybe their brains and brain chemistry are slightly different.

The question remains whether known science was wrong or whether the AI made something up that was never true.

The question is brought up again when we learn a technician within Jurassic Park sabotaged everything intending to steal the genetic learning data from techbro's servers. Techbro says the thief poisoned the data and that's gotta be why there's mutations.

The security systems fail. The thief has left them to their creations. Jurassic Park as we know it happens.

Since a lot of movies have to deal with this, all throughout this, nobody has phones. To prevent leaks, all of their phones were confiscated before they entered Jurassic Park and locked in a security checkpoint. Our techbro, maybe as a sign of solidarity, even gives his phone to the security guy. We could even say maybe they've been having security issues beforehand, to set up the thief hacking everything before he actually does it.

Anyway, since our thief sabotaged the park's own communication channels, a lot of the movie is about getting back to that security checkpoint, breaking in, and getting their phones so they can call for help.

Oh, and also: all of Jurassic Park's vehicles are electric, too, and tied into the security mainframe. Since the park's whole security system was hacked and disabled, none of the vehicles can be operated. The only thing that works are these little golf carts, but they're small, can't go very fast, and offer little protection. Maybe our survivors try one, it gets smashed by a triceratops, and they're too far away from the depot to go back for a new one. So a lot of the movie is them traversing the park on foot.

As they're being chased by dinosaurs through the park itself, they end up deep in the core of a genetics lab. And it's here we learn the dark truth: there is a wide margin of failure. The recently deceased specimens are all kept for study and learning and there's a lot because the AI fails often, and it has to be taught not to do that. We see dozens of disfigured animals. Bits and pieces of dinosaurs, pets, and even, in one tank... human parts. These tanks are labeled "phase 3."

Not only are the mutated dinosaurs not the work of sabotage, this guy's been trying to create genetically modified people. We have our big "what have you done?" moment of horror. One of the last surviving members of the press is going to blow the whistle on this place. It's over. Maybe it's someone we build up as the techbro's new friend discovering that their hero wasn't who he said he was.

Just then, a dinosaur bursts in and kills that person. Drama! Tragedy!

Obviously, the survivors find a way out. Techbro has to live with his own conscious. Multiple people died at his hands on this day and he had a hand in creating some of the worst sins against nature mankind has ever seen.

(Or maybe we stick to the original Jurassic Park book and he dies just before getting on the escape chopper.)

[kobblefort]

Orbsarmor: What Could Possibly Go Wrong

Here we go again.

Not a tree in sight, nor another living being. Which means no beds, at least not until we've made it to the caverns. But uhh, speaking of which...

The very first frame I unpaused, I was told "a section of the cavern has collapsed," which is really quite strange. So I went to reveal it, just to check - and see how far we'd need to dig down before we hit trees, and, well... we won't. These are not cavern layers. That green stuff? It's grass. Trees do not seem to grow in it, or at least, none of them have yet. Oh, and some of those little "HFS tubes" might have shattered down on the third cavern layer. If you don't know what that means, absolutely do not worry about it one little bit okay. Either way, if we want any kind of farming to ever happen here, we'll have to get down there and get to work on it. And we basically need farming to happen here, but before any of that we need stairs, a way of dealing with the aqueduct (I'm just going to reuse the Blackfaint method since decapods actually like waterfalls) and some kind of meager little production setup.

And fuck it, here we are at -62, starting a production area with Amontillado'able doors. Unfortunately, we have no underground seeds, 3 logs, no trees in sight, and a long time before our first caravan. But the queen gets what the queen wants, and the queen wants the perfect library - far, far away from any and all distractions. Well, it's more than a bit likely we'll just die trying. But I think sometimes you have to think "what if I DON'T fail?" And yeah sure that's been co-opted by all the morons who really run the world and get to blow billions killing themselves in submarines or trying to make AI write all the movies. But I think it obviously has some kind of value anyway.

There's a yeti up on the surface. And well I'm not saying that we could hunt it for food if we get hungry, but... we could hunt it for food if we get hungry. Just a thought!

Oh huh, that's pretty early. Well you snooze you lose right. You guys got here early!

When they ask us what we want, we're not shy. We explain the fucked up caverns problem to them and they just sort of shrug because they don't really go to the caverns.

We've gotten enough marble blocks carved out and good enough rough gems to get enough plants, meat and fish to tide us over a good while longer, but before we can bring any of it downstairs... this happens? I've never seen this before.

I think it's because of this?? Are they all about to die of exposure?? Should I be glad I haven't even gone through everybody's character screens yet???

Nope after a few minutes everyone turned out fine. Nice. Another huge W for crabs. So here we have the beginning of our "starter base," where we intend to make sure we can get self-sufficient before we bother killing ourselves for the paper economy. It'll be... well more than just a little hard, all things considered, but up on the top the orthoclase buildings are our construction workshops, and all the cobaltite ones are for kitchen-related activities. Except for the farmers' workshop, which is kinda food but it kinda flexes to textile production too, which I suppose we'll need to do at least some of.

Then a random cave-in kills one of our bobbit worms and it just gets me thinking, dude something is really fucking wrong with this whole fortress. I just... I don't think this is going to work man. We can't grow anything, anywhere. I bet you think I'm exaggerating.

Look this is fucked. Cavern didn't work. Literally nothing up on the surface. We gotta pack this shit up man. We're gonna try this shit somewhere else. Tell the Queen that shit didn't work. Daarunbay Detevay is a glitchy fucking world sometimes. We're just gonna build the library somewhere else. Did you guys take the caravan apart yet? No? Ok good cause we're not going this far man. We're not doing the glacier thing, it's stupid. We're going to the woods a little south. Let's pack up and try this again.

[popculturebuffet]

CODENAME KIDS NEXT DOOR:OPERATION NAUGHTY REVIEW (comission for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy mutants. It's been way too long since i talked something x-men related and given the last time I did was … this

It's been even longer since I talked about something GOOD from the house of X. Thankfully Kev had an idea left over from last X-Mas that I was eager to jump on this X-Mas: Operation N.A.U.G.H.T.Y, Codename :Kids Next Door's classic christmas episode spoofing the strangest heroes of all. And the fantastic four because apparently this episode wasn't personally targeting me enough as is.

For those Krakoans not as familiar with KND, in short KND follows the Kids Next Door, a group of child superspies trying to fight adult tyranny. KND takes place in a world where many adults take up supervillany just to impose their will on kids, from forcing braces on them, to shipping kids to the moon so their parents have no excuse not to work a billion hours, to bras actually being battle ready armor and teens all being douchebags who want to bully kids. In short it's every sterotype about kids and childhood taken up to eleven, and given cool gadgets. The show evolved from our main five kids, super cool british super spy and tightwad Nigel Uno, carefree pilot Hoagie Gilligan, spacey plushie lover Kuki Saban, perpetually angry aussie Wallabe Beatles and cool as a cucumber second in command Abigail Lincoln, Numbahs 1 through 5 respectively.

The show evolved, starting as simply the kids ocasoinally harassing people and fighting weirdos who werne't taken seriously by the rest of the world into a complex epic with the KND becoming a global orginzation and our heroes being one of a large cast of other KND agents, kids and characters. The show had a tight, expansive continuity that I ate up as a kid and even now wish to go back and rewatch some day. IT's a show I deeply loved and still do admiring it' screativity and having a continuity way thicker than most shows at the time, but gloriously so.

The show also LOVED it's pop culture refrences, including an entire episode that was just a parody of a short form the Animatrix, a two parter following empire strikes back, and many more. If the creators could squeeze in something they loved, they would. So it's not a shock that.

So it's not a huge shock the show would one day tackle x-men, which is another franchise about disenfranchised outcasts fighting an unfair system that has a massive cast, mythology and nice dollops of batshit insanity. The fact the storytelling is similar to the claremont run of x-men, i.e. fun one off adventures with ocasoinal bigger multi parters with a tight continuity and clear plans for the arcs, just makes it all the more obvious to me as an adult. Not only that they did it TWICE, though we'll save operation S.A.F.E.T.Y. for another day. The fact they made their x-men shout out a christmas episdoe and based their elves of x more on the comics than the movies, depsite the movies being red hot at the time and rightfully so, is just icing on the cookie. So join me won't you for some KVX as we dive into operation N.A.U.G.H.T.Y.

We open with a Stan Lee style narration which just warms my heart. See back in the 80s Stan Lee did a LOT Of narration for marvel cartoons, including the failed 80's X-Men Pilot, Pryde of the X-Men, which I intend to review eventuallys. And while obviously I wa stoo busy not existing to see most of this, I did get a vhs tape of Firestar's origin episode in spider-man and his amazing friends, and I THINK pryde of the x-men as a kid, so I got to hear it plenty. So seeing someone tribute that and do a pretty good job capturing his energy if not his voice at all.. it really hits me right there.

It's Christmas Eve and the elves are all hard at work. THey even sing their own verison of the rainbow monkey rainbow monkey all very round and super chunky theme song, which is imbeded in my skull on a load bearing lobe. One elf isn't so jolly and that's Elf Logan, codename Wintergreen aka Weapon G. He's just here on santa's orders to keep an eye on things not to sing and dance and make presents.. which is fair. It'd be like asking your CIA assigned body guard to knit for you. That's not what there here for. There's one thing Wintergreen does best and what he does isn't very jolly.

Things quickly get all humbuggy as 5 familiar figures show up.. figures SEEMINGLY matching the KND.. but wearing masks and acting unusual. I mean showing up somewhere and shooting a bunch of adults with tranq dart,s including about 40 for Elf Logan because ti's the only way he sleeps at night. Otherwise he just strokes that picture of Elf Jean Grey longingly. It weirds the rest of the team out.

Still there's clear hints it's not them: besides the makss they dont' talk or yell. While they CAN be quite on a mission, it's usually not fo rlong and usually nigel would at least have to give out some order. Most dammingly.. you have Number 3 in a room full of Rainbow Monkeys and she DOSEN'T react? That.. that's not possibly her.

The elves reactions are also gold as their all holly and jolly even as their getting some mmmmm drugs. Even the one who yells at them for entering the REINDEER room tells them merry christmas. So they enter it and kindap the santy claws as we get our holly jolly credits.

One title explination later, we're back with what's the REAL sector V, though the special does do a good job keeping it ambigious: While most audiences first instnct, even child me, is to say "well of course it's not them" Numbah 4 mentions an icy fortress, and their all returning from somewhere that isn't revaled till later. Given this franchise it could just as easily be that Santa was evil or undre mind control or they stole it to save it from a greater danger. It's not of course but the fact we don't know if they did it and if it wasn't them who adds nicely to the tension and their are hints as to who.. but we'll get to those at the reveal.

