#anyway. watching one of my fave movies today but I didn’t suggest it it’s an obscure poor quality (pixel wise) foreign film somebody else | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

choking-on-tae · 3 years

Text

ATEEZ Reaction To: Having a lazy day full of cuddles

A/N: I wanted to write something cute and fluffy for these boys that I love with all my heart. May have gotten a bit carried away with San's one, but then again I love gaming so please don't blame me. I hope you guys like this and as usual gifs aren't mine and credits to the rightful owners! x

Seonghwa

Seonghwa has been waiting for this day for a while. To just be able to spend the entire day doing absolutely nothing but cuddle and spend time together. You're cuddled up against your boyfriend as Seonghwa's chin is resting on top of your head. His arms wrapped tightly around you as the two of you watch a movie. Seonghwa doesn't seem so invested in the movie anymore as he's instead focusing on how it feels to hold you in his arms. It's been a while since he was last able to do that. You lean in to press a kiss against his neck, which catches Seonghwa off guard.

"W-Why?" He chuckles, feeling embarrassed as he looks the other way. "I just love you. That's why."

Seonghwa blushes at your words as he bites down on his lower lip, trying to stop himself from laughing as he glances back at the TV. "C'mon, let's go back to watching the movie."

Hongjoong

Hongjoong chuckles as he sees you coming back into the living room, carrying a bowl of popcorn and two glasses of soda. He was surprised you were able to carry all of that it one go. Hongjoong quickly helps you put everything down on the table and goes to sit back down on the couch. You do the same as you pull the blanket over both of you. Hongjoong starts the series the two of you are watching together and snuggles closer to you, so his head is resting on your chest. The bowl of popcorn within reach so you're able to grab some while watching your favorite show.

"We should do this more often." Hongjoong hums against your skin. "I agree." You whisper, pressing a soft kiss against his head before going back to watching your series.

Yunho

Now Yunho is a cuddle bug. He loves cuddling and spending time with you so a day like this would be high on his list of things he absolutely has to do with you. Yunho prepared everything for the day, so it'd be absolutely perfect. He didn't want anything to go wrong. Luckily for Yunho things couldn't have been more perfect. During your day both of you turned off your phones so there were no stupid interruptions. Your boyfriend knows he isn't the best cook but he's also not the worst, and since you love cooking he decided it'd be the perfect opportunity to bake something together. When you walked through the door and saw everything set up in the kitchen you couldn't help but smile.

"You want to bake something together?" Yunho nods softly as a shy smile spreads across his face. "Yeah, I thought you'd like that."

You move closer to your boyfriend, so you're mere inches away from him and wrap your arms around his neck. "I'd like that very much. Thank you, Yunho."

Yeosang

Both you and Yeosang love reading so what'd be more perfect than to spend the day reading your favorite book together? You're laying between Yeosang's legs, your back pressed against his chest as he's holding the book in front of you, so both of you can read it together. Yeosang's head rests on top of yours as his eyes scan the pages. You do the same as you rest comfortably against your boyfriend.

"This book is pretty good, right?" You hum at his words as you nuzzle against his chest, burying your face in it. Yeosang chuckles as he closes the book.

"Don't want to read anymore?" "No, I'd rather cuddle with you."

Yeosang giggles as he wraps his arms around you, holding you tightly. "Alright, then let's cuddle."

San

San loves gaming and thankfully for him you do too. However, it took a while to find a game both of you like. One day Wooyoung randomly suggested you'd play Mario Kart so you decided to give it a try. That was a mistake. Both you and San are very competitive, which makes it hilarious to watch. You're done choosing your characters when San moves to pick the worlds you're gonna race in. "I want that one!" You say, pointing at your favorite worlds. "But then you're gonna win!" He pouts, turning to you and flashing you his adorable pout.

You're unable to resist your boyfriend's charms and give in. Leaning in to softly peck his lips. "Fine. You can pick the worlds."

San smiles brightly as he clicks on his favorite worlds, the game starting shortly. The countdown begins as San moves around, moving to sit down behind you and pulling you up to his chest. He places both arms around you and holds his controller in front of you. Now you're completely trapped in your boyfriend's embrace but you don't mind one bit.

You're so distracted that you don't even notice the game starting. San smirks softly as he tries not to laugh. His tactic seemed to work. Once you snap out of it your boyfriend is way ahead of you, and you realize you're never gonna win. You groan in frustration as you lean back against San's chest.

"Giving up baby?" "This is not fair, San. You know how much I love your cuddles."

San giggles as he pauses the game, placing his controller down. Now giving you his full attention as he hugs you tighter, holding you close as he presses kisses all over your face, making you squeal.

Mingi

Going for hikes is something you have started doing ever since the pandemic started. You grew tired of your apartment real quick and sometimes you just want to get some fresh air. What's new however is that your boyfriend has started to join you more often. Knowing when you go for your morning walk and such. Today is no different. You open the door to walk out when you spot Mingi standing outside, ready to go for a walk. You giggle as you see the blush on his cheeks and lock the door behind you. Quickly going to your boyfriend, taking his hand in yours as you start walking.

"Have you been waiting for a while?" Mingi hums as he holds your hand tighter. "Nah, maybe 3 minutes or so."

You nod as you admire the beautiful scenery. It doesn't take you long before you spot a beautiful cherry blossom tree that's blooming.

"Mingi! Will you stand in front of that so I can take a photo of you? Please? It'll look so pretty!" Mingi chuckles at your excitement as he nods his head, crossing the street to pose in front of the tree. You snap a few photos as you summon him back. Mingi looks at the photos as he leans down to press a kiss against your cheek. "Thank you, can you send it to me please?" "Of course I can baby."

Wooyoung

"Are you sure you don't want me to help? I can cut some things for you to help you out maybe?" You ask your boyfriend, who seems fully set on cooking a romantic dinner for the both of you, on his own. One thing Wooyoung is known for is being incredibly stubborn, so of course he wants to do everything by himself. So you press a few kisses to his cheek, trying to persuade him to let you help him.

"Okay, you can cut some onions for me if you really want to help. I wanted to do this just for you baby." He pouts, turning his face to look at you.

"I know sweetheart but I feel bad letting you do this all by yourself." "But I like cooking for you." You chuckle softly as you turn to your boyfriend, wrapping your arms around him and pulling him against you. "But cooking together is more fun, right?"

Wooyoung nods in agreement as he leans in to bury his face in the crook of your neck, his hot breath tickling your skin.

"It is, let's just cook together then. But next time I'm really cooking for you!"

Jongho

(This is my fave Jongho gif I mean just look at this cutie!!!)

If there's one thing you and Jongho love it's going to the arcade. It's a place you spend a lot of time at and with Jongho's competitiveness it's even more fun go to there. So when both of you have the day off it's where you go. Jongho spots a claw machine that has a lot of kakao friends plushies. Apeach being your favorite you press your hands to the glass as you stare at the big plushie. "It's so cute!" "I'll win it for you, baby."

You frown at his words as you turn around, seeing Jongho rolling up his sleeves as he gets ready. Putting a coin in the machine and grabbing the handle.

You chuckle as you watch him in amusement. These machines are made to make you lose a lot of money, and you're afraid your boyfriend will fall victim to it because of his competitiveness.

"Jongho, it's okay if you don't get it. These games are extremely difficult anyways and-" You stop as soon as you see the plushie fall through the hole. Jongho smiles proudly as he takes it out of the machine and gives it to you.

"Here you go baby." You just stare at your boyfriend in shock as he chuckles softly, clearly amused by your expression.

"Wow, you really are amazing. You know that?" Now it's Jongho's turn to be startled as he feels his cheeks heat up. You lean up to press a kiss against his lips as you stare at him lovingly.

"You really are the best, baby."

667 notes · View notes

soapsilly · 4 years

Text

Men with long-ish hair - Bucky Barnes Imagine

Pairings: Bucky x reader (platonic), (slight Thor x reader)

Summary/Request: Hi, could you please do a bucky imagine where the reader and him are like best friends but everybody thinks they are secretly together. And they all are really confused when the reader starts dating Natasha or Thor?

(Y/N/N) = your nickname

(Y/F/D) = your fave Disney movie

And remember: Requests are open!

Do you guys know how hard it is to find a happy gif for Bucky?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Has anybody seen Bucky?”

Steve was looking for his friend for the last one and a half hours but with no luck so far.

“Where do you think he is?” Natasha asked Steve with an amused smile. She always found it hilarious how oblivious he was with all things romantic, when it was so obvious Bucky and (Y/N) were dating for quite a while already.

When Steve sent her a confused look she explained “He’s with (Y/N). Haven’t you noticed how close they’ve become these last couple months?”

“Wait... you mean they’re dating? No way, Nat. Bucky is my best friend, he wouldn’t keep something like that from me,” Steve retaliated, laughing at Natasha’s ridiculous suggestion.

“Okay, see for yourself. They’re in the home cinema on the sixth floor”, she told him.

As Steve was leaving he heard Natasha shout after him, “But don’t forget to knock!”

When Steve arrived on the sixth floor he was about to enter the home cinema when Tony, with a mug of coffee in his hand, interrupted him, “ I wouldn’t go in there if I were you, Capsicle. About half an hour ago I still heard her giggle but since then they’re being suspiciously quiet”

But Steve ignored him and entered anyways.

Inside the room, neither (Y/N) nor Bucky noticed Captain America enter. They’ve been holed up in there the whole day already, watching all the Disney movies Bucky missed since the 40s - which were a lot to be fair. Right now they were watching (Y/F/D), cuddled up on one of the sofas with Bucky’s head resting in (Y/N)’s lap.

“I love your hair, Buck”, (Y/N) told the shaggy haired man.

“I don’t know, (Y/N/N). Maybe I should just cut it again. Have you ever seen me with short hair? Back in the 40s the girls couldn’t keep their hands off of me.”

“Are you kidding? You look great! You know I’m into men with long-ish hair... obviously”, she chuckled.

When Steve cleared his throat both of them jumped up, startled by the distraction.

“Hey, Steve. What’s up? Wanna join?”, the girl offered but he refused.

“No, thank you. Buck... I’ve been looking for you the whole day. I thought maybe we’d get some exercise done for the compatibilty tests tomorrow”, Steve offered his friend. Ever since he returned Steve was anxious to build up their friendship again. Bucky was still a little reserved with him which made Steve feel jealous that he was so comfortable around (Y/N) without knowing her for as long as he did.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll be right there. See you, later (Y/N)”, Bucky was a little hesitant to leave her even though he also felt guilty because Steve really tried to get his best friend back but Bucky wasn’t ready yet. He wasn’t the same person he was in the 40s and he’s still trying to adapt to modern life.

When Bucky moved into the Avengers tower, he was reserved and didn’t come out of his room often. Everybody was a little cautious around him and Steve smothered him with his friendship but (Y/N) was different. She wasn’t wary around him but also gave him enough space for him to open up on his own. And they actually grew closer than they were with anybody else. Whenever he was being insecure or anxious, her relaxed attitude made him feel at ease and calmed him down. Ever since then it was sleep over at his room and movie nights in the home cinema.

*******************************************************************************************

The next morning the whole team had to gather in the gym and labs for the compatibility tests that had to be done once a year.

(Y/N) was giddy. She loved those kind of team execises even though everyone else seemed annoyed to be forced to give up their whole day for it.

The tests contained several made up situations and simulations that required the team to work together. At the end they’d get the results of whom each member works the best with.

(Y/N) estimated her biggest compatibility with Clint, Tony, Wanda and Bucky of course. This time was Bucky's first testing that he'd do with the team but him and (Y/N) prepared for it and apart from some minor failures, they worked incredibly well together.

*******************************************************************************************

After a long day of tests and simulations F.R.I.D.A.Y. announced everybody's results.

No nobody's surprise Clint and Natasha scored the highest, which the two of them acknowledged with a knowing smirk and a simple high-five.

"(Y/N) and Mr. Stark: Compatibility at 76%", it was (Y/N) turn to receive her results. She and Tony did well together during strategy and trust simulations but their fighting style was just to different for a higher score.

"Good job, Kiddo", Tony send her a wink, both of them happy with their score.

"(Y/N) and Bucky: Compatibility at 87%... Congratulations", F.R.I.D.A.Y. teased.

"Hell yeah!", (Y/N) cheered. Both of them grinned at each other and went in for a hug that ended with Bucky almost squishing his partner with his metal arm.

"Woah, easy there. Keep that for the bed room you two. There's children here", Clint interrupted them shielding Wanda's eyes, which earned him a round of laughs and a smack on the arm from (Y/N), who stuck her tongue out at him. Even Steve couldn't hide his laughter.

To everybody's surprise Steve and Bucky got one of the highest results. Neither one of them expected to pick up where they left off so many years ago but as soon as the simulation started they fought alongside each other just like in the old days.

*******************************************************************************************

All of them were tired and exhausted after the tests, so everybody went straight to their respective rooms. Even (Y/N) and Bucky slept seperate for a change because neither of them had the energy for movies or bed time conversations.

