#i got an insane amount of nostalgia from this and also i love editing so in conclusion | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

baekhvuns · 1 year ago

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Baeksy I was out in the wilderness, basically offline, what did I come back to...

Wait, you said your hair was growing in a lighter shade, Barbie?! :O Is your sick curse gone?

Why did Atletico buy everyone off, STAND UP, KOREA! But it's cool they followed Minho on Insta... Real it could've been you though

People joke that the truck men going to SM should move in at this point, I wonder what the staff is thinking everytime they get to work and hear "5 TRUCKS TO SM BUILDING" probably "ah, shit here we go again"

I spoke about the ads on MVs thing with my friends, SM loves to promote and milk Dream, they're definitely the fave child, but THE FUCK. I was shocked by the amount of ads KQ bought, that's why they're the monster of capitalism. Meanwhile Exo, WayV, Taeyong got no ads from SM, just fan projects 🤡 I think it's alright until ads are more than 50% 😬

https://twitter.com/ohsenh/status/1683849629966929924?t=Rj_ydl1JWYrBLxCj28Hi9Q&s=19

EXO STAND UP PLEASE. This is so hsjahdhajshsjahagah I mean I can't blame them, but also.... kinda 🤨 https://twitter.com/idoIkjm/status/1683596731563524096?t=_Cza8huyrQN8M5wxj8Oe4w&s=19

I thought it said RIZZ 🙈 https://twitter.com/kchartsmaster/status/1685819714658787328?t=q4mgjw6KF62q4ATVd7jhig&s=19 yeah rise then realize SM is a fucking shitty company that wants to sabotage you, but hey no minors!

Changbin was living his best life kicking that ball though, got Atletico cheesing at him lmao

NOW LEE TAEMIN AT WATERBOMB THE SET LIST WENT CRAAAAZYYYY https://twitter.com/pawstaem/status/1685609669178601472?t=-ZTp_yPe42nJTi7IPHFvGQ&s=19 and performing at a night club, but the club's manager only hired him to attract women??? 🤨🤨🤨🤨

Omg WayV's Domino enthusiast, yes, actually WayV club songs are soooooo gooood too! Most stellar unit when it comes to discography, hoping for that comeback... Naaaaaaaurrrr https://twitter.com/smoldejuns/status/1685298189132578816?t=JhMzaeG9l1tAGrg5iOQg7A&s=19 it's not bad luck, it's SM's evil intentions

Speaking of Ay-Yo, remember this monstrosity https://twitter.com/suhnified/status/1685549198299873280?t=el1phvesuqCFKsOVxARtzg&s=19 - $5 and no dream. Anyways, Summertime nostalgia that's it yes, I've been listening to a lot of Apink actually! Hard is definitely AOTY, I'd put Skz there too, even though I wasn't sure at first. Exist is definitely up there. I loved Ive's album too! Tbh I don't feel like I've heard a lot of albums so far...

Forever 1 anniversary 😭😭😭😭 SNSD I need you back, or at least release some solos.

KQ won't pull an R&B comeback, because Ateez are in their rebel era, bringing the noize etc... but a girl can dream :/ but if the third installment in the Movement series is also the same, they're gonna lose me I'm afraid. Never thought I'd say that 😶

These Junhui and Winwin edits are killing me agshsjahhsjahsjsjaa https://twitter.com/wayvjowo/status/1683820983336210432?t=R4iG2RcTNJnNohjGWRGbcA&s=19

Like 😭 https://twitter.com/minghaocheol_/status/1683716733939617793?t=sSnHbUKAS9rUwEN6zmzmkQ&s=19

Pause.... https://twitter.com/wonubliss/status/1684464557014814721?t=hubjawcOng7p8VrCBPIt0g&s=19 *Breakfast by NCT 127 playing in the distance*

Ok, but re: actor Taeyong in one of these cliche drama scenarios: a uni student who wears all black and is a loner, everyone's like "he's sketchy and weird!"or an office nerd who isn't treated seriously by anyone and people are like "ewww, look at him and his Nintendo" (ok this is basically the plot of Wallflower 😅) - totally ignoring the fact HE LOOKS LIKE THAT and his face card is insane

(And sorry Baeksy, but this appeared on my timeline, what a coincidence huh.....🏃🏼‍♀️https://twitter.com/taeyongpictures/status/1683865890532610049?t=A9ng2mZgCEOK1u9CqVvZqQ&s=19)

I just know I would start smoking again after seeing 127 live. Me outside the venue chainsmoking: 🚬🚬🚬🚬

Saw a tweet that said "girl dinner but it's just a man's nose" - us about you know whose nose 🤭

This is where my friend saw Jamal filming 👁👁 https://twitter.com/jaesweats/status/1680891372558237696?t=ukTXlzfmwgturEnc6YJzFQ&s=19 btw

I Watched Barbenheimer, literally had the outfit change too even though I wasn't planning on doing it, but I committed to the Barbie fit and got so cold. 😔 I quickly went home (I live next to the cinema) to change, lmao. I liked both movies, obviously Barbie was more interesting and fuuuuun and surpingsly profound, Oppenheimer was too long for such a serious and gut-wrenching movie tbh, but good acting and visual effects. Did you get to see Barbie?

Btw, happy belated Zfp1 anniversary to my fellow enthusiasts, that album was IT, idc what anyone says!

The nip censorship?! ahgshahshajshshaaga, ok but this photo is GORGEOUS!!!! https://twitter.com/1024loops/status/1685590979238313985?t=FRh8iOtDvc5ut1zwI2WDvg&s=19 - I've only just realised it was a zipper..... 🙃 - DV 💖

hello!!!

Baeksy I was out in the wilderness, basically offline, what did I come back to.../// Wait, you said your hair was growing in a lighter shade, Barbie?! :O Is your sick curse gone?

hello!!!! hOW WAS THE WILDERNESS,, u came back to aliens existing, being in possession of the us govt to sm new bg to lizzo lawsuit 😭😭 yes it is!! it’s gotten a shade lighter and ive been popping blond hairs in random spots 😭😭 my dad’s hair just went all blond bfwndjwk IT IS NOT ITS ACTUALLY STILL HERE IM COUGHING AS I TYPE! to welcome u back accept this guy sorry but what the fuck is going thru his head 😭😭

Why did Atletico buy everyone off, STAND UP, KOREA! But it's cool they followed Minho on Insta... Real it could've been you though /// People joke that the truck men going to SM should move in at this point, I wonder what the staff is thinking everytime they get to work and hear "5 TRUCKS TO SM BUILDING" probably "ah, shit here we go again"

NO BC WHEN I GOT THAT ATZ NOTIF THE WAY I RAN AND MY EYES WENT SO WIDE WHEN I SAW THE ATHLETICO SIGN CRYING glad they weren’t at real 😵‍💫 STAND UP KOREA !!!!! LMFAOOOO U KNOW RIYAL WOULD NEVER and seeing that jisoo x haaland 😭😭😭 CRYING THE FLOWER DANCE and buffon retiring 😀 & mbappe saga 😬 and dembele going to psg to book hospital beds w njr every 5 games 😮‍💨

NO CAUSE I WANNA BE THAT TRUCK PERSON IN KR SO BAD THE $$$ THEYRE GETTING IS UP THERE

THIS 1000% it’s the way even after promo the real ones come on top 🤚🏻 like in the end, they are the actual popular ones according to those stats,,, yEAAAHH those kq ads def got them from that nft sponsor 😭😭😭 no bc for how long can fans just be taking care of cb’s like that??? i genuinely pray they all leave + ik taeyeon’s mad tired of the shit sm keeps doing her comeback delay and the concert things yeah i want this company perished

https://twitter.com/ohsenh/status/1683849629966929924?t=Rj_ydl1JWYrBLxCj28Hi9Q&s=19 /// EXO STAND UP PLEASE. This is so hsjahdhajshsjahagah I mean I can't blame them, but also.... kinda 🤨 https://twitter.com/idoIkjm/status/1683596731563524096?t=_Cza8huyrQN8M5wxj8Oe4w&s=19

PLS I SAW THAT THE WAY THEY DONT EVEN KNOW THE SONGS ON THE RECENT ALBUM???? WHAT?? EXO WAKE UP!!! like atp i gotta print lyrics to songs and bring to the concert bc ain’t no way they don’t rmr their most popular songs 😭😭😭 no bc that twt is factual,,,, maybe we need a live where they go thru all their songs singing 🤷🏻‍♀️ just a advice

CRYING BC WE WILL CALL THEM RIZZ do u think the fandom name is rizzlers 😭😭😭 after these contract negotiations i hope the new bg signed it by reading everything like we know they’re trapped but don’t dig into it

TAEMIN AT A FOOTBALL EVENT GOT ME HOLLERING LIKE???? Good for him and the football fans were blessed by Jesus himself, but THOSE UNGRATEFUL MEN DIDN'T DESERVE TO WITNESS IT. He got Minho a pass awwww <3 /// Changbin was living his best life kicking that ball though, got Atletico cheesing at him lmao

AND IN THAT SKIRT AND CROP TOP ??????) HOLLER IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT I AM WHISTLING AT HIM THAT IS MY MAN! MY MAN! taesus blessed us irl like that like woah,, anon imagine he does heaven at his live concert and the beat drop just goes crazy (if he goes to have concerts outside of jp and kr that is) HE DEF GOT MINHO PASS AND THE FANCAM OF HIS 😭😭😭😭 atletico rly out here doing everything???? kpop x la liga would actually make me go crazy,,, bellingham and wooyoung in a room 😭😭

now imagine if he performed holy water— [TRAIN HITS] FBWKDHWKHDWK HES A WOMEN ATTRACTER THAT MANAGER KNEW WHAT HE WAS DOING OMG

that entire album is so stunning like that is sm supremacy (music wise) THEY REALLY ARE their discography is genuinely so diverse yet cohesive and absolutely mental,, NO PLS NO 😭😭😭😭 XAIO no literally the word bad luck is a synonym for sm ent

damn cause why it look like a low budget boss mv 😭😭 5$ AND A DREAM LMFAOOO DECORATIONS FROM PARTY CITY 😭😭😭 omg apink literally have not heard that name in a while ok anon mr chu i see u 🤚🏻 hard supremacy actually gonna put exist there bc what the fuck did they put into love fool,, sweet misery is genius >>> did not end up listening to skz’s album 😭😭 AH UR RIGHT i also think the way there has been no full album drops like wHYS that concept disappearing???

Forever 1 anniversary 😭😭😭😭 SNSD I need you back, or at least release some solos. /// KQ won't pull an R&B comeback, because Ateez are in their rebel era, bringing the noize etc... but a girl can dream :/ but if the third installment in the Movement series is also the same, they're gonna lose me I'm afraid. Never thought I'd say that 😶

STOP BC OKAY I GET SNSD CAME BACK BUT WHAT ABOUT OH!GG??? WHERE ARE MY NUGUS ???? ,,,, kq can actually suck it, no r&b no nothing…oh wait u actually said something ive been thinking for a while idk i got a little idk and haven’t been able to shake it off but im on u w that one 🫡

These Junhui and Winwin edits are killing me agshsjahhsjahsjsjaa https://twitter.com/wayvjowo/status/1683820983336210432?t=R4iG2RcTNJnNohjGWRGbcA&s=19 /// Like 😭 https://twitter.com/minghaocheol_/status/1683716733939617793?t=sSnHbUKAS9rUwEN6zmzmkQ&s=19 /// Pause.... https://twitter.com/wonubliss/status/1684464557014814721?t=hubjawcOng7p8VrCBPIt0g&s=19 *Breakfast by NCT 127 playing in the distance*

 wAIT BC LET THEM CONTINUE IM VERY INTERESTED,, the day it went on twt and all hell broke loose imagine being junhui rn and getting trolled by svt repeatedly 😭😭

LMFAOOOO IMAGINE HIM IN THOSE SM DRAMA ERAS??? to the beautiful u but w taeyong 😭😭 NO BC I CAN SEE IT THEY NEED TO SEND HIM TO DRAMA SETS AND NOT THE BARRACKS speaking of barracks sehun’s going 😀 taeil and taeyong might leave this or next 😭😭 his face is brimmed with jaejoong’s genes like sm might hate jyj but if there’s no look alike of his in each of their groups that group don’t work

(And sorry Baeksy, but this appeared on my timeline, what a coincidence huh.....🏃🏼‍♀️https://twitter.com/taeyongpictures/status/1683865890532610049?t=A9ng2mZgCEOK1u9CqVvZqQ&s=19)

anon. it is 1 am right now.

I just know I would start smoking again after seeing 127 live. Me outside the venue chainsmoking: 🚬🚬🚬🚬 /// Saw a tweet that said "girl dinner but it's just a man's nose" - us about you know whose nose 🤭

LMFAOOOO FBWKHDKWHDKW no cuz they’d join u 😶 DO NOT EVEN GO THERE ANON FBWKFHWKDHKA NOT HIS NOSE DONT. NUH UH UH!!

This is where my friend saw Jamal filming 👁👁 https://twitter.com/jaesweats/status/1680891372558237696?t=ukTXlzfmwgturEnc6YJzFQ&s=19 btw

wait bc the vibes r so different than his character o he’s rly committing to that role fbmsdsm

did not watch them yet THERES NO THEATRES AVAILABLE 😭😭 anyway saw this and i dare say this is correct WAS IT GOOD??? i heard a lot of ppl cried watching barbie 😭😭 Oppenheimer anon, did u experience the jolt of when the thing explodes and it goes quiet and then bOOM happens??? saw some record it real time and they jolted from their seat,, heard there a scene where he recites the Gita while doing u know 😀 deets about the barbie fit rn 🔫

Also that shitty ass KQ app TokTcockq or whatever needs to be destroyed, I wanna watch Hwa's Animal Crossing live wtf, who gives a fuck about that app, I'm so mad... gatekeeping lives now 🔫🔫🔫🔫 /// Btw, happy belated Zfp1 anniversary to my fellow enthusiasts, that album was IT, idc what anyone says!

WAIT CAUSE UR RIGHT??? THERE HAVING LIVES ON THAT THING & WE HAVE NO IDEA ABT IT??? gate keeping lives and no translation like how do u ditch the thing that made ppl come to them??? we had SUBTITLES WHERE THEY GO?? zfp1 supremacy,, fever and thanxx supremacy like wow genuinely too 3 THAT ALBUM WAS IT!!! UR RIGHT FBENFBDN

oh..

sorry like i forgot hwa for this week bc this man took my attention what the fUCK

???

damn bro treating him like a puppy

WE WON! WE WON AGAINST THE EVIL (SM)

wait this list is actually fire??? the ferarri one got adam driver & hugh jackman in it??

not even a second into his career what

#✉️ : ask #dv 💖 anon

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hyunjilicious · 4 years ago

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a helping hand [henry cavill] - part 2

A/n: I’m sorry it took me so long. I don’t like how this part turned out, at all, but I rewrote it 3 times and I can’t even think about these scenes anymore without getting annoyed. I’m just happy it’s finished and that I can start working on part 3 (that is, if you like this one enough to want to keep reading lol)

Summary: After you post on onlyfans a video starring another man, Henry decides to take matters into his own hands. (cameo: Steve Rogers) KINKY 4k

Warnings: spanking, daddy kink, dirty talk, mentions of smut and masturbation (male), humiliation/degradation kink, groping, mentions of porn and filming pornographic material, stalker-ish/obsessed Henry. (also tumblr crashed when I first tried to upload this so maybe that a sign this sucks)

You can read part 1 here!

The sight brought down a storm upon Henry's mind. He stood there, mouth agape, watching the screen, unable to believe his eyes. It was one thing to post videos of yourself on the Internet, but to have someone else take part in them was too much. At least for Henry. Still smart and composed, he realised there wasn't anything he could do about it, but nevertheless, he was determined to not let this shit slide for much longer.

As much as he wanted to hunt down that man who dared put his hands on you, Henry gathered himself, took a deep breath and closed the onlyfans page. He was perfectly aware that just the right amount of you could get him to lose his sense of control and do things he'd later regret. Still, in desperate need to see you, he grabbed his phone, eyes scheming over your socials, only to see that the last time you had been active was 7 minutes ago. So, without much consideration, he started typing.

"You up?"

"Yep. Finishing up an essay. Coffee in 30??"

Oh, and how deeply that hurt him. "Of course" he sent you, and then checked again the post you made at 3am. '...I'll go to sleep right now, edit it for you when I wake up...'

You were lying? Why were you lying to him? It drove him insane. Henry felt like he couldn't sit down anymore, like he had no chance to catch his breath. He couldn't think straight, so he wasn't really to blame for what he did next.

Henry's fingers flew over the keyboard, accessing Facebook and logging into your account, desperate to see whether he could find out who the man in your video was. And it was as easy as it could've been, considering your last 5 conversations were with the girl friends he already knew about. But somewhere among them, he spotted an unfamiliar name - Steve R., and instantly clicked and opened the conversation. His blood started to boil when the multitude of emojis you sent reached his eyes, but he scrolled up, until he found the beginning of yesterday's conversation.

It was started by you, and with a request. You were blunt and went straight for it, asking him with just one message to be in the video with you. There was no trace of your relationship with him on the Internet, so Henry had no idea regarding the nature of yours and Steve's connection. Judging by the way you addressed him, he could easily assume the man was nothing more than a fuck buddy. Even though it angered him, Henry kept his calm and decided to go about this with care. It would only be a matter of time until he removed Steve from your life. But for now, he just had to keep digging for information.

Steve R.: "Exactly what do you need me to do, baby? Spank you? In front of the camera? Are you serious?"

"Yes, Steve. Come on!! I know we haven't seen each other in a while, but still... 😇 when it comes to these things, you know me better than anyone"

Henry scoffed. Who the fuck was this guy?

Steve R.: "I know, baby"

Steve R.: "What's in it for me?"

Smoke came out of Henry's ears, and the fact that you acted so sweet and innocent made him want to smash his keyboard.

"Whatever you want! Just do this for me!!! Please!!!! 🥺😊😋"

Steve R.: "Ofc I'll do it, sweetheart. I got you"

"Thank you thank you thank you 😘"

Steve R.: "I should be the one to thank you"

Steve R.: "Send me the location and I'll be over there asap"

After that, your address followed and then that was it. Determined to dig deeper, Henry started to scroll up again, wanting to find out as much as he could about this mysterious man. He didn't get a chance to lurk too much before this computer alerted him of a notification, the onlyfans tab glowing orange. His attention was instantly won, smiling devilishly as he checked the content.

Posted 30 seconds ago, was the new video. Ready to kick back and enjoy, Henry pressed the play button, ready to go at it with an open mind.

