#oh my god where did Tucker go who is this original character

[zillychu]

is it really an AU if it looks like an entirely original premise where you cant even recognize the cast?

1. Yes actually!

2. Are you really admitting you can't tell it's Danny Phantom because his hair is long

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

And now I’ve watched episode 3 of Walker because of reasons. (You guys asked, that’s reasons.) #1

My review of episode 1 got a lot of positive feedback and a lot of you asked me to cover more episodes! But my review of episode 2 didn’t get much feedback at all. Possibly because episode 2 was boring and you can only make so many funny jokes about the glowy wife before it gets stale, so I get it, it’s fine. It was boring for me too. Hopefully this gets funnier! I actually have high expectations for this episode, since apparently it introduces NotDean. You know, the childhood friend who Walker loves like a brother and is the Han Solo to Walker’s Luke Skywalker. Like, what. Stop comparing Jared Padalecki characters to Like Skywalker 2021 challenge. *insert you keep using that word...*

Anyway, in case you missed it - here are all my reviews of Walker episodes, in chronological order.

EDIT: *screeching* GUYS YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS IN THIS. YOU CANNOT IMAGINE WHAT HAPPENS IN THIS. Read to the end, don’t stop at the padalacting. I’m begging you asdfghjkl

Alright. Let’s start this. Actually I have a thought before we start. You know, I was thinking that episode 3 of Supernatural is when Dean gets genuinely introduced as a person. Sera Gamble and Raelle Tucker were the first to give Dean the personality that stuck and developed into the character that we love. Dead In The Water is, not coincidetally, the episode that sold Supernatural to me. The first couple of episodes were weirdly compelling, without which I wouldn’t have continued watching, but you must understand that I’d never watched horror before. It really wasn’t my genre. I was just watching on the assumption that it would get better at some point, and if it didn’t I’d stop. But Dead In The Water got me. Because that’s when we’re really shown Dean for the first time. The rest is history and now we’re here.

So I wonder what will happen in episode 3 of Walker. Is it going to magically pull a Dean out of the hat and get me?

Let’s start. The Texan countryside. The yellow, glowy light tells us this is a flashback. Closeups of Jared and Gen. He is somewhat concerned. He’s at the wheel of a car, still on the street - a red Mustang. Unlike the red Mustang of the horseman War, it is a convertible. Fun fact: a Mustang was Kripke’s original idea for the Winchesters’ car, but then switched to the Impala for body-in-the-trunk reasons. I am the 😬 emoji.

Actually guys I need to show you a couple Jared faces. I think they’re supposed to be purposely comedic faces, but honestly this is just how he acts normally. I promise I am not coming in this with a bias towards Jared’s acting. I just observe, with my eyes. He was actually good in many Supernatural episodes.

I just can’t see Cordell Walker. I’m just seeing Jared and Gen Padalecki delivering what is a somewhat padalecki acting in front of my eyes and I swear I had to close the video in the middle of this scene and start over because of a sudden attack of second-hand embarrassment.

Let’s continue

Basically, Walker is trying to drive the Mustang, but he is not good at it and the car stops after two meters. He feels exactly how I feel when I watch Walker.

“Damn it!” Jared exclaims, jaredly. I think that this scene is supposed to be set Many Years Ago, because Walker is wearing a backwards cap and Emily has her hair styled like Bad Janet but straighter, which actually says a lot about this show somehow.

God, I wish I could gif the entire scene to show you guys the padalacting. I mean, I could, but ain’t nobody got time for that. Have a bit of the scene.

For some reason she puts this thing on the dashboard, because he “puts your mind at ease”.

He makes more Jared faces, which we’ll skip because I don’t want to spend 7 hours on this.

Wait look at this shot of the car (with some bonus Jared face).

Why does this look filmed by your dad with a videocamera on Christmas afternoon after you received a toy car as a present? I suddenly have a newfound admiration for the directors who did Impala shots on Supernatural because it would seem car shots are not that easy to make. Maybe this is why Supernatural always filmed at night with a black car.

Guys I am telling you, if you need to watch one scene of Walker in your life, watch this scene. It’s so embarrassing. I almost decided to gif the moment of the car going and commenting “nyoom” but the Impala does not deserve this.

Anyway.

Listen, if I have to see thing thing over and over, you have to see it too.

He’s brought the damn thing onto a new cop truck while on a stakeout with Ramirez, who is just as happy about it as any normal person would.

I think they’re outside a strip club, judging from the posters outside.

He keeps quoting lines from the scene with his wife, which is sort of weird since Ramirez is not his love interest. Yet. Oh no. Don’t. Don’t do that. Don’t even thinking of doing that. Ramirez has a perfectly fine boyfriend.

Walker says that since they’re sitting there just waiting for the suspect’s movements or whatever, they should use that time to get to know each other, like “favorite movies, the teams you root for, middle names”.

Ramirez is me.

He’s like ~let’s bond~ and Ramirez goes immediately for the jugular and asks how Stella (his daughter) is doing. “Wow” he says. He says he and Stella are “in a good place, I think”. You’re not and we’re definitely not. This is the bad place.

Basically, they’re trying to live in a bubble of ignoring her upcoming court date for the marijuana thing. Ramirez says that the easy route is not a good idea. He’s like, are you speaking from experience? Basically they keep implying Ramirez also has a ~bad girl past, which I can absolutely live without.

Aaand now we see the inside of the strip club. The suspect is there, a lady with a Latinoamerican name, apparently bisexual because she’s surrounded by a woman and a man in underwear, the woman is touching her, it leaves no doubt about it. 😬 Enter the stripper on stage, who captures the lady’s attention.

The stripper is a man. Dressed as a slutty cowboy. There’s glitter.

Yeah, you read it right.

Oh no. No I absolutely change my mind. If you have to watch one scene of Walter, it must be the slutty glitter cowboy stripper.

There’s. There’s a. There’s a slutty glitter cowboy stripper.

The CW could do slutty glitter cowboy strippers and Dean Winchester is not there?!

I repeat, they killed Dean Winchester and then did slutty glitter cowboy strippers in Walker?!

This is a travesty. This is an outrage.

Crime. Pure crime.

Listen, I’m not optimizing these gifs, take these super quick gifs, I can’t possibly spend my night optimizing glitter cowboy stripper gifs. But you need to see.

What’s the target demographic of this show? Texan housewives? The gays? Are they trying to test all the waters and see what happens? Is Walker going to become about gay people and Jared’s character a secondary character in his own show?

Wait

*sweats* Are they really trying to replicate Supernatural in everything after all?

The bisexual lighting is there and all.

The guy in skimpy underwear is distracting. I can’t believe yesterday I saw a Jared interview where he said he couldn’t watch Supernatural with his kids because of all the violence but Walker is a show you can watch with kids. I mean, aside from this scene, Walker is definitely more kid-friendly than Supernatural for obvious reasons. But hey, since Supernatural already was non-kid-friendly, they could have at least put more dudes in skimpy underwear.

You know what, I think they’re just aiming for Texan housewives.

“You’re hotter than Austin asphalt” suspect lady tells the stripper. You know. Something normal people say.

(If Texan people actually speak like this, do NOT tell me.)

Guys, we’re only four minutes in. It’s midnight. I will continue tomorrow...

*screams into the void* These have been the four wildest minutes of my life.

[cassidybueter]

A play by play reaction of the live-action FMA movie: because I hate myself and also you.

Oh good. It has English dubs. So it'll be a delight for both the eyes and ears.

Mama Elric dies from hugs.

NO CHARACTERIZATION. ONLY PLOT.

If I hadn't read the manga, I'd be totally lost. And because I read the manga, I know it's bad. Who was this for?

There are many female voice actors that can do convincing young boy voices. These... are not those actors.

Why is Father Cornello running around a clearly empty city?

I keep expecting Edward's discount bin Spirit Halloween wig to fly off.

The only people trying are the CGI animators.

Alphonse has said nothing and done nothing because animation is expensive.

And cover up the metal arm! Quickly! Before we have to figure out how to do a good effect!

Suddenly the town is filled with people.

Why is Mustang in Leore?

Why... is he arresting Edward?

The philosopher's stone is clearly red plastic.

Remeber how I said the animators were trying? I take that back. Al's animator is very drunk.

WHY IS WINRY IN LIORE?! What the fuck?

How are we in East City?! It's miles away. Did we teleport?!

And why is Edward's dialogue so muffled? Was it being recorded through a pillow? No one else's is this bad.

They ditched Al in Leore so they wouldn't have to animate him.

Damn. These characters really do telelort at the speed of plot.

Ok. Points where they're due: Hughes' actor seems good and the shadow of Gluttony eating someone is very intimidating.

Winry is a brunette. Which wouldn't be weird except that they put so much non-effort into making Ed blonde.

This would probably be great if it were, say, a comic book, or an animated TV show.

Truth: How'd you like it? Ed's actor: Well, it's a paycheck.

After they transmuted their mom, Edward turned into his teenage actor, because the little kids can't act.

"This house is huge" *doesn't show house.*

Anime Shou Tucker looked kinda creepy, but possibly friendly. This Shou Tucker is just some sleepy dude.

Mustang and Hughes walk down Generic Path of Exposition. Screw creativity, we pray to the ALMIGHTY PLOT.

Again: Why is Winry here?

I like how Ed just ditches his brother anytime the director thinks the budget is getting too big.

They got the most wooden VAs for like half the characters. And the shittiest microphone for the main character!

You know what the original story was missing? GOD DAMNED HYPNOSIS. THE LAZIEST TROPE.

Winry is the real main character. She does things and Edward/Alphonse follow blindly.

Edward's metal hand makes a very fleshy sound when slapped against the table.

Marcho's dead. Lol.

A man died in front of us and we found the secret to the stone. Next scene!

CGI dog Nina looks like Snuffaluffagus.

This scene was creepier when hand drawn.

Now that Winry has been so firmly established as the third Elric Brother, it's weirder when she's not around.

Okay, when the classic dialogue from the series is delivered without the emotional context of the story, it's suddenly very silly and emo.

Edward is studying. Alphonse is sitting, trying to move as little as possible.

God bless you, Maes Hughes, the best part of the movie.

Seriously, he's mostly on point. Everyone else can go to hell.

Ah yes, Laboratory #5, a totally safe place for Winry to be. Man, it was such a cool place in the real story. Here? Just an empty building. Then again, we can't figure out how to animate one armor, how would we do three?

Oh no, the brothers are fighting for no reason. If only there was emotional weight.

"It hurts to see you hurt." Bitch, it hurts to hear you speak.

Yeah, where's East City on that map, Hughes? Is it two feet away from Leore? No?

Remember when Envy transforms into Hughes' wife before killing him and how that was real imactful? They set that up by having him drop the photo, but then Envy turns into MUSTANG.

Tucker lives. It was stupid when the '03 series did it and it's stupid now.

Envy looks like he styled his hair with crude oil.

This movie's so LOOOOOOOOONG.

The shadow of Gluttony eating people looked good. The actual CGI... is grossly unfinished.

Shou Tucker tries and fails to be the main villain. It's almost cute.

Oh god. The cyclopse dolls animate like Going To The Store. This just looks silly.

Alphonse: I can't move my body. Animators: Oh. How convenient.

Oh yeah. Riza Hawkeye exists.

Aw, now that the movie's over they're trying to wring emotions out of every person's single character trait.

A bright light started shining on the cast and I prayed they were about to get hit by a train. Nope. It was the sun, rising on a new day.

In short: It sucks.

[skinks]

hi!!! what are your favourite movies? like actually good ones but also any trashy comfort movies? is IT (2017) one of them?

Hello!! IT (2017) IS ABSOLUTELY ONE OF THEM oh man, thank you for this, I love talking about movies!!!! This is possibly the most difficult question you could have asked me. Apologies for how absolutely off the rails this got, I just... love movies so much lmao

I’ve said this before, but opening night of IT ch1 was the best cinema experience I’ve ever had, I’m so glad I got to see it with a fully packed audience who were all laughing and screaming together the whole way through. I’m a huge fan of... everything ch1 was doing, the 80s nostalgia, the summer-coming-of-age themes, the solid ghost train funhouse JOY of the Pennywise performance and scares, the washed-out cinematography, the tiny background details to make everything that much more eerie, the kids’ ACTING?!

Like, a lot of the time I find child actors can be really awkward and stilted to watch, but I remember leaving the cinema really impressed by JDG and Sophia Lillis in particular. I liked that they were all allowed to be little shitheads with potty mouths, it felt like a callback to 80s movies like The Lost Boys or Stand By Me. The whole thing worked to make me really care about what happened to the kids (even if I do still have issues with how they handled Mike. I understand even ch1 had limitations with juggling so many characters, but still). I saw it another 2 times in the cinema and have rewatched it at least, I dunno, 7-10 more times since then?

Add to all of that the retroactive CANON R+E baby pining subplot? I just love it, as if that wasn’t obvious by now given my Whole Blog. It’s a really special movie to me!

Anyway!! Ok, the main handful of movies I rewatch all the fucking time are:

Back to the Future, The Lost Boys, Pride and Prejudice (2005), Jaws, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Breakfast Club, Ocean’s 11, POTC 1, The Dark Knight, Inception, Die Hard, LOTR trilogy, Snatch, The Nice Guys, Logan Lucky, Mad Max Fury Road, Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, Billy Elliot, Dirty Dancing, Tomb Raider (2018)...

Those are the easily consumable ones that I’ve seen so many times I don’t really have to concentrate or think about them, but I really love them and unfortunately often KEEP rewatching them instead of new stuff. It would take too long to go into why I love all these movies so much because I could write the same amount as I already did for ITCH1, and everyone already knows why those movies are good, so, lol.

I think I’m gonna have to subdivide and categorise this whole post because there are too many separate criteria for... goOD MOVIES, AUUHH 😩

Okay so first off, HORROR MOVIES? I’m especially in love with Re-Animator (1985) and its sequel Bride of Re-Animator, they’re such good examples of camp and batshit 80s practical effects, and also EXTREMELY funny. I’m actually just gonna post my list of my fave horror movies that I do actually keep on my phone at all times lmao. These are in no particular order:

Wholeheartedly recommend every one of these. I’ve never been so scared in my life as I was watching Hereditary in the cinema, hoo boy. Mother! by Aronofsky is one of the strangest experiences I’ve ever had (and I actually saw it on the same day I saw IT ch1 for the first time!! That was a fun day)

Psycho (1960) and The Fly from 1986 should also be on there but I couldn’t fit them in the screenshot.

I’m a HUGE fan of a ton of martial arts movies too, like Kung Fu Hustle, Shaolin Soccer, Ip Man, The Raid movies, John Wick 3 is my fave of the trilogy, Drive from 1997 with Mark Dacascos is incredible, SPL 2, Ong-Bak, Operation Condor, Project A, Iron Monkey, and Zatoichi (2003) are some favourites.

My favourite Tarantino is Reservoir Dogs, fave Coen brothers are Raising Arizona, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and O Brother Where Art Thou. Love some old-timey colour correction and weird offbeat dialogue. I also love Goodfellas!!! And Donnie Brasco! And The Firm, I’m so easy for any good crime/law/gangster/heist procedural like that, especially if they’re from the 80s or 90s in a super dated way.

Fave Disney movie is Tarzan, favourite Ghibli movies are Spirited Away and Lupin III. I remember watching Spirited Away during a thunderstorm one time and it being.... god! Transcendent! Favourite Pixar movie is The Incredibles (the first one. ALSO the documentary “The Pixar Story” is great and well worth a watch, it’s very comforting for some reason) and my favourite Dreamworks movies are HTTYD1 and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimmaron.

I tend to watch more anime movies than tv shows, so stuff like Akira, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars, Journey to Agartha, and my ultimate fave anime is Sword of the Stranger (2008). The climactic fight in that movie is fucking stunning and should be counted in “bests fights” lists right alongside anything live action

Also if we’re talking animated movies another hearty favourite is Rango, and a Belgian stop-motion (which at one time I considered my favourite movie ever) called Panique Au Village (2009) which is one of the funniest movies ever made imo.

As for TRASHY movies, I’m not sure if that’s the right word for how I feel about these ones but.. dumb/silly/slightly guilty pleasure movies? Ones that I feel need some kind of justification lmfao

Troy - something u must know about me is that I’m a giant slut for the Assassin’s Creed franchise, so if a movie smashes historical and mythological nonsense together with fun costumes and sword fights, I’m gonna enjoy myself. Even if they should have made Achilles and Patroclus gay. Other movies in this vein are King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, and Immortals (2011)

Gods of Egypt - I know all the reasons this movie is whitewashed bullshit. But it was already bullshit with giant Anubis mecha and giant snakes and bad acting and ridiculous CGI and frankly I had a blast at the cinema (my friend who I forced to come with me did not have a blast. Sorry H***)

Avatar - yes, the one with the big blue people. This movie gets a lot of flack nowadays but I really do enjoy it just for the spectacle. The full CGI world technology was so new at the time and I love to wallow in the visuals and daydream about riding a cool dragon around in the jungle

George of the Jungle - I’ll defend this movie to the death ok this movie shaped me as a person, it is fucking hilarious and Brendan Fraser is the himbo to end all himbos. It’s perfect. The song Dela is perfect. I still want to write a reddie AU about it. It’s one of the best movies ever made and I’m not being ironic

Set It Up - I KNOW this is a dumb Netflix original romcom but consider this; it was funny and the leads had great chemistry. I got butterflies. I once watched it and then literally immediately set it back to the start so I could watch it again

The Brady Bunch Movie - when people talk about great satires or parodies you will see them bring up the same movies over and over again, Blazing Saddles, This Is Spinal Tap etc, but they never talk about The Brady Bunch Movie from 1995 for some reason, which they should. It is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen and every time i watch it somehow it gets funnier

Some more general favourites that I do still love but don’t rewatch as often, and don’t wanna go into more detail about are:

Moon (2009), Crna Mačka Beli Mačor, The Sixth Sense, Parasite, The Handmaiden, Tremors, Wet Hot American Summer, Tucker and Dale vs Evil, What We Do In The Shadows, Hunt For the Wilderpeople, The Secret of My Success (I love kitschy 80s movies, is that obvious by now), The Green Mile, When Harry Met Sally, Rear Window, The Odd Couple, Breaking Away, Pan’s Labyrinth, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Eagle, Gladiator, The Artist, The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec, Call Me By Your Name, Master and Commander, Pacific Rim, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Legend (1985), Emma. (2020), Flash Gordon, Trolljegeren, Hross í Oss, Beverly Hills Cop, Coming to America, WarGames, District 9, Ajeossi (2010), Tracks (2013), Sightseers, Mud (2012), Pitch Black, Four Lions, Shaun of the Dead, Starship Troopers, The Truman Show, Withnail & I....... Jesus Christ ok I need to stop

NOTABLE EXTREME FAVOURITES that I didn’t include in the regular rewatch list because they’re too heavy/not as well known/require more attention.:

Thin Red Line (1998), Badlands (1973) both dir. Terrence Malick

Malick’s brand of dreamy impressionistic filmmaking is something I find really appealing, both of these movies are gorgeous and unusual and poignant and, in the case of Thin Red Line at least, have a lot of things to say about a lot of rough subjects. I don’t totally understand all those things sometimes, but a theme with a lot of my favourite movies is that I’ll be more likely to love something long-term if it raises unanswered questions, or is surreal/esoteric etc. Plus the cinematography is incredible, and I wish there was a way to get Jim Caviezel’s narration from The Thin Red Line as an audiobook because it’s very poetic and soothing.

