#this is what it feels like to not work with ingmar bergman

[normasshearer]

HARRIET ANDERSSON, GUNNEL LINDBLOM, & BIBI ANDERSSON in THE GIRLS (1968) dir. Mai Zetterling

[hotvintagepoll]

LAST POLL OF ROUND 6

Propaganda

Ingrid Bergman (Gaslight, Casablanca, Notorious)—A lot of the time hotness in a movie is just about words and framing. "You're the most beautiful person here" [vaseline lens] well I sure hope so because that's who you cast. But when, in Casablanca, they call Ingrid Bergman the most beautiful woman in the world... they were not fucking lying. And such a dynamite actor too!! I'd only seen Casablanca up until last year, and there she's confined to love interest. But in Gaslight she was maybe one of the most incredible actors I've ever seen!!!! Goddddd shes so fucking hot and cool.

Lauren Bacall (To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, Key Largo)—"Just put your lips together...and blow" excuse me ma'am i'm briefly going to turn into a kettle. She's the quintessential Femme Fatale who may betray me in the end but I'd let her it'd be worth it

This is round 6 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Ingrid Bergman:

God, she's fantastic. She's both beautiful and a compelling actor who's more than capable of putting the whole movie on her shoulders if necessary. It's worth noting that while her beauty is conventional, she was seen as refreshingly "natural" with more eyebrows and less makeup than many other leading ladies of the time. She's well known for her role in Casablanca, but in Notorious, Spellbound, (both available on archive.org ) and Gaslight (1944) she shows how immensely capable she is.

I mean...she's Ingrid Bergman. I feel like that should be enough, you know? She's physically beautiful (her eyes!) but watching her is like a transcendent experience. Her voice, her expressions... beautiful woman, beautiful actor.

I'm a gay man but even I understand her appeal. I'll watch any movie she shows up in. Gorgeous woman.

Just try and watch her movies without sighing wistfully, then get back to me!

Choosing 1-3 movies where Bergman was at her hottest was agony because, of course, she was always at her hottest. Not just because she was beautiful but because she was absolutely willing to go up against the bs women in Hollywood were constantly dealing with. When exiled from Hollywood for having an affair with Roberto Rossellini, not only did she refuse to apologize at any point, but she went on to say that Hollywood's films had grown stagnant and boring to her. Though she said she appreciated her time working there, she wanted to try new, different techniques (hence starring in Italian neorealist films, working on stage, and acting under directors like Ingmar Bergman). She was not afraid to chase after her artistic ideals and go outside the box regardless of what society had to say about it. From her first movie to her last she killed it. There's so much more to say about Bergman's career and life, but I've already written five million words so I'll stop at that.

One of the most incredible actors I've ever seen on film. Her facial expressions are so intricate and poignant that I cannot look away. I'm either ace or straight, but damn she made me question that.

SEVEN TIME OSCAR NOMINEE QUEEN. Girl also PULLED, having affairs with famously hot men Gary Cooper and Gregory Peck IN ADDITION to her three marriages...sexy

She has a very natural beauty to her, and she's from Sweden!

She left Hollywood and only became more beautiful. You could drown in her eyes. She can look innocent AND like she's seen it all. She is effortlessly elegant. She's played Joan of Arc (automatically hot) AND was in the movie that coined gaslight as a term. And where would we be without that!

She was known for being a breath of fresh air on the movie scene at the time with her windswept hair, dreamy smile and soulful eyes. I have loved her in every movie I have seen her in - she was just magnetic!

Where do I even start. There's a neighborly quality to this beautiful, talented actress that makes her hotness one of a kind and her looks impossible to forget

With a career spanning five decades, Bergman is often regarded as one of the most influential screen figures in cinematic history. Known for her naturally luminous beauty, Bergman spoke five languages – Swedish, English, German, Italian and French – and acted in each.

She's hot, don't get me wrong, but I've always found her very approachable, like she could easily be a member of my friend group

Where do I even begin with Ingrid Bergman? I fell in love with her with her astounding performance in the 1956 version of Anastasia -- the best Anastasia movie in large part due to her wonderful and touching performance. She's got this amazing, fascinating intensity to her in whatever role she's in. She commits 100%, and she's got this light in whatever she's in that's stunning. She's utterly convincing no matter what she plays, from an amnesiac possible lost princess, from a nun, from a woman taking her revenge on the town that wronged her, to light romantic comedy. She's never missed in any role I've seen her in! Also she became quite the MILF.

Lauren Bacall:

"She is soooo neat. And hot. And everything. That one scene in To Have and Have Not where she says "you know how to whistle don't you? You just put your lips together and blow" altered my brain chemistry during media archaeology class and here we are."

"The VOICE, the SLINK, the EYES. Woof."

"Lauren Bacall was a major lesbian awakening for me. Every picture of her makes it look like she’s about to destroy you physically and emotionally (why is that so hot, I may need help). She had incredible long running chemistry with her husband, Humphrey Bogart, but was an absolute star in her own right. I’ll never be over my crush on her."

"She's got that confident, no-nonsense air about her. She's a boss babe who knows what she wants and gets it DONE. Staunch liberal Democrat her whole life. Campaigned for RFK. From Wikipedia: "In a 2005 interview with Larry King, Bacall described herself as "anti-Republican... A liberal. The L-word". She added that "being a liberal is the best thing on Earth you can be. You are welcoming to everyone when you're a liberal. You do not have a small mind."" Beautiful hair. Beautiful eyes. Beautiful lips. She's just beauty. LISTEN TO HER VOICE. TELL ME THAT'S NOT THE STUFF THAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF."

[burnyouwithacigarettelighter]

TAKE YOU DOWN A PEG ─── neil lewis ✧𖦹

ೃ⁀➷ “I want you. Your bones. Your body heat. The bite marks your teeth leave. To see how bad and beautiful those eyes look beneath me." — Beau Taplin.

pairing. sub!neil lewis x reader

summary. gumshoe video’s got a rude customer who neil can’t seem to ban…

warnings. swearing, voyeurism, unprotected sex, creampie, p in v, semi-public sex, breathplay, oral sex (m), cockwarming, degradation/insults, SMUT UNDER THE CUT!

word count. 5.3k

a/n. the hardest thing about writing this was scouring letterboxd for obscure films that i think neil would foam over. pls don’t beat me to death if my film references miss the mark 😭

Neil loves his job. Seriously, seriously, he does. It's completely self-satisfying, his personal passion project that’s taken up a large amount of his life, and brings him the uttermost joy of allowing him to do what he does best: recommend films. 

Gumshoe Video is like his fucking baby, and he takes care of it, immensely; he wipes down every tape every Sunday, he sweeps the floor and rearranges the furniture, he organizes the tapes almost constantly, and he does his hardest to provide stellar, passionate - if almost annoying - film advice. He wants the reviews up on this place, alright, otherwise it feels like he’s letting his baby down. 

Now, if there’s one thing Neil hates about his job, just one minor, teensy weensy thing, it’s probably you. You, the rude customer who came in three months ago and has come in everyday since. 

The day you and Neil Lewis met was one just like the rest. Gumshoe Video was promoting old spaghetti westerns; Neil was wearing a cowboy hat and opening deliveries from a video tape shop in Calabasas that had closed down; you were coming off work and were daydreaming, dizzily entering shops to get your mind off the irritatingly mundane job you had. Unlike Neil, you fucking hate your job. 

You had entered Gumshoe, browsing lazily through the Film Noir section, when Neil sprung up like a weed behind you, speaking animatedly about how the best film noir’s had to be Casablanca, Sunset Boulevard, or Double Indemnity, and if you’d ever watched them before. 

As Neil blabbered on, your left eyebrow became increasingly raised. Finally having enough of him, you spoke. “So, are you one of those guys that talk all over the girl and ask them if they’ve ever seen Citizen Kane, or if I can even name five Ingmar Bergman movies for you?”

Neil spluttered, flustered with being confronted about his obsessive cinephile talking habit of carrying the conversation away like a track runner in a relay race going off with the baton in the wrong direction. “What? I was just —“

“— name dropping film noir’s, ‘cause I’m some ditzy, uncultured bimbo bitch who mistakenly walked in, right?” You said, rolling your eyes. Later, in retrospect, you’ll wonder if you were too rude; then, you’ll remember you don’t give a fuck, you were having a bad day, and Neil Lewis had one hell of an annoying face. 

Neil’s face grew offended, an irritated furrowed brow wiggling onto his features. “If you don’t want to watch what I recommend, you don’t have to!” he exclaimed, arms up placatingly in the air. 

“Uh huh, okay, and you don’t have to shove your pretentious cinephile knowledge up my ass.”

He just stared at you, boring his bright blue eyes into your own, face contorted so exasperatedly you might as well have climbed up to the stars, plucked the moon from the sky, and used it as a pillow. 

My god, Neil thought. Are you just a rude customer? Or did you get off on berating small businesses like a sadistic freak?

After a moment of you two staring each other down in the fluorescent artificial light of Gumshoe, both looking terribly affronted, you left. 

Neil would then rant about this “insane customer” for at least twelve hours straight to anyone who’d liste. The next day, the distasteful experience was extremely close to thereby fully exiting his mind, but didn’t, because you, yes, you, walked in again. 

You shot straight daggers with your eyes at Neil, but your expression became soft, demure, and gentle when you saw Jonathan manning the register instead. You trailed through the aisles unperturbed, Jonathan too busy sporting a hangover from working the late shift at that obscure speakeasy copycat bar (in which, as often as possible, he would sneak a shot to stay awake) to recommend films. 

In any case, that was Neil’s job, and Jonathan leaned over to whisper in his ear: “Neil, man, do me a favor and please distract that customer -- fuck, this headache’s killing me…”

Neil protested, shaking his head rapidly. “That’s her.”

