#too bad they start filming at end of 2023 :(((((

[stormblessed95]

Watching Are You Sure?! EP 1

A reminder of how I do these reaction posts as I watch things. I just write my reactions and thoughts down literally as a happen. Think more of a bullet point format. I'll include links when I can to videos, thanks to the people who twt who upload clips. And at the end, I'll do a better wrap up of all my opinions. I hope everyone enjoyed the show so far!!

The episode starts with Jimin showing up right before JKs GMA performance and interview, July 14th 2023.

Them meeting up and talking about how he has his performance in NY on GMA later. Jimin saying that he hadn't seen him in a while, their schedules kept them SO BUSY 😭😭 this trip was so good for them. And the way he caressed JKs throat and told him to rest his voice and take care of it since it had been hurting. 🥺 So many soft touches too as soon as they were able to see each other again. And we didn't even get to see their actual reunion.

JK packing up his hotel room and talking about how he never traveled so freely before. They are so sweet and so busy and I'm so glad they were able to carve out even just a few weekends for time to themselves. And the way when the staff was talking to them about plans and who would drive etc, JK said he would drive and was just sitting there talking about traffic while they were holding hands interlocked resting in Jimins lap 😭 that's so??!!

Then fighting over the AC in the car in efforts to take care of the other is so cute. Jimin wanting to make sure JKs throat stayed okay, JK not wanting Jimin to get sick. They baby the heck out of each other. And Jimin watching his GMA performance on his phone 🥰 JKs cute smile while Jimin was jamming out to his music 🥺

"JungJi" new ship name alert?! Lmao!

JK ordering for the table 💜

The absolute bickering over who is a bad driver/bad at parking. The get out. Lmao the way they absolutely irritate each other on purpose is amazing and soooo best friends/might as well be married behavior 😂🤣

When they went shopping together and JK said they should buy the same shorts together 😍🥰 matchy matchy always!!

And an ARMY recognized them and saying hello and they were so cutely excited about it. "We've still got it." 😍🥺🥰

JK ordering for them again at the brewery 🥰 and I love that they went to an LGBTQ friendly brewery for one of their first hang out spots. Some ARMYs went and talked to the people working and said they everyone said Jikook were super polite, no one had recognized them and they kept to themselves a bit and just had some phones/go pros for recording.

The way that they also started talking about how this was their trip before military service. And how JK started bonking Jimin over the head with his camera when he mentioned it. Jimin was giggling but you KNOW that they was emotional from it too. This was when they were thinking there was still a chance they would be separated for 2 years. I know they were anxious to get to cherish this time spent together. I know it meant SO much to them both and probably so much to JK that Jimin traveled all this way and made it happen.

The way that JKs kayak tipped over immediately and Jimin just was cackling as he continued to paddle away and the staff were fishing JK out of the lake 🤣🤣🤣 just for JK to furiously row up on him and be like "you have your phone?? Tip over!!" 🤣🤣 They are so funny and cute! And Jimin taking a photo of his baby 💜 the way Jimin spent the whole time on the water just laughing and smiling fondly at everything JK would do. It's so freaking sweet. They just really had so much fun together being silly and goofy.

Not Jimin giving JK the "you come here often?" Pick up line and the immediate roleplay they both get into 😅🤣😂 they really can't go too long without at least a little bit of flirting lol

We know there was a getaway cabin with a 2 bed option but Jikook picked the one with just one bed. Lmfao good for them. Hey BH, we know you have no issues with filming the members while they sleep, even while they share the bed. How come we got zero footage of Jikook sharing the bed? 😂😂

Jimin being like "JK, you are a good cook 🥺" and Jungkook just immediately getting to work on cooking them dinner 🥺💜 although when Jimin asked for a taste, why did JK feed him from his FINGER?! Lmfao and what the hell was the noise he made when Jimin licked his finger 😂🤣 half moan, half laugh? I don't even know lmao

And the way he ran to go feed Jimin a piece of the chicken because he was proud of how his cooking was turning out. Sooo cute. Jimin accidentally dropped a piece of chicken and acted like he committed a great offence 😭😂 the way they spilt dinner duties though was so cutely domestic.

JK speaking directly to the camera to speak to the viewers. Man has done too many hours long live streams. Lmao he is too used to just chatting with ARMYs 🤣😂 that was adorable and Jimin thought so too. And the way Jimin goes "I miss V" and JK immediately is like "let's call him!" Anything to make Jimin smile! But they clearly cut so much of that convo, BH, give me my members loving each other istg I miss them too much. And don't even get me started on the yoonminkook conversation. I genuinely almost teared up. I miss BTS so much 😭 their laughter is healing

Jimin getting a stomach bug 😭😭 my poor baby. And the screen just going black while Jikook cuddle?? The give us minimal Audio and a black screen and then they cut away entirely and we KNOW they are cuddling. Lmfao TF BH!! We know they cuddle, where is my fanservice?! And JK turned over at some point and elbowed Jimin in the nose. You KNOW they were all up in each other's business on that bed for that to happen 😂😂😂

And my poor Jimmie... He feels so bad 😭😭 JK is taking such sweet care of him though.

JK outside stacking rocks while Jimin rests is giving me Yumi vibes. Lmfao I love him (and her!) SO MUCH! The way he prayed after too for a good trip with Jimin. The rock tower is also (correct me here if needed) a way to pray for someone's health and well-being. My poor sick Jiminie. Yumi also used the rock towers as ways to pray and communicate with her Gods.

Wrap up thoughts?

Not much I haven't already said honestly. Lol but just more emphasis on how special this trip is, both to Jikook themselves and for us to have it shared with us. This IS comfort TV. They bring each other such peace and happiness. They both banter and tease and have such fun. They both baby the heck out of the other. JK taking care of a sick Jimin was soooo nice seeing. The way Jimin wasn't feeling good, but rallied in order to have a good time for their weekend away.

It's also interesting that so much of this is honestly filmed from GoPro. They have some staff and crew there, but from what I've seen it's a smaller number than normally goes to film these shows and they are left alone with just installed cameras fairly often. That's extra nice for them. 💜

I am and forever will be salty about all the cuts. The Tae face time was cut short, the cuddling was cut, so much was cut. Which duh, I get why. But I still want more 😂 looking forward to the behinds to see if we get anything more. That black screen cut from them cuddling though was 👀👀😂😂

JK was such a good leader and took charge so much so far this trip. It was cool to see, Jimin ALSO thought so! The way he was speak for both of them, drove them around, ordered food and drinks for them, gave dinner prep instructions. Gave Jimin his medicine.... I'm not saying it's hyung behavior.... But... Lol also I did notice that there was a pretty even split of address between him calling Jimin hyung, or just by his name. Along with all the little random bits of flirting sprinkled through the episode lol so cute..

Hope you guys enjoyed it!! And thanks for reading all my random thoughts! Onto episode 2!

[bad268]

Hey. I love your blog. It's amazing. Is it possible for you to write about actress reader x colby brock. Like they are each others favorite and Sam and colby invite her to one of their investigations. Like in one of her interviews found out that their her favorite YouTubers and colby might ask her on a date?

Thank you so much 💗

Tweets (Colby Brock X Actor! Reader)

Fandom: RPF/Sam and Colby & Co.

Requested: Clearly (I had a little too much fun with this one lol)

Warnings: none.

Pronouns: First person (I/me)

W.C. 1087

Summary: An unearthed tweet leads to shocking revelations (with a best friend's intervention).

As always, my requests are OPEN

MASTERLIST // HITLIST

~~(^@/Colby's insta from November 16, 2023)

It all started with a resurfaced tweet from 2015…

I can’t say it was a lie, but it was before my big break, and I didn't have a manager running my social media accounts 24/7. I was just a normal teenager on Vine with time to kill. And now, I thought it was coming back to haunt me, pun intended.

That was until I received a DM from Colby himself asking me to be a part of their yearly tradition, Hell Week. At first, I was starstruck, but I would have been crazy to decline.

So that’s where we are now: preparing for the Conjuring House. A place of extremes. A place I told myself I would never go to because of how insane it is, yet here I am. And, of course, it’s going to be for a week. 

I was invited to Sam and Colby’s place to go over the specifics of the trip. I had just finished filming my latest movie, which was coincidentally being filmed in Las Vegas, so as soon as my scenes were wrapped up, I set off for their house.

By the time I got there, everyone else who was invited was already there. At least, I assumed with the number of cars in the driveway. I was still in stage make-up, but thankfully, I had changed into something more comfortable before I left the set. I grabbed my backpack before jumping out of my car, locking it, and walking up to the door, ringing the doorbell.

Almost immediately, the door is being opened, and I am face to face with Colby. After a beat of us just staring, speechless, at each other, I cleared my throat. I chuckled nervously before saying, “Hi, apologies for being late. Filming ran a little longer than I originally planned. I hope I didn’t hold you all up too long.”

“Nah, don’t even worry about it,” he dismissed quickly as he stepped aside and ushered me inside. “Come in, and I’ll show you where you can put your stuff. You’re staying and going with Sam, Seth, and me to Rhode Island, right?”

“If that’s still alright with you guys,” I replied, walking in step with Colby up the stairs. “I don’t want to impose on your personal spaces. I can go home, just say the word.”

“I would never kick you out,” he laughed, leading me down the hall and stopping just before the end. “Here is your room. There is a bathroom attached. It’s right next to the closet, and if you need anything, my room is right there.” He paused as he pointed to the room at the very end of the hall. “I don’t care if it’s the middle of the night. If you need anything, let me know.”

“I’ll feel bad if it’s the middle of the night, but I will keep that in mind. Thank you,” I replied as I walked in to set my bag down on the vanity. “I’m just going to take my make-up off and meet you guys downstairs if that’s alright.”

“No problem,” he said, “We’ll be in the living room and we’ll either order food later or go out. We’ll see how everyone feels.”

“Ok, cool, thank you!” I said enthusiastically as he left down the hall. I closed the door over as I walked deeper into the room. I grabbed out my micellar water, cotton pads, and hydrater before walking into the ensuite to clean my face. As I set them on the counter, I noticed a piece of paper.

It was a printed screenshot of Twitter. A specific tweet from Colby in 2016 read, “Give me a chance y/n.” The back of the paper had its own handwritten note.

“You have been Colby’s celebrity crush for years. I know you posted a tweet in 2015 asking if he was single, and I don’t know if it was a joke or not. I didn’t show him the tweet, but I can say he’s single now if that tweet is still true. Please just get him to shut up. -Sam”

I chuckled at the note before quickly cleaning my face to head downstairs. Everyone was sitting on the couch or on the floor facing the TV. Everyone except Colby. I glanced around the room, trying to find him, only to see him standing in the kitchen. He was looking through the fridge, so I walked up behind him.

“Can you hand me a water?” I asked, startling him in the process. He jumped up straight, sucking in a quick breath as he snapped around to look at me. “Did I scare you or is that residual energy from the Conjuring House?”

“No, I just…” he trailed off for a second. “Yeah. I wasn’t expecting you down here just yet.”

“Kinda like how you didn’t expect me to see this?” I teased as I pulled the paper out from behind my back. Colby’s eyes grew wide as his jaw dropped. He stammered, trying to come up with a reason behind it, but he could not get a cohesive thought out. “Don’t worry. I’d give you a chance.”

Colby stopped entirely. I could see the gears turning in his mind before he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He opened his eyes, immediately meeting mine as he reached out to take the paper from my hands, setting it on the counter. He held my hands in his as he closed the distance between us. 

“Y/n, will you go out with me?” Colby whispered as he bit his lip in nervousness.

“Of course, I will,” I whispered back as a smile spread across both of our faces. 

“How about after this meeting we get out of here and do mini golf and dinner?” He offered, leaning his head down to rest our foreheads together.

“I will take you down,” I laughed as I leaned more into his body. “Truth be told, I’m great at mini golf.”

“Okay, lovebirds, we get it,” Sam interrupted from the living room. “We get it.”

“Shush, Sam,” I quipped back as I snapped my head to look at the group on the couch, still holding Colby’s hands. “You’re the one that left the note in my bathroom.”

“Wait, there’s a note?!” Colby shouted as he immediately let go of one of my hands to flip the paper over, reading through the note. “Sam, I told you this in confidence!”

~~~

Part 2 ->

~~~~~

© BAD268 2023. DO NOT REPOST WITHOUT PERMISSION.

[taylor-titmouse]

2023 Book Retrospective

it's pretty much the end of the year, and i've never done this before, but i wanted to take a look at what i managed to do in 2023 and share some of my thoughts on it! i published five novellas this year (though i didn't actually write one of them) plus the public release of the demo and first huge update to You're A Mage on Monsterfuck Mountain. that's a lot!

so let's dig into all that. this will contain some spoilers for the books, because it's hard to talk about them without talking about what's in 'em, so maybe check out my itchio first and grab anything you missed! (but also.... perhaps wait until this weekend before you buy anything. shh.)

You're A Mage on Monsterfuck Mountain, released in March

TECHNICALLY, the demo was finished and available on patreon around the end of last year, and didn't become public until I'd finished the garden update, which i did finish this year. and what a massive fuckin THING that was. 60k words! 50 illustrations!! the biggest thing i ever put out and technically finished, and the beginning of a move to being less afraid of writing "weird" sex. there was so much bee sex in it. arguably too much bee sex in it. which i'd left entirely til last to do which meant i was writing nothing but bee sex for weeks.

this was the first time i let myself really indulge in writing dubcon for the bad endings, and it was a lot of fun. very often it was more interesting than the deliberately horny routes, because it meant writing a way to be put in the situation, and also making it hot every time. i'm very much of the philosophy with dubcon that even if the situation wasn't Ideal for the character, they're still going to get good sex out of it. i believe i put it at another point as, i'm here to write the pleasure of helplessness, not suffering. to that point, the dubcon endings for the armor, the dryad, and the queen bee were my favorite bits from this.

the fact i never got a second update out this year is a big regret. i finished a bunch of the routes for it, but ultimately i wanted to have things i could release! shortly after publishing the demo and update, i officially put my webcomic on hiatus so i could focus more on my graphic novel, and also spend more time on my writing. having that extra time is probably the only reason i was able to write as much as i did this year, and i didn't want to spend it toiling away on a serial project i couldn't release for months at a time.

which leads us to the release of my first novella of the year...

House of the Risen King, released in April

now this is when i truly said "i'm just going to write what i think is hot and interesting and not worry about how it's perceived!!" and went whole hog on exhibitionism and monster dubcon cult horror. house was mostly inspired by the ending of Hereditary, and was originally going to be more poltergiesty and played more straight, with vee being harangued by a bunch of horny ghost-demons and nothing more sinister than that. but i've had cult shit percolating at the back of my brain forever, and i wanted to play with ideas i'd first developed in shadow in the shelves with rituals and shadows, so here we are! the scene of hettie fingering vee in the bathtub while vee's god-fucked out of her mind is my favorite.

fun fact, the original seed for this book was actually going to feature max and mortis, my photographer/model couple (that link goes to cohost because i wasn't posting here yet when i was drawing them the most). the idea was they'd go do an urban exploration shoot and mortis would start getting fucked by a ghost while max filmed it, but the more time i spent with those characters the less i wanted to involve the supernatural. which meant i never wrote their book, and had to make a new character to do the idea. and then it wasn't even that idea anymore.

that's writing, folks

Roger Crenshaw: The Dogs at Duskfall, released in June

... which makes it ironic that the next book is one i didn't even write! r/l monroe @mortalityplays has been my friend for years, and was my editor for a long time (until he got a REAL JOB and didn't have TIME to edit anymore. sobs, cries, kicks a stone and walks into the distance). he's also always been an incredible writer, and for my birthday this year i asked him to write me something. i asked with the expectation of a little short story about our old tabletop RP characters, or a fanfic scene for one of my books he'd edited.

and then he wrote me 20,000+ words digging into the character of roger crenshaw and who he is that perfectly summed him up and tied all his stories together, such that i don't think i ever need to write another one. he did it, he wrote the perfect ending to roger. AND he did it using my favorite of his ocs from our tabletop campaign, AND there's some really hot and sweet smut in it. AND HE DID IT IN LIKE TWO WEEKS.

i loved it so much that i asked if i could illustrate and publish it as an official novella, and to my delight he agreed, and it was so so nice to collaborate with him on it. even if it meant beating our heads against the wall for 30 minutes about the placement of certain images on the page.

this was a great tragedy. i'd drawn the vagina one first, but an image earlier in the book had to be moved, which affected the placement of everything else. the vagina image had been perfectly at the start of a new page, and then suddenly it wasn't. so i had to do the penis one instead for better placement. tragic!!!

it's hard to pick a favorite scene in something written entirely, lovingly for you. how can i choose between the characters' pitch perfect semantic arguments on the nature of folk lore, the millenium princess-ass memory hopping, or the really really hot smut? i can't. i love it all. thank you r/l for being so good at what you do and writing this for me, i'll treasure it always.

The Dragon Double Feature, released in May

apparently this came out in may, and not july. i don't know why i've been convinced this came out in july. oh well i can't be bothered to insert it on top of the roger one.

anyway. THIS book. this book exists because i believe at the time i was a bit blocked, and wanted to just write SOMETHING. for a long time i've had the idea of a dragon wrecking a princess' wedding and fucking her in front of the congregation just sitting in my back pocket. it was the 'i know i could just slam this out if i wanted. i don't have to care about it it's just sex and then it's done' fallback idea, and i finally did it!

and then it was too short. i don't like the idea of publishing anything less than 10k words for full price, so i was like. okay. alright. i've always thought fucking an eastern dragon would be hot and have this other idea i was going to use for roger (back when i had an idea for every monster possible for roger), let's just write that. kenta is only kenta because i took a poll for what body type i should pair with a dragon (he was 'big boy', i think the other options were twink, older woman, and average woman). and i was also Really into the movie inu-oh at the time, which is probably obvious with kenta being a blind musician, lol.

the musician and the waterfall was tougher to write because i didn't have a clear vision of how it should end or even how they should fuck (the mechanics of fucking long noodle dragon have challenged me for years) but i'm ultimately pleased with it. it would have been a long time since i wrote something sincerely romantic, and it was nice to go back to it. i'm a HUGE romantic at heart.

both stories are pretty much one extended scene so it's hard to pick a favorite moment from them, but i will say i'm very pleased with how i approached writing the musician and the waterfall, specifically in the challenge i set myself to never use visual description kenta couldn't reasonably guess. writing from the POV of a blind man made me focus in on different senses and ways to describe them.

this book is also, as of right now, my best seller. which is great! i love that for me.

