#I really liked her art in DVD

[purple-st4rz-556]

I keep forgetting to be active here whoops....anyways it's Gorillaz Phase 1 OMG!!!!

OMFG I JSUT RELIZED THAT I DREW THE THUMB FACIND THE WROGN DIRECTION 💀💀💀

[thingsbyrubithus]

art block? *laughs hysterically* never heard of them

[softgrungeprophet]

real talk if anyone on here ever wants to like... buy me a DVD i will totally draw a real quick bust or whatever in exchange, i have a target wishlist registry thing and everything 😂

Like it says in the note thing on the page, DVD or DVD/Blu-Ray are both fine, regular (not 4k) Blu-Ray is probably fine since my PS4 should be able to play those, but I only have a regular-ass PS4, not a PS5, I cannot play UHD, so if something is 4K UHD please make sure it has either a DVD or a regular Blu-Ray as well...

Anyway it should be set up so you can buy stuff off my registry without me having to blast my address to the world (lol) so if you do this, send me an ask or something off anon (so I can like, contact you) (that or like, send me a message on discord if we're friends, or w/e) and I will def draw you a little drawing as thanks 👍

[science-fantasy-superheroes]

Big Brother AU

Inexplicably, I had a dream about Pixar’s Brave and now I have a new OC: Hogus, Merida’s older brother. (Thank my dream for the name.) As much as Merida is like Fergus, Hogus is like Elinor. He and Merida get along pretty well, but their parents are kind of the extremes of each other, so it’s a lot harder to connect with them. But Fergus usually lets Hogus slip out of rough-housing when Merida leaps onto his back with a battle cry. And Elinor lets Merida run off and be rowdy more often when Hogus is there and genuinely enjoying her tapestry lessons. Merida still learns proper etiquette, and Hogus still learns how to use a sword, but it’s a lot more bearable and less tense for everyone. Anyway, directly inspired by what I saw in my dream, I wrote a few scenes from when Hogus is 12 and Merida is 8 (about two years before the triplets are born).

[Content Warning: tween death]

As a battle between the clans rages on, Hogus, Merida, and some other kids come riding on horses to spectate from the top of the hill. Merida and the other kids are ensnared by the sight of valiance, but Hogus better understands the gravity of war and death, and though genuinely curious about the battle, his excitement quickly falls into something only meant to mirror the others’.

In the valley, Fergus rides his own horse, slaying down everyone who comes near him. Someone gets in a lucky hit that sends his sword flying out of his hand. His surrounding enemies think they’ve finally got an advantage on him until that same man is stabbed in the gut by a throwing knife, Fergus now wild with the delight of bloodlust. Still, they’re sure he has to run out of throwing knives eventually and close in on him.

The sword landed halfway down the hill, the hilt sticking up in the air as if to summon someone to pick it up. Hogus knows it’s dangerous, but he can’t let his dad get slaughtered. Before he can convince himself otherwise, he charges forward and grabs the sword.

The kids are shocked and start to move closer themselves, but even they are aware that some people don’t come back from the battlefield, and stop before they get too close to danger.

“Dad!” Hogus calls out, waving the sword in the air to get his attention. “Dad!”

But all Fergus sees is someone running at him with a sword. And with an admittedly expert throw, he stabs his own son in the shoulder.

His arm goes limp and he drops the sword.

“Hogus!” Merida screams, immediately snapping Fergus out of it.

The rest of the warriors back off, knowing not to interfere, and the rest of the battlefield gradually comes to a stop.

“Hogus…”

Hogus meets his dad’s eyes, and breaks into tears. He’s not mad or disappointed, he just wants his dad.

Fergus rushes forward, just in time to catch Hogus as he goes limp.

“Dad… I’m sorry…”

“No, no… I’m sorry…” He finally breaks and cries too. “I’m so sorry…”

Back at the castle, Elinor is startled by the front doors slamming open.

“Fergus! What—?” Her breath catches in her throat at the sight of her son. “Hogus…” her eyes fill with tears. She can only watch as he runs past her, yelling for a doctor.

“Mama!” Merida clings to her dress.

“Merida…” She picks her up and hugs her. “What happened? How did…? None of you kids ran into the battlefield, did you?” She wasn’t trying to be accusatory, but she needed to know what happened.

“Only Hogus! But he was just trying to give Dad his sword! And…” She sniffs as more tears start to fall again. “And Dad was throwing knives at his enemies… But then he missed…” She can’t continue and sobs into Elinor’s neck.

She just holds her closer as the horror of what really happened dawns on her and she cries harder too.

Several hours later, Merida nervously waits outside a room.

“Hey, Merida,” her dad finally pokes his head out. He’s exhausted, but smiling. “You can come in now.”

His smile makes her hopeful, so she runs in. “Hogus?” she calls out.

“Hi, Merida,” he waves, smile bright as ever.

“Hogus!” she jumps onto the bed to tightly hug him.

“Ow!” he winces, and Elinor pulls her into her lap.

“Careful,” she gently scolds. “He’s still healing; his shoulder’s a bit sensitive.”

“Oh! Sorry…” she sheepishly apologizes.

“It’s okay,” he smiles. “I’m happy to see you too,” he opens up his good arm.

She beams and carefully crawls around to his other side to hug him.

Days pass, and Hogus hasn’t gotten any better. He’s only gotten much worse.

“Mum…” his voice is weak as he struggles to breathe and his eyes are watery. “I… I think…”

“No… No…” she gently runs a hand through his hair, not able to handle hearing what she already knows.

“… Can Dad come see me now?”

She brushes her thumb over his cheek, “Running the kingdom is not more important than you.”

“It kind of is…”

Her hand falls to his good shoulder. “Not this time.”

She looks to Maudie, who dutifully nods as soon as they make eye contact, then exits the room.

“… I’m sorry to leave you guys like this… I don’t know why the will-o’-the-wisps decided this–” he gestures to his shoulder– “for me, but… I don’t regret saving Dad. I just… I wish he didn’t have to feel guilty about it.”

“He’ll be okay.” She squeezes his hand. “I promise.”

“And you, too?”

“…” She glances at Merida sleeping next to him. “We’ll all be okay.”

Just then, Fergus runs in, a bit out of breath. He relaxes at the sight of his son alive and awake, but the panic in his face, the fear, thinking that he was too late…

Elinor can’t take it anymore and lets her emotions spill down her cheeks.

It makes Hogus lose control, and then Fergus can’t hold himself together either and lifts his family into his arms, waking Merida up.

“Hm… Hogus?” she murmurs blearily. She sees the tear streaks on his face and jolts up, looking around at her parents. “Why’s everyone crying? You’re going to be okay, right? You just got sick like when I did! You’re just going to cough for a bit and then you’ll be okay! You’re not…!” She gives up trying to convince herself, and Hogus hugs her as best he can.

Fergus cries all the more. “I’m so, so sorry…”

“It wasn’t your fault; you’re a really good warrior.” He looks up at him. “And a good dad.”

Fergus holds them as close as he can. “I love you, Hogus. I love you so much…”

“I love you too, Dad…”

After a moment, he feels his lung shut down.

“Mum… Merida… I love you, too…”

Merida can only bury herself in her brother’s chest, but Elinor speaks for both of them.

“Oh, my darling, we love you too… We love you, too…”

He squeezes his mom’s hand, presses close to his dad, and hugs Merida tight as best he can. His clothes end up bunched in Merida’s fists, and his parents bury their faces in his hair. They stay together– they stay with him– even after he takes his last breath.

Their grieving period is long– it doesn’t feel long enough– but Fergus finally finds the strength to summon the clan leaders. The meeting is a somber occasion, out of respect. Elinor is present, with Merida nestled in her arms.

“The warring has to stop or our children will be fighting next. And they—” his voice breaks, and he glances at Merida watching him while her head rests on her mom. “They don’t deserve to deal with our issues… So, men, what are your terms of peace?”

[artdcnaldson]

Has reader ever just had a "i have to get out" moment in the changeover universe?

Like art is trying to talk to her after sex and shes just staring at the wall re thinking her decisions.

They are very toxic and i know the reader has feelings for them so i think art would have been very smothering ir clingy if reader made any atempts at going out with another circle of friends and distancing herself

(im sorry i over analyse many situations 😭)

Anon… i love u <3 I love this messy main character bc i too would throw away my scruples for this man.

Rating: M

Word Count: 1.2k

Warnings: Toxic situationship, manipulation kinda, mild angst

Summary: You say something you shouldn’t. It messes up the fucked up equilibrium that you and Art had found in whatever you could call the relationship you had together.

FEBRUARY 2007

For Valentine’s Day, you got Art a teddy bear and a box of chocolates. He got you nothing. He wasn’t your boyfriend, so you didn’t know why you were upset about it, but you were. It stung like a fresh wound, one you could never just let be.

The two of you fucked, because that’s what you always did. The feeling of his mouth on yours, warm and tasting of mint, almost made you forgive him for not getting you anything. He called you beautiful, let his hands trace your body reverently, made you cum once, twice before he pulled you into his lap and let you sink onto him.

His forehead was against yours, breath coming in pants as you rode him, bodies pressed so close it almost felt like making love. Maybe that’s why you said it— the words tumbling out like a prayer.

I love you, Art.

He was tense, for a moment, brows furrowed slightly, before he kissed you and laid you onto your back. He pulled another orgasm from an impossible place within you, one you didn’t know existed. He came, messy on your thighs, and rolled over onto his back.

It was quiet, and you felt so far away from him. Your fingers brushed against his hand, testing, but he pulled them away and stood to redress. It was so quiet that you could hear blood pumping in your ears, like an ocean.

”You shouldn’t say stuff like that,” was what he finally said.

Your lip wobbled, just slightly. And then tears pooled on your lashline. “Sorry,” you said weakly.

“It’s fine.” But you had a sinking suspicion that you’d really fucked up. He handed you a towel, and you cleaned yourself up as best as you could while fighting frustrated tears.

”Are you leaving?” You asked. He was standing in between yours and your roommate’s bed, like he hadn’t quite decided yet. You pulled on a tee shirt and underwear and gave him a pathetic, pleading expression. ”Don’t leave, please. I didn’t mean it. We can watch a movie.”

He acquiesced, and let you cling to his side pathetically after you pulled out a portable DVD player. You split a pair of headphones and watched The Royal Tenenbaums.

Halfway through the movie, clarity hit like a lightning strike. Or maybe it was more like a sinking feeling of dread— of being neck deep in quicksand before you realize you should be crawling out.

You couldn’t keep doing this. Because Art was a dream, really. Handsome, and talented, and smarter than you’d expected him to be. And he was so sweet, when he didn’t realize that he should’ve been discouraging your affection. Or maybe he liked it, but only when it was quiet and he didn’t have to acknowledge that what he was doing was wrong.

Maybe it wasn’t wrong and it was all your own fault for wanting someone who made it clear they weren’t emotionally available. Maybe you were pressuring him into something he didn’t want and it was all unfair to him too.

It didn’t matter. It was fucking killing you.

When the movie ended, he stretched and said he’d see you in class. You nodded, smiling the sad smile of a dog unknowingly being left at the pound.

