#Hollywood A Failed Mob State

[msclaritea]

Care to elaborate about "They're creating another Jared leto" ???

Another actor who gets put in everything that nobody cares about except Hollywood perverts. It's almost comical watching the industry keep crap shooting at the box office with their little crushes. Oh, I know Dune will do well. It's been engineered to. But he's already getting off-the-cuff remarks about his role in the project.

You see, I'm not dumb enough to believe social media hype about anything from Hollywood. The proof is in the crowds you can pull. That shows the real potential power of your box office. THAT'S the pudding and I feel nothing but a dry itch looking at Butler. Hollywood really is in its stupid era, of Men Worshipping Men On Screen. Do you know who invented fandoms? Women. We do them right..unless you're a group of paid, psycho hyenas going by the name of Stalkerinas.

And more importantly...WE ARE THE MONEY. Men are cheap, by nature. It'll be the movie and a game, if attached. Women will buy almost anything if you give them someone and something worth looking at, and I see nothing lately worth wasting my time and money on. You see, I don't do 'New Masculinity'.

#Hollywood A Failed Mob State #SAG-AFTRA #Austin Butler #Men Of The Air #The Bicycle Riders #Tom Hardy #Dune 2 #Pervy Tom Hanks #Sony Pictures #WarnerBros #Paramount Global #Universal #Deadline #Hollywood Reporter #Penske Media #Oscars #Critics Choice #Emmys #Hollywood AND Broadway Jave Become One Long Pride Celebration With Zero Realism #Don't Waste Your Money #AMC THEATERS #alamo drafthouse

[justforbooks]

The path from successful character actor to becoming a star is difficult. It’s even harder when you’re self-destructive. Tom Sizemore, who has died aged 61 after a brain aneurysm, will be best remembered for his roles in Saving Private Ryan, as Tom Hanks’s wise sergeant, and in Heat, as the muscle in Robert De Niro’s bank-robbing crew.

His characters were often informed by their volatility: affable nihilism could explode into violence, which made him a natural player of bent cops and detectives, as believable in straight roles as in over-the-top variations, such as Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers. But his own personality bore many of those same traits. His career was sidelined repeatedly by addictions to heroin and methamphetamines, and his peripatetic drug-fuelled sex life led to repeated cases of domestic violence.

In 1998, after starring as the criminal gangster boss John Gotti in the television film Witness to the Mob, Sizemore received a visit from De Niro and his mother, who forced him into rehab. Steven Spielberg then hired him for Private Ryan, provided Sizemore be drug-tested regularly, and threatening to reshoot all his scenes if he failed a single test.

Five years later, on the verge of television success as the lead in Robbery Homicide Division, he was kicked off the set of a movie, Piggy Banks, accused of molesting an 11-year-old female actor, and convicted of domestic violence against his then girlfriend, “Hollywood madam” Heidi Fleiss. The double scandal contributed to the TV show’s cancellation.

The two sides of Sizemore’s talent could be traced back to childhood. Born in Detroit, he was the son of Thomas Sr, a lawyer and philosophy professor, and Judith (nee Schannault), who worked in the city ombudsman’s office. A self-described “wayward, angry teen”, he was drawn to acting after watching Montgomery Clift, James Dean and Marlon Brando playing such roles, and by De Niro in Taxi Driver.

He was also influenced by his father’s two brothers. His sober father won a scholarship to Harvard; his uncles were exuberant denizens of a world of drugs and crime. Sizemore tried for years to produce a script about them, An Honest Thief, written by his lawyer brother Aaron, which nearly got made in 2014, starring Sizemore and Danny Trejo. It fell through; a much different version, Good Thief, eventually appeared, without Sizemore, in 2021.

He studied theatre at Wayne State University, Detroit, taking a master’s at Temple, in Philadelphia. He began in off-Broadway theatre in New York; his friends included James Gandolfini, John McGinley and Edie Falco, with whom he had a relationship.

His first film role was in Lock Up (1989), and among his other three roles that year was a part in Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July. He did Blue Steel (1990) and Point Break (1991) for Kathryn Bigelow, the Wesley Snipes vehicle Passenger 57 (1992), and the Quentin Tarantino-scripted True Romance (1993), directed by Tony Scott, where he turned down the part originally offered him because he did not want to beat up Patricia Arquette on screen, and suggested Gandolfini, in his first Hollywood movie, for the role.

During the filming of Natural Born Killers (1994) he and Juliette Lewis began an affair; for four months they stayed in her mansion, doing drugs and having sex. “Temptation is impossible for me to resist,” he said. “Come on, this is Hollywood … it’s in the job description.”

From there he played Bat Masterson opposite Kevin Costner’s Wyatt Earp (1994) and was excellent in Bigelow’s overlooked Strange Days (1995). He had earned a lead role, which came in Peter Hyams’s The Relic (1997), but another small though telling part in Enemy of The State (1998), along with Private Ryan, seemed to lock him into supporting roles.

In his memoir By Some Miracle I Made it Out of There (2013), Sizemore detailed a long affair with the actor Elizabeth Hurley. In 1996 he married Maeve Quinlan, who had also been in Natural Born Killers; they divorced three years later amid accusations of drug use and physical abuse.

He had leads in three TV movies before Robbery Homicide Division, based on the original Michael Mann script that eventually became Heat. When he was not charged with molestation Sizemore returned to Piggy Banks (retitled Born Killers, to capitalise on his notoriety). Fifteen years later, the child actor, now 26, sued him for $3m, but a Utah court dismissed the lawsuit; Sizemore dismissed the allegations as “misconstrued”. His 2003 conviction in the Fleiss case resulted in seven months in jail after he failed drug tests during his probation.

At the same time he began a relationship with Janelle McIntire. In 2005 the couple had twin boys, named Jaden and Jagger. Yet at that point he made a video film called Triple X Tom, with Jersey Jaxin and three other porn actors, in which he claimed to have slept with Paris Hilton. When the celebrity denied it, he said he had made it up to impress the other actors . He did receive an XRCO award nomination as “Best New Stud”. When McIntire divorced him in 2006, he began an affair with Maxine Entwistle, the former wife of the Who bassist John.

Arrests for drug possession and spousal battery followed. He appeared on two Celebrity Rehab shows in 2010 and reunited with Fleiss on Dr Phil (2013). He ping-ponged between scandals and small parts in as many as 16 films in a year, yet still held recurring parts in series such as Hawaii Five-O and Shooter. He was dropped from Shooter when, after accidentally running over a stunt man, he was convicted in 2017 of two charges of domestic abuse against a girlfriend. He was allowed to finish his probation sentence despite a 2019 arrest for heroin possession. His last big film was playing Liam Neeson���s FBI rival William Sullivan in Felt (2017).

Sizemore wrote in his memoir: “There are so many guys who had good lives, great lives, and blew it … I think there are some guys who think they don’t deserve to have good lives.”

He is survived by his sons.

🔔 Tom (Thomas Edward) Sizemore, actor, born 29 November 1961; died 3 March 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS #Tom Sizemore #in memoriam

[kariachi]

Oh look, a third chunk for that Osmobeast vegas au.

The men, they plan.

~~

“Supposed to head home day after tomorrow,” Kevin said as it dawned on him that if they’d ever talked about how long either was going to be in town, he couldn’t remember it. At first he didn’t get a response, Gar just quietly continuing to toy with his hair.

“Do you have to?” Not technically. He had shit scheduled for when he got back, things that would have to be rescheduled or cancelled. He missed Zed. People would want explanations and he wasn’t in the mood to get lectured a million different times. But there was nothing so important he couldn’t stay a while longer.

“I won’t have a room.”

“Okay...” Gar dropped his hair, draping himself over his back and resting his cheek on his shoulder. “But I will until Wednesday.” It was a nice room. View of the Strip, easily the better of the two beds, Kevin was very much appreciating that.

“The coffee here’s shit though.” Snorting, Gar swatted at his arm as they fell into laughing together. “Don’t wanna presume.”

“What, that your fiancé’ll let you room with him for a few days?”

“You’re the one who was worried about making sure we didn’t just say fuck it and elope anyway.” Not that he’d disagreed, he was fairly certain if he came back married half his social circle would kill him and that was the best-case scenario, but still. The plan the night before had been to try to take things somewhat slow.

“Yeah, well, that was before I woke up with no you.” Kevin buried his face in his pillow in an endeavor to hide the blush he felt bursting over his face. Gar had to be making an effort to be charming, there was no way anybody just said shit like that. His own endeavor seemed to fail, Gar chuckling and ghosting a kiss over his ear.

“Given it’s a several hour drive between us,” Kevin said, “you’re gonna have to get used to that sooner or later.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t try to hold it off as long as possible.” Gar nuzzled his shoulder. “You can stay here or I can leave with you, but I’d have to cancel my flight out and stuff.”

“Oh, well, if it’ll keep you from having to cancel your flight, I guess I could stay here.” Forcing back the blush as best he could, Kevin turned his head to exchange smiles with Gar. “It’ll make up for only getting part of tomorrow with you. Was planning on hitting a few museums, but I’ve got a reservation at a race track I definitely can’t get you on.” Humming, Gar started fiddling with his hair again.

“What sort’ve museums?”

“Hollywood Cars and the State Railroad Museum. Maybe the Mob Museum.” He was eternally undecided on that one, it seemed like the sort’ve thing he should bring his mom and Argit to if he was gonna check it out.

“Not really my thing,” Gar said, “but okay.” Kevin’s smile slipped a bit. No no no, no ‘but okay’s, not for his Gar.

“You don’t have to come along,” he said, “I’d love to have you, but if you’re gonna just be bored… I’m sure you had your own plans.”

“Yeah, but now I want to do them with you.” Fuck, that was too sweet. Not helped by how cutely his nose scrunched when he was thinking. “Do you like The Hunger Games?” Well, that was a question.

“Movies were okay, but I preferred the books.” Gar nodded.

“Okay, so you’d be fine if I called first thing in the morning, see about changing my reservation for the exhibition they’ve got to tomorrow?”

“Fine with me.” It made Gar happy, not a problem.

“Alright. So, can do that, this place has it’s own little strip mall so I can wander there a while-” Wait, what?

“Something is wrong with the hotels in this city.”

“Tell me about it.” With a chuckle, Gar smiled wider. “I can hit up the pool for a while and then when you’re done with your museums and stuff we can go grab some dinner together. Sound like a plan?” That certainly was a plan. Kevin considered it for a bit.

“If I say fuck the Mob Museum,” he said, “we could probably fit something else in before dinner, if you want. I’ve been iffy on it anyway.”

“Supposedly the Flamingo’s got a whole little area with exotic birds we could go walk around,” he said with a hum, “build up an appetite. Then we grab dinner somewhere, go back to your hotel, pack your shit in the morning and come back here.” That could work. Sounded great.

“And since I don’t have anything else planned, the rest of the vacation’s on you.” Gar’s smile turned into a grin that had his stomach flopping.

“I’ve got a ticket for Omega Mart on Monday, should be able to get you one too…” He swatted Kevin’s arm. “And I was hoping to do an escape room sometime Tuesday or Wednesday, you are going to carry my ass!” Kevin snorted.

“I’ll do my best,” he laughed, choosing not to mention he’d already checked the Omega Mart out already. No spoilers. “Were you looking for a specific one, or…?”

“Not really.” Gar shrugged. “I couldn’t decide. Hopefully between the two of us we can figure something out.”

“Worst comes to worst, we grab one at random and hope it doesn’t kill it.”

“Fingers crossed.” With a small noise Gar stretched and yawned, setting Kevin stretching and yawning as well. “Fuck, is it that late?”

“Could be, or you’re just old.” Snorting, Gar pressed a quick kiss to the corner of Kevin’s mouth.

“It’s a one year difference, you menace.” While Kevin laughed at him, he returned to his side of the bed, reaching for his phone. “Room service here lets you pre-order breakfast, wanna give it a shot before we head to bed?” Kevin rolled over as Gar settled in, shifting around until he could comfortably slip under his arm, lounging against his side, head on his shoulder. Was it the most comfortable thing ever? No. Did he care? Also no, Gar made up for it.

“Sure, what have they got besides asshole coffee?”

#fanfic #in my defense your honor #they're too fucking cute #kevin: my vacation ends a few days before yours #gar: okay but what if it didnt

[theartistknownaslymond]

Welcome to the pleasuredome!

(it’s a Frankie Goes to Hollywood reference)

Here I post aesthetics, reference, ficspiration, fanart, obnoxious playlists, and occasionally fanfic for my cursed 1980s band AU for the Lymond Chronicles.

I always welcome asks and requests! Wanna hear a playlist? Wanna know which character would listen to your favourite band? Want me to stop already? Just ask me and I will play! (but I won’t stop, sorry. I will add more tags if anyone needs them for blocking though)

Below the cut is a list of all the stuff in the band AU so far! I’ll try and keep it up to date.

Pre-series:

Prequel

Sibylla and her children watch the moon landing together in 1969, art by me.

Young Oonagh, illustrated by K

Jerott’s paternal grandmother, Deepa Anand, illustrated by K, with some backstory

Jerott’s mum, Kahina Bensaïd, illustrated by K, with some (a lot) of backstory, partly relating to Jerott

Music is a made-up thing like myth (posted chronologically on Ao3. Hasn’t updated in a while. Isn’t dead yet!)

Freshly victorious at the 1979 Solway Moss Battle of the Bands, young Francis Crawford, aka Lymond, finds himself stuck in an awful contract and an even worse relationship. Things don’t improve as his first US tour approaches and Lymond struggles to find artistic freedom.

Game of Kings

Eloise Crawford illustrated by K

Isolation (Richard reflects on the loss of his siblings)

Gunpoint (Lymond meets Dragut when he falls in with some mafia types)

Bleeding out (More mafia types)

Les gens ne te touchent pas/il faut faire le premier pas (Pune, India, 1981. Jerott Blyth is learning about himself with the guidance of Graham Reid Malett)

Returning to the UK, Lymond has to navigate rumours both personal and political: what role did he play in his sister's disappearance and just how involved was he with the mob in New York? In the meantime, uncertain of his record contract and his inheritance, he has to make a living: he tours relentlessly with bandmates Turkey Mat (drums), Will Scott (bass) and Christian Stewart (guitar).

Queens' Play

Francis in the style of Munch drawn by me

"Don't move" (Lymond wakes up from an accident to find Christian by his bedside)

Trembling (Philippa Somerville thinks her father has just returned - it turns out to be someone quite different)

Humiliation (Will Scott tries - and fails - to humiliate Lymond)

"Stay with me" (Richard pushes his injured brother too far)

West Germany, 1983: Ireland's Eurovision entry, ex-model Oonagh O'Dwyer, is forced to pull out because of industrial action at the Irish state broadcaster. Her partner, the playwright Cormac O’Connor, convinces her they may as well go to on that holiday to Munich and Berlin anyway. The Artist Formerly Known as Lymond, in a techno-goth outfit with Irish producer O'Liamroe, is on hand to disrupt events and keep an eye on young Mary Fleming, part of the British ensemble. But while he's there who can say no to a few illicit cross-border gigs in the GDR? Western decadence at its most provocative...

Disorderly Knights

Laced drink (Margaret Erskine is on hand to comfort Lymond in the aftermath of a heavy night)

Pinned down (Oonagh searches the wreckage in the aftermath of an illicit gig)

Seeking control over his career, Lymond decides to set up his own recording studio and fill it with hand-picked talent. In researching the kind of set-up he wants, he's pushed to get in touch with master producer Graham 'Gabriel' Reid Mallet, who is now a senior figure in the spiritual movement established by Rajneesh/Osho. As the miner's strikes rage on and police response toughens, the role of music in protest comes into sharper focus than ever.

Pawn in Frankincense

Shackled (Jerott Blyth witnesses the carnage at Orgreave picket line)

"Don't try to fix me." (Adam Blacklock thinks he recognises something about Joleta's behaviour)

Bloodied shirt (Everyone is sleep-deprived and grumpy as they leave Dumbarton in the middle of the night)

Stab wound (Lymond is late to a DJ set and misses an altercation)

Joleta and her favourite things drawn by K

Dragged away (Philippa and Joleta go for a night out in Edinburgh)

Scars (Joleta is curious about Lymond's scars)

Nightmare (Joleta stays over with Mariotta Crawford, trouble ensues)

Recovery and "None of this if your fault." (Philippa waits by her friend's bedside after an overdose). Illustrated by K.

It's your choice babe - so you choose well (Archive warning for rape, E. Gabriel/Jerott)

Oonagh and Joleta drawn by K

Oonagh in Rajneeshee red drawn by K

Abandoned (Oonagh O'Dwyer abandons her life in Europe for the promises of a Nebraskan ashram)

Breathe for two (Oonagh realises she's trapped at Graham Reid Malett's ashram)

It's time to try and break America - second time lucky?/Or will America break Lymond? As a front for a final showdown with Gabriel at his ashram in Nevada it's not exactly subtle, but at least Lymond gets to learn something about his family along the way.

The Ringed Castle

Human shield (Marthe takes Philippa into her first mosh pit)

Delirium (Jerott suffers with a combination of delerium tremens and cyanide poisoning)

Adrenaline (Luckily, there's a telenovela star called Dona Maria there to get him out of jail)

Asphyxiation (still suffering from the poisoning, Jerott wakes up at Baron Morgan's motel)

Secret injury (Gabriel doesn't want Jerott to leave the ashram)

This is it, that's the end of the joke (Jerott is at Graham Reid Malett's mercy immediately after his escape attempt).

Jerott in the style of Munch

The only one keeping me sane. (Marthe takes care of Oonagh at the ashram).

Marthe's t-shirts, illustrated by K

Unconscious (Lymond and a small blond boy sleep off their adventures)

Ransom (Gabriel catches up with them in Vegas)

Hallucination (Archie figures out the cause of Lymond's present malady)

Muffled scream (Philippa and Lymond share a Vegas hotel room)

Tear-stained (Oonagh and her son are going home)

Anemone (Jerott accompanies Francis into rehab; he's in denial about a number of things though)

Marthe and Oonagh, illustrated by K

Más é an ceol bia an ghrá (One night stands in Dublin: Marthe goes to Oonagh's leaving party, Jerott stays in the hotel bar)

1987, glasnost: Lymond and an ambitious group of artists, experimental sound technicians and musicians are invited to tour behind the iron curtain alongside Ukrainian bete noir Baida and his band. The tour is to be filmed by ex-propaganda director Ivan Vasilyevich. Meanwhile Red Wedge tries its hardest to get the people of Britain to vote in a non-Tory government at the general election.

Checkmate

Stitches Adam Blacklock has had a rough night)

Numb (Richard encounters his brother in Dundee)

Embrace (a version of the Languish Locked in L scene)

Philippa's Raspberry Beret drawn by me.

??Profit?? No really I need to write more of the rest before I know what the fall-out here is going to look like. It will probably involve: Nelson Mandela's 70th Birthday Concert, the opening of the Cairo Opera House and the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

Post-Checkmate

Beaten (Jerott Blyth has been behaving badly)

All we need is music, sweet music (After a successful gig in Calais, Jerott longs to be closer to Francis)

Soap, soup and salvation (Danny teaches Adam to cook for Kate)

Coisich, a rùin [come, my love] (a series of scenes in Francis and Philippa's relationship)

Spoilers for overarching plot NO REALLY POST-CM SPOILERS

Don't wake the house (Jerott breaks down on an half-familiar (OC's) shoulder post-Checkmate)

Jerott, Archie, Adam and Kate get ice cream, drawn by me

A love that seems great beyond growth (in need of rest and recovery, Marthe visits Oonagh in her new life)

"Would you just hold still?" and What I love about many waters (Philippa and Joleta go for cocktails. Lymond helps his wife through the hangover)

"Don't look at me like that." and "When you smile..." (domestic, married fluff with Francis and Philippa).

Pushin' palaces to fall (Thompson the pirate causes trouble for the Crawfords. He gets trouble back)

Morosexual (Danny has a tearful admission to make to Jerott)

If this name wasn't on my lips (Danny/Jerott record collection-based fluff)

Explosion (It's a prequel)

Period-appropriate playlists (links to Spotify, sorry)

A Purely Spiritual Love (you may hear this at Graham Reid Malett’s ashram)

In a position of ascendancy... / ...a knife gripped in each hand (inspiration from Danny and Adam’s Jewish background)

Every Cell Charged with Stark Common Sense (young Philippa’s folk influences)

tant que je vive (Francis/Philippa happily ever after)

A twinge of approval (Danny/Jerott happily ever after)

Nothing but the Cathartic (Francis thinks Sibylla and Richard are dead)

Feared before God and the Devil (soundtrack to The Ringed Castle)

Come to Linger (Adam/Kate happily ever after)

Such Hapless Hap (Francis pining over Philippa)

Hard-wrought with Unleashed Storms (an Oonagh O’Dwyer playlist)

Stop your breath (a Joleta Reid Malett playlist)

By Some Alchemy (an Archie Abernethy playlist. DRUMS!)

#pinned post #housekeeping #the lymond chronicles #lymond chronicles #lymond #dorothy dunnett #the band au #1980s au

[filaantrocrowdfunding]

World Teachers’ Day: Celebrating The Teachers of the World

Teachers play a vital, albeit underappreciated role in our lives. Behind every successful person are the efforts of hundreds of teachers, who have moulded them into a remarkable human being.

October 5th is annually celebrated as World Teachers’ Day to commemorate the signing of recommendations by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). This recommendation outlines standards relating to education personnel policy, recruitment, and initial training as well as the continuing education of teachers, their employment, and working conditions.

This day focuses on celebrating and improving the conditions of teachers around the world. So, to celebrate the teachers, we would like to include five stories of inspiring teachers:

Savitribai Phule

Without Savitribai Phule, the feminist movement in India would have been held back by decades. Being illiterate, she was trained by her husband Mahatma Jyotiba Phule to be a teacher. She and her husband opened the first school for girls in India in 1848, and Savitribai Phule went on to become the first female teacher in India. However, her mission was not a path of roses, but roads laid with thorns and stones, as she endured constant societal abuse. However, the anger of the mob failed to deter her, as her legacy lives on in every female student in India.

2. Ranjitsinh Disale

Ranjitsinh Disale first rose to prominence in 2020, after bagging the coveted ‘Global Teacher Prize’. Seeing the condition and low attendance rate of Zilla Parishad School in Paritewadi, Solapur, Maharashtra, Ranjitsinh went beyond what was expected and changed the school and its students. Ranjitsinh not only translated the textbooks into the mother tongues of students but also embedded QR codes to give students access to audio poems, video lectures, stories and assignments. His impact cannot be put into words, as teen marriages have been completely stopped in the village and the attendance rate of girls now sits at 100%. One of the girls even went on to graduate from a university, a dream which seemed impossible at one point.

3. Anne Sullivan

Being born with trachoma, Anne Sullivan thought that she would never be able to read and write. Little did she know, that she would serve as an inspiration to not only the disabled community but also change the life of one of the most celebrated figures in modern human history. Enduring pain and humiliation, Anne Sullivan not only learned how to read and write but also excelled academically. She then went on to adopt an improvised teaching technique to help Helen Keller become the first deaf-blind person in the United States to obtain a degree from college.

4. Matiullah Wesa

Matiullah Wesa recently made headlines on March 27, 2023, when he was arrested by the Taliban for his advocacy of women’s education. Activists from around the world spoke in his support, including the famous Hollywood actress, Angelina Jolie. In addition to being an activist, Matiullah is an educator, who runs an NGO called Pen Path, which with the help of 2,400 volunteers, helps to set up local classrooms, find teachers and distribute books and stationery. After the Taliban banned women’s education, Matiullah fearlessly protested the policy, leading to his arrest. Sadly, this remarkable man is still imprisoned.

5. Erin Gruwell

Erin Gruwell is a founder of the Freedom Writers Foundation and created the Freedom Writer Methods, a progressive teaching philosophy and curricula designed to achieve excellence from all students. Erin gained popularity in 1998 when she led 150 students on the brink of dropping out to high school graduation. She achieved this by asking students to keep a journal, make movies of their lives, and relate the family feud in Romeo and Juliet to a gang war. She also encouraged her students to read books like The Diary of a Young Girl, Zlata’s Diary and Night. Students used to express themselves anonymously through journals and shared them with classmates. As a result, children who refused to speak with students belonging to different races became like a family. Her life was later adapted into a film called Freedom Writers, which gained critical acclaim.

Filaantro realizes the important role teachers play in the life of a child. Filaantro, along with its crowdfunding partner, Child Help Foundation has trained numerous teachers. So they can educate children better.

Thank you for reading this article. Make sure to share it with all your friends and family members.

#fundraising #raise funds #charity #crowdfunding #donations #education #nonprofits #filaantro #donate #volunteering

[diinferi]

ORIGIN

[SMUGGLER] + You know the local language plus the most appropriate language for communicating with a given organization you drop in next to. Russian for Hotel Moscow, Chinese for Chang’s, etc - Civilians don’t like you because you’re a criminal. The various mobs and rival smugglers don’t like you because you’re not one of them. You work as a connector, keeping goods flowing from hand to hand or crossing borders be it national or social. People might not like you, but everyone needs you to keep their businesses running.

LOCATION

[CHANG’S OFFICE] You wake up in the hallway outside Chang’s office, just out of sight of guards or patrols. Again, questions will be asked, but surely you can handle a few Triads?

PERKS

[WORLD OF BADASS] You’re a badass­ it’s okay, we know. You have a particular sort of confidence or cool­factor that sets you apart. Maybe you go into raging gun battles with headphones and heavy metal blasting in your ears. Or perhaps you have a quiet sort of confidence that seems unshakable, and you never sweat no matter how hot and humid it gets in the South China Sea. No matter how you express it, you are badass, and everyone knows it­ even other badasses. Expect a lot of respectful nods and shows of solidarity.

[TWO-HANDS] You have an unorthodox, downright Hollywood combat style, and despite or because of it, you are that much more badass than someone else. Actions involving multiple weapons, especially paired weapons, are sublimely easy for you, like reloading, holstering, dual wielding, throwing a grenade, etc. You can also hold medium weapons (like shotguns/small rifles) in one hand, but not anti-materiel weapons.

[AERIALIST] Despite all conventional wisdom, you are the safest from attacks and deadliest during crazy maneuvers like diving rolls, swinging from ropes or skydiving. You are naturally skilled at aerial gymnastics. As long as you’re performing awesome acrobatics, you are as secure from enemy fire as someone would be behind proper cover.

