#the novel is so much edgier than the movie

[jacksonhealys]

some of my favorite gay moments from the novel

[firadessa]

Please acknowledge Bleakwatch Chronicles, Tinker Bell and the Lost City. I understand that BW chronicles may not have as much fans and are turned off by the art style. Also the author never posted (Zack Loran Clark) much promo for the book unlike Allison, nor mentioned anything about DF on his IG page. It is intended for a younger audience. However, I am much more excited for this book as it pertains to the movie universe. So please, just clap if you believe if you will.

As this is the first book to come out since 2017 that is labeled as "Disney Fairies" and the second spinoff- like this is important. You don't have to buy the book or give it the free promotion, but acknowledge the existence of it at least. WoS is not labeled as DF, if it matters.

Here are some of the reasons why I am more excited for Bleakwatch Chronicles than I am for Wings of Starlight by Allison Saft (Clarion x Milori YA Novel):

It's a post canon story implied to take reference to the cancelled Tinker Academy movie where TB goes to study at the Tinker Academy on the mainland. The art seems like they took references especially when directly compared to the concept art. WoS is a backstory.

It releases first, BWC releases in November 2024 and WoS releases in Feb.

It seems like more of original concept to me, literally because of the new concepts like the Flutterpunks and the implied secret cities of the Bleakwatch and Clockwork Capital.

New characters like Quin and Ozwald will be joining TB on this journey.

It expands on a old concept, and tweaks it in a way that makes more sense. IMO, an idea like a Tinker Academy seems to hold less weight because before the events of Tinker Bell fairies couldn't go to the mainland to spread nature, and it's implied they always stay. It is also implied in GFR that Tinker fairies don't typically go to the mainland even if TB's inventions help them in the intensive summer season (the song implies that's why she's there- it's implied in the first movie she goes there whenever she has a job) Vidia is dismayed by this and says "this is why Tinker fairies don't go to the mainland" whilst TB is checking out the car. In a deleted storyboard for Tinker Academy it is implied that it is a prestigious academy that FM gets into before the events of Tinker Bell, yet to me the idea of underground London tinkers makes more sense to me than the academy. Think about it, it's implied that TB and FM are some of the most brilliant Tinkers in pixie hollow and yet the Tinker population is small. (only Clank and Bobble greet her and we see no one in green outfits) Why do you think that is? I personally like the idea of rogue Tinkers who would scavenge on the mainland for parts and self-exile themselves from Pixie Hollow. It explains why FM calls the lost things junk, if the difference in mindset between the mainland tinkers and the pixie hollow tinkers was that the mainland Tinkers are considered "scraps" (get it) while the PH tinkers are considered more put together and community driven. It makes sense that TB being a brilliant Tinker that outshines even Vidia gets such an audience if brilliant Tinkers do not normally last in PH because they are seen as too curious and ambitious, opting to start their own community of outcast Tinkers in the mainland. Vidia's talent switch in The Pirate Fairy also implies that Tinkers have the gift of thought, and literally think differently (regardless of personality) then their non-tinker peers because it's their talent. There is much potential for this storyline as it adds more nuance to the Tinker Bell movie and the dynamic between the nature and non nature talents, something I think it would benefit from. It makes a lot of sense if the edgier steampunk designs came from a secret Tinker counterculture and not a secret academy imo.

The implication of this book suggest revitalizing the Disney Fairies franchise, possibly not just as a "brand". Not sure what that could mean but it's interesting

IMO, Wings of Starlight has more of a "booktok" vibe I'm getting from it. I'm not just saying that because it's YA, but given the (beautiful) cover design it feels more targeted for what Disney thinks grown fans of Disney Fairies might like based on whatever market research was done (and you know it was). WoS has been receiving better marketing and there are people out here that don't even know two books exist. I'm not saying the book looks lazy, slapped together, or unoriginal- or it will just be corporate and bland, I mean I'm a Disney Fairies fan I don't believe that everything is corporate greed lol and like to see creativity in the "unexpected". But I hope that future Disney Fairies books won't just be going for what is "trendy" to reel people in and instead invest in creative storytelling *in general*, in other words I hope they keep concepts and genres broad and inclusive enough so we have the potential for more creative stories. Not just expanded stories on specific characters and stories like the Twisted Tales series, or sticking to specific genres for this specific niche audience in a way that feels too specific. I feel like there has to be some sort of balance struck, or DF may be a little stuck for a while and may still have "missed potential".

On expanded stories, like I said, Disney has done a lot of that and there is an audience for that. However, I prefer the idea of post canon more than a backstory or expansion. From what I know, we know some details of the Milarion backstory and it will be adding more layers and expanding on the dynamics of the existing characters, where the new book seems to be more lore driven in focus.

I don't like Secret of the Wings that much in terms of lore as a lore fanatic. I feel like this book could also retcon other things when possibly trying to explain things that make sense in SOTW. If BWC is good, I can imagine myself thinking about it more after it releases but I can just imagine myself thinking more of how I felt and my emotional reaction after WoS with fading interest afterward, it just sort of feels like the book could resonate with me more y'know? and I got a pretty good gut feeling for that sort of thing.

Underdog bias, just acknowledge it's existence. Do that with the NG graphic novels from 2022, heck the whole Never Girls series. Do that with the whole DF franchise if you are new here somehow. That's it, that's the post.

The mystery. What is the mysterious pocketwatch and who's on the cover?

Copy and pasted plot summary- Tinker Bell loves nothing more than solving a problem. For her, red buttons demand to be pushed, treasure maps need to be followed, and lost things ought to be found. So when a strange fairy crash lands in Pixie Hollow and leaves Tinker Bell two clues to find a mysterious necklace on the Mainland, she really doesn’t have a choice but to help. However, her journey takes an unexpected turn when she discovers a hidden city of fairies living below the streets of London.

In this city called Bleakwatch, she’ll meet the Flutterpunks, the most infamous band of trinket scavengers around. Helping her may just give them their biggest score yet. But when the Flutterpunks’ plan goes haywire, they’ll be forced to choose between a big payday or saving their new friend.

When their adventure takes them inside the glittering Clockwork Capital, Tinker Bell and the Flutterpunks will uncover a villainous secret that threatens all the fairies in Bleakwatch. It turns out there’s more at stake than just finding a missing necklace, and it’ll be up to Tinker Bell to set things right. Luckily, that’s what tinker fairies do best!

[pinkacademic]

A History and Legacy of Legally Blonde

(It's done, I can die happy)

An Introduction

For over twenty years, Legally Blonde has been the King- or rather, Queen- of the chick-flick/rom-com world, having reigned supreme over the “girly movies” kingdom ever sinced it first graced cinema screens in 2001. Reese Witherspoon’s wonderful portrayal of sorority president-turned attorney Elle Woods created a veritable zeitgeist of Pink and Powerful. Legally Blonde has become the feminist film that inspires future law students and teenage sleepover-havers alike.

While it wasn’t always intended to be the cinematic masterpiece that it became, and, in fact, started in a way that likely wouldn’t have been quite such the feminist classic, it grew and developed during production; It went from something that could cause questions to be asked as to whether Legally Blonde as we know it should be held on a feminist pedestal, to a heartfelt vision that inspired so many of its regular re-watchers for two decades and more.

Herein is an exploration of the book that inspired the film, how the characters and the story developed as the film was made, and how Reese Witherspoon became so heavily involved- and influential- in the film’s success. Moreover, how the Harvard Class of 2004 encouraged so many young women into following the mantra of “what would Elle Woods do?”

What is the legacy of Legally Blonde? How did it end up with so much staying power? Here is the story of Elle Woods and how she became a cultural icon, and how she created a generation.

A History

The Book

Legally Blonde started its life as the book of the same name, a novelisation of author Amanda Brown’s experiences at Stanford University. The plot is largely unchanged- a pretty sorority girls goes to law school in pursuit of love- but there are swathes of differences in how the novel plays out, from plot details to characterisation of the main character. While the novel is hard to track down, an article by Cracked outlines the major differences between the book and the movie. In “Movie Differences: Elle Woods In The ‘Legally Blonde’ Book Is A Monster,” Amanda Manning opines that “[i]t’s hard to imagine a more perfect person than Elle Woods” in reference to the film character, but that “[l]iterary Elle Woods is manipulative, narcissistic, lazy, entitled, and excruciatingly judgmental.”

In terms of plot changes, Elle doesn’t seem to have the same studious drive, as Manning describes how “Movie Elle is humiliated” by her lack of understanding of the new, more “rigorous” academic world she now finds herself whereas “Book Elle didn't even buy the books and intentionally blew off the reading.”

While what Manning presents is truly a scathing review, it also proves the stark contrast between the Elle that is and the version that once was.

The Film

Just as with the book, early development of the film took the story on a journey that was crucial in it’s becoming something almost separate entirely from the book. Unlikely director Robert Luketic was an edgy film school major, who changed his tone was a ten-minute musical about an Italian woman, Titsiana Booberini who “has a hairy upper lip and (…) works in a supermarket where she battles the prettier girls for the affections of the handsome assistant manager,” according to an article on the Wayback Machine on the Internet Archive, originally from the Denver Center of Performing Arts.

MGM, the company that produced Legally Blonde, were apparently under the impression that the film “was going to be much more wet T-shirts and boobs than it actually turned out to be,” according to Luketic. The name Titsiana Booberini from Luketic’s previous work truly implies that MGM’s assumptions were correct. Early versions of the script were raunchier and edgier and were comparable to American Pie. Kirsten Smith, who along with Karen McCullah, wrote the film has stated "It transformed from nonstop zingers that were very adult in nature to this universal story of overcoming adversity by being oneself,” (Smith).

In fact, the plot originally did not include Paulette or Emmett, and ended with Elle entering a relationship with a professor, likely Callaghan.

While we can never know for certain, I find it highly likely that the original version of Legally Blonde would have become a rather forgettable summer romp in the typical “wet T-shirts and boobs” category, and we can thank God it changed.

Or rather, we can thank Luketic, Smith, and McCullah, and also Reese Witherspoon herself. It was Smith and McCullah who reworked the script, it was Luketic who fought for Reese, and it was Reese who knew her character well enough to make her who she is.

The writing dynamic duo Kirsten Smith and Karen McCullah were great friends before, having written 10 Things I Hate About You. They cite inspiration from Clueless, according to Blue Bear Magazine. Clearly, they knew what they were doing in the world of fun, fresh, and funky feminist films, and creating iconic rom-coms that put twists on the classics. The duo went on to contribute to Ella Enchanted, She’s the Man, and other classics that get referenced at every sleepover since they came out.

Director Robert Luketic, though he started his film education wanting to create something “edgy,” breaking the film school mold with Titsiana Booberini set the tone for him to emerging into a career in rom-coms such as The Ugly Truth, staring Katherine Heigl and Gerrard Butler, and Killers, starring Katherine Heigl again, this time with Ashton Kutcher, as well as episodes of Jane the Virgin, among other projects. While I am not overly familiar with these films, it is clear that Luketic has an understanding for a genre often marketed in Elle Woods-approved pink.

A film of this nature was clearly in good hands, and it is this team that truly made the masterpiece we all know and love today.

The trio have worked together also on the previously mentioned The Ugly Truth, which is testament to their teamwork.

But truly one of the biggest contributions to the project was Elle herself, as Reese Witherspoon is truly what made the film and th character both so iconic.

Reese Witherspoon

Luketic actually had to fight for Reese, as, given her last movie had been Election, she was believed by bosses at MGM to be similar to that character. Witherspoon told The Hollywood Reporter that MGM though she was “a shrew,” due to having been typecast in their eyes. However, Luketic remained convinced that Witherspoon was the right choice for the role, despite suggestions including Britney Spears, Katherine Heigl, and Alicia Silverstone among others.

The Hollywood Reporter article, again found on the Wayback Machine, titled “How Reese Witherspoon Took Charge of Her Career and Changed Hollywood,” relays Witherspoon’s involvement in Hollywood, and it is noted that for Legally Blonde that: “[s]he endured multiple rounds of auditions for Legally Blonde, at one point meeting with executives in character (complete with a Southern California accent) to show that she could ace the part.”

It is baffling to think that she had to fight for it. But as Elizabeth Gabler, head of Fox in 2000 noted, Witherspoon “doesn’t give up,” and if that isn’t the attitude of an Elle Woods, then what is?

