#paunchy boy

[sahnejungsliebhaber]

Wenn man den ganzen Sommer über Eis schlemmt, muss man sich nicht wundern, wenn man einen Bauch wie eine Rieseneiskugel bekommt.

If you eat ice cream all summer long, don't be surprised if you get a belly like a giant ice cream scoop.

[mychlapci]

I love twinks getting their bodies ruined with pregnancy.

Rodimus is so proud of his body as it is, sexy little waist and perky little breasts. He loves it and everyone else does too. Probably too much because suddenly he's pregnant, and with his forge being blessed by primus himself there are multiple huge sparklings inside him. He hates this, he is looking fatter by the day and his pretty little tits are growing big and heavy with milk. He is always sore and can see stretch marks all over his once perfect flat belly.

He is visibly milfy after the pregnancy, big hips and thighs, paunchy tummy and fat tits that sag after he pumps them. As much as he hates this most bots are ogling the new and improved captain and hoping there will be a chance to put another litter in him.

YESSS that's what I'm taking about. come closer pretty twink i promise pregnancy won't change that little waist of yours (lie)

Rodimus gaining so much baby-weight while carrying his first litter he can't lose it afterwards... his perky, firm titties get heavy and saggy, his smooth waist is now thicker, there is a pouch on his belly that makes him look fatter. He felt gross through the whole pregnancy and he was hoping things were going to go back to normal once the sparklings were out but... he can't lose the newly gained weight.

Roddy feels ugly now, he had the perfect speedster figure and now he's got a fat ass and tits that won't stay in his chest plate... what's worse is that he's convinced that everyone is calling him pretty just to make him feel better. But oh boy, the entire Lost Light is lusting after him, now more than ever. A cute speedster with a grabbable waist was fun to fuck, but a fat fertile bot like that? Now they're talking. Everyone wants to stuff him full of sparklings again so that he just keeps getting bigger and fatter, to make sure he looks as fertile as that forge of his is.

Rodimus does everything he can to get back on track, maybe be doesn't lose hope and after a while he feels pretty enough to fuck someone and oops. They didn't pull out in time. Don't worry captain, you'll look very sexy with a baby-bump.

[mercurygray]

Blind Dates Fest 2024 - Freda Torvaldsen, ARCS

A few days ago I asked for MOTA prompts, and @junojelli delivered:

A MOTA scene prompt for you: a new arrival is amongst the clubmobile ladies at the local pub one evening. Of course, it would only be right that they give her the lowdown on the men they can see in the bar, and the recent gossip on possible nocturnal escapades of course 😏

So! An extra Blind Date! You can learn more about @blind-dates-fest at their blog.

Fandom: Masters of the Air

It was only a matter of time before the subject came up.

“Can’t say I’ve ever met a Freda before.”

It was always like this, her first day in a new assignment, where you been, where you from, what do you do. And then inevitably someone would work around to the obvious. So... what’s a name like Torvaldsen doing with a name like Freda?

“And neither had my mother,” Freda said with a resigned smile, sitting down heavily and nodding thankfully to one of the other girls for the beer. “After my father and brother were both Peters I think she just wanted something interesting.” She shrugged. “She told me once she found the name in a short story in a woman’s magazine. Never got confused with another girl in class, though! Fred’s just fine, for every day use. It’ll get tossed in eventually, so we may as well start there.”

Fred was easy - approachable, even. A good way to start a conversation, a quick, easy joke to set everyone on the same level. Who’s on shift today, girls? Rose, Laura, and Fred. Wait, Fred? And she’d stick her head out from wherever she was hiding, and the boys would all have a laugh that Fred was really a twenty-six year old blonde from Madison, Wisconsin with a big smile, and not the paunchy driver from Brooklyn they all pictured when they heard the name. She didn’t mind the jokes, really - it made the whole job easier. So what’s your name, solider? You have a nickname, too? Where you from? The whole reason she was there, in three questions or less - to make the average G.I. feel at home, seen, valued and wanted.

“Where’d you say you were, before this?” Helen asked. At least, she thought it was Helen - or was it Ellen? Honestly, Tatty had run through the team of three pretty quickly this morning and she might have misheard. Tatty, of course, was easy to remember - Katherine Spaatz, with a last name the papers wouldn’t soon forget and a face that liked being photographed. Mary Boyle was the other, a sparkling-eyed Irish girl from Des Moines who looked like just the kind the fellows all liked to spin around a dance more than once. She couldn’t remember the name of the girl she was replacing, either - not that that mattered much. She was going home with the one non-communicable disease the Red Cross didn’t want to deal with - pregnant, Mary had mouthed across the table when they’d first met this morning, her fresh off the bus from London and Tatty skating artfully around the subject.

“Did a spell at the canteen in Washington, another couple months in London in a few different spots,” Freda offered. “I guess I’m a professional replacement at this point - which is either a compliment or a curse. You’ll have to tell me which.”

“Well, we’re happy to have you, for as long as we’ve got,” Tatty said with a nod. “Did they tell you what the work would be like? Working a base is different than canteen service.”

“The hours, for a start,” Mary said, rolling her eyes.

“If they’re running a mission, they’re up and at ‘em at 4:30 for a 5 am briefing, which means -”

“Service ready for 4:45,” Freda filled in, nodding along. “Means we’ll be starting about...three thirty, maybe, to have everything hot and ready?”

“Will that be a problem?” Tatty asked, her eyes dark and decisive across the table.

Freda shook her head. “Always was more of a morning person. How long are they usually out for?”

“Longer runs...six, seven, eight hours at a time? Tower will give us a ring when they’re expected back in, and then we rack up donuts and coffee in the interrogation hut. You’ll need to be sharp on that shift,” Tatty warned. “They don’t always come back looking pretty.”

“Doctor’s usually on hand to evaluate anyone who can walk. If they’re still standing he’ll turn ‘em loose on the interrogation team,” Mary explained. “Captain Brennan and her girls run that room - she’s nice, you’ll like her.”

“You’re not there to make small talk for that one - pass out coffee and get ‘em to their table as quick as you can. Each crew runs through the whole mission - what they saw, who they shot at, bombs dropped. The after-action report. Once they’re done, they’re free to leave, and so are we. We’ll do dishes and clean-up, and then get the coffee urns ready to drive ‘round to the crews. Can you drive?”

“Well enough for Wisconsin,” Freda offered with a shrug. “We had a Ford I could grind through.” She didn’t say anything about the last time someone had asked her if she knew how to drive, and how she’d nearly run over the campus mascot trying to muscle a Clubmobile into a turn.

“Sounds like you’ll be driving our Jeep, then. We’ve got one assigned to us.”

Freda nodded, trying to maintain serenity. Well, that’s all right. A Jeep’s not a remodeled London bus, and it sure as hell doesn’t drive like one.

“The planes are parked out on hardstands and the crew basically live out there while they’re working,” Tatty went on, “So we take coffee and sandwiches around once the planes come back in. They’re good guys out there - better than the flyboys, sometimes.”

“Now, Tatty, don’t go turning her head the wrong way,” Mary interjected, before Freda could ask what a hardstand was. “They’re all nice. Just take some getting used to.”

“Anyone I’ll need to watch out for?” Freda asked, glancing around the club, which was gradually beginning to fill for the evening - officers in their Class As, the gilt on their wings like sunshine, laughter like a river. The knucklehead who knocked up your friend, for instance?

Tatty made a gesture across the room towards the biggest group. “The tall one horsing around with the dartboard is John Egan - Major Egan, rather. Or Bucky, if you want nicknames. He’s mostly harmless, but he’ll flirt with anything. Just give as good as you get and you’ll be fine. Man next to him is Major Gale Cleven - also Buck - who you’ll wish was single and isn’t.”

“He’s got a girl back home in Wyoming,” Helen (Ellen?) put in, her smile a little wistful. “Ask him about her sometime.”

“Man with the permanent frown is Major William Veal - Bill, sometimes. He’s all business, you’ll never see him dance, so don’t ask. Tall fellow next to him with the lighter curly hair is Major Jack Kidd, also mostly business.”

Freda’s eyebrows went up. “Mostly?” Now there’s a word with a story.

It was Tatty’s turn to smile. “We think he might be sweet on Mary, when he lets himself.”

Mary rolled her eyes. “Only because the rest of you gang up on him!”

“Those are the squadron commanders, anyway - the other pilots and navigators and crews report to them. It’s a lot of names,” Tatty said, almost dismissive.

Notice how she didn’t say I’d learn them, Freda thought to herself. They’d told her that much in London, when she’d gotten her assignment. Don’t get too attached to your post, or the soldiers there. They can change or leave at any time. It’s a war, not a weekend.

“Ladies! And how are we all on this fine evening, eh?” Here it was - faces up. Freda found her smile and turned to see who it was - a young man with black hair and blue eyes and a smile just this side of mischievous. And this one is named Trouble, I’ll bet. First lieutenant with flying wings - a pilot. “You all over here plottin’ somethin’ we fellas need to be made aware of?”

“Just introducing the new girl around, Curt.” Tatty gestured to Freda, on the other side of the table, who raised a hand and nodded hello.

Trouble (Curt?) smiled a little wider, his hand on Tatty’s shoulder, leaning closer over the table. “Oh, the new girl, eh? And does the new girl have a name?

“New girl answers to Fred,” Freda said with a patient smile, trying not to smile too hard at the patently obvious big-city, big-spender feeling rolling off of the lieutenant in waves. New Yorkers. You could run them off a press like that. It was funny, sometimes, how much they tried not to be types - but she’d known far too many men like him. That was the trouble with canteen service - you saw so many they all started to look the same. “And she’s not looking for another drink, before the lieutenant starts asking.”

“Tough customer!” He laughed at that. “Curtis Biddick, at your service, Fred. Now, if any one of these jokers starts anything or gets fresh, you come find me, alright?” He pointed, for emphasis, and she took note of the knuckles of his hand, the shortness of his nails. “Gotta take care of our girls, you know, since you’re always taking care of us.”

“I’ll certainly keep it in mind, Lieutenant.”

Biddick waved the rank away like it was a fly he were swatting. “Now, none of this lieutenant crap, Fred. My friends call me Curt.” He fixed his eye on her and she smiled, and nodded - heard and acknowledged. Confident they had an understanding, he clapped Tatty’s shoulder again and stood up. “Tatty. Mary. Helen. Fred. Yous all have a good night, now.”

“Well, there you are, Fred. If Biddick likes you you’re set. He was serious about finding him, too - he’s the company boxing champion.”

“Of course he is,” Freda said with a smile, finally able to place where she’d seen hands like that before. And a total sweetheart underneath all of it, if I read him right.

And a soldier, something in her head reminded her. That’s the trouble with working a base - they won’t just be here for a night. You’ll have learn their names, and their girlfriends, see them day in and day out - until one day you don’t.

She took a deep breath and a sip of her beer, still glancing around the room, at the laughing men at the dartboard, the craps game, the piano, everyone alive and free and full of life. Maybe it had been a bad idea to start with names.

---

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that I have name-dropped several new characters in here; one of them, Marion, is my other Blind Date this year. You'll meet her on Saturday!

[ashesandhackles]

Goblet of Fire Reread (Part 2)

Chapter 17,18,19, 20,21,22,23

"It struck him how very tall all of them were" Harry thinking this about the champions one moment and then being angry at being called "a little boy". Accurate teenage boy behavior.

Snape stepping in to stop Karkaroff and Maxime insulting Dumbledore by insulting Harry instead, "Don't go blaming Dumbledore for Potter's determination to break rules" XD

Fleur really cares about the honour of representing her school.

Hints of Barty Snr under Imperius: both in his behaviour + imagery (skull like appearance in the darkness)

Violet, the witch painting went up to Fat Lady to gossip. We shall hear of this friendship again in HBP.

I really really love Hermione's insight into Ron's feelings here, because the implication here is that she noticed that he doesn't talk about it. "He's always shunted to the side when people see you, and he puts up with it, never mentions it" and how she contextualises it with how he feels around his brothers. She has an understanding and kindness about this that is very sweet.

Fleur flirting with Cedric while some creepy paunchy man watching her. Damn, what it must be like to be sexualised every moment of your life and what harmful ideas have you internalised?

Harry noting that Fleur was part Veela to tell Ron only to remember The Great Tragedy that Ron isn't speaking to him.

weighing of wands chapter to set up the priori Incantentem at end of book, to remind us of Harry's connection with Voldemort's wand.

Hermione trying to force Harry and Ron to talk to each other, poor thing. I can really feel her anxiety building over this and she is so impatient, "you miss him, he misses you". Hermione on Ronarry agenda. She even tries to sneakily make him meet Ron in Three Broomsticks and then Harry cottons on. And then her getting irritated, Harry having to resist the urge to poke Ron is peak trio content.

Harry getting cheered up by the fact that Cho wasn't wearing a support Cedric badge. Also, it's a nice shade to her character - she is nice. She recognises the badges for what it is and doesn't take part in it.

his face breaks into the first smile in days cos of Sirius and Sirius redirecting attention away from himself and focusing on Harry - "never mind me, how are you?" Harry is so vulnerable with him that he talks about Ron with him.

Sirius' respect for Moody is very interesting, he displays more of this in Padfoot Returns chapter where he talks about how Moody captured DEs and not killed them. I believe @leogichidaa and @artemisia-black have had a tumblr discussion on this.

Ron doesn't come up to bed after Harry lashes out at him for interrupting his conversation with Sirius. Poor bean - wondering how things got this bad between him and Harry.

BCJ is so chilling on reread- essentially admits that he is keeping track of real Moody via the Foe Glass. "I'm not really in trouble until I see the whites of their eyes. That's when I open my trunk."

BCJ talking about Maxime and Karkaroff but also himself - 'They want to win. They want to beat Dumbledore. They'd like to prove he's only human'. And he laughs.

Ron catches Harry's eyes, but Harry is too resentful to care. Ron trying, in his own awkward way, to let Harry know that he is on Harry's side again.

Harry not needing to hear Ron apologise to forgive him. Clearly Hermione feels the same as I do, because she burst into tears, hugs them both and goes off to cry alone LOL

I saw this tumblr post about how Fleur dealt with the dragon was the most compassionate one - trying to put it to sleep - that she and Charlie would get along cos of it. Cute hc.

Pigwidgeon falling 12 feet down before flying with the letter is so funny. Also how cute that Harry's letter to Sirius had a "blow by blow" account of how exactly he swerved, circled and dodged the Horntail. Sirius would have found that very endearing.

LOL at Dean drawing Cedric with his head on fire for party banners. (apart from drawings of Harry dodging Horntail)

Harry calling out Hermione for bending of rules is so cute. When she says, "he is supposed to work out the egg on his own" when Lee picks up the egg, and Harry reminds her in undertone that he was supposed to work out the dragon alone too, and she "grins guiltily"

I am very disappointed in Dobby, whose political consciousness that shone and drove the plot of CoS is done to "acceptable" levels of radicalism. He tried to save Harry, explicitly against harry's wishes, because of his idea that Harry is a symbol of hope to the "enslaved dregs of the magical society, who are treated as vermin" and that defeat of Voldemort ensured that his kind are treated better. (he is still endearing, but speaks to the message of the books - he can be radical but cannot question the existing institution too much)

Winky's loyalty to Crouch is treated as pitiable, while Hermione's overzealousness with some gentle ribbing because JKR seems to find it endearing. We will probably get into white saviorism later, because I have THOUGHTS.

Ron and Harry sword fighting with fake wands, which are tin parrot and rubber haddock respectively, is hilarious. (Ron's parrot got the haddock's head)

Cedric telling Hufflepuffs to leave Harry alone. Looks like he was so grateful for Harry's tip, he steps in on the bullying.

Cho's words about who she is going to the ball with echoing with each step Harry took. Peak teenage experience. End of the world your crush has been asked out by someone else.

so funny that Ron keeps trying to ask Hermione who she is going to the ball with at unexpected times to surprise her into answering

love that Hermione was simultaneously appalled by fake-Moody making Malfoy a ferret while also not above referencing that incident to get Malfoy off her back. ("twitchy little ferret, aren't you Malfoy")

Ron notices Hermione's teeth is no longer the same. And Hermione is all sly and mischievous about the fact that she let Madam Pomphrey carry on a bit.

ok this is such a cute description: Hermione sitting to watch Ron and Harry's chess match which had recklessly brave pawns and a violent bishop

Dobby gets socks as presents from both Ron and Harry (reminder Ron also puts socks over his dead body) and Ron's Christmas jumper.

Dumbledore referencing Room of requirement. (he makes a joke that makes Harry snort and Percy frown- I guess he thinks the joke isn't appropriate for international magical cooperation?)

Parvati goes off with a Beauxbaton boy because Harry wasn't paying attention to her. She also lead him while dancing -so much so he felt like a show dog. Love how alpha she is xD

Percy glances at Harry about "hitch with Goblet of Fire" : indication of his coming arc where he doesn't believe Harry. (Also, while Percy is socialising with Bagman, he chooses to sit with Harry and Ron, which is indicative of how awkward he feels i think)

Snape and Karkaroff's conversation will get referenced in Prince's Tale, where Dumbledore grants him -"i think we sort too soon".

the image of Maxime storming away with fairies parting bushes is a very striking.

