#need to extensively interview the director about it

[franklyimissparis]

rewatched the miracle aligner music video for the billionth time. still gay.

[agendabymooner]

ollie on thin ice(man) || ob8 (+ kr7) scenario

ollie bearman x raikkonen!ofc (ft. dad!kimi raikkonen)

EXTENSION TO ICE ICE BABY (SMAU)

ANOTHER RECOMMENDED READ: STOP THE WORLD I WANNA GET OFF WITH YOU (KIMI R. SMAU)

Summary: It was the Formula 1 summer break, meaning that The Iceman’s two driving children, including his beloved Romania ‘Aroma’ Raikkonen, were home. This also meant that a certain Ollie Bearman would make his presence known to the Raikkonen household- which was unpleasant for Kimi’s part.

Content warning: Dad!Kimi being protective, Andrea Kimi Antonelli is addressed as ‘Kimi’ by the Raikkonens but is addressed as ‘Andrea’ in narration, humour, wooing, Ollie wanting to cry really bad, Antonelli x Raikkonen!OFC (Rooney)

Note: this might not make sense to most but… enjoy regardless xx read the recommended fics for more context.

a - n masterlist // o - z masterlist

if you’d like to get on one of my taglists, check this post out

For Kimi, it was never a problem to have people over.

 He was retired and he pretty much had nothing all day but to spend some time with his kids all while his wife, the Academy Award winning director Vera Coppola, worked on days end while she travelled to New York for a week. 

It was a life he loved to live, really.

To have people over was a usual case for the Coppola-Raikkonen household, as Kimi had three children that were at the age when friends and peers were important. 

Kimi and Vera always thought that it was much better that they allowed their children to have friends over than having them go out and about at night— better be free at home than rebellious and endangered, right?

It was now the summer break of this year’s F1 season, which meant that his two children were also home and didn’t need to be travelling with their mum to wherever the next race was.

It meant that they didn’t need to do their schoolwork on the plane while their private tutors sat with them on the way to wherever. 

It gave the two young racers the break they needed from competing, anyways. If there was something that Kimi knew, it was that his eldest daughter and oldest son had the same drive as him. 

Though, if he was being honest, his son was more like him in terms of interviews and personality in front of the camera. But still… both were racing out of pure joy.

Thank goodness, their mother was a Coppola and Kimi made millions before this. 

“Dad, Kimi’s here,” Johann-Lauri Francis Coppola-Raikkonen, or simply Jo, announced as the fifteen year old walked into the living room where Kimi and his two younger kids sat. 

Andrea Kimi (whom Kimi was never confused with whenever Jo or any of his children said the name ‘Kimi’ as they addressed their dad as ‘Dad’) made his presence known to Kimi as he waved, “Good afternoon, Mr. Raikkonen.” 

“Ah! Andrea,” Kimi nodded. “Nice seeing you. When did you get here to Italy?” 

“Hm… We just got back from Nice two hours ago,” Andrea replied with a purse on his lips, “Mamma and Papa made sure I got here in time. I even brought an overnight bag.”

“Okay,” Kimi said with a nod, “Johann, did you clean your room?”

“Yes, dad,” Jo replied.

“Do you want me to order food later?” Kimi asked.

Just the mere utter of the words ‘order food’ had Kimi’s second daughter running from the home library to the living room.

“Dad? Why is it that every time Kimi’s around we always order food? Why can’t we order food when Kimi’s not here?” 

Rooney Italia Coppola-Raikkonen, at the age 17, never once enjoyed the presence of Andrea. But that was because they were both at that age when pissing each other off was just a phase. Now here she was, complaining about Andrea getting a special treatment.

“Bwoah, he is a guest, Roo,” Kimi answered plainly. “Mama isn’t here right now, and I’m sure you’d like some pizza too, no?”

“For dinner?” Rooney whined. 

“You can order off the menu and tell me later,” Kimi negotiated, making Roo jump excitedly. 

“Nice,” Roo said with a grin before she glared at Andrea, “You suck, Antonelli.”

“Rooney Italia—“ Kimi was about to scold his daughter, but she had already sped off to the home library once more.

Kimi sighed, watching the two teenage boys head upstairs to Jo’s room. Kimi looked down at his little boy and his toddler girl. Both little kids were less of a menace than the older ones, thankfully. 

Betty-Elina was suckling on her pacifier when she looked at Kimi and raised her comfort blanket up to Kimi’s chest level.

“Thank you, kulta,” Kimi told Betty with a grin. He turned to where his youngest son was. 

Henrik was snoozing on Kimi’s lap, not even minding the noise that his big siblings were making just about now. 

God. What a life he was living. 

Somewhere in the mansion, rather down the hall of the east wing, was a quiet muffling sound of a girl who was speaking to herself. Well, Romania Eleanor was barely speaking to herself.

She was streaming. It was her first stream ever since F2 had gotten to her system. 

Having to fight her friends to keep her second position before the season ends told her enough about how taxing racing could get. Thus she did the second best thing to racing and streamed cozy games to her fans.

Aroma, once she heard a knock and a creak of the door, looked over to see her younger sister Rooney. She paused her game, trying to see what the girl wanted all while her stream remained running.

“What’s up?” Aroma asked.

“Dad‘s going to order food,” Rooney started but was quickly cut off.

“Let me guess: Antonelli?” Aroma quipped.

Rooney huffed out, “As always.”

Aroma knew that the two, for some reason, hated each other’s presence. Or rather, Andrea Antonelli was simply amused at the one sided beef Rooney had with him. 

But regardless, the ART Grand Prix driver chuckled as she nodded. Aroma said, “If Dad is ordering from Signora Leona’s restaurant, can you ask if I can have some seafood fettuccine Alfredo?” 

“Got it,” Rooney raised a thumb up before she left the room. 

Aroma watched Rooney leave and shut the door behind her before she sighed, proceeding to play her Animal Crossing as she spoke to her stream, “It’s like I’m watching a cringe version of enemies to lovers.”

Ollie Bearman was never scared of anyone.

Anyone but one person that wasn’t his parents: Aroma Raikkonen’s father, Kimi.

He’s heard stories about The Iceman and how he couldn’t care less about anything that didn’t involve him nor his children.

Sure, for most people it wasn’t a scary thought. But in some ways, the British man was involved with Kimi Raikkonen’s eldest daughter. 

That alone was a scary thought. He’s had a crush on Aroma since they started racing together, back when Aroma raced around Europe while her mother Vera took her to travel. Ollie was a welcome face to everyone in the Coppola-Raikkonen household. 

But god… People called Kimi ‘The Iceman’ for a reason, Ollie thought. 

Kimi’s icy stares and cold demeanour were always directed to Ollie and no one else. Ollie knew the difference between ‘icy’ and ‘indifference’ especially when it came to Aroma Raikkonen and her ‘wholesome’ father. 

News flash: Ollie called bullshit on Kimi being a sweet man. Kimi’s stare could burn holes and Ollie could rot on them— so much for being the ‘Iceman’. 

Now here Ollie was in Italy, hoping to hang out with Aroma…

To sum it up: Ollie and Aroma had some sort of thing going on. One that Ollie wouldn’t dare show to Kimi because god only knows what the Finnish driver could do to the Brit. 

Anyway.

Ollie patiently stood in front of the Coppola-Raikkonen home, his posture still calm. He had just rung the bell, now he was patiently waiting for anyone to answer. 

He didn’t expect for the patriarch to answer the door, his brown eyes meeting Kimi Raikkonen’s blue eyes. 

Ollie grinned and politely greeted, “Mr. Raikkonen-!” 

“-You’re not the delivery man,” Kimi stated bluntly. 

Well… Ollie stood there awkwardly and nodded, “I am not, sir. I am here for Romania.” 

“…Bwoah?” Kimi asked, his head tilting as he watched Ollie nod in confirmation. “I was not told.” 

“I- uh,” Ollie’s demeanour grew awkward and uncomfortable as he stammered, “She- she didn’t tell you?” 

Now this could go two ways: The British driver would have to go back to his accommodation in Milan and wallow in self-pity because Aroma Raikkonen had completely forgotten about their plans during the summer break OR he would die in the hands of Kimi Raikkonen because Kimi’s daughter had forgotten to tell her father about the said plans. 

Either way, Ollie knew he was screwed. 

Kimi stated, his typical indifference seeping through his voice, “I can check with her.” 

Ollie sighed in relief and smiled politely, “Thank you-“

Kimi had already shut the door on Ollie, making the younger man sigh and wait by the front porch for five minutes…

Then five turned to ten…

Then ten turned to fifteen. There was no sign of Kimi. No signs of Aroma either. 

Ollie sighed and took his phone, trying to ring and text Aroma. There was nothing. So he did the next best thing and rang the only other guest in the Coppola-Raikkonen household. 

“Ciao, Ollie,” Andrea Kimi Antonelli spoke from the other side of the call, in the background was a multiplayer game of FIFA.

“Hey Kimi, listen,” Ollie started and looked around while he spoke, “You’re inside, yes?”

“Yes,” Andrea said shortly as he let out a ‘Idiot! Johann!’ “Anyway, why do you ask?”

“I’m outside—“

It seemed like Ollie was distracting the boy from an intense online game with him and Kimi Raikkonen’s eldest boy Jo. Because the next thing that interrupted Ollie was a, “Andreaaaa! What did you do?!” 

“Listen, if you’re looking for Aroma she’s streaming— okay, ciao!” Beep.

Ollie was on the verge of tears; Being left alone in front of the house of the girl he was wooing (supposedly) by her father wasn’t in Ollie’s bucket list this summer break. He could have sworn that Kimi Raikkonen hated him. 

Now he did the last best thing: pay his way into the house.

[OLIBEAR8 HAS DONATED €5: “i just spent money so you can open the gate for me] Aroma listened to her text to speech donation as she was preoccupied from playing her game and paused briefly. “Huh?” She asked and looked at the text. 

She didn’t even realize who it was until she saw the donor. It was Ollie. 

