#shes a.) the main person who plays doris & she played doris when we saw it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

binxyu · 4 years ago

Text

Being the main writer for the college paper made it particularly hard for people not to be in your business because, well, you were in their’s. Thus, everyone in the school was aware of your relationship with Juyeon and Hyunjae. But, that doesn’t stop a flirty athlete from hitting on you.

>>Pairing: Lee Jaehyun x Lee Juyeon (doms) x fem!reader (sub) | athletes!jaehyun and juyeon x writer!reader

>>Word Count: 4.3k

>>Genre: Oneshot / Requested / Smut

>>Warnings/Kinks: Choking, creampie, cum eating, cum play, double penetration, exhibitionism/public sex, harassment (not from the boys), marking, oral (giving + receiving), possessiveness, praise, saliva, and unprotected sex

The reminder you had set on your phone was not enough to take your focus off the man in front of you.

Truth be told, you were quite forgetful for a person with such a tight schedule.

Writing on your hand was tried. It didn’t really work considering you washed your hands consistently throughout the day (damn the germs in colleges), smudging the ink to an unreadable blur on your hand.

Thankfully, that’s how you had met your boyfriends. Yeah, plural. There’s an s there.

You had been rushing towards an assignment you had been given for the paper. It was a request to interview some of the top students in the music department and damn late wasn’t even enough of a word to describe how long ago you were supposed to be there.

Showing up a couple hours late resulted in most of the students already gone, hiding away in their dorms for the afternoon.

But, there were two students still waiting for you. Lee Jaehyun (although he likes people to call him Hyunjae) and Lee Juyeon.

They were your saving grace for your paper and, in return, you let them take you out on a date.

Now, months later, your relationship with them still ran strong.

But, apparently your hearing didn’t because the reminder sound on your phone didn’t even register as you write down practically everything the athlete was telling you.

He actually was a classmate of your’s and a pretty popular one at that. The whole school practically knew about him.

“And that’s how I beat the record”, you nodded sweetly, keeping that signature interviewer smile on your face. It did a fantastic job of getting people to open up and this guy was no exception.

“So, one last question, are you dating anyone?”, you weren’t asking for yourself. Especially not when you were already quite... busy... with the two men you were already dating. It was more for the majority of the female population in the school who did like him.

Besides, everyone in the school knew about you and, more specifically, your polyamorous relationship. It wasn’t seen everyday to be fair. You three stuck out like a sore thumb.

“No, I haven’t really been looking”, bullshit. You had been to the football games, the man loved to rile up the crowd. He practically chucked his shirt into a girl’s face the other night when it was “too hot”.

It was just above 50 degrees that night.

“I see. Thank you for the interview”, you smiled and he nodded, smiling back at you before a lightbulb seemed to go off in his mind.

“Are you looking?”, he must have noticed the shocked expression you had because his hand encased your’s, seemingly trying to soothe you as his thumb traced the back of your hand.

All it did was make you more anxious.

“No, sorry, I’m not. I’m actually taken”, there goes that reminder again but you ignored it. It was probably just your reminder to take your gummy vitamins or something stupid the boys put in there because they cared. Maybe a little too much sometimes.

“Oh, by who?”, it wasn’t a curious question. He didn’t believe you. His tone said it.

“By us”, uh oh.

Turning around, you were met with your two lovers. They hovered over you like angry wolves and you could only feel like a little lamb underneath them.

The athlete had flirted with you before and that only made the situation more intense. Of course the football player knew about your relationship. It just didn’t seem to matter to him.

Until, well, now you guess.

“You didn’t come”, shit. So, that was the reminder?

You had a date with them after this interview and it completely flew out of your mind like a paper lost in the wind.

“Sorry, I lost track of time”, they nodded and, for a moment, you thought you saw their eyes soften as they look at you but they just returned back to those icy cold stares.

Even the muscular athlete was scared. Everyone knew how possessive your boyfriends were.

It was pretty obvious after a particularly ignorant party animal laid his drunk hands on you. Before he could do anything else, he was already thrown on the floor with Juyeon’s fist landing on his cheek while Hyunjae pulled you back into his chest like he was some kind of shield.

It was hot, you weren’t going to lie, but it did make you a little worried for people you truly did just want to be friends with.

“Hey, babies, let’s go. Let’s go have our date now”, you placed each of your hands on their chests. It was a gentle move that always seemed to calm them and you smiled as you felt their heartbeats slow down, your own starting to match theirs as you felt it through your hands.

“Fine but you”, Hyunjae pointed with precision at the man, “stay away from her. She doesn’t like you and she’s said no multiple times. She’s ours” the man finally nodded and ran off while you were stuck standing there with a wave of arousal shooting to your core.

Ignore it. You can’t be walking around with marks again-

The internal scold fell short as the boys wrapped you up in a hug. You could practically feel the warmth from their anger coming off of them in waves.

“Next time listen to your reminders. We set them for you for a reason”, Hyunjae scolded you, grabbing your phone to turn off the pesky sound. You really didn’t hear it. Maybe your hearing does need to be checked.

“I know I know. I’m forgetful”, you pout and the boys looked at it, wanting nothing more than to kiss your pouty lips until they’re swollen. Juyeon just chuckles instead and ruffles your hair sweetly.

It was such a sharp contrast to how cold he looked a minute ago but you were used to it. They were usually cold to others but were exceptionally sweet to you.

Well, most of the time.

“Come on, dory. We’ve got to get outside”, that’s always been Hyunjae’s favorite nickname for you. Sadly, you couldn’t argue that it didn’t suit you.

Sometimes you even forget what your name is.

“Okay”, you nodded and held their hands, walking securely in between them. You always did feel safe with your boyfriends and being without them was honestly terrifying. They were like your bodyguards.

Out in the beautiful field of the campus was a little picnic blanket, laid out with plenty of your favorite foods.

They always loved to spoil you and, while the sight in front of you wasn’t much of a surprise considering it was their favorite form of dates, it made you happy nonetheless.

“Aw, thank you boys”, you gave them both a peck on the cheek and sat down. You weren’t much for public displays of affection.

Hand holding? That was fine. It was their way of saying that you were their’s. But, the bigger things like kissing or hugging? That was more of a private thing for you.

Those were actions you did when the three of you could safely display your love for one another without being judged because, let’s be honest, you’re not much of the outgoing type.

Sure, you have to talk to lots of people for your writing, but that didn’t mean you liked to. You actually liked to keep to yourself.

It was odd considering Hyunjae and Juyeon were quite popular due to their singing skills. Everyone wanted them but they only had their eyes set on you.

They helped you sit down, filling up your plate with delicious treats that almost had you drooling. You just realized how hungry you were when your stomach let out the most obnoxious growl you had ever heard.

Okay- maybe you also forget to take care of yourself. When you’re busy the last thing on your mind is what your body wants. Just the task at hand is important.

“Dory, do we need to start setting reminders for food and stuff too?”, Hyunjae shook his head as Juyeon handed you the plate of food. You quickly shook your head back, taking a bite of the fruit sitting on the plate in your lap.

“No, I just got busy. I’m not too hungry”, Hyunjae looked at you with the most untrusting look. He knew you and he knew that you frequently “got busy” and that meant you frequently forgot to take those vitamins or to at least drink water.

As you ate, you started to circle the important details you had written down during the interview, making a clear note in your head to add those facts into the paper.

Sad thing was: the athlete barely gave you anything to work with. Most of it was just bragging or hitting on you.

“What an asshole”, you sighed and rested your forehead on Juyeon’s shoulder. He simply chuckled and started to run his fingers through your hair. You weren’t a saint by any means but cussing was rare. You found it to be a bad habit in public while you swore like a sailor in the safety of your bedroom.

“Frustrated?”, Hyunjae asked, rubbing your back with his large palm, working the knot he knew you had. They really did know your body so well.

“Yeah, he didn’t really give me anything to work with. Just flirting”, you didn’t mean to let the last part slip out. It was just what you thinking about and sometimes that filter in your brain was clogged with all the useless information you kept there.

“Maybe you could do your report on someone else?”, surprisingly, the response was calm and you had to let out a sigh of relief.

“Maybe. I’d have to ask”, you were the writer for the school but it didn’t mean you had free will. Everything had to be ran by someone else. Every decision.

“Alright, I’d feel much more comfortable if you didn’t have to talk to that guy again”, you nodded in agreement.

God forbid something go right because weeks later, after one failed attempt at switching stories, you were put on the athlete’s case once again. This time it was because he was the reason the school won against their rivals.

So, there you sat on the desk chair. You had just finished your journalism class and, ironically, the jerk was in the class with you. You both just agreed to do the interview in the classroom.

You had already told the boys about it and they promised to check in soon. You were worried but also thankful. Your gut had an awful feeling about this guy.

As you were reaching for your notepad and pen, a hand stopped you. It was wrapped around your wrist and you looked up in surprise to see the athlete’s eyes sparkling with mischief.

That can’t be good.

“Come on, no one has denied me before. Why won’t you go out with me?”, it made you scoff and you yanked your wrist from his cold, rubbing the red flesh with your other hand.

“Because I’m taken. So, drop it”, that seemed to strike a nerve. He looked furious and fear flowed through your body when he got up.

Before he could reach you, a hand gripped the collar of his shirt, lifting him up and throwing him out of the room. Juyeon rushed to you, gently wiping away tears with his thumbs.

Wait- you were crying? You hadn’t even noticed.

Hyunjae seemed to take the high road and just simply shut the door in the student’s face, locking him out.

They honestly rarely fought but when they did it was brutal. That’s why they tried to never do it in front of you.

“Are you okay? He didn’t touch you?”, you reassured him you were fine by letting him look you over, his eyes quickly looking over you as if you had some hidden life threatening injury.

After some time, you were already feeling better. The boys had made it their mission to make you laugh as much as possible in the classroom, doing silly dances and even tickling you. They just loved your laugh too much.

“Baby, I have an idea for your newspaper”, Hyunjae looked a little dazed. Well, more than dazed. You couldn’t blame him considering you had all been playing a game of cards and you sucked so fucking bad at it. Therefore, your little game of stripping if you lost resulting in the boys completely clothed while you sat there completely bare.

“And what is that?”, you shivered as the cold air hit your back. Juyeon pulled you in between his legs and wrapped his arms around you in an attempt to keep you warm. Plus, his hold was barely below your breasts and he truly did love those.

“Make it a smut”, you gasped when Hyunjae connected his lips with your’s harshly, a little more rough than usual. Then, it hit you, they held all that anger in just to use it on you.

While you would never actually write a smut for the school paper (unless you really wanted to be fired), you liked to idea of using it to rile them up. They loved your writing and, more specifically, the wonderful sex scenes you wrote.

Anytime you were busy, you’d write them one and then you’d be happy to oblige to their request to act it out when you got back to your dorm. Sometimes they were short scenes and sometimes they were long. Either way, the boys were happy to help you fulfill your fantasies.

The only difference today is that there is no prompt. They get to make up the story themselves.

“Do you want me to tell everyone how good you two fuck me? How well you stretch me out?”, just your words alone had Juyeon’s erection desperately trying to escape the confinement of his jeans. You could feel the bulge against your back and you watched as the wetness started to coat your thighs.

“Yes, tell everyone how good we make you feel”, you nodded in agreement and looked at the door, thankful that there was no windows uncovered in the room.

Finally, feeling safe, you turned around and started to unzip Juyeon’s jeans, pulling it down his legs along with his boxers. You simply tossed them, watching them land on the surface of one of the desks.

Hyunjae wasn’t far behind, removing his own clothes and doing a similar action to them, discarding them as if they were the trash beneath his feet.

“Turn around”, you nodded, turned your body back around and you immediately knew what he wanted. You leaned down to make yourself level with his cock, your eyes running over the veins and the angry red tip. Your ass was right where the man wanted it, high up in front of him.

Your lips wrapped around his shaft, running your tongue along the sides to coat it in your saliva. It always made the movements a bit easier. Juyeon groaned and dove his tongue down your slit, suckling at your clit once he reached it.

The moan you let out sent a vibration through his sensitive tip, causing his thighs to shake slightly. It was a beautiful sight.

Not forgetting about your other boyfriend, you looked up to make eye contact with Hyunjae. He licked his lips as he watched you practically gag on the large cock that belonged to Juyeon.

He was always a bit of a voyeur and, as much as he loved the sight, he couldn’t wait any longer. He sat on his knees next to you and moved his own cock closer to your mouth.

Hyunjae was bigger than Juyeon, stretching you out beyond belief but Juyeon was longer, hitting your cervix with every thrust. Both were a perfect mix of pleasure and pain. Different but well balanced.

You brought your head back, releasing Juyeon from your mouth and you replaced where your mouth had been with your hand, jerking the man off. A long string of saliva connected your mouth to his but you couldn’t care because Hyunjae’s dick was far too tempting to forget.

You wrapped your mouth around his cock now, feeling your jaw lock slightly from the sheer volume you had taken in. He was just as delicious as the previous one and you couldn’t help yourself from sucking him like he was your favorite lollipop. To be honest, he was.

Juyeon slipped a finger inside of your dripping cunt and you whimpered, listening to the sound of your pussy clenching around the digit, soaking it in your wetness.

“I think she can take both of us now”, you stopped for a moment, a little surprised. Sure, you three had discussed double penetration but you never really felt ready. Could you really handle that much?

Maybe you could.

“Let’s do it”, your words came out muffled since you were still infatuated with the taste of Hyunjae’s dick. The boys smirked at one another and Hyunjae gripped your hair to pull you off of him. Your hand instinctively let go of Juyeon’s dick too, missing the feeling of having something to play with.

You never liked to sit still but you knew you probably were going to have to after this session.

“Up here then, baby”, Hyunjae chuckled as you yelped, his arms under your body as he laid you across the desk. You winced when a pencil sharpener landed on the floor off the desk, probably breaking into pieces.

How had no one heard you before this? You had no idea.

Juyeon got up off the floor, rushing to Hyunjae’s side. Hyunjae held your thigh and pushed it open more, taking in the beautiful sight of your glistening pussy. It was his favorite work of art and Juyeon wanted nothing more than to continue the feast he was in the middle of.

“Alright, we’ll go one at a time, okay? If we need to stop then tell us. You okay with this still?”, Juyeon asked softly. Despite how cold they were, they still asked for permission and it was especially important now.

“I’m okay with it. I’ll tell you if you have to stop”, you nodded and looked up at the two. Fuck, you were so lucky.

They both had little stars in their eyes whenever they looked at you and it always reminded you that they were indeed your stars. Those little stars in their eyes only lit up when they looked at you.

Hyunjae decided to go first as the bigger of the two, gently easing his way into you. The stretch was slightly uncomfortable at first but no longer painful. You had adjusted to both of them rather quickly solo but together? That may be a bit harder.

Right when he brushed against that specific spot inside of you, you covered your mouth and moaned, gripping the edge of the desk.

Hyunjae watched you, smirking when he realized you were already becoming overwhelmed with pleasure. He loved watching you try to hold onto anything to keep your grounded to reality. He always seemed to bring you to cloud 9.

“All in. Now you’ll take Juyeon too, right? You’ll be a good girl and take him too?”, you nodded obediently and looked between your legs, noticing that Hyunjae had completely bottomed out inside of you. You already seemed so full, a bulge present in your stomach from where Hyunjae had settled.

Truly, no one could make you feel this good with so little effort but them.

Juyeon gripped your other thigh and pressed small kisses there, a gentle reminder that it was okay to stop him. That he loved you.

He sucked a few marks to the skin, making you whine because once they start they don’t stop. You’ll be covered in marks by the end of the hour.

Once you were spread wider, almost completely folded, Juyeon guided his cock in beside Hyunjae’s. Now, that hurt.

“Slower! Slower please”, Juyeon quickly nodded, noticing that your eyes were watering. He gently wiped them away and stayed still for a moment so you could get used to the stretch. When you nodded, he slowly moved again and you felt your vagina quickly adjust to the size. Like you were made to handle both.

And, now, you couldn’t stop moaning under your hand. It did very little to muffle the noises but it was your only hope of not getting caught.

Hyunjae was pressed against your g-spot as Juyeon had taken it upon himself to settle his tip against your cervix. And, inside of you, their cocks rubbed against each other in an unspoken competition to see who could go deeper.

Of course, Juyeon would win that category but that didn’t matter to Hyunjae.

Both watched their bulges in your stomach as one pulled out and pushed back in. Then, they started alternating until you were so stretched out that they could move together in perfect unison.

The sounds of skin slapping filled the room as they fucked you raw, sharing you in the most perfect way. Everything felt so good that you could already feel the knot forming in your stomach, begging to be released and coat their cocks in your cum.

“You like it, hm? Does it feel good?”, Juyeon teased as he watched your eyes roll back and your nails dig into the wood beneath you. You nodded but your love didn’t like that. He gripped your throat, squeezing it slightly right where he needed to.

The blissful feeling only became more unbearable as you felt some oxygen escape your throat. Tears spilled down your cheeks before he let go, allowing you to breathe.

“Yes! Fuck, I love it!”, the boys leaned down to suck marks all over your breasts, stomach, and hips. Still easy to hide but you knew that wasn’t going to last long.

Their hips snapped against your core as they moved, Hyunjae’s pelvis bone rubbing against your clit perfectly. It made your mouth hang open in a tiny scream and you couldn’t hold it anymore, squirting all over the two as you came.

You had never done that and you were scared that they would hate it but the bright smiles on their faces made you relax. It made you feel good and that’s all that mattered to them.

As the thrusts continued, you squirmed from the overstimulation and Juyeon had to pin you down by your wrists to keep you from falling off the desk.

Their movements became more sloppy and they came together, filling up your clenching cunt with their cum. You felt way too full with all of it and their cocks still inside of you, tapping Juyeon’s arm in a silent plea.

He understood and nodded at Hyunjae, the both of them pulling out to milk the rest of their orgasm’s on whatever they could find. Your thighs, clit, stomach, chest, arms, etc. You looked like the filthiest thing they’ve ever seen and they couldn’t be more proud.

Juyeon put his clothes back on and went out to grab a towel from the locker room as Hyunjae just stared at the cum spilling out of you and down the side of the unfortunate wooden desk.

He seemed to be deep in thought as you tried to breathe correctly, his finger entering your hole without warning and you looked down to see him pull it out. He looked you dead in the eye as he licked off the mixture of cream, humming happily when he found out he loved the taste.

“We taste delicious together”, he leaned down and held your ankles as he started to lap at the cum dripping out of you, eating it up like it was a five star meal. You shivered from the feeling of his warm muscle meeting your cold skin as he licked you clean, licking his lips every time he came up for air.

“How in the world am I going to write an article when that is in my head?”, you motioned to the sight of the cum dripping down his chin. His lips were swollen and his brown locks stuck to his forehead from the sweat. He looked ravishing.

“Smut”, he popped the m for emphasis and you shook your head, letting him kiss you so you could taste it too. It tasted like the best mixture of fruit and you found yourself diving your tongue in his mouth for more.

“Oh yeah, we definitely have to stay together if this is how good we taste”, you giggled and Juyeon had entered just in time to get a taste too. He kissed you, swirling his tongue inside of your mouth before he pulled away. He licked his lips and acted as if he was critiquing a meal.

“I’d have to give my thanks to the chef”, he joked and you smiled, letting out a little chuckle as you tried to sit up but your legs were not having it and neither were your boyfriends.

They rubbed your thighs as you laid back down, trying to ease the soreness in them. Juyeon kissed your hand lovingly and your heart swelled from all the love you felt for the two.

You had no doubt that they were really the ones you were going to spend your life with.

“Looks like the school newspaper is going to have to wait. Unless you feel like writing on a cum stained desk”, Hyunjae chuckled and you huffed, knowing that that paper was definitely not going to be done by its due date.

451 notes · View notes

a-simp-20 · 4 years ago

Text

"FAMILY??" [DORI SAKURADA FAN FIC]

Pt.1 Pt.11 Pt.111

Pt.1v [wip]

[AIB Cast Masterlist]

Summary: Ila,Ace and Chloe discover's that Dori's Characters are in their universe,but not only those 3 will know..but the other's will know too..soon enough

Warning!: none

Genre: Crack

ENJOY THE STORY

Everyone stood silently there in the middle of the room,Dori and Ila went to the couch to sit down. Dori gesturing his Character's to si down too,Dori wad sitting right beside all of his Character's while Ila,Chloe and Ace were in front of them all. Chloe's eyes we're focused on Niragi and Suguru, she tried to hold back a smile that was forming on her face.

She was smiling all because of her favorite character existing in her universe,every fan would react just like her..except for Ace,her curiosity got the best of her as she examined all of Dori's character's is curiosity. Ila being herself didn't say a word,she is right now too focused on thinking on how Dori's Character's get into their universe.

"Okay now,how can I explain this to the three of you?" Dori said,clapping his hands while getting up from his seat "Oh!,I know how..so..ano...yesterday I came home from work and well..got inside my house to see these dudes here" Dori said,gesturing to the 6 of his character's.

"Just like that?,you didn't questioned them on how they all got here?" Ila asked,arching a brow"Well I did,and they were all the same. They said they fell asleep and just ended up in my house" Dori said,going back to the kitchen to grab the popcorn he made"So you guys just fell asleep?" Ace asked. All of them nodded eagerly at her "THAT IS SO COOL!" "I've Always want to meet you!" Chloe said excitedly pointing at Suguru and Niragi "well I would like it if you shut your trap!" "EEEEEEEEK!" She screeched almost passing out on the couch"gurl!,you Better calm down" Ila told her,while patting her shoulder"Oh come on Ila!,I know you're a Niragi Simp too!,you have to screech inside right?" Chloe said with a wide smile of excitement "well..i mean you're not wrong...BUT THATS NOT THE PROBLEM HERE" Ila said shutting everyone up"the problem is,is that why did they suddenly got to our universe?" She asked"true" Ace said crossing her arms against her chest.

"Maybe we should introduce ourselves?,or do you guy's already know who we are??" Ryuichi said,while petting Fanta that is on his lap.

[AFTER EXPLAINING]

After the whole chaotic explaining to the three girls,they all decided to hang out with each other..for example!,Niragi trying to avoid Chloe AKA his number one fangirl by running around the living room for some reason.

Ryuichi,Suguru,Mugi and Ace are in the backyard playing with Fanta,teaching Fanta Some tricks that the four know that dogs do. They even tried to train Fanta on trying steal Niragis rifle so that the four of them could bury it somewhere in the backyard as a prank...even though they are going to get killed after they got caught.

Fukami trying to flirt with Ila on the couch,as she watches the man's hand getting closer to her cheek,she panicked so she grabbed the nearest object that she could grab,and that object is Fanta as she held Fanta in front of Fukami's face as Fanta looked at him cutely and proceeded to lick Fukami on the face multiple times,which made Fukami scrunch up his nose in annoyance as Ila just wheezes in the background at Fukami's change of emotions.