Chapter 24, 25, 26,27,28

Hermione drops key family history for Harry without either of them realising it: she used Fleamont Potter's Sleakazy's. Also at the implication that Harry asked about her hair LMAO.

Ron and Hermione reaching an unspoken agreement about sidestepping the big fight which involved FEELINGS.

the unicorn preferring a girl's touch is tied around the myth of pure creatures comfortable with "pure souls". I am really not sure how to read the gender politics of this book using this aspect of mythology.

lol, at Parvati being very "cool" towards Harry since the ball. Her retort actually makes him reflect - "perhaps I should have paid her more attention" and then, "ah well, she had a good time anyway". Honestly, stan Parvati.

Harry's so suspicious of Bagman offering him help, and rightly so. I love him putting Bagman on backfoot with his questions.

really curious about goblins and their hierarchy in the wizarding world. they are the marginalised who "fight back".

Rosmerta looking at James Potter, "who used to make her laugh"'s son yelling at a reporter in the middle of her pub XD

Love that Gryffindors get food related passwords like "banana fritters" and poor Ravenclaws have to solve a riddle every time they need to get in.

Where is the fanart of Snape with long grey nightshirt? Where?

Snape shutting Filch up when (in his mind) Moody came in, BCJ using Moody's distrust to check his office. Excellent stuff. My favourite part of the scene is Snape angrily declares Dumbledore's trust in him, and BCJ reminds him of "spots that don't come off". And Snape clutches his Dark Mark (and immediately hates himself for doing it xD)

Okay, Snape conceding power to Moody in this scene is so interesting. When Snape tries to look for Harry, BCJ makes him back off by saying "meaning Dumbledore is very interested to know who's got it in for the boy!" and Snape answers in a forced calm.

the tension between Snape and fake Moody can be cut through with a knife. Love how menacing the scene makes Moody, with Rowling using visual pictures of Moody's scars in the darkness

Lmao, Neville sending Professor Flitwick flying across room in class. And the description of "Professor Flitwick went whizzing resignedly past them" when the trio are talking. The implication that Flitwick just let Neville do his thing… XD

Hermione answering Harry's grim dark joke seriously. Nerd XD so much so the next time she takes Harry's joke seriously, he had to tell her that he is joking lol.

Harry goes off food when he is stressed or upset: a hangover from Dursley days when punishment is "no food".

"Your Wheezy, sir, your wheezy - the thing Harry Potter sir will miss the most!" LOL. The way this book is designed for Ronarry feels.

Merpeople have pet Grindylows. (also the chief is a woman)

Harry actually tries to yank the spear away from merman when they refused to help him, and hits Krum when Krum failed to realise that his shark teeth would hurt Hermione. My little feral boy.

Percy, "who looked very white", splashing out to meet Ron <3

Poor Krum - he is trying to engage Hermione and she is too busy either asking Harry about his task or cheering him for his marks to listen.

I love how much Harry gets so cheered by Sirius' letters. And even as he is tense that Sirius would get caught, he enters Potions classroom happy XD

'Scarlet woman'. It speaks to the generation Molly comes from that she has these ideas, and that Ron has noticed and picked it up.

Hermione, being also aware that Ron's regard for her is less than platonic, "determinedly avoiding Ron's eyes" when she mentions Viktor did invite her. (Also funny that Hermione is trying to puzzle out how Rita heard her, and Ron is like, "nvm, what did you say about Viktor's invitation?" lol)

@urupotterwrote a nice meta about how Snape was deliberately provoking Harry (after harry moves tables) to read his mind. Right when Harry angrily looks up, Snape's eyes bore into him to check if he had broken into his office.

Sirius made them climb a mountain for half an hour lol. He believes in outdoorsy kids.

Sirius having a fuller face, and looking like he is taking care of himself when Harry met him at the fire - but now he is back in his prison robes, his hair is longer and he is thin again. When Sirius broke into the fire, he was clearly at a place where he could hide better and take care of himself. He is living off rats.

And he notices the anxiety on Harry;s face and explains why he is here (he is very good at reading harry's face and just answering his thoughts. He does it again later in the scene). He is worried about how fishy things look, and it is clear one of the reasons of his lack of care for himself is hyperfixating on Harry's safety and circumstances surrounding the tournament. (he also moves a lot when he is thinking - it's part of why he makes for such a strong scene presence. There is either note of how he takes space, or his eyes)

Sirius backs Hermione here about Barty Crouch Snr's treatment of Winky ("if you want to know what a man's like.."). This is important for Hermione's complicated feelings about him in the next book. He was the only adult on her side - even Hagrid, who she counted on, didn't agree with her.

Sirius projecting all his family issues over Barty Crouch Jnr.

Sirius' description of Azkaban is just extremely solitary and drenched in death, and suffering. He can see and hear things that are near his cell or out of the window (he could see Dementors burying who he thought was BCJ outside the fortress). Speaks to the immense violation Barty Crouch Snr has committed by sending him there without a trial. (There is also the fact that Azkaban is horrible, and no one deserves it)

Snuffles, enuff said. He also allows them each to pat them on his head before they leave. how cute.

"If he thought we are standing in way of his career"..ah, seeds of Percy arc of OOTP. Hermione believes in him while Ron doesnt lol.

I haven't mentioned in my notes because it would get too long - but Sirius' exposition about the First War, I think, is important for the atmosphere that leads to friends turning on each other.

also, I really love the note of Sirius, as always, admiring the morals of Mad Eye Moody for trying to bring Death Eaters alive, versus his condemnation of Barty Crouch Snr's methods. This shade of him - combined with the fact that he would have absolutely killed Peter after Jily death if he had the chance, or even the previous book. @artemisia-black wrote about her interpretation of it in this meta.

House elves should be "seen, not heard" philosophy, where they have internalised that anything showing discontent from where they are is undesirable.

Hermione pulling a Blinky episode here XD if the worldbuilding wasn't so shitty, I would actually enjoy a critique of Hermione's impatience here because it is very in line with steam of young activists finding roadblocks within the very people they want to help.

Chekhov's gun: the eagle owl Harry observes flying over Hagrid's hut - the same owl we see in Harry's dream with Voldemort later.

Maxime is apparently trying to make up to Hagrid - she watches Hagrid's class and even tries to engage him in a conversation prior to this. Maybe she feels sorry about how the story about Hagrid's mother come out in the Prophet and wants to bond? What did Maxime face because of her parentage?

Ron being upset that the gold he paid Harry back with vanished, and how he hates being poor and how both Harry and Hermione don't know what to say: Hermione tries to cheer him up by saying she will get him a Niffler for Christmas, how cute.

harry regularly sending Sirius food and little notes with them. I CANT. they have my heart, they are everything.

love that Fleur and Cedric are apparently friendly enough that she keeps going on about underground tunnels to him, and how Fleur beams at Harry when he comes.

Harry and Cedric being jocks, and how they are less than happy with the state of the Quidditch pitch lol.

Dumbledore uses the Patronus to summon Hagrid. A known method of communication between the Order. ("a ghostly bird")

love the dynamic of Fred and George arguing: George seems to be the more cautious one of the two, saying putting something like that in writing is blackmail, while Fred is like, "You're not going to complain once we get the pay off, would you?" But the moment Ron asks what's up with them, George backs Fred and sends the letter himself.

I also really loved the moment of the trio confronting the twins. It was hilarious. it shows all their priorities - both Fred and Ron with confrontational and surprised, "what are you doing here?" and Harry and George on defensive, "sending letter?" and both Fred and Hermione with a suspicious, "What, at this time?"

Hermione still uncomfortable with the idea of breaking laws: "This isnt some silly school rule, it's the law". Given where they all end up in DH (honestly even OOTP), this is interesting. She even advises Ron to reach out to Percy to stop whatever the twins are doing, and Ron's like, "Are you mad? He would probably do a Crouch and turn them in!" XD

Harry being annoyed at Sirius being an Overbearing Dad XD "Who is he, to lecture me after all the stuff he did at school?"

Chekhov's gun: insect buzzing somewhere behind the curtain. Rita Skeeter.

Also seeing Crouch Snr struggle against the Imperius put on him by Voldemort tells us how incredible it is that Harry throws it off in the graveyard

Harry connecting the magic of Pensieve with the diary through means of his experience. Could be a cool worldbuilding detail if we want to think about how Tom preserved his "memory" in the diary, along with it being a container for his soul.

important to understand how Voldemort operates: he alone knows who works for him, and others get exposed to each other via shared jobs or connections. This adds to what Sirius says in Padfoot returns chapter.

Mulciber specialised in the Imperius, as per Karkaroff's testimony. Could he have done something in similar vein to Mary MacDonald? It could also be talked of as a "laugh" since students do find Moody's control of the spider in Unforgivables class darkly funny.

"He is no more a Death Eater than I am": Dumbledore's vouching of Snape is strong. I would love a fic that explores Snape and Dumbledore's equation in First War, and how Dumbledore sees bits of himself in a young man who also thinks he is brilliant, and wants power, but ends up hurting the person he loves in his blindness.

The trial essentially feels like a gladiator ring, with the accused chained to the chair. (Of course, Bagman doesnt get chained to the chair due to the relative popularity with the jury)

Ah, BCJ. His reaction here depends on how you read his involvement with Longbottoms - whether he actually did it, or whether he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Of course, the book, with Cruciatus scene with spider, heavily suggest that he was indeed guilty. So, it is interesting to see his terror here - he is genuinely terrified of going to Azkaban, but he is also using his genuine terror to appeal to his parents, to get out and be free. (He does similar things throughout the book - use his real dislike of Malfoys, Snape but misdirect you about his motivations). It's a nice manipulative streak.

"You're no son of mine!" "Take them away, and may they rot there." I need a Crouch family deep dive, because it is essentially a version of Walburga burning her son's name off after he ran away. which is: "I want to pretend you don't even exist."

a very astute reader pointed out on reddit how Moody is not present for the Longbottoms trial (and his eyes were intact on both trials before). So the hc is that Bellatrix took out Moody's eye and he was recovering in the hospital at the time.

[skippydiesposting]

whenever an author tries to use words like "doughy" or "pasty" or "paunchy" to describe a character derisively it completely backfires on me because I'm obsessed with fat boy swagger so it just makes me feel all 🥰🥰🥰 and instantly become fond of said character

[greenjacketwhitehatdocmui]

Jon Kent Week: Found Family

This is a little something I pounded out for #jonkentweek, prompt: Siblings. This is based on the idea that Teen Jon traveled the multiverse, not just Earth 3, and learned to be stronger. This takes place in an alternate universe and is not Tom Taylor's Jon Kent.

--Doc

      Jonathan Samuel Kent pouted in the way that only 11-year-old boys could.  His nostrils flared with irritation, which only served to remind him that dinner was waiting.  At the stove, his father was making the last few touches on the stew while his mother tapped away at a story.

      “Mom, he’s late,” Jon whined.  “I’m gonna call him.”  He reached for the heavily modified phone at the center of the table.

      Lois raised an eyebrow as she glanced meaningfully at him.  Jon retreated from the phone.

      “He’s not late,” she corrected him, noting the time.  “He still has ten minutes.”

      “He’ll be home, Jon-o,” Clark promised.  “If not, I’ll have a word with your brother’s boss.”

      Jon grunted, defeated by logic.  He glared at the fourth, empty seat at the table.  Maybe he could somehow wish his brother to appear right now.

      It was such an odd concept, having a brother.  For most of his life, he’d been an only child.  Then again, for most of his life, he hadn’t been aware that his father was Superman, nor did he have powers.

      And then, there had been that little “roadtrip” with Grandpa Jor-El.  It was supposed to have been a 2 week-long affair.

      Looking back, even Kelex couldn’t figure out what had been in that black hole.  One moment, he’d been skimming the surface just before the event horizon.  The next, he’d been flung lightyears away, nearly colliding with Space Cabbie.  He also felt like he’d been torn in half.

      Low on power, he basically begged the cabbie to bring him home.  He figured that he could at least get to the Fortress and send out a signal to say he was OK.

      It had taken a week to get back to Earth, Space Cabbie grumbling the whole time.  His onboard AI navigator kept the peace, but everyone was glad when they arrived.

      The happy moment lasted until Jor-El’s ship appeared before them.  A very contrite, sorrowful grandfather requested that Jon come aboard.

-----

      “Jon, something happened while you were away,” Lois said.  She looked like she was on the verge of tears.

      “Is everything okay?” Jon asked.  His parents were here, as well as his grandfather.   Everyone looked unhurt.

      Jor-El waved some kind of scanner up and down Jon.  He frowned at the results.

      “There was some unknown element in the black hole,” Jor-El began.  “From what I can tell, it split you in two.”

      Jon blinked.  “Okay, I’ve had that happen before.  Where’s the other me?”

      “Right here,” came an unfamiliar voice.

      Jon’s jaw dropped.  Before him was…him.  Well, he was an older version of Jon, though not the paunchy, middle-aged version he’d encountered before.  This Jon was lean and maybe seventeen years old.

      “Hey,” Teen Jon greeted him nervously.  “Look, you’re probably thinking that I’m some kind of fake, a clone, a dimensional counterpart or a time traveler.”

      “Yeah…” Jon agreed uneasily.  “You’re not?”

      Teen Jon shook his head.  “Grandpa scanned me down to the subatomic level.  We’re—we’re both Jon Kent.  I just spent the last six years bouncing around dimensions, learning from every Superman there.  For everyone else, it’s been about a week.”

      Jon looked lost.  His heart thudded against his chest as he looked at his mother, then his father.

      “Mom?  Dad?”  Jon’s voice was raspy.  “Am I—am I the fake?”

      Lois shook her head as she knelt down and hugged him.  “No,” she whispered.  “You’re both mine.  Both of you.”

      Teen Jon and his father knelt down as well.  There were whispers and mumblings that he didn’t remember, but he felt…safe.

-----

      It hadn’t been easy adjusting to the new family status.  There had been friction and squabbles, but nothing apocalyptic.  Young Jon would keep going to Reeves-West while Teen Jon opted to transfer to Metropolis University.

      More than a few favors had been called in to create “Finn Connors,” Teen Jon’s new identity.  Thanks to glasses with a holographic projector, “Finn” wouldn’t need anything like a wig.

      Of course, there was the matter of Teen Jon’s part-time job.  He hadn’t mentioned it at the time, but the guiding force for his dimensional travels had come from the guardian of Hypertime himself—Hyperman, aka another Jon Kent.  Hyperman had offered Teen Jon the opportunity to become a dimensional troubleshooter—with the caveat that it was a dire emergency, and that weekends were off-limits.

      Teen Jon had agreed.  The arrangement had been working out well, so far.

      He had to admit, it was kind of…nice having a brother figure.  Every once in a while, they’d go on patrol and take a break on a rooftop.

-----

      The patrol had been fairly uneventful.  There were a few robberies, a mugging or two, but it had been a fairly slow night in the city.

      They sat on a rooftop overlooking Hob’s Bay.  Teen Jon had bought ice cream cones for both of them.  They ate in relative silence.

      “What’s bugging you?” Teen Jon asked.

      Young Jon didn’t look him in the eye.  Teen Jon knew that tactic very well.

      “I missed this, you know,” Teen Jon said.  He gestured expansively to the city.  “I missed Hamilton, too.  Other worlds…it’s just not the same.”

      “But you got stronger, right?” Young Jon asked.  He still didn’t look his brother in the eye.

      “I learned a lot,” Teen Jon acknowledged.  “There wasn’t any version of Dad that wasn’t willing to help me out.”

      There was another bit of silence.  After a few minutes, they finished their cones.

      “Do you think I’ll be as strong as you?” Young Jon asked.  His voice was shaky and tentative.

      Teen Jon shook his head.  “Nope.”

      Young Jon glared at him.  “Really?”

      Teen Jon smirked.  “Really.  You’ll be stronger than me.”

      Young Jon blinked.  “Wait.  Really?”

      Teen Jon nodded.  “Absolutely.  You won’t have to hop dimensions to learn what I know.  And you’ll have Mom and Dad around, too.”

      “Huh,” Young Jon grunted.  “So…when can I learn that super ventriloquism thing?”

      “I wouldn’t recommend learning before your voice breaks.  It really strains your vocal chords before then.”  Teen Jon glanced in the direction of home.  “Mom’s really tapping away at the keyboard.  We’d better get home while she’s in the zone.”  He paused and winked.  “And we never stopped for ice cream.  Got it?”

      Young Jon managed a smirk.  “What ice cream?”

-----

      “Jon.”  There was no mistaking the warning in his mother’s voice.

      He blinked.  He looked at the slight dent in the table he’d created by tapping his finger impatiently—at super speed.

      Jon chuckled nervously.  “Sorry.”

      Lois sighed.  “Fine, you can call your brother.  I’m sure he’s okay, though.”

      Jon heard the slight skipping of his mother’s heartbeat.  She’d been nervous, too.

      He dialed the first preset in the HyperPhone.  A holographic rendition of Teen Jon’s face appeared.

