#they are the preciousest okay

[kimwexlers-brownhair]

what are your thoughts on Gilmore girls so far?

I'm on season 3, so my thoughts may change, but so far I really love it, for the most part.

I'm fascinated by Rory. I'd very much like to study her under glass. I know a lot of people say the later seasons absolutely ruin Rory's character, and of course I'll have to wait for said seasons to say for sure, but I think there've been plenty of hints so far that she's got a darker side. The way she talked to Shane in the hair dye shop? Atrocious.

I mean, I don't really blame her at this point in the show. She's very young. Lorelai obviously overcorrected her parents' mistakes by making Rory her prococious other half and she along with her grandparents and the rest of Stars Hollow treat her like the preciousest princess ever. It's impossible for that not to warp a kid's mind.

I have the advantage of being older than most of my generation was when they first watched, so I can afford to be more objective. I told two friends my age who were huge fans back in the day that I was finally watching it and they both said they were "total Rorys". And I was like...no you weren't! I knew one of you back then, and you may be as smart as Rory, but you definitely were more of a Type A Paris! And that's great, because Paris is the greatest! But it's inevitable if you were a teenager in 2000 watching Gilmore Girls you'd imprint hard on Rory no matter what you were really like. You're meant to.

(I was a Lane who aged into a Luke)

But I do think the writers were slowly building to how unprepared all this adulation and idolizing made Rory for the real world. She may be incredibly smart, but there is no way she becomes the next Christiane Amanpour. When she sits like a bump on a log next to Paris when they're both supposed to be interviewing the college admissions people? Paris has the guts for that kind of life, but not Rory. That girl has zero guts. She'd make a kickass librarian, though. Some place like Library of Congress would be perfect for her, since I'm sure there are a lot of opportunities to help journalists in their research, which she'd be totally boss at. But charging into war zones and being, dare I say it, pushy sometimes and aggressive in not a passive way? Nah.

Not to be all Logan Roy about it, but she's just not built for it. And that's okay! Neither am I! And that's why I do work at a library! But of course, Rory is meant for GrEaTeR ThInGs.

I am very empathetic to Lorelai -- for anyone who says she acts like a spoiled brat to her parents, may I remind you of that time Richard blamed her for Christopher marrying someone else because she didn't marry him at *sixteen?* Fuck her parents, she's always laying down reasonable boundaries and trying to be the bigger person (okay, maybe not ALWAYS, but still) -- anyway, I'm empathetic to her, but she has put a whole different kind of pressure and set of expectations on Rory than her parents put on her.

"We're best friends first and mother and daughter second." Well, that's a big magenta flag if not outright red. I still give her a lot of leeway because of having Rory so young and the fact she herself never got to grow up normally. But it doesn't do Rory any favors.

And don't get me started on the Rory-Dean-Jess triangle. It's another example of how I'm older (and possibly more aromantic) than the target demographic. I just don't give any kind of shit about it other than the fact the storyline reveals more of Rory's self-centered streak. However, I'm just way more interested in the intergenerational tension between Lorelai and her parents, the Chilton plotlines, and the Stars Hollow eccentrics (Kirk my beloved!).

That, and obviously Paris is Rory's soulmate for better or for worse, so all this nonsense is just a waste of time.

To sum up, things I love about the show: it's addictive, for one thing, and it also manages to tell complex stories with multifaceted characters while still feeling very pleasant and easy to watch. Michel, Lane, Sookie, Miss Patty, Taylor, Babette, and above all my darling Kirk are all vastly underrated. Luke has his psychopathic moments, but I can't help relating. Emily and Richard are the worst, but the best at being entertaining so I give them a pass. Paris is all. I'm a big fan of this show overall.

Things I don't love: The Not-Like-Other-Girlsness of Lorelai and Rory, and -- I know I'm going to get stoned for this -- I find the Lorelai/Rory banter pretty goddamn tiresome. Neither of them are as funny as they think they are, and it's another example of how they both share the same Main Character Syndrome (yeah, sure, they are technically the main characters in the Doylist sense, but from a Watsonian standpoint they just steamroll every room they enter).