Let the Bullets Fly (2010) dir. Jiang Wen

This movie is WILD, it’s so much fun. It’s sprawling and intricate and epic and smart and really fucking funny, it! Has! Everything! A gang of very tolerant outlaws!! Jiang Wen’s beautiful broad chest!!! Chow Yun Fat absolutely DECIMATING the scenery, and the two of them outsmarting each other in order to gain control of a small Chinese town!!! Plus it’s long, but it packs so much nonsense and intrigue that it goes by really fast. Wow what a flick

A Field in England (2013) dir. Ben Wheatley

I know I included this in my horror list but aaaaahhh ahhhh Wheatley is one of my favourite directors (he also made Sightseers, and is directing the Tomb Raider sequel which makes me absolutely rabid.) This is a surreal black-and-white psychological horror black comedy set in the English Civil War about some deserters who may or may not meet the Devil in a field. People eat mushrooms. It’s bonkers. I love being blasted in the face with imagery that I don’t understand

Mandy (2018) dir. Panos Cosmatos

Speaking of being blasted in the face!!!!! This movie... I saw it in the cinema and I can’t even begin to explain the experience, but I’ll try. My favourite review site described it like this:

“...somewhere between a prog album cover come to life and a metal album cover come to life, and subscribes to both genre's artistic tendency towards maximalism: what it ends up being is basically naught else but two glorious hours of being pounded by bold colors...”

So, prog and metal are my two favourite genres of music. This movie opens with the quote “When I die, bury me deep, lay two speakers at my feet, put some headphones on my head and rock and roll me when I'm dead.” and then a King Crimson song, it is SURREAL to the nth degree, it’s violent and bizarre and Nic Cage forges a giant silver axe to destroy demonic bikers and there is a CHAINSAW DUEL. A galaxy swirls above a quarry. Multiple animated horror nightmare sequences. At one point a man says “you exude a cosmic darkness” and releases a live tiger. At another point Cage says, in a digitally deepened voice, “The psychotic drowns where the mystic swims. You’re drowning. I’m swimming.” and I haven’t stopped thinking about it for two years

Paper Moon (1973) dir. Peter Bogdanovich

Really fantastic movie set in the Great Depression (and also in black & white) about a conman and a little kid who may or may not be his daughter, running cons across the Midwest. It’s beautifully shot, so sharp and sweet and the progression of their dynamic is really well done because they’re played by an IRL father and daughter. Tatum O’Neal was NINE YEARS OLD and she’s so amazing in this movie she’s actually the youngest person to win a competitive category Oscar. I keep trying to get people to watch this fbdjfjdbf it’s wonderful

Alpha (2018) dir. Albert Hughes

THIS MOVIE IS A VICTIM OF BAD MARKETING ok, the trailers made it look like some twee crappy sentimental Boy And His Dog Adventure, plus it had voiceovers in American-accented english? That’s a total disservice to one of the coolest things about this film; the fact that they got a linguist to construct an entirely original Neolithic language that all the characters speak for the entire runtime. And yes, it is eventually a Boy And His Wolf adventure, but it’s COOL and fairly brutal, and it has some really incredible cinematography. The landscapes are so strange and barren and alien, you really get the sense that this is an ancient world we no longer have any connection to. And it’s also about like, the birth of dog & human companionship sooo it’s perfect.

Free Solo (2018) dir. Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin

The Free Climbing Documentary. I loved climbing as a kid, I love outdoor sports, and I love movies that elicit a physical reaction in me, whether that’s horny, scared, real laughter, overwhelming shivers, or in the case of Free Solo - HORRIBLE SWEATING TENSION. Like, I knew about Alex Honnold beforehand because of this adventure film festival I go to every year and I followed him on IG so obviously I knew he lived, but the actual climb itself was torture. My hands sweat every time I see it!! It’s incredible, such a cool look into generally what the human body can do, and more specifically, why Honnold’s psychology and life means he’s so well suited to free soloing. It’s such an exercise in getting to know an individual and get invested in them, before they attempt something very potentially fatal.

Brokeback Mountain (2005) dir. Ang Lee

I can’t even talk about this. When I was around 13 I snuck downstairs to watch this on TV at 11pm in secret, and my life was forever changed. I wouldn’t be who I am if I hadn’t seen Brokeback at the age I did. I seriously can’t talk about this or I’ll write an even longer essay than this already is

God’s Own Country (2017) dir. Francis Lee

The antidote to Brokeback Mountain, I’m so glad I managed to see this one in the cinema too. It makes me cry every time, as someone who’s spent years working on a cold British farm with sheep it was very realistic, which is expected since Lee grew up on a farm in Yorkshire. I love that this movie isn’t really about being closeted, but about being so emotionally repressed and self-loathing that the main character finds it so hard to accept love. Or that he deserves to be loved. The cinnamontographies.... lordt... but also the intimacy and sex scenes are fucking searing wow who hasn’t seen this movie by now. 10 stars. 20 stars!!!

Tomboy (2011) dir. Céline Sciamma

I saw this years ago but I’ve never forgotten it, it cut so deep. It’s from the director of Portrait of a Lady on Fire and it’s about a gnc kid struggling with gender and misogyny and homophobia in a really raw, scrappy way, it reminded me very much of my own... childhood... ahh the central performance is amazing for such a young age. I haven’t seen Portrait yet but I feel like if you went nuts for that, you should definitely check this out, it’s lovely.

Donnie Darko (2001) dir. Richard Kelly

EVERY TIME I WATCH THIS MOVIE I UNDERSTAND LESS AND LESS and that’s what I love so much about it. I love surreal movies, I love time-fuckery and stuff about altered perception etc etc and Donnie Darko scratches all my itches. I wish I could find a way to figure out an IT AU for it, because I know it would work! Somehow! Plus it’s got the subdued 80s nostalgia and I found it at an age when I was really starting to explore movies and music and the soundtrack FUCKS.

Offside (2006) dir. Jafar Panahi

I wish more people knew about this!!! It’s an Iranian film about a disparate group of women and girls who are football fans and want to watch Iran’s qualifying match for the World Cup, but women aren’t allowed into the stadium, so they all get thrown into the Stadium Jail together? They don’t know each other beforehand, but it’s about their changing relationships with each other and the guards and just, their defiance alongside hearing the match from the outside and WOW it’s so lively. Great dialogue and very funny, and such a different kind of story from anything you usually see from Hollywood.

The Fall (2006) dir. Tarsem Singh

This movie... I guess it’s the ideal. This is the platonic ideal of a film for me, it has fantasy, magical realism, glorious visuals, amazing score and costumes and production design and a really interesting, heartbreaking relationship at the core of it. I don’t know why so many of my favourite films feature incredibly raw performances by child actors but this is another one, Catinca Untaru barely knew any English and improvised so much because of that, and it’s fascinating to watch! Also the dynamic with Lee Pace is one of my favourites, where a kid forms a friendship with a guardian figure who isn’t their parent, but the guardian grows to really care for them by the end. It’s like Paper Moon in that sense. What is there to even say about this movie, it’s pure magic joy tempered and countered by genuine gutwrenching emotional conflict in the real world, it’s also ABOUT old moviemaking, in a way, and it’s stunning to look at!

Mad Max Fury Road (2015) dir. George Miller

I know I included this in my “most rewatched” section but it deserves its own thing. We all know why this movie is fucking incredible. I remember clutching my armrests in the cinema and feeling like my skeleton was being blasted back into the seat behind me and tbh that is the high I’m constantly chasing when I go to see any movie. What a fucking gift this film is

Théo et Hugo dans le Même Bateau (2016) dir. Olivier Ducastel, Jacques Martineau

I only found this movie last year and it became an instant favourite. Initially I was just curious because I’d never seen a movie with unsimulated sex before, but it’s so much more than the 18 minute gay sex club orgy it opens with. No, not more than, AS WELL AS. The orgy is important because this movie is so candid and frank about sex and HIV treatment in the modern day, it was eye-opening. Another thing that really got me is that I’d never seen a real-time film before. It’s literally an hour and a half in the lives of these two men, their intense connection and conversation and conflict in the middle of the night in Paris, with some really nice night photography and just!!! Wow!!! AMAZING CHEMISTRY between the actors. This is such a gem if you’re comfortable with explicit sexual content.

Ok. This is already over 3k but film is obviously one of my ridiculous passions and I can and do talk about it for hours. I’ve been reading magazines about it for years, listening to podcasts and reading review blogs and recently, watching video essays on YouTube because the whole process is so interesting to me and I want to learn more!!

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of valuing form over narrative. The idea that story can often come second to the deeper physical experience and emotional reaction that’s created by using ALL the elements of filmmaking and not just The Story, y’know? Whether that’s editing, shot composition, colour, the sound mix, the actors, how it should all be used to heighten the emotional state the script wants you to feel. And so, I think for a few years now this approach has been influencing the types of films I really, really love.

I think I love surreality and mind-bending magical realism in films specifically because the filmmakers have to use all those different tools to convey things that can be way too metaphysical for just... a script? I’m always chasing that physical response; if a movie can make me stop thinking “I wonder what it was like to set up that shot” and instead overwhelm that suspension of disbelief, if I can be terrified or woozy or crying for whatever reason, that’s what I’m looking for. That’s why I watch so many fuckin movies, and why I’ll always remember nights like seeing IT (2017) for giving me another favourite.

Thank you again for this question, I didn’t mean to go so overboard. Also there’s no way to do a readmore on tumblr mobile so apologies to anyone’s dashboard 😬

[athingthatwantsvirginia]

Can I Look, Miss O’Keefe?

PART SIXTEEN OF THE DO YOU SEE HER FACE? SERIES

Pairing: Jess Mariano x Original Character (Ella Stevens)

Warnings: mentions of parent death and family issues, we’re back to being super emo folks, plentiful pop culture references

Word Count: 3.7K

Summary: Distance grows between Ella and Jess as they dance around forbidden topics and discuss their fears.

Crunchy snow and ice coated the streets of Stars Hollow, and large flakes fell from the dark, cloudy sky as Ella sat up, awake in the Gilmore living room. The monkey lamp on the side table offered a yellow glow. It was the early hours of the morning, New Year’s Eve. Christmas had come and gone, and the days before the return to school were filled with good books and movie marathons. Though Lane had gone home earlier, before they finished their last John Hughes flick, Lorelai insisted Ella stay on the couch for the night. It was past midnight and the roads were in no condition to be walked on. And though she was comfortable, probably more relaxed than she was in her own home, she’d tossed and turned for about an hour before deciding the effort was hopeless.

Instead, she took the copy of Slaughterhouse Five from her bag and read quietly, adding her own notes to the margins alongside Jess’s. Before, the room would have been drafty. But Luke had recently fixed the windows (again). Ella was cozy beneath a bunch of spare blankets, dressed in only a tank top and a borrowed pair of Rory’s sweatpants. The Gilmore women were tall though, and Ella had to cuff the pants at the bottom so they wouldn’t drag on the floor when she walked. Her eyes were starting to get heavy, but she was too engrossed in the story to consider putting it down. She had no idea what time it was, though it was still pitch black outside, when soft footfalls sounded on the stairs.

Clearing her throat, Ella marked a place in the book with her finger, and looked up to see a sleepy Lorelai. “Hi, sorry. Did I wake you?”

Lorelai shook her head slightly. “No, sweetie. I got up to use the bathroom and I saw the light was on. Wanted to make sure you and Rory didn’t start a midnight cult behind my back or something.”

“That does sound like us,” Ella said, cracking a small smile.

Lorelai sat down on the coffee table next to the couch, elbows on her knees. “What’s going on?”

Shrugging, Ella averted her eyes and gestured to her book. “Oh, just reading. Jess gave me his copy and I wanted to be done by our shift tomorrow. There’s just so much to argue about.”

“Well, it’s good to know I need to steer clear of you two tomorrow, but is that really why you’re up with Vonnegut at almost three in the morning?” Lorelai asked, tilting her head.

Ella hesitated a moment, but then sighed and clutched at her necklace. “I just...people are starting to get college decisions in the mail. And...I don’t know.”

“You’re gonna get in, Ella. You’ve got perfect grades, and a job, and-”

Scoffing, Ella nodded. “Yeah, I just...I’m gonna have to live at home. And I’m worried I’ll never get outta here.”

“Stars Hollow?” Lorelai asked, sympathetic.

She nodded again. “I mean...I wanna live in a city. Where every day I walk out the door to new people, and there’s new places to go and...I know and like this town. I do. But it stopped being home the day my mom died.”

Though she had passion in her voice and a smile still on her lips, Lorelai could see the sadness in Ella’s far-off gaze. It was something so striking and mature, something she never saw in Rory or Lane. Though Rory was an old soul in her own right, Lorelai could see Ella out on her own and doing just fine by the very next day. Lorelai leaned in a little closer, and the mothering tone came to her voice, which she had used on Ella more times than one in the past two and a half years.

“Ella, I want you to listen to me. You are smart, and talented, and you’re one of the strongest people I know,” Lorelai said, and raised a hand as Ella scoffed at her words. “I know it feels like it’ll take forever. But you have to be patient, okay? I know that one day you’ll get to have everything you want.”

Shaking her head, Ella swallowed back the shine in her eyes. “You can’t know that.”

“But I can. I have the sight,” Lorelai said mystically. “It’s a certified Gilmore talent.”

It made Ella chuckle a little, and Lorelai smiled in response. “Okay, Lorelai.”

“Sweetie, I spent years living in a shed, just me and Rory. I was a maid who worked eighty hours a week. But now, I have a house and I’m a manager and I…” she paused to sigh, gesturing to the room around them while she tried to articulate her thoughts. “Anything worth having is gonna take time. You’ll get there. I know it.”

Blowing out a soft breath, Ella leaned back against the pillows. “Okay. Thank you. Sorry for being such a freak.”

“Hardly,” Lorelai said, shaking her head. “Freaks are the only people worth being around. I think you already know that.”

“That I do.”

Lorelai rose from the table and draped the blankets up over Ella more. “Now go to sleep. You’ve gotta be in fighting shape if you’re going up against John Bender tomorrow.”

Ella scoffed. “I could take him on no sleep at all.”

Laughing, Lorelai made for the stairs. “I’d bet on you.”

“Hey, Lorelai?” Ella called, snuggling down into the couch and turning onto her side.

Lorelai turned. “Yeah?”

“Thank you. For everything. I mean, I’ll never be able to-”

“Sweetie,” Lorelai interrupted, a kind expression softening her face. “You’re welcome. Now, dream of those Eggos we’ll feast on in the morning.”

.   .   .

Tuckered out from a long day of waitressing and literary sparring, Ella leaned her head on her crossed arms against the counter. She sat at a stool, already dozing by ten o’clock. Having finished up closing the front of house early, with Luke’s help, she waited for Jess to complete his dishwashing duties. He was back over the steaming vat as soon as his stitches were yanked out. Upstairs, she could hear Luke trying to set up his small, black-and-white TV. Her thoughts were becoming hazy when Jess finally emerged from the back, smirking.

“You told me not to let you fall asleep yet, Stevens,” he said.

She lifted her head, brows furrowed. “I can do what I please, Mariano.”

“Oooo, angry face,” he teased.

“Fuck off,” she grumbled, clearing her throat as she hopped down off the stool.

“Oh, this is bound to be an amazing night.”

Ella tugged on her coat and grabbed her bag. “Sorry, sorry. Just give me five minutes and I’ll be back to Little Miss Sunshine.”

Jess snorted a laugh. “I think that’s too ambitious.”

“You underestimate me, Mariano,” she quipped, smirking. Going back over to the checkered curtain, she shouted up the stairs. “Hey Luke, we’re leaving!”

“Okay!” he yelled back.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to stay and celebrate with you?” she asked, ignoring Jess when he shook his head at her. She’d been asking it over and over all day. No matter how much Luke insisted, she couldn’t believe he actually wanted to spend New Year’s alone.

Finally, Luke opened the apartment door and she could see him at the top of the creaky stairs. “For God’s sake, go. No drinking, drugs-”

“Or animal sacrifices, I got it!” she finished for him, smirking.

“And Jess will be back by-”

“Two!” Jess chimed in, tone flat and his mouth set in a thin line.

“Happy New Year!” Ella said, grabbing Jess’s hand and leading him towards the front door.

“Yeah, yeah,” Luke grunted, shutting the apartment door behind him.

.   .   .

Ella could feel the rumble of Jess’s voice, her head on his chest, as they laid together in her bed. The lavender candles were lit, and her old alarm clock was set for ten til midnight. A bottle of red wine sat in the fridge, the only alcohol left in the house by her father and Fiona before they went out of town to celebrate with Fiona’s sister in Nevada. They were going to toast when the clock on the stove struck midnight, then go back to her room to continue with Jess’s reading of Frankenstein. Originally, the plan had been to watch the Twilight Zone marathon all night. But, Adam and his friends had gotten to the living room first, playing video games on the modest TV. Being confined to her bedroom wasn’t so bad, but the challenge for Ella was staying awake. Jess chose the Mary Shelley novel simply because he knew how much she loved the story, hoping she wouldn’t fall asleep to it. Especially because he knew he wouldn’t have the heart to wake her if she truly fell asleep.

Shifting in her space, Ella caught a glance at the clock and saw it was a half hour to midnight. Jess was halfway through a passage, and she sat up with crossed legs and looked down at him, yawning.

“Jess?” she asked when there was a pause in the text.

“Hm?”

“Are you happy?”

His brows furrowed and he sat up against the mural. “Excuse me?”

Scoffing, she averted her gaze. “I just mean...working at Walmart and Luke’s and being...here? In Stars Hollow?”

Jess shrugged, setting the book aside and crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s not too terrible a place to be. And I plan to get out of Stars Hollow.”

“And go where?” she asked, eyes rimmed red with fatigue.

“Wherever.”

She smirked at his nonchalance. “And write?”

Again, he shrugged, sitting up straighter. “Maybe. I’ll live where I live and work where I work.”

Ella snorted a laugh. “Alright, Kerouac. So you’re not going back to New York?”

He shook his head, expression guarded.

“You don’t miss it?”

Though he seemed to hesitate a moment, his tone was firm when he spoke again. His eyes were somewhere else, staring over at the stack of records near her dresser. Led Zeppelin played low from the turntable, another effort to stay awake. “Miss my mom drinking herself into accepting random wedding proposals and barely scrounging up enough cash to keep the heat on?”

Her heart sank into her stomach, and, instinctively, she began to run her fingers through his hair. On break from school, she noticed he used gel and other products less and less. It was more relaxed and fell down a little over his forehead.

“No, I can’t say I’m bending over backwards to get back there again,” he said.

Ella nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing for you to be sorry over,” he replied immediately, though not angry. He wanted to squirm under her touch, still uncomfortable talking about his past, but tried to relax.

“Hey,” she said softly, after a momentary silence. Jess finally met her eyes again. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too.”

As she kissed him sweetly, slow and simple, he interlaced their fingers, finally losing the tension in his body. Skin against skin, she could feel the thin, pinkish scar on his hand. When she pulled away, he put his arm around her shoulders and she moved to lean back against him. His free hand was still in hers, and she touched the scar gingerly.

“And you wanted me to wait for Luke to superglue this up,” she said, with a teasing shake of her head.

He rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t have died.”

Ella sighed. “Anything’s possible.”

