#knockabout personal

[knockabout-pigeon]

i need to learn how to suppress my gag reflex so i can reach into my own throat and scrape everything out of it

[knockabout-pigeon]

Crohn's, been medicated for a long time and largely in remission with occasional flare-ups (and still foods I should not eat). For me it manifests in sudden stomach pain and "urgency" most often, though I can hold it for as long as it's ever taken me to get to a bathroom at the cost of very bad pain. Weirdly this will happen shortly after I eat a trigger food (or just random), not when it's actually being digested.

One thing I see overlooked with digestive diseases a lot is how pervasive they are. Your GI system is hooked up to literally every other system in your body, and that can make it hard to get proper treatment (like is my fatigue or migraines from Crohn's or completely unrelated?), not to mention how common chronic fatigue is with a lot of these disorders.

I consider myself lucky though in that I caught it really early on (stomach ulcers and anemia are a bitch), my flare-ups are manageable, and I have a job that's flexible, so I can pretty much tailor my life to minimize any issues I'd otherwise have.

Happy Disability Pride Month to

The GI issues! No one wants to talk about GI issues, but here we go! Some of them are:

Celiac Disease

Lactose Intolerance

Crohn’s Disease

Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease

Barrett’s Esophagus

Colon Polyps

Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome

Diverticulitis

Dumping Syndrome

Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency

Gastroparesis

Intestinal Pseudo-Obstruction

Microscopic Colitis

Stomach Ulcers

Ulcerative Colitis

Zollinger-Ellison Syndrome

If it seems like most of these were found on a list somewhere, you are correct, but I read up on every condition.

I invite anyone to use this post to discuss their own GI issues, and to add ones I have missed. Let’s get people talking about this! And let’s take stomach aches seriously. Many people go undiagnosed for a long time because of how abdominal pain and symptoms are brushed off. It’s important to listen to what you’re body is telling you, and to seek out help as soon as you can if it’s telling you it’s not feeling good. And going to a GI specialist can feel weird because who even wants to discuss excrement issues and vomiting? But come on, let’s do it. It’s okay to not feel well with your GI tract, and you’re not gross for it.

(A video I wanted to add to this post, but thought it would ruin the tone.)

[magxit]

Every time Matty Healy opens his mouth, somebody gets annoyed. Long before his rumoured relationship with international sweetheart Taylor Swift, Healy, the lead singer of the massively irritating pop band The 1975, had mastered the art of winding people up. He has a supple singing voice and is a decent songwriter: but his true vocation, across his decade-plus career, has been treading on strangers’ toes. He’s the Bob Dylan of raising your blood pressure.

Until recently, this was an accepted fact, and nobody cared that he was a bit of an idiot. It was his calling card. You went to see The 1975 because you were partial to their slick, saxophone-fuelled pop – imagine if Radiohead woke one morning and decided they wanted to be a Level 42 covers band – but also because there was a fair chance Healy might do something ludicrous. As he did when he brought his tour to Dublin earlier this year and, in response to an annoying audience chant of “Olé, Olé, Olé,” told 14,000 Irish fans that they were “a simple people”.

Nobody booed; if anything, the crowd lapped it up. Later in the show, Healy, 34, had a slight meltdown and started swinging the mic stand around. In a world where many male rockers want to be a variation of Chris Martin – the colour beige in human form – how refreshing to see a vast, preening ego imploding for our entertainment.

You were reminded that Healy grew up in an acting family: his father, Tim Healy, starred in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and Benidorm, and his mother, Denise Welch, is best known as Natalie Barnes from Coronation Street. She’s also done panto – and clearly, some of that knockabout energy has filtered down to her son.

What a rollercoaster ride it was watching him in concert. In between these two extremes of sneery git and man-falling-to-pieces, Healy had briefly addressed the audience. “There’s a story [in the papers] calling me a Nazi tomorrow,” he said. “This is true.”

It was indeed true. Healy had been waving his arms earlier in the tour, and a few tabloids had decided he was giving a Hitler salute. The controversy was ludicrous and flamed out. But another online storm has followed Healy around - and has been intensified by his supposed romance with Taylor Swift. It concerns the New York rapper Ice Spice, whom Healy is accused of mocking in a podcast.

He addressed these claims in a new interview with The New Yorker, which seems to have been commissioned not because of The 1975’s streak of decent albums but because he’s been in the audience of Taylor Swift’s US tour (with Swift having joined The 1975 in London in January).

The singer hadn’t insulted Ice Spice but had laughed when the podcast hosts described her as an “Inuit Spice girl” and a “chubby Chinese lady”. The 23-year-old rapper is, in fact, of African-American and Dominican heritage. The details are obviously irrelevant: it’s self-evidently unacceptable to turn someone’s ethnicity or appearance into a punchline.

Healy had, as was only proper, later apologised publicly – saying he didn’t want Ice Spice, real name Isis Naija Gaston, to think he was a “d---”. But that horse had bolted.

He’s shallow, then – but he has depths. Healy is blisteringly honest about his mental health on The 1975’s 2022 LP, Being Funny In A Foreign Language album as well as reflecting on his years of heroin addiction and his romantic split from singer FKA Twigs.

“Oh, I don’t care if you’re insincere / Just tell me what I want to hear,” he sang on All I Need To Hear, a ballad about his need for human support and connection following a reported breakdown. Later, the Cheshire-raised singer said that it was easier “as an English northern person, to be sardonic in the face of something sincere”. The argument he makes on the new LP is that it’s okay to be corny and fake, if your motives are pure.

He has also gleefully played with ideas of masculinity. On the group’s latest tour, Healy sings against briefly projected images of Prince Andrew and of controversial kick boxer-turned-influencer Andrew Tate, whose toxic machismo Healy appeared to skewer.

But in the New Yorker interview, Healy made the broader point that most of the online controversy he has whipped up over the years has been illusory. In an uncharacteristic display of humility, he explained that people don’t think about him that often.

“It doesn’t actually matter,” he told The New Yorker. “Nobody is sitting there at night slumped at their computer, and their boyfriend comes over and goes, ‘What’s wrong, darling?’ and they go, ‘It’s just this thing with Matty Healy.’ That doesn’t happen.”

What about those people who were genuinely offended, wondered The New Yorker? “You’re either deluded or you are, sorry, a liar. You’re either lying that you are hurt, or you’re a bit mental for being hurt. It’s just people going, ‘Oh, there’s a bad thing over there, let me get as close to it as possible so you can see how good I am.’ And I kind of want them to do that, because they’re demonstrating something so base level.”

Swift and Healy have yet to go on the record with their romance – though Swift has gone public with her admiration for Ice Spice, with whom she recorded a new version of her single Karma. But even without confirmation, the very idea of Swift being with an unreconstructed wind-up merchant of Healy’s calibre has vexed a segment of her fanbase, who have urged her to “actively engage in this process of personal and social transformation”.

This touches on the wider issue of how much say fans should have in the personal lives of pop stars (answer: none at all). It also confirms that Healy is a throwback to an older kind of pop star. There was a time when being outrageous wasn’t a career killer – it was part of the job description. Whether it was Ozzy Osbourne biting off the head of a bat or the Gallaghers launching jibes at Blur (before they turned their artillery on each other), part of the fun of being a pop fan was waiting for your favourite artist’s next outrageous outburst.

Healy understands this is part of his job and hasn’t been found wanting. He’s good at it too. In an age where pop is increasingly a story of the bland leading the bland, it is a talent for which he should be praised rather than pilloried.

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

Doctor Who: The Star Beast- A Reasonably Watchable Mess

You may have noticed that, despite desperately positive, brittle reviews in the mainstream media, the last few years of Doctor Who went down like a lead balloon with actual fans and ordinary viewers. Turns out that a patronising gender-flip that served no plot purpose followed by a series of episodes in which the Doctor shilled for Space Amazon, murdered innocent giant spiders and delivered completely unearned straight-to-camera speeches like a fucking after-school special weren’t popular moves. The show’s viewing figures plummetted (despite contrary claims from the BBC that turned out, very simply, to be lies) and its review score aggregate on Rotten Tomatoes plunged, at one point, to literally 0%. Hilariously, the review aggregate from the mainstream media was around 90% at the time, once again demonstrating that the average critic can be bought for less than I spend assuring the silence of my past victims (the joke is that all my past victims are dead and I don’t spend a fucking thing on their silence). The abject failure of the Whitaker/Chibnall era was inevitable and any normal person could have predicted it. The BBC, however, didn’t and had a bit of a panic when they realised just how fucked their ratings were. Not that they admitted that, of course, but the fact they brought back the dream-team of showrunner Russell ‘The’ Davies and David Tennant for the 60th Anniversary Specials instead of letting the current incumbents stick around until after the anniversary kinda speaks volumes. So, now we’re getting three Anniversary specials, starring Tennant and helmed by Davies. The first one’s out, and it falls on me to review it as fairly as possible. So… how is it?

Well, put it this way: it’s not terrible, but it’s not the confident, unapologetic return to form I was hoping for either. It concerns a minor villain from the old DW comics called Beep the Meep who poses as a cute, furry critter while secretly plotting the genocide of the entire universe, a reunion with Catherine Tate’s always-delightful Donna Noble and a resolution to the Human/Time Lord meta-crisis that nearly straight-up killed her last time she was on-screen. And, in fairness, the stuff that works works pretty well. The jokes are funny, Tennant and Tate are excellent in their respective roles, the Meep is gloriously fucking psychotic (though the voice actor does sound like they’re phoning it in a bit) and Yasmin Finney, playing Donna’s trans daughter, is a lot less insufferable than she would have been if Chibnall had written her lines. I actually thought the bit where Donna threatens to “descend” on some kids who dead-name her in the street was well-handled and pretty accurately captured the protective instincts of a parent with a trans daughter. Mainly, she’s just there for the representation, though, and does the square root of bugger all to advance the plot. That’s probably a mercy, since I suspect the show would have had a hard time disguising the fact that this fifteen year old kid is being played by a twenty year old woman (who seems to have borrowed David Bowie’s cheekbones) if her part was any more prominent. But yeah- it’s a fun, knockabout adventure that doesn’t overstay its welcome and doesn’t try to outdo the entire show up to that point just because its been a completely arbitrary 60 years since the first episode. It’s basically fun and basically fine. It’s destined to be lauded to ludicrous excess by a mainstream media who are terrified of offering a proper critique because it’s got a trans person in it, while simultaneously being shat upon by online reviewers who know they can win easy points with the fans by challenging the suffocating ubiquity of the Standard Approved Opinion. In truth, though, it’s neither great nor awful- it’s just an hour of television that’s worth watching once but only once. It contains some good stuff… and some shite stuff.