Witherspoon said of Elle that: “(…)your first instincts is to discount women who put a lot of effort into their looks as maybe not serious about their job or maybe not serious about their relationships ... I think everyone naturally jumps to those conclusions(…)”

To me, there is a clear understanding of where Elle stands in the world, and how she wants to prove that she’s passionate about anything she sets her mind to. What strikes me especially is her telling The Hollywood Reporter in 2001 that, even though the word “fluffy” was used, Witherspoon stated “[she] take[s] it as seriously as [she] would any other movie.” Moreover, she did her research, having dinner with sorority girls in what she referred to as “an anthropological study.”

Reese Witherspoon became Elle Woods because she understood her internally. She immersed herself in the world that Elle is from and learned the differencs between the sorority girls and herself- the good, the bad, and the blonde of it all.

The Legacy

The team behind Legally Blonde truly created a masterpiece- a piece of art that has been inspiring a legion of creative and intellectual minds, and has been constantly doing so since 2001. In 2017, Reese Witherspoon told Wall Street Journal Magazine that “[at]t least once a week [she has] a woman come up to [her] and say ‘I went to law school because of Elle Woods.’”

Witherspoon was also handed a copy of entertainment reporter Lucy Ford’s college dissertation, that, in true Elle fashion, Ford presented to her in a pink ribbon. Elle’s own resumé being printed on pink paper and scented helps her stand out and be remembered, and Elle is a great believer in presentation and details, and it is an excellent lesson to take away from the movie. I’ll confess to personally making my CV pink too, because if it’s Elle-approved, it’s me-approved too.

There are a myriad of ways that Elle Woods has been inspirational to its steams of viewers. The article How Legally Blonde Influenced a Generation of Women Lawers on abajournal.com relays the range of the Elle Effect, noting both a friend of writer Haley Moss’ having bought a chihuahua because of Elle’s beloved Bruiser and the “plethora” of young women on social media. Some of said women were cited to have ‘thought the LSATs were possible’ thanks to Elle, and some of them were ‘just seeking fashion advice.”

So many voices have been added to the conversation about what a woman can be, having been inspired by Elle, as family law attorney Layla Summers told Spectrum News “When I watch the movie now I feel like I'm part of a great club of powerful professional women, like a sorority.”

This is a movie of joining women together from any walk of life and lifting them up.

The Lawyers

People.com also shares the legacy of Legally Blonde in the article lengthily titled “'Legally Blonde' Is 'Still' Inspiring People to Go to Law School – Plus, How Reese Witherspoon is Celebrating the Film's 15th Anniversary.”

It tells the stories of women who went to law school due to Elle and who connected to the character. Beginning with Shalyn Smith, the sorority president says she felt people would underestimate her ambitions for a career in law, “despite the fact that she had a 4.0.”

The article also features a series of tweets to a similar affect such as @kenzamae20 who tweeted at Reese Witherspoon directly saying “If Elle Woods can do law school I think I can too,” and @Gab_Tamburri who tweeted “I relate to Elle Woods in so many ways and honestly want to be like her when I get to law school.”

The Creators

The women of the legal profession have taken to the internet in droves under a pink flag waved by Reese Witherspoon herself too, as many other articles address. People.com spoke to Kathleen Martinez relays how in previous jobs sh was told that she should “dress more ‘consertavely’” and to ‘make [her male bosses] coffee,’” but npw she’s the head of her own immigration law team. She’s the head of a team of largely immigrants who are also mostly pink-loving women too. The article also points out that she held an “over-the-top Legally Blonde themed party” for everyone at her firm, so Elle’s influence and Legally Blonde’s Legacy are blatant and cannot be overstated.

In fact, the legacy is continuing, as Martinez has an impressive internet presence, with viral TikToks with 4.5 million views, and 1 million followers.

Mirror.co.uk also tells the story of Lowri Rose-Williams who spoke on how she feels ‘people assume she’s “an airhead” before they find out she’s a law student. She also relays that her experiences on OnlyFans contribute to the points of view that surround her as “many assume girls who use the app are ‘brainless.’”

Rose-Williams also expresss that “when people actually get to know [her] they change their mind,” which to me is certainly evocative of Elle.

A creator that I am a big fan of is Christina Stratton, who, in an article by Business Insider stated "I think back to the first day of college, and I would have never been bold enough to post an outfit of the day (…) I would have been too nervous about what all of my college friends would think.”

And yet now, she has a follower count in the hundreds of thousands, and is dubbed another “real life Elle Woods,” and while the article focuses on how she makes money from her brand deals, it is from her evocation of Elle Woods that her numbers have been garnered. Stratton wears almost exclusively pink in her videos, has a perfectly Bruiser-like tiny poodle, and has an Elle-tastic perky attitude that shows that she lives like Elle.

There is something about the unapologetically authentic aura of Elle Woods, from her optimism to her feminism, to her pinkness, that just appeals to people in so many ways. Elle Woods is who she is and becomes an even stronger version of herself, never changing for anyone. That’s who everyone who feels connected to her wants to be. Legally Blonde’s legacy is that of women who feel like they can do anything they want to, and do it in a heel. It evokes Dolly Parton’s famous line of “go big or go home, either way do it in a red pair of shoes,” but here they’re hot pink- but equally designed for stomping.

My Girlies

I reached out to my followers too to see what mymost supportive queens had to say, and it was plenty. naranjahtikal said: “I want to go to law school because of Elle! I also want to own a future textile company. I love the internal and external balance that Elle portrays as a woman.”

princessaninhas also responded, saying:

“I always wanted to be a nurse but people always told me that I didn't have the profile for that, they judged me by my way of being and dressing, they said I wasn't smart enough, there was a time when I was the only one who got all the answers right on a test (because I studied a lot) and the teacher said I was "lucky".Elle Woods taught me that we shouldn't care what others think, we should be ourselves and we shouldn't change our way of being to be what others want💕”

It is clear that Elle’s influence and the legacy of Legally Blonde are far-reaching and widespread. Legally Blonde inspires and Elle Woods represents having it all. You can be girly and twirly and kickass all at one, from law school to textiles, “we shouldn’t care what others think,” and we have to do things we want to do for ourselves.

A Conclusion

So, ultimately, what would Elle Woods do? I think the answer is that she would overcome a past that caused her to be overlooked and do what no one expected her to, creating a longlasting legacy for years to come.

Just as the story of Elle Woods is one of being overlooked for being too blonde for law school, only to set her eyes on the White House in Legally Blonde 2, the story of Legally Blonde is that of a movie that overcame murky origins and fought to become a feminist classic and went on to be the talk of the town in it’s twenty-second year since it’s release.

Thank you to Robert Luketic, Karen McCullah Lutz, Kristen Smith, and Reese Witherspoon among everyone else behind this most magical of films, and may we continue as a community of pink-loving, feminine feminists to keep the momentum going for those who came after us, becase that really is what Elle Woods would do.

[see-arcane]

Exactly, Del Toro didn't call his movie The Creature Of The Black Lagoon nor claimed it'll be so much better or that it's for the first time the Real Story. He named it The Shape of Water, with original characters, even if it's based on the classic.

Even with Pinocchio he didn't make Geppetto an evil father or the fairy a twist villain or try to subvert everything about it. He respected the characters and gave the story a different dimension, and while it's darker it's not edgier.

^^^

Guillermo del Toro is someone you can trust on both sides of the public domain line. He can lift up the original without gutting and destroying the point of the story or bastardizing the characters. He can also recognize when an opposing story has more potential than an outright adaptation, and so invents a new background and new characters to illustrate it rather than obliterating the story that inspired him.

That's the key word I think a lot of the adapting/bastardizing writers are missing in their vocabulary.

Inspiration.

Dracula and other classic gothic literature have inspired tons of new works. Some that are outright spectacular! Some are so close a loving mimic to the originals that they might pass as an adaptation themselves, ala Nosferatu. But others do go absolutely hog wild with their own cast and backdrop, though the skeleton of the story format remains the same.

And that is where the folks who stuff the Count's carcass with their personal fantasy roleplay go so wrong.

Either they've deemed past poor adaptations good enough fodder or they just really like the easy cheat of waving a famous public domain name around as a hook for the audience, but they simply refuse to just let their OCs be OCs.

Dracula inspires you? Dracula's adaptations and spinoffs inspire you? Great! But if they're inspiring you to make a story in which none of the characters, the plot points, or, you know, anything from Bram Stoker's novel Dracula has even a scrap of reference beyond 'there's vampires and we kept the names' then do not call that an adaptation! Do not call it a spinoff!

Make! Your! Own! Shit! Stop trying to peddle your version as some enlightened and Subversive (a word that should be taken away entirely from these guys) take that is almost always ten steps backward compared to the shockingly progressive elements Stoker planted in the book! In 1897!

Anyway.

Yeah, Guillermo del Toro good. Bastardizing faux-adapters crap. Head hurt. Going to go scream into the void now.

[abuddyforeveryseason]

Don't look, Marion! It's the Buddy for April 12th! It's a gif! It's beautiful...

Today's Buddy was based on that famous scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, the bane of VCR rewind buttons everywhere, where the bad guy's face melts off.

That must've been a fun special effect to pull off. And I know I say a lot of movies are the best movie of all times, but, seriously, Raiders is the best movie of all times, right?

Spielberg and Lucas wanted to make a James Bond movie, but they were chased off into the sunset, so they decided to make their own version - a much cooler adventurer, not tied to those british spy novels and silly penguin suits.

A lot of people say a movie like the Indiana Jones series couldn't be made today. I mean, not another Indiana Jones movie, there's probably another sequel on the way. But giving a guy the equivalent of 1981's 20 million bucks to make an original movie, not based on IP, just an idea the dude had.

I don't know about that - after all, Rebel Moon just came out, and that movie shares a similar background to Raiders - famous director wanting to make a movie that's part of a famous franchise, gets rejected, makes his own edgier and pulpier version.

Sure, it sucked, but, still, it got done.

I don't really agree with a lot of the public discourse about modern movies. Probably because I'm very optimistic about popular movies. People complain about franchises and IP, but, I don't think it's a bad thing. Or at least, not necessarily a bad thing.

A good example is the best movie of all times, Eternals. It's a Marvel movie, yeah. But it's about obscure characters, and it allowed a auteur director to make an actual big-budget movie for a chance, something she'd never have a chance to do without Marvel's help. And it's an interesting story - the original comics were an interesting story too, despite their clumsy flaws.

Yet, everybody hated it. Especially people who never heard about those nobodies before - they were the ones complaining about the lack of new ideas in Hollywood. So that was the beginning of the end for Marvel.

I still think a lot of the criticism wasn't about the movie itself, but about Zhao choosing to "sell out" and make a sci fi movie, and a Marvel one at that.

Thankfully, it'll never happen again.

But, I don't know if we'll get a movie as good as Raiders again. It's a different world. And, I don't know, in a way, we don't need it. Kids can just watch Raiders instead of some director having to reinvent the wheel for a new generation. I don't get why every era needs to have its Star Wars, anyway. I mean, I do get it, it's because there's money in making new movies, even if they're just rehashes.

I read something online about the dangers of nostalgia, of people being obsessed with their youth. It ends up making their bitter towards the present day, it turns toxic. And it's easy to exploit - just keep shoveling out remakes, reboots, adaptations of the crap they loved when they were kids, and they'll keep buying. Suckers.

There are people like that (and a lot of them), yeah, but there are different issues to consider, too. One idea that a lot of people agree with is, a person's never too old to enjoy kids' stuff. We keep getting angry about adults enjoying cartoons, but, what's the harm, really? And yet, that can turn toxic too - a lot of douchebag complaining about "wokeness" in cartoons is the dark reflection of a refusal to grow up. As is the creepy obsession with sexualizing kids' cartoons.

Sometimes, it's better to accept that you're too old to enjoy something that wasn't made for you. It's better than to force it into that slot. Let the kids have their thing.

Despite all that, though, I still like some kiddy stuff, although I appreciate it in different levels. And I did like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Old Indiana Jones was fun, it felt almost like a movie version of Mr. Mustachio from Osamu Tezuka stories.

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

Well This Looks Pretty Damn Cool!

At long last... NIMONA, visually in motion! And a concrete release date, too. June 30th. Same day as DreamWorks' RUBY GILLMAN, TEENAGE KRAKEN, which will be rolling in theaters. I wish we could this very gorgeous and dynamic-looking picture on the big screen too, but... Oh well...

Anyways, not much for me to say other than it looks every bit as cool as I imagined. Another CG-but-painted-looking movie, with some very smooth work and such a cool look. It looks way more like a classic 2D animated picture, or a really painterly indie game.