Jess bit his lip, feeling his heart twist slightly. Though he’d heard a fair bit about her mother, he still didn’t know how she died. From the way the townspeople sometimes looked at her, with so much pity and sympathy, Jess could gather it wasn't a ‘going gently into that good night’ kind of situation. Whatever had happened, it had been sudden, and it had been shocking. He pressed a kiss to her head and tried to keep his voice light.

“Well, it definitely wasn’t as Texas Chainsaw Massacre as the other time I got stitches.”

“The other time?” she asked, looking up at him.

Swallowing dryly, he held out his left arm for her to see, sleeve rolled up. On the inside of his forearm, near his elbow, there was a large, semicircular scar, pale and raised, but old. For a moment Ella wondered why she’d never noticed it before, but she knew if she wasn’t looking for it, she wouldn’t ever have spotted it.

“Jesus. What happened?” she asked, a crease between her brows.

“Cujo,” he said, smirking slightly. “This dog across the hall from us when I was five. I tried to pet him and he wasn’t on quite the same wavelength.”

“Fuck, Jess,” she said, shaking her head slightly. Ella squeezed his hand.

“It’s alright,” he said. “World bites you, dog bites boy. It’s chaos out there.”

She chuckled a little, nodding. “Sad but true.”

“Did you ever get stitches?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “But, your dogs and needles are my oceans.”

“Oceans?” Jess asked.

“When I was seven, we went to Ogunquit to visit my grandparents. It was the only time I ever went to a beach, and I got caught in a riptide. I didn’t pass out or anything, but I drifted out pretty far before my dad got me. Waves kept crashing over me and I kept going under.”

“Well, I guess I’ll have to cancel those tickets to Bora Bora, huh?”

She smiled. “Yeah, I’d recommend it.”

He smiled back, then they settled back down into the bed, Jess grabbing the book again. Before he started, however, he looked over at her in askance.

“Are you happy, Eleanor?”

“At this moment? Very.”

.   .   .

Storming into the diner, Ella shook the snow from her peacoat and unwound her scarf, huffing in frustration. January was frigid, but Ella’s blood boiled and her heart pounded in her ears. Schoolwork weighed down her bag, heavy with post-break assignments and reading. Once inside, the heat hit her pleasantly, but her nose began to run and her face flushed. She wasn’t surprised to find Jess not inside the diner; he’d been at school only twice in the past week and he was taking more shifts at Walmart than he once had. New Year’s had been a good night, a kiss at midnight and heads buzzing on red wine as Ella walked Jess back to the diner in fresh snow and the twinkling light of the town square.

But she could see something was bothering him. He didn’t leave quite as many notes in the margins, looked tired most of the time. And each time she asked him about it, he brushed it off, told her he was fine, and pressed a heated kiss to her lips. He didn’t call her as often. The recent disconnect between them, which she thought now might have begun even back in early December, did nothing to help her current mood. She went to the back to grab her apron, tucking stray strands of hair behind her ears. If he didn’t want to talk, she didn’t need to talk to him. Whatever he needed to work out, apparently he wanted to do it on his own. It was what she said whenever Luke asked after him. She wasn’t his mother, and Luke was his guardian. It wasn’t her job to fix Jess. And, in her mind, Jess didn’t need fixing.

Luke stood behind the counter filling coffee mugs, and he nodded at her as she passed. “Hey, Ella. How are ya? You have a good week?”

“I’m just peachy,” she said back, no emotion in her voice.

Perking up, Luke furrowed his brows at her. She wasn’t known for being cheery, exactly, but usually she strung together more than three words. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said quietly, her voice a sigh.

“C’mon, kid, we’re well past white lies,” Luke said, hands on his hips.

Ella rolled her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, an ache behind her eyes. It wasn’t migraine level, but the throbbing pain made her feel a little sick to her stomach.

“They got married,” she said shortly.

“What?” Luke asked.

Sighing, she watched Babette and Maury walk in, waving at them with a tiny smile.

“Hey, sugar! We’ll need a minute to order!” Babette called in her breathy, gravelly voice. It made Ella feel marginally better.

Her serious demeanor returned when she turned back to Luke. “My dad and Fiona got married. In Vegas. They took a whole week off—who knows how they could afford it on an electrician’s and a hairdresser’s salary—and apparently they thought: ‘Hey, let’s get married, not tell anyone, and not call for the whole week. In fact, let’s not go visit Fiona’s sister,’ which is what they said they were doing in the first place.”

There was a beat of silence, and finally Luke nodded, mouth slightly agape. “Wow.”

“Yeah, so, that’s what’s wrong. There ya go,” she said, taking a rag and wiping down some water on the counter. She didn’t meet Luke’s eyes.

“Ella, I’m-”

She raised a dismissive hand to stop him. “Luke, don’t worry, it’s alright. They seem happy, so, who am I to care? And besides, now I don’t have to give some phony speech at the wedding.”

.   .   .

The Clash blasted through the boombox, and though it did nothing to help her headache, it, oddly, made her heart slow. It took her mind off the storm of emotions brewing in the pit of her stomach. What if they ended up having another kid? Would her father mend the mistakes of his past? Would he see the error of his ways? She doubted it. People didn’t change. They acted differently, but they didn’t change. Sometimes, she knew, all people wore disguises. It made fear rise up in her throat, and her hands shake. But, instead, she sang along to “Bank Robber” and drew a garden full of roses and wasps. On the other side of the page, there was a sketch of Fiona with a veil over her head. It almost made her want to cry.

Luke was closing up downstairs, and offered the apartment to her to hang out in for a few hours after her shift. He knew what her home could be like. And the practice felt bittersweet and familiar to her; she’d spent many an afternoon at Luke’s kitchen table, sketching in the days after she lost her mother. The words she’d spoken to Lorelai a few nights earlier spun around in her brain. She would never be able to accept her mother’s death until Stars Hollow was in her rearview mirror. Everything seemed to be a reminder. Though maybe it wasn’t location-specific. Maybe it’s just what happened when you lost someone close to you.

It was long past dark outside when Jess stepped through the door, blue vest in his hand. His dark hair was gelled and crazy. He kicked off his boots and a smirk covered his face when he saw her there. And no matter how conflicted she felt about him at the moment, a sense of relief filled her at the sight of him, and she couldn’t help but smirk back from her spot sitting up in his bed. She took her sketchbook from her knee, closed it, and dropped it on his nightstand.

“Hi,” he said, putting his vest in the top drawer of his dresser. As he walked by the boombox, he turned it down slightly so he could hear her.

“Hey, sorry. I didn’t think you’d get off until later. I stole your bed,” she replied, scooting up to the head of the bed as Jess sat down on the end.

He shook his head. “Don’t be sorry. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Well, I can assure you, there was no tequila involved today,” Ella said, crossing her arms over her Sonic Youth t-shirt. “Just didn’t wanna go home yet.”

“What’s up?”

She shrugged and clutched at her necklace with one nail-bitten hand. “Long story short: That rendezvous to Nevada Fiona and my dad took? They got married by some Elvis impersonator in Vegas and just...didn’t tell anyone until yesterday.”

She thought of the night before when she had, in a rage, called the diner to tell him. Jess had been the only one she wanted to talk to, the only one her heart was aching for. Instead, Luke picked up and told her Jess was out.

Jess sighed, and put a hand on her jean-clad knee. “I’m sorry, honey.”

Ella ran her fingers through her messy hair and then took his hand in hers. She sat closer to him, until their knees were touching, but still she didn’t lock eyes with him. Jess could practically see the gloom radiating off her. Dark makeup painted her eyes. Black Doc Martens were discarded at the side of the bed. Her nails, polished in chipped black, were still bitten down. But, she managed a small smile.

“It’s fine. I don’t wanna talk about it anymore.”

“Okay,” he said shortly, nodding. Finally, she looked at him and bit her lip. His face was drawn in fatigue.

Bringing her hand to his cheek, Ella’s gaze softened. He leaned into her touch. “Are you okay, Jess?”

“Yeah. Fine.”

“Seems like you’ve been working a lot. You haven’t been at school. I just...are you sleeping alright?” she asked, hesitant.

Jess did his best to straighten up, nodding. “Stevens, don’t worry. Luke just won’t let me keep the music on to sleep anymore. I’m still getting used to it.”

She nodded and kissed him, hearing the song switch in the background. “Okay, James Dean. Just checking.”

Clearing his throat to hide the flush in his cheeks, Jess cracked a smirk. Ella thought she saw something flash across his eyes, but she couldn’t identify it. For the first time since they started dating, there seemed to be a charged energy lingering in the silence between them. Without the music playing, Ella knew she wouldn’t have been able to handle it. She would’ve blurted out everything going through her head, but she refrained. Instead, she watched Jess’s eyes move to her sketchbook on his table, his grin widening.

“Can I look, Miss O’Keefe?” he asked.

Pursing her lips, she let her worry fade and took on a teasing air. “Only if you don’t laugh.”

“Never.”

[splendidshinobi]

FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST 2003 LIVE REACT: EPISODES 6-10

back at it again with the white vans

episode 6: the alchemy exam

alrighty then

um mustang calling edward “ed” is EXTREMELY offputting

ohhhhhhh noooooo not shou tucker

FUCK

im wholly unprepared

them all being in central instead of east is low key jarring like my brain isnt computing it

alexander’s intro is basically the same 

nina bbyyyyy girl u deserved so much better

ed is such a fucking nerd...chemistry club modern au confirmed

god the more tucker talks the more i wanna beat his face in

al pretending to eat by tossing a potato in his armor i-

aww theyre playing in the snow theyre so pure

wonder how long thatll last

“bigger brother” and “little big brother” and ed doesnt even get mad

ed’s birthday party????????

A MELON? ED YOURE SO RUDE

so 03 had ed’s bday instead of elicia’s...CAUSE THEY GOT ELICIA IN THE WOMB

“it’s here!” “the tea?” “the baby!” hughes is a fuck head

ok so now they’re having elicia replace rush valley baby arc

this was winry’s time to shine in fmab i miss her 

if winry isnt here who is gonna birth this baby

oh my god they just realized ed can use alchemy without a circle

no wonder he’s been using circles this whole time

SO ELICIA JUST POPPED OUT????? WHAT

STUFF ALEXANDER IN THE ARMOR AND PRETEND YOURE A TALKING DOG???

“i dont think thats very funny” NO ALPHONSE IT IS NOT

THEY KNEW EXACTLY WHAT THEY WERE DOING WITH THAT ONE I SWEAR TO GOD IN THIS ESSAY I WILL

damn bradley what up homie

im so thrown off by the way theyre doing the exam omg

seriously what the hell is fuhrer bradley’s purpose right now is he even the fuhrer in this i feel like they wouldve mentioned it

oh lord ed is about to impress everyone with his clappy hands

ok so next episode is nina FUCK

episode 7: night of the chimera’s cry

havoc babeeee

im gonna marry him my himbo king

also can RIZA DO SOMETHING PLZ

“huhhhhhhhh nina” ew tucker that was weirdly gross

wonder why

cant do it cant do it

do we think jean kirstein was modeled after jean havoc slightly looks wise

was that purposeful 

ill have to google 

serial killer who only targets women?  it cant be scar...scar drinks respect women juice

barry or slicer bros maybe? um ok

why did we start with liore if they were just gonna hop right back into the past for a huge chunk of episodes idk

assessment day??? oh noodles

AL WHY DID YOU TELL TUCKER TO MAKE ANOTHER TALKING CHIMERA ALPHONSE NO

THE NOISE I EMITTED IM GONNA TAKE A LAP

im gonna FUCKING SCREAM

ed r u writing to winry??? that’s a bit out of character for u good sir

no tucker put that baby down

im gonna fucking SCREAM

aww he burned nina’s picture thats not sus at all

SHESKA!!!!!

wait does the ironblood alchemist know what tucker did to his wife? thats kinda the vibe im getting

SCARRRRRRRR

looking like a pirate too damn

his voice sounds different is that j michael tatum 

apparently not it was dameon clarke in 03 ya learn something new everyday 

ew elicia has a lot of hair for a FUCKING NEWBORN

ed really is such a cynic very suspicious of everyone as he should be really

basque grand knowS SOMETHING

oh jesus oh fuck oh god please do not TOUCH THAT BABY

ed and al snuck back in to the house well u know what its for the best

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

im gonna cry again please god no

FUCKING DIE SHIT HOLE

she’s hurting? oh my god

my sweet angel

ew his eyes!!!!!!! 

tucker is such a fucking failure...like look at the chimera squad and greed’s theatre troupe being the way they are. ugh it really hits how fucking unfair it is 

ed was really about to split them? boy you know better

where is nina going...im hurting

ed really tried to save her in this one

SCAR KILLS NINA IN THE STREETS???????? SIR

thats different

oh snap 

oh FUCK

SCAR WHY DID YOU LEAVE HER BODY LIKE THAT

THE WAY SHE WAS ARRANGED ON THE WALL THAT WAS FUCKED UP

AND THEY FOUND HER LIKE THAT???? AT LEAST IN BROTHERHOOD THEY DIDNT HVE TO SEE HER CORPSE ARE YOU SHITTING ME?

that was fucked.

episode 8: the philosopher’s stone

can yall get ed and al away from nina’s fucking MURAL 

get out of the car mustang

finally jesus christ

roy mustang talking about healthy coping mechanisms dont make me laugh but alright baby boy go off i guess?

im curious about who this goddamn serial killer is though lets turn to that plot thread

r u kidding me

mustang is making ed and al take over tucker’s research?? thats actually wildly messed up

oh tucker was straight executed that’s a choice i guess

tucker and the philosopher’s stone sounds inaccurate but ok

ed please stop being mean to your brother

03 mustang has got me reaching for a fucking baseball bat on GOD

scar and edward having this conversation right now i literally cannot

WINRY yes bitch

BRADLEY WHAT IN TARNATION

JESUS LORRRRRRDDDDDDDDDDDD

alphonse shut your mouthhhhhhhhhhh

im so confused what is bradley up to

“alchemists are not cold blooded murderers?”

i mean

kimblee would beg to differ for one

whos this creepy lady 

her voice sounds familiar

barry’s food shop?

the killer is barry ok got it

IS BARRY DISGUISED AS A WOMAN

I KNEW THAT WAS JERRY JEWELL’S VOICE

WELL I KNEW IT SOUNDED FAMILIAR AT LEAST

WINRY GET OUT OF THE FUCKING TRUCk

has PINAKO TAUGHT YOU NOTHING

ok so i VASTLY prefer suit of armor original manga canon barry

this is such an odd plot what in fuck

um OW the meat cleaver

im so confused this fucking plotline

oh hey alphonse nice of you to show up!

is barry still gonna become a suit of armor later on

it makes NO SENSE to introduce him otherwise 

everytime i see 03 mustang i wanna beat his ass HONESTLY

literally i will shove my foot up his ass

fullmetal here we go

ed thinks he’s so punk rock 

oh great scar’s seen the watch

episode 9: be thou for the people

ed you simp buying winry all this stuff my edwin heart is ascending

SIMP SIMP SIMP

“mr. elric”?? you mean MAJOR ELRIC

to be fair though fuck the military

YOUSWELL??? oh LORD

im gonna need to read a full chronology of this show

 alphonse continues to be a precious angel 

where’s my boy yoki!!!!!

edward you idiot don’t go flaunting your money

woof woof ed

al looks so offended by ed saying they just met

whereas in brotherhood didnt he totally throw ed under the bus??? 

a choice to be sure

ah there he is hello yoki

who’s the chick

shes a lesbian

yoki makes me miss my baby girl mei chang

mei where r u

WAS THIS MILITARY DUDE REALLY ABOUT TO CUT DOWN A CHILD??? oh my god

hawkeye getting a promotion yes bby girl

jesus theyre transferring them to east now OKKKKKAY thats not how it happened it the book but ill take it....just doing it the opposite way i guess

who is lyra who is she

cute some military bribery 

umm lyra what the fuck did you do

lyra is a homunculus im callin it now

they definitely invented/changed up some homunculi in fact im certain they did and shes one of em. gotta be

i feel like 03 wrote ed as much more insensitive towards others than he really is...just a vibe im getting

i know he was faking for the townspeople’s sake but i still get this vibe from other instances 

i mean i cant say its not “canon” because its 03 canon

anyways what a show off

i cant believe theyre going to east...fuery and breda better be there

ok finally some answers on their ages....ed got his license at 12 like normal and nina and youswell were when he was 12...liore was 15, 

if they didnt flash the ages on the screen id be lost honestly

at least we’re back up to “present day”

episode 10: the phantom thief

ed saying he doesnt wanna see mustang

same

03 mustang is activating my fight or flight and im choosing fight

ed cheating at cards totally checks out

um who the fuck is this woman

what is she wearing

SERIOUSLY WHAT IS THAT CUTOUT MAAM HOW DO YOUR C**CHY LIPS NOT POKE OUT

idk but this is fem!hisoka

“hey shouldnt we talk first” after getting handcuffed??? christ almighty these innuendos

siren??????? siren is probably also a “fake” homunculus

ugh

ok so the nurse is siren

ya aint slick girly

alphonse control your crush

I REFUSE!!!! ALMEI RIGHTS

why is al’s hair so brown in this flashback anywayssss

oh its spelled psiren ope

like she’s literally a batman villain...

oh my god...............the tiddy grab. my son would never

my son is respectful

is this her homunculus tat or just a random alchemy tat

the added plotlines and original content continue to confuse and astound me every single time....

ok but if psiren really was doing this for the hospital she wouldnt be so flashy about it. like thats how you get caught sweet cheeks

girly stop flirting with this child on god im gonna fucking kick you

now shes a nun????????????????

Shes a fucking troll i hate her

im going to kick alphonse into the sun 

oh great now shes a teacher

wow shes a savior. the savior of amestrian venice. greatttttt

ed looking exactly like this emoji on this gondola rn 🧍‍♀️

STOP FLIRTING WITH THE CHILD 

GOD THIS IS SO BATMAN VILLAIN ESQUE

alphonse plzzzzzzzzzz she aint your girl

ok so probably not the last we see of this ding dong con artist

ok so its starting to get muddy. im scared the 03 stans are gonna come after me like i do like it and im having fun watching it but some of the plot and characterization choices are just....odd??? idk i gotta keep going though!! im sorry i just stan arakawa and her work in all her glory!!!

[thefloatingshoppinglist]

A Letter to the DP Phandom

I’m usually not passionate about stuff.

But ever since I rewatched Danny Phantom in the 10th grade on a random nostalgia trip, that passion was ignited again. It sounds silly, and I’m still a little insecure of talking about it in public. And as a kid with ADHD it’s also been hard for me to try to write fic or find the motivation to draw all the ideas that are burning in my head, and I wish I could finally let it out and show the world just how much I feel about this show. It’s harder when you say the words “Danny Phantom” and unsurprisingly the first response you’ll probably get is “Oh that Nickelodeon show? Yeah I remember that,” to which the conversation ends. But there is so much more to be said.

It’s been said before so many times, and every time it’s talked about there’s this feeling in my gut that is screaming at me to shout it out to the world. So I won’t go into it too much as to what made this show special, but what’s important is that it had potential and that it deserved to be carried out to the best story it could have been. Danny Phantom in itself is a fantastic concept, that got screwed over by multiple factors. Nick, who only cared about Spongebob and FOP, and the show’s creator, who was absent for most of its production because he was too busy with the other things he was in charge of. If you think about it, his absence from his own idea is probably what jump started this show, and I guess we can be grateful for that.

