#it has a bunch of weird shit printed on it its awesome though

[cosmicrhetoric]

i just think its so funny that whenever i talk to someone considering the NYC -> LA move theres always at least one person (regardless of who they are and what they dress like. goths n e girls alike) who goes "but.....the fashion :///" and the mover in question has to be like god i KNOW the fashion 🤮

[mrsluttystark]

Repeat After Me Part 2

Part 1 

You guys have no idea how much it meant to me that part 1 was so well received. Thank you from the bottom of my little starker heart! 

Tags: nff, age difference, former teacher/student, mention of daddy kink, mention of choking

Word count: 3.1k

Read below the cut

Peter wakes up five minutes before his alarm, like he always does.  He absolutely hates the shrill screech of it.  His bed creaks and groans as he sits up and swings his legs over the side.  Suddenly, the springs that had previously been holding him up collapse under him, making him yelp in surprise.  Peter made a mental note that maybe it was time for a new bed, he’d been holding on to the rickety twin mattress he had all his childhood since it was the only thing he had left from May’s.

He usually went into the lab on Saturdays, even though he was supposed to be off during the weekend.  It’s not like he has plans or anything, but he guesses he could shift his schedule around a little to go mattress shopping.

His arm darts out like clockwork and taps his screen to turn the alarm off before his phone could utter the first mind melting ring. Peter runs a hand through his hair to brush some stray curls out of his face and stretches before getting out of bed to do his morning routine.

It’s not until Peter sits down at his two-seater dining table with a bowl of captain crunch berries, two pieces of toast, and a cup of earl gray tea, does he finally check his phone.  

The spoon is barely out of his mouth when he sees the notifications.  Eyes wide, he chokes on the cereal trying to force its half chewed self down his throat.  He can taste the oat milk is his nose and it is not good. 

Mr. Stark accepted his friend request and messaged him?  Peter looked around his apartment, skeptical.  Was he dreaming? Was this one of those life-like dreams where he gets ready for the day then wakes up and has to do it all over again?  He looked down at his arm, should he pinch himself? No, Peter, that’s stupid.

He shook his head and looked at his phone again, opening the Messenger app.

Hey, Kid.

Shit, he was toast.  Collecting himself, Peter took a deep breath to prepare himself for a conversation with his former high school teacher (that he may or may not want to fuck him senseless and cuddle afterward). He racked his brain thinking about how to approach this.  Should he be bold? 

Hi, Daddy. Please cum down my throat? Yeah...that might be too bold.

Hello, Mr. Stark.  I humbly thank you for accepting my friend request.  Ugh, too weird.

He’s overthinking it, he knows. Peter types out and deletes maybe five more messages before he finally settles on:

09:10 am 

Hi, Mr. Stark.  It’s Peter.

09:11 am

Parker.

Peter threw his phone down on the table and put his head in his hands, bowl of cereal soggy and forgotten. He made a face at it and pushed the bowl away, pulling his toast closer.  He took bites of a slice distractedly and washed it down with some tea.  He’d regret not eating a proper breakfast later, but right now his appetite was replaced with a turning feeling that he couldn’t quite place.  His phone vibrates on the table, startling him from his thoughts.

From Tony Stark 09:22 am

Yeah, Peter.  I did read your name on your profile.

09:23 am

Right. Sorry.

From Tony Stark 09:23 am

Don’t worry about it, Kid. Just pokin’ fun.

09:24 am

(sweating emoji)

Thanks for accepting my friend request btw, Mr. Stark.

From Tony Stark 09:26 am

No big deal, thanks for the request, it’s been a while.

And Tony is fine, you’re not my student anymore, Pete.

09:26 am

Yeah, okay. Tony. I can do that

So you remember me?

From Tony Stark 09:27 am

I remember all my students

09:27 am

Really???

From Tony Stark 09:28 am

No, not really lol

But I do remember you, you were a lot skinnier back then.

09:30 am

(eye roll emoji) And you were a lot younger 

From Tony Stark 09:31 am

Ouch, that was uncalled for

09:32 am

You asked for it

So what have you been up to?

From Tony Stark 09:34 am

I’m a mechanical engineer now, quit teaching a few years ago. What about you?

09:35 am

That’s awesome! You were way too smart to be a teacher.

I’m a research chemist

From Tony Stark 09:38 am

Thanks, kid.

That’s about where I’d thought you’d end up, as smart as you are.

09:40 am

Flattery will get you everywhere, Mr. Stark

Tony*

Sorry.

From Tony Stark 09:40 am

Everywhere?

09:41 am

Everywhere.

From Tony Stark 09:50 am

Say, Pete. I don’t actually have a habit of checking this app and I’m about to head out of the house for the day.  I’d like to continue this conversation, so here’s my number if you wanna text me [hidden contact information].

No pressure of course.

From Tony Stark 09:53 am

Peter?

New Message

To: Tony

You know who I am.

From: Tony

Had me there for a second kid. 

I’m about to drive, I’ll text you in a bit.

Peter put his phone down for the first time in almost an hour, eyes straining to refocus after staring at his screen intensely for so long.  His heart was pounding in his chest and his cheeks were starting to ache from smiling.  Had that really happened? Peter brought a hand up to rub at his jaw, still in a daze.  He was finding it very hard to believe that this wasn’t some elaborate dream because there is absolutely no way that this could’ve happened in real life.  Talk about a glitch in the simulation.

He really got Tony Stark’s phone number, and he didn’t even have to ask for it!

Peter scoffed in disbelief, no fucking way! He opened the Facebook app again and went to Tony’s profile.  Turns out there wasn’t much else on it, he had a total of 3 profile pictures and less than 100 friends, none of which were other students and only a few midtown teachers.  So, he either was a very private person or he didn’t use Facebook at all.  And if it was the latter (or both for that matter), why did he accept Peter’s friend request in the first place?

Peter decided not to think about it right now.

