#all these movie and tv show names are complicated to translate

[inevitably-johnlocked]

hi my dearest

any fics that are based on a movie? or good alternative meeting ones?

Hi Lovely!

I've got a TONNE of Movie-inspired fics! What a grand excuse to post the next part of my Crossovers list! Hope you enjoy all of these!! I've also gone through my MFL list to pad out this list a bit more, hee hee.

If anyone has some more to add that isn't on one of my numerous movie / TV-related lists, please do!

And finally, I actually ALSO had WiPs on this list but I had to remove them because Tumblr has a link limit, so if you guys want me to post a separate 2.5 list with those on it, just let me know! I've about 20 MORE fics I could add here :P

MOVIE / BOOK / TV CROSSOVERS and FUSIONS Pt 2

See also:

Crossovers & Fusions Pt 1

Crossovers & Fusions Pt 1.5 (MFL)

Fairy Tales and Fantasy

TV, Movies, and Books AU (Fantasy Pt. 2)

Wonderful Life AU

Sherlock / Hannibal Crossovers

Science Fiction / Fantasy

Urban / Modern Fantasy

Disney-esque Fics

Moulin Rouge AU

TV Show AU

Sherlock x  Good Omens Crossovers (Updated Apr 2022)

Hogwarts / Wizarding World AU (MFLs) (Potterlock)

BOOKMARKS

In The End by whitchry9 (K+, 9,677 w., 17 Ch. || Memento Fusion || Amnesia, Growing Old, Hurt / Comfort, Friendship, Heavy Angst) – When a brain injury leaves Sherlock unable to make new memories, John wonders how Sherlock will cope, and what it will mean for The Work and their life. Because after all, how can you live if you can't feel time passing?

Domestic Matters by ohlooktheresabee (M, 29,404 w., 6 Ch. || Fantasy AU || First Meetings, Developing Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Domestic Fluff, BAMF Sherlock, BAMF John, Idiots in Love, Misunderstandings, Supernatural Elements, Implied / Referenced Child Abuse, Elf Sherlock, Human/Elf Politics, Emotional Abuse, Possessive Sherlock, Anxious Sherlock, Buddy Greg) – All flatmates need to work out domestic matters between them - who does the dishes, who takes out the rubbish, how often does the carpet need to be vacuumed - these are part and parcel of sharing a living space together. However, when you’re an elf and your flatmate is going to be a human you just met, this rather complicates things…Very loosely inspired by 'The Elves and The Shoemaker' by The Brothers Grimm.

Out There by DiscordantWords (T, 131,695 w., 10 Ch. || X-Files Fusion || Past Soldier John, Panic Attacks, POV Alternating Present Tense, Anxious John, Canon Adjacent, Deductions, Obsessive Sherlock,, Travelling, Sherlock’s Family, Jealous Sherlock, Mind Palace John, Awkward Flirting, Batting Cage, Kidnapped/Abducted John, Semi-Reverse Reichenbach, Worried/Anxious Sherlock, Hospital, Slow Burn, UST, Case Fic, Government Conspiracy, Aliens, UFOs, Mutants, Mutual Pining, First Kiss, Coma John, Forehead Touching, Hand Holding, Drinking/Bars, Past Jolto) – FBI Special Agent John Watson, medical doctor and army veteran, is assigned to assist eccentric genius Sherlock Holmes with paranormal investigations on the X-Files project.

MARKED FOR LATER

Asteroidea by etothepii (T, 1,769 w., 1 Ch. || His Dark Materials Fusion || Daemon Sherlock) – In the pocket of his trousers, next to his phone, Mycroft carries the standard-issue steel capsule meant for protecting arthropod daemons. When people ask about it, he smiles and tells them she's not fond of the light, or of people other than himself. This is a lie.  [TRANSLATION: Русский] Part 1 of Asteroidea

Have we met before? by avalanching effect (G, 2,013 w., 1 Ch. || Sherlock and Co. Crossover || Crack / Humour, Holding Hands, Banter, POV John) – "Uhm, we got an anonymous tip about some suspicious activity that would be happening in Regent's park today, thank you anonymous tip giver. It said— actually I don't know what it said, it was sent directly to Sherlock and he won't let me read it."

Rider on the Storm by swabloo (G, 3,715 w., 1 Ch. || Alex Rider Crossover || BAMF John) – Sometimes he thinks about turning to Sherlock and saying, 'look, my name isn't actually John,' and telling him about how he's been living off adrenaline since he was fourteen.

The Unexpected Threat by J_Baillier (T, 4,283 w., 1 Ch. || Military AU / Pacific Rim Fusion || Established Relationship, Medical Conditions, Coronaviruses, Doctor John, Bratty Sherlock, Romance, Science Fiction, Futuristic Medicine, Ghost Drifting AKA Telepathy, Medical Hurt/Comfort, Sexual Healing) – The kaiju are not the only threat to the security and well-being of the staff of PPDC's Chard's Rift base. It's the year 2050, and a coronavirus epidemic sweeping the planet has reached The Azores. Part 4 of the At The Edge of Our Hope

lionheart by dreamweavernyx (G, 4,851 w., 1 Ch. || Harry Potter Crossover || Character Study, Friendship) – Some days, Molly finds her eyes straying to that drawer in her desk, the one holding a slim piece of wood and the memories of a life she's left behind.

Queer Eye: Johnlock Edition by fellshish (T, 5,799 w., 1 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Queer Eye Fusion || Post S4, Humour, Angst with Happy Ending, Reality TV, First Kiss, Love Confessions) – John is Not Gay, Sherlock is Married to his Work. It’s been years and years, and Molly is fed up with her clueless friends. She nominates John for the new season of Netflix’s ‘Queer Eye’, and asks the Fab Five to not only renew his closet, but drag the man out of it.

Friend by esama (G, 7,909 w., 1 Ch. || Harry Potter Crossover || Character Death, Kid Fic) – Sherlock finds the skull when he's five.

Every Atom of This Summer on My Tongue by  221b_careful_what_you_wish_for (M, 9,524 w., 5 Ch. || 1980’s / Call Me By Your Name Fusion || Summer Romance, Desire, Pining, Angst With Happy Ending, POV Sherlock, Sexual Experimentation, Masturbation, Emotional Sex, Sensuality, 1980s Italy) – While vacationing at his family’s villa on the Italian coast, 18-year-old Sherlock finds himself attracted to John Watson, an older American graduate student working on his first novel. They fall into a passionate affair, desperately wishing their languid afternoons and sultry summer nights would never end.(Inspired by the novel 'Call Me By Your Name.' You don't need to have read the book or seen the film to enjoy this.)

All Is Fine by Iwantthatcoat (T, 11,063 w., 7 Ch. || Zoolander Crossover || Agender / Nonbinary Sherlock, Occasional Transphobic Language) – Sherlock's on a case...undercover at an exclusive fashion show as a model. That's right... he's giving it his All. Pop stars are dying, and there's one common thread...a scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and it's our duty to unravel it, and isolate it, and...make a really nice garment out of it.

Takes Two To Tango by phqyd_roar (E, 12,956 w., 6 Ch. || Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Crossover || Sherlock/Iain & Johnlock || Post S4 Fix It, Jealous John, Whirlwind Romance, Fluff and Angst, Dirty Talk, Bottom Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Alternate Ending) – Just when Sherlock Holmes is beginning to think his relationship with John Watson will never recover from all its ups and downs, he meets Iain MacKelpie, freelance photographer back from Afghanistan, who looks exactly like John Watson.

Better Call Sherlock by Gregorovitch (M, 13,032 w., 4 Ch. || Better Call Saul Crossover || Established Relationship, Case Fic, Legal Drama, Implied Sex, Happy Ending) – Sherlock and John are assigned a case in Albuquerque, New Mexico this time. Shenanigans ensue, with lots of chicanery.

The Adventure of Downton Abbey by PlaidAdder (T, 13,427 w., 1 Ch. || ACD Canon / Downton Abby Crossover || Undercover for a Case, Case Fic) – Desperate to free her husband from prison, Anna Smith Bates tracks down Holmes in the country retreat he shares with Dr. Watson and persuades him to come out of retirement and investigate the death of Vera Bates. Holmes visits Downton Abbey under an assumed identity, with Watson in disguise as his valet. Working together again helps them cope with a recent trauma that severely tested their longstanding relationship--and also allows them to uncover a solution consistent with and yet so much more satisfying than the one used on the actual show.

Scream! by johnwatso (E, 15,250 w., 8 Ch. || Scream Crossover || Post S4, Horror / Slasher, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Case Fic, Minor Character Death, Copycat Killer, Three Garridebs Moment) – An unknown number starts calling Sherlock and asking questions about horror movies. John is pretty sure it's a serial killer.

The Sinking Of The Titanic: Sixty Years Later by flawedamythyst (T, 15,340 w., 1 Ch. || Historical Titanic Fusion || John POV, Deaths) – John Watson is interviewed for a documentary being made for the sixtieth anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. The story he tells is not the one the interviewer was expecting.

Sanctuary by a_different_equation (E, 15,437 w., 7 Ch. || Medieval AU / Canterbury Tales Fusion || Blacksmith Sherlock, Guard John, Secret Relationship, Dom Sherlock, Sub John, Porn With Plot, Rimming, Blow Jobs, Anal, BAMF Female Characters) – England, 1230: John Watson is an ex-soldier who works as the head of the guards in his hometown. Sherlock Holmes, the local blacksmith, is his secret.

Over Cloud and Under Cloud by khorazir (T, 16,477 w., 3 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Cabin Pressure Crossover || Post-TRF, Angst, Humour, Pre-Slash, Pining) – After his Fall, Sherlock travels the world to destroy what remains of James Moriarty's criminal empire. When things don't go according to plan and he finds himself in desperate need of a discreet means of travel, cue MJN Air... Part 1 of the Over/Under series

The Hopes and Fears of all the Years by Joaquinbumblebee24 (T, 16,567 w., 11 Ch. || House MD Crossover || UAP Divergence, Illness, Medical Inaccuracies, Alternating POVs, POV House, POV John, Medical Professionals, Developing Relationship, Flashbacks, Sports References, Neurology/Neuroscience) – 27 years ago, House became the father of Sherlock Holmes. 27 years later, every father's worst nightmare came true when Sherlock's roommate, John Watson, called in the middle of the night to inform House that his son was ill.

It's About Time, Don't You Think by WaywardSpark (M, 17,113 w., 4 Ch. || About Time Fusion || Time Traveller John, Romantic Comedy, Magical Realism, Bars and Pubs, Pining John, Background Case) – If you were to ask Sherlock Holmes where he and John Watson met for the first time, he would confidently be able to tell you Lab room 2, St Bart's Hospital, London, 29th of January 2010 at 11:47 in the morning. For John Watson, it's an entirely different story.

In Arduis Fidelis by Raliena (T, 18,628 w., 10 Ch. || GI Joe Crossover || Captivity, Surgery, BAMF John, John “Three Continents” Watson, POV John Watson, Prisoner of War, Cobra - Freeform, soldier John, John-centric, Doctor John Watson, John is a Very Good Doctor, Violence) – Once upon a time John was a Soldier and a Doctor. And he was known John or Doc or Doctor. But things change. And he *earned* his right to the name “Three Continents Watson”. Part 1 of the Three Continents Watson series

Hinder-Them Holmes by breathesomeday (T, 19,485 w., 1 Ch. || Wreck-It Ralph Fusion / Gaming AU || Angst, Fluff) – “My name is Sherlock Holmes and I’m a bad guy.”

Until the End of my Days by chervilspotatoes (M, 20,272 w., 20 Ch. || Merlin Crossover / Medieval Magical AU || Sorcerer Sherlock, Prince John, Pining Sherlock, Developing Relationship, Teenlock, Servant Sherlock, BAMF Sherlock, BAMF John, Heroic Sherlock, Misunderstandings, Alternating POV, Protective Greg, Love Confessions, Soul Bond / Mates, Happy Ending) – Sherlock learns to embrace his destiny as Prince John's protector, but soon realizes he is in love with the unavailable prince. However, this knowledge does not stop him from staying by John's side as John becomes king and faces unforeseen circumstances.

If I had a boat I would sail to you by Sunnyrea (E, 20,576 w., 1 Ch. || Titanic Fusion) – John is completely different and special from anyone Sherlock would normally come in contact with - no talk of money and hidden family secrets, no surface, superfluous conversations and blatant lies. John was the most honest person in less than five minutes Sherlock has ever met. He wants to know everything else there is to know about John Watson.

I wake up and I wake up and you're still dead by thisprettywren (M, 24,226 w., 1 Ch. || Memento Fusion AU || Amnesia, Timelines, Case Fic) – Sherlock isn't the only one who's lost.

Lost At Sea by orphan_account (T, 24,445 w., 11 Ch. || Titanic Crossover || Johnlock and Adlock) – John Watson boards Titanic looking for a new life, free from all those terrible things he's seen and done. Sherlock Holmes boards Titanic reluctant, bound to a woman he does not want. Two souls, bathing in the stars forever, lost at sea.

hurry home by augustbird (E, 25,606 w., 1 Ch. || Skyfall / Bond Fusion || Sherlock as Q, John as 007) – When John is recruited into the MI6 to track down a security leak, he didn’t expect it to get this out of hand. At least he has Sherlock Holmes. Skyfall fusion. Sequel to us against.

The Man in the Crimson Cloak by Aelaer (T, 25,968 w., 6 Ch. || Dr. Strange Crossover || Post-S1 / Post Avengers Endgame, No Johnlock, Action / Adventure, POV Sherlock, Dimension Travel, BAMF Strange, BAMF Sherlock, Bratty Sherlock) – Sherlock’s terribly ordinary and outright dull day turns into something well beyond his wildest dreams when a most interesting stranger enters his flat. Part 3 of the Adventures Throughout the Multiverse series

A Visit To The Doctor by flawedamythyst (T, 28,318 w., 1 Ch. || ACD/BBC Crossover || Time Travel, Hollywood Physics) – When Watson gets ill, Holmes goes to extraordinary lengths to get him well again.

The Unsinkable Ship by drjohnhwatson (NR, 36,758 w., 5 Ch. || ACD Canon Holmes Titanic Fusion || Retirement, Established Relationship, Historical References) – Holmes and Watson board Titanic for her maiden voyage.

Keeping It Loki by AtlinMerrick (E, 39,016 w., 11 Ch. || MCU Crossover || Loki/Sherlock and Johnlock, Oral Sex, Banter, Storytelling, Dream Sex, Wet Dream, Anal, Sexy Talk, Domestics) – Look, it was a dream god damn it. It was just a sexy, toe-curling, kinky, cock-hardening, *wet* dream. Yet it didn't matter how many times John told Sherlock that, Sherlock got all red-faced and stalked out of the sitting room, and then stalked back with his mouth open but stalked off again without actually saying anything. Yes, well John Watson knew precisely what to do about that.

A Lost Heart - An Empty Home by Raliena (T, 41,183 w., 21 Ch. || GI Joe Fusion || TEH / Post-TFP, Mystery, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Three Continents Watson, Violence, BAMF John, Soldier John, Sherlock-centric) – Nearly three years have passed since Sherlock jumped, and now he comes home to finish what he started. He wants to finish with John by his side. But that may not be as simple as he first thought. Part 3 of Three Continents Watson

The Baker Street House by qalets (T, 42,046 w., 13 Ch. || Lake House Fusion || Mollstrade, Alternate Timelines, Time Travel, Epistolary, Case Fic, Slow Burn, Pining, Mutual Pining, Emotional Constipation, London) – At the end of his tenancy in a flat in Baker Street Dr John Watson starts a tentative correspondence with the previous tenant: a Mr Sherlock Holmes. But Sherlock only just moved in. Together, while two years apart, they begin to fall for each other through letters, while life, and cases, continue around them.

Here We Go Again by disfictional (E, 46,687 w., 10 Ch. || Mama Mia-Inspired Fusion || Post-S4, Older Rosie, Alternating POV, Reunion, Retirement, Case Fic, Mutual Pining, Coming Out, Parentlock, Weddings, Fluff and Angst) – Ransacking some old trunks, Rosie Watson finds her father's old journal filled with remnants of a blog he used to keep about his association with Sherlock Holmes. In an attempt to meet the man who had a profound impact on her early years, Rosie invites the long-estranged detective to her wedding under false pretences.

Whirlwind by DiscordantWords (M, 50,640 w., 10 Ch. || WiP || Twister Fusion || Bad Weather, Storm Chasing, Post Break Up, Reunions, Non-Linear Narrative, Mutual Pining, Angst with Happy Ending) – New job, new truck, new fiancée... John Watson, former storm chaser, has settled into a comfortable new life. There's only one problem: John's already married. And the the divorce papers he's been sending to his former partner, Sherlock Holmes, keep going missing. So with his fiancée Mary by his side, John reluctantly makes a trip to see him in the hopes of finalizing their divorce once and for all. But John arrives in the midst of a very active storm season, and Sherlock very clearly hasn’t let go of the past. Against his better judgement, John finds himself talked into riding along after one last storm.

The Lost Duke by SelfSameLine (M, 51,395 w., 13 Ch. || Anastasia Fusion || Romance, Kidlock, Royalty, Slow Build, Friends to Lovers) – "We’re looking for him.” John pointed up the stairs to the portrait hanging proudly against the wall. It was blackened and torn in places, but two faces, one of a pretty woman and one of a dark haired boy remained unmarred, staring blankly out into the night.The boy’s eyebrows knitted together. “A royal?” Lestrade huffed. “The lost duke, yes. Haven’t you heard of him?”

If He Be Worthy by AndyHood (T, 58,110 w, 18 Ch. || Avengers / MCU Crossover || Friendship, Adventure) – In the aftermath of the alien invasion of London, Coulson's team is set out to retrieve a man, a man that had picked up Thor's hammer. John Watson hadn't meant to get mixed up in the alien invasion only intending to repay a favor. He had only been surveying the damage done by the aliens when he had tripped on a hammer, he didn't know the significance of being able to pick it up.

Il Traviato by kedgeree (E, 68,809 w., 18 Ch. || Pretty Woman Fusion || Romance, Prostitution, Case Fic, False Identity, First Kiss/Time) – A down-on-his-luck ex-soldier meets a wealthy businessman in need of a short-term companion. [TRANSLATION: 中文-普通话國語]

Real Time by Callie4180 (T, 74,935 w., 25 Ch. || 24 Fusion || Creepy Moriarty, Violence, BAMF Mrs Hudson, Suggestions of Torture, Biochemist Sherlock, Bodyguard John) – The world is under the threat of a biological weapon, and a brilliant biochemist needs protection. His own life is a mess, and he doesn't know who he can trust. He's going to have to be at his best every moment if he's going to survive. This is going to be the longest day of John Watson's life.

So Grant Us All a Change of Heart by ArwaMachine (E, 83,276 w., 5 Ch. || Christmas Carol Fusion || T6T Compliant, Pining, Angst with Happy Ending, Smut, Temporary Character Death, Drug Use / Reference, Suicide) – It’s Christmastime at Baker Street, but things are far from festive. Mary is dead, John and Sherlock’s friendship is all but ruined, and Sherlock has become a right dick about everything. More convinced than ever that sentiment is objectively useless, Sherlock needs a little paranormal intervention to see the error of his ways or else run the risk of losing all that is important to him.

