#i love oscar… which makes this so much weirder

[formulapisces]

you’re so biased towards lando oscar got his first podium and we didn’t hear anything from you, only celebrating lando after he got the better strategy the whole race? i hate to break this to you but your username is MCLARENsangels not LANDOsangels, but clearly you only have time to talk about your beloved driver when a ROOKIE just got his first podium.

you’re so worried about me congratulating your driver… girly, get out of my asks and celebrate his podium then! this ask came in minutes after the race finished, you have better things to do!!! go wank over the podium or something!!!!!!

go find the oscar blogs and show them some support. they’re all nice people though so you might struggle to fit in im afraid 🥺

(also yes, i hate to break it to you, but i do only have time for talking about my beloved driver because i’ve had a shit weekend and i didn’t want to spend my time on here today. i wanted to come and say hi to my friends and that i’m happy for lando and then leave.)

[mage-ical-character-person]

Which sesame street characters do you like !!

Many!

As I’m revisiting it I’m going mostly as in-order as I can and I haven’t even gotten to where Elmo is introduced yet!

but!! I love them all so much I will say things about some favorites now

Bert and Ernie are. Everything. Okay. They’re just so. Their skits are always so funny and I love them. And they love each other in one way or another. Honestly I don’t think Bert and Ernie know if Bert and Ernie are a couple any more than the general public does. Like I think they’ve been a part of each others lives for a long time and mean a lot to each other obviously and like there is. Something. With them. I don’t know what, though. I like the idea that they never had the stupid like.. “what are we” discussion thing. You know?

Bert is relatable I also love pigeons. I don’t like how him liking pigeons is sometimes treated like a weird thing honestly I think it’s weirder to not like pigeons. Like also it’s legitimately impressive that he taught his pigeon Bernice to play checkers.

Also there is. This.

I don’t know what to say about this I just think everyone should see it.

and Then!! There is The Count. Count Von Count. The inherent intrigue of the vampirism they refuse to elaborate on. The fact that he is simply just so silly and dramatic and obsessive I love that for him. The bit where he cries over not having anything to count and then gets all excited and counts his tears and then runs out of tears to count and cries about it and then gets so excited and

I keep coming back to the whole like. What’s up with the Vampirism. He’s immortal like he’s 6 million years old literally older than humanity. There are so many things that just make you go “What’s up with that?” Like… just took away Grover’s free will once which is crazy. Not clear if he still has mind control powers and just has learned that doing that is screwed up or if he’s like. Getting weaker cause he’s so busy counting he forgets to feed himself blood or something. (Because like counting used to distract vampires was a folklore thing.)

Genuinely kind of worried about him but he seems to be having a good time so if he is losing his vampire powers or something like that he hasn’t noticed/minded. The whole “numbers vampire” thing is confusing. Like does he feed on numbers? Or is he forgetting to vampire because of numbers? I think he should be allowed to practice vampire self care and take a little sip of blood. Just a little.

I hope he can turn into a bat it would be adorable. Doing this to him

Also! Oscar the Grouch. Obviously wonderful hilarious iconic never seen before

He’s wonderful and we all have days where we are like that. It’s also awesome that like by Grouch standards he’s a total softie and extrovert. It’s fun. Just like when he’s interacting with literally any other character. Also this

I don’t have a Twitter I can’t navigate Twitter why are the posts just not in chronological order can’t live under these conditions but the Sesame Street twitters sometimes make me wish…

anyway. I have literally. Been taking notes. On Sesame Street.

because I know otherwise it’ll all run together in my head.

[drivestraight]

Hey came from ao3. Love all your works, English is my second language and because of that I often end up reading your works twice or thrice, to understand all the implications and undertones, but each read make it even more interesting.

There is something about the way you write that I find very interesting, perhaps it is the non linear way of making connections or how there is always undercurrents of tension throughout your work, even when the vibes are supposed to be good. There is always some fundamental understanding that just exists in the periphery of the reader but is not possible to grasp. (I just realized I am not making much sense, sorry 😐 😅)

Also loved the characterisation of Oscar, the whole events and the way he reacts to them are very much in line to his quiet and go with the flow personality (or how I see it). The part where he doesn't bother telling anyone about his first heat, reminds me very much of how we did not know about his broken rib. I see Oscar as an extreme realist, I also thinks he has a good understanding of himself, something I feel is absent in Lando.

So this became much longer than I expected, but I am curious of your take on fem Oscar and what other relationship dynamics make you curious.

thank you so much! ahhh even ppl reading my fics once makes me happy! twice and three times is so special so thank you!

there's nothing i love more than having what should be on surface level be a good situation but there's an underlying feeling that something is kind of wrong and they're both losing so much in the end and even if you have it it'll never live up to your expectations. etc.

and no you're making perfect sense! i think ive kind of been trying to aim for that lately. like i've been trying a lot to move away from the sort of heavy handed close narration i used to do where everything was spelled out and the feelings were clear in the POV character (like... objects in mirror charles heavy psychoanalysis etc.). and then i think like back in 2023 even as i was experimenting with different writing styles i was still using the POV character as a sort of window to either explore their counterpart (i.e., the other person in the ship) or use them as a foil to the MC.

anyway TLDR i'm trying to play a lot with like... empty space... if it were with words... like to fill out a narrative by . Not filling it out. and to explore the POV character's head without spelling it out. which leaves a sort of gap from the narration to the reader HOWEVER i think that that tends to be more compelling/propulsive to read. Now i think i'm the one not making any sense alkjdsf;lksjflkd

ANYWAY oscar is a really fun POV character to try to get all of this across i'm quickly finding out. so i'm glad you like his characterization :) it's also like - i'm closest in age with oscar and he feels less like a sort of caricature of an f1 driver and more like. A Guy. very internal / external sort of disparity/tension that he's aware of but maybe can't help (re: aries sun and PISCES MERCURY... We should talk about it...).

i could go on about this for ages so maybe i'll leave that here 😭

this ALSO went on for ages but. to answer ur final question. the whole girl oscar thing was mostly cuz like. i like girls and i like oscar and rule 63 is always fun and my favorite landoscar dynamic is just them being sex freaks so of course in a lighthearted series like my girl oscar series it would just. be that. like lando would be soooo obsessed with girl oscar. my general take on girl oscar is that she's the exact same as boy oscar. maybe a little weirder though. and lando is really into that weirdness. like the whole blase bold sort of vibe/unfazed etc.

If that made any sense... Sorry for the word vomit...

[leclercsbf]

omg hi im that anon and i ADORE maxiel that’s why i love your blog so much you love the holy trinity (charlos landoscar and maxiel) just as much as i do

and everything you said is so true the dynamic they have is just so *chefs kiss* and now that we have oscar for two more years i cant wait for them to grow more comfortable and get weirder (in the best way) with each other

anon your taste in ships is so fucking good, hello? solid ten out of ten. but yeah, i’m really excited for that as well! i think it’d be very interesting to see which mannerisms they end up mirroring, because that’s pretty much unavoidable if you spend this much time around someone. forget fixing each other, they’ll definitely make each other worse (affectionate).

[two-tyred-problems]

F1 ask game!

got tagged by @kazoologist!! Thank uuuu I love talking

Who is your favourite driver?

Oscar Piastri!! And also Logan, my favourite unlucky guy :,)

Do you have any other favourite drivers?

I like most of the grid, but especially Lewis, Yuki, Alex and Zhou!

For non current drivers, I gotta say my fellow Germans, Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel

I’m also taking this as my cue to say how much I love the F1 Academy drivers! Especially Doriane cuz I was following her even before she joined! But also Tina, Lia, Chloe and Abbi (Some of them are really carrying their teams, Amna is making that VCarb suit actually look good)

Who is your least favourite driver?

Daniel Ricciardo, I’m guessing. Sorry for all his fans but I already disliked him before the DR hate train started this year, some of the stuff he said really irks me

Also Carlos kind of because he constantly has beef with my favourite driver and I’m currently not too fond of Lando either (cuz of the Trump stuff :/)

Do you pull for drivers or do you like teams as well?

Teams as well, although I mostly start out liking them because of the drivers! Williams for example (and Gee, you’re so real, I’d also kill for Lia Block)

If you like teams, what team do you pull for?

Williams and Mercedes, Williams because I liked their drivers first and then started to like the team in itself too. I like Mercedes mostly because it’s one of the first f1 teams I knew and my sister is a big fan!

If you could take over as team principal for any team, who would it be and why?

I would simply not. I’d maybe be convinced to do marketing but I can’t even manage my own schedule

But if I really had to, I’d go for Sauber probably? Not the pressure that’s on teams like Ferrari, scandal free drivers, a marketing team that tries to rebrand Zhou as wizard and a cool colour scheme. Would even dye my hair neon green again as a publicity stunt.

How long have you been in F1?

Not thaaaat long to be honest, since August last year probably but I got even more intensely into it a few months later, after I finally got how everything works

What got you into F1?

It’s a long story comprised of multiple small stories basically

I always watch Top Gear/Grand Tour with my dad and one day they reviewed the McLaren Senna and I thought it was a super neat car, because of the glass in the doors and I decided that McLaren will be my favourite Luxury Car brand now.

I slowly got into cars a bit, but not really motorsport itself until we went to an outlet Center and I got myself a cheap Mercedes AMG jacket, because my Uncle is a huge AMG fan and I liked the cars. After I bought it I noticed that it said F1-Team on it too, so I followed the Merc F1 account cuz I didn’t want to get asked about it and then not know anything.

A few months later we went into the Gran Tourismo Movie and one of my friends and I loved it so much we started getting into motorsport. Then I followed the McLaren F1 account because of their previously mentioned car I liked. That’s probably why Oscar is my favourite driver. (I still remember being super confused when my friend tried to explain all the rules to me when I could only remember like 6 drivers)

Do you enjoy fanfic/rpf?

I can’t say I read it, although it’s also inevitable to stumble upon it sometimes. It’s just not for me but I ain’t judging people for it, there’s weirder stuff you could do.

How do you view new fans?

I still consider myself a kind of new fan, even more so in MotoGP, so I can’t judge! But even in fandoms I’ve been in for a long time I like meeting new fans because it’s a cool thing to share your passion for something!

Are your friends and family into F1 as well?

My sister currently is (because i forced her to watch races with me) and a lot of my family watched it like 30 years ago but not anymore. My uncle likes motorsport but thinks F1 is too elitist (which, fair point, but still)

I have one friend who’s into it as hardcore as me. The rest of my friends just listen to us ramble lmao

Are you open to talking to other fans/making friends?

100%! I don’t know how to actually start talking to people because this is the first tumblr account I made to intentionally share what I say but rest assured, I love making friends and chatting with people, even if it’s not about motorsport!

[sitpwgs]

Hi! I'm sorry if my last ask came off kinda dramatic. Thank you for your kind words, and your dog is really cute! I wanted to give a quick version summary of a few things and maybe my replies will be shorter from now on anyway. But first, how are you? What have you been listening to lately? I hope your arm is okay and you're feeling better! 🩷

So I was able to sign into my old goodreads and my name is kvreads and it's just a coincidence if it's similar to yours lol. I just didn't want to add you randomly without telling you I guess. I started the Starless Sea and it's a little weirder than I thought but maybe cuz I didn't know what it was about. I still like it but prefer the Night Circus more. I also just started a book called Pink Mountain Nights and I noticed it was the same author of summer of bitter and sweet that you read, so I'm curious what you thought of it. I've only read one chapter but like it so far but don't know when I will finish it either since I start books without finishing all the time. Most of the books on my goodreads were books I started or in the middle of that I forgot about lol. Hopefully I will read more next month though!

I can't believe you've never read or watched Wonka! It was seriously one of my favorite books as a kid. I remember that I said I was in my schools version of it and you didn't say anything haha. I like every version of the story and all the movies. Are you familiar with the musical at all? I also like it I guess and I think Christian Borle made a pretty good Wonka. I spent this week listening to the Wonka and Mean Girls soundtracks again and enjoyed them a lot more. For Wonka, my sister compared the movie kinda similar to the Greatest Showman..where the songs could be on their own without the movie in a way but I still enjoy both. It was just pretty family friendly and I don't feel like I need to watch the movie again but I enjoyed the songs. I hope this makes sense. I wonder how it would be if you watched Wonka before the others, since you don't really have to know Charlie to watch Wonka. That's kinda fun to think about actually. If anything, I liked that it was different than anything before, and the songs were still original cuz it wasn't based on anything

For Mean Girls, I went back to the original cast recording and it was a lot better than the movie, especially with more Cady songs but I also didn't mind the movie as much as others did. I just accept it for what it is and I guess I'm still glad it was made. It was never gonna be as good as the original movie or musical anyway. Listening to the original, I think they made the right choices of what songs to cut or leave in mostly but maybe you're right that watching the movie is better than just listening to it. I also listened to the new Color Purple soundtrack too and they also made a lot of cuts or changes to make it more likable for non musical fans I guess. They wrote a lot of new songs to replace the songs from the musical for some reason. It was weird and idk why they did that but I'll have to see how it is in the movie. I was kinda shocked Wonka or Color Purple didn't get Oscar original song nominations

Apparently Erika Henningsen is in a new animated musical show called Hazbin Hotel if you wanna hear her singing..since the Cady in the movie wasn't good. I haven't watched the show yet but I will eventually cuz I always like new original songs and musicals. Schmicago got cancelled which made me sad so maybe this can be a replacement..idk. the only other thing I know about it is that Jeremy Jordan is also supposed to be singing in a few episodes too! I hope Gatsby can be good and hopefully they have made a few changes to make it better. But I saw someone say the only good thing about it is the two leads, which is probably true. I will probably somewhat enjoy it if there is a bootleg unless it's really bad though, but I do not love Gatsby a lot, so I'm keeping expectations low for this too. I honestly don't know much about the other shows this season or how it would compare to them. The only song I heard Lola sing was from Tangled and Hadestown music is very different than that but I would be interested in hearing her sing a song from it.