He went to his profile pictures and glanced at the current one he already studied last night.  The previous one was just the Guns N’ Roses album cover for Appetite for Destruction.  Classic Rock fan, noted.  His first profile picture, though, was an absolute masterpiece.  Tony looked to be on a beach somewhere, his hair was wet and messy from the clear blue salt water.  Peter wanted to run his tongue over every inch of the olive toned skin exposed to the sun.  His smile was radiant, framed by neatly trimmed facial hair, with thick, dark eyebrows peeking over his sunglasses.  Swung low on his hips right below a toned stomach were hot rod red swim shorts that stopped in the middle of his thigh, showing off his tan legs dusted with dark hair.

Peter tried not to look, he really did, but he could not stop his eyes from landing on the older man’s crotch.  And he was not disappointed.  There, curving onto his thigh, was a long, thick unmistakable dick print.  Peter’s mouth watered at the sight as his own cock stirred with interest.

Fuck. He wondered how big he really was in person.  How far he could take it down his throat.  He wanted to know how it would feel to be stretched and filled by Tony’s cock.

Scooting his chair back abruptly, Peter shot up off of it.  His hard-on tenting almost painfully in his pajama pants and it was starting to create a wet spot.  Mattress shopping can wait, Peter needed to cum, like, yesterday.

He rushes to his room and yanks the drawer of his night stand open, revealing a wooden box.  Peter unlatches the box and grabs a bottle of lube and his veiny lifelike vibrating dildo with a suction cup right behind the silicone balls from his small collection.  This one was by far his favorite, it’s eight inches long and he loved feeling the veins and the girth of it filling him up. 

Peter lays a towel down on his bed and climbs to the middle, carefully avoiding the new dent in the mattress. He bunches up the pillows behind his back so he’s laying at an incline, then starts rubbing himself over his pajama pants while he uncaps the lube and squeezes some onto his fingertips. Clumsily, he pulls and shimmies his pants down his hips with his left hand, breath hitching when his heated erection makes contact with the cool air in his apartment.  It lands with a light smack against his abs and Peter tugs his shirt up and under his chin.  Kicking his pants off his bed, Peter spreads his legs.  He can feel his hole puckering in anticipation of being used.

His left hand begins lightly skimming his torso, feeling his abs contract under his finger tips.  Bringing them higher, he rubs across his chest, pinching his nipples softly.  Peter rubs the lube between his thumb and forefinger to warm it up, then starts rubbing the tight ring of muscle in circles, making his cock jump.

Once he’s coated, he sinks a finger in slowly to coax himself open.  His left hand continues caressing his body, skirting across the area right above his cock.  Peter lets out a plethora of whines and pants, eyes screwed shut at the feeling.  The image of Tony’s face urging him to take another finger.

He knows Tony’s fingers would be thicker, stretching him wider than Peter ever could with his own.  The younger man hoped his former teacher would be able to handle him the way he wanted.  Peter imagined large, strong hands encircling his throat while the other gripped hard on his hips while he took him.

Three of his fingers are buried deep in himself before he even touches his neglected, leaking cock.  His left hand comes to collect the precum pooling at the head and dribbling down his shaft, allowing his hand to glide along his hot skin. He strokes himself lazily as he pulls his fingers out and reaches for the dildo.  Uncapping the lube again he slicks up the silicone and brings it to his open, waiting hole. 

Pulling his left hand off of his cock, Peter grabs one of the pillows and stuffs it under the small of his back.

He imagines Tony looking down at him with dark, analytical eyes, watching Peters every movement.  The rise and fall of his chest, his heaving breaths.  The way Peter keens when he’s stretched like he longs for the sting of it.  Would he fuck into him slowly or would he seath himself in one smooth, quick stroke?

Peter chooses the latter.

He cries out as he pushes the dildo balls deep into his ass without pause.  The pain from the stretch mixes deliciously with pleasure.  Sweat beading on his forehead has Peter’s curls sticking wetly to his skin.  His entire body is covered in a thin sheen of it.

The young man turns onto his left side, dildo still deep inside him.  Peter reaches around his back with his right hand and grips the bottom of the suction cup.  He sighs, easing the dildo out slowly before pressing the button at the base of the shaft to turn on the vibration and ramming it into himself once more.

Tony would be taking him from behind, a long arm encircling Peter’s body, hand coming to grip him at the base of his neck, right above his collarbone so that he could pull the younger man down and onto his thick cock while he fucks up into him.  

Peter continued to fuck himself roughly with the dildo while he thought of Tony’s hard body doing it to him instead.  He’d whisper dirty things in Peter’s ear while he fucked him.  Tell him that he’s such a good little slut for his teacher.  Peter whined at the thought, he’d love it if Tony let him call him Mr. Stark in bed.

He starts stroking his cock faster, feeling his orgasm build in the pit of his stomach.  His right arm is starting to get tired from fucking the dildo into his ass for so long, he’s gotta cum soon.

Peter’s eyes fly open when he hears his phone vibrate through the thrumming in his ears.  It’s a text from Tony.

How’s my favorite student? Miss me?

That does it.  Peter’s entire body jolts as he cums all over his hand and the towel he laid on the bed, a high whine caught in his throat. 

He’s still trying to catch his breath a few minutes later, after he eases the dildo out and places it on the towel.  He wipes his hand off on it as well before he grabs his phone.  He definitely needs a shower now. Then he’ll go to the mall.

To: Tony

Don’t flatter yourself

To: Tony

Maybe a little

-

Tony can’t help but smile at his phone, he might have been a little too eager with the message, typing it up as soon as he put his car in park.  The easy banter going on between him and Peter was refreshing.  Tony couldn’t remember the last time he felt genuinely excited to talk to someone, let alone text.

As the conversation kept flowing while Tony picked up his dry cleaning, he could only deduce that it was because they were nearly equal on an intellectual level.  It may have helped that Peter was easy on the eyes as well.

They talked about their projects at work and the research behind it, what it was like at Columbia for Peter, and how MIT had been to Tony.  The older man made a mental note to ask where Peter worked at a later date, maybe he could recruit him.  He learned that Peter’s favorite colors were blue and red.  That he hated horror movies but watched them anyway just to spite himself.  He loved rom-coms and (surprise, surprise) sci-fi movies.  He couldn’t cook to save his life, Tony assured him he could give him lessons if he wanted, he could make a mean Chicken Piccata.

