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Always fun when you go to the doctor's for what you think is a minor issue and their reaction when they examine you is yikes

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new interview from Vanity Fair at Cannes:

Alexander Skarsgård Is the Dom, Harry Melling the Sub, and Pillion Their Kinky, Sweet Love Story

The two stars and their director, Harry Lighton, learned many lessons making a movie set in a vivid queer subculture: “It emerges that you can’t just chuck a load of dicks on screen.”

By David Canfield, May 17, 2025

Alex quotes:

Alexander Skarsgård: When I got a little brief from my agents about the project, biker and sub-dom, it just sounded quite intriguing to me…and from our first conversations, he just felt a lot of confidence in me and his vision for the project. I definitely wanted to put on the leather gear and jump into the trenches with it.

In the film, most of the members of the biker gang in the movie are basically playing themselves—they are members of GBMCC. I’m forever grateful and indebted to them for their generosity and support and patience. They told us about their lifestyle, and how they socialize and about these gatherings, when they go out riding together, down to details in terms of the outfits, and the dynamics between the subs and the doms and what that would look like. I credit everything to those guys.

For the actors, what was your comfort level filming the sex scenes going in?

Skarsgård: You can’t just apply the kind of the sub-dom structure to every relationship. I talked to some people who are in sub-dom relationships, and certain aspects of Colin and Ray’s relationship rang very true to them. And others, they’re like, “Well, I know people who have that kind of relationship…” It was just important for us to figure out what worked for us, in between Harry and myself.

I knew that it was going to be graphic, and Harry was very clear on his vision for it—when and how nudity was going to be depicted. I felt that it really served the story, and it made sense to me. I was very, very comfortable with all that. We had a really terrific intimacy coordinator named Robbie [Taylor Hunt] who was there with us the whole way.

Melling: Alex is just the most generous, dreamy scene partner, so what could have been quite a daunting experience couldn’t have been more different, really. When you sort out the choreography of it, which is often the most difficult part—you sort out what everyone’s doing, where their hands are going—and then once action is called, you’re in the world of Colin and Ray.

Skarsgård: I fell in love with Harry from the first second I saw him. He’s just the sweetest, nicest, loveliest human being. I felt comfortable going as far as we needed to go in these situations with him. I also discovered a lot of things about Colin and Ray’s relationship that I didn’t anticipate discovering when we first started working on it. There were these tender, beautiful moments that just happened organically, and some moments that were weird and some moments that were funny. But he was incredibly game, very brave in just throwing himself out there.

Skarsgård: There are orgy scenes in the film, and with a combination of actors and non-actors with different levels of experience in that field, it was great to have Robbie there to kind of help and guide the team.

Skarsgård: The way it’s set up in the script, the audience knows as little about Ray as Colin does, and we kind of maintain that kind of level of mystery around the character. In terms of the specifics of the sub-dom relationship, he’s very clear and very upfront with Colin about what he wants, and that also creates an interesting trajectory for their relationship as the story and the love relationship evolve.

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In which pasi is off to yoga and I'm putting our child to bed

Bollie: Mimi can you tell me a story?

Me: Okay, tonight I'll tell you about Snow White. (some story beats later) But then, Snow White's mum (fuck she's not even three she doesn't know what death is... Let's say...) Snow White's mum and dad didn't get along anymore and the mum left. Then dad met a new wife...

Bollie: (making sad noises) Mimi... Mimi... The mum.. Left?

Me: Ah, yes, and then dad met a new wife, which means Snow White got a stepmother -

Bollie: Mimi... Mimi is Wawa going to come back? 😢🥺

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Resting Postures of Koalas, Judged for Practicality and Style. (by John Finnemore)

(a) …I’m sorry, what? This is your ‘basic posture���? When a koala wants a rest - which, let’s remember, is practically always - this is the go-to? It’s a mess, koalas. I’m sorry to be harsh, but pull yourself together. First off, neither of your forepaws are holding on to the tree. One’s tucked clear behind it, and heaven knows what the other’s up to. Granted, both rear paws are hanging on for dear life, but then they would have to be. You’re quadrupeds, koalas. Get it together. b) I mean, marginally better, I suppose. At least you’ve got one paw each side. But you look like you’re having an existential crisis. And you’re still not holding the damn tree.

If you're not subscribed to John Finnemore's newsletter, you really, really ought to be.

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Legendlark discusses Pokémon

Ft. Pikachu Flaffy

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Thank you SO MUCH for finally allowing me to re-listen to Kat's "pikachu fluffy".

It has been living in my head rentfree for years and I didn't want to go through 100+ episodes but now I finally know which ep it is!!!!

Legendlark Intros Reference Guide

i'm slowly compiling each episode's intro, so i can refind my favorites more easily <3 i try to succinctly describe the standout jokes for each intro, so some have more detail/coherency than others

Festival of Lights

Into Avelis

The Gray Manacle

Final Chapter Prologue

Court of Spears

A Fragmentary Passage

The Weeping God

The Survivor's Ballad/6D Dinterlude

The Beating Earth

Hrose Camp

The River of Lights

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I did not have "Murderbot blurts random Swedish words while malfunctioning, thus confirming that The Company *is* actually Space IKEA" on my TV show bingo card, but I'm living for it.

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I started this project with the explicit mindset of it doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to be done, but I do have to keep reminding myself of that.

But there's still one plot thread dangling that I need to resolve - no you don't. Oh but this bit is probably a bit too simplistic maybe I should do some research so I can describe it more realistically - nope. Not for this one.