Ah yes, the shite. That’s what you came to read about, isn’t it? Nobody in their right mind shows up at my blog-step for kind words and understanding: you come here because you know I have the pithiest insults and pissiest hot-takes. And yes: there’s some real fucking garbage to dunk on here. First of all, the Human/Time Lord meta-crisis gets resolved in the dumbest fucking way possible. For those of you who don’t remember, the ending of Modern Season 4 of DW was one of the most heartbreaking things ever attempted in a show designed for family viewing. Donna took on the consciousness of a Time Lord in order to save the universe but nearly burnt out her synapses in the processes. The Doctor wiped her mind to save her life, and then had to leave, because if she ever remembered him or the adventures they’d shared together, the crisis would reassert itself and her brain would overload, killing her. And the way they get around this, initially, is alright. Because Donna had a child, part of the meta-crisis got passed onto her, allowing two minds to take a strain that would kill just one. It’s a sweet and perfectly acceptable way of sorting a complex problem and something that legitimately wouldn’t have occurred to the Doctor at the time, because he had to come up with a solution that would work in the moment, not something that would require a nine month gestation period. But then, for some stupid fucking reason, they took it one step further and had Donna and her daughter simply relinquish the power of the meta-crisis, handwaving the obvious bullshit-ness of this move by claiming it just wouldn’t have occurred to a male-presenting Time Lord. The Doctor’s not an idiot. If that was an option, it would have occurred to him. Fuck, it did occur to him that one time Rose Tyler absorbed the Time Vortex and he had her give it up, channelling it into him to save her life at the cost of forcing a regeneration. It’s simultaneously contrived and slap-dash- a hasty right-on girl-power moment that fails miserably to play by the rules and cheapens the original story of the meta-crisis retroactively. It also brings us, neatly, to the phrase ‘male-presenting Time Lord’.

There’s a line in the excellent It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia wherein Charlie describes himself as “a straight man who poops transgender”. The phrase ‘male-presenting Time Lord’ sounds weirdly similar to me. It’s too specific and technical, while also including a wildly silly element (‘Time Lord’ is a vaguely ethereal, grandiose title that doesn’t gel with earthly, human discussions of gender identity). People just don’t talk like that. Sometimes people write like that, seeking an economy of phrasing that looks good on the page… but nobody actually talks like that. I mean, the context in which it’s used is stupid, but the phrasing itself is stupider. It’s also emblematic of a problem with the script as a whole. It feels like a first draught.

What do I mean by that? Well, there’s just a lot of instances where conversations feel slightly stilted or opportunities are missed. Case in point, there’s a bit where Donna’s discussing her kid growing up with her own mum, and it feels like it was meant to be a poignant discussion of the trials and tribulations of raising a child and then realising that they’re not what you were expecting but their own, completely separate person. What we get is just a placeholder where a couple of jokes occur but nothing of import is really said. Similarly, there’s a line where the Doctor muses that he doesn’t know who he is any more, which feels like it was meant to be developed into a meditation on his sense of identity after so many regenerations, metatextually addressing the show’s loss of a coherent, inter-regenerational identity for its lead character. Absolutely fucking nothing comes of it. There’s even a bit where a UNIT scientific advisor in a wheelchair encounters a flight of stairs and the way it’s shot makes it feel like there should have been a joke there. Maybe there could have been a really slow lift that she has to use while her soldiers rush up the stairs, or maybe she could have made one of them carry her. I’d have taken a lazy, low-hanging quip like “stairs…. My old nemesis” to be honest. But all we get is “sorry about the stairs,” and that’s it. My point is that there’s a superficiality to a lot of the scenes and lines that yells ‘PLACEHOLDER’, and areas that desperately need polish.

Speaking of polish: London is once again too fucking clean. I wish TV shows would stop doing that- making London look like the MCU’s version of fucking New York- all glass skyscrapers and clean streets. The real London is a bizarre, dystopian mix of impersonal steel monuments to capital, crumbling baroque architecture from the middling-glorious past and slumping, poverty-stricken housing from a fucking Dickens novel. The city has a really specific, slightly nightmarish character that most telly shows and films fail miserably to capture. It’s inexcusable in this case, because Doctor Who actually used to do a pretty good job of showing London as it is. Which is mental, since it used to be filmed in Swansea in cocking Wales.

But I digress. My final major issue is that the message of the show’s text is wildly at odds with the metatextual message of the specials’ mere existence. The whole reason the BBC re-hired Tennant and Davies onto the show was to announce a return of the Who everyone loved; a tacit admission than the last few years of lazy virtue-signalling and shoddy script-work had been a mistake that they were keen to move on from. There is literally no other reason to take such an obvious backward step in the show’s development. Yet the episode The Star Beast keeps bringing up Whitaker’s tenure as the Doctor as though it’s something to be celebrated. We get lines like “The Doctor’s a man and a woman. And both. And neither. And more,” (again, nobody fucking talks like that) that feel like an attempt to fold the previous three years into the acceptable canon, when the whole reason the specials are happening is to renounce them and leave them in the cold. Then again, that’s the Beeb for you- it's amazing if the left hand knows what the left hand's doing. If someone's bothered to inform the right hand, it's so surprising as to be frankly suspicious. Add to that the extra layer of complexity that comes from getting Disney to part-fund the show and you’re bound to end up with a confused mess. Also, why did they bother getting Disney to part-fund this? The Special Effects look like something a fourteen year-old could whip up in his bedroom. Which is fine- I never mind the sets wobbling in Who: I just can’t figure out where all the fucking money went.

I think the root problem is two-fold. First, as much as I loved Russell T. Davies’ original time as showrunner, it’s really obvious he’s gotten old. It’s only been fifteen years since his time in charge ended, but sometimes, the ageing process kicks a guy’s arse really suddenly (ask me about waking up one day to discover I now have man-boobs sometime). There’s this interview he did recently about how Davros represents an offensive portrayal of wheelchair users, and it’s clearly just the ramblings of a confused old man. Nobody looks at Davros, creator of the Daleks, and thinks ‘yup- there goes a typical wheelchair user’. Part of the point of his character is that he’s kind of admirable on paper, overcoming age and sickness to achieve the impossible… but he perverts and subverts those expectations by doing something fucking appalling. It’s a nuanced, complex take on the way pain and suffering can make a person sympathetic without necessarily redeeming them. And Russel T. Davies, a once-talented writer who should understand this stuff, just doesn’t get it any more. He’s well-meaning, but he’s clearly just not up to the job any more. I mean, he still has talent- his renewed tenure will be better than Chibnall’s… but maybe it would have been a better idea to let the poor schmuck retire on a high note.

The other problem is deeper and more intractable. The world has changed since Doctor Who was the best thing on television, and it might be that it just can’t work any more. The modern era of Who was born from a place of hope yet, also, a place of marginalisation. It was 2005. The government of the day had dome some pretty fucked up things, but they were nowhere near as evil as the governments who were to succeed them. Sci-fi was still a niche thing allowing for experimentation and weirdness. There were definite good guys and bad guys on the world stage and in domestic politics: there were genuine victims on one side and hateful bigots on the other, and it seemed like it might actually be possible for the underdogs to win for a change. 2023 is a different world. We’ve seen the worst UK governments since Thatcher in the 80s (and people kept voting for them) and the worst US President in history (a Savaloy-orange freak with the hair of a sexually-confused Nazi). On the cultural level, the lines between victims and villains have blurred, with the arrival of the never-ending Oppression Olympics birthing a generation of dead-eyed bullies who hide behind nominal ‘oppressed’ status in order to tear down genuinely nice people (like that time a load of wankers piled onto a scientist who landed a probe on a moving comet FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HUMAN HISTORY because he did while wearing a T-shirt with a stylised naked lady on it). Identity has replaced solidarity as the go-to discussion in progressive (or allegedly progressive) circles. The sci-fi genre itself has become popular- meaning it’s infested with normies who don’t understand it but do want to own it. Doctor Who was never built for this world. The change in culture and society over the last just-under-twenty years is more significant, in some ways, than the changes that occurred between its original outing in the 60s and its reboot in 2005, and I don’t know if it can survive those changes. We inhabit a world where actual heroism and even basic decency seem less important than the performance of those qualities in ways that a mass audience can understand and where nuanced solutions, informed by kindness, are verboten because everyone’s supposed to pick a side. There’s no room for a genteel, British/Alien gadabout with two hearts and a silly sonic screwdriver in a world where the battle-lines are drawn and performative virtue has become a universal aspiration. In order to fit our tawdry world, Doctor Who would have to stop being Doctor Who. And, to be blunt, our culture doesn’t really deserve any form of Doctor Who at the moment.

So yes, The Star Beast is pretty good. It’s a nice slice of television that fails on many fronts, but still manages to entertain. But what next? Where can we possibly go from here? Personally, I intend to watch the specials and- if they’re okay- Ncuti Gatwa’s era after that. Then I think I’m done. By rights, the show should face cancellation while it’s still strong enough to bow out gracefully, but if that doesn’t happen, I’ll still have to pick a point to stop watching. Sooner or later, all good things must come to an end, and if the BBC isn’t big enough to admit that, at least I am. I suggest you pick somewhere to draw a line, too.

[likeniobe]

The history of the Gilles is as inscrutable as the expression on the clown's face. The picture is undated, no drawings exist, and it was never engraved. Compared with Watteau's habitual scale it is gigantic, and the handling is broad and matt. All these factors reinforce something suggested by the subject matter––namely, that it was probably a theater billboard, painted for one of those small French companies which set up in emulation of the Italians. Although they followed the main outline of the Commedia dell'Arte repertory, the French players created variations of their own, including a character named Gilles, a modification of the original Pierrot, whose existence is first noted in 1695. The character, whose final incarnation was as Pagliacci, was the natural unfortunate of the troupe, the butt of its most brutal comic sallies, but protected by an armour of innocence which was eventually seen to triumph. To the keen appetites of the eighteenth-century audience the whole point of Gilles was his thick-headedness, his ability to resist instruction. In a popular performance attempt would be made to knock some sense into him; he would be giving a dancing master, a fencing master, a drawing master––all to no avail. At this point of the action a donkey would be led across the stage to underline his ineffable stupidity. This is the moment painted by Watteau. But as well as recording a moment of theatrical history, Watteau has again given the situation a colouring of his own. For his Gilles belongs in a more contemplative setting than that of the knockabout farce. The impassivity of the face suggests that the ability to survive continuous if light-hearted cruelty is not only potentially tragic but at all times heroic. This is a concept worthy of Watteau, who has given rise to comments, from Voltaire among others, that he never painted anything serious. The Gilles is not only one of the most serious pictures to be painted in the eighteenth century, it is perhaps the most truly personal of all Watteau's works.

anita brookner, watteau, 1967

[ruebedo-iosis]

My Honkai Star Rail Oc

(PART 4)

Shiloh Amal/ Black-Snake

(First attempt at actual movement based animation. So it's a bit rough)

-------Voice-Over/ Lines & Quotes

First Meeting: Oh ho! A new face, I see. Name’s Shiloh. I’m Looking forward to a Dandy day, you too?

