#those two kids did great in that role!! i was impressed

[1thesewordsaremyown1]

I've been going back and forth over whether what we've seen in spoilers is actually going to happen or of its a fake out. Read below the cut for spoilers/speculation/ramblings.

I still maintain that with what we know and what we've seen in the show (eg. Tim with post-Shannon regret showing that he doesn't like killing off major characters, the fact that the show loves to do dramatic twists, etc) that narratively it is likely that Bobby doesn't actually die. Not to mention, if they wanted it to be this big shock, they did a piss poor effort of keeping it quiet. And we know they are capable of keeping things quiet - if it wasn't for buddie "journalists" with screeners who couldn't help themselves from leaking spoilers to their fans and then said fans unable to keep their mouths shut, we never would have expected Tommy to return in 8x11.

But on the other hand, Peter has said in the past that while he loves being on the show, he doesn't expect to be there forever. We don't know what's going on with him behind the scenes - for all we know, he's had enough, and he wants to leave. I guess we'll find out by the end of the season if it sticks.

The thing is, I'm torn about whether I want it to be real or a fake out. I like Bobby, I love the Bobby and Buck dynamic, especially, and I would be so sad to see him go. But on the other hand, this could very well be the kick in the pants that this show has been needing.

Think of all the potential new story lines we could have if Bobby is truly gone, especially in regards to all the characters' careers. Hen, for instance - would she step up as Captain? What would that be like for her, not only being Captain full time, but having to fill some pretty impressive shoes?

And Buck, in the instances where Hen might need someone in the Acting Captain role (say if she was sick or injured), would he decide to step up? He once said he would like to be Captain one day - would the show finally remember that and get him to start seriously thinking about it? He's certainly shown good leadership qualities this season, it would be a natural progression.

What about Chim? Next season he'll have two small kids to think about. With first the loss of his (foster) brother all those years ago and now his friend/Captain, would he start re-evaluating his life? Maybe a story line where he starts freaking out and starts being overly cautious because he doesn't want to leave two small kids without a father.

If Eddie comes back and Hen moves up, would Eddie take on the medic role full time? And if so, would Ravi stay in Eddie's place? If Eddie doesn't come back, could Ravi do what TK did in Lonestar and rethink what he wants in his career and decides he might actually want to move over into the paramedic side of things? Either way, we'd get to keep Ravi as a main.

And that's the other thing. With no Bobby and potentially no Eddie if he stays in Texas, the budget is suddenly open to bring in new mains for the show. New mains = new back stories to explore, new interactions with the existing mains, and new stories to tell. We could finally move on from the stagnant recycling of storylines and get something fresh. I mean, sure, there's always the possibility they could do some of these things without killing Bobby off (new stories/characters), but they've been reluctant to do so so far, so I'm not exactly holding out hope. Peter, especially, being one of the stars of the show, would cost a lot of money to keep. If he goes, that money could go a long way into bringing in more characters. I especially noticed it from season 7, but the gradual decrease in supporting characters in 911 has really been a detriment, because they really fleshed out the show, made the world of 911 seem bigger, more fleshed out, and not so insular among only the 118. Carla, for example, was a great supporting role that just disappeared and has made me on more than one occasion miss her presence.

Personally, I'd love it if we got both Ravi and Tommy as mains. Now, I'm not expecting Tommy to suddenly transfer back to the 118, but you don't have to be with the 118 to be a main. Michael wasn't. Chris isn't. Nor do you need to be in every episode (again, like Chris). They could have Tommy and the 217 liaise occasionally on calls (I wouldn't expect too many helicopter rescues as they're expensive, but the 217 do ground ops as well). They could actually focus on Buck and Tommy's relationship properly this time and on Tommy's past (Buck somehow meets Tommy's father for starters). Hell, maybe get back into the closeness of the firefam within the show by having some sort of hijinks with Tommy, like him babysitting Jee and baby boy Han while the 118 are on shift or something. There's all sorts of possibilities.

So yeah, that's the dilemma. Keep a beloved character and potentially continue on with the same old, same old that's been plaguing the show for a few seasons now, or lose him and open the show up to a whole realm of possibility. Like I said, I'm torn.

[homoquartz]

i don't really watch doom patrol but i have seen enough clips of the dead boys in it to know i have a favorite line, which is edwin saying "i don't need charles to protect me" and charles saying, casual as anything, "yeah but i do it anyway, don't i?"

[brain4stew]

Killers with a reader that has been kicking bosses’ asses in different games, worlds and etc, etc…

.

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1x1x1x1

• Did not expect that YOU… Of all survivors and killers… Has accomplished something like defeating, humans, machinery, demons and possibly even literal GODS…

• You seem to frail, weak and vulnerable to them, it honestly shocks him, to hear your accomplishments. (But she also strangely loves it…)

• He’d ask you to spar with him occasionally. Normally it ends up with her being on the ground, under you, or with them being unconscious, as you have to carry them to the killer’s cabin…

• After a lot of that, strangely enough, she’d develop… Feelings. For you. He’d be in denial of those feelings at first, but they’d eventually accept their feelings for you.

• Of course, with his awfully high pride, they do not tell you about her feelings for you. They think it’d make them seem weak.

.

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John Doe

• Genuinely? Confused.

• Doesn’t understand how YOU of all beings, has been able to do all that. You seem so easy to break in his opinion.

• Doesn’t spar with you, as he’s a bit unsure if you can actually handle the corruption he may inflict on you, if you two ever were to spar.

• Does develop feelings for you, but eventually ends up forgetting those feelings. Causing a loop with those feelings.