Your choices are so good and some I didn't think of. I have heard Maggie's version of Tim McGraw and liked it. I just think i always prefer the original usually over covers but mostly they're fine. I'm sorry if you didn't know some of the artists I named lol. I'm sorry if I forgot anything but do you think Taylor will win any Grammys on Sunday? I hope Antihero will win song of the year and I wonder what color she will wear. I haven't really thought about other wins yet, but I think Billie could win something too. I still might not have time to reply but I hope you have a great week!!!

hi friend!! you're totally fine; nothing to apologize for or anything 🤍 just know i'm always rooting for you!

i'm okay!! i am doing much better! i'm listening to all sorts of things — if you're on airbuds, you're more than welcome to add me!! i've been listening to a lot of noah kahan, laufey, and maisie lately, but in terms of new (to me) music, i've just finished fall out boy's discography! i listened to a jimmy eats world album, the maine, sam fender's debut album, the last dinner party's debut, and digital heartifacts by l devine this week! it's been a good music week/month, and i'm really glad i started my albums experiment thing!

i sent you a goodreads invite! i definitely will not be finishing the starless sea this month (i actually barely touched it), but i'm hoping to read it in february! it probably won't make a lot of sense until maybe the 80% mark, but once you get there, it's amazing (or so i personally think). the night circus is a little more straightforward, and also has a stronger romance plotline which i do enjoy, whereas the starless sea is a lot more convoluted! i really liked the summer of bitter and sweet, but hadn't heard of pink mountain nights! i'm looking the plot up right now and putting a library hold on it!

i am not familiar with the musical either! the only things i know about the musical are that christian borle shaved his head and that michael wartella pissed off the entire city of fresno during the wicked tour — but i think he was also in wonka? or maybe i'm just thinking of things? do you care about the grammys? do you have any thoughts on the musical theatre grammy noms/win for this year? i don't have any strong opinions but i'm hoping a specific album does not win. anything else i'll be happy with!

i thought of you when i heard schmicago was cancelled :( i still have to watch it ... i've been in and out of a musical mood lately; i listened to the waitress obcr today and was reminded of how much i love it :") ugh i miss seeing shows, hopefully something good will come to seattle soonish and i can go see that :( i do tend to prefer originals over covers, but 9/10 times i'll prefer an acoustic/stripped down version over the regular one? not sure why! and with the grammys, i wish she'd won for cardigan, i feel like cardigan is a much stronger song than anti-hero, but i'll be happy either way! i think she'll probably wear green or black, as is the trend with her lately! and i hope olivia wins something for guts — and i'd love it if noah could win for best new artist! 🤍

hope you're having a good weekend!! sending u lots of love and a hug!

[gale-gentlepenguin]

ML Fic: Per-Chat to Dream (Preview)

(So I have been working a bit on this fic idea. Which if you guys like it, I will be willing be setting up as my next big multi chapter fic. So make sure to comment and reblog if you like it.)

_____________________________________________________________

The beeping of the alarm reverberated through the room

"Ugh..."

Adrien's eyes opened lazily.

He sat up and stretched his arms upward as he yawned.

"Morning Plagg." Adrien yawned as he got out of bed.

He sheepishly walked to the bathroom.

"That akuma last night really wrecked my sleep time." Adrien commented as he brushed his teeth. "Don't even remember how we beat it. But at this point, I can take a guess on how."

He finished brushing his pearly whites and quickly tamed his bed head to resemble his trademark hair style.

"I am sure Ladybug is just as tired as I am."

He quickly got dressed and made sure his backpack was packed.

"Come on Plagg, I know your sleepy, but I need you to get up."

He realized that there was no response. Normally the small cat kwami would be complaining that his alarm clock is jealous of his loving relationship with sleep.

Adrien walked over to the part of the bed Plagg would call his home.

"Went under the pillow to try and sleep more? Typical plagg." Adrien rolled his eyes with a smile.

He pulled the pillow up to reveal nothing.

"Plagg?"

Adrien felt his tiredness turn to annoyance. He didn't have time for hide and seek with the grumpy god. Thankfully, he knew a trick. to find the clever Kwami.

"Plagg! Claws out!"

After a few seconds, nothing had changed. Adrien was still very much Adrien, just posing like an idiot.

"Plagg! Claws out!" Adrien shouted louder.

Still no transformation.

"What is happening?" Adrien pulled his hand back and his eyes went wide to realize, the miraculous was missing!

"Oh no..."

Adrien felt his skin turn pale and a pit of worry in his gut. This felt like the worst case scenario. He needed to find his ring!

Adrien rushed to his bed, pulling up the covers, sheets, pillows and anything that could be potentially hiding his ring. He started looking around his bathroom. He checked the floors, tables, shelves, any small crevice he could think of. He had turned his room upside down with no success.

He felt his mind racing, where could the miraculous be? Did... did they lose that fight last night? Was that why he couldn't remember?! Did the akuma take the miraculous and Hawkmoth was victorious?!

He stops for a moment. He needed to calm down.

'Hold on, that can't be what happened. Wouldn't the world be all grim and depressing with butterflies everywhere if he won? I know! I can just check the ladyblog. Get the details on the akuma attack last night. Maybe I can get some details on what happened.'

Adrien rushes to his computer and goes into his favorites tab, only to find the Ladyblog wasn't in it. He shrugged it off, he can type in the URL manually. He quickly types it into the site search bar... only to find nothing.

"The Ladyblog is gone?" Adrien spoke in a stunned whisper.

He exited out of the browser only to take notice of his computer wallpaper.

It was a picture of him, and a beautiful girl. They were smiling. Her cheeks were rosy and her black hair was down. Her blue eyes as blue as the sky. He looked at the picture of him closely, the way his eyes weren't even looking at the camera. They were fixed on the girl. He felt his heart beat a bit.

When did he have this picture taken? The last girl he dated was Kagami, and they didn't have any pictures together like this. Who was this gorgeous girl in the photo?

The blond teen looked closer, he knows she looked familiar. He felt like he knew her... He shook it off. Right now he didn't have time to figure out who the cute girl was, he had to figure out what happened to Plagg, to his miraculous.

"If only I could contact my lady..." Adrien sighed deeply. This would have been one of those situations where knowing her identity would have been beneficial.

He gets up from his desk chair. He needed to head to school anyway. He was relieved that his father probably wouldn't notice him leaving the house later then normal.

He grabbed his backpack and carefully made his way downstairs, when he heard something highly unusual, Laughter. But even weirder, it was his father laughing.

Adrien felt a chill go down his spine, was there some sort of akuma that was forcing people to laugh? And he didn't have plagg to help.

He rushed down the stairs and pushed his back to the wall. He listened closely. He needed to know the situation.

"...And thats when you said it?" a voice that adrien recognized as his father asked. The voice sounded like it was trying to hold back laughter.

"No, that was before I was heading to the car. He was so keen on keeping me there." another voice spoke, it sounded so familiar to Adrien but he couldn't place it. The voice felt warm and comforting.

"Right, that was when he was offering to pay you double for reshooting the scene." Gabriel stated.

"Yep, and I said. 'I don't care if you triple my pay, I haven't seen my husband and son for 9 months! I am heading home." The woman emphasized.

"And then he tried to say he'd black list you?" Gabriel chuckled.

"Thats when I turned around, walked up to him, looked him dead in the eye and said: 'Look Jeremy, I don't give a butterfly's buttcheek about your threats. You should be thankful I decided to even act in this colossal disappointment of a movie. I am going home, and you can kiss my ring once your movie gets nominated for an Oscar."

Adrien realized he knew that voice. he moved from his hiding spot. Standing in the entry way of the dining room.

"Mom?" Adrien barely managed to speak.

The blond woman in the chair in the classy light pink business suit stood from her chair.

"And so my little sunshine rises. I was wondering when I would see you up? Sorry I haven't gone up to see you yet, I just got home and I needed to tell your father about the ordeal I..."

Adrien hugged his mother. Holding her tightly.

"You're back right? like this is really you?" Adrien was trying to figure out what was going on in this world. Was this really his mother? Was this all a dream? A crazy roller coaster of a dream.

"I missed you too honey." She hugged back. She turned her head to Gabriel. "Remind me to call Jeremy after this, I need to give him another verbal lashing for making my son miss me so much!"

"Will do." Gabriel nodded.

Adrien released the hug.

"I have so many questions..." Adrien started. But Gabriel noticed the time.

"Trust me son, you can ask your mother all about her latest movie after school. You are going to be late if you don't head off." Gabriel instructed.

Adrien felt this day get weirder. Seeing his dad so... happy felt like such an oddity.

His mind was a medley of thoughts that just didn't make sense.

"R-right. I will see you... both after school" Adrien said as he started heading to the door.

"Hold it!"

Adrien froze, his mind still processing the fact that his mother is here and very much alive.

She walks over to him. She kisses his forehead, the blond feeling a sense of calm he desperately needed. His mother always did know how to put him at ease.

"I am finally back, so you need to talk with that lovely girl you have been talking with and set up a time for us to all have dinner together."

"Girl?"

"Yes, don't try to play dumb. The girl that you have been dating for well over 6 months now. Just because I am away doesn't mean I don't follow up with things going on in your life. Your father has sent me some photos of the two of you, and I must say, your father should ask her to help model with you."

Adrien felt his cheeks heat up, he did see the photo of the girl she was referring to. So apparently that girl is his girlfriend?! He would probably feel lucky if he could figure out what exactly was going on.

"I... I will talk with her about it." Adrien managed to answer.

"Great! Now off you go!"

Adrien walked out the door and headed to the car where his driver was waiting like usual.

Though as he was about to get into the car.

"Love you!" he heard his mother call out.

Adrien looked to his mom, a smile slipped on his face.

"Love you too mom."

He hopped into the car and the driver drove off to the school.

_____________________________________________________________

[aellynera]

The Saga of May 19, 2022 - Part 3

(aka Operation Oscar Strikes Back)

I can’t believe it’s already been a week since the NYC trip and the screening. A lot happened on Friday (more about that later) but let’s talk about the screening itself and the rest of Thursday, May 19.

So after our hotel siesta, we got ready and hopped a cab over to the screening. There were quite a few people waiting to get a ticket, but we already had ours and found out seats and tried to prepare. They handed out cards so we could write questions down for the conversation part (ours wasn’t picked but that’s ok) and then we tried to figure out which episode they were going to show. And we were laughing like “oh my god, they better not show THAT episode!”

And the lights finally dim and the screening starts...

And of course, IT IS TOTALLY THAT EPISODE.

Yes, they screened Episode 4 - The Illiterates. Everything was on display on a giant movie screen and the sound was so massive that you could feel the vibrations in your seat and somehow @damerondjarin​ and I did not get kicked out for giggling like a bunch of twelve-year-old schoolgirls 

But, uh, yeah. So that happened.

There was a curtain across the stage, and after a short break, the curtain just went up and there they all were.

sir who gave you permission

The conversation was really fun and thoughful and lively and the questions were all about the series in general and the thoughts and motivations that went into making it. Oscar was smart and funny and profound as usual (as was Jessica, she was lovely) and it could’ve gone on all night and I would’ve been totally okay with that.

They did hang around a little bit after, at the side entrance, although we kind of just missed Oscar (and it was like five deep at the barricade of people just screaming from what I’ve heard) BUT we did sort of end up standing right next to his car while he was in it and even with the window tint we could see him so he probably saw us. I mean we just kind of stood there until his car finally pulled away from the curb. So we didn’t get to meet him but it was fun and exactly the kind of moments I loved so much when I used to go to the city all the time in my younger days.

(It wasn’t quite the same as that time in November when I was standing three feet away from him in the MoMA lobby and he sort of maybe caught me taking pics and we had a moment...but it was fun.)

And I’m totally gonna do it again next time there’s a screening.

Afterwards we went to Times Square to see it at night and eat pizza at Ray’s and get Insomnia Cookies and then back to the hotel.