It was around 2 a.m. when Bucky awoke from a nightmare. Memories of the war, Hydra experimenting on him, him falling from the train and his doings as the winter soldier haunted his sleep. The combat simulations he did with Steve triggered the memories of all of those things he tried to keep locked away. When he was new to the facility, the nightmares happened almost nightly but as he grew more comfortable around the team they happened less and less frequently.

When he awoke drenched in cold sweat, his body went into auto-pilot and he made his way down the floor to (Y/N)'s room. When they first started to get closer, he'd always try to hide his nightly terrors from her but she made sure he'd always have her as his support system. No questions asked. (Y/N) knew PTSD all to well. Almost every member of Earth's mightiest heroes had something they struggled to get over, herself uncluded, so she knew not to ask but to let Bucky share his thoughts on his own.

When he arrived at the metal door that had her name on it Bucky didn't even bother to knock - he didn't want to cause a scene and rob anybody of their sleep. He entered the room which was like a little entrance hall where you could leave your shoes and coats. As he continued into (Y/N)'s little "apartment" he started to feel more at ease with every step he took. When he was stood outside her open bedroom door, he knocked quietly. (Y/N) didn't have a deep sleep but he didn't want to startle her awake or frighten her.

"Buck... what's going on? Is everything alright?", she wasn't sleepy anymore.

"Nightmares," he grunted.

"Oh, I get it.. you wanna come sit with me? Netflix just got some new movies I'd like to watch," she offered. In her experience light-hearted distraction worked best to calm her friend down.

He didn't say anything but made his way over to her bed anyways.

"But be careful with that arm of yours! I bet it's ice cold from walking around in the middle of the night. I don't want to get frost bites," she warned him, which earned her a warm chuckle from the deadly assassine, that didn't look as deadly anymore when he was cuddled into her mermaid blanket.

*******************************************************************************************

Somewhere in the middle of the third season of Americam Horror Story, (Y/N) couldn't keep her eyes open anymore and she dozed off again. Bucky didn't want to risk waking her so he decided to just get up and get some coffee before his morning routine. When he tried to make his way out of (Y/N)'s room and into the kitchen, he stumbled right into Steve's arms.

"God, Steve! Why are you awake? It's barely even 6 a.m." Bucky asked his friend, a little uncomfortable that Steve caught him red-handed.

"You know I don't sleep very much. I've slept long enough for my taste," Steve answered. And it was true. Steve himself wasn't really over what had happened to him 70 years ago and which made him struggle to get a good night's sleep but neither of them wanted to let the other see their struggles.

"Come on, pal. Let's catch up on things. Lately I barely get to see you anymore," Steve suggested.

Bucky send him a nod and they made their way to the kitchen.

Over the course of the next couple hours they talked about old memories and how today's world differs from the world they grew up in. One after one, the other team members started to fill the kitchen.

"Do you remember that one girl... Annie? I used to take her out every once in a while," Bucky reminisced. He enjoyed catching up with Steve after all that time.

"Yeah, I remember. You always had a golden hand with the girls, Buck," Steve agreed laughing.

"Well, he doesn't seem to struggle with female company in this decade either," Tony remarked.

"Huh?" Bucky furrowed his brows.

“Listen, Buck. You’re my best friend and - I won’t lie - I’m a little hurt that you would keep something so important to yourself but I’m really happy for you and (Y/N). I mean I understand that you want to keep your relationship private but we all want you to be happy. You deserve some happiness after all this mess you’ve been through,” Steve smiled at his friend.

“Wait what? You think I’m dating (Y/N)? Do all of you guys think we’re dating?”

The incoherent mumbling confirmed his suspicion.

“I just saw you sneak out of her room this morning!” Steve tried to justify his assumption.

“We were watching Netflix! And besides, (Y/N) is dating that thunder dude. Thor.” Bucky explained, totally gobsmacked by what his friend just told him.

“You can’t be serious? (Y/N) and Goldilocks?” Tony couldn’t believe his ears. He’s known (Y/N) the longest out of all of the team. Now it was his turn to be a little miffed about not knowing something that important.

“I would’ve thought you’d know. With all the surveillance you got going on here, I mean”, Bucky still couldn’t fathom what he just heard.

“What’s going on here?” (Y/N) entered the room, still in her PJs.

“The team just revealed that they’re all convinced we’re dating”, Bucky explained.

(Y/N) raised her eyebrows but before she could say anything Natasha interrupted her “Well, we weren’t convinced. We just made the suggestion”, she back-paddled.

Bucky scrunched his face in a “WTF is she talking about” way.

“Ya know? For a top tier spy I would’ve expected more from you”, (Y/N) laughed.

“Actually, I didn’‘t believe them. I knew that Buck wouldn’t keep something like that from me”, Steve chirped in.

“Now that I can believe” (Y/N) laughed. She was totally amused by what was going on at that very moment. She made her way over to Steve and ruffled his blond hair “Look at what you did, guys. You corrupted our sweet baby Steve.”

Bucky, Steve and herself fell into fits of laughter while the other Avengers grunted and left the kitchen to get away from the situation. Nat and Tony were especially eager to leave since their pride was a little hurt, both not used to being wrong.

“They probably just don’t want to admit it. Easy picking Thor when he’s not even here to confirm or deny,” Tony mumbled with Natasha agreeing.

**************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Epilogue - Two weeks later

“So they thought you and him were in a relationship?” Thor’s thunderous laugh filled the room.

The rest of the Avengers groaned “Can we not just leave that behind? How were we supposed to know anyways?” Clint defended.

“Well, seems like common knowledge to me, my friend. Why would she be with James when I’m obviously the strongest Avenger,” he boomed happily, throwing his arm over (Y/N)’s shoulder.

She grinned, “You guys are never gonna live that down.”

#bucky barnes imagine #bucky x reader #thor x reader #thor imagine #bucky barnes #avengers imagine

174 notes · View notes

alexandralyman · 5 years

Note

Could you write a one shot where Ethier killian or emma has to sing to one another because they have a nightmare? I have been trying to find a fic like this but I cant😞 Just a suggestion :)

Hey @liftinglovley - you sent me this a while ago and I finally sat down and wrote it out. I knew the song I wanted to use - a personal Disney fave that I think is underrated compared to the more famous ones but it perfect as a CS song - it just took some time to figure out the rest. What I came up with was this, 3,900 words, mostly of canon compliant, domestic CS.

Set at some point after 7x02 and before the finale, rated PG

Also posted on ff.net here as part of my Every Page series of one-shots

candle on the water

Minnesota, 1991Children’s Group Home

“She’s faking it.”

Emma looked over Mrs. Cooper’s shoulder at Kayla, leaning against the doorway with her a sour look on her face. The thermometer jammed uncomfortably in Emma’s mouth kept her from sticking her tongue out at the other girl, Kayla had been nothing but a bitch since Emma had arrived at the group home and here she was again, sticking her nose in where it didn’t belong.

“Kayla, you’re going to miss the bus,” Mrs. Cooper said without turning around, one hand pressed to Emma’s forehead. She took the thermometer and squinted at it, while Kayla craned her neck and tried to get a look at the number on the little screen. Emma hunched forward, the scratchy, donated pajamas were making her back itch again and felt damp and gross after a night of tossing and turning and barely making it to the bathroom down the hall before she threw up that morning.

“You’ve got a bit of a fever honey, it’s probably best if you stay home from school today.”

“What?” Kayle screeched, dropping her faux-fur backpack on the floor with a thump. “No way! If she’s sick then so am I, she probably gave it to me and I should get to stay home from school too!”

“That’s enough!” Mrs. Cooper snapped, getting up off of Emma’s bed and turning around to shoo Kayle out of the room. “You already skipped twice last week and now I’ve got to set up another meeting with your principal and your social worker to discuss your attendance issues, you are not sick and you are going to school today, young lady!”

Emma felt too crappy to tell Mrs. Cooper that Kayla had actually skipped school three times last week, not two, and had gone to the mall with two older boys to shoplift cassettes from the music store and had hidden them under her mattress. Besides, Emma wasn’t a snitch, even if Kayla deserved to be hauled off to juvie, snitches got their ass beat and their stuff messed with. Still, she smiled as Kayla angrily snatched up her backpack and went stomping down the stairs, followed a minute later by the loud slam of the front door. Mrs. Cooper sighed at the sound, shaking her head. Emma almost felt sorry for her, but she knew by now that the woman would probably be gone in a few months anyway and a new housemother would come in and change all the rules again, no one ever stayed for long working at the group home and there was no point in feeling bad for any of them. Even the nice ones.

Especially the nice ones, cause it always hurt the most when they left.

Mrs. Cooper was one of the okay ones. She told Emma that she had a lot of work to do and would be in her office most of the day, but Emma could watch TV if she wanted instead of having to stay in bed, as long as she didn’t make too much noise. Emma dug out her baby blanket from her own hiding place and brought it down with her to the TV room, since she knew it would be safe with all of the other kids at school until three. The older kids usually hogged the remote and never let anyone else pick what show to watch, so Emma didn’t even care that the saltines Mrs. Cooper brought from the locked pantry to help settle her stomach were the lame store-brand kind that always broke when you tried to take them out of the package and tasted like cardboard. She clutched the remote tight on her lap all through The Price is Right and when it was over and some dumb soap opera started she started flicking through all the channels, careful to keep the volume down so that Mrs. Cooper wouldn’t get all mad and make her go back to bed. Boring news shows, and even more boring M*A*S*H rerun, that was playing on two different channels for some reason, an infomercial for a cooking thing that could make breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert, and she changed channels again because the grilled cheese sandwich the lady was making in it looked good and was making her hungry. She wished the VCR wasn’t broken again or that they got one of the cool channels like MTV, burrowing a bit more into her blanket.

“And now back to the KSTP afternoon movie, Pete’s Dragon.”

Emma watched as the TV screen was filled with a little, old-fashioned looking town next to the ocean. She sort of knew this movie, it was one of those old Disney ones that had real people and cartoons all mixed together, like Mary Poppins. The older kids would call it a baby movie, especially Kayla, who hid makeup she wasn’t supposed to be wearing in her backpack, but the older kids and Kayla were all at school and Emma could watch whatever she wanted to without anyone making fun of her.

She leaned her head against one of the cushions as the movie played on. Pete was a boy, an orphan about the same age as her, but he had a dragon named Elliott who helped him escape from the bad people who’d bought him and together they made their way to the small town by the ocean. They met a lady named Nora, whose boyfriend died in a shipwreck, and her dad the lighthouse-keeper, and all the other townspeople, living happily with them until the bad people showed up and tried to capture Elliott. He got away, and used his breath to relight the fire at the top of the lighthouse after it went out, saving the life of Nora’s boyfriend, who wasn’t dead, he just had amnesia and forgot her until he got better and had come back on another ship. They invited Pete to stay and join their family, and he said goodbye Elliott, who flew away to look for another kid like Pete to help.

There was also a *lot* of singing. Emma didn’t like to sing, not anymore.

It was kind of a baby movie. Orphans like Pete didn’t just find new families like that. They ended up in foster care and their chances of adoption went down the older they got. The social workers called it statistics, Emma knew it meant that there wasn’t a happy, ready-made family out there waiting for her, or Kayla, or any of the other older kids. In real life Nora and her boyfriend would just have their own baby. And dragons definitely weren’t real.

The songs were okay though, and her favourite was the one Nora sang while looking out over the ocean from the lighthouse balcony when she was missing her boyfriend, even though it was the slow one.

“I’ll be your candle on the water,My love for you will always burn.I know you’re lost, and drifting,But the clouds are lifting.

Don’t give up, you have somewhere to turn.”

…..

Some Years LaterStorybrooke, Maine.

“How’s the morning sickness today, sweetheart?”

Emma held the phone to her ear with her shoulder, reaching up for the box of saltines in the cupboard.

“More like Killian-tired-to-bring-fresh-mackerel-in-the-house-sickness today,” she said to her mother with a wince. “The smell was just….ugh.”

Snow laughed softly. “Oh, I remember that. I had to bolt from a ball once when I was pregnant with you and they were passing around caviar hor d'oeuvres, your poor father found me throwing up in a decorative urn out on the balcony.”

“Yeah, pregnancy and fish just don’t seem to mix. Which is a little awkward when you’re married to a man who views it as an essential food group.”

“Guess it runs in the family,” Snow said, and Emma could practically see her mother’s smile even over the phone. “You do kind of have my chin.”

She started to nibble on one of the saltines while Snow chatted on, hoping Killian would be back soon with the ginger ale he’d gone out to get after discovering they were all out while she was puking her guts up in the bathroom. He felt terrible about the whole mackerel incident, quickly apologizing to both her and the baby for upsetting them before slamming the lid back on the cooler and taking it out onto the porch. Emma loved that he was teaching her little brother how to fish, but maybe the rather pungent fruits of their labour could stay on the Jolly Roger and out of her kitchen for right now.

“Oh! Before I forget, I got a letter from Ruby, after the baby shower she and Dorothy are going to finally take that road trip out to Kansas that they keep talking about before they go back to Oz.”

It was a little odd that the guest list for Emma’s upcoming baby shower included both the actual Wicked Witch of the West and Dorothy, but such was life in the small town of Storybrooke Maine, where almost everyone was a fairytale character, including Emma’s own husband and the father of her unborn child, the fearsome Captain Hook himself.