.

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Jason

• Confused how you managed all that, but is also amazed.

• He sees you as some sort of “Villain” or “Hero” he used to dream of when he was a kid, before… All that happened to him and his mother.

• His mother keeps telling him that you’re the “Hero/Villain” he’s been dreaming, and thinking of. (She enables the thinking and dreams, to make him feel great about his actions, his strength and all that.)

• He and his mother thinks you’re awesome from all your accomplishments.

.

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C00lkidd

• Sees you as a badass person. Maybe even sees you as his role model. (Cough. His dad basically. Cough.)

• He always asks you to tell him about your accomplishments, when he’s going to sleep. (He ends up falling asleep to when you tell him about when you fought a literal emotion demon. HATRED from blocktales smh…)

• You’re his role model, and always plays with you, unless you’re sparring with 1x4.

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Mafioso

• This guy… Actually finds it intriguing that you have so many accomplishments, and was tempted to recruit you in the mafia. (Eunoia said no.)

• His goons ask you if you are able to lift and carry lots of things, or even people. You lifted all 4 of his goons, carrying them in your arms, which shocked them and made them giddy for the possible next time you pick them up.

• Mafioso once had a far too heavy object on him, where he was literally crushed, like a rabbit/bunny pancake (that one video of a bunny laying flat after a cage like object fell on it). His goons did try and help, even Eunoia tried. But, they couldn’t help him.

• So what happened then? Eunoia called you over, and you helped him. When I tell you, that this man, fell head over heels for you right then and there…

.

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Azure

• Now, they normally wouldn’t be impressed, but when they heard you take down a literal CULT, that had plenty of potential hazard/atomic weapons? WOW.

• They actually asked you if you fought anyone, or anything similar to what they are now. And you, of course, say yes, that you have. You told them everything about the fight, and how you struggled a bit, due to the tentacles.

• And dear god, you swear you saw their tentacles swirl and make small heart shapes as they listened to you.

• They occasionally pick you up out of nowhere, just to see how you’ll react, and how you’ll get out of their grasp. Hands, arms, tentacles, you name it.

• They also ask you to pick them up and carry them a bit, although that is extremely rare for them to ask of you. But when they do ask that, you do pick them up and carry them around, careful of their tentacles and all that.

• The way they fell in love felt weird for them.

.

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Noli

• This guy, he’s a bit of a prick.

• He sometimes teases you about your accomplishments, and how unlucky you are with those you had to fight.

• You in return, grab his leg and hold home upside down to shut him up, momentarily.

• He’s surprised by how strong you actually are, because he thought you weren’t strong, even with your accomplishments…

• This guy, actually wants to see how you’ll do against a dangerous exploiter/hacker… But doesn’t know how to ask you about that.

• He does ask you occasionally to pick him up when he’s a bit exhausted, which you do. You just, pick him up, and let him rest in your arms, as you go about your day with him in your arms.

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Guest 666

• I genuinely have no idea how to write for this idiot.

• He’s confused, but also amazed by your accomplishments.

• His tail, is just wagging whenever you tell him a story about one of your accomplishments, he’s listening intently.

• He occasionally asks you if you can even lift him up and carry him. You did once, and it legit scared the fuck outta him, and he most of the time, doesn’t ask you to pick him up again.

• He wonders what Noob will think of you, but his thoughts get cut off by you sparring with 1x4, which he pays A LOT of attention on.

[opal-owl-flight]

John. John Splatoon. The man, the goofball the sweetest man youll see. Chatty, bubbly, and gives really good team morale.

But things arent all sweet.

I wonder if he shuts himself up when he feels hes being *too* jolly.

His family is kind. Its not their fault. Yknow how people are fucking mean to those who are very excited abt things.

I think he had an experience like that. Tanara was thankfully there when things started getting really bad.

John was made fun of when he first started turfing. He was just sooo excited abt it all. So enthusiastic!! He studied abt the greats, the top players, all that. And the bitchass mean kids thought itd be funny to crush his dreams.

They made fun of him when he rambles abt strategy. They mocked him whenever he tries to be a hero and gets fucking splatted for it (OH GEE, IF HIS TEAMMATES WERE ACTUALLY *HELPING* HIM HE WOULDNT HAVE GOTTEN GOT).

One time I think some bastard jammed his weapon so it was unusuable for a while, and he was unable to turf.

"Good riddance," the team had said. "That beak is finally quiet for once."

Tanara saw this happening and decided to stand up for him.

They saw this boy getting picked on, and didnt hesitate in open firing at the bastards. Didnt care if theyll get banned for a week for firing a weapon off the field.

"|Hey, are you the guy who cornered me in the last match? Color me impressed.|"

Tanara doesnt stand for bullies. Ever. They hate seeing these kinds of people in the leagues. They hate the fact that these nutjobs are so good at the game!!! they want to make the leagues a fun place for everyone. None of this fuckinh bullshit. From a young age theyve already defended others. Wanted to make a better world where everyone can just be who they wanted to be, grow into their best selves.

The orange squid was a big help. With them actually recognizing his talent and running by his side,,,

They made him believe in himself. Fuck what everyone else says.

"|We won because of your strategy,|" they sign. "|If it werent for you, we'd have lost the tournament.|"

And hes given a smile of encouragement. Oh, sweet understanding, sweet recognition.

For a tender year they and John built a strong team and friendship. John became this cheery man bc of them.