“Her who?”

“Her! The - customer who -- who yelled at me!” 

Jonathan blinked blearily, clearly still too incapacitated to think about the matter much. “She yelled at you… and she’s back. Here. And why exactly is that…?”

“To yell at me s’more, probably!” Neil whisper-shouted incredulously. 

Suddenly, you broke Neil and Jonathan out of their not-so-quiet argument by slamming down Gumshoe Video’s copies of Casablanca, Sunset Boulevard, and Double Indemnity. The irony did not miss Neil - honestly, it was a little on the nose, even for him. 

“Thought I’d see what all the rage was.” you explained “sweetly”, gesturing to Neil as you spoke, indignation seeping through your every word. Your grudge was, well, mostly unexplained, ‘cept for the fact you yourself were an avid cinephile, had watched those three movies more than you could count, and did not take Neil’s “have you watched these before” kindly. 

Thus started you and Neil’s long-winded rivalry slash animosity slash terribly caustic back-and-forth correspondence. 

You keep coming to Gumshoe Video, because, despite your anger towards Neil, you fucking adore the place. The films are downright amazing, the atmosphere is like fucking heaven with the walls lined full of video tapes, decorated in classic film props, campy lifesize cardboard cutouts making you jump at every turn, and Gumshoe Video’s concept is insanely different (and lightyears better) than the corporate monolith that is Media Giant. 

He keeps coming to Gumshoe Video because, again, Neil loves his job, and treats Gumshoe like he carried it for nine months and has been lovingly raising it for the five years it's been open. 

From that first incident, you and Neil’s relationship twisted a little into something like this: you come in, insult him on whatever costume he’s wearing, return the tapes you rented the other night, argue with him for exactly an hour and a half on the couch, insult him for another ten as you browse the store, ignore his film recommendations, and rent three more movies. 

He waits for you to enter, wears the ugliest costume he owns to visually assault you, gladly takes the tapes back, argues with you for 1 and ½ hours, fires back retorts as you insult him, recommends movies he thinks will make you jump out your apartment window, and gives you your movies. 

You’re the minor, teensy weensy headache Neil experiences everyday, but at least, at the very least, Gumshoe makes daily dollars from your rentals - kinda like the payback or relief fund a town gets after a hurricane’s run through it. 

But, (somewhat?) shamefully… there’s a reason Neil doesn’t just ban you from the store and live his life without ever thinking of you again. 

This reason occurred to him a month ago, when he was in the backroom, pasting barcodes and information stickers on tapes that were yet to be placed in the store. You were looking for the washroom, awkwardly stumbling through the back hallway of Gumshoe Video, and since you couldn’t find Neil — he, in spite of the nature of your relationship, trusted you to look around and rent the tapes by yourself, having done it several times while arguing with him at the counter — you had to brave through it alone.

Now, the thing about the room Neil was in — more of a shoe closet than a room, honestly — was that it was locked from the outside, and he didn’t have the key. The key was currently in the hands of one Lucien, who had gone to buy takeout for the two of them because of the late night cataloging of new tapes ahead of them. 

And… he was taking about a hundred years to come back because he was trying to get the cashier’s number at their usual Chinese restaurant. 

Anyway, imagine this: you’re looking for the washroom, and the door to a small room is propped open. You enter, don’t think much of the small stack of empty tape boxes acting as a door stopper, and let it close. The light in there is dim, just a shitty little ceiling light; Neil turns, tapes in his hand; you turn, after closing the door. 

Finally, remember: the room is more of a shoe closet than a room.

“Jesus -- christ!” Neil yelped, startled at your sudden appearance. “What  -- the hell are you doing here?” 

“I take it this isn’t the bathroom?” You murmured, ignoring his question and shifting uncomfortably. Seriously, the tape closet was only meant for one person in it at a time. 

If the lights were brighter, you would’ve seen how hard Neil rolled his eyes; they almost rolled out of his head. “Well, I don’t think so, given the lack of toilet, sink, and light, no.”

“Well, Neil,” you purred, hot breath curling around the sensitive skin of his neck, “maybe, just maybe, you should have a sign for the bathroom, so I don’t have my tits any closer to your face than I want them to.” You said this sweetly, voice husky, low, and oddly sultry, but Neil knew better than that: you probably wanted to fucking kill him right now.

You were right, though; your tits were flush Neil’s bandy chest, the heat between you two growing the longer you were this close in proximity. 

“Now get me out of here,” you said quickly after, ignoring how warm Neil felt against your body. You’d turned so your back faced him, hands twisting at the silver knob of the door - which, Neil honestly didn’t know why was there, considering it didn’t fucking work. 

Neil sighed. “The door locks from the outside.” 

“What?” You said, distracted by leaning down to press your weight against the door like it was just sticky. Moments later, “…What?” you all but shrieked, hands falling from the knob, turning to face him once more. 

And, again, if the lights were brighter you’d have seen Neil’s face better: he was bright fucking red, because, apparently not accounting for the small space of the room, you’d leaned and obliviously had your ass pressed right against him. It didn’t help that his large, warm hands, having long since dropped the tapes he was labeling, hung near the flesh of your rear, having nowhere else to go in the limited space.

Neil thanked the small mercy God graced upon him that there wasn’t any kind of friction, so his soft cock remained just that: soft, and barely noticed by you. 

“The door locks from the outside.” Neil repeated breathlessly, the amount of air in the shoe-box room being incredibly small, too small to share between the two of you. 

“Fucking…” You cursed under your breath, shaking your head in disbelief. “So, what, we have to stay here ‘till someone busts us out? What’re you gonna do if I go batshit and eat you or something?”

“For one, Lucien isn’t going to take that long to come back. Anyway, why’re you assuming you’ll overpower me - what if I go batshit and tear into you?”

You snorted, like the connotation he could overpower you was completely implausible. “Neil, Neil, Neil,” you repeated nonsensically, before lifting a hand up to his shoulder and digging your nails into him, the fabric of his shirt obviously not thick enough to distort your strength. “I could have you pinned down in less than a minute. I do other things than watch movies all day, unlike your lanky ass.”

Neil merely let out a chagrined laugh in response, hands clammy at the thought: you pinning him down— he then shook himself mentally, about to slap himself upside the head. Fucking hell, this situation was doing things to him. 

“You don’t believe me?” You retorted with a raised brow. Swiftly, your hands curled around Neil’s wrists, pinning them behind him and pressing his back against you. “How about now, huh?” you whispered softly in his ear, making his head swim. 

Your chin rested on his shoulder, your nose brushing against his neck, and it took everything in Neil not to let out a breathy keen — this was all too much for him: your touch, your voice, and the apparent dawning on him that he found you terribly, massively, attractive. 

“Fuck, I, er - - um,” Neil scrambled for a response, when the door to the tape closet suddenly opened. Your hands released him immediately, and you strided out, breathing in deeply. 

On the other side stood Lucien, plastic takeout bag in one hand, closet key in the other. “What happened to you?” he asked confusedly, as Neil filed out after you, gaze trained on your stretching figure walking off. 

“We got, uh -- locked, in the- in the tape closet.” Neil murmured, thoughts still fuzzy from your rough touch. 

“With her?” Lucien shuddered, handing Neil the chinese takeout bag sympathetically. “You need this food more than I do.”

So, there it was. Neil’s reason. He would’ve called you an insufferable bitch that he never wanted to see enter Gumshoe Video ever again hundreds of times by now — if your sensual voice insulting him didn’t get him all tight in the pants. 

He began having thoughts — thoughts of you. You, whispering vulgar, humiliating words in his ear, your hands carding his hair, pulling tight against his scalp, selfishly making him do whatever you wanted him to do, no matter his pleas. 

The fantasy was unlike anything Neil had dreamed up before, having always believed it should be him on top, him controlling the situation, him dominating — but it wasn’t a bad one. He’d come faster than he ever did before, just by imagining you were rolling your hips into his own… your strength pinning him down… your lips brushing past the shell of his ear, telling him he was so fucking dirty, so filthy for being this needy. 

However, that was all just a vague, distant pipedream, especially with how you seem to actually hate him. All the interaction he’d had with you consisted of poisonous, irritated words, insults and curses — which had him feeling both incredibly turned on, and sick at the fact he was attracted to you just by being mean to him. 

Sometime after that, nearing the end of the work day, Neil was the only one left there: Jonathan had taken the morning shift, and Lucien was, surprisingly, on a date with the cashier at their usual Chinese restaurant place. Looks like he succeeded in getting her number, while Neil had been pressed against you in that tiny tape closet, moments away from getting a hard-on. 

So, Neil was the only one there - and you were the only customer there. Your daily routine of stopping by and verbally attacking him was late today, so it was nearing midnight when you and Neil sat on the couch and began arguing. 

“I’m sure your “manly” ego isn’t at all pathetic and easily hurt by the superiority of Mia Farrow’s performance in Rosemary’s Baby.” You spat, leaning into the diverse array of old throw pillows that sat on the couch day after day. 

Neil rolled his eyes, hands up in the air animatedly. “My manly ego - and I don’t enjoy the sarcasm nor the air quotes you’re using - isn’t pathetic, nor easily hurt! Mia Farrow just wasn’t better than John Cassavetes was. I stand by the fact they were equal.”

You let out a disbelieving laugh, your hand coming down on Neil’s knee to dig into him angrily. “Neil, I don’t expect you to understand her performance - I don’t think anyone does, not with that little cinephile brain you have. Do you do any thinking up there, or is it just The Treasure of the Sierra Madre on rewind?”

Neil flushed, both at the insults and how your hand was on his fucking leg. “What about you? What is it that makes you keep coming back here if you think my opinion is so… worthless and entitled?” 

