#* / haris – the chaotic one.

[spadesolace]

your guide to the y/n's in every newjeans fics

what is love! minyn: playlist

name: son y/n jangmi

age: 20

what their partner call them: baby / babe / babie

what they call their partner: darling

personality: quite the simp and a goofball but is working hard for her future (minji is in it, of course). very observant and quite the creative person when it comes to thinking of gifts for minji. aside from that, she is still head over heels for her girlfriend of 3 years.

likes: coffee, parks, reading (case studies most of the time), korean rnb, aquariums (has a collection of aquatic animal plushies in their shared apartment), and of course (loves) minji.

dislikes: people who don’t know their place “could you really blame me? have you seen minji?” and matcha.

who fell first? "me, but i waited until i was sure minji liked me back."

drag me down! hanyn: playlist

name: park y/n hari

age: 19

what their partner call them: loser / park

what they call their partner: nerd / pham

personality: the most reserved introvert there is, she has socials but little information can be taken there. is actually a nerd but won’t admit that to hanni. lowkey lazy when it comes to classes but somehow manages to stay on her top spot (if she wanted to, she would have beaten hanni long ago). is actually a big softie esp when it comes to her little sister (and hanni).

likes: iced americano “you’re really going to die early from that” “shut it, pham”, baked goods, anime (has an entire collection), lego, video games, reading, and hanni.

dislikes: liars and flying cockroaches.

who fell first? "not quite sure... pham never disclosed when she first realized that she likes me."

love you twice! haeyn: playlist

name: lee y/n

age: 17

what their partner call them: y/nn

what they call their partner: hae

personality: lowkey has anger issues that she let’s out on any physical activity (she’s lowkey muscular), but really is a golden retriever who overthinks a lot. quite protective and quiet in front of everyone except for haerin and hyein which shows how chaotic she truly is. if haerin is an introvert, she's a lowkey introvert but doesn't show it that much.

likes: going outside, playing sports, somewhere that won't make her feel stuck in one place, photography, making hyein laugh, but also taking care of her friends and haerin.

dislikes: cheaters. minwon specifically, also small spaces (a bit claustrophobic)

who fell first? "i think it was at the same time, i confessed first if we're going to base of that-"

midnight rain! daniyn: playlist

name: jeon y/n sol

age: 18

what their partner call them: moonlight

what they call their partner: sunshine

personality: a delinquent who loves to play the guitar and listen to music but also runs away at any sign of a problem or confrontation happening. a bit free spirited but that's what makes people either admire or despise her. you won't hear much from her as she has her headphones on most of the time. she has scary dog privileges when she goes out late at night for her date with dani. has a bunch of drawings of danielle and half of them have song lyrics as the title.

likes: drawing, writing, listening to music, her black cat that keeps her company most of the time, skateboarding, and danielle.

dislikes: confrontations, and dogs.

who fell first? "why would i tell you? ... jihye."

[vendetta-if]

Happy independence day my fellow Indonesian! 17 Agustus tahun 45 itulah hari kemerdekaan kita~~ 🇮🇩🇮🇩🇮🇩. Ada rencana ikut games meramaikan acara 17an gak nih wkwkwk? Anyway going with the theme, what annual independence day games would the ROs more likely participate in? If they play panjat pinang together how chaotic would it be? LOL (no flying Skylar it's cheating!!!)

Ps: Please answer this ask on the independence day if you don't mind, thank you~~

Happy Independence Day, my fellow Indonesians 🇮🇩 And Happy 78th Birthday to our country. I hope you guys have a great day and are enjoying the holiday! Although, I’m sorry for those who had to endure through upacara this morning.

As for which ROs would participate in the Independence Day games and what kind of games they would participate in…

First of all, Rin would not want to join because it’ll be just too embarrassing for them, alright! Do you derive enjoyment from seeing them struggle and making fool of themselves in these games? 😭

Santana would like to play the more fun and team-oriented games, like the classic tug of war, playing game of telephone or relay but with water or flour, or the balloon dance game where you and a partner have to keep the balloon from touching the floor without touching it with your hands.

Now, Ash and Skylar, both of them would be up for any games available and they would definitely compete against each other 😆 But of course there’ll be games where one of them excel more than the other.

For example, I can see Ash completely dominating the eating kerupuk game. They’ll annihilate that poor kerupuk so fast 💀 Skylar, in the meantime, would actually be good in sack race (maybe they use their flying ability just a tiny bit to assist them 🤭)

And pray to God if Ash and Skylar have to work together in a team/partner game 😭 But overall, it’ll be fun to see them two participating in the games 🥰

Anyway, here’s a video of little MC participating in a game with Yvette:

[definegodliness]

Experimental cooking: an example

We had leftover oyster mushrooms. This is where it escalated. We had had potatoes, pasta, rice, and couscous, and, because I love to change things up, now I wanted noodles. Quinoa had been fine too, but we had leftover oyster mushrooms... so...

First I baked some sesame seeds. Then I made a spice-mix: pepper, salt, chili powder, paprika powder, five spice. Quantities to taste… some in moderation; five spice is potent. That, I added to some ground beef with an egg, and bread-crumbs till moist yet malleable.

Meanwhile the sesame seed skillet was still hot, so I tossed some vine tomatoes in and let them dry fry. I would've used the oven but I was too busy darting to and fro in the kitchen.

Experimental cooking is chaotic.

After I kneaded the ground beef into sausages, I seared them in a casserole, and when they were done all round I took them out of the pot. To rest, so they say.

Then, in those spice and meat infused juices I tossed a chopped onion, one minced clove of garlic, and shredded oyster mushrooms to soak up the flavours.

Oh! Meanwhile the Haricot Verts were cooking with two stalks of chopped celery I had lying around (celery takes too much time to cook until softened, stir frying, if you'd ask me... I cheated on that, because I was already frying garlic and mushrooms when I found out I had them).

So while that was boiling, I added two pointed peppers, chopped — or rather, sliced in all kinds of different sizes, for different textures — and added those to the mix in the (stir) frying pot.

Took the hari's and celery out after 10 minutes, while the rest had fried in the other pan, dumped the greens in a bowl to prevent them from cooking further.

Then, the magic happened with a teaspoon of Sambal Ulek, a glug of soy sauce, a big teaspoon of miso paste, and a tablespoon of Tahini. By this point I was dancing. Whistling songs. A splash of honey. And after some dashing and stir-frying, a last minute thumb-sized piece of ginger, grated.

Then, I reintroduced the beef sausages, along with the hari's and celery. Put the lid on the top and reduced the temperature to retaining / regaining heat.

I cooked the noodles with 3/4th of a beef stock cube I had lying around. 4 minutes. This was my cigarette break after darting around for the time, cooking. The kitchen was an utter mess.

Then, I threw it all together, except for the tomatoes (used as garnishing (umami bombs)).

Success.

[blackstarmylove]

Please give us a moral alignment compass of Black Star characters list. (Example: Lawful chaotic, lawful evil, etc) 🥺🥺

Lawful Good - no one

Neutral Good - Qu, Kongou, Unei, Sinju, Ginsei, Yakou, Hari, Gui

Chaotic Good - Heath, Akira, Rico

Lawful Neutral - Rindou, Maica

Neutral - Kei, Sin, Kasumi

Chaotic Neutral - Ran, Taiga

Lawful Evil - Kokuyou, Takami, Yoshino

Neutral Evil - Mizuki, Sotetsu, Mokuren, Menou

Chaotic Evil - Haseyama, Iwami, Nekome, Zakuro

Description of each alignment under the cut.

Lawful Good - cast members who are strong followers of law and order and are willing to do anything to uphold rules/regulations.

Neutral Good - cast members who like a balance of regulation but with freedom. They do what they can to help others.

Chaotic Good - cast members who value freedom but not at the cost of toying with others. They are also rebels.

Lawful Neutral - cast members who see rules/regulations as important and want perfect order. But they like a system that is considerate and realistic.

Neutral - cast members who want balance and can see good and evil and balance between law and chaos.

Chaotic Neutral - cast members who like disorder and spontaneity and often question rules/regulations and traditions.

Lawful Evil - cast members who respect rules and regulations but are willing to bend those rules for their personal gains without caring how it affects others.

Neutral Evil - Cast members who don't follow the law but also don't want pure chaos. They will pursue their goals without a care in the world or how it affects others.

Chaotic Evil - cast members willing to go to any level to do as they please by any means necessary.

----

Some people may question why cast members like Kongou, Unei, and Sinju are not part of Lawful Good. Lawful Good comes off as a moral alignment where the person is willing to do anything, I mean anything, to uphold the law, and this is not always a good thing. While Kongou upholds the rules, he has broken them a few times, for example, when he helped his teammates hijack other teams' stages. Unei often disregards (or even fights against) Haseyama's rules when he thinks the rules might hurt the cast members.

While some might ask why Mizuki is part of Neutral Evil. Is he evil? No, but he does as he pleases without considering how his actions affect others; granting, he is doing this out of immaturity more than anything else.

[kara-knuckles]

I might have been quiet about it, but don't be mistaken, I'm still not over GudaGuda 6, I just really don't know what to say after waiting for two years… So, here, have some Oryou-centric headcanons, since people don't talk about her as her own character nearly enough!