[CUSTOMS] You are outlandishly skilled at either hiding contraband or finding it, and are able to put on such an easy­going facade that inspections will be cursory. Crossing a border or being checked at customs only takes a few minutes, and observers will be satisfied by a once­over visual inspection. When searching yourself, you are able to find a great deal with just a quick look­ even things not in plain view. You can can use this to smuggle refugees from dictatorships, knives into a formal ball, etc. This effect fails if someone takes a more serious look, but they only focus on what initially aroused their interest.

[COUNTING TIME] You can treat the impact of a firing pin and the cycle of a weapon like clock hands. You have a perfect awareness of rounds fired and time left on any kind of fuse or explosive device. This allows you to reload and bust out of cover to see your foes fumbling with their weapons or kick a grenade back before it explodes.

ITEMS

[BADASS THREADS] There aren’t any tailors in Roanapur, but that’s fine­ you can get by without designer anything. You’ve gotten your hands on some really tough feeling and looking clothes. Maybe they’re surprisingly sexy, or relentlessly practical, in either case, they suit you just fine and never get in your way. They come with a free holster for one weapon/matched set of weapons.

[CASH] You have the luck of a sudden windfall­ $100,000 United States dollars, effectively untraceable and guaranteed in every market worth mentioning in Roanapur.

[PREFERRED WEAPON] You have a fine example of a weapon, ranging from knives and swords to matched pistols, assault rifles or even shotguns. You have access to the means to make your own ammo, and are usually able to find out where to buy it pre­made if you can afford it.

[ARSENAL] You have access to a small stockpile of exotic, specialized and powerful weapons, like anti­-materiel rifles, rocket launchers, plastic explosives and squad-­automatic­-weapons.

DRAWBACKS

[HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE] Due to trauma in your life, or just general misanthropy, you’re often reminded that everything about the world sucks, and most of it lies at the feet of other people. During the jump, you will find yourself sliding towards murderous rampages when confronted with how awful mankind can be.

[MOST WANTED] You are an internationally recognized fugitive, on Interpol’s list and every other list that matters. As long as you stay within Roanapur, hardly anyone is going to hassle you about it (you are paying the right bribes, after all), but on international waters and inside other countries, you are on everyone’s list. Law enforcement and the military outside of Roanapur will recognize you on sight and expend more than reasonable effort in trying to capture you.

FUTURE

[JUMP AGAIN!] You must carry on, leaving no stone unturned, no score unscored, and no bar unexploded. Go forth Jumper, Roanapur will remember you in a manner befitting its character!

#black lagoon #jumpchain #cyoa #black lagoon oc #file: information #file: jumpchain #file: build #file: text #file: la contrebandière

[sugar-petals]

Group Sex With SuperM

SUMMARY: creating a group chat is all it takes.

↳ A/N. yep, we’re going there. 

words. 14k

WARNINGS ⚠️ friends to lovers hc, porn with plot, idol au, sex w/ all members individually and together, dom/sub dynamics, corruption kink, sexting, blowjobs & cunnilingus, gaping, graphic, pegging, bondage, light foot fetish, sex toys, spitroasting (m receiving), brat taming, dick riding, protected sex, doggystyle, cuddling aftercare

curious about an eightsome are we

understood

how’s the state of things then?

last september you decided to open an entire group chat just for planning your juicy sexual activities together

and oh lord is it active

and full of ideas

and explicit videos

and emojis

and excitement

yesterday taemin sent a clip of lusciously covering himself in champagne foam for you

wearing close to nothing

in fact just a piece of gauze, a snake-shaped necklace, and probably a bit of perfume

oh boy

watching that was an out-of-body experience for sure

the entire chat basically imploded with reactions

but hey hey

not so fast

we need to go through everything from the start

to see how all these utterly historic events happened to unfold

so where did all that come from?

first off 

befriending super m outside work (eating together, fooling around, bingwatching stuff, you know)

...means there’s no point nor chance in having a permanent favorite with a group like this

every member truly is the creme de la creme

super m is the package of the entire packages

they are so legendary you can bias each member for one day of the week 

and never run out of that pure bliss

in fact 

you all agreed to do exactly that on a regular basis to get to know each other casually

it just naturally happened

seven days seven members that’s just logical

you can’t always hang out together in full attendance so you split up your times and set specific days

you change that routine very often depending on your individual moods

but it usually goes like this because you want to develop closer bonds with them one-on-one

so this is how it ends up

mondays you work out with xuxi. oh, that sexy smiley man. his body is the ultimate bomb. is there something better than doing sit-ups next to him? anybody’s sports motivation would go through the roof. and if there’s someone you call to share a pile of food with? it’s just gotta be him. being with yukhei is self-care.

tuesdays, you visit ten to check out his latest dance moves. and: to have a huge cuddle session with the cats. sometimes, you watch whatever series you’re in the mood for. it’s always a time to slow down and mend your sore muscles from monday anyway. you think ten is so interesting and talented, and super pretty, truly one of a kind.

on wednesdays jongin and you often end up on long midnight walks with the dogs or you both look after his cute nieces. meeting up at the river han is a staple, you get ice cream and snacks. you adore kai because he’s a sweetheart and steadfast person, and admittedly... so damn hot, holy hell. being with him makes you feel great.

thursday is baekhyun day and full of cheeriness as you’d expect. long hours of gaming, cheeky skinship, banter, and pizza eating await you at his apartment. you adore this mochi for his everything, he makes you laugh uncontrollably so much. sometimes, you also comfort him when he doesn’t feel good about himself or exhausted from practice. he will sing anything you want, baekhyun is like your personal 24/7 radio station.

fridays it’s time for the studio. mark is crafting his most fire bars and loves to have you around there. you inspire him a lot. he’s just completely astounding and the sweetest to you. friday most people would go clubbing, but super m just has to meet up in the studio. no paparazzi, and the music is obviously danceable. i’m telling you: this mob can jop, duh.

saturday is for handsome taeyong who loves coming to your home. cooking, organizing, doing the laundry, and browsing youtube together is the best thing. taeyong is the shyest goodest boy and a great listener. he gives great advice and is the epitome of respectful. you just vibe very well together.

sunday you dedicate to taemin. you watch artsy films, experiment with outfits, and he plays the piano for you so expertly. man, you are lucky. he’s like a fairy to you, and a connoisseur, a mythical figure almost. since he’s a newly-found cat dad, you easily fill your day playing with the most interesting kitten that is lee kkoong. sometimes, you even meet shinee members dropping by.

so yes this is what paradise looks like

and they all love to engage with you in their own way and you develop favorite ways to spend time, they put so much effort into this

it goes without saying that you all realize how hard you’re crushing as the weeks pass

like can you imagine

all the hormones i swear

you’ve already been joking to them that you have seven boyfriends some months ago

well the prophecy is fulfilled faster than you can blink

when you meet up as eight for a movie night at baekhyun’s, the atmosphere feels pretty frisky

because lucas is sending you ten thousand glances and certainly nobody misses that

if this guy is laughing at your every word i mean

meanwhile taeyong is having a nervous meltdown at your every comment about the movie, it’s ridiculous, he’s smitten as fuck, he looks at you like you’re an actual goddess

mark keeps on making glimmering eyes at you as well, and he asks you if you want popcorn every two minutes

baekhyun is all curled up close to your lap and not even watching the movie because his face is almost nuzzled into your sweater for fuck’s sake

taemin has spent the entire preperation in complete frenzy making sure there are scented candles everywhere and the snacks are exquisite and costly. mother taemresa? at full throttle. he even used his own damn credit card.

meanwhile kai suffers from his fidgety legs, constant hair fixing and even more inability to concentrate on the movie 

because damn, he knows he wants your attention. he literally came around with the tightest shirt he owns so there’s that. you can see every little muscle doing its thing when he does as much as breathe. kai is now well aware he came to impress. it won’t take him a lot to realize he wants to be even closer to you than doing midnight walks.

ten is so firmly snuggled up next to you, he might as well be your cat himself. if ten starts acting like a clingy feline instead of being in roast mode, you know he’s lovestruck i’m telling ya

needless to say

the mood in the room is hard to ignore

hell there are romance candles everywhere all those hecking rose fumes are to blame

surprise surprise all the members try to sit as close as possibly to you the more the movie progresses

even abandoning the couch and seats to sit on the ground in front of you instead

“you want popcorn?”

“like some more popcorn?”

“here, have my popcorn!“

“more popcorn?”

“hey do you want popcorn?”

from all sides, constantly

the m in super m stands for making sure you have popcorn

you never run out

like when the leading lady is pulling out a cigarette in those old hollywood flicks and at least twenty guys are scurrying to offer a lighter

i’m exaggerating but

nobody even knows what kind of movie they’re watching tonight though

the elephant in the room is trumpeting too loud to understand the dialogue

you’re surrounded by seven big ole hotties who have fallen for you

it was inevitable

it’s more than clear to everyone that they all like you and you couldn’t be any more fluttered yourself

let the hunger games begin

i’m jopping i mean i’m joking

this is not the wwe

it’s pretty clear to the boys that if they fight you’re gonna be so unhappy and your quality time together is ruined

you adore them all, and they’d be regretful about hurting their own bonds 

and anyway

if it came down to it and the bad blood was really escalating um...

...ten would destroy all of the competition

there’s no denying

by the simple virtue of his badassery and winning disease

quickly reducing all his opponents to a pile of dust so fine-grained, the great freddie mercury himself would resurrect to sing the soundtrack in the background and pump his fist

imagine that. superm actually being gladiators i mean wasn’t that the entire jopping mv

baekhyun would try to pull the leader authority card and use his hapkido martial arts skill but ten would obliterate him anyway so

even if taemin put on a dark robe and drew a salt circle to summon a million snakes from hell, ten would win the fight to a fault

but that’s too apocalyptic and outside of that thought experiment the boys are actually kinda shy so... let’s scratch that

there are seven days of the week with good reason 

you ease the uncertainty and tension by saying you’d truly fail as a tv bachelorette

everyone understands that deciding would be impossible and cheating is shit

why give someone a rose and break 6 hearts when you can hand out a whole damn bouquet

it’s more stylish my friend

and for what reason would ten want to face off against taemin and his army of snakes in the first place. they’re ten’s greatest inspiration

nor does kai have any tighter shirts 

he already ran out, he brought his A game from the get-go

on top of that the popcorn is empty there’s no more to offer

so you remain with the idea to just keep your daily routine

xuxi monday, ten tuesday and so on

keeps everything in order

it’s fair

plus it doesn’t mess with their schedules

usually unless a big award show is coming up but that can be re-planned in advance as well

you know... things can develop in their own timing with each member

it’d be awkward to expect everyone to be on the same stage at once

baekhyun is comfortable with all kinds of back hugs while taeyong and taemin are still completely flustered and turn all wobbly at just a greeting wave

you know what i mean

it’s already clear everyone loves you very differently 

some members are more straightforward, others take it slow, it’s just a normal thing

that’s when the group chat is born

it’s still very sfw 

compared to how explicit it’ll be in the future ahem

and everyone is overcautious with writing something except baekhyun, the eternal extrovert

for now you keep each other updated on how it’s all going with trivial details

earlier you just had individual chats and baekhyun arranged the group meetings since he knows the schedule best

now it’s all in one spot so that works

everyone’s curiosity is quenched at least a little bit

and they see each other anyway and put their heads together

baekhyun will be the most open about how far your skinship slowly develops followed by lucas and kai who oggle each other in their usual tom and jerry manner

which you have an eye on

you tell the members something very important for when they’re envious

or feel the need to one-up or catch up

it’s the sign to get closer to you and that they’re ready for taking another step. that’s literally what jealousy is all about

that advice helps them out a lot actually

kai takes that to heart in particular because he knows he’s prone and feels bad about it

and they also learn from ten who carries a quiet happiness with confidence that doesn’t need comparison, but he can also talk very honestly about how he’s standing with you to the point

ten knows how it’s done

as expected of such a competent man

like he’s kissed your hands very lightly but he doesn’t feel the need to show it off all day

and he also leads by example together with taemin and taeyong how one can give compliments even when not being involved in something 

“you’re looking adorable together“ as taemin would often say about you hanging out with kai or baekhyun

a lot of praise culture is developing in the group chat

you like to see it 

and now for the other elephant in the room

as for who will ask you to sleep with him first

(and mind you at this point they’re all walking around with condoms in their backpacks and jackets)

believe it or not

after the finishing touches on his latest mixtape (oh yes), and those tracks have you feeling some kind of way oh shit, mark gathers all his courage

yes it’s mark lee 

literally he steps into the blaze of bravery of jongin when he first put on a crop top

and gets out a little “can we... some time... you know...” after you’re having some pretzel sticks together and awkwardly sitting around

oh what's gonna happen next huh?

you say you’ve been thinking about it a lot

that he has a great body doesn’t go unseen

and tell him how you imagine it with him

long story short you’ll have your first quickie in the sound booth that night

cutting straight to the chase

him steadily penetrating you from behind, you leaning closely with your back to his chest

just standing and enjoying the rhythm

that dick. is amazing.

oh god, mark lee

long, curved, smooth, a classic

meanwhile your fave rapper is definitely going through it

his arms tell you everything

that’s an embrace for the books

he’s hugging you like his life depends on it

you can just take in how he’s been showering twice today this guy is clean as fuck he smells so good

getting off from shampoo and fabric softener is not what you expected but it definitely makes you clench

you both know he’s not gonna last for more than six minutes and that’s ok

that’s a lot of long-held frustration released into that condom

and a lot of passion put into how he puts his guitar fingers to work on your clit afterwards

jimi ‘lee’ hendrix has arrived

oh yeah mark, you fucking treat, fuck it up

that way you won’t last long either since you guide his finger tips to your favorite spot and the motherfucker completely goes for it

“like this, like, um?”

and he goes off with the wrist

oh shit

it’s all kept so short and simple and you’re on the oldest mustard-colored studio couch that ever existed but mark lee is mark fucking lee nothing can obstruct his quality

like this guy has some serious skills with the angles

that orgasm is gonna get some moans you didn’t know you were capable of out of you

never wasting time, that guy is he

mark definitely fucks like he raps. fast and good

you cool down together looking each other in the eyes, forehead to forehead, for like fifteen minutes, and you give each other little chaste kisses all over your faces and he melts every time

your little rendezvous was definitely so needed 

you ask if you can bring some vibes to play around with and a watermelon next time

you don’t have to ask twice

mark is so damn happy

and the timing was right

straightforward and spontaneous. that definitely works well with mark

no complaints, you go home feeling comfortably refreshed. you’ve told him he could tell the others or wait to do it, this is up to his comfort because he is shy

neither happens

after just one glance at him the next day while the group is doing a photoshoot

baekhyun already knows mark slept with you 

he just knows

and makes a loud “ohh wow, you did it” noise

ten takes two only glances to understand what’s going on too

mark nods and the whole group is highstrung for the entire day

like a hive of bees oh yes

kai is massively proud of raising mark so well but also really surprised

unlike taemin who calmly advised mark on many things in advance

guess where mark’s fingering skills originate from

he took some secret pointers from the king 

taeyong is shook at his rap buddy’s singleminded grit to just spontaneously ask you

while baekhyun...

is keeping it together repeating the anti-jealousy mantra you gave him in his mind

“jealousy means to get closer jealousy means to get closer jealousy means to get closer jealousy means to get closer....“

it makes him realize oh god he really wants to be inside of you badly as well

you ain’t dumb, you see his change of tone from cute to sexy in the group chat even if he might not notice

baekhyun is trying extra hard to make you react to him

he posts so many cute selfies with kissy faces

needless to say taeyong’s time slot gets postponed to next thursday while you visit baekhyun this evening

it works for taeyong because he still needs to think some things through

the news overwhelmed him a little and he is shy about meeting up but that’s not a problem for you

and it’s better to get together with your mochi sooner because you both know there’s a lot of banging to do

like seriously

your mood tells you that candy’s on the menu today

oh yeah. it’s time to be all over your clingy lil’ honey bunny 

there’s not much endless wooing involved it goes to the point very fast after you arrive at his home

you just wanna stop pretending and fuck like animals and see his brain melt from it

remember how baekhyun once said he doesn’t fancy nice girls

that’s what he meant by that

mattress earthquake

he wants you fully riled up with arousal and addicted to touching and grabbing him

yeah baekhyun gets off on your desire

that’s not hard to accomplish when he makes big puppy eyes and puts his tongue on your neck

with that gomez addams shit... kissing up your arm and then popping off as soon as he gets there

congrats morticia

here is a man who can handle ya

he’s being so slobbery and moany about it that it knocks the breath out of you 

that shit is so good

baekhyun is not just a pro at giving head my friend it’s also giving neck

and unlike mark, may god have mercy on you, baekhyun keeps on going and going and kissing and kissing and he wants to lick up all of you so bad 

we know how needy and stamina-heavy this fella is

baekhyun is super m’s most insatiable member by fucking far

he’s like just give it to me and you’re like ok here we go

this guy is burning up oh god

that’s an evening of ten thousand positions, fearless cumplay, and a lot of face-sitting

super m’s most unleashed tongue right here

thank god you worked on your fitness with xuxi otherwise you couldn’t do this

he’s moaning in some harmonic scales or something it’s a whole concert

baekhyun is fully at it with you in every room of his flat with his whole neck and underarms looking mighty veiny

yeah he even carries you around to make it short and simple he’s one impatient bun

he can lift up sehun bridal style so no worries

mochi is smol and thin but he won’t drop you i promise

he’s fueled by horny boyfriend hormones and wants to give you the greatest night of all nights

and hit all the amazing spots

baekhyun aims to make your pussy lips throb and fall completely in love with him

and the bridge of his nose if you get what i’m saying

he’s also versatile in his clothing choices

if you say keep your nerdy glasses on, oh yeah they stay on

just a little challenge to see if you can ride him hard enough to see them fall off

and that dick is not some extra long lasso mark lee calibre

so he can really bend it more and thrust with ease at many angles

talking about mark

he regrets not asking you earlier but you tell baekhyun that this way was much better because you unceremoniously skipped to the fucking instead of messing around

if it wasn’t for mark’s courage to break the ice even with a choppy sentence 

you’d still be awkwardly looking each other in the eyes while munching pizza

all hail mark lee nervous legend

this way, baekhyun goes all out with fewer restraint and the burden of being first with making the impression that comes with it

we all know he’s too self-conscious for his own mochi good so that’s a better way to start out

this way baekhyun will have sex with you until he’s passed out on his bed

knocking him out like that might as well become your favorite hobby

even minutes after your tongue still feels like it’s knotted together with his honestly, the muscle memory is kicking in

and this must be the most dick thrusts you’ve ever gotten in one night

baekhyun really wants to be all inside you, make you feel him

if the condom broke at least his baby will be easy to identify from day one

it’ll come out and belt a perfect G#5

he gave it all my god you stopped counting the times you came your pussy is just dripping wet it feels crazy

and his voice has become all raspy i—

that was baekhyun’s hardest vocal run yet i swear

the contraception shelf in the convenience store next to his house is close to empty

but there’s no need to buy more

what you two perverts have been up to is enough for comfortably going through 10 years of celibacy

baekhyun is content and sleeps like a baby

you hold your bun for like two hours afterwards and never want to let him go

you are as wobbly as taeyong after getting a head pat from you

and the most well-kissed girl in this city tonight

both sets of lips

what a smoochy boyfriend

you even get the chance to jerk baekhyun off in his half-sleep after he wakes up and asks you to put your hand in his pants

guess who opens his mouth very wide to lick his own semen off your fingers with some really obscene noises

it’s his royal nastiness byun baekhyun 

who sucks your tiddies to drift back into sleep again

with his hands in your pants

god bless this man

the group chat is sending 👀 emojis all the way throughout the night

your boys know love is in the air

they’re loosening up the timing is right again

you send cute smiling emojis 

a bunch of “ahs” and “ohs” come through via voicemail

and lucas even writes: “so who’s next? 😳”

damn

you reply boldly: “the one asking that”

the group chat becomes a buzzing beehive again

from which you extract that kai is also very interested while ten, taeyong and taemin prefer waiting a little more

but this time you don’t switch time slots since you’ll meet xuxi on monday already 

kai wants to set up something nice and prepare the catering and whatnot (alright you rich man)

so it’s gonna be wednesday as usual with him

so far so good that’s the plan

sunday being taemin day, you get together to read and paint and listen to music

you feel like just doing some sensual kissing with him and taemin is very down

yeah baby he is the kissing king, taemin is hot stuff, he knows exactly what he’s doing, those lips are the pillows at the gates of heaven

losing your mind is a staple when you do that with him

just making out on the couch surrounded by the nicest arrangement of pot plants you’ve ever seen while it rains completely relaxes you and the serotonin is off the charts

he holds you so gently and tastes so good

what is it, rose water or something like that

he even put on his coziest sweater so you’ll love leaning against him

TL;DR taemin is the biggest fucking romantic in the history of SM

that was so seductive you’ll be dreaming about it

applause for lee taemin please

perfect contrasting programme: just hours later

yeah here it goes now

monday starts with xuxi stripping more than he usually does 

at the makeshift gym in his room while he’s on the treadmill

with his hair freshly dyed the most himbo shade of blonde ever

and yeah that’s blonde with an e because yukhei is too sexy to be called a blond. what an ugly word to look at

he’s a blondé

so that’s nice

he’s so dtf you just skip the workout 

time for lubed condoms.

i don’t have to tell you that you literally jump on him 

or that you’ll be dealing with super m’s singlemost biggest equipment

he doesn’t even have to drive it home an inch by himself you’re already riding him

he can’t handle all that gear in the first place

because how do you even develop a technique with such an unrealistic dick

hell how do you even exist like that

so it’s clear who’s taking the lead

all he has to do is work that body but it sort of happens on its own

himbo autopilot

you are going hard and chaotic on this man

xuxi doesn’t even know what hit him

he’s so vocal and excited 

you fuck him while he holds you up, get down on several gym benches, have him bend you forward at the bathroom sink... 

...and you attend business in ten’s room on a desk and window sill

because it’s the most silent there and doesn’t disturb xiaojun’s beauty sleep

ten has discreetly ushered you there and preoccupies himself in the kitchen with the cats

he knows how the game is played

either floor ‘em all or always watch out for others

MVP

but you are secretly wondering what ten is plotting because he has some serious self-control and observation skills

given how tidy his room is... whatever his plans are you can look forward to it

xuxi is definitely suffering from your heavy duty cock destruction in the meantime while being in heaven at the same time

that dick is worn out and dripping 

so much bouncing is even gonna make the biggest boy lose it

milking that orgasm out of him is gonna be so gratifying yum

the deep and defeated moans, my god he really surrenders to the pleasure

wow that was almost as to-the-point as studio sex with mark

no idle talk in nct huh

you clean each other all exhausted and then gobble up three bowls of noodles each

then sleep for two hours in each other’s arms

then do a second round because this guy is really getting you going and yukhei wants to live this monday to the fullest

like this man gives you previously unknown levels of energy

must be the blonde hair. it does sexy things when yukhei is twitching

this time it’s a dick blowing festival

oh yeah

the type where you’re so sloppy with your head bops, he doesn’t even know where to put his hands and needs to think emergency thoughts

oh yeah big dicks make for some nice slurpy noises that sound really plump you know what i mean

he’s gonna realize very soon you do this shit for your own entertainment

and get all kinds of squeaks and faces out of him

only little pauses help him keep up the stamina so he asks you to pull off for a bit every two minutes or so

he has to look elsewhere and distract his mind with thinking about washing the dishes

girl... your tongue has this man sweating major bullets

you’re big on the corruption kink are you

once again 

xuxi is gonna be so shaken and pass the fuck out from cumming

and he thought he was a horny guy

his soul must have left his body and that scalp is probably dead

but bleaching was worth it (he looks like a sleeping angel now)

not to mention banging all over the wayv dorm

ten got a preview of what’s expecting him

not that he doesn’t know he reads you well

lucas promises to return the oral favor next monday and finally collapses entirely in the living room wearing only boxers

nothing new for wayv, great sight for you

not a single workout routine has exhausted xuxi this much

he needs 10 hours of sleep to reboot

“she’s so wild 😲😂😍” is gonna be what he’ll summarize it as in the group chat later

first big boy taken down

the second one follows

wednesday is right around the corner 

oh yes

kai definitely goes off with the preparation you are not ready for this spectacle

he redecorated his entire kitchen and bathroom to perfection with flowers, lanterns, dim light, petals, expensive fabrics draped from the ceiling, and there’s a great view on night time seoul

you can tell he’s best friends with taemin

i mean they’re the greatest entertainers of their time of course their taste is great

always going the extra mile

the black, sheer shirt with a deep cleavage that kai put on is nothing short of a treat

is that a lace choker he’s wearing

and his hair is pushed back lord have mercy

you get pretty weak in the knees at that

the catering leaves nothing to be desired either. a full 3-course sicily-style italian meal with 100% organic ingredients and beautiful basil and thyme garnishings

to set the mood afterwards jongin does what he does best

don’t tell me you didn’t see this one coming

just a chair for you, some music, and him

is this like a whole damn private concert?

he has prepared an entire setlist to thrill you with selected styles of dance

even a rendition of salsa, swing, and tango argentino

i’m telling you...

if kim jongin moves his body for you like that you’ll be fucking hooked and honored and not believe your eyes

what a feast

prepare for a serious case of dropped jaw

and jongin being an absolute daredevil dancing incrementally close to your chair

he incorporates all these little moments of skinship

where he strokes your hair, your jaw, or takes your hands

while at the same time he’s completely destroying it on the dancefloor

with those scorching hips and how he works it on the carpet right in front of you

you’re about to fucking melt

what a time to be alive

the sheer shirt’s buttons are holding onto dear life as do his pants

kai’s movements are becoming extremely ecstatic

what a fucking lapdance 2.0

men have clearly evolved otherwise this wouldn’t be happening

kai dances like a king on a stage but jongin? is god-like when he dances with just one person as the audience

shiit

and because he’s very nervous

he work particularly hard to ace it

in his mind he’s already underneath you judging by how he’s moving

...you can definitely fancy a luscious private concert each wednesday

and for designated activities in the bathroom

he even made a whole 5-hour playlist of the finest songs

so he can make you grind on top of him

don’t tell me kai isn’t the master of courting

king of effort

i don’t have to tell you that this is gonna be the most sensual night you’ve ever had

kai will get to know your body very, very well

those hips never stop do they

the fact that thursday is baekhyun day right after this?