The Dragon Double Feature 2, released in July

okay i guess THIS one released in july.

anyway i got stricken with the curse with this one. a lot of people wanted me to write a sequel, but i wasn't going to. and every time i say i'm not going to do something, i end up doing it. it's so annoying. this one only happened because i wanted to write a SHORT! a SHORT extra for patreon describing kenta and wakatake's first time having sex as humans.

and then i wrote too much preamble describing their time on the beach. and then i got emotionally invested in unpacking their actual relationship, and also added a third character with mrs arakawa, and had to bring it all together into a story that was coherent and had something to say about the way they loved and ALSO ended in a THREESOME because WHATS THE POINT OF INTRODUCING A THIRD CHARACTER if they aren't all going to FUCK TOGETHER!!

it was tough. but i'm really, really happy with it in the end, and think it's one of the best things i've ever written. my favorite scene is definitely them playing with the hermit crab on the beach. metaphors babie.

the gundrid/eveline story is fine too. lmao. i NEVER PLANNED TO WRITE ANOTHER WITH THEM!! i only did it because the idea of publishing a sequel to a story from a double feature without writing a sequel to the other half of the feature was insane. and now eveline and gundrid are some of my most beloved characters, to the point of writing another book featuring them...

The Tenebrous Tower, released November

yet another book i'm pretty sure i was like 'i don't need to write this. this character doesn't work for a story on his own, what am i ever gonna do with him' and then i dumped a bunch of fantasy characters into a jar with him and suddenly i had a story. I ONLY MADE ROMICK BECAUSE I WANTED TO DRAW FUCKED UP WIZARD PORN AND MY ONLY OTHER OPTION WAS A GRANDPA!!!

anyway i started writing it as something to do on vacation, and it was just gonna be a bunch of dungeon bdsm vignettes until i hit on a throughline and suddenly i had a story and an emotional arc and damn i did it again. i did it again. i have a book.

i was expecting this one not to do very well because it had multiple prerequisites, but because i am a master of my craft i made sure to write it so you didn't need to read those. and then people read it without reading those. so it worked out anyway and now it's done just about as well as dragons 2. the people love romick, but they especially love the idea of him being destroyed. maybe someday. maybe someday. (except on patreon, where it's already happened)

the final vignette with the doll is, of course my favorite. i think it was a lot of people's favorites.

............................................

and that's everything i published this year! honorable mention to my novel starbuster, which i'd written most of last year, then spent all of october this year revising with the intent of finishing it, only to run out of steam by the time i was done revising it. so it's exactly where i left it last year. just better written. god it would be nice to finish that fuckin thing next year.

my goals for 2024 are, of course: release more books!! i have a big project i've been working on illustrating for the past month that i'd like to release in january, and i've also been working on a spin-off one-shot with mrs arakawa and an oni. i think this coming year i want to Try to blast through some of the one-off ideas i developed this year so they'll quit banging cowbells in my brain. like the sleeping garden. it makes me insane i never actually wrote the sleeping garden.

anyway if you actually made it to the end of this, thank you!! if you've bought all of these books, double thank you!!! i've been able to pay my rent and expenses just with my adult work this year, and it's been amazing and fun and super fulfilling. thank you for supporting me in 2023, here's to a horny 2024!!

[ordinaryschmuck]

Inside Out 2 is More Emotional and More Impactful

Gonna be honest, I wasn't PUMPED for Inside Out 2. I wasn't AGAINST seeing it and it WAS a sequel I was sure could work. As we grow up, are emotions become more complex as new challenges arrive in life as WE grow up. Yeah, the Puberty Alarm could have started and ended as a gag that didn't NEED to go anywhere, but it would have been welcomed if it did. So I could tell that it would have worked...but given the rough year Disney had in 2023 and how they continue to make weird decisions like this?

Yeah, it didn't really encourage me to be on the movie's good side. But my mom wanted to see it and I couldn't say no because it's been a while since WE'VE seen a movie together. So we went out, watched it, and...my goodness gracious, do I LOVE this movie.

There ARE some sequel rehashing, which really is what stops this movie from being a truly great sequel. Emotions are once again shoved out of headquarters while ones people perceive as "bad" are struggling to control Riley and give her the best possible life. HOWEVER, they DO mix things up.

Firstly, the humor feels stronger than the first. The banter with the Emotions are as great as ever, with the newcomers adding some great jokes and dynamics. It cracked me up with how much Fear thirsted over Anxiety, which makes way too much sense. And there's still all the jokes about the mindscape and all that happens when a teen hits puberty. The scene in Riley's Secrets Vault is filled with jokes that cracked me up to no end, with these two 2D characters having the best jokes in the entire movie. I really wish they were in it more.

As for the animation, it, as always, improved from the last film. Pixar once more proves that they can top themselves with more details, fluidity, expressions, and even experimentation. Like I said, there's this 2D character, and they come with 2D props that the 3D characters interact with. And I love how cartoonish the Emotions look or move, creating great juxtaposition with the more realistic yet semi-stylized world Riley lives in. It's part of what I loved about the first movie, and it feels stronger here.

And while there ARE some rehashes, the movie carries on some things from the last in a GOOD way. Joy remembers her lesson about how there's no bad emotions, and tries to greet the newcomers with open arms and optimism. Only to be met with Anxiety, who brilliantly acts as a negative mirror to Joy and how she acted in the last film. Anxiety wants to help Riley HER way, taking charge and pushing away or neglecting other emotions to make Riley's life fit her idea of "better." It shows what COULD have happened if Joy never learned the importance of Sadness or the others, which is actually a smart way to go about these characters. And, yeah, there is ANOTHER rehash with Joy doing something in the last movie to learn the big lesson, but it IS necessary for her to learn how to properly confront, and even help, Anxiety.

And then we get to that ONE scene. You'll know it when you see it. It's a scene where it shows what happens when we let Anxiety consume us. A scene...that makes me want to go back to this for a second:

When I was watching that scene, it made me felt seen, almost like the movie was talking directly at ME. Because I've experienced the EXACT emotions that THAT scene conveys. Hell, I've experienced them recently, as I cried at work THREE times because anxiety took over for too long. Others might have had an experience like that, but it's something I'VE felt and I don't know if it's exactly common enough for EVERYONE to experience. That's what you take away when you ignore a director's catharsis for the sake of making a fifth fucking TOY STORY!

You miss reaching out to people who experienced certain things in certain ways and giving something to point to when someone asks "What's wrong?" Another example is Ratatouille, which perfectly captures the love of creation and art, all through a rat that controls a human as a puppet. It enacts an experience or emotions that a specific kind of people can appreciate, just through a story that's fun and enjoyable through all. Turning Red is about a teen trying to stand up to her mom, but that teen also turns into a giant red panda. Luca is about a boy discovering himself during a summer, but through two fish-boys who just want to buy a vespa. And Inside Out 2 is about how our own self-perception can destroy us and that change is good, but it uses silly emotions going on an adventure in the brain.

Inside Out 2 is GREAT. I'm not even going to dignify the question of whether or not it's better than the first one with a response. I'll just say that it improves on a lot of things despite it still redoing SOME aspects. But with its strong themes and fun new characters, it leads to a sequel more emotional and more impactful. Watch it if you haven't (though, box office numbers suggest you already HAVE), because it'll definitely make you feel things.

[severelystrangewriter]

Only One Bed (Flufftober 2023 Day 13)

Pairing: nahoya kawata x reader x souya kawata

WC: 1195

Warnings: none

Summary: a horror movie makes you too scared to sleep alone

Note: just some platonic snuggles

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Souya and Nahoya were no strangers to staying the night at your house growing up. Whether it be spending time watching movies or playing games, by the end of the night you all would be passed out in sleeping bags in the living room. The sleepovers remained consistent well into your adulthood.

In fact, you three were so close that when Nahoya had the idea of opening up a ramen shop, he and Souya came to you to let you in on the partnership of owning the restaurant. The three of you became roommates on top of that, seeing how splitting the rent meant you could afford a better place. You each had your own room to sleep in, but you still spent the majority of your time together in the living room.

Tonight was movie night in the household. You were sitting on the couch in between the Kawata twins watching some horror film that Nahoya insisted on picking. And it was terrifying. The jumpscares were crazy good, the eerie soundtrack set the pace for tense scenes, and by the time it was over, you and Souya were clinging to each other out of sheer fright. Nahoya, on the other hand, looked less than impressed, even outright laughing at moments he found ridiculous.

“You two gonna be okay?” The eldest twin asked when the end credits started to play.

You reluctantly parted from Souya with a nervous chuckle, “Uh… yeah, of course.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Souya tried to play it off too.

Nahoya stretched before standing up from the couch, “Well, in that case, I’m ready for bed. That movie was so boring it almost put me to sleep.”

“Already?” You asked, eyes widening at the thought of having to go to bed right after watching something scary.

Nahoya smiled knowingly, “Yeah. You guys should go to bed too, we still have work tomorrow.”

Just at that moment, an after-credit jumpscare popped up on the screen with a loud scream, causing you and Souya to scream as well. Nahoya roared with laughter at your reactions.

“Not funny, Nahoya,” You glared at him, crossing your arms.

He quieted down, but still had a cheesy grin on his face as he shook his head. Then he bid you and his brother good night before disappearing down the hall to his room, leaving you and Souya to sit in silence, staring at the tv apprehensively.

“Just one cartoon,” You finally decided, picking up the remote, “Then we’ll go to bed.”

Souya nodded quickly in agreement.

But later that night while you lay in bed, your blanket covering your face as you curled up in a fetal position, you realized that not even a light-hearted cartoon could save your mind from wandering back to that horrific film. You squeezed your eyes shut as you could hear the wind howl outside your window.

‘There’s nothing there, it’s just your imagination. There’s nothing there, it’s just your imagination’ was the mantra running through your head. But as time ticked by, you were getting more and more anxious. You needed to get some sleep, you had to be at work by nine.

Swallowing your pride and picking up your pillow, you tiptoed down the hall to Nahoya’s room. Despite the late hour, you could see the light was still on so you carefully opened his door and peeked your head inside. Your friend was lying in bed, scrolling through his phone with the lamp on his bedside table illuminating the room in a warm glow.

“Nahoya?” You whispered, getting his attention as he looked over at you questioningly. You stepped further into the room and shut his door before walking to the side of his bed. Your cheeks warmed up in embarrassment as you asked, “Can I sleep in here tonight?”

“Aw, are you too scared to sleep alone?” Nahoya teased, causing you to become even more flustered as you hugged your pillow to your chest.

“Just shut up and move over,” You muttered. With that stupid annoying smile, he did as you said and lifted the blankets so you could join him in bed. He plugged in his phone and put it away as you lay on your side, putting your pillow down before resting your head on it, already feeling comforted by the second presence.

“Better?” Nahoya asked, flipping the lamp off and shifting until he was facing you.

“Mhm,” You nodded, letting your eyes flutter shut, “Thanks Nahoya.”

“Anything for you,” He replied easily, making you smile softly to yourself.

