#many perhapses

[bingusbongu]

you write for so many characters that I absolutely adore oml.

Could you write some kind of Alastor x new-to-hell reader? (I feel like this would be really interesting :3)

Also since I'm likely gonna be putting in a lot of reqs I'm claiming an Emoji (🖋 <- this one) so you know which anon this is teehee

-🖋

♡A/N: RAAAAAAA HELLO I KNOW YOU GFYFGG im glad you found my blog!!! I also made sure to make this on this specific day for you,,, ♡

Masterlist

Rules

Alastor x New Sinner Reader!

Tw: mentions of death and murder, and of stalking

• okay, the fact you manage to catch the eye of NONE OTHER than the famous and feared Radio Demon is beyond believable

• your new, you must have done something to become his intrest. I dont think he will just pluck you out of the streets as soon as you spawned because he wanted to

• maybe you found yourself in the middle of a turf war or spawned while he and some other demon were in a battle. Maybe you killed another demon on pure accident. And maybe, due to him working with Charlie, maybe he decided not to kill you instantly and offered you the hotel. Since you are new, perhapse you wanted redemption? Hell knows that charlie would be ecstatic to have a new member!

• so, you go with Alastor to the hotel! Meeting an overjoyed Charlie and the rest of the crew!

• though, Alastor kept his eyes on you. Your new, he couldnt have a new member of the hotel accidently step into a war of some sorts and have yourself killed the moment he looks away.

• so, you being as clueless as you are, Alastor reluctantly decided he was going to teach you what to do and not to do in hell! Charlie thought it was a wonderful idea, finding it unbelievable that Alastor was the one to come up with the idea AND go along with it

• so, Alastor would take you out of the hotel and teach you certain things, like how to categorize lower level demons and higher ranking demons, how to protect yourself while walking the street from others who want to harm you

• "no no, you go for the heart, thats the liver"

• after you manage to learn alot from Alastor! Suprisingly, he is quiet a good teacher! But, instead of leaving you to yourself, he would be found occasionally hanging around you

• others would take notice how they always were able to find Alastor wherever you are, and when confronted about it, he would completely shoot down their question and change the subject

• Alastor thought you needed more protection. Though he did teach yoi how to take care of yourself, he still found a need to watch over you, to protect you. A worm of worry that wiggled in his chest when he cant spot you in the hotel.

• Alastor dosnt bring you along to his meetings, to keep his reputation and to protect you from certain eyes. If you are with the Radio Demon, then you have a bigger target on your head

• though, he does sometimes take you to his visits with Rosie!

• she adores you, finding you the cutest little thing. She sure was suprise to find a new sinner with Alastor, and one Alastor was so protective over, but she left it be, finding you precious and telling you stores from her time while sharing tea.

• though, a few of the staff of the hotel were,,, concerned for you. Husk especially. Having the Radio Demon on your back was certainly something new and worrying to him. Maybe he got you under contract, too. When he asked you about it, you shrugged it off and smiled like you hadnt even noticed! It baffled him, and how your mood didnt seem to dim when Alastor came around to check up on you.

• Vox, well, lets just say he may or may not have been the first overlord to actually notice you and your presence with Alastor. He has camaras everywhere, especially hidden outside of the hotel, he dosnt miss anything. So when he realized that the Radio demon was being friendly with a someone new he was not a happy camper

• he ended up confronting Alastor about it during their next meeting. And the way he quickly shut up apon noticing Alastors mood shift when you were mentioned had him traumatized. Velvet had to help him fix his screen after that

• Alastor is quite protective over you, even if you dont realize it, he has one of his little weird minions keeping an eye on you at all times when he isnt there, just to make sure you dont do something stupid.

-EXTRA-

• if you, instead of being a weak newcomer, started making a name for yourself withoit wasting any time, maybe killing off demons left and right or taking down a few overlords, you definitely have his attention

• you remind him of his old new sinner self, so he happily makes his presence known to you, and openly offers to guide you to make a name for yourself like he did

• he would show you how to take down even the most powerful overlords, collect souls to feed your power, and even how to keep your clothes from getting messy after killing so many!

• you are much like his apprentice. Following him wherever he goes and listening to him teach you about something.

• if you become powerful like him, you two become a quick and good duo! Both pf you being feared!

• though, he still makes sure you dont hurt yourself. No matter how powerful you have become, he makes sure you dont slip up and hurt yourself, or let someone hurt you. <3

[nautilusgays]

Amnesia AU drabble:

Somehow Nemo hits his head badly, maybe during ramming something or fixing the blade and it restarted unexpectedly.

Obviously, Aronnax is called out of his room by a crewman to an unconscious Nemo with a scary injury. He is so focused on stemming the bleeding and assessing the damage he doesn't register that at least three crewmen have been speaking to him in fluent French the entire time until hours later. A problem for Future Pierre he mutters.

Nemo spends days slowly coming in and out of consciousness. Every time he wakes Pierre is there, he's taken to sleeping with the connecting door open or on a chair, to feed him and tend to his wounds.

There is only one issue, which Nemo is refusing to mention - lest it make him seem unfit for duty: he has no idea who Aronnax is.

Everyone else he knows, but not this kind, gentle man who has been caring for him, who's presence makes him feel warm and full. Trying to puzzle together context clues Nemo comes to a conclusion that surprises him:

Aronnax must be his romantic partner.