They helped him stand up for himself. Helped him in the art of not giving a fuck. Or raining retribution where it is applicable (the duo have sent bullies crying after giving fjem say -- a 20 second rainmaker match)

Whenever someone tries to make fun of him in the later years, or now -- even if Tanara is out of the picture bc theyre getting blended -- he will literally ignore the naysayers. Bc he knows. He knows Tanara believes in him. He knows his team believes in him. He knows many others do, as well.

He knows his own capabilities. He knows what his limits. And hes. God, theres a reason hes second in command. Hes smart about the sport. Hes scary on the field. Dont let the goofy attitude fool you. Hes having fun but you on enemy team wont!

Some people are recently saying that Tanara left their old team bc John was lagging too far behind them, that Ink Typh∞n is the natural next step for them.

Dead wrong dipshits. If anything, those two are eye to eye.

If Tanara wasnt forced to retire, theyf still be fighting by his side.

-----------

Ofc its not all perfect. He still shuts down sometimes. Shuts himself up if he gets scared of offending someone/in general.

If he doesnt get reassurance or proves to himself/his naysayers of his own capabilities, he starts going quiet, smiling less.

Those wounds still hurt, Im afraid....

-----------

And what about after Octo Expansion.

What was going through his mind?

Like....this is your best friend. The one who helped you become the man you are. They were your role model. Theyre so strong, so assured. Confident. Ruthless on the turf. So skilled that nothing can faze them. Believed in you like no one else did.

And youre watching them seem to get worse day by day.

Theyre closing up. Theyre not telling you anything. You reach out but they dismiss you. And their colors only get more desaturated with time. They still believe in you, but its clear that theres something bothering them.

You try to share your joy with them, talking about the things you liked. Like old times. It turns out however, that the character you idolized in the media you consume, is them.

And it explains everything.

An entire secret double life and they didnt tell you.

You were their best friend. They were by your side when you struggled to make it in this city. They gave you assurance when your confidence started to fail.

They were your hero.

Where were you then, when they needed one themself?

They slump into John's arms,,

Theyre only older than him by a year. but they feel so,,

They feel so frail. A shadow of how they used to be. A body broken by war, a mind and heart ravaged by worry and vigilance and the weight of the world on their shoulders.

They tell him that they dont want him to take this load. They tell him he doesnt deserve it.

He says he has no plans of getting into this, not directly. He just wants them to come back to him after duty, or allow him to help in any way he can.

He'll just wait by the door, like he always has.

And hes holding them. He wants to keep them there til everything becomes okay again.

[befuddledcinnamonroll]

Last P10L day! It's funny, to think of how so many people were complaining about the episode number when it was first announced. But with how chaotic my life has been this year, I have really valued having this stable little consistent show for as long we did.

I'm going to miss it.

I honestly don't know if I can think of another couple who portrays comfort, safety, and contentedness like these two.

I think it's especially meaningful for me as an introvert like Wine, as I am very aware of just how much it takes for someone to get our walls down like this.

Ok, see, this is why Faifa is so great! He's being over the top, but also he knows it, and checks in to make sure Wine is ok with it. Self-awareness and consideration in one man!

Lolol, why do I feel like Junior improvised the biting?

They are so soft and sweet. And they talk openly about everything. Oh, I love them so much.

Yes, we love the friend love appreciation!

This show did lean a little hard into the "romantic love can fix everything" trope, so I'm glad we're remembering to pay homage to how important friends are.

Heh, Fai and Yotha's brotherly similarity coming through in the boyfriend obsession arena.

God, Emi is so cute.

I wish we had gotten a touch more time with these two.

Klao! You have no friends, you are in no position to be picky!

Also if he had touched Gun, Wine, or Arm that way, he would have lost a hand. Pond gets points for being chill.

Gah, these two make my brain short circuit with the smallest of gestures.

I'm glad we'll get some Aou in Ex-Morning to keep us going, but it's going to be so hard to wait for more AouBoom time.

Have I said how much I adore Fai calling Gun "Puppy"?

Oh, this little group of idiots. There's no way this proposal goes to plan.

Arm: Makes casual joke about traditional dancing. Those of us who watched Peaceful Property: Waaaahhhhh!!!! 😭

Lol, I like the acknowledgment that Arc and Pond are older, and already working, and literally don't have the capacity to get so worked up over little things anymore.

Oh, they are all so dumb. But very lovable.

Total disaster! But it is the meaning of it all that matters.

Also props to Junior for his hand acting here.

Boom does pull off a flower crown very well.

Look at that pretty, pretty man.

Gah, I wish I could find the kissing stuff cuter, but I'm just personally not a fan of public pressure around intimacy.

Have we talked yet about how good JJ looks with long hair?

Ok, this is cute with Wa and Klao, but in real life kids - this is terrible thinking. "Oh they'll change once we're dating/married/have kids" will never ever pay dividends in the real world.

That said, AouBoom can do no wrong, and I am feeling all the lovely flutteries from their line deliveries.

AouBoom, never letting an opportunity go by to cement their status as the horny kings of GMMTV

That tent gonna be rockin'!

Oh, I am so glad they included this!

To be clear, I never hated Yotha, I just needed him to make some sort of effort towards his brother. He had shown he was capable of doing so, he changed massively to be with Gun, and I just wanted some acknowledgment that he valued Fai, and wanted to be a source of support to him. And we're finally getting it!

We are pausing for a moment of Force waist appreciation...

I like how they are representative of how even longer term couples need to take the time to reassure and show their appreciation and love for each other.

I got a bit distracted by my annoyance with Yotha this last section of episodes, but I do have to say that Perth & Santa have absolutely nailed their roles.