“Ollie..?” The moment she peered down on her phone she saw the countless notifications on the screen. 

oli 🐻: hello 👋

oli 🐻: miss maam 🤓🤓 i’m downstairs

oli 🐻: if u see this i’m stranded downstairs. i can hear ur little siblings laughing at whatever ur father is saying

oli 🐻: if u see this i’m also prolly dead lmaoooo plz come downstairs

5 missed calls from oli 🐻

oli 🐻: aroma 😭 please i’m begging

“What the hell…” Aroma trailed off before asking aloud (particularly to no one), “Did Dad not even realize you’re at the front?” 

But it seemed like she was heard by a certain individual who remained watching her stream at the front porch since he donated once more.

[OLIBEAR8 HAS DONATED €5: “he did but he doesn’t like me”]

“Oh my goodness,” Aroma muttered and paused her stream, standing up as she said, “Dad needs to stop with the Iceman act already!” 

“Dad!” 

Maybe her father had good intentions, Aroma thought, but she knew better. Her father might be reserved half the time, but it didn’t mean that he had a hidden agenda when it came to her dating life. 

So much for being a ‘cool father,’ right? 

♡ moony’s reminder 🅶 (general): @hiraethrhapsody @avaleineandafryingpan @enhacolor @roseandtulips @woweewoowa @magnummagnussen @happy-nico @architect-2015 @hiireadstuff @biancathecool @scorpiomindfuck @stinkyjax @youdontknowmeshh @hyneyedfiz @decafmickey @lightdragonrayne

[jesncin]

The Potential of Asian Lois Lane. Pt 1: Girl Taking Over and American Alien, a comparative analysis

Lois Lane has had many iterations over the years. But specifically in the last decade, Lois has been reimagined as an Asian American woman in both the comics and recently in the animated show My Adventures with Superman.

I believe making Lois Asian is a very inspired choice for the Superman mythos! I would like to take a moment to analyze these versions of Lois from an Asian perspective, seeing what works, what doesn't, and what I'd like to see more of. We'll start with the comics first, as MAWS is going to need its own post.

Usual disclaimers: I'm just one Asian perspective, I do not and never will claim to cover every Asian person's opinion on a thing ever. We're not a monolith, we come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences. I'm simply a fan who enjoys media analysis and believes it's valuable to have my perspective in this topic. Secondly, this discussion covers the comic run American Alien, which is written by Max Landis. He's an ultra creep and while I think the comic is worth a read for what it is, I leave it up to you whether you'd like to buy the comic. You can always arg-arg-ahoy otherwise.

I'd like to start with Girl Taking Over: A Lois Lane Story written by Sarah Kuhn with art by Arielle Jovellanos. This is a self contained YA graphic novel about a young Japanese American Lois dealing with the ups and downs of breaking into journalism as a career in National City. When her dream internship at Catco gets a corporate take over, Lois seizes an opportunity to write an exposé on a shady art director. But when her story is turned down, Lois does some out of the box things to get the story of marginalized performers shared with the world.

Girl Taking Over is a fantastic story and I happily recommend it to anyone looking for how an Asian American Lois could be reimagined (with fabulous art by Arielle! The fashion especially is on-point). This story isn't just a diverse coat of paint on a Lois Lane story, being Asian informs Lois' experiences and choices. Both she and her frenemy roommate Miki, are ambitious Asian women yet have hidden insecurities where they still made themselves small to their respective white male bosses. They played into model minority in different ways, and it's only by working together that they're able to foster a community for their stories to be told.

Lois and Miki don't just "have a diverse friend group", that friend group is actively being taken advantage of and suppressed by white gatekeepers. By extension, Lois' friends from work find solidarity in each other. Lois looks up to Cat Grant, a Filipina-American journalist, because seeing Cat succeed made Lois feel like her dream as a journalist is possible. I love how Lois' mom (a character so rarely expanded on in DC canon) acts as a voice of comfort for Lois in the story. All these characters feel holistic and whole, going through their own unique struggles.

It's clear from interviews with both the writer and artist that they care for the history of Lois, and saw an opportunity to reimagine her in a way that aligns with her character but also revitalizes her for new readers of color who aren't used to seeing themselves reflected in media. It's taking Lois' ambition and fearlessness and channeling them into the need to be a model minority, and the insecurities that can come from the desire to succeed constantly. It's taking a character historically frustrated by sexism and disrespected by her male peers- including Clark Kent (who got better treatment than her as a man), and expanding her to be a Lois that has to deal with both sexism and racism in the workplace. It's humanizing Lois' excellence into something painfully specific and relatable for many Asian women.

The only thing I feel I want from this version of Lois is... honestly more of her! I want to see what Japanese Lois does when she moves to Metropolis and works at the Daily Planet. I want to see how her experiences in National City informs her adulthood. Girl Taking Over sets up an incredible groundwork for stories to be told in the Superman mythos. How would Lois react to Superman, a fellow immigrant? Would Superman see himself in Lois? Since she's someone who, in the American context, is perceived as the perpetual foreigner? What would their relationship be like? Out of all the Asian Lois' in media we have so far, this Asian Lois' story has the most rich potential in my opinion.

Up next, we have American Alien written by Max Landis. This 7 issue series swaps artists for each issue, as a means of reflecting different milestones in Clark's life. I will be focusing on issues #4, 5, and 7 since those have the most prominent Lois appearances. With that, I'd like to celebrate the artists for those issues: Jae Lee (issue 4), Francis Manapul (issue 5), and Jock (issue 7). All these artists did a fantastic job, their art styles are energetic and fun to look at. Lee and Manapul are both Asian artists (Korean and Filipino respectively) and I love how they draw Lois- who looks undeniably Asian in their art styles.

American Alien is a modern take on the Superman tale. It expands Clark's story to be connected to Batman, Green Lanterns, Green Arrow, and more. We see Clark grow from his days in Smallville to a city boy in Metropolis, coming into his own as Superman. It's a bold and pretty divisive take with some standout story moments. From what I know, this is likely the first time Lois has been reimagined as Asian- and continues to influence Superman media like MAWS (the producer specifically calls out this comic as inspiration).

In issue #4, Clark moves in to his Metropolis apartment and talks on the phone to his mom about "some bigshot guy named Louis Lane". The reader, likely familiar with the Superman mythos, knows Clark is coming in with biases and a preconceived notion of who he considers a promising student reporter. Once we meet Lois Lane however, the comic turns the reader's expectations on their head:

Lois Lane is an Asian American woman (it's not specified what her exact ethnicity is)! This is a fun moment where the comic metatextually challenged the reader's own biases, showing it's not just Clark who had a different idea of who Lois Lane could be.

Lois' introductory panel is my personal favorite part of her characterization in American Alien. Lois proudly stands as a wall of text behind her recounts how she was considered as a winner for the Daily Planet's Charlton Memorial Laureate Program. When asked why she deserves a place on the program, Lois snaps back that the very question itself is loaded. She's listed her credentials and looks professional- so she's either already been rejected and is just being made to "at least had my say" or she's been accepted and is "meant to garnish my success with eloquent affirmation" to which Lois refuses to do either.

This is a great defiant introduction to Lois, showcasing how jaded she is with the way the world perceives her- but is very confident in her self worth as a journalist. By the end of the issue she reaches out to Clark to combine their exclusive interviews into one story to make a big impression on the news. Her words inspire Clark to seize an opportunity to make a big change in the world as Superman.

Afterwards, the comic plays the classic Superman and Lois dynamic straight. Lois is initially suspicious of Superman, but eventually comes around and is inspired to hope through him. There's a great back and forth between the two where Lois' words initially inspire Clark to be Superman, then Clark assures Lois that Superman is probably just a good guy, and when Clark loses hope from a bad day of heroism, Lois gives him hope again. In the end, Lois realizes her love for Clark Kent over Superman and they share a passionate ending kiss.

Overall American Alien nails the Clark and Lois dynamic and understands their relationship. I consider this Asian Lois "just okay". I like that we get to see an adult jaded Asian Lois meet Clark Kent and Superman, and see them get together. Similarly to Girl Taking Over, I'd like to see how this Lois and Clark would play out. My only issue with American Alien's Lois is a sense of missed opportunities.

The writing overall leaves room for plausible deniability over Lois' Asian identity. The artists (particularly Lee and Manapul) are doing the heavy lifting delivering Asian Lois. If she was drawn as a white woman, none of the writing would need adjustment. Sure her introductory panel implies that people judge her based on her appearance- but that could be just sexism instead of the intersectional experience of Asian Lois going through racism and sexism. Clark did assume she was a man after all- it's never specified if he assumed she was a white man. The only thing you'd lose is the metatextual shock value of Lois Being Asian This Time. That's really what this Lois boils down to, initial shock value with no specific writing to follow through. Her marginalization and identity is written broadly enough that it could be attributed to general sexism and womanhood. It's not specific to being an Asian American woman.

However, because of its broadness, there's room for Lois' Asian identity to be built on in the world of American Alien. The story centers Clark's experiences, but I can easily imagine a continuation of the story expanding on Lois'. The basic groundwork is there. I think it's telling that in a comic called American Alien, we get a more diverse Superman cast system. Jimmy Olsen is Black, Lois Lane is Asian- when Clark moves to the city it feels expansive compared to Smallville. It's a world that feels ready to tackle themes of racism if it was ever to continue (and probably in the hands of a writer with that kind of life experience!). In the end, there's room for this Asian Lois to be something special. Clark isn't the only American Alien in American Alien, if you catch my drift.

You can see how Girl Taking Over has a huge piece of what American Alien is missing. The characters aren't just diverse for shock value, they're not an aesthetic change over historically white characters. They have a story to tell that is inseparable from their identities. Whereas in American Alien, the art is doing the heavy lifting with the reimagined diverse characters- Girl Taking Over has both the writing and art carry the representation. Lois can't be changed into being white in Girl Taking Over.

Both of these stories have potential- but if I had the choice to pick which story should continue, it would easily be Girl Taking Over. This graphic novel works for what it is: it makes sense that this is a younger and idealistic Lois that hasn't met Clark or Superman yet. It's a YA book and Lois can absolutely carry a story on her own. What I want as an Asian fan, is for the potential of Asian Lois Lane to be seen through to the point it's considered the definitive version. As of right now, Girl Taking Over is a fun twist on the Lois Lane story. Not something that is seen as inseparable from the Superman mythos. However! If those themes of marginalization and immigrant identity are tapped into for both Superman and Lois Lane? I feel that has the potential to radically strengthen the overall themes of Superman. It's certainly been touched on before.