Maybe if I only worked part-time and could write for two full days a week. But this thing is already 180k words long, and I'm essentially writing only in stolen hours between work, house and child. Sometimes in life you need to compromise, and in this case that means as long it isn't a gaping plot hole, it gets covered with the mantle of love.

I just want to get this thing out there, warts and all.

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“[Human neural tissue] is still some of the best data transfer material in the known universe.

Did you know they use it in transports?”

ART FORESHADOWING

ART FORESHADOWING

ART FORESHADOWING

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I’ve really enjoyed that the show is not only complicating the PresAux characters, but Preservation as a whole, and has done both with a lot of respect for the humanity of their situations.

One thing that gets brought up in the books is that Preservation is terraformed, and that by and large terraforming isn’t great. It’s usually half-assed, and done just enough to make a planet livable. One would imagine that Preservation as a society has sunk a lot of their efforts into making it far more than livable, making it the best planet it can be. They are actively trying to make a place where all citizens have their needs met, have enough to chase their dreams without fear of salary or losing health care or food or shelter. They are working toward a utopia.

But they don’t live in a utopia.

Their internal society is moneyless, but the external societies around them are not. And they don’t have everything they need. They don’t have magic replicators that create all their necessary resources from nothing. They are post-money, but not post-scarcity. They are stubbornly holding to their values to keep providing all their people with what they need, because that’s one of the non-negotiable pillars on which their society is built. These folks we’ve met especially are the true believers in Preservation ideals, in working toward building their society.

It would be easy to give in and join the Corporation Rim, and I like that some people want to take the easy way out. Because that’s people, isn’t it? Some people want what they don’t have, they want more or shinier or simply different. Just because your society is trying to build utopia doesn’t mean you’re all going to agree on what that looks like. And even in a communal society, you still have individual people who are going to want other things.

So they’ve come up with a workaround. It’s not perfect, but likely it’s the best way they can figure out to get external resources they can’t yet produce internally, while still holding to as many of their ideals as possible. They send teams out to do scientific work. That work either helps them further their internal goals—getting resources or knowledge that can make them more and more self-sustaining—or that work can be sold, likely in trade for goods or resources Preservation simply cannot provide at this point in time.

Even sending their planetary leader on these missions makes sense from the communal mindset. Of course the leader needs to do that work. They have to see the risks taken, the compromises made, the dirty parts of supporting their society. They have to be down in the dirt with everyone else, never above and able to ignore the realities of what must be done to make their better world.

They don’t have luxury space communism. They are a communal society with limited resources surrounded by corporate sharks. And some of their people want to become sharks, betraying the heart of their society. So they have to fight for their culture and their world through their actions and their decisions. They have to make compromises and work with outside forces they don’t entirely (or even remotely) agree with for the benefit of their people. And even in this group of true believers there’s internal disagreement! Bharadwaj sees this as scientific endeavor for the greater good, and she’s right! Gurathin sees it as selling knowledge to corporate fucks who will likely misuse it, and he’s right!

It’s sticky, it’s less pleasant than perhaps some book readers were hoping for. They wanted perfect luxury space communism with all scarcity problems already fixed and everyone living in harmony. They wanted the utopia rather than the pre-utopian work and compromise and challenges.

I don’t know, man, I just really like seeing a communal society of space hippies get portrayed with such care and respect for their humanity and their struggles. I like that they get to be people. I like that we get to see them doing the work and living by their ideals even when (especially when) it’s hard.

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The European Commission is currently running three public consultations on the EU strategies regarding the fundamental rights of marginalised groups for 2026 to 2030. They are the public consultations on the gender equality strategy, on the anti-racism strategy, and the LGBTIQ equality strategy. Simultaneous to those public consultations, they are also running calls for evidence for each of these strategies. Public consultations call for your views and opinions on certain topics, calls for evidence call for concrete evidence (like statistics and scientific research) and evaluation of national and European regulation on the relevant topics. Any European citizen or organisation can contribute.

I'm sharing this bc yesterday I was at a conference of European equality bodies and several participants who are or know European commissioners mentioned that those public consultations are being targeted by waves of organised hatred. It is essential that we organise against those if we want to give the Commission legitimacy to act on these fronts.

The links are:

2026-2030 gender equality strategy:

Anti-racism strategy

EU LGBTIQ equality strategy for 2026-2030

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The seats in the train's quiet car should have some kind of decibel meter so that if you make too much noise you are automatically stabbed in the butt.

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Have you read Andy Weir’s Moriarty stories? Thoughts on them?

I haven't! Which is quite surprising because I thought I'd basically read every mainstream fiction thing about Moriarty. Google is sparse on info, though - as far as I can see they're old short stories Andy Weir posted on his website ages ago and got picked up in 2017 for an audible audiobook.

I've read the synopsis and I'm mildly intrigued. Might get the audiobook to listen to on my commute. And if anyone has read them and is willing to share their opinion, please do!

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I feel like the universe is rewarding me for starting to write on tvd2 again by giving me a little bit of Andrew Scott. As a treat.

hey tumblr why did you decide this day of all days to send me an activity note of a post i was tagged in ten years ago

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What do you mean Andrew scott is coming to Belgium this fall

hey tumblr why did you decide this day of all days to send me an activity note of a post i was tagged in ten years ago

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Was looking into a suspension bondage thing for a fic, and as I was doing this on my phone, at one point the thought should probably remember to close this tab when I'm done since this is also my work phone and what if a colleague sees this crossed my mind.

Which was then followed by the thought well it's not like it's for personal use

Which was then followed by the realisation that the justification don't worry, it's nor for me, just for the sex story I'm writing to put on the Internet is, for normal people, probably not as reassuring as I meant it to be.