You grit your teeth, leaning in closer to him. “Because, Neil, this is the only other video tape shop for miles, and I will not be caught dead at Media Giant. Trust me, I despise this - “arrangement” of ours, far more than you do.”

He huffed, his gaze trailing over your features, unable to come up with a response: he was too busy focussing, trying not to zero in on how your face was inches away from one his, your fingers oddly inching up his thigh. 

“Don’t go making this about me. Why is it,” your continued, hands traced dizzying circles into the fabric of his jeans, “that you don’t just kick me out? I come in here, day after day, berating you, ignoring your recommendations… shouldn’t I have been banned a long time ago?”

Neil gulped. “You’re still a - a customer, one who rents daily I might add—“

You smirked up at him. “Don’t lie to me. I know Gumshoe’s doing just fine… and I heard you, y’know? Last week… in your office.”

“What? What are you talking about?” He stammered out, racking his head for what he might’ve been doing in his office— fuck. 

Fuck, he thought, mind racing rapidly, he thought you had already left by the time he started— 

“I heard you, hiding in your office… stroking yourself, moaning my name.” 

You’d rented just one tape last Friday, for a movie date with a guy from work, and you almost left - before realizing Neil took your membership card and never gave it back. You waltzed back in, and to your obvious surprise, Neil wasn’t at the register. 

“Neil?” You called out softly, trying not to spark an argument with him that would span hours, because you were trying to show up to this date on time. 

You walked down the back hallway, and found his office door, which had a gleaming NEIL LEWIS printed on its foggy glass. 

Your hand had almost reached for the handle, his name on the tip of your tongue, when you heard a needy whine slip past the door. Shocked, you lingered and pulled your hand away, pressing your ear against the pane to listen closer. 

“God, fuck,” you heard Neil curse, his name slipping from your lips like a prayer. “Need you so bad,” you heard him whisper to no-one but himself, before a low moan belted out of him. 

Your face grew warm, immediately, flushed at the news that Neil-fuckin’-Lewis was jerking off, in his office, mumbling your name. You squeezed your eyes shut, continuing to listen to his pretty voice, and after several moments of your lust-riddled mind drinking in his sweet noises, how he was so focussed on his pleasure while completely oblivious to your listening in, you found one of your hands coming up to tweak your erect nipple — fuck, his stuttered little moans had your cunt pulsing with utter need.

Neil was getting close, you could tell, hearing him buck into - what you assumed - was his wooden desk, sloppily muffled mewls leaving his mouth. 

You were biting down on your lip, hard, an incredible amount of self control in place. The man was so horny, sounding so fucking submissive it drove you insane: just the thought that he’d bend to your will and do whatever you wanted made your legs clench.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending who you ask, you felt your phone begin buzzing in the waistband of your modesty shorts - probably the date you were late for - and you had quickly fled. 

“Oh, jesus,” Neil blurted out now, alarmed, immediately in the flight part of fight or flight. “I- whatever you heard, I can - I can explain, really, so please don’t—“

Your hand gripped his thigh, keeping him from getting up. “Hey, hey, shh,” you said, bringing a finger to your lips. “You don’t have to explain yourself. I know, just as well as you do, how bad you want me.”

Truly, Neil couldn’t control himself that night. You had walked in, wearing a delicious little dress with a sweetheart neckline, strolling around in 3-inch heels, cooing mockingly at his costume for that week’s theme — a criminal wearing nifty little handcuffs to promote the double feature promotion of crime films and dramas — purposely leaning down to make him feel smaller than you. 

Neil had flushed, looking away, willing himself not to let out a needy groan at your get-up, instead silently checking out your tape rentals and quickly handing them back to you. After you’d walked out of the store, he’d dashed to his office, feeling the tent in his pants grow warm, aching. 

Quite similarly to how he felt now, your eyes coursing over his entire form, so close Neil felt himself sinking into the couch. 

“Look how fucking hard you are already.” you whispered, hand drawing away from his thigh and reaching for the bulge in his jeans, palming him between the fabric. “Does it turn you on? The fact you got caught?”

Neil’s breath hitched. “Fuck, please, I—“ 

“You’re so pathetic.” You said, laughing at him. “I can feel how big you are, such a thick cock, and all you know how to do with it is beg.”

Your plush lips were curled into a cheshire grin, baring your sharp teeth at him, and Neil was ashamed at how badly he wanted those teeth to press painful bites into his sensitive skin. 

He was about to whine again, plead desperately, but he shut up when you slipped off the couch, sinking to your knees, fingers undoing his belt buckle and fly. Shifting his jeans down, you dipped your hand down the waistband of his boxers and pulled his cock out: it was angry, hard and begging for release. 

But you wanted to tease him before you got to the good part. First, your warm breath fanned over his cock, making him jump, trying to rut up into your mouth, and your soft lips slipping past his leaking head had his hands tugging at your hair, trying to pull you closer to him. 

You thinned your eyes and got up, hand pressing his cheeks together and forcing his jaw open. You spit into his mouth, then patronizingly patted his face, “Do that again and I won’t touch you - I’ll take my tapes and leave you a needy fucking mess on this couch.”

Neil groaned, your spit foreign and hot on his tongue like lava. “God, I… I just wanna — want you so bad.” 

You tutted, sinking back down on your knees to face his rock hard length up and pressed flat against his abdomen. “Not yet. You haven’t earned it, you desperate fucking pervert. D’you know who jerks off in their office to someone they barely know? Fucking perverts.”

He leaned his head back, a moan leaving his lips at your insulting choice of words. It felt like you were torturing him, but his body wanted nothing more than you. 

Your lips then ghosted past him for another moment before you started your assault on his strained cock: you laid tentative kitten licks all the way down his length, enjoying how he squirmed under you, wanting nothing more but your wet mouth around him. Then, without warning, you took him in your mouth whole, tongue dragging and curling around his cock. You devoured him salaciously, hollowing your cheeks, sliding his cock in and out of your full mouth at an alarming speed, hitting the back of your neck with each thrust. 

Your tongue felt heavenly on his cock: wet, warm, and sticky, lapping at him without stopping. Your teeth grazed against him lightly, and Neil’s back arched into your touch. 

He was practically convulsing now, drooling as his eyes rolled to the back of his head at the pure pleasure you were inflicting on him with no split second or moment for him to regain his composure. You wanted to see him fall apart, come undone just by your mouth, he realized, and he wanted to let you, wanted to let go — but, as fast as you’d taken his hard cock into your mouth, you let him drop from your lips. 

“Why did you - please, fuck -- why did you stop?!” Neil whimpered noisily, head rolling onto his chest to look down at your face: lips plump, faint tear tracks running off your cheeks, your gagged spit falling from your chin. 

“I oughta take you down a peg, Neil. Show you what a dumb fucking loser you are, pretending you’re so confident, so dominant, like you know everything there is about movies.” You responded nonchalantly, getting up and shedding your panties and leggings. 

“M’not dumb,” he whined, looking at you through heavy lidded eyes, “god, you’re killing me here.”

“You’ll live,” you grinned, climbing on his lap and lining your wet sex with the fat head of his cock. Then you descended down on him, watching blissfully as his cock disappeared into your folds.

Neil’s hands wrapped around your waist, burying his face into your neck. He mewled against your skin, drunk on your tantalizing scent, lips wet with drool and leaving a slick trail. 

Despite your dominance in this situation, completely controlling Neil’s pleasure, you couldn’t control your own: Neil’s cock felt fucking good, long and thick in all the right places, a curve that arched right against your cervix, veins rubbing against your walls pleasantly. He stretched your cunt completely, making you wince, but there was still pleasure there, the feeling of your crevices being filled with his fat cock making your toes curl. 

After a moment of getting used to his cock, you rose back up, then sunk down, your hands gripping his shoulders for dear life. Neil’s head shot back, a labored cry leaving him as you set a steady, almost too slow pace, torturously sliding his cock in and out of your tight hole. 

Your hands trailed across his still-clothed chest, and you grieved the chance lost to have stripped him, your touch teasing him every step of the way — but having him deep within you was probably better. 

“Your- fuck, you’re so -- so soft,” Neil squeaked below you, revelling in how you took him, bottoming out each time like it was nothing. 

You simpered at his words, how helpless he was, succumbing to the pleasure; to you. “Knew you were,” you slammed down on his cock, making Neil choke, “pretending to be arrogant. You just needed someone to put you in your place.” 

Neil hadn’t realized it wasn’t a rhetorical question until your hand came up to his hair, tangling through his locks and tugging. “Who d’you belong to? Who put you in your place?” you murmured lowly. 

He whimpered at your roughness, leaning into the sofa obediently. “You! You own me,” he pleaded, desperately chasing his own pleasure. 

“That’s it,” you said, shutting your eyes, bobbing up and down on his cock faster. Your ass bounced above him, and Neil’s hands rested on the flesh of your rear, massaging you. 

Greedily, Neil tried to thrust into you, but you weren’t having any of it, deterring his attempts by pushing him so he laid flat on the couch, your hands pinning his wrists above his head, the new position pushing him deeper into you. 

“You stay down, you dirty fuckin’ loser,” you said caustically, but your actions said otherwise: your walls were squeezing around him needily, your cunt sucking him in so far you could feel his balls brushing against your clit. 

The tip of his cock brushed past your g-spot each time you rutted into him, and soon enough you felt it: that pulsing, that heat, that familiar coiling within your insides. Neil was reaching it too, his face flushed pink and his breathing as heavy as it was back then, in the tape closet. 

You began thumping down on him, your fingers tightening around his scalp. Your pace had gotten feverish, bordering feral, both your minds focussed on one thing: release. You could feel your cunt tensing, your mind going foggy, and then, there it was: your pleasure ran through you like electric current, shocking your body. You felt numb, tingly like when the blood flow to your arm gets cut off for a moment, making your pace stutter. 