This event made it pretty clear that Oryou is supposed to be GudaGuda version of Hiruko. In his IRL myth, after being thrown away, he drifted to Hokkaido and was raised by the Ainu. I headcanon that Oryou was raised by the Ainu snake god instead, and he was the one who taught her how to change into a human form. Oryou didn't like how cold it was in Hokkaido, so, once she became strong enough, she migrated south. > IRL!Ryouma was interested in going to Hokkaido, so I like to think that one of the reasons Guda!Ryouma wanted to go there was because of Oryou's stories about it.

Back in the day Oryou was a chaotic evil goddess, but, after meeting Ryouma, she got inspired to become his mysterious, beautiful, chaotic good secretary.

Oryou speaks in third person about herself as Ryouma knows her (she really likes her name); she talks about herself as a goddess in first person.

Sea-related traumas aside, Oryou LOVES water. She invites Ryouma to swim or take a bath with her when she wants to bond with him, and going for a walk on a rainy day is one of her favourite kinds of dates. I headcanon that during the Age of Gods she had storm related powers, and even during Ryouma's times she was still attuned enough with them to precisely forecast weather for a large area.

When they were alive, Izou was the only one who knew about Oryou's true nature. Most people thought Oryou was some kind of yakuza, and you could probably write an entire book if you combined all the different theories people had about her past and connection to Ryouma.

She has two recurring nightmares: about being thrown away by her parents and about Ryouma's death.

There is a tradition in GudaGuda world to bring frog figurines to Ryouma's grave to pray for a safe voyage. It was started by the Kaientai members, who quickly put together what happened to Oryou after Ryouma's death, so they would bring frog souvenirs during their visits.

Since Oryou is a serpent, her body doesn't generate much heat on its own. I like to think that she produces poison (or whatever she uses in her Rider animations) somewhere between her chest and throat and this is her only natural source of heat. The reason she has scales on her neck in human form is to protect (and maybe cool off) this part, and she goes berserk if you touch her there because this poison temporarily goes to her head.

Her scales contain magical energy. She has transparent scales over her eyes that gain colour as her anger (read: magical power) rises. > Super Ryouma's "tattoos" are actually patches of scales, like snake skin. They act as substitutes for magical circuits.

Oryou's hair helps her to maneuver in both water and air (basically, it acts like fish's fins or bird's wings/tail).

She likes to build her own "nests", and from time to time changes placement of items in Ryouma's office "because keeping things the same makes it easier for enemies to find them".

She is lean, but well-toned. Snakes are all about dem muscles.

Her legs are fully functional; she has no problems with kicking or using them to swim, but she just can't figure out how to walk properly. Because of that (and her legend), she prefers to float. > Despite this, after GudaGuda 6 Ryouma asked Mata Hari for some dance lessons for him and Oryou. He wanted to show Oryou how much she changed compared to back when she was a helpless child, and that, even though she still has her shortcomings, she can always rely on him for support.

Like a real snake, she has an extra organ that lets her "smell in 3D". Ryouma compares it to a ship's radar, which Oryou finds annoying because ships are her longstanding rivals for Ryouma's affection.

She also has heat vision. This makes her great at scouting and spotting threats, like being surrounded or noticing someone eavesdrop on Ryouma. However, this has some negative effects: for example, she can't see well when fevering (or berserking). It also makes her a somewhat poor cook, because she gets confused by multiple similar heat sources, especially as it gets hotter in the kitchen. Still, she learned how to make simple dishes to impress Ryouma, and she is actually really good at making traditional tea because she can literally tell the temperature at a glance.

Oryou is fascinated by human "mating rituals" (not the lewd stuff, rather couple-y things like Pocky game and such), but because of her sources (romance stories, etc.) and ancient god-snake perspective there are a lot of misunderstandings. Ryouma finds it adorable, though. > One time Osakabehime advised her to watch Titanic with Ryouma, because it is "modern time classic romance story". Oryou now hates this movie because Ryouma wouldn't shut up about the ship for the entire duration. > She likes when Ryouma gives her bellflowers, because they symbolize her being a part of Ryouma's life and mean "eternal love".

Another thing that fascinates her are hand gestures. Her dragon talons aren't very agile, so she really likes using her human fingers for stuff like peace signs and handshakes. > IRL!Ryouma's hands were badly injured in an assassination attempt, I think that afterwards Guda!Ryouma gained additional understanding of Oryou's clumsy movements and appreciation for her interest in trying to figure things out anyway.

Oryou likes rhythmic sounds. Because of that, Ryouma sometimes sings or reads poetry to her, and they may even end up in a poetic match (no matter how it starts, it will always end up being about frogs). > This one is actually based on several things. The obvious is the (false) idea that snakes like music. The less obvious is the fact that Oryou rhymes in some of her lines and it was a normal pastime in Ryouma's household to come up with short poems. And the obscure I can't really verify because I can't find IRL!Ryouma's letters in English, but, apparently, he asked his sister to send him a poetry book so he could impress IRL!Oryou.

[curiousquirks]

Hi curious I hope you’re doing well again! But I had a dream involving kurono and for some reason we had kids so this is a part two to the whole pregnant s/o thing 😭

But could we have content of after Hari’s s/o brought home their baby?

Hii Hi! I’m so sorry this took so long, the holidays were so chaotic but I hope your holidays were lovely <3 

➥ Hari would be horribly cautious when that baby first comes home. You see the hesitation of his movements when you hand the baby over to him. You’ve made jokes of him being slow before it’s different this time.

➧ You cradled the baby safely in your arms, making your way towards Hari. He blinked slowly, taking in your movement and actions as he assessed what you were doing. He made an unconscious set backwards, something you noticed immediately.  “Hold them.” You commanded calmly, knowing that not giving him a choice would force him out of his comfort zone. He realized you were being serious and moved forward to catch them as you shoved them into his arms. He froze in place, treating the baby like an awkward fragile heirloom. He hid the fear and panic well, except if you knew him. There was a little quirk in his eyebrows and you stifled a laugh.  “You’re not going to drop them, Hari.” You reassured, rubbing your hand soothingly along his arm. “You haven’t yet, you’ve got nothing to worry about.” “Yeah well one drop and this kid is gonna come out for fucked up than me.” He half joked, adjusting their head.  You pulled your hand back to slap his arm, making an irritated noise. “They’ve got your genetics, they're already screwed.” You responded.

➥ Hari hates his quirk. Is it helpful in certain situations? Of course it is, the same can be said for most quirks. But it’s a hassle to deal with, such as the awkward clumping it does which makes styling it impossible. And when you have a baby with grabby hands it makes for interesting conversations.

➧ “I’m going to preface this by saying it isn’t my fault.” Hari said from the other room.  You casually strolled back into the living room not giving his words much thought. He has said weirder things and has definitely said something similar after “accidentally” doing something stupid. You saw Hari standing with his back towards you. You made your way towards him, moving around him to see your baby laying in his arms. Then you noticed the slow movement of their hand slowly moving as it was currently wrapped around a strand of Hari’s hair. “Hari!” You shouted, moving quickly to carefully remove the baby’s hand from his hair. “What happened?!” “I was trying to explain to them not to touch my hair but they wouldn’t listen.” He explained, far too casually. “Despite my insistence on the matter.” “They’re barely three months, they’re not going to understand you dumbass!” You shouted, checking the baby’s hand to see a small cut on it and doing a quick check on what part of his hair they grabbed. “The hour hand, Hari?” “What? Like I forced them to grab that one.” He defended, looking slightly offended. A few moments passed as he watched you try to reassure the baby still in his arms. “…Maybe they’ll go to sleep?” “HARI!”

➥Hari will have casual conversations with baby anytime he’s left alone with them. One of the reasons he wasn’t too on board with having a baby was mostly due to the fact that he had no idea what to do with it. He’ll treat the kid as it grows up as a tiny adult. To your insistence he’ll filter some things…and at least wait until the kid is a certain age  before he’ll offer to teach them how to use a gun. 

➧ “And then we got ahold of the traitorous two-timing bastard, killing him, obviously. Katsukame made a far bigger mess than Kai wanted, obviously. He’s the big dude, makes creepy comments, longtime family though so we have to put up with him. Anyways Kai got all uppity, obviously. I got out of clean up duty this time at least. Well…” Hari paused in his rambling, looking down at the bottles he was cleaning before he glanced back at the baby in its highchair nearby.  “Okay, well for that at least.”

➧ Hari was sat on the floor, various things scattered around him. He was currently in the process of cleaning one of his hand guns. He glanced around for a particular object, not seeing it as he started picking up random things to look. He spotted the baby grasping it in their tiny little hand, about to bring it to their mouth before Hari reached over and grabbed it. He glanced at the distance between them and the shit he had over the floor. “Okay, maybe you’re a little too close.” He mumbled to himself as he scooted himself over to drag the mat they were on further back.  He was a little too quick, nearly sending the baby off the mat before he caught them. He froze, waiting to see if they started crying. Taking a breath of relief when they started giggling. He laid them back down and shook his head.  “Babies are easy.”

[cursestitched]

CHARACTER INTRODUCTION. DEADNITE

LEGAL NAME. satoru jiro

DATE OF BIRTH / AGE. august 16th - early to late twenties / thirties ( verse dependant )

BLOOD TYPE. A negative

SEXUALITY. bi-sexual

ALIGNMENT. chaotic / lawful nuetral

PROFESSION. yakuza hitman -- jujutsu sorcerer -- avenger -- religious cult leader ( verse dependant )

ETHNIC. BACKGROUND. japanese - korean - white

POWERS. cursed spirit manipulation & reversed cursed technique.