Arriving now, this picture was about 3/4 done in animation before the studio it originated from, Blue Sky Studios, was shut down by The Walt Disney Company's former CEO. I'd like to think a lot of what we're seeing here was laid down in 2020/early 2021, so in a way, it was doing some neat stuff before other neat stuff came out. Namely THE MITCHELLS VS. THE MACHINES, ARCANE: LEAGUE OF LEGENDS, and PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH. The picture was in the works for a while, too, under FEAST director Patrick Osborne at first (later taken over by Nick Bruno and Troy Quane, of SPIES IN DISGUISE), and I'd assume it was always aiming for this kind of look, pre-SPIDER-VERSE even.

It's also refreshing to see a big-time animated movie with more of a, shall I say... Mischievous bent to it? Not quite moral protagonist, for starters, and that's on full display here in the trailer... if the first-look images released in the lead-up to this trailer's release didn't already spell it out for you. That smile of hers just got more and more (delightfully) devilish with each new image. That's good, we need more variety in PG-level stories. Nothing wrong with protagonists who are a little bit on the bad side. Worked okay enough for DESPICABLE ME and MEGAMIND. From the graphic novel synopsis, it seems like it's going to be a very subversive take on good and evil, if the law is actually right or not (very timely, I'd say), etc. Maybe our leads aren't so bad after all, I've got some reading to do!

I still consider this to be a Blue Sky movie, their final film - partially... A bittersweet coda to their long existence. The movie was 75% done before the plug was pulled, and reports have said that the crew did NOT start from scratch after production resumed... and I'd imagine a lot of what was finished was kept in the movie despite some things I've heard it about being significantly retooled after Annapurna and Netflix picked it up. I'd imagine there were some things the directors and writing team could get away with there that they couldn't under Disney. There were reports from former Blue Sky crew members that Disney higher ups did push back on things in the movie. Keep in mind, Disney was going to release Pixar's LIGHTYEAR without the lesbian kiss - a barely second-long scene, until they faced pressure due to the former CEO's initial support of that wet-sandwich Florida governor's draconian anti-LGBTQIA+ nonsense. STRANGE WORLD, as we all know, was straight up dumped with very muted fanfare. NIMONA's poster curiously lists Robert L. Baird and Lloyd Taylor as the writers. Years prior, the movie was being written by Marc Haimes, a writer on Shannon Tindle's meditative Laika wonder KUBO & THE TWO STRINGS. (Just so you know, that picture was largely taken away from him.) Haimes is credited as "Story by", including a curiously large amount of people including the two screenwriters and the two directors, in addition to two other people: Pamela Ribon and Keith Bunin... That's... Quite a lot of writers on this one.

Either way, I'm excited nonetheless. Forward-thinking visuals, LGBTQIA+ representation, a seemingly new kind of story for this animated feature format, something a little edgier... Might just be "the one that got away" from Disney, may even cost them their usual Oscar win come this winter. I will consider this film to be Blue Sky's swan song, I hope they get some kind of mention in the credits...

Speaking of Disney... Not cool that they're flat-out removing movies and shows from Disney+, amidst a writer's strike, and some with LGBTQIA+ themes and content... Right before Pride Month. I don't understand why removing something they made and/or own from a service, and having it not be available anywhere else, helps anybody. Them, or the market... At the very least, they can put some of these movies, such as the Howard Ashman documentary HOWARD, on physical media. Nasty side effects of what David Zaslav did to Warner Bros.' library and all the content purges happening under his leadership there. Capitalism, how you don't make any sense...

Somewhere buried in all the Cannes Film Festival news is the selling of an animated feature called THE GROWCODILE, a little romp about a young girl hiding her ever-growing pet croc from her shoe store-owning father, and the adventure she goes on with her grandfather to give the animal a new home. It's based on a book, and will be directed by Cartoon Saloon veterans Joost Van Den Bosch and Erik Verkerk.

What else? Awkwafina has been cast in KUNG FU PANDA 4... Apparently. I'm not sure how reputable "The Hollywood Handle" is, a site I've barely ever heard of... but if she's onboard, I wonder who she will be voicing. She was, after all, in DreamWorks' own THE BAD GUYS as Ms. Tarantula. The villainous Chameleon is said to be a female character, so I wouldn't be surprised if she plays the main antagonist in this. From bad guy to really bad guy.

That's pretty much all the big animation news I can think of, but... Yeah... NIMONA, finally around the corner, and we finally get to see how it actually moves and plays out...

[phantomchick]

Just watched Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust!

It was so so so much fun!

Okay so what's interesting about this one is that unlike the 1985 movie which Ashi productions (now Studio Reed) made, this is a madhouse film.

For those who don't know, Madhouse was seriously putting itself on the map in the 80s and 90s with famous gems like Barefoot Gen, Perfect Blue and Legend of the Galactic Heroes: My Conquest is the Sea of Stars (which was the first animated adaptation of the LOTGH and preceded the now very famous anime series). Aside from that it also co-animated works like My Neighbour Totoro and Ocean Waves with Ghibli!

So it's no surprise that they were picked to start working on Vampire Hunter D's sort of sequel film in 1997. When Bloodlust was released in April of 2001 it would go out alongside the likes of iconic anime movies such as Metropolis (May 26, 2001), Spirited Away (July 20, 2001, co-animated with Studio Ghibli) and Millennium Actress (July 28, 2001)! Making this movie certifiably smack dab in the middle of the Madhouse golden age.

For a great analysis of the supposed downfall of Madhouse studio there's this youtube video which I highly rec.

Anyway I think Bloodlust was definitely a return to the more gothic/gritty tones of their 80s works such as Wicked City, Demon City Shinjuku and Bride of Deimos. But with a little less bombast and a lot more elegance, as befits a tale of noble (and not so noble) vampires. It's definitely all in on the gothicism still but it goes down a lot smoother than its edgier predecessors do.

So this is D in Bloodlust ^ They kept the novel illustrator on for character design again and you can really see the difference in this one from both his novel illustration design and the 1985 art in the same pose. It's like a happy middle now. He's still that same recognisable figure, but here he's got a graceful dark beauty even when he's just awkwardly standing there. He blends seamlessly into the gorgeous animation of the film.

Speaking of awkward! I love how simultaneously good and bad he is with the side characters in this film. His interactions with the world around him (and with his trusty hand) are one of the best parts of the film for me. Though the fight scenes make it a close run race.

Speaking of animation!

Holy crap, my dudes!

Everytime I paused it there was an artwork in front of me!

Even the minor antagonists are visually magnificent.

It's been over 20 years since this film released but you wouldn't know it by how clear cut and wow the animation is. The clever use of camera angles and cuts, the stylish art and creative action sequences; all of it contributes to why this film is one of anime's Greatest Classics.

The story is also great and very moving! To the point I don't want to spoil anything.

D's competence in this film kind of gives the impression (either on intentionally or unintentionally) that he's matured and grown in the time since the 1985 film, where he gets hurt more often in combat. If I had to compare it to anything it's like the difference between Batman: Year One and some of the Legends of The Dark Knight, especially arcs like Gothic(#6-10) Destroyer (#27) and Stories (#94). It's still got that same gritty noir vibe but it's also brings a more established/competent feel to the character. The worldbuilding was also insanely good and left me craving more.

It's a love letter to vampire stories, and to the reality of the humans who have to live in a world alongside them.

And, it's another one off the list!

Vampire Hunter D (1985 OVA)

Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2001 movie)

FMA: Brotherhood (OVA collection, 2009–2010)

Kino’s Journey 2003 (13 eps)

Hakujuden (1958)

Rose of Versailles s1 (1979) (10 eps)

Batman: Gotham Knights (2008 movie)

Summer Wars (2009 movie)

Serial Experiments Lain (1998) (13 eps)

Rose of Versailles s2 (10 eps)

Next up:

Let's try Kino's Journey. it's a slowpaced travel story that I've heard little to nothing about but love the look of!

Anime Watchlist #4

So Vampire Hunter D is a great movie that adapts the content of a Japanese novel, it's animation falls into the dated but creative category.

This is D our titular vampire hunter ^ It tells an atmospheric vampire story, with a soundtrack and voice actors (and the sub is infinitely more tolerable than the dub so that's what I watched) that conquer the clunky animation's problems and draw you into the story. The characters are each intriguing in their own right and the main character/hero D is extremely fun. This is a film that isn't afraid to be dramatic or ridiculous and it invites you to take its crazy cast of contorted and vicious monsters as serious threats.

According to wikipedia, the director Toyoo Ashida stated that his intention for the film was to create an OVA that people who had been tired from studying or working hard would enjoy watching, instead of watching something that would make them "feel even more tired".

Yoshitaka Amano, the illustrator of the original novels, acted as character designer for the OVA. However, alternative designs were provided by Ashida (who also acted as the film's animation director), and elements from both artists’ works were combined to create final designs by the animators. Personally I think the novel style illustrations would've been too difficult to animate at this point in time but they're definitely beautiful and it's interesting how they were simplified and adapted for the sake of the anime.

Apparently an acclaimed pop artist called Tetsuya Komuro was responsible for the film's soundtrack, and also performed the film's ending theme, "Your Song", with his fellow members of TM Network. Which makes sense because the soundtrack definitely adds to the film's overall quality, so it's clear they really cared about that part.

The fight scenes are necessarily limited in dynamism because of the older animation but they still manage to stay tense, entertaining and engaging, the writing really goes a long way and you can feel the passion for the project. It's easy to forget that everything from the characters to the stills of the environment are hand-painted.

Don't get me wrong.

It's not a game-changing masterpiece experience in line with Akira or Ghost in The Shell by any measure, but it's a really good film and well worth a watch if you can adapt to the art style and accept the premise of melodramatic spooky vampire threats for the sake of 80 minutes worth of a good time. So that's one off the list:

Vampire Hunter D (1985 OVA)

Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2001 movie)

FMA: Brotherhood (OVA collection, 2009–2010)

Kino’s Journey 2003 (13 eps)

Hakujuden (1958)

Rose of Versailles s1 (1979) (10 eps)

Batman: Gotham Knights (2008 movie)

Summer Wars (2009 movie)

Serial Experiments Lain (1998) (13 eps)

Rose of Versailles s2 (10 eps)

Next up. I'm loving the character of D and want to see more of him so let's go for Bloodlust!

How big of a difference will 16 years make?

[aion-rsa]

Critters: The Making of a Comedy Horror Cult Classic

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Rupert Harvey knew he was on to something with Critters after one memorable test screening.  Specifically, it was the scene where the Critters, who had already been terrorizing the Brown family, were standing on the doorstep of the family’s home talking in their guttural language with subtitles translating for the audience…until one of them is blown to gooey bits by a shotgun blast (wielded by none other than E.T. mom Dee Wallace), and the other lets out a subtitled “Fuck.”

“It totally destroyed the audience,” Harvey recalls. “They just howled. We lost the next scene because they were laughing so hard and I thought: ‘Okay, this is probably going to work.’” 

It had already taken a lot of work for Critters to get this far. 

Bringing Critters to Life

Released on April 11, 1986, the horror comedy about a small town and farm-dwelling family under attack from little furry space aliens with a taste for human flesh was unfairly dismissed by some as a Gremlins knock-off. 

But that did a disservice to the unique tone of Critters; a sci-fi comedy featuring belly laughs alongside genuine moments of terror. A film that owed as much to 1950s sci-fi B-movies as it did anything else, with its tale of picturesque Americana under attack from aliens. 

It also overlooks the film’s quirkier narrative aspect like the pair of shapeshifting alien bounty hunters who arrive on Earth to hunt the Critters down, with one of them assuming the form of a popular Jon Bon Jovi-esque rock musician. 

This surreal sci-fi tone, coupled with the copious violence, occasional bad language, and general unpredictability of it all helped give Critters the feel of a rebellious younger brother to the more mature Gremlins.  

To many, it was the cooler, edgier movie and one that boasted underlying themes that remain universal to this day. 

More importantly, the accusation of imitation was incorrect. If the two films were related, it wasn’t by design with screenwriter Brian Dominic Muir first writing the script for Critters back in 1982, two years before Joe Dante’s film hit cinemas.  

“I don’t think I saw Gremlins until we were in post-production,” Harvey, who produced Critters and worked on two of its three original sequels, tells Den of Geek. “It was certainly not something we were thinking about very much at the time, if at all. 