You didn’t stop, however, riding out your high on his cock, bouncing up and down on Neil’s thick length. He felt fucking delicious, piercing you in all the right ways, and you adored how malleable he was right now: so horny and submissive he stopped speaking and was merely letting dirty moans leave his mouth without any protest. His gaze, his focus, was elsewhere, lost in the deep haze of pleasure your cunt was subjecting him too. 

You leaned down, pressing small love-bites onto his skin like he’d fantasized so many times before, and it broke him out of his stupor. “Did you think of this, in your office?” you whispered, “did you think of me, my tits bouncing, your cock deep in my cunt?”

“Ugh,” Neil groaned, reveling in how your seductive voice sounded like music. He was much, much closer than he thought, and when you licked up his jaw, your hot breath on the shell of his ear making him sweat, your cunt still fucking him roughly, he let go. 

You felt it first, the familiar liquid bursting past his thick head and painting your fleshy walls creamy, like a new coat of alabaster that Gumshoe desperately needed. 

“So good, so wet,” Neil groaned, shutting his eyes and pressing his forehead to yours. You stared at him, watching his lewd expression throughout his entire high, waiting for that beautiful blue gaze of his to open and face you again. 

“I’m milking you dry. Look how fucking full you’ve made me, you filthy pervert.” You were taking him for every drop he could offer, and it was delectable. 

You two were heaving now, both coming down from your highs. You’d effectively ruined the couch, your slick soaking the cushions and his jeans, as well as his come, which was leaning out of your still-stuffed hole. 

“I think you’ve gotta replace this manky ass couch, Neil,” was the first thing you said, your hands sliding down from their grip in his hair to his pink cheeks, rubbing his skin delicately. 

His eyes opened, watching you carefully. “It was about time,” Neil shrugged breathlessly. “Do you… do you actually - hate me?” he continued, murmuring self-consciously. 

You laughed, but it wasn’t sharp, not at him like before, no; it was tender, like a scarf Neil wanted to wrap around him in the winter time.

“I never hated you,” you murmured, tone reverent, “you’re just a little, how does it go…”

“Presumptuous?” Neil finished for you. 

You nodded, then grasped at his shirt and pulled him from the couch so he was sitting upright again. “Jus’ wanted to, ahem, “take you down a peg” like I said earlier..” you trailed off, cheeks growing warm remembering your earlier behavior during sex. 

This was all very new, to the both of you — you, in all your relationships and flings, were not the dominant partner. You guessed there was a first time for everything.

Then, you were about to get off his lap, but Neil held you steady on his cock. “Don’t go,” he said simply. “I’ve got Brief Encounter in the player, if you want to, y’know…” 

He wasn’t hard anymore, but it just felt good, cozy, having you two talk and regain your composure with him filling you nicely. It felt right. 

You smiled, a gummy, blissful smile. “Okay. I’ve actually never seen this,” you said, turning to face the tv, wincing slightly. 

“Really?” Neil said, an amazed joy seeping into his voice. 

“I’m joking,” you snorted, and you could practically see Neil pouting behind you. “But I don’t think we’ll be paying much attention…” you purred, clenching your thighs around his length. 

“Jesus fuck,” Neil groaned behind you, hands coming under your shirt, “you’re exactly like those movies.”

“I’m even better, baby.” 

[farmerbebop]

The sun was shining too bright for me to be worrying about my deadline so I guess I'll use this rare occasion to make a pinned post.

When I started blorbo posting it was simply because "If even I, who knows next to nothing about British and American TV series, can see that Patrick McGoohan was criminally underrated, then maybe this blog has a reason to exist."

The only thing I ever learned about blorbo posting is from the Columbo fandom. They have fun, and they love their blorbo. As the kids say: Love and peace on planet earth.

But McGoohan is a challenge and will never stop being one. His public image, both in front and behind of the camera, isn't that of someone who would be pleased with blorbo posting. I don't know how other blorbo bloggers feel, but I just wish I can hold a conversation with my blorbo that doesn't bore him to death or anger him to the point of throwing me out of the room.

Judging someone who talked about his nervous breakdown like it was just a cold isn't something I like to do, especially online. So if I have to talk about McGoohan, I always get quite nervous. I can only say that I regret we didn't get to know him as much as we would like to and I really wish he was still here with us.

I know many of the decisions he made, he made it for future generations. It's my privilege to say that my blorbo's gift to the three-year-old running this blog has been her greatest pride as a blorbo blogger. And her hardest and most honourable task is not to mess it up.

I actually didn't create this blog to please McGoohan (the ladies can testify to that, lol). And I think I make fun of him more than I should. But I hope he knows that life as a blorbo blogger isn't easy when your blorbo is Patrick McGoohan and maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't be too hard on me.

And just in case anyone is wondering what the hell I'm doing on here, here's a short guide to my blog.

my stupid vid My McGoohan fancams are what I personally consider the funniest part of my blog. But they can be somewhat serious too, I think.

my lousy photoshopping This can mean just about anything. McGoohan as The Little Prince. McGoohan in Ingmar Bergman's films. Anything that I made with photoshop. So I have some more tags to categorize it.

mcgoohan at the museum What I love to do the most in photoshop is putting McGoohan into paintings. I don't know why. Maybe because it easily hides my lousy photoshopping skills. Or maybe because my blorbo is as beautiful as a painting.

mcgoohan album covers What can I say? “But you don't really care for music, do you?”

mcgoohan fashion Let's be honest, don't you love a beautiful blorbo?

mcgoohan posters I sometimes try not to misinterpret McGoohan's works, I don't know if I succeed though.

no context mcgoohan Mostly just McGoohan sitting or standing somewhere. But I love it nonetheless.

mcgoohan for kids and mcgoohan anime Well, it's exactly what you would expect it to be.

mcgoohan arthouse One day I'll retire from blorbo posting and go back to watching arthouse films.

mcgoohan stickers They are not as cute as cat or bunny stickers, but they stick all right.

the prisoner redux or anything redux means my lousy photoshopping for that particular series/movie. But when there are so many McGoohans in one post I get tired of tagging and I just give up.

I think that's enough of my lousy photoshopping.

wild mcgoohan in his natural habitat McGoohan as God intended him. Trying to not give away too much information in interviews.

mcgoohan lore McGoohan in someone else's words, including his daughter's. Needless to say, my words should not be trusted. You'll know them when you see them.

my gif McGoohan gifs, mostly for losing tumblr polls. Also for making this blog popular with the ladies on here.

village poetry If there's one thing that McGoohan might like about this blog, this is probably it.

village soundcloud Blorbos and song lyrics go hand in hand - Tumblr proverb.

mcgoogoo and me Just me rambling about my McGoohan dreams and my hard life as a blorbo blogger.

my lousy shitposting It has something to do with McGoohan I'm afraid. But it's fun.

I know this blog has become quite predictable and it's filled with half of my life's story. But if McGoohan was really who I think he was, that would be the least of his problems with my blog.

And finally, my hiatus is a running joke that I'm getting worse at, I hope.

[libbee]

Many people in one body.

🌸When you dont feel like you know who you are, it can be the loneliest feeling in your own body. AIR signs sun/moon/mercury/venus have this tendency to become a different person with different people. It does not have to be with an ulterior motive. It is just thst they are predisposed to adapt to the social cues.

🌸Water sign in 5th house can give a dreamlike and dissociative personality. You escape into a world of make believe. Sometimes it might feel like a compulsion. Without it, the life feels utterly dull and tiring.

🌸Incompatible placements in one chart aka air-water or earth-air combination is like universe's way of making your life harder than it needs to be. You spend your energy fighting with yourself and creating a stable self.

🌸Do you ever look back and wonder "who the hell was that person?" You recall having friends but you dont remember who you were, what value you offered them in friendship, why they chose you in their friend circle. That is just you shedding skin as an 8th house native. 8th house can make you twice born. You were born once from your mom's womb. You were born again when you built yourself up from ground up. Literal self development.

🌸7th house sun/moon/mercury is not really a social charmer placement, that would be 11th house. 7th house is one on one connections, especially romantic. It can make native be like relationship is the sole purpose of thier life. You were born to marry and work on your relationship. It can make you so dependent that you cannot even function when you are single. You need that other half to be there. It just feels like a team strength.

🌸People who think they are sure of themselves are the ones who are the most unsure. People in TV/video/pictures/screen appear to be flawless and confident. But the screen just eliminates their anxiety and rawness. Learn human skills from the people around you not the ones on TV or cinema. They exaggerate their expressions, rehearse their dialogue and everything is edited and filtered. Real life has flaws, spontaneity, anxiety, raw intimacy and to be able to think on your feet.

🌸In Persona by Ingmar Bergman, Alma is the talkative, expressive and soulful self while Elisabet has chosen to remain silent, running from her past and a cold person. "Her problems is that her notions dont match her life experiences". People are not one person all the time, at every moment of their life. People change. Personality changes. Personality happens to people. We do things we never imagined ourselves capable of doing. It is scary to think you can be an unpredictable beast and surprise yourself by what you end up doing. It is like you cannot even trust yourself. Two women battling their guilty conscience. Emotions they did not choose to feel. Stuck in existantial question of who they are and why they suffer. Are the two the same person? I am a different person in my head, i look different, act different, everything is much easier in the head and the two lives coexist together. I think that the person in my head is not really me, it is some other girl I am fascinated with at the moment. So in my head, I am who I think I will be if I was like that other girl, makes sense? Something in her hooks my lackings, whether it is her extraversion or ability to befriend people or social confidence or looks or a hobby that is not mine. I live through the girl in my head another life, with another life theme, another life story, another persona. When you are like that, how can you be one person in one body?