ADOPTIVE FAMILY. mr and mrs. jiro ( parents - deceased ), shoko & hari jiro ( twin sisters - alive )

BIOLOGICAL FAMILY. sonja si-mok & toji ( parents - alive ), yuta kanamori ( younger brother - alive )

ACCESSING CLASSIFIED DOSSIER ....

DARK & TRIGGERING THEMES: violence, death, murder, parental death, organized crime, incarceration, body horror, dismemberment, gore, brainwashing, psychological horror, post traumatic stress disorder, dissociation, religious cults, psychedelics, drug abuse, gaslighting / manipulation and depression.

━━━ ACCESS GRANTED.

When Buddha faces the horrors of the world for the first time he's shocked, disturbed, and grief struck. At his lowest point, Buddha consults a monk, that has achieved inner peace in a world full of suffering. Their discussion inspires Buddha to begins his path to enlightenment.

━━━ PRODIGAL SON.

Satoru "Yurozu" Jiro came from privileged yet humble beginnings. A prodigal son with a bright future ahead of him as a student in one of Kyoto's most ambitious schools. His "parents", Shiori and Minoru Jiro, were respected members of their community given their respective charity work and being public members of The Star Religious group known for its unwavering beliefs in Master Tengen. Beliefs that the charmingly rebellious and more grounded in reality mind of Satoru didn't believe in. Viewing them as nothing but stories of mythology for the seriously devout to pray to in their daily lives.

━━━ REDS AND BLUES.

For better and worse, It was at the age of thirteen that his life was changed forever.

It started with seeing the monsters that went bump in the night, things that only he could see called cursed spirits born from the negative emotions of human beings. It was after a broken window incident at a convenience store that Satoru became the clerk's (an old man named Mr. Towa) apprentice while working there to pay for the damages.

This apprenticeship gave Satoru three years of experience in understanding his cursed technique "curse spirit manipulation" that required spirits to be exorcised into a ball and orally consumed. The taste wasn't pleasant in the slightest but as they say, no good deed goes unpunished.

━━━ ACCESS GRANTED.

At the age of sixteen, Satoru Jiro was framed for the deaths of three school friends and his foster parents due to the horrific nature of the crime and implications of plausible motives and fabricated evidence (specifically his fingerprints on the murder weapons) but in truth this was the work of a person that was a curse user just like Satoru. His younger sisters, Shoko and Hari (3 at the time) were placed into child protective services and later foster care while their older brother was incarcerated with a deal that spared him from the death penalty. A twenty year sentence that was later reduced to four years on account of being found innocent and his biological grandfather pulling some strings.

During his incarceration, Mr. Towa visited him and wrote letters before he inevitably passed away. The only saving grace was that Mr. Towa left a lot of books and journals about jujutsu sorcery / society and cursed techniques for Satoru to learn on his own. Through a path of mourning and vengeance, outside of being labeled as a monster to the public, Satoru's investigation pointed at organized crime and with the help of his grandfather Hakari, he worked his way into infiltrating the Yakuza crime syndicate.

━━━ ACCESS GRANTED.

From learning about his birth parents being alive to finding out that his "parents" had essentially been blackmailed into kidnapping him as an infant as part of the religious groups trafficking ring, to finding out that his sisters were almost victims of it because of the abusive household they had been placed into --- Satoru, having consumed about 460 curses by this point, "disposed of" those deserving of his "righteous punishment" and got his sisters back.

It was later, through an agreement made between Grandfather Hakari and Nick Fury that Satoru and the girls would relocate to America and Satoru would begin his training in becoming an avenger with a second chance at redemption.

━━━ TIMELINE: WANDA.

[ POST AGE OF ULTRON ]

Its the thump of an unrequited love. They have a lot in common (dead parents, dissociative behaviors due to extreme trauma, still trying to understand the powers they didn't ask to be born with, etc) despite her romantic interests in the synthazoid named "Vision". Satoru is humble enough to respect it, he doesn't want to ruin their friendship despite a glint of something more being there. Its through his charmingly mischievousness and the big brother energy that Wanda is reminded of her. deceased brother Pietro.

Shoko and Hari love Wanda and the team but mainly Wanda, she's their favorite hero. The girls are still learning how to handle their cursed energy but other than that they can have safe, regular lives despite wanting to come with the team on missions.

Satoru and Wanda have built quite the close friendship. They sparkle some kind of hopeful light back into one another. While Wanda hasn't picked a name yet, Satoru goes by the alias "DEADNITE" with a custom made suit that allows him to channel his cursed energy more effectively.

[ CIVIL WAR / INFINITY WAR ]

Then the sokovia accords happen and the teams are split into two. Satoru stands on Tony's side but like Natasha there is some neutrality there. Prior to Wanda and Vision being fugitives on the run, Satoru lends a hand and lets them hide out in his private home.

And then "the plan" is discussed. Wanda refuses to do it as the inevitable encounter with Thanos looms closer. Vision pulls Satoru aside, asking him to promise to take care of wanda in his absence. He's been aware of Satoru's feelings for a while now but respects the fact that he never made a move on wanda or tried to tear them apart. Regardless, Vision puts his faith into this promise and Satoru relents to the reality of losing a teammate for the greater good and agrees to keep that promise.

But alas all of that is shattered in the wave of the snap. He watches miserably, fatally wounded in his fight with Thanos, as his teammates and allies are snapped into dust. Wanda's look of reliefs as her body disintegrates, Vision's lifeless corpse staring at him from afar.

For a moment, he's that frightened boy standing over the disfigured bodies of classmates and parents, petrified. In the aftermath, he tries to muster the strength to fight, to get on his feet and movie but Thanos has already shortened the distance between them. Nothing but a false god looking down on a wounded animal in pity. Satoru's spine is damage and his suffered a devastating fracture to the skull. He's not sure how much blood he's lost but its not long before everything becomes a blur and death takes him.

[ AVENGERS: ENDGAME ]

At least, so he had thought. Since that day, he's been in a coma for three years. Thanos left him to succumb to his wounds but didn't account for his body being retrieved by his grandfather who puts him in a water tank imbued with cursed energy to heal his grandson. Satoru Jiro's body is reported missing when SWORD goes to collect Vision's body. Teammates that survived the snap rightfully assume based on eye witnesses that he is deceased.

By the third year, Satoru awakens and despite his protests to help in the fight to Thanos, his grandfather convinces him otherwise, having him focused on refining and strengthening his technique and overall experience and understanding of Jujutsu Sorcery. For the next two years, He has committed himself to the faith of the Bhuddist following after forcibly taking over the star religious group and using it as his main resource for large money donations and collecting curse spirits from individuals unknowingly cursed. Through that, he uses his charismatic and unsuspecting nature to gain a mass following, speaking of a world reborn (the blip) from the darkness (the snap) and much more.

[ WANDAVISION ]

Satoru also has knowledge of the multiverse, the eternals and much more. Even the darkhold and its infamous scarlet witch prophecy after either encountering or watching the witch Agatha from afar. It's possible that they could've been working together but concealed their motives about Wanda. Satoru in particularly counting on Agatha's downfall and Wanda becoming The Scarlet Witch.

When the events of Wandavision happen, Satoru is present in the 60's era as his a kind generous monk in large Buddhist clothes in light of Buddhism and asian immigrants coming to america, with zen Bhuddism later becoming more prominent in American culture by the 1970's and 1980's. Much like Agatha, he is unaffected by the mental brainwashing of the hex but plays his role accordingly.

[ MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS ]

Satoru has been keeping an incredibly close eye on wanda and her use of the Darkhold through his dream cursed technique from one of the spirits he consumed. He takes the opportunity to retrieve Wanda's body from the rubble of Mount Wundagore, where he and a still hex controlled Agatha take care of her in the safety and isolation of his religious sanctuary.

There no telling what sort of imprisonment conditions were going to be enforced if the TVA had succeeded in arresting her for her crimes through the multiverse. They didn't have the foresight to see and understand that Wanda Maximoff was the vessel of the elder god Chthon and the creator of the Darkhold. She would face an execution by that fact alone and Satoru just couldn't sit by and let that happen.

She's been in a coma for three months now and he's been preparing a rehabilitation course just for her. It's a much better alternative than whatever anyone else had and it would actually help instead of just keeping her locked up somewhere. That and the positivity and support of his community, his mentorship in helping her build emotional and mental strength against the Darkhold's corruption while learning more about her powers -- it's the best thing for her and Satoru held strong to those beliefs.