      “Hey, Big Brother,” Jon greeted Teen Jon.  “When are you coming home?  Dinner’s almost ready.”

      Teen Jon smiled.  “I’ll be there in a little bit.  The Chief had me detour to talk to someone.”

      “`Big Brother?’” came a voice to the side of Teen Jon—the same voice as the dimensional troubleshooter.  “You have a brother?”

      “Um, yeah, it’s a long story,” Teen Jon said.  Then he turned his attention back to the camera pickup.  “I’ll be right there; I just have to say a few things.”

      “It’s beef stew night,” Clark said.  “I made extra.”

      “I’ll be right there,” Teen Jon promised.  Then the holographic display winked off.

      Moments later, Clark and Young Jon heard the faint whine as the dimensional walls were breached.  Teen Jon sped through an open window and changed into jeans and a polo in a blur.  He gave his parents a hug, then ruffled Young Jon’s hair.  This elicited a squawk of protest before they got settled for dinner.

      “Sorry I cut it so close,” Teen Jon said over his second bowl of stew.  “The Chief wanted me to talk to another version of myself who had it rough.  I think he’ll be okay, but he really needs to open up and maybe get some non-super friends.”

      “I’m sure he’ll be fine as long as he talks it out,” Clark said.  “Which reminds me…your therapist called.  He wanted to make sure you were still good for Monday.”

      “I should be,” Teen Jon confirmed.  “I don’t think the universe is going to end on Monday,” he joked.

      “Isn’t your Journalism project due this Monday?” Lois reminded him.  “Jane called and asked ‘Finn’ if he’d done his part.”

      Teen Jon’s eyes widened.  There seemed to be a palpable aura of dread surrounding him.

      “Is that a ‘project isn’t done’ dread or ‘talking to Jane’ kind of dread?” Clark asked.

      Teen Jon squirmed a little.  “Not so much the first, but more of the second,” he admitted.  “We broke up because I saw a lot of red flags.”

      Lois leaned forward.  “I get it.  It’s kind of hard to talk to the ex, but at least you’re trying to get along.”

      Teen Jon rolled his eyes.  “It’s trying all right, Mom.”  Then he diverted his attention to his little brother.  “Learn from my mistakes, little brother.  Exes are not to be trifled with.”

      Young Jon shrugged.  “I dunno about that.  I haven’t had one yet.”

      Teen Jon affected an expression of doom.  “Yet,” he said dramatically.

      The table broke out in laughter.  Thankfully, nobody had snorted stew out of their noses.

      Young Jon just smiled.  It had taken a lot of work on everyone’s part to get to this new status quo.  They lived a crazy life, but moments like this were worth it.  It was good to have a brother.

[twisting-echo]

Why do I ship Brave Heart Lion and Friend Bear?

Well, they have great chemistry, great eye contact, and the height difference is cute.

And it all started with by the way he unblinkingly stared at her.

And she at him.

I mean, just look at him. He looks way too happy sittin' there with his cute paunchy belly staring at her. And can you blame him? She's too cute!

Yep, he and his paunch are still staring at her.

I don't know what the hell Friend Bear is on or looking at, but he's still staring at her! (Oh boy, he's got it bad.)

I couldn't help but feel like he was looking up at only her. 

And she at him. (Maybe Secret Bear too lol)

He's eyeing her in a very conspicuous manner.

What else can I say?

I ship Brave Heart Lion and Friend Bear because they're just too cute not to, and their relationship dynamic is even cuter.

(I'm actually really pleased with how these edits turned out because they are WAY clearer and brighter than they once were!)

🚫 IF YOU DO NOT LIKE THIS SHIP, PLEASE DON’T COMMENT 🚫

[unseenacademic]

🌹 Share your most poetic line.

❤️ Share one of your favorite lines.

Thank you for the ask, friend!!! 💜💜💜💜 Sorry it took me a bit to reply, I was trying to decide which lines to share. 😅

🌹 Share your most poetic line.

I'm quite proud of how this one turned out, it's from my fic And Something for Us to Remember too:

The valley is bathed in the golden gleam of the setting sun. Jed takes Abbey’s hand. His eyes shine with love and devotion and in that moment she has everything she needs.

❤️ Share one of your favorite lines.

This is the beginning of my fic Anything Else I Need to Know and this is Josh's POV. It's just really silly, the entire fic is silly, but I think I managed to capture the essence of Joshness here 😂😂

Twenty minutes later, he is still sitting on his unmade bed, staring at a still life on the wall.

Leo won’t be able to save him, the Governor is gonna kill him. Yeah, the Governor’s gonna kill him. Beat him to death with a book.

And Mrs. Bartlet… Well, Mrs. Bartlet is undeniably a very attractive woman. When they first met, Josh tried to impress her by telling her about his Harvard degree, only to learn that she’d also gone to Harvard, taught there, and made the Dean’s list, unlike Josh. He was too dumbfounded to mention Yale, so he spent the rest of the evening sulking in the corner and gawking at Mrs. Bartlet when she and the Governor weren’t looking.

No, the Governor isn’t gonna kill him, his wife is! He’s gonna be killed by a tiny woman with a great rack.

Ask Game: WIP Excerpts

Soooooo, I picked two paragraphs, formatted the post, copied the link to the original post... and then I remembered I was supposed to talk about my WIPs here, not published fics... 😅😅

So, here we go again:

🌹 Share your most poetic line.

This is something I had to cut from one of my older fics, but I think it's very sweet and poetic. I know I'm gonna use it somewhere.

The boy who wants to be a priest, the girl who wants to be a doctor.

The boy who was named after a Founding Father, the girl who was named after the second First Lady of the United States. What a nerdy pair they are.

❤️ Share one of your favorite lines.

I'm gonna post this one without context because it's just ridiculous. And it's just one line. It's from my WIP "It Never Could Have Happened in New Hampshire":

"Get away from my wife, paunchy!"

[districtunrest]

What do you think about the way character appearance being portrayed or narrated in THG novels?

What's your opinion about THG movies casting? Especially Katniss' and The Seam residents casting?

Is it important that Seam and Merchant residents of District 12 have different appearance in the screen? Yes/No? Why?

What do you think about division /dynamics between Seam and Merchants in District 12?

Thank you :)

@curiousnonny

Collins can be pretty sparing with her character descriptions. her main characters get the standard hair/eye color/build whereas minor characters get like one or two descriptors, enough to get the general vibe across. lots of room for personal interpretation both ways, tho. I like how she expands upon some of them over time in little ways, like Katniss' fixation on Peeta's eyelashes. it's always situationally appropriate, I guess, which I prefer over long descriptions right off.

I really like her sharing more about a character's appearance over time to signal how Katniss' view of them is changing or deepening. for example, Haymitch is first described as a paunchy, middle-aged man (okay, so washed up. all we really need to know at that time) but then later Katniss notes how much simple grooming is the equivalent of a makeover for him (we can infer more about appearance) and fixates on his skin in D13, because there he looks sickly (so she doesn't normally think of him as looking sickly). and then you think about why Katniss shares things like that, how she's now tracking his health. she goes from passing description to something more specific, to show the relationship change.

my opinion about the move casting is that it was whitewashed :) and lazy :)

I still remember seeing the white-woman-only casting call for Katniss. and the studio put next to no thought on which person was in which district except D1, 2 and 11. see: the young redheaded boy in D4. everybody's just some white kid. there's no consistency between the districts. they don't even get last names. it's all lazy.

yes, I believe it's important to show the Seam and Merchant class divide through their different coloring. first of all it's canon, so. and it shows some thought and teeth, damn it, to actually depict poverty disproportionately affecting the racial 'other.' it further contextualizes Katniss to the audience to show she is that other. and it's just such an easy visual to get across on the big screen but I guess that was too uncomfy for Lionsgate. they began diversifying their crowds of rebels in Mockingjay but by then it just made Katniss look like the white savior 💀

I feel like the class divide is obviously present in the series but it's not explored all that much, like in the day to day. we infer a lot, and fanfic will sort of expand on it with slurs and territorial attitudes and such. D12 society wasn't outright segregated; Katniss' parents could marry, and it's not as though they were the only ones to do so - it just wasn't common. the only thing Katniss ever says about it to Peeta is that his mom won't be thrilled that he's dating a girl from the Seam. and then there's the resentment toward Madge (the merchant class) for not needing to take out tesserae, thereby lowering chance of being reaped compared to Katniss and Gale (the working class) - which Katniss feels awkward about, because she knows it's not Madge's fault, and which Gale feels resentful about on reaping day, even though he sees it for what it is: to pit the classes against each other and not at the Capitol. like, there's nuance to be had. I wish the films bothered with it.

[nicklloydnow]

“Kennedy crowed to me about his horseshoe coalition gathered round a campaign he views as fundamentally populist. And it’s quite a band he has put together: crunchy Whole Foods–shopping anti-vaxxers, paunchy architects of hard-right authoritarianism looking to boost a chaos agent, Nader-Stein third-party perma-gremlins, some Kennedy-family superfans, and rich tech bros seeking a lone wolf to legitimize them. Their convening can give the impression of weightiness, but if you so much as blew on them, the alliance would shatter into a million pieces. The only thing that seems to bind them is Kennedy, the current embodiment of a warped fantasy of marginalization and martyrdom that has become ever more appealing — and thus politically significant — in an age of disinformation and distrust in government and institutions.

That’s not to say Kennedy’s campaign is a joke. He is both an addled conspiracy theorist and an undeniable manifestation of our post-pandemic politics. He is an aging but handsome scion of America’s most storied political family, facing off against an incumbent who many in his own party worry is too old and too unpopular to win a second term. Far from an exile, he is an extremely well-connected person with unparalleled access to the centers of influence in New York, Hollywood, and Washington, D.C., who either has no idea what kind of fire he’s playing with, or does and is therefore an arsonist.

He is running a surprisingly potent campaign that, thanks to the lurid dynamics of social media and the boosts he is receiving from some of the wealthiest, most listened-to people in America, stands to grow even more disruptive, his deep thoughts on Rogan’s podcast translating into overflow crowds at his rallies. Lesser threats than Kennedy have played spoilers in elections before, and if he succeeds in helping burn us all to the ground, it will not be because he is an outsider, as he claims, but because of a political and media culture that has protected and encouraged and fawned over him his whole life — handing a perpetual problem child, now 69 and desperate for attention, accelerant and matches.

(…)

His vaccine beliefs hooked him up with a broader world of conspiracy theorizing. In 2006, Kennedy wrote a lengthy story, again for Rolling Stone, claiming the Republican Party had “mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004,” stealing the election in Ohio via Diebold voting machines — a specious claim that was seductive to Democrats who simply could not believe George W. Bush had won his reelection bid against John Kerry. Kennedy’s doubts in electoral results have persisted, and he recently equivocated to the Washington Post’s Michael Scherer about the 2020 election, saying, “I don’t know. I think that Biden won.”

Kennedy has also come to believe many other things that run the gamut from unproven to ludicrous to dangerously irresponsible. They begin with his conviction that the CIA played a role in the murders of both his uncle and his father and that Bobby Sr. was killed not by Sirhan Sirhan but by a security guard assigned to protect him; he actively campaigned for Sirhan’s release from prison against the wishes of most of the Kennedy family, including his mother.

(…)

Kennedy has also suggested that 5G high-speed-internet towers are being used to “harvest our data and control our behavior”; posited a link between mass shootings and antidepressant use; told Rogan that Wi-Fi pierces “the blood-brain barrier,” causing “leaky brain”; and claimed the presence of atrazine in the water supply has contributed to depression and gender dysphoria among boys since atrazine is known to clinically castrate frogs when dumped into their tanks.

Again: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been polling as high as 20 percent.

(…)

But he does not really emphasize reducing costs and making medicine and health-care treatments more broadly available to more people. If this were important to him, he would not have allowed Rogan to pit him against Dr. Peter Hotez, the Texas physician-scientist making open-source, patent-free vaccines available to poor populations around the world, undercutting the extortionate pharma companies. Kennedy’s fight is about vilifying lifesaving medical treatments in favor of others that he has decided, based on inscrutable metrics of his own, are more holistic.

(…)

American Values is also a laundering of a lot of dirty Kennedy linen. There is but one mention of Chappaquiddick and lots of florid encomiums about how devoted everyone was to one another with little mention of the famously chronic infidelity that ran rampant in the family. He lauds ancient Grandma Rose for her “curiosity about people of all backgrounds,” including “fishermen, actors, cabbies, political leaders, bus drivers, tourists, movie stars, heads of state, strangers in elevators,” a list that suggests that the full and dazzling range of humanity may fall into three categories: famous people, people who transport them to places, and others they may meet by chance on Cape Cod.

(…)

He is leaning hard into his family in this contest; his logo even borrows the iconography of his father’s 1968 campaign. It makes it all the more awkward that almost no members of the Kennedy family are supporting him. Many have already publicly endorsed Biden, who employs at least three Kennedys in his administration. Kennedy’s sister, the filmmaker Rory Kennedy, told CNN, “Due to a wide range of Bobby’s positions, I’m supporting President Biden.” On the day Kennedy filed his paperwork with the Federal Election Commission, his cousin Bobby Shriver tweeted that it was “a good day” to remind everyone he had been an early supporter of Biden in the 2016 primary.

(…)

Kennedy and his second wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, the best friend of his sister Kerry, announced their separation in 2010. In 2012, Mary hanged herself in an outbuilding of their home in Mount Kisco. More than a year later, the New York Post published excerpts of a diary from earlier in his marriage in which he kept an account of the 16 women he’d had sex with that year. In 2014, he married Hines.

One of the keys to Kennedy’s appeal with a certain segment of the population is his view of himself as an outcast and victim. When his inaugural campaign speech went long, he joked with the crowd, “This is what happens when you censor somebody for 18 years.”

(…)

Being shunned in any way for ideas that, when it comes to vaccines, are not just about individual choice but about our collective responsibility is perhaps anathema to people raised to assume their voices would be heard and understood as legitimate. Public-health directives during COVID were crude and sometimes wrong — messaging on masking changed repeatedly, masking outdoors now seems silly, the school closures lasted longer than they should have — but the objections made by people like Kennedy were not rooted in special advance scientific knowledge. Rather, they stemmed from the fury of normally powerful people affronted by the argument that their individual impulses put them on the wrong side of a moral question of communal engagement and compassion. It is a dynamic many managed to reframe as their willingness to stand in patriotic challenge to weak-minded, compliant, vaccinated sheep. And it is the type of environment in which men born with immense wealth and power — the kind who casually mention that governors have called and offered them Senate seats that they have turned down — can recast themselves as martyred heroes.

(…)

But of course he’s a poser. This entire campaign is a pose, as is his outsider stance. He is a Kennedy. He is the fifth member of his family to run for president. His sister Kerry was married to the man who would become the governor of New York, whose brother was a television journalist; his cousin Maria was married to the governor of California, who also happened to be a movie star. His grandfather owned a movie studio. He has written, in American Values, of attending the 1960 Democratic convention at which his uncle was nominated; he was 6, and his family stayed at the home of Marion Davies, the actress and the mistress of his grandfather’s good friend William Randolph Hearst. At that convention, Frank Sinatra hosted cocktail parties celebrating his family. Kennedy’s own wife is a star whom he met through another television star, his friend Larry David, who recently offered the Times this classic clarification about his relationship with the candidate: “Yes love and support, but I’m not ‘supporting’ him.”

Over lunch in New Hampshire, I asked Kennedy how his conversation with Republican New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu had gone following his address to the state legislature; Kennedy told me, “It was nice. I knew his father” — who was also governor. It can seem as if Robert F. Kennedy Jr. knows the father of every powerful person in America. Perhaps more important, they knew his father and his uncles and his grandfathers.

So he gets traction where no one else would. His relationship with the political media, which has published him, written about him, and seen him as a full and flawed and interesting human, has always been guided by his core identity as an insider, a member of the family that this country was taught to love above all others and to pity in their many public tragedies. As a journalist who has been told for decades that my empathy for the female candidates I often cover is probably overemotional and built too strongly on personal identification, let me just tell you that you should never stand between a white male political journalist over the age of 40 and his feelings about the Kennedys.

I was a young person in journalism in New York at the turn of the millennium when a lot of people I worked for and with were Kennedy’s dining companions, buddies, and neighbors. Peter Kaplan (another of my former bosses), then editor of the New York Observer, had been his roommate at Harvard and was one of his best friends. Kennedy and his cousin John Jr. — who ran the magazine George — were big handsome puppies who frolicked among a generation of political junkies who had grown up worshipping their dads and then wound up at the same schools, jobs, and parties as the sons. I saw this at Talk and the Observer and Salon; it was true at The New Yorker and the New York Times and The New Republic and The Atlantic and the places that published Kennedy from the 1970s on, providing him the mainstream credentials he cited when I asked him about his preparation for the presidency. For what it’s worth, in those same years, I was often asked to cover Trump, then a local celebrity and bargain-basement version of a Kennedy himself, an easy call to get a quote to fill a column, with every mention making his name more recognizable, his words more legitimate. How do we think these guys got here?