I Am a Camera by mom2boys (T, 89,929 w., 36 Ch. || Enola Holmes Crossover || Developing Relationship, WW2 / Spanish Civil War, Weimar Germany, Period-Typical Homophobia, Nazi Germany, Fascism, Promiscuity, Espionage, BAMF John, Closeted John, Angst With Happy Ending) – So begins John H. Watson's Great Work. It is the story of two men who meet just before the tide of war and fascism sweeps across Europe and the world. Circumstances will separate them, but the arc of history is long and bends towards love.

The Hollow Ones by antietamfalls (M, 100,244 w., 23 Ch. || Walking Dead Fusion || Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Slow Build, Emotional Constipation, Protective John, Hurt/Comfort) – The dead walk. Mangled corpses of the deceased rise and mindlessly feast upon the flesh of the living. John wakes up, alone and confused, into the remnants of a city gone mad. He will search for answers. He will find Sherlock at any cost. And he will learn that the living are far more dangerous than the dead. 

Metamorphosis by KtwoNtwo (T, 101,597 w., 29 w., || James Bond / Skyfall Fusion / Werewolf AU || Post-Skyfall, Werewolf Bond, Werewolf Q, Case Fic, Slow Build, Q is a Holmes) – “Other duties as assigned” takes on a whole new meaning when James Bond returns from a mission and finds himself juggling his 00 status, preternatural politics and having to act as pack leader to a newly created werewolf. Part 1 of The Government Pack

Keep the Car Running by earlgreytea68 (M, 125,124 w., 31 Ch. || Inception Fusion  || Tags to Be Added) – If Mycroft Holmes lived in a world where people could steal information from the subconsciouses of others, tell me he wouldn't be all over that when he had Moriarty in custody. Part 1 of KtCR

The Dragon's Spell Series by ImpossibleElement (M, 280,698 w. across 4 works || Descendants Fusion || Alternating POV, Heroes & Villains, Humour, Romance, Mystery, Drama, Slow Burn, Teenlock, Dragons, Dubious Sherlock) – In a world where magic is obsolete and the villains have been trapped inside an island without it; one young man will have a chance to change everything for himself and everyone else. For better or for worse. Definitely for worse.

Wild About Harry Series by PlaidAdder (T, 397,189  w. across 9 works || Doctor Who Crossover || Harry/Clara and Johnlock, Post-TRF, Canon Compliant, Dancing, Case Fics, Morning After, Teamwork, Drug Use, , Christmas, Alcoholism, Fix It Fics, Alternating POVs, Established Relationships) – This started as a post-Reichenbach fic and turned into a series in which Harry Watson is a repeating character. John and Sherlock get together in the first story ("Empty Houses") and thereafter it's either developing relationship or established relationship. Most of this is case fic and long, but there are a few shorter ones.

[bettyweir]

Old Fresh TV Article

My Babysitter’s a Vampire Music: The Big Score

January 29, 2013 5:44 am | by Brendan Refresh

Every so often we’ll get questions from My Babysitter’s a Vampire fans here on re:Fresh wanting to know the track names for all of the music used in the show.

The answer is actually perfectly simple: there aren’t any!

Yabuhwah?

Alright, so maybe it’s a little more complicated than that.

All of the music for My Babysitter’s a Vampire is created specifically for the show by composers like Jarrett Randazzo led by our music director Earl Torno.

Collectively, the music used for any kind of production, be it television show, movie or even stage play, is called ‘the score’.

Not like your high score on Humans VS. Vampires; ‘scoring’ can also mean arranging music for a particular instrument.

That means that those pieces didn’t exist before they were created for the scene they’re used in and generally don’t have the sorts of names you’d see on an album.

Incidental Fight Scene Track 7 doesn’t exactly pop on the Top 40 chart!

It may seem strange to go to all the trouble of coming up with whole new pieces instead of just using music that’s already out there but there are two main reasons why it makes more sense.

First, the legal side of using music or any kind of audio created by someone else is trickier than you might think.

A licensing agreement has to be arranged where the song or specific parts of it are allowed to be used in specific ways.

For a show like My Babysitter’s a Vampire which airs in multiple countries, its even trickier since the laws governing licensing can differ around the world. That’s not even getting into having to translate lyrics into different languages or removing them so that they don’t block out the actor’s dialogue!

The second reason is on the other side of the coin: instead of being about practicality it’s about artistry!

This probably won’t surprise any of you, but we take making every episode of every show we make as amazing as it can be.

Crafting music specifically for each scene means that the timing of each note can be chosen to perfect accentuate the suspense of a monster stalking Ethan and the gang or give subtle hints about exactly what’s going through Benny’s head without every saying a word.

With all the jokes, action and special effects right in your face it can be easy to miss the score but if its doing its job right it’ll bring the whole scene together without you ever realizing it.

What’s your favourite musical moment from My Babysitter’s a Vampire? How about another one of Fresh’s shows? Let us know in the comment section below!

[silverysnake]

15 questions + 15 friends, thank you for the tag @lalalaugenbrot

1. Are you named after anyone?

Nope, not as far as I know.

2. When was the last time you cried?

Two days ago while reading a Spatort fic (i will not comment further on it)

3. Do you have kids?

No

4. What sports do you play/have you played?

I did swimming for a while and was in a dance group for a bit. And I played volleyball for ten years but I stopped last year bc I just couldn't stand the people in my team any longer. So currently I'm not actively doing any kind of sport

5. Do you use sarcasm?

yep

6. What is the first thing you notice about people?

Just their general looks and maybe vibes?!

7. What is your eye color?

A greenish blue something, honestly not sure how to describe it

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

Both? Really depends on my mood, I enjoy both. If it’s a happy ending it should fit the story, like if it’s very tragic i don’s mind if the ending is sad too but I got nothing against a good happy ending. But I also really enjoy watching a scary movie every once in a while.

9. Any talents?

Recently I’ve been told by multiple people that I retain information incredibly fast and like learn stuff very fast just by watching a few times without actually doing it myself so I guess that’s a talent (but a curse as well bc I was incredibly bored at the work seminar I was at today bc my group just didn’t stop asking stupid questions bc they didn’t get it and it really wasn’t that complicated)

Apart from that I’d like to think that I’m a very creative person who’s good at putting one word after the other

10. Where were you born?

In the next town over from where I grew up. Not gonna name it but I really don’t like it at all, it was just the nearest hospital with a maternity ward because the town where my parents’ live doesn’t have one since it closed down at the end of the 70s (please don’t ask why I know this)

11. What are your hobbies?

Writing, reading, thinking too much about spatort, hanging out with friends and obsessing over tv shows/movies

12. Do you have any pets?

no :( but I’d like to have a cat again one day, my parents still have cats and I miss them every day

13. How tall are you?

1,73m (just a guess, I actually don’t know for sure)

14. Favorite subject in school?

From ninth grade onwards english, simply bc that was the point where I was good enough through everything but our english teacher that I started enjoying it. I also really liked chemistry up till tenth grade (didn’t have it afterwards), and biology but only the topics that were related to the human body and how we work, I had zero interest in the nature and animal stuff. And history, but I think I big part of why I liked it so much was my teacher

15. Dream job?

Author. I really just wanna write my own stuff and get it out there some day, but that’s more of a side quest for now because my free time has been severely lacking since I quit university and started vocational training* for a job)

*no idea if I translated this correctly because it’s impossibly to translate into english but for my fellow german people: ich meine ne Ausbildung

Tagging: @shadow-of-a-cloud @ancient-namess @dasloddl @dunkelrotzuschwarz @lyxchen @pumpking64 @bonsaibovine @daency

[eastwindmlk]

9 people I want to get to know better

I was tagged by the ever lovely @werewolfenthusiast <3 Thank you so much!

Last song: PERCEPTION CHECK by Tom Cardy

Favourite colour: Dark green and burnt orange (Like a sunset)

Last movie/tv show: Cinderella, the 2015 version for the film. Percy Jackson and the Olympians for the series. (I might have seen all of it at least five times now)

Sweet/savoury/spicy: savoury, most of the time. I love my salty snacks. But also chocolate.

Relationship status: Complicated. Do we still do that?

Last thing I googled: French pet names. Obviously for a fic and I ended up just translating something that wasn't on the list.

Current obsession: Probably the PJO tv series and then the usual suspects. Marauders, a dash of Dramione, Hunger Games, The Magnus Archives.

Last book: For fun? Throne of Glass, which I DNFed in like chapter four. For uni I read Introducing Language and Intercultural Communication.

Looking forward to: Getting this move over and done with. Also movie night!

tags if you like: @annabtg, @pia-bartolini @so-scarlett-maroon @live4wolfstarnchakri

[airborndesigns]

Happy Bi Visibility Day!

Animal Pictures, founded by Maya Rudolph and Natasha Lyonne, produced a film last year called Crush, now streaming on Hulu. It’s an entertaining coming of age comedy I wish was around when I was growing up. It’s writing speaks to the sublime spectrum of sexuality while emphasizing how we’re here to express ourselves and find our people along the way.

There is a wonderful bi character in the film who is an artist and is somewhat private about both. AJ Campos played by Auli’i Cravalho is smart and perceptive. She feels real and more fully formed than your typical teen movie character. Honestly, I wanted her to be the protagonist or for us to have a starring spin-off to look forward to! Crush delivers on a lot of levels. Paige, it’s main character sets out to write an essay about her “happiest moment” to get into the Cal Arts summer program. While dealing with common themes from lots of movies, Crush solves this and other problems in completely new ways and is a total blast to watch! It’s the queer rom-com I didn’t know I needed!

I haven’t seen a high school queer comedy that provided this many laughs since But I’m A Cheerleader, starring Natasha Lyonne. That being said, I love that she chose to produce this one! This time the themes aren’t heavy like that 1999 satire about conversion therapy. In fact, it’s cool to be queer at the high school in Crush and the main character’s mom, played by Megan Mullally, is incredibly supportive. She even borders on too supportive, providing awkward comic relief. I love that this is a direction rom-coms are going in. It’s a genre I love to enjoy!

Yellowjackets, on Showtime, is one of my favorite shows on TV. The creators do a wonderful job of transporting the viewer to high school in the 90’s, and since I graduated in 1999, I was instantly on board. These characters are unique and nuanced in their attractions and I was thrilled to see the show’s cast includes at least four queer characters. “Van” or Vanessa Palmer is played by Lauren Ambrose and really won me over from the start. When we visit her in modern day, she owns a video store somewhere in PA. This show features some of my favorite music and movie references from the 90’s and really channels how media can bring us back to a very specific time and place.

I remember watching the mesmerizing Angelina Jolie in Gia (1998) on HBO and subsequently discovering Foxfire at the video store (1996) starring her, Jenny Shimizu, and Jenny Lewis. These films led me to find All Over Me (1997) starring Leisha Hailey before she was cast in The L Word. I still love listening to the soundtrack from Velvet Goldmine (1998). It transports me right back to seeing it’s colorful musical montages and costume changes for the first time! The world was different then, but we are still dealing with a lot of the same inequities today.

Most of my favorite queer films from the 90’s get progressively bleak as they play, and for good reason, times were tough. I do have a dark sense of humor, and maybe the repetitive nature with which I watched these films is partly why. Yellowjackets definitely translates some of the melancholy of the times, which is just as relevant now. But despite it’s heart-breaking subject matter, I really appreciate it’s celebration of female friendships and all of the women the show employs in front of and behind the camera.

I’m not afraid to admit that I’m more sensitive to watching the queer movies I mentioned from the 90’s now. Maybe it’s because times are still tough and possibly getting tougher. When rewatching, I’ve been known to stop or fast forward them to create the queer joy I need to see today.

That’s why finding a current film like Crush is so affirming and uplifting! I had to share it’s name with you, no matter what your age, because it shows queer women being dynamic and unique individuals! It shows us creating art, finding love, experiencing success like wonderfully complicated and creative human beings. Crush shows queer women supported by their friends and family. And above all, this movie really makes me laugh! Our stories can be fun and fulfilling to watch, over and over again through to the end! That's what I want for us…to see bi+ characters experiencing joy in wonderful ways at any age because that is the reality I want to live in!

#bivisibilityday #happybivisibilityday #queerjoy #animalpictures #animalpicturescrush #crushthemovie #90squeerfilms #butimacheerleader #yelllowjackets #gia #foxfire #alloverme #thelword #velvetgoldmine

[putschki1969]

2017/04/02 Blog post by Wakana 『映画もドラマも、大好き!!～桜さんこんにちは～』

Not sure when my translation will follow. Please be patient with me!

『I love movies and dramas!!～Hello my dear cherry blossoms～』 The weather in Tokyo got cold all of a sudden and the rain continues but still, the cherry blossoms are beautiful! ヽ('▽`)/ ♪ Here we have cherry blossoms from three days ago. Yesterday 's cherry blossoms. Both look beautiful ... ♪ (* ^^ *) Hello, this is Wakana (0 ¯▽¯ 0) / I can’t wait till the cherry blossoms are in full bloom! All right, here we go! 【Today's corner ～Movie, TV Show/Drama Edition～】 This time I would like to do an extra big edition ヽ('▽`)/ I haven’t written anything in this corner ever since the beginning of the new year *laughs* Recently I have also watched quite a lot of new stuff! Without further ado, let’s start!!. ～Movies～ 『World War Z』 『The Holiday』 『Genome Hazard』 『Back to the Future 1, 2, 3』 『Getaway』 『Resident Evil: Damnation』 『Source Code』 『Burlesque』 『The Imitation Game』 『The Hundred-Foot Journey』 『Geek Charming』 『National Treasure 1 and 2』 『Limitless』 『Nōnai Poison Berry』 『Doraemon the Movie: Nobita and the Birth of Japan 2016』 『Doraemon: Nobita and the Tin Labyrinth』 ～TV shows/Drama～ 『The Walking Dead Season 7』 『The Carrie Diaries Season 1』 『Dr. Jin』 『Tokyo Tarareba Musume』 『Quartet』 ～Cinema～ 『Passengers』 That’s it! I tried to list everything I watched this year... but there’s a chance that I might have forgotten about something *laughs* Let’s go a bit into detail here, first ～Movies～. 『The Hundred-Foot Journey』 is a movie about one of my favourite things, delicious food! *laughs*＼(^-^)／ It’s a story about an Indian family that comes to France, it’s about people coming together through cooking. The delicious dishes as well as the beautiful French countryside scenery are truly wonderful. Then I watched a Japanese movie, it’s been so long since I last watched one. 『Poison Berry in my Brain』...It was so funny! Whenever it is time to make a choice, there are fierce discussions going on within the main character’s head ... I am laughing just thinking about it! Everyone, please give this movie a try ♪ (*^^*) Quite a while ago, I watched 『Doraemon the Movie』! ヽ('▽`)/ I haven’t watched the new films of the series but I cherish the old Doraemon movies, it was a very faithful production, I was very happy with it. When I watched it I immediately wanted to rewatch all the old movies I had seen as a child at the cinema (*^^*) I feel like in the movie Nobita is always running away from home *laughs* When he is away from home he is almost always a little thief like Gian (← just imagine) When he carries all his stuff on his back wrapped up in a furoshiki, I love it so much ヽ('▽`)/ I wonder what’s inside? ヽ('▽`)/ Anyway, Doraemon is still the best. There is a lot you can learn and there are many tears to be shed! Then we have ～TV shows/dramas～ Truth is, I mostly watched 『Tokyo Tarareba Musume』 and 『Quartet』! Although the stories for the dramas couldn’t be more different, I really enjoyed watching both of them. 『Tokyo ...』 is about girls coming together, it’s about their conversations. Also, everyone lives in a fancy home～ that kind of vibe. Ah, and then we have Rinko-chan, isn’t she just too sexy?! I caught myself almost envying her *laughs* 『Quartet』 has the most wonderful conversations. The back and forth between the actors, the general atmosphere and the passion with which they are playing their strings, it was truly wonderful! I recorded it so I can watch it all over again ♪ (^ ω ^) Also, I went to see a film at the cinema, it’s been a while since I have done that, I watched 『Passengers』. -Story- A spacecraft is traveling from earth to another planet, a journey taking 120 years. All the people who have gone on board are sleeping in hibernation pods. Under these circumstances there are two passengers who wake up too early, 90 years earlier than planned... The story is more or less like this. The film has Chris Pratt in it as the main character, he played the super cool and handsome Owen in 『Jurassic World』. And then we have our heroine, my beloved Jennifer Lawrence, the sweetest and loveliest girl! I just had to see it! I went in knowing nothing of the story. I better not say anything more! *laughs* I really do love movies and TV shows! ヾ(*´∀`*)ﾉﾞ Finally, we visited Osaka the day before yesterday, I bought the following at the station waiting for our train to get us back home again. Nakanoshima beef sandwich! I buy this every time we come to Osaka. I love it so much. I forgot to take a picture of it but I also bought onigiri and tamagoyaki. They were also super delicious! We will return to Osaka on May 2nd and May 3rd with our 『Kalafina 9 + ONE』 tour! Please look forward to it \ (^-^) / ♪ Well then, see you around ～☆(*'▽'*)/ *** Wakana ***

[chrisjake-cp]

History 3 Trapped Filming Diary (full English translation) - Days 1-10

Just before you start reading, a little note of explanation: the author of this diary will frequently use the character’s name when they mean the actor. I have added the names of the actors between square brackets sometimes to avoid confusion. Also between square brackets you will find some words that are implied, so I added them in the translation to make the translation a bit smoother, but they aren’t included in the Chinese text. 

The book’s author will also talk in the first person POV sometimes, refering to themselves as either “I”, “we” or “this little editor 小编”.  So each time you see me write “I”, it is not my own opinion I’m inserting in the text, but the author/editor’s. If I have anything else to add or explain myself, I’ll add it in a note at the end of the text.  

I’ll repeat: I don’t own the book so I can’t post my scans of the pictures that came with every day. So I posted some other pictures of the scenes that were being filmed with each day. These pics belong to LINE TV or Choco Media, or I’ve taken screenshots. 

Day 1-10 under the cut. 

Day 1

The first day of shooting happened to coincide with ‘Li Dong’⁕ but the temperatures of that day soared to 29 degrees. The crew was going sleeveless, but the actors were all wearing sweaters or dress shirts. Tang Yi, who had on the most, was wearing a turtleneck sweater and a suit jacket on top at one point, but he didn’t sweat very much.⁕ Meanwhile A De [Stanley], wearing a shirt and a suit jacket, was [clad] the ‘thinnest’ at the scene. When he got off work and took off his sweaty shirt, the wardrobe department exclaimed: “This shirt is so wet!”

Officer Meng’s scenes for that day consisted of eating from 10 am in the morning until 6pm in the evening. He basically ate from when he got to work until he got off work. All in all he had two large bags of rice and poured 4 liters of coca cola. Junhao [Jake] will start sweating profusely and start flushing when he eats spicy food, so as soon as the director yelled ‘cut’, the crew would immediately pass him a plastic bag so he could spit out the spicy Kung Pao Chicken he was eating.