Perhaps, it's love or perhaps it's madness thats driving him now. He can't quite distinguish one from the other. One thing he's certain of though, now that Wanda is alive and in his care -- he won't let anyone or anything harm her or her happiness ever again.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Round-up of new stand-up I’ve seen/heard in the last week:

Hari Kondabolu – Waiting for 2042 (2013), New Material Night Volume 1 (2013), Mainstream American Comic (2016), New Material Night Volume 2 (2012-2018)

This completed my Hari Kondabolu collection, which I should have done ages ago. I really liked him from The Bugle, so a while ago I watched the things by him that I could find for free (his Problem with Apu documentary, his 2017 Netflix special, his 2023 special that he put on YouTube). He also had all this other stuff on Bandcamp, which is great and I absolutely believe in buying things on Bandcamp if they’re available there because it’s the best way for the biggest proportion of your money to go to the artist. However, I’ve had lots of stuff in my Bandcamp cart this year and I’ve been spreading out my purchases, and hadn’t gotten to Hari Kondabolu. I’d love to say I finally decided to pay for his stuff there, but actually, my mother found an iTunes gift card in her basement and gave it to me because I’m the only person she knows who still uses iTunes to organize my music. So I bought it there, which is less good for the artist than Bandcamp and it supports Apple and everything, but it also benefits him way more than it would if I streamed it on Spotify, so it’s not that bad.

Anyway. This was overall really good, and made me think it should have come higher on the list. The is a weird thing for me to have started noticing, but I think Hari Kondabolu is one of the comedians who’s closest to making the type of jokes I’d like to make, in my own illustrious comedy career (a career that so far consists of four six-minute open spots, three of which have gone relatively well and one that was a disaster, and I’m booked for my fifth spot this Monday, so obviously I’m ready to compare myself to Hari Kondabolu). That’s a thing I’ve started noticing, as I’ve started trying to write stuff myself at the same time as listening to this stuff.

Weirdly, I think the only other person who’s made me think “this is the approach to comedy that I’d like to take” as much as Hari Kondabolu does is Pierre Novellie, and those two comedians are quite different from each other, so I’m not quite sure what makes me think that about both of them. They have no similarities in topic or even style, but there might be something in common in the mechanics of the jokes, if you take them apart to see how they were made. I love how well they all fit together. It’s fortunate that Hari Kondabolu’s topics are about what it’s like to be an Indian-American man living in New York City, so even if I want to do what he does, I couldn’t steal his actual jokes, even subconsciously. Pierre Novellie, meanwhile, talks about what it’s like to be a pedant with what was once called Asperger’s Syndrome who used to be really into reading fantasy novels, so… I’ll just have to use willpower to avoid repeating those ones.

Anyway. The point is that I love the way Hari Kondabolu writes. He’s not writing Edinburgh-style themed comedy hours or anything, but he’s still got a lot of structure for an American, I think. I love that he released the two new material albums; they feel genuinely, to use to term that I feel slightly cliché for using, raw. There’s one bit where he makes a joke about his girlfriend and then gets upset when he realizes she’s in the audience because he’d thought she’d be somewhere else that night, which of course gets bigger laughs than his actual jokes, and I might assume that was staged, except that it did significantly derail the conclusion to which he’d been methodically building for some time. You’d think if he'd planned it, he’d have planned it better than that. So I’m pretty sure he really was just recording a night no matter how chaotic it turned.

The first new material album is all from one night in 2013. A bit of that material ended up on his 2016 album – little enough so it doesn’t feel like you’re paying for the same stuff twice by buying both, but enough so it’s interesting to hear how it developed within a few years. His second new material album is his favourite jokes of all the stuff he recorded at this comedy club in Seattle where he worked stuff out between 2012 and 2018. Obviously that one’s less coherent, as it wasn’t all part of the same night. But there was some quite good jokes in there.

I love how carefully planned a lot of his jokes seem. Also, when listening to them in chronological order, you can see how he gets more confident in it. He tries for more ambitious structure, lets himself go longer in between punchlines for the sake of a bigger payoff. On his episode of the Comedian’s Comedian podcast, which I think is one of the best I’ve heard, he talks about how he learned that you can do this from Stewart Lee, and got better at slowing down and planning out his sets after getting into Stewart Lee’s stuff. A statement that sounds trite if made in a British accent, as British comedians trying to imitate Stewart Lee are a dime a dozen. But Americans could maybe use a few more people trying to imitate Stewart Lee, and it works really well for Hari Kondabolu.

He does not actually sound like Stewart Lee in any way, I wouldn’t recognize the influence if I hadn’t heard him talk about it in an interview, but now that I have, I can see how he drew his jokes out more and more as the years went on. Also, the breadth of subjects of his references are almost Lee-esque, though Hari Kondabolu has a fair bit more pop culture in there alongside the more obscure stuff.

Anyway, I’ve gotten unnecessarily technical about this, so I think I should also mention that the shows made me laugh. Content-wise, it’s about what I’d expect from Hari Kondabolu. Mainly political stuff, about race in America and racism in America and gentrification in New York. The occasionally story about his life. A breadth of references from highbrow to lowbrow, humour often coming from the oddness of combining the two. Occasionally making the structure of a joke part of what’s funny, which I always enjoy.

More references than I’d have liked to Tumblr, not because I find them offensive or anything (they were all jokes about how he doesn’t want to get shamed on Tumblr for the way you could take something he’s said out of context and wildly misinterpret it to be politically incorrect, which is fair enough because Tumblr has absolutely been known to do that, though I’d say these days you’re less likely to see that sort of thing here than on Twitter or elsewhere), I just don’t like famous comedians knowing Tumblr exists. It’s okay though, because all his mentions of Tumblr are from pre-2015. Everyone knows Tumblr used to exist, they all just think it died in 2015, and I would like them all to continue to believe that. And by “them”, I mean all celebrities, and also everyone else besides the small number of fucking nerds who hang out here. Like I’ve said before, I don’t know how people do Twitter. Make posts about James Acaster or whatever while knowing James Acaster might actually see it (terrible example because he famously quit Twitter, but imagine I’d said anyone else instead).

Dan Rath – Cockroach Party (2022)

I listened to this one because this Taskmaster season has kicked my level of Sam Campbell fandom up a couple of notches, to the point where I’m willing to check someone out based on having read that they may be vaguely similar to Sam Campbell. I read that about this guy, also saw he was recommended by Daniel Kitson this year, and that was enough for me to find his special that’s on the ABC Comedy Podcasts thing (which people should check out if they’re interested in Australian comedy, there are a few good ones in there, my favourite by far being the Alice Fraser one).

I see where the comparison comes from. He’s a bit Campbell-esque in that he throws joke after joke at you in fairly quick succession, they seem unconnected and largely are but then there will be underlying connections and sometimes he’ll stay on a subject for a while, and despite this he’s not a one-liner comic. Not a long storyteller, not a Milton Jones-like one-liner guy, just a whole bunch of observations in a row, some grounded and some more surreal. Sam Campbell and Dan Rath both do that, though based on this one special, I’d say Dan Rath goes quite a bit darker. Seems less big on props and things, but bigger on jokes about death.

I’d also compare him to Sam Campbell in that it’s kind of a fun game to try to work out where he is at a given moment, in the space between reality and a character. A few times he went on a rant for a quite a while, and I assumed we’d left reality behind ages ago, but then he’d connect a few things and say something that sounded sincere and I’d think I could maybe see the little bit of his “real” personality on which he based this. It seems like keeping you guessing is part of the fun.

He had some really good jokes, and at times they change direction so fast that it’s hard to get complacent about expecting them, which means he can make me laugh on an impressive number of new instances in a fairly short time. I enjoyed it. I recommend it to anyone who likes… whatever that sort of thing is.

Greg Larsen – We All Have Bloody Thoughts (2023)

I went into this one thinking it would be similar to the above, as I had once seen someone mention that Greg Larsen is another Australian comedian who’s a bit like Sam Campbell and Dan Rath. And he made a couple of mentions in this show of how he has done stuff like that before, so maybe this one was a departure for him. Because it was different from what I expected – more storytelling-based stand-up, more of the conventional themed hour. But fortunately, I very much like a good storytelling-based themed stand-up hour, and this was a good one of those.

It was really well put together, I thought. A bunch of funny stories in a row, getting increasingly serious in their topic (but not in the way he told them) as they went along. I said recently that all the comedians are scrambling for a USP that hasn’t been used before, and I think he’s got one. I haven’t heard a hundred other comedians tell stories about their days as a goth metalhead teenager. I haven’t heard a hundred other comedians before tell stories about – I don’t want to spoil too much about a show that’s touring now, but he’s got a sexual orientation that you don’t hear about much.

And the topic that he picked to tie it all together was one I was surprised to realize I don’t think I’ve heard done much, as it’s such a common part of life. Maybe I have heard it done, but not from this perspective. I’ve heard comedians tell stories about how it sucks to work in customer service. Haven’t heard many tell those stories while pointing out something deeper behind them, how capitalism interacts with mental health and physical health and fucks everything up, how a shit low-paying job makes people quite justified if they want to engage in a bit of class warfare. He brought in all that stuff, adding layers to what could otherwise be really run-of-the-mill “working a service job sucks” stories, and the result is something with depth and everything, but it’s also really funny.

Then he builds on that, in ways I guess I won’t detail because I’m trying to have a vague policy of not getting to spoiler-y about still-touring shows, but it gets deeper and better as it goes along, it gets personal and also gets political and also ties the personal and political together, and I’ve said before that any show that does all three of those things and does them well will become a favourite of mine. I liked this one a lot.