Dori smiles at the whole scene as he was in the kitchen making sandwiches for everyone.Fukami came in the kitchen, turning on the tap and rubbing his face with water all because of Fanta's slobber on his face. Dori just chuckled as Fukami looked at him squinting his eyes a bit annoyed "And what are you laughing about?" Fukami asked him "Nothing,nothing!..it's just that try not to flirt with her,she's Islam and in Islam you shall not date but instantly get married with the one that you love the most" Dori said with a soft smile "Wait..so that means will she accept if i propose to her-" "No!,no she will not Fukami. She already showed on how she doesn't like you and that she is completely uncomfortable on watching your drama" Dori said,putting the sandwiches on a metal tray while grabbing one to only shove it inside Fukami's mouth to shut him up "Have fun eating Fukami kun!" Dori said grabbing the tray and walking out of the kitchen.

"Hey guys!,I made sandwiches!. Come and get em!" Dori sat the tray down onto the coffee table of the living room,grabbing one sandwich for himself. Ila grabbing one,when she was about to bite it she noticed a piece of meat in there "Is this halal meat or did you buy it from the supermarket?" She asked Dori "Don't worry,I bought the meat from the halal mini market that you always go to,so you can eat it" Dori replies,she shrugs and bit on the sandwich.

When Niragi was going to bite on his sandwich, Fanta quickly took it out of his hand and ran away to his dog bowl to eat it "Oi!,I already gave you food!" Niragi said as he chases Fanta around the living room. Everyone laughed at the scene as they all sit on the living room couches and decided to watch a movie together.

[TIME SKIP]

The three girls said their good bye after the movie ended, Dori closing the door as they left.

The next day,Dori already signed Suguru,Mugi and Ryuichi into their schools. Suguru explains to Dori that,that he forgot the he was a highschooler,Dori didn't believed him at first until he told Dori tye things that he learned from his school. Right now Dori is in his car with the three of them plus Taketo in there too,when the three of them first saw the principal of the school,they though that the principal will question on why Dori's so called Son's look exactly the same like on of his characters from his drama's..but surprisingly,the principal didn't asked at all. So all its left to do is to drop off the three of them at their school "Okay,we're here. You three behave..Especially YOU yous mister" Dori said,looking at Mugi from through the mirror "psh! What about me?" "Do not be H#rny to girls,just do whatever a normal high schooler would do,you got that?..or do you want to be suspended,because this is the only school that is a bit far away from the house" Dori explains "Okay okay!,I'll try my be-" "There is no trying Mugi,I want you to just be normal..ONCE!,I'm going to kick you out of the house if you ever touch any girls in this school" "Fine!" Mugi said crossing his arms. Taketo smiling at him "C'mon Mugi kun,you can do it!. And make sure you get straight A's!" Taketo said Patting Mugi's back,him still holding his broken electric guitar "Can we get out now?" Suguru asked,looking at Dori from the passenger seat "Yes you may,just keep an eye on Mugi here" Dori said,looking Mugi then to Ryuichi "We will!" Ryuichi chimes as the three of them got out of the car,leaving only Dori and Taketo in there.

"So,where are we going?" Taketo asked Dori "We're going to my work place where I'm going to shoot as Niragi and Suguru" Dori explains as he starts up the car again "And? Why are you bringing me?" "Because,remember that I told you I have a friend of mine that's in a band?,yeah that. He said that he needs one more guitarist in his band" Dori say's again as he drove off from the school. Fukami and Niragi found their usual jobs,Niragi as a game engineer and Fukami works at a Café and a partpart time professor at a college,than unfortunately..Ila was in.

Fukami begged to Dori that he wanted to be a part time professor in that college,Dori was confused until he realized that Ila and her other friends were in that college. He knew that Fukami liked Ila,since the other day Fukami was flirting at her,resulting a slobbery lick from Fanta after that. Back again,Dori parks the car at the parking lot of the studio as he and Taketo got out of the car,walking towards the studio "So who's this friend of yours Dori kun?" Fukami asked as he clutched on his broken guitar more "You'll see" Dori responded "What if people would question on why I look like you,or maybe they watched my movie?" "Well,most of them Watched Even" "Whaaaat!?,that's the title of my movie!?,pff- Lameee~" Taketo whined as they both got in front of the studio's door "Okay..you ready Takehito?" Dori asked looking at him "Yup!,ready as I can be!,can't wait to see my new teacher!" Taketo chirps as they got in the studio.

They got in the studio to be met with stares and whispers,Dori noticed this and so does Taketo,the only one that is nervous between the both of them is Dori,while Taketo just greets at people with his sweet and playful smile. Dori gets annoyed by this and grabs Taketo's wrist,dragging him through the halls of the studio to the main one.

They got in the main studio to be met with then one and only Director Shinsuke Sato "Dori!- what the who's this-" "I can explain later,can you gather everyone so that I can like..explain??" Shinsuke nodded as he called everyone to gather around Dori.

[HOW MANY MINUTES LATER]

After explaining,everyone understood and started chatting with Taketo being friends with him. Dori just sigh's and sit's on a nearby chair as he looks at Taketo from a far "So..why is he carrying a broken guitar?" Dori looks at Nobuaki who asked him,Dori was already in his Niragi costume While Nobuaki is already in his Hatter costume that had fake blood on bus chest..a hole to be specific..a fake one "Well,he's a band leader. He plays the electric Guitar,it's broken because he threw it by accident because he couldn't controll his anger" Dori explains to Nobuaki "I see he has some pride In him..but ok guess he's just frustrated and and went back to his normal giddy happy self" Nobuaki said sitting besides Dori "Hey Nobu do you remember that you told me that you needed another guitarist in your band?..well Taketo here..is the perfect person to be in your band"

Sorry for the shooty ending...i'm tired right now and I'm trying to find some fluffy Niragi fics..i really want a pre broderlnad Niragi fic right now,but I can't seem to find one.

Can you guys like recommend me some fluffy Niragi fics? Thanks and love all of you :3.

#alice in borderland #sakurada dori #dori sakurada #niragi suguru #suguru niragi #fukami hiroto #mugi #ryuichi #taketo #Even #coffe and vanilla #aib #Koe koi #scums wish

12 notes · View notes

theexpanse · 4 years ago

Photo

DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! That alert is for the people of Earth, considering that the last shot we saw on season 4 of The Expanse was of Belter villain Marco Inaros (Keon Alexander) sending cloaked asteroids hurling toward our fair planet.

The impending arrival of those asteroids in season 5 of the show — which premieres Dec. 16 on Amazon Prime Video — is especially bad timing given that one of our favorite Earthlings, burly Rocinante mechanic Amos Burton (Wes Chatham), just happens to be on his way to Earth himself. And judging by this exclusive first-look season 5 photo we have of a blood-splattered Amos (above), things are not looking too hunky-dory for the bearded wonder in his hometown of Baltimore.

What awaits Amos down on the surface? What will happen when Naomi (Dominique Tipper) finds out her long-lost son Filip (Jasai Chase Owens) is an active part of daddy Marcos' team? And why should we be keeping our eyes on Mars for clues as to what's to come? We chatted with Expanse showrunner Naren Shankar to get the scoop on season 5.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So is season 5 just going to be book 5, Nemesis Games, or are we going to see some season 6 in there, or some new bridge material like you did last season? What are we looking at?

NAREN SHANKAR: You know how it's worked over the years. It's like certain story lines get pulled forward, other stuff gets pushed back sometimes. Character elements get combined into other stuff. There's definitely some elements of book 6 in this season, I would say, but it's largely drawn from book 5.

Let's start big picture, and then we'll drill down on a few things. If I just walked in and said, "What's the big crux of season 5? What's the big story you're telling here?" What would you say to that?

I'll give you the theme, because that's probably the easiest way to look at it. The theme really is about the sins of the past. To one extent or another, that's every single story line, whether it is Naomi personally confronting the fact that she had a son with this very charismatic, and now quite violent, revolutionary-type leader. Whether it's Amos connecting to his past, or going back to Earth for reasons that we're not quite sure of. Whether it's Holden's past with unleashing the protomolecule. Whether it is the past geopolitical history of the Belt, and its relationship with the inner planets, which we see through Avasarala.

That's really what the season is about. It is connecting all of the things that we have done in our lives to the moment of the present that we are in. It's like everything comes to a head all at the same time.

We ended season 4 with Marco letting these asteroids off towards Earth. What do you want to say about that impending arrival?

Well, it's coming. It's coated in stealth, so it's very hard to see, and there's a whole bunch of them. From the end of season 4, the last image that we left with was Marco looking at the plotted trajectory of all of these asteroids. The last image that you see is a whole lot of them that are lined up to hit Earth in its orbit. So, they're coming.

Let's segue from that to Naomi. What's Naomi's mission here? We see a little bit in the trailer with Marco, and her son. What is she going to look to do here in season 5?

Well, I think at the end of season 4, the message she sent to Fred Johnson was, "I need to get in contact with my son. I'm calling in that favor that we set up way back in season 1. I'm calling in that favor. I really need to find my son, because I'm afraid that his father is going to get him killed."

It's that she understands, or she's seeing that Marco is on the rise, and she knows the kind of person that he is. After years of feeling like, "I can't reconnect. I abandoned him. I left my kid," she's determined to reach out to him, and try to save him from somebody that she thinks is really a terrible person.

What is awaiting her when she gets in contact with her son and sees who he has become?

Well, I think maybe the way to answer that is, the reunion that she is hoping for is probably not the one that she's going to get.

I mean, we saw what happened with that airlock at the end of last season.

He doesn't bake her a cake.

What's Holden's take going to be on Naomi and the spot she's in, and this mission that she's on?

The two of them are together. The question marks of, "An Earther and a Belter, can we be together?" They have chosen each other. They've chosen to be on the Roci. They've gone through a tremendous amount. That's true for the whole family. That's true for Amos. It's true for Alex, the group. It's like the most warmest and connected beginning for them that we've ever seen. I think that that's an interesting outgrowth of the fact that we really took our time building up that family unit from season 1 on.

After the events of season 4, after everything they went through on Ilus, it's like they are a bonded group that… It's just their chosen family. It has that feel to it. There's a connectedness and warmth to the relationships of all of our four main people on the Roci, and that's reflected in Holden and Naomi.

It's part of the fun of getting into deep runs of shows if you do them properly, is that you really do develop the relationships. If you think about where these guys started in season 1 to where they start in season 5, it's a pretty interesting change. And it feels believable, because you're taking the time to actually set it up. We're starting Holden and Naomi from, I think, a very warm and supportive place at the beginning of season 5.

I want to ask you what's happening on Mars, and if there's anything there that might be something that might connect later to, say, book number 7 and what we may be seeing down the line a bit on The Expanse? Obviously, there's some long-term stuff happening in Mars that you may be planting some seeds for.

Yes! Absolutely. See, this is spoken like a book reader. There absolutely is, and we actually teed it up at the end of last season, as Bobbi got involved in the black-market arms trade. There are little pieces of it that are popping through the surface even then.

Part of what was going on at the very end of season 4 was they were selling stealth composites to Belters. Those are the stealth composites that Marco uses to coat the asteroids. And, if you look really carefully at the end of season 4, it's Filip who's one of the Belters that is blowing up things on Mars.

Bobbi doesn't know who that is, but that's Filip who helps blow up that salvage yard at the end of season 4. But, absolutely the tip of that conspiracy that we started at the end of last season plays an incredibly important role in season 5.

As you talk about the Belters, I gather that we are going to be seeing more Belter factions. What it was like to think of all these different subgroups that we're going to see, and the different motivations and things they might have? I imagine that was pretty fun to put together.

It really was. Again, I think one of the things that we've really tried hard to do to really dimensionalize the conflict. It's like, you're seeing every side of it. We've driven down into Earth. We've driven down into Mars. We've driven down into Belt. We've driven down into the independent faction of Holden and the Roci gang.

In terms of the Belt specifically, at the end of season 4, Drummer walked away from the OPA. She walked away from politics and Fred Johnson, and didn't take Ashford up on his offer of being his XO. She struck out on her own, trying to create a life for herself in this very tumultuous world. Well, politics, and war, and strife, they have a way of finding you. It's hard to avoid them. What we're going to find from her in season five, her story line speaks to that very directly.

One of my favorite stories in all the books is Amos going to Baltimore. I'm really excited to see that. What can you say about his time back on Earth?

I think you're going to love it. It's one of the things that I have been looking forward to doing for years. We talked a lot about it because The Churn is a fantastic novella. What we've done over the course of the series is, we have found a way to express these novellas into our narrative in a way that they're not really done in the novels proper.

You're going to get that. I think people who have read that novella, especially, but I think fans in general, even people who've never seen the show, they're just going to love this. It really is one of my favorite story lines we did this season.

What can you just say about what he's facing there, or why he's going there?

Well, without giving too much away, there have been times when Amos has had a chance to go back to Earth, even at the beginning of season 4, when the Roci was in orbit around Earth. Amos didn't go back down there.

Reaching back into season 3, when that reporter Monica Stuart was interviewing him. She was talking about, "Isn't it funny that you got the name of a mob boss?" He said, "Oh, it's a common name in Baltimore." And, "Oh, yeah, how'd you get out there? You ended up in the lottery really fast." There's a lot of mystery attached to Amos' backstory around Baltimore. Without telling specifically why he heads back, you're going to get a lot of answers to it. Things are going to feel really, really satisfying because it illuminates a side of him that nobody else on the Roci gets to see. Nobody else really knows, but the audience is going to get to go with Amos to experience it.

Speaking of Amos on Earth, what can you say about the possibility of seeing Clarissa Mao again in season 5?

I don't want to spoil anything. [Laughs] She's down there, I suppose.

I think I know where she is too.

We did see at the beginning of season 4 that she's in prison. The story lines in particular this season have such depth to them, and it feels like you're just getting really into these characters' skin in a way that we haven't done to this extent before. So we're really excited for people to see it.

#the expanse #amos burton #naomi nagata #james holden #naren shankar #article #interview #news #s5 #link in source

50 notes · View notes

popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

Text

The Critic Valentine’s Day Double Feature (Pilot/Sherman, Woman and Child)

Vivia Jay Sherman! Viva Quebec! Viva Valentine’s Day! And Viva WeirdKev who as happens for a good chunk of my content payed for this wonderful double feature for one of my favorite shows. The Critic was created by Al Jean and Mike Reis of The Simpsons fame, a comedy team supreme. While I knew the two wrote for the simpsons, more on that iin a minute, I had no idea just how many classics the two churned out: There’s No Disgrace Like Home, Moaning LIsa, The Telltale Head, The Way We Was, Stark Raving Dad (Sadly tainted by it’s guest star being a horirble monster but that’s not their fault), Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington, the treehouse of horror segments The Bart Zone and Clown Without Pity (The second of which may be my favorite treehouse of horror segment), and later coming back to write the story for one of my all time favorites Round Springfield and to outright write the classic “SupercalfragalisticexpalliDOHcious”. And to his credit Jean would later go on to write some classic post-golden age simpsons episodes during his tenure as producer: Lisa’s Sax, Mom and Pop Art, and Children of a Lesser Clod, which is notable if nothing else for this gag.

So yeah the guys are legends and were right to start their own show under Simpsons producer James L Brooks over at ABC. The show followed the adventures of film Critic, Jay Sherman, a parody of film critics with high brow tastes, impossibly high standards, and a huge opinon of himself, having won the pultizer at least once. Despite this he was also constnatly spat and shat on by society, divorced, lonely, depressed and eats like a thousand pigs combined in some horrific science accident. And given the last three parts describe me, as well as my profession of b eing a critic, naturally I love the guy and this show. I’ll get into his cast as we go as the first episode does an excellent job of introducing the entire cast so there’s no sense repeating myself. But the show’s style I can and will talk about: It’s basically Golden Age, i.e. season’s 1-10, simpsons, but with more pop culture refrences and movie parodies, since the show would often feature multiple on Jay’s show coming Attractions and took place in the celebrity hot spot of new york and was a love letter to the city.. and sometimes a hate letter but only when those digs at the city would be funny, which to be fair depsite never having been to or lived in new york most really are. That’s the series key asset: while a LOT of the jokes haven’t aged well as a lot of the celbreity refrences are dated as are some of the movie parodies, most are hilarious wether you get what their making fun of or not and to me tha’ts a good parody: where knowing what their making fun of HELPS, but you can laugh regardless. The show had the charm and pace of the Simpsons while having it’s own unique style and cast that was just as charming and I love it dearly. The show sadly only lasted two seasons, with ABC canceling it after one, and Brooks having it moved over to FOX, which was a good idea and lead to what’s probably my faviorite simpsons episode, a Star is Burns. Ironically despite you know, the show being created by two simpsons writers, backed by one of their producers and perfectly in line, creator Matt Groening was against the idea, publicly ranted about it to the press, and generally was an ass about it. Look I love the guy and even Brooks, Jean and Reiss were all nice enough in thier criticsim of the guy, but sitll very much understandably pissed off. .and i’m with them.

It gave what’s again, my faviorite episode and what is not a “30 minute add” but an episode that easily stands on it’s own and also you know, pokes fun at itself for being a crossover a few times. You don’t need to see the critic to enjoy it, and episodes most iconic gags, Boo-Urns, Man Getting HIt by a Football, Senior Speilbergo, all don’t involve jay. And again the shows were not at all dismilar: While the critic was it’s own thing it still had the simpsons sense of humor and pacing so I saw it more as a petty rant against having a crossover in general more than a legit critcisim. Especially since Groening had no such complaints decades later with the family guy crossover after both shows had all tehir talent surgically removed and had the gall to NOT remove a cheap shot at Bob’s Burgers. And yes i’m still bitter about seeing that in a promo for the special, Bob’s Burgers is fantastic, to the point that now, in a fabulous case of history repeating itself, it’s got it’s OWN show like the critic made by talented former crew members using a similar but sitll throughly unique comedy style , The Great North. My point is that controversy pisses me off, and The Great North is spectacular go watch it while you read this.

So yeah the Critic is awesome, me and Kev are both fans, and there are plenty of romantic episodes abound as the show digs into Jay’s love life quite a few times and has episodes about his son’s first love, his boss finding a wife towards the end of the series, his parents rekindling their spark and in what’s easily my faviorite episode, his sister dating a grunge rocker. So there was no shortage of choices but the choice made was brilliant.. and i’m not saying that because i’m being paid to, as my review of splatter phoenix’s first episode in darkwing duck and woops should show, paying me does not guarantee that I have to LIKE what your paying me to review. But here I did and he pointed out the first episode of each season, with season two being a soft reboot that while keeping the premise and supporting cast changed a few things around and added two new main characters, and both involve jay finding a new love intrest and intorduce a lot of the cast. I found him to be right, so where we are and after the cut i’ll dive into the good and bad of both episodes and see what changed inbetween seasons.

That gag will make sense.. later. Right now it’s time for our very first episode, the show’s very first episode as you could probably tell by the title.

Pilot: The pilot starts with Jay getting touched up by his Makeup Person Doris. Jay is played by legendary comedian John Lovitz, who this show gave me a deep and lasting appreciation for. Lovitz was at the time best known for his 5 year long stint on SNL, and film wise is best known for Three Amigos, the Brave Little Toaster, The Wedding Singer and Rat Race. Sadly while I do geninely love the guy.. he has been in enough crap to destroy the New York Sewer system, as everyone needs money and sadly not everyone appricates the talents of John Lovitz like I do.

So naturally he’s also been in The Stepford Wives remake, Grown Ups 2, The Ridiculous 6, Eight Crazy Nights, North, Benchwarmers and Benchwarmers 2: Breaking Balls. Yes that’s an actual movie, though it’s already better than the first one for virtue of not having Rob Schnider and David Spade starring in it despite.. that title. The irony is not lost on me that Lovitz has essentially made his money starring in the kinds of films Jay was forced to see for his job. Still a VERY talented, very lovely man.

Before we get to our next voice actor up, no profile of Jon would be complete without mentioning that time he slammed Andy Dick’s face into a bar. To make a very long story short, Lovitz was friends with the late great Phil Hartman, who even did some voice work for this very show, whose wife who had severe drug and mental ilness killed them both. Phil had told Lovitz he saw Dick give his wife cocaine, so after Phil’s tragic murder when Lovitz and Dick ended up on the same show, Lovitz ended up exploding at the guy out of grief and blamed him for her death, but later apologized like a gentleman. Living up to his name though Dick later went up to Lovitz at a restraunt Lovitz owned and said “I’m giving you the Phil Hartman curse, you die next”. Granted he was drunk but still...

Naturally Lovitz banned the guy and Lovitz later demanded an apology when the two ran into each other when they ran into each other at Lovitz regular gig at the comed store. Dick not only refused to apologize even when Lovitz put him against a wall, but said it was because “you blamed me for her death”... which was a decade ago with change by this point, the actions of a man GREIVING for his best friend whose wife’s relapse you caused which inadveradntly lead to her and her husband’s death, and something HE APOLOGIZED FOR. Naturally Lovitz took this how you would and did what we’d all like to do in general and broke the shit out of his face and only didn’t do more because they were seperated. IN short this man is a hero and I wil lbring up this story at every opportunity. Doris was played by the late voice actress Doris Grau, a script supervisor who worked on a LOT of films as one , the most notable I could find on wikipedia being Clue. This is a fact I just learned today but boy if it isn’t neat. Grau mostly did aditional voices for shows, most notably Ducktales and the Simpsons, where she played Lunchlady Doris, and of course this show. Still she seemed like a very funny and talented woman and it’s sad she’s gone. The two start the series mostly sniping at each other and while that never ENTIRELY goes away, Doris gets more supportive after a spotlight episode where she and Jay bond and Jay thinks she might be his mom. And while she’s not this surprisingly sticks and for the rest of the series while still not above making potshots at him on occasion, she’s far more supportive. She also informs him she’s out of spray on hair “I’m bald and ugly, get more!”. This show is naturally comedy gold and a lot of it relies on Lovitz sense of timing, though the rest of the cast aren’t slouches but we’ll get to them as we go. She ends up putting a hat over him and we get our first film parody, Rabbi PI starring Anuld, which is alright. Not one of the series best but passable and gets the gimmick of having film parodies on jay’s show across, which was a nice way to set it apart from the Simpsons. Jay reviews it on the Shermometor, a gimmick jay hates and that disappeared by season 2, giving it a bellow zero to the ire of his boss Duke Phillips. Duke is one of the best parts of the show, an unhinged southren billlonare who was a modeled after Ted Turner, down to the mustache, who built up his fried chicken franchise into a multimedia congrlomorate and is also mildly nuts, though that part would be more of a thing in season 2. In season 1, he’s mostly there to make Jay’s life hell, with about half of the seasons episodes having him either fire jay or put his job in jeapordy versus 2 the next season. He’s still not unfunny, but most of his best stuff is in season 2 when Charles Napier’s allowed to cut loose a little more and the character wasn’t shoehorned into just being a clueless executive. Charles Napier is a longtime character actor who showed up in TONS of films and tv shows too many to list.. and trust me with some of the lists of credits before and after this that’s saying something, his biggest voice rolls being in this series and Men and Black the Series as Zed. But needless to say he was ALWAYS this awesome and sadly passed in 2011. Jay’s guest for the day is Valerie Fox, an up and coming actress whose first film kiss of death is coming out soon.. and whose age is an engima and it’s only a problem because if she’s 20, like the episode mildly suggests giving her starting career and her voice actress being that age, then this gets really gross as jay is 17 years older than her then. But given she looks older than that and sounds certainly older than that, i’m going more with 30, since she looks more like it, and sharon stone, who she’s mildly based on given she stars in a basic instinct knockoff and does the leg thing, was 32 at the time of basic instinct. Valerie is voiced by Jennifer Lien, aka Kes from star trek voyager who I only know about because of reviews done by SF Debris and Allison Pregler. She was the childlike love intrest of Nelix, the ship’s resident pain in the audience asses who made them BEG for early seasons wesley crusher and who once, and I saw footage this wasn’t SF Debris exagreated, lunged at a crewmate in a jealous rage, unfounded by the way since Tom was AVOIDING kes depsite being attracted to her as he just wnated her to be happy and to not mess up her relationshpi, and screamed “i’ll kill you!”. Point is she hasn’t had a huge career, but was still worth noting and does a fantastic job here. Again I did not realize she was that young at the time by her voice, and that means she did a great job.