(…)

If he can have that effect on me, what must his draw be for those who have not spent hours reading about thimerosal and AZT and Diebold machines just double-checking that all this stuff he says with such assuredness is, indeed, nonsense? Imagine how strong it could be for millions of scared Americans who look at him and see shadows of people they’ve lost, of men the country has lost.

If he were your uncle, you would likely consider that he is fighting some serious psychological headwinds. His own uncle was assassinated when Bobby was 9. He was pulled from school at 14 and flown to the deathbed of his father, also assassinated. His cousin drove a plane into the sea on the way to Bobby’s sister’s wedding. One brother died in a skiing accident, another of a drug overdose. His wife died by suicide. All this in a family in which his grandfather’s dictum was “There will be no crying in this house.”

(…)

And it’s not benign. Because while, no, he is certainly not likely to win the Democratic nomination or ever become president, he could do well in a rogue New Hampshire primary in which Biden is declining to participate, and his performance in that state could trigger further distrust in our elections and throw more fuel on the legitimacy crisis that is raging across this democracy — a crisis that is dangerous, insurrectionist, violent, and terrifying. This campaign will mean his views gain a broader audience, and that too is terrifying when it comes to the erosion of the public’s understanding of disease, science, and public-health measures.

And then there is the bracing reality that, here in Trump’s America, another clearly damaged man, a man whose own close-knit family has waved red flags about his fitness for office, is getting this far in the anti-Trump party.

(…)

Not so distant from this performance of retro white machismo is the fact that at least some of the blame for this wretched state of affairs lies with Biden and the Democratic Party. When elected, Biden promised to be a bridge president: to formulate, alongside the equally senescent leadership of his party, a succession plan of some sort. But these aging leaders have not done that, so here we are with some of the anti-Biden energies among Democratic voters getting directed toward a man who looks like the saviors of old, a glitchy hologram of fabled politicians who once represented youth and hope.

He never, ever, ever should have been here. In this position. In these pages, in this context. He should never have been a politician or a public figure at all. He should have been a veterinarian.

In American Values, amid all his bizarre hagiography of his family members and rehashing of the Bay of Pigs, is story after story after story of pure delight and joy and love and fulfillment: There are the falcons and hawks and pigeons, the Komodo dragons, the matricidal coati, a red-tailed hawk named Morgan. There’s a California sea lion, Sandy, who “took up residence in our swimming pool” and “ate mackerel by the barrel, devouring everything but the eyeballs, which we found scattered like marbles across the pool, patio and lawn.” One day, after causing a traffic jam on the Georgetown Pike, Sandy, like the dragons, winds up at the National Zoo. And how about Carruthers, the 16-pound leopard tortoise brought back from Africa under the diplomatic protection of his uncle Sargent Shriver in Ethel Kennedy’s Gucci suitcase? Carruthers spent 21 years roaming the house at Hickory Hill in Virginia alongside “ten horses, eleven dogs, a donkey, two goats, pigs … a 4-H cow, chickens, pheasants, ducks, geese, forty closely related rabbits” and Hungarian homing pigeons, a nocturnal honey bear who “slept away his days in the playroom crawl space,” and a jill ferret who “fed her pups under the kitchen stove.”

(…)

But this country, with its political system built around white patriarchal ideals of who powerful men are supposed to be, and its very limited view of what other kinds of power might look like, has created too irresistible an opportunity for someone with a famous name, a tremendous ego, and a persecution complex. So here we are, eight years after Trump descended the elevator in Trump Tower, listening to a man talking about ivermectin and the fascism of Fauci and the castration of frogs and watching him run riot in a Democratic primary.”

“I’ve been doing my best to ignore the farcical presidential candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. His noxious views on vaccines, the origin of AIDS, the alleged dangers of wi-fi and other forms of junk science deserve no wide hearing. Polls showing he’s favored by 20 percent of likely Democratic voters over President Biden are almost as laughable as Kennedy’s views. It’s early; he’s got iconic American name recognition; and there’s almost always an appetite, among Democrats anyway, for anybody but the incumbent. His lies have been thoroughly debunked by Judd Legum at Popular Info, Michael Scherer in The Washington Post, Naomi Klein in The Guardian, and Brandy Zadrozny on NBC News.

But I’ve come to believe I have a responsibility to write about Kennedy because of my own shameful role in sending his toxic vaccine views into public discourse: I was the Salon editor, in partnership with Rolling Stone, who 18 years ago published his mendacious, error-ridden piece on how thimerosal in childhood vaccines supposedly led to a rise in autism, and how public health officials covered it up. From the day “Deadly Immunity” went up on Salon.com, we were besieged by scientists and advocates showing how Kennedy had misunderstood, incorrectly cited, and perhaps even falsified data. Some of his sources turned out to be known crackpots.

(…)

Now, Kennedy insists, as the The New York Times paraphrases him, that “Salon caved to pressure from government regulators and the pharmaceutical industry.” He repeated the false claim in his three-hour podcast conversation with Joe Rogan, another conspiracy loon, rehashing the debunked claims of “Deadly Immunity” and claiming that Salon pulled the piece after “pressure from the pharmaceutical industry.”

That’s just another lie. We caved to pressure from the incontrovertible truth and our journalistic consciences.

(…)

The pushback began almost immediately. I’ve already linked to our corrections, which with hindsight seem not to correct what were revealed to be the worst errors. Seth Mnookin, who happened to also write for Salon occasionally, was one of the most dogged debunkers, and his 2011 book The Panic Virus, which features a chapter on Kennedy and the Salon/Rolling Stone mess, ultimately helped convince us to retract the piece entirely.

Mnookin showed, among other things, how Kennedy misrepresented what went on at a 2000 meeting on vaccine safety convened by the Centers for Disease Control, at the Simpsonwood conference center outside Atlanta, where the claims of a link between Thimerosol and autism were discussed. Mnookin wrote, “Kennedy relied on the 286-page transcript of the Simpsonwood meeting to corroborate his allegations—and wherever the transcript diverged from the story he wanted to tell, he simply cut and pasted until things came out right.”

(…)

I tell this story, incompletely and imperfectly given the 18 intervening years, because Kennedy continues to peddle the lies he published and claim that dark forces cowed us and forced us to retract his story. The odious Joe Rogan has been going after vaccine scientist Dr. Peter Hotez on Twitter, after Hotez tweeted that the Kennedy interview was “awful,” “absurd,” and promoting “nonsense.” He offered Hotez “$100,000.00 to the charity of your choice if you’re willing to debate [Kennedy] on my show with no time limit.” Twitter troll and site owner Elon Musk has been amplifying Rogan and Kennedy and going after Hotez. On Sunday a Q-Anon believer came to Hotez’s Houston home demanding that he debate Kennedy.

(…)

I regret the role I played in spreading Kennedy’s anti-vaccine propaganda, and however it helped foment the harassment of Hotez. The vaccine-autism lie isn’t the only big lie Kennedy’s told. But it’s the only one I can debunk personally.”

“I'd prefer to explore what a noted misogynist who reportedly tormented his second wife — and then vilified after she killed herself — says about the 2024 election.

Here was actor Billy Baldwin on Twitter in April, posting a photo of RFK Jr. and his late wife Mary — who, he said, spent many a time crying on his shoulder about her terrible husband:

'If Bobby were half a man she would still be alive today. It will all come out. His campaign will be over in weeks. If these walls could talk.'

Mary, according to those who knew her well, was in agony over RFK Jr.'s ceaseless womanizing. He kept sex diaries, which Mary discovered and gave to a trusted friend. Should anything happen to her, the world might know who we're really dealing with.

In the back of each diary were ledgers listing all the women Bobby had been with — many friends of Mary's or women in their social circle — numbered from one to ten, indicating, like a teenage boy, how far each sexual encounter had gone.

(…)

After Mary's death, Bobby sanctioned friends, relatives and at least one sympathetic Kennedy historian to tell his version of events: Mary was a drunk, a hysteric, a crazy woman. It was a miracle he even survived the marriage.

The greatest smear job came via a Newsweek cover story, which branded Mary's suicide part of the Kennedy Curse — oh, the terrible things that just keep happening to this family!

Somehow, the author got access to a sealed 60-page affidavit in which Bobby accused Mary of having a personality disorder, of beating him in front of their son, of drunkenly face-planting into her dinner.

Mary's siblings called the report 'scurrilous' and 'full of lies.'

(…)

Nonetheless, Bobby went to court to fight Mary's siblings, who hated him, for her remains.

Once he won, he made a big show of having Mary buried in the Kennedy family plot in Massachusetts, the media getting unobstructed photos of Mary's casket.

Not two months later, without the required permits, Kennedy secretly had Mary's coffin exhumed from her grave and buried alone on the other side of the cemetery, no gravestone.

He didn't tell her siblings. In my opinion, this was his final revenge — if Mary dared to humiliate him by killing herself — because it's all about Bobby Jr., all the time — in life, he would do the same to her in death.

(…)

This is a man who smeared the mother of his four children in the most public way possible, who made her life a misery and who gaslit the nation into thinking he was the victim.

He is, in my opinion — and I'm not alone — not just mentally ill. He's a bad man.

The Kennedys have this generational sickness, their abhorrent treatment of women.

Why aren't we talking about it?

How is it that no one's drawing parallels to Bobby's Uncle Ted, the last famous Democrat to challenge an incumbent Democratic president — you know, the uncle who left a young campaign aide named Mary Jo Kopechne to die alone after driving off a bridge at Chappaquiddick?

The party line on Ted was always that he was terrible to women in his personal life but great at legislating for us.

Tell that to the women he destroyed, his wife Joan among them, painting her as the family drunk, the political liability. Sound familiar?

Women, to Kennedy men, are scapegoats.”

“By now, you undoubtedly know presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said at a press dinner last Tuesday night that COVID-19 was an “ethnically targeted bio weapon” designed by the Chinese government to be deadly for Caucasians and Blacks, but spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.

(…)

The stunning moment was surreal and incomprehensible. But I’ve seen the video and heard the audio, so I know it’s true.

“COVID 19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people,” said Kennedy. “The races that are most immune to COVID-19 are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

Sitting next to Kennedy at that moment was an Ashkenazi Jew, New York Post reporter Jon Levine. Check out his baffled expression on the video.

Contrary to Bobby’s hair-brained theory, I got the coronavirus. My son, brother, sister-in-law, aunt, uncle, nephews, niece, cousins and friends also got COVID. My neurologist’s medical partner got COVID and died. Ashkenazi Jews all.

Bobby knows who I am. My wife, Liz, and I donated to his Riverkeeper nonprofit organization and watched him fly falcons at the Hudson River home of then-Gov. George Pataki. Bobby should also know that Frydman is a Jewish name of European ancestry. I’m not Sephardic. I’m fair-haired and light-skinned. That makes me Ashkenazi.

You’d think his campaign manager, former Ohio congressman and Cleveland Mayor Dennis Kucinich, and staff would’ve prepped Bobby about the probability of Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese journalists being in attendance. In fact, there was a Chinese reporter from the Epoch Times at the table.

(…)

But even Klein, a prominent anti-vaxxer and good friend of RFK Jr. who’s advised him on Israel, is reportedly “worried” about Bobby’s kooky COVID comments.

“This is crazy,” Klein was quoted as saying. “It makes no sense that they would do that. I read everything. I was totally against the vaccine…I wanted to convince myself it was correct not to take it. I have never seen anything like this.”

The Anti-Defamation League also weighed in. “The claim that COVID-19 was a bioweapon created by the Chinese or Jews to attack Caucasians and Black people is deeply offensive and feeds into sinophobic and antisemitic conspiracy theories about COVID-19 that we have seen evolve over the last three years.”

StopAntisemitism added, “We have no words for this man’s lunacy.””

[recentlyheardcom]

Jon Peters on Trump, Dana White, Wild Hollywood Journey

His knees are dangerous, he’s paunchy and puffy, and the previous celeb hairdresser has grey roots no less than 2 inches lengthy. At 79, Jon Peters not is the bad-boy seducer of girls from Barbra Streisand to Pamela Anderson, the inspiration for the Warren Beatty movie Shampoo, the wild-man character that Bradley Cooper portrayed with all of the previous bluster in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2021…

[nicflurrymachinebroke]

BETWEEN WORLDS

Dirty, nasty, day-drinking, pill-stealing, stimulating-chewing greasy dirty scumbag trucker Cage flipflopping between unkempt graying organic trucker beard & perfectly lined up, manicured Nicolas Cage Just For Men™️ Hollywood beard BACK & FORTH IN THE SAME SCENE EVEN (did y'all have to do reshoots the week of Cannes or something??? Is this man's schedule REALLY that packed?????) while being TORMENTED (TORTURED!!! AGONIOUS TORTURE!!!) by the specter of his dead wife (+ child), the ghost of whom has taken up residence in the barely-legal body of the-woman-he-"saved"-from-being-strangled-in-the-opening-(who-he's-now-shacking-up-with)'s daughter. Who was in a coma after a motorcycle accident! Which is why her mom was getting strangled in a truck stop bathroom in the first place! BUT THAT'S NEITHER HERE NOR THERE.

I would suck the tattoos clean off that man. Clean him off like a WHITEBOARD.

He's fucking the mom, he's fucking the daughter (who's actually his dead wife!), he's smoking pot & sleeping on their couch & trying to have his cake + eat it too & pilfering prescription medication & being unkempt & middle-aged & scumbag-destructive in a way that's so realistic (and over-the-top, yes; it's Nicolas Cage) I was just in awe of it. Everything about this movie is just so real (the set dressing, hair/makeup IGNORE THE BEARD, character design/wardrobe [his especially; aside from one ABSOLUTELY TRAGIC low-budget iron-on tshirt {WITH A GATOR ON IT!!! which fits the character if even if the execution screams Temu} his clothes all make sense for the person his character wants to present himself as--hyperrealistic Midlife Crisis edgy rocker guy-core, take it from someone with an unfortunate history of being down bad for guys like that--& they're lived-in in a way that makes me wonder if he brought a lot of his own wardrobe a la Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski], dialogue, even the lighting) (PARTICULARLY the lighting) it outshines the goofiness of the premise. Yeah, it obviously still has Hollywood stink on it (what I would not give to have his old teeth back 😔) but so much of the heart is so raw & earnest I almost don't even want to tell anyone about this movie lest they somehow take it from me by watching it but also at the same time I want to tell the whole world cuz it's such a triumph. It occupies that perfect space between improbability/fantasy & reality most of my fics do, so I am absolutely RABID about it (cuz fic writers are nothing if not getting high on our own supply). It genuinely has some of the most realistic sex scenes I've ever seen in a film (MAYBE I'M JUST WATCHING THE WRONG MOVIES?? IDK, LMAO) & they're so visceral it borders on hard to watch, because of how voyeuristic it is. Idk. Maybe other people wouldn't have that view on it if they've never hooked up with a paunchy middle-aged alcoholic with a wallet chain & a blue-collar job he sucks at on a couch in a house that's both too small & too big at the same time---IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY ON A WEEKDAY NO LESS---but if they do I don't want to know them.

Then much like Lost Boys 2: The Tribe (another one of my Top 10 of all time), the last 30-ish minutes of this movie devolve into an Easter Egg hunt for diehard Cageiacs: his jackets, his shoes, reading his IRL poetry book/memoir thing while doing the nasty; culminating in a ~peak Cage Rage~ meltdown when it all goes off the rails where he's having a full-fledged menty b talking to the air (while everyone else has a Mexican standoff directly over his head) & crawling around on the floor in leather pants--sobbing--clutching a jack-in-the-box before he self-immolates, like. Literally self-immolates, I'm not even being metaphoric. He's also self-immolating (Cage Style™️) but no, the lighting himself on fire with the power of bad CGI (while he stands there Emoting; looking appropriately Tortured not because he's on fire but because he's a man that's so full of feelings) definitely happens. It is, in a word, a perfect film. He chokes the mom in a hospital stairwell! It is so deeply erotic I was squirming!! THE WHOLE MOVIE IS SO HORNED UP & FOR WHAT REASON. I don't know, I don't care, I adore it. HE GETS HOSED DOWN WITH A GARDEN HOSE WET TSHIRT STYLE BY THE-DAUGHTER-WHO-HIS-DEAD-WIFE'S-POSSESSING!!! IN SLOW-MO!!!!! WHILE MARILYN MANSON'S COVER OF "I PUT A SPELL ON YOU" (THE FIRST NON-AMBIENT MUSIC IN THE MOVIE!!!!! 2/3 OF THE WAY IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) PLAYS AT JET TAKEOFF VOLUMES.

I don't know who made this movie, but they are a genius & for as allegedly tired of playing scumbags as Nicolas Cage is, he looks like he's having the time of his life cutting loose.

It's a window into another world---one where anyone could have a crack at this deeply broken man who's still sparking with raw magnetism & amphetamine-dipped in line cook rizz & basically alternating between hanging himself & humping the furniture, waiting for ANYONE to come along & say "I could fix him"---and it is perfect.

Top 10 of all time, because my taste is bad & I know it. Top 5 Cages for sure. God bless him.

BUDDY YOU WANTED SEX SCENES?? WE GOT SEX SCENES!!

[dankusner]

Don Graham The best Texas movies on tape.