A very sheepish Captain Hook, when he returned home from the grocery store toting a reusable shopping bag stuffed with ginger ale, another box of saltines, the good kind and not the lame store brand that always broke as soon you tried to take one out of the sleeve and tasted like cardboard, a bouquet of roses and a scented candle.

Two scented candles.

Three scented candles.

Candles kept appearing from the bag until over half a dozen jars were crowded together on the kitchen table, cinnamon stick, eucalyptus, bayberry, fresh linen. Emma rested a hand on the swell of her stomach and raised an eyebrow at Killian, noting how the tips of his ears had gone red.

“I thought a candle might help if there was any lingering odor from the mackerel, but I wasn’t sure if there were any other scents you and the bean were particularly sensitive to right now so I thought I should get a backup, just in case, but then what if you didn’t like that one either so I procured a backup for the backup, and then-”

“A backup for that one too?” Emma finished, trying not to laugh.

“Aye, well. It seemed like a good idea at the market.”

She’d used Febreeze and a bit of magic to get rid of the icky fish smell once she’d come out of the bathroom, but she appreciated the effort nonetheless and she shuffled forward to wrap her arms around his neck while he shifted his hips to make room for the baby between them. Pregnancy was hard, and exhausting, she wasn’t seventeen this time around and morning sickness had teamed up with midnight heartburn to seriously kick her ass, but she had Killian and her parents and half the town on speed dial, ready to drop everything and come to the Saviour’s aid.

It had taken her years to find the home Neal had once talked about, and almost as long to accept that Storybrooke was, in fact, that place, but now that she had it was like a cloud had lifted and while her life would never be simple, she wasn’t living it alone.

They had takeout from Granny’s for dinner instead of fresh-caught mackerel - grilled cheese, with a side of sauerkraut, because Emma had a craving for it and Killian knew better than to ask why the smell of fish made her throw up but fermented cabbage was OK - and finished the movie she’d fallen asleep halfway through the night before. After their wedding, once things had finally quieted down in Storybrooke (not that they were ever completely calm in a town where Moby Dick might surface in the harbour on a random Sunday and a pair of actual dragons lived in a house down the street and threw weekly barbecues that had a tendency to set neighbouring cars on fire) they’d finally had time for what Henry dubbed Operation Pop Culture, a.k.a getting Killian more familiar with The Land Without Magic. Specifically, the movies, TV shows, books and music that everyone with curse memories was already aware of and even though Henry was off on his own adventure now, they still made time at least once a week to keep the operation going in his honour.

Star Wars. Back to the Future. Indiana Jones. Harry Potter. They made their way through several TV shows on Netflix and watched the animated Disney classics. Which was…interesting, to actually sit down and rewatch them all now that she knew the real stories behind the catchy songs and all the happily ever afters. They’d taken a bit of a break after Peter Pan, for obvious reasons, and Emma was sure watching it had been a huge mistake, but Killian said he wanted to see her frame of reference for all the people that now made up their family and friends, to understand why she had such a hard time reconciling that Mary Margaret and David really were Snow White and Prince Charming at first, or that magic was actually real.

It had been more difficult for the both of them than she’d expected, but just like letting her son follow his own path, sometimes difficult was necessary.

Now they were in the midst of what Emma described to Henry during their enchanted mirror Skype sessions as, “Disney Movies Starring People We Don’t Know and Aren’t Related To (We Think)” that had started after a bout of magic gone wrong had resulted in Killian and David switching bodies, literally on a Friday too, so naturally they had to watch Freaky Friday once the spell was undone and everyone was thankfully back where they belonged, which wasn’t Killian-in-David’s-body sleeping on their couch and David-in-Killian’s accidentally scratching the shit out of everything in the farmhouse with the hook until Snow finally took it away in exasperation.

Mary Poppins. Honey I Shrunk the Kids. The Parent Trap and Herbie the Love Bug (like with Freaky Friday, the originals only, not the Lindsay Lohan remakes) Pete’s Dragon. Escape to Witch Mountain. Emma had seen some of them before, some were new to her, and the easy, family-friendly movies with simple plots and happy endings were just the thing to relax with in the evenings, especially with their own family expanding literally day by day.

By the time David Freeman made it back to 1978 and his parents and brother after travelling through time in Flight of the Navigator, Emma was stifling her yawns, her head pillowed on Killian’s chest and his fingers playing gently with her hair. She was already in her pajamas, or more accurately, his, since the waistband on the flannel pants was still stretchy enough for her stomach and his T-shirts fit much better than hers right now, plus they were all soft and comfy. The baby was already asleep and Emma wasn’t that far behind, Killian took care of locking up and turning off the lights while she made her way upstairs and drowsily brushed her teeth.

“Goodnight, my love,” he said once they were settled in bed, spooned up behind her with his strong thighs warm against the backs of hers, bracing her against any possible storm brewing on the horizon, even if it was just midnight heartburn again. His hand drifted down to her stomach, as it did every night. “Goodnight, little bean.”

Ever since the pregnancy tracking app on her phone had compared the size of their then eight week old embryo to a jelly bean, Killian had called the baby their own magic bean and even though he or she (they were keeping it a surprise) was now supposedly the size of a papaya according to that same app, the “little bean” nickname had stuck.

“Night, Killian. Love you too.”

She was up again around two, thankfully not because of heartburn, but she needed to pee and she was hungry. Emma went downstairs after she’d used the bathroom, leaving Killian to sleep while she rooted around for something to nosh on. The house was dark, shadowed, the half-finished nursery stacked with boxes and Henry’s old room still had comic books on the shelves and photos tacked around the mirror.

Her children, both were with her in some ways, and absent in others.

The overhead light was too bright to deal with in the middle of the night so she flicked her fingers absently at one of the candles and it flared to life in an echo of the magic flaring under her skin. It illuminated just enough so she didn’t trip over the rolled-up bottoms of Killian’s pj pants or stub her toe on any of the kitchen chairs. She wasn’t sure which one it was exactly, but the smell was nice.

Emma started humming under her breath while she debated between what was left of the sauerkraut or throwing some poptarts in the toaster when a noise from upstairs made her freeze. A faint thump, and then another, and then a loud cry that had magic bursting alongside the adrenaline that flooded her when she heard her husband scream. Without thinking about it she teleported herself upstairs and as the smoke cleared she saw he was sitting up in bed, pillows thrown to the floor and the hook clutched in his hand. He had a more modern brace to attach it to now instead of the old contraption of leather straps and buckles, but he didn’t sleep with it on and it was usually left on the nightstand next to the phone charger. His phone was providing the bit of light in the room, Emma could see the picture of herself that he had set as his lockscreen smiling at her and then it turned off and the room was plunged into darkness, but not before she caught a glimpse of Killian’s face, eyes wide and terrified.

“Swan?”

His voice wavered and cracked while she climbed onto the bed, a bit awkwardly thanks to the extra weight she was carrying, plucking the hook from his unresisting fingers and setting it aside. He curled into her helplessly and she felt that his skin was damp, clammy, as if he’d just had a fever, but of course that wasn’t what it was.

“Nightmare?”

A shaky nod that she felt rather than saw, and a wave of her hand and a wish for light brought up the candle from the kitchen, it appeared on her dresser still lit and filled the room with a soft glow. It wasn’t the first time that one of them had had a bad dream, leaving the past and all its scars was still a bit of an ongoing project that, like the nursery, they were working on together.

“What was it this time?” Emma asked, although she had a good idea when his hand instantly found her stomach. After a beat Killian confirmed her suspicion with a single word, “Pan.”

Sometimes it was the Underworld, sometimes it was being the Dark One, sometimes it was something older, like his brother, or his father, but ever since the pregnancy test had turned positive Killian’s nightmares tended to revolve around Peter Pan.

“He came for our little bean through the window…and I couldn’t…Emma, I couldn’t stop him.”

Emma saw that the window had been left open a crack and the curtains were fluttering in the breeze, a small, simple thing, unless you were Captain Hook and your wife was pregnant with your child.

Killian Jones sagged into her side, his arms around her waist and his head on her chest. Peter Pan was dead, the Lost Boys had all grown up and that story was over. Emma dreamed about him too, sometimes, just like she also dreamed about the Underworld and her time as the Dark One as Killian did, and like him she also had her own old traumas making a reappearance. Getting arrested for something and having to give birth in shackles again, or having to leave Killian behind as she and their little bean were forced to leave Storybrooke and forgetting him as soon as she crossed the town line.

Weekly sessions with Archie helped, but in the middle of the night when it was just the two of them they didn’t talk much about the dreams themselves, they just held each other and found other ways to take shelter from storms made of memories and regrets.

She held Killian and hummed to him under her breath, softly at first, the same tune she’d once hummed into a cassette recorder as a forgotten child living in a shitty group home in Minnesota. The song was still in her heart and she drew on it again, but it wasn’t for herself this time, it was for her sailor, lost at sea and seeking his way back home.

“I’ll be your candle on the waterMy love for you will always burnI know you’re lost and driftingBut the clouds are lifting

Don’t give up, you have somewhere to turn.”

The flame flickered and bounced, light spilling across the bed as Killian’s shoulders started to relax and the lingering tension from his nightmare drained away while Emma sang a song she hadn’t quite remembered and never really forgotten.

“A cold and friendless tide has found you,Don’t let the stormy darkness pull you down.I’ll paint a ray of hope around you,Circling in the air, lighted by a prayer.

“I’ll be your candle on the water,This flame inside of me will grow.Keep holding on, you’ll make it,Here’s my hand, so take it.

Look for me reaching out to show,As sure as rivers flow,

Killian joined in on the final verse, his forehead resting against hers as the magic that bound them let them share the song and their voices mixed together in a promise to each other and to their little bean, held between them and loved, so loved already.

I’ll never let you go,I’ll never let you go,ll never let you go.”

#cs fic #cs ff #my fic #cs one shot #excuse to reference a lot of my fave movies in this

111 notes · View notes

thefloatingstone · 5 years

Note

Hey C-Puff! So I know I keep saying that I love your taste, but I'm curious, what would you consider essential scifi movie viewing?

Oof! (and thank you! 8DD) It really depends what kind of mood you’re in. Because “sci fi” is essentially a weird genre, because it can be mushed with literally any other genre and still work without straying too far from the ‘sci fi’ concept. Sci fi is a genre the same way fantasy is a genre or horror is a genre. You can make a horror-comedy or a fantasy comedy, but you can’t make a drama-comedy (At least without some major tonal dissonance). So it REALLY depends what you feel like watching or what mood you’re in or what tolerance level you have in some aspects.

I can list a few though which I feel are super essential viewing but are vastly different from each other. I’m not gonna give a full summary break down of each one because it’ll take me like 3 hours to write (these things take a while sometimes) but I’ll give a little indication!

Edit: oops…. I ended up spending 4 hours writing this….

1: Alien (1979)(Sci-Fi horror)

These days the Alien franchise seems to automatically = Xenomorphs. So it can be hard to remember the very first movie that not only started the franchise but literally changed sci fi as a genre, you barely see the Xenomorph on screen, and when you DO the film does its best to hide what it actually looks like with lighting, camera angles and editing. Because the first movie’s Alien costume was not really good, and the movie had a VERY small budget comparatively speaking. So it literally has the opposite goal of trying to show off the xenomorph as much as possible.

Originally sold as “Jaws but in space”, the whole idea of the film was “What if you were a bunch of truckers in the middle of space and nowhere to run, and something unknown started picking you off one by one. Where can you run? Who can you contact? What can you do?”

The original’s entire focus is on fear. From long sequences of Ripley running where it’s filmed facing her so you can’t see “behind you” as the audience to instill paranoia, to hearing what sounds like extreme amounts of gore off screen where you can’t see it, the entire film is designed to be terrifying.

It’s difficult to remember that with what the franchise is known for today.

Also noteworthy is that so much of what is Alien came from Jodorowsky’s “Dune” which was never made, but nevertheless still achieved Jodorowsky’s goal of changing sci fi forever.

2: Blade Runner (1982)(Sci-Fi Noir)

in 2012, Ridley Scott said in an interview; “30 years ago, I saw the future”.

As far as I am aware, the first movie to ask the question “where exactly does ‘being human’ start or end?” regarding robots. The original Blade Runner is filmed in a way to replicate a 1940s style crime noir story, complete with brooding detective and femme fatale. However, it is set in the FAR OFF FUTURE of 2019.

The story follows our detective, known as a “Blade Runner” chasing down a specific class of robot which is illegal on Earth (but used in off-planet labour deemed too dangerous for human work) after the model number started a riot on one of these off-world labour camps. Detective Decker is tasked in finding and “retiring” a group of robots recently landed in futuristic Los Angeles, especially since the robot group is tracking down and murdering the designers in charge of creating their line.

However, the further Decker investigates things, the more uncomfortable questions he finds himself asking. How are these robots so much more different than us humans? What are their motives? Are they really just machines gone berserk? Or is there something very very human they are trying to achieve.

A film that exploded in Japan and essentially caused every anime between 1982 and 1995 to be in some way a Blade Runner fanfic, it changed the genre even more than Alien did. This time letting philosophical questions and atmosphere do most of the work, as the cyberpunk aesthetic of future Los Angeles was as important a character to the story as any of the human players. It was the first time we truly saw Cyberpunk, and literally EVERYTHING we consider “Cyberpunk” these days came from this movie’s direction and cinematography.