And I am so impressed by their level of chemistry, right off the bat.

Oh, this is a much better framing than the idea of fixing someone.

And it's much more accurate to what a good relationship can bring to your life.

Oh damn, show, you know I am weak for under-the-shirt hand slides!

Our blue boys in their blue space.

This was such a cute, low stress series. Not game-changing, not epic, but just comforting and enjoyable. And I know there will always be those who deride content like that, but there is value in a myriad and diversity of offerings, even if it includes things that are not someone's personal preference.

Aw, the bts stuff is cute. Omg, Ploy having to stand on something to be in frame with Ohm, lolol. And...it's over.

[rosakuma]

Feelings on FOPANW S1 Finale

Okay so the finale dropped…….that sure was a finale….Alright, let’s discuss this in full detail. Spoilers for Fairly Oddparents A New Wish finale, DO NOT READ BELOW IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT OR CAUGHT UP YET!

Okay so this finale is a big mixture for me for a few reasons, to which I’ll explain in detail of listing out the good and bad, before then listing out personal thoughts and what I think they’ll do for S2(if we get one, to which Y’ALL WE GOTTA LOCK IN AND REWATCH THIS SERIES IN NOVEMBER ON NETFLIX OKAY??)

The good~✨:

▪️I absolutely love that they brought back most of the new characters Hazel’s befriend and seen throughout the season come back to help Hazel in taking back fairy world. ▪️ANTI-COSMO AND ANTI-WANDA ARE BACK! It was definitely a short time, but I’m just glad they reappeared and them with Cosmo and Wanda was so funny. I love them exposing their weaknesses like Cosmo being afraid of big words or Wanda not standing seeing someone read a book upside down. ▪️THANK GOD DEV WASN’T TURN EVIL! The boy definitely mess up, but I am happy he listened to Wanda and help out in the end despite the consequences of it. It shows that despite Dev doing all of this to impress his dad, he realizes that his dad not going to change and that he’ll just overlook Dev for other people or things. Plus it nice to see that he didn’t want any the fairies lock up or to blow up, he just wanted to get back at Cosmo, Wanda, and Peri(speaking of him). This definitely marks a great start to his redemption arc that I feel next season will go into more.

▪️You don’t know how much it means to me seeing Peri fricken dying and yet, he’s still worrying about Dev. The fact he still cares about him and just only was strict on the rules because he wanted to do right by Dev..MY HEART AGHHH! THAT’S HIS DAD RIGHT THERE, HIS REAL DAD! I swear they better reunite. Le bad~⚡️:

▪️Dev losing both Peri and his memory of fairies….WHY!? I get punishing him to teach him what he did was wrong, but he recognizes it and also, HE’S NOT GOING TO IF HE DOESN’T REMEMBER WHAT HE DID WRONG! Not to mention that Dev still needs Peri, he still needs a fairygod parent because he’s stuck with a neglectful dad who thinks boots are better than his own kid and doesn’t know how to make friends with him having trust issues! Plus Peri still cares for Dev and I doubt he wanted to give him up! THATS HIS FIRST GODKID, GIVE HIM BACK HIS SON 😭 ▪️The point above gets worse when Hazel could’ve prevented that from happening by including Dev in her wish for her friends to keep their memories of her fairies and magic OR that Dev keeps Peri(which is a two for one sale as he gets both his fairy and memory). I understand Hazel is probably still upset at Dev and does think that he needs to learn a lesson, but she clearly still cares about him. Enough for her to look sad at the end when he gets poofs away and to thank him for doing the right thing. Not to mention now Dev’s growth at the end for realizing he did wrong will disappear and he can’t reflect on himself now to grow from it. ▪️Speaking of memories. So Hazel decided to let Winn, Jasmine, and her brother Anthony keep their memories of all of this. I won’t lie, I am conflicted on this as while I don’t mind too much of Winn and Jasmine to know about her secret as that allows them to join more adventures and develop from there with Hazel now that they know! But…why Anthony? I can understand Hazel wanting to share her cool fairies with him, but girl you got those fairies in the first place BECAUSE he’s away at college. Even if Anthony currently visiting right now and she can have fun with him, he’s still going back to college sweetie. Heck Anthony might not worry too much of needing to visit a lot because now he knows his sister being taken care of by Cosmo and Wanda(which is good thing, but to Hazel, she might be upset to think Anthony will spend less time with her now that she has fairies to fill his role).

Alright, I definitely got that out of my system. Ultimately despite these problems I have with this finale, I still enjoyed it and this season entirely. And I feel like the writers with what they did with Dev wasn’t to be mean spirited of taking away Peri and his memory. I believe they wanted to show Dev starting to reflect on what he has done and grow with realizing his mess up, which is why he even admits that he does deserve this and Hazel agrees. And despite Hazel not including him in the wish or wishing for him to keep Peri, she does still care about him. She’s glad he did the right thing in the end and she does look sad when Dev gets poofed away after being memory wiped. And honestly….this might be good for both of them in terms of being able to rekindle their friendship. Now that Dev won’t remember the the arguments that happen when he had a fairy, it means that his jealousy toward Hazel having Wanda and Cosmo and knowing that Hazel wished to be friends with him(to which he took personally because it seemed like their friendship was based off of just wanting to get something out of him he feels and it’s fake). The only problem is thanks to the memory wipe, we don’t know exactly how much Dev remembers. Does he only remember his fight with Hazel at Founders Day or their fight during his birthday? If the former, then did he forget Hazel being at his birthday? And if not and it’s the latter, then does Dev still remember project H but without the knowledge of Hazel’s fairies? Is he still upset at her for his father paying attention to her? Does he think they’re still friends??? Really the problem is since we’re in the dark of whether we’re getting a season two and we don’t know these details, we’re stuck unsatisfied since there’s clearly more to explore and explain here. But all we can do for now is just wait and watch the show again on Netflix when it drops while spreading word of the series. We can do this and get that season two for everyone! Seriously Netflix you better listen to Peri and greenlit season two.