Tony couldn’t even bring himself to feel guilty about it at all.  The conversation was innocent and Tony was a flirt by nature, Pepper never had a problem with it.  If anything, this thing with Peter was just a budding friendship.  The universe knows Tony needed someone to talk to.

Around noon, Tony’s stomach started to grumble, not surprising considering the hearty breakfast of black coffee he had this morning.  Peter mentioned earlier that he’d been craving Gyros, and that didn’t sound half bad right about now.  He was a few blocks away from the mall anyway.

From: Peter

Here’s a contact picture, in case you needed one...

[see attachment]

The picture Peter sent was absolutely adorable.  His bangs fell over his forehead, slightly parted to the side so it wasn’t completely covered.  Tony felt utterly entranced by the younger man’s smile and the way his left eyebrow looked like he’d slept with his face buried in a pillow.  He was wearing a T-Shirt with a science pun on it, as if the kid couldn’t be any dorkier.  Tony loved it.

To: Peter

Is that a sly way of getting me to send you a selfie back?

Cute shirt by the way, where ya headed?

From: Peter

Maybe...did it work?

I’m going shopping for a new mattress, old one crapped out on me.

To: Peter

Here, since you asked so nicely

[see attachment]

From: Peter

Oof, you can just delete mine.  You just made me go from a solid 6 to like a 2

To: Peter

Hey, give yourself some credit, you’re definitely at least a 5

KIDDING, I’d rate you a solid 9, kid. Just because there’s always room for improvement

From Peter:

I would just like to know who gave you the right to be so sassy and RUDE

To: Peter

Definitely my narcissistic ego

No, but seriously Pete, you’re stunning.  Don’t listen to the old guy

From: Peter

Pls you’re not that old, Tony.

To: Peter

A man after my own heart.  Thanks, kid.

From: Peter

Anytime :-)

You’re more like my friend’s hot dad if anything

To: Peter

Little shit.

From Peter:

;-)

Tony shook his head fondly and stuffed his phone in his pocket as he entered the mall, looking around for something indicating what direction the food court was in.  He hadn’t been to this mall in a while, he admits since he’s been making more money it’s kept him from coming and eating the fast food they had here.  So he followed the signs until he got to the food court, and noticed there were still quite a few tables open for him to sit and eat at.  He made a point to stay as far away from the family with three screaming children as possible.

He scanned the choices until he found somewhere that had gyros and went to go stand in line.  The menu wasn’t too extensive, he could either get a gyro platter or a falafel platter, and he already knew what he was here for.  His eyes fell from the menu to the person in front of him.  Not to be a creep, he’s only human, but he had a fantastic ass.  A perfect little bubble butt.

The man was a little shorter than him, he had a trim waist that opened up to broad shoulders not bigger than Tony’s.  Incredible figure.  He’s probably a dancer or a marathon runner.  He also noticed this man had brown curls.  That made him snort softly to himself, he either had a type or Peter just invaded his mind in a short amount of time.  It could be either, honestly.

His eyes dropped to the phrase printed on the back of his shirt.

Never trust an atom, they make up everything

Ha.  Peter would love that shirt.

Wait.

Peter has that shirt.  It’s the one he was wearing in his selfie.

“Peter?”

The man in front of him whirled around to look at him with a puzzled expression.  Tony suddenly found himself unable to move or say another word.  He was instantly captivated by doe eyes and one of the prettiest faces he’d seen in a long time.

He watched his confusion turn into realization and then disbelief and dare he say: panic.

“Tony?”

@sweetqueen449, @slut-for-starker, @dim-ships-johnlock, @starkerhowlter, @sthefystarkersworld, @crazycocococonut, @bris-sins, @delicateavenuenacho, @ironspiderstarker, @katzenbaby1, @spider-iron-man, @rebel13lion39, @twokinkybeans, @frenchfrostpudding, @cherrygoldlove, @silkystarkk, @icandoakickflip, @irondaddio, @briesb1tch

creds to @problemchildnoonewanted for some of the messages in the beginning

[popculturebuffet]

The Color of Friendship Review (Commissioned by WeirdKev27): A World of People

Happy Black History Month! Another day, another comission from longtime supporter of the blog Weird Kev and like a good chunk of his-non duck asks, he asked me for something outside my usual wheelhouse. In the past this has meant an episode of the short lived fox show whoops in which we found out how Santa dealt with the end of the world, didn’t know how doors worked, and interacted with some characters so thin you could remake the episode with just Mick Foley in a santa suit and carboard cutouts playing the characters lines and it’d be about the same, and earlier this month Sorry Wrong Meeting, an episode of a sitcom i’d never seen an episode of the Jeffersons about the KKK. So unsuprisingly his big comission for Black History Month was the 2000 Disney Channel Original Movie, The Color of Friendship. 

I couldn’t find much on the making of the film, which dosen’t entirely suprise me as at the time this came out, Disney was releasing around 10 a year and whlie that stopped shortly, it still was a whopping 6 a year for some time, ocasionally more ocasionaly less, slowly dwindling down to the two of year we have now. Though it’s still an ongoing concern and has been since the channel started in 83, closing in on 40 years ago, so it’s still impressive Disney hasn’t just outright phased them out. Then again the popular ones make them a lot of money and some like High School Musical and the Descendants Trilogies have broken out so big they’ve lead to spinoff books, tv series in the latter’s case, and all that stuff making them money hand over fist. So making some cheap movies that MIGHT end up making them rich and usually star people that are already on shows they have or were at one point is a no loose proposition, especially now they add an extra release to the Disney Plus callender twice a year. And while the library has it’s gaps and i’ve griped about them enough.. I will say it’s stil la damn good library and it’s nice to be able to watch a film like this, as the dvd was LONG out of print and likely horribly expensive, and while renting it was an option, it would’ve chipped into what I got commissioned for the film. Still would’ve done it it just would’ve sucked to loose money on the deal, if only two bucks, for something I had no control over. Still would do that over adding it onto the comission fee. Point is stuff that’s not been easy to get for some time is now just a few clicks or taps of the remote away, and having the VAST majority of disney’s long and storied history from theatrical to dcom to weird tv oddities like.. this thing

I don’t know what Fuzzbucket is, and frankly I don’t want to know.. I mean I will for a comission or something but i’m not going to go out of my way to find out what that thing is and if it can give me scabies through a telvision screen despite being fictional and proabably long dead. At least I tell myself it’s long dead so ic an sleep at night without worrying about that thing breaking into my house and watchnig me while I sleep changing “SOON JACOB, SOON”. So yeah while you’ll hear me complain about the gaps in DIsney Plus’ library a lot on this blog. 