Watch the Director’s cut. DO NOT watch the Theatrical version. The Theatrical version was forced to add narration to the long stretches of silence as the movie distributor thought audiences would be too stupid to handle a movie with so little dialogue in it. The Director’s Cut is how the film was meant to be watched, doing away with all the needless talking and letting the film’s visuals and music speak for itself.

3: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)(Sci-Fi Mystery)

Yes yes I’m biased because it’s my favourite movie. But even if it wasn’t it’s an essential film to watch in the Sci-Fi genre.

Some people will think E.T. holds this title, but E.T. came out 5 years AFTER Close Encounters and so, Close Encounters is one of the first movies if not THE first movie that came out and asked… “What if the Aliens came and were our friends?” Because up until this point, All the “Big-Eyed Grey Aliens in Flying Saucers” movies portrayed them as invaders trying to take over the planet. And the sci fi stories and movies that DIDN’T have this narrative, the aliens were always human looking (Star Trek, The Day the Earth Stood Still etc)

And so, this is one of the first movies that suggested that maybe the weird looking space aliens from another planet who look nothing like us could be our allies. Would want to speak to us. Would want to know us.

Not that the movie is full of love and friendship. in some places it feels more like a horror movie than anything else. But that’s because the film thinks its audience is smart, and it doesn’t have to have a character EXPLAIN things to us. We can understand what’s happening by WATCHING. And if something is strange and doesn’t make sense, it either will by the end of the film thanks to context, or it was never that important to understand anyway.

Also a giant part of the film’s power and influence comes from its visuals, but even more importantly, its soundtrack which I can’t communicate in a gif. And so I am left linking a trailer.

I think it says a lot that it was THIS movie, not Star Wars, that helped the first Star Trek movie to be made a few years later, and with that, helped give us Star Trek TNG. Not bad.

(You can watch any of the 3 cuts of the film. I’m most familiar with the Director’s Cut so that’s my fave and what I would recommend but I haven’t heard of any of the 3 cuts being “the bad one”)

youtube

4: Total Recall (1990)(Sci-Fi Action)

It was only a matter of time before Arnie showed up on this list, being in no less than 3 Sci-Fi game changers in the 80s and 90s.

What makes Total Recall Unique, however, is that we have Paul Verhoeven as director, who likes movies that have a little more to say than “Arnie shoots a bunch of bullets at things” (as great as that is, don’t get me wrong) And I think the fact that people will STILL debate this movie says a lot about it.

The story is set in the far future, where normal construction worker Arnie is bored with his normal life (which is weird considering he’s built like a truck and married to Sharon Stone but I’m not here to judge). He’s been having reoccurring dreams about going to Mars, as well as a strange woman he meets there. One day while traveling home on the subway, he sees an ad for a copany called “Rekall” who can use a sort of brain implant machine to give you instantaneous fake memories. Basically, you can take a vacation that lasts 6 months in your memories within the span of 10 minutes real time.

Arnie’s character decides to visit, and asks that his fantasy take place on Mars, and describes the woman he meets there. However, during the fake memory implant something goes wrong. VERY wrong. The machine drags up suppressed memories Arnie has of being a sleeper agent, put on Earth until needed, as well as images he’s been seeing in his dreams. The Rekall employees have to sedate him and send him home, refunding him for the poor experience.

However, Arnie can no longer just forget what the machine dragged up from his subconscious, and starts to question if his life really is his life. If his wife really IS his wife. (after all…. Someone who looks like Sharon Stone married to a construction worker who looks like Mr Universe living in a very cushy apartment? Something doesn’t add up.)

Arnie finds himself suddenly dragged into a massive conspiracy plot revolving around Mars, the corrupt governor running it, the rebellion and its mysterious revolutionary, as well as who the hell WAS he before he was who he is now?

That’s the movie’s plot at least. But as many people who watch the movie has pointed out, despite the movie itself never making a point of it, funny how all this adventure and conspiracy hits Arnie right after he’s plugged in to a fantasy machine at Rekall. Convenient.

Nobody to do with the film has given a straight answer as to how real the movie’s events are supposed to be, and film fans have been arguing to this day of it was all real as the movie shows it to be… or a meta narrative.

5: Robocop (1987)(Sci-fi Satire)

The movie that very almost got an X rating for its violence, also directed by Paul Verhoeven and even more biting in its meta-narrative than Total Recall.

The STORY of the movie is that future Detroit is a complete shithole so full of crime that the police force just can’t keep up. After a police officer named Murphy is blasted to fuck, his corpse is used by the CPO company to create a “robotic law enforcer” meant to be put on the street to handle crime. Robocop is his name, and if he proves to be effective, CPO is planning to mass produce them. During the course of the film, however, Murphy learns to regain his humanity through the help of his police partner, and uncover the scrupulous CPO company’s hand in the city’s crime wave.

So that’s the STORY of Robocop… but it’s not what Robocop is “About”.

Robocop is essentially an enormous criticism of Corporate America in a way that’s basically come true since the movie came out. Robocop is one of those rare movies that is BETTER now than it was when it came out.

OCP is essentially Apple or basically any current American company. Focused on rushing out products for the good press it’ll give them before ironing out the problems and bugs, and taking MASSIVE and inhumane shortcuts in development to meet a deadline, uncaring who gets hurt in the process.

This message is further highlighted by the fake commercials peppered into the movie, a very clear criticism of everything from America’s extreme focus on its military and racism of other countries, American manufacturer’s disregard for what is environmentally safe in favour of “Status Symbols” in its fuel guzzling cars, America’s obsession with defending people’s ownership through unethical violence, Medical and health advertised on television like a luxury product, as well as just the inane meaningless garbage that is/was American television.

youtube

As a native of the Netherlands, Verhoeven pours so much cynicism and criticism towards American culture, both in the jokes as well as the core theme of the movie, that the film as a whole is less “Watch Robocop shoot his handcanon at bad guys” and more a dystopian nightmare, and finding humanity in it despite it all.

The only movie to top Robocop in its criticism of American culture would be “Starship Troopers” also directed by Verhoeven. But that movie is so depressing I almost can’t even reccomend it, despite it being GENIUS.

It’s the movie where the human race wins a war against giant bug aliens… and that’s the worst ending that could happen.

6: Enemy Mine (1985)(Sci-Fi drama)

*leans forward and smiles at you* hey there, friend. Do you like aliens? Do you like enemies to friends to lovers? Do you like found families? Do you like “Racism is bad” narratives? Do you like non-binary aliens who have no gender? Do you like romantic undertones between non-binary aliens played by a male actor and a cis white dude also played by a male actor?

Because BOY DO I HAVE THE MOVIE FOR YOU.

You think I’m joking with that description…. I am not. Not even a fucking little.

I very rarely see anybody talk about “Enemy Mine” and that’s a fucking crime because this movie is friggen AMAZING. The fact that it exists at all, let alone was made in the 80s is borderline absurd.

The movie takes place in the future. Humanity is in an intergallactic war with an alien race called the Dracs. Battles and skirmishes between the two races explode throughout the galaxy on various planets whenever the two species run into each other, and we follow our human main character Davidgewho, during a spaceship confrontation with the Drac, crash lands on an uninhabited planet, along with the Drac pilot named Jeriba Shigan.

The planet they crash on is a violent world battered by meteors and storms, which forces the two pilots to seek shelter in a cave near their crash site (and there was only one cave!). Despite them both needing shelter, the two absolutely despise each other, completely prepared to kill the other one the second they make a move. It’s a tense and paranoid stand off where each one waits for the other to move first. Neither of them do.

They find out that the planet is sometimes used by human miners for its rare ore (who use captured Drac as slave labour) but they only visit the planet periodically when the years- long bad weather settles. And so, Davidge decides to wait for rescue, despite knowing it may take several years before any human comes to the planet. Until then, he just has to survive and NOT get killed by the Drac he’s sharing the cave with.

So… the two wait. And a weird truce is called. And they wait… and time passes… and with literally no other life to turn to for company… well…. they start talking. First spitting and insulting each other. Then, slowly, learning more about each other. Then, slowly, sharing cultural information with each other, learning about their different species, learning about what each’s species have been telling them about the other. And well…. after several years… it becomes very hard to see the only living person you have been talking to for years as an enemy.

And then, after a while, Jeriba (nicknamed “Jerry” by Davidge) brings up a tiny problem.

He’s pregnant.

Davidge asks how the fuck that’s possible. Jerry explains his race has no gender or binary sex, and they produce asexually. So… ok…. Now you’ve got an alien you don’t FULLY trust who is pregnant and going to have a baby on this hostile planet.

…..oops.

Also, as time goes on another problem arises. The humans who will eventually show up to mine this planet use Drac as slave labour. This wasn’t ORIGINALLY a problem…. but it’s kinda become a problem now.

This movie is fucking amazing and nobody talks about it. Go watch it. Although be prepared for tears and feelings.

7: Galaxy Quest (1999)(Sci-Fi Comedy)

In modern day America (or rather 1999 America) there use to be a show called “Galaxy Quest” which DEFINITELY WAS NOTHING LIKE STAR TREK OK???

It was a very big show, but it eventually got cancelled. However, it is still considered a massively popular and influential tv show, enough to have its own conventions and dedicated fanbase. (AGAIN. IT’S NOT STAR TREK STOP SAYING THAT!)

The actors who starred in it many years ago now struggle to get work in other roles which they all deal with in different ways. Our Kirk Character played by Tim Allan is an egocentric selfish asshole who bathes in the “glory” of his role as the captain, despite it having been years, in complete denial that he’s a has-been and the fact that none of the other cast like him. Our Spock character is played by Alan Rickman who wants to know where his life went wrong. He use to be a REAL actor. He use to star in Shakespear plays. How did it come to this? He hates all of you. As well as Sigourney Weaver who had the important role of “Sexy Girl” in the show (a fact she resents) and a handful of others.

One day at a convention, they are approached by some super awkward and weird cosplayers, who ask them in-character if they could help their alien species, the Thermians, who are getting decimated by a warrior race lead by a General Sarris. As the Thermians are peaceful and have no experience in battles, they’ve come to ask the “Crew of the Starship Protector” to aid them. Alan Rickman agrees, believing it to be a promotional gig, and signs up his co-stars (only telling them after the fact which they resent him for)

The next day they play out their roles as they did on the show rather unenthusiastically, ordering the Thermians to simply shoot at General Sarris to defeat him, and then take them home.

Things turn complicated tho when the Thermians show up again and say “uhm… it didn’t exactly work. general Sarris is still alive and killing out people.”

And then our motley crew find out… the Thermians are NOT actors. They are in fact a real alien race. An alien race who are unfamiliar with the concept of “lying”. Their species had picked up the radio waves from the Galaxy Quest TV show and, believing it to be a historical record, modeled their entire civilization after the show. And now they need the crew of the “Protector” to help them in the face of this threat that could wipe them out as a species.

So our washed-out has-been actors find themselves pretending to really be their characters in a real space mission to save an alien race. Which is kind of a problem considering they have no idea what they’re doing at any point during this adventure.

8: Terminator 2 (1991)(Sci-Fi action)

I could have put the first Terminator movie on here… but I didn’t. Beause although both are excellent I personally prefer the second one. You don’t really need to have seen the first one to understand the second one either. I saw the second one first and it’s pretty easy to follow since the first movie’s plot wasn’t that complex.

10 or so years ago, Sarah Conner was visited by a time traveler who revealed he was from the future, and that in 1997 an AI known as “Skynet” would launch all the world’s nukes, causing the human race to almost become extinct. But Sarah Conner is the mother who will one day give birth to John Connor, the human rebel leader who will one day vanquish the machines. The machines know this, and Skynet sent back a robot called a “Terminator” to kill Srah Connor before she can give birth to humanity’s last hope.

Fast forward to this movie, Sarah Connor has been put in a mental institution (for rather obvious reasons) and her son, John Connor now 10 years old, lives with his aunt and uncle and is what we call a “problem child”. With no father figure in his life and his mom “going nuts”, John is a kid who smokes, steals bikes and is constantly in trouble. Then, one day, a robot from the future shows up to kill him. An advanced NEW kind of terminator sent by the machines, made of liquid metal, it is another attempt by the machines to kill John Connor before he can grow up to be the rebel leader.

This time however, Humanity has sent someone else to protect John. The exact same model of Terminator who tried to kill his mother, repurposed and reprogrammed to protect John from this lethal machine.

John, being a child, has to cope with the fact that not only is a killer robot trying to murder him, but ALSO his “nuts” mom turned out to be right. And he also starts developing a weird relationship with the robot sent to protect him. Looking for some kind of father figure to fill that hole in his life.

Although the first Terminator might have been more impactful in terms of visuals and ideas, the second Terminator is the one people remember as a movie. This is where “Hasta La Vista Baby” come from. This is where “Made from Liquid Metal” comes from. This is where THIS comes from

and where this comes from

and this

I don’t know if I can call it a BETTER movie than the first Terminator… …except it kinda is…. And one of the very few sequels where it ended up having more of a cultural impact than its predecessor.