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

[elhnrt]

Actually to your point about feudal era japanese movies 👀 I started watching Rurouni Kenshin. It's not feudal but I love that period of transition. I did try to actually was Shogun but I was too busy to quite sink my teeth into it so it went back on the watchlist. Have you seen it and would you recommend it? The other films I know that are famous in the states are Kurosawa movies but I always feel a bit apprehensive since there's too many braindead filmbro takes on those... I want to watch them but I'm scared lol. A lot of my references actually come from Chinese period dramas because that is what is most easily accessible and familiar to me but I know it's not the same.

-no comment on rurouni kenshin. haven't read or watched it but i do know about the author's felonies. -i watched 4eps of shogun and it was fine. really liked the scene where the girl choked out the guy fucking her. could have used better lighting, but would recommend. -i'm going to put on MY filmbro hat (because sorry. i am a filmbro (sigma). comes with the territory) and say it's a bit of a reductive take to call the widespread enjoying of renowned director akira kurosawa's, inspiration to ingmar bergman and werner herzog and andrei tarkovsky, works as 'braindead filmbro takes' because 1. i guarantee you they are only talking about seven samurai, which isn't even his best film imo and 2. there is a reason why he is so highly regarded not only in the west but worldwide. it's the same kind of thing about people who call scorsese and kubrick enjoyers 'filmbros'. they are prolific because these directors are objectively good. the issue arises when people can't disseminate between what makes these movies good versus just flexing their film 'knowledge'. important to note. taxi driver is my favorite english language film. but not because travis bickle is my idol about rising up against the quote unquote scum of society. -but i am having a laugh to myself imagining average film guy going "EPIC SAMURAI MOVIE" and not being able to talk about the other two and a half hours of the runtime let alone any other kurosawa work -therefore: why be scared of these wieners -cn period dramas are great fun, not something i can comment on in particular since it's mostly a passing fancy to me, and most of my cn period stuff is just kung fu movies but these all, like you said, are not the same at all as the tokugawa shogunate or sengoku period. probably different fighting styles too. now i'm in a wiki rabbit hole about this. dog bless

[winxwiki]

Iginio Straffi Interview “With my fairies I challenge Disney” by Silvia Brena, translated from Io Donna (10/09/2005)

originally transcribed by Iku, translated by me

Straffi talks about inspirations, his wife, Rainbow's workflow in 2005, their lack of unions and more!

If Winx doesn't ring a bell, it's because you don't have any female daughters. And if you don't know Iginio Straffi from Macerata, don't miss the seven reasons (and the moral) for the success of this 40-year-old creative. Who by staying in the province and marrying a cosmopolitan manager has gone global. “Mr. Rainbow, how does it feel to be one of Disney's most hated people?” Mr. Rainbow, born Iginio Straffi, age 40, from Macerata, does not answer. “You don't feel anything at all?” “I would rather people didn't think badly.” “Tell the truth.” "All right, I feel a certain pride in having annoyed a titan. It's inspiring."

[...]

Sivia Brena: So, Mr. Straffi, who inspired you? Iginio Straffi: “Chatwin, Simenon, Sergio Leone, Ingmar Bergman, movies like Blade Runner. Do I go on?" No, stop. And let's start again. In search of the real reasons and rules behind a phenomenon. [Reason No. 1-the metabolism of speed.] IS: “The first person to diagnose it was my pediatrician. He told my mother, 'Ma'am, your son is healthy, but he has a problem: he goes at 1,000 rpm and never relaxes.'"

SB: Number of emails received per day? IS: “Approximately 200, all ‘processed.’ I attack in the morning with Japan and stop at night with the US. In between, every day is Germany, Singapore and China." SB: Yes, but many are answering e-mails all day long and have not become cartoon kings.... IS: “You want a reason? then I'll give you three. 1) We control the intellectual property of our products: that is, we own our ideas. 2) In order to defend our product, that is, our ideas, we turned them into licensing, this has granted us the rights to all our assets. 3) People working with us come from all over the world. Yes, we have been fast." [Moral: Don't drop your ideas left and right. Protect them, they are better than privacy."]

[Reason #2 - Joanne. That is, what does a tenacious woman do next to a tenacious man]. SB: Yeah, what does she do with him? IS: “She gets married. We did it at the beginning of June. She is my right hand, my support, even moral support. She was the one who opened the markets of Asia for us, who bet with me on the development of licensing."

SB: Nice statement. IS: “It is the truth. My greatest joy is in the evening, at home, summarizing the day together." SB: But aren't you a bit symbiotic? IS: “On the contrary. It's cathartic to be able to be angry or happy as a couple over a success." SB: Never a disagreement, a difference of views? After all, you dragged a cosmopolitan manager from Singapore, who studied marketing at the prestigious Madison college in Wisconsin, deep into the Italic province. IS: “Diversity of views yes, of course. She has an Eastern approach. And American. For her, hierarchy is sacred. For me it is not. She thinks a well-liked leader is not doing his job well. I love consensus."

SB: When don't you see each other? IS: “We write to each other. Emails have been to us what letters used to be. They have kept the relationship alive." [Moral: Find yourself a partner in crime and hard worker. It also helps to save a paycheck."] [Reason #3 - Trust. and shame.] SB: Who believed in you? IS: “The president of Rainbow, Don Lamberto Pigini, an over-80-year-old priest who had a printing business. With him we laid the first brick." SB: Then? IS: “Joanne.” SB: As expected. IS: “And then I work in an atmosphere of trust, it's beneficial. And do you know why? Because I'm not equipped to disappoint. Those who work for me know that." SB: Explain yourself further. Does it have to do with the shame one feels in the face of failure? IS: “It has to do with my mother, who used to repeat to me, ‘Don't shame me, don't make me look bad.’” [Moral: Re-evaluate moms; they're still needed.] [Reason #4 - The team.] SB: How much work is done in your company? IS: “A lot, but hopefully with pleasure.” SB: Is there a union? IS: “No.” SB: No because you don't need it or no because you don't want it? IS: “With us, the key word is passion. No one here is a cog. We are an 'ad personam' company." SB: Boom. IS: “That's how it is. Because everyone sees that their ideas can live. And you work together. Each series, which is developed in six to seven months, has a team of ten designers dedicated to it." SB: Do you yell with your guys? Any mistreating? IS: “I confront. I tend to explain. And I can change my mind after a chat with a collaborator." SB: Do you explain your decisions? IS: “Always. Reason for disagreements with Joanne. She argues that a decision of mine should not be confronted with the opinions of collaborators. But by character I need consensus." [Moral: Aim for the creative philosophy of consensus, helps.] [Reason #5 - Don't give up.] IS: “We went through very hard times. The beginnings, the clash with Disney who accused us of copying their Witch. But then we won, partly because we started thinking about Winx in 2000, with Rai. Witch, the comic book, came out in May 2001." SB: Did you ever feel like quitting? IS: “I didn't mostly because of the guys who work with me.” [Moral: Don't work for yourself alone; be responsible.] [Reason #6 - The creative process.] SB: How does a good idea come about? IS: “I'll tell you how Winx was born. I first got the idea from watching the Japanese Sailor Moon, the story of five little fairies..." SB: You copied! IS: “I was inspired. The creative process comes to life by processing the already seen." SB: I mean, nobody invents anything. IS: “The basic elements of narratives are always the same, the skill is in remixing them. Look at the Japanese: they did Pokémon, then Digimon, then Dragonball." (TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Iginio probably refers to the italian airing of each show, NOT the japanese airing. We all know Dragon Ball came first, but it aired in 1999-2001 in Italy and then reran every year) SB: A master, a mentor of yours? IS: “Rodolfo Torti and Sergio Bonelli, two greats in the world of comics.” SB: Specifically, what do you do: do you sit down with a pencil in your mouth? IS: “The gestation is very long. It can last even years. I only write when inspiration comes to me." [Moral: Don't get anxious]. [Reason #7 - The Roots.] SB: Let's talk about Loreto. Strange location for a company with a global reach. IS: “We were born here.” SB: Yes, but people migrate. IS: “There's no reason for that. We live better here. We go to the beach on our lunch break. And in the middle of the green you work better." SB: Yes, but you are out of any trade route. IS: “We have e-mails, cell phones, faxes. From a business point of view, yes maybe Milan would be better. But we make it from here as well."

SB: How? IS: “We take young designers from schools like Urbino and train them internally. We hire people from all over the world, there are many foreigners, especially in marketing. They love living and working in the Marche region." SB: But do you feel like a provincial? IS: “Yes, I think so.” SB: Define provincial. IS: “When I can, I like to go to my parents for lunch on Sundays. It's a ritual, it makes me feel good." [Moral: Don't look for Zen and the art of better living in distant philosophies, go back to your own home].

[power-chords]

In the arts we learn about process, about the underlying feeling state, about symbolic thought. Creative process may be applied to all areas of study and knowledge. A single image or a momentary suspension of time may be the key that unlocks a lifetime of questioning. Noble laureate Gerald Edelman, during an airport delay, sketched out an entire theory of memory formation based on a lifetime of work in immunology. Just as the artist gives credence to a recurring image, or a language phrase, or a line of music, so for the filmmaker, as Ingmar Bergman once described it, a year-long recurring image of four women in a room whose walls were red, became the basis for his masterwork, Cries and Whispers.

Artists and scientists can privilege attentiveness to images or ideas transposed from one field to another, for example, investigating the display of the unconscious in dreaming. A wonderful illustration of this is chemist F. A. Kekule's struggle to discover the structure of benzene. Prior to his discovery, molecular structures were conceived as linear. He dreamed of forms turning like serpents until one "seized its own tail" and he suddenly visualized the benzene ring, a hexagonal structure.

For years I have kept the elements of my life apart, as one holds apart two walls. It has been written that when two walls collapse, as they are falling they form a bridge. May this collection be such a bridge. Science, poetry, religion, and language, companions, our earth, the ancient and the immediate, the known and what is unknowable—all talking at once in these pages. And may those who overhear this conversation feel themselves to be included.