I’ll tell the story of Friday as an epilogue just because it makes the whole weekend a little weirder, and there was still a very strong Oscar connection. (Stay tuned for that, probably tomorrow.) 

[onlydylanobrien]

Dylan O'Brien - NME Magazine Interview

Dylan O’Brien: “I was in this transitional phase – close to a quarter-life crisis”

From YA heartthrob to legitimate leading man – how the 'Maze Runner' star hit his stride after a whirlwind decade

Definitely!” hoots Dylan O’Brien when NME asks if he still has to audition. “I’m not Tom fucking Hanks, bro.” He’s clearly amused by our question, but forgive us for thinking the 29-year-old actor gets cast on reputation alone. A decade into his career, and he’s making an impressive transition from teen TV star and YA franchise hero to charismatic leading man.

New York-born O’Brien cut his teeth on MTV’s hit Teen Wolf series, before landing the lead in the Maze Runner film trilogy based on James Dashner’s hugely popular novels. Leading a band of bright young things that included ex-Skins tearaway Kaya Scodelario, Game Of Thrones’ Thomas Brodie-Sangster and Will Poulter, he honed his craft while racking up nearly a billion dollars at the box office. “My career is a constant acting class,” says O’Brien. “To be able to do the Maze Runner movies simultaneously with Teen Wolf was amazing in terms of getting in reps and working my [acting] muscle.”

Now for the sometimes tricky bit. Many actors struggle with the post-breakout period, but O’Brien is making it look easy so far. This year’s Netflix hit Love and Monsters proved he can carry an old-school family adventure, and new film Flashback (out next week) reveals an appetite for weirder, more cerebral work. He stars as Fred Fitzell, a young man reluctant to buckle down to life as a nine-to-fiver with a boring corporate job and a long-term girlfriend (Mindhunter‘s Hannah Gross). When he runs into a freaky-looking acquaintance from his teenage years, Fred becomes obsessed with finding an old high-school friend he used to drop a mind-bending experimental drug called Mercury with. It’s difficult to say any more without entering spoiler territory, but Flashback is a wild ride underpinned by the idea that we can exist in several realities at once. Even if you follow every plot twist, you might not fully understand the end. “Oh, it’s definitely a headfuck,” O’Brien agrees. “There’s not totally an answer to figure out. There’s a lot of different things that people can take from it.”

Speaking over Zoom from his LA home, O’Brien is bright, thoughtful and really good fun to talk to, especially when he relaxes into the interview, but he clearly knows where his line between public and private lies. When he first read the Flashback script, written by the film’s director Christopher MacBride, his “mind was blown” by just how much he related to Fred. “I felt like I was in this transitional phase of my life that was, you know, sort of close to a quarter-life crisis type thing,” he says. “For whatever reason, it was like me and this script were meant to be. I remember reading it and thinking: ‘I am this guy right now.'”

“There were a lot of things in my personal life that were neglected for a while”

When we ask why O’Brien felt as though he had reached a “transitional phase”, he gives an answer that’s vague but not exactly evasive. For understandable reasons, he doesn’t mention the incredibly traumatic motorcycle accident he sustained while shooting the final Maze Runner film in March 2016. O’Brien suffered severe trauma to the brain and said in 2017 that he underwent extensive facial reconstructive surgery after the accident “broke most of the right side of my face”. Tellingly, he’s never really revealed what happened on set or how it affected him.

Today, O’Brien dances around the details of the accident and other issues he was dealing with at the time, but doesn’t shy away from discussing his inner conflict. “You know, it was a lot of personal things combined with at-a-point-in-my-career things,” he says after a brief pause. He says he’d have been going through some of this stuff anyway, simply because of his age, but it sounds as though success intensified it all. “It was like this whole fucking storm of shit,” he continues. “I was simultaneously so fulfilled and happy about these, like, otherworldly and surreal things that I had experienced in terms of where my career had brought me. I had all this confidence and fulfilment and beautiful people [in my life] – such amazing things to experience at a young age. But at the same time, there were a lot of things in my personal life that were unchecked and sort of neglected for a while.”

O’Brien says that in time, he realised he had to “stop for a second” and “re-explore how I wanted my life to look going forward”. In fairness, you can see why he needed a breather: his career took off while he was still a teenager. After his family moved from New Jersey to Los Angeles County when he was 12, O’Brien contemplated a career as a sports broadcaster – his Twitter bio still bills him as a “no longer suffering Mets fan” – then began posting YouTube videos as moviekidd826. A funny, slickly edited skit titled ‘How to Prepare for the SAT in 45 seconds’, shared when he was just 17, shows he was a born performer and storyteller. YouTube success led to him getting a manager, but his breakthrough role in Teen Wolf still came out of the blue. At the time, he was treading water at a local community college and taking auditions on the side.

Still, he has since taken a rather fatalistic view of this career-making moment. “It’s totally weird because, when I think about it now, I don’t see how it could have happened any other way. I can’t picture myself doing anything else now,” he told Collider in 2011. “It was really sudden and a little random, and not provoked by anything. It was just out of nowhere. It wasn’t my intentional doing.” Today, O’Brien summarises his skyscraper career trajectory succinctly. “I guess I just graduated high school and started acting,” he says. “And then I felt like I was just flying by the seat of my pants and never got a chance to stop.” Thankfully, straight-out-the-blocks Hollywood success hasn’t taken away his sense of perspective. When I say how easy social media makes it to compare yourself unfavourably to others, O’Brien jumps in: “Yeah, that’s very true. I was watching the Billie Eilish doc the other day, and I was like, I’ve done nothing. I’m not an artist at all!”

“No one thought ‘Love and Monsters’ was going to be good!”

O’Brien is also self-deprecating when he talks about being cast in Flashback, suggesting it happened because he had such an intense connection with Fred. “I was honestly like, ‘Who is watching me right now?’ That is the best way I can describe how I was feeling when I came across this script,” he says. “Chris [MacBride, director] and I had this conversation that went so well in terms of [my] understanding this script that I think he’d sent around a lot and [that] very commonly wasn’t understood. I think Chris has even said that the night before shooting, he suddenly had this thought, like, ‘Wait, do I even think he’s a good actor?'”

Though O’Brien has firmly ring-fenced elements of his private life, he’s actually pretty frank about his acting vehicles. He readily admits he was expecting a snobbish response to Love and Monsters, a CGI-heavy hybrid of post-apocalyptic action and romcom that dropped on Netflix in April and topped the streamer’s daily most-watched list. “It means so much that Love and Monsters has gotten the response that it’s gotten,” O’Brien says. “No one thought this movie was going to be good.” His blunt honesty makes me laugh out loud. “No one did though!” he says in response. “And so, fuck that. You know, most of the people who say something to me about the movie, they’re like: ‘I watched Love and Monsters, and it was… good?’ And honestly, that just cracks me up.” For obvious reasons, we hastily decide not to share our response to the film – namely, that it was a whole lot better than expected.

In Love and Monsters, O’Brien plays Joel, a survivor of a so-called “monsterpocalypse” that has bumped humans to the bottom of the food chain. Though he’s known in his colony as a bit of a coward, Joel sets off on a treacherous 80-mile journey to find his high school sweetheart Aimee (Iron Fist‘s Jessica Henwick), which means evading the hungry clutches of various supersize grizzlies including a giant monster-frog hiding in a suburban pond. It’s a simple but pretty out-there premise that wouldn’t work if O’Brien’s performance was even slightly condescending. Instead, his unselfconscious sincerity really sells a film that has as much in common with the family-oriented Robin Williams movie Night at the Museum as darker fare like The Walking Dead.

His obvious affection for the project really comes across during our interview today. “When I read the script, I just thought it was so sweet and funny and smart and unique, but at the same time reminiscent of all these movies that don’t really get made any more,” he says. That’s a fair point: Love and Monsters is neither a fail-safe superhero movie nor a slice of classy Oscar bait. “And when they were talking about how to market this movie, it was so funny hearing all these conversations like, ‘How do we actually get people to watch it?'” he adds. “But that’s a big part of the reason I wanted to do this movie: because it felt like something I missed seeing.”

“I’m lucky to be surrounded by people who want to make something out of love”

So in a way, Love and Monsters was a risk for an actor seeking to establish himself outside of a bankable movie franchise and a hit TV show. O’Brien has only made four films since his final Maze Runner outing in 2018, and insists he hasn’t been tactical with his choices. “I don’t have anyone saying, ‘We need to get you in an Oscar vehicle’, or any of that kind of shit,” he says. “I’m really lucky to be surrounded by people who think like me: that you should do what you’re drawn to, and make something out of love.”

He’s recently finished shooting a mysterious crime thriller called The Outfit in London with Mark Rylance. Directed and co-written by Graham Moore, who won an Oscar for his screenplay to Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game, O’Brien calls it “quite possibly one of the most special pieces of writing I’ve ever experienced”. He first read the script on a plane and says he “actually stood up and clapped” when he got to the end. Considering O’Brien probably wasn’t flying Ryanair, this reaction presumably attracted a few baffled glances.

Anyway, it must be pretty intimidating walking onto set with Rylance, a multi-award-winning actor revered by his peers – Al Pacino once said he “speaks Shakespeare as if it was written for him the night before” – but it sounds as though O’Brien took it all in stride. He says he’s confident in his abilities, but admits to having a slight wobble whenever he begins a new project. “I’m always sort of re-questioning everything – like, ‘Can I even act?'” he says. “But I think there’s something very natural about that. I think even Rylance could relate to that feeling. Acting is like starting a new year at school every single time.”

At this point in his career, O’Brien has made peace with the fact that some people will have preconceptions about him based on what he’s known for: Maze Runner and Teen Wolf. “People will put you in a box no matter what,” he says. “There was definitely a time when that would get to me, especially when it felt like somebody had a perspective on me that in my soul, I just felt wasn’t accurate.” Still, there’s no doubt he wants to show us what’s really in his soul with more films like Flashback. “If anything,” he adds bullishly, “it just makes me think: ‘Right, I’m really gonna show them now’.”

‘Flashback’ is out on digital platforms from June 4

[thormanick]

So I gave into playing Honkai Impact 3rd, Part II

Let's talk about the current event at St. Fountain that is in no way going to be a predecessor to the upcoming in a few years Fontaine update in Genshin (yes I am actively taking notes on what they're doing) The city looks quite fun!!

- So let me tell you, there's nothing more jarring, probably, story-wise, when you just start the game, and then your curiosity makes you go for the latest event which literally focuses on the times Post-the-game??, like- bruh, i'm new here, i can barely tell where my room is here, who are all these folks????; However, it doesn't mean that this is a bad experience. I think with Honkai for me it is the weirder, the better, so I'm just enjoying all the goofiness and confusion of the situation. It's fun to start in the middle of a story and then figure your way out of it, right, Genshin?~ (i'm so sorry, i had to lol)

- I have zero idea how to navigate the map of St. Fountain while out of the base and it bothers me a little too much ngl

- When I tell you that I named the Main Character "Oscar" bc the boy is literally a grown up version of Oscar Pine from RWBY will you believe me-

- He literally fell from the sky, for whatever reason. Volume 7 RWBY much?

- Oh, and the weird monsters talk, apparently. Volume 8 RWBY much?

- On the same note, Timido reminds me of Neon and Penny, and I will protect her with whatever I have. She is quite strong though, I like it.

- What is up with Lyle. Just- what is up with Lyle? He gives me so many different vibes at once I can't quite figure out what to think, but I like his interactions with MC? Probably? With basically zero knowledge on them I can tell that they are friends? Maybe? Teammates? Kinda? Were they roommates? Omygodtheywereroommates Now that I think of it it's probably that I can't quite figure out if he reminds me more of Kaeya or Childe...

- Bronya is the Queen we love and respect in this household, and the event once again proves it to me. Also, the character development, apparently??? Good for you girl

- It took me embarrassingly long to navigate the tasks menu. but this one is 100% on me

Overall... I am very intrigued by the city. So far I see that it has been divided into two parts, and the theme of Carnaval is very prevalent, so I wonder if we'll see something similar tonally down the road in Genshin. Overall, very fun!!

[abarbaricyalp]

@sambuckylibrary

SamBucky Halloween Prompt 5: Mausoleum

Sam meets Bucky in a mausoleum in Brooklyn  (This fic is set in Brooklyn because I could not make up a reason for Bucky to be in Louisiana despite the fact that I really very badly wanted it set in Louisiana. Bucky is also slightly younger because of fic reasons.)

Rated G: Discussions of death and loss (It’s set in a mausoleum, use discretion) (AO3 link in the notes)

Title from “Little Ghost” by The White Stripes, highly encourage you to listen to the song

One I’m Most Scared Of

Sam hated funerals. He hated that his father wanted him around for them. No other seventeen year old was surrounded by so much death and mourning.

“Sam, you have a gift,” his father said. “You put others at ease just by your presence.”

