#joels weird obsession with him is just so fucking fascinating to me

[transfemzedaph]

DUDE YES MAJORBEANS IS ABSOLUTELY FABOLOUS IT COULD GO SO FAR IT'S A PERFECT ENEMIES (ONE SIDED) TO LOVERS AND IT COULD HAVE AMAZING STORY IF THEY TEAM UP :D

(I apologies I'm so excited about this ship)

-☀️

yeah i just. i dont. lije i see it i see why people would ship it but idk dude.

#original post tag #ask tag #☀️ #HELP EW SAMSUNG SOFTWARE UPDATE MADE THE EMOJIS LOOK WEIRD EWEWEW #sorry uuuh #yeah idk i think its my personal hatred for mr smajor. <- for no reason i just hate him #so idk #but just. #joels weird obsession with him is just so fucking fascinating to me

[wannab-urs]

The Spreadsheet Digest | Vol 30

Howdy folks :)

Welcome to the THIRTIETH Spreadsheet Digest!!

I started reading a few series this week, and I'm not putting them on the spreadsheet til I've finished them; so, if I told you I'm reading your fic but it's not here, that's why. Eleven fics this week (Dieter, Joel, Din, Ezra, Javi P, and a Marcus P/Din/Reader)!

Fic Rec Masterlist | My Masterlist | My Kofi

Recs Below The Pedge

In Fiction - Dieter one shot by @sin-djarin

Summary: Dieter comes to bed. Tags: Established relationship, mentions of self doubt, no physical description of reader, no dialogue, no use of y/n. Thoughts: This was so sweet. I just want to hold him and pet his hair, fr.

In Reality - Dieter one shot by @sin-djarin

Summary: Dieter comes home for Christmas. Tags: Established relationship, masturbation (M), Dieter's self deprecation, no physical description of reader, no use of y/n. Thoughts: I'm just extremely obsessed with the nailing of Dieter's characterization here. He's a little gross and sad, but it's endearing. Poor baby can't keep his phone charged to save his life. And I love how reader just like... knows he's a mess and is okay with it. It's a little bittersweet? In a way that I adore.

O, Christmas Tree - Dieter one shot by @covetyou

Summary: As PA to Dieter Bravo, you were used to the strange, unusual and downright weird. What you weren't used to was taking in a shipment of - what? And how many? Tags: sex toys (so many butt plugs), Dieter being a menace to his PA, no smut, pure silliness. Thoughts: This is so delightfully silly. And they do kind of look like christmas trees.

The hat stays on - Joel one shot by @theywhowriteandknowthings

Summary: Hooking up with a cowboy in a bar bathroom... kind of. Tags: sub/dom dynamics, Sub!Joel, Switch!Joel, Public sex, Bathroom Sex, Squirting, orgasm denial(mention). Purely Porn with no Plot. Thoughts: I love these lil plot twist fics, I love cowboy hat joel, I love sub/switch!Joel, I love this.

To Know the Light - Din one shot by @burntheedges

Summary: to go in the dark with a light is to know the light. Tags: fluff, a teensy bit of angst, introspection, winter, food mention, reader has no description, gn!reader Thoughts: Din's internal struggle with removing the helmet is such a fascinating aspect of his character, and I think you did a beautiful job of capturing it here. I thought the imagery, the characterization, and the story telling in general here was just gorgeous.

Killshot - Ezra series by @magpiepills

Summary: A lonesome prospector comes face to face with a dangerous stranger. What happens when you can’t resist his charm? Tags: SMUT, PIV, fingering, oral (m&f receiving) pet names, spanking, dub con, angst, anal play, deep throating, cum eating, thigh riding, dirty talk, double penetration, toys, teasing, no use of y/n, no physical description of reader. Thoughts: This shit had me YELLING!!! Dirty Dog Ezra in full force here. I am still shook and I read this like 4 days ago.

Dare to Surrender - Javi P series by @auteurdelabre

Summary: “First to come loses.” You can’t stand Javier Pena but when Steve Murphy makes an off-hand remark that gets both you and Javier’s competitive sides going, there’s no telling how far you’ll go. Tags: Office Sex, Enemies to Lovers, Blow Jobs, Office Blow Jobs, Face-Fucking, Dare, Co-workers, soft!javi p, Dirty Talk, Dirty Thoughts, Pet Names, Jealous!Javier Peña, Phone Sex, Jealousy, Steve Murphy cockblock, Desk Sex, No Pregnancy, Banter, Bonding, Bets & Wagers, Vaginal Fingering, Fingerfucking, Finger Sucking, hey we said no kissing, he falls first, no protection, From Sex to Love, Rough Sex, Oral Sex, Vaginal Sex, Semi-Public Sex, P in V sex, Sweet!Javi, Nicknames Thoughts: I loved this storyyyyy. Javi was so pathetically in love with her and so bad at saying it. Brad sucks, btw, but I love how jealous he made Javi. P.S if you like the whole bet concept + Javi P check out Go Ahead I Dare Ya. It's a slightly different premise, but so very good.

Handsome, Dirty, Rich - Joel one shot by @pedgito

Summary: the rich father of your best friend, sarah — joel miller, was a mystery to you until one day he isn't and you quickly find that your interest in him isn't one-sided. Tags: no use of y/n, au/no outbreak, bfd!joel, ceo!joel, mentions of reader growing up poor/absent parents (joel is ridiculously loaded, it's fic y'all let me live lol), sneaking around, age gap (not explicitly specified, but reader is in final year of college and joel is probs late 40s/50s), vacations, gift-giving, unprotected piv, come swallowing, daddy issues if you squint, one (1) pussy slap, oral (f receiving), semi-public fucking Thoughts: The buildup was immaculate AGH. And I am obsessed with the kind of not quite happy ending? Part 2 maybe?

Comfort, Despite the Storm - Joel one shot by @marisferasiop

Summary: Joel's neighbor (you) is the town archivist and brings him a present on his birthday (with a side of teasing). Later, after waking from his own nightmares, he finds you sleepless on your porch during a storm and you take comfort in one another. Tags: fluff, smut, nightmares, alcohol, p in v sex, oral m receiving Thoughts: Love a lil continuous hookup situation. I adore how they get together in this and how reader takes the lead in the situation. And like the fic overall is sweet and flirty, but that smut is hot.