We were dealing with very different creatures and the fact that they were so different in concept meant I wasn’t terribly bothered by it. Gremlins were these mythical, earthbound, magical beings whereas Critters were extraterrestrial. People who say there are similarities are just influenced by the fact Gremlins was such a huge success, but it was a much bigger budget movie.” 

Muir’s script didn’t see the light of day for nearly three years before he showed it to friend and fellow budding filmmaker Stephen Herek who developed it further. That was where Harvey came in. 

The three men met while working on Android, a distinctive low budget sci-fi film Harvey was producing alongside independent movie trailblazer Roger Corman.  

“Brian gave me Critters to read and l loved it,” Harvey recalls. “It was an archetypal American story about foreigners invading the homeland. It’s quite prescient given the current state of politics in America. There was this quintessentially American setup with this almost pioneering family struggling through adversity to come out the other side.” 

35 years on, that notion of protecting the homeland is one Harvey feels is reflected in the inward-looking politics increasingly prominent in America and the UK today. That sentiment was already bubbling under the surface when Critters came out in the Reagan-era of the 1980s.

“It was novel to look at that then through the lens of Critters,” he says. “No one was seeing the film in those terms but that human fear of outsiders coming in has always been there and has been a fundamental part of cinema and drama since forever.” 

Harvey agreed to develop the film under his production company, Sho Films. Though he mulled over an offer to produce a low budget version of Critters with Corman, everything changed when Bob Shaye and New Line Cinema came calling. 

Writing Critters

“New Line was really a mom-and-pop operation at that point. They hadn’t made A Nightmare on Elm Street yet. They weren’t the New Line of today, but Bob offered to double our budget, so I did the deal.” 

Even so, Shaye took some convincing on the choice of director. 

Herek would go on to helm Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, and a string of big budget Disney movies in the years that followed but had never directed prior to Critters, having previously worked as an editor. 

“Stephen, to his credit, even though he had no leverage other than a script we wanted to make, absolutely insisted that nobody would direct it but him and if he didn’t it wouldn’t get made,” Harvey says. “He stuck to his guns and there was never any shift in that position on Brian’s side. I had to convince Bob on several occasions to go ahead with us and, even during production, to actually stick with Steve. But we were all very glad that he did.” 

On the writing side, Harvey enlisted Sho Films’ in-house writer Don Opper. A fellow Roger Corman acolyte, Opper had written and starred in Android where he also worked with Herek and Muir. 

He was seen as the ideal candidate to work alongside Herek after Muir became unwell. 

“Brian, unfortunately, became quite ill not long after we started making Critters,” Harvey says. 

Muir was reportedly battling Hodgkin’s disease at the time. Though he recovered, the writer, who often wrote under the pseudonym August White for Full Moon Entertainment later in his career, sadly died from cancer aged 48 in 2010.  

“He was a very sweet, nice man,” Harvey recalls. “In Brian’s absence, Don worked with Stephen on polishing the script. One of the ways was to enhance the family and their relationships.” 

By then the distinctive looking Opper had also been cast in the pivotal role of Charlie McFadden, the town drunk and a conspiracy theorist convinced the fillings in his teeth are picking up signals from outer space.  

Like a cross between Randy Quaid’s deranged pilot from Independence Day and Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade, Charlie would eventually emerge as a fan favorite, appearing in each of the three Critters sequels. 

He was one of several quirky locals introduced early on in Critters with much of the first third of the film dedicated to establishing the Brown family, their farm, and the characters of the fictional Kansas town of Grover’s Bend where the Critters land.  

In one picture postcard scene of the perfect nuclear family, the Browns gather round the breakfast table in a primary colored kitchen, blissfully unaware of the approaching danger and disruption to follow. 

That slow build-up may be less commonplace today, but it’s something Harvey believes was crucial to the success of the film. 

“That was one of the things that appealed to me about the script,” he says. “If you set that up properly and the audience is in there with you. They gain an understanding of the family dynamic right away and they are engaged. It helps you then feel for each one of them subsequently…The rules are the same, and they have been since the first Greek dramas; storytelling is still about humans and the human condition. Just making stuff about what the monsters are doing has no appeal.” 

Critters came during a time when horror comedies were commonplace in multiplexes.

“Studios started to notice in test screenings that the audience response was often bigger when you capped a scare or moment of high tension with a bit of wit or humor,” Harvey explains. 

Post-screening surveys bore this out; using humor to emphasize or punctuate a terrifying moment drew a bigger response from the audience. Regardless of the visceral impact of the scare itself. It made it more memorable to viewers.

The Cast of Critters

It helped that Critters boasted an impressive cast to bring the script to life.  

Blade Runner’s M. Emmet Walsh appeared as the grouchy local sheriff while Dee Wallace, who had starred in E.T. only a few years earlier, was also convinced to sign on as the Brown family matriarch Helen. Billy “Green” Bush was cast as the hardworking man of the house Jay Brown with Nadine van der Velde as his high school teen daughter April. 

Despite some impressive names, Harvey ranks the casting of future Party of Five and ER star Scott Grimes in the role of mischievous central teenage protagonist Brad Brown as the most significant. It’s Scott who first discovers the Critters and Scott that begins to fight back against them using his slingshot and potent firecrackers coming off like a hellish Kevin McCallister from Home Alone. 

“Scott was tailor-made for the role,” Harvey says. “He was at the center of the craziness and he had the audience’s sympathy and support because no one was paying attention to him.” 

For all the acting talent on display, however, much of the movie’s success rested on the tiny shoulders of a few hedgehog-like puppets. 

“The biggest challenge was making the Critters appear to be a viable threat as the antagonists,” Harvey says. “We were really fortunate that we found the Chiodo Brothers.” 

A trio of siblings who specialized in stop motion and animatronic work, the Chiodos were relative newcomers to the movie business and would go on to projects like Elf and Team America: World Police. 

“We knew from the script we were dealing with a fur ball that got around fast by rolling around and was all teeth and voracious,” Harvey says. “That was the extent of the design parameters. They came up with the drawings and the details as to how they would work.”

Harvey cites the Critters’ distinctive, almost limbless design as both a blessing and a curse.  

“From a construction and manipulation point of view, they were relatively straightforward,” he says. “But from an action perspective, there was not a lot you could do with them.” 

While other projects, like New Line’s later Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies, would struggle with glitchy animatronics, there were no such problems with the Chiodos’ creations with each running impressively well thanks to a crack team behind the scenes.

“Even though the Critters were fairly simple creatures, there were times for some of those shots, when we had 10 guys running different cables and things to them to get them right,” Harvey recalls. “They had eye movement, mouth movement, lip movement even their little arms and legs move because these things needed to look as believable as possible. But it was still tough to make these things that rolled around something scary and frightening rather than cute and laughable.” 

That was where Billy Zane came in. A good horror villain needs a good victim. Cast in the role of April’s unsuspecting boyfriend Steve Eliot, the then unknown Zane ended up falling afoul of the Critters in arguably the film’s standout gory death after encountering the furry fiends while enjoying a makeout session in the family’s barn. 

“It was the first thing he’d ever done. I think he’d arrived in L.A. a week before,” Harvey says, recalling how uncomfortably hot that barn scene was for everyone involved. “It was 100 degrees in the barn. He had little furry creatures stuck to his stomach and was covered in fake blood. It was so hot and sticky. We stayed there for the whole day, getting all the inserts and various other bits and pieces to make the scene…But that setup in the claustrophobic space of the barn helped to make the scene much scarier because we could set it up in a kind of way that made the punchline, the payoff, much more visceral.” 

The Bounty Hunters

For all the machinations of the Critters themselves, it’s their pursuers from outer space, the two faceless bounty hunters, who almost steal the show.

Especially after one decides to take the form of fictional hair metal superstar Johnny Steele, the singer of “Power of the Night” a song so pitch-perfectly cheesy, you had to wonder if Steele is a real artist rather than musical theater actor Terrence Mann. 

“I went to see Terrence who was appearing in Cats on Broadway. He’d been suggested by a friend and was seriously interested in doing the film,” Harvey says. “We had a friend in New York who was in the music business and had a recording studio. He put together some tracks and we created this imaginary band that he stole the identity of the lead singer from.” 

Despite some striking similarities to artists of the time, Harvey insists Johnny Steele wasn’t set up as a deliberate lampooning of any one artist.

“The band was generically inspired by particular bands of the time,” he says. “There wasn’t any one group or individual. We were post punk and before real heavy metal. There was more of a glam goth influence.” 

Teaming up with Charlie and Brad, the bounty hunters eventually destroy the Critters though it comes at a cost to the Browns, with the family home blown-up in the process. It was a powerful symbol of the way these invaders had shattered their lives but not their spirit. Unfortunately, New Line Cinema didn’t like it as an ending. 

“Bob wanted it changed so that the house was rebuilt in the end but I was against it so we had a few arguments about that, but it was Bob’s money, and we did it and it came out very successfully.” 

Shaye and New Line would occasionally prove tricky customers, with Harvey often forced to traverse the familiar pitfalls of independent filmmaking.

“We were in production and things were really tough and there was one point in time when Bob and I sat down in the trailer and he explained to me some things that I won’t go into,” Harvey says.  “Things were very tricky for a week or two financially, but they sorted themselves out. That was a typical attribute of an independent movie. ‘Oh God you’re spending $150,000 dollars a day, can you spend $100,000?’. Not unheard of but no fun at the time.” 

For all the trials and tribulations of the film, cast, and Critters themselves, however, he has fond memories of working on the film.

“We weren’t stuck in Los Angeles in some smoke-filled space,” he said. “The set was built on Newhall Ranch, this huge bucolic area of land outside of L.A and there we were for five weeks shooting in relatively hot temperatures.” 

Critters Sequels and What’s Next

After a quick turnaround in editing, Critters was released in cinemas, proving to be a hit with over $13 million made at the box office off a budget of $3 million. This kind of success made sequels inevitable.

Though Harvey was unavailable for the second film, he returned for the third and fourth movies, which were filmed back-to-back and released direct to video.

“By then video cassettes were a huge component to New Line’s early success and helped finance the Nightmare on Elm Street and Critters sequels and all of the other movies that they then started making in order to become the powerhouse they became,” Harvey says. “I think it funded something like 40 to 40 to 50 percent of New Line production for that period of time.”

Harvey was initially hesitant to get involved, citing Shaye’s wishes to make the sequels for even less money than the first film. However, he ultimately relented after agreeing to film them back-to-back.

Harvey has mixed feelings about the two sequels, particularly the third movie, which he had conceived as being “much darker and much more violent” than what eventually made it to the screen.

“I wanted to do a George Romero homage for the third film,” he says. “I was very much interested in the claustrophobia of the tenement building in New York City, that kind of atmosphere. Boy, did it ever turn out differently.”

Having also agreed to direct the fourth film, which was set in space and wrap up the franchise, he found himself too busy to oversee work on the third movie.

“It was different. I didn’t have as much to do with Critters 3 because I was directing the fourth film. We were shooting back to back. We had a week down in between the two. All the time we were shooting Critters 3 I was prepping Critters 4.”

While the fourth film featured both a young Angela Bassett and Brad Dourif on top scene-chewing form, the third entry has become among the most noted in the years since thanks to the presence of a young Leonardo DiCaprio in the main role.

“It’s the movie that shall remain nameless on Leo DiCaprio’s resume,” Harvey jokes.

He doesn’t have a lot of memories about DiCaprio on set though there was already a sense he was destined for big things.

“One day he told me he needed some time off. He had to go and audition for this movie. After he came back I asked ‘How did it go?’ and he said ‘Robert De Niro is really great’. he’d been off auditioning for This Boy’s Life…And of course, when he did that movie, it was like, ‘Holy shit. Well, where was that actor when we were making Critters 3?’” 

While Leo is unlikely to return to the Critters franchise anytime soon, Harvey, who had no involvement in a recent TV revival, believes that there is life in the old furballs yet.

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“It’s not a franchise that’s going to go away,” he says cryptically. “Whatever comes next needs to be something that is responsive to contemporary sources. I can’t really say too much about it, because nothing is final. All I can tell you is that I don’t think this is the end.”