But my most important takeaway is that we fatphobes in the early '00s weren't willing to accept how gorgeous, cute, and sexy Melissa McCarthy was as Sookie. Those big blue eyes with that red hair? Those dimples? Lucky guy, Jackson.

[bibliotechnician]

💙 for Reiner

Send 💙 for a spiderman kiss

Jaeger is wiggling once he knows where he is, practically vibrating himself into the next dimension as he is greeted with smiling faces and petting hands of the Rangers in the barracks. He is such a fixture among them, they all know him by name and why he is here. 

Honestly, so does Jaeger, the Shepherdish prancing along at her side when not receiving attention. He simply has such unbridled optimism as to his mistress’ return to him and she can’t help but smile at his staunch loyalty. He would follow her into the depths of Hell if she gave him a command to do so, she knows. Not that she would, she loves his awkwardly massive ears and wiggling butt far too much to do so.

Papa Boris is not hard to find. When he isn’t hanging around the command center, he is having a smoke with either Melnik or Uhlman in the barracks’ commons. It’s the latter this time, and Uhlman keeps the excitable Shepherdish entertained while his handler addresses his babysitter, sharing a moment to light a cigarette with them, the last smoke before a run to the surface.

“I should only be gone a few days. Something to keep me from being bored for a bit.” she explains. “And make a few bullets while I’m at it. If you could keep an eye on the mutt, please?”

Boris just chuckles, smoke pouring from his mouth and nose over his beard like a waterfall. “Da, I can watch the furry rascal while you stretch your limbs.” he assures, scruffling the dog’s ears when he comes to say hi. “Too quiet around the house? Hard to believe, with this little man.”

“He is a good dog, ja. But he does mostly sleep when it’s just me and him.” she sighs, scritching his head when he comes to rest next to her again. “Reiner’s been out on patrol for a while now, it’s a bit too settled.” She adds sheepishly as an after-thought, “Besides, I am out of books…”

Boris’ eyebrows shoot up at hearing this. “You didn’t know? He’s back from patrol.”

Uhlman butts in long enough to make her creeping annoyed expression falter. “Yeah. Melnik put him on garage duty almost immediately, though.”

“Just can’t cut a break, huh.” Boris scoffs.

Volk can’t really put blame on Reiner for that. Even if she had hoped he would stop in and let her know he was back, a direct order from the commander is not something to shirk. While wearing the sigil and the uniform to go with it, when Melnik says to jump, you simply jump and hope it’s high enough. There is no fault in being a good soldier.

“Well. I suppose my next stop is the garage then.” she says, ruffling her dog’s head again. “You be good for Papa, ja?”

Jaeger makes a quiet ruff, snapping his jaws once or twice before going to lay next to the burly Siberian in question. His way of accepting his own orders. She smiles at him, waving to the two senior Rangers as she begins her trek to the garage. The last stop before the surface cordons.

The cigarette is put out and dropped in a bin for the trash, a wave of friendly greeting toward a couple of nearby Rangers as she makes her way through the halls. The atmosphere is light today, amiable smiles and waves back. Even Anna doesn’t throw the usual snark and sarcastic bite she usually does, which is unusual. Nothing too concerning though, it’s just a good day.

The garage was once storage for the maintenance carts from back when the Metro was an operational subway and is of fair size. Even then, it’s packed with the cobbled, captured, and surrendered vehicles from all over the Metro and from many different factions, repainted and repurposed for the Polis Rangers’ many uses. There’s a ramp somewhere around here that exits to the surface, but that’s not the target.

She pulls one of the regular mechanics aside to ask her about where Reiner might be located and she gets an answer with a finger pointed in the general direction. “Have him working on that surrendered Panzer unit.”

“Ah. More Reichers then.” Volk sounds displeased at the idea, and the mechanic simply shrugs in response.