So Jay’s smitten with her, finds her super attractive and she asks him out.. but to the show’s credit, and Jay’s he does try to rebuff her because he knows ther’es a conflict of intrest there.. but ends up giving in. However at least the show not only is upfront that there’s an issue here but that ends up being the thrust of the last act. Granted there’s still some.. questionable stuff like when she does the basic instinct leg cross and he says “can we get a shot of that”, which no.. Jay.. no you can’t. Ewwww. Seen far worse, like It’s Pat, which was a VERY real SNL sketch about people trying to guess the titular pat’s gender because that’s not creepy or invasive even for the time. And they made a movie out of it because Wayne’s World was popular forgetting that Wayne’s World, one of my faviorite movies by the way and one I need to cover here sometime this year now the thought’s occured to me, was a labor of love, with a talented director and actual ideas from it’s two leads who actually fleshed out the character versus a concept that was NEVER funny to begin with and has gotten down right horrifying with age. And wasn’t I talking about the Critic? Not the abusive jackass mind you, Jay Sherman.

Ah yes so Jay takes Valerie to a date at Lane Riche, the rich jackass where we meet Vlada, a vaugely european man whose your typical hollywood suckup. As Jay puts it in a later episode Vlada: I love you too Jay: You only love my money Vlada: That’s true but it is a love that will never die. He also naturally scoots Jay to a less nice table in the Critic’s section once Conan O’Brian shows up... which WAS supposed to be a different kind of joke, as at the time Conan was just a writer on the simpsons and SNL, but now given he has a decades long career in late night and famously said fuck you to NBC during that whole Tonight Show debacle, which netted him his own show on TBS, it comes off more as the kind of self deprciating gag Conan makes about himself. So in other words it’s actually funnier now?

As for the critic’s section that’s a part of the series I’ve neglected to talk about so let’s do that: The kind of critic Jay is, one who plays clips of the movie and reviews them.. on television. And were usually academics who looked down on popular film, the kind Siskel and Ebert popularized, and both suprisingly had a huge guest apperance in season 2 and even reviewed the show on their show. This kind of film criticism just dosen’t exist on tv that i’m aware of anymore, and mostly lives on with internet reviewers , many of whom were inspiried by critics like this, and who range from acadmeics to average joes to some mixture of both. It never went away just simply went to a younger generation. Some of which squandred it and somehow still have a career like certain abusuive jackasses i’ve mentioned enough with that one gag a few paragraphs ago. Point is it’s a much more varied and different game now so the critic ended up as one of those shows or movies where the main characters very job feels like an artifact of it’s time, like our heroes in Wayne’s World hosting a public acess show, when nowadays they’d just put it up on youtube or the entire idea of a UHF station in well.. UHF. It’s not a BAD thing, just something to note.

But the date goes well as Valerie shows she’s really into jay and even takes him oggling her in stride, though we do get an utter classic of a gag when Jay says something about women being drawn to him.. and cue an old woman asking to rub his nonexistant hump for luck “You hunchbacks are all alike”. She does so anyway to his understandable annoyance.

But the two go back to Jay’s place, talk about his acomplishments including a pulitzer and then well.. the obvious happens they go to bed together and the next day after Valerie is horrified at his just woke up fac,e he gives her an easy out but she’s fine with it. It honestly shows just how low the poor guy’s self esteem is that he just.. assumes a woman will regret having slept with hima nd walk out and while played for laughs it really gives a clear look into Jay’s mental state: He’s so full of self loathing, not helped by the world being out to get him, that it’s really oddly endearing. And VERY releatable. The two are interupted by Jay’s son Marty. Marty is played by the very recognizable and very wonderful Christine Cavanagh, who sadly passed away in 2014. She voiced Chuckie Finster, Gosalyn Mallard, Oblina, Dexter from Dexter’s Lab and the titular pig from Babe. She decided to retire in 2001, so while her career was only about a decade she made quite the impact and is sorely missed. Unsuprisingly her usual voice is perfect for the very awkward Marty, who Jay asks to tell eveyrone about the beautiful woman in his bed especially his unfaithful and utterly loathsome ex wife ardith.

This scene demonstrates two problems. The first is just the pilot as Jay’s kind of sleazy. While Jay being thirsty wouldn’t go away, especially in the episode Lady Hawke, it’d be made more awkwardly endearing. Here there are moments of him just plain being creepy like the aformentioned oggling, which while not bad in itself, if a bit awkawrd, also has him creepily muttering to himself while doing so which removes any charm or relatability and just sends it straight into needing 10 showers just to wash this scene off. The rest of the series would just turn him into a bit desperate at worst. It also explains why the only other romantic story the guy has in the season is a pastiche of misery. Thanfully this would be GREATLY adjusted next season but we’ll get to that.

The other problem is just the tone... we get a good half a minute of Marty talking about how he calls Ardith’s boyfriend “Uncle Al” because he likes him a lot.. to his dad’s face. And granted his dad is being creeptastic this episode but the early episodes just pile on the Jay hatred by the world a bit thick, to the point one episode puts him as “worse than hitler”. Granted the audience is full of idiot teens who have no idea who hitler is, and the gag is kinda funny, but it makes my point: Jay is just utterly shat on by the world, and while he does get a few wins, most are undercut by something awful and it gets taxing sometimes. The guy is just too loveably pathetic to hate, too relatable even as a teen and not snobish enough to be really loathsome or WANT to see him knocked down by the world. It’s not overwhelming enough to ruin the first season, it still has good episodes but this episode does highlight a LOT of these problems. He does get to spend the day with val though, dancing outside the trump buliding, seriously even back then he was a joke and his lack of money half the time was well known.. how did the last four years happen, and they tell each other they love each other. I’d aww if I didn’t know how this ended. So jay relates the good news of how he feels to his best friend, Jeremy Hawke, played by Maurice LaMarche. LaMarche is one of the most talented voice actors alive, a master of impersonations paticuarlly orson welles, who was naturally brought on board because they knew they were going to need a lot of celebrity voices for the film parodies and needed one or two guys to do them to keep it cheap. The guy is like most of this cast a legend in the industry, having voiced the Brain, Squit, Dizzy Devil, the Human Ton, Big Bob Pataki, Egon Spengler, Sleet, Kiff Kroker, Headless Body of Agnew, Morbo, Various other Futurama characters because that list is long, Mortimer Mouse, Blue Falcone, Father, Yosemite Sam, Vincent Van Ghoul, Doctor Doom, Abradolf Lincler, and Odval. Point is the guy has been engranged in my childhood and adulthood and will probably even after he’s gone come back from the grave to do some voices. He even got the part of Jeremy Hawke here because he happened to do a REALLY good australian accent depsite not being australian. Jeremey was a combination of paul hogan, the star of the Crocodile Dundee movies and at the time sex symbol and at this time known anti semite Mel Gibson. Obviously neither of those refrences has aged paticuarlly well, but since hollywood ALWAYS has room for a super hunk from australia, just ask Chris Hemsworth or before him Hugh Jackman, the character still works and his breakout role, Crocodile Ghandi is so ludcrious it works. I.e. a white australian man playing the mahtma and saying before he brings peace “First a tasteful shot of my bum for the ladies. Jeremy, while sometimes increidbly oblvious, is still a fairly nice easygoing guy and an extremley loveable character. And whie Jay worries about Valrie meeting him because he’s sex on a cracker she ignores him and jay gloats for a bit, paticuarlly with the great bit “take your genatalia right back to australia”. And while Jeremy’s happy for him he tries to reign Jay in when Jay talks asking her to marry him. As Jeremy later relates on Jay’s fire escape “Bubala, i’ve learned there’s two things you should never do: Marry an actress and wear blackface to the naacp image awards. Two things I found out the hard way. “

So Jay takes her to meet his parents and finds out he’s adopted.. and their also rich. Jay’s waspy parents are his cold and overly honest mother Elanor, played by Judith Ivey, his kooky dad and THE best part of the series Franklin played by Gerrit Grahm and his loving and free spirited teenager sister Margo played by Nancy Cartwright. Okay (cracks knuckles) here. we. go. Judith Ivey is a tony wining stage actress and has also directed numerous plays and is mostly known for her stage work but I know her from Designing Women where she played BJ in the last season. Garret Grahm apparently shows up in a lot of brian depalma movies, including Beef in phantom of the paradise, a lot of tv work and to my shock the asshole dad from Child’s Play 2. Another thing I genuinely love I wasn’t aware an actor or actress from this series had a part in. Finally there’s Nancy Cartwright, who you DEFINTELY know from the Simpsons, where she plays Bart, along with Nelson, Ralph, Kearny, Database, and Maggie, and Kearny. Other credits include Pistol Pete, Mindy from Animaniacs, Chuckie Finster picking up for Christine Cavanagh ironically enough, Lu and Rufus from Kim Possible. She’s a talented lady and i’m glad sh’es still around. Whew.

Okay so yeah I do love the shermans and fraknlin is again easily the best part of an already excellent series and unlike Duke that’s in full display here, with him saying, when his wife mentions they were going to give jay back at one time, “Son if I’ve said it once I said it a thousand times.. who are all you people. “ and he’d only get better. Sadly he’s NOT in sherman woman and child. Our loss really. But he’s in pretty much every other episode of season 2 thankfully and most of this season so eh, fair trade off. Also we get the classic line, after Jay says he’ll love valrie even when he’s decaying in the ground, his mom quips “Cna’t we go one meal without talking about your rotting corpse?” Though Eleanor understandably thinks Valarie is using jay for a good review. Margo suspects her of the same and takes her on a horse ride, though all she can gleam is that Val genuielly loves jay and welcomes her to the family. Jay however does decide to duck out of the inteview by faking sick, which leads to a really sweet moment where Valerie visits him and they dance, in a hilaroius but oddly sweet parody of Beauty and the Beast, Beauty and King Dork. Despite the title and the song insluting him a LOT it’s still just endearing. This is a problem but we’ll get to in just a moment WHY all these touching moments are a problem. So naturally things don’t go that well for Jay as Duke has a tape of the film sent to him “My shrink was right: GOd does hate me!”

Naturally kiss of death is bad and valrie is bad in it and Jay is left uncertain what to do, but eventually decides he has to do what he feels is right,.. though he does take a picture of her while she’s sleeping. “In case you do leave”

So in a tender and heartbreaking moment Jay is honest, the movie does suck and she’s not good but he does compliment her, for her personality not her body despite his skeevy behavior and say she could get better. Instead when he arrives home.. she dumps him to his face and leaves never to be seeen again while he assumes she’ll come back. And that’s the issue it’s GENUINELY hard to tell if we’re supposed to side with Jay. On one hand he genuinely loves her and does the right thing and on the oth er he’s kinda creepy. It’s a mixed tone that just sorta hurts thing and something the series DID fix after this, as it found a better ballance of the guy being pitable while also still being an ass and ONLY usually being punished when he does something actually wrong, the only exception being Dial M for MOther which is easily the weakest episode of the series. The episode does close on a really funny moment as Jay’s dispondent because “I’m sitting on top of a volcano of rage and I don’t knwo where to direct it”. Marty mentions a new Sylvester Stallone movie where “He plays a concert pianst who” And jay dosen’t even need the rest of that to shout “To the multiplex!” The man is back

Final Thoughts for Pilot: This episode is not bad. It has it’s flaws as I said, mostly in tone, but the series would iron that out and it’s still a great pilot that organically introduces the entire main cast in one episode and really gives us the full idea of who Jay Sherman is. It’s also REALLY funny, as the series should be and it would get better, but i’d still put it over some more awkward first episode like Letterkenny’s “No Reaosn to Get Excited”, even with it’s brilliant ending or Bojack Horseman’s first episode whose title is way too long to put here in an article that’s already long as hell about about to get longer. But like those series this pilot worked pass the awkwardness and the result is a damn good series. but if you want a better idea of what it became.. wellllllll

Sherman, Woman and Child: So yeah as you can tell JSUT by contrasting images a few things were changed up between seasons, part of it at network instance. The designs were softened , the color palette was brightened with jay being the most noticably alterted between seasons.

The execs wanted jay a bit warmer, so his face was given wider more expressive eyes and was also scrucnehd down a bit. He was also made slightly less of a jackass, with his elitisim toned down a bit and his creepeir moments gone. For instance he no longer had a split personality/imaginary secretary named ethel. That was actually a thing. It didn’t even really change Jay as a person, this very episode mentions him not liking the Lion King, and he’s still snooty, he’s jusst not as punchable about it and that was for the best. But the cringe comedy in general was taken down a peg and replaced with more fun weirdness, which wihle present in season 1 really pops more here, especially with Jay’s dad who sadly dosen’t show up in this episode, but at various points dresses up like El Kabong, puts on the mask from the mask (”He did the same thing at Nixon’s funeral”), and blows up famous works of art while babysitting. But yeah things get a bit more surreal like the simpsons from season 4 onward, ironically enough given these guys left to make their own show, and it’s to the show’s benefit.

But besides a lighter tone, they also wanted two things to hook viewers in: A permenant love intrest for Jay, and an adorable kid character. The former.. was acutlaly quite resonable, as i’td both give jay a “win” as it were, allow the cast to have another femlae character and give him someone else to confide in besides Doris or Jeremy, to give those characters a break. The other was less so and we’ll get into why when we meet her.

This episode really is a second pilot, reintroducing about half of the main cast. Marty, Elanor, Margo and as I said Franklin are all absent. But their reintroduced soon enough with the fourth episode in both broadcast and dvd order, and my personal faviorite “A Song for Margo, is entirely focused on Jay’s parents and sister, while Lady Hawke has marty breifly at the start for broadcast order and he’s in the frmaing device for Sherman of Arabia in dvd order. So the characters all get a proper reintroduction to new audiences, but it was the right call to NOT shove them into this one, still introducing new people to the new cast, but letting the two new additions to it breathe and get properly intergrated into this universe.. well more Alice than Penny but we’ll get to that. It’s part of why, besides the genuine extra coat of polish aand seasonal changes I feel this is the better episode.

So we open with Jay on his show and two parodies in a row. The first is a few good men but with Jack Nichelson making fun of Christan Slater for sounding like him even though. they honestly aren’t too similar other than both doing that pause thing a bit. So yeah not their best but the second segment makes up for it “The Nightmare Before Channukah” a parody of the nightmare before christmas that was so beautifully animated and funny, that they actually bumped it up to the season premiere. But while the parodies are good Jay’s show is once again, this happened a LOT in season one, in jeapordy, being beaten by the Benedictine monk variety hour. Which while the Bendictine Monks are VERY much an artifact of the 90′s a choir of monks that somehow went mainstream, the whole segment is so absurd and wonderful it stands on it’s own and is still funny to me in 2021. Duke comes in anda fter trying to softball things shows the change I mentioned: He’s actually sorry the show is in danger and is genuinely sincere that he’s sad he’ll probably have to cancel it versus season 1 where he was ready to cancel it what felt like every other episode. And I prefer this, where he can still mess with jay or flex his power over him, but is more cordial with the guy and it allows more jokes between the two.

So Jay’s not doing so good.. and during his crappy day he spots a 30 something woman and her young daughter struggling in the rain and stops his cab to help. And gets maced for it “MMM, Jalapeno”. Though Alice does apologize and Jay does understand as it is New York and she graciously takes the offer. It’s in the cab their properly introduced. Aliice thompkins and her daughter penny who in a great bit punches jay in the nose for not liking the lion king (”rex reed did the same thing”) and then kissing him on the nose in apology (”Rex did that too” And he acompanies them in.. and also gets conked on the head by a potted plant and put in a materinity dress.

So we get to know Alice and what her deal is: Alice was once married to and supported the career of country star Cyrus Thompkins who was.. less than subtle in his music about how faithful he was

Easily one of my favorite gags of the series if in part for Pat Overall’s delivery. So she moved from Knoxville to New York to prove to her daughter a woman can make it on her own, and proves she’s smart, talented and driven she just needs a break. She seemingly gets one in a man in a bright white outfit who says “this is your ticket out of this rundown flophouse” only for him to cheerfully exclaim “Your being evicted!”... PFFFTT. Cue where the commerical would be

So during this lull in the action let’s talk about Alice and Penny’s voice actresses: Alice is voiced by Park Overall, though for some weird reason I thought she was voiced by Hollly Hunter. Dunno why. Park is an outspoken liberal, supporting my boy bernie sanders in 2016 and in general seems like a fascenating lady. Naturally like with Jay’s parents I know her from something more oddly specific, the sitcom Reba, as I did not realize she voiced alice depsite using a similar voice for her character there, Reba’s best friend Lori Ann.. And while Park TRIED her best.. the character didn’t work out: a combination of it being simply funnier that barbra jean tried to wedge herself into the roll and the fact Reba really didn’t need a horny abrasive sidekick meant the charcter had a very short shelf life and the audience had very low patience for her. I did like her constnatly insulting Brock as he was not a good person andi t was nice SOMEONE besides Reba actually got to roast him on a regular basis.

Penny was voiced by the one and only Russi Taylor, who sadly passed in 2019. She voiced Huey Dewey and Louie, Webby Vanderquack, Minnie Mouse, Fantasma, the imcomprable martin prince...

youtube

Among tons of smaller rolls. She’s sadly missed. We’ll get more into what they add or subtract from the show in a minute, as the next day at work Jay wonders how to help, though Duke’s interjection gives us two great gags: his “30 second workout” which involvees throwing jay around like a medicine ball and.. well this.

youtube

The man is a legend for a reason. He earned that golden statue. So Jay TRIES slipping alice the money only to give it “To my good friend crazy postman”, and Alice refuses the money due to pride.. even if you know, she has a small child and new york is expensive but Jay finds a better solution, hire her.. even if it’d make it impossible for them to date. For all of one episode. What keeps the power dynamics from feeling EUGUUUUGGHH here is that Jay treats alice like an equal partner at work and dosen’t let their relationship really impact things outside of one episode, and dosen’t use his position to get into a relationship with her nor does she use being responsible for a turn in his fortune for hers.

And yes turn in fortune, as a makeover and a change of attidue under Alice’s direction, which is utterly amazing to watch and wow’s duke and hte audience, wins back his fans and his job is secure. Duke meets alice and we get more great duke stuff. including something truly iconic...

youtube

I want bears who sing for me, doo dah, doo dah. But yeah things are well though Jay ends up admitting to Jeremy he can’t stop thinking about her “Her merest smile is like pedals of the empreror’s bathwater, BATHWATER I TELL YOU BATHWATER. “ So Jeremey encourages him carpe canum “Seize the dog”. He does so.. and the day but instead finds Alice with her ex Cyrus whose trying to win her back. Wuh oh. Once the asshole leaves, and agrees to give her the night to think, Alice admits the only reason she’s considering it is she has a weakness: his singing melts her like butter on a bagle (”God i’ve been in new york too long”. ) Jay tries to talk her out of it at the critics meeting for “Dennis the Meance II Society” which involves Dennis pulling a drivebye on mr wilson.. why wasn’t this the second live action dennis the meance movie? WHY I ASK YOU. But Jay gets a good idea, as Alice TRIES to tell the asshole to get to stepping (And to see penny often, she’s not a monster), he works his evil song magic.. only for Jay to undercut it with his own amazing song on acordian. “Cyrus is just a virus, he wants to tie you down while your still young. Your potetial, is what’s essential, you could someday be another connie chung!” And that ultiamtely shows WHY jay is the better man. He just wants what’s best for her and dosen’t care if it’s him, he just wants it not to be THIS asshole. He’s not even trying to win her over, which a lot of these gestures creepily lead to. He just wants to help her be who she’s MEANT to be. And that’s why this works better: Instead of a fake relationship built on lust and someone conning the other person, it’s a real one built on genuine chemistry. Also Alice you know dosen’t just.. vanish after an episode but is a permenant part of the cast. I mean she does for the webisodes but we don’t talk about those.

So our hero undercuts Cyrus one more time Cyrus: “Loverrrr, without you there’s no other” Jay: Give him a chance he’ll do your mother....

I mean he’s not worng, So Cyus is sent packing and we get a nice romantic moment between the two.

Final Thoguhts: Sherman, Woman and Child This one is truly excellent. It relaunchs the show on all cyllanders. And frankly Alice was a fine addition to the cast: her own fully fleshed out woman with her own personality outside of jay, who was tough, smart and a good counterpoint and confidant to Jay and it felt like she’d always fit. Penny on the other hand, apologizes to the late Russi Taylor who tries her best, just dosen’t work and feels ultra cloying and out of place in the series and unspurisingly is barely used after this. But overall a better pilot than the actual pilot was already pretty good and a fine pair of episodes. Check em out whenever the series eithe rgets on a streaming platform or pops back up on youtube as Sony’s struck it down... despite not putting it up anywhere i’m aware of. Seriously sell it to HBO Max or Disney I want a reboot. But for now this series is awesome check it out and until the next rainbow, it’s been a pleasure.

#the critic #jay sherman #alice thompkins #marty sherman #duke phillips #pilot #sherman mother and child #jon lovitz #the simpsons #mike reiss #al jean #abc #fox #animation #the 90s

13 notes · View notes

dweemeister · 4 years ago

Text

2020 Movie Odyssey Award for Best Original Song (preliminary round)

Yup, it’s back (bullet indentations are not working, so this post will look very ugly on your dashboards)!

Tagging a few folks who have participated before in this annual tradition/folks who I would like to extend an open invitation to (please contact me if you’re interested so I can sort you in a group ASAP... you will also be tagged for the final unless you tell me you are not interested): @birdsongvelvet, @bitch-genius, @dog-of-ulthar, @idontknowmuchaboutmovies, @loveless422, @lvl9gay, @neverwasastoryofmorewhoa, @phendranaedge, @poncho-honcho, @sayaf, @shadesofhappy, @thethirdman8, @uncoolforelimb, and @wehadfacesthen.

Hello everybody. For my fellow Americans, I hope your Thanksgiving was a good one. For the non-Americans reading things, I hope you are doing well, as always! Many things have fallen to the wayside in this unforgettable year. So in hopes of providing some sense of continuity and normalcy, here - as you have agreed to - is the Preliminary Round for 2020's Movie Odyssey Award for Best Original Song (MOABOS). This is the eighth time it has been contested and the seventh consecutive year it has been open to involvement from family, friends, and tumblr followers.