⁕ Li Dong 立冬 literally means ‘establishing the winter’, so it is some kind of winter solstice in Asian culture. In the Gregorian calendar, it falls on 7 or 8 November. According to the IG stories of some of the cast of Trapped, it was indeed 7 November 2018 when shooting started. 

⁕ Chris apparently doesn’t sweat much, no matter how hot he gets. He says as much in his vlog as well. I envy him, because I’d just be sweating buckets like Stanley. 

Day 2

The first meeting between Tang Yi and Wenhao is also the second time that Chengyang [Chris] and teacher Jiakui [Chen Jiakui, the actor who plays Chen Wenhao] worked together. They cooperated for the first time on a movie. At that time teacher Jiakui served as the movie’s drama teacher. When Chris had gone through make-up in the early morning, he sat alone in a corner with the script. You could easily see that he was conflicted and upset. [For the other movie] teacher Jiakui was Chris’ mentor, but here Wenhao was the target of Tang Yi’s revenge.

In the process of their scenes where they faced each other, the director hoped that Tang Yi could hate Wenhao even more, but Tang Yi’s personality is subdued and calm. So how could he fly into a raging fit and still keep his calm? In a part that was not captured on camera, teacher Jiakui aggravated some lines to make Chris more infuriated. Afterwards teacher Jiakui also said that the role of Tang Yi is not easy to perform. [Tang Yi] is a young mob boss, The hate in his eyes must therefore also carry a bit of youthfullness, which is difficult to experience for normal people in the course of their lives.

Day 3

Today was the first time that Zhaozi arrived on set, and while he was bored waiting for his scenes, Zhaozi started to act as the shop’s clerk to sell suits. Apart from suits, bowties and regular ties, he even managed to sell shoehorns. By oneself, the words just kept on flying out of his mouth which left Shaofei beside him looking dumbfounded (if you want to see Shaofei’s dumbfounded meme-like look, you have to absolutely watch the behind-the-scenes on the DVDs)⁕. [Shaofei] continued to shout “If you buy a shoehorn you get Zhaozi for free with it, please someone take Zhaozi away, Unit 3 can’t stand it anymore.”

Boss Tang was tired, and took a nap in his own shop. ‘Just a little while will do. Shaofei and A De, you two be on the lookout for me, and if the director is coming, remember to wake me.’

⁕ Excellent advice. Please do watch the behind-the-scenes after finishing this book, because a lot of what is written here is visualized in the bts. The bts are arranged per episode though, and not per filming day, but it’s still amazing to be able to see what went on. 

Day 4

The set for the offices of Investigation Unit 3 is actually the office of LINE TV’s Choco Media branch. The contemporary industrial style caused the atmosphere among Unit 3 to be even more lively. 

For Unit 3’s first scene together, the director used a one-shot to have everyone appear on the scene, which meant that the first time all the actors were present, they had to have a ‘chemistry’ test. But apart from the actors, chemistry also had to be there for the whole staff, as the directing crew, the camera crew and the sound crew, really everyone, also had to follow [the actors] along⁕. I still remember that by the 20th take, everyone’s lines ran very smoothly, the shot was satisfactory and everyone was where they were supposed to be. The director and the crew were holding their breath in concentration, and just when they thought they’d succeed, A Zhi [character Zhou Guanzhi, played by Kass Tsai] forgot a line in the very last sentence hahahaha. In the end, this round took 27 takes.

⁕ The author uses a metaphor/reference here. They write 乾坤大挪移 which means something like ‘The Great Shift of the Cosmos’ and is apparently a kind of martial art from a martial arts novel. It consists of 7 increasingly difficult skill levels, whereby the 7th level is almost unattainable. In other words, shooting this one-shot scene required the whole cast and crew pulling off this great cosmos shift, and thus was a big, big challenge. 

Day 5

After we shot the scene where the two idiots from Unit 3 [Shaofei and Zhaozi] got into trouble and received an explosive scolding by Dapao [Shi Dapao, the name of Unit 3’s Captain]⁕, the director told Shaofei that she wanted to add a scene where he sat next to the window thinking about Sister Lizhen, continuing in the same mood [as the previous scene]...Everyone in Unit 3 felt that Shaofei was continuing to set his teeth into a meaningless old case. If there had only been some progress in the investigation...but [Shaofei] not only didn’t find any new leads, but he also got into trouble everywhere. If Sister Lizhen would still be alive, he wouldn’t be like this now...Shaofei really, really missed sister Lizhen. Rather than say that the director added this scene at the last moment, it’s more like she deliberately didn’t tell Junhao [Jake] that she would add this part. 

When they were shooting, the director played the music from the music box through the megaphone and from time to time talked as well, to provoke moody feelings in Jake. In the end Jake grabbed his phone and scrolled through his mother’s Facebook, and to all our surprise Jake started bawling, so much so that even after the ‘cut’ he couldn’t stop, until the director walked over and lightly patted him on the back. To be able to cry like that in a short amount of time, even he himself hadn’t expected that.

⁕ How much fun is it that the name of the Captain of Unit 3 literally means big cannon, when he explodes in anger all the damn time? 😂 I am quite convinced that in the hospital scene where Shaofei tells Tang Yi of his fortune-telling and that only a cannon can strike him down - he uses the exact same wording ‘dapao’ - it’s actually an inside joke and he may not have meant ‘cannon’ literally. 

Day 6

Today’s weather couldn’t be called very fine, and when we were shooting until 3 or 4 P.M., the daylight was almost gone, just when the filming location had large windows in every corner that reached the ground. Our funny director said “Why did the production team run out of light after 3 P.M.? Did they forget to send notice⁕ to the sun?” This caused the crew that was present to not know whether to laugh or cry. But in the end, before the sun got off work, everyone else smoothly finished their job as well.

⁕ the term “to send notice” is quite literal, but the word is indeed an entertainment industry term as well, that means to hire someone for a short amount of time or for a specific show, without there having to be a longer-term contractual agreement. So it could also be translated as “did they forget to hire the sun [to star in today’s scenes]?”

Day 7

It was a day with complicated feelings for Shaofei and little Tang Yi, as Shaofei discovered Tang Yi’s past history. 

Before going to meet the adoptive father of his lover, of course Shaofei had to straighten himself out first and shave his beard to leave a good impression. In the evening, today’s final scene was shot. Before starting filming, the director hoped that [Tang Yi’s] adoptive father could guide little Tang Yi’s mood, because the intensity of this scene needed to bring out the reason why Tang Yi’s feelings for Tang Guodong ran so deep and make everyone feel the warmth that Tang Guodong brought to Tang Yi even more. 

Under the constant conflict of raising [little Tang Yi] through much difficulties, a loud and clear slap came down heavily on little Tang Yi’s face. The silence at the [shooting] site caused the loud sound to be infinitely amplified, and the director and the crew were all shocked. When the ‘cut’ sounded, little Tang Yi instantly started crying, and the director rushed to the room immediately. On every crew member’s face was reluctance and shock. Meanwhile the adoptive father sat with his head down on the sofa, full of remorse. 

An extra tidbit from the same scene: the crew’s love for little gadgets

There are always a few conspicuous toys in front of the director’s monitor. She explained that these were toys that members of the crew who are close to her gave her to alleviate stress. I don’t know which toy is the director’s favourite?

 Day 8

For the setting of the toilets of Unit 3 we actually used the toilets in a department store. Zhaozi, who arrived at the store very early in the morning, was hit on by an older lady who was just coming into work. The lady said: “Aren’t you Zhao Youting [Mark Chao]? You definitely are Zhao Youting!!” Even though Zhaozi went on to deny it, the lady didn’t listen and believed that this handsome guy in front of her was Zhao Youting himself. 

Actually, Zhaozi passed on the above story [to us], and no one actually saw this older lady. Zhaozi often tells bluff stories with a straight face, but I [this little editor] have my reservations about its credibility. But be as it may, after he was told that he looked like Zhao Youting, Zhaozi’s acting skills immediately leveled up. So okay, whether or not the story was real, we thank this lady ‘from the legends’.

Day 9

Can I call you dad after this hug? 

I still remember the story of a friend coming out to his mother. He said to his mom: “I’m sorry if this thing disappoints you. I don’t dare to ask for your blessing. I just hope that you can show some understanding.” Through a chat message, his mother could only briefly reply: “If your other half is a good kid, I will give you my blessing.”

Many people in a same-sex relationship don’t dare to confess to the older generation and they don’t dare to ask for their blessings. Their only hope is not to be hated. It’s like that facing this society, and it’s the case when facing your beloved family. When Wenhao and Shaofei met each other, Wenhao gave Shaofei a hug. This hug must have carried [Wenhao’s] unspoken blessing. 

No worries, dear father-in-law. I, Officer Meng, will take care of everything (pats on the back). 

Wenhao and Guodong together brings its own hint of romance.⁕ The fighting was very intense that day, so much so that the police dispatched a Quick Fight Force team in concern [for the situation]. 

⁕ The term that the author uses is 腐味 (fuwei, the taste of fu). The first character, ‘fu’ is the same ‘fu’ that is used in terms like fujoshi 腐女子 and fudanshi  腐男子 (which are Japanese) but it’s the same pronunciation for that first character. So the author implies that there might have been something more than friendship going on between Chen Wenhao and Tang Guodong. They imply the same thing later in the book as well (day 60, where the two are called a CP). 

Day 10

A Mei [Stanley] who portrays A De, said that he was the expert in getting beaten [in this drama]. I say that Stanley definitely dedicated himself to taking on that role. Many times his head bumped into the wall and the crew told him to take a break, but Stanley couldn’t stop yelling “no no, hurry up, I’m familiar with it now!”

All the way through the end Officer Meng and Vixen⁕ no.1, A De, cheered each other on before ‘Action!’ [was called]. 

⁕ The word for vixen is ‘fox spirit’  狐狸精 in Chinese. I love that and I could probably write essays on this subject. In classical Chinese literature, foxes were most of the time portrayed as (mainly female) temptresses who seduced males for sex and then didn’t shy away from sucking the soul out of them, kind of like a succubus. If anyone is ever in the mood for some academic literature about foxes in late imperial China, I've got you covered  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3237790-alien-kind

So A De and Andy are constantly referred to as these foxes who want to seduce Tang Yi and snatch him away in front of Shaofei’s eyes. 

[sailormoonandme]

Where to start with Sailor Moon?

From time to time I’ve seen people ask about how to get into Sailor Moon or how they might introduce it to someone else. 

As such I’ve made this to (hopefully) help people out.

Introduction

So first of all you should know that the official name for the over all franchise is ‘Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon’. This can (and has) been translated a few ways, but the current official name is ‘Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon’. Basically everything connected with Sailor Moon carries this full official name, but for the purposes of this post I’m just going to shorten things to ‘Sailor Moon’.

Moving on,  there are in fact different versions of the Sailor Moon story, even putting aside the various attempts at translating the story into different languages. Each version is best viewed as its own entity, sort of how there have been various versions of Sherlock Holmes that exist independently of one another. 

For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to mostly keep this post to the original Japanese iterations of Sailor Moon, albeit from the point of view of an English speaking audience member.*

The main versions of the Sailor Moon story are as follows:

1) The Manga

The manga iteration of Sailor Moon began around late 1991/early 1992. It includes around 50 chapters, a handful of side stories and a prequel manga of sorts called Codename: Sailor-V. There have been several different English translations of this material over the years. However, my personal recommendation would be to experience the story through the ‘Eternal Editions’. These are easily available in print and digitally. As of this writing Codename: Sailor-V is scheduled to be collected in at some point in 2021, thus collecting all the manga stories.

2) The 1992 anime

This is the most famous iteration of Sailor Moon and loosely adapts the manga to the point where it is its own entity. It spans 200 episodes across five seasons, with each season being given its own subtitle. E.g. season 2 is referred to as ‘Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon R’. Additionally there were a handful of shorts and specials connected with the anime and three films. I have already compiled a watch list for the show that I hope will help you navigate everything.

Like the manga, there have been multiple efforts to subtitle the show into English, particular among fan subbing circles. However, the easiest way to watch the show with English subs is to do so via a streaming service (last I checked it was available on Hulu and Crunchyroll) or to purchase the DVDs and Blu-rays from Viz Media, although you can also purchase them digitally on Amazon.com too.

3) The musicals

 On and off since 1993 there have been stage musicals produced for Sailor Moon. If you ever see the term ‘Sera Myu’ being used by fans (or even official sources) understand that it’s shorthand for these musicals.

The musicals are based chiefly upon the manga and the original anime, although with some original embellishments here and there. The degree to which a musical cuts closer to the manga, or the anime or does something all its own varies from one production to another. I’m not very well read up on the musicals I must admit, but it is to my understanding that each production exists independently from one another beyond at times carrying over cast and staff members. In essence there is no particular order you need to watch the musicals in. However, if you want more info on the musicals see the below EDIT, which is more well informed than I am.

To my knowledge, (which is limited in this particular case) all the musicals have been filmed but there has never been any kind of official English release for them. There have however been fan subbed efforts made for all of them. 

4) The 2003 live action TV show

In fan circles this show is referred to as ‘Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon’ or ‘Pretty Guardian’ or ‘PGSM’. This is because it was the first piece of Sailor Moon media to bear that particular English translation of ‘Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon’. Basically if you see ‘Pretty Guardian’ or ‘PGSM’, understand it is referencing this show.

The show exclusively adapts the ‘Dark Kingdom’ storyline, the first storyline in every version of Sailor Moon. The show was made in a similar vein to shows like Kamen Rider or Super Sentai and the latter’s American adaptation, Power Rangers. However, it also incorporates elements of Japanese soap opera dramas too, original elements that were never in any version of Sailor Moon beforehand and many different spins on the plot points that had been covered before. 

To my knowledge, like Sera Myu, no official English release for this show exists, but English fansubs are out there somewhere. If you manage to find the show then you should watch the various episodes and specials in their original broadcast order. For this Wikipedia is your friend. 

5) Sailor Moon Crystal

Sporadically since 2014 a new Sailor Moon anime has been in production. This new anime cuts much closer to the original manga (although it still makes some changes ) than any other version of Sailor Moon. As of this writing, the show has yet to be completed and still has material from the manga left to adapt. The show is available to watch with English subtitles from the same sources as the original 1992 anime, including DVDs and Blu-Rays from Viz Media.

Like the original anime, Crystal’s story arcs and seasons have gone under different names. The first two seasons/arcs are officially just called ‘Sailor Moon Crystal’, whilst the third is explicitly titled ‘Sailor Moon Crystal Season III’. In place of a fourth season two films, Sailor Moon: Eternal Part 1 and Part 2, were produced. As of this writing, the Eternal films have yet to have any kind of English release. To make your life easier, watch this show in the order of the original air/release dates. Just remember the Eternal films are to be viewed after Season III.

Which version should you start with?

Whilst that is how the franchise breaks down, it is not the order a Sailor Moon newbie should try experiencing it in.

My personal recommendation would be to begin with the original 1992 anime and then move on to any of the other versions from there. This is because the original anime is aimed at a younger audience and was incredibly influential on basically every other version of the story. 

However, if 200 episodes or more is too intimidating for you, then simply check out the manga. It’s far shorter, skewed a bit older and tells a concise and complete story. 

And if you are still apprehensive then I’d highly recommend watching the first Sailor Moon film, Sailor Moon R The Movie. This is a very good film unto itself but it is a microcosm of the characters and themes that define the franchise as a whole. If you dislike this Sailor Moon just isn’t for you. 

P.S. If you are simply dead set against subtitles then you should know the original 1992 anime and Crystal have in fact been dubbed into English by Viz Media. In fact, the first four seasons of the original anime, along with the first three films, have two English dubs, variously produced by DiC, Cloverway and Pioneer. These dubs were made in the 1990s and early 2000s and are currently not legally available anywhere. 

*Things get more complicated when we consider that even in Japan there have been updated and altered versions of the Sailor Moon manga, anime, etc. We aren’t going to worry about that in this post though. They exist and maybe someday you might be inclined to check them out, but you know...baby steps...

EDIT #1: The following information comes from https://euribear.tumblr.com/

Just something I want to add on about the Sailor Moon Musicals.

If you see a musical with the word Kaiteiban (revision) at the end of the name, that means it’s a revised version of the previous musical. Things added or taken away, different cast members at times, etc.

Also, there are three musicals (technically four) that have a continuous storyline. Starring Miyuki Kanbe as Sailor Moon, Last Dracul, Transylvania no Mori (and its Kaiteiban), and Death Vulcan should be viewed in order.

The Bandai era of musicals were from 1993 to 2005.

The Nelke musicals started in 2014 and there was one each year for five years. One musical for each arc of the manga.

There are also the NogiMyu. These are musicals that solely focus on the Dark Kingdom arc and they star various members of the pop idol group Nogizazaka46.

There were two teams of cast members for the inner senshi for both years, 2018 and 2019. The same story overall, just different actresses.

There was also Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon The Super Live. My personal favorite, this was a musical performed only a few times. A couple of days in Japan in 2018 and then once in Paris in 2019 and then in Washington D.C. and later in NYC. I got to see this in person on one of the three showings in NYC. A dream come true. Unfortunately, this was never recorded, though they did release an instrumental musical album of the show.

[thebrownssociety]

Hi, so I was wondering about the toons getting an education. You said that they didn't know how to read or write at the begining. First of all, when did they learn to read and write? And second of all, when they started learning those things, how did they do it? Did all of the toons go to school, you know, like kids do? Did they have classes and classmates, different subjects, different teachers? Or did they have private tutours?

So, first things first, thank you Ana for giving me one of my most complicated asks yet! That's why it's taken me so long to answer, I need to first of all sort through the strands of my brain in order to find the answer, and then translate it so it can be understood by normal people.

This headcanon is LONG, I hope you lot enjoy.

the majority of the toons [about 90 percent] are NOT created with the ability to read and write. In the olden days it was generally assumed that they didn't have the ability to learn either.

The other ten percent DID. They tended to be toons that were created to be doctors, lawyers or other professions that need the ability to read and write. Or members of royalty because the creators made the decision that royals would have been taught to read and write and so incorporated that into there designs. This is why Porky Pig is unusual, because he has the ability read and write, but he's not royalty and he doesn't have an official profession. Technically Porky is an anomality, it just happens that his anomality has helped him more than hindered him.

Moving onto the villains, it tends to follow the same rules as above. Grimhilde [wicked stepmother] has the ability to read and write because the creators assumed that as the now queen she had to be a princess before, therefore fit the rules.

Maleficent however, couldn't read or write [much to her frustration] because she was a villainous fairy and although she was [I think?] royalty of some sort within the fairy world the creators decided she didn't need the ability.

You might be getting an idea of the timeline from the movies I mentioned. I headcanon that the toon began campaigning to get an education during the 60's. They did this largely via peaceful means [mainly because one thing that has always been acknowledged by humans is that Toons are quite powerful and they aren't to keen to annoy them massively. The toons for their part don't want to cause massive distress to humans - they want to make them laugh! - so it actually works to a degree. During the 60's though the Toons decided something needed to be done.