He didn't think he'd be in love again, but this man had everything he looked for and liked in a partner, and was clearly comfortable with physical contact, not to mention he was interacting and chatting in a friendly manner with the members of crew that had come to help him.

Once he reached the conclusion he begins to behave as a romantic partner.

The first time he calls Pierre "mon chéri" the man goes bright red and seems to swoon - Nemo is delighted at the cute reaction and it reinforces his assumption.

Nemo is confused why Pierre always turns his head when he moves to kiss him, so he only catches his cheek. The Professor talks of concussion and recovery. To Nemo those are not good enough reason to get a kiss from his beloved but clearly his man is a doctor and will not be swayed. This only convinces him even more: his wife, after all, had also been extremely smart and stubborn.

He calls him "mon chéri" in front of some of the crew, some of whom speak French, who are shook. Nemo assumes that, for some reason, he has been hiding their relationship - perhapse that is why Pierre seems so hesitant - and resolves to be more confident in showing him he's not ashamed in anyway.

Pierre is spending half his life tending to Nemo and the other half being incredibly flustered and confused by Nemo's behaviour. Hes worried about the extent of the brain injury, somehow Nemo has injured himself so badly he thinks he's in love with him! He talks to the crew, well at least those who know French or Latin, they just laugh and give cryptic responses or mutter 'finally' while walking away.

Nemo has now been freed from bed rest and he is being an unintentional menace to Pierre who's poor heart can't take it anymore. Having unrequited affections for the Captain had been bad enough, but being in love with a man who's injury was making him act romantically was even worse. Many nights Pierre would cry himself to sleep over the unfairness and pain this was causing him.

One day, Nemo finally manages to initiate a deeper kiss. At first Pierre kisses back, losing himself in something he wanted for so long, Nemo is relieved and kisses him deeper but then he finds himself an arms length from his partner, who is crying with kiss swollen lips.

"Captain, I have put up with this for too long. Your crew said I should be gentle with this news, but I, as your doctor, believe you are now well enough to hear this without it causing any complications to your injury: I am not your lover or partner or what ever you have convinced yourself I am. My complacency in allowing this continue for your health has brought me great pain. I hold deep affection for you but before your injury you were never interested and I accepted that. But this is too much. I know you are not hurting me intentionally but it is tearing me apart."

Nemo stands there. He doesn't realise he's crying till he feels a drop on his hand.

He asks his first mate for clarification. The man corroborates Pierre's Aronnax's story. When Nemo says he felt happy and warm when he looked at Pierre even before he knew who he was, his first mate looks at him kindly, "the professor was wrong about it being unrequited, but you always could put on a good mask when necessary."

Only a few hours after Pierre had returned to his cabin, locking both doors, there was a strong knock, 'please, Pierre, I know now.' he doesn't move from his position under the blankets. Nemo tries the handle, locked. He tries the one from his room, locked. Pierre thinks Nemo finally got the message when the door unlocks. Of course he had a second key.

As Nemo spills his heart to Aronnax more and more memories resurface and everything begins to click into place for him. The Professor notices as Nemo remembers, properly, who he is. Bracing himself for a rejection, perhapse even anger, he waits for Nemo to come to his conclusion.

"I have been in love with you for a while, but I was terrified."

As their eyes meet Aronnax barely has time to whisper, "for me, since we met." Before Nemo closes the gap between their lips.

Finally, everything was how it was supposed to be.

[cometrose]

I did mention it offhandedly in a reblog tag but I can't help thinking about it now, so- what if zhongli did actually fail a divine trial, which became the reason he was demoted/similar in the first place? Considering the whole trial and tribulation thing that xianxia deities go through, I mean. Is there a possibility for that theory to be rooted in in-game lore?

Honestly I think we just don't know enough about Celestia and the Heavenly Principles. But we know going against their rules usually results in divine punishment.

What sets archons apart from other divinities is their love for humanity. So maybe it had something to do with humans that caused him to step out of line. Or we can assume even before he descended, Morax had a strong relationship to contracts, and he was demoted for breaking one of them.

If he opposed the heavenly order it would be very feasible for them to just cast him down to Teyvat and strip him of his divinity. Or as you said he simply left and lost at least some of his powers as a result.

I think Zhongli has the most peculiar relationship to the HP simply cause we don't know the nature of it. Plus there is an explicit contract between him and Celestia that wasn't imposed on anyone else.

If the "divine trial" that Ningguang and the Qixing made up is meant to represent his original divine trial, then he was simply cast down to earth for his failure. But the "divine trial" was him simply not wanting to be Archon any more and let Liyue stand by itself so it very well could be that his original trial was a rejection of his divine duties.

Xianxia immortals tend to go through trials for the sake of learning to struggle, and grow as a person. However many have affection for humans and their perseverance despite the pain of life and death. Perhapse Zhongli just grew far too fond of humans and held no desire to return to his once almighty position.

[gourmet-trash]

so halloween decorations are rolling out, which is fucking awesome. and i got an email from a home decor store (at home, specifically) about their halloween stuff being out so i'm like, hell yeah i wanna look at that. and i found THIS DUDE

and it's like yeehaw brother! get that creepy coffee, send those spooky emails. sometimes a cowboy is just a skeleton trying to join their team meeting, y'know?

but then i kept scrolling and like. is this the same spooky skeleton???

i understand making sure you have your finest cowboy hat on for your monday meeting, but in the tub???? and sure, trade out your coffee for something a little stronger after a hard day, but the BOOTS?? like y'all, i live in the south but i don't see THAT many cowboy skeleton figurines at halloween time, so this was interesting to say the least.