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - 2 GREAT Shows but everything else is kinda blah

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top. Happy new year, BLabies!

Jan 2024 Wk 1

Ongoing Series - Thai

Last Twilight (Fri YT) ep 9 of 12 - This show is really earning its chops, and these actors are executing beautifully. I think this is a great BL, and it reminds me quite a bit of ATOTS, only the physical comfort between the actors is more genuine and easy to watch. Unfortunately a guitar came out. Nice communication tho.

That was a very lovely romantic sex scene. Very prettily done. Classy boys, very classy.

Gah what a beautiful final scene with Day saying the last thing he wants to see is Mhork. Pure unadulterated romance of the highest order.

The Sign (Sat YT) ep 7 of 12 - If killer, why hot? Poor Tarn compelled to try to rescue everyone else from their fate, because he cannot save himself from his.

Meanwhile Phaya is finally learning that you catch more water snakes with honey lube than vinegar.

Stellar confession from Phaya brutally honest and very fated mates.

And another lovely sex scene, so I guess that was a vision and not a fantasy Tharn had.

Lets be clear those two shows were GREAT everything else this week was kinda blah.  

For Him (Thurs iQIYI) ep 6 of 12 - I find the backstory very odd. Are they twins? What happened to Blue? Am I meant to care? Do I care? 

Twins the series (Fri GaGa) ep 10 of 12 - I mostly just feel sorry for First. He’s so rightfully confused. Zee/Sprite keeps blowing hot and cold because they two different people! The after sex cuddle was cute. 

Pit Babe (Fri iQIYI) ep 8 of 14 - Love getting more JeffAlan. Also I switch favorite character allegiances in the trash watch happening here.

Cooking Crush (Sun YT) ep 6 of 12 - Didn’t air this week and I hardly noticed. 

You and My Stars YT 1 of 2(?) - school kids, love triangle, it’s cute enough.

My Universe (Sun iQIYI) 1626 ep 20 of 24 - Just so boring. 3/10 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

VIP Only (Taiwan Fri Gaga) ep 8 of 10 - I’m not into the love triangle. Although I kind of like the new suitor, he’s honest and a good communicator. I appreciate these things in a BL boy. But I begin to wonder if triangles should be left for KBL. Also, this should have been an 8 epper, 10 is too long.

Sahara-sensei to Toki-kun (Japan Fri Gaga) ep 5 of 8 - No ep until Jan 12 

I Became the Main Role of a BL (Japan Sun Gaga) ep 1-3 - AKA BL Drama no Shuen ni Narimashita: Crank Up Hen - A rising star is paired with an (older) former child actor (doesn’t think he’s good enough) in a BL series. It’s fun, built on a dynamic of off screen paralleling the on screen, so near constantly meta. All the tropes are there but are as a result of the filming process. The star turns out to be obsessed with the former actor and very dorky about it. In fact, everyone in this show is a little gremlin weirdo (affectionate). There’s tons of scenery chewing miscommunication drama, slapstick, voice over head hopping, and eccentric sides characters. “And he comes with feathers” applies to a number of my friends. You know I don’t like stories around fan obsession, but otherwise this was enjoyable. 8/10

A nice start to the JBL year. Keep em coming, Japan.  

It's done I Need to Catch up

What Did You Eat Yesterday Season 2 AKA Kinou Nani Tabeta? Season 2 (Japan Gaga) 10 eps - will binge when I have a spare day.

It's Airing But...

[INTERNATIONAL] Cherry Magic (Sat YouTube) ep 3 of 12 - yeah Japan put the smack down on our boys. Sadness. You can use a VPN if you like. Read all about it here.

Playboyy (Thurs Gaga) 14 eps - Dear Playboyy, it's not you, it’s me… I hate you. You’re about as deep (and as palatable) as a shot glass of cum. While I'm sure you’re someone’s kink, you're my weakest link. Goodbye. I DNFed this at ep 5. Frankly I'm impressed with myself for getting that far.

Night Dream (Sat YT) 6 eps - It’s a pain to track down and I really didn’t like the first episode so… DNF  

The Whisperer (Sun ????) 10 eps - Thai horror BL that ALSO involves cheating (what joy is mine). I don't think even the perfect single dimple can motivate me to watch. Word is... it's terrible.

7 Days Before Valentine (Weds WeTV) 10 eps - Giving me Luminous Solution vibes. I'm waiting to binge if safe.

Dead Friend Forever (Thai Sat iQIYI) - horror, meh, tell me if it's worth my time?

In Case You Missed it

All my year end round ups (so far) are as follows:

TOP 10 BL Trends of 2023

Top 10 BL Secondary Pairs of 2023

2023 BLs Best Trope Execution Awards! TOP 10

Best Back Hugs Thailand & Elsewhere

BL 2023 - Cute Bits of Domesticity

BL 2023 - Boys Feeding Boys

BL 2023 - BOOP!

