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#I would very much like to make more wizard audios. I only made the one but it was a fun time
grelliam · 1 year
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I shall be drawing the results when the poll ends, also maybe if enough people vote on this it'll motivate me to make more wizard audios
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midnightmoonkiss · 3 years
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Oh, What A Ghost!
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Ghost! Izuku Midoriya X Fem! Vampire! Reader
Summary: Being a pervert gets you punished, not that he minded.
WARNINGS!: Biting, oral (male and female receiving), face riding, fingering, butt stuff, blood, voyeurism, masturbation, orgasm denial, toys, a lot of nsfw content. Sub! Izuku
Category: Smut
Word Count: 5.4k+
A/N: Did I shove as many kinks into this as I could? yeah<3 HAPPY HALLOWEEN! :) 
Just To Clarify:
They’re consenting third years (aka 18+)
There is a heiarchy but Izuku totally tears it down 
This was a fun monster!au I made up :)
It’s Halloween lmao.
Perm. Tag List:
@coupsieddori​ @desia2​ @strwbrry-lia​
“You’re such a pervert, Izuku~”
“H-HaaaH! (L/N)..! Pl-please-! I’m- mmMM!! I’m s-ssorry-!”
“Is that so?”
To be honest, you never thought this would happen, never thought you’d be given the opportunity to make a move on your crush in such a.. bold and licentious fashion.
He did have it coming, though, considering you caught him red handed.
Ghosts were always so sneaky and aberrant, their ability to walk or float through walls and turn invisible offering a plethora of possibilities for activities, both good and bad. You didn’t expect such an ‘innocent’ and kind boy to partake in such activities that his race was known for, and yet, you weren’t all that surprised when you found out that he lived up to the stereotype.
Then again, most monsters did.
It was mostly inevitable, after all.
Just like how ghosts were perverts, vampires were sadists. And that’s exactly what you were.
Poor little Izuku, he had no idea the true trouble he got himself into, and on such a respected night as well.
Halloween.
October 31st.
The holiday was bigger than any other, the entire island, or at least the participating parts, went all out with decorations every year.
From lights to festivals, everyone went nuts.
It was the day that worshipped the supernatural, after all.
In a world where humans and creatures, previously thought as myths, coexist, humans have always overpopulated the monsters, and so schools built just for them popped up all over the globe. The one you and your dear friend, Midoriya, attended happened to be the most famous one, known for using monsters ability to fight against those who used it for wrong. It truly was thrilling, and it saved those previously in public schools from the bullying that occured all too much.
The school, UA, was like a pot of stew, all kinds of monsters mixing together. Werewolves, witches, wizards, zombies, vampires, ghosts, and so many more. Though, most typically stuck with their own group, but it wasn’t uncommon for people to branch out, just like how you were friends with a ghost and a zombie.
It took society a long time to accept monsters, and some still dont, but who needs them anyway, right?
Besides, to you, monsters were much more fun, especially when vampires and sirens were considered the top of the hierarchy.
Ghosts, ghouls, and zombies were at the bottom, their power not all that great, but vampires and sirens, alongside werewolves, were at the very top, the most well respected and feared monsters.
Though you were looked down on by your fellow vamps by befriending a ghost, you couldn’t care less.
As months flew by, and two school years came and went, you found yourself falling madly in love with the man who captivated you.
If he didnt float and walk through walls sometimes, you wouldve assumed he was a different class from how he held himself, strong, and not weak and defenseless.
You loved it.
But there was always something that made you question him sometimes, how he’d disappear without saying a word, how he’d be flustered around you one day and not the next. It was strange, but you never looked into it.
Little did you know, the dirty little ghost was up to absolutely no good.
His.. habit manifested out of fear, ever since that summer camp that occurred the first year, and he saw how badly wounded you were, he grew protective of you, even if you were miles ahead of him in strength. He’d check up on you somtimes, turning invisible and poking his head in through your dorm room window.
He knew it was wrong, peeking into a girls room- at night.. but.. he couldnt help himself.
He swore he would stop, but he never did.
One day, he happened to catch you.. doing quite a lewd act. He knew in his gut he shouldve floated away, to not be a peeping tom, but his large green eyes were glued to your perfect body, and how your fingers dipped in and out of your wet flesh with a squelch and moan that made his virgin cock twitch in his shorts.
Was it wrong to grab his dick, bucking into his hand as he watched you get off to an audio?
Maybe.. 
No, it definitely was!
But you.. you were so!!
So hot!
He lost count of the amount of times he’s cum on his hand watching you cum on your own, far too many.
But he slipped up today, let a moan escape past his hand and suddenly your ruby red eyes met his own.
He knew you couldnt see him, but he knew that you knew he was there!!
You smirked, showing off your sharp fangs, “Izuku.”
The pure shock he felt from hearing you say his name made him manifest into thin air on accident, collapsing to his knees as ghost costume covered his indecency.
There was a Halloween party tonight, and he dressed up as his race thinking it was funny- but it wasn’t really funny anymore.
And so, that led him to where he was now, willingly beneath your naked body glistening with sweat from the full moons silvery light pouring in through the window as you ground your bare pussy against his sensitive cock.
You pinned his arms above his head, your hungry gaze boring into his soul, he couldnt deny how hot it was, or how true your words were.
He was a pervert.
“Y-yes!” He cried out, tears pricking at his eyes from the embarrassment he felt at being caught, “I’m s-sorry..!”
His breath caught in his throat when you leaned down, your face hovering over his own.
“Mmm.. I don’t know if I can believe you, ‘Zuku.. How can I know you’re really sorry?”
You batted your eyes at him, pouting, such a devious thing to do.
“I-I’ll do a-anything t- haaahh.. nn.. t-to prove it..!”
He was so cute.
“Anything?” You pondered.
“Yes-“
You cut him off with a kiss, and you couldnt help but grin when he moaned against you.
This kiss turned into another, and another, and soon you were finally making out with him. It was sloppy and uncoordinated, but eventually you both fell into a rhythm, him whimpering each time you rolled your hips against him.
Swiping a tongue over his quivering bottom lip, he eagerly opened his mouth, just for you to invade his maw, greedily sucking his sweet tongue into your mouth, causing him to give in and buck up against your sopping warmth, giving your clit delicious friction.
“Mm-!”
Pulling away, his mouth chased your own for a second, “H-hah-! (L/N)!”
Pressing a finger to his plump lips, you pushed his head back down against your pillow.
“Say.. you wouldn’t mind if we’re a little late to the party, would you?” You smiled coquettishly down at the squirming boy covered in scars and freckles.
Gulping rather loudly, he shook his head, eyes wide and face burning red, his hormones going wild. How could he say no, when his crush was rubbing her naked self against him and enjoying it?
He would be a fool, a damn fool to say no, he wanted it too much. He wanted you, and he would say just about anything, do anything you wanted, to have you.
“Mm~ Good boy.” The praise went straight to his gut, butterflies forming and going wild inside him, making his hands clammy.
Reaching over, you dug around the drawer of your nightstand, pulling out a pair of red and black leather handcuffs that matched your curtains and rug.
Izuku let out a whine as his wrists were cuffed to the bed, giving in immediately.
“Bad boys don’t get to touch.” You teased, tapping his nose and watching as it wrinkled.
But this just meant you couldn't get his shirt and ghost sheet off, not that you particularly minded. You didn't need him completely naked.
Fulling slipping off him, you watched for a moment as his cock twitched, begging for you to come back to it. 
It made you giggle, and he flushed like a cherry.
Sauntering over to your closet, swaying your hips in a hypnotic way Izuku couldn’t ignore, you dug around, soon finding the glittery box you were looking for and pulling it out, showing it to him with a cheeky grin.
“W-whats in that.. (L/N)..?”
“(Y/N).”
“Huh?”
“Call me (Y/N), love.”
“O-oh…” Biting his lip, he looked conflicted for a split second, clearly inwardly debating if it was okay, before stuttering out your first name, only adding to the joy you felt.
Flipping the light switch off, your red fairy lights hung around the room made it glow crimson, your favorite color, especially on him.
The red glow made the atmosphere that much more romantic and sexy, his eyes reflecting the colors. It was like you were in the red light disctric in a dirt cheap hookup hotel, about to fuck your boyfriend who insisted upon not getting caught. How utterly disgraceful, and yet the thought excited you.
Setting the box down beside him on the bed, you sat at the bottom of the mattress, in front of his sock covered feet, noting how his hips wiggled impatiently and how he looked away with his teeth digging into his bottom lip.
Still so shy despite you rubbing yourself on him earlier.
“Look at me, darling.” You purred, dragging your nails up his leg to catch his attention.
Hesitantly, he turned his head, nervous eyes meeting your own.
It was rare that he saw them so red, the signature sign of a hungry vampire. They were captivating, and he found himself diving into their depths, drowning in you without you even touching him.
Placing your hands on his knees, you spread his legs apart, eliciting a mouse-like squeak from him. 
Even with his pants on, he felt so bare..
His heart jumped to his through when you gripped the hem of his pants and boxers, “Mind if I take these off?”
How polite of you..
He nodded his head, unruly green locks bouncing as he did so, squeezing his eyes shut.
“GAH” He screeched when you suddenly used your vampiric speed to pull them both down quickly and toss them so fast to the other side of the room that they slapped against the wall like a wet fish.
He was stunned, staring blankly at them, about to question it when he was cut off with a guttural groan, your lips suddenly wrapping around the tip of his weeping cock.
“H-hah-! A-ah! (L/-)- I me-an (Y/N-N)—! Wh-! MMMM!! Oh!!”
Despite your own mess covering his member, which definitely delighted you, you could still taste the salty precum dripping out as your tongue licked over his slit, his back arching from the stimulation.
He couldnt help but buck up pathetically with a mewl,  only to have his hips pinned down to the mattress with one of your hands.
“Ah, ah, ah~” You whispered against his tip, piercing eyes cutting into his skin like a poisonous knife as you dared him to fight against your hold.
He gulped, accepting his fate with a shaky breath.
Content with his obedience, you licked along the underside of his cock, savoring his musky flavor.
“Hnn! Hoahh..”
He was so.. vocal.. even with the slightest touch, you’d get a reaction out of him. It was fascinating, and only made you want to see how much more you could pull from him before he lost the ability to speak a coherent sentence.
Slipping his member back into your mouth, you swirl the tip of your tongue around his bulbous, flushed head, reaching up to grab the discarded lube you had left on your bed, 
“MmMm! O-oh..! My G-gosh..! Haa-!”
Squirting some of the clear jell-like liquid on your palm, you wrapped your hand around his shaft, smiling when he jumped, just to start pumping you fist up and down.
“G-GAaAh! Oh, (Y/N).!”
He himself found it hard to not thrash around from the intense pleasure he was feeling at the moment.
He couldnt help the drool slipping from the corner of his mouth as you began to bob your head up and down his member whilst simultaneously twisting your hand up and down his shaft, squeezing in places that made his mind go blank for a second.
He just felt so good!
It was so much different from pleasuring himself!
He had no control over his ecstasy, no control over how fast or how slow you went, and he loved it-!
“HyAAh!” He cried out like a girl when you suddenly deepthroated him, his tip pressing down your throat as you wet mouth squeezed and sucked on him like your favorite lollipop.
His hips fought against your hold as his head flung back, tears pricking at his eyes as you sucked him for all he was worth, his poor, over sensitive cock.
“O-OH! Oh, NnnNGH!! HaaA ! AAaaAh! (Y-Y/N)..!!!”
His handcuffs clinked together as his body began to shake, a warm feeling spreading in his lower stomach as his muscular thighs began to tense.
His orgasm hit him like a freight train, out of nowhere, intense, and electrifyingly cosmic.
His hazy green eyes rolled back, tongue flopping from his mouth as white hot and tangy cum squirted from his dick down your throat.
You greedily sucked it down around him, causing his entire body to jerk and twitch, cries and babbles fleeing past his spit-slick lips, the oversensitivity making his nerves burn in an oh-so good way.
Popping off his softening cock, you crawled back up his body, staring down at his cute, chubby, sleepy face.
You pinched his cheeks, pulling at it, successfully catching his attention and making his darkened eyes focus on you.
“O-oh-!” He stuttered,  face burning impossibly hotter as he watched you seemingly savor his flavor with lidded eyes.
“We’re not done yet, Izuku.” 
Your statement made him freeze like a deer in front of headlights. What else was there to do?
He already came.. oh!
Wait!
“Y-you didn’t.. c-cum..” He bashfully averted his gaze as you nodded, gears turning in his head again as he recovered from his high.
He knew exactly what you wanted.
“You know, you have such a soft and adorable face,”
“Wh-“
“Do you mind if I sit on it?”
Was this your way of asking him to eat you out?!
How bold!
How could you be so bold! 
Despite being nervous, he nodded his head, smiling giddily.
He had watched plenty of videos, had taken a plethora of notes, and even, as weird as it was, practiced on multiple fruits.
He was nearly positive he could please you.
He wanted to.
He needed to, to hear your own sweet moans caused by him.
He wanted that so bad.
Without thinking, he opened his mouth, eyebrows pinching together as he stared pleadingly up at you with his tongue out and ready to please.
He was such a good boy.
Standing up on your knees, you walked forward, your dripping pussy soon hovering over the excited boys mouth.
Lowering yourself, your thighs wrapping around his head, you were immediately met with an eager tongue lapping at your dripping folds.
“Oh~! My, s-someones enthusiaststic-!”
Bracing up urself on your hands and knees. You made sure not to suffocate the poor man as he rapaciously ate you out, sucking your puffy clit into his mouth and giving it much needed attention.
“Haaaah.. Izuku..! You’re such a good boy for me, eating my mm.. pussy like its your dinner!” You gasped, fingers threading through his messy green locks, pulling at them just to feel the vibrations of his moans against your clit.
You bucked against his mouth, riding his tongue and grinding down against his teeth.
“Mm-mmh! Hnmm…” His moans were muffled, wet licks filling the room.
He could feel your juices dripping down his chin as he was willingly smothered with your womanhood, completely trapped under you and beyond happy to obey.
His tongue dragged over your pretty pink labia, prodding at and slipping into your clenching entrance, slurping up your mess.
He could eat you out all day and never get tired, he was sure of it!
And your noises of pleasure were heavenly.. music to his straining ears. And the way you combed through his hair, he somehow felt like this was just as good as cumming, making someone else feel good..
But you suddenly lifted off his face, his tongue still moving for a second before he stared up at you with childish confusion.
His face was red and covered in your liquids, a true mess.
Chucking, you leaned back, wrapping your hand around his cock that sprung to life over the course of his meal, “I want to cum on your cock, Izu.”
Your dirty words made his heart jump and his member twitch in your grasp.
“P-please..” Though he knew he was going to get just that, he couldnt help but beg, it felt like he was supposed to, or that he had to- for himself just as much as for you.
“But first..” you trailed off, finally reaching into the box and pulling out multiple things that made him involuntarily buck impatiently into thin air.
In your hands, you held egg vibrators, a black cock ring, and a red ribbed vibrating dildo.
He gulped audibly once more, and you were positive if he were a werewolf, his tail would be wagging with those hearts in his eyes.
“Do you know what these are?”
He nodded his head. Gaze trained on them as you fiddled with the devices.
“Have you any idea what I’ll be doing with them?”
He shook his head, innocently smiling at you, the cheeky shit. 
“How about I show you?”
With that, you lubed up your finger, diving between his legs, pressing against his clenching hole, circling around it.
“H-haah..” His heart was pounding so hard it felt like he was at a concert as your finger slowly pushed in his tight hole.
“Nngh!” His cheek pressed against the pillow at the weird feeling of someone entering his body in such a way.
You finger thrusted in and out of him slowly, feeling around his warm, gummy walls for a certain button you knew he would enjoy having pushed.
His thighs were splayed wide for you, cock resting on his toned tummy covered by a white sheet.
You could only hope he didnt ruin his costume with how much he was leaking. He certainly had a sloppy dick.
Leaning down, you pressed kisses to his freckled inner thigh, pushing in a second finger and watching in amusement as he slowly got into it, embracing the feeling of being filled with your digits.
It wasnt long before you managed to fit in a third finger, grinning at how his ass practice swallowed them, “God, Izuku.. your ass is so greedy for my fingers, you keep sucking them back in~”
“A-aah! (Y/N)!! D-don’t say such-!! Nnghnn! Lewd th—things!”
“Hmm… I wonder… where is that pesky little spot..”
“W-what-? AH! H-AahAh! NGHH! Oh-oH! F-FaH! FuCk!”
“Bingo.”
You finally located his prostate, giving it no mercy as you aimed your fingers to press against it with each time you pushed and curled them inside him.
But from his thighs tensing beneath your lips and his cock twitching, you knew he was close again, and that was no good.
“A-AAaaAh! I’m!! I’m g-gonna! C-cu- hAh?!”
You pulled your fingers out, wiping the lube onto the sheets below you as he wiggled like a worm on the sidewalk, desperately bucking his hips and begging for you to give him more.
“Oh, I will..” Smirking over at him again, the glint in your eyes made him moan and feel like prey. You, a lioness on the prowl, and him, a mouse with nowhere to hide, completely bare for you, “But not just yet, baby. This is a punishment, after all.”
Though he was embarrassed at first with having his thighs spread so wide open, exposing every intimate part of himself to you, he didnt feel too shy anymore. You didnt judge him at all, in fact, you swallowed him whole. It was mind numbingly pleasant, and he never thought he would ever get to experience this, not even in his dreams.
For it to come true.. and to find out you were a kinky lady.. he was enthralled. 
Leaning up, you captured his lips in a kiss again, giving him time to calm down as you once again molded your lips together in a lustful heat.