Once the sadness faded, it was replaced with a molten resentment, an anger at him and yourself over your time being wasted. He still sat next to you in class, sneaking peeks of your notes, but you ignored him as best as you could. Days passed, then a week. You started to feel human again.

A couple weekends later, you ignored the text he sent asking for you to join him at a mixer the tennis team was planning on crashing. You ignored the follow up too.

You wound up at a party on the opposite end of campus with a few girls from the service org you were in. You flirted with a new guy, felt like maybe you were worth more than a casual fuck buddy.

So the sight of him sitting at your door when you finally stumbled home was the last thing you wanted to see. All sad, slumped against your door.

He scrambled to stand, expression filled with longing. “Don’t be mad at me,” he pleaded. “I missed you so fucking bad these past few weeks. Felt like I was going crazy.”

Your heart skipped, and hammered against your ribs. You wanted to reach out and kiss that sad, longing expression off his face. You wanted to tell him to leave. It was all very confusing.

“Don’t say that, Art, please,” you said weakly, lips turning down into a frown. You tried to sidestep him, to get the keys into the door, but he pulled you against his chest.

He smelled so nice— like cologne and cinnamon gum. You gave a pathetic sigh at the warmth of him, wrapped all around you. “I missed you,” he repeated. “It’s like a part of me has been missing. I wanted to talk to you so badly, to kiss you, to watch boring movies with you.”

Annoyance and longing bubbled hot in the pit of your stomach, you had to force yourself to push him away. “You just missed having a cheerleader you could fuck whenever you felt like it.”

He frowned. “That’s not true.”

”What’s my major? What’s my favorite place on campus?” He swallowed hard, exhaling sharply through his nose. “What’s my favorite movie?”

“How would I know that?” He asked, resignation flat on his features.

You rolled your eyes. “Because I tell you about it all the time. Because I’ve taken you there. Because I made you watch it. Twice.” You finally got into your room. When you didn’t slam the door, you realized that you were aching for him to follow. You wanted him to be near you, even if you were seething.

When you turned to face him, you hated that even though you were incredibly mad, you still wanted him to just prove you wrong. To convince you that you were being crazy and he was innocent and the only problem was you being a weirdo about your feelings.

God, he was so pretty. And he looked so sad.

“I’ll try to be better,” he said. “I’ll take you on dates, and buy you flowers, and give you what you deserve.”

But you’ll never be his girlfriend. You knew it, deep down. Even as you caved and gave a sweet, sad little nod. He was across the room, holding you against his chest as you felt annoying tears slipping down your cheeks. Tears of relief, of frustration, of resignation.

“I’m not Tashi,” you said when he pressed his lips to the crown of your skull. It was annoying that he had the power to quell all of your uncomfortable emotions with a single romantic gesture. He pulled back and met your gaze, and you softened. “I know she’s always been your first pick, and I don’t blame you, but I’m not ever going to be her, if that’s what you’re waiting on.”

Something passed over his expression, briefly. “I know you’re not.” It was more of a lament than it was an attempt at comfort. “I’m not waiting on anything.”

His lips trailed down, along your jaw, at the corner of your mouth. He pulled back, looking at you expectantly. Are you going to let me?

Your lips parted softly as you kissed him with lips that tasted wet and salty. It was chaste, and sweet. He pulled back and ran his thumb along your cheekbone. “Let me hold you until you fall asleep? Please?”

It was hard to stay mad at Art Donaldson, even when you knew you really should.

Thank you for reading! If you have any requests in the Changeover universe, or otherwise send me an ask :)

[desmondkane-of-ao3-fame]

Inside Job didn’t just get canceled.

It had its first season split in two, a tactic animators said was used for Cuphead to let them pay staff less. Then, the show was renewed for a real second season.

And then the show was canceled before that second season anyway.

Final Space didn’t just get canceled on the most depressing cliffhanger ever. It was removed from all platforms before becoming a tax write-off, essentially meaning the only ways of really watching the show is through DVD or pirating.

The Owl House wasn’t just given a shortened third season. Disney, a company already known for a, let’s say, complicated relationship with its LGBT+ history, took a show created by a bisexual woman, filled with beloved LGBT+ characters, some of which were teenagers just like the audience, and told said creator to destroy her shows pacing so she could finish her story in just 3 45 minute specials.

I can go on about how Hollywood and television don’t respect animation and the like but this is endemic of a larger problem:

Capitalism destroys art.

The constant need for shows to be either the biggest thing in history or a complete failure, the constant need for a cash cow, leads to any show that doesn’t immediately become Squid Game or Stranger Things levels of popular, especially animated shows, getting scrapped for no reason other then it doesn’t make them enough money.

In our hyper capitalist hellscape, I worry we’re going to see more Inside Jobs, Final Spaces, and Owl Houses: shows made with love, that showcase potential, and dedicated fanbases, having a renewal reversed, or becoming a tax write off, or having its story rushed, so that the executives can save a few cents, while also fucking over employees.

I think that’s the part that always needs to be remembered too; the people behind these shows. Not just the creators or voice actors or well known animators, but everybody. As NewDeal4Animation illustrated, staffs on these shows are often underpaid and overworked. And to then, to not just lose a show you spent months, years of your life on out of nowhere, but to essentially lose a job… it’s terrifying. And every staff member, from the creators to the unpaid interns, deserves better.

So yea. That’s just my thoughts on the matter I guess.

[sophrosynesworld]

With all my love, pt 6

Our car drives out of Tokyo, the once vibrant neon lights dimming in the rearview mirror. Inside the vehicle, a heavy silence hangs like a storm cloud. 

Bakugou sits rigid beside me, jaw clenched, staring straight ahead. Izuku, in the driver’s seat, occasionally glances at us through the rearview mirror, his knuckles white from gripping the steering wheel.

The bustling cityscape fades into the countryside, the stars now twinkling brightly against the night sky, freed from the city's light pollution. It’s been so long since I left the city, the last time was for our training camp at UA. What happened to us?

"Can someone please tell me what happened back there?" Izuku’s voice cuts through the silence, his eyes darting between us in the mirror.

Bakugou's grip tightens on his knees. I take a deep breath. "It’s complicated, Izuku. Katsuki and I... we’ve been going through some things." I sound like a mother breaking bad news to her child.

Izuku’s gaze shifts to Bakugou. "You two need to talk. This silence isn't helping anyone."

Bakugou scoffs. "Talk? She thinks I’ve been cheating on her."

Izuku's eyebrows shoot up, but he stays silent. For once, I’m grateful.

"You’ve been distant, Katsuki. Coming home late, missing our dates, disappearing for days. What else was I supposed to think?" My arms cross over my chest, frustration bubbling.

Bakugou sighs, running a hand through his hair. "You really think I'd do that to you? I’ve been hiding something, but it’s not what you think."

"What is it, then?" I question him, but he averts his gaze, staring out the window instead.

The landscape outside changes subtly, flat fields giving way to gentle hills and clusters of trees. Moonlight casts an eerie glow, illuminating our path.The car falls silent again, the tension thick as Izuku navigates through the dark roads. Finally, after what feels like an eternity, Izuku turns down a dirt road, leading us to a modest house. Bakugou lets out a deep breath, his grip on the door handle tightening.

"Come on," he says gruffly, stepping out of the car and gesturing for me to follow. ‘

I follow Bakugou up the path to the house, my heart pounding in my chest. He stops at the door, fumbling with the keys before pushing it open. 

As we step inside, I take in the surroundings. The entrance hall is warmly lit by a small chandelier, casting a soft glow on the polished wooden floor. A plush rug lies beneath our feet, muffling our steps. The walls are adorned with tasteful art pieces, and a small table by the door holds a neatly arranged stack of mail and a decorative bowl for keys. I slip my shoes off next to him. 

Bakugou leads me into the living room, and I can't help but marvel at the space. It’s furnished and beautiful. The room is spacious yet cozy, with large windows that offer a view of a well-kept garden outside. A comfortable-looking sectional sofa dominates the room, adorned with an array of throw pillows in various shades of blue and gray. A coffee table sits in front of it, holding a few magazines and an empty vase. The walls are painted a soothing shade of light gray, complemented by dark wooden bookshelves filled with an assortment of books and knick-knacks.

A large flat-screen TV is mounted on the wall, and below it, a sleek entertainment center holds various electronics and neatly arranged DVDs. The soft hum of an air purifier is the only sound in the otherwise silent room. Everything is meticulously arranged, reflecting a sense of order and calm.

“I don’t understand what we’re doing here.” I tug on Bakugou's sleeve to get his attention, my frustration clear. The room is shrouded in dim light, with the moon casting its soft glow through the windows, painting the walls in a subtle hue of silver. “Why did you bring me into the middle of nowhere?”

He doesn’t answer for a moment, his back towards me as he walks towards the large glass window overlooking the garden. The soft rustle of leaves and distant chirping of crickets create a serene backdrop to our conversation.

“Whose house is this?” I ask, my voice rising with a mix of confusion and anger.

"It's ours," he admits, turning around slowly, his voice low and strained. The moonlight catches the edges of his face, highlighting the contours and curves. "It was going to be the home we raised our children in."

My heart skips a beat as I process his words. "What are you talking about?" I press, confusion consuming me. "This isn’t our home."

He sighs, running a hand through his disheveled hair. "When you got hurt, it was one of the few times I’ve been afraid." His voice cracks, and I can see his shoulders tremble. "The doctors didn’t know if you’d ever wake up."

I want to reach out, to comfort him, but I stay silent. He needs to get this out.

"When you opened your eyes and called my name," his voice wavers, tears spilling from his eyes, "I knew I wanted to spend eternity with you."

I’m stunned. "You’ve been planning this since then?"

"Six months ago, I bought the land. I picked up extra shifts to build this. Every detail, every corner, designed with you in mind. I wanted to build this home for us, to show you that I’m serious about our future.”

I look around the room with new eyes. Everything reflects my tastes. My heart aches with the realization of his efforts. The soft gray walls, the comfortable sectional sofa adorned with an array of throw pillows, the sleek coffee table—every detail reflects my preferences, my style. The thought of him working tirelessly to create this place tugs at my heart.

"You’ve been working on this for six months?" My voice softens as I slowly begin to understand..

"Yeah," he murmurs, regret mingling in his eyes. "I wanted to surprise you. To make up for all the times I’ve been absent. But I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t want to ruin it."

I know I should be ecstatic, but anger ignites within me. "You kept this from me while I worried we were falling apart? Do you know how that feels?"

His expression hardens. "I was doing it for us! To prove I could give you everything you ever wanted!"

"But I never asked for this!" I shout. "I just wanted you, Katsuki!"

"I was trying to make things better!" he yells back. "I thought if I finished this place, you’d see how much I care!"

"What do you want from me?" I scream, tears spilling over.

"I want you to be my wife!" His voice cracks, the raw emotion behind his words slicing through the tension in the air.

I stare at him, shock consuming all of my words.

"What?"