I will give credit where it’s due, and what is on there is pretty expansive and now includes the Muppet Show, which I give them full credit for as that probably took a LOT of work and money to make happen. Plus WandaVision is fucking fantastic, especially now i’m finally all caught up. 

But while as I said I couldn’t find much on the making of the film I did find a bit on it’s inspiration: It was inspried by a short story wrtten by Piper Dellums, a writer, poet and activist, and daughter of Ron Dellums. Dellums is a notable congressman who fought against apartheid and constantly fought for a bill to divest from South Africa, something that SHOCKINGLY, Ronald Regan tried to veto because he was a racist disney anamatronic what did you expect, and all in all seemed pretty awesome. He sued Bush SR to try and prevent Desert Storm, in his earliest days in office had an exibit near his phsyical office of vietnam war crimes to try and hold them acountable and in general seems to be a fascenating, hardworking man who constantly and religiously fought for the people and against war. 

The story was a real life account of the Piper’s experince housing a South African Student, Marie, who the Delums Family expected to be black.. but turned out ot be white. During Apartheid, south africas racist as hell and horrifying goverment system of segregation that wasn’t abolished till the 90′s. As expected she was racist, but as a proudct of the horribly racist country she came from and much like with her fictional counterpart in this film, slowly grew to realize how fucked up her homeland was and by the time she went back, became an activist She and Piper were very close but her story ends tragically as eventually Piper stopped hearing from her after she was arrested and despite attempts to talk to her.. it was clear by the silence, and by the fact Piper visited South Africa post-aparthied to help and likely would’ve seen her.. that she was likely quitely killed by the state. But her story thankfully lives on, so join me under the cut to see how a 20 year old disney movie aired during black history month handles this difficult real life story, racisim and the 70′s. 

The Cast: Quick bit about the cast since I usually do this for first episodes of an animated show and wish i’d done so for my other film reviews so far. Though to keep things simple, i’m only doing the main four cast members, especailly since frankly outside of Mahree’s parents the rest are more supporting roles that don’t have a lot of screen time and in hte case of the south african embassy workers, are just there to be racist card board cutout villians.  Piper, who keeps her name from real life is played by Shadia Simmons, who eventually retired from acting to become a High School and Acting Teacher. During her career she was in a bunch of Disney Channel Original Movies, including the first two Zenon Movies, and was in a major role in a bunch of live action childrens shows: I Was A Sizth Grade Alien, Strange Days at Blake Holsely High, and Life with Derek, the only one of which i’ve seen and even then barely so I can’t comment on the rest of her work. Simmons does a decent job in the film, and does shine in the more dramtic scenes, not the best part of it but certainly not bad at all. 

Lindsay Haun plays Mahree, and had more of an acting career after this one, having a small recurring role on True Blood as Hadley, while also directing some smaller films. Haun is easily one of the two highlights of the movie and the best of the two main tween actresses by a mile. More on that in a bit. 

Next we have Carl Fucking Lumbly as Congressman Ron Dellums. Carl has had a long and storied career and the fucking is because of what I best know him from: Playing the Martian Manhunter Jon Jonzz on Justice League. And let me not undersell it: his version of Jon is waht made me LOVE the character, still do to this day, being the first time I encountered any version of Jon and the one I still love the most, a stoic man who tries to adapt to a world he feels he can never be a part of, adding shades to his stitled demeanour to show off his emtitons and in general being the heart and soul of what made this verison work and made me love the character with his performance. He’s done other stuff too including Cagney and Lacey, Doctor Sleepand what have you.. but he’ll always be Jonn to me and that’s not a bad thing in the slightest. Unsuprisingly he’s the other standout here. 

Finally we have Penny Johnson as Ron’s wife and Piper’s Mother Roscoe,  who played Captain Sisko’s love intrest on Deep Space 9 and was one of the leads on castle. Haven’t seen either of those but she does seem awesome and does a terrific job here. 

Moving on to the film itself.. it’s really fantastic. It has some awkwardness and goofy bollocks as you’d expect from a disney channel original movie in 2000, but it handles a really heavy subject, race relations, gracefully and clearly with the goal of educating an audience with a lot of white kids in it about race. So I can praise what it does right i’m going to be handling the parts that are a bit wobbly first so I can get to the good stuff

Awkwardness and Goofy Bollocks:

First the out and out criticism: The films TV Movie roots show in places, as this film lacks the polish these films would have later this decade, with the film barely having an opening title sequence and just sorta throwing you in, though to their credit it does open with the utterly awesome Back in Love Again, because 70′s. 

That slaps and that’s an undeniable fact. What’s also an undenaible fact is the film dosen’t try the hardest to be very 70′s in it’s sets and what not, though it does do it a little with the clothes and that not being the case with Mahree is intentional, as her family while wealthy is from another culture and one literally and metaphorically behind the times. 

I will also say Shadia Simmons is a decent actress, but is mildly weak in comparison to the other 3 in the leads, but its more the result of putting a pretty standard child sitcom actress up against two experinced actors who know what their doing and one whose about as experinced as her, but simply has a LOT to work with and goes above and beyond. It’s less that she’s bad and more that she’s simply not as good as what’s around her, and in general I tend to go easier on child actors since it’s not an easy job for a grown adult much less a teenager, it’s very pressurey and there’s a reason a LOT of them bottom out as they get older or retire all together. 

