#your Lucy interpretation and vibes are great

[caracarahoney]

First of all, the playlist? Stunning and no notes. Lots of theater-type songs and that suits Lucy so much better than expected. The art is fantastic, you’ve made blue and gold go together really well and that can be tricky to do! Great job friend!

H.I.V.E. Birthday Bundle - Lucy Dexter

Picrew Maker

PLAYLIST: (Image: Impression Sunrise — Claude Monet)

Once Upon a December (Instrumental)

Chorégraphie du départ — Daprinski

engravings — Ethan Bortnick

Me and the Devil — Soap&Skin

The Ballad of Mona Lisa — P!atD

Cell Block Tango

Control — Halsey

killer queen

Glitter & Gold — Barns Courtney

Wait — NoMBe

Way down We Go — KALEO

Serenade for Strings in E Major, Op 22, Tempo di Valse — Dvořák

Vienna — Billy Joel

The Nutcracker: Pas de deux — Tchaikovsky

FANART: (Blue, Eight of Pentacles)

HEADCANONS/PROMPTS:

HC: Eldritch Creatures Sinistres (is this already canon? Maybe a little bit). Her skin is just a little too pale, her mouth doesn’t move exactly right with her words, you could’ve sworn she wasn’t there a second ago, and hey… when was the last time she blinked?

Prompt: A lot of the Sinistres with powers are adopted. They just find them out there and YOINK (a la The Umbrella Academy however I only watched season 1 take this with a grain of salt)

Prompt: Something something both the Contessa and Lucy chose to sacrifice themselves in an incredibly destructive fiery end to save a lot of people

Prompt: Lucy survives Zero Hour without anyone knowing (including her) and kind of just wanders into the local town, amnesiac, confused af. A solid while later Shelby finds her Clark Kent-ing it out in the world on her Illegal Globetrotting Fun

HC: Lucy definitely had some voice training. What I’m hearing is that she can sing opera (👀 Opera Singer AU anyone????)

HC: She cannot pose for photos At All. Dorky ass peace sign.

AU where everyone graduates H.I.VE. as normal and when everyone’s out on the streets of Italy, Lucy gets recognized because she’s actually kind of royalty (also she has a Wikipedia page)

HC: Lucy is usually seen as pretty mature and kind of shy, but every once in a while she’ll make a 69 joke or some other kind of innuendo that Shelby high fives her for

HC: Lucy gets some snake bite piercings right after she gets her wisdom teeth out at the H.I.V.E. Doctor with a clean(?) safety pin. Miraculously, they do not get infected.

Only child Lucy got real good at braiding her own hair. The five of them hang out and talk shit and braid each other’s hair. (Otto gets that fun little two year old spiky ponytail)

crack prompt: Lucy and Anna somehow meet.

Lucy: Stop killing people!

Anna: You’re not my mom!

Lucy: *gasp* I WOULD’VE NEVER SPOKEN TO MY MOTHER LIKE THAT

alrighty that’s all I got. THANK YOU MITCH @dr-nero-is-god FOR MAKING THIS EVENT

[jadeandquartzes]

🥤 🪐 🏜️ 🧩!

🥤 ⇢ recommend an author or fanfic you love

HELL YEAH. We are all going to go on a beautiful ao3 trip right now to experience the glorious, cinematic, enrapturing works of @kipperlillycopperkettle. bev is a writer whose words literally make me gasp out loud, and cackle with laughter, and cry with emotion. I swear to god their fics have made me stand up and PACE so many times, and I mean that as the HIGHEST of compliments. they know how to make my heart leap out of my chest with the SIMPLEST of sentences. it's magical. it's phenomenal. it's the best. please read their latest hunger games fic and you still feel cheated when your buzz subsides, which is SOOOO devastating and juicy and good. i'm obsessed with their haymitch. he's a mess he's in pain he's fighting he's flailing he's furious he's afraid he's trying despite it all and it's sooooo so good. please read their rat grinders fic in the summer silence i was getting violent. the POVs on this are OUT OF THIS WORLD what the HELL. it's GREAT. six totally different headspaces, and all of them wonderful!! the moment i realized the connection between the listing of the rules about lucy's demise and the framing of each person's segment, i screamed!! please read their starbreaker examination i'm a winged insect, you're a funeral pyre, which has its own mansion in my mindspace and will never ever be leaving. it's brutal it's fucked up it's beautiful it's messy it's devastating it's hot it's never meant to be it's about the devotion and loyalty and need and want and hate of it all. i think about jace kneeling in this All The Time. i think about "porter is a liar" All The Time. i think about the ending scene on the bench ALL THE TIME. actually read all of these and then go read all of bev's works!!! a master writer and an amazing artist, and I mean that with my whole heart.

🪐 ⇢ name three good things going on in your life right now

oooh! okay let's see. I'm currently in the midst of a craaaazy wave of creative productivity that I haven't had for MONTHS, and it's a lovely feeling. I just started a new class that I'm having the time of my life with. And I came back from a lovely weekend spent staying with friends, which was a very good reminder that I am an adult, and alive, and allowed to have needs and wants and desires, and to vibe with the people I love, who are my chosen circle of family <3

🏜️ ⇢ what's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

I answered this in a few prior, but I'll keep building on them because I love listing nice things about comments: it brings me SOOO much joy hearing about where/when people are when they read my fics!! it's so fun to imagine them out and about in the world. I read fanfic in some wild places myself (train. airplane. my job, quite often.) so it's SO fun when my works get to keep other people company :)

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

HMM. Normally it's a combo of either a) egregious grammar/formatting problems to the point where I can't follow what's going on or read it coherently or b) it's not sunk into a character's head/pov enough? Hard to describe the latter, but it's the vibe of like. If I start the fic and it feels like That Character's Headspace, as opposed to just any random person's headspace, it's a good sign, but if I start it and it doesn't feel individual enough, then it can be hard for me to continue. (And to be clear, that's not specific to a single/personal interpretation of each character - if an author's got a strong character interpretation in mind, I'm very often down to go along for the ride! I just want to go on the ride in the first place, if that makes sense!)

ask me things!

[leftrib-moved]

I've followed your other blog for a while, I was wondering if you recommend any roleplayers to try giving a shot at rping with?

I'll take a wild guess you're askin' specifically about Haz.bin / Hell.uva RPers since you sent this in to my Adam blog lol. But, honestly, I may not be the best to ask for recommendations. I have yet to interact with too many Haz.bin roleplays or really get to know any but out the gate I do believe I do have a few I'd recommended out of the people my picky ass has come to like over time via talking with them or watching them interact with friends.

@cxncrie / Star who's a friend of mine is someone I'd definitely recommend. She writes Alastor, Charlie, Lute, some other canons as well as some of her OCs plus a canon muse that's crossed over into Haz.bin. She's been great to talk to and write with, is rather patient with me despite how horrifically slow I write, has been consistently kind to me, and is the reason I'm even still in the Tumblr RPC funnily enough. All the stuff she writes is great, her writing is worth consuming. She's also one of the few people that seem to clearly communicate with her partners anymore or, at least, try to as much as you can when a bunch of people seem allergic to it. All around Star is great and someone I'd always recommend following / writing with if you vibe with her and aren't already writing with her. Also, her OC Nimue is great. Like. One of the few OCs I would ever genuinely recommend and is the first OC in a long time I willingly shipped some of my canon muses with on my other blog.

@shadowzgather / Tera is also great. I have yet to actually get proper threads fully going with her, albeit that's the fault of my slow ass more than anything, but Tera has been great thus far as I said. She communicates, cares about her muses, and writes them quite well from what I've seen. It's been fun watching her and Star write their stuff with Pentious and Nimue. Not to mention Tera does write the funny snake man quite well and is probably someone I'd consider making my main Pentious on my other blog. I do really like how Tera tries to do more with him despite how he was mostly a joke in canon, trying to emphasize how he can be more serious and isn't just a joke while also managing to keep Pentious. Well. Pentious. It's pretty neat to me how she manages to make him more serious while also keeping the quirks that make Pentious himself. This is to say I like how she manages it without accidentally turning him into an OC wearing his skin like I've seen happen with other characters with other writers.

@xluciifer / Luci isn't someone I've had a lot of chance to write with, again because I'm a slowass bitch, but Luci is also like one of the few Lucifer roleplayers I genuinely like. I've privately recommended Luci to people before but, hey, here's a fuckin' public recommendation now. They genuinely put thought and effort into writing Lucifer, they actually looked into scripture for writing him. He isn't just "quirky and depressed father" with them. He isn't just "omg innocent wittle man who did no wrong" with them. He isn't just "husband to Lilith !! omg precious ship!!". They also don't write Lucifer just to shit on Adam like I've seen several other Lucifer writers do. They have Lucifer be hostile to Adam a realistic and in character amount based off how they choose to write Lucifer. They're like a god damn blessing because I thought I'd never meet a Lucifer roleplayer who wanted to write with my Adam that didn't want to either harass / bully him, straight up murder him, or try and get me to write Adamsapple as an autoship. They're also just very sweet to speak with and quite nice to speak to OOC when we have / do talk now. Very nice writer, splendid take on Lucifer.

@edenhazbin / This is someone I have yet to properly write with, but from what I've seen myself and heard from friends, I've come to enjoy her interpretation of Cain. It's been quite interesting to watch Cain's interactions with Star's OC Nimue. Also, her Cain is just an interesting take to me because I typically saw people interpret Cain as some sort of evil, malicious, violent hellion. Making him unnecessarily violent and malicious to all, like some sort of edgy overpowered villain OC, but her Cain isn't that and is quite an interesting difference from that usual I tended to see.

I'm sure there's plenty more people I could recommend here but I'll stick to just recommending these four for now since I feel comfortable with recommending them. And this isn't to say I dislike anyone I didn't recommend or anyone who writes the same muses as those I did recommend. These people are just who I felt most comfortable recommending due to being friends with them, people I've talked to OOC, or people who know friends of mine.

[i-like-turkey]

Kate Whistler: Bottom

Had someone ask me in a comment on my latest fic why I write Kate as more submissive in my fics. I went long on it. Posting it here in case anyone else was wondering:

This is a topic I’ve put A LOT of thought into. Like hours and hours and hours of thought as I write all this filth. The first and most vital point here is that this is just my interpretation. This is how I see the characters and how I view their dynamic. There is no right or wrong answer, so if it doesn’t work for you or anyone else, that’s absolutely valid.

That said, early season 1 Whistler gives off major top vibes. See the way she storms into the bullpen yelling at Tennant and goes into that interrogation at the end of the episode. That has my bratty bottom ass sweating and saying ‘yes ma’am, I’ll do anything you ask’ 😂

But the more we see of her, the more she softens. See her melting in the parking lot in 1x06 when Lucy touches her face. See all her wounded puppy looks after the Cara reveal. See how she’s always twisting her fingers nervously. This is when she becomes ‘Kate’ to me and this is why I view her as having two personas. ‘Work Whistler’ who is incredibly good at her job. Tough as nails. Takes no prisoners. And then there’s ‘Kate.’ Useless lesbian. Bad at emotions. Is a workaholic because being Whistler is more comfortable and easier than being Kate.