Without another word, he storms to a drawer, yanking it open with a force that rattles the whole dresser. He pulls out a small velvet box, his hands trembling. "I wanted to propose to you here, in the house I built with you in mind." he says, his voice barely above a whisper, yet charged with desperation. "I love you more than anything and if I don’t ask you now, I might not be able to later. 

Katsuki drops to one knee before me, holding out an engagement ring that catches the light with a mesmerizing sparkle. The band is a delicate, platinum twist, leading up to a stunning solitaire diamond, flawlessly cut and glistening like a fragment of a star. Smaller diamonds are embedded along the band, adding an extra layer of brilliance. It’s breathtakingly beautiful. 

“Will you marry me?"

Tears blur my vision. "Katsuki..."

The weight of Bakugou's words hangs in the air, his raw admission still echoing in my ears. As he kneels before me, holding out the ring, time seems to stand still. My heart races, a whirlwind of emotions threatening to overwhelm me. Shock, confusion, anger, and a glimmer of hope—all tangled together.

"No more secrets, no more running away. Just you and me, building our life together. Please, say you’ll be my wife."

I look down at him, the moonlight casting a soft glow on his face. His eyes are filled with a mixture of desperation and vulnerability that I’ve rarely seen. This strong, fierce man is baring his soul to me, and it breaks something inside me.

My hands tremble as I touch his face. "Yes, I’ll marry you."

Relief and joy light up his face as he slips the ring onto my finger. He pulls me into a tight embrace, the tension finally dissolving.

He takes a deep breath, his gaze never wavering from mine. “I know I messed up. I thought I was doing the right thing, building this place for us. But I see now that I was wrong to keep it from you. I was afraid, afraid that I wasn’t enough, that I couldn’t give you what you needed.”

Tears blur my vision as I kneel down to be level with him, our faces inches apart. “All I ever wanted was you, Katsuki. Not some perfect house, not grand gestures. Just you.”

He reaches out, his fingers gently brushing away my tears. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, his voice breaking. “I’m so sorry.”

For a moment, we just sit there, on the floor of this beautiful house, holding each other. The anger and hurt begin to melt away, replaced by a deep, aching love. The road ahead is still uncertain, but I can see a glimmer of the future we could have together.

[renthony]

Lost in the Remaster: Star Trek, Vintage Special Effects, and the Charm of Old Media

by Ren Basel renbasel.com

Originally created by Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek is a franchise that spans decades. From the original series of 1966 to current shows such as Lower Decks, it stands as a titan of television and pop culture. The real world has undergone incredible change since Star Trek’s first appearance, yet nerds everywhere still find entertainment, inspiration, and hope in its classic episodes. Recently, along with my husband and best friend, I decided I wanted to attempt the gauntlet of watching the entire franchise from beginning to end, revisiting favorites and finally checking out the ones I missed. Media and fandom studies are my passion, after all, and Star Trek is a foundational part of modern American nerd culture.

Starting with the original series proved more difficult than expected. Living in a tiny apartment, we don’t have much space for DVDs, so Star Trek wasn’t in our existing collection. The local public library didn’t have copies, either, and putting in a purchase request doesn’t guarantee it will be made available. My family doesn’t have the funds to pay for every single streaming service on the market, and Star Trek isn’t available on any we do have access to. Piracy was starting to look like the only option, but even that fell flat when we couldn’t find a version with subtitles. Finally we dug it up officially and with subtitles, for free via PlutoTV, but there were still limitations: PlutoTV only streams season one, and season one is only available in the remastered edition that replaced the original special effects with new visuals.

It wasn’t ideal, but, hey, it was Star Trek.

Watching just one episode a week gave us enough time to scrape together savings to get what we really wanted for seasons two and three: the official BluRay release, which includes both remastered and original-release versions of each episode. The remasters are fine, but as a lover of media history and practical effects, I’m always disappointed to lose a chance to appreciate the originals. It doesn’t matter how good it might look, remasters are never as much fun to me as matte paintings, camera tricks, and whatever the prop department could pull off with ten dollars and some glue.

Finally having the BluRays in hand for season two only affirmed my love of vintage practical effects. Seeing the Enterprise in her original glory, before she was ever rendered in digital form, felt like opening a time capsule. I love time capsules. My favorite pieces of media are always those which capture a moment in time, showcasing the aesthetics, concerns, and culture of the time and place they were created. Star Trek: the Original Series is rooted in the late sixties, when mainstream culture in the United States was experiencing immense upheaval and social change. That context is written all over the show. The vintage effects add to it, grounding it in a very specific time and place. Updating the show’s effects takes away some of that 60s aesthetic, and while some may see it as making the show more timeless, I don’t care for it. To me, seeing what they could pull off before modern technology is half the fun of watching old shows. The ingenuity and creativity of propmakers, makeup artists, and set designers working on shoestring budgets is unparalleled.

To be clear, digital effects are also done by skilled professionals who deserve much more respect and many more labor protections. There are some truly stunning works created with digital tools. That said, I hate when digital effects are used to cover up the practical effects that came before. It feels disrespectful to the original artists, as if telling them their work wasn’t good enough; as if their work was just a placeholder until something better could come along and fix it. Practical effects aren’t a placeholder, they’re an art form in their own right, and that art form is one for which I have deep appreciation.

It frustrates me that the original, non-remastered episodes were such a pain for us to access, but I’m very glad to have added them to my personal media collection. No matter what future tweaks Star Trek’s rights holders might make, I can always pop in our personal copies to enjoy the Enterprise and her crew in all their vintage, “outdated” glory. If you’re also too young to remember the show’s original airing, and you have the opportunity to watch the unedited version, I highly suggest you do. Watching the version that aired in 1966 gives the show a charm that no amount of remastering can ever match.

_

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[xxx-wounded-angel-xxx]

Tear you appart - Felix Volturi x reader

Felix Volturi x fem! reader - contains smut

3456 words

content warning : swearing, darker and wilder than my usual Felix, possessive Felix, size difference (both him and reader like it) - Smut ahead ! please no judgment, this is the first time I'm writing some I tried my best I feel so embarrassed 😅 Stop at the divider if you don't want the smutty part that contains : dirty talk, voice kink, size kink, penetration, virgin reader (she's an adult in her 20's !), praise kink

Taglist : @agirllovespancakes <3

At first, you weren’t sure what to make of your mate. First, Felix was big. Like…two meters tall and really muscular. Like wow. And second, he… was busy. Like very busy, which you could comprehend since he was one of the highest ranked guards of the Volturi Coven. And the executioner… that's it you had said it. His job was to brutally kill people, and you did not fully know what to make of him because of that.

He was kind to you of course. But you could barely see him. He had a very important place in the coven after all, it would be mean to hold it against him, he couldn’t help it after all. But it was making it harder for you to understand him, how could you get to know him better if he wasn’t there with you?

Ever since you were staying with the Volturi after finding out that you were Felix’s soulmate, your existence had gotten kind of lonely. The current secretary would go shopping with you if you needed something but you were mostly staying in your quarters that were adjacent to Felix’s. So, you decided to spend the time by decorating as much as you could your quarters to your own taste.

As a goth, you took advantage of the Halloween season to buy home decor. Artificial black roses, deep red and purple ones, black lace curtains, gothic prints you paired with vintage looking frames Heidi found for you in an abandoned room… You kept the walls white but painted the furniture black. Lots of bookshelves were acquired to hold your book collection, CDs and DVDs, Felix had made sure you had a good TV and even better stereo when you said you basically lived with music. Anne Stokes and Victoria Frances’ art hung all over your walls, nemesis now dark fairy figures and cult cuties shelved neatly above your desk, nightmare before Christmas plushies and figures scattered all around your quarters with the occasional Hello Kitty and Kuromi: it was starting to look like home.

When December came by you bought red velvet curtains, and red crystal beads. A lot of them. Surprisingly, you were now finding every week rose bouquet, that you would put to dry and keep in elegant vases. You were sure they were from Felix, even if he never mentioned it the few times the two of you had met in November.

You were working on the canopy of the bed, after installing the black lace curtains and strings of white pearls that were easy to find as Christmas tree ornament, you were making garlands of red crystal beads that would reflect the light all around your bed canopy. Attaching bead after bead, you were disrupted by Felix. You looked at him, surprised as you saw him sit beside you on the black silk sheets of your bed.

“Good evening my darling mate”

This evening, you finally got to spend time with your mate. He apologized for his lack of presence beside you, the coven had been exceptionally busy and he had not been able to give you the time you deserved. But now, he was here, and could finally take care of you, his mate, properly.

You talked for hours that night, She Wants Revenge playing low in the background as you finally got to know each other.

But no matter how interesting this all was, you were getting tired. Felix noticed your yawn, and with a smile put you to bed, tucking you in and gently kissed your forehead goodnight.

Your Felix held his promise. Week after week you got to know the other better. Going from strangers to friends… to more. After a few months you realized that Felix wasn’t a friend anymore. No, he was more. You wanted him to be more. But it wasn’t easy. He was your soulmate! It was supposed to be easy! But it wasn’t. At all.

Spring came and left, and so did summer. It was the middle of autumn, and you still did not know how to tell your soulmate you liked him. How could you? How could a simple human compare to a vampire? He had not turned you yet, it seemed that he quite enjoyed your human habits for now. Maybe he liked your softness, the warmth of your skin or the color of your eyes? But that did not resolve your problem. How could you tell him when you had never done this before? You were in your twenties and not had your fist kiss yet!

You had started a diary to keep your memories, express your feelings and your thoughts. And the most recent entries were all about him. About Felix, the gleam in his eyes, the way his skin shone brightly under the sunlight, how hot you had found the glimpses of his toned and muscular body you had been able to see, the way his thunderous laugh made your heart smile… How… You love him. That’s it, you had admitted it fully: you loved him. It was written black on white in your diary. Your heart was in his hands. You did not need a prayer when you had his name.

That was the last line you wrote, leaving your diary on your bed as you left your bedroom to take a relaxing bath before going to bed in your favorite attire.

You came out of the bathroom, all clean and fresh, humming some She Wants Revenge song, when you froze. Felix. Felix was sitting on your bed. Felix was sitting on your bed holding your diary. Felix was reading your diary where you very explicitly wrote how much you loved him. Fuck.

 When Felix looked at you, you felt like you could die from embarrassment. You tried to leave, but in the blink of an eye you found yourself your back against a wall, Felix’s body pressed against yours preventing you from running away. Anyway, where would you have gone? This was your room, for fuck’s sake! You shivered as he used his big hand to raise your head so he could look you in the eyes.

“You meant it?”

“What”

“What you wrote in your diary about me. You mean it?”

You had never seen Felix that serious before, his husky voice had lost all humor.

“It… It is… Yes, it is true. I … I really mean it.”

You blurted out the last words, anxious. What if it wasn’t what he wanted to hear? What if he hated you now? What if… Wait, why was he smiling?

“You have no idea how long I’ve longed for this. May I?”

You nodded, not sure what he was asking for. He cupped your cheek, and to your surprise he kissed you. You closed your eyes.

It was better than what you had read in your books, much better. His lips were soft against yours, his kiss tender but quite possessive at the same time. You returned it, quite clumsily due to your inexperience, but still with enthusiasm. He was the one to break it so you could breathe again. You were only human after all. Your body needed it.