Misfire - Dieter one shot by @qveerthe0ry

Summary: Dieter gets waxed for a role and gets a little too excited. Tags: dubious consent, body hair waxing, pain kink, humiliation kink (kinda), subby!Dieter, ruined orgasm, coming untouched, hands-free orgasm, reader does not engage in sex acts, mentions of alcohol, mentions of drug use, accidental exhibitionism, accidental voyeurism Thoughts: Pathetic, whiny, whimpering, humiliation kink Dieter? Yeah. Yes. Thank you. Perfection. And if you want a version where reader plays along instead of ignoring him read that here.

Closure - Marcus P/Din one shot by @javier-pena

Summary: Marcus, Din and you used to be best friends. Now you're on opposite sides of the law with a decade worth of grudges between you. But hate can quickly become something else ... Tags: angst | canon-typical violence | mentions of food and alcohol and smoking | they’re all mean to each other and they have a difficult relationship | (a lot of) dirty talk (by my standards) | slight power imbalance | reader has hair that can be grabbed | threesome m/f/(m) (kinda) | ecouteurism | voyeurism | exhibitionism | a bit of edging | fingering | competitiveness | (unprotected) piv sex | creampie | a tiny, tiny bit of degradation Thoughts: Marcus and Din is a pairing I truly never thought I would see, but I am obsessed with this pairing. The way their personalities mesh is just stunning. I love the characterization of all three of them. I'm not usually one to read Din AUs where he's not some sort of Mandalorian, but I truly could not resist reading this. Everything about this fic was amazing. Reader's story, Marcus and Din's relationship, the setting, everything was just so good AHGHGGH.

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

This week I posted:

Scotty Doesn't Know - a Dieter one shot

Summary: Scotty doesn't know you're hooking up with Dieter Tags: songfic, smut, infidelity, dieter is a loser, scotty doesn't really deserve this he's just annoying, crack taken seriously, porn with the barest of plots, barely edited. WC: 2.8k

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

Happy Reading!

#fic recs #the spreadsheet digest #fanfiction recommendations #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro fics #pedro pascal character fanfiction

[katierosefun]

Okay babe what's the boys about and should I watch it 👀

HI ANN MY LOVE

yes, i say you should absolutely definitely watch it! the boys is basically this show about a world in which there are superheroes, but they're all run by this big corporation, and they look all Fine and Dandy until one day, hughie (my precious boy , , , he loves billy joel and simon and garfunkel , , ,,, , ,) witnesses a superhero run right through his girlfriend and that kinda flips the switch for him that UHH THERE'S SOMETHING KINDA FUCKED UP GOING ON HERE, NO?

then BOOM, this grumpy grouchy british (???) guy named butcher (played by my love, karl urban) collides into hughie's life and goes "hey so you're right, the superheroes are literally deranged + there is something going up with them".

and then the rest . . . happens from there.

cannot express enough how much i love this show. i remember watching the first episode back in 2019, when it first came out, but i couldn't get into it because a) very gory (like . , , , hughie's girlfriend gets run through within the first 10 minutes of the show, i think), and b) a bit of sex. (not . . . not as much as i expected, to be honest, but there are def some scenes that i skipped through bc they either made me feel uncomfortable or bc i just. yeah idk one of the characters has a weird breastfeeding fetish, and i was just like "okay, enough of that")

but outside of that, god. god. this show just has so many fantastic characters--like, literally, the villains are the fucking worst, and the protagonists and side characters are fucking amazing. i love hughie i love butcher i love annie january (who joins the superheroes aka the seven in the first episode , , , she's just a gal who wants to save the world, and something something hopefulness and wanting to help people is not a weakness! god i love u annie!) i love frenchie i love mm i love kimiko i love maeve , , , they're just all fucking fantastic.

also, this show just has some excellent commentary on capitalism + corporate power + commercialized wokeness (which is really fucking funny, considering this show is airing on amazon prime, of all fucking places). there's also excellent commentary on like. patriotism very quickly bleeding into nationalism and OHHH BOY, is it fascinating and also terrifying but also so surprisingly smartly written, which i did not expect, considering that eric kripke's the head writer.

but like, for real. i highly recommend this show. the characters are so complex, ad the plot is genuinely so intriguing, and like. i have just been nothing but quietly obsessed for the last week or so!

#answered #ann my beloved #also i've made like at least 5 playlists for the boys so far #and also wrote like 2 fics that surprisingly took me more brain worms than i expected #i cannot wait for season 4 and it's been literally SO long since i've last #fallen in love with. like. a show with multiple seasons #like i've mostly just been digging limited series/kdramas bc i know there's a planned ending and etc #but like. the boys is based on the comics #so i suspect that there'll be an ending #i have a weird feeling that it'll end with 5 or 6 seasons #although i lowkey hope it goes on for a little longer just bc i. i love them. #i know all good things must end but you don't understand I LOVE THEM-- #also there's a ridiculously low number of fics in the boys archive. it's so depressing. IT'S SO DEPRESSING

[neighbourskid]

2020

What a year, huh? Surely not anything anyone has expected to happen when we woke up on this day a year ago. I certainly haven’t. I’m not even sure, now, where to begin to sum up this year like I’ve done years prior. But then again... I may just as well just dive right into all the media I consumed this year, as I have done every year. I haven’t kept track as detailed as I have last year, but my year was definitely punctuated by pieces of entertainment that have come into my life.

Continuing on from 2019, my obsession with Good Omens was still going strong. Which was ideal, since I was gonna spend the first half of the year writing my Bachelor thesis on it. The intensity of the obsession may have waned a bit since, but I still love that show and book dearly and hold it close to my heart, and I don’t think that will ever stop. But while Good Omens was certainly an overall theme throughout my year, there were some other things that actually stood out.