Natalie Palamides – Nate: A One Man Show (2020)

Fucking hell. I went into this one with no expectations – I’d just heard she was a very good American comedian, so I thought I’d try it without looking her up. I… I should maybe have looked her up. It was very good, certainly. But I should maybe have gone in prepared for what I was going to get. I’d expected conventional stand-up, and then she rode in on a motorcycle in drag, so I thought, okay, it’s character comedy and there are props. That’s fine. I’ve gotten into Zoe Coombs Marr recently, I can enjoy a female comedian doing stand-up while dressed as a male caricature with a physical injury and a lot going on on stage.

It turned out to be quite a bit more intense than a Zoe Coombs Marr show. And quite a bit more theatrical. I looked it up afterward and learned that it’s won a bunch of awards for theatre and stuff, I think it’s a lot closer to physical theatre than to regular stand-up. Is this what people mean when they say “clowning”? I’m never sure what people mean, this might be some of it. It also got fairly x-rated, and pointing that out makes me feel about 100 years old, because obviously cool people who actually go see theatre like this are used to that and would barely notice. But I am not one of those people. I wasn’t offended by it or anything, I was just surprised and distracted by the novelty of it, because I am cultural philistine and/or 100-year-old who is not used to seeing people remove their clothing and wave around facsimiles of genitals on stage.

It also got intense in terms of tackling some stuff about the intricacies of sexual assault in a pretty full-on way, which I think was good as a bit of art, but did make me sort of wish I’d done enough research to read the trigger warning. That wouldn’t have made me avoid it, would just have made me expect it a bit.

Having said all of that, I think this was really good. The character was very funny, The acting was very funny. The themes were good. The points were made, probably, somewhere in all the waving around of things on stage. At one point she brought out a mat and wrestled on audience member, so that’s fun. The interactive elements looked like lots of fun. The costumes were good.

I definitely recommend this one to people who like whatever this is. Which I believe is feminist physical theatre/drag/interactive performance art. But also comedy. Comedy can be anything. Comedy can be melting ice cubes, or so I've heard. Comedy can definitely be wrestling an audience member while wearing fake chest hair and a moustache, if someone wants it to be.

[cyarsk52-20]

The Idol on HBO: Everything We Know About the Salacious Series

YouTube/HBO

From the creator of Euphoria comes another shocking drama.

The Idol was the most controversial show in town before it even got a premiere date, but maybe that's how the creators like it. After all, the steamy new HBO series is being billed as a toxic love story from the “sick and twisted minds” of The Weeknd (born Abel Tesfaye) and Sam Levinson, the latter being the nepo-baby son of Barry Levinson who created Euphoria and directed Malcolm & Marie.

So what's all the fuss about? Here's everything we know (and have heard) about the series:

What’s it about?

After her last tour is cut short by a nervous breakdown, the up-and-coming pop star Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp) falls under the influence of Tedros, a shadowy nightclub impresario (The Weeknd). 

Who else is in the cast?

Oh, it's stacked. Dan Levy, Hari Nef, Hank Azaria, Troye Sivan, Jennie from Blackpink, Suzanna Son, Rachel Sennott, Jane Adams, Moses Sumney, Eli Roth, Mike Dean, Karl Glusman, and the late Anne Heche are all listed on the show's IMDb page, though apparently, some roles that were shot ended up being scrapped from the final version. 

Why are people skeptical?

Levinson was already a, let's say, questionable figure in the HBO-verse, having run the Euphoriaset somewhat chaotically. He wrote every episode himself (to the chagrin of Barbie Ferreira) and is alleged to be kind of a control enthusiast, hovering somewhere between auteur and nightmare. So it came as a surprise, maybe, but not a shock when Rolling Stone published a bombshell article about The Idol being an expensive mess.

The key takeaways: Levinson halted production after 80% of the planned series had been shot, scrapped everything, fired the director Amy Seimetz and took over, ballooning the budget and throwing production into chaos. The Weeknd was busy with his music career but apparently wanted more of the spotlight, Levinson made last-minute changes to every script (this causes huge production delays and is super expensive in the industry), people were hired and fired quickly and without notice, and the sex scenes…are gonna be controversial. Multiple insiders who spoke to RScalled the original version of the story a “satire” of exploitation in Hollywood but fear that the finished product will just be plain exploitative. One telling detail is that while Levinson was busy with Euphoria for much of the early days of shooting, he did apparently show up to watch Lily-Rose Depp's first sex scene.

The Weeknd then responded to the article in a way that made people really scratch their heads. In the Rolling Stone article, sources claimed the show was overhauled because the singer felt it was too focused on the “female perspective.” 

“It was like any rape fantasy that any toxic man would have in the show—and then the woman comes back for more because it makes her music better,” one production member told Rolling Stoneof the revised version. 

So how did Tesfaye respond? On March 1, he tweeted, “@RollingStone, did we upset you?” alongside a scene from the show where his character calls Rolling Stone “irrelevant” and turns down a cover on Jocelyn's behalf.

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Aside from the fact that The Weeknd appears to have missed the point of this scene entirely, people on social media felt this was an immature response to pretty serious allegations. 

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This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

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This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

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This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

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This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

When does it come out?

In spite of the chaos surrounding it, the hotly anticipated series is finally set to premiere on June 4 at 9 p.m. 

What are the reviewers saying? 

Nothing good.

The first reviews rolled in after the HBO Max series premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday, May 22, and woof, they're not great, Bob!

Here's a sampling of some headlines published on Tuesday, May 23: 

“The Idol Is More Toxic and Way Worse Than You’ve Heard” —Rolling Stone 

“The Idol, Cannes Review: Lily Rose Depp's ‘Girl Power’ Can't Save This Colossal Sleazy Flop” —The Telegraph

“The Idol's Depiction of Rape Culture Is Shocking and Lazy” —Daily Beast

“The Idol Review: Lily-Rose Depp and The Weeknd in an HBO Series That’s More Regressive Than Transgressive” —The Hollywood Reporter

“The Weeknd and Sam Levinson’s The Idol,Starring Lily-Rose Depp, Plays Like a Sordid Male Fantasy: TV Review” —Variety 

What are the cast and creators saying?

Lily-Rose Depp answered questions about the gratuitous sex during a press conferences at the Cannes Film Festival. 

“I think that something about Jocelyn is just that she's a born and bred performer,” she said, per People. “I think that extends to every aspect of her life, not just her professional life. I think that the way that she dresses, for example, is her trying to tell you something all the time or say something to the people that she's around or express herself in some kind of way.”

She added, “And I also think that the occasional bareness of the character physically mirrors the bareness that we get to see emotionally in her.”

The Weeknd, Lily-Rose Depp, and Sam Levinson at the Cannes Film Festival. Samir Hussein

In the same press conference, Levinson said, “It's funny, I think that sometimes things that might be revolutionary are taken too far. I think we live in a very sexualized world.”

He continued, “There's two things that happen, when you have a character that has such a strong sense of self and such a strong sexual sense, is you simultaneously end up underestimating her, because you're not quite sure. ‘Well, why is she doing this? Why is she wearing this? Why is she singing about this?’”

“And at the same time, it's also what alerts people, it's what attracts an audience,” he added. “It's what attracts an imagination. And I think it's very true to what almost every pop star is doing these days.”

This article will be updated.

Sent from my iPhone

What do you think? Is the criticism too much or is justified?

[mahesh2904]

IF YOU HAVE FEW HOURS IN HARIDWAR: HERE ARE FEW THINGS WHICH YOU CAN DO

Haridwar one of the holiest city of India, located in northern part of India in the state of uttarakhand, the place is known as the land of numerous temples, it is popular pilgrimage destination across country, in past few year Haridwar has become very popular tourist destination, but what if you have few hours in Haridwar here are few things which you can do. 

Also if you are in Haridwar for a few hours and need a place to keep your luggage at a safe place and also want to relax for a few hours you can book your short stay with hourlyrooms where you pay only for the hours you stay. 

Start by exploring the place 

Best way to start your journey is by exploring the surrounding as the haridwar have many places that you can visit this places is filed with many scenic view like river bank of ganges, mountains, and temples also you have option to do some adventure sport by like kayaking, bungee jumping, and, river rafting. You can also spend your time by doing yoga in the morning and enjoy the time in peace. 

Explore the local Food 

You can explore the local street food of Haridwar, you can head up to different places of your choice and enjoy the different taste of food. Like samosas if you are a samosa lover, halwa puri, aloo sabji, in sweets you can enjoy the lassi, and also in the evening kulhad wali chai which will definitely make you day. 

Sit by the river Ganges 

You can come to hari-ki-pauri and sit beside the river ganga in peace enjoy the hyumm of mantra, bhajans, temple bells, with natural surroundings with snow-capped mountains, cool breeze, if you really want to spend some time in peace this is the best activity you can do. Also take a dip in the river and witness the iconic Ganga Aarti, give yourself a deserving break from your daily chaotic life. In this spectacular view, relax your mind in Haridwar.

Now, you know what you can do if you have a few hours in Haridwar! And if you are planning your one day trip to haridwar book your short stay with hourlyrooms website and app.