Greeting: There's my Trouper, ready for the next Jump if you are!

Parting: Ah, Time to hit the Back Yard already? Go on, Just don't give me the Red lights.

About Self: Me? Nothin’ special bout lil, ol’ me. Guess I worked hard to get my Paper in the Bannerline, but that don't mean nothin’ after the Slall. Jus’ gives me itchy feet.

Chat- Species- : I try not to chat with Other Halovians, Something bout them jus’ rubs me wrong. Born for adoration nd’ all that holier than thou, attitude. Not for me. Wait, you didn't realize? I'm actually flattered.

Hobbies: Could go Tie one on if you're up for it. Oh, an Actual Hobby? Uh, mama taught me to play the Calliope. That's Kal- E- Ope. But you don't see those much outside the Bandwagon.

Annoyances: Those who chew too much fat and only blubber their blabbing. That, nd’ those rich sellouts who believe they got that X or whatever. Honestly, those types don't know beans.

Something to Share: I don't try to have my ears to the ground. But you do tend to hear various local mush when out with the Wagons. What really interests me is leaving little …gifts er, tips… to the right people of course! Don't you worry.

Knowledge: When they say, sky’s the limit, sometimes, I wish it really was....Keeps you grounded.

About … :

. Sampo : Oh, Y'know Sampo? I don't have any personal experiences ,but he's a real class act! Mama always told me to avoid people like him, but he actually seems rather docile compared to others I've seen ‘round. Maybe I'll invite him for a good ol’ jackpot over drinks.

. Sparkle : Now she is a champion in acting. You'd be better expecting nothing in the wheelhouse of relevance with her ‘round. She'd put any act I've ever met to shame. Though I'd still rather keep her off my ballots.

. :

. :

Eidolon Activation: Ha! Would ya look at me now?

Character Ascension: H-hold on! Lemme Stretch some Kinks out!

Max Lvl. Reached: Is that really the whole show?

Trace Activation: Just one more Trick to the Trade!

Added to Team With … :

. :

. :

. :

. :

------------//(Combat)//-------------

Battle Begins, Weakness Break: Looks like a 10 in 1.

Well that's a Fink.

Battle Begins, Danger Alert: euugh, Not folded yet.

Turn Begins: Curtains up!

Whew…Showtime.

Turn Idling: …..ehm…..ah……Hey Rube!....no? Worth a shot.

Basic Attack: I’ll just call ya Larry.

Enhanced Basic Attack: ((this character doesn't have a line for this.))

Skill: Let's Awe and Amaze!

Hit by Light Attack: oof, just a Brodie.

Hit by Heavy Attack: Augh! You want a real show?!

Ultimate Activation: Best Take Your Seats For This One,

Ultimate Unleashed: It's Time For The Main Event!.....Ta-Da!!

Talent: I'll lend a hand!

Let me help!

Downed: Ahh… Can you play, Stars nd’ Stripes, fr-ever?

Guess it's… All Out nd’ Over.

Return to Battle: Guess I Still ve’ got A Concert!

Health Recovery: A Dukie? Fr’ me?!

Technique: Head's Up, Roustabout!

Battle Won: Woo-Hoo! A Real Windy Van Hooten’s!

Treasure Opening: Any Props?

Precious Treasure Opening: Oooh, Better than a Grafters Fetch.

Successful Puzzle Solving: I'm no Gaffer, but I still got some wits.

Enemy Target Found: Look, A Knockabout Act!

Return to Town: Home Sweet Home, just not the Home Run.

[moonshine-nightlight]

Don’t Shoot the Messenger: Part One

Despite how it might seem, being a messenger for the feared sea-demon pirate, Admiral Satrasi, infamous far and wide for having an entire fleet of raiding vessels  who answer to him alone, is a relatively safe job. After all,  no one knowingly crosses the Admiral. However, it seems the most recent captain looking to join his fleet hasn’t gotten that bulletin yet.

Fantasy, pirates, male monster x female reader, male demon, M/F, Part 1 of 9

Warnings: violence (choking), misogynistic insults

Story Status: COMPLETE

AO3: Don’t Shoot the Messenger Chapter 1

Part One [Part Two] [Part Three] [Part Four] [Part Five] [Part Six] [Part Seven] [Part Eight] [Part Nine - NSFW]

It’s been years since your life shifted from the land to the sea, but how unbalanced those first few steps on land are now still always manages to surprise you. Usually, you hurry off about your business, pushing through the wobbles in your legs, but tonight isn’t so urgent so you take your time heading down the dock.

Despite this island being little known to the rest of the world, it's bustling with life and business and you feel as comfortable here as you on any of Admiral Satrasi’s ships. You easily amble along, staying out of the way and silent as a shadow more out of habit than a need for secrecy. After all, it's hard to stop a messenger you don’t know is there. And even when you were younger, it was harder for someone to object to you if they didn’t know you were there either.

Satrasi had only asked for an answer by tomorrow morning since he was occupied for this evening so you take your time to look at the wares of the stalls in the rambleshack marketplace. Captain Bartholomew Critchley, the person you are to find, is at the tavern up the road, easily the most established and structurally sound building here despite it being frequented primarily by a crowd known for their ability to get rowdy. You suppose that's a testament to both Juanita’s ability to keep people in line as it is to her knockabout wife’s ability to patch the place up. 

Snacking on something fried as you glance over the flasks on display, you keep an eye out for any other bits and bobs that might draw your interest. Travel is an intrinsic part of your job as one of Satrasi’s personal messengers–nicknamed ‘Marlins’ due to the speed you pride yourselves in–so you keep your possessions on the lesser end, but you did have permanent rooms on his carrier. 

The carrier was originally some government’s solution to sustaining long voyages out into the Unbroken Sea. It had its own gardens and water purification system—a magnificent beast of machine and magic that had made it worth its weight in diamond. They tried to protect it, but they should have known it was only a matter of time before someone more skilled took it out of their hands. 

Once he took it over—that’s when Satrasi became known as the Admiral by everyone, not just other seafarers. Even if they liked to say “the Sea Demon Admiral” instead of just the Admiral—they could no longer deny just how much power he commanded over the seas. Between the carrier, the island waystations, and the fleet of ships under his command, Satrasi was the most feared name on this side of the Unbroken Sea.

And those who don’t try to sink him, want to join up—Captain Critchley is no different. He’s new to this more northern part of the Sea, but he’s scrounged together enough of a reputation to warrant a meeting with Admiral Satrasi to hear his petition to become one of his captains. So here you are, on your way to arrange that meeting on Satrasi’s behalf. 

It’s a week into your current stay on the carrier, having returned from a much longer trip and therefore performing some light work nearby until you are sent out abroad next. As much as you like traveling, it's good to be home again, to be near Satrasi again. While you’re happy to do whatever he requires, you miss him when you’re away. 

You met him shortly before he acquired the carrier, after you saved each other’s lives, and are one of the few people from back then to still be around to this day. Some might think, with your personal connection to satrasi, that this message to a small fish might be beneath you, but nothing Satrasi asked of you could not be worth your time—besides any new captain is always seen to personally by him. If it's worth his personal attention, then the message to arrange it is certainly worth the attention of one of his elite personal messengers.

You end up selecting some ribbon, a vibrant color for your hair and duller colors for hemming and trim on your clothes, and a new book before seriously eyeing the sky. Deciding it was late enough that Captain Critchley must be at the tavern by now, you head for it. Perhaps you’ll even stay for a drink or two. You didn’t drink overmuch—never comfortable with the feeling of not being in control of yourself when someone might take advantage—but you like the Saucy Siren. 

It is easy enough to get a drink you trusted, tuck yourself in a corner, and people watch among folks that wouldn't try anything on you. You aren’t one for talking to people or big groups—you certainly couldn’t count off on more than one hand the people you would go out for a drink with, but you like simply existing with other people, at least occasionally. You like cities and crowds and the ability to get lost among them far more than you ever felt comfortable in the small town you came from. You feel safer here on these islands under Satrasi’s control than you do anywhere else on land—safest ever on the carrier, or wherever Satrasi himself is.

You slide in a side entrance out of habit rather than necessity, giving a nod to a cook you recognize, but moving purposely otherwise—the trick to getting everywhere you need to get is either for no one to notice you’re even there or too make sure you act like you belong, and often one lends itself to the other. The tavern is more than bustling with multiple ships in port and the carrier so nearby. 

You survey the scene before you from the largest center bar, managing to get a spiked twilsey from the barmaid into your mug as you do so. You head up to the next level to get a better view and try to spot the captain you’re here to see, as well as pick a spot to claim after you get his reply. 

Luckily, it's early enough in the night that the majority of the patrons aren’t too drunk and various groups seem to be sticking with who they came with. Since each ship’s crew is loosely still together, you’re able to go through the rooms, dismissing whole sections when you recognize someone there. 

The Deliverance crew on the first floor, you mentally cross them out first, having had to push through a number of them to get the bar. You spot the Lioness’ Capitan easily by her bright red hair and her unusually well armored crew, some with plate armor even at the tavern. It takes some minutes of study to recognize the Grey Mary’s crew, but you are able to spot Grey Mary herself after her new first mate, some sort of very tall demon with even taller horns who’s even greyer than she is, moved and stopped blocking her from your sight.

You’re able to follow Peggy, known for her missing leg and other proclivities, to the rest of Captain Red’s New Moon crew. You’re glad it's early enough into the night, and the lunar cycle, that none of them is any hairier than usual yet. They are starting to mingle with the crew of the Brazen Flame—although you can't tell who their current captain is, the tiara of rubies they pass around to denote the position is nowhere to be seen amongst their colorful skin the identifies them as fire demons, an unusual type of demon to be pirates. You follow one of the whip thin lads with yellow skin up to the second floor, where he joins some of those you know the best—all full time veterans of the carrier.

Unfortunately, that means you’ve looked over the majority of the first and second floor without spotting the crew of the Lux Lady, let alone the Captain himself. That means they must be in one of the add-ons. As the Admiral’s fleet grew, so did those stopping off at the island wanting a drink and additions had been made to the original building. Some of these were sturdy and well-built—others were not. Besides, you might be comfortable enough in the open drinking areas of the bars, but you hate gambling dens—too full of the drunk, delusional, and desperate than you can stand—and never go near games unless you have to.

“Looking for someone, Marlin?” One of the barmaids, Rea, asks as she clears off the table you’re near. She’s been here over a year, sister of someone from the carrier and has sharper eyes than most. She’s struck you as a kindred spirit of sorts because she’s always watching just like you used to have to do. Takes more than a year here to lose that instinct—not that you’re sure how long it does take because you haven’t managed to turn it off anywhere besides in Satrasi’s holdings and even that’s only some of the time.

You nod, finishing off the last of your drink and hanging the mug back on your belt. “New captain who wants to join. Captain Critchley of the Lux Lady.”