Now we can only think about what Danny Phantom could have been. Perhaps if the concept was given to the ATLA team or if the concept was hatched in the brainstorming meeting room of a Japanese anime studio it could have delved into every idea that was implied, where to be fair, all fanfiction fuel originated from. I cannot even begin to count how many times I have paused an episode of this show to analyze exactly what was being said and what that meant for the world in the story.

Spectra, the misery ghost? If she had been jumping from school to school making kids depressed for her own gain, how many did she indirectly kill?

How would Valerie have reacted to find out that the ghost she hated so much for ruining her life was actually a boy she fell in love with?

Or Jack, after finding out that his supposed best friend in the world was actually a terribly corrupted ghost bent on destroying his family?

And Danielle, who has to deal with the idea that she has no real identity outside of being a perfect little clone, and just a mistake that was never meant to exist?

And what about Danny, who watched all of his friends and family die in an instant, give way to a horrible future that he is responsible for, who we never saw shed a single tear in the 52 episodes in the series?

I could go on. But I won’t for your sake.

There is nothing more disappointing to me sometimes than to think of Butch Hartman’s - the creator’s view of the show compared to the rest of this phandom’s. Us phans is what has made the show’s passion stay alive. Something Butch Hartman’s God-given creative mind apparently can’t possibly accept. I would love to have believed otherwise, but I feel that he doesn’t understand that we are just as responsible for its success as he and the DP crew was.

Butch seems to see all of our ideas as little fantasies that can’t compare to his own. And you know what else he sees differently from us?

Butch imagines Sam Manson as the sidekick love interest girl for the superhero. We see her as a flawed human being with a tough childhood and a hidden guilt for how she changed her best friend’s life.

Butch imagines Tucker Foley as a nerd sidekick purely there for comedy relief. We see him as a clever kid who would sacrifice his reputation for his friend.

Butch imagines Maddie and Jack Fenton to be ghost hunting fanatics who can never change their ways for anyone. We see these parents as two people driven by passion, but will give it all up in a heartbeat if it meant that they knew their son felt safe with them.

Butch imagines Vlad Masters as a black-and-white villain bent on taking over the world, yet we see this man as someone who understands what he does and justifies his hatred for Jack in order to get what he wants - all the while his ghost half is killing the last bits of humanity he has left, leaving him an insane but interesting character.

And then there’s Danny, who Butch sees as an incredibly powerful ghost hero, and ignored him for what this character really stands for - a high school kid with real, down to earth issues and one of the purest hearts I have ever seen in any superhero medium. Even through all the shit he goes through in the show, he still holds true to his values that all people deserve a second chance to live a good life - even those who don’t deserve it.

This short-lived Nicktoon has a lot of soul in it. One that will probably never be resurrected to achieve the culture that it could have had. It feels like a curse, really. Either a reboot from Butch with none of that soul, or nothing at all. And so maybe it’s best we never get one. After all, this phandom has such an unlimited passion compared to all of the other fandoms I’ve been a part of. No one is as unique as you guys. The Space AU, Wes Weston, and the memes we’ve shared are proof of that. I haven’t done that much here because it’s hard for me to communicate anything with what I feel are limited talents. But I want to try now, because of how much the passion for this show has touched me.

And maybe if we have enough, if it can burn long enough, we might be able to give it back and give Danny Phantom the love that it deserves.

[ecto-american]

Accident

DannyMay 2019 themed story, I’m not late I’m just going my own pace pls be nice to me

Ectoplasm | Broken | Glass | Theory | Community | Eavesdropping | Worldbuilding | Or Read on AO3.

Day 13: Accident

This was going to be a long night.

Jazz had been quiet most of the trip home, staring out the window and listening to the radio softly. Jack didn't try to make conversation either. He knew something was off, and Jazz was involved. Somehow. His mind continued to flip through possible theories, but none clicked. They pulled into the driveway silently.

"Alright, Jazzpants," he tried to speak cheerfully, but he knew it fell flat. "I'm going to bring your mom's things in, get packed myself, and get her stuff, and we'll be off back to the college tour!" Jazz simply nodded. "Meanwhile, can you go ahead and start cleaning up some of the ectoplasm in the kitchen?" Jazz was quiet.

"...Yeah, I can see what I can do," she finally said. Jack forced a smile, and he hopped out of the RV, Jazz following suit. He grabbed Maddie's suitcase as Jazz went ahead inside.

Jack followed her soon after, closing the front door behind him.

"Danny? You home?" he called out hopefully. There was no reply, and he went into the kitchen to see Jazz curiously opening up the pizza box. Danny's phone was still on the counter, and the note was left untouched.

"Do you think this pizza's still good?" Jazz wondered. "Like can I heat some up?"

"Oh yeah, go ahead," he encouraged her. "Can you heat me up a plate too? We have time to watch that one show you like if you want, the one with the science lady? It should have recorded."

It hurt that Danny seemingly was going to skip out on Jack's impromptu father-son night. Perhaps another time… At least he could have a nice quick dinner and some father-daughter time. And by judging how Jazz seemed to smile for the first time since she and Maddie got there, she seemed to enjoy the idea.

"Yeah, I'll just heat it up in the oven, it tastes better when you do that," Jazz insisted. She carefully avoided all the ectoplasm all over, and she began to dig through the cabinets.

"Let me know when it's done, I'm going to pack and get some stuff for your mom," Jack replied. Jazz gave out an 'okay!' as she continued her search. Jack took Maddie's bag upstairs.

He could tell that despite the cleaning, there was still a lot of ectoplasm in the carpet. It was making the carpet hard and rough as the mixture had dried. Oh well. Least he got a lot out already.

Despite the evidence pointing otherwise, Jack still took a step into his son's room and called for him once more. Hoping that somehow, his son had just sleepily wandered in and missed everything, going straight for bed. The room was void of any life, and there was no sign somebody had stopped by.

Jack moved to his own room to begin packing. He left Maddie's suitcase on the bed for her to unpack later, and he took out the other suitcase.

He could hear Jazz coming up the stairs quickly, and he paused. She went into one of the rooms. Probably her room. Jack didn't put any thought into it, and he continued his packing. But then he heard the knocking, and he stopped to listen. Knock, knock. Knock, knock. Knock, knock. Jazz's footsteps soon hopped back down the stairs quickly, only to run back up less than a minute later. What on Earth?

He poked his head into the hall just in time to see long orange hair go into Danny's room. Jack immediately followed as the knocking came back up.

Jazz had her ear pressed to the walls near Danny's bed, and she would knock. In her hand, she held a large knife. Jack watched her silently. After several more knocks, Jazz finally stopped. She took the knife and stuck it into the wall.

"Jasmine Fenton!" Jack suddenly spoke, and Jazz jumped in fright, spinning with wide eyes. "What are you doing?"

"I-uh, I'm," she began to sputter out nervously, glancing between her dad and the knife stuck in the wall.

Jack studied her for a good long while as Jazz offered up no explanation. Instead, staring at him like a deer in the headlights, arms crossed over her chest as she rocked on her heels. Her behavior was so out of character. Her concern for Phantom. Seemingly less concern about where her brother is. Why she was placing staying with a ghost in the hospital over her college tour. His last theory, the wildest one, was somehow the most reasonable.

"He's Danny, isn't he?" Jack questioned.

"Of course, his name's Danny Phantom, so like, of course he's Danny," Jazz replied quickly with a nervous chuckle.

"...Jazz…"

Her lower lip quivered hard, and the waterworks began again. Jazz sniffed, wiping her nose on her sleeve once more. The jig was up.

"Why didn't you tell me that Skulker tried to skin him?" she demanded to know. "He had to tell me himself!"

"He couldn't have told you anything," Jack lightly argued. "You apparently guessed. Was it that plausible of a choice that you were able to guess?" Jazz flinched. "Why didn't you tell us?" Jazz frowned.

"Molecule. By. Molecule."

Oh. Right. Jack returned his attention back to the knife.

"...Why are you cutting holes into Danny's wall?" he asked. Jazz glanced at the knife.

"Danny hides stuff in the walls of his room. Things he wants to keep secret," she began. "He'll phase them into the wall. I know somewhere he has some modified ecto-dejecto that he'll drink to help him stay energized." Jack stared at her.

"Modified ecto-dejecto? That stuff Mads and I made to weaken a ghost?" he questioned curiously.

"Yeah. Your original formula made them more powerful," Jazz explained. "But Danny also took your original formula, and he modified it to be kind of an energy drink. So he can stay in his ghost form longer and have more energy to fight." She reached up to grasp the handle of the knife. "Danny's ghost form isn't unlimited. Sooner or later, he's going to pass out and turn ghost again. Especially if he's going under for surgery. I was...I was going to sneak him some."

Oh god. Oh no. His son was a ghost. And in the hospital. Where the Guys in White were. A shiver of horror ran up his spine. This was bad. And his son was a ghost. His son was a ghost. And not just a ghost, his son was Danny Phantom. That ghost he was so close to dissecting. A ghost he had dreams about dissecting and studying his organs. A ghost he was going to encourage Maddie to collect samples from while in his most vulnerable state, when that was his son who was badly injured from a ghost fight with another ghost and needed his parents more than anything. Oh god.

Jack felt a bit lightheaded, and he immediately took a step to the side to sit on Danny's bed. He felt ill. All the ectoplasm and blood stains on the bed...Oh god. How many times were those injuries were from him and his mother?

He stared up at Jazz as she began to continue cutting through the wall with some struggle.

"How did this all happen?" Jack asked quietly. Jazz glanced briefly at him as she continue to stab through the drywall.

"The summer before Danny began high school," she replied. She paused for a moment before shifting to continue cutting a small square in the wall. "He was in the ghost portal when it turned on. You know. The accident."

The ghost portal…

Danny always told him that it just seemed to flick on when he was down there showing his friends. That it sparked to life. Maddie and him had determined that maybe it was just a delayed timing, or that maybe Danny or his friends were pushing the buttons and a magic combo had made it turn on. And that he just was too nervous to admit that he was fiddling with his parents' things in the lab. To be in the lab. Inside when it turned on...Jack couldn't imagine the kind of intense pain that came with that high voltage shock.

"And he became a ghost?" Jack questioned. "How? What happened exactly?"

Jazz finished cutting. She used the knife the begin forcing the square out of the wall, the piece wiggling.

"Danny's half ghost," she clarified. "...I don't know for sure. I wasn't there. And Danny doesn't like to talk about it. I've asked him before, but he said he doesn't like to think about it. I've asked Tucker and Sam too, but they don't really say much either. I'm guessing it just brings up too many bad memories."

She got the piece out, setting it and the knife on Danny's nightstand. Jack never felt like a worse parent. Jazz used her phone's flashlight to look in the hole, and she smiled in relief. She reached her hand inside to dig around.

"How did you find out?" Jack wondered. He prayed deep down that Danny didn't tell her. It already hurt so much to know that Danny refused to tell him and Maddie. Even despite him coming home.

Oh god, Phantom was coming home. This was his home.

"I accidentally saw him go ghost," she said. The reply gave an odd relief. "Got it!"

She pulled out a fistful of small bottles, glass bottles that Jack and Maddie had assumed Danny had accidentally dropped and broken, like he had so many in the past. Oh no. That was only after Danny went into high school. When his ghost form would have been still stabilizing. Intangibility.

The bottles were full of a bright green, slightly glowing liquid. There was a piece of tape on the bottles, labeling them. Ecto-Dejecto Energy Drink.

"And this will help Danny stay safe in the hospital?" Jack questioned. Jazz shrugged.

"I can't say for sure," she confessed. "But if nothing else, it'll help give Danny some energy to stay a ghost. Hopefully even enough that he won't turn human again under the knife. It's just the only thing I really know right now. I tried calling Sam and Tucker, but neither one of them are answering."

"Is this the worst Danny's ever been injured?" Jack wondered. Jazz studied him for a moment.

"I think any other questions you have, you really should just ask Danny," she finally spoke. "It's not my thing to discuss. And he could give you better answers anyway."

"But-" Jack began to protest.

"But nothing. Danny's really hurt, and I'm sure he'd really like to have you and Mom there fully supporting him," Jazz argued. "And me."

Jack sighed, hanging his head as a million thoughts tried to rush through his mind. So many questions…and the one who knew all the answers in full couldn't talk.

"Come on," Jazz tried to encourage him. He felt Jazz wrap her arms around him in a hug. "Let's eat some dinner then go see Danny."

The entire ride back to the hospital was still silent, but with less tension. For the first time since he came home, Jack felt some form of ease. He knew where his son was. And even though he was in rough condition, he was in great hands. Though there was an entirely new anxiety, this new secret he had to protect.

Jazz was walking ahead of him quickly to the room they were told he was in. She found it before him, and she disappeared into it. By the time he reached the door, Maddie was leaving the room, looking a bit curious but smiling when she saw him.

"Hey," she greeted him. Jack smiled weakly back, and he handed her a backpack.

"Hey, baby. Brought the chargers and such," he told her. Maddie happily accepted the backpack, swinging it onto her back.

"I learned a lot about Phantom so far," Maddie began, digging her phone from her pocket to show him. "He has a human-like skeletal system. He's able to take in human-like medications and react to them. And he spoke a bit about his personal life."

Jack studied the notes on her phone that she had taken. He went from curiously scanning the pages to growing more and more somber. He soon gave a deep, hard exhale. This was one of the hardest things he'd ever have to admit to her.

"I have...I have to talk to you about Phantom," Jack finally spoke. They locked eyes, and Maddie's heart sank deep into her stomach. She knew exactly what he was thinking.

"No," she whispered. Jack handed her back her phone, looking away.

"It's the only thing that makes sense," he lightly protested.

"It's not possible," Maddie argued weakly.

"It explains everything," Jack breathed. "It connects every dot. The similarities, the problems at school, the secrets-"

"Jack, it can't be," Maddie was barely holding back tears as the flood of emotions was washing over her. She put her hand over her mouth as she tried to think. Tried to find an argument, something to counteract against the conclusion Jack had come to. A conclusion that had begun to grow in the back of her own mind that she refused to let settle.

"Maddie…"

Maddie took a deep breath. Her eyes moved to look at Phantom. He was sitting upright in his hospital bed as he interacted with Jazz. She was talking to him with a serious expression. Phantom was so comfortable around his sister.

"My baby," Maddie spoke softly. The truth was more painful than any injury.

[duckapus]

My Danny Phantom Reboot (as was owed for the Phight)

Okay, so first off I should mention that this is going to be less “what if someone made a reboot of Danny Phantom now” and more “what if Danny Phantom was done right to start with.” This means there’ll be more emphasis on storytelling and characters, none of H*rtm*n’s usual shenanigans, but the storyline as it was is going to be more-or-less intact, depending on what I think I can salvage.

So, let’s talk powers.

Danny is going to have all the powers he did in the show, given gradually and with clear foreshadowing. His ghost sense is currently just a bit too conspicuous, so I’ll be changing it from a wisp of cold breath to a chill up his spine, though for the sake of the audience there will be a visual and audio indicator of it, much like Spider-Man’s spider sense. Starting out, he just has that and the three basic ghost powers, though they won’t work properly for a while, and I’ll make it clear that this is because his half-ghost status prevented him from gaining the instinctual knowledge to control them outright. While there are some abilities that he gains during times of stress (like ectoblasts and the ghostly wail) he’ll have to actually practice in order for them to work with any level of consistency.

Like I mentioned, there will be some foreshadowing, specifically when it comes to his ice powers. There’s going to be multiple points where someone mentions that he has cold hands, with many of those people being ghosts to imply that it isn’t a ghost thing. There’ll be more emphasis on Ghost Cores and Core Types. Danny isn’t going to be as affected by warmer or colder temperatures as other people, usually being the last one to need to put on a jacket. He’s going to be somewhat weak to fire-based attacks. And there’s going to be a multi-episode buildup to his powers freezing him.

I’m also going all-in on the space motif. His bedroom is covered in star stickers and NASA posters. He tends to look up at the stars whenever he needs time to think. He isn’t afraid of heights at all because up is good, up is safe, up is home, and flight is the only power he never has trouble with as a result.

And now, for Danny’s parents. First off, for this, they do not want to destroy ghosts. They want to study them, understand them, and keep people safe from the ones that cause trouble. They know full well how little they actually know and how small their sample size is- that’s why they’re working on equipment to actually explore the Ghost Zone in the first place! Yes they’ll screw up, and jump to conclusions, and be a bit too enthusiastic. Yes, they’re working off of some pretty big assumptions, because that’s all they’ve got. But at the end of the day, they’re the first to admit they’re not perfect. And as far as priorities are concerned, they’re parents first, scientists second, and hunters third(if even that).

Jazz and Tucker are already good as-is, as are most of the ghosts, so let’s move on to Sam and the “A-listers.”

So starting off, because I’m not Fartman, I will not be vilifying the popular kids just because they’re popular. For Qwan, we’ve already got the fanon of him being a sweet cinnamon roll who’d be a great friend to everybody if he were just able to say no, specifically to Dash. And with Star I’ll be going with a strong-willed girl who’s fully willing to call the others out when they’re bullshit goes to far, though she’s admittedly got a looser definition of “too far” than she should.

And now the big three. So my interpretation of Sam, Dash and Paulina is that a big chunk of their issues come from them not quite growing out of their jackass middle schooler phase(you all know what I mean). That’s not all of it, or even most of it, but it’s a big enough part that them acknowledging it will be a huge step in the right direction.

In Sam’s case, a lot of it also stems from her need to control as much of her life as she can, which developed in response to how little control her parents let her have. This ranges from harmless (her love of gardening and “ultra-recyclo-vegetarianism”) to really not okay (her tendency to manipulate or strong-arm people into doing what she wants) with her harsh judgement of people and trust issues landing somewhere in the upper middle. All of this to say that she’s a lot more like her parents (and Paulina, to a lesser extent) than she realizes.

With Paulina, while she does still have a lot of problems, being a crazy, obsessive fangirl isn’t one of them. She knows full well that her feelings for Phantom are just a celebrity crush and they aren’t about to get together any time soon (the boy’s dead as far as she knows, for god’s sake!). She’s also very observant, not to the point of finding out the truth about Danny but enough to realize quite a few other important details…

With Dash, all I’m really going to be changing is that his Football Star status absolutely does not give him free reign to do whatever he wants, because I respect Mr. Lancer more than that.

Admittedly I haven’t quite figured out their other classmates yet. And Valerie’s arc is already good as-is, though I won’t be including her getting shunned by the “A-listers” because this version of Star ain’t gonna let that fly. I’m also including Wes, because his antics are glorious and I think I can do some cool stuff with him.

Now, along with giving the characters better characterization in general, I’ll also be giving them their own time in the limelight to show what Danny’s situation looks like from an outsider’s perspective. Valerie in particular ends up as something of a secondary protagonist.

And now we come to Vlad. Oh, Vlad.

Okay, so in this version, Vlad inviting the Fentons to the reunion was a genuine attempt to reconnect. Unfortunately ghostly obsessions are powerful things, and he sort of relapsed into hating Jack and wanting Maddie for himself. Things more-or-less continue as normal, though with his desire to take on Danny as an apprentice coming off as him actually, genuinely wanting to teach Danny how being a halfa works, which makes it a little comically awkward when he tries to turn their battles into a teaching moment. He still becomes the mayor, though this time around it’s because he genuinely thought it was a good idea, and he got voted in legitimately.

Unfortunately it all sort of goes downhill after a while. Due to his current mentality of “tired old uncle just wants to get over his issues and help out” clashing with his obsession with Jack and Maddie, he’s sort of cracking, and the fact that Danny adds an extra layer to both isn’t really a good thing.