The post Critters: The Making of a Comedy Horror Cult Classic appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2RHGEEI

[wiltedthrone]

CHARACTER STUDY :

LAYER 001 :   THE OUTSIDE

NAME  :   audrey lorraine rose

EYE   COLOUR  :      dark brown

HAIR   STYLE   /   COLOUR  :      naturally brunette and curly. due to beauty standards, audrey’s grandmother started having her hair straightened when she was just five years old. audrey felt some sort of pressure from looking at the other girls to straighten her hair. being mixed, she never really felt as if she truly belonged to either Black or white culture, and being around girls with mostly straight hair made audrey feel as if she stood out in a bad way. in addition to straightening her hair, audrey also wears clip in extensions for length and volume.  following the break up, audrey bleaches her hair blonde with pink and blue streaks for an “edgier” look. sometime after d3, she goes back to her natural brunette tresses and even more time after that she stops straightening her hair as much, letting her natural curl pattern come back in.

HEIGHT  :   5’ 1 ¼”

CLOTHING   STYLE  :   very preppy and girly, collared shirts, soft sweaters, skirts and dresses, lots of accessories, heels you will never see her in a pair of jeans, and she tends to stick to a pastel pink, baby blue, and white color palette. will not wear fur, wool, silk or leather due to being a vegan.    

BEST   PHYSICAL   FEATURE  :  everything? hair 

LAYER 002 :   THE  INSIDE

FEARS  :      being alone, being left out, being a disappointment, being unlovable, failure, not being in control, the dark, being ugly, death, maleficent, public restrooms, being laughed at, talking too much, everyone secretly hating her

BIGGEST   PET   PEEVE  :      when people don’t listen to her or pretend to listen to her, people who don’t carry their weight, people who break the rules, people who chew with their mouth open, people who don’t have loyalty, humidity, when her hair gets stuck in her lip gloss, loose threads on clothing, messy beds, mess in general, apathy

AMBITIONS   FOR   THE   FUTURE  :        be ceo of a successful company, be queen of aurora, get married, genuinely love herself one day

LAYER 003 :   THOUGHTS

FIRST   THOUGHTS   WAKING   UP  :  “when did i fall asleep?” she’s usually grateful to hear the birds chirping and feel the sun on her face. she’s also grateful that she’s actually woke up and it’s usually a “thank god” moment. she also looks around to make sure people aren’t standing over her, looking at her with pity like they did when she woke up from her sleeping spell. if she’s home, she’ll slip her journal out from her drawer and jot down any dreams she had or thoughts that are bugging her.

 WHAT   THEY   THINK   ABOUT   MOST  :   if people like her, if people secretly hate her, does she look okay, whatever project she’s working on, if her loved ones are okay and if they’re taking care of themselves, what she should post on social media, what people might be posting about her on social media, literally every move she makes and how it will be interpreted by others

WHAT   THEY   THINK   ABOUT   BEFORE   BED  :   how she can’t sleep, how she hopes she wakes up, the nightmare that was her queen of mean phase, what she has to do tomorrow, she tries to reassure herself that she’s a good person, whoever she’s currently in love with 

WHAT   THEY   THINK   THEIR   BEST   QUALITY   IS  :     her leadership abilities, she gets things done no matter what.

LAYER 004 :   WHAT’S BETTER ?

SINGLE   OR   GROUP   DATES  :   single dates! she’s open to the idea of group dates if they’re doing something like going to the pier, going to a carnival or seeing a movie but if it’s something like dinner she wants it to be more intimate and wants to be the focal point. it’s less opportunities for her to compare herself to someone else.

TO   BE   LOVED   OR   RESPECTED  :  loved all the way. she might have gotten some kind of respect from her QoM phase (though that was probably just fear if anything), but that doesn’t really make her happy. at her core, audrey just wants to be loved.

BEAUTY   OR   BRAINS  :      beauty and part of her knows that’s problematic but if she’s being honest, aesthetics matter to her. it’s not just beauty in a partner, it’s beauty in herself, in the world, stuff like that.

DOGS   OR   CATS   :  both and she will not choose ):<

LAYER 005 :   DO THEY…

LIE  :      yes. she lies to herself, she lies to others about herself. it’s something that she’s working on not doing, but it’s a huge defense mechanism.

BELIEVE   IN   THEMSELVES  :      yes! some days are better than others but for the most part she knows her abilities and believes in herself.

BELIEVE   IN   LOVE  :      absolutely! love is so important to audrey. she’s working on the belief that love isn’t perfect. it’s not fairy tales and happily ever afters on the first try. it’s hard work and it’s compromise and it’s opening yourself up to another person, not just painting a picture of what you think they want in a person.

WANT   SOMEONE  :      yes 

LAYER 006 :   HAVE  THEY…

BEEN   ON   STAGE  :     yes! audrey loves singing & she’s a part of the theater department at auradon prep and tries to get the leads ( if she feels she’s good for the part, even if she’s not 100% confident in herself, she’ll audition anyway )

DONE   DRUGS  :       this is so verse dependent but whatever she’s dabbled

CHANGED   WHO   THEY   WERE   TO   FIT   IN  :      a b s o l u t e l y.

LAYER 007 :   FAVOURITES

FAVOURITE   COLOURS  :      pastel pink, rose gold, baby blue

FAVOURITE   ANIMAL  :         doves or bunnies

FAVOURITE   BOOK  :           pride & prejudice, but she loves classic romance novels, YA novels and dabbles in those cheesy supernatural YA romances but they’re not her favorite by any means.

FAVOURITE   GAME  :      she really likes word games! scrabble, crossword puzzles, things that let her expand and show off her vocabulary. she also likes rummy, though she’s not supposed to play it. she’s good at drawing so she also enjoys playing games like pictionary. ALSO she likes figuring things out, so she loves escape rooms, clue and games like mafia/werewolf.

LAYER 008 :   FINISH  THE  SENTENCE

I LOVE  :    myself.

I FEEL  :     sad.

I HIDE  :    my feelings.

I MISS  :      my friends.

I WISH  :     i was better.

TAGGED   BY  :     @dogfearing​

TAGGING   :        @gnviasheir​ @shemisfit​ @shekindness​ @wshdreamer​ @nosestealer​ @fatesdefied​ & you, go ahead & steal this bad boy

[myupostsheadcanons]

Books “Read” in 2019

I am going to rank these by how much i enjoyed them vs. any actual literary quality. often well written books aren’t always the most entertaining books.

Note: i listen to many of these books at work, which is why i am able to go through so many of them in a year.

List from 2017 List from 2018

------- My Favs of the Year ----

Novels from The First Law:

Best Served Cold (#1), The Heroes(#3), Red Country(#4), Sharp Ends(#5).

A Little Hatred (#2) (Age of Madness, sequel to The First Law)

I read “The First Law Trilogy” about a year or two ago and finally got around to reading the rest of the books, just in time for a new series taking place in the same world to start up (Age of Madness) and now i am waiting like everybody else for the next two books to come out in 2020 and 2021. A Little Hatred shouldn’t be read as a stand alone, a lot of what goes on is dependent mainly on knowledge from the first trilogy and in The Heroes, then bits and pieces from Best Served Cold and Red Country. So much of your enjoyment of each book is based on what you’ve learned in other ones (character development or seemingly useless information being not so useless later).

Age of Legend (Book 4,  Legend of the First Empire)

This is more-or-less an “aftermath” book where the main characters are still reeling about what happened in the previous book and are trying to make plans for what they are going to do next. I still like the characters and the world/setting it takes place in.

House of Assassins (Saga of the Forgotten Warrior, Book 2)

I’ve been waiting for the next book in this series to come out the second i finished the first book in the series. It is one of those Science fiction in the disguise of Fantasy settings and I am on the edge of my seat waiting to see how that plot/revelation comes out (I am certain that the location the story takes place is Earth, more specifically around Asia/India, but in a post-invasion apocalypse setting where nobody remembers anything prior to the invasion). I also really like how much of a badass Ashok is... i have a thing for emotionally stunted badass characters, especially when their flaws are held up to a mirror and have real consequences.

R. R. Haywood’s Worldship Humility & Extinct (Extracted, Book 3)

I love the way Haywood writes characters and dialog. I was at-first iffy about WSH, but was won over after i warmed up to the new characters.

Shades of Magic Trilogy (A Darker Shade of Magic, A Gathering of Shadows, A Conjuring of Shadows)

Solid multi-verse and magic system world. Well-written characters, some minor nitpicks on plot points, but can be easily ignored. LGBTQ rep, the gays don’t stay buried.

“Don’t you have enough [knives]?” “You can never have too many.” [me, every time: LOL]

One of the few times when a character deserves a redemption arc, doesn’t really get one, dies, and i am perfectly fine with it because it is done well.

Assassin’s Fate (Fitz and the Fool, Book 3)

I read this one in book-book form, but i already knew most of the emotionally painful parts of the book by spoiling it to myself when it first came out a couple years ago. The main appeal is the inner monologues of the two main characters, even if like 50% of this trilogy is basically spending weeks/months trying to go from Point A to Point B, when many other books would have glossed over the details of travel.. but you can really feel the stress as they dwell in their thoughts and struggles.

Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles & Circe

Re-Imagining of the Iliad and The Odyssey. Focusing not on the characters of Achilles or Odysseus, but on Petroclus (Achilles’ lover) and Circe the sea nymph witch that Odysseus had an affair and child with.

The Spear of the Stars (Cycle of Galand, Book 5)

Still love Dante and Bleys... This is where they really get into the meat of world building and solving the mysteries of the Arawn Cycle (the book/bible) and peel back the layers of their reality.

Dust (Silo Book 3)

A great ending to a good series, it answers whether or not humanity can or has survived what had caused them to be locked away in the silos.

Blackthorn and Grim (Dreamer’s Pool, Tower of Thorns, Den of Wolves)

I like the premise of the books, the two main characters first seeking out revenge, but end up wanting to become better people due to magic shenanigans.... One part Fantasy, One Part Mystery, One Part Lovestory.

The Dispatcher (Audible Free Book) 

I want a whole series based off this novella. It is John Scalzi so he can write a good story. I had previously read Android’s Dream by him, which it didn’t make it into my top-10 that year, but was still decent, even if the subject matter was a bit gross... The Dispatcher world is a Sci-Fi Noir, not quite Cyberpunk, where people don’t die by anything other than natural causes. The Dispatcher’s job is to kill people before something goes does wrong and the person “resets” to when they where safe and sound.

---- this is the “Above Average” Zone ----

All the Pretty Horses & Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West

The master of bleak and depressing fiction. if regular Dark Fiction isn’t enough for you.... there is Cormac McCarthy books. Get use to the “purple prose” that fills up pages with no dialog.

The Golem and the Jinni

Supernatural world of the far past dealing with Edwardian New York and Immigration. It not only is a “fish out of water” story of the two main characters trying to fit in with society but they are among communities that are also new to America and trying to find their own place in the world. There are love subplots but most of those kind of fizzle out.

The Axe and the Throne: Bounds of Redemption Vol. 1.

“Discount First Law” book... it is lacking the dark humor that made TFL series far more entertaining.  This was also the book that was prefaced by warning people about how grim and dark the setting was... Hahahaha. I still found it entertaining none the less, and hope the rest would show up on audible soon.

Black Snow, White Crow (Audible Free Book) 

Another one of those short stories that should have a larger saga to its name. Fantasy Industrial Punk. It has the whole equality role reversal thing going on, it isn’t done quite as well as Left Hand of Darkness (but that book leaned onto the boring side of things).

Stephen King’s IT, Pet Semetary, and Carrie

It’s Stephen King. Classic King. Not much else to say.

Watership Down

Depressing Rabbit Book. Though I did like all the stories and mythology the rabbits had.

Bloody Acquisitions (Fred the Vampire Accountant, Book 3)

A series that is always fun to listen to. I wish the audio books were cheaper because they are rather short.

Lethal White (Cormoran Strike, Book 4)

shuddup, i don’t care if it is Rowling... i have a low-key crush on Cormoran.... he just hits that big-burly tragic-backstory man-shaped soft-spot of mine. These stories are also her “for adults” writings so...  expect more racism and garbage values.

The Eye of the World (Book 1, Wheel of Time)

Classic set up to a long running series, though i am reluctant to go further as the middling books in this series are said to drag out the story too much.... It’s not as self-centered as Wizard’s First Rule and the characters are more relatable and stick to their fantasy tropes. This is the “mold” that other modern fantasy try to subvert by going “darker and edgier.”

The Exorcist

If you like the movie, read the book. There is a lot of back story that the movie wasn’t able to adapt.

---- This is the “AVERAGE, but Still Good”  Zone ---

The Iliad and The Odyssey

Classics. I am still on the hunt for an unabridged version of Jason and the Argonauts story. I also have Virgil’s Aeneid in my wishlist to get too soon.