wow aren’t you exhausted

the orgasms just seamlessly continue huh

everything goes on like that 

friday you have a toy-filled, passionate evening at the studio with mark who’s doing the most 

let’s say mark just has good ‘vibes’ indeed

this almost gets as messy as your first time with lucas

have fun cleaning up that couch, canada

what a sex marathon

if you don’t have your period

there’s always a lot of action going on 

or actually. you do catch a break for the weekend

saturday you bake delicious, pistacio and pecan-crusted sticky buns with taeyong 

who also shows you the new fledgelings that have hatched in his apartment

so adorable

sunday you endlessly make out with taemin in the sheets who has of course heard of jongin putting on a show

so he dances for you as well and even does the hands-tied criminal choreo in an especially luscious rendition (aka extra heavy breathing and grinding on the floor, and doing splits that almost rip his pants)

oh yes my love

nothing really happens afterwards you just have dinner completely flustered

if lee taemin dances, sex becomes redundant and doesn’t compare anymore

but really now

the slow burn is unbearable with him for fuck’s sake

taemin knows how to work up the seduction bit by bit

you basically masturbate all evening after returning to your house

god. what to do with this guy

on monday you ravage yukhei’s dick and get all that head 

xuxi is a chaotic fella but he keeps his promises

plus you get the best full-body massage of your life

and for the first time pull out your phone to basically livestream yourself riding him

so the whole chat can watch for five minutes

yep. you learned that courage thing from mark lee

the camera work is obviously subpar but the video definitely has maximum effect

kai and baekhyun stream their reaction right alongside your broadcast

“woah woah oh my god oh my god!!”

everyone’s freaking out, everyone stops whatever they’re doing, everyone is glued to their screens, they love your body moving

you’re having a blast 

especially when you stream another round an hour later and lucas holds the camera now

his arm is perfect for that by the way

strong and stable and high up in the air

so you can do your thing on that fat dick with a bonus of the sexiest xuxi moans ever

that deep but soft tone... yukhei really got a perfect groaning voice huh

after getting steamy for almost ten minutes, you get some great close-ups of your pussy after having yukhei pull out mid-romp

because that gape is for the gods

don’t kid yourself with a dick like that inside you’ll be opening a little wider

it looks and feels even better with lucas tracing his long fingers inside of it

with the closeup zooming in even more while he’s putting his thumb on your clit 

mmh that’s good stuff

six very shaky boys are sitting in front of their phones right now being able to look um very deeply inside of you

baekhyun is basically frozen to a statue on the reaction stream and salivates nonstop it’s just running down his neck at this point

his wettest dreams are right in front of him

stretched out pussy all juicy and swollen? baekhyun’s lifeblood. he’s seeing god 

he turns up the brightness of his phone to maximum so he can see every little detail 

remember. this guy loves to be inside of you so obsessively he wants to pay rent to live in there

so he’s appreciating an HD view of his favorite place, really deep and really pulsing and really soaked

yukhei has slathered you in lube and really pushed apart your muscles very gently, no abrasion, you relaxed so nicely around him

it’s feeling good as fuck

kai who’s watching right next to baekhyun just stares with big eyes

every injury he ever got while dancing is suddenly healed 

he’s a new man his spine has put itself together his legs are reborn

taeyong almost falls off his chair when he tunes in

he’s that bewildered

he just types a big WOW and a wall of blushing emojis

the explicit songs he’s been listening to and whatever he’s been rapping about recently are nothing in comparison to this

finally someone climbed up to taeyong’s level of nastiness

and he thought he’d never find someone on eye level

secretly he loves the nice view but he won’t admit how much

meanwhile he will rewatch this over and over for the whole week at least five times a day

and then there’s taemin

| adorable 😊🤗🎀 6v6

| can you put the camera a bit closer again 👉👈

| and turn on the flash if that’s ok 😳

| ah thank you 💟

i don’t know what taemin has seen or heard or experienced in his life and what made him this way but damn he loves that graphic shit

turning on the flash makes even yukhei’s jaw drop and rub your clit even faster

he’s damn proud he could make your pussy open up to him this way as he should be 

cuz he’s really been improving his Big Cock Techniques (BCT)

mark doesn’t write anything but he’s online and streaming so yeah he’s jerking off

with two hands

baekhyun is typing how much he loves the wet sounds and how great the fingering action is

and he’s damn right. telepathy 

that’s your favorite pervert right there yeehaw

in the meantime yukhei’s brain is empty he’s just smiling bright and enjoying the moment and the attention and your body

ten is basically next door because this is the fucking wayv dorm 

you can hear him choke on his coffee and whisper ‘oh my fucking god, oh shit’ to himself

the phone almost topples into the sheets while lucas is putting all those rubs and circles into your clit but the audio is already telling the boys to watch very closely anyway because here it comes

taeyong is probably falling apart by now given how he’s posting a couple fragmented sentences that you try to decipher on yukhei’s phone

until you get close and take up filming yourself again 

so yukhei can make a video with his own phone as well

yep that’s two cameras on you by now not just one

xuxi’s been such a steadfast babe 

and he gets to see the fruits of his work. for one, just how much of an imprint he left with his cock inside you 

and second how hard he can make you cum now

those big fingers are magic on you

taemin gets all the closeups he ever needed from your camera because you hit the zoom even more

yukhei starts kissing you twice

not as carefully as he often would

it’s the really wet and passionate version this time

he films your lower faces as good as he can

those big fucking lips 

they never fail to make you get the hots

they’re really made to do all this are they

his tongue nips into you with extra saliva on board

you suck it into your own mouth and mix it with yours, and gather some more

and slip your tongue above his in return

yukhei makes sure you can hear him swallowing all that warm runny spit and moans into your mouth

guess who just blew one big juicy load into the condom

and he’s not even inside of you

jesus christ yukhei

looks like french kissing is his orgasm button 

you start sucking on his tongue when it slides back between your lips and you make them really tight and puckering

the noise is so delicious

yukhei shoots the rest of his semen into the condom

you go even harder on him, the kiss gets really deep

kai and baekhyun are literally jumping up and down on their beds by now

taemin and mark are sending star-eyed emojis

ten is definitely beating the meat next door

yukhei’s hand is massaging incessantly between your legs

he makes you feel. so. good.

when he retreats from the kiss you’re ready

you can hardly keep the phone stable in your palm

yukhei also points his camera back at your pussy again

and makes sure to catch every contraction

you know an orgasm is good when you’re going all “oh... ohh...”

even taeyong goes online to stream his reaction because you cum so beautifully

he’s actually crying and can’t close his mouth he can’t believe what he’s seeing

your pussy lips are so sloppy and stretched apart and twitching and you make sure the camera catches every bit

it takes almost half a minute until your muscles calm

you tell yukhei to clean it up with those plump lips of his

baekhyun and taemin are violently agreeing with thousands of “YESS EAT UP!!!” and “yes!! 😊♥︎🌹” text bubbles in the chat

your guys are so cute do you realize that

in order to have both hands free, lucas ends his video, puts his phone aside, and is already licking you up like a whole bowl of whipped cream

you keep on streaming on your own phone and brush the hair out of his face

the best part is catching yukhei’s tongue winding between your lips and then spoiling your pussy with big kisses very very slowly as not to overstimulate you

he’s such a fast learner he’s doing it really well

once you’re satisfied and cool off, you stroke the back of his neck and his favorite boyfriend duties are officially on pause

so he can go to pull off the condom and clean himself up, and get ready for bed after a quick mini snack

while you blow kisses into the camera, flirt with all your babes while they flirt back and even bow to you

and film your pussy all swollen and licked up but slowly closing a little bit again, ever so slightly

ten sends two little black hearts and a little “that was the most amazing thing i’ve ever seen thank you 😽”

you make sure taemin gets an extra close view of your clit and taeyong is making high-pitched squealing noises in his reaction video stream

mark goes like “yea that’s the spot!”

kai has joined baekhyun with the mouth and saliva action, they’re both licking their lips all over the place and make lewd lusty faces

they’re literally sucking and eyefucking your pussy through the camera bitch they want it so goddamn bad

oh to have their mouths on you right now to come down from your high and chill

you tell everyone how much you miss them and how badly you want them to be here

and how you want to feel all of them all over, on your skin and inside you

the chat is full of yearning and horny crying emojis now

yukhei helps you clean up the rest while you text how it felt with mark and baekhyun because they wanna know more

you talk about how yukhei’s girth is always rubbing that one spot inside and his breathing changes when it does

and you say you really loved their reactions

the members promise to be careful and discrete when they re-watch the stream and ten also says that if you don’t want it to stay in the chat some day you should never hesitate to delete it

you say no problem boys you should know me inside out, just remember to use head-phones when yukhei starts slurping at the 01:27 min mark

taeyong and mark are losing it at your puns

then you have a glass of water taller than yukhei’s dick and basically dance to the bathroom

lucas talks to the boys with his big ole smile in his pyjamas while you’re busy

oh god he is so shy

but very very blissed out. it really takes only two things to make this man happy. big plates, twitchy pussy.

a truly simple man. you like that

kai is definitely evolving from his teasing yukhei agenda in the meantime

he is sending thumbs up emojis instead of raised eyebrow ones

you lay down in xuxi’s big embrace and say goodnight to your boys

yukhei buries his nose in your hair, and kisses you on the forehead so innocently, taeyong melts in his little video square on screen

taemin is a big fan as well

he’s living true to his “explicit shit and romance” life motto isn’t he

you ask if everyone was enjoying themselves

big positive reactions all over the chat

you coo how you adore them all so much and want more of things like this where everyone is involved

eight people are going to bed very happy today

yukhei waves and baekhyun goes offline as well, as does taeyong who’s beaming

end stream

it was a masterpiece

that mark needs to recover from the very most, his entire bed is full of used tissues

and basically

over the next few hours the chat is losing their minds over and over again

everyone can’t stop gushing and telling you what their favorite part was

kai says how turned on you were was making him hard all night

ten enjoyed the wild kissing part and how wet everything was

naughty boy taemin keeps on talking about how — i quote — your insides are the best ever!! while sending flower emojis

your stream has unleashed a gigaton of sexual energy

and that basically goes on and on

until tuesday arrives

oof 

today’s the day

you know that ten is up to something 

except the little hearts and kiss comment

he hasn’t written much in the chat

oh shit oh shit what is he planning

he truly is a pisces

you know that some epic stuff is about to go down since the cats are with yangyang 

and — what

there’s a large canvas in his room with a piece of cloth to cover it

lord have mercy

he’s bringing the big guns

ten will even hold a little speech on how he got inspiration two weeks ago

only to proceed to unveil the art very shyly

it’s an elaborate pencil drawing standing about as tall as him

immaculately sketched in a realistic way

have a guess what he’s been drawing

exactly right it’s an erotic depiction of you

laying on your back, thighs spread, head thrown back

and to make it mysterious you see more of the legs rather than the crotch area

so whatever or who is giving you pleasure is entirely up to you to imagine to your liking

it’s more about how the person he drew feels lust rather than the onlooker. he drew this for your own enjoyment

he did that very cleverly and classily 

this canvas will be your utmost treasure and get such an intimate spot in your home

it doesn’t take very long until you’re mounting him and get those hips moving in a circle

ten is just full of surprises

you ask if you can photograph the drawing and upload it to the chat

ten is like ohhh!

but why not, now that he thinks about it. he secretly likes praise and visibility for his drawings so much

the post is definitely a success 

lots of exclamation marks and reaction memes for three hours straight

but who would’ve thought otherwise

ten is just massively talented, always on point

and hits the right nerve with his line of work

as your pussy can attest

yukhei is gonna tease in the chat that he heard you in the dorm and that it sounded mega hot wink wink wink

ten writes:

| my tongue hurts 

| let’s do it again next week

| i feel inspired to draw more as well

the chat explodes with hype for another two hours

multiple members come up with their own artistic takes on you

on wednesday kai presents a feral dance he choreographed for the whole morning. showing a representation of what you are to him and what he feels for you

very beautiful

on thursday baekhyun gifts you a deliberately humorous doodle titled mochi mama in the style of i dunno, probably picasso on crack

you have not seen anything like it

it’s gonna make you laugh in sad hours for many days to come

talk about come

baekhyun will have his hands busy in and on you all night

he wants to feel mama mochi and please you and make you smile

try not to climax challenge: failed several times

on friday mark blasts a song he wrote about you as soon as you put your hand bag down in the studio

100% of the lyrics are about how sexy and charming and special you are to him and how infatuated he is and how much he thinks about you all the time and how much you knock him off his feet, and how he has the biggest hots for you, jesus christ

that mark lee canada flow wants to make you fucking nut right then and there

the fandom just got his lit mixtape and he’s already working on another one i guess he sure has enough nsfw inspiration for it

all the more reasons to cum hard on his dick tonight

and make sweet love to that sexy body because mark lee isn’t the only one with the hots

then comes saturday

taeyong day

the tension is rising

you’re at his place

the sweet boo comes to put some chirping fledgelings into a towel on your lap as usual

there’s a big crispy lasagna baking in the oven, dripping with cheese and sauce with the most full-bodied herbal mix ever

damn tasty 

gordon ramsay would rate this particularly well on twitter

honestly man

we all know gordon ramsey would like taeyong’s dishes

the evening passes as it always does

so he didn’t jump on the bandwagon that’s interesting

it’s almost as if the stream didn’t happen or anything

just as you expected

taeyong doing his own thing and being just very consistent makes him so sexy and desirable to you it’s hard to explain

you just like his style of going about things you know

he’s very receptive to your impulses

you figure it’s up to you to make some steps

so when he opens the fridge to pull out a self-made, perfectly swirly vanilla-chocolate vortex pudding that’s just at the right temperature, you can’t help but hit on him like the world is ending 

but as you learned from taeyong’s example: your way

you ask him to open his mouth and maneuver spoon after spoon of pudding into it for him to deliciously savor it

giving him compliments on always making your day along with that

that bowl is empty very fast my loves

and taeyong very happy

oh yeah he was enjoying that

with his eyes closed

oh fuck

the sexual tension could rip the air in half like a mark verse

you decide to sit down on his lap all nonchalant and finish your own pudding... more than suggestively

taeyong is basically holding his breath at this point he’s a puddle

you tell him he can put his hands on your waist if he wants to

no answer needed his fingers are already on their way

you can hear how his heart is approaching a techno music BPM

at this point all you can do anymore is lean in to whisper if he likes to go to the bedroom with you

he can keep the apron on

taeyong tastes deliciously of pudding aye

you roll around in the sheets kissing so heavily

this is pure indulging you just feel how you’re sleeping with a chef

who happens to have the veiniest dick of all time

you’re definitely filled up well

sliding up and down on him deliciously for twenty minutes

really slowly and hugging each other tightly

and saying romantic things

that’s the good life

by the end of the evening the group chat gets a picture of taeyong’s world class lasagna 

and a ‘very random’ shaky picture of your hand in his hair

which baekhyun instantly comments as:

“now tyong knows how great you taste as well 🤓😁🤗“

yukhei agrees wholeheartedly and ten starts making baby don’t stop puns

kai is totally in love with the quality food 

baekhyun voices his interest in making more pictures of that kind with you. you know, hand in the hair, no big deal

kai says hurry up with it hyung, all the hair dye makes you balder every minute

baekhyun reprises his doodling and now draws a couple

it’s mama mochi with byun baldhyun

“this will be the next selca“

glorious

you’re having a damn good time

but later you feel something is going on

the whole week passes and taeyong seems to be brooding

next saturday he has a hard time expressing himself when he comes to your home 

you ask if he’s not comfortable having more sex or if he struggles with the relationship setup

taeyong says it’s not that but can’t explain any further

you go on a whim and ask if it’s a confession he has on his mind

bingo

“taeyong... if you think i’ll judge you for something. remember we’re only doing this since a couple weeks. it’s hard to know how the person really reacts if you don’t know each other inside out“

he is still hesitant

you ask him if it’s something taboo

“yeah...”

you thought so. taeyong is the least basic person you know along with taemin

guess why these two are saved for last my dear readers

you tell him that how he’s in his own lane is what you appreciate him for in the first place, it’s why you’re here with him, you love your duckling chef so much

if he wants a different kind of sex that’s perfectly him

he looks relieved and understood hearing that

and confesses that yeah... he wants to go a little kinkier with you

now you know why taeyong was acting with so much restraint

and put all of his feelings and sensuality into food pretty much

in fact the kinky sex has already started whether you noticed or not

indirectly. as in, the dynamic

truth is he wants to be a service sub

oh yeah lemme introduce you to some new things

service subs like to really cater to their dominants and fulfill their every wish not just in bed, but around the house as well

and there’s even more to it as you will soon discover talking to him about it

an apron is only the start

in case you have been living under a rock

taeyong’s duality is nuts 

he’s a completely shy mega pervert

it’s not a secret that this guy wants hardcore bdsm torture sex

you letting all that aggression loose on him for fucking sport

and being cold to him

with a bit of soft domme action as the perfect balance 

yep 

he wants you to take him out and take care of him at the same time

he’s perfectly aware he’s among the freakier and more deprived members

even ten is just casually freaky and just open for a lot of things. taeyong is deliberate

and pretty deep in the femdom community as far as his browser history is concerned

we all know assertive partners are his thing

but he’s afraid he’ll get you into something that’s a lot of responsibility

you say mister i’m familiar with your interests 

my dear you never made them hard to guess

you tell him it’s no problem for you to give it to him raw

you’ll be doing disgusting things to him that sexy face will straight up drown 

did you know?

our dear boy taeyong loves it when you spit in his mouth and do virgin roleplay

if he asks you to break him don’t be surprised

he wants to release control completely

he goes by all the rules

and i guarantee. when he comes along your dominatrix mood is gonna skyrocket he just brings that shit out in people

his mere naked body is just... how not to go nuts on him how he wants it

long story short tied up taeyong head to toe ends up immortalized as a vertical photograph

the group chat is overwhelming your notifs with wide-eyed emojis and all caps

amping up the game a little more each day are we

without even trying. hell, this just happened

where this is going is gonna be fun

sunday goes down with you grinding yourself all over taemin but you’re both clothed

you grab the back of his neck to lean in for kisses over and over and over

yes kisses are key

if not the favorite thing he does

let this sink in. if taemin overwhelms a little kitty with a hundred thousand smooches, just how kissy is this guy gonna be 

and have fun teasing his erection through his pants

lee taemin a squirmy mess? hell yeah

in classic fashion he will spend the most time of the evening on his knees getting slapped around in several blindfolds, harnesses, and wrist ties

his fantasy finally came true

i repeat what taemin has been dreaming of is reality

thank god for taeyong having you second guess his private tastes. otherwise you would not be on your dom grind now

taemin even goes as far as ordering lingerie for your encounters — to wear himself because he’s taemin

satin and silk blouses he already has in his wardrobe so there’s no shortage

i don’t have to tell you that you can spend hours grinding on his cock in a room full of candles while taemin is in head-to-toe bondage

that’s his idea of a good time and hell you are really treated to perfect eye candy, taemin’s hotness will bring your pleasure to a new level

the group chat will definitely love your photography taken from your sessions

taemin is just an utter no-compromise kinda man to make kinky love with. everything is planned he’s never settling for less than a perfect evening

where both of you really experience the ultimate satisfaction from treating your bodies to the best of clothes and toys and scenarios

give me an amen for taemin being your sunday guy because this legend of a man is your personal church

and his discography is the bible

and cum play is the baptizing my friend

so yeah huh

every day you can look forward to. monday to sunday

and not a day goes by without someone in the chat reminiscing the steamy video you did with lucas

you end up repeating what you wished that day

for everyone to be with you

so you could feel all of them 

and you say maybe it’s time to arrange something 

you’ve gotten to know each of them personally and intimately by now

and integrated them into your personal life

hell when you wake up the first thing you see is ten’s drawing across your bed

or baekhyun’s funny mama mochi art on your phone background

and you start your day literally selecting from a pile of taeyong’s freshly washed and ironed clothing stacks in your wardrobe

sitting at your breakfast table with a bouquet of flowers that kai and jongin brought you

eating food you bought together with lucas

listening to music that mark made especially for you

they’re all in your life together so it’s the right time to make some heated love together

the chat is all down you don’t even have to ask any further

baekhyun volunteers to go about his leader duty to organize the best possible venue and best possible date

cause with superm things do go 100

he asks what kind of atmosphere you have in mind

you say hard and nasty and kinky

which will definitely make the chat interested

and baekhyun was about to rent a huge modern art penthouse in gangnam

you say no need to go that expensive. you just need a large bed, no paparazzi, and an area where you can be loud. sculptures you could care less about

you have yukhei on your team, so that’s a living sculpture already 

it needs a safe haven essentially, with a dark and lusty atmosphere would be so nice

ten steps in saying he has the exact spot you’re looking for 

he has a friend who runs a declining night club in the suburbs, with some pretty attractive and grungy backrooms with plenty of space to fuck

yeah a club is exactly what you’re looking for that’s a good idea

it’s closed on monday so baekhyun and ten arrange a rental just then

of course way in the evening

with the guarantee of nobody else around

baekhyun knows how this rigged game rolls he says they need the club to perform a dance practice, overnight stay, and shooting a music video

which is only a half-lie

not “hey we are super m planning an orgy wanna invite dispatch and tell lee soo man”

regardless ten’s friend is pretty chill and indifferent anyways

and baekhyun’s money is doing the talk

you’ll be guaranteed to be left by yourself

monday evening it is. 

you already have a whole bunch of fantasies to let loose on your boys

and put it all in the chat

yo it’s called brainstorming and it sure has brain in it

you discuss

and it goes down next week 

you encouraged the members to wear what they feel best in, no dress code, no comparison thinking. you want to meet them like you got to know them, each in their favorite expression

taeyong dons a mass onslaught of fetish gear underneath a trench coat, including a fancy collar, lots of hairspray

and latex gloves. shit he’s a freak

baekhyun puts on the coziest clothes he finds and his smol sneakers but they are secretly expensive, his hair is curly and big, he put on a nice scent

kai can’t help but go black suit and lace underneath, you know him

bleach blonde yukhei gets out the tight white tee and smug jeans

creative genius ten goes all out designing his own fashion (!) with paint, he puts on sexy af glasses and goes for his signature ‘cleavage down to the belly’ look underneath a bomber jacket

mark goes for a casual suit but make it swag, with a sleeveless top underneath, yeah those mark arms go crazy 

taemin — picks his most dazzling silver outfit that looks like a rendition of mermaid scales, pointed shoes, princely hair, famous i’m so fabulous

and it’s already starting out sexy in the car before you even arrive 

because this is all gonna be glorious from the first second to the last

baekhyun and kai will do the driving

you have not one but two classy and sexy chauffeurs you hear me

yeah in their shiny black german cars with those sleek comfortable seats

baekhyun, taeyong, ten and lucas are a team

and then you get kai, mark, and taemin, including your group luggage because such a trip needs a lot of things to pack trust me

you’re with team kai on the way to the club and with team baekhyun the way back 

it’s already lit and steamy on your way there

nothing better than getting in the mood held by the greek god arms of none other than lee taemin with mark lee assisting

you’re entirely wrapped up in kissing taemin so passionately, his tongue melts into your mouth like the finest chocolate

thinking about how you were making out last week gets you going even more

as does feeling up his bulge, ugh taemin is so sensual

mark sitting on your other side being eager to attend to your thighs, your waist, your back, your hands, your hair, your stomach

yep

yukhei has been telling him about the wonders of a whole-body massage since you like it so much

mark gets his hands all over you to provide a sexy caress and wow he’s doing it well, giving everything the perfect kind of attention, always asking if you want more of this or more of that

mark loves everything about you and he knows how to make your anticipation become even more intense by dedicating time to all areas generously

you feel like he’s worshipping you head to toe

it’s the way to get turned on

mark has great soft hands and knows your best spots by now

that’s exactly why it was a good idea to sleep with the members individually at first

you could figure it all out in detail and each member could show their style of doing things, and you could teach them

mark has become an expert in skinship

while he’s kissing into your neck whispering revering things to you nobody else would understand

they’re intimate, spicy details from your studio lessons

with a romantic twist even because mark is giving you his entire arsenal, the entire palette

“i’ve been thinking about you so often...”