He reluctantly accepted the fact that there was another man in it with you, but he decided to enjoy it nevertheless. The video started, displaying Steve seated on the couch, thighs suggestively parted. He had a pair of black dress pants on, dangerously stretched over his massive thighs. A white, elegant shirt hugged his visibly sculpted torso, the top two buttons undone to show just a hint of chest hair. Quite a sight, but all Henry saw was trash. With his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a silver watch on his wrist and a pinky ring on, Steve patted his thigh, cueing your entrance.

When Henry saw you, he felt his breath reach a new, sudden level of difficulty. With the shortest of skirts barely managing to cover your ass and a mostly see-through shirt on your top half, you made your way to him in such an angelic way that Henry couldn't believe his eyes.

You looked like happiness personified, and it came in such a painful contraction to what you were about to do, that it twisted Henry's mind in such a perverse way, his cock nearly twitched just by seeing you.

When you were about to bend over Steve's thigh, he grabbed your chin and stopped you mid action, his lips slamming against your as his free hand lewdly caressed your ass. He flung the skirt over your hips, your flimsy underwear on full display.

Attentive to the events unfolding on the screen, Henry found his cock, teasingly rubbing it over the material of his pajama pants. His mouth watered when he felt the sensibility in his tip, actually believing this would be easier than he initially anticipated.

"Are you going to be Daddy's good little girl, or do I have to make this fucking hurt?" Steve asked and Henry almost threw up.

"Yes, Daddy. I'll be good" you mewled, wiggling your feet.

"Let's see" the man menacingly chuckled, releasing a sharp slap against your ass that made you yelp out in pain.

At this point, about 30 seconds in that was, Henry was already losing his mind. It was as if you took a trip inside his dreams and decided to play out his fantasies. The only problem was that you did it with another man. It was next to impossible for him to keep this going.

"Can you count?" Steve taunted, his hand traveling all over the back of your thighs, your exposed ass and between your legs.

"Yes, Daddy" you eagerly nodded and Henry almost threw up.

"I wouldn't be surprised if a dumb slut like you didn't know how to" Steve chuckled, "But it's ok, that's how we like our girls. Dumb and pretty"

"Thank you, Daddy"

Henry couldn't believe his eyes. He refused to accept the fact that a random man got to play with your innocence like that. You were his sweet little girl. And if until now he pushed through heroically, when literal yelps of pain started erupting from your lips as the blonde man slapped your ass hard enough to rock your whole frame, Henry's blood ran cold.

But no matter how hard the jealousy had hit him, the video was still pushing his limits of self control. It was still what he always wanted to see. When he reached inside his pants and grabbed his cock, a low grunt of early satisfaction left his lips. He once again found himself picturing you, willing to please him, but this time, he didn't get to go too far. The buzzing sound of his doorbell rang through his apartment, and he never stood up faster.

Cock still hard and completely visible through his pants, Henry slapped the pause button and minimized the browser, before springing to his feet and rushing to the door.

"Henry!" you exclaimed as soon as he came into view. He looked somehow tired, but it was easy to tell there was something else bothering him. "You didn't answer your phone" you pouted.

"Yeah, sorry" he shook his head, a few sweaty curls falling against his forehead. "I was busy with something. What's up?"

You raised your eyebrows and pointed to the door of your apartment, "You said you'd come over? Coffee? Remember?"

"Oh, shit, yeah" Henry cringed, rubbing his forehead. "I'll be over in 10 minutes, that ok?"

"Sure" you beamed, completely oblivious to the way he just tried to get rid of you. With utter nonchalance, you pushed your way past him and strolled into the kitchen.

"You wanna wait here?" he muttered.

"Yeah... Is that a problem? I can leave..."

"No, no" Henry eventually sighed and rushed over to you. He cupped your cheeks and kissed your forehead. "Wait here, I'll be right back"

And that was what you did. You silently sat down, grabbing a bag of chips you found laying around, and settled to wait. And maybe, a few seconds passed where nothing devious came to mind, but as time ticket itself away, boredom got to you. First you stood up, and padded to the hallway, looking around. There was almost nothing new over there, but it still felt so homey you absolutely loved to inspect every detail. The TV in the living room was turned off, a couple of pizza boxes on the floor and his DVD cases laying around - absolutely nothing interesting.

You sighed and plopped down on his couch, folding your legs under your body, ready to flip through the channels on TV until he'd decide to join you. Nothing seemed of interest, being bombarded with news and fishing programs. "Old man" you thought to yourself, before opening up the menu in search for something less depressing. A wave of nostalgia hit you when you came across a Spiderman marathon, and you were done for. Maybe one full episode passed until Henry walked out of the bathroom, but you were nowhere near ready to leave.

"Look what's playing!" you beamed, pointing to the screen. Henry raised his eyebrows in amusement, his shoulders shaking as he softly laughed at your unusual choice of entertainment.

"Are you serious? Cartoons?"

"Yes!" you scoffed, extending your arms and gesturing for him to join you. Although reluctant at first, Henry agreed to sit and watch the show with you, but not before brewing some coffee first.

When he returned from the kitchen, two steaming mugs in tow, you shuffled to the side and welcomed him on the couch. He brought you close against him, draping his arm around your body. With your head resting on his shoulder, you sipped your coffee, eyes glued to the TV. "You seriously never watched these as teen? You were 11 when it came out."

"I did" Henry laughed, rubbing his hand up and down your side, "I was in love with Felicia Hardy"

"MJ was so much better!" you shook your head disappointed, "You have no taste"

"No need for that" Henry threatened, his fingers exploring their way down your body. The way he trailed his hand across your hips and thighs made you squirm, smiling to yourself as you shuffled closer to him.

Henry was more than happy to reciprocate, kissing your forehead and squeezing you tighter.

And just like that, you didn't care about Spiderman anymore. You flung your leg over Henry's lap, all but crawling on top of him. The episode was still playing in the background, but none of you was paying attention anymore. Henry wrapped his muscular arms around your frame, eliciting a soft moan from your lips as you pushed your hips down against his thigh. His hands traveled lower, exploring your body with delicate but greedy strokes.

As you let yourself get carried away with absolutely no worry in mind, Henry knew exactly what he was doing. And considering how easily you let your guard down, he had you right where he wanted.

When you hid your face in the crook of his neck, your nose rubbing across the slope of his collarbone, Henry's right hand found your ass. You froze for a second, but his gentle caress helped you relax again in an instant. With his lips against the top of your head, he allowed his fingers to sink into your flesh. Your whole frame stiffened as you gathered a handful of his hoodie into your fist.

"What's wrong?" Henry cooed, grabbing your chin, "You ok?"

"Yep" you whimpered, and then winced again as he squeezed your ass once more. "I'm good-" you lied, cupping the side of his neck into your palm as you crawled higher up his body, your lips right against his ear.

As weak as he was for you, Henry stood his ground. If you wanted to play this game, he'd do it, but he wouldn't let you win.

"Does this hurt?" he asked, roughly groping your ass.

Jumping slightly from the pain, you still managed to shake your head, blurting out another lie. "... no"

"What about this?" Henry teased, grinning widely as he shoved his hands inside your leggings, under your panties.

The urgency of his touch made your eyes open wide, your back arching as you tried to push yourself off of him.

"Does it hurt, darling?" he continued, keeping you in place with ease.

Defeated, you sighed and lowered your gaze, "A bit" you mumbled.

"Just a bit?"

"Henry-"

"Did he fuck you good?"

Your mouth fell open. "What- no, I didn't- we didn't do anything-"

"Didn’t do anything?" Henry grinned, his perfect teeth showing as he proudly pried information out of you.

"I just... fuck-"

Seeing no way out of this one, and eager to stop hiding, you pushed yourself back. Henry's hands left your body as you sat beside him, and he watched you curiously, patiently waiting for you to word your thoughts. "I just filmed a video for my page, that's all" you bowed your head.

"What kind of video?" Henry questioned.

His demeanour was so relaxed, he was right in his element, unlike you, who were riled up to the extreme. "A spanking video-" you cleared, awkwardly fidgeting with the hem of your shirt.

"Did he spank you good?"

His hand found your hips again, and you leaned into his touch, nodding your head yes as you were too embarrassed to actually word your answer.

"Then show me"

He was dominant and stern, and even if you wanted to, you felt like saying no wasn't an option. Henry didn't wait for your permission as he grabbed your waist and pulled you up to your knees, chuckling softly to himself when he saw you shyly smile down at him.

His fingers curled around the waistband of your leggings, forcefully pulling them down your thighs. "Come on" he urged you, softly guiding you to lay down across his lap, your ass barely covered by the pinkish and slightly unflattering underwear you had chosen for the day.

Henry's breathing picked up at the sight, and so did yours. You watched him over your shoulder, his fingers tracing over the bruises Steve left on your bum the night before.

"Henry-?" you whimpered, the anticipation building up in the pit of your stomach becoming too much to bear.

"Yes, darling?" he cooed, leaning down to the side to kiss your cheek. His stumble tickled your skin and you whimpered when his hand made its way between your legs.

You felt his fingers against your opening and involuntarily clenched your thighs around him, hiding your face in the cushions of below your head.

"Tell me" Henry pushed, teasing your folds and clit over your underwear.

"Nothing, I-" you cried, making him chuckle.

He loved giving you a taste of your own medicine. He straightened himself up and grabbed your ass into his hands, squeezing until you yelped out in pain. A soft laughter of approval escaped his throat as he bent down and pressed his lips to one of your cheeks, applying lingering kisses over each and every single bruise.

The way he took control of the situation and handled your body, turned you on to no end. For whatever reason, being exposed like that for him, waiting for any kind of judgement to leave his lips, you were getting more and more riled up by the second. You were done for. You did your best not to moan with need, but little did you know that was exactly what kept you from being thrown onto the floor and fucked into oblivion. Just one single sign was all you needed in order to break his self control, but you didn’t have it in you to do it.

But he didn’t say anything, instead just keeping you on your toes as he had his way. You were dripping through your underwear, and judging by the bulge in his pants that pushed up against your belly, you knew he was on the same page as you. But again, he didn’t allow things to go further. Everything about this moment pointed in the right direction - the teasing, the touching, you were all but whimpering in his lap, but he cut the moment short with a sharp slap against your ass before he helped you up. Henry acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened as he pulled your leggings back up, but this glare became colder when he found your eyes.

He bent down and spoke into your ear, "He could've done a better job"

Completely under his spell, you bit your lip and furrowed your eyebrows. "I don't think I would have been able to take any more"

"That's not what I said" Henry shook his head.

"Look at you being an expert" you teased, relishing in the fact that he seemed eager to keep things going.

"All I'm saying is that if you had asked someone else-" Henry laughed, stroking your cheek, "Things would have turned out much more different"

"Oh" you pouted, ready to tease him further. "Who should I have asked-"

Just when you started getting comfortable and confident enough to push things further, Henry's phone rang. "I don't have to take that" he shook his head when he heard you stopped talking.

"Just see who it is" you giggled, slapping his shoulder.

Before doing so, Henry grabbed your chin and kissed your forehead, his touch drawing you in like a magnet as you leaned into him when he pulled away. With a sigh, you eventually crawled off his lap and then your face fell with disappointment when Henry showed you the screen of his phone.

"Yeah?" he huffed after picking up, his boss being the last person he wished to talk to right now.

You watched him closely as he listened to whatever the man was saying, and almost whined out loud when Henry frowned annoyed.

"I'll call you back in 5, ok?" he asked and after a couple of seconds hung up.

"I'm so sorry-" Henry sighed, turning to you, "I gotta go take this, there's a problem with one of the radars, I need to go see if I can fix it remotely"

"Sure thing" you shook your head. "But please tell me you don't have plans tonight"

"I don't" Henry leaned towards you and again, kissed your forehead. As much as you loved the sweet gesture, it was now more than ever that you craved something else entirely.

"And please don't forget about me again" you giggled, grabbing his biceps and stopping him from leaving without a promise.

"I won't" he sighed, "I'm really sorry about that. I'll make it up to you"

"However I want?" you beamed and licked your lips.

"Absolutely" Henry smiled, sweetly embracing you before walking you to the door.

You had his word now, and you were planning on making it count. There was no way either you or Henry would act as if nothing had happened, and you couldn't wait.

Once alone and seated at his desk, Henry opened up the text editor associated with the code he wrote months ago. When his screen was flooded with errors and his chat popped up with three different messages asking for help from his colleagues, Henry all but yelled out loud in frustration. Not only did he wish to be with you, it was also Sunday, one of his days off. But he couldn't just text the pilot of the plane whose radar went berserk and tell him to wait. So he got to work, determined to get this done as soon as possible.

But unfortunately, that 'as soon as possible' turned into 3 hours of continuous work. He didn't even stand up to go to the bathroom until he made sure everything was on point. It was about 4pm when the program started running smoothly again, and seeing how he had a few more hours to waste until he had to see you, Henry decided to make the best of them, by getting a head start on his tasks for the following day.

Productivity flowed through his fingertips as he solved the first issue he had been assigned for the day to come, getting ready to start working on the second one when a call caught his attention. He didn't recognize the ring tone, and it only dawned on him that he was still logged into your facebook account a couple of seconds after it stopped ringing.

Still curious, Henry switched the tabs on his computer, noticing that the chat with Steve, which he left open hours ago, showed that there was an ongoing video call. His jaw fell. Henry tightened his hands into fists, fuming with anger. First as you for doing this, and then at himself for allowing you to believe this was an ok thing to do. He knew there was no way to eavesdrop on your conversation even if he had the password, but that didn't mean his curiosity died down. No, it only grew stronger.

He felt lost for a minute, but then he thought of something. On his dresser, right next to his winter gloves and under his favorite jogging hat, laid an extra set of keys. Henry remembered the day you gave them to him, saying something along the lines of 'I feel much safer knowing that if something were to happen, you could always get to me, Henry.' and then remembered how you stuffed them in his pocket, and kissed his chest before stepping back. Such different times.

There was no trace of hesitation inside his mind as he grabbed the keys and made his way out of his home. He passed the hallway in less than a second and pressed his ear to the door. It was perfectly quiet, and through the peephole, he couldn't see any light. You weren't in the kitchen or living room, so he felt confident enough. After putting his phone on vibrate, Henry ever so gently pushed the key inside, turning it inside the lock with the most meticulous movement his wrist could muster. The sound of the door knob being turned was so faint he barely even heard it, but his pulse skyrocketed when he heard the click that signaled the door was finally open.

With small, careful steps, he made his way inside. The entire apartment was dark and quiet as he made his way in, stopping just outside your bedroom as the relaxed, deep voice of a stranger became audible through the wall. “Trust me, sweetheart. Just relax, I got you. You’re all tense, I can see it from here. You know I have more experience with this than you do, just do as I say”

With one hand on the doorknob of your bedroom, Henry was ready to put an end to this whole charade. He knew he might regret it later, but he didn't care. The image of a so called friend, pushing you to do anything that you seemed to have clearly stated your discomfort about, flipped a switch inside his brain. There was no stopping him because no one, no one got to push you around like that. Not while he could do anything about it.

#henry cavill #henry cavill imagine #henry cavill x reader #henry cavill smut #henry cavill fics #august walker x reader #geralt of rivia x reader #walter marshall x reader #ahh #a helping hand

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letterboxd · 4 years ago

Photo

In Focus: The Mummy

Dominic Corry responds on behalf of Letterboxd to an impassioned plea to bump up the average rating of the 1999 version of The Mummy—and asks: where is the next great action adventure coming from?

We recently received the following email regarding the Stephen Sommers blockbuster The Mummy:

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to you on behalf of the nation, if not the entire globe, who frankly deserve better than this after months of suffering with the Covid pandemic.

I was recently made aware that the rating of The Mummy on your platform only stands at 3.3 stars out of five. … This, as I’m sure you’re aware, is simply unacceptable. The Mummy is, as a statement of fact, the greatest film ever made. It is simply fallacious that anyone should claim otherwise, or that the rating should fail to reflect this. This oversight cannot be allowed to stand.

I have my suspicions that this rating has been falsely allocated due to people with personal axes to grind against The Mummy, most likely other directors who are simply jealous that their own artistic oeuvres will never attain the zenith of perfection, nor indeed come close to approaching the quality or the cultural influence of The Mummy. There is, quite frankly, no other explanation. The Mummy is, objectively speaking, a five-star film (… I would argue that it in fact transcends the rating sytem used by us mere mortals). It would only be proper, as a matter of urgency, to remove all fake ratings (i.e. any ratings [below] five stars) and allow The Mummy’s rating to stand, as it should, at five stars, or perhaps to replace the rating altogether with a simple banner which reads “the greatest film of all time, objectively speaking”. I look forward to this grievous error being remedied.

Best, Anwen

Which of course: no, we would never do that. But the vigor Anwen expresses in her letter impressed us (we checked: she’s real, though is mostly a Letterboxd lurker due to a busy day-job in television production, “so finding time to watch anything that isn’t The Mummy is, frankly, impossible… not that there’s ever any need to watch anything else, of course.”).

So Letterboxd put me, Stephen Sommers fan, on the job of paying homage to the last great old-school action-adventure blockbuster, a film that straddles the end of one cinematic era and the beginning of the next one. And also to ask: where’s the next great action adventure coming from?

Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz and John Hannah in ‘The Mummy’ (1999).

When you delve into the Letterboxd reviews of The Mummy, it quickly becomes clear how widely beloved the film is, 3.3 average notwithstanding. Of more concern to the less youthful among us is how quaintly it is perceived, as if it harkens back to the dawn of cinema or something. “God, I miss good old-fashioned adventure movies,” bemoans Holly-Beth. “I have so many fond memories of watching this on TV with my family countless times growing up,” recalls Jess. “A childhood classic,” notes Simon.

As alarming as it is to see such wistful nostalgia for what was a cutting-edge, special-effects-laden contemporary popcorn hit, it has been twenty-one years since the film was released, so anyone currently in their early 30s would’ve encountered the film at just the right age for it to imprint deeply in their hearts. This has helped make it a Raiders of the Lost Ark for a specific Letterboxd demographic.

Sommers took plenty of inspiration from the Indiana Jones series for his take on The Mummy (the original 1932 film, also with a 3.3 average, is famously sedate), but for ten-year-olds in 1999, it may have been their only exposure to such pulpy derring-do. And when you consider that popcorn cinema would soon be taken over by interconnected on-screen universes populated by spandex-clad superheroes, the idea that The Mummy is an old-fashioned movie is easier to comprehend.