With January came new episodes of Doctor Who, and having returned to that particular bandwagon the year prior, I was all about that. Jodie’s second season finally brought what I had longed for in her first--a darker kind of Doctor. She wasn’t quite as bubbly anymore, you could finally see some of the depths in the character that I loved so in the previous regenerations, which made me love Peter’s Doctor so incredibly much. In this season, I felt, Jodie was finally becoming the Doctor. Overall, that season catered to me personally every single episode. So many of the time periods they visited were of people I loved, and the introduction of Sacha Dhawan as the Master was absolutely....well, masterful. Sacha is brilliant in that role and I am utterly stunned by his talent. Although both John Simm and Michelle Gomez brought things to the Master that I liked, it’s Sacha’s completely unhinged take on it that made me finally like the character. He’s a madman and I love it.

The next major thing was The Good Place. I tend to have a talent of getting into shows just as they either ended their entire show, or the final season is just coming up. It’s happened quite a bit, and it was the same with this. I finally binged the show early in January and it would end its final season at the end of the month. True to form, I was completely obsessed with it for about a month, before I only occasionally thought about it again. But, thinking back now, I get this incredibly fond feeling for this show, and I remember that the finale absolutely wrecked me and I basically ugly sobbed through the entirety of it. Also very true to form, actually. I want to rewatch it again some time, but honestly preferably with someone who has never seen it before. Which, obviously, is a difficult thing to do given, well, everything.

Next up is something that surprised me a lot. In the middle of having to write my BA thesis, my procrastination thought it would be a great idea to rewatch and catch up on the entirety of Criminal Minds. And so I binged 15 seasons of that instead of writing my thesis. Which, coincidentally, had also just aired its final season not long before I started my binge in March. Rewatching this, I realised just how little I took in of the actual, like, stuff in the show when I first watched it as a teen. Although I mostly cared about the characters and their found family this time around--although I do find the cases really fascinating most of the time too--I noticed just how much I am not watching this for the fact that they are in the FBI. I was hyperaware of how often they shot at people before doing anything else, how many of the suspects died before ever being questioned or being brought in, and it made my skin crawl. I am aware how fucked up the criminal justice system is, and especially in the US, how the police functions and how incredibly glorified they are in the media. But rewatching this show, I realised how little I actually paid attention to anything when I was younger. Big yikes. Still, I remembered my love for these characters, and I really enjoyed that rewatch a whole lot. Found family will always get to me.

Once I finished writing my thesis and handed it in early in July, I then found my next momentary obsession: Community. The show had finally come to Netflix earlier in the year and a friend of mine had watched it then. I remember watching that pilot episode back then and being completely uninterested in watching it. The comedy felt like it wasn’t quite up my street, the characters were entirely unlikeable, and I especially disliked Jeff who the show was more or less centred around. I binged Criminal Minds instead, but then decided to give it another try. And, well, I watched it twice through without taking a break to watch something else in-between. Ironically, and maybe actually unsurprisingly, Jeff ended up being my favourite and I found myself relating a lot to him and his arc throughout the series. I even found myself writing some short ficlet-like things in the notes app on my phone. I made an attempt at starting a third watch, but I guess then the month was up, and my brain decided it was time for something else. My hyperfixations usually tend to die out after about a month. Which is why my complete devotion to Good Omens was a pleasant surprise. I did, however, end up watching quite a bit of Joel McHale and Ken Jeong’s The Darkest Timeline podcast throughout August. 

Early in September, while already preparing for the new term at uni, and my first semester in my Master’s studies, I then turned to New Girl. Friends of mine had seen it and recommended it, and I remember watching probably the entire first season on TV while I was in San Diego the first time around back in 2016. Or at least I think it was the entire first season. Either way, I binged that whole thing, realised through Nick Miller that the go-to character I am drawn to and tend to project on in any piece of media is usually what I like to call “the garbage man,” which Nick is a prime example of. And although I spent a month watching the show in-between starting university again and volunteering at a film festival, I didn’t spend much time afterward thinking about it and moved on to other things rather quickly. I enjoyed watching it, that much I remember, and I’m pretty sure I cried at the finale because it was done wonderfully, but seeing as another month was up, my brain was probably like “okay fine that’s enough”.

I then spent most of fall and early winter watching every single bad Christmas movie available on Netflix, which was quite fun. In that moment of festivity, I also watched a movie I found absolutely brilliant and fell in love with immediately. It’s a beautiful movie called Jingle Jangle, it has a magnificent soundtrack and is absolutely incredible. I had no idea Forest Whitaker could sing and he completely blew me away. If you haven’t seen it already, I highly recommend it. It doesn’t matter that Christmas is already over, it’s beautiful either way.

By the time December finally rolled around, I was already over the whole Christmas thing, to be honest and I turned away from festive movies or shows, and eventually ended up finally picking up a gem I had heard much about and had been meaning to watch for a while. A show which, as it were, also aired its final season earlier this year. This little show is Schitt’s Creek. I will be going on about what this show means to me probably in another post at length, but for now just let me say: if you haven’t seen it, find some place to watch it, and put this beautiful show in your eyeballs. I am on my second run through already (although I’ve seen the second half of the show a second time already while watching it with a friend on their first run through), and it brings me so much fucking joy. It’s a gift, this show. And it will likely stay with me for a very, very long time.

That’s about it for the big things. I also watched a whole lot of other stuff, including entirely new things, or just newly released seasons of things I was already watching. Here’s what I can remember off the top of my head:

Charlie’s Angels (2020). The Night Manager. The Witcher. Dolittle (2020). The Librarians (rewatch). Harley Quinn (2020). Sonic the Hedgehog (2020). The Chef Show (S1 part 3, S2 part 1). Avenue 5. Money Heist (part 4). The Good Fight (S4). Brooklyn Nine-Nine (S7). DuckTales (2017 reboot). Frankenstein live. Staged (2020). Hamilton. Sense8. Julie and the Phantoms. The Boys in the Band. One Night in Miami. Enola Holmes. Supernova. His Dark Materials (S2). Happiest Season. The Great Canadian Baking Show.