I will say though that Piper’s brothers are awful and I feel are only there because she actually had brothers. The actors try, i’m not pinning this on them but writing wise their just two little shits who contirbute ntohing of value to any scene their in, being generally way to young to get into the heavy topic at hand, and mostly being there for unfunny shneanigans. They aren’t in the film too much otherwise they might’ve ruined it for me, but if Shadia struggles a bit agianst sttronge perofrmances imagine who younger actors with the stage direction “Be the bane of my existence” and you’ll MAYBE see the problem. 

The film also loves cheesy time passing montages, including an actual factual shopping montage, easily the goofiest, but it’s something you’d expect from a dcom and helps lighten the mood. That’s a running theme outside the brothers there really isn’t anything too silly.. until the last act.  See in the last act, the film tackles the real life death of Steve Biko, a South African activist against apartheid who was captured by the state and very transparently murdered in jail. with the government claming he killed himself which no one bought because why would they, and it sparked riots worldwide and finally got the US to take Apartheid seriously according to the film. Though as I mentioned earlier Regan did not in case you thought the republican party being terrible and deeply racist was a brand new thing. It was not. Guys like Tucker Carlson and Former President Trump are a symptom, not the disease.. though they certainly look and feel like some form of plauge. Point is Mahree is breifly taken by the embassy.. whose staff who take her feel like the Disney Channel Original Movie form of Nazi’s. The heavy accents, the way they compose themselves... I half expect an elderly indiana jones to show up to whip the piss out of them. And dont’ get me wrong, the only diffrence between these pricks and a nazi is the fact they don’t call themselves nazis, this isn’t a nuanced horrifying racist to be scared of but a saturday morning cartoon version. 

While  white supremacists in real life can be cartoonishly evil, again see trump and carlson, it does kind of undercut the seriousness and nuance of things to have your villians be cold, cackling cutouts who are 5 seconds away from saying “You are part of the rebel alliance and a traitor take her away” to our heroine, especailly since Mahree’s reaction to being taken away and confusion at everything and at being treated like a prisoner by her own people are very painful and very well acted.   I do get showing them as monsters, because they were, but given Mahree’s father who as a south african police man was DEFINTELY ONE and even outside his racisim doubts and downtalks his own daughter, still feels like an actual person, if not a GOOD person, they could’ve done better and did in the same film. 

But that stuff aside.. I really can’t find much that’s honestly that silly or bad and as you can tell what little I did was more a product of being a tv movie. So now i’ve got the negatives out of the way

This Film Is Pretty Good: It truly is, for a lot of reasons. But the biggest is the nuance. It could’ve been easy to just have Maree as some racist kid needing to learn a lesson who was openly cruel and easy to jeer at.. but the film went iwth the reality: that she was instead an extremley privlaged and insulated girl who simply NEVER knew better. To her her very racist and segregated world is just the way the world worked for her and she dosen’t even consider when the Dellums come to pick her up minus Ron these aren’t servants and her own servant’s words fall on deaf ears, as the poor woman tries to make it clear how miserable her life is and how much she deseprately wants this child to do better. Marhee is never actively malicious even when, due to the shock of her all black host family, she baricades herself in Piper’s room. It’s obnoxious sure and CERTAINLY hurtful and the film makes no bones about it and Piper rightfully calls her out on it. The film dosen’t let her get away with any intetnional racisim like that and after Piper calls her out, she realizes she’s been selifsh and makes a genuine effort. And even then the film makes a good choice in not making it an easy road to realization. Mahree makes a genuine effort in the first place not because of any big revelation or anything, but because she simply hears her dad in her head telling her she’d give up after a week and that, coupled with Piper’s words, makes her see herself as a selfish brat. Even after she’s floored by a mall where black and white people stand side by side aand casually talks about horrors like ID Cards like i’ts a GOOD thing, because that’s what she’s been taught by her dad. That black people are happy being told where they can and can’t go when no they weren’t they simply had no chocie in the matter. And while we do see early on when an asshole at a restraunt assaults a waiter for an accident that Mahree clearly isn’t okay with the more horrifying side of things, she still dosen’t quite grasp WHY that happened, simply that it’s something that does reguarly she dosen’t like. It’s excellently, and unsuprisingly called back when they visit an ice cream place in the states and something similar happens.. but the guy takes it in stride, even ordering a sundae, to Maree’s confusion. 

It’s what makes the film work and all the more striking: As Roscoe makes clear to Ron, whose admant about nto having a racist in the house, this is not her fault. While the film makes it clear Mahree’s behavior at first was not okay and her prejudiece is not okay, it also makes it VERY clear she’s a product of a terrible system and terrible parenting from people who choose to benneift from the system instead of challenge it. She’s only like this because she hasn’t had a reason to ever think diffrent and just took her parents at face value and no mater the country, this is something that sadly happens far too often: Someone hating a group or thinking discrimination is okay because that’s how they were taught and that’s all they’ve known and the only way to change that is to challenge that opinon and try to get them to have some empathy and see the other way and as this film shows it’s a struggle.. and at the end of the day while the Dellums make a concentrated effort, Maree is the one who has to realize what her parents taught her is bad and her country is inherently flawed and NEEDS to change, just like ours did, and STILL badly needs to. 

And that’s where the nuance kicks in as the good congressman is understandable in not wanting a racist in his house... but his wife is equally right that Maree is not some easy symbol of his hatred towards south africa, but a girl who grew up knowing nothing more than the fucked up system, and eventually he comes around, realizing , especially after she apologizes for him even thinking she’d use a racial slur on piper after a very powerful conversation with the two and piper accidently saying she used the South African N Word, almost accidently getting her friend thrown out, that she simply hasn’t been outside her shell and gently guides her to keep reading roots, even letting her take it with her if she wants back home. The film shows the full pain of the situation  but also shows change is posisble. Again it’s not easy, Mahree has a panic attack waiting in an almost all black line in school and it’s shown to be as horrible a thought as it is., but she DOES change and it comes off as real, as someone realizing the system they grew up with is broken and needs to be fixed and she can’t just sit back and let it. 