He learned quick, his kisses becoming lasting as he met your pace with wet smacks and tongues brushing against eachother. His own passed over your fangs, and you both shivered when a drop of blood entered your mouth.
You inhaled sharply through your nose, eyes practically glowing in the red light of the room as you tasted him. He surely had the best blood you had even tasted before, nothing at all like how ghosts usually taste! They were bland and boring, but him-! He was nectareous and saporous. 
“Fuck, Izu.. you taste so.. magnificent..”
You licked his tongue again, holding onto that single drop of blood for as long as you could, his flavor making you keen with delight.
His lips parted to speak, but he was once again cut off with a lewd moan as you shoved the dildo halfway into his readily awaiting ass.
“GuaAh! W-wait!! It’s..! Too much!” He panted heavily, tears streaming down his cheeks from how good the vibrating phallic shaped object felt inside of him, almost like it was mixing his insides up like a blender.
“Mm, should I? You look like you’re enjoying this, Zuzuku.”
“Mmm..!! H-aAAaA..!”
Pushing further into him, you got the entire toy burried deep in his walls, pulling it back out, fucking him with the plastic object.
His thighs were spread so wide he feared they’re snap off at the hip as he rocked his ass on the toy, vision hazy as continue to cry out.
“HAAAAHH!! AAAH..!”
He screamed when the toy pressed against his button, pounding against it and making his legs turn to mush as he bucked so hard his heavy cock bobbed in thin air, slapping down against his stomach continuously.
Just when his eyes were rolling back again and his jaw was lax, about to cum, you pulled the toy out, “(Y/N)!!”
He sobbed in frustration, desperation building inside him to cum, even going as far as to try and drag you back with his legs.
“You cant cum yet, Izuku! We havent even used all these fun vibrators yet!” You held up the three vibrators with one hand, an all too innocent smile plastered on your face whilst he looked completely wrecked.
“M-mmh! B-but-!”
Not giving him time to talk, you grasped his leaking cock, pumping it a few times, watching as he tried to fuck into the tunnel you created. 
Grabbing the black cock ring, you stretch it on his awaiting member as he whines, knowing full well he cannot cum with such a device on. It would be torturous, but he was being punished after all, even if he had aready cum and his mind was turning to goo, he still remembered that. Of course you would make it so he couldnt cum again.
Taking the vibrators, you taped them around him, one snug just under his slit, and two against his sensitive spots.
Turning them on, his back arched impossibly high off the bed with a wail, involuntarily fucking up into the air from the intense stimulation.
Content, you sat back, pushing the vibrator in again and turning it on. 
You swore he was going crazy as he let out garbled moans, “G-guAAh! F-fucgh!! NAAh! Mm! Yo-ou.! Youguhhh..! MmeaaAAh!”
He was finally incoherent, steams of tears pouring from his eyes nearly consumed by his pupil, trying to fuck himself onto the vibrator and fuck into air.
He was a slobbering mess, body twitching and convulsing like a possessed child, your name spilling from his lips and muddling with other words on a praise.
“You’re so beautiful like this, Izuku… so wrecked and horny.. my little cum baby.. I bet you wanna cum, huh?”
Your hand slipped between your own thighs, slowly rubbing your clit as you got off to the gorgeous view before you.
Sweet and innocent Izuku Midoriya, the nerd of class 3A, your best friend who always helped others before himself, driven mad with pleasure, practically going insane- all by your doing.
It made you feel even more powerful than you already were.
Hearing a wet squelching, his curious gaze traveled to you, moaning heartily once he saw you fucking your pussy with your fingers, all while gazing at him with such a smolder he felt he was going to burn up. Hell, he already was burning up.
He felt hotter than the sun, and so ready to burst at the seams, but he couldnt.
“M-misstress! Pl-ehHAH.!! NHh! RidehuAh! Me..!”
What did he just say?
“Say that again, Izuku,”
“R-rAhIde-!”
“No, no, sweetheart,”
You pulled your fingers from yourself with a wet pop, pressing your hands to his sides and feeling him up under his shirt, gazing into his own once more, “before that.”
“Mmm..! Misss.. tress! H-haH.! Nnhgh..!”
Mistress. Now theres a word you never thought would fill you with joy.
Licking your lips, you decided enough was enough.
Grabbing his cock, you pull the vibrators off of him, immediately hovering yourself over him and sitting down with a hearty hum until he bottom out inside you with a cry of pleasure.
“GuAAAH!! (Y/N)!!! You’re!! So-!! NnnGh!! Mmmh! So tight-! Hahh..!” The vibrator still in his ass mixed up his insides, turning them into a liquid as you began to bounce on him like a trampoline.
He felt so good he didnt know what to do anymore, words he couldn’t comprehend bubbled past his parted lips, an onslaught of tears pouring from his ducts, pins and needles stabbing him everywhere in such a good way as he was overstimulated to the max.
Your walls hugged him like a vice, so warm and cozy, he wanted to be buried inside you all day.!
Inside you.. he was inside you!
You were fucking him so good-!
A smile made its way to his wrecked face, tongue hanging out of his mouth, sweat making his hair stick everywhere, he was connected with you…
He loved it.
And you loved him, that smile on his face warming your heart, but that familiar thirst stung the back of your throat, and your eyes were hyper focused on his neck covered in a blush and freckles.
His own cock was so big you felt like you were being stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey, but that wasnt enough to take your attention away.
Collapsing against his chest covered in clothing, you buried your nose into the crook of his neck, inhaling deeply as the vibrations of his ecstasy rumbled in his chest and sung in your ears.
His scent overwhelmed you, made you delirious as you couldnt help but lick at his neck, nibbling and pulling at the skin.
His head lolled to the side, “bite— h-Huah! aaAH! Nnghhh!! MmMMmmhh! Bi-aAh-te! Me!!”
Bite him..? He was? Okay with it?
Well..
If he said to…
Your fangs sunk into his skin, blood spurting into your mouth and making your hips move inhumanly fast, he was so good..! Your eyes rolled back as you greedily sucked, his moans growing chopped, stuttered and louder.
He was slowly turning translucent beneath you as your fangs sunk into him again, and again, and again, blood flowing down your mouth like a delicious waterfall, savory and sweet, honeydew pine forest.
Blood smeared his skin growing more clear with each second as he lost his grip with reality.
“NgGHH! HAAAAAH!! MISTRuhUuESS! HAA-Ah!!”
The bed began to creak beneath you, your bounces growing more and more powerful as you felt yourself grow closer to sweet release, the blood pulling you higher up the mountain of ecstasy,
Suddenly, there was a loud snap, and a copious amount of thick cum filled your pussy, stuffing you even more to the point your belly had a small bulge from his cum. The feeling made you clamp down on him and cum with your own cries of pleasure mingling with his, fire exploding behind your vision as lighting shot down your body.
The bed suddenly broke beneath your bodies, but you were both too lost in ecstasy to even care, crying out eachothers names.
You collapsed on top of him completely, and it was then you noticed you couldn't see him at all, entirely invisible.
Catching your breath, you stared on in confusion, fleeing up his body but unable to see it.
“I-Izuku??”
No answer.
Had he passed out?
“Izu-?”
You’d feel around for a heart beat if he had one, but he didnt, no undead monster did.
Taking a deep breath, cheeks flushed and skin sweaty, you sat up, Izukus now flaccid cock pulling out with a wet pop, his cum immediately flowing messily down your thighs. 
He mustve had a pretty fucking intense orgasm if the damn cock ring snapped. Who’s ever heard of that happening before? Certainly not you.
Given a minute, you uncuffed his invisible wrists and pulled the vibrator from his ass, turning it off and tossing it to the sheets.
Geeze.. what a mess…
Checking the time from your alarm clock, you were now 34 minutes late for the ghoultastic party being thrown in the school.
Oh well.
If Izuku was a human, you were sure he wouldve died from the blood loss by now, but being undead certainly gave more leeway for fun activities.
Sitting back, you gathered his spare blood on your fingers sucking them into your mouth and savouring his taste. God, you could get used to something this good.
It was like his blood had nicotine in it, you were instantly hooked.
By the time Izuku woke up, he was fully wiped down, dressed, and practically ready to go.
It was clear to him you had cleaned things up, but how long had he been out for?! How embarrassing! He even lost control of his invisibility! Ugh.. you must think he’s a toddler… only kids lose control!!
“You okay?” Your honey sweet voice caught his attention, eyes snapping to the other side of the room where you emerged from the bathroom.
“O-oh! (Y-Y/N).. I.. um.. I’m okay..” He felt so awkward now.. would you pretend nothing happened? Ignore him? Tell everyone he was.. a peeping tom? 
He wanted to believe you were the nicest person out there but he was so terrified of you shunning him, even after such.. licentious activities.
Besides, he wasn’t entirely sure how to act right now, after having s-sex with you. He felt clammy and nervous.
“You look pale,” you chuckled, grasping his cheeks and pulling them so he’d be distracted.
You noticed that look in his eyes, and knew it well. Self doubt. You wouldnt accept that.
“Hahah… well, I am a ghost..“
Your lips pressed against his, for the thousandth ime that night, but he didnt mind.
Sighing out his nose, he relaxed into the innocent kiss with a small smile.
You cupped his face when you pulled away, admiring him.
“Hey.. your eyes are (e/c) again!” And just like that, his face lit up, “Well, I did have a nice dinner.” Your tone was playful, yet he couldnt help but burn with a fresh blush, rubbing at his neck where no doubt a bunch of bite marks laid.
“Quite a delicious one too,”
“(Y/N)!!”
Sitting down on his thighs, you wrapped your arms loosely around his shoulders, nuzzling your cheek against his, “How does your ass feel?”
“GAH!” He wrapped his arms around his head, leaning forward as practical steam came from his ears from how embarrassed he suddenly was. What a nice change of scenery.
“Hm?” He was clearly a virgin after all, you wanted to make sure he could walk.
“I-it’s… okay..”
Pecking his warm, freckled cheek, you hopped off him, diving into your closet again and pulling out a basic vampire costume, one you had purchased days before at a costume shop.
Izukus heart leaped in his chest, “You had.. the s-same idea as me?”
You nodded your head, easily slipping the attire on in front of the flushed boy, “I guess we can go as a goofy couple!”
He felt warm, so very, very warm. How you accepted him after catching his perverted act, he had no idea. All he knew was this warmth was something he wouldnt mind getting used to, monsters werent known for being warm, after all.
“Yeah.. that sounds nice.”
Here’s hoping no one spiked the punch.
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twh-news · 3 years
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"Loki" Director Kate Herron Talks The Epic Season 1 Finale And The Easter Egg Fans Should Go Back And Listen For | Buzzfeed
Warning: There are MASSIVE spoilers ahead for Season 1 of Loki!
Welp, Loki Season 1 just came to an end and I think it's safe to say that the Marvel Cinematic Universe will never be the same. Following the Season 1 finale, we sat down with director Kate Herron to talk about everything — like how it felt introducing the multiverse and Jonathan Majors to the MCU, casting this incredible ensemble cast, Loki's bisexuality, and so much more. Here's everything we learned:
1. First, Kate has always loved Loki, so she knew she wanted to be involved in the "character's next step" in some way.
"Basically, I love Loki, and I found out they were making a show about him. As a fan, I was like, 'I need to know where he's gone.' Then, I just wanted to know what the story was going to be. I loved the character. I think Tom Hiddleston's performance is amazing. I really wanted to be part of whatever this character's next step was because I think Loki's had one of the best arcs in the MCU."
2. Directing all six episodes of the first season felt like filming a six-hour movie.
"Directing all six episodes was a really unique experience, right? Because normally TV is run through the showrunner system, and Marvel didn't do that on Loki. It was incredible. It was quite an undertaking to do six hours and run it like a giant film. I'm so grateful for the opportunity, and I'm really proud of what we made."
3. When Kate signed on to Loki, only the first few scripts had been written, the "rough shape of the show" was in place, and they knew Loki would be arrested by the TVA.
"When I started, Michael [Waldron] had written the pilot. Then, there was a second episode written by Elissa [Karasik], and Bisha's [Ali] episode was written. So, there was a rough shape of the show. It was already fixed in that Loki was gonna be arrested by the TVA and then it had this twist that he was going to try and solve the mystery of who this other Loki was, but then it pivots and becomes this love story about him falling in love with himself. I just thought that was so inspired and the message that had about self-love. I just really wanted to be part of that."
4. And they always knew the show would end at The Citadel at the End of Time and the multiverse would be born.
"As we dug into it with Kevin Wright, our producer, the studio, Michael, Tom, and also our whole team, I think it was always thinking like what was the best story, in particular during the second half of the show. We always knew they were going to The Citadel, something would happen, and the multiverse would be born, but we didn't necessarily know it would come out of Loki and Sylvie fighting. That idea came out of discussions with me, the writers, and the studio."
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5. It was "always the plan" to introduce Jonathan Majors to the MCU during the Loki Season 1 finale.
"I think me and the writers were just like, 'Well, they haven't told us we can't introduce that character. I guess we're doing it.' It was really exciting and I felt really honored that I got to be part of it."
6. Kate was involved with Jonathan's casting for He Who Remains/Kang alongside Peyton Reed, who will direct Ant-Man: Quantumania, and Marvel Studios.
"Being part of the casting discussion with Marvel and Peyton was amazing. It was massive. I was just like, 'Wow, I can't believe I get to be part of this conversation.' Everyone was just so excited about Jonathan. He's one of the best actors. I just couldn't believe we got him."
7. Jonathan brought a lot of "cool ideas to the table" once he was cast, and Kate gave him "space to play."
"He just brought so many cool ideas to the table. I think when you're working with an actor like Jonathan, it's really just about giving him space to play, and let him find the character and give him a cool way to do that. I really enjoyed working with him. We finished the shoot filming in The Citadel, so it was really interesting that we finished filming with Jonathan. I just felt very lucky I got to direct him."
8. Jonathan actually voiced the Time-Keepers in Episode 4, which added to the Wizard of Oz homage.
"Obviously, the Time-Keepers were being made in post, and we hadn't cast anyone [for the voices] yet, and I thought, 'Well, Wizard of Oz. Like it should be the wizard, right?' So I thought it would be cool if it was Jonathan, and I think the key thing then was just working with him in a way that we could disguise his voice. I think the fun thing was, Jonathan is an amazing character actor. So we just sent him the art and he was sending audio clips to me and Kevin Wright and being like, 'What about this voice?' It was just so much fun to do that with him. I think that was just joyful."
9. Kate's favorite Easter egg from Episode 5 was Throg — in fact, Chris Hemsworth recorded new lines and sounds for that small part.
"That one I was very proud of and it was very fun. I had that shot designed for a while. I think I'd seen it in Futurama, and a lot of animation does it, but I love the idea of going through the dirt and it reveals something. I always felt like that shot would be the place to insert an Easter egg. When we had Throg in there, it was so much fun and it was perfect. We also recorded Chris [Hemsworth] for that. It was just so much fun."
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10. She also loved the Thanos Copter and said it was a "funny" detail the producers loved from the comics, so they had to include it.
"The Thanos Copter was great. Kevin Wright, our executive producer, was really obsessed with that copter, I was like, 'We have to put the helicopter,' and it was so funny. Episode 5 is our best Easter egg episode. There's so much deliberately because of the nature of The Void as a place where deleted things are sent."
11. There's one Easter egg/detail Kate hasn't seen fans catch onto yet, and it involves a "familiar" voice at the very end of the Season 1 finale.
"The one I would say is — it's less Easter egg and more cool story-wise. So, at the very end of the finale, when Loki is in this alternate TVA, there's a character that runs behind him and is going to the armory and people should listen to the voice. It's very quick, but it's someone familiar."
12. Loki was inspired by numerous iconic sci-fi movies, like Children of Men, Alien, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Metropolis, Starship Troopers, and more.
"Bisha, in the episode [she wrote], she spoke about Children of Men and also Before Sunrise as a reference, so I was really inspired by that and the idea of bringing these sci-fi things together. Across all the TVA, I wanted it to just be a big love letter to sci-fi movies, like Metropolis, Brazil, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, [and] Alien. A reference I could never talk about early was Starship Troopers just because, obviously, the TVA are bad guys and in that movie they also use a lot of propaganda film and we had our Miss Minutes film. So, that movie played a hand. There was so much across the show. We had references from everywhere."
13. And the inspiration for how The Void would look in Episode 5 actually came from Teletubbies.
"I never really spoke much about it, but basically in Episode 5, The Void was originally written like a desert, but when I pitched, I said I thought it would be cool if rather than like a Mad Max desert apocalypse, it's more like an overgrown garden. Like, this is the place where the TVA throw their rubbish in. I just loved the idea of that. I think I realized as it started to unravel that I'd basically pitched the British countryside. As we were building it, I was like, 'Am I just homesick?' I remember trying to explain it to the visual effects artists who were making it, and I was like, 'You know, it's like the Teletubbies. You know, rolling hills just one after another.' So, yeah, the Teletubbies became a useful reference when describing The Void. So, that's how they played a hand in it."
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14. Kate was the one who suggested Sophia Di Martino audition for the role of Sylvie.
"Sophia was in a short film of mine called Smear. I was very happy to pay her, finally, for her talent. When we were reading for the role, I was like, 'There's this actor I know and I think we should ask if she wants to read.' Everyone was like, 'Yeah, sure.' So, she read in these audition tapes, and we were all watching the tapes back and I remember everyone at the studio was like, 'Wait, who's that?' And I was like, 'Oh, that's my friend Sophia.' They thought she was amazing."
15. Sophia's audition tape was so good that she was immediately cast.
"Basically, everyone was really excited by her tape and I think she got cast in the room, which is incredible. I was excited because I got to bring my friend along. She's such a good actor. She's fantastic in Flowers and I was just so happy that she was coming along for the ride. I think she's done such a beautiful job with Sylvie."