“Damn, that was…”

He laughed at your reaction.

“Can you do it again?”

Smirking, he eagerly accepted your request.

Later, when you were too tired to stay awake, Felix accepted to stay under the covers and hold you. The feeling of his strong and much bigger body wrapped around your much smaller frame brought unholy thoughts to your mind, that you quickly shook away, but it still let you the time to show slight embarrassment. You thought for a moment that Felix would take advantage of it, but he didn’t, only kissing the top of your head and bringing you closer to his body.

“Does that mean that we are together now?” “You could say that dolcezza.” “So you’re my boyfriend?” “Absolutely not. I’m your mate. If you want a more human term, just say that I’m your husband.”

You looked at him, shocked, and that little shit that was your mate had the biggest grin you’d ever seen.

“I… I think mate is an appropriate term.” “As you wish.”

Your heart was beating so fast he couldn’t not hear it, and his bright smile was the confirmation. Luckily for you, Felix had decided to go easy on you for tonight. But you feared what his teasing would be like…

You fell asleep with these thoughts in mind, Felix’s arms holding you tight against him. “Buonanotte tesoro mio, ti amo…”

When you woke up the next day, Felix was still here, holding you.

“Hi” “Hi. Slept well?” “Yes” “Good”

Bringing you closer to him, Felix buried his face in your neck. You froze as it felt like he was smelling you, and he left a kiss where he could feel your pulse. Being this close to him felt nice, really nice. He smelled good, too. Something musky, homey.

“Are you sniffing me?” “You did a few moments ago” “Touché.” A pause. “So?” “You smell nice. Like home.” “Ah, that’s a mate thing, you know? I smell good like that to you only.” “And me? What do I smell like?” “The tastiest thing I’ve ever met.” “Felix!” “What?! You should take this as a compliment! You smell delicious!”

He had that cocky look that looked so good on him. You couldn't wait to spend forever with him.

It was near Christmas now. More than one year since you met Felix, a few months since you realized you loved him, and a few weeks since the two of you were fully mated. Well fully… There was something the two of you had not done yet. It was… sex. For fuck’s sake, you were an adult, you could say the word sex! But… that did not erase the fact that you had basically no experience in dating. Felix was your first kiss… and would be your first lover. The thing was that he was not aware of it. How could you tell him! This man was cocky enough, if you told him, it would sign you way to a never-ending teasing! Fuck. Wait, that was the point! This man – or vampire – was going to be the death of you.

Your thoughts were a complete mess. You were sure than even Aro couldn’t understand a single shit if he were to read your mind. Which was why it was a good thing that he hadn’t asked for a while. But maybe it could actually help? Wait no! You couldn’t let him know you were desperately trying to get in the pants of his executioner. All of it was driving you crazy.

You tried to keep up with appearances with Felix, behaving as normal as you could with him, but you couldn’t help but let some touches linger more than necessary, brush against him every time you were close with him, dragging the kisses as long as you could without accidentally killing yourself from the lack of oxygen… All of it you thought Felix didn’t notice. But that was forgetting something: your mate was very much a predator. And as a human, you were very much prey for him, even as his mate.

Your heartbeat running faster when he was close, the way his low voice would send shivers down your spine, or how some kisses and touches could get you clenching your thighs… Felix noticed everything, and your asshole of a mate was reveling in it, your love like the thrill of the hunt. He took great pleasure in it, day after day, trying to drive you crazy until you would be your back against a wall, forced to tell him exactly what you wanted. And he would make sure you beg for it, dragging the thrill of the hunt as long as he could. But lucky for you, he loved you more than it. He would try to not make you beg, not too much at least.

Your Felix had become great at reading you, your expressions, your desires. And being as old as he was, it had not been hard for him to put two and two together: the way you returned his affection, always eager but also quite clumsily, always holding back afraid of going too far or doing wrong… That darker, possessive side off him was extremely satisfied of it, no one had touched you like that before, no one but him, you were forever his.

After a few weeks, your struggles were not funny anymore, he wanted you to feel desired, to not see your inexperience as a bad thing. You were so damn beautiful and desirable; he would show you how much he wanted you.

He would be off duty for the next few days, it was perfect. The next time he would get in your bed, you would not be sleeping for a good while.

For the past few days, it seemed like Felix was toying with you, always managing to get you where and how he wanted. He was slowly taking you out of your comfort zone, it was like he had something in mind as he would hold you close, soft breath in the crook of your neck sending shivers down your spine. He would let you back up if you were too uncomfortable, of course, but the bastard knew what he was doing, always taking you further and further of your comfort zone without crossing your boundaries, teaching you a few things about you in the meantime. Damn, did you always have that size and voice kink or was it of his doing? Fuck, you had no idea but did not care much, it was too good for the reasons why to matter anymore.

All of this led you to that very moment, your Felix towering over you, your back against the wall of your room. Voice low, whispering in your ear, driving you crazy.

“Aren’t you pretty like that, all flustered? Your blood smell so good I might just eat you…”

Of course, this led you to grow even more flustered, your blood rushing and tempting him even more. He took another step, and lowered his head even more, leaving cold kisses on your neck, his cool breath driving you crazy. You move your head to give him a better access, and let out a soft moan as his teeth scrap your neck.

“You like that don’t you? To be all helpless as soon as I touch you. My beautiful darling…”

He lifts you, claiming your lips and you can’t help but wrap your legs around his waist. He bites your lower lip, and you let out a soft gasp, your Felix taking advantage of it, his tongue meeting yours to explore your mouth. After a while the two of you part, soft panting can be heard from you. At this moment, you realize you left your stereo on, and as your notice what song is playing you send to hell every hesitation and kiss him passionately.

“I want to hold you close, skin pressed against me tight

Lie still, close your eyes, girl, so lovely, it feels so right

I want to hold you close, soft breast, beating heart

As I whisper in your ear, "I wanna fucking tear you apart"

It drives the both of you crazy, leaving you only wanting more, more than everything you had already done. So when Felix carries you to the bed, you continue to kiss him. When he lays you on the bed, climbing on top of you, you drag him close and deepen the kiss. When he takes off your shirt, you unbutton his, hands roaming everywhere on the other’s body in a frenzy haze, kisses left everywhere.

“I want you” you pause. “No, I need you.” You let out a moan as he rips your bra and leave kisses on your breast, a smile oh so smug brightening his face as he finds your sensitive spot. You writhe underneath him, clenching your thighs together, left wanting more, needing more of him.  

“Felix…” His name leaves your mouth as a soft moan, and he can’t help but chuckle at your neediness, he’s finally got you where he wants you to be, he’s going to drag on this teasing as much as he can.

“That’s my name darling, say it again…”

He’s so smug but you can’t help but do as he say, especially when his pants and yours disappear, and his hand slip in your silky panties. As he brushes against your clit, you can’t help but buckle your hips, trying to get more friction where you need him the most.

“Eager, aren’t we?”  Always that smug expression, he knows he is driving you crazy and he revels in it: you’re his and he is the only one able to get these reactions from you. He leans over you, pressing his body against yours, claiming your lips once again. You whimper as you can feel his hard bulge against you, increasing your arousal to an extent you didn’t know was possible. But you weren’t the only one left craving for more.

“Please Felix…” “I need you to use your words tesorina. Tell me, what you want?” “You. I want you I need you!” “So greedy my darling… Is that what you want?”

You can’t answer him as he rips your panties, throwing away what’s left of them before making his own underwear meet the same fate. He’s bigger than you anticipated, yet the only thing you can focus on is how much you want him inside of you.

Not breaking eye contact with you, he strokes his penis a few times, making sure it’s slick with his precum and your arousal, and get on top of you, teasing your wet folds with his hard length.

“Are you sure you want this?” He looks at you with such seriousness, trying to read your face and be sure this is what you want, that he’s not going further than you’re comfortable with. “Yes Felix please” “You only have one word to say and I’ll stop if it’s too much for you”

You nod, and satisfied with your approval Felix thrust into you. You moan at the feeling; you feel so full of him. You expected it to hurt, being your first time, but it doesn’t, your love prepared you enough.

“That’s what you want, isn’t it my darling? My cock filling you up, bringing you more pleasure than you’ve ever had.”

You can only whine and moan, too lost in the pleasure you’re experiencing for the first time. Felix eats up every of your reactions, satisfied that only him get to make you feel this good.

“You’re so responsive to my touch” Felix praises you, and his words do something to you you weren’t aware of it being possible. Something good. Really good. Felix, attentive to all of your reactions, notice and whispers sweet praises in your ear, driving you wild. He thrusts faster, eliciting more moans from you. It feels so good, you can only focus on him and the pleasure he gives you, moaning his name.

“I love hearing you cry out my name, tesoro. It’s music to my ears.”

He finally finds an especially sensitive spot of yours, hitting it relentlessly, eliciting moan after moan from you. He growls in pleasure, getting you closer and closer. You feel something ready to snap inside of you.

“Please Felix I’m close so close!” “That’s it darling, come for me.” He kisses your shoulder. “Come for me, let me feel how much you love me. I’ll be right behind you, filling you with everything I have.”

The pad of this finger brushes against your clit, and with his dirty words it’s enough to make you snap, riding the first climax of your life. Your Felix follows quickly, his cool cum filling your cunt as he moans your name, “you’re mine all mine my [Y/N] forever mine never letting you go my sweet and beautiful [Y/N]”

You fall back on the bed, trembling with pleasure and exhaustion. Sliding out of you, Felix admires for a moment your mixed release dripping down your inner thighs, before laying down beside you and holding you close, whispering sweet praises in your ear. He kisses your forehead tenderly, and you snuggle closer to him.

“I love you” “I love you too tesorina”

Exhausted, you fall asleep, safe and spent in your mate’s arms, Felix never letting you go for a second, holding you tight against him the whole time. This is what eternity should feel like, and he will make sure it always is that way for you.  

[brokehorrorfan]

6 Things I Learned from the Lisa Frankenstein Commentary

We don’t get movies like Lisa Franeknstein often, which is a shame because it’s endlessly charming yet delightfully twisted. While it disappointed at the box office, it has "cult classic" written all over it.

The coming-of-age horror-comedy is out today on Blu-ray and DVD. Among the special features is an audio commentary by Zelda Williams. Here are 6 things I learned…

1. Catch Me If You Can inspired the opening credit sequence.

The opening credit sequence, which briefly depicts the Creature's love story from his previous life in the style of Victorian shadow box art, was inspired by Catch Me If You Can.

"We wanted to do something interesting with the credits in this bit. I was really inspired by Catch Me If You Can, which I thought the opening credits were particularly interesting and helped establish the story before we ever got to it. And because Creature doesn't speak this whole movie, I wanted an opportunity to show what his life would have been like."

2. The film was originally intended to be rated R.

Although Lisa Frankenstein pushes the PG-13 rating as far as it can go, it was originally intended to be a hard R. Williams cites the party scene, in which Lisa originally smoked a laced joint rather than drinking a PCP cocktail, as a difficult revision.