9: Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan (1982)(True Sci-Fi)

One upon a time there was a show called “Star Trek”. It then had a movie which did kinda of ok at the box office but many thought was rather boring.

And then they made Star Trek 2.

Set several years after the original show, where all the main characters are off living different lives. Kirk is an admiral working on Earth behind a desk. Spock is a training instructor to students who will one day be pilots and crewmembers in the Federation. The rest of the Enterprise’s former crew are all scattered across the Federation, either on Earth or on other Starships.

Far off in space, a Federation ship is looking for a dead planet to test a brand new technologcal creation called the “Genesis Device”. While doing so, they find Khan and his crew, who 15 years ago were left on a lifeless planet by Kirk after they tried to take over the Enterprise for use in Khan’s mad plans revolving around Genetic engineering. Khan and his crew take over the ship and learn of this “Genesis Device” with its power to destroy all life when unleashed on a living plan. Khan only has one goal in his mind; Revenge.

While on a 3 week long training mission under Kirk and Spock, the Enterprise picks up a distress signal, and go to investigate.

This movie honestly has no right to be as good as it is. Even if you have 0 knowledge of Star Trek (as I did when I first watched it) it makes complete and perfect sense on its own, and its extremely easy to understand what’s happening and why. It helps if you’re familiar with the characters, but the film on its own portrays their friendships and relationships with each other so perfectly that you completely buy every scene with them together, and WHY they’re friends. And how LONG they’ve been friend, without having to watch seasons and seasons worth of episodes to catch up. You don’t even need to watch the first Star Trek movie.

The film is a story about revenge… but it’s main core theme is about grief. Grief in many forms. Khan’s grief over the death of his wife which he blames Kirk for and his burning fiery hatred. Kirk’s grief as an aging space captain, unable to cope with himself growing old and the fact that he never truly learned how to handle loss, as someone who ALWAYS believes there is a way to save the day. Grief over lost relationships with his ex-lover and a grown son he never knew about and lost an entire relationship with.

Despite being about spaceships in space shooting at each other and long drawn out tension filled scenes between Kirk and Khan, it’s a movie about mortality, and the need to face it.

10: The Last Starfighter (1988)(Sci-Fi Adventure)

I could have put many things down for “Sci Fi movie about having an adventure”. I could have put ET or Explorers or Flight of the Navigator, but I decided to put The Last Starfighter. Even though ET may be the better known adventure film, it’s also the movie most people will have already seen, and Flight of the Navigator might look better, but it’s story is far weaker. So Last Starfighter it is.

In backwoods tiny-ass American town there lives completely normal teenager Alex Rogan. He doesn’t have that much going for him. He lives in a trailer with his mom and younger brother and has just recently had a scholarship rejection. Frustrated with his life and with little else to do in the trailer park, Alex spends most of his time playing the only arcade machine called “The Frontier”. After a lot of play and effort, Alex manages to get the high score on the machine.

After doing so, he is approached by the creator of the machine called Centauri, who is there to offer him a ride in his fancy car as a prize for holding the grand score. Having been taunted by the other teens around the area, Alex decides to take Centauri up on his offer, only to get abducted. And not in the “Teenager kidnapped by a creep” kind of way, but the alien kind of way.

It turns out there is a very real intergalactic war going on between Rylan Star League and the Ko-Dan Empire. And the arcade machine had been placed on Earth as a sort of recruitment tool for new pilots to fly for Rylan Star League.

Given the chance to actually have something happen in his Life, Alex has to learn how to be a Starfighter with the help of Centauri who reveals himself to be an alien, and the rest is simpy fighting the Ko-Dan Empire and saving the day.

Most notably, The Last Starfighter’s space battles were all done using early CG and it has… .not exactly aged that well tbh.

But is still incredibly impressive for 1988 and helped paved the way for special effects, leading to their peak in Jurassic Park in 1993. But although the CG might be why the movie is important to the genre on a technical level, the reason most people remember this movie is nostalgia in its purist form.

Who wouldn’t want to be so good at a video game that aliens come and give you a spaceship and ask you to save the galaxy?

I personally find the scenes on Earth without the CG to be the better parts of the movie, but it does what it sets out to do. To be a sci fi adventure film for teenagers and kids to watch and enjoy and see the hero win. Uncomplicated, fun, and easy to digest as a movie.

I was gonna leave it at that but I gotta add one more

11: 2010: The Year we make Contact (1984)(pure Sci-Fi)

in 1968, a year before America landed on the moon, Stanley Kubrick made the groundbreaking movie “2001: a Space Odyssey”. The movie is a sort of horror movie in space, but also not quite. It tells the story of an enormous black rectangular monolith being found on the moon in the year 2001. Upon human astronauts touching it, it sends off a signal into space. Not long afterwards, another monolith, this one more than several kilometers in size appears orbiting Jupiter.

A crew of 5 men and an AI computer are sent to investigate. But the AI, called the HAL 9000 goes mad and kills off all the crew except for one, named David Bowman, who takes the HAL 9000 offline before leaving the spaceship and entering the Monolith.

The original movie is a masterwork of film, suggesting that the monoliths are responsible for jumpsarting human evolution. But it is also a very SLOW film. Famously taking 40 minutes before the first line of dialogue is spoken. And its horror of distrusting computers maybe be seen as rather old fashioned by today’s standards.

Then in 1984 they made a sequel. 2010 takes place 9 years after the first movie (obviously). Several American astronauts and scientists are approached and recruited for a secret mission joint sponsored by America and the Soviet Union. Their mission is to travel to the long abandoned space station, find what information was retrieved from the monolith, and try and discover what caused the HAL 9000 to malfunction. Time is of the essence as the abandoned space station will crash on Jupiter’s moon Io soon. The Soviets want to know what caused the disaster, but they need the Americans’ help to get into the space station, and an uneasy joint mission is formed, lead by Dr Floyd who was in charge of NASA when the original disaster occurred and had since been disgraced, but who would prove the best person to find out what happened to cause the disaster.

The movie, although perhaps slow by modern standards, moves at a much better pace than the original, and although you could say its plot is more basic, it’s also easier to follow and understand. There are moments of extreme tension from multiple areas. Reactivating the HAL 9000 and having to try and NOT repeat whatever it was that caused it to murder the original crew. The time limit before the space station is set to crash on Io, the mystery of what happened to David Bowman. The presence of the silent monolith orbiting Jupiter. And the seemingly unimportant political differences between the American crew and the Russian crew, despite being hundreds of thousands of miles away from Earth.

It also has some of the most incredible space cinematography I’ve seen in a film. Rather than the modern depiction of space in movies as a swirl of navy and stars and colourful nebulas, the space of 2010 is pitch black, with endless stars and enormous looming planets in the foreground, and nothing but a wall between you and the endless void.

Anyway those are my reccomendations.

Please consider donating to my kofi…. this took like 4 or 5 hours to write.

☕️Buy me a Ko-fi ☕️

#C-Puff answers #long ass post #Sci fi #movies #film recommendations #aurora-bloorealis

47 notes · View notes

twiststreet · 5 years

Photo

I read the extremely-celebrated first volume of Bitter Root.

It’s successful by the standards of current comics. The current standard: just have a really, really great high concept that resonates on both a simplistic genre level and that has some ultra-basic political moralizing that you can’t really “disagree” with, without exposing yourself as being retrograde, and thus easily dismissed; executing on that high concept is *completely optional.* That’s Maneaters, that’s Bitch Planet, that’s Bitter Root, anyways.

The high concept: during the Harlem Renaissance, a black family of monster-fighters takes on the worst monsters there are -- WHITE DEVILS. White people who do racism magically transform into devils that the black characters punch or shoot or some shit.

That’s a successful concept under the current rules of engagement. And that’s all you need; again, execution is optional. Whee! Maneaters had no noticeable craft to it whatsoever-- the execution was embarrassing, plus, boy, the creators sure seemed to mistreated their readers, that ugly business with the tweets. Bitch Planet, my memory’s not great, it’s been a while, but I just remember there being an unusual amount of football or soccer or something in there...? An unexpected quanta of foozball.

Bitter Root, past the premise, it’s just sort of a 90′s Cliffhanger comic (e.g. Dangers Girls or Battle Chasers), though without a Cliffhanger comic’s open horniness. It’s trying to do a shonen thing-- the characters face a bad guy, but don’t get around to defeating the bad guy but oh no there’s a worse bad guy on the horizon. The bulk of the 123 pages is just a single chaotic monster fight that just goes on and on and on and on, and all takes place in a single night. Didn’t feel like they had to move that story forward too fast, I guess! Just wanted to take their time... I don’t know-- I just get bored when I can tell a comic’s not going to get around to attempting to tell a story anytime soon, but I guess I’m out-of-touch that way.

(TV tried to pace things like that for a minute, and then a bunch of them figured out like “if we do that, people will stop watching.” Comics as a whole just dug their heels in on slow pacing and simultaneously jacked up the prices, which ... you have to admire the stubbornness at least!).

I mean, there’s nothing wrong with 90′s Cliffhanger or with shonen. But the reviews for this are so orgiastic-- like the book has one guy who’s like more of a Wolverine/Blade type character (but who really doesn’t do anything that cool past issue #1 or 2!), or as one review put it: “It's a deliberate callback to the debates of civil disobedience versus militarism during the Civil Rights movement... or the more recent debates between discourse and more harsh responses in today's fights against white nationalism. Bitter Root is a fun book, Bitter Root is a smart book, and most importantly Bitter Root is a necessary book for today's world.” *A necessary book for today’s world!* It’s a fight comic about monsters...!

Plus, the trade comes with like 7 essays about how the publication of Bitter Root is the most important thing to happen to all black people since Nino Brown got shot down. It’s not that the comic’s bad exactly (except for one character who they just give thesaurus words to-- comic people love to do that and it always sucks)(Frank Miller did that in a Sin City; I’d hazard to guess 90% of crime comics have had a “guy who owns a dictionary” character at some point-- it’s like the Opposite of Wally Wood’s 22 panels that always work). But it’s mostly not bad. It’s just... Seems pretty inessential. Good drawings-- fun art to look at. Interesting coloring though sometimes some pretty curious choices with the lighting (like what’s going on in this panel with the girl’s face???). A couple cool lines of dialogue here and there, though an awful lot of the dialogue involves some character or another saying “I’ve seen this before! I’ve seen this before and yet do not feel compelled to tell you when or where or what we did about it!” Plus, some storytelling choices I wondered about-- like, I think one issue ends on a cliffhanger of a character getting sucked into hell, but rather than let that have any dramatic weight, they show you that character’s fine on the NEXT page (fatally undercutting that character’s later “resurrection” having any zazzle to it whatsoever...).

None of the characters really make an impression beyond their half-sentence "logline.” It’s an Image comic, so you know: the joke we all make is those are all TV / Movie pitches. So the girl character being “a girl who wants to fight even though society is like don’t fight you’re a girl” and not being anything even one iota more than that... You can kinda look at that and go, “well they didn’t need more than that for a pitch.” I picked out this panel of art (above) because of that line about “the big bad” which is like a 90′s Joss Whedon show term. They’re having their characters in a Harlem period piece use Joss Whedon Writer’s Room lingo!!!! That sort of nerd shorthand spoke immediately to me about what kind of comic this was, who it was meant for, the limits of its ambitions...

And you know, maybe that’s unfair because this feels really influenced by manga and manga has certainly a particular rhythm that while it resembles television, isn’t... doesn’t feel inorganically arrived at(?); it feels true to the creators. But. I guess what’s in my head is: with manga, the characters are the content. With Cliffhanger comics, the art was the content. When Cliffhanger was coming out, there was also Vertigo at its peak-- there, the story/aesthetics were the content. Here, with these Image books, I just always end up sitting here feeling like the concept is the content, which is ... there’s no motivation to keep reading when that’s the case! But I’m not you know... I’m not a very giving or generous reader, either, so. I know that about myself at this point so...

(Tangent: Larry Fishburne was doing a podcast that was set around this same era, but in Chicago that... At least had Larry Fishburne’s voice in it... but no monsters-- I mean, it’s an interesting era if you think about... like that argument Killer Mike makes about black businesses and the black dollar pre-desegregation, an economic environment which Fishburne’s podcast I think touched on more, whereas this comic doesn’t really... doesn’t really dig into Harlem or the period at all, as it’s too busy being exclusively about a 100+ page single fight with some monsters...)

As for the thematic content that gets people so inspired-- ehhh. I don’t know. I mean, think on Milestone for a second. To me what made Milestone so remarkable when it was coming out-- the thing that always struck me-- a lot of those books weren’t awesome to look at or read sometimes; I never dug the colors; but... In my memory of them, at least (perhaps rose-colored?), they actually embraced diversity in a really dedicated way. Milestone I think recognized the diversity that existed within races themselves, so you’d have ... black superheros who were conservative Republicans, while other black superheros were scrappy nerdy kids, while the black characters who were in a street gang had their own worldviews that were diametrically opposed to the other two, or. I mean, they didn’t just focus on the black experience-- they had Xombi in there which I really loved; Hispanic characters; et cetera. Or they’d do a miniseries but it’d be about Holocaust, the bad guy in the evil black gangs.