16. One of the most important things when crafting Sylvie and the other Loki Variants was making sure they were their own characters, and not just Loki copies.
"I think the most important thing, minus just tiny little gestures, was really making it important that Sylvie was her own character and that all the Lokis weren't just 'faded photocopies.' They were all their own Loki. It wasn't even that they stood in a similar way or looked similar, but what in their soul made them a Loki. I love that line, 'Lokis always survive.' That idea goes across all our characters who are Lokis."
17. Casting Sylvie was one of the hardest things, and Sophia was able to bring her own spin to the character and she was the perfect "sparring partner" for Tom.
"Sophia has this talent — and I think Tom has it as well — where she's so funny and naturally so witty and charismatic that you can't take your eyes off her. She's also really good at playing characters with a lot of anger, pain, and vulnerability. I just felt that those qualities were so Loki to me. She brought her own spin on it too. Tom's performance is so iconic, so Sylvie was a tough role to cast because you need to give him a good sparring partner, but also, it's another Loki and people love Loki. So, it was really making sure that she felt distinctive enough that she was different, but also that we gave Tom a really fun actor to play alongside. It was really fun watching them. It was really fun seeing their chemistry grow."
18. Sylvie's fighting style was actually crafted to have similar movements to Loki's, thus showing that they are basically two sides of the same coin.
"I know Tom and Sophia spent a lot of time together. I think the fun thing with Sophia was the little things, like the fighting styles. She has a very different life to our Loki. Loki is very balletic in his fighting style, because he grew up in the palace, whereas Sylvie grew up in apocalypses. So, she was going to fight a bit more like a feral cat. I thought that was fun to play with. We worked with Mo [Ganderton], our stunt coordinator, and it was really fun to find little mirror image stuff they would do when they fight. We did a little bit of that on Lamentis and there's little bits here and there where we've done that. There's also little gestures that they do that are quite similar."
19. Kate had a "four hour" phone call with Owen Wilson before he was cast. They talked about Marvel, Mobius, and Loki.
"Everyone was so excited to cast him. I remember, they were like, 'Kate, just call him and see if he's up for it.' That was a lot of pressure. But then, I spoke to him on the phone and we spoke about Marvel and Loki in Marvel. Also, we talked about what our show was doing, who Mobius was, and then just getting his take on it. It was a very detailed conversation. I think we spoke for like four hours. At the end, he was like, 'I'm in.'"
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20. Wunmi Mosaku's role was originally supposed to be a male character, but Kate suggested having an "open casting" because she thought Hunter B-15 would be really great as a female character.
"When I spoke to the studio, I was like, 'This character is cool, but I just think it could be really interesting if this was a female character. So, could we do open casting? We'll have men and women read, and we'll just see who's the best person for the role.' So, Wunmi read for it and just blew everyone away. We were like, 'We have to cast this person!' So, we kind of remade the role, really, around her."
21. Kate loves the idea that Hunter B-15 joins this club of sci-fi female characters who were originally supposed to be men.
"It was cool because I love Ripley in Alien and I love Kara Thrace in Battlestar Galactica. In the original Battlestar, Kara Thrace's character was played by a man, and Ripley in Alien was originally written as a man, so I liked that Hunter B-15 was joining these badass women in sci-fi. That was really cool to me."
22. When Kate pitched her ideas to the studio, she include Gugu Mbatha-Raw as the actor she wanted to play Ravonna.
"Gugu was in my pitch when I spoke to the studio. I was like, 'I think she'll be really great.' I love her work as an actor. From Belle to the episode of Black Mirror she's in, everything she's in is so different. I think that's so interesting with Ravonna because in the comics, Ravonna's been good and bad, and she's such a big character. I was like, 'I'd love to see Gugu's take on that character.' The studio was really excited by that and so was Gugu."
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23. Kate said it was "important" to recognize Loki's bisexuality in the show, and she loved how it was naturally worked into a conversation between him and Sylvie.
"It was just important for us to do it in a way that made it canon, acknowledged it, and also done in a way where like, if someone asked me, I would just be matter of fact about it, like, 'Yeah, I'm bi.' I think that was the important thing for it and building it into the conversation. It was important to the whole team and the way that it was written was really beautiful. It felt like the right place to do it because these two characters are starting to open up to each other and are being a bit more honest about who they are. So it felt like the right place to have that moment."
24. The TVA weren't always going to be Variants/humans. That idea was born out of conversations with Kate, the writers, and the rest of the Loki team.
"When I started, I think it was a bit more up in the air with like, who are the Variants who work for the TVA? Are they Variants? They actually weren't Variants when I first joined. Casey was an alien, for example. I think something we all locked onto was it was more effective to make them more human. It was already in there that the Time-Keepers wouldn't be real and that would be a big Wizard of Oz rug pull. But the extra rug pull we added was that, on top of all of that, the TVA don't realize that they're actually Variants."
25. One of the things Kate enjoyed the most was figuring out the "inner workings of the TVA," like how the Minutemen would operate.
"I think it was really fun, in terms of the bigger structural stuff, to work with everyone. Also, figuring out the inner workings of the TVA, like every squad of Minutemen would have a hunter and they'll be little details sprinkled across all the world building in the show. Generally, we always looked at the characters and what was the best story and how to get to the end goal in the most effective way."
26. The season finale intro — which included seeing space, the sacred timeline, and hearing quotes from the MCU and history — was an homage to Contact.
"Basically, Eric Martin, our writer, he'd written in this amazing idea that for the opening we do an homage to Contact, and kind of move through space to the end of time. Then, we'd see the physical timeline, and then we see The Citadel. I love Contact, and I was like, 'Oh, that's so cool.' We took that idea to Darrin [Denlinger], our storyboard artist, and me and him just nerded out about space and about how we wanted to pay homage to Contact but not be completely the same.
So we played with the idea of time and he was bringing in so many cool ideas. But then, the amazing pitch he had as well was like, 'What if when we pull out at the very end, the timeline isn't a straight line like how you guys have been showing it in the show? What if it's actually circular?' I thought it was such a good idea."
27. Kevin Feige helped come up with the idea to include Marvel quotes over the Marvel logo because it was something the MCU had never done before.
"I had this weird idea where I remember saying to my editor, Emma McCleave, I was like, 'Oh, can we add a baby crying or the sounds of the city? And it's like we just hear life.' So her, me, and Kevin Wright got really into that. So we were adding all of these different sounds into the timeline. We also had quotes from just life, not Marvel. Then, we showed that cut to Kevin Feige and the rest of the team.
They all thought it was cool, and then Kevin Feige was like, 'Oh, do you know what? We've never done quotes on the Marvel logo before.' So, we thought that was cool and we added the quotes to the Marvel logo intro. Then, me, Kevin Wright, Emma, and Sarah Bennett, Emma's assistant, decided to just put the MCU quotes across the whole thing."
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28. Going from hearing all of the voices in the season finale opening to utter silence in The Citadel was also a way of learning something about He Who Remains.
"I loved the idea of all the noise and this Greek chorus building because when you finally pull out and see The Citadel and how isolated it is, it tells you so much about He Who Remains' psychology because he's surrounded by all this brimming life, but he's completely isolated and alone. I thought it tells you a little bit about his character and who he might be before we see him."29. Kate loves that the season finale opening is a "beautiful handover" from the previous phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe into this one with the multiverse.
"It was a real group effort, and we were just really excited at the idea of it being this really beautiful handover from the previous phase of Marvel. Also, we get to encapsulate a little bit of our world as well, which was really fun. The editing team put so much time into that. I really want to watch it in a planetarium or something."
29. Kate loves that the season finale opening is a "beautiful handover" from the previous phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe into this one with the multiverse.
"It was a real group effort, and we were just really excited at the idea of it being this really beautiful handover from the previous phase of Marvel. Also, we get to encapsulate a little bit of our world as well, which was really fun. The editing team put so much time into that. I really want to watch it in a planetarium or something."
30. And finally, even though Loki sets up a lot of upcoming MCU projects — namely, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Ant-Man: Quantumania — Kate didn't have a lot of conversations with other MCU directors and writers.
"Kevin Wright and Stephen Broussard from Marvel were our producers on Loki, and they worked with Kevin Feige, Louis [D'Esposito], and Victoria [Alonso]. They always steered us in terms of the Marvel big picture and let us know if anything was off base. It's so secretive at Marvel, so I only spoke to Peyton just because our timelines crossed [with Jonathan]. Generally, Marvel manages everything internally and keeps us all in check."
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zigzagzoom94 · 3 years
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Hey! Do you like tabletop rpg actual-play shows that are equal parts audio drama and improv comedy? You should check out the criminally underrated DnD podcast 'Dice Funk'. It manages to combine the comfy vibe of good friends chilling out together cracking jokes with some legitimately interesting worldbuilding that examines existing DnD lore and conventions to put its own spin on them.
 Each season is a self-contained storyline with new characters so you can jump in at whichever one sounds interesting (you might get spoilered for some stuff 'cos the PCs have a tendency to make world-altering decisions that still have big repercussions, even with the substantial timeskips between seasons, but otherwise they limit any references to earlier seasons to non-essential easter eggs to keep things accessible).
 Personally I started with seasons 3 & 4 and they served as a good introduction to some recurring concepts like "the World of Forms".
 Below the Read More I'll break down each season so you can see what appeals to you:
Season 1, "Stoneroot": A noir-esque black comedy that follows a trio of varying levels of competence attempting to solve a simple missing person case that spirals wildly out of control.
 I kind of think of this as the 'Here There Be Gerblins' of the show since it's the only season with a different GM so it has a pretty different feel to the rest of the show and takes a bit longer to find its feet.
 Personal Highlight: One of the PCs rolls a 3 Intelligence, leading to a running segment where that player brings up monsters from the Monster Manual and asks the other players if they think it has a higher or lower Int than that PC.
 Season 2, "Lorelai": A more lighthearted romp in which a cast of interplanar travellers explore the world trying to figure out the cause of a catastrophic flood and put a stop to it. According to the creators this was conceived as a cross between 'Princess Bride' and 'LoZ: Wind Waker' but morphed into more of a "moist Undertale".
 Personal Highlight: The first time the GM has to portray a mysterious entity making deals with lower life forms he decides to portray them like a wheeling-and-dealing used-car salesman and it honestly made every scene they're in a delight.
 Season 3, "Ilium": The party are trapped in a strange city that people can enter but never leave, taking whatever jobs will make ends meet. Inspired by 'Hot Fuzz' and 'Twin Peaks', this series places a lot of emphasis on how the supernatural elements affect people's normal lives and uncovering the many dark secrets these characters hold.
 Personal Highlight: The GM wrote a custom "Wild Magic" table for the party sorcerer with some absolutely buckwild shit on it. I was on the edge of my seat every time it was rolled.
 Season 4, "Valentine": A cyberpunk urban fantasy with near-future technology levels in which the cast struggle to make ends meet while doing shady jobs for uncaring megacorporations. If your familiar with DnD, this season's based on 'Shadowrun'. Probably the season most explicitly about how capitalism sucks.
 Personal Highlight: One of the PCs is a wizard who uses yugioh-esque trading cards to cast their spells instead of a spellbook. I did not anticipate being so invested in their rivalry with not-Kaiba and neither did the player.
 Season 5, "Markov": If you love unlikely found families then this is the season for you! It's a space-faring sci-fi story in a galaxy reeling from war with the colonialist Mind Flayers, setting the stage for a lot of political turmoil. If you're familiar with DnD, this story's based on 'Spelljammer' and absolutely riffs off of a lot of the bizarre ideas that setting introduced.
 Personal Highlight: The Son Gun. I will not elaborate on what this means but you'll know when you get to it.
 Season 6, "Purgatory": The season opens on a group of mortals who have just been resurrected and tasked with taking up the mantle of the Furies; interplanar assassins who traverse the various afterlives dealing with whichever god-like entities threaten the balance of power between the planes. If you've played 'Planescape: Torment' or are familiar with the city of Sigil you know what to expect.
 I honestly think this might be the best individual season of 'Dice Funk'? Everyone's really firing on all cylinders.
 Personal Highlight: King Badass has my heart. Y'all can't claim to support himbos and then not be supporting my favourite dumbass bae.
Season 7, "Wormwood": After all the previous seasons deconstructed a lot of elements of classic DnD ("what's up with certain species automatically being evil?", "isn't delving into a dungeon to murder its inhabitants and steal their stuff kinda colonialistic and messed up?", "how would access to magic actually affect the way a society functions?", etc.) this seasons brings this all together by having the closest set-up to a conventional DnD adventure. The world is post-apocalyptic and draws a lot of elements from the 'Dark Sun' setting.
 Personal Highlight: Two of the PCs are a cult leader and his follower and I thought I knew exactly what direction that storyline was going...then it absolutely surprised me.
 Season 8, "Grendel": I can't comment on this one yet since it's only just started but so far it has had a very cosy, 'Animal Crossing'-like vibe with a focus on a small community, in contrast to previous seasons' much higher stakes.
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introvertguide · 3 years
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Influential Directors of the Silent Film Era
Upon hearing that I am a fan of silent era film, people will ask if I have a favorite actor or movie from the time period. However, when I am asked about my favorites from other fans of silent film, it tends to involve my favorite director. This is because silent film actors had to over gesticulate and performed in an unrealistic way and could not use their tone or words to convey emotion. The directors also did not have a way to review as they shot and would have to use editing skills and strategic cover shots to make sure that everything was done properly and come out the way they imagined it. It was up to the director to be creative and they were forced to be innovative and create ways to convey their vision. Luckily for many average or poor directors of the time, audiences were easily impressed. However, today's more demanding and sophisticated audiences can look back at some of the genius behind the films of silent era Hollywood.
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Alice Guy-Blache: Matrimony's Speed Limit (1913) and The Fairy of the Cabbages (1896)
Art director of the film studio The Solax Company, the largest pre-Hollywood movie studio, and camera operator for the France based Gaumont Studio headed up by Louis Lemiere, this woman was a director before any kind of gender expectations were even established. She was a pioneer of the use of audio recordings in conjunction with images and the first filmmaker to systematically develop narrative filming. Guy-Blanche didn't just record an image but used editing and juxtaposition to reveal a story behind the moving pictures. In 1914, when Hollywood studios hired almost exclusively upper class white men as directors, she famously said that there was nothing involved in the staging of a movie that a woman could not do just as easily as a man.
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Charlie Chaplin: The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1923), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), and The Great Dictator (1940)
It is unfortunate that many people today think of Chaplin as silly or for screwball comedy when, in fact, he was a great satirist of the time. He created his comedy through the eyes of the lower economic class that suffered indignities over which they had no control. He traversed the world as his "Tramp" character who found his fortune by being amiable and lucky. The idea that a good attitude and a turn of luck could result in happiness was all that many Americans had during the World Wars and the Great Depression. He played the part of the sad clown and he was eventually kicked out of the country for poking fun at American society. Today he is beloved for his work, but he was more infamous than famous during a large part of his life.
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Buster Keaton: Sherlock Jr. (1924), The General (1926), and The Cameraman (1928).
That man that performed the most dangerous of stunts with a deadpan expression, Buster Keaton was a great actor, athlete, stuntman, writer, producer, and director. It is amazing that you could get so much emotion out of a silent actor who does not emote, but Keaton managed to do it. He was also never afraid to go big, often putting his own well being at risk to capture a good shot. Not as well known for his cinematography or editing as many of the other directors of the time, he instead captured performances that were amazing no matter how they were filmed. Famous stunts include the side of a house falling down around him, standing on the front of a moving train, sitting on the side rail of a moving train, and grabbing on to a speeding car with one hand to hitch a ride. If you like films by Jackie Chan, know that he models his films after the work of Buster Keaton: high action and high comedy.
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Cecil B. Demille: The Cheat (1915), Male and Female (1919), and The Ten Commandments (1923)
Known as the father of the Hollywood motion picture industry, Demille was the first director to make a real box office hit. He is likely best known for making The Ten Commandments in 1923 and then remaking it again in 1956. If not that, he was also known for his scandalous dramas that depicted women in the nude. This was pre-Code silent film so the rules about what could be shown had not been established. Demille made 30 large production successful films in the silent era and was the most famous director of the time which gave him a lot of freedom. His trademarks were Roman orgies, battles with large wild animals, and large bath scenes. His films are not what most modern film watchers think of when they are considering silent films. That famous quote from the movie Sunset Boulevard in 1950 in which the fading silent actress says "All right, Mr. Demille. I'm ready for my close-up," is referring to this director.
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D.W. Griffith: Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916)
Griffith started making films in 1908 and put out just about everything that he recorded. He made 482 films between 1908 and 1914, although most of these were shorts. His most famous film today is absolutely Birth of a Nation and it is one of the most outlandishly racist films of the time. The depiction of black Americans as evil and the Klu Klux Klan as heroes who are protecting the nation didn't even really go over well at that time. Some believe that his follow up the next year called Intolerance was an apology, but the film actually addresses religious and class intolerance and avoids the topic of racism. At the time, Griffith films were known for the massive sets and casts of thousands of extras, but today he is known for his racist social commentary.
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Sergei Eisenstein: Battleship Potemkin (1925)
This eccentric Russian director was a pioneer of film theory and the use of montage to show the passage of time. His reputation at the time would probably be similar to Tim Burton or maybe David Lynch. He had a very specific strange style that made his films different from any others. The film Battleship Potemkin is considered to be one of the best movies of all time as rated by Sight and Sound, and generally considered as a great experimental film that found fame in Hollywood as well as Russia.