It wasn’t long after that when you fell into a peaceful slumber.

~~~

You woke up feeling incredibly warm, vaguely aware of the two bodies sandwiching you in between them. Peeking your eye open, you realized that your cheek was smushed up against Nahoya’s chest, your arm draped over his middle and your leg was hooked high around his waist. You remembered crawling into bed with Nahoya early on in the night, but what surprised you was how Souya was pressed up against your back, latching onto you like a koala. His arms snuck between your and his brother’s bodies to hold you with his leg thrown over your other leg that wasn’t wrapped around Nahoya. You figured he must’ve gotten freaked out too and had the same idea to seek comfort.

It was a little odd. Sure, you’ve cuddled the twins before as you all lounged on the couch, but waking up in the same bed as them was a whole different situation. You weren’t going to lie though, it was still just as comfortable.

“It’s about time you woke up. I’ve been trying to figure out how to get out of your death grip for ten minutes,” Nahoya’s soft voice made you snap your eyes to his, seeing the gentle smile on his face despite his complaint.

“What time is it?” You mumbled quietly, not wanting to disturb Souya.

“Like, 6:30.”

You whined and buried your face deeper into Nahoya’s chest, “I don’t wanna get up. I’m cozy.”

Nahoya exhaled sharply in amusement, his grin only growing. He brought his free hand that wasn’t underneath you to rest on your arm that was on his stomach. He traced light patterns into your skin.

“I really do need to get up though, I gotta go really bad.”

With a reluctant sigh, you released the oldest twin from your grasp. He let out a quiet “yay” and escaped the bed. Souya’s hold on you tightened, groaning as the mattress moved. Giggling lightly, you tried to roll over, but the task was basically impossible with how he was embracing you. This must’ve been how Nahoya felt when you were holding him captive.

“Souya~” You attempted to wake him up, “Can I turn around?”

“Mhm,” He murmured sleepily, finally giving you enough room to maneuver yourself until you were facing him. You snuggled into his chest now, this time throwing your arm over his side as he slotted one of his legs between yours with his arms still wrapped around you. Sighing with content, your eyes slid shut again basking in the warmth for as long as you could.

[canonicallyobserving911]

My thoughts on how bad season 7 ended up being can be summed up in one sentence and it's based on a quote I heard from a former employment director. He used to tell us all the time, "When you fail to plan, you plan to fail!" And I think that's what happened to season 7 of 9-1-1 since they were still writing while the main cast was filming the remaining episodes.

After TM's most recent interview, in which he admitted he doesn't plan seasons out beforehand, I felt justified in my analysis but the question is has it always been like this? IMO, the answer is NO! And that's because it wasn't like this for seasons 2 and 3. They were planned out and the continuity was there which made everything better than the mess that was season 7.

Honestly, I don't understand how anyone can run a multi-million-dollar business or a TV Show (I do get it because some people aren't organized but usually, they don't stay in a leadership role for long) and be as unorganized as the showrunners have been for the last few seasons of 9-1-1. It literally costs between 9 and 10 million dollars per episode to produce it but nothing they've been doing lately has lived up to those high costs. Please understand this is not about the cast, crew or the directors because they don't have control over the scripts. They have a WRITING TEAM which means TM didn't have to spend 40 straight hours while he was lying in a hospital bed writing the first 3 episodes. He chose to do that and since the writers returned to work in October of 2023, what were they doing that whole time because they were already promoting the cruise ship disaster at the end of November?

An example of how ridiculous it is for TM to not have a plan can be equated to a construction company. People who build homes and buildings have to plan in advance before they start or else it'll end badly. They can't just start building a home or a business without a blueprint because if they do, the bathtub could end up in the kitchen and the garage might not have a driveway. Builders have to order supplies and materials like drywall, tools, windows, appliances etc., far in advance so they'll have the things they need when they get to a particular step in the building process. Therefore, how can anyone handling multiple storylines for the main cast of a popular TV show like 9-1-1 go into a season without an overall plan? They shouldn't and if they continue down that path, IMO upcoming seasons will end up being even worse.

It doesn't make any sense at all to me and hopefully, season 8 won't be a repeat of seasons 5, 6 and 7.

House M.D. is one of my favorite shows of all time because Gregory House was a brilliant doctor and even though he was a complete jerk sometimes, I liked it because the creators and the showrunners knew when it was time to end it. After 8 seasons, they decided to call it quits so they could go out on top. Any good show worth it's weight knows when they're running out of good stories and they know when to end it. It happened with the Sopranos too. They ended it after season 6 because Tony Soprano had already done the things he needed to do in therapy and his families (personal and mob) were personified. They couldn't take the show anywhere else, so they ended it.

Please understand, if you've never seen a TV show stay on and keep airing episodes past its prime (Grey's Anatomy and Law & Order SVU are two examples but there are others) you have no idea what it could be like. Viewers end up hate watching them and hopefully that won't happen with 9-1-1 but if they don't do something soon, like let the characters grow professionally and show them moving on from their previous mistakes and pasts (looking at the "Vertigo" storyline because Eddie should be allowed to move on from Shannon since it's been six years) it could end up being their fate too.

Even though I've never watched Grey's, I have watched SVU and for the past few days, I've been rewatching season 14 when Rafael Barba (my favorite A.D.A.) arrived on the show and I instantly noticed a stark difference between it and the most recent seasons. It's so good and its way better than the trash they're producing right now. Olivia Benson is the SVU captain but they've been centering all the episodes around her character (like season 6 was all about Buck) but it's time for her to be promoted to chief so Detective Joe Velasco and Detective Terry Bruno can be in charge of SVU. They're the future of the show but if they keep sidelining them, who knows if they'll get a 27th season. It's so boring now and I wish they'd bring Barba back but I digress.

I don't watch a lot of TV because most of it is reality, news and game shows (I don't like those but for those who do, no shade) but I do watch 9-1-1 and I'd hate to leave it in the dust like I did CSI and Chicago P.D. but I will once it's no longer entertaining.

I still haven't decided if I'll watch season 8 (I'm 95% sure I'll treat it like I did season 5, watch the episodes weeks after they air, so I won't get pissed off or I won't watch them at all like I did 5x7 since Eddie wasn't in it) but I refuse to sit through another season like the cluster "F" that season 7 was. I don't want to see another doppelgänger or anymore LIs that are used to delay CANON Buddie.

I needed to get this out of my mind and write it so I can move on.

It's ok to have an opposing opinion but if you do, post it on your own blog and don't reblog this because if you do, I will block you.

[rhysdarbinizedarby]

Our Flag Means Death Season 2: Exclusive First Look

Vanity Fair joins Stede, Blackbeard, and the rest of the cast on set in New Zealand for an exclusive early look at the second season, debuting on Max in October.

BY SARAH CATHERALL (AUGUST 24, 2023)

Only the fans of Our Flag Means Death can determine whether they’ll be satisfied with the show’s second season, which debuts on Max in October. But if you ask Fernando Frias, who directed three of the season’s episodes, he sounds pretty confident: “If my life depended on saying whether it’s yes or no, I would say yes.’’

It’s December 8, 2022, and the principal actors on Our Flag Means Death as well as the 800-plus extras and crew members have three days left of their three-month shoot for season two. Things are starting to get emotional. “You’ve been the most amazing crew I’ve ever worked with,” says one actor as he wraps his final scene. Frias says it’s like leaving “a long summer camp,” adding, “it’s like a family.”

Rhys Darby as Stede Bonnet. COURTESY OF NICOLA DOVE/MAX.

The series created by David Jenkins was a surprise breakout hit when it debuted in the spring of 2022, building a fiercely devoted fan base with its silly yet emotional deadpan, and defiantly queer take on the adventures of real 18th-century pirates. Everyone involved in Our Flag Means Death is eager to preserve the surprises in store for season two, which kicks off with gentleman pirate Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) and softhearted bad boy Blackbeard (Taika Waititi) ruefully separated after finally realizing their love for each other at the end of season one.

It’s “going to be unexpected and surprising, but also very pleasurable and satisfying for those who like the show,” promises executive producer Garrett Basch. It “doesn’t follow the expected route,” teases Con O’Neill, who plays Blackbeard’s devoted enforcer, Izzy. All that means is we’re not at liberty to share too much about what happened on set that day, which included emotional conversations, new cast members, banter with the Kiwi crew, and some seriously killer costumes.

But these exclusive new images give a hint of what is in store. There are fresh faces—Minnie Driver will guest-star as the real-life Irish pirate Anne Bonny, and Ruibo Qian joins the cast as the mysterious merchant Susan—and a lot of New Zealand actors and locations, now that the production has decamped across the Pacific.

“The viewers will see the scope of their world has expanded based on the fact we’re able to get to these amazing locations within a short travel time,” says executive producer Antoine Douaihy. “You will notice a marked difference between the two seasons in terms of the scope and the scale.’’

Minnie Driver joins the cast this season as Anne Bonny. COURTESY OF NICOLA DOVE/MAX.

There will be plenty of familiar faces too, of course. On set that day in Kumeu, New Zealand, a rural area about 20 miles outside of Auckland, are Waititi and Darby along their fellow returning cast members O’Neill, Vico Ortiz (Jim), Kristian Nairn (Wee John), Joel Fry (Frenchie), Matthew Maher (Black Pete), Leslie Jones (Spanish Jackie), Samson Kayo (Oluwande), Ewen Bremner (Nathaniel Buttons), Samba Schutte (Roach), and more. New onboard are two Kiwi actors, Madeleine Sami (most recently of the Australian mystery-comedy Deadloch), and Samoan-born Anapela Polataivao. And there’s one returning figure impossible to miss on the soundstage: The Revenge, the stately ship that Blackbeard—a.k.a. Ed—commandeered at the end of season one. In real life it was carefully transported across the Pacific Ocean from the show’s original Los Angeles soundstages.

The Revenge is vast and impressive, much larger in real life than it appears onscreen. But it’s not the only stunning scenery in store. There are around 50 sets involved in the production of season two, including the 30-acre forest behind the Kumeu Film Studio, Piha Beach, and the wild, black-sand Bethells Beach.

Waititi, who also executive produces the series, was part of the push to film season two in his native New Zealand. “Taika is an extraordinary talent and what’s really great about him with his international success is he’s remained very committed to New Zealand and very loyal to our industry,” says Annie Murray, the CEO of the New Zealand Film Commission. “The beauty of filming in New Zealand is that you can find incredible varied locations within a very short driving distance. [And] when you get to those locations you can turn your camera in any direction.’’

Rhys Darby as Stede Bonnet, filming at New Zealand’s Bethells Beach. COURTESY OF NICOLA DOVE/MAX.

The scope of the season is very evident back on set, as well. There’s a whole other pirate ship in addition to The Revenge, plus sets for a floating market, Stede’s cabin (empty when we visit), and the Republic of Pirates first glimpsed in season one. Behind the scenes it’s a maze of wardrobe, wig rooms, and dressing rooms. In another facility, props are stacked on shelves, ready to be taken away to storage as soon as filming wraps—vases, plates, antique furniture, and piles of mannequins replicating dead bodies which were used in one of the battle scenes.

Costume designer Gypsy Taylor joined the production this season and has designed hundreds of costumes, checking with everyone on set that day to make sure everything is in place before cameras roll. Taylor says each of the principals have six to eight looks in this season, and that every item—every leather belt, wig, bit of jewelry, even a mermaid tail—has been made by her 60-strong workshop. The costumes this season have a “Mad Max, ‘streets of New York’ feel,” says Taylor. “David Jenkins was keen to give the series a cool rock-and-roll vibe…so we had these rock-and-roll elements with an 18th-century twist.’’ As is evidenced in the image below, even Stede’s crew winds up with some unexpected new looks over the course of the season.

Wherever it is these Revenge crew members have found themselves, there’s something that surprised them. COURTESY OF NICOLA DOVE/MAX.

Two armies are part of the action in season two, all of them needing elaborate costumes—around 150 Chinese pirates and a fleet of 100 navy officers. Even the breeches are in studded black leather, and punkified. Says Taylor, “The theory behind their costumes is they would’ve stolen from other pirates…. Although our Wee John has started to become quite the seamstress, so he’s knitting this season.’’ True enough: Nairn is wearing what looks like a hand-knit sweater on set that day.

Wee John isn’t the only pirate getting into crafts. Nancy Hennah, who has managed the hair and makeup for both seasons, points to Blackbeard’s wig—made in London—and tattoos as Waititi works on set. With 14 tattoos on his right arm and 10 on the left, plus plenty of scars, he needs at least an hour in the makeup chair. “Taika wanted most of the tattoos to look like he’d done them himself,” Hennah says. “Like on slow days on the boat when there’s nothing much to do, they sit around and give each other tattoos.”

She gives a hint of a storm in one episode: “One of the hardest days here in makeup was when they were caught in a storm on the back of the boat. [The cast] were saturated for a whole day, which caused havoc with things like tattoos and hair, wigs and beards.’’

Taika Waititi as Blackbeard, who begins the season with a broken heart. COURTESY OF NICOLA DOVE/MAX.

By mid afternoon, Con O’Neill is taking a break in his trailer. He pulls his slim, leather trousered legs up to a corner seat. A candle blazes on the kitchen bench as the veteran actor talks about the physical endurance required during the shoot. “It’s been frantic,’’ he says. His signature gray hair barely moves, frozen by the team of hair stylists who arrived on set around sunrise. (All interviews with actors in this story took place before the SAG-AFTRA strike). 

Izzy “goes on a remarkable journey” this season, says O’Neill. “He understands what love is and whom he’s in love with.’’ On a series featuring a variety of joyful queer relationships—not just Stede and Blackbeard, but Black Pete and Lucius (Nathan Foad), Jim and Oluwande, and Spanish Jackie and her many husbands—Izzy’s unyieldingly straitlaced devotion makes him an odd man out. By the end of season one many fans speculated that Izzy was driven by something at the intersection of love and obsession. This season, according to O’Neill, Izzy gets even deeper into that dynamic. “Physically it’s been quite demanding, and also emotionally it’s been quite demanding to be playing a man enraged by unrequited love, who’s basically a hopeless romantic, and to be able to play all that and also remember that this is fundamentally a comedy.’’

Though the show is often warm and fuzzy when it comes to feelings—one of Stede’s mottos in season one is that when faced with challenges, “we talk it through as a crew”—Izzy represents the darker, more violent side of pirate life, which the show doesn’t shy away from either. “What I love about this show is it does allow itself to swing between the two,” O’Neill says. “We’re almost operatic in our darkness at times, and then we swing back to the sweetness of the simplicity of the love of our two guys. It’s been challenging just to get the tone right.”

“We’ve gone further this season than we did last season with those tones,” he continues. “So sometimes it’s quite interesting to remind yourself that you have to take your foot out of the tragedy—literally, your foot—and put it back into the comedy.”

With a season behind them to build the dynamics between the characters and the actors alike, on set there’s been “a lot more spontaneity and script revisions based on what’s happening day-to-day,” says Douaihy. “The cast are so comfortable with one another and their characters, that they move through it naturally.’’

Leslie Jones as Spanish Jackie and Taika Waititi as Ed a.k.a. Blackbeard. COURTESY OF NICOLA DOVE/MAX.

The way O’Neill puts it, they’ve also built trust with Jenkins, their showrunner, to follow some bigger swings. “I don’t think David Jenkins is ever going to follow an expected route. I’d hate to drive in a car with him.” Thinking of the fans who will greet the series when the show returns in October, O’Neill continues, “I think they’re going to appreciate what [Jenkins] wants. Season two does stick to the original premise that we created in season one, which is take it on to other levels.’’

One character leveling up in a major way this season is Jim, the quiet badass (there are knives involved) played by the nonbinary actor and activist Vico Ortiz. “Jim really evolves in season two,” they say. “They’re a bit more chatty and a bit more conversational…. Most of the first season you see Jim in disguise, hiding, but in this one you see them a bit more [thinking,] Oh, this is my chosen family, and I feel good. There’s a bit more zaniness and a bit more softness.’’

Like O’Neill and several other castmates, Oritz had attended their share of fan events by the time season two began filming, and the entire cast and crew returned to the high seas with a strong sense that their show had taken on a life of its own. “It’s so beautiful to see that people are finding community within the fan base. It’s about creating spaces where we feel safe and seen, and it’s so great to see that so many people watch the show and feel validated in their experiences, whatever that may be,” says Ortiz. “A lot of people that watch the show are like, “Yeah, I’m a guy and it’s good to see all these dudes being vulnerable.’ We can just shake up [ideas about gender].’’

Ruibo Qian joins the cast this season as Susan, a merchant with secrets of her own. COURTESY OF NICOLA DOVE/MAX.

Basch admits the fan following surprised some of the team, “but it made a lot of sense” too. After years of television shows and movies that built up the potential of queer romance only to stop short, Basch thinks the fervor for Our Flag Means Death “says that shows in the mainstream aren’t delivering that promise or that setup, and we have. That’s really why the fans have gone wild for it.”

That promise, it’s safe to say, is kept in season two, and then some. On set that day in December, for example, there was a major romantic moment between two key characters. But we’d risk Ed Teach’s wrath if we told you any more.

Source: Vanity Fair

[alwaysahiccupandastrid]

Peter Pan & Wendy (2023) - Thoughts

A little bit of brief background here; I’m a huge Peter Pan fan. I grew up loving the Disney animated film but the 2003 live action has always been the superior Peter Pan adaptation to me; Peter Pan holds a special place in my heart as my late nan who I was close with used to take me to the panto every Christmas, and my favourite ones were always Peter Pan.

So without further ado: I watched the new Disney’s Peter Pan & Wendy that came out on Disney+ this weekend!

First, some live watching thoughts:

This movie is literally carried by Ever Anderson as Wendy, like no disrespect to the other cast but she literally carried this film in my opinion

By the way, anyone complaining about it being Wendy’s story is an idiot because the story has ALWAYS been Wendy’s story, ever since Barrie wrote the play and novels. Regardless of which version you watch, it always starts with her lamenting about not wanting to grow up and ends with her acceptance of the fact she must grow up - it’s HER journey, her development.

I have no idea why Disney/Lowery chose to cast two separate actors as Mr Darling and Captain Hook but I’m NOT a fan of that choice. Even in the animated film, they’re voiced by the same actor - it’s a part of Peter Pan tradition to have the actor play both roles, so it’s baffling that it’s not the case here.

I really wish this film had spent a little bit more time BEFORE Peter arrived to show us more of each of the children and also the relationship between the children and their parents. The film opens with a nice little scene of John and Michael sword-fighting whilst Wendy prepares to head off to boarding school, and then she joins them and their father scolds her for “this is how you choose to spend your last night in the nursery” and “you’re too old for this sort of fun”, which definitely works… but it’s very quick paced and it rushed by so quickly, like the film kind of just spends only a few minutes establishing “Wendy is being sent to boarding school the next morning; she doesn’t want to grow up; her parents want her to be a better role model to her brothers” and that’s it.

Also interesting to note that Wendy is not in a nightgown in this version but some kind of pyjama-ish undergarment outfit, plus a dressing gown

Wendy aggressively reading a book in her bed… same though

Nana appears but only in brief moments 😭 WE DESERVED MORE NANA! In this version she’s kind of more just a pet - they never mention that she’s the Darling family’s nursemaid and looks after the children, and there’s a brief flash where (I think) you see a young Wendy cuddling her as a puppy… like??? She’s not just a dog, she is not just a pet, she is the finest nursemaid on four paws because the Darlings can’t afford to hire one.