For those new to this, my classic movie blog traditionally ends the year by honoring some of the best achievements from movies that I saw for the first time this calendar year (the "Movie Odyssey") with an Oscar-like ceremony. I choose all the nominees and winners from each category, save one: Best Original Song. It is the only category I can think of that does not require you to watch several movies in their entirety. I consider MOABOS as a sort of cinematic-musical thank-you for your moral support in various ways.

An unspecified number of songs have already advanced to the final round. 24 songs will contest this prelim in two groups - Group A and Group B. In a year when COVID-19 has closed theaters (and which I refused to go to an indoor theater even when they reopened), a year that I did not feel compelled to watch the newest releases on streaming services, there is not a single 2020 entry for 2020's MOABOS. That is, obviously, a MOABOS first - no other MOABOS edition has lacked a shortlisted song from a film released that same calendar year. And as of writing this sentence, I have not seen a single film released in 2020. Despite the lack of 1930s songs, this year's shortlisted songs might be the oldest on average. In other news, this year's field is a modest improvement from the record monolingual field of last year's (which contained only English and two Vietnamese-language entries). 2019's preliminary was the most chaotic we had ever seen, with shocking last-day stumbles and surges from certain songs ("I Dug a Ditch" from Thousands Cheer) that riled up a lot of participants. It's 2020 - will there be a repeat or even more drama at this stage?

INSTRUCTIONS Please rank (#1-12) at least six of your group's songs. Please consider to the best of your ability: how musically interesting the song is (incl. and not limited to musical phrasing and orchestration); its lyrics; context within the film (contextual blurbs provided for every entry for those who haven't seen the films); choreography/dance direction (if applicable); and the song's cultural impact/life outside the film (if applicable, and, in my opinion, least important factor). Imperfections in audio and video quality may not be used against any song. I encourage you to send in comments and reactions with your rankings - it makes the process more enjoyable for you and myself! The top five songs in each group automatically advance to the final round. I reserve the right to pick 0-2 songs from one or both groups that finished outside the top five in their respective groups to contest the final round.

The deadline for submission is Saturday, December 12 at 11 PM Pacific Time. That is 9 PM Hawaii/Aleutian Time. That deadline is also Sunday, December 13 at 1 AM Central Time / 2 AM Eastern Time / 7 AM GMT / 8 AM CET / 9 AM EET. This deadline - as we have seen in the last few years - may be pushed back if there are a large number of people who have not submitted in time. However, I very much do not wish to extend the deadline because the final round is more intensive and usually involves more participants. Tabulation details are in the “read more” below.

Please participate in the group you have been sorted into, if you have not yet been sorted into a group and would like to participate, please contact me. You can access most, not all, of your group’s songs in these YouTube playlists: (Group A) / (Group B). Again, please note that not all of your group's songs are in the playlist for various reasons.

Happy listening. Feel free to listen as many times as you need, and I hope you discover music and movies that strike your interest. The following is formatted... ("Song title", composer and lyricist, film title):

GROUP A

“Blue Shadows on the Trail”, music and lyrics by Eliot Daniel and Johnny Lange, Melody Time (1948)

Performed by Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers

This is the introductory song to the final segment of Melody Time. That segment is dedicated to the legend of Pecos Bill, and this atmospheric song leads into the telling of that story.

“Born Free”, music by John Barry, lyrics by Don Black, Born Free (1966)

Performed by Matt Munro

Winner of the Academy Award for Best Original Song

This version with lyrics appears in the end credits. The main theme in the song is introduced in the opening credits and is incorporated extensively in John Barry's score across the film. Born Free, based on the non-fiction book of the same name is about two white Kenyan conservationists who raise an orphaned lion cub and eventually release her into the wild.

“But the World Goes 'Round”, music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, New York, New York (1977)

Performed by Liza Minnelli

In this musical, USO singer Francine Evans (Minnelli) has been performing in New York City nightclubs, hoping to someday become a major recording star. This song appears as she is recording that very hit that will propel her to stardom.

“Exsultate Justi”, music and lyrics by John Williams, Empire of the Sun (1987)

Performed by orchestra and chorus under the direction of Williams

Lyrics in Latin

In this historical epic, affluent British school boy Jamie Graham (a young Christian Bale) is living with his parents in Shanghai when the Japanese invade. Jamie is separated from his parents and placed in an internment camp. Soon before the end of WWII, the prisoners are moved elsewhere, but Jamie hides and stays put. This song plays as Jamie bikes around the empty camp and continues to play as he encounters liberating U.S. troops. Jamie is dirty and malnourished when found; one can argue that this song is used ironically. It plays once more over the end credits. "Exsultate Justi" is a variation on a theme John Williams develops over the course of the film and harkens back to Jamie's past, attending Anglican services with parents.

"Farewell to Storyville", music by Louis Alter, lyrics by Edgar De Lange, New Orleans (1947)

Performed by Louis Armstrong and his band, Billie Holiday, and company

In New Orleans, the Storyville district was a den of drinking, gambling, jazz, and prostitution. The district was the home to a heavily black populace. The U.S. military, about to establish a Naval base nearby, forces the city to close the district for good. This song is a jazzy dirge to a center of jazz - a musical genre looked down upon by many of the city's upper-class whites due to its ties (real and imagined) to crime.

"Hawaiian Sunset", music and lyrics by Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett, Blue Hawaii (1961)

Performed by Elvis Presley

In a musical packed end-to-end with songs, Chadwick "Chad" Gates (Elvis) has taken a job with a tour guide agency - and this includes performing during a luau for tourists. "Hawaiian Sunset" appears as one of the dinner show's numbers.

"Is There Still Anything That Love Can Do?", music and lyrics by Yôjirô Noda, Weathering with You (2019, Japan)

Performed by RADWIMPS

Lyrics in Japanese (translation)

Weathering with You is a romantic fantasy anime about a high school boy who runs away from his rural home to Tokyo, where he meets a girl who can manipulate the weather. It has been inexplicably raining for weeks without interruption in Tokyo, so they form a business to help clear the inclement weather for special events. The melody of this song is heard throughout the film's score. It does not appear with lyrics until late in the film. The song is played under the boy's seemingly impossible attempt to save her from an unwilling human sacrifice.

There is so much plot in this damn film (it's all Makoto Shinkai's fault) - I can't explain the context of the song or this movie in a reasonable amount of space.

“Mad Monster Party”, music by Maury Laws, lyrics by Jules Bass, Mad Monster Party? (1967)

Performed by Ethel Ennis

(opening credits version) / (soundtrack version with no sound effects)

In this Rankin/Bass stop-motion animated film, Baron Boris von Frankenstein (Boris Karloff in his final Frankenstein-related role) has discovered a formula that can destroy matter. Dispatching his bats to send the news, he summons the various members of the Worldwide Organization of Monsters to inform them of his discovery. This song is performed over the film's opening credits and the various introductions for the monsters as they receive their summons.

“My Dream Is Yours”, music by Harry Warren, lyrics by Ralph Blane, My Dream Is Yours (1949)

Initially performed by Doris Day; later reprised by Hal Derwin

Singer Martha Gibson (Day) has abruptly left New York City for Los Angeles to become a star on the radio. In a film where personal sacrifice is central, she stresses over how to bring her son out west with her, the direction of her career, and her tumultuous love life. "My Dream Is Yours" is the song that makes Martha a star, laying out the film's themes in its lyrics. I was unable to find Derwin's reprise, but no matter as the reprise is rather inconsequential.

“Ride the Wild Surf”, music and lyrics by Jan Berry, Brian Wilson, and Roger Christian, Ride the Wild Surf (1964)

Performed by Jan and Dean

Ride the Wild Surf is a surfing film that, unlike most surfing films of this time, is a drama. It follows three surfers (Fabian, Tab Hunter, Peter Brown) who have come to Oahu at the end of December to ride the large waves of Waimea Bay (made famous internationally by this song, this movie, and the Beach Boys' "Surfin' USA"). This song appears in the film's closing credits. The video provided is a montage of surfing footage that appears in the film.

“That’ll Do”, music and lyrics by Randy Newman, Babe: Pig in the City (1998)

Performed by Peter Gabriel

Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song

This song begins at the end (and through the end credits) of Babe: Pig in the City, the second and last film in this series about a sheep-herding pig who perseveres amidst other animals and humans with ulterior agendas. The title is derived from the famous quote said by Arthur Hoggett (James Cromwell) to reassure Babe: "That'll do, pig. That'll do."

“Waqt Ne Kiya Kya Hassen Sitam”, music and lyrics by S.D. Burman, Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959, India)

Performed by Geeta Dutt (dubbing Waheeda Rehman)

Lyrics in Hindi - roughly, "Time Has Inflicted Such Sweet Cruelty On Us"

Song begins at 1:03:31 and ends at 1:07:51

Make sure to turn on the video’s English captions

In this romantic tragedy told in flashback, Suresh Sinha (Guru Dutt) is a director looking back on his life. Suresh is unhappily married to a woman whose in-laws look down on him because, to them, working in films is contemptible to their social class. Suresh meets a woman, Shanti (Waheeda Rehman), on accident and she is soon cast as the lead for his next film. They fall in love, but it is never consummated for various reasons. This song is the most explicit statement of that love in this film. How much of the scene's set-up is observable by the characters is up to the viewer's interpretation.

Group A participants include: @addaellis, @introspectivemeltdown, @memetoilet, @myluckyerror, @plus-low-overthrow, @shootingstarvenator, @themusicmoviesportsguy, @theybecomestories, @umgeschrieben, @underblackwings, @yellanimal. Seven others - including myself and my sister - are currently slated to be voting in Group A.

GROUP B

“Angela”, music and lyrics by José Feliciano and Janna Merlyn Feliciano, Aaron Loves Angela (1975)

Performed by José Feliciano

(English-language version) / (Spanish single version)

Played over the opening credits to this teenage drama that is partly a blaxploitation film, partly an interracial coming-of-age romance. The movie wasn't a hit, but the Spanish-language version of this song was received well in Latin America.

“Aren’t You Kind of Glad We Did?”, music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, The Shocking Miss Pilgrim (1947)

Originally performed by Betty Grable and Dick Haymes

(soundtrack version with Judy Garland and Haymes) / (modern arrangement far more faithful to how song sounds in the film)

Cynthia Pilgrim (Grable) is the top typewriting student from a business college in this period piece where the typewriter is the newest invention to sweep the business world. This song appears as Pilgrim and her boss, John Pritchard (Haymes), are about to go out on a date for dinner after talking about how society looks down on women in public without a chaperone.

“The Blues are Brewin’”, music by Louis Alter, lyrics by Edgar De Lange, New Orleans (1947)

Performed by Louis Armstrong and his band and Billie Holiday

(in-film version) / (Billie Holiday single)

After being evicted by the U.S. military from the historic Storyville district of New Orleans (the Navy had just opened a base in the area, and would not tolerate places of gambling, jazz, and prostitution nearby), the characters played by Armstrong and Holiday tour the country with a jazz band in tow. This song appears within a montage showing the passage of time.

“Dekhi Zamaane Ki Yaari / Bichhde Sabhi Baari Baari”, music by S.D. Burman, lyrics by Kaifi Azmi, Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959, India)

Performed by Mohammad Rafi (dubbing Guru Dutt)

Lyrics in Hindi - roughly, "I Have Seen How Deeply Friendship Lies / I Have Seen People Abandon Me One by One"

Part 1 (3:44-8:27) / Part 2 (2:16:29-2:20:42)

Make sure to turn on the video’s English captions

In this romantic tragedy, Suresh Sinha (Dutt) is a washed-up director looking back on his life. In the first part, the song leads into the rest of the film - which is almost entirely a flashback. In brief, Suresh is unhappily married to a woman whose in-laws look down on him because, to them, working in films is contemptible to their social class. Suresh meets a woman, Shanti (Waheeda Rehman), on accident and she is soon cast as the lead for his next film. They fall in love, but it is never consummated for various reasons. Eventually, his career crashes after a box office bomb and her career is ascendant. Leading into the second part of the song, Suresh is penniless and working as an extra at the movie studio. Shanti recognizes him, wants to help, but he refuses to revive his career on the back of her success. Kaagaz Ke Phool has elements of autobiography, and Suresh's fate has parallels with what happened to Dutt after this film was released.

“End Theme from Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades”, music by Eiken Sakurai, lyrics by Kazuko Koike, Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades (1972, Japan)

Performed by Tomisaburo Wakayama

Lyrics in Japanese (translation)

Video provided is not safe for work (NSFW) due to stylized violence

Ogami Ittô (Wakayama) is a former, disgraced executioner for the Tokugawa shogunate who wanders the land with his young son. He is intent on exacting revenge on the clan that murdered his wife. This song is played non-diegetically after Ittô has slain dozens of a corrupt governor's bodyguards and walks onward, pushing his son in a babycart, away from the dead left in his wake. This is the third of six films in the Lone Wolf and Cub series.

"Happy Endings", music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, New York, New York (1977)

Performed by Liza Minnelli and company (that's Jack Haley - who played the Tin Man and was, at the time, Minnelli's father-in-law - roughly seven minutes in)

(use in film) / (soundtrack version)

It is highly recommended one sees how this song is used in the film. Bear with me: this song is part of a movie within a movie. Within that movie within a movie, there is another movie. "Happy Endings" is the title end song to a film called Happy Endings within New York, New York. Singer Francine Evans (Liza Minnelli) has made it big as a recording artist and caps off her hit film, Happy Endings, with this song. We see Francine's ex, played by Robert De Niro, in the audience as the film ends. "Happy Endings" is a homage/deconstruction to midcentury Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) musicals. It serves the film as "The Broadway Melody" does to Singin' in the Rain (1952) or the 17-minute ballet does to conclude An American in Paris (1951).

"Here They Come (From All Over the World)", music and lyrics by P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri, The T.A.M.I. Show (1964)

Performed by Jan and Dean

The link above provides the entire film. You only need to watch from 0:00-4:11. If you like music from this era or want to hear more, this film is highly, highly recommended.

This is the opening credits song to a concert film recorded over two days in Santa Monica, California on October 28 and 29, 1964. The Teenage Awards Music International (T.A.M.I. - yes, I know it's an awkward name) Show included many of the most popular musical stars of that time - almost all of them name-dropped in this song. Jan and Dean, a surf music duo, served as hosts (and performed during) the show. You folks are lucky that this is the only original song from this film!

“Moonlight Swim”, music by Ben Weisman, lyrics by Sylvia Dee, Blue Hawaii (1961)

Performed by Elvis Presley

In a musical packed end-to-end with songs, Chadwick "Chad" Gates (Elvis) has taken a job with a tour guide agency. On his first day, he drives his first clients - a school teacher (who not so secretly is attracted to Chad) and four teenagers (one of whom becomes smitten) - to their destination.

“On the Boardwalk (in Atlantic City)”, music by Josef Myrow, lyrics by Mack Gordon, Three Little Girls in Blue (1946)

Performed by Carol Stewart (dubbing for Vera-Ellen), June Haver, and Vivian Blaine

(original soundtrack) / (Dick Haymes single)

In this rarely-seen musical (20th Century Fox wasn't very good at promoting its back catalogue compared to some other studios, and the situation is worse now that they are owned by Disney), three chicken farmer sisters (Vera-Ellen, Haver, and Blaine) decide to travel to Atlantic City in hopes of marrying a rich husband after learning their aunt's inheritance is not nearly as much as they want. They sing this song as they arrive and check into their hotel suite - which they apparently have not looked up the rate for.

Those who listened to the soundtrack version... FYI, $9.25 in 1902 is $280 in 2020.

“Personality”, music by Jimmy Van Heusen, lyrics by Johnny Burke, Road to Utopia (1946)

Performed by Dorothy Lamour

(in-film performance) / (live radio performance)

In the fourth film of the Road to... comedy series, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby's characters have just overpowered two Alaskan thugs with a history of murderous violence. As they enter a saloon dressed up as those two thugs, all of the patrons - in a town that only knows the thugs by reputation - shut up in terror. They are treated to a performance by Sal (Lamour), who is trying to find a map of a gold mine that the real outlaws supposedly have. A visual narrator (Robert Benchley) interrupts the scene before the song briefly.

“Please Don’t Stop Loving Me”, music and lyrics by Joy Byers, Frankie and Johnny (1966)

Performed by Elvis Presley

(in-film performance) / (single version)

Johnny (Elvis) and girlfriend Frankie (Donna Douglas) work on a Mississippi River riverboat as performers. Johnny is addicted to gambling and believes that another woman is spurring on his recent run of good luck. During a fit of jealousy-as-acting, Frankie accidentally shoots Johnny during a bit of musical theater (someone switched out the blanks for real bullets). This song occurs after Johnny has recovered from the accident.

"Wichita", music by Hans Salter, lyrics by Ned Washington, Wichita (1955)

Performed by Tex Ritter

This is the opening title song to this Western. It is one of many Wyatt Earp movies set before the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Earp (Joel McCrea) arrives in an otherwise lawless town of Wichita, Kansas where gunplay is rampant. In a radical move, Earp orders to seize the firearms of anyone living in or entering town - which doesn't sit well with some outlaws. This song is incorporated throughout the film's score.

Group B participants include: @cokwong, @emilylime5, @halfwaythruthedark, @maximiliani, @thewolfofelectricavenue, and @voicetalentbrendan. Twelve others - including me and my sister - are slated to be voting in Group B.

Contact me however you wish if you have questions or comments regarding MOABOS' processes or something specific about a song or a few. Please let me know as soon as possible if you are having difficulty accessing one of the songs (especially if it is region-locked) or if there is an error in the playlist.

I thank you all for your support for the Movie Odyssey, the blog, and for me personally - no matter how long I’ve known you or in what capacity. You will be contacted for the final round regardless of your participation here. If turnout in one group is lagging behind compared to another, I will ask some of the more senior participants to participate in the other group, too. No pressure if you cannot get to this, although I will be checking in as the deadlines get close. Stay safe and socially distanced, everyone.

TABULATION This preliminary round uses a points-based, ranked choice method which has been used since the first time I asked friends, tumblr followers, and family to help out. A respondent’s first choice receives 10 points, the second choice receives 9, the third choice receives 8, etc. The winner is the song that ends up with the most total points. The tabulation method used in this preliminary is used only as a tiebreaker in the final round (more on how the final is tabulated when we get there).

This tiebreaker will look slightly different this year.

Tiebreakers for above: 1) total points earned; 2) total #1 votes; 3) average placement on my and my sister's ballots; 4) tie declared

#2020 Movie Odyssey Awards

10 notes · View notes

surveys-at-your-service · 4 years ago

Text

Survey #343

“i slither like a viper and get you by the neck / i know a thousand ways to help you forget about her”