However, for all its throwbackiness, beholding The Mummy from the perspective of 2020 reveals it to have more to say about the future of cinema than the past. 1999 was a big year for movies, often considered one of the all-time best, but the legacy of The Mummy ties it most directly to two of that year’s other biggest hits: Star Wars: Episode One—The Phantom Menace and The Matrix. These three blockbusters represented a turning point for the biggest technological advancement to hit the cinematic art-form since the introduction of sound: computer-generated imagery, aka CGI. The technique had been widely used from 1989’s The Abyss onwards, and took significant leaps forward with movies such as Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Jurassic Park (1993) and Starship Troopers (1997), but the three 1999 films mentioned above signified a move into the era when blockbusters began to be defined by their CGI.

A year before The Mummy, Sommers had creatively utilised CGI in his criminally underrated sci-fi action thriller Deep Rising (another film that deserves a higher average Letterboxd rating, just sayin’), and he took this approach to the next level with The Mummy. While some of the CGI in The Mummy doesn’t hold up as well as the technopunk visuals presented in The Matrix, The Mummy showed how effective the technique could be in an historical setting—the expansiveness of ancient Egypt depicted in the movie is magnificent, and the iconic rendering of Imhotep’s face in the sand storm proved to be an enduringly creepy image. Not to mention those scuttling scarab beetles.

George Lucas wanted to test the boundaries of the technique with his insanely anticipated new Star Wars film after dipping his toe in the digital water with the special editions of the original trilogy. Beyond set expansions and environments, a bunch of big creatures and cool spaceships, his biggest gambit was Jar Jar Binks, a major character rendered entirely through CGI. And we all know how that turned out.

A CGI-enhanced Arnold Vosloo as Imhotep.

Sommers arguably presented a much more effective CGI character in the slowly regenerating resurrected Imhotep. Jar Jar’s design was “bigger” than the actor playing him on set, Ahmed Best. Which is to say, Jar Jar took up more space on screen than Best. But with the zombie-ish Imhotep, Sommers (ably assisted by Industrial Light & Magic, who also worked on the Star Wars films) used CGI to create negative space, an effect impossible to achieve with practical make-up—large parts of the character were missing. It was an indelible visual concept that has been recreated many times since, but Sommers pioneered its usage here, and it contributed greatly to the popcorn horror threat posed by the character.

Sommers, generally an unfairly overlooked master of fun popcorn spectacle (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is good, guys), deserves more credit for how he creatively utilized CGI to elevate the storytelling in The Mummy. But CGI isn’t the main reason the film works—it’s a spry, light-on-its-feet adventure that presents an iconic horror property in an entertaining and adventurous new light. And it happens to feature a ridiculously attractive cast all captured just as their pulchritudinous powers were peaking.

Meme-worthy: “My sexual orientation is the cast of ‘The Mummy’ (1999).”

A rising star at the time, Brendan Fraser was mostly known for comedic performances, and although he’d proven himself very capable with his shirt off in George of the Jungle (1997), he wasn’t necessarily at the top of anyone’s list for action-hero roles. But he is superlatively charming as dashing American adventurer Rick O’Connell. His fizzy chemistry with Weisz, playing the brilliant-but-clumsy Egyptologist Evie Carnahan, makes the film a legitimate romantic caper. The role proved to be a breakout for Weisz, then perhaps best known for playing opposite Keanu Reeves in the trouble-plagued action flop Chain Reaction, or for her supporting role in the Liv Tyler vehicle Stealing Beauty.

“90s Brendan Fraser is what Chris Pratt wishes he was,” argues Holly-Beth. “Please come back to us, Brendaddy. We need you.” begs Joshhh. “I’d like to thank Rachel Weisz for playing an integral role in my sexual awakening,” offers Sree.

Then there’s Oded Fehr as Ardeth Bey, a member of the Medjai, a sect dedicated to preventing Imhotep’s tomb from being discovered, and Patricia Velásquez as Anck-su-namun, Imhotep’s cursed lover. Both stupidly good-looking. Heck, Imhotep himself (South African Arnold Vosloo, coming across as Billy Zane’s more rugged brother), is one of the hottest horror villains in the history of cinema.

“Remember when studio movies were sexy?” laments Colin McLaughlin. We do Colin, we do.

Sommers directed a somewhat bloated sequel, The Mummy Returns, in 2001, which featured the cinematic debut of one Dwayne Johnson. His character got a spin-off movie the following year (The Scorpion King), which generated a bunch of DTV sequels of its own, and is now the subject of a Johnson-produced reboot. Brendan Fraser came back for a third film in 2008, the Rob Cohen-directed The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Weisz declined to participate, and was replaced by Maria Bello.

Despite all the follow-ups, and the enduring love for the first Sommers film, there has been a sadly significant dearth of movies along these lines in the two decades since it was released. The less said about 2017 reboot The Mummy (which was supposed to kick-off a new Universal Monster shared cinematic universe, and took a contemporary, action-heavy approach to the property), the better.

The Rock in ‘The Mummy Returns’ (2001).

For a long time, adventure films were Hollywood’s bread and butter, but they’re surprisingly thin on the ground these days. So it makes a certain amount of sense that nostalgia for the 1999 The Mummy continues to grow. You could argue that many of the superhero films that dominate multiplexes count as adventure movies, but nobody really sees them that way—they are their own genre.

There are, however, a couple of films on the horizon that could help bring back old-school cinematic adventure. One is the long-planned—and finally actually shot—adaptation of the Uncharted video-game franchise, starring Tom Holland. The games borrow a lot from the Indiana Jones films, and it’ll be interesting to see how much that manifests in the adaptation.

Then there’s Letterboxd favorite David Lowery’s forever-upcoming medieval adventure drama The Green Knight, starring Dev Patel and Alicia Vikander (who herself recently rebooted another video-game icon, Lara Croft). Plus they are still threatening to make another Indiana Jones movie, even if it no longer looks like Steven Spielberg will direct it.

While these are all exciting projects—and notwithstanding the current crisis in the multiplexes—it can’t help but feel like we may never again get a movie quite like The Mummy, with its unlikely combination of eye-popping CGI, old-fashioned adventure tropes and a once-in-a-lifetime ensemble of overflowing hotness. Long may love for it reign on Letterboxd—let’s see if we can’t get that average rating up, the old fashioned way. For Anwen.

Related content

How I Letterboxd with The Mummy fan Eve (“The first film I went out and bought memorabilia for… it was a Mummy action figure that included canopic jars”)

The Mummy (Universal) Collection

Every film featuring the Mummy (not mummies in general)

Follow Dom on Letterboxd

#the mummy #brendan fraser #stephen sommers #action adventure #fantasy adventure #action adventure film #the green knight #david lowery #dominic corry #letterboxd

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darkhats · 3 years ago

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my response to that one cookie run drama video from 2019

youtube

if u were in the fandom at around 2019 you'll remember this video. really a grand hallmark of its time. this is probably the most unecessary thing ill ever do but i see alot of recent comments from a month ago agreeing with this and i think thats extremely sad. im mostly doing this as a fun nostalgia trip and also i really want to justify me wasting 14 minutes watching this

first of all i want to say this video is fucking awful. just dreadful. like girl what the fuck are you even saying. i'd only recommend watching in full if you want to hear about the fandom in 2019 with a condesending voice talking down to you the whole time and even then you could probably do better just scrolling through the discourse tag

i suggest you pull up the video yourself as i'll be responding by timestamps. if i sound angry at some points its because i am

you can skip to 1:40 the rest is just intro stuff

1:47 | im really curious why you put this screenshot while saying "entitled fans" bc u never elaborated and i would really LOVE for you to explain whatever this one meant

1:50 | for the "huge amounts of hypocrisy" bit i have no idea what this is? this would be hypocrisy if the twitter acc in the previous screenshot and this tumblr blog r the same person but theyre not. we don't all think like a hivemind? this post is stupid in general stop infantilising asian ppl like they have no idea what a black person even is

2:02 | "gatekeeping what kind of ships you're allowed to like" with this screenshot u a proshitter or sumn🤨

the rest of the things they listed will be talked about later

2:51 | oh wow the "fixing art" thing. i dont think this is a thing anymore but it definitely was a big thing back in 2019! the thing is im quite neutral on it because a lot of artists dont like their work being edited but on the other hand if you dont like when people put the correct skintones on your art then maybe you should colour it right the first time

i will say though if you see cool art of like dark choco or espresso and its whitewashed and u wanna edit it so its not and u keep it to yourself then idc thats fine to me. the grey area is when it comes to characters like moonlight or alchemist, who's skintone is quite difficult to pull off in some artstyles. a lot of the examples in the video use people like cherry blossom or cotton candy who don't quite fit in the same category but are usually targets of this anyway

a very simple fix is to just use a different colour but to not make them significantly lighter from how they look in canon, which alot of the examples you showed don't do. they all look pale as shit compared to what they actually look like ingame and thats why people complained about them

also your marina video is fucking awful btw

3:53 |

4:56 | "so many people in the fandom hate the developers" im one of them hiii. i should probably use this time to explain why (please note that this was made in 2019 so a few of the points im bringing up here will probably be a bit too recent)

devsisters really love showcasing whitewashed art of their characters (they used to do it on their forums rarely but thats now gone) and recently they've been quite excited to dabble in the whitewashing themselves (keep in mind the others except from twizzly gummy don't really count as whitewashing but they're all significantly lighter than their regular appearance). its like a hobby or sumn. everytime they host a fanart contest i brace for god damn impact. and this has been a thing since FOREVER

speaking of race and ethnicity, lilacs costume (and redesign in general) is just... bad but i dont think they were even introduced at the time of this video. milk and yam WERE though and its extremely baffling to me how this went through an entire team/company and got greenlit. its insane how shit they are (if it was just yam on his own i wouldn't hate him as much, i still wouldn't like him tbh, but they decided to pair him up with a white saviour). would i call them racist though? ...idk? they've been moving funny recently cant lie

another thing is the valentines day video which pisses me off to even think about. in that vid theres alot of.. ships that definitely arent legal. and whitewashing ^_^ they still haven't addressed it btw if ur curious. but it happened this year and honestly i wouldnt blame them for not thinking devsisters would do something like that bc i sure didnt!

theres also the thing with nfts but no one couldve foresaw that one coming

i assume when you mention people saying devsis are transphobic that you're talking about characters like dark choco or cinnamon who weren't referred by any pronouns until they were magically given he/him pronouns later on. nonbinary people can use any pronouns they so damn please but i get why people would get annoyed about them both suddenly being referred as he/him. wouldn't call it transphobic though. other than idk, how tf am i meant to defend something when u dont even telling me what ur talking abt

and 5:29 is quite the bold claim if you have to say "do i have evidence for this asian hate? no.." when bringing it up again btw

now we're onto the "stories from a few people" section. the few people are actually just two, the first one just runs their mouth for way too long. dw they both suck. ignore how the creep art person is there its been addressed already in the description (which is funny because the creator remembers this video still? and they presumingly agree with it still..?)

7:00 | i would heavily recommend putting the video on like 1.75 speed and just reading the reply yourself because this person goes on for WAY too long. excuse me if the timestamps are wrong because of this but at this point i really just do not care

the first thing i want to address is the cuphead and cookie run fandom comparison, because its just as ridiculous as it sounds "i have no idea why its so focused on being sensitive about cookies sexualities, genders, and races, when other fandoms dont even take subjects like that as seriously. im pretty sure the cuphead fandom takes its bosses less seriously than the cr fandom does its cookies..." literally what the fuck are you on about? excuse me as im not a cuphead fandom connoisseur here but how are either fandoms connected?? they both got a vastly different audience, gameplay, artstyle and characters (+ character design). the only thing similar is that theyre both popular i GUESS. also maybe the cookie run fandom is so "sensitive" about cookies races bc they keep getting whitewashed every 5 seconds🤔? just a game theory tho🤔

7:25 | pisses me off ever so fucking much. the "ive never seen a fandom get so disrespectful over issues that i honestly dont think even exist" while talking about MILK COOKIE COOKIE RUN are u crazy are u dense im glad you can frollick along in ur flowerfields not having to ever deal with racism but I cannot. and if ur not talking abt him then you'd be talking about the "sensitive about sexualities/genders/races" thing and yeah man u right none of that is real. the LGBT disappeared suddenly in 1987. all humans were destroyed as they had race. we're all grey goo people

im not even sure what the complaint even is.. oh nooo someone did a milk redesigning the controversial parts of his design... how ever will we recover..?

8:15 | yeah as everyone knows i can make a character as pale as i want in fanart as long as i say these are my humanizations actually. garbage argument, most people dont draw the characters as actual cookies and most of the fanart does just fine with eyedropping the characters original skintone (oh im sorry, dough!!) so whats the excuse?

dont worry this person is done now we're almost at the end

11:18 | for the other reply, its the fiction doesnt equal reality shit do you really need me to go over this one? do you really. if they just cookies and its just fiction then why y'all feelings hurt so bad. also lumping in whitewashing with age and gender while ur talking about peoples headcanons is a bit weird btw

anyway the last thing i want to go over is the "cookie run fandom is soo obsessed with debating on whitewashing, ages, gender and sexualities!" thing thats so prevelent with these arguments. 2019 had this fun period where with every new cookie that came out there was some sort of controversy with them (millennial tree and raspberry mousse being he/him, roll cake and sorbet shark being a child or not, ect.)

whitewashing is obvious why so i'll move on. some characters can be seen as lesbian coded (white choco and rose for having majority girl fans, sea fairy in general) and there are a few characters that explicitly aren't referred to by any pronouns (dark choco before the guild adventures, peppermint, ect.) which u dont see everyday in games. so yeah.. people care about these things because they like representation. who would've thought?

now im gonna be fucking real. the arguments over cookies ages were always annoying - the reason why the fandom has arguments about ages so much is because devsis REFUSES to tell us canon ages. think about it, majority of the "canonially confirmed" children in the game are from a child event that happened in LINE. thats a completely different company running the game. because of how character-heavy the game is, ships are a very big part of the fandom. i sincerely doubt theres anyone in the fandom who doesnt like any ship and at the time rarepairs were rly common. so when you've got a fandom who really likes to ship and developers that dont ever mention ages then you get a fucking mess. i dont know what sorbet shark or roll cakes age is and its pointless to even debate it because id rather just have the devs confirm it themselves (not like they ever will). and even for the one singular time they did specify that one of the characters was a child, they still showcased fanart of said kid being shipped with an adult anyway

but that concludes the video and thus this response! i have wasted so much time on this i honestly could've showed you them ranting about how "cookies dont have skin colours" in the video or the part in the marina video where they complain about how people "think whitewashing is bad but make non-black characters black" and moved on but what else would i do on a sunday night?

#cookie run #cookie run discourse #FINE ill use that tag but only ONCE.#i got like 52 of the people who've used that tag b4 blocked thts funny #anyway this was a HUGE waste of my time. really fun 2 look at takes that are absolutely freezing cold tho #text

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testingcheats0n · 4 years ago

Text

Detroit Become Human AU where:

-> Tommy is an up-and-coming livestreamer of the retro game Minecraft- forming part of a fledgling community of all-human players of the game. His growth is slow but steady and he has a future in a genre that had fallen out of fashion with the rise of the newest and more immersive VR games on the market. People love to see an actual human that could make mistakes and win against another fellow human fairly. The nostalgia it brought to some people is also undeniably at play.

It's worth noting that Tommy is a very lonely kid, with a non-existent social life since he and his family had to move to America after his father struck a lucrative business deal with his brilliant protege.

-> Wilbur, Tommy's older brother and only guardian after their father, Phil, dedicated his life to the creation of androids with his young but brilliant pupil Elijah Kamski, is a simple busker. It's hard to find a job at 24 with no previous experience or further education, he had to take care of Tommy, after all. True, their economic troubles never ended, and he could barely provide for Tommy, but at least they had each other, even if Wilbur was off to the streets of Detroit more often than not. He has no idea of his younger brother's blooming career in the gaming industry and is very worried about his future. The solution? A very suspicious android his best friend Schlatt offers for very cheap.

-> Phil Watson is a household name together with Elijah Kamski's, they created one of humanity's greatest tools, after all. Nothing suspicious here, they're definitely not hiding any potential deviancies from the code! In any case, his family never saw a dime of the frankly insane amount of money piling up in his bank account. He has an old phone he carries in his pocket every day with Wilbur's phone number, but he never dares to call it despite RN800, his assistant's, insistence that he was only making his own life harder. He is going to dial that phone number someday. Surely.

-> TU880 is an android from an old companion/educational line, discontinued after a few notable bugs and glitches in their core programming. Nothing serious, or life-threatening, but many customers have complained about disturbing behavior that falls straight into the uncanny valley- he's too human. Schlatt, his previous owner, refuses to disclose where he got TU880 from, nor does he have any legal documentation to prove he is his owner. Wilbur, desperate to find a solution for Tommy's perceived loneliness pays the fifty bucks his old pal asks for the android without asking any questions. It's weird for an adult to go around with a teen model created to counsel adolescents and help them with their homework. TU880 had problems with reading his grocery list, anyway.

-> Tommy is a bit weirded out, he thrives in an internet community which openly despises anything android, but his good friend Technoblade has plenty of useful advice, from maitenance to behavior. TU880 is odd, which he discards as kinks and bugs of the older models, but they get along nicely once TU880's programming kicks in. He likes to help Tommy edit his videos and speak about the problems of adolescence, he is oddly fond of bees or anything small and defenceless and likes to tell his 'dreams' of scientists in labcoats and other kids like him stuck in experiments. Tommy listens with half an ear, TU880 is his friend, after all. He thinks nothing of it.

-> It all becomes a bit too much when TU880 accidentally appears on camera during one of Tommy's streams. People assume he's Tommy's brother, and insist on getting an introduction. TU880 is ecstatic, but from what Tommy's told him, revealing his artificial status might harm his friend's career so he greets the chat as Toby, Tommy's older brother. The community goes wild and Tommy has to pretend that TU880 is his brother (which isn't that terrible per-se) and not the house assistant who has a complete psychological profile of him.

-> TU880 begins to feel strange, both regarding Tommy and his own place in the household. Calling Tommy hus brother is easy as calculus and makes his thirium pump skip a few beats, but he's not sure if he should be getting this attached. He's sure he is malfunctioning in some way, but Schlatt always assured him that he is fine. He thinks nothing of it and instead continues to watch over Tommy.