(TW/CW: racial slur mention in below image)

Superman Smashes the Klan by Gene Yang with art by Gurihiru is a retelling of the Clan of the Fiery Cross arc in the classic radio show The Adventures of Superman where Superman faces off with the Klan who had been terrorizing a Chinese American family. The graphic novel adapts the story to center the Chinese American characters, and makes it a point to show that Superman relates to them. If that dynamic was applied to Asian Lois, that feels like a definitive love story waiting to happen.

The classic two person love triangle with Clark and Lois is that Lois loves Superman and is indifferent to Clark Kent. She thinks Superman is this ideal macho man and Clark is a cowardly fumbling guy at work who rivals her. What happens when you take that dynamic and made it so Lois identified with Superman- the more othering identity? How complicated would that make Clark Kent feel? How would he navigate that when his marginalization isn't always visible? That's a whole new depth to the love triangle we're not used to seeing. I feel so far, none of these versions of Lois have touched upon this potential dynamic. The perpetual foreigner, Lois Lane and the ultimate alien foreigner that is Superman. The jaded city girl meets the alien farm boy who gives her hope. They inspire each other to be more of themselves in a world not ready to accept either of them.

Up next, we'll be discussing My Adventures with Superman's Korean Lois Lane in pt 2. It's well. You can probably guess how I feel about it from what I wrote here but welp. We'll talk about it.

[ladylooch]

Hi I accidentally sent this in before seeing that requests were closed but since they’re open, did you see my request of the reader losing her virginity to Nico?? And he’s so sweet and gentle🥹 ilysm

Flower Picking with Nico Hischier 

A/N: Oh sweet, sweet 🌸 anon. Here you finally are! I know it took awhile, but here it is in all its smutty, sweet, shiny glory. Also peep how I always write Jack 😂 Sassy but funny. That kid cracks me up (before anyone asks, no I still can’t write about him because I’m too old! 🫣)

Word Count: 2.9k

Warnings: SMUT 18+ Content, Loss of Virginity, Swearing. 

The lights on the red carpet are blinding. You can barely focus any which way as people call out to you and Nico, desperate for the perfect picture. Nico’s hand on the small of your back is grounding at least. He leans closer to your head, resting his mouth on it for a moment.

“You’re doing great, baby. Just a bit longer.” You squeeze his back in acknowledgement.

Being in the spotlight has never been comfortable for you, ever. But, you’re more than willing to do these uncomfortable things for your perfect boyfriend, especially on a night where he is nominated for a prestiges award. It all feels a bit like a formality because in your heart, he’s already a Selke winner.

Once the pictures are over, autographs and interviews are next. You stand proudly off to the side, watching him do his work with your hands laced in front of you. Nico checks in on you frequently, making sure you’re as comfortable as can be.

“I’m doing great, babe. Stop worrying about me and enjoy the night.” You assure him after the tenth time he’s wandered over. 

“You’re smothering her.” Jack rolls his eyes at his captain. “Chill.”

“Why don’t you go fix your hair or something? Looks like you just rolled out of bed.” Nico chips back at him. 

“I’m just living in the moment, man.” Jack shakes his head, internal groan showing on his face as he is shuffled to the next interview.

“Nico, you’re done.” The Devils PR director says, waving us into the arena. We wave goodbye to Jack and shuffle out of the oppressive Nashville heat.

“I’m sweaty.” You groan, waving at your face, praying your make up isn’t actually melting off like it feels.

“You look gorgeous though.”

“Yeah? I’m glistening?”

“Glowing.” He wiggles his wide brows suggestively. “I know a way we could get sweaty later.” 

You pause, feeling a little panicked that he has figured out your surprise. When you heard Nico was a finalist for the Selke months ago, you knew exactly what to give him: your virginity. Yes, you’re well into your mid-twenties and yes pretty much everyone you know has already experienced sex, but you’re different. And that’s perfectly okay with you and Nico. You’ve had extensive conversations together about why you have waited and what you need before giving that part of yourself to someone. 

Truthfully, you’ve known for a long time it’s Nico you want to give this too. He treats you so well. Tonight is just the latest example of how he cherishes and protects you. You know he will take this piece of you and honor it forever.

But then he doesn’t actually win the Selke.

And you’re a little bit pissed because you think he deserves it. He squeezes your hand, then brings it to his lips to kiss before clapping for Patrice Bergeron after his video acceptance speech.

“Should have been you.” You huff at Nico, watching his face intently.

“It’s an honor to even be nominated.” He reminds you what he has been saying, but you can sense his disappointment. You find out later from Twitter that he came in second in voting and that cheers you both up.

After the awards, you find yourself at a restaurant with Nico and his family. You’re struggling to participate in the small talk which Nico notices. Usually, you’re animated and chatty with his family. You love them; they love you, but you can’t focus on anything other than what you’re planning in your hotel room later tonight.

“You tired?” Nico asks with his arm around your shoulders. He pulls your temple to his lips, awaiting your answer.

“Yeah.” You turn to him, brown eyes meeting yours with an inquisitive look.

After another round of drinks and dessert, you and the Hischiers take off to the hotel by the arena. You say goodbye to his parents and siblings in the lobby, then walk hand in hand to the elevator. You’re sure Nico can feel the sweat beginning to build in your palm.

“Dang. I’m tired too.” Nico groans as you enter your shared room. He kicks off his shoes immediately while you toss your shoes and clutch onto the chair by the TV.

“You’ve had a long day.” You murmur, swaying back over to him. You wrap your arms around his neck, lacing your fingers there. You use them to bring his face to yours. Nico pulls you tighter to him with a hand on your ass, giving it a light squeeze as you make out. Your tongues touch, tangling together before sliding out of the way for softer kisses. You can feel Nico growing against your stomach. You savor the feeling of reciprocated need building between your thighs.

Butterflies forcefully flutter in your stomach as you ghost your hand over his zipper. Then you get bold, sliding his belt apart and dipping your hand to touch him bare. Nico groans into your mouth. You stroke along his shaft, feeling the rigid pulses as he grows. He bucks his hip into your hand a bit while his eyes drown in desire. He presses two more soft kisses to your mouth before stepping away from your touch.

“Need a sec.” He murmurs, giving your hand a squeeze and moving to the bathroom. The soft click of the door makes you bite your lip. He does this when the desire to pin you down and fuck you becomes too strong for him to resist. Tonight, he doesn’t need the space, but there is no need to ruin the surprise before it starts.

You make quick work of your dress, leaving it in a pile on the floor. You whip your underwear off next then climb onto the bed. You’re not sure how you should sit except that definitely not cross legged because what the fuck is that? Instead, you pull your knees up, then cross your feet for some modesty. You can’t help but bite down on your tongue nervously biting back the slight nausea from the butterflies swirling inside of you. Maybe you should have brought the lingerie you were debating on after all….

Nico emerges from the bathroom, working at the buttons of his shirt.  Your heart leaps into your throat when he comes into your line of sight. He freezes when he sees you.

“Hi.” You whisper, hoping it doesn’t sound as choked as it feels coming out of your mouth.

“Hi.” His smile is modest as his brown gaze strokes along your bare skin.

“I want to have sex.” You blurt quickly. Shit, that was not how you had planned it in your head.

“Are you sure?” He crosses the room instantly, hands gripping your ankles. “I don’t want you to feel pressured by the big night we’ve had.” Nico licks his lips hesitantly.

“I know. But I want to do this with you, right now. I’m so proud of you, Nico. I want us to share this moment together, on this amazing night for you…. For us.”

“I am dying for that. But I need you to be sure.”

“I’m so sure. Think of how many other nights I wasn’t.” He stares into your eyes, pausing for ten more seconds before he leans forward to kiss you. It’s touchingly tender, a sweet press that melts your body. You untangle your limbs, wrapping your arms around his neck to keep him close. “I’ll take care of you.” He mumbles, stroking the bare skin of your back. 

“I know, Neeks.” You smile against his mouth, tongue coming out to graze along his bottom lip.

“You kinda already did some of my favorite part though.”

“Oh.. Uh.” You stutter, breaking away. You begin wiggling over to the side of the bed where you dropped your dress to the floor. “I can put it-”

“Baby.” He chuckles, slapping your bare ass. “Stop. We’ll have plenty more moments where I can undress you.” You flip onto your back, his eyes take all of you in, circling around your breasts and then falling to the apex of your thighs. “I was right though, that dress looks better on the floor.” He slides his hand along your stomach, wrapping it around your hip to pull you closer to him. He leans over you. “You know you can back out at anytime?” 

“I do.” You confirm, staring back into his chocolate brown eyes.

“Okay.” 

You and Nico have fooled around plenty, so he knows your turn ons. He starts with your breasts, savoring the soft moans you speak into the air. His fingers stroke your nipples into pointy buds, perfect bullseyes for his mouth to find. His tongue caresses your skin gently causing cascading tingles to spread along your limbs. Then his hand moves down, nudging your thighs apart so he can stroke you. His fingers on your bare skin is a craving you never knew you needed indulged.

His fingerprints paint along your clit, building into a steady circle that has your muscles squeezing tight in your core. Nico kisses your mouth greedily, devouring your lips and tongue like he didn’t just feast at dinner. While he touches you, you grope for the buttons on his shirt to get him naked. He eventually pulls back from you to drag the shirt over his head. His pants go next. When he reaches for the band of his underwear, you stop him. You pull them down his hips and large thighs, groaning at the way his cock bounces free. It slaps against his abdomen then falls into your waiting hand. You wrap him in a tight grip, bringing your face to his throbbing head. 

You’ve never done this for him before, but you’ve imagined it. A lot. Your mouth opens, you swirl your tongue along his head then bob down his shaft until you can’t take him any deeper. Nico’s strangled groan fills your ears. He reaches to your chest, rolling your nipple as you begin to bounce up and down faster.