with jongin driving carefully and taking the lesser frequented roads 

kai is really keeping it together

the maknae backseat party is faithfully photographed by mark who sends it to the other team after taemin and you select the best shots, giggling

your favorite is a bird’s view of your cleavage with taemin kissing right between your breasts, slightly below the sternum

his hair is softly splayed over the area

taeyong and ten reply with heart eyes in the chat

on you go kissing and touching

taemin is so gentle with you and easily accepts your wild licks and bites, leans his head back so you have perfect access to his neck

by the time you arrive at the club’s back entrance, he’s marked up and his lips are mighty used

ruined neck, ruined mouth

taemin’s favorite two accessories to walk into a club with 

including a hard-on

with mark and kai strutting right after, chewing mints

...both getting hard themselves because mark loves your body and jongin has very good ears when it comes to picking up things that happen in the back of his car

and this bitch got a raging libido, so

the best part is everything is prepared

the other team already parked their car there earlier

ten had the keys to every needed lock, showed everyone around, and then baekhyun went into organization overdrive

this is the first time he didn’t clown around to distract from work since debut

if baekhyun ever means serious business... wow

your best boy taeyong has located the perfect backroom that’s shaded inside and neon-lit from the outside

the window’s aren’t particularly low-sitting so that’s a privacy plus

there’s a huge white extra oversized bed with some more great furniture and a sofa landscape

he desinfected everything to a T

and pulled out every utensil you might need from a large black bag

he walked in like he just commited a bank robbery but in reality there’s cutesy pink rope in the bag

oh well

classic taeyong

yukhei sorted and handed out the condoms plus water bottles for everyone

he’s the expert for the basics don’t come at him he’s doing a great job

after you reminding everyone of the safeword 

taemin sits down with you on the bed and you keep kissing

keeping up the flow right there

//

you beckon your lil’ adorable mochi who’s been dying for skinship

baekhyun is so turned on he wastes no time joining

still fully clothed while the other members are about to undress

you actually like baekhyun huddling up against you in his oversized hoodie it’s cute

so hey, change in plans

everyone ditches the protocol and climbs on the bed only without their shoes 

lot of ties and belts to pull them closer to you

you bring all of them together on the bed now

the feeling of having everyone around you is so electrifying, you have to distance from taemin’s seductive lips not to get some kind of adrenaline overdose

jesus this guy is trying to soak your pants like baekhyun forgot to turn off the shower

you get to enjoy five minutes of relaxed massaging from all sides to cool everything down a little

baekhyun and yukhei alternate with kissing you

yum

big plush lips plus a horny tongue

that’s a good combination

kai is definitely setting the pace of how to massage you, and how to move the body while doing so, and what expressions to make 

instead of sitting there awkwardly staring into space

remember? master of courting — that’s kim jongin

even baekhyun follows his example a bit

you’re entering cloud 9 from that whole-body massage

you can tell they’re all dancers. there’s rhythm involved

having the seven of them attend to you at the same time just hits different

that are 14 hands

70 fingers

all in sync with kai’s physical ideas, carefully yet purposefully kneading and stroking 

kai also helps everyone find a good area and makes sure everyone stays away from any precarious or sexy zones

because you’d probably get off from that in the matter of a blink

to be honest you’re already feeling heated you can’t help it

but that’s a good sign you’re definitely feeling this 

and there’s not a single limp dick in this room at this point already

baekhyun being the best people reader all over again manages a seamless transition to some water drinking

so everyone is ready to go

you wish you could do everything at once but decide to get a load of some slow body rolls against you because hell yeah

courting expert kai is sure to oblige, dance god taemin joins right in, and ten completes the holy trinity and hell does he go off

photographer mark on duty again. this moment has to be captured

baekhyun does his mood management magic and encourages ten and taemin to let out their little sounds more

kai he doesn’t have to tell

nor you because you’re already moaning

shit these guys are just too good

these bodies are machines

again bless your xuxi workout sessions

you wouldn’t keep up otherwise

you curse them because your pussy feels creamy way too early

switching to grinding on their bulges is not a better idea because it’s making you even hornier but anyway it’s your favorite activity

yukhei takes time and some effort to get fully hard so that’s a grateful job now

because you can gather yourself

you resort to using your cleavage to stop turning yourself on completely

and then your hands to palm his pants because that’s even more inconspicuous

group sex with superm? hardest early orgasm avoidance challenge EVER

is there some kind of legally accessible viagra for women

there’s no way you could turn yourself off help

you either get the first orgasm out of the way or keep it together to have some suspense in here and see the boys work hard

the decision is clear

time to bring out the toys that taeyong assembled on a table

baekhyun, taemin taeyong and ten are in the down to get tied up in various ways

lucas and kai get blindfolded and get a sexy task from you

slowly humping the mattress just for your viewing pleasure

topless for that matter

no need to ask twice there they go

photographer mark stays free and flexible. it’s always good to have someone outside bondage just in case with such a big group

anyway so you will be busy for sure

the rest of the boys strip down to only their briefs and get a good dose of spanking

ten is definitely moaning the loudest there

taeyong ends up with tied wrists in a prayer position and has his fun getting slapped around by you 

until he’s breathless and smiling to himself with his tongue hanging out

someone got his daily meal of smacking

taemin highly approves 

nobody’s surprised

baekhyun gets a quick and simple upper body rope harness that’s very easy to grip him by

and just to tease him you add some nipple pinches

result: loud baekhyun noises

cute as hell

so that’s how he’s been training himself to reach all those high notes

interesting

taemin, completely naked, has his hands and ankles tied, looking so beautiful all helpless and his cock itching for stimulation

and because taemin’s strange ‘artistic’ kidnapping fantasies that he never stops talking about cannot be ignored he gets a mouth gag for good measure

you know you just roll with their ideas

he’s a simple man that’s all he needs

you decide to put a bigger bondage piece on ten who ends up in a hogtie aka his new favorite place to be in

if there’s one guy who’s flexible like that it’s him

let’s see for how long he can take it

ten likes a challenge

you tell mark exactly what kind of pictures you want of your tied darlings and he’s well-engaged with that task

baekhyun is clinging to you a lot in the meantime

he gets kisses on the mouth 

and your open ear 

because you can tell there’s something on his mind

or rather

his ass is telling him something after you activated it with spanks huh

what does baekhyun want?

baekhyun wants the strap

and the strap he shall get

his time has come

this time the safeword won’t do so tapping yukhei’s thigh is the deal

taeyong’s kinky tool collection has a nice and thick equipment to offer, jet black black straps, jet black dildo, like it’s some kind of secret agent gear

it takes a lot of lube to get it into baekhyun’s tight and tiny ass but what’s new 

he’s not the gaping expert 

and way too busy laughing at the members’ reaction faces so his damn asshole is contracting god dammit

what a brat

next time he gets a toy for prep

only when you grab him by the harness and get into a rhythm, baekhyun throws it back

good boy

kai and xuxi are allowed to take off their blindfolds now because you have a task for them

taeyong’s toy collection features one extra long double-ended dildo, transparent and neither too slim nor too wide

if baekhyun doesn’t have that thing inside his throat i don’t know who

this shit is made for him

and you can tell he’s salivating for that

you tell yukhei to use those big hands to keep baekhyun’s head steady

and oh wonder, his long fingers enclose it perfectly

kai gets to go hard on baekhyun and fulfill his lifetime fantasy that he has had for over a decade now and jerks off to every night:

baekhyun not talking

so while baekhyun’s ass is getting properly stuffed

so is his mouth

kai has no qualms squeezing the toy into baekhyun’s throat a little more roughly

those are some pretty intense choking noises

mark steadily hits the snapshot button

some people go to pound town

baekhyun goes to silicon valley

kai is not afraid to push that thing as far as it can physically go

you’re pleased with how he’s doing it

and with baekhyun’s blowjob abilities anyway

is there a better throat in this industry? probably not 

he’s pretty surprised himself with how much he can take it

that poor ass is getting more than it can handle in the meantime, baekhyun is throbbing and whining

little did you know his prostate is so sensitive and makes his dick leak

such a shame you fully exploit that

you tell yukhei to have baekhyun move his head on his own to get into the rhythm

and get taeyong over to suck on the other end of the toy because oh yeah

let me just say these two are amazing

god bless sm entertainment 

not for any executive decisions

but for their uncanny ability to attract and assemble all the subs

lee taeyong giving head like the rent is due is a sight you need in your life

like everything, he does it roughly and properly

baekhyun is barely even sucking anymore just straight up gagging and seeing stars

because uh-oh here comes a big fat prostate orgasm

mark is clever enough to hit record on his phone

and capture a shaking baekhyun travelling through a whole bunch of universes, at least in his mind 

because that’s how strong his climax is

all he can say is thank you mama mochi and recover from this on his back

kai is satisfied with the result as well because baekhyun managed to not say anything for fifteen minutes

kai never had this much silence in his life

taeyong is still not done sucking the toy off and you let him

never step between a man and his favorite dildo

lucas takes up the task of untying ten who wants to share the other end that’s free now

and mark hands over the camera to kai who films just that

which also means mark is in the mood for you

about time to get some dick

and have taemin watch right next to you

being able to delight in mark’s wonderful technique

doggystyle

which ends up in kai joining 

which causes yukhei to join

and baekhyun to film 

the three are literally queueing while waiting for their turn

you tell them when to pull out and let the other member have you

until mark is riddled with so much suspension, the fifth thrust on his turn ends up in an unexpected hard climax

“oh my god oh my god!“

obviously kai will let loose now and cum as well, accompanied by really breathy groans

yukhei takes his time to make you moan which gives both taeyong and taemin a good show and an untouched orgasm

eventually you get to hear lucas growling his soul out

and kai bickering to pull out already

because it’s time for buffet

after getting rid of his condom, mark has been untying the very resilient ten who’s been in prawn bondage for like half an hour and five minutes now

respect

he and baekhyun team up to eat you out

yeah prepare for a dream team

while mark and kai chill on the other side of the bed

lucas on the other hand still doesn’t have enough and ends up licking your legs with his cock firmly palmed in those big hands

baekhyun and ten are doing the most meanwhile, lapping you up all sloppy

the job of the cameraman goes to a wild taemin who’s undone his safety hook 

he can’t stand this shit anymore he has to join the action instead of lying around in ropes

jeez the guy has the fun of his life playing with filters

silently giggling to himself

until kai finds out that taemin has been putting cat ears on ten and cowboy hats on lucas

kai confiscates the phone from naughty taem and decides to take up that task himself

so taemin can eat you out himself now

alright there are three heads bumping each other between your legs now

and yukhei close-by, currently nibbling at your outer thighs

can you imagine how crowded and crammed that is

you tell mark to get taeyong out of his ties as well

if you’re gonna cum he has to join the party as well

and he will not hesitate my friend

taeyong’s kinky tongue (which can make all kinds of completely unprecedented moves and slurping noises) riles up the other three to put all their effort into this

you order baekhyun and ten to line you left and right of your hips, fingering you from there

and let both taeyong and taemin get you to the point with their tongues at the same time

it’s a busy day innit

the reason is that baekhyun and ten didn’t come but you plan to change that with some dual handjob

baekhyun lets out some pretty hoarse panting noises

(yeah jongin destroyed him with that toy in his mouth for real)

once your hands grip onto their erections, almost automatically baekhyun’s fingers start going crazy on your clit and ten goes mad with his thumb right next to it

yeah he’s kept his rings on this is gonna be a sexy sight

mark and kai retire from their pillows to join at your request

mark kissing you, jongin sucking on your breasts

from this point on things are pretty much just a daze

two tongues two hands? oh shit

four people are trying to make you cum what did you expect

and three other people are licking you all over

yukhei doesn’t even care at this point he’s just straight up kissing your feet

ten is silently groaning it out, he’s pouring his seed into the condom with little twitches in the hip and shoulders

taeyong’s tongue is gonna finish you off, taemin’s lips will make you feel so good, your legs will be a shaking mess in yukhei’s hands

how to even describe this

it’s an explosion of heat and contractions

you’re going fucking crazy from all that head and tongue action god damn

mark definitely has to swallow a lot of your moans all over the place

and taeyong

also swallows

what a god-loving man

your pussy is leaking enough to feed baekhyun as well

who still strokes himself off while he’s cleaning you up with his mouth, oh boy he really developed a lot of stamina

you have your fun telling him to stop jerking himself off

so his orgasm ends up being ruined

those always mess him up

always a nice sight to have him shaking and whining and gasping

you have to roll over at some point before getting overstimulated

phew that takes quite a couple of deliberate breaths

now you have seven hot guys with sopping wet mouths on your hands, looking at you exhausted and infatuated

that’s super m for you

yukhei, man for the basics he is, hands out towels

you really gotta say he’s kept a clear head in all of this except maybe the sudden foot fetish reveal

of course taeyong towels himself down the most he’s basically covered himself with anything he could get his hands on

that face is dripping like his saturday evening lasagnas 

you help clean mark who kinda lost his mind and heart while kissing you, he needs your care a little more now

baekhyun soon snaps back into organization mode and has the brilliant idea to unpack xuxi’s and jongin’s luggage

to have everyone wearing their gigantic hoodies and sweaters

it’s warm in the room anyway but this feels so much cozier

after going to the bathroom

a ball of cuddly guys is snuggled up all aroud you faster than you can think

mark and taeyong are already sleeping they really knocked themselves out

champs

kai finds the completely forgotten phone somewhere in the sheets and turns off what seems to be a 50 minutes video

that’s gonna be fun to watch some time

baekhyun nuzzles himself to sleep against your sweater, right between your breasts

“mochi mama thank...” are his last words before he drifts off to pineapple pizza land or whatever dreamscape is in his head

probably something much dirtier but anyway

lucas and kai steal kisses from you and go off to sort out the room

jesus christ they still have the energy

taeyong’s nasty lil’ toy collection gets cleaned and reassembled, the ropes get coiled up, the towels wander into a washing machine in the other room

whose steady bumping lulls the rest of you to sleep

while taemin, epitome of taste he is, plays his best of hits on low volume with his phone

dozing off between seven guys while “heaven” is playing? 

best thing ever

the rest is history. you’re surrounded by sleepy cuddly sweater men

you actually sleep for a couple hours

dawntime you wake up cozied and sandwiched between yukhei’s tiddies and jongin’s back

which is the most protected, snug place on earth

even a nuclear superweapon couldn’t explode past that spot

they’re fast asleep

giant baby and teddy bear

safeguarding you in unison

ain’t they adorable

baekhyun is awake silently doing pilates, smiling cutely at you when he sees you’re awake, and he gets a big load of kisses i’m telling you

miraculously everything is tidy and smells fresh, and there’s a light soup in the air...

... lee taeyong got up at 6:30.

he was a whirlwind

the group gets to enjoy a 3-course classic korean breakfast 

because taeyong found the club kitchen

what kind of godly entity is this man

how did he do all of this

the club is the cleanest it’s ever been

taking care of 24 people is probably so difficult, this is actually easy to him

you depart in a good mood because damn that soup was restaurant quality and baekhyun had the idea to give you morning head to which everyone joined in

good thing the club has showers

baekhyun is still horny as hell and you want that D(elight) any time of the day 

so you fuck for a bunch of minutes in his car after dropping off the team and they giving you playful winks

you park the car behind xiumin’s house because that’s the most calm place to be

people are sleeping on xiumnin so hard, no paparazzi are around, ever

baekhyun settles there with you smiling

he didn’t sing “get you alone” with no reason

baekhyun needs that one-on-one time with you to ground himself and love you all over again big time

plus you are dying to cum bouncing on him on the driver’s seat 

while he is desperately gripping the steering wheel to have something solid to hold onto

yeah baekhyun is always ready to lose it for ya

it’s literally such a good spot to fuck

he’s strapped in all underneath you and you can see him squirm and get heart eyes from up close

you also love how your thighs meet the fabric of his pants

baekhyun’s tiny lap is already worth a huge nut you love grinding on him

those shapely thighs

with his cock peaking out from underneath his sweater

what his morning head tongue can do, his dick can do twice with ease so time for round two today

glad you have your bag with some utensils

you’re generous with lube on the condom

in fact you love spilling it over his pants a little

it looks like you’ve been squirting on him that’s why

baekhyun is down for your pervy imaginations

and gets even harder

not bad lil’ guy

time to make him moan with the grip of your walls

mochi breathes pretty hard because damn... more dick destruction

you love burying your hands in his sweater at the shoulders and just fucking ride

his hair gets messy, his bedroom gaze is so intense

his ass still hurts from yesterday but it seems to turn him own judging by the high-pitched groans and his begs for you to bounce on him harder

no problem his dick is just made to be ridden

if this wasn’t a high-tech car from the future with carbon and whatnot anybody could hear baekhyun’s um ‘vocals’ from the outside

this is so much fun oh my god

baekhyun releases with his eyes shut and teeth pressed together, his nose is all scrunched up

jesus this one got to him

he drives you to his home with his fingers shaking a little on the steering wheel

literally tapping like they do in his microphone on stage

yep this shook him up

and insatiable byun is now satisfied byun

nothing better than knowing you ruined your cupcake boyfriend in the best of ways

back at his apartment and after some extra carbo hydrate heavy food, as a pre-nap treat you grind on his thighs and his ass because why not

and gyrate him to sleep with his arms and legs stretched in all directions

both of you are still in disbelief that all of this happened

legend has it you’re dreaming of more group sex ideas that night

the next day taemin sends the champagne video to celebrate your first time together

which brings us back to the start

and that’s how it all happened

now you know

congrats on being a lucky girl

related: super m as subs

FINAL NOTE. ah shit i love this dynamic, thank you for reading 🎊

© 2017-2021 submissive-bangtan. all rights reserved. no reposts or translations allowed. all depictions fictional.

#super m smut #superm #super m #super m x reader #baekhyun smut #taemin smut #kai smut #lucas smut #ten smut #taeyong smut #mark lee smut #super m imagine #super m fanfic #baekhyun #kai #taemin #mark lee #lucas #yukhei #ten #chittaphon #taeyong

[vanessakirbyfans]

Defying expectations, challenging Hollywood’s norms and facing one’s own fear of failing emerged as central themes when Michelle Pfeiffer, Kate Winslet, Rashida Jones, Vanessa Kirby and Andra Day met virtually in December for The Envelope’s Actress Roundtable. Collectively, they represent four decades in film and more wild experiences than we can fit in one discussion — and they’re also behind some of the most complex characters in film right now.

Pfeiffer is eccentric, wealthy New York widow Frances Price in the quirky drama “French Exit,” which opens this week in limited release. When Price blows through most of her inheritance, she flees to Paris, where she attracts an odd assortment of friends. Winslet is rough-hewn paleontologist Mary Anning in “Ammonite,” a period drama that explores the hardships of a female pioneer in 19th century England’s patriarchal science world and the challenges she faced hiding her love for another woman.

Jones is Laura, the dutiful daughter of an eccentric father in the comedy-drama “On the Rocks.” Despite their complicated history, daughter and father embark on a covert mission to find out if her husband is cheating, but self-discovery may just be the biggest reveal. Kirby conveys anger, sorrow and grief following the death of her newborn baby as Martha in the emotionally wrenching “Pieces of a Woman.” And singer Day makes her film debut in “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” a period drama streaming on Hulu later this month that chronicles Holiday’s battles with law enforcement, drugs and the crush of systemic racism.

Their conversation here has been edited for length and clarity.

Your films are built around narratives of complex women, many of whom face challenges that aren’t often explored on screen. “Pieces of a Woman” is a great example of a film that is so specifically female, it would have never made it to the screen in the past.

Vanessa Kirby: It definitely feels like a different time right now ... we want to represent women that we identify as being us and the weird parts of us. In the movie, my biggest intention was to make it not a sanitized, movie version of a birth. So [she] felt super sick and burped a lot. She was really nauseous ... things that we might think are unpalatable or not comfortable. That’s all the facets of being human, and particularly being a women. I’ve read so many scripts where it was a version of a woman that I don’t know. It was a film version as opposed to my sister or my best mates or me.

Kate Winslet: That’s what is great about now ... the world is making space for all of these stories. We’ve always tried to tell these stories, but the world is more receptive to hearing them now. That is a shift.... It’s such a moving, seismic time to be doing this job.

Michelle, your character Frances Price is the perfect example of an imperfect female protaganist. She is a mess, and fantastic, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

Michelle Pfeiffer: I was just was so curious about this woman, and I thought she was so odd and not like a character that I had seen or that I had played. And then the dialogue is very stylized. So you have to give in to it but, at the same time, not too much. It was made up of these disparate tones of absurdism and melancholy, and it was funny, and it was tragic — these oddballs sort of living on the fringe of society and trying to make some sort of human connection, all of them, in some way.

Rashida, in “On the Rocks,” you play a reserved writer with a charming, flamboyant father. Your real father is Quincy Jones. What sort of parallels did you feel playing Laura?

Rashida Jones: I very much related to this idea of coming of age with a larger-than-life father who commands presence and changes the atmosphere of any room he walks into, and how that in itself can be something you have to untangle from. Because in order to be your own person, in order to find your life, in order to figure out who you are in the world, not relational to anybody else, you have to separate yourself from all that charm and the warm light of your father’s love. That part of it I very much related to. But Laura is unlike me in the sense that I’m pretty outspoken. This character, I think, has a lot of restraint. That was a challenge.

Andra, stepping into the shoes of Billie Holiday must have been a huge challenge, and this is your first film!

Andra Day: It was definitely terrifying. First of all, I’m a fan of hers. And I’ve always loved movies and had such a great respect for the craft of acting. My biggest terror was that I was going to suck. So I was like, “OK, I’m going to take two to three years off of music just to study and focus on acting.” I auditioned at the end of 2017, landed the role at the beginning of 2018, and then we shot at the end of 2019. So I had time to really live in her [shoes]. The film isn’t a sanitized version of Billie Holiday. She is raw. She is a fighter. She’s a hero, in all of her real humanness, even as a fractured figure. All of the emotional pain. It was the most challenging and rewarding thing I’ve done in my life — and the most terrifying.

Winslet: It never goes away.

Day: That’s actually my question. I mean, do you ever really, really shed all of it or let it go?

Winslet: Honestly, it does not go away. But I feel so excited for you, Andra, that in this moment you are connecting with other people, having these kinds of conversations, because we all learn on the job. All of these experiences that we are sharing are the things that will hold you up and buoy you through, and this is a time when we have to hold each other up. But it doesn’t get any easier. And I’m afraid you will always be terrified. I f—ing am.

Pfeiffer: When I first started acting, probably for the first 10 years, I literally on the first day would shake so terribly that I was sure you could see it on film. Fortunately, you couldn’t. I don’t shake any more, but I still have those jitters. I still think the first week of shooting I’m going to be fired and replaced.

Jones: Yeah. So congratulations on that, for a lifetime.

Day: This is a roundtable, but also a therapy session.

Let’s talk about the risks that jangle those nerves. Those of you who have been doing this a while have tackled a wide variety of characters and survived, and thrived. That’s unusual in Hollywood, especially for women.

Pfeiffer: Like all actors, you sort of choose the best of what is available to you, and go for as long as you can without working, until you need a paycheck. It’s also that thing where, depending on what your last role was, that’s how the industry sees you. It’s really up to you to try to find those things that shift it in the direction you want it to go. I did “Grease 2,” and that was one thing, and then was lucky enough a year later to get cast in “Scarface.” People were very upended, because nobody expected that turn. And then when I did “Married to the Mob,” that [was] another seismic shift, like, “Whoa, wait a minute; who’s that?” I remember when I met Marty Scorsese for the first time, he expected this dark-haired girl from New Jersey to walk in. That was one of the most flattering things anyone ever said about my work. It’s just looking for those opportunities, and sometimes they’re very small, but those small opportunities end up having the biggest impact on the direction that your career goes in.

Jones: I just want to interrupt and say how cool this is. Michelle, obviously, you’re an icon and a legend, but the fact that you did [those films] back to back; such different things, such different audiences, such different characters. To me, that is the success of the art form.

Pfeiffer: Well, thank you. I spent lots of time being unemployed and waiting and really stretching it out, but it is, for me, the most exciting thing about being an actor. And that’s why we’re always terrified, because we’re always trying to do something different.

Day: As music artists, people are always trying to put you in a box, like, “This is what you do,” and we’re constantly rebelling against that, because life’s not like that. I can’t be the same. This role changed me, and I wouldn’t have been the same [person] as three years ago anyway. As a fan of yours, [Michelle], it’s exciting not to know what you’re going to come out with next.

Kate, your recent leap into the unknown is playing Mary Anning.

Winslet: She was a woman of scientific brilliance who made pioneering discoveries in the fossil world. But she was an unsung hero, because she lived in the early 1800s, and the world of science and geology was, like so many worlds back then and still now, dominated by men. And those men would buy her finds and claim them as their own discoveries, actually put their names on them. But there was something incredibly stoic and accepting of her lot in life. Mary was self-taught. She was extremely working-class, actually impoverished, lived a very harsh life. I just loved her even though she is cantankerous at times and quite difficult.

Vanessa, in “Pieces of a Woman,” Martha is emotionally distant and hard to read even after going through significant trauma. Was that challenging?

Kirby: In her nature, [Martha] tries to never show anything she’s feeling. So I was really scared, because I thought, “Oh, my God, what if it looks like I’m feeling nothing or nothing’s going on?” I just had to trust that if I really felt it, and I really thought those thoughts [it would come through]. I’ve never given birth ... so a lot of women spoke to me about their experiences of miscarriage or stillbirth or losing children. I owe them everything, because they allowed me to sit with them and try and understand how it really felt. At the end of the shoot, I was like, “I hope it’s done them justice,” because it’s definitely something that’s not spoken about. There’s so much silence around it. I hope that the film will help start conversations that really need to start happening.

Andra, Billie had an exceptional life that was also quite brutal. How did you go about trying to convey that while still honoring her greatness?

Day: She is musically, my foremost inspiration. I already knew a lot about the government going after her. The early war on drugs, and the subsequent wars on drugs, were wholly entrenched in race. I was aware of that, but I didn’t know about how deeply they went after her, even up to her death. Yes, she was an addict and, yes, alcohol and drugs ... but they wanted her to die. And not just kill her, but to actually eradicate her legacy. It’s why I call her the godmother of civil rights, because she was doing it alone. Her singing “Strange Fruit” and the death of Emmett Till reinvigorated the civil rights movement. She was innately a fighter, a character with resilience and tenacity.

Kirby: Kate, can I ask what it was like being so young in “Titanic”? Did it like blow your mind after it came out and you realized that that many people were watching you in the cinema? Did you know at the time when you were making it —

Winslet: I didn’t. I was playing an American for the first time. And working with Leo, who I’d seen in "[What’s Eating] Gilbert Grape” and “Basketball Diaries.” So it was like, “Oh, my God, I’m Kate from Reading.” I was the overweight girl who would always be at the end of the line. And because my name was a W, sometimes I wouldn’t even get in the door of the audition because they’d run out of time before the Ws. And I was in “Titanic.” It’s mad.

Jones: How were you smart enough to know, even with all of that pressure and then getting hit with all of that fame, how did you know to back off and not take the big paychecks? You were so young. How did you know to shoot for longevity?

Winslet: The honest answer is I was scared of Hollywood. A big, scary place, where everyone had to be thin and look a certain way. And I knew that I did not look that way or feel like I fit there, so if I was ever going to belong, I had to earn my place. And to me, I hadn’t earned it. “Titanic” might have been a fluke. I had done “Heavenly Creatures.” I had done “Sense and Sensibility,” which I was nominated for an Academy Award for at the age of 19, but still I had this feeling of “maybe that was just luck.” When I became a mother at 25, all of that stuff evaporated completely. Then two years after she was born, I was asked to do “Eternal Sunshine [of the Spotless Mind].” I do believe that was a huge turning point in my career, because from then on people suddenly went, “Oh, she can do that?!”

Kate, what if anything did you learn from “Ammonite”?

Winslet: It really opened my eyes to wanting to take responsibility for this sort of shared voice that we have as women. To try harder to not be objectified.

Jones: But we take it for granted that things will be the way they’re supposed to be. And that’s what’s been cool about the last five years is there has been a complete and utter subversion of just having that existential moment of like, “Wait, what is it that I’m supposed to do? What are the societal norms? What are the professional norms that I’ve agreed upon that actually don’t feel comfortable?”

Kirby: I remember when I first started reading scripts, the character descriptions. The man, it would always be “articulate, intelligent, high-powered.” And then the woman would be “attractive, dark, beautiful hair, and all eyes look at her when she comes into the room.” It was so subtly objectifying. Often, the woman would be just ever so slightly moving the man’s story along, rather than necessarily having her own journey.