[irvinenewshq]

Virat Kohli delivers T20 batting masterclass as India edge Pakistan in World Cup nail-biter

Virat Kohli (Getty Pictures) An unbeaten 82 from Virat Kohli led India to a surprising last-ball win over Pakistan to supercharge their bid for a primary Twenty20 World Cup crown since 2007 in entrance of 90,000 followers on the Melbourne Cricket Floor on Sunday.  India restricted their fierce rivals to 159-8 and scraped house by 4 wickets after a outstanding remaining over, with famous person Kohli the hero.  It going badly improper for India as they struggled to simply 45-4 off 10 overs half-way by means of their chase.  However Kohli and Hardik Pandya (40) launched a fightback with a century stand that left India needing 16 off the ultimate over from a nervous Mohammad Nawaz, who peppered it with wides and no-balls to assist them to their goal.  Victory was vital in a gaggle that additionally contains South Africa, Bangladesh and qualifiers Zimbabwe and the Netherlands, with solely the highest two making the semi-finals.  India have largely dominated Pakistan for the reason that late Nineteen Nineties however had misplaced two of their three earlier clashes, together with by 10 wickets within the group section finally 12 months’s T20 World Cup and the latest Asia Cup.  However India had been in good latest type, profitable house sequence towards Australia and South Africa, driving on the success of their batting line-up.  Few sporting rivalries match the eagerness of India-Pakistan, and the environment was electrical as Pakistan acquired off to a stuttering begin after being despatched in to bat with captain Babar Azam out lbw for a golden duck to Arshdeep Singh.  Azam reviewed, however it was plumb in entrance, with Singh’s swing inflicting extra carnage in his subsequent over when Mohammad Rizwan (4) top-edged a rising ball to Bhuvneshwar Kumar at tremendous leg.  Masood survived a slender run-out enchantment as he and Ahmed labored to rebuild the innings.  They reached 60-2 on the half-way mark, then Ahmed flicked a swap when the gradual bowlers got here on, hitting Ravi Ashwin for six after which plundering three extra in a single over from Axar Patel.  Ahmed reached his half-century earlier than Mohammed Shami trapped him lbw, sparking a collapse with Pandya snaring Shadab Khan, Haider Ali and Mohammad Nawaz within the house of 19 runs.  India additionally had a horror begin with KL Rahul out within the first over to Naseem Shah, dragging the ball onto his stumps, then Ahmed took a blinding catch at slip to take away skipper Rohit Sharma (4) off Haris Rauf.  That introduced Suryakumar Yadav, arguably the most effective T20 batsman on the planet, to the crease, however he solely lasted eight balls, caught behind for a whirlwind 16 off Rauf because the Pakistan followers roared in celebration.  When Patel was run out within the subsequent over, India have been reeling at 31-4.  Kohli began slowly however lastly discovered his groove, and with Pandya began launching a fightback, hitting three sixes in a single over off Nawaz.  They nonetheless wanted 60 runs with 5 overs remaining. With 28 wanted off eight balls, Kohli smashed two sixes off Haris Rauf to depart 16 from the ultimate over.  In a chaotic, breathless remaining over, Kohli hit one other six off a no-ball, then ran three after being bowled off the next free hit.  With two runs wanted, Dinesh Karthik was stumped down the leg facet. A large then levelled the scores, and Ashwin hit the profitable run off the ultimate ball.  We reside in a world the place info and fiction get blurred In instances of uncertainty you want journalism you may belief. For 14 free days, you may have entry to a world of in-depth analyses, investigative journalism, high opinions and a spread of options. Journalism strengthens democracy. Make investments sooner or later at present. Thereafter you’ll be billed R75 per thirty days. You possibly can cancel anytime and in case you cancel inside 14 days you will not be billed.  Originally published at Irvine News HQ

[punishertruther]

📷 *le lanza todos los ships*

harriet & gillian

edie & nic

rowan & haris

tove & leif

julie & silvia

[moonliiteallniite]

A lengthy post cataloging my 60+ vial perfume collection

This is mainly a post for me to keep track of my ever-growing collection of perfume samples and bottles. In the future I’ll probably dedicate a post to each one to give my thoughts and reviews! But all that aside, here’s every perfume I’ve collected so far, with names and descriptions included.

BPAL SAMPLES

Alice’s Evidence - Containing nary a neutron of meaning: Rum-quince-cassis with prune and a bit of black ginger

The Antikythera Mechanism - Teakwood, oak, black vanilla, and tobacco

Al-Shairan - His scent is fiery, bright and thick with sweet sinfulness: clove, peach and orange with cinnamon, patchouli and dark incense notes

Blood Kiss - Lush, creamy vanilla and the honey of the sweetest kiss smeared with the vital throb of husky clove, swollen red cherries, but darkened with the vampiric sensuality of vetiver, soporific poppy and blood red wine, and a skin-light pulse of feral musk.

Bayou - A lazy, warm deep green scent with a thick aquatic undertone: Spanish moss, evergreen and cypress with watery blue-green notes and an eddy of hothouse flowers and swamp blooms

Black Lily - Breathtaking darkness, a vision of grace in shadow

Burial - The Dark Side of Earth: deep, brooding forest scents, including juniper and patchouli. The scent of upturned cemetery loam mingling with floral offerings to the dead

Chimera - The fiery, volatile scent of cinnamon, thickened by myrrh, honeysuckle, and copal

The Coiled Serpent - A potent yogic oil that stimulates the kundalini, provokes spiritual awakening, and releases the energy seated in your root chakra

Death Cap - A lethal poison bundled up in a dainty, innocent little package that was oft times found in ancient witches’ flying ointments and astral projection balms. A warm, soft, ruddy scent, earthy and mild

Delight - In ancient India it was believed that a specific combination of flower petals, when strewn across a couple’s bed, would amplify desire and sexual pleasure. This blend is a blend of the same floral essences, refined into a gloriously sinful perfume blend. Frangipani, with rose, tuberose, and jasmine

Deep in Earth - Rose geranium, Spanish moss, Irish yew, and graveyard dirt

Eat me - Three white cakes, vanilla, and red and black currants

Evil - Smouldering opium tar, tobacco absolute, green tea, black plum, kush, ambergris accord, ambrette seed, and costus root

Greed - Base and earthy, yet glittering with golden notes: patchouli, heliotrope, copal and oakmoss

Gnome - An explosive blend of effervescent golden ginger and black peppercorn with sarsaparilla, gurjum balsam, nutmeg, gear lubricant, and smoke

Highwayman - Vetiver with gardenia, blood red rose, night-blooming jasmine, a dash of cinnamon and a faint hint of leather

Inferno - The Dark Side of Fire: cinnamon, bitter almond, and neroli. Heavily spiced, torrid, and possibly conflagrant

Juke Joint - A bawdy, gleefully wicked and unruly scent: Kentucky Bourbon, sugar and a sprig of mint

Jezebel - A gloriously decadent blend of honey, roses, orange blossom and sandalwood

Miskatonic University - The scent of Irish coffee, dusty tomes and polished oakwood halls

Mata Hari - Her scent is striking and bold with a delicate yet dark undertone: five roses with soft jasmine, warmed by vanilla, fig, tonka bean and mahogany, spiced with a drop of coffee bean

Nephilim - Holy frankincense and hyssop in union with earthy fig, defiled by black patchouli and vetiver, with a chaotic infusion of lavender, cardamom, tamarind, rosemary, oakmoss and cypress

Old Demons of the First Class - Siberian musk, black clove, opoponax, tonka, black pepper, and neroli

Perversion - Smoky rum and black tobacco with a whisper of steamy leather with a splash of crystalline chardonnay, layered over a sensual, sweet, and deceptively magnetic base of tonka

Sjofn - Our song to the Norse Goddess of Love is scented with apples and birch and bound with apple blossoms

Seraphim - A perfume sacred to the highest of the angelic hosts: calla lily, wisteria, white sandalwood, Damascus rose and frankincense

Schrodinger’s Cat - A paradoxical scent experiment! – tangerine, sugared lime, pink grapefruit, oakmoss, lavender, zdravetz, and chocolate peppermint

Tiefling Therapist - A soothing, centering blend of white and red sandalwood, champaca attar, frankincense, and brimstone

Whitechapel - White musk, lime, lilac and citron

Wilde - A sophisticated traditional gentleman’s cologne, with just the slightest taint of patchouli’s passion, tonka bean’s decadence, the philanthropy of bergamot, moss’ cynicism, the sharp wit of lavender, and the hopeless romantic longing of jasmine and thyme

Yorick - Grave dirt, bone, decay, angel’s trumpet, and moldering scraps of shroud: the essence of finality

Zombi - Dried roses, rose leaf, Spanish moss, oakmoss and deep brown earth

(As an aside, about half of these are free imps that came with full size bottles I ordered!)