I also got some reading done in-between what I had to read for my thesis in spring, and then for regular university courses in fall. Here’s some of what I can remember:

Anthony Horowitz, The House of Silk. Ramona Meisel, Sunblind. Donna Tartt, The Secret History. Good Omens novel and script book. Matt Forbeck, Leverage: The Con Job. Keith R.A. Decandido, Leverage: The Zoo Job. Greg Cox, Leverage: The Bestseller Job. Greg Cox, The Librarians and the Lost Lamp. Greg Cox, The Librarians and the Mother Goose Chase. Greg Cox, The Librarians and the Pot of Gold. Neil Gaiman, Marvel 1602. Christina Henry, The Lost Boy. Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology. John Green, An Abundance of Katherines. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh. Maria Konnikova, The Confidence Game. 

Having mulled over all this entertainment I consumed in 2020, there are also some non-tv or book things I need to point out. As many, many other people around the globe, I have also spent a large amount of time this year on my Nintendo Switch, playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It is a game I have waited for since the Switch was first announced, and I fell in love with it from the moment the first trailer dropped. It has brought me great joy in this weird fucking year, and I have more or less consistently played it since it came out in March. I ended this year with the in-game New Year’s Eve celebration and I feel like that summed up this year quite neatly and appropriately.

This year also brought with it another game very close to my heart: Super Mario Sunshine. With their release of Super Mario 3D All-Stars in September, Nintendo finally brought my all-time favourite Mario game to my all-time favourite console, and I played the entire game through in the first week of owning it, in-between university courses and volunteering at the film festival. Also contained in that package was Super Mario Galaxy which I have also played through in its entirety since. All that’s left for me now is Super Mario 64, which I am excited to play through in the coming year.

And to round off my year of entertainment, there are two more things I would like to mention. First, David Tennant Does A Podcast With..., which released its second season this summer. It is one of the only, if not the only podcast I keep up to date with and listen to immediately whenever a new episode drops. I’ve loved the first season dearly, and David came back with some incredibly fantastic guests for the second season as well. I can’t wait for what the podcast will bring in the future, but I will wait patiently until it is time. I can highly recommend it for everyone who likes interesting conversations between lovely people who clearly adore each other a whole lot.

And finally, while this year brought a whole lot of bullshit with it, it also gave me something I never thought possible and did not even dare to imagine in my wildest dreams. My all-time favourite show announced that it would be rebooted with the same main cast (minus one), a new wonderful member, and involvement of the original creators, and even started filming already in summer. Leverage is coming back. I still cannot believe it. I hoped for a movie, always. That maybe one day, they might bring the gang back together, for one last job, just one more encore. But to get a whole new tv-show with Aldis, Christian, Gina and Beth returning? With the addition of Noah Wyle? I can’t wrap my head around it. I am so excited for this. I predict that I will ugly sob through the entirety of the pilot episode, if not the first season, and will have to rewatch every episode because of it, but I have no doubt that it will be brilliant and wonderful.

True to form, I have now gone on about tv shows and movies for far too long, and haven’t really said anything about this year at all. 2020 was fucking weird. And I don’t think 2021 will be much different quite yet. I wrote an entire BA thesis in 2020. I successfully finished by Bachelor’s degree and started my Master’s studies and even got some excellent first grades in as well. I was lucky enough to be able to see some friends and family throughout the year, and even celebrate my birthday with a small circle of friends. I’ve become closer with friends, shared experiences I wouldn’t trade for the world, and, I think, maybe also grown a bit as a person.

I started this year excited to finally be able to start taking testosterone in February, and to finish the first part of my studies by summer. Although I did both of these things, they didn’t happen quite how I imagined them, but I am glad that I could do these things nevertheless.

2020 was a hell year, for sure. But there were some moments in there that I wouldn’t want to lose.

I’ve tried very hard to not be optimistic about this upcoming year, and rather take a more realistic, even pessimistic approach. But I can’t help but be hopeful. Hopeful that this year will be kind to us, and if it isn’t, that at least, we’ll be kind to ourselves and each other. It won’t be easy, and not much will change, I think. But we have to approach the coming time with kindness and compassion. That’s where I’m at currently. And I think that’s all for now.

Be well, friends, and take care.

#2020 #end of year round up #personal #blog post #good omens #the good place #criminal minds #community #new girl #schitt's creek #schitts creek #jingle jangle #his dark materials #doctor who #leverage #leverage reboot #leverage 2 #super mario 3d all stars #super mario sunshine #nintendo #nintendo switch #switch #super mario galaxy #super mario 64 #university #david tennant #david tennant does a podcast with #animal crossing #animal crossing new horizons #acnh

[derl30]

ALTERED STATES REVIEW TIME!

OK, this tumblr is, today, a vehicle for me to review ALTERED STATES. And you (the one person who stumbled on this review two-hundred years from n- oh who am I kidding, when the aliens from A.I. who show up to thaw out Haley Joel Osment and the teddy bear who was the real hero of that movie find this) should be very excited about this. Because this movie is insane. And highly entertaining.

Yes, the movie poster looks like ass. If I told you this was a movie where William Hurt (not the William Hurt from that awful 90's Lost in Space remake, or the one who slept through an entire performance as Duke Leto in the Syfy miniseries of Dune. This is before the body snatchers got him) took ayahuasca and got in a isolation tank and it blew his mind so hard he started devolving into a neanderthal and creating dimensional portals and he couldn't stop because he was addicted to finding the truth of existence... Well you wouldn't get that from this poster, would you? So let's move on. Shall we?

The film opens in 1967 with William Hurt's character, psychopathologist Edward Jessup, already immersed in a sensory deprivation tank, whilst his colleague and “buddy” Bob Balaban (he's just Bob Balaban in everything I'm not giving you his character's name look it up yourself if it's bugging you so much) oversees.

Now, you may notice I put buddy in quotes. The reason for that is that Jessup is a self-obsessed ass who seemingly has no reason to be around other people unless he can expound to them one of his various monologues. Bob Balaban barely gets a word in edgewise throughout the entire film. Bob Balaban.

See, Jessup loves the sensory deprivation tank experience. Unsurprisingly, as it allows him to be completely alone with himself for hours.