Day: I think we so often write this [young] generation off as like, “Oh, it’s the social media generation, and all they care about is selfies and dah, dah, dah.” But I think we can partly attribute this shift to them. I don’t think this generation wants the glossy, clean, the sanitized version of life. Also, with the internet and social media, everyone’s still connected; the globe is so much smaller now.

Rashida, you’ve not only acted, you’ve written, produced and directed. Do you think that kind of representation behind the camera is making a difference in what we are seeing?

Jones: The good news now is there definitely is an appetite, at least within Hollywood, for female content creators. And what’s nice is what all of you have been saying is the more women there are around, the more comfortable women feel advocating for themselves. If you don’t have that representation around, you’re less likely to speak up, because you don’t feel like you have any backup.

Day: One of the things we learned is that certain audiences would wince at [Billie] getting beat, but I was like, “If we don’t have that in there, then we’re continuing to retool her narrative, the thing that she’s been a victim of her entire life.” Suzan-Lori Parks cowrote this movie with Lee Daniels. Women’s stories have always been told through the lens of masculinity, through how they view us or how they want us to be. Most of our stories need to be told by women, written by women, done by women. Not to write men out of the picture, but for them to understand that it is a collaborative effort.

#Vanessa Kirby #Pieces of a Woman #Kate Winslet #Michelle Pfeiffer #Rashida Jones #Andra Day #Interview #Articles #Roundtable #Videos

[seanhtaylor]

Sean Taylor destroys the Pulp Heroes

As promised, here is my destructive mind unleashed on the classic pulp magazine heroes. For this little thought experiment, I'm recreating these characters in the time period of the actual pulp magazines, as if published in an alternate universe. I’m also trying to stick to the magazine characters.

Without any further delay, you may totally hate me now in case I have spread my nonsense all over one of your faves.

The Avenger -- Upon returning home to the U.S., David Cowen was lynched because he dared to publicly hug a white female friend he had met in Paris while touring with a jazz ensemble, but his story didn't end there. He was reborn to seek retribution for all who were punished unjustly, whether by mob violence, the justice system, or by killers who thought they got away with it.

The Black Bat -- Emily Jenkins used to have it all, but when her family name was smeared and her family fortune lost when he father was taken by authorities and blamed for an attempted assassination of the touring President Roosevelt, she grew bitter and swore she’d get even and steal it all back. As the thief and assassin, the Black Bat, she targets those she believes were responsible for her family’s ruin.

Captain Future -- A disgraced spiritualist who really can see roughly seven minutes into the future, but failed as a medium to the high society because they wanted more than that, Antony Fratelli decided to end it all when he just happened to be able to glimpse the future of a woman near him who was about to be kidnapped. Using his knowledge of the future, he saved her life and was able to disable the two kidnappers. Now revitalized, he wears a cap and full face mask as Captain Future and seeks to protect those who don’t know yet that danger is just around the corner.

Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective -- Dan Turner just escaped from an asylum, where he has been for 12 years after convicted of murder (he may or may not have committed, he remembered nothing about it) but considered unfit for trial due to his mental state. After leaving the Midwest and heading to California, Dan has recreated himself as a private eye. But how long can he keep the truth hidden, especially when a real PI shows up trying to track him down.

Doc Savage -- Doctor Alex Savage was one of Chicago’s premier surgeons, but when a tragic reaction to a medicine during a study caused him to regress to an almost feral state, he practically became a true savage overnight and was legally given to his sister’s care. After she was attacked and left for dead in a New York park, his sister now uses him as her weapon against those who would harm women as she finds brutal men and unleashes her savage brother on them.

Doctor Death -- Byron Kincade is an African-American bouncer at Mama Joe’s in Savannah, Georgia. A former boxer who retired with a bum leg, he was at work one night when thugs busted into the bar and killed his secret lover, Desmond Smith. That night he made a hooded mask and built a mechanical brace to enable him to seek justice on the streets. Don’t expect mercy from Doctor Death.

Ki-Gor -- Franklin Anderson was an actor, portraying the serial’s greatest matinee hero -- Ki-Gor the Jungle King. Only, an accident almost killed him and left him in a coma. When he awoke, he believed himself to truly be the jungle king he portrayed on screen, and now he only pretends to be Franklin Anderson by day, determined to prove himself the king of this new jungle in which he finds himself. And to do that, he must first protect from anyone who seeks to hurt his new subjects.

The Phantom Detective -- Jeremy McDonald died in 1786, but that didn’t stop him. Connected to his wife’s broach due to her love for him, he eventually found himself in the presence of his great-great-great and then some) niece Agatha Breckenridge, one of Chicago’s few female P.I.s. Although only she can see and communicate with him, she’s learning that it can be really helpful to have a ghost as a partner.

Secret Agent X -- They’re trained. They’re lethal. And they don’t know they’re even agents until activated by a sonic device carried by their handler, Mr. Washington. Certain citizens are born with a genetic predisposition toward activation, and it’s Washington’s job to find them and put them to good use for the US of A when dangerous spies are on American soil.

The Shadow (La Umbra) -- Maria Rodriquez was killed in a mob shootout, but before she passed, her spirit took refuge in her shadow. Now a living shadow, she seeks out vengeance against the two mob groups that caused her death. Able to interact with the shadows of other people to affect the person to whom the shadow belongs, she’s more dangerous than she knows. Finally aware of her and her vendetta, the Andressi mob has called in a Voodoo priest to capture her and control her as a tool for the mob.

The Spider (Arachne) -- Beware Arachne, criminal scum. Her touch is poison. Madeline Wilshire was born into one of the oldest and richest families in New Hampshire, but not even that could save her from being cursed by a Shaman from whom her father stole a tribal heirloom. Born with a touch that can seep a deadly poison, she was kept locked away for years until she was old enough to be sent away to an asylum in New York. Learning how to control her curse, she was able to finally be released at age 21. Now refusing to have anything to do with her family, she has decided to create a new life for herself in the Big Apple and just maybe trying out her hand as the vigilante schtick with her venomous abilities as an asset for once and not just a curse.

Domino Lady -- Greta Hanwick may only be 17 years old, but she’s already a fantastic athlete with medals in swimming, archery, and gymnastics. Upon hearing of all the new masked vigilantes popping up, she decides to join the crowd and “age up” as the sophisticated but deadly Domino Lady, but is such a dangerous job a safe place to be for a teenage girl? Or will her determination be enough to help her succeed?

Green Lama -- Born on Mars, D’jrk spent centuries studying and learning to fit into Earth culture. Now he has a family and a job as a district attorney in Los Angeles. He has avoided using his otherworldly abilities for years, but since his 10 year old daughter Margaret has begun to show signs of such abilities, he decides that it’s time to teach her now to use them without being discovered, even by her mother. And the best way to do that is to blend in with the new capes and masks crowd that is appearing all over the U.S.

Jim Anthony, Super Detective -- A former cop with a perfect record of closing murder cases, Jack Yeoman was gunned down by the local gangster with a grudge. After healing, Jack changed his name to Jim Anthony and used the scars from his shooting (body and face) to open up shop as a P.I. with an ego as big as his abilities -- The Super Detective!

Moon Man -- Moon Man isn’t even a man. Darla Hopkins has been on the run from her cult family and pretending to be a man for so long thanks to her (as she was told growing up) unwomanly build, she can barely remember growing up as a girl. Moving from circus to circus as a strongman (she always had been stronger than her brothers), and taking odd jobs as she could, she never stayed in one place for long -- until she met Lorraine Pierce during her stay in Nashville. Now, determined to stay and finally create a life for herself and Lorraine, she continues to pretend and has even allowed Lorraine to convince her to join the ranks of costumed vigilantes as Moon Man, since she patrols and protect under the light of the moon -- with Lorraine as her sidekick, Luna, of course.

Golden Amazon -- Discovered in 1894 in a dig in the jungles of South America, a solid gold statue of a beautiful woman was excavated and brought back to New York and placed on exhibit at the Grover Museum of Antiquities. But when a child with one brown eye and one blue eye is born to the Mayor of New York, the statue suddenly comes to life. It’s mission -- to destroy the child prophesied to bring about the end of the world.

#seantaylordestroys #pulp heroes

[artandhumanrights]

“Ellen DeGeneres Explains George W Bush Friendship (Now with Iraq War Footage Political Commentary)”, Rafael Shimunov, 2019 

On 8 October 2019, US talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres delivered a monologue, responding to criticism of her sharing jokes and a good time over the previous weekend with President George W Bush and his wife Laura at an NFL match. People were apparently shocked that “a gay Hollywood liberal” would get on with a “conservative Republican President”. She responded that she was in fact friends with President Bush, and got on with many people with whom she disagreed, including people who wear fur and put Christmas trees up too early. That sentiment had apparently prompted one fan to tweet that seeing Ellen and Bush together had given him “faith in America again”. Ultimately, her message was to “be kind”.

So far so rosy. But Ellen failed to mention any of Bush’s worst failings. There was, for example, no mention of his launching of an illegal and devastating war in Iraq, the official toleration of torture, and long-term internment in Guantanamo Bay.

Digital artist Rafael Shimunov responded with a devastating edit of DeGeneres’ monologue, cutting in images of the Iraq war, including the perfectly synced image reproduced above. DeGeneres responded by claiming copyright infringement and forcing Twitter to take Shimunov’s video down. But it remains on Youtube, and the copyright claim is hardly clear-cut with the US’s fair use defence. Predictably, the legal action backfired, as the video went viral as the Streisand effect took hold. 

Shimunov explained his motivations:

Ellen's rubbing elbows with Bush was enough to inflame many critics. However, for me, it was her follow-up statement on her talk show announcing her friendship with Bush and using her platform to lecture millions of Americans about being nice and maintaining relationships with not only people you don't always agree with but also people who harmed millions without apparent regret, repair or accountability.

In that speech, with a single stroke, Ellen portrayed people who advocate for human rights, including those who do so because their personal safety is threatened, as an unreasonable mob unable to appreciate nuance and diplomacy. Ellen also dismissed Bush's long-buried victims and still-suffering survivors, casting them aside as one might differences with a friend about a fur jacket—to borrow her example.

How could a lesbian woman so brazenly absolve someone who harmed so many women and LGBTQ people? How could a Louisiana native wash over the devastation Bush caused after Katrina?

(another Shimunov mash-up shows Ellen in front of the victims of Hurricane Katrina, a reminder of Bush’s negligent response to that disaster.)

It is too easy to forget Bush’s crimes in these days of information overload, especially given that he seems quite statesman-like compared to the current occupant of the White House. His paintings get more media attention now than his record. But the truth is that Bush is a war criminal who is unlikely to ever atone for his crimes. Shimunov, and inadvertently Ellen, has punctured that collective amnesia. As Shimunov stated:

Most moving of all were the private messages from young people who admitted to me that Bush's crimes had indeed been erased from their lives and thanked me, and all of those who supported the video, for unerasing them.

No talk show host or presidential debate will rewrite history, and we will make certain of that.

#raphaelshimunov ellendegeneres georgewbush bush shimunov ellen iraq iraqwar torture warcrimes digitalart copyright

[claudia1829things]

"CLASS OF '61" (1993) Review

"CLASS OF '61" (1993) Review Twenty-six years, ABC Television aired the pilot episode for an American war drama about the U.S. Civil War. Written by Jonas McCord, "CLASS OF '61" told the story about three West Point graduates from the class of 1861, who found themselves on opposites sides following the outbreak of war. 

I have a few corrections to make. "CLASS OF '61" told the story about one West Point graduate, an Irish immigrant named Devlin O'Neil of Baltimore, and one cadet who had dropped out of the Academy following the outbreak of war, Shelby Peyton of Virginia. And the third man turned out to be a young George Armstrong Custer, who did graduate with the Class of '61, but only served as a supporting character in this production. Actually, the third major character in "CLASS OF '61" is a young man named Lucius, who happened to be a slave owned by Shelby's father, a doctor and plantation owner. The movie followed Devlin, Shelby, Lucius and yes, even young Custer from that last day of peace before the bombardment of Fort Sumter to the waning moment of the Battle of Bull Run (or Manassas). After Shelby dropped out of West Point, following the Fort Sumter bombardment and surrender, Shelby Peyton visits Devlin O'Neil's home in Baltimore and discovers that the latter's father has withdrawn his permission for Shelby to marry Devlin's sister, Shannon, due to Shelby's decision to follow his state into the Confederacy. Shelby also discovers that Devlin and Shannon's younger brother, Terry, has joined a local street mob that happened to be pro-Confederate. After participating in the Pratt Street Riot on April 19, 1861; Terry ends up temporarily imprisoned at Fort McHenry before heading south to join the Confederate Army. Following his graduation from West Point, Devlin experiences difficulty in receiving an Army assignment, due to Terry's actions. Devlin meets a Virginia belle from nearby Alexandria named Lily Magraw at a soirée hosted by long-time Washington socialite named Rose O'Neal Greenhow. Unbeknownst to Devil, both Lily and Mrs. Greenhow are Confederate spies. Shelby's friendship with his father's slave Lucius is tested due to the latter's brief attempt to escape slavery with his pregnant wife, Lavinia. After killing one (or two) of the slave catchers who had spotted him, Lucius is forced to leave the Shelby plantation without his wife and head north via the Underground Railroad. One would immediately notice that "CLASS OF '61" has no main narrative other than a handful of major characters experiencing the first three months of the U.S. Civil War. That is because this 93-minute movie was supposed to serve as a pilot for a new series . . . which never materialized. But this loose narrative structure featuring a handful of plot lines did not deter me from enjoying the production. When I first saw "CLASS OF '61", I was in the throes of an obsession for the U.S. Civil War. An obsession that has not abated with time, I might add. There is a possibility that due to this obsession, I may have viewed "CLASS OF '61" through rose-colored glasses when I first saw it. Do not get me wrong. I still managed to enjoy it. But due to the "sands of time", I have finally noticed the flaws. "CLASS OF '61" has a great deal of virtues. Its biggest virtue seemed to be the cast. The television pilot featured many young players who would eventually become well known or major stars. Dan Futterman, an excellent character actor in his own right and a two-time Academy Award nominated screenwriter, gave a complex performance as Shelby Peyton. Clive Owen, who became a bigger star, gave an emotional performance as Devlin O'Neil, the Irish immigrant torn between his friendship with Peyton and his family's patriotism toward their new country. Andre Braugher was already somewhat known for his performance in the 1989 movie, "GLORY", when he shot this pilot. He eventually became a major television star and has received numerous nominations and won two Emmys for his work. Frankly, I thought he gave the best performance in the production as the embittered Virginia slave whose initial attempt to escape slavery would lead to him being apart from his wife and mother for several years. The television movie also featured solid performances from the like of Josh Lucas (as George C. Custer) Dana Ivey, Penny Johnson, Sue-Ann Leeds, Barry Cullison, Peter Murnik, Timothy Scott, Stephen Root, Christien Anholt and Andrew Stahl. However, I believe there were better supporting performances. One came from Sophie Ward, who gave a poignant performance as Devlin's sister Shannon. Beverly Todd was excellent as Lucius' pragmatic mother. Mark Pelligrino gave a very interesting performance as a fellow cadet from South Carolina named Skinner, especially in a scene in which the character provided off-putting instructions on how to breed healthy slaves to the discomfort of the Peytons. Robert Newman gave an intelligent performance as one of the main characters' West Point instructors who become a Union artillery officer, Captain Wykoff. Len Cariou was effective as Shelby's warm and intelligent father, Dr. Leland Peyton. Lorraine Toussaint shone brilliantly in her brief role as a slave woman named Sarah, who was accompanying her mistress on a southbound train also conveying Shelby had encountered on a southbound train from New York City. Niall O'Brien gave a very complex performance as Devlin and Shannon's emotionally patriotic father, James O'Neil. The production values for "CLASS OF '61" struck me as solid, but not particularly top-notch. Although the movie's setting stretched from West Point, New York to the Peyton plantation outside of Richmond, Virginia; it was easy for me to see that the television movie was set in South Carolina and Georgia . . . in the Deep South. I have noticed that many of these productions with an Antebellum or Civil War setting are shot in the Deep South states, even the narratives are set in the Upper South. Has the Upper South been developed too extensively to serve as locations for such movies? I found Michael T. Boyd's costumes for the women characters very attractive and nearly accurate. However, I thought the men's costumes looked as if they had came straight from a costume warehouse in Hollywood. Recently, I had come across an old review of "CLASS OF '61". The New York Times reviewer seemed to dismiss the production as a nostalgic television movie with a failed plot. He seemed unaware that the movie was basically a pilot for a potential television series. When I first saw the movie, I knew that this was basically a pilot. Which is why I was not that surprised that it ended with the Battle of Bull Run without any of the plot lines being resolved. As for "CLASS OF '61" being nostalgic . . . I am not sure about that criticism. Jonas McCord's narrative seemed to be a mixture of a straight forward look at how Americans behaved and spoke during this tumultuous period in 19th century American history and a slightly critical look at their society. And I found its portrayal of the Bull Run battle rather interesting and detailed. However, the television movie featured a good deal more criticism of Northern racism and the Abraham Lincoln Administration. Shelby's encounter with an abolitionist, a Maryland woman and her enslaved maid led to the latter's soliloquy about the racism she had encountered in New York City. And another scene featured Devlin revealing his family troubles to Lily Magraw and Rose Greenhow - namely brother Terry's incarceration inside Baltimore's Fort McHenry and how this led to his failure to being assigned to an Army regiment. I must admit that I found it odd that McCord seemed to focus so much on the flaws of Northern society and the Lincoln's Administration . . . and not on the flaws of Confederate President Jefferson Davis' own administration. After all, the state of Virginia had lost its northwestern counties during the three-month period between Fort Sumter and Bull Run, due to its citizens breaking away from the state. Considering that Shelby's family lived in Virginia, I found it rather odd that western Virginia's break from the state was never mentioned. On the other hand, the series did focus a great deal on slavery. Although the Peyton family were portrayed as kind slave owners who almost treated their slaves as family, the movie still managed to portray their role in slavery as something to condemn - especially through Lucius' bitterness over being a slave, the patronizing manner of Dr. Peyton's kindness and Shelby's inability to understand Lucius' desire for freedom or lack of faith in the latter's ability to survive as a free man. I have noticed in many other productions about slavery during the Antebellum period or the Civil War, slave owners are either portrayed as kind or cruel . . . with no ambiguity in between. I must applaud McCord for his more ambiguous portrayal of Shelby and his family in regard to the slavery topic. Were there aspects of "CLASS OF '61" that troubled me? Well . . . yes. There were a few things. When Devlin was first introduced to Rose Greenhow at her soirée, the latter revealed that she knew a great deal about him - including where his family lived and his ranking among the West Point Class of '61. I am sorry, but I found this hard to swallow. Was this McCord's idea of conveying Mrs. Greenhow's greatness as a spy? Why on earth would she have bothered to collect so much information on a recent West Point graduate who had ranked in the middle of his class? Seriously? Also in the movie, Mr. O'Neil had accused a visiting Shelby of joining a volunteer regiment called the Palmetto Guards. Earlier in the production, a cadet named Upton had accused the South Carolinian Skinner of doing the same right after the news of Sumter was announced. So I checked the Internet and discovered that "Palmetto Guards" was one of the nicknames for the 2nd South Carolina Infantry. I could understand Skinner being considered for this regiment. But why on earth would Mr. O'Neil accuse Shelby, a Virginian, of joining it? Unsurprisingly, "CLASS OF '61" had failed to be picked up as a series. But imagine my surprise to discover that McCord had added a brief epilogue to reveal the characters' fates. He must have been very bitter over the pilot's fate, because he had committed some kind of "Scorch Earth" policy on the characters. Only three or four of them had survived the war . . . and one of them was George Armstrong Custer. Worse, two of his characters died in a way that was historically impossible. Ironically, my biggest problem with "CLASS OF '61" proved to be Shelby and Lucius' friendship. Now I realize that human beings are ambiguous creatures. And I am also aware that some complex friendships or relationships may have formed between slaves and the owners - especially relationships that began in childhood, like Shelby and Lucius. But there were aspects of the pair's friendship that struck me as unrealistic. I found it unrealistic that Lucius would honestly express his bitterness over being a slave to Shelby, of all people. I also found it unrealistic that Lucius would tell Shelby about his lethal encounter with those slave catchers. The movie never portrayed Shelby as someone with pro-abolitionist leanings. And although he was friendly and familiar with his father's slaves, he also shared Dr. Peyton's patronizing attitude. It just seemed unnatural that Shelby would react with nothing more than mere surprise after Lucius had confessed to killing two slave catchers. I do not care how friendly he was with Lucius or any of the other Peyton slaves. He still harbored a good deal of his society's casual racism and I could not see him allowing Lucius to leave the plantation after that confession. Even after twenty-six years, I still managed to enjoy "CLASS OF '61" Despite its flaws, the television movie managed to be an interesting and enjoying look into American society during the first three months of the U.S. Civil War. I thought Jonas McCord provided an interesting, yet inconclusive plot that showcased a first-rate cast starring Dan Futterman and Clive Owen. It is a pity that this pilot never became a series.

#class of '61 #class of '61 1993 #u.s. civil war #steven spielberg #jonas mccord #dan futterman #clive owen #sophie ward #laura linney #andre braugher #penny johnson jerald #josh lucas #battle of bull run #len cariou #mark pellegrino #robert newman #dana ivey #lorraine toussaint #sue-ann leeds #stephen root #christian anholt #television pilot #beverly todd #niall o'brien #timothy scott #pratt street riot #period dramas #costume drama #period films

[brokehorrorfan]

Event Report: NorthEast Comic Con (Spring 2019)

Back in November, I spent my Thanksgiving weekend attending my first NorthEast Comic Con & Collectibles Extravaganza. Having had a blast, I was excited to return for the next semi-annual event. Thankfully, I didn't have to wait very long, as its Spring 2019 edition occurred over Saint Patrick's Day weekend. I returned to the Regency Hotel in Boxboro, Massachusetts on March 16 to experience all the celebrities, panels, comedy, concerts, vendors, and other fun it had to offer.

The afternoon kicked off with a panel featuring iconic comedian/actor Gilbert Gottfried (Aladdin). He was funny, as he naturally is, but this was not a standup set; it was an honest conversation. He discussed everything from the recent fake outrage over his not being in the new Aladin film and the controversial jokes that resulted in his being fired as the voice of the Aflac Duck, to being raised on the Universal monster movies (and questioning why the Wolf Man dressed so well if he knew he was going to transform into a werewolf) and comedy in the modern age. ("The internet makes me feel sentimental for old-time lynch mobs," he quipped.)

Prompted by audience questions, Gottfried also talked about his ad-libbing on Aladdin (during which he would occasionally have to be stopped and reminded that it was family film), working with John Ritter on Problem Child (which no one thought was going to be a hit), Howard Stern, Hollywood Squares, Wife Swap, his Amazing Colossal Podcast, and more. Never one to miss an opportunity for an off-color joke, Gottfried responded to a comment about a failed TV pilot by stating, "Buddy Holly has better luck with pilots than I do." The session was recorded for the The Boston Comedy Podcast, so you'll be able to hear it in its entirety soon.

Later in the day, I caught another panel with Nicholas Brendon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Criminal Minds fame. With no need for a host, the animated and entertaining Brendon began by riffing on the likes of tuna casserole to cannibalism for a few minutes before launching into the entire story of how he was cast on Buffy (in which he went from production assistant on Dave's World to reluctant actor, then booked Buffy a mere two months later). He was open and honest about his past struggles, but he has turned over a new leaf and is now giving back by using his celebrity to raise awareness for mental health.

In addition to Gottfried and Brendon, the guest list included Chris Rankin (Harry Potter franchise), Gigi Edgley (Farscape), Ann Robinson (The War of the Worlds), Mark Goddard (Lost in Space), Clayton Prince (Hairspray), animation producer Jeff Kline (Transformers Prime), Emmy Award-winning puppeteer Bill Diamond (Little Shop of Horrors), author and Squirrel Girl co-creator Will Murray, Disney comics writer Joe Caramagna (Duck Tales, Frozen), cartoonist Guy Gilchrist (The Muppets), and paranormal investigator Kadrolsha Ona Carole, among others.

NorthEast Comic Con's standup battle royal proved to be a fun way to spend any down time. Local and budding comedians had the opportunity to sign up and perform seven minutes of material for a chance to win $100 a day and compete for the $500 weekend prize. The competition was judged entirely by audience applause, and Phil Anthony ultimately took home the grand prize. It was apparent that some of the competitors didn't have much stage experience, with bits that weren't fully realized or comedic timing that needed work, but the audience was receptive and ready to laugh.

Comedian Roger Kabler has been impersonating Robin Williams for many years, which earned him a finalist spot on the ABC celebrity impersonator reality competition The Next Best Thing in 2007. Following Williams' death, Kabler decided to utilize his talents and pay tribute to Williams with a film called Being Robin. A brief portion of the movie was shot at the convention, and attendees were allowed to participate as audience members as Kabler performed a portion of his Williams act. Not only does he have the voice and look down, but Kabler also nails Williams' idiosyncratic mannerisms. The film is currently seeking funding; I’m looking forward to seeing the final product after witnessing a small portion in the making.

An unexpected highlight of the previous NorthEast Comic Con was seeing Gwell-o, a Gwar-inspired metal band featuring members of the comedy rock act Green Jelly dressed as intergalactic monsters in homemade, cardboard and duct tape costumes. They performed as part of the Saturday night after party this time around, and I couldn't miss it. A new layout to the stage allowed all nine members of the band to fit up there. The lineup features four people who sing backups and perform combat theatrics during the show, while the other five musicians perform a mix of originals and covers, including Gwar's "I Hate Love Song" and "Sick of You," Green Jelly's "Three Little Pigs," Judas Priest’s “Night Crawler," and “I Need Mo’ Allowance” from the cartoon Doug.

Proudly hailing for Ipswich, Massachusetts, The Fools headlined the after party. At first glance, they seem like a rock act in the vein of The Rolling Stones or Van Halen. Upon a closer listen to vocalist Mike Girard's lyrics, however, it becomes apparent that they are satirizing the classic rock acts of yesteryear as much as they are paying tribute to them. That's not to say they don't take themselves seriously; the quintet makes their tight live show appear effortless.

Along with the celebrities, panels, standup comedy, and live concerts, NorthEast Comic Con offered cosplay contests, gaming, kids activities, and more, not to mention dozens of exhibitors and vendors. Many attendees came in costume, ranging from pop culture giants to comic book characters to original creations. For my money, two people dressed in large, elaborate Kang and Kodos costumes from The Simpsons were the most impressive.