“I want things to stay the way they are.” “Perhaps I don’t want to grow up.” — same, Wendy, same

“Just imagine all of the things you would miss out on if you didn’t see where it took you… and all the things the world would miss if you weren’t there to do them.”

Mrs Darling’s lullaby was lovely by the way

Yara Shahidi as Tinkerbell is BEAUTIFUL. I love her facial expressions, and even though there’s less attitude and she’s not jealous in this version, I still love her

I know that the film was supposed to film in 2020 but Covid shut things down so they didn’t film until a whole year later, and obviously children grow very quickly… but Peter’s voice is so deep in this version, you can tell Alexander Molony hit puberty during lockdown. I feel bad for criticizing a kid about it because it’s not his fault, but it can’t be denied that he’s older than Peter is supposed to be. Ever Anderson was also 13-14 when filming actually happened, and while it’s slightly less glaringly obvious with her, she’s definitely a tiny bit older than most versions of Wendy. I think it’s more obvious with Alexander though because of the deep voice.

This version makes it seem like Mrs Darling is the storyteller and Wendy isn’t, which kind of bugs me to be honest but oh well

Let’s be honest, no adaptation will ever top the “Flying” scene from the 2003 version - that was a whole masterpiece in itself. This version does do a nice enough job though, all things considered, even if the CGI doesn’t always look quite right

I don’t want to slam how Neverland looks because I’m aware it was filmed in Newfoundland in Canada, which I don’t doubt is a beautiful place - what I will say is that I don’t know if there was some kind of ultra real gritty filter added on it if it’s something else, but to me it just wasn’t colourful enough. Neverland is supposed to be magical and vibrant and like a dream, not 100% rigidly realistic. They could have made Skull Rock shaped at least somewhat like a skull for God’s sake, just as an example

“Smee, make a note my cabin needs a new door.” “Yes… might I say, captain, that’ll be your third door this month-“ “and it won’t be the last.” — okay, I had a little giggle here, I won’t lie

Jude Law’s version of Hook has heterochromia which is definitely interesting - I wonder why it was included though, like what purpose does it serve the story

Wendy meeting the Lost Boys changed from Tink telling the boys to shoot her out of the sky and them nearly murdering her, to her washing up alone and running into them and Tiger Lily, which is definitely a choice

AHHHHH TIGER LILY SPEAKING CREE, SHE IS ALSO LITERALLY A PRINCESS IN EVERY SINGLE WAY LIKE HOW SHE SPEAKS AND CARRIES HERSELF

I am genuinely still on the fence about the Lost Boys including girls but at the end of the day… whatever. It’s not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things. I still find the “but you’re not all boys” “SO?!?” exchange cringey though, not gonna lie

Wendy’s response to the above being “well I guess it doesn’t really matter”, so true

I think it’s a good thing that the Lost Boys include non white and disabled kids (Slightly has Down syndrome) but also I really hope those kids stay off social media for a while because the absolute nastiness being flung around about them (especially Slightly) is disgusting

The Lost Boys being like “she’s too old” “she’s too grown up” 💀 that and Mrs Darling’s “darling, you barely fit in your bed” comment feel oddly meta and about the actors growing while filming was delayed

Wendy Moira Angela Darling realising her brothers have been captured by pirates: “…oh dear” 💀 the timing of it was perfect though lmao

Tell me that Smee did not just use the phrase “compatriots of you-know-who” in front of a man who played Dumbledore 💀

John: We don’t care about your rules, we came with Peter Pan! // the entire pirate crew eavesdropping outside: *groaning/gasping*

PIRATE SEA SHANTIES FTW

Peter Pan really disappears from this movie at about 20 minutes in (after appearing for the first time only 10 minutes beforehand) and doesn’t reappear until a whole 15 minutes later?!?

“I’ve found you guilty of being a child - and we can’t have children in Neverland” — IS HE FUCKING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW?!?!? (Hook was in fact deadly serious)

NOT TEDDY LOSING AN ARM 😭

Who the hell did Peter think he was tricking with that absolutely terrible disguise, it looks like stuck a mop on his chin for god’s sake?!?

Wendy being shocked that Peter is showing off as if that isn’t his whole personality summed up 😶

“Oh brother, Hook’s singing again” - I CACKLED IM SORRY

“Proud and insolent youth, have at me!” — I GASPED I TELL YOU, GASPED

PETER AND HOOK’S SHADOWS HAVING THEIR OWN SWORD FIGHT OH MY GOOOOODDDDDD

“Oh, Wendy… you’re still alive!” ASDFGHJKL

OH HOOK PLAYED DIRTY AND HE SAID HE LEARNED HIS BAD FORM FROM PETER DIXNDMALZPZOZL WHAT IS GOING ON

“For to die would be an awfully big adventure” - THAT’S THE MONEY LINE RIGHT THERE

“SHE’S A WENDY!!!”, and all that ran through my mind was the Barbie meme:

Wendy finishing Hook’s sentences and cutting him off each time ASDFGHJKL we love a know it all

AHHHH ITS TICK TOCK THE CROC, I was so scared they’d forget about the crocodile so I’m happy he’s here

THE SEQUENCE WITH THE MUSIC AS HOOK IS RUNNING AWAY FROM THE CROC ASDFGHJKL COMEDY GOLD

WENDY FUCKING SLAPPED PETER ACROSS THE FACE AND IT DID A MOVIE MAKER CIRCLE FADE OUT ARE YOU SERIOUS RIGHT NOW WTAF-

“It was an adventure, wasn’t that what you wanted?” “Yes but I didn’t think it meant being shot out of the sky by pirates” — yeah, that’s a valid point I guess

Poor Tinkerbell just twinkling and getting absolutely ignored :/

“You have a magical fairy that makes you fly! And a gaggle of children that do your bidding with a princess that cleans up your messes while you’re off gallivanting with pirates” — OOF, also Tinkerbell and Tiger Lily both smiling and nodding their agreement of Wendy’s words asdfghkl love to see girls supporting girls

Wendy throughout this whole movie is pretty much just the “I came out to have a good time and I’m honestly feeling so attacked right now” meme

You’re telling me the Lost Boys hideout is no longer hidden in a tree but a GIANT tower?!? Not exactly hidden now, is it?!?

Wendy and Tiger Lily together having one of the best scenes in this movie, you love to see it ❤️

So what I’m getting from this adaptation is that instead of the Lost Boys actually getting “lost” and not claimed, Peter waits for them to say “I don’t want to grow up” then whooshes in and brings them to Neverland…

Okay so Wendy is still kind of seen as the storyteller in this version…? The kids ask her for stories so…?

“Wendy can be our mother” “goodness no! I don’t even know if I want to be a mother!” — I have thoughts about this??? On the one hand, I’m a book purist and for me I’m like “she does agree to be their mother tho??? That’s why she was brought to Neverland???” (And also she canonically has a daughter called Jane) but on the other I’m like “fair enough” because a) she’s a child and b) you can’t force people to have children if they don’t want them. Idk

Im 90% sure Wendy’s hair changed from a side parting to a middle parting at some point but I don’t know where or when it happened

Wendy singing a lullaby, which is actually a nice callback to her singing “Your Mother and Mine” in the animated film

You’re telling me Hook and the pirates have never found their huge ass tower hideout and that Wendy’s gentle singing was loud enough to reach the pirates and alert them of their location?!?

JAMES?!? As in Hook?!?

“It’s a kiss - I made it for you” — ITS AN ACORN NECKLACE IM-

Peter and Hook used to be best friends?!? Hook was the first lost boy in this version?!? Lowery doing his own canon at this point, oh my god

This film really missed a trick, like it could have really heavily leaned into the dark side of Peter Pan with the whole “you must never leave” stuff he says 👀

This film really wanted to be the 2003 version so bad, like the moment where Peter walks away after their conversation about Neverland not being what she expected and Wendy calls “Peter!”… it wanted to be the Fairy Dance scene WAY too bad

Imagine walking down their stairs into a room, turning around and seeing your brothers/the whole gang of lost boys tied up and gagged 😳

Hook saying Wendy’s full name and later dragging his hook over the door was creepy ngl

HE JUST SLASHED PETER ACROSS THE CHEST

“Captain Hook… I don’t think I like this adventure” *falls down 20 feet* — EXCUSE ME???

You’re telling me Peter survived a) a slash to the chest and b) a 20 foot drop?!? I mean I know he’s magical and all but…?!?

Eyyy Tiger Lily to the rescue, the women truly run this film

“Then listen… *hums awkwardly*” - I genuinely can’t tell if this film is supposed to be this weirdly hilarious or not

Mr Smee was the one who found Hook and rescued him, I’m-

“This is what growing up looks like.” “No. This is what it looks like when you grow up wrong.” - OOF

HOOK SNAPPING WHEN SMEE CALLED HIM JAMES 😭

“Execute every last one of them” sounds so much worse than “become a pirate or walk the plank” like sir all they did was be kids who haven’t managed to hit puberty yet and you’ve got them all screaming like they’re about to be mass murdered (which they are) 💀

Wendy offering herself instead, “they’re only children, let them live!” - ma’am you are also a child?!?

“Let them live, they’ll be good pirates - especially those two” (meaning John and Michael)… I love Wendy stepping up and looking out for her brothers, especially given at the beginning of the film she full on blamed them for the whole mirror situation

Peter being super injured and unable to fly so Tiger Lily has to help him 🥹

Why does this pirate shanty as Wendy walks the plank actually slap hard though?!?

Tinkerbell lifting her little prison up and smashing Smee on the head so she can help Wendy, we love to see it

The fact that Wendy thinks happy thoughts stepping off the plank and it’s not just her childhood memories anymore (like in the flying to Neverland scene)??? She imagines growing up and the things she could do if allowing herself to grow up?!? 😭

The utter silence after she steps off the plank followed by Hook being like “… hang on, there was no splash?!?”

Tinkerbell damn near used every single bit of fairy dust in existence just to lift up the ship and play what is essentially a huge joke on the pirates is such legend behaviour lmao

“You have the boy’s magic.” “No, this magic belongs to no boy!” — HELL YEAH WENDY YOU ARE ALWAYS THE MAIN CHARACTER

I’ll be honest, for a film where Peter is billed first he has done VERY little besides a small duel, get stabbed and nearly die twice

The depressed pirate who goes “well wake me up before one of them kills the other… again” is such a mood lmfao same

It’s interesting that it’s Wendy with the flight skills as she fights and Peter without the flying I guess??

Wendy and Tiger Lily are literally saving every single other character’s asses at this point, like they’re the only reason anything has happened in this film

Rotating the entire ship was not something I thought I’d ever see and yet here we are

Peter falling off the upside down ship and Wendy catching him?!? And the fairy dust rubbing off onto him??? (Literally what even has Peter done in this film I feel bad for saying it but…)

I kind of like the idea that Peter and Hook intentionally don’t kill each other because both of them live for their battles and it’s almost like a game, a cycle, that Neverland lives off of? Idk if that makes sense lol

“Oh captain… Grow up.” - I CHOKED SHE GAGGED HIM

Peter grabbing Hook by the hook so he won’t fall and saying “I’ve got you James, just think happy thoughts”…???

“Peter… I haven’t got any…” AND THEN HE FALLS, DETATCHED FROM HIS HOOK?!? I KNEW HE DIDNT ASDFGHJKL BUT LIKE THIS?!?

I’ve literally only just realised that the Teddy has a fork as a prosthetic arm 💀

“It’s time to get these lost boys home” - what she REALLY means is “let’s take them back to my place and I’ll tell my parents I’ve adopted ten children on their behalf” 💀😂 that part always makes me laugh in any adaptation/version of the story, I won’t lie

So basically no time has passed in the real world while they’ve been in Neverland? No Mr and Mrs Darling keeping the window open for when their children return???

“Boy… why are you crying?” - IM SHAKING, CRYING, SCREAMING, THROWING UP I HAVE CHILLS

You’re telling me Peter lived in the exact same house as Wendy as her brothers???? That’s why he kept returning to that house, not because Wendy believed strongly in him or he liked her stories but because it was his old home?? 😶

“I’m just a story, told to any child who’ll listen” - oof true. Kids today don’t really know Peter Pan anymore, which is super sad - they know Tink but they’re not as familiar with Peter Pan these days

“You know, Peter… after all this… I think that to grow up… why, it might just be the biggest adventure of all. Just think of all of the things that could be right around the corner that you’re missing out on. Think of what the world is missing out on with you not being there to do them.” 👏👏👏

THE SHIP LITERALLY RIPPED THE CHIMNEY OFF GOOD LUCK PAYING FOR THAT GEORGE

Wendy crying as she says goodbye to Tink 😭 “and please don’t forget about me”

WENDY BEING ABLE TO HEAR TINKERBELL SPEAK ASDFGHJKL BEAUTIFUL… “thank you for hearing me” - I DONT CARE, THATS SO POETIC???

Wendy carving her name under Peter’s so now it says “Peter Pan + Wendy” 😭

Hook is still alive?!? I don’t know why I’m so shocked at this point lol

The way Hook and Pan smiled at each other when Peter returned, oh boy here we go again

The end credit animations are so pretty omg

So, overall… it’s not the worst Disney remake. It’s truly not that bad, at least not enough to warrant racist morons bombing it with one star reviews. It’s definitely not a patch on the 2003 version, at least not in my opinion - that one will always reign superior, at least to me.

Some things:

I definitely feel like this film was carried by Ever Anderson as Wendy, she literally did the most and seemed the most well suited for her part overall

Jude Law was actually better than I thought he would be as Hook, Jason Isaacs is still my favourite but Jude is alright

I think Alexander Molony had the right spirit, I just think that he wasn’t given all that much to do and also it was very noticeable that he was on the cusp of adulthood already. Had the film been filmed when intended and not delayed, I think his performance would have come across better

The other kids and the pirates were super fun too, but not really given a lot to do either, which is sad. Would have loved to see more of Jim Gaffigan as Smee though

Yara Shahidi as Tinkerbell and Alyssa Wapanatahk as Tiger Lily were also amazing and big standouts, shoutout to them both!

Mentioned this above but will mention it again: I don’t understand what the point of casting a separate actor to play Mr Darling was. Yes, as I mentioned, there’s the dual casting thing - but also Mr Darling was in this film so little that there was zero sense in hiring a whole other actor to do the part??? He’s literally got a total of like one and a half minutes screentime?!?

Putting the crocodile in just the one single time was a fucking crime, I tell you! Why was he only in one single scene?!? 🐊

The CGI wasn’t the worst I’ve seen but it definitely could have been a bit better

Here’s the thing: the original animation was 1h21 and this one is 1h46… and yet this one felt way more rushed for some reason? It’s like the film hits the basic plots, like ticking them off, but doesn’t actually embellish or explore them properly. It’s just so rushed and the film suffers for it

I truly think this film would have benefited from letting us get to know the Darling children even better at the beginning before Peter arrived, because the most developed of the three is Wendy and all we know about her is she’s going to boarding school and her parents want her to be a better role model/set a better example for her brothers. All we know about John and Michael is that they’re Wendy’s brothers and they like to play fight - they don’t really feel like proper characters, they’re literally just there

I’m still waiting for a Peter Pan adaptation to just bite the bullet and give us that flash forward of Peter visiting an older Wendy, meeting Jane and taking Jane to Neverland - the 2003 version did film it but it’s deleted and the special effects aren’t done on it (you can watch it online but still)

I want to know where in Barrie’s text it says Wendy wanted to become an airplane pilot or that she actually fulfilled that ambition… ?!?!

The soundtrack was good - not the masterpiece that James Newton Howard’s is but still pretty good

Overall, I’d give it a 6/10 maybe. It wasn’t the worst Pan movie or adaptation out there but it’s not the best either, at least in my opinion. It IS one of the better Disney remakes though, and if it had been a bit longer and had a better budget then I’d say it should have had a theatrical release because the cinematography is STUNNING. It’s just that it very much feels like they rushed the story and had a smaller budget than hoped for.

[gosmigenergy]

KINKTOBER 2023 / Day Thirty One

( Triple Frontier Boys x F!Reader )

FREE FOR ALL

Summary: The boys and you decide to have a movie night where things start to go awry.

Day Thirty One of @absurdthirst's Kinktober

Rating: Mature 18+

Warnings: Language, mentions of drink, mentions of food, dry humping if you squint, P in V, unprotected sex (use protection irl please), fingering, mild orgasm denial, oral - male receiving, deep throating, cum shot no use of Y/N

Word Count: 4.9k

Author's Notes: How is Kinktober over? Honestly, can't believe I managed to finish this one but here you go! And I know I missed 4 days but I'm kinda proud of myself 🥲

“So what’s the plan?”

Benny was giddy. The boys were planning a movie night but from Santiago’s tone, he clearly had other ideas, something in the spirit of the season.

“She’s going to kill us,” Will shakes his head.

Frankie shrugged, “At least you’ll die happy.”

They burst into laughter at his comment. Santiago composed himself with a swig of beer before carrying on.

“Think you can rig something up to blow the fuses at Fish’s?”

Benny bursts at the seams, of course he could.

—

This was just going to be a cosy night in, Frankie said. The boys had been invited and promised to bring snacks and drinks, wear something comfortable, he said.

“Are you sure you’re not going to be cold?”

You’d changed into a fleecy sweater and shorts matching set.

“Don’t worry,” you wander over to Frankie and coil round his frame. “I’ve got four handsome guys to keep me warm.”

You playfully bop the tip of his slopping nose before joining Benny, snatching at the bowl of freshly popped corn.

“I’m not complaining.”

He wriggled his eyebrows as he threw some popcorn in his mouth. You rolled your eyes.

“The Blair Witch, really Benny?”

“It’s a classic,” he retorts to his brother.

“I don’t think I’ve actually seen it,” you say.

“See, perfect choice.”

You settle in between Benny and Frankie on the couch, your back against Frankie’s chest, his arm draped over your stomach. Your legs were thrown over Benny’s, the bowl set on your lap after they covered you in the blanket.

Santiago had already claimed the reclining armchair. Will was last, flicking off the lights.

“Can’t we leave one light on?”

“No,” they state harmoniously.

You pout.

“It’ll ruin the ambience,” Santiago looks at you from the corner of his eye.

You scoff, “You’re going to get a kick out of this, aren’t you?”

He smiles, returning his attention to the television.

Everyone has heard of the Blair Witch Project, know that it’s filmed on a handheld camera, grainy footage in style. What you hated was you had no idea what was about to happen, Benny did.

The jump scare caused you to jolt.

“Christ, querida, it wasn’t even that bad.”

“Benny grabbed me!”

He was shaking, containing his laughter as you swatted his arm.

“I’m sorry, Bunny, it was too easy.”

“Don’t make me fetch security,” Will joked.

From that point, you were on edge.

The boys were alarmingly quiet, you were pretty sure Santiago was asleep and just as the movie was nearing the end, the television went black.

You screamed and they all groaned.

“Is that how it ends?”

“No,” Benny’s brows knotted.

Will leant over the arm of his chair and grabbed the switch for the lamp. He pressed it back and forth with no luck.

“Power’s out.”

Frankie jostled underneath you and you straightened up to let him out. He stretched his tightening muscles, setting his beer down.

“I’ll check the fuse box.”

“You’re not going on your own are you?”

Even in the darkness, your eyes were wide.

“He’s a big boy, honey,” Santiago pushed the chair back together. “He’ll be alright on his own.”

You throw your legs off Benny, placing the empty bowl on the coffee table. Pulling the blanket, you hug it to your body.

“I’m not letting you go on your own.”

Frankie didn’t even put up a fight, just jutted his chin to your phone.

“We’ll use the phone light.”

You fumble to press the screen, nodding when the light fills the space and you follow him. The rest of the boys stand up, listening out for the door closing. The click in the latch has them sharing glances before they hurried away from each other.

In the garage, Frankie walks with determination straight to the box on the far wall. Maybe going with him was a bad idea, your phone light casting elongated shadows to play tricks on your mind.

“Can I get some light?”

You hurry over to him as he pushes up the red switches which fall instantly back down. He tries a couple more things whilst your eyes flit around the space.

“Fuck,” he brushes a hand over his whiskers. “I’m going to have to call someone.”

“Really?!”

He hummed, getting off the step, moving in the direction of the door.

“I’m just gonna get my phone.”

“No, Frankie, don’t leave me.”

“I’ll be a minute tops.”

“Francisco!”

He slips through the door and out of your view. It slams shut and you’re on your own, seeing it best to back against the wall. You keep your eye on the door but start shivering as two minutes pass without Frankie.

“Fuck this,” you mutter to yourself, heading to the door.

The inside of the house was eerily quiet.

“Guys,” you call out. Hugging your frame, you move back into the living room. “Guys!”

The light bounces off the walls and onto the furniture, it’s empty, the kitchen is also empty. Mentally, you were cursing them.

