#this is just a silly little poll i don't expect it to go anywhere

[userautumn]

okay i'm curious

[hotvintagepoll]

I am adoring all of these polls and gif sets and just being fed so many hot vintage people. As someone who really hasn’t watched very many classics, are there any movies you’d recommend for someone just starting to dip their toes in older media but unsure where to start?

Sure! I don't want to sway any voting, but I'll put an incomplete list of favorites that involve hot men not still in the bracket below the cut.

Something to note that applies to most of these old movies—older movies have different pacing than modern movies, so some of these might seem really slow or weird to start. There are also different ways of framing gender and agency, for better and for worse. I've italicized the ones that I think are the best for starting with, but go with whatever genre/aesthetic sounds best.

The Court Jester (Danny Kaye, Basil Rathbone)—a circus performer working for a quasi-Robin Hood infiltrates the royal court. Fun comedy that's incredibly accessible and still so light on its feet. Swordfighting, glamorous medieval costumes, court intrigues, and silly accents.

Singin' in the Rain (Gene Kelly)—fun polyamorous musical comedy. The dancing is incredible, but so is the sense of joy and camaraderie between Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, and Debbie Reynolds. Genuinely captures the feeling of hanging out with your best friends. 1920s Hollywood, big movie studios, backstage drama, goofy hijinks.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone)—classic swashbuckler/romance. It could read a little slow to modern tastes but the action scenes are absolutely killer, as is the sentiment of seeing little guys pull down big capitalists evil monarchs. Swashbuckling, labor activists merry men hanging out in the woods, hot men in tights, social commentary swords, a Maid Marian who really holds her own and falls in love with the socialist

Charade (Cary Grant)—thriller/romantic comedy. Audrey Hepburn's husband dies and leaves her a hidden inheritance, and she's racing some skeevy characters to find it. A little bit scary but mostly charming and gorgeous, and you can find it high quality virtually anywhere because they fucked up the copyright trademark in the opening credits. Romance, murders, Paris, 1960s fashion, chases in the night.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Dick Van Dyke)—this movie is divisive for some reason—I personally like peace, love, and joy, so it makes the list. This is a James Bond movie if James Bond had two kids, lived in a windmill in the south of England, and was into cottagecore inventions more than martinis and racism. This is very much a kids' movie so go in with that expectation, but enjoy the gorgeous production design, the wonderfully silly performances, and Lionel Jeffries pulling out every stop as an insane old man. Dick Van Dyke has excellent DILF energy. Magical cars, big musical vibes, fun inventions, and romantic fantasy.

To Be Or Not To Be (Jack Benny)—comedy/drama. A ragtag Warsaw theatre troupe stands off against the Gestapo after the invasion of Poland. TW for Nazis, obviously, but overall this is a comedy with some heft, and kind of shocking to be this ballsy about fucking hating Hitler's guts in the 1940s. Hambone actors, Shakespeare, spies, 1930s gowns. It's been a minute since I watched it so I don't think there are any TWs here, but go forth with caution.

Witness for the Prosecution (Tyrone Power)—mystery/legal drama based off an Agatha Christie story. The performances are campy fun and the twist would be at home in something like Knives Out. Big dramatics, hambones, lots of talking, a bit of a mindbender.

The Lady Vanishes (Michael Redgrave)—mystery/suspense/romantic comedy. It's a little slow to start but roll with it—once the action moves to the train the pacing really picks up. This gets slotted as a thriller sometimes but it's much funnier and gentler than that. There's some period-typical snarkiness directed at anyone Foreign™ by some of the British characters; the British characters are also made fun of. Trains, British people, international shenanigans, mystery, and humor.

All About Eve (absolutely none of these hot men, lots of hot women though)—a legendary actress fights for her life against the rising star who supplants her. Big drama, big performances, lots of gasp! and dahling! and vicious little quips. New York, theatre pronounced theahhtah, drama queens and plotting.