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F.W. Murnau: Nosferatu (1922), Faust (1926), and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
I think that most people would know the bald-headed long-nailed vampire Nosferatu that was a silent era phenomena. It was so iconic that the German film studio that produced the movie was sued by the estate of Bram Stoker and had to close. Faust was his last big budget German film and has an iconic shot of the demon Mephisto raining plague down on a town that was the inspiration for the Demon Mountain in Fantasia (1940). Also, Sunrise is considered one of the best movies of all time by the AFI and by Sight and Sound as well as my favorite silent film. Fun facts: 1) more of Murnau's films have been lost then are still watchable and 2) he died in a car wreck at only 40 when he hired a car to drive up the California coast and the driver was only 14.
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Erich von Stroheim: Greed (1924)
Maker of very strange German Expressionist films, Stroheim films are often listed as Horror or Mystery even though he considered himself a dramatic film maker. His most famous movie Greed was supposed to be amazing with an 8 hour run time but it was cut drastically to the point that it makes no sense and was both critically and publicly panned when an extremely abridged version was released in the U.S. Over half the film was lost and a complete version no longer exists. Besides this film, Stroheim was even better known for being the butler in the film Sunset Boulevard as a former director who retired to be with an aging silent film star. He also made a movie called Between Two Women (1937) that told the story of a female burn victim that was inspired by the story of his wife being burned in an explosion in a shop on the actual Sunset Boulevard.
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Victor Fleming: The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Gone With the Wind (1939)
Although not known for his silent films, Fleming did get his start during the silent era. He was a cinematographer for D.W. Griffith and then Fleming directed his first film in 1919. Most of his silent films were swashbuckling action movies with Douglas Fairbanks or formulaic westerns. He is the only director to have two films on the AFI top 10 and they happened to have come out the same year.
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Hal Roach: Lonesome Luke films starring Harold Lloyd, Our Gang shorts, Laurel and Hardy shorts, and Of Mice and Men (1939)
It is not really fair to put Hal Roach in the silent era directors because he was influential at the time but he had a 75 year career. He was a producer and film studio head and even had a studio named after himself. His biggest contribution to the silent era was his production of Harold Lloyd short comedies and he continued to produce films in the early talkies including Laurel and Hardy shorts, Our Gang shorts, and Wil Rogers films. Roach was the inspiration for the film Sullivan's Travels, in which a famous director who only did frivolous comedies goes out into the world to find inspiration to find a serious drama. Roach did direct a single serious drama, Of Mice and Men, but it came out in 1939 and was buried underneath the works of Victor Fleming. The wealthy cigar smoking studio head that many people think of when they picture a film studio suit is based on this guy. The man would not quit and stayed in the business into his 90s and lived to the ripe old age of 100.
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toaarcan · 3 years
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One ship exposes everything wrong with TRoS
Heaven help me, I’m back on my bullshit.
Alright, so, I enjoyed The Rise of Skywalker when I watched it. I actually watched it twice, once on my own when I rushed to see it as soon as possible in order to beat spoilers, and once with my family, in what was a semi-annual new year tradition for us during those four years that a Star Wars film released.
But that doesn’t mean it was good. I enjoyed Transformers: Dark of the Moon the first time I watched it, and that movie’s still a steaming pile of shit. I was admittedly fifteen when I saw DotM, but still. 
My point is that I’m fully capable of enjoying crappy films.
But there’s one thing, one thing about TRoS that exemplifies so many of the problems with TRoS as a whole, if not everything (And by that I mean with TRoS specifically, the woeful treatment of John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran is a Whole Trilogy Problem). And it’s a ship. Specifically this ship.
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The Resistance Y-Wing. I hate this ship with the fiery passion of an exploding star, and to talk about why, we need to first go back to The Last Jedi and its conspicuous lack of Y-Wings.
One of the things that I disliked most about the Sequels before TRoS put all the other problems into stark light was the lack of new ships. Instead of new vehicles, we got shinier, sleeker versions of the ships from the original trilogy. And I disliked this because it’s the opposite of what the Prequels did.
Episodes I-III don’t feature more primitive versions of the X-Wing and TIE Fighter, but instead have similar vehicles that evoke the classics while still having an identity of their own.
The ARC-170 looks kinda like an X-Wing, but it’s bigger and has more weapons and crew, and you get why the well-funded Republic can afford things like this while the scrappy Rebels can’t.
The Eta-2 is a predecessor to the TIE Fighter, but it being employed exclusively by Jedi makes a lot of sense, of course a precognitive wizard with superhuman reflexes can do well in a light, unshielded ship, while in the hands of the Empire’s military they’re just expendable swarm fighters.
But then in the Sequels, rather than evolve the ships into new forms, they just made new incarnations of the X-Wing, TIE Fighter, A-Wing, TIE Interceptor, B-Wing, and of course the Y-Wing.
Well, except for one movie: The Last Jedi.
At the outset of the film, we’re introduced to this ship.
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This is the MG-100 StarFortress, AKA “That ship all the Star Wars Youtubers hate”. It’s designed to be a much heavier and bulkier version of the B-Wing Starfighter, and is even made by the same people.
From questions about how the bombs “fall” toward the Dreadnought (The answer is magnets) to claims that they’re completely useless because most of the ones in the film died so easily, these things have been put through the wringer by the fandom, and honestly they don’t deserve it? What destroyed the StarFortresses in the film wasn’t their own weaknesses, but them being deployed in too tight a formation. It was a tactical fuckup, not a problem with the ship’s design.
And given that the whole point of the battle over D’Qar is that Poe makes a tactical fuckup to kickstart his development into the new leader of the Resistance as a whole, adding another layer makes sense to me.
But we live in a post-CinemaSins world of media consumption, where every plot-point that isn’t spelled out with a flowchart and an audio commentary by the writers is actually a plothole. 
We also live in an era where Star Wars fans pine for the days of the Legends canon where everything about new ships, species, and worlds was explained in background lore and books, and are angry that the new Canon is... doing exactly the same thing?
Seriously, how much exposition and lore dumping is actually present in any of the Star Wars films? Not a whole lot. And that applies to all three eras. 
So the StarFortress’ appearance in the film and the lack of Y-Wings led to a bevy of armchair writers demanding to know why the Resistance weren’t using Y-Wings and why they were using those “Resistance Bombers” that are just ‘terrible’.
Answer? Because the Y-Wings sucked shit.
Seriously, go back to the Original Trilogy and try to keep track of the Y-Wings, and see what they actually do, and you’ll find that what they do is “Explode, mostly.”
We’re first introduced to the Y-Wings in A New Hope, and they’re supposed to be the ones performing the Trench Run while the X-Wings cover them, and to their credit, they try.
And then they all get blown up by Vader and his wingmen before they can even take a shot at the exhaust port. Well, except that one that appears with the rebel ships flying away from the Death Star.
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Where the fuck were you when the X-Wings were doing the attack run?
The Y-Wings got absolutely wrecked.
Ancillary media would go on to explain that the Y-Wings were beat-up old vehicles that were no longer fit for purpose, but the Rebels had to use them anyway because they had basically no money. They’d stripped down the ships and removed a bunch of their more costly features just to make them viable, and the results of that were pretty clear.
Of course, the Y-Wings were still present in the later films. They don’t do anything in The Empire Strikes Back, but they play a role in Return of the Jedi.
Naturally, that role is mostly “Get blown up while the other ships do the important stuff”.
Despite supposedly being a fighter-bomber that was designed to do significant damage to capital ships, does the Y-Wing play a role in the destruction of the Executor? Does it fuck. Destroying the Imperial flagship’s deflector shields and the subsequent suicidal ram attack on the bridge are tasks that are both performed by the goddamn A-Wings. Y’know, the light interceptors?
The Y-Wings get shown up at their own job by the ships that are there to protect them from TIE Fighters.
Ancillary media again explains why they’re still there. While the Rebels have a newer, better fighter-bomber in the B-Wing, the B-Wing is expensive as fuck and also really difficult to fly. 
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A non-centreline cockpit that rotates will do that to a ship.
Still, the B-Wing was a better bomber than the Y-Wing ever was (And the StarFortress was better than them both at that role).
All this adds up to a simple fact: There were very good reasons why the Resistance weren’t using Y-Wings. And there were even reasonable reasons to choose the StarFortress compared to the B-Wing itself, given that the Resistance are still undermanned and under-funded, especially with the New Republic getting nuked midway through The Force Awakens. It being easier to fly and having more armaments would have made it a viable choice for the Resistance.
Buuuut oops, people didn’t like the StarFortress and we can’t make the Internet angry at us again! Better put the Y-Wings back in for Episode IX, and show them destroying a Xyston-class Destroyer, that’ll make them happy!
And sure, okay, giving the Resistance a fighter/bomber is probably a good idea. And they already have New X-Wings and New A-Wings, so where’s the harm in a New Y-Wing?
Alright, alright, sure. But why the fuck does it look like this?
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If this is a new ship, why is it already stripped-down like the ones in the Original Trilogy? Why doesn’t it look like the actual brand-new Y-Wings we saw in The Clone Wars? 
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Now that’s more like it. Still visibly a Y-Wing, but with more of an identity of its own. 
Seriously, “Literally the same ship but without its armour pulled off” has more of a unique identity than the crowd-pleasing New Y-Wing.
And that, in and of itself, is the essence of The Rise of Skywalker.
It’s blind, empty fanservice, rushing to include as much nostalgia-pandering as possible to try and get the fanbase back on-side after The Last Jedi didn’t do what the fanboys wanted it to do.
This is a whole near- three hour movie whose only message is “Yes, Youtubers making TFA critiques longer than an entire season of TCW, we hear you, we’ll make it for you, please love us!”
And, almost entirely predictably, it was shite.
It was riddled with plotholes and none of the scenes had any time to breathe because the movie was too desperately trying to rush itself to the next crowd-pleasing scene in a desperate attempt to wank off as many disgruntled fanboys as it possibly could.
Luke with his green saber! Jedi Leia! Chewie gets a medal! Lando! Luke raises his X-Wing out of the water! The main villain is a testicle in a bathrobe again! Snork origin! Original-flavour Star Destroyers! Rose doesn’t exist! Rey had a super-special secret magical bloodline the whole time and Luke and Leia totally knew even though Luke has literally no idea who she is in Episode VIII! Luke actually was just afraid of the bad guys in Episode VII, none of that self-imposed exile for his own mistakes nonsense! Y-Wings.
I mean fuck. Disagree with Luke’s portrayal in TLJ all you like, I certainly have my issues with it, but I lay those at the feet of JJ for making Luke’s absence into one of his fucking Mystery Boxes, and then deciding that, even though last time Luke sensed Leia and Han might be in danger, he abandoned his Jedi training, hopped in an X-Wing, and flew halfway across the galaxy to try and save them, he wouldn’t do shit when the First Order pointed a star-powered System-Killer 9000 at Leia, and Han got himself killed trying to redeem Kyle Ron. Like how in fuck was Rian supposed to explain Luke’s inaction in VII?
But regardless of the problems with that Luke portrayal, at least Mark Hamill gave it his all. Hell, it might be his best performance in the Star Wars franchise!
 In TRoS, he shows up in a bad wig, waves a middle finger at TLJ, and ascends to his final form as a Lightsaber Delivery Boy, because apparently all you need to kill a Sith who literally clawed his way back from death is two lightsabers. Haunting Kyle Ron? Nope. Providing guidance as a ghost? Not really.
And y’know what the kicker is? It didn’t fucking work. Lucasfilm and Disney fucking gutted this trilogy, sliced out the integrity, surgically removed the soul of Episode IX in a desperate effort to make the Internet’s most unpleasable fanbase happy, and it didn’t work. They still hate it! Now they just concoct hour-long videos about how much they would’ve preferred to have the Trevorrow script (Which is admittedly much better, albeit still with it’s far share of giant flaws), which was probably thrown out because it wasn’t fanservicey enough!
The Rise of Skywalker is an awful film. It’s a loose collection of nostalgia-baiting moments, roughly stapled together around the skeleton of a plot that was never properly developed. It’s a Frankenstein’s Monster of a movie, but, and I say this with full offense, the Victor Frankenstein in this tragic story isn’t Lucasfilm or Disney or Kathleen Kennedy or Rian Johnson, or even JJ Abrams. It’s you, Star Wars Fandom. It is your monster. 
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rainbow-spiral · 4 years
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Definitely Not Hypnotized
“Okay, you can’t win the bet this way,” Li Jing said.
Terrill looked innocent.  “I can’t?”
“You can’t just declare, ‘Boom, you’re hypnotized,’ and make me be hypnotized.  The terms of the bet were, you have to hypnotize me without me knowing.”
“I have,” Terrill said.
They could be very annoying, Li Jing thought.  Also charismatic, hot as hell, and wickedly imaginative, of course, but very annoying all the same.  “Prove it.”
“Prove you aren’t hypnotized.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“You could stand on your tiptoes,” Terrill said.
Li Jing did it.  She had been dating Terrill for two weeks now—which meant two weeks of being hypnotized, off and on.  She had rarely known them to be this silly.
Li Jing thought privately that a lot of the hypnosis stuff was hokum.  When Terrill said, you are getting more and more sexually aroused, well, it was the idea of getting sexually aroused that made her hot, not the rigamarole with the spirals or the pendulums.  And when she followed orders, well, that was part of the role-playing.  Which was why she had confidently made the bet: Terrill might be able to hypnotize her, but they couldn’t hypnotize her without her knowing about it.  She just couldn’t turn off her brain that way.  “On tiptoes,” she reported, “and not even swaying a little bit.  Satisfied?”  
“Not quite,” Terrill said.  “Why don’t you take your shorts off?  That’d be a big step towards proving it.”
Li Jing huffed in annoyance and skinned out of her shorts.  It was more difficult than usual from being on tiptoe.  “Easy.  There.  Not hypnotized.”
“Pink lacy underwear,” Terrill said admiringly.
“You’ll get under them,” Li Jing pointed out, “when you lose this bet.  Eat me out whenever I ask, for a week, those were the terms.”  She sighed happily and stretched, still on tiptoe.  “I think I’ll have you do it when I’m watching my shows.  And when I’m at my desk.  And every night before bed, of course.”
“You’re turning yourself on,” Terrill observed.  “Making yourself more aroused.”
She was.  Terrill might not be able to hypnotize her without her knowing, but they were a wizard with their mouth all the same.
“You know,” Terrill pointed out, “there is one sure way to prove that you’re not hypnotized.  If you can do it, I’ll know for sure.”
“I’ll do it,” Li Jing said.  “What is it?”
“Rub yourself.  If you can get to orgasm, you’ll know you’re not hypnotized.  But you won’t.  You’re going to rub, and rub, and rub, and then you’re going to go for your toys, and use them, and then you’re going to start begging me for it, and it’s only finally—when you realize that you can’t come at all without permission—that you’ll give in, and admit you’re hypnotized, and I’ll win the bet.”
Li Jing grinned.  “You couldn’t have chosen a nicer test,” she said, and put her hands down the front of her panties.
“No, no, not like that.  Take the panties all the way off.”
Li Jing skinned out of them.
“And get on the bed with your legs apart, and lift your ass into the air.  I’ve got to see your pussy as you come, to know that you’re really coming.”
“Not sure you can tell from watching,” Li Jing said, getting into the position.  It should have been uncomfortable, but as her fingers started to work her clit, that consideration went away fast.  “Like this?”
“Just like that,” Terrill said, and settled in to watch.
Normally, Li Jing didn’t have any trouble reaching orgasm with her fingers.
Normally.
Right now, everything that she did to her wet, aching pussy felt delicious, but she couldn’t quite make it there.  Dammit, she wasn’t hypnotized, and if she didn’t manage to wring an orgasm out of herself she couldn’t prove that to Terrill, and she wouldn’t win their bet, and she wouldn’t get all that delicious licking, and really, the thought of what Terrill could do with their tongue should wring an orgasm out of her by itself, but it wasn’t.  It didn’t.
Her fingers squelched.
“Need a toy,” Li Jing realized.  The G-spot vibe, that should do it.
She couldn’t get it with her ass in the air and her head on the bed, though.  She couldn’t get it with her fingers in her cunt.
“I’ll get what you need,” Terrill said helpfully.  “Which one?”
“Sort of sea green, long—end bends to get the G-spot.”  She panted as she said it.
Terrill pulled the requisite tool out of her bedside door.  “Open up,” they said, and slid it in.  By this point, Li Jing was far too wet to need lube.
But the lovely vibrations, which always hit her G-spot directly, didn’t get her there.  “Clit-sucker,” Li Jing gasped.  “Get—that—“
Terrill left the G-spot vibe sticking out of Li Jing and went for the drawer again.  Came back.  “You could play with your nipples as I do this,” they said, “except your fingers are all wet.”
They were.
“Why don’t you suck on them?  And every suck feels like it’s getting you closer to orgasm, making you so aroused that you can barely hold still, barely talk, but the orgasm is still just a little bit out of your reach.”
Li Jing thrust her fingers in her mouth and moaned.
“Feels so good to suck, doesn’t it?” Terrill went on.  “Suck, and suck, and bring yourself closer and closer.  But you know what will bring you closer still?”
Li Jing made a sound and shook her head.
“If you take your fingers out of your mouth and say, ‘I am a dirty slut.’”
Li Jing took her fingers out.  “I am a dirty slut.  Ohhh . . .”
“Put your fingers in and lick your juices off when you aren’t talking,” Terrill said.  “That’s what a dirty slut would do.  Say ‘I need to be filled up like a dirty slut.’”
“I need to be—unghh—filled-up-like-a-dirty-slut!”
“Say, ‘I need to be used in every hole.’”
“I need,” Li Jing panted, “to be used in every hole.”
“Say, ‘I am deeply hypnotized and I will do anything you say.’”