A NorthEast Comic Con employee mentioned to me that this was the convention's biggest turnout at the Boxboro location yet. While it's wonderful to see the event grow with bustling crowds of enthusiastic fans, I revel in the fact that NorthEast Comic Con & Collectibles Extravaganza remains an intimate experience in comparison to the massive pop culture expos, which can be overwhelming and impresonal. On top of that, the show continues to keep its prices low and value high.

Click here to see all of my NorthEast Comic Con Spring 2019 photos.

#gilbert gottfried #nicholas brendon #robin williams #gwar #green jelly #northeast comic con #comic con #cosplay #the simpsons #simpsons #gwello #the fools #buffy the vampire slayer #event report #article

[sebeth]

Fantastic Four #13 - 15

Warning, Spoilers Ahead…

 A Brief Summary:

Debuts:

·         Red Ghost & the Super-Apes

·         Blue Area of the Moon

·         The Watcher

·         The Mad Thinker & His Awesome Android

Favorite Cover:  #13 – The Red Ghost emerges from the ground and Sue is the only one to notice.

Invisible Girl Hostage Count: 7 out of 15 issues

Points Of Interest:

·         We open with Reed’s lab exploding due to a failed experiment with a new type of energy for rocket propulsion. Reed’s okay because he was encased in his “protective stretch-suit” that is “lined with asbestos”. Reed’s in more danger from his protective suit than he is from the fumes of his failed experiment!

·         Reed has discovered a “booster fuel powerful enough to enable us to catch up to the Reds in the race to the moon”. “The Reds” part of Reed’s explosion has been retconned due to the sliding timescale.  The source of the fuel is composed of “substances found in a meteor crater”. Reed continues “a meteor fell in Siberia some time ago, flattening one hundred miles of forest!” It’s a real-world event that happened in 1908 – its commonly known as the Tunguska Event.  Reed explored an American meteor crater in Arizona to gather samples.  The American part of the explanation is in bold font so the reader can be sure no Communist sources were used in the fictional comics.

·         Reed announces that he will be heading to the mysterious Blue Area of the Moon after he finalized the rocket. Ben informs Reed the entire team will accompany him. Reed protests: “No! No! It’s too dangerous – too untested! I can’t ask you to risk your lives with me!” Reed has apparently learned a few lessons from the initial, failed rocket flight of issue one.

·         Ben crams Reed into a small tube until Reed concedes the entire team will go to the moon. A cute scene but I’m not sure how Reed fit into the small tube – he stretches, he doesn’t shrink.

·         We switch locations, we are now “behind the Iron Curtain”.  An old man is training a gorilla, a baboon, and an orangutan in various feats. The old man decides it is time to go to the moon to “claim it for the Communist empire”.

·         The “race for the moon” was an actual concern for the United States and the Soviet Union in the early 1960s. The sliding timescale retcons the national pride motivations from Reed and the Red Ghost. Reed’s modern motivation can simply be scientific curiosity and exploration.  It’s not too hard to modernize the Red Ghost’s motivation either as we discover Ivan Kragoff (the old man) intentionally left his ship unshielded against cosmic rays. Ivan and his primates are transformed by the rays.

·         The Four notice Ivan’s ship. Johnny flies into space to investigate the ship. Johnny has a new atmo-web suit that releases an artificial atmosphere, allowing Johnny to flame on in space.

·         Ivan discovers the primates have changed – the gorilla has superhuman strength, the baboon can shape-change, and the orangutan has the power of magnetism.

·         Johnny reports back to Reed: “There’s one human commie in that ship – and three different apes – each with some kinda super power!”

·         Reed deduces “The lone human must be Ivan Kragoff, the Red’s top space pioneer! He’s been vowing to be the first human on the moon!” How does Reed deduce Ivan’s identity in modern times?  “He’s crazy and really loves monkeys!”

·         The Four land in the Blue Area of the Moon and discover the remains of a long-dead city. The Four leave the ship – without protection – as Sue proclaims “Reed! There’s air here! We won’t need masks!” Shouldn’t you have checked for that before you left the ship without protective outfits and oxygen. Reed Richards, World’s Smartest Man, strikes again!

·         Ben wanders away from the team and encounters the Red Ghost and his apes. Ivan has gained the power of intangibility. Ben’s brawl with the apes in interrupted by the appearance of the Watcher: “Cease this useless conflict! The Watcher commands you!” The Watcher imprisons Red Ghost and the apes in force bubbles.

·         The Watcher recaps his origin: “I come from a world so far from here that you do not even suspect his existence! Our entire home planet is one vast, gigantic computer. My people roam the entire known universe, watching, observing other worlds…But during all the ages, we have done nothing but watch, never have we interfered! Never have we made our presence known!”

·         The Watcher announces he’s broken the no-interference rule because they’re fighting on his doorstep.  Glad to see the Watcher’s is committed to the principles of his race!

·         The Watcher teleports the two teams to fight in another section of the Blue Area. The Watcher is nothing but an old man yelling at kids to stay off his porch!

·         Ivan holds Sue hostage and, of course, she is helpless against an old man.

·         Sue manages to free herself and free the apes from Ivan’s mental control. Go Sue!

·         The Red Ghost invades the Watcher’s home. The Watcher terrorizes Ivan before evicting him from the premises.

·         The Watcher announces “Now that mankind has reached the moon, I must go to a more distant part of the galaxy, to observe you mortals from afar! For we Watchers must ever be aloof – ever apart from all other races!

·         1) Definitely an old man who wants the kids off his porch, and 2) No one would have been aware of his existence if he hadn’t teleported in and announced his presence!

·         The Four leave the moon as Red Ghost is chased by his apes into the Blue Area.

·         The next issue opens with the Four returning from the moon. The Four are met by reporters and excited crowds – the Four are the first people to land on the moon in the Marvel Universe.

·         Johnny is not as fond of the spotlight in the early issues: “What a mob! Maybe if I flame off, I can lose myself in the crowd!”

·         Reed is swarmed by excited women of rival Mister Fantastic fan clubs: “Now girls, take it easy! Let’s not lose our dignity!”

·         The Golden Angel, a wrestler, arrives to challenge the Thing. Ben stuffs him in a garbage can.

·         Sue is offered endorsement and Hollywood contracts.

·         Johnny creates a “whirling warm air form” and “creates a suction in a vacuum” that yanks the Four – and only the Four – into the air and dumps the team onto the roof of the Baxter Building. We’ll put that feat down to Silver Age nonsense.

·         The boys decide its nap time – Johnny does so fully aflame (!) – while Sue chooses to “do a little housecleaning”. Reed mandates: “Just as long as you do it silently.” Reed, my dude, I’m not sure how you survived that comment.

·         Reed, after taking a nap and playing in his lab, decides to find Sue so she can type his scientific report. Reed finds Sue observing the ocean. He’s annoyed over Sue’s continued fascination with Namor. For the world’s smartest man, Reed isn’t so bright. I wonder why Sue’s obsessing over the handsome man avidly pursuing her instead of the man who mostly ignores her in favor of his lab!

·         Reed muses to himself: “For now, thought the world knows me as the invincible Mister Fantastic, I am unable to win my most cherished goal! I am unable to completely conquer the heart of the girl I love!” Try putting actual effort in the relationship, Reed!

·         The Puppet Master, despite being presumed dead, has been released from a “seedy little sanitorium outside of town”.

·         The Puppet Master carves a Sub-Mariner figure and unleashes him on the Four.

·         Namor tricks Sue into meeting him. He uses a “hypno-fish” to hypnotize Sue and encase her into an air bubble. Namor and Sue return to “his domain” under the sea.

·         The Four realize Namor has kidnapped Sue. Alicia demands to accompany Ben on the voyage: “If anything were to happen to you, I don’t know what I’d do! You mean so much to me! And I’d be alone with no one to look after me!” Ben caves and allows Alicia to come along. I don’t think taking a civilian blind woman underneath the ocean is the wisest course of action.

·         The team heads into the ocean and battle a “giant undersea porcupine” and an underwater tornado.”

·         Johnny debuts a “white hot flame” that turns water into steam.

·         Namor unleashes a giant scavenger clam that captures the team.

·         Namor battles the boys. He defeats Johnny with a “ravenous unthinking flame-eater”, puts down Ben with a dagger-needle coral and deep-sea fungus but struggles with Reed’s stretching abilities. Ben recovers and dives into a tank to save Sue from a giant octopus.

·         The Puppet Master urges Namor to kill the team but he struggles against the command.

·         Alicia comments “Although I cannot see, I sense another presence here! I sense a mental power – a sinister control – like the power of my step-father, the Puppet Master!” Alicia definitely has psychic abilities.

·         Sue breaks up the brawl between the men. The Puppet Master is attacked by a giant octopus, breaking his control over the Sub-Mariner. Namor collapses like a Victorian woman having a case of the vapors.

·         Namor orders the team to return to the surface. Namor, being Namor, can’t resist a final taunt: “Take the girl, Reed Richards, take her, and hold her if you can! But heed my words, never shall she forget Prince Namor!”

·         Johnny’s finally succeeded on going out with Peggy after many broken dates. Isn’t Johnny dating Dorrie Evans over in Strange Tales? The date is broken by the 4’s emergency signal appearing in the sky.

·         Sue’s at the hair salon when she sees the signal. She turns invisible as she “can’t run through the streets with curlers in my hair”.

·         Ben’s feud with Yancy Street Gang escalates but he’s prevented from hurling a bulldozer (!) at the gang by the appearance of the signal. I know the Yancy Street Gang is annoying but hurling bulldozers is a bit extreme – and liable to land you in prison.

·         Reed reveals he had to stop his own experiment with D.N.A. – he has even managed to “create a primitive form of one-celled life which lived for a few seconds” – due to an urgent phone call from the police. “Top mobsters and gang leaders from all over the country are flocking to New York” and the chief of police wants the Four to handle it.  Not sure why. Sue’s abilities are a natural fit for espionage but the rest of the team? Not so much. Not to mention the Four doesn’t handle “street crime”. Wouldn’t Spider-Man and Daredevil be the more logical choices for this type of situation?

·         The mobsters are meeting with the Thinker – he wants to form a gigantic kingdom of crime with him as the king. And then he’s going to declare New York an independent kingdom and become its ruler! The Thinker started with an attainable goal and took a sharp turn into “never gonna happen” territory.

·         The Thinker has devised plans to distract the Four: Johnny runs off to join his cousins in the circus, Reed’s offered a job at General Electronics, the Thing becomes a professional wrestler, and Sue is offered a starring role in a Broadway show.

·         The Four decide to pursue their individual goals – not so much a breakup of the team as there is nothing to do and they’re bored.

·         Reed and science experiments are a life-long pairing and Ben will be a professional wrestler multiple times during his life – most noticeably in his solo series in the 1980s. Johnny’s desire to be a circus star is a one-time thing and comes out of nowhere – becoming a race car driver would be a much more logical dream for him. The possibility of Sue becoming an actress has now been referenced two issues in a role. I don’t think it goes anywhere though. It might have been nice for Sue to have another role besides big sister, romance object, or hostage.

·         Sue’s goodbye outfit is very stylish – very reminiscent of Jackie Kennedy.

·         The Four leave New York as the Thinker begins his takeover of crime.

·         The Four grow bored with their “vacation” roles and return to the Baxter Building – only to discover it’s been turned into a gigantic crystal.

·         The Four battle the Thinker’s death traps, mobsters, and the Awesome Android. Reed immediately claims credit for the Android: “It’s a form of artificial life, created by the Thinker from my own notes!” Reed and the Thinker will feud over credit for the creation of the Awesome Android for decades.

·         Sue gets the credit for the Android’s defeat as Reed guides her into powering it off.

·         The Four capture the Thinker who blames his defeat on his failure to plan for the “x-factor” of human nature.

·         Poor Thinker – no independent kingdom for him!

#Fantastic Four #Red Ghost #Watcher #Namor #Puppet Master #Mad Thinker #Awesome Android #Susan Storm #Johnny Storm #Reed Richards #Ben Grimm #alicia masters #Sub-Mariner #Susan Richards #Invisible Girl #Mister Fantastic #Human Torch #Thing #Invisible Woman

[themastercylinder]

SUMMARY

Alex Gardner (Dennis Quaid) is a psychic who has been using his talents solely for personal gain, which mainly consists of gambling and womanizing. When he was 19 years old, Alex had been the prime subject of a scientific research project documenting his psychic ability, but in the midst of the study, he disappeared. After running afoul of a local gangster/extortionist named Snead (Redmond Gleeson), Alex evades two of Snead’s thugs by allowing himself to be taken by two men: Finch (Peter Jason) and Babcock (Chris Mulkey), who identify themselves as being from an academic institution.

At the institution, Alex is reunited with his former mentor Dr. Paul Novotny (Max von Sydow) who is now involved in government-funded psychic research. Novotny, aided by fellow scientist Dr. Jane DeVries (Kate Capshaw), has developed a technique that allows psychics to voluntarily link with the minds of others by projecting themselves into the subconscious during REM sleep. Novotny equates the original idea for the dreamscape project to the practice of the Senoi natives of Malaysia, who believe the dream world is just as real as reality.

The project was intended for clinical use to diagnose and treat sleep disorders, particularly nightmares, but it has been hijacked by Bob Blair (Christopher Plummer), a powerful government agent. Novotny convinces Alex to join the program in order to investigate Blair’s intentions. Alex gains experience with the technique by helping a man who is worried about his wife’s infidelity and by treating a young boy named Buddy (Cory Yothers), who is plagued with nightmares so terrible that a previous psychic lost his sanity trying to help him. Buddy’s nightmare involves a large sinister “snake-man.”

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A subplot involving Alex and Jane’s growing infatuation culminates with him sneaking into Jane’s dream to have sex with her. He does this without technological aid—something no one else has been able to achieve. With the help of novelist Charlie Prince (George Wendt), who has been covertly investigating the project for a new book, Alex learns that Blair intends to use the dream-linking technique for assassination.

Blair murders Prince and Novotny to silence them. The president of the United States (Eddie Albert) is admitted as a patient due to recurring nightmares. Blair assigns Tommy Ray Glatman (David Patrick Kelly), a psychopath who murdered his own father, to enter the president’s nightmare and assassinate him—people who die in their dreams also die in the real world. Blair considers the president’s nightmares about nuclear holocaust as a sign of political weakness, which he deems a liability in the upcoming negotiations for nuclear disarmament.

Alex projects himself into the president’s dream—a nightmare of a post nuclear war wasteland—to try and protect him. After a fight in which Tommy rips out a police officer’s heart, attempts to incite a mutant-mob against the president, and battles Alex in the form of the snake-man from Buddy’s dream. Alex assumes the appearance of Tommy’s murdered father (Eric Gold) in order to distract him, allowing the president to impale him with a spear. The president is grateful to Alex but reluctant to confront Blair, who wields considerable political power. To protect himself and Jane, Alex enters Blair’s dream and kills him before Blair can retaliate.

The film ends with Jane and Alex boarding a train to Louisville, Kentucky, intent on making their previous dream encounter a reality. They are surprised to meet the ticket collector from Jane’s dream.

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The Dream Master Roger Zelazny

According to Roger Zelazny, the film developed from an initial outline that he wrote in 1981, based in part upon his novella “He Who Shapes” and novel The Dream Master. He was not involved in the project after 20th Century Fox bought his outline. Because he did not write the film treatment or the script, his name does not appear in the credits; assertions that he removed his name from the credits are unfounded.

    DEVELOPMENT

DREAMSCAPE’s title encapsulates both the film and the mental landscape that its independent filmmakers occupied for almost three years. Its creators hoped that the production would not only prove to be a success, but that it would also give them the clout to go on to bigger, even more ambitious projects. Featuring elaborate special effects by Peter Kuran’s Visual Concept Engineering Company and makeup effects by Craig Reardon, the film was launched as the first outing of newly-formed Zupnik-Curtis Productions.

Producer Bruce Cohn Curtis is one of the few men left in Hollywood who still has ties to its fabled beginnings, the nephew of the legendary Harry Cohn, one of the founders of Columbia Pictures. Looking the producer, from his immaculately clipped hair down to his tailored, sharply creased suits, a chill falls over any set that Curtis walks onto. With a military air of no-nonsense, Curtis keeps a close eye on his productions and is happy only if filming is on schedule.

“I’m tyrannical on a set,” Curtis says with a smile of relaxed authority. “That’s why I use the people I have as well as I do. Many of the people on DREAMSCAPE have worked with me before and have come back because I am a perfectionist and won’t settle for less. I have a standard of excellence in my films that I’ve always maintained, no matter what the cost, so that even though you might not like the stories I’ve done, the look of the film is always rich.”

Remembering that he had to prove himself publicly in an industry filled with people just waiting for the newest Cohn to fail, for his first effort Curtis made OTLEY, a sharp-edged spy spoof/drama with Tom Courtney as an ersatz spy who finds his make-believe assignment being taken very seriously by the other side. The film died at the box office, but drew good critical notices. The industry sat up and noticed; Harry Cohn’s nephew was off and running.

Curtis partnered with various producers for awhile, including Irwin Yablans on HELL NIGHT, but chafed at being the junior partner without clout. The matter came to a head when he was making THE SEDUCTION with Yablans and grew tired of having his ideas ignored.

Curtis resolved to start his own company and make pictures his way. He found financial backing from businessman Stanley Zupnik, and was looking for scripts to start Zupnik-Curtis Productions when associate producer Chuck Russell brought in director Joe Ruben and the DREAMSCAPE script. Curtis had worked previously with both and gave the green light for Ruben and Russell to begin revising the script, written by David Loughery.

Ruben discovered Lowery’s script in 1981 at the William Morris Agency, which represents both artists. Lowery, a television writer, had come out to Hollywood in 1979 after winning a script writing contest sponsored by Columbia Pictures, while a student at the University of Iowa. Ruben had just finished directing the TV-pilot for BREAKING AWAY, and was looking for a new project.

Once Ruben started reading the DREAMSCAPE script he found he couldn’t put it down. The vision Loughery described was breathtaking, with rivers ablaze and boats filled with the undead. Ruben was excited by the property and showed it to Russell, his assistant director on JOY RIDE and GORP (also starring Dennis Quaid), films made with Bruce Cohn Curtis for producer Samuel Z. Arkoff. Russell suggested they take the script to Curtis and his new company.

It took seven months for Ruben and Russell to rewrite DREAMSCAPE; with Curtis providing detailed criticism and ideas throughout. Loughery was brought back in to help write the final draft.

“We knew some things in Loughery’s script, like the holocaust dream at the end, were so expansive that it was virtually un-filmable,” said Russell about the changes that were made. “The original ending was set in New York. We changed that so we could do the movie out here in Los Angeles. In Loughery’s script you saw all of New York on fire after the bomb had hit. You saw the Statue of Liberty, ferry boats filled with the undead, and flames across the harbor. It was really great, but I knew we couldn’t afford to do it like that.”

Putting a screenplay into production inevitably means rewrites and not always by the original writer. In the final billing, Loughery receives story credit, while sharing screenwriting credit with director Joe Ruben and associate producer Chuck Russell. When I started writing with Joe and Chuck,” he says, “the original screenplay was pretty ferme, about 108 pages. They wanted to work some more on the characters, and their relationships. That was a good thing the development of the characters gave the audience more reason to care for the people and what happened to them.”

One of the things that really worried us about the character of Alex Gardner is that he’s something of a smart ass. So, we were afraid the audience wouldn’t like him. As soon as Dennis went to work, it was obvious we weren’t going to have any problem.

“My favorite character is Tommy Ray, the psychotic psychic, played by David Patrick Kelly. He doesn’t have many scenes, but when he’s on, he does a great job. The ‘have a heart scene is going to be seen by the audience as a rip off of Temple of Doom, but the fact is we shot it months before Temple of Doom even went into production. That is Chuck’s idea; he has a grisly and macabre sense of humor.”

Russell and Ruben beefed-up the character of Buddy (Cory “Bumper” Yothers), the little boy whose nightmares are cured by the film’s dream research project. In Loughery’s script Buddy wasn’t a running character. The idea for Buddy’s character arose from concepts the writers picked up from the study of dream research.

“We found the case of a little boy who was having such terrible nightmares that he couldn’t sleep,” said Russell. “It was affecting him physically; we used that case as our model for Buddy. The first time in the film when Alex (Dennis Quaid) acts unselfishly is when he enters Buddy’s dream to try and help him. He rises to the occasion and fulfills the role of hero.”

  THE DREAM CHAMBER

On an adjacent stage the set for the Dream Chamber was built. Outside, the set looked like a plywood igloo circled with florescent lights. Inside however, a small, padded chamber led to a main control room by a door and a large window. The set was a quiet haven, even when the normal racket of production was going on outside.

“The initial sketches of the set design for the Dream Chamber were some wild approaches that we felt were interesting, but not what we wanted,” Russell said. “Some of them made us feel too much like we were on a spaceship, while others were more like a classic, BRAINSTORM-type, wire-strewn lab. We decided we didn’t want a lot of whirling lights and buzzers, but something quiet and womb-like. It was a very difficult set to design because we were trying to make something that looked authentic, but we didn’t have any precedent for it.”

From an aesthetic standpoint, the design worked wonderfully. From a practical standpoint however, problems cropped up immediately that led to several delays in shooting. The set itself had been designed by Alan Jones without consulting with director of photography Brian Tufano. Jones then abruptly left the production for personal reasons so that when the set was built, Tufano had still not been consulted during the shuffle to find a new set designer. Tufano had great difficulty in setting up his lights and camera within the small confines of the set. An outside computer graphics firm had been brought in to supply authentic looking medical displays for the many small monitors built into the set. Unfortunately, the computer wouldn’t work right and left a full crew standing around collecting pay while technicians tried to figure out what had gone wrong with their expensive battery of equipment. Later, one of the technicians would quietly tell Russell that an Apple home computer would have been sufficient to give them the displays they wanted.

  BEHIND THE SCENES / SPECIAL EFFECTS

 “Some of the rough figures from effects companies were just staggering in the amount of money, research and development time they would need.” – Chuck Russell

Chuck Russell was told to shop around for people who could create the film’s extensive special effects and draw up a budget.

“It was very exciting to shop the script around and find out what could and couldn’t be done,” said Russell. “Some of the rough figures I got from effects companies were staggering in the amount of money, research and development time they would need. We just didn’t have the preparation time or budget of something like ALTERED STATES.

“When we found Peter Kuran’s VCE and Craig Reardon, and they got excited about the project, we knew they were perfect for it. They even helped sell the project because of their reputations, Reardon’s for working on Steven Spielberg’s POLTERGEIST and Kuran from his work with George Lucas.”

Russell assigned the live action makeup effects to Reardon, and the miniature and optical work to Kuran’s VCE company. Richard Taylor’s MAGI company was also asked to contribute computer animated imagery for the film’s “Dream Tunnel” effects. For the Dream Tunnel, Russell and Ruben wanted a semi-abstract look different from the other effects work in the picture, a “hazy.” dreamlike look, with an object or two from the upcoming scene to form and float towards the viewer to act as a visual cue for what was about to happen.

The effects sequences were storyboarded by Len Morganti; the budget was finalized on the basis of those storyboards. Because director Joe Ruben had not worked with special effects before, he carefully went through each scene with the storyboard artist.

“I knew that I had to be totally committed to my boards,” said Ruben. “I spent a lot of time thinking through the sequences and how I wanted to shoot them because I knew if I didn’t, the film would go out of control because the special effects people wouldn’t know what they were responsible for and what had to be done with each shot. I was able to get just what I was looking for. Morganti would sketch out something and if I asked him to move it a little lower and more to the right, he’d be able to do it with just a few strokes of his pencil. It was almost like working with a camera.”

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BUDDY”S NIGHTMARE

To try and save money while providing a sense of heightened realism, Russell and Ruben had wanted to shoot the “Buddy” dream, the little boy’s nightmare, on location.

“We found an old Victorian house and were actually shooting,” said Russell. “We realized that by the time you put in the lightning and thunder, it was going to look like Vincent Price was going to come around the corner. It was too on the nose, too traditional. We asked Jeff Stags, our art director, to do something different. He came up at the last minute with the idea of a forced perspective set, sort of Dr. Caligari style. It was a small set, but much more effective, as well as inexpensive. Buddy’s dream is really my favorite because it has much more impact, even though it’s not as spectacular as the last dream.”

Another problem that cropped up involved Reardon’s Snake man suit. Although an impressive work up close, Ruben felt that at even minor distances, it would seem as just a man in a rubber suit. Ruben and Russell still hoped that flickering low-level lighting would help. but Ruben began to realize that even with the extensive work he had put into planning the storyboard angles, the lighting was not going to be enough to sell the suit to an audience. Reardon firmly disagreed, “Contrary to negative thinking about rubber suits, you’ve got to see them as something delightful, and full of potential for doing something wonderful,” said Reardon. “You have to think of them almost as toys. Right when we were about to shoot the basement struggle scene, I went aside with Ruben and said there are two ways of looking at this; you can think of this as a rubber suit which will look bad, or as something which, with the proper angles and lighting, will convince people that they’re looking at a living, breathing, snarling Snake man. Now when Ruben first saw it, he said ‘Oh boy, Reardon, I don’t know…it’s a rubber suit. I thought that had a dangerous ring to it if he really believed it, which was hard to tell because he, Russell, and Loughery had this camaraderie among the three of them based on this constant derogatory kidding. That’s well and good and worth a few chuckles, but where it begins to become pernicious is when it begins to condition thinking to be truly negative.”

Reardon also objected to the low-level lighting strategy that Ruben and cinematographer Brian Tufano used to film the suit. “Tufano seemed to have a fine contempt for any kind of supplementary light which would be, in logical terms arbitrary, but in dramatic terms exciting and interesting … something that would catch the eye, something that would fill in a face or create a little cross light to show textures,” said Reardon. “The naturalistic photography Tufano used can be very detrimental, I think, to SF and fantasy stories. You contrast this with the work of John Hora, who shot THE HOWLING and GREMLINS, and you see that special effects profit enormously from using special tiny spots and direct lighting. But I didn’t feel it was my place to raise the issue.”