I headcanon that before Lucy she was more comfortable topping. That’s because I don’t think she had any serious relationships—that’s sorta supported by canon given that she’d never introduced anyone at work—, preferring to keep things casual and viewing sex as an outlet for all her stress.  And she would have had a lot of that. Law school is fucking hell. Good luck maintaining an existing relationship during those three years when you’re grinding your ass 18-20 hours a day 7 days a week (so many divorces/breakups in my graduating class!!!) & good luck forming one when you have minimal time to spend getting to know someone. Casual sex though? That’s doable.

Then she would have graduated and been thrown into the fire somewhere. I’m thinking corporate law. Big firm. You work just as hard cause there are billable hour targets to meet and networking stuff and heaps of pressure to be the best cause you want a future at the firm and you only get one of those if you produce. Then she would have given all of that up. Gone to the DIA. Guess what? Same grind. Just shittier pay.

So I see her fucking her way through this. One night stands, sure. Maybe a few long term friends with benefits situations where they aren’t even really friends. Just someone she knows she can call when she needs to get off. I think she would have been in control for most of this because she has a healthy ego and loves using her mouth and she probably took great pride in how she could give women dozens of orgasms and turn them in to mush.

But over time I think she learned that giving up control can be very freeing. Especially since her life—aka her professional existence— is all about being in control. So being able to give that up for a few hours in the bedroom would likely be appealing to her. Because when you get topped. Like really, really topped. Orgasms for hours with minimal reciprocation. Your brain just kinda turns off and you really do get a brief escape from all the life shit that’s bothering you and all the decisions you have to make and all the appearances that you have to keep up. And the more we learn about Kate, the more I think she would need this.

FF to when she goes to Hawaii and meets Lucy. She met Lucy as ‘Kate’, not ‘Whistler’ because they didn’t exchange last names. I think that weekend was life changing for both of them. They clicked immediately. Felt comfortable around each other. Felt safe.  So I think right away, Kate just rolled over and bottomed for Lucy. But she also took control at times during that weekend and Lucy let her have it (which as I’ve hinted at in this fic, wasn’t exactly easy for Lucy. But we’re talking Kate here, so I’ll save my Lucy top analysis for later).

After that weekend, she probably went back to being more of a top. But once she was with Lucy 1x06-1x11 (or even earlier if you headcanon that they were fucking before that like me 😂), she embraced giving up control. And that continued post 1x22 when they reconciled and got to know each other and developed a relationship that’s not surfboard strong, but strong enough to move in with each other after ~4-6 months of really dating.

TLDR: Pre-Lucy she leaned top with ‘top in the streets, bottom in the sheets’ tendencies. With Lucy she’s embracing ‘top in the streets, bottom in the sheets,’ but can still top whenever the situation calls for it. And the situation will call for it more as Lucy gets more comfortable giving up control.

P.S. This isn’t an invitation for feedback on my interpretation. I like how I view it. I will continue writing their dynamic this way and only evolve it to fit with what we learn in canon. Cause, once again, I’m driving the bus. If you don’t like it, you can get off and find another ride.

[bunnymoonart]

Hi - I love your Peanuts art!! I'm obsessed with the comics (have been since I was five) and haven't been able to find anyone who interprets them in a similar style as the great Sparky Schulz. Yours do however and I love them!!

The whole Schroeder and Charlie comic was so funny - it made me laugh!

Your art is truly adorable.

I was wondering what your favorite Peanuts ships are

(and also wondering if you'd ever draw a Schroder/Lucy)

You have a new follower <3

Aaa, tysm!!! I really admire Schulz and knowing that my dumb short comics give a vibe of him that makes me happy :') Well, I'm fine with most Peanuts ships, but if you really want to know which ones are my favorites, here's a LONG text about that, I apologize if it's too much, lol(?)

Linus 'n Sally

These two give me a great youthful love vibe, some kids tend to express their affection in unconventional ways and these two are no exception. I don't think Linus hates her or anything like that, Sally is a REALLY intense girl and that's exactly what makes Linus evasive, but we can't blame him, sometimes you just need some space But I feel that they are not like the other Peanuts couples where at some point they have fallen into being cruel or harming each other in some negative way (Like Lucy even throwing Schroeder's piano into the sewer, Peppermint Patty saying unpleasant things about Chuck) . Even if they cross that line, the other tends to defend themselves instead of just "letting it go."

You know? they usually don't insult each other personally (Or at least not on a recurring basis), maybe just Sally fed up with Linus's habit with his blanket or being disappointed with the big pumpkin endless times, even Linus calling Sally "annoying" on occasion because she constantly haunts him or disturbs him in the middle of the class, but nothing beyond that. I feel that it is very different for them to complain about "unpleasant behavior" to directly messing with each other in a personal way, I feel that there is a kind of mutual "respect" between them, going to Sally's side perhaps adding admiration.

Maybe if Sally was a little less intense about it there could be something between these two, it's not like Linus doesn't show interest in her or constantly tries to push her away for simply existing, on several occasions he is seen just hanging out with her or even helping her.

And we can't forget the times he seems to reciprocate or get a little nervous around her ( ` ∇ ´ )ψ (Most T.V specials or adaptations)

In "It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown", He helps Sally study about Arbor Day, as always, she starts to "flirt" while Linus reads some facts, when she says "Oh Linus you read so poetically", he blushes embarrassed.

In "It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" he blushes when Sally flatters him until Charlie Brown takes Sally away from the scene.

In the Musical "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" (Animated version) in the song "Glee Club Rehearsal", he seems a bit nervous about Lucy telling Sally what he said about her (That she was an "enigma")

In the same Musical, in the song "Happiness" Linus is the one who sings the part "Happiness is walking hand in hand" while holding hands with Sally.

Even in the most recent special "Snoopy Presents: For Auld Lang Syne", at the end song, Sally after spending all night trying to stay awake finally falls asleep, While everyone sings, Linus walks over to her and carefully places a celebration hat on her head and looks sweetly at her, perhaps because she wanted to be awake for the new year and it's a way for her to be in the celebration too. Simply adorable.

Charlie 'n Schroeder, Guilty pleasure but also sorrynotsorry(?)

It started as a joke but now I'm here making drawings 'bout them, I'm the joke now ASKDFJN

Schroeder seems to be one of the few characters who somewhat respect Charles, Charlie introduced him to the piano and to his more characteristic taste, Beethoven!

The ages in Peanuts are a bit of a mess, they just grow from one day to other while other characters keep their age. For example, the first time Sally was introduced it was made clear to us after a joke with Linus that she would be at least 5 years younger than the gang, but later she's just there in the same class as Linus being apparently the same age, and something kinda similar happens with Rerun so?-. With Schroeder it's no different as he first appeared as a baby in the strip but now he's just there being the same age as the main gang. Kinda confusing. But well, yea, It's canon that Charlie gave Schroeder that taste for Beethoven, so perhaps that is why he respects him.

He used to read to him about Beethoven's life, but Charlie is still doing it!

They spend time together and he is one of the few characters that Schroeder lets them rest on his piano without bothering him at all. I could even say that Charlie is a guy with a taste for classical music or knowledge of music (In the early strips it's a bit more noticeable, I mean, what 5 year old recognizes a Tchaikovsky song played on a toy piano?) They share interests even though Charlie doesn't have a sculpture of Beethoven's head, lol¿ But guess what, Charlie was the one who got him the sculpture in the first place! He also tends to congratulate Schroeder on Beethoven's birthday because he knows it's an important date for him, even when Schroeder forgets.

I think Charlie definitely respects Schroeder's love of music and Beethoven.

And we can't forget some of my fave interactions too! ( ` ∇ ´ )ψ

In "Be my Valentine, Charlie Brown" Charlie seeing that he didn't receive anything for Valentine's Day (as usual:( ) blurts out "I hate Valentines" as Schroeder arrives on the scene. The girls enter the scene and try to give Charlie "recycled" Valentine's cards, Schroeder immediately jumps to his defense saying "What do you think you're doing? Who do you think you are?" annoyed at how they try to give him "condolence" gifts so they don't feel bad and not because they really care about Charlie. AGRESSIVE This same scene has another adaptation in the 2014 shorts in the episode: Just for Love. This time it's just Frieda giving him a "consolation gift" and changing the punchline of the joke. I honestly like this version better, I feel it more expressive lol

In the 2014 shorts in the episode: Off Key Schroeder invites Charlie to his house because he wants to test his new idea which is to create a "Musical Portrait" for people (Create a song with the essence of a person). The first person he tries this on is Charlie, Charlie is his muse. I'M LOOKING Unfortunately and being Charlie Brown who we are talking about, this does not go very well haha :')

In the Musical "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" (Animated version) in the intro song "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown", Schroeder is the one who sings "You're kind!" BUT THE WAY HE SAYS IT IS JUST JASDFJNG. You need to see it. Hilarious

In the 2014 shorts in the episode: Trust Me. A lot of dandelions grow on charlie's pitcher's mound, Frieda says that Charlie standing in the middle of all those dandelions makes him look kind of cute, which makes him mad. Soon, Charlie tells Schroeder what Frieda said, and he agrees, standing there making him look kind of cute. No comments. Here below is the strip of this same short

But like I said, I'm really fine with most Peanuts ships! The dynamic "weird love triangle" of Marcie 'n Charles and Peppermint Patty 'n Chuck where Charlie is just totally skeptical of the situation also strikes me as a hilarious concept. Both ships are cool to me :) I must even say that I like Marcie 'n Peppermint Patty! In my Grown Up! version (Carlo Cafe) I like to think as time goes by their relationship becomes one of those where everyone thinks they are a couple and everyone realizes it except them, you know, like casual holding hands, somebody asks about it and they're like "Lol what are u talking 'bout, this is totally a bro thing lol". Just play with the concept(?) About to Lucy and Schroeder, I have a Love-Hate relationship with them(?) They have their moments together like that December 16, 1984 strip where Schroeder kisses Lucy on the cheek (Tumblr only lets me put 10 images ( ╥ ╥ ) ) Or that October 6, 1957 strip where Lucy makes a handmade portrait of Beethoven and Schroeder thinks it's a nice of her and was even willing to put it in his room. Even that 2014 Short "Just For Love" where Schroeder just says "I wouldn't marry you UNLESS you were the last girl on earth" But as a musician I will never get over thAT time with Lucy throwing Schroeder's piano into the sewer, it just hURT(?) But yea, I think i’ll do something ‘bout them soon! :) That's all, Sorry for the VERY LOOOONG text. Someone asks me 'bout Peanuts and I just can't stop, I'm cringe but I'm free(?)

[glassprism]

Hi Glass, considering what you’ve heard til now, which one do you consider to have a stronger cast at the moment, Broadway or London?

And considering since it’s opening back in the 80s, which one have been more consistent in terms of stronger casts in your opinion?

Thank you

Oh, I don't know if I can judge how strong the cast is for either production at the moment, there's so many people I haven't watched or listened to yet!