“I am deeply hypnotized and I will do—anything—you say—“
Memory.  Just a little bit of memory, just enough.  Terrill saying, in their soothing, smooth hypnotist voice, and everything I suggest that you do will seem like a perfectly reasonable way to prove that you aren’t hypnotized.  But when you say, ‘I am deeply hypnotized,’ you will realize—
“Oh,” Li Jing said.
“And you remember our bet,” Terrill said coaxingly.  “When I win, I get to make you an empty little dolly whenever I want—for a week—I get to use you in every hole for a week, and I get to loan you out to my roommate Marshall for the same thing, for a week.  And you agreed to those terms.”
A little bolt of fear sent Li Jing’s arousal even further up.  Which shouldn’t have been possible.
“Don’t worry.  You’ll enjoy it so much that I bet you make another bet next Saturday.  And another.  Now, come for me.”
Li Jing’s mind shattered.  Although, if she was being honest with herself, it had been thoroughly broken earlier in the evening.
My buymeacoffee link!
A reminder: if you go to my Pencils in the Margin  page and donate any amount of money to Black Lives Matter or similar  charities (there’s a long list) I will either write you a new story or read out a fic that I’ve already written.  If  you donate a larger amount of money, I will write you a new fic and post an audio file.  Here is an example of my voice.
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James Sirius Potter being in a band.
James was in a few bands here and there during Hogwarts as the drummer (because he absolutely plays the drums) but they didn’t really fit with him. They’d only cover Wizarding songs, the original songs weren’t his style, he had no creative control whatsoever, so he ended up giving up.
During seventh year/just after seventh year, James and two friends decided they could form their own band.
The friends are OCs, one of them is the daughter of Dean and Seamus because fuck you they got married and had a little girl called Lyra, and a muggle born friend James met in primary school called Noah Mori (ftm trans because I CAN).
Noah is the singer/songwriter, though James taught him how to play the drums when they were younger. Lyra is on keyboard and backing vocals, and James is the drummer.
At first they do covers, mainly muggle songs because they’re emo little rats obsessed with bands like Green Day and Pierce the Veil but also James and Lyra are low-key Taylor Swift fans so they cover some of her songs as well.
They have a few gigs in Hogsmeade where they play muggle songs to sort of confuse everyone, but obviously making it clear that the songs are not theirs (No one’s stealing anything here dw).
Noah starts actually writing songs, really good songs, and he decides that he’d rather be in control of the music than be the singer.
James jokingly tries out as the singer but like... he can actually SING.
“I didn’t know you could sing like that!” “Neither did I!”
James becomes the singer, and Noah becomes the songwriter/drummer (though James plays the drums for certain covers and Lyra tends to be the singer for these).
their exact vibe is idkhow so fuck you, their songs are idkhow’s. I’m talking Choke, Nobody Likes the Opening Band, Bleed Magic etc. Noah wrote them. James sings them.
They perform normally in the wizarding world, with their original songs and their muggle covers. James does a cover of I Kissed a Girl which is entirely based on Twenty One Two’s cover.
But in the muggle world: it’s a whole different story.
So you know how idkhow does this thing where their songs/music videos are made out to be found footage from some lost 80s band? Well James’s band does the same, but they take it further. Because obviously we know idkhow isn’t actually a lost 80s band, mainly bc we already knew who Dallon was. But no one in the muggle world knows James, Noah and Lyra.
Noah is in charge, as well as it being his idea. Basically, in the muggle world, their band is made out to be a lost 80s group, who no one knows if they ever became a proper band because all they have are audios of their songs, that were apparently “found” by someone.
Noah sets up a YouTube account, very similar to Petscop, with a completely ordinary username that suggests it really was set up by someone who found these recordings of songs, along with a description outlining how and where they found these recordings, even asking people if they knew who the band was.
No music videos are released, except occasionally a fake video of James, Lyra and Noah doing a cover of a 70s song in what looks like a 70s garage is released, which causes a real stir because it looks like a normal video of a bunch of 70s teenagers jamming around in their garage, but people finally get to see what the members look like.
Honestly, they’ve already grown quite big in the wizarding world so they don’t have too much of a goal to get big in the muggle world too. They just enjoy messing with people.
They also know that any muggleborns who know about both their wizarding persona and their muggle persona can’t reveal that they’re a real band, because any video evidence would involve risking the Statute of Secrecy since they only play in wizarding venues.
Legit whole theories are made about them, straight up creepy pastas, and they’re enjoying every minute of it.
Some muggleborns do come forward to say that the band is real, but again, they can’t show any video evidence so no one believes them. And that just makes it even more fun.
Even the wizarding world gets wind of what they’re doing in the muggle world, and it makes them even more popular.
I haven’t decided if they ever reveal to the muggle world that they’re real, because imagining all the audios and the confusion and stuff is so fun.
Also the band name is Warlocks are Attacking, loosely based on the song title “Ghosts are Rude and Zombies are Attacking” by a YouTuber called emmanoodle (I recommend, they’re so sweet and have great covers/original songs).
~
Full timeline of WaA’s muggle persona here
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wehavethoughts · 3 years
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The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins Review!
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The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins Written By: Clint, Griffin, Justin and Travis McElroy Illustrated by: Carey Pietsch Comic book First Second Publisher, 2018 Based on the podcast The Adventure Zone: Balance
Rating: 4.5/5 Waves
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This review does NOT contain major spoilers for The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins.
Summary: A D&D based adventure comic starring three unlikely friends: Magnus, a human fighter with a heart of gold, Taako, an elf wizard who can charm the pants off a bugbear, and Merle, a dwarf cleric with just enough blood to go around. When a routine delivery to Haverdale goes sideways our heroes must face gerblins, mages, animated robots and the titillating mysteries that unravel in the lost mine of Haverdale.
Review: I’d like to start this review with a disclaimer: I have listened to and thoroughly enjoyed the entirety of the podcast that this comic book is based off of, The Adventure Zone: Balance. Therefore, my review of this comic is going to be a bit biased. I know how this story ends and I’ve already bought into the shenanigans, genius and tomfoolery that are the McElroys playing D&D. Nevertheless, I attempted to approach this re-read from the perspective of someone who didn’t already know and love The Adventure Zone.
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The very first thing that stands out about The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins comic is, of course, the art. Carey Pietsch does such a fantastic job of conveying action and emotion that I never lost track of the characters or their movement, even in the most hectic fight scenes. The art style is colorful, detailed and dynamic in a way that is incredibly engaging to look at. Even on my third read through I found new and wonderful details that added to the experience. Comic book art is critical to the enjoyment of comics and I am so glad they hit it out of the park with this one.
Character design is also an important component of why I enjoyed the story so much. As a fan of the podcast I knew what Taako, Magnus and Merle looked like in my head and, while Pietsch puts her own spin on the characters, everyone was perfectly recognizable. Her designs felt faithful to the spirit of the characters and the range of emotions portrayed in her art allowed me to almost hear the characters’ voices in my head.
The plot and the dialogue of The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins is taken from the podcast The Adventure Zone: Balance and they did a good job of keeping both the flow of dialogue and the jokes from the original. There were many scenes in this comic that made me grin so hard my cheeks hurt and some lines like “He vas one day from spider retirement!” had me trying to explain Bryan and Magic Brian to my mother through my laughter (not an easy task). The comic also had an excellent blend of humor and seriousness. The humor rarely distracted from the meat of the story and kept what could have been some extremely depressing plot points relatively light.
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The best thing about this comic, in my opinion, is its length. The first arc of The Adventure Zone: Balance podcast is more than 10 hours of audio content. The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins covers the same story, but it can be read comfortably in an afternoon. The comic is also broken up into convenient chapters for people who don’t have time to get through it all at once. I also loved that there is now an alternative to listening to this story via podcast. This may come as a surprise, but I am not a big fan of podcasts and listening to the 80+ hour entirety of The Adventure Zone: Balance was a strenuous labor of love. So for people who don’t have the time, or the mental focus to go through that, this comic is a fantastic way to engage with a potentially inaccessible story.  
One thing all readers should be ready for with The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins is that it is the first comic in a series and while it has its own stand alone story, the last couple chapters are very clearly setting up the rest of the series. The ending is nearly a cliff-hanger with how much it tries to drag you into the next arc of the narrative, which for some readers is bug and for others it’s a feature. As of February 2021, only three of the eight arcs from The Adventure Zone: Balance have been made into comics so if you are the type of reader who needs to binge the entire thing, you might want to give it a few years.
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The reason I didn’t give The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins full marks was because I felt there was a bit of a barrier to entry to enjoy this comic. People who haven’t engaged with the podcast will get a full and satisfying story, but they will miss a good amount of the humor and in-jokes tossed around in the characters’ dialogue. Even me, someone who loves the podcast with all my heart, felt like some things went over my head because it's been years since I finished The Adventure Zone: Balance. Additionally, readers who are not familiar with D&D might have a tough time with some of the scenes. Unlike the podcast wherein the players were learning to play D&D with the audience, the comic assumes the reader has a basic grasp of D&D concepts like what a Dungeon Master does and what a Perception Check is. Background knowledge in D&D isn’t critical to understand most of the plot or characters, but for some scenes my experience with D&D really helped me make sense of what I was looking at. At the end of the day, though, I don’t think either of these barriers would make the comic unreadable.
Overall, this comic is a very fun read with fabulous art, hilarious jokes and an engaging adventure. It’s the perfect length of story to be read and enjoyed over and over again.
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kolbisneat · 3 years
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MONTHLY MEDIA: April 2021
Still staying indoors so lots of time to read and watch stuff and play games. Here’s how I spent the month!
……….FILM……….
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Mortal Kombat (2021) Should Cole’s arcana have been to summon his ancestor and become Scorpion 2.0? Yes. Should a fight over a pit of spikes end in a character dying on those spikes? Yes. Should they be pushing other films out of the way to make this sequel? 100% yes. I had low expectations, high hopes, and a great time. 10/10 would watch again right now.
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Swiss Army Man (2016) So I knew Paul Dano would use Daniel Radcliffe’s dead body as a jetski and I thought that prepared me for the sort of film we’d be watching. I was wrong. It changed tones so smoothly and I appreciate how much it kept you on your toes. I never really knew what to expect (both from the actors and the story). Really really great.
Moxie (2021) I spent the first 30 minutes trying to place Claudia, the best friend, and then I realized she was from the Hawaiian season of Terrace House! Very cool. The movie felt like a decent intro to feminism and for that, I can only hope there are folks out there watching this and considering some of its messages.
……….TELEVISION……….
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Superstore (Episode 1.01 to 3.09) I think we watched a few episodes before April but it wasn’t really hooking me and I completely forgot to talk about it. Now, three seasons in, I’m digging it a lot more. They’re giving Sandra more of a personality and I never really liked the early jokes that made her the butt of the joke, so that’s a big plus. It’s really growing on me.
Falcon & the Winter Soldier (Episode 1.01 to 1.06) So pretty good! I tend to prefer the more fantastical corners of the Marvel universe but this had a lot of great moments. Though I think that’s what didn’t work for me: it was a lot of great segments but the series as a whole never quite came together. Maybe too many plates to keep spinning?
The Great British Bake Off (Episode 9.01 to 9.10) After rather unexpectedly losing our cat, this was the sort of good-natured, well-meaning series we needed. Low-stakes (though high while watching) and I really love reality tv that doesn’t require a villain or conflict; it simply celebrates passion and trying!
……….READING……….
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The Road to Oz by L Frank Baum (Complete) I’m continuing my trek through the series and this one dipped a little for me. I think a mostly human cast (even with two characters’ heads transformed into animals) doesn’t feel quite as whimsical as the other entries. Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz had the same issue. It’s fun that most of the book is spent GETTING to Oz and there are lots of weird antagonists, but the main cast is just meh.
The Emerald City of Oz by L Frank Baum (Complete) Another mostly human cast but Dorothy spends a lot of time on her own and it has a very Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland vibe to me. Lots of weird characters and the B plot following the antagonists is fun; the Nomes are always a good time. It’s wild to think this was planned to be the last book (and it definitely reads that way) especially knowing how many more there are in the series.
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The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L Frank Baum (Complete) I’m glad we’re getting back into weird characters and a (albeit meandering) plot! I’m also noticing that a lot of the book is dedicated to introducing characters to each other. It’s an interesting way to either pad the text or really hammer in the canon through repetition.
Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum (Complete) By now, the format is firmly established (human child meets a group of colorful characters and they go on an adventure) so now I’m really looking to see how each one stands apart. Great to have the Nome King return as a villain but Betsy Bobbin really does just feel like a Dorothy clone. Am I being too critical of a children’s book? Maybe this is a sign I should take a break from Oz.
……….AUDIO……….
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Second Star to the Right (Podcast) Also a Twitch stream! It’s an actual play of Dungeons & Dragons using my Neverland Setting and it’s been a lot of fun hearing how others use the resource! The cast seems to gel really well and their characters are a fun mix that contrast the setting. I’m keen to see where it all goes!
……….GAMING……….
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Neverland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) The group made (and then lost) a new Pirate friend and are currently dealing with a resurgence in Giant activity (the Gnome hamlet is under attack)! Further session breakdowns are over here on Reddit!
And that’s it! As always, let me know if you have anything you recommend and happy Friday!
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fanfictionaries · 4 years
Text
Your Little Ritual
Pairing: Bucky Barnes X female reader
Summary: You and Bucky have started your own weird little ritual when it comes to being stuck in hotel rooms on missions. At first it’s fairly innocent. Until it isn’t.  
Words: 3.5k
Warnings: Swearing, smut, NSFW/18+ only, mutual masturbation
Author’s Note: Inspired by THIS audio because...damn. Listening to the audio with the story is advised!
I have no beta reader. So I apologize for any typos or grammatical errors. I didn’t go over this very in-depth. I just really wanted to get it out. 
***
It had all started very innocently, this weird little ritual you and Bucky now shared. Never in your life did you think it would have propelled into what it was now. You swore by that. One night, after a complication with the mission plans had arisen, you found yourself in a hotel room with Bucky awaiting further orders. Steve had informed you that a response on how to proceed wouldn’t come until the next day. He had told you to head to the hotel and sit tight while they tried to work through the logistics. No big deal. Things like this happened all the time. In fact, only a few months prior you had gotten stranded in Belize with Sam and Wanda after you had discovered your intel was compromised. Seven days and nights in a bed bug ridden motel had put the three of you on such edge that you and Wanda had almost come to blows. And she was easily your best friend. A single night in a nice, clean hotel wasn’t the worst thing in the world. In fact, it could have easily been considered a mini vacation as you and Bucky had raided the vending machines that night before jumping onto the big king size bed and flipping on the TV.
You were digging into the assortment of chips, candy, and soda when Bucky asked you what you would probably consider to this day to be the weirdest question anyone has ever asked you.
“Hey (Y/N), what’s Wetter the Better? I don’t think I’ve heard of that one.”
You stopped, mid-bite into a twinkie, and looked over to him and then the TV. Sure enough, there on the channel guide was Wetter the Better playing from 9-10pm on channel 581. You couldn’t help but let a snort out through your nose as you bit down into the overly sweet cake and synthetic filling.
“That’s a porno Bucky Boy. I’d be more concerned if you had seen it. No one pays for porn anymore,” you stated bluntly, mouth full of twinkie.
“Seriously?” Bucky asked, looking at the television with a bewildered expression.
“Yea, with all the free sites online, why pay someone to watch people get it on?” you continued, taking another bite and picking out a bag of Doritos from the pile of junk.
“No. Not—I mean. You can get pornographic movies on TV? Can just anyone watch it or?” Bucky questioned, turning to you with a curious expression.
“Wait. How do you not know about porn Bucky? Haven’t you like…been around?” you asked, utterly confused by what was going on at that moment, “Like I understand why Steve might not know about it, but…”
“I know what porn is,” Bucky rolled his eyes, “Obviously I’ve heard of it. But I’ve never seen it. Most definitely didn’t know they’d just have it on the TV like this where anyone can see it. Children even!”
“Not everyone can see it. You have to pay for it. Here look,” you leaned over and grabbed the remote from his hand and clicked on the movie title. Up popped a screen asking if you’d like to purchase the channel for a flat rate of $20 a day. “I’m still confused. How do you not know about this? Porno channels have been around since before the 90’s and I’m pretty sure you were Winter Soldiering about the normal world then.”  
“Well yea, but I spent half of it frozen and the other half well…let’s just say he didn’t have much of an interest in sex, let alone watching others have sex,” admitted Bucky, scratching his neck and discretely looking back at the television.
“Bucky…” you lingered, unsure if your assessment of the situation was correct or not, “do you want to watch the porno movie?”
Bucky blushed, looking away from you.
“Oh my god! You do!”
“(Y/N)…” whined Bucky, obviously embarrassed.
“We totally can if you want,” you said, smiling from ear to ear at the poor man sitting at the end of the bed.
“What?” Bucky turned to you, his voice dripping with surprise, “Won’t that be…I don’t know, weird?”
“Only if you make it weird,” you shrugged, “You’ve lived a deprived life Bucky Boy. I think if you want to buy a porno movie in a hotel, you should be able to. Plus, sometimes they’re really cheesy and funny. We might get a good laugh.”
“Okay…okay yea. Let’s do it,” decided Bucky, grabbing a Baby Ruth and scooting back to sit against the headboard. His body almost vibrated in excitement as you proceeded to buy porn on Tony Stark’s dime and clicked ‘Play’.
And so, the night had gone as such. In the beginning, Bucky was like a teenage boy seeing a Playboy in his dad’s basement for the first time. He stared in wide-eyed amazement as the music began to play and the camera focused on the overly done-up, but impressively attractive woman on screen. Then, as it played on, very quickly did you both realize how incredibly ridiculous the movie actually was. Between bad dialogue, poor acting, and the obviously fake moans, the two of you were in tears. You laughed and joked around as you continued to snack and watch. Near the end, however, the movie took a turn and the last scene had become a little more believable and a little less hilarious. By the end, Bucky had cleared his throat and made a casual comment about taking a shower. You nodded, telling him to take his time. It was very clear that you both needed a bit of private time.