Rea straightens a bit at that, and really, in retrospect, you should have taken that as the sign it is. “There’s some new folks around back—near the tables. Cel’brating some big score, or so they think—” she rolls her eyes, “not that it's encouraged them to share the wealth.”

You frown, but you’re not surprised. Pirates are either the tightest fisted misers you’ve ever seen or they like to make it rain coin—never much in between. It’s why half the Admiral’s edicts are on how to split bounties.  “Something must have convinced Captain Jack to vouch for them—big score might do it for him, he’s all about coin.”

“Aye,” Rea agrees. “They’re making friends with the Hungry Serpent crew that are ashore, so like calls to like.”

That was an odd crew, but their flag of a two headed serpent fit them a T—half of them loved nothing more than booze and fighting and the other half never drank and sent all their coin home to family. However they all managed to stay on together for years was a mystery. 

“Looking for a refill?” Rea asks, interrupting your thoughts. You notice she’s done wiping down the tables near you and is probably itchin’ to get back to work.

You shake your head and slip her a bronze coin for the tip. You know she wasn’t looking for one for such a simple scrap of information, but what was the point of having money these days if you didn’t spend it?

She accepts it before she even fully realizes what you gave and flashes you a smile before heading back to the bar. You make your way around the center bar and duck into the largest of the game halls. Cards and dice are played down below, but every game that needs a table is up top where it’s harder to make off with it. The Saucy Siren is respected, but it's a pirate tavern—no sense in dangling fresh meat in front of a bear by making theft easier than it needs to be. Besides, everything that can be bolted down is—and probably even some things that shouldn’t be. Honestly Juanita lucked out when she hired that demon with the tail that can climb because half of what’s worth any value is up in the rafters.

Still, the billiard tables up here aren’t too bad, more for casual fun and less for betting. The room isn’t nearly as filled with smoke and half of it is at least sweet smelling from the hookahs rather than pipe smoke that tends to come with dice. As the doorway opens on to a platform by some stairs down into the room, you can get a good view before you get down to the main floor, which allows you to spot the Lux Lady’s group almost immediately. 

Now, spotting the gorgon with them from the Hungry Serpent is a bit of tell, but whatever gets the job done. As you head down the stairs, you automatically adjust your navy overcoat, using part of your sleeve to polish one of its silver buttons, which help mark you as one of the Admiral’s messengers. Pirates are, on a whole, opposed to uniforms, but there are only so many ways to clothe oneself out on the sea’s that's practical and affordable.

All the messengers are given the navy overcoat with the Admiral’s flag insignia on the breast when they start—it’s up to you how you make sure the right people see it and the wrong don’t. Silver buttons are earned after significant jobs are completed—you have the most of any other, but many are hidden on the inside of the coat, rather than the outside. Wearing that much silver is just asking for trouble the rest of the time, but you couldn’t bring yourself not to sew them into the coat—some of the others kept them in boxes or fashioned them onto other garments. You hold too much pride in them for that. They’re symbolic of the life you now have, of how much you have gained and stand to lose. 

You unbutton and rebutton the sturdy navy woolen panel to the side that usually keeps the insignia out of sight. Truthfully you can have it showing anywhere around here—anywhere in the Admiral’s territory—but you find it confuses people and makes you more noticeable. Folks tend to think you’re there for a reason with it out, even if they wear theirs plainly. You don’t mind overmuch having to cover it—it's good practice so you don’t forget when you leave the territory where one slip-up could mean arrest and the noose.

You identify Critchley once you closer—newer captain’s are always the ones with their hat still on and shiny new jewelry. He’s got a gold bauble on one ear with a large pearl and the other ear has a dull gray bar through it. There’s a heavy golden compass around his neck that looks too bright to be anything except new. There’s also the way his crew is arranged around him, how a few glance his way when he raises his voice. 

He’s also well on his way to properly plastered, so it's a good thing you found him before he can’t even remember enough to give you a real answer. 

While you prefer not to be noticed, you are a personal messenger for Admiral Satrasi, demon commander of the largest pirate fleet in a thousand years and for a thousand miles. You let that knowledge seep into you, remember the faith he has in you, and pull that confidence into your bones. The sound of your boots on the wooden floorboards isn’t loud, but it is audible in a way it hadn’t been before. You’re no taller, but your spine is straighter. Your facial expression hasn’t gone from a smile to a frown or vice versa, but it's harder, sharper.

Subconscious or not, everyone gets out of your way the last few yards to the table. “Captain Critchley?” you ask clearly, enunciating so your voice filters through the noise easily enough.

He turns lazily at the sound of your voice, a looseness to his bones that can only come from strong drink. He looks up the short distance from his seated position to your standing one. “Mayhap. Who wants to know?”

“Messenger from Admiral Satrasi,” you say by way of introducing yourself—your name isn’t what he wants to know. It's not what matters, so you don’t give it.

His eyes brighten at that and he sits up straighter. Despite having to look up at you, he still tries to angle himself so he’s looking down his nose at you instead. It doesn’t really work, but you’re used to how people try to puff, as if they want to show they’re important enough for Satrasi’s attention. “About time,” he says with a smirk. “I was beginning to wonder if coming here was a waste of my time.” 

You resist the urge to raise an eyebrow at that and don't bother to say anything yet—he won’t need your input to continue. “We docked yesterday,” he tells you, as if that means something. “Jackie-boy said the Admiral would talk to us once we got to this little island hideaway—not that we haven’t appreciated the time to enjoy ourselves.” His smirk widens as he nudges the man to his left and a number of the other crew members who are paying attention to your conversation laugh.

“The Admiral received Captain Jack’s letter vouching for you as well as your own petition and would like to arrange a meeting in the next few days,” you say formally when he seems to have said his piece. You don’t like the narrowing of his eyes at your words, but you continue on regardless, “He has a certain amount of availability, although he knows you might also be occupied with repairs, appraisal, and supply matters. Do you have any particular time in mind? Or I could tell you when the Admiral is available over the next few days and you could say which time and day you’d prefer? Up to you.”

“Is it now?” he sneers a little, leaning over to murmur into another man’s ear who snickers. “Very well, important men have important things to see to—of course I am the picture of understanding,” he gives a little mock bow from his seat, accentuating the move with a flourish that made his crew break out into guffaws. “When’s the earliest his majesty can see us?”

You frown at that. He can fool all he wants, but you’ll take no disrespect to the Admiral, even if he is gin-soaked. “The Admiral can see you in three days time, at high noon, at the earliest. He has two other times free that day and then two the next day.”

Captain Critchley’s whole demeanor darkens at your words, offense and wounded pride come to sit heavy on his face. “Pardon me, girlie, but did you say in three days time? I must have misheard you. We’re not waiting days for some attention. You say he'd gotten our missives, ‘e knows we’re here—now what? He’s resting on his laurels? Tryin’ to waste our time, like it don’t mean as much as his?”

You know saying that Admiral Satrasi’s time is in fact more valuable than this green captain’s won’t get you anywhere. “I only know that he said he couldn’t meet with you until noon in three days time at the earliest. Is that acceptable to you?”

“No,” he scoffs and his men murmur disgruntedly around him, a chorus of drunk seagulls he clearly keeps around to flatter his own importance. “It’s not acceptable. I’ll meet with him tomorrow at noon, thank ya kindly. How do we get up on that massive raft he’s got?”

You hate when people refuse to listen to the message you’re communicating. Not that it will stop you from saying it. “Can’t get on the carrier until three days at noon at the earliest,” you say, as if he’s hard of hearing and not hard in the head. Sometimes if you push past complaints they manage to realize what they need to do. “When you tell me which time the Admiral is available, I shall tell him in the morrow and he’ll arrange to have a boat come to bring you to him.”

“You know what? I don’t think I like your attitude, you uppity doxy.” You finally do raise a brow at him calling you a prostitute, if only because its such a reach. Even men drunk under tables don't normally assume such given your manner of dress and knowing you come from the Admiral, even if they think they might convince you in bed what they can’t with their words. “Since you can’t seem to understand what I’m sayin’, why don’t you fetch a different messenger with an actual brain rattlin’ about in his noggin?”

You’ve tried to give him a chance to pull himself together, but you’re done holding his hand. “No, you’re the one who ain’t listenin’. Admiral said three days at noon. Or two after or three after that. He was quite clear and it’s on his word I’m here, so that’s who I’ll be listenin’ to. And it's who you’ll be listening to if you wanna meet with him. So are you tellin’ me one of those times in three days or do you want to hear about the fourth?”

Captain Critchley leans off the back of the bench for the first time and points his bottle at you with a glare that might have scared you when you was ten. “And I’m tellin’ you I’ll meet with him tonight.”

“That ain’t possible,” you reply bluntly, already done with this conversation and not caring that he’d had the audacity to move the timeline up even further–not that it’d be any sort of coherent conversation tonight given how sloshed he is. You don’t know who this rat thinks he is, but you have the Admiral’s ear and he doesn’t. Everyone else knew to be polite to the ones carrying their words to the Admiral. If he hadn’t the sense to work that out, you aren’t gonna help him. 

You’ll be sure to tell Satrasi how he acted when you give him the meeting time and you might just pen a letter to Jack yourself for sending along a captain with his head so far up his own ass. “The Admiral is not to be disturbed tonight—he made that very clear. I’m not even to bring him your reply until the morning.”

“Well, I’m afraid that’s not gonna happen, wench,” he says through gritted teeth. He leans forward on the table, setting his bottle down heavily and bracing himself with one large splayed out hand. “You’re gonna take me to the self-important pirate now. He’s not any better than the rest of us just because he nabbed a daft oddity you can’t even raid from. I’m no third rate cabin boy to be brought to heel by skinny bitches who don’t know when to listen instead of yap.”

“No,” you snap, the last of your patience gone at the insult to Satrasi. “You’re a natterin’ child, here on the Admiral’s generosity asking for his favor but refusing to listen and wait your turn.”

Before your eyes can track it, he’s on his feet and a large hand is closing around your throat in an iron grip. You’re so shocked that’s he’s dared to strike you here, that you don’t even react, letting him lift you to the tips of your toes. His hot, alcoholic breath reeks as he breathes it into your face saying, “If anyone here is a child, it’s you—playing above your pay amongst those stronger and more important than you. I don’t know who lets you get away with that lip, but I’ll not stand for it.”

Your left hand closes around the fingers he has at your neck, trying to pull them from where they’re digging into your skin, cutting off your air when he gives a harsh squeeze to emphasize his point. Your mind needs another second to come to terms with the reality of the impossible. Once you verify this lowlife piece of shit dare assault you while on official business from the Admiral in his territory, you only have one thought.

He’s gonna regret this.

[Part Two]

[westophere]

random headcanon: yes the twins are terrible little brats, but they hardly ever do pranks or tease someone who is going through a difficult situation, in fact they would use all their talent of knockabout clowns, quick-change comedians, tight-rope walkers and acrobats to cheer that person up!