-> Minecraft is fun, and he eventually gets his own account on Wilbur's old (read: ancient) laptop despite possessing an internal processor powerful enough to play the game at its maximum capacity in his mind, and probably in a 3D holoprojector. At this point, he's in too deep and the friends he's making would certainly ask questions if he were to disappear. He has the opportunity to talk about anything at all to his growing audience, and the community is very welcoming in general once one integrates into their culture. He still doesn't feel it's fair to participate in the tournaments and all the other official competitions. People find it odd, but they assume he's not very good at PVP so no one tends to comment on it for now. It's okay though, he and his new friend Ranboo act as commentators during the events and everyone thinks they're pretty funny.

-> Ranboo is fun to be around. He just gets TU880- or as the internet knows him as, Tubbo. They click easily, sometimes the other boy seems just as confused about other people's reactions and behavior as Tubbo is (despite his in-depth knowledge of psychology. He's not quite connected to Cyberlife's database anymore and his learning algorithm is outdated at best.) and they like to spend their afternoons with Tommy, watching movies. The game overtakes their lives and they spend a lot of time playing privately with the best strategies Tubbo's advanced algorithms and Ranboo's sheer brilliancy can create. That's how they meet their friend Fundy, who is more than happy to keep their Technical Minecraft server a secret, as long as he gets to do his own thing with coding and they test it.

-> Tommy is just happy that he can use the cool farms for his own grinding.

-> Technoblade is Tommy's mysterious internet friend and fellow growing streamer. Everyone is sure that he's an android infiltrating the budding community, but after several years of isolated incidents, investigations, and online scandals no one was able to prove anything. Technoblade just never dies. (Tommy is 50% sure his friend is really an android, the older man simply refuses to comment). It is possible to spend months farming digital potatoes, people are just mean and want drama. Technoblade is just vibing. Incidentally, he's also the first one to figure out that Ranboo and Tubbo are androids. He is also the first one to figure out they're deviants. He doesn't mention it until much later though.

-> Jack and Niki Manifold have successfully founded their own mechanic business for android repairs. Cyberlife mumbled and grumbled at the siblings' repair shop, but in the end it was good for PR so they let them be. Tommy and Wilbur become their friends as TU880's frequent malfunctions inevitably bring the pair to the cheapest android repair service in the city. TU880 can't complain, Niki is sweet to him and understands what is wrong with him just by his description, since his diagnostics aren't working entirely and each an every single one of Jack's repairs last loner than every other mechanic he's been to.

-> Gradually, Tommy's fame becomes apparent, and Wilbur has the time to actually rest and spend time with his brother. He's just happy that they can be together. A weight is lifted off his shoulders and for the first time ever he feels like his little family has a future. Not even once does it pass through his mind that TU880 isn't acting like a typical android- he avoided the things on principle. Once, TU880 calls him his brother and he cries.

-> Sam is Cyberlife's very own private investigator. He is in charge of researching and turning in possible deviants that might help the company with developing a solution for the rising problem. In particular, he's been after the trail of a specific line of androids, the first one released by Kamski and Watson dubbed as TU. According to his investigations the line might have contained the code responsible for deviancy. Further research indicated that Kamski's code was based on a group project from the Dutch university for cibernetics.

-> Fundy is just a 21 y/o with a Twitch account and a passing interest in coding. Nothing serious, nothing suspicious. He absolutely wasn't part of the early AI coding trials that Kamski would later on use as the basis for his own code. If someone asks, he has no idea what ra9 means. He is almost sure that his friends are androids, the thought makes him very happy.

-> Puffy is Phil's new psychologist. Need I say more? Eventual Hurt/comfort baby!!!

#dream smp #detroid become human #crossover/au #tommyinnit #tubbo #ranboo #wilbur soot #dream smp au

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prosopopeya · 3 years ago

Text

Fic Writer Questions

from @clarrisani !!!

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

on ao3 i have 28. tbf though i never transferred over a bunch of my stuff from lj back in the day.

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

176,571

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

11 listed on ao3. shout out though to house, which i wrote a bunch for but it never made it to ao3, and likely never will, and also to sherlock holmes which i wrote some fic for but more significantly, spend 2 years roleplaying. also if we want to get real nostalgic, the hits from my ffn days included such fandoms as lizzie mcguire, buffy, star trek voyager, monk, and of course, labyrinth.

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Inevitable Homoeroticism in Spanish Romantic Heroes: my dean is a hispanist, grad school au. written bc at the time i was reading so many college aus and going you know what. you know what this fandom needs. and also i need therapy and instead i will write this fic.

i’m so glad it was and still is well received, and until this year’s dcbb, i thought i’d never write something as personally significant as this ever again. i’m happy to be adding something else to that list shortly (and hope it’s as well liked!).

as a sidenote, this fic was requested by and heavily cheerleaded by a friend of mine who has since passed away, and i will always think of jaymee when i think of this fic.

Like Real People Do: my impulse-written, kneejerk reaction to cas’s confession in 15x18. i wanted cas to have a chance to process his feelings separate from dean and also i wanted to push back on the notion that he was happy just saying it bc maybe after all he wants dean to love him back. it’s fitting that it comes after the grad school au in this list bc it was my return to fandom. also a rare example of me writing cas pov. (soon to not be so rare.)

Flying in Circles Inside a Jar: a s5 era fic where dean and cas get together in a roundabout way. god this was written so long ago and there are parts of it i want to change, but overall i’m still proud of a lot of moments in this fic. some good dialogue in here.

Command Me to Be Well: my angstier entry into my s15 fix-its. dean decides that he will let him and cas have sex but they can’t have feelings about it. this got way more popular than i thought it would, and it took me forever to write it, but it was definitely proof to me that i could come back to writing bc i had to edit this fic a bunch, and i was always horrible at editing. but i have better meds now yay!

fourth place is technically the codas to the grad school au, which also have some good moments but also the last coda i wrote makes me cry when i think about it still. but bc it’s part of the same universe i’m going to add:

Some Boys are Sleeping Alone: another early days fic ft. dean coming to terms with his sexuality and how it was affected by his father among other things throughout his life. this has essentially become the backbone to my conception of dean’s sexuality in canon. it ends sad! plot twist for me these days.

what i love about this list, looking at it now, is that it’s a healthy mix of my old stuff and my new stuff, and overall represents well my themes of dean’s bisexual journey and several examples of cas standing up for himself, though s4/s5 cas was just like that.

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

i didn’t back in the day so much bc, you know, grad school, i was busy. i’ve been trying to since i got back into writing but have been staring at my inbox of things i need to reply to for like three months. i will do it at some point!

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

god i don’t know. i wrote so much angstier stuff back in the day. i don’t really want to re-peruse all the random stuff on my ao3 but here’s one that sticks out to me even still: the au that has quinn fabray from glee in a sham marriage with jason mcconnell from bare: a pop opera and no one is happy. no one asked for this fic but i had many feelings about it.

7) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

these days most of my fics end happy, but the one that still has me tear up at the end is the fluff entry i wrote for dean’s birthday: through autumn’s advancing. it’s jody that always gets me. jody hugging and murmuring a goodbye to dean, and then dean watching as she hugs and whispers something to cas. i don’t know what she’s saying but her embracing cas just gets me every time.

8) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

oh boy. back in the day, i would write just about anything anyone asked of me, and i prided myself on selling the wildest concepts imaginable. my lj contains a multitude of shames, but on ao3 probably the wildest is supernatural/my little pony: friendship is magic. here’s another example of me writing cas as he bonds with fluttershy.

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

i don’t... think so?

10) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

boy do i! uh the naked kind?? idk my approach to sex scenes is to try to capture realism but in the emotional sense. usually there’s a fun amount of dialogue. some amount of significance beyond just the act itself. i think my big thing is still representing the characters as themselves, in character.

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i’m aware of.

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

i don’t think so?!

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

this dcbb is essentially being like executive produced by @marbleflan. but there may be a more explicitly co-written fic coming up. :) :) :)

14) What’s your all time favorite ship?

dean/cas, hands down. nothing will ever compare to the absolute insanity of the way they happened in this television show.

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

i started a dean/benny/cas purgatory fic that i want to get back to one day... also my fic with ghost!kevin teaming up with human blood!crowley and human!cas.

16) What are your writing strengths?

i’d like to think it’s capturing the feel of the character and staying ic. that’s my #1 goal always and the best comment i could ever receive. i like my dialogue too.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

plot. i can’t plot to save my life. also editing. also inventing any original character is an absolute blindspot of mine.

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

well i mean. i have. done that. my bilingual experience involves some weaving in and out of a language in conversation, usually mid-sentence or once you hit a word you either can’t think of in one language or feels better in another. or filler words/phrases like well, or let’s go.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

gosh. probably lizzie mcguire.

20) What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

the grad school au will always hold a special place in my heart. but i also really love this one i wrote that was a love letter to the virginia state fair, which i went to like every year when i was a kid and still hold a lot of nostalgia and love for in my heart. i really want to retool that one. there are some things i want to change about it, you know, almost ten years later.

@ anyone who wants to do this thing!!!!!!!

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jgthirlwell · 4 years ago

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2020 Year In Review

This year once again I invited some friends and colleagues to reflect on 2020

JG Thirlwell

Composer

Foetus Xordox Manorexia Steroid Maximus Venture Bros Archer

www.foetus.org

2020 was a troubling and disturbing year. I created a lot of music and experienced a lot of nights waking at 5am in a panic. I deeply missed the sacred experience of being able to see live music. In its absence of that I listened to a lot of music. It was difficult to whittle down this list but here are a lot of albums I enjoyed in 2020, in no particular order.

Le Grand Sbam Furvent (Dur Et Doux) John Elmquist’s HardArt Group I Own an Ion (900 Nurses) Roly Porter Kistvaen (Subtext) Liturgy Origin Of The Alimonies (YLYLCYN) Clark Kiri Variations (Throttle) Dai Kaht Dai Kaht I & II (Soleil Zeuhl) Chromb Le livre des merveilles (Dur Et Doux) Horse Lords The Common Task (Northern Spy) Ecker & Meultzer Carbon (Subtext) Insane Warrior Tendrils (RJ’s Electrical Connections) Jeff Parker Suite For Max Brown (International Anthem) Jacob Kirkegaard Opus Mors (Topos) Tristan Perich Drift Multiply (Nonesuch) Bec Plexus Sticklip (New Amsterdam) Vak Budo (Soleil Zeuhl) Merlin Nova BOO! (Bandcamp) The The Muscle OST (Cineola) Zombi 2020 (Relapse) Regis Hidden In This Is The Light That You Miss (Downwards) Rival Consoles Articulation (Erased Tapes) Sarah Davachi Cantus, Descant (L.A.T.E.) Sufjan Stevens The Ascension (Asthmatic Kitty) Idles Ultra Mono (Partisan) Daedelus The Bittereindeers (Brainfeeder) Boris No (Bandcamp) Aksak Maboul Figures / Un peu de l’ame des bandits / Onze Danses Pour Cobattre La Migraine (Crammed) Noveller Arrow (Ba Da Bing) Felicia Atkinson Everything Evaporate (Shelter Press) Ital Tek Dream Boundary (Planet Mu) Author and Punisher Beastland (Relapse) Sparks A Steady Drip Drip Drip (BMG) Corima Amatarasu (Soleil Zeuhl) Code Orange Underneath (Roadrunner) Deerhoof Future Teenage Cave Artists /Silly Symphonies / To Be Surrounded../ Love Lore(Joyful Noise) Sote Moscels (Opal Tapes) Run The Jewels RTJ4 (Jewel Runners) Oranssi Pazuzu Mestarin Kynsi (Nuclear Blast) Master Boot Record Floppy Disk Overdrive (Metal Blade) Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith The Mosaic Of Transformation (Ghostly International) / Ears (Western Vinyl) Michael Gordon Acquanetta (Cantelope) Neom Arkana Temporis (Soleil Zeuhl) Rian Treanor Ataxia / File Under UK Metaplasm (Planet Mu) Helm Saturnalia (Alter) Ivvvo doG (Halcyon Veil) Robert Normandeau Figures (Empreintes Digitales) Ben Vida Reducing The Tempo To Zero (Shelter Press) Beatrice Dillon Workaround (Pan) Dan Deacon Mystic Familiar (Domino) Sea Oleena Weaving A Basket (Higher Plain Music) Elysian Fields Transience Of Life (Ojet) Rhapsody Symphony Of Enchanted Lands II - The Dark Secret (Magic Circle) Duma Duma (Nyege Nyege) Ulla Strauss Tumbling Towards a Wall / Seed (Bandcamp)

Honorable mentions Carl Stone Stolen Car (Unseen Worlds) Nazar Guerilla (Hyperdub) Iwo Zaluski with the Children of Park Lane Primary School, Wembley The Remarkable Earth Making Machine (Trunk) Nahash Flowers Of The Revolution (SVBKVLT) Cindy Lee Whats Tonight To Eternity (Bandcamp) Insect Ark The Vanishing (Profound Lore) 33EMYBW Arthropods (SVBKVLT) Declan McKenna Zeroes (Tomplicated) Layma Azur Zeii (Bandcamp)

FILM TV Succession ZeroZeroZero Escape at Dannemora 1917 Small Axe : Five films by Steve McQueen Pirhanas Monos The Hater Better Call Saul

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Drew Daniel

Matmos, The Soft Pink Truth

an alphabet of 2020 recordings

Arca “KiCk i” BFTT “Intrusive / Obtrusive” clipping. “Visions of Bodies Being Burned” Duma “Duma” Eilbacher, Max “Metabolist Meter (Foster, Cottin, Caetani and a Fly)” Forbidden Colors “La Yeguada” GILA “Energy Demonstration” HiedraH Club de Baile “Bichote-K Bailable Vol. 2” Ian Power “Maintenance Hums” Jeff Carey “Index[off]” Kassel Jaeger “Meith” Laurie Anderson “Songs From the Bardo” Mukqs “Water Levels” Negativland “The World Will Decide” O’Rourke, Jim “Shutting Down Here” Perlesvaus “These Things Below with Those Above” Quicksails “Blue Rise” Rian Treanor “File Under UK Metaplasm” Slikback “///” Terminal Nation “Holocene Extinction” Ulcerate “Stare Into Death and Be Still” Various Artists “HAUS of ALTR” William Tyler “New Vanitas” Xyla “Ways” Y A S H A “Summations” :zoviet-france: “Châsse 2ᵉ”

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Sarah Lipstate (Noveller)

With all live performances canceled, this was truly the year of demo videos and home studio recording for me. These are 10 pieces of gear that came out in 2020 that helped keep me feeling creative and inspired during lockdown. In no particular order:

EHX Oceans 12 Dual Stereo Reverb - The Oceans 12 ticks all the boxes for what I’m looking for in a great soundscaping reverb. I used the Shimmer and Reverse algorithms in conjunction a lot when I was composing music for a film score.

Chase Bliss Audio Blooper - While I don’t actually own a Blooper, I had the pleasure of borrowing one from Mike of Baranik Guitars after NAMM this year. He made an incredible Blooper-inspired guitar and I was completely charmed by them both. Chase Bliss always delivers pedals that push me creatively and the Blooper truly hits the mark.

Cooper FX Arcades - I love everything Cooper FX has released to-date so the opportunity to access those sounds in one pedal via plug-in cartridges is just awesome.

SolidGoldFX NU-33 - I was asked to do a demo of this pedal for its release and ended up being really charmed by this box’s approach to lo-fi nostalgia. I’ve used it a lot for film scoring and highly recommend adding it to your collection.

Demedash Effects T-120 DLX V2 - I LOVE a good tape echo and the T-120 Deluxe V2 ranks up there with the best I’ve tried. This pedal made its way to me this Christmas and I look forward to making some beautiful sounds with it in the new year.

Hologram Electronics Microcosm - The Microcosm is one of those pedals where you should fully read the manual before diving in but once you put in that initial effort you’ve got a massively powerful tool on your hands. It does glitch like no other. Definitely worth the homework

Azzam Bells MP019 - I discovered this unique instrument through a post on Reverb’s IG page and immediately looked it up and ordered one. These experimental percussion instruments are hand-made in Italy and they’re as beautiful visually as they are sonically. I used it for bowed cymbal and daxophone sounds on a film score and it was absolutely haunting.

Echopark Dual Harmonic Boost 2 - I love the control you have over dialing in the perfect amount of grit with these dual boost circuits. I use it a lot as a textural tool when I’m laying down drones or bringing in big distorted swells. It’s one of the most versatile overdrives in my collection and I love that.

Fender Parallel Universe Series Volume II Maverick Dorado - I was smitten with the Maverick Dorado when I first saw it at NAMM. It has a lot of the specs that I look for in a guitar and the body shape with the Mystic Pine finish just blew me away. I hope that I get to use it live soon.

Polyeffects Beebo - The Beebo is one of those pedals that I genuinely feel is smarter than I am. It’s like an entire computer in one small touchscreen box. I can’t claim to have mastered using it yet but the sounds that I have managed to get out of it so far have been brilliant. I’m looking forward to spending more time with this box in 2021

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HELM 2020 REVIEW

Let's get the bad stuff out the way first, 2020 was undoubtedly an awful year. I'm still not sure how to really respond to seeing a global pandemic bring the capital to its knees and everything I love and hold dear to a grinding halt. Our government fucked it's response, putting profit before people and killing tens of thousands. The Labour Party descended into farce with the newly elected leader Sir Keith revealing himself as a bland centrist with no opposition or ideas. On a personal level it sucked not being able to travel or see my friends in different parts of the world - or even the same country - who I am starting to miss a lot. However, I was fortunate enough to get through the year with my sanity intact. Music, art and culture once again being my main positive. I think I listened to more music than I have in any year ever. I read more books than I have done since I was a teenager probably. I also re-discovered the joys of walking long distances and am extremely thankful for living near a lot of incredible green spaces: Epping Forest, Walthamstow Wetlands, Walthamstow Marshes, Wanstead Park, Wanstead Flats...

Music. My favourite albums of the year.

Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin kynsi Wetware - Flail Raspberry Bulbs - Before The Age Of Mirrors Necrot - Mortal Rope Sect - The Great Flood Private World - Aleph Oneohtrix Point Never - Magic Oneohtrix Point Never Pyrrhon - Abcess Time CS+Kreme - Snoopy Speaker Music - Black Nationalist Sonic Weaponry Drew McDowall - Agalma Regis - Hidden In This Is The Light That You Miss Nazar - Guerilla Zoviet France - Russian Heterodoxical Songs (and all the ZF reissues!!) Triple Negative - God Bless the Death Drive Permission - Organised People Suffer Actress - Karma & Desire Acolytes - Stress II The Gerogerigegege - >(decrescendo) Chubby & The Gang - Speed Kills Flora Yin-Wong - Holy Palm Eiko Ishibashi - Hyakki Yagyo The The - See Without Being Seen Prurient - Casablanca Flamethrower Henning Christiansen - L’essere Umano Errabando La Voce Errabando Subdued - Over The Hills And Far Away Rian Treanor - File Under UK Metaplasm Komare - The Sense Of Hearing Shredded Nerve - Acts Of Betrayal Jesu - Terminus Autechre - SIGN Hey Colossus - Dances / Curses Sparkle Division - To Feel Embraced Mark Harwood - A Perfect Punctual Paradise Under My Own Name Still House Plants - Fast Edit The Bug & Dis Fig - In Blue Kommand - Terrorscape Haus Arafna - Asche Khthoniik Cerviiks - Æequiizoiikum Worm - Gloomlord Kraus - A Golden Brain Faceless Burial - Speciation

A shout-out to Jon Abby's AMPLIFY series on Bandcamp / Facebook, which I contributed a new piece of music to.

A shout out to the labels where most of the music I listened to seemed to come from:

The Trilogy Tapes Iron Bonehead Penultimate Press Dais La Vida Es Un Mus

Gigs. Despite live music being destroyed in 2020 I still saw a few unforgettable performances at the beginning of the year.

Graham Lambkin @ The ICA, London Puce Mary / JFK @ The Glove That Fits, London Demilich @ Finnfest, The Garage, London Container / PC World / National Unrest @ Venue MOT, London S.H.I.T / Asid / Chubby & The Gang @ Static Shock Festival, ExFed, London

Books I enjoyed. Most not published this year, but all read in 2020.

Joe Kennedy - Authentocrats David Balzer - Curationism Tom Mills - BBC: The Myth Of A Public Service Simon Morris - Consumer Guide: Special Edition Luke Turner - Out Of The Woods Various - Bad News For Labour Mike Wendling - Alt-Right Baited Area issues 1 & 2.

Film. Three good films I saw this year which I hadn't before.

Suspiria (Remake) Midsommar Cannibal Holocaust

Podcasts. I listened to a lot of these whilst walking.

We Don't Talk About The Weather Novara Media Tysky Sour & Novara FM Grounded with Louis Theroux System of Systems Red Scare loveline episodes Suite 212 NOISEXTRA Social Discipline CONTAIN

TV.

Didn't watch a huge amount and what I did was mostly trash. For some reason I rewatched both series' of This Life, a British drama from the late 90's about a group of young professionals house sharing and navigating their careers. Very cringey and has aged terribly, but it was perversely fascinating to revisit something from that time in the age of the pandemic. Following on from this I binge watched the entire series of Industry which was entertaining enough. A programme about a bunch of horny bankers with what felt like a confused ideology behind it. It seemed stuck between trying to criticise and glorify the culture around the industry, but also protect the industry itself from outside criticism by portraying anyone who may oppose as an insufferable wanker. Currently halfway through Succession which is OK. The Murdoch documentaries on the BBC were excellent and a rare respite from their descent into client journalism.

Thanks to anyone who listened to my music this year also. Best wishes to you all for 2021.

Luke Younger

http://hhelmm.com | http://alter.bandcamp.com

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Elliott Sharp

composer

1. My Nr. 1 lesson: patience. Whether it's bouncing through 30 seconds of severe turbulence at 39000 feet or slogging through 30 minutes of a interminable piece of concert music, one attribute I've tried to develop is the ability to see past the discrete and awaited ending, the exact framing of the immediate process, but put it into the context of a larger time frame. I've found that this year more than all others has demanded it. Breathing helps...

2. Books: revisiting old favorites from the realm of Thomas Pynchon and Philip K. Dick (both especially relevant), digging into John Lomax's portrait of Jelly Roll Morton, the works of Colson Whitehead, random things off of the shelf…

3. Composing: with touring off the table, I focused on that which needed to be written, some requested and commissioned, some spontaneously springing forth. Composing requires that one open the windows wide to the world, which at this moment brought in grief, terror, uncertainty, anxiety, visions of plague and pestilence and incipient fascism. Okay, now shut the window and get to work! How to process, translate, transform? The work can be a comfortable and obsessive cocoon once one learns to handle the radioactive materials and put them into the creativity reactor.

4. Beans! We have long been a fan in our house of the wide world of legumes but this year brought two stars to the front: the black bean and the red lentil. The black bean commands the lofty peaks but the seemingly infinite variations of dal surround it. Ginger, garlic, turmeric, smoked paprika, cayenne, onions, and olive oil form the basis then imagination builds.

5. Online teaching substituted for my canceled conduction of workshops in the Pyrenees Mountains of France. Between the participants and myself, we built a temporary but very congenial space online to share concepts and music. In addition, private lessons brought conversation and music with new friends in Germany, Italy, California, Australia, Illinois, Denmark, Pennsylvania, Spain, Florida, Brazil.

6. What started out as "stress baking" (before I even had heard of the term) soon became a frequent practice that yielded very edible results. The twins preferred the sweeter forays into banana bread and chocolate cake. I tried to find a balance between tried-and-true techniques and experiments in texture and taste with yeasted pumpernickels, multi-grains, and seed breads.

7. While not the same as performing 'live ', online gigs proved that it was possible to generate a surprising amount of adrenaline even without the pheromonal handshaking of a room filled with receptive ears. As a corollary, online recording collaborations with friends worldwide proved to be inspiring and a suitable substrate for sonic experimentation, exploration of new instruments, tunings, effects programming, structures. In these realms, shout-outs to Helene Breschand, Mike Cooper, Henry Kaiser, Tracie Morris, Mikel Banks, Dougie Bowne, Payton McDonald, Billy Martin, Colin Stetson, Jim O'Rourke, Scott Amendola, Roberto Zorzi, Jason Hoopes, Eric Mingus, Melanie Dyer, Dave Hofstra, Don McKenzie, Sergio Sorrentino, Veniero Rizzardi, Taylor Ho Bynum, Scott Fields, Bachir Attar, Karl Bruckmaier, Robbie Lee, Matthew Evan Taylor, Matteo Liberatore, Al Kaatz, David Barratt, Jessica Hallock, Kolin Zeinikov, Robbie Lee, Jeremy Nesse, James Ilgenfritz, Sergio Armaroli, Steve Piccolo, Sandy Ewen, David Weinstein, Jim Whittemore, Chris Vine, Werner Puntigam, William Schimmel.

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Daniel O’Sullivan

(Grumbling Fur, Guapo, Miasma & the Carousel of Headless Horses, Ulver, Sunn O))), Æthenor, Laniakea, Miracle, Mothlite, and This Is Not This Heat.)

Music Richard Youngs - Ein Klein Nein Alabaster DePlume - Instrumentals Hildegard von Bingen - O Nobilissima Viriditas Francisco de Penalosa - Missa Ave Maria Peregrina Carlo Gesualdo - Responsoria 1611 Dirty Projectors - Five EPs Sonic Boom - All Things Being Equal Brother Peter Broderick - Blackberry Richard Horowitz - Eros Of Arabia Duncan Trussell Family Hour Cocteau Twins in the bath

Books/comics Alexander Tucker - Entity Reunion II Derek Jarman - Chroma Stephen Harrod Buhner - Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm The Penguin Book Of Irish Poetry - edited by Patrick Crotty The Gospel Of Ramakrishna - translated by Swami Nikhilananda Lucretius - De Rerum Natura Plotinus - Enneads Ram Dass - Grist For The Mill Lisa Brown - Phantom Twin

Other Fasting / meditation / macrodosing Walks in freshly coppiced woodland (for the smell mainly). Plants / Foraging / Growing Traditional ferments Douglas Sirk movies Mandolorian Writing songs on the piano Rediscovery of Kenneth Graham via my kids

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Karl O’Connor (Regis)

01.Wolfgang Press - Unremembered, Remembered 02. Klara Lewis - Ingrid Live at Fylkingen 03. Jesu - Terminus 04. Dave Ball - Leeds Poly Demos 1979 05. Edwin Pouncey - Rated Sav X (the Savage Pencil Skratchbook) 06. The Bug - In Blue 07. New Order - Power,Corruption and Lies ( Writing Sessions ) 08. JG Thirlwell and Simon Steensland - Oscillospira 09. FM Einheit and Andreas Ammer - Hammerschlag 10. Thurston Moore - By The Fire 11. Body Stuff - Body Stuff 3 12. Ann M Hogan - Honeysuckle Burials 13. Rob Halford - Confess (Autobiography)

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Caleb Braaten (Sacred Bones Records)

Shirley Collins Hearts Ease Dehd Flowers Of Devotion Duma Duma Bob Dylan Rough and Rowdy Ways Green-House Six Songs for Invisible Gardens John Jeffery Passage Drew McDowall Agalma Sweeping Promises Hunger For a Way Out Colter Wall Western Swing & Waltzes and Other Punchy Songs Woods Strange to Explain

My Favorite 90’s Nostalgia Movie Rewatches

Colors Ghost Dog Menace II Society The Player Rounders Safe Starship Troopers Trees Lounge Vampires Waiting For Guffman

Most Culturally Bankrupt Year : 1997

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Charlie Looker

(composer, Psalm Zero, Extra Life, Seaven Teares)

Ten Things That Didn’t Happen in 2020

1. I didn’t write a ton of new music. Don’t get me wrong, I wrote some. I always do. But mostly I focused on my new YouTube channel, essays, and on getting old recordings released. I haven’t even been working a day-job so I thought I was going to write my next Ring Cycle, but I really didn’t find Covid inspiring.

2. Trump wasn’t re-elected. Cool.

3. I didn’t lose anyone to Covid. I am, of course, profoundly grateful for this. But I feel pretty embarrassed remembering group-texting ten friends in March, “We are all going to see a loved one die. Every single one of us. Don’t kid yourselves”. I can get hysterical, and that was somewhat irresponsible of me.

4. No revolution happened. I don’t mean to be smug or cynical, or to belittle anyone’s participation in the protests. But, as far as I can tell, nothing happened in 2020 that promises to reduce police brutality or human suffering of any kind. We’ll see. That burning Minneapolis police station was exciting to watch at the time, if only on an aesthetic level.

5. I have a stack of unread books I bought this year, just staring at me, with nary a crease among them. These include:

Adorno and Horkheimer, The Dialectic of Enlightenment (looks amazing, but I haven’t touched it) Marx, Grundrisse (it’s 1000 pages for fuck’s sake. Amazon also accidentally sent me two copies, and its double presence in the stack is just comical) Reza Negarestani, Intelligence and Spirit (the first 15 pages blew my mind, then my mind blew it off)

6. I didn’t settle into living in LA. I moved here six months before Covid and I was just starting to cultivate some friendships and play shows. This was quashed and I still feel like I still live in New York. I still barely know the layout of the city here.

7. No brand-new buzzy musical artists burst onto the scene, that I can recall. No new hyped micro-genre of the moment. There was just no way for there to be a hot new trend. I’d say that was refreshing, but it wasn’t.

8. Tyson’s return was not awesome. Two minute rounds, ended in a draw. I’ve been getting way into boxing this past year. This fight was a bummer. I’m looking forward to Mayweather vs Logan Paul (LOL) because we know it’s comedy ahead of time.

9. For three weeks in July, I didn’t do a single thing other than watch street fight compilations on YouTube and Worldstar. That’s just grim.

10. There were no school shootings in March. Apparently, this was the first March with no school shootings since 2002. Not a single 7th grader got a hand job in March either. I cannot begin to imagine what it’s like to be a kid now.

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Chuck Bettis

https://chuckbettis.com

Other People's Music released this year:

Coil "Musick to Play in the Dark" (Dais)

Duma "s/t" (Nyege Nyege Tapes) Twig Harper "External Boundless Prison/ in 4 parts EP" (self-release) I.P.Y. (Ikue Mori, Phew, YoshimiO) "I.P.Y." (Tzadik) Kill Alters "A2B2 Live Stream 11/13/2020" (self-release) Krallice "Mass Cathexis" (self-release) Lust$ickPuppy "Cosmic Brownie" (self-release) Doug McKechnie "San Francisco Moog: 1968-72" (VG+ Records) Merlin Nova "Boo!" (self-release) Omrb "Milandthriust, The Graths of Mersh" (self-release) Akio Suzuki & Aki Onda "gi n ga" (self-release) Yoth Iria "Under His Sway" (Repulsive Echo) Wetware "Flail" (Dais)

My own music released this year:

collaborations

Chatter Blip "Microcosmopolitan" (Contour Editions) Matmos "The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form" (Thrill Jockey) Reverse Bullets "Dreampop Dsyphoria" (self-release) Snake Union "live at Roulette" (self-release) Snake Union w/ Hisham Bharoocha, Bonnie Jones, Heejin Jang, Matthew Regula "Three Arrows" (Rat Route) Thomas Dimuzio "Balance" (Gench Music) YoshimiO & Chuck Bettis "Live at the Stone" (Living Myth)

solo Chuck Bettis "Arc of Enlghtenment" (Living Myth) Chuck Bettis "Motion Parallax" (Living Myth)

compilation Various Artist "Polished Turds Vol.1" (Granpa)

Music Books read this year

"Intermediary Spaces" by Eliane Radigue/Julia Eckhardt (Umland) "Ennio Morricone In His Own Words" by Ennio Morricone/Alessandro De Rosa (Oxford University Press) "Free Jazz In Japan: A Personal History" by Soejima Teruto (Public Bath Press) "Rumors of Noizu: Hijokaidan and the Road to 2nd Damascus" by Kato David Hopkins (Public Bath Press)

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Maya Hardinge

(musician / artist)

list of things i liked this year

first ever solo road trip through new mexico and Texas right before lockdown experiencing manhattan with no cars on the road . having a car to escape in to nature. (which i craved so much) walks and bike rides with friends… FRIENDS! The web site ‘workaway’ that helped me feel that there were options for escape. playing games weekly on zoom during lock down teaching yoga weekly on zoom. Witnessing and being part of the BLM protests. witnessing and being part of the demise of T sitting on my couch at 6am drinking a cup of tea, appreciating my apt. making time to meditate. halloween without tourists .

some music I’ve bought and/or enjoyed this year Elvis Perkins-Black Coat Daughter Patricia Kokett -Soi soi Henning Christiansen - OP201 Bryce Hackford- Safe Svitlana Nianio and Oleksander - Snayesh yak? rozkazhy Brannten schnure - Sommer im Pfirsichhain Killing Joke - Nighttime David Shea - Tower of mirrors Shakey - Shakey Woodford halse tapes Coil - Musick to play in the dark

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BJ Nilsen

sound artist / composer

Work 2020

Despite Covid 19 lots of things actually did happen.

In Feburary I visited the only active nuclear plant in The Nederlands as part of my "Expanded Field Recording” project together with SML. In March revisited the Acousmonium at the Elevate Festival in Graz with an additional trip deep inside the Schlossberg recording old mining trains. In March and April I did two daily recording projects “Pending and Auditory Scenes” - both of Amsterdam during lockdown. In May did my first Zoom field recording workshop with the CAMP project. In June & July two research trips in Waldviertel, Austria with Franz Pomassl. In August recorded bells and organs in 10 different churches around Amsterdam for Jacob Lekkerkerker. In September recorded Kali Malone at the Orgelpark in Amsterdam. Performed at Heart of Noise Festival in Innsbruck and A4 in Bratislava. Also went ice-skating for first time in 20? Years. In November and December I travelled to Jeju island to record field recordings for a project by Femke Herregraven for the Gwangju Biennale, commissioned for 2021. Did lots of gardening, released two tapes “Call it Philips, Eindoven” and “Zomer 2020” with Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson. NOW! Looking forward to 2021.

http://bjnilsen.info https://soundcloud.com/bjnilsen/sets/auditory-scenes-amsterdam

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Vicki Bennett

(People Like Us)

Negativland - True False https://negativland.com/products/truefalse-cd (this came out last year but is so THIS year) Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy Ways https://www.bobdylan.com/albums/rough-and-rowdy-ways/ The Soft Pink Truth - We from Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase https://thesoftpinktruth.bandcamp.com/album/shall-we-go-on-sinning-so-that-grace-may-increase Carl Stone - Stolen Car https://unseenworlds.bandcamp.com/album/stolen-car Porest - Sedimental Gurney https://porest.bandcamp.com/album/sedimental-gurney Matmos - The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form https://matmos.bandcamp.com/album/the-consuming-flame-open-exercises-in-group-form Domenique Dumont - Miniatures De Auto Rhythm https://antinoterecordings.bandcamp.com/album/atn044-domenique-dumont-miniatures-de-auto-rhythm The The - See Without Being Seen https://www.thethe.com/product/see-without-being-seen-cd/ Ciggy de la Noche - Hold Tight HMRC https://soundcloud.com/ciggydelanoche/hold-tight-hmrc Neil Cicierega - Mouth Dreams http://www.neilcic.com/mouthdreams/

and my details: http://peoplelikeus.org/ https://peoplelikeus-vickibennett.bandcamp.com/ pic: http://peoplelikeus.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Welcome-Abroad-promo3-2-scaled.jpg

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DJ Food

Music - Type 303 - Sticky Disco / Analogue Acidbath 7" (45 Live) The British Space Group - The Ley of the Land CD (Wyrd Britain) Squarepusher - Be Up A Hello LP / Warp 10 NTS mix (Warp) dgoHn - Undesignated Proximate (Modern Love) LF58 - Alterazione LP (Astral Industries) Robert Fripp - Music For Quiet Moments series (DGM) Run The Jewels - RTJ4 (BMG) Simf Onyx - Magenta Skyline / The Unresolved 7" (Delights) Luke Vibert - Modern Rave LP (Hypercolour) JG Thirlwell & Simon Steensland - Oscillospira (Ipecac) Aural Design - Looking & Seeing 7" / DL (Russian Library) Luke Vibert - Rave Hop (Hypercolour) Clipping. with Christopher Fleeger - Double Live (Sub Pop) APAT - Terry Riley's 'In C' performed on Modular Synthesizer (YouTube) Field Lines Cartographer - The Spectral Isle LP (Castles In Space) Jane Weaver - The Revolution of Super Visions single (Fire Records) King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - K.G. LP (Flightless) Humanoid - Hed-Set - forthcoming on (De:tuned)

Film / TV - Inside No.9 (BBC) What We Do In The Shadows Season 2 (Netflix) Tales From The Loop (Amazon) Keith Haring - Street Art Boy (BBC) John Was Trying To Contact Aliens (Netflix) The Social Dilemma (Netflix) The Mandalorian (Season 2) (Disney+) Long Hot Summers - The Style Council documentary (Sky Arts) Zappa (Alex Winter)

Books / Comics / Magazines Confessions of a Bookseller - Shaun Bythell (Profile books) The Often Wrong - Farel Dalrymple (Image Comics) Edwin Pouncey - Rated SavX (Strange Attractor Press) Jeffrey Lewis - Fuff (all issues - really late to the party on this one) Rian Hughes - XX - A Novel, Graphic (Picador) Cosey Fanni Tutti - Art, Sex, Music (Faber) Caza - Kris Kool (Passenger Press) Dan Lish - Egostrip Vol.1 Electronic Sound magazine Decorum - Jonathan Hickman & Mike Huddleston (Image) John Higgs - Stranger Than We Can Imagine Simon Halfon - Cover To Cover (Nemperor)

Very few exhibitions or shows this year for obvious reasons

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geek-gem · 5 years ago

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Think I should just make this post about my thoughts on the Bayformers saga.