And then we get the clones. In this version, they all last a lot longer, and sort of act as Vlad’s minions for a while. The Frankenstein’s Monster-esque one sort of acts as a big brother to the others. He’s also very smart, even if he can’t really say much, and as time goes on he starts to realize that something is very wrong with Vlad. It all comes to a head when Dani is created, because Vlad realizes that even with a human half she still isn’t stable and something inside him just snaps. At this moment, there’s now two Vlads in there; Masters, who’s honestly just tired of all the fighting and pushing people away, and Plasmius, who’s essentially season three Vlad in all of his megalomaniacle obsession-fueled glory. Frankendanny’s destabilization is a big moment in this, as are the other clones holding back Vlad as they’re melting so Danny and Dani can escape at the end of the episode.

Dani still ends up traveling after that, though she’s not just ignored as she’ll be sending Danny postcards of places she’s been and there’ll be a few episodes dedicated to her adventures (with some hints to her instability getting worse.)

D-stabilized is where thing get really crazy. This is because while I’ve been distracting you with my Danny Phantom remake, there’s been a secret, second remake of Fairly Oddparents hidden in the background! I won’t go into too much detail, since that’s not what this is about, but It follows the same structure of apply overarching story, focus on characters, trim off what doesn’t work. Because of this, Timmy happens to be in the same city where Valerie finds Dani (I don’t think they were in Amity Park yet, but I’m not sure) and meets Dani before Valerie does. The episode plays out more-or-less the same (Val uses Dani as bait to catch Danny, gives Dani to Vlad, Danny appeals to her better nature, she finds out that Vlad is an evil half-ghost and that not all ghosts are evil thus shattering her world view) but with the addition of Timmy tracking her down to her weird holding cell/torture room place (seriously, what was up with that?) and then tagging along and somehow holding his own against Fright Knight with nothing but a blaster he managed to swipe from her (since not only does he have to deal with having human allies, but also the fact that magic doesn’t work that well on ghosts, which means no fairy help).

After that, there’s a few breather episodes to the end of the third season, mainly to do with Valerie processing everything she’s just learned.

And then Freakshow gets the reality gauntlet, because I’ve been holding that off until now. Danny gets his identity revealed on live television, the Guys in White are after him, and Freakshow is holding Amity Park hostage until Danny can find the three stones he scattered.

There’s just a few small changes I’ve made:

The stones got scattered across the planet, instead of just the country

There’s no easy way to track the stones unless one gets activated, unlike in the original where they had ecto-signatures

Wes and the “A-Listers” get dragged along for the ride

Because Freakshow isn’t a complete idiot and realizes that it will take a significant amount of time to find the stones, the team has until the end of summer.

Instead of everybody being in cages (since that won’t really work with this time frame) Amity Park is surrounded by an impenetrable dome, and both ghost portals are clogged up. Nobody gets in or out unless the ringmaster says so.

The second and third parts of Wishology and an adaptation of Nicktoons Unite are happening alongside all of this, so along with GIW and ghosts the team is going to be dealing with the Eliminators and The Syndicate.

Carl, Sheen and Libby have somehow tagged along.

We’ll be calling this arc the Road-trip from Hell, and it, along with the other two story arcs, will be taking up the entirety of the fourth season. The other two arcs will experience changes as well, such as Dani going with Timmy, Mark Chang and the Villains to find the Wind Wand due to being in Dimmsdale when it happens, Catman, Chip Skylark, Elmer and Sanjay getting captured along with the rest of Timmy’s friends, Valerie and Tootie getting recruited by Jimmy to fight the Syndicate since Timmy and Danny are busy and they’re honestly the only two options, and Anti-Cosmo being the Fairly Oddparents representative for the Syndicate since Crocker is also busy.

For the sake of storytelling, I should mention that GIW is a fanatical splinter group of MERF in this continuity, and have already been established as major antagonists. Also throughout the season Fairy World is basically going to be a warzone locked in a three-way battle between the Fairies, the Anti-Fairies and Syndicate, and the Eliminators, which all three groups see at one point or another.

The final battle is really going to be four going on simultaneously- Danny and Team Phantom(which by this point will also include the reformed agents O and K, because I like them) vs Ghost Freakshow, the robot army just outside of town, and Lydia; the Nicktoons vs the Syndicate’s doomsday device; Cosmo in his Godzilla form vs everything the Syndicate and the Eliminators can throw at him, and Timmy vs The Destructinator (which will actually be a full-on fight, with the outsmarting thing just being Timmy’s trump card). It’s going to be really cool with a bunch of well-timed jump-cuts and everything.

Then in the aftermath I’m going to basically spit in the face of the status quo. Danny still erases peoples memories of his reveal, but leaves out the new members of Team Phantom (because if he has to remember the road-trip from hell, so does everybody else), and it also doesn’t work on Valerie (or Tootie) since they were in Jimmy’s universe at the time, which is going to be Fun for Danny to deal with when she gets back. Timmy, Chester and AJ are also immune, due to AJ secretly making the three of them immune to memory wipes in general so Timmy wouldn’t have to forget his fairies or go through what happened in the first Wishology again. He would’ve done the same with Elmer and Sanjay, but he didn’t get the chance.

After all that, season five is a return to the norm, other than dealing with the new character dynamics, the Vlad situation, and all the Fairly Oddparents stuff leaking in. I haven’t really worked out all the specifics, since I sort of got caught up in the season four stuff.

Note: For obvious reasons, I cannot actually reboot Danny Phantom and/or Fairly Oddparents. Unless I come up with ideas later on down the line, or other people decide to add their own ideas, this is what you get.

(@phandomphightclub, I did it!)

[pokii-jonas]

Purrfectly Virgil : A New Story Emerges :D

OVERALL FIC SUMMARY -- Virgil has always been different from Logan, Roman, and Patton which they have all grown used to and accept.

However, Virgil may be a bit more different than they originally thought.

If only they knew...

(aka, the cat virgil fic no one asked for :p)

Chapter Summary: Something new and unusual is taking place in Thomas's mind. What's happening?

Chapter’s Characters: Virgil, Patton, Roman, Logan, Thomas, Deceit

AO3

Chapter 1          Previous          Next

CHAPTER WARNINGS

sympathetic deceit

PLEASE TELL ME IF I FORGOT SOMETHING!!!

It was three in the morning when Deceit was finally ready.

She stepped back with a sigh from the mirror and smiled at her reflection, happy with what she saw.

The dress and shoes fit perfectly, which didn’t shock her in the slightest. Virgil had always been good at that sort of thing.

She was also happy to note that the dress did indeed pair very nicely with her hat and cape, in both the shape and the color, and her elbow length yellow opera gloves.

Her hat had been placed to the side of her head so as not to fully cover her hair that she had spent many painful hours putting into soft curls that danced delicately around her face.

Her make-up, however, was what brought the entire look together she thought.

Gold and green eye shadow paired with a highlighter bright enough to kill and cheekbones that could cut a hoe, all held together with a dark red glossy lip.

She smiled at herself as she felt her dysphoria melt away.

Giving a small turn, she laughed as her dress lifted up with the air and flowed softly and delicately around her.

Stopping for a second to let her head stop spinning, she gracefully walked over to her stereo to put on some music.

She couldn’t remember the last time she felt this good.

She would definitely consider herself as more laid back when it came to fashion, usually opting for no makeup and sweats, but when she did dress up she always did it with a bang and went all out!

In the middle of the night when her host was most likely asleep so she wouldn’t get summoned, accidentally or on purpose.

There was no way she wanted the others or Thomas to see her like this. That was too personal. Why give them another reason to outcast her?

Though, of course she could care less about what they thought of her. Really, that was something Virgil would be more afraid of. Deceit didn’t care though.

She was fine. Really. The fact that she was a ‘she’ was just personal, that’s it.

So as she was putting in a One Direction CD(another thing no one needed to know about), she couldn’t help the scream that left her as she found herself suddenly standing in Thomas’s living room with everyone else.

“God damn it.” she whispered to herself, closing her eyes.

Taking a deep breath to get herself together, she opened her eyes again to face the others with her usual front of cold composure.

Deciding to ignore the four surprised gazes on her, she addressed the second matter on her mind.

“Thomas, it isn’t past three in the morning, why aren’t you up?” Deceit asked smoothly, crossing her arms over her chest while letting a small smile play on her lips.

Opening his mouth to speak, all he was able to let out in his surprised state was, “I, uh, what?”

Deceit tsked and was about to say something else when Roman finally seemed to find his tongue.

“Is it okay to be attracted to someone who is technically the same person as you?” he asked, incredibly matter-of-factly, while looking Deceit up and down.

Deceit felt a dark blush tinge her cheeks, but she refused to look away from Roman.

“No, not at all, Narcissus,” she said. “Especially since you’ve seemed to enjoy my company so much every other time I’ve popped up.”

Roman huffed, but before he could say anything, Thomas finally spoke up.

“Why are you dressed like that anyway?” he said, also taking a moment to look Deceit up and down.

Deceit’s blush deepened.

“Yes, let’s talk about what I do with my free time rather than what you are doing up at three a.m.” she said sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

“It’s my fault.” Virgil suddenly said, looking down at his feet and pulling the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands.

“Oh? That’s shocking.” Deceit said, giving Virgil a small smirk when he glared at her.

“So, what doesn’t have to so tweaked, Virge?” Deceit said casually, walking over to the couch and sitting down gracefully, crossing her legs.

Virgil followed and sat down opposite to her on the couch, curling his legs up to his chest.

“I don’t know,” he mumbled. “ Something just doesn’t feel right.”

Deceit frowned at this.

“What does?” she asked, momentarily forgetting they weren’t alone.

Virgil sighed.

“I don’t know, but something feels off and I don’t know what.”

Deceit’s frown deepened. Virgil had his paranoid moments, obviously, but usually they were based around something.

What was happening?

“But you are anxiety. The feeling of anxiety doesn’t always have a purpose.” Logan said, finally speaking up for the first time since Deceit appeared.

“Even so, it’s unusual.” Deceit replied, still deep in thought as she brought a hand up to rub her temple.

“What? Even for speaking in opposites, what you just said makes no sense.” Logan said, causing Deceit to look up at him.

“What?” she asked as she watched him study her curiously.

“Well, if you speak in opposites, like you’ve led us to believe, then what you just said was, ‘Even so, it’s usual,’ which sounds rather odd.” he quietly mumbled, however after the words left his mouth, his eyes widened slightly.

“Which means you can speak the truth. You asking ‘what?’ so genuinely proves it. If you could really only speak opposites, you would have said something along the lines of, ‘I know what you just said.’”

Deceit froze as she watched Logan.

“Shit,” she mumbled.

“Yeah, fine. You got me. Thanks for taking away my thing.” she snapped, crossing her arms.

Tossing her her head to the side to look at Virgil.

“When did this feeling come about?” she asked gently, not bothering to speak in opposites anymore.

Virgil hummed in thought for a second before saying, “A few weeks ago. Right after Christmas. I don’t know what’s happening, but the feeling is getting stronger.

“Oh!” Patton exclaimed from the steps, causing everyone to turn and look at him.

“What’s up padre?” Roman asked, yawning slightly.

“I… This was sitting next to be for some reason.” Patton said, confused, as he held up what looked to be an origami Pegasus.

“What?” Thomas asked, voicing what everyone else was thinking as well.

“I wonder how that-” Logan started to say when Virgil suddenly gave a jarring scream, causing everyone to jump away from him.

“Virgil, what’s wrong?” Deceit asked concerned, turning to look at Virgil who had managed to jump onto the back of the couch and was hissing at a spot on the floor.

Turning her gaze to look where Virgil was looking, she couldn’t help but let out a laugh.

There on the floor, for no apparent reason, was a cucumber.

“Virge, honey. It’s just a cucumber.” she said, incredibly amused, as she stood and picked up the offending object.

Virgil only hissed in response, but Deceit was already distracted as she felt the object in her hand.

It wasn’t even a cucumber, it was-

“AWWWWWWWWWW, HE’S LIKE A CAT!!!” Patton exclaimed happily, jumping off the steps and bouncing up and down excitedly.

Virgil’s face immediately flushed a bright crimson and he jumped back down to his spot on the couch, still wearily eying the cucumber in Deceit’s hands.

“There is no reason to be afraid of cucumbers, Virgil, wha-” Logan started, only to be cut off by Deceit saying, “It’s not a cucumber.”

The room went silent as everyone stared at Deceit with incredulous looks.

“Are you speaking weirdly again or…” Romas asked, looking between her and the rest of the room.

“It’s not a cucumber.” she repeated, grabbing both ends and ripping it in half.

“It’s paper.”

The silence continued on, deafeningly so as everyone watched what was once a cucumber disintegrate before their very eyes until there was nothing left.

“I… I’m sorry, what?” Roman said quietly, his eyes wide and unstaring at where the ‘cucumber’ used to be.

“Am I just sleep deprived? I didn’t just see that, right?” Thomas asked, rubbing his eyes and looking to Logan.

“Possibly, but you aren’t that sleep deprived. You shouldn’t be at the point of hallucinations.”

There was silence once more as everyone tried to figure out what was even happening.

Virgil was the first to break the quiet.

“We should go to sleep. Staying up later won’t help Thomas function tom-today.” he said, standing up and stretching.

Logan was next.

“Virgil is correct. If Thomas sleeps, then we can make more rational decisions tomorrow.”

“Fine, I’ll be the first to leave then. Ta-ta for now, peasants!” Roman declared, promptly sinking out as he tried to hold back a yawn.

“Yeah, I’m pretty tuckered as well.” Patton said next, placing the origami pegasus on Thomas’s coffee table.

“Night, kiddos!” he exclaimed, waving happily as he too sunk out.

“In that case, I believe I’ll go next.” Logan said, turning to address Deceit quickly.

“I presume you’ll want to join our discussion tomorrow, yes?”

She gave a curt nod and Logan returned it.

“We will call on you when it’s time then.” he said, sinking out without another word.

“Okayyyy, I’m going upstairs. You two do what you want.” Thomas said, running a hand through his hair and walking towards the steps.

Once he was out of sight, Deceit turned to Virgil.

“You wanna sleep in my room tonight?” she asked, knowing full well Virgil was probably quite shaken by everything that was happening.

Plus, she liked sleeping with Virgil. He was so warm, she didn’t even need her electric blanket.

She would probably still use it though.

To her delight, Virgil gave her a small smile and nodded.

Sinking down together to her room, Deceit gave a quick snap of her fingers and her makeup was off and her sweats were on.

Virgil followed suit and the both climbed into the bed, Deceit curling herself up to Virgil as he turned off the light.

While they both happily drifted off to bed, the strange events of that night were still fresh on their minds.

What in the world was happening in Thomas’s mind?

Next

-*-*-*-*-*-

SOOOOOOOOO :D

i had an idea for a plot and um... yeah, i'm getting there ;p

chapters will mainly focus on Virgil's pov, but Deceit just really fit in here i thought so i went with it :p

i hope you guys enjoy the direction this fic is taking!!!

ALSO I DIDN'T RE READ THIS AFTER WRITING, SO SORRY FOR ERRORS BUT IT'S 3 AM AND I NEEDA SLEEP OMG IT'S A SCHOOL NIGHT, I'M A DISASTER

TAGLIST:

@avocados26  @sherlock-lives-on-bakerstreet

[mmmatchasay]

my A to Z

Really, no one asked for this, but I wanted to do it anyways! I figured it’d be a nice thing to do since I have reached over the 200thfollowers mark! Thank you so much for following me, giving my stories and I a chance as well as for taking the time to reblog/like/comment! You’re all the sweetest and I hope this was nice enough to read! (I’m probably going to be posting something sad tomorrow - it’s either that or this other attempt at smut lol!)

pairing: spencer reid x reader

p/s: original post can be found here

A = Attractive what do they find attractive about the other?

You are absolutely attracted to his intelligence and there was just something so attractive about Spencer talking about statistics and facts. Spencer, on the other hand, finds your smile your most attractive feature. There is just something calming and soothing about your smile and if anyone asks this, Spencer will definitely tell them that your smile stops his world.

B = Baby do they want a family? why/why not?

Spencer might be a little apprehensive about starting a family soon, especially since he is still afraid that his child might grow up to be Schizophrenic. You are content with being the cool aunt / god mother but there are times when you would find yourself thinking about mini-Spencer and mini-You running around the house, laughing and it definitely makes you rethink. It’s only after two years of being married that Spencer brings up the question of wanting kids – he’s no longer contented with just being a godfather.

C = Cuddle how do they cuddle?

Spencer loves to lay on top of you. Even with his lanky limbs, he likes to fit himself into your embrace. You could be laying on the bed and reading a book and somehow, Spencer will find himself with his head tucker under your chin (his hair often tickles your nose but he always smell nice so you didn’t mind at all) and Spencer finds the sound of your heartbeat very soothing and would often seek that out especially when he wakes up from a nightmare. You will often rub his back gently or even play with his hair and that’s how you’ll fall asleep. Though somehow, the next morning, you are always pressed into Spencer’s chest so you aren’t quite sure who moved first.

D = Dates what are dates with them like?

Due to the nature of his work, scheduling date nights in advance can be pretty hard but the first time Spencer asked you out on a date, the two of you had just attended a Dr. Who Convention and Spencer all but stutter through his question, talking about statistics and facts before you shut him up by kissing him.

A typical date night would be: Spencer borrowing either Derek or Emily’s tablets and using those tablets to video-call with you. More often than not, that is how the two of you would do date nights. Some other times, the two of you would talk on the phone and you will often fall asleep to Spencer talking about what he found interesting in the state and how they mostly reminded him of you.

An ideal date would be going on a picnic and then watching sunset. Spencer knows you enjoy simple things, so he definitely tries to make sure he doesn’t go too over the top whenever the two of you actually have time to go on a date.

E = Everything you are my ____ (e.g my life, my world…)

Spencer: “You are my sun, my moon and all of the stars. You are my happy place, Y/N. Never forget that.”

You: “You are my everything and most importantly, you are mine.”

F = Feelings when did they know they were falling in love?

It hadn’t exactly been love-at-first-sight for Spencer or you. The feelings gradually grew between the two of you and it just felt right. The two of you gravitated towards each other and everyone who knew Spencer and you and who has seen the two of you knew first before the two of you figured it out.

For Spencer, he knew he fell in love with you the moment you showed up on his doorstep after he called you at 3AM in the morning and without asking any questions, you pulled him into a hug and right there and then, that was when Spencer knew that he is undeniably in love with you.

You on the other hand fell in love with him when instead of judging you for your outburst – some of your co-workers are just plain rude sometimes – he made you some tea and listened to you venting your feelings out without even commenting and once you were done and exhausted, Spencer took you to your favorite diner and treated you to the dinner.

G = Gentle are they gentle? If so, how?

Spencer cherishes you a lot. Like he really does think of you almost all the time and he treats you very gently all the time – not that you minded at all because you also treat him like how he treated you: gently and with full of love and care.

H = Hand/Hold how do they like to hold? how do they like to hold hands?

Obviously, you would love to hold his hand all the time because you are someone that loves holding a loved one’s hand but since you knew of Spencer’s reluctance in holding hands due to the number of germs passing, you are content with just holding onto his arm or his elbow. You didn’t want to push him too much and make him uncomfortable.

Spencer made hand-holding an exception for you. He really likes holding your hand – he thinks your hands are soft and fits his hand perfectly like a puzzle. Even when he is asleep, sometimes, Spencer will unconsciously reach out for your hand.