"This is where stuff got a little complicated when we were going from R-rated to PG-13. Originally there was a coated joint they were passing around. This is one of the only scenes that I'm not sure I'm as fond of in comparison to the joint stuff. Most of the rest of the changes were fine, but this one I find very strange. It's just a very different reaction and interaction than what used to be there. However, these are the things that happen when making a movie."

3. Creature is an homage to Day of the Dead's Bub.

Not only Lisa is seen watching George A. Romero's Day of the Dead in the film, but the Creature is an homage to its iconic zombie, Bub.

"Creature for me is definitely an homage to Buster Keaton, but he's also an homage to the zombie you just saw on screen, Bub, who was in Day of the Dead, a Romero movie that I'm very fond of. It was an incredibly emotive and a very intelligent zombie and ended up getting revenge against the asshole in the movie. It was one of my favorite monsters ever made, so when I could put that on screen during the movie, it made me very happy."

4. Zelda hid a tribute to her father, Robin Williams.

Williams is the daughter of Robin Williams, and she included his 1983 comedy album, Throbbing Python of Love, among the records scattered on the floor in Lisa's living room.

"Oh, there's Dad! We used one of Dad's vinyl albums because we had to scatter some across the floor." She refers to it as "a little, mini Easter Egg for me."

5. The police officers are named after John Waters.

The police officers in the film are Officer John (played by Walker Babington) and Officer Waters (Sylvia Grace Crim) — named on a whim in honor of cult filmmaker, John Waters.

"They asked me to name the cops, because obviously they needed to have name tags, so I named them Officer John and Officer Waters." She thought no one would notice since they're so small, but a viewer pointed it out at a test screening.

6. The film is sprinkled with movie references.

Williams wore her influences on her sleeve with her directorial debut, and she pointed out several references on the commentary:

A Trip to the Moon (clip featured in Lisa's surreal dream sequence)

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (stylistic inspiration on the dream sequence)

Weird Science (the party scene)

Suspiria (red lighting during drug sequence)

My Boyfriend's Back (camera shot from inside a grave looking up at characters)

Kill Bill (weapon point-of-view shot)

E.T. (a boy on a bike — played by Diablo Cody's son — at the end)

Notting Hill (reading together on a bench at the end)

Lisa Frankenstein is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital via Universal.

[hazashiovo]

Father!figure Joel random headcanons with fem!reader?

(now that I'm reading my request again it sounds pretty vague :/ I'm gonna try to tell some ideas or details. So, would be cool to see how joel cares about reader's hobbies like bringing her new things, what does he do when reader gets sad, or when someone in town is messing with her, how does he reacts when reader shows him affection like making him a gift or hugs him or kisses his cheek, or how does he teases her when she's shy of some subject, etc)

I love this! Especially since I see Joel more in a platonic way.

Joel Miller father headcanons

Joel would be TERRIFIED to be a father again.

After losing Sara he kept living with the feeling that something bad is going to happen to you too.

Even so, nothing is going to harm you while Joel's there ,and he's always there for you.

He had a hard time accepting you as his newly adopted daughter,but once he made peace with himself? Best dad ever.

You like drawing? He left a box with a ton of art supplies.

He found them a while ago but didn't know at that time that you like art.

You enjoy music? He got you your own guitar,which also comes with music lessons only from him.

He knows how much you like listening to him singing,so it became a habit for him to sing to you,and once you gain more experience you'll be able to sing with him.

Maybe you like reading, Joel makes sure to bring you to this huge library,a bit far from Jackson but it's totally worth it.

You returned home with toons of books to occupy your time.

It doesn't matter which hobby you have, he will always be there to support it.

One thing I learned from the show,is that Joel likes hiking.

He used to do that with Sara when things were still okay, so when he started this with you it felt like a part of him healed.

When exploring a new place,he found an old shop full of video cameras and photo camera,and so he started collecting photos of you two. He even made an album where he keeps the photos with you.

If there was a fire that would be the main thing he would save.

When you got older he became more protective. He knew those Jackson boys barely wait for a new girl to get with. Well not this girl,not his little girl.

If you're queer,he would be completely oblivious. My man doesn't have a gaydar,not in the slightest.

If you would hang out with a girl pretty often he would just assume you're best friends or something along the lines.

Now if he accidentally saw you kiss with said girl? S-H-O-C-K.

Joel's not homophobic,don't get him wrong,but he just never expected it. And never actually saw it coming.

But if he saw you and a boy kiss,he's all protective father mode on.

Of course he's not a meat head, he'll understand that you have the right to a relationship just as much as anyone,but that doesn't mean he's also fond of the idea of a boy around you.

He'll only accept it for your happiness,but if that guy ever hurts you? Oh well, it's not his fault for what's about to happen.

Fortunately he trusts you can pick the right person, whether they're a girl or a boy.

At times when you're sick he can't help but remember Sara, he'd also remember how worried he would be for his daughter,the same worry that he feels for you.

He makes sure you stay inside and makes you drink and take the pills the doctor prescribed for you,even if you don't like it.

If you ever return from outside hurt, expect to never hear the end of it. For some time he wouldn't let you leave Jackson, mostly because of his fear of anything happening to you again.

But he's not that kind of Father,so after a while he will reluctantly give you permission to go outside Jackson again.

Movie nights.

Joel finds those old DVDs with movies he used to watch before the apocalypse,and he just loves rewatching them with you.

You'll be all snuggled up in his chest,head right where his heart beat, everything reminding him of his movie nights with Sara after a long shift at work.

Joel feels really happy and fulfilled that you trust him enough to be this vulnerable around him. Especially since this world is cruel and full of dangers.

He's dead set to never let anything or anyone lay a finger on you,even if it costs him his life.

.

.

My daddy issues are sueing me.

[irb-pascalito-99]

Let Me Paint You

Pairing: Joel x f!reader

Rating: 18+ MDNI

Word Count: 3.7k

Summary: After posing for a painting Joel decides he needs to do some painting of his own.

Warnings: oral f!receiving and m!receiving, edging, unprotected p in v sex, riding, sex on a canvas

A/N: This is an excerpt from chapter thirteen of my fic Always an Angel, Never a God. To read more please visit a03.

After dinner we wash the dishes and settle in the living room to pick a movie for the night. Joel is thumbing through our collection of DvDs when a knock sounds on the front door. Both of us freeze, unsure of who could be stopping by right now.

We exchange a look as the visitor knocks again. I go to the door while Joel makes his way up the stairs. I wait until I hear a door close upstairs before I open the one in front of me.

On the front step Maria stands with her hands in her pockets. The evening sun casts an orange glow upon her as it starts to sink in the sky.

“So you are alive,” Maria jests, a smirk spreading across her face. “I’ve been texting you all day. I was trying to see if you wanted to hang out since Ellie is off on that school trip, but I got worried when I didn’t hear anything back. Why haven’t you responded?”

My chest tightens. I haven’t even looked at my phone since I got home last night, abandoning it with my purse and keys in the doorway the second I got home. I try to think of an excuse as to why I couldn’t respond while Maria peers into the house behind me.

“I’ve just been really busy with things today,” I say, fiddling with my fingers. I pull the door closer to me so she can’t see inside. “I’ve been cleaning and painting. Just enjoying the alone time, totally spaced my phone I guess.”

Maria’s eyebrows scrunch together. She tries to look behind me again and then looks back at my face as though she’s trying to decipher whether or not I’m lying.

“So there’s nobody else here?” Maria asks. I try to keep my reaction small so she can’t catch on to anything. “Because normally your car is in the garage but it’s in the driveway now, and you’re acting kind of strange…”

I see my car in the driveway behind her. We had moved it out there to make room fit the truck in the garage. I put a palm to my forehead and feign a reaction as if I’m just now remembering it’s out there.

“I must have forgot to move it back. I was cleaning the garage earlier and had to move it out there.” I can tell Maria doesn’t buy the lie.

I don’t know why I’m trying so hard. Out of anyone Maria is probably the one person I can tell about us, but there’s something I like about hiding it. It’s like in keeping this secret, I keep a piece of Joel for just myself. Keeping it a secret may have started as a way of protecting Ellie, but it feels as though I’m protecting Joel and I as well.

From my experience, love is hardly ever simple or kind. Love is heartbreak, and the outside world can only break what we have. I like our secret, and even though it’s just Maria on my doorstep I will do whatever I can to keep our small piece of the world separate.

“Well, I’m sorry you drove all the way out here but I’m kind of in the groove right now with this painting,” I say.

Maria’s eyes flick up to the stairs. She doesn’t ask any other questions though. She nods, says her goodbyes, and drives away. When her car disappears I close the door again. Joel is silent upstairs.

I go to my bedroom first, expecting him to be laying on my bed or standing by the window, but he isn’t there. I check the bathroom as well. When I find no trace of him I make my way to the art studio.

I find him standing there, observing some artwork stashed away in the closet. His fingers gently brush against the top of the canvases as he moves from one to the other. I tread lightly across the room and brush my hands softly against his back. He jumps at the touch, quickly putting the paintings back in their place.

“You’re being nosy,” I say playfully as I wrap my arms around his chest. He stiffens under my touch, clearly feeling guilty for being caught snooping through my stuff.

“Sorry, saw Maria through the window and then the closet door was open so I was just curious. Figured you’d be talkin’ for a bit.” I peek my head around his shoulder to see what he’s looking at.

The first painting in the stack is a woman in a rowboat with a faint lantern glowing in the distance. I forgot this is where I chose to store my mother’s work. I still have a hard time looking at it.

“Did you do these?” Joel asks. I shake my head.

“Those were my mom’s actually.” I bury my face in Joel’s back, trying to seem as unbothered as possible.

Joel hums in response and looks at the paintings again. I suppose this is Joel’s first interaction with who my mother truly was. He knows she died in the accident. He knows she was an artist and Frank’s friend, but I never really talk about her life.

“She was really talented,” Joel says.

“Yeah, she was,” I say. I rest my chin on his shoulder, looking for a way to change the subject.

Joel ponders a thought for a moment as I admire the way the evening sun casts a beautiful glow on his tan skin through the open window.

“Can I paint you?” I ask. I feel Joel’s body jolt as he chuckles beneath me.

“You already have,” he says with a smirk. He points to a couple of paintings hidden in the back of the closet.

Anything I paint of Joel has to either be obscure, or hidden so Ellie doesn't find it. I’ve been able to paint him from memory, but it would be nice to have a visual for once.

“No, I want you to model for me.” Joel shifts uncomfortably as I run my hands along his arms. “Please, just for a little bit. The lighting is so good right now.”

Joel huffs, but nods his head. I happily grab the chair from Ellie’s desk and place it in front of the window. He grumpily sits down and allows me to position him the way I want. I put one of his arms around the back of the chair and the other resting on his knee.

He stays still as I pick out my colors and get the canvas ready. It isn’t until after I’ve painted his form and begun to work on the details that he starts to get antsy. He moves slightly in the chair, apologizing when I shoot him a look. His eyes wander the room as I paint the highlight of the golden sun on his cheek.

“What was she like?” Joel asks, breaking the silence in the room.

“Who?” I ask, keeping my focus on my painting.