Later, at perhaps the lamest party ever, a bunch of faculty are chilling out and listening to the Doors. Everyone we see is talking about Jessup. Why? Well, much as Jessup is obsessed with himself, everyone else seems to follow suit by being obsessed with him. One young woman, Emily, (Blair Brown) is introduced to him in this very shot below as he arrives at the party:

Notice how is framed in holy light? There is a closeup after, of him framed in blinding glowing light followed up with a zoom in on Emily's face, enraptured with this incredible dynamic man. So much so that the moment he tries to make a goddamn sandwich she starts grabbing his celery (get your mind out of the gutter) and flirting with him. Which for these two that means talking science, immediately. Talking more at each other than with each other. This is often the way with Paddy Chayefsky's scripts.

PAUSE

Paddy Chayefsky is doubtless one of the great American writers for the screen. He wrote Marty, The Hospital and Network (which is a fucking incredible piece of work). He got an Oscar for all three. He also wrote this movie (Altered States, remember? Good lord) and disowned it completely three weeks in to production. His scripts tend to have very intelligent, driven characters at the center, who monologue extensively at each other. These scripts are not attempting to sound naturalistic.

Ken Russell, however, directed the film. He, like Chayefsky, is top notch at what he does (Direct. I said he directed the film like a second ago, come on keep up). His films, like Women in Love, The Devils, (which was banned in several major countries upon release and has never been shown publicly in its full, uncut form (by the way it's a masterpiece)) the Who's Tommy, Gothic, and Lair of the White Worm are all fucking gonzo nuts. I mean like, when you gave this guy the reins, you were going to Overthetopsville and there will be no stops on this trip. And god bless! I love directors who GO for it!

You're getting the chance to make a movie. Stop hemming and hawing and hit me over the head with what you want to say! Film is a visual medium, USE IT!

I feel I might have made my feelings clear here. So, moving on...

Ken Russell and Paddy Chayefsky immediately started butting heads, right from the start. Chayefsky was a BIG deal, and he wanted control over the picture in a BIG way. Ken would listen to his suggestions on everything to lighting and set dressing, and politely tell him, “No.”, and continue being the director of the film. Chayefsky hated him pretty quickly.

He had much more control over films like The Hospital. Which, if you watch The Hospital, well, it shows. You've got great actors (George C. Scott, Dame Diana Rigg (Dame may be the greatest official title of all time)) saying great dialogue. But its just two very witty bitter people sort of expounding on topics and speaking at each other and suddenly admitting they are in love and discussing what drapes they will have to buy for their new home. It's utterly preposterous, and it doesn't work in the way Sidney Lumet got it to work in Network, by literally making one of the lead characters realize his life is turning into a ludicrous soap opera.

So of course Ken tried to humanize, naturalize, the dialogue sequences. And it works! The film feels more human than the Hospital or Network. Despite the fact that Jessup is literally becoming more and more inhuman throughout the film. One of the ways he does this is by having the character's eat, drink, and work on other things during the dialogue sequences. This is perfectly normal in film, it's called giving the actor “business” to do, during the scene. Chayefsky HATED this. “They are mumbling my precious dialogue! Chewing through it! Sucking it through a straw!” Sorry, Chayefsky buddy. It works for the picture. Chayefsky also felt the actors were too emotional with his dialogue. Right. See, they call that acting.

UNPAUSE

Which brings us back to the first meeting of Emily and Jessup at the party. They are eating during this important scene! I can just picture Chayefsky seeing this, and running to the studio brass to tattle and get Ken Russell fired (as he got Arthur Penn of Bonnie and Clyde fame fired before Ken Russell came on board).

Emily and Jessup are, true to Chayefsky form, extremely intelligent, driven people and hearing them discuss topics such as anthropology and schizophrenia is quite interesting. It's just that what is to come, film being a visual medium, will eclipse just about any dialogue, no matter how good, from our mind thingys.

The two give up on the science talk and go straight to banging on her couch. After, she asks what he was thinking about. His answer is priceless. “God. Jesus. Crucifixions.”

She smiles.

Bwahahaha! Oh Paddy Chayefsky, you sure know women.

He admits he used to have religious visions. She listens to him from the sweaty couch whilst he sits naked on the floor, and starts going on about his father's horrible death of cancer and his loss of faith. And he admits to her that he's a nut. Her response is to call him a fascinating bastard. I think Lucas may have taken notes for Padme and Anakin.

So naturally, they get married immediately.

But none of that matters because Jessup gets back in the sensory deprivation tank and has his first vision. A nightmare of his dying father and lost faith in christianity. It's pretty great, filled with foreboding hospital rooms, his father's face being covered in a burning Shroud of Turin, everything covered by horrible blood red clouds and then THIS FUCKING THING SHOWS UP AND ITS ALIVE AND WRIGGLING

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

excuse me...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

The many-eyed goat is slaughtered over a gold bible and suddenly Jessups screwing Emily again and we enter a blood vessel looking thing and the vision ends and he never mentions this again. Oh. Okay,

Emily continues on about what a nut Jessup is as they make marriage plans. Her monologue:

“You're an unmitigated madman. You don't have to tell me how weird you are. I know how weird you are. I'm the girl in your bed the past two months. Even sex is a mystical experience for you. You carry on like a flagellant... Which can be very nice, but I sometimes wonder if it's me that's being made love to. I feel like I'm being harpooned by some raging monk in the act of receiving God. (Emphasis mine)

"And you are a Faust-freak Eddie! You'd sell your soul to find the great truth. Well, human life doesn't have great truths. We're born in doubt. We spend our lives persuading ourselves we're alive. And one way we do that is we love each other, like I love you. I can't imagine living without you. So let's get married, and if it turns out to be a disaster, it'll be a disaster.”

It's a disaster.

As in, by the next scene. It starts off happy enough looking, they have kids and people are smiling. And hey, wow it's seven years later! But, well, see, whoops, they are getting a divorce. Well, not they. See, he is divorcing her because he considers the seven years with her a complete waste.

She still loves him, desperately. He doesn't give a shit about her or the kids. He tells Bob Balaban this, straight up. And then starts bugging him about deprivation tanks and Hinchi Indians in South America who have sacred mushrooms that can really fuck you up.