All the BLs Announced for 2023 that didn't happen

Next Week Looks Like This

Starting This Week:

1/9 Time the series (Thai Gaga, WeTV, Channel 3) 10 eps - MFlow Entertainment brings us yet another "fix the past" narrative. After witnessing the gunning down of his beloved, a heartbroken actor uses a magic pocket watch to go back in time and discover the truth and maybe fix it.

1/11 Although I Love You and You AKA Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yaro ka (Japan Gaga) - Soga, who, after a divorce and relocation to Osaka, seeks solace in dining at 26-year-old Sakae's restaurant. Unbeknownst to Soga, Sakae sees him as more than just a regular customer.

More Coming Jan 2024

Beside You (Thai YouTube)

Love For Love's Sake (Korea ????)- based on the Manhwa ‘Love Supremacy Zone’ by Hwacha. A young man is dropped into a game based off a novel he loves. His mission is to make another player, YeoWoon happy. But then the game starts unfolding completely different from the novel.

Ossans Love Season 2 (Japan ????) - five years later, will anything have changed? This is Japan so... probubly not. I won't be watching this.

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

Yes, you SHOULD apologize!

This was a FANTASTIC moment! Last Twilight

Night Dream referencing the Shrimp Trope.

Some didn't like this bit BUT I love a claiming moment, even in a briefing room... especially there.

I ALSO love a good Grandma Moment in a BL.

Such a good sex scene. The Sign

(Last week)

[mswyrr]

Donald Sutherland wasn't offered the part of President Snow, he read the script and was so impressed by the story that he read the books and then campaigned for the role. This included a personal letter to the director. Full letter below. What a thoughtful and humane artist. Rest in peace.

Dear Gary Ross:  Power. That's what this is about? Yes? Power and the forces that are manipulated by the powerful men and bureaucracies trying to maintain control and possession of that power?  Power perpetrates war and oppression to maintain itself until it finally topples over with the bureaucratic weight of itself and sinks into the pages of history (except in Texas), leaving lessons that need to be learned unlearned.   Power corrupts, and, in many cases, absolute power makes you really horny. Clinton, Chirac, Mao, Mitterrand.  Not so, I think, with Coriolanus Snow. His obsession, his passion, is his rose garden. There's a rose named Sterling Silver that's lilac in colour with the most extraordinarily powerful fragrance – incredibly beautiful – I loved it in the seventies when it first appeared. They've made a lot of off shoots of it since then.   I didn't want to write to you until I'd read the trilogy and now I have so: roses are of great importance. And Coriolanus's eyes. And his smile. Those three elements are vibrant and vital in Snow. Everything else is, by and large, perfectly still and ruthlessly contained. What delight she [Katniss] gives him. He knows her so perfectly. Nothing, absolutely nothing, surprises him. He sees and understands everything. he was, quite probably, a brilliant man who's succumbed to the siren song of power.  How will you dramatize the interior narrative running in Katniss's head that describes and consistently updates her relationship with the President who is ubiquitous in her mind? With omniscient calm he knows her perfectly. She knows he does and she knows that he will go to any necessary end to maintain his power because she knows that he believes that she's a real threat to his fragile hold on his control of that power. She's more dangerous than Joan of Arc. 

Her interior dialogue/monologue defines Snow. It's that old theatrical turnip: you can't 'play' a king, you need everybody else on stage saying to each other, and therefore to the audience, stuff like "There goes the King, isn't he a piece of work, how evil, how lovely, how benevolent, how cruel, how brilliant he is!" The idea of him, the definition of him, the audience's perception of him, is primarily instilled by the observations of others and once that idea is set, the audience's view of the character is pretty much unyielding. And in Snow's case, that definition, of course, comes from Katniss.  Evil looks like our understanding of the history of the men we're looking at. It's not what we see: it's what we've been led to believe. Simple as that. Look at the face of Ted Bundy before you knew what he did and after you knew.   Snow doesn't look evil to the people in Panem's Capitol. Bundy didn't look evil to those girls. My wife and I were driving through Colorado when he escaped from jail there. The car radio's warning was constant. 'Don't pick up any young men. The escapee looks like the nicest young man imaginable'. Snow's evil shows up in the form of the complacently confident threat that's ever present in his eyes. His resolute stillness. Have you seen a film I did years ago? 'The Eye of the Needle'. That fellow had some of what I'm looking for. The woman who lived up the street from us in Brentwood came over to ask my wife a question when my wife was dropping the kids off at school. This woman and her husband had seen that movie the night before and what she wanted to know was how my wife could live with anyone who could play such an evil man. It made for an amusing dinner or two but part of my wife's still wondering. I'd love to speak with you whenever you have a chance so I can be on the same page with you. They all end up the same way. Welcome to Florida, have a nice day!

[archiveofkloss]

In conversation with fellow top model Christy Turlington, Karlie Kloss opens up on how being a muse and a mother unlocked the next great chapters of her life

Those in the world of fashion can recall the moment��Karlie Kloss appeared on the scene at fifteen with feline, emerald eyes, and a smize that has made her a muse to many. 

A walking phenom since her early days of dominating catwalks, campaigns, and covers, the industry has been trying to keep up with Kloss as she makes leggy strides toward her next goals with intent, grace, and the guidance of her fellow supers in the business. For Kloss, that mentor position was filled by none other than Christy Turlington. “She is such a North star for me,” Kloss explains. “For what it could mean to be a model and also use your platform [to promote] things that make a real impact in the world.”