Sam thought everyone else should invest in a therapist and not a high schooler.

Petulantly, he kicked his heels back against a stone bench as he stared at the walls of crypts and cremains spots. Behind him, the funeral party milled and offered condolences to the bereaved, which actually seemed like everyone in the party. Sometimes, a funeral party seemed less bereaved than relieved at these things. Sam remembered the first time he heard a man’s daughter immediately plan lunch with a group of friends without a waver to her voice or a tear on her cheek. He vowed he’d never be the kind of person that had a funeral like that.

If he even had a funeral. Putting himself in the ground in whatever clothes he died in and then becoming a tree without telling anyone was becoming a nicer and nicer option.

So, he listened to the sniffling without turning around and thought about what kind of tree he’d become. He’d already done his duties of rubbing a wife’s arm, hugging kids, tickling grandkids, listening to the same three stories a dozen times. His father couldn’t expect anything else from him. So he wasn’t thrilled when someone his age sat down beside him.

The guy was handsome in a traditional, classical sort of way. Not as boring as the rich white guys who went to Sam’s school. His hair was side parted and only long enough to make an impressive arch on his head instead of laying in his face. He had a square jaw that was a little comical and his nose was a little fucked up in a kind of endearing way. The way Sam’s best friend looked after getting beaned in the face by a wayward baseball. Like most people who came through the mausoleum, he was sad.

There was no other word for it. Sam had tried to be poetic about his time in the crypts, but there was only so much the clinical-ness of bereaved and the dramatic-ness of tortured or sobbing or anguished could do. And they were rarely entirely true. Sad was just the word for people staring at remains of someone they once loved. Sometimes the simple explanation was the most appropriate. The rest of death and grief was already so complicated. It was easier to just feel sad.

The guy was too old to be a grandkid but too young to be a kid, unless the deceased and his wife had gotten freaky in their elder age. Sam hadn’t noticed him in his previous passes of the party or from the service, where he always sat in the back and made it a game to memorize as many shades of black or ridiculous hair styles as possible.

In fact, the boy wasn’t even wearing black. He was wearing a dark brown jacket, adorned with gold accents and pins. In fact… Sam was pretty certain it was an old military dress uniform.

“Uh...are you just visiting?” Sam ventured when the guy didn’t even bother to glance over.

The guy’s mouth quirked to one side faintly. “Yeah, you could say that. That one,” he said, gesturing to an entombment with a gravemarker that read James Buchanan Barnes March 10, 1922 - February 5, 1942. Son, Brother, Friend, Hero.

“Oh,” Sam breathed and understood the weird military uniform. “Are you related to him? You do kinda look like him.”

The guy turned finally to look at Sam and raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, you could say that. I’m Bucky.”

“Oh, jeez, you were named after him too.”

The guy--Bucky 2, apparently--cocked his head in a half nod. “I’m actually waiting on someone. Do you think they’ll be here much longer?” he asked, jerking his chin over to the party.

“Well, these things don’t really have a limit to how long people can be here,” Sam pointed out. “But most people get the point when they start sealing the tomb and all. Uh, this thing you’re waiting for, is it about him? Like, some kind of memorial service?”

It was neither February nor March, so Sam couldn’t imagine why there would be a memorial service for Barnes now. It had been a while since Sam’s father had done a service in Brooklyn and he’d kind of forgotten the cult status Barnes and,  to a much greater extent, Rogers had in this town.

“Nah, I’m just waiting on a friend,” Bucky said.

“Well…” Sam settled back against the stone bench. “I’ll stand in for a while.”

“You wanna be my friend? Should I be worried. I think horror movies start off like this.”

“Name one horror movie that starts off in a mausoleum.” 

“Murder by the Clock. Mummy’s Tomb. All the vampire movies.”

“Dracula doesn’t live in a mausoleum,” Sam argued lightly. “And I’ve never even heard of those other movies.”

“That’s ‘cause you don’t watch classics.”

“Uh-huh. Or you were just scraping the bottom of the barrel.”

Bucky rolled his eyes and knocked his shoulder against Sam’s. “Did you know…” He gestured back to the waning funeral party.

Sam shook his head. “No. My dad’s the pastor. He did the service. He likes me to be here for moral support.”

“Hell, I don’t think my parents trusted my morals as far as they could throw me,” Bucky snorted.

Sam noted the past tense but knew better than to push for information, especially in a mausoleum during a funeral of all places. “Are you a student around here?” he asked instead.

“Can’t you tell?” Bucky answered as he popped the lapels of his jacket. “I’m a soldier.”

“Right. A soldier who’s home, spending his time in mausoleums in front of his great-great uncle or something.”

“I could be a great-great grandkid. I heard he got around.”

“I heard that was all manufactured propaganda to sell a story.”

“I read it in a book.”

“And I read about time travel and aliens in a book.”

Bucky shrugged. “There are weirder things out there.”

“Right, in a world of super soldiers and Nazis with no faces,” Sam agreed drily.

“You’ll see,” Bucky assured. “Aliens and time travel are both gonna be all anyone talks about soon.”

“Y’know, I didn’t think a guy dressing up as his great-great grandpa-uncle to meet someone at his burial site would be so into sci-fi too.”

“Multitudes and all that. You know, there were half a dozen sci-fi books in his bag when his belongings were recovered.”

“I’ve heard that,” Sam said. Only because it’d been a point in the Oscar-Bait movie a few years ago. “He’d read to Rogers when he was sick.”

Bucky looked a little wistful and then nodded.”I’ve heard that too.”

“Do you ever feel pressure to be like him? Or be somethin’ you’re not, just ‘cause someone looked at your little baby face and named you after a legend?”

That wry, sad grin came back and Bucky shook his head. “Nah. Not really. Do you, though? I mean, obviously not him. But someone.”

Sam traced out the letters of the name of someone who died in 1985. A L E X A N D E R. He nodded. “Feels like everyone needs me to be someone and I let myself play that part until people stopped noticing it was a part.”

“What’s the part?” Bucky asked as he leaned back on his hands.

“I dunno. Someone who-- Well, I mean… Maybe it’s not a full part. Maybe I’m just upset that people only want me to have one kind of personality trait. I mean, everyone knows I’m kind and I’m good with words and I care about people. And I really do want to be that guy. But when I want to be that guy, y’know? Not all the time. Sometimes I want to cry and scream and rage too. Sometimes I want to be quiet for a little while and not help someone else. Just for a few hours.”

Bucky nodded and stared at the rows of internments  before them. “Y’know. I’m sure people would understand that if you told them. If you said, ‘I can’t do this right now. Please let me be quiet.’”

“I know that,” Sam said softly. He tangled his fingers together in his lap. “Maybe I’m mostly angry at myself for not being able to say something like that. I’m the guy who helps. If I don’t do that, if I beg a day off, then who am I? What am I bringing to the table?”

Bucky scooted closer and put a hand on Sam’s knees. It sent a jolt through Sam’s body and he worked very hard on not jerking his gaze up to Bucky’s face. “Sam, you just said you have other personality traits, other feelings, other hobbies that aren’t hanging out in a mausoleum. That’s what you bring to the table on the days you can’t be there for everyone else.”

Sam nodded and reached up to rub two fingers under his eye. He wasn’t at full tears yet, but he also didn’t want to get any closer. “Wait, did I tell you my name?” he asked suddenly.

Bucky lifted an eyebrow again. “You must’ve. Or someone else said it earlier. The point is, you’re still you. And you bring smarts and humor and a good head around, even when you aren’t offering free therapy or a crying shoulder. And, Sam, listen, even when you don’t want to be any of that, you’re still kind. I’ve only been sitting here for a few minutes and you’ve been kind the whole time, even when you weren’t trying. It’s not a part you’re playing. Just be who you are and ask for your time when you need it. If people reflect even a quarter of the love you put out there back at you, no one will ever begrudge you some quiet.”

Sam swallowed thickly and leaned against Bucky’s shoulder heavily. Bucky moved his hand from Sam’s knee to wrap his arm around his ribs instead. “You really think I’m funny and smart?” Sam asked eventually.

“You started spouting off propaganda theories and joking about where vampires technically live. Yeah, you’re something else, man,” Bucky laughed. “And I think you’re beautiful, which people always appreciate in people they hang around with.”

Sam rolled his eyes and ignored the last comment, thankful that his skin was dark enough to hide his blush and Bucky couldn’t see the swooping of his stomach. “Well, if you think that’s impressive, I’ve got a whole list of things I think are propaganda.”

“I’d love to hear all about it some other time.”

“Is your friend here?” Sam asked, sitting back a little and glancing around.

Bucky’s eyes cast around the mausoleum briefly too. “No. I just don’t feel like listening to any propaganda tonight,” he joked.

Sam jostled his elbow into Bucky’s rib and leaned back against his side. “I can’t remember the last time I actually talked to someone in one of these things. Everything’s always so surface level here. ‘Sorry for your loss’ ‘He was a good man’ ‘Of course we’ll come by the benefit.’ None of it means anything.”

“Well, I wasn’t part of the funeral, so maybe that was a plus. I’m just some guy. Hanging out in a mausoleum.”

“Ah, you’re the vampire,” Sam said with a grin. “Maybe I should get a stake in that casket.”

“There’s no body in it,” Bucky reminded him. “They never found Rogers’ or Barnes’ body.”

“Right, right. The train and plane.”

“It’s just for show,” Bucky said. He reached out to trace his fingers along Barnes’ last name and then held his palm against the stone for a second longer.

Sam put his hand on Bucky’s knee and said quickly, like ripping a bandaid off, “Do you want to get lunch or something? With me? Now, or later. I’m not picky. And then maybe again?”

Bucky turned blue eyes back to Sam and he really did look just like all those old pictures. That same sad smile came to his mouth. “Yeah, I really, really do. Maybe later,” he said and leaned over to kiss Sam’s cheek softly.

Sam’s eyes fluttered shut and his heart kicked up so rapidly in his chest it punched the air out of his ribs.

When he managed to open his eyes again, Bucky was gone.

[secret-engima]

More Thoughts On Team Gremlin verse

-This thing’s official name is “Saving the World for Fun and Profit” because I find that funny.

-At some point in their escapades, Whitley joins the team. No, he’s not a time traveler, he’s just a smol child Schnee that certain members of the White Fang thought would be good to hold for ransom. Naturally, Oscar found him and put a stop to that and trundled off with a kid his physical age in tow. Torchwick oFFERED to put the kid back where he belonged (once he caught the kids with an extra in their midst, which took about a week) but Whitley is young and impressionable and has just gone from a house that is empty and cold and devoid of anyone willing to love him to spending a week or so with this crew of crazy kids who hug him and ruffle his hair and let him get dirty while playing and feed him candy and don’t scold him for not spending hours practicing for his recitals. Who have an adult that acts so vibrant and *different* from his parents and who pays attention to Whitley when he speaks. Who even have a DOG that is friendly and huge and TALKS which almost makes up for how he’s a bit goopy instead of fluffy like the books say dogs should be.

-He turns those big hopeful eyes on them and asks if he can *stay* and Oscar immediately turns the puppy eyes on Torchwick, because if Whitley, who helped him in the future-that-isn’t, wants to stay and be happy here then of course Oscar is onboard.

-Torchwick: Noooo. Noooooo. Arrgggh don’t you DARE try to cute me you tiny terror-.

-Oscar and Whitley: *puppy eyes intensify*

-Also Torchwick: FINE. But he needs to dye his hair so people don’t instantly know he’s a Schnee.

-Neo: *whips out a two bottles of dye that both match her hair and beams because she always wanted a baby brother*

-At some OTHER point in time, Oscar accidentally mentions that a Certain Person shot him off a cliff when he was out of Aura. Torchwick, being the reasonable, focused, definitely-not-a-dad criminal mastermind he is, absolutely does NOT break into General Ironwood’s home to break his nose.

-The fact that his entire info network in Mantle and Atlas is now running a side operation of Make The General Miserable is complete coincidence. Truly. So is Neo disappearing for a week and coming back smelling of Tundra, with bloody knuckles and a satisfied expression.

-Oscar: Guys, I told you to leave him alone! He was suffering a mental breakdown, and I survived the fall. It’s fine!

-Mercury: You and I have *very* different opinions on what counts as fine, Boss. And that’s counting the fact that I was raised by Marcus Black.

-Sondor the Grimm Hound is the goodest boy. He crawled his way out of the experimental goo pool Salem had dumped his founding material in several years early just to go find his Pups.

-Everyone is a Pup to Sondor.

-Yes even Torchwick. Torchwick is just more like a bratty yearling pup to him.

-Except Neo, she acts too much like a cat to be a Pup.

-Of course his favorite Pup is Oscar Pup. Who is small and fierce and doesn’t understand that because he is hurt, he shouldn’t be trying to hunt the same way the others do. Here Oscar Pup climb on his back, he will help.