The directors and other higher-ups had been promising to change the rights for the last decade and it hadn't happened. In 1965 the Toons decided enough was enough, they would start peacefully protesting. They adhered to the riles of there contracts to the letter. The LT's contract for instance says they have to arrive at least five minutes before filming starts, so they arrived five minutes before filming started when previously they'd been arriving half an hour so the director could run through everything with them.

They also left straight after seeing as there contract said they were free to go after the filming ended.

The LT's were also contracted to be available should WB ask them to do anything like help in the kitchens, but they only gave to do that for a set amount of hours each week. They worked those hours to the letter and went straight after. A few of the more devious toons even reasoned the contract just says they have to show up, not do any work, so they didn't. At first the studio got round that by asking toons who they knew would do the work properly, but it didn't take the toons long to figure out that was happening and then the 'good' toons wondered why they should bother when the 'bad' toons were being allowed to get off scot-free?

Eventually no toons was doing any work to help the general running of WB at all.

The above, I should mention, did not happen overnight. It took around 18 months, and it wasn't just happen at WB. Although Disney didn't have the exact same contract, they ran on the general principle of arriving at a set time and leaving straight after, so the toons just adhered to there contracted times.

18 months later and the companies decided enough was enough. They were having to go overtime to film the cartoons/movies now the toons weren't doing extra [previously unpaid] hours. [Which they did because the majority of them are perfectionist when it comes to the cartoons and wanted them to be the best they could be.] They were also having to pay the Human employees extra to cover the hours, often at extremely short notice. And unlike the toons they weren't contracted to come in just because the company wanted them to.

So anyway, the point of me detailing this is to explain the circumstances that meant that the companies were at there wits end and ended up petitioning the president to give the toons rights. Mickey Mouse also helped out enormously here as well. Walt Disney had died a few months earlier and Mickey was now running Disney. Which also meant control of the theme parks. Mickey decided that seeing as Toons clearly weren't valued enough to bother educating [despite being proven as intelligent] they shouldn't bother providing entertainment at the parks either.

The Disney toons also had it worked into there contracts that they had to make periodic appearances at Disney's parks [kinds like the people dressing up as the characters do now, except it's the actual toons] and are on a rota basis. Unless they're doing an events [like Halloween for the villains or valentines day for the princes and princesses] then each toon does at least one 12-hour day at Disney per year. It was this bit that Mickey was putting a stop to.

It had a real knock-on effect as, as well as the rides, most people went there hoping for a glimpse of there favourite toon. Without that...

As much of an absolute business-killer as this idea was, Mickey was more than happy to explain to anyone who would listen [read: most of the world news] exactly WHY he was doing it. With all this pressure it was really just a matter of time until the laws changed and the toons were able to gain an education. This was in 1968.

Now as fast as things work in Toontown, this was such a complicated area that it took a full 2 years for the various schools to be built, staffed and a curriculum drawn up (which followed the same basic guide as human education, but with some added stuff and some stuff taken out. It basically followed a 'would a toon actually need this in future life?' and went from there.

Here's were it gets slightly complicated. Because I mentioned before that toons age in a weird way. But the main thing is they go up and down in there age on a day to day basis until they are about 20. This makes educating them quite difficult, to say the least.

The studios solution to this was to bring in Human teachers to teach them at the grades human children would go through. So Kindergarten, Grade 1 ext. The thing was that a lot of the toons had learn some of th education already, like identifying shapes and coulors and things. And of course the ones who were professionals [Like Ludwig Von Drake and Gus Goose] already had a college-level of education, they just needed to prove it to the teachers.

The end result of this was that it wasn't unusual for a toon to be in a class for only a few months at a time while they did the work [don't forget, they only need 4 hours of sleep as well, so they could study for longer if they wanted]

It did eventually even up though and the toons ended up spending 9 months if the right class. For example, Porky Pig aced Kindergarten all the way up till 4th grade and then found he was struggling with 5th grade. This was a shock to him after spending 21 months in education [excluding holidays], to suddenly need help. Porky was forced to realise that he had centred a lot of his identity around being 'the one who can help his friends/family read.' and hadn't expanded his personality much beyond that.

So yeah, as an average most toons took about ten years to complete Kindergarten - end of high school.

Then a few of them took college courses, which lead to them getting degrees, which led to a couple of them getting teaching degrees. The majority of the LT's you see in Tiny Toons [excluding Foghorn, who decided he didn't want to be a teacher, and Elmer who took a undergraduate degree in law until 1992] did their teaching degrees from 1988 - 1992.

There's a couple of you who might had realised that they were filing Tiny Toons at the times and learning how to be parents at the same time. That was partly why they wanted to do it then, they realised that after Tiny Toons had finished the kid would need educating. Although the human teachers had been alright, they'd found it slightly difficult to cope and the LT's didn't want their kids to go through that particularly. Also, what's the point of building a school just to got rid of it after?

So here's the main schools: (After the toons gained teaching degrees)

Disney Elementary - Kindergarten- Grade 5.

Hanna-Barbara Middle School - Grade 6_8.

The Looniversity (the name stuck after the TV show) Grades 9-12.

So the Tiny Toons finished filming in 1992 and had it promptly explained to them that they would be attending school the next August [Tiny Toons were created in 1987, so were 6 by the end of filming.]

Toons don't do pre-school because there doesn't seem to be any point. Loads of Toons have coped without preschool for decades now, why would they start now?

So the TT's started Kindergarten at Disney Kindergarten, run by Snow White and helped out by Cinderella and Fairy Godmother. Kindergarten is the only school year where the toons have to do an entire year in it, the logic being they'll have longer to get adjusted to school if they're there for a year as opposed to three months.

Then it was decided which was the toon would go. Would they move upwards into Disney Elementary school, run by the Three Good Fairies? Or would they be taught by human professors? Or - the final option - they could be privately educated. [It's mainly royalty or the children of famous toons like Micky and Minnie that go down this option. The TT's were unusual in that all the LT's opted to send there kids to Disney Elementary with the hope it would help them make friends with other toons outside the LT bubble. Whether it did or not remains up for debate.

Anyway, they then go to Hanna-Barbera Middle School, which is then followed by the Looniversity. Now, despite what was shown in Tiny Toons, The Looniversity does not focus solely on Toon Physics and the like, the kids have to study the curriculum. They have options to take Toon Physics class if they wanted to, but they don't have to.

The Toons technically don't HAVE to finish High School, but they're strongly encouraged to. College is another matter, it's quite hard so only Toons who the adults know will stand a chance of passing are encouraged to do it.

Toontown University focuses primarily on The Performing Arts and Toon Physics. As well as those subjects, it offers Art, Physical Education, separate courses of Dance, Drama and Music and LAMDA.

If a Toon wants to study the likes of Maths, English and Science they can either be privately educated [A lot of the adult toons have ridiculous amounts of money due to there cartoons and the fact that until the 50's Toontown didn't exist and all there expenses were being covered by there respective directors/studios] or they could join one of the smaller colleges that specialised in what they want to do.

Push comes to shove, they find a Adult toon [over the actual age of 25] with a degree and try to mentor under them. This happens a lot.

[neonbutchery]

this was supposed to be a tag game but I'm doing it anyways because i want to ramble about my OCs. ANYWAYS

CW for mentions of suicide, self harm and sex down this post

-------

Name: Dernin Silor

Alias(es): Sunshine, Sunny, Mr. Sunshine, and more variations of that alias

Gender: Male

Age: 21

Place of birth: Erinle, Osun system, Hourglass nebula

Spoken languages: Besides speaking the particular salarian language from his homeworld (and relying on translators like everyone else in the ME universe), he was taught several trade languages and can speak then fluently.

Sexual orientation: Bisexual

Occupation: Mercenary. He mostly does all kinds of odd jobs for a fee, from killing to transporting crates of fish.

APPEARANCE

Eye colour: Dark brown with a warm tint.

Skin colour: An orange-yellow gradient, hence the nickname.

Height: 186cm

Scars and burns: The left side of his body is scarred due to an explosion. Other miscellaneous scars (on the right side of his lip, on his legs, etc) from several work incidents.

FAVOURITE

Colour: Dark purple and blue

Music genre: Whatever’s in the top 40. He isn’t picky about it.

Movie genre: Horror movies. He usually likes monster or slasher flicks.

TV show: Documentaries about outer space or general scientific curiosities.

Drink: Tuchanka Energy. He owns several crates of it.

Book: He’s a great fan of comics and horror novels (think space Stephen King).

HAVE THEY

Passed university: Yes

Had sex: Yes

Had sex in public: No

Gotten pregnant: No

Kissed a boy: Yes

Kissed a girl: Yes

Gotten tattoos: No, but he has thought about it.

Had a broken heart: Yes, but not in the romantic sense. It mostly comes from family rejection.

Been in love: Yes

Stayed up for longer then 24 hours: Yes

A cuddler: Yes

A kisser: No

ARE THEY

Scared easily: Yes

A virgin: No

Jealous easily: No

Trustworthy: Depends on the person. If you get to know him as a friend or lover, he’s someone you can trust.

Dominant/Submissive: Submissive

In love: Yes

Single: ....It’s complicated.

RANDOM QUESTIONS

Have they harmed themselves: No

Thought of suicide: Yes

Attempted suicide: No

Wanted to kill someone: Yes

Rode a horse: The salarian equivalent of a horse.

Have / had job: Yes

Have any fears: Being found by/returning to his family and being used/mistreated by others.

FAMILY

Sibling(s): 23 hatchmates/twins/whatever you want to call them. He’s only close with two or three, though.

Parents: Sunshine’s mother, Daneela Silor, was the Dalatrass of their relatively small clan. She was a good woman who cared for her children, but was too busy with work that they ended up being raised by family friends... And their father. Edin Geran was a power-hungry man who had set his sights on using his ex-STG status to climb up the ranks and mostly saw his children as stepping stones in his career. He wasn’t, uh, nice if you get what I mean.

Spouse(s): None

Children: None

Pets: None

[edourado]

Together, ch viii

This is probably the silliest thing I have ever written for these two. 

Please don’t abandon me.

Much love. 

----

“Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande are leading the charts”, Karen said one morning, while they both lounged in bed, after he decided - well, she persuaded him - to skip his jog just once. 

“Hmm”, was his reply, eyes closed. “And they are...”

Karen chuckled, and he suspected she had already told him about those two people. 

“Singers. Extremely famous.”

“Oh.”

It had become a running joke. She would read him pop culture news once and awhile, claiming he knew far too little about what went on outside his own life and general politics. 

David was actually the cause for that. He had called one day, to give them updates on the puppies - now named Blake, the girl that belonged to Leo, and Iron, the boy that was Zach’s - and said something about someone called Black Pink, which turned out to be several someones. 

“It’s this Kpop band, Leo plays their stuff non stop”, he told Frank, when he looked confused. And then, immediately, “Do you know what Kpop is?”

“Should I?” 

And Karen thought that was so endearing, kissed him and said he was “adorably clueless”, and started reading him these news here and there, that he barely understood most of the time.

“You liked Lady Gaga”, she said, turning to look at him, a sliver of sun on her skin, from a gap in the curtains. “Remember, we watched that movie?”

“The, uh- with the girl that gets famous and the guy…”

“Yes.”

“That’s her, then. Ok.”

Another day, he was sitting at the door, while Leilani played with Pooka in the hallway, when she took out her phone and turned to him. 

“Can I do a Tik Tok with him?”

Frank looked at her a little puzzled, and she showed him her phone. “Like a video? For the internet.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Karen came back from the walk with Lady and he asked her about it, after they all got inside again. 

“It’s like Instagram, but mainly for teenagers, they do these challenges.”

He blinked.

“It’s social media, like Facebook and Twitter.”

She showed him said Tik Toks on her phone and he watched a few, only to declare “I don’t get it”, giving her phone back to her after a few minutes. 

“You never tell me about people I know, like… Prince, he’s cool”, he said after she told him something about someone called Frank Ocean. 

Karen blinked at him.

“Frank…” she started, her voice almost careful. “You know he- he died, right?”

“What- Prince did?”

“Yeah. A few years ago.”

That truly surprised him. 

“Shit. How?”

He spent a few days in a controlled rage about that fact, and started going through a list of artists he knew and liked, checking they were still alive.

“Any more of the Beatles die?” 

“No, they’re good.”

It was Karen’s turn to be surprised when she came home from her own jog one day, to find him sitting on the couch watching reality TV. The Kardashians, to be more specific. 

They had watched the OJ Simpson season of American Crime Story, and she had explained to him that Robert Kardashian was the father of a very famous family that had a show that was still on. 

“I thought it would be like… Different”, he explained when she asked, extremely intrigued, why he was watching that. “But they’re just… Famous because they’re famous, I don’t get it.”

“Yeah, no one does”, she said, walking to the bathroom to take her shower.

To Karen’s further surprise, he kept watching the show. 

“That’s that rapper you told me about”, he said, when Kanye West showed up on the screen one day.

“Yeah, he’s married to Kim.”

“Will it last longer than her other marriage?”

The Kardashians became background noise for a while, and Frank’s knowledge in current pop culture improved greatly, and he spent a lot of time on his computer after Caitlyn Jenner transitioned, researching, Karen suspected.

Eventually, he stopped watching the show, claiming he couldn’t handle anymore. 

“You know what you should watch?”

She sat down to watch Queer Eye with him, and while he didn’t cry once - like she had, the first time she watched it - he didn’t get distracted, sometimes commenting things like “That’s fucked up”, or “nice”, or laughing at something or other. 

Frank sat through six Star Wars movies - which he knew about but had never watched - but was fidgety once he started on the more recent ones, turning his attention to the dogs almost immediately, giving up on actually finishing the saga. 

He sat for almost an hour one day on a video call with Leo, while she explained to him what her favorite Kpop bands were and why. 

“Do you understand what they say?” He asked, and Karen smiled, sitting at the desk, looking at her own computer. 

“That’s what Google Translator and subtitles are for”, she girl replied. “And some of them speak English. And I’m actually picking up on some words, now. ”

Little Victor from upstairs told him that he was reading the Harry Potter books for the first time, and while Frank knew about the books, since his own kids had read them all, he knew next to nothing about it. 

“I know Harry”, he told the boy, as always lying in his hammock, while Victor sat in his own fire escape, little legs dangling. “And there’s his friend, right? With the red hair?”

“His name is Ron”, said Victor.

“And there’s a girl, too. Her name’s complicated.”

He made Victor laugh while pretending not to know how to say the name “Hermione”, going “Herman? Herald? Horace?”, and the kid giggled.

Karen found him reading “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” in his hammock, after Victor lent it to him, before going inside to have dinner. 

“It’s a kid’s book”, Frank whispered to her when she got out to join him.

“The first three are, very kiddy. But the other four are more mature. Stick to it, you’ll see.”

“You read it?” He asked, reaching out for her hand. 

“Yeah”, she said, and then smiled. “When I was eleven. But!” She went on, when he made to argue that they were, in fact, kids books. “The last one came out when I was, like, nineteen, and I didn’t read it until I was twenty one, so there’s that. You’ll be fine.”

He read the three books that Victor lent him in two days, and told her that “shit was starting to get intense for Harry” after he finished the Goblet of Fire. 

“Is he gonna end up with Hermione?” He asked during diner one night when Victor tossed him The Order of the Phoenix. 

“I’m not gonna tell you!” Karen protested, putting a big spoonful of mashed potatoes in her plate. “Why? Do you want them to?”

“Nah”, he said. “I’m just asking, because I think her and Ron make more sense.”

“Aw. Do you ship Romione?”

He looked at her, swallowing a mouthful of steamed broccoli. 

“Do I what the what?”

Karen smiled. “Nevermind.”

His pop culture knowledge hadn’t made it to the lingo yet. 

[miss-edith-cushing]

Tag people you want to know better / catch up with. I've been tagged by @ashfae and I’m not surprised at all - she probably noticed how much I love tag games; and the second I saw someone on my dash answering those questions I hoped Ashfae will be a dear and will tag me, and of course I wasn’t wrong - so thank you!

Last song: Zbigniew Preisner - Niebo (Sky) - performed by Elżbieta Towarnicka It’s the last piece with lyrics I listened to, so I guess I should choose this one. It’s an aria from Preisner’s ‘De Aegypto’ (called also ‘Egyptian Opera’), which is... I’m not entirely sure what is that - it was a spectacle performed in TV, but I never listened and seen all of it, and I don’t think it’s available in any way, legally or illegaly. You may know Preisner as a composer who created film scores for Krzysztof Kieślowski’s movies, the best known of which are The Three Colours Trylogy (’White’, ‘Blue’ and ‘Red’) and ‘The Double Life of Veronique’. Elżbieta Towarnicka is his probably favourite performer, and you will clearly hear why (she worked with him also on scores for films I just mentioned). The piece itself was inspired by the Egyptian Book of the Dead and the lyrics refer to it.

You know what, this is such a beautiful song and lyrics in the comments are not properly translated, so I’ll do it for you:

You are the yesterday,

You are the today,

You are the tomorrow,*

And you have the power to be born for the second time.

You are the divine soul

That created the gods,

You are strong,

Brightness lasts** in your heart.

Let him wander in peace,

Let him cross*** the skies,

Let him worship the brightness,

Let him, let him, let him.

I am the yesterday,

I am the today,

I am the tomorrow

And I have the power to be born for the second time,

For the second time.

* Using one word for naming the days - yesterday, today and tomorrow - sounds kinda dull here, because the language of this song is very formal. Normally when we want to say ‘yesterday’, we say just ‘wczoraj’ instead of ‘dzień wczorajszy’ (day... yesterday-y??? the first word means just ‘day’, the second word is an adjective), and that rather unusual pattern was used here to describe the days. I have no clue if English has any equivalent of that; but I felt giving you this information is important.

** The verb here, ‘trwać’, have many meanings, and one of them is ‘to last’. I’m not sure if that’s perfect word here - maybe I should choose ‘stay’. 'Trwać’ means here that the brightness in his heart will not fade away - it’s so special not because the circumstances are unfavourable for it to exist, but because that described being is a creature with an unique nature that ensures him to keep the brightness in himself.

*** Do you remember that iconic line from ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula’ with Gary Oldman? ‘I have crossed oceans of time to find you’? This is exactly the meaning. ‘Przemierzać’ means to travel for a very long time and across a huge distance, so the journey feels like it will never end (which doesn’t have to be an unpleasant feeling). It can be a journey repeated routinely on one road (like the sun, or the ship that cruises between two harbors) or a way of roaming through large space in many directions (like a continent or a sea).

Hey, look who started babbling again, how unexpected.

Last movie: At home: ‘Secretary’ (2002). I’ve seen it many years ago and didn’t remember much, and now I liked it a lot. For my film d’auteur class: ‘La Chute de la Maison Usher’ by Jean Epstein. Pure beauty. And I gave in on Thursday and went to IMAX to watch ‘Tenet’. I’m very serious about this whole pandemic business, but I sure as hell ain’t gonna watch this movie for the first time on the screen of my laptop. I’m not entirely sure what happened, this whole wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff was too complicated to understand so quickly, so I’ll definitely watch it again, but it blew me away and that’s exactly what I wished to happen.