With Kloss now in her early thirties, her activism work and outspokenness echo that of Turlington. The two have walked uncannily parallel paths: both were discovered in their early teens, made the decision to step away from the modeling world to attend college in their early twenties, and now have two kids. Additionally, both have dedicated much of their efforts to their community-driven organizations like Kloss’ Gateway Coalition, focused on reproductive care, and tech education initiatives, Kode with Klossy, and Turlington’s Every Mother Counts. Most recently, Kloss has ventured into new territory, adding another title to her impressive resume by taking on the role of CEO of Bedford Media, overseeing the soon-to-be-revived publications, i-D and LIFE magazine. It seems nothing can stop the force of nature that is Karlie Kloss.

V MAGAZINE: How did you meet? Do you remember that first interaction?

CHRISTY TURLINGTON: You want to tell it, Karlie?

KARLIE KLOSS: The first time I met Christy Turlington, it was almost like a scene out of a movie because I’ve idolized Christy long before ever meeting her, and all that she stood for in the world and the industry. I remember many years of being on shoots and feeling like I got to know you by the stories other makeup artists or hair stylists [would tell me] about the legend of Christy. No Woman, No Cry[Turlington’s 2010 documentary] came out at that time, and you were running marathons…I was always a super fan. She was shooting in the Donna Karan studio over in the West Village. Donna invited me because she knew how much I admired Christy, and I remember walking into Urban Zen where the shoot was happening. I was standing face-to-face with Christy, and I just started crying. I’ve never had that reaction ever again with anyone in the world, but I was so moved and humbled to meet her, and so I just was bawling.

V: Oh, my God! What was your reaction, Christy?

CT: No, it was so sweet! We’ve talked about it a lot since. I feel like you were 15 or 16, you were at the beginning of your career, and you sort of started at the top, so you were very much everywhere. What I remember very specifically about you and Donna’s interaction is that you reminded me of some of my peers when I was around your age, where we would be so invested in the designers and the people we worked with, that every day after the show, we’d pick up WWD. You talked to Donna in a very sophisticated way, giving her commentary on the collection that you had just worn, which was very sweet. I was touched. Donna, I’ve known since the beginning of her career, she’s also such an incredible woman and leader. And I felt in the middle of these two worlds. It was kind of like the confluence of past, present, and future.

V: Do you remember what year that was?

KK: I think that might be in 2008 or 2009. 

CT: Yeah, I think it was before I was in school. I was at Columbia, working on my public health degree, and I feel like it was before Every Mother Counts, which was the beginning of my advocacy. But I had small kids, and [embarking] on a direction of where that step was taking me, so I was in a really important transition time, I would say.

V: I’ve seen many moments where you two were together—at events, in campaigns, and on covers—and I read in the New York Times that Christy actually wrote Karlie’s recommendation letter for college.

KK: Yes, for NYU!

V: How did that even happen?

KK: This was before ChatGPT, so she really had to write it! It was so generous of Christy to do that. Even knowing that Christy Turlington— who continues, over many decades, to have an extraordinary fashion career as an iconic supermodel—also cares about her education was so important for me. When I was in my early twenties, I was really nervous about the decision, because I thought, “If I take any amount of time away from my fashion career, will it all disappear?” and Christy was such an important sounding board to prove that [I should] invest in my own education. I couldn’t have done it—and wouldn’t have done it—without Christy’s example and encouragement.

CT: After we met, within a couple of years we started to get together and meet for lunch, and just talk about things. So, when Karlie mentioned that she was interested in going back to school, of course, I was ecstatic for her. When I decided [to get my degree], I was already making a conscious choice of stepping away and slowing down the career at like 10 years in. Karlie was still very much at the height. I think you were already recognizing that you were not as excited about all the things you’d already experienced. So I was really in support of this choice and also tried to give as much of a reality check of what it would feel like, and try to reassure her that the more that she did work on herself, the more in-demand she would be. The more you continue to evolve and invest in yourself, the more people want to be a part of that and want to get closer to you to learn all the different things that you’re now interested in. I think your curiosity, your earnestness, and your seriousness have always been, I think, what stood out to me. I’ve seen it in every phase since we first met. You just continue to evolve in the most natural, thoughtful, and purposeful way.

KK: Wow! This is like a dream. I’m glad this is being recorded. I think on days when I’m having a bad day, I need to look back at this.

KP: So with the both of you going back to school at the heights of your career, Karlie, did you happen to get any pushback at all from people advising the opposite?

KK: I think we all have that little voice in our head that is our own worst enemy, and as a young woman, I doubted myself in all sorts of ways. I was worried that if I made the choice to go back to school, this fairy tale of a fashion career that had happened quite quickly [would disappear]. I just had to trust my gut and kind of ignore what anyone else says. In modeling and fashion, everything changes from one day to the next, and nothing is promised. I had to take that leap of faith and believe that even if this all went away, I had a great time. I met a lot of great people, including my icon, Christy Turlington. Continuing the relationship we have with ourselves and being confident in knowing our power, our worth, and our potential—you can’t go wrong when you lean into who you are and invest in that. At that moment, that was the right thing for me to do.

V: Now at 31, having all that modeling experience and taking those investments in your education, you’ve gone on to start all these organizations. The same goes for Christy with Every Mother Counts, which Karlie has been involved in quite a bit. You went on a trip to Haiti a few years ago. I’d love to know at what point you had the ideas for those organizations.

KK: It’s so funny, I actually had a YouTube channel at the time [where I recorded the trip], I’m going to go back after this and rewatch those videos.

CT: Yes, I forgot about that!