Giant

1956 Warner Bros. 3:21

Director: George Stevens

Writers: Fred Guiol, Ivan Moffett

Starring: Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Carroll Baker, Jane Withers, Chill Wills, Mercedes McCambridge, Dennis Hopper, Sal Mineo, Rod Taylor, Earl Holliman

Although it takes a big chunk of time to watch this big film about Texas back when things were right and the Lone Star State was the biggest state in the U.S. of A., one’s time is well spent, because Giant, by Gawd, has everything: lusty ranchers, colorful wheeler-dealers, acres of cattle, tacky clothes, tacky mansions, miles of gorgeous emptiness, a thumping rendition of “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” and a liberal heart-on-its-sleeve subtext about Mexican-Anglo relations. The cast is stupendous: as Bick Benedict, Rock Hudson when he stood foursquare for macho manliness, Elizabeth Taylor at her loveliest even when those barbaric Texans serve up barbecued calves’ brains, Dennis Hopper as Bick’s wimpy son, Mercedes McCambridge as Bick’s sister with the bark on, and, in his last and one of his finest roles, James Dean as Jett Rink, the dirt-poor redneck with a yen for the better things who gets stinking rich and tries to put his brand, JR (please note), on everything in Texas. Required viewing for each new generation of natives and snowbirds.

Red River

1948 MGM-UA 2:05 B&W

Director: Howard Hawks

Writer: Borden Chase

Starring: John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Joanne Dru, Walter Brennan, Coleen Gray, John Ireland, Noah Berry, Jr., Shelley Winters, Harry Carey, Sr., Harry Carey, Jr.

The visual elements inherent in cattle drives go back to the roots of the cinema. Thomas Edison’s boys shot footage in 1898 with titles like “Branding Cattle,” “Cattle Leaving the Corral,” and “Cattle Fording Stream.” All through the silent period and into the bang-bang era of the thirties westerns, Hollywood tried to make the cattle drive story into a national epic. Finally, in 1948, Howard Hawks got it right, with his stirring, powerful, unforgettable big-budget extravaganza based on a Mutiny on the Bounty plot. In one of his best roles, John Wayne plays Tom Dunson, a pioneering rancher forced by post–Civil War hard times to find a market for his cattle up north. Along the trail he clashes with most of the men under his hire and especially with his foundling son, Matthew Garth (Montgomery Clift), who eventually takes the herd away from his tyrannical father. At the end of this one, you feel gritty, and there’s a great rousing fight that allows the two warring males to realize they actually love each other. Peter Bogdanovich paid homage to Red River in The Last Picture Show.

The Last Picture Show

1971 RCA/Columbia 1:78 B&W

Director: Peter Bogdanovich

Writers: Peter Bogdanovich, Larry McMurtry

Starring: Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman, Ellen Burstyn, Cybill Shepherd, Eileen Brennan, Clu Gulager, Sam Bottoms, Randy Quaid

A black and white tone poem about teenage lust and love in a dusty, desiccated, flyblown Texas town. Many memorable moments. Among them: Sensitive high school boy makes love to sad, lonely wife of jock-scratching football coach; Cybil Shepherd strips on a diving board to prove she’s in deep with a fast Wichita Falls crowd; and Ben Johnson, who won an Oscar for best supporting actor, every time he is on the screen. To see how good this film is and how far former wunderkind Peter Bogdanovich has tumbled, tune in to Texasville (1990), a boring, inept update of what has happened to the characters since the early fifties. Except for Jeff Bridges’ rather endearing performance as a Duane grown grayish and paunchy, this dreadful film about middle-aged love and forgiveness is as punchless as Texas’ sesquicentennial celebration.

Bonnie and Clyde

1967 Warner Bros. 1:47

Director: Arthur Penn

Writers: David Newman, Robert Benton

Starring: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons

It was all style then, and it’s all style now, this artsy look at the live-hard, die-young lives of Texas’ most famous outlaw team. Warren Beatty’s Clyde is infectiously watchable, with lots of cocky posturing and some nifty “business,” such as his love affair with a cigarette, and a raffish Faye Dunaway, whose portrayal of Bonnie seems, as the years pass, more and more like a takeoff, before the fact, of that big, horsey, blond model Jerry Hall’s rise to fame. Everything in this film is for fun, even the close-up red splatters of people’s faces exploding. The violence is supposed to make us aware that, hey, these young kids are dangerous, but what we really hope for is that Bonnie and Clyde will be just like Burt Reynolds’ Smokey of the next decade, always escaping from the Rangers and high sheriffs. Wonderful Depression-era compositions: Okies boiling coffee in tin cans, farms foreclosed on, and Bonnie and Clyde, dressed to the nines, cavorting in Texas fields. In real life, Clyde once wrote a charming thank-you letter to the Ford Motor Company for building such a fine automobile that allowed him to pull his bank jobs, and this film captures that exuberance and panache very nicely indeed.

The Wild Bunch

1969 Warner Bros. 2:07

Director: Sam Peckinpah

Writers: Sam Peckinpah, Walon Green, Roy N. Sickner, Lee Marvin (uncredited)

Starring: William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O’Brien, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Jaime Sanchez, Strother Martin, L. Q. Jones, Albert Dekker, Bo Hopkins, Emilio Fernandez, Dub Taylor

The closest the western has come to creating tragic emotions, this ultraviolent film has been denounced for bloody amoralism, exploitative sexism, and just about every other ism you care to name. Still, it’s a great film. The opening sequence, a slaughter of the innocents in a little South Texas border town, precipitates the outlaw gang’s flight into Mexico, where they encounter a beautifully conceived tapestry of opposites: a pastoral Mexican village juxtaposed with a corrupt city ruled by an unholy alliance of Mexican despots and German advisers. The time is revolutionary 1913. In sequence after sequence, Peckinpah depicts the gang’s sense of the end of an era that might have been bloodthirsty, whoremongering, and deadly, but one curiously more honorable and meaningful than what faces them as the twentieth century wheels toward its mass-murder destiny. The final Götterdämmerung is one of the profoundly moving sequences in American film history, as a weary, battered William Holden leads his men to retrieve their comrade angel, the only idealist left in Mexico or Texas, we are to believe. Editing, composition, music, acting, directing, all are superb.

Blood Simple

1984 MCA 1:36

Director: Joel Coen

Writers: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Starring: John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, Samm-Art Williams, M. Emmet Walsh

Honky-tonk film noir shot in Austin on a modest budget by Joel and Ethan Coen, the boy wonders who went on to make such talked-about movies as Raising Arizona and Miller’s Crossing. A lean, twisted, devious story of motel love, revenge, double cross, a buried-alive body, and knife-through-the-hand pain. Three terrific characters: a leisure-suited, VW-driving sleazeball of a private detective played by veteran backgrounder M. Emmet Walsh in the role of his life; a snarling, angry, betrayed husband played by Dan Hedaya; and a smart, resourceful, and appealing young woman played by Frances McDormand, the only survivor. She looks absolutely real, the kind of vulnerable beauty you might run into in an all-night laundromat, not one of your big-time Hollywood fake-looking beauties. Contains wonderful voice-over narration; worth seeing (or hearing) just for such lines as these: “In Russia they got it mapped out, so that everyone pulls for everyone else. That’s the theory, anyway. But what I know about is Texas, and down here you’re on your own.”

The Getaway

1972 Warner Bros. 2:02

Director: Sam Peckinpah

Writer: Walter Hill

Starring: Steve McQueen, Ali MacGraw, Ben Johnson, Sally Strothers, Al Lettieri, Slim Pickens

Sam Peckinpah discovered down-and-dirty noir novelist Jim Thompson years before the current spate of Thompson-based films like After Dark, My Sweet, and The Grifters. The Getaway is a stylish robber-chase film shot on location in, among other Texas sites, San Marcos and El Paso. Steve McQueen is great, Ali MacGraw isn’t (some things never change), and Slim Pickens shows up at the end as a drawling Texas angel presiding over the outlaw pair’s happy-ending escape into Mexico. Dub Taylor puts in a brilliant appearance as a “juicer” desk clerk at a seedy El Paso hotel. A highly watchable film—with Peckinpah’s signature command of involving, kinetic camera work and dreamlike violence.

Terms of Endearment

1983 Paramount 2:12

Director: James L. Brooks

Writers: Larry McMurtry, James L. Brooks

Starring: Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger, Jack Nicholson, Jeff Daniels, John Lithgow, Danny DeVito

Shot in Houston, this film turns the Bayou City into a coastal suburbia, but never mind, the real interest lies in the dynamics of a terrific till-death-do-us-part mother-daughter relationship between Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger, with Jack Nicholson’s randy retired-astronaut character thrown in to liven up the neighborhood. Much thinner in Texas ambience than the Larry McMurtry novel on which it was based, Terms goes for the heart, creating an authentic tearjerker that audiences seem to love, whether they’ve ever heard of Texas or not. Harrowing hospital scenes in the cancer ward would wring tears from a serial killer. On the minor side, Jeff Daniels’ excellent portrayal of the grubby graduate student–English professor, Hap, is surpassed only by the gaggle of English professors in D.O.A. (1988), including one who commits murder to get tenure.

The Searchers

1956 Warner Bros. 1:39

Director: John Ford

Writer: Richard Carr

Starring: John Wayne, Natalie Wood, Vera Miles, Jeffrey Hunter, Ward Bond, John Qualen

One of the most influential movies in recent American cinematic history, according to such directors as Martin Scorsese and Michael Cimino. This film’s master plot—a young girl taken captive by the enemy, the racial Other—underlies the dynamics of such celebrated works as Taxi Driver and The Deer Hunter. Impelled by Shakespearean-sized emotions and an epic visual style, it has three flaws: the dreadful score and nonperiod music; the too-broad bumpkin comedy of Ken Curtis’ role; and another broad stereotypical comic subplot involving a fat Comanche woman named Look, who tags along after Jeffrey Hunter. Otherwise the film is operatically powerful and compelling. It is also final proof, if any were needed, of John Wayne’s consummate ability as a screen actor. His hatred of Indians makes us believe that he will kill his niece (Natalie Wood), whom he has spent eight obsessive years trying to rescue from Comanche captors, only at the last instant to clasp her in an all-forgiving embrace. Jean-Luc Godard, the French auteur, has spoken memorably of the moment: “How can I hate John Wayne upholding Goldwater and yet love him tenderly when abruptly he takes Natalie Wood into his arms in the last reel of The Searchers?” The metaphysics of family, race, and destiny has rarely been portrayed as powerfully in American films.

Tender Mercies

1983 HBO 1:20

Director: Bruce Beresford

Writer: Horton Foote

Starring: Robert Duvall, Tess Harper, Allan Hubbard, Betty Buckley, Ellen Barkin, Wilford Brimley

In my opinion, the best of Horton Foote’s numerous essays in Texas filmmaking, this quiet study of a country and western singer on the skids has an authentic flat-landscape feel to it that you need when you’re telling the truth about lives that are as plain as hillbilly ballads. Robert Duvall is simply superb as Mac Sledge, both in his thirties-tough Senecan acceptance of life’s hard knocks and his twangy accent, which is the best rendition of East Texas idiom ever recorded in a feature film. Duvall, who sings his own songs in a perfect-pitch C&W whine, invents a country singer far better than real stars such as Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristoffersen in their Texas movies. Tess Harper is convincing in a stand-by-your-man role typical of the culture being dramatized.

Hud

1963 Paramount 1:32 B&W

Director: Martin Ritt

Writers: Irving Ravetch, Harriet Frank

Starring: Paul Newman, Patricia Neal, Melvyn Douglas, Brandon de Wilde, John Ashley, Whit Bissell

Dating faster than you’d expect, but still riveting in a number of scenes, this adaptation of Larry McMurtry’s first novel offers us Paul Newman at his hungry, sad, sexy, existential best. He looks great in this film and, unlike wide-gauged co-star Brandon de Wilde, knows how to wear jeans—and walk. De Wilde’s portrayal of the sensitive-young-male-as-proto-English-major looks weaker upon every viewing. Even worse is the treacly Academy Award–winning performance of the old rancher, Melvyn Douglas, whose sanctimonious uprightness makes him seem like an aged Bill Moyers, always talking about ethics this and principles that. As any hands-on ranch owner knows, there’s no such thing as the good old days in the ranching ethos. At the close, though we’re not supposed to, we end up rooting for Hud to screw everybody, because the film is so nauseatingly smug in championing the simple virtues of soil over oil. James Wong Howe’s austere rendition of Texas landscapes, in art house black and white, remains one of the film’s distinct pleasures.

Urban Cowboy

1980 Paramount 2:15

Director: James Bridges

Writers: James Bridges, Aaron Latham

Starring: John Travolta, Debra Winger, Scott Glenn, Madolyn Smith, Barry Corbin

Okay, so Gilley’s is history, reduced to ashes, and the urban cowboy phenom is as dead as the California medfly, so who cares anymore about this Texas version of Saturday Night Virus? All right, so John Travolta is a lily-livered disco dancer from Jersey. This is still a fetching film for one reason alone: Debra Winger as the sexy, soulful Sissy, a working-class Texas girl who drives a tow truck for her daddy and slow dances at Gilley’s every night. All right, so the plot is stupid and improbable, with a villain imported from Huntsville who dresses in black and eats the worm from a tequila bottle. Yeah, so the whole thing is like a mall western, with most scenes taking place inside the boring, cavernous confines of an overrated dance hall. Sure, there is not one good or authentic country and western song in the entire movie. But there’s still Debra Winger riding that mechanical bull as it was meant to be rode.

Written on the Wind

1956 MCA 1:39

Director: Douglas Sirk

Writer: George Zuckerman

Starring: Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, Robert Keith, Grant Williams

“A splashy sudser,” Variety might have called this knowing melodrama. Fifties audiences wept at the soap opera theatrics of the plot and players, young viewers today laugh at the doings of the rich and impotent, and high-brow cineasts continue to celebrate this film as European-born Sirk’s masterpiece. As in Giant, released the same year, Rock Hudson plays a virtuous Texan, only this time he’s as solemn as a stone. The stand-out performances are those of Robert Stack, a rich playboy scion of an East Texas oil family who falls in love with Lauren Bacall only to have this saving marriage go sour when he proves unable to father a child, and Dorothy Malone as Stack’s sister, a spoiled rich girl who sleeps around because her true love, Rock Hudson, won’t give her the time of day. Eventually the good but boring couple, Hudson and Bacall, are married, while the bad brother-sister combo ends up with the male dead and the female inheriting the family oil empire. Malone won an Oscar for her flamboyant portrayal of sexual energy on the edge of hysteria. The film is full of phallic symbolism (all those oil derricks, don’t you know), emotional posturing, and canny cinematic riffs.

The Sugarland Express

1974 MCA 1:49

Director: Steven Spielberg

Writers: Hal Barwood, Matthew Robbins

Starring: Goldie Hawn, Ben Johnson, Michael Sacks, William Atherton, Gregory Walcott, Louise Latham

There’s a gritty, realistic feel to this chase film, directed by Steven Spielberg back before he became the purveyor of E.T. and other fantasy-based fluff. Drawn from a true story, the movie tells of a young mother who in 1969 helped her husband escape from prison. Their goal: to rescue baby Langston, their two-year-old, who has been placed in a foster home by state authorities. Hawn’s Lou Jean is a honey-voiced live wire, an appealing and resourceful survivor; her husband, played by Atherton, has that doomed look about him. The interaction between the couple and the young cop whose car they confiscate is affecting. The movie’s tone keeps the pace light, as though these are just kids on a lark, and by the time they reach Sugar Land, where the baby now lives, they are celebrities cheered by throngs of admiring small-town people. The carnival atmosphere is counterpointed beautifully by Ben Johnson’s law enforcement officer, a sad-faced man who has to make the decision to employ the expertise of two deadly sharpshooters to end the chase once and for all. This video is not so easy to locate in stores: I found it in the Best Moms in Movies section.

The Border

1982 MCA 1:47

Director: Tony Richardson

Writers: Deric Washburn, Walon Green, David Freeman

Starring: Jack Nicholson, Valerie Perrine, Harvey Keitel, Warren Oates, Elpidia Carrillo

A modern western with Nicholson turning in a brilliant performance as a border patrol officer named Charlie assigned to duty in El Paso. The drama of his efforts to resist corruption is the center of this film. His tempters include Harvey Keitel, an engaging good ol’ boy on the take, and Valerie Perrine, Charlie’s sexy, gum-chewing, K mart–shopping wife, who longs to be a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader and spends every penny he makes on trashy waterbeds and tacky sofas. Reluctantly, Charlie accepts the skewed ethics of an everybody-does-it-so-why-not-you system that preys on the dreams of illegal aliens seeking to come to America, but eventually his redemption comes in the form of another woman, an illegal alien, a lovely madonna from Mexico whose baby is stolen by an adoption ring. Though the plot device of the hardened law officer being softened by a mother and baby is as old as William S. Hart’s films, there is enough fast-paced action and hard-bitten location shooting along the Texas-Mexico border to disguise the number being done on our emotions. But most of all, there is Nicholson’s stubborn, convincing refusal to give up his fundamental decency. Note: Since many of the early scenes take place at night, for maximum clarity it’s especially important to secure a good video copy.