Our heroes prepapre to head home, with Numbah 3 being the most excitable and kind of the group, happy to give Numbah 4 his gift. They have a very drawn out will they or won't they thing, though it's a bit more tolerable than most series as their children and Numbah 4 is in DEEP denial. Like jason fox or calvin insertlastname here levels of girls have cooties I don't have feelings YOU HAVE FEELINGS. STOP ASKING QUESTIONS. Their just kids so it works that it dosen't go anywhere and Kuki is empathetic enough I coudl see her patiently waiting for him to finally stop being a butt.

Turns out theres a snag as Wally didn't get her a present. Which is typical for him. What really clearly distresses numbah three.. is that NO ONE did. When she mentions a gift exchange EVERYONE else whitstles nonchanlantly and Nigie tries to change the subject as soon as possible. That makes what she does in the climax more understandable.. whlie Numbah 4's actions are crappy.. their typical for him. She's used to this dance in their relationship by now and for once he seems genuinely regretful till of course Numbah 5 teases him with a predictable response

But NONE of them, including Numbah 5 herself, bothering to get her a gift when she clearly wen tout of her way to get all of them one , especailly given how their one big family? Yeah that's far less forgiveable. She does, to her defense brush it off as it's better to give and receive but the gang has bigger issues. Someone has stolen the treehouse

Yeah this went from the ocasional shocking moment.. to being so common Nigel has a melt down over it and rightfully so. You'd get pissed too if your second home got kidnaped every other week. Though to answer his rhetorical question of "why", simple: it's your base of operations with all your stuff in it. Granted their flying bus thing MIGHT have some weapons stashed.. but given the KND also puts "blow up the engine buttons" on it's vehicles and how numbers 2 3 and 4 can be when it comes to actually doing their jobs at times, it's just as likely the emergency slot has a bunch of candy, broken rocks, comics, and rainbow monkeys instead of weapons. I mean it's still all useful it's just not when the best at what he does and friends come a knocking.

Naturally for wolverine's bootleg, Wintergreen is waiting propped on on one of the plane thingy's wheels with a candycane in mouth. Because if Marvel won't let the man who cannot get cancer and is in no remote danger of it smoke because "drugs are bad mkay" then Cartoon Network sure as heck won't.

I do love how they get Logan down so well though: After seein Garth ennis' attempts at parodying logan which were

That… it's nice to see one done with affection that really GETS the character: his manerisims, his attitude, his competnece, his sideburns, hell even how he looks shirtless. Which may be a weird thing to get down, but it's something that's been hilariously and weirdly consitant. That and the fact he goes shirtless a lot. The movies got some things right and other things horribly wrong, but the one thing they just downright nailed was that logan shows off those canadian abs a LOT. Him being shirtless is about as much of a costume to him as the old yellow and blues or the less used but still awesome browns and slightly lighter browns.

Point is it's very clear the writers of KND REALLY loved the x-men and this parody was done in good fun. The idea of making the X-Men into christmas elves is the weird kind of redressing this show is REALLY good at and it fits the x-men like a glove. As I like to repeat the x-men are REALLY fucking weird and i'm just skippy with it. Cyclops lived on the moon for a whlie, mutantkind as a whole lives on a sentient island that tried to murder them once, death is such a non factor that Mr. Sinsiters advice to seeing if ressurction will fix nightcrawler growing horns is just to shoot him, Storm is queen of mars with Magneto as one of her staunchest allies, and there's also Doop.

And most of that is just recent events. THey've fought demons, been to space so often mutankind is in good with a space empire with Xavier's clone daughter leading them, storm has merged with a space whale, an extradimeisdonal tv exective wants to record them for his shows, and one of them has a space dragon. The X-Men are so inherently gloriously insane that having an elf equivleant isn't the weirdest thing that's happened to them and finding out which one would be near impossible. Like I said though Wintergreen acts like Logan and it's thankfully not early days "will kill you just for looking at him sideways" logan, but later "calm and resonable but will cut a bitch if you cross him" logan. He asks for the REINDEER back civily wanting to avoid a fight. Our heroes are the ones who draw on him and while sure Elf Logan took their treehouse, they didn't bother to try and talk things out.

So we get KVX.. or KVE as the x-men here are Elpha Strike, a nice nod to alpha flight, a candian super team. Their really more like the avengers, down to having their own hulk in sasquatch, but since they started out in X-Men and are old friends of wolverine despite trying to kidnap him a few times, as you do with your buddies, their frequently part of the x-men. It helps they never really QUITE broke out like creator John Byrne was hoping.

So for this parody the team stuck with the classics, the four longest standing x-men who served as the teams core during Chris Claremont's legendary franchise defining run: You've met wintergreen who had peppermintium in his bones, but we also have Nutcracker, based on demonic looking german teleporter and badass preacher Nightcrawler (complete wtih telepoting and being mildly unsettling), Snow Angel, whose primarily based on queen of mars, former queen of wakanda and always survivor storm having her apperance and beign associated with the wather but also has shades of two other x-men; Ice man (having snow powers) and angel (having half the name and the wings), and finally conferous, based on Colosus. Sadly they didn't bring Elf Deadpool, nor an elf cyclops with visons of sugarplums. Maybe he was busy with Elf Madlyn Prior. I dunno.

Point is the fight is fun if mostly one sided: While the KND are good, they only have some chillip peper guns against people as strong as the uncanny x-men's best and just as skilled. The only reason the KND even turns the tied is their trying take the present Numbah 3 got for Numbah 4 thinking it's the reindeer and well.. Kuki may be one of the sweetest kindest people you'll ever meet in fiction but for fucks sake DO NOT. PISS HER. OFF. The fact she juggernaughts Elfa Strike all her own proves that. She even pantses Wintergreen and pushes him off the tree house stump.

Not wanting to do this because Numbah 3 would make a good new child sidekick but out of options Wintergreen calls in their strongest attack, the 12 days of christmas attack. Which is just dropping all those things on her. Including a danny partridge in a pear tree.

Wintergreen gets the present but SUPRISE it's just a special edition rainbow monkey which was where they were: in line at the offical store to get it as you can ONLY get it on christmas eve. Good thing it wasn't a tickle me wiggly. Wintergreen realizes wait something's off and BACK AT THE NORTH POLL, because Elpha Strike didn't think to check the room where the REINDEER you know was or comb it for Santa or the REINDEER itself as Kev pointed out to me because.. I guess they were hungry ? I mean I know how much wolverines love turkey

WE find out who it was: The Delightful Children From Down the Lane, a creepy hive mind of children and our heroes arch enemy. Their so called good children.. who instead bully and harass other children and try to take things from them as they feel entitled to it. Since they all loook similar enough, they easily pulled this off. It's also nice foreshadowing for a twist of just where they came from later. I dont know if this was setup or they just decided on it later and it fit into place but well played.

Naturally their NOT on the nice list being you know, evil little shits, but being ENTITLED evil shits, they've decided to use the REINDEER to get the presents they feel owed while everyone else gets coal.

The REINDEER itself is a clever concept, santaizing another X-Men concept; Cerebro. It's a cool looking metal helmet that telepaths, i.e. Charles Xavier or Jean Grey mainly, can use to find any mutant. It's also now backup for any mutants personality so they can be brought back from the dead.

This is the only part of the parody really taken from the movies as a big metal walkway leading into a giant dome room wasn't really a thing for cerebro till the movies, though its now so iconic it wasn't relaly changed till charles started wearing it full time. And it';s as dope looking as it sounds

It also has a neat grid and is how santa delivers presents: he links up with it and gives presents to any kid he finds nice and giving coal to the naughty. He also warns that like Cerebro it's a LOT. Not everyone can handle it which the Delightfuls naturally ignore.

So as the Delightfuls try to steal christmas, our heroes arrive at the poll, now all on the same page as most superhero team ups go: you fight a bit, realize you were bamboozled and then kick the ass of who made the misunderstanding happen. The Delightfuls just.. shut the door and reveal their contegency: Edna Jucation, a bitter susbtitue teacher whose mad Christmas overshadows substitute teachers day

And who unelashes the faculty four, a teachertastic verison of the fantastic four. WE have mr physically phtiastic, who instead of the skinny and stretchy genius reed richards is a buff gym teacher who can stretch, the unteillgible tutor who instead of the mepahtetic and unstoppable invisble sue storm is an headache inducing branaic, the human text , the human torch but made of paper instead of fire and fuckboy energy, and thesarsus rex… whose a dinosaur made of books instead of a grumpy brooklyn rock man because the pun was too awesome not to use. They were apparently suppsoed to be the secretary squad.. but Cartoon Network didn't think kids would get office jokes. Which sucks.. but is probably right and the faculty four fit the knds rogues better nad honestly i'm shocked they didn't fight our heroes again. They aren't any weirder or less specific than the foes our heroes usually face

Elfa Strike takes them on while Winty has our heroes sneak in. They find the delightfuls… all with grinch face and BEGGING for help. Turns out that's what abusing the REINDEER does, so our heroes yank it away from them with Santa's help and all is well right? Everyone's ready to call it a day, with Santa being greatful and it's a nice touch that Santa is one of the few non-parent adults our heroes fully trust. Even Nigel, who distrusts any adult who isn't a parent on sight, is happy to see the big guy. Even an anti-adult orginization knows Santa is an ally.

Problem is.. Kuki found the reindeer and while she intends to use it for good, to give her friends even more presents.. power corrupts and even the nicest soul has her hate and reseintment over her friends screwing her over take her over, going full Dark Phoenix and preparing to do what the delightfuls did. Santa has only one option: Send Numbah 4 In

We get a nice bit too as Santa outright tells Numbah 4 "You think if I had another option i'd be sending YOU?". And he's right as Wally giving Kuki his french fries is a warm enough gesture, she drops it instantly. Santa thanks the knd, but asks them to get stepping as he only has minutes to undo the damage. We do get a really nice moment with him and Numbah 3 though: she's genuinely sorry, on the verge of tears. .but he forgives her. He gets that the REINDEER is simply THAT powerful, and that she's truly sorry. SHe's a goo done. We also get a nice gag to cap things off as it's reveald Elfa Strike simply used the tree as a christmas tree for ice skating ala time square. Merry Christmas to all and al la good night bub.

This episode is excellent, a true christmas classic that not only combines two great tastes that taste awesome togehter, but is just a fun christmas story. It's not every show that could pull off christmas of x.. but not every show is KND. Thanks for reading.

[loopy777]

Whats your thoughts on stories where the author has things planned out, but during the story he/she creates a unplanned character relationahip/dynamic that unexpedtedly becomes one of THE defining aspects of the series.

You'll find plenty of such things across manga, anime, comics, animated series, etc, and plenty of movies has sequels where the main protagonists are shuffled around to reflect what ended up working in the first movie, shuffling the intended second leads to the sides(not exactly a dynamic, but one of the most famous shuffles is Jack Sparrow becoming the main character of the franchise).

The bigger question about this aspect of storytelling is of course how an author should react. In planned narratives, do you think its better if they do change things up, or should they stay the course?