“Ok guys, you got me! This isn’t funny!”

Has there always been a draft?

There’s a creak, sounding like it’s coming from downstairs but it could easily be the floor boards moving on the second floor, your senses so heightened you couldn’t tell anymore. You keep walking around the living room, praying for another sign of life.

Something tickles your ankles and you hold your breath.

“Benny,” you kept your voice quiet, “if that’s you, fucking stop it.”

There’s movement in the corner of your eye but when you shine the phone light over there, it’s just the rocking horse Frankie bought his daughter. You close your eyes and take a deep breath, repeating ‘it’s just your mind playing tricks on you’ over and over in your head.

Clanging comes from the kitchen, a sound like all of the saucepans falling out of the cupboard. You don’t even look.

“Ok, that’s it, I’m out of here.”

You approach the stairs and the light on your phone switches off. Checking the screen, you see the battery power on the smallest red line and groan, leaving it on the shelf.

Thinking about all the horror movies you’ve watched, you take a different approach. The killers are always hiding behind closed doors. You use your hands to guide you in the dark, opening doors stuffed with coats or cleaning supplies or whatever and felt around. No, none of them were hiding in those.

Suddenly, there was a noise from above.

A bounce then another and another. Turning round, a ball tumbles down the stairs before hitting the floor and rolling away from you.

“You know, usually that kind of thing would scare the damsel in distress but it won’t, I’m coming up.”

You still tread hesitantly however, you’re not fucking stupid.

As you approach the landing, the only source of light comes from the street outside the one window. The guest bedroom seems like an unlikely place for one of them to hide but you check anyway, as you suspected empty.

You tiptoe back onto the landing and continue to the other rooms. There’s something beneath your feet and you yelp, jumping to the safety of a wall. Squinting in the darkness, you realise what you’ve stepped on.

“God, it’s that creepy ass doll,” you say, bending to pick it up.

You turn it’s face away from you and place it on a side stand before heading away fast. Immediately you go into Frankie’s room, suspecting no one would be in his daughter’s, he would have deemed it out of bounds.

“One of you has got to be in here.”

You open the en-suite, even drawing back the shower curtain but there’s nothing. Wandering out, you head go to leave but turn around to look at the bed. Your eyebrows knot and you decide to take a peek underneath.

Nope, nothing.

You straighten back up and sigh, wiping the carpet fluff from your outfit. It isn’t until the last second that you hear movement behind you before you’re tackled to the bed, screaming at the top of your lungs.

A voice shushes you and their body weight lifts from your chest.

“Will?”

“Sorry, sweetheart, had to take my chance.”

Your heart was racing, “What is going on?”

“It’s just a game.”

He pins your hands above your head and leans in, his nose grazing your neck. Using his legs, he pushes your thighs apart, beginning to rut against you.

“Will,” you say shakily.

“I can’t help myself,” his voice is husky. “I saw that ass of yours in the air as you searched under the bed and I had to have it.”

You whimper as his bulge rubs along the crack of your ass, the fabric of your shorts pulling into your folds. Shushing you again, he grabs your shoulders and holds you closer to him.

“Please, let me fuck you.”

He’s completely enveloping you, the rock of his hips making your juices flow.

“Ok but be quick.”

In that moment, you realised you had never known Will to take you fast, it was always slow and sensual. He ripped down his sweatpants before lifting your hips a little. Pulling your short’s leg wide, you feel his precum smear across your leg as he rests the tip on your folds. He guides himself to your opening before filling you to the hilt in one swift motion.

You cry as his hips snap back and forth, his body forcing you into the mattress. Your nails bury into the covers as you hold on, his grunts filling the silence the house once had.

And he goes on like that until he finds his release, his arms shoving you back so he could push his cock as deep as it would go. His muscles loosen and he falls to your side, his cock slipping out of you and settling on your leg, the pair of you gasping for air.

“Remind me never to ask you to do that again,” you say in a giggle.

“I will,” he says, “I much prefer taking my time with you.”

He pushes himself up before picking you up from the bed, smoothing out your disheveled outfit to make you look more presentable.

“The three of them are still out there.”

“Maybe I’ll just stay here with you.”

He chuckles, “You know I would love that but that wouldn’t be fair.”

Will bumps your hip to send you towards the door. You take a couple of steps before glancing over your shoulder at him, you can just about make out his face.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

He knew you were pouting, unwilling to go with the worry of what might come next.

“Bunny.”

“Fine,” you storm from the room, stupidly walking backwards whilst talking. “But you’re going to have to live with the fact you sent me into the lions’ de—“

He sees the arms come out from the door, yanking you into the bathroom before you had chance to finish your sentence.

He folds his arms and shrugs, “I think I can.”

Santiago has a hand round your mouth, his other arm wrapped around your waist, pining your arms down as you protest, your attempts to fit him failing. He drags you passed the threshold and kicks the door shut, he knew that Will would distract you enough that he could make his move.

“Calm down and I’ll let you go.”

You stop writhing and lift your hands up into his eye line.

“Good girl,” he lets you go.

You turn on your heels and swat his chest, “Jesus, Santiago.”

He can’t help but laugh, that barely hurt yet you used his full first name, you were pissed. You fold your arms over your chest, eyes narrowing with a straight lip.

“Honey, come here,” he takes your arms and brings you close.

You try not to look at him because if you see those dark eyes of his, you’re screwed.

“It’s just a bit of fun,” he takes his thumb and index finger under your chin and twists your head. “I promise.”

“You owe me.”

He smiles, “Fine.”

Santiago watches as the smile comes back to your lips.

“So, how do you want me?”

He glances down, slipping his fingers behind the elasticated waist of your shorts. Moving them to the side, he grips the fabric and yanks them down until they fall to the floor. He plants a hand on your back and brings his mouth to the shell of your ear.

“You know I could hear you…”

His free hand slides down your stomach, brushing your clit before he sank two fingers into your messy folds.

“Moaning as Will took you with his cock.”

Your breath hitched as he started to pump in and out of you, the sound of your used pussy hitting your ears. 

“It made me so hard, Bunny, had to stop myself from fucking my own hand.”

You sighed, “I want to feel it.”

You heard him smile.

“Climb in the tub and face the wall.”

He pulled his fingers out and observed as you teetered over to the tub and stepped in. You touch your toes to the other end of the bath, gazing at the pale green tiles decorating the walls. Taking off his jeans and briefs, he climbs in behind you and runs his hands over your ass.

You lean into the touch and he smacks one ass cheek and then the other.

Moving his hands up, he catches the hem of your sweater and pulls the front over your head so your breasts are exposed. He picks up your hands and brings the palms flat to the wall, pushing you gently so you turn your head and press your cheek to the cold tiles then your breasts. The chill sends a shiver down your spine.

“Shit,” you say under your breath.

He chortles, “I thought you weren’t going to get cold.”

“Dick.”

Spreading your legs wider, he takes his cock and slips in, gliding seamlessly through the mixture of Will’s cum and your arousal. He keeps one hand on your back and moves the other to your hip and starts to rock his hips. He allows you to become accustom to his cock before he thrusts in and out of you energetically.

You give a honeyed groan, your nipples growing puffy against the tiles, the stark contrast in temperatures stocking the desire.

“Fuck, Santi.”

The words encourage him to go faster, bending your back even more. Your hand comes to his wrist and clings tightly, your inner walls pulsing.

“Taking it like such a good girl, huh?”

Pressing your forehead to the wall, you cry out and it ricochets off the tiles as he keep hitting that soft spot. You start to vibrate as his hips falter, burying his fingertips into the meat of your ass before he cums after a few more strokes.

He would have made sure to last longer but they all made an agreement.

His lips come to your lower back and kisses the skin where the sweat was beginning to build. Lifting you off the tiles, he works your sweater back over your head and covers you up. You spin round and take hold of his hips, jutting his semi-hard cock to your mound.

“I was so close,” you grumble.

“I’ll make you cum later.”

You giggle as he climbs out of the tub and offers you a hand.

“So,” you cock your head as you step out. “Where’s Frankie?”

He shrugs, “He was with you in the garage.”

“He was, then he went to get his phone.”

Santiago arched an eyebrow, “Have you tried the garage again?”

You howl, that was the one thing you didn’t want to hear. He shakes his head, picking up your shorts from the floor.

“You’ll be fine.”

“If you say so. Now, gimme my shorts.”

You stretch your hand but he hides them behind his back.

“Oh no, I keeping these.”

“You’re kidding me.’

He grabbed the door, “Off you go.”

You couldn’t see it but you knew he was smirking, trying to catch sight of your bare ass as you sauntered with purpose from the bathroom. Heading to the stairs, you can make out him and Will in the darkness.

“Good luck,” Will waves.

You give them both the finger.

“Were you first?” Santiago asks his friend.

“Yep.”

“Not Benny?”

“Apparently not, she didn’t even mention him.”

“Shit.”

Benny was going to go on about this for weeks.

You burst into the garage with sheer determination, swinging the door open with a bang hoping to startle him but there wasn’t a sound. Somehow this space was darker then the rest of the house, loads of shelving for him to hide behind.

“Frankie,” you say tunefully, “I know you’re in here.”

You didn’t, you just prayed Santiago told you the truth.

Cautiously, you start to have a look around but it’s almost impossible. Every corner or massive tool on the wall appears like a figure in the dark and you wished you had a light.

You can’t see him but Frankie could see you from his vantage point.

He heard you swipe at something and you squeal as stuff falls on you. You put it back clumsily before stepping away from the shelves. He stays low as you move near the truck, bumping your arm on the wing mirror.

“Ow, fuck,” you rub the patch.

He waits patient for you to carry on down the truck. You’re tentative, head continuously moving, checking all the areas in the dark forest of the garage until you reach the corner at the back.

Now’s his chance.

You feel the hands come under your armpits, the creak of metal as the weight shifts in the truck and his grunt as he lifts you up and over. You fall into his lap as he collapses to the bed of the truck. He wraps an arm around your waist, using his knees to spread you apart.

“There you are,” you say breathily, heart pounding.

“I see you’re already missing your shorts, who took ‘em?”

“Who d’you think?”

He laughs, his free hand skimming down your stomach. One finger presses your clit and you tip your hips to his touch as he pushes his thick fingers into your opening.

“They’ve made such as mess of you, querida, and no one’s touch that pretty little throat of yours.”

His other hand rises to your neck and you tilt your head back to search for his eyes, how the fuck are they managing to see you? He stretches his fingers one side, his thumb the other and squeezes lightly, your pussy twitching around his digits.

Pulling them out, he brings them to your lips and you open your mouth. You twist your tongue around his fingers and lap up the concoction of you and Will and Santiago, a salty tang dancing of your tastebuds.

Frankie lets out a ragged breath before he takes them away.

“On your knees.”

You scramble to get up, spinning round to face him, wide eyed with a smile he can’t quite see. He gets onto his knees, dropping his sweatpants and prising his cock from his briefs, his free hand grabbing a fistful of your hair at the back of your head.

Guiding you to his cock, he spreads the precum over your lips before you take in his tip.

You lick the point, moving down to circle the ridge and hear his groan hit your ear. The saliva builds in your mouth and you coat his length as you work your way down to the base, his hand nudging you just that bit further. He brushes the back of your throat as his tip slides down. You pull back, keeping your eyes on him.

“You start, I’ll finish,” he says as you take him again.

You’re slow at first, feeling his veins and size of his girth on your tongue before you pick up the pace.

You bob your head up and down as fast as you could, your spit building around the edges and spilling over your chin. All the while, Frankie moans, cock twitching as his fingers pull your hair, scalp beginning to burn.

When you come back to his tip, he wraps his other hand round your head and takes over.

You keep your back straight, shoulders held strong as he thrusts in and out of you, his cock sliding deeper and deeper into your throat. Your muscles contract but you don’t choke, gargles escaping, replacing your voice. You listen to how he hisses, how he grunts before praises fall from his lips and into the darkness.

You can tell he’s close when he rams down your throat and pushes your head into his soft stomach, his body shivering as his length meets a depth it hasn’t before. He only goes for another five strokes before he buries into you with broken groan. His balls contract as the hot liquid spurts down your throat and you do your best to swallow.

He’s still cumming as he pulls out, his seed coating your tongue and cheeks until that’s all you can taste. His cock falls out of your mouth with a pop as you come up for air, his hands relaxing to your shoulders.

“You ok?” He searches for your eyes in the dark.

“Yeah,” you sounded a little croaky.

He tucks himself back into his loungewear.

“Who’s left?”

He knew Santiago would have taken your shorts, sort of as a souvenir but someone else had gotten to you.

“Benny, he’s playing hard to get.”

Frankie laughs, “He is the most competitive, I’m surprised I lasted this long.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“He was still downstairs when I saw him.”

“Would he be anywhere other than the living room or kitchen?”

“Did you try the basement?”

“Why would I try the basement? It’s scary enough in here.”

“You do realise the basement’s almost done? There’s been a pool table down there for weeks.”

“Really?”

He shakes his head, “You’re lucky I love you, Bunny.”

He hops down from the bed of truck and waits for you to get up, coiling his arms underneath your ass and placing you on the floor. As he straightens up, he smooths his palms over your ass and sinks his fingertips into the meat of it. He tipped his head and placed a kiss delicately on your lips.

“You better go.”

You head towards the door before you turn round to face him.

“This game you guys are playing, what’s the prize?”

“Whoever finds you last gets to make you cum.”

You giggle, walking away and out of the door. The main reason you avoided the basement was because, again, you thought it would be out of bounds. The last time you had seen it, it was a construction sight, tools and dirt everywhere. Frankie hadn’t invited you down since, how were you supposed to know it was near completion?

Instinctively you tried the light switch, cursing when you remembered it wouldn’t come on.

You take the steps one by one, hand holding onto the wall because you were terrified of just tumbling down. When you looked over and squinted you were sure you could see Benny, leaning on the pool table.

“Hey, Bunny.”

“You’re not even hiding,” you say, going down the last couple of steps.

“Not when I know I can claim my prize.”

You knew he was smirking, eyes roaming your body.

“You did all that spooky shit on purpose?”

He hummed, “It’s why we watched a scary movie too.”

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t.”

You find his body in the dark and wrap your arms around his body, worming under his t-shirt to press your palms on his warm back. He tilts your head up from his chest, bringing his lips to yours softly before kissing again with force. His other hand runs along your back and down to your ass cheeks, he lifts his palm before smacking you.

As you gasp, he slips his tongue into your mouth and yours melds with his.

The corner of his lips twitch, he can taste one of the other guy’s cum on your tongue, guessing it was Frankie with the freshness. Both his hands are now on your ass and he picks you off your feet, onto the edge of the pool table. You moan into his mouth, wrapping your legs around his hips as you jut your chin into his.

He pulls back to catch his breath.

“Get into the centre of the table,” he says.

“Benny, it’ll break.”

“It won’t,” he moves his lips to your ears, pushing back your hair. “Into the centre of the table.”

The grittiness of his tone has you shuffling back immediately and he wished he could see your face, the doe eyes and plumping parted lips. You spread your legs ready for him, propped yourself onto your elbows though you can only just make him out.

He places his ass on the edge then swings his legs up, crawling on his hands and knees. He brushes a palm up from your ankle, feeling you shiver underneath his touch. Dropping his head, he nudges the tip of his nose over your thigh before kissing the skin. You weren’t going to need much playing with.

Your hips and back were already tingling, belly warm from the other three.

He kisses your bikini line to your mound, his tongue unfurling over your clit before he began to suck.

Your back meet the pool table, a gasp escaping your lips. He gradually flexes his jaw and pulls you into his mouth further, one of your hands reaching for his hair. You push your hips up, rutting against his face as you chase your release.

Then he stops and straightens up, pulling away from your hand.

“No, don’t stop.”

You scream in frustration and all he can do is chuckle, head shaking.

“We’re gonna cum together, ok?”

“You promise?”

You’d already had your release snatched away from you once and Benny could be just as bad as Santiago when it came to orgasm denial.

“I promise.”

He yanked down his shorts, his hardened cock swinging freely as he grabbed your hips and dragged you closer. You hiss as he rearranges you,not caring about the friction burn from the green mat as you top bunches up your back.

Taking his cock in his hand, he lines up to your pussy, brushing the tip between your inner and outer lips.

You’re no longer complaining instead you give a honeyed moan.

He pushes his tip into you, smoothing his other hand down your leg and grabbing your ankle, moving it to his shoulder. Putting both of his hands either side of your waist, he lifts up your hips before plunging into you.

Wherever he hits, it takes the air from your lungs.

He’s not gentle, equally as pent up as you as he thrusts into you over and over. Your head has fallen back, jaw slack as your choked cries come deep from within. With each snap, he grunts, his body folding into you. His hot breath dances over your stomach, your desire swelling, threatening to burst.

Even in the darkness, you’re starting to see stars, head dizzy with the lack of oxygen. Your inner walls are fluttering, barely holding together and you hear his voice break through the fog.

“Hold on, Bunny, I’m almost there.”

He continued at his fast pace as you whimper, screwing your eye shut. Your hands come loosely to his wrist, unable to hold on as your body ripples with his strength. The bottom of your spine starts to burn, hips quivering.

Benny shows no sign of stopping but his cock jerks inside you. He wants nothing more than to see your face, your elongated neck, your mouth shaped into that perfect little ‘o’. His hand slips between your searing bodies, fingers teasing at your clit as he softly rubs at the bundle of nerves.

“Fuck,” the word barely leaves your throat.

Then he matches it to his motions, swiping back and forth vigorously.

Your back arched, a perfect curve as your cunt clung to his length, trapping him within you as you screamed his name. He keeps moving his hand, the nerves shooting up your spine before scattering across your body, your toes curling. The muscles in his ass and thighs grows tense and, roughly, he pulls out his cock.

He milks himself over you, spilling his seed over your mound and your stomach, heavy droplets landing on your hands.

“Oh god,” he groans, “I wish I could see you now.”

You giggle in the haze of your orgasm.

There’s the sound of the door handle moving, the creak of the frame and the lights come on above you.

“Shit, Bunny.”

You really were a mess, lips glossy with saliva and Frankie’s dried cum. Creamy white trails from Benny and your pussy soaked with your juices, along with Santiago and Will. Your hair was tangled, shorts non-existent and your top almost showing your breasts.

“For fuck’s sake,” Frankie charged down the stairs.

“Sorry, Fish, had to christen the pool table somehow.”

He scoffed, “You could have waited for me.”

Will and Santiago followed the noise, coming down the stairs before they all surrounded the pool table to admire the view.

“You ok?”

“Just, catching my breath.”

Santiago smiled at your slurred words, “We’ll clean you up when you’re ready, maybe you could finally find out how the movie ends.”

“Nah, I’m good… I much prefer this ending.”

[sigmaleph]

yesterday i watched When Evil Lurks, which is a recent argentinian horror film i found out about for reasons entirely unrelated to being argentinian (this rotten tomatoes article ranks it as the best horror film of 2023)

it's at first glance a simple plot, demonic possession in tiny rural town, guy tries to save his family from it, but with an interesting-to-me twist on that, which is that

demonic possession is a recognised phenomenon. The government has standard protocols to deal with it; having actually encountered an instance of demonic possession is rare, but basic things about what to do and not do are common knowledge.