I = Impression first impression/s

You had been this ball of sunshine and your smile was so bright to the point where Spencer felt blinded by it. He still feels like you have a very warm, inviting and bright smile.

Spencer had been that man you had passed by and thought ‘wow, he’s so good looking’ and when you actually made a move to talk to him, it changed from he’s so good looking to he’s so smart and good looking.

J = Joker are they into pulling pranks?

Oh boy; please do not get you started into this. You would especially love to pull pranks around Halloween because the two of you enjoy Halloween so much and sometimes, you would even rope in members of the BAU to pull pranks as well.

K = Kisses how do they kiss?

L = Little things what little things do they love/notice?

Whenever you get a little sleepy, you will always try your hardest to squint your eyes in a way that makes you look like you are concentrating very much. He finds this habit of yours to be very adorable. Spencer also notices that you like to play with your watch whenever you are nervous so if he is ever around and you happen to be nervous – like that time Spencer introduced you to his mum – Spencer will reach for your hand and instead let you play with his fingers.

M = Memory their favorite moment together

The first time the two of you spent Halloween together. You had dressed up as your favourite character and Spencer had dressed up as his favourite Doctor but somehow, the two of you managed to make it work and he had brought you over to meet his team for the very first time and by the end of the night, you had another family to call your own and you were cuddled up on the couch with Spencer, exchanging stories and soft kisses.

N = Nickel do they spoil? do they buy the person they love everything?

Spencer likes buying you charms for your charm bracelets. He also likes buying you things that reminds him very much of you but most of the time, Spencer buys things that he knows you like to use – like a polaroid camera, for example. Your apartment’s bedroom wall is littered with photos of the two of you that you hang nicely around your room.

You like buying books for Spencer because you also like listening to him talking about the book and then the two of you have discussions about said book. You spoil Spencer by making him breakfast, lunch and dinner.

O = Orange what color reminds them of their other half

You remind him of the sun because Spencer reckons himself as a sunflower – that only looks at his sun and you are the color of the sun.

P = Petnames what petnames do they use?

You like calling Spencer, “Spence” but if it’s just the two of you, you would probably say something cheesy like calling him ‘boyfriend of mine’ and in return, Spencer likes calling you ‘girlfriend of mine’. But if you are around people, it’s normally ‘Spence’ or ‘Babe’ and Spencer calls you ‘Sunny’ or ‘Y/N’.

Q = Questions what are the questions they’re always asking?

“Just five more minutes please?” – This always happen especially if Spencer ends up staying over at your apartment. He likes to try and spend some extra time with you in the morning – sometimes, he doesn’t even let you leave the bed and Spencer would just hold you, basking in your warmth.

R = Remember their favorite memory of each other

Spencer’s favorite memory of you is when he first woke up to see your face very early in the morning. He swore he has never seen anything so perfect until that moment – the way the light caressed your skin and how you are snuggled up against his chest, it made his entire body feel very warm.

Your favorite memory of Spencer is when he went down on one knee – not to propose – but to give you a promise ring, promising that sometime in the future, that ring will change into an actual engagement ring but until that day comes, Spencer will always try to come home back to you and the way he said it so earnestly made you tear up and when Spencer smiled so brightly after you said yes, you find yourself falling in love once again.

S = Sad how do they cheer themselves/each other up

Whenever you’re sad, you’re the type that likes to cry by yourself and at first, Spencer respected that even if he didn’t necessarily agree but after a while, he will come to you and give you a box of tissues and once you’re done blowing out your nose and wiping away your tears, Spencer will pull you into his lap and hug you. Sometimes, all you need is just a hug from Spencer to feel absolutely better.

When Spencer feels sad, you tend to bring him to go to your favorite parks for walks and you will keep quiet until he’s ready to talk to you and if he isn’t ready, you simply shower him with love and kisses, reminding him that you will always be here for him.

T = Talking what do they love to talk about?

Spencer likes talking your ears off because 1) you always seem genuinely interested in everything that he has to say and 2) you rarely ever cut him off and instead urge him to talk more because and he quotes, “your voice is so soothing to listen to, Spence.”

You like talking to Spencer about everything that happened in your day – at least the good ones. He faces so much bad whenever he does work that you try not to add on to the bad whenever you can but somehow, Spencer always finds out whenever something bad happened to you at work. He is just so easy to talk to and Spencer listens to you too.

U = Universe use a metaphor, what are they to each other? (e.g he was the universe, ever-changing and mysterious)

“I look at you and wham, I’m head over heels. I guess that love is a bnana peel. I feel so bad and yet I’m feeling so well. I slipped, I stumbled, I fell.” – Ben Weisman and Fred Wise, “I Slipped, I Stumbled, I Fell,” sun by Elvis Presley in the film ‘Wild in the Country’).

V = Very ___ their thoughts about each other (e.g she’s very smart, he’s very stubborn, they’re very annoying etc.)

“That’s my entire life right there.”

W = Why reasons why they love each other

There really isn’t any reason than the fact that you make all his bad days seem better whenever you are around, and Spencer has that ability to make your hurt disappear and melt your heart just by existing around you.

X = Xylophone What’s their song?

Team – Noah Cyrus & Max

Y = You the ___ to my ___ (e.g the cookies to my milk, the macaroni to my cheese)

“You are the sun to my flower.”

Z = Zebra if they wanted a pet, what pet would they get?

Spencer would probably want you to get a guard dog, but you end up coming home with like a corgi or a shiba inu because they’re just too adorable and instead of buying a pet, you adopted them from a shelter.

[son-of-alderaan]

Saturday Night Live’s season 44 premiere graced us with a completely relatable and timely character: Adam Driver’s withered oil baron Abraham H. Parnassus. Freshman writer Eli Coyote Mandel delivered the breakout sketch, which touched on the posturing masculinity of our current era without making Matt Damon wear a fake nose about it. Here’s what it’s like to produce your first sketch for SNL, and why Mandel thinks birds are so weird and gross.

What was the genesis of this sketch? The very beginnings of it were in an improv scene five years ago, in Chicago. I think I was just playing an old, old man. I was doing something with my cane as the old guy — you know, hilarious improv comedy. And then my friend Dan White was like, “Oh my God, he’s crushing bird underneath his cane!” It was kind of funny at the time.

I was thinking, “It would be funny if he were extremely old. What’s a way he could do that and shout in this elevated language?” So at some point, he became an oil baron. I did it like four or five times in Chicago and forgot about it. And then when I heard Adam Driver was going to host … This was my first episode ever, by the way.

Congratulations! Thank you. I got hired like two weeks ago. So when I heard it was going to be Adam Driver I was thinking about things for him. I thought he would probably be very good at my weird oil baron thing. So I had to expand it and make it a five-minute scene instead of a 45-second character.

Why oil baron and not railroad tycoon, or sweatshop owner, or other type of Gilded Age industrialist? The main thing that I wanted was for it to be completely visceral so that the language lets you feel it. And I feel like oil is such a weird, disgusting substance. That line “mother’s milk” is the thing that comes to mind. “The earth’s milk,” I heard someone say. I thought it was such a disgusting, partially sexual phrase that tickled me for some reason. I also feel like we don’t have oil barons anymore. It’s a thing that we don’t think of, not anymore.

What do you think a day in this guy’s life is like? He gets up and sits at a giant desk in his home. And then, every so often, an extremely old secretary or assistant will come in and drop off a thing. He’ll eat a bunch of boiled eggs or whatever and go to sleep at 4 p.m.

This was your first episode. How was the process for pitching the sketch, and going through all the steps of production, for the first time? Yeah, that was insane. Everyone’s been great. Around 10 p.m. [on Tuesday, writing night], I sent it over to one of the head writers. They gave me some good notes – like [Melissa Villaseñor] is maybe more into it. Then the next day is the table read. By the way, before every step of this process I’m thinking, This sucks, I’m a fraud, and they’re gonna find me out. I hate everything about this; it’s not funny. Luckily I came in with two other writers from Chicago, Alison Gates and Alan Linic. They both read it and said it was good. I said, “You’re lying; it’s terrible.” But then it went to table read. And right before table read, you can go around and give the cast a note or two. I had to go into Adam Driver’s dressing room and give him a quick talk. But when I went in there, he’d already read it and already had an idea of what he was going to do. It’s 150 percent Adam Driver doing it and being extremely good at acting. I lucked out so hard with him.

They go into Lorne’s office and choose which sketches are going to be put on. Mine was put on. And then I didn’t know what to do. They assigned Bryan Tucker — a more senior writer there who’s great and a Very Funny Comedy Man — and he took me through the production process. He showed me where I was supposed to go and what I was supposed to do and answered all my questions. He helped me out with literally everything, because I did not know what was happening. From there, I met with the production team, all the designers, and they were great. They truly crushed it.

Did you get to choose the cane and the bird? Did they hold up an owl and a crow, and after much deliberation you chose the crow? Yes. In the initial production meeting, they wanted to know what kind of props we’d need, and I said we’d need a cane and a bird. They asked what kind of bird I want, and I said, “Um… seagull?” It was cool — they asked me what I wanted the high school to be named, and I went with my high school: Sierra High School. So they put on the sign out front “Sierra High School,” my actual high school in Tollhouse, California. And the class was Ms. Linder’s class, my favorite teacher from high school. That was cool when some friends from high school caught that.

At rehearsal they showed me some cane options, and I picked what I thought was a good cane. They were working on the bird, so they had a stand-in bird at the initial rehearsal.  Adam really didn’t want to crush it all that much for that first go. At dress, they showed me this seagull that was full of beans. We used that at the dress rehearsal, and I loved it.

Did you say beans? It was kind of like a beanie baby with bird wings on it. That’s not what we wound up using live, but I liked it because it fell with a disgusting thud. And when Adam crushed it with his cane, it kind of crunched. But a big note I got after dress was that we had to cut that bird, because it was disgusting. We changed the bird, and I was a little bit nervous about it. But when I saw that cane going through that bird’s heart, oh boy. It warmed mine to no end. That worked out so well.

So you had the idea for the sketch back in Chicago, but just as a character piece you were doing. Was it part of what you did to get hired? No, it was just a piece I’d done a couple times and had in the back of my head. I was a little worried because I did audition with a different piece that involved crushing a bird. But in a much different context! I don’t want to be known as the bird-crushing comedian.

That’s too bad, because it’s going to be the headline of this interview. Eli Coyote Mandel, bird-crushing comic?

Yeah. Cool, great. But there was another thing with a bird involved that I auditioned with. I liked the visceral weirdness of a bird.

May I ask what bird-crushing was in that? I was a guy in confessional: “Forgive me Father, for I have sinned … I’m just going to get to it: I ate a bird today.” And it turns out that a bird had flown into his mouth and he didn’t know what to do, so he just ate it. And they seemed to enjoy that.

So do you hate birds? Or do you love them? What’s with the birds? I have no strong opinions on birds! I do think they’re weird. Because they ain’t dogs, and they ain’t cats, so what the hell is they?

It’s the most close-to-nature animal you will see in a city. And you will be reminded that there are other worlds out there when you see a bird in a non-woods setting. Right, and they’re so otherworldly. I’m from the country originally. I’m from the middle of nowhere, so there were animals all around me, but birds: What are they? In college, I took a dinosaurs class and I found out that they are dinosaurs. They are straight-up dinosaurs. So weird.

[khoicesbyk]

A/N: I'm officially obsessed with Wolf Bride and what does one do when she's obsessed with a certain book? She writes an AU about it! 😁 So, Talley Ho! *in my Sherlock Holmes voice*

Rated: Mature. | Contains sexual content and strong language. (You know? The usual from me. 😁) | Bolded and/or italicized words are conversations and thoughts of the characters. | Main Characters: Roman (LI) and Naia Evans (MC) | All Characters and names: (except MC and certain original characters, created by me) are property of Pixelberry.

Current Word Count: 3,680 words. (more or less. I stop counting after editing and re-editing. 🤷🏾‍♀️)

Missing a chapter or want to read a chapter again? I got you covered! Click ——> Here!

Song And Story Inspiration: In The Still Of The Nite-Boyz II Men | Give Me One Reason-Tracy Chapman | Nobody’s Supposed To Be Here-Deborah Cox

Tag List: @shewillreadyou @choiceslady @queenjilian @bebepac @txemrn @texaskitten30 @glaimtruelovealways @hopefulmoonobject @lucy-268 @pixie88 @otherworldlypresents  @choicesficwriterscreations

TW: kidnapping. Read at your own discretion.

Chapter 5.) In The Still Of The Night.

In the still of the night.

I held you.

Held you tight.

'Cause I love.

Love you so.

Promise I'll never.

Let you go.

In the still of the night.

As she slept peacefully in her new bed, Naia dreamed that she was running through the forest. She felt strong. She felt invincible. She could feel the wind on her face as she ran. It was exhilarating. She felt free. When she came out of the woods, she was a wolf. And when she looked up, she saw him. It was the wolf she had seen in her dreams before. It was him. When he howled she did the same.

That’s when she woke up. She sat up in bed, panting with her heart thundering in her chest. She looked around her room in order to get her bearings. That’s when something compelled her to look out her bedroom window. And when she looked out the window she saw a wolf staring up at her. When she shook her head, the wolf was gone. The image of the wolf was still in her head when she went back to sleep.

After waking up later that morning and taking a good hot shower, Naia couldn’t get Roman out of her head. She wanted to feel his arms wrapped her again. He was seductive and mysterious and she wanted more. She could still feel his warm breath on her neck and the closeness of his body to hers. She thought it was insane but never actually questioned why she thought that way.

When she went to the kitchen for breakfast, she noticed a note on the counter. It was from her uncle.

“Good morning. Gone fishing. Be back later. Help yourself to whatever is in the fridge. Uncle Z.”

When she opened the fridge, she grimaced because there wasn’t much in there to begin with. When her stomach rumbled she knew she had to change that.

“Okay well since a home cooked breakfast is out of the question. I think I’ll try the breakfast place I saw when I drove into town. Also I’ll do some grocery shopping while I’m at it. Because this right here ain’t hitting on nothing.” She thought to herself.

With keys and wallet in hand Naia set off for town. After shopping at Banner’s Family Market, she was just about starved and stopped by Tucker’s diner.

After getting a table she sat down and looked over the menu. As she looked over the menu, someone was watching her. Or so it looked that way.

I remember.

That night in May.

The stars were bright above.

I'll hope and I'll pray.

To keep.

Your precious love.

At another table, Trent was eating breakfast with a few members of his team when Naia walked in. He felt a pull towards where she was sitting.

“Yo T! What is it?” Jenkins, one of his team members asked.

“I don’t know. Something weird just happened. Like she just walked in.” He replies shaking his head.

“Man! Please tell me that you’re not talking about that so-called dream girl again!” Sergei said to him.

“If you must know, yes I am.”

His crew collectively groaned.

“Dude it’s been almost a whole 2 months! Let it go already!” Hugo told him.

“As I’ve told you idiots before: I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t? Which one is it T?” Jenkins asked him.

Trent never answered. He just sipped his coffee. Even though he’s blind he could feel her presence. After going over the menu for a solid 20 minutes, Naia decided on the Lobster Eggs Benedict and a sweet tea. Just as she was about to put her order in, Layla walked in.

“Layla! Over here!” She called out to her new friend.

Trent nearly dropped his cup of coffee. Hearing her voice in real time both scared and excited him.

“You almost dropped your cup. You okay man?” Jenkins asked him.

“Huh? Yeah! I’m…I’m good.” Trent replied, while trying to hide the crack in his voice. With his hearing being better than most, he tuned into her conversation

“Hey! What are you doing here?” Layla asked Naia as she sat down across from her.

“Since my uncle has gone fishing, I decided to do some grocery shopping and I was starving so here I am. What are you and the little one up to?” Naia replies.

“The same thing as you. Have you ordered yet?” Layla asks.

“Just about to. What about you?” Naia replies.

“Oh girl! They already know what I want. A pitcher each of cranberry juice and ice water, their triple berry cheesecake parfait, double blueberry pancakes and a ham, spinach and swiss omelette.” Layla replied.

Naia’s eyes went wide.

“You’re actually gonna eat all of that?!” She asked.

“I mean…I am eating for two, ya know?” Layla replied, rubbing her belly. The two shared a laugh as they continued their conversation.

Trent turned his attention back to his team just as the twins came strolling in. His boss Bernard Sayre is a blowhard who only cares about 3 things. Making money, being powerfully unstoppable and his twins Dylan and Tyler. The twin terrors as they’re known around town, just love getting their way no matter what they do or say. And although it annoyed Trent, he was powerless to stop them.

“Heyyyyy boys!” Dylan called out to Trent and his team. Her voice sounded like banshee screech.

“And here comes daddy’s two brats…” Jenkins groaned as the twins approached.

“So what are you guys up to?” Tyler asked.

“We’re eating. Why?” Trent asks.

“Because we were hoping that you’d join us at Buck’s for the Friday night sing a long and pool.” Tyler replies.

“You’d have to ask Layla if we’re allowed back in. Especially after what happened the last time.”

The twins groaned.

“Well she’s sitting at a table with some girl. So I guess it’s worth a shot.” Dylan said with a sigh.

Naia watched in amusement and shock, as she watched Layla polish off everything she ordered with ease.

“I can not believe that you ate EVERYTHING!”

“Told you!” Layla replied as she swiped her finger on the inside of her parfait cup.

“Uhhhhh Layla…”

“Huh?” She asked.

“It’s all gone! Put the cup down!” Naia replies.

The two laughed as the twins approached.

“Hiiiiiiiiiii Layla!” They say in unison causing Layla to groan.

“Ohhh and hi Layla’s friend!”

“What do you two want?” She asked the twins.

“Weeeeeellllllllllll…we were hoping you’d let us have Friday sing a long and pool.” Tyler said in a cloyingly sweet voice.

“After the shit you pulled the last time? NO!” Layla hissed at them.

“Come on Layla! Our dad paid for the damage!” Tyler whined.

“Yeah he did…after I threatened to sue his sorry ass!”

“Please!” The twins begged.

Layla rolled her eyes then replied, “fine! You can come tonight.”

“Thank you!” The twins squealed.

“Whatever. Go away!”

“You don’t have to be rude!” Dylan said.

“Which would you rather: me be rude or me ban you two from ever stepping foot into MY bar?” She asked them.

The twins stood stuck.

“I thought so. Now again: go away!”

The twins turned on their heels and stomped away. When they were far enough away for her pleasure, Layla turned her attention back to Naia.

“Sorry about that.”

“Who are they?” Naia asks.

“Tyler and Dylan Sayre. Their dad Bernard owns Sayre Energy and Power. They’re a public nuisance.” Layla replies.

“They look harmless to me.”

“That’s because you haven’t been around them when they’re drunk.”

“Touché.”

“I guess since they’re having Friday sing a long and pool, you should come too.”

“Me?” Naia asks.

“Yes you! It’ll be fun as long as those two aren’t drinking.” Layla replies.

“I don’t know about all of that.”

“Also there’s normally a $1,000.00 cash prize for first place.”

“Why didn't you lead with that?!” Naia asks.

“Because Dylan normally wins because no one wants to challenge her.” Layla replies.

“Well as someone who’s still paying off student loans: Count me in!”

So before the light.

Hold me again.

With all of your might.

In the still of the night.

So before the light.

Hold me again.

With all of your might.

In the still…of the night.