And so, a ritual had been born.
Every time you and Bucky found yourselves spending an evening together in a hotel room, it was expected that you’d end up watching a porno, laughing your asses off and then occasionally parting ways to take care of certain needs if required. It should have felt weird. It should have been weird. You both knew that. It was the reason you didn’t tell anyone about it. But still, you both seemed to bond over the act. Inside jokes were formed, good times were had. You liked to think of it as the oddest coworker team building exercise in the world. And that’s all it was.
Until it wasn’t.
That particular night had started out like any other. You and Bucky were stuck in a grungy little motel somewhere in the Midwest. You had raided the vending machines, you were sitting on the bed, as Bucky scrolled through the TV guide to find the porn channel. The only difference this night was that the bed was smaller than usual. Often you and Bucky had to get rooms with only one bed. The guise of a couple staying the night on a road trip was much more believable and did well to cover your tracks. However, you usually tried to get rooms with at least a queen mattress. Bucky was a big guy and you liked to flop around in your sleep. Or so he told you. But, the motel in question only had rooms with doubles left. And that was fine. You could both deal with that no problem.
“What’s playing tonight at the Skinemax theatre Bucky Boy?” you asked, crossing one ankle over the other as you took a sip of orange soda. You placed in on the side table next to you and hugged a throw pillow close to your chest.
“Well, we have what appears to be a parody of The Wizard of Oz or The Sex Therapist.”
“My vote would be for the second one. I actually like The Wizard of Oz, I don’t think I need it ruined by a bad porn parody,” you confessed. Bucky nodded in agreement, pressing play on The Sex Therapist and popping an M&M into his mouth.
“I can’t wait to see how bad this is gonna’ be,” said Bucky, getting comfortable.
“I know right? Probably some guy in glasses telling a girl the only way to cure her mental issues is to fuck it out of her,” you snorted, exchanging a look with Bucky. You were both fairly familiar with the bad porn tropes at this point. In fact, one of your favorite parts of your ritual was trying to predict what was going to happen.
The screen changed from the title to the opening scene and what you saw took you by surprise for a second. The main actor happened to look a little like Bucky. Not exactly, but the resemblance was still enough to make you feel slightly awkward. He wasn’t as muscular as Bucky, but he shared the same shoulder length brown hair and rough stubble over his jaw.
“Awww Bucky Boy, why didn’t you tell me you stared in porn on the side?” you teased, hoping to distill any tension. You turned to look at him, titling your head to the side in a condescending manner.
“Shut up, I could say the same thing about you,” Bucky pointed to the screen and you turned back to see a woman who sure enough kind of resembled you. She was a little shorter than you, but you shared the same hair and eye color, as well as similar noses.
Very quickly, the two of you realized that this was unlike the porn movies you usually watched. It was…good. Really good. The acting was believable. The plot was well thought out. The actors shared a genuine chemistry and it was...hot. Very hot. Then of course to top it all off, it didn’t help that if you squinted it was almost like watching you and Bucky having hot and heavy sex right in front of you. A heat began to pool in your stomach that slowly swirled and coursed through your body. Hugging the pillow in your arms closer, you made the embarrassing realization that your nipples were rock hard. The friction of the pillow against them made you squirm in your spot on the bed. Suddenly, you were very aware of Bucky sitting next to you, close enough to touch. You glanced over, looking at him out of the corner of your eye. He appeared to be just as uncomfortable as you were. An obvious bulge starting to form in his sweats.
You cleared your throat, “Wanna’ get under the covers? It’s a bit cold in here,” you said, hoping to give you both an excuse to hide. Him, to cover his budding erection, and you to conceal the way your thighs clenched together. He graciously took the excuse, agreeing and slipping under the covers with you.
The two of you continued to watch, both afraid to admit that either of you were turned on by the movie in front of you. A pool of arousal was beginning to form in your underwear, as a particularly intense scene play on where the man had the woman bent over a desk as he spanked her ass over and over again. Bucky coughed into his hand, shifting under the blankets, his elbow bumping yours. At the contact, you jumped away from each other, Bucky muttering a few nervous apologies. It was clear that you were both feeling the effects of the movie in full force.
“You’re fine, um, this is…something,” you commented, your face heating.
“Yea, uh, yea. Very…well done,” said Bucky, not looking away from the screen.
“You know…” you began the sentence not knowing where it was going and surprising even yourself when you finished it, “if you wanted to…you know. I wouldn’t, um, I wouldn’t mind.”
“You mean…” Bucky started, looking over at you skeptically.
“I just mean, this is pretty intense. I would understand if you needed to take care of…things.”
“You mean if I wanted to get myself off,” Bucky chuckled, “You don’t see anything weird with that?”
“Well when you say it like that it is,” you rolled your eyes.
“Why wouldn’t I just go into the other room?”
“Because then you wouldn’t be able to watch the movie,” you responded, wanting to kick yourself. What were you saying? Why were you continuing to talk? It was like all the blood and common sense had left your brain and was now currently residing in your throbbing clit.
“You know what, never mind. It’s not like I was going to look or anything. Just a suggestion. Forget I—”
“Okay.”
“What?” It was your turn to look at the man beside you in surprise.
“Okay,” Bucky repeated himself resolutely before stammering on, “I guess, I wouldn’t mind either if you, ya know.”  
You nodded, turning your attention back to the screen. Neither of you moved at first, almost as if you were both afraid to be the first to take the other up on their offer. But then, the ache and need deep in your core began to overtake you once again as you watched the way the Bucky look-alike entered the woman slowly from behind as he bit her shoulder animalistically. Slowly, you lowered your hand down your chest and into your sleep shorts. At first you merely rubbed yourself through your panties, allowing yourself to press against your palm, letting the pressure give you some relief. You struggled to keep your breathing even, as you watched the two on screen pant and moan as they clung to each other, sweaty and wrecked. Your arousal was becoming so great, that the cotton material under your fingers was damp, molding to the outline of your folds. Eyes glued to the two gorgeous actors, you slipped your fingers below your last barrier and made contact with your wet sex.
A gasp escaped your throat as the pads of your fingers grazed your clit, the small bud swollen and sensitive. Bucky inhaled sharply in response to your small outburst. You stilled, embarrassed by the noise you had made and glanced over at Bucky as discretely as possible. Some of your embarrassment was dissolved when you observed the subtle movement of the blankets near Bucky’s groin. With a deep and steady breath, you turned your attention back to the movie and began to explore your folds. Dipping a single finger down, you collected some of your moisture and brought it back up, circling around your clit but not making direct contact. You teased yourself, building yourself as if you had all the time in world. The whole while, the weight of what exactly you were doing hung heavy in the air. You were in a bed with James Buchanan Barnes, your coworker and friend, watching a porno and masturbating. You’d never done anything like it in your life. No one had ever been present when you touched yourself. Even when you were in relationships. Equally so, you’d never been present when someone else masturbated. At least, not to your knowledge. It was such an intimate act. Intimate and incredibly taboo.
Before you knew it, your eyes were closed, and you no longer cared about the television screen in front of you. No, instead you allowed yourself to get off to the erotic scene around you. Bucky’s heavy breathing filled your ears, the small catches and strained noises he made spurred you on. That combined with the wet sounds from your centered had you so hot that it felt like you could combust at any moment. Reaching further down, you slipped a single finger inside of you and moaned lightly at the feeling, unable to stop yourself and really not caring at this point. It’s not like he didn’t know what you were doing.
Out of instinct, your legs spread, knees pulling up as you fingered yourself. That’s when it happened, your left leg made contact with Bucky’s bare thigh. Without thinking, you reached out with your left hand towards him, apologizing as your palm landed on his hip. You both stilled. Opening your eyes, you turned your head and met Bucky’s eyes.
“I…I um,” you struggled for words as you took in what you had just done. God, you had ruined it, “Sorry, I’ll—”
You went to finally move your hand away but were surprised when a cold metal hand locked around your wrist. You stared into the depths of Bucky’s blue eyes. He looked hungry, desperate, pleading. Licking your lips, you followed his silent command, pressing your hand back and firmer against his hip right where the material of his boxers met the exposed skin of his midriff. He closed his eyes with a shuddered breath and let his head fall back against the pillow. You stared at him for a few moments more, watching the way the blankets shifted as his hand moved up and down over his length beneath them. Eyes tracing his profile, you realized just how good-looking Bucky was. His features were a delicate mix of hard and soft, feminine and masculine. His plump lips were parted in pleasure and heavy breaths passed his lips as he continued to pleasure himself. A few moments passed before you realized that you had resumed your ministrations under the blanket. You had been so swept up in watching Bucky that you hadn’t realized just how much of a mess you were. The slick between your legs was so great, your hand was soaked, slipping easily inside of you and throughout your folds. Bringing your hand up, you rubbed your clit lightly. Your left hand clenched, fingernails digging into Bucky’s hip.
“Fuck!” Bucky moaned, his head pressing into the pillow behind him, “Do that again,” he growled, his eyes closed tightly. You did as you were told, digging your nails into the exposed skin on his hip as you rubbed your clit. The sounds he made were so delectable, so erotic. They spurred you on, your own quiet moans falling from your lips. If you could make him moan like that from touching his hip, you couldn’t imagine the type of noises he’d make if you touched him. Actuallytouched him. Feeling bold, you slid your hand down until you reached him. Cautiously, you pushed his own hand away until it was only you wrapped around his hard length. The gorgeous man lying beside you gasped at the feel of your hand.
“Oh my god. Fuck, god!” he moaned, reaching out grasp your thigh in pleasure. His fingers dug into the flesh of your inner thigh, spurring on your own arousal. You now understood why the feeling of your hand on his hip had turned him on so much. The feeling of someone so close, but not quite there as you pleasured yourself was thrilling.
Bucky’s whines and moans filled the room, growing louder and more desperate as you continued to stroke him. Up and down. Up and down. You continued to pleasure yourself, your own orgasm rising and building. But it wasn’t nearly as important to you as getting Bucky there. You wanted to be the one to get him there. You wanted to hear the sweet noises he made when he finally toppled over the edge.
“Oh my god! Yes, yes, yes!” he growled out the last ‘yes’, the sound deep and guttural and oh so delicious. It pushed you further towards your own peak, but you wouldn’t, couldn’t finish until he did. You needed it. You released him, reaching your left hand in between your legs before returning it slick with your own arousal. Faster, you stroked him, twisting your wrist and swirling around the tip with just the right amount of pressure. The lubrication from your sex making it easier. Bucky seemed to agree as every muscle in his body seemed to tense. His fingernail dug into the delicate flesh of your thigh, sure to leave indentations later. But you didn’t care because with a few more harsh pulls, he was cumming. The warm wetness of his released covered your hand, dripping down your arm.
“Fuuuuuck yes! (Y/N) oh my god,” exclaimed Bucky.
The sensation of his warm seed mixed with the sound of his release sent you over the edge. You tensed, fingers stilling over your clit as you rode out your own orgasm. Electricity shooting throughout your whole body as you spasmed and shook.
The two of your lay there, catching your breath before you finally extricated your hand from Bucky’s softening erection. You let it fall onto the mattress beside you, your body heavy and satisfied. Bucky’s hand remained on your thigh, rubbing up and down soothingly. Turning your head, you found him already looking at you, a satisfied smile spread across his face.
“So, can we make that a regular part of hotel porno nights?” asked Bucky, causing you both to let out small chuckles.
“Yes. It’s definitely part of the ritual now.”
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merflk · 4 years
Text
just to be quiet.
pairing: katie bell x angelina johnson words: 1827 link: ao3 soundtrack: quiet - lights
for the @hprarepairnet​  Quidditch Player Ships Challenge
At first, it was a choice.
When she first went back to her regular life, nothing was wrong with her speech. She didn’t like talking about the war, but it wasn’t hard to do, per se. It was just hard to find the right words. She wasn’t the only one with this problem, and the British wizard society practically exploded with initiatives in which people could express themselves and their trauma in different ways. Creative writing, arts… Some of her friends took up painting. Alicia was really into slam poetry for a while. Katie just kept giving her heart and soul to Quidditch.
Things were easier on the field. She felt more alive. She had no intention of going pro, or anything, but she loved playing. It was an outlet. When she was out there chasing those points, the war couldn’t hurt her for a little while. So every time someone tried to talk to her about it and she struggled to find her words, she went out to the field instead.
One day, she realised that she couldn’t… She couldn’t talk about the war anymore. When she tried, her throat seized up, and she couldn’t get her vocal cords to work. It was like the subject emptied her of words altogether.
It was scary, at first, but it was so easy to ignore… All she had to do was stop trying. She was far from the only person who was dealing with the war by trying to put it behind her. No one realised something else was happening. She didn’t realise it herself either.
She’d always been quiet, and working as a magical engineer meant that she didn’t have to communicate verbally at her work much. Before long, she just fell silent. By then, she knew it wasn’t a choice anymore. But it took her a little while longer to admit it.
Her parents freaked out. She complacently let them sign her up for all kinds of therapy, and bore it all for a few months. Nothing worked.
She started obsessing over words like a person with an eating disorder can obsess over calories. She hoarded them. She listened to people as much as she could – podcasts, audio books, videos… She wrote them down. She wrote so much down. Her third therapist thought that might be the key. It wasn’t.
She had a secret that she couldn’t tell anyone else.
She stopped going to therapy after a particularly bruising assessment by her fifth therapist. She refused to tell anyone what had been said, no matter how much her parents begged her to explain. She put her foot down. They were devastated, but they didn’t want to lose her, so they tried to make their peace with it, living for the hope that perhaps, in a few months, they could try again. When those months started adding up to a full year, they reluctantly started learning sign language. They still couldn’t accept that this was their new normal.
Katie’s obsession started dying down a little bit. She had started spending less time on the Quidditch fields over the months, and now she picked that up again. She felt the wind in her hair and the rain on her face and she felt a little more like herself again.
It was around that time that Angelina came back into her life.
Angelina had gone to study abroad after the war; her own way of dealing with the fall-out, Katie supposed. She needed distance from the scene of the crime to process it all. That was alright. She’d always said she’d return someday, and Katie had believed her.
They kept in touch, at first, but soon their communication was sparse. It wasn’t until Angelina came back to Britain that she realised the full extent of Katie’s speech impediment.
It had been partially deliberate from Katie’s side. It was nice to have someone not constantly worry about her. Being mute seemed to have turned into a sign on her forehead that said ‘seriously unstable’.
Letting Angelina see the full extent of it was hard, and she flinched when she caught her surprised and worried expression. She steeled herself for the inevitable questions – for the underlying current of awkwardness that most of her communication with other people now had.
The questions didn’t come. Angelina processed this new development quietly. After a few minutes, in which Katie was wildly trying not to let her eyes tear up, Angelina smiled at her and changed the subject. She leaned into yes-or-no questions. She paid close attention to Katie’s mannerisms and expressions. Fifteen minutes later, Katie was crying after all, from sheer relief. Angelina just laughed – that bright, loud, free laughter that Katie had adored so much at Hogwarts – and wiped away Katie’s tears.
She wasn’t the first person to show Katie some understanding – far from it. Some of her colleagues had been great about things (Michael Corner especially) and Alicia had definitely stumbled her way through learning to adapt to Katie’s new form of communicating. But, somehow, the fact that this was Angelina made things different. More important.
I’ve missed you so much, she realised in that moment, staring at her. It made her flush. She wasn’t ready to acknowledge that.
Still, she wasn’t surprised when she woke up from a nap one day, sprawled across Angelina’s lap in the summer sun, and realised that she was in love with her.
It seemed almost inevitable. The sky was blue, you had to wake up from every single nap, and Katie Bell was in love with Angelina Johnson.
They spent most of their time together at that point. After two consecutive months of sleeping on Katie’s couch (barring five or six nights where they’d crammed into Katie’s one-person bed), Angelina decided she might as well move in. Katie had no objections.
She was already in so deep when Angelina finally started asking questions.
“Why did you stop going to therapy?” she asked softly one night.
Katie froze and, in very quick succession, felt betrayed, stupid and then embarrassed. Had she really thought this moment wouldn’t come?
They were sitting on the couch together. Katie had her legs draped across Angelina’s lap, but she pulled them away at her question so she could pull them up and hide her face against her knees.
She shook her head.
Angelina sighed. “Katie. You haven’t talked to anyone about this. That’s not right.”
She shook her head again, a little frustrated, and lifted up her head to glare at Angelina.
Angelina didn’t budge. She just stared her down until Katie’s shoulders drooped.
Finally, Katie shifted on the couch, crossing her legs underneath her to free her arms so she could sign more easily.
It wasn’t working, she signed.
“Do you have any idea why?”
Katie’s secret stared her in the face. So big, so shameful. She couldn’t keep the tears from welling up. When Angelina saw, she scooted over to her and put a hand on her knee.
“It’s okay,” she said softly.
Angelina flinched when Katie pulled away from her, but she was just reaching over to the coffee table to grab a notepad and a pen. She sat up straight again and took a deep breath. Angelina didn’t put her hand back and Katie missed the heat immediately.
She stared at the paper. She wasn’t sure how to sign this properly. But she wasn’t sure how to phrase this properly either. But…
She looked up at Angelina, beautiful and sincere, waiting patiently for her answer. She had been waiting for months.
Katie took up the pen.
She said that no one would be able to help me talk again if I didn’t actually want to.
And there it was. The big secret.