Im reminded of Soul Eater, where the unexpected success of the dynamic between the female lead, and her rival villain turned friend crona ended up being the single best part about it, and came to dominate the later part of the manga... But the mangaka wasnt willing to go all the way with it at the end, creating a very anger inducing ending, while the anime adaption was basically the reverse of Brotherhood and 2003 in terms of quality, but while an integral part about it, maka and Crona's relationship was not reshuffled into becoming the defining dynamic about the series... But while the anime ending is much better than the manga, the removal of Crona from the final villain also meant that he and Maka had no relation whatsoever, creating a very lackluster her/villain dynamic.

So it was a mixed bag. The anime could have been perfect in terms of its ending if it fully embraced the suprising hit that was Chrona and Maka's dynaimc and relationahip, but managed a relatively good ending, while the mangaka chickened out at the last moment in regards to their relationahip, leaving it withouth any sort of closure or climax, despite being the single most defining character part of Maka's journey.

And thats just one single, example qbout this kind of reshuffling in regarda to suprise character hits. Im sure you have your own examples of dynamics you ended up loving that was not planned to be so good it became a mainstay.

With an addendum:

Also just a quick clarification, when i said the soul eater manga/anime was the opposite in terms of 2003/brotherhood, i meant the manga started off terrible, had an infuriated ending, and a lot of bad points though, while the anime version was for the most part a solid, great anime from start to finish with a decent, if not spectacular, anime only ending. I probably worded that very badly in the initial ask.

Well, I think it depends. With a work with a primary commercial nature -- that is to say, a work where the primary intent is to sell new installments to the audience over making some kind of artistic statement -- I think the author's job is to shift things as needed to increase and/or maintain the audience. That's not to say they should automatically give audiences what they (think they) want, but if a certain unexpected character or element is providing the most satisfaction, then why wouldn't they pivot on that?

In a lot of cases, that kind of thing comes about because the rest of work is more generic, and the audience is focusing on the original or deeper-rendered elements. For example, I don't think there are any people left who actually think Korra should have gotten back together with Mako at the end of LoK instead of starting a romance with Asami, even though you can see the sloppy welding lines where that whole thing was hastily added to an existing structure. Getting Makorra would have been a mediocre-at-best implementation of something we'd seen a billion times before, where Korrasami was groundbreaking despite being hastily scrawled in pencil on a printed script.

That said, one of the great thing about plans is that they're a handy guide to how to change the plan. If you know what you need to set up for your ending, and you now want to change some of those necessary steps, you can see that you need to change your ending, and you not only have an idea of what new path you might now be starting on but you also know what other resources you have to construct a new ending.

That said, I'm a big fan of the idea that a story's ending should be a reflection and/or final statement of what the whole work is about. If your audience isn't responding to the setup for that, your story is not working and at this point -- whether or not you change your plan -- you're probably aiming just to swim to a shore before you drown. If you need to keep afloat on a popular element for a while before bringing things to a hasty and dissatisfying conclusion, at least you were employed for a while and maybe got some good merchandising going.

So I think that's what's going on with your Soul Eater example, although I know nothing about either that manga or anime, so I'm just going by your summary. The original idea wasn't compelling, or at least wasn't anything special. The question then is why the author wasn't able to find a new ending to reflect the more interesting focus.

Well, my understanding is manga production is so fast-paced that there probably wasn't an opportunity for the author to sit down and figure out a new plan. Planning is very involved if you want to create a powerful, resonate work, and manga needs to be written and drawn on a weekly basis. I don't know if Soul Eater kept to that schedule, but the impression I have is that -- aside from a few superstars who have the riches and privilege to take a week off if they're delirious with fever -- manga-production is one of those professions like soldiers, deep-sea fishermen, and Black Friday retail assistants where we expect a high death rate and just consider it the cost of an essential job for society's function. So the publisher might have not given the author the time to both produce the manga and figure out where the new path is going; after all, by the time it ends, the publisher probably has a new hot seller and the audience has already bought all the Soul Eater plastic statues they need.

That all sounds very cynical, because it is, and in the end, I don't know that I can advocate a principle here. It isn't about art. Making changes can create an awkward work that maybe fizzles out in the end. But not making changes can create an elegant work that never even gets to the finish line.

There are also works where the author maintained discipline, stuck to a plan and didn't give in to fan-service, and created something powerful and resonate. There are also works where a little structural clunkiness is almost completely ignored compared to how satisfying its audience finds the overall product.

Ideally, a nice mix can be found. For all that we criticize George Lucas for his lack of collaboration in the Star Wars prequels, he did all but cut Jar-Jar out of the second and third movies in that trilogy, and that wasn't because of his own personal whims. And I think we can all agree that was for the better.

As far as my own storytelling experiences go, I did alter my plans for Traitor's Face to give Zhao more of a role in response to reader comments. He certainly didn't take over the story, and didn't even become a primary antagonist, but I did give him some plot points that would have gone to other characters. Of course, it helps that there was a lot of other compelling stuff in that story (or so I flatter myself, but come on, those mysteries rocked), so I didn't need to lean on Zhao to keep reader interest. It also helps that no publisher was pushing me to turn my fanfic into a massive blockbuster franchise keeping the lights on for everyone for the next ten years.

So my final position is that I'm a sell-out, but I think I would be very good at selling out, if anyone has any money they want to throw at me.

[hopeymchope]

David Zaslav removes Shenmue & Blade Runner from anime streaming, cancels Shenmue season 2, continues to be a piece of shit

AAHHHHHHHHHHGGGGHH I HATE THIS MOTHERFUCKER SO FUCKING MUCH

David Zaslav, the former head of Discovery who is now in charge of the merged Warner Bros. Discovery — and whom I’ve previously ranted about at length — is continuing to do his best to destroy art, make creators’ works inaccessible, end all joy and hope, and basically be a massive fucking sack of severed dicks. 

LET”S RUN DOWN ALL OF HIS CRIMES SO FAR!

Fuck this shitheel.

1) David Zaslav’s tenure at Discovery is widely despised by employees. He insisted on moving operations out of the former HQ in Silver Spring MD — which has been devastating to that town’s economy — to instead focus on LA and New York City, where he prefers to be. He started a big corporate budget centered on purchasing trendy clothing for the C-suite so that they can “look cool.” He’s laid off tons of staff. He has a reputation for being an authoritarian CEO who regularly makes unilateral decisions without bothering to value anyone else’s opinion.

2) Upon taking over Warner Bros Discovery, his first act was to demote or remove all female and black department heads at Warner Bros. He replaced them all with white men from Discovery. He said they needed to focus on “the best person for the job” instead of “forced diversity.” ........ Uh-HUH. Right. Sure.

3) He then shitcanned two movies that were already filmed and nearly complete (and which had already cost $130 million dollars in development/creation, which is now just being thrown in a TOILET) AND were already testing either “good” or “EXTREMELY good” in screenings because he personally didn’t like them (reminder: no one else’s opinion matters) and doesn’t believe movies should be made for streaming, which these were. He wants HBO Max to stop having its own content (and to heavily move towards hosting reality TV-based content like Discovery). This was also supposedly done to get a tax write-off of $10 million by not releasing these films, although every single tax lawyer and IRS agent who’s been interviewed agrees that doesn’t make one lick of sense. 

4) This was all part of his supposed effort to reduce the company’s budget by billions. To that same end, he ended countless deals that allowed HBO Max to host tons of shows, including original works that were exclusive to the service and now exist nowhere, in any form. This was done without warning in most cases. Just loads of movies and animated shows erased from existence because he didn’t want to pay the fraction-of-a-percent licensing fee. Many of the creators - writers, producers, directors, other talent - have been posting in tears to various social media, pleading for whatever copies people have made illegally or for Warner Discovery to provide them with SOME copy of their work, because otherwise IT’S ALL JUST. FUCKING. GONE.

And now, his latest shitty action...

5)  He stopped all funding to Adult Swim (Warner Bros. owns Cartoon Network and Adult Swim) for original anime productions, INCLUDING cutting off their licenses to continue hosting those productions online. This means that the English dubs of SHENMUE: The Animation and Blade Runner: Black Lotus no longer exist online (....legally). More importantly, apparently SHENMUE: The Animation performed well enough that they were intending to fund a second season based on Shenmue III... which is now not going to happen, because Zaslav has stripped away all that funding. 

This is exactly how I feel about David Zaslav. ... OK, not the part about his family dying.

God, and I love Shenmue and adored the anime adaption. I would’ve loved to see more of it. I would’ve loved to see so much of this content that is now gone some day. I heard such wonderful things about Infinity Train. Batgirl was looking killer and Brendan Fraser was particularly getting a lot of praise for how he played one of my favorite lesser-known Batman villains. And it’s all just... gone. People are losing their jobs, losing years of work, and millions of dollars being flushed away... just, what the FUCK.

[qworflordking]

Hey! Just to tell you I loved your critique against that Achilles Song book and I agree with you that I hate how Greek (and at lesser or more degree Roman or Egyptian) classics are changed in a nonsense way just to please the modern reader and give them a progressive agenda to the characters.

Just for curiosity, what do you think about fantasy media that is inspired in ancient Greek myths and legends like Percy Jackson books or Saint Seiya?

Dunno, those were my faves when I was a kid (but I have not checked them since at least 10 years ago, lol), but, seeing how the Percy Jackson fans try to portrait themselves as all knowing about Greek culture, while actually not engaging in the classics and refusing to know about Ancient Greek history and culture. The Saint Seiya guys seem more normal, but I'm not sure if Greek people just saw the anime as a gross cultural appropiation like Hercules from Disney or they actually did not mind it.

An interesting ask to receive, thanks! And hm... I don't really know? I haven't read Percy Jackson or Saint Seiya so I can't comment. It all depends on the media in question - it's nice to see so many people like it, but our ancient legacy is kind of all Greece has right now. The economic depression, the ecological impact on the islands that's been happening, the fact that it's mainly considered a tourist destination for wealthier Europeans and the bitter state of the modern Greek youth - and yet we have this legacy we feel so connected to despite all the years between, lmao.

My family is from Sparta - a small rural village just outside it, actually - and so when the movie 300 came out the hype was unreal. Like King Leonidas is a cultural hero, there's still a monument to him in Sparta - they were making a movie about our guy! I saw it with twenty Greeks, all Spartans... and they hated it. They were yelling at the screen, they were so upset, and none of them knew what a Frank Miller comic book was. I recently tried to rewatch it and had to turn it off at the scene with the ephors and the oracle. Don't get me started on Troy, lol.

Otoh, I recently enjoyed Hades (the game) though I avoided it for a while. It's bright and colorful, the gods are strange and erratic, and it's tons of fun. Demeter grief-stricken at the loss of her daughter, Persephone avoiding Hades and Hades being angry and bitter - that was great. (I could go into a whole tangent about how people are actually erasing the voices and pain of ancient women when they woke-ify Hades and Persephone, but.)

