#jenjenthevirgo

[sleepynegress]

All signs point to

Please. Dance of the Dragons showrunners do not have the range. I use IWTV as a great example of getting BIPOC right, when writing characters. But DOD? is the opposite. They thought they could simply swap skin color on a white-haired family and call it a day. They're getting that early 2010's Bonnie Bennett treatment yall, -hell worse, because at least Bonnie got some lines.

Seasmoke claiming Addam House of the Dragon | 2.06 "Smallfolk"

[sleepynegress]

Seee.... I didn't want to put Zendaya on blast like this but... I did not like her acting in this? *ducks* I was strategically avoiding saying anything because I still root for her!!! but okay here's my theory... Zendaya is very much in her head. A TRUE Virgo who both over-under thinks. And I could feel her thinking through "acting" her scenes in this. It always felt practiced and not just in the moment. The moments that I guess were supposed to read as "Look! Zendaya is grown sexy edgy now!" felt planned instead of natural. I also think this is a generational thing as well... Because I refer to that magic-chemistry trio of DeVito, Turner, and Douglas again... I think we overcorrect vibes now in film to the point of neutering it at times. This is specifically an American mainstream film thing. And I use those three as an example of just getting that natural flow, chemistry right because they lucked out in an era where many were exploited. After all, they were *actual* long-time friends, who were freer to "go there" with each other often...even w/o the intimacy coordinators we have now. War of the Roses and Romancing the Stone, man... I fear the y/z's will never get there, again.

.... Adding Andy and Danai as well as another example, because once again, friends + Gen X, and they went there even without skin showing... (forehead vein, slip-and-slide + grip! implications)...iykyk. P.S. It just hit me that Tom visits her sets a lot...if he did this time, I just want to shoo his little ass away. Let her flex her chops! Tom!

On Challengers...

Okay.

So, here's the thing. It's decent.

It's sassy, catfighty, but with dudes using rackets and tongue-wrestling, and the tennis scenes are tense, but... it wasn't at all confidently scandalous like I would've expected.

....Like I feel like they didn't push it far enough, somehow? And not even in the way you might think, with dicks a-swingin and thrusts abundant. Remember, the movie Closer? -I think that came out in 2007ish and was rated PG-13??? Or could have been if not for the language.

Natalie Portman has a similar nudity clause to her contract and *STILL* had the absolute sexiest scene with Clive Owen.... .....Which I'll put in this post to demonstrate what I mean. This felt like it held back at moments... When it came to pushing desire, between the men and/or with Zendaya, with one or the other. It just felt so tame to me given the hype. I was hoping for a return to artistic sensuality in film again, instead of this weird sort of by-rote-feeling purity culture we're having rn. (I'm watching Love Lies Bleeding tonight and I BET that delivers. Lesbians, salude!) I was hoping for Cruel Intentions' lush cut with The Dreamers' sensuality..if that makes sense?? AND some good-good tennis. THAT did deliver. WOW, some of the shots for that were eye-popping. A critic I follow noted that her issue (she always has the best takes I don't agree with all of them but they are always well-articulated) was that Zendaya was not fleshed out as a central figure, especially as a BLACK WOMAN. It was yet again another case of a Black woman dropped down from the moon coming from no people of her own, but just somehow existing in a sea of white people with not a hint of Black friends or loved ones.

Hell, they could've even laid out *her people* like the brilliantly underrated Beyond The Lights with Minnie Driver playing the stage manager mom to Gugu Mbatha Raw's biracial pop star. But that comes down to the white male gaze fucking it up, yet again. I looked up the screenwriter and just kind of nodded knowingly with an 'oh, yeah that's what I expected, that explains it...' He simply didn't have the range beyond a sort of vague tennis fetish for brown girls in short skirts grunting and swinging and wanting to do something with that. He admitted that Naomi and another Black woman player's interaction on the court *inspired* this...

Perception of Black women doing ANYTHING can be so heavy with a weirdly asexual gaze from white women and hyper-sexualized by white men. And if desire/centering tips in the "wrong" direction deemed by prejudice and our assumed place....*yeesh* we catch hell. You're either bafflingly too ugly to be treated with desire (whew the incel bigots are big mad that it's Zendaya and not a Sweeney-type) or only deemed good enough for it, because of that white gaze. And resented regardless.

*sigh* Can't win for losing. But I digress. Zendaya's co-stars are the oddest looking mystical-dwarf-head ass forest creature white boys with big ears, but they GAVE in the acting department. Mike Faist is a STAR. He has a sort of laidback sweetly confident rizz. But he definitely is the lovechild of a young Scott Glenn and DJ Qualls. I want to put him in a western immediately because he has Civil War photo face.