Therapy didn’t work, because every single therapist she’d seen was trying to get her to open her mouth and speak. Katie played along, and she tried, but she couldn’t, because she didn’t really want to. Her obsession with words, her desperation, it wasn’t because she wanted to speak but couldn’t: it was because she didn’t want to speak ever again, and that scared her.
She handed Angelina the notepad.
Everyone was trying to heal her. First and foremost, their goal was to get her to speak again. It was what she should want, that much was clear. Being mute was a sign that something was seriously wrong with her. Being mute was a defect. She had to speak. She had to speak.
Angelina’s eyes widened as she read the sentence and Katie ripped the notepad out of her hands again, suddenly needing to tell her more. Angelina leaned over to watch her hand as she wrote.
I never wanted it enough. But I had to want it. That’s what they all said. That’s why I couldn’t. I tried to force myself to want it. It didn’t work. Nothing worked.
“Katie,” Angelina stammered.
She took Katie’s hands into her own, drawing her gaze back up to hers. She was still crying. One of her tears hit the paper.
Angelina took the notepad and put it back on the coffee table. Then she took Katie’s hands into her own once again. Softly, she caressed the back of her hands with her thumb.
“You don’t have to speak, Katie.”
Katie’s eyes widened when she heard the words. Something inside of her started to knit itself back together.
“Katie,” Angelina said again, her name an answer on her tongue instead of the endless question it had become, “You never have to speak again.”
Katie’s few tears turned into a torrent. She choked out a sob.
Angelina shook her head, astonished at the weight that her best friend had been carrying on her shoulders. She leaned over to pick Katie up, pulling her onto her lap and wrapping her in her embrace. Katie put her full weight into the hug, pressing her wet cheek against Angelina’s perfect collarbone.
How long had she wanted someone to tell her that? Since the start? Since before it even happened?
Why did she have to speak? Why did she have to want it so badly? Why wasn’t this okay too?
Of course she wanted it to be a choice. But she was pretty sure the only reason she was physically incapable of speaking is because people expected her to do it. And in this moment… In this moment…
She still didn’t want to speak. But she was pretty damn sure that right now, she could.
She brought up her hands to sign a clumsy thank you.
Angelina laughed and pressed a kiss against her crown. “You’re welcome.”
She hesitated for a moment, and then kissed her head again, more slowly this time. “You’re perfect, Katie,” she added softly.
Katie let out a whimper and reached up. She put her hand onto Angelina’s cheek and angled her head up.
This time, Angelina didn’t hesitate. She brought her face down and pressed her lips against Katie’s.
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necromancy-savant · 3 years
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Recently I gave into the internet ads telling me to come back to Runescape for its 20th anniversary. Back in 7th or 8th grade it was my first MMO and a game I was totally hooked on for a few years. I think I played the most from about 2004-2007 and last played in 2009. After two weeks of being completely unable to tear myself away from it, I’ve compiled my thoughts into a pros and cons list, compared to what I remember from middle/high school. 
Pros:
Leveling is way faster. I don’t think it’s just that I’m better at video games now or that you can easily get xp lamps from the Treasure Hunter mini game (in fact, the easiest way I’ve found to level is to complete quests to get Treasure Hunter keys and then use the xp rewards on combat skills), the levels themselves just go up faster even when you’re doing them normally. This is great for me as a returning player because I’m now getting close to being back to where I was without having to spend months or years getting there.  
You can also make money faster and easier. Everything costs more but you also get more money, so I now have 2 mil, but this has about the buying power that 200k did back in the day. Regardless, I can’t imagine getting 200k this easily back in high school. I did it mostly by selling random items on the grand exchange, getting rewards for quest point milestones, and mining and smithing.
The combat is more similar to that of other MMOs where you have an ability bar. You can choose to ignore this and put it on autopilot or just set the combat to work the way it used to. Either way the animations look a lot better and more varied, there are way more weapons, and you can dual wield now.
Most skills actually give you more to actually do while leveling them. For example, while mining, you have to click on different rocks periodically or they won’t yield any more ore.
You now start the game with tool belt that comes with a tinderbox, chisel, hatchet, pickaxe, etc. that is separate from your inventory. 
A lot of the quests have been reworked and many new ones are fully voice acted. It is a little weird having the NPC chat heads come with audio while mine is still silent, but I just read aloud for my character and that’s fun for me.
The graphics, while still not fantastic, are greatly improved, particularly the environments. Al Kharid looks stunning. The human character models are a bit dated, but it’s come to my attention that they are in the process of completely overhauling them.
Character customization is less limited and in particular is much more convenient. You can change your hairstyle for free at any time, all the outfits from the in-game store in Varrock are free, and the gender wizard who can trans your gender (sorry, Makeover Mage) also offers services for free now.  
The Free-To-Play content has gotten a pretty decent upgrade. Skills, quests, and areas that were once Members Only are now F2P (notably, the quest where you get a kitten, Burthorpe and Taverley, and most if not all of the new fully voiced quests.) There are a number of entirely new skills, but I haven’t really tried any of them yet. I will make time for Archaeology at some point.
Many of my cons are going to be “they removed x,” but the easy solution there is to just play Old School Runescape. While I myself have been too preoccupied with RS3 to play any OSRS, I think the community over there is actually larger.
The community seems very chill on the whole and is mostly just players trying to have a good time and help each other out. Everyone is just like, getting stoned/drunk and vibing in this game.
There’s an achievement system that will direct you to specific challenges and give you something to do if you’re lost/overwhelmed. Particularly useful in the beginning.
Fast travel for everyone, no Magic skill requirements.  
The website itself links to a Runescape Wiki that has all the game info and quest walkthroughs you could want in one place.
The quests are still fun and unique for an MMO. Lots of puzzles and creative problem-solving, lots of twists and turns.
Cons:
They took away the random events. All those NPCs are now scattered around the world. The Sandwich Lady now runs a bakery stall in Ardougne.
The Burthorpe Games Room is gone. How am I supposed to play Connect Four using death runes as my game pieces so everyone knows how edgy I am? Actually, Burthorpe on the whole looks different and a lot smaller, but at least the trolls look really cool now.
They removed the Romeo and Juliet quest and now there are 0 quests based on Shakespeare plays when really there should be 37. We are moving in the wrong direction here.
The quest Imp Catcher has been revamped so that now the beads are based on the four humors and you have to recover them from imps that have swallowed them and taken on those characteristics, and yet for some reason they missed the opportunity to rename the quest “Every Imp in (or out of) His Humour.”
This is the part where I admit that I shelled out the ten dollars for a month of membership so I could revisit all my favorite areas. While many of the F2P areas have received massive improvements, not all the Members areas have. I don’t think Ardougne has seen an update since 2008, which is a shame since it was my favorite city.
The dark wizards in front of Varrock don’t attack you on sight anymore. Idk why this bothers me but I found it shocking upon discovery.
The cities and towns now each have their own coat of arms which is cool except that I disagree with the colors they chose. Varrock should be red and blue, Ardougne should be blue and white, Falador should be white and black, and Lumbridge should be green and blue. I could go on. This is every bit as vital to me as knowing which color folders/notebooks go with which school subjects.  
The fast leveling does mean that practically everyone is at least level 100 and there’s not quite the same sense of accomplishment that used to come with reaching a high level. While it used to be very rare to see someone at the level cap it is now quite common. Still, this is on the whole a very small price to pay to be able to do more of what I enjoy without grinding for hours on end (for those who aren’t aware, you unlock many quests in this game by meeting skill requirements.)
This game is very British. I don’t think I realized just how British it is when I was younger. One of the primary downsides of this is that the aforementioned wiki’s quest walkthroughs call the first floor the ground floor, which is all well and good, but then they call the second floor the first floor and the third floor the second floor and I’ve gotten lost on multiple occasions specifically because of this.
While there is an “outfit” system that lets you override whatever you’re wearing with special appearances you can unlock through various means, there is nothing like the WoW transmog system which would allow you to override it with other in-game items.
Combat abilities are sort of locked by weapon. Like you can’t really do magic without a staff.
All in all, my impression is that Jagex has made a ton of quality-of-life changes while keeping everything that made the game great.
TL;DR play this game it’s worth it.
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juiceboxman · 4 years
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So I took Siobhan’s advice and listened to the BBC’s radio adaptation of the Lord of the Rings from the 80′s
It’s pretty good, you can listen to it here https://soundcloud.com/inkmore/sets/lord-of-the-rings-radio 
I had some issues with it but I liked it for the most part. I’m not a massive LoTR fan, only watched the films so I don’t know much, but here are the thoughts I had.
I once heard someone describe Hobbits and the Shire as “drama free people” after listening to this series, that’s obviously not the case. Hobbits seem to live for the drama, always talking shit behind one anothers back. I think Tolkien was trying to satirise rural or village life in England and I think he did a good job depicting how petty people can be.
Sam is a working class hero and Frodo doesn’t deserve him.
I understand how people can like Sam/Frodo because there is massive gay vibes coming off them. Personally I interpreted it to be unrequited and an example of some class division, with Sam being working class and Frodo being middle class. The amount of dedication and support Sam shows Frodo I don’t think Frodo would show back if the roles were reversed. I feel like its a very one sided relationship with Sam putting in way more effort than Frodo.
Bilbo’s whole thing seems to be that he went on a gap year once that turned out quite bad and now he kinda lives like a hermit.
I don’t know how reliable to the books the Radio series is, but I feel like the movies do more justice to stuff. Like in the Radio drama Gandalf makes his first appearance by just coming through the door and Bilbo is like “ah, Gandalf” and...that’s it. Movie version was better in my opinion.
I think the radio drama does a lot better to explain what the ring of power does than the movies. I always got confused by what the ring does, like in the movies all it seems to do is turn people invisible and make them into heroin addicts. With the radio I kinda understand more about it. Like the ring’s power kinda depends on the wearer, like a Hobbit could simply use it for invisibility and expanding their life force but a King could use it to control the minds of an entire enemy army and a Wizard could do even more. But it’s still vague and I presume Tolkien intended it to be, like it’s just a representation of the concept of power and this world’s equivalent of a deal with the devil. Power or wishes may be commanded but they will ultimately corrupt you.
Time in the books seem wild. Like at one point Gandalf says that Bilbo has gone off and he himself will start researching the ring and then twelve years go by and Frodo has just been fucking about, forgot that the ring even existed and Gandalf comes back and is like “oh yeah, ring is bad”
Also, Frodo is 50 when he leaves the shire???? Jesus 
Also, were the Nazgul just running about for 12 years looking for the ring? Like at one point the Nazgul knocked on some Hobbit’s door asking about Frodo and the Hobbit told him to go fuck himself and slammed a door- to a NAZGUL
Aragon’s voice in this radio drama is...way off. Like it sounds like Greg Davies. You don’t really have the soft voice of Viggo Mortinstein but the gruff righteous voice of the Principal from the Inbetweeners 
Elrond denying Aragon to marry his daughter until he becomes king of Gondor is like a stern dad refusing you to date his daughter until you get a real job.
Also Aragon gets the reforged sword, like, immediately when they leave Riverdale. Which is a bit weird to me.
It makes sense why Frodo is trusted with the ring. A king couldn’t be trusted because he’d use it for conquest. A Wizard could overthrow Sauron but in doing so would become just as bad so you’re back to square one. With a Hobbit, there is no desire for conquest or any wish for power outside of simply having the ring. Even when Golum had it all he used it for was to hunt fish and extend his life cycle. I’m curious of whether if Sam had carried the ring all the way to Mordor if he could will himself to destroy it or would he have failed like Frodo. 
Gimly and Legolas’ friendship is so cute. Like they start off disliking eachother but bond over their prowess in combat and plan out a gap year after the whole fellowship where they see the sights of middle earth. So wholesome
I don’t understand why they didn’t just kill Golum. Like I know he was important to find the way to Mordor and was ultimately necessary to destroy the ring after Frodo failed, but like the idea of “don’t kill him because of pity and he also probably has a part to play” is bullshit to me. Like he’s so gross and troublesome. It’s the same excuse Jedi have with “oh you can’t kill a Sith Lord because striking them down means you need to embrace the dark side” bitch Luke Skywalker round house kicked a guy into a Sarlack Pick- whaddya mean he can’t kill this wrinkly ass Emperor??? Ethical mental gymnastics are mind blowing.
For me the moment that made me really dig the series was when the Fellowship disbanded. Like shit hit the fan and everyone’s forced to do their own shit, really engaging storytelling.
The series is quite short when you consider all the battles are short cutted. Like in the radio drama you’ll hear a series of grunts for 30 seconds and then a song about how bad that battle was. I guess it would take a lot to depict a battle purely by means of audio.
Seriously the series is quite short, like it’s 13 hour long episodes and by episode five I’m like “oh shit we’re starting the second book already? Damn” It felt half the time there was so much stuff cut out I don’t know why
I think the radio drama is best suited for people who have either watched the movies or read the books. Like I don’t think it’s well suited for people who haven’t seen LoTR content before. Like the scene with the Balrog there is no description of what it looks like.
Also, Gandalf fought the Balrog from the deepest dungeons to the tip of the mountain? Damn, Gandalf’s leg day must be intense
I love the introduction of Treebeard and the Ents. Like you get this horrific imagery with warring Orcs and other evil creatures and then turn a hard 180 to these hilarious tree people. I guess that’s why the LoTR is so great. Because you do get those hard, gruesome battles but you also get these lovely peaceful wholesome scenes.
Quick question, how do you meet a guy called Saruman and then be surprised that he’s the bad guy? It’s the same deal with Victor VonDoom.
Also, did Tolkien have to have all the big villains names sound so similar?
Man, Tolkien loves having people end up together. With the Horse Princess who got friendzoned by Aragorn meeting up with that guy from Gondor. You love to see it
So like, was the King of Nazgul just talking shit or can he not be killed by a man? Like could anyone kill him by stabbing him the face or did the Horse Princess just find a loophole?
At one point this woman kinda makes fun of this flower called Kings Seed or some shit and Aragon basically calls her a THOT 
Kinda sad the series didn’t have more dragons. Like I would have liked to see a huge black dragon at the final battle at Mordor. But that’s just me, I love me some dragons
Also, the final battle at the gates of Mordor is so endearing. Like they don’t even know if Frodo and Sam are still alive but they go to war anyway because they believe they are and in doing so keep the eye of Sauron off of them. It’s really heart warming
The radio’s version of the destruction of the ring is kinda anticlimactic. Like I said it’s better with the dialogue than it is at the representation of physical actions like combat. Like if you didn’t know what happened at the end of the lord of the rings and you were listening to this you would have no idea that Golum fell into the lava with the ring 
I love the owner of the Prancing Pony’s reaction to Aragon becoming King of Gondor. It’s like “hey, remember that guy you saw shit in the woods that one time? Yeah he’s the President”
Also Sam’s Pony lives at the end of it. Love to see it. I feel like Tolkien read his first draft to his kids and they were like “what happened to Sam’s pony?” and he was like “uh, yeah, the pony....the pony lived! yes! the pony found its way back to town” you can tell this story is vibing on a different level than GoT or ACOC
Hobbits returning to the Shire fucking shit up like level 16 PCs returning to the town they started the campaign in
Also, all the Hobbits in the shire have no idea what the fuck went down? Like I understand they live in the middle or nowhere but that’s astounding 
It’s so funny what ends up happening to Saruman. Like he goes from being the second in command of the Dark Lord to being a shitty local businessman in a Village in Yorkshire
I can see how people can really get into the LotR. Like a world like GoT is just fucked beyond compare and any happy ending will be bittersweet at most. But here you have an ending where the characters leave the world better than when they found it
Frodo asking Sam to live with him was him totally trying to get with Sam, right? And Sam was like “oh that’s nice Frodo, but I have gf” and Frodo’s like “oh that’s alright, she can move in too!” it’s like watching a man back step his request for love by inviting a family into his home. You missed your shot Frodo! You had a whole year with Sam and you blew it!
Sam ultimately moving on from Frodo with his thicc Hobbit gf is the character development we deserved
That said, in the movies Sam getting a gf was a thing at the end of the third movie- like he’d been so shy before hand but after almost dying he’s like “fuck it, might as well give my shot” but here in radio drama he...had a gf all along? Like we only hear about her in the final episode and he’s like “oh yeah, my gf ain’t too happy. I left her for a year to fuck about with you so now I need to marry her. Woops” very startling
Also love how Tolkien represented PTSD with Frodo. I don’t think works of Fantasy like this before Tolkien really did this stuff justice. That said the ending is a bit weird. Like I understand that the “Undying Lands” are supposed to reflect Tolkien’s belief in Catholicism, Eternal Life and Heaven. But it’s really hard to not interpret the ending as Frodo as struggling to deal with his PTSD so he commits suicide. Because the Undying Lands is a place that Sam cannot follow. It’s heart breaking but that’s the vibe I got off the ending.
So yeah, there’s my thoughts. It’s pretty good but I’d only recommend the series to anyone who’s either seen the movies or read the books. If this was your first introduction to LOTR I don’t know if that would be any good. 