The essential thing is this: the ancient Greeks were capable of criticizing their own culture. We invented philosophy: the art of sitting around talking about what's wrong with society and how we might fix it. They wrote plays - plays that won awards, that were preserved unto this day! - that served as a feminist critique of their classic heroic myths. Going back to the 300 film, while it's true oracles were often sexually abused, they noticed that was a problem and made changes to prevent that. There's this attitude people take to ancient cultures a lot where they think people were just... stupid, and wholly swallowed everything, and then they're gonna write their critique of their problematic beliefs without considering the humanity and knowledge of people who lived thousands of years ago.

You don't need to completely change the themes and meaning and significance of our stories, but what you can do is humanize them. Rather than hole them up in some white-walled Ivory Tower of Academia bring them out as they were - intended to be funny, intended to make you think - while preserving the historical context. I have dreams of making an Odyssey film (that some EU arts fund needs to give me a billion dollars to make. also, i am a legendary respected filmmaker in this fantasy) that would bring economic prosperity to the Greek islands and also make it /funny/, showing that Odysseus was a trickster figure who fit ancient heroic definitions of being a wild celebrity figure rather than a Hollywood Hero. Making it clear that his wife was just as smart as him and they were a love-match and making Athena buff as hell and swapping into a man's body, even making Odysseus black - none of that would be modernizing the story to suit our woke tastes. It would piss the hell off a lot of supposed "Classics" fans.

Ultimately, though, having fun with the mythos isn't actually harmful. What is harmful, what genuinely upsets me on a fundamental level, is how Le Classics have been incorporated into this great ideal of Western Civilization and then been appropriated by white supremacists. Here's a great blog doing the good work going into it in detail, but twisting ancient culture to fit your own modern ideals is just.... not good for anyone, lol.

EDIT: ...In my last post I was like "why is tumblr recommending me eurofash propaganda" and I just realized. Liking ancient greek culture and the classics is probably why 0__0

[unproduciblesmackdown]

spent the evening reading through all of the like galley pdf copy of the 2 trans 2 furious zine and a great time start to finish like it was Not an effort to keep at it despite its being like 160 pgs. and despite my not having ever seen a f&f movie or really especially directly "correctly" being interested, though i'd ofc love to see any of the films like live & in person w/a bunch of trans strangers, say

laughed and teared up multiple times and thought about how impressive and creative entries were and like, the momentum was easy, everything was engaging and intriguing and invigorating and enriching....and Printed Editions (that ship to US & canada) are still available for pre-order, for about another week (also the window given for us going over the digital copy for edits/corrections lol) soooo. again i like haven't seen any f&f movies, and that didn't impede anything at all, and it was a fantastic time:

and another reason i'm like Oh My God So Appropriate To Have Sent In An Entry is how, like, it's all transformative fun and serious yet not somber Media Analysis on media you don't have to have actually even seen, or "like" straightforwardly, or at all, or be the "correct" audience for, or have an "intended" interpretation, lol, lmao....like this is Extremely our shit out here lol, what one is up to all the time in the world of Billions Series Analysis like, personally haven't even seen it, i'm not cishet enough to be the intended audience or otherwise sharing various particular assumed perspectives that are occasionally required to even parse, much less enjoy, some material....and yet!!

and like, if there was an all-autistic contributor's fun fan media analysis / commentary / parody / exploration / transformation / etc zine about billions? it'd be like wow how exactly me, and yet ofc i'd be at way more of a loss at what to scream abt winnie, perhaps ft. & tay, and the overall [billions]ing, much less how to actually execute that lol. it was easier to do a Very 101 Intro To: Cam Stone Exists Btw, nonbinarily, in that i limited myself to One Page so i could actually feasibly get it done, but in doing so i, as expected, could only say a fraction of what i could say about cam, were i explaining things in full / just unleashed, and skim the surface but just go "they exist btw and here's a tiny bit of further 101 info." it's not like, An Issue, b/c i don't think the [everything] that i could say would work great in full, and i can't write a great little short form piece of text about them (or winston, or anything else)....but it was also like, well if a trans f&f zine Doesn't have the trans f&f character in it then what are we doing, and We Know Of Cam Stone, so the most feasible [handing out a flyer] version of telling ppl they exist has gotta be done

and it's like, it's (relatively?) matter of fact to this end of only having so much room to put in words, and definitely ending up having to squeeze lines in vs struggling to fill the space. it could've been weirder, or funnier, or hornier, but it successfully exists and maybe it's a little weird, funny, and horny (drew an Especially [ooh sexy cam stone]-tinged pic lol) and whatever is difficult for me to perceive abt my own personality infusion in whatever, like how i have to be reminded like oh right, my Art Style, the way that Eye draw lol....and of course, i can't and don't expect my one page informative crash course intro to cam stone to be able to be Everything, any more than years' worth of lots of [winston billions] material in various formats of various extensiveness from various angles has been Everything. and the zine as a whole can't be Everything but it is, in fact, So Much abt So Many Things from so many different approaches. i enjoyed everything, especially like, "An Ode to X" as in fast x, which evolves into "x" as an (implicitly nonbinary) in-universe character and i was Moved and teared up, and i see it immediately follows "Jason Statham Will Call My Dad A Pussy In Fast 12" which moved me and made me tear up, which follows an entry that's a haiku about each film, none of which i've seen, which i didn't get misty about of course but was fully engaged with and enjoys, which follows my entry

there's naturally plenty about roads and horizons and racing and speed and i'm also like, i'm a gay who can drive, and i can feel it re: the trans contributor whose entry mine follows which is about their irl experiences driving in a demolition derby, inspired by f&f. and i can feel it re: enjoying f&f beyond how you're "supposed" to, or how you would in a cishet(tm) way, and how so many of these entries had resonance, and that intrigue and engagement, and lenses on where to find explorations of gendering which will kind of Have to come up whenever anything succeeds in approaching things that are genuine and really truly more To Life, even while the point of f&f is not to be "realistic," especially about, you know, the driving and what you can do with cars, which i fully appreciate and definitely understood more for cam stone being in a story ramming through a wall outracing an avalanche hacking cop cars and defusing bombs and ramping over bucket wheel mining excavators and being swept out of the way of a train that was going full speed but silent until like 0.05 sec ago when it also burst through a wall or something? and whomever all is involved with racing like a rocket launch fr. and having fun, being yourself, and killing people, hell yeah

and like, the [this is like my autistic ass out here laser pointing at winston billions as autistic and having that lens on this media that doesn't intend it or directly invoke it] relevance also Of Course in that, through kompenso, that is where it is like yes as i have that personal symposium of ongoing compounding unfolding branching distilling consideration, analysis, appreciation, transformation, etc going on, so too does my colleague as the world's preeminent tayficionado, which is where they looked into akd's oeuvre and found the cam stone material, and passed it on to me, then passed on the [zine call for trans f&f contributions], So

and that, just like as is also found crucially in kompenso / the then preexisting & all eventually following winnie n tay material, there's that Autistic and Trans resonance. some particular quotes from this zine were especially like, oh, pointing, pointing...."Thirty minutes into my visit, I suddenly just didn’t want to be there anymore. I didn’t feel angry, not really very sad at all either. I just longed to be elsewhere. A different place, with different people, within a different moment. And then every cell in my body pleaded to not feel that way in all of my moments, in every group of people, in all places." ....[from a poem, ft. formatting thusly:] "It made me feel important, kind of? Like, more present? Like people talked about me a lot but never exactly about ME, if you know what I mean. I mean, of course sometimes I could feel something inside of me. A sneaking or, like, a skittering. I just kind of figured everyone feels that sometimes, like really deep down, right? It’s just that no one really talks about it, you know. That’s what I figured." ....[from a section of a contribution w/the context of the author not yet knowing that they're trans]: "but he was familiar and didn’t make me think too critically about much in the world, especially myself, especially as he never seemed too interested to ask me about me—not that I would’ve had much insight to share at the time beyond “please do not think too deeply about how I am.”"; and then, w/the context that they do realize, and have expressed, that they're trans: "but I was still learning about the concept of mattering, so I didn’t push the issue of basic respect at the time." ....from another submission, that is Sooo: "maybe i am transing Fast and Furious just by loving it" ...."Discovering, loving, and sharing this franchise (and myself) with others has been such a wildly different experience—maybe even the opposite experience—than self-policing myself into who I thought I should be. It’s nourishing, welcoming—an open invitation to learn and grow rather than an ongoing test to constantly worry about failing."

an ongoing test to constantly worry about failing....here ofc a parallel to Gendering, and, ofc, the autistic & trans [handshake] and resonance, to Autisting....i resonated with plenty, genderingly, but this wasn't a surprise or even like, my focus, and of course not all the entries themselves Textually mention [gendering], but it's like, a trans space in a zine lol, a baseline of that understanding and perspective, vs having to be actively looking. nonzero textual neurodivergence mentions, too, and other lenses of ways to be Othered / non normative, like race, nationality, religion. the overarching, Constant [omg sooo me] resonance is that of like, having this foundation of refusing Limits, of approaching a Rich Text a hundred different ways, w/different tones, and different formats, and different experiences and ideas explored. you don't need the source material to acknowledge any noncishet people textually exist (to be understood by noncishet audiences), or to be deemed Good, or Enjoyed, or your entry to be proffered as like, correct and definitive rather than One exploration you could offer up, amongst many offered by many others who could say more, again, differently....i've been like, balancing excitement for having this contribution, and its being like ooh fancy lol this is the one time i can say i have (non self-)published work, and it'll be Out There, and (including all contributors' gifted copies) apparently that ft. abt a thousand printed copies atm, and the digital distribution option hasn't happened yet....along with, like, it can't even be my comprehensive, definitive [cam stone exists btw] theoretical Ideal Entry lol b/c that would not be feasible for me to make or to be put into a zine. knowing i have Points on my side for it being crucially relevant lore (and the competition being hotter for the small form text entries, though there's other illustrations, comics, collages, edits, etc) like, yeah the strength of this isn't in its being as weird or funny or horny as anything could be, lol....but my Personality is embedded in it as per like, see: how that Journey of relevant interests and enthusiasms and engagements and perspectives and weirder, hornier, more extensive and varied works led up to and contribute to this piece's existence (such as, years of drawing winston 9000 times being part of how my drawing looked in march, when i made the cam stone piece)