Currently Watching: ‘Supernatural’. It’s the last season, five episodes left... Ugh, I’m already getting nervous. And I guess that’s it... I haven’t watched any new show lately, except for miniseries like ‘Des’ (GOSH that was so good). I don’t feel like starting any new shows and when a few months ago I tried to watch ‘Masters of Sex’ I’ve noticed binge-watching makes me very depressed and nervous very easily, so I stopped. I have a few shows I’m planning to watch, but not many, i.e. ‘Killing Eve’, ‘The Terror’ and ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ - the last one mostly because Marcin Dorociński plays in it - this dude should be more famous than Leonardo DiCaprio and win one award after another. If you have HBO GO, ‘Bez tajemnic’ (’Without secrets’), Polish version of ‘In treatment’, should be available there - there are plenty of incredible and legendary actors in this show, but he is the absolute star of it. And for fellow David Tennant’s fans out there: I haven’t watched ‘Spies of Warsaw’ yet, but Dorociński played Antoni Pakulski there and certainly was great too.

Currently Reading: I just started ‘My Brilliant Friend’ by Elena Ferrante - my therapist says I’m very much like the title character and I’m very curious what does it mean. I have also a few articles about theory of cinema to read for my tomorrow’s course: ‘On the politique des auteurs’ and ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image‘ by André Bazin and ‘The birth of a new avant-garde: La caméra-stylo’ by Alexandre Astruc. SO damn interesting. And SHIT-TON of books about Medea - I’m writing my master’s thesis about her, but please don’t ask me about it, I’m already panicking.

Currently Craving: A good long sleep that would last for at least eight hours. To feel strong and healthy enough (I’m extremely tired, my back and stomach hurt like hell) so I could be able to clean up a little, wash my woolen sweaters by hand (I’m not throwing them into washing machine, they cost too much to risk any damage), organize my desk and uni notes from last year... I’m in one of those rare, but powerful moods of making lists of things to take care of and just... putting my world in order. And visiting places. And I would gladly just spend nice, simple time with some of my friends - just having fun and talking about important, but not especially painful stuff. I really, really need to meet with Olaf, my best friend from work, and joke with him, and talk with him like a new bi person with an old-timer gay person, and get to know him better.

Anyone surprised my replies are so long? I’m not.

And now the worst, stressful part: tagging. @dearcrowley @heart-blood-death @darkanachronism - but if you’d like to answer those questions and haven’t tag you, feel invited to do it and please tag me so I could see it!

[precuredaily]

Precure Day 187

Film: Yes! Precure 5 The Movie: Miracle Adventure in the Mirror Kingdom! Date watched: 16 May 2020 Original release date: 10 November 2007 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/OLloFxz (500 pics for you to enjoy!) Project info and master list of posts: http://tinyurl.com/PCDabout

these butterflies will kick your ass

This continues our trend of absolutely excellent Precure movies, and stands strong with themes of love, compassion, and bettering yourself. It also introduces Dark Precures for the first time, who will go on to be a recurring idea for a few years. As always it has excellent animation and a moving plot to keep you invested so let’s explore and then I’ll tell you what I thought.

But first, a note!  Throughout this review, I will refer to the villain Shadow using the singular "they” pronoun because their gender is never specified in the film. They have a mostly androgynous appearance, with some traditionally masculine features but a distinctly feminine voice provided by veteran seiyuu Park Romi, and they speak using the feminine pronoun “atashi.” Perhaps the animators were designing a gender-neutral character, or perhaps I’m reading too much into it and the character was meant to be an effeminate man. There is a long and complicated history of queer-coding villains in media that I don’t want to get into, so I’m just going to stick with “they”. However, the translation I use in my screenshots opted for he/him, that is out of my control.

The Plot

Before the actual movie begins, there’s a short sketch with Coco, Nuts, and Milk explaining what Miracle Lights are and how and when to use them. (more on that here) When they explain why you shouldn’t throw them, the audience is gifted with this nightmare-inducing image of Coco being cut.

you know, for kids

After they get the do’s, don’ts, whens, and whys out of the way, the movie starts for real.

In the throne room of the Mirror Kingdom, which is an ominous land filled with reflective surfaces, a blue-haired Jojo villain named Shadow bosses around two bears named Migirin and Hidarin and has them conjure up an image of Nozomi. Shadow takes Nozomi’s image and reflects it into one of the five color-coordinated crystals that decorate the throne room. Nozomi’s image quickly turns into a full figure within the crystal, and as Shadow channels power into it, the crystal shatters and a dark version of Cure Dream is born. The camera leaves the castle and shows a desert filled with mirror slabs with sleeping anthropomorphic animals trapped inside of them.

Via a very clever set of establishing shots through a series of mirror reflections, we transition to Natts House where the five girls and Milk are hanging out. Nozomi is bored and looking for something to do, and each of her friends suggests an activity (futsal, watching TV, playing cards, or doing homework) but she rejects them all. Coco pulls out a flier for a place called Princess Land and suggests they go there. All the girls are entranced by the idea and they agree to go.

The opening theme plays over a montage of them traveling, arriving, picking dresses, leaving to change, showing off to Coco and Nuts, and then walking down a path with a huge crowd of people, including some costumed characters of bear princes. And then a mysterious gothic lolita girl appears on a nearby rooftop, looking out at everything...

The girls wander around Princess Land, acting like princesses while being silly with each other, Urara brags about a Pinky that she caught earlier, Nozomi tries to sneak up on Coco but he comments that he can tell when she’s nearby, and occasionally the mysterious girl from the roof walks by and steals glances at them. The girls enter a house of mirrors, and at one point, the mysterious lolita appears behind Nozomi’s reflection in the mirror, along with Migirin and Hidarin.

all of these are perfectly normal events

In the next room, Nozomi and Coco have a heart-to-heart, reiterating their feelings for each other and that they will find each other if they ever get separated. Afterwards, Nuts stays to talk with Coco, cautioning him about making that sort of promise since they’ll have to go back to the Palmier Kingdom soon. While they’re talking, Migirin and Hidarin sneak up from inside the mirror, take control of Coco and Nuts’s reflections, and then pull the real Coco and Nuts into the mirror world. The girls make their way to the exit, followed by Coco and Nuts. Nozomi notices Nuts is smiling, which is uncharacteristic for him.

Next, all the girls partake in a game where they run around a field as boys try to place flower crowns on their heads. Karen and Komachi are already out by the time we see them, Nozomi and Urara don’t last long, but Rin dodges and outruns all the boys, because she is too good for them. She receives a bouquet for her trouble, which she goes to offer to Nuts. However, Nozomi has noticed that Coco and Nuts aren’t acting themselves, and when Coco brushes Rin aside and asks Milk for the Dream Collet (side note: why does she have it? Nuts is its caretaker), Nozomi steps in and exposes the princes as imposters. While this is happening, the mysterious lolita watches from a distance.

The fake Coco and Nuts pull out a pair of Kowaina masks and morph into a large two-headed creature, so the girls all transform into Precure as well. The monster is very blobby and absorbs their attacks. Nozomi fires off a Dream Attack into one of the masks but when the smoke clears, the face recovers. While the girls fight, the lolita girl holds up a mirror that captures their images, and Shadow reflects Rouge, Lemonade, Mint, and Aqua into the remaining four crystals. With her work done, the lolita disappears back to the Mirror Kingdom. The Precures continue to fight, unaware of the malicious plans afoot. Aqua concludes that if they attack both masks at once, they should be able to defeat the Kowaina, so after Dream, Lemonade, and Mint gain the upper hand, Rouge and Aqua swoop in with their special attacks. As the monster disappears, what’s left are.... Migirin and Hidarin! They try to flee but Rouge captures them and takes them back to Natts House. There, the girls interrogate them about the location of the real Coco and Nuts. They’re reluctant to talk until Milk slaps the shit out of them.

They explain how Shadow took over the Mirror Kingdom, imprisoning all the residents and stealing the kingdom’s crystals, the source of its energy. Shadow then promised to return everything if Migirin and Hidarin were able to get the Dream Collet. Coco and Nuts are being held captive in the Mirror Kingdom, and there are specific conditions to get there that involve the Miracle Lights which Migirin and Hidarin have. So the girls get ready, and at 2 AM they depart. But they barely have time to take in the sight of the desolate kingdom before Shadow appears in the flesh, claiming that they can get whatever they desire with the Dream Collet! The girls transform into Precure, but Shadow smugly says the Precures won’t be fighting them, and then they teleport the red, yellow, green, and blue crystals behind themself. The mysterious lolita girl also appears behind Shadow, and Nozomi is shocked at this girl who looks so much like her. The lolita is encompassed in flame as she transforms, revealing herself as Dark Dream.

At the same time, the other four crystals burst and Dark Rouge, Dark Lemonade, Dark Mint, and Dark Aqua emerge.

Color-coded mirrors appear behind the heroine Precures as their dark counterparts quickly lunge at them and pull each of them into a mirror, where they each arrive in a new dimension. The Dark Precures speak to their originals about their twisted ideals, which all share the common theme that the Dark Cures believe friends are worthless and the clones are better because they don’t have that reliance on others. Each girl engages in battle with her doppelganger and the Dark Cures waste no time demonstrating their superiority.

Milk, Migirin, and Hidarin can do nothing but watch the mirrors. Shadow, however, isn’t interested in waiting to see the outcome of the fights, so they forcefully take the Dream Collet from Milk and teleport back to the castle. There, Coco and Nuts are shown trapped in mirrors, and Shadow taunts them before explaining that they came to the Mirror Kingdom so they could quickly collect all 55 Pinkies. They hold the Dream Collet up and the mirrors scattered around the room change to show all the Pinkies scattered around the world (very convenient that they’re all by reflective surfaces). They get sucked into the mirror, into the Mirror Kingdom, and then into the Dream Collet! Coco is sad because he’s helpless to stop this and thinks he may never see Nozomi’s smile again.

The Dark Precure fights resume, and they’re getting brutal, but the tide is starting to turn in favor of our heroines. Dark Dream says she’s an exact copy of Nozomi, but without her weaknesses. However, Nozomi turns it around and says Dark Dream is a clone of a past version of her, she continues to improve herself and she’s stronger than she was yesterday, an hour ago, a minute or even a second ago. It’s a damn good line.

The other girls also question the motivations of their counterparts and explain that having friends is what motivates them and makes them strong. We cut back to Milk and the bears. Milk wants to follow Shadow to save Coco and Nuts and recover the Dream Collet, but Migirin and Hidarin are too scared to go with her, feeling too weak and pointing out even Precure couldn’t do it. Milk scolds them for not wanting to save their own kingdom and sets off on her own. She makes it to Shadow’s castle, and Migirin and Hidarin show up after all to help her.

Nozomi and Dark Dream continue to fight, and Dark Dream’s confidence gives way to anger, confusion, and grief that she doesn’t have anyone she cares about like Nozomi does. Rin, Urara, Komachi, and Karen all manage to defeat their dark counterparts with the strength brought on by their friendship and confidence, recovering the crystals used to create them in the process. Dark Dream attacks Nozomi out of desperation but her heart isn’t in it, and Nozomi effortlessly swats the attack away. Dark Dream falls to her knees, crying about not understanding human feelings like love and friendship, and instead of fighting her, Nozomi offers her a hand and says she can learn, that Nozomi can teach her, and then invites her to return to fight Shadow with them. In the desert, all five mirrors break and the girls emerge from them. Rouge, Lemonade, Mint, and Aqua are surprised to see Dark Dream come out with Dream, and Dark Dream is clearly uncomfortable, but Nozomi says she’s a friend and that’s the end of that. The six girls run off to Shadow’s castle, and arrive just in time to save the mascots from a destructive attack by Shadow. However, Shadow boasts that it’s too late because they’ve already collected all the Pinkies, and they make their wish to become the ruler of the world. Power courses into the Dream Collet, the cures brace themselves, and then.... nothing happens. 

Lemonade remembers the Pinky that she caught earlier which is still in her Pinky Catch, so Shadow can’t have all 55 of them and therefore their wish didn’t come true. Undeterred, Shadow lashes out at the team, lunging straight at Dark Dream and brutally punching her in the stomach, but quickly separates the other girls, and paralyzes Dream. Shadow moves to destroy Dream but Dark Dream moves in front of her and takes the blow instead, cracking the jewel in her chest. Nozomi is freed from the restraint and holds her copy in her arms, begging to know why she saved her. Dark Dream responds that it’s because she likes Nozomi, and after all, she’s just a copy. Nozomi says she’s not a copy, she’s her friend, but it’s too late, and Dark Dream starts to glow and fade away, leaving behind only her crystal. Shadow remarks that Dark Dream was a traitor who had it coming, but Nozomi will not take this slander against one of her friends, and through her tears she fights Shadow, delivering a good kick to their stomach before performing Crystal Shoot, seemingly defeating the villain.

Dream turns to Migirin and Hidarin and asks them to use the Miracle Lights to free Coco and Nuts, which they do. She embraces Coco and reminds him that she said she’d find him, no matter where or how. Their reunion is short lived, though, as Shadow stands up, cursing the Precures, and transforms into their true form: giant, buffer, and now with long red hair for some reason. They attack the Precures, and then launch a huge energy ball, but Migirin and Hidarin step in to block it with the Miracle Lights, proclaiming that they’re no longer afraid of Shadow. Then they turn their miracle lights on the Precure,  wishing to grant them the strength to defeat Shadow. Migirin and HIdarin aren’t strong enough, so they ask for help. Coco, Nuts, and Milk help to! So does the audience! You! Yes you reading this right now, wave your miracle light and give the Precure power!

Well everyone’s wishes come together to grant the Precure new power, and they metamorphose into Super Precure. (I’m serious, they literally cocoon up and then emerge with new outfits and sprout butterfly wings.) Then they perform Precure Five Explosion, against Shadow’s protests of overwhelming power. They explain it isn’t just their power, but the power everyone gave them, the power of everyone’s hearts and courage becoming one! Shadow is no match for the combined strength of everybody, and disintegrates.

Afterwards, the cures use their butterfly wings to carry the five crystals back to their pedestal mounts in the throne room. The pink crystal notably has a large fracture in it, a lasting reminder of Dark Dream’s short and tragic existence. With all the crystals restored, the Kingdom of Mirrors returns to its natural beautiful state, a land of greenery and crystals poking up from the ground, and the inhabitants are freed from their prisons. Urara, Komachi, and Karen comment on how beautiful it is. Inside the throne room, Nozomi stares wistfully at the pink crystal, recalling her short-lived friendship with Dark Dream. Rin and Urara call her to go to the celebration party, and as she runs out of the room, the camera does a slow zoom in on the cracked crystal while the ending theme begins to play.

The ending itself is Ganbalance de Dance again, but the girls are in their princess gowns, while the fairies are wearing their corresponding garb, and Migirin and Hidarin make a few appearances.

The Analysis

The three movies from the “Futari wa” shows in 2005-2006 were all about the girls overcoming internal conflict to become better friends with each other, and each of them did it in a somewhat different way. You could certainly explore that dynamic with a larger team, and in fact the show did just that in episodes 23-24, but instead this movie derives its conflict from the girls’ own personalities. They’re not fighting each other, they’re fighting themselves, and recognizing their supposed weaknesses as strengths. In this way, they achieve growth. It’s a great character exploration and shows what teamwork means in a larger group setting. Additionally, the story is well-paced and flows naturally from one event to the next without ever lagging, but it also gives you some necessary breathing room in between dramatic moments. As we’ve come to expect, the animation is generally much better than the television series, and the fights look phenomenal. The aspects I find less enjoyable are mostly to do with the fairies and the merchandising, and a bit of a rushed finale.

The major themes of this movie are friendship, trust, redemption, and growth. Friendship is the most obvious one, because it’s at the core of this entire franchise. The bond that each member of the team has with the others is their greatest strength and what allows them to push past their own limits. It’s what clues Nozomi in that Coco and Nuts are missing. It’s what the Dark Precures are missing which leads to their defeat, and it’s also what allows Nozomi to befriend Dark Dream rather than defeating her. We are shown time and again that having people to support you is the most wonderful thing imaginable. Trust is perhaps both the most broad and the most limited theme in this film. It’s closely connected to friendship and you can see it overlap with that a lot. Because of their friendship, each girl trusts that the others are winning their battles against their counterparts as well. However, a small place where it heavily applies that’s easy to overlook is during Nozomi and Coco’s moment alone in the hall of mirrors. They promise they’ll always find each other no matter what they look like or where they go. True to her word, as soon as Nozomi realizes Coco has been replaced with an imposter, her only goal is finding the real deal, and Coco has unwavering trust in her to do it. It’s a powerful moment that gets lost in the commotion of the movie, but I love it.

The Dark Precures are easily the most famous aspect of this film, with good reason. The idea of an evil twin is an ancient storytelling technique, and it remains very effective, because it can simplify character design by allowing you to base your evil character on an existing protagonist while letting you deviate in small or large ways from their design as needed. It's also be a convenient way to explore and develop a character’s personality by having them face off against someone of a similar, but twisted, ideology. A case could be made that the Kiryuus in Splash Star were a form of villain counterpart Precures without being explicit copies of the heroines, but these are the first to be directly and transparently copies of the heroines, and of the three full dark teams as of this writing (Yes 5, Heartcatch, and Smile) they’re the best fleshed out. Each of them represents a quirk of their doppelganger, but turned selfish.

Dark Dream is devoid of aspirations and joy

Dark Rouge believes friends prevent you from being your true self

Dark Lemonade feels that trying to entertain others is a waste of effort.

Dark Mint believes the best defense is a good offense, and protection is a weak ability

Dark Aqua thinks that friends keep you from growing stronger

They gloat about being better because they don’t have the dependency on friends, but most of them go down precisely because the heroines feel empowered by being in a team, even when fighting alone. Each of the heroines recognizes that their strength comes from having friends to protect and fight alongside, that friends help you grow and improve yourself. The hubris of the Dark Cures is ultimately their undoing and it ties back into the film’s central themes of friendship. This is explored clearly across all five fights by careful editing, which involves giving each battle a little bit of time in focus before changing perspectives. We hear short exchanges between the original and dark cures, and sometimes conversations are continued between battles, as their debates are very similar. Ultimately, the Cures’ confidence in their friends is what allows them to succeed over their counterparts, as just having faith is enough of a motivator and a power boost to keep them going, and each fight concludes with the girls accepting and explaining how the flaw the Dark Cures see in them is actually their greatest strength. It’s beautiful. I was particularly moved by Komachi and Karen’s statements to their doppelgangers. Komachi said “I wanted to protect you, too,” as Dark Mint disappeared in her arms, which is a powerful rebuttal to an opponent who criticized her for only protecting herself, and you could feel Komachi’s regret. Meanwhile, Karen told Dark Aqua that her dark version reminded her of herself before she made friends, and therefore she wants to surpass that version of herself, which speaks to Karen’s growth both on and off the screen.

