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grigori77 · 9 months

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2023 in Movies, My Top 30 Fave Movies (Part 3)

10. NIMONA – we almost didn’t get 2023’s most socially important animated feature. When Disney acquired Twentieth Century Fox and everything went tits up for its various affiliates, animation house Blue Sky Studios bit the dust just as this long-awaited adaptation of influential She-Ra & the Princesses of Power showrunner ND Stevenson’s beloved fantastical graphic novel from Spies In Disguise directors Nick Bruno and Troy Quaine was nearing completion, and it looked like it might never see the light of day … at least until Annapurna Pictures and Netflix swooped in to the rescue, snapping it up, funding its completion and getting it out on streaming to the delight of all of us who’d thought it was essentially LOST. The end result is just about THE VERY BEST movie I’ve ever seen about the struggles of being non-binary and not conforming to any set gender norms in modern society, viewed through the fantasy prism of a shapeshifting “teenager” who effortlessly steals their own film. Chloe Grace Moretz is perfectly cast as the voice of the titular misfit anarchist troublemaker supernatural being, who finds an opportunity for some fresh chaos by joining forces with Ballister Boldheart (Riz Ahmed), a newly-knighted commoner who becomes public enemy number one after being viciously framed for the murder of the queen of a futuristic medieval society (really!) built around chivalry and the righteous smiting of monsters. Ballister’s determined to prove his innocence, while Nimona just wants to create havoc, while they’re both being hunted by his former fellow knights, led by his ex-boyfriend Ambrosius Goldenloin (Eugene Lee Yang of The Try Guys), a direct descendent of the Kingdom’s legendary original monster slaying heroine Gloreth. It’s a gloriously original piece of work, the animation presented in a truly GORGEOUS brightly coloured 2-dimensional 3D graphic style that at once riffs on the ingenious visual inventiveness of the Spider-Verse movies while also creating something COMPLETELY NEW but simultaneously lovably reminiscent of the classic Blue Sky cartoony look, while the frequently chaotic action is just as infectiously anarchic as the lead character herself. It’s also fiendishly brilliant in its subversive message and twisty logic, making the viewer question what being a monster REALLY means, and if what we SEE someone as REALLY IS their true identity. Needless to say, Moretz runs away with the whole film, while the character of Nimona herself is a truly ENCHANTING and thoroughly inspiring creation who’s destined to become an iconic hero for non-binary and trans kids around the world, but Ahmed and Yang are clearly having a great time here too, as is Frances Conroy as the Director of the Kingdom’s knights, having a blast bringing icy menace to her deliciously duplicitous villainous turn. It’s an incredibly FUN movie, shot through with a rich and rewardingly infectious sense of humour, taking classic fantasy tropes and turning them on their head in new and wonderfully inventive ways, but it knows JUST when to get serious too, and there are some powerful moments when it grabs hold of your heart and DESTROYS YOU emotionally, especially in the incredibly evocative climax. Ultimately this ISN’T an overly faithful adaptation of Stevenson’s original graphic novel – he was in a darker place when he wrote and drew it, going through his own complicated struggle with his gender identity before finally making his personal transition in 2022 – but it certainly is rewardingly true to the book’s spirit and deep-down message of inclusion, positivity and being true to your core identity, which makes it one of the most important animated films to be made in a very long time. I’m so happy it’s received the TRULY MASSIVE amount of attention and LOVE it’s garnered since its release, and I thank Netflix and everybody else who made the effort to get this movie out after all when Disney seemed so reluctant to take a chance on it. This deserves to be seen, it NEEDS to be seen, and I urge you to check it out.

9. RENFIELD – my horror movie of 2023 sits very comfortably in the genre’s sub-category that I’ve always loved best, a jet black comedy of particularly rare quality and gleeful abandon that made it one of the most entertaining viewing experiences I had this past year. Yeah, like the best horror comedies it has enough genuine darkness that it CAN be genuinely scary when it wants to be, but given the sheer (literal) batshit craziness of its premise this is a BONKERS FILM, and so it wisely embraces its sheer lampoonery to full effect without reservation. Not that it’s overly surprising – director Chris McKay cut his teeth helming The Lego Batman Movie before branching out into live action with Amazon’s criminally underrated time travelling alien invasion blockbuster The Tomorrow War, both of which were excellent vehicles for him to master the gloriously anarchic style that he finally unleashes fully formed for this brilliant alternative sequel to the classic Universal Dracula movie with Bela Lugosi. That being said, the big box office draw here was always going to be Nicolas Cage, who pays loving tribute to Lugosi as the infamous Count, kicking into his typical “manic” setting to chew the scenery with ruthless abandon and, as a result, frequently steal the show right out from under Nicholas Hoult as his titular ghoul manservant, the long-suffering Robert Montague Renfield, who just wants the opportunity to finally find a real, simple life for himself and thinks he can pull it off in modern day New Orleans, only for his Master to himself become inspired by Renfield’s newfound ambition and set his sights on world domination with the help of the Lobos, a brutal local crime family. Thankfully Hoult DOES manage to hold his own in his scenes with Cage, as always proving ADEPTLY talented enough to deliver another winningly endearing performance while playing perhaps the single most pathetic specimen of his career to date … meanwhile the thoroughly adorable Awkwafina once again proves she’s well on the way to becoming the PREMIER kooky goofball female comedic lead in Hollywood as Rebecca Quincy, the one truly honest cop in one of the most corrupt police forces in all of America, who winds up falling for Renfield’s hangdog charm and puppy-dog eyes as he inadvertently becomes the key to her quest to bring down the Lobos after they murdered her legendary detective father. Shohreh Aghdashloo brings a much needed touch of class to proceedings as Bellafrancesca Lobo, the family’s seductively sly matriarch, while Space Force and Sonic the Hedgehog’s Ben Schwarz is a frequent non-PC laugh riot all on his own as her entitled constant disappointment of a son Teddy, and Ghosts’ Brandon Scott Jones is lovably flaky as the leader of Renfield’s endearingly pathetic support group for people trapped in toxic co-dependent relationships. This genuinely is a DEEPLY FUNNY FILM, perfectly geared up for a maximum hit count with the one-liners, in-jokes and situations, but then there’s no surprise here since writer Ryan Ridley (adapting a pitch from The Walking Dead’s original creator Robert Kirkman) is a seasoned veteran of TV comedy, particularly well known as an alumnus of the similarly edgy and madcap Rick & Morty, and this carries a lot of the same twisted, anarchic charm as that rightly beloved series, just in a much more big budget live action form. It’s also SPECTACULARLY bloodthirsty when it wants to be, the welcome reliance on what are clearly LARGELY physical effects meaning that this movie is another gore-hound’s wet dream, even if the film does mostly play the horror elements for laughs throughout, and it’s an impressively inventive and chaotic beast in THAT regard too, delivering some of the most gloriously OTT splatter-fuelled action sequences I’ve seen in a good while whenever Renfield eats a bug and gets an ultraviolent power boost. Altogether this is definitely some of the most fun I had at the cinema this past year, and I’ll admit I wouldn’t mind a bit more of this if they DID fancy trying the sequel road after all …

8. LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND – Mr Robot was one of THE all-time great TV revelations of the 2010s, creator/showrunner Sam Esmail becoming a genuinely challenging counter-culture voice responsible for hard-hitting, thought-provoking material which really shook up the status quo. Shocking, then, that his only real notable foray onto the BIG screen was with the offbeat but ultimately overlooked romantic comedy fantasy Comet, but that balance has FINALLY been redressed almost a decade later with this powerhouse leftfield tour-de-force dystopian apocalyptic thriller from Netflix. Adapting the already hard-hitting, critically acclaimed novel by Rumaan Alam, Esmail wastes no time in weaving a spell of subtly inexplicable unease as we follow a family of well-to-do New Yorkers who take the opportunity to get out of the city for a break on the coast after renting someone else’s house for a long weekend, only for the owners to suddenly return in the night with tales of a blackout and more bafflingly worrying events unfolding in the outside world, hoping they can stay too until they know more. Feelings of distrust and paranoia immediately settle in and refuse to leave even as the two families warily get to know one another, but then things are getting WEIRD – the internet and TV are DOWN, drones are dropping indecipherable foreign propaganda from the skies and there are sudden bursts of head-splitting noise coming from SOMEWHERE … all too slowly it becomes clear that something truly terrible is happening, and that there’s more than just rumoured cyber-attacks at work here. This really is CHILD’S PLAY for Esmail, who’s clearly having a wild old time crafting a twisting, unnervingly unsettling suspense thriller which sticks the knife in and keeps on twisting as things get more worryingly desperate, all while casting a deeply critical eye on the state of modern society, capitalism, pop culture and pervading racial and social divides. Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke are both typically EXCELLENT as Amanda and Clay Sandford, the white liberal upper class couple who find their deep-seated preconceptions forming their perceptions as they’re forced to deal with the as always truly MAGNIFICENT Mahershala Ali’s cultured stockbroker G.H. Scott and his brash, opinionated daughter Ruth (Industry and Bodies Bodies Bodies’ Myha’la), while there’s a brief but unsurprisingly POTENT turn from Kevin Bacon as Danny, the exact kind of paranoid, doomsday prepping redneck who’s probably gonna survive this coming apocalypse JUST FINE. There’s SO MUCH to unpack and explore in this film, it’s definitely one of those film’s that rewards repeat viewing with neat little twists, fascinatingly subtle hints and clues which lead to insidiously profound payoffs and more sneaky little easter eggs than you could EVER spot on a single viewing, leading to a truly HORRIFYING existential climax which will lead to many a sleepless night given the way this world seems to be heading. Speculative science fiction or worryingly potent prophecy? Only time will tell, I guess …

7. SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE – the animated feature that completely CHANGED THE GAME at the end of the last DECADE getting a sequel was pretty much a no-brainer, but it didn’t make the wait any easier, and after COVID put a dent in so many of the big releases coming forward this was definitely one of the most painful delays for me. Finally getting to see it was, therefore, ONE HELL of a cathartic release of tension, so much that even later discovering that not everything was exactly GOOD in the production studios at the time (namely the animators being crunched LIKE CRAZY by the ever-shifting nature of the vision they were being asked to realise, leading to a toxic working environment for many, which is NEVER cool) still didn’t dent my truly AWED appreciation for the finished film. Seriously, this is THE BEST animated feature we saw this past year, and ALREADY a strong candidate for best animated feature of THIS DECADE (although that’s likely to change if the incoming sequel turns out to be as good, if not BETTER, which it probability WILL). Honestly, I could end the review right here just with that recommendation, it’s GENUINELY THAT GOOD, people. But I still got a job to do here, so … once again, Miles Morales (Dope’s Shameik Moore), the new Spider-Man in his world, is at the centre of a whirlwind of narrative chaos as a new arch-nemesis he never knew he had emerges to hold him to account for what he did when he destroyed the Kingpin’s interdimensionally destructive supercollider in the first film – the Spot (Jason Schwartzman), a former scientist at Alchemax who got turned into a walking mass of unstable wormholes when he got hit with the full brunt of all that quantum energy. As he embarks on his quest to take his misguided revenge on Miles, his interdimensional spree of carnage leads our Spider-Man to become connected with a Multiverse-spanning cadre of Spider-People, led by the spectacularly stern Spider-Man of Earth 2099, Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac), who police the various Earths in order to combat and remove “anomalies” that arise to threaten them … and

the Spot is a BIG ONE of those. Oh, and Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), the Spider-Woman Miles most definitely fell for in the first film, has started working with them too after her own father, police Captain George Stacy (Shea Wigham), who’s had it in for their Spider-Woman after she was mistakenly framed for the death of their Earth’s Peter Parker, discovered her secret identity and made her run from her own dimension as a result …yeah, it sounds pretty complicated, but this whole twisted labyrinth is, nonetheless, unveiled in the exact same super-slick, viewer-friendly way the first film pulled off its own exposition, which just makes more room for all the FUN as we get to follow our old favourites and a whole host of fascinating NEW incarnations of our favourite arachnid-themed superhero on their various insane adventures. This is JUST AS SPECTACULAR in terms of action, character work, pure invention and sheer, unrivalled SPECTACLE as its predecessor, in many places upping the wow factor SIGNIFICANTLY (particularly during a particularly colourful visit to the distinctly Indian-flavoured alternative version of New York called Mumbattan, which is the stomping ground of one of the film’s most memorable new Spider-folk, the irrepressibly chipper Pavitr Prabhakar, voiced by Deadpool’s thoroughly brilliant Karan Soni). Indeed, the most fun we have throughout this movie is definitely getting to hang out not only with our old friends but all these newcomers too, with Pavitr being joined by the fascinating likes of the very coolest Spider-Woman after Gwen, Jess Drew (Awkward Black Girl’s Issa Rae), digital avatar Margo Kess/Spider-Byte (The Hunger Games’ Amandla Stenberg), overly-angsty living Todd McFarlane comic panel Ben Reily/Scarlet Spider (the incomparable Andy Samberg) and even Mayday Parker, the impossibly adorable new baby daughter of Jake Johnson’s welcome returning fan-favourite OG Peter Parker (and, of course, Miles’ original mentor from the first movie), who’s ALREADY got her spider-powers, while Miguel is a FANTASTIC character, brooding like a champ and sometimes proving to be as much of an EXTREMELY EFFECTIVE villain in the story as the Spot, especially once his beef

with Miles is revealed … but at the end of the day, ALL of these new arrivals thoroughly PALE in comparison to one of this film’s BEST secret weapons, Hobie Brown/Spider Punk (Daniel Kaluuya getting to use his normal accent for once), a misfit non-conformist anarchist JOY with one hell of a problem with authority (Miguel’s IN PARTICULAR) who effortlessly steals our hearts just as much as EVERY SINGLE SCENE he’s in. That being said, it really is SO GREAT having our old crew back – Miles and Gwen are SO SWEET, their chemistry is just OFF THE BLOODY CHARTS without them even trying, and I adore every single scene of them together, never mind their own individual storylines (it’s PARTICULARLY great getting to see Gwen herself get a SIGNIFICANTLY enlarged narrative presence this time round, becoming JUST as important in this story as Miles himself), while any time we get to spend with Johnson’s Peter is pure gold, and we get to spend even more time with Miles’ wonderful, loving, hard-working parents Jeff and Rio Morales (Brian Tyree Henry and Lauren Velez), which is ALWAYS a plus. Needless to say, this is a whole LOAD of fun, shot through with the same classic winning humour, wild invention, visionary experimentation, thematic resonance and pure geeky in-joke easter egg-packing FAN SERVICE that made the first film such a winner, but it also comes through BIG TIME with more of those wicked FEELS, this time ramping things up FAR MORE with the serious emotional HEFT as we’re presented with some truly DEVASTATING character arcs whose after effects are gonna be felt for A VERY LONG TIME after. The fact that this is just the first half of a two-part SAGA, with Beyond the Spider-Verse currently in the works, means that we can look forward to PLENTY MORE, although here’s hoping that this time they give their animators a little more BREATHING ROOM to get it done right WITHOUT having to break their backs in the process, yeah? Then again, with the writers’ AND actors’ strike barely over, the likelihood of THAT is pretty strong …

6. OPPENHEIMER – really, is there ANY SURPRISE over this placing so high? You know what a MASSIVE Christopher Nolan fan I am, and him making a proper EPIC historical biopic examining the career and achievements of the father of nuclear power was GUARANTEED to not only grab my attention but also thoroughly please the serious high-brow cinema appreciator buried inside me over all that action junkie, superhero fanboy and sci-fi-nut stuff … but yeah, this was ALWAYS gonna be a fucking amazing film, wasn’t it? Nolan’s most regular acting collaborator (outside of Michael Caine, anyway), Cillian Murphy, stars as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist who spearheaded the Manhattan Project which led to the creation of the very first viable nuclear weapons which were then used by the American military to destroy the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and end the Second World War. On the surface he seems like a driven, visionary man with a real fascination for the science he’s pioneering, but also a cool pragmatism which makes him the ideal man to usher in this astounding technological achievement, but as the film unfolds in Nolan’s typical non-linear narrative fashion we discover a far more complex man than we first supposed, Murphy unveiling Oppenheimer’s deep-seeded fears about the frighteningly real dangers his Project could give birth to. After all, he may have been the father of the Modern World, but this particular creation also gave rise to a century of technological horrors and a whole new, long lasting Cold War. Anyway, this is UNDENIABLY the greatest performance of Murphy’s career, if he doesn’t at least get an Oscar nod for this there’s no justice in the world, while, in typical Nolan fashion, the rest of the rich ensemble cast is a genuine embarrassment of riches, from Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer’s long-suffering wife Kitty and Florence Pugh as his ill-fated Communist mistress Jean Tatlock to Matt Damon as his nominal “boss”, Gen. Leslie Groves, Kenneth Brannagh as his mentor and idol Niels Bohr, the mighty Tom Conti as the even MORE awesome Albert Einstein and even Robert Downey Jr. in a particularly KEY role as Oppenheimer’s one-time colleague and later rival, Atomic Energy commissioner Lewis Strauss, who dominates the parallel narrative throughline presented over the course of the film as his own efforts to discredit and destroy the great man ultimately end up coming back to bite his own political ambitions. To a man, they’re all as MAGNIFICENT as the rest of the film, which is a fascinating journey into the dark heart of one of the greatest but also most historically and socially destructive scientific achievements in the history of the world, the man who ushered it in, and the hell he then went through afterwards when he then tried to make sure we didn’t make it SO MUCH WORSE once we had the power to destroy ourselves. It’s a film that raises extremely tough questions, and what answers we ARE able to come to are every bit as terrifying as any of the consequences that are either seen or merely suggested here. Nolan is, as always, A MASTER in the director’s chair as much as in the screenwriter’s corner, bringing his usual visionary flair and artistic brilliance to craft yet more of his trademark IMAX-rocking BEAUTY and opulence, while his sneaky, snaky narrative shenanigans once again frame things in ingenious, challenging and sometimes emotionally DEVASTATING ways before we’re brought to the bittersweet denouement. Tenet composer Ludwig Goransson’s expansive, evocative score is, ultimately, just the icing on the cake, making an already amazing film even more noteworthy. If this ain’t the toast of the Awards Season they really didn’t pay attention …

5. THE CREATOR – if ever there could be a film that would decry the state of the modern blockbuster blueprint, it’s this one. Seriously, that fact that something THIS fresh and original could flop in a market so saturated with cookie-cutter franchises and exhausted expanded-universe IPs just says it all, doesn’t it? Writer-director Gareth Edwards (along with screenwriter Chris Weitz, who previously worked with him on Rogue One) has had a look at our encroaching terror at the pervading rise of AI, taken a step back and looked at what COULD potentially happen if we actually end up OVERREACTING and blaming it for something which is actually entirely our fault … cue a troubling delve into a dystopian future where, after the accidental nuking of Los Angeles due to defence-Ai programming human error, the West has uniformly turned again artificial intelligence and set about waging an uncompromising war against it and the sentient androids it’s spawned. These survivors have fled to the more sympathetic nations of New Asia, but the oppressive machinations of the Western coalition and their obsessive hunt for the AI’s creator, Nimata, have given birth to a terrifying weapon, the deadly orbital weapons platform NOMAD. John David Washington is Joshua Taylor, a US Army sergeant who lost an arm and a leg in the LA blast, and then what innocence he had left in a subsequent ill-fated infiltration mission in New Asia, who’s drawn back into the fight by his former commanders when evidence emerges that his supposedly dead wife, Maya (an enjoyably complex turn from Gemma Chan), the daughter of Nimata he met and fell in love with on that mission, is still alive and in possession of a devastating weapon which they need to get hold of before it can be used to destroy the West. Going in with a special forces team, Joshua discovers that this so-called weapon is actually Alphie, an android child (newcomer Madeleine Yuna) with the power to control electronic devices, and he finds that the truth is nothing like what was led to believe … Edwards and Weitz have created a spellbinding science-fiction MASTERPIECE here, a breathlessly thrilling and expansively EPIC science fiction war saga which takes some challenging and thought-provoking ideas and heavy themes and takes a very interesting direction in their interpretation while posing profound questions about the nature of humanity, morality and love, all while delivering a truly intoxicating masterclass in peerless world-building, brought to astonishing living, breathing reality through some of the most seamlessly engineered visual effects I have EVER seen in a feature film (then again, Edwards DID start out as a visual effects artist, so he knows the game INSIDE AND OUT). Washington is an unusually complex, multi-layered hero as Joshua, fallible and driven by selfish desires but ultimately finding something much bigger than himself to believe in, while Yuna is a revelation, a sweet and inspiring little light in the darkness, while mighty support from the likes of Alison Janney, Ken Watanabe, Marc Manchaca (Ozark, The Outsider, No One Gets Out Alive) and Ralph Ineson rounds things out nicely. Powerful, inventive, affecting and endlessly thought-provoking, this deserves to be remembered not only as one of the most rewardingly original and genuinely brilliant movies of 2023, but of the entire decade, and I think it’s a genuine crime it wasn’t a massive hit like it deserved to be. Audiences really did SLEEP on this one …

4. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING, PART ONE – really, there should be NO SURPRISE that this topped off my list for the summer. I may have grown up with James Bond, and I LOVE the Jason Bourne movies too, but the Tom Cruise-starring cinematic adaptation of the classic TV spy show has been MY ABSOLUTELY FAVOURITE espionage-based film franchise since JJ Abrams established the tried-and-tested formula for the series with 2006’s seminal classic third entry. That being said, the franchise didn’t find its strongest voice until Cruise brought Jack Reacher writer-director Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects, The Way of the Gun) on board for the dynamite fifth instalment, Rogue Nation, which was so fucking brilliant and well received by both critics AND audiences that Paramount saw fit to retain his services on the EVEN BETTER follow-up, Fallout, which came DAMN CLOSE to equalling the heights of Sam Mendes’ Bond masterpiece Skyfall … so of course it was a NO-BRAINER for him to return once again for this two-part intended send-off for Cruise’s seemingly immortal superspy, Ethan Hunt, as he not only faces his deadliest foes to date, but also a very dark ghost from his own past. As with its predecessor, this is another spy flick where knowing as little as possible going in works best for your enjoyment, suffice to say that this time Ethan and his loyal friends, master hacker Luther Stickel (the legendary Ving Rhames), tech wizard Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and former MI6 spook Ilsa Faust (Dune’s Rebecca Ferguson), really have their work cut out for them when they’re forced to go rogue yet again in order to track down and deactivate a supermassive AI program known as the Entity which has become fully self-aware, broken free of its constraints and is now wreaking havoc throughout the internet and beyond.