“Baby, baby, baby. Stop.” Nico begs. You pull off of him immediately, eyes turned downward with worry. “Hey, no, don’t be upset. That feels so fucking good. I’m not gonna make it if you keep going though.” He brings your mouth to his with his fingers under your chin. “Fuck. Couldn’t even tell that was your first time. You’re a pro.” He licks along your lips teasingly. You feel pride stretch your chest, flushing your cheeks with excitement.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for awhile.” You admit as you watch him walk over to his bag. He pulls out a box of condoms.

“Anytime, baby. Except right now because I’m dying to fuck you.” A small moan slips through your lips at the way he says fuck. “I just got tested not that long ago as part of my physical, but I think the first few times we should use condoms.”

“Okay. I’m on the pill.” You remind him.

“I know.” He kisses you, then rips open the box and pulls out a purple wrapper. “I’m not gonna lie, I brought these hoping this would happen.” You like that and reward him with a smooch.

He rips the wrapper open, tossing it onto the floor carelessly. You bite your lip, watching him roll the latex down. You feel like you should look away, but can’t. When he is fully suited, he comes between your knees, adjusting your legs wider t accommodate his body. He kisses you again and you wonder if he can hear the rapid beating of your heart as he adjusts you both for what is next.

“Tell me you’re sure?”

“So sure.” You repeat again. “Have me."

Nico laces your fingers together with his on either side of your head, then slowly begins to press forward. You close your eyes, taking in a measured breath as he gently nudges in, then right back out.

“Okay?” He asks. His breathing is heavy, nostrils flared as he checks on you.

“Yeah.” You nod too. 

He pushes in again, deeper now. This time it’s uncomfortable. He pauses there, leaning down to kiss along your breasts. His tongue slurps at your nipple, pooling warmth in your lower belly. He probes in further as your head falls back. Nico grins when he removes his face from your breast.

“I think you’re gonna like this, baby.” He chuckles, kissing along your jaw, then sucking at your throat as he pushes in to the hilt. Your hands unlace from his, instinctively going to his back. Your finger nails scratch softly at his skin.

“Me too.” You moan back to him. It feels exquisite. Slightly uncomfortable but also the best thing you’ve ever felt. Nico is doing everything to ease any discomfort or tightness. You’re so turned on and eager to feel what the next stage is like.

“Ready for more?” 

“Yeah.” You say back instantly. He smiles fully at you, then drags back so he can begin to leisurely pump in and out. Your breathing hitches again and he slows more, watching your face for any signs of further distress. They’re not there. “I’m good. More, Neeks.” You ask him. He closes his eyes in a long blink and quickens his pace, savoring the feeling of finally having you this way. Your mouth drops open but no sound comes out. You arch your back into his thrusts and he grips your hips, pressing his thumbs into them to pin you back down.

“Take it easy.” He laughs, leaning over you again. “Let me control the pace.”

“Then go faster.” You urge. 

“Why are you chirping me?” His smile presses into your neck.

“Because I want more of you.” You whisper, turning to capture his lips.

Nico begins to fuck you faster. It’s toe curling and intense. The sound of skin connecting fills the hotel room as you writhe beneath his toned body. His hips are perfect tempo setters. You clutch them with your fingers each time, feeling their power as he pumps into you. The whole things is overwhelmingly beautiful. And better than you even imagined it would be.

“I love you.” You say to him. Is that cliche to say during sex? Especially your first time? You’re not sure but know you have to say it. He pauses his thrusting to cup your face, kissing your lips with delicate presses. It’s so intimate, him filling you completely while sliding his tongue along your lower lip.

“I love you too. So much.” He pulls away to look down into your face as his hands glide your legs to wrap around his waist. His hips begin to move again. Goosebumps of pleasure break out down your body at the change in position. 

“Oh… my god.” You moan, thrusting your fingers into his hair and tugging. You turn your face into his cheek, wet mouth sucking his skin. “D-don’t stop.” You quiver with each one of his pumps.

“Fuck, you feel so good.” He groans as he keeps the pace. You agree. And tell him so by squeezing him with your orgasm. He follows suit, filling the latex while buried deep inside of you.

Everything slows down after that. Your legs fall slightly from around his waist. Nico breathes heavily above you; your abdomens sticking together from sweat. A light breeze of bliss travels from the top of your head to the tips of your feet. Your heart swells in your chest, feeling so connected to Nico after sharing this moment with him.

“How are you doing?” He asks quietly, face still buried into your shoulder. His hair tickles your skin when he pulls away to see you.

“Good. Great actually.” You insist with a grin. He matches yours with one of his own. He grips the edge of the condom, then slides out of you. You feel empty when he is gone and wonder how quickly you can get him to do this all again. 

“I’ll be right back.” He kisses you, then gets off the bed to head to the bathroom. His bare butt is quite the sight as he walks away. When he returns, he has a washcloth. “This should help with any discomfort.” He lays it between your thighs and you realize it’s warm. You smile at him, reaching your arms up to bring him into your chest. His lips press against your breasts as he nuzzles his face into them. “You might be sore tomorrow.”

“Okay.” You murmur into his hair. He’s so worried about you, wanting to walk you through everything. “So when can we do that again?” Nico chuckles into your skin. He wraps his arms around your back, spinning you both so you’re on top of his chest, looking down at him. Your hair cascades along your shoulder blades and down your spine. His fingers tangle in it there, kind eyes meeting yours.

“Give me 15 minutes and we can go again.” You bite your lip to suppress the wicked grin forming.

Nico Hischier is going to turn you into a freak.

[lopposting]

Hello Puppet pals + Romeo fans

would you like a fresh, fun new dose of pain tonight

On Romeo (long post)

So way back in april, in the taiwan event they showed some material from what looks like early builds of the game. this is the still i want to talk about today

It's gepetto (romanized to "zepeto" here) asking if we've "killed the beast".

In the released version, we meet him outside in rosa isabelle street after the KOP fight. It looks as though he's even beside the same lamppost. There's no other similar scene of us meeting gepetto like this, so it's likely referring to the puppet king. (When we meet him on the bridge, he's seen that the donkey has been killed, so we wouldn't need to lie.) but the thing is, this question is a YES OR NO ANSWER, meaning one or the other would be a lie.

So maybe in the early versions of the game it was actually possible align with/spare the puppet king (and by extension romeo) and then lie to Geppetto about it. (I mean, it's possible that it's simply just lying about not killing him to G, and we couldn't spare him to begin with)

I think they realized that they couldn't possibly make such a narratively important boss fight optional and that story-wise it wasn't linear enough to work. The story as a whole is not nearly as effective without his loss.

TLDR: I'm speculating that that image was from an early version of the game, and Romeo could've actually lived but the devs made the hard call against this.

[It's also possible that they just made that image for the purposes of presentation, and that it doesn't mean anything, or that it's another beast entirely.]

But still, somehow it makes it the more tragic. *stares blankly into space.*

(bonus fun notes below)

In this IGN interview before release, Director Choi dropped a big hint about romeo here.

"Yes, this is the king of puppets. And we want to call him a character and not a monster, because he will be the centre of the story. So if you play more and discover more about him, you'll find out more about what he is and who he is."

the puppet king being lampwick was also inadvertently leaked by IGN in this video:

I don't think people unfamiliar with the story would know anything, but pinoheads definitely would've and did recognize what "romeo" alluded to

They kept Romeo's ENTIRE EXISTENCE a secret up until launch. During the roughly two years of promotions before release there was never any mention of Romeo before release. Zip, Nada, so much so that the budding fanbase was starting to assume that he wouldn't even be in the game. NO ONE saw it coming when we found out who exactly we killed. Developers did consider that people who had read the book would catch on to particular things, so, bravo neowiz

And here's the other ingenious thing - they showed us the "Mad Donkey" boss early on in the demo and NOW I'm starting to wonder if this was a deliberate play. Almost everyone assumed this was already the game's iteration of Lampwick, so Romeo came as a surprise, and I think the proceeding story reveals about who the King of Puppets truly was were very effective.

also.. it's extremely cute what they did with the character. Of course, Romeo is the canonical name of Lampwick in Pinocchio, but the name "Romeo" is also probably the most heavily associated with Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet (which also takes place in Italy, as does Pinocchio!). And then we meet him in a theatre, and he puts on a play for us before we fight. Romeo supposedly had an affinity for acting, as Carlo did with the piano (I have heard this around on reddit, I don't know where this originates from, please lmk if you've seen these lore items). But most of all, Romeo and Juliet is a deeply remembered tragedy - like Lampwick in collodi's pinocchio. They are two young boys who didn't get away.

(maybe all of this was so obvious to everyone else but i love it still haha)

Fun to revisit this stuff after release with new clarity.

[To Reiterate - All of this is just my speculation]

[holajohna]

Kanan’s Birthplace

Years ago, I used to have a Star Wars-themed website. I couldn’t keep it active (financially and content-wise) and my priorities had shifted, so I exported all of my articles and shut it down. A conversation earlier today with The Rogue Rebels reminded me of this article I wrote about the information shared at the Celebration Chicago’s Star Wars Rebels panel.

It’s a long article and most of it is outdated now, but there’s one portion in which I talk about the theory surrounding Kanan’s birthplace I wanted to post here:

Filoni's Storyboarding

It’s no surprise Filoni did extensive storyboarding throughout the final season in order to visually get across the story he had in mind, especially when it came to the parts related to the Force. There’s only so much you can pack into one episode, so it was crucial to get it right because the story depended on it.

“I needed them to be shot a certain way, so I would sketch constantly,” he said. “I would do all these drawings and hand them to the episodic directors and say do it like this. They shoot it beautifully, but I needed to give them insight because it was a difficult thing. And for a while, I wasn’t sure how it was all going to work, but the staging and the framing of everything helps the audience connect. And so, I really needed to have a close hand on most of what was going on in season 4 to really land it correctly because it was the first time we got to end a series in the animation division and there was a lot of pressure on that. It had to have a purpose, it had to have a true expression of what I was taught about Star Wars and its deeper meanings. I wanted it to resonate with George’s overall sense of structure and being for what he wanted in Star Wars.”

As he spoke about developing the story and trying to visually capture the events as he envisioned them, fans were treated to never-before-seen storyboards from season 4. Some lines of dialogue were blurred out probably because many things changed between the concept and final stages, including the parts pertaining to Kanan’s story.