AND THEN???

THIS IS DEFINITELY THE FIRST SKELETON, RIGHT??? IS THIS WHAT THEY NEEDED THE COFFEE FOR??? TO GET THEIR WHOLE SKELETUSSY OUT ON THE FRONT OF THIS TRACTOR???? WHAT'S HAPPENING HERE??????? WHY'S GREENCAP GRINNING LIKE THIS??? IS AT HOME SELLING SOME KIND OF SOUTHERN SKELETON SEX GAME FIGURINES???

like good for them if so, but i just was NOT prepared for this genre of halloween decor?????

like maybe i'm misunderstanding the lore and the first skeleton and the second skeleton are different????

now those are new boots and that's a different tie for the neckerchief, but this is defnitely billy bubblebath bones, right?? is this zoom call skeleton's ex??? did they see zoom call skeleton flaunting their entire bone vagina facing the world with green cap and turn back to the bottle (of poison)?????

don't worry billy bubblebath bones, there's more to (after)life for you! like the patriarchy! and by the patriarchy i, of course, mean horses.

like, billy bubblebath has a whole fuckin FIT going on for their time with A Horse of the Apocalypse here. new boots, new gloves, perhapse a new outlook on this crazy thing called skeleton life. this is a skeleton who survived the skeleton war, saw their skeleton partner leave them for a freak with a tractor, and said "no, i'm going to make my own way."

i like to think billy bubblebath bones made this fucking pillow on a cricut:

BONUS:

as far as i can tell, this isn't for sale, but that is definitely billy bubblebath bones welcoming folks (skeletons) to their....skeleton horse farmhouse?? IN PANTS. AND A SICK BELT BUCKLE. NO BOTTLE OF POISON TO BE FOUND. like it feels like i should hear a camera shutter sound and get a slow zoom out of this polaroid after the "good end" of the skeleton cozy farm sim.

look, i don't fucking know okay?? but they're as tall as a fucking mantel and i'm now pretty convinced that if i saw this fucker, i would force it into the trunk of my prius and leave it up year round right inside my front door.

[themculibrary]

Natasha Romanoff-Centric Masterlist 2

part one

although it's so romantic on the borderline tonight (ao3) - paperclipbitch bruce/natasha T, 6k

Summary: Post-movie. “You shouldn’t google yourself,” Natasha tells Bruce.

american pie (ao3) - ashlearose13 G, 4k

Summary: Here's the thing about Natasha Romanoff: before she was theirs, she was her own.

Common Ground (ao3) - Writegirl natasha/nick T, 4k

Summary: Natalia Romanova was many things: a killer by thirteen, a Black Widow at fifteen, on the run from the Red Room by sixteen and captured by SHIELD at seventeen.

“You have a simple choice in front of you. Either you want to live, in which case you give us your total cooperation. Or you want to die, in which case the kill order will be carried out within the next ten minutes.” The agent stood and went to the door. “You have five minutes to make a decision.”

counterfeit and counterpart (ao3) - Frea_O maria/steve T, 28k

Summary: Five times Maria Hill doesn’t understand Natasha Romanoff, and why she might be better off that way.

four times somebody trusted Natasha Romanoff (and one time Natasha trusted somebody) (ao3) - zauberer_sirin bruce/natasha T, 2k

Summary: Natasha is not used to being treated as something other than a threat.

I'll build a house inside of you (ao3) - magdaliny T, 19k

Summary: Natalia is stacking blocks very carefully when the adults come into the room. None of them look at her, because they're all looking at her father. He's wearing combat gear, and the hair on the left side of his head is slicked back with blood. He smells like smoke and something unnameable, sweet and dark and a little sickly in her nose.

Father is saying, “Don't be ridiculous. The only thing children are good at is disobeying.”

i'm so tired (of being afraid) (ao3) - himynameisv natasha/matt T, 35k

Summary: Steve glances at her with what she can only describe as a small, fond smirk. "You're not alone in this," he murmurs.

She breathes in, gathers up the courage to grasp him on the shoulder. "Neither are you," she says.

They stand there, mourning together in the silence, because that's how the two of them have always been.

(Or: Natasha Romanoff had three families. She's going to get them back and/or die trying.)

i'm staying at my parents’ house and the road not taken looks real good now (ao3) - hannaenomia maria/natasha N/R, 22k

Summary: Natasha takes The Avengers to her family's farm to recover after their first run-in with the Scarlet Witch and promptly flirts with Maria Hill in front of everyone, whether she admits it or not. (Black Widow comes before Age of Ultron in this storyline)

In Your Hand (ao3) - SpideySense777 natasha/tony M, 32k

Summary: Major Spoilers for Black Widow if you haven't seen it.

Tony and Natasha overcoming her betrayal after Civil War and finding peace in the fact they are screwed up people.

i see things that nobody else sees (ao3) - burnthatbridgewhenwegetthere T, 1k

Summary: before she was the Black Widow, she was just a black widow. Natasha, Natalia, Natalie- it's hard to be a person when you have specifically been taught to not be one.

the struggle is silent.

Mama Bear (ao3) - Dira Sudis (dsudis) clint/laura T, 2k

Summary: How the Black Widow became Auntie Nat.

melt (ao3) - romanovasquinn T, 5k

Summary: Perhaps she did not have a heavier hand in the transaction, Natasha thought, perhaps she loved me when she first saw me open my eyes.