It's at this point you would like for Jessup to be hit by a Mack truck. But the movie continues on. By the way, this is one of the kids he doesn't give a crap about:

That's right. Drew Barrymore's first role is a kid that William Hurt doesn't give a shit about. Something that William Hurt would make a career out of with narcoleptic performances in Lost in Space and Syfy's Dune. So, Emily takes the kids to Africa for her anthropology work while Jessup goes to South America to go deeper into his own creepy mind.

The Hinchi Indians agree to allow him to participate in the drug ritual. They enter their holy cave.

This shot is beautiful. At this point the film becomes increasingly gorgeous. Ken Russell has started to go into overdrive, ladies and gentlemen. Buckle. Your. Seatbelts.

The Indians grab Jessup's hand and cut him, freaking him out. They pour his blood into the drug mixture. They begin to drink. Then he takes a sip. The intensity of the film here has quadrupled. The vision begins, fireworks going off all around him. He sees cave paintings of humans and komodo dragons and this:

The proper life he left behind with Emily. He's convulsing, sweating. The Indians are all around, masked. Snakes. He's laughing in pain. Energy spills from the void. A snake under the parasol strikes and begins to strangle him. He and Emily march toward a nuclear explosion as energy pours from the cut on his hand, becoming a lizard. From within a sandstorm, Emily watches him, naked. Jessup looks at her, entranced, as the soothing sands cover them both, slowly.

It's a beautiful sequence. A perfect film sequence. I can't overstate how strong the vision sequences are from this point forward. Great visual effects work and the madman mind of Ken Russell create something unforgettable, with it's own pace, independent from the rest of the film.

Jessup awakens with a komodo dragon laying before him, ripped to pieces. The Indians and the others all claim he killed it in rage. Jessup remembers nothing, takes samples of the drug to reproduce it, and goes back home.

Back home, Jessup keeps doing as much of the drug as he can and having Bob Balaban record results. They can't up the dosage any more so Jessup hops back in to the self deprivation tank to create a more extreme experience.

In his next session, Jessup states he is having a vision of early man, hunting a deer and killing it. Suddenly he states he is one of them, killing the deer. He begins to grunt like an animal. The two pull him out. He's incredibly pale, blood seeping out of his mouth. He can't speak, and has difficulty breathing. He insists they do an X-ray. It shows that there is a vocalizing lump in the front part of his throat. Jessup claims that his body had begun to revert to a simian state. The medical doctor agrees, stating the throat X-rays looks like that of a gorilla.

Luckily his throat returns to normal. So Jessup finishes up his day by having over a student of his and sleeping with her.

Our hero, people!

At this point we hardly feel sorry for him as his body suddenly begins to twist and bulge in the middle of the night, shifting in and out of neanderthal shapes. It's a horrific sequence, disturbing as hell. You certainly didn't expect the film to shift into body horror.

Jessup feels normal after a while. but sees visions of lava explosions, the birthing of the Earth all around him. Not a good sign.

He goes to pick up Emily from the airport the next day. She asks how he is doing.

“Oh, fine.”

Yeah right.

Emily has been told what Jessup has been doing and is worried, which of course pisses off Jessup even more. The guy is obviously obsessed with reaching the truth and root of existence, much as Emily surmised earlier, and we see he has no fear of even losing his own soul, again true to her word. The only thing that allows us to give a shit about him at this point is that Emily cares for him and she's decent people, okay?

So back Jessup goes into the tank with his ayahuasca or whatever it is. Alone. The tank door opens from the inside.

The hand that pushes it open is covered in thick hair. He's devolved.

Ape-Jessup escapes the tank room and chases a janitor around the building. Again, this scene is fucking freaky as hell. We can't get a good look at this screaming animal that was Jessup.

The janitor gets a guard to help and chases after him into the boiler room, where we finally get a good look at him when he assaults the security guard and escapes.

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Ape-Jessup runs through the city at night, making his way to the zoo where he kills a antelope and eats it. The Ape-Jessup sequence goes on way too long, but is nonetheless unforgettable. The makeup is much more convincing than the above picture suggests, and whoever performed Ape-Jessup did an admirable job.

The cops find an unconscious Jessup in the zoo and bring him in. Emily picks him up and questions him. Jessup admits everything that he can remember. He also admits that he probably killed that security guard. And once again doesn't seem to give a shit. Prick. He calls it the most supremely satisfying time of his life.

Even Emily seems disgusted with him. But, she's also fascinated with what he's accomplished. As an anthropologist, his transformation fascinates her. And so, she agrees to help oversee his next session. Big mistake.

Before the big session Emily and Jessup romantically reconnect, and then into the climactic session we go!

Get your popcorn ready!

After a few hours in to the session, the video monitor shows Jessup begin to literally melt apart like goo, reverting to primordial ooze, the very beginning of existence. An attempt to open the isolation tank doors blasts everyone unconscious, as light and energy pour forth. Emily is the only one left. She sees Jessup's life energy pulse from within the tank.

Rain pours down around them. The pipes on the walls twist and turn like jelly. The ground is covered with a pool of swirling fog and energy. Emily advances toward the vortex of the tank.

In the emptiness of the beginning of everything, Emily seizes the energy before her and reconstitutes Jessup.

They take him home. While he sleeps, Emily rages over the fact that she loves such a insane bastard, and can't get over him. And, then, after Bob Balaban leaves, leaving Emily alone, Jessup wakes up.

He sweetly admits that the truth he learned was that there was no learnable truth, just unknowable horror, and all that's real is human experience. And he'll be a good boy from now on. Well too bad!

Because that horrible truth isn't done with him, and it's back to goo-Jessup! Emily tries to help him, grabbing him, but this in turn effects her, turning her into a shimmering lava form of herself. Both of them begin to self-destruct as Jessup, enraged, watching her in pain, struggles to retake his humanity, slamming himself into the wall, reforming himself through sheer will and physicality. He grabs her and brings her back, mirroring what she did for him during the final session. They embrace naked in the hallway. He finally admits, “I love you, Emily.”

Fade to credits.

Awww true love!

What can I say to sum up? Awesome 80's practical effects. Genius wacko go-for-it Ken Russell directing. Out of this world vision sequences. A awake and actually remarkable performance from William Hurt. An occasionally turgid but often fascinating script by the ever ornery Paddy Chayefsky. Whats not to like?