Talk Radio

1988 MCA 1:50

Director: Oliver Stone

Writers: Eric Bogosian, Oliver Stone

Starring: Eric Bogosian, Ellen Greene, Leslie Hope, Alec Baldwin, John C. McGinley, John Pankow

An edgy, unnerving look at the creeps, crazies, and merely neurotic citizens who call in to radio talk shows to relay their demented philosophies of what’s wrong with America. Drawing upon a real case in Denver in which talk show host Alan Berg was murdered, Oliver Stone, following the lead of scriptwriter and star Eric Bogosian, switches the setting to Dallas, with chilling atmospherics the result. Stone takes the closed-in world of a radio broadcast booth and, by means of fluid, searching camera movements and angles, creates a vibrant nighttime of paranoid aggression. The hero is immensely unlikable, part of the point, and the disembodied voices that float in the Dallas night are truly scary. One of Stone’s best films because, narratively, he’s not in it and therefore not hammering away in his usual preachy manner.

The Thin Blue Line

1988 Facets 1:36

Director: Errol Morris

Interviewees: Randall Adams, David Harris, Edith James, Dennis White, Sam Kittrell

A film that really matters: It led to the release from prison of a man who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In 1976 Randall Adams, a drifter, was knocking around Dallas when a policeman stopped the car he had been riding in earlier that night. What happened next is the subject of the film. Either Adams or his companion that night, David Harris, murdered the policeman with a handgun. Harris fingered Adams, and Adams got a death sentence. Through a variety of documentary and quasi-documentary techniques, filmmaker Errol Morris reconstructs the case. We witness real-life interviews done in a stark, face-on style; see dramatic reenactments of the episodes surrounding the murder, including some events staged from different points of view; stare mesmerized at close-up objects—guns, clocks, places; and, in certain nonrealistic moments, watch in wonder as a soft-drink cup spirals upward in slow motion. The result is a highly original blend of documentary and detective story. The end is both satisfactory and alarming as we become convinced that Adams is innocent and Harris, now in prison himself for another murder, is guilty of the crime that put an innocent man in prison for eleven years.

True Stories

1986 Warner Bros. 1:51

Director: David Byrne

Writers: Stephen Tobolowsky, Beth Henley, David Byrne

Starring: David Byrne, John Goodman, Swoosie Kurtz, Spalding Gray, Annie McEnroe, Jo Harvey Allen

Since the great state of Texas didn’t do anything memorable to commemorate its sesquicentennial except wallow in an economic nosedive, it remained for David Byrne to take up the slack. In True Stories Byrne, the genius of the thinking-man’s rock group, the Talking Heads, measures the metaphysical pulse of “a bunch of people in Virgil, Texas,” an imaginary small town that is preparing a celebration of its “specialness” in the year of the sesquicentennial. What’s particularly special about this hard-to-classify film is the sweet tone of discovery that informs the point of view. Byrne, wearing a wacky black ten-gallon hat and sporting a look of perpetually bemused wonder, takes us on guided tours of boxlike buildings that contain the mysteries of computer chips, to the edge of suburban developments beyond which lie prairies that will be converted to who knows what, to the candy- and magazine-strewn bedside of a lady so rich that she lives in her bed. Using an unpredictable, arrhythmic mix of documentary, amateur theatrics, surrealism, and droll comedy, Byrne somehow, despite a few flat sequences, manages to keep us interested and along the way to give us a unique look at the places and spaces we inhabit in modern Texas. The music, mostly from the Talking Heads, is also a plus.

Fandango

1985 Warner Bros. 1:31

Director: Kevin Reynolds

Writer: Kevin Reynolds

Starring: Kevin Costner, Sam Robards, Judd Nelson, Chuck Bush, Brian Cesak, Marvin J. McIntyre, Suzy Amis

In a place as big as Texas, there has to be a road movie, and this is it. In May 1971, five University of Texas frat rats leave the wreckage of their last bash, pile in a car, and head west, their mission to dig up a bottle of Dom Perignon they buried in the desert. Adventures and youthful philosophizing ensue. Vietnam, careers, marriage, and flight from all three are much on their minds. Near Marfa, they pay homage to the collapsed pile of Bick Benedict’s mansion on the Worth Evans Ranch, where Giant was filmed. The movie mixes moments like this with adolescent pranks, making for an uneven but energetic film of special interest because of the stars-to-be cast. Kevin Costner, engaging and likable before he became the nineties icon of western soft-focus ecological rectitude, is the leader of the pack. Judd Nelson is so wimpy and unlikable, you wonder why they took him along. Director Reynolds, who began this project as a student film, may join his pal Costner as a major Hollywood property if their Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves is as big a hit this summer as expected.

The Zapruder Film

1963 The JFK Assassination Center 22 seconds

Although not available in video stores, this 8mm color home movie of the murder of President Kennedy is the most widely viewed and analyzed strip of film in Texas history. While the Warren Commission used it to support its lone-assassin theory, critics of the commission say the film proves just the opposite. The film has done more than any other single piece of evidence to keep the controversy alive. The JFK Assassination Center (603 Munger, Suite 310, Box 40, Dallas 75202) has a silent, eleven-minute video for sale for $29.95.

The most promising unfinished project is The Gay Place. Billie Lee Brammer’s 1961 novel about a Texas governor based on Lyndon B. Johnson’s politics and personality, observed up close by aide Brammer, might have made a splendid movie. In 1963 Paul Newman was set to star as Roy Sherwood, a South Texas liberal who learns the art of the possible in an apprenticeship to colorful, larger-than-life Governor Arthur “Goddam” Fenstemaker (Jackie Gleason was to play the role). Newman would have coproduced with Martin Ritt, who directed him that same year in Hud. Budgeted at $3 million, the film had large ambitions. A location rep for Columbia who came to Austin to scout sites told the press: “This is a big picture. We wanted to give it a great deal of scope, such as the book has, and we needed the wide open spaces of Texas for that.” But like so many projects in Hollywood, this one was not to be. Events in Dallas later that year spelled the end of any immediate possibility of seeing The Gay Place on-screen. Now Brammer’s daughters, Sidney and Shelby, have written a new screenplay, titled Big State, and hope to begin shooting next spring.

Don Graham, an English professor at the University of Texas, is the author of, most recently, No Name on the Bullet: A Biography of Audie Murphy.

[prapasara]

Fried Dandelion Flowers

 Fried Dandelion Flowers

With his thinning hair, slightly paunchy figure and unassuming manner, my 10th grade biology teacher wasn’t the kind of guy to win a teacher-of-the year contest. But to a 16-year-old boy he held a certain fascination. Dr. Bob showed us how to smell (or not smell) the contents of an unmarked bottle: fanning his fingers over the open cap and standing back comically so as not to inhale directly any unknown contents. And he had a weird habit of addressing us all by our first and last names, run together as one word. What clinched it for me, however, was the edible wild plant project he assigned to me that spring.

‘DonHogeland,’ he said one afternoon as he was hanging up his lab coat. ‘I’d love to give you an ‘A’, but you’re a good two percentage points away. For that, I’ll have to think up something big.’ 

The next day, Dr. Bob dumped a package of half-sheet newsletters on my desk.

Thus began my weekly demonstrations on the uses of edible wild plants. The newsletters came from Dr. Bob’s hometown in Maine, so not all the plants described were available in Eastern Pennsylvania. But I persevered. One week we had a salad made with wild mustard greens, another the tender fiddleheads of some local ferns sautéed in butter. My one near-failure was a tea made with last year’s sumac flowers, which gave off the flavor of old socks and floor sweepings. In response, there were many rumblings of dissatisfaction around the room.  At the very last second one kid leapt to his feet raving about it (thanks, DaveKustin!) and so I got credit in the end. Dr. Bob stood to one side mildly grinning.

My greatest success was with Fried Dandelions. Just the flower heads – dipped in batter, fried and sprinkled with powdered sugar. They had a flavor somewhere between artichoke and arugula, and for novelty factor were a real hit. Before I knew it, I was making a second and then a third batch as news spread to other classes on the hall.

I don’t remember whether I bagged my ‘A’ or not. What I do know is those brochures sparked an interest in my seeing the natural world as an outdoor grocery store that I hold to this day. Now, when I pluck a wild northwest mushroom from the woods, I see in my mind’s eye Dr. Bob’s understated grin of approval, and it takes me right back. 

As for dandelions? You can curse their appearance, or seize the moment to enjoy these first-of-the-season beauties. And what better way to get back at them for their peskiness? Go on; fry them up and eat them! Here’s my recipe.  

Fried Dandelion Flowers

🌼 Makes 36 fritters

🌼 3 dozen medium-sized dandelion flowers (see note)

🌼 ½ cup all-purpose flour

🌼 1 teaspoon baking powder

🌼 ¼ teaspoon salt

🌼 2 teaspoons of sugar

🌼 4 Tablespoons of water

🌼 5 Tablespoons of milk

🌼 ½ cup canola oil for frying

🌼 1-2 teaspoons of powdered sugar to finish

Dandelion note: The best dandelions for this are young, tender and medium-sized (about 1” across). Pick them from a lawn or bank that you know has not been sprayed with weed killer. They’re at their freshest in the late morning when they first open to the sun. Oh, and they’re packed with vitamins, too!

Make the batter: In a shallow mixing bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar together well with a fork. Now gradually stir in the water and milk to create a smooth batter. Work out the lumps and scrape the sides as necessary.

Prepare the dandelions: Trim the milky stems right to the base of the flower, leaving the green bud intact. From this point on, you’ll want to avoid licking your fingers both for hygiene reasons and because the taste of the raw milk is mighty bitter! Don’t say I didn’t warn you…

Heat the oil: Pour the canola oil into an 8” frying pan and heat it slowly over medium heat. The oil will be ready when a test dollop of batter cooks to medium brown on the bottom in 30 seconds. Arrange a plate with two layers of paper towel beside the pan and have a spatula and a pair of tongs handy.

Make the fritters: Dip 6 dandelions at a time yellow-side down into the batter, using the green knobs as handles. Quickly fork a little of the batter onto the green bits, but don’t try to coat the backs entirely.

Put the 6 battered flowers face down into the hot oil so that they keep their flower shapes and fry for 30 seconds until medium brown. Now flip them over, pushing the tops gently with the spatula as the green sides cook, and fry for a further 30 seconds.

Using the tongs, remove the fritters to the paper towel to cool. Repeat the process until all the flowers are fried.

To finish: Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve warm.

And as you bite in, I want to ask you the same question I asked my 10th grade friends on that day so many years ago: Can you believe that anything so weed-like as a dandelion can taste so good? Yum!

CR   ::   http://www.woodfiredkitchen.com/?p=2102

[project1939]

200 Films of 1952

Film number 191: Lo Sceicco Bianco (aka, The White Sheik)

Release date: September 20th, 1952 

Studio: P.D.C. 

Genre: comedy 

Director: Federico Fellini 

Producer: Luigi Rovere 

Actors: Alberto Sordi, Leopoldo Trieste, Brunella Bovo, Giulietta Masina 

Plot Summary: Ivan and Wanda are newlyweds honeymooning in Rome. Wanda is a dreamy young woman obsessed with soap opera photo comics of the day, and when she has the chance, she sneaks off to meet her ultimate romantic crush, The White Sheik. Events conspire to keep her from getting back to the hotel to be with her frantic husband, who has a prestigious bourgeois family waiting to meet his new bride.  

My Rating (out of five stars): ****¾  

I was eagerly anticipating this because I remembered it vividly from my film school days. I think I enjoyed it even more on the second viewing. It’s a quintessential lighter Fellini film with an eccentric kind of charming chaos and his trademark circusy feel. Underneath all the wild weirdness, though, there’s a lot of kindness and humanity. It’s not a serious film trying to make any grand statement, but for what it is, it’s a nearly perfect little film. 

The Good: 

Brunella Bovo as Wanda. The way she played an innocent sensitive starry-eyed girl made me giggle one moment and sympathize with her the next. Her eyes were so expressive, they slayed me. 

Leopoldo Trieste as Ivan. Oh my god, this guy! If you want to see an example of perfect comedic reaction shots, look at this. He was so good at playing a kind of dorky sheltered guy thrown into the craziest and most stressful situation at the absolute worst time.

Alberto Sordi as The White Sheik. I seriously liked the fact that he was kind of a schlub! He wasn’t extremely handsome, he was kind of paunchy, and he was just ok. That worked beautifully here for the comedy and critique of the industry. 

Giulietta Masina! Giulietta Masina! I love her, I love her, I love her. If I had to make a list of my favorite actors, she’d probably be in my top five. She’s so unique, she has enough charisma to fill an ocean, and she can rip your heart out or make you laugh with just a look. All of this was on display in the precious few minutes of screen time she had here. I couldn't take my eyes off her!

There was a little boy who played one of Ivan’s relatives, and something about his appearance just melted my heart. He wasn’t a flawlessly beautiful child actor- he looked like a real unpolished kid, and the imperfection was both adorable and funny. Just another example of the way Fellini was a master at casting. 

This is probably redundant considering answers 1-5, but the casting in this was bloody perfect! 

There were lots of wonderful colorful minor characters- the writer of the stories who Wanda first meets, the cranky female lead actress, The White Sheik’s wife, the two prostitutes... 

The music in it was SO Fellini. It sounded almost like circus music sometimes, and it was full of a sprightly, lilting, bounciness that was perfect for a slightly absurd comedy. 

The look it gave us into the world of 1950s Italian photo comics was really cool. The humorous evisceration of it all was fun. 

This was the first film Fellini directed alone, and so much of his genius was already apparent here. It’s visually interesting in a way that's different from a lot of the Neo-Realism that was happening in Italy at the time, but it borrows some from it as well. He’s one of those directors who is good at using every element to serve the story. All of his quirks heighten the story and emotion of the film.

The image I remembered most from my initial viewing of the film was The White Sheik's introduction where he was swinging on a huge swing high up in the sky. It was just as insanely delicious and odd when I saw it today!

The final lines. Fellini really knows how to deliver a moving line of dialogue and then punctuate it with humor. 

The Bad: 

 I don’t always love the way Italian films of this time shot without sound and layered everything in later. Sometimes it works and feels ever so Classic Italian Cinema, which was some of the best in world, but sometimes it can be a bit distracting. In this film it was kind of a mix for me.  

[yoramkelmer]

Hogwarts Overexposed Chapter 12: Follow the Money Trail

Finally, we have reached the chapter where the most infamous shit of the fic and the Saga as a whole begins.

And I love how in a fic thats called "Salazars return", Salazar Slytherins actual return isnt the thing the fic is most notorious for.

When we last left off, the American students from the Salem Witches Institute have arrived, and Emily seemingly had an accident.

"I'm okay, at least thus far," Emily exclaimed, "but don't worry about me. Look at the American team." "What about the American team?" Kim turned her attention to the advancing group. "Oh my god, they all look like they're parading about in their underwear," Kim exclaimed aghast. "Plus, their robes look more like capes. Are they all dressed to look like Superman and Wonder Woman for Halloween?"

Like other sporkers noted, the references to Superman and Wonder Woman aren´t as out of place as they first would seem, as Kim is Muggle-born and Emily was raised in the Muggle World. "Their attire is outlandish," Emily agreed, "but that's not what I'm referring to. Look at the boy in the last pairing; the one walking beside the nice-looking blonde."

Who could it be? Kim looked in the direction Emily had indicated and then froze. The boy and girl appeared to be very embarrassed by their garb, but at the same time were talking and pointing animatedly at the castle, obviously extremely impressed with Hogwarts. Kim immediately recognized the boy; they had become good friends on the cruise. "It's Brian," Kim said in a stunned voice, as the American group passed. "He's a wizard!"

I honestly can´t get over how she´s so surprised over something that´s been foreshadowed to the point it could be seen as a parody of foreshadowing.

"Only witches and wizards can turn into ghosts" - how would a in-Universe Muggle know that? Kim and Emily filed back up the steps with the other Hogwarts students and then, for Emily's sake, made a hurried pit stop in the nearest girls' bathroom before entering the Great Hall and sitting down for the Halloween Feast. The students from Salem had chosen seats at the Hufflepuff table. They all sat discomfitly looking around the Great Hall with overwhelmed expressions on their faces.

Be prepared for a cliché-storm incoming.

By the time the first Hogwarts Exposed fic was written, the whole trope of "American exchange students at Hogwarts had already become almost a parody of itself. The Great Hall, as usual, was decorated festively for Halloween. Pumpkins hanging in mid air illuminated the hall as thousands of live bats fluttered about. Occasionally the bats swooped over the tables in low black clouds.

Ah, the rare instance of actual descriptions of things. "Why is Filch adding three chairs to the staff table?" Kim wondered aloud.

Kim, why are you surprised by that? "Not sure," answered Emily. "One might be for that paunchy person that accompanied the American team. I can't imagine whom the other two are for."

This is the first time that person is actually mentioned.

And yes, I had to check the previous sections and the last part of the last chapter to make sure I didn´t miss anything.