She found herself living on perhapses so that she would never land on anything definitive. Perhapses were the thing that kept her from thinking about how unloved she was from the day she was born. It’s a dirty secret she kept hidden in the crux of her heart.

Cold, Natasha thought. She must feel very cold."

---

Melina attempts to reconcile with Natasha by taking her to her biological mother's unmarked grave. It goes as well as you'd expect.

music save your mortal soul (ao3) - nunya_bznz_babes G, 3k

Summary: The girls leave behind little things that never last long - an empty bed with the slight indent of their small body on the mattress, drops of blood in the training room, hair follicles and bits of dead skin that would become the dust that settled in barren corners or coated the lungs of the survivors, the instructors. Clothes to be handed down to the next set of potential Widows.

Natalia won't let herself become one of the dead girls, the ghost girls, the tiny bones rotting under layers of soil. But she remembers their names.

Or: Natasha Romanoff

My Unshaped Form (ao3) - atrata bruce/natasha E, 26k

Summary: Of all the people they could have sent, they send Bruce Banner. In his defense, he seems to realize he has no chance of finding her.

No Place In The World (ao3) - Mtabby2260 clint/laura T, 3k

Summary: "The ceremony is necessary for you to take your place in the world."

"I have no place in the world."

"Exactly."

off to the races (ao3) - Elekat G, 11k

Summary: Elementary School was torture. The kids didn't take it seriously, everything was useless information she would never need, oh, and Natasha hated gym class.

one of us will break it (ao3) - zauberer_sirin nick/natasha T, 1k

Summary: Natasha is not in the business of soft.

(Spoilers for Captain America: The Winter Soldier)

September (ao3) - enigma731 pepper/tony, natasha/tony T, 12k

Summary: Natasha studies him for a long moment, trying to decide whether she believes this last assertion. “So basically you’re trying to make an invention to cure PTSD? Why not just go to therapy?”

Tony gives her a look. “You want to go to therapy?” Tony scoffs. “Besides. Like some doctor is going to know what to do about the fact that I have nightmares about aliens and wormholes.”

“Okay,” says Natasha. “So you’re inventing the world’s next great therapy contraption. What did you want from me?”

“Well." Tony turns back to the computer monitor in a movement that may or may not be to avoid her gaze. “It’s not working. Normally I’d ask Banner, but, well.” He huffs out a bitter laugh. “Besides, I hear you’re the one to ask about coding.”

Some Assembly Required (ao3) - AlphaFlyer clint/natasha T, 4k

Summary: "They say that when you go to the seven circles of Hell, IKEA has taken over the suburbs and parts of the ring road.” Natasha and Clint enter an alien universe.

Some Summers They Drop Like Flys (ao3) - kvikindi T, 5k

Summary: Natasha blew all her covers. It's a brave new world.

Training Wheels (ao3) - thetbone G, 13k

Summary: Natasha doesn’t know how to ride a bike, doesn’t know how to be part of a family, doesn’t know how to be free.

But she’s learning.

you taught me the courage of stars (before you left) (ao3) - wcndanat T, 5k

Summary: Madame B waits, waits, and waits, until she doesn’t anymore. She walks to the table in the corner of the room, picking up the gun sitting over it, and Melina’s breath falters (no, please, not Natasha, not her Natasha, not yet).

The glock slips in Sonja’s hands and Melina closes her eyes, just to open them a second later — she doesn’t want to see this, but she has to, — and that’s when it happens, so suddenly that the woman almost starts sobbing right there on the spot.

Natasha gets up.

or

five times someone witnessed Natasha saving herself, and the one time someone saw her giving up.

[hazelelel]

Found these hiding in my old FLIPACLIP and idk what to do with them. I have no desire to clean them up or finish them

I think it was probably from this scene in an abandoned WIP about Jackson, this muggle dude who was an information gatherer for Dumbledore.

Context: He meets up for meetings with Minerva, Albus, Remus, and Severus each week to give reports. He's made a precarious deal to not be killed, as he is immune to Obliviation (idiot accidentally made friends with a trickster god). He's been to many meetings and now everyone is starting to like him except obviously Severus who hates him. Heheh.

Her- here- here's the scene:

Jackson sat stiffly in his chair in front of Albus's desk, watching as the headmaster flipped through his report. Minerva sat to the side, giving Jackson a stern look. Remus sat next to her and gave Jackson an awkward little thumbs up. Severus was sandwiched in a shadowy corner, looking perhaps even more murderous then the last time. The silence dragged on. Jackson was weary, not only from training with Wotton (thats the trickster god, m'dudes) in a futile attempt to gain any upper hand against a magical opponent with a major advantage, or living in the woods, but also by the issues he was having with his mind. It was all tangled up in there and every time he ventured in, meditating in an open field, he'd find himself thrown out violently. His own mind! It was as if there was something that didn't want him to know it was there. It sent a chill of unnerve down his spine.

Albus set his report down on the desk and finally smiled, pushing his half moon spectacles up on his crooked nose.

"Another excellent report, Jackson. I enjoyed your analysis on the 1930's in both the Muggle and Wizarding world." Albus slid the stack of papers back and Jackson took them. "Now, I believe I want to ask you a few questions."

Jackson swallowed thickly,

"Please." He gestured for the headmaster to continue, all cordial and shit.