“Your mom,” he responds. I freeze with the brush against the canvas.

It’s not that my mom was a bad person, but I find it hard to talk about her now. Talking about her is a reminder of what I’ve lost, and I hate to dwell in those feelings for long which is why I’ve been avoiding the topic.

This time there’s no way out. Joel waits patiently for my response, not moving from the position I’ve sat him in. I shift in my seat and clear my throat as I try to think of a way to explain who she was.

“She was really creative,” I start. “She never found something she couldn’t make herself. She was funny, and smart, and very supportive of Ellie and I in whatever we wanted to do.”

I smile at the memories of her, picturing the way she would pick Ellie up after a fall and sweep her into her arms.

“She loved deeply,” I continue. “She was strong in whatever she did. Which also meant she felt emotions really strongly, whether that was love or sadness or anger. I saw a lot more of that when I got older. After Ellie was born, her and my dad started fighting a lot more…”

My throat begins to become thick with emotion, so I clear it and focus on the light again. I work on getting the shadows correctly on his jaw, trying to ignore the way his eyes linger on my reaction.

“What about your dad?” I drop my paintbrush on the floor as Joel speaks again. I curse under my breath as I go to pick it up.

Talking about my mom is hard enough, but I wouldn’t know where to begin with my dad. I don’t know how to understand, let alone explain the two versions of him that exist in my mind. When I was small he was kind and playful, gone a lot but always present when he was there. Later in life, after he stopped traveling for work, he was irritable and withdrawn. He wasn’t mean, but he dampened the mood in the room.

“Can we just,” I take a breath as I stand up to paint again. “I’m sorry, I’m trying to focus right now.”

Joel’s eyes soften, noting that the mention of my father must have been too far. He remains silent as he watches me work for a little longer, but something is off now. The art becomes more mechanical and methodical than before. The brush doesn’t flow as it did. Joel must notice the difference too, because he shifts in his chair.

I begin to protest when he stands up from the chair I’ve sat him in. The lighting will be gone before he settles again. He tunes me out as he grabs the biggest empty canvas he can find and lays it flat on the ground.

“What are you-“ Joel grabs my palette from my hands next, placing it on the cart next to my easel. He cuts me off by placing a gentle kiss to my lips as his hands grab the hem of my shirt.

“It’s my turn,” he says. “Let me paint you.”

He pulls my shirt over my head, sucking in a breath when he exposes my bare chest and stomach, and then continues to undress me. His fingers grasp the waistband of my leggings. He pulls them down my legs, waiting on his knees for me to step out of them.

He puts my leggings in a pile on top of my shirt before kissing up my bare legs. I throw my head back and sigh at the feeling while his fingers climb up to my hips. He pulls my underwear down as well, leaving me completely bare in the middle of the room. Something about this feels more vulnerable than when we were on the stairs or in the kitchen. I’m suddenly aware of how exposed I am.

I shiver as he kisses his way back up my body. When he’s standing again he kisses my lips and then pulls back to look me over. His eyes gleam with desire as they graze over every inch of my body.

Joel is still wearing all his clothes. My hands reach forward to grip his shirt. I need us to be even. I can’t have everything focused on me right now, but that’s what Joel has decided.

He pushes my hands away and picks up a paintbrush. I watch him anxiously as he dips the brush in the bright yellow paint on my palette before turning back to me. I pinch my eyebrows together as he walks behind me.

My body jolts at the feeling of the cold liquid trailing down my skin. I can’t see what he’s doing, but I can feel the tickling sensation of a paint brush against my skin. He spends a while doing it, coating my entire back in an assortment of colors. When he’s done he walks me back to the canvas he placed on the floor.

“On your knees darlin’” he says, the paintbrush in his hands. I follow his instructions embarrassingly quickly.

Once I’m on my knees he delicately directs me backwards so I’m laying on top of the canvas on the floor, then he stands again. I begin to pant as I watch him load the palette up with colors again. He glances back in my direction quickly and then takes his shirt off. A tension builds in my pelvis as he takes off all of his clothes except for his boxers.

He brings the palette and brush back over to where I lay on the floor, putting them on the ground before kneeling in front of me. His eyes wander slowly over my body again. He mutters something I can’t quite hear under his breath while he picks up the paint brush again.

Gently he strokes the brush down the middle of my chest. I squirm at the feeling, the paint on my back smearing along the canvas as I do. A devious look appears in his eyes as he continues to run the brush along my chest and stomach until it runs out of paint. He loads the brush up with red next then starts with my left breast.

The bristles brush along the top of my breast until he reaches my nipple. I let out a whine as he swirls the brush along the sensitive nub. When he’s satisfied he chooses another color for the other breast, bright purple illuminating my skin as my chest begins to heave. I can feel the slick collecting between my thighs. I desperately need his hands on me which only makes him go slower.

When I’m completely covered in paint Joel puts the brush back down on the palette and sits on his knees to admire his work. I squirm again and desperately attempt to squeeze my legs together to ease the tension. My desperation only seems to darken the lust in his eyes. I try to sit up and reach for him, but he grabs my wrists and pins them above my head.

“Joel, please,” I whimper. His face hovers above mine, a cruel smirk spreading across it.

“Stay there babygirl,” he whispers and releases my hands.

I watch with heavy breaths as he moves back on the floor. His hands push my knees apart to expose my core to him. He groans at the sight of my glistening center.

“So fuckin’ wet baby,” he growls. He swipes his thumb across my folds causing me to jump. “You keep your hands up there sweetheart, don’t move ‘em or I’ll stop.”

I nod my head quickly, my hips gliding back and forth on the canvas as I wait for him to touch me again. He licks his lips before laying on the ground. His hands grip my thighs as he pulls himself up to my center. I feel his breath against me first, a rush of warm air causing the tension in my stomach to jump.

He presses a delicate kiss to my clit, teasing the sensitive bud, and then licks a stripe up my center. I moan and squirm again. His lips smile against my core as he pulls himself closer and thrusts his tongue inside me.

A loud guttural moan escapes my lips as he begins to feast between my thighs. I desperately grasp the edge of the canvas to keep my hands from grabbing him as he curls his tongue inside me. I could almost come from that alone, all the tension from his teasing building into a pit of pleasure in my core. I can’t control the way my body thrashes against the canvas as he moves his tongue to flick against my clit.

“God, Joel,” I moan. He picks up his speed, eating me as though it’s his last meal on earth. I’m already so close to the edge when he moves one hand from my thigh to press two fingers inside me.

I scream as he thrusts them in and out, my grip on the canvas tightening. I squeeze my eyes shut as the pressure builds. He crooks his fingers so they press against the sensitive part inside me. The rush of sensitivity as he does so is what causes me to break my resolve. Without thinking, my hands release the canvas and bury themselves in his hair.

Joel immediately pulls away, tutting his tongue as he crawls back to his knees. I whine again and attempt to pull him back to me as I squirm.

“Please, I’m sorry. Please, don’t stop,” I beg. Tears escape my eyes while I squeeze my thighs again, so desperate for the release that just barely escaped me.

“Oh princess, you make this so hard.” Joel says. He reaches a thumb to my cheek to wipe the tears away. “One more chance sweet girl, roll over.”

I look at him questioningly, but I’m too far gone to argue. I roll onto my hands and knees, the paint causing me to slide a bit on the canvas. He leans back and watches as I get myself ready for whatever he has planned next. I hear him shuffle behind me, but I can no longer see what he is doing.

When I’ve stopped moving his hand moves up my leg, gripping my ass for a moment before pulling away. I gasp when I feel his hands return with a sharp smack to my ass. Then he pulls my cheeks apart and moves forward.

He must have taken off his boxers when I turned around because I can feel his bare length push against my dripping folds. I bite my lip as he slides it against my center.

“You want this baby?” I nod, biting my lip so hard I can taste the blood filling my mouth. He moans as he presses himself forward, filling me once again.

I stay completely still while he pushes into me, focusing on the burning stretch until I feel his hips flush with my ass. I keep my hands rooted on the canvas as he pulls back again, but when he thrusts in harder than before I slide and collapse on my stomach. Joel goes down with me.

His chest is pressed against my back, his hands keeping mine pressed against the slippery canvas as he pulls back and thrusts into me again. We moan in unison as he continues his thrusts. My body sides across the canvas with each one and his slides against mine.

The whole thing is messy and slippery, a combination of sweat and paint with loud moans echoing down the halls. He kisses my neck, leaving marks on the skin, as my climax begins to build again. My walls clench around him, signaling how close I am. He thrusts harder, his fingers intertwined with mine as he slides my body up and down.

I’m staring out at the pink and purple sky through the window when orgasm crashes over me. My walls flutter around Joel as I scream. His low moans rumbling through his chest while he continues to thrust into me. When I come down he pulls out and directs me to get up.

He lays down on his back, moving me to climb on top of him. I position my knees on either side of his hips and watch his face twist in pleasure as I sink down on his length. The both of us are covered in paint now, a smattering of colors bleeding together on his chest as he grips my hips.

I throw my head back as I bounce in his lap. He feels so good at this angle. I can feel every vein and ridge of his cock as I slowly rise and lower my body onto him. It’s my turn to tease now.

I try to keep my pace slow, to torture him just a little bit, but it becomes difficult when I feel the pleasure bubbling up inside me again. I can see in his eyes he can tell I’m close again.

His hands move up to squeeze my breasts as I ride him. I feel his fingers pinching my paint covered nipples and moan. I’m not going to last long. He starts to thrust up as well, meeting me halfway as my hips start to lose momentum. My hands press against the canvas as I attempt to keep my pace with my climax looming over me.

“It’s okay sweet girl, come here,” he says. I lower my chest into his and let him take over. He thrusts hard into me a couple of times before I shudder again. “That’s right, let go. Come on.”

I clench around him one more time before letting go completely. He swallows my moans, kissing me deeply while he continues his thrusts until he can’t any longer.

“God, I’m gonna-“ he thrusts again and then stills. “Get up, you gotta-“

Joel pulls me off of him quickly. I climb down his body to take his pulsing member in my mouth. I swirl my tongue around the head, and that’s all he needs to release his load into my mouth with a deep moan. His hips twitch as he lets go, spilling into my mouth. When he finishes I sit up and swallow his load.

“Fuck,” he groans. I smile back at him. He carefully stands up, doing his best not to slip on the canvas.

We both stand back and look at what we created. It’s a mess of color, still wet with no clear reasoning behind any of it. There are places where the colors blend so much that they’ve become a muddled brown or gray. In other areas bright shades of color shine through virtually untouched.

“Damn, I really thought I did something there,” Joel says with his hands on his hips. “Kinda just looks like a mess though.”

I lean forward and kiss a patch of skin on his shoulder untouched by the paint.

“I don’t know, I kinda like it.” I say. He wraps his arms around me and pulls me close.

“Well, you’re the artist,” he says before pressing a kiss to my hair.

We abandon the idea of a movie completely, choosing instead to bathe together so we can wash the paint off our skin. Joel’s hands are gentle as they wash my body, the colorful water pooling at our feet. He let the water run cold against his back as he pushed his fingers inside me again, slowly working me up until my body spasms again.