And to me, all things considered, it seems relatively equal. Broadway has Ben Crawford, Meghan Picerno, and John Riddle, all of whom I like, though I haven't listened to Emilie Kouatchou yet; and in terms of their understudies, I've always liked Jeremy Stolle, Ted Keegan, Greg Mills, and Elizabeth Welch, while I'm pretty ambivalent towards Julia Udine the last time she was in the show (and I really don't like Paul A. Schaefer as the Phantom).

As for London, I'm really not feeling Killian Donnelly, but I did like Lucy St Louis and Rhys Whitfield. I liked Holly-Anne Hull on the tour but have yet to see her in London; and as for the other understudies, like James Gant, Anouk van Laake, and so on, I either haven't listened to them yet or they haven't even performed, though the majority have gotten good, if not rave, reviews. So all in all, I think it's pretty balanced, though unfortunately Killian Donnelly getting a reputation as a mediocre Phantom, and him being the principal, might be pushing people to think of London as having a weaker cast than Broadway.

As for overall, I think again that it's pretty equal. I've said before that London tends to cast more experimentally, is perfectly fine with casting total newcomers, and also has shorter runs for their cast, while Broadway generally casts people with previous experience or has them start as an understudy or alternate and will keep actors on for years and years.

It creates a different vibe in terms of casts, neither good nor bad, just different. London tends to get some really, really great performers with some unique interpretations, but also some weird or occasionally even bad ones. Their constant cast changes though means that any bad performers will usually be gone in a couple years - but so will their really good ones!Broadway does tend to be more consistent overall - there's less deviation from how the show is year to year and nobody is spectacularly bad - but that and their tendency of holding onto actors for years runs the risk of actors being boring.

Overall though, to me their quality of casts is the same. It's like if Broadway stays at a general, solid 7.5, London will sometimes be an absolute 10 and sometimes crash to a 5, but it averages out to the same result, you know? So that's what I'd say, and which production's cast I prefer just kind of depends on my mood!

[mmikmmik2]

absolutely love your comparison between s2e7 and s3e5. altho i think in the mall car maybe simon WAS supposed to hurt lake + jesse? grace wasn't mad about him trying to hurt the denizens early, she was mad that he didn't get rid of them quick enough. the recruitment protocol could be "wheel denizen w/o passenger noticing, tell passenger they were abandoned, introduce concept of denizen murder once passenger is sufficiently bonded to the apex & has been exposed to more denizen-dehumanization"

That was actually exactly my initial interpretation of that scene - my first thought was that Grace’s angry look meant “why are they still here?” I definitely still think it’s a valid alternate interpretation. I’m sure we have enough information about Grace and Simon to make a case for one interpretation or the other, but I’m not sure we have enough to settle the question.

I don’t really have a strong logical argument for why I’m currently leaning more towards thinking Grace’s angry look meant “Jesse’s not ready for this yet, you jumped the gun”... it’s mostly just... vibes, I guess.

In the last scene back at the mall car before Jesse returns, Lake yells at Simon over the Apex trying to saddle A-Drac, and in turn Simon snaps at Lake about how he wanted to get some use out of Alan Dracula. Simon is the one with the creepy fixation on, um, enslaving denizens 😬 see The Musical Car (S3E01)... Grace told Lucy to get rid of the spotlight denizen, and Simon told her to keep them around instead so he could use them like an actual spotlight. So the reason Lake picked a fight with Simon, which subsequently seemed to make Simon fed up enough to try to get Lake and AD killed right away, was something that only interested Simon, and that Grace didn’t seem to care about.

If I recall correctly, even before Grace had her first big bonding moment with Hazel and Tuba in The Debutante Ball Car, one of the reasons Grace was arguing against hurting Tuba right away was saying Hazel might be too attached to Tuba. And also iirc in The Campfire Car, Grace says they should let Hazel have a funeral for Tuba because Hazel is too emotionally fragile to meet the rest of the Apex kids right away, which is an argument that Simon doesn’t seem to find suspicious or uncharacteristic of Grace. So it seems like even when Grace was being awful to the Apex recruits she was still very aware of how attached they might be to their denizen friends and willing to “coddle” them a little bit while working on brainwashing them.

Also, it seems like secretly murdering denizens would be hard to get away with. I mean, most Apex recruits seem like they’re much younger than Jesse and would presumably be easier to trick, but the Apex as a whole is a big, rowdy, loud-mouthed group of mostly fairly young children who probably aren’t great at keeping secrets. Right now I’m thinking it would make more sense to me if the pattern were more to keep pressing the ‘nulls are worthless’ angle until one of the following happened: (a) the denizens get scared off or fed up with their friend not defending them (which is spun as ‘nulls can’t be relied on’); (b) the kid is distanced enough that they won’t be completely alienated if Simon kills their friends and the Apex flat out admit to it (which is spun as ‘for your own good, they were just using you’ and/or ‘idk they just freaked out and attacked us so we wheeled em’); (c) the recruitment fails and the kid runs away. I mean Grace flat out lies sometimes, but it’s more about little things like “noooo that was Simon’s idea not mine!” than something as huge as someone being dead or not.

So yeah, my current reading of the scene in The Mall Car is that Grace didn’t want Simon to have attacked Lake and AD, and she would have wanted him to either talk them into leaving (”abandoning” Jesse) or to keep stalling while Grace kept driving a wedge between them and Jesse. But I think your way of reading it is also valid.

[c0untb00z]

I would just like to clear, I don't hate the BBC Dracula 2020 Show. In fact, I actually like the idea of Dracula being set in modern times like in the show, but I would like it a lot better if it wasn't written like a fucking reader insert fanfiction.

Don't get me wrong, I love me some reader inserts every once in a while but they're meant to be on Wattpad. Sometimes, you can find really fucking good fanfictions that could genuinly be movies, but this really just feels like someone wrote an erotic fanfiction for Dracula. It almost reminds me of a worse version of 50 Shades of Grey with less kinky sex.

First and foremost Agatha Van Hesling. I actually kinda liked her personality, how driven she was and determined to never give up, but she was literally created for a love interest. In Dracula by Bram Stocker, Sister Agatha is a nun that nurses Jonathan back to health, claiming he was 'sick in the head' as he ranted of what he had seen and warning others of Dracula. She doesn't even have a last name.

However there is a Dr. Van Hesling in the book, hes dutch(???) Professor that mentors and taught(????) Jack Seward who was in love with Lucy, who was fed off of and eventually killed and eventually undead by the means of the one and only Dracula. Dr Van Hesling plays a large role in the plot of the book. He has an open mind and was able to draw connections between things that some others couldn't, as he had access to more sources and could speak to most off the charecters involved. He's the first person to present the idea of a vampire, and Lucy turning into one. Thanks to Jonathan he was able to identify the vampire feeding on Lucy as Dracula and finds out how to kill the vampires.

So basically Agatha was literally fabricataed for the sole perpose of being there, to fall in love with Dracula or something.

I know we all are horny for Dracula. I'm horny for Dracula. Vampires are fucking hot but the sexiest part of vampires is that they ya know. Kill you and are mercily and heartless. The show does show that in a lot of parts and even decapiates a nun and yeets it into a gaggle of nuns which i fucking died at. But it also, humanizes him way to much, hes literally a monster. The scene in the boat with lord whats his name really portrayed that. It was really,,,, weird cause me being a kinky fucker I don't find the particular phrases of "you're going to need to be quiet now," and " youre doing so well" that creepy and if anything a little hot but looking at the circumstance and the look on that kids face, it was like r e a l y fucked up. Which is why i liked that scene. It showed just how fucked up Dracula is.

To be fair i did like Cleas Bangs acting and casting as Dracula. He had a certain charm that was ever so s l i g h t l y off. I heard people say he just 'made up an accent' but fuck you guys its a fucking danish accent you incolent twats anyways. He could be really funny at times and i actually apprecited it.

However the casting AND acting of the modern parts is absolute shit. Ep.3 is where i kinda gave up on the show and finsihed it for the sake of torturing myself. FIRST OF FUCKING ALL LUCY i cannot fathom how P I S S E D i am about Lucy. Why did they have to make her a phone obsessed basic asshole with no regards to anyones emotions besides her own and the extent of her personality is 'getting likes on socail media is all i care about because it makes me feel validated so im gonna wallo in self pity because i was obiously written by white man in his 50s that would have made me white if he wasnt forved to throw in diversity points" like shut the fuck up steven king.

Also lucy and mina never meet??? Theyre in different fucking time lines??? Theyre friendship and love for eachother was fucking golden how dare you rob that form me and give me a garbage bag full of shit with a shiny little bow on top in its place jesus f u ck.

The cemetary scene was o k ay i gues?? I liked the little nod to the book with the bloofer lady and the concept of random sprits being undead because of unfinished buisness. But this really just felt like it was slapped in the show for the sake of going on a date with Dracula in cemetary. I actually kinda apperacted it but it just felt awkward.

Also who the f u ck is Lucy's friend? The gay one??? Like,,,, is that supposed to Arthur???? His chatecter was so fu king weird and offset he just didnt feel like he should be in there. Hes literally just there for a-50-year-old-man's-interpretation-of-young-women-now-a-days verson of Lucy to have a gay best ffriend.

Ok i not even sure if i want to talk about Quincy. It just hurts. It physically hurts me to think about how d i r t y they did my baby. His charecter is the defination of american chivalry, just as great as regular chivarly but with a little extra cowboy vibe. Quincy is jist the biggest,,,, sweet haert,, like he asked lucy to marry him in his cool american cowboy voice cause he knew lucy loved it and it always made her laugh. And even when she turned him down becayse her heart belonged to arthur, he stayed. All he wanted was for lucy to be happy and all he requested was that they stay frirnds. Hes also invovled with taking fkwn dracula although hes not a main charecter percice ly as he doesnt have any entires in the book he still has an amaizing precence and sometimes while reading the book ill be readying one of dr sewards passanges and think "huh i wonder what quncys doin. I hope hes dooin good. Cowboy vibes n stuffs" amd boy dles he do that. Everh dracula film adaptataion robs us. R O B S U S of quincy morris best scene. In the middle of dr van helsing ranting about vampires( thats basically what half of the book is. I could write a 4p minute mono louge of his rambling jesus how does sweard take note of all this) quincy litterally just walks out. And nobodg really pays any notice beside glancing ag his leave and shrugging at one anouther and going back tl listneing tl van helsing explaining his vampire fan theories quincy moris , the quincy morris from texathe untited states of the amerkca the land and the free and also cowboys.stands outside of the bouilding and pints his gun up at. Dracula whos in the shape of a fucking bat eves ddopping outside the window and just fucking,,shoots it. Now he doesnt hit it cause thatt wouldnt be as fun as brutally stabbing the fucker witja wooden stake. But S T I L L. And the fucking bullet hits the window that everybodys in anprobably causes arthur to shit himself the ppoor boy. Can you belive that theh didnt fucking flim thatfor any dracul? Now i i under stands why not put in this adaptation because quincy is only mentionsed like three god damned times. And when theh DK mention him jesusnshit they literally jsut made him some popular jock from amwrica just to conter jacks white twinky ass and then they had him propose to lucy in the middle of a fucking night club and she says yes???? Lile ok jut throw Arthur out a window then cause cause fu c k him i guess. And then after lucy dies he jjsy fucking moves ?? The only thing thta makes this version of qincy quinccy is the fu king name and fact hes from america

Ok now jack fucking seward. He reminds me of when ylu forget you had a pb&j in your back pack so in the bos after school you pull it out cause yoyr hungry and yoyr mom put WAY to much jelly on it so now its like. All obsorbed into the bread and joggy and squished. Just sad and really white. They even had some kid call him whate bread and they werent fucking wrong. His obly personality traits were ' omg i love lucy but shes a hoe ;,,,((' and being connected to Zoe.