[anonymoushouseplantfan]

Tina Brown in The Spectator, 6 March 2021

"Hollywood can’t believe Harry’s dissed Queen Oprah"

Santa Monica is a soothing place to be locked down. I moved here from New York for four months in November with my two adult kids after I lost my beloved husband, Harry Evans [HE died in Sept 202]. I couldn’t face the task of finishing a book in our empty country house where for years we’d shown each other our pages at the end of the day and laughed over chicken pot pie. Meanwhile in Manhattan, I was tired of pretending that freezing outdoor dining, with buses barrelling past, was like sitting on the sidewalk at Les Deux Magots in Paris. With the California sun on my back at breakfast, and the orange trees in my garden, I have the calm I need to reflect on happy times with Harry.

The theft of Lady Gaga’s French bulldogs sent a chill through the serenely ensconced household. Just before Christmas, my daughter Izzy took possession of a three-month-old English bulldog, acquired from Linda’s Klassy Kennel in Oklahoma. I was dubious. Izzy is a documentary producer who travels a lot, I’ve always been a cat person, and a red-state bulldog would surely bark for Trump. But as a flow of snaps arrived of a splotchy pink-snouted puppy — a runty number four in the litter — I started to feel the excited stirrings of cross-species motherhood. Three days before Christmas we got the call. An RV van driven from Oklahoma would meet us in the car park outside an Anaheim 7-Eleven at 8 p.m. There, a bearded dude emerged and handed Izzy a small bundle.

What else could it have been but love at first sight? Gimli, as Izzy has called her (after the wise dwarf in Lord of the Rings) is a ‘bulldoglet’ from heaven. Her soft corrugated nose immediately burrowed into Izzy’s shoulder. Every day starts with what we call Storming the Capitol. Gimli’s crate door opens and she bursts out, furiously wagging her stump of a tail and hurling herself at my bed. We have decided that she was sent to us by my husband. She has so many of his characteristics: dogged (literally) tenacity; fearless when wrestling with dogs three times her size; and never more content than when chomping through a manuscript.

It’s amazing how differently the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are perceived in America. In Hollywood there’s been much consternation about how the timing of (ex-Prince) Harry’s larky bus trip stunt with James Corden once again dissed the Queen — not his grandma (for a change), but America’s Queen, Oprah Winfrey. ‘Who does that?’ went the text messages. Who gives an exclusive heart-to-heart to Oprah, then goes off before it’s aired and does a knockabout with Corden, when Her Media Majesty’s much-touted scoop is still in the can? No doubt it was supposed to be ‘just fun’, but Corden was sly enough to slip in news-making questions that rained on Oprah’s parade. Harry and Meghan, it’s very clear, want to be all-conquering celebrities. But there are rules of the game in Hollywood — just as there are at Buckingham Palace. The Oprah solecism apart, Harry aced the Corden show. He was self-deprecating, funny and hot. British hand-wringing about letting down the immutable dignity of the royal family is greeted here with snorts. Americans see the much-touted Windsor version of ‘public service’ as posh people being made to do boring things they hate every day, usually in bad weather. Harry’s version of it sounds way more fun. Netflix deals, podcasts, lolling barefoot in the garden of an 11-bedroom mansion, a Zoom here and there… What’s not to like? In Harry and Meghan’s real estate circles, Frogmore Cottage would be marketed as a tear-down.

The larger question they have to answer is whether Harry is a celebrity royal or a royal celebrity. He seems to have picked the latter. There’s less job security that way, but more money. But I suspect he still believes he’s the former — a royal prince somehow disaggregated from the duties of the Crown. And this makes things awkward. How can he then talk with a straight face to Oprah about ‘public service’, even as his grandmother, the real Queen, faces the loss of her husband, who for 70 years upheld his coronation oath to be her ‘liege man of life and limb’? Perhaps Harry is simply ahead of the curve. After all, in politics, disaggregation from any recognisable legislative platform is now a way of life for the Republican party. The annual CPAC conference in mask-free Orlando showed how policy, like public service, is a fusty old concept for doddering throwbacks like President Biden. Trump is now literally, as well as figuratively, the pouty blimp who hovers over the party. The tedious business of governing — another kind of public service — goes on without him. And for that we are thankful, all of us — our bulldog Gimli included.

[oddcoupler222]

Do you have any book recs like yours and w. epic love scenes like yours?

I appreciate anything I’ve written being called epic in any way :) 

I don’t really know if I could accurately compare any books I’ve read to my own but I do have some book recs that I adore! I’ll give you my top ten lesfics for some variety

- Behind the Green Curtain by Riley LaShea (my ultimate fave romance)

When Caton’s sleazy boss offers her a position as his wife’s personal assistant, she accepts the job with reservations, certain Jack Halston has ulterior motives. After meeting Jack’s wife Amelia, though, it’s Caton’s motivations that begin to unravel. As vicious as she is beautiful, Amelia threatens Caton’s position and her sense of decorum. As the attraction between the two women spirals into a torrid affair, Caton is drawn deeper into Jack and Amelia’s world of privilege and prestige, where everything is at stake and nothing is what it seems. 

- All That Matters by Susan X  Meagher

Life is going damned well for Blair Spencer. She's a very successful real estate agent, happily married to a man who encourages her to live the independent life she loves; and they're actively working to have a baby. The wrench in the works is that Blair favors adoption, while her husband David desperately wants to have a biological child. The fates are against them, and they finally seek the help of a group of reproductive specialists. One of the doctors, a surgeon named Kylie Mackenzie, eventually becomes a good friend to Blair. And she needs all of the friends she can get when things start to go horribly wrong at home. As her marriage teeters on the brink of collapse, she relies more and more on Kylie's friendship. Kylie's happily gay; Blair's happily straight. But the way they structure their relationship leads friends and family to privately question whether the pair is setting themselves up for heartache. They eventually come to a crossroads, which could either destroy their friendship or turn it into what each of them has been seeking. The question is whether each woman can change her view of herself and her needs. The answer is all that matters.

- Alone by EJ Noyes 

Half a million dollars will be Celeste Thorne’s reward for spending four years of her life in total isolation. No faces. No voices. No way to leave.

Since Celeste has never really worried about being alone, the generous paycheck she’ll receive for her participation in the solitary psychological experiment seems like easy money.

When she finds an injured hiker in the woods bordering her living compound, her strictly governed world is thrown into disarray. But even as she struggles with the morality of breaking the rules of the experiment, Celeste can’t deny her growing attraction to the kind and enigmatic Olivia Soldano. Still, how much can you really trust a stranger? And how much can you trust yourself when you know all the faces you’ve seen and voices you’ve heard for the past three years have only been your imagination?

But what’s real? Celeste’s reality may lie somewhere between the absolute truth and a carefully constructed deception. (the concept of this is just INcredible. and the execution as well - perfect)

- The Goodmans by Clare Ashton

The lovely doctor Abby Hart lives in her dream cottage in the quintessential English border town of Ludbury, home to the Goodmans. Maggie Goodman, all fire and passion, is like another mother to her, amiable Richard a rock and 60s-child Celia is the grandmother she never had. But Abby has a secret. Best friend Jude Goodman is the love of her life, and very, very straight. Even if Jude had ever given a woman a second glance, there’d also be the small problem of Maggie – she would definitely not approve. But secrets have a habit of sneaking out, and Abby’s not the only one with something to hide. Life is just about to get very interesting for the Goodmans. Things are not what they used to be, but could they be even better? (there are not one but TWO perfectly written romances intertwined in this *chef kiss*)

- Pretending in Paradise by M Ullrich

When travelwisdom.com assigns PR specialist Caroline Beckett and travel blogger Emma Morgan to cover a hot new couples retreat, they're forced to fake a relationship to secure a reservation. Ten days in paradise would be a dream assignment, if only they'd stop arguing long enough to enjoy it. Reputations are Caroline's business. Too bad she was forced out of her previous job when an ex smeared hers all over the office grapevine. She's never getting involved with a coworker again, especially not one as careless and unprofessional as Emma. Emma knows that life is too short to play by the rules. But when she goes too far and a defamation lawsuit puts her job in jeopardy, she has to make nice with Caroline, the image police, and deliver the best story of her career.

Only pretending to be in love sure feels a whole lot like falling in love. When their story goes public, ambition and privacy collide, and their chance at making a fake relationship real might just be collateral damage. (there’s just SOMETHING about this that is super freaking cute)

- The Brutal Truth by Lee Winter

Australian crime reporter Maddie Grey is out of her depth in New York, miserable, and secretly drawn to her powerful, twice-married, media mogul boss, Elena Bartell, who eats failing newspapers for breakfast. As work takes them to Australia, Maddie is goaded into a brief, seemingly harmless bet with her enigmatic boss—where they have to tell the complete truth to each other. It backfires catastrophically.

A lesbian romance about the lies we tell ourselves.

- The Red Files by Lee Winter (kudos to her for being the only author that makes it to this list with two separate books)

Ambitious Daily Sentinel journalist Lauren King is chafing on LA’s vapid social circuit, reporting on glamorous A-list parties while sparring with her rival—the formidable, icy Catherine Ayers. Ayers is an ex-Washington political correspondent who suffered a humiliating fall from grace, and her acerbic, vicious tongue keeps everyone at bay. Everyone, that is, except knockabout Iowa girl King, who is undaunted, unimpressed and gives as good as she gets. One night a curious story unfolds before their eyes: One business launch, 34 prostitutes and a pallet of missing pink champagne. Can the warring pair work together to unravel an incredible story? This is a lesbian fiction with more than a few mysterious twists. (as someone who is usually pretty bored by any plot other than the romance, I actually enjoyed this mystery)

- Tricky Wisdom/Tricky Chances by Camryn Eyde

(for tricky wisdom)  Darcy Wright is a closeted lesbian who has been infatuated with her best friend, Taylor, since junior high. Leaving her small northeast Minnesota town for Harvard in a quest to become a doctor, she moves in with med-student Olivia Boyd, a neurotic, anal, gigantic pain in the backside. The first year of juggling medical school is grueling, but it’s nothing compared to living with Olivia.

Coming out to her friends and family with an anti-climactic flop, Darcy uses her newly publicized sexuality to try and win Taylor’s affections through an ill-hatched scheme that crosses uncomfortable lines. The result is as unexpected to Darcy as Darcy’s affinity for medicine is to Olivia.

The first year of medical school is a nerve-wracking encounter in medicine, learning lessons the hard way, and finding what her heart desires.

Tricky Chances is the sequel to Wisdom, but it’s the only lesfic sequel that i truly felt added to the first one and was just as gripping! Plus, the first book is only 48k words so the followup is perfect to come right after

- Who’d Have Thought by G Benson

Top neurosurgeon Samantha Thomson needs to get married fast and is tightlipped as to why. And with over $200,000 on offer to tie the knot, no questions asked, cash-strapped ER nurse Hayden Pérez isn’t about to demand answers.