The Philadelphia Story (James Stewart, Cary Grant)—talk-heavy comedy, lots of quick banter and period transatlantic accent fun. It's a bit shouty and conflict-heavy at times, but I don't think James or Cary have ever been hotter, and Katherine Hepburn is just wow. Very funny dialogue, relatable characters, incredibly hot across the board. There is one instance of a racial slur (not directed at anyone but still there) and one shove. Some people won't like the discussion of Hepburn's character's choices as a daughter and a wife. With all of these movies you'll see a a range of how female characters are presented and treated, and while some period movies fall hard for sexist tropes, I personally think the performances, direction, and subtext of many of these films actually prioritizes the experiences of the female characters and shows them as living, breathing people, even if they're not framed the way they would be today.

[threebooksoneplot]

Three Books One Plot and ✨You✨

Now that our first season has drawn to a close we wanted to share some fun stats with you guys! This is information that was actually cut from our finale for time but, since we're so excited about it, we still wanted to share it with you all. It's been a hell of a year and, like we mentioned in our finale, we never expected for anyone besides us and a small group of friends/acquaintances to care so much about this silly project. But a lot of you cared. More than we thought would.

In fact, we had listeners from 50 countries over the course of the past year. This is what our top ten looks like, at a glance:

Shout out to anyone listening from any of these countries, and extra shout out to anyone listening from any other place in the world, too. (All 40 other countries.) As far as the US goes we weren't too shocked by our top five (California, New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Texas are also the top five most populated states) but we were excited to see listeners in forty-five states plus DC. So, to our friends in Alabama, Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming... we'll get you guys next season. 😉

(more information and fun statistics under the cut!)

What was doubly shocking to us was the idea that not only would we have such a broad reach but that we would chart anywhere. Over the last year we have charted on the book charts of eleven different countries, including the United States. Which is fucking bonkers.

Beyond that, we had some more funky statistics we wanted to share! We truly did give you non-Spotify listeners the short end of the stick sometimes but hey, don't blame us. Blame the apps you listen to and like, maybe bully them on Twitter into providing polls and questions like Spotify does. If that doesn't work, you can always join in on our polls here on Tumblr during the interim between episodes. Next season we'll also be encouraging you guys to answer our episode questions in our ask box here, too. Anything to get more hilarious gems from you since you guys are like, really fucking funny.

But as far as platforms go, here's our breakdown:

If you listen on a different app like Pocket Casts or any other podcast platform, please let us know! We'd love to know how you guys are tuning in.

Not to direct our full attention back toward Spotify for a moment (like we love to do) but here were some fun Spotify-centric stats that are worth mentioning. Mainly because the age statistics make us laugh.

Shoutout to any young-young Gen X-ers that listen and aren't in the 45-59 age range. You guys are the true champions and we adore the fact that your peers just do not fuck with us. Also, in the unlikely chance that any of the less than one percent of Boomers (affectionate) that listen to us also happen to follow us on here, please message us so we can give you the key to a city or something. Because we love you. Sorry that supercentenarian Edward kept being weird and rude about your generation. He sucks for that.

To conclude this fun and informative little wrap-up post I wanted to give the biggest, loudest, and most inappropriate shout out to all our sexy listeners who gave Three Books One Plot a rating or a review!

On Apple Podcasts, we received 8 reviews and 17 ratings, giving us an average of 4.6 stars!

On Spotify, we received 63 ratings, giving us a 4.9 star average!

This fall will bring a new season with a new book, new characters, and new guests. But don't worry, there'll be just as many jokes, bits, ill-advised drinking game rules, and sex tape titles that make G rejoice and Shannon sigh in half-reluctant compliance as before.

We wanted to give a super-special thanks to all of you who have tuned in, and we're so excited to see you guys again for Season Two in September!

[ev-arrested]

A Rant About Canon vs. Fanon, and the Stigma That Comes With "Not Reading Enough Comics"

(Comes with a funny anecdote pls read. Also apologies to @pluckyredhead for hijacking their poll lol)

I'm reblogging this older post because I'm realizing I have more to say about half of the DC fandom not reading comics at all (which, to be clear, I'm not judging). I plead y'all to actually listen, because some of you treat reading comics like a job, and I'm here to remind everyone that it is not that serious.