"This… issue we've seen arise when trying to obliviate you, it's made for quite the conundrum. In every way, you are entirely normal, yet this sticks out as if there is something larger at play." Albus sobered, leaning forward and folding his fingers.

"I was hoping to attempt something a bit more… experimental." Albus went quiet for a sinister moment, then smiled. "Severus and I believe that you can see through illusion magic due to an abnormality in your mind. Perhapse some deformity of your psyche, but there can be no knowing unless we check. That would be through-"

"Occlumency." Jackson uttered, having read through the mind arts section of the Hogwarts library. "You want to enter my mind?" His eyes darted towards the door. Albus waved his hands gently. "Jackson, my dear boy… there is no need to fear. I only suggest we perform a very brief scan. I believe Severus here could do so and you won't even notice."

At the mention of Severus, Jackson broke into a cold sweat beneath his button-up. The man in question stepped forwards, a looming presence of perpetual anger towards Jackson.

Albus tilted his head, watching Jackson carefully. "That is, only if you consent to this process, of course." Jackson blinked. He was being given a choice? Why? That seemed off.

"Well… no, I would perfer if we-"

"For God's sake, Albus! We twiddle our thumbs for the likes of him now?" Severus hissed, a sneer frozen on his face. Jackson flinched under his intense stare of hatred.

Albus frowned, "Now Severus-"

"To hell with this." Severus shook his head and swooped forwards, bending over front of Jacksons chair faster then he could react.

"That's really won't be necesSSSARY-" Jackson trailed off as Severus grasped his face in both chilled hands and bent down uncomfortably close, his flared nostrils blowing puffs of pissed off air along Jackson's cheeks.

"Look at me." Severus demanded and Jackson immediately closed his eyes. If he'd learned anything living as a muggle in a wizarding world, it was context clues. Context clues told him to not listen for shit. Severus made a noise of frustration and tightened his grip. He leaned in and whispered directly into Jacksons ear, completely turning his brain off for the few seconds his words bounced around his skull.

"If you do not want to end up as potion ingredients, I would suggest you obey me, Muggle."

Jackson, with now very little reluctance, opened his eyes. They were met with a pair of black ones. So black he wondered how. As black as the black of a lake on an overcast night, or the darkest dark of a deep, deep well, or the deepest, most soul grabbing aggressive of- of... Okay, Jackson is no poet. Give him a break.

That was his last thought before the feeling of falling into a mile deep hollow took both of them in a vice grip.

[talenlee]

Story Pile: F For Fake

The remnants of a truly good meal linger, as the memory of the taste drape themselves languid across the tongue and memory both. So to it is with wondrous art and critical scholarship, where an idea, shared and presented well, dances in the mind and waits for its opportunity to spark into the memory to trip its steps anew. Such is it with F For Fake, a wonderful movie that I will now address and in the process perhaps show that my respect looks a great deal like schoolyard teasing. But understand, I pull this movie’s pigtails for a reason.

Now, before we trudge through the streets of Ibiza, Ireland and New York, our sloppy steps shambling between the intercut corpses of a failed documentary, I must first abide you with a content warning, in that this is a movie from 1973 about art and cinema as conceived by one Orson Welles, and has the sensibilities towards how to present and talk about women that one might consider now ‘somewhat dated.’ What is more, it is a movie that talks about real historical events and an order to explain those events, meaning that it is necessary to accord you with a spoiler warning.

Good?

Good.

F for Fake is a documentary. It is a found footage movie. It is a queer biography. It is a Youtube Video Essay predating all those things complete with a skit where Doug Walker shows up. In this work, Orson Welles shows you his hot girlfriend, then tells you that he is going to show you a documentary about a renowned art forger, which was complicated in its production by the discovery its primary journalistic source was someone who was in fact, also, a fraudster who had used a lie about a Howard Hughes Autobiography as a way to swindle publishers out of three quarters of a million dollars.

The artist, a man named Elmyr de Hory, is Hungarian-born and that is about the point that my ability to provide a truthful and wholly justifiable summary of his life ends. Oh I could repeat to you with as many caveats and maybes and perhapses and nonethelesses that the Wikipedia page seeks to do, or instead just present it with its obvious contradictions the way the movie does, but why would you come to me for Black And Gold brand bombast when Orson Welles is delivering it with such grandeur himself?

The journalist, Clifford Irving, is a suitably interesting fellow in that he published up to seven books before his ‘autobiography’ and the ensuing fracas around it. The Autobiography of Howard Hughes presents both a beautiful pair of flanking details; after it, he penned the book Project Octavio: The Story of the Howard Hughes Hoax, and before it, Fake: The Story of Elmyr de Hory: The Greatest Art Forger of Our Time. What a narrative, so constructed! A novelist comes to an island to study an art forger, and somehow immediately afterwards he becomes a fraudster himself, as if somehow an exposure to the forger showed him the porous nature of expertise and the potential rewards that could come from merely having the will to disregard social convention.

The movie is presented by Welles without any interaction between Welles and the two subjects of the documentary, which stands to reason. After all, like the Youtuber he is, he has never met any of the people involved, and all that he has to work with is the footage composed for the failed documentary and whatever B-roll he can shoot with his girlfriend and her dad. Sitting in the editor’s bay surrounded with rolls of film, showing his expertise with it, you see? You see, this Kuleshov effect, where he is presented surrounded by the signifiers of the material he is an expert in. It is the same as Tom Vasel signifies through his Kallax his expertise with board games, Kyle Kallgren through his bookshelf his expertise with literature, and any other given gamer’s wall of Funko Pops that he is a chode.