and like, in not seeing everything as a test to fail, in seeing [when are you seeing things as that test to fail], &/or similarly/overlappingly seeing [when are you seeing things as a test to Prove Value to others or something and achieve person status in their eyes b/c of it] like, lol, i hope a thousand plus ppl learn cam stone exists, and it'd be fun if they enjoy that process. put in little floaty hearts as flair, just as i often do, b/c by now i just Know and Embrace that i do. and i'm not like "i hope everyone ever is blown away" b/c why would they be lol, and that's fine. like how even in [i just say some shit abt winston billions, and ofc abt myself and my experiences / perspectives through winston billions while knowing that's not what's "meant" out here probably maybe though put me through to will roland, yknow...] i'm like oh don't be thinking abt proving your value w/this specific oeuvre lol like. anyone Caring as validation like, it's too late by now, i like people liking shit and getting anything out of it but it's like, i'm doing my thing, i'm having a specific ass symposium abt quantent and billionsing "wrong" that eye enjoy, i enjoy getting any feedback/attention on shit i put out there in case ppl wanna partake, i don't enjoy any/all of it in any/all ways just so long as it's Anything, yknow. like same with interactions/attention on Me as an autistic person who actually exists, lol. speaking being exhausting when it's ppl saying shit At me, would-be "positive" attention that's from someone like deciding what i'm like or what i'm communicating and wanting something from me, that shared discussion Abt something can only be a gateway into like "normal" exchanges to "normally" socialize, finding that pattern of not being worth effort unless it's effort that gets something out of hurting you / thwarting you; all versus: i have plenty of expertise knowing myself vs needing feedback, i like doing my thing, i like doing my thing Alongside others, probably strangers, within a certain context, like being cooped up at college and socially recharging by going ""alone"" to the coffeeshop down the block, while going "with" people would generally be a mixed bag if not disheartening to even distressing. which, here i am, doing my little thing alongside strangers in this context of transgendering and fun and serious but not not funny and varying and daring and earnest materials exploring something that's about anything or everything or nothing, and not made for You, but here you are anyways, as you always have been

anyways, that is to say, like, perfect that it's turned out so like "yeah you don't need to have seen the movies even" and such enriching Reflections and like, so different and yet cohesive without needing to like, painstakingly group or order things to create some Connections, they're all there, and i'm like damn yeah cam's quarter-mile V neck, so fucking true. and i'm like, this is so Me, without having to be like, "and that is b/c i have put Me on the page, in full, with utmost success, and Everyone Will Love It (Me)" lol, which was not like, a danger, but that's through all the years of going [everything is a test i'm failing / can fail at any moment] and yknow, even up to recently and this very moment wrangling with and realizing things like, hand on shoulder are you looking to "earn" some estimation of Value in others' eyes that they can only choose to give by seeing everyone as a fellow person w/inherent value who deserves basic respect. like the mortality mondays that ramped up since late january, but also since '09, but also since like forever in different forms, and back when first discovering billions and, for like the only time while we've been watching, Knowing when everything in a season will air, but also not thinking i'd get to see it, and now in a similar boat, but different (having done "nothing" on paper over the years but like, been Realizing Things, been powering up, been assigning the Value to myself and Understanding myself & my experiences further. and also other things that you Could put on paper, but yknow), and like, it's still about [grr let me see billions through, even though i don't even see billions] and still about [!!!] despite it all and things that are "unserious" and also not and who needs like a certain kind of validation from enough of certain kinds of people

anyways, the autistique resonance within it, and in the process of reading it, and having our specific path to sending something in, and making it. it's an excellent ride and it's very epic that it exists so consider that print copy preorder if you want (plus the intended eventual digital distribution option, not yet available)

[the-firebird69]

And there's other news and the entire warlock fleet is sitting off Earth towards Mars and they're going to start sending contingents to Mars. And that fleet is partially heating up we see 100 billion and they intend to move closer to Mars they want to decide and study the mask it's the primary goal and the rest of the fleet will be remaining behind it's about 400 billion total and it's all the different groups of warlock except pseudo empire

-the group of 3.5 billion it has been tormenting Hera for the past couple days has become more excited and I'm more silent and they spent too much time in space they're probably in between Venus and Mars somewhere and they suspect the people aboard are dying they're trapped there and they have no place to go we expect them to be gone in a couple days

-further there are three or four people here need out and we're going to work on it

-and there's a another fight that's brewing and we did mention the 100 billion detachment going to Mars from the warlock fleet of the pseudo empire are sending 100 and 20 billion. This effect they will wipe each other out if they heard we heard talked with them stopping at 100 billion if he thought they couldn't do anything each side and that's a little bit much

-it begins starting to fight over Mars in space and spaceships last night. They're fighting is intense and has intensified. There are no bystanders if you want her over to get hit and they fit funny they have hit plenty. Right now the Mac morlock are out there in the pseudo empire and actually there fighting will conclude shortly they're going to be done. Please do the empire sudo empire to have 120 billion ships and the more I can't warlock had a hundred b. Now they both have only a few billion took only a few hours and they're both prepping to send more

They are repositioning about 100 billion each and you pseudo empire would be left at this rate they have a few more chips left from the last battle they also have 300 billion ships and the more luck have 200 billion after this battle do you pseudo empire will have 200 billion and the morlock will hv 100 billion. Is a heck of a battle and it will be a deciding factor as to who will be around here it is a big day and a huge day and Tommy f will be fighting the pseudo empire after

This is very huge news and we're going to print

Thor Freya

Olympus

He says he wonders if the face is doing the surgeries that would be the clans

Thor Freya

Okay so I made fun of it for my comments no my style that's great. That's correctly says Jesus. Now this is an interesting thing those come up with this but me and now he has and it says what I was thinking is it up there they're normal and they leave as aliens looks like you couldn't figure it out but I think he just didn't want to say it. Shoot the sort of says it but he didn't put out there clearly and to me it was fairly clear but he said that he sees that people went there a long time ago and where converted and I've been doing experiments on people and the people who were there a long time ago left a while ago that's another thing she doesn't know if it's still doing the experiments or not but he thinks that people were joined and I figured out how to use some sort of 3D recorder as one of them told people what they did I left a message that's really incredible that is in a movie I never seen anything like this his clan and hers are out of this world with stuff

Timmy d

[watching-pictures-move]

Put On Your Raincoats | The Affairs of Janice (Colt, 1976)

This review contains mild spoilers.

The mix of overheated marriage melodrama and grimy '70s horror porno is so intriguing that I'm willing to give this a slight recommendation even if I don't think it works all that well. This is directed by and stars Zebedy Colt, from whose Terri's Revenge and The Devil Inside Her I previously enjoyed and which continue to grow in my esteem. Neither movie is terribly erotic, but both have an off kilter energy that give the proceedings a certain charge. This one starts off promisingly, first with a Sunset Boulevard style introduction, and then presenting us with an artist husband increasingly resentful of his more sexually successful wife, who opts to insult him at every opportunity. As she says in one of many juicy lines in the overly literate dialogue: "George can't swim a stroke. The only way George is going to drown is in a bottle of gin."

The problem is that Colt has never seemed interested in making sex seem appealing, and that comprises the bulk of the sex scenes in this movie. Aside from a kinkier scene between Annie Sprinkle and Ras Kean, the former of whom is always a welcome presence in these things and the latter of whom bears an unfortunate resemblance to one of a certain former president's sons, most of the scenes outside of the climax are fairly vanilla and depicted in a pretty boring, straightforward way, with minimal stylization. (We get a bit of blurring during a lesbian scene, and some slack cutting to Colt's reaction during a threesome.) There's little of the ickiness or weirdness of those other movies' sex scenes that make them work in the context of their respective narratives. ("The sex isn't weird enough!", he complained after watching a billion pornos.)

I also think the movie's environment does no favours for its intended tone. This looks to have been shot in the same country house Colt often shot in (and I believe owned), and the airy, relaxed atmosphere of this property does not complement the overcooked melodrama playing out. You can see this same property better complement the folk horror atmosphere of The Devil Inside Her, or the way a crumbling urban environment gives Terri's Revenge a sense of claustrophobia. And both those movies star Terri Hall, whose unusual screen presence gives them a certain unpredictable energy. Here, Crystal Sync is enjoyable enough as the bitchy socialite wife, but while I normally like C.J. Laing, I don't think she's able to carry the movie, and the conventional sex scenes put her talents for rough stuff to waste. ("The sex isn't unpleasant enough!", he complained again.)

That being said, things pick up in the climax. We get Colt falling apart, punching a wall so his hand bleeds, and then moping around his studio, his work towering over him so as to exaggerate his growing derangement. We get murder by leather cuffs and lead body paint and also by brutal unconscious fisting, acts presented with substantially more charge than any of the earlier sex scenes. And we get a newspaper montage and superimposed spookery to tie up the plot. The execution of this stretch doesn't match the forcefulness of the climax of The Devil Inside Her, with its kinky filter-heavy lightshow freakout, but there are interesting aesthetic ideas here, perhaps enough to save the movie if you can wait out the more trying earlier sections.

[anxious-burrito-babe]

an incredibly unnecessary linguistic analysis of like twenty seconds of dialogue in prey (2022)

I was really surprised to see this movie explore themes of gender, siblinghood, and power. there's a scene where Naru and Taabe are really grappling with this as she tries to convince him to help her hunt the predator:

NARU: We need to go back out. Far, beyond the ridgeline. TAABE: No. NARU: Kay well I’ll hunt alone if I have to TAABE: You can’t. NARU: Do I need your permission, war chief? TAABE: It’s not about permission. You can’t. I had to carry you back.

here, Naru is clearly mocking Taabe and the authority he apparently assumes over her. Taabe doesn't deny the "chief" comment, but instead attempts to explain that, based on the previous scene, she lacks the ability to follow through on her goals. in his eyes, she is putting herself in harm's way.

what really struck me here (because I'm a huge nerd) is the word "can't" here. for a native English speaker, permission and ability are tangled up in this word. through the economy of this exchange, the audience easily understands that Naru is not simply struggling against traditional gender roles, but a similarly frustrating underestimation of her ability. this scene is a brilliant set-up for later moments in the movie where Naru ultimately takes advantage of how she is continuously underestimated.

but my question (again, being a massive nerd) is: what happens to this scene in the Comanchee dub? how does that version engage with the question of permission and ability?

it's difficult to tell from the subs alone, which are a (in my opinion) messy gloss toward the English dialogue. to my eternal outrage, there are no subtitles in Comanche. if I wanted to find out exactly what the actors were saying, well, I'd have to transcribe as best I could as a non-native speaker and make do with online Comanche language resources. for the curious, I'm including an incredibly shitty and lazy transcript of the dialogue that I used to work out what was going on. if by any chance any Comanche see this post, I would love to hear any corrections (otherwise do not at me bc as a linguist about to start my phd kI’m already ashamed of the transcript LMAO). anyway, here's what I managed to cobble together after listening to ten second segments of dialogue fifty billion times, with the subtitles written in parentheses:

NARU: u:k pitsaku. u:nitu mirak (We need to return there, going that way) TAABE: oi (No) NARU: megu nana patakh mia (Well I’ll hunt alone) TAABE: ke aan (You can’t) NARU: na se para eala xaya kui? (Do I need your permission, Chief?) this line of dialogue was rough for me rip TAABE: ke ama kuit. ke aan. na se ama kutsahajt (It’s not about permission. You can’t. I saved you)

and here are some relevant words I pulled from an online Comanche Dictionary :

• pitsa miʔarʉ (return, go back, move away from)

• miarʉ / miarʉ̠ (go, walk)

• kee (no)

• nanihtʉbinitʉask (ask permission)

• tsahkwitsoʔai (save someone's life)