—Myra Sklarew, excerpted from the preface of Over the Rooftops of Time: Jewish Stories, Essays, Poems, 2003

[documentary-surrealist]

“As I see it, I think celebrities suck.” -- Eddie Vedder -------------------

you know the saying "you should never meet your heroes"? it's especially relevant in today's celebrity climate, where a shrewd public persona is placed at much higher value than talent. sadly, the work can no longer speak for itself. but, just remember, there are many celebrities (just like regular people) that don't practice what they preach. the main difference between us & them, though, is that they make quite a nice living at being hypocrites. if it turns out they're eventually outed as incorrigible ogres - don't despair. you definitely have permission to hate the artist, but still selfishly consume (as much as you can bear, of course, before throwing up) their art. you shouldn't have to engage in daily flagellation for simply not incinerating their signed dvd's, signed books, signed photos, etc. you can still be a fan of the WORK. just DON'T spend as much money on them anymore. on my tumblr - i have posted screenshots, quotes, poems, etc., from some baffling dipshits the likes of woody allen, ingmar bergman, alfred hitchcock, anne sexton, ted hughes, james franco (and, also, from a great number of unconfirmed asswipes, too). i do this because i think they're either talented, eye candy, hot, interesting.... or i just do it for purely schematic (& degradative) reasons - like acquiring a specific piece of shitty furniture that perfectly blends in with the constantly morphing color palette of my blog. afterall, my tumblr is all about contrast & texture.👑 i do wanna make clear that i'm not actually implying that these celebrities are aesthetic pieces of meat, but i'm also not not implying that either. regarding my feelings about the recent neil gaiman accusations - please see above. i will make it totally clear that i haven't read anything by gaiman, but purely judging by the film "coraline" & the entire 1st seasons of "the sandman" & "good omens", i find him quite bland & lacking a requisite wildness. on top of that, i have observed him here on tumblr being glib & patronizing to his fans, which did leave a bad taste in my mouth. i am pretty sure i won't be seeking out any writing by mr. neil gaiman.😔

[where-did-the-groove-go]

Boulder show report: Sparksblr Edition

Pre-show shenanigans... I bought The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman at the record shop that was a few blocks away from the venue. My mom was actually cool and helped me recreate the day's tour photo. Conversation topics with my neighbors while waiting for the show to start included complimenting everyone's black-and-red outfits and shoes, the gal to my right showing the photo she took of Ron and Russell at the airport earlier, and the gal to my left telling us she'd kept a few sequins from Russell's green suit that she collected off the stage after a show in the 80s.

Russell came on in his black-on-red jacket, so I was matching with him, yay! So May We Start received a tremendous reaction and had Ron smiling. I did the fist pump in unison with Russell during the beat drop in The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte, and I think Ron noticed because I swear he looked straight at me afterwards. Russell had added "the good news is, it's never too late to change" to his speech preceding It Doesn't Have To Be That Way since the last time I'd seen it, and while it still didn't hit me as hard as in Manchester, I was choked up. I was probably the sole person in the audience giving them a standing ovation afterwards, but it doesn't matter--that's how much that song means to me.

My neighbor gave me a look like "wut??" but stood up so that I wasn't the only one dancing during Balls, and Russell's shirt had gone from fully-buttoned to all the way halfway open by the time I noticed. Shopping Mall Of Love had one of the best responses I've ever heard; there were cheers after every single one of Ron's lines all the way to the end of the song. I'm pretty sure Russell held eye contact with me during the final "one fleeting glance" in Escalator, I nearly died, and it was extremely fitting since it was the only time it happened, whereas it seemed like Ron was looking my direction every other time I looked at him :3

Eli was totally working the Bon Voyage solo, unfortunately that was the only moment I noticed from him because Ron was mostly blocking him from my vantage point, not to mention it's impossible to ignore Russell when he's bouncing mere yards away from your face (the front row was knees-to-the-stage so even though I was in the second row I was still VERY close). There was a really sweet moment where Russell smiled at Ron during The No. 1 Song In Heaven when he wasn't looking. Ron was pulling silly faces during his shuffle, and this time there was absolutely no mistaking it, he stared me dead in the eye during the last few seconds of it, and I flashed him a hand heart when he sat back down.

Ron rubbed his hands together like a gleeful cartoon villain before he started My Baby's Taking Me Home. Russell introduced the backing band and cheerfully said "I think that's everybody", then just waited for the crowd's reaction before saying "Oh yeah... Mr. Ron Mael" to huge cheers, and then Ron actually reached out and grabbed the mic away from Russ to introduce his brother. Russell spoke before All That, saying it was a song that was "really apt for how we all feel about all of you guys, and especially on a night like tonight", and it nearly made me cry.

They basked in the final applause for a bit, and Russell gave a cute little gesture like "aw shucks". I climbed over into the front row, waving a card that I'd made for them, but I'm not sure that Russell noticed since he didn't take it from me (and he started giving out handshakes too far over to my right so I didn't get one, sad). So I did what a girl's gotta do, after the band had left I pulled a Fairfield Halls and hopped up onto the stage, and managed to put my card on Ron's keyboard before I got kicked off. I really hope they got it...

--

I'm not exaggerating when I say that Sparks have entirely changed my outlook on life. I don't know what or when, but I know that things are going to be drastically different for me sometime soon. This album and this tour have really solidified that. It's not even a choice anymore.

I'm in a void somewhere between euphoria and despair now, still on a high from my shows but the post-tour blues have kicked in. I know I'll never be able to cling to these memories as strongly as I'd like. I've been crying from emotions I can't even name. I'm so so so grateful for getting to take part in all of this, and forever thankful that the Maels have had such an unwavering commitment to Sparks and that they're still doing what they love.

[cressida-jayoungr]

Responses for the movie ask game

@eternallycaramelized asked for #14 and #16:

14. Who is your favorite director? Why?

Ooh, tough choice, but I think I'm going to have to go with Alfred Hitchcock. He's the director for whom the greatest percentage of his movies have given me the most consistent pleasure over the greatest amount of time, as I've enjoyed his work since I was a teen.

Honorable mentions go to Vincente Minelli (always a feast for the eyes), Ingmar Bergman (I went through an intense period with him in college) and Ernst Lubitsch (a more recent discovery and I still haven't seen all his work). And I'm only omitting Hayao Miyazaki because I feel like "director" isn't quite the right term for what he does.

16. How do you feel about talking during movies being watched at home?

I enjoy being able to discuss and/or MSTie the movie while it's happening, but if I'm watching with someone else who prefers to absorb it in silence, I'll respect their wishes.

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Frances Dee (Becky Sharpe, Little Women)—no propaganda submitted

Ingrid Bergman (Gaslight, Casablanca, Notorious)—Where do I even begin with Ingrid Bergman? I fell in love with her with her astounding performance in the 1956 version of Anastasia -- the best Anastasia movie in large part due to her wonderful and touching performance. She's got this amazing, fascinating intensity to her in whatever role she's in. She commits 100%, and she's got this light in whatever she's in that's stunning. She's utterly convincing no matter what she plays, from an amnesiac possible lost princess, from a nun, from a woman taking her revenge on the town that wronged her, to light romantic comedy. She's never missed in any role I've seen her in! Also she became quite the MILF.

This is round 1 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Frances Dee:

Ingrid Bergman:

God, she's fantastic. She's both beautiful and a compelling actor who's more than capable of putting the whole movie on her shoulders if necessary. It's worth noting that while her beauty is conventional, she was seen as refreshingly "natural" with more eyebrows and less makeup than many other leading ladies of the time. She's well known for her role in Casablanca, but in Notorious, Spellbound, (both available on archive.org ) and Gaslight (1944) she shows how immensely capable she is. [editor's note: I've seen all of these movies and I think they're fine, but it's been a minute, so I can't thoroughly tag for trigger warnings or officially "recommend"—as always, go forth with caution when a movie is mentioned in a propaganda submission, and don't take a mention as an official recommendation of this blog.]

I mean...she's Ingrid Bergman. I feel like that should be enough, you know? She's physically beautiful (her eyes!) but watching her is like a transcendent experience. Her voice, her expressions... beautiful woman, beautiful actor.

I'm a gay man but even I understand her appeal. I'll watch any movie she shows up in. Gorgeous woman.

Just try and watch her movies without sighing wistfully, then get back to me!

Choosing 1-3 movies where Bergman was at her hottest was agony because, of course, she was always at her hottest. Not just because she was beautiful but because she was absolutely willing to go up against the bs women in Hollywood were constantly dealing with. When exiled from Hollywood for having an affair with Roberto Rossellini, not only did she refuse to apologize at any point, but she went on to say that Hollywood's films had grown stagnant and boring to her. Though she said she appreciated her time working there, she wanted to try new, different techniques (hence starring in Italian neorealist films, working on stage, and acting under directors like Ingmar Bergman). She was not afraid to chase after her artistic ideals and go outside the box regardless of what society had to say about it. From her first movie to her last she killed it. There's so much more to say about Bergman's career and life, but I've already written five million words so I'll stop at that.

One of the most incredible actors I've ever seen on film. Her facial expressions are so intricate and poignant that I cannot look away. I'm either ace or straight, but damn she made me question that.

SEVEN TIME OSCAR NOMINEE QUEEN. Girl also PULLED, having affairs with famously hot men Gary Cooper and Gregory Peck IN ADDITION to her three marriages...sexy

She has a very natural beauty to her, and she's from Sweden!

She left Hollywood and only became more beautiful. You could drown in her eyes. She can look innocent AND like she's seen it all. She is effortlessly elegant. She's played Joan of Arc (automatically hot) AND was in the movie that coined gaslight as a term. And where would we be without that!