What's your favorite kind of bear? I don't really know. I just like bears. Have you ever sent a FWD because you were afraid? Ha, yup, as a little kid. Would you ever date more than one person at a time? Nooooo sir. Have you ever rebounded... or been someone's rebound? No. What’s the biggest argument you’ve ever had with a family member? Did things ever go back to how they were beforehand? My grandmother cursed me the fuuuuck out one night as a kid because I was in a mood and didn't tell my mother goodnight. I still remember being called an ungrateful bitch with her like an inch from my face, and admittedly, I was being rude because I wanted to go home, but it kinda scarred me for life. For the remainder of her life, I was always sort of on edge around her and was convinced she didn't like me. Have you ever experienced some kind of natural disaster? I've been through lots of hurricanes. None that massively affected my life, though. If you have pets, do you feed them human food or do they just get regular pet food? If they do get human food, what’s their favorite thing to have? Venus is a snake, so she obviously doesn't get food meant for humans. Roman is very well-trained to not beg or make a move for people's food; he tried once as a kitten, and giving him a pop taught him right away. Have you ever been in a physical fight? Who won? No. What’s the mode of transport that you take or use the most? The car. Mom's, specifically. Have you ever had a zoo keeper experience or anything where you’ve been able to go behind the scenes and look after/feed the animals? No, but I wish. :( Would you ever want the responsibility of being a politician or a similar position of power? NOOOOOOO. What’s something your parents do that really annoys you? Mom is *always* right, pretty much indisputably. And she WILL have the last word. Dad, meanwhile, can be pretty rude to people. I don't think he realizes it half the time, but still. It's not an excuse. What is your main source of anxiety? Social interactions. What’s your favorite 90s cartoon? Pokemon. Describe the moment you realized you were falling in love with someone. I'd rather not. What’s your favorite sparkling water brand/flavor? I've never tried sparkling water. What’s your favorite makeup brand/brands? I don't have a favorite, considering I don't wear it nearly enough and have never even bought my own. I just use whatever Mom buys. What are some female names you would name a baby? Alessandra is my favorite for sure. I also love Anneliese, Justine, Evelyn, Chloe, Evangeline, Quinn... There's a lot. What about male? Severin is my favorite, and I also like Damien, Vincent, Victor, and Luther. Do you have any subscription boxes? No. What fictional creature would you like as a pet? I want a dragon, goddammit. Idc if it can breathe fire ok I want a dragon. Ewoks are also the one and only thing I enjoy from Star Wars. What kind of dwelling do you live in? Just a one-story house. Is there anyone you work with that you don't get along with? Why? N/A Do you have an opinion on adopting/purchasing a pet? PLEASE adopt, especially with cats and dogs, given the number of strays. Purebreds tend to have so many underlying issues, and besides, it's just a LOT of money for an animal that probably wouldn't outlive a mutt. Don't feed the machine if you can. What's your favorite chain restaurant? The Cheesecake Factory or Olive Garden. Why were you last pulled over? I’ve never been pulled over before. What was the last thing you've done on the water? Just kinda swam around a bit in the ocean. It was so warm, totally like a bath. I do NOT miss that sun poisoning, though. Are you cool with swimming in a lake? I think I'd do it if someone invited me to, and the lake didn't look filthy, of course. Do you have a drone? No. What's your favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurant? We have this tiny, local Mexican place that's really good. I don't know the name of it, and I wouldn't share it for obvious reasons. What do you order from there? Chips and salsa of course, along with a shrimp and cheese quesadilla, and finally their cheesy rice. What's your favorite ice-cream flavor? Depending on my mood, it bounces between vanilla with chocolate syrup or just plain chocolate. Do you have any t-shirts from any local businesses? No. Do you listen to any talk shows or podcasts? I used to listen to Mark, Bob, and Wade's podcast, but I'm like... ten months behind, haha. What's something someone calls you that you find endearing? I like "love" a lot. What's your favorite children's book? I loved books like The Rainbow Fish, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Stellaluna, 10 Minutes 'til Midnight, What Makes a Rainbow?, Chrysanthemum, etc. Is there a new season for a series you're excited to come out? Meerkat Manor comes back this summer, and I am fucking HYPED. How old are you? I'm 25. What is something unique you enjoy about the one you like/love? I tease her about it all the time, but it's really cute that she keeps all of her snakes' good sheds in her room. Proud reptile mom. Are you more liberal or conservative? I'm close to the middle, but I lean towards being more liberal, and I seem to go more that way with time. Do you watch American Horror Story? I used to. I saw the entire first season and really liked it, and then I almost finished the second, but I lost interest. The story got a bit stupid imo. I'd be willing to watch other seasons, though. Does your hometown have any urban legends/scary stories? None that I’m aware of. The people there are scary enough. What's the scariest nightmare you remember having? Let's not talk about it. Are you medicated? Uh very. Are there any apps you're addicted to? Nah. Did you have a favorite stuffed animal as a child? It was initially a bunny holding a polka-dotted blanket, then it become a moose I got from Cabela's when in Ohio. Do you still collect stuffed animals? Only meerkat ones. Have you ever stolen/borrowed clothes from an ex? Haha I've worn Jason's pj pants before and they just kinda... became mine, lol. What's the last movie you watched at home? The Shining, I believe. What's the last movie you watched in theaters? The CGI remake of The Lion King. I still don't get why it was received so badly. Have you ever had eggs cooked over a campfire? I don't think so, no. If you do drink, what's your favorite alcoholic beverage? Margaritas, generally. However, Sara's dad made me this absofuckinglutely incredible chocolate drink before that tasted like a milkshake. It had like, no alcohol flavor, which worked out well for me considering I very much dislike that taste. Are there any songs you've been listening to repetitively lately? There's a new one every day lately, haha. Today it's Halocene's cover of "Love Bites (So Do I)." Cereal, granola, or oatmeal? Cereal. What TV shows did you grow up watching? You gotta gimme an age group... but I'd say the typical stuff for kids of that time. What does your phone case look like? It's just a boring purple that came with it. What were your favorite toys to play with as a child? I looooved playing with my "family" of a father crocodile, a mother deer, their two "children" (a fawn and smaller croc), and "friends" that were little Pokemon figurines. Then there was an evil t-rex with two stupid sidekicks, haha. I can't remember what dinosaurs they were. What's the most embarrassing thing you can ever remember doing? Hold on, lemme find my book. Do you remember what you dreamt about last night? I only very faintly recall dreaming about my cat Roman. Have you ever done anything embarrassing in a dream? Thank FUCK they're just dreams. Do you vape? Nah. What was a song you loved as a child? So uh. Apparently. I loved "Dookie" by Green Day. It's an undying story from Mom about how it came on once at a putt-putt place and I apparently started yelling "dookie!" and dancing. Do you enjoy the Arctic Monkeys? Yeah, I love some of their songs. Are you going to see Finding Dory? You bet your sweet ass I saw it. I've cried everytime I've watched it. Have you ever been horseback-riding? I have not, but I would love to. When was your last piercing? Whenever I got my tragus done, which I can't remember. What did your first crush look like? I don't remember my puppydog love first crush, but I can talk about my first REAL crush, Sebastian. He's a skinny dude with short, brown hair and a lip piercing... I can't remember which kind. He dressed in an emo style, and Facebook pictures at least suggest he still kind of does, I think. Is your body more curvy or flat? Well, I'm not at all skinny, so... What's your least favorite holiday? Probably Christopher Colombus Day, honestly. You didn't discover shit. Don't pretend to me it's worth celebrating in a clean conscience. if you’re having a boring day what do you usually do? If I'm rock-bottom bored, quite honestly, I normally nap, even though I know I shouldn't. Do you turn to food when you're upset? Ugh, I'm admittedly an emotional eater. I got way better about it, and then I started up again. Is your bf/gf good with your parents? I don't have an s/o. Do you think soda should be served at school? Vending machines are fine I suppose, as I don't believe they should be free seeing as they're nothing but sugar content, and I feel schools shouldn't just hand that out to kids at lunch or something. Do dogs have feelings? They sure do. Are you afraid of snakes? Oh no! I adore them. I respect snakes and am going to give wild ones their space for sure considering I don't recognize every native venomous one, but nevertheless, I'm not afraid of them. They are so vital to the ecosystem and are incredibly fascinating animals that deserve our protection. On that note, PLEASE do not kill any snake you come across in your shed or whatever. Call someone to relocate the terrified thing. Favorite snack? It depends on what I'm in the mood for, really. Ever seen The Notebook? Read the book, seen the movie plenty of times. Do you think cussing is trashy? No. Who is the most famous person you’ve met, if any? Nobody. Do you own any animals that aren’t domestic? No. Have you ever feared that you would lose a body part? No. Do you like gore? Yeah, generally. Do you like to drink water? Ugh, I really don't. I wish I did. Have you ever had a wax? I used to get my eyebrows waxed. Do you have any sets of matching bras and underwear? No. Are you any good at improv? Not at ALL.

#survey #surveys #questions #lyrics: ''love bites (so do i)'' by halestorm

3 notes · View notes

danwhobrowses · 5 years ago

Text

Castlevania Season 3 - My Thoughts

Oh how I’ve missed you Season 3 dropped yesterday and despite being slightly spoiled about one thing, I got to binge it today, so I’m gonna run through a few things I liked and disliked.

Spoilers Below

So, great season again, much darker than the past ones. They really leaned in on an Empire Strikes Back kinda ending Each story was intriguing in its own way and progressed to the next Season which’ll hopefully come out. But it’s all a bit bleak I will say that some things were a bit...off Robots and Aliens and the 3D stuff was not my cup of tea, the Alucard stuff was a bit slow paced as well and the sex scenes bold as they were became intentionally uncomfortable in the midst of a battle Now as a red blooded straight male I won’t deny that there was stuff visually pleasing with it at the time but positioning felt a bit wrong... also Trevor and Sypha bang in a wagon, get a bedroom to themselves and they don’t get the sex scene? Also the Isaac stuff was a tad repetitive at the beginning, it’s ironic that immediately after a human gets on his good side with good logic a mob not liking or trusting the horde of monsters who have ravaged towns for over a year revert him back to the old mentality. I get that he’s getting the villain build, but it’s the problem of that he listens but he doesn’t learn, the only time he does both is with the vengeful sorceress encouraging him to do what he wants. Also we need to see Hector’s pug from Season 2, Alucard could’ve had a companion there, and Cho the vampiress probably could’ve gotten more, maybe even survived the Bloody Tears since she was in smoke form, she seemed much more dangerous in the Twins’ flashback. However, the good outweigh the bad immeasurably There seemed to be 3 underlying themes of Season 3 as well; The Evils of Humanity, Trust and Loneliness The main grasp is the former, almost every recurring side character is vile, the Judge, the Pryor and Isaac himself, the first two are key to Sypha getting a wake-up call, a rude one but kinda needed given her overconfidence. Isaac got full villain build though, amassing his numbers to set up his collision with the Four Sisters and Hector. Trust was a mixed bag in the show; Alucard trusted the twins but they never even tried to trust him, the constant questions of moving the castle a huge red flag, in the end he had to kill them, and Alucard has become more like his father because of it. And of course there’s Isaac, as I said he trusted good people only to make a mob revert his thinking. Then there’s Hector, who was played like a fiddle, he couldn’t even see that he was being trained like a pet ‘Good Boy’, he mistook gifts for kindness and associated it with affection, and he’s paid drastically for it. One can also discuss trust with Trever, Sypha and the Judge, or even Saint Germain, they trusted both but only one was justified due to honesty while the other was lured in by authority. Also the ‘Visitor’ kinda tricked the Pryor, still had the same end goal but they trusted a demon and expected things to be hunky dory... But then there was the theme of loneliness; Isaac lost a lot of his faith because of his loneliness, Trevor had to handle the fact that he was no longer alone and then there was Alucard, the man misses his friends, and his family, which makes the twins’ betrayal even worse on him because he was only trying to make his friends and his mother proud by training them, only to follow in his father’s brutish footsteps, his heart a little more closed. Outside of the themes the show was mainly animated beautifully, there were different kinds of art style which was unique and the buildings were very well done, gotta love when the fire scene comes in, more of that. The fight scenes were a tier above but it didn’t quite grasp the levels of Bloody Tears and the Dracula fight for me, I guess it’s because it was just a parade of night creatures who we see get fodderised anyway, no major vampire or powerful villain We’re probably saving those for next season; Camilla having her ‘sisters’ and all, we didn’t see much of Striga and Morana but they have lovely designs and clear personalities, the vampire taking centre stage was the smaller, cutesy looking Lenore, with her cruel manipulation tactics basically enthralling Hector so that she can control his night creatures, in exchange for a nicer room and the odd booty call. I’m sure it will get to Season 4 but we’ll see how it handles it; Isaac and Camilla are due to collide now that Isaac has the transporter mirror, but as those two stories converge to determine who the next big bad will be what do we do with Trevor and Sypha? I worry for those two, fear one will get killed off...the Saint Germain stuff could be intriguing, he claimed himself immortal and we never saw the other person, he also seemed intrigued by achieving alchemy itself, which is a worry if he intends to merge with Dracula. We’ve got a good spot with 10 episodes and the writers are getting a little bolder, they just need to work their first half pacing and probably some emotional stakes in the battle rather than ‘we need to kill this monster’, what made the Dracula fight so good was the stakes, struggle and emotive impact it had. But, good showing...maybe don’t wait so long to give us more XD

#castlevania #castlevania season 3 #castlevania spoilers #trevor belmont #sypha belnades #alucard #adrian tepes #dracula

20 notes · View notes

ask-de-writer · 5 years ago

Text

An excerpt from GONE TO SEA, a novel in progress

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to the World of Sea

CHILDREN’S PLAY

An excerpt from GONE TO SEA, a novel in progress

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

3688 words in this excerpt

//////////////

Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights. They may reblog the story. They may use the characters or original characters in my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical compositions. I will allow those who do commission art works to charge for their images.

All sorts of Fan Activity, fiction, art, cosplay, music or anything else is ACTIVELY encouraged!

///////////////////////

What Mecat told Kurin was basically true. The fundamental discoveries of glue in Strong Skin was made by children wanting to make toys. They even made some boats and some ships. Over time, their arts got lost and Mecat had to show the scattered men on Sea how to do again what the children had learned.

The original colonists to Sea were all picked for being, among other criteria, quite bright. Somehow, nobody paid attention to the fact that many bright people have bright children too.

When Adults get too busy, they often put the concerns of children last. In an environment like Sea, that may be a mistake of sorts . . .

Chapter 04. Children at Play

As is the case everywhere that there are children, they play. In some of their playing, they imitate their elders. They also do another thing that children have done since the dawn of time. Because the only toys that the adults thought to bring or make were educational, they raided the trash for fun things to play with.

Cora Halyn dug the pan out of the waste stream dumpster. Grinning, she held it up for the others to see. “What good is that?” asked Mikal Novotnoy.

Cora grinned some more and threw out several used twenty centimeter air filter disks made from the dried skin of the Strong's shark. She said happily, “I was there when the cooks made this mess out of some Moreson's eels. They tried to soak it out, scrape it and even chip it loose. Since it melted once, I don't know why they didn't try to melt it again. If it will melt, we can squish it into these disks and make Frisbees!”

Jason Torres asked her, “Did they chuck out any of the Shark's teeth or bones?”

Cora promptly dove back into the dumpster. The sound of things shifting and thumping about followed. Several large pieces of bone and some ten to fourteen centimeter long razor sharp and naturally serrated teeth cascaded out of the trash bin. Cora vaulted out after them.

“Why did you want the teeth and bones, Jase?” she asked curiously.

Jason cut a finger as he gathered up the teeth and bones that Cora dug out for him. He paused long enough to suck the cut a moment before commenting, “Those teeth are sharp! I thought that it might be fun to try doing some scrimshaw with them. Maybe even make my dad a present that he can use, like a paperweight or something.”

The children gathered up their booty of trash and went to the recycle center. Mister Makle looked over what the children wanted and asked, “What do you want with the pan? The rest is no problem but that pan is aluminum. We can remelt it and make new things from it.”

Cora grinned and pointed out, “True, but we already get all of the new aluminum that we want by processing seawater. What we really want is the goo in the pan. I think that we can melt it and work it into the used filter disks. If I am right we can make Frisbees out of them! Those eels are pretty common so we can make lots of toys like that if it works.”

Shrugging and smiling, Mister Makle signed a release for the children's salvage and said, “Be sure to let me know if that trick works! I'd like a Frisbee too!”

The next day, Cora and the rest of her crowd brought Mister Makle a home-made Frisbee.

Cora proudly explained, “The goo by itself was way too brittle when it hardened in the disks. We fixed that by mixing in some oil that we got by rendering the waxy stuff. Now it is strong and somewhat flexible. Here, try it!” She expertly flipped the disk to him.

Mister Makle caught the disk with a delighted smile and did try it. He flexed it some and then tossed the disk so that it bounced off a wall and examined it again. He smiled even more as he said, “Keep me and the rest of the waste management and maintenance team in Frisbees and you can have anything that you want from the trash if it isn't dangerous. OK?”

Jason grinned back and said, “Sounds easy enough. There's lots of those used filter disks. We have another idea that you might like.”

Interested, Mister Makle asked, “What is that?”

Seeing that there was an adult who wasn't too busy to pay attention, the assorted children of Cora's crowd gathered around and said, “Fishing! When we saw how tough that Strong's skin and eel goo is, we made a pole out of some of it.”

Mikal added, “We figured out that if you cut a big mussel loose and just set it in some seawater, it will put out the attachment foot to start making new holdfast strands. We put a little chunk of bone near where the foot comes out. As soon as it stuck the holdfast thread to the bone, we started to pull real gently. We got over five meters of line from it.”

Mister Makle said, “I'd like to see that. What are you going to use for a hook?”

Cora said, “We are going to try several things to see what works best. The dense bone from the Strong's shark will be the base for most of them. A few will be carved out of shell from the mussels. Got a piece of paper? Mala'klea will sketch them up for you. Her folks were in the Polynesian Back to the Ocean movement. She's learned all sorts of neat stuff from them.”

Black haired little Mala'klea silently took a pen and began sketching quickly. It only took a few moments for her to hand Mister Makle the paper with a half dozen different hook designs on it, complete with notes about materials and the glue applications where necessary.

While she was sketching Mister Makle asked Cora, “Doesn't she talk?”

Cora gave a half grin and replied, “Yes she does, when she has something to say. It is worth listening when she does speak because it is always good.”

Mala'klea did suddenly look up at Cora with a smile and said, “We can overlap disks to make laminated planks. We could make a sailing canoe from them.” She fell silent again and took another sheet of paper.

Her nearly flying pen sketched rapidly. A simple dory built design for a long, deep keeled and moderately wide canoe-like boat took shape. It had a large outrigger or secondary hull and a deck on struts between the main hull and the smaller one.

Mister Makle looked at the paper and commented, “Sweet design. This is all done with equal angles for the ribs. That will make the fabrication easy. You kids will need a formal adult supervisor for a project this big. How long do you actually plan to make it?”

Cora grinned in relief that their idea wasn't just being blown off by a man whose department was critical to building it. She replied, “We thought that about twenty meters should make it safe from Strong's sharks and most of the other big fish that we know of.”

Mister Makle studied the drawing and sections seriously for a moment and said, “That will be way too large to manage easily with paddles. Will it have a sail?”

Cora agreed, “It will have two masts and three sails. Mala'klea has that all figured out. Her mom was the captain of the Mona Loa. It was a sailing ship of the Polynesian Back to the Ocean Movement.”

Mister Makle grinned widely and said, “You do know that this boat is as big as the two ships that the station engineers are planning to build, don't you?”

“Sure we do,” Cora replied confidently. “Size is a relative thing. Theirs will be wider and deeper in the hull and have two masts. Those round ships will be able to carry a lot more than our voyaging canoes and will have a longer range. We figure that these will be way faster, though.”

Mister Makle asked, “Would you be willing to practice on a smaller boat or two using the same principles, just to test your ideas before you commit to building the big one?

“I know that the maintenance crew would be willing to do the supervision in their off time. They want a chance to play about with boat building but the shipyard is being a real prat about it ever since Mister Angerson got put in charge. This will be a big job because of all of the Moreson's eels that you will have to catch. I can set the recycle folks to salvaging all of the filters that come through.”

Cora got a faraway look and then suggested, “That would be great. We could use a test boat to catch the eels that we will need. If everything works as well as it should, we could even help the maintenance team to make some boats for their own use.

“I think that Pele Barant would be our best senior supervisor. Not only is she Mala'klea's mom, she knows all about primitive tools and things because she was in the Polynesian Back to the Ocean movement. She's also a top flight mechanical engineer.”

Mister Makle promptly placed a call through his computer. “Mrs. Barant, this is Mister Makle down in the Waste Management office. Your daughter and some other children are down here.

“What? No. There is nothing wrong. In fact, I think that they want to do something very right. It will need a senior supervisor who understands so-called primitive tools and materials.

“They told me that you were in the Polynesian Back to the Ocean movement on Earth and that you might make a good person to supervise their work. Oh, did I forget to say what it was? They want to make a surprisingly large sailing canoe based on a Polynesian voyaging canoe.

“Yes, I thought that you might like to see how they plan to do it and the materials that they have found. Recycle has turned up a few other native things that might be useful in the project as well.

“So, we will see you in a few minutes? Excellent! We will be waiting.”

He turned back to the children and told Mala'klea, “That really got your mother's attention. Do you kids know that this is the first proposed project to use only things and materials from Sea?”

Cora grinned and held up one of the flying disks. “Not quite. We made these first. To do them right we had to make a knife that would cut that Strong's shark skin. It is really tough stuff.

“Jason, do you have those knives that you and Mala'klea made? If you have them handy, we could show them to Mrs. Barant. Mister Makle might like to see them, too.”

Mister Makle leaned back in his office chair and said, “I would like to see them. My department got stuck with making those filter disks and you would not believe how fast that skin will dull a knife. Thing is, Pele is on her way down. Save the knives and show them to both of us at once. She is the expert on things like this.”

Several of the maintenance crew came into the office. One of the women exclaimed, “Boss! How did you get Frisbees? I applied to engineering to make us some for recreation and they turned their noses up at the job. Said that they had more important tasks than toys!”

Mister Makle grinned and tousled Cora's hair as he replied, “They turned me down too, Molly. The kids here made these out of old air filter disks and some sort of glue that they made out of Moreson's eels. They work really great. Here, Molly, catch!” He flipped a disk at the woman who had spoken.

Startled, Molly reflexively caught the disk. She paused long enough to examine the disk carefully. She said quietly, “This looks like it was press molded. How did you guys make it?”

Cora smiled in delight at the recognition of their work and replied, “We made one that worked really well. We used it to make a form that we do press them into. All that we need to do is wax the form and our hands. Then we work the glue into the disk and push it tightly into the form by hand. It needs about twenty minutes to set up and then we can pop it out and make another. That's about all that there is to it.”

Molly happily flipped the disk to another of her crew, even though the range was short. It never got to him. A small Black haired woman dived in from the door and caught the disk before he had a chance at it. She bounced energetically off one of the office walls and stood, examining the disk intently. She flexed it and said, “Here, Klea! Catch!”

The disk sailed across to little Mala'klea who did catch it expertly. Beaming, she said, “Thanks, Mom! This one is for Molly and her team. We have more and can make them for anyone else that wants one!”

Mister Makle observed, “That is more than I have heard you say even when you were drawing up the boat plan.”

Mala'klea, cringing like she expected to be hit, looked about fearfully, and went silent. Pele crouched beside her daughter and pulled her into a hug. Mala'klea hugged back fiercely, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.

Pele spared a look for the shocked Recycle and Maintenance people in the big office. Still holding her daughter, she told them, “Klea was one of the children that Mister Angerson was caught beating for refusing to pray to his God during their schooling time. Instead of teaching them math, he was trying to force the children to follow him in his suicidal mania that he calls a religion.

“He was particularly brutal to those kids that he called pagans. Since my little Klea follows our family's polytheistic beliefs, he beat her the worst of all. The station's doctors found two cracked ribs and a hairline fracture of the right radius.

“Mala'klea refused to give in to his assault but he did manage break her trust in most people.

“Mister Angerson has been formally required to surrender his teaching duties and stay away from the children. He has been forbidden to ever touch or speak to any of them. His own wife and two children moved into our apartment to get away from him. Trisha has filed with the station's Executive Committee for a divorce.”

One of the men from Molly's Maintenance crew said, “I know about the schooling problem. I was on the jury. What Angerson did sickened us all. He claimed that God Himself ordered him to discipline the children for their unbelief and that God's orders override the Colonial Charter. We all disagreed. The verdict was unanimous.”

Molly volunteered, “That idiot Marcus cornered me once and tried to convince me that we are doomed. God sent us all here to die by slow starvation for our sins. Seems that we are all to be the Sacrifice For The New Covenant to preserve all of mankind's colonies in space.

“He seems to forget that both the thymine and lysine that are our last real stumbling blocks have been spotted from orbit, even if they haven't been isolated to any particular organism yet. In the meantime, the plants and animals that we brought along are filling the gap. We will find what we need someday, probably soon.”

Pele nodded to Molly then gave her daughter another hug and asked her, “Do you have any sort of plan or working drawings for the boat that Mister Makle mentioned? What are you thinking of making it out of?”

Everyone watched silently as Mala'klea went fearfully to Mister Makle's desk and, darting glances all about, brought her mother the pages of sketches. She took one of the flying disks from Cora and wordlessly handed it to her mother as well.

Pele's eyes lit up and she sat cross-legged in front of Mala'klea and patted her lap. Looking meaningfully about at the other adults for silence, Pele said, “This is a wonderful start, Klea. Please tell me about it.”

Mala'klea began almost inaudibly, “We can use old filter disks and rectangles to make the planks. See, Mother? The big side planks are the same width all along their length. By keeping the angles of the side to bottom planks the same, it is just a long four plank dory, the same way that the old Polynesian voyaging ships were built.”

Mother gave daughter a quick hug and prodded, “How will you make the planks out of the smaller pieces, Dear?”

Mala'klea answered more confidently, “To make the flying disks we had to make a glue out of Moreson's eels. Because of the messy way that they come apart when we heat them, we call them Goo fish. We had to try several ways to get the glue right. We had some of the disks stick together by accident. That gave me the idea for laminating the parts.”

Pele nodded in happy seeming approval. “Very observant, Klea. How will you hold the planks and ribs together?”

The other children of Cora's Crowd almost bit their lips to keep quiet. Cora stopped one of Molly's crew from speaking by whispering, “We have seen this before. This is how Pele helps Mala'klea to stop being scared. Let Klea answer for now.”

The man nodded understanding and held his tongue.

Mala'klea almost eagerly told her mother, “We can get strings from the mussels that grow almost everywhere on the Station's docks. Cora figured out the glue and filter thing but it was Jason who thought of the string. It was Matty that thought of making a boat. I put their ideas together.

“We can use string that we make from the mussel threads to tie the parts together. Once we are ready, we can laminate more skin over the joints to waterproof them. We can lock the ribs into place the same way. It is only a little different from the way that you were putting together the latest big Polynesian ship that you and your friends were building back on Earth.”

Pele grinned at her daughter, and looking her in the eye, pointed out, “Those planks and parts will need to be trimmed to shape, and many holes drilled in them to tie them together. How will you manage that?”