Now last and definately least the god forbaden ending. Just thinking about it gives me a fucking head ache. So , jesus, zoe, who is agathas great niece or someshit, a d looks exactly like her (its literally the same fucking actress) is a detective lile scitist reasearching dracula. So dracula is illedatly attracted to her becasue he thinks shes like agathas reincarnation or soenshit. So he tries tk drink her blood at one point and spits it all out and pukes and sjit cause her blood is poisonous bevaise she has fucking c an c e r. So later we find out that draculas weaknesses ( the sun crucifix) arnt actually real hes just afraid of dying so he has like irration fears or some shit so for some fucking reason. They deside. Its a good iea to end the show with this:

Dracula fucking drinks all of zoes blood killing her and himself because her blood poisonus. And ghe fucking emd scene is them like,,, in the sun???? Or soemt hi ng??? And theyre naked and like presumably fucked and dracula says some shit like " its doesnt have to hurt" and i almost tore my wrist open wiith my teeth because of how shitty this ending is.

Not lnly is it disrespectful to zoe but agatha, agathas whole thing was K I L I N G. dracula she wanted him fucking D E A D she woULDNT FUCK HKM

And like just after finding out that he can be in the sunlight with out fucking dying and that crosses just make him umcomfortable or some shit he just desides to kill himself??? DUDE YOU JUST FOUND OUT YOURE PROACTICALLY MORE INVINCABLE THAN YOU WERE BEFORE AND YOU JSUT FUCKING OFF YOUR SELF ??? HE COULD HAVE FUCKING RULED ENGLAD AND SPEAD VAMPIRISM OLL LVER THE FUCKING COUNTFY AND WORLD KF HE TRIED HARD ENOUGH AND HE KILLS HIMSELF BECAUSE THEY WANTED A STUPID SAPPY ENDING

anyway if anyone actually goes through the effort of reafing my god damn eS S A Y about Dracula that i finkshed typing (im not gonna bother editing tbh) at 4 fucking am. Then thank you and please get a life

[finefeatheredfriend]

The Bodysnatchers!

This time on Eileen reads the EDAs we’ve got a thrilling and gorey adventure with Eight and Sam and some Zygons, brought to me by my laptop’s text to speech function cause I’m too distracted to focus on actual reading lol

I liked this book! It was a bit slow at first and it took me longer to really love the book than it did with Vampire Science, but the Victorian setting and some really brilliant lines won me over in the end haha! And we had Litefoot in this! And the Zygons (and some nice ones as well, what??), which for some reason I didn’t recognise on the cover, but I still got spoiled by myself because of my brilliant idea to use text to speech. 

I was rooting for something to happen between Sam and Emmeline, but alas. There are some parts that I will interpret that way though, even though they were definitely not intended that way lol. 

Still no naked Eight, so that’s a big minus.

I’m going to write down my reactions to all the EDAs in this series of reviews, and here are some of the highlights and my favourite quotes:

‘splendid, we’re where we’re supposed to be. I'm getting the hang of this.’ Doctor stop ahahsgahga

‘Leela is married, with children I believe’ I’m sorry what

what is it with me and shipping Sam with any woman she comes across hahah

(please let something happen between emmeline and sam)

'That didn't do much for your image, did it?' said a voice behind her, as though stealing her thoughts. Sam pushed herself up on to her elbows and looked round. The Doctor was just a few feet below her, leaning back against the wall with his hands behind his head, looking so relaxed she wanted to hit him. 'I missed my footing,' she said huffily. 'Several times,' said the Doctor, nodding.” Oh my god Doctor I love you ahahahahah

“Sam opened her mouth to protest, but the Doctor effectively plugged it with a jelly baby which he produced out of nowhere” that is such a Doctor thing to do ashafsgsfs

it’s so weird that the normal zygons are so soft (they have voices like songbirds????)

“bigger and nastier people than you have tried to suck my brains out before with no success whatsoever - well, not much anyway.” ... am I. am I really going to say it. am I really. ok no I won’t but seriously eileen get your mind out of the gutter ffs

I love how the doctor went ‘eeny meeny miny mo. hm. which one of these do i like the most? eeny!’ I love him

“That was a very uncool piece of headgear,' she said weakly. 'Not my style at all.' 'Oh, I don't know. I've got some rather fetching photographs. I thought we could blow them up and have them printed as T-shirts.” doCTOR (this is the kind of brother/sister dynamic that I love about these two)

Sam pretending not to know it’s a Zygon impersonating her just to say ‘who’s that gorgeous person?’ aaaah i love her

‘Is my nose really that big?’ ‘Only in certain lights’ DOCTOR NO

I was promised lots of naked eight in the EDAs and so far they have NOT delivered

AAAAAAAH SAM NOTICED EMMELINE’S BREASTS

‘Confusing emotions’ ‘jealousy’ aaaaah Sam I love you please be gay

“'That's assuming that the elastic band hasn't snapped of course.' 'Elastic band!' He grinned. 'I'm joking. It was one of those really thick ones. There's no way it would break.” I’m screaming I can’t stop laughing

‘My motto is never to get too attached to thing’ ‘does that include people’ oooooh (in clueless voice) that was way harsh Sam

‘nimble as a ballerina’ oh my god I love Eight and thank you for this hilarious image in my head omg

As usual (I’ve only done one of these before but still lol) this section is way longer than I expected haha!

And also as usual, you’ll find the unabridged version of my liveblog under the cut! (It’s technically just for me to be able to go back to so I can see how I reacted to reading this for the first time, but read it if you want to!)

I bolded my favourite quotes and reactions again! Enjoy ahaha

this one’s a bit slower

I mean in the way that I don’t absolutely love it from the first page on like I did with Vampire Science

but I love the Victorian era vibe it’s giving off

I can’t wait for Eight and Sam to show up though

oh that’s so the doctor - accidentally setting a book on fire ahahah

oh no it was an original printing of Sherlock Holmes aaaaa

oh I love it when companions get to dress up for trips

name dropping the BBC ahaha

AAAAH she’s in Nyssa’s room!!! I was wondering whose room it was when they mentioned that in Vampire Science! and obviously if it was Nyssa’s room then it’s also Tegan’s old room since they shared

I love Eight and Sam so much

“’How do you want to look?' asked the Doctor. 'I dunno. Cool. Confident.' 'You definitely look cool,' said the Doctor. 'In fact, you'll be one of the coolest people around.The 1890s equivalent of a... a Spice Girl.' 'I think I'd better take that as a compliment,’ said Sam carefully. 'Otherwise I might end up giving you a slap.’” omg

‘splendid, we’re where we’re supposed to be. I'm getting the hang of this.’ Doctor stop ahahsgahga

“'No, this is Earth all right. Smell that air.' Sam did so, almost choking on the sulphurous fog. 'Only London smells like this,' said the Doctor cheerfully. 'It has a certain... ethos. A certain bouquet.’” have I mentioned how much I love Eight

when Sam falls onto the Doctor and he hits his head and he goes 'what pretty fireworks, are they yours?” oh my god doctor I love you

Aaaaaah jago and litefoot!!!!!!

oh well or just litefoot but still!!!

‘Leela is married, with children I believe’ I’m sorry what

touch telepaths. time lords are touch telepaths. how did he get that information about the constable’s wife

first a house keeper called mrs hudson and now a revolting man called mr stoker looking hungrily at emmeline i see what you’re doing here

“Sam did as instructed (put her foot in the noose of the rope), and felt herself being hauled upwards at an alarming speed. It was as if there was not just the Doctor, but a ten-man tug-of-war team heaving on the other end.” wow the Doctor is STRONG

oh no it’s emmeline’s mum sitting in that armchair but she’s gonna be dead isn’t she

but the way emmeline describes the figure sitting there it sounds more like a man somehow

oh ok I was right it’s her dead mum

please don’t die please don’t die please don’t die I like you emmeline pleeeaase don’t die

why is Sam so jealous of emmeline :(

ok good, Sam likes her now and feels bad about thinking awful things about her that makes me happy

“’Great,' said Sam sardonically. 'I've always wanted to wallow knee-deep through -' 'Shh,' said the Doctor, holding a finger to his lips.” Oh my god anahahahahha (this reminds me of all the times they did this exact same thing with Lucie lol)

what is it with me and shipping Sam with any woman she comes across hahah

(please let something happen between emmeline and sam)

“She would rather die of curiosity than betray her ignorance and inexperience in front of Emmeline and the professor.” oh I love Sam

“As the more petty concerns of life began to filter back into her consciousness, she found herself hoping that Litefoot and Emmeline had seen little of her graceless descent. 'That didn't do much for your image, did it?' said a voice behind her, as though stealing her thoughts. Sam pushed herself up on to her elbows and looked round. The Doctor was just a few feet below her, leaning back against the wall with his hands behind his head, looking so relaxed she wanted to hit him. 'I missed my footing,' she said huffily. 'Several times,' said the Doctor, nodding.” Oh my god Doctor I love you ahahahahah

“Sam opened her mouth to protest, but the Doctor effectively plugged it with a jelly baby which he produced out of nowhere” that is such a Doctor thing to do ashafsgsfs

“Even though she bent her knees to cushion her body from the impact of landing, the unexpectedly short fall jarred her legs and caused her to lose her balance. However she managed to convert her momentum into a forward roll and sprang immediately to her feet in what she hoped looked a professional and athletic manner.” god I love how Sam always wants to look like she knows what she’s doing

BRAVE HEART TEGAN oh my heart

“The Doctor: ‘This has the effect of drawing out their fierce but latent aggressiveness and, supposedly, making them more single-minded in battle.' 'Stupid, you mean,' said Sam,'like most men.” Sam I love you. and this reminds me of that scene in the 50th where Liz 1 says something similar

can you believe zygons look like that because they’re sterilised and normally look ‘’’’dainty’’’’ and white and have smooth skin instead of suckers???

also I love how the doctor just spends soooo much time explaining every single little detail about zygons while they’re sitting not even that far away from three actual zygons they’re currently hiding from

oh no Emmeline is a zygon

I’d be more shocked if I hadn’t accidentally seen this while setting up the text to speech 

“A trap,' said the Doctor with almost child-like wonder” I love him. How many times can I say that before it gets boring to see this in my reactions (i don’t care cause I’m going to say it as often as i like so that’s gonna be a LOT)

it’s so weird that the normal zygons are so soft (they have voices like songbirds????)