The rest of the night we stayed in bed, talking and fucking until we fell asleep.

Read more on a03: Always an Angel, Never a God

[canmom]

the adventure of canmom at weird weekend (part 1)

is this 'adventure of' joke getting old? like I've already done the 'translate into scots gaelic' variant. it's not exactly an adventure if it's a half hour bike ride is it? ah fuckit

This weekend was the Weird Weekend film festival in Glasgow! it's the tiny kind of film festival with one screen and folding chairs - they did get their hands on a real beast of a projector mind you...

Look at that concentrated beam of pure film. Kind of awesome to actually see a lightfield intense enough to scatter off random bits of dust in the air honestly.

This is apparently the fourth time this festival has run - though as is often the case I'm terribly out of the loop and only heard about it when @birdfriender told me it was on lol. It's also only my third time going to a film festival (the previous times both being Annecy, a very different kind of festival). It was a great time: the organisers have excellent taste and there's a lot of deep cuts, and made some good friends among the attendees.

On Friday night I showed up for the opening evening of interactive film - this included a short film/video essay commissioned for the festival based on of all things the Goncharov meme (seriously...), followed by a brief history of interactive film including the amusingly ill-fated venture of a certain former Microsoft guy called Bob something (I really should have written this down), and then someone called Puke ("everyone’s favourite genderfluid body fluid") came out dressed like this to oversee the actual event...

...and we watched of all things Final Destination 3 with the DVD feature that lets you switch in alternate scenes at various points (mostly death scenes). This was actually a pretty good time since it was my first time seeing a Final Destination film, and there was a good energy in the audience (although it seemed like the film always picked the opposite of what we voted for - not sure if that's a thematic point or programming error lol), but I'm glad the rest of the festival was more obscure stuff.

On Saturday, the festival proper began! I am reminded of a certain line in Exordia, in which the alien Ssrin gives her assessment of humanity, opening with "You’re a species of gangly distance runners, adapted to sweat and throw stuff. You like watching each other fuck." And indeed, there were few films this weekend that did not offer an opportunity to watch someone fuck. That's art for ya babey.

Looking back the clear highlight was Louise Weard's film Castration Movie I: Traps, but more on that anon - let's start at the beginning. I ended up catching all but one of the films over the course of the weekend and there was maybe only one I'd call an outright miss, so great going in all.

On Saturday we opened with a pair of Hungarian films directed by György Révész, about an incredibly up himself intellectual-in-exile named Dr. János Bátky - the self insert of author Antal Szerb. the first film, The Loves of a Dilettante, sees Bátky going through a series of affairs with women around him - in each case abruptly ending the relationship because it doesn't conform to his specific fantasy. The reasons become increasingly absurd: at first Bátky wishes instead that his partner is a certain Countess, but when he chances to meet the lady herself, he refuses to believe she is who she says she is; at last another woman at the library turns out to be the secret admirer who has been sending Bátky gifts in the post, and he cannot stand to be pursued instead of the manipulative pursuer he fancied himself to be, and spurns her as well.

Bátky is very much the butt of the joke in this film, and the ending sees everyone pretty much done with his bullshit; at the same time, he is an entertaining character, with a nonstop patter full of literary allusions, bizarre tangents and dubious observations. Not so charming that I can quite see why all these women are throwing themselves at him, but that's the conceit of the film I suppose! The actor playing him, Iván Darvas does a splendid job of making this sideburned wanker come across as interesting enough to carry a film.

The second Bátky film, The Pendragon Legend was a major tonal departure from the first - and also featured a different cast, despite including a number of the same characters. (Funnily enough Iván Darvas returns, but as a different character.) This time, rather than a study of Bátky's foibles, we have a complicated conspiracy at a stately home in wales, tying in with biological experiments, immortal sorcerors and the Rosicrucians, assassination plots, affairs; the works. It ends up a lot of fun, although the sheer number of characters made it a little hard to keep track of everything. Here, Bátky is pulled in as almost an observer of all the shit going down, and comes across a lot more sympathetic as a result.

All in all, a pretty fascinating pair of films and window into Hungarian cinema. With both these films set in London and Wales but voiced entirely in Hungarian, it seems to present an amusing alternate universe in which Hungary is the language of the UK, but nobody knows where Hungary is. It's a very old-school 'from outside' view of the UK, full of tea-sipping aristocrats and walks in the park and intellectual conversations in a library - it's quite funny to me. I haven't seen a ton of Hungarian film (mostly animation), but everything I've seen has been fascinating, and terribly literary.

A whole lot of the films in this festival were restorations of various out of print films, and that includes to the next one, Treasure Island directed by Scott King. This film has absolutely nothing to do with Stephenson's book, instead referring to the island near San Francisco where mail was processed during the second world war.

The basis of the story is the historical Operation Mincemeat, in which the British constructed a false identity for a corpse and planted it to mislead the Nazis; here the story is transplanted to the American invasion of Japan, but the focus is hardly wartime intrigue, instead the psychosexual inner lives of the two Americans who are involved in constructing the fake identity for the corpse. One of them secretly has two wives, one a white civilian woman and the other a Japanese woman who works in translation for the military; the other habitually invites other men for group sex with him and his wife and has a whole lot of hangups about how he is not gay, and that corpse is not at all sexy thank you.

As the film progresses, both of them are increasingly struck by visions of the dead man talking to them and the line between 'reality' and fantasy gets blurrier. It's a very well crafted and engaging film; shot in black and white in 1999, it aimed to challenge the rather sanitised and straightforwardly heroic picture of the 'Greatest Generation' who fought the war, presenting a more 'warts and all' look with the sexuality and racism and so forth in full view. I found it very effective! And it was cool to have the director there, a bearded American guy who spoke very confidently about his intentions for the film - I got to ask a question about how he kept all the fantasy and more literal elements straight while scripting the film.

(Do you find that when you get a Q&A session like this, you really want to ask a good question? Because I do. It's very silly. But like if I am going to hold the mic and get the spotlight on me... sure I don't want to waste peoples' time, but also I kinda want to come off well lmao. If I can get people to go 'ooh that's a good question' I feel like I've won audience Q&A, a real thing that is reasonable to want.)

In the afternoon we got a massive block of trans films old and new. We opened with Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucubers featuring Holly Woodlawn; Jaye Hudson of the TGirlsOnFilm Instagram account (which I was not previously familiar with) gave an introduction, telling the story of how Woodlawn came into the orbit of Warhol's 'Factory', and reading out some funny anecdotes about her experience on set. As Jaye talked about it, at that point in the 70s, trans girls were kind of the flavour of the month and we appeared in a bunch of films at the time, of which this was one.

The film sees a girl called Eve Harrington moving to New York in pursuit of the dream of becoming an actress; there she meets a series of weirdos from taxi-driving nuns to 'Mary Poppins', the drag empress of a kind of roommate finding service who's always trailed by worshipful boys. Most of the film sees Eve trying to find an apartment and a boyfriend, and running into various 70s archetypes along the way: a werewolf (also played by Woodlawn in boy mode), political lesbians, a plant-obsessed hippy, and finally a taciturn amnesiac Russian woman and her brother, a little person in a cowboy outfit who does pro wrestling. It's an intriguing slice of the 70s and of New York in particular.

Apparently this film has long been out of print and only narrowly evaded being lost media, so it's pretty sick to see. (And honestly despite the long cultural shadow they cast, I don't actually know that much about the girls around Warhol's 'Factory', so I was glad to get a look in.)

Next up we had 'An Untitled and Perfectly-Legal Coming-of-Age Clown Parody Film' - not hard to figure out what film this is (The People's Joker), especially with the still and trailer right there, but while the courts in the US seem to have come down on recognising it as a valid Fair Use defence, the legal status is still a bit up in the air in the UK.

This one got a lot of buzz for thumbing its nose at Warner Bros.' copyright empire - and of course being part of a recent wave of trans girl directed independent films such as I Saw The TV Glow. It's a trans girl coming of age story built around the Batman milieu, and clearly by people with a pretty thorough knowledge of Batman's cinematic history and DC universe deep cuts (the final act involves a musical number with Mx. Mxyzptlk, played as a puppet, which I'm sure means something if you read the comics).

It's largely shot on greenscreen, with all kinds of mixed media and animation segments - deliberately going for a grungy, chaotic look where it doesn't try to match lighting and animation styles (there's a whole bunch of indepedent animators contributing brief segments here, much as in Barber Westchester). The story concerns Joker the Harlequin, a trans girl who finally moves away from her controlling mother after being drugged with 'Smylex' for most of her life; now in Gotham she can transition, have a dodgy relationship with a trans guy (who is also a version of the Joker, and - spoilers - a former Robin), and build an 'anti-comedy' club with most of the usual Batman villains before going to confront the cultish institution which controls all legal comedy in post-'cyber war' America.

The film's strongest aspect is, fittingly, jokes - throwaway lines about the casually dystopian setting ('drag was outlawed after the explosion at RuPaul's fracking ranch' got a big laugh); a running joke of namedropping cancelled comedians with 'before the unpleasantness, of course' 'of course'; the playful riffs on past Batman films. The core story, though, is a fairly by-the-numbers queer/trans coming of age about self-acceptance, parental mistreatment and finding community, and a bit of a satire on SNL which is perhaps more specific to the director's history - I get the purpose of this kind of narrative and I certainly needed it at a time, and wrote similar stories myself, but it's a kind of story I'm kind of increasingly tired of hearing. I don't mean to say it's bad for that - just it doesn't resonate the way it might have ten years ago.

Honestly, I think trying to make a 'trans movie' kind of paints you into a formulaic corner. A corner very deftly avoided by the next movie, Louise Weard's Castration Movie Part I: Traps. This was the theatrical debut of this movie, though it's been available to download on Weard's gumroad for some time.

Louise Weard made herself kind of notorious for her previous movie, ten years ago, Computer Hearts, but even more so for her castration scene supercut at the Fantastic Fest '100 Best Kills' event a couple of years ago - something that has left her feeling a bit pigeonholed into castration scenes. Part of the joke about Castration Movie is then that it's eight hours (only half of that presently available) of trans girls being sad (emotional drama) without any castration until the very end of the movie. It doesn't even come up in the first half.

Technically, this is a four hour long movie - the first part of an eight hour long movie! - consisting largely of very long takes of naturalistic conversations shot on an incredibly grainy camera, now and then mixing that with musical montage and sex scenes. Something I'd raise an eyebrow at on description, and I want to kind of lead with that because like, no joke, this is legit one of the best movies I've seen; those four hours absolutely fly by. Incredibly sharp character writing, incredibly strong naturalistic acting - and unreasonably funny, just way too much.

The first hour or so focuses on Turner, an aspiring film director who spends his time working odd jobs at a film crew and increasingly torpedoing his relationship with his furry-artist girlfriend - someone he clearly isn't very compatible with and views with little actual interest, and his efforts to try and salvage the relationship ring false in ways he's clearly unable to see. But at every turn he doubles down and builds on his resentment and sense of emasculation, until he's picking fights with a living statue in the street and busting into his ex's room late at night.