So surrounded by the signifiers of his expertise, Welles frames and discusses the footage, cut together to allow the two subjects to speak to one another across time. We see through the magic of the documentary, three men not talking to one another, arranged in conversation to present a narrative that considers authenticity, artistic creation and the depth of meaning achieved through metastasizing a coincidence that rises on its own to the level of ‘oh, huh, that’s funny.’

An element that bothers at the edges of all of this story is a seemingly common haughty disdain for experts and critics, because after all, if you conflate together all forms of expertise into a singular point and present an example of ‘them’ failing you can throw the entire concept out like so much bathwater, babies be damned! What use do we have of experts and critics, bah-humbugs this movie with the portent of someone who definitely does not project a thin-skinned disdain for those who do things like ‘criticise’ such elements as the work of someone they once lauded as responsible for the greatest movie of all time? Poppycock — this is a movie with a full hour of unvarnished, unbridled truth after all.

Now, were I put to the task of defending the expert I would indicate that this is a movie about an arms race between an armed group of liars and an undersupported squad of practitioners in the nascent dawn of their craft. Picasso himself is highlighted in the story as not being perfectly capable of identifying his own work, so taking to the task of identifying what he did and did not create must be itself a widening gyre the likes of which is not facilitated much without practice and process and precedent. The expert of this movie is a different beast to the expert of today, who can now non-destructively deduce material components of paintings and do genuinely fascinating forensic work into the reanimation of history, and they were up against a forger who was both good at what he was doing and at nowhere near the same risk. If you try to sell a forged painting to a museum and they do not want it, you can just run.

In this movie where a liar lies to you about a liar who lies to you about a liar, it stands out as the great raw nerve of its construction, surfaced and subtly seething, as if in a fog of high minded theatrical jackknifing the story can at least discern a single, unifying true thing, that there really is no need for experts or critics who supply nothing to art. Behold this example, of the beautiful Cathedral of Chartres, whose artists and craftspeople are all lost to time, aside from those who commissioned it and took credit for it. I for one agree: The hands that laid the bricks are more important than the powerful, bloated extrusion of church edifice who merely paid for the thing to exist, and to that end, Orson my comrade, I will indeed see you at the barricades.

Now, if a work was about the interactions of multiple layers of lies, it might fall to a critic to be able to helpfully provide context to those who want to understand what the movie is doing. Especially one who could point out that no magic trick is depicted in this movie without multiple convenient cuts to allow an extremely weak magician to hide their incompetence at palming a key in their gloves.

Of course, I would be so harsh on this work, even this work I enjoyed, given that Orson Welles was my father.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[emoryinaboat]

hey, paledonuttacok is a documented scammer, they used to go by the usernames happytrashpost, beautifulanchorpeace, unabashedobjectkitty, valiantcandysweets, transparentobservationpeach, strangeangelwinner, lovelypurplenacho, delicatesublimelizarddy, enchantingqueencreator, pleasantcollectionlove, sweettravelercheesecake, mysticglitterdestiny, glitterytreetyphoon, friedinternetqueen, stickyjellyfishgarden and who knows how many more

perhapse i am the most gullible person on the planet./lh

[bisluthq]

Wait, who is Dasha? Gosh, there are many people in this story.

Nat. I know you are busy so I'm mostly joking but... Do you think you could some day write out a Realistic Maylor Timeline? I could use one! (Even if it's not as long as the Kaylor one was!)

I would love to do that because I’ve been truthering Tatty for forever (since 2020 and being actively a part of fandom) but I really really really can’t see myself having the time. The Kaylor one was like a mental breakdown I was having in the pandemic yk so it was something to work on and I had collaborators and shit and I’m ngl I stand by it even now because it’s not IMpossible (it’s mildly inappropriate post CNN but I wrote it before she said that) and I peppered in tons of maybes and perhapses into it but I’d need an equal breakdown to do a Maylor/Tatty one. Also one of the things that motivated me to write the Kaylor one was I was really cross with TTB and thought she was a bad influence on gay kids. Maylors aren’t impressionable gay kids, they’re generally just folkmore era Tay fans and I’m not as invested in saving them (and tbh I’ve given up on saving the gay kids also because… sad yk obviously but I need to worry about myself first and not someone else’s fucking closeted child).

Dasha is an edgelord podcaster lol who said mean things about Andrea.

[buzzing-honeybee]

for some reason watching atwow i can’t help but to question why it’s shot in the way it is. perhapse its a stylistic choice. perhaps they plan on having all the movies in the future also be shot in this style and maby have flashbacks or what ever and maby cover some stuff?? like it just seems like the movie progressed so fast but many thats cuz i have a weird time perception of movies and media.

i mean it’s nice to see the different story lines and watch them progress but u just hope we get some of all the other characters in the future films.

or maby its just the writing style of whoever was the screen writer or like the person who creates the script.

[mootablemimic]

perhapse.... 44? for any chara/ship?

“Take my hand,” says Aeliana. When Rael scoffs, she doubles down. “Just trust me.”

This time Rael does as instructed, noting just how soft Aeliana’s hand is against her rough palm. “Aye? What for?”

“We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“Aye? What for?” she repeats.

“Rael, as your friend... An actual, proper friend. You have got to stop letting people call you Zenos’ friend.”