when the main character tells people about the demon, the answer isn't "demons aren't real", it's "how would you, a random hick, recognise a possessed person if you saw one" or "nah, demons are a big city thing, we live in the ass-end of nowhere, there can't be one here".

which leads to a theme of the film; the horror isn't coming from an outside-context event nobody was prepared for, but rather people who should know better acting short-sightedly and failing to deal with a problem they totally could have.

a woman reports her son has been possessed. everyone knows this means a demon is trying to be born into the world, and if they don't kill it (carefully, properly, using specialised equipment and trained professionals) there will be dire consequences (not fully specified, but lots of people die merely in the process of the demon being born). The 'cleaner' (professional demon-killer) doesn't get there for a year. it's not clear why; one wealthy landowner speculates the whole thing was meant to screw with him, and I don't think he's right but clearly something comparably fucked up is going on, even if it's impersonal institutional failure rather than politicking. and because they took too long, the demon has grown in power, its influence has spread, and it mind controls someone into ambushing and killing the cleaner as the starting event of the plot.

the main characters get dragged into a plan where, well, the government isn't dealing with it, so let's just carry the possessed person a few hundred kilometres away (he cannot move under his own power) and make it someone else's problem. everyone has the background to know this is predictably a terrible idea that makes everything worse.

one of the standard things-everyone-knows about demons is you should not use guns against them. nevertheless people keep pointing guns at the various manifestations of demonic activity, while people are yelling at them not to.

in i think fitting accordance to this theme, the protagonists fail. the demon is born, with unclear implications for the general area though certainly bad ones. they failed because they are human and selfish and short-sighted, and also because the entire institutional structure that should be doing better than that let the problem fester.

there's a clear element of contagion to how demonic influence spreads; if you're in contact with the possessed at all, you're supposed to abandon everything you own and burn your clothes (this being part of the reason why it's a terrible idea to move the possessed). if one were to subscribe to the school of thought where every horror monster is a metaphor for a societal problem, this obviously suggests the covid pandemic as The Social Issue We Are Exploring Today

...but I don't, and I think that's a limited reading. i think it's about something broader than that, about individual human weaknesses and how they lead to collective failures. or at least that's what I get out of it.

[yuzurujenn]

[2023.07.27] ANA Captain Yuzuru Hanyu’s Journey – Special Interview

(Filmed: 27 July 2023, Archive released: 27 Sept- 17 Dec 2023)

Ladies and gentlemen, Star Alliance members, thank you for boarding ANA’s special flight to Sendai. I am Yuzuru Hanyu, the captain of this flight, and your flight will be departing shortly. Please make sure your seat belts are securely fastened. Today's flight time is scheduled to be about 1 hour. Well then, let's go on a special journey with me.

-Thank you for having me. How are you spending this hot summer?

-Summer huh... I don't go out much, but I feel like I'm busy every day doing creative work, training, and taking on various offers. Actually, the condition of the ice at the skating rink has gotten quite bad, so in that sense, I'm getting anxious because it's taking a long time to get to the right conditions. It's a restless season for me.

Is the skating rink also affected by the season?

-Yes, as the indoor temperature inevitably rises, the ice will melt, it will become loose, the strength will weaken, and so on, so I spend the summer thinking that it's going to be a challenge.

It’s been 1 year since you turned professional. How do you feel now?

-When I had the press conference, I was very nervous. I remember that scene very well. After the press conference was over, it was on this very day that I approached MIKIKO-sensei to direct the show, it was also the day that I met MIKIKO-sensei for the first time. In a way, it was a day that determined my "GIFT", and then "Notte Stellata", "Fantasy on Ice", and various ice shows. I think it was the day that Yuzuru Hanyu's future was decided.

Has the past year been long?

-I think that this one year was quite short. So many things happened. There were a lot of things going on and I didn’t really have time to catch my breath, so the year seemed too short. But when I say 365 days, if I look at each one of them, each day carries its own weight, I think I’ve spent fulfilling time every day.

Yuzuru Hanyu's new journey begins with "Prologue" (2022.11)

"Prologue" (2022.11) Yuzuru Hanyu's first solo ice show after turning professional

When I made "Prologue", the first thing I thought about was that there was something called "GIFT" that was like the main story, and I wanted this to be a prelude to it. I thought it would be nice by looking back on my life, it will remind them of this when they see “GIFT”, so I created ‘Prologue’ to serve as an introduction to explain the story. In fact, when I finally finished "GIFT" to the end, I really thought that it was like a prologue to my current life now. I feel once again that I want to do my best so that I can continue to produce various chapters of the main story, like the first chapter, the second chapter, the third chapter, and so on.

It was also the prologue of your life, right?

-In fact, initially I just had "GIFT" in mind when I was creating it. However, the story changed in many ways as I progressed and started to skate, and I also received various thoughts from fans. As I went along with the story and the programs, various values emerged in my mind. Through this process I felt like my life as a professional skater had gradually started all over again.

Tokyo Dome performance “GIFT” (2023.2.26)

The first solo Tokyo Dome performance by a skater, Yuzuru Hanyu's life and future on the ice

-It feels like it happened a long time ago, right? But it’s only been half a year, it's strange honestly. If someone says that two or three years have passed, I would believe that indeed that much time has passed. To that extent, I feel that I have done something where I left my soul in the work.

What kind of "GIFT" did you receive from fans?

-Well, I'm a pessimistic person, I think negatively about a lot of things, and I have various constraints within myself, but I realised my existence can also be of use to someone. I think this realisation is the gift that I’ve received from everyone. During the show, there were various effects, lighting, and the light from the wristbands that everyone was wearing. Whenever I saw these, among the 35,000 lights, even if it was just one person, if it makes them feel some colour or emotion for a moment in this world, then it makes me think that my existence is a good thing.

[There were many things that I couldn't do, but little by little, I could do more. Each time, the world became warmer. I loved that world. That’s why I wanted to become warmer and warmer, by learning to do more - Quote from [GIFT] narration]

-When I looked back on my life so far, I had this image of being involved in skating and have been living with skating, but when I dug deeper into why I chose skating, I realised that I liked that world when skating went well. I wondered how I could convey this feeling to everyone, regardless of age or gender, in an abstract way. If the whole world could be like the warm world that I am talking about, then maybe everyone could be kinder. I chose those words with this in mind.

Did you enjoy directing?

-It's fun, but at the same time I feel like I have to dig into a lot of things within myself, and in the process, I found that I've been carrying all kinds of walls within me or I've neglected some issues. So that is tough, but I'm sure by reflecting on myself deeper in this way, I can purify my thoughts. The various suffering you may be carrying, such as pain or loneliness, I hope that if I show you my own heart, it can be an opportunity for everyone to re-examine their hearts a little more closely. This is what I think about most now that I am involved in production and direction.

YUZURU HANYU x [TRAVEL]

-Physically, traveling to different countries or other places was only for competitions or expeditions. In that sense, I may not have ‘travelled’, but I often went abroad, and even went to many places in Japan for competitions. Even now, I go to many places to perform in ice shows.

What do you bring on board a plane?

-Earphones, audio player, battery, a game console, what else, supplements, I think. It's heavy every time. There were batteries and various cables, and there were about 5 earphones in the case, so every time the inspectors from overseas would ask, "What are these?” I will be stopped.

5 earphones are too much, isn’t it?

-Maybe there are too many cables.

How do you spend your time on board?

-For example, when it comes to traveling before a competition or a show, I would spend most of my time thinking about the time difference, stretching, jet lag, and so on. I would calculate these things, considering how much sleep I could get and also making adjustments to make sure that I could get the right amount of sleep. But on the way back, I would be completely free. Since I could spend my time as I wanted, I would play games of course, but I also liked to look back on my performances during the expedition, or look at the clouds outside the window, the sun above the clouds, and the way the light reflects off the clouds.

Do you prefer the aisle seat or the window seat?

-I like the seat next to the window. I think it's great that airplanes can go above the clouds, even if it's cloudy or rainy. Of course, there are times thick clouds will make it difficult to reach above, and there may be a turbulence, but you know that there is always a sun above the clouds during the day, and there is the moon at night, I really think that is a unique sight on the plane. The rays of the sun, or the light of the moon reflecting through the gaps or the uneven surface of the clouds really look like a scenery out of this world. No two sceneries are ever the same, they change every 0.1 second. I think there must be some meaning in having encountered such a scenery. I like spending my time on the plane like this.

What are your memories of your travel time?

-When I was a student, I spent a lot of time on airplanes doing reports or research. When I had to travel from Canada to Japan or other countries, I had a lot of time, so during those times I tried to finish my assignments on the plane so that I could concentrate on my performance. Of course there were people around me, but when it was dark and I only had my book and reading lamp on, I felt as if I was in my own space, so I was able to concentrate and relax while doing my assignments.

What's your routine for the day you depart on a trip?

-When I go on a travel, usually there must be a competition scheduled, so I try to clean my room as much as possible before I leave, not to make a wish, but to prepare myself for the performance. After all, tidying up the room is like a time for me to put my thoughts and feelings in order. Especially when I pack, things tend to get messy, so I try to keep it as clean as possible. Yes, I try to tidy up every time before leaving.

It's amazing how you can tidy up when you have the least time.

-It’s really hectic, but on the contrary, I will feel uneasy if it is not organised. Sometimes I’d think about ‘I didn’t tidy up here, will I make a mistake in my performance?’. I’ll get caught up in the thought. So, every time I’ll point my finger to confirm and say, ‘Ah, this is sorted, that is sorted’. It is always like this.

FLIGHT LOG: What does "journey" mean to Yuzuru Hanyu?

A mirror to know yourself

Finding a mirror in the middle of life

-For example, it's really difficult to feel your own existence in the dark. If you were to stand somewhere with all five senses gone, and stay there for hours, you would lose track of who you are, you couldn't touch anything, you couldn't feel anything. After such an experience, when you go outside and feel various things, you can really feel that you are alive, can't you? That's an extreme example, but I think that maybe we’re experiencing the same thing in life. As we live our lives feeling all kinds of things, I'm sure that at some point we’d feel lonely and become isolated, and there must be something that can only be felt because we’ve been in the darkness once. I think that it's because we're able to feel such things that we come to understand our own existence. Those stories and events are like mirrors, and we live our lives searching for where that "mirror" is. I think that this is the so-called journey of life.

- (Wearing the captain’s uniform) It's embarrassing, it's embarrassing. I don't get a chance to wear this often, so I'm very nervous. It's so embarrassing.

What is the key point to distinguish a captain’s uniform?

-Line?

Yes, the captain's uniform has 4 lines, and the co-pilot's uniform has 3 lines.

-It definitely has a weight to it. It makes me nervous, and excited at the same time.

With Hanyu dressed as the captain, let’s move to the next scene!

(Virtual Tour)

-Wow, awesome. This is fantastic. It’s so dreamy. Wow, I can feel the Earth.

How many countries have you been to so far?

-About 16. I went to many places in Europe in my junior years, like Bulgaria, Poland, Croatia, and more recently Sweden. I guess a lot of European countries. Of course, I also went to Canada, the U.S., and Russia. There were people who I competed with and improved together in these places.

Where was your first international competition?

-The first time I participated in a competition was in Finland. Tampere, Finland. Ah, I found it, it’s so big (points to the map).

[Tampere, Finland. Finland's second largest city. Since it can be accessed from the capital Helsinki in as little as one and a half hours, it is a popular city for day trips. You can enjoy nature while cruising the lakes and rivers.]

-I was 9 years old, and I celebrated my birthday in the airplane. I turned 10.

On the plane?

-Yes. I'm not sure if it was on the way there or on the way back, but I was told that I could see the Northern Lights. I wanted to see it, but I was on the aisle side so I couldn't see it at all. I really wanted to see it.

Was there any celebration on the plane?

-No, not at all. At that time, even though it was before my birthday, I already had my birthday present in my hands. I thought it was a great event. My birthday was on December 7th, and I left on the 6th, but I was really happy to have the birthday present already. I was feeling like “Not until the 7th, it's not my birthday yet, so I shouldn't open it yet”.

What were your memories of your first international competition?

-It was my first international competition and I was very confident, but in fact, I was competing in a category higher than usual. Generally speaking, it would have been impossible to win, but I won somehow. It was the ‘Santa Claus Cup’, so all the judges were dressed up as Santas. That was very memorable.

So Santa Claus gave you the score?

-Yes. Back then, the scoring system was different from now. They were holding up scoreboards with a score of 4.3. It was a great competition like this.  

Were you nervous about competing abroad for the first time?

-No, I was an overconfident person at that time so I thought I could win no matter what. On the way there in the plane, I was listening to "Eikou no Kakehashi" (Bridge of Glory) thinking, "I've finally come this far", and I was feeling emotional. It felt like I was finally embarking on a journey out to the world.

Did you have time for sightseeing in Finland?

-Since it was my first competition, I wanted to do some sightseeing, and I had a little bit of time, so I went to a place called the Moomin Museum. You can look it up. I’m curious to see what it's like now.

(searching) It may not come up. Maybe I'll search for Tampere Moomin or something. Where is it. Ah found it.

Is this it? Wow, that brings back memories. I don't remember it being this big. It looks quite spacious. I didn't know it was this big. I went there at night at the time, I didn't remember it being that big at all. But I remembered the interior very well. There was a corner where you could experience all kinds of things, and there was an information section about the person who made it. Tampere is like the birthplace of Moomins, and I even bought a Moomin souvenir. It’s really nostalgic.

[Moomin Museum. Approximately 2,000 items are on display, including the original drawings of Tove Jansson, the creator of Moomin. Various interactive exhibits are also popular.]

-Wow, this is the first time I've seen it since then, it brings back memories. I think we went by car, but I don't remember how we got there. But it was December in Finland at the time, so there was very little sunlight. It was mostly dark. I think the sun was up for only about an hour or two at that time.

Memories of Europe?

-The Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen. (searching) From Denmark. Maybe this one.

[13 years old, a brief sightseeing in Copenhagen, Denmark]

-Ah, I went there. Ah, it was around there. I remember this place quite well. You can see the park from the street here. I passed through it to get there.

When did this happen?

-I think this was at the end of my first year of junior high school, around March. It’s quite nostalgic. This was the last time I was able to do any sightseeing during the competition. But I didn't have much time for sightseeing other than here and Tampere, so it’s a very memorable place for me. I think this was my last competition before entering the junior level. I was about 12 years old.

[Little Mermaid Statue (Copenhagen, Denmark). A bronze statue based on Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale "The Little Mermaid". It stands quietly by the sea as a symbol of fairy tale land.]

[Hanyu Yuzuru’s training ground. Canada] - (searching) As expected, cricket club may not be searchable, if I don’t type ‘Toronto’... Ah found it.

Yes. I often come here. Wow, Wilson Avenue. How long I’ve been here. Yes. This is my practice place, how nostalgic.

[Cricket Club (Toronto, Canada). The skating rink where Yuzuru Hanyu was based for about 10 years]

- I had been practicing at this rink for almost 10 years. Amazing. It was about three years before the Sochi Olympics.

Looking back now, what was your time in Canada like?

-Well, at first I didn't know right from left and I couldn't speak English, so I was full of anxiety, but I gradually started doing things like self-checkout and tried to stay away from English as much as possible in my daily life, and I gradually started to feel more comfortable.

[A Place of Growth: Hong Kong]

-I went to Hong Kong twice. I don't really have good memories of either since I couldn't win. In the first competition, I simply didn't have enough skill to win. And in the second competition, I was in an unusual situation where I couldn't even advance to the free skate, so I was really frustrated and I cried a lot. But then, for the first time, I landed the triple toe loop really cleanly. It was at a skating centre in a shopping mall and there were a lot of people watching, and they were cheering excitedly and saying how amazing (that kid) was, so I was really fired up at that moment.

It sure brings back a lot of memories.

-It does.

Did seeing the world lead to growth?

-For me I experienced a lot of growth in competitions, like when I first landed a triple jump, it was during a competition in Hong Kong. It was the first time I felt like I had landed a clean triple jump, but when I was training in Japan, I couldn't land it at all. As I thought, if I had a rival, someone to aspire to, or a good image right next to me, I felt like I could do it too. It seems like I had grown without even realising it.

[Yuzuru Hanyu’s hometown: Sendai]

-Sendai. Sendai has its urban areas, but there's also an abundance of greenery which is really nice. Also, the climate is very pleasant. It doesn't rain a lot, and it's not unbearably hot in the summer, and although it's cold in winter, it doesn't snow like it does on the Sea of Japan. I think it's really comfortable to live there.

As it is the town where I was born and raised, whenever I recall the various sceneries and think of the people who have helped me, I am filled with gratitude, and I often think about how much support I have received in order to get to this point. As such, I hope to give back in some way for the time, energy, and money that was spent on me, whether through my performances, donations or any other ways to express my gratitude.

[FLIGHT LOG: What does “the world” mean to Yuzuru Hanyu?]

Hope and anxiety, brought together by gravity

-It’s a combination of hope and anxiety brought together by gravity. The world, through my experience in all the competitions and travels I have been on, is that it is full of hope, it gives me hope, it teaches me things, it makes me happy, and when I come back to Japan, I can come back with that hope in my heart. But there is also a sense of anxiety when I travel, a culture that I don't understand, or a language I don't understand, or other things that are different, and these things are also part of the world, which is brought together by the gravitational force of the earth and the connection between people and the community. I think it’s a collection of various things.

What is the charm of travel?

-I think just making a lot of plans for a trip and thinking, ``I want to go here'' or ``I want to go there'' is already like a journey of thought. But when you actually go and try things, you'll experience many things up close, or you'll feel scared when you're there, or maybe not everything will go smoothly. That's why there’s a sense of thrill, and that thrill will turn into excitement and joy. I think that's what makes traveling fun.

A message to everyone who challenges the world.