By now, Mala'klea was answering eagerly and openly again. “Jason and I made some knives and other tools out of Strong's shark teeth! Jason brought them down here to show to Mr. Makle. We can cut and trim the glued skin with them. We made an awl that can make the holes. When you were making that big canoe, you had a bow drill thing to make the holes but I couldn't remember how to make one.”

Jason silently handed a roll-up of knives and other tools to Mala'klea who unrolled it to show her mother. Pele took the time to examine each knife and tool carefully. She thoughtfully tested edges and checked the orientation of the natural serrations in the fangs that the knife and tool edges and points were made of. One tool was made from a piece of flat bone with fairly coarse teeth carved into it for spreading and forcing glue into the skin. The tool had the sheen of a waxy coating worked into the bone. They all had handles formed of many layers of the skin and glue. Each handle was carefully formed to fit the hands of the children. Pele even examined the leather of the roll-up.

Nodding with a smile as she felt the softness of the leather, Pele asked Mala'klea, “Is this made out of some of the Strong's skin with your oil from the Goo fish worked in to soften it?”

Mala'klea smiled at her mother and said, “Yes, mother. Mikal Novotnoy thought of doing that. We all worked on different parts of it. It is stitched with the mussel string. We needed something that would keep the tools sharp and save us from getting cut on them.”

Pele gave Mala'klea another hug and stood up, holding the child's hand. She said, “This is a really well thought out project, Klea. I especially like the way that you gave credit for ideas to the others. I think that this ship will make a great project.

“It will need you children to do a lot of math to figure out the details. You will need good language skills to present what you figure out to the rest. We can use this project for a big part of you kid's schooling. It will make a perfect demonstration of the relationship between what you are taught in class and the real world. It will also be more fun than any lessons should be.”

Mr. Makle thoughtfully consulted his computer, accessing the Public Announcements. Looking up he said, “You kids don't need to worry about Mr. Angerson any more. He is forbidden to even come near to any of you, including his own family or your projects. If he tries, we can lock him up. The Executive Order implementing the jury verdict of child abuse was posted about four days ago.”

Pele looked over at Mr. Makle and asked him, “How can we keep him away from this project? It will need a lot of room to build it and, because of their time in the classrooms, the kids won't be able to work on it all of the day.”

Mr. Makle looked cheerfully at the children of Cora's Crowd and said, “Maintenance will contribute building space for it down on Maintenance Dock C. Its access ways all lock. As soon as you are ready for the actual building to begin, let me know and I will formally reserve it for you. Due to the suspicion of sabotage to the Reverse Osmosis Desalination plant, we have been given the authority to forbid access to ANY unauthorized personnel. We can arrest trespassers if necessary. C Dock is already equipped with surveillance cameras and alarms.

“We installed the locks, alarms and cameras because we are storing those new fiberglass boats that you have been making for us down there. If we do have a saboteur, those boats could become a prime target.”

The End of Chapter 4

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to the World of Sea

#CHILDREN’S PLAY #excerpt from GONE TO SEA #World of Sea #Written by De Writer

7 notes · View notes

disappointingyet · 5 years ago

Text

Holiday

Director George Cukor Stars Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Doris Nolan USA 1938 Language English 1hr 35mins Black & white

Somewhat ill-at-ease mix of comedy and drama

I think this is a strange movie. I’m slightly hesitant because I wonder if that apparent strangeness is a less in the film itself and more in how it didn’t match my expectations. Let me explain: Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn had just made the screwball masterpiece Bringing Up Baby together. A couple of years later, they would star in the great The Philadelphia Story, which like Holiday was directed by George Cukor from a script by Donald Ogden Stewart and adapted from a play by Phillip Barry. So Holiday should be full of fizzing verbal jousts and delightful silliness, right?

There’s certainly some of that. And that’s the movie that most of the time Grant seems to be starring in. Hepburn, though, is all dramatic over-intensity – her vision of what the film is seems very different. We’ll get back to that.

The story begins with Johnny Case (Grant) arriving back in New York from a skiing holiday. During the trip, he has met, fallen for and proposed to Julia Seton (Doris Nolan). One of the characteristics of a holiday romance, of course, is that those involved don’t know much about each other. So Johnny doesn’t know that Julia comes from an incredibly rich and powerful family. And Julia doesn’t know that Johnny has a plan for his life that isn’t in line with what she wants for him (and them).

But initially it all goes well – Johnny is warmly welcomed into the family by Julia’s sister Linda (Hepburn), who describes herself as the clan’s black sheep, and alcoholic brother Ned (Lew Ayres). Even their father (Henry Kolker), suspicious of Case’s lack of family connections, is impressed when he learns how well the once-impoverished orphan is doing on Wall Street.

Julia and Mr Seton are characters defined by what the plot needs them to do. The issue for the film is what it does with Johnny, Linda and less importantly Ned. Grant plays Johnny mostly as a blithe optimist who wears the years of struggle lightly. Ned could have been one of those cheery 1930s movie drunks but here he’s doomed and resigned to his fate – unable both to fulfil his father’s expectations and to actively reject them. And Linda? When we meet her she seems smart, sorted and self-aware, but as the film goes on she and other characters suggest she’s near crisis point, which hints that there have been problems before.

I started to feel that either Holiday is rich with subtext that doesn’t read clearly to a 21st-century audience, or it’s just vague. Are we meant to presume that Linda is one of those upper-class women who has been in and out of psychiatric care for much of her life? I was similarly frustrated about politics: Linda says she’s helped strikers, Johnny talks about ideas of the world he wants to explore, there’s almost an argument when the Seton’s obnoxious cousin complains about the government not being helpful enough to finance, but Linda’s intervention is cut off. Are Johnny and Linda meant to be just the kind of youthful idealists you get in any generation, or ardent New Dealers, or even potential Marxists?

None of that would be that important if this had been approached as a full-pace screwball comedy. But it tilts towards its theatrical origins – that feeling that everything has to be emotionally powerful you too often get in plays. That certainly seems to be where Hepburn is aiming.

(Further evidence of its theatrical roots: there’s only one exterior scene, and most of the film takes place in three medium rooms. The exception, the sole indulgence in the cinematic, is the vast hall of the Seton home, as seen in when an overwhelmed Johnny first steps foot in the mansion, and during a lavish party).

A mixture of comedy and drama is not a bad thing – indeed, I’d say it’s often a good thing. But in Holiday those elements work against each other: jokes are threatened by moodiness, suggestions of deep problems are shoved aside by romcom narrative conventions.

But that’s not to say Holiday isn’t fun. It’s a Cary Grant film from 1938 – of course you should watch it. When it chooses to be funny, it can be very funny. It just isn’t up there with his very best films, but then not much is.

[PS: A short while after I watched Holiday, I saw Crazy Rich Asians. Like Holiday, Crazy Rich Asians is a film in which the protagonist goes to meet the family of the person they intend to marry, and is shocked to learn that they are not just rich, but, well, crazy rich – magazine-front-cover wealthy, tilting-the-political-balance-of-power wealthy. And in both films, it is a crucial plot point that the main character is a super-bright, fast-rising person whose job is connected with the world of money: Wall Street broker in Holiday, teaching econ at an Ivy League college in Crazy Rich Asians. The difference is that Holiday has a set-up carefully designed to make it plausible that Johnny wouldn’t have got around to thinking about whether Julia was one of those Setons: they have only known each other for a couple of weeks, meeting at a ski resort away from the business world. Whereas Crazy Rich Asians, on the contrary, gives Rachel no excuse other than a rather bizarre lack of curiosity – has she never even looked at one of his buds-from-home’s Insta pages?]

#cary grant #george cukor #katharine hepburn #films from 1938

11 notes · View notes

marymccartneyphotos · 5 years ago

Text

Paul McCartney's Meat Free Monday Mission

June 25, 2009 -- The Telegraph

Sir Paul, Mary and Stella McCartney are leading the Meat Free Monday campaign to persuade people to avoid meat once a week. It is not an attempt to turn the world vegetarian, one day at a time, but a crucial step in the fight against climate change.

There is a charming, seemingly random video on YouTube of Paul McCartney demonstrating how to make mashed potatoes. It's a recipe from Linda McCartney's On Tour book (he is following the instructions from his own well-thumbed copy) and there is something quite endearing about the way he shows you Linda's tip of how to chop an onion, as he hacks away with the knife the way no professional chef would. He is no Jamie Oliver. Obviously, Sir Paul has many other talents and his guide to making mash the Macca way, a video he made as president of the Vegetarian Society, is just a bit of fun – the perfect accompaniment to a couple of Linda McCartney's vegetarian sausages.

Food was a key part of Paul and Linda's relationship and when they decided to go vegetarian in the seventies, it was a spontaneous and joint decision. "Linda and I, we were on the farm and we saw lambs gambolling and we were eating leg of lamb…so it was a compassionate thing. That seems to be the least important thing to people these days. It seems to have gone right out of the window, the whole idea, unfortunately, because it's rather a nice thing, a bit of compassion."

What was it that made this man hate us? These days, Linda's food still brings the family together. They are actively involved in Linda McCartney Foods, which recently had a bit of a dust off and a rebrand. The family all taste and approve any new recipes, and I imagine, their freezers are well stocked with Linda's burgers and sausages. It is important to them, their way of keeping Linda's legacy alive. So when Paul decided to launch a new campaign, Meat Free Monday, it was the perfect opportunity to get together for a rare public group hug.

As he muses over a suitable recipe for another cookery video to promote the new campaign, he remembers one of his father's favourite recipes. "Pea sandwiches," he recalls. "I remember my dad making one for John once." But his daughters groan. "It has to be mum's lasagne," says Mary.

While Mary prepares to take the photographs for this story, Paul takes a tiny mouth organ from his pocket and plays as Stella sings along. "This is why Bob Dylan wants to write songs with you," she laughs. It's a family joke. Despite the news reports that the two musicians are about to record together, Paul tells me later that the rumour is totally unfounded. "No, that's a newspaper thing. He just said some very complimentary things about me in some interviews and I love him. I think he's a great poet and writer so I've always admired him. I don't rule it out and I admire him. But we're not the kind of people who would ring each other up." Mary takes her place in the picture, arranges her dad's hair which is blowing in the wind, and presses the shutter.

The family is famously vegetarian, but Stella says for this particular debate, she wishes they weren't. This is not an evangelical mission to make the world a veggie but an attempt to do their bit to slow climate change. "It's an environmental conversation, not a vegetarian one," says Stella. "It's ok to just give up meat for one day, it doesn't make you a vegetarian if you hate vegetarians, it doesn't make you cranky, hemp wearing pot smoker. It's alright, it's allowed - it doesn't make you a kind of the person you don't want to be. It just means you are doing something positive."

Paul read about the campaign in America and decided he needed to get involved. Over the past year, he has been talking about it, writing letters to celebrities and chefs, talking to schools, and galvanising support from as many people as he can, including Woody Harrelson, Doris Day, and Ricky Gervais. Two weeks ago [Monday 15 June], he held a press conference to launch the campaign at Oliver Peyton's restaurant Inn the Park. Peyton himself – a fully fledged bone marrow sucking carnivore - has agreed to promote meat free dishes every Monday at the restaurant.

The campaign has some weighty research behind it, not least from the UN. "Dad got the report," says Mary, who is softly spoken but has a cool air of authority about her. "You were sent the report weren't you?" She looks at Paul who has joined us round the table at the Portobello Hotel in west London, quietly whistling to himself. "Yeah, I was originally sent it. Livestock's Long Shadow it was called. The UN, who are our appointed global watchdog, said 'hey, cattle rearing is more harmful than ALL transport.' That is the statistic I thought was shocking because until then I thought it was aeroplanes, cars and trucks…"

According to the report, livestock are responsible for 18 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, which is indeed a bigger share than that of transport which accounts for 13 per cent. "We're not just talking about a few cows," says Paul. "We're talking billions. I took a drive from Santa Fe down to El Paso, a road trip I was on, and you go past I think about 15-20 miles of cattle as you drive down the motorway and it's the same cow; it's a brown and white cow. There are billions of them! And that's where it comes home. That's where the methane is coming from, this is the problem, not just a couple of cows on a farm. It's not just Daisy and Buttercup any more."

It seems the world is coming round to the Macca point of view and this is too good an opportunity to miss. It's the first time not eating meat is being promoted by scientists – 'traditional eaters,' as Paul calls them, not vegetarians with a vested interest. For Stella and Mary, following their father's lead is perfectly natural. Linda would certainly have been there, waving her placard. She was already talking about the relationship between food and the environment long before the UN decided it was time to act. This is part of the family's way of keeping Linda's legacy alive. "Ideally yes, be vegetarian," says Mary. "But if not, just reduce your meat intake to make it fun do a meat free Monday."

Listening to them running through the arguments and the statistics backing up their campaign, you feel this is a typical discussion that would happen over a family nut roast. Occasionally, they talk over each other and finish each other's sentences. "It can be so overwhelming," admits Stella. "And you can feel so …oh god, but I've got to get that plane there and I've got to drive my car with my three kids here. You are led to believe that transport is the main problem, but actually it's diet. To be honest we could sit and bang on about it…"

Paul: "But we don't want to bang on, we don't want to say to you look, you have to go veggie. The idea of this is for the environment, for your children's future, would you consider just one day a week changing your habits? And then if you decide to do two days, three, four, then so much the better, but if people would do it, it would have a huge impact."

Stella: "If everyone gave it up on a Monday it would be more effective than everyone stopping driving their car on a Monday. We are not perfect. It's so important to get that across because it's like oh, those bloody Maccas, talking again about not killing cows! It is boring. But the reality is, I like to think I am trying to do my little bit. I will turn off the lights when I leave a room; I will turn off a socket if I don't want to be using the socket. And those are tiny little things."

Paul: "Even President Obama tells you to do that."

It is a small thing they are asking us all to do. Very few of us eat meat every day of the week, but by cutting back on what we eat, we can make a difference. On average we are eating twice the amount of meat we ate in 1961, the year the Beatles first performed at the Cavern club in Liverpool. "The idea of having one type of meat for your breakfast and another type of meat for your lunch, and then another type for your dinner, and in between having your sandwiches with another kind of meat, we really do eat too much of it," says Paul. To produce a single kilogram of beef, farmers have to feed a cow 15 kg of grain and 30 kg of forage. It is a highly intensive business that is ultimately not sustainable. Livestock production is responsible for 70 per cent of the deforestation of the Amazon jungle and by 2050, the world's livestock population is expected to rise from 60 billion farm animals to 120 billion. It is a scary fact when you consider that a single cow can produce 500 litres of methane per day, which has around 25 times the global warming impact of CO2.

"I think we forget more and more that we are animals," says Stella, "and we are part of a planetary system where all of the animals are on this planet together and you are made to feel like a hippy dippy jerk that should go and live in a tipi for even making a point of remembering."

Despite the fact that she rarely gives interviews, Stella is the most vocal of the three, passionately backing up her father, shaking her head, saying 'it's all money, money, money!' about the projected growth of the meat industry (world demand for meat is estimated to double by 2050) and butting in with the odd comment like: 'Greed is not a good look. I was brought up to think this was not a good look. Everything in moderation.' And she knows her stuff. She urges me (and you) to watch a film called Home that was made by the aerial photographer, Yann Arthus-Bertrand, and launched the previous week on World Environment Day. You can link to it from her website.

As she says, she tries to do her bit. Although she already incorporates sustainable and organic fabrics in her mainline collection, she also designs a capsule Green Collection which is as purely ethical and sustainable as she can make it and is sold at Barneys in New York and Harvey Nichols in London. On her website, in between pictures of models looking supremely cool and confident in her clothes, if you click on the 'Green me' button, you can read Stella's eco tips – small things we can all do to help slow down global warming. Her London shop is powered by Ecotricity. Her skincare range, Care, is made using 100 percent organic active ingredients and is Ecocert –certified. And of course, she tells her celebrity friends off for wearing fur and doesn't use leather.

"In my industry, there is no alternative in people's minds to leather shoes. Now I'm not making a leather shoe. I'm doing alright. We can get by. Things change. Humans are the best animals - the best adapters on the planet. We adapt quicker than a tree does in the rainforest. We adapt, that's what we do."

In March, she was given an award by the Natural Resources Defence Council (which works to protect wildlife and wild places) in New York. "I was lucky enough to present that to her," says Paul. "I said that when she joined the fashion world, she first of all was employed by Gucci and my first thought, and Linda's, was uh-oh Gucci is leather city. When you think of Gucci, you think of leather. We thought about how long is it going to be before she caves in on her principles? And we waited, and we waited, and we waited, and she never did. That is a fantastic achievement… and that's what's great about new ideas, different ideas, people catch the fire, they get excited with the stuff. It's just thinking about it instead of just becoming a Gucci slave. Took a little bit of guts to do that."

Despite the fact that Stella feels she has been pilloried for her beliefs and principles, it seems to have paid off. Just as the fashion world has finally come round to her big idea of wearing jumpsuits and your boyfriend's jacket, we seem to have arrived at a moment when having principles – and a bit of compassion – is not such a bad thing. It is perhaps no coincidence that she is the only fashion person to be included in Time magazine's annual 100 most influential people list this year, an achievement she is obviously proud of, giving me a high five when I mention it. Just as any father would, Paul admits to having the magazine on his kitchen table, open at the relevant page – a tribute written by Stella's mate, Gwyneth Paltrow. "Even if you are not vegetarian somehow Stella gets you to believe," she writes. "She manages to convince you (never sanctimoniously from a soapbox) that killing animals is needless and cruel and bad for the environment."

Paul says she didn't have to be that way. "She could have caved in and we almost would have forgiven her. The pressures were so huge but the fact that she did not…" Stella cuts in. "I'm very lucky. I don't think that I am magnificent, I just think I've been very lucky. I think I've been brought up in a certain way. Mary's like that, my brother [James, a musician] and sisters [Heather from Linda's first marriage, and Beatrice from her father's second] are like that. My husband's like that. I think that you do stand out if you stand out against things. It was very hard in my industry especially to have those kind of principles and I did have the mickey taken out of me probably up to about a year ago. And people will probably read this and chuck it on their barbie and cook beef on it but the reality is I'm more impressed by people who take a risk and who stand up to good beliefs and I think in this day and age…"

Paul: "It's how the world changes."

Stella: 'The main thing is not to bang on about it too much. We don't generally bang on about it, I try to keep my head down and get on with it and design pretty frocks, that's my job. And dad makes pretty good records when he's given half an hour in between his potato mashing, and Mary's a fantastic photographer. But I don't think we want to come across as forcing people to think a certain way, I think it's just a very valid issue and life's too short to not do something you believe in. You've only got a short period on the planet to make something of your life."

With all of this passion and desire for change, I wonder if Paul will be writing a Dylan style protest song to promote their cause. "I do have a few sort of animal awareness songs, but they are very difficult to write. I wrote one called Looking For Changes that was applauded by PETA, which started off with 'I saw a cat with a machine in its brain', you know that picture? A hardcore picture. That made me write that, but it's very very hard to do and it's not my forte. I wish it was, that would be kind of nice to be driven in that direction. Songs aren't always what you are passionate about. You'd like to think that they all were but sometimes it's just about I love you, or you're great."

And with that, our time is up. Stella's phone has been ringing non-stop. "We're going to get a bit of flack for this," says Paul, who can't resist singing into my Dictaphone before turning it off. "Why do we feel we need to do it? You know what, because Meat Free Monday is a damn good idea. I mean, what are you going to tell your kids? That we can do something about it. This is one of those things that you can do."

#article #meat free Monday #vegetarian #mary McCartney #environment #Paul McCartney #stella mccartney #family #Heather McCartney #Beatrice McCartney #James McCartney #charity

19 notes · View notes

sistercelluloid · 6 years ago

Text

Welcome to another edition of TINTYPE TUESDAY!

Does the current crop of Christmas movies make you yearn to go back to 1947? I mean even more than you normally do? Then let’s journey together back to that magical time…

…when the lovely Maureen O’Hara was ready to pretty much punch someone in the face. She’d just flown home to Ireland after back-to-back shoots on The Homestretch and Sinbad the Sailor, and was all set to curl up with a cuppa and relax for a spell. So just imagine her excitement when she was suddenly summoned off the sofa and clear across the ocean to New York to star in a little confection called Miracle on 34th Street.

Luckily for 20th Century Fox, she fell in love with the script the instant she read it.

Which is more than you can say for Darryl F. Zanuck, who didn’t want to make the “corny” film at all. Director George Seaton, who’d thrown his heart into the project, fought back hard—finally wangling a paltry $630,000 budget out of the cynical studio boss in exchange for a promise to direct The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, which Zanuck was willing to pour five times as much money into. (And which we all gather ’round the TV to watch every year! Oh wait…)

For O’Hara, a divorced working mother herself, the part of Doris Walker was an especially good fit, and also a chance to cast her glow on the kind of role rarely seen in films of the 1940s. (The powerful Legion of Decency found the portrayal of divorcées on screen to be “morally objectionable.”)

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present a newly restored print of the Oscar¨-winning Christmas classic ÒMiracle on 34th StreetÓ on Thursday, December 11, at 7:30 p.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. The 35mm print to be screened is from the collection of the Academy Film Archive, courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox, and is presented as part of the AcademyÕs Gold Standard screening series. Pictured: Edmund Gwenn, Natalie Wood, and Maureen O’Hara in a scene from MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET, 1947.

Once the perfect leading lady was on board, the search for Santa was on. The first choice was Cecil Kellaway, who turned down the part but suggested his cousin, Edmund Gwenn. “I’ve never seen an actor more naturally suited for a role,” O’Hara later recalled.

So much so that until she saw him in street clothes at the wrap party, Natalie Wood—who said she’d been “on the cusp of not believing in Santa Claus”—thought her beloved co-star was the real thing. And this was no sheltered, impressionable child: known as “One Take Natalie” for her photographic memory, Wood was whip-smart and had what Seaton called “an instinctive sense of timing and emotion.” And if she O’felt Gwenn was Santa Claus, who are we to argue?

Unbeknownst to the thousands of spectators lining the streets of New York, Gwenn was also Santa Claus at the 1946 Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, even greeting the crowd from the store’s marquee. To make sure he got ample footage, Seaton set up 14 cameras all along the route. “It was a mad scramble to get all the shots we needed because we only got to do each scene once,” recalled O’Hara. “The parade couldn’t stop because we needed a second take!”

In fact, in an era when soundstages ruled the day, almost the entire film was shot on location—during a winter so bitterly cold that the chill sometimes froze the cameras.”One scene was shot in Port Washington, New York, where a woman let us warm up in her house,” O’Hara later laughed. “The crew put the cameras in front of her living room fireplace to thaw out… finally the cameras defrosted and we were able to finish the scene. Her generosity was one of the miracles in Miracle on 34th Street!”

The closeknit cast also helped to warm things up. “John Payne was a wonderful person to work with,” O’Hara remembered. “And he became one of my dearest friends.”

O’Hara was especially close to her screen daughter: “I played ‘Mom’ to more than forty children during my movie career. But Natalie always held a special place in my heart. She called me ‘Mama Maureen.'”