Unfortunately this seemingly unstoppable digital force has enlisted the aid of a particularly dangerous “avatar” to represent its concerns in the real world, a mysterious terrorist known as Gabriel (Ozark’s Esai Morales) who seems to be following a dark agenda of his own. The ensuing race against time takes in a grand tour of impressively picturesque locales, a collection of winningly well-written characters and a series of knuckle-whitening, visually arresting action sequences that have long since proven to be McQuarrie’s bread-and-butter just as much as his ingeniously twisty labyrinthine plots and sparky, sharp-witted quickfire dialogue, again showing that he really is THE VERY BEST filmmaker that Paramount could EVER have found for this franchise. Needless to say, Cruise is as spectacular as ever in what really has become the very best role he’s EVER HAD, by this point basically just INHABITING Ethan’s easy charm, admirably solid, unswerving moral principles and truly INCREDIBLE physical prowess, delivering equally well in the truly insane stunt-work which WE KNOW FULL WELL IS ALL HIM as he does in the acting stakes; meanwhile Rhames, Pegg and Ferguson once again shine bright in their now comfortably well-established roles while still managing to bring fresh depths and interesting new arcs to their well-worn characters, we get a lot more of The Crown’s Vanessa Kirby’s intriguing notorious second-generation arms dealer Alanna Mitsopoulis/the White Widow, and it’s an IMMENSE pleasure to finally welcome back the first film’s prickly yet verbose antagonist Eugene Kitteridge (Henry Czerny), Ethan and Luther’s former boss in the IMF, in a far much expansive role this time round. Meanwhile the franchise newcomers all impress as well, Morales easily proving to be the series’ VERY BEST VILLAIN to date as he menaces, seduces and murders his way through the story, brutally tearing our heroes’ lives apart as he pursues his mysterious master’s nefarious ends, while we get a brand new series heroine in the form of Grace (the MCU’s own Peggy Carter, Hayley Atwell), a sly and duplicitous professional thief who essentially stumbles into the thick of the action before becoming Ethan’s EXTREMELY unwilling accomplice; meanwhile there’s strong support from Shea Wigham and Greg Tarzan Davis (who previously worked with Cruise on Top Gun: Maverick) as Briggs and Degas, a pair of US Intelligence agents sent to chase down the rogue IMF crew, and Cary Elwes as Denlinger, a particularly duplicitous US Director of National Intelligence. And then there’s Paris … ah Paris, my sweet, psychotic demon child. Guardians of the Galaxy’s Pom Klementieff actually gets to be FRENCH again as Gabriel’s unpredictably lethal pet killer, and she’s an absolute JOY throughout, so delightfully unhinged that she makes every second of her screentime an undeniable pleasure, and as a result she’s BY FAR my favourite character in this. Altogether, this is about as perfect as spy cinema gets, McQuarrie and his cast and crew working tirelessly to deliver not only the very best film in the series to date, but also the best film I saw all summer, very nearly my action cinema highlight of the whole year, and one of the VERY BEST spy movies I have EVER SEEN. Given the shake-up from the Strikes it’s not clear if we’re REALLY gonna get to see Dead Reckoning Part Two in May 2025 like it’s been slated since getting pushed back from its summer ’24 release,but whenever it DOES finally arrive, I KNOW it’ll be worth the wait … it just has to be bloody INCREDIBLE to be better than THIS ONE …

3. JOHN WICK CHAPTER 4 – and so, it has come to this … honestly, who’d have thunk it, back in 2014 when the first movie came out and (rightly) became a surprise sleeper hit that went a long way to revitalising Keanu Reeves’ career for a SECOND TIME as he found THE GREATEST ROLE HE’S EVER HAD, that almost a decade later it would’ve blown up into something THIS BIG?!!! I mean sure, back then it definitely was The Little Movie That Could, but still … well, after two increasingly BIG sequels which each maintained a surprisingly impressive level of quality throughout, the fourth and final John Wick chapter is finally here, and GODS is it good. I mean it’s FUCKING BRILLIANT. It just might be THE BEST ONE YET. Certainly it’s proving to be the most well received, landing BY FAR the best rating on Rotten Tomatoes and it genuinely seems like almost nobody has ANYTHING bad to say about this movie, even the CRITICS largely seem to LIKE this one. And it deserves every lick of love it’s been getting, this is definitely both the pinnacle of the series AND a perfect swansong for the greatest assassin in cinema history. I don’t wanna give too much away about the plot, even those who HAVE seen what’s come before shouldn’t be spoiled, even if these movies have never exactly been SHAKESPEARE in their construction they do still frequently leave you guessing in the best ways as to how they’ll turn out, and this one is definitely no exception. I’ll just say that, after all the killing John’s done to get to this point, his one-man-war with the international criminal network’s High Table has finally reached its zenith as Winston (the great Ian McShane), the Manager of the newly-demolished Manhattan Continental Hotel, gives him the means to finally find a way to get out and find peace while he’s still alive – namely by challenging the Marquis Vincent de Gramont (Bill Skarsgard), a high-ranking Table member who’s taken it upon himself to rid the criminal underworld of the “cancer” that John and his constant disrespect have wrought, to single combat in a ritualistic duel in order to take his place at The Table should he win. The

subsequent battle that ensues as John sets about facilitating this duel and the fallout that follows as he fights his way to that final, fateful meeting fuels the film in HIGH STYLE, so that even though this movie’s almost THREE HOURS LONG it never feels overlong or outstays its welcome. Once again the cast are all ON FIRE, Reeves once again proving that he is just about THE BEST LOOKING and most interesting action star working in Hollywood today when he’s mowing down endless bad guys with a stoic expression and the odd deadpan response, the role once again VERY MUCH playing to his strengths, while McShane and Laurence Fishburne (returning once again as the dethroned Bowery King) are both on fine form throughout, and it’s both a pleasure and privilege but also a genuine heartbreaking SHAME to watch the late Lance Reddick deliver one of his very last performances as Charon, the noble and quietly charismatic Concierge of the Manhattan Continental (at least he also shot one more turn as the character for the upcoming Ana de Armas-starring spinoff feature Ballerina, so it’s not QUITE the end); meanwhile the newcomers all serve admirably as well, with Skarsgard particularly impressing as one of the franchise’s best villains to date, slimy, entitled and exquisitely arrogant, the kind of Big Bad you just LOVE to hate, Wynnona Earp’s Shamier Anderson is a delightful revelation as Mr Nobody, a precocious up-and-coming hitman talent who certainly has a whole lot of potential for a possible future spinoff franchise of his own within this larger universe, Donnie Yen excels as usual as Cain, a former friend of John’s that the Marquis brings out of forced retirement in order to take the unkillable Baba Yaga out (clearly the filmmakers saw his blind badass take in Rogue One and they were like yeah, let’s have a whole lot more of THAT), Hiroyuki Sanada once more delivers effortless class and cool gravitas as Koji, the honourable and principled Manager of the Osaka Continental, and Scott Adkins is viciously impressive but also thoroughly surprising in an almost unrecognisable prosthetic getup as Killa Harkan, the brutish Head of the High Table in Berlin. In the end, though, we’re once again here primarily to MARVEL at all the action exploits on display while wallowing in some of the richest and most well-crafted world-building there’s EVER BEEN on the big screen – this is a thoroughly fascinating universe, realised with

exquisite precision with so many cool little winks and nods and in-jokes to make the geeks among us grin and chuckle with sheer joy over the immense bounty on display, while veteran stuntman-turned-director Chad Stahelski once again wrangles some of the VERY BEST cinematic action EVER COMMITTED TO FILM in a series of astonishing and punishing set-pieces bravely executed with nary a visual effect in sight. There are almost TOO MANY cool action beats in this movie to count, although the final BIG sequence, in which John fights his way up the spectacular but infamously punishing Stairs of Montmartre in Paris against an endless onslaught of thugs all determined to not let him reach the top, which includes one of the BIGGEST belly laughs I have EVER HAD at the cinema in my life, as much just over the joke’s sheer, ingenious AUDACITY, has to be the film’s undeniable highlight (closely followed by a genuinely INSANE run/gun/drive chase/shootout/fight sequence through the sheer chaos of the traffic around the Arc de Triomphe – every single one of these sequences is thrilling, they’re adrenaline fuelled and each crafted with such precision but also brilliantly varied inventiveness that it NEVER leads to vicarious battle fatigue. Best of all, though, as with the previous film’s there’s a surprising amount of soul and heart and heft to the film too, which ultimately leads to a climax which is both immensely satisfying but also pretty devastating in its emotional power. Altogether then, this was EASILY my action movie of the year, a fitting climax to an franchise which has come to SET THE BENCHMARK for this entire genre, and, honestly, just a damn fine movie in its own right.

2. NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU – the scariest movie I saw in 2023 is a very strange beast indeed, a genuinely original and very leftfield piece of work despite tackling one of the most classic movie plot tropes out there – the alien invasion of a small American town. What makes this such a noteworthy piece of work is that this film plays almost ENTIRELY without dialogue … SERIOUSLY, throughout the entire film’s run there’s only a SINGLE line of actual spoken dialogue delivered by its lead, the rest of the film relies entirely on sound effects and Joseph Trapanese’s atmospheric score alongside visual storytelling cues to gets its narrative across. It’s an incredibly brave prospect and one which I’ll admit I wasn’t even EXPECTING when I first sat down to watch Hulu’s most blindingly successful offering of the past year, it kind of snuck up on me realising that nobody was actually SAYING anything, but I still knew EXACTLY what was happening. This is because there’s ONE HELL of a writer-director at the helm of this project – I’ve been a big fan of Brian Duffield for a while now, having really loved his screenplay work in The Babysitter, Underwater and Love & Monsters, so when he dropped his actual FEATURE DIRECTING DEBUT in the middle of the Pandemic with 2020’s ingenious jet black teen comedy horror Spontaneous I was already onboard and in the aftermath simply COULD NOT WAIT to see what he’d do once he got his hands on a budget decent enough to actually deliver the kind of films he’d already been WRITING. But even so, this one STILL left me shocked by just HOW FUCKING AMAZING it actually is, seriously, this is almost certainly THE MOST IMPRESSIVE movie I’ve seen in the past year, and DEFINITELY its most important from a filmmaking standpoint. The story itself revolves almost EXCLUSIVELY around a slightly odd young woman named Brynn (Booksmart and Dopesick’s Kaitlyn Dever) living a seemingly idyllic but ultimately lonely life in her isolated home on the outskirts of a small town which seems to have universally shunned her for some initially unknown past crime … which means that she knows full well that there will, indeed, be NO ONE coming to her rescue when, one night, an alien walks into her home and starts tearing the place up using devastating telekinetic powers. She

manages to escape after accidentally killing the creature, but this simply makes things worse as, when morning comes, she discovers that the whole town is in the middle of a subtle but TERRIFYING alien invasion and that they seem to have marked her as a particular threat. From this beautifully simple starting point, Duffield has crafted a simply PERFECT scary movie, exquisitely paced and relentlessly driven as we hit the ground running the moment night falls after that initial time taken to establish Brynn’s place in the story, and he never lets off the brakes again until we reach the end. This is a genuinely TERRIFYING piece of sci-fi horror, with the varied creatures in particular presented in impressively near flawless standards of CGI which really should be used as a major benchmark moving forward with the artform, while the frequent and substantial knuckle-whitening set-pieces are executed with a precision that verges on the simply RUTHLESS throughout. It all plays out with a surprising denouement which feels cathartically PERFECT for everything that came before once you think about it a little, and the whole endeavour is aided ENORMOUSLY by the MASSIVE contribution of the film’s star herself – this is essentially a one woman show, and Dever easily proves the equal of the task, delivering an immensely potent performance that makes the striking lack of dialogue an ultimate significant VIRTUE since she’s able to convey SO MUCH with just a look, no matter the scene, so you find yourself latching onto her in the first ten minutes, meaning that when it goes from bad to worse to truly NIGHTMARISH you’re thoroughly invested in her desperate fight for survival. This really is a star-making role, and I don’t doubt she’s due for a MAJOR raise in her profile moving forward … altogether this is a genuine MASTERPIECE, easily one of the undeniable HIGHLIGHTS of the past cinematic year and a great sign of things to come, one would hope, should the rest of Hollywood take notice. Only time will tell … in the meantime take my advice, check it out and experience something TRULY SPECIAL …

1. DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOUR AMONG THIEVES – so what, then, could POSSIBLY have beaten such astounding fare to the top spot this time round? If you’d asked me that at the year’s start I DEFINITELY wouldn’t have thought it could be THIS … I mean SURE, I love D&D as much as the next geek, but even so this felt like SUCH a shameless cinematic cash-grab from Wizards of the Coast and Disney (producing through Paramount) that I felt there was NO WAY it could REALLY be an actual GOOD FILM. At best I was expecting to be mildly entertained by a serviceable guilty pleasure, something that’s good for a Saturday night-in with a pizza and a six pack, not a genuine MASTERPIECE of cinematic adaptation. And yet, it turns out that’s EXACTLY what we got – this film has ONE HUNDRED PERCENT clearly been made with the utmost love and respect for the source material because the only possible interpretation for the way they wrote this was by taking Player’s and Dungeon Master’s handbooks, a Monster Manual, some character sheets and a few dice bags and just turning the mini-campaign that ensued into a two-hour screenplay. It’s clear that they are heavily steeped in respect and knowledge of the game itself, or were at least CONSTANTLY advised by experts who are, because this movie is AT EVERY STEP a pretty much PERFECT representation of the Forgotten Realms setting, the bestiary and even the game mechanics themselves IN ACTION, and it EVEN colours the way that the plot is laid out, how the characters interact and how some of the action sequences go. (Seriously – a perfectly executed knockout on a knife-wielding hostage taker with a hurled potato? That’s the Barbarian’s player landing a Natural 20 Critical Hit on their Attack Roll. It love it.) Sure, the results are likely to INFURIATE some people who think a little too highly about how FORMALLY WRITTEN their cinema should be, but for most folk this actually makes for a refreshingly honest and pretty unique piece of cinematic storytelling that actually works DAMN NEAR PERFECTLY from start to finish. It also helps that the writer-director duo in

charge here are a pair of stalwart comedy movie veterans, namely Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daly of Horrible Bosses, Vacation and Spider-Man: Homecoming fame, whose extremely enjoyable previous directorial collab Game Night actually likely provided a useful throughline for them to get into tackling this one. The main cast of dysfunctional heroes we follow through the story are even put together like a typical motley band of player characters – Chris Pine once again proves that he’s at his best when he’s doing broad comedy, thoroughly delightful as self-centred, opportunistic roguish Bard Edgin Darvis who, along with his platonic partner, tough-but-fair and sweetly naïve Barbarian warrior Holga Kilgore (played to absolute PERFECTION by Michelle Rodriguez in what’s UNDOUBTEDLY the best role she’s ever had, and definitely my FAVOURITE character here), enlists the help of bumbling, neuroses-riddled half-elf Sorcerer Simon Aumar (Pokémon Detective Pikachu’s Justice Smith, twitchy, unsure of himself and UTTERLY adorable) and shape-shifting Tiefling Druid Doric (It’s Sophia Lillis, forthright, dependable and immediately done with all of Edgin’s shit) to help them knock over the accumulated fortune of their one-time colleague, Rogue-turned-nobleman Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant once again expertly bringing home the scheming sleaze persona he’s perfected in more recent years now he’s finally said goodbye to his earlier days as an upper class heartthrob) and foil the dastardly machinations of the monstrous undead Red Wizard Sofina (a genuinely chilling and unsettling turn from Shadow & Bone’s Daisy Head); meanwhile there’s a top-notch supporting cast of “DM-controlled NPCs” that help the story flow and breathe as effortlessly as the main stars, from Bridgerton’s Rege-Jean Page as deliciously dry Paladin Xenk Yendar, the obviously-overpowered PC from another campaign that the DM brings in to help the party out when things go COMPLETELY WRONG for them, and Chloe Coleman (Gunpowder Milkshake) as Edgin’s estranged young daughter Kira, to Bradley Cooper in a truly INSPIRED and genuinely hilarious cameo as Holga’s decidedly diminutive ex-husband Marlamin. Every single one of these is a well-rounded, living-and-breathing vital person in their own right, and the writers have crafted them and their misadventures with proper precision throughout, while the world has been realised with genuine skill and clear loving attention to detail, as well as a welcome reliance on real sets and locations and good old fashioned physical make-up and animatronics over pure digital effects wherever possible. There are some pretty spectacular action sequences on offer here (the Underdark sequence with a decidedly overweight dragon is a particular highlight, although my personal favourite has to be the scene in which Doric has to pull off an unexpected escape by Wildshaping between different animal forms, all unfolding in a spectacular unbroken “single” take), but in the end this film is, first and foremost, a COMEDY, and while there’s plenty of heart and pathos on offer, as well as more than a little genuine DARKNESS here and there, ultimately almost everything is VERY MUCH played for laughs, and the end result is definitely the funniest film I encountered this past year. It’s also just about the most effortlessly ENDEARING film I’ve come across in a very long time, and I have to admit I am SO GLAD that it managed to defy my low expectations SO MUCH, I feel VERY HAPPILY HUMBLED that I was proved SO WRONG this time round. I’m genuinely hopeful that we get LOADS MORE of this going forward, I’d love a whole campaign’s worth of movies to grow out of this humble one-shot. Best get those D20s rolling again, guys!

#2023 in movies #nimona #renfield #leave the world behind #spider man across the spider verse #oppenheimer #the creator #mission impossible dead reckoning part one #john wick chapter 4 #no one will save you #dungeons and dragons honour among thieves

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how-masterful · 2 years

Text

31 Fics of Fright

Day 21- Missy’s Movie Macabre

Missy! X Reader

Prompt: Movie

Notes: I absolutely love horror movies, no surprise there! It really is a dream of mine to go see a classic horror movie on its opening night. Hopefully somebody invents a tardis soon!

Warnings: None

It had been one of the first things you’d thought of. Missy had presented you with an elegant quill and pad of paper, turning on her heels and announcing you had 5 minutes to write down a list of places you would like to go. Every single neuron in your brain had catapulted itself to full speed, the thoughts swirling and colliding inside your head like a great mixing bowl. You’d thought of this so many times! You’d practise this situation in the shower! You were prepared for this- until the actual moment arrived, that was. You scratched at your head, considering- any and all options you could have possibly dreamt up before, until you remembered exactly what shower you had practised. What bed time you had decided between yawns.

This was where you wanted Missy to take you. You didn’t even bother writing anything else down. You had to ask her to take you here. Surely the Timelady would find it endearing how ungreedy you’d been by choosing only one thing. How could she possibly say no?

“No.” Missy declared, holding the piece of paper between her two clawed fingers once your time was up.

“Missy, please!” You replied, attempting your best version of the puppy dog face.

“You said I could choose anything I wanted.”

“I was expecting, I don’t know, planet of cakes- oldest star in the universe, hell, space Vegas!”

“We’ve already been to space Vegas.”

“But we didn’t do everything!” Missy cried, throwing up her exasperated hands and pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Why would I desire to position myself to sitting in a sweaty, packed cinema with a bunch of irritating humans, to watch a stupid little film on it’s opening night?”

You considered, leaning across the console to grasp hold of Missy’s hand. You could tell she wanted to remain in her strop, however the pull of your touch was enough to soften her resolve. She took your hand, eyes fussing over the dials of the console.

“Did I mention it was a horror?”

Missy suddenly paused, hand stilling upon the dial she’d begun to fiddle with. She slowly looked up from the console, meeting your eyes in what could only be described as an unspeakable glance of intrigue.

“A horror film you say?”

The TARDIS had disguised itself as an electrical mains cupboard, the pair of you slinking out of its doors as you glanced up at the megaplex. You’d dreamed of attending one of these, the 80’s Americana aesthetic of the mall floor looking as if it had bled straight out of fiction. The jagged triangular designs, the neon lights flanking the glass ceilings, the strange prevalence of the colour brown. It all looked so… vaporwave. That was how Pinterest described it, anyway.

People were busing themselves around the floor, rushing into shopfronts and squeezing themselves into the booths of the food court. The mall had decided to decorate itself for the season, hanging pumpkins in the branches of the indoor trees, garlands of bats and skeletons lining the handrails. You hoped you’d be able to sneak away and grab one of the Halloween buckets from McDonalds. You’d heard the originals went for a killing online.