Nozomi and Dark Dream’s battle, however, is on a different level from the others. Dark Dream was actually a reflection of Nozomi herself rather than Cure Dream, she was around for longer than the others and got to see Nozomi just hanging out with her friends being happy, so she has the most fleshed out personality and perspective while the rest of the Dark Precures were created and immediately thrown into battle. Consequently, Dark Dream starts out cynical about Nozomi’s friendships, but when Nozomi begins to show how her friends help her grow and improve herself constantly, Dark Dream begins to falter. Her confidence turns to anguish as she bemoans her lack of understanding about friendship, happiness, laughter, sadness, sorrow, or any other emotions. She was created to fight and that’s all she knows how to do. But instead of destroying her, Nozomi offers to help her learn these things, and this act of kindness shakes Dark Dream to her core. Her reason to exist has been stripped away, but Nozomi has given her a chance to be more than just a clone made for destruction. More amazingly, the other Precures accept her as well. As soon as Nozomi declares her a friend, they all accept her as one of their rank and proceed to fight Shadow. For the first time in her life, she’s not just needed, she’s wanted, and this shows off the depths of Nozomi’s compassion and her power to unite people. Unfortunately, just when Dark Dream has found someplace she belongs and people who care about her, she makes the ultimate sacrifice to save Nozomi, and that breaks my heart. Her story mirrors that of Kiriya, someone else who was created for evil, but through the compassion and kindness of the heroines, tried to forge a different path, only to die before he could truly make a new life for himself. It’s the same kind of tragedy, that of unfulfilled potential, and it’s a mature plot direction for this series. It hurts but I applaud the writers for it. I also love that Nozomi doesn’t forget this at the end. Nozomi made a new friend, that friend died so she could survive, and the ending where she stares at the pink crystal with only the bottom of her face visible really gets to me. I’m not sure if it’s symbolic that she’s lost a part of herself or if it’s because eyes are major sources of expression and hiding them enforces that she’s not her usual happy self, but it’s excellent framing and it contrasts well with the happy face she puts on when Rin and Urara summon her for the party.

Additionally, this scene of Dark Dream’s desperate attack is beautiful, primarily in how the audio cuts out from the moment she throws it until it hits the ferris wheel. It’s an excellent use of silence.

Beyond having ideals that clash with those of the Precure 5, the Dark Precure also have their own spin on special attacks. The butterfly motifs are gone entirely, Dark Dream simply lobs a ball of energy around, Dark Rouge shoots fireballs and can use a phoenix attack, Dark Lemonade creates blades by kicking her feet and can decimate with her singing, Dark Mint launches orbs that can pierce barriers, and Dark Aqua uses an energy staff, and later a sword. In some respects they resemble the Cures’ attacks and in others they’re completely opposite. It’s a clever and imaginative use of each girl’s powers.

The combat sequences are some of the best I’ve seen in any movie so far, with the characters alternating between rapid-fire punching and kicking and their energy attacks. Each battle takes place in a unique environment, which lets the perspective switch rapidly between fights without confusing the audience, and the director keeps an excellent balance between them, only staying a few minutes at each before changing perspective. Dream fights in a carnival, primarily by a ferris wheel (which could be the one seen at the Princess Land), Rouge fights in space on a bunch of floating orbs, Lemonade and Mint both fight in cities surrounded by buildings and parks, and Aqua fights in a flowery meadow.

The other villain of the movie, Shadow, offers very little to discuss. They’re a power-hungry tyrant with no motivation other than to rule over everything. They’re super over-the-top in their mannerisms, very sadistic, mocking, and uncaring about anybody else. They view the Dark Precures as nothing but tools and they feel no remorse for their defeat. We know nothing about their history or what led them to become this way, and since most of the movie is them pushing other people around or letting the Dark Cures fight on their behalf, we don’t get the chance to explore their motivations deeper than the surface level. Shadow is a decent fighter, at least, when they go toe-to-toe with the Precure they demonstrate immense speed and of course their glyphs are able to both restrain opponents and teleport small objects. It’s good to have a five-on-one fight against a human-sized opponent after spending half the movie in solo fights, it shows how strong Shadow is, but ultimately of course the Precure overpower them, driven on by the death of Dark Dream. I enjoy seeing them gloat and ham it up but they’re less compelling than their predecessors Sirloin, Freezen and Frozen, and maybe even the Dark Witch. This of course is due to Shadow’s lesser screentime, since the Dark Precures are the main attraction of this film, but I still wish they’d gotten a little more time in the limelight.

The other new characters of this film are the denizens of the Mirror Kingdom, Migirin and Hidarin. They are annoying and I do not like them. I take pleasure in seeing Milk slap the shit out of them.

They are voiced by a comedy duo called “The Touch” who are real-life twins named Takuya and Kazuya. Their line delivery is very bland and, frankly, they’re boring characters. Their main gimmicks are speaking in sync or finishing each other’s sentences, and their only character trait is cowardice that they have to learn to overcome. Beyond that they’re only in the movie to have an in-universe explanation for the Miracle Lights.

Let’s address the elephant in the room here. This is the very first Precure movie to have Miracle Lights. Almost every movie after this will also include a new Miracle Light, so get used to them. I wrote a long explanation on PCD Status that you can read, but the short version is that kids in the audience receive a real Miracle Light with their ticket purchase, and at key points in the movie they’re supposed to light it up and wave it in the air, giving the Precure power in a simple form of audience participation. In this film they mask the fourth wall breaks pretty well by having Nozomi turn towards the fairies when she asks for help, even if she’s facing the camera. It’s just enough plausible deniability to not break the immersion.

The plot of the film is really good until about the last fifth, and then as I alluded to earlier it gets rushed and kind of muddy. The entire prologue and the sequence at the Princess Land is the kind of wonderful fun, comedy, and antics I’ve grown to expect from this show. It highlights all their characters wonderfully and you get some small, tender moments as well. Karen and Milk’s close friendship is on full display, Komachi pushes Nuts away from a mirror that makes the viewer look fat because she doesn’t want to see him that way, and of course there’s Nozomi and Coco’s comments about detecting and finding each other. My two personal favorite shots are the bit with Urara, Komachi, Karen, and Milk performing a hime laugh because it’s just so wonderfully absurd.

And then my other is personal bias, but during the princess crowning, Rin manages to outrun all the boys. If you’ve been in the fandom you may have heard the joke “Nobody loves Rin,” which relates to the other four girls each having an official or widely accepted shipping partner (Nozomi and Coco, Urara and Syrup, Komachi and Nuts, Karen and Kurumi). Well my rebuttal to this, based on this scene, is that Rin has no partner because there’s nobody good enough for her yet. We stan best girl!

The interrogation at Natts House is good, and of course when they arrive in the Mirror Kingdom they’re almost immediately confronted with Shadow and the Dark Cures, who I gushed about above. The part where I believe the film starts to crack just a bit and the pacing hurts is after the defeat of Dark Dream. Shadow goes down really quickly, and then once the team turns into Super Precure, they almost immediately perform Five Explosion. From the time the six girls confront Shadow in the castle to Shadow’s defeat is about 10 minutes of a 70 minute movie, and 5 minutes in the middle of that is Miracle Light shenanigans and Shadow transforming. Most of the rest of the fight is the Five Explosion stock sequence, and whereas normally the Cures would deliver some epic speech before they land the final blow, this time their righteous lecture is rather short, saying that the power is everyone’s power. It’s effective but it feels truncated.

I found the soundtrack to this movie to be.... largely uninspiring. It wasn’t bad or anything, but it just seems to be remixed or rerecorded tracks from the show’s BGM., but listening to the OST there was only one track that really hit that sweet spot in my brain. It’s “Surpassing my Past Self”, track 18, and I like how everything in it builds up. You’ve got strings for the melody backed by rhythm guitar, joined later by brass, and then the guitar starts to take a more active role in the tune as it ramps up in intensity. This is the song that plays when Nozomi is winning against Dark Dream and starting to persuade her, when she makes her epic speech about being stronger than she was before. This song sticks out to me in a way that nothing else does.

Visually the movie is gorgeous, with some occasional hiccups into TV quality, but of course the movie budget overall means they get to do more than they can with a weekly TV show. Check out the opening sequence and all the little details in it!

I especially love this bit from just before the title card where the girls’ portraits flip around to show the dark cures.

you can find a higher resolution version of this gif in the gallery

Curiously, there are still some animation shortcuts taken, like during this shot where the camera zooms in on the double doors and you can clearly see the transition between the low-detail wide shot and the high-detail close-up. I know why they did it but I wish it was smoother.

Something I find really clever is that when Shadow first creates Dark Dream in the pink crystal, the silhouette that is generated is just Nozomi in her school uniform, she doesn’t take on her new appearance until she’s fully formed.

The designs of the Dark 5 are really good and I could probably gush about them for another week, but in a nutshell they manage to effectively invert the aesthetics of the Precures, replacing cream with black, and their outfits are different from each other’s in a lot of the same ways that the main team are. Dark Dream has a two-piece outfit, Dark Lemonade’s skirt is a bit different, Dark Mint and Aqua have a band of color around their waist that the others lack, things of that nature. They’re distinct from their counterparts and from each other, which is more than can be said about their dark successors.

Dark Dream, in her civilian guise, is also an incredible design. Gothic lolita is a great look and I think it’d be cool if the franchise would utilize it a little more often.

The lace-front maroon dress with a flower petal skirt is very nice, and the black petticoat accentuates it. The headdress with roses compliments the purple bow and also reflects Nozomi’s small pigtails, and her purple lipstick and eyeshadow bring it all together. It’s almost a shame she loses the makeup when she transforms.

The Super Precure designs are nice. Not as elaborate as the Phoenix Forms from the second Max Heart film, but I appreciate the subtle redesigns.

Obviously the butterfly wings are the most prominent element, but their sleeves are longer and frillier than on their normal outfits, which means the stock sequence for Five Explosion had to be largely reanimated..... and this means the coloring error with the Lemonade Castanet is fixed!

And my last art/animation comment is to point out that there sure are a lot of stomach attacks in this film!

Some other bookkeeping: the Dark Precures are voiced by different actresses than those who play the protagonists, and this is the only time that happens, because future Dark Cures will share an actor with their counterpart. Some of them have had supporting voice parts in previous Precure seasons, and all five of them will have roles in future seasons, though again some are small parts. The most notable ones are Nishimura Chinami as Dark Dream, she would later play Aoki Reika/Cure Beauty in Smile Precure (and therefore Bad End Beauty as well); and Kugimiya Rie as Dark Lemonade, who later portrays Madoka Aguri/Cure Ace in Dokidoki Precure. The others are: Minaguchi Yuko as Dark Mint, who plays Flora in Precure 5 GoGo; Kiuchi Reiko as Dark Aqua, who previously played Kiriya in Futari wa Precure, and Nagasawa Miki as Dark Rouge, both of whom will play characters-of-the-week in Heartcatch Precure.

By the way, according to the Precure Wiki, there was a scene after the credits in the theatrical version that showed the Dark Precures being revived, however I cannot find any legitimate citation for this, and it’s also not mentioned in the Japanese wikipedia article for the film, so I’m considering that claim false unless more reliable information surfaces.

Overall this movie is excellent and once again it raises the bar for what you can achieve in a Precure movie. It features fun hijinks and high-stakes emotional drama! It tackles the doppelganger idea better than any subsequent series due to the possibilities of film and the artwork is great. If you haven’t seen it, go check it out!

Next time, in Precure Daily, we return to the main plot as Despariah appears before the girls! Look forward to it!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 1 kettei!

[plus-size-reader]

Babysitting

Alexei x Plus size!reader

Word Count: 1313 words

Warnings: none 

Summary: Hopper leaves Alexei in the care of his deputy. 

———————————————————————————————————

The knock on your door was too familiar, and too forceful for you not to recognize it. Knowing who was at the door wasn’t the question though, you needed to know what in the hell Jim Hopper was doing at your door first thing in the morning.

“You do know that I’m off today right?” you asked, opening the door expecting the chief of police. Instead you came face to face with a much smaller man who you didn’t recognize.

After a brief moment of thinking maybe you’d lost your mind, you found Hopper, standing to the side of the man, holding his hands behind his back.

“Who’s this?” you wondered, moving to the side so the two men could get through, because it was clear in Jim’s eyes that he wasn’t just paying you a visit.

Again, no answer. You turned around to see the curly haired man in your arm chair, while Hopper was lighting a cigarette.

“His name’s Smirnoff” he introduced, plopping down on your couch with so much force that you were almost sure he’d popped a spring.

That earned a laugh from you. What kind of name was that? And more importantly, what is he doing on your loveseat?

“That’s great Chief, what’s he doing here?” you wondered, removing his dusty boots from your coffee table before taking a seat beside him.

Hopper was technically your boss but you’d been his deputy for longer than either of you could remember so there wasn’t much professional respect between you.

“He’s a Russian scientist, I have to take Joyce Byers to go get Murray Bauman so he can translate, and I need somewhere safe to leave him until I get back” he informed, boggling your mind.

First of all, that was a lot to process at once. Secondly, that didn’t tell you why he was sitting on your couch. There had to be somebody else in Hawkins that could watch his little Russian.

That being said though, you also understood why he brought the man to you.

You were the one person that Hopper trusted above most others and he knew you’d do your best to keep this little man a secret.

“Fine, I’ll keep your Russian” You sighed, turning toward the man on the chair now. He was already smiling up at you when you made eye contact, and despite yourself, you smiled back.

~

With Hopper out of the way, you started trying to get to know the scrawny Russian on your chair.

There was something sweet about him, and even with the language barrier, before long you two were hitting it off. As it would turn out, his real name was Alexei, which he was able to communicate to you after a few hours of calling him Smirnoff.

You had learned a few things about him in the time that you two spent together. He was a huge fan of cherry slurpees, which he made sure you knew. He enjoyed loony tunes and reruns of Happy Days whenever they came on.

All in all he was a cool guy but you still weren't' understanding something.

Hopper made it seem like Alexei was some kind of dangerous criminal and while he may have been very intelligent, he wasn't a monster.

You had only just met the guy and you could still tell that he was no more than a sweetheart that had gotten mixed up with the wrong people at the wrong time.

It wasn’t fair to him to assume that just because he was working for the bad guys, the he was a bad guy as well. Alexei seemed harmless, and honestly...he was.

You were learning that more and more with every passing second.

Your thoughts were interrupted by him laughing, once again, as the coyote fell from the cliff, missing roadrunner by a foot. He found cataclysm so entertaining...something he likely had in common with Hopper.

“Kaboom” he mimicked, making the noise back to the television screen which earned a laugh from you. It was rare that you felt that way but there was something so innocent about Alexei that made you feel different than you had in a long time.

He was different than most of the guys in this town. He was sweeter, and nicer to be around than anyone else you’d ever known, and it was affecting you.

“Do they not have cartoons like this in Russia?” you wondered, crossing your legs under yourself on the couch as you waited for his response. Communicating wasn’t easy with such an intense language barrier. Luckily, through a complicated combination of charades and sounding out every letter like you were learning it for the first time, you got your point across.

Alexei, in turn, used the same system to let you know that they didn’t, and if they did, he’d never had the privilege of watching them.

For some reason, that made you sad, though you were enjoying his company too much to let him know that. The idea of the life that this man had been forced to live, under the thumb of much eviler men, made you upset.

You wanted to protect him and show him all the fun that the world had to offer him, and after a few minutes of thinking, you knew just what to do.

~

There wasn't anything super exciting about Hawkins, you knew that but for a man like Alexei, anything was going to be more of an adventure than what he was used to.

Luckily, there were a few things in Hawkins that you could only see there, and one of those things, was the video store. It was a dusty sort of place, occupied mostly by bored kids and impatient moms, but you loved it.

You had been going there since you were a child, and based on how Alexei had reacted to the few cartoons on the tv screen, he was going to love it too.

You entered the building with no hesitation, expecting Alexei to follow you, which he did after you prompted him to do so. Technically, you were just supposed to sit around and wait for Hopper to come back but while they were gone, the least you could do was show him a good time.

What Hopper didn't know wouldn't kill him.

"It's okay Lex, pick anything you want" you suggested, leading the skittish man down one of the closer isles so he could get a better look at all the options. They had everything from fantasy to horror and you were kind of interested to see what he would choose.

There was no real good way to know and honestly, you couldn't wait.

There was still so much you didn't know about Alexei and maybe this experience would help open your eyes to what kind of man he was.

Pretty quickly, his eyes fell on a classic. Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory, a film that you hadn't seen in years. It was an excellent film, but something you didn't really think about.

That being said though, it was a fantastic film to open his eyes to american pop culture. It was quite the trip.

"That's a really good one" you clapped, proud of him for making such a good choice. You looked around for more time, but Alexei's attention remained on the box in your hands. He was intrigued by what was shown on the cover, and needed to know what it was about.

So, needless to say, you left with a single copy of Willy Wonka in hand and nothing more.

Now,Hopper did eventually come back, with Joyce and Bowman in tow.

However, he didn't return to a sight that he was expecting. Instead of you, sitting across from the Russian as he'd left you, he two of you were now wrapped around one another on the couch, the movies end credits playing on a loop in the background.

You would have a hell of a lot of explaining to do when you woke up, that was for sure.

[sparrellow]

i can be ur angle or yuor devil

“I literally called you sexy. I winked at you. Then you sat on me and gave me a boner.”

It just so happens that the company's plans to revive Rin's failing idol status brings her closer to her previous partner-in-crime.

rating: T+ genre: romance/humor ships: rin/len word count:  6,974

Life in the idol world was tough.

Rin knew as much, because she, unfortunately, was an idol.

She wasn’t even sure how she got herself into this mess, but she was talent scouted at an age too young by Western standards, probably, and then forced into a duet with some bratty kid called Len.

The whole farce was that they looked almost exactly the same, and were the same age, and ‘had the same family name’ (they didn’t, but that was a long story). So, they were marketed as like, twins-by-chance-not-blood or mirror-images or gender-bend-friends or whatever.

That worked for a while, until Len went through puberty and became way too hot to duet with Rin, and his own popularity sky-rocketed so much that they were basically forced to be their own pop stars.

Alas, Rin was kind of just too damn average to go solo. Especially with more appealing talents in the charts, like Japan’s darling idol Miku Hatsune, or just, Len himself, she had no chance. All that could be concluded from this was that Rin was just too ugly and untalented.

After Meiko had heard Rin’s internal woes, she patted her roughly on the back and sighed.

“Oh, Rin. You’re not ugly or bad at singing. You wouldn’t have gotten this far if you were.”

Rin sniffled, and blew her ugly face into her handkerchief. Of course she’d started crying during the whole monologue, which made her sound and look even more ridiculous than before. “But I’m literally sucking. Even the manager has called an emergency meeting about my lack of popularity.”

That was true. Earlier that day, the manager had sent a text into the Vocaloid Idol Group Chat™ calling for an emergency meeting to save a certain idol’s plunging fanbase. Even if he didn’t name her directly, literally everyone in the group chat knew it was about her.

How embarrassing. Even Miku and Len saw it. She wanted to die.

Meiko tutted, shaking her head. “You know, you’ve been a duet with Len for almost your whole career. Everyone knows you as part of a duet. So, of course your image might suffer a little with such a sudden change as you go into solo careers. The manager just needs to figure out how to market you in a way that shows idol fans how truly spectacular you are as a solo idol. That’s all.”

Rin wailed. “That’s the thing. I’m not spectacular as a solo idol. I’m just painfully average.”