-Sondor, like in canon, can speak, he just tends to stick to short phrases because talking is tricky when you have a skull shape Like That. The kids have maybe had too much fun trying to teach him human single-word memes.

-Behold, the Grimm who knows the meaning of and can say Yeet at the correct time.

-Sondor is a firm believer in bedtime. The concept was introduced to him pre-time travel when Neo, Mercury, and Emerald were all trying to put Oscar back together mentally and physically. Often, Oscar would lose all concept of time (and self) while trying to mentally navigate around the ragged hole left by what Salem did to Ozpin inside him, and this could lead to Oscar just- straight up forgetting to SLEEP. For Days. So since Sondor was always a constant at Oscar’s side (no one else wanted to deal with the Grimm but also no one else wanted to try removing him from the side of the one person he was attached to and who would in turn spontaneously use magic to defend), Em sat down with the Giant Death Dog and taught this sucker the concept of bedtime. Specifically, if the Broken Light (moon) was out and the clock looked like So, then Oscar needed to be IN BED, lying down and SLEEPING until the clock looked like This.

-It took a few tries but Sondor got the gist eventually, and this makes taking bby out on nighttime heists post-time travel tricky because Sondor is prone to just looking up at the moon, rasping “Bedtime. For pups.” and then scooping Oscar up and trundling off to the nearest comfy spot. He will 100% lie down with Oscar and gently rest his head on Oscar’s torso so that the boy can’t escape. Oscar would protest but he does need the help and Sondor has also done this to any of the other Pups if he catches them up too late at night.

-Sondor must be *bribed* to let Oscar participate in any activity past his “bedtime” that Emerald first taught him. And then Oscar has to make up for it by taking a daytime nap. Oscar would protest but physically he is 6 and working his way up so he does actually need sleep.

-If anyone ever told Oscar that someday the fastest way to put him to sleep would be to have a giant, vaguely gooey Grimm hound that can shapeshift into even more terrifying forms cuddle him and make low rumbly noises he would have... well depending on timeline he would have stared, run away, or just laughed hard enough to choke on his own blood because sure why not, it’s not like his day can get any weirder after being kidnapped and tortured by an evil grimm queen lady.

-Everyone picture Oscar riding Sondor into battle. Or just riding around on him in general because bby has joint problems and height problems and riding his Best Friend Doggo is a great way to help with both.

-Everyone picture Oscar smiling serenely at some criminal gang who has surrounded him to try to kidnap him and hold him over Torchwick’s head. They have a lot of men.

-“I have a Sondor.”

-*furious bellowing Hound Grimm with bloody-colored wings drops from the sky to LOOM protectively over Oscar, roaring bloody murder at the criminals who thought the child with the limp and the cane was a good target*.

-Sondor’s second favorite Pup is Emerald, because she gives the Good Scritches and also has more sense than most of the other Pups combined. Mercury is Trouble Pup, Neo is Kitten. Whitley is New Pup and has been occasionally dubbed Brat. Sondor is not afraid to gently drag Whitley out of trouble by his leg. The fact that his entire leg can fit in this giant Grimm’s mouth should probably terrify Whitley, but he’s picked up his cues from Mercury (who has also been dragged around by his leg by an annoyed Sondor) and thus just whines and flails.

[howaminotinthestrokesyet]

When It Started: Julian Casablancas

The Strokes lead singer was born on August 23, 1978 in New York City. His father John was the founder and owner of Elite Model Management, while his mother Jeanette worked as a Danish model and former Miss Denmark. At the age of eight, his parents would divorce. His mother would later marry painter Sam Adoquei, who heavily influenced the young Casablancas by introducing him to classic rock artists such as the Doors. Julian has several half brothers and half sisters through his father’s multiple marriages. The future frontman of the Strokes would attend a variety of schools throughout his early life, which led him to meet many of the future members of the band through schools such as Lycée Français de New York, the Institut Le Rosey boarding school in Switzerland, and the Dwight School in New York. At the latter, Julian would start to informally play music with Nick Valensi and Fab Moretti, which ultimately was the beginning of the Strokes. The singer would never finish high school, but did receive his GED in place of it. He would later attend music classes at Five Towns College, which became the very first time that Casablancas actually enjoyed going to school.

Throughout the history of the Strokes, Julian has served as the principal songwriter for the group. Some have said that he would insert a large measure of control over the music, but he and other members have said that does not seem to be the case anymore. Each member of the group brings their own ideas about future songs, then the band decides what to use and what to discard. Nick Valensi would say this about the singer. “His ear is so sharp. He's the one with the ear for detail in this band. Creatively, he is a force to be reckoned with." In 2009, Casablancas released his first solo album entitled Phrazes for the Young through RCA. He would talk about releasing music as a solo artist versus material from the Strokes. “It’s like touring with me or with five of me." The singer would also go on to say that as a solo artist he is able to experiment with his music and lyrics in ways that he would probably avoid in the Strokes. He has always been quite adamant the brand name that is the band should be protected. The title of the album had been inspired by the Oscar Wilde book, Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young, while the album itself embraced a very 1980’s new wave sound that had a heavy emphasis on the use of synthesizers. He talked about this new direction in his music. “I would've gone weirder with the music, but I wanted to be smart. I didn't want people to say, 'Okay, this is his weird abstract thing,' and dismiss the album. I worked too hard on it for that to happen... I wanted to be crazy original and bridge the gap between traditional music and modern music." The LP would be recorded in New York and Omaha, Nebraska with producer Jason Lader and some additional assistance from Mike Mogis of Bright Eyes. A tour would follow the release with a backing band called the Sick Six including Jeff Kite (keyboard), Nelson London (synthesizer), JP Bowersock (guitar), Danielle Haim (percussion) and Alex Carapetis (drums). The first major shows in North America took place over the course of a month at the Downtown Palace Theater in Los Angeles. This venue had been previously used in the Michael Jackson “Thriller” music video.

In 2013, Julian began another side project called Julian Casablancas + the Voidz. Other members of this new band included Jeramy "Beardo" Gritter and Amir Yaghmai on guitar, Jacob "Jake" Bercovici on bass (as well as synthesizer), Alex Carapetis on drums and percussion, and Jeff Kite on keyboard. In 2017, the group wanting more recognition as a band rather than a side project changed its name to simply the Voidz. The goal of the group was to create music that represented a quality of being both very aggressive and quite complex. As lead vocalist and songwriter, Casablancas began to explore musical scales within Middle Eastern music, not any traditional Western scales. Jake Bercovici has said, they are interested in “exploring [music] from the margins.” The singer looked upon the group as a vehicle in which he could create music that embodied characteristics much more experimental than anything that the Strokes ever offered. Their debut album Tyranny was released in September 2014 through Casablancas’s own record label, Cult Records. The album would also feature an 11 minute single entitled “Human Sadness,” which Julian actually wrote originally for a short documentary film about his stepfather, painter Sam Adoquei. Their second album would be released in March 2018 entitled Virtue, which took on a much stronger political point of view emphasizing the paradox between truth and lies.

Over the years, Julian has collaborated on a number of tracks with other artists. In 2006, the Strokes teamed up with Eddie Vedder and Josh Homme for a cover of “Mercy Mercy (The Ecology)” by Marvin Gaye. On the track, Vedder sang backup vocals, while Homme would play drums. In 2008, he recorded a collaboration with Pharrell and Santigold for Converse on a track called “My Drive-thru.” In 2009, the singer lent his vocals to the comedy trio the Lonely Island for a parody song on their debut album Incredibad called “Boom Box.” The Strokes frontman would later record a cover of another Saturday Night Live parody, “I Wish It Was Christmas Today.” He would eventually perform the song live with Jimmy Fallon, Horacio Sanz, and the Roots on Fallon’s talk show. In 2010, Casablancas sang vocals for the track “Little Girl” on the 2010 Sparklehorse and Danger Mouse album Dark Night of the Soul. In 2011, Julian performed the song “Rave On” for the release of a Buddy Holly tribute record. In 2013, he would also provide vocals, lyrics, and guitar to the Daft Punk song instant crush on their 2013 record Random Access Memories. The album would go on the win the Grammy for Album of the Year, which he would receive recognition for his work on it. In 2015, Julian created a cover with Jehnny Beth of the 1983 song Boy/Girl, which would be released through Cult Records. In 2016, he would also provide covers for the soundtrack to the HBO series Vinyl performing three tracks by the Velvet Underground, “Venus in Furs,” “Run Run Run,” and “White Light/White Heat.” That same year, the singer would pen a song for Har Mar Superstar on his album Best Summer Ever entitled “Youth Without Love.”

In 2009, Casablancas started his own music label, Cult Records. The company currently includes a roster of The Growlers, Har Mar Superstar, Songhoy Blues, Rey Pila, Karen O, Promiseland, The Strokes, The Voidz, Exhibition and Cerebral Ballzy. Past artists were Albert Hammond Jr., The Virgins, Reputante, INHEAVEN, Exclamation Pony and Nelson London (C O L O R). The company first began as an imprint in order to release his first solo album Phrazes for the Young. As for his influences, the earliest ones were the Doors and Velvet Underground. He would say this about the latter group. “The way Lou Reed wrote and sang about drugs and sex, about the people around him — it was so matter-of-fact. He could be romantic in the way he portrayed these crazy situations, but he was also intensely real. It was poetry and journalism." Other influences include Bob Marley, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam. He would later say that the song “Yellow Ledbetter” inspired him to start making music. In his personal life, the singer would marry the Strokes assistant manager, Juliet Joslin in 2005. They have two sons together, but divorced in 2019. In the early days of the Strokes, Casablancas struggled with drinking, but he has been completely sober since 2009. Julian would say in an interview about trying to quit drinking, he was “hungover for five years.”

[popculturebuffet]

Lilo and Stitch Crossover Arc: “Rufus” (Kim Possible) Better and Worse (Paid for by WeirdKev27)

Aloha all you happy people! It’s back to Kauai for the third of my look at LIlo and Stitch’s crossover episodes! This retrospective was made possible by WeirdKev27, who had the idea for it and paid for me to review these episodes. You too can buy reviews for only 5 bucks a pop. Just go to my ask, Direct Messages or discord.

Now with my plugging out of the way, this one, out of all four is the one I looked forward to the most, and out of the four shows in this crossoverathon to make the trip to the Kauai, this one is hands down my faviorite. 

Kim Possible was just damn good and having rewatched a handful of episodes and the movie (Easily one of my faviorite Disney movies and the best DCOM, I will not back down on either), I can say it holds up every bit as good as it did in the early 2000′s. Frankly like Danny Phantom i’m surprised I never thought to get to it till now. But no time like the present: The show proper is a fun super spy sendup, but still feels unique: Instead of i’ts Teen Superspy working for some knockoff of MI6 or S.H.I.E.L.D., Kim is self employed, simply helping people because it’s the right thign to do and not for any reward with the help of her bumbling  but loveable sidekick and future boyfriend Ron, though the romance angle wasn’t overplayed with the two, just hinted at here and there, enough to make it plausable for Ron to realize he has feelings in the movie and for Kim to return them and frankly it’s probably the best handled “Friends to lovers’ plot i’ve seen in a children’s cartoon. I”ll get more into that if I hit my stretch goal for it on patreon, more on that at the end of the review, but while it has no baring on this review I still felt it worth noting as that trope is NOT easy to pull off.

Point is, the show was smart, funny, engaging and had two great characters, a tremendously talented voice cast, and more anchoring it. It was a treasured part of my adolsence. It also had one of the only succesful “Save our show” campagins from fans i’ve ever seen. Despite So The Drama having been written as a finale and having reached Disney’s episode count, fan demand for a fourth season was so incredibly high we got one and it’s to this day one of the very few Disney shows to live past three seasons as a result. The show is in full on Disney Plus, along with the movie, which I HIGHLY recommend and hope I get to talk about, and the recent live action remake movie which .. is not bad. Not GREAT but the leads do make a good kim and ron, paticuarlly my boy Sean Gambone as Ron, and for a live action remake it really does get the spirit of the show. 

But obviously we’re not here to talk about the show proper, though I REALLY want to now, but instead it’s crossover. So far the crossovers for Lilo and Stitch have been, much like said live action remake, OKAY, but nothing amazing, often shoving in sideplots related to Lilo and Stitch proper we didn’t need, forced morals and not really having a good amount of character intraction. The good news is this crossover DOES fix a lot of that.. the bad is that it also has some new problems, and still falls into some of the same traps the other episodes have. See what I mean with the full review under the cut!

We open at night, with Lilo and Stitch playing hide and seek. Adorably though Sttich dosen’t quite get the hang of it and proudly announces where he is. However things are quickly interupted when he’s kidnaped by a mystery ship out of the blue. It’s a good hook to start with, leaving us wondering who it could be...

And thus, if you hadn’t gone into this episode knwoing it was a crossover, giving us a hell of a reveal with a cut to Dr. Drakken being the one to kidnap stitch!