I haven't yet been able to find information about modals in Comanche to figure out how "ke aan" relates to "can." but besides making it painfully apparent that my transcript is fucked up beyond belief, comparing the vocabulary to the dialogue revealed a few things. one, Naru is talking about going by herself, and talk of hunting seems not to enter the picture. two, while the English dialogue has Taabe discussing permission, in the Comanche he apparently rejects the label of Chief. to me, this is a more humble treatment of Taabe's character. he doesn't believe he has earned that title and makes clear that he just wants to protect his little sister.

is the difference as striking as I thought? no, but that doesn't make it any less interesting (remember, huge nerd here). i wish we had true Comanche subtitles so it was eaiser to appreciate the subtext more. even better, I'm mourning the missed opportunity for full Comanche dialogue as the original script intended, with both Comanche and English subs. there are even jucier scenes I'm planning to look into more to catch other subtleties. either way, I'm delighted we got to see a powerful Comanche woman kick predator ass and hear her talk about it in Comanche too

[worldwidemochiguy]

Sweets (Soft Yandere! Jungkook)

You keep being visited by the most peculiar thief…

➵ in which jungkook steals your lip balm and perfume instead of talking to you, you leave a post-it note with your number on it for the strange thief who only seems to take the most inexplicable items and has a strange sense of responsibility for your wellbeing, and the cute boy in your photography class with the fluffy hair and the oversized sweater keeps getting more and more endearing…

➵ Warnings: Soft Yandere Jungkook, Breaking & Entering but without the Breaking, Reader is a bit of a ditz (lol sorry guys) 

➵ Word Count: 4.2K

➵ Masterlist

“Hello, uh, I’d like to… report a crime?” 

Your statement, which had always sounded suitably firm and assertive when you practised it in front of the bathroom mirror, ended with an unplanned upturn, making it sound more like a question than you would like. 

“Please state your name and address, ma’am.”

You did so, listening anxiously to the tap of a keyboard as your information was filed away. The undoubtedly over-worked police officer on the other end of the line sounded like he was two seconds from falling asleep, and you questioned yourself for the millionth time over whether you really needed to report this or not.

“What is the nature of the crime you are reporting, ma’am?”

“Um… well…” 

You twisted your hand into the fabric of your shirt self-consciously, trying to decide the best way to explain the strange little occurrences that had been surrounding your apartment over the last few months. You had not yet found a way to put it without sounding ridiculous, but you supposed there was a first time for everything. 

“I, uh, I think someone’s breaking into my apartment and stealing things.”

“You have an intruder?”

“Uh huh,”

“…Are they currently in your residence?”

“No, I think… they come and take things when I’m not here and then they’re gone by the time I get back.” 

“What items have been stolen?”

You bit your lip. 

“I know it sounds silly, but…”

“No crime is too small to report, ma’am. We are committed to making the lives of everyday citizens safer.”

“Well… they’ve stolen my lip balm like… several times. I keep buying new ones and they keep being stolen after a week or so. And my perfume. And my hairbrush one time, and-”

“Ma’am,” The officer cut you off with the impatience you had been both anticipating and dreading ever since you decided to call the police, “Listen, we don’t have the capacity to deal with prank callers-”

“It’s not a prank call!” You blurted, a momentary burst of desperation overtaking you, “I- um, sorry for interrupting, officer, but this isn’t a prank call. Things have been going missing. I can’t afford to keep replacing my lip balm.” 

A sigh crackled across the line, and you pictured the officer maybe taking off his glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose like those people in movies always seemed to do when they got frustrated. Personally, you had never found that it helped. 

“Are you sure you aren’t just… misplacing them?”

You gasped, offended that even a stranger could think you so stupid. “No! I remember exactly where I leave things and then they just vanish! I swear!”

“Has anything of value ever been taken from your apartment?”

“Yes!” You exclaimed, excited to be able to prove the officer wrong, “My bunny plushy! Mr Snuggles is extremely valuable to me!”

“…Monetary value, I meant. Has anything expensive ever been taken from your apartment?” 

There was an embarrassing silence. The officer sighed again, with a little more exasperation colouring his tone. 

“If anything significant is stolen, call us back. For now, just… be a bit more careful with your possessions.” 

He hung up. You pressed your forehead against the wall and wished your strange thief had taken your phone in one of his little visits. Maybe then you would’ve avoided making that agonising call. 

The next morning as you were leaving to go to class, you noticed a pile of discarded post-it notes on your desk — the remnants of a redbull-fuelled late night study session. Your newly purchased lip balm lay next to it. Impulsively, you grabbed a pen and scrawled a message on one of the post-its, sticking it horizontally to the curved surface of the lip balm tube. 

it reads: 

pls don’t take this i just bought it and this brand is actually v expensive and i am only a struggling college student with loans and chapped lips (。•́︿•̀。)

It might have been a little too polite considering it’s intended recipient was someone who had stolen multiple items from your apartment, but you figured there was no point in being rude. They probably wouldn’t even read it anyway. 

You strolled out of your apartment, planning to pick up a smoothie on the way to your lecture, and promptly forgot all about it.

 When you returned home to find a pile of newly bought lip balms on your desk — all embossed with the logo of your favourite brand — you were slightly puzzled. But, once you remembered the note you had left- well, the confusion didn’t exactly vanish, but at least you were given some context. 

The note had disappeared, along with the lip balm you had used a scant few times. But, you didn’t understand what the thief’s aim was. Why on earth would they steal small things like lip balm and perfume? And why would they buy you new copies of the product? Wasn’t that counterproductive?

you’re very bad at your job

Your next note read, stuck to your fridge as you left to grab coffee with your study group. It remained there for a few days, and you couldn’t ignore the way your heart sank a little each time you saw it hadn’t been taken. 

After six days, when it finally vanished, you felt an odd sense of happiness bubble up within you. Yes, there was someone routinely breaking into your apartment, but at least now you had an open channel of communication with them. They had left a brand new bottle of your preferred perfume — which had been stolen at least twice before you stopped bothering to buy it because perfume is pricy — resting on your kitchen counter, beside a box of your favourite chocolates. 

As you dug into the box later, snuggled in a blanket and having a Studio Ghibli film marathon, you didn’t even consider the fact that the sweets might be tampered with. If they wanted to kill me, they would’ve killed me already, you reasoned to yourself, sucking the icing sugar off your fingers. Nor did you question how they knew your favourite chocolate. If they broke into your apartment as much as you assumed they did, they probably knew you better than your own parents by now. 

You were the very definition of a broke college student. As far as you were concerned, if this random stranger wanted to buy you things and sometimes clean up your apartment — you had definitely come back to a home tidier than you had left it more than once — then you certainly weren’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe it was a little naïve of you, but… you had already called the police, and they hadn’t cared.

thank you for the perfume and chocolate <3

You wrote next morning, hesitating slightly before putting the heart. Before you could convince yourself not to, you scribbled another line underneath. 

i wish you’d write back someday…

As you walked to class, you scolded yourself for the butterflies swooping in your stomach. They’re literally a criminal, you told yourself, Stop getting crushes on anyone who shows you the slightest bit of attention. You don’t even know their name. 

Despite the small amount of common sense that you did have mocking you all day, you sat in classes and daydreamed about your mystery home intruder. Would they read the note? Would they be happy about your appreciation? Would they — you bit your lip — would they write back? 

You felt like a dumb schoolgirl, excited by the prospect of a badly written love note shoved in her locker. And, like a school girl, you trudged back home with your arms weighed down by class work, a billion essays and quizzes that had to be completed overnight. Did your professors not realise you had a life outside of college? Not that you did, of course, but like… in principle. 

You were so preoccupied with the coursework that you didn’t even notice the note stuck to your bedroom door. After an hour of studying, you rose wearily to start fixing yourself something to eat, and your eyes snagged on a flash of yellow. 

You squeaked, almost falling over yourself in your rush to get to the door and read the note. 

i’m glad you liked them. i’m sorry i took your things, that was mean of me. i tried to only take things you wouldn’t miss, but i guess that backfired… i just wanted to feel close to you. and these notes… are the closest i’ve ever been. i know that must sound weird, but… well. i’m a weird guy, i guess. i just liked hearing from you. that’s all. 

~ koo <3

You didn’t stop freaking out for a full five minutes. After that, you poured over every detail of the letter, eager to extricate any fragment of knowledge possible. You ended up with a list which you scribbled down in your diary, above which you pasted the note. 

The list went as follows:

They want to feel close to you

They have not talked to you before, since the notes are the closest they’ve ever been, but they must have seen you in person at least once 

They are a he 

(you adamantly did not get flustered about that)

and

     4. He calls himself Koo

When you left your apartment the next morning, you placed your note on the exact same spot he had left his. An indirect touch. 

hi koo !!!!!!!!

i was so excited to see you had written something!! you know, if you want to talk to me more often, there is an easier way…

Underneath you had scrawled your phone number, hastily and not allowing for regret before you flounced out of the apartment. The reason why you were in such a rush was because you were about to go to your favourite class: Photography 101. 

You had taken it as an extra credit, something that interested you but not enough that you wanted to pursue it as a career. You had expected it to be fun, something artistic to break up the monotony of classes. What you had not expected was the dreamy boy who sat in the first row and had full possession of your heart. 

You didn’t even know his name, but you were pretty sure you were half in love with him. With fluffy brown hair that fell over his forehead whenever he leaned over to scribble down notes, and cute bunny teeth that stuck out in a flustered smile whenever the professor praised his work in class, he was perhaps the cutest boy you had ever seen. 

Though you were sure he had many girls sighing after him, he seemed to be really shy, only ever speaking in class when called on, and even then it was in a quiet, soft voice. He was kind of like you in that respect. But that was where your similarities ended. 

Yes, you thought, sighing as you watched him pay avid attention to the professor’s lecture on the composition of frames, his cute doe eyes wide and twinkling like stars were embedded in the pupils, He is way out of my league. 

It took three days for you to lose hope. You hadn’t received a text, nor had you found any notes left for you. You tried not to be disappointed, even as your traitorous sub-conscience mocked you for being able to scare away the one person who arguably paid you the most attention. 

You didn’t really have many friends, and the ones you did have preferred each other over you, and often left you out of activities because of your shy nature. You guessed this whole thing had just been a way to feel like you actually mattered to someone, like, for once, someone cared about you, but-

You were pulled out of your musings as your phone chimed. 

From: Unknown Number

[6:48 PM]

hi

this is koo

The two of you texted every day, and soon enough you were hiding your phone underneath your desk in order to chat to him, keeping your phone on your person at all times in case koo wanted to talk. Of course, the only class you didn’t do this in was Photography, so you could spend a blissful forty-five minutes staring at the boy who played the role of your husband in all of your favourite daydreams. 