“Lies!” her companion said. “Rin, you are so cute. Like, you can take anything and make it cute. And your voice is unique, like Len’s. It doesn’t have to be like Miku’s to be special, it’s already special as is.”

She dabbed at her tears and sniffled again. Her stupid idol makeup was running down her face, making her look like she’d just crawled out of a TV set showing a horror movie. Even Miku would still look painfully beautiful crying, and not like some unfortunate Halloween-costume-gone-wrong.

“Thanks Meiko,” Rin said. “I don’t believe a word you said but thanks for trying to comfort me anyway.”

Meiko rolled her eyes, giving her another rough pat on the back. “Would you believe me if I was Len telling you all that stuff?”

The mention of Len made her ears turn pink. “Hmm,” she said, knowing the point her senior idol was making.

Meiko smirked. “That’s right.”

The brunette then left Rin to cry like a baby by herself in the private idol lobby of their record company building. To be honest, it would be humiliating if anyone else saw her like this, but she couldn’t bring herself to move somewhere more private to cry. Besides, everyone knew her career was going down the toilet.

Perhaps she would’ve been able to bounce back more if things were different, but a certain Blonde Boy with a Very Attractive Face made it all the more complicated.

Here was the catch: Rin was totally enamored of Len.

It was a bit sad, really. And it hadn’t always been so cliched-romance-story, with her pining after his very nicely shaped ass. In the beginning, they actually sort of hated each other, with her wanting to kick his ass to the moon.

He was the most self-absorbed dingus at first, and he would play pranks on her constantly. They weren’t even good pranks—like, once he put a whoopee cushion on her seat during a meeting and found that hilarious.

Of course, with time, they grew on each other and actually became very good friends. They had secret jokes with each other, they played pranks on other idols, they watched horror movies until dawn and then slept on the couch together for the rest of the week because they were too scared to sleep in their own beds.

It couldn’t be helped that Rin eventually fell for Len. Daring, mischievous, but charming Len. He always knew how to make her smile (or tear her hair out with frustration).

But for the sake of professionalism, she never dared uttering her true feelings to him—only confiding in Meiko from time to time, since she was the only Vocaloid she could trust. It sucked, but she couldn’t risk ruining the relationship between them, thus ruining their career had Len demanded they should go solo.

Of course, then they grew up. Len’s voice changed, as well as his appearance, and soon his own popularity outgrew the popularity of the duet itself. The manager made the wise choice to break them up. He went solo, with much success.

Rin, however, flopped like a suffocating fish out of water.

With his success, he moved on to doing occasional collaborations with Miku Hatsune, the record company’s most popular idol. She was, by definition, probably a global superstar at this stage. She toured internationally. She had fans of all nationalities, ages, genders, so have it. She was beautiful and cute and talented, and Len had finally made it far enough to sing with her.

It made Rin’s blood boil, because she was petty and jealous. She was also worried. Miku was just so perfect. It was inevitable that Len would fall for her, right? They were perfect for each other. Perfect people love other perfect people.

Rin blew her nose noisily and sunk back into the lounge chair. This sucked. This sucked.

Gumi appeared, having heard her meltdown, and offered some makeup wipes to fix her face. 

Rin took them graciously.

“Is this about the text from the manager in the group chat?” she asked, handing her another wipe after Rin had used up the other one.

Rin just looked at her and said nothing. There was no need to say anything.

Gumi didn’t press and fell silent. She was a nice idol. She wasn’t nearly as successful as the others, but she was quite popular in her own way. At least she was kind enough to not nag about the matter.

Another sad thing about popularity was that Len soon became distant once they parted ways. They used to be so close, but now Rin felt like she couldn’t even approach him unless approached herself. Of course they talked, but only occasionally. Their careers had drifted so far apart they barely saw each other anyway.

Had their friendship only survived because they were a duet? Was Len glad to be a solo artist now and not having to deal with her anymore? It was sad to think about.

Gumi squeezed Rin’s shoulder and gave her a reassuring smile. “It’ll all work out, Rin,” she said. Then she handed her her pack of makeup wipes. “You can keep them. I have plenty of extras anyway. Take care of yourself, okay?”

“Thank you,” Rin said, watching as she jumped up from the couch and skipped off. (Probably to do better things than comfort a failing idol.)

.

Soon came the time for the not-so long-awaited yet very-muchly-apprehended emergency meeting to fix Rin’s poor career. 

She didn’t want to go. She’d rather be curled up in her room, stuffing her face with chocolate and crying over poorly-written teen romance on Netflix. But Meiko had practically dragged her to the meeting room, makeup-less and in her go-to comfort clothes: a stained, baggy sweater and yoga pants.

Rin had already been humiliated enough as is, so showing up in this state couldn’t be any worse.

Supposedly.

Like fate itself had it in for her, Len also showed up in the elevator on the way to the meeting. He did a double take when he saw her.

“Oh, Rin! I almost didn’t recognise you.”

Rin then promptly burst into tears. 

Len blinked at her in confusion and panic. “I, uh, didn’t mean that in a bad way—”

Meiko just put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. She’s just being fragile.”

He looked at Rin with an eye of concern, but said nothing more.

They filed into the meeting room in silence, and Len took a seat at a distance from her. Much to her further dismay, Miku took the seat right next to him, and they started chatting and showing each other things on their phones.

Rin didn’t know if she was going to have a tantrum or a breakdown.

The meeting began with the manager going over sales-related information, and just general, boring business things. About half-an-hour into the meeting, though, he set aside his stacks of paper, clasped his hands in front of him and leaned forward; a look that meant serious business.

Oh boy.

“I’ve discussed with both the marketing and sales department leaders as to where to go next with Vocaloid’s image. As you know, the idol market is ever-changing and in demand of fresh concepts. We’ve decided on a new image for some idols, and we appreciate everyone’s understanding and cooperation with this change.”

Translation: Rin’s career is going down the toilet, so we need to make her more interesting or something.

“Miku and Len,” the manager addressed. The pair straightened up with serious expressions. “I want you two to have a new image. You’re both our most successful idols, and your fanbase is very supportive of your every move. This is why we feel it’s best for you to take on an image of innocence and purity. You will become Vocaloid’s angels.”

Rin was already sinking down into her seat. This was going so terribly awful. Miku and Len? Angels? Together? She couldn’t even see where this was going for her.

Unfortunately, she’d find out very, very soon, as the manager then fixated his gaze on her.

“Rin. Ever since going solo, your fanbase has been dwindling and sales for both your albums, new singles, and lives, have been suffering.” Oof. “The marketing department has acknowledged this is a fault of their own, for not better marketing your image as something new and fresh after splitting from your duet with Len. We didn’t anticipate Len’s popularity to skyrocket so much that it would overshadow your own success.”

Everyone’s eyes were on her. Including Len’s.

“Your image has always been cute and innocent, and while you fit it quite well, the market is flooded too much with idols like you. That’s why we decided, you will become our devil.”

Rin almost fell out of her chair. Her entire face lit up red like a traffic light.

A devil. A devil. They were going to make Miku and Len innocent and pure, and her evil and chaotic like Satan? Wow. Wow. Rin never wanted to die more than now.

“A devil may sound bad, but we want to combine your current cute image with something mischievous, cheeky, alluring. The current idol market lacks that sort of appeal, and we believe people would become quite attracted to it. You’ll be cute, but with a twist of something dark. We think this new image will suit you quite well.”

Okay, so, Rin representing evil was like a match made in heaven? Did she radiate chaotic evil energy or something? She literally couldn’t even kill a fly without wanting to cry with guilt.

“Any questions or concerns about our decisions?” the manager asked the group.

The room was silent.

“Good,” he said with a smile. “Miku, Rin, Len. Please stay for further discussion about our next campaign. The rest of you are free to leave.”

Meiko shot Rin a sympathetic look before leaving, and once the room emptied out, the manager motioned for the trio to move closer.

“First, do you three have anything you would like to say regarding these changes?” he asked them, sorting through his paperwork to find his notes.

It was quiet a moment, before Len slowly put up his hand.

“Yes?”

“Why are Miku and I involved with this image chance if we’re fine in terms of sales and popularity?”

Big oof. But, honestly, it was a question on Rin’s mind, too. Why were they involved with this miserable attempt at reviving her career?

“While you two are both doing very well, the sales department has noticed that you two have both, er, capped for your sales, and they're no longer increasing. They predicted that it could decrease as people become bored with your current images, so in order to prevent that, we wanted to take a different approach.”

It was Miku and Len’s turn to blush.

“Besides, your popularity will help promote Rin to a larger audience, which is why your next campaign will be together.”

Rin wanted to hide under the table.

“Any other questions?”

Everyone shook their heads, so the manager moved on. “As I said, your next campaign will be together. We were thinking of doing a photoshoot to promote a popular brand of clothing, and using that as a base of your new image. Respectively, Len and Miku promoting a more soft, pure style of clothing, and Rin, promoting a more gothic look.”

Rin? Gothic? Was she going to have to change her stage name to Darkness or Elvira or Raven Way to suit her image, too?

“We’ll see how this goes. If the campaign gains enough popularity, we’ll keep moving forward, perhaps on to new songs and collaborations with each other.”

The manager then relayed the information for the photoshoot, asked for any more questions, and after receiving no further response, dismissed them.

Miku said nothing much once they left the meeting room, simply excusing herself as 'she had business to get to'. Len stayed behind, staring at the carpet between him and Rin.

“So, uh, what do you think?” he asked.

Rin looked at him. “I’m so sorry you two have to get involved with me.”

Len snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. We don’t care about that. But you care, right?”

“I guess I don’t really want to be Satan, but…” she said in a low voice.

He chuckled, and Rin’s face grew warm. “Yeah. I can understand it. But, not saying you’re evil or anything, I feel like some cute devil image would totally suit you.”

“Excuse me?”

Len dodged her elbow, stepping back. “I mean, you’re already cute. Putting angel wings on you would be boring. But you with some devil wings? I can see the appeal—”

Rin didn’t know whether to be flattered or offended. She stepped on his foot to stop him mid-sentence. “Don’t mock it!”

“I’m not,” he said with a grin. “I’m just saying, it’ll be interesting to see what they’ll do with your image.”

She flushed. “Yeah, well, I wonder what they’ll do with yours.”

He laughed and turned away, starting off down the hall. “Don’t knock it until we’ve tried it, Rin,” he said over his shoulder.

Rin sighed. He had a point… but.

Still.

 . 

She had tried it, and was ready to knock it.

Rin stared at her reflection in complete and utter mortification. Her wardrobe for the photoshoot was something she'd only be caught dead in. One outfit was a long, black dress that made her look a bit like a nun. The other outfit—her current one—consisted of leather shorts, a black corset top, fishnet tights, and lots of unnecessary ribbons.

Oh, and platform boots, but they were kind of cool.

She grimaced at the stupid devil accessories she had to wear. Seriously? A tail? Wings? Little horns? This was a nightmare.

Meanwhile, Miku could wear this pretty, floral dress and cute, frilly overall skirt. She looked so soft and fluffy and it made Rin want to throw herself into piranha-infested waters.

Len appeared behind her reflection in the mirror. He had matching overall pants to Miku’s skirt, and a frilly, white button-up shirt with a ribbon at the neck. Rin never knew she needed to see him in soft, feminine clothing until now.

“I told you it’d suit you,” he said with a shit-eating grin.

“I look like I just walked out of a 90s vampire-romance manga.”

Len snickered. “Yeah, well, you would fit in really well with the kids in Harajuku,” he said. “Anyway, you’re totally giving off cute-sexy vibes.”

“How can one be cute and sexy?” Rin asked, not sure to take what he said seriously, let alone as a compliment.

He began playing with her tail, using it to hit her in the legs. “I don’t know. But you somehow do it.”

Her face burst into flames. Thank god her makeup was thick enough to hide that (though her ears were giving away the secret).

Len then walked off, as if nothing ever happened, but that was basically his signature move. The guy was really good at making her melt and not noticing it at all.

The first shoot was with Miku, and the photographer seemed to be really into making it weirdly intimate, so it felt rather homoerotic. Not that Rin cared, because, well, even she felt slightly gay for Miku.

That aside, it was pretty uneventful. Miku was polite, and laughed when her tail kept knocking the set pieces over. 

Next was Miku and Len. Since they were ‘angels’, they did, like, angel-ly things or whatever. Looking beautiful, eating grapes and watching humans make fools of themselves. (That was what the photographer said.)

Of course, some poses made Rin’s blood curdle with jealousy as she stood to the side watching, in between the makeup and hair artist fussing about her appearance. But her prayers were soon answered as Miku was sent off set and Rin called up to start her shoot with Len.

“So, you two were partners, right?” the photographer asked, as he set them up for the first pose.

“A duet, yes,” Rin said.

“Hmm,” the photographer said, in a way that was slightly concerning.

The first few poses were fairly tame. Rin being evil, Len being good. “Steal his grapes,” the photographer ordered. “Okay, good, now look sad because she stole your grapes.”

Why were grapes even a part of this weird shoot? What did they have to do with heaven and hell, or whatever the theme was?

“So, now, Len, I want you to look sad for your partner. She’s become evil.”

Rin frowned at the directions, and Len burst out laughing in her face. “Sorry, I’m sorry,” he apologised to the photographer.

“Rin, you want to lure Len over to the dark side.”

Len snickered again, his expression faltering just for a moment. Rin rolled her eyes, and followed the directions for how she should pose.

She placed a hand on his cheek, leaning over him and pressing a finger to her lips. He looked up at her with wide eyes, and for a moment she thought it was his actual expression, before she remembered the context of the photo and yada yada yada.

The photographer repositioned them a few times, telling Rin to play with his hair and Len to act as if he was pushing her away.

The whole time, Rin could only think about how bright red her ears were, and how the photo editor would probably have to photoshop them back to a human colour.

Eventually it came to the last photo of them together.

“Okay. Len, you have given in. Your devil has lured you to the dark side.”

Rin wanted to face-palm. Len raised his eyebrows at her and winked. 

“Creep,” she muttered to him.

“Hey, you’re the one dressed in leather right now,” he said.

“Yeah, and it’s giving me a massive wedgie.”

Len snorted. “TMI, Rin.”

The photographer began unbuttoning Len’s shirt somewhat. “Rin, hold his collar and motion like you’re trying to take off his shirt.”

“Why,” she said without thinking, and the photographer stopped to look at her questioningly. Len was laughing into his hand. She cleared her throat. “Sorry, I was kidding.”

As if wanting revenge, the photographer then instructed, “Also, I want you to sit on his lap, so that you’re both facing each other.”

Len stopped laughing, checking to see if the photographer was serious. (He was.)

Rin, with the very last remaining bit of courage, reluctantly sat down so that she was straddling Len. Their eyes met, and they pretty much communicated silent apologies to each other.

She held onto his shirt as per instruction, pretending that she was unbuttoning it. A hint of his bare stomach peaked through at her, and she almost screamed.

Len was told to hold her waist. The poor boy seemed humiliated. 

Imagine having to shoot something this grossly intimate with someone you’re incredibly not attracted to, Rin thought. That was probably what was going through his brain.

After being repositioned a few times, the photoshoot between them was finally over, and Rin leapt off his legs like she had been sitting on flames the whole time.

“I’m sorry,” she said to him, and Len looked at her with surprise.

“Why are you sorry?”

“Oh, just. That pose was a bit… Uh.”

He shook his head and patted her shoulder. “No need to apologise, Rin. It’s part of the job.”

Right. Right.

It’s part of the job.

She didn’t know why those words stung as much as they did.

The rest of the shoot was fairly tame. Perhaps the photographer sensed their discomfort with that one position, but he didn’t really force them into any intimate positions after that. Thank god (but Rin was also a little disappointed, you know, because …).

Once they wrapped up the shoot and returned to regular human form, Miku suggested that they order pizza and chill out at her apartment. 

As they headed there in a taxi, Len nudged Rin and gave her this pouty expression.

“I’m so sad they didn’t let you keep the devil wings and stuff,” he said.

“Why, did you want to wear them?” Rin asked.

“No!” Len exclaimed, looking flustered at such a suggestion. “I—I—”

Miku chuckled at them from the front seat. “You two are really close, aren’t you?”

“What?” Rin said.

Miku and Len both looked at her, surprised by her response.

“I mean, we barely even talk anymore.”

A strange expression crossed Len’s face, and he opened his mouth to say something, before snapping it shut and turning away to stare out the window. Miku watched this, before looking back at Rin.

“Really?” she said. “It doesn’t seem that way to me.”

Then Miku turned back to face the front.

Rin was silent. Had she said something wrong? She thought Len would laugh about it or agree, but… 

She sighed and turned to stare out the window as well. She could tell pizza was going to be awkward.

 .

As expected, pizza was pretty awkward.

Len was very strangely serious with everything, and Miku tried desperately to lighten the mood. Eventually, Rin gave up and made some excuse about needing to get home so she could call her parents. 

She stared at her long-untouched LINE chat with Len while waiting at the station for the next train home. It was only the truth, though; what she’d said. They'd used to talk every day, whether it be in person or through text. But then one day, he'd just stopped, and so did she.

Was it her fault, or something? She had tried initiating conversation before, but they’d died rather quickly. To be honest, today’s photoshoot was the first time they’d talked that much in like, a year or so.

So why was Len so upset about what she said?

He seemed to ignore her after that, or avoided her as much as possible. Even in the followup meetings between him, Miku, her and the manager, he avoided her gaze entirely.

The manager gave them some pictures from the shoot at their last meeting, saying their photos would be in the next volume of Sara, a pretty popular alternative fashion magazine. 

One of the photos he’d given them happened to be that pose.

Rin stared at it. It felt incredibly unnatural and awkward at the time, but as a photo, it looked peaceful and natural, and the expression on Len’s face was something different, almost as if he truly was captivated by her or something. Had they mysteriously photoshopped all their humiliation out of the picture?

When she got home from work, she stuck it on the wall above her bed, alongside other photos from their many escapades in the years before. It hadn’t grown much since they went solo, so it was nice to have a new addition.

Rin still felt miserable about it all. She didn’t know if she should message him an apology, or try talking to him about it, because she just didn’t understand.

She pulled out her phone and called Meiko.

Meiko picked up on the third ring. “What can I help you with, Little Miss Devil?”

“Oh no. Let me guess. You saw the photos?”

“Of course. Miku and Len were showing everyone in the lobby. Your butt looked really nice in those pants.”

“Please don’t remind me of my trauma,” Rin moaned, thinking back to her killer wedgie. She was pretty sure she got chafing from those shorts.

“So, what’s up? You don’t just call me for small talk.”

Rin winced, realising she’d kind of used Meiko as a bit of a therapist lately.

Nevertheless.

“It… it’s Len.”

“Len, huh? What did he do?”

“It’s not what he did, more so what I did.”

Meiko was silent for a moment. “Hmm.”

Rin hesitated. “What?”

“I think I know what you did. Miku told me about what happened a few weeks ago, and was asking for context or whatever.”

“What did you tell her?”

“Nothing,” Meiko said smoothly. “Anyway, I was waiting for you to talk to me about it, because I only have one thing to tell you: Talk to him about it.”