Look I love this Doofus. He’s easily one of John DiMaggio’s best roles, up there with Jake and Bender, and the one along with Bender that cemented his career. as one of voice acting’s finest. He’s just so loveably incompetent, over the top and quick to bicker with Sheego, which leads to some of the funneist moments in his home series as she’d either skewer him good or he’d shove his boot in his mouth and help her point instead of his own. He’s just such a great character and he not only fits neatly into Lilo and Stitch’s world, but the writers clearly get him perfectly. We get a hilarious bit where, fed up with Hamsterviel, who he’s teamed up with, he simply fakes the radio going out, adjusting the dials purposfully to make it come in buggy something I GUARANTEE he put in for SHeego and I gurantee she saw right through. His plan is to create a clone army of Stiches.. meaning Hamsterviel’s big evil plan.. is a copy of someone else’s.

Lilo goes to Jumb and Pleakly, the latter of whom has been collecting magazines adorably. Lilo plans to go after Stitch but Jumba says she can’t go on dangerous missions without him and to get a professional and this part.. does not work for me. Most of the time Jumba ENABLES Lilo’s behaviors and while not wanting an 8 year old to run out into the night is a good call, he also suggests getting help.. instead of you know GOING WITH HER WHEN IT’S LIGHT. It sounds more like Nani’s idea... it fits her more to not want Lilo to run out and to want to get help versus Jumba whose admant about keeping secrecy yet very lax on things, and you know would BE concerned that his prized creation was suddenly stolen and actually think about it. He’s just so horribly out of character it hurts. 

And Nani’s absence really hurts the episode. See the last two, as much as I missed the lovely and talented Tia Carrere’s presence, didn’t really need her, though still could’ve included her: she could’ve made a cameo at the start since Lilo was there to visit her and she woul’dve made a better target for Spats than trudy, with Oscar fighting Jumba instead, allowing us some crossover interactions instead of having Jumba argue with a random asshole the episode wrote in. But it’s minor stuff. Here though? Her being the one to tell Lilo not to go would’ve made more sense: She’s protective by nature, and while she’s let go more since the movie, it’d make sense for her NOT to want Lilo to blindly chase after someone who beat stitch of all beings, as well as for her ot be the one to later tell Kim not to let lilo be involved. It’d be stronger coming from her sister and surrogate mother than Pleakly and it would’ve been a better arc to have Nani let Lilo off the leash so to speak and accept she needed to save kim. Instead she’s just gone for no reason and Jumba is grosly out of character and i’m disapointed. 

That said the setup is the best and most intergrated so far: Pleakly sees an article about kim so he reaches out to her via a message on her site, while Lilo is stubborn about not being help.. obnoxiously so to the point it hurts the episode. While her being inscure about someone else saving Sttich would be fine, the episode never adresses that and instead just has her say she can because shut pu instead of accepting help. The episode would’ve flowed better if instead she accepted kim but Nani had Kim push her away, and thus create more problems. More on that in a bit. 

But as I said this setup is great: it uses BOTH shows for once isntead of feeling like the first two, and honestly the next one judging by the blurb on the wiki, where its just “Hey x character visits Kauai”, here it blends both: The two main villians team up, and Kim is logically called for help since that’s what she does and they don’t want to risk lilo’s saftey. It’s good stuff. 

So our other heroes enter the episode, on a ritzy jet as Kim’s dad had an old college friend with an airline. I admit the episode weirdly downplays Kim’s penchant for getting rides, getting a helicopter that appears to be a touring one and getting this one via her dad instead of the usual person who owes her a favor. IT was a neat part of her character: that she got help from people she already helped on adventure’s we hadn’t seen to establish she can’t drive herself yet and to show she’s an experinced heroine with a lot of history before the show started. I also like how a handful of episodes after season 1 had returns from people we HAD seen before or linked to them, a clever way of having callbacks. 

It’s simple stuff Kim is ready for the wrold saving mision and ron hopes to get a vacation in. Nothing too out of the ordinary. 

So the next day Lilo tries to go it solo but is spotted before she can leave, while Pleakly has built a.. photo colloage of Kim’s face on the wall...

... no wait i’m getting paid for this. Nevermind. 

It is funny as it is unsettling though and Kim arrives and Pleakly faints.. Ron also arrives doing fake kung fu moves. This episode gets ron about half right... they overdo it a bit on the shenanigans, but Will Freidle’s natural charm and talent mean that even standard ron bits coughed up by a cat onto a page and used for this script still work simply because he’s that good at delivery. 

We also get the who’s on first bit you all knew was coming as Kim asking what’s the Sitch confuses lilo and i’ts .. pretty funny. Again you could see it coming from a mile away, but Daveigh Chase and Christy Carlson Ramano really sell the hell out of it and we get a nice runner after of Kim misprouncing his name and trying NOT to say her usual catchphrase. 

She also gets filled in on the alien thing... and while she admits i’ts a lot to swallow, she also admits she’s seen weirder. And given this episode would, by airdate (ignoring the one for So the Drama as that aired before the last batch of season 3 episodes but continuity wise takes place between seasons 3 and 4), take place around the same time as the season 3 intended finale “Team Impossible”, by this point she’s seen vengeful fishteens mutated by a horrifying summer camp, a rogue gentecist who basis her crimes against nature on a beanie baby knockoff, magical monkey based kung fu, a magican egyptian amulet, killer robot’s resembling teenage girls, a body swap episode, a plan using a barcode to destroy the internet, an attack on canada, a giant poodle, a complicated time travel plot, a trucker with a mullet, her sidekick getting turned into a surprisingly competent supervillian, and draken’s plan to use his rap career to promote brainwashing shampoo. And that’s just a handful of the things I was reminded of on the episode list. So yeah, this isn’t THAT much of a stretch. Oh and lest you think Kim never encountered aliens the series finale was an alien invasion by aliens Draken had pissed off earlier in the season. Suprised Lilo didn’t you know have Stitch and the family army pitch in. Maybe Leory and Stitch was going on at the same time? 

Point is she’s in but goes with Pleakly in trying to keep Lilo out of it. And here’s yet another place the episode missteps: Kim’s REALLY patronizing to Lilo, treating her like she can’t do anything and later ignoring her advice when she brings up the current later, something that ends up getting Kim caught. The latter part especially bugs me since Kim normally listens to her clients pretty well, and had she doubted him could’ve at least asked Waid since she contacts him in the same scene. Speaking of which THAT’S why I feel her patronizing “not now kiddo” atittude dosen’t work: her spy master IS a child, her brothers have helped out multiple times, and the incident I mentioned from where she met her younger cousin who idolized her at an old west town was understandable: Her cousin was getting into dangerous stuff and throwing herself out there recklessly with no regards to her own saftey and impeding the mission with her well meant antics. Lilo.. knows who their looking for, knows the island well, and knows stitch’s weaknesses. And she goes from being annoyingly hostlile to kim to helpful, so it makes kim even more obnoxious for not accepting said help. It’s just.. draining as when this part of the plot ISN’T in play, Kim is fine. She’s her usual self.. not AS well written as the parent show, a bit too reliant on her catchphrases, but still not half bad and Christy Carlson Romanao, like Fredle helps paper over the weaker bits of the script.  She’s not even out of character in her actions, as she does have a tendency to think she knows everything or undereistmate people.. the problem is it’s written poorly enough she comes across as insufferable, and unlike the show, where she actually learned something here.. she just learns to work as a team? When she does on a regular basis with Wade and Ron? 

It’s just so frustrating because they almost had it just right, but instead just had to try and put some half assed moral about teamwork in there. They broke from the formula of having an experiment of the week but they still just HAD to keep to their own formula. And look Kim Possible has it’s own formula.. but it used that to great effect, often using the episode’s plot to shake it up in fun ways, and the plots were still diffrent enough and the villians bold and intrestin genough that it didn’t grate.  This is starting to grate. And I do remember good and intresting episodes of the show.. but i’m starting tor ealize why I don’t remember NEARLY as much of Lilo and Stitch as I do the other shows it’s crossing over with: it’s so bolted to the formula they all just sorta blend together. It’s really fucking disheartning to realize something you loved so damn much as a kid just.. isn’t as good as you remember. And with these other shows.. I don’t have that as much. I accept proud family’s fault, Jake Long actually seems MORE intresting than it was at the time, and rewatching kim possible it’s excellent, same with recess coming up. I really need to watch more Recess. The most disheartining thing about this arc is the crossover just shows how BETTER the other shows were. Lilo and Stitch wasn’t a BAD show, and it isn’t here.. but it’s a mediroce one. it has a good premise. but it feels like they just don’t break away from the premise enough. This just... hurts a lot to type and realize. I really loved this show and movie as a kid and while the movie likely still holds up this.. this just dosen’t. 

I need a moment... i’m breaking open the glass case containing my emergency patrick stewart clip excuse me...

That.. I needed that. 

So before the bicker sisters can head off, we get our goofy comedy subplot: Jumba thinks Rufus is one of his experiments, one that could destroy the universe if not cancel and is highly unstable. As for why this one wouldn’t of worked out, I get why: it’s TOO powerful. Stitch is a weapon of mass distruction in a cuddly package, but he’s also easily deployable, kind of like Wolverine if he was in the body of a cartoon mascot. Having the THREAT of destroying ap lanet is fine and good for the long term but it does you no good if you can’t control it and i’td just destroy you too. 

So he and Pleakly try to steal rufus without telling Ron why after Ron naturlaly refuses to sel land a chase insues. So while the boys and gender fluid person have their comedy plot, the girls head to where stitch was taken and find Draken’s glove.... they know it’s his because he put a note saying “return to dr. draken, his mother gave it to him”. That’s just.. fucking precious. And entirely in character. So kim aranges a ride, and dives into the ocean, but finds lilo in her parachute, and tries to send her back despite LIlo offering valuable advice both about the area , the current I mentioned earlier, and about stitch, i.e. Draken’s base is underwater (something Kim didn’t realize which feels odd for her), because Stitch can’t swim, something I genuinely forgot. 

So while Kim sends Lilo back, or rather intercut with that but I choose to compress plots for my own convinence we cut back to Drakken and Shego. And I WAS worried that Shego wouldn’t show up, she wasn’t in the synopsis or anything and was delighted to find that nope she’s here. Drakken just isn’t the same without her.. I mean I liked the recurring subplot in season 4 where other villians would break her out, that was great, but in the end the two need each other. I may not ship them romantically but as a comedy team one just needs the other: Drakken needs Shego to cut down his ego and Shego needs someone to snark at and complain about. Sullivan and DiMaggio just had perfect chemistry and it’s easy to see why Drakken and Shego went from just another part of the Rogue’s Gallery to Kim’s arch enemies. 

Which is why I am sad Gantu and 625 don’t show up for this one. I mean I can buy it: Hamsterviel likely is doing this on the sly to see if he can find a better minon, but the two sets of villians have similar dynamics and i’d love to see Shego and 625 dunk on their bosses together. It’s a really big missed opportunity but I do get it as they may of just nto been able to fit the two together or it may of been hard to block a lot of scenes iwth the human sized drakken and the giant sized gantu. So unlike a lot of missed opportunites in the other episodes, this one I at least can understand. 

We get some GREAT banter with the two though. Out of the four guest characters in this one the crew really got Drakken and Shego down and the two bicker like any episode of Kim Possible, with Shego pointing out the massive bill on Stitch’s cage and how Drakken’s tried cloning about five times now and it’s never worked, and of course how he’s 50 50 splitting with a hamster bellow his station. Seriously why get rid of Gantu and 625 but keep the annoying rodent, I don’t get you episode. 

Of course while they quack quack bicker bicker Stitch escapes and Shego gives chase. Sadly we don’t get a fight between the two like we did with Jake, another missed opprotunity but Stitch getting out of her grasp by licking her is objectively funny. Stitch finds he’s underwater though and gets recaptured. 

Kim gets captured for the first time shortly after as the current caught her, but luckily she has kimunicator gloves and calls waid to call ron. Meanwhile Ron finally catches rufus back and Jumba explains the situation.. but Ron understandably dosen’t want to give up his buddy especially since Rufus has shown no signs of being a planet killer before. He’s not mooncake... althought i do think those two could hang. God now I just want a final space kim possible crossover to wash this out of my mouth. 

So it’s down to Lilo, the really not all that ambigiously gay their pretty darn gay duo, and Ron to save the day. Lilo finally gets to do what she kept asking kim to do: use jumbas hot rod car spaceship thing to go down under the sea, and they send Lilo and Rufus in since hteir small enough to get in and suriive the pressures. Our heroes arrive and Drakken is nonplussed.. only for Lilo to prove WHY she can keep an alien in line by freeing stitch from teh leash drakken has him on using kim’s grapple gun, and then frees kim. The good guys win and the bad guys loose and the base starts to self destruct.. eh they’ll be fine. They still have the movie to get to. 