Koo still broke into your house occasionally, and he still left you sweet, considerate gifts. Often, you would receive texts like this:

From: koo ✨

[3:24 PM]

sweets i’ve been checking your groceries and your vegetables are not being eaten as often as they should be 

i know you have a sweet tooth and that’s cute but please try to stay healthy

To: koo ✨

[3:25 PM]

but i can’t cook all i know how to make is microwaveable mac n cheese :///////

You came back home that day to discover a bunch of Tupperwares full of pre-made healthy meals and a note stuck to the top of them. 

try microwaving these :)

To: koo ✨

[3:01 AM]

koo are you awake?

From: koo ✨

[3:01 AM]

i am now

what’s wrong?

To: koo ✨

[3:02 AM]

i can’t sleep :////////

From: koo ✨

[3:02 AM]

sweets you need to go to bed

you have an early morning class

To: koo ✨

[3:02 AM]

i knowwwwww

i just… i can’t sleep without mr snuggles :((

From: koo ✨

[3:03 AM]

Mr Snuggles??

???

To: koo ✨

[3:03 AM]

my cuddly bunny :((((

i think you took him a while ago

could i maybe have him back…?

From: koo ✨

[3:03 AM]

Shit

i didn’t know you couldn’t sleep without him 

[3:04 AM]

sweets im so sorry

To: koo ✨

[3:04 AM]

its okay koo

From: koo ✨

[3:04 AM]

no it isn’t

you’re loosing sleep because of me

fuck

i could… bring him to you?

To: koo ✨

[3:05 AM]

you’d do that?

…i could see you?

From: koo ✨

[3:05 AM]

no i’d leave him outside

you’d have to promise not to come out until i text you saying i’ve left

To: koo ✨

[3:06 AM]

but kooooo :(((((

From: koo ✨

[3:07 AM]

sweets 

To: koo ✨

[3:07 AM]

okay :((((((((((

but i expect you to leave a big box of chocolates on my pillow for me to come home to tomorrow evening!!

From: koo ✨

[3:08 AM]

of course sweets <3

im gonna get going now

don’t look outside your apartment

To: koo ✨

[3:08 AM]

okay

From: koo ✨

[3:34 AM]

im gone and mr snuggles is waiting outside for you

he might have a little gift with him

You trudged outside your apartment, rubbing your eyes blearily, and looked down to see your beloved plushie clutching a single rose in its paws. You gasped, leaning down to pick up the flower gently, and you noticed all the thorns had been taken off. Koo must’ve removed them so that you didn’t accidentally hurt yourself. 

You felt warmth flood you, drowning the butterflies in your stomach and replacing them with something much less fleeting, much less shallow. 

It sunk into your bones, into your heart, into your breath as you sighed, squeezing your long-lost Mr Snuggles close to your face. He carried the familiar scent of nostalgia, but also something different, something sharper. You realised with a jolt that you were smelling Koo’s cologne. 

You went back to bed, nuzzled your face into the plushy’s furry belly, and dreamed of fluffy brown hair and bunny smiles. 

Though with Mr Snuggles’ help you were able to sleep wonderfully, you were only able to do so for four hours before your alarm jolted you back into early reality. Honestly, you were sorely tempted to just ditch class, but it was Photography, and if you missed your regular dose of the cute boy in the front row then you thought you might just crumble into dust. 

You dragged yourself out of bed, pulling on your softest oversized hoodie — a gift from Koo which, now that you thought about it, smelled like the same cologne that Mr Snuggles did. You flushed at the thought of him giving you one of his hoodies to wear, though you couldn’t say exactly why that image charmed you. 

You stumbled into the lecture, arms full of textbooks because you knew you wouldn’t have the energy to return back to your apartment to retrieve the relevant materials for your next class later in the day. Your excellent plan was to crash in the library directly after this, have a two hour power-nap, and then make yourself get up in time for Calculus. 

You barely had the energy to listen to the professor droning on and on about… the perfect lense, or whatever. You allowed yourself the indulgence of tuning out, resting your chin on your palm and gazing dreamily at the boy in the front row. He was taking notes, as per usual. What a good student! You praised him in your head. I bet he has the best handwriting. 

Despite your best efforts, you fell asleep within ten minutes. You were woken as the class concluded by the clamour of students grabbing their materials and the scrape of chairs as your classmates stood up, leaving you behind — the only one half-splayed across the desk in front of you. 

You jerked upright, grabbing your stuff in one hand as you tried to tug on your bag, eventually succeeding with much struggle, only to drop it all again as soon as you stood up. You whimpered, watching helplessly as your textbooks fanned across the floor. You saw one of them split along the spine as it landed on an open page. 

That cost me two hundred dollars, you thought absently, and I just chucked it down like a bouncy ball.  

Suddenly, you glimpsed someone crouching down and gathering them all up into a sturdy pile. As he stood up, your vision was full of fluffy brown hair, errant strands falling into star-filled doe eyes. 

Oh. Oh no. 

“H-Here you are,” He murmured, passing you the pile gently, making sure you were able to take the weight before leaving them in your arms. When he leaned close to you, you breathed in a scent that was oddly familiar, and yet new at the same time. As his hands receded, his skin brushed against yours for a second and you swear your vision blanked out. 

“Thanks,” You whispered, your gaze so firmly focused on the floor that you didn’t notice his flushed cheeks. 

As soon as you got to the library, you whipped out your phone, all tiredness banished from your system by that momentous experience. You had talked to him. 

To: koo ✨

[8:47 AM]

koo i think im in love

From: koo ✨

[8:47 AM]

what

with who

To: koo ✨

[8:47 AM]

this boy in my photography class 

he’s just so- 

[8:48 AM]

i can’t even explain it

i dropped my textbooks and he picked them up for me and i stg i almost cried

From: koo ✨

[8:48 AM]

wait

seriously??

To: koo ✨

[8:49 AM]

yeah i cry at like the drop of a hat 

From: koo ✨

[8:49 AM]

no-

cute 

but i mean

that’s who you’re in love with?

To: koo ✨

[8:49 AM]

yeah?

From: koo ✨

[8:49 AM]

gray sweater

[8:50 AM]

big eyes

tall-ish

that’s him???

To: koo ✨

[8:50 AM]

OMG YOU’RE IN MY PHOTOGRAPHY CLASS AREN’T YOU

From: koo ✨

[8:50 AM]

WHAT

NO

IM NOT

To: koo ✨

[8:50 AM]

OMGGGGGGG

YOU SAW HIM HELP ME SO YOU MUST BE IN MY CLASSSS

[8:51]

okay!

are you the frat guy who always comes in hungover???

no judgement

From: koo ✨

[8:51 AM]

NO

To: koo ✨

[8:52 AM]

are you the guy who only ever wears knitwear???

From: koo ✨

[8:52 AM]

NO

To: koo ✨

[8:53 AM]

…are you the professor?

From: koo ✨

[8:53 AM]

NO!!!!!

oh my god lets just meet up or something before i explode

To: koo ✨

[8:53 AM]

WAIT

ARE YOU SERIOUS????

From: koo ✨

[8:54 AM]

…you’re that excited to meet me?

To: koo ✨

[8:54 AM]

OF COURSE I AM

OH MY GODDDD

WHEN?

From: koo ✨

[8:54 AM]

now?

i can meet you at the campus coffee shop in like five minutes?

To: koo ✨

[8:55 AM]

five minutes???

that’s not enough time koo i have to go home and pick out something pretty to wear !!

From: koo ✨

[8:55 AM]

it doesn’t matter what you wear, you’re always beautiful to me

To: koo ✨

[8:56 AM]

you

you think im

b-beautiful 

: ’ ))))))))))

From: koo ✨

[8:57 AM]

…

haha see you there!! 

To: koo ✨

[8:57 AM]

GET BACK HERE WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT THIS-

You sat on an empty table, fiddling with the tea bag tag which hung over the side of your mug. You had bought Green Tea as an effort to calm yourself down so you weren’t too anxious to meet Koo, but it hadn’t worked because you were impatient and sipped it too soon so now you were sat there nursing a burnt tongue like an idiot. 

You knew it was irrational to be self-conscious. He already knew who you were, and seemed to like you, it was just you that was in the dark. You went over the possible people Koo could be, mentally cycling through the boys in your photography class. It was an annoyingly large class, which meant he would be anyone from the guy who smelled like Funyuns to-

Fluffy-haired boy strolled into the coffee shop and you let out an involuntary sigh. He seemed to be cheerful, a smile exposing his bunny teeth and making his cheeks bunch up adorably, with like,  five different sets of dimples poked into them. You had never agreed more with the saying that dimples were caused by an angel’s kiss. 

Well, at least I’ll have something nice to look at while I wait, you thought, just before all your thoughts suddenly tipped out of your head when you realised he was walking towards your table. 

“Is this seat taken?” He grinned, before sliding into the seat across from you. 

You whimpered, and his smile grew devastatingly wider.

“Hi,” He breathed, before his gaze flickered down to your mug of tea, clutched so tightly in your hands that you worried the ceramic might shatter. “You didn’t get hot chocolate? I thought you had a sweet tooth?”

“Uhm-” You choked, before forcing yourself to get a grip. How would Koo feel if he walked in here and saw you sitting with another guy? “I’m actually- I’m waiting for someone. Sorry.”

If it was possible — and it certainly seemed to be — the boy’s grin broadened even more, his eyes crinkling into adorable half-moons.

“Is that so? Is he your boyfriend?”

“No!” You blurted, before flushing profusely. The boy across from you seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the display. “I mean- uhm, I don’t know. Maybe? This is our- this is our first actual meeting.”

“Oh?” The boy tilted his head, “Really? How exciting.”

You hummed in agreement, eyes fixed on your slowly cooling beverage. You raised it to your mouth to take a hesitant sip and- nope,  still too hot. You whined quietly, rubbing your sore tongue against the inside of your cheek to try and soothe it. 

“Oh, sweets,” The boy murmured across from you, and you were too distracted to notice the nickname. He plucked the mug out of your hands and placed it on the other side of the table, as if he was trying to make sure it couldn’t hurt you anymore. “Are you okay? Do you want me to take you to the campus infirmary?”

“Wha- no, it’s okay,” You mumbled, lisping slightly on your burnt tongue and blushing when he cooed over you, “It’s- I’m waiting here for someone, and- I mean, I don’t even know your name-”

“It’s Jungkook,” He interrupted cheekily, deliberately ignoring the rest of your statement, “Some people call me Kookie, and really special people call me… Koo.” 

Oh. Oh.

Fuck.

“Really special people?” You asked, your voice small, and not because of the burn. 

“Well, people…” Jungkook- Koo paraphrased, tilting his head slightly, “I guess it would be more accurate to say… one really special person.”

“Really?” You breathed, and Jungkook leaned over the table, close enough that you could smell his cologne, the same scent embedded in the fabric of your hoodie- his hoodie. 

“The most special person.” He murmured, the fervent emotion packed in each word speaking louder than any increase of volume could.