“You have no choice, human. Either you each enter a cubicle or you die.' 'Hang on, that means we do have a choice,' said Sam with a cheeky bravado that she didn't really feel.” me

“bigger and nastier people than you have tried to suck my brains out before with no success whatsoever - well, not much anyway.” ... am I. am I really going to say it. am I really. ok no I won’t but seriously eileen get your mind out of the gutter ffs

“As Litefoot blundered along, he found himself thinking about the nature of the astonishing beings whose clutches he and his friends had fallen into. (...) Were they physically attracted to one another despite being genderless?” interesting your mind took you in that direction - thinking about alien sexuality..? okay

the Doctor is wearing a wet suit I repeat the doctor is wearing a wet suit someone help me

and he’s wearing goggles and flippers I can’t (it’s actually a face mask and not goggles but I don’t care I’m just going to imagine him wearing goggles)

ugh and when it said that the doctor was stripping down... I was expecting more of this scene. although I must admit that the image of the Doctor standing there in just his long johns before he puts on the wet suit was... a nice thought. (and he ‘expertly folded each item of clothing’ as if he had all the time in the world agxjagsgsg)

what the fuuuuuuck

that guy who witnessed his friend being killed by a zygon is ‘hacking away’ at a young man’s mouth because he made a joke at his expense omg

eeew now he’s got the youth’s tongue in his hand

I love how the doctor went ‘eeny meeny miny mo. hm. which one of these do i like the most? eeny!’ I love him

gaaah an Ace mention!!

double punch!! (how)

“What time is it?' she asked, her voice faint, rusty. 'Time to go,' replied the Doctor.” an icon

“That was a very uncool piece of headgear,' she said weakly. 'Not my style at all.' 'Oh, I don't know. I've got some rather fetching photographs. I thought we could blow them up and have them printed as T-shirts.” doCTOR (this is the kind of brother/sister dynamic that I love about these two)

“Suddenly Tuval registered the Doctor's attire, and the Zygon's borrowed features creased in puzzlement. 'You have changed, Doctor.' The Doctor looked momentarily alarmed. 'Not again, surely?’” anxhkavdbz

Sam pretending not to know it’s a Zygon impersonating her just to say ‘who’s that gorgeous person?’ aaaah i love her

‘Is my nose really that big?’ ‘Only in certain lights’ DOCTOR NO

‘Sam, who was blushing wildly but trying to appear cool’ I love you Sam

oh and also - the doctor’s only wearing his long johns and that’s already a nice image but

I was promised lots of naked eight in the EDAs and so far they have NOT delivered

“Magnificent,' the Doctor murmured, examining the readings once the straining of the TARDIS's ancient engines had faded. 'When it comes to the crunch, the old girl never lets me down.' He flicked a couple of switches.” the Doctor really does love the Tardis noise ahsgsggahdgs

Oh no

Oh no Doctor

it’s ok you didn’t mean to kill them all

but oh god

I am so sorry

“The Doctor left Emmeline and Nathaniel Seers to the end. He awoke Emmeline first, greeting her with the charming smile and silken voice that Sam had observed him employ often in the past to get them out of awkward situations. She knew, not without a slight sense of superiority, that this kind of treatment would have caused most of her mates at Coal Hill to go weak at the knees.” I’m screaming but also same

“The simple choice is this: work together under my guidance or PERISH” doctor, a little bit less of the dramatic (i’m kidding pls keep doing this)

aw I thought emmeline was going to step forward to go first but then her father did

AH HE SAID NO AND NOW IT WAS EMMELINE AFTER ALL I LOVE HER

Jack choked on shit (that’s a twisted reference)

AW SAM let it out it’s okay to cry and show feelings sometimes!!!!!!!

I love her

AAAAAAAH SAM NOTICED EMMELINE’S BREAST

‘Confusing emotions’ ‘jealousy’ aaaaah Sam I love you please be gay

“'That's assuming that the elastic band hasn't snapped of course.' 'Elastic band!' He grinned. 'I'm joking. It was one of those really thick ones. There's no way it would break.” I’m screaming I can’t stop laughing

“You know, I've been far more conscientious since I regenerated. I even keep my room tidy sometimes.' 'Congratulations,' said Sam drily.” AhahahHhha

HE WAS SINGING A VENUSIAN LULLABY

‘My motto is never to get too attached to thing’ ‘does that include people’ oooooh (in clueless voice) that was way harsh Sam

‘nimble as a ballerina’ oh my god I love Eight and thank you for this hilarious image in my head omg

‘That other doctor, will you meet him on your travels?’ and the Doctor shudders and says ‘I sincerely hope not, once was enough’ ahsgdga tell that to then curator from the 50th lol

[falkenscreen]

BRIGHT

Bright is not the best film of 2017. Contrary to what you might have heard, it’s not one of the worst ones either.

First and foremost, Bright has, for lack of a better word, a really cool premise. Over millennia past, humans, elves, orcs, fairies and all manner of magical beasts have lived together, harmoniously and otherwise, bringing us to a time and place resembling a somewhat more fantastical version of modern Los Angeles. Seemingly owing to some largely unexplained event that happened 2,000-odd years ago, Orcs, having chosen some dark-side or other that didn’t end all life on earth as we know it, now live as a permanent underclass, while elves are the one percenters and humans get on pretty much as we always have.

Enter local cop Daryl Ward (Will Smith), lumped with Jakoby, the one and only Orc on the Force (an unrecognisable and oh so talented Joel Edgerton). Smith, skating a line between his I, Robot frustrated Officer of the law and the Mike Lowrey persona for which he is much better known, is emblematic of what is both great and terrible about a very mixed bag of a film.

Investigating a standard call-out which bears, as won’t go unexpected, profound implications for the Officers’ lives and those of all they know, this genre-cruising bender lacks a defined tone that does not, as might have been hoped, simply come nice and packaged with the non-traditional fusion of fantasy and cop-drama. Smith and Edgerton at times appearing as if they’re in different films, full-throated fight scenes resembling what made the likes of Underworld so endearing crunch up against the laissez-faire Deadshot vibes that one would have hoped Smith and Director David Ayer had learnt to deploy with restraint since Suicide Squad.

Edgerton, the heart and soul of this film, plays it straight almost throughout, fast becoming the emotional backbone and roundly intriguing focus of the flick. It is not easy to act your heart out when littered with make-up but Edgerton takes up by far Bright’s most challenging role with welcome aplomb. His interplay with Smith variedly striking the balance between aspirational fantasy and grounded realism and at times else wreaking with wince-worthy, nonsequitous dialogue, one later, prophetic sequence in a vehicle gets it just right. Smith is one of a select few in a small club featuring Bruce Willis and seldom others who can carry a gritty, lightheartedly funny and at the same time duly emotive sequence and it is his casting, alongside the excellent Edgerton, which would otherwise have left this film greatly wanting.

The penultimate scene, verging on Bright’s most sincere, itself a testament to the quality of Edgerton’s output, would have been its best had not the film’s regrettable and wholly unnecessary final five minutes utterly let it down. Achieving a genuinely stirring instance amid the incessant carnage, immediately reverting to the blithe interactions that characterised it’s lesser moments was ill-advised to say the least. Bright may start with Ward as it’s central character though by the end Jakoby is far and above its most consequential asset, yet the lingering dramatic focus elsewhere almost doggedly refuses to recognise this narrative’s central and most enduring appeal.

The numerous action sequences are well staged and thrilling even if they are at times irritatingly unrelenting. The commitment to world-building, something that could be the focus of a planned sequel, largely starts and stops with the premise and a few hurried explanations; the impact of these various sentient races sharing the earth on daily goings-on and else not being too readily apparent. Edgar Ramirez’s Elven ‘Federal Agent’ is only one of a number of woefully underdeveloped characters, joining Lucy Fry’s ‘Tikka’ as one of Bright’s central though greatly elusive focal points.

Noomi Rapace brings her distinctive intensity to a darkly but not so morbid role as she has recently been accustomed; playing the largely nondescript Leilah who is intent on summoning some generic “Dark Lord” for the purposes of darkness, or something.

Turning to the film’s more vexed building blocks, Bright’s abundantly conspicuous racial subtext not too dispiritedly attempts for it’s varied audiences (while by no means irrelevant to its particular setting) to depict it’s particular conceit as broadly metaphorical of ubiquitous racial tensions. A unique cornerstone of one egregious dynamic between races however, explained obliquely as a latent consequence of some event happening those millennia ago and too depending on interpretations that could be drawn from the clearly illusory tale, has the ability to inform greatly contentious readings of this film abruptly divergent from many of its stated thematic thrusts, choice dialogue and concluding notes. This itself another consequence in part of the lack of distinctive world-building, a few of the film’s eruptive one-liners, among those that feature heavily in the promotional material, could also just as well have been better realised as more engaging and too thought-provoking had a greater context been drawn within which we could immerse ourselves.

Flawed if worthwhile viewing, for all its misgivings Netflix have put their resources behind something that’s different and, thankfully, uncommonly original.

Bright is now streaming on Netflix

[theplagueofstars]

Inconsistency of motivations and it’s effect on plot

Warning: Major spoilers for Comrades under the cut. If you have not reached the end and do not want to be spoiled do not read.

With the addition of Comrades into the FFXV franchise we are delivered some additional lore and happenings with our characters and the side characters. This is great and not inherently a bad thing. We get to read about what happened to Talcott and a few of the others in the interim years. At the same time, however, I can not dismiss the haphazard and often lazy story telling devices that make a DLC like Comrades possible.

Allow me to put this out there: it is retconning. A lot of what happens to our glaives and Astral motivations in particular is retconning. Retconning by itself is not an inherently bad literally device if only an overused one in media. The most common reasons for retconning are [s]:

To accommodate desired aspects of sequels or derivative works which would otherwise be ruled out;

To correct and overcome errors or problems identified in the prior work since its publication;

To change how the prior work should be interpreted;

To match reality, when assumptions or projections of the future are later proven wrong.

Now for the purposes of what I am seeing and gleaning from Comrades in regard to your glaive and the Astrals falls under number 1 with a healthy sprinkling of 3. Again that is the frame of this post and nothing further.  

( Sidebar conversation: The reason many of us are attached to Comrades is the ability to create an avatar and have the feeling of effecting the world in some capacity. The avatar since we created we have more attachment towards because this is something we put thought into. It is human nature. Nothing wrong with it. )

We are introduced to our storyline with the following:

‘Your body is a vessel for the blessings of the stones of Lucis... but let it be known your transgressions have not been forgotten... only then shall you be set free from the burdens you bear.’

All right without delving into the lore hidden from us in the menu screen that expands as we progress we are led to believe that the Glaives despite lacking a pact with a living king have their powers back. It’s a stretch. Let us consider in Kingsglaive where Nyx and the others lose their powers upon the death of Regis whom they borrowed their power from. Regis dies. The glaives lose their power. Nyx had to plead to the kings of yore for a temporary leave of their power with a price to pay. The price being his life to ensure the future survives.

Yet, somehow the glaives have their powers back again without being connected to a living king to drain from. The explanation comes to us later that the glaives were granted this power by the graces of what Lunafreya did for Noctis during the battle with Leviathan.