Reardon did try to get his viewpoint across to the filmmakers by preparing a lighting test on video. The test was crude but illustrated the alternative Reardon was suggesting. “They ignored it,” said Reardon of the test. “Yet, when they got on the set, they were completely vapor locked on the suit. They didn’t know what to do with it, and they didn’t have any ideas. All the storyboards that had been prepared in advance were completely ignored. Not once did I see anybody bring up a storyboard and crack it open and say that for this frame here we need to set up this angle. All the audacious plans evaporated. Ruben was at a loss to shoot special effects or rubber suits.”

Aupperle s first job was to coordinate the sculpture of the stop-motion Snake man, which was being done by Steve Czerkas, with the suit being built by Craig Reardon.

“They told me that they wanted to feature Craig’s suit prominently, so I was going to try and make the miniature as close as possible to Craig’s suit,” said Aupperle. “We started with a man’s armature and sculpted Craig’s design over it. I knew we were going to have to make some changes, like making the tail longer so it could whip around, but I wanted to avoid one of those instances where the suit never matches the miniature. I’d run back and forth to Craig and measure his design with calipers just to make sure we were dead on.

“Since Craig’s suit was being done in pieces our model was the first time the producers saw the way the design was going to come together. They wanted more changes than I ever expected. They actually had Steve Czerkas re-sculpt the model. It got away from the manlike design and no longer really matched the suit. I was a little concerned that the two would intercut, but that’s what they insisted upon.”

Causing Aupperle the most concern was the production’s seeming lack of respect for the story boards. *They wanted to be able to use Craig’s suit any way they wanted,” said Aupperle. “They didn’t want to be tied down by storyboards. At one time they asked me to revise the storyboards. They said they’d just have to wing it on the set. That attitude left me little to do until they were done with the live action. I found the situation very distressing.”

  Perhaps the greatest disappointment for Reardon was the scant use made of a full snake-man costume.  The suit appears in the film for just a few frames, as the man-snake breaks through a door; most of the action originally planned for Cedar was replaced by Jim Aupperle’s animation using models built, following Reardon’s design, by Steve Czerkas.

THE SNAKE MAN

Most changes made in the script did not alter Loughery’s story significantly. In Loughery’s original draft, the creature that menaces Buddy in the boy’s dream and later reappears as the creature stalking the President and Alex was to be a rat-man. “We changed that because so much had been done with werewolves,” said Russell. “This was right after THE HOWLING and AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON and we felt the difference between a man with a rat’s face and a man with a wolf’s face would be minimal.

“We wanted to take a different approach,” Russell continued. “Not the direction of John Carpenter’s Thing but something identifiable, so that when Tommy Ray changed into something to scare Alex, you would be able to see that it was Tommy Ray’s version of the same creature. Joe Ruben wanted to go with something that scared him, and since he’s scared of snakes, we went in that direction. I did some sketches of a snake creature and came up with something that really excited us because it was a departure from anything either of us had seen before. I think part of it came to me from my memories of seeing THE SEVEN FACES OF DR. LAO. When we showed it later to our effects people, Peter Kuran and Craig Reardon, they were really sparked by it too.

A stop-motion animator was the last member of the effects team to be hired, done through VCE. Both Russell and Ruben had agreed early on that the best and cheapest way to get what they wanted from the Snake man sequences would be with a mixture of live-action and stop-motion effects, but they were unsure just how they would mix the combination.

“I knew we would need a good animator,” said Russell. “I knew a live-action Snake man with its long neck and swishing tail would never work in a master shot. We didn’t have umpteen million dollars for physical effects.” Russell and Ruben planned to use low-key, flickering lighting for the sequences in order to seamlessly blend the two effects techniques.

Said Russell, “ Joe and I sat down with the special effects people on the Buddy sequence storyboards, which is the first appearance of the Snake man, and asked which way it made more sense to do it? It made sense to do the wide shots in stop motion and the close-ups in live action, and in the cases where we weren’t sure, we would have both of them overlap and whichever worked better, then that’s what we would go with.”

Although this arrangement was made in good faith and with the best intentions, the decision to let the two techniques overlap and not make a clear distinction between which shots would be assigned to each ultimately proved to be a decision that led to tensions and feelings of betrayal between makeup expert Craig Reardon and the production company.

  Opticals were also used to create the clouds and background sky for the first dream that Quaid enters, the vertigo dream where he goes into the mind of a steelworker and falls. “There’s one shot where Dennis Quaid is supposed to be falling. said Kuran. “I spent some time trying to figure out how a person should fall so it will look right on film. We had a good plate of a falling background, and they rigged an elaborate harness at Raleigh to hold Dennis. When we were on the set. Ruben asked me how a person should fall, and I went through the motions of what Dennis should do, but Joe didn’t do that. He told Dennis to do something else that looks really corny. He ruined the shot. There was no way that I could think of to fix it and I think it looks really cheesy right now.

THE PRESIDENTS NIGHTMARES

At a budget of over $300,000 for some 90-odd cuts, DREAMSCAPE was one of the largest jobs VCE had taken on, as well as one of the most difficult. As the producers were continually asking VCE to create more or make changes with what they had done, Kuran wasn’t under pressure to have all the special effects done by the original deadline. Kuran pretty much improvises his effects as he goes along. The more they wanted him to do, the less certain he was about how much longer it would actually take to finish the effects. One thing was certain. There was no way they’d be able to get the movie out in the fall as Russell had originally hoped.

In a way though, the delays had been a good thing; something everyone was almost afraid to acknowledge because of all the tribulations the film had gone through. Kuran was creating the effects layer by layer, and even with only early tests to show, the effects still looked very good. It helped convince Curtis that even though the schedule and budget had gone to hell, it was still within limits he could work with—he was getting a better product for his money than he ever dreamed possible. The more Kuran tinkered with the visuals, the better they got. The live action footage of the actors had come out better than expected, too. Quaid and Von Sydow were marvelous in their roles, and if they could just get the effects to come out anywhere near what had been described in the script, they all began to feel they might have a movie yet, even if they did have to grimace a bit when they realized that the work on the film was still far from over.

Working with Zupnik-Curtis productions was not without its problems for Kuran in the beginning. Because Curtis had never worked with special effects before, he wasn’t sure what to expect.

“We started getting pressure from them early on,” said Kuran. “They had a rough cut of some of the sequences for us to work from, and they wanted to see something. But they kept changing the cutting without realizing that it meant we’d have to go back and redo the whole scene. There was a trolley shot that they wanted to make longer by one foot of film. At that point, all the backgrounds had been shot to length. All the miniatures had been broken down. I managed to talk them out of that one.”

Another problem is the very nature of post-production work. “When somebody does a movie, they make a little mistake here and a little mistake there, and if it doesn’t work, they just kind of throw the shit over their shoulders and it lands on them in post-production,” said Kuran. “Unfortunately, this is where we do most of our work. People are at their worst to deal with in post-production. They’re under deadlines, and if the movie doesn’t work they’re in even worse shit. The people who shot the movie are gone and they usually refuse to accept the fact that the movie is crummy because of them. Lots of people can go onto a production and create a lot of shit and come off smelling like a rose because the movie’s not finished when they leave it.”

Although VCE was contributing some 90 cuts to the film, the majority of the effects were going to be clustered around the holocaust dream near the end, and at the start, including the terrific A-Bomb teaser which opens the film. “I thought the bombs in THE DAY AFTER just didn’t look right,” said Kuran. “They looked so dark and cold. You look at a nuclear test and you can see it’s a very bright fireball, so we wanted a very hot look to our bomb.”

The Trolly/Subway Cart

 Reardon’s and Kuran’s most elaborate work is seen in the climactic sequence, a surreal view of the day after Nuclear Armageddon. Dennis Quaid enters a dream which represents the President’s worst fears of nuclear war, the setting is an old trolley car that travels among the bombed-out ruins of Washington, D.C., past several surrealistic tableaux-travelling mattes and miniatures courtesy of Peter Kuran’s V.C.E. David Kelley, Plummer’s henchman, enters the dream as well, for a climactic confrontation with Quaid.

 For the holocaust dream at the end, Kuran’s basic effects strategy was to have a live-action foreground element, an intermediate miniature behind that, and then have a matte or tinted water tank shot as the background. The scenes were difficult because Kuran needed something that would convey a sense of extremely large scale while still having realistic detail, a tall order on the show’s tight budget.

Russell had originally wanted to do the holocaust effects scenes first and rear-project them as they were shooting the live action. Kuran pointed out that it would take thousands and thousands of feet of film to try and generate the footage they would need, and that they would have a better chance of making sure the background footage matched with the live-action trolley car if they shot the trolley first and then had it to play the backgrounds against.

“Jim Belohovek and Sue Turner built the miniatures for the scenes, and we photographed them in different layers,” said Kuran. “To get good depth of field, we shot them at one frame per second. Then we started adding the fires. Because those had to be slowed down, we shot them at 72 frames a second. We don’t have any motion control equipment. I set up a dolly for the camera, filled the room with smoke, then lit the fires. It takes a couple of seconds to get the camera up to speed. Then we pushed the dolly down the tracks until eventually timed the push right and got it to look the same speed that we thought the trolley would be moving at. The background is a water tank shot that we used to make it look moody by adding some glows and fires. Counting everything I’d say there’s about 20 elements in that shot.”

While Kuran labored in the bowels of VCE, director Ruben and Academy Award winning editor Richard Halsey were slowly cutting the film together using unfinished optical tests that were the right length and Jim Aupperle’s Snake man animation. Kuran had been able to find them an east coast underground filmmaker named Dennis Pies (pronounced “pees”) to do the Dream Tunnel effects and the stuff looked wonderful. It was exactly what they wanted. But now it was time to decide how they were going to mix the live action Snake man and the animation, and to a great degree, they were coming down against the live action footage.

With the will to manipulate the dream to his own ends, Kelly at one point extends his fingernails into stilletos, which he uses to rip the heart from the car’s conductor, with the logic of dreams, the trolley then becomes a subway car, populated with a dozen grisly war victims, looking more dead than alive, Shortly after, Kelley transforms into a snake monster.

Reardon details the other effects he did for Dreamscape. “Tommy Ray Kelly transforms with knives springing from his fingers. He uses these to tear out someone’s heart which sits beating in his fingers,” the effects Technician says. “We made a prosthetic hand and an artificial heart for this scene. 

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“We made 12 mutants up for them, Reardon says of the subway denizens, “all extremely exaggerated in their ugliness, so that, in the heavy shadows and flickering light that was planned for the shot, they would still prove effective. The design is heavy-handed, but suitably macabre for the scene.

“I hogged all the major sculpture on the picture for myself, but there were a number of other people working with me on this that also deserve mention. My greatest praise must go to Bruce Kasson, who took the weight off my shoulders where mechanical work is concerned. He worked out the mechanical effect used for the death of one of the characters at the end, as well as the stilleto fingernails. David Miller was our acrylic man, doing all the hard plastic pieces, and certainly one of my right hand men in doing the sculpture, along with David Cellitti.

Snake Man Transformation Effect

Following the completion of principal photography, there was a brief hiatus, during which Reardon re-stirred his somewhat-dampened enthusiasm, before tackling the transformation sequence.

Replacement animation is a variety of stop motion that uses separate, slightly differing sculptures, rather than the movable models most frequently associated with the form. Pioneered by George Pal, replacement animation is nowadays seen mostly in David Allen’s television commercials featuring such animated characters as Mrs. Butterworth and the Pillsbury Doughboy. Reardon’s suggestion to try this technique for an unusual transformation. Because of the frame-by-frame nature of the animation process, the sequence would be a short one-less than two seconds in sculpting work than Reardon (or, most likely, anyone else) had ever expended on a transformation effect of such short duration; 32 heads, each altered slightly from the previous head in sequence, each making a barely more than subliminal appearance in the film. It was this rapidity, and the violence of the change, that Reardon felt would make it entirely unique.

“The major problem was one of time,” Reardon says. “How was I to produce 32 different heads for this sequence within a reasonable schedule? The first thing you want to consider in a situation like this is, can you do it full-size? It took me about 15 seconds of heavy thought to realize that would be a killer, because of the molds that would be involved, and the sheer awkwardness of doing such an extensive sequence in full scale. From the beginning, they wanted David Kelley’s features discernible in the snake head’s face, so l also briefly considered taking a cast of Kelley’s face and using reduction techniques, like special shrinking molds, to bring it down to scale-but there is enough distortion in the reduction process that it wouldn’t likely be worth the effort. So I finally decided on doing a miniature portrait sculpture based on his features.

“One way to have gone would have been to produce molds of each and every stage cast one head, alter it a little further, make a mold from that and cast another stage. I ruled that out; it takes about a day to make one mold, so it would have taken a full month to prepare for the sequence.

“Instead, I took a master mold of the first stage turned out a dozen or so duplicates of that, and altered each of them to cover the first third of the total transformation. I then made another mold from the last of these, and changed those progressively. That way, I had to make no more than three molds. As the work progressed, I did some rough tests on video, which helped to show up a number of small glitches. Some of these proved very difficult to correct-seen side by side, two heads might appear to match perfectly, but tiny variances would show immediately on video.”

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A chief problem with all stop motion effects is that of temporal aliasing,” a term used to describe the unnatural look of objects seen to be in motion, but not blurred as they would be if actually filmed in real-time. All along, Chuck kept saying, ‘I hope this won’t look like animation,” says Reardon, “and of course all I could say was, I hope so, too.’

“Jim Aupperle, who did the stop motion animation on the snake monster, and my friend Randy Cook, made some suggestions to counter that problem. Both suggested that if each stage would be slightly dissolved into the next stage, that would soften the edges, and disguise whatever anomalies there were from one head to the next. So Peter took the negative and a dupe negative, printing them to a single positive with overlapping frames, so that no single frame gives a really razor sharp image of one sculpture.

The Caves

Another kind of problem arose in shooting the climax of the President’s holocaust dream, set in a cave-like underground grotto decorated with fires, twisted girders and a glowing pool of green water. Originally it was planned to shoot the scene on a section of the ruins” set at Raleigh Studios. But Russell found out that he could get a few days shooting time at Bronson Canyon. The site, long a favorite locale for low-budget productions, is actually a short “Y” shaped tunnel through a jutting canyon wall in the nearby Hollywood hills. Open at all three ends and with a high ceiling, Ruben and Russell felt they could put up a more effective set inside the cave at relatively little cost to the production.

The art department scrambled on something like 48 hours notice to come up with a revised set for the cave. They did well, but lighting the set so that the lights themselves wouldn’t show was a difficult task made harder by the fact that creating the pool of water just past the junction of the “Y” in the cave had turned the rest of its sandy floor into gritty muck that forced the crew to support the lights and camera on wooden planks and sandbags the best they could. Working in the enclosed confines quickly turned miserable too. Brian Tufano, who had been hired because of his work on QUADROPHENIA and THE LORDS OF DISCIPLINE, is yet another British cinematographer who likes to use smoke to diffuse his lighting to give the set greater visual depth. Every time Ruben went for a take, Tufano’s assistants would pump the small, sealed cave full of hot, oily smoke and wait to see if the density was right. While the crew and stars quietly gasped behind their respirators, either more smoke would be pumped in if it wasn’t enough.

According to Craig Reardon, the first scenes that were supposed to be shot in the caves were thought to be relatively straightforward. Quaid, followed by Albert, is moving through the cave when they are attacked by a mutant dog. For the dog’s costume, Reardon’s assistant, Michiko Tagawa, had made some wonderfully revolting costumes.

“They were beautiful.” Reardon said. “They had entrails bulging out of the body and exposed rib cages and boils and french fried skin. Now we were told that a Doberman would wear the costume, and in fact, the trainer had auditioned the dogs in a costume they worked in on the BUCK ROGERS television show. So Michiko went to a great deal of trouble to measure the Dobermans and I contributed sculptures for the heads while she built the body parts up from reject castings for the subway zombies.” Once we got them suited up at the Bronson location however, the Dobermans refused to perform.

“The dogs trouped around in the mud and the zippers and their fur got packed with it,” said Reardon. “It was a disaster. They took one of the suits and tried to put it on a German Shepherd, a dog which is considerably different in body build.”

In his big scene the dog was supposed to run a short distance and jump at Quaid. In take after take however, the dog merely trotted up to Quaid and stopped at his feet to try and shake the costume off. Eyes turned on the dog’s embarrassed handlers who quickly explained that the dog usually didn’t act like that; it was probably because he felt uncomfortable with the costume.

Reardon snipped parts of the costume’s legs away, hoping to make it more comfortable, but this produced no better reaction. Next, the dog’s owners took to furiously waving a little furry target at the dog. then quickly sticking it just inside Quaid’s shirt while everyone enthusiastically urged the dog to attack. This made the dog think everyone just wanted to play. It would run up to Quaid, half-hop once, then bark excitedly while waiting for his trainers to get the toy again.

Quipped Reardon, Bruce Cohn Curtis said the mutant dog looked like someone’s dirty laundry running across the floor.” Finally the dog made one decent leap past Quaid and Ruben called it a take. The shot is still in the film, although the rest of the mutant dogs were replaced with German Shepherd with their fur shaved in patches and dabbled with red goo.

“The script also called for these two raggedy dogs to chase after Quaid and Albert in the dream. It seemed that the easiest way to achieve a really striking appearance for the dogs would be to suit them in a costume covered with foam latex. I consulted with the trainers on the feasibility of it, and they said

‘Yeah, sure.’ So l sculpted two mutated dog heads, and Michiko Tagawa, a very good craftsperson who’s done work with Winston and Burman, did a beautiful job on the body suits-really hideous and nasty. She took some reject castings from the subway mutants, and reworked them into twisted body shapes, warped, burned and decked with growths. But the dogs wouldn’t wear them, and the trainers sort of shrugged, and said ‘What do you expect?’

“Those trainers were let go, and replaced by Karl Miller, who allowed them to shave his dogs in erratic patches, and we gobbed all kinds of blood, goo and crap on them. Good enough, but it’s unfortunate that Michiko’s suits will never be seen.”

VCE generated the bits and pieces that would help add life and highlights to the live action effects. A red glow was added to the mutant dog’s eyes, as well as crawling purple electrical effects when the dogs vanish. Opticals materialized David Patrick Kelly’s nunchaku weapons smoothly into his hands as well as allowed Dennis Quaid to heal his wounds and transform himself into Kelly’s father.

  Snake Man Showdown

The next scene planned for the cave involved Quaid and Albert, discovering it is a dead end and that the Snakeman is right behind them. It comes out of a side tunnel, snarls, and attacks Quaid. Ruben decided he wanted to use the full-sized Snakeman suit for the shot, and Reardon was given short notice to get it ready. At the time, Reardon was working full tilt to prepare the suit needed for the basement struggle in the boy’s nightmare. A different head would be needed for the cave sequence.

“Russell got a hold of Bronson Canyon and said we’ve got to do the Kelly head to look like David Patrick Kelly, playing the President’s assassin) right away. You can’t change things around like that. I said I’d try when I should have told him no.”

Ruben shot Reardon’s live Snakeman suit in the cave, although eventually discarded most of it and replaced the scene with a stop-motion cut. Also discarded was a small but important effect Reardon had worked very hard on getting right, a brief shot where Dennis Quaid “heals” a wound in his shoulder.

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“We created a sort of bite effect, then put a plastic membrane over it and melted it with a plastic solvent so that when they ran the film backwards, the wound would heal,” explained Reardon. “It didn’t work as well as it did on the bench, which is frequently the case, but you did get a feeling of the actual fleshy material knitting itself. They opted to have Peter Kuran redo it with animation.”

More successful was a Reardon designed effect where Kelly, now distracted by an ingenious ploy of Quaid’s, reverts to a half-human, half-snake form. While diverted, Albert sneaks up behind him and drives a length of pipe through Kelly’s chest. For this shot, Reardon made a false chest with a mechanical rubber pole section inside that was connected to a spring and operated by cable. Albert would sneak up holding the pipe, then drop it out of camera sight as he lunged for Kelly, and the rubber pipe would burst through a section of painted tissue paper. Although the complex mechanical effect took some time to rig, it was accomplished in only three takes and is gruesomely realistic. It made for a happy interlude before the crew was to run into yet more problems once they left Bronson Canyon and returned to Raleigh Studios.

                                      Dave Millers Unused Snake Man

“I also worked on a snake man head, the one that was originally going to be in the elevator sequence, emerging from the head of Dennis Quaid. But then, they had some kind of quibble over Craig’s head of Quaid–they said it didn’t look like him, or some such garbage-and they hired Greg Cannom to do that sequence over. Greg did another head of Quaid, which they wound up not even showing, though it looked perfect, and another snakeman, which-sorry, Greg I didn’t care for too much. It didn’t seem to have much definition; it was hard to tell what it was. Plus, it was pretty badly edited.” – David Miller

  BOB BLAIR’S DREAM DEMISE

The “Buddy” dream completed the bulk of the main shooting. DREAMSCAPE moved from the largest soundstage at Raleigh into one small stage for what was hoped would be the final shot of the would grasp what was happening. Because Quaid’s strike against Plummer was to be a surprise, Ruben and Russell felt it was absolutely necessary to make sure that the lighting look realistic right up to the moment of the attack. This meant shooting the effect not with lighting that would highlight the makeup, but with ordinary florescent lighting. Reardon hated the lighting, but went along with Ruben’s insistence that changing the lighting would tip-off people that something was about to happen.

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About a month earlier, in late June, Reardon had supplied a transformation head, known as a “change-0” head in the business, for a scene late in the film in which Dennis Quaid confronts political schemer Christopher Plummer in the one place where Plummer is vulnerable, inside Plummer’s own dream. Quaid borrows a trick from dream assassin David Patrick Kelly and changes into his own version of the Snakeman before killing Plummer. The effect was planned to first show Quaid’s head beginning to change, cut back to Plummer as the Snakeman’s hands shoot out for his throat (a very brief scene which was shot earlier) then a quick cut back to Dennis Quaid’s Snakeman head coming for the camera.

“We prepared a head, which I felt was better than a lot of THE HOWLING heads,” said Reardon. “We didn’t content ourselves with just having the face bulge out. We had the eyes blink, and when they opened they were snake eyes. At the same time the neck elongated and the cheeks distended, and the eyes began to pop out of their sockets. The mouth opens unnaturally wide and the teeth elongate. But nobody liked it. Ruben said to me, ‘Geez Reardon, I expected something like AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON.’ That’s great. You give me six months and six hundred thousand dollars and maybe you could get that. Besides, that effect was five different heads. I told them all along that I was only going to come up with one head and do as much with it as I could.”

Neither Russell nor Ruben had been happy with the head when Reardon had brought it in. Under the flat lighting of the elevator mockup, the hair looked too bushy and still, the face too lifeless, and the neck far thicker than Quaid’s. The head didn’t work well either. with eyes that frequently jammed as they started to roll up. It took several takes to get the mechanism to work right. But beyond that, when Ruben and Russell saw footage of the effect, they realized that what they thought would be a good visual just wasn’t that exciting.

“Forget that it wasn’t convincing on film,” Ruben said. “When I saw it, I just realized that we needed a more shocking effect.”

“It wasn’t exciting enough,” added Russell. “We didn’t realize that until we saw it. It was a subtle effect that just wasn’t explosive enough. Craig’s head didn’t show anything either that would connect it with the Snakeman, and we decided we needed that, so we racked our brains and decided on something simple, like a guy’s head ripping apart with the Snakeman’s head coming out of the pieces.”

Russell contacted Reardon, but by this time, Reardon was both fed up with the production and busy trying to finish the replacement animation for David Patrick Kelly’s Snakeman transformation so he could be done with the film. Since Reardon was busy, Russell had to find someone who could do the effect and do it quickly. He decided on Greg Cannom, a former assistant to Rick Baker and Rob Bottin.  Cannom’s first solo assignment was THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER, and more recently he assisted Baker with the apes for GREYSTOKE.

Cannom had talked with Russell about a year before DREAMSCAPE about another film project that never went through. Cannom was interested in the assignment, but checked with Craig Reardon first, before committing himself. Reardon gave his blessing. Cannom went into his workshop and tried an effect which would combine the two concepts that Russell discussed, creating a skull that would not only split apart, but split apart and turn into a monster at the same time. “I could see the use of the Snakeman with the kid’s nightmare, but going into an adult’s nightmare, I thought it should be a lot more horrendous and scary,” said Cannom.

Cannom’s first prototype makeup was deemed unacceptable by producer Bruce Cohn Curtis. It was a bitter decision because of the amount of effort Cannom had put into it. Cannom took a fiberglass skull which he cut and hinged so it could be pulled apart. Inside the skull, Cannom used a soft foam and sculpted a hideous face so that when the skull was pulled apart, the jaw would drop down and the foam face would come out to form the monster.

“I loved Cannom’s first approach,” said associate producer Chuck Russell. “I think it was terrific. The dangerous thing about the makeup was that in a very quick cut, with a man splitting his head open and something gooey, dark, and spongy coming out, it might look like brains. It was hard to argue for it because of that.”

Curtis told Cannom that they wanted something closer to Reardon’s Snakeman concept. Cannom tried to figure out how to fit Reardon’s Snakeman design into a reworked version of the splitting skull but finally gave up and settled for a two-piece approach. Cannom first built a small, embryonic Snakeman head which would be moved like a hand puppet inside the skull after it split apart. Cannom wanted to stop the camera and replace the small head with a fullsized but slimmer Snakeman head that would rise out of the neck and lunge for the camera dripping goo and skin. As with Reardon before him, Cannom was less than happy with the treatment he felt his makeup got from Ruben and Curtis. Assisted by Jill Rocklow, Kevin Yagher and Brian Wade, Cannom did the effect, but felt little enthusiasm for the final product.

“Bruce Cohn Curtis and the other producer, Jerry Tokofsky, were so insulting and rude to me it was incredible,” said Cannom. “It was like they already had something against me and wanted to find fault. I never want to see Bruce Cohn Curtis again.

“I don’t really think my effect works either,” added Cannom. “It’s not done the way we wanted to set it up. We were very careful about it. First, the skull would split apart, then we would cut away, put the snake creature back into the neck and put skin all around it, and then have it come at the camera. I spent hours getting the chicken skins for the makeup and preparing them, then setting-up the effect. Ruben looked at it and said, ‘That’s not what I want. No neck and no skin. I just want the head coming at the camera.’ I told him that didn’t make any sense! But that’s what he wanted, so we did it his way.”