The deal is only for a year of marriage, but Hayden’s going into it knowing it will be a nightmare. Sam is complicated, rude, kind of cold, and someone Hayden barely tolerates at work, let alone wants to marry. The hardest part is that Hayden has to convince everyone around them that they’re madly in love and that racing down the aisle together is all they’ve ever wanted. What could possibly go wrong? (this book comes in 9th because i don’t love it QUITE as much as i do all the others, but it was the one that got me into lesfic so! it’s good stuff)

And in a guest pick from the only other voracious lesfic reader i know, @debbie-eagan - 

Beautiful Dreamer by Melissa Brayden - 

Philadelphia real estate broker Devyn Winters is at the peak of her career, closing multimillion-dollar deals and relishing it. She’s pretty much blocked out her formative years in Dreamer’s Bay, where the most exciting thing to happen was the twice a year bake sale. Unfortunately, a distress call hauls her back home and away from the life she’s constructed. Now the question is just how long until she can leave again? And when did boring Elizabeth Draper get so beautiful?

Elizabeth Draper loves people, free time, and a good cup of coffee in the warm sunlight. In the quaint town of Dreamer’s Bay, she’s the only employee of On the Spot, an odd jobs company. She remembers Devyn Winters as shallow in high school, but now everything about Devyn makes her lose focus. Though her brain knows Devyn is only home temporarily, her heart didn’t seem to get the memo (I’m personally not a huge Brayden fan but a lot of other lesfic readers are so I reached out for a second opinion on this matter)

I hope you enjoy!

[knockabout-pigeon]

never have i wanted super healing as a power before

[bkthegreatstoneface]

There’s no end of opinions about Buster Keaton’s work & whilst I’d place him on the highest pedestal, other critics are little more grounded.  Here’s what Paul Rotha had to say in his 1930 book, ‘The Film Till Now; A Survey of the Cinema’

“Apart from the comedies of Chaplin it is necessary only to mention 

the more recent work of Buster Keaton and the expensive knockabout contraptions of Harold Lloyd. Keaton at his best, as in The General, College, and the first two reels of Spite Marriage, has real merit. His humour is dry, exceptionally well constructed and almost entirely mechanical in execution. He has set himself the task of an assumed personality, which succeeds in becoming comic by its very sameness. He relies, also, on the old method of repetition, which when enhanced by his own inscrutable individuality becomes incredibly funny. His comedies show an extensive knowledge of the contrast of shapes and sizes and an extremely pleasing sense of the ludicrous. Keaton has, above all, the great asset of being funny in himself. He looks odd, does extraordinary things and employs uproariously funny situations with considerable skill. The Keaton films are usually very well photographed, with a minimum of detail and a maximum of effect. It would be ungrateful,perhaps, to suggest that he takes from Chaplin that which is essentially Chaplin's, but, nevertheless, Keaton has learnt from the great genius and would probably be the first to admit it.” 

Amusingly, he also mentions Donald Crisp, whose efforts on ‘The Navigator’ were almost entirely reshot because Buster was unimpressed with the result.  He pretended it was a wrap & sent Crisp home!

“Donald Crisp is a director of the good, honest type, with a simple go-ahead idea of telling a story. He has made, among others, one of the best of the post-war Fairbanks films, ‘Don Q’, and Buster Keaton's ‘The Navigator’.”

[papermoonloveslucy]

SUPERSTAR CLASS

July 13, 1973

By RICK DU BROW, HOLLYWOOD (UPI)

Television executives take for granted Lucille Ball's hold on the viewing audience, and you sometimes wonder if the network people genuinely appreciate the miraculous nature of her video longevity. 

The trouble with being the kind of superstar that Miss Ball is with ceaselessly solid ratings and a long-held reputation as queen of the home medium is that people do, indeed, take her, and perhaps even her talents, for granted. I sometimes think that if she took a season off and then came back, she would be regarded with fresh appreciation upon her return, and might well acquire even more fans than the countless number she already has. 

Miss Ball will be back on CBS-TV again next season with her situation comedy series, which has undergone various alterations over the years but which has basically been a succession of shows set up to allow her to display her unique and often remarkable talents. (1)

It really doesn't matter much whether the individual episodes of Miss Ball's series are always up to snuff what matters is to watch this amazingly commanding artist take charge. It seems a simple thing: ask a star to take charge of the proceedings for a while proceedings that have been constructed to show you off at your best. But consider how many name performers have been unable to carry off this task on video even for a short while. And yet here is this zany redhead who has done it week after week, year after year. 

The fact is, though, she can do just about anything in show business and with the authority, the presence, that only the truly great stars can radiate. Not merely a marvelous knockabout comedienne, she can sing, dance and act and her acting has a broad range, although my personal feeling is that she registers most effectively when she appears in witty movie roles with a touch of romance to them. If you haven't seen a Bob Hope-Lucille Ball movie, you've missed out on some crackling professional entertainment. 

There are a lot of name performers I wouldn't walk across the street to see. But Lucille Ball is something very special to me. The episodes her video series are not always exceptional, but she delivers enough delightful moments overall to make show worth tuning in.

#   #   #

FOOTNOTES FROM THE FUTURE

(1) Ball was then preparing for a sixth and final season of “The Lucy Show,” which started off as a sitcom about two single mothers raising children in a small New York suburb, to a show about a bank secretary makin her way in Hollywood. 

[cartoonfangirl1218]

We're Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer.

We're a notorious couple of cats As knockabout clowns, quick-change comedians Tight-rope walkers and acrobats We have an extensive reputation We make our home in Victoria Grove This is merely our centre of operation For we are incurably given to rove.

Was it Mungojerrie? Or Rumpelteazer?" And most of the time they leave it at that Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer have a wonderful way of working together And some of the time you would say it was luck And some of the time you would say it was weather We'd go through the house like a hurricane And no sober person can take his oath "Was it Mungojerrie? Or Rumpelteazer? Or could you have sworn that it might have been both?" And when you hear a dining room smash Or up from the pantry there comes a loud crash Or down from the library there comes a loud ping From a vase which is commonly said to be Ming. The family would say: "Now which was which cat? It was Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer And there's nothing at all to be done about that!"

[back-and-totheleft]

Romantic, freewheeling, containing fathoms

IT'S early in the piece but maybe the best way to explain the allure of Oliver Stone’s romantic, freewheeling autobiography is to tell you how one of my best friends took on the experience.

My mate, a self-confessed Stone nut, downloaded the audio version of Chasing the Light - as read by the author - and then proceeded to drive around Cork city with the Oscar-winning director and screenwriter for company. “Love how he paints a picture of post-war optimism in New York circa 1945-46,” he messaged me. “Take me there...” Throughout his storied but turbulent career, Stone has certainly taken us places - the steaming jungles of Vietnam, the (serial) killing fields of the American heartland, the fervid political theatre of El Salvador, the grassy knoll. Even if we didn’t always like the destination, more often than not it was worth the journey.

Reading Stone's words in Chasing the Light, it’s impossible not to hear that coffee and cognac voice. The words roll from the page, sentences topped off with little rejoinders, just about maintaining an elegant flow. Drugs are mentioned early and often, while the word “sexy” features half a dozen times in the opening chapters alone. As in his best movies, Stone displays a positively moreish lust for life, at one point referring to how the two parts of the filmmaking process, if working well, are "copulating".

The book tells the story of the first half of his life, up to the acclaim and gongs of Platoon, and it’s clear that his own sense of drama was underscored by his family background, which is part torrid European art flick, part US blockbuster. His mother, Jacqueline - French, unerringly singleminded - grew to womanhood during the Nazi occupation of Paris. She downplayed her striking appearance as the jackboots stomped the streets but quickly scaled the social ladder, becoming engaged to a pony club sort. Enter Louis Stone.

Considerably older than Jacqueline, Louis quickly zoned in after spotting her cycling on a Paris street. In no time Jacqueline has jilted her fiancée (who, remarkably, appears to have turned up as a guest at the wedding), Oliver is conceived and one ocean crossing later, William Oliver Stone is born.

This family contains fathoms, Stone's father straight-laced and Commie-hating on the surface, yet a serial adulterer (even threesomes are mentioned) and positively uxorious towards his own mother. "It was sex, not money, that derailed my father," he writes. Louis's infidelities nixed Jacqueline's American dream, and Oliver’s with it. Jacqueline ultimately cheats on Louis, not simply via a fling but a whole new relationship, and with a family friend to boot.

What’s even more interesting is Stone’s reflections on *how* it was dealt with. Already dispatched to a boarding school, he learns of the disintegration of his family down the phone line. It has the coldness of some of the best scenes from Mad Men, children of the era parceled off to the side even as momentous events in their home life detonate in front of them. As things veer ever more into daytime soap territory, Louis then tells his son he's "broke", echoing the impact of the Great Depression on his own father's business interests.

By now, Stone is unmoored. He has secured a place in Yale but blows it off for a year and heads to Saigon to teach English: "I grew a beard and got as far away from the person I'd been as I could." On his return he decides he is done with academia; he'll be a novelist in New York, much to the distaste of his father. "That's why I went back to Vietnam in the US Infantry - to take part in this war of my generation," he writes. "Let God decide."

And here we are at the pivotal moment in Stone's adult life. Plunged into the strange days of 1968 in the jungle, he recalls a scene in which his patrol group comes under attack, imagining itself surrounded. Time elides and a metre may as well be a mile, explosions going off everywhere and bullets flying amid paranoia and uncertainty that borders on the hallucinogenic. "Full daylight reveals charred bodies, dusty napalm, and gray trees."

Tellingly, Stone focuses on this arguably cinematic episode while other incidents in which he is actually wounded don't receive the same treatment. By the time he leaves Vietnam he has served in three different combat units and has been awarded a bronze star for heroism. So many of his peers were drafted, yet he had decided to go. You never get a direct sense that his subsequent career is in any way a type of atonement, yet it is never fully explained. "Why on earth did you go?" he is asked. "It was a question I couldn't answer glibly."

From this point on, Chasing the Light mainly becomes a love letter to the redemptive power of the cinema, pockmarked with acerbic commentary on Hollywood powerplays. Stone's firsthand experience of jungle combat gives him a sense of perspective that no amount of cocaine or downers can ever truly neutralise, and it also imbues him with a sense of derring-do. At NYU School of Arts, his lecturer is Martin Scorcese, an educational home run. Watching movies is a place a refuge, writing them a cathartic outlet. It leads to visceral filmmaking, beginning with his short film Last Year in Vietnam. That burgeoning sense of career before anything else brings an end to his first marriage - "'comfortable' was the killer word". The seeds are sown for the plot that would germinate into Platoon.

As he moves past the relative disappointment of his first feature, Seizure, the big break of writing Midnight Express, and then onto the speedbump of The Hand, his second movie, Chasing the Light becomes a little more knockabout, though no less enjoyable. Conan the Barbarian, for which he wrote the screenplay, became someone else's substandard vision, Scarface a not entirely pleasant experience as his writing efforts move to the frosty embrace of director Brian de Palma. Hollywood relationships rise and fall like scenes from Robert Altman's The Player. His second marriage, the birth of his son, the slow-motion passing of his father, and all the time Stone is chasing glory on the silver screen.