Well, the ending is a little rushed. The ape sequence goes on for a little too long and takes up perhaps too much of the films overall running time. The central love story is, well... a little hard to swallow, but hey, I guess there really is somebody out there for everyone. Even self-absorbed, deadbeat, cheating, sensory deprivation loving, ayahuasca dropping, Harvard teachers with a messiah complex!

And on that note, aliens from A.I. Artifical Intelligence, have a good day, and don't leave poor Teddy alone with no one to keep him company!

Sayonara!

#altered states #ken russell #movies #review #funny?

[daily5sosupdate]

Fall Out Boy are back on the scene looking better than ever, and the brotherly pairing at the heart of Good Charlotte, Joel and Benji Madden, are still going strong 22 years after the band first broke out, so could there be a better time for the genre’s hottest young talents to return?

Armed with a brand new record and a sharper, more mature sound, 5 Seconds of Summer were the young Australian four-piece that introduced Gen Z to modern pop-punk; their lyrics bursting with ace hooks lifted straight from their angsty teenage diaries. For the past seven years, millions of fans have shown up to sell-out arena tours around the world. But the group, comprised of lead singer Luke, guitarist Michael, bass player Calum and drummer Ashton, have grown up now. Have a listen to their comeback single Want You Back -- these guys sound more sophisticated and emotionally grounded than ever before.

While most artists are left spouting the same soundbites to inquisitive writers all day long when asked to promote their new material, we figured we’d get to the heart of some more important issues: like whether or not the world’s most fawned-over band think the FBI are keeping tabs on them through their laptop webcams. In the basement of a suave London hotel, i-D sat down with the Aussie quartet and learned a lot about the little things in their lives, like what they owe their parents, the fashion trends they’re on board with, and one member’s strange spaghetti date with Dizzee Rascal.

1. Before they got their big break touring with One Direction, the guys covered Adele, Wheatus and Busted songs together on YouTube.

2. The name 5 Seconds of Summer came to the band when they were scribbling suggestions down in science class one day. For a sec, they considered calling themselves Bromance.

3. They have a combined Instagram following of 28.4 million. There’s literally more people who follow them on Instagram than live in Australia.

4. None of the band have slept in their childhood bedrooms since they were 18.

5. The guys can still walk down the street without being hassled by strangers. Much to the upset of the fans currently camped outside their hotel, they last did it “earlier today, yesterday, and the day before that”.

6. Michael has “an abnormally large phobia of death”.

7. Ashton and Calum think the best song they have written is on their next album: “either Lie to Me or Young Blood,” apparently, and Ashton wishes he wrote Between the Bars by Elliott Smith, while Calum wishes he had penned Machines by Biffy Clyro.

8. Michael says he caused his parents hell as a kid. “Well, a lot of stress,” he claims. “They were certain that I’d live at home forever.”

9. Anxiety is the hardest thing the band have had to overcome. “Being on stage when you’re anxious -- it’s the worst thing ever,” Ashton claims. Thankfully, Luke has learned how to put other people in a good mood, even when he’s feeling low.

10. The scariest thing Calum has seen with his own two eyes is “Luke’s bare naked body”.

11. The band feel proud to be Australian every day of the year, but felt especially proud “when the bill for gay marriage went through”.

12. The band struggle to take criticism from “somebody who doesn’t have enough knowledge to dish it out” -- but they deal with it by being gracious and understanding. Good lads.

13. Ashton is fascinated by the Matrix Theory that we all live in a simulation rather than a real world, even if it’s “definitely not true”.

14. While Luke admires that the people who think the earth is flat are “still sticking to their guns”.

15. And Michael thinks the idea of aliens building the pyramids in Egypt is “fucking horrifying”.

16. Unsurprisingly, the guys have all listened to Tom Delonge of Blink 182’s podcast on weird alien theories.

17. The band are keen to collaborate with Tricky from Massive Attack because he’s “cool, but the darkest motherfucker ever”, and would love to link-up with Biffy Clyro while they’re at it, too.

18. Calum once went shopping with Dizzee Rascal. Then they ate spaghetti together. Somehow, no other member of Five Seconds of Summer was aware of this encounter until just now.

19. In 2011, the band played a gig on a school tennis court because the venue they were meant to play in -- a church, by the way -- fell into a sinkhole. For real. “People were literally lining up for our gig inside their school hall,” Michael reminisces.

20. Ashton has a low-key obsession with the Judi Dench-starring, geriatric dramedy, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

21. Despite being, in his own words, “not the most fashionable person”, Ashton claims that he predicted the return of the belt-chain. “Everyone’s got a fuckin’ chain wallet now,” he says, “but people have ditched the wallet – it’s just the chain”.

22. Luke’s a fan of the choker trend, while Michael would like to let everybody know that “bondage is in”.

23. In 2011, 5 Seconds of Summer would have described themselves “ambitious” and “still learning”.

24. The band unanimously agree that the body part none of them could live without is “the weiner”.

25. But would perhaps reconsider if they could all remove one thing and create some “epic, weird quadi-legged” creature from their dismembered body parts. M’okay.

26. The worst thing in Ashton’s wardrobe is “half a bag of cheetos from a year ago”.

27. Michael owns a pair of purple SUPRA sneakers that he’s hoping come back into fashion soon.

28. The band felt furthest from home “the first time they left Australia to move to the UK” back in 2012. Ashton hadn’t even been on a plane until a few months before that.

29. The band last felt starstruck when they bumped into Dave Grohl at an Aerosmith concert four years ago. It was “a huge deal for us because we idolise him as an artist,” Calum says. “I didn’t say a word, I just looked at him and smiled. Ashton spoke the whole time.”

30. The band like to throw words together to create new swear words, and consider “shitlord” their current favourite.

31. At the request of his fans -- particularly Cherri, Cydny and Hanna -- yes, Ashton would grow his freshly coiffed locks long again.

32. The band have been asked pretty much every question, but would like to be asked about the ups and downs of the last year of making the record without it getting “too emo”.

33. Michael is desperately waiting for a journalist to be really inappropriate and ask a ‘no-fucks-given’ question: “like, ‘how big is it?’”