What makes this happen, besides the aformentioned kidnapping by saturday morning cartoon racists, is Piper confronting her after a friend from south africa forces Piper to acccept that while her and Mahree are friends, Mahree might not seee her as equal and Piper in turn in a heated argument and easily Simmons best performance of the film, that things are broken and wrong and that her “firend”, her nanny/servant back home, is not happy. It leaves Mahree crying and Ron telling her the honest truth: Change was, and again still is but this was 2000 and while we should’ve had this talk disney channel wasn’t ready for it, needed to make things better here.. and tha’ts what south african’s doing> Fighting for equal rights at last. It’s some powerful, heavy as hell stuff you woudln’t expect from a line of movie that also include a robot house, before that was an actual thing, a merMAN dad MerMan, a boy slowly turning into a leprechaun, and at least two diffrent movies centering around wacky kidnappings. It’s a nuanced and hard look at race, as hard as late 90′s jsut turned into the 2000′s disney could get mind, aimed at kids and the film, whiel stilted really has my utter praise. It’s genuinely moving, well acted and teaches a valuable message that while not eveyrone can change.. it dosen’t hurt to try and help them, as well as the equal message that change start with YOU. someone has to WANT to be better and learn and actually let other people in to help them. And I wont’ lie and say this is the most naunced or subtle film.. at time’s it’s about as subtle as a ralph wiggum throught he window

But sometimes you don’t need to be. It also taught kids about apartheid, not me as I barely saw the film, but many learned of something ghoulsih that had barely ended at the time of the film’s release, something I only learned about as a teen via bloom county and a diffrent world, which has an utterly awesome apartheid episode “A World Alike”. Seriously check it out if you have prime, as it shows that america isn’t the only country with a deep history of ingraned racisim. And was it an easy way to have an anti racisim narriative without fully confronting america’s own racist history? Yup. Just.. yup. Can I blame Disney Channel for it when they clearly, while equipped to tackle racisim, weren’t ready to tackle something that dense or heavy, and while Proud Family later would there’s a diffrence between a 20 minute one off episode of a cartoon and 90 minutes of film? Yeah. For what it is and for what the time period is, I applaud this film taking on such a heavy topic with grace. Some goofyiness here and there yes and some lack of subtly.. but still grace. For what it is is, it’s pretty good and i hope to show it to my nieces one day soon. It has i’ts heart in the right place and thus has a place in my heart. See you next rainbow. 

[dramallamadingdang]

A buncha replies about high-poly hair, fur-coated vacation locals, evil enablers, laziness, an old game being old, time management or the lack thereof, creepy pizza delivery dudes, terrain defaults that may or may not work, House Hunters and stupid Americans, nuzzling cats, cheap but AWESOME 80s knives, fermented milk and Canadian weirdness about it, forcing TV on people who don’t want it, annnnnnnd...Texas? Yep, Texas.

Quite a list, ain’t it? :) IOW, these go back a bit because I’m...me. 

These are for @immerso-sims, @nekosayuri, @fuzzyspork, @kairisu, @alawren4ever, @ajaysims, @didilysims, @delicatesoul88, @dreadpirate, @treason-and-plot, @jellybeanery, @pensblr, @twofee, @hemfbg, and @penig. Because Texas. ;)

Also, peripherally, @twofingerswhiskey.

immerso-sims replied to your photo “So instead of filling up my queue OR firing up my rebooted Castaway...”

I am guilty of having quite a few high polycount hairs, but I don’t have much CC in general and my Macie seems to handle them well, even with an integrated video card, so all is well, but yeah, 30k is a liiiiiittle bit excessive.

I have a few really high-poly hairs (20+K), myself. My game/computer does seem to be able to handle them without a fuss. (I really don’t know WHY, since both the machine AND the video card are older models, but...Hey, I’m not gonna argue. :) ) Even so, the ones I have are special and unique and very fabulous in some way, and if I later find a similar just-as-nice but lower-poly style, I’ll ditch the high-poly one in a heartbeat.

Mostly, though, I stick to hairs that are ~10K polys or less. I’ll have as many of those as I want because I figure if my game can handle the 30K+ ones without issue, it can handle a bunch of 10Ks. I have fewer that are 10K-12K. 13K is generally (and arbitrarily) my hard limit unless the hair falls into the “unique and fabulous” category and, really, those are few and far between.

nekosayuri replied to your photo “So instead of filling up my queue OR firing up my rebooted Castaway...”

@digitalangels lowered the polycount on Aviary, I'm pretty sure

I wouldn’t be surprised if she has. But really? There are already plenty of quite similar hairs that look just as nice as that one and that have much lower polycounts. I’ll bet it’s one of those that has thousands of backfaces that don’t even show in the game. :\ 

fuzzyspork replied to your photo “Well. This isn’t something you see every day. :) (Guess I missed that...”

The static she will collect on the way down will make that coat look like a tribble.

Yeah, like a tribble...or like they slaughtered a thousand-and-one poofy Pomeranian dogs to make her coat. :)

kairisu replied to your photo “Well. This isn’t something you see every day. :) (Guess I missed that...”

she's sliding in style ��✨

Maybe. But she’s gonna make a mess of that fancy fur coat. :)

alawren4ever replied to your post “So now that the second Blind Date gift I was called upon to make is...”

Fun thing of course!

See? THAT’S JUST NOT HELPFUL! :D I enable myself to do the fun thing quite well, thank you. ;)

nekosayuri replied to your post “So now that the second Blind Date gift I was called upon to make is...”

Get a mouse recorder to do it for you XD

That’s tempting, but the majority of the time spent on the “editing,” such as it is, is cropping the pics in the right place and to (more-or-less) the right size ratios. It’s never the same twice, so it couldn’t be automated.

(Confession: I had to Google “mouse recorder.” I mean, I could kind of tell what one would do from the name, but I doubted that such things actually existed. SURPRISE! :) )

ajaysims replied to your post “So now that the second Blind Date gift I was called upon to make is...”