Missy, as incredibly dapper as she was, stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the other people on the escalator. The theatre was just across the hall, an already long line of fans queued outside the door, obnoxiously large buckets of popcorn in hand. With a single glance from the Timelady once inside, the two men that had been sat in the perfect middle seats moved to the bottom, craning their necks up to get a half decent view. Of course, if Missy was going to do anything, she’d be doing it the best way possible.

You cradled your popcorn like it was a gift from God, smiling at her as she settled down into her chair, placing your hand on her arm and gazing at your lover with sincere adoration.

“Thank you for this, Missy.” You said, smiling at her nonchalant grin.

“The experience of witnessing real time human pain and suffering is not one I'm going to turn down, poppet.”

She truly wasn’t kidding. The audience were certainly vocal, and the movie was certainly terrifying. Even more than the previous hundred times you’d watched it. People screamed at each jump scare, laughing at every incredibly cheesy joke as if they had never seen it before- which, in truth, they hadn’t. You supposed that was the beauty of opening night: everybody was having the freshest reaction to something you already knew off by heart. Missy, once more, stuck out like a sore thumb- you could hear her laughing amidst the screams of terror from the audience, her cackles bleeding through the cries as she grinned at each bloody kill. She eagerly munched upon her popcorn, every moment designed for fright filling her with joy. You knew the movie was supposed to send a chill down your spine, but you couldn’t help but join Missy a few times when it came to her laughs. You both had seen much worse than corn syrup blood and fake bodies.

People began to flood out of the cinema once the final credits finished rolling. Spilled popcorn, abandoned rubbish, and a general sense of horror left within the room. You clasped your hands together in delight, sinking back into your chair and relishing the moment.

It was everything you had wanted it to be- all thanks to Missy.

“So… what did you think?”

Missy turned in her chair, your bucket of popcorn sitting tidily at the base of her feet.

“Let me guess- first one goes down a right treat, gets an ok sequel, and the next four movies are rather shitty until the soft reboot decades later patches things up?”

You found yourself bursting into laughter, drunk and dizzy on adrenaline. It was always the same when you left the cinema, feeling all wonderfully floaty and like you’d just left another world.

“Got it in one.”

“Oh, I'm not surprised. I am brilliant. And also the ‘totally best person in the history of the entire world ever’, as you called me once.” Missy teased, mocking your voice as she stood up from her chair.

You rolled your eyes, linking her arm as you set your sights upon heading back to the TARDIS.

“I was drunk, ok, point still stands, but I would have made it MUCH more eloquently. Plus, I was terrified. I needed to get it off my chest before possibly dying.”

“Face it deary, you live for this sort of thing. You morbid little minx.”

Passing the giant poster behind the glass, you couldn’t help but smile. You really did adore Halloween.

“So what? It’s nice to know at least some monsters in the universe are just masks.”

“Oh, they’re not masks at ALL! They’re all real, and headed your way right now!” Missy cried, curving her hands into claws as she began to creep behind you, reaching out to grasp your shoulders, eyes widened with madness.

“They’re coming to get you, Barbaraaaa…”

She began to yowl, tickling at your sides and making you squeal, giggles erupting out of you as you avoided her wandering hands. She chased you all the way back to the TARDIS, the pair of you instantly melting back into the sofa once you were home.

“We should do that again.” Missy suggested.

At those five words, you instantly fell further in love.

43 notes · View notes

twistednuns · 9 months

Text

December 2023

Advent tea.

A very well-designed poster in a wine store. A Christmas tree with red berries, nothing else. Gustav Mahler. A good therapy session providing clarity about the urgency of quitting my job. A guy with Ewan McGregor vibes guiding a handicapped/probably mentally disabled man: "This way, please!"

A long massage with lots of chest action. Even my jaw had a turn.

An evening at Rationaltheater with Raphael. Drinking for free. Getting to know new people.

Erotic voice messages.

I was super disappointed when Munich was snowed in and Christian couldn't leave his house to come to my concert. I felt a little lonely, I'd been looking forward to seeing him very much.

A very cozy Saturday, painting my nails while watching Christmas movies.

The choir concert was so much fun! My solo part wasn't perfect but it was okay. I eased into it and enjoyed the songs we sang together a lot. Afterwards I talked to Elke's husband about my business idea and he gave me someone's phone number. She is the organiser of Munich's foodsharing network and might have access to a lot of rooms in the city.

Waking up to pink stripes in the sky, almost like a frosty Aurora Borealis. The sun reflected on the walls of the houses, everything covered in a thick layer of snow. I loved the muffled acoustics caused by the thick layer of dry snow everywhere. I must admit, it was quite beautiful outside for a few days.

I finally found my orange beanie I hadn't seen in a while. Nice surprise: an earring I thought I'd lost was stuck to the hat!

Mushroom wraps for breakfast. Baking coconut cookies with dark chocolate. Using up all my veggies for brunch in bed with C.

Cameron Diaz and Jude Law's love story in The Holiday reminding me of my own.

An afternoon playing board games at Chili's with BaLu, Heinrich (who texted me afterwards), Robert and Luna. Helping Chili's son with his English homework.

Christian picked me up by surprise and we went to the cinema together! It was super cozy and we talked for a long time afterwards. I realized I have a hard time setting up emotional boundaries because I tend to take on people's problems and try to fix them even though they have nothing to do with me.

I framed my new Serifa poster while C. installed my router for me. I loved it so much that someone took this task off my plate even though I could have done it myself and I felt like a spoiled princess.

When C. said that he really liked my colour palette. My taste, what I'm wearing and combining.

Drying my bedsheets on the heater. So quick and warm.

A very calm and joyful day. Wild dreams with C. sleeping next to me. A shower while he worked. Cooking lunch. Spending some time together harmoniously. A nap. Connecting with friends in the dim light of the lava lamp. A walk to the wholefood store late in the evening with the crisp crunch of the icy snow under my steps. The first Christmas lights in the windows and gardens. I was the only customer in the store. Such a blessing for my nervous system. Alone time, one on one time, no crowds. I realize that this has been missing in my life over the last few weeks and months.

That freaky little moment when the three of us invented the dance move "smell all available armpits" at Joy of Connection.

When the kids gave me a chocolate Santa after I told them that the neighbours got a visit from St. Nick and I didn't. And when I taught Nino a few notes of the Flohwalzer.

A phone call with C. Listing random animals. Thinking about Janosch's blind mole. Talking about our insecurities.

Researching Napoleon's letters to Joséphine. November 21, 1796: I am going to bed with my heart full of your adorable image… I cannot wait to give you proofs of my ardent love… How happy I would be if I could assist you at your undressing, the little firm white breast, the adorable face, the hair tied up in a scarf a la creole. You know that I will never forget the little visits, you know, the little black forest… I kiss it a thousand times and wait impatiently for the moment I will be in it. To live within Josephine is to live in the Elysian fields. Kisses on your mouth, your eyes, your breast, everywhere, everywhere. I want to write a letter like this for C. and send it via snail mail.

Asking my friends for classical music playlists and boy, they delivered right away.

Manu showed up in choir practice again! And we sang Breathe, a song I love a lot.

Lucie's yoga class, like every week. It's really helpful for my body and mind, especially when I'm angry and on edge like these days. I feel so relaxed and calm after the movement and singing. We did partner exercises the other day. Nice touch!

Waking up early and energized, in the mood to meditate. It's been a while!

Lying in bed in underwear, blow drying myself. The warm air flow felt nice.

A nice outfit composition. Green pants and a black sweater with a pink shirt and socks underneath. Pink lips, gold and black accessories, my burnt orange beanie.

Attending the Kinky Insiders party with C. I met Lukas and Neil, watched many couples in fascination, was left alone in the dark room with the circular bed. An interesting experience.

Long psych talks upon waking up, not wanting to leave the bed. Beautiful oral edging. An unusually long and intense climax.

Robert and Yeli came over and we cuddled, went for a long walk through the forest (R. and I held hands and fell over in the snow face down), made delicious hot Christmas chocolate and Lebkuchen.

R. and C. installed my new Marshall speaker for me! It still feels wrong not to do it myself but I feel so cared for when I let somebody do a task like that for me. Oh, and lovely sound, too. Good choice.

Elegant nude manicure with tiny rhinestones.

A little Burner meetup at the Christmas market. I bought a very pretty ring that reminds me of the Bauhaus logo I have on my sleepy shirt.

Monday morning check-ins with my friends. I felt like socializing, initiating contact with people I don't hear from too often at the moment.

Binaural beats as white noise.

The 21 days meditation challenge I started with Christian and Yeli. I did it first thing in the morning and wished I'd had more time because it usually takes me around 20 minutes to even calm down my thoughts. Right afterwards I drew Osho cards, asking what could help me to be more in contact with myself. And they delivered: Comparison (shadow) and Creativity (light).

When I noticed the words Keep the fire burning at the top of a building I pass every day one morning.

Kiwi gold.

A 44:44min meditation and an hour-long massage on a bad day. Talking to C. on the phone. The feeling that he is showing up for me.

Active, or rather, subconscious problem-solving during meditation. And waking up realising that all the problems you'd been dreaming about that night aren't real.

Spending two nights at Christian's place. Simply postponing going home indefinitely. The long, intimate talk we had before I took the pregnancy test. The little tear she shed when he realized how much he trusts me. I was so nervous and incredulous when it was positive but he was there for me, talking it all through with me.

Throwing salty popcorn over hazelnut crunch ice-cream at movie night. When Charlie the cat came in and let me hold him for a while. Sleeping in fresh bedclothes. Meditating together in the early morning.

A little Christmas get-together at Heinrich's apartment: Grocery shopping with Luna. Coming up with a yogic animal pose challenge with David and including Frank and Chili. Ben in a good mood, talking about his crochet projects. Gentle contact dancing with Tafara. Making Heinrich chase after a little bell on a Santa hat.

One of the most beautiful moments of my life: hugging Christian in the dark living room after we'd both smoked a little weed. The connection I felt was so intense and my mind was flooded with beautiful feelings, thoughts and visuals. I was so grateful to be there, realizing what a coincidence it was that we'd met. Björk's Unison (a song I'd already reacted to strongly when he was DJing at a Joy of Connection event) was playing and in that instant it seemed like the beautiful piece of music playlists ever written. The lyrics seemed so poetic and spot-on. I reflected on the year 2023... What a wild ride. One hand loves the other, so much on me / Let's unite tonight, we shouldn't fight, embrace you tight, let's unite tonight / I thrive best, hermit style, with a beard and a pipe, and a parrot on each side; but now I can't do this without you / I never thought I would compromise

Opening a brand new box of oil pastels. Playing around with a few colours during my break to calm down. In the zone. Being pleased with the results. Not only me - some colleagues and students kept staring at my drawing, noticably intrigued.

Christian's birthday. Getting to know some of his friends. Playing with their cute children. My perfect presents. Bathing together. Cuddling with Charlie the cat the next morning, bare feet on frosted ground in the early sunlight.

The Vespertine album by Björk. So incredibly multi-layered. We have a recurring dream: Every time we lose our voices, we dream we swallow little lights. Our mother and sons bake for us during the night; they do a little trapeze walk until they're in the sky right above our heads. While we're asleep my mother and son pour into us warm glowing oil. Into our wide open throats. I have a recurring dream. They make me feel better.

A very cute baby so fascinated with me that it followed me with its gaze and even stretched to get a better view of me.

Weirdly enough: my OBGYN confirming my pregnancy. Observing the tiny blob on the ultrasound monitor together.

Heinrich providing me with mushroom and broccoli sandwiches for dinner when I picked up the bag I'd forgotten.

Unlocking a memory of the ice skating rink in Landshut. The sour candy worms from the vending machine. The smell and the completely destroyed floor, cut up by generations of ice skaters. The little dwarves and penguins they had to push around on the ice. My dad tying up the skates. The breaks during I've hockey matches.

Feeling very comfortable at Uli's second Naked Party. So many lovely friends and sexy people. Sneaking Ansgar in who had a great time. Painting Katharina's naked body (it turned out absolutely beautiful). The moments alone with Felix, Robert, Christian, Lukas, Mike. Dancing in the kitchen.

Watching A Street Cat Named Bob with my students. Explaining the plot to them. Agreeing over his adorableness.

A gorgeous illustration of a water surface at night, a woman half-submerged amongst the moon and a few stars. My new phone background.

All these talks I have with C. How intense everything is. Romantic. Inevitable. I've never met anyone who is able to talk about his emotions like that. I'm not afraid anymore. Bring on the next level.

The macarons at the choir Christmas party. And Manu was there.

Sharing sweet and savory breakfast. Cuddling up to C.'s new baby alpaca sweater. Doing the doctor's visit together. Holding hands and each other.

Some luxurious Muji treats. A frankincense and myrrh candle. Socks in mustard yellow and plum. An umeboshi onigiri.

Walking out of the noisy gym on the last day of school. And Susan kindly offering to take over my break shift. A smacking low five.

And then I was sick and sad for a few days, going through hormonal change, depression and a stomach bug. C. tried his best to cheer me up but nothing would do. My plans to spend Christmas Eve with Manu and his family were cancelled. When C. arrived late that night I couldn't help but cry about it all. So why is this in the Things I Love list? I guess because it got better. I started laughing again. Feeling hungry. And watching You've Got Mail together helped a great deal, too.

Christmas chocolate porridge with crunchy peanut butter and fresh fruit.

Falling into each other. Spending too much time in bed. Making vision boards for 2024. Decorating a doll house. Playing a computer game together. Eating pancake soup at a village restaurant. Watching a Björk concert in the living room. A tour of the estate, chasing the kittens, a surprise bunker. Meditating together. The sunrise behind the forest in the distance. Being alone together. Writing little notes for each other. Making plans. Seemingly never running out of stories to tell. The big jar of juice he made for me in the morning.

On hosting guests: My favorite guests are the people who are excited, and I always try to remember that when I’m a guest. I love when I say, ‘Would you like wine or beer at dinner?’ and they’re like, ‘Ooh can we have both? Can we start with wine and then have beer?’ I appreciate people who are into being hosted and enjoy all the special stuff. ‘Do you guys eat ice cream?’ ‘WE LOVE ICE CREAM!!!!!!’ - Catherine Newman

Spending quiet days at home. Cooking and baking. Creative projects. Cleaning. Organising. Reflecting. Reaching out to people.

The Dragon is about change.

A new laundry detergent. Smells divine. And speaking of smell: getting some Byredo and Escentric Molecules sample sizes. I'm on a mission to find my new scent.

Ben said that I'm basically glowing each time he sees me and that my style is impeccable. Lovely compliment.

Loud karaoke in multiple harmonies with Fin, Mephy and BaLu.

A sharing moment with Fin who told me about her difficult health journey and the issues she's dealing with. I've felt a lovely connection with her and will reach out, offering my support and friendship.

Inspired by the Osho Zen card Compromise I started sketching a diptych of the two hands connected by their little fingers. In the morning of the last day of the year I felt inspired to make a painting with oil pastels and it turned out pretty wonderful. I love it when I'm unexpectedly satisfied with a creation of mine.

New Year's Eve at Filzhof. Getting to know some of Christian's best friends. Raclette and board games. Sparklers and a bonfire. Singing mantras together.

#personal #present perfect #things i love #2023 #December #December 2023

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lesghosts · 2 years

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Films watched in 2022:

↳ If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) dir. Barry Jenkins

“Don't be scared. Just remember that I belong to you. Just remember that I wouldn't hurt you for anything in this world. You're just going to have to get used to me. And we got all the time in the world. Hold on to me.”

#If Beale Street Could Talk #filmedit #filmgifs #dailyflicks #fyeahmovies #moviegifs #cinematv #barry jenkins #gifs #this movie invented love colours and everything else #watching it was truly an experience #KiKi Layne #Stephan James #mine #films #films22

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backslashdelta · 2 years

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Going to make a compilation of a few "about me"-style tag game chains in one post so I'm not reblogging really long posts!! Everything under the cut :)

@simplysebastian tagged me in:

If you get this, answer with 3 random facts about yourself and send it to the last 7 blogs in your notifications, anonymously or not! Let's get to know the person behind the blog! 1. I used to be a swim instructor and lifeguard 2. I'm an only child 3. I was in band in school and played clarinet from grades 5 through 11

@justgleekout tagged me in

Favourite time of the year: Probably autumn! Comfort food: Oh my god literally anything? Lol no I guess it's probably either pizza or ice cream? But also anything I enjoy can be a comfort food imo Do you collect something: Polyhedral dice! I have... a lot lol Favourite drink: Cream soda Current favourite song: Hmmm this is a tricky one. I wouldn't say I have one all time favourite song, but lately I've been particularly enjoying Rollercoaster by Bleachers Favourite colour(s): All of them, but if I absolutely had to choose one it would probably be purple (I know, you're all shocked) Last song: Rollercoaster by Bleachers, only because I had to go into my music to pick a favourite song lol Last series: UmmmI just finished watching the Netflix limited series Inventing Anna yesterday! Last movie: Operation Varsity Blues, which is a documentary about the US college admissions scandal. Sweet, savoury, sour: Probably savoury, but really I appreciate all of them. Craving: I would very much like some butter chicken from my favourite Indian restaurant. That's pretty much always what I'm craving tbh Currently working on: Answering all these questions!! Lol. For fandom stuff, I have a WIP that I'm slowly making progress on, and a few gifsets that I'm waiting to post and may made a few adjustments to first. Outside of fandom, I have a cosplay I need to start planning and working on.

@thnxforknowingme tagged me in:

Relationship status: Single Favourite colour: As above, purple is you make me choose, but really I love all the colours Favourite food: Hmmm maybe donairs? I wouldn't swear to it though Song stuck in your head: None at the moment actually! Last thing you googled: "mirrorball lyrics" lol Time: 9:33pm Dream trip: Ummm Hawaii maybe? I don't feel super strongly about travelling somewhere in particular though tbh, I'm not big on travelling so if I could just go somewhere that I can be comfy and relax and do a lot of swimming, I'd be happy. Scuba diving would be fun too. Last book you read: God I don't even remember, I literally never read books I only read fanfic. Last long fic I finished was Make Me Happy by iaminarage and I really enjoyed it! Last book you enjoyed reading: As above Last book you hated reading: Like I said I don't read books, and I don't really want to say any fics that I didn't like sooo I guess I don't have an answer haha Favourite thing to cook/bake: I don't like cooking or baking lol but I guess lately it's peanut butter cookies Favourite craft to do in your free time: Sewing! Most niche dislikes: Strawberries Opinion on circuses, now and in history: It's not something I really think about. For a long time I thought of circuses as just like... travelling amusement parks, kind of? Apparently that's not the case though lol. Definitely more complicated things going on with actual circuses. Do you have a sense of direction, and if not what is the worst way you’ve gotten lost: I do not but I've never really gotten lost super badly because of it thankfully. Shout out to google maps on my phone for telling me where to go <3

Thank you to everyone who tagged me! I'm not going to tag anyone else because there are a lot of things here, and I'm late so everyone has probably done them already lol

#mine #personal #about me #tagged #tag game #simplysebastian #justgleekout #thnxforknowingme

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sanstropfremir · 3 years

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episode 9 baby!!! dear lord that was a lot!!

frankly, i'm still in shock that i full on manifested an opera stage, AND it was a rock opera stage at that! plus i got a jazz stage AND a taemin stage??? if they’re pulling out all my favourites now then what on earth are they gonna do in the finale??? this was a very overwhelming crop of stages, i thought i was going to be prepared, but oh no i was not prepared. i'm just going to get right into it because this one is gonna be long and i have many words. i'll discuss in airing order first, and then put my personal rankings for this round at the end.

btob

costume

changsub, you absolute king. spectacular. stunning. incredible. zoot suit riot playing in my brain on repeat. will i finally get the zoot suit revival of my fucking dreams instead of this current drab ill-fitting suit trend? for those who are wondering why in the fuck changsub is dressed like that and what on earth i’m talking about, the specific cut of suit that he’s wearing is called a zoot suit, which were popular in mexican, black and italian american communities in the 30s and 40s, until they were outlawed by the united states war production board as a fabric rationing method as part of the war effort in 1942. there was a huge amount of mob violence surrrounding the wearing of them (there were actual zoot suit riots) as they were direct counter culture fashion to the predominant drab trends of white americans at the time. i'm actually very impressed they got a proper (modernized) cut of zoot suit instead of just putting him in an oversized one; there are actually specific structural differences. the pegged trouser legs, large should pads, and knee length single breasted jacket are key features, and they were often in much more flashy fabrics than a pinstripe, but they get points for effort. i wish they had put all of them in zoot suits but he’s playing the ‘lead’ actor so i will begrudgingly forgive them.

eunkwang those are the stupidest sleeve garters ive ever seen i love them never take them off. they’re like someone decided to repurpose a suspender in the worst way. excellent. i do love that they’ve got three of them in oxford saddle shoes, another great touch.

love the three piece and the fedora* on peniel. it's also in a relatively close period cut; waistcoasts (vests) were generally cut much higher in the neck pre-war, we only start seeing the neckline slide down in the 60s (i think? i don’t remember when exactly). also love to see a proper sleeve and jacket length, it's good practice to have at least a finger’s width of sleeve cuff visible ahead of the jacket sleeve when hanging at rest. also looks like there’s french cuffs on everyone, which is also great.