Especially reveal certain feelings I’ve have about Transformers. Considering I’ve reblogged some Transformers stuff lately. I think I just wanna say I’m a casual fan these days. It depends on my mood. I do enjoy shows like Animated and Prime. But I think I’m more of a casual fan. Which I have wondered maybe throughout my years could of been a mistake to buy a bunch of Transformers figures which I have in my closets. Or well most of them. But I will say my favorites are the Studio Series and Cybertron video game ones.

The Bayformers saga before the Bumbelebee movie. I will be honest I have admitted I think I wasted 7 years of my life being a fan of the movies. But that was because I’ll admit in 2014 I was young and impressionable. I felt betrayed by Age Of Extinction because I had unrealistic expectations for the movie. Because Dark Of The Moon was rated better than Revenge Of The Fallen.

But like I’ve talked about before. The 2007 movie is the reason why I became a fan in the first place. Other things I’ll be honest I like a few things from the Bayformers. Such as yeah the special effects. But also I don’t hate on the designs a lot like maybe most people do. I am impressed by the amount of detail and work you see on characters. Especially some designs I don’t mind. But would it be better if they were more simple? Yes of course. Including I will always love the score by Steve Jablonsky for the first five films.

Including I like action and a lot of the action I don’t mind. But the camera movement should be better. But again there are things I liked.

But what bothers me most about the Bayformers is how they are written. Despite certain good things Michael Bay has done. He’s at fault along with others like Erhan Krueger and Lorezno Di Bonaventura. With maybe whoever else.

We’ve could of gotten a good or even a okay saga of films that could at least respect the source material. But instead we are left with some movies that you wonder how the Hell did these movies got made? With continuity errors so insanely bad it makes you question what the Hell was going on. Most likely Lorenzo considering he said he picks a script he likes.

With humor and certain moments despite some serious moments which makes you feel like if this saga is like a meme or some sorts. As if it’s some sort of joke. But also the two things that bother me most are the characters. Where the writers can’t just simply make a character at least nice or emphatic on the good guys side(I’m sorry I’m sounding weird). But they do stupid shit and act like people you don’t wanna be around with. In a way they are cartoon characters but ones you don’t wanna be near. Especially the other thing that bothers me as well it the characterization of Optimus Prime. Who I swear his personality as it goes on in the films, seems more suitable for Grimlock.

Including it’s a characterization I feel like I’m surprised people complain about Batman and Superman from Zack Snyder’s DC films. I like the DCEU but I can get if some folks aren’t into the DCEU. But I feel like the Bayformers version of Optimus Prime takes the cake of how you don’t adapt a character to a big screen.

Okay I’m sounding hypocritical. There are things such as different versions. Including the shit that happened to Optimus in these movies. But at times it doesn’t justify some of the more brutal things you see him do.

Again I’m excited for the future and hopefully they treat the franchise right. But one thing I wanna say which sounds silly. Despite of how fucking messy and disappointing the Bayformers saga is.....

I strangely still like the ship of Cade Yeager and Optimus Prime.....I’m wondering if I’m being serious. Because I think it’s the content people make that make me laugh. Really I’m not a serious shipper just...I’m sounding silly.

Edit Considering I’ve been watching some YouTube. Including the gonna have faith scene from Age Of Extinction. I wanna talk about the Bayformers version of Optimus again.

Honestly seeing certain scenes like that. I mean I can be fine with a down trodden Optimus who lost his faith. Because after everything that happened in the earlier films. Especially Dark Of The Moon, you can understand. But I do think the portrayal is a bit extreme. Also I’m gonna sound stupid....scenes where you see Optimus has had enough and you understand his rage. It’s in a Michael Bay movie.....including some scenes seem too short.

I may be hypocritical considering I like the DCEU version of Batman. But I feel at least you can understand with that version and also,,,..the lesson was different considering the Martha scene.

I’ll will be honest, seeing certain moments and whatever...I seem to appreciate Age Of Extinction a bit more. Again it’s all because I watched Nostalgia Critic’s review well where he took over the review for Chester A Bum, that changed my mind a bit. I was young and stupid.

I’m just gonna make a list of favorite live action Transformers films.

1. Bumblebee.

2. Transformers/Transformers Dark Of The Man.

3. Age Of Extinction.

4. The Last Knight/Revenge Of The Fallen.

I couldn’t decide if I should make DOTM the third one. Including if I should really make ROTF the last one. It’s certain moments and...whatever....basically the last two are the worst.....yeah I don’t do rankings a lot or so. But I feel with the live action Transformers films right now, I wanted to do that.

#transformers #bayformers #bayverse

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bryonysimcox · 5 years ago

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Spring has Sprung and Life Continues: Week 11, Spain

Another week spent in the Catalunyan countryside as coronavirus lockdown continues. Here are my reflections on the arrival of spring, broad beans, ecological economics and the launch of ‘The Hundred Miler’.

This last week has seen the welcome face of April - signalling that spring is certainly here along with the arrival of Easter. It’s a time associated with new life, new starts, sunny days and longer nights. Even though we remain in full lockdown here in Spain, it feels as though we can draw upon the changing season as a source of assurance.

The week started with something rather special. I finally got to drive Suzi!

When we first bought the van in Summer 2019, I was still only 24, and it was really expensive to get me insured on it. There seems to be a transition point for insurers at age 25, so George and I had always agreed that after my birthday at Christmas, we’d get me on the insurance. But we never got around to it, partly because of the additional expense, and partly because it wasn’t a huge priority, until the start of March. And then of course, we were in Valencia and the lockdown hit, so we had nowhere to drive to even once I was insured!

My first drive here in Catalunya was pretty fun, even though it was just a trip to the supermarket. Because we’re in lockdown, the roads are super quiet which has been great, and the roads around the cottage aren’t tarmaced, so I could do some offroading as well. I’ve since driven a couple more times to and from the supermarket, and it’s so nice to be behind the wheel again. I haven’t driven since we owned our last van, Casper, back in Sydney!

(Images, left to right) My first time driving Suzi the HiAce, and a throwback to driving our last van Casper.

On the topic of Sydney, I have been doing some serious reminiscing. It’s almost coming to exactly a year since George and I flew back to the UK from Australia, and anniversaries always tend to bring on waves of nostalgia. It’s mad to think that a year ago, we didn’t own a van, not least have a clue about where we’d be living in the van! And of course, there’s no way I’d have imagined that we would be stuck amid a pandemic-induced global lockdown. Oh, to have the gift of foresight...

The year that ensued after we left our friends, jobs, and security blanket of Sydney was an absolute rollercoaster. We naively aimed to have the van built and prepped in a matter of months, and when the van-build rolled over towards Christmas 2019, I felt like an absolute failure for not having finished it sooner. And yet now, upon reflection, I guess it’s not such a bad achievement to have managed to buy and build Suzi the HiAce, both of us get jobs in Manchester and move into a flat there, launch our documentary channel ‘Broaden’ and set off for Europe all in a year.

We can all benefit from a bit of self-reflection to put progress into perspective.

youtube

(video) Broaden’s latest video; an overview of who we are and what we’re about. It’s helped me to reframe some of the successes of this last year.

I feel like a stuck record, but food is a wonderful experience which punctuates the repetitive days of lockdown. Last week I wrote about calçots, a deliciously sweet spring onion special to this region and eaten with Romesco sauce. This week, it’s all about broad beans. The garden here is full of them, so I’ve been tasked with picking and podding. Most of them are fat enough to be podded, and are even better if you go the extra mile by blanching them and removing their skins. The smaller ones can be eaten as they are, and make for a lovely crunchy stir-fry ingredient too.

Preparing broad beans can be time-consuming, but also a wonderfully cathartic activity. My granny in Scotland used to have plenty of these beans in her garden, and I remember summer days spent picking and podding with my mum. We’ve stored plenty here in the freezer but have also kept some fresh and I am continually finding ways to incorporate them into our meals. A quick call to my well-resourced mum also resulted in her sending pages and pages photographed from Jane Grigson’s vegetable book: not only with plenty of recipes but incredibly detailed descriptions of the vegetable’s history and qualities too.

(images) Beautiful fresh veggies from the market were a highlight of the week, as well as picking these broad beans straight from the garden. The bowl on the right is what was distilled from podding four huge bags’ worth.

The resurgence in cooking and baking whilst in lockdown is inspiring, but I’ve been thinking about how it affects our supply chains as well.

Just this morning on BBC News I saw an article about dairy farmers having to throw away vast amounts of milk as cafes, hotels and restaurants remain shut, and another article about how there’s been an insane increase in demand for flour, as everyone takes to home baking. Many mills are now working around the clock to meet the demand in the UK and I was especially interested to read that even if there’s enough flour that there’s a shortage of packaging, because usually only 4% of flour produced goes into the smaller bags that we see on supermarket shelves.

Coronavirus has triggered so many changes in how we live and how we behave, that it's wreaking havoc on supply chains like this, and of course, the economy. That said, whilst the negative effects are hard to deny, scientists, economists and ecologists alike are suggesting that we should leverage the situation as an opportunity to reflect on how we all live, and how we might return to ‘normal’ life without just returning to business as usual. I agree: this is a unique opportunity to reassess production and consumption, how we assign value to things, and the economic and political models that we use to govern our world.

The connection between global lockdown, coronavirus, climate change and our economy has really got me thinking.

I recently read an incredible article by ecological economist Simon Mair in Singularity Hub which looked at this relationship. The article pulled together disparate strands that have been on my mind for a while, each related to various books which I’ve been reading, and which I can now see are interconnected. Simon suggests that the Covid-19 crisis could be a chance to “expand our economic imagination”. He explains that coronavirus, like climate change, demands a type of downscaling, counter to the ‘wartime economy’ mentality and massive upscaling of production.

“If we want to be more resilient to pandemics in the future (and to avoid the worst of climate change) we need a system capable of scaling back production in a way that doesn’t mean loss of livelihood”, says Simon.

The article is full of gems, and Simon explores things such as our current addition to economic growth and productivity, the transfer of healthcare and labour goods out of the market and into the hands of the state, and the social forms that could come from an ethic that values care, life, and democracy. It answers some of the questions posed by George Monbiot in ‘How Did We Get Into This Mess?’, echoes some of the radical economic theories proposed by Kate Raworth in ‘Doughnut Economics’, and parallels ideas of democratic market socialism put forward by ‘How to Be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century’ by Erik Olin Wright which I’m currently reading. Simon’s article has really got me so fired up, in fact, that I’m working on an idea for a new video which explores the topic, so watch this space.

(images) Three fantastic books which I highly recommend.

On the subject of videos, Broaden has been one of the only things keeping us sane! I am eternally grateful to have a creative outlet in times like these, and one which involves a collaborative partnership with George too. Whilst we aren’t able to explore places in the van, or capture footage for new films as we’d love to be doing right now, we are at least able to edit from the cottage and work on promoting the content that we are already releasing.

It feels so tricky to get the right tone when releasing videos during a global pandemic.

We are both conscious of remaining sensitive to the severity of the health crisis, whilst balancing that with the reality that life goes on, and that people still want to see pictures, watch videos and read articles that engage with other topics too. As Broaden, George and I obviously made the decision to launch our documentary ‘The Hundred Miler’ during this time, and I hope that people see it as a celebration of running, the natural world, and human resilience, and perhaps even an escape from the daily news of the virus, rather than something insensitive or badly-timed.

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(video) Trailer for ‘The Hundred Miler’

‘The Hundred Miler’ comes out this Saturday 11th April, and we have been overwhelmed by the response already. People have really got behind the project, helping to share it on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube and widen its potential reach. George has been making this film for well over three years, so it feels like an immense milestone to finally have it shown to the world. I don’t think I know many people who hold themselves to such high standards as George, and so to have so many positive messages and people planning to tune in for the live premier on Saturday is the best affirmation of all his hard work that I could wish for. It has been a pleasure to see him create this documentary, and also to have been involved in the production and final stages of its creation.

The Hundred Miler is a film about three Australian guys, taking on the biggest race of their lives; UTMB.

‘Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc’ is renowned in the trail-running world, as one of the most challenging and scenic ultra marathons. The Hundred Miler is an attempt to bring this story to the masses, and we hope that it appeals to non-runners and runners alike, for its underlying themes of companionship, commitment and strength. It premiers live on YouTube at 10am in the UK, which is 7pm in Australia on 11.4.20, and after that the video will be available to watch as a normal video. You can find BTS footage and more information about the film on our Instagram here, details of the launch on the Facebook event here, and the link for the video itself here. You can also subscribe to Broaden’s YouTube channel and set a reminder for when the film goes live.

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(video) ‘The Hundred Miler’ which goes live on Sat 11th April.

It goes without saying: I am really missing the open road and living in a van. And I’m not immune to fear of the future either. But as the days and weeks pass, we learn to adapt to changing circumstances and continue to find hope among them. In a way, it helps to know we are all in the same boat, facing a topsy-turvy life full of roadblocks and revelations. Thanks for tuning in to read my weekly ramblings and I hope you’re all keeping as well as you can be. Until next week!

#thehundredmiler #traveldiaries #SuziTheVan #toyotahiace #hiacevan #overlandadventures #BryonyandGeorge #digitalnomads #vanliving #vanlife

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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The WNUF Halloween Special: The Making of the Most Fun Found Footage Horror Movie Ever

https://ift.tt/2G6IjxE

In 1987, local news station WNUF held a special publicity stunt on Halloween night. Reporter Frank Stewart, joined by paranormal investigators and a priest, entered the infamous (and presumably haunted) Webber House, an empty home that was the site of a gruesome double murder. Hoping to get some ratings by doing a live call-in séance and an exorcism, Stewart and the others bit off more than they could chew as the event went completely awry. While the televised special ended in confusion, a special VHS tape was discovered years later that showed what really happened that Halloween.

That’s the plot of WNUF Halloween Special, released in 2013 by director Chris LaMartina. Told in the form of a news broadcast and follow-up special that were taped off TV, the found footage movie has garnered a cult following due to its unique 80s throwback style, realistic awkwardness, and loads of made-up commercials that add to the at-times casual experience.

If you have Shudder, WNUF Halloween Special is now available on there for you to watch this Halloween season.

In the meantime, I got to discuss the film with prolific indie director Chris LaMartina as he discusses the making of the film, its lovable quirks, and the inevitable follow-up.

Den of Geek: I have to imagine the WNUF Halloween Special was a unique process to put together what with the news prologue, the Halloween special itself, and the many commercials, especially since the commercials seem to get thematically darker as the special gets more ominous. How was that puzzle put together, especially compared to your other films?

Chris LaMartina: It’s really interesting. WNUF came together faster, believe it or not, than any of my other features. It’s kind of funny, it had been a couple of years since we made a feature. It was the second summer we weren’t making a horror film, and that really bummed me out. But what ended up happening was, I sat down with my frequent co-writer, co-producer Jimmy George and I was like, “Dude, the only way we’re going to make a movie is probably if we make a found footage.”

When I figured out what I wanted to do with found footage, when I literally was like, “Okay, how do we actually make the fun version of a found footage movie?”

Basically what ended up happening was we made it the most ass backwards way, making something that has so many more set pieces, so many more working parts. But the thing is, basically it was the fastest thing we’d ever produced because from script to screen it was nine months. Literally from sitting down to write the first treatment to finishing the final product was nine months.

I will say that I did that while we were raising money to make another film Call Girl of Cthulhu. We were running a crowdsource campaign while we were shooting and editing WNUF. The only thing I can say was, I was 27 years old, I was a single guy, I was living in a basement, my job had not become a career. Literally all I did was just live and breathe making movies and playing in a punk rock band, but that was when I wasn’t working. It was a crazy time.

The commercials were done in a certain way. I knew I had resources, a lot of stock footage, either royalty-free stock or public domain footage, that I knew I could turn into commercials. Basically, what we ended up doing was, the movie was written like a movie, it was written with commercial breaks, it just said “COMMERCIAL BREAK.” At that point what I did was I had myself and my buddy Pat York, and a couple other folks wrote just an absurd amount of commercials. There’s commercials that we wrote that were never even made. There’s commercials that are on the DVD but not in the official movie. There’s tons.

What I did was, I had all the people that were helping write some of the commercials come over and watch all the stock footage I had and I would tell them, “All right, I have enough footage for you to make a petting zoo commercial,” or, “I have enough footage for you to make– See this little short film that my buddy Jeff Herberger did? We’re going to take that footage of the space guy and make Galaxy Pilot.”

The majority of the commercials were stock footage of some sort, with the exception of the tampon thing. We shot that one. The King of Castle Lane was actually produced by my buddy Scott Maccubbin. Parents Against Partying was produced by my buddy Jim Branscome. We had four or so guest directors for just four commercials around that at least, no five. Shawn Jones was also Phil’s Carpet Warehouse. But the writing and the other stuff was mostly me and Pat but they involved other folks.

I would wake up at 6:00 in the morning, I would edit two commercials, go to work. I could walk to work from where I was living at the time. I’d come home on my lunch break, edit the commercials, go back to work, come home that night, edit another commercial, that type of thing. It was exhausting, but I had so much fun making WNUF and it was such a thing that was in my DNA.

I worked at a TV station right out of college, it was a government TV channel. At the time I was working in marketing. The year after that I became creative director for a digital agency, so I just loved writing ad copy.

Basically, what I did with WNUF was, I let it be an excuse to say all the shitty, stupid, cheesy things they would never let me keep in a commercial I wrote, so that was pretty cool.

So that’s the physical process of what you went through. What was the mental process that led to you guys putting together this nostalgia/horror/found footage cocktail?

We wanted to make a found footage movie but we were like, “What’s our found footage movie?” We made horror comedies. Basically, what we arrived with was sort of like, imagine if Christopher Guest made a found footage movie.