The Roegadyn rolls her eyes. “Don’t mind him being me friend. He deserved at least one, didn’t he?”

“There are many things I think Zenos viator Galvus deserved, but a friend doesn’t number among them.”

“Don’t have to call him that. Just say Zenos. Don’t get all tied up in that viator shite.”

Aeliana looks taken aback. “Are you...defending him?”

“There’s things you don’t understand.” Rael takes her hand back, crossing her arms. “Ain’t your business how I feel about Zenos. Felt about. However you wanna say it.”

Long moments pass between them in silence. Aeliana is struck dumb by Rael’s words, while Rael refuses to meet her eyes. It’s a heavy admission that’s been weighing on her for years now.

“I’m sorry,” says Aeliana, finally willing to break the silence. “For your loss, I mean.”

“Aye, I’m sorry too. Real bastardly shite, weren’t he? Saddest excuse for a prince.”

“Now that I’ll drink to.”

“Don’t keep it all to yourself now,” Rael says, surprisingly jovial. “We’re friends, ain’t we?”

[doctorwenqing]

i just realized have forgotten to keep up with my count of how many times thrawn smiles on here (but don’t worry, i have still been tracking it!!). now that i’m done with my reread, here’s the final stats:

thrawn (2017): 8

thrawn alliances: 12 (1 past, 11 present)

thrawn treason: 10

chaos rising: 20

greater good: 6

lesser evil: 10

which brings the total count to… *gasp* 66 times thrawn smiles in the canon books.

[positivityjediprince]

Listen, Book of Boba, I see your Paz being a dick; HOWEVER, you bet I'm gonna use all my psychology knowledge to find a work around to bring him back to big dumb good chaos boy, who shenanigans with consort Luke, lesbian sister Cara and, sometimes, gremlin nephew Grogu.

You cannot stop me.

I love them being menaces to society, and I will never stop.

Din deserves a fun and loving family! And by the gods I will give it to him!

[softforcal]

good luck to everyone starting school today :) or like, this week :)

[boffinsandbeasties]

big sigh i want garbage food and a whiteclaw

[heich0e]

know you now kuroo tetsuro/f!reader (haikyuu!!) tags: mind rotting fluff, borderline unreadable, reader went to high school in america, established relationship a/n: did i write this because I put my prom dress on last night while I was wearing a facemask? perhapsibly

9:07 PM: What are you up to?

The text message pings through as you shove three pairs of colourful socks into your overflowing sock drawer, nudging it closed forcefully with your hip. You brush your hair out of your eyes and reach for the device.

‘Almost done putting away my laundry and about to put on a facemask!’ you type out a reply.

9:08 PM: Without me? :(

‘You’re still at work Tetsu’ you snort, hitting send. ‘My pores can’t wait for whatever overtime you’re putting in AGAIN’ You send the second message after tacking on your oft-used clown emoji, dropping your phone at the end of your bed.

You shuffle into the washroom just outside your bedroom, fishing a nearly empty tube of clay-based facemask from the second drawer from the top where you keep your skincare. You squeeze a generous amount onto your fingers and then smear the cool green paste over your skin.

You pad back out to your bedroom once every inch of your chin, forehead and cheeks are coated in the rapidly drying mask, noticing a sweater you’d forgotten to hang up at the end of your bed. You pluck it up and carry it over to the closet, door still left ajar, and tuck it inside.

A flash of gauzy red fabric at the back of your closet catches your eye.

You stretch deep into the depths until you reach the very end of the clothing rack, wrapping your hands around the last hanger to pull it out.

Your prom dress.

You run your fingers over it as you hold it up in front of you, flashbacks to a prom night so many years ago playing in your mind. It was relatively unspectacular--not anywhere near the teen rom-com movie moment you may have hoped it would be. You're not even sure why you'd dragged it all the way back to Japan with you when your family moved home the summer after you graduated, when your father's job had relocated him back to the country where you'd grown up, nor are you certain why you'd bothered to bring it to your own apartment once you’d moved out. 

It's just a dress. A slightly garish, excessively formal dress, but still just a dress.

You distantly wonder if it still fits. 

You carefully peel off the comfortable clothes you’d spent the day doing chores in, mindful of the clay mask drying to your face, kicking them off to the side with your sock-clad feet. You then pull the dress on with an equal cautiousness. 

It fits, but it’s a little tight. Your body has changed since your youth, unsurprisingly, but the zipper pulls up after a bit of encouragement. You breathe out and feel the way the material pulls tight around your ribs, but otherwise it fits the same way you remember.

Outside your bedroom, the timer dings on your dryer. You shuffle out and pull the warm laundry (just a load of towels) into the laundry basket waiting in front of the machine, toting it into your living room where you plan to fold them. The cold beer you’d cracked not long prior is still waiting, mostly-full, on the table. 

So you sit watching TV, sipping beer, folding towels, wearing a facemask, in your prom dress. 

Being an adult is so weird. 

Six towels and half-a-beer in, your front door opens and you look up in surprise.

Your boyfriend stands in the genkan, frozen with one shoe half-toed off, staring at you with an equally surprised look on his face. 

His eyes are glued to the red garment wrapped around your frame.

He drops his backpack at his feet.

“Are you going somewhere?”

“Tetsu, what are you doing here?” you ask, ignoring his question in favour of one of your own, standing up with an unfolded towel in your hands, trying to hide behind the cotton terry-cloth.