So awakening the power of kings in Noctis somehow through an act of god gives these powers back to men and women whom were severed from them during Regis’ death. If the opening is led to be believed the ones whom were traitors to Lucis receive these powers. We are told nothing of the ones whom remained loyal ( if surviving ) were given the same ‘blessing’. Did their powers too return? Or are we only gifting them to the ones who were traitors to repent for their ‘sin’? Logically, we already see the first falling apart in answering this question. We shall reward the traitors, but curse the loyalists.

This is a sentiment that is later repeated in Bahamut’s entry ( further down the post ) and given that the main protagonist turns out to be a traitor too then we are giving a blessing as a curse to traitors. Man if I have to commit a sin to get awesome powers because some vague absolution of said sin, sign me the fuck up. 

Furthermore, if Luna could just enable the power of kings why do we need the ring aside from a conduit for the Crystal to dump its power into? Why do we need to collect the glaives of the old rulers when she can just ‘unlock’ the power? Why would Nyx need to sacrifice himself just to gain their power for one evening? Why would Ravus need to lose his arm for even trying on the ring?

See in Kingsglaive, there is a price for such power. It drains the king. If you want to obtain it without the king then you have a price to pay. Nyx paid with his life. But now the Kings of Yore are handing out their powers like candy at Halloween? I highly doubt Luna was begging them for assistance for anything other than PLEASE HELP NOCTIS WIN THIS FIGHT!

These kings also talk to the glaives. Yet, none of them talk to Noctis? Tell him of what is to come? They have spoken to Regis, but never Noctis. Though I am certain this was a device to keep us the players in the dark on the story there is a way of telling the player something the character knows but you don’t. Again this game is trivializing Noctis and further designating him as a lamb for slaughter. We, the Kings of Yore, can speak to some random glaives, but not the Chosen? Yeah I call bullshit.

And if I want to take this from another aspect: the power drains the king as seen with Regis... we are draining the Kings of Yore which Noctis needs to end the endless night ( more like endless twilight up until the last scene of Comrades tho ). Either way we have to completely disregard established canon in Kingsglaive to take Comrades additions as canon or disregard aspects of Comrades and take Kingsglaive as canon. You can not have both without the inconsistencies.

Astral Motivation

Otherwise known as the fickle, ever changing and wtfery.  The Astrals have always had poor lore in FFXV. Comrades further muddies the waters on Astrals and to a greater extend the prophecy. So what is the motivation for the gods you ask? Well to judge you of course for your sins! To designate your glaive, the traitor, as a Guardian of Angelgard! To bring back the light to Angelgard so Noctis can wake! So Noctis has been sleeping for 10 years not because of the Crystal needing to unleash its power onto the ring and by extension Noctis, but because we were waiting for random glaive to come and wake him?

Please point out anywhere in the prophecy this is mentioned. If anyone should be designated as Noctis’ guardians it should be the three following him around. But nah Bahamut is gonna just choose among some traitors to prove themselves for the honor. Not only that he is going to bestow his blessing and grace. Know what this flies in the face of?

The fact the Oracles and Kings are the only ones who can form such bonds with the gods. In a game where lore is so scant any small tidbit has to be taken into consideration. This is just another inconsistency in the story.

To further this odd motivation of Bahamut please take into account once again the language disparities. Here is the Spanish language version screenshot where it states your glaive is granted immortality and Bahamut’s blessing in battle. 

‘This divine holds a tight relationship with the Caelum House— the Glaives have an emblem with the figure that represents him. For the gods' benevolence he didn't have a death-like slumber, but came back to give a chance of expiation to the Glaives who confronted the very crown which they were meant to serve and which they've got their powers from. It was expected of the Glaives to be capable of protecting their own until the incoming King awakened, to earn enough power to give everything for the royal house, thus cleanse their traitor image. And it was those who showed the required qualities to become guardians of Lucis received from Bahamut an immortal body and his eternal blessing on battle.’ — ( translation provided by @umbraticum )

So the glaives are immortal now. But another thing to note here absolving your glaive of sin returns the light to Angelgard.

Look at that beautiful sunlight. I guess we didn’t need the Chosen King after all. We kick Bahamut’s ass enough to absolve us of our sins and the sun will return! Quick everyone in Eos get over here to kick Bahamut’s ass.

Back to the point of retconning this lessens the impact of Noctis’ sacrifice and draws further question if this whole elaborate thing was needed at all. We just need to absolve mankind of theirs sins to return the light after all.

Also flies in the face of a certain document we find in Lestallum that the Scourge is caused by a parasitic organism drinking the light. But nah. Just gotta absolve mankind of its sin.

I know this was addition to make our OC glaives appear to have a real impact on the story, but really this inclusion cheapens the sacrifices of Nyx, Luna, and Noctis if all we needed to do was this.

Also how can the gods not guard Angelgard themselves? They were already doing so before you arrived. Are they really just that lazy and hands off? Which they have been nearly the entire game, so now out of the blue Bahamut needs a bunch of traitors to become his champions?  The gods have been if anything thus far but cold and calculating on the execution of the prophecy. So once again I ask, where was any of this detailed?

The Final Scene

You know what was great about scene of Noctis waking up on the island? The desolation. The hopelessness. The lack of life. The feeling we need to do something as players as Noctis to restore the world because this isn’t acceptable. By the inclusion of the glaive team and Gentiana at the boat we are greatly lessening that impact and in turn giving a very different vibe. It takes away from the desolation we are supposed to feel.

These are questions the Comrades DLC poses and to me negates some of the sacrifices these other characters made to be able to fit in MP with a storyline. And let me real here: This storyline sounds shoehorned in because it is. The concept of the multiplayer DLC was not in the original plans for the game during autumn of 2016 [s] .

As a whole Comrades lore regarding the glaives and the gods is murky, inconsistent, and often flies in the face of canon. As such I wish to consider Comrades at best a nice AU in an attempt to include us the players into the game and feel like we have an impact and at worst a money grab by Square to ride on that sweet, sweet MP hype.

In closing this is a fine example of....

A Systematic Issue in the Gaming Industry

Let’s be real FF as a whole have always suffered from a suspension of disbelief to make the stories work. There have always been logical fallacies and inconsistencies within their works. However, ( aside from the complication of FFVII ), have not broken a fundamental storyline aspect in the game. Comrades does exactly this. It was created after the fact for Square Enix to cash in on both the hype of FFXV and the shoving multiplayer in games fad ( see Deus Ex ) sweeping the game industry as a whole, they went and retconned their story with little regard to the original tale.

This brings up an even more disconcerting trend. The fact I, as a fan and consumer, have to purchase add-on DLC that effects the main storyline so completely is frankly a bunch of horseshit. It is a precedent in the gaming industry that is predatory and an obvious money grab. In the case of Comrades a cash grab for the hype of Multiplayer. DLC should not fundamentally alter the storyline. I should not need to purchase paid DLC to understand the entirety of a story a game or any media is trying to tell.

Now I await the day one of the updates adds micro-transactions to deal with the Comrade’s grinding problem. 8) I hope I’m wrong on that. If you enjoy Comrades and playing the game go ahead that is your right. Enjoy the fuck out of it. I only mean to draw attention to the issues that this DLC adds to the game and how Square Enix is falling into that AAA game predatory customer mindset.

[disappearingground]

Jenny Lewis Wants You to Try Her Wine

Los Angeles Magazine April 14, 2015

We spoke with the singer about becoming a winemaker, Coachella, and Lucille Ball

By Sonya Singh and Puneet Singh

It’s late Saturday afternoon at a local Palm Springs mainstay, and Jenny Lewis, dressed in all white and chatting with a couple friends, is exactly where she wants to be. That is, until a video of her own performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live plays on the screens. “Make it stop,” she mouths with a smile.

A man puts colored leis around everyone’s necks and she picks up a glass of wine—her own wine, actually. We’re here to celebrate the first taste of this batch of Voyager, a natural wine developed in collaboration with Domaine LA and La Clarine farm. The first Voyager wine was released last summer, alongside Lewis’s critically-acclaimed third solo album, The Voyager. A brilliant marketing tie-in, sure, but the wine happens to be an aptly Californian extension of Lewis herself.

We talked with the singer-songwriter about her many appearances at Coachella, finding contentedness with her career, and taking advice from Lucille Ball.

How does it feel to be playing Coachella on your own? Was the last time you were here with Rilo Kiley? No, it was on my own, actually. This is either my sixth or seventh time playing Coachella. Twice with Rilo Kiley, and this is the second time on my own. Once with the Postal Service, and once with Jenny and Johnny.

In all those years, what’s been your oddest Coachella experience? I guess handling Arcade Fire’s balls. There were hundreds of balls, actually, and I ended up backstage with my friend Jenny Eliscu. They wouldn’t let us back out into the crowd and they wouldn’t let us side stage and it was right before they were unleashing these giant LED balloons. And so we ended up having to corral the balloons and throw them out into the crowd. So me, Jenny, and Ezra from Vampire Weekend somehow ended up together throwing these giant balls into the crowd. It was one of the coolest experiences of my life. I mean just being among that many balls, first of all (laughs).

The Voyager is an excellent album. It seems to be the one that’s broken through. How has that changed things for you? Well, I feel like with all the records I’ve made, it’s just been little baby steps since 2001. Every record hopefully reaches one more person. It really is linked to the very beginning and it feels just like an extension of the first song I ever wrote. But it’s amazing to be able to play the songs six months after the record came out, because things happen so quickly now that I’m lucky to have people pay attention beyond two weeks.

Do you look back at the material on your first solo album and feel like a different person? I’ve felt the same since I was three. Truly. But my first solo record was something that I never thought I could do on my own. I only did because my friend Conor Oberst was starting a label and he asked me to make a solo record. I’d truly never considered making something outside the context of my band. So with this one, I was a fully formed artist on my own and I could make whatever I wanted to and it wasn’t happenstance. It was like “this is the record I want to make, this is who I wanted to make it with, and this is the story I want to tell.”

Growing up acting and transitioning to music, was it your goal to be in showbiz? How did your career path evolve? I come from a long line of working-class showbiz people. My grandparents did Vaudeville. My parents had a lounge act in Las Vegas. It’s basically a way to not have a straight job. So I became an actor because someone needed to support my family when I was a little kid. It’s just been a part of our family tradition.

When did you start writing songs? When I was 10, maybe?

So this is something you grew up with. You never thought, “I’m an actor, but I’m going to try out music.” It’s just a hustle, man. I’m just on my hustle. And as an actor, you’re telling other peoples’ stories; as a writer, you’re telling your own. That’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to tell my weird little slice and find a little space for it.

At your Apogee Session a while back for KCRW you mentioned Ryan Adams made you listen to Creed while making The Voyager. Have you ever figured out why? No! I don’t understand [Ryan’s] methods. But I think it worked to get me out my own head so that I could record my own music. You’d have to ask Ryan about that, but by the sixth song, it was so loud, it was blasting in the studio and I thought, “Oh wow, I get this.” I mean, I get all music. There’s nothing that I don’t really like, you know? If it’s real music, I like it. I like electronic music as well. If it’s coming from a couple of humans, I’ll listen to it no matter what it is.