Once the students had all settled down at the House tables, the staff entered and filled the top table. Kim's question concerning the extra chairs was soon answered. Snape entered follow by Percy Weasley, the American chaperone and ...a third person that appeared to be neither a man nor a woman.

Aaaaaaand this is where the person actually gets mentioned - it seems that Neil simply can´t write.

As if we didn´t get that the previous two fics.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, ghosts and guests," said Snape. "I hope your stay with us will be most enjoyable. The contest will officially open at the end of tonight's feast. Now, please, eat, drink, and make yourselves comfortable"

"I wonder how far we're allowed to go in regards to making ourselves comfortable?" Emily asked with a laugh.

I´m surprised it took this long to get a nudism reference in this chapter.

"Not as far as you'd like," Kim said as the plates in front of them filled with food. The house elves in the kitchen had once again outdone themselves; there was a much larger than normal variety of dishes to select from.

Dishes we won´t get to know exactly.

"I can't get over the fact that Brian is a wizard," Kim exclaimed.

You already said that.

"I can't get over the getup that he and the others are wearing," Emily said. "That can't possibly be their school uniform. It must be a special costume for the events, but who would pick such awful outfits?"

"Maybe that person sitting to the left of Professor Snape," Kim suggested. "Is that a very feminine man or an extremely homely woman?"

And for the sake of funny, I´m gonna imagine that person to look like Divine.

Emily shrugged her shoulders. "I'm not sure which would be worse."

.....why would either be bad in the first place?

Yeah, it´s just Neils homophobia again.

As they ate, most of the students seemed to be nervous and constantly watching the staff table with anticipation.

"Is it just me or is this feast taking a great deal longer than usual?" Caitlin asked as she played with her food.

"I think everyone is eager for the selection of the team to take place," Jamie answered. "Look! Filch is bringing in the goblet. It shouldn't be much longer."

Come to think of it, I don´t think Filch is appearing again after this chapter.

"What qualities do you imagine the goblet will be looking for?" Caitlin asked. "I would imagine that seventh years would have a much better chance of being selected."

Way to tempt fate, Caitlin.

"Not necessarily," Jamie said. "A team needs members with varying talents and abilities."

Talents and abilities that never really will get shown, apart from showing that Jamie Sue is always right.

Finally the golden plates returned to their original spotless state and Snape stood up. Tension seemed to fill the hall. "The time has come to select the Hogwarts team, but before we do, a few introductions and some explanations are in order," said the Headmaster.

Does this sound like something Snape would say?

"Let me introduce our guests seated at the staff table: Mr. Percy Weasley, interim Minister of Magic" - there was polite applause - "Mr. Bud Ryan, coach for the American team" - again a polite response - "and Mr. Rishard Simone, Facilitator of Games from the International Committee of Magical Games and Sports."

"Does that answer your question?" Emily whispered to Kim. "It's a guy. A very short guy with a dyed blonde, curly Afro, fake bronze tan, tight short shorts and shaved legs."

Rishard Simone, as I learned several months after I first read the Sporkings, is seemingly a expy of Richard Simmons, for some really bizarre reason.

Despite this, I still keep imagining Rishard Simone to look like Divine for the sake of funny.

There was a louder applause for Mr. Simone than for the others, but there was also a spattering of inappropriate wolf whistles. Headmaster Snape gave the students a stern look, but it was not close to the severity with which Percy Weasley was looking at him. Obviously Percy had not appreciated being introduced as the temporary Minister of Magic.

I don´t really remember Percy appearing in the fic again after this chapter, actually.

"If that big guy is the American coach, who is the Hogwarts' coach?" Caitlin asked.

Jamie just shrugged her shoulders and put her finger to her mouth, indicating for Caitlin not to talk.

Department of redundancy department.

As per usual.

"The teams will be challenged by three tasks, spaced throughout the school year," Snape announced. "These tests will involve daring, deduction, magical prowess, danger, but most importantly they will test your ability to cooperate and function as a team.

"Now, then, before we select the team to represent Hogwarts, I would like to introduce the students from The Salem Witches' Institute representing the United States. When your name is announced, please come up to the top of the Hall and enter the chamber behind the staff table."

Btw, only two of the American students get named, the others are more or less just background characters with no purpose and personalities.

Headmaster Snape produced a sheet of paper from his pocket and started reading names. As he announced each person's name the student rose from his or her seat and proceeded toward the staff table and then the chamber. The Hogwarts students seemed to be paying little attention to the introductions; instead they were attentively staring at the American's in their revealing uniforms.

Are you beginning to notice a read thread?

"How can they breathe in those outfits?" Amanda remarked. "They almost look sprayed on."

"It would be better if they were," Jamie remarked. "At least then they could move freely about. They all seem extremely self-conscience and embraced. Embraced? How many betas were there again? That poor girl's uniform appears much too small for her," Jamie said, indicating a girl walking toward them.

"Oh my!" Amanda cried. "She has a severe camel toe."

FUCK YOU NEIL

"A what?" Caitlin whispered questioningly.

"When clothing is so tight in the crotch area that the shape of the vagina is unmistakable, it's sometimes referred to as a camel toe," Jamie enlightened her.

"What's it called for guys?" Caitlin asked, staring fixedly as a boy about her age neared them.

"Oh my god! That's Brian from the cruise. I wonder if Kim and Emily have seen him?"

What are the odds?

When Caitlin looked toward the Slytherin table, it was evident by their frantic waving and pointing that the girls had indeed noticed Brian.

After the two reserves for Salem who will never be named were announced and had entered the chamber, Snape surveyed the hall. "Now it is time for the goblet to make its decision. The first six names selected will be the team starters. The last two names will be the alternates.

Oh, this is gonna be fun. Or not.

"As your names are announced, please go through into the next chamber and wait with our American friends."

Again:

Does this remotely sound like something Snape would say?

Snape took out his wand I almost forgot this was a Harry Potter fanfic and that magic is supposed to be a thing here and gave a sweeping wave, plunging the room into a state of semidarkness. All the candles except those inside the carved pumpkins were extinguished.

How specific.

Everyone watched and waited breathlessly. The Goblet of Fire was now everyone's focal point, shining brightly with its sparkling bright, blue-white flames. Suddenly the flames inside the goblet turned red. Sparks began to fly and then a charred piece of parchment shot into the air. The entire room gasped as Snape caught the piece of parchment.

I think most of this is taken directly from the fourth book.

"The first team member for Hogwarts is from Gryffindor. Jamie Zacherley, please come forward," he announced.

Wow, what a huge surprise that the Main Sue is on the team!

"No shocker there!" So obvious that even the characters in-Universe acknowledge it. Shouted Amanda happily, as she embraced her best friend. Jamie rose from the table to a thunder of applause; ALL HAIL TO THE MARY SUE she walked hurriedly to the front of the hall, a pink glowing slasher smile on her face. Jamie walked along the staff table and then entered the door into the next chamber.

"I knew she'd make the team," Emily said proudly. "I'd love to be on it with her."

"I'm sure you'll make it," Kim said encouragingly.

I guess the fact that Emily won´t make it is supposed to be a big twist here.

As the clapping subsided, everyone again focused on the goblet, which once more turned red and shot out a second piece of parchment.

"The next member is from Hufflepuff," said Snape, "Jeffrey MacDowell."

Wow, a Hufflepuff. What a surprise.

At first Jeff remained seated as if not believing his ears. Then after prodding from his mates, he jumped to his feet and practically ran to the front of the hall.

Btw, I think it´s at this point that Neil forgot that there previously had been introduced another Jeff at the nudist cruise.

"Do you know him? What year is he in?" Caitlin inquired of Amanda.

"He's a fifth year," Amanda answered. "I don't know him that well, but he seems like an okay sort."

He´s never gonna appear again after this fic so he won´t get that much focus aside from being one of Jamies simps.

"Our third competitor is from Gryffindor, Caitlin Potter," Snape announced.

"Me!" Caitlin exclaimed. "I don't have an athletic bone in my body."

Wasnt it repeatedly stated earlier that athletics werent that relevant in the overall picture?

"Evidently the goblet thinks you can help out the team," Amanda said, beaming and giving Caitlin a quick hug.

Well, she actually does a big help in one of the tasks. A rather explosive help, if you ask me.

"Caitlin and Jamie are both on the team," Hermione said clutching Harry's hand tightly. "They're going to be thrilled when they find out that you're coaching the Hogwarts team."

"I'm worried about Emily," Harry said looking out over the hall. "With Jamie and Caitlin on the team, I'm afraid she'll be dreadfully disappointed if she doesn't make it."

Shut up, Harry Stu, the world does not revolve around that brat. Hermione nodded her head in agreement.

As usual. "Donald Thomas from Ravenclaw is next to join the team," Severus declared.

The most irrelevant character on the team, everyone. "I bet no one from Slytherin will even make the team," Kim declared. "Our house isn't exactly known for support and teamwork."

Way to tempt fate, Kim. "Didn't the Headmaster say that each house would be represented? Emily asked. Before Kim could respond, a tongue of flame shot into the air and another piece of parchment fluttered out. "From Slytherin House, Kim Thatcher," Snape declared.

Dun dunn dunnnnnn Emily hugged Kim as the Slytherin table burst into applause. "That goblet has got to be crazy," Kim said as she dizzily got to her feet and staggered toward the head table.

Yeah, I also don´t necessary get why Kim was selected, but apparently two Mary Sues on the team were not enough. The clapping hadn't yet died down when the sixth piece of parchment shot out of the goblet. "The final member of the Hogwarts starting team is..." Headmaster Snape paused, as if not believing his eyes. "From Slytherin House, Dick Bancroft?"

Okay, apart from what a jerkass move it is from Snape to show how surprised he is from that, I also can´t help but laugh at it because the image of Snape doing this with big eyes is rather hilarious. At first the hall was quiet. Even the Slytherins seemed shocked by the selection of Bancroft. Finally as Dick got smugly to his feet, the Slytherins burst into cheers. The other houses gave a short polite spattering of applause.

Dick Bancrofts reputation within Slytherin itself is so inconsistent, at one moment most of them hate him and his obsession with Jamie, yet at the same time they let him do initiation rites with pureblood supremacist rhethorics.

I guess it´s just a case of BECAUSE THE PLOT SAYS SO "The next two names out of the goblet will be the team reserves," Snape announced. "Should, during any event, a starter be physically unable to compete one of the reserves will take their place." "The first reserve," Snape said, grabbing the bit of parchment from the air, "is Nora Jordan from Ravenclaw." Immediately another fragment shot into the air. "The second alternate is Lee Wilson from Hufflepuff."

At least these reserves get relevant in the plot, unlike the nameless Americans. "How does Emily look to you?" Hermione asked worriedly. "It's hard to say," Harry answered, trying to conceal his own concern. "It must to be terribly disappointing for her not to have made the team when her best friend and sisters all did."

I don´t care.

* * * * * *

Jamie quietly opened the door and stepped into a smaller room, lined with paintings of witches and wizards, many of who smiled happily and gave her encouraging gestures.

Remember, this is supposed to be a Harry Potter fanfic!

On the opposite side of the room, the American team was grouped around a fireplace in which a handsome blaze was roaring. They were occupied in conversation and didn't seem to spot her enter the room. Jamie remained near the door transfixed. The firelight had the effect of making the costumes worn by the Americans seem almost translucent.

It seemed like only moments before Jeffrey MacDowell, bursting excitedly into the room, broke her trance.

"Everyone knew you'd be selected," he said breathlessly to Jamie, "but I never dreamed I'd make the team."

"Obviously, the goblet has more faith in you than you do in yourself," Oh, shut up Jamie! Jamie said, embracing Jeff in an sincere hug. "I'm sure you'll do fine."

"Maybe!" Jeff said. "Just so I don't have to wear a costume like theirs. Did you notice the bottom part is actually a thong?"

The red thread.

"It is!?" Jamie said shocked. She hadn't actually noticed due to the capes draping that area of the body. Jamie now tried to get a better look at the attire being worn by the American's without actually staring blatantly at any of the students.

The costumes were unisex and appeared to share the qualities of a muscle shirt and a thong in one extremely tight and body molding piece. It was a garment she would more expect to find on the French Rivera than in a wizard school competition.

Oh, the horrors!

Yet I wonder why even in the Wizarding World they would let mostly underaged teenagers wear this stuff at a school competition.

"I wonder how the girls manage to keep their breasts from popping out the sides of those tops," she said matter-of-factly.

Jeff blushed. "I was wondering the same thing," he said eagerly, his eyes coming to rest optimistically on Jamie's full chest.

Because Jeff is a pervert too.

Neil, most men don´t do this so blatantly like all the males in the Hogwarts Exposed Saga!

The door opened and Caitlin hesitantly walked into the chamber. Jamie rushed to the door and embraced her tightly. "This is great," she said enthusiastically. "We're going to be on the team together!"

When Jeff burst into the room, it had attracted Brian's attention. Since then, he had been staring fixedly at Jamie. He couldn't get over how much this girl looked like Kim's older friend from the cruise. What were the odds of that happening? When Caitlin entered the room, he broke from his team and hurried over to the forming Hogwarts group.

"You're Mary Sues! witches," he shouted excitedly. "Are Kim and Emily, too?"

"We all are!" Caitlin responded, embracing Brian. "Does this mean Jeff and Mark are?"

"No," Brian said, shaking his head. "I wish they were. They're good friends and I hate constantly lying to them."

As I said earlier, I think Neil forgot that he had already introduced one character named Jeff earlier when he created the Hufflepuff Jeff and only realised it at this point.

One Jeff Limit.

As they talked, Donald Thomas entered the room. Jeff clasped his hand firmly and Jamie and Caitlin both gave him a hug.

LOL he doesnt even get any speaking lines upon entering the room, like he´s just a cardboard cut out!

"I better get back to my group," Brian said, feeling incongruous. "It's great seeing you guys. Tell Kim and Emily I said, hi! After they're done with us here tonight, maybe we can make arrangements to get together."

Brian had just turned to return to the American contingent when Kim wandered through the door. She still seemed to be in shock over being selected, but when she saw Brian; her face broke into a huge grin.

Brian ran to her and literally lifted her off her feet, swinging her in a circle. Kim's face turned bright red as he finally returned her to the ground.

"Why didn't you tell me that you were a witch?" Brian asked.

"For the same reason you didn't say you were a wizard," Kim replied. "That does, however, explain how you knew that someone had to be magical to become a ghost."

So she did pick up on that, then.

At least someone is somewhat smart among the Sues.

"I did let that slip, didn't I?" Brian said guiltily. "It's marvelous seeing you again."

"Bancroft! What are you doing back here?" Jeff barked, as Dick Bancroft barged through the door. "Only team members are allowed in here."

"That's me people," Dick crowed smugly. "I'm the sixth member of the team."

As Brian ran off to rejoin his squad, the Hogwarts group all exchanged bewildered looks. Certainly there had been some sort of horrible mistake. No one less personified the term 'Team Spirit" than Dick Bancroft.

After Nora and Lee joined the group, they all waited nervously to receive further instructions. As Caitlin waited, her eyes kept returning to Bancroft. How could the Hogwarts team possibly win when it seemed an albatross had just been added to the group?

That´s gonna be the least of her worries though, as we will see shortly.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, the door behind them opened and a small group of people came in: Professor Snape, followed closely by Minister Weasley, Mr. Simone, Coach Ryan and Professor Potter.

"I'm sorry that I didn't get to address you in The Great Hall," Minister Weasley said, staring daggers at Professor Snape. "I had a great deal of inspirational advice I wanted to impart to you and the students of Hogwarts. But since I was deprived of that opportunity, I will only say that I hope both teams will find this experience both satisfying and rewarding. It is not important which team ultimately wins the competition. What is significant is that you all learn the importance of cooperating and working together." Once again he gave Snape a chilly, trenchant stare. "Good luck to you all."

This wall of text somehow reads like the nonsensical talk of the Griffin council in My Inner Life.

Without a further word, he turned and departed the room.

"Well, that was certainly rude," Rishard huffed in a high voice. "He didn't even take my hand in parting."

"I apologize," Snape said. "I'm sure he thinks he has something more important to do. Now then before we get started, I'd like to introduce Professor Harry Potter to our guests. Professor Potter has agreed to coach the Hogwarts team."

With the exception of Dick Bancroft, the Hogwarts team all clapped appreciatively. Jamie, Caitlin and Kim jumped up and down and exchanged excited hugs.

Why would they hug now?

Mr. Simone, smiled broadly as his eyes stroked Harry. "Wonderful," he said, a pleasant flutter in his voice. "I was hoping I'd get the opportunity to know you better."

"Mr. Simone will be running combined training sessions for the teams and also acting as impartial judge and facilitator for the events," Professor Snape explained. "Mr. Simone, would you care to elucidate further?"

"Thank you, Severus," Rishard said in a come hither voice. "I must say that both schools have assembled lovely teams. I look forward to working closely with all of you."

"If he tries to work closely with me, he'll end up with a mouth full of knuckles," Dick Bancroft grunted softly.

"This is the fifth event such as this that I have conducted for the International Committee of Magical Games and Sports. I'm proud to say that all thus far have been fabulous successes and I'm positive this one will be no different."