The scenes in Macy’s were shot after hours, which thrilled the adventurous eight-year-old: “Natalie loved to work at night because she got to say up late. With all the shoppers gone, we walked through the store and examined all the toys and girls’ dresses and shoes,” said O’Hara. “It was a special time for us.”

“Mama Maureen” was also kinder and more lenient than Wood’s own notorious stage mother: “I brought a bag of chocolates for Edmund every day. We hid the candy from Natalie because her mother didn’t want her to have any.

“One day, Edmund got some chocolate all over his white beard, and Natalie spotted it immediately. We let her sneak some, but we made sure her mother never caught us.”

Wood found a special way to thank her movie mother for her much-needed warmth. “At least once a week, she gave me a little ceramic figurine she’d made,” O’Hara remembered. “I took them all down to my home in the Virgin Islands but when Hurricane Hugo hit, they were all literally blown away. I couldn’t find a single one.”

When the movie wrapped, the cast and director were pretty confident audiences would love seeing the film as much as they loved making it. But Zanuck remained unconvinced—and in another stroke of genius, decided to release the film in June, when, he argued, movie attendance was higher. This left the studio scrambling to promote a Christmas film without ever calling it a Christmas film. Which brings us to this head-smackingly odd trailer:

youtube

In it, the studio boss, who’s something of an imbecile (did Zanuck see this?), bellows, “What do you make a trailer for? To give the public an idea of what kind of picture to expect!” Then—Irony Alert!—they completely sidestep the fact that this is a Christmas movie. The boss wanders out onto the lot, buttonholing passing stars like Rex Harrison and Anne Baxter for their opinions of the film. They all love it, for wildly different reasons (Peggy Ann Garner calls it groovy!) but no one dares utter the “C” word.

Joining the long list of films that succeeded in spite of studio bosses rather than because of them, Miracle on 34th Street ultimately found its (sandal-clad) audience, recouping its skimpy budget several times over. And along with The Bishop’s Wife, it was one of two Christmas films vying for Best Picture at the 1948 Academy Awards ceremony. Both lost to Gentlemen’s Agreement.

Gwenn fared better, taking home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor against a brutal field. Literally. Two of his rivals—Richard Widmark in Kiss of Death and Robert Ryan in Crossfire—played noir characters legendary for their viciousness. So the next time you see Tommy Udo push Mrs. Rizzo down that flight of stairs, just remember that ultimately, he was beaten by Santa Claus.

As you can hear in the clip below, the applause that greets his name—or as presenter Baxter would call it a few years later, “waves of love coming over the footlights”—make it clear who the winner will be. “Whew! Now I know there’s a Santa Claus,” Gwenn tells his adoring colleagues. “He’s an elusive little fellow… he turns up in all sorts of places under all sorts of names and disguises. The first time I met him, he told me his name was George Seaton…” And later, his voice breaking, “Thank you, all of you, for making the evening of my life such a happy one.”

youtube

Actor Edmund Gwenn (right) and writer George Seaton (left) holding their Oscars for the film ‘Miracle on 34th Street’, with presenter Anne Baxter, at the 20th Academy Awards, Los Angeles, March 20th 1948. (Photo by Archive Photos/Getty Images)

And finally, here a few bits of Miracle on 34th Street trivia to toss around the Christmas table:

Remember when Kris Kringle is taking his sanity test, and to show off his memory, he proudly proclaims that the Vice President under John Quincy Adams was Daniel D. Tomkins? Um, no, he served under James Monroe. Adams’ veep was John Calhoun, whose picture is too scary to put in a Christmas story. (Google him. Yikes.) So the next time you watch the movie with friends, be sure to smugly point out this mistake! (And never be invited back!)

Macy’s Christmas window displays were made by Steiff, famous for their stuffed bears and other toys. After the movie wrapped, the store sold them to FAO Schwarz, which later sold them, improbably, to the Marshall & Ilsley Bank in Milwaukee, where they’re showcased every year in the main lobby.

Gene Lockhart, who plays the judge, was also Bob Cratchit in the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol. And Percy Helton, who played the drunken Santa Claus, also popped up as the train conductor in White Christmas. Oh and speaking of making a bit too merry, here’s a Gimbel’s ad from the year Miracle on 34th Street came out:

The movie also gave us the gift that keeps on giving: the film debut of Thelma Ritter, who went on to win six Oscar nods while never moving out of Queens. And typically, she’s the one who sets the whole Christmas détente between Macy’s and Gimbels in motion.

Ever wonder what Kris Kringle and the little Dutch refugee who sits on his knee are talking about? Here’s the translation:

Kris Kringle: I’m happy you came! Little Girl: Ooh, you are Sinterklaas! Kris Kringle: Well yes, of course! Little Girl: I knew it! I knew you would understand me! Kris Kringle: Of course! Tell me what you would like to get from Sinterklaas. Little Girl: I don’t want anything… I already have everything… I just want to stay with this lovely lady. Kris Kringle: Do you want to sing something for me? Little Girl (singing): Saint Nicholas, little rascal, Put something in my little shoe! Put something in my little boot! Thank you, little Saint Nicholas! Saint Nicholas little rascal, Put something in my little shoe! Put something in my little boot! Thank you, little Saint Nicholas!

The house Natalie Wood bolts into at the end of the movie still stands, at 24 Derby Road in Port Washington. It looks almost exactly the same today, but for the addition of a window that changed the roofline.

It seems only fitting to give the final word to Maureen: “I’m so proud to have been part of Miracle on 34th Street.” And we’re so grateful you were. We still miss you, dear lady. And we’ll never forget what you told us:

TINTYPE TUESDAY is a regular feature on Sister Celluloid, with fabulous classic movie pix (and backstory!) to help you make it to Hump Day! For previous editions, just click here—and why not bookmark the page, to make sure you never miss a week?

TINTYPE TUESDAY: Behind the Scenes of MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET! Welcome to another edition of TINTYPE TUESDAY! Does the current crop of Christmas movies make you yearn to go back to 1947?

#anne baxter #cecil kellaway #christmas movies #classic christmas movies #crossfire #darryl f. zanuck #dick haymes #fathom events #gene lockhart #gentlemen&039;s agreement #homestretch #maureen o&039;hara #sinbad the sailor #thelma ritter

3 notes · View notes

nottswitch · 7 years ago

Text

How Long It Takes To Fall For You

Quite a while ago anon requested a story about Ben being a gentleman in Victorian England. I thought it was a very interesting idea so here we are. Also, I reckon I should thank you, anon, you pushed me to expand my history knowledge as I had to learn more about that period!

Hope you won’t be disappointed :)

Ben met you five times in his life and in between every single one of them he often caught himself thinking that he wanted to see you again. And he always got too lucky to have these times repeated one after another.

First time happened in the park. You were walking along the main road alone, your smile shining bright like a sun. Ben was sitting on a bench, enjoying warm weather and the only free day of the week he had when he saw you. He wasn’t planning to have his eyes stuck on you at all but couldn’t help it when he noticed how elegant your movements were, how soft and gentle was your look, how beautifully your hair was flattering in the light summer wind. You were the embodiment of perfection, Ben thought then. He didn’t remember you from a massive number of dinners he attended, which only meant that you were pure and not involved in all the secular stuff happening there and there.

Ben felt almost an urge to get acquainted with you. He had never seen such a person, not spoiled by a rude and messed up world around.

He began thinking through the ways to introduce himself and not scare you off — although he was pretty sure that you didn’t lack men’s attention. Just as he decided to simply greet you, for a start, he noticed you approaching the bench he was sitting on. Ben immediately looked away and tried making himself look like he wasn’t interested at all. But he wasn’t able to prevent a glance at you when you sat down and leaned on the wooden back of the bench. Neither was he able to prevent a few glances afterwards, pretending to be reading a newspaper when you turned your head and looked at him.

You obviously noticed all the looks this man gave you. You, to be honest, expected him to. Moreover, you wanted. He caught your attention straight away, but you were too shy to start talking. He might have been grumpy and mean, who knows.

But thankfully Ben wasn’t able to hold himself any more and cleared his throat, ready to start a conversation.

“A nice day it is, right?” he said, putting a standard greeting smile on his lips.

You turned your head to him and smiled back. You were really happy he decided to talk first.

“It is indeed,” you answered, “Especially compared to the previous week.”

“It was raining a lot, yes.” Ben nodded and went silent for a second. “May I be honoured enough to know your name?” he continued after a while.

You giggled, covering your mouth.

“You might have skipped the weather topic,” you told Ben. He rolled his eyes and chuckled with you.

“I didn’t want to appear rude and weather is just a basic thing to start dialogues with.”

“I’m Y/N,” you said, smiling widely. Ben returned the smile and introduced himself too.

You didn’t talk for long though. You turned out to have some duties in the evening, so now you had to go. Ben couldn’t take his eyes off you as you were walking away.

Your first meeting went quick, you didn’t have proper time to get to know each other. But Ben was suddenly afraid of something. Afraid of falling for you. It was very unfamiliar to him, never before had he felt instantly attracted to someone, to a woman he only saw once and talked to for no more than ten minutes, to be precise.

He loved the way your soft voice sounded. He adored the way you were tucking a curl of your hair over your ear. He couldn’t imagine a girl more beautiful than you.

But there was a little problem. Ben Barnes had a wife.

Second time happened at a dinner. Ben didn’t even remember who was the host of it, he was bored and wandered around, stopping to say hi to people he didn’t know names of. And suddenly, when he was ready to secretly leave, he heard a familiar voice. His face lightened up with a grin and he started to get through the crowd to reach the source of it.

You were standing here, in a gorgeous beige dress, a pearl necklace, loosely wrapped around your neck, and what especially caught his eye, was a sophisticated hairstyle. Your maid must have spent a lot of time doing this masterpiece on your head, he thought.

Just as Ben thought about the not-so-rude ways to interrupt your talk, a person you were having a conversation with, noticed him.

“Oh, Benjamin, come here!” It was, as Ben recognised, Wilmer Hanrahan, a respected, successful man, but the key to his success was nothing but cunning and ability to flatter at the right time. Ben didn’t like him at all, and especially the fact that you were talking to him.

He shivered, hearing his full name, but pulled a friendly smile and approached you and Wilmer.

“I was expecting you, Benjamin!” said Hanrahan, but Ben didn’t look at him. All his attention was on you. Wilmer seemed to notice it and decided to introduce you.

“You must not know miss Y/N Y/L/N, Benjamin,” the man said.

“I do actually,” Ben answered. “We met three days before.”

And I haven’t stopped thinking about her, he almost added.

You smiled and nodded, happy to see at least one familiar person at this place.

Soon Wilmer left you, which you were both pleased with. Ben offered to take a walk, you agreed and soon you could’ve been found outside the house.

“So, how’re you finding it here?” Ben asked.

“Honestly? I don’t like such… events at all,” you admitted. “It was my second time but I can already tell.”

Ben nodded, thinking to himself that he totally agrees.

“And you’re not new to everything?” you continued, looking up at him with great interest.

“Unfortunately,” he said, smiling sadly. “But I have to attend those just to keep my reputation, you know. Being known by everyone isn’t always good.”

You looked at Ben with pity in your eyes, but he just smiled again and offered you his arm to hold on to.

You two talked through the whole evening. You enjoyed Ben’s company a lot, he seemed like an interesting man, who was also a true gentleman. And you couldn’t explain, even to yourself, why did you feel so upset when learned he has a wife.

Third time happened at a theatre. Before that, for almost a week since your last meeting, Ben has been thinking about you non-stop. He felt guilty in front of his wife — he wasn’t a man to cheat on his loved one. The problem was, his wife wasn’t a loved one. It were just their families who put Ben and her together. She knew he didn’t love her and this fact somehow made Ben feel even worse.

And one day, to distract himself, he decided to take his wife to a theatre. Doris — her name was Doris — wasn’t arguing. The choice of the play was easy — ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was the only play on.

How surprised Ben was, when he found out that next to him was sitting no one but you. As soon as you noticed him, you grinned, but this grin of your disappeared when you saw a woman hand in hand with Ben. You assumed it was his wife he was talking about and quickly looked away, afraid that he could notice your eyes, watery all of a sudden.

She was pretty, she was funny — Ben chuckled every time she whispered something in his ear — and she loved Ben, judging by the looks she gave him. And why would you be jealous anyway? Who were you? Just a girl, who he met twice and didn’t know much about. You couldn’t be considered even a friend.

A surprised sigh interrupted your thoughts. You turned your head and saw Ben, with that wide grin of his that you had time to be fond of already. You put a smile on your lips too, in an attempt to mask tears, ready to run down your cheeks. You needed to hold them, just for Ben.

“What a pleasure to meet you here,” he exclaimed and sat down on his seat next to you.

“Same to you,” you answered.

“Let me introduce you my wife, Doris.”

A woman, also sitting down, gave you a genuine smile. You instantly felt guilty for being kinda angry at her, she was a good person, you could tell it right away.

The play began in several minutes but all that Ben was capable of doing was looking at you. You were truly into the play, your eyes sparkling with interest and joy. You were sad when the episode on the stage was tragic, you lived with the characters and Ben found it fascinating.

“Have you ever thought of becoming an actress?” he asked you afterwards, when the play finished. Doris met her friend and walked away to talk to her. You two remained alone.

“It was my dream since childhood,” you answered, smiling, but with a hint of sadness.

“And why didn’t you become one?” Ben was truly surprised.

You shrugged.

“People always tell me I’m not good enough. And I… I don’t know, I accepted it.”

“Who tells you this?”

Ben couldn’t believe his ears. Someone must be really stupid to say it. You were a gift, in his opinion.

“My parents, my grandmother, my cousins… Everyone basically.”

“It’s just strange that they really think so,” Ben said. “I think you’re amazing and would be a great actress. I strongly believe in this.”

You blushed hard. No one has ever said something like this to you.

“You reckon?” you asked shyly, looking down at your feet.

Ben just nodded, giving you a gentle smile.

He and his wife left soon. Ben couldn’t sleep this night, tossing in his bed. You completely took over his mind — and, most probably, his heart.

Fourth time happened in the park again. The setting was almost the same as the first time you met, except now you weren’t in the central part of it, but in a secluded corner. There were beautiful green trees around, dense grass, softly embracing your bare feet. You let yourself this kind of pleasure from time to time — walking through the grass without your shoes on, enjoying the feeling you got.

Ben accidentally reached this corner of the park that you considered your private place, but you didn’t really mind. When you noticed him, you simply made a welcoming gesture. He warmly smiled at you, coming up.

“Didn’t expect to see you,” you said, continuing your walk through the trees.

“Me neither,” Ben chuckled, walking by your left side. “What is this place? Never been here.”

“I’m here almost every day. It’s so pleasant, I like to think here. Or read. Sometimes,” you giggled, covering your mouth, “Sometimes I even fall asleep under a tree. There are no people here, thankfully, or I’d be in trouble.”

Ben caught himself thinking that he wouldn’t mind sleeping with you under a tree. Last night he fully admitted to himself that he was in love — in the most strange, quick and stupid love he has ever been in. He didn’t know what would happen if he confessed it to you, but was determined to do it anyway. His feelings were too much of a weight on his shoulders. He needed to share them.

Ben stopped you right on a gorgeous glade filled with sunshine. You looked at him with surprise, and his serious face didn’t make you feel less worried.

“Is something wrong?” you asked, frowning.

Instead of answering Ben gently took your hand in his. It fitted there perfectly and he couldn’t help but smiled slightly, but immediately returned to the seriousness.

“No, nothing. I just… I would like to tell you something.”

“What is it then?” you wondered, trying not to pay attention to the fact you were literally holding hands now.

“I…”

No, Ben couldn’t. He had a wife. A family of his own. You were just a friend.

“I’m in love with you,” he breathed, closing his eyes just not to see your reaction. He wished the ground would open under him and he would fall and never come back.

You parted your lips in pure shock. You expected to hear everything but those words. When Ben opened his eyes, he was met by your teary ones.

“Do you mean it?” you blurted out, not really knowing how to properly react.

“I do mean it,” Ben replied, not able to breathe.

“But… you have a wife, Ben!”

“And what then?”

“How about Doris? Don’t you… don’t you love her?” You were confused.

“No.”

“But you’re married! Doesn’t it mean that you love each other?”

Ben almost laughed at your naive words.

“It doesn’t work like this. Not at all.”

His words were so intimidating that you just couldn’t accept them.

“I don’t want to get married then,” you said, tears starting to flood down your face by now.

You ran away that day. The whole night was spent crying in the pillow.

Ben’s feelings were mutual. But they were too wrong.

Fifth time happened at a seaport. Goodbyes weren’t long. You stood in front of each other, silence established between you for some time, until Ben decided to break it.

“Are you sure?” he asked, looking straight in your eyes.

You nodded, trying to avoid any eye contact.

“I have no right to hold you then.”

The last thing you remembered was a light kiss on your lips. The last thing remained from Ben Barnes. The last thing you left in England.

Ben met you five times in his life and in between every single one of them he often caught himself thinking that he wanted to see you again. Once he just didn’t turn out lucky enough.

#ben barnes #ben barnes imagine #ben barnes fic #ben barnes x reader #ben barnes fanfiction #fanfiction #imagine #fic

68 notes · View notes

ladyknightleyisundercover · 7 years ago

Text

The Joy of Socks

yeah, idk either, really. Happy birthday, Harry! [AO3]

Presents for Potter: Saviour Seeks Socks

What do you get the man who single-handedly saved us all from You-Know-Who? A luxury holiday? A bottle of Ogdeon’s Finest? Soap-on-a-rope? Harry Potter’s birthday is coming up, and the Prophet managed to secure an exclusive interview with the man himself. We asked what he really, really wants to receive on the big day.

“A wise man once said to me, you can never have enough socks,” said Potter. “Once you reach a certain level of fame, no one gives you socks any more. At the time, I was too young to truly appreciate the remark, but now I get it. Socks are a great gift—and I never get any!”

So there you have it. Harry Potter needs socks! You can send him some, c/o the Prophet, and we will make sure he gets them. But who was the learned individual who gave Potter such advice? Some have suggested that [cont. page 3]

“How many is this now?” Ginny asked, unwrapping yet another package.

“Today? Including those that were sent to work? Or in total? Because I think we must be close to five hundred pairs, by this point,” Harry replied, holding up another pair. “Ooh, look, these ones have snitches on them, that’s cool.”

“This’ll learn you not to speak to the press ever again,” she said, shaking her head. “‘Dear Mr. Potter, I hope you like these socks, I knitted them myself, also thank you for saving us from Voldemort, love Doris Englow, 94’.”

“It never says that,” said Harry. She held up the note. “Oh, how sweet. Honestly though, the Prophet needs to stop claiming I did everything ‘single-handedly’, they’ve never given enough credit to—dear God, those are the most hideous socks I have ever seen.”

“Don’t be rude to Doris! She put a lot of time into them, and personally I think mustard, lime green and beetroot are lovely colour combinations,” Ginny said. “When did you even get interviewed, anyway?”

“Last Tuesday I was coming out of the canteen at work, and some reporter was lurking. They asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and for a moment I felt like channelling my inner Dumbledore. Don’t worry, I’ve learnt my lesson. Never again,” he said firmly.

“I wonder if he knew all he had to do was complain to the national press about not having any socks, and he’d be sorted for life,” mused Ginny. “Look, the Chuddley Cannons have sent you an entire box full of their entire range.”

“Ron’ll be delighted,” Harry said. “I’ll give them to him later, when we all meet up.”

“Great,” Ginny said. “And what about all the rest?”

“There’s got to be some charity somewhere who’ll accept a donation,” he said.

“All of these?” Ginny said doubtfully. “What would anyone do with a thousand socks?”

“Well, we could give some to Aragog and his friends, they’d need eight each so it’d be an easy way to offload a bunch...”

“Or we could give some to Mum to unravel, and re-knit into our Christmas jumpers...”

“Roll ’em up and stuff ’em in your ears when George starts singing? Or when Percy starts droning on about cauldron bottoms again?”

“No,” Ginny said, sitting up suddenly, a familiar look on her face. “I know what we’ll do.” She picked out a pair at random and put them on, even though they were far too large for her. Harry frowned slightly as she walked over to the far side of their kitchen in them, trying to work out what she was up to now.

“Wheeeeeeeeeee!” she said, launching herself forwards and sliding across the floor. She skidded to a halt, then turned to face him. “C’mon. It’s your birthday. Sock slide!”

Laughing, Harry grabbed a random pair of socks from one of the many hundreds he’d been sent, and took off at a run. “Wheeee-oof,” he said, crashing into the wall.

“You need a better aim,” she giggled.

“We need a bigger kitchen,” he countered, rubbing his arm.

“You need—oh, bugger. We need to get going—we’re supposed to be at Hagrid’s now!”

“Thanks again for the cake,” Harry said on the way out.

“Ah, well, yeh know it’s tradition,” Hagrid grinned. “An’ say hello to Ron an’ Hermione for me. I haven’t seen them in ages.”

“I’ll tell them to come by for rock cakes next week,” Ginny promised.

“They know where I am,” Hagrid said. “Oh! ’Ang on a second. I’ve got something for yeh, Harry, wait there—” He disappeared inside his cabin, but returned a moment later with a very loosely wrapped present.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have,” Harry said at once. “Seriously, the birthday cake was...enough...”

“Open it!” Hagrid said, and Harry, with a half-hearted shrug in Ginny’s direction, did so.

“Oh, you really shouldn’t have,” Harry said. Ginny giggled, seeing the red-and-gold items he was holding up.

“Couldn’t ’ave you goin’ short of socks now, could I?” said Hagrid. “It’ll be winter before yeh know it, and yeh must keep your feet warm. ’Sides, I knitted ’em meself!”

“Thanks, Hagrid,” Harry said, laughing. “I appreciate it.”

“No worries,” he grinned. “Great man, Dumbledore, great man. Full o’ wisdom. Great man.”

They said their final goodbyes, and, laughing, Harry and Ginny made their way back towards the school gates. Hogwarts looked glorious in the summer sunshine, and Harry reached for Ginny’s hand, squeezing it, as they gazed at the magnificent castle. “Anyone else you want to visit, whilst we’re here?” he asked. “We’re not meeting the others at the Leaky until six, so we’ve got time, if you want to.”

“Nah,” said Ginny. “I think we should go home, and...” At first, he didn’t notice that she’d trailed off, focused as he was on how nice a day it was. Then, he turned to her and saw that, once again, she had The Look on her face. “Okay. Babe. I know it’s your birthday, and everything, so we can do whatever you want. But, you know how you said our kitchen wasn’t big enough for sock sliding, earlier?”

“Yeah...”

“Well...” She nodded towards Hagrid’s gift, then towards the castle, then waited for him to meet her gaze again.

“I am so in,” he said.

“Ssh!” He grabbed her and pulled her into an alcove, and they both frantically tried to stifle their giggles as Professor Flitwick walked by, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and board shorts. On the one hand, it was hardly breaking and entering if the schoool’s main doors were wide open. On the other, neither of them had any great desire to explain what they were up to to their old teachers.