What’s on the horizon? What do you want to do now? Drink wine. (laughs)

Fair enough. What about in your music? I’m doing it. I’m doing exactly what I want to do.

You and Johnathan Rice wrote all the music Johnny Flynn sings in the film Song One. What was it like writing for him? He has such a distinct voice. He was so, so great. Johnathan and I wrote the songs and then we gave them to Johnny to interpret, and he did a really wonderful job. He was very respectful but brought his own vibe to it, which we really, really loved. We just like writing songs. If I can write for myself or for someone else, I’m totally down. I try to write every day.

Who would be your perfect main stage Coachella hologram to perform alongside? Lucille Ball. She was my mentor. I was on a show with her called Life with Lucy when I was a little kid. She played my grandmother. She was very tough on me but taught me a lot of important things. She was stern and she wanted me to focus and she taught me a lot of great lessons that I still carry with me.

Like what? “Learn your fucking lines, kid!” (laughs)

Who would be on your Coachella 2015 playlist? I’m so bad at mixes. It’s not my forte. I’m more of an album person. I still listen to records.

What was the last full record you listened to? To Pimp a Butterfly, Kendrick Lamar. Also Courtney Barnett. I do like compilations. I’ve been listening to this Thai compilation. It’s like ‘60s and ‘70s psychedelic Thai music called The Sound of Siam.

What’s the psychedelic scene in Thailand like? It’s trippy, dude. It’s all riffing on American music but with Thai instruments and Thai lyrics. Check it out: Sound of Siam. I heard it at Pok Pok in New York. I listen to weird ass shit for the most part.

[nerdybff]

The Webby Awards 2019... too much awesome

Every year when The Webby Awards are announced, I promise myself that I’ll just spend a few minutes finding the highlights to share with you. The awards highlight everything from great newsletters to fun games. I search through the hundreds of winners and nominees to find great stuff for productivity, augmented reality, artificial intelligence and more things we talk about here.

There are literally hundreds of sites, but I can’t possibly go through them all, can I? I was just going to skim this time… and now 12 hours later…. I’m so excited! I scoured the lists from top to bottom.

I have to apologize because this is wayyy tooo much awesome for one blog post. But I gotta do what I gotta do.

Here are my picks for the best of The Webby Awards.

Artificial Intelligence

If you haven’t seen this deepfake video with Obama, you don’t understand the craziness that is coming. 

Upload your picture to this site, and artificial intelligence will redraw you. I think I kinda look good in AI.

Productivity

Collect by WeTransfer is a new one for me… it looks like a souped-up Evernote that lets you collect, keep and combine ideas from apps, including songs, pictures, videos, links and articles. 

One of my team members likes Monday.com, so now that they’ve won a Webby, I should check out how they help with project and time management. 

All the Feels

Sick kids watching a VR Smileyscope. #WhatYouNeedToday

Google’s GBoard team created a keyboard that opens up a whole world of communication for differently abled people. Watch what I’m talking about here, and check out the Google Experiments Morse code page here. 

Weird/Cats

So. Yeah. If you like cats and chicken, here’s a video of kittens crawling on a cat tree decorated like Colonel Sanders. Guys, I don’t know. They actually live streamed it for four hours, and more than a million people watched. It won both the regular Webby and People’s Voice.

This site is just cats bouncing. That’s it. But it’s hard to stop watching. 

No cats, but definitely weird. Here’s a site that celebrates what technology was like when Britney Spears was all that. It’s actually kinda awesome. 

Movies/Music/Data Visualization

Wow. This National Geographic video won a couple of acknowledgements. Worth taking 7 minutes to enjoy. Be sure to use your mouse on YouTube to swipe 360 degrees.

The Google Experiments tools are my fave! Check out all these music-making tools in the Creatability Collection. This GIF is me making music with my hand. I’m hiding my face because #BadHairDay.

Well, I’m not really sure why I would need to explore 50 Years of Swiss Music Charts, but it sure is fun to do so. This site was nominated for data visualization. 

Even if you’re not into birds, you’ll be fascinated with the data visualization of migration patterns.

Language and Travel

Both Google Assistant’s new interpreter mode and iTranslate’s Converse were recognized. They both let you carry on a more-or-less natural conversation with instant translation with different language speakers.

Yea! My favorite flight price-watching tool, Hopper, won!

Voice Assistants

Amazon’s Alexa devices are getting a few HIPPA-compliant connections for use in healthcare, but Lucy is ahead of the game. These voice-activated “bedside assistants” help patients in hospital rooms summon the right help at the right time just by speaking what they need, like “Lucy, tell the nurse I’m in pain.” Right now they’re only in The Prince of Wales Hospital, but this will probably catch on. 

An Italian nonprofit needed donations to fight ALS, a progressive neurodegenerative disease. So they created an app that let Italians record one word that would be used to build a database of voices that A.L.S. patients could use to speak. It became the most downloaded app in Italy… and everyone had to pay a couple of bucks to get it. So now there’s a beautiful “voice” with countless voices, plus lots of money to help the cause.

Security

A few days ago I gave you guys all kinds of tools to help with robocalls.RoboKiller was recognized for its efforts to cut down on spam calls. It’s the one that messes with telemarketers with recorded “conversations,” and then lets you listen to the chaos. 

Both Dashlane and 1Password showed up at The Webbys for the best password management tools.

They have nothing on this security tool… even though we’ll probably never know the name of it. A group created a secret Alexa skill that helps domestic violence victims. The name of the skill is shared at women’s shelters and the like. The person enables the skill, then if there is an episode of domestic violence, telling Alexa to “play loud music” will summon help. This technique may work because domestic violence victims frequently turn up music to cover the sounds of the abuse. 

And then there’s Outro, an Apple app for rating and reviewing bars and clubs based on security, comfort level, vibe, inclusivity and cleanliness. 

Augmented Reality

OMG I love this app! Download it and scan a US dollar bill (or other denomination) to replace the face on the bill with a #NotableWoman. “Swapping out the faces we all know for the faces we all should.”

Mental Health

Two of our favorite apps made the list… Calm and Headspace. Shine is new to me, but it won a People’s Voice award, so it’s worth a look. Shine calls itself a “daily self-compassion coach.” 

The Cheetos Vision app isn’t really there for your mental health, but it will totally make you smile.

#becausecheetos 

Not even an artificial intelligence Cheetos filter can disguise the #badhairday I’m having.

Speaking of artificial intelligence… check out this Emoji Scavenger Hunt! AI helps identify objects around you that match up with the emojis that came from them. 

Fun and Games

So fun! Just visit 7up.com on your phone to find the Digital Bartender. Then stand your phone next to your adult beverage glass and pour ingredients as advised.

To disprove the idea that kids today don’t read, the New York Public Library created Instagram stories for novels… Voila the #instanovel.

Remember IFTTT, the tool that connects cloud-based services to automate all kinds of little tasks? Well, Domino’s created little automations to trigger a Domino’s order if it’s your birthday or if it snows more than 4 inches or if your plane lands or…. You gotta visit If This Then Dominos…

The Webby Awards 2019… too much awesome was originally published on Your Nerdy Best Friend

[phazesmckenzieii]

Happy Sensational Sunday Radio Indie International Network Family and Friends! Well, Brand New Week, Brand New Days, Brand New Mercies, Coming Our Way!

Terrific Tuesday Is Upon Us! Enjoy the Ride of The Musical Vibes with The Prince of Sophisticated Soul, As He Brings You The Best in Soul and R&B on The "Wind Down Ya Feel Me" Show. Feel The Grooves and Vibe to the Sounds of Lucy Pear, Ella Mai, and Kenny Lattimore. Oh Yes, The Interpretation Segment With The Legendary Mr.Bill Withers and Creative Source. Also Grooves From Van Jess, Conya Doss, Bernard Wright, Howard Johnson, Cornell C. Carter. Plus, A Special Tribute The One and Only, The Queen of Soul, Ms. Aretha Franklin. Closing it Out with The POSS Himself, on The "Wind Down Ya Feel Me" Show. Tuesday, August 21, 2018, Beginning at 12:00 pm EST and at 6 pm UTC/GMT on Radio Indie International Network. Keep It Locked!

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[fashiontrendin-blog]

Menocore is the New Normcore, and It’s a Lot More Comfortable

http://fashion-trendin.com/menocore-is-the-new-normcore-and-its-a-lot-more-comfortable/

Menocore is the New Normcore, and It’s a Lot More Comfortable

The other day I found myself fantasizing about moving into a lighthouse. In this not uncommon fantasy of mine, I am rocking a breezy yet put-together white outfit, the perfect menocore ensemble. Early summer is the perfect time to get into your 2000-present day Diane Keaton inspired looks, so I figured this post deserved to fill your feeds once again. Originally published in July of 2017 it is a timeless beauty, much like a good pair of linen pants. – Nora 

All I want is to dress like Diane Keaton in Something’s Gotta Give right now.

The realization dawned on me as I surveyed my closet at the beginning of summer. After a few weeks of mulling it over, I decided to pitch it as a style story.

“I want to style three looks inspired by the aesthetic of a middle-aged woman on a low-key beach vacation,” I said. “You know: lots of linen, tiny spectacle sunglasses, maybe a bucket hat, cozy knits, everything super flowy…” My voice trailed off as I searched my coworkers’ faces for a flicker of recognition.

24 PHOTOS click for more

“So many people are getting into that Eileen Fisher aesthetic lately,” said Amelia.

“Yes!” I said. “Exactly! It’s kind of a thing right now, right?”

“Maybe that’s why I keep dressing like a retired masseuse,” said Leandra. “Drawstring linen pants, open button-downs…”

“Yeah, very relaxed,” I said. “Unselfconscious-cool. Picture a 50-something-year-old woman who doesn’t care what other people think and just wants to be supremely comfortable.”

“Is this the new normcore?” Haley asked.

“Maybe,” I said. “I’m trying to think of how to describe it in that same vein. Middle-aged…menopausal…Menocore??”

The name stuck. Every time one of us walked into the office wearing an outfit resembling that of a mom in a Nancy Meyers movie or an eccentric ceramicist exiting her beach house studio or Blythe Danner on a solo bird-watching expedition in 1997, someone would inevitably say, “Well, well, well. Aren’t you looking menocore today?”

Sup

A post shared by Anna Z Gray (@annazgray) on May 2, 2017 at 9:38am PDT

I started seeing menocore everywhere. I became obsessed with documenting it. My bookmarks folder on Instagram overflowed with evidence: billowy pants sporting elasticized waist bands, head-to-toe ecru, well-loved market bags, loose tops with bold prints, exposed bras, clunky sandals or sneakers, loose ponytails secured with scrunchies, a porcelain bowl of freshly-cut pineapple sitting on rumpled white bedsheets, jewelry that looked like something a kid might make in art class, unapologetic sun protection for unapologetic sun protection’s sake, tarnished gold barrettes and sequins just for the fun of it.