In a past interview [with BOMM, 2017], Freddie Prinze Jr. made it sound like there was more to the story and said, “You will learn, quite specifically, that where you think Kanan is from, he is not. You’ll learn where his roots and origins are and what he specifically meant to the Jedi Order. Some of this story will be told and has already been told... through hieroglyphs in a cave. And you will start to discover more of that and discover more of Kanan’s connection to the planet Lothal, which he’s even questioned himself in episodes that have aired.”

We learned about Kanan’s connection to Lothal and why he and the Ghost crew kept coming back. As for the hieroglyphs on the cave walls, we didn’t learn much about them and how that pertained to Kanan’s story, if at all. At the time, fans were theorizing Kanan was born on Lothal, making his connection to the planet that much stronger.

Looking closer at this particular set of scenes from the episode “Kindred,” they might have been right. Ezra asks Kanan, “How does the wolf know that?” after Kanan reveals his birth name is Caleb Dume. In the episode, Kanan didn’t answer Ezra’s question directly. He simply approached the Loth-wolf with his hand extended out before him and said, “It has a deep connection to the Force, to the energy of this planet.”

But in the storyboard, Kanan starts to answer Ezra’s question. He says, “Because...” and the next line is blurred out. After squinting and trying to make the words out, I believe Kanan says in the lower left-hand corner, “I was born on Lothal.” Ezra looks shocked and starts to say, “What?”

My mind could be playing tricks on me and making me see what I want to see, but I still firmly believe there was more to Kanan’s story than what we got in the final episodes. Even if that’s not the correct dialogue, the emotions playing out on the page are completely different from the final version. Both Kanan and Ezra look genuinely shocked and it’s not just because they were transported to the other side of the world via a portal summoned by the wolves.

Speaking of which, after taking a closer look at the hieroglyphs in the cave, I couldn’t help but focus on the different portals and bridges above Lothal’s Jedi Temple. Then, a crazy thought came to my mind (and it turns out, the mind of a close friend last year). What if Kanan is from a different timeline? It’s a far-fetched theory, but the idea of sending an individual from a different time to stop something from happening at another point in time isn’t all that bizarre.

All that said, whatever else they had planned for Kanan, I hope we see it resurface in the near future. It would be fascinating to learn more about him and fill in some of the gaps of his past.

[my-mt-heart]

NYCC 23 Thoughts

I know Caryl fans are more than ready to celebrate. I am too for what it's worth. Believe me, I'm so ready, but I also have concerns that some may not want or need to hear right now. And I get it. Fandom is supposed to provide a space for us to enjoy our favorite shows and characters without real life obstacles bleeding into it. My blog has really pushed those boundaries over the past year and half, so if that's not what you're looking for, feel free to scroll on by or block. If for some reason my rants are of any use to you, however, then here goes another one. Ahem.

Four middle-aged white men walk onto a stage...

…And proceed to make complete asses of themselves.

This is my biggest gripe with TWDU right now. It perpetuates the same tired, limited perspective of the upper class, middle-aged white man in not one, but all of the new spinoffs. TOWL is supposed to be about Rick and Michonne, but it's no secret Gimple favors Rick. Dead City is supposed to be about Negan and Maggie, but the showrunner only goes on and on and on about Negan/JDM in his interviews. S2 of le spinoff is supposed to be about Daryl and Carol, but...well, I'll get to that. My point is, representation offscreen matters because it affects what we see onscreen and which viewers will be drawn to watch. Personally, I didn’t feel drawn to anything during that panel, not because Melissa finally being announced isn’t exciting, but because the people speaking on her behalf always find ways to ruin the moment.

If Gimple wasn't going to talk about his show, I don't understand why he needed to be there. If it was a tradeoff, I would've rather seen Melissa up there and hear what she had to say about her own return and her own character in her own voice. If that still wasn't possible, I fully respect that, but there has to be some other way to deliver news besides constantly relying on male EPs who don't understand what her fans value about her. I worry this is how it's going to feel when I'm watching S2. I want Carol, but not a misrepresentation of her. Greg Nicotero is directing the premiere. Okay...and what about the other two blocks? Any women/POC directors? Anyone who's going to honor Carol the way she deserves instead of treating her like an extension of Daryl's story?

So, yeah. About that title. First of all, “The Book of Carol” is an odd choice in itself. The biblical allusions are annoying because they don't speak to who Carol is as a character. I’m not mad that it implies we’re getting Carol’s POV—quite the opposite—but I don’t like the confusion it’s causing either. Let’s be clear, Carol is not a short chapter in Daryl's story. She is Daryl’s story. Calling Melissa a "series regular" is extremely poor wording, and a sincere fuck you to whoever approved it for the announcement. She is a lead with EP credit and creative input. I am so sick of AMC leaving it up to the fans to debate her worth. Tell us she’s vital to the show, tell us it’s her show, and use clear language. Stop giving her haters more ammo they don't need and stop giving her fans more anxiety they really don't need.

Honestly, it would’ve been easier to accept if S2 was formally called TWD: Book of Carol. The problem is "The Book of Carol" is not the title. It's a subtitle of a (sub)title, and it's bullshit. It feels like a scam, another way to try to convince us we're getting what we want when we're not really getting much of anything. I don’t know if they're worried about false advertising since S2 won't be a Daryl and Carol story—more like a Carol story which, again, I’m not mad about as long as it leads to a reunion and canon by the end. Or maybe they’re stubbornly clinging to the belief that Daryl’s name is what sells despite the atrocious ratings suggesting otherwise. Daryl AND Carol do sell though, so why not lean all the way into it? Why risk turning the show into a laughing stock with obnoxious titles? These characters don’t deserve that.

Another thing that worries me is how it'll be promoted. As "The Book of Carol" or Daryl Dixon S2? Is it going to vary based on who AMC is trying to placate? Is "The Book of Carol" going to be smaller than Daryl Dixon on all the key art? Including Carol in the title was supposed to show that Daryl and Carol are equals. That way, Norman and Melissa would also be treated as equals by viewers and by co-workers. This doesn't look very equal to me...

Why —why 😩— do they need to keep rehashing the filming location's origin story, and by rehashing, I mean lying about it and dragging Melissa and her fans through the mud when all we want to do is move the fuck on? I don't like that Gimple (savagely) threw Norman under the bus, and I don't like that Norman, whatever his intentions were, threw Melissa under the bus. Again, this is why we need to hear Melissa's thoughts on the show, specifically what Carol's (and Caryl's) journey will entail not just plot-wise, but emotionally. It's not fair to put all that responsibility on her to make everybody else look good, and I hope it won't come to that, but the people on that panel yesterday really weren't doing themselves or the show any favors. I was pretty unsettled by the number of times I heard the phrases "I wanted this" or "we wanted that." Has anyone ever taken the time to understand what their audience wants? Or has the show really just been a vanity project all along?

I was wary about Zabel pretty much from the start, but finally getting to hear him talk about Daryl cemented how poorly he understands who he is and more importantly what he means to fans. A man being torn between his former way of life and his new one is nothing groundbreaking. It's actually a pretty standard formula that can fit a lot of conventional heroes, but it does not work for Daryl Dixon. Daryl Dixon is not a conventional hero. Daryl Dixon is the most loyal character in TWD history, and it's been well established his loyalty is to his found family of over a decade--Rick, Michonne, Maggie, and especially Carol. We will never buy that Daryl could be torn between them and people he's only known for weeks/months. Someone who tries to force that should not be showrunning. Period. I am terrified to learn more about how Zabel views Carol because so far, it sounds like he doesn't think much of her at all. If he did, maybe he would've written something more substantial for her in the finale.

We'll see what happens on Sunday. Hopefully they'll release the S2 teaser. Hopefully it’ll provide more reassurance. Hopefully something will. At the moment it just doesn't seem like AMC is capitalizing on Melissa's return as much as they could, and they're definitely not capitalizing on Caryl yet. That being said, and I can’t stress this enough, I do trust Melissa’s judgment. If she chose to come back—and she did—it’s for good reason. The wait is going to be difficult, but next year we’ll have six full episodes of Carol trying to find her soulmate. Nobody is taking that away from us no matter how many times the men put their foot in their mouths.

[metamatar]

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3174605 I think you'll like this :D

You were right. From the 1990's, so maybe this marks a seminal and widely known advance in gender construction for intersexed infants now but it is so revealing. Quotes pulled below.

Current attitudes toward the intersex condition are primarily influenced by three factors. First are the extraordinary advancements in surgical techniques and endocrinology in the last decade. For example, female genitals can now be constructed to be indistinguishable in appearance from normal natural ones. Some abnormally small penises can be enlarged with the exogenous application of hormones, although surgical skills are not sufficiently advanced to construct a normal-looking and functioning penis out of other tissue. Second, in the contemporary United States the influence of the feminist movement has called into question the valuation of women according to strictly reproductive functions, and the presence or absence of functional gonads is no longer the only or the definitive criterion for gender assignment. Third, contemporary psychological theorists have begun to focus on "gen- der identity" (one's sense of oneself as belonging to the female or male category) as distinct from "gender role" (cultural expectations of one's behavior as "appropriate" for a female or male). The relevance of this new gender identity theory for rethinking cases of ambiguous genitals is that gender must be assigned as early as possible in order for gender identity to develop successfully. As a result of these three factors, intersexuality is now considered a treatable condition of the genitals, one that needs to be resolved expeditiously.

...

Almost all of the published literature on intersexed infant case management has been written or cowritten by one researcher, John Money, professor of medical psychology and professor of pediatrics, emeritus, at the Johns Hopkins University and Hospital, where he is director of the Psychohormonal Research Unit. Even the publications that are produced independently of Money reference him and reiterate his management philosophy. Although only one of the physicians interviewed publishes with Money, all of them essentially concur with his views and give the impression of a consensus that is rarely encountered in science. The one physician who raised some questions about Money's philosophy and the gender theory on which it is based has extensive experience with intersexuality in a nonindustrialized culture where the infant is managed differently with no apparent harm to gender development. Even though psychologists fiercely argue issues of gender identity and gender role development, doctors who treat intersexed infants seem untouched by these debates. There are no renegade voices either from within the medical establishment or, thus far, from outside. Why Money has been so single-handedly influential in promoting his ideas about gender is a question worthy of a separate substantial analysis

...