Phillipa Gregory’s Plantagonate Novels (The Lady of the Rivers, The Red Queen, White Queen, The Kingmaker’s Daughter)

Sometimes it is like reading the same book 5x in a row. other times you end up not liking the previous protagonist in a book you just finished reading because of how the current protagonist sees them from their POV.

Return of the King (Lord of the Rings, Book 3)

Read the other books last year and didn’t get around to this one for a few months.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Fuck... I’m a janitor... why can’t i afford a house?   If you liked Stephen King’s “IT” go back and read this book.

Alien Franchise Dramatizations: Alien: Sea of Sorrows, Alien: The Cold Forge (Audible Free Book) Alien III (Audible Free Book)

I don’t mind that they all are done with a full cast. Though often I end up wanting to find the actual book and listen to them with just one narrator and descriptions.

The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (Narnia, Book 1)

I would like to get the rest of the books in this series, but for books that are only 5-7 hours long they want 20$ a book for them. It needs to go into an omnibus.

Stephen Fry’s Victorian Secrets (Audible Free Book)

It’s Stephen Fry... he’s funny and a good narrator.

Wizard’s First Rule (Book 1, Sword of Truth)

I don’t like Richard. He started off alright, but even before he got tortured 2/3rds into the book, i was starting to dislike his personality.  Other than that, the side characters and world are solid, but it was like taking an R-rated movie and cutting it down for TV. There is somethings that are vaguely described when i am use to harder fiction like ASoIaF, The First Law, Dresden, and McCarthy books actually describing those things.

Halloween (2018, movie novel)

Like I said when i first read the book, it would’ve benefited by a second re-write before being published. But, i like the movie and so I liked the book.

Don Quixote

Another classic read. I did find it hilarious that the Author spent a good chunk of the second book complaining about Fanfiction of his own book... in the 1600′s.

The Princess Diarist

I listened this book instead of going to see TROS. worth it.

Smoke Gets in Your eyes: And other Lessons from the Crematorium

Non-Fiction, If you want to know the ins and outs of the funeral business and get told in an informative yet non-clinical way with lots of tidbits and history facts tossed in as well as a semi-autobiographical account of the Author’s life.

--- These Books are “Alright” ---

Frank L. Baum’s Wizard of Oz books

I ligit got into an argument with a 70yo man in a comic book shop about how Canon the other Oz books were post Baum’s death. He was looking for Oz comic books and I brought up reading the first 14 books, and he’s like “There’s over 100 of them” and i was all “but all those are written by somebody else.” and he got all “they are still canon...” 

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

If you want to know about the In//cel ideology in a classic literary form, this fits the bill. So much man pain.

A Christmas Carol (Tim Curry) (Audible Free Book)

Tim Curry, guys.....

The Poetic Edda (Norse God Mythology)

I listened this book twice. I bought two Edda books thinking I’d get some extra content, but no... same book just different production teams and readers. Returned the one with the worst translation.

Treasure Island (Audible Free Book, dramatization)

I need to read the actual book sometime, but i did like the cast and thought they did a good job.

Wally Roux, Quantum Mechanic (Audible Free Book)

A YA coming of age story about diversity and acceptance... with wacky science fiction. 

Carmilla (Audible Free Book, dramatization)

The vampire before Dracula. Victorian Lesbian love story.

Even Tree Nymphs get the Blues (Audible Free Book)

A novella from one of those “love on the Bayou” romance series with supernatural creatures. Could practically take place in the same world of either True Blood, Dresden, or Fred the Vampire Accountant.

Mystwick School of Musicraft (Audible Free Book)

Harry Potter lite. For 10yo girls.

A Grown-up’s Guide to Dinosaurs (Audible Free Book)

I like dinosaurs.

Rivals! Frenemies Who Changed the World (Audible Free Book, Dramatization)

Interesting way on telling us about the Fossil Wars and Puma vs. Adidas.

True-Crime from Audible: Body of Proof (Audible Free Book),   Midnight Son (Audible Free Book), The Demon Next Door (Audible Free Book), Killer By Nature (Audible Free Book)

Why is True-Crime or YA fiction the only halfway-decent things Audible is giving us? But yeah, these are basically the type of reporting that the two journalists from Halloween were trying to do. Where they go around and gather up information about semi-famous cases and present it in a Podcast-like format.

---- Meh... ---

Camp Red Moon (Audible Free Book)

Would’ve been better if they were actually written by R. L. Stein.

More Bedtime Stories for Cynics (Audible Free Book)

No... half of these aren’t written very well.

The Darkwater Bride (Audible Free Book, Dramatization)

The setting is nice, but it is far too .... Soap Opera Dramatic.

Junk (Audible Free Book)

A cross between Alien Invasion and Zombie outbreak, read by John Waters and written as if it was a bad version of a Philip K. Dick Novel.

Rip Off!! (Audible Free Book)

Most of them are duds and boring. I don’t even remember half of them without having to look them up. The two that stood out the most for me where the “Other Darren/Bewitched” and the “Dark and Stormy Night” stories, the rest were rather garbled.

--- Garbage... ---

Dodge and Twist (Audible Free Book, Dramatization)

No, you are not being edgy or kool.

Unread:

Siege Tactics (Spells, Swords, & Stealth. Book 4)

Triumphant (Genesis Fleet, Book 3)

Earthsea (Tehanu and Tales from Earthsea, i am going to re-listen to the first three before i get to these)

Into the Wilds (Warriors, Book 1)

Pout Neuf (Audible Free Book)

House of Teeth (Audible Free Book)

Viva Durant and the Secret of the Silver Buttons (Audible Free Book)

The Other Boleyn Girl (Phillipa Gregory)

[calliemusgrove-blog]

(B, 24, GMT+1, HER/SHE, NONE) Have you seen (CALLIE MUSGROVE) Around New York? They look a lot like (LEIGHTON MEESTER) but I don’t think they’ve ever realised it! Some people say they are (INTELLIGENT) and (EXPLOSIVE AND MATERIALISTIC) But all we know for sure is that they are (28), (FEMALE, HETEROSEXUAL) and work as a (AUTHOR). I guess only time will tell but for now we’ll call them the (THE CONNOISSEUR)

‘‘I’ll use my mind before my heart.’‘

Triggers: Drugs, Spiking, Overdose & Death

Callie Musgrove was a beautiful soul that stood at 5'4 with free flowing brown hair and inquisitive eyes. To the unknowing eye she was a picture of pure innocence with a constant smile plastered across her porcelain features. But what lay behind them was a little more broken than was let on.

The beginning of Callie’s life was a pretty different one from the one’s you’ve heard about in your favorite novels or movies. Starting life in a larger than life setting, Callie’s mother was a world famous novelist named Maria Pennyworth and her business executive father, Lance Pennyworth. Money was never an issue growing up as she lived in a luxurious setting in the well-off neighbourhood in California.

Although money was around the household tended to be a lonely one, with parents who were working to give their daughter everything, it often meant that she was alone. Her nannies were the best friends she could have asked for, more like present parents than her own. And their work schedules would also be the death of their relationship.

Callie was a hard worker when it came to school, often found with her head in a book she’d been on more of the reserved side. A small group of friends and a closed circle kept her feet on the ground; she was never one to over spend but she was never someone who also wouldn’t stop herself from using her parent’s money to get something she wanted.

Ivy League was the goal she had her heart set on.

Throughout school it was a lot more difficult than most people realised when it came to light that her parents had decided to get a divorce; busy work schedules and a lack of romance had dissolved the marriage. It came as a shock to Callie because there had never been any fighting or any signs that they were unhappy. And this caused the derailing of a usually sensible girl.

Callie then met Kyle who was two years above herself at school. He was a pretty boy who adorned an all-black clothing style, sold drugs and hung out on the wrong side of the tracks. He was like an angel to Callie in a dark time at home, avoiding going as much as she could about going there to see her parents not speaking. She latched onto him and for someone with Kyle’s life style that was the kind of girls they preyed on.

Kyle was exactly what Callie didn’t need in her life when she was going through so much inner turmoil. After just a month hanging around him her grades began to dip, school no longer her main priority and the drunken messes she got herself into were something completely new and thrilling to Callie. Eventually her father moved out leaving her mother and herself in the overly large house, trying to save her family Maria took time off work to try and reconnect her daughter only to realize just how much she’d span out of control. Her father seemed to cool off on his connection with Callie, taking very little time out of his life to include her in it.

To Callie it seemed like she never existed.

Parties were a regular occurrence where everything got a little wild. Callie was dating bad boy Kyle Manning who was the ultimate party thrower. Her once small circle had dissipated and she hung around with a different, edgier crowd. One particular night a party at Kyle’s house was in full swing when the screams could be heard, upon investigating one of her immediate group, Shelly lay lifeless on the floor. It came to light that the drugs that Kyle had slipped into her drink as a dare would bring Shelly’s life to an immediate end.

The arrest was what opened Callie’s and her mother’s eyes about how serious everything had gotten, with Kyle facing life in prison and Callie was now involved she knew all the fun and games were over. How could it have gotten this deep? This bad? The relationship came to an immediate end and Callie was quick to pull herself away from everything and everyone.

Moving away to New York City was the only option Maria thought possible for herself and Callie to get back to their roots. Maria grew up in New York had a lot of family there and she wanted Callie to live life away from those who’d had a negative effect on her and be around family which she had so obviously lacked; it would also give Maria the time to work on her book in a less manic environment.

Upon moving Callie had heard the stories that her mother had told her growing up about what life in New York had been like.

After finishing up school VIA home schooling Callie began following her mother’s foot steps as she began to write everything that had happened in her time dating Kyle into a novel. What she never expected was for her first book to become an international best seller. It was like her life finally had meaning and she had a goal to work towards. Signing book deals she was finally on a path. On the side she worked as a waitress to help with meeting people and keep her from sitting in her house all day writing. It was only a few hours a week but enough to keep her social and mobile.

Meeting Patrick was never something she saw herself doing after Kyle, but his quick wit and sense of humour had her falling before she had chance to use her brain. She couldn’t help but admire his loyalty and the respect he held for women. It was that, that drew her into him.

Maria was not exactly happy that Callie had began to fall for someone so quickly after getting her life back on track. Patrick was a small time musician from the local cafe that Callie worked at— he’d play the open mics and she couldn’t help but watch him every time he came in. Patrick wrote his number on a napkin and left it for her and that was that.

Patrick and Callie spiralled into a great love story that not even Maria could deny. They were head over heels, he was up-coming musician thanks to Callie’s connections and she was a world-famous novelist and together they were a power house. After just eleven months of being together Patrick was down on one knee asking Callie to spend the rest of his life with him and she was quick to say yes.

Married life was something Callie fell in love with — even if she was just at the simple age of twenty one years old. Spending every fibre to provide everything Patrick could need and want. Callie was content and making enough money through her books that they never had to worry about where their next meal was coming from. They were set. But not everything can stay happy forever, she was quick to learn that.

It was November 2nd and a hot day as she sat on her front porch writing away on her laptop only to hear the sirens. Patrick had been away on business. She hadn’t thought much into the fact that she hadn’t heard from him for a couple days knowing how extremely busy they got but little did she know, the call was never coming.

The cars that showed up were there to deliver the bad news, while driving to his shift at the local cafe, there had been an accident in which he witnessed a car get hit by a truck. Trying to save someones life and in one moment the car exploded and took two lives instead of just one. She never thought it would happen to her; Widowed. One day she was in love with her best friend and just like that he was stolen from her. Callie didn’t know where to start or how to act; everything she’d believed suddenly felt like a lie. Love didn’t last forever.

It was three years ago that she lost Patrick and she hasn’t managed to fall for anyone— let alone look at someone. Callie can’t even think about loving another man because her heart is still devoted to a man that now lay 6 feet below ground. Instead she devoted all of her time to writing and keeping him alive through her words. She lived the life of a socialite now, attending functions, getting her name out in society and her novel is being developed into a film.

But what lay beneath the facade?

[noahcdaily]

Noah Centineo, Shameless Heartthrob

My date with the best thirst architect the internet’s ever seen.