By his late thirties it feels like he's placing all his chips on Salvador, a brutal depiction of central American civil war based on the scattered recollections of journalist Richard Boyle and starring the combustible talents of James Woods and John Belushi. His own high-wire lifestyle is perhaps best encapsulated in his reference to Elpidia Carrillo, cast as Maria in Salvador: "Elia Kazan once argued against any restrictions for a director exploring personal limits with his actresses, and I wanted badly to get down with her," he writes with delightful candour. Yet ultimately "I convinced myself that repression, in this case, would make a better film." Note: in this case.

Salvador was a slow burner, not an immediate critical or commercial success, but then in the style of a rollover jackpot, it started climbing the charts just as Platoon is about to announce itself to the world. Despite some loopy goings-on, that shoot in the Philippines had never gone down the Apocolypse Now route of near-madness, the drama mainly confined to warring factions within the production team. Ultimately, Platoon was the movie mid-Eighties America wanted to see about Vietnam. The book finishes in triumph, Stone clutching Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture.

There are piercing insights and inconsistencies dotted throughout. Stone lusts after good reviews but rails against the influence wielded by certain writers, such as Pauline Kael. He makes frequent reference to his yearning for truth and factual accuracy, yet hardly raises a quibble with The Deerhunter, the brilliant but flawed movie by sometime ally Michael Cimino which - particularly in the infamous Russian Roulette scenes - delivers an entirely concocted depiction of North Vietnamese forces. But then again, Stone revels in what he says is the ability to "not to have a fixed identity, to be free as a dramatist, elusive, unknown."

We've come to know him more in the decades since - through the menacing Natural Born Killers, the riveting but wonky conspiracy of JFK, the all-star lost classic U-Turn, even the missed opportunity that was The Putin Interviews. As my friend, who is the real authority, correctly observes, Chasing the Light is also weighted with nostalgia for a time when political dramas and anti-war films were smashing the box office, something hard to imagine today.

The second volume, if and when it arrives, will surely make for good reading - or listening. Buckle up your seat belt and take a spin.

-Noel Baker, “Oliver Stone’s freewheeling autobiography tells the story of the first half of his life,” Irish Examiner, Jan 17 2021 [x]

[aion-rsa]

Best Martial Arts Movies on Amazon Prime Right Now

https://ift.tt/3iGgPxj

Search ‘Martial Arts Movies’ on Amazon Prime and you’ll get over a thousand results ranging from the classics to the campy, to the critically acclaimed. It’s an overwhelming library for the uninitiated and the mother lode for stalwart fans of the genre. There are so many gems buried in Amazon Prime that digging out the favorites is dirty challenging work but extremely rewarding.

When it comes to martial arts, Amazon Prime has a killer Kung Fu collection. The ‘80s were the ‘Golden Era’ of Kung Fu films when Hong Kong film studios cranked out films faster than any grindhouse ever. Many Hong Kong filmmakers put out up to half a dozen films a year, and most have hundreds of credits on IMDb. This glut of Kung Fu films spread to every Chinatown ghetto theater on the planet. And like with horror, American networks broadcasted late night Kung Fu Theater shows because there was so much cheap content available.

Consequently, Amazon Prime’s Kung Fu film selection leans heavily that way, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t include some non-Chinese favorites too. Martial Arts movies cross over to all other genres and nations. There are comedies, romances, horror, fantasy, sci-fi, and art house films. From countless cheesy low-budget exploitations, many so funky that they’re totally awesome, to the brilliant ground-breaking works that are staggeringly sensational, here’s some classic jewels and hidden treasures currently included with Amazon Prime membership.

Fist of Fury (1972)

Despite his fame, Bruce Lee only lived to see three of his martial arts movies premiere because Enter the Dragon and Game of Death were released posthumously. His impersonators are innumerable, so many that Bruceploitation is its own genre.

But Fist of Fury is the real Bruce in all his nunchuck spinning glory. It’s loosely based on the history of the Chin Woo Athletic Association, which remains one of the largest international martial arts organizations to this day. When Bruce shattered the ‘No Dogs and Chinese Allowed’ sign with a soaring flying kick, it became a battle cry for the racially oppressed worldwide, firmly cementing Bruce as the world’s first Asian global superstar.

Come Drink with Me (1966)

Long before Charlize Theron went Atomic Blonde, Cheng Pei Pei blazed a path as Golden Swallow, the mysterious invincible swordswoman, and all female action heroines are in her wake. Fiercely independent and savagely lethal, Cheng delivers several sophisticated long-take fight scenes, the hallmark of real Kung Fu skill, with the poise and precision built upon her foundation in ballet. Cheng is remembered in Hollywood as Jade Fox from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and played the matchmaker in Disney’s live-action Mulan. Note that Amazon Prime also has the sequel, Golden Swallow, but it’s not nearly as good.

Once Upon a Time in China (1991)

This tour de force from director Tsui Hark and Jet Li launched a six-film franchise and a TV series. Jet plays Wong Fei-hung, a real-life folk hero and Kung Fu master who has been depicted in well over a hundred films and TV shows. Set during the late 19th century, the film examines themes of Western colonization and Chinese cults, and while blatantly nationalistic, it captures Jet in his martial prime and contains some of his finest fights.

Read more

Movies

Wira Review: Meet the Next Martial Arts Movie Star

By Gene Ching

Games

The Forgotten Bruce Lee Video Game From the ’80s

By Craig Lines

Amazon Prime also has Once Upon a Time in China II, which is an excellent sequel, however the third installment (not on Amazon Prime) falls apart, allegedly due to disputes between Jet and Hark.

Ashes of Time Redux (2008)

This was internationally acclaimed director Wong Kar-wai’s first stab at the martial arts genre. It’s sumptuously artsy and laboriously dystopic, not one to see for the action but the art. Based on a classic wuxia (wuxia is Chinese for martial arts genre books and film) titled The Eagle Shooting Heroes, Wong simultaneously filmed a parody titled after the book with the same cast. Wong did the Redux after the original print was lost, salvaging what was left, reediting and re-scoring it. 

(Prime US only)

The Assassin (2015)

Director Hou Hsiao-hsien won Best Director at Cannes for this magnificent epic, which was also submitted as Taiwan’s Foreign Language entry at the Academy Awards. Starring the ever-glamorous Shu Qi, who made an early Hollywood crossover attempt with The Transporter, The Assassin is based on another wuxia tale that’s parallel to The Manchurian Candidate but instead of Korean brainwashing, it’s 9th century Chinese sorcery.

Read more

Movies

Best Horror Movies on Amazon Prime Right Now

By Alec Bojalad and 2 others

Movies

Ninjas All The Way Down: The Mysterious World of Godfrey Ho

By Craig Lines

The exquisite filmmaking makes this spectacular–panoramic landscapes, lavish costumes, intricately detailed sets, all gorgeous. Every shot is a stunning composition of light and shadow, and the camera lingers on each frame with ponderous and quiet respect, the kind that film students will gush over for years.

(Prime Video in the US, rent only in the UK)

Fearless Hyena (1979)

When people cite Rush Hour to reference Jackie Chan, it just goes to show they don’t know Jackie at all. Long before Jackie crossed over to Hollywood, he made dozens of films that truly captured his astounding Kung Fu skills, unrestricted by U.S. insurance liability. His late ‘70s period was particularly ripe because he was in peak physical shape and first creating his unique acrobatic comedies. Remember that chopstick dumpling training scene between Po and Shifu in Kung Fu Panda? In Fearless Hyena, Jackie and his shifu (James Tien) do it in live-action, no wires, no CGI, and the choreography is absolutely mind-blowing.

Wheels on Meals (1984)

Jackie Chan earned his Kung Fu prowess from being trained from childhood in traditional Chinese Opera. Many of his classmates also became stars in martial arts film. This is one of two collaborations between him and his two martial brothers, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao (the other is Dragons Forever).

Read more

Movies

Jackie Chan’s Project A Movies Are Spectacular

By Craig Lines

Movies

Jackie Chan’s Hard Road to Hollywood

By Craig Lines

A modern comedy shot in Barcelona, the chemistry between Jackie, Sammo and Yuen is magical as they bring the fastest three-person sparring scenes ever captured. On top of that, Jackie faces off against real-life kickboxing champion Benny ‘The Jet’ Urquidez in what is considered by many as the greatest fight scene ever filmed. 

(US only)

Knockabout (1979)

Knockabout is Yuen Biao’s first lead role after dozens of supporting roles. His acrobatic skills are unparalleled, stronger than Jackie’s because his body frame is built like a gymnast. Sammo Hung’s girth has typecast him as villains and buffoons. Nevertheless, he’s a leading director and choreographer and serves as both in this film, on top of playing a comic beggar who trains Yuen in jump rope monkey Kung Fu (that’s right–jump rop –you have to see it to understand).

Read more

Movies

10 of the Weirdest Kung Fu Movies Ever

By Craig Lines

TV

Cobra Kai and the Legacy of The Karate Kid

By Gene Ching

It’s a slow build past some goofy comic hijinks, because Yuen’s skills improve over the course of the film. In a fight against Hoi Sang Lee, Yuen pummels so many goose-egg bruises into his noggin that he looks like the coronavirus. But once the training begins through to the final fight, Yuen and Sammo show why they are legends in the industry. 

(US only)

Dirty Ho (1979)

When this film came out, the title wasn’t as funny as it is now. But it still works in a way because this is one of the best Kung Fu slapstick comedies. Starring some of top talent from Shaw Brother studios, including Gordon Liu, Wang Yue, and Lo Lieh, it’s full of the stylish long-take choreography and blazing stunts using real fire long before CGI.

Read more

Movies

King Boxer: The Enduring Legacy of a Martial Arts Classic

By Craig Lines

Movies

The Man From Hong Kong: A Genuinely Dangerous Action Movie

By Craig Lines

It’s a classic tale of hidden master, a punk student, and notorious villains, including hilarious absurdities like sex change tea, and wheelchair and crutch fighting. The discreet Kung Fu challenge while sampling rare wines out of crazy cups is ludicrous fun; the sort that only master fight choreographer Lau Kar-leung can deliver.

The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (1984)

Here is another classic from Gordon Liu and Lau Kar-leung, but serious and somber. Alexander Fu Sheng, a prominent leading man, died in a tragic car crash during production, making this his final film. His character suffers PTSD after losing his family in a horrific opening ambush, but his storyline dangles unfinished.

Read more

Movies

A Beginner’s Guide to Chinese Black Magic Movies

By Craig Lines

Culture

Ip Man: The Man, The Myth, The Movies

By Craig Lines

The film was rewritten to focus Gordon and Lau, as well as the always brilliant Kara Hui. The cast goes all out to honor their fallen comrade’s legacy, showcasing some of the finest weapon choreography ever shot. Based on the legend of the Yang family generals, the untimely death tugs hard on the heartstrings for anyone in the know. 