That night at Buck’s the party was in full swing. People were dancing, drinking, playing pool and mingling amongst themselves. Naia stuck close to the bar and Layla as they watched the crowd. And like clockwork, Dylan was drunk and ready to sing her heart out.

“Alright you party animals! Let’s get this sing a long on the road! Now all of you know the rules. First place gets $1,000.00! And since that first place is always me I have nothing to worry about! So hit the music!”

“Ohhh God…” Layla groaned.

“What?!” Naia asks.

“Little Miss Banshee is about to assault our ears and sing Deborah Cox Nobody’s Supposed To Be Here.” Layla replies.

“It can’t be THAT bad, Layla.”

“Wanna bet?” She asks just as Dylan grabbed a mic.

After clearing her throat, Dylan began to sing. Sorta.

How did you get here?

Nobody's supposed to be here.

I tried that love thing for the last time.

My heart says "No, no." Nobody's supposed to be here.

But you came along and changed my mind.

I've spent all my life on a search to find. The love who'll stay for eternity. The heaven sent to fulfill my needs. But when I turn around, again, love has knocked me down. My heart got broken, oh it hurts so bad. I'm sad to say love wins again.

So I placed my heart under lock and key. To take some time to take care of me. But I turn around and you're standing here.

How did you get here? Nobody's supposed to be here.

I tried that love thing for the last time.

My heart says "No, no." Nobody's supposed to be here.

But you came along and changed my mind.

This time I swear I'm through. But, if only you knew how many times I've said those words. Then fall again, when will I ever learn? Knowing these tears I cry, this lovely black butterfly. Must take a chance, and spread my wings. Love can make you do some crazy things.

So I placed my heart under lock and key. To take some time to take care of me. But I turn around and you're standing here.

Standing here…

When Dylan got to the bridge, Naia thought her ears would bleed out.

No, nobody, no, no, no, no, no, no, ooh!

No, no, nooooooooo...

How did you get here? Nobody's supposed to be here I tried that love thing for the last time.

My heart says "No, no." Nobody's supposed to be here.

But you came along and changed my mind.

How did you get here? Nobody's supposed to be here.

I tried that love thing for the last time.

My heart says "No, no." Nobody's supposed to be here.

But you came along and changed my mind.

When she was done, Naia was ready to run out the door screaming.

“Ohhhhhh myyyyyyyyy God! That was fucking horrible!”

“Told you.” Layla deadpanned.

“She has to be stopped! What other songs are on that karaoke machine?” Naia asks.

“Hundreds! So if you’re gonna sing, pick one and make it good! That way ears will stop ringing.” Layla replies.

Naia left her seat at the bar and walked over to where the karaoke machine was and went through the list of songs. Doing so, caught the ire of a very drunk Dylan.

“Ummmmmm what do you think you’re doing?!” She asks.

“Picking a song obviously.” She replies over her shoulder.

Dylan huffed.

“You actually think you can beat my melodious voice?” She asks.

“A dead horse can beat your voice. And just like that I found my song.” Naia replies.

“Good luck beating me!” Dylan sneered.

“Watch and learn young grasshopper.”

Naia took the mic and began to sing Give Me One Reason by Tracy Chapman.

Give me one reason to stay here. And I'll turn right back around. Give me one reason to stay here. And I'll turn right back around. Said I don't want to leave you lonely. You got to make me change my mind.

Baby I got your number. Oh and I know that you got mine. You know that I called you. I called you many times. You can call me baby. You can call me anytime, you got to call me.

Give me one reason to stay here. And I'll turn right back around. (You can see me turnin') Give me one reason to stay here. And I'll turn right back around. (You can see me turnin') Said I don't want to leave you lonely. You got to make me change my mind.

I don't want no one to squeeze me. They might take away my life. I don't want no one to squeeze me. They might take away my life. I just want someone to hold me. Oh and rock me through the night.

People started to gather around Naia as she sang. When she looked towards the bar, she winked at Layla. Layla mouthed the words “next drink is on the house.”

This youthful heart can love you. Yes and give you what you need. I said this youthful heart can love you. Oh and give you what you need. But I'm too old to go chasin' you around. Wastin' my precious energy.

Give me one reason to stay here. Yes and I'll turn right back around. (You can see me turnin') Give me one reason to stay here. Oh I'll turn right back around. (You can see me turnin') Said I don't want to leave you lonely. You got to make me change my mind.

Baby just give me one reason. Oh give me just one reason why. Baby just give me one reason. Oh give me just one reason why I should stay. Said I told you that I loved you. And there ain't no more to say.

When she finished the applause was thunderous. She had everyone on their feet. When she looked out on the crowd, she saw a visibly angry Dylan. Naia smirked and winked at her, which further infuriated her.

When Naia walked back to the bar, she got the feeling someone was watching her but she didn’t know who that someone was.

“Soooooo…how was that?” Naia asked Layla as she reached the bar.

“AMAZING! Now if you can beat her brother at pool, the bar is on the house.” Layla replied.

“Sold!”

“Well get to it girlie! Because you’ve been eyeing that bottle of tequila over my shoulder since you got here.”

Naia snickered then took off towards the crowd gathered around Tyler. As she went to WB w the crowd was she got the same feeling that she was being watched. And she was indeed being watched. Trent was tuned into her movements even through his blindness.

“Well this looks like fun!” Naia says as she reaches the pool table.

“Go away! Nobody wants you here!” Dylan hissed.

“What’s the matter princess? Scared I’ll beat your brother like I beat you?” Naia teased.

“You can’t beat me!” Tyler huffed.

“Wanna bet?” She asked him.

“Sure. How much are you willing to lose?”

“Since I beat your sister:  $1,000.00.” She replies. She didn’t think he’d take her seriously.

“You’re on! Best 2 out of 3?” He asks.

“Then you’ve got yourself a game.” She replies.

Once the balls were lined up and it was up to her to break. She got stripes while he got solid.

“Let’s go!” She tells him.

The two were evenly matched with the first game going to her and the second going to him. And it all came down to the last game. Naia had an impossible split. Or so that’s what Tyler and the crowd that was gathered around them thought.

“I’ll make you a deal new girl. If you bank this shot, I’ll up the bet from $1,000.00 to $3,000.00.” He said to her.

“Deal!” Naia replies.

Naia tucked a hair that out of place behind her ear, lined up her shot and sank both balls. Beating a very stunned Tyler.

“TAKE! THAT!” She squealed.

“But! But! I…we…” Tyler stammers as he goes pale.

“You lost just like your sister? Yeah I know. Now pay up!” She told him.

That’s when Dylan jumped into Naia’s face.

“You cheated!” She screeched.

“No, your brother ran his mouth and lost. And now he has to pay up. So give me my money!” Naia yelled back.

When Dylan reared back to slap Naia, Trent caught her hand.

“Hey! Let go T!” Dylan yelled.

“We’re not doing this again. Now Tyler pay the lady her money. You know you have it.” Trent said in a stern voice.

There was something about him that caught Naia’s eye.

“My dad will kill me if I pay her!” Tyler whined.

The twins looked at Trent with puppy dog eyes. But he didn’t budge.

“You’re no fun, T!” Tyler whined.

“Don’t care. Now pay her!”

Tyler groaned as he pulled money out of his pocket then handed it to Trent.

“Here!” Tyler pouted.

Trent took the money and handed it to Naia. When their hands touched, it set off a spark inside her. The same kind of spark she felt with Roman.

“Sorry about those two. They don’t know how to lose gracefully.” He said to her.

“Don’t worry about it. Thanks for getting my money.” She replied.

Trent turned to the twins then said, “beat it you two! We don’t need anymore trouble.”

The crowd dispersed after the twins huffed then walked out. And Naia found herself back at the bar gushing with Layla.

“Ohhhhhh myyyyyyyyy God! Look at this! I just won $3,000.00!”

“I can't believe you did that! No one has ever beaten the twins. Their dad will be so pissed that they lost that kind of money.”

“In the words of T.I. ‘it ain’t tricking if you got it!’”

They two laughed.

“Okay but in all seriousness, thank you! It’s about time that someone brought those two out of the clouds. So here’s your brand new shiny bottle of tequila!” Layla said as she gave Naia the bottle.

“Thank youuuuuu!” Naia squealed.

Just then Trent called out.

“Layla! Another round?”

Layla groaned and rolled her eyes.

“Who is that?” Naia asked.

“That’s Trent. He works for the twins dad.” Layla replied.

“Is he their bodyguard or something?” Naia asked.

“No but he’s always around when those two cause trouble. Let me go fill their orders.” Layla replies.

“Okay. I’ll be here with my brand new bottle.”

Layla shook her head and headed off towards Trent and his crew. Naia couldn’t help but look the same way. Her eyes instantly went to Trent. He was beautiful and there was something about him that stuck with her.

He enchanted her and what she didn’t know was she did the same for him. After the bar closed, Naia began walking back to her uncle’s house. She got halfway down the street when Trent caught up with her.

“Hey!” He said to her.

“Hi! How are you?” She replied.

“I’m good. You must be new in town. I’m Trent.”

“I know. Layla told me your name. I’m Naia.”

“It’s nice to meet you Naia.”

“Likewise. It’s nice to meet another friendly face outside of Layla and my uncle.“

“It’s dark out here. Mind if I walk you home?” He asked.

“Sure. Especially when I’m not sure which way to go.” She replied.

“Where does your uncle live?” He asked.

“Just outside of town. His house backs up to the woods.” She replied.

Even though it was nighttime, he flashed a smile at her that made her heart leap. As they walked they talked about what their lives were like growing up, what college life was like and past loves. She had just met him but she felt she knew him her whole life. When they got to her uncle’s front door, they weren’t ready to say goodbye.

“So this is me…”

“So it would seem. Thank you for letting me walk you home.”

“No thank you. Because I probably would’ve gotten lost and would’ve wandered around the woods for days.”

“I think you would’ve found your way home.”

There was a magnetic pull between them that neither could deny. Before either knew what they were doing, they kissed. It was a slow, sensual and deep  kiss. And when it ended both were desperate for more.

“Wow!”

“What you said.”

“I better get inside.”

“Will I see you again?” He asked.

“Of course. I’ll be here for a while.” She replies.

“Good. Have a good night Naia.”

“Goodnight Trent.”

When she went inside her heart was racing. And she wanted more. She wanted him. This was the exact same way she felt when she kissed Roman.

The next morning after showering, she was in the kitchen fixing herself breakfast. 

Her uncle still hadn’t returned from fishing. She had just sat down to eat her breakfast when the front door swung open. It was a man and a woman. They were two of the people she’d seen with Roman.

“Come! The ceremony awaits you!” He commanded.

“1.) no. 2.) WHAT THE HELL?!” Naia replies.

“We’re wasting time! Come now!” The woman demanded.

“What the hell? Get out!” Naia screamed.

When the woman went to grab Naia, she danced out the way. That’s when the man grabbed Naia and threw her over his shoulder. He dragged her out of the house, with her kicking and screaming.

“Let me go!” She screamed.

She struggled to get free but he was way too strong. She was thrown in the back of a van and a hood was placed over her head. Naia had no idea where they were taking her. And she was terrified of finding out.

[gayforstyle]

Okay now that I’ve had some time to recover, here’s my thoughts on South Park season 22 ep 01

Okay in all fairness this episode may not be the best one for me to commentating on as this episode made some jokes about subjects I’m not completely comfortable with. I’m not offended, as you know South Park is going to rip apart everything, but every viewer has their own opinions and limits. This episode went a bit too far for my liking, but nothing that makes me completely uncomfortable to the point where it’s torture to watch (HUMANCENTiPAD cough cough). So yeah consider that a disclaimer I guess?

Overall opinion: Writing was a bit lazy but most season premieres aren’t that great, plot points were weak or just not funny, that ending hit me real hard uh? Not entirely sure how to feel about this episode. Everything aside the last minute or so is almost completely forgettable.

Randy Marsh needs to fucking stop Jesus Christ I have never hated a character more

The Cartman and Token subplot was kind of weak. Cartman looks cool in a leather jacket, though. 

All of the adult characters were super ooc. Sharon was in character, mostly, until the last minute or so.

I swear, somehow Randy got dumber and more arrogant. I didn’t think it was possible but I was wrong. Is it just me?

No one else except Sharon saw anything wrong with the school shootings. Even fucking Sheila Broflovski, who launched a war on Canada because of some dirty jokes and bad language. Something about that just seems really wrong.

No Heidi? I mean, it makes sense given the episode, but with the events from last season you’d think there’d at least be a cameo, right? What’s she like these days?

Kenny is still MIA. We saw him, he said nothing, and that was it. Where is my boy.

Kyle and Cartman are talking like their usual selves, which still seems really weird after everything from last season? Is it just me bothered by this? Are we completely going to forget that plot line? Alright then. 

Linda and Steve Black are now the best parents in South Park, right next to Thomas and Laura Tucker. Sharon Marsh? In this house, we no longer stan.

Liane will apparently ground Cartman from playing Fortnite if he fails his math quiz and honestly is anyone surprised that Cartman plays Fortnite. That was actually kind of funny and I appreciated that little joke.

Butters got shoe horned into this episode so fucking hard. He did basically nothing. I’m assuming his character was a parody on the whole “arm teachers with guns so that they can use it for protection” thing that was proposed a little while back, but it just wasn’t funny. It felt so forced.

Randy is the fucking worst and I hate him with every fiber of my being. Remember back in season 2 when him and Sharon got a divorce? They should have stayed divorced fucking Christ.

Oh boy now it’s time for the end of the episode. Fucking... Sharon had no reason to apologize to Randy. She had done nothing wrong. She had been entirely correct yet she apologized for freaking out? And that it was all just hormonal shit? Uh no?? What the fuck Sharon??

Randy apparently gets off to being told he’s right and honestly if that doesn’t speak wonders about his character I don’t know what does. Nice job stroking his ego, Sharon.

FUCKING HELL STAN GOT FUCKING SHOT AND SHARON IS GIVING NO SHITS ABOUT IT WHAT THE FUCK

SERIOUSLY I EXPECT THIS SHIT FROM RANDY BUT SHARON??? 

And just like that I no longer know a Sharon Marsh. Stan and Marvin are the only two in the Marsh who I am willing to accept into my life.

Stan better be fucking okay or so help me God I will riot.

Okay real talk though the #cancelsouthpark behind the credits was a nice touch. That was great. 

Final verdict: This episode is insanely polarizing, with a lot of different opinions on it. It’s probably one of the weakest season premieres I’ve seen from the show so far, and usually the season premieres are the weakest episodes. Matt and Trey have said before they work much better under pressure and under a time limit, so I can only hope the rest of the season is better. I’m not completely sure how to feel about any of it. This season, at least so far, appears to be going in a completely different direction from what we all originally thought. 

[darks-ink]

Buried

The intro I cut from Unearthed, because @beanie17posts asked for it! Also because I kinda like it even if didn’t meet my expectations and I don’t want to risk forgetting about it.

(AO3)(FFN)

Content warning: Graphic descriptions of injuries/corpses, implied major character death

"If I die, I’m coming back to haunt you.” “Yeah sure, as the weakest ghost ever. Just get on with it you big baby.”

“Come on Danny, you should get closer so I can take a picture with you and the Portal!”

“I don’t know Sam, it might be dangerous.”

“Oh come on dude, it’ll be fine! It doesn’t even work, you’ve said so yourself.”

“Alright, alright, fine. But if I die, I’m coming back to haunt you.”

“Yeah sure, as the weakest ghost ever. Just get on with it you big baby.”

“No no no, you should put on a jumpsuit like your parents. It’ll look good in the photos.”

“Ugh, Sam, really? You suck.”

“See, they even have one in your size! And it’s not even some garishly bright color.”

“Wait, hang on, let me peel the sticker off. There, see how professional you look?”

“Professionally lame. Let’s just get this over with before my parents come home.”

“Danny, you said they would be out for hours, they’re not gonna catch us.”

“There, I’m posing with the Portal. Take the picture and let’s go.”

“Hold on, we should take one with you inside as well.”

“Sam...”

“Dude, just do as she asks, you’re not gonna convince her.”

“Fine, I’m going in already. How far do you want me?”

“A little further should be fine. Keep going, keep going...”

“Oh shi-”

click

The quiet click that Sam heard that day was the second most haunting sound she would ever hear. It was beaten only by the sound that followed it.

She and Tucker stood around the entrance of the Portal, watching as Danny wandered deeper inside it, his fingers trailing over the wall on his left, enough to guide him but without any weight behind them. She had her camera raised, ready to take a picture once he got deep enough.

Suddenly he tripped, stumbled, caught himself on the wall.

A click, like a button being pressed, resounded through the entire lab. Danny cursed, but didn’t even get to finish his sentence before being cut off by a searingly bright flash.

It was almost instantly followed by a terrible, breath-stopping scream. Sam froze in place, couldn’t do anything except glance at Tucker, who seemed to be in the same situation. They could only stand and listen, horrified.

The Portal had lit up, the entire metal arch filled with a vivid green. They couldn’t see past the swirling mass that filled it, couldn’t see inside the tunnel where their best friend was screaming.

The scream cut off as suddenly as it had begun, and the surface of the Portal stirred, seeming to bunch up before splitting away, and Danny fell through it and onto the floor of the lab.

The moment was broken, and Sam and Tucker both stepped forward, intending to tend to their smoking best friend. They were distracted, however, by the second figure that emerged from the Portal.

This figure appeared to be a teenager much like themselves, but it was clearly a ghost. It emitted a soft white glow, its hair was white as fresh snow, and it appeared to be dressed entirely in black, but with white gloves and boots.

It had stumbled out of the Portal hunched over, and while it had stopped walking, it remained curled in on itself. Its gaze was fixated on Danny.

Oh shit, Danny. Sam tore her eyes off of the ghost and sped towards her best friend, kneeling next to him. She hovered over him awkwardly, unsure of what she could do. He was burned pretty much beyond recognition, skin scorched and a mix of black and red and the occasional white of bone. A few brittle black hairs remained, and some patches of his clothes, which had melted into his skin, but nothing else remained.

Sam knew, of course, that there was no way Danny was still alive. That didn’t stop her from denying it, of course.

“Tucker, come help me with Danny!” she called, turning around to glare him into moving. Tucker wasn’t the only one who reacted, however.

The ghost, who up until that point hadn’t taken its eyes off of Danny, finally broke out of its fixation and glanced over at her. Its eyes were a haunting acid-green color, the same as the Portal behind it. Sam shivered involuntarily.

Tucker, who had in turn been looking at the ghost, turned to face her as well. “You’re joking, right? Sam, I don’t think there’s anything we can do for him. The fucking- the fucking Portal killed him, man. We killed him.”

The ghost, who had looked at Tucker while he spoke, started glancing between the two humans and the dead body, panic growing on its face.

Sam would normally feel bad for it, since it was apparently some helpless creature, but right now she had to think of her best friend first.

“Tucker, there has to be something we can do! Just come over here!” she growled at him, fixing him with one of her patented glares. Tucker hesitated for another moment before moving over, but kept an eye on the visibly panicking ghost.

Sam hadn’t even noticed the ghost move until she saw a shadow fall over her, and startled, she turned around so quickly that she fell over. The teenager stood over her, eyes blown wide and mouth working silently.

Sam, emboldened by a sudden wave of anger, pushed herself upright and then shoved the ghost away. “Fuck off! Don’t you see that we’re busy with something more important than you?!”

The ghost looked at her, stunned, before finally uttering, “Sam?”