The geneticist argued that when parents "change a diaper and see genitalia that don't mean much in terms of gender assignment, I think it prolongs the negative response to the baby…. If you have clitoral enlargement that is so extraordinary that the parents can't distinguish between male and female, it is sometimes helpful to reduce that somewhat so that the parent views the child as female." Another physician concurred: parents "need to go home and do their job as child rearers with it very clear whether it's a boy or a girl."

...

Money's case management philosophy assumes that while it may be difficult for an adult male to have a much smaller than average penis, it is very detrimental to the morale of the young boy to have a micropenis.In the former case the male's manliness might be at stake, but in the latter case his essential maleness might be. Although the psychological consequences of these experiences have not been empirically documented, Money and his colleagues suggest that it is wise to avoid the problems of both the micropenis in childhood and the still undersized penis postpuberty by reassigning many of these infants to the female gender.

[destinyc1020]

I'm on other side,I'm okay him doing him roles that risky and on edge but not okay him playing teenager roles. When I saw scenes with him in school I was boiling inside,so fed up with this. Dude 27 like seriously? Anyways I hope it's worth it at the end, he fuck up his mental health during filming hard add to this constant jokes on his looks that will stay forever on internet. And the way he transform his body for tcr,he was so skinny in March I remember,it was scary,he really looked like kid...I hate it so much,I get it,all for role,but it's too much

Anyways I hope it's worth it at the end, he fuck up his mental health during filming

First of all Anon... The TCR role did not mess up Tom's mental health. Idk where you're getting that from, but that's not what he said. He mentioned in the interview that he had a hard time shaking the character during and after filming. That's not uncommon actually.

If anything has "messed up" his mental and emotional health, it's probably social media, and the massive amounts of fame in connection with all of that.

Tom has NEVER said that acting itself harms his mental health. He's always said it's social media...which, by extension is in part due to his level of fame.

add to this constant jokes on his looks that will stay forever on internet.

People criticize everything on the internet about everybody these days. When you're in the public eye, that's just a given. Instead of blaming the actor, why not blame the people who are doing and saying these hurtful things online instead? 🥴🤔

And the way he transform his body for tcr,he was so skinny in March I remember,it was scary,he really looked like kid...I hate it so much,I get it,all for role,but it's too much

He wasn't dangerously skinny for this role Anon. 😒 He didn't even get as skinny as he got for his "Cherry" role (which, I thought was getting borderline scary for me). He lost a bit of weight for this TCR role. That's what an actor DOES. They transform themselves and their bodies depending on what the role entails and based on what the director wants. Just like Tom bulked up for Spider-Man and "Uncharted". Same thing. 🤷🏾‍♀️

I'm on other side,I'm okay him doing him roles that risky and on edge but not okay him playing teenager roles. When I saw scenes with him in school I was boiling inside,so fed up with this. Dude 27 like seriously?

Do you know that most "teenagers" onscreen are played by 20-something's Anon?? That's usually the case due to work-laws, sometimes due to subject matter, and the fact that actual teenagers still need to be in SCHOOL, so sometimes working around their school schedules can be a bit challenging. But usually it's due to the working laws and the subject matters that might be depicted in the roles onscreen. This has been done for ages.

I'm ready for Tom to not play teenage roles anymore either... and who knows, maybe this will be his last? 🤷🏾‍♀️

But you may need to look at some other films and TV roles depicting teenagers Anon, because you'll see that 9 times out of 10 the actors playing those roles are in their 20s.

Case in point... Tobey Maguire was about 27 years old when he filmed his FIRST Spider-Man movie which came out over 20 years ago.

I don't see the problem...

Would you REALLY want an actual teenager playing this role that Tom is playing in TCR?? Like, c'mon Anon.... 😒

[emptyanddark]

"

Located west of Gaza City, Al-Rantisi Hospital for Children is the only health care facility in the Gaza Strip set up to give care to pediatric cancer patients. Currently, said Dr. Mustafa Al-Kahlot, the director of the hospital, there are 70 children registered as patients, along with their displaced families. 

Urgent action is required to facilitate the patients’ treatment abroad, Al-Kahlot said: Swift intervention will significantly enhance these children’s chances of recovery. Yet the necessary treatments remain beyond reach in the Gaza Strip.

The need has been acknowledged by outside authorities: the patients had secured medical referrals to leave for hospitals in Egypt before the outbreak of the war, but Israeli authorities are refusing to allow them to be transported out of the strip for treatment.

In an interview, Al-Kahlot painted a bleak picture of pediatric patients grappling with a severe lack of treatment options. Their fear is exacerbated by repeated attacks on the hospital’s vicinity, most recently a November 6 attack that struck the third floor. The damage was extensive, several were wounded, and four people were killed.

Things have gotten so dire that most hospitals that remain open are running short on basic supplies like cotton suture thread, said Dr. Marwan Al-Hams, director of Youssef Al-Najjar Hospital in the southern Gazan city of Rafah. Any small hospital, he said, would need these supplies for routine daily work.

It is exactly these types of shortages that have been at the center of what little international diplomacy has been undertaken on behalf of Palestinians in Gaza. U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has boasted about getting Israel to let several aid trucks into Gaza at a time.

Asked about the medical aid that entered the Gaza Strip from the Rafah crossing with Egypt, Al-Hams sighed. “It is not enough for one day in a hospital,” he said. Half the aid that reached the Al-Najjar Hospital was burial bags, he said, and much of the second half was water bottles and other materials that don’t meet the hospital’s basic needs.  

“They just want to help us with burial and not medicine,” he said, “or what we need inside the operating rooms.”

"

[rikeijo]

Today's translation #314

Go Yuri go!!! official fanbook, Shimizu Youji interview

Part 9.

--- Which scene is your personal favorite?

S: I remember well the latter part of episode 4. Yuuri's monologue - "Our life as competitive skaters is short…" - was so good, that during recording and during dubbing [adding sound to the animation] I almost cry. Everyone will die one day, and no-one will be in good health forever. I think that figure skaters have to face this reality a little bit quicker than ordinary people. Yurio also said something similar - "The time I can look like this is short". And that is why we are attracted to them so much, isn't it? We know it's something that won't last forever, and that's why we are drawn to them. And by extension, it makes us think that our own life is the same, that we need to live it fully, in a good way. That scene isn't based on logic, but instead it shows us how the life of Katsuki Yuuri and figure skaters in general is like - I like it very much. It's a good thing about anime, that it can depict things like that, I believe. It's like - you are drawing this one character, but there are those moments, when you get close [to depicting] the truth of the universe - this is how I felt.

--- And at last, please, leave a short message for the fans.

S: To be honest, I didn't expect this show to get so popular than even people like me, who work behind the scenes, would be asked to give interviews. The theme is a specific sport discipline and it aired very late at night. The response, however, was huge... In the latter part, the production caught up to the broadcasting schedule, and I've been getting messages like "I'm looking forward to the next week's episode", but the next week episode wasn't even finished... That was the situation at that time (laugh), but those messages were a source of support for me. Thank you all. Right now, Japan's figure skating is at its finest it has been in the 30 year I've been watching figure skating and in addition, in case of animation too, it's a genre that Japan is very strong at, even looking at the world level. Those two points together played a part in that, but now that the anime has finished, I also think that it's thanks to the times that we live in, that it was possible for people from all over the world to accept this anime so straightforwardly. The production was very fun, and when I first had a meeting with Yamamoto Director about this show, she told me: "So this time, I want to use Grand Prix series...", so if there is a continuation, I'll give my best again.

[Notes: That was the last part~!]

[lucihens]

Hi. I just want to somehow make catharsis about the whole Chenford break up going on and listen other takes on it.

Maybe Im just a girl going through Mercury Retrograde being delulu not wanting to aknowledge they are over. Having said that:

I just know this is not the end for them. But not for plot reasons that we are all speculating. I mean sure for plot reasons is necesary for Tim to get his shit together before taking the next step with Lucy (Eric said in his interview that Tim loves her and its seen in the lie detector scene and all the Tamara moving out storyline that has been going since last season they are sure heading to moving together). Also sure Lucy has suffered many things and is interesting to see her next steps.

But I just know this is for marketing reasons. They need the show to be renewed for another season and a massive cliffhanger like this one when there's a 3 weeks break between episodes where they know people will be engaged on it is a good way on getting that renewal.

They know people still watching the show because Chenford. They have stated they are endgame. But they are producers and writers and plan things ahead in order to keep the show going. Is just trust the process and the fact that they work on this and know what they are doing. I have seen many shows (most of them from ABC) to know they give the fans what they want bc in the end is a product that is sold and know that not doing something your target audience wants equals not product to be sold.

Also, even though Melissa and Eric had said that there are some things coming on Tim and Lucy on the season finale and blah blah blah. They are putting a lot of effort on the breakup promotionally speaking. The interviews released the second the episode finished, the TikToks from Melissa, the whole ice cream promo with letters to the cast about the breakup and they laughing and making jokes (also like the ig account still saying Chenford stan account) is more clear is about making the people engaged and furthermore, making the network renew the show for season 7. They are actors and know they must keep a good relationship with their fans (I mean if you make something that upset your fans then how would you keep getting called to act if you dont have people watching them for you and other actors can), what Im saying Is they are laughing and all of this because they know how it ends and know they end in a place where fans will love it, if not they are basically bullyng us lol.

So long story short: just keeping my peace of mind knowing it is just marketing. By the interviews we know somehow the season finale lets them in a good place, so if season 7 comes maybe we got time to see them making up with more time and development (things this season had been rushed bc the strike, not only here but in most shows) and if there's not season 7 it will end up with Chenford with a sort of an open finale where all points to them giving it another chance in their inmidate future.