minhyuk in his slutty lowneck shirt....thank you. in addition to the zoot suit revival i would also like a revival of those ultra low necklines on mens’ shirts from like 2010-2011. i don’t think those are the same boots from the backdoor stage but those are some beautifully cut boots. i also loved the little details of his crewmember look, especially the chunky watch and the string bracelets; those are super realistic, i know so many crew with them and i had several for many years. and who doesn’t love a visible button fly?

none of any of the other costumes are period in any way shape or form but i’m forgiving it because there’s several layers of meta in this stage, and they explicitly based it on la la land, even though we don’t respect la la land in this house. do i wish they had gone more strictly period with at least the jazz club ‘actors’ a little more? absolutely, but i'm not mad about it.

set

again we’ve got a good delineation of the two different ‘stages,’ there’s the club itself in the smaller stage and the soundstage set in the larger space. you can pretty clearly see all the ‘pieces’ of the set on the soundstage, especially the obvious set painting techniques on false prosc frame and the window facade from that first little scene. also the you can see the castors (wheels) on all the setpieces too, which is another nice little versimilitudinous** (triple word score!) touch, as old hollywood movies were made still using theatre stagecraft techniques.

i love how the visual shorthand for ‘this is a set wink wonk’ is just...leaving a ladder on stage. i see it all the time and it's so funny. it doesn’t always make sense because as soon as there’s actors on set the ladders are the first thing cleared because actors cannot be trusted, but yes there are always ladders, so. also psa ladder safety is no joke, please be careful on ladders.

nice streamline of the mnet deco into the club. i’m consistently surprised at how well the designers have been able to mask it or use it to their advantage, because in the normal kingdom stage lighting it is SO obvious and stylistic that it always sticks out.

i'm going to ignore the fact that they implied changsub and miyeon were drinking wine out of martini glasses.

lighting

no complaints, it does its job. everything is visible and super clear. love that the ‘scene’ changes are made through the lighting, it's a really simple and effective device to change atmosphere. purple/blue/amber are the most flattering colours on human skin and that’s why you see it so commonly in stage lighting. also blue/lavendar is the best way to show nighttime/moonlight.

really nice and subtle projection work, especially with the billboard bit and the blue moon sign in the club. despite being obviously meta/’world breaking’ it’s actually very seamless and fits well into the flow of the stage.

sound

i love love love the big band feel in the intro, combined with the piano lead. very duke ellington, as all things should be.

no complaints. i love big band. i love eunkwang’s voice. i have nothing else to say.

staging

i LOVE this movie within a movie within a performance meta nonsense! it's such a fun concept and it is exactly what i wanted ikon’s first round stage to be! i also love to see btob consistently coming up with concepts that are inventive and fun and allow them to showcase their technical performance skills without the aerobics the younger groups are putting themselves through. it provides a really lovely variety and it just goes to show that you can make impressive, dramatic stages without having to be serious or ‘dark.’

i do wish they had leaned into the band director/lead singer with eunkwang a bit more; this could have been a really excellent place for a tap number a la the nicholas brothers or an homage to cab calloway. i know i know this was meant to be la la land themed but la la land is a cheap and whitewashed version of jazz and look me right in the eyes and tell me this isn’t the greatest tap routine of all time. i know i’ve typed this out somewhere before but la la land is just a conglomeration of old hollywood tropes and so stylistically cheap that this would have such a better visual core if they had actually looked back at the real old hollywood musicals like stormy weather. even singing in the rain and an american in paris have such phenomenal visuals and are really beautiful examples of the scope you can pull off with a limited technical capacity and sticking to these old techniques.

now that i'm thinking about it, oh my GOD i would DIE for a lindy hop routine in kpop PLEASE. i know it would never happen because kpop doesn’t like partner dancing and not a single kpop boy has the chops but oh you think fourth gen has too many acrobatics?

this got off track but i think you see my point.

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ateez

costume

these are really sharply cut suits. and the detail work on the beading??? so beautiful. i'm disappointed that they gave me a rock opera stage without the true ridiculousness of rock opera costuming, because they could have pushed this a lot farther if they really wanted. a tragic lack of gay little outfits, seonghwa’s lace choker is just not enough! two favourite suits: hongjoong’s and yunho’s.

that being said i do actually really like these. this stage is actually very modern opera with a kpop twist and i'm a little surprised by that? i continue to be impressed by the ateez team who are clearly doing their research.

i'm absolutely not going back through their stages to check all the choreography but i wonder if you can track all the ‘wound’ placements to places they’ve been ‘hit.’ i wouldn’t put it past them to have put that thought in but also i’m not expecting that much either.

who is this white grim reaper bdsm executioner chain arm man. where did he come from. i have no idea and i love it.

why is honjoong blindfolded. it was such a fast beat, if youre gonna blindfold someone give it a little longer and some more obvious narrative weight!

seonghwa does that quickchange, runs across that massive stage to the smaller set, and gets into places in like 45 seconds. it's not the hardest quickchange in the world but still, under a minute is fast for any quickchange, especially when there’s travel time involved. i think the fastest, most complex quickchange i ever did was in university which was a 50s cocktail dress into a flannel and culottes with a shoe, hair, and jewelry change in 35 seconds. and that took three dressers. quickchanges are always impressive. the added bonus of this review being later is that i can specifically reference that you can see him book it the fuck off stage in the full cam!

cute moment with the backup dancers dressed in costumes from the previous stages. i'm assuming this is a time travel reference? i'll get more into my thoughts on this in the staging section. regardless, love to see that iconic seonghwa moment again.

set

this is such a restricted space! they really pared down their dancing space with those staircases and ....arms? honestly i have NO clue what these are supposed to be. the only thing i can maybe think of is flying buttresses??? but why?? i mean, i'm 90% sure theyre just there for drama and i agree but i do still have questions.

there’s a lot of moving parts in this set? the buttresses, and the upstage centre staircase. i don’t think the staircase is totally automated because i spotted some dancers securing it in place, but it’s still a moving part. i do really like that we get that expanding upwards energy, because it's really tough to get functional level movement in this kind of a performance, mostly because of its length and because it moves so quickly. so seeing the downward vertical movement and then the upward movement was actually a really nice visual contrast that made use of how tall those fucking ceilings are, and the fact that they had less horizontal space. in sort of similar way to sf9’s jealousy stage, using long, narrow vertical lines really makes it feel like a castle space. the interiors of castles, especially the really old ones, are a lot smaller than you think they would be.

i’ve actually seen that type of small house/tent/thing several times in various types of performances before, but i think this is the first time i’ve seen it used as a time travel device (other than in the say my name mv). aesthetically it's a bit incongruent but i dont really mind because i'm used to watching rock operas that look a lot weirder than this.

lighting

there is so much happening. i have NO clue what the projections are doing. i dont hate it though, so that’s a plus? there’s a clear-ish colour arc even if it does get a bit funky in the middle, which is why the projections dont feel as insanely distracting as some of the other stages we’ve seen.

the climax is a perfect example of how to light a busy stage with primarily red but still maintain clarity on the performers. a little bit of red goes a long way; the spark stage from last week would have looked so much better if they had done what the ateez designers did here.

sound

i know it's only ode to joy, but answer already gets my motor running and then i get so gassed by the guitars and then by the time those vocals come in i'm inconsolable. i don’t know why i wasn’t expecting a rock opera stage but i'm so glad i got that surprise because i genuinely love rock operas so much. it's two of the most dramatic genres in music, what more could you possibly want?

staging

the choreo for answer is so goofy that I'm kinda glad this was mostly terrible mnet boom shots. i love it, but you can't deny that it's goofy. i spotted a couple of moves from their other choreos as well?

choreographing dance fights is just as difficult as choreographing real fights and i think they did a fairly good job here. i think it was a solid mix of dance and conflict that erred on the side of dramatic rather than accurate and i prefer that over trying to be ‘realistic.’ i’ve only ever seen one truly realistic fight scene on stage and that was for a deeply naturalist play (boring and a waste of the medium), but the best fight scene i’ve ever seen was in the prague national ballet’s adaptation of kafka’s the trial where three ballet dancers beat the absolute snot out of the main character with the most beautiful leg extensions. that whole show was probably one of the best pieces of dance i’ve ever seen, holy fuck it was so good.

despite how insane the music and the visuals were going, i actually really liked how sedate this was, on the part of ateez’s performance. there was a really sophisticated and resigned energy from them that is very different from what we’ve previously seen and i think that was a pretty admirable risk to take. reaching the top and then throwing away the crown? especially in a competition where every other stage has involved stealing crowns or royalty and there’s a group competing that got here through that very concept? that shows a real maturity, peace of mind, and foresight that i did not at all expect from a bunch of 22 year olds.

here we come to a very interesting comparison. both ateez and tbz are very heavily leaning on previously established group lore. we all know my thoughts on why it isn’t working for tbz, but here’s why i think it is working for ateez: it's because it doesn’t matter to the audience’s understanding of the stage. i had absolutely no fucking clue what was going on the first time i watched this, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the music and all the weird shit they were doing. i totally believed that they understood what was going on. there’s a loose enough established conflict right at the beginning that draws us in, and really it doesn’t matter who they're fighting because they win in the end. the key here is that they’re so earnest. they believe 100% in every move they make on that stage. there’s no winks to camera, there’s not a drop of irony. they really deeply care about the ridiculousness of it all and that’s what makes it work. i sure as fuck dont know what’s going on, but i can see that they do, and i trust that. this is what i meant when i talked about convincing the audience you belong on stage in my stage presence post. i’ve never once believed that juyeon was anything other than an idol. he’s talented and very beautiful and he may occasionally stand on that stage like he owns it but it's always as juyeon. as an idol. but when hongjoong flaps around in that gigantic fur coat i 100% believe he’s a pirate captain. I believe he’s a punk rebel leader. i believe him a resigned king. there’s always a level of irony you have to fight as a performer because we all start from a place of disbelief. acting is not just lying to the audience, it's lying to yourself too. and if you succeed in convincing yourself? well, you’re already halfway to convincing us.

i checked it out because i wanted to see if they did the blindfold how i expected them to and was genuinely surprised by hongjoong’s fancam. the boy is EMOTING even when he knew the camera wasn’t on him; that’s a real dedication to craft.

ok i'm finished talking about this stage, this is over two pages in my document, there’s so many things i have not covered here but that’s fine, i'm quite sure any further thoughts will end up out there at some point.

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sf9

costume

let’s get it out of the way......crop top. crop top? crop top. crop top.

ok, besides the crop top, i think i might actually like the backup dancer outfits more...? i find mannequin adjacent looks really fascinating and i thought there was a lot more they could have done here in connecting the two thematically. i actually think a change of costume on the boys would have been very interesting, especially because there was a lot of inference and direct reference to changes of colour.

ALL the backup dancers are wearing the same wig and i LOVE that.

special mention zuho’s.....jacket? the right idea but it absolutely should have been one of those extreme french cut bodysuits, you COWARDS. don’t come at me with this ‘male version of venus’ if you don’t have your whole torso out! come on!

set

not sure if this is meant to be a department store, a factory, or a white cube gallery. honestly you could make the case that they’re all the same place anyways. more on this later.

i loved the movator and wish they had used it more! that sequence was so good and they could have done some more interesting repetition sequences to further highlight the ‘sameness’/the breaking of that sameness.

i feel like the set could have been used more as a whole? i would have loved to see some mannequin interactions with those boxes, because all they did was dump colour everywhere.

....why did they feel the need to include the rain bit? i know it's likely because it's in the mv and at the 2018 dream concert taemin does perform move in the rain, but with the standing still and the box walls with the words it just looks like a department store ad. which i...dont think is what they were intending?

lighting

nothing really to say here. it has a similar feel to the mayfly rap stage, which is fine because the lighting for that was good. i could tell what was going on all the time and that’s the most important part. notable standouts are the lips sequence, that's fun use of pop iconography and very effective, and the scanning lasers at the beginning.

the repeating sequence in the edm dance break is actually done pretty simply, it's just what happens when you point a camera that’s livestreaming to a monitor directly at that monitor. it's a very cool effect and it was neat to see it used intentionally, especially with the handheld leds.

actually i also really liked the lightbox tables, those were cool.

sound

the remix was fine for the most part, it was about what i expected it to sound like. i did however greatly dislike that unnecessary edm break in the middle. what was the point of that? it didn’t add anything to the overall sound or arc of the stage because it was SO out of place. there was no connective tissue around it.

oh i was also not a fan of the effect on zuho’s mic. no one else had a discernible vocal effect so it felt a little out of place. also for some reason his cadence and tone right at the end made me think of some of the voices that bo burnam uses for his vocal masque sketches/songs, especially repeat stuff, weirdly? took me right the fuck out of it. i listened to it again after i slept and i’m still getting it, so maybe i’m just going insane so best ignore this part.

staging

loved the mannequin tree, not a clue why it was there.

do actually think this is a successful cover because it does what i was hoping it would, which is take move completely out of the taemin context and put it into an entirely new one. however, i’m really struggling to figure out what exactly that new context is? and what theyre trying to say with it?

obviously they went for a ‘show your own colours/individuality’ vibe, like i said in the set section, where exactly is this supposed to be? from the start i get factory/mechanized environment, which is fine and grand because mannequins and making repetitive motions and products and all that, makes sense. but then there’s stacked shelving type units happening and curtains and that combined with the mannequins give me pretty big department store vibes, which is also fine, because that’s still a comment on commercialization and the mass production of product. but then we get to the movator and the repetitive movements of the dancers say pretty clearly factory, but the lighting and projections are very pop art referential, plus combining that with the white set, just makes me think of an art gallery. so now is this a comment on the commercialization and commidification of contemporary art? are they making a statement about being ‘real’ artists among the others who have lost the critical understanding of why pop art was even a thing in the first place? and then the rain bit at the end literally looks like a department store ad, so are they then making another statement that they still are that packaged product? maybe the episode has more clarity in it but i’m genuinely a bit baffled by what the underlying statement is here.

i suspect it is not as deep as i'm making it, but i did say that i was likely to be hyper critical of this stage AND i am a grad student, so here we are.

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tbz

costume

ok of all the ‘fourth gen’ style costumes we’ve seen, i actually like these ones more than most. i'm not entirely clear on the theme but i'm assuming it's meant to be post apocalyptic, and i'll take that.

backup dancers in black!!! we’re beyond this!!!

this will be a running theme with this stage, but i’m disappointed these don’t have more depth.

set

compared to every other stage, the set here seems especially plain. there’s so little set dec that it's disappointing. i do like the movement of the pieces themselves combined with the blocking; that first slide underneath the arches was slick and i would have liked to have seen more of that.

yea ok the big snake was cool and also a fairly complex build, but the transitions around it were a bit awkward for my tastes. especially the turn around, why did they even show that at all? you have control over what the audience sees, you can totally not show scenic transitions. skz were super smart about hiding theirs in last week’s episode.

also if you have a bigass puppet like that, i wanna see some more movement from it! it doesn’t have to be complex, we literally just saw a kraken balloon arm wave around aimlessly, but at least there was movement! that snake had a long ass body, why didn’t they at least take a pseudo dragon dance movement with it, that would have been such fun to watch with the iridescent scales. there was a lot of opportunity here!

lighting

i don’t hate it but also.... not a lot to say about it on the whole.

there were two really smart ideas here, the first being the front projection section, which i was SO glad to see! i explained in a previous review, but the projections in kingdom are not actually projections per se, because they’re actually massive led screens. there are two common types of projections in performance, rear projection and front projection. rear projection is when the projector is behind the screen, and front projection is ‘normal’ projection. rear projection can produce a crisper image because you have full control of the light values, because the projector is in a separate room from the performance space. but the downsides are that the projector has to be in a separate room from the performance space. so if you’re short on real estate, it's not ideal. front projection is much more common, because the tech is a lot cheaper and easier to access, especially now, and it requires less real estate because you can ceiling mount about the audience (you can move a projector wherever, this is just the most common spot in commercial theatres). but! in order to get an actually crisp image, you have to be really careful with your light bounce. it’s exactly the same principle as how you kinda can't see a projected screen when you have all the lights turned on, but when you turn them off it's a lot clearer. front projection works best in pitch dark, so when you use it in a theatre you gotta be smart about it. i use front projection a lot in my personal art practice as a singular light source, and that’s what tbz did here in that traveling/snake intro sequence. it’s a really fun technique that they used as a good gimmick because it’s not something we’ve seen before, and you get some great shadow effects because the projector is throwing light directionally at the performers (they have it set up close to the floor, it’s probably on a wheeled cart of some kind). however i did not like the snake intro. a bit too cheesy and out of place, especially because the asset quality didn’t match the rest of landscapes that we have been seeing.

the second smart idea, which is partially also a set and blocking thing but whatever, was that final image of the eclipse within the circle architecture with all the members standing in front of it. it was a great shot and a great ending pose, but it felt like a concept photo. like someone had that image as the idea that they then built the stage around, instead of a narrative first and then imagery after.

sound

this remix had SO much promise! those first two minutes were SO GOOD. i love that dirty discordant strings bit, it's gross and right up my alley. but it really fell off in the back half and i'm sad about that.

staging

i'm sorry tbz but.....what did you actually do differently than exo here? with the exception of the continual game of thrones references? nothing here felt transcendentally different from the original monster. and especially coming RIGHT after sf9’s move, which did go beyond its original context. this feels more like an awards show stage cover than a stage at the level of the others we’ve seen just this episode.

again like with the skz stage, there’s no conflict here. no tension. yes they do a great job covering the dance but it just isn’t enough! this is obviously personal preference and i'm sure lots of people liked the fact that it was uncomplicated, but even just a hint of narrative tension could have pushed this into more engaging territory. and if they didn’t want to do that, i would have loved to see them make up for that with extra visual spectacle. this is the no limits round! ikon is putting a full jungle on stage and these are grey cubes!

i think this is a perfect example of what i talked about at the end of my tbz section in my episode four review; this is a good performance, there are good elements at play and good ideas at their genesis, but the core of the issue is that nothing about this is transformative. all of the ideas here are just exaggerations of the original song. fuck, the snake was even IN the mv! and they didn’t even include the best part which is the lip chains! ive said before and i'll say it again; being a good artist has two steps, the first is understanding the material and its context, and the second is elevating the material from that context and synthesizing something new. tbz are really good at the first step, but terrible at the second.

---

ranking

btob - the cleanest and the most fun of the round. everything i wanted.

sf9 - fun and a good cover, despite being conceptually baffling.

ateez - very extra dramatic nonsense with an unexpected dose of sincerity. and it’s rock opera, of course i love it.

skz - fun, with some good thematic devices but generally lacking in arc. also australian accents, that’s an automatic ding.

tbz - honestly the first two minutes of the remix and the costume are holding this above 6th. it just wasn’t fully formed.

ikon - aesthetically this is a great set design and although i do love the opening and closing moments, everything else scrapes me the wrong way. super personal preference here, i’m not expecting anyone else to agree with me.

i feel like my rankings were probably pretty easy to guess if you’ve been around reading the reviews for long enough. i do have very specific tastes after all. i know sf9 ranked first in the episode but i have no idea what the other slots are. i’ll find out when i watch the episode in a couple of days, but i think yea a first for sf9 is fair. i do think its mostly because it’s a taemin song and you have to do something horrendous in order to fuck up a taemin song, but there is a lot of thought and work that went into that stage.

ok i'm done now, sorry this was later than usual, but i was busier and there were four stages that i had to review. also technical difficulties because tumblr is a garbage platform and nothing works properly. comments/questions/opinions always welcome, i know i didn't expand on a couple of points that i could have so hopefully y'all have some thoughts too!

* the type of hat that ~society~ has told you is a fedora is actually a trilby. what peniel is wearing is a real fedora, i felt the need to correct this unjust hat malignment.

** meaning ‘the appearance of being true or real.’ you do sometimes hear it used by normal people, but it’s more commonly used as a descriptor in film and theatre. it’s also one of the five rules of neoclassical theatre, which are: versimilitude, purity of form, five act structure, decorum, and purpose. the most prominent playwrights from that era are moliere and racine if youre interested in what those look like in an actual text.

#kingdom #kingdom review #btob #ateez #stray kids #the boyz #sf9 #tumblr is so broken it would NOT let me save this as a draft #does my constant hyperlinking make you angry tumblr? too bad im gonna keep doing it #i played in a jazz band in school for seven years #which is another indicator as to why i am like this #one of the first songs i remember learning was zoot suit riot #i have very strong memories of yelling RIOT during performances #i will however forever question the logic of our band teacher making us learn a song written by 'the cherry poppin daddies'#christ on a bicycle this is TEN pages #and it took a full eight hours last night and then i did like two hours of editing after i woke up #maybe i should go back to bed #ah i forgot to tag ikon again lmao #ikon #kpop analysis #text #if there are any spelling errrors do not tell me im tired of reading this #im pretty sure this is my longest review so far i decided to hate myself and did a wordcount #its 5.2K you're welcome you better get a snack for this one #i hope this is an interesting read for people ive lost all objectivity at this point #pls enjoy my semi-comprehensible word vomit!

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penguinwithitsarseonfire · 4 years

Text

This Night is Sparkling, Don't You Let it Go

Pairing: Eleventh Doctor x Reader

Word Count: 3,535

Warnings: Mentions of the Hiroshima atomic bombing

Summary: During a snow storm (at sea!), and, in an attempt to assuage the Doctor in a moment of boredom, you teach him how to fold an origami crane. Clara, meanwhile, plans a movie night.