Simone placed his hands on his hips. "The players from Salem might be deemed to have an advantage because they have competed against the other U.S. teams, but I assure you that these games will be quite different. They will require cooperation, teamwork and trust unlike any you have ever experienced. Remember, there is no 'I' in team. Individual abilities will not win an event. A challenge is not complete until every member of the team is across the finish line.

Aha.

"The next two weekends we will spend getting to know each other intimately In a fic like this, the word "intimately" can mean something way different and learning to fully trust our teammates. The actual tasks will be spread throughout the school year. You will not be given a date or time in advance. The task could be any day of the week between seven in the morning and seven at night. Unless there are questions, I believe that is all I have to say." Snape was on the verge of dismissing the students when Simone suddenly stopped him.

We´re finally getting to the actual main conflict of the fic: "Oh! My goodness! Silly me!" Rishard squealed. "I forgot the most important thing. I've noticed that the students from Hogwarts have been eyeing enviously the stunning team uniforms that the group from Salem is wearing. The International Committee of Magical Games and Sports had the magnificent House of Gayee "Gayee"? Seriously, Neil? in France create them just for these events." "Fear not! I have uniforms for you, also," Simone said in an excited giggly voice as he waved his hands about gaily. "The only difference is that yours are in green, red, yellow and blue. Oh! Yes! A new rule stipulation is that you must wear nothing more than the team uniform during participation hours commencing tomorrow and continuing until the presentation of the trophies in June. Don't worry about size. One size fits all." Caitlin looked down at herself and then glanced at Jamie. How could the same uniform possibly fit them both?

Oh, the suspense! "If that fruitcake thinks I'm wearing one of those, he's bonkers," Bancroft bellowed. "I quit. One of the alternates can have my starting spot." "Mr. Bancroft," said Headmaster Snape, putting his arm around Dick's shoulder. "For the first time in seven years, I believe you and I agree about something. Those uniforms are ludicrous and debasing. The designer should be tortured and the committee that approved their use by students cursed. Unfortunately, we must follow the rules, and they state clearly that those people whose names came out of the Goblet of Fire are bound to compete and follow all tournament requirements. You will be competing and you will be wearing that travesty of a uniform for the remainder of the year. I'm sure the rest of the school will be as distressed to see you in that get up as you will be to be seen in it. Learn to live with it."

Well, the one time he shows just some balls, it´s this here.

But yes.

Rishard Simone is in fact the Main Villain of this fic and the main conflict is angsting about the ridicculous outfits for the tournaments.

* * * * * *

"Will you girls please calm down," Hermione pleaded. "I saw the competition suits the Americans had on and I agree that they are awful, but I'm not sure what, if anything, we can do at this point. Why don't you go put them on so we can get an idea of just how dreadful they are?"

Jamie, Caitlin and Kim reluctantly grabbed their competition uniforms and headed for the bedroom.

"I don't see the problem," Emily said in an angry voice. "I'd give anything to be a part of that team. What's the big deal about their butt checks showing or the sides of their boobs? I thought we were all nudists? How can a camel toe embarrass you when you're willing to walk around with your twat fully exposed? I'd gladly partake nude if it meant being on the school team."

.....She does kind of have a point here.

"Emily, please use correct terminology," Hermione said, a tone of frustration in her voice. "Jamie and I have both tried to explain this to you countless times before, but evidently to no avail."

"That's because my sister is an exhibitionist," Jamie said, as she returned to the room.

As is Jamie sometimes too.

"Oh! My!" Hermione said as she gawked at Jamie. "That certainly leaves little to the imagination. Turn around and let me see it from all angles."

The uniform without a doubt reminded Hermione of a cut-off muscle shirt being attached by strings to a thong. The shirt part was colored stripes of green, blue and red, while the thong was yellow. The shirt only covered the chest ending just below the breasts. Actually in Jamie's case it barely covered the chest. Her nipples were only just covered by the edge of the fabric and the sides of her breasts were fairly visible. How lucky she killed Madam Hooch before she could see her in that outfit. In the back, two strings attached to the top at either side forming a V, the bottom point of which was just above her bum. At that point they became a single string that disappeared between her cheeks. From the back, Jamie looked like she was completely bottomless. Two strings also attached to the edge of the top at either side in the front. These strings met just above Jamie's vagina where they attached to a triangle of yellow cloth that scarcely covered that area before disappearing between her legs.

The outfit sounds like a stripper or go go dancer outfit.

Hermione shook her head in disbelief. If Jamie had pubic hair, it would all be visible. Thank you for reminding us of the Suethors preferences. She had seen the American uniforms, but not this close. She hadn't realized how revealing they really were.

"I can't believe that they expect you to practically live in these outfits for the next eight months. Going about normal activity would seem unfeasible, competing totally impossible. The boys' uniform is exactly the same?" she questioned. No way in hell could Harry, even in a flaccid state, ever conceal his package behind that little triangle; and what if he got aroused? The very thought was enough to increase her heartbeat.

"According to Brian, it's impossible to get through a contest without popping out several times." Kim added, as she and Caitlin entered the room. "He says that the girls' breasts are out more than they are covered. On one occasion, they were practicing making a human ladder and Debby's costume shifted to one side exposing her entire vagina. She was in the middle of the ladder and couldn't do anything about it for nearly ten minutes."

That really does sound painful.

Also, Debby is the only other American student besides Brian who is ever named.

"I'm sorry, but I don't understand the problem," Emily said in frustration. "They are just body parts. We just got off a cruise where hundreds of people saw us nude. Jamie, Caitlin and I wouldn't have a problem with walking to the library right now totally naked. So, why is it a predicament to have a camel toe or a tit pop out while wearing some stupid costume?"

"Jamie's right," Caitlin said tentatively. "I love you, Emily. Please don't hate me for saying this, but you're different from us. We're all nudists, but I think you are an exhibitionist. We love being nude because we feel free and comfortable that way. I don't do it to excite or titillate anyone." Caitlin bit her lip. "I think sometimes that you like people seeing you naked; that it gives you some kind of thrill."

Because that is exactly how Emily feels.

"Do you feel that way, too?" Emily asked, staring angrily at Kim.

"Sometimes you do go to extremes," Kim answered warily.

"So you all think I'm a tart," Emily cried. "In that case, why am I sitting here hiding my nudity? Why don't I just go display myself to the whole world?"

Shut up, Emily.

Emily jumped from the chair, angry tears running down her face, and ran toward the door before anyone could react. She threw open the door and ran naked out of the Potters' quarters.

"Oh! No! I bet she's headed for the library," Hermione screamed, running to the door.

Oh, the conflict!

Anyway, Hermie Sue runs out to confront Rishard Simone.

Hermione's knuckles had barely touched the door when a voice called out sweetly. "Do come in Professor Granger, I've been expecting you."

Hermione opened the door, but as she walked inside, the sight of a man doing sit-ups naked, momentarily took her aback.

She should be used to be seeing nudity daily, shouldnt she?

"I hope you don't mind, but I prefer to do my exercising in the nude," Rishard said in his high whiny voice.

I love that whenever any of the Potter household or Samantha practice nudism, it´s all good, but when someone like Rishard does it, it´s inherently eeeeevul.

"Not at all." Hermione answered indifferently as Rishard continued his sit-ups. "I favor exercising in the buff, myself. How did you know it was me on the other side of the door?" she asked.

"Reputation and your husband," Rishard answered demurely "He made it rather clear that you would most likely want to talk to me concerning the uniforms for the games. I'm surprised by your concern. I was under the impression that your entire family were nudists."

So he does know about their little naturist cult then.

"As I was trying to explain to my younger daughter, there is an immense difference between being a nudist and using your body to be sexually titillating."

"And you find the uniforms to be sexy?" he asked.

"I find the uniforms to be disgusting," she declared. "This is a school, not a strip club. There is absolute no way the participants can take part in any physical competition without exposing themselves.

"I certainly hope not," Rishard answered, a self-satisfied tone to his voice.

I feel like Rishard is Neils self conscious fighting over how he himself uses naturism as a way for his perversions, yet his other side fights against it.

Hermione just stared at him in disbelief. She found this man totally despicable.

Rishard finished exercising, but didn't bother putting his robes back on. Instead he stood leaning against the doorframe, one hand on his hip, studying Hermione. "I've been told that you are the smartest witch of our time. We´re constantly told it, yet never shown how she is that. It's disappointing that you haven't figured this all out on your own. Why do you think these games are being held?"

"To promote closer unity and understanding between witches and wizards of different countries," Hermione affirmed.

Rishard shook his head as he laughed. "Possibly that might have been one of the original intentions, but now if it occurs, it's just a pleasant by-product. The first games I had a part in were held in Australia against New Zealand. A great deal of money and effort went into preparing for them. It had been hoped that the sale of tickets, food and souvenirs would recoup those expenses. Sadly there was not a great deal of interest in the first two rounds and it looked like we would incur a financial disaster. Then halfway through the second event, there was a slight accident." Rishard smiled.

"A lovely young girl with extremely pleasant knobs fell out of a tree. Fortunately she was physically unharmed but seventy-five percent of her uniform remained attached to a tree branch. Instead of concealing herself behind the tree trunk and waiting for assistance, the young lady panicked and ran to get something with which to cover herself. She had to run approximately a quarter-mile, in full view of the spectators. In the process, she lost what was left of her uniform."

How convenient.

Mr. Simone smiled at Hermione. "For the final event, there was not a single empty seat in the stadium. We sold out of food, cameras, Omnioculars, practically everything. The overall competition didn't make any money, but we broke even. Unfortunately, however, there were no uniform malfunctions that day.

How inconvenient.

Hermione glared at Simone. "Are you telling me that these outfits were purposely designed so that the participants would be constantly exposing themselves? This is all about money?"

What do you think, Hermie Sue?

Rishard didn't answer; he simply gave her a toothy Gilderoy Lockhart smile.

How oddly specific.

"But these are children, certainly neither our Ministry nor the U.S. Magical Government can be supporting what almost amounts to child pornography," Hermione pleaded.

Hermione, you´re in Hogwarts Exposed.

Everyone is a pervert here.

"Wake up to the reality of the real world Professor," Simone advised. "Money speaks. These events now make a fortune and politicians from all the counties concerned want their share. Minister Wrong approached me. I didn't approach her."

This is one of the last times Emma Wrong is mentioned here.

And I think this is supposed to foreshadow something.

"But what about the children?" she pleaded. "Certainly their parents can't approve."

"The voices of a few troubled parents are easily drowned out by the cheers of the boisterous supporting crowds. Besides, these aren't children, they are adolescents; in some cases, such as Miss Zacherley, almost adults. They're not being molested or physically harmed in any way," Rishard claimed. "Why, one might say they are simply being exposed to how much enjoyment their nubile bodies can bring to others."

One might even say Overexposed, indeed!

"You are nothing but a filthy, sick pervert," Hermione screamed. "My girls will not be taking part in your sex show."

"Yes they will," Simone said, now sounding almost threateningly. "Have you forgotten that they've signed a magical contract?"

"Then, they'll wear robes over your hideous uniforms"

We then get to this exchange at the end:

Hermione stared at Simone. She didn't like to use the word hate, but it would be easy to learn to hate this man.

"Mister Simone, do you know what a hermaphrodite is?" she asked.

Rishard looked at her questioningly. "No, I'm afraid I don't"

"A hermaphrodite is a person born with both a vagina and a penis. Would you believe at this moment I wish I were one?"

Yeah, I also couldnt believe Neil actually wrote this.

He looked at her questioningly, trying to discern the abrupt change in the course of the conversation. "Why on earth would a woman as lovely as you want a penis?"

"So I could tell a deviate like you to suck my big hairy dick," she replied. Hermione turned and stormed out the door, slamming it behind her.

Yes, this happened.

Cut for a long conversation on how to go through the tournament without actually wearing the revealing uniforms.

So Hermione suggests they use the concealment charm that makes it look like they´re dressed, when they´re actually naked.

Hermione nodded her head. "That's the one obvious imperfection with my idea. You'll all need to be willing to have your teammates see you nude."

"Dick Bancroft?" Caitlin said, in a disgusted tone of voice.

Jamie looked as if she were about to be sick.

"Do we really have any choice?" Kim asked.

Emily then whines about how she wants to use the charm too, despite not being on the team.

"She's right," Kim agreed, hanging her head. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm using the charm." "Me, too!" Jamie and Caitlin said in unison. Harry just sat with a glazed look on his face, looking from girl to girl and then finally to Hermione. "I can't believe we're giving our blessing to this," he said in amazement.

Are you really that surprised, Harry? "Me either," Hermione agreed. "It's not the best option, it's our only option. I still feel like that perverted bastard, Simone, is winning, but I can't see anyway to get the girls out of wearing his distorted creations. It seems like all we can do is prevent matters from getting worse." Harry kept looking from girl to girl and shaking his head. He felt like he was letting them down. "I'll contact the Headmaster and get his okay for you to all spend the night here," Hermione said. "Harry and I will help you apply the charms in the morning. Between now and Saturday, you should have a team meeting, so everyone knows what to expect. Perhaps Nora or some of the boys will want to follow suit." Caitlin and Jamie exchanged glances. Somehow they couldn't picture any of the boys being eager to join them.

As if.

* * * * * *

"So that means that you'll be spending most of the next eight months nude," Alex said, trying to comprehend the total ramifications of this.

Alex sounds like he´s excited about that.

"Yeah, well except for my socks and trainers, of course" Jamie said. "Truth is, that with the exception of the Yule Ball, I don't see a reason that I'd be putting clothes on at all. I'll shower in the morning and then activate the charm. I'm required to look like I'm in that hideous costume till after dinner. It hardly seems worthwhile getting dressed at seven. I guess I'll just keep the charm on in the common room until I'm ready to go up to my dorm. Then I'll deactivate it."

Yeah Jamie, your life is really hard.

Jamie thought about this and then said. "Maybe, I will need to get dressed. I don't think I want to spend every night looking like a tart in that attire. It's bad enough I have to look that way twelve hours a day."

"Jamie, why not just ask our housemates if they'd mind if you removed the spell while in the common room at night?" You're going to actually be nude, why not just remove the pretence of having something on?" Alex asked.

I´m surprised she hasnt done that yet.

Jamie couldn't believe her ears. "You'd actually be okay with that? You wouldn't mind my being starkers in front of all the other guys?"

"My name isn't Matt," Alex declared. "I know what I have and I've no intentions of losing you by acting like some stupid jealous prat. You were a nudist long before we met and I'm assuming you desire to be one for the remainder of your life."

Alex is such a simp.

We then get through more long pointless dialogue of Jamie angsting about the outfits, and we end on that note:

"Just make sure that hand is on my leg and not between them," she said, trying to sound stern, but not succeeding. "If you cause me to have an orgasm in Flitwick's class and I start screaming, I'll never forgive you."

In this fic, anything is possible. "Speaking of orgasms, I didn't have time for dessert at dinner," Alex informed her. "Would you mind terribly if I had it now?" "That is something I'll never refuse you," she said as she laid back and spread her legs welcomingly.

Yeah, this was actually written down.

Afterwards they talk about whether Alex has told his parents that he is dating a naturist.

We still barely know anything about Alex in the first place.

After several chapters of filler and a whole chapter about stripper outfits, we return to what is supposed to be the plot:

"Nott, I understand you ran into a bit of a problem with the couple you visited last evening." "Yes, my Lord." Theodore Nott cried, prostrating himself at the feet of Salazar Slytherin. "I'm sorry my Lord, but they refused to enter your service. Please forgive me, my Lord. I tried my best to convince them that it was in their best interest, but they were vehement in their refusal."

This is giving me North Korean vibes. "On your feet, Nott," Slytherin commanded. "I do not punish faithful servants who do my bidding. You can only give wise counsel. You've offered them a life in my service, regrettably they have refused."

"Slytherins reign will be worse than Voldemort"

Slytherin crossed the room, giving the matter thought and then returned to Nott. "I'd like you to return to them again before the week is out and give them another chance to join my service. Do they have anything that might perhaps be used as a bargaining chip to influence them to reevaluate their original decision?" "Yes, my Lord. They have two children, both girls. The older attends Hogwarts, the six year old goes to the day school in Hogsmeade." "Hogwarts, dear Hogwarts," Slytherin said, as if reminiscing about bygone years. So you are saying he isnt reminiscing about bygone years? "I have many memories of the school, both good and bad. When you visit them, tell them how very disappointed I was at their decision. Also, inform them that if they do not join me immediately, their daughter will not live to ever ride the Hogwarts Express again." "Oh, and Nott, in order that they realize how sincere I am and how distressed I was that they didn't answer my first calling, I want you to take them a gift on my behalf." "Yes, my Lord," Nott said. "The gift my Lord, what is it to be?" "The severed head of the youngest girl."

DUN DUNN DUNNNNNNN

I can´t take this seriously, as this is only included in order to make Slytherin look waaaaaay worse than Voldemort, despite the fact that he just can´t be taken serious as some evil overlord. End of Chapter 12

Finally this chapter is over.

Oh, and this chapter had 6 writers, allegedly.