Hope i made myself clear. Just wanted to vent haha. And lets chill and cross fingers for season 7 and an Oscar for Melissa and Eric because that break up was so CHEFF KISS like girlll I have felt that pain too.

hello dear anon! thank you for being my very first ask!

i hope you won't regret venting to me because this response ended up....well...extensive. i have many many things to say and a lack of adhd medication to contain them.

i would also like to note that i'm not at all experienced with writing think pieces on the internet. but even though i haven't written an essay since college, i can sure yap. and even though i'm a genius /s, this may not make sense to anyone. so here's what my chronic fatigue and i were able to conjure up:

yes, tv shows are primarily for an audience, whether writers and directors do accept that or not, that's what i'm guessing producers have in mind. tv is literally built 'for your viewing pleasure', and with this show in the past, and by past i mean season 5 especially (and the shock and surprise of 4x22), they (whoever they is) have been manically hitting that red button titled 'DO THE THING THEY WANT' just so they can say they did it and you as an audience can't complain. so yes in my experience, shows very often, if not always, write for an audience, otherwise the creators would just be giggling at themselves in their own private screening room at their custom, personalised tv show made only for them. when you give a show to the masses, it is, in certain ways, their's now. so going against everything an audience wants is certainly an interesting move, and since i have a common disease called 'being absolutely befuddled by the varying degrees of human nature' i don't know particularly what their aim is, what they're hoping this will provide an audience, as well as the show as a whole. what i do know however, is that there is not just one kind of audience, within the watchers of the rookie, there is obviously an abundance of angst lovers, an array of fluff lovers, complex think piece people, and apathetic 'this is what i fill the void of a tuesday night with' people (which is potentially what makes up a good portion of the viewers (?), not just the dedicated fandom we see on social media). with this in mind, the creators, the writers, are evidently incapable of satisfying every single diverse/contradictory demographic. so it's unclear which demographic they want to make happy at a given storyline. is this to give the angst lovers what they want? is this to give the comfortable fluff lovers a kick in the rear? or is this just to keep the average viewer interested in this ever-appealing show? i can't speak for them at all so i couldn't say which, but i also haven't a scooby doo. maybe others could give their opinion on which of these they think the creators are aiming for, because i couldnt tell you. then again, maybe it's all of them. maybe we let the rest of the season play out to completion, and we may know for sure. but marketing a show goes hand in hand with keeping the general audience as well as potential new viewers: 1. happy and excited, 2. interested in investing their time into the show. and given that season 6 is a short season: yes, i'm sure the marketing the break up is one of their best bets at keeping ratings up and viewers in, whether it comes directly from outrage or intrigue. and given how some other storylines seem to fall kind of flat (wink wink nol–), especially compared to last season, the initial lucy storylines and the now tim storylines are what is keeping up the hype for such a small season. and i'm sure (hoping) the other characters will have something to add to the s6 plate to further the impact of such a small season and the plots within. but for the most part 'chenford' is such an electric word. drop it in anywhere and the millions(?) who have ever laid eyes on the show just got a shock. and they know that, so of course they'll use it to their advantage in anyway they can.

and with this rambling: one thing i'm sure of, the only thing i'm sure of, is that yes: THEY LOVE EACH OTHER. and not just a slight admiration or a tinge of care. actual undying love. incomprehensible love. i don't know a lot about this topic but i definitely love to aggrandise the concept of love, and especially unto something harmless like fictional characters. in the real world, loving someone isn't always enough for sure. but not loving someone at all can also having no bearing in the upkeep of a relationship (i know this from personal experience). so whether or not two people end up together in real life, has no distinguished rule of 'do this and feel that and you'll be together forever'.

but this is fiction! WE make this stuff up. so we can do whatever we want! we can link A to B and say these characters love each other so they must end up together, and still be flawed along the way, because they are not real. so in my opinion the various ideas like "real relationships have people breaking up", "real relationships have people never getting back together", "real relationships have people never breaking up", and to follow, the incessant "real relationships have good communication!" don't matter anyway because ideas based reality have absolutely no impact in this fictional realm. yes bring in realism, be realistic if you want, but don't let reality dictate your fiction entirely (as well as the inverse). nor should you let reality make you want your fiction to be completely unreal. both fiction and reality have complexity in personality and characterisation. people have personalities and characters have characterisation. the one commonality is imperfection. but just because they are similar doesn't mean they have to be the same. it doesn't mean chenford are realistically doomed. and with this the plot that may unfold could be one unexpected, one unreal, or one completely real. tim and lucy could work through their own storylines, flaws and complexities separately and i'd be glad to see it.

i had a lot of issues with how fan service esque the initial 'canonisation' felt and maybe this is not just to market their show, but to finally listen to the majority of the audience, the particular audience that literally helps them market the show. aka the social media citizens. the ones who talk up a storm about what they love about the show and literally rope others into watching it. maybe they'll finally write them with more specific intentions this time, maybe this is what this is for. not just for drama but to give us what we wanted to watch in the first place but heavily missed out on: pining, feelings, dramatic reconciliation. who knows. we won't. not until the season is over and s7 inevitably comes (it's guaranteed).

i know many become angry with this show about what it does and doesn't do but one thing that helps me survive is this: it doesn't matter, the episodes exist anyway. they will continue to exist even if they don't have what we want. all we can do is feel every feeling this show evokes because that's really what it is to be entertained, at least for me. we're not the creators at the end of the day, no matter how much we've created. if something happens we don't like, we don't like it and we talk about how we don't like it. if we do like it, we talk about how we like it. and we praise the actors anyway, for the characters they bless us with. and the creatives, who gave us the masterpiece that is season 2.

and with that, i conclude. this definitely got away from me like the runaway train in my adhd brain. i wrote this sleepy and fatigued and i think i might be brain dead so if there are contradictions or things that make not a bit of sense feel free to call me out on it! especially those who are more experienced yappers, i'd definitely like to know what you disagree with or think has no place in this piece.

anyway, fin. thank you anon and TLDR; chenford will be fine and the show will always favour exploiting the most loved characters for marketing but with every PR box of ice cream sent and every article written brings in one more viewer to our beloved show and at least we'd stand a chance of a season 10.

[myfavebandfizz]

Wonderland Magazine - Interview - Feb 28 2024

The band — which consists of artists dodie, Orla Gartland, Greta Isaac and Martin Luke Brown — tells us about the origins of the project and its visual identity, and lets us inside with some BTS from their shoot.

“The whole FIZZ gang! We look really sad here but believe it or not this shoot was a truly joyous experience”

From FIZZ: Sometimes in life, you sit round a kitchen table with your friend-family and throw around a dream idea with each other. It could be; “let’s move to the countryside, build ourselves a little commune with a vegetable garden and cook dinners for each other every night”. Or perhaps; “let’s start a band using all of our experience of the music industry we’ve gathered over 10 years of being solo artists and write the most unserious, least-pressured album that is bursting with joy and saturation. Then let’s build a world of circus-y, wild lore around the whole thing in which we all live in an imaginary part theme-park, part alien-town called FIZZVILLE complete with a strawberry jam volcano, fireworks and ferris wheels.”

“Secret To Life” video BTS — Dodie wears collar & trousers RENLI SU and dress DALSTON COSTUME HIRE; Martin wears shirt, suit & trousers VIVIENNE WESTWOOD and cape & hat DALSTON COSTUME HIRE; Greta wears bodysuit & cap PRANGSTA COSTUMIERS; Orla wears shirt DALSTON COSTUME HIRE, corset CAT O’BRIEN, trousers FRASER, belt ROSIE EVANS, and earrings THE VXLLEY “These photos were taken on set for our music video for ‘The Secret To Life’ – shoutout to our photographer Karina Barberis for always capturing each moment perfectly. These were taken right before we had to chain smoke 20 cigarettes just to get one shot (worth it).”

The commune is yet to be built, but our wacky, wonky, maximalist band idea somehow grew legs and crawled its way over to our favourite studio to record an album under the band-name; ‘FIZZ’. Our record needed some accompanying visuals, and so in May ’23 our baby band travelled to Barcelona to work with an incredible creative director and his team – JP Bonino and ‘The Rats’; a creative collective we knew could match our vision of an alternative world. Our darling friend and visionary Karina Barberis came along to capture the vibes.

This was our first photoshoot as a band, and the novelty of it all was exhilarating; focussed makeup artists and hair stylists would be flicking their brushes on cheeks and tugging extensions on hair, all while we watched our glossy best friends pose to imaginary scenes dreamed up by JP, jumping on trampolines to his encouraging directions between camera flashes. “The joke’s gone too far, guys” – a quip we found ourselves saying constantly, to try and process the huge gratitude and luck we felt to have such a talented team on our side.

Left: Orla wears bonnet MAISON GRACIEN; jacket MIETIS “Orla looking like the most ethereal dreamgirl the world has ever seen” – Dodie

Right: Greta wears necklace BOMBA Y LOLA; dress MIRO MISLJEN DESIGN “I think this might be the best photograph of anyone, ever?” – Orla

Left: Orla wears necklace PIA GLASSWORKS; jacket MIETIS “The apple was fake but the the smile was not – I felt VERY powerful in this coat. This look was from the ‘High in Brighton’ artwork” – Orla

Right: Orla wears full look VICTOR VON SCHWARZ; earrings AGUSTINA ROS “This was my look for shooting the single artwork for ‘Close One’ – it was one of my favourites from this whole shoot!” – Orla

Left: “Secret To Life” video BTS — Dodie wears collar & trousers RENLI SU and dress DALSTON COSTUME HIRE Right: Dodie wears top ANEMONE; corset RAMP TRAMP TRAMP STAMP; shoes MERRFER “I don’t usually totter about in kitten heels, but these made me feel like the princess I never knew I could be” – Dodie

The FIZZ family portrait that came from that shoot was the first time we sat together as a band – a familiar feeling of being in front of the camera but with an added giddiness of feeling part of something bigger, the weight of standing alone shared.

After a whirlwind album release, we bookended our campaign with the music video for “The Secret To Life” – a meta, Truman show-esc story created by director Lulu Vicedomini and brought to life by another dedicated team, including Art Directors Studio GAAS and our favourite stylist, Rubina Marchiori. The novelty of sharing space on set together was still very much alive – smoking cigarettes and miming to our own song, as if we had stepped into an imaginary playground game. But 6 months on from our Barcelona shoot something felt different – we had settled into ourselves individually and as a group, and we felt comfortable standing there in our outfits crafted by Rubina, mixing our own personal styles with the funhouse brief from Lulu’s world. We positioned ourselves together on camera, adjusting automatically to our wild range in height as a band and making sure to equally disperse attention – this was not our first rodeo anymore!