A/N: Some important context - Reader is aware of and refers to the story of Sadako Sasaki and, because of this, reader also knows how to fold a paper crane.

It was snowing. At sea.

Your hands were curled around the railing of the ship, and you were standing on your tip toes, leaning forward and looking towards the sky in wonder. The Doctor pondered on whether you had ever actually seen snow at sea before, if you had ever consciously thought of it as a thing that happened. So many humans, he had found, had never realised it snowed at sea, which was strange to him.

Of course it snows at sea, he’d once told Albert Einstein, wearing a different face in a different life, the weather doesn’t just stop because there’s no land.

He thought about this, so he wouldn’t think of other things.

Like the way your eyes sparkled against the star light – there were so many stars here, and it had been far too long since the Doctor had seen Earth’s night sky without light pollution. Your eyes were bright, in that special way that was just so distinctly you. You held so much appreciation, so much joy, in everything the Doctor showed you, and it seemed to radiate off of you.

Hence how you were now, swaying with the ship and looking at the surrounding area with so much awe.

“This is magical,” you said softly, and the Doctor wasn’t sure if he was supposed to have heard it. He was sure that if he was human, he wouldn’t have.

He had to agree though, ‘magical’ certainly was the word for it.

The snow fell, painted into your hair, dusted across the bridge of your nose, and settled against your jacket. He wanted to reach out his hand and brush it off of you, swipe his thumb across your cheek and rest his palm against your jaw.

He turned away from you, swallowing harshly. These were the kind of thoughts he wasn’t supposed to be having.

You were human. Impossibly young, especially compared to him.

And yet…

The Doctor drummed his fingers against the railing, staring out at the view. From this angle, he couldn’t see anything else except the snow, dancing against the inky black sea.

He had known this would be something you would enjoy, which was part of the reason why he had decided to land on this ship. Monitoring the convoy was just an afterthought compared to the delight you now had over snow at sea.

It was harmless, wasn’t it? To do things that made you happy. He wanted everyone he cared for to be happy, not just you. Why, just last week (well, comparatively, since time was a relative construct to him), he had devoted an entire itinerary to things Clara wanted to do.

It had ended with her trying to fight Sigmund Freud, physically fight him – like some sort of rabid beast, and the Doctor had elected to maybe reviewing her itineraries beforehand for now on. At least to make sure they were less violent.

He couldn’t explain the why’s or the how’s, but, with you though, it felt different.

Well, he could most certainly explain it, but to do so would mean to think about it, and he couldn’t think about it.

He tapped his foot against the metal tiling. If he only had something to do, beyond watching and waiting, and waiting and watching, he wouldn’t even have to entertain these thoughts.

No, it would have been far better if he were busy, then he wouldn’t be thinking any of these things at all.

God he was bored.

Behind him, the Doctor heard the door to bridge swung open. He leaned the left side of his body into the rail, so he could half turn around and see who had just come out.

Clara, brilliant, wonderful Clara, popped her head out through the open doorway. She eyed the two of you, giving the Doctor a questioning look. He shook his hand subtly, in a ‘don’t ask’ gesture, and in response Clara pursed her lips.

“Oi, you two,” she said, and in the corner of his eye, the Doctor saw you jump and turn around.

“Bit of warning next time, could you?” You breathed out, and you rubbed a hand against your chest, the place where you heart was.

“Well, I don’t mean to go all nanny on you,” Clara continued, ignoring you. “But you’re both going to catch a cold if you stand out there any longer.”

“Nah not me,” The Doctor said, leaning against the rail nonchalantly. If his elbow lightly brushed against your arm, it wasn’t of any consequence. “I’m a Time Lord, a little bit of snow is nothing.”

“I don’t care,” Clara said. “Inside. Both of you. Now.”

You turned to face the Doctor, quirking your lips up slightly as you shrugged. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I for one am not bold enough to argue with Clara.”

“And that’s why you’re smarter than he is,” Clara replied, nodding towards the Doctor when she called him out.

You laughed lightly, brushing some of the snow out of your hair and off of your shoulders as you walked towards the doorway. You had gone ahead of the Doctor, and were well inside the bridge by the time the Doctor reached Clara, grumbling the entire way.

Clara pulled him aside as he entered. “You need to tell Y/N,” she said tersely.

The Doctor waved a hand at her, and brushed some of the snow off of his pants. “There’s nothing to tell.”

Clara snorted, pulling the door closed. “Uh huh, yeah, sure. And those googly eyes you make are ‘nothing’ too.”

“Exactly.”

Clara rolled her eyes. “You’re impossible, you know that, right?”

The Doctor paused, eyeing Clara curiously. “Hm.”

Out of the two of them, the Doctor wouldn’t consider himself to be the impossible one here.

Clara raised an eyebrow at him. “What?”

“You know,” The Doctor said, streamlining around that particular thought. “f I had a penny for every time someone had told me that, I could afford a ticket to see Hamilton.”

“What’s Hamilton?”

“Before your time, Oswald,” The Doctor strode past her. “Give it a couple of years, you’ll find it hilarious.”

The Doctor and Clara reached the mess hall, where you were sitting at a table with Captain Carter, the one in charge of this whole mission. There was a collection of different small square pieces of paper scattered across the table between the two of you.

“How long until we reach the base?” The Doctor asked, sauntering in as if he owned the place. It was important to behave with confidence, after all.

Captain Carter raised a subtle eyebrow, either not believing his act (which wasn’t an act, not really. It was more of an exaggerated performance), or just wasn’t impressed by it. “Another day, at the earliest. However, with all this snow it might be two.”

The Doctor slumped into the seat beside you, and Clara went over to the kitchen. “Is there anything pressing to do then?” She asked. “Because I was thinking of doing a movie night, otherwise.”

Captain Carter pondered this for a moment. “I think a movie night would be a good idea,” they said. “Help entertain the crew.”

“Ah yes, this ship is sorely lacking entertainment,” The Doctor rubbed his fingers against his temple. “I can’t remember the last time I was this bored.”

Captain Carter scoffed, and ran their hand through their cropped hair. “Well, Doctor,” they said, standing from the table. “I’ll be sure to find something entertaining for you.” They stalked off, motioning for Clara to follow.

The Doctor almost gawked, he hadn’t meant for that to happen.

Maybe they would actually organise a movie night, though.

Clara eyed him for a moment, mouthing ‘be nice’ to him. The Doctor screwed up his face and she rolled her eyes at him, following Captain Carter out, but not before she added ‘tell Y/N’.

The Doctor huffed and turned back around. He didn’t know what Clara was talking about.

You picked up a sheet of paper, focusing on it instead of him. God, he wanted you to look at him. “You offended them,” you said, almost offhandedly.

The Doctor slumped into his seat further, and tried to convince himself that he wasn’t moping. “I didn’t mean to.”

You gave him an amused smirk, those brilliant eyes twinkling in mirth. “You’re pouting.”

“I am not.”

The smirk grew into a grin, and he couldn’t help but smile back. “Are too.”

The Doctor leaned his elbow against the table, and rested his head against his closed fist. “Maybe I am, but only a little bit,” with his other hand he gestured to the paper. “What’re you doing here?”

“Thought I’d make a couple of paper cranes,” you replied, and then, hesitantly, added. “I could show you, if you’d like?”

The Doctor knew how to fold a paper crane. He knew eighteen different ways to fold one, some of which hadn’t even been invented yet. Logically, he should have told you this.

He didn’t.

“I’d love that.”

You pulled your chair closer to him, dragging it with your legs whilst you were still sitting in it. Your thigh brushed against his leg, and the Doctor found himself instinctually repositioning himself, drawing himself closer to you.

You took two identical pieces of paper, placing one in front of the Doctor and holding the other one for yourself. You laid your piece of paper flat against the wooden table, lining it up with the grain. It was quite a pretty piece of paper, as far as paper went. It was decorated in a swirling pattern, inked in silver that seemed to shine in the light. The colour of the paper, he noticed, was the same as your eyes.

That shouldn’t have been something he noticed.

No, it was fine. He was just being observant.

You began folding it, and the Doctor watched your nimble fingers easily crease the paper, like you had done this a million times. You nodded for him to do the same.

“There’s this story that goes along with paper cranes,” you told him, your voice soft. Your head was bowed towards him, almost as if you didn’t want anyone else to hear you. “It’s about a girl called Sadako Sasaki, have you heard of it?”

“I haven’t,” the Doctor lied. “Would you tell it?”

You gave him a soft smile, your eyes shining under the fluorescent lights – how many different ways could they sparkle? Would he ever be able to count them all? “I’d be glad to,” you said, and then, after a moment. “It’s quite a sad story, though.”

He knew.

“Well any story can be a sad story,” The Doctor said. “It depends on where you end them.”

You cocked you head to the side slightly, agreeing with him, then turned back to your page. “I’ll finish it in the right spot then.”

You pulled your piece of paper open, inspecting the various creases you’d folded into the paper, then began folding them into triangles. “She was 2 years old when the nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II,” you began, your voice impossibly quiet, remorseful in that sort of way that was just so distinctly human. “She lived through it, and by the time she was 12, she was her schools star runner.

“Then she contracted leukemia,” you continued, and your crane looked a bit like a large bird beak. “It happened so suddenly. One day she was running around her school’s oval during a practise – or maybe it was a race, and she passed out. At the time she said that little black spots had clouded her vision, and she hadn’t known what was happening.

“Back then they called it atomic bomb disease, because it was most likely caused by the radioactive black rain that fell on Hiroshima the day of the bombing,” You stopped your movements suddenly, staring at the folded piece of paper. You blinked at it a couple of times, and the Doctor wanted to reach out and hold you.

Before he could however, you continued. “Anyway,” you said, and started folding once more. “There’s this legend that a crane can live for a thousand years, so if a person folds an origami crane for each year of a crane’s life, then they can have a wish granted. Sadako heard of this legend and decided she would do this and try to save her life.

“She did it too. Within a month she had a thousand, and she wished to be better,” you looked at the Doctor for a moment. “It didn’t come true though, so she started again. She managed to make another 300 before she passed.”

Your crane looked like a crown, the kind they wore on Lopargos in the 27th century. “She’s famous because of how her classmates honoured her. They built a statue in her honour, and Sadako’s story sort of spread all around the world.

“The paper crane,” you folded down its wings. “Became a symbol of peace, since it’s symbolic status grew in direct contrast of cruelty,” you held your crane up for the Doctor to view, and he noticed that you had even folded a tiny little head for it. “There we go, ended the story in the right spot.”

“So you did,” the Doctor smiled softly at you. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

“I learned it with the Sadako’s story,” you told him, and you fiddled with the tail of the crane, as if debating whether or not you wanted to fold the tail down.

“So you’ve made a thousand then? What did you wish for?”

You didn’t answer, instead setting the crane down and reaching across the table to get another sheet of paper. It was decorated in the same silver pattern, but it’s base was a deep olive green colour. The Doctor tried not to read into that particular choice.

“Anyway,” you said. “Once you fold them enough, it becomes an easy habit, and it’s especially good when you’re bored,” you looked at him knowingly, then glanced at his paper. “Oh Doctor I’m so sorry! I hadn’t realised that I didn’t explain any of the instructions to you.”

The Doctor looked down to his paper and hummed, he hadn’t realised that he hadn’t actually touched it. Suddenly, your hands were on his, and he was acutely aware of your proximity to one another. You had moved closer to him, so close that he could hear your heartbeat – a steady, grounding rhythm. “Here,” you said. “Let me show you in a better way.”

You began giving him directions on how to fold a paper crane, guiding his hands with yours. You were well into his space, which you had to be, for practical reasons, so you could show him how to do it.

“Aren’t you a thousand years old?” You asked, whilst opening the paper to take note of the creases, your voice impossibly quiet.

The Doctor almost scoffed. “I’m well over it by now.”

You hummed. “I wonder how many people have sent you wishes, then,” you said absentmindedly, as if to yourself. It probably was to yourself, but the Doctor, for all his flaws, had exceptional hearing.

The thought drilled itself into the Doctor’s head. That would come to haunt him later.

You bumped your head against his and it pulled him out of those thoughts. The Doctor could smell the shampoo you used, it was fruity and light – he wondered if it was new. You had resumed your directions and he tried to concentrate on what you were saying, he really did, but you were just so close, and you looked back up to him with those big eyes, and he just could quite concentrate.

Your hands were warm against his, and your fingers expertly worked at the paper with his in tow. The Doctor counted the little marks on top of your hands, the lines that were creased into your skin, the little scars that decorated them from adventures you had taken together as well as your life before him. He wanted to memorise them, every line, every spot, and the way that they moved, keep it locked safe somewhere in his memory.

You huffed suddenly, or perhaps not suddenly, the Doctor hadn’t been paying attention, after all. “Wait, okay, I can’t actually see what I’m doing for the next bit,” you looked up at him. “Do you mind?”

The Doctor shook his head and you stood slowly, gently circling your body around his and leaning your head on his shoulder. The Doctor swallowed, trying to ignore the way your body felt against his own, warm, and solid, and there – right there. This felt so much different to whenever he had hugged you, or when you had held his hand, but he couldn’t pinpoint why.

Well, no. He knew exactly why. It was to do with the intimacy, it was new and different, and so much harder to rule off as friendly affection.

He scratched that thought out of his mind.

“There’s a bit of a trick here that I like to do…” your voice was low and soft in his ear and The Doctor shuddered slightly. He hoped that you didn’t notice, or, if you did, you just equated it to him just being… well, him.

There wasn’t any other deeper meaning to it, after all.

All to soon you had both finished folding the crane, and you pulled back slightly with a satisfied smile. “There we go, your very own paper crane.”

It sat there small and proud, albeit a bit lopsided. One wing was slightly bigger than the other, but the Doctor already knew that he adored it.

“Ah see now that right there,” the Doctor said, grinning at it. “Is a very cool crane.”

“Well of course it is,” you replied. “We made it, after all -oh.”

You pulled your hands from him and the Doctor paused – where were you going? With a frown, you were looking at your index finger. You considered something for a moment, then popped it into your mouth. The Doctor followed your movements, his mouth suddenly very, very dry.

“Papercut,” you explained, sticking your finger out. “Surely there’s a bandage somewhere.”

“I’ve got one,” a voice said, and the pair of you jumped. Clara was standing by the door to the mess hall, pulling a small bandage out of her pocket. The Doctor ran through the events that had just happened, and couldn’t work out when she had come back.

Clara stalked towards you both, and, judging by the very self-satisfyied smirk she was sending the Doctor’s way, she had been there for a while. She handed you the bandage and eyed the paper crane. “That’s cool.”

“Yeah,” you said, peeling off the wrapper and twisting the bandage over your cut. “I just taught the Doctor how to make one.”

Clara turned to the Doctor, raising an eyebrow at him. You, of course, didn’t notice this, as you were too engrossed in actually fixing your papercut.

“Oh,” she said, because she knew full well that the Doctor knew how to fold a paper crane. She had been there when The Doctor had gotten into an origami competition with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and had won by folding a paper crane faster than Arnold had. “Well, that’s nice now, isn’t it.”

“Yeah,” you smiled earnestly at them both, then inspected the bandage again. “It might actually do something about that boredom now.”

Clara narrowed her eyes at him, and the Doctor wanted to protest. When she spoke the Doctor had no doubt that it was a challenge. “Oh I’m sure it will.”

You turned back to Clara, completely oblivious to what was going on. “How’d that idea for a movie night go?”

“Oh!” Clara turned back to you, completely dropping her attitude and giving you a small smile. She lifted up a set of DVD’s. “Captain Carter has gotten some people to get some popcorn, we’ve been tasked with finding some pillows and chairs.”

You looked around the mess hall, eyeing the myriad of chairs. “Well, seems like we’re in as good a place to start as any. Shall we get to it?”

Clara placed the DVD’s on the table. “Yeah, lets.”

You squeezed the Doctor’s shoulder as you and Clara went off to begin gathering chairs. The Doctor stole a glance at the DVD’s, and he swore if he’d been alone he would have laughed out loud.

Presently though, he chose to silently mope.

The Princess Bride.

The Doctor thought of the innocent pretending at the start of the film, of the extreme effort Westley goes for his true love, and how there were probably parallels to his own life if he chose to think about it.

Of course Clara had chosen that film.

He put the DVD to the side. No, he wasn’t going to think of any of those parallels right now.

“Doctor,” you called out from the other side of the mess hall, holding a chair in the air. “Are you going to help?”

He crossed his arms and eyed the film one more time. “Yes, of course,” he said, looking up at you. “As you wish.”

Re; the update: I just wanted to thank everyone for the well wishes, I’ve read them all and they’ve all been so sweet. Things have gotten a bit worse, so the messages have meant the world to me. My inbox has eaten a few of them, but I’ll respond to as many of the messages as I can when i have the time! Thanks ❤️

#the doctor x reader #eleventh doctor imagine #11th doctor x reader #eleventh doctor x reader #11th doctor #Doctor Who #DW

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sunflowersseemhappy · 4 years

Note

Do you have any headcanons for main 6 set in modern times? What kind of job would they have, what music would they like or whatever else? I love your headcanons, they're always so detailed and on point 💖

I really loved doing this, only reason it took so long is because I definitely over thought a lot of this. Thank you for the ask! I hope you enjoy the headcanons, I definitely want to do more of this! SO when I have the time I definitely will and I actually have a rough plan of what the story and the background for the six and MC’s would be.

The “Event” mentioned references the plague but when and if I get to it that will all be explained.

REQUESTS ARE CLOSED but here is my Masterlist in the meantime!

Asra

You’ll usually find Asra in one of two places, the shop or the local cafe/bakery, living the slow city life.

Asra loves to people watch and more importantly he loves photography, he’s always taking pictures, a lot of them are of MC.

His bedroom wall is plastered with his photography and he sells a lot of them as a side gig on etsy.

He has a great blog too.

But his main focus is the shop, tucked away on a quiet corner street it feels faintly magical. Asra does tarot, sells candles, crystals and other trinkets, as well as herbal remedies that Julian admits work quite well.

In this AU Asra grew up in foster care, so when he finally found his home in the shop he never thought about living anywhere else.

It’s stayed that way for years, sharing a two bedroom flat above the shop with MC, its cluttered at times, filled with secondhand belongings but Asra loves having his own space and own things.

And he so loves taking his little holidays out of the city, bringing back more trinkets that bring good luck and fortune.

Asra always wears sneakers or trainers on his feet, mainly because all he does is walk in the city.

Although he does have a painted van for the shop deliveries; he and MC spent a week painting a swirling pattern on its sides.

His wardrobe is all tees with faded logos and cotton pants but on the rare occasion he decides to dress up Asra has an impossibly colourful blouse and faded jeans he loves to wear.

And there are so many hats! Vesuvia is sunny but he has more hats than he needs, although it's nice to have one for any occasion.

Also has crocs, they are an abomination of pink.

Asra’s phone of choice is an old samsung, he keeps meaning to update it but he’s a bit scared the photos on it will get lost.

Asra and technology don’t always mix well, for some reason...

Even in this universe Asra wouldn’t be Asra if he didn’t have Faust, a mischievous lavender python who always seems to escape her vivarium and ends up in Asra’s camera bag.

When Asra picked her out at the pets store he was told he was the only person she had ever not bitten or squeezed. Asra believes in fate, so he took her back home with him and the two are inseparable.

Asra oh so loves music, and just about any kind of tune can be found on his mp3 however he soon found his favourite to be the chillhop tunes the cafe played everyday. They really relax him.

The biggest Disney fan when he was younger, Asra then slowly decided Dreamworks were better but his favourite movies are those from Studio Ghibli. Asra simply adores the art, the music and the stories.

As mentioned Asra loves photography but he also quickly discovered watercolour paint and he doesn’t claim to be good at it but he does love making little pieces of art for birthdays and Christmas.

Speaking of which Christmas is his favourite holiday.

Asra also dabbles in growing orchids, he's too successful and there are so many he and MC don’t know what to do with them!

Asra’s favourite hobby aside from photography is rollerblading. He’s pretty good at it, cruising through the streets and along the dockside of the city (he definitely dragged MC into trying it out).

Asra never really thought he’d be one to get a tattoo but after getting Faust he changed his mind, since then he has a gorgeous complicated tattoo of the little snake on his shoulder blade.

It was only after “The Event” that Asra got another one; MC’s favourite flower on his hip bone.

Nadia

Nadia Santrivia, she’s beautiful, generous and married one of the richest men in the city, for the most part she’s alright with that.

Although Nadia hasn’t always lived in Vesuvia she’s tuned into the city around her so well, she’s in her element and thriving.

Work doesn’t end, if there was ever a beginning to start with. It's one thing after another; approving designs, attending fancy dinners, opening a charity fundraiser. Life is busy for the CEO of Vesuvia Industries.

Nadia’s happy to run Lucio’s business, because she knows she can do good with it but she can get lonely. Thankfully she has several friends who she can rely on to cheer her on...

The most important thing is that she can be herself, her own person, being last in line for her parent’s business and overshadowed by several sisters Nadia needed an escape.

Vesuvia provided the opportunity.

Nadia’s apartment is sat above the clouds in the skyscraper of Vesuvia Industries, much the same as the other universe home and work go hand in hand when it comes to Nadia.

She’s not materialistic, her apartment is clean and open and perfect for yoga and other purposes that require open space. It's very new and high tech, the coffee machine is her favourite thing though.

The views of the sunrise over the bay are gorgeous.