Also, while we’re here I recommend Escape from the Bloodkeep from Dimension 20. It’s  DnD actual play series that is a slight parody of LOTR. It’s really good.
youtube
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tfw-no-tennis · 3 years
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hxh....MUSICAL
as soon as i saw that a hunter x hunter musical from the year 2002 starring the OG 99 VAs existed, i knew i has to see this...so i set out and watched the nightmare of zoldyck (i would later find out that theres ANOTHER musical, which i plan to watch too)
luckily its all on youtube subbed! in 360 quality...oh hell yes lmao
ok i logically knew this was gonna be a musical but seeing the characters singing is like. a lot. THIS IS SO STRANGE 
musical illumi is played by a woman which is interesting. shes got a good voice 
i think they just panned to killua but it was so pixelated that i legitimately could not tell hvbadjkfbjkdsf
i have no idea whats going on vhbajdfhhajsdf theres a bunch of people falling over on stage...i think theyre dying? who are yall 
oh shit backup dancers?
lmao illumi killed the backup dancers rip.
oh that IS killua lol. s/o to the 3 pixels that are visible 
is this gonna be the zoldyck arc but a musical? lmao
OH WAIT IS THAT KURAPIKA AND LEORIO? i cant even tell lmaoooo
i can 100% tell these are fan subs lmaooo i love bad fan subs SO MUCH it makes a viewing experience even better
this is p much just a musical version of the manga/anime so far lmao i love it 
the way theyre spelling zoldyck is. a lot 
is every character gonna get an intro song. how much of this musical is singing and how much of it is dialogue cause theres defs a range w/musicals 
lmao i love gon leorio and kurapikas interactions even here, they rlly feel like two parents being dragged around by their energetic kid 
i cant even see the set at all so im just gonna assume theres like, the gate and all that behind them, but it all just looks like a dark wall to me lmao
i love singing exposition 
HISOKAS IN THIS???????????????????? oh my lorddddd 
OH i see now in the description that hes played by the 99 VA too lmao i love it 
wow musical hisoka rlly b like [writes himself into the zoldyck family arc]
oh here we go w/the song introducing the zoldycks 
damn grandpa got mad flips 
this is. wild 
its especially wild that alluka isnt here bc she like...didnt even exist yet at this point in the story 
zoldyck family sitcom wow 
i see the gon/killua romance is still going strong in the musical 
oh so they did all the training and goin thru the door stuff offscreen lol
this is actually doing a pretty good job expanding on the canon stuff from this arc lol so props. espec w/showing more of killua being scared of illumi 
oooh this is interesting actually, this is like....an AU where illumi is present during this arc, and how that would change things. And Also They Sing 
the zoldycks are so fucked up lmao 
also i feel like theres some ‘early adaptation’ character weirdness going on, like w/the grandpa, who seems much less intense here than in the anime (at least after seeing him in the yorknew arc), and milluki, who seems like a gag character here lmao
oh my god lmao is hisoka here to visit illumi?
the hilarious irony of illumi telling killua that assassins cant have friends, then going to hang out with his good buddy hisoka
kurapika is the only one here with a brain cell (for now) 
ah yes hisoka and illumi doing their nasty murder flirting thing 
HISOKA IS SO NASTYYYY I HATE HIM tho his actor is very good and smarmy
OH its canary!! is there uh. blackface goin on there. i cant actually tell, what with there being only 3 pixels present at any given time
really love how half of this is just the regular arc but with the characters singing abt stuff during it 
the lady playing killuas mom has a rlly good screeching voice jesus lmao 
ohh i love musical fighting so much
the sound fx on kurapikas sticks are cracking me up
butlers got mad cartwheels
oh theyre doing the coin thing! this is so out of order lmao
oh my god i love that theyre doing like, sick dance moves while coin flipping
ah the zoldyck messenger hawk makes an appearance. i love that thats canon and real
the 12 yr old gay romance is REAL even here 
the subs seems to be translated very literally, especially in the songs, so its honestly not clear what theyre even singing about vbsjkdjhfskjfd
gon and killua singing about each other is adorable tbh. also i love how silva asks killua abt his friends and killua is like yeah i made some friends. and then only talks abt gon ahjsduhfabhskdf gayboy 
ok so the zoldyck arc is like, ending, but theres still an hr of musical left so whats even gonna happen lmao. also where did hisoka go
oh no the audio and video arent synced anymore huvbhjadfbhjsakdf
oooh they asked canary to come w/them, thats cool
theyre having a party??? hvbajdsfbhasjkdf
oh shit??? what did zeburo just do to killua??? WHATS GOING ONNN lol this is UNCHARTED TERRITORY 
OH GOD IT WAS ILLUMI. SHOULDVE KNOWNNN
omggg all their formal outfits....everyone cheering wildly at kurapika is cute 
LEORIO AND KURAPIKA DANCING.....
the fact that both killua and gon are taller than kurapika in this is rlly funny 
the idea that the zoldycks are also highly trained ballroom dancers is super hilarious to think about, even moreso when you consider how isolationist they are 
seriously grandpas got mad flips
also i love leorios outfit 
this feels like a filler arc tbh. and i dont mean that in a bad way!
leorio trying to get kurapika to go to the hot springs with him lmaoooo
HVDSJBJFSBFJHS HISOKAS BACK. IN DISGUISE. OH MY GOD 
hisokas stage presence is fantastic gotta say 
damnnnn dad zoldycks got mad flips too. guess it runs in the family 
props to the actors for managing to keep their wigs on while flipping around like that 
its so fuckgin funny thats hisoka just introduces himself as illumis friend, when this whole arc is all about how assassins Cannot Have Friends 
so hisoka is just here trying to get family approval too huh
gon miming a fishing trip was adorable and realistic...sometimes u get skunked and It Just Be Like That
leorio is rlly tryin to shoot his shot w/kurapika and kp is just Not Realizing huh vbjsdufjbsaukjf
wow leorio breakin the fourth wall like that lmao 
wow so illumi hacked killua. rude 
hisoka and illumi are lowkey hilarious in this 
leorio is rlly sending every signal possible to kurapika and kp is like. No 
leorio: killua is a scary murder baby, but also im adopting him 
kurapika singing abt how weird it is having friends after dedicating their life to Revenge(tm) is v on brand 
HISOKA OH BOY 
LMAOOOO HISOKA IS SUCH A FUCKING SNITCH I CANT 
no wonder illumi didnt wanna tell him abt his evil plan lmaoooo he fucked up even telling hisoka that much clearly 
the zoldyck siblings just staring at hisoka in confusion bc How The Fuck Did This Clown Get In Our House hvbhjdksfnjksdf
you can tell the subs are off when the audience is cracking up but you dont even see a joke there lmao
oh my goddd hisoka using bungee gum to make everyone dance is. hilarious 
oh my god synchronized dancing 
HVBSHDJFBJDSKFHBSJ illumi doing a dance routine independent of hisoka and hisoka being like ????? vhbjsdkhfjkjsdnfkj THIS IS HILARIOUS
supremely funny to me how illumi makes such a big point abt assassins not having friends, yet hisoka is announcing himself as illumis friend w/every given opportunity hvbhajdkdfhjskf
this feels so filler arc i love it. thats so charming to me since the 2011 anime doesnt have any filler (from what i can tell?) 
kurapika and leorio rlly feel like killuas parents here lmaooo
this is all dramatic but kurapika keeps repeating what leorio says and its cracking me up hvbajhkdhfbjsk
i lov this fambly 
ah, even in the musical illumi is still such a manipulative bastard 
i feel like the quality just went down EVEN MORE, which i didnt think was even possible hvbhjkdsfskf. at least the audio is synced w/the video again
illumis got a good evil laugh 
this is the exact brand of dramatic angsty filler content that i was hoping for in this lmao i love it 
oooh more zoldycks 
honestly this is more how i expected the zoldyck arc to go in canon hbshjdkujfkjsfdas
dramatic gay filler angst + somewhat incorrect fansubs = perfection
OH SHIT CANARY 
BRO DID SHE JUST DIE???? OMFG
the subs keep calling illumis power ‘spells’ which seems to imply that illumi is some sort of assassin wizard rather than a nen user hvbsudhfkjsdjgf
come to think of it, what point was the manga at when this musical was written? it has to be pretty early on, maybe just as nen was being introduced
gon boutta go ham on illumi...Get His Ass
OHHHH GON DOING THE ICONIC ARM GRAB....ARM GRAB REPRISE
gon doin the good ole reliable shounen ‘punch your friend and yell at them so they snap out of a funk’ lol
i do love how typically shounen this is. friendship speeches! but delivered by SONG!
illumis main hobby is butting in at the worst possible moments 
HISOKAS BACK OH BOY
hisokas playing card blocked killuas hit hvbhjakdhsfjnakdsf thats like in jojo when those manga blocked dios knives 
wow the whole zoldyck squad is here
ooh forbidden zoldyck lore lmao
killua: mom u guys are lame im joining this much cooler family now. bye 
i love how hisoka is just weirdly lurking around for all this zoldyck drama lmao
silva seems like such a bro in this but i feel like hes rlly not like that in canon vhauidfhbsjhdkjfk
oh nope there he goes w/the evil laugh lmaooooo
sorry dude but leorio is his dad now 
gon sniffing zeburo hgbajkdfshbjkdfjnsjdk oh my god
oh hell yeah some synchronized main character finale dancing 
actor showcase! everyone loves kurapika which, same 
ah so the director of this musical also directed the sailor moon musicals, which i didnt know existed but of course that exists...thats funny considering the hxh mangaka is married to the sailor moon mangaka 
anyways that was fun honestly!!!! i fuckgin love musicals, and musical adaptations of non-musical source materials can be like, SO different tonally, but this honestly felt like a fun filler 
it was really interesting seeing something based on the canon from this early on - as i said above, some of the characterizations (like the zoldycks) seems a bit different than we’re used to, but others were spot on - like hisoka only showing up intermittently to sow chaos and do nothing else vhjkadhbfhkjdsfnj im assuming the yorknew arc hadnt happened at this point, but hisokas actions in this musical were hilariously similar to how he acted in the yorknew arc, so, props. 
plus it was cool to see the ‘what if’ factor w/hisoka and illumi also being there, espec illumi interacting w/killua bc its so wildly different from how killua reacts to any of his other family members - hes clearly scared of illumi, in a way he isnt w/anyone else, and that was done well here w/the scene where illumi threatens killua’s friends to get killua to listen to him
also the angst was honestly great, and there was some REALLY sweet wholesome parts that i loved. and the music wasnt half bad either!!
i think the VAs did a great job playing the characters - hisokas VA was especially great (and i really loved kurapika too). gons hair was not very similar to how it looks in the show so it was a little more obvious that he was being played by a grown woman, but still a great performance. 
anyways fun times, i love musicals and this was a fun ole 2000s filler shounen musical adaptation
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missmudpie · 4 years
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Name Ten Films That Have, For Whatever Reason, Stuck With You
@millennialfangirl tagged me, and this was harder than I thought and I might have gone over the ten.  Also, tumblr is being tumblr and not cooperating with gifs, so only the first film has one.  Here they are, in chronological order:
Casablanca, 1942
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Look, Casablanca is the best film ever made.  Is it my favorite?  No, but it’s the best, much better than Citizen Kane, which is often heralded as the pinnacle of cinema but is about a rich old white guy who loves his sled.
Here’s looking at you, kid.  Of all the Gin joints.  Round up the usual suspects!  I’m shocked - shocked!- to find that gambling is going on in here (Your winnings, sir.). This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.  As Time Goes By.  Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman and a supporting cast to die for.  Renault throwing away the bottle of Vichy water.
I could go on, but here’s why Casablanca has stuck with me: It’s one of my Dad’s favorite movies, too.  When I think of Casablanca, I think of him.  One Christmas (I can’t remember if I was in high school or college), the old timey theater in town played Casablanca.  I got us tickets as his Christmas present.  It is one of my favorite movie-going experiences (more on that below).
Star Wars, 1977
When I was little, we used to go to my maternal grandparents’ house every Tuesday, and I would watch Star Wars.  I was probably waaaaay too young - there’s audio of me playing out Star Wars with my My Little Ponies and I was like, three.  On my college essay, I wrote about how Return of the Jedi was my first movie (true story, I was six months old and slept through the whole thing, because apparently taking your sleeping infant to the movies is something parents did in the ‘80s).
Star Wars is where I learned about the Hero’s Journey.  About princesses and rebellions and wizards and flying spaceships.  I devoured the Timothy Zahn books and Young Jedi Knights series.  And yes, I’m a little down on it all after Episode IX - but I still love it.  It has impacted me in so many ways.  I know my life would be the poorer for not having seen it.
Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981
If Princess Leia was the first damsel I saw who get herself out of distress, Marian Ravenwood was the one who solidified the idea that women were perfectly capable of getting into and out of trouble themselves, thank you very much.  Then there’s Harrison Ford in being Peak Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones - Intelligent, clever, brave-bordering-on-reckless.  Who wouldn’t want to go on far-flung adventures to find hidden treasure, and maybe punch some Nazis while you’re at it?
The Goonies, 1985
Speaking of far-flung adventures, how about going on one in your hometown?  Booby-traps, pirates, Italian gangsters, Sloth, hidden treasure - it’s every kid’s playtime fantasy come magically to life.  I still want to go down those tunnel slides and shoot out into a hidden lagoon.  They just don’t make movies like this any more - fun, family movies that don’t dumb down the action or characterization for kids, that’s a ride for both kids and parents alike.  This was the first movie I showed my kids during quarantine.
The Princess Bride, 1987
Inconceivable.  The Six Fingered Man.  Death cannot stop truly love.  Only mostly dead.  Have fun storming the castle!  Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die.  ROUSes.
This is a perfect movie.  It is.  It is lightning in a bottle and it should never, ever be remade (those were just rumors, right?).  This is romance and humor and suspense and two of the best swordfights in cinematic history (fight me on this.  No, really, fight me.  I took fencing in college because of this movie), all wrapped up in the sweetest Happily Ever After.  I love it so much.
Jurassic Park, 1993
I’ve told this story before, but here it is again.  In the summer of 1993, I was 10 and my sisters were 8 and just turned 6, and we convinced our parents that we were for sure old enough to see Jurassic Park - a book my mother had read and thus knew what level of horror to expect.  It did not go well.  I ended up burying my head in my dad’s chest; my youngest sister was in my mom’s lap; and my middle sister, with no where left to go, ended up under the seat in front of her.
Now, it’s the movie we quote (Hold on to your butts).  When my youngest had jello recently, I told him to hold it up and look scared, then texted the picture around.  We all knew immediately what I meant.  The DVDs are given as gifts and then immediately stolen.  My youngest sister can recite the entire movie.  I can’t wait to scare my sons with it.
The Shawshank Redemption, 1994
I don’t remember this movie when it came out; I remember it was this movie I hadn’t really heard of at the Oscars, where it won none.  Not until I was much older did I realize what a travesty that was.  I first watched this on a pep band bus trip in college - not the time or place to truly appreciate it.  Months later, I rented it (remember renting movies?) and fell in love with it.
This is a beautiful movie about friendship and hope and finding light in the darkness.  It’s always on TV, and I will always stop and watch at least a few minutes of it.  The ending - the last half hour, really - is pure cinematic poetry, but noting beats Red’s monologue as he travels to find Andy on that Mexican beach.
That Thing You Do!, 1996
This movie is Capital-D-Delightful.  Just thinking about it makes me smile.  This is the movie that tipped me from Tom Hanks Fan to I Love Tom Hanks and Need Him to Be My Best Friend.  He WROTE and DIRECTED this gem of a movie.  The talent.  The song is legitimately catchy, the characters are Wonder-ful (see what I did there?), and it’s all in Day-Glo ‘60s color.  I love this movie and make no apologies.
Toy Story 2, 1999
Speaking of Tom Hanks, this is my favorite Toy Story.  Look, the first is a technological marvel, but Woody is an ass throughout most of the film.  The fourth is it’s own thing, and the third is really, really good and I ugly sob at the end, but it’s also got a lot going on there.  But the second - oh the second is beautiful in its simplicity.  In addition to all of Andy’s toys, we get Jesse and Bullseye and even Stinky Pete.  It’s an ode to friendship and love and the realization that life, for toys and people, eventually ends, and we have to appreciate every moment we have now.  It is my favorite Toy Story.
Finding Nemo, 2003
I don’t know if it’s my favorite Pixar film, though.  It depends on the day, but most of the time that distinction goes to Finding Nemo.  I first saw it when I was twenty, a decade before my first kid was born, but it has greatly influenced how I parent.  The conversation between Dory and Marlin in the whale, the idea that keeping anything from happening to your kid cuts both ways, the leap of faith, the mantra of “just keep swimming,” the notion that your kids don’t just want, but need to have independence - it’s all there, in Pixar’s stunning ocean animation.  I get choked up just thinking about it.  “Now go have an adventure!”
Honorable Mentions:
Forrest Gump, 1994
I loved this movie.  I love Tom Hanks in this movie.  I would watch it in snippets during college, while I ate dinner or lunch or just needed a quick study break.  But it’s been years since I last saw it, and I wonder if it still holds up.  It’s a Boomer movie made when the Boomers were - basically, just a little older than we old Millennials are now.  It’s American history in the last half of the twentieth century, but the big events - Vietnam, Civil Rights, even AIDS - are filtered through the lens of a straight white man who kinda wanders into history but doesn’t really get why the moments are historic.  I feel like it’s a film I appreciated at a certain time, but wouldn’t love as much now.
Avengers: Endgame, 2019
There just hasn’t been enough time for this movie to make the list.  Ask about it again in ten years.  Although, to be honest, I haven’t seen the whole thing since I saw it in theaters, and I fear it won’t live up.  It was the best movie-going experience I’ve ever had.  The crowd was so into it, and the last battle had everyone, me included, screaming at the screen.  Part of what makes Endgame so special to me is that, among the three big franchises that ended last year (Avengers, Star Wars, Game of Thrones), this one actually stuck the landing.  And yes, I could argue that Steve Rogers’ end doesn’t actual make any sense and deprives Peggy Carter of her agency - but in the emotional moment of the film, it worked.  That portal scene is the culmination of twenty-plus films, and I still can’t believe it works as well as it does.
Thanks again for this! I second tagging @lerayon for this.  I feel like I’m kinda cold-calling mutuals from our Arrow days, so no pressure.  But I’d love to hear what @machawicket @dust2dust34 @dettiot @theshipsfirstmate​ have on their lists.
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