Part of what Milestone tried to explode was the idea that only some model minority got to be a superhero or was uniquely part of the American experience moreso than any other minority. Whereas this Bitter Root is instead about like ... This one special family where everyone is more awesome than the rest of the community... So, yeah: ehhhh. By comparison that feels significantly less-than.

Or for me, this felt like it was speaking to the sort of modern internet-fave notion that only white people can be racist. That horseshit about “only white people can be racist because of the power differential” or whatever...? I think that whole argument is just pretty dopey, personally. I don’t get down with that talk anyways, though it has its utility and places where it’s appropriate. (I mean, the argument at least suggests that its audience consider power structures and institutionalized racism, I suppose, but).

But I found Bitter Root’s project to be one that was ... celebratory; meant to “give black audiences the fantasy genre experience they’ve been waiting for.” Which I guess is powerful for people-- that reaction to Black Panther suggests that, say. I've just had a hard time understanding that as an end goal. For me, being Indian-American, I was more struck by something like Master of None, when that came out, the experience of ... recognizing its world, of being able to finally feel that the world it was set in and talking about was finally closer to the world I lived in. As opposed to it handing me some power fantasy for lame Indian boys (besides the fantasy of being good at making pasta which... actually that part got to me a lot but)... I don’t remember being young enough to remember if an “Indian-American-specific power fantasy” was a desire I ever had; I remember wanting to be whichever X-Men got to do sex with Kitty Pryde, not an Indian-American X-Men, you know? But even if I did want a more racially-specific power fantasy back then, I’m glad that desire wasn’t one that was indulged! I mean, when has giving kids power fantasies ever worked out okay for them? People who like power fantasies too much seem all fucked up by those things, except for when I watch low-grade Japanese porno, then thumbs up. Like, we’re supposed to believe if we give little minority children power fantasies they’ll all end up in NASA, but my experience tells me they’ll just end up shouting at minority girls for “trying to steal X-Shaft away from them” or whatever the hell...

Anyways, it’s a good looking comic, though, and it’s not un-entertaining. It deserves some level of praise. And if it got more than that, heck, great. What’s the harm, I guess? People were all excited today about a $6 X-Men comic. (Or $6 on Comixology at least). So I mean, what’s the harm if Bitter Root gets talked up, I guess...? It’s fine. I mean, I guess it’s fine. Fine. I don’t know. There was a nice page where two characters talk while a different set of characters talk in caption boxes, while a bird flies around between the two sets of conversations. I liked that page, I guess. I don’t think this one’s just my kind of thing though... I was into some of the drawings, but just... It just went on a bit without really just moving shit forward, I think was just the part that rankled more than anything...

Sorry to ramble on and on. Strange few weeks at work-- been needing to blow off steam I guess...

#Worst Hobby or Worstest Hobby?

10 notes · View notes

howling--fantods · 6 years

Text

i was tagged by @parkliferobyn THANK YOU!!! <33333 i’m gonna leave out the big 3 (blur [including gorillaz and graham], u2, bruce) bc i feel like you all know the answers anyways :)

Rules: List ten bands that you like and then answer the following questions.

1. Happy Mondays/Black Grape 2. The Fall 3. Pavement 4. Noel Gallagher 5. The Replacements 6. The Jesus & Mary Chain 7. Echo & The Bunnymen 8. Kraftwerk 9. The Wedding Present 10. The Chameleons

Questions:

What’s the first song you heard by 6? (The Jesus & Mary Chain) I think the first song I heard and consciously knew was them was probably “Sidewalking” bc John Peel played it a lot, but I am sure I had heard “Just Like Honey” before that. It honestly might have been their cover of “My Girl” bc I heard that on John Peel too.

What’s your favourite song by 8? (Kraftwerk) I have been in love with “Europe Endless” since the moment I heard it, and it will always be special to me bc of Ellis. Also “Franz Schubert” is gorgeous and I’m currently in love with “Ohm Sweet Ohm.”

What kind of impact has 1 had on you? (Happy Mondays/Black Grape) I actually think they had a huge impact on me subliminally. When I worked at Starbucks, one of our regulars, Louis, also loved U2 and I would burn him copies of all the remastered U2 albums and he would burn me CDs of bands he loved in high school in the 80s, which included the Waterboys, Joy Division, the Stone Roses, the Wonder Stuff, and Happy Mondays. At that time I pretty much only listened to Bruce and U2. I was immediately intrigued by Happy Mondays bc they sounded so unlike anything I’d heard and just so odd. When I think back on it now, they were the first band I got into that is like a lot of the stuff I still find the most interesting today. They also were included on The World’s End soundtrack and I was so excited that I listened to it a lot, and that kinda set the foundation for me getting more into britpop and Blur. :)

What are your favourite lyrics by 5? (The Replacements) Umm god, all of “Androgynous” and “Alex Chilton” hmmm but also “hold my life, until I’m ready to use it” from “Hold My Life” and god, “the ones who love us best, are the ones we’ll lay to rest, the ones who love us least, are the ones we’ll die to please” from “Bastards of Young.” Yeah, those are good ones.

How many time have you seen 4 live? (Noel Gallagher) Three times! Once on the Chasing Yesterday tour and twice for Who Built The Moon?

What’s your favourite song by 7? (Echo & the Bunnymen) SPARE US THE BUTTER!! sorry, um “The Cutter” and also “Gods Will Be Gods”

Is there a song by 3 that makes you sad? (Pavement) YES! ALL OF THEIR SONSG MAKE ME SAD!! nahhh just kidding. “Here” makes me really sad bc it feels very emotionally real and also bc there is a cover of it at the end of the movie about David Foster Wallace. Also “Gold Soundz” bc it sounds like the ache of happier times and shit. Idk why their songs make me really emotional.

What’s your favourite song by 9? (The Wedding Present) UMM right now I’m obsessed with “Once More” but some other faves are “What Have I Said Now?” “Crawl” “Kennedy” and “Brassneck”

How did you get into 2? (The Fall) JOHN PEEL!!! Actually that isn’t true!! I got into them bc Mark E. Smith is on the Gorillaz song “Glitter Freeze” and I guess I heard something about them from research I was doing for that mod project bc that was when I watched a BBC documentary on them bc youtube suggested it. But I didn’t hear any of their songs until I started listening to John Peel. The first ones I heard were “Guest Informant!” “Kurious Oranj” and “New Big Prinz” I believe and I was already in love by the time I got halfway through “Kurious Oranj”

How did you get into 10? (The Chameleons) Greg told me to listen to them bc they are probably his favorite band ever. He said if I liked early U2 and Echo & the Bunnymen I would like them and that all three albums they made are perfect and he was right! :)

I’m gonna tag @beachsequence, @bonojour, @whitedeadflower, @the-achtung-babe, @themagicwhip, @lukelibrary, @dis-co-the-que, @left-the-porch, and @puttheghostinwriting, @shakingalltheway, and @explorerof-theunknown

#that was fun :)#tag post thing #me

19 notes · View notes

lokilickedme · 6 years

Note

Hello My Lady! Just because you asked, here are my faves of yours: #1 King (no surprise here), #2 Jack (too crazy not to love, and the stream crossing of pretty much all your stories is genius) #3 Chem/BD/TTW/TKH/TWK/can't remember them all. They're all special in their own way! Can't believe it'll be 3yrs soon since I started squatting your page!!! God time goes by fast! I'd like to add a special mention for the Muse Meetings, sooo funny, and a Golden Snowflake to Aleks. Cute little bumkin.

Thank you @fudgemuffinanon! Dear god, has it been that long? Seems like I joined up last year…*sits here blinking at my posts from 2015, wondering how that happened*

**LONG TEXT POST COMING UP**

You drew the lucky straw today my darling, I’m feeling wordy and in the mood to share. A lot of people have asked me over the last couple of years how some of my stuff came about, and you mentioned one that gets a lot of asks.

Lemme tell you something about the Muse Meetings. Way back in 1998 when I got my first computer, one of the very first things I ran across by way of internet fanfiction was a little something called The Very Secret Diaries penned by a writer named Cassandra Claire (who is now professionally published under the name Cassandra Clare). The Very Secret Diaries (which are hilarious, btw) woke something up in me - mainly because, as a lifelong writer who had never allowed anyone to read 95% of my work, I finally realized that yeah, there were other people out there whose brains deviated from the standard in the same way mine did. Her writing style back then (in the Diaries specifically, I’ve never actually read anything else she’s written) was very similar to the way I wrote, and those Diaries were exactly the sort of silly, ridiculous, irreverent thing I’d scribbled in my notebooks for most of my life. And people liked it, she had a huge following based on just those out-of-context glimpses of her characters’ personal thoughts. She was writing behind the scenes thoughts of characters, things that would never make it into books, and it was brilliant. That was the kind of stuff I loved to write but had never given myself permission to show anyone. She was showing hers to people, and they were loving it.

Which gave me the inspiration to not only put my work out there in the public eye for the first time ever, but to stick with my personal writing style (which I’d always assumed wasn’t what other people wanted to read, based on the books I’d been exposed to most of my life). Not change anything. Just do me. And doing me meant writing silly nonsense if I wanted to.

So - The Very Secret Diaries are more or less the inspiration for the Muse Meetings, or at least the official written version of them. I’d always imagined dialogues with my characters outside the confines of whatever story I was working on, but never thought anyone else would be interested in seeing me write it out.

The Diaries made me realize different. Not only were her characters yammering and complaining and snarking at each other (both out of character and in), they were doing it in exactly the way I’d imagined my own characters interacting in the real world. I loved it. Seeing someone else do what I’d always done in my head - and do it in an official, out-there-in-the-public-eye capacity, was a revelation. Finally I was able to give myself permission to write the way I wanted to, without restricting myself to the styles and methods in the books in the family library. It had always been in my head, but now it didn’t have to stay there. I could write proper stories, but I could also write what was going on in the other room, where the reader seldom gets to peek. And other people besides myself might like it because hey, there’s precedent.

That was freeing, and I am grateful to Ms Claire for that.

So, a little history that leads up to how and why I finally started writing out the Muse Meetings:

My first fandoms that I wrote for online were Harry Potter and Star Wars (Kenobi specifically). And yes, way back then (late 90′s - early 2000′s) there were already muse meetings among my characters. I’ve been doing these for a long time, and I wish the out-of-character stuff I’d written back then still existed (my HP stuff bit the dust when The Restricted Section shut down, and my SW stuff was on FF.net for a little while but honestly I don’t remember my user ID there or the titles of the fics, though I have searched…so they’re most likely lost as well). It’s sort of a shame because there were some old Anakin/Obi-Wan muse meetings that you guys would have loved…and the stuff between Remus and Sirius while we were hashing out what was going to be in their next chapter? It still pains me that it’s all lost, but maybe it’s for the best. That was nearly two decades ago, we move on to bigger and (hopefully) better things.

After my urge to write HP fic fizzled out I stopped writing for a while, but there were always muse meetings going on in my head for stories I scribbled mentally. To me they’ve always been more fun than the actual stories, which explains my love for gag reels and behind-the-scenes featurettes for movies (I watch those first, always).

And then I found AO3 - funnily enough, I discovered it while searching the internet for one of my lost HP fics - and I decided to start writing in earnest again. With all those thousands and thousands of fics and endless fandoms, it seemed like the perfect place to indulge my need to share what went on in my head. And as I settled into the MCU and my stories started to grow to include multitudes of characters, those impromptu staff meetings with my muses kept being called to order. Stuff that my characters would never say in the context of their stories got said. Scenarios that were too ridiculous to waste time writing were played out. Arguments and fights and bantering between characters who, in the restrictive confines of their own tales, would never in a million years interact…now they were throwing poptarts at each other (and occasionally knives) while the side characters wandered out of the room to watch TV or raid the fridge or sat in horror as someone’s until-now unassuming wife brandished a melon baller as a weapon.

It was messy and fun and was by far my favorite part of the writing process.

That’s what eventually became the Muse Meetings. You want to know how they escaped my head and became an official thing?

Well I’m gonna tell ya lol

One of my very first friends in here, the fantastic @elvenfair1, was one of my first readers at AO3 and she told me I should post links to my fics at this site called tumblr to bring in a bigger audience. So I opened an account here, followed her, posted some links as suggested, and she and I began messaging back and forth pretty much every night as we wrote our respective fics, bouncing ideas off each other and discussing plot points and brainstorming for character names. And as my characters sassed me and refused to cooperate with what I wanted them to do, I would tell elvenfair what was going on in my head with my dumbass OCs and OFCs and we’d laugh and gripe about trying unsuccessfully to reel in our unruly muses.

And then one night back in 2015 she said “You should post this muse stuff, it’s hilarious.”

You know what the first thing I thought was? Cassandra Claire did it 14 years ago and people loved it. So yeah, I can sure as hell do it if I want. If nobody is interested in it, at least it’ll amuse me and elvenfair and that’s cool enough.

And so I did. I started posting them in here first, then as people started requesting them more I eventually moved them to AO3 in a more structured format. And now you guys have multiple Lokis hurling curses at a bartender and viciously baiting a hapless movie star while teenage versions of two other attendees flirt with unsuspecting OFCs, with an occasional appearance by Thor dropping hints about future chapters and looking for fruit roll-ups. It’s messy, but it’s fun and I’ve always enjoyed writing it as a way to let my brain decompress, especially when one of my “real” stories has hit a roadbump.