Ashamed to admit she has tons of shoes.

It’s usually required of Nadia to have the suits and dresses befitting a woman of her status, so when the sun goes down or she has a day off Nadia looks like an entirely different person.

She’s no less stylish, but her airy blouse’s, ripped denim jeans, subtle leather jacket and ankle boots give her a whole different persona, and man does it make her look good on her motorcycle.

Yes a motorcycle, Nadia owns one. It comes out of her garage only once a month but when it does she turns heads.

The rest of the time Naida is pretty eco-friendly with an electric car the business made just for her in a deep shade of purple.

As the CEO of the company Nadia is expected to have the latest iPhone model, her phone is always ringing and if she weren’t so patient she’d probably hurl it off the skyscraper roof.

Nadia always wanted a pet but she could never figure out what kind, and one dropped into her lap literally. Turns out she’s an owl person, although Nadia would never consider Chandra a pet more a companion.

A skyscraper is no place for a semi-wild owl but Nadia is happy enough to make the trip to the stables outside of Vesuvia to see Chandra and give her toys. Such a change from the small owlet Nadia raised.

When it comes to music Nadia is very picky, she spent her childhood listening to her sister’s choice of music and certain songs just put her in a bad mood, except for jazz.

That music preference surprised her but as soon as she discovered Lucio didn’t like it she was hooked. She thought about learning the saxophone (not to annoy Lucio or anything, no definitely not...)

Nadia’s not a big movie watcher, although she is a big fan of disaster movies when the mood strikes (it's nice to think about more chaotic things happening than signing a stack of papers), mainly she only has time to watch tv shows.

Her favourite is the Walking Dead but MC has caught her watching ‘how its made’ shows too. Of course being an avid inventor Nadia would be enthralled by seeing how her car or coffee machine is put together.

Speaking of inventing, although Nadia always wanted to make it her job she’s only ever gotten to approve the inventions her company makes.

It's not entirely what she wanted but thankfully she has just enough time to squeeze in working on her little projects. Ones she hopes will help others one day.

Nadia’s found it super important in the big city to keep herself safe, between her hobbies of yoga, kung fu and fencing she’s a pretty formidable opponent. It’s saved her life more than she’ll ever admit.

Her other hobbies, to list a few are horse riding, polo, piano, swimming, wine tasting, and playing those arcade grabber machines (she has about 50 teddy bears and MC has about the same amount). Most of those hobbies began in her childhood.

Nadia likes to pretend she is above getting a tattoo but anyone who knows her well enough will reveal she has a owl shadow tattoo on her inner heel.

Julian

Poor Julian is the definition of a struggling city batchelor, and he certainly wouldn’t have it any other way.

Still the most well traveled of the group Julian spent his formative years abroad in the army as a field medic (where he met Lucio), now though he’s a lean mean crime fighting machine!

Well he’s a forensics doctor for the Vesuvia PD, but it still counts as being a crime fighter! He’s never really lost that dramatic flair that's for sure.

He’s been a bit of everything; medic and doctor, waiter, translator, actor, sailor, troublemaker and a fugitive (but that’s a story for another day).

But Vesuvia truly is his real home, a place he’s always come back to and where he’s made friends and family, enemies, lovers, and memories.

Sure he lives in the ‘bad part’ of town as Asra calls it, but Julian feels at home enough that it doesn’t bother him, that and he’s got Mazelinka to handle the riff raff.

The two of them share a two-storey house that sits next to his favourite bar, a bit too convenient for Maz’s liking. Despite that the place is cozy and old, all wood flooring and furniture that's been around longer than Julian’s lifetime, it’s filled with the scent of cooking and coffee and other than the box tv and Julian’s phone there's almost no modern technology.

Julian’s room has faded photos of his friends, and postcards from places he’s been too and a few posters of his favourite plays, as well as rough sketches tacked to the corkboard his desk is littered with papers and he even has an old school microscope.

In the mess of his room only Julian can find the thing that he’s looking for, he calls it an ‘organized mess’ when in reality it’s really just a mess.

Unfortunately this extends to his clothing choices too, Julian is terrible at laundry so there is no end to the stains on his mellow patterned tees and jeans, the only smart thing about his wardrobe are his boots and oxfords.

Quite true to form his black trench coat is a constant companion. He usually dresses like he’s in a black and white movie or like a scruffy doctor when he’s in his lab coat.

Still has an eye patch, his depth perception when crossing roads is not great... there are a lot of hospital bills.

Also the reason he doesn’t drive unless he can help it, Julian doesn’t own a car but he’s prone to borrowing one if he needs it (usually from Asra).

Julian is very much the guy on the subway who falls asleep on your shoulder because it's the only place his mind isn’t working overtime.

MC thinks it’s very cute.

Julian’s not really too fussed about his phone of choice, Samsung, Apple, so long as he can make calls and do google searches on symptoms of a flu he’s good. No matter how hard he tries his screen is always cracked.

People often point out the raven following Julian around, he’s not too sure if its the same one but Julian knows its his own fault feeding the scrawny thing when it landed on his window pane. Now it won’t leave him alone, Julian took to calling it Malak and he’s quite fond of the bird even if it likes to cackle for food outside his window at an ungodly hour in the morning.

Maz has threatened to cook Malak on more than one occasion.

Music is one of the few things that helps Julian focus, he’s not usually super into any particular artist or album but his main love is music from musicals and movie soundtracks, if he’s able to do so he’ll sing along.

Lead forensic doctor Valdemar finds it highly unprofessional when they are conducting autopsies.

Almost has no time to watch movies or tv but if you strapped Julian to a chair and put on Brooklyn 99 or any kind of superhero movie he might enjoy it just a little bit...

Honestly though those things are just background noise for him, Julian will put on the tv to keep himself occupied while he’s doing reports. But he loves comedy movies and shows, they might tear him away from his laptop just long enough that he gets a few good laughs.

However if Mazlinka gets the old camcorder out he’s all over watching old home videos of him and Portia and his old hound dog, he’s just so nostalgic sometimes.

Thinks learning counts as a hobby, Julian habitually grabs any book he can to read through so youtube is a miracle in his eyes. Free content, that he can listen to and learn from as well as visually see? Yes please.

Julian learned to play the fiddle when he was younger, for a time as a teen he even went street performing to earn money for Portia’s obsession with bracelet making. He doesn’t play it much anymore but he’ll give MC a tune anyday.

He’s also very invested in cocktail mixing, only thing he mixes is Salty Bitters, he’ll argue any day that the Salty Bitter counts as a cocktail.

Also very invested in his self sustaining bio-tank at work, the other officers are growing concerned about the leeches Julian likes to keep in it. They’re planning an intervention.

The only tattoo Julian had was one forcibly given during “The Event”, his ‘murderers mark’ on his hand. He’s really ashamed of it because it reminds him of the part he had in the disaster that befell Vesuvia.

Muriel

He definitely suits the other universe more, it's even harder to get away from people in this modern world.

But the start remains the same, he was lost and his only friend was Asra for a long time, until Lucio came along and tricked him into doing unspeakable things as a ‘bodyguard’ until he escaped.

People are unavoidable and Muriel keeps to himself during his job as a keeper for a local animal sanctuary, raising and re-releasing wildlife with other volunteers, he practically runs the place.

But the volunteers know not to bother him especially when he goes back to his house on the hill, to take care of his chickens before he vanishes like usual into his house.

No one knows much about him, and he prefers it like that.

Muriel’s home is simple and honestly built for one, there’s only one chair, only one pillow on the bed, only one set of cutlery, only one of everything. It leaks on occasion and always needs fixing, he’ll forgo sleep to fix things.

Who needs more than four hours of sleep anyway?

A lot of Muriel’s belongings are from garage sales, or picked up off the side of the road, not a lot of money goes toward his comfort Muriel prefers that the animals in the sanctuary have comfortable beds and good food.

Muriel’s clothes? He wears them till they die, an usually when he picks them up from a garage sale they’re already pretty close.

For that reason Muriel doesn’t have a specific choice of clothing, he owns jumpers, tees, denim jackets, flannels and whatever jeans and pants fit. He has one pair of khaki coloured boots that are surprisingly well maintained and usually wears a beanie or cattleman hat to hide his face.

Old pick up, old pick up, old pick up! Owns an old pick up truck he fixed up, it breaks down regularly and only plays radio but Inanna enjoys riding in the back. Muriel likes driving a lot on those country roads.

All that’s to be said about Muriel and his phone is this; he owns a nokia and has no intention of getting a smartphone. Ever.

His hands are a bit big for it though, he’s called MC and Julian accidently so many times... and he only usually text’s, so that's awkward.

Inanna is Muriel’s constant companion, and when they’re in the city man do the two of them turn heads. Inanna is a wolfdog in this universe and she definitely looks more wolf than dog.

But she really is a big sweetheart, Muriel raised her from a puppy after she was rejected and placed in a shelter, he knew a wolf dog would need some special attention to grow into a perfect companion rather than a dangerous animal.

Anyone can look at Muriel and instantly think he’s one of those people who would play country music, for the most part that’s true. He does play the guitar and can sing okay, he does like country but his real love of music comes from indie artists.

He can’t really explain it but the music gives him a sense of carelessness and hope he’s never known.

Doesn’t really watch tv or movies, Muriel is almost always too busy for that but he’s found it the strangest thing, Inanna likes watching tv...

After that he got drawn in by the documentaries about animals, he didn’t really realize that people did shows about the habitats and behaviours of animals but he finds himself entranced by it when he passes by.

He soon relented and sits on the floor with his arm draped over Inanna as they watch documentaries about wolves in Alaska.

With the amount of animals Muriel raises anyone would call it a job, Muriel however would argue it's a hobby for him. Sure waking up every hour in the night to feed raccoon babies isn’t ideal but it's never been anything short of joyous to watch them go back to the wild.

Muriel's other hobby centres around his guitar and learning songs to play to himself and maybe a certain person *cough* MC *cough*.

He’s also an avid baker, none of his meals are ready made. Leading on from that he forages for mushrooms, and herbs rather than buys them.

Muriel doesn’t have a tattoo, only his scars.

He thought about getting some but he doesn’t trust someone to touch him that way and also he’s not a big fan of needles.

Probably a good thing otherwise Inanna and all his chickens names would be on his arm.

Portia

Absolutely suits the modern life in this universe, Portia somehow finds the time to do everything, the bustling worker or the relaxed dreamer.

She’s almost everywhere in the city, doing everything at once; working at Vesuvia Industries, grabbing the sweetest iced tea at the cafe, exploring the corruption of downtown streets.

Portia is obsessed with knowing every inch of the city, and what goes on inside it because it's a very strange city with a stranger history.

Portia is a great and helpful assistant to Nadia, but she’s also hiding a lot including her identity as Pasha Devorak the reporter for Vesuvian Times.

She has as many curious secrets as the city.

Portia previously lived in a small studio flat however since working for Nadia she has been lucky enough to afford to rent out a small cottage outside the city. She loves it so much and other than being in an AU not much has changed between the two cottages.

It’s shielded by so many grand trees and a vivacious garden that it feels like her own little world, the inside of the cottage is filled with hand knitted blankets, painted glass figurines and the warm smell of baked goods.

Sometimes its a bigger place than Portia can manage by herself but she likes taking to fixing things as they come along, she definitely is a fan of the saying “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it!”

Her clothing choices are just so cute and by no means is she afraid of showing off her cottage core style; jumpers, skirts, vest tops, crop tops and patterned blouses look really good on her. Of course the garden requires the heavy duty stuff, sweatpants, a tattered tee and the old hoodie that refuses to die.

She’s not to much into heels even though she’s short, Portia prefers pumps and loafers because “comfort over beauty!” (although she would be pretty cute with or without).

Nadia finds Portia’s headstrong and optimism very amusing and definitely takes a few life lessons from Portia.

Who needs to drive? Portia doesn’t, she loves taking the bus or the train wherever she goes. That way she can bop her head to her tunes while watching the landscape go by, in a beautiful intricate place like Vesuvia it's important to take it all in.

That and everyone can agree that Portia behind the wheel of a vehicle is a disaster, she just gets so distracted.

Nadia has offered Portia a new phone many times but Portia is plenty happy enough with her older gen 6 iphone (because if she got a new one she’d have to get wireless headphones!) Also she’d feel bad for Siri.

Unfortunately Pepi the cat came from terrible circumstances, certain circumstances where Portia jumped of a bridge after witnessing someone chuck a mewling bag into the river.

But Portia is so thankful for her amazing kitten, the two of them protect each other. Though Pepi’s idea of protecting Portia is making sure the birds don’t feed from the feeder outside and meowing at the fridge when it’s too loud.

Portia’s music taste is disarming to those who don’t know her well, she is a huge fan of rock, any rock music just so long as it’s good and a classic (ACDC, Queen, etc...) she likes to think she is a connoisseur of rock.

Julian can not put into words how much he abhorred it when his little sister would blast that music to drown out his.

Portia will either watch every movie or show when it comes out or will binge watch a show or movie after forgetting it existed. There is no inbetween, but she loves media, consumes it even.

Detective shows and spy movies are her favourite but she’ll enjoy just about anything unless it's a musical she was forced to watch one too many times because of Julian.

Portia has so many hobbies, one would say too many but she digresses.

Of course gardening is at the top of her list, moreso because the garden always needs doing but she gets a great sense of pride growing her own food and Pepi loves chasing the spiders that hide in the strawberries.

Portia is also a very avid blogger, there is a lot of conspiracy theories on there but with a following of half the city it seems pretty popular.

In her downtime Portia is loves to relax with her favourite soft drink and beat V3suviaC0unt#1 ass on her games console, she finds the shrieking of her enemy to be great fun.Portia’s love of games however soon transpired to collecting action figures of her favourite game characters.

She is very protective of them.

Like Muriel, Portia also doesn’t have a tattoo. It’s not that she’s afraid of needles but she just hasn’t found a reasonably good design to get yet.

Lucio

Lucio is definitely the one out of the six who was made for the modern world, sure being a Count is cool and all but in this world he can have both power and freedom and not have to sit in every meeting called.

He’s never once taken anything seriously, Lucio’s power has been built on the backs of others without him ever having to raise a finger.

It’s happened everywhere he goes, in the army he sacrificed the good of his teammates to rise in the ranks, he forced the Asra’s parents to make him the best prosthetic arm in history, he codled up to an old dying man to get his business and when he found out that wasn’t for him Lucio pawned it off to his wife and rolled onto the next devious plan.

Lucio’s been an army man, a CEO, a crime lord and the cause of “The Event” but maybe one day he’ll rise above those defining moments and be greater (but that is a story for another day).

Of course Lucio did live with Nadia for a time, but when he made her CEO Lucio took to calling his mansion home, Nadia wasn’t a fan of the creepy vibe it gave off which is just as well because Lucio hosts a lot of unsavoury characters...

True to form each room in that place has only the most expensive belongings, every bed is king size and the garage is filled with gas guzzling monstrosities of cars. It’s not cluttered by any means, but it's gaudy and shows off his wealth.

The only place things seem normal is the kitchen, Lucio doesn’t spend much time in there but on the wall sits a board of old memories when he got along with the others, they didn’t always find him unbearable.

Lucio’s torn it down and put it up so many times already he can never make up his mind if he wants to keep it.

Only thing Lucio ever liked about running a company were the expensive suits he was told he had to wear at least that was a great improvement on his fashion sense. Of course he’s not always wearing suits sometimes he’ll just wear a dress shirt with one too many buttons undone and a pair of white chinos and trainers.

Sunglasses are a must, that, and a lint roller. The dogs shed a lot...

As mentioned before Lucio has a lot of very pricey cars, he is the product of what would happen in Portia was given a car, he’d get distracted and crash it into the back of another vehicle.

He’s lucky anyone will insure him and that he has so many cars.

Lucio tried to be different to the ‘normies’ by getting his company to make a phone suitable to his taste. A phone that had two charging ports (to charge it twice as fast) and a waterproof casing (that kept it a bit too dry and hot so it spontaneously combusted in his pocket).

Lucio now has the latest iPhone instead.

Owns a lot of pets, the exotic eels, macaques, cockatoo, etc... The same as he does in the normal universe, none of which are particularly nice and well behaved. He prefers his fur babies Mercedes and Melinchor.

They were two dogs he saw fighting in dog fights and he was in love instantly buying them and bringing them to live with him, chaos follows those two like a bad odour.

Lucio decided that to be the cool rich guy he needed to like cool music, for the longest time he spent his time listening to hip hop no one really ever notices that Lucio in fact hates hip hop, he much prefers pop music.

It's a secret he will take to his grave but MC has definitely heard him singing to Katy Perry’s ‘Firework’ in the shower.

Lucio is the biggest movie buff in Vesuvia, he’s definitely offended when no one invites him to premieres, which is why he’s done all he can to get into movies (with little avail). And he will watch anything and enjoy it, he is usually one of those people who don’t realize the book exists when such a movie is out.

But do you know what his favourite kind of movies are?

Romantic-comedies, or just anything that's classed as romance. Date nights with Lucio are pretty good but he cries a lot, poor guy.

Just don’t get started with Lucio and hobbies, if he’s tried something once he’ll make out he knows everything about it and even if he hasn’t tried it he’ll pretend he has. He’s forever speaking out of his a** but no one dares call him out on it.

That being said Lucio really doesn’t have the capability to commit to a hobby, unless parties count? They don’t? They should!

Although one could say maybe planning parties does count...

Tattoos? Lucio has a few; his army number on the back of his neck, a sword piercing a heart on his chest and the twin silhouettes of the dogs running on the heel of his foot.

#the arcana #asra #nadia #julian #muriel #portia #lucio #modern #au #alternative #universe #the arcana asra #the arcana nadia #the arcana julian #the arcana muriel #the arcana portia #the arcana lucio

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theloreofwhatilove · 5 years

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Joaquin Phoenix Speeches 2020

BAFTAs:

I feel very honoured and privileged to be here tonight. The BAFTAs have always been very supportive of my career and I'm deeply appreciative. But I have to say that I also feel conflicted because so many of my fellow actors that are deserving don't have that same privilege.

I think that we send a very clear message to people of colour: that you're not welcome here. I think that's the message that we're sending to people that have contributed so much to our medium and our industry and in ways that we benefit from.

I don't think anybody wants a handout or preferential treatment, although that's what we give ourselves every year. I think that people just want to be acknowledged and appreciated and respected for their work.

This is not a self-righteous condemnation because I'm ashamed to say that I'm part of the problem. I have not done everything in my power to ensure that the sets I work on are inclusive. But I think that it's more than just having sets that are multicultural. I think that we have to really do the hard work to truly understand systemic racism.

I think that it is the obligation of the people that have created and perpetuate and benefit from a system of oppression to be the ones that dismantle it. So that's on us.

Thank you.

SAG:

When I started acting again and going to auditions and getting the final callback, I think many people know what that’s like. And there would be these two other guys that I’d be up against. And we’d always lost to this one kid. No actor would ever say his name because it was too much, but every casting director would whisper “it’s Leonardo, it’s Leonardo”.

Who is this Leonardo? Leo, you’ve been an inspiration to me for the last 25 years. I thank you very very much.

Christian, you commit to your roles in ways that I can only dream of. You never turn in a bad performance. It’s infuriating. I wish you would. Just one time. Just suck once, that’d be great.

Adam, I’ve been watching you the last few years and you0ve just been turning these beautiful, nuanced, incredible, profound performances. I am just so moved by you. You were just devastating in [The Marriage Story] and you should be here.

Taron, where are you? I am so happy for you, wherever you are. Hey. Hey, man. You are so beautiful in this movie and I am so happy for you. And I can’t wait to see what else you do.

And really, I’m standing here on the shoulders of my favorite actor, Heath Ledger.

Golden Globes:

First, I’d like to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press, um, for recognizing and acknowledging the link between animal agriculture and climate change. It’s a very bold move making tonight plant-based, and it really sends a powerful message.

We all know there's no fucking competition between us...I'm inspired by you, I'm your fucking student.

I know people say this but I really do feel honored to be mentioned with you. Some of you I reached out to personally. Some I’m still a little too intimidated by, even though we share the same agent. Hi, Christian (Bale). Uh, you’re not here.

Contrary to popular belief, I don't like to rock the boat, but the boat needs to be fucking rocked. It’s really nice that so many people have come up and sent their well wishes to Australia - but we gotta do better that that. Hopefully we can be unified and actually make some changes. It’s great to vote but sometimes we need to take that responsibility within ourselves. Make changes and sacrifices in our own lives. We don’t have to take private jets to Palm Springs and back, please. I will try to do better and I hope you will too.

Oscars (The Academy):

I’m full of so much gratitude right now. I do not feel elevated above any of my fellow nominees, or anyone in this room, because we share the same love: The love of film. And this form of expression has given me the most extraordinary life. I don’t know what I’d be without it.

But I think the greatest gift that its given me and many of us in this room is the opportunity to use our voice for the voiceless. I’ve been thinking a lot about some of the distressing issues that we are facing collectively and I think at times we feel or are made to feel that we champion different causes. But for me, I see commonality.

I think whether we’re talking about gender and equality or racism or queer rights or indigenous rights or animal rights, we’re talking about the fight against injustice. We’re talking about the fight against the belief that one nation, one people, one race, one gender, or one species has the right to dominate, control and use and exploit another with impunity.