Now, I put my hand here,” Noah Centineo instructs as he slides his hand in the back pocket of my jeans. “And then we walk a little, like this.” He leads me around the Coney Island Aquarium like that: hip to hip, smiling at each other, his hand, to reiterate, in the back pocket of my jeans. I’ve just shamelessly asked him to re-create his signature move from Netflix’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, an adaptation of Jenny Han’s YA novel, in which he plays Peter Kavinsky, the high-school jock at the center of the film’s romantic plotline. I watched the movie and mentally flagged this scene — where he’s trying to convince a cafeteria full of students he’s dating the protagonist, Lara Jean Covey (Lana Condor) — as the one that made me wonder, Who is that guy? It’s a moment that belongs in a clip reel of classic, chemistry-laden movie moments, and I, a journalist, wondered if it could inspire the same feelings when executed in real life.

Centineo tells me how he totally improvised the move during filming. It was a thing he used to do with his ex-girlfriend. They’d be walking around, like we are now, and he’d realized he could sort of dance her around by the pocket and turn her, “just like this,” and boom, propelled by just a tug on my pocket, I’m suddenly facing him. We’re pelvis to pelvis. He’s smiling, comfortably, and I’m confronted with his hazel eyes, the scent of clean laundry, and pure pheromones. I sort of squeal, I think? Who can say, because I definitely black out for a second.

If I seem thirsty, well, isn’t that the point? At 22, Centineo is the most effective, addictive sort of heartthrob: the kind who absolutely loves being one, the kind who does everything in his power to make us thirst harder than we’ve ever thirsted before — and, yeah, it works. When the movie came out in August, Noah Centineo was immediately, breathlessly given the title of Internet’s Boyfriend. Now, with his second Netflix rom-com, Sierra Burgess Is a Loser, in which he plays yet another lovable, evolved jock, Centineo has graduated to full-on cultural obsession.

In less than a month his Instagram followers went from just under 800,000 to 9.5 million. In the movie, his character drives crosstown to buy his love interest her favorite Korean yogurt drinks — and no joke — Yakult stock has been going up. This man’s floppy hair is actually driving the market. He’s been stalked by fans and now employs an omnipresent security guard named Dave. He’s been the subject of a leaked nude scandal (“I understand why you have to ask that question,” he demurred when I asked him about a certain video that’s been making the rounds. “I just hope you understand why I’m not gonna answer it.”). His Twitter mentions are an anthology of fantasies — some chaste and some really not — written by women of all ages. “Tell them all to hit my line,” he says with a laugh.

We decide to tour the aquarium, where I’m idly waiting for him in the lobby when he walks in shirtless. Shirtless. Without a shirt. Holding his black T-shirt in his hand, instead of wearing it on his torso, which I can see right now. With my eyes. He has a real reason. He’s just been outside, taking pictures on a boardwalk in nearly 100-degree weather. But even with a rational explanation as to why he has no shirt on, the entrance is so on the nose it’s almost ridiculous: a smoking-hot leading man, walking into a room sweaty and half-naked. It’s like there should be a slowed-down frame rate, a treacly indie-pop song playing, a zoom-in of my pupils turning into those hunga hunga hearts. He hands his ticket to the woman at the front desk and apologizes, for some reason, for his bare chest. She makes him put his shirt back on, and greets me with a smile so huge, I can assure you he has zero cavities.

Even offscreen, Centineo, I observe immediately, has that whole thing. It wasn’t just good directing or the right song cued at the right moment that created the effect. He has all the qualities deemed necessary by early-in-life fans of Teen Bop and Devon Sawa at the end of Casper: white sneakers (Vans, of course), an easy charm, and a tendency to play it fast and loose with knowing, meaningful eye contact that says “I see you.” He knows the right way to lean against a wall, how to twirl a specific clump of hair so it slouches over one eye. He’s even got an imperfection you can moon over: this tiny scar on his chin from where his dog tried to rip his face off when he was a kid. When he greets me with a hug, it’s the kind of genuine, intentional, full-body contact that makes me feel like he’d write me a letter every day and build me a house.

“I’ve always played the love interest,” Centineo says. “I’ve trained for it for a while. These roles are just molds I can pour myself into.” He grew up in Miami, with a few years’ interlude in Park City, which he hated because he never felt like he fit in. He started acting as a preteen when he attended a general casting call sort of on a lark, but he enjoyed it so much he eventually dropped out of his Boca Raton high school sophomore year and moved to Los Angeles with his mom to pursue it full-time. Since then Centineo’s been playing graduating levels of “crush”: first on a tween-friendly Disney show Austin & Ally, then on a teen-friendly Freeform show, The Fosters, and now for admiring audiences of all ages on Netflix rom-coms (To All the Boys, Sierra Burgess, and one deep cut for the algorithm-determined real fans, SPF 18.)

“I like this rowboat. Do you want to sit in this rowboat,” he asks, upon discovering a fake rowboat stuck in the corner of an exhibition about ponds. (Fake rowboat, a move.) Ever the leading man, he gets in first to steady the fake boat, and helps me in. Then, he directs yet another adorable moment for us, and starts rocking the boat back and forth, like we’re on a real pond, laughing this huge, full-throated laugh like the only thing he’s ever wanted to do was crouch in a plastic rowboat with me. And even though we both know the answer to the question, I ask, “Why do you think everyone is going nuts over you right now?”

“People love love,” he says, and begins to explain how both of his recent movies “empower” people. “I think these are just great examples of feel-good films, how could you not like something that makes you feel good?”

He stops talking and looks at me, a little concerned. “If you’re still warm, we should move,” he suggests, perhaps noticing the sweat pouring from my forehead and rolling down to my chin. It’s such a hot day, even the AC inside has given up. “I just want you to feel comfortable,” he says thoughtfully, adding, “Don’t worry, I also sweat like a motherfucker.”

It’s now his mission to find the coolest spot in the aquarium. He leads me down some stairs, back up the same stairs once he realizes they lead to a bathroom. We go around all the exhibits, while he looks up at the ceiling, in the corners, searching for an air vent, determined to find the perfect spot to get the full blast. We finally do. “Can you feel it?” he asks, one last time, before he seems satisfied, parked in front of a manmade reef. It’s a specific sort of gallantry I recognize from his roles, the ones he describes as manly and masculine, but also “sensitive, emotionally intelligent, loving, nurturing, and protective.”

“That’s just what a great man is in life and in general,” he shrugs. In his two most well-known parts (both of which occurred in the past month) he plays an updated version of a familiar type of crush. In To All the Boys, a lacrosse player who loves Fight Club but drinks kombucha and falls for the film’s Korean-American protagonist. In the other, Sierra Burgess, a quarterback who thinks the cheerleader is way hot, but instead falls for the brainy girl who catfishes him. In both, he displays a preference for the unexpected love interest. In both, he drives a Jeep Wrangler, the preeminent car of teen crushes. He’s not the mysterious, brooding type à la Robert Pattinson in Twilight, he doesn’t have the cold, intellectual appeal of Timothée Chalamet’s character in Lady Bird. He’s not pure Zac Efron dumb-hot-frat boy or even the misunderstood, sexually experienced bad boy like the ones Adam Driver plays. What Centineo does well — and what nobody has really done with such conviction since Freddie Prinze Jr. — is play a simple, suburban-mall kind of crush with Stanislavski dedication. That’s it. He’s just fully nice and hot at a time that feels like “nice and hot” is a rare resource. He’s a throwback to a more classic sort of wish fulfillment.

In fact, Centineo can see a whole career based around this: being good at love. He imagines all the potential types of roles he can explore: romantic dramas, other types of rom-coms, action romantic comedies, edgier, more toxic and dangerous types of love. “There’s so many degrees to love. I think I have a lot more to offer the space,” he says. He’s got a few projects lined up already, most notably a movie coming out in 2019 called The Stand-In. He plays a post-grad who launches a start-up, which requires him to loan himself out as a fake boyfriend.

“Whoa whoa! That motherfucker just came through so quick! He ran up on us with his boy.”

Centineo jumps back and marvels at some large fish that just came swimming right at his head. He makes a kissy-fish face back at the fish. What a lovely time we’re having. Looking at fish! Then he points to a placard and carefully reads out the description for Slippery Dick, a type of fish native to this particular tank, and chuckles. Then I read one about the French Grunt. I have no idea what’s going on. I point to a particularly fascinating fish, and he leans in to see, angling his head so his hair brushes my hand. Our arms accidentally touch.

“How’d you get so good at flirting,” I’m compelled to ask.

“Am I flirting?” he laughs and leans and looks down at the floor. “I don’t know — I’m fucking so romantic. Like, such a romantic — it’s not even funny. I can’t help it. I swear to God, like, every day, the majority of my day is sentimental. You know, I’m thinking about past relationships I’ve been in, how I miss them so much or what I would do different, or why I wanna be with them again, or just moments I’d like to go back to or I know why I shouldn’t go back, and then you know, it’s just constantly love, love, love.”

He’s a Taurus, ruled by Venus, he offers by way of explanation. “That means a couple things: one, like I need a lot of nurturing, and two, Venus is love, I’m ruled by love.” His favorite movie is Gaspar Noe’s Love, his favorite feeling is being in love (which he has been, twice). I bet if you could cook Love and serve it over pasta, it would be his favorite meal. He lives, breathes, and expels love. His Instagram is a steady stream of soul-baring, puppy-dog-eyed selfies — “I’m pretty vain,” he jokes. His Twitter alternates between sort of yoga studio platitudes and vague flirtations like “Fuck…you’re so cute,” or, more in line with my personal interests, “THE BLACKER THE BERRY.”The messages are to nobody specific, he says — he’s single right now — they could be to somebody he just met, or he met before, or he saw across the room, or just to everybody.

Dating is going to be hard for him from now on, he suspects, even though he really doesn’t want to change how he pursues someone he likes (open-heartedly, passionately, purely) but he’s started worrying about the reasons people want to date him. Is it just because he’s more famous now? Do they just want to date Peter Kavinksy? But are Kavinsky and Centineo really so different?  “I’m definitely not as innocent—” he says, with a gaze, because why say anything if you aren’t going to commit.

Centineo continues to list the differences, both philosophical and material: He’s more apt to jump out of a plane or just sit in nature than his characters. He doesn’t live in the suburbs, he lives in Los Angeles with his older sister and her boyfriend. He likes yoga and martial arts. He parties with friends. He starts every day at 6 a.m. with oatmeal, the recipe for which he begins detail, slowly: “I do Irish steel-cut oats, I do almond butter, coconut butter uh, coconut oil, honey, uh, chopped bananas, and, and, uh, like, hemp granola,” and I’m struck with this familiar feeling of being completely entranced by a man saying absolutely nothing interesting to me, which, oh right, yes, is infatuation.

[maizeofloverp]

Full name: Rena Kingswell

Age: 32

Birth date: January 17, 1986

Gender & pronouns: Female, Her/She

Affiliation: Whitewater Syndicate

Occupation: Novelist

Faceclaim: Bethany Joy Lenz

B i o g r a p h y »

Triggers: Drug, Overdose, Death

Rena’s life was a pretty different one from the one’s you’ve heard about in your favourite novels or movies. Starting life in a larger than life setting, Rena’s mother was a world famous novelist named Maria Kingswell and her business executive father, Lance Kingswell. Money was never an issue growing up as she lived in a luxurious setting in the well-off neighbourhood in California.

Rena was a hard worker when it came to school, often found with her head in a book she’d been on more of the reserved side. A small group of friends and a closed circle kept her feet on the ground; she was never one to over spend but she was never someone who also wouldn’t stop herself from using her parent’s money to get something she wanted.

In School Rena then met Kyle who was two years above herself at school. He sold drugs and hung out on the wrong side of the tracks. She latched onto him and for someone with Kyle’s life style that was the kind of girls they preyed on. After just a month hanging around him her grades began to dip, school no longer her main priority and the drunken messes she got herself into were something completely new and thrilling to Rena.

Rena was dating bad boy Kyle Manning who was the ultimate party thrower. Her once small circle had dissipated and she hung around with a different, edgier crowd. One particular night a party at Kyle’s house was in full swing when the screams could be heard, upon investigating one of her immediate group, Shelly lay lifeless on the floor. It came to light that the drugs that Kyle had slipped into her drink as a dare would bring Shelly’s life to an immediate end.

The arrest was what opened Rena’s and her mother’s eyes about how serious everything had gotten, with Kyle facing life in prison and Rena now involved she knew all the fun and games were over. The relationship came to an immediate end and Rena was quick to pull herself away from everything and everyone. Moving away to Muddy Waters was the only option Maria thought possible for herself and Rena to get back to their roots. Maria grew up in Muddy Waters had a lot of family there and she wanted Rena to live life a little less extravagant in a different place around family which she had so obviously lacked; it would also give Maria the time to work on her book in a less manic environment.