She was known for being a breath of fresh air on the movie scene at the time with her windswept hair, dreamy smile and soulful eyes. I have loved her in every movie I have seen her in - she was just magnetic!

Where do I even start. There's a neighborly quality to this beautiful, talented actress that makes her hotness one of a kind and her looks impossible to forget

With a career spanning five decades, Bergman is often regarded as one of the most influential screen figures in cinematic history. Known for her naturally luminous beauty, Bergman spoke five languages – Swedish, English, German, Italian and French – and acted in each.

She's hot, don't get me wrong, but I've always found her very approachable, like she could easily be a member of my friend group

A lot of the time hotness in a movie is just about words and framing. "You're the most beautiful person here" [vaseline lens] well I sure hope so because that's who you cast. But when, in Casablanca, they call Ingrid Bergman the most beautiful woman in the world... they were not fucking lying. And such a dynamite actor too!! I'd only seen Casablanca up until last year, and there she's confined to love interest. But in Gaslight she was maybe one of the most incredible actors I've ever seen!!!! Goddddd shes so fucking hot and cool.

[disappointingyet]

These are my favourite films released in the UK in 2022 – as far as I can tell (it’s getting increasingly hard to work out what snuck out when. Taken as a whole, the list looks a bit Nordic, a bit gloomy, short on action. I’ve put together a round-up of some of the other movies I saw this year, including the critics’ favourite and at least one notorious turkey. And, as ever, there was a lot I didn’t see, because I didn’t get around to it or because I didn’t want to. Specifically, I should mention Top Gun: Maverick, which by most accounts is an excellent piece of film-making – but going to watch a sequel to a film I found excruciatingly dull and full of unappealing characters seemed kind of perverse. And The Banshees of Inisherin:  Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is unforgivable racist trash, I didn’t like In Bruges (or his brother’s film Calvary for that matter), so I’m not willing to give Camberwell’s Martin McDonagh another chance.

Anyway, on to the list (and do let me know what you think I might have enjoyed but missed).

1. Licorice Pizza 

Paul Thomas Anderson in fun mode, telling the story of an entrepreneurial teen in early 1970s LA. It’s beautifully specific, and rather than making cheap and obvious jokes  based on stereotypes of the era, it builds punchlines from history. Contains (words I never anticipated writing) a cameo from Bradley Cooper that’s just gobsmacking.

Full review here

2. Hytti nro 6 (Compartment No6)

This is a Finnish train movie set in super-bleak post-Soviet Russia. So yes, you will feel cold and uncomfortable just watching it. Our mismatched travellers are a Finnish mature student exiting a relationship with a Moscow-based academic and a young Russian miner. The question, of course, is how these two will find common ground, but this film – with moments of sharp humour and excellent observation – avoids the obvious and earns your time and patience.

Full review here

3. Verdens Verste Menneske (The Worst Person In The World)

I remain baffled by the title, which does come from a line in the film, but sets off all sorts of false expectations. The central character is no monster (nor, despite what one of the other leads tells her, a particular good person), just a typical contemporary female lead, struggling to find something fulfilling to do as her twenties and early thirties drift past her while dealing with the inadequacy of men, whether as relatives or partners. This is told in 14 sharply written chapters. In particular, the one in which two strangers at a party play at testing what they can do without technically cheating on their partners is great film-making. One quibble and a question: the film sympathises a bit too much with the I’m-just-saying-it-as-I-see-it comix writer dude, and can a bookshop assistant and a barista really afford a flat like that in central Oslo?

(MUBI)

4. White Noise

Middle-aged angst, teen angst, fear-of-the-apocalypse angst, married angst, it’s-the’80s angst, American consumer angst, academic rivalry angst… all these angsts and more are explored in Noah Baumbach’s dark comedy, adapted from a novel by Don DeLillo. Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig play the couple who know that in many ways they should be happy, but of course that just amplifies their misery. Baumbach does a fine job of recreating the 1980s and manages several switches in scale that could have easily tipped the film off balance. Make sure you stay for the closing credit sequence, which is great although it does make hard to actually read who the key grip or the catering company were. 

(Netflix)

5. Bergman Island 

A filmmaking couple go to Ingmar Bergman’s old stomping ground to get some writing done. All does not go smoothly. Much less heavy-going than that makes it sound, and at least as reminiscent of Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy as it is of Bergman. I found it captivating.

Full review here

(MUBI)

6. Emily The Criminal 

Pleasingly spare, low-budget gig economy and scam economy LA thriller that makes superior use of Audrey Plaza's particular screen presence and vibe. Firmly recommended.

Full review here

7. Les Olympiades, Paris 13e (Paris 13th District)

Shot in very lovely black & white, this is essentially a sweet comedy-drama about the romantic misadventures of a trio of young(ish) Parisians, although it was marketed as something a bit edgier than it really is. Director Jacques Audiard is best known for male-centric crime movies, but maybe the co-writing credit for Céline Sciamma (Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, Petite Maman) gives a better steer on what this is like. 

(MUBI)

8. Madres Paralelas 

I’ve been mostly underwhelmed by Almodóvar’s recent run of what could be called anti-melodramas: stories of wild coincidences and personal tragedies told in numb, mostly humour-free fashion. Madres Paralelas worked better for me: he makes an odd choice of framing the central narrative with a very different one involving the same characters. It’s jarring, but I think it ultimately makes its own kind of sense.

Full review here 

9/10. Bodies Bodies Bodies/Triangle Of Sadness

I wasn’t expecting to be repeatedly reminded in 2022 of Very Bad Things, a (not very good) 1998 comedy starring Christian Slater and Cameron Diaz that’s like The Hangover only with a high body count. These films are both vastly superior to VBT, but echo its rapidly escalating nastiness. Both involve the privileged classes placed in situations of extreme discomfort, although the politics of Triangle Of Sadness are more explicit and (it feels) more central to the film than those of Bodies Bodies Bodies.

In BBB, a bunch of twentysomethings gather in big, isolated house just as a storm is approaching. They start playing bodies bodies bodies (known in my time as murder in the dark), only… well, you can guess. There’s a strong 1990s vibe to this, especially the way the movie seems to feel about its characters, while being very 2020s in its casting, the sex lives of the characters and the woman worried her podcast (‘a podcast takes a lot of work!’) isn’t getting any respect from her friends. I really enjoyed this.

If you have seen Ruben Østlund’s Force Majeure or The Square, you’ll know to expect fairly broad satire and the lives of the pampered going very wrong in Triangle Of Sadness. (If you haven’t seen any of them, start with Force Majeure, which is the best of the trio.) TOS ups the stakes on Force Majeure’s ski resort by putting its characters on a luxury yacht. There’s a deceptively low-key beginning in which we’re introduced to Yaya (the late Charlbi Dean) and Carl (Harris Dickinson), models in a relationship driven - at least for her - by the potential for Instagram influencer synergy. The intensity builds when they bag a free holiday on the yacht, where Østlund attempts to outdo The Square’s much-discussed party scene. At which point, it’s fair to say that as much as Jean Luc Godard’s Week End and assorted Buñuel films, this is indebted to American gross-out movies. Subtle this film is not, but if you have a strong stomach and a taste for comedy that’s grotesque and openly political, this is a blast.

11. Competencia Oficial (Official Competition)

Take the title of the movie itself plus that of the film-within-the-film – Rivalry – and you’ve got the theme of this Spanish comedy. An aging billionaire decides to fund a potentially prize-winning film in an attempt to cement his legacy. He’s advised to hire the talented-but-eccentric Lola (Penelope Cruz) to direct and she casts a very serious theatrical type (Oscar Martinez) and a mainstream movie star who has houses in LA and St Tropez (Antonio Banderas).  The two actors, inevitably, clash over their contrasting lifestyles and approaches to their craft, with Lola’s interventions pushing up the tension. The film is essentially a three-hander, as the trio rehearse the film in the vast, empty, marble spaces of the rich dude’s foundation. 

It stays more on the leash than I was expecting – there are multiple opportunities for things to get unhinged that the film doesn’t take (or mostly). I did properly laugh a fair number of times, and with Almodóvar seemingly sworn off comedies for good, this does a decent job of filling that void.

[byneddiedingo]

Max von Sydow, Harriet Andersson, and Gunnar Björnstrand in Through a Glass Darkly (Ingmar Bergman, 1961)

Cast: Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand, Max von Sydow, Lars Passgård. Screenplay: Ingmar Bergman. Cinematography: Sven Nykvist. Production design: P.A. Lundgren. Film editing: Ulla Ryghe. Music: Erik Nordgren. 

Ingmar Bergman's Through a Glass Darkly is usually grouped with his films Winter Light (1963) and The Silence (1963) as a kind of trilogy about the search for God, though Bergman denied having any intent to make a trilogy. It remains one of his most critically praised films, winning an Oscar for best foreign language film and receiving a nomination for Bergman's screenplay. But there are many, like me, who find it talky and stagy, despite Sven Nykist's beautiful cinematography and the effective use of location shooting on the island of Fårö in the Baltic. Some of the staginess, I think, comes from the casting of such familiar members of Bergman's virtual stock company as Harriet Andersson, Max von Sydow, and Gunnar Björnstrand. Andersson plays Karin, a woman just out of a mental hospital where she has recovered from a recent bout with what seems to be schizophrenia. She is married to Martin (von Sydow) and they have come to stay on the island with her father, David (Björnstrand), and her younger brother, Minus (Lars Passgård). David is distracted by his attempt to finish a novel, and both of his children rather resent his preoccupation. Martin confides in David that although Karin seems to have recovered, the doctors say that her illness is incurable -- a revelation that David records in his diary. Of course, Karin reads the diary, which precipitates a crisis, during which, among other things, she seduces her own brother. At the climax of the film, Karin has a vision of God as a giant spider that attempts to rape her. After she and Martin are taken away to the hospital, David has a moment alone with Minus, whom he assures that God and love are the same thing, and that their love for Karin will help her. Minus seems consoled by this thought, but perhaps even more by the fact that he has actually had a connection with his father: "Papa spoke to me" are the last words of the film. This resolution of the film's torments feels pat and theatrical and even upbeat, which may be why Bergman went on to make the much darker films about religious faith that constitute the rest of the trilogy. But it also suggests to me why I find Bergman's films so much less satisfying than those of Robert Bresson and Carl Theodor Dreyer, both of whom wrangled with God and faith in their films. Bresson and Dreyer liked to use unknown actors, and some of the familiarity we have with Bergman's players from other films distances us from the characters. We watch them acting, not being. When Bresson is dealing directly with religious faith in a film like Diary of a Country Priest (1951) or Dreyer is telling a story about a literal resurrection in Ordet (1955), we are forced to confront our own beliefs or absence of them. Bergman simply presents faith as a dramatic problem for his characters to work out, whereas Bresson and Dreyer drag us into the messy actuality of their characters' lives.