I think that we’ve become very disconnected from the natural world. And many of us, what we’re guilty of is an egocentric world view: the belief that we’re the center of the universe. We go into the natural world and we plunder it for its resources. We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and when she gives birth, we steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable. And then we take her milk that’s intended for her calf and we put it in our coffee and our cereal.

And I think we fear the idea of personal change, because we think we have to sacrifice something, to give something up. But human beings at our best are so inventive and creative and ingenious. And I think that when we use love and compassion as our guiding principles, we can create, develop and implement systems of change that are beneficial to all sentient beings and to the environment.

Now, I have been a scoundrel in my life. I have been a scoundrel, I’ve been selfish, I’ve been cruel at times, hard to work with and ungrateful. But so many of you in this room have given me a second chance. And I think that’s when we’re at our best: When we support each other, not when we cancel each other out for past mistakes, but when we help each other to grow, when we educate each other, when we guide each other toward redemption. That is the best of humanity.

I just... I want to... when he was 17, my brother wrote this lyric: He said “run to the rescue with love and peace will follow”.

Thank you.

#sharing this because he has been slaying #joaquin phoenix #speech #oscars 2020 #academy awards 2020 #bafta 2020 #sag awards 2020 #golden globes #golden globes 2020 #he slayed the award season #and he delivered on the speeches #even tho he's usually uncomfortable at awards shows #he hates them and i love him #actor

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robin-the-enby · 5 years

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Beautiful to me

Pairing: Diaval x OC

Summary: Rhea is a daughter of a lumberjack living near the Moors, a forest which everybody fears. It is no wonder that she became Aurora's first best friend.

Warnings: body insecurities

A/N: As I've said, I've never seen the whole movie, but Diaval is such a sweetheart and...well, this happened. So I'm sorry that this maybe won't go as the movie does, for example, I couldn't find a clip on youtube about how Aurora first got to the Moors, so I changed it.

Pictures found on Google

* * * * *

Everybody feared the Moors, because they believed that a great evil lived behind the great wall of thorns.

Only one family was brave enough to live near the place. It was a lumberjack and his wife. They have never been afraid of the strange part of the forest. Everyone deemed them crazy when they answered their curious questions with: "There is no need to be afraid. If you'll respect the forest, it'll leave you alone."

When news spread that the lumberjack's wife was with a child, people were baffled to hear that they aren't moving from their cozy little cottage near the dangerous Moors.

And after nine months, a baby girl was born. Her loving parents named her Rhea. She had black hair, like her mother and beautiful green eyes like her father.

Rhea was a curious, happy go lucky child. Taught from early age to respect those around her and do no harm until she was the one harmed, she grew into a kind young girl. Her parents treated her with love and kindness and so she didn't see a reason to ever disobey them.

One day, Rhea was walking by the edge of the forest, which grounds she knew better than the back of her hand. The 'normal' part of the forest, the one where her father worked, was surrounded by meadows full of flowers and beautiful little creatures.

She listened to birds chirping and bees buzzing as she skipped along the secret path she found for herself, her little hands gently caressing flower petals of all colours.

Rhea heard a laugh. It wasn't her laugh, but it was a child's laugh. It sounded like a little girl. Rhea looked all around her, trying to see who exactly was laughing, but couldn't see anyone. That is, until the tall grass started shaking, little giggles escaping between the rustling.

Rhea kneeled on the ground and pushed the grass aside, so she could see better.

At first, she thought she's seeing things. But at a second glance she recognized the creature she mistaked for a fairy as a young girl. But what a beautiful little girl!

She was a few years younger than Rhea, but too young to be left alone. The little girl hasn't noticed her yet, so Rhea softly called out "What are you doing here little one?"

The little girl gasped and turned to face Rhea. It took little to no time for a big grin to take over her face "Pretty girl!" she squealed.

Rhea blushed. Nobody, aside from her parents, had called her pretty. She never really felt pretty and thought that her parents told her that just because they were her parents. But there was something about this girl that looked so sincere. Maybe it was how her eyes shone brightly or her big smile.

It didn't look like the girl wanted to wait for Rhea, her attention was grabbed by something else. As she waddled away, Rhea called out to her "What's your name little one?" and ran after her.

The girl stopped to examine a catterpillar crawling on a leaf and when Rhea caught up with her, she repeated her question. "Aurora." the girl said without turning her head. Rhea thought it was a really strange name.

The rest of the afternoon Rhea spent by Aurora's side. The younger girl hopped around, fascinated by every little thing. Rhea patiently walked behind her, looking after Aurora, so she wouldn't hurt herself. She wondered why was she alone? Did her parents not care for her? How could they?? She was such a sweet little thing.

"Pretty flower!" Aurora exclaimed happily, plucking the flower from the ground and twirling it between her little fingers. This caught Rhea's attention. Everything Aurora saw she called pretty. Pretty flowers, pretty bees, pretty clouds...

Rhea felt a little sad at the thought that for Aurora 'pretty' didn't mean anything special. But she quickly chased the thought away. Why should she be sad about such a trivial thing as beauty? They were in the forest, she didn't need to be beautiful! Wait, the forest..?

Without her noticing, Aurora led her straight through the forest to the thorn wall. She looked at the big branches with even bigger thorns in awe. Strangely, she didn't go to feel it with her tiny hands.

For the first time in the whole day, Aurora turned to Rhea, pointed at the barricade and said "Pretty bush!"

Rhea couldn't help but smile. Pretty really wasn't a meaningfull word for the little girl. "It sure is magical, isn't it?" Rhea came to stand by Aurora's side.

Flapping of wings and cawing could be heard and both girls turned to look at the tree where the noise was coming from. It was just a raven.

There was something strange about the way it looked at Rhea. Almost suspiciously...

"Pretty bird!" Aurora said laughing, clapping her tiny hands. Rhea smiled at the little girl. It's just a bird, there's nothing to worry about.

Rhea grabbed Aurora's hand, gaining the girl's attention. She crouched down next to her and pointed at the raven "That's a raven. You mustn't mix ravens up with crows. They may seem similar, but they are different none the less."

The bird's eyes softened and it cawed happily. It caused Aurora to laugh in a childish glee and Rhea tried to mimick him. The raven turned its head to the side a little, amused by the girl's attempts to make the younger one laugh. So it played along, Rhea and the raven cawing at each other, just so Aurora would laugh.

After that, everywhere they went, the raven was with them. And every time Aurora set her gaze on it, she immediately called out excitedly "Pretty bird!" And so, the name stuck.

The years flew by and the girls became best friends. Some would even say they were as close as sisters.

Every day they would spend the whole day together, Rhea usually teaching Aurora about nature and in return, the younger girl invented the best adventures, while Pretty bird, who Rhea always brought treats for, watched over them.

They both grew into beautiful young women. Aurora was just as lovely as she was when she was a child, if not more. She had the beauty of a fairy and the heart of a playful bunny. Rhea matured and grew into the kindest and most generous woman far and wide from the Moors.

Rhea admired Aurora's beauty, as if she couldn't see her own. And it was true. While she thought everything around her was beautiful, she 'could never compare' as she'd say.

One day, which Rhea was going to remember in great detail long after, they stayed outside longer than usual, the sky was getting dark and night was slowly falling upon the land. But they didn't care and kept on walking by the thorn wall.

"I wonder if you can get through it somehow..." Aurora wondered, gently petting the bush, careful as to not cut herself. Rhea turned to look at the wall and just silently nodded her head.

Maleficent was, like many times before, looking after Aurora. She watched the two girls chat and wondered how much the girls have grown. If she wants to see the Moors so bad...I can grant her that wish. Maleficent thought to herself and with a quiet chuckle put a spell over the two girls that put them to sleep.

She cleared out a path for herself that went through the giant thorn bush and carefully levitated both girls behind her as she entered her kingdom.

Next, she gently laid them on the ground and hid in the shadows and crooked tree branches and undone the spell. Now I just wait until they wake up...

The spell wore off pretty quickly. The first one to sit up was Aurora, while Rhea tiredly blinked her eyes. "Rhea, do you see that?" Aurora asked in disbelief, standing up. "No." Rhea croaked tiredly "What should I see?" she slowly sat up and looked around.

"We're in the Moors!" the younger girl exclaimed happily, giggling. Aurora twirled in place, taking everything in with fascination. Rhea rubbed the sleep from her eyes and joined her best friend.

Curious eyes looked at them from behind the rocks and tree leaves. Blue heads poked out from their hiding spots and tiny blue creatures slowly and cautiously floated to the two strangers. Both girls slowly extended their palms and let the fairies touch their fingers. Before they could properly introduce themselves, the fairies looked around in panic and fright and quickly scurried off to hide again.

Aurora felt presence behind them and turned to face the shadows. Nothing but a pair of yellow eyes could be seen in the darkness. "We know you're there. Don't be scared." Rhea came to stand by her side and took her hand.

"I'm not scared." it chuckled darkly. Rhea noticed its voice was smooth, cold and rich.

"Then come out." Aurora prompted the voice again.

"Then you'll be afraid." it said again. It sounded like it was making fun of them.

"No we won't." Aurora defended them bravely, her cheecks puffing out a little.

It seemed like the voice complied. The pair of glowing yellow eyes moved from the shadows. It had the moon behind its back, so only a silhouette could be seen.

Aurora gasped softly at the sight of the big horns and Rhea stepped protectively a little in front of her.

Maleficent then stepped into the light completely. Instead of screams of fear that she expected, Rhea's breath was stolen away by the fae's broken, dark beauty and Aurora just laughed.

"I know who you are." she said with a smile "You're my fairy godmother!" Rhea was used to Aurora telling her about the shadow that looks after her. But she, as beautiful as she was, didn't look like a protector. More like a predator.

"What?" Maleficent asked, clearly thrown off by this comment. "Your shadow. It's been following me everywhere I went." Aurora's smile didn't falter.

A raven landed on a branch next to its mistress. Both girls turned their heads to look at it. "I remember you." Aurora said and with Rhea they both giggled. "Pretty bird." Rhea said and the raven turned its head to the side. "This is Diaval." Maleficent said, not even looking at him, waving her hand, after the raven bowed politely to the girls.

And suddenly, their Pretty bird was now a man. A very handsome, young man, Rhea observed. His hair and eyes dark like the night around them, black tunic, that showed off his chest, as well as black trousers and black boots. On his temples, his neck and the exposed parts of his chest were scars, from what Rhea would love to know.

Diaval went to closer to Aurora "It's nice to finally meet you." and kissed her hand gently "I knew you since you were a little one." Rhea quietly snickered to herself. What a strange thing to say.

But then he turned to her and she found herself lost in his eyes. Apart from his scars his face looked really smooth. Just like his feathers looked smooth when he was a raven. "My my, what a beauty you've grown into." he said and kissed her hand too, while looking her directly in the eyes. Rhea felt like she couldn't breathe. His skin felt so smooth where he touched her but his voice was so deliciously scruffy, she couldn't wrap her head around it all. "This must be a dream." she said quietly and Diaval grinned, still not letting go of her hand, but neither of them noticed.

"I know right?" Aurora squealed excitedly. She started ranting about how beautiful the Moors were, overwhelming Maleficent so much, that she had to put her to sleep again.

When Rhea saw her floating friend, she wondered So that's how we got here, huh... "I think that is enough for today." Maleficent stated "Diaval, take Rhea home."

A small mutter of 'yes mistress' could be heard from him and as he went to lightly bow to her he realized he was still holding Rhea's hand. He immediately let go, embarassed and showed her the way.

He insisted to take her all the way to her cottage and held her hand every time there was any obstacle in the way, small and large ones. "We're in a forest. If you want to be gentlemanly like that, you can just hold my hand and not let go." Rhea giggled, but Diaval took it seriously and, deciding it would be a good idea, grabbed her hand, making her cheeks turn pink.

Days went by and they were all spent in the Moors. Aurora played with all the fairies, often including Rhea or even Diaval. Maleficent usually stood on the sidelines and watched them. Rhea noticed the fondness in the fae's eyes and sometimes she'd catch a glimpse of the tiniest smile.

If they were not playing with Aurora, Diaval and Rhea also stood on the sidelines, chatting and finding out more things about the other every day. Aurora and even Maleficent noticed how close they became.

It was a beautiful night. The stars shone brightly, the moon was big, nowhere a cloud in sight and the temperature was just right. Perfect for stargazing.

Rhea needed time to herself. Her mind felt heavy, burdened with negative thoughts and doubts.

"Why are you frowning at the stars?" a voice above her asked. Rhea smiled a faint smile "Hello Pretty bird." "Why do you keep calling me that even when you know my name?" "Because you are a pretty bird." she shrugged. "I suppose you're right." Diaval said proudly and laid next to her, their shoulders and hands touching.

He could see something was troubling her and he wanted to help. He never liked seeing her sad. It made his heart clench. When it first happened, Rhea found a dead baby bird, fallen out of the nest. He thought he was deathly ill and came to Maleficent immediately, panicked. She just stared at him and whispered something strange "You're in love."

She left abruptly, not saying anything else. He wasn't mad. After he processed the words, he realized she probably needed time to ponder if she is going to do something about it or not. He could see how conflicted her thoughts on love were as of late.

He came to terms with it a few days ago. Those days leading to this one were spent consciously pining after her.

"Just...my parents." Rhea started slowly. But he didn't mind, he would listen to her patiently for years if it meant helping her. "They told me I should start looking for a nice man, since I'm the right age for marriage right now."

He swallowed hardly. Was she in love already? What if it wasn't him? What would he do if it wasn't him? "And what seems to be the problem?" he forced out of himself, as if he didn't even want to know the answer.

"I don't know anyone!" she cried out. It wasn't entirely true though. Her heart already picked a certain raven someone, but her insecurities blinded her so much she didn't even consider him liking her back as an option.

"I'd have to go out and impress someone and...to be honest, who in the world would be impressed by me." the last word harboured so much disgust in it, it made Diaval frown deeply.

"What do you mean?" he asked, genuinely confused. Rhea sighed sadly "Look at me. Look at everything else around us. How can I compare to the beauty that is this world? How can I impress someone when I'm just...so...ugly."

Oh no. She didn't. No, no, no, no, he wasn't going to let her talk about herself that way.

Diaval gently grasped her chin and made her look at him "Listen here Rhea and listen closely. You can't compare to anything? For me It's more like nothing can compare to you, because you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Prettier than any flower, star or even the moon itself. You are better than flying, everything about you is so otherworldly I can't put it into words."

His voice lowered to nearly a whisper "You don't have to impress or catch anyone's attention. You already have. I'm afraid, Rhea, that you've captured my heart. I don't know if I'll be a good enough suitor for you, but I will try my best...if you'll have me?" his eyes filled with hope met hers filled with tears.

She couldn't get the right words out, she just nodded her head and hugged him tightly.

And as they laid there in a tight embrace, under the starry night, she whispered to him "I wouldn't have anyone else."

#Diaval #Aurora #Maleficent #Diaval x reader #Diaval x oc #tw #insecure reader #insecure oc #body insecurity

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catsafarithewriter · 4 years

Note

“Listen, I didn’t do anything this time, I was just there when things started to fall apart.” with Muta, if you'd please, that just screams him haha. i love your writing!

A/N: The idea for this prompt was inspired by this post. It’s just a bit of fun, with harmless Muta and Haru hijinks and extreme prejudice against polka-dots :) Enjoy!

(No real bowties were harmed in the making of this ficlet)

Haru didn’t even mean to lose the first bowtie.

Even if it was fugly.

(“What,” she had demanded upon walking into the Bureau, “is that?”)

(”It’s a bowtie,” Baron had answered, as if he wasn’t wearing a blue polka-dotted monstrosity around his neck. He had righted it with some pride above the yellow waistcoat it empirically did not match. “It’s one of my old suits; I’ve decided to take it out for a spin. What do you think?”)

(And he had looked so proud of himself that Haru hadn’t had the heart to reply honestly, which had mostly comprised of the genuine question of whether Baron was colour-blind.)

And so Baron, fugly bowtie and all, had accompanied them on the case, and only Baron had returned.

Purely accidentally, naturally.

And it honestly had been. There had been a costume change (Baron’s decision, obviously) and then a hurried exit (as usual) and by the time they had all escaped with only a minor dent to their dignity, Haru realised she had forgotten to grab Baron’s bowtie when she had swept everything else up.

The second bowtie’s loss, however, might have been slightly intentional.

It had been a week after the previous case, and all thoughts of polka dots and fashion monstrosities had been replaced with things like groceries and laundry and trying not to get eaten by ogres. Regular things.

And then it reappeared.

Haru swung into the Bureau, already tying her hair back and securing her back over one shoulder when she stopped dead.

“I came as fast as I got your message - we really need to find a better communication system than Toto dropping envelopes from above - just about anyone could pick it up, and it’s hardly subtle, but then again I guess those kinds of dramatics are right up your -- oh my god, it’s back.”

Baron turned to her, straightening out the tie beneath his collar. “What was that, Miss Haru?”

“The polka dots,” Haru said. “They’re back.”

“Ah yes, Well, as they say, you can’t keep good fashion down.”

“However much they may try,” Haru muttered. Then, “And the waistcoat, I see, is back in full force.”

“I believe yellow is my colour.”

Haru raised an eyebrow, but declined to comment.

So when they needed something to tie the door-handles together to hinder their pursuers while they made a run for it with the giant’s golden goose, Haru suggested the bowtie with only the barest smidgen of guilt. It was either that or her belt, and she liked that belt. It had flowers decorated on it.

And so fugly bowtie number two kicked the bucket when the door was kicked in.

The third bowtie was when Haru began to get suspicious.

After all, she could have believed that the first time, he’d somehow retrieved it without mentioning it to Haru, but there was no way that was the same tie. She’d seen it tear in half beyond repair, get trampled on, and possibly get eaten by one of the giant’s goats, for goodness sake.

“Eh, maybe it’s a backup, Chicky,” Muta suggested when Haru brought it up mid-case. “Or maybe he grabbed it before it got damaged. You gotta admit, we weren’t exactly taking inventory while we were running for our lives last time.”

“We’ll see about that.”

So, to Haru’s shame - but not enough to reconsider her actions - she may have stolen the horrifying bowtie when (once again) they donned on disguises, and fed it to one of the pond koi.

A week later, it reappeared.

“It’s a conspiracy, I’m telling you,” Haru hissed to Muta at the Crossroads. She passed across a tuna sandwich to him. “Every time I think it’s been irreparably lost or damaged, there it is! One back-up tie I can believe - but two?”

“Maybe it’s a Creation thing,” Muta suggested around a mouthful of fish. “Like he can summon it back to him cause it’s something that was made alongside him.”

“Summon it?” Haru echoed. “Like in Harry Potter?” She had the fleeting, but no less amusing, image of bowties flying through the air like silken bats. She grinned, and then refocused on the mystery at hand. “We’ve got to get to the bottom of this.”

Muta yawn. “Have ya tried asking him?”

“Where’s the fun in that? Come on, this is a mystery, Muta.”

“You’ve already asked him, haven’t you?” he translated.

Haru deflated. “Yeah. He said that a gentleman never reveals his secrets.”

“Typical Baron.”

“Yeah.”

“So what do you need from me?”

Haru grinned. “We need to see how many lives that tie has.”

It was frankly, Haru considered, quite amazing how many different ways one could destroy a bowtie if one got inventive enough. And, given the variety of worlds they visited, they had plenty chance to get creative.

Bowtie number six bit the dust when it found its way - somehow - into the belly of an active volcano.

Bowtie number nine got eaten by a plant.

Bowtie thirteen grew wings and flapped off into the sunset after a wayward wizard’s spell went rogue.

And yet they kept reappearing.

“Do you think he knows?”

Muta looked up from the newspaper he was flicking through. “Who knows what?”

“Baron,” Haru said. “About the bowties?”

Muta considered this, then folded down his paper to fix Haru with a solid stare. “Do I think,” he asked, “that Baron knows we’re systematically destroying his terrible polka dot tie after the kraken incident?”

Haru winced. “Good point.”

“I mean, I ain’t gonna tell you how to scheme, but maybe tackling Baron in the middle of a sea monster attack and trying to fend it off with a tie.”

Haru nodded, lips pursed as she came to the inevitable conclusion. “So he’s toying with us.”

“Yep.”

She continued to nod. “That explains why he looks so smug whenever he reappears with it.”

“Oh. So you finally noticed.”

“Well we can be sure it’s not accio-ing its way back to him,” Haru said. “After all, it’d be incinerated after the chimera incident. He has to have multiple bowties.”

“Maybe he’s ordering them in,” Muta offered.

“Maybe, but...” Haru frowned. “That implies he has a tailor.”

“We’d have heard about that.”

“Yeah.” She considered. “He’d have strong-armed his tailor into making him a cape or cloak by now. Maybe he orders them wholesale from an online company.”

Muta snorted. “With his technology prowess?”

“...True.”

There was a long pause.

“Of course,” Muta said slowly, “there’s always the possibility that he has a whole wardrobe of them. Like you see in the movies. Just hundreds of polka-dot monstrosities carefully folded in a drawer.”

Haru and Muta exchanged glances.

“We really shouldn’t nosy...” Haru said, but without conviction.

“We shouldn’t...”

“But we’re gonna to, aren’t we?”

Muta grinned. “I knew there was a reason I got on with you, Chicky.”

Haru looked around the Bureau’s interior in despair, and then to Muta for help. “You know, I never thought about this, but there aren’t any wardrobes in here.”

“Where did he get the bowtie from in the first place?”

“He... You know, I don’t have the foggiest? He was already wearing it when I first saw it.”