Alkemia Samples

Salome - A seductively inspiring arrangement to pique the lustful imagination. An overture of not so innocent magnolia underscored with a sly caress of Queen of the Night, a fulsomeness of nubile black grapes and plums, skin musk bathed in spilled cognac, and ruthless twist of bitter orange, blended with an ancient Arabian love philtre of crushed vanilla and tonka bean, mysore sandalwood, vetiver, cedar, and red oud

Caveau Des Innocents - Tabac, dark coffee, piquant cloves, rum soaked pears, candied citron, dark caramel, and star anise bathed in intoxicating swirls of opoponax, labdanum, hashish, benzoin resinoid, vanilla incense, and guaiac wood

Ghost Fire - A luminous attraction of ethereal white ambers. Hauntingly beautiful

Sigil - A recipe in an ancient 16th century grimoire that includes olibanum frankincense, lignum aloes, bdellium, styrax, black honey, and euphorbium; the essence of "Stones of Immortality" - opium thebaicum, dried citrus, and the quintessence of gold; and an alchemist's compounding of coffee beans and ritual herbs

Hippie Spirit - A bohemian love-fest of resinous head shop incenses, sexy skin musk, slightly dirty patchouli, groovy champa blossoms, and flowering cannabis

Gothique - The scent of midnight mass in a medieval cathedral. A Byzantine monastic incense recipe of Somalian frankincense, styrax benzoin, Arabian myrrh, cassia, spikenard, canella, Liquidambar orientalis, labdanum, Atlas cedar, and vetiver

Carmilla - A tantalizing enigma of Ambre marocain, cashmere musk, Malgas lily, Ylang-ylang, dark Bourbon rose, soft patchouli, and erotic whispers of jasmine incense

In a Northern Wood - A primeaval forest sanctuary of Elemi balsam, balsam fir needles, charred cedar heartwood, dark oakmoss, opoponax, aged oudwood, deerstongue fern, woodsmoke, aromatic fungi, patchouli, and loam

Dusk in Autumn - An inviting mystery of amberwood, Lapsang Souchong tea, salted cream caramel, and spiced teacakes

Nature of the Beast - An animalistically sensual carnality of Amyris wood, Elemi balsam, and raw dark musk with Haitian vetiver, ambroxan, spiced patchouli, labdanum and botanical pheromones

Carnival of Illustrious Hearts - A glitteringly gourmet gala of French sugarcreams, candied orange blossoms, raspberry cotton candy, rosewater torte filling, and Bourbon vanilla amber

All Hallows Eve 2021 - A spookalicious cauldron of magic, mystery, remembrance, childhood nostalgia, and sweet blessings for darker times. Warm toasted marshmallows, drifting woodsmoke, black licorice, star anise, cardamon pods, sugared amber, tonka beans, and patchouli infused bourbon vanilla

Memoriam - An olfactory ode to love and loss. Heirloom roses, memories wrapped in woodsmoke, a scattering of ashes

Industrial Sabotage - A cataclysmic wreckage of burnt wires; twisted melted steel; shattered machinery, and gunpowder

The Center of the Universe - From astronauts' descriptions of space and aliphatic esters of the Milky Way - welded metal, gunpowder, burnt almond cookies, ozone, raspberries, rum

Deus Ex Machina - Fire hardened steel, rusted iron, warm motor oil, wet cement, burnt copper wires, and grey amber

Saint Louis Cemetery #1 - An atmospheric brooding of Spanish moss, crumbling stone, old cement, red clay brick, and graveyard dirt

Supernatural - A prismatic shapeshifter of Iso-E, Ambrox, cruelty-free Tonkin musk, and intricate spirals of aroma molecules

Black Iris - The spring forecast is rainy with a chance of purple. Purple iris and Queen Elizabeth orris root pillowed in a soft nimbostratus raincloud

Charming of the Plough - A paen of the awakening earth - bright new greens, freshly turned soil, well worn leather, anise hyssop, smokey lavender, sexy-dirty indolic jasmine, vanilla grass, and oakmoss

Frondescence - A verdancy of fresh fern fronds, wild geraniums, damp moss, green patchouli, vetiver root, early meadowgrass, and tumbling wetland streams

Inner Sanctum - A spiritual serenity of Hinoki temple cedar, carved Palisander rosewood, white ambergris, lemon cypress, sandalwood incense, grounding vetiver root, and healing sandalore

Surcie - A sweet confection of affection - heavenly rosewater chiffon, soft jasmine musk, flirty mandarin orange, creamy vanilla, and alluring Egyptian amber

Tulips and Chimneys - An urban springtime of rainy aldehydes, wet asphalt, industrial steam engines, farmer's market bouquets of fresh tulips, Toulousain violets, mint pastels, and a warm touch of clove viburnum

Lover Tells of the Rose - Rambling wild roses, lemon verbena, white pearl tea leaves, white patchouli, and a springtime rebirth of new greens and wet mosses

Gaea - Forest loam, new ferns in decaying leaves, maple sap flowing over lichens, mosses and wet stones at the edge of a vernal pool

Shinrin Yoku - A forest hymn - Japanese grapefruit, petitgrain, black pepper, spicebush, sunlit green cedar, conifers, green patchouli, vetiver, stream water, wet clay, and dark loam

Baccante - High bush blueberries, wild ivy, Spanish lavender, aged oakmoss, tonka, decaying bark, and forest fungi

Vert sur le Vert - Green, green, green, and more freshly smooshed sweet greens, new grasses, new leaves

Midnight Garden - An incantation in the language of flowers: tuberose (dangerous pleasures), lily (majestic beauty), honeysuckle (binding love), gardenia (secret passions) and moonflower (inspiring love)

BPAL Full Sizes

Nosferatu - As soft as grave dust and as dry as a breath drawn within a long forgotten crypt, this is Nosferatu: desiccated herbs and gritty earth brought to life with a swell of robust and sanguineous red wines

Anubis - His scent is a blend of holy myrrh, storax, balsam, and embalming herbs

Oblivion - Salvation found in darkness beyond darkness, the blessed sleep of nothingness. Dark musk, wood spice, labdanum, patchouli, dark African woods, and saffron

Worm Moon 2011 - This is a melding of Victorian Grotesquery and springtime fecundity: mold-crusted dirt, decomposing organic matter, coffin wood, drooping funeral flowers, congealed blood, gloomy lunar oils, and cuckoo flower with something moist lurking underneath

Dark Chocolate, Whiskey, & Hazelnut Cream

Phallus Acrobatics - Strawberries, blueberries, heavy cream, honey dust, lotus root, ylang ylang, lavender, and vanilla flower

P*nis Penetrating a V*gina in a Pickle Barrel - Lemon peel, lemon leaf, white musk, white tea, cardamom, petitgrain, star anise, and raw ginger

Womb Furie 2022 - An itch that needs to be scratched: Snake Oil and three types of honey

Alkemia Full Sizes

Halloween Alchemy 2021 - Halloween spice cookies, apple butter, a dusting of pumpkin spice, oak leaves, pine needles, and a nostalgic nibble of candy corn

Lavender Dreaming Alchemy - A pride month alchemy of history and symbolism - sheer summer florals, flirty skin musks, and playful aquatics with a streak of French lavender, bitten ripe peaches, and oranges on offering plates.

Other

Epicene (by Blial Cabal) - Red Peppercorn, bergamot, fig, oakmoss, amber, cedarwood, tobacco, vanilla

[letterboxd]

Chaotic Bisexual.

Shiva Baby writer-director Emma Seligman tells Ella Kemp about expanding her wildly cringey short film into an even more anxiety-inducing feature, why Virgo and Taurus make the perfect producing pair, and the eternal conflict of being a good Jewish girl.

“If I can skip a bris to see E.T., I like movies!” —Emma Seligman

It sounds like a strange riff on a guy-walks-into-a-bar joke: a girl walks into a shiva and bumps into her secret ex-girlfriend, then her sugar daddy, then his shiksa wife, oh, and their baby—yet the payoff is so much more rewarding.

Filmmaker Emma Seligman’s debut feature is a new kind of teen classic: 78 non-stop minutes teeming with well-drawn traits and tropes that define the best coming-of-agers, the best Jewish comedies and the best day-in-a-life psychological roller-coasters.

Shiva Baby began as a grad project—a short film of the same name—and Seligman’s feature-length embellishment impressed at last year’s virtual editions of SXSW and TIFF, where it was quickly snapped up for international distribution. In a way, Shiva Baby was perfectly tailored to the times we were living in: Danielle, our reluctant heroine, is trapped in a claustrophobic family event she can’t escape, as people from her past and lies about her future make their way deep under her skin.

Fred Melamed, Rachel Sennott and Polly Draper in ‘Shiva Baby’.

Shiva Baby is very much the product of a wry school of emerging filmmakers who understand excruciatingly mundane horror and pin-sharp comedy as intimate bedfellows. Seligman’s writing finds a way to flesh out gloriously caricatural Jewish relatives, probing and overbearing and irrational. She does this both through dialogue and a visceral, haptic aesthetic that lurches in and out of focus visually, and has a nails-on-chalkboard unease sonically.

Coming in hot with a 4.01 average rating, Shiva Baby is striking all sorts of discordant notes with film lovers. “Combines some of my biggest anxieties: being asked if I have a boyfriend as well as what my plans for the future are and people talking with their mouths full,” writes Muriel.

The film’s “bisexual chaos”, which hinges on a haywire performance from Rachel Sennott as Danielle, opposite Molly Gordon’s overachieving ex-girlfriend, Maya, is also one of its great strengths. Glee star Dianna Agron is the shiksa threat, Kim, while Danny Deferrari is Danielle’s hapless benefactor, Max. If that’s not enough? Polly Draper, Fred Melamed and Jackie Hoffman are also just there.

What do you think defines a Jewish sense of humor? Emma Seligman: It’s morbid usually, and darker—generally uncomfortable and cringeworthy. I think about Curb Your Enthusiasm or Seinfeld, and A Serious Man. It borders on, “Is this funny at all?” I think Jewish humor leans into the darkly funny British sense of humor. I’m Canadian, so I feel like I’m halfway between the UK and the US in terms of their sense of humor.