“They want to be Polis now, I guess. The commander wants the tank in some form of spick and working order, figures another one who knows their way around the tech won’t be so bad.”

“It sounds like I need to have a talk with him about overworking troops.” she huffs before raising a hand to match her verbal thanks and farewell.

Now that she knows what’s going on, she follows the sound of welding to spy the tank that came limping in some time ago and that familiar man she’s been looking for is sitting on top of it, helping hold a metal plate in place while one of their welders attaches it. Once it’s steady and the noise ceases, she whistles at him to catch his attention.

He looks around first, then down, offering a wave before flicking up the safety face plate enough she can hear him speak. “Hey! Sorry I didn’t stop in. Went from one thing to another, you know how it goes.”

She offers him a small smile. “Ja, I do. I’m going to have to talk to Melnik about how it goes, though.”

He laughs, it sounds a bit nervous. “Let me know how that goes.” he tells her before adding, “Headed up top?”

She nods. “For a couple days. Jaeg–”

The rest of her words are drowned by noise and sparks as the welder starts up again, Reiner scooting to one side to keep himself out of the way. A few moments are spent between them gesturing out some convoluted way to say they can’t hear the other before he shuffles to one side, wraps his knees around the edge, and lowers himself in front of her, hanging upside down.

“Better?”

“Barely.”

A comical shrug is given in response. “I’ll take it. What were you saying?”

“I’m going out for a couple days, Jaeger’s with Papa.”

“Alright. I’ll go see him on the next break.” he assures her, quirking a half-smile. 

It looks bizarre while he’s upside-down, half-hidden by the face plate. It’s far too tempting to just leave and she reaches forward enough to pull the plate down toward the top of his head. Now, she can see his eyes unobscured, the way the steel shines with something familiar behind it.

She leans in toward him, he meets her halfway. The feel of his lips against hers sets a fire in her, painting her cheeks and making her almost regret wanting to go topside. She hasn’t realized how much she misses him until she has him, even briefly. The feel, the smell, the taste, lingering against him even after the kiss has broken to remember him anew and know that he is alive with steady breath against her and the hum of his body. This is her ritual, he has his own with committing her to his recent memory.

“Hey, uh. I don’t mean to ruin your moment, and mine too because I have an amazing view of your chest, but the blood’s rushing to my head.”

She can’t help but chuckle at that, taking a step back away from him and coming back to the now. Reiner’s forehead is reddening, though that’s gravity speaking and nothing to do with the dust of his own cheeks. With proper clearance, he pulls himself up, holding the edge of the chassis he’s been hanging over.

“I miss you, you know.” she tells him.

He turns to look at her, taking one hand to lightly cup one cheek. “I miss you too. So I’m off in a couple days too. When you get back, want to do something together?”

The smirk wending its way across her face is sly. “Yeah? What sort of something?”

His creeping grin is telling. “Oh, you know. A little of this, a little of that…”

She laughs a little at it, placing a hand on his and squeezing. “Alright. It’s a date.”

He pulls himself back up to the top, stretching out his knees from dangling for so long. “I’ll see you in a couple days then. Be careful, Stalker.”

She turns around to head back toward the barracks and the cordon after that, a hand up to wave him his farewell. “Don’t hurt yourself too badly, Ranger.”

The shared laughter echoes between them, and she knows it will be a good day.

[eolewyn1010]

Dragging Frankenstein - Chapter 4

Onward and downward, but before we get down to brass tacks: I know Shelley talks her way around the actual process of making the Creature, but. The Creature needs to sleep, needs to eat, needs to recover from wounds - everything we know about this guy indicates that he's made of organic, "living" matter. So I will go with the traditional reading that all the corpses weren't just delivering reference material, but also building material to Frankenstein. Which means, yeah, I'm gonna mention the rotting issue, and no, I'm not talking of Victor's decaying morals.