Since then I’ve seen countless other professional writers doing the exact same thing - J.R. Ward even posts her own version of muse meetings on her official website AND has a published book (her Insiders Guide) that is almost entirely nothing BUT muse meetings. It’s surprising how many writers actually do this and I sometimes wonder if authors like Poe, Steinbeck, Vonnegut, Tolkien, Gaiman, McMurtry didn’t do it themselves (I’d bet money on McMurtry). Just goes to show there’s not an original idea anywhere in the universe…no matter how much you might believe you came up with it first, someone out there has been doing it for a long damn time before you - and a million more will do it after you :)

Anyway, I haven’t written any muse meetings in a while but they still go on constantly in my head. I get asked about once a week to go back to doing them, and one day I will, when I have time for it. My actual fics are struggling for writing time as it is and I made a conscious decision to weed out the unnecessary stuff in favor of “real work” (yeah right lol)…but yeah, the Meetings are still one of my favorite things and I won’t stop doing them permanently - they’ll be back.

So thank you Cassandra Claire for inspiring me to let them fly…if it weren’t for those whacked-out Diaries, the Muse Meetings would all still be in my head with only one person (me) laughing at them.

#fudgemuffinanon #long post #it's been a while since I got to talk to an adult IRL due to the kids being sick #so here have all the words at once lol

19 notes · View notes

sociallyawkward--fics · 6 years

Note

Did you do anything fun this weekend? I went over to my friends house, and we attempted to binge-watch all of Steven Universe (we failed). We also got to watch Infinity War, and it was absolutely amazing and i loved it and I cried and it was great (I mean, besides the fact that i didn't know who anyone was beyond Dr. Strange. My friend had to introduce everyone, but it was still great). -H

Nice!! And yeah, SU took me about a week to binge? It was during my vertigo issues early in the year, so I had entire days to waste on it and it still took a while. Despite the short episodes, there are many of them lol. And omg you gotta get on that Marvel stuff, kiddo. Infinity War didn’t even shine a candle to Black Panther (literally my new fave, I would die for Shuri), but I’m very relieved it was no Age of Ultron. It’s many, many hours, but just do what Dahlia and Thomas did and binge the movies lol. I would suggest chronologically, but you do you, my dude.

Also, aside from being somewhat exhausting, my weekend was pretty good!

Saturday night was prom, so I spent a good portion of the day (when I finally logged off tumblr lol) getting ready for that. I can post pics if y’all want (my mom put some of facebook and apparently I looked like a model??? Idk m8 I never thought I was very photogenic (or attractive in general), but my dad was good at directing my poses lol). We went to IHOP after and guess what? That friend that everyone is convinced that we’re dating? Even the waitress thought we were. It was a group of five of us, the real couple sat on one side of the table in the chairs, then I sat in the booth and there was a guy friend on either side of me. Honestly, idk what it is about the way me and that friends interact that makes everyone think we’re dating lol.

Then on Sunday, I had to finish editing my film for the film festival for all the high schools in my city. I thought it had been due last night by midnight, so I spent hours upon hours just editing (I hadn’t done that in so long, I almost forgot how exhausting yet fun it could be) the video (and then a trailer for it because if it was longer than 3 minutes it needed one, and I almost hit the 5 minute limit lol). I managed to get it in around 11:15, I spent about 10 hours editing? Maybe 11? Probably close to twelve, but not quite because I did take an hour break somewhere in there.

I sent it to my actors and they all told me they loved it and that I have a real talent, which made me feel really good, because I did basically every job there is to do on a film set for that project. I wrote it, I directed it, I was the camerawoman, I was lighting, I was the editor, I even had to act as an extra in it. I did it all, man, lol. My heart and soul went into that thing, it’s my baby.

But, see, now I’m gonna disappoint y’all because I’m not comfortable sharing it here because it has my real name attached to it, as well as the two high school film festivals it was submitted to so you would have my name, location and, school. I’ll let you know how the festivals, go, though! The small one for just my school is on Friday, and then the big one for all the local high schools is next Thursday.

Oh also! I know it’s not the weekend, but today I got some work done with writing my Big Bang finally, and if I get enough done by Wednesday/Thursday, I’m gonna stay in. I just wanna make sure I can finish first lol. (I’d say getting a couple pages done is pretty good considering I slept 2-3 hours last night and was so tired that when I was asking when our math test was this morning, I forgot the word “Friday” lol)

Anyway, I’m sorry, I ended up rambling again lol. I’m glad you had a good weekend!! Hope things continue to go well for you!

#ask #anon #H anon

2 notes · View notes

personher · 3 years

Text

Ateez based fluff and angst. Sorry it took so long to post. My tumbler wasn't working for the longest time. Anyways, enjoy! Also, near the middle to end, it gets a little suggestive. Nothing happens though, so don't worry!😁 Enjoy. This is the first two parts so, yeah. There will be a few parts. I don't know how many tho. Bye

Ateez-

I woke up to the sunlight hitting my eyes.

"Good Morning Y/N ." I hear Jong-ho say in a groggy voice. "You okay? You've been twisting and turning all night." "I'm fine." I said.

I got up to go to the bathroom. As soon as I stand up I feel a sharp pain in my top right abdomen. I whinced. "Aw shirt!"

"Are you okay!?!?" Jong-ho yelled. "Just fine." I lied, trying to hide the pain I was in. I go to the bathroom. I felt like throwing up, not to mention, I had been constipated.

Later, during breakfast, I wasn't even hungry. Everything hurt. This has been happening lately. My best friend, Jong-ho finally had a break from Ateez. He chose to spend some time with me so I didn't want to ruin it. My best friend deserved a great vacation and I was going to provide!

He came over last night to watch movies. I made him some dinner too. Today, we were gonna go to the pool and swim a little. Later we will go out for lunch at a restaurant. Then we will cuddle and watch more movies. Next, we have board and card games.

After skipping breakfast (witch I rarely skip) Jong-ho started to raise his suspicion. I figured I must just have a weird case of food poisoning. Not that big of a deal, right?

We got to the pool and just sat on the chairs for a while. It was nice for a while, until a full but fierce pain hit my top right abdomen. I won't say anything, I thought to myself, I'm not going to ruin this for him. We got into the pool, well, he got into the pool. I started to get up but It hurt waaaaaaaaaay to much.

"I'll just stay here. I don't want to get in just yet"

"But you said you couldn't wait to get in earlier!"

"That was earlier!" I fake laughed, trying to sound as convincing as possible. Trying to pass as fine was hard.

After and hour of just laying on the chairs, I finally got in the pool. It was almost 11 o'clock already and I didn't want to leave without taking a dip.

Jong-ho being the playful baby he is decided the he was gonna dunk me. His intentions were good but I was in a lot of pain so him moving me around wasn't the best. He came up behind me and ouch d my shoulders down. I started to say ow but was quickly underwater. I didn't hold my breath so now I was freaking out. He saw me panicking and pulled me out. Me trying to laugh between coughs so he thought I was having fun.

I told him that I was okay and that he didn't harm me. He looked his suspicious eye past me for now thinking it won't be that big of a deal.

We got out and dried ourselves, changing into our clothes. I drove us to this fancy new restaurant that opened up last month. I had made a reservation in advance.

As we were driving, I felt so nauseous. Probably just motion sickness, right? When we got there, we were shown to our seats in a private area of the restaurant. Not.many people were there that day.

After ordering food, we made some small talk. We talked about our future and how we hope to stay friends for life. We talked about how we had crushes and how we wanted to have crushes. We talked about the dating ban as well. He liked this girl but he won't say who.

"This girl is gorgeous and smart and brave." He is whipped for this girl, I swear! "And I love this girl because she sooooo smart and brave and stuff!" I said in a mocking way. "Don't worry, I'm just teasing!" I giggled.

The food finally arrived. Jong-ho finished his food in thirty minutes where as I had barley even started. "Aren't you hungry?" He asked me. "No, I had some food when you were in the pool." I replied hoping he would bye my lie.

"Really, I didn't see you. Are you afraid to eat around me or something?"

"No, no, nothing like that. I just wasn't hungry till then. I'll eat this later."

"O.. okay, if you say so. But I don't want you to just watch me eat. I want you to eat." He said. Jong-ho is the sweetest. I'm such a simp for him.

I asked the server to pack up our food and left with Jong-ho back to my apartment. We watched movies, played games, and talked to each other.

Funny, time for bed. My aching body can rest for a while. "You can take a shower first, as long as you don't hit all the hot water."

"Okay if you say so. I promise I won't."

He went off to the shower. How hot do you think that is? Jong-ho, in the steamy shower. Soap running down his body. What would he wash first? And how would he wash it?

Wait, I should not be daydreaming about him like this! This is not ok! I snapped out of it just in time. That's when I heard the door click. He came out of my room, wet hair dripping onto the towel in his shoulders. This much hottness in one person should not be allowed!

"Hey, your turn. Are you feeling well y/n? Your face is red." Jong-ho spoke

"I'm okay, just feeling a little hot. I'll take my showered now. Maybe I'll cool down." I proceed to go inside my shower, turning on the water, getting the soap, rinsing my hair out. So on and so fourth. It hit me again. This pain in my side. It hurt so bad, I almost fell.

"Aaah!" I yelled. I don't know what Jonho assumed, but when I walked out of the shower, his face was red. I sat down next to him and laid on his shoulder. He seemed so uncomfortable and I didn't know why.

"Are you okay Jong-ho?"

"Yeah." His voice said in a wearily way.

"You sure? Because your face is really red and your voice sounds kinda weird.

"Yeah I just didn't expect you to, well, do stuff in the shower." His face now red as a tomato.

"What do you think I did in the shower?"

"Well, you know, you sounded like you were… well…."

"Well what? What did you think?"

"Well, maybe your were *mumbles* touching yourself." He mumbled the last part so I didn't hear.

"You might wanna mumble softer." I said

"I thought you were touching yourself!" He practically yelled

Now my fave is bright red

"It just sounded like you were doing stuff and maybe got a bit loud. I didn't think you were gonna do that with me here. Not that I'm shaming or anything but like I didn't know you were really like THAT needy or whatever and-"

"Woah there, I was not doing THAT! A shampoo bottle just fell on my foot. Okay, jeez, wow Jong-ho, and I thought you were inocent. You know you just openly admitted to being a bit dirty minded!" I laughed. Laughing hurt as well.

We tuck ourselves into bed and cuddle after that weird conversation.

The next morning I wake up in so much pain. I'm crying it hurts so much. Luckily Jong-ho isn't up yet. I stumbled my way to the bathroom, almost throwing up. "J, j.. Jonho "sniff* I'm sorry." I wisper. I cans till hear his small snores. They warm my heart as sitting next to the toilet, throwing up anything I could.

*Knock knock* "y/n? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." I said with a wavery voice and in-between sniffles.

"No your not, I'm coming in now."

"No, stop, I'm fine. I'll be out soon!" I said just a little bit too late. As he walked in, I tried to clean myself up. His eyes were wide, "y..y/n? What happened? Are you okay? Why didn't you tell me you were sick? We could've stayed home yesterday."

"No, it's fine. Just probably ate something bad."

" You didn't really eat anything yesterday." He said in a worried tone. Coming over to me with arms open, he hugs me and rubs my head before saying, "Y/n, your burning up!"

Another really big wave of pain hits my side making me tear up. Jong-ho's worries expression only get more intense. "Y/n, how long has this been going on?"

"A few days now." I said

"Maybe we should take you to the emergency room."

"But I don't wanna ruin this for you."

"You can't because I'm with you. When I'm with you, I'm happy."

He drove me to the emergency room, bring a bucket with so that I don't puke in his car. Once we got there, I told them my story. They got me a room immediately, saying it might be my appendix witch was very serious.

They checked me out and confirmed that it was my appendix. I had to go through surgery almost immediately. "Hey Jong-ho, don't worry too much. I'll be alright."

"I know, but I just,..... Your my best friend! I just hope it goes well. I really….. value you!"

"Jong-ho, your being weird. What did the doctor say?"

"Nothing, just worried about you. I've known you for what, 5 years now? I'm not gonna be okay if your not." He said as he started to tear up.

"Miss. Y/n, are you ready?" The doctor said

"Yeah, bye Jong-ho. Go home and rest. See you soon."