-I think it would be more difficult to find something that doesn't make you anxious when you start out in a new environment. Honestly, at that time, I was excited every day taking on new challenges, and if it was something I liked, I would be thrilled to move forward to the next step, and proceed with much curiosity and excitement. But if I take a step back and think about it calmly, I’m sure that at the same time there is anxiety attached to it too. I think that hope exists not only because things go well, but also because there are things that do not go well. So it is definitely okay to feel the fear of taking on a challenge. The sense of accomplishment you feel when you succeed after trying is surely multiplied many times because of that fear. I believe it turns into joy.

I am sure that everyone is challenging themselves every day, not because they have a goal in mind, but just by living life, you keep challenging yourself. Even if you are never praised for doing things that others think are normal or taken for granted, I think for some people that life will be happy, and for others that life may be boring. So, I believe that by just thinking that you are challenging yourself every day and moving forward, your value ​​of happiness will surely change too.

After becoming a professional, for me, improving my skills and acquiring various ways of expression are my daily gifts. I challenge myself every day, encounter failures, but there are fewer instances that lead to success, so I think I'm accumulating failures every day. But that may be skating for me, for you that may be housework, or that may be your daily work. But I've come to value those small daily failures and joys, and I want to cherish that happiness too.

(end of Virtual Tour)

The second journey in my life

-Talking about it, I now feel like I’m on the second journey in my life. For me, the first journey was up to the Pyeongchang Olympics. When I started that journey, my goal was to win the Olympic Games back-to-back. At that moment, I think that my first journey had already ended. Four years passed from there that led to Beijing, but I don't really think of the time leading up to Beijing was much of a journey.

It’s Pyeongchang, not Beijing?

-Well, I think that for everyone, it’s probably Beijing, or till the day before the press conference. But for me, Pyeongchang was the moment when my dream came true. I think that the first journey ended there, and looking back now, I think after that it was the preparation period for my next journey.

[What was Yuzuru Hanyu’s “First journey of life?”]

-In my mind, travel is a kind of journey to look at oneself, to touch on various things, to gain various insights, to find out what one wants to do, etc. I think it's like a journey of self-discovery, but in a way, my first journey was not like that. It was pretty much like a predetermined destination, and I was being taken there on an airplane. The route was already decided, there were probably various layovers along the way, and amongst those stops, I'm sure there were things like this stop was good, or the next option was better, or that this plane was better, etc. But looking back now, I didn't feel like I was navigating it myself.

[And now, to the “Second Journey of Life”]

-To be honest, I don't really know where my destination is. Maybe as I gain more and more experience and re-examine myself physically, my thoughts, and various other aspects, I may come up with a destination that I want to aim to. But for now, I'm just flying until I run out of fuel, and when I feel like I need to refuel at a certain point, I’ll make a stopover, refuel and fly again.

I’m curious, what kind of fuel does Yuzuru Hanyu use for his airplane?

-I wonder. It's really difficult, but it runs out of fuel all the time. I wasn't the captain on the first trip, there were maintenance crew, assistant staff, I had a lot of supportive people around my seat and I spent my time being very dependent on that support. Now I'm more like the captain and also the control tower. Of course, I’m in charge of the approach of the plane that I'm flying, but I also have to detect the radars of the planes flying around me, thinking about what to do, so in a way it's a bit chaotic.

So, it feels like my fuel runs out very easily. If you ask me what fuels me, well, I guess it's the impressions and the reactions on everyone's faces when I perform. After all, I’d like to know how everyone felt about my performance, the thoughts I put into it, the various techniques and expressions I put into it, how those things were conveyed to the audience, what they liked about it, what they were interested in, and so on. I think that maybe that’s the fuel for me.

[The many "walls" I've encountered in my life's journey]

-The "wall" is there every day. I think about various things every day, and every day there are moments when I feel like “I want to do this”, or “I can't do what I want to do”. I wonder how to overcome that, how to face it, should I just give up today. I think there is some kind of wall that exists every day. The thickness of the wall varies from day to day, and there are days when I have to put a door on the wall, or climb over it, or kick it down. I feel like I spend my time every day looking at and colliding with the walls within myself and my heart in some way.

How did you overcome the obstacles?

- I don't actively try to overcome them much. For example, there was the injury I got when I collided with someone in China, also I've had a lot of injuries myself and I remember how I felt when I got injured at the Pyeongchang Olympics, and in Beijing Olympics I got stuck in a hole and made a mistake in the short program, such are the various obstacles in competition. And I still feel the towering wall that stands in the way of my quadruple axel dream, but more than that, I think that there are ‘walls’ in just living each day. I'm sure there are many different routes out there, and I have to make choices every day, and when making those choices, I wonder if there will be an obstacle in the way or not, or if there will be obstacles later on. I think that's the biggest ‘wall’ for me.

FLIGHT LOG: What are the words that Yuzuru Hanyu value?

-What I value, yes. “Never forget your original intention”.

This is a phrase that I have always treasured ever since I was in junior high school, and it is also my motto. Whenever think about various things and work hard towards something, there will be times that I feel like my footing is unsteady. It is common to gradually forget the feelings you had when you first set out to achieve it, so if I can live without forgetting those initial feelings, I think I can overcome most things. When you start something, you’re probably having fun or enjoying it. You begin with that feeling, being curious and wanting to move forward, but gradually that feeling fades away, it becomes monotonous, and you lose the joy of it. Such things happen. I think it would be nice to always feel something like that initial joy or sense of accomplishment you get as you grow.

How have you taken care of yourself?

-I think I'm probably strongest when I'm thinking about skating, so in a way, those moments may be a situation where I’m taking care of myself. When I move away from skating, my existence… in a way, I think that my skating, the people who watch me skate and my programs are like a mirror of my existence, so I think those moments are the most comforting for me. However, the most difficult moment is when all the effort and preparation I've made, all the things that I've carefully imagined, doesn't translate into results or reflected in my skating, and it's not just my fault, but all sorts of factors pile up which prevents me from doing it the way I wanted. That’s most painful for me.

When you hit a wall, what should you do? Do you have any advice for everyone?

-I think it's good to feel a lot of walls. There are times when you can overcome them if you try, but there are also times when you think you can't overcome them. And before you know it, someone may become your ally and open a door for you, or someone may also tell you that there is another way without breaking down the wall, and I think it's okay for various ways depending on the circumstances around you and how you feel at that time. So, experience many obstacles, think about what you have now, or return to your original intention and think, ‘Why did I come up against this wall?’, or look back in retrospect at the various obstacles you have faced and reflect what you have done repeatedly to get here. I think it is good to have such an opportunity.

[FLIGHT LOG: Captain Yuzuru Hanyu’s journey. Where are you heading to?]

-Uncertain future. I don't think that the person I will be in a second from now has everything decided, and looking at the person a second later, the current self is already in the past, and that is the path in front that I have already walked. All this while, when I was chasing various goals and dreams, I didn't know how the journey would turn out, but I could see the goal, and even though I didn’t know if it was certain or definite, but I have always lived my days trying to make it certain. To be honest, I don't know where the destination is now, but I think that the present is possible because the future is not decided, and the future is visible because it is not certain. I think that is the purpose and goal of my journey from now on.

Are you enjoying the journey now?

-It's not fun, to be honest. It's funny that it’s not fun. But I think I'm having a fulfilling life every day, thinking about various things, absorbing many things, learning various things, and then from there it would be great if I could find a mirror each day in which I can re-examine my existence.

[A message from Captain Yuzuru Hanyu to everyone]

-Thank you for watching. I look forward to seeing you again soon on your journey through life.

Source: Own video audio transcript

Online video: https://weibo.com/tv/show/1034:5046894632566792

[tygerbug]

BARBIE (2023) - Toward the end of writer-director Greta Gerwig's Barbie, America Ferrara (as Gloria) gives a speech about the tightrope that women must walk, the impossible and contradictory standards that a woman must navigate in order to be taken seriously in society and seen as a person. It is an overtly feminist moment but also serves as a metaphor for the film itself, which has to balance very contradictory tones in order to please several very different and contradictory audiences and owners. Is Barbie a fish-out-of-water comedy about two fashion dolls traveling to the real world? Is it a serious feminist statement about growing up in a patriarchy which does not value women enough? Is it Blade Runner? Is it a toy commercial? As Will Ferrell's character might say, "Yes." It is all of these things and a lot more, and in the hands of a less capable director that would have been a bigger problem than it is.

Like Barbie herself, Barbie the movie is expected to be everything all at once, to all people. Some of the things this movie is expected to be contradict each other pretty heavily. The film is trying to do a lot, and there's a lot of evidence of roads not taken. So much is unexplained or left hanging, and so much of what happens is silly and frivolous. This is a very smartly-made movie, which at times seems very dumb or makes dumb decisions, partly because what it's trying to accomplish as a film is nearly impossible.

It is possible to imagine a better version of this film, one which explains itself better, leaves less characters unexplored, leaves less plot threads hanging, goes to darker places, and does not make so many compromises. But I can't imagine that film getting funded as a $145 million toy commercial from Mattel, with an extra $150 million spent on marketing. Under the circumstances it's impressive that the film is as good as it is. That imaginary version of the film would be more coherent, and probably Oscar-worthy, but you'd have to call it "Malibu Stacy" or something, as The Simpsons did, and it wouldn't be one of the biggest hits of this year. What we have instead is a very complicated gymnastics act to satisfy many different audiences and the demands of corporate capitalism. The film sticks the landing, and comes out of all this looking as beautiful as a doll-sized Margot Robbie. But it's also full of moments which are out of place, underwritten, confusing and weird, like a doll-sized Kate McKinnon.

The toy company Mattel has been trying to get into the movie business for some time, as Hasbro already did with "Transformers" and "My Little Pony," among others. They've been trying to crack the code of a Barbie movie for adults for years. (And apart from Barbie, the idea of Mattel getting into movies is mostly a bad idea.) At Sony, up until 2017, Diablo Cody was writing a more ironic, deconstructionist version to star Amy Schumer, as a Barbie who didn't fit in. (Cody has said that the more traditional Barbie was not seen as feminist enough at the time, and that they struggled with comparisons to The Lego Movie.) Anne Hathaway was attached to a version written by Olivia Milch (Ocean's 8) until the project reverted to Mattel, and moved ahead at Warner Bros.

Greta Gerwig's Barbie feels like a film rewritten over the scattered corpse of a worse film, or many possible worse films. It walks the tightrope of being both an ironic deconstruction of the character, and an unironic celebration of Barbie which shows her in the best possible light. This film has a lot to say about Barbie's place in pop culture, as an ideal that little girls want to be like, which also saddles them with unrealistic expectations that can be very harmful. Since this film is also a toy commercial by Mattel, Barbie the movie can't interrogate these issues too negatively, but it goes farther than you'd think. It starts a conversation about what Barbie has meant to girls and women since 1959, which gives the film much of its meaning. The film raises some basic questions that it's not actually allowed to answer, while ignoring others. The chaotic script feels like the product of extended battles with Mattel, where the filmmakers are allowed to say certain things, and get away with certain things, only in specific scenes and in specific contexts.

Consider the rebellious teenager Sasha, as she meets Barbie for the first time. Sasha believes this is just a woman pretending to be Barbie, or that this is a crazy woman believing herself to be Barbie. Sasha and her entire friend group unload on Barbie about the negative effects that Barbie has had on society, to the point of calling her a fascist, without quite explaining why. This is a strange scene, because they've just met this woman and have very little reason to see her as "the real Barbie," or a representation of Barbie. They have barely been provoked to unload on Barbie like this, and we don't really hear this kind of talk from Sasha (or the movie) afterward. But the scene is written this way because that's where Sasha and Barbie are, at this point, as characters, and so this is the scene where Sasha is allowed to say these things, and where by extension Greta Gerwig is allowed to raise these questions, without openly agreeing or disagreeing with them. By the end of the film, Sasha will be saying stuff like "Barbie, you got this!"

Or consider Will Ferrell, as an executive in charge at Mattel. While we meet him in the "real world," he is a whimsical and comedic character, whose motivations are concealed behind several layers of irony. We are supposed to read him as "a Will Ferrell character," perhaps identical to his character in The Lego Movie (something that Barbie was compared to often, in development). He could also be Buddy the Elf from Elf, or George W. Bush from SNL. We know who this characters is, because he's played by Will Ferrell, but it would be very hard to explain his character otherwise. That's because this character has been forced into an impossible position, and gets around it by being several contradictory things at once. Will Ferrell, vaguely, occupies the space of an antagonist or villain for this film. He represents the real-world corporate patriarchy that Barbie is really struggling against, and his ostensible goal is to capture Barbie and restore her to factory settings. But he also represents Mattel, in a movie produced by Mattel, so at no point can he actually be the villain. Will Ferrell coats the role in several layers of irony and comedic schtick that make him hard to pin down. He plays the role with a wink. When his men are chasing Barbie, he is doing schtick rather than seriously trying to capture her. He forgets or changes his motivations quickly, while still pursuing Barbie, and most of his lines afterward are about how he's a nice guy really, and the son of a mother. He does that with a wink too, making his character hard to explain generally. He occupies the general space of a villain or antagonist, but also has to assure you that this is not the case in any serious sense. The daftness of the character papers over any holes in the story by assuring you it doesn't matter.

This is equally true late on, for the exact same reasons, when (spoiler alert) Barbie struggles with the Kens. The Kens can't actually be the villain in any serious sense, despite the serious real-world threat they represent, because this is a toy commercial for Barbie and Ken. When the Kens go to war, it needs to be as serious as possible, and as silly as possible, at the exact same time. Tonally, this film always needs to do everything backwards in high heels. It's a tough tone to hit. Ryan Gosling distinguishes himself as Ken, whose job is just "Beach." Gosling must convince us that he's both the generic, harmless (and stupid) Ken doll, and a character with much deeper psychological issues that he's working through, without the one overshadowing the other. Ken becomes a cautionary tale about how someone who is missing something in his life can easily become radicalized into something much darker, but not to the extent that he is irredeemable and can't be Ken anymore. This is a film which puts its actors in a very contradictory position when it asks anything of them, although the other Kens and Barbies are not explored deeply as characters. The film must have it both ways. It tackles toxic masculinity in a way which is both deeply serious and unserious. There is a very cutting remark, at one point, about a recent superhero film, which must only have been allowed because Warner Bros also owns that film, and which could also be very loosely interpreted as saying it appeals to its desired demographic. At one point in the film, Ken tries to figure out the rules of the Real World, and whether the opportunities he wants can simply be given to him. This opens a few questions about the many layers of societal gatekeeping - of wealth, class, race and so on - which makes opportunities harder to attain for the unconnected. Unfortunately these are also questions that are well beyond the scope of this movie. Despite a diverse cast, race and sexuality don't enter into this as themes.

Another thing the film doesn't- and can't- mention is that Barbie was not an original creation of Ruth Handler, but was based on the German "Lilli" doll, based on a sexy comic strip for adult men. The doll caught the attention of little girls precisely because it wasn't initially meant for them. As Helen Mirren's narrator notes, Barbie seemed much more exciting than dolls of little babies. She seemed to open up a world of adult possibilities, precisely because she was originally an adult fantasy. Ruth Handler is played here by Rhea Perlman, with probably a bit less gravitas than the role calls for, although she gets in a few good joke lines about Ruth Handler's real-world issues with financial fraud, yet another thing I'm surprised Gerwig got away with referencing here. (The contributions of Jack Ryan, and his troubled personal life, are not referenced.)

Margot Robbie holds the movie together as Barbie, also known as "stereotypical Barbie," the Barbie you think of when you think "Barbie." While there is a diverse cast of Barbies and Kens played by familiar faces, they're not cast to be "Barbie and Ken" in the way that Robbie and Gosling are. At one point in the film, at Ken's urging, a Nobel Prize in Horses is given out. For her part, Robbie seems to be trying to win an Academy Award in Barbie. Once again, this role carries a lot of contradictory expectations with it. We all know about Barbie, and her perfect, silly, fake little world, where everything is pink and plastic, and about 23% too small. Robbie gets laughs by parodying the doll Barbie, but also embodying her unironically as if it's the role of a lifetime. This is a silly, frivolous, comedic character, which also requires extremely serious dramatic acting, and the one side informs the other. This is both the fashion doll "Barbie," and a real person who is having a nervous breakdown, either because she's becoming a real person, or for other reasons which are only barely explained, and arguably outside the scope of this film. (America Ferrara's "crazy drawings" and parental angst are only hinted at, as is whatever magic connects Barbie to Mattel.) Margot is good enough as an actress that you never question it. She brings some serious drama to scenes which aren't otherwise filmed like serious drama. It is also fun to see Barbie wear all her little outfits, an energy which she also brought to the worldwide premieres of the film, with a different Barbie outfit at each event. I believe the SAG-AFTRA strike meant that we missed out on some of her final Barbie looks, and this thought will haunt me. Margot Robbie fulfills one of the requirements for playing Barbie in a film like this, which is that you should be a little too attractive to be playing someone as bland as Barbie. This is something that Mattel understood when they turned the adult property "Lilli" into the kids property "Barbie." Even Helen Mirren's narration points out, at one point, that Margot Robbie has difficulty playing Barbie as "ugly," even when "ugly crying." She has no such difficulty playing Barbie as a cultural monolith, or with a wink as she floats downstairs as a Barbie girl in a Barbie world.

That song, Barbie Girl by Aqua, parodied the character in a way which got them sued by Mattel, and which would still be inappropriate in this film if played in full. But audiences would also notice if it wasn't played, so once again the film is put in an impossible position, and tries to have it both ways. So the end credits have a song which features portions of "Barbie Girl." The intro also features Lizzo, discussing Barbie's pink world in a way which gives it a little more street cred. And there's a sad ballad by Billie Eilish which better reflects Barbie's identity crisis- and the film's.