Left: Dodie wears Dodie jacket NIMPH; top ANEMONE; trousers VICTOR VON SHWARZ “Shortly after this I had a member of the production team put their legs over my head (don’t ask).” – Dodie

Right: Martin wears top and skirt ANEMONE; trousers OUTSIDERS DIVISION “Slay. Just slay” – Greta

Martin wears hat OUTSIDERS DIVISION; top MACOSCH “Introducing the new Strawberry Shortcake… I love this shot of Martin, taken on set whilst shooting our single artwork for ‘The Secret To Life’” – Dodie

Left: Nails by Isabella Ching “Shoutout to Isabella Ching for these crazy, powerful nails.” – Greta

Right: Martin wears top THE ARTELIER “When Gorka attached this giant mohawk to my head I was like damn this joke has got out of hand. God bless tho. Tribrows is it let’s go” – Martin

Left: Greta wears corset LUPE; Dodie wears top NIMPH “Dodie & Greta in their looks for the family portrait shot that we used to first launch the band!”

Right: Dodie wears jacket COMO LA TRUCHA AL TRUCHO; top ANEMONE “Rapunzel Rapunzel, let down your hair babe. I LOVE THIS LOOK FOR DODES! – Orla”

BTS Photography - Karina Barberia

"Secret To Life" Video BTS Styling - Rubina Marchiori

"Secret To Life" Video BTS Styling Assistants - Francesca Russo, Jingying Tohi, Erica Welhenage

"Secret To Life" Video BTS Makeup Artists - Georgia Olive, Esme Horn, Molly Whiteley

"Secret To Life" Video BTS Hair Stylist - Giuseppe Stelitano

Main Shoot Photography - JP Bonino

Main Shoot CGI - SanPol2000

Main Shoot Production - The Rats Company, Tomás Pintos, Casiana Flores Piran

Main Shoot Styling - Mora Giordana, Lupe Galinarez, Sofía Osiadacz

Main Shoot Makeup - Maria Baaten, Isabella Ching, Laura Martin, Victor Aragon

Main Shoot Hair - Gorka Larcan, Catalina Sartor

Main Shoot Art - David Méndez Alonso, Raquel Magyary

Main Shoot Artwork Lights - Cecilia Gil

Main Shoot Artwork Digital Assistant - Guillermo Delgado

Main Shoot Studio - D105 STUDIOS

[troyardings]

AX 2023 Link Click highlights!! Honestly all the LC shenanigans made this con so fun. So here’s what went down!

Bilibili had an amazing booth complete with life-size standees and tons of cool photos/info. My cosplay group spent a solid 6 hours there over the weekend (we pretty much ended up working the booth, the staff said we were employees 😅). They had a bunch of merch to hand out so my collection has grown extensively. We were also interviewed several times for social media, the animation team, and the director himself! The staff did some videography of us too and took a bunch of polaroids (we kept some, others went to the director as well).

I got to stop by and see Zeno (Lu Guang’s English VA) which was a blast. He’s always a riot, so I was happy I could finally talk about Link Click with him!

How could I not talk about the premiere… seriously guys, you are NOT READY for season 2. The whole room was screaming the entire time. I lost my voice from how much I yelled. It was an absolute blast and so far the season looks AMAZING. I was glad we got to do a group pic at the end with the director, English cast, and all the cosplayers!

I also posed with the Lu Guang standee a lot… and in the end I didn’t even need to, because the staff LET ME TAKE HIM HOME. I nearly cried. I did spend nearly $300 mailing him because he wouldn’t fit in the car, but given how much merch I got for free, it was worth it.

[that-lazy-snail]

I have a lot of feelings about the Titan sub extravaganza and since tumblr is just shouting into a vaccume I think I'll share them below the cut if anyone wants to read lol.

1st: I knew they were dead the moment they said they were missing. Like Cameron said in interviews there's literally no way for them to completely lose contact without having no power AT ALL, and if you have no power in situations like that, your craft is gone and you're dead. It was genuinely the best thing that could have happened to them, coming up too fast as they were trying to do also probably would have killed them but in a much more horrible way, and granted you can survive bad cases of the bends (sometimes) but if you don't it's a really really horrible way to go. But also so is suffocating and hypothermia which was the case if they'd been stuck in there for days as the rescue team led you to believe is also a really horrible way to go. If I had to die catastrophically, honestly that's how I'd want to do it, you can't even feel pain or understand it.

2nd: I think it is sad, because I don't think people "deserve" to die, (particularly the 19 yo who most likely didn't want to be there/claimed he didn't want to be there) and they were probably afraid in their last moments because they heard the hull creaking and that's sad, but I also think it's ironic because you are taking a TOURISM trip to an EXTREMELY deep part of the ocean that is home to a MASS GRAVE. And they paid 250k to do it and weren't smart enough to check whether or not the sub they were in was a death trap (idk about you but I personally would be checking that 10 times over. I'm going into a highly highly pressurized space with no logical safety precautions? I'll pass). So they maybe kinda got what was coming to them, and eat the rich and all that, maybe don't voyer a mass grave.

3rd: I think the depth of the Titanic is the universes way of deterring people from going there, like we have museums that practically put you on the ship and give activities that simulate the sinking, you don't need to see the real thing. 100s of people died there tragically and suffered, let them rest. There is no good reason why civilians should be visiting the Titanic, not a single one, regardless of how much money you have.

4th: I was waiting 3 days for Cameron to comment on it, and I'm glad he did cause honestly I trust his expertise in this area maybe more than a single other person on the planet, and it's not cause I'm his fan, he's genuinely the most educated individual. I've had a passion/interest in ocean exploration since I was 11 so while I'm no expert, I do know that you can't make a sub out of carbon fiber and not die. I've also have been a fan of Cameron's exploration work in the challenger deep for over a decade by extension. I think it's funny that all these people didn't know that he was a director as his side hustle, because even tho I've been a fan of avatar since it came out (I was 9 at the time and didn't connect that it was him till I was like 16?), I always first and foremost knew him as the deepest human dive record holder for the Marianas trench. I'm glad to see the world is starting to share some of my respect for him as an academic 😂. Anyway, I'll always be kinda a Cameron fan probably more than most other white men, just cause clumbsy white man behavior aside he's a genuinely smart and well meaning individual, more than can be said for a lot of other multimillionaire directors...

5th: the media coverage of this was completely unnecessary and the rescue attempts were also unnecessary since everyone in the field knew they were dead, anyone with an engineering degree knew they were dead, anyone with common sense and the ability to do good research knew they were dead. The rescue was all for show and a waste of resources. I think it's horrrific what happened off the cost of Greece and I think the media SHOULD have covered that instead but I don't like hearing the comparison of "we should have sent our resources there" as there's a fairly large logistical difference between a submersible with a 3 day expiration date and a boat with a 30 minute one. That doesn't mean that there shouldn't have been more support/recovery efforts made for the immigrants, there SHOULD HAVE but it's not comparable in anything except media response and that it's in/on the ocean. I also think it's okay to care about both and the response to 5 billionaires dying at see can be joked about and made light of and sometimes that's good for the human condition, the death of people fleeing death and then tragically dying, cannot but it doesn't mean people don't/won't care, it just means they're not loud about it.

6th: and finally, I do think the Logitech controller is funny, and more seriously I think everyone's responses to this are valid, those people that are laughing at them, people who are upset, it's a hard thing to grapple with, at least it is for me

[elvis1970s]

Marty Pasetta (1932-2015) was perhaps the top producer and director of event, variety and entertainment television in the 1970s and 80s. In 1972 he was brought in to work with Elvis, and helm the pioneering satellite live concert broadcast, Aloha From Hawaii, which would go out to an international audience in January, 1973.

In preparation, he attended Elvis’ concerts in Long Beach, California, in November 1972, to get a feel for the show. He thought the music aspect was strong, but the performance, and staging, visually boring.

Elvis' usual arena stage rig was basic, cramped, and used rudimentary lighting only. Seating was sold behind the stage, and the speakers were hoisted into the air on chains hung from the roof. Mary Pasetta assessed this as totally unsuitable for television.

Pasetta was not one to compromise in the cause of creative excellence. He and his staff came up with designs that featured Elvis’ name in lights in different languages, and a lower than usual stage with a catwalk into the audience. Colonel Parker rejected much of this outright, but Pasetta persisted and asked for the opportunity to present his ideas directly to Elvis.

There followed a slightly bizarre meeting with Elvis and members of the Memphis Mafia (whom Pasetta referred to as ‘goons’) during which they wore their sunglasses indoors and prominently displayed their handguns. Despite feeling thoroughly intimidated, Pasetta presented his designs, and told Elvis face-to-face he needed to lose weight and move more on stage, as Pasetta intended make extensive use of closeups during the performance.

The tension broke, and Elvis hugged Pasetta, promising that they would work to ‘make super magic for the tube together’. He also pointed out that, ‘The Colonel controls my business. I control my creativity and my music and my show. He has nothing to say about it. That's your rule. You will deal with Joe Esposito’.

Marty Pasetta continued to make significant television throughout the 1980s, directing the Academy Awards each year until 1988, and helming major variety events including Grammy and Emmy ceremonies, Disney specials, awards, AFI and celebrity tribute programmes, and two Beach Boys specials.

He died in 2015, aged 82, in a freak traffic accident - he was accidentally run over by the car in which he had been a passenger and from which he had just alighted, along with one other person who was also struck. The driver, who was also exiting the vehicle but had mistakenly left the transmission engaged, was arrested for driving while intoxicated.

Although the ultimate viewing figures for Aloha have been the subject of some dispute, Marty Pasetta said this in a 2013 interview with the Palm Springs Desert Sun;

"...What I was told by NBC and others is that every third person on Earth saw that first show when it went out. In Africa and places like that, it played in theatres. They didn't have television..."