Meeting Patrick was never something she saw herself doing after Kyle. A member of The Whitewater Syndicate and involved in things she didn’t even want to imagine, but his quick wit and sense of humour had her falling before she had chance to use her brain. Being part of The Whitewater Syndicate was something that Patrick took great pride in and she couldn’t help but admire his loyalty and the respect he held for women. It was that, that drew her into him. They were head over heels, he was a member and she was a novelist and together they were a power house. After just eleven months of being together Patrick was down on one knee.

Married life was something Rena fell in love with, spending every fibre to provide everything Patrick could need and want.

It was November 2nd. Patrick had been away on business with the Syndicate. She hadn’t thought much into the fact that she hadn’t heard from him for a couple days knowing how extremely busy they got but little did she know, the call was never coming. The car that showed up were there to deliver the bad news, while on a job there had been an attack. Trying to save one of his brothers he had been caught in cross fire and just like that his life was over. Widowed. One day she was in love with her best friend and just like that he was stolen from her.

It was three years ago that she lost Patrick and Instead she devoted all of her time to being there for the Syndicate.

P e r s o n a l i t y »

Rena is a compassionate, clever and extremely intelligent individual. She is very aware of the world around her and although is perceived as innocent and has never done anything to prove otherwise; has a fire inside of her that is waiting to catch light. Intrigued with the lives that the Syndicate leads, she can’t help but wonder if she should have joined and became a full fledged member; loyalty runs through her blood and it’s been an impending thought for some time now.

She can be somewhat rather sensitive which is what holds her back from progressing further and knowing full well her mother would never approve. She’s trying to formulate a life for herself since losing Patrick and that has made her very open to looking and trying new things as she doesn’t want to become a rather stagnant person who doesn’t move forward in her life.

Played by Billie

[ianxfalcon]

It's interesting to read your thoughts on name of the wind, which is one of my favourite books ever. But, I'm looking for new things to read, and was wondering, which books do you find great and would recommend? Preferably adult fantasy, but really any genre goes.

Oooooh. *rubs hands together* This will be a long post.I actually don’t read that much fantasy anymore, for various reasons, mostly because I don’t have time. But I would definitely recommend The Gentleman Bastard Sequence by Scott Lynch, if you haven’t read it already. It does a lot of the same things that Kingkiller Chronicle does but, in my opinion, much better. If you want something even darker and edgier, I would suggest you check out Joe Abercrombie’s books. They are a little too dark for my taste, but they are very entertaining nonetheless. There’s also Wheel of Time. It’s a classic. A very flawed classic with a lot of problems, but I still love it. Though it might be nostalgia. It’s very long though, just as a warning.If you like Rothfuss’ style, you should check out Neil Gaiman. American Gods is my favourite of his, but all his work is great, books and comic books (like Sandman).Other than that... Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, my favourite book of all time. It’s got absolutely nothing in common with The Name of the Wind and it isn’t fantasy but if you enjoy word-play and experimental writing, no book does it better than Catch-22. Its use of language is like no other book I’ve ever read. It’s not purple prose, it’s ultra-violet prose steeped in absurdism. It’s fantastic. Everyone should read it (and of course a lot of people has).If you like first-person oral narratives, Frankenstein is a must. It’s very rambling and super melodramatic, but it’s relatively short and the story and characters are really interesting.Crime and Punishment is a classic that more people should read. It has a reputation for being boring but it’s really not, it’s very tense and creepy, and psychologically fascinating.And I will always recommend David Almond. He is in my opinion one of the best writers of today. Many people believe that a poetic, beautiful prose needs to have long, flowery sentences and complicated words, but David Almond writes poetically with few words, short one-clause sentences and a North English accent. He is amazing. His books are kind of fantasy/magical realism hybrids. Skellig and The Fire Eaters are his two best books (every time I reread one of them I’m stunned by how good they really are), though I also love Clay because it is fucking terrifying. Yes, they’re children’s books, but that is not a bad thing at all.Stephen King. The Dark Tower if you want a longer series. King has of course written a lot of books, and most of them go from decent to really good. My favourite is The Long Walk - though it’s depressing as hell - and Pet Sematary, The Stand and The Shining. His short stories are also really good, in fact I would say a lot of them are better than his novels.The Martian by Andy Weir for more first person goodness. This book just makes me happy.Perfume by Patrick Süskind. It’s nothing like the movie, if you’ve seen it, it’s actually surprisingly funny in a mean-spirited, sarcastic way, but it’s also creepy.Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite (Billy Martin). Serial killer love story. As the title implies, you’ll need a strong stomach and a tolerance for gore.The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. This is one of those books that is an experience to read, it might change you. Keep a few tissues handy, though.Candide by Voltaire. It’s a “bad things keep happening to the main character and it’s hilarious” book. It’s still funny 300 years after it was written, so that says a lot.And Watership Down by Richard Adams. It’s basically epic fantasy without actually being fantasy, and also the main characters are rabbits.I’m sure you’ve heard of, and even read, a few of these books already. But anyway. Those are my recommendations. Hope you’ll enjoy them!

[watsons-solarpunk]

How would Batman stories fit in a solarpunk universe? It would probably be hard to set it in a world where capitalism has been demolished and circuses fall out of style. They would probably fit best in the past. Wouldn’t be too hard since a lot of great stories are set in the past. Look at Stranger Things.

I don’t have a specific answer to this, but I do think it’s a good springboard for a conversation about a more fundamental question: what are the ethical consequences of the superhero narrative?

You could argue that superheroes are intrinsically problematic, because they presume as part of their premise that 

there are categorically exceptional people 

those people are entitled to supercede the standards of behavior expected by the community 

the actions of exceptional individuals are a meaningful locus of change in society 

beating people up is an effective way of bringing about that change

I think these assumptions are, in fact, real problems that exist in most existing superhero mythoses. (Mythai? mythees?) But, I think you could formulate something that looks a lot like superheroes but that doesn’t reinforce these narratives. For example, you could write a story based on premises that

the natural variation in the qualities of individuals produces a subset of people who are exceptional, not as a distinct category of human, but as a function of the relative scarcity and real-world consequences of different talent sets

the standards of behavior within a community are shaped by that community, and the superheroes are subject to those standards. But those standards call for people to help each other to the best of their ability, and someone whose abilities include superheroeyness would be called upon to leverage that talent set toward the community’s goals

the actions of exceptional individuals can form vital parts of larger processes with many vital parts. Superheroey exceptional individuals might have the most interesting vital skills to write stories about, but the vital skills with more mundane presentations are still acknowledged and valued

Sometimes you need to beat up people who stand in the way of change

(Aside: My story in Sunvault, “The Boston Hearth Project,” is very much a superhero origin story along these ideological lines.)

Now, that’s a lot to load into a story. And it isn’t the status quo, so you have to do more work to do that loading than letting the reader fill in the status quo blanks. But I don’t think it’s impossible.

The first thing I think you’d need to do is build original properties that are founded on this idea. Then, assuming these assumptions get a foothold and become market norms, I think most or all major properties could be re-imagined in ways that suit this kind of worldview.

Part of the reason I think Batman makes such a great Grimdark superhero is that he is, on some level, an exploration of when it is and isn’t okay to ignore the social standard of behavior, and some of the best comics writers in the past several decades have recognized that that’s a tension that deserves real and thoughtful exploration. 

I know the standard is “Different sides of Batman’s personality expressed in more or less healthy ways,” but my personal interpretation of Batman’s Rogue’s Gallery is “Different rationales for why it’s okay to ignore the law.” Batman himself is an argument for the law failing; Harvey Dent is a counter-argument to that, the Riddler is an argument that the most intelligent people are above the law, the Joker is an argument that everything is okay when done in the name of art (see popular comedian argument “Nothing’s off limits”), Penguin’s an argument that financial interest is a legitimate sole priority, etc. 

But from what I hear, outside the super-serious-business graphic novels and movies, Batman has a lot of strong social relationships, the question of whether he has a community and whether he acts in concert with that community’s values is complicated in more interesting ways than the Grimdark versions. But I haven’t been able to sink my teeth into comics enough to really get a feel of what’s happening outside the graphic novels, where especially in Batman the standard is “The darker and edgier, the more ART it is.”

I think that kind of an understanding of Batman could grow really well in a solarpunk environment, and a lot of depth could be drawn out of the tension of Batman’s tendency towards lonerness and self-isolation, where the conclusion isn’t a foregone “well of COURSE he has to be alone because BATMAN”

. . . Okay maybe I did have a specific answer about the Batman thing. But it’s like 4 a.m. and I’m not going to go rewrite the top of the response.

I’m super curious to hear what other people think about this, though!

[mask-of-prime]

BIONICLE Asks

Original post by @goodguy2008

1. When did you get into Bionicle?

In 2006, my brother came home from Rite-Aid with a Vezok set, which I found way more interesting than the paint pens my parents bought me.

2.What got you interested in Bionicle?

After finding out there were more than just Vezok. I remember having my eyes on Hakann to buy next after my brother gave me Vezok.

3. What was your first set?

See above on #1.

4. What was one set that you always wanted but never got?

Karzahni for some reason, been wanting it for over 10 years.

5. Which set is your least favourite?

The polybags I guess. Fucking HEAD FOOT CREATURES WHAT THE FUCK

6. Which year is your favourite?

2006

7. Which year is your least favourite?

2016 I guess because it was painfully cut off, but 2009 and 2010 were also uncomfortable.

8. What did you think of Gen 2?

It really could have gone better, as a matter of fact, I don’t know why it was a reboot and not a continuation. And as all reboots EVER go, they always change the characters in a weird, modern “appeal-to-millennials” way.

9. Did you read or own any of the books?

I own the Mask of Light novel and Makuta’s Guide to the Universe. I read all of the Chronicles books but not Adventures or all of Legends.

10. Which book is your favourite?

I guess I really like Downfall (Legends #8)

11. Did you read any of the comics?

I don’t think I read all of Ignition. I definitely read 2006-2008 on the LEGO website.

12. Which comic series was your favourite?

See above :U

13. Ride the Crab?

I’m going to be honest... maybe?

14. Which Bionicle game do you like the best?

The only one I’ve ever played was BIONICLE Heroes, I didn’t care how out-of-character it was, it was fun.

15. Who’s your favourite character?

Jaller for some reason, I thought he was funny in Mask of Light as a kid.

16. Best Toa team?

Mahri because underrated and Jaller’s in it. But Metru is good too, the characters are p funny, yet they bicker way too much where it sometimes makes them uninteresting and pitiful.

17. Which movie is your favourite?

Mask of Light because I watch it too much, but the one with the most beautiful rendering was Web of Shadows because it was newer than MoL.

18. Which movie is your least favourite?

Legend Reborn, it’s the different art style (because it wasn’t made by the same studio who were actually creative by not just modeling them after the LEGO shapes) and unexpected, uncomfortable, and unfitting personalities for the characters.

19. What was your favourite aspect of Gen 1?

THERE’S TOO MUCH TO READ

20. What was your favourite aspect of Gen 2?

THERE’S NOT ENOUGH TO READ

21. Do you hope to see a Gen 3 in the future?

I’m just worried it’ll get fucked up again. Besides, I just wish there was continuation of Gen 1 and 2 since they weren’t concluded.

22. Dump all the pieces out and assemble, or sort pieces carefully and assemble?

Neither, pick pieces out of the box or just use LDD.

23. What’s your favourite Bionicle memory?

When the fandom was bigger and happier (I’m sorry too soon and too bitter)

24. Did you ever take your Bionicles outdoors to play?

Yes, but usually to make a stopmotion. But I was actually scared to because I thought I was going to lose the pieces or an animal would come out and spook me.

25. Do/Did you break pieces often?

ALL

26. How many sets have you collected?

*looks around realizing nearly all of my sets are dismantled so no way I can start counting) s h i t

27. Do you want to see a new Bionicle game? If so, from what year, and which genre?

I kinda wish there was a game for each year that got a movie. I’d love to see a Legends of Metru-Nui game.

28. How many of your childhood sets still survive?

*shakes head fearfully*

29. Which did you like best, Gen 1 or Gen 2?

Gen 1 because the edgier storylines and elaborate, clever, and angular set designs. I like CCBS but not when it’s the main constraction system used.

30. Ask anything else!

I’m pretty sure 30 is for Anons to pick out their own questions right? Fuck it, what’s your favorite element?