“Eh.”

“Yeah, I know. Helpful.” Haru ran her hands through her hair. “I’ll look through the desk drawers, you check the books for... I don’t know, a hidden door or something.”

“Really?”

“Do you have any better ideas?”

“What about up there?” And Muta pointed to a series of boxes carefully stacked on the top of the bookshelves.

Haru looked up. And then up. And then some. “Pass me the ladder.”

“Are ya sure--”

“We’re getting to the bottom of this, Muta!”

He shrugged and collected up the ladder leaning against the corner, pulling it open and holding it in place. “Up yer go.”

“You know, this is all very weird,” Haru said as she scaled the steps. She glanced down at Muta. Or over at him, since the few steps granted her on eye-level with him. “I mean, there really aren’t any wardrobes in here, and Baron...”

“Face it, Chicky; how often have you seen him switch up his clothes?”

She wrinkled her nose. “No, I mean... no, he must change sometime...”

“Creations are weird, kid. You’ll get used to it.”

“I don’t want to get used to it. I want answers. I want -- I want...” She stuttered as she tried to pull the boxes loose, but they jammed. She tugged at them, and the shelf wobbled. “Come -- on -- out-- you -- stupid -- box --got it!” She gave a cry of triumph as she heaved one box away. “Hah! Oh.”

“What’s in the box?”

“Hm, well it’s not bowties.”

There was a creak, and before Muta could ask anything more, the bookshelf began to lean precariously away from the wall. Haru squeaked, Muta yowled, and both dropped everything to grab the shelves before gravity could take over.

The creaking stopped.

Haru exhaled. “Well, that was a close call--”

The next bookshelf over toppled forward.

And then the one on the other side went.

When the dust finally cleared, there was an audible sigh from both.

“Okay, so that was--”

“Not another word to tempt fate, Chicky.”

“I was only going to say--”

“No.”

“But--”

“Nada.”

Haru pouted. “You say that like you’ve never made a mess in your life.”

“What in the world is going on here?”

Haru and Muta both spun on their heels to see Baron standing in the doorway, and as their grip slipped, the middle bookcase finally gave way. Haru squealed and leapt out of the way before she could be squashed beneath it.

Muta raised his paws defensively. “Listen, I didn’t do anything this time, I was just there when things started to fall apart.”

“Baron. Baron, Baron, Baron.” Haru skidded over the chaos, stumbling against the desk that had narrowly avoided becoming a casualty, and reached Baron. “How do your bowties keep reappearing? I need to know!”

Baron gently set his top hat to one side, returning to old habits to deal with the fact that the Bureau had looked better when a tornado spirit had invaded the building. “That is what this is all about?”

“...Well, when you put it like that, it sounds so silly...”

“Just tell them, Baron,” Toto called from the internal balcony. He had arrived when Baron had, and the smile on his beak implied he had known the mystery that had plagued Muta and Haru and had taken great joy in watching the drama unfold. “Before they decide to blow up my column looking for your secret bowtie stash.”

Baron nodded. “Very well. Please watch.” He reclaimed his hat and carefully exhaled, sparks of magic flowing up and over him as he reverted to his inanimate form.

“Is this his way of running from the answer?” Muta stage-whispered.

“Keep watching, pudding-brain.”

Sparks flew up again as Baron returned to his flesh and blood form, but as he did so, subtle changes took place. The classy red waistcoat shifted colour, like someone dragging a swatch through a colour wheel until it rested on yellow, and the royal-blue bowtie became blotchy, making way for white polka dots that had drawn Haru’s attention so strongly in the first place.

By the time Baron was blinking the gemstone glaze from his eyes, Haru’s jaw had dropped.

“You can shapeshift?”

“Not exactly.” Baron righted his tie, as if it hadn’t been perfectly straight before. “All Creations have a default appearance that we can subtly alter as our personalities and style shift. I can not grow wings or a second tail, but I can nudge the set pattern of my waistcoat or - in this case - bowtie to fit my liking.”

Toto cackled. “You should have seen his experimental stage. He had grey fur for a decade before he went back to ginger.”

“Yes, thank you, Toto,” Baron said curtly. “We all go through phases.”

“Louise laughed until she cried,” Toto informed them. “She said that they looked like they were cosplaying as yin and yang if they stood together.”

“Thank you, Toto.”

“Please tell me there are photos somewhere,” Haru begged.

“There are,” Baron said. “In there.” And he pointed to the pile of books smothered beneath the toppled shelves. He raised an eyebrow at Muta and Haru.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, kinda forgot about that...”

Muta trundled over to the mess, but Haru lingered a moment longer with Baron. She leant in. “Just for the record, I think you look great, regardless of your fashion sense.”

He grinned knowingly. “Even with the polka dots?”

She kissed his cheek. “Don’t push your luck.”

#Anon #replies #cat writes #the cat returns #the cat queues #I finished this at like half midnight?#which may explain a few things XD #I do kinda have a headcanon that creations can change their default appearance over time #minor changes are just like this #but larger changes are slower and gradual and are linked to identity #so yeah you'll get creations that differ from the species or the #gender that they were originally created as #because the magic is tied to how they perceive themselves and their identity #basically #one more down!#many more to go

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simsadventures · 5 years

Text

After All: Chapter 1: New Beginnings

Summary: It is your first few days at the compound. You meet the team, but Bucky is the one who tries to integrate you the most.

Warnings: none so far

Word Count: 1460 A/N: This is just a first part, I promise it will get better, I just needed to set the scene.

This is an out of canon fic. I can’t even set the time in the MCU universe. Bucky is an Avenger, Tony and Natasha never died. Also, I did my research on prosthetic limbs, but I’m no mean an expert, so I apologise in advance if I messed up.

Series Masterlist__Masterlist

You couldn’t believe it. Your dreams were coming true faster than you thought possible. You were starting a new job at Stark Industries and couldn’t believe your own luck. It was a dream-come-true for every scientist around the world. You knew you were good at your job, having a PhD in physics and mechanics made you a perfect material for many tech companies.

And even though you enjoyed your last job- creating mechanic prosthetics for athletes with disabilities, you couldn’t really say no to Tony Stark. He even visited you personally and tried to convince you that a better future awaits you in his company.

What you didn’t expect was to be one of the lead scientists to work with the Avengers themselves. You thought you’d be more in a lab, working on Stark’s other projects. But he told you that your inventions and ideas were too good to be locked somewhere and wanted to use them to help protect the world.

The idea of the world’s mightiest heroes surrounding you scared you a little. Let’s just say you weren’t the most outgoing person. You didn’t mind spending your time with people, but more often than not, you ended up on your couch, a good book and a glass of wine.

You never were the popular girl at school, wearing glasses and braces was enough for the kids to call you a nerd and not really wanting to spend their time with you. You didn’t mind, though. Your parents taught you to be independent and not really care about other’s people’s opinion on you. It still stung a little sometimes, when the kids would call you names or make practical jokes on you.

But you were a big girl now, and you wouldn’t let anyone treat you like that. You might not be Miss Universe, but you had your value, and you knew all about it.

Your first few days at the compound were hectic, to say the least. You had to learn all the access codes, cooperate with Friday and meet the whole team.

When you finally settled, you actually started to do your job. The first thing to look at was Bucky’s arm. You saw it on the television, but you needed to see it with your own eyes. You thought it was beautiful- old-fashioned, but very well crafted. Even if it was constructed by Hydra- the scientist might have been the bad guy and all, but he was good at his job. You could appreciate that.

You asked Friday to let Mr Barnes know you’d like to see him when he’s got time. You didn’t think that’d be in 20 minutes since you made the call. He walked in all his glory, wearing sweatpants and tightly fitting shirt. You could see his muscles and your mouth watered a little just because of it.

“Hi, uh, Mr Barnes. I didn’t expect you so soon.” You said and offered him a hand to shook, which he did. “It’s Bucky, love. And wasn’t it you calling me here?” He smirked at you, and you blushed. Great, now you were blushing like a teenage girl who never saw a guy before. “Uhm, yeah, I just- never mind. I would like to have a look at your arm if you don’t mind.”

You could see he was a little reluctant, so you added, “I think I might make it more comfortable and overall better, Bucky.” He sighed and rolled up his sleeve to show you where his arm was attached to his body. You could see that someone tried to heal his skin and muscle as much as possible, but the weight of the arm was possibly still too much for his organism.

Tony told you that he tried to make the arm better, but because it was literally a part of Bucky’s body, he thought he’d let you have a better look and find a better solution than Tony’s temporary one.

“How often do you have to take it off?”

“I don’t know, every few weeks because of the therapy I’m doing? My shoulder hurt too much after a few weeks, so I have to take it off, we do physiotherapy, and I’m good to go for another few weeks.”

“Uh-huh.” You just hummed to show you were listening and continued to inspect the arm. Bucky was watching you with interest.

“And you can do everything with that arm? No limitations at all?”

“Depends what you mean, doll face, anything you want me to show you?” He smirked at you, and you just laughed it off. Gosh. He was such a flirt!

“Ok, I think I know what I wanna do with that arm. Can you come in tomorrow morning, so we take all of the measurements and stuff so I can start working on it?”

“You got it, and btw, don’t you wanna come to a movie night tonight? Most of us will be there, and you can see the arm in daily life,” Bucky winked at you and laughed when you rolled your eyes at him. “Alright, Casanova, I’ll be there.”

Bucky smiled at you and left your lab. The rest of the day went by just like your morning, Sam and Natasha being the ones who you talked to and looked at their equipment, and made mental notes and preliminary blueprints of what novelties you wanted to show them.

You loved the job already. The team was really easy to work with, and the resources you suddenly had were immense. You didn’t have to ask for grants and wait for months to be usually denied. Here you just told Tony about your plans and voila, you had all you needed.

When you were finished for the day, you pretty much ran into your room to get ready for the movie night. You knew you didn’t have to do much, you never did (some mascara would be enough), but you wanted to take a shower and get changed from the lab coat to something more. At least a regular pair of jeans and a t-shirt.

You were almost done when you heard a light knock on your door.

“Hey, doll. Here to pick you up, you ready?” you heard Bucky’s voice from behind the door.

“Yeah, just give me a sec, and I’m with you.” You hollered at him and looked at yourself in the mirror for the last time. Ain’t getting better, you thought to yourself and walked out of the room. You walked side by side, making small talk about your day and his day. Within a few days, you learned that all of the Avengers work out like crazy, preparing for the next possible mission.

“And so I kicked Steve’s ass so much, you know? The punk was wailing like a little brat!” You had to laugh at his antics. You couldn’t really imagine Captain American himself “wailing like a brat”, but you let Bucky to it.

When you reached the little cinema built in the compounds, most of the team, and some other agents and lab techs were there. You were happy it wasn’t just the Avengers, you’d probably feel a little out of place.

Everyone greeted you with a warm smile, and for a second, you really felt like you belonged there. It was a nice feeling, for once.

Bucky insisted on you sitting next to him, both of you covered in one blanket, popcorn between you. Someone picked the newest Mission Impossible, despite Steve’d loud protests, because he “wanted to watch a classic, these new movies are just a colourful nothing with a plot that could never happen in real life.” This coming from a superhero, mind you. You had to roll your eyes. Brat.

Bucky threw some popcorn in Steve’s direction, which almost resulted in a popcorn battle, has Clint not stood up and started pestering Steve, Bucky, and Sam like little children.

The whole movie, Bucky kept whispering nonsense into your ear, on how it wasn’t that difficult to jump out of a plane, or how he would beat Tom Cruise’s ass in a battle, single-handedly by his human arm. “Of course you would, Bucky. You’re a freaking superhero, and he is just a normal guy, remember?” He smiled and scooted a little closer to you because “the popcorn’s just too far doll.”

It was weird, but a good weird, sitting there, next to Bucky, with his hand constantly touching yours. Little butterflies erupted in your stomach, but you tried to shoo them away. Bucky was just being friendly, and there was nothing else to it. He was simply a nice guy showing the ropes of the compound and the team to the new girl.

But the butterflies didn’t listen anyway.

Next Chapter >

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#bucky barnes #bucky #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #avengers #avengers fanfiction #new fic #new fic alert #first chapter

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cutetinyartist · 4 years

Note

tiny person sentence starters - 18, if you wanna write anything around that? :D

Thanks for the prompt! Sorry it took me so long to finish ^^’ Also because I’m a dumbass I didn’t think to put the prompt sentence at the start of the fic and not just in the middle of it?? So I might write another fic using this prompt soon so I can get it right >w<

Anyway tho, I wrote Scientist!Danny Sexbang inventing a Shrink Ray in this one cus I thought it’d be fun! Hope you like it ^^

Word Count: 2000 (I got a biiiit carried away while writing this ^^’)

It was a casual Saturday afternoon and Danny had invited you over to help out with one of his science projects. You were both excited and slightly nervous to see what he'd made this time, as his experiments were always very adventurous, to say the least...

As you entered his lab, you noticed that it was in its usual disorganized state and that Danny was trying to untangle a complete clusterfuck of wires that were connected to the huge device in the corner of the room. He glanced up from his work and his look of annoyance at the wires turned into a bright smile when he saw you.

He immediately stood up and speedily walked over, almost tripping over the wires in his enthusiasm.

Instead of his usual Spandex and cape, he was wearing the scientist outfit that you'd only seen him wear a few times in the past. His labcoat was long and swayed behind him as he approached you and, although he was wearing safety goggles, you could see the twinkle in his eyes. He was just wearing a Rush t-shirt and jeans under his labcoat, and you also noticed that he had blue vinyl gloves on. His curly hair was tightly tied up in a ponytail, however a few wild hairs were sticking out and some hung in front of his face.

"Hey, (Y/N)! I'm so glad you came! I can't wait to show you what I've been working on!"

He grabbed your hand and lead you towards the huge machine. It was shaped like a giant tube and looked like something out of a Sci-Fi movie you'd seen ages ago. The tube had glass walls and a silver metal base, and looked just about big enough to stand in. There were several wires connected to it and they lead to a panel with a few brightly coloured buttons and screens on it.

"What is this?" You asked curiously.

"It's a shrink ray! I saw one in a TV Show last week and thought it'd be fun to try making my own."

"No way!" You gasped, "Does it work?"

"Well... That's kinda why you're here. Could you help me do the final tests, please? I'm 99% sure that it'll work but Ninja Brian won't let me test it on him for some reason."

You stifled a giggle at the thought of the murderous Ninja being only a few inches tall, before answering Danny's question, "Sure, I'd love to. What exactly do you need me to do?"

You'd helped Danny quite a few times in the past with his experiments, so you weren't too hesitant about helping with this one. Plus, (although you were way too shy to admit it) you really wanted to be tiny, so him inventing a shrink-ray was like a dream come true. When he'd asked you to help test out the invention you'd almost squealed with excitement!

"I knew I could count on you, (Y/N)!"

He beamed, "Just step into the machine and I'll handle the rest. Oh, and DON'T touch the glass or look at the ray!"

You walked into the tube and your heart began beating faster. Although it was big enough to stand in it still felt slightly claustrophobic and now that you were about to have it tested on you, you couldn't stop trembling anxiously. The glass had a blue tinge to it and made everything outside of the tube look blurred.

"Are you okay in there?" Danny's muffled voice came from outside the glass.

"Yeah!" You shouted back.

"Are you ready for me to push the button?"

"Yeah, I'm ready!"

"Okay, good! I'll press it in three... two... one..."

Danny finished counting down and you were instantly engulfed by a blinding white flash. It felt like you were being tightly squeezed and spun around by an unseen force, and it was a sensation that made you dizzier than you'd ever been before.

Although the light disappeared almost as soon as it appeared, it took a moment longer for the dizziness to fade away.

The sound of the door sliding back open and booming footsteps coming towards you made you quickly open your eyes, and the first thing you saw was Danny. This normally wouldn't shock you too much, however he was now absolutely gigantic to you! He was looking at you with a huge smile on his face as he swiftly approached you.

"Holy shit! I can't believe it worked!" Were the first words out of his mouth as he crouched down. Even in that position he still completely towered over you, and the sight of his huge hand reaching towards you made you nervously stumble backwards.

Danny stopped moving his hand and softly smiled, "Relax, (Y/N), I won't hurt you. I do need to pick you up so I can take you out of the machine but don't worry, okay?"

You gulped, “Just remember that I’m a lot smaller than you. Be careful."

"Of course I'll be careful," He said with a smirk as he wrapped his fingers around you and lifted you up. Despite the fact that he was wearing vinyl gloves, you could still feel the warmth radiating from his skin. His fingers were like tree-trunks and the way that they enveloped you made you realise how tiny you truly were.

He walked over to his desk and adjusted his grip on you so that you were now sat in the palm of his hand. He reached towards you with his other hand, and although you were still slightly nervous you didn't flinch. The tip of his index finger was almost the same size as your chest now, and as he softly touched your tiny body you couldn't stop yourself from blushing. He was definitely trying to be gentle, but you could tell that he was far too excited about the fact that his device had worked. It was like nothing you'd ever experienced before and you were adoring every second of it. He stroked the top of your head before slowly rubbing the tip of his finger down your arm. When he reached your hand he gently held it between his thumb and forefinger.

"Wow..." He whispered, "How do you feel? What's it like, being so tiny?"

It took you a minute to find your voice because of how flustered you were, but after a moment you cleared your throat and spoke, "I- I don't really know how to describe it but being this tiny and seeing everything from this perspective is kind of daunting, but also really cool!"

Your answer made him smile and he continued to massage your hand between his fingers as he thought of his next question, "And how did it feel to be shrunk? Was being in the machine okay? I wanted to make it more of a portable ray-gun but I almost blew up the place when I was trying to do that..." He chuckled as he trailed off.

"It made me feel REALLY dizzy at first but- but it all happened so fast. One minute I was being spun around and surrounded by a bright light, the next I was standing there like nothing even happened."

"I'll have to try it later- provided that getting you back to your normal size works-" He mumbled before immediately bursting into laughter when he saw the shocked look on your face, "I'm kidding! I'm sure it'll work."

You began laughing with him too; his laughter was always so contagious!

"God, (Y/N), you're so adorable," He said softly, grinning when he saw how much that made you blush. The fact that his deep brown eyes were entirely focused on you made your heart flutter, and you were in love with his perfect smile.

...

After an hour or two (you always tended to lose track of time when you were with Danny) of hanging out and admiring how huge everything was to you now, you yawned sleepily.

"Shit, I didn't realise how late it was getting-" Danny mumbled to himself before saying to you, "Do you want me to get you back to your normal size now?"

You really wanted to say no, but instead you said yes because you knew that you should probably go home soon. Besides, you could always ask him to shrink you again in the future!

He steadily walked over to the machine and gently placed you inside before going back over to the buttons that controlled it. The gigantic door closed in what felt like slow-motion and you braced yourself for the blinding flash and dizziness...

The bright light did come, however it didn't feel like anything else was happening. You suddenly heard a loud crackling sound from high above you, and when the light faded away you screamed when you saw that the machine was filling with smoke! The door slid open and Danny quickly pulled you out of it, cupping his hands around you and swiftly moving away from the device.

"Oh god, (Y/N), are you okay?" His voice was laced with concern as he moved his hand and held you closer to his twinkling brown eyes. He stared intently at you, wanting to make sure that you hadn't been injured.

"I'm fine- what happened?" You asked.

Danny let out a sigh of relief, "Well I pushed the button and- and smoke started coming out of the machine... Sorry about picking you up so suddenly, I just panicked!"

"It's okay, I don't mind-" You bit your lip nervously. If the machine was broken then who knows how long you'd be stuck at such a tiny size...

Although you'd wanted to be tiny, you did want to at least be able to get back to normal size when you needed to!

Danny absentmindedly stroked the top of your head with his thumb as he tried to think of what to do, "I'm just gonna put you on the desk for a minute, I need to see if I can fix this..."

When he placed you on the vast surface of the desk, you immediately began to walk around and look at everything towering over you. A stack of books looked like an uneven wall that you could probably climb, and a simple water bottle was the size of a building. You looked over at Danny and the machine. The smoke had thankfully stopped coming out of it (and luckily the lab had a good ventilation system so it was pretty much gone) but it didn't seem like Danny knew how to fix the machine.

He turned to face you with a sheepish look on his face, "I- um- I'm not sure how to fix this- I might need Ninja Brian to do it... But I don't actually know where he is-"

Danny was interrupted by Ninja Brian literally appearing from nowhere.

"Oh, there he is-"

Ninja Brian took one look at you, then one look at the machine and immediately knew what to do. He moved so fast that you could hardly even see him and before you knew it, it looked like he'd fixed the shrink ray! Before you or Danny could say anything else, Brian had already disappeared.

Danny approached you and scooped you into his palm, "So, shall we get you back to normal now that it's fixed?"

You hesitantly fidgeted, as you actually wanted to stay tiny for a little while longer. You knew that it was fixed, but after everything that had just happened you were a bit apprehensive about going back into the tube.

After a brief awkward silence you asked, "Can I maybe stay like this for a bit longer?"

Danny smiled softly and nodded, "Of course you can," He began to stroke your back, "I'm actually kinda relieved that you asked that because I don't wanna stop holding you just yet."

His remark made your heart flutter, and the two of you relaxed together for the rest of the evening. You eventually fell asleep in his palm, and he decided that he could always return you to normal when you woke up the next day.

#danny sexbang #g/t #giant/tiny #cutetinyartist #tinyartistwrites #ninja sex party #game grumps

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