Was it always your intention to make a comedy that feels like a bit of a nightmare? You’ve mentioned Black Swan and Opening Night as touchstones… Because I came from a short film, the question when expanding into a feature was, “How are we going to keep everyone interested in this day?” It’s got to be a significant day, it’s got to be that this young woman’s life has completely changed from this day. So what is it that changes? Why are we watching it? I watched a lot of movies that took place in one day, one of them was Trey Edward Shults’ first film Krisha. And then from there I realized that anxiety and this scary psychological feeling is a great way to have the audience stay there.

I watched Opening Night because there’s a shiva in it, but it was more the lobby scenes that were so claustrophobic and tense. And then each step of the way with each department, we were like, okay, it’s gonna be tense, but then we got to music, I was like, okay, this has become a full nightmare. Initially, I was just like, it’s got to be tense, but by the end, I was like, well, it does feel like a nightmare to a young woman sometimes.

Because you mention that, I have to ask whether you’ve seen Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade? I have, it’s incredible. It’s so funny, they’re both coming-of-age [films], and one of them is about a fourteen year old and then the same sort of feeling exists when you’re 22. When you’re fourteen is when it begins, and when you’re 22 you’re sort of at the end of it and you’re like, “Oh, I thought I figured out what I was supposed to do when I started feeling insecure this way at fourteen about sex and boys.”

Diana Agron and Danny Deferrari in ‘Shiva Baby’.

Let’s talk about Rachel Sennott, who you have describe as your “Virgo rock”. What do you bring one another in your creative partnership? She’s a hustler, and she sets goals like nobody else. I think she moves very fast, and I’m more detail-oriented. I don’t know if the movie would have happened without her because she was like, “What are the goals to achieve this film?” After we made the short film, she just kept checking in with me. She goes well beyond what an actor does, which is why she’s an executive producer, because she was very, very invested in seeing the movie get made.

I think she pushes. We joke that she brings me out of my depression and I help calm her down. I feel like Taurus is a little more chill. Virgos are also earth signs, but they run on a faster frequency. So I think I calm her down, especially when we’re writing and bringing it back to structure. But she’s way funnier, she’s able to give jokes so quickly. We balance each other perfectly, for sure.

Do you think your partnership with Rachel is the kind of partnership you could see yourself maintaining throughout your career? Definitely. I think it’s important to have a good friend and also a young woman. She’s got different career goals from me, but they’re aligned. And we’re not in competition with each other. I feel so grateful because so much of the time I feel like the world does make you feel like you’re in competition with your friends that are trying to do the same thing as you when you’re a young woman—or just maybe in general.

Rachel Sennott and Danny Deferrari in ‘Shiva Baby’.

Her character in Shiva Baby completely subverts the idea of a “nice Jewish boy/girl” which can be a trope in movies, but also very much a real thing in life. Is that something you consciously wanted to subvert, or did it come organically from the story you wanted to tell? I wanted to contrast that idea of a “nice Jewish girl” because every nice Jewish girl or boy has a sex life. I felt the sort of nice Jewish girl stressors on me were completely opposite from the NYU art school sugaring worlds, and hookup culture broadly. My family is such a huge part of my life and I think that those two sets of pressures are completely contradictory; to be a good girl or boy and have a stable career ahead of you, and to be finding, even if it’s at the very beginning, your eventual partner, or to just be in a relationship. And I felt like in school, no one wanted to date, everyone was hooking up. So many of my friends are sugar babies. I tried it super, super briefly.

I felt like the world was telling me to be like “an empowered, independent, sexy woman who doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her, and doesn’t abide by any rules”, and I was like, “This is the opposite of being a nice Jewish girl!” And I just felt like those two things were screaming at me. So I did want to play on that. But I don’t even think it’s playing, just because that felt like what I was trying to battle within myself. And I think a lot of young people do, whether they’re Jewish or not. That’s their family’s expectations. And then the world is like, “But don’t care and don’t commit…”

Writer-director Emma Seligman. / Photo by Emma McIntyre

But then you still have to go home to your parents at the end of the day and they’re going to tell you what to do… Exactly.

What would you want viewers to take away from Shiva Baby about the sugaring community that you feel has been maligned in the past? I’m not a sex worker, so I don’t want to speak on behalf of this community, but I definitely feel like there hasn’t been many positive portrayals of sex workers. So I just wanted to show someone—because I knew so many friends of mine who did it—who enjoyed it, or purposefully did it and didn’t feel bad or shameful about it. I think maybe a lot of people think that it’s always something that comes out of dire circumstances. But whether that is the case or not, I think there’s a lot of people who enjoy it and enjoy what they do like any other job. So I just hope that they’re able to sort of widen their scope of what a sex worker looks like and acts like. Every sex worker has got a family, friends, a full robust life, as we all do.

It’s time for your Life in Film questionnaire. Can you give me a few must-watch Jewish films for people who don’t know where to start? Fiddler on the Roof, Yentl, Keeping the Faith, Kissing Jessica Stein, A Serious Man. Definitely Uncut Gems, and Crossing Delancey.

Shiva Baby has been described on Letterboxd, variously, as “Uncut Gems but make it chaotic bisexual”, “the most stressful Jewish movie since Uncut Gems”, “the chaotic successor of Uncut Gems”, “if Krisha and Uncut Gems had a baby”, and, of course, “Uncut Gems for hot Jewish sluts”… Amazing, I love that. Extremely nice comparison.

Who is your favorite promising young woman? Not Emerald Fennell’s film, but a young creative or performer who you think is making waves. I love Hari Nef—I think she’s amazing and am really excited to see what she does next. I loved her so much in Transparent and Assassination Nation, and I don’t understand why she hasn’t been the lead in a million movies.

Molly Gordon with Rachel Sennott in ‘Shiva Baby’.

What should people watch next after Shiva Baby? Those Jewish movies would be a great start. And then Krisha, although I think a lot of people have seen it especially if they’re on Letterboxd! But then those Jewish romantic comedies, and then Obvious Child, all those movies are very sweet and endearing and helped me make it.

Separate from film, if it’s shiva-related then Transparent. If I didn’t have Transparent I don’t think I would have seen world of grounded, nuanced Jews that I could do comedy with. It would have been more in the Curb vein, which is also amazing, but a little more schtick.

What was the first film that made you want to be a filmmaker? My parents are huge movie buffs so I’m not sure there was one moment, but I will say that when I was six there was a re-release of the 20-year anniversary of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and I was at a horribly packed bris and my uncle was like, “Fuck this, there are so many people here, I can’t even breathe. Let’s go see E.T.” That was the first moment where I was like, if I can skip a bris to see E.T., I like movies.

Related content

From Short to Feature: Rob’s list of 2020 films that made the jump

Jewish Cinema (non-Holocaust): Amelia’s list of films “for when u want to celebrate your heritage but don’t want to have to think all too deeply about the Shoah”

Best Directorial Debuts of 2020: suggested by Letterboxd members, featuring Shiva Baby

Follow Ella on Letterboxd

Shiva Baby is now in select theaters and on VOD in the US. Film stills by Maria Rusche.

[childotkw]

While Butterfly Harry in BNHA would be fun to see it wouldn't work the same way. That Harry is able to get stuff done because as the title says no one suspects the Butterfly- aka Hufflepuff. The closest thing to the Butterfly in BNHA would be the quirkless but I can't see Harry presented to be quirkless considering he does have powers and even if he tried I don't trust that accidental magic wouldn't happen and show that's false.

Hey but if Butterfly Harry and Tom ended up in the BNHA universe Tom would be so Happy.

1- No more WW2 meaning no more threat of death the entire time he's in the muggle world. Tho some quirks are dangerous so hmm......

2- NO ONE KNOWS ANYTHING ABOUT HUFFLEPUFFS SO NOBODY WILL IGNORE THE THINGS HARRY SAYS.

I see this but I raise you:

Harry who is spat out in a new wonderful world full of corruption and massive power imbalances and goes subtilty is for cowards.

Because he might not pretend to be quirkless, but he sure is willing to rally the masses of those who are.

Maybe this is before Izuku meets All Might, and Harry stumbles across him one day after a vicious bullying incident. Maybe he takes one look at this scrawny, scarily intelligent, oppressed boy, sidles up to him and says hey kiddo, wanna overthrow the government?

And Izuku might not initially want to, but this older boy is brimming with chaotic energy, the same frenzied need to change things as Izuku. Like recognises like, after all.

So, Izuku invites Harry home, and Inko is first concerned, then just rolls with it because at least Harry isn't Katsuki. And over the course of a few weeks, Harry unlocks Izuku's inner gremlin, his destructive nature, points him at the Hero Commission and says that thing needs to go.

And Izuku's like yes, yes it does, wanna help Hari-nii?

And then Tom somehow gets yeeted in at a later date but it's worse than their own universe. Because sure, the people here know that Harry is insane and powerful and dangerous, but they don't care.

[kits-shrine]

She squeaked in surprise but melted into his embrace with a gentle chiding to be careful of poor Hari as they’d already scarred him off once.

"Hari?" Kagu replied in askance before said spider poked out from under her hair with a chitter "Hari! Forgive me little one, we had a bit of a chaotic time while we were away and were... distracted once we came home." the colors on his flames brightened for a moment at the end, especially when Hari chittered back dryly in a tone that practically screamed 'You don't say.'