And despite the strange echo that it now possessed, the voice was instantly recognizable.

Tucker swore under his breath, but Sam- Sam couldn’t say anything. She just stared at the ghost, and it- he stared back. And she finally took in his appearance, the messy haircut and the structure of his face and the jumpsuit- the jumpsuit that she had forced him to wear.

“Oh, Danny,” she muttered, and reached out to him, gently grabbing his shoulder. He was cold to the touch, but not freezing, and still seemed as solid as he had always been.

She pulled him in closer, and wrapped her arms around him in a hug. He melted away against her, his cold arms wrapping themselves around her, and she could feel him shaking, still panicking.

“Shh, shh. We’ll figure it out, okay Danny? Just calm down, deep breaths,” she soothed, taking a deep breath herself.

She could hear Tucker’s feet scuffing the floor as he approached, but she focused on Danny, who still wasn’t calming down. His breathing was irregular, but she wasn’t sure if it was because he was so freaked out, or because breathing didn’t come naturally to him as a ghost.

“Dude, just calm down, okay? She’s right, we’ll figure this out, we always do.”

Danny closed his eyes, and she could feel Danny take a shaky but deep breath, and then suddenly she could only see white. For a moment she found herself caught in a horrible flashback (a click, a flash, a scream), but she could still feel Danny’s arms wrapped around herself, and she could still feel him beneath her own arms. She imagined he felt warmer, all of a sudden, but pushed the thought away.

Blinking away the blindness from the flash, she looked back at the boy in her arms, and felt her own breath catch. He was no longer glowing, no longer resembled a ghost at all. His hair had returning to its original glossy black, his jumpsuit was the same white it had been before he had entered the Portal, and she was certain that if he had opened his eyes, they would be the same sky-blue as before.

Tucker was clearly seeing the same thing, as he reached out and gently touched Danny’s face.

Danny’s eyes snapped open in response as he glanced at Tucker in confusion, and yes, his eyes were that beautiful shade of blue, sparkling with life.

“Wh- What are you doing? Why are you looking at me like that?” He let go of Sam, moving away from the both of them.

“Dude, you just- you just turned back to normal. Like nothing- nothing ever happened.”

Danny frowned, glancing at the both of them. “Wait, what do you mean with ‘turned back to normal’? Did I… look different?”

“Uh, yeah, your colors were all like, inverted and stuff, and you were glowing. You looked like a ghost, man.”

He turned around, still frowning, and looked at the Portal. The green light reflected in his eyes, and Sam was reminded of how his eyes had looked just moments before.

Tucker cleared his throat, and the other two teenagers snapped their attention over to him. He gestured broadly towards the body that was still lying on floor of the lab.

“So now that we’ve established that you are, in fact, Danny, what about this guy? Because I could have sworn that this is Danny’s,” he gulped, “Danny’s body.”

Danny wandered over to the corpse, and knelt next to it. His eyes were roving over the scorched carcass, never settling too long on any part. Sam wondered what it was like to look at your own dead body, and decided she never wanted to find out.

“I think...” she muttered, “I think that that is Danny’s body.” Seeing both boys look at her, she put on a brave face and continued.

“Danny, I think you died in the Portal, and that you became a ghost. I think you have some kind of ghostly ability that allows you to look like you’re alive, and I’m pretty sure that that is your actual body.”

Danny nodded, hesitantly. “I think you’re right, Sam.”

A silence fell as all of them simultaneously realized that, oh God, Danny had died in the Portal, and it was their fault. Well, Sam and Tucker both thought so. Danny instead concerned himself with worrying about what his parents would think, and how guilty his friends must be feeling, and similar tangents.

Tucker managed to snap out of his depressive spiral first, and seeing the warring emotions on the faces of his friends, decided to do what he did best: make a stupid joke.

He cleared his throat, grabbing the attention of the other two, and smiled at them, a little too fake to be convincing. “Man Danny, and I thought you were joking when you said you would come back to haunt us.”

Silence fell for a moment as they processed what Tucker said, before Danny snorted and Sam scowled. Mood successfully broken!

“Y’know Tucker, I thought so too.”

“Well, while I’m glad you’ve both found the humor in this situation, what now?”

“What do you mean, what now? Do you want him to go and find his ghost-hunting parents to tell them that he died and became a ghost?”

“Yeah, I don’t think that that’s a good idea. They’ll kill me when they find out. Well, not kill, but you know what I mean.”

“No idiots, that’s not what I was talking about. I meant that if we want to hide what happened here, we should probably do something about this dead body.”

“Oh. Uh, yeah, probably. Any brilliant ideas?”

Tucker scoffed. “Why don’t we just bury it in the woods?”

“Tuck, that’s...” Sam thought about it for a moment. “Actually, that could work. How are we going to get it out there?”

“My parents have a cart we could use? They never use it anyway so they won’t notice if it goes missing, and we could cover it with a piece of tablecloth or something.”

And so the three found themselves bounding down the streets with a rather conspicuous cart, going as fast as they could go without looking suspicious. They had found three shovels and hidden them in the cart as well, and Sam was pushing it while Tucker held on to Danny, who was struggling to control the various ghostly abilities he had apparently gained. He luckily hadn’t transformed back yet, and the streets this far from the center of town were rather abandoned, so no one had seen him suddenly sink through the floor or turn invisible.

They finally made their way to the woods, lifting the corpse out of the cart and carrying it in deeper. Once they had reached a spot that they thought was desolate enough, they dug a hole as deep as they could, and buried the body that had once belonged to Danny.

The cart was inspected, deemed clean enough to not raise suspicion, and was brought back when they returned to FentonWorks.

And in the stress of the events that followed, as Danny struggled to control his new-found ghost powers and as ghosts started attacking Amity Park, the trio completely forgot about the body that they had buried in the woods.

[hawkeyebabe]

Unpopular Opinion: FMA Live Action Was Not Good

Now wait a minute! I know you’re upset. It seems that most people on this site + in this fandom rather liked it. And that’s great! I do want people to enjoy it.

But let me tell you why I didn’t. Spoilers ahead.

———————

I work in LA as a freelance film editor and I love love love movies more than I love almost anything else in the world. Not that that matters, but I’m just saying I pay rent by working in video! So I’m not COMPLETELY speaking out of my ass, I’m just speaking as both a film lover and a FMA lover.

Buckle up we’re goin’ in.

There were things I liked!

Dean Fujioka as Colonel Mustang

I thought he was one of the best things about this movie. First of all I could stare at his physical face for hours like yikes, I think I’m in love with someone I don’t even know. And he’s an incredible actor! His delivery, his facial expressions, everything was great. I loved him. He was perfectly cast as Mustang. And fuck he’s so hot. I’m sorry. I love him.

Ryôsuke Yamada as Edward

Also pretty talented! He had the impulsiveness and brashness of Ed in the series, and he managed to pull off the fight choreography and emotional demands of the character. Which brings me to...

(Most of) The Fight Choreography!

It was impressive and almost always realistic, there weren’t too many cheesy punches (which are a common fault in adaptations or lower budget fight movies), and everyone involved totally pulled it off. 

The Photography Value

There were several sequences where I was like, dayum, that was a cool camera move. Some scenes were paint by numbers, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just average. But there were some scenes that were pretty cool! And they definitely put effort into making things like visually interesting, so to me, it shows that they did care about the film! It wasn’t just a cash grab. I respect that.

Roy’s Fight With Lust

It was awesome. The fire looked amazing, Lust looked amazing, Dean looked amazing (fucking always good god), and the music and the EVERYTHING, it was intense and it was great. Not perfect, not revolutionary, but great.

Alexander

Good fucking dog

The Costumes

There wasn’t one single outfit that I hated. They did a great job with that, a really great job. The military uniforms were spot on, they didn’t look cheaply made whatsoever, Lust’s dress was beautiful and seductive, Envy’s get-up was perfect (although he looked/acted mildly too goth), and YUP. It was good. I also liked how they showed Riza in her classic black high-necked shirt. Even though it didn’t make cohesive sense for her to have taken off her jacket in that scene but anyway.

Fucking ROYAIIIIII

At least it was THERE, like, it wasn’t nearly enough for my shipping heart, but it was there and it was subtle and I loved that. I actually didn’t want a Royai kiss (I know, execute me) because it wouldn’t have felt true to their story. The way they interact in the series is so subtle and drawn back, that throwing a kiss into this one movie (that doesn’t expand on a ton of things) would have felt cheap and rushed. I like what they did, at face value. The characters weren’t expanded on at all, but for what they DID give us, and the fact that they included hints of Royai at all, I really appreciated that. Roy and Riza commonly communicate through glances and not words, and they showed that when Riza finds him at the end of the battle, and she looks at his wound then up at him, and he nods to ease her. Not one word was exchanged. Yes, A+.

See? I’m not a total asshole. There were good things. But man, there were bad things too.

I wanna precede this with something; I understand why people like this movie. It’s content! We are practically dying at this point for more content. And it’s two hours of content!! We will eat. That. Shit. Up.

But it’s kind of like reading a mediocre fanfiction story, isn’t it? At least it is to me. Like I see the potential and my thirsty ass is parched for something, anything, so I will read this mediocre story. I will watch this mediocre movie.

But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been great.

First of all, they BOOKED it through the story. There were WAY too many plot points. YES, I know that it’s a hard challenge to condense a whole series into one movie, but you know how you fix that? Don’t do that.  

There is a right way to introduce characters, introduce a world, a story, the good guys and the bad guys, and three full acts. You don’t have to cram a whole series into one movie. Pick a few plot points, one of them being a major one (for the final act), and focus on those. Leave the end hanging open, wrap it up, but don’t wrap it ALL up. Then, interwoven within those plot points should be character development, and THAT’S what should drive the story. Not a thousand episodes compacted into two hours, but the characters, the very interesting, very unique, very original, very entrancing characters. And you know what?

They did not focus on the characters.

In fact, Al had like, ZERO screen time?! This wasn’t Ed and Al’s movie, this was Ed’s movie. And that is absolutely not true in the series. The two of them are equally important, equally layered. I understand there wasn’t a very large budget to appropriately include Al in every scene with Ed, but they could have figured something out. To just push him off to the side is just kind of insulting and it made me a little angry. 

Ask any Hollywood producer, director, screenwriter, whatever, “What makes a good story?” Every single one of them will tell you the same thing:

The characters.

It doesn’t matter that each and every character had a full arc and fleshiness in the series, that doesn’t mean that that automatically translates to the movie, because it doesn’t. In the movie, they introduce what began this whole adventure as if it were first being introduced, which means the same should apply to the characters.

If you show this film to a first-time viewer, fresh eyes who’ve never seen FMAB, and ask them, “What can you tell me about Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye?”

They’ll say,

Who is Riza Hawkeye?

Because I’m pretty certain they never say her fucking name.

And then you’ll explain it’s the Lieutenant to Mustang, and they’ll say, “Oh! Well he’s the Flame Alchemist, he’s hot (or at least they should say that), and the Lieutenant seems to be his assistant or military partner, and I think they love each other.”

But that’s it. That’s all they can tell you about these two main characters. That whole sentence is ALL the movie tells you about these two. That is not what I consider character development, that’s called sloppiness. Yes, we the fandom understand there’s more to them, but this movie is supposed to be standing on it’s own, it’s not supposed to use the series as a crutch. 

When Ed and Al are suffering after discovering what Tucker had done? And Mustang gives them some tough love? You know what could have been so simple, so easily done, and gone miles in terms of character relations?

Hawkeye giving Ed her damn coat. That would have taken five seconds to show, and it would have shown Hawkeye’s compassion, Ed as a child even though he’s seen hell, Mustang watching her and showing a glimpse into their dynamic, LIKE. LITTLE THINGS, little CHARACTER MOMENTS are SO important! And they just didn’t include things like that because they just weren’t thinking about it.

I could go into every single character and explain how none of them were done justice, but I’ll save your time. Just understand that not one character was fleshed out, Ed was the closest that came to that and he was still not done well.

UGH, real quick: You know why we were all devastated by Hughes’ death in FMAB? Because we loved him. He was likable, he was charming, he was a good man, and Hiromu Arakawa made that happen. A first time viewer probably didn’t feel anything when Hughes’ died in this movie because his little story was shoved down our throats and then he was killed. Maybe that could have been the final plot point, or at least the turning point in the second act, in another world. Give us much more time with a character we’re supposed to care about before killing him. They didn’t make his death emotional at all, whereas it’s one of the most heart breaking scenes in FMAB. This was one of those scenes that was paint by the numbers to me, there was nothing special about it. And I’m frustrated about that.

They barely even mentioned Ishval.

It was absolutely an integral, emotional, severe part of the series that made it so fucking beautiful. This series wasn’t just fun, or action-y, or heart-warming, it was political, and real, and harsh.

Two of our protagonists, Roy and Riza, are deeply flawed and deeply haunted. They are not perfect beings. They did terrible, terrible things. VILLAINOUS things. This movie does nothing for them. There is no emotional arc, there is no showing how they change from the beginning of the movie to the end, there is nothing! Characters are supposed to change, in every movie.  They are SUPPOSED to have flaw, and we the audience are supposed to see that.

How do they differ, what do they learn, what happens to them to sway their judgement? I’m sorry, but the characters in this movie are two dimensional. None of them are flawed, none of them have depth except maybe Ed because they explain how much he cares about Al what he did to save his life, but that’s it. 

This movie did not show one iota of the complexity of these characters, and I’m bitter about it. That’s all I’ll say because I could go on for awhile.

Laboratory Five.

What an intense, crazy part of FMAB. For me, that was when I officially was like oh, this show means fucking business. That’s when they really dive into what the philosopher’s stone is, and it’s when basically every character is shown hell, it’s when so much happens, and it’s the catalyst to what eventually becomes The Promised Day. 

I could barely even tell that they were in the lab in this movie. They stripped every character of that event from them, and it sucks because it was literally written for the producers of this movie right there in the series how to pull this off correctly, and they didn’t! There was incredible potential for our live-action characters, potential for Roy to be almost killed by Lust (away from everyone else), for Riza to think he’s dead and for her to break her stoicism, Al to be shredded by Lust but still trying to protect Riza, like that scene alone was integral, integral, to the telling of those three (four including Lust, her complexity of almost wishing to experience humanity) characters and they didn’t even show it. I’m mad. 

Gluttony

I’ll say one thing: when he’s told to eat all those soldiers and he opens up the artificial gate of truth in his belly and he runs at them. Like that shit had me weak. 

I’m gonna say another thing, sorry, I’m a liar, I’m just fired up. 

Don’t have the budget to make something terrifying look terrifying? Do. Not. Show. It.

Jaws is a perfect example of this. They chalk up this terrifying monster of a predator, who devours human after human ruthlessly, and they barely show him. It was cinematic genius. Can you imagine each scene showing a terrible robotic shark gnawing on his victims? No, because it would be cheesy as hell! And that SCENE! IN THIS MOVIE? WAS SO BAD! Remember when I said I loved the costumes? That’s still true except for Gluttony, he was a mistake.

The Antagonists

The antagonists are equally as important as the protagonists. A good antagonist has depth, has reason, has lapses in judgement and is written as a protagonist who has different motives. Envy and Lust are both such COOL fucking antagonists in FMAB, and are both individually explained as separate entities. In this movie they served no other purpose than to exist as the bad guys. We get a peek into Lust when she’s killed, but that would have been more emotional and meaningful if she was given more depth prior to that. Why is she doing what she’s doing? Why IS she the bad guy? Why is she the way that she is? And the same questions apply to Envy. This movie doesn’t tell us. It just tells us, “Hey, these are the bad guys. Let’s hope our heroes defeat them!”

Riza Hawkeye

I didn’t hate her, but I didn’t love her. Riza is supposed to be this total badass, and a very complicated character. I don’t think the actress they cast was bad, so I’m not blaming her at all, but I don’t think she should have been Riza. Honestly she just looked too much like a porcelain doll. Riza isn’t supposed to look breakable. I’m probably being too picky on this specific point, but I’m just so fond of Hawkeye’s character and very protective of her and I don’t think she was done justice. 

The fight choreographers set her up to fail, also. They did a great job with Ed, but they probably did jack squat with her. The writers didn’t give her any fight scenes, fine. But they did give her scenes holding a gun. And I don’t know if they spent much time teaching the actress how to properly handle a gun.

Yeah she holds it alright, but she doesn’t handle it expertly. If I’m watching a movie about the military, I expect little things like that to be believable. It wasn’t that actress’ fault, of course not, why should she know how to handle a rifle believably, as though it was an extension of her body? It was the producers’, the director’s, fault for not having someone teach her. This may come off as nitpicky, but if you want to make a great film, you make shit like that happen. Don’t show me a character who is supposed to be a master chef if they chop vegetables unevenly or don’t tie up their hair. Big things are important, yes, but little things are even more so. It shows that the filmmakers are paying attention.

The film’s score

It wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t impressive. I LIVE for movie scores so this can be more of an opinion than a critique, but I’m gonna briefly talk about it anyway.

Some of it was nice, like in Lust’s death scene, but in other scenes, it just felt so unnecessary. Like it was way too big and didn’t match the scene that was happening. So, basically, I wasn’t impressed. 

Winry Rockbell

It’s a common practice in anime to make many female characters high-pitched and over-the-top, but that’s not really something that should be done in live action films because it doesn’t translate the same. To me, her character just came off as obnoxious most of the time. 

In the series, she’s strong and tough, but still feminine. She’s young and naive, but has the upmost potential and is sharp as hell. She didn’t serve as a purpose in this movie except as Ed’s damsel in distress and that’s not what she’s supposed to be.

And that wrench she used to knock against Al’s head? Totally the worst. It looked like a Halloween prop. That can be pulled off in an animated movie or show but not live action, it just makes it look ridiculous. Like what size of a wrench is that? What would that realistically be used for? Screwing on a propeller to a fucking fighter jet?! 

The absence of the Mustang Gang 

Mustang has a following. He’s what Amestris needs, he has a difficult goal, and few see his potential, but his team does, and they risk their lives day after day for him. That’s a big effing deal. And not only does it add depth to the series, it adds depth to Mustang as a character. The Mustang Gang gives him depth. And to go along with my previous point of the characters being two dimensional, part of it is because of stuff like this.

There was a way to introduce them, introduce what they mean to Mustang and what he means to them, how they interact with each other, giving insight to how the military might be in this world, they just had so much potential and I’m bitter that it wasn’t included.

OK I’m going to try and wrap this up, I could honestly write a dissertation on what went wrong.

TL;DR:

This was definitely not the worst live-action adaptation I’ve ever seen. But just because it IS an adaptation, and adaptations hold a reputation for being bad, doesn’t give this movie lenience for being one of the better ones. 

As an adaptation? It was alright! 

As a film? It was bad. It was a bad film.

They didn’t develop ANY of the characters, they ignored their budgets and showed bad CGI/costumes when they could have enacted clever tactics to avoid the cheese, they ignored many integral parts of the series, parts which made the series so damn good, and they stuffed and stuffed this movie so full of plot points and events until it became non-cohesive and unsteady. A good film is smooth, flowing, and engaging. 

One day, if I ever manage to make my dreams come true, I’ll write the best FMA movie you can imagine, I’ll make it, and I will slay the notion that adaptations will always be mediocre. There is a way to make it good, to make it great! There is a way to make a great live-action anime film!

Burn me at the stake if you disagree with me, but these are my thoughts and I had to write them out.

Again, I did not hate this movie! There were good things. But that doesn’t give it a pass for not being great.