Yeah, it’s funny you say Christopher Guest because every time they show the anchorman, I kept thinking like he is just so close to being Fred Willard.

Dude, yeah. Yes, Gavin Gordon as played by Richard Cutting, he just channeled that. He’s such a sweet guy. It’s just funny.

Anyway, but yeah I was going to say, I sat down and I wrote down a list of everything I hated about found footage movies. It was like 1) why are they filming this? When things get crazy, why are they filming this? It makes no sense. 2) Found footage movies largely are small casts, so that’s not really interesting to me. 3) There’s never breaks. There’s literally never … It’s just one location. This sucks.

There’s no way to break up the monotony of shitty found footage. Finally I was like, as soon as you go into a store and buy a movie with a UPC code, the illusion of watching a found footage film is immediately broken because you know you’re watching commercially available film, and if it was some sort of snuff movie, there’s no goddamn way people would see that.

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BBC/Netflix Dracula’s Behind-the-Scenes Set Secrets

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First and foremost, why are they filming? I had this idea that they’re filming because it’s their job. It’s a special, it’s TV. If they don’t film they don’t cut to ad, they can’t make money. It’s literally their job, it’s their lifeblood. So then the idea of a TV show was kind of great because you have commercial breaks. Now most movies, when you do commercial breaks people just do one commercial or cut out the commercials. I figured, “No. That’s what we need to do.”

We need to show the commercials, because no one is crazy enough to do that. And there we were, we were the crazy nobodies. Yes, we’re going to make an 81-minute movie where 25 minutes are commercials. That’s insane, but that was fun for me.

And then the whole idea of having an ensemble cast. I had always liked ensemble movies or ensemble films so it was one of the situations where it’s like that was fun to have guests and things like that. And then after that, the big thing for me was the conceit of the story, the conceit of the distribution, how are you buying this movie? When we finished WNUF, for the first three months it was only available on VHS, you could only buy it on VHS, but for six months prior to that I had uploaded the WNUF Halloween Special on sites like Cinemageddon, on torrent sites, for people to think that they were real.

And then we had made copies on VHS ourselves before they were on sale and left them at horror conventions or dropped them off at the thrift store or threw them out of the car window. We had about 50 tapes back then. I don’t know if anyone found any of those. I think a couple of people found them at the horror convention. But that idea of building the mythos and having a whisper campaign was really, really important to me.

Going back to the commercials, like you said, your friends worked on those. Are there any in particular that when you looked at it you were, more than any other, just like, “Wow, that is perfect. This fits perfectly into the eighties aesthetic that we’re doing here.”

It’s funny, I have to think about that. I really think of the eighties local thing because I think there’s a couple of ones that look like national TV ads, but I feel like the local edge is what I really was attracted to in the movie, at least to make the original. I would say the ones that stick out to me are…

I actually really like the ad for the WNUF Halloween Special that you see during the commercial break. I also think the ad for High Pike Farms, feels very like regional TV.

In my head I was like, “Okay, this is a small market somewhere east of the Mississippi, because the call letters there start with a W.” I had this moment where I was like, “I imagine the same company probably paid at least 20% of these commercials if they’re all local ads, but there’s not going to be six video companies in this small town.”

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There were certain things… I was very careful not to make fonts based off the really, really local, local ones. But yeah, I can’t think of one that really, really stands out to me. I love something like the Frumkes Wine Cooler. I think Galaxy Pilot is a lot of fun.

Obviously, Paul Fahrenkopf steals the show as Frank Stewart. What other performance, supporting or minor, really sticks out to you? Personally for me it’s the guy dressed up as a vampire who appears in the background of the event and he’s the one who awkwardly realizes like, “Wait, there was a murder here?” That’s just such a great response, and it’s just such a perfectly awkward moment.

I’ll tell you two things. One, it is seriously my dream for that picture of, as we call him, Acid Dracula. I just want a picture of Mike Walls in that role turned into a meme that says, “Somebody died in this house?” just because I feel like his face is so priceless there. But no, here’s what I’ll tell you. When we shot those—

Oh, real quick. I just want to point out. I don’t know if it’s because of you, but I’m pretty sure on the IMDB page, he’s one of the images that pops up immediately.

That’s amazing. Yeah. Mike Walls, who plays Acid Dracula, he’s incredible. It’s really interesting, I’ve known Mike for a long time through the punk rock scene, but Mike told me, he was like, “What is my character?” Because people were just extras, literally I just said, “Hey, just answer the question and you can say whatever you want.” We had 15 people do that and we ended up using three or four on each segment.

Mike told me later on, “My character has gone to be on TV and right before he’s on TV has dropped acid.”

If you look at the outtakes on the DVD, the other thing that Mike did was during a take, which was insanely funny, was Frank asks him whatever the question is and he says, “I want to win.” And Frank’s like, “What?” He’s like, “Win. I want to win.” And he literally just keeps saying, “I want to win.” And then he says, “Thank you.” It’s just, it’s nuts. Because I was camera operator for a lot of the things too, it was me and my buddy Jim, who I used to work with at this TV station. Literally there were so many moments where I’m shaking, I’m trying not to shake the camera because it’s one of those huge shoulder mounted cage cameras.

But yeah, Mike had me on the floor.

Is there anyone else that you look at in the movie and just like, “That’s just such a great, perfect performance?”

Dude, I’d say right now, I could go down the list. I think the world of Paul Fahrenkopf and wrote the role of Frank Stewart for him. He had been in a film we made called President’s Day and I always felt Paul was just like… It’s sort of weird, man.

When I think about the movies we made, it ends up being this thing like summer camp where your crew becomes your family to a certain degree and hopefully they come back next summer and you make another thing together. Paul, for me, there’s something about Paul and his attitude and his snark that just makes him such a true character.

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But basically we wrote that movie knowing that Paul could be smarmy and like a dick, but still be really charming and funny. That’s one thing that I’ve always done, as I write I try to imagine who the character is going to be played by. It’s based on people I know. Louis and Claire Berger, Brian St. August and Helenmary Ball, they were just phenomenal. All those folks I really do consider an extension of my family.

I was going to say, I think even minor characters, even Acid Dracula or even Kendra North who plays the head of HARVEST. I think they bring something very funny but they’re all very funny in different ways. I think it’s really important to not do something where it’s everyone’s hitting the same note. I think Paul’s humor is a lot different than the Bergers’ humor, but yeah.

WNUF Halloween Special has become one of the annual standbys in my household. What Halloween movies do you always find yourself going back to year after year?

Okay. What I would say is the ones that are like quintessential, like this is Halloween to me…? I have to watch The Midnight Hour, the made-for-TV movie from the early 80s that was basically made to cash in on “Thriller.” What was great was that we did a double feature. My buddy Jim Branscome, who runs a screening series in LA called Cinematic Void, he did a double feature with WNUF and Midnight Hour, so that was one of the best nights because it’s my favorite Halloween movie and a movie I made.

During the day of Halloween I always watched The Halloween Tree, the Hanna-Barbera based on the Ray Bradbury story. It’s funny, I have a long list of Halloween shorts that I find myself, because I collect film print, so short films I like watching. I like Disney’s Skeleton Dance.

Also there’s a great version of Legend of Sleepy Hollow narrated by John Carradine that’s just… I honestly think Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the story itself, is one of the most perfectly Halloween ones as an experience because basically, you don’t know what’s real or not until afterwards and you’re just like, “Yeah, it’s a prank. It’s not real, but it’s still scary and wrapped in disguise in this mythos.”

I recall that there was an attempt to crowdfund a WNUF sequel.

Yeah.

Unfortunately that didn’t hit its goal but I have to ask, what would it have been about and is there still hope for it one day?

Oh dude, I’m making it right now!

Oh, you ARE making it?!

Yeah. That’s why I did GoFundMe. I did a GoFundMe because I don’t have to hit my goal. Look, I’m going to make the movie no matter what we raise. If I had raised 20 bucks, I would have figured out a way to make the movie. What ends up happening is the change in scope. What I have right now is, we’ve raised a decent chunk of change. People can still donate and get copies if they want to because as of right now the GoFundMe link is basically pre-buys at this point. You donate and then I’ll send you the DVD or the VHS or whatever.

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Okay, so let me talk about the movie. I’ve been very tight-lipped about what the movie is about. There’s plenty of people who have worked on it so far that know what it’s about. Here’s what I’ll say, it’s not a reboot, it’s not a remake. There are returning characters, but I’m very careful about what I explain the plot to be. What I will say is, it takes place in the nineties. Characters do return, I think about 10 characters return.

Did Dracula get over his acid problem yet?

Did Acid Dracula? I’ll tell you this, Mike Walls is in the sequel and he plays a vampire of some sort but he is not, as I would call him, Acid Dracula.

Okay. Interesting.

Yeah. The movie takes place in 1994 and 1996. I think the best way to describe this one to people without blowing what it’s about is, imagine if Jerry Springer hosted an episode of Sightings.

And also I think it’s really interesting too, it was really a lot more difficult and dynamic trying to satirize the 1990s in a way that felt believable, but still accurate and still sort of snarky, like you do with the ’80s. We’ve been far enough away from the ’80s when we made WNUF.

I know one of the reasons why WNUF is so important to make for me and just a different experience was like, I had seen so many people make fun of the 80s in a way that’s kind of like laughing at it, not laughing with it, or it doesn’t come from a place of love. Honestly, man, I grew up the youngest of three kids, I was an accident, and I used to get the tapes that my brother and sister taped off TV, but those were my intro to a lot of classic horror movies or TV shows, and they had all the commercials and I watched those tapes and commercials well into my high school years. Basically, I had a really encyclopedic knowledge of what would be accurate for that era, even though I wasn’t a teenager in 1987.

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But what I was going to say was, the ’90s for me, where we’re doing the sequel is, that’s the shit I grew up watching. I’d come home from school and there’d be Jerry Springer on or there’d be Power Rangers or even just like things like Mysteries, Magic, and Miracles that was on the Sci-Fi channel or Mysteries from Beyond the Other Dominion. I think that was the name of it, it had Franklin Ruehl was the host. It was a weird show, I think it was a public access thing from New York that got syndicated and it got picked up. It was only on Saturday mornings for the Sci-Fi channel. I’m totally rambling right now.

What I’ve experienced as I’ve gotten older, but then also as I had the distance of making WNUF and who reacted to it and seeing what’s happening next, the fact is there’s the same type of tropes and type of almost archetypes that exist in every era, but they evolve and change a little bit. I think it’s really interesting, almost like what the type of commercial for a wine cooler might be in 1987 versus what that might be in 1996.

Oh, that’s great. I’m very excited. One of the things that my wife and I would do sometimes, especially in the quarantine, is go on YouTube and just watch a 15-minute block of commercials from maybe the 80s or the 90s. It’s always interesting to see how they stack up compared to each other, especially if you don’t remember them at all.

Right. Yeah, definitely. I was going to say, what I thought was really interesting was, occasionally when I’m doing edits or whatever I’d just want to palate cleanse and look at something just to remind myself of the era, or even just be like, “Man, let’s go look at some fonts that they might have been using for this ad.” And then I’ll find another commercial that’s like, “Holy shit, dude. In this other commercial block I watched I had written something that was almost identical.”

That happens. There were so many times, even with the original, where years later I’d be watching something on YouTube and I’d be like, “Oh my god, people are going to think I ripped that off,” but I didn’t. I literally just didn’t know that existed. I found some public access Halloween thing where somebody made some contacting Elvis joke and I was like, “Jesus Christ, I didn’t see that but somebody probably totally thinks I ripped it off.”

The one trope that I would say absolutely needs to be in at least one commercial is the idea that every kid fucking hates adults.

Yeah, right.

It’s always, “Yeah, my gym teacher’s an idiot. He doesn’t get why I like this cereal.” Or the kid’s all, “Yeah. I saw my uncle today. He absolutely sucks.”

Yeah. No, I think I’ve got you covered.

All right, that’s good.

And I’m pretty sure I have you covered twofold if I’m remembering correctly, but yeah.

Speaking of the sequel, WNUF Halloween Special has its share of, I guess I’ll call it the expanded universe. I know you guys put together an album of earlier Frank Stewart broadcasts. There’s a commercial on YouTube for the WNUF Christmas Special which has some very sly foreshadowing in the description that relates to the ending of the movie. Was there ever any intent to go further than just a commercial? What made you guys think to just put that up or put that together?

The second I finished making WNUF I realized, I had too much fun making this movie. I missed the idea of making something with commercials or the idea of something that feels a little bit more improvised a little bit. It was one of those things where it was like I wanted to make something again, and then when the movie came out, we had never seen such a response to one of our films. I’ve directed eight features and this was the one that people really cared about. I think the idea of the budget being low is what helped people really respond to it and understand the aesthetic.

In December of that year what ended up happening was, or maybe November of that year, I was like, “Dude, let’s do a Christmas special as a joke, almost a social media Christmas card.”

And that’s what we did. If I was actually going to make a WNUF Christmas Special, it would be a goofy, community theater, Frank Stewart and Scrooge, and all the other anchors as the Ghosts of Past, Present, Future.

That’s an awesome mental image. You talk about the big sequel, but re there any other projects that you’re working on that we can look forward to, and perhaps a full-length version of Sarcophagus?

That’s funny. I was going to say, the mummy clips from Sarcophagus are from another film we made many years ago. We made a film many years ago called Grave Mistakes and there was a mummy, so all that stuff put into the mummy is from an actual movie we made, but granted, the whole movie is not nearly as entertaining as that 15-second ad for Sarcophagus.

I’m still working on the WNUF sequel. I’ll tell you right now, I was hoping to have it done a lot sooner but COVID happened and I can’t, really. We’re doing social distance shoots and I’m figuring out how to do everything safely without risking anyone’s health, but a lot of the stuff is not possible to do so I’m going to have to wait at least until the pandemic is over to do some of the things we had planned.

But that being said, I have another film actually co-written with my buddy Jimmy called What Happens Next Will Scare You. What Happens Next Will Scare You is a viral video. It’s like a clickbait horror anthology. It’s about these clickbait journalists who are—

Oh god, I’m screwed.

—who vote on the top 13 scariest viral videos for a listicle on Halloween. An early entry into the night unleashes this curse that brings all the monsters and weird things from the viral videos into the real world. That’s actually premiering virtually at the Nightmares Film Festival in October. I’m pretty sure I’ll be doing some sort of Q&A of some sort, but there’s that.

And then also the Bergers, the Bergers are in that, the paranormal investigator couple from WNUF are in that film. Basically, one of the segments is from an old TV show they did.

Oh, that’s cool. This all ties together.

Yeah.

Oh, I’m sorry. My wife just walked into the room with her own question that she just wrote down for me.

Yes, please.

“Is Shadow going to be in the next movie?”

The cat that played Shadow is dead, unfortunately. I know, that’s really, really sad. Without giving anything away, Shadow – I’m actually looking at my cat right now as I talk about this, which just funny. She’s probably wondering, “What the fuck are you talking about, Dad?” My cat is not Shadow, by the way.

The Bergers are in the sequel and Shadow is involved in some of it, but not in a very direct way, it’s very minor, mostly because I tried to find a cat like Shadow and it was just a nightmare. Trying to replace a very specific cat with a very low budget is not easy.

WNUF Halloween Special is available on DVD and now available to watch on Shudder. Any final thoughts on the project for the readers out there?

I think WNUF was a pretty rare gift and I don’t think anything I will make going forward will ever resonate like the original WNUF did. It really is, it feels like lightning in a bottle. It feels like all the stars aligned and how that movie exists is just really special and unique. It’s interesting to me because Halloween, as just a horror fan, somebody who just loves October, is one of those nights where you want everything to be magical and perfect. Sometimes you have these expectations, it’s really hard to have those expectations live up to what Halloween is in your mind.

We shot WNUF in October. Literally, we shot the majority of the movie in about five-ish days. All the stuff in the Webber House was three or four days. It felt like a fever dream, it was this big convergence of just the right elements.

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Yeah man, I don’t know what else I can say except that I feel very lucky that I directed a movie that people tell me they watch every Halloween. I don’t know, that’s really special. I don’t know, I don’t make movies for a living and I don’t know if I even want to. It’s more just like I love the fact that I made that movie out of pure love and not for a paycheck, and I think that’s something that you can tell, when somebody makes a horror movie to further their career versus somebody making something out of pure joy. And everyone who worked with us on those movies was the same way. Nobody got paid for that movie. The budget was $1500.

The post The WNUF Halloween Special: The Making of the Most Fun Found Footage Horror Movie Ever appeared first on Den of Geek.

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30 Years of Genesis: Going 30 Years Playing No More Than 30 Minutes of Sonic

This summer marks the 30th anniversary of the launch of the Sega Genesis in North America. I had such a nostalgia trip reliving my memories of the GameBoy while crafting my recent GameBoy 30th Anniversary piece, that it only seemed fitting that Sega’s iconic 16-bit platform gets the same honors of recounting my memories with it. If you are looking for a more authoritative historical piece on it I recommend either Phoenix IV or Console Wars. The former is a strictly informative recounting of the history of the system while the latter is an entertaining retelling done in the form of a novel after days of interviews with everyone involved. The following are my own personal experiences of playing the Genesis over the past three decades.

I remember first encountering the Genesis while spending either Thanksgiving or Christmas 1991 over at my older sister and brother-in-law’s house. I was only eight at the time, and remember being perplexed at the black gaming box and the thought that there could somehow be other systems than the good ‘ol NES. I did not subscribe to any gaming magazines at this point and I think I was still about a year away from experiencing Sega’s deluge of combative commercials against the SNES. During that holiday season of ’91 I recalled playing the first Streets of Rage on the Genesis with my little brother nonstop the couple days we were there. I remember being blown away by how superior it was graphically to what I experienced with other NES brawlers before like Double Dragon. We only got up to the stage where we faced off against the dueling karate sisters who kept whooping us and neither my brother nor I had the skills at the time to get past. The next year or two the only times I recall playing the Genesis were at my sister’s for the holidays or the occasional store kiosk. I remember my brother-in-law picked up other games we played regularly like ToeJam & Earl, Buster Douglas Boxing, Toxic Crusaders and PGA Tour Golf. I dug all of them, especially ToeJam & Earl where I had no idea what was happening half the time with its unorthodox level structure and item pick-ups, but loving the co-op gameplay, stylish graphics and its funky beats at the time. Brief memories of store kiosk play from the early 90s consisted of being horrible at the original Sonic the Hedgehog because it was too fast for my childhood noggin’ to comprehend. I also recall being confused at early editions of Madden Football at store kiosks because when I would press buttons to hike the ball ‘Audible’ would appear on screen and then eight or nine-year old Dale had no idea what that meant compared to easier pick up and play NES pigskin games I was conditioned to.