Ginny had said that she thought the longest corridor was the Transfiguration one (“If only Hermione was here, I’m sure she’d know what page in Hogwarts: A History gives that information,” said Harry) so that was where they were headed. Even though neither of them had been students for several years, it still seemed strangely illicit to be sneaking around during the holidays, and the corridors all echoed oddly for the lack of pupils filling them up.

It didn’t take long for them to reach the end of the Transfiguration corridor, however, and as it was his birthday, Ginny gallantly allowed Harry the first go with Hagrid’s socks. He took off at a run, and managed to slide about four classrooms along. “Pathetic, Potter!” she cried.

“Oh, you think you can do better, Weasley?!”

“Bring it!” she declared, and competition was on.

Ten minutes in, Ginny had managed the longest slide (eight classrooms, nearly two thirds of the corridor) but Harry had the best consistency, managing six classroom lengths or more every time to Ginny’s five. “No fair,” Ginny panted, handing him back the socks. “You’ve got more momentum!”

“Get fatter then!” Harry called, then yelped as she launched herself at him, grabbing hold of his shirt to try to hold him back. “Now who’s not playing fair?!”

“Who said anything about fair?!” she replied. “You think just because it’s your birthday I’m going to go easy on you—ahh! No tickling, no tickling!”

“I’ve an idea,” he said, pausing for a moment to catch his breath. “What are your opinions on piggybacks?”

“Oh yes,” Ginny said, eyes lighting up. “On three?”

“On three,” he confirmed. “One...”

“Two...”

“Three!” they both took off running, Ginny launched herself at his back and clung on for dear life, the two of them went sailing down the corridor, shrieking with laughter, and—“Oh, shit! Oh no! Oh—”

Crash.

“Potter! Weasley! What in the name of Merlin is going on here?!”

Ginny realised that both her legs were still wrapped around Harry’s waist, and thought it best to extract herself. She managed it, but sent the last parts of the suit of armour they’d crashed into rolling onto the ground. An arm wobbled around, whilst the statue groaned feebly, and she tried not to catch Harry’s eye.

“I am waiting,” Professor McGonagall said, tapping her foot. “And don’t act like the fact that you’re both in your twenties—if not mentally, it appears—means I can’t put you both in detention.”

They both gulped. Professor McGonagall sighed. “Perhaps it would help if you both got up off the floor, and stopped destroying my castle!”

Ginny managed to climb to her feet, but Harry, who was still wearing Hagrid’s socks, slipped and crashed into the suit of armour again, causing another round of clanging. Professor McGonagall closed her eyes for a moment, looking pained. “I should think,” she said, opening them again, “that two such distinguished former students should not, first of all, be breaking into—Potter, are those Gryffindor socks you are wearing?!”

“Hagrid knitted them,” he said, then realised this was not, probably, a proper response. “I accidentally talked to the press last week—”

“Don’t worry, Professor, I’ve already told him this was a bad idea, you don’t need to give us detention—”

“And they picked up this puff piece about socks—”

“It’s silly season, but some people did take it seriously—”

“Because I remembered Professor Dumbledore saying—”

“So naturally we’ve been inundated—”

“I really didn’t expect—”

“Five hundred pairs! In our kitchen! What do you even do—”

“And we gave sliding around in them a go, and it was fun and all—”

“But then Hagrid—”

“And he’d knitted them himself, as a birthday present, and how could I say no?!”

“And the doors were open, so it was just so tempting—“

“Wouldn’t put the pupils in any danger of course, but it is the holidays—”

“And it is his birthday—”

“Enough!” McGonagall said, and though she didn’t really raise her voice at all, both of them stopped talking at once, unable to catch the other’s eye. “I do recall Albus’s comments about socks. He did make them repeatedly, even though every year I would give him a pair. Tartan, they were, too.”

Both Harry and Ginny continued to stare into the middle distance.

“Very well. What caused the commotion? How did you come to crash into the suit here?”

“We were trying to see who could slide furthest,” explained Harry. “We thought if we piggybacked...er...greater momentum, you know...um...”

Professor McGonagall’s eyes narrowed. “And you thought your little physics experiment gave you leave to destroy my castle?!” Neither of them felt like pointing out that one collapsed suit of armour was hardly a destruction. “Honestly, I thought better of you both. Birthday or no, Mr Potter, I’ve half a mind to put you in detention. And don’t you look so smug, Miss Weasley! I’d put you in, too. Have you any idea the injury you could have caused yourself? If you’d been out for part of next season, you know very well Tutshill might have caught up with the Harpies, and I have ten Galleons on you retaining the Cup!”

Ginny looked suitably chastened.

There was an awkward pause, where no one said anything. “Right,” said Professor McGonagall briskly. “Mr Potter, please give me your socks.” He thought—for a millisecond—about protesting that they were a birthday present, but thought better of it and handed them over.

Professor McGonagall accepted them, then eyed them thoughtfully. Harry and Ginny exchanged a glance. “Miss Weasley. May I have an arm?” After a moment’s hesitation, Ginny held out her left, and said nothing as Professor McGonagall held onto it as she first removed her shoes, then put on the socks.

“What was the record?”

“I...what?”

“How far did you get, before the incident?”

“Ginny managed to reach the eighth classroom down, but...Professor, you can’t—”

“I can’t what, Mr Potter?”

“I mean, um, what we found worked best was if you take off at a run, then slide,” Harry said at once.

“Very good,” said Professor McGonagall. Very carefully, she walked over to the far wall.

“She’s not serious?!” Ginny mouthed at Harry. He could only shrug.

Professor McGonagall took a few deep breaths. Then, she took off running. The two of them could barely believe their own eyes as she slid gracefully down the corridor; once she bested Ginny’s record, they started to cheer her on, although their cheers quickly turned to cries of alarm as she kept going, heading towards the far wall—she was going to crash—

They gasped in astonishment as, at the very last second, she performed a skid turn, looping back on herself as she came sliding back up the corridor towards them. They whooped and cheered as her momentum dissipated, and, finally, she came to a gentle halt before them. Harry stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled like he did at Harpies matches, and Ginny clapped and cheered along with him.

Professor McGonagall gave them one single, tiny nod, then bent down to remove the socks. She folded them neatly, and returned them to him.

“Happy Birthday, Mr Potter,” she said.

#hpfic #hinny #harry potter #happy birthday Harry!#my writing

441 notes · View notes

bwwrites · 5 years ago

Text

2019 Music

This list is incomplete, all lists are incomplete. But it’s a list of things that have stuck with me in 2019. There’s some recency bias, there’s some laziness on my part, but more than anything, it was a year where I just….. kinda listened weird.

My listening was often pragmatic. Fitting a mood, or background to other things, or rising and falling with my rising and falling depression and anxiety. (And if I’m being honest I really just listened to like, an unconscionable amount of Friends at the Table instead of music most of the year.) So if stuff is below it’s because I either listened to it a lot, or listened to it not that often but adored it when I did, or you know, just found it super interesting. I make no claims to this being a best of 2019, this is just stuff I wanted to write about, primarily.

It’s two lists, top ten and ten more that I loved. Across it all I wrote too much, a lot of it tangential. Who even knows who this is for! (It’s for me, that’s who it’s for.) None of it is ordered, except for the clear number one, 1000 gecs by 100 gecs. It is AOTY and they are a pop band, fuck off all you people who put that record in experimental lists, cowards. Anyway, enjoy too many words!

Top Ten

Mount Eerie w/ Julie Doiron - Lost Wisdom pt 2

I’ve loved Julie Doiron’s solo stuff for years and years and years. Seeing her live in Bloomington and overpaying her by one dollar for record is a story I told for awhile, in the form of oh Julie Doiron? Yeah, she owes me a dollar. Mount Eerie I’ve had a rockier time with. I liked The Microphones but never got it the way so many friends did, and have always enjoyed Mount Eerie when I’ve listened, but I’ve never been the person who thinks to pull them out when it’s time for a record.

That sort of changed with the first Lost Wisdom. I listened to that record so much when it came out. The best parts of Phil’s work were highlighted and augmented by Julie’s voice, and some of those songs still make me teary every time I hear them. And it was my entrance into really digging into Mount Eerie and falling in love.

Lost Wisdom Pt 2 is different, even while it’s sort of the same. It feels like more of a Phil record than the first, and it’s Phil in the post A Crow Looked at Me era, where his poetry has fallen away in favor of brutality. His lyrics are clear, direct, at times poetic, and often beautiful, but the beauty is raw. I love it. Their voices are still a perfect match, weaving in and out. Seeing it live was a revelation. It took it from something I liked, but worried was maybe less than the first one, and made it its equal. They are different records in some ways, but for the end of 2019, Lost Wisdom Pt 2 made perfect sense to me.

It’s good, you should buy it.

100 gecs - 1000 gecs (Album of the Year)

What if two delightful humans born 15 years after me loved nightcore, emo, screamo, trap, and, I don’t know, literally everything else(?), made a record on computers. What if? That is 100 gecs. A lot of people ended up loving this record which was a great surprise, because I initially filed it away as another thing I will freak out over that everyone will mostly hate, but these two have created something hyperkinetic and somehow both deep and shallow all at the same time. There is no greater meaning to a song about betting your money on a stupid horse and then losing all that money and then maybe.. sleeping with the horse? Or at least going home with it and smoking it out. But also, that song is a ska song, inexplicably, and that’s FASCINATING and an interesting artistic choice. So there’s no greater meaning, but it’s clear there’s SOMETHING there, you know? Even if the SOMETHING is simply a desire to kinda just fuck shit up. These two are making artistic choices, and it’s easy to wave that away, to treat this the same way people mostly treat nightcore at this point, as a good joke on the internet. But after getting up to 50 plays on this record in like a month I am convinced that it operates on both (hell, maybe every) level.

And all that said, that’s mostly for YOU the reader. Because honestly, none of that articulates why I love this record so much, and I really love it a lot. The energy isn’t positive exactly, but THEY are, and the energy IS infectious if you’re open to the hyper mood they inhabit. And it’s not some high-concept appreciation of how they’re exploding pop, it’s really just that when I hear these songs I instinctively sing along, and when I saw them live at The Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden, a venue name that I say in full every time I mention the show, I got up and sang and waved my arms around and din’t care that I am 37 and one of the only people over 25 at the show who was not a parent. Like, they’re just good songs, you know? That’s what it comes down to. The songs? They’re good. I love them.

You should buy this one for sure. Like, this one above all the others.

Real Life Rock & Roll Band - Hollerin’ the Spirit

Andrew Weathers is a real one. When you’re a hermit you often have people who you think “aw man, I wish I was less of a hermit because this person rules and it’d be fun to be friends with them.” For most of my time in Oakland that I knew Andrew he was one of those. We had beers ONE (1) time and it was like a few weeks before he moved to Texas, haha. So, whoops to that. That all said, I’ve always loved the music he makes. Seeing AWE made me cry once, and that was cool.

I knew Real Life Rock & Roll Band would be enjoyable, but what I didn’t fully expect was this incredible collection of motorik rhythm emo rock and roll jams to just worm their way into my head.

A lot of folks try to smoosh rock and roll and weirdo music together, but often it ends up feeling like an experiment in a bad way, a little cold, a little calculated. These songs have heart, for lack of a less cliched way to say that. But goddamnit I’m right. These songs breathe and live, all chiming guitars intertwining, autotune, and locking into the groove early and often. You can tell this is the rock and roll that just came out when these people sit down to make rock and roll, and it’s refreshing, and good for the soul that I don’t know if I really think we all have. Very good, you should buy it.

Earl Sweatshirt - Feet of Clay

Listen, I get wanting the bangers. Hell. I WANT THE BANGERS. But I got emotionally invested in Earl pretty much right after I found out about him, and watching him grow from that first record that made it clear this kid is a phenom and a huge talent, but that first one is also so young, so raw, so... kinda gross? Then he went away, and when he got back, seeing him in Oldie, I watched that video so so often. He just looked so happy, and that video is such a perfect thing in so many ways. And he grew UP, and Doris was full of bangers, and I Don’t Like Shit… had fewer but was better in my eyes, and then Solace, and then Some Rap Songs and now Feet of Clay…… this is Earl in a loose mode that I really love. It feels like Earl making EARL music, and while I do still hope he gets back to some bangers, hearing Earl spread out/stretched out/streaming out can’t help but make me happy. And god the ridiculous beat on East, ugh, just pump it in my veins.

This one is also good, you should buy it.

Pancrace - Fluid Hammer

I don’t even really know where to begin on this one. I think I only first paid attention because Sarah loved it, and I trust her, and I DO love it, but god it’s just SO bizarre in some ways, but also so weirdly beautiful. It feels like a place, it feels like experiments, it feels like a peek into a world I don’t understand.

Some of my favorite music feels like the people making it are doing something I don’t really…. get…. but it’s clear they are doing it for reasons, and that I’m meant to enjoy it. And I do.

Which makes this all sound way more, uh, austere and WEIRD that I actually mean to. In some ways the weirdness is just how pleasant some of these tracks are. It’s a record made of little vignettes, musical, conversational, experimental, etc.

It succeeds the most at being exciting, which is maybe the main thing I love. That I listen to this and get excited about what they’re doing. How rare is it to feel like you don’t know what’s coming next these days, especially in what we call experimental music.

Kamran Shafii - Corpora Vilia

Kamran is a friend, and has gotten me more drunk than almost anyone else has twice in my life. Once in Seattle, and once in Brooklyn. He also put out 2 records this year that are pretty different.

Pithy & Prolix is one long track of computer scrabble, chirp and silence with stretched voice and silence in between. It’s a ride, but feels like one thing. I like it quite a bit, but really…. this one from right at the beginning of 2019 is the JAM.

Corpora Vilia is a set of 3 pieces, that all feel like they are their own entire world. Voice and field recordings and thrum and throb, combine with piano. You can tell it’s pieced together from parts, but it all works so well together, with the final piece maybe being my favorite thing out of both records.

I feel like his music is held together be a thread I can never quite articulate, but I can always feel. It reminds me, not sonically, but uh, conceptually? (maybe structurally?) of Sarah Hennies’ music, which always feels structured in a way that warrants further investigation or repeated listening, not as a puzzle to be solved but because it’s so clear there’s some substructure that every listen through I get a glimpse of, different glimpses each time maybe, but you can feel it still. And revisiting it is always rewarding.

claire rousay - Friends

I’ve said things on my twitter (that no one really reads or should read) about how I think claire’s doing some of the most interesting work out there in whatever this weird world of music is. She has released a frankly astonishing amount of music between full on releases as well as some subscriber only things that are the length of full on releases in her bandcamp sub, and the best part is that all of it is worth hearing, a feat, and the vast majority I’d say is good. The move from scattered percussion, which she was honestly very good at, to this textural, abstracted, collaged sound world that incorporates life, intimacy, bodies, confusion, and care into compelling audio has been really great to be a small part of as a listener and I guess very very minor supporter. I think most of what she’s done rules, but Friends, which came out just near the end of the year rocketed to the top of the list for me. It feels like the most sure version of thing she’s moved towards/gestured towards/accomplished before, but the span of an entire album. (See also t4t, a moment in St. Louis and a moment at the beach which are my two other favorites of hers from 2019)

In some ways it’s frustrating that the most exciting part of her music is just how personal it feels, but that is a bit of a theme I guess. Frustrating mostly because I’m just so excited to actually feel the hand of a person making the music, and sometimes that’s more conceptual, but with claire’s music sometimes it’s literal. It’s that she’s reading a sext, it’s that you’re hearing the notifications come in in real time, there’s a person there, with messy relationships and ideas and her music is stronger and more interesting for it.

D=D - Don Brown and Dan Reynolds (this one’s a book and cd)

God, this is such a weird fucking thing, and I adore it. I don’t have much intelligent to say about it honestly. Joe and Bryan have both made music that I really and truly adore, and both are categorized in my brain as people I will always want to hear from in part because I trust them as artists, trust that what they put in the world is worth paying attention to. And I think that gets at something about this year for me. I struggled with some things I assumed I’d love, I loved some things I decided I didn’t want to write about because of people and disappointments, and learned I care a lot more about taking time for things that I knew I’d find compelling or interesting, less worried about whether I thought it was the best thing of the year. In some cases the interest may just be “well this is pleasant” in other cases it’s “oh wow there’s so much going on here”. For a long time I thought experimental music should be HARD, should be COMPLICATED. And that’s a way to be, but the stuff I am pulled to is more like confounding? It makes me interested, makes me want to spend time with it, makes me feel like I don’t know the tricks it’s playing or pulling. And that’s not to denigrate those tricks even. Like, sometimes you just want to listen to a very nice thing, and also something that feels like a trick may not be a trick for everyone, but this year especially I spent time with experimental music that felt like it was trying to do new tricks, or at least employing old (to me) tricks in new ways. With D=D, it’s a book, first and foremost, and it felt new, it felt fresh, it felt like a confusing object, garish pink, with inscrutable history, and inscrutable sounds. It's also occasionally very funny.

Derek Baron - Dress of the Century

Okay, so. Frank O’Hara. I read a really great biography of O’Hara this year that made me love him even more than I already did, and helped crystalize some things in my head about what I want out of poetry. O’Hara’s “I do this, I do that” form has grown and mutated and even in his poetry it varies from I do this, to we did that, to this happened, etc etc, and I wonder honestly if even he started it, but most important for what we’re doing here, reading more of his poems and reading about him, and how he wrote helped settle that something about that format sits so well with what I care about not just in poetry, but in art in general. His poems move so seamlessly between these mundane moments perfectly captured and profundity and sadness and joy and a winking nod, a silliness, an undermining of what came before, a hesitation, honestly, everything. But they don’t feel like whiplash to me, they don’t feel frenetic, unless on purpose, occasionally, they just feel like life, like the movement between big and small, love and hate, disgust and rage and peace and delight, all at once. Read Having A Coke With You again, go ahead and go read it….. you can read it as breathless running from thought to thought, but I read it as the ambling path a mind can take when you love someone, when you’re comfortable, when you’re letting them in. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do with my poetry I realized, let people in.

Now, sorry, Derek Baron.

So I couldn’t stop thinking about O’Hara every time I listened to Dress of the Century. And honestly, all of the work they’ve put out recently does this for me (Recollects which they put out last year late in 2018, and Permanent Six Flags - A Festival Play for the Consecration of a Stage (which is Derek and Emily Martin) which came out on Reading Group this year, and to a lesser extent I guess the duo with Zoots Houston but that is also very very good.)

But especially with Dress of the Century. They do this, they do that, and it’s all pieced together, and sometimes it’s beautiful and sometimes it’s rough, but it’s all placed so specifically, and so perfectly. It’s not even a sum being greater than parts, it’s that the sum IS the parts, and each part sits next to the other, and it’s not a frantic movement, it’s an amble back and forth, hazy memory, overlaps, sudden clarity striking then disappearing. In the best of Frank’s poems you feel let in, not to secrets, but to a world, and that’s how Dress of the Century feels every time I play it. Like Derek is letting us all in just a bit, and it’s curated, it’s a selection, but god, that’s what letting anyone in to anything is. If you’re going to let someone in, it might as well be beautiful. And Dress of the Century is beautiful.

Shots - Private Hate

I was surprised how much I loved this. It builds on what I got so excited about with some of the early Taku Unami making-weird-cardboard-constructions-era of improv. Small sounds, space, room, the feeling that there’s something going on you’re not quite clear about, but are happy to have been given the chance to hear it. I didn’t expect to be so taken, but I’ve listened to this one a ton over the last couple months. I don’t know how to feel about non-music as a genre descriptor or trend, but I do know that if stuff keeps coming out that feels like Private Hate, which is this carefully constructed thing full of nothing in the best possible way, fascinating nothing, then I’m all ears.

Other Ten

Wicca Phase Springs Eternal - Suffer On

Is this embarrassing? Who can say. This dude is sad, and used to be in a hardcore band or something, but now is an emo goth rapper and I love this record a lot.

La Dispute - Panorama

More emotional men! I think this is their best record, capturing all the energy and frontic yelping, but it’s less yelps, and way more listenable. I sometimes miss the frantic yelps, but overall know Panaroma is a much sharper/clearer/better document than the earlier records. I listened to this record for the first time on a Metro North train up to Beacon and then walked around looking at austere art I adore listening to it a second time.

Despot - all the weird songs/snippets Despot released at various points this year on his goddamn instagram stories just fucking put out the album please man. Like…. For real.

At one point I recorded instagram videos so I could relisten and he posted a song on soundcloud for like…. 1 day, and I copped that shit too. I think he is a very good rapper and I just want to hear an entire record so so much it’s impossible to know that he has essentially recorded like three records that have been thrown out. Also he’s the brother of the main guy in Vampire Weekend so opened for Vampire Weekend and that’s hilarious.

JPEGMafia - All My Heroes are Cornballs

I don’t know what to say here and wish I had more honestly, but I ended up listening to JPEGMAFIA’s Veteran on the subway a LOT earlier in the year, and when this came out it was exciting to have more. I adore that he just went ahead and named a song “JPEGMAFIA TYPE BEAT” because it is both true and very, very funny. It’s so good though. Also sometime in Nov/Dec he and Mr. Peck below showed up in each other’s instagram stories and <3

Oliver Peck - Pony

He’s a very attractive gay masked cowboy man who sometimes plays songs shirtless on his instagram stories. And this record is full of country music that is sad and gay and I didn’t return to it as often as I expected, but I loved it a lot.

Michael Pisaro - Nature Denatured and Found Again

It’s very beautiful in the way that Pisaro’s music often is. I was surprised by how often I returned to this one, but have almost no thoughts beyond “this is pretty”. Sorry Michael!

Deb Never - House on Wheels

This ep rules. Deb is annoyed at you, and a little bored, but it’s cool that you came around to her place I guess. And you LOVE it. That’s what it sounds like. You love EVERY minute of it.

Gil Sansón / Lance Austin Olsen - Works on Paper

This one took me a bit. At first I found the narration weird and distracting and decided I didn’t like it, but at the same time when both discs ended I just started from the beginning again. I think the main reason it didn’t get more play is because it’s a music that demands some attention, and this was a year where my attention was sparse. If I put it on as background I end up annoyed, but the few times I’ve put it on and just sat and brewed tea over and over and listened to it I’ve found a ton to love. I plan to revisit this more in 2020.

Lil Peep - Moving On (song)

It would not be a list without Lil Peep. I saw the documentary and liked it a lot, but it didn’t do what I had hoped it would, which is make him a little more accessible. It made me incredibly sad though, because it’s so clear everyone, including Peep, just got so fucking caught up in his rise that no one remembered to like… take care of this poor guy who was so hurt, and so sad, and who had such dreams. Anyway, this song rules, I listen to it like three times a week. It was one of my favorites of the “new songs” from the last tour videos that got out, nice to have a recorded version.

Y2K & bbno$ - Lalala (song)

This became a TikTok song which, hilariously, is how I found it. I got this thing STUCK in my head and listened to it over and over and over for weeks, and still now months later I listen to it once a week or so. The remix has Carly Rae Jepson and uh…. Enrique Iglesias?!??!?!???!!!! It’s a very simple beat and a very dumb song in a lot of ways, but god it just settled deep deep into my brain.

0 notes