Along the way we get all sorts of darkly funny conversations - Weard has an incredible eye for subtext and awkwardness, and can lend an ultimately very unsympathetic character like Turner enough sympathetic motivation to make his downward spiral completely human and convincing. It's both sad and terribly funny, perfectly pitched.

The punchline sees him posting to /r9k/ - and at this point we cut to a new story about 'Traps', the film's actual main character, a sex worker in Vancouver played by Weard herself, who is caught up with the drama of various partners and her own completely unresolved shit around transition to make her an entirely unsuitable would-be mentor figure to her friend Adeleine, who's kind of the deuteragonist of this act, cracking under the pressure of being the only one in the house with a shit but paying office job while her boyfriend gets top surgery.

The first act sets us up a frame to look at the second - Traps is a pretty messed up person, but in a deeply understandable way, and it serves in ways to show that the shit she's going through is not some unique trans girl thing but very much the torment of being a human. Desperate for connection and fucking it up, digging ourselves deeper while convinced it's the right thing to do. Along the way, we see her having various kinds of nasty sex, injecting DIY HRT, taking a bunch of cocaine, a trans guy getting top surgery, and various other fun things that I could never stream on twitch (or you bet I'd be planning a screening right away) - but it's also in many ways incredibly matter of fact about all this shit we get up to in a way that feels incredibly real.

It's a film that benefitted a lot from viewing with a largely transfem audience who would laugh at certain lines in the right spirit - I have no idea how this whole thing would come across if you aren't trans and don't know what 'agp' means (about the person saying it as much as anything) lmao. But if you are, it's like the film I never even knew I needed. It's way too real: from amusing setups like the polycule who has the access to DIY HRT trying to drag you into an argument about Dune before one of them wakes up and has a panic attack or daft conversations about boobs, to the pinpoint depiction of the kinds of neuroses we end up carrying from our shitty tenuous work, and of course the friction and fireworks of trying to care for each other when we're all burned out from carrying our own shit. Weard is fearless, and does seem to rather revel in being transgressive, but this is not edge for edge's sake.

And honestly this is 100% what 'trans film', if we can't help but have such a category, needs to be I think - a story heavily informed by the specific fucked up experiences of being trans but not like, About Being Trans(TM) in the way People's Joker was. Uncompromisingly honest (but with plenty of humour) about how we are, which is to say painfully human, rather than cheerfully painting the sort of freeing subculture we'd like to think we have.

I got to talk to Weard quite a bit on Sunday (ending up in a pub with her and a number of other mostly trans festivalgoers), and it turns out the slightly ludicrous length of the film wasn't even planned, with the original idea to edit it down to something like a standard 90 minutes - but when it became evident after shooting the first forty minutes or so that these long scenes were kind of absolute gold, someone (I forget who now) made the case that they shouldn't be cut down at all and to just go for the full behemoth. And honestly? They were fucking right. This did not feel like a four hour film, somehow. There were definitely other films this festival where my mind wandered and I kind of checked out a bit, but not this one.

As a chaser (ha ha) to that, we had Louise Weard's 'Unsee' segment, screened just once in the hour before the clocks change (which is in a certain sense lost to time, or at least that's the joke of this segment). An elaboration on the experience of presenting the castration scene supercut at the '100 Best Deaths' event, it dives into a reprise of that supercut before increasingly alternating with scenes of a kind of introspective monologue on how people reacted to that event and how far Louise herself started to end up feeling like the butt of the joke (even as random cis women accused her of being transphobic lmao).

As the video progresses it segues into an increasingly ridiculous sequence where two of Weard's friends step in (as substitute Louise Weards) reading out her essay of Lacanian film analysis on castration scenes in movies, while Weard (behind the camera) gives them directions to frame the shot to better show her cis ex's boobs. In between, more castration scenes! So many, most of them unfamiliar to me (funny moment when I finally recognised one and my brain was like hey! that's Sálo! and I found myself turning to face Violet with an excited grin before my brain caught up with that)

Among other things, the narration talks about the whole arc being a transgressive tgirl filmmaker who frequently faced some rather ridiculous accusations of being a transphobe or nazi troll (by TV Glow's Jane Schoenbrun, although it seems they have since made up), all in a time when it seems like a lot of her contemporaries in the transgressive film scene actually do seem to end up going nazi; the trouble of getting pigeonholed as the castration person, and so on - but also kind of playing with like oh, fifteen more castration scenes, that's what you want right? So many swerves, and the supercut was in fact very funny (I wonder if I find it easy to laugh instead of wincing since I actually have been castrated lmao), ending in a scene which is constructed to suggest Louise actually cut her balls off for the bit - though since she showed the prop penis earlier it was pretty clear that she didn't. (Yet..?)

It's a really clever bit and superbly entertaining bit of filmmaking, all told. I'm a full Louise Weard convert at this point, can't wait for castration movie part ii.

This post has gotten pretty long now, so I'll write up Sunday tomorrow. Do go watch Castration Movie tho, it's worth your time.

[adarkrainbow]

When I was a kid, I had the DVD of Disney's Little Mermaid and of course my favorite character was Ursula the Sea-Witch. One can say that she was the only reason I watched this movie as I really didn't care about the other characters.

And of course a part of this was due to her insanely cool design. As a kid I always had a thing for "octopus-people", mostly due to the best villains of my childhood's cartoons being tentacled hybrids - from Poseidon's interpretation by "Mission Odyssey" to Bai Tza the Water Demon from "Jackie Chan Adventures". (There was also this one episode of "Moby Dick and the secret of Mü" which had a girl that turned into a deadly octopus because of some curse? I need to rewatch this)

(I also thing these two cartoon series might have done something for me being into large-shouldered black-haired guys... Anyway)

But the best part of having the DVD was one of the bonuses. Because one of the bonuses was a full gallery of the dozens of unused concept art for Ursula, and this was WILD. Like seriously: before they settled on her iconic design, the creative team tried not only all sorts of body shapes and color palettes, but especially tons of different sea creatures to see which one would render the best. And let me tell you, this can give everybody inspiration for their own take on the Little Mermaid's Sea-Witch. Just look at some of them, they're crazy:

[deeneedsaname]

Megamind Sequel, animation, and the apparently-forgotten era of CGI shows

Alright guys, buckle up, it’s time to talk about Megamind and the sequel/show!

Let’s start with the basics: two new additions to the Megamind world are coming out: a tv show called “Megamind Rules!”, and a sequel movie, Megamind Vs the Doom Syndicate. Obviously, the first thing everyone noticed was the animation quality lacking in comparison to the first movie. Then, people quickly reacted either agreeing or complaining that people were complaining, etc.

Yes. The animation is not as good as the movie, or as good as what people have come to expect from CGI nowadays. This is NOT the fault of the animators, obviously!

But I think we can all temper our reactions by remembering a few key points!

This sequel is not the grand ‘Megamind 2’ people have been dreaming of. Will Ferrell is not voicing Megamind and the animation looks funky, I know. Therefore, we can’t think of this as a movie going to theaters, but a sort of direct-to-tv/direct-to-dvd sequel. Think Cinderella 2, Ice Age Buck Wild, Aladdin 2: The Return of Jafar, etc!

To put the expectations of the Megamind 2 of our dreams on this movie and series is unfair to it. This is the equivalent of a direct-to-DVD disney sequel that you didn’t hear about until I years later and were like ‘wait, there’s a Tarzan 2???’ in the middle of a drug store (that was a shocking day.) Enjoy it for what it is!!

2. The modern CGI animation consumer has been spoiled rotten. Yes, that includes lots of animation enthusiasts! Back in the day, particularly in the 2010s, ‘poorly’ animated TV shows based on a popular movie were pretty common, ESPECIALLY for dreamworks! Meet some of the examples:

Kung-Fu Panda, Legends of Awesomeness

Aliens Versus Monsters

Penguins of Madagascar

This is NOT a knock on those shows, especially on their quality. Personally, I think Penguins of Madagascar had great animation quality, especially in the later seasons. CGI animation for television is a different beast and doesn’t have the same budget as a movie. (Also, Penguins Of Madagascar show was fantastic, 10/10, no notes, INCREDIBLE music changed lives etc etc.)

Nowadays, CGI animated shows have animation quality comparable to movies, including some Dreamworks ones, such as Kung Fu Panda show Paws of Destiny, or Cars on the Road, the really fun cars short series!

3. The good points!! There is a lot to like about this! The Doom Syndicate is actually pretty cool, as they were first mentioned in I believe the art book, a video game, and an original draft of a sequel film (don’t quote me on that)

Not only that, but ROXANNE IS STILL THERE!! This may seem small, but it’s been common in the past for female love interests to be thrown away and replaced, often because a voice actress couldn’t come back (that’s part of why I loved Puss in Boots 2 so much: Kitty Softpaws had her same voice actress and was still an integral part of the plot just like the first movie) Roxanne still being part of the cast and still being with Megamind is not something to take for granted.

4. Is it disappointing that the long-awaited sequel isn’t a full-blown theatrical release? Yes. Is it disappointing that the voices aren’t returning? Also yes. However…

TL;DR - Megamind 2 and the show should be taken for what they are: a 2010s style tv series and a direct to dvd sequel respectively, this is NOT the fault of any animator, and is not necessarily indicative of quality of writing. Enjoy it for what it is!

[syndrossi]

Just re-reading some older chapters of Resonant. Your Alicent POV scene remains a work of art; Daemon's heartbreak when Viserys is being a jerk remains the absolute worst. Ugh, my emotions!

Chapter 22, my beloved! I really need to go back and do some older chapter dvd commentary sometime. Maybe I'll start at ch1 when I have some time and work my way up. 😅

It remains the saddest of the chapters, I think, even taking into account ch28! It also encapsulates a lot of what I really love about narratives where the main character(s) are not the ultimate authority: the helplessness, the knowledge that someone else can take something from you or force something of you and you have no recourse. It's a type of circumstance I find myself drawn to writing a lot. It's not that "main character is the authority" is boring, but it comes with a different set of emotional challenges (am I doing the right thing, heart vs duty, the burden of command, etc).

I suspect that's partly why I was drawn to keeping Baelon alive in Regnal to remain that authority figure for Daemon. And it makes Restoration AU a fun little departure, since Daemon and co will be attempting to reclaim power, and someone's gotta rule, so that'll be Daemon.

Back to ch22, though! Although figuring out Alicent's headspace to write her POV was one of the more fascinating exercises I've done, my favorite scenes to write are almost always Daemon and Viserys because of how messy they are. Viserys having to be actively deceptive/evasive but not realizing how his commands are being interpreted, even though it's a very valid read ffs Viserys. And, like, the sheer terror of losing the twins after just gaining them, while still struggling to come to terms with how much time he's already lost with them, and all the ways that Viserys has stolen family/connection from Daemon in banishing him.

Imagine if the candle had unloaded its horrifying visions on Daemon after this chapter. I'm pretty sure it would have gotten what it wanted much more easily.

Also you prompted me to reread and realize that I need to change Ser Willis to Ser Steffon in that chapter, because I thought Steffon was the lax Kingsguard and so I used him in 30, but I was mistaken! Oops!