Rin clenched her jaw. “Talk to him about it? Why?”

“Because I’m not Len and I can’t tell you what his problem is.”

“Wait,” she said. “Has Len told you about this?”

Meiko hummed. “Not specifically, but I know some things.”

Rin began to tug at her hair, anxious. “Wait. What. What does that mean?”

“Rin,” Meiko said in a firm voice. “From one experienced adult to a less-experienced adult: communication is key.”

Not letting her get another word of protest in, the woman hung up.

Rin stared at her phone in her hand. She was mentally pooping herself. What was going on? What terrible, awful thing was going to happen next?

Reluctantly, she opened her LINE chat with Len and began writing a message to him.

 .

Much to her surprise, Len agreed to meet up at a cafe on their day off. It was one of those hole-in-the-wall cafes, so not really busy anyway, and they took a seat in the far back corner of the shop, where it was more private for a serious discussion.

He was very quiet the whole time, until they’d settled into their seats. He looked up at her, sitting back in his chair. “So, what did you want to talk about?” he asked, straight to the point.

Rin hadn’t elaborated the reason for the talk or anything, let alone even thought about how she would broach the topic. “Uh, um…” she said, staring down at the menu in front of her. Did she want milk tea, or something herbal? She wasn’t sure how pleasant the conversation was going to be, and if shit were to hit the fan somehow, maybe she should avoid dairy in case her (anxious) shit were to also, figuratively, hit the fan.

Len raised an eyebrow at her. 

“About… the day of the photoshoot,” Rin finally said, settling on just getting straight to the point. “I’m sorry about what I said. I didn’t realise it was going to upset you. It… I didn’t say it to hurt you, or be mean, or anything.”

He shifted in his chair, picking up his menu to read. “You don’t need to apologise for it. I know what you meant. And it’s true.”

Rin bit her lip. “But I still upset you.”

Len looked at her over the top of the menu. “I’m not looking for your apology,” he said in a low voice. “I don’t want it.”

“Oh.” Ouch.

He put his menu down. “Have you decided what you want, yet?”

“Yeah."

“What do you want?”

Rin blinked at him a few times, before acknowledging he wasn’t going to move on before she gave an answer. “Er, I’ll just get some yuzu tea.”

“No food?” he asked, pointing at the cake and sweets menu.

She shook her head, and he stood from his chair. Was he going to leave?

Then he pulled his wallet out from his pocket. “Well, I’ll get you something anyway,” he said, and left to order the food before she could protest.

Rin stared down at her knees, tears stinging the corners of her eyes. She quickly wiped them away and willed herself not to cry in front of him. Again. 

What did he mean about not apologising? What did he want, then? Was he just really, really mad at her?

She glanced over her shoulder to check he hadn’t just run away, but he was at the counter, making their order.

Right. She needed to pay him back for this, too. She pulled out her purse and checked she had enough change to give him.

“How much?” she asked when he sat down.

“No,” he said, eyes narrowing in on her purse.

Rin ignored his response, counting out her coins to give him. Before she could hand them over, he reached out and pushed her hand back to her.

“Really, Rin,” Len insisted. “You don’t have to pay me back.”

Sulking, she dropped the coins back into her purse and put it away.

They both fell into silence until their order came. Len had gotten honey toast for them to share.

It was like old times; when they used to always hang out together, when they would order something crazy like a giant parfait meant for four people and try to finish it all without making themselves sick.

Rin couldn’t help but frown.

Len paused when handing her a spoon. “Do you not like honey toast?”

“Huh?” she said, glancing up at him. “Oh, no. It’s fine.”

He raised an eyebrow at her.

Rin tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, digging the spoon into the dessert. “It’s just nostalgic, that’s all.”

Len gazed at her. 

She looked away from him, embarrassed by the very intense-and-direct eye contact he was giving her. 

He then said, “Rin, I know we’ve gone our own ways and fallen out of contact, but you do know I consider you one of my closest friends, right? Just because we don’t talk as much as we used to, or see each other that much anymore, doesn’t mean I don’t think of you as someone special to me.”

Rin flushed. She set down her spoon on the table, losing her appetite. “So, you are mad at me about what I said.”

Len opened his mouth, like he was about to protest, but then he hung his head. “It’s… not…” he said, before sighing in defeat. “It’s more so, I’m sad that… that’s how you think. I’m sad that things made you feel like we weren’t good friends anymore.”

She wanted to cry again, but held her breath in an attempt to stop the tears. “Mmmmmmm,” was all she could say.

He then rested his head in his hand, playing with his spoon in the other. “I guess maybe I’ve been a bit careless about it all and I haven’t really… thought about how you’ve been feeling. And what you said made me realise that.”

“It’s my fault,” Rin began to blubber. “I should’ve talked about it sooner rather than just making the assumption you weren’t interested in me anymore.”

Len glanced up at her, noticing her ugly crying face, and reached for a napkin to hand to her. She hid behind it, trying to silence her loud sobs.

“Rin, we worked together for so long. I couldn’t just throw away our friendship after that,” he said with a pained expression. 

Rin wiped her face and sighed. “I know. I’m being unreasonable. But… seeing you with Miku and everything, it just…”

Len snorted. “Miku and I, we’re friends, well, more like colleagues, but we don’t, you know, click like you and I do. Sure, we hang out and talk and stuff, but with you… I can just be me. You laugh at all my jokes. With Miku, it’s not like that. It’s not always fun and easy and natural like it is with you.”

Her ears began to burn. “Len…” she said. God. Just rip out her heart right there. He was saying all these nice things about them being friends, and she didn’t know whether to be happy or sad. Well, of course she was happy, but… she wished it was more than just. Friendship.

Maybe it was time she just. Laid it flat on the table. Killed two birds with one stone. Set the whole kitchen on fire and just get it all out.

Len looked at her from across the table, spoon in hand, waiting expectantly for her to continue with what she wanted to say.

Rin sucked in a breath, pushed back her tears and smacked her hands on the table, making both herself and Len jump, and also everyone else within earshot.

He blinked. “Rin—”

“Len,” she said, before realising she had no idea what she wanted to say next. She’d stood from her seat and was leaning across the table, staring at him. Her face grew warm as panic began to set in. Okay, okay, just say something at least, because this was getting awkward. “Len.”

Len gulped. “Yes?”

Rin sucked in a shaky breath. Okay. Here we go. Here we go—

“Marry me please,” she blurted.

Len dropped his spoon on the floor.

 .

Rin had never run so fast to the bathroom in her life. She didn’t even stick around to hear his response (nor see his reaction). She just high-tailed it to somewhere where she could emergency call Meiko for advice.

“I just proposed to Len,” she cried as soon as Meiko answered the phone.

There was a moment of silence, before she said, “Congratulations?”

“I’m serious,” Rin said. “I literally told him to marry me.”

“Good for you.”

“Meiko! What do I do? I can’t go back out there and face him after that!”

Meiko sighed. “Where are you?”

“In the bathroom.”

She snorted. “So you just left him there after that? Did you even wait for his answer?”

“No! Of course not! Why would I wait for rejection?!”

“How do you know he was going to reject you? Did you see the future, or something, Rin?”

“Well, no , but—”

“Rin,” Meiko said, her tone suddenly very serious. “I’m not your fairy godmother. I can’t help you out of this situation. Go back out there and talk to him. Len is your friend, isn’t he? Do you think he’d completely destroy you as a rejection? Does that sound like him? Think about it.”

Rin did think about it. “Well… no… maybe…”

“So, what are you doing? Don’t leave him there by himself to wonder what the hell is going on.”

She closed her eyes, leaned back against the back of the toilet and pinched the bridge of her nose. A few beats of silence passed, before she let out an exhale. “Okay. Okay. I’ll do it.”

“Good. Now, get your ass out of the bathroom, you disgusting creature.”

“R-right! Thank you Meiko!”

Rin hung up, sat on the toilet for a moment longer, before getting up to check her reflection in the mirror and emerge with caution from the bathroom. A part of her felt relief seeing Len still at their table, another part felt pure and utter terror.

He was on his phone with a serious expression, and she had no idea how to decipher that.

Without a word, she took her seat across from him and had a mouthful of her citrus tea (which had long gone cold).

Len glanced up, looking surprised, and just stared at her with wide eyes.

Okay.

Damage control.

Okay.

Rin took a breath. “So, um, I panicked…” she began to explain.

Len cocked an eyebrow. 

“The truth is,” she said, staring down hard at the barely-touched honey toast in front of them. “The truth is that you’re really hot.”

Oh boy. This was going south really fast.

“Thank… you?” Len said, confused.

Rin smacked her forehead. “Yeah, like, so, um, I’m, you know…”

He tilted his head. “I don’t know.”

She sucked in a sharp breath, and it all began pouring out of her mouth like vomit.

“I’ve been really attracted to you for like ever and it’s been eating me up inside and everything just feels a lot worse because I really like you and I don’t know how to handle it but you know I’m happy to just be friends if that’s not reciprocated because I never really wanted to confess my feelings to you anyway and I know it’s not professional or anything but please don’t hate me just because I like you like way more than a friend because I also like being friends with you please don’t hate me.”

Len blinked several times, processing that flood of information, before opening his mouth to speak.

Rin clapped her hands over her ears and cried, “It’s okay! You don’t need to answer! I just wanted to get that off my chest! Let’s forget this ever happened and move on.”

He shook his head at her. “No.”

She lowered her hands. No? That’s it? Just no?

Well, okay then. Alright. Cool cool cool.

Rin sat back in her chair, dazed and uncertain how to take in such a completely cold rejection.

“No, I don’t want to forget this happened,” he continued. Wait. What? He averted his gaze to the table, rubbing his hands together. “I don’t really understand why you think I’d hate you or something.”

She gawked at him. “Wh… what do you mean…?”

Len dug a hand into his hair, scrunching up his fringe in his fist. He looked up at her from under his dark lashes. “Rin, I literally flirted with you the entire photoshoot.”

Rin almost choked on her own saliva. “You—wh—huh. ”

He pressed his palms together, using his thumbs to massage the space between his eyebrows. “I literally called you sexy. I winked at you. Then you sat on me and gave me a boner.”

Her soul left her body. It just upped and left. See you later, humanity. I’m outta here.

Rin slid down in her chair, looking up at the ceiling. “I didn’t even notice,” she said, feeling like the world’s biggest clown.

“I’m surprised you didn’t even notice,” he continued. “That thing was like rock hard. I was shitting myself. I was praying so hard no one else would notice. I never felt so close to death in my entire life.”

“Not the boner, Len,” she said. “I mean, I didn’t notice that either but—the flirting. I meant the flirting.”

“Oh.”

“I just thought your pants were really stiff or something.”

“Aha… well.”

Rin smacked her palm against her forehead again. “I can’t believe it. I just thought you were teasing me for having to be a devil or whatever.”

“While that is quite hilarious, I was way too turned on by you at the photoshoot to mock the fact that we were dressed like the occult.”

She was defeated. That’s it? She’d been panicking over this for… nothing?

Wait. Wait a minute.

Meiko… Meiko had totally pushed her to do this, despite the chance of her getting rejected. Which meant…

Meiko totally knew Len felt the same way.

That… evil…!

“So, like, does this mean we’re dating, or…?” Len asked.

Rin turned beet red at the mention of dating. Dating Len. Wow. Wow. Just wow. Big fat wow.

“Y-yes?” she squeaked.

He grinned at her, a mischievous glint in his eye. “So, does that mean I can have you sit on me again?”

“Never mind I changed my mind—”

“Noooo—”

Rin smiled and sat forward, leaning across the table. She remembered the look on his face from the photoshoot, with his wide eyes staring up at her as she had leaned over him, playing with his hair. She wanted to see that look. She wanted to see it again.

Len gazed at her as she reached out and grabbed the collar of his shirt. She brought her face close to his. “Only if we go to your apartment after this. I haven’t cleaned mine for a month.”

“That’s disgusting,” he said into her face. “Sounds good.”

Then she kissed him on the lips.

It was awesome.

[danger-force-season-1-episode-1]

S1.e1 || Danger Force Season: 1 , Episode: 1 || (Full)-Episodes

S1.e1 || Danger Force Season: 1 , Episode: 1 || (Full)-Episodes

Watch [Danger Force] “Season 1” : Episode 1 (S1E1) Exclusively on Disney+! ⚜ Enjoy watching! Watch Full Episode Online Complete! ⚜P.L.A.Y ►► https://123movies.nextflixtv.com/tv/99583-1-1/danger-force.html

⚜‘Danger Force’ Se1 Ep1: ‘Late Night Ned’⚜ From the producers of “Laguna Beach” comes Danger Force, the ultimate summer series that follows a group of young adults confronting issues of love, heartbreak and looming adulthood. As these friends spend the summer together in their beautiful hometown, they come of age while trying to figure out who they are and want they want to be. The promo suggests that this new antagonist has something to do with the connection that leads to the flashbacks. Danger Force is leaning into flashbacks more and more throughout its final season. On Danger Force Season 1 Episode 7, “New Season,” there was a flashback to a quiet moment between Echo and Bellamy. This tactic may work in the show’s favor if it is able to move the audience, and the story doesn’t get lost in translation. Final seasons are perfect for flashbacks, callbacks, and so on. Danger Force hasn’t been able to dig into much of this because so many of the characters are spread out on too many planets, and all of those planets have their Disney+ issues. It’s a complicated web that’s only at the very beginning of becoming clearer now that Clarke and her team are on Bardo. That being said, Danger Force Season 1 Episode 1, “Late Night Ned,” looks like it’s giving us some answers about how things got to be the way they are, but it’s doing so through the introduction of new faces in a familiar place. With Sanctum, Bardo, and all of their respective habitants, it’s difficult to think about getting to know even more characters this far into a show’s final season. Hopefully, Danger Force can pull off this story in a way that directly serves the main characters without adding another planet and too many new faces to an already long list. Are you Curious about what’s on the coming next on Episode 1 : Late Night Ned | Click on the Link that we provide here to watch The Full Show of this Late Night Ned! ⚜Thank you for visit our official page and officially streaming partner of lot of TV Network Show all over the World on “Ontvs.best & official.streaDisney+-movie.com” this is our new websites that you can visit through the article that we publish here. We provide the best streaming exclusively Online everywhere, anywhere, and at anytime. During this Quarantine is the best to keep yourself to stay safe and work at home, study at home, to safe more life and to stop spreading of the Covid-1. We work together for the world And we are here concern about that, so we provide to you all the entertainment show to fill your free time and watch streaming of the Series and Show that you like full and completely free! We update it Daily and you can also request through our website, we wanted to say thanks for your Support and We also hope that we can always make you satisfy with our streaming!⚜

Danger Force Danger Force 1x1 Danger Force S1E1 Danger Force Cast Danger Force Premiere Danger Force Disney+ Danger Force Eps. 1 Danger Force Season 1 Danger Force Episode 1 Danger Force Late Night Ned Danger Force New Season Danger Force Full Episodes Danger Force Watch Online Danger Force Season 1 Episode 1 Watch Danger Force Season 1 Episode 1 Online ⚜LIKE AND SHARE✬ TO YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA : ⚜VK: https://Vk.com/ ⚜TWITTER :https://twitter.com/ ⚜FACEBOOK : https://www.facebook.com/ ⚜INSTAGRAM : https://www.instagram.com/ A television show (often simply TV show) is any content produced for broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, cable, or internet and typically viewed on a television set, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed between shows. Television shows are most often scheduled well ahead of time and appear on electronic guides or other TV listings. A television show might also be called a television program (British English: programme), especially if it lacks a narrative structure. A television series is usually released in episodes that follow a narrative, and are usually divided into seasons (US and Canada) or series (UK) — yearly or semiannual sets of Late Night Neds. A show with a limited number of episodes may be called a miniseries, serial, or limited series. A one-time show may be called a “special”. A television film (“made-for-TV movie” or “television movie”) is a film that is initially broadcast on television rather than released in theaters or direct-to-video. Television shows can be viewed as they are broadcast in real time (live), be recorded on home video or a digital video recorder for later viewing, or be viewed on demand via a set-top box or streamed over the internet. TV SERIES The first television shows were experimental, sporadic broadcasts viewable only within a very short range from the broadcast tower starting in the 16s. Televised events such as the 2020 Summer Olympics in Germany, the 16 coronation of King George VI in the UK, and David Sarnoff’s famous introduction at the 16 New York World’s Fair in the US spurred a growth in the medium, but World War II put a halt to development until after the war. The 16 World Series inspired many Americans to buy their first television set and then in 11, the popular radio show Texaco Star Theater made the move and became the first weekly televised variety show, earning host Milton Berle the name “Mr Television” and demonstrating that the medium was a stable, modern form of entertainment which could attract advertisers. The first national live television broadcast in the US took place on September 1, 2020 when President Harry Truman’s speech at the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in San Francisco was transmitted over AT&T’s transcontinental cable and microwave radio relay system to broadcast stations in local markets. The first national color broadcast (the 2020 Tournament of Roses Parade) in the US occurred on January 1, 2020. During the following ten years most network broadcasts, and nearly all local programming, continued to be in black-and-white. A color transition was announced for the fall of 2020, during which over half of all network prime-time programming would be broadcast in color. The first all-color prime-time season came just one year later. In 1980, the last holdout among daytime network shows converted to color, resulting in the first completely all-color network season. Formats and Genres See also: List of genres § Film and television formats and genres Television shows are more varied than most other forms of media due to the wide variety of formats and genres that can be presented. A show may be fictional (as in comedies and dramas), or non-fictional (as in documentary, news, and reality television). It may be topical (as in the case of a local newscast and some made-for-television films), or historical (as in the case of many documentaries and fictional series). They could be primarily instructional or educational, or entertaining as is the case in situation comedy and game shows. A drama program usually features a set of actors playing characters in a historical or contemporary setting. The program follows their lives and adventures. Before the 2020s, shows (except for soap opera-type serials) typically remained static without story arcs, and the main characters and premise changed little.[citation needed] If some change happened to the characters’ lives during the episode, it was usually undone by the end. Because of this, the episodes could be broadcast in any order.[citation needed] Since the 2020s, many series feature progressive change in the plot, the characters, or both. For instance, Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere were two of the first American prime time drama television series to have this kind of dramatic structure,[1][better source needed] while the later series Babylon 1 further exemplifies such structure in that it had a predetermined story running over its intended five-season run. In 2020, it was reported that television was growing into a larger component of major media companies’ revenues than film. Some also noted the increase in quality of some television programs. In 1980, Academy-Award-winning film director Steven Soderbergh, commenting on ambiguity and complexity of character and narrative, stated: “I think those qualities are now being seen on television and that people who want to see stories that have those kinds of qualities are watching television. Thank’s For All The Support And Have a Good Time! Find all the movies that you can stream online, including those that were screened this week. If you are wondering what you can watch on this website, then you should know that it covers genres that include crime, Science, Fi-Fi, action, romance, thriller, Comedy, drama and Anime Movie. Thank you very much. We tell everyone who is happy to receive us as news or information about this year’s film schedule and how you watch your favorite films. Hopefully we can become the best partner for you in finding recommendations for your favorite movies. That’s all from us, greetings! Thanks for watching The Video Today. 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