Let me start off by sharing an anecdote:

In March, I made a post that got fairly popular. It was just a funny little joke using the at the time popular, and now hated "dirtbag!Dick" headcanon. I was fairly new to comics at the time, I was happy to learn more, and a lot of my assumptions about how characters would act was informed by my consumption of fanon, so I just assumed dirtbag!Dick had some credibility behind it. My post made the rounds, and eventually someone reblogged it with a bunch of citations and comic panics, effectively debunking my post, which I honestly don't have a problem with on its own. Again, happy to learn more, and I actually picked up a few of the comics that the reblogger cited and took them as reading recommendations.

However, their attitude in the tags bothered me a little. It went something along the lines of "no idea when this post was made but it annoyed me so much I had to write an essay", which, bruh. After that, I had dozens of reblogs saying similar things about how much they hated fanon interpretations sometimes and how they hated how popular my post had gotten lmao (and as a side note and reminder, see this post. Don't be a jerk in tags).

After 4 months, I've consumed a metric fuck ton of comics, and looking back on my funny goofy post, yeah, I think it's wildly inaccurate. Do I look down on everyone reblogging my post saying how funny they think it is? Absolutely not. People are enjoying a harmless, inaccurate post, and good for them (and shoutout to the people in my tags saying, "this isn't canon at all but it's funny so i'm reblogging". This isn't about y'all, y'all are cool).

Here's the funny part of this anecdote: One specific reblog of the "debunk" post got my attention. It was a person with a pretty large blog I followed and honestly found increasingly annoying, because I would occasionally see them go off about certain fanon interpretations of Batman characters. Initially, I was like, "yeah, I should've expected this, because this person places major importance on 'being accurate'," but then I took a pause, because hold on, I could have sworn this person had already reblogged my post in the past. My original post. I went back through my notes, and I couldn't find their reblog anywhere. Keep in mind, my original post was made on March 15th, and the debunk post was made in May. Their re-reblog of the post was in July, and while I couldn't find their original reblog, I found notes of people reblogging their reblog (god, that's not a fucking word anymore) in March and April. And based on what I remember about their original post, it was anything but negative. It was quite positive, actually. Something something "this is so funny" etc. But here they were in my reblogs again, saying how they hated this fanon interpretation of Dick.

Let me reiterate: this fucken person saw my original post, reblogged it positively, then a few months later saw the debunk post, deleted their original reblog, and then reblogged the debunk post and fully agreed with it, saying how much they disliked this fanon interpretation.

In addition to being fake as fuck, hysterical, and a very, very silly thing to do (seriously, like as soon as I saw that, I was laughing about it for the rest of the day. This person places such importance on hating everything about "inaccurate fanon", and as soon as they realize they accidentally--god forbid--enjoyed an inaccurate fanon post, they backpeddle this hard. 10/10 best thing I've seen on this hellsite), I think this is indicative of a problem in this fandom.

This fandom places such major importance on being "canon accurate" all the time and, in addition to being impossible (as there are so many contradictions within canon that you can't exactly abide by it in the first place), it's honestly just a little very silly. There's such an unreasonable expectation to have read every comic known to man, and while I personally can appreciate a well-meaning correction, I cannot for the life of me understand how a person can get so mad at a harmless post whose only moral failing is being inaccurate with no real world consequence.

Can inaccurate fanon be pretty annoying sometimes? Absolutely, it can. However, not once have I ever harbored negative feelings towards someone just because they were inaccurate about a thing they love, especially if their post was supposed to be a harmless fun thing. In fact, if you feel the need to correct someone, you can absolutely do it in a way that builds on the OP's post that's respectful, gives them an opportunity to learn more about canon, and engage more with the thing they like.

TL;DR Let people enjoy things. Don't be a dick. Comics are not that serious lol. Life gets a lot more enjoyable if you choose to not be bothered by stuff as harmless as this.

DC fandom, I have a question...

No judgment no matter what your answer is, I'm just curious! Reblog, sample size, etc.