[motownfiction]

caught up in a summer shower

cw: this vignette features an ever-so-slightly explicit sexual encounter between two consenting adults, aged 26 and 33. by normal human adult standards, it is laughably tame, but because it is different than most of the sexually charged material on this blog, all of that stuff is under a cut.

Emma sits on her bed, watching the hot July rain outside her window. Anything to keep from feeling. Unfortunately, it seems impossible to erase all feelings when it comes to Paul. It’s like she doesn’t even think about him anymore. Just feels about him. Especially after this morning. This morning, which she hopes she won’t come to regret.

They woke up in bed together, and Paul was–as always–too stressed about his work. The department let him pick up a summer section of Introduction to Film Studies, a rare thing for a doctoral student, and his students are … apathetic. Last week, they watched Yojimbo, and half the kids had the nerve to call it boring. He’s been distressed ever since.

“I’m not boring,” Paul said. “They’re boring.”

“They aren’t calling you boring,” Emma said. “They’re calling Kurosawa boring.”

“You think they know the difference? Paul picks the movies. Paul picks Kurosawa. Kids think Kurosawa is boring. Ergo, Paul is boring. It’s Introduction to Philosophy.”

“Which they’re also not paying attention in.”

Paul sighed.

“I just don’t want them to look at me like I’m Death,” he said. “The Ingmar Bergman version.”

“They could never think of you that way. Ingmar Bergman is boring.”

Paul rolled his eyes.

“You’re hilarious,” he said. “Is that why I keep you around?”

“Well, that, and I swallow.”

He laughed, climbed back onto the bed, and kissed her.

“You’re terrific,” he said.

“So are you,” Emma said. “Paul?”

“Emma.”

“I love you.”

Paul froze. Backed away. Turned bright pink. And left Emma’s apartment as soon as he could find his keys.

She’s not really sure what to do with that. Did they break up? No, they couldn’t have broken up. Paul doesn’t like confrontation, but he’s not an asshole. She knew telling him she loved him, in particular, would be a risk, anyway. He’s a lovely guy, but he has no romantic experience. A few makeouts, a few hookups, but no serious romance to his name. He just never figured he had time. If he wanted to be the best he could, then he needed to work around the clock. Sometimes, Emma thinks the only reason they’re together is because they work in the same field, in the same department, at the same time. It’s easy to build a schedule around her.

And in a way, she can relate. She knows that the biggest reason boys didn’t like her in high school (and college) was because she was focused. She had a goal. Even if they wanted to flirt with her, they weren’t part of the plan. But when she liked someone … when she wanted to make out, fuck, something … she made time for it. Paul’s never been like that. Romance, sex … it’s all blurry for him. He’s focused, too.

She’s resting her head against the window, listening to “Rain on the Roof,” and her phone rings. She jumps. Paul. Should she answer? Why even ask?

“Paul?”

“Hey,” he says. “I’m outside. It’s really wet out here. Can you buzz me up?”

Emma’s heart tightens. Maybe he’s here to break up with her. Let her down easy. Love might be good enough for her, but it’s not good enough for him. It’s a distraction, and he just can’t afford that on his way to a tenure-track job. For that matter, she shouldn’t focus on love, either. Doesn’t she have the same goal? Isn’t that what brought them together? Isn’t that what they should have known would tear them apart?

She realizes she’s putting words in Paul’s mouth as she buzzes him up. Seconds later, he’s in her living room, dripping rain water on the wooden floors, eyes wide and terrified behind blue frames. His mouth is all bunched up in one corner. Is he shaking?

“Look,” she starts, but he doesn’t let her finish–not yet, and not this way.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Emma snorts.

“Of course you are,” she says. “You know, I should have known. You play with Legos. You know who else played with Legos? My tenth-grade crush. I told him I was really into him, and he apologized. You’re all the same.”

“Emma, no, that’s … I’m sorry I freaked out. And I’m sorry I didn’t say it back.”

Emma frowns, but she’s not unwilling to hear him out.

“I’m listening.”

“Look, you know this is new for me. I know it’s less new for you, but for me … you’re the first woman I’ve ever … I never thought I could slow down before. And I guess now I know I can’t.”

The tears prick her eyes, and before long, they’re falling. But Paul rushes up to her, embraces her. He fucked up again.

“I need to get better at these speeches,” he says.

“What the fuck are you trying to say?” Emma asks.

“I’m trying to say that I always thought romance meant slowing down for someone. And maybe that would have been the case if I’d … with somebody else. But not with you. You know what this is like. And with you … I work better. I’m smarter. I’m … I’m with you, and I’m faster. I don’t know how that happened, but I’m so … happy … that it did.”

Emma tries not to grin.

“And I want to be with you,” Paul continues. “For as long as you want me. I’m here until you get tired of me.”

“What if you get tired of me first?”

“Won’t happen.”

She’s waiting. He can tell.

“I’m not … I don’t know if I can say that yet,” he says. “It’s not you. It’s … I have a hard time with saying it in general. Even to my family, and I … you know.”

“I do.”

“But can you … can you say it again?”

Emma bites her lip and slowly inches toward Paul. Maybe in another life, she would have thought he didn’t deserve this. But there’s a hot July rain outside, this man’s white undershirt has turned clear as it clings to his thick chest hair, and she thinks she might die if she doesn’t feel him inside her in the next ten minutes.

She wraps herself around him, kisses him like he’s made out of hard candy, and whispers.

“I love you.”

She kisses down his shoulders, his chest, his stomach … before she stops. She feels how desperate he is, how eager. It makes her giggle.

“There you are,” she says. “Can I let you out?”

“Not yet,” he says, voice thick and hoarse. “I want you first.”

He pulls her over to the couch, lies her on her back, and helps her out of her little shorts. He knows what to do by now. It’s like he’s speaking right into her. She runs her hands through his reddish hair and pulls him close. Maybe none of these strokes spell out I and love and you, but she knows that’s what he means.

“I love you,” she says.

“Because I’m doing exactly what you want?” he asks, head still between her thighs.

“Because I do.”

Clearly, it’s a satisfactory answer, because he’s doing it even better. When she sighs, it’s not forced, not performative, not like she’s trying to get it over with like she has with other guys. This is not another guy. This is a man she loves. This is a place where she feels safe, even here, even at her most vulnerable.

“I LOVE YOU!”

She’s panting now, and he’s laughing. There’s a lot more where that came from, all puns intended and celebrated. She kisses down his stomach again, murmuring her love into every gasp and pause. Maybe she’ll love him forever.

Fuck, she hopes she does.

[chrisryanspeaks]

Yukimi Unveils Her Soulful and Amazing Solo Debut with ‘Break Me Down’

Yukimi’s debut solo single, “Break Me Down,” marks a bold and heartfelt departure from her acclaimed work with Grammy-nominated Swedish band Little Dragon. It’s the first glimpse into a solo journey that promises to reveal new depths to an artist already known for her emotive range and captivating stage presence. Co-written with Erik Bodin and Lianne La Havas, this single channels a raw honesty that feels both unguarded and empowering, marking Yukimi’s first time collaborating with another female artist—a choice that brings an added layer of feminine energy to the track. “Break Me Down” dives deep into themes of inner resilience, reflecting on finding strength through life’s darker moments. It’s a profound statement from a seasoned artist stepping into the next chapter with the grace of a veteran and the curiosity of a newcomer. Erik Bodin, Yukimi’s Little Dragon bandmate, takes on production duties, layering drums, bass, and keys to create a soulful yet dynamic backdrop. Lianne La Havas’s guitar work adds a tender touch, seamlessly blending with Yukimi’s signature voice—a voice that has captivated audiences across the globe. The song’s accompanying music video, directed by Fredrik Egerstrand, draws inspiration from cinematic history, with scenes shot at Hovs Hallar, the same beach where Ingmar Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal” was filmed. Yukimi reenacts the iconic encounter between Death and the Knight, offering a visual homage to the legendary director, all bathed in the fading light of a late Swedish summer. Yukimi’s voice has always stood out, from Little Dragon’s genre-blending tracks to standout collaborations with artists like Gorillaz, KAYTRANADA, and SBTRKT, where her unforgettable feature on “Wildfire” solidified her status as a singular force in music. Now, with “Break Me Down,” she presents a more personal side, weaving elements of pop-R&B and alternative soul with a lyrical focus that feels intimate and freshly introspective. As Yukimi prepares for her first solo performances this December in New York, Santa Ana, Oakland, and Los Angeles, anticipation builds for what’s to come. This debut single isn’t just a taste of her solo work; it’s an invitation into the depths of her artistry, promising an evocative blend of vulnerability and sonic exploration. Read the full article