Mike O'Connor has that desperate dirty hairy scruffy thing like dude from The Bear. Like you KNOW he has a scratch tat somewhere and would do the dirty with his partner in the toilet stalls or anywhere else. Hollyweird is strange about beauty standards man. Back in the day, they used to pretend old white men, who looked like they smelled like Barbasol mixed w/ urine would somehow be sexy to a twentysomething. Now, we have this dichotomy of thankfully a little more of a diverse gaze for the centered "bombshell" other than blonde with large breasts number 32637263872.... but we also have some actresses cutting fat out their cheeks and being Ozempic thin. *sigh* ...While the "basic" hot boys are punching the air rn because they are also passé. Got to have something interesting going on in the face for everyone now, I think. Can't just be AI "pretty" anymore. Thankfully.

....Anyway. It is good, but with those caveats I laid out.

P.S. ICONIC for me is seeing Zendaya's Black-ass nose bridge drawn large on that poster. P.P.S Thank LUCA for doing the queer elements well... I personally don't think it went far enough, tho...

Mike bottoming for all, including getting pegged by Zendaya would've happened in my version of this... at least implied, come on (ficwriters?) Oh! and here are the clips from Closer, but then it was a successful play first, so the script is more substantial in that.

This is how filthy I expected Challengers to be, and it's just. not. Nothing in The Challengers touches the heavy heady nastiness in this scene IMO, but something in that movie should have, dammit! Note they never even touch each other.

[beenovel]

@forkingandcunt @jenjenthevirgo y’all were asking about melanoma on darker-skinned folks!

Ok I’m having a slight mental breakdown about the sun the last couple days (idk what’s happening but every time the sun touches me I get these horrible intrusive thoughts like “I’m not wearing sunscreen, my skin is going to peel off my body, I’m going to get melanoma and die of sun cancer”) so to reassure myself and spread awareness here are the signs of melanoma and when to get it checked by a doctor:

[multi-muse-transect]

@jenjenthevirgo

What’s bad is that half of the town probably died with Remmick I think.

When you think about it, the vampire life broke Stack when he said the last time he saw his brother was the last time he saw the sun. Being a vampire is probably the most miserable shit ever. Slim, Annie, Cho, Delta Slim, and Pearline died as normal folks sacrificing themselves. While Mary and him get to live on with that guilt Knowing that they’re…Sinners.

[mediodedios]

M- Make You Feel by Alina Baraz & Galamtias

E- Estamos Bien by Bad Bunny

D- Dancin by Aaron Smith

I- If I Ain't Got You by Alicia Keys

O- Oya by Ibeyi

D- Deli by Ice Spice

E- Easier by Mansionair

D- Down by Marian Hill

I- In The End by Linkin Park

O- Ojintos Lindos by Bad Bunny and Bomba Estéreo

S- Sunroof by Nicky Youre

@jenjenthevirgo @ai-yo @tododeku-or-bust @angeloftheodd

URL Tag Game

Rules: Spell Your URL with song titles and tag as many people as there are letters.

I was tagged by @six2vii

N - Not My Fault ☆ Renee Rapp & Megan Thee Stallion

E - Erotic City ☆ Prince

S - Scar ☆ 070 Shake & Jessie Reyez

H - Hiss ☆ Megan Thee Stallion

A - Alien Superstar ☆ Beyoncé

T - Time Will Tell ☆ Blood Orange

R - Running ☆ Abi Ocia

I - i am enough. ☆ Coax Marie

U - Up Jumps Da Boogie ☆ Timbaland, Magoo, Missy Elliott, Aaliyah

M - Mortal ☆ Baby Rose

P - Paparazzi ☆ Lady Gaga

H - Heated ☆ Beyoncé

S - So What ☆ Field Mob & Ciara

This is 13 letters 😭

@mediodedios @chenoahchantel @bitchmilsky @daintyurbanprincess @asterofthesapphires @andromidagalaxie @sleepyfangirl18 @meanmisscharles @jacksope-lives @mettaworldpiece @tartrazeen @theisopodyearns @jonayariley

[sleepynegress]

@jenjenthevirgo The simmering energy he brings to every. role. His Crow Daddy in Doctor Sleep is one of my favorite recent ones. Just terrifying how matter-of-fact he is about his evil.

Everything about this... I scream.

I think this is the first Indigenous vampire I've ever seen?!

They made Olrox Indigenous and he's voiced by Zahn McClarnon, whom I adore:

Elizabeth Bathory (voice by Franka Potente) is a vampire up in this bitch?! (but of course) The animation is top-tier... giving me all drama and delicious beautiful violence I need... And baby, Annette is voiced by Thuso Mbedu?! I am. shaking. NETFLIX PAY YOUR ANIMATORS, WRITERS, AND VOICE ACTORS!!!