“found even in M. Krempe a great deal of sound sense and real information, combined, it is true, with a repulsive physiognomy and manners” – ooookaaay, this is making me mildly sick. Although with the way Mary Shelley writes it, she strongly implies that Victor’s attitude is wrong, so I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. (And kick the little shit against the shin.) DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR: 3

“two years during which I paid no visit to Geneva” – okay, WHAT. You don’t even go home for Christmas?? Your siblings, your father, your preciousest Elizabeth??? Egotist.

Ok, fine, he makes a lot of progress. Only serves to blow up his ego tho.

Not to be morbid here, but Victor studying the dead and decay is the first point where the story really had me in its grip and I fully bought into his dedication to science itself, not to the glory in it. Good shit.

“like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead and found a passage to light, only aided by one glimmering and seemingly ineffectual light” – ???? Is this something one should know? I’m kind of afraid to research it; I suspect some gross cultural misrep. Or is it Biblical?

How very practical that Victor has a morally sound reason not to share the secret of creating life, so nobody can ever confirm or deny his singular-in-history brilliance. DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR: 4

“how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world” – how does Victor manage to criticize himself and his own attitudes and still come across as belittling?

“give life to an animal as complex and wonderful as a man” – sorry, I have to. DAS GAY: 13

Hey, he’s not building a woman there.

Incidentally, a woman would get him to the way more obvious process of creating life; why is he studying corpses but not pregnancies? Is that icky to get his hands on or what?

“I resolved to make the being of a gigantic stature” – not to be gross here, but I think Victor fantasizes about getting absolutely ravished by a tall, strong man.

“having spent some months in successfully collecting and arranging my materials” – aw, what a sweet phrasing for defiling corpses.

“A new species would bless me as its creator and source" – DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR: 5

God-Adam-Lucifer delusion, go!

Also, a man. He’s trying to build a human man. From human materials. This is not a new species. It’s not an act of creating something that wasn’t there before. The original idea is the process of creation, not the resulting creature.

“No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs” – there’s so many things wrong with that. First of all, manipulative as all shit. Second, do you make a child to have them indebted to you? Third, with the homoerotic undertones of Victor desiring to create a beautiful man, this gets a very unhealthy one on the INCEST VIBES: 4

“renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption” – uhm. Isn’t that what he needs to do now, too? How do the parts for his man-in-the-making not decay further during the process? Especially since it’s in a tower room during the summer. The stench must be hell. How is nobody noticing him sneaking around carrying body parts and his room smelling absolutely horrible? Huh. People get up to some weird shit in college, I guess.

“tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay” – aw, he’s such a sweetheart. How comes he’s not missed at university? He’s probably not attending lessons anymore; how can he stay around?

“It was a most beautiful season” etc. – ok, how would he know? He says he’s not paying attention to anything. Shelley, that’s a POV error. And he doesn’t even reply to his father’s concerns. IT’S ALL ABOUT ME: 3

The attitude tho. “I then thought that my father would be unjust if he ascribed my neglect to vice, or faultiness on my part, but I am now convinced that he was justified in conceiving that I should not be altogether free from blame.” – okay, WHAT. 1st, robbing graveyards is very much a vice, Victor. 2nd, you are absolutely to blame entirely. 3rd, he’s right, you are neglecting university. Where does Victor get off painting himself in such a saintly light?

“if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquility of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved, Caesar would have spared his country, America would have been discovered more gradually, and the empires of Mexico and Peru would not have been destroyed.”

I. WHAT.

…I choose to be a highly offended historian about this, and move on. Also, because he thinks it’s so very simple to just apply his personal faults to all of human history and therefore solve all problems, this gets a glaring IT’S ALL ABOUT ME: 4

“But I forget that I am moralizing” – HA! I’m in incredulous giggles here.

“I shunned my fellow-creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime” …honey, you are. Multiple crimes, actually. And counting. Self-awareness whomst?

Whew, this chapter was dense. And so is Victor.