So time for the wrap up: Stitch sniffs Rufus and confirms what the audience knew... that he’s a naked mole rat not an experiment. Which didn’t make sense to begin with for either show: Jumba’s archive should’ve been able to scan him or something (And if not he could build something to do that), and Kim Possible not only implied from day one Ron had Rufus a while, long before the rain of the pods, but A Stitch in Time outright confirms Ron bought him years ago in middle school. It just makes no sense and while it thankfully dosen’t take up a ton of the episode it still takes up too much. 

But with that our heroes prepare to part on good terms but Pleakly decides to celebrate with  Luau. Kim’s repsonse “Well I can do anything...”

And we get a gratuitous luau sequence! I do love a job that allows me to type the phrase “Gratuitous Luau Sequence’ They clearly ran short and we just get a good minute of everyone doing hula dances for no reason. I mean.. you could’ve done a quick gag with the experiment who was mistaken for Rufus... who I now realize given the finale was befriended by someone. I’m headcanoning now Kim and Ron came back for that one and Kim had him sent to space as part of one her dad’s projects where he and earth would be safer and he could help with space missions or something. 

Final Thoughts: As you could tell I had mixed thoughts. As a crossover this melded things better, had a more original plot and the actors from Kim Possible brought their a-game.. but once again some disapointing characteteriztion and downright stupid decisions really let the episode down. These episodes just depress me every time and I’m looking forward to being done.. which given how excited I was going into this.. yeah. Like all of these despite their flaws I recommend checking it out if you like Kim Possible, if nothing else than for some extra drakken shego banter but.. keep your expectations low.

Next Time on Kim Possible: A team of spiteful assholes who are in a way repsonsible for Kim’s Career try to shut her down. It’s the intended finale episode outisde of hte movie people buckle up.. or you would if I was doing any of these. Though I should do “Team IMpossible” at some point. 

On the finale of these crossovers: The Recess Gang are the final visitors to Kuai as Lilo must find and stop a lazy monster... no i’m not guest starring too. 

Tommorow: Another kev one this time by patreon as I put two similar episodes of a show or franchise against each other and ask “Who Did It Better?” This time it’s two episodes of Celebrity Death Match, original versus revivial may the original.. probably win. 

If you liked this review, please consider supporting my patreon, YOU CAN FIND THE LINK TO IT HERE.  For just 2 bucks a month you get access to my discord, to pick a short each time I do one of my shortstravaganzas, and acess to my Patreon exclusive reviews! Next month I intend to do one for the show whose crossover gets the most likes within a week of it’s relase. Proud Family has already passed American Dragon so you have a week to get it ahed. And if you like Kim Possible, help me reach my 25 dollar stretch goal! At that i’ll review So The Drama, along with the Recess and Proud Family Movies. So check it out and i’ll see you at the next rainbow. 

[aion-rsa]

Godzilla Singular Point: The Weird History of Jet Jaguar

https://ift.tt/3jvPBwC

The latest take on Toho’s iconic, building-crushing lizard comes in the form of Godzilla Singular Point, an anime series now available in dubbed form on Netflix. Taking place in the not-too-distant future, this reimagining of the King of Monsters involves a group of human characters becoming aware – through rather bizarre ways – of a coming apocalyptic event. Now the only thing that can save them is a behemoth out to punch monsters and look out for the little guy.

No, not Godzilla. He’s actually the apocalyptic event. No, our hero is none other than Jet Jaguar.

Yes, it’s finally time for Jet Jaguar to get his due.

A concept nearly 50 years old at this point, Jet Jaguar is one of those characters who was initially doomed to fail, but lives on due to nostalgia and the golden notion of, “I realize most people hated that thing from my childhood, but I bet I could make it good!” At best, he was a rad addition to the Godzilla mythos. At worst, he was a dumb idea from a dumb movie. For the most part, he’s remembered as something goofy that gets laughed at, despite having some genuine earnestness.

Jet Jaguar was created from both a fan contest and a corporate game of telephone. Back in 1972, to jump on the bandwagon of tokusatsu giant superhero/robot shows, Toho asked fans to design their own superhero design. The winner was a half-man/half-bird robot with a lengthy neck resembling a stack of rings named Red Alone. The concept was turned into a full-on rubber costume, but they changed the color scheme, which upset the young winner. They later decided to just scrap the whole thing, keep the color scheme, and make their own new design. And so, Jet Jaguar was born.

The superhero made an entire one movie appearance in 1973’s Godzilla vs. Megalon. As the urban legend goes, this was initially intended to be a standalone Jet Jaguar movie that the studio just didn’t have faith in towards the end and they hastily threw in Godzilla and recurring Godzilla villain Gigan. While the claim is dubious and unproven, it certainly is easy to understand where the allegations come from.

Everything about the movie feels rushed. As the last-minute replacement for another Godzilla film that didn’t pan out, filming took several weeks and production was a mere six months. Even the Godzilla costume was whipped up in record time. As for the story, outside of the intro, the preexisting elements (Godzilla and Gigan) aren’t thrown in until about 2/3 into the movie. Up until that point, it feels like a Jet Jaguar vs. Megalon movie with the production team hitting the panic button.

The plot of Godzilla vs. Megalon is that a scientist Goro Ibuki is working on a robot called Jet Jaguar, along with his little brother Rokuro and his best friend Hiroshi. They get wrapped up in a plot involving a group of beings from Atlantis-But-Not-Really, who are annoyed at all the nuclear bomb tests going on in their neck of the woods. They steal Jet Jaguar and use him to guide their insect god Megalon to different cities for the sake of smashing them up and punishing humanity.

Goro and friends get their hands on Jet Jaguar’s controls and use him to lead Godzilla to where Megalon is. Then the Seatopians call some alien friends for a solid and have them send in Gigan. Jet Jaguar is able to break away from all control and becomes fully sentient, as well as revealing the ability to turn into a giant. It becomes a big tag team battle, mostly remembered for Godzilla doing the silliest dropkick you’ve ever seen, followed by a second one for good measure.

The villains escape, Jet Jaguar and Godzilla shake hands, they go their separate ways, and Jet Jaguar reunites with the humans heroes after shrinking back down. He gets his own snazzy theme song to close things out.

In Japan, the movie wasn’t all that successful. As the thirteenth title in the Godzilla series, it brought in the worst returns yet. Between public burnout and the movie’s lack of quality, it just wasn’t grabbing people. That said, it came out at just the right time in the United States. Released in 1976, it came out months before the anticipated King Kong remake. The American movie poster for the movie even bit on the King Kong poster by featuring Godzilla and Megalon duking it out while each standing on a different Twin Tower, even though the movie at no point took place in the States.

A year later, the movie would be cut down into 48 minutes so they could broadcast it on NBC in prime time, across an hour with commercials. The only reason I mention this at all is because it was hosted by John Belushi wearing a Godzilla costume, which is sadly somewhere in the abyss of golden lost media.

Getting back to Jet Jaguar – the topic of this article – I feel the need to bring up Germany’s handling of the movie’s translation. Rather than call him “Jet Jaguar,” they referred to him as “King Kong.” I mean…sure, why not. Even weirder, when the next two movies introduced fellow giant robot MechaGodzilla, Germany once again referred to the robot as “King Kong.” Guys, I know what you’re going for here, but it doesn’t work that way.

Anyway, Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla and Terror of MechaGodzilla followed Godzilla vs. Megalon and closed off the classic Showa Era of Godzilla movies. Not only did Japan need to rest Godzilla as a concept for nearly a decade, but this also meant that whenever Godzilla would come back, it was going to be some kind of reboot or new “only the first movie counts” installment. Jet Jaguar was never high on the list to be brought back, especially since MechaGodzilla completely overshadowed him.

He would at least get a little more exposure in 1991 when Godzilla vs. Megalon was featured in the second season of Mystery Science Theater 3000. While much of the episode is spent making fun of one of the Seatopians for looking like Oscar Wilde, they toss plenty of jokes at Jet Jaguar. Most memorably, they “translate” Jet Jaguar’s ending theme, which notes that his mother never loved him and he looks a lot like Jack Nicholson.

Due to rights issues, Godzilla vs. Megalon is one of the few MST3K episodes that is no longer legally available for viewing. This does make the original MST3K Collection Volume 10 box set (which included Godzilla vs. Megalon as one of the four movies) a collector’s item, as it was later discontinued and rereleased with The Giant Gila Monster taking its spot.

A stranger use of Jet Jaguar comes in the form of Certain Distant Suns’ music video for “Bitter” in 1995. While there’s not much of a narrative outside of the band playing, footage of Godzilla vs. Megalon being shown, and a few shots of guys walking around in Megalon and Jet Jaguar costumes, I really insist you give the video a look due to the ending. It certainly goes in a direction I wasn’t expecting.

In 1997, Jet Jaguar made his next official appearance in another frankly bizarre spectacle. In Japan, a series called Godzilla Island appeared on TV in three-minute increments. While it only lasted a year, there were a whopping 256 episodes, meaning almost 13 hours of footage. If you’ve never heard of Godzilla Island, you might be thinking, “Wow, almost 13 hours of Godzilla stuff? Why isn’t this more well known?”

Well, it probably has a lot to do with the fact that instead of using guys in rubber suits, the kaiju action was done with action figures. Yikes.

Not only did Jet Jaguar show up during these adventures, but they gave him the 90s superhero action figure treatment. Much like how they released as many figures of Batman as possible for different crime-fighting scenarios, Godzilla Island gave us Silver Jet Jaguar, Medical Jet Jaguar, and even Fireman Jet Jaguar. Collect them all!

Read more

Movies

Godzilla vs. Kong Writer Talks About Spending 8 Years in the MonsterVerse

By Don Kaye

Movies

Godzilla vs. Kong Director and Writer Talk Future of The MonsterVerse

By Don Kaye

In the early 2000s, Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee was released for the GameCube and Xbox under the Atari brand. It was a fighting game featuring various characters from Godzilla lore and though Atari wanted to include Jet Jaguar, Toho refused. Still, at least Megalon was included in the game. There would be two sequels in the form of Godzilla: Save the Earth and Godzilla: Unleashed. FINALLY, Jet Jaguar was playable, because if there’s anything you can count on, it’s scraping the bottom of the barrel when you’re working on multiple installments of a nostalgic who’s who project.

He’d also return in 2014’s Godzilla game for PlayStation 3 and 4. The producer of the game didn’t even plan on putting him in there, but he saw that the programmers already were working on him and just shrugged it off. There was a special trick to summoning Jet Jaguar as a boss character. By ending up in three different Godzilla vs. Jet Jaguar scenarios and winning all three times, you would then unlock a special cutscene of the two shaking hands while a confused military woman would wonder about their history.

Around the mid-2010s, IDW Publishing was all about releasing a bunch of comics with the Godzilla license. Their mainline series was Godzilla: Rulers of the Earth, which went on for 25 issues. Early on, Jet Jaguar appeared out of nowhere during a fight between Godzilla and the team of Gigan and Orga. In human size, Jet Jaguar flew into Orga’s mouth, then expanded into giant size, causing the beast to explode. Especially awesome was that it came with the cliffhanger text, “Next: PUNCH! PUNCH! PUNCH!” a reference to Jet Jaguar’s theme song from the movie.

Jet Jaguar showed up regularly in the series, coming off as Godzilla’s designated driver friend and handler. What I mean is that he seemed to be out to protect Godzilla, but that meant having to keep his violent ally on task (ie. pointing out that Gigan was nearby to stop Godzilla from attacking Jet Jaguar) and throwing punches when the situation absolutely called for it.

This continuity played up Jet Jaguar as more enigmatic than anything, as although he was mechanical, the only human character who knew his origins was killed off before it could be explained. Even one of the invading alien villains saw him on a screen and basically went, “Oh crap. It’s THIS guy!” Regardless, he still came off as a total badass, winning fights against Godzilla, Gigan (the chainsaw-hand version), and Destroyah.

Then again, at one point he needed to be saved by the 1998 American Godzilla, which at least proved as a reminder to the robot hero that there are Toho characters far more hated than him.

Toho started using Jet Jaguar again, albeit in sillier ways. In 2019, as an April Fool’s Day prank, they put up a teaser on YouTube for a Jet Jaguar movie. They also had him appear a few times on Godziban, a Godzilla web series for kids that, once again, used dolls and action figures to tell its stories.

Now Jet Jaguar is a major part of Godzilla Singular Point. To get into specifics on the plot would be like explaining advanced calculus, but to keep on-topic, Jet Jaguar is the creation of Goro Otaki as both a way to ward off monstrous threats and as a company mascot. Considering King Kong’s role in King Kong vs. Godzilla was “kidnapped to be a company mascot,” maybe the Germans were onto something with the rename.

Anyway, this version of Jet Jaguar is more mechanical in appearance instead of having to rely on making him look like a human in a costume. Jet Jaguar is there to protect the heroes from the endless supply of monsters, usually taking some extensive damage. Still, the robot gets rebuilt stronger and stronger and becomes advanced enough to become self-aware and speak in…well, the voice of a teenage girl.