I really know what you mean. My head is always bursting with a million different hood and story ideas but at the end of the day a lot of the time I just wanna play without thinking about editing pics after.

Yep, that’s me, too. I mean, I have (literally) about 1200 GilsCarburg pics to post. I mean, they wouldn’t all be posted because a good chunk of them are similar, where I took a lot of pics knowing I’d pick the best one of the bunch to post, but still...a lot. It’s going through them and making the posts that I drag my feet on sometimes. I kinda have to psych myself up to do it -- although once I start, I enjoy doing it, so it’s not a chore or anything :) -- and it’s easy to distract myself by, for instance, downloading a bunch of hairs for my Castaway game because I want to try my hand at making defaults for it.

nekosayuri replied to your post “You're my Senpai. Lol jk but for reals I adore you! You make amazing...”

Senpai XD tbh this is one of those things though, people actually PLAY the game AND make cc AND download stuff AND organise downloads folder/Tumblr posts. How do people have time for all of that??

I honestly don’t know how most people do it. For me, the answer’s easy: I’m mostly retired -- I’ll do paid gigs if I get bored and want to, but otherwise? Eh. -- and I don’t have to worry about money. And I have employees. That helps, too. Also, I have health issues that prevent me from doing a lot of things I’d LIKE to do. So, I do Sims-related stuff a lot. And go on a lot of dates with my husband, but he DOES work, so I can’t be doing stuff with him all the time. So, for now, unless/until I decide to do some kind of volunteering, I occupy a good chunk of my time with Sims stuff. And with hanging out with friends and whatnot, too, of course. But...Yeah, I don’t have a “normal” life. I don’t know how people who DO have a normal life manage to do all the Sims stuff they do.

delicatesoul88 replied to your post “Hi there, I’m pretty impressed that you create and use a lot of high...”

@dramallamadingdang I feel like I should print this and place it up right next to my monitors for the next time I take the cc cleanup plunge. The flashing pink bug is real and has caught up to me, I also know its my own darn fault for having so much cc. My computer can handle it but my game can't, and this is the swift kick in the rear I needed to remind me of that.

dreadpirate replied to your post “Hi there, I’m pretty impressed that you create and use a lot of high...”

Personally what works for me (since I love my sims 3 and 4 conversions and my pretty hairs) is playing with smaller lots as much as possible and going easy on the clutter

Yeah, it’s all a matter of prioritizing. You truly can’t have everything because “old game is old” even if you personally own a supercomputer. So, you focus on what’s most important to you and sort of skimp on the other stuff. So if pretty hairs and conversions are your thing, OK, but you might have to sacrifice, yeah, large, heavily-landscaped lots and lots of deco-only clutter and/or a heavily-hood-decorated neighborhood. Or if you’re a person who doesn’t actually play the game and just does, say, decorating, you can have all the converted, high-poly/high-res shit your little heart desires because you don’t need the high-poly hairs and clothing or the neighborhood stuff. Or if you’re mostly a Sim-maker, you can have all the high-poly hairs with gigantic textures that you want because you don’t need anything else that taxes the game. 

And if you want to do everything...Then I say: Separate user accounts/different downloads folder for each purpose. So, if you wanna decorate, you load up the high-res conversions. You wanna make Sims, load up the high-poly hair. You wanna actually play...Don’t go batshit with the big stuff and you’ll generally be OK.  Conscious downloading is the way to go. Know what you’re putting in your downloads before you put it in there and make conscious, aware, informed decisions so you’re not surprised by any consequences (i.e pink flashing) that you experience..

It’s all balance, man. Like, be in harmony with the universal spheres, totally.

treason-and-plot replied to your photo “This pizza delivery dude that my game generated…looks like a pizza...”

He has seen things...

Seen many things, yes. Let’s just hope that he hasn’t done anything...to the pizza... :)

didilysims replied to your photo “This pizza delivery dude that my game generated…looks like a pizza...”

Just as long as he doesn't get any of those long hairs in the food.

Things like that, yes! :) Or, you know, worse. Ah, all those urban legends... :)

jellybeanery replied to your photoset “Happy Monday! Now that Blind Date is over, I’m back to doing Monday...”

Eeeee! Thank you! I'm grabbing this and gonna check it out tomorrow! ♥

Well, I hope it worked better for you than my first stab! :) Please let me know if it didn’t! 

fuzzyspork replied to your post “To be or not to be...a bitch.”

My reply to this sort of thing is "Oo, this is short notice. We already have plans!" Even if those plans are to watch Netflix in our underwear. They are probably just doing the Christian thing by inviting you guys and they may not even care if you come (my sister is of the High and Mighty mindset and she invites out of "duty" but is always relieved with people can't come or cancel, lol).

You know, of anyone else, I’d believe this. But whenever we’ve turned down an invite, there’s always been tons of wheedling about it. So, either they’re really good actors or they really do want us there. I’m pretty sure it’s the latter, since entertaining and cooking big meals and all that is what the female half of the couple lives for, since aside from going to church, she’s stuck at home, homeschooling their 7 kids, ranging from infants to teens. (Which is another reason to avoid their house, as far as I’m concerned. I’m done with kids. I don’t hate them or anything, but I really don’t enjoy being around them. Especially not toddlers. I’m not even goo-goo for my own grandkids, so I don’t want to deal with anyone else’s kids anymore.)

pensblr replied to your post “Random non-Sims things”

Just going to leave this here. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/75/a2/2d/75a22d07e38b1fedd15834c67bea0bb2.jpg

*sporfle* Yeah, that about sums it up, I’d say. :)

immerso-sims replied to your photoset “Kitten spam, with captions.”