I wasn't left wanting more- the film does not call for a sequel- but I was left wanting more clarity on what we got. What have we really achieved, at the end, for the Barbies and Kens, and does it matter? What have we achieved in the real world, and does it matter? Does this journey only really matter for Barbie herself? What does it even mean to have Barbie in the real world? Okay, that's better left unexplained, probably. Like most of our journeys it's about growing up, learning how the world works, and realizing you actually can't go back home again. Even Barbie never really had a choice. The connection between the real world and Barbie world is probably best left unexplained, although the transition is handled well with rear-projection backgrounds. it does raise the question of how "real" Will Ferrell's character even is, as he acts almost like an escaped Ken. How "real" is the real world when it also has magical elements and exaggerated characters? What is Barbie's connection to the ghost of Ruth Handler, who only sort of created Barbie anyway? Why is "Barb" from "Barb and Star" here? Is that to make the movie more "Barb"-y?

At one point an FBI agent calls in, tracking Barbie. This is never mentioned again- I believe that those tracking Barbie afterward are Mattel employees, and not a lot of them. Is Gloria connected to our Barbie because she works at Mattel, and played with a discarded Barbie? Were her "weird drawings" really all that weird? Can we assume that the Barbies reflect the dreams of the girls playing with them, including a doctor played by trans actress Hari Nef, and a President played by Issa Rae? Wouldn't there be a lot of Barbie Lands in that case, with this little town just standing in for all of them? That sounds too complicated. Does it matter?

If this is a current Barbie lineup, without "discontinued" dolls, why are the retro pair of pregnant Midge and rainbow-shirted Allan present? We never see them together either, so what is Allan? Is "Allan" its own gender entirely? What would it mean to be Allan-gender? (Allan appears to be, simply, Michael Cera, no more and no less.) What is Allan's motivation? Is it enough to say that "Allan is Ken's Buddy" and that "all of Ken's clothes fit him?" Probably! Would it fix the Kens' problems if they figured out whether any of this is a gay thing, or not? Is "Weird Barbie" (Kate McKinnon) a gay thing? Isn't she "weirder" in the real world than she is in the "Barbie world?"

I believe we never hear about Skipper, Barbie's younger sister, in the film until hearing that a Skipper once escaped into the real world. Two Skippers, including the bizarre "Growing Up Skipper" (with growing bust) appear as discontinued Barbies later. It is clearer, for this film's purposes, to just refer to a lot of Barbies and Kens when setting up this world. But I'll bet there was a draft setting up Skipper. There have been a lot of animated Barbie movies where Barbie has a family and other continuity, but this film is more interested in a personal experience of Barbie rather than any of that corporate lore. I've heard that some of the animated Barbie Dreamhouse content is jokey and meta.

Basically none of the male characters have motivations that make very much sense or are explored in any detail, which I think was a good choice on the director's part.

And that's just the stuff that seems to matter, until it doesn't, like the entire plot. There are a lot of throwaway moments and details which will make you say, that was kind of weird. Or, I have questions about that.

There's a few jokes in the film about "guy movies," and it seems significant that Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, which was originally tracking to open to much smaller audiences than Barbie, has been very successful in piggybacking off of Barbie as a double feature. For one thing, this is Ken behavior. For another, the online reaction was sometimes very toxic. People excited about going to see Barbie on social media were often harassed with all kinds of slurs. Even by itself this supports the very basic point about what women have to put up with. The opening was a huge success for both films, with Barbie surpassing $200 million and Oppenheimer crossing $100 million between Thursday and Tuesday or so, opening weekend.

I was reminded of how Barbie's trailer sets this movie up as really something special, which the movie itself delivers on. The movie has something to say about Barbie, and about the world we live in. It's visually beautiful and funny. It calls back to classic films of the 20th century, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Grease, golden-age musicals, The Matrix, The Wizard of Oz, and the work of Jacques Tati. When I saw Barbie, on the big screen, it was preceded by some of the worst movie trailers I've seen in my life. Often movies based on toys and familiar IP, with nothing interesting to say, saying it in the most obnoxious way possible.

Barbie is a silly toy commercial comedy that also manages to, for the most part, be a meaningful piece of cinema with something to say, crafted masterfully by the director. It does what a "guy's movie" would do backward in heels, making an impossible situation seem relatively effortless. There are things that this movie does not accomplish, but under the circumstances I wouldn't expect it to. Barbie is a concept by which we may measure ourselves, if we so choose. It is the start of a conversation, asking questions that it is not at all prepared to answer. For the Barbies and Kens, nothing needs to be resolved. For us in the real world, nothing ever can be. Barbie does not have the answers. In its desire to please many different kinds of audiences, as well as its corporate masters at Mattel and Warner Bros, there is something inevitably missing at the heart of the film. This Barbie is a gorgeous piece of plastic, but it is also, in the end, inevitably hollow. And in that missing space in the middle, it is inevitable that audience members will insert themselves. That is true whether you see yourself as a Barbie, a Ken, a Gloria, a Sasha, a Greta, whatever Allan is, or something else entirely. This Barbie has more personality than other Barbies have, and I think this movie could be very meaningful to people, but that's going to depend on what they, personally, are bringing to this movie as viewers. I hope, in the end, you too realize that you are Kenough. More reviews: https://letterboxd.com/garrettgilchrst/films/reviews/by/release/

[hedgehogsaretheultimatelifeform]

Kinktober 2023 Day Nine

Overstimulation

John Price (x Nikolai)

Nik had been gone too long, like always. Maybe he had finally realised that this was an issue, and that was why John was clutching a package from him in his hands. As he stared down into the box, Price thanked fucking christ that he had taken it back to his room before opening it. He didn’t want to think about what Laswell or Alex would say if he’d inadvertently opened a box of dildos in front of them. He’d never be able to forget it, especially if that got back around to Nik, who’d probably suggest inviting them to watch or something (and that didn’t sound that bad, now he thought about it…)

Price tipped the box out onto his bed and tossed the fucking pink tissue paper aside, as he stared down at the pair of toys Nik had sent him. A new dildo, bigger than anything else Nik had got him since he’d introduced John to the things a few months ago, and what he realised wasn’t a second dildo, but a wand. Price frowned. He’d done a little (a lot, maybe too much) research on toys himself, and he’d only read about wands in reference to female anatomy, which he was… lacking in. 

Clearly Nik hadn’t gone too mad, as he’d included a hand written card with fucking instructions on how John should use it on himself. John flushed as he turned the card around between his fingers. Nik didn’t think he was that useless, did he? 

Maybe, he should prove that he wasn’t. He should use Nik’s present, and make him a little thank you for it. 

He had to wait for the stupid things to charge first, so he ended up lying across his bed, lazily stretching his ass open with one of his other dildos, wanting to be sure that he could actually fit the new one inside him. The issue was, it was thick. John could take long ones easily, but one that thick would do him in, even before he made it vibrate, which it could do, according to the scroll wheel he’d found on the bottom when he’d been looking for the charging port. 

Fuck, what was Nik trying to do to him? Besides the obvious, make him cum his brains out; but a dildo that would surely make him cum on its own, vibration not withstanding, and on top of that, a wand?

Fucking hell, he was in for a treat.

He rolled over to grab his phone. He hadn’t even thought about how he was going to film it yet. What was the best view for Nik to have… or, the best view for him to give? Nik was trying to torture him with the potential of these toys, so why shouldn’t John return the favour?

He could film just his back, as he fucked himself on the dildo, giving a show certainly, but not focusing on the thing that Nik was clearly interested in: the wand, to be used as directed. 

It was an easy set up to put together. He propped his phone up on his desk chair, preparing a space at the end of the bed for himself, starting the video with just the dildo sitting on the bed, secure thanks to its solid base, lubed up and ready for him. John kept his back to the camera as entered into frame to climb onto the bed, leaning forward as he knelt around the waiting dildo, triple checking that the things he would need were in front of him.

Show time. 

John sighed, settling himself on his knees, reaching back to pull his ass open, showing his spread hole to the camera, before sitting up and letting the blunt head of the dildo hit his asshole. He exhaled with a hiss at the pressure. He’d prepared himself, lubed up the dildo beyond reason, (fuck knows how he was going to explain needing new bed sheets again), and this was still going to be a stretch. 

John swallowed, grounded himself by gripping his thighs, and pushed his hips down. 

It stung at first, making him choke, screwing his eyes shut as he pulled up and whimpered when he felt empty. He needed it back already, and committed himself to pushing himself all the way down onto it. 

The deeper the toy went, the easier it seemed to be. He groaned, reaching behind him to feel the base of the dildo, shaking when he realised that he’d gotten the entire thing inside of him. He paused for a moment to relish in his success, before finding the scroll wheel, and turning it up as far as he could. 

John screamed, his hand flying up to his mouth, shaking as the dildo, already pressed right against his prostate, went from complete stillness to intense vibration. Precum was leaking down his cock when he was finally able to pull his head down, locking his hands around his thighs as he rocked his hips back, whimpering with each tiny movement, struggling to keep his eyes open as he reached for the wand. 

He gasped when he clicked it on. It was on the lowest setting, and it was this loud? He picked up the instruction card, and showily tossed it aside. He’d studied it earlier, and knew the motions Nik had suggested for him by heart. He was going to keep this bit for himself, though. First, to check Nik knew what he was on about, and second, to tease Nik with the idea of a further show, save something for later, or some such. He made it look like he was stretching, hard with how tight his gut and balls felt, just to show what he was holding in his hand, before bringing the wand down to touch just under the head of his cock. 

He saw white as he came, almost losing feeling in his fingers as he shot cum into his blankets (fuck), but he refused to remove the wand from his dick. He sat up straighter, pushing as far down on the dildo as was possible, and clicked up a level on the wand. It was so damn loud, the recording would have to pick it up. 

John let his head fall back, Nik’s name freely falling from his lips as he pushed the wand in a wobbly line down his cock, past his balls to press at the skin just outside of where the dildo was sunk into his ass. 

Fuck, he was still cumming, semen dribbling down the sides of his cock as he writhed, tears running out of his eyes as he turned his body so the camera could see his face. He held it there as long as he could, before he turned the wand off, dropped it and rolled onto his side, shifting around to pull the dildo out of his ass with shaking hands, unable to focus on anything but the feeling of the blanket under his skin. 

All he could do was breathe.

For minutes, all he could do was lie there and breathe, coming back to himself, until he felt strong enough to drag himself up, going to the bathroom to gulp down some water, and take a few photos of his ruined face. 

He checked through the recording quickly, cut out the minutes of him lying in bed at the end, and sent it off to Nik. He knew he wouldn’t receive a reply anytime soon, so he got cleaned up and took up Ghost’s offer to go out for a drink with the rest of the team. 

Nik replied when it was his round, and John was waiting alone at the bar. 

John. 

You know doing overstimulation alone is dangerous. 

John sucked a breath in through his teeth. What was I supposed to do? Not thank you?

You could show me what I had told you to do.

The instructions weren’t that clear.

Johnathan.

Nikolai.

You prepare your ass for when I get back, because I’ll make that seem like nothing.

I’ll look forward to it :)

[visd3stele]

after seeing wonka 2023 i have thoughts to share:

first of all, i absolutely love how it completes the wonka lore we have so far. i was worried that it'd be a bad, made for profit, prequel. but i was so wrong for that!! the young wonka timothée portrays has all the innocence and slighty off the rocker deep into his own head side the original wonka does. except this one hasn't been hurt and betrayed yet. he's just starting to discover how cruel and bad the world is and still believes in that boyish fantasy of a good, happy world that shattered later on in life and broke him too.

second of all, i love its simplicity. the natural way in which it was filmed. the narrative didn't once made wonka or his inventions seem out of place, strange, something impossible. the whole world enjoyed it and were in awe, rather than shocked. to me that is to say the wonders are reachable for everyone, if we'd just believe enough. like how at the end, for example, wonka so easily says they need to "just change the world" and noodle and co. accepts it at face value. compared to "charlie and the chocolate factory" where the kids and parents who visit the factory are shocked to see all the inventions. the world outside is gray and sad and so centered on money, profit, production and toxic escapism they didn't expect all the colors, dreams, and genuineity that stood out of place in wonka's self-built daydream.

thrid of all, noodle and wonka's and later on, theirs and the rest of "the scrubbers" relationship is so cute. she's a cinic, made so by life, and he teaches her to hope and dream, while she teaches him to be more grounded. she's never once punished by the narrative for her sass, sarcasm or not blinfly believing wonka. she's, instead, understood. she doesn't change at the end into a happy, little, silly fairy. she heals. she grows. she's loved and appreciated. as for the rest, it's so great we get to see what happened to them in the end. they each got back to their lives, having gone through their own growth and healing process. also, one small conspiracy theory i have: what if charlie's grandpa from "charlie and the chocolate factory" is abacus, the accountant?

[accio-victuuri]

CPN : cute dogs, missing lyrics, interview clues, evisu numbers, :01 & the continuing bottled joy saga 🫶🏼

it’s been a while since i made a proper post like this that talks about various cpns going around bxg circles recently so here you go. have some candy!

let’s start with a fake story that seem to be close to this video of zz coaxing cute dogs and him “complaining” about them rejecting him…

WDB’s run was around early feb to june filming and then this fake rumor was released january 2023 and it is ZZ complaining to WYB, it talked about when zz was filming someone brought an animal and it didn’t want to look at him. It was always facing away, ( kinda like these dogs ) and he said “ oh look at it. it doesn’t care about me”. the rumor even said he was squatting down, which is what he was doing in the video. even him saying bye-bye.

As with all fake rumors, take this with a grain of salt. There are about 4 accounts on weibo that labels themselves as fake resources and most of them post stuff like this. Just day to day occurrence between the boys. It’s up to you if believe it or not that these things are more truth than just coincidence. the fact that a couple of them turn out to be validated later on by photos/videos is a reason why cpfs love it so much.

( the cutest and goodest puppy 🥹🥹🥹 )

It’s so funny, these cute dogs know that he already has a puppy at home so they are wary of getting close 😂😂😂😂

• In BTF’s behind the scenes video, there was a part where he was singing along with his castmates to a Jay Chou song ( Sunny Day ) and he skipped singing certain lines. The one he sang goes : Once upon a time, someone loves you for a long time…

and then he skipped singing the following parts :

However, the wind gradually blows the distance far away

但偏偏 風漸漸 把距離吹得好遠

It's hard to love one more day

好不容易 又能再多愛一天

But at the end of the story you seem to say goodbye

但故事的最後妳好像還是說了拜拜

BXGs are interpreting it as him adapting ZZ’s superstition of not saying “bad things” ( remember the boat scene in the cql bts too ) and in this case the bittersweet lyrics of parting from someone you have loved for a long time. An example of this with ZZ singing at Double 11 night and he did not sing the “bad lines” too.

You may say that this is just WYB not wanting to sing along anymore and he was doing something else, but as a cpf who believes in certain things— it’s very sweet. 💕 They are so careful when it comes to their relationship that they don’t wanna jinx it like this.

• ZZ had an interview for WDB and one of the things I loved about it was how he described true love as a flow of companionship. To those who are not watching WDB, his character had a childhood first love ( hongling ) and he described that as that fiery and unrestrained kind of youthful love. But the one he ended up with and marrying ( xiaomei ) is one that’s like a steady stream ( flow of water ). It reminds me of him and WYB. No. Listen. They might have started bickering and as kids who fell in love but it grew into something more steady as the years went by. It’s why i love domestic stories of LRLG cause it shows how their love is. They make the most mundane things sweet, it’s not always bit gestures and fanfic type stories — more often, it’s almost boring because they are literally living their day to day life together.

There was also a part where the interviewer was asking about his line saying “i will only miss you” to hongling and he said something like, he has thousand things he wants to say but ended up with that, the whole I MISS YOU being secretly said is something we CPN. both of them using “…” on their posts and when this comes up, it means i miss you

• In the EVISU video, the numbers are so sus!

13 (yizhan) 28 ( love bo ) 33 (zhan zhan )

and then below, that 23.

Don’t judge. CPFs are really just so sensitive with numbers. 😅

• The posted today and we think that ZZ missed the time. WYB is 18:01 and ZZ was 19:02! Maybe he meant to match and make it 19:01 but he missed!

• Here is a good place to catch up if you don’t know anything about the whole Bottled Joy saga — but this example is the latest. before this, they posted a video making green tea ( like the one in cql they shared i supposed ) and ofc turtles were cackling. but this one goes back to the cpf-friendly designs. they shared these two bottles for their 6.18 sales and we noticed that the colors looks sus. appearing to reference wyb’s panther and zz’s guangdian art. what a good pair ✨

-END

[queenlua]

saw yet another retread of the great “why do ppl hate Skyler BreakingBad so much” battle, so here’s my 2023 take ig:

i think Breaking Bad suffers from the “no such thing as an anti-war film” problem: just like it’s kinda hard to make a film critical of war without making war look *cool* and *sexy*, it’s pretty hard to make a story about an everyman becoming a powerful mobster-killin’ druglord without making… y’know… being a druglord look cool n sexy

yes, walter is *supposed* to be a monster. and the show is *often* quite clear about that. moreso near the end than at the start, but even in episode 1 he is obviously this simmering bundle of resentments.

but also…

you are definitely supposed to think it is kind of cool when he uses his Huge Overlooked Genius Brain to make the extra-good meth, right? and you are supposed to shout “fuck yeah” when gus gets blown up. it is supposed to be (wickedly, guiltily) satisfying when he poisons lydia.

the show wants to be a cool neo-western action piece *and* a thoughtful critique of a particularly toxic (and disappointingly common) manifestation of masculinity. those two things are somewhat at odds—“watch this sad pathetic man ruin his life for five seasons” is a hard sell in the primetime slot, to anyone who’s not already *into* that kind of story, so they marry it to the “underdog uses his Huge Brain to succeed at the drug business” story, and pattern-matching especially against the kinds of shows that were in the cultural milieu at the time… you *do* expect Huge Brain guy to be the hero! and succeed! generally after multiple petty non-Huge-Brain ppl told him he couldn’t do it!

and man Skyler does pattern-match pretty well against the “hater of Huge Brain” guy template, right, if you’re only interested in one of those stories

so yeah when ppl are like “omg skyler is the WORST i hate her awful character,” *yes* there’s absolutely misreading there, *yeah* there’s ppl who just hate on any woman in a vaguely domestic role, etc… but i think chalking it up to *just* those things lets Breaking Bad itself off too easily. they chose to smash together two plots that were inherently in tension (cool, but risky!), and i think they *mostly* managed that tension well, but also, it goes on for 62 goddamn episodes, so the quality is not consistent throughout, and there are definitely times they make Walt look too cool or let him off too easy, and the show *itself* doesn’t seem hugely interested in Skyler’s interiority (like, they certainly didn’t intend for her to be *hated* the way she is, but they also… don’t write in many likable moments for her, the way they do for, say, Hank?)… yeah, it’s not surprising the popular misreading is as popular as it is, and that’s not entirely the fault of poor cultural literacy or whatever imo