Return to the 36th Chamber (1980)

Just one more Gordon Liu and Lau Kar-leung project, this is the sequel to The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, which is also amazing and available on Amazon Prime. However, Return to the 36th Chamber has such an odd concept for a sequel that warrants special attention.

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Movies

The 36th Chamber Trilogy‏ – Essential Kung Fu Movie Viewing

By Craig Lines

Liu plays a swindler impersonating the Shaolin monk San Te, the character he played in the first film. When his clan is oppressed by the Manchus gang, Liu sneaks into Shaolin, only to be deceptively trained by the real San Te, then returns for vengeance. His clan are cloth dyers, which makes for colorful pools for villains to plunge.

Liu’s uproarious rooftop Kung Fu and his battle with Wang Lung-Wei’s bench-fighter gang are outstanding. Kara Hui has the best retort after Gordon tries to play off his lack of Kung Fu, claiming it’s only for “universal peace,” and not revenge. She claps back “Huh! That’s a stupid Kung Fu.”

The Lady is the Boss (1983)

Kara Hui (aka Kara Wai) is one of the greatest Kung Fu divas of all, yet she’s only known by true devotees of the genre. If you’ve never heard of her, here is one of her finest comedy vehicles. Set in modern-day Hong Kong, Hui plays an American master returning to save her father’s Kung Fu school after his passing. Lau Kar-leung is the eldest student in charge (also the choreographer) and he resists her attempts to modernize.

Long take fights are staged in a topless club, a disco, and finally, a gymnastic gym replete with rings, parallel bars, and a beam, perfect for the choreographic shenanigans only Lau can bring. Gordon Liu appears with hair, which feels wrong because he built his reputation on playing bald monks. 

Crippled Avengers (1978)

From director Chang Cheh, the “Godfather of Kung Fu Films,” Crippled Avengers stars four members of the Venoms crew, from Chang’s classic The Five Venoms (also available on Amazon Prime).

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Movies

The Five Deadly Venoms: An Essential Martial Arts Movie

By Craig Lines

It was repackaged as The Return of the Five Venoms (and also Mortal Combat), however it is its own standalone masterpiece and has nothing to do with the original beyond the cast.

Lu Feng (Centipede from the Venoms crew) gets his arms chopped off and replaced by iron arms (a plot device that RZA echoed The Man with the Iron Fists). Lu and his father, played by the rough and tumble Chan Kuan Tai, cripple the heroes, who must then walk the road of vengeance while handicapped. The portrayal of the disabilities is dated (arm tied behind the back for the amputee, eyes closed for the blinded) but the choreography is ingenious. 

Five Elements Ninjas (1982)

Another echo of The Five Venoms from the sanguineous Chang Cheh, Five Elements Ninjas showcases the director’s unique eye for fantasy. It’s an orgy of weird fantasy weapons and ultraviolence, bloody fight scene after bloody fight scene, a cult film of truly epic proportions. As the title says, the ninjas are based on the five elements.

The gold ninjas don gold lame suits and switchblade shield hats. The wood ninjas look like rejected apple trees in The Wizard of Oz. If you turn this film into a drinking game where you take a shot whenever blood is spilled, you won’t make it past the first half hour. 

The Web of Death (1976)

What is the ultimate Kung Fu WMD? It’s a tarantula that roars like an elephant and shoots acidic webs, sparks, and death rays, and it decimates the wuxia world. The Web of Death has everything a cult film requires: crazy weapons, cross dressing, romance, complex set-pieces, halls of traps, including acid pits, spiked poles and dragon-headed sparkler cannons, silly superheroes and villains in costumes that would make MCU heroes blush. Filled with jaw dropping WTF moments, it’s a real treat for anyone into cheesy over-the-top Kung Fu cinema.

The Bride with White Hair (1993)

Based on a wuxia novel, The Bride with White Hair is a surreal plunge into the Kung Fu subgenre of Fant-Asia which blossomed in the ‘90s. It’s a doomed romance between rival cult members set in a world of swords and sorcery that stars Brigette Lin in the spurned titular role and the dreamy heartthrob Leslie Cheung.

What makes this stand out was the visionary direction of Ronny Yu. His pre-CGI special effects hold up surprisingly well. Lin’s characterization of the bride was so compelling that it spawned an homage in The Forbidden Kingdom and a remake in The White Haired Witch. The Bride with White Hair II is also available on Amazon Prime which reunites Lin and Cheung, but without Yu’s direction it’s not nearly as special. 

(US only)

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010)

Fant-Asia has been revitalized with the advent of CGI. Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame marked a triumphant return to form for director Tsui Hark. Armed with quixotic special effects, Hark casts Andy Lau as the legendary detective Di Renjie, who is like a Tang Dynasty Sherlock Holmes. Wuxia films are akin to comic book movies, filled with glaringly overdone heroes and villains, super saturated color schemes, and a lot of flying about.

It’s high fantasy wirework in front of CG backgrounds with physics-defying fight choreography by Sammo Hung (Kung Fu physics are not subject to the laws of gravity). Most of all, it takes unexpected turns like the old Fant-Asia story arcs have always done. 

(US only)

Tai Chi Zero (2012)

Director Stephen Fung took Fant-Asia another step into an emergent subgenre of Shanghai Steampunk (Legend of Korra is another example). It’s an action comedy about the legendary forefather of Tai Chi, Yang Luchan, in what was meant to be the launch of a trilogy. However, it was filmed back-to-back with the second installment, Tai Chi Hero (not free on Amazon Prime), which was released only a month later and that proximity depleted their box office returns.

Nevertheless, Tai Chi Zero was an Official Selection at several notable international film festivals because it was so stylish and funny. Both films end on cliffhangers in anticipation of the next chapter, but Tai Chi Hero loses the momentum of its predecessor, except for the final cliffhanging tease. There’s been no further development on the final chapter Tai Chi Summit since Tai Chi Hero flopped. 

(US only)

JCVD (2012)

Jean-Claude Van Damme opens this French film with a remarkable long take fight, showing he still had it on the brink of turning 50, but it’s not really a martial arts film. He plays a self-deprecating caricature of himself, although not as comedic as his lampooning self-portrayal in the Amazon Original Series Jean-Claude Van Johnson.

There’s some top-notch cinematography including more complex long takes, remarkable displays of technical skill, and directorial timing. But it’s all about Van Damme’s confession scene when he breaks the fourth wall and discusses his filmmaking process in that weird recursive, artsy French film way. It’s a long-take monologue, and Van Damme nails it emotionally with a heartfelt confession that’s not so much amazing acting as it is brutally honest. He lays it out, bares his soul, and surprisingly, it’s a sympathetic soul. It’s a truly captivating scene, a dramatic triumph that no one ever saw coming, completely redefining Van Damme as an actor. 

(US only)

The Man from Nowhere (2010)

This was Korea’s highest grossing film that year. It’s a gritty and brutally bloody tale of a pawnshop owner, played by Won Bin, who unwittingly receives a camera bag filled with stolen heroin, attracting the attention of the drug ring gangsters.

However, he’s a retired special agent with fierce combat skills, tossed into a ghetto tale with exotic dancers, organ harvesting, an innocent child who needs protection, and gang wars. Won Bin won many dramatic accolades with the five films he made, including Taegukgi and Mother. This was his final one to date and he sells the ultraviolence with remarkable panache. 

(Prime Video in the US, rent only in UK)

Kundo: Age of the Rampant (2014)

This is another outstanding Korean martial arts film, set in the Joseon period. It echoes Robin Hood, complete with a fighting monk like Friar Tuck, a Maid Marian type, only she’s a keen archer, and a Little John character wielding a shot-put ball on a rope for brutal ultra violence. Ha Jung-woo stars as the lead, a butcher who wields butcher knives, which just adds to the bloodiness. The fight choreography is fun and sanguineous, and the characters were well fleshed out, even the villain. Like a lot of Korean cinema, it takes some surprising turns in the details, little scenes that feel fresh in their presentation. And the panoramic shots are visually epic. 

(US only)

Redeemer (2015)

Marko Zaror brings an exotic Chilean actioner full of fight choreography that’s merciless, witty, and precise. Zaror is cut and yoked like a beast. He can catch great flying kicks air, roll well for nods to MMA, and handle complex continuous fights. Redeemer includes several long take scenes with the camera aggressively circling around battle, showcasing a masterful command of action and cinematography.

Set in Chile’s cool seascapes and weather worn graffiti-covered ghettos, Redeemer has a strong Catholic theme, lots of crucifixes and pondering about divine justice, which totally works as atmosphere for this fascinating fight flick. 

The Octagon (1980)

Before Chuck Norris became an invincible meme, he churned out a handful of Hollywood martial arts feature films. His third effort, The Octagon, co-starring Lee Van Cleef, is one of his best. It’s a ninja tale, pitting Chuck against noted masters like Richard Norton, Tadashi Yamashita, and his brother Aaron Norris, fighting his way into a ninja terrorist camp where the central ring is “the Octagon.” It was this film that inspired Jason Cusson to design the trademarked Octagon used in the Ultimate Fighting Championships. 

Ninja III: The Domination (1984)

In the ‘80s, there was a proliferation of cheesy Ninja films and Sho Kosugi dominated the trend. This is one of those movies that is so horrible, it’s awesome. And it’s Sho’s masterpiece. Lucinda Dickey was a Solid Gold Dancer, who starred in the breakdancing films Breakin’ and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, which bookended Ninja III. While she wasn’t a martial artist in real life, she has the moves, adding to the huge stable of martial actors who started as dancers (even Bruce Lee was a cha cha champion).

It’s incredibly dated with references to video games, aerobics, and the most gawdawful soundtrack ever. The choreography is horrible; Sho overacts whenever it comes to selling a punch; it’s all about Lucinda who tries–really tries–to act her way through a ridiculously dumb story about being possessed by a ninja. But the final sword fight has a ninja zombie and it’s the funniest example of what we had to endure during the ‘80s ninja craze. 

(US only)

Shaolin Dolemite (1999)

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There was Oscar buzz about Eddie Murphy’s depiction of Rudy Ray Moore in the biopic Dolemite Is My Name, but if you haven’t seen a Dolemite film, you really don’t know. Moore played Dolemite half a dozen times, but ironically in this film, he plays Monk Ru-Dee instead, and this is the only one with any real martial arts in it.

Moore took the cuttings from a 1986 Taiwanese film titled Ninja: The Final Duel, and spliced himself in to create his own story, and it’s just so cray. Beyond Moore, there are bizarre characters like the drunken Sam the Spliff, the topless Ninja Ho, and the coonskin cap wearing Davy Crockett. The story barely makes a lick of sense, but who cares? It’s mother-effin Dolemite.

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