“I texted you," he says as he steps a little further into your apartment, setting his spare key down on the table in the entryway. "The meeting ended early and I didn’t go out drinking with them. I let you know I was on my way,” he says slowly, almost a bit sheepishly. 

“Oh,” you reply dumbly. “I, uh, left my phone in my room.”

“So,”--Kuroo's eyes flitter down to your dress, waving his hands in your general direction--“big plans tonight that I should know about?”

“It’s my prom dress,” you say, as though that explains anything. 

“Prom dress?”

“Uh, at the end of high school we had a big dance for everyone graduating,"--you pinch the bridge of your nose with one hand, realizing belatedly you still have a facemask on. "We all wore fancy dresses and suits and ate a mediocre meal and then danced a bit while our teachers watched and then got drunk in fields on liquor we stole from our parents at the afterparty,” you explain, on the wrong side of rambling, gesticulating vaguely with the hand that has faskmask on the tips of your fingers, “so, uh… yeah. Prom.”

“America is so weird," Tetsuro murmurs, scrunching up his face.

You laugh. “You’re not wrong.”

“Why do you still have it?” he asks curiously, taking another step into the room towards you.

“I dunno,” you say as your cheeks flush hot. “I guess I brought it with me when I moved because I thought I might have somewhere else to wear it? Which is ridiculous looking at this thing now.” You fiddle absentmindedly with the skirt, accidentally wiping some of the facemask into the material.

“I think it’s pretty.” Tetsuro says, taking the towel from your hands. He cleans the half-dried clay mask from your hand, and then wipes off the bit that had transferred to your skirt. He sets the towel down on the arm of your sofa, turning back to you.

You watch raptly as he surveys the dress, reaching up and running this fingers across the beading at your diaphragm like he can’t resist, tracing it with the tip of his index finger. He peeks at you through his lashes.

“Red was my school colour, y’know.”

Your breath catches in your throat.

It's quiet for a long moment, but from the corner of your gaze you spot the time on your stove clock. 

“I need to wash my facemask off,” you say quietly. 

Kuroo hums, stepping back, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his slacks as if to shackle them.

You pick up the material of your skirt and scurry off to the washroom, quickly scrubbing the dried clay from your hot face. Once your skin is clean, you stare at your reflection in the mirror as you dry the lingering dampness from your cheeks. Your hair is pinned up messily, your skin dewy and freshly washed.

The bright red dress on your body is a stark contrast to your naked face.

You feel silly.

You aren't sure what possessed you to put the damn thing on, but you swear to bring the garment to a second hand donation bin as soon as you possibly can. You reach behind you and grasp for the zipper, tugging it down.

It stops halfway.

Stuck. 

You meekly shuffle back out to the kitchen where Kuroo is getting a beer from your fridge.

“Tetsu,” you murmur, and he stands up from behind the fridge door quickly at the sound of your voice. You turn your half-exposed back to him. “Can you help me?”

He sets his can of beer aside on the counter and steps up to you. His tie had been loosened in the time you'd been gone washing your face.

You face forward, trying not to shiver as his fingers ghost across your shoulder blades, and then down your spine. 

He swiftly zips it up.

“No, I mean’t unzip it,” you say, tone almost plaintive.

“I know what you meant,” he whispers, and suddenly you realize he's much closer than you'd expected--his voice practically in your ear. Tetsuro presses a kiss to your shoulder, then the curve of your neck. “I just wanna admire you for a little bit longer.”

Slowly, you turn in his hold. 

His cheeks are redder than his tie and your dress put together.

“You’re so weird,” you murmur lovingly.

“You’re not wrong,” he replies with a lopsided, toothy grin. 

He pulls you into his arms.

“So did you have a prom date?” he asks as he sways you lightly from side to side, not quite a dance but close to it. His fingers trace down the back of your dress.

You hum affirmatively. “Just some guy in my year. He didn’t dance with me once all night. Said it was lame.”

Your boyfriend clicks his tongue. “His loss.”

“It wasn’t so bad, though,” you say with a smile that you bury against his chest, reflecting on the memory. “I just danced with my friends.”

Tetsuro is moving you a little more surely now, stepping this way and that in time with the swaying of your bodies. You let him guide you around in a dance with no tempo.

“So you had fun?” he asks softly, his lips just by your ear. 

“I did,” you agree, equally quietly. One of his hands finds yours where it rests against his chest, bringing it up to his mouth to brush his lips agains the back of your knuckles before twining your fingers together. 

“I wish I had known you back then," he says, spinning you gently. Your head is already swimming without the added twirl.

“You know me now,” you reply as he pulls you back to him, cradling your frame against his. 

Tetsuro laughs, and it almost sounds a little choked up.

He holds you closer.

“Yeah,” he breathes, soft and devoted. “I do.”

The two of you keep dancing in your kitchen, socked feet on tiled floor. He's dressed in his work suit, creased after a long day at the office, and you in the prom dress you don’t know why you’ve kept this long. There’s no music, just the background noise of whatever television show you’d abandoned in the living room that paints the room in light that flickers as the scenes change. Your clean towels are still left unfolded on the sofa, and there are droplets of condensation slipping down the sides of your respective beer cans as they rest unfinished.

There’s no twinkly lights, no top 100s love songs blaring, no clammy hands or adolescent nerves or hesitation.

It’s just the two of you, as you are.

It’s better than any prom could ever be.