You had never been anyone’s most special person before, but, as you looked into Jungkook’s chocolate eyes, you started to believe you could almost taste it, sticky sweet on your lips. And when Jungkook eventually, finally coaxed your lips in a gentle kiss, you let him in, and found out that happiness tastes reassuringly honey-sweet. 

[maxwell-grant]

Vincenzo: The Gentleman Villain Reborn

Long before there were loudmouth buff guys in spandex, there was the gentleman villain.

There once was a time when the gentleman villain, whether a gentleman thief in the Raffles or Lupin mold, or murderous arch-criminals like Fu Manchu and Fantomas, organizations like Les Vampires, and even in-between figures like Rocambole and Judex, was the coolest thing in the pop culture block. The figures right around the corner of Baker Street, when Nick Carter and Sexton Blake and any billion old serial detectives weren’t quite cutting it. Their time was not to last long in the spotlight, as the pulp heroes consolidated domain in the 30s and then the superheroes took over, but every now and then, they return in various forms, never fully gone. But I’d dare say I’d never seen a gentleman villain story quite so bold, so modern, so dynamic and so gloriously over-the-top in pride over it’s existence, until I began watching Vincenzo.

Vincenzo is BADASS and I don’t use the term lightly. Not just the titular character, but the show itself. It’s currently a couple episodes short of the finale and you should stop everything you’re doing or watching and go watch Vincenzo. It’s been an utterly glorious ride from beginning to end with no shortage of great characters, terrific writing, great relationships and jaw-dropping moments as every episode succeeds in topping each other in WOW HOLY SHIT factor. It’s a shot of adrenaline and storytelling excellence to the eyeballs and you don’t have anything better to be doing right now than watching this.

I mentioned a while ago that Black was a show that, besides being also terrific in quality, captured my interest as a Shadow fan specifically because I saw in Black what I believe is the heart of The Shadow as a character: an embodiment of evil, motivated and created and warped by social catastrophe and strife, set loose to punish true evil in order to protect humanity. In that regard, if Black is where I find the heart of The Shadow, Vincenzo is where I find the spirit of what I like about The Shadow as a series: Cathartic urban fairytales where an extraordinary agent of change, armed with incredible cunning, sleight-of-hand and combat skills, rises above a dark background to command a folk brigade of ordinary people who reveal themselves to be extraordinary through their newfound purpose, to right the wrongs of society’s predators, by being better at their tactics than they are and turning their tools against them. 

I’m gonna spoil it a bit under the cut but please go watch it. I cannot praise this show enough and I’ll do my best to try.

Vincenzo centers around the titular character, Vincenzo Cassano, an Italian lawyer who works for the mafia as a consigliere, adopted by it’s Don at the age of eight. After the death of the Don and an attempted betrayal by his son, Vincenzo flees to Seoul and ends up taking residence at a ramshackle building called Geumga Plaza. Geumga Plaza is the hiding place of a gigantic stash of gold hidden by one of Vincenzo’s former clients, and he intends to retrieve it to rebuild his life somewhere else. Naturally, not only is the hidden room completely impenetrable, but the building is occupied. by residents who are being forced out of it by criminals working for the Babel corporation, which intends to take possession of the building. And thus, Vincenzo has to put his skills into working out progressively bigger problems, as his efforts to uncover the gold turn into a fight against Babel and it’s lawyers, as the problems take on bigger and bigger proportions. 

Vincenzo’s got a lot of what you’d expect from a k-drama at first glance. The leading man is a dashing young man, the leading lady is headstrong and stubborn, you see their romance coming a mile away and they take their damn time getting there, there’s emotional backstories that take a long time to be revealed, lots of wacky side characters and comedy interspersed with the darkest moments, a focus on corporate corruption, and so on. But it’s got an intrusion of elements brought by Vincenzo’s inclusion, such as mob drama, tonal and cultural imbalance, and the gentleman villain tropes that Vincenzo brings, as the catalyst of change whose antics backflip through action hero, romantic hero, super hero and super villain, cunning puppetmaster and gun-toting warrior alike, and start to have an effect on the world around him. His allies become stronger, more determined and effective, and the villains grow smarter and more horrid as they desperately try to avoid their own downfalls.

On paper, Vincenzo is almost a textbook example of how to craft a villain protagonist. He’s a mysterious foreigner with a hidden past and incredible skills who shows up uninvited in “our” world, who starts terrorizing and manipulating people into doing his bidding. He’s got a hotheaded and foolish investigator chasing after his every move, and frequently employs misdirection and sleight-of-hand to fool the authorities. He commits crimes and employs underhanded methods in the service of stamping out people worse than himself. He never really makes any claim of being a hero and actively rejects the notion he’s fighting for justice, but instead states he’s doing it as a matter of principle. One of the characters early on even states he gives off the vibe of a movie villain, even Vincenzo himself tells Hong Cha-Young, the female lead, that he’s teaching her how to be a proper villain. In another series, Vincenzo would be the hypercompetent sidekick to the main villain, or secretly the main villain, the lone badass that the action hero would have a tough fight against before defeating and moving on. But Vincenzo does not allow himself to be dismissed so easily. 

On the first episode, when we’re introduced to him in Italy, he’s painted as the badass to end all badasses. But the minute he arrives in Seoul, he falls for a trick at the airport and is mugged by two cabbies, and has to walk around penniless and without dignity, shouting curses in Italian that nobody understands. He has to sleep in a broken down apartment, his “taking a steamy shower with classical music playing” fanservice scene keeps being interrupted because the shower doesn’t work, and a pigeon chattering outside his window keeps ruining his sleep. 

The tenants of the building are all introduced as varying levels of unsympathetic and useless, or downright creepy. The tailor screws up his favorite suit, the chef who claims to have studied in Italy is a total fraud, there’s tenants who scare us by passing as ghosts and zombies, and Hong Cha-Young is introduced as an unlikable stooge for Babel. Vincenzo is a villain protagonist who is forced out of his grand mafia epic film, where he conducts business around lavish manors while classical music plays, and stumbles onto a korean drama, a world that operates by different rules and where no one has any reason to take him seriously at first, and gradually finds out that the difference between both worlds is not as big as he’d imagined.

It’s only at the very end of the first episode, when the neighborhood gangsters show up to terrorize the tenants, that Vincenzo starts to kick ass again, and he has not stopped so far. In fact, not just him, ALL of the tenants have gradually started kicking ass with him. Hong Cha-Young severs all connections to Babel and proves to be, as his main partner in crime, just as cunning, twice as driven, and three times as batshit and kooky. The tailor who ruined his suit turns out to be an ex-gang member capable of fending off groups of thugs with only his scissors. The creepy piano girl reveals herself a hacking genius, the zombie impersonators become incredible actors, the failed wrestler and badass wannabe becomes his most active field agent along with his equally strong wife, the chef improves his cooking and lends his restaurant as a meeting center, all of the characters, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM gradually become incredible, competent, resourceful people, really no different than they were before, it just took a little courage and pushing. 

The headstrong and foolish agent pursuing Vincenzo becomes 100% smitten with him and quickly becomes one of his greatest allies. Even the neighborhood gangsters, after being left to die by Babel and forced to start anew, quickly become some of his most loyal allies, and gradually redeem themselves in the eyes of the tenants to the point they become friends. In departing from his old family, Vincenzo forms a new one, even if never by his intention. They even all get matching suits.

This incredibly potent, human core surrounding the antics of an extraordinary figure of action is part of what used to make the Agents of The Shadow such a special, meaningful and beloved part of the series, and something every adaptation since then has been 100% poorer for neglecting. But Vincenzo does it, and does it right. I could watch a billion adventures with these people and never get sick of them. 

Vincenzo is a slick, modern take on the gentleman villain that takes many of it’s oldest conventions and provides blueprints for making them work in modern times. His plans often take a performance art-edge as he employs tactics both old-fashioned and modern, like using social media to stage an event in front of the Plaza so the bulldozers set to demolish it won’t be able to pass, or copying files and passing them to his police contact while keeping the real ones when said police contact inevitably betrays him. The tenants put all of their skills to use, no matter how unusual or seemingly useless. Every episode lays the groundwork for a smashing finale where all of the threads come together and we bare witness to a grand tapestry of karmic retribution.

The villains themselves are no slouch, and also have that modern edge that gradually ramps up. They stage discreet assassinations involving gas leaks and watches meant to burst into flames. They stack the deck impossibly against all characters. They employ masked goons by the dozens, armies of lawyers to smudge any connections between themselves and their actions, and every sector of society in covering them, from journalists publishing pro-Babel propaganda to police commissioners. The assistant of the main villain does zumba classes amidst ordering assassinations, and is often likened to a snake and a witch with her "Crystal Ball” (the name she uses for ordering assassin contacts by the phone), complete with a cowardly, scheming assistant she bullies at every turn. The CEO of Babel has a dual nature not out of place in a Jekyll & Hyde/Dorian Grey kind of story. 

The main villain is often painted as a slasher villain backed by massive corporate power, murdering people with hockey equipments and even outright named “Jason” at one point, with a tense string theme song accompanying his deeds. The show hides the villain at plain sight by using one of the most familiar set-ups of romantic dramas and the tension never stops even after he’s revealed. 

Mobster films tend to paint an idealized version of it’s protagonists, not necessarily because of a genuine love or interest with mobsters (I mean, it really goes without saying that real life mobsters are obviously not admirable figures), but out of a sense of displaying a “this is what it could be” fantasy, a fantasy where the mafioso is a dark hero who will still ultimately do the right thing and stick up for the little guy, in a similar way to how superheroes often function as police officers except, y’know, actually dedicated to protecting people. 

Vincenzo does go to great lengths to address the imbalance of putting such a dark figure as it’s hero, through showing how the situation can only be addressed by the intrusion of a figure such as Vincenzo. There’s a scene where Vincenzo and Hong proceed to explain extremely succintly to their cop ally why the “bad apples” argument is horseshit.  One of the show’s characters, someone who’s spent his entire life being the best person he could, and dedicating himself 110% percent to fighting evil even at the expense of connecting with his own family, someone who absolutely should be the hero to take down Babel, admits shortly before dying that it wasn’t enough, that it was never going to be enough, and that what the situation calls for isn’t a hero, but a monster. That monster being Vincenzo, who is not only powerful and monstrous, but commands the loyalty of people high and low class alike, criminals and law enforcement agents, to fight Babel. In his words, “the ultimate monster”, something even the world’s biggest badass cannot defeat by himself. 

On most other set-ups, Vincenzo would be pretty unmistakably the villain. But here, when he’s set up against a starkly realistic depiction of how corporations actually function in our world, depicts that Vincenzo’s ability to clear his way through goons John Wick-style is nowhere near enough, and to that end, he’s gonna have to fight impossible battles using his brains and his allies. And in the end, he defeats them, time and time again, and proves that they were not that impossible after all. 

One can only hope he’s on to something.

Oh yeah and THE PIGEON BY HIS WINDOW ALSO KICKS ASS and I will not explain how, just watch the show, I can’t do it justice no matter how much I talk about it.