POST PRODUCTION

Because Ruben and Halsey had been able to do much of the editing work while the final opticals were being generated, the final scoring and assembly of the footage was completed quickly. Curtis had a finished film only a month later and premiered it to his friends in mid-January at a small mixing theater in Hollywood. Although there were some clunky spots that hadn’t been fixed because of time and budgetary problems, the final cut was deftly edited around most of them and they were visible only if you knew what to look for. The audience gave the film a big hand and Curtis was very happy, as well as Kuran. Russell, Ruben and Loughery, who now looked forward to having a potential hit associated with their names. Although Craig Reardon liked the film, he was still unhappy with director Ruben.

Ruben defended his decision to replace Reardon’s work. “Craig was under tremendous pressure to deliver an awful lot of complicated physical effects,” said Ruben. “I wouldn’t be able to see a finished physical effect practically until the day we were ready to shoot it. That was a rough way for both of us to work. I was disappointed some times, and I’m sure he was disappointed in the way I was shooting things, although at no time can I remember him making specific suggestions. I think that the main thing I would change if I were to do it again, and I wouldn’t mind working with Craig again.

  Dreamscape (1984) Music by Maurice Jarre 01.DREAMSCAPE 2:58 02.THE JOURNEY 4:22 03.FIRST EXPERIMENT 1:55 04.SUSPENSE 2:09 05.JEALOUSY MERRY-GO ROUND 2:56 06.THE SNAKEMAN 1:08 07.ENTERING THE NIGHTMARE 4:17 08.LOVE DREAMS 4:10

REFERENCES and SOURCES

Twilight Zone v04 n01_ Fangoria 44 Fangoria 27 Fangoria 34 Fangoria 39 Cinefantastique v15 n02

  Dreamscape (1984) Retrospective SUMMARY Alex Gardner (Dennis Quaid) is a psychic who has been using his talents solely for personal gain, which mainly consists of gambling and womanizing.

[chibixkadaj]

Demarcations of Success: A rebuttal to TIME Magazine’s ‘How BTS Is Taking Over the World’

It’s inevitable. When it comes to American coverage on non-American media objects, Said-levels of “othering” should be anticipated if not expected. Such is the case with Time Magazine’s latest piece rightfully showcasing BTS and their accomplishments stateside. The inability to praise one Korean artist without dragging down the reputation of another is baffling. We often don’t do that here--or at least not to white male artists. Female musicians have been juxtaposed countless times.

But I ask, what does saying “its biggest stars—including Rain, Girls’ Generation and Big Bang—largely failed to gain traction in Western markets” accomplish? What added value does it give to BTS, a group who admires and respects the aforementioned “failing” groups?

And I ask, what are your qualifiers for success? It can’t be sold out arenas. Big Bang not only sold out their arena shows but managed to carry on despite a hurricane. Big Bang didn’t come to the U.S. to promote themselves, they came to perform for their fans. They succeeded because they, like BTS, have an incredibly invested and loyal fan base. To say Big Bang, who never set their sights on Western expansion, failed does a disservice to the respect and love they wanted to show their international fans. Not to mention that in 2015 they held the largest K-pop arena tour in U.S. history, adding quantitative value to their reception in the United States. Even if that record has been broken, does setting it in the first place mark a failure?

Is it collaborations with Western artists? Because Big Bang has worked with a range including Missy Elliot, Baauer, Skrillex, Diplo, Major Lazer, and Pixie Lott.

It can’t be TIME coverage. Not only has TIME Magazine talked about almost all of the aforementioned artists, Rain spent two consecutive years topping their TIME 100 poll.

So is it press coverage? Rain has been featured in an incredibly long, and hilarious, Stephen Colbert sketch (also covered by Time Magazine). Big Bang have graced a number of local news outlets. And Girls’ Generation really made the whole “K-pop on late night” moment happen when they appeared on David Letterman.

Oh let’s also talk about how Rain made his mark as a Hollywood movie star.

If these are the “failures” then who gets to decide success? Because if success is merely “everything BTS has done,” then why are we talking about others in the first place?

Rain, Big Bang, and Girls’ Generation fought through the dominance of American pop culture with nothing but 360p YouTube videos and a collective of fans who took to the streets, rather than to their tweets, to promote them. Theirs were the years of flash mobs. While online forums and fan-focused sites existed, it was the efforts of their fans’ physical actions in creating petitions and hosting their own in-person events that proved K-pop’s value and high demand in Western countries. And by no means is this to discount BTS’ smart social media strategy or the unity of their fans but if we cannot acknowledge that the power social media and the internet has changed dramatically within the last decade then we have no business being in media.

At what point can we step away from such latent racism and misogyny (because let’s face it, Korean girl groups have been trying to the U.S. far longer than any boy and it’s not just lack of talent holding them back) and talk about a group’s accomplishments and their successes without dragging the rest of the country they come from.

At what point can we actually show respect to BTS, the artists they grew up on, and the country they love and call home. These boys would never stand on a stage and proclaim “We have succeeded where all other Korean artists have failed” so why are we forcing them into a narrative of competition? BTS and Big Bang have never stood in opposition to one another, they don’t need to start now simply because American news writers can’t fathom the idea that multiple artists from other countries are successful.

In fact there are more ways to make non-Western media objects palatable for Western consumers that does not include establishing them in opposition to one another. What we’re experiencing now is an effort to handle the cognitive dissonance that something non-Western, and explicitly not from the United States, can be successful using a modern version of the same theology Edward Said outlined in Orientalism. Rather than continuing the old narrative of the Western world being superior, and hence needed to conquer Middle Eastern and Asian “inferior” nations we’ve now twisted it to dictate how one non-Western artist is superior to another. The “othering” of Said’s “Orient” is now the othering of groups who do not fit a profile of successful in the United States. Thus, by not fitting US media’s specific criteria, the non-BTS K-pop group becomes the inferior “other” that has already been dominated--or in this case has failed to achieve success using a clearly arbitrary rubric. This is not to say BTS is not successful, but there are ways that we can highlight their success without “othering” any other Korean pop group in the process. This tactic is not only steeped in racism but ultimately does everyone in K-pop a disservice.

News flash: K-pop isn’t a one off phenomenon spurred on by BTS. K-pop is an ever growing system, not unlike any other media industry, that will continue to experiment and export and grow. Just because we have a hard time accepting its diversity here does not mean it hasn’t conquered the interest of other music markets. Let’s leave Orientalism back in the 1970s and stop othering artists just because we’re unable to break our own narrow mindedness. It comes across as racist, lazy, and overall inaccurate. We can do better. Let’s start now.

#kpop #bts #bigbang #snsd #rain #discourse #rebuttal #time magazine #look I'm just tired of this #American media is overrated #Orientalism

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Iron Man's Morality

by Damien F

Friday, 09 May 2008Damien F trys to figure out Iron Man's sense of right and wrong.~

This month saw the synthesised superhero Iron Man join the ever-increasing canon of Marvel characters adapted for the screen. Played Robert Downey Jr, and directed by Jon Favreau (who appears onscreen as some sort of unacknowledged personal assistant),

Iron Man refreshes Marvel's old metal-clad, commie-bashing trailblazer, who unknown but to a select few (which includes almost everyone. Iron Man has to be the least secret secret identity in the history of comic-books) is billionaire industrialist and genius arms manufacturer Tony Stark.

The best that can be said about this film is that it's not awful, raising it above the likes of Daredevil,The Fantastic Four and The Punisher, among others. It's a largely competent, if silly, two hours of Hollywood entertainment, and as the first blockbuster event-movie of the summer, it inspires hope that this season's offerings will be a significant improvement over last year's dreadful showing.

However, just as it avoids sinking to the lowest levels for this kind of film, it fails to hit the heights it aspires to. It lacks the intelligence and social consciousness that marked Batman Beyond and the X-Men series, as well as the sense of humanity that made the Spider-Man films essential for fans and newcomers alike.

Seemingly aware of this, Favreau has tried to inject Iron Man with another attribute: morality. The story, admirably faithful to the comic's origins, tells us of the playboy Stark who fails to recognise the consequences of his actions. Be they the friends left stranded at an award ceremony held in his honour while he parties with floozies at a Las Vegas casino, or the innocents killed by the weapons he produces. As he explains to a hostile reporter (shortly before bedding her), his products are essential in maintaining a global balance of power, which ultimately serves to save lives. He has a change of heart, however, when he is captured by terrorists in Afghanistan while displaying the latest Stark Industries weapon the "Jericho" to military officials. Here he sees the true effect his weapons are having on the world, as the terrorists are armed with his company's products. They demand he builds for them their own Jericho. Instead Tony builds an electric-powered suit of armour for himself under their noses and makes good his escape. Afterwards, vowing to protect the people put in harms way by his weaponry, he fashions a more sophisticated, stylish version of the suit and becomes Iron Man, flying around the world at super-sonic speed destroying the militias armed with Stark Industry weapons.

Unfortunately, his morality becomes the film's most critical malfunction. The Iron Man suit is armed with all manner of guns to rocket launchers, and Tony expresses no qualms about killing those who apparently deserve being killed. Effectively, it's a weapon itself, and we're expected to accept that its presence makes the world safer when the sale of Jericho missiles represents such a threat? Perhaps the answer to this lies in who controls the weapons. Where as Stark missiles were sold on a free market, the Iron Man suit is owed and operated by nobody but Tony. However, just as he was naive to believe his weapons would only be used by forces interested in stabilising world peace, it transpires that Tony can't protect the technology for the suit falling into the wrong hands. The issue of a central a source of control of power is also belied by a scene where Iron Man confronts a group attacking an unidentified Middle-Eastern village. After killing the foot-soldiers, he delivers their leader to the villagers and invites them to do what they like with him before flying away and leaving them at it. We jump from highly central military control to mob justice in a single breath.

The confused nature of the films morality is not helped by its generic look at international conflicts. We are told that Tony is kidnapped in Afghanistan, but the true aims of his kidnappers are never fully explained. We can't write them off as the Taliban, as they seem to be a loose alliance of terrorists from all over the world. Following this the film alludes to ethnic-cleansing of regions by the same group, but we are never told why. The Marvel comics have rarely strayed from addressing real-life events such as Northern Ireland or 9/11 (the Marvel superheroes are currently being drafted to the image of the UN). These are usually discussed in a highly superficial way, but it's admirable that they have the nerve to discuss them at all. For a film that seeks to address the affects of Western military involvement in the developing world, it would have been refreshing if they referred directly to the arming of real-life militias, such as the Taliban by Western governments rather than just gutlessly allude to it.

It should be said, however, that one real-life conflict does get a look in. We are given numerous references to World War Two, as we are repeatedly told how Tony's father worked on the Manhattan Project. Presumably the building of the atomic bomb is meant to serve as a metaphor for the construction of a hyper-powered suit of armour. Prior to his kidnapping, Tony tells us that the ideal weapon is not one you never have to use but one you only have to use once. The allusion to the atomic bomb is clear. The trouble with this is that Tony is never asked to consider if the bomb was a mistake. For all the people who mention his father's role in the project, nobody asks if he regretted this or stood by the project. An internal debate over the true nature of nuclear weapons, be they war at its most corrupt and evil or the single stabilising factor in conflicts between super-states, might have serve to address the flaws in the films muddied morality. As it stands, this is just a wasted opportunity.

For those interested in seeing this film, these flaws should not dissuade you. Fans of the comics can rejoice the film's faithfulness to its source material. They even manage to fit in Iron Man's original clunky, aesthetically displeasing armour. Praise can also be bestowed on Downey's performance as Tony Stark. A few eyebrows were raised when the decision to give him the role was announced, as it was doubted the former wild-boy could handle a leading role on such a major production, and his physic could hardly be described as super-powered. However, I suspect fans were delighted with the casting, as his hell-raising antics were suitably in tune with the charismatic Stark. On screen, the choice seems inspired. Jeff Bridges also has a ball as the villain Ironmonger. However, Gwyneth Paltrow is simply annoying as the love interest Pepper Potts. And then there's that bloody reporter, who keeps turning up like a crazed stalker ex-girlfriend.

The special effects for the suit are a joy to watch, but the action sequences lack a required energy. Watching metallic men fight serves only to remind us how much more fun last year's Transformers was. Overall, Iron Man is far from essential, but enjoyable enough if you do give it a chance. I just wish they figured out the sermon before taking to the alter.

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Arthur B

at 13:15 on 2008-05-09The thing is, Tony Stark is basically a neo-con (witness his role in the recent

Civil War

storyline, which I have been glancing at from afar and tutting at), or rather a comic book writer's vision of a neo-con, so it's probably no surprise that his moral agenda is actually kind of silly and incoherent. From what you say, the film seems to bear this out. Before he's kidnapped he's a pre-9/11 neo-con, selling weapons to the world in the name of an American-dominated balance of terror. Then he has his own personal 9/11 experience, and realises that he can't let proxies do all the work, but has to go out into the world and kick ass all by himself, like George Bush rustlin' up a posse and ridin' out into Afghanistan (briefly) before tackling Iraq. The incoherent presentation of the enemy only matches the incoherent presentation of Terrorism by the Bush administration: are terrorists weak lunatics living in caves, or are they a vast international conspiracy devoted to taking over the world and imposing a global Caliphate? Are we in Iraq to fight terrorists or are we there to allow the Iraqis to choose the government they actually want (which might perhaps include a few terrorists)?

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Jamie Johnston

at 22:34 on 2008-05-21I read this with interest, having a couple of days ago been coaxed into going to see the film with a friend. I agree that it's not a terribly morally sophisticated film, and one might have wished for a bit more exploration of interesting problems. But I think there are a few things to say in its defence.

First, there's a bit of a suggestion here that the film is internally contradictory in that both Iron Man and the film itself appear to espouse a certain moral outlook but Iron Man then behaves in a way inconsistent with this outlook and the film appears to endorse this behaviour. There is an element of this, but not a great deal, I'd suggest.

For example, Damien says that "[t]he Iron Man suit is armed with all manner of guns to rocket launchers, and Tony expresses no qualms about killing those who apparently deserve being killed." We need to distinguish between the two suits. The first one is certainly pretty heavily armed, and he does indeed use it to injure and kill people; but I'd say that's reasonably consistent and plausible in the context of the film as a whole, for several reasons. First, the materials from which he constructs this first suit are themselves armaments of various kinds, and the nature of the materials in such cases may tend to dictate the nature of the final product. Secondly, his main objective at this point is to escape from heavily armed captors who he reasonably believes intend to kill him, and even if we objectively don't accept that the life of one American millionaire is worth more than the lives of several dozen Afghan terrorists we can be reasonably forgiving if he takes the attitude that it's them or him and he knows which option he prefers. Thirdly, he hasn't at this stage had his full-blown epiphany, which seems only to occur with the death of the chap who helped him build the suit. So even if his behaviour at this point isn't especially moral it's at least not altogether hypocritical.

When it comes to the second suit, the criticism is much more deserved, but I would point out that the film makes some sort of attempt to deal with the problem. It's made clear that the initial idea is to make a suit that enables the wearer to fly, and that's it. What later turns out to be the main weapon is originally meant to be a flight-stabilizer, as we're told quite explicitly. He only conceives of using them destructively when, already in a state of considerable frustration, he discovers that his company is still deliberately selling weapons to terrorists. At this point he sets off to visit a terrorist camp and destroy said weapons. Arriving, he does a pretty reasonable job of destroying the artillery without undue injury to the terrorists themselves. When he finds civilians being held at gun-point he does then start killing off terrorists, but again that comes comfortably within what appear to be the film's moral rules since it's a necessary means of protecting innocent people. Where it really does fall down is the fact that he kills the hostage-takers with little shoulder-mounted rockety things that have no obvious flight-related function and must presumably have been intended as weapons when Stark designed the suit. Although that's still some distance from the suit being "armed with all manner of guns to rocket launchers", it still kind of undermines the 'it's only meant to fly' defence. But I still think it's worth noting that the film-makers have at least bothered to put the 'it's only meant to fly' defence in there in the first place, which shows some awareness of the problem of Stark looking self-contradictory.

There also seem to be an implication that the film is unclear or incoherent about what its moral stance is. Again I'm not sure that this is entirely deserved. It's possible to set out in fairly straightforward terms what the moral rules in the film seem to be:

- the USA is good;

- terrorists are bad;

- killing terrorists is okay, at least when they pose a real and moderately imminent threat to civilians and / or Americans;

- killing civilians is not okay;

- killing Americans is not okay unless they are evil super-villains;

- selling weapons to terrorists is bad;

- selling weapons to the US government is probably okay in principle but only with proper controls and mechanisms of accountability to ensure the weapons are used for 'good' ends (such as killing terrorists) and don't end up in the hands of terrorists.

Those rules probably accord pretty well with what a lot of Americans believe, and Iron Man's behaviour in the film by and large follows those rules. They even accommodate Stark facilitating the probably lynching of the bearded terrorist leader (which of course is a pretty close analogy for letting the Iraqis hang the not-wholly-dissimilar-looking Saddam), who is after all a terrorist. If it looks to us as though Stark's failing to live up to his new-found pacifism, it's because he's actually not a pacifist, and never says he is. We make that assumption because it's the most obvious explanation to an audience of arty young British thinking people for a maker and seller of weapons suddenly stopping making and selling weapons; but his conversion is actually a much more limited one that probably makes a lot more sense to the film's target audience.

Of course that brings us straight to what I think is Damien's main point, which is that it's rather disappointing that the film, having decided to ask questions about the arms-trade, comes up with such mainstream American answers without even exploring any other options with any sort of seriousness. That's absolutely right. But even here I'd raise a very partial defence by saying that we may be asking a bit much of the film given what it is. It doesn't tell us what the terrorists' aims are (well, actually it does tell us what their immediate aims are: they've been hired by Stane to kill Stark but when they find out who Stark is they decide he's worth more than what they've been paid and so they decide to force him to build them a big rocket; but it doesn't tell us about the over-all political cause to which this is, as it were, a side-quest). But if it did, wouldn't it then risk becoming a film about "is it right to sell weapons to these particular people in view of their political agenda?" rather than "is it right to sell weapons to terrorists in general?" And it's true that it doesn't engage very meaningfully with the point about the Manhattan project (though I must point out that Stark himself does at one point say he wishes he'd asked his father how he felt about his work). But then again wouldn't any remotely serious examination of the ethics of the atomic bomb be such a big subject as to entirely hijack a superhero action movie and turn it into something quite different?

Again, I don't want to say that the film isn't rather superficial in its treatment of moral questions and rather banal and unchallenging in its answers to those questions. It is. But at least it does (1) show a very limited awareness that the questions exist, (2) come up with a reasonably coherent (if irritatingly Bush-compatible) moral framework, and (3) make some effort to make sense of the apparent paradox of a chap using weapons-technology to destroy weapons. I'm not really sure it could have done much more while still being a superhero block-buster, just like Juno couldn't really do justice to the question of abortion while still being a cute romantic / tennage-pregnancy comedy. X-Men can do more because it does it by metaphor (mutant = black / gay / foreign) and therefore doesn't have to engage with the complex details of real situations. Spider-Man can do more because it concentrates on character and issues that occur on the ordinary human level rather than the social or political level. I'm not sure that Iron Man, given what it was, could really have done much better than it did.

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Dan H

at 09:34 on 2008-05-23Jamie pretty much sums up everything I was going to say about this (although I've not seen the film, I don't see anything inherently contradictory about "it's okay to sell weapons to some people but not others" - it's the same "contradiction" you get in pretty much all movies, books, or whatever with a strong action element. Good Guys pretty much always kill a whole mess o' folks).

What I actually wanted to say was that this reminds me of something a friend of mine once said about

Batman Begins

- on the one level it's trying to be a serious exploration of the nature of fear, but ultimately it's a movie about a guy who dresses up as a bat and fights crime. I think the simple fact is that superhero movies have to work with the themes which their frequently ludicrous premises allow.

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Wardog

at 16:37 on 2008-05-23Mmmm...I'm almost curious now, thanks to Damien and Jamie, but Iron Man has never really appealed to my imagination. I don't know, although I can get behind a man who wants to dress a bat and fight crime, I can't work up the enthusiasm for a guy who makes himself a robot-suit and blows up terrorists.

(I feel terrible - Jamie and Dan and Arthur have said all these insightful things and I've just made this pointlessly frivolous observation)

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Damien F

at 11:18 on 2008-05-27Jamie, I see where you're coming from. Your points on the first suit are spot on, but to be honest I really wasn't considering the first suit when writing the piece. Also, I suppose it's true it does come up with a Bush-flavoured morality (which is a trend I've noticed running through the comics for many years now). Stark arms terrorists and then takes it upon himself to disarm them. The problem I have with this is that it simply ignores the outcomes of these actions, in a pretty literal scenes. Look at your liking of leaving the beardy terrorist to civilians to the lynch-mob "justice" handed down to Saddam (which is something I admit I didn't spot myself). After this scene, Iron Man simply flies away, refusing accountability for what might happen. This was in my opinion lazy and irresponsible, on both Iron Man's part and the film-makers.

There was also a point I wanted to work into the piece but couldn't figure out how. At one point shortly before the fore-mention scene, Iron Man's computer-Jervis-thing distinguishes the terrorists from civilians and dispatches them accordingly. This is a horribly black-and-white approach to its subject matter.

There are two further points I wish to dispute. First, your argument that a more socially-conscious film would have spoilt its blockbuster fun. It may have been harder to make such a film, but not impossible. Since the Victorian days, good sci-fi has always been allegorical.

Second, the assertion that "we make that assumption because it's the most obvious explanation to an audience of arty young British thinking people". I'm Irish.

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Arthur B

at 11:43 on 2008-05-27

After this scene, Iron Man simply flies away, refusing accountability for what might happen. This was in my opinion lazy and irresponsible, on both Iron Man's part and the film-makers.

Are you sure that the film-makers weren't intending you to come away with the impression that Iron Man is a bit lazy and irresponsible? I've not seen the film, so it's down to those that have to make the call, but when I saw the trailers they seemed to suggest a bit of moral ambiguity on Stark's part (which would make sense given his not-exactly-clean history in the comics).

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Jamie Johnston

at 17:35 on 2008-05-27After this scene, Iron Man simply flies away, refusing accountability for what might happen. This was in my opinion lazy and irresponsible, on both Iron Man's part and the film-makers.

Yes, that was certainly the moment that put the greatest strain on my efforts to regard him as heroic. Arthur may be right to guess that at that point in the film we were supposed to be feeling a bit uneasy about his behaviour, especially since that's followed by what must have been quite a challenging scene for a patriotic American audience, in which a handful of US fighter 'planes try to shoot Iron Man down and he ends up (albeit accidentally) causing one of them to crash. Possibly we were only meant to come fully behind Iron Man when he saves the bailed-out pilot. It's hard to say.

Actually that brings to mind another point I hadn't thought about: the most morally problematic parts of the film are these bits in the middle, where he's engaged in his minimally thought-out anti-terrorist exercise. It gets much simpler when he comes back and gets stuck in to the 'main' plot of (1) stopping the technology falling into the hands of the clear-cut crazy villain and (2) trying not to get killed by the clear-cut crazy villain. Which I guess is one of the main things about super-heroes in general: much of the time, the thing that stops us regarding them as morally questionable is the fact that they're clearly better than whatever implausibly evil villain they're fighting. And that's a point that I suppose supports your argument more than mine, in that the least morally successful bits of the film are, as you've said, the ones where Iron Man is engaging with vaguely real-world issues like terrorism and the international arms trade.

First, your argument that a more socially-conscious film would have spoilt its blockbuster fun. It may have been harder to make such a film, but not impossible. Since the Victorian days, good sci-fi has always been allegorical.

Ah, well, yes, I wouldn't want to say it's impossible, but I think your point about allegory is important, and it links with my rather brief earlier comparison to the 'X-Men' films. The latter are genuinely allegorical, and I'd say that's what makes it easier for them to produce both moderately worthwhile moral / social commentary and super-hero blockbuster fun. What they don't do is what 'Iron Man' does attempt and, as you say, doesn't do very well, which is to have the characters get literally involved in real-world situations. The X-Men don't literally fight against homophobes or xenophobes, and they don't literally get hauled up before the Committee On Un-American Activities. If they did, then I'd say there's a good chance those films would end up just as unsatisfactory in that respect as 'Iron Man', because when you allegorize you can both simplify and dramatize much more easily and effectively.

Second, the assertion that "we make that assumption because it's the most obvious explanation to an audience of arty young British thinking people". I'm Irish.

Ah, my apologies! Actually so am I, at least on paper, thanks to Ireland's wonderfully welcoming rules of citizenship. My new harp-emblazoned passport is in the post at the moment, in fact. But you know what I mean. :)

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Wardog

at 16:46 on 2008-05-28I'm just going to start wildly throwing out opinions here despite not having seen the movie because, well, hey it's never stopped me before. I think the thing about X-Men which is, as you say, genuinely allegorical is that although if you were to Take It Very Seriously you could say it's about social acceptance / xenophobia, what it's most convincingly about is being a teenager, specifically the sort of clever, socially-awkward, comic-reading sort of teeanger that I and, ahem, I suspect several of us here were once upon a time - feeling different to, and excluded from, the rest of the world. And because it's very personal it doesn't strain credibility. Whereas it seems to me (from my position of total ignorance) that using comic book heroes to comment on wider social / political issues only draws attention to how necessarily and inappropriately simplistic such commentary must be.

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Jamie Johnston

at 18:28 on 2008-06-02Mmm, yes, I hadn't thought of that but you're quite right. I guess that comes out better in the films than in the comics, in some ways, because (apart from periodic returns to The Original Point) the comics have tended to forget about the teenaged and school-based part of the X-Men scenario. Not that adult characters living in secret headquarters in a volcano / on the moon / wherever can't also be metaphors for awkward brainy teenagers, but less so.

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https://me.yahoo.com/a/kVNzzlR0hezU7J7swspEMkT_LFLpag--#8a2c5

at 23:00 on 2012-07-10

the true aims of his kidnappers are never fully explained

OK, I know this article isn't exactly new, but I have to point out: we find out near the end why Tony was abducted by the militia -- it's in the video Pepper finds when she's spying for Tony. Obediah hired them to kill Tony; they tried to do so with big explosives from a distance; when they failed and saw him close up, they recognized him, so they took him hostage and forced their captive doctor to patch him up so they could get some weapons out of him on the cheap before finishing the job (after extorting more money out of Obediah, of course).

If you mean the overarching aims, the stuff they want the weapons for, I don't actually think that's necessary. In fact, I think that by leaving it open, it makes it more obvious 1, how many nasty things go on in that part of the world, often aided and abetted by the US Military and 2, how little Tony really knows about what's going on with his business.

#Ferretbrain #Iron Man #Damien F #Marvel Cinematic Universe #MCU