"Bye, I'll miss you." Jong-ho replied and with haste, made his way out of my room in the hospital.

~~~~~~~~~~~~three hours later~~~~~~~~~~

"Y/n, are you okay?!?!?" I heard a frantic but familiar voice say.

"What time is it?" I say, finally opening my eyes.

"It's Jong-ho, the rest of Ateez is here too."

"Ah, why are they here, I look horrible!" I said while I heard a few people laugh.

"Nice to see you again y/n. It's been a few weeks. We all miss you coming to our practices and such." Hongjoon said.

"Really, you just miss the free food." I said while laughing. Someone snickered along with me. Laughing kind hurt.

Later, still in the hospital, I ordered some ice cream. Everybody exept of Jong-ho, Yunho, and Hong-joon had left. It was quite. Nobody really talked. They were all occupied with their phones and a book.

"Hey, I'm bored. Do you wanna play a game?" I said, breaking the silence.

"Yeah, I have some uno cards in my pocket." Yunho spoke.

"Why?" Hongjoon said

"Don't know, I just had them."

So we started playing uno. It was fun. It passed three hours of my time. Three hours of uno only felt like five minutes to me. That's when the doctor came in to check up on me. The others had to leave the room so that the doctor could check me out. You're going to have to stay here for a few more days. We have to monitor you." He said in a surprisingly calm way.

He left and the others came back in.

"So, what did he say?" Jong-ho asked.

"I'm going to stay here for like three more days so they can monitor me and stuff. Fun." I said sarcastically.

"Oh, more cards?" Yunho suggested.

"No, I'm good. You should probably get going. You still have to go to dance practice and voice lessons, right?" I said.

They nodded yes and we said our goodbyes. It was quite again. I decided to take a nap.

0 notes

latestnews2018-blog · 6 years

Text

There Were Zero Things Better This Week Than Beto O'Rourke's Post-Hardcore Band

New Post has been published on https://latestnews2018.com/there-were-zero-things-better-this-week-than-beto-orourkes-post-hardcore-band/

There Were Zero Things Better This Week Than Beto O'Rourke's Post-Hardcore Band

Welcome to Good Stuff, HuffPost’s weekly recommendation series devoted to the least bad things on and off the internet.

The single greatest thing I learned this week is that Beto O’Rourke, the Texas Democratic challenger to Ted Cruz for his Senate seat, once played bass in a post-hardcore band called Foss with one Cedric Bixler-Zavala on drums. And he kind of went hard? Harder than Mike Huckabee anyway.

If you don’t know Bixler-Zavala’s name, you will not care, and I don’t blame you. But for the small contingent of us who do, it is the single most random thing ever. By far. No competition. HOLY MOLY I’M GETTING EXCITED ALL OVER AGAIN. WHAT!?!?

Bixler-Zavala would go on after Foss to become the lead singer of two bands that defined my childhood, the Mars Volta and At the Drive-In, making this a perfect melding of my teenage self and whatever the hell you would call my current state. ― Maxwell Strachan

“Kim’s Convenience”

Between “Crazy Rich Asians” and “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before,” August has been such a landmark month for pop culture featuring three-dimensional portrayals of Asians that there’s a hashtag for it: #AsianAugust. (If you haven’t seen either of those, go do that!)

“Searching,” a thriller starring John Cho, the first Asian-American actor to headline a mainstream, modern movie in that genre, joins the party this weekend before rolling out to more cities next Friday.

And don’t sleep on “Kim’s Convenience,” a Canadian sitcom about a working-class Korean-Canadian family that premiered in 2016 but is now available in the U.S. on Netflix, which added it in July. In between reveling in how wonderful “Crazy Rich Asians” and “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” were, I watched a few episodes last weekend and was immediately hooked. It will definitely be relatable to anyone who comes from an immigrant family. But it also has the classic conventions of any great, slice-of-life family sitcom, with endearing characters and an abundance of irreverent jokes. ― Marina Fang

My Colleague’s Love For “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before”

On the evening of Tuesday, Aug. 17, my colleague and dear friend Claire Fallon watched “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” for the first time. “It fucking wrecked me,” she tweeted of the now-beloved Netflix rom-com. By the time I saw her at work the next morning, Claire had watched “TATBILB” three times already. She seemed… different. There was a twinkle in her eye, a bounce in her step — the unmistakable signs of a woman in love.

Claire confirmed as much with her bombshell story: “Report: I’m in Love With Netflix’s ��To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before,’” and she didn’t stop there. She RTed every article horny for the film’s romantic male lead, Peter Kavinsky, adding commentary like “i am hurting myself every time i watch it and realize he isn’t real.”

Before long, Claire’s husband was drawn into the fold. “They say you should include your partner in your fantasy life so I made my husband watch to all the boys I’ve loved before with me,” she tweeted on Aug. 18, a time she would later describe as “the most romantic weekend” of her life. This marked her fifth viewing of the film and potentially, I foolishly thought, her last.

Claire is now up to 10 viewings and shows no sign of slowing down. On Monday and Tuesday, when she normally live-tweets “Bachelor in Paradise,” Claire instead posted six GIFs of Peter Kavinsky — in a hot tub, on a school bus, smiling all sexy in a bathrobe. Where am I supposed to get my snarky “Bachelor” commentary now, Claire?! Her obsession became my obsession. Thanks to Claire, I now find myself talking incessantly about a movie I haven’t even seen, filtered through the lovesick gaze of my talented co-worker.

“If you’re wondering, i did watch it last night,” Claire slacked me today, unprompted. “I do little else.” If this post was a rom-com, this is the part where I’d declare my love for Claire and suggest that instead of Peter Kavinsky she take notice of the girl working at the desk across from her all along — fave-ing her tweets, offering her goldfish, casually suggesting they open the mail together. But it’s not, and Claire is married and I have more journalistic ethics than that! ― Priscilla Frank

The Greatest Sentence In The History Of Language

This was a bad week ― all weeks, now, are bad ― but at least we were blessed with one of the great sentences in the history of language.

“Suck my dick and balls I’m working at NASA” is a literary delight, nine words strung together so perfectly that there’s no way to misread them or misinterpret the emotion they intend to convey. The person who wrote them, who had the misfortune of directing them toward someone who oversees NASA, apparently lost out on an internship opportunity at the space-exploring government agency. This is a shame, not just because no one should be fired over a tweet but especially because no one should ever be fired after penning such a beautiful tweet.

Homer Hickam, the former NASA engineer who was best known for writing “Rocket Boys” but will now enter history as the man who elicited the greatest piece of writing humankind has ever produced, is apparently helping our glorious author find an even better opportunity in the aerospace field. But the real hope here is that one day our dear friend ascends to the top of NASA, resumes the shuttle program or some other form of space exploration, and paints our new motto on the side of whatever sort of craft eventually finds other forms of life out there, so that our newfound alien friends’ first brush with the English language is the English language in all its glory. And if we’re not going to cure cancer or solve climate change or find aliens or do any of the other cool shit science is probably capable of, we should put all of our resources and expertise into finding a way to project “Suck my dick and balls I’m working at NASA” onto the moon. ― Travis Waldron

Temi Oni’s Latest Poem

I see a lot of my experience in Temi Oni’s latest poem. I walk a lot. I’m catcalled far too frequently. I’m always minding my business. I’ve been hit on by teenagers, men my age, men my father’s age, men his father’s age. I’ve been asked if I suck dick, if I wanna fuck, if I want a dick in my ass and much worse. My initial silence has agitated the men harassing me to the point of them getting too close — just like Oni’s decision to at first ignore the man who asked her if she sucked dick irked him to the point of walking up on her. Like her, I’ve wonder who the fuck these dudes were talking to. I’ve wished my homies or my man was around because I also have a tendency to fly off the handle when I’ve been disrespected. I size the man up. Sometimes I say something smart, ask him who he’s talking to. Sometimes I don’t say anything at all.

And then, it happens: They threaten to rape you. It freezes you. You want to defend yourself, but you don’t know if you physically can. You want him to die because he thinks it’s funny. You’re paralyzed by your anger, but within moments your guts will churn and you’ll start to realize that you may very well be in danger.

You feel bad for this black person. You want better for them. But you also want to feel safe. As Oni says, seeing the police won’t calm you. Black women are constantly put into compromising positions by black men, but the most harrowing is the decision of whether or not we should sacrifice our own safety for theirs by not calling the police. You don’t want a black person to die at the hands of the police, even though they just threatened to harm you. On the flip side, the police often don’t even see black women as worth saving.

In these moments, I often feel a sense of loneliness that is much deeper than me being harassed while I am literally alone. Whenever a black man has walked up to me on the street or tried anything, no one has ever defended me. People can be around and yet no one does anything. At their best, they ignore it. At their worse, they watch. It induces a rage I still can’t explain, a fear I often feel and a pain that seems generational.

It’s the black woman’s Catch-22. ― Julia Craven

“Support The Girls”

Magnolia Pictures

Lisa (Regina Hall) often reminds people that she works at a “family place,” insofar as the Hooters-type watering hole she manages does not allow the predominantly male clientele to harass waitresses. As it turns out, the establishment is family-like, at least in the way its female staffers protect and fortify one another — a fitting theme for a movie titled “Support the Girls.”

Andrew Bujalski’s new film is one of those indies that comes out of nowhere and lights up the screen, the perfect cap to a wobbly summer. When a sports-bar chain comes to town, the forces of capitalism threaten to nullify Lisa’s mom-and-pop restaurant. The hourly-wage sisters who maintain the Texas joint are doing it for themselves, and they’re lucky to have the patient, affable Lisa as a lodestar amid the careless dudes in their paths. Hall gives an Oscar-worthy performance, delicately screaming into the void alongside Haley Lu Richardson (“Edge of Seventeen”) and Shayna McHayle, better known as the rapper Junglepussy. When she’s finally had enough, Lisa tosses a middle finger to the sky, a rare release for someone who’s burdened herself with always needing to keep it together. We’re right there with her. ― Matthew Jacobs

Bowen Yang

Bowen Yang may not be a household name, but you may as well learn it now.

The comedian and Vulture host became a viral sensation this week after a handful of celebrities — including Chrissy Teigen and Sarah Silverman — tweeted out some of his lip-syncing videos.

Yang has been uploading clips of himself lip-syncing various pop culture moments since May. But his most recent video, of him imitating Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly in “The Devil Wears Prada” is what has put him on the map. It’s flawless, funny and just a delight to watch. ― Saba Hamedy

Terrific Human Mariska Hargitay

Academy Award-winning actress Hilary Swank got married this week. She looked lovely in Elie Saab with custom Christian Louboutin shoes. Her husband looked dapper. There was a tap dance! The wedding looked like it was ripped right from a high-class Pinterest page. But the best part of Hilary Swank getting married this week was actually Terrific Human Mariska Hargitay.

One of the photos featured in a Vogue gallery on Swank’s wedding shows Hargitay lurking in the background, seemingly holding up Swank’s veil as part of her duties as maid of honor. Swank and Hargitay are known BFFs, but still, could you imagine having Hargitay around on your wedding day? To give you pep talks, or hold up your dress while you pee or dab the sweat off your forehead after dancing too hard? For sure she’d make sure your Champagne hand was never empty. Congratulations on that, Hilary Swank. ― Paige Lavender

The R-Rated Puppet Movie That No One Liked

DAMON DAHLEN/HUFFPOST

Priscilla Frank with her date at a press preview of “The Happytime Murders” on Monday in New York.

Some critics have deemed “The Happytime Murders” the worst movie of the summer, if not the whole year. Other people, like my colleague Priscilla Frank, have called it “the only movie that mattered, and the only one that ever will.” Listen, I probably won’t see the film, but I will scroll through photos of Priscilla and her Puppet Boyfriend performing nose kisses in an empty theater at least a couple times this weekend. You should, too. ― Katherine Brooks

Christian Covington’s Very Lifelike Madden Character

Guess I have to accept the fact that I’m ugly now…. Say it ain’t so Madden…. smh pic.twitter.com/fTcmitdrEw

— Christian Covington (@thetangibleC4) August 22, 2018

Who knew you could play as Shrek on Madden?

The difference between how Texans DE Christian Covington looks in real life and how he looks on Madden is basically the same as photos you post vs. ones you’re tagged in… if people were to draw faces on garbage cans and tag you in them. And like ogres and onions, this thing has layers: Is it so sweaty because it knows it shouldn’t be here? Does it look like a thumb? Is that mean to thumbs? With all the attention this has gotten after Covington poked fun at it, it’s only a matter of time before Madden tries to take this away from us like a bunch of Farquaads. So before that, farewell sweet prince. Like Shrek, may you live happily forever after. ― Bill Bradley

Read last week’s Good Stuff.

http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function()n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments);if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n; n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)(window,document,’script’,’https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’); fbq(‘init’, ‘1621685564716533’); // Edition specific fbq(‘init’, ‘1043018625788392’); // Partner Studio fbq(‘track’, “PageView”); fbq(‘track’, ‘ViewContent’, “content_name”:”There Were Zero Things Better This Week Than Beto O’Rourke’s Post-Hardcore Band”,”content_category”:”us.hpmgarts” ); fbq(‘trackCustom’, ‘EntryPage’, “section_name”:”Culture & Arts”,”tags”:[“@nonative”,”@health_gad”,”@health_pain”,”@health_depression”,”@health_adhd”,”@health_models”,”@health_hiv”,”@health_erectile”,”@health_ibs”,”celebrities”,”media”,”beto-orourke”],”team”:”us_enterprise_culture”,”ncid”:null,”environment”:”desktop”,”render_type”:”web” ); waitForGlobal(function() return HP.modules.Tracky; , function() /* TODO do we still want this? $(‘body’).on(‘click’, function(event) HP.modules.Tracky.reportClick(event, function(data) fbq(‘trackCustom’, “Click”, data); ); ); */ );

0 notes