[tiptoelightlypastmymind]

Yes! And he is so cute talking about "his treasures" - he captured that photo "a little piece of football [soccer, if you will] history" <3 He really is the preciousest:') (And the Mattuschka story *is* cute. They really became friends. Mattuschka retired a while ago. There was a "farewell match" where he played against his former club('s current squad), Union Berlin, with an "all-star" team he'd formed of former teammates AND Chris, whom he'd invited even though they'd never played together:')

dawwww okay see he’s just a class act dude which further supports my whole “he would totes be a gentleman and take me out to dinner” idea :D

[meizworld]

I got tagged by @rezeren, thank you! 

Marvel or DC? Marvel. I actually don’t really follow DC much, I just saw some series like Gotham and Supergirl and a movie like Wonder Woman, but I don’t follow stuff in chronological order like with Marvel. 

Favourite of the silver trio (Neville, Luna, Ginny)? Luna, she was the first character who I felt was just so awesome and able to accept herself and all her weirdness and didn’t give a damn about what anyone thinks of her. 

Favourite of the fantastic quartet? Newt Scamander, he’s the preciousest. 

OTP?  This is a difficult one, I’m gonna go for FitzSimmons, others may pop up along the rest of this list xD

NOTP? I’m gonna stick to Harry Potter here, because otherwise it would be too broad xD I usually kind of go with canon, unless I really don’t like it. But for example I don’t like HarryXHermione, I think they are wonderful as they are as friends, and one of the reasons I love HermioneXRon is because I am a fan of pairings consisting of people who are the complete opposite of each other and, to quote a classic boxing movie, ‘fill each other’s gaps’. 

BROTP? Oh I feel like I should have one here, but I can’t think of anything xD Recently in Game of Thrones I’ve gotten fond of the bromance between Bronn and Jaime xD I’m usually not okay with incest stuff, in anime for example I really can’t stand siscon (brother who fancies his little sister or the other way around)  Hinny or Linny? Oh god I’m bad with these xD I don’t ship Ginny and Luna romantically, just as really good friends xD and I don’t really ship Harry and Ginny either, but I guess more in the books than in the movies... xD

Patil or Weasley twins? Weasley twins all the way, you can’t really compare these twins man xD

Favourite HP book? The Order of the Phoenix, I loved how suddenly everything became more serious and darker, also emotionally. And there are so many thrilling scenes in the book which they cut out completely in the movie... I was kind of disappointed with the movie ><

Favourite HP movie? The Chamber of Secrets. Unlike a lot of people, I enjoyed the two first movies and kind of didn’t like it when from movie 3 suddenly everything changed and they didn’t wear their robes anymore and the whole Hogwarts grounds suddenly changed xD and Richard Harris will always be my favorite Dumbledore, he was exactly what I’d imagined Dumbledore to be like, Michael Gambon never really did it for me D:

Favourite musicals? Into the Woods, Funny Girl, recently got into Hamilton (as did everyone I suppose xD)

Favourite band/artist? Mizuki Nana, a Japanese singer and voice actress, she my queen

Favourite book series?  The A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin, Harry Potter series by JK Rowling, the Inkheart series by Cornelia Funke (she was my favorite childhood fantasy author)

Favourite stand alone book? Aaah so difficult xD I really liked Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Favourite YouTuber? I’m really not familiar with YouTubers, but I guess Thomas Sanders? 

Celebrity Crush? A certain Korean rapper

Fictional death you’re not over? So many, ohmygosh xD Neal from Once Upon a Time, Tripp from AoS, Fred, Dobby, Hedwig, too many to count and to think of right now xD

Favourite TV show? I’m watching a lot at the moment, but I really love Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Book you loved as a child? ‘Thomas en de Laatste Draken’ (’Thomas and the Last Dragons’) by Cornelia Funke

Cats or dogs? Not a big fan of this question, to be honest xD But I’m gonna go for cats. I love dogs too, but I still have bad memories because when I was little I was scared of dogs, especially when they would jump up at me and start barking loudly and I also was bitten by a dog once as a child, so yeah, cats for me :P