34. The last time Luke lied was “in the interview before this one”. So we don’t hold out much hope for these ‘facts’.

35. 5 Seconds of Summer’s single Want You Back is a) a stone-cold banger.

36. And b) available to stream now.

Pre-order 5SOS's new album Youngblood (due 22 June) right here, right now

#5sos #5 seconds of summer #want you back #5sos3 #press #vice #12 april 2018

[wannab-urs]

The Spreadsheet Digest - Fic Recs | Vol. 10

Hi babies!!

Can't believe this is the TENTH week of TSD. I really love sharing what I read with y'all (even if it's lowkey embarrassing to admit how much smut I read in seven days). This week I branched out to a Pedro Boy I don't usually read AND I read a couple different series that like... changed my life.

Fic recs below the Pedro ;)

The last great american dynasty - a Joel one shot by @proxima-writes (part of the Folklore Anthology)

I love love love old homes and I also did a research project in college that involved reading historical letters so this was all just a really cool premise for me. Add in the snarky reader and grumpy joel and it's just heaven on earth for me.

Muddy Waters - a Joel / Ezra series by @bonezone44

This is like... weird. It gives me an eerie feeling. And that is such a fucking compliment btw. I am obsessed. The way you've written Ezra is so fucking interesting (and creepy). Love me a murder boy <3 And reader is really fascinating too ugh. This is so cool. (thanks toxic for pointing me to this w your rec ahhhh).

Bunny - a Javi P two shot by @whatsnewalycat

Obsessed with the premise here. Phone sex operator to get through school?? sign me up. The little Dale Gribble moment was delightful and then it's followed up by incredible phone sex with Javier. And then!!! Part TWO we get professor Javi, which is unfairly hot and the recognition from the voice and just.... oh my god it is everything. I mean this is just the perfect set up for dirty talk and boy does Javi have a mouth on him.

LJ's Bangathon - a Pedro Boys... bangathon? by @prolix-yuy

Every single one of these is incredible. I'm especially partial to the Oberyn x Sit on the Throne one because like... murder + dub con vibes and neither in the way you'd expect. I also adored Jack and Marcus Pike. Their dynamic was so good UGH. Anyway they're all amazing and you should read them.

Learning to Live - a Javi P series by @wheresarizona

This fucking fic is ruining my life. I've been completely consumed with it all week. I can see how a casual viewer of Narcos would say it's OoC for Javi, but I actually think it's kind of genius. Throughout the show you get all these slight glimpses into Javi's true nature: soft, sweet, caring, passionate, gentle... but he's so wrapped up in and beat down by everything in Colombia that he has to be an asshole or he won't fucking survive. The post-show Javi who is ready to start letting all that go is so fucking wonderful to see and I love that Cielito gets to help bring that out of him. The little moments of reconnecting with his family and remembering his mom bring me to tears. The long speeches in Spanish are just so lovely. If you need something to make you weak in the knees and a little teary eyed this is it. Passionate, adoring, filthy, gorgeous smut sandwiched between beautiful little moments of fluff and just the right amount of angst. Me encanta esta historia <3

With or Without You - a Javi P/Frankie series by @jksprincess10

Frankie is so adorable and sweet in this. He just wants to make reader feel good and he also wants to please Javi ugh. And reader is so mischievous getting Javi to do what she wants ahhhhh. And of course our dominant little Javi P is wonderful in this. Fucking top tier smut, Nad. We all know I love a MMF threesome fic lmao.

this is me trying - a Joel one shot by @swiftispunk

This is such a sweet platonic Joel and Ellie fic ugh. I really love fics that explore their relationship post season 1 and like... Joel coming to terms with everything. I loved the set up (similar to his panic attack in episode 6 when he sees the girl by the tree) and I love how Ellie comforts him in her own quintessentially Ellie way. You can see the bond they have where she just kind of knows what to do and say instinctively and it makes me so happy. I see a lot of fics where Joel is trying to comfort Ellie or get her to stop hating him for what he did and it's just really nice to see a fic where Ellie comforts him instead.

take what you need darling - a Joel one shot by @iamasaddie

big thick dick daddy joel what more do you need?

punch the clock - a Javi P one shot by @deathwife

Listen this is exactly what would happen if I worked anywhere near Javier Peña. I would find a way to get him to come with me and I would also be a sassy lil bitch to him constantly. Not like it would be difficult to get Javi to come with pretty much anything with legs and wearing a skirt, but still.

I Can Feel Your Heartbeat - a Jack (Whiskey) series by @psychedelic-ink

Cowboy Jack Daniels is a character who begs to be written as a stripper and this fic delivered. He's hot and sweet and I love it. Part two is sexy as all hell and features clumsy as fuck reader (which is so me). And then it drops the ANGST on you. God I love this. I cannot wait for part three.

The Secret - a Marcus M series by @frannyzooey

This collection of drabbles about a much older Marcus Moreno sneaking into your dorm at night is so fucking hot, y'all. I don't read a whole lot of Marcus Moreno unless he's being sweetly seduced by my favorite piece of shit human, Dieter Bravo. So I clicked on this bc it's by one of my favorite writers and was rec'd by another of my favorite writers and... alright. I'm on the Marcus Moreno train. I get it. And the drabbles left me desperately wanting a full story... wishful thinking?

----------oldies but goodies-----------

Soft - a Dieter one shot by @mishasminion360

Home for the weekend - a Joel one shot by @loquaciousferret

Genesis - an Ezra series by @max--phillips (I'll kiss you if you write more)

Perfectly Intoxicating - a Javi P series by @gracieispunk

Es Tarde y Te Necesito - a Javi P one shot by @gar6agef1r3

Say My Name - a Javi P one shot by @palioom

I Only See Daylight - a Din series by @millersdjarin

A Fresh Start - a Din series by @theidiotwhowritesthings

----------my shit------------

Nothing new! I'm planning a little Javi P thing maybe? Based on my username... MAYBE! Do not get excited.

And maybe a lil Dieter thing based on Dial Drunk by Noah Kahan but again don't hold me to it I am useless most of the time.

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

Happy Reading <3

#fic recs #the spreadsheet digest #vol 10 #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro fics #pedro pascal character fanfiction