I don’t know, I guess I just figured he’d sound like Astro Guy from King of the Monsters.

There’s a big hard-to-explain twist, but the main thing to know is that Jet Jaguar becomes a full-on badass by the end of the series, turns out to be a huge key to the plot, and has a completely kickass showdown with Godzilla. In a way, Jet Jaguar’s journey in Singular Point is a lot like in real life, going from a lame idea that appealed to kids and gradually being understood as a respected part of the Godzilla mythos. Something initially representative of the worst of the franchise, proven to be something genuinely cool in the right hands.

Now it’s time for America to return the favor. Once again, timing is on Jet Jaguar’s side. The Monsterverse was on its way to the graveyard after the box office intake of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, but Godzilla vs. Kong came out at just the right time in the tail end of the pandemic to be a big success and keep the series going a little bit longer. There aren’t too many names in the toybox left to pull out, but at this point, Gigan and Jet Jaguar have to be high on the list.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Make it happen, Hollywood!

Godzilla Singular Point is available to stream on Netflix now.

The post Godzilla Singular Point: The Weird History of Jet Jaguar appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3h787JV

[letterboxd]

How I Letterboxd #9: Julie Collette.

Christmas movie lover Julie Collette tells Jack Moulton all about her seasonal movie habits, the best big screen Santa Claus of all time, disability visibility in festive films, and some of the weirder holiday picks.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year: when Letterboxd members turn to the Neverending Christmas List to help plan their Christmas movie viewing. Arrange it by highest rated, arrange it by newest release, or by popularity—any which way, there’s something for everyone, from corny TCM romances to obscure seasonal horrors.

Created six years ago by Canadian member Julie Collette, the list runs to more than 4,300 titles, and contains the word ‘Christmas’ 1,837 times at last count. Julie and her husband are die-hard Letterboxd fans, having allegedly used the platform every day for the past nine years. She’s logged every film she’s seen in theaters since 1996.

A message from John McClane in ‘Die Hard’ (1988).

What inspired your Neverending Christmas List? Can you please explain the minimum requirement for eligibility? My husband had told me about a list on Letterboxd of Every Horror Film Made from 1895–Present and that gave me the idea to start the neverending Christmas list. My eligibility rules are not strict at all. It can be a film that centers on or around Christmas time. Even New Year’s counts in my book—as long as there’s a moment in the film that has a Christmas song, a Christmas scene, or Christmas decorations. Die Hard is definitely a Christmas film. First of all, it takes place on Christmas Eve at an office Christmas party. There’s that great note that John McClane sends to Hans Gruber on a dead guy’s shirt: “Now I have a machine gun, ho-ho-ho.” Now that’s Christmas! There are a couple of titles that test my relaxed requirements. Examples would be Psycho—there are a few Christmas decorations at the beginning [and Bryan Fuller agrees]—and the documentary Beauty Day by Canadian director Jay Cheel, which has Christmas lights at the end.

And what percentage of the films have you seen? As of right now, I've watched 20 percent—that’s 882 of the 4,322 films on the list. I’ve got a lot of homework to do. Here’s a few hidden gems I recommend: Mon oncle Antoine, Holiday Affair, Remember the Night, Olivia, On the Twelfth Day…, Bing Crosby’s Merrie Olde Christmas and One Christmas, which is Katherine Hepburn’s last role.

David Bowie and Bing Crosby sing ‘The Little Drummer Boy’ in ‘Bing Crosby’s Merrie Old Christmas’ (1977).

When does your Christmas movie viewing season start? I usually start mid-November to try to keep up with the TV rom-coms because they start to air even before Hallowe’en. This year on Hallowe’en night we rewatched The Night of the Hunter and I had forgotten that there was a sequence that was set at Christmas time. It was a perfect segue between Hallowe’en and Christmas, so I started November 1st. As far as how I pick what to watch, I go through my list and randomly pick some. I try to watch as many first-time watches and mix up the genres. But the closer I get to Christmas, the more I want to watch my favorites—for the most part I go with the flow. Christmas Day is usually a day of family time, but I try to sneak in one favorite if I can.

What was the first Christmas film that got you into all of this? I’ve always loved Christmas and growing up I watched the yearly airings of vintage Christmas cartoons and A Muppet Family Christmas. When Home Alone came out it was an instant obsession, then Home Alone 2: Lost in New York was just as good. Even now it’s our yearly tradition for my husband and I to watch the Home Alones while we decorate the Christmas tree.

If not Home Alone, what is your all-time favorite Christmas film? It’s a Wonderful Life is up there for me. Partly because growing up I watched it every Christmas Eve and kind of forced my dad to watch it with me. I think he secretly didn’t mind. As a kid, I didn’t dwell on the sad parts of the story, I just wanted to go to that candy shop and run in Bedford Falls like George in that beautiful thick fake snow. Now as an adult, I appreciate the story about a small town coming together to support a man at his lowest of lows more. Jimmy Stewart is amazing as George Bailey and we can all see ourselves at some point in his journey in the film. The chemistry and comedic timing between Stewart and Donna Reed is one of the best. Every time they sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’, I always get a bit misty-eyed.

メリークリスマス Japanese style, in ‘Tokyo Godfathers’ (2003).

What have you noticed about the ways in which Christmas films have changed over the years? In classic Christmas storytelling, there are a lot more religion-centered ones like The Bishop’s Wife and It’s a Wonderful Life. The ’80s and ’90s were about the blockbusters that the whole family could enjoy; Batman Returns, Home Alone, and The Santa Clause. The last twenty years have brought us a lot of different movies, but I do find that the start of the 2000s had a better crop of Christmas movies; Love Actually, Elf, Tokyo Godfathers, Far from Heaven, Bridget Jones’s Diary, About a Boy and so many more. The last decade has been saturated by the rom-coms of Hallmark, Lifetime and their imitators, but from the last five years, a few stand out that could be destined to become Christmas classics: Carol, Little Women and The Night Before.

The best, most rewatched Christmas stories tend to be remade. Do you have a classic Christmas story that you always love, no matter who’s telling it? Hands down Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. From my favorite—Scrooge—to The Muppet Christmas Carol, to Scrooged. Growing up, I had the book of Mickey’s Christmas Carol and I loved the cartoon adaptation. I love to see the different actors’ excitement and elation at the end when Scrooge wakes up on Christmas Day. My ultimate favorite is Alistair Sim in 1951’s Scrooge. He’s so jubilant asking the maid what day it is and wishing himself Merry Christmas in the mirror. It’s a bit darker than others. When I was a kid, the intro with Jacob Marley and the build-up of the chains scared me, but I couldn’t stop watching. Patrick Stewart’s Ebenezer [in the 1999 TV movie] is also great for his relief that he survived the journey through time. What an actor! An honorable mention to The Shop Around the Corner, In the Good Old Summertime and You’ve Got Mail, which are all based on [the 1937 Hungarian play Parfumerie by Miklós László].

A Christmas Treat in ‘Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square’ (2020).

Treat Williams stars in not one but two of this season’s films (who knew he could sing?!). Which actors bring that special spark to festive films for you? Yes, and boy can he sing! Another actor who can sing and puts me straight in the Christmas mood is Bing Crosby. Those classic songs in White Christmas and Holiday Inn are favorites of mine. Jimmy Stewart is an obvious one. He has that charm that’s perfect for Christmas movies, especially in The Shop Around the Corner.

What’s your guiltiest pleasure on the list? Why do we love cheesy movies so much?! Every year I watch TCM’s Classic Christmas marathon [but I also watch] the Hallmark and Lifetime Christmas rom-coms. For me, I love them partly because there’s always a happy ending. I love to see all the decorations and all the cute small towns—some I wish existed so I could visit them because they’re so darn cute! Another reason I love them is the nostalgia, as some of the better ones star TV actors from the ’90s and ’00s like Candice Cameron Bure, Lacey Chabert, Jonathan Bennett, Adrian Grenier, Mario Lopez, Alicia Witt, Alison Sweeney and so many others.

One of the other great Christmas-themed lists on Letterboxd is the one about Christmas movie posters with white heterosexual couples wearing red and green—though many members pride themselves on having seen none of them. I like those movies because I can zone out and enjoy the predictable Christmas ride. However, like other Letterboxd members, I know that these aren’t Oscar-caliber films—though some are better than others! I’m glad that the powers that make these movies are starting to be more inclusive with more POC and LGTBQ+ characters. As a wheelchair user with a physical disability, I was happy to see that Lifetime has an upcoming one called Christmas Ever After, starring Ali Stroker.

Ali Stroker finds love in ‘Christmas Ever After’ (2020).

Indeed, our Make the Yuletide Gay list is an attempt to highlight queer festive films, but the pickings have been slim. Yes, very slim. There’s been queer characters in Christmas films but it’s your stereotypical gay friend or something like that. This year I feel there’s a shift in the air to be more inclusive. My favorites this year so far have been the star-filled lesbi-rom-com Happiest Season, The Christmas House—featuring a landmark first gay couple in a Hallmark festive film, Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square and Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey—with Ricky Martin! I’m looking forward to checking out A New York Christmas Wedding, The Christmas Setup and Dashing in December.

What is the scariest Christmas film that your horror-loving husband has made you watch? The best one is Black Christmas. I love that it’s female-centered and ahead of its time in their portrayals. The killer’s POV really gets me into it and still to this day puts me on edge, so much so that an ornament fell off our tree while watching it this year and it freaked me out!

Also, should we be watching The Nightmare Before Christmas on Hallowe’en or on Christmas? I watch The Nightmare Before Christmas on both holidays so you get the best of both worlds—the ghoulishness of Hallowe’en and the merriment of Christmas!

What other films on your list show Christmas in an unusual light? The first weird one that popped to mind is The Star Wars Holiday Special. That was weird! Also, from what I’ve watched I would say Eyes Wide Shut, The Ref and 3 Godfathers are not your usual Christmas films. I do have quite a few on the list I have to watch that seem weird and unusual like Elves, Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

[Editor’s note: Previous How I Letterboxd interviewee Dave Vis urges you not to watch Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny under any circumstances.]

Which actor is the quintessential Santa Claus? For me, it’s the Santa in Miracle on 34th Street, played by Edmund Gwenn. He truly embodied the part in the way he plays Kris Kringle. The gentleness and innocence he shows throughout the film is magical. It’s no wonder he won a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his performance.

Gunn Wållgren in ‘Fanny and Alexander’ (1982).

Of course, so many films in the Christmas canon are American films. What are some of the best Christmas films from around the world? This question makes me realize I haven’t watched enough Christmas movies from around the world. With that being said here’s a few; A Christmas Tale from France, A Child’s Christmas in Wales from the UK, Tokyo Godfathers from Japan and Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander from Sweden. Mon oncle Antoine is a great Canadian film set in a small mining village during Christmas. It reminded me of the stories my mom and grandma talked about their Christmas traditions in their small village.

Are there any overrated classics you want to protest? I didn’t watch A Christmas Story growing up, so when I finally did watch it as an adult, I didn’t connect with it. The iconic scenes are funny and all, but it’s just okay. Now I’ll be on my hubby’s naughty list!

Does the film marathon continue through that purgatory week between Christmas and New Year? Do you have any film-related traditions to ring in the New Year? It does continue during that week to a certain extent. Some years after Christmas I’m done and what I haven’t watched goes to the following year but other years I can watch a few more and not feel overwhelmed. On New Year’s we have no traditions per se, but this year we might do a Tarantino marathon.

Christmas season is also synonymous with awards season. You keep track of a lot of Academy Awards history. How are you feeling about the awards season this year? First off, like many others, I haven’t even set foot in a theater this year and that is sad. I hope that the theater-going experience is not irreparably damaged. One good thing that came from the pandemic is film festivals streamed online and we were fortunate to watch some great titles from TIFF from the comfort of our home in September. I saw Nomadland, and it’s going to be a frontrunner for many of the main categories. I hope Regina King’s One Night in Miami gets some love. Miranda July’s Kajillionaire script is so unique—Evan Rachel Wood and Richard Jenkins should be contenders. I haven’t watched a lot of docs yet but Boys State stands out. I’m also eager to see First Cow, Minari, Ammonite, The Truffle Hunters, Soul, Mank, The Father and Promising Young Woman.

This Christmas is going to be weird for a lot of people. What’s one film you’d recommend for a guaranteed happiness injection? Weird indeed. If I have to pick just one it would be John Favreau’s Elf. Will Ferrell as Buddy the Elf instantly brings a smile to my face. You can feel his joy for Christmas from start to finish. From the classic claymation, to New York City at Christmas, to eating all that sugar, to that hilarious scene with Peter Dinklage—it’s Christmas gold!

And finally, are there some other Letterboxd members you recommend we follow? Emily, Flurryheaven, Guyzo997, Peter Spencer, Michael Dean, Brent Vanhomwegen, Ara Hiddleston and also some more Christmas lists.