Like normcore, menocore isn’t tied to a particular designer or brand, but unlike normore, it doesn’t have an obvious uniform — no boxy jeans + turtleneck + clogs formula. Yet under the umbrella of menocore exists two archetypes: On one side of the spectrum, there’s the very neutral, head-to-toe white linen, rolled-up khaki pant cuffs, life-on-the-beach vibe propagated by middle-aged style icons like Diane Keaton, Whoopi Goldberg and Lauren Hutton. On the other side of the spectrum, there’s the tropical print, silk cargo pocket, plastic bead jewelry, clashing print, cerulean satin jogger pant, waistless kaftan-wearing vibe espoused by the likes of Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele, Miuccia Prada and Lucinda Chambers. Current pre-menopausal aficionados of the first look include Lucia Zolea, Nella Beljan, Subrina Heyink and Virginia Calderón; of the second: Frewa Wewer and Laurel Pantin.

“For me, the look is a sort of shapeless dress that shows my décolletage (I will always love a little cleavage), my massive jumble of gold and sentimental necklaces, flat strappy sandals and semi-frizzy hair,” said Pantin, Editorial & Fashion Director at The Coveteur. “I like the term menocore. When I’m shopping, I definitely have a mental image of an older Italian woman who wears a lot of Marni, Dries, classic shirts unbuttoned low, LOTS of old, gold jewelry and a big, overgrown garden.”

Menocore is by no means limited to these stylistic personas, though. I see plenty of outfits that combine them, and that’s what I tried to do while styling the shoot inside this feature. I think of them more as the minimalist and maximalist points on either end of menocore’s all-encompassing rainbow, with lots of variation and individual interpretation happening in between.

What I love most about the movement is how it pays long-overdue homage to an age bracket that is often ignored by the fashion industry. Our attention to youth has always been very much intact, and the octogenarian subset joined the zeitgeist awhile ago thanks to icons like Iris Apfel and blogs like Advanced Style, leaving women in the middle relatively invisible. Menocore is finally giving them the spotlight they deserve.

“Growing up, my mom was always my barometer of taste, always focusing on great pieces rather than trends,” said stylist Danielle Nachmani, who frequently incorporates what I would call signature menocore items into her shoots — bucket hats, thick gold hoops, khaki pants, linen blazers, etc. If the normcore-fueled proliferation of mom jeans was an ode to the clothes our mothers wore in their 20s, menocore is a tribute to the clothes they wear now. And it’s not just a fashion statement — it’s a mood. Or, at the very least, a projection of one.

“Menocore is such a great term for this,” designer Lucy Akin said when I reached out to her over email. Akin is the creator of Ciao Lucia, a brand new, California-based label I flagged during my research. “Fashion is reflecting our need for an escape from our current reality,” she said. “When the state of the world, or the political climate, feels uncertain, it’s only logical that we would want our clothing reflect ease, maturity and confidence. I turn 30 next year, and with Ciao Lucia, I was channeling an older version of myself who has life a little more figured out. My goal was to make a collection that felt happy and calm, with classic silhouettes and flowy fabrics. The overall look is timeless, comforting and comfortable.”

I agree that this movement goes beyond clothing, which is why I mentioned that photo of freshly-cut pineapple sitting on rumpled white bedsheets in my aforementioned list of examples — not because of what it was (chopped pineapple is not particularly remarkable), but rather, because of what is was not. It was not some trendy frozen cauliflower smoothie, or chia parfait dusted with ashwaganda powder. It wasn’t something that took hours to make, or something that ascribes to “shoulds.” It was something a mom might prepare as a snack for her kid or for herself, and therein lies the sweetness – literal and figurative.

Like the bowl of pineapple, the style element of menocore is also defined by what it is not: trendy, prescribed, price-dependent, impersonal. It started off the runway, propagated by regular people just living their lives and dressing in clothes that made them feel like the best versions of themselves (regardless of trend or designer name). Now that its begun to proliferate across industry darlings, indie designers and social media “inspo” accounts, I wouldn’t be surprised to find traces of menocore finding its way onto the runway, ever-so-subtly, come September fashion week.

“People are gravitating toward a simpler way of life in general,” Marie Dewet told me. She and her mother are the co-founders of Maison Cleo, one of the small, fledgling labels that, like Ciao Lucia, I consider representative of the menocore movement (and also a product of it, to some extent). “Not just with the clothes we wear, but also with the food we eat, the way we decorate our homes, the way we live our lives. “The thing about simplicity is that it doesn’t have to be boring, or even minimalist. It’s more about stripping away the noise.”

New York Magazine called normcore, “The aesthetic return to styles [we] would’ve worn as kids reads like a reset button—going back to a time before adolescence, before we learned to differentiate identity through dress.” In fascinating contrast, menocore is the aesthetic leap to styles we would embrace as middle-aged women, taking us forward in time to a more marinated version of our selves, our mothers and our world.

Or, I don’t know…maybe we all just wanted to start wearing comfier pants.

Photos by Edith Young. Modeled by Hema Barbosa of MSA Models; follow Hema and MSA Models on Instagram @gemzb_ and @msamodels. 

[owensrhodes]

36 Tropical Decorating Ideas Fresh Off the Fashion Runways

Fashion designers must have been dreaming of Bali Ha’i this year. The latest fashion runways for summer featured models in Hawaiian prints and lush banana leaves.

Tropical fashion runway looks. Photo (left to right): Max Mara, Patricia Bonaldi, Leonard Paris (2), Patricia Bonaldi

Home design follows fashion closely and tropical style has started popping up in the coolest apartments and houses. If you love the idea of adding a little island-chic to your home or apartment, some of the easiest ways to get the look fast involve adding:

Tropical print wallpaper (pick the removable, easy to peel style if you’re renting)

A wall mural

A large, potted indoor plant like a fig, bird of paradise, palm, rubber tree or elephant ear

Art work in a gallery wall pattern

A focal wall in a painted emerald green or lime green

Accessories like pillows, a throw or area rug

Hawaiian print bedding

Tropical fabric for a headboard, arm chair or curtains

A tropical wall canvas trio in bright colors and a vase of saw palmetto cuttings add an island vibe to this living room. Photo: Homepolish

Here are some of the freshest tropical decorating ideas bound to give your home a little bit of island vibe.

Funky and Cool Tropical Living Rooms

Tropical urban loft living with panels of banana leaf wallpaper. Photo: Z Gallerie

Modern tropical design that’s subtle featuring lattice-pattern fabric and elephant leaves on a ceiling light fixture. Photo: Touch Interiors

The jungle influence in this room comes from the pops of emerald green and the banana leaf throw on the sofa. Photo: Indie and Co.

Fun, maximalist tropical design featuring leaf pattern wallpaper and sectional. Photo: Alex Fulton Design

Tropical Decorating Ideas for the Bedroom

Avoid a paradise theme overload by using wallpaper sparingly; like behind these alcove bookcases. Photo: Rikki Snyder

Tropical design doesn’t have to always be green. This luxurious bedroom in blacks, greys and whites creates a contemporary resort look. Photo: Jigsaw Interior Design

Paradise-inspired design featuring a rich leather bed, house plants and Anthropologie tropical bedding. Photo: Anthropologie UK

Home Office in an Island Style Design

A light and airy salmon-color tropical wallpaper lightens and brightens this Mid-Century Modern office. Photo: Coordonné Wallpaper

Tropical Inspiration Dining Rooms

A large and fluid tropical print is the dramatic focal point in this resort-inspired home constructed with rich, exotic, dark wood built-ins throughout. Photo: Area Planz

Whimsical pineapple wallpaper for island living. Rattan light pendants add to the tropical island vibe. Aloha! Photo: Chango & Co.

Bring the jungle tropics in with a full-size photomural wall to serve as the room’s theme and focal point. The live, potted rubber tree does well indoors and adds extra dimension. Photo: Disbar Wallpapers

Kitchens with a Modern Jungle Design

This kitchen features an easy-to-clean vinyl palm leaf wallpaper as a backsplash. The look is tied in with other tropical print accents like tea towels and china. Photo: House of Hackney

Update a tired backsplash by having a vibrant image printed in a large size and mounted behind glass to protect it from stovetop splatters. Photo: Lucy G Splashbacks

A geometric leaf-pattern tile by Fireclay Tile in a celadon tone is tropical resort at its best. The crisp, cool celadon color pairs beautifully with white. Photo: M. Walter Design

Minimalist Tropical Decorating for a Contemporary Feel

Turn your neutral living room into a tropical oasis this weekend by adding some oversized, potted fig trees, modern tropical print throw pillows and chartreuse-color curtains to your space. Photo: Shaw Coates

This contemporary living room has a tropical vibe thanks to small touches like the splashes of green and turquoise, an elephant ear plant, island-style throw pillows and the plant terrarium on the coffee table. Photo: Hamish Murray Construction

The pattern-leaf wallpaper in a dark, rich tone creates an intimate feel in this minimalist dining room. Photo: Brewster Home Fashions

Bold Tropical Wall Murals

When pop art meets island life. The bold wall covering in this living room is unforgettable. Photo: Disbar Wallpaper

Accent your headboard and highlight your room’s theme with a boldly patterned wall mural or wallpaper. Photo: Michelle Workman

Although this wallpaper is dramatic, it feels light and airy because of the watercolor paint effect. The parrots in the pattern break up the green and feel three-dimensional. Photo: Coordonné Wallpaper

Florals are another big design trend for this year. This floral mural is inspired by Hawaii’s lush landscapes. Photo: Coordonné Wallpaper

A Tropical Oasis Bathroom

For a botanic bathroom experience, add green tones, rattan accents like a pendant lamp and a wallpapered panel in a lively, tropical print. Photo: Little Greene Paint & Paper

Tropical Wall Art

A calming, earthier version of tropical Miami living featuring photo prints of tropical leaves and textured textiles in layered earth tones. Photo: DWD, Inc.

Close-up shots of leaves and bamboo have been printed and mounted on board to create the multi-dimensional tropical wall look. The art is highlighted by the grasscloth wallpaper behind it. Photo: GM Construction

Tropical Bathroom Wallpaper Ideas

Wallpaper and window film ideas for a powder room or bathroom add the tropical jungle theme to these rooms. Photos (top left, clockwise): Oonagh Ryan Architects, The Window Film Company, Kohler, Pal + Smith.

Urban-Chic Leaf Print Wallpaper for a Modern Island Vibe

Rich greys and blacks update the tropical island look and make the effect luxurious and contemporary. Photos (left to right): Meredith Heron Design, Judith Balis Interiors, Creative Interior Design.

Banana Leaf Fabric for Headboards and Curtains

Take a classic banana leaf pattern textile and turn it into a modern room accent like a headboard, pillows, curtains, an ottoman or bench. Photos (left to right): Adam Scougall, Burnham Design.

Bright Tropical Prints for Decorating

A tropical theme to your decorating is meant to be bright and cheery. Look for patterns and colors that are bold and graphic. Photos (left to right): Emma Blomfield, eDezeen.

Regardless of where you live, tropical decorating is a great way to add some life and color into a room. As you see, adding tropical decor doesn’t have to be an exclusively green color scheme. There are plenty of other colors, textures and prints available ranging from modern and minimalist to lifelike photomurals to abstract interpretations.

Which of the tropical decorating ideas did you like best?

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