The nuzzle animation is so cute :3

It is! I think they could’ve done so much more with pet-to-pet interactions, personally. Like, cats and dogs sleeping in piles like they do IRL. Also, pets sleeping on beds with Sims. (I have the mod that enables that for children, but it would have been nice if that was possible for all Sims.) But at least that one interaction is cute. :) 

fuzzyspork replied to your post “Random non-Sims things”

Oh god House Hunters. What gets me is when they decide they don't want to buy "the perfect in every other way" house because the paint/wallpaper/carpet is hideous. I always yell at the TV "THOSE ARE EASY TO CHANGE YOU PRISSY IDIOT!" But we ditched cable TV a few years ago and I've never been happier. It's so much more relaxing to just watch what we want streaming, when we want, not bound to a show's schedule.

Yeah! I saw that, too! I was like, “You know what? There’s this thing called painting. And if you don’t want to do it yourself, there’re even people who you can pay to do it for you!” But when the realtor says something like that (with not NEARLY enough snark, IMO), they’ll say “Oh, we don’t want any big projects.” As if painting one room before there’s anything in it is a “big project.” Stupidity abounds!

And yeah, I’m much happier without squawk boxes around. The only remotely good thing about it is Cartoon Network. And some of the HGTV-type stuff is fun to watch, I suppose, if only to get ideas for my game. ;) But I much prefer no TV. I mean, yeah, I know no one forces anyone to turn it on, but we feel like we should watch SOMETHING since we’re paying through the nose for it. :p

twofee replied to your post “Random non-Sims things”

house hunters international is hilarious because they always want to be in the center of whatever city, pay almost nothing in rent, and at least one person in the couple expects everything to be americanized. plus if they are asking for it to come furnished, they always complain about how its not their style or whatever. i just want to see the pretty scenery of the country youre lucky enough to be able move to. have you been able to guess which house theyll pick?

I can pretty much always tell the house they’ll pick because it’s usually the one that’s most like what the female half of the couple wants. Which is so stereotypical but...there it is.

And yeah, I watched an “International” one the other day. Some chick looking for a place to rent in Spain who was bitching about the lack of central air conditioning (In buildings older than America, that she said she WANTED to live in) and freaking out because -- OMG! -- the washing machine was installed in the (small) kitchen! Americans, SMH. Of course, she ended up in a new place with central air that was very American and also above her budget, but she justified that by saying she’d be more “comfortable” there. :p Moron. Why go live in another country if you just want to drag yours along with you? Isn’t that exactly what a certain sector of American citizens bitch about when it comes to immigrants? But what do American émigrés do? *sigh* Swear, most Americans just need to stay the hell in America because God forbid they deign to adapt to anything else. :p

hemfbg replied to your post “Random non-Sims things”

It's funny that you mention House Hunters- it's playing on the tv in the other room. Sometimes I'll watch it when it's on just because I like to look inside other houses, though I agree with you about it being very safe-for-tv and every episode being the same.

I did actually see a gay couple on it the other day! Of course, they were a white, middle-aged well-off gay couple looking for a place in Palm Springs, CA, which is pretty much a place you can’t live in unless you’re LGBT (and well-off), but still! Gay people, OMG! 

nekosayuri replied to your post “˜Tis reply time! \0/”

Maybe you could suggest it over at MTS to people who actually mod? it is a great idea overall! and it *might* be possible, but wont know till we try right? :D

I did post the idea in the “Hacks & CC You’d Like To See” thread over there. It’s not a request thread, though, because MTS doesn’t allow requests. It’s more like an “I wish” thread, and a lot of the stuff wished-for IS impossible, but sometimes people have picked stuff out of the thread and actually done it, so...Well, it’s out there in the world. Of course, right after I posted it, a little argument broke out about something unrelated, so it quickly got buried, but maybe something’ll come of it. Who knows?

didilysims replied to your post “Random non-Sims things”

3) I need to get me some of those knives! I feel like I'm sharpening my junky knives every time I use them because I refuse to crush my poor vegetables instead of cutting them. Never heard of the brand but I looked it up and apparently they're still making them. Probably not as good quality as back in the day but...I'll keep my eyes open in the stores now. :)

I was amazed to find out that Ginsu still exists. But yeah, those knives are way nicer than their 70s/80s ancestors. Which, yeah, probably means they won’t work half as well. :) Gimme my cheap plastic-handled bread knife made of God-knows-what ANY DAY!

didilysims replied to your post “Random non-Sims things”

1) Pretty sure internet packages try to include TV these days because the TV stations are paying them extra money to force it on people. 2) I say it the American way (never heard the English way in my memory) but I spell it with an H. There are almost as many different spellings as there are different Canadians, however. I've also seen yogourt, which is an odd one.

1) I’m pretty sure you’re right. I’m also pretty sure that most people do still want TV...although I’m pretty sure that, as time goes on, most people will prefer to stream what they want when they want it, so I think standard TV’s kind of on its way to dinosaur-hood. So perhaps one day it will no longer be forced on people. Probably won’t happen before I croak, though. :P 2) Yeah, @twofingerswhiskey reblogged with a pic of a yog(h)(o)urt container spelled “yogourt,” which is apparently how they spell it in Quebec (so I guess that’s how it’s spelled in France? Who knew?), which is apparently where most of y’all’s yog(h)(o)urt is made. :) Which is kinda weird, if you ask me. Why Quebec? Are there no dairy cows in Saskatchewan or Ontario or Alberta? :) I’ve seen dairy cows in BC, so I know they’re there...

penig replied to your post “˜Tis reply time! \0/”

Army bases can be beautiful. Ever go to Ft. Sam Houston? There's a reason all the officers retire here...

Nope, never been there. I’m sorry to say that I avoid Texas as much as I can. No offense to you or to any other individual Texan out there, but...y’all have a lot of bombastic asshats amongst you. And y’all seem to elect sexist, grabby-hands asshats at an alarming rate, too. Whenever I’ve been in Texas, I’ve had bad experiences at the hands of those two groups. So...Yeah, not going there if I can possibly help it. THAT said, I know that the cities are generally better and I’d like to visit San Antonio one day -- and maybe Ft. Sam Houston -- because I’ve heard that it’s, like, the artsy/hippie capital of Texas, kind of like how Santa Fe/Taos is the artsy/hippie capital of New Mexico, but....yeah. *sigh*