Until Christmas of 1995 I probably played no more than about 10 Genesis games all together. I was more aware of the system by that time thanks to reading magazines more regularly at that point and hearing from classmates who had the system, but until that point I was pretty loyal to my NES still (I did not get a SNES until late ’96). For the Christmas season of ’95 my best friend at the time who coincidentally lived three blocks away from me, Rich, received a Genesis and that was when I got a lot more hands-on time with its extensive library of titles. Rich and I shared a lot of similar game interests which at that time was a ton of sports games, fighters and action/brawlers. For the next several months I was over at Rich’s for countless sleepovers and going nuts with fighters like Mortal Kombat II and Evander Holyfield’s Real Deal Boxing. Real Deal Boxing blew away Buster Douglas Boxing with more authentic boxing gameplay and an insanely thorough career mode where we would take a created boxer and move him up the ranks as champion until his skills gradually weakened with age to force his retirement. We absolutely ate up the sports games at that time. We played what seemed like an infinite amount of Madden NFL ‘97. A much wiser 13-year old Dale was no longer befuddled by the intricacies of Madden and we had so much fun with it. We would create many players to deck out our teams and keep running blitzes to try and injure the players because there was an intense bone-breaking injury sound effect that we ate up. It was like the equivalent of Favreau and Vaughn going nuts in Swingers when they made Gretzky bleed in NHLPA ‘93.

Mutant League Football was another favorite of ours that made that injury sound effect in Madden child’s play. EA also made MLF and it was the equivalent of NFL Blitz at the time with larger-than-life mutants and animals literally killing each other on the field with over-the-top hits. It was possible to force a team to retire due to killing off too many of its players which was always our desired objective! If you have not played its spiritual successor follow-up, Mutant Football League on PS4/XB1 I give it the highest of recommendations because it perfectly capture the sensation of the Genesis game while bringing it up to contemporary standards. We also played a lot of EA’s violent driving game, Road Rash II. Being able to race motorcycles and knock out your competition with chains and nightclubs while trying to evade the cops seemed revolutionary when playing it for the first time! We later discovered EA’s take of Road Rash on rollerblades in the awesome rollerblade stunt/racing game Skitchin’! Fun fact about Skitchin’ is that the competitors you race against have gnarly nicknames like ‘Thrasher’ and ‘Jackal’ and thus in ’96 was the origin of how I came up with what wound up as my online handle but at the time was my radical Skitchin’ username, ‘Gruel’ to blend in with the rest of the pack and have stuck with it all these years later!

After spending several months devouring a good dozen or so Genesis games with Rich, it did not compare to the summer of ’96 when Rich signed up for the Sega Channel! I remember it launched in 1994 and seeing commercials for it at the time where it seemed too good to be true where for about $15/month would net the user a Genesis cartridge that would connect to a cable line and get the Genesis online streaming access to a rotating 40-50 Genesis games a month. That is right, decades before services like OnLive and Playstation Now, the Genesis did streaming gaming back in ’94 and it worked like a charm! Check out this pristine archival footage of the menus to see how it all worked. Sega Channel essentially was what Xbox Game Pass is today, and I am surprised to hear how little it is discussed when people reminisce about the Genesis. We discovered so many new games this way and for that entire summer I was over at Rich’s about three to four days a week binging on Sega Channel games until Rich’s dad got on my case because I was over so often. I remember discovering new sports games on there like the innocuously titled Super Volleyball that we became somehow addicted to and the surprisingly awesome Tiny Toons ACME All-Stars that had its own killer spin on arcade basketball and soccer that it played like NBA Jam but filled with crazy Tiny Toons power-up attacks. Sega Channel is what additionally exposed me to co-op games like General Chaos, the Streets of Rage sequels and Gain Ground and classic single player games like Shadowrun, Comix Zone and Vectorman that Rich and I took turns trying to keep progressing through. Sega Channel also was my first exposure to the classic Bomberman franchise with many nail-biting rounds played of Mega Bomberman! It came as no surprise to me when I finally bought a Genesis a few years later in 1999 that the first games I hunted down for it were those same games I first discovered on the Sega Channel! In April of 1999 shortly after I turned 16 I got my first after-school job and after a few paychecks I went to Wal-Mart to determine what should be one of the first games to buy on my own! This was around the time when Majesco re-released the third, mini-sized Genesis model at a discount price of around $30. I was legit stunned at that price for a brand new system, even if it was for a ten-year old platform at that time I could not help but instantly snatched it up!

If you read my GameBoy special from several weeks back you will recall my lamenting over its lackluster wrestling games compared to the superior ones on the 16-bit platforms. On Genesis, Rich and I played way too much Royal Rumble on the system. Other wrestling games I picked up for the Genesis over the years was the inferior predecessor to Royal Rumble in Super Wrestlemania. While I had a blast with Rumble way back when, it regrettably does not hold up well all these years later with its over-reliance on a button mashing grapple meter that obliterated thumbs that I have no idea how I tolerated at the time. Saturday Night Slam Masters was a unique wrestling game from Capcom. It is essentially Street Fighter II in a wrestling ring, complete with victory taunts, Mike Haggar from Final Fight in its roster and even has a few wrestling moves sprinkled in! I loved how they had over-the-top laser light entrances and larger-than-life character sprites at the time, and I recall enjoying the Genesis version more than the SNES. There was nothing else like it since, and on occasion I will still throw it in every couple of years. I continue to hope one day Capcom will release its sequel, Ring of Destruction in a random collection of arcade games because it never got a home port all these years later.

Sports games ruled on the Genesis! Pictured from clockwise at top left is Holyfield's Real Deal Boxing, NHLPA '93, Super Volleyball and Tiny Toon ACME All-Stars I mentioned some of my favorite sports games for the system above, but it really needs to be emphasized how big sports games were on the Genesis. Both Sega and EA pumped out a seemingly endless line of sports titles for the system. I remember getting into silly speculation with Rich over how much extra memory that yellow tab on the EA carts allowed EA games to play better. For hoops titles I got my NBA Jam and Live fix on SNES, but on the ‘ol Genny my go-to basketball games were the oft-forgotten NCAA skinned version of Jam in College Hoops. I occasionally also threw in the hand-me-down street ball version of NBA Jam in Barkley Shut up Jam. I loved Madden, but Sega’s Joe Montana line of gridiron games were just a notch or two below too. For baseball, Sega’s World Series Baseball titles were in a league of its own when it came to gameplay and presentation with its larger-than-life hitter/batter perspective. For hockey EA’s NHL line was/is legendary! About four or five years ago my friend Derek gave me a ring to come over for some impromptu random gaming and he never played much Genesis before so when he got over I had the Genesis hooked up and laid out all my games for it and of that night we had the most fun playing a few rounds of NHL ‘94. At that point it was a 20-21 year old game and it still held up as one of the best hockey games of all time.

For brawlers I loved the Streets of Rage games, but I think it is my secret shame that I have yet to complete a single one. That must one day change! I did love the exclusive Genesis TMNT game, Hyperstone Heist! It was right up there with Turtles in Time and every couple of years my friend Matt and I make it a ritual to plow through that game. After many attempts we also conquered the Genesis port of the awesome arcade brawler, The Punisher! It does not have as friendly of a continue system as Hyperstone Heist so Matt and I had to learn to play a little more conservatively and not rely on mindless button mashing. It felt gratifying to have all that hard work pay off and beat The Punisher….until we got a copout ending screen of text saying ‘Now play like the Punisher and try hard difficulty.’ We did not, but I wound up looking up the ending several years later and at least Capcom made it worth your while because it had a far more intricate ending than many other brawlers at the time. The one Genesis brawler that always had our number was Captain America and the Avengers. It is a lot of fun to play, but it does not allow that many credits and by setting ourselves up with the max lives and continues that game was still a beast, and even playing conservatively and having so many attempts we only managed to make it to the final boss, The Red Skull, only once. Let us fast track to about a little under 10 years ago when a co-worker approached me about being interested in buying his Genesis/Sega CD/32X along with a couple dozen games. He was saving up to pay off his upcoming wedding and he gave me a list of everything he had along with prices for everything he wanted going by what he saw off eBay auctions. I did some price researching of my own and made him an offer of around $250-ish for the ‘tower of power’ and about 20 games combined for all three systems. Looking back I accidentally lucked out with that offer because it was only a couple years later when 8/16-bit prices on the used market took a huge jump. I never had a must-have desire for a Sega CD or 32X, but there were always a couple of games I wanted to play on them that I eventually hunted down. I liked the versions of WWF RAW, Doom, Virtua Racer and especially Virtual Fighter the most out of my dozen 32X games. I recall as a then 10 and 11 year old being disgusted by early polygonal console games like Star Fox and Virtua Racer and was more on board with FMV games being the future, but remember being a little taken aback by Virtua Fighter indicating that there may be something to these 3D polygons. The 32X version is a surprisingly faithful version to its arcade counterpart.

I need to dive into my SegaCD games more one of these months. I hunted down all the must own titles for it like the Working Design RPGs, Shining Force CD, enhanced versions of Amazing Spider-Man and Batman Returns and Snatcher which I hope to one day knock off my gaming bucket list. Regrettably now my only SegaCD games I invested a decent amount of time into are WWF Rage in the Cage (essentially Super Wrestlemania but with some FMVs and a bigger roster), Slam City with Scottie Pippen (a abysmal FMV-based street hoops title) and the underrated SegaCD exclusive brawler, Prime. I am a huge Ultraverse comic nut and I ate up Prime on SegaCD since it was the only game released featuring characters from that comic book line before Marvel acquired them and cancelled all their books within a couple years (yes, I am still bitter over it). It is only one player, but Matt and I spent a few attempts taking turns at beating levels until we finally vanquished it. We even had an attempt thwarted when Prime was loading the final boss battle when a flipping blackout halted our progress! As memorable as that moment is I will instead forever associate Prime with its unrivaled and unforgettable opening theme music (seriously….give it a listen!). I need to give a shoutout to the official handheld Genesis, aka the Nomad! My brother surprised the hell out of me one year with it for a birthday present. My favorite Nomad memory is my brother getting hyped for getting his own version of Genesis Shadowrun and I told him I would come over and bring my Nomad and my version while he played on his television and we could both start off our own new game and exchange tips and hints in a friendly rivalry type of way. I think my brother must have gotten the Genesis version of Shadowrun mixed up with the completely differently designed SNES version because he tried to run around aimlessly and gun down everything which is not how you want to play the Genesis version. We were planning that day out for weeks and I remember being stunned after about 15 minutes when I was starting to sink my teeth back into Shadowrun’s cyberpunk action-RPG brand of awesome when my brother out of nowhere went ‘screw this, let’s play something else!’

As I wind down I want to give many thanks to Sega for keeping the Genesis relevant throughout this century with its gratuitous re-releases of physical and digital collections. I have no idea why, but I keep on buying them for the convenience of having them for the latest system. It started with the Sega Smash Pack on DreamCast seeming like a killer value in 2001 for 12 games for $40. Then a few years later on PS2 I snatched up Sega Genesis Collection which seemed like an even better value with just over 30 games for $30! Then in the 360/PS3 era along came Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection which offered 40 games for $30!! Sega also sold a lot of the games ala carte via each console’s digital storefronts. Then last year we got Sega Genesis Classics on Xbox One/PS4 with 50 games for $30!!! The last several years Sega also has been licensing out to At Games to release their own pre-programmed Genesis mini console with dozens of pre-installed games. I held off on getting those after hearing how awful its emulation and shoddy production quality is, but after hearing how Sega finally decided to manufacture their own Genesis Mini themselves this fall and handed off the emulation duties to the acclaimed emulation studio M2, I could not pre-order fast enough! I have no idea why I keep deep diving down this well, but hats off to Sega for keeping me coming back again and again! Similarly with my GameBoy flashback piece, I had an unorthodox experience with the Genesis. I was not a hardcore Sonic or Phantasy Star player like the average Genesis owner. If you ask me any day of the week my answer to what my favorite Genesis game is, it could be either The Punisher, Madden NFL ‘97, Shadowrun, Hyperstone Heist, NHL ‘94 or Skitchin’. That is another thing that made the Genesis great was its mammoth library of diverse titles so there was no doubt something for everyone! With that I will put the kibosh on this look back of my favorite moments with the Genesis as I anxiously await for my pre-order of the Genesis Mini to arrive in a few months! Want more Genesis Love from me in Audio and quasi-video form? I was looking through my hard drive archives and a decade ago while I was still doing my videogame podcast, On Tap, we did a special 20th anniversary special on the Genesis where my co-hosts and I reminisce about the Genesis. I went ahead and uploaded it on YouTube so if you want even more Genesis takes then click here to give it a listen! Also recorded throughout 2009 from the On Tap archives was installments from our history of comic book videogames series. In this next episode I uploaded to YouTube is the second part of series where we breakdown every single comic book licensed game on the SNES and Genesis! My co-host Matt and I did thorough research for this episode and played almost nearly every single comic book game from this era in preparation for the episode to give the most up to date research and to see if these games (of which a vast majority are beat-em-ups) still hold up. Click here to give it a listen! My Other Gaming Flashbacks GameBoy 30th Anniversary

#videogames #genesis #Sega #mega drive #punisher #madden #nhl 94 #skitchin #shadowrun #teenage mutant ninja turtles #hyperstone heist #captain america and the avengers #evander holyfield #world series baseball #prime #tiny toons #streets of rage #toejam and earl

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dynared · 8 years ago

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Moonlighting, Thundercats, Korra, and why you never want to resolve romantic tension halfway through a series

In the mid 80′s, Bruce Willis starred in a loopy, fourth wall breaking series called Moonlighting, the premise of which…was pretty much a knockoff of a similar show called Remington Steele, about a quirky detective and a failing actress running a detective agency, trying to keeping it profitable, and the sexual tension that emerged throughout the series. The driving force behind the series was the insane amount of sexual tension between co-stars Cybil Shepard and Bruce Willis. The problem with the show was that said tension was resolved…in the third season.

When there were two more seasons to go.

It gets even worse for the show because due to various commitments including Shepard being pregnant and Willis shooting Die Hard, the relationship never did anything. And thus, the term “Moonlighting Syndrome” was born.

Moonlighting Syndrome, referred to over at TV Tropes as “Shipping Bed Death” is what happens when writers make a couple canon, and then do nothing with them. It’s often said that the journey means more than the destination, but if you arrive at the destination and then there’s nothing there, you as a writer well…you’re stuck.

In the rather nutty shipping world, where everyone demands that their pairings be made canon immediately and we focus on said pairings in the show, I’m going to argue that this is idea is ultimately faulty and more often than not, having your character hook up in the middle of the show, when their entire relationship (or the fandom equivalent of such) runs on unresolved sexual tension, will inevitably doom said relationship.

The funny thing about all the anger and shipping rage/accusations of homophobia/biphobia/whatever phobia/just admit you want to see two characters kiss and them kissing two other people makes you mad for some unexplained reason wars in certain fandoms (coughVoltroncough) is that there was a much smaller scale example of this with another 80′s cartoon remake, Thundercats.

80′s Thundercats was what happens when Japanese animators and American writers all get high on hallucinogenic substances and try to write a series.

Wait.

80′s Thundercats was a series about the last survivors of the Planet Thundera, who found themselves stranded on a far future Earth where they met new friends and protected their new home from the mechanisation of Mumm-Ra. It made no sense, much like Voltron made no sense given all its edits, but it was still a beloved children's franchise. So when it got remade in 2011, the idea, much like Voltron was to take all that childhood nostalgia and wrap it up in a coherent plot, updating the aesthetics and visuals. Gone was the “survivors of a destroyed planet” plot replaced with “survivors of a destroyed kingdom”.

One of those plots involved a love triangle between the naive young king of a destroyed kingdom Lion-O, his adopted brother Tygra, and the mysterious Cheetara, who in this new version was a sage that was implied to be the only one who actually knew what the party had to do.

And at first, it’s implied that she could like either of them, or neither of them, far more preoccupied with stopping the armies that decimated her kingdom and their mysterious benefactor Mumm-Ra than relationship drama.

Until one episode - “New Alliances.” Here it was retconned that Tygra had been crushing on Cheetara since before the series began, as opposed to the pilot establishing she had never met the group before. She apparently returned this affection and everyone was happy.

And the series wasn’t even a quarter of the way done.

Yeah, in eliminating the tension with a retcon and establishing that the matter was over, and Lion-O was fairly OK with it eliminated a ton of tension from the group dynamic, particularly the brotherly rivalry. It also had the unfortunate side effect of making Cheetara something of a damsel, her ability to guide the group now gone in favor of the romantic attachment of a co-lead. They had nothing for them, and as a result, they became boring.

Then the series got canceled halfway into its planned run, and writers went on record saying if they would have been allowed to continue, they would have re-introduced the romantic tension, and possibly broken up Tyra and Cheetara. So even if you were on board with that couple, the series might have split them up anyway, because being together they were far less interesting.

Okay, you’re thinking, that’s one example and the show got canceled! That won’t happen to the show I like!

Not pictured is my Chesire cat grin.

The Legend of Korra gets a lot of flack, most of it deserved, some not. However, one of the biggest points of criticism is how awfully the romance was handled in the first two seasons and how heavily it focused on said romance to the point Season 3′s abandonment of romantic tension was seen as a welcome relief.

In particuarly, in the first and what was supposed to be the only season, Korra falls in love with an aloof boy named Mako because he’s thinner than his brother Bolin. They save the city and make out. THE END.

Except wait! That wasn’t the end! The show got renewed and the pair had to have a functional relationship, something head writers Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko had no freaking clue how to do. So the entire season had the characters engaging in an endless roulette of argument/makeout session/argument with no chemistry (as in they had no common ground and only showed up on screen together to argue or kiss) until they broke up at the end of the season admitting things were never going to work out.

It’s almost kind of sad that Korra and Asami’s relationship is going to be the central focus of a comic book series because if it’s as poorly written as Mako and Korra were, no amount of points for diversity will save it from being painful to read.

So the next time you think about yelling at creators to make your ship canon RIGHT NOW, be careful what you ask for. You might end up getting a house built on sand, and those don’t stand for very long.

#on writing #thundercats #legend of korra #moonlighting #steven universe #Voltron legendary defender #pretty much any fandom where shipping discourse is nutty.#makorra #korrasami #Klance #shaladin #shallura #kallura

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