KK: Remember that? Oh, it’s probably so cringe, but I was such a nerd. I was so passionate and excited about being on this trip [to Haiti], it really was a turning point for me in a lot of ways. Christy was so kind to invite me on this trip with some other extraordinary women who have continued to stay in my life, including Sara Blakely, who is one of the most extraordinary, successful female entrepreneurs in this country, and has built a company that has done so much good in so many ways. I think it was such an important trip for me to physically see the work. [Because] we live in New York, it’s easy to kind of feel disconnected from these topics—you go to a charity event and you write a check. But actually going on this trip and seeing where Every Mother Counts was really changing the lives of women in Haiti in the most profound and important of ways, [especially] in that moment of when you’re most vulnerable: bringing your child into the world. I founded Kode with Klossy a year or two later. [That trip] set me on this path and helped show me what could be possible through my own natural curiosity. So after that trip, I went back to NYU and I started taking coding classes, which made me realize there are so many opportunities in the changing world that we live in, and for young women in particular— imagine the problems they could solve with this ability. It started simply like that with 21 scholarships, and next year is our 10th year.

CT: That’s big, that’s huge!

KK: It’s huge! We’ve had more than 10,000 young women and gender expansive teens in our programs over the past years. We’re going to probably have close to 4,000 scholars in our programs this summer alone. You never know the way that you can impact somebody else’s life. I don’t think Christy even probably knew inviting me on that trip would set me on my own journey in such a profound way, and I hope that our Kode with Klossy scholars have a similar experience of wanting to continue to light that spark for others.

CT: I’m a big fan of Bryan Stevenson [social justice activist], and I love the way he speaks about proximity. For me that’s really the truth. I would say through Kode with Klossy, similarly, you want to be with those kids. You want to be in the room where the lights turn on and everyone has that feeling of connectivity and you’re a part of a community. We’ve crossed paths once again in our parallel pathing and that’s through what Karlie is doing now with Gateway Coalition. I think to have younger moms and people coming from the communities that they’re trying to address continue to keep quality care and service [that considers] the full spectrum of reproductive health and rights, it’s going to be even more helpful. I think that’s one of the parallels that we share is the ability to build a community that will ultimately have a greater impact… I can see the multiplier effect happening between coding and technology and the community you’ve built, and also the commitment you’ve made to do this work at this moment. I’m even more excited to see it from this angle because that’s where we intersect more directly than we have in the last few years.

KK: Thank you, Christy. That means a lot. Even in this country, with the lack of access to basic resources and healthcare, I really continue to learn from Christy in so many ways. After I just had my first [child] and came back home, Christy and Grace [Burns], her oldest, came over and met my little guy, and it was just so crazy. Having the entry into motherhood, and having your first child, no matter the resources you have or where you live in this world, it is a profoundly life changing experience, and you have to have your community and village around you. I feel very lucky that Christy and Grace are now in my village.

V: I love that. You know, we actually recently photographed Grace for our V GIRLSseries.

CT: Yeah, that’s right. She loved that! In LA, right?

KP: Yes, that was it. We first saw Grace on TikTok, and I found out that she recently shot a campaign, too, for Tamara Mellon.

CT: Yeah, she’s doing a lot of shooting, and she’s shooting friends right now in Spain. I sort of marvel at Karlie, and how much she’s able to take on. Seeing her do all the things, it appears effortless, but I know it’s not. Then, with my daughter who’s 21 in October, it’s like really another full circle. She’s in class full time, she’s publishing books of poetry, shooting campaigns, and being shot in campaigns, I’m like, “Of course, you can do that because Karlie is your [role model].” So it’s a very direct correlation in the way that we’re all continuing to inspire and care for and support one another.

KK: Yes, I’m in that phase where my three-year-old at three in the morning last night was all of a sudden in my bed and I didn’t sleep, and I’m like, “Okay, this is my life.” 

CT: Aw! And the thing is, it doesn’t end, you know? Everyone had a mother in order to come into the world, and no matter what age or where you are, and what station you are in your life, your mother continues to worry, care, and be there ready for the call, just always there for you. I think that’s the part that’s so relatable, regardless of one’s decision to have a child or not have a child, which is why it’s so important to support that regardless. You see how important that is for the folks who don’t have it, and folks that do, and the difference that creates in terms of an opportunity for success and for people to thrive in their lives.

V: What are some of the ways you both see the results of all of your efforts through the mothers and the women that you’re helping directly?

CT: I get to hear a lot from mothers. We support mostly providers, from community-based folks that are community health workers, doulas or midwives, and also physicians. When I see people who are working at the community level—which is where we mostly are invested—they’re the people at the front lines. They’re the people who are not turning folks away, especially now that things are harder and more precarious, dangerous, and potentially riskier. They’re still there, and they are not going anywhere. Those are the people that give me the most motivation. I feel like our purpose really is to try to uplift them and give them the support and care that they need to continue to meet their communities where they are. 

KK: That’s why unrestricted funding matters. Because I’ve also run a nonprofit with Kode with Klossy, and I know when you put that trust in the leader of that community who is providing that care, they’re going to do what they can to allocate these funds in the most high-impact ways. With Kode with Klossy, there are more than 10,000 young people who are now in the world’s workforce, and they’re not just young teenage women with dreams, they’re actually pursuing their passions. It’s really for me what always has been most important: self-realization more so than like a technical skill set. Of our alumni in college, more than 70% of them go on to major or minor in computer science, which is crazy to me. That to me is such an indicator that Kode with Klossy really reaches them in a moment where they’re deciding what doors the world could open for them. Especially now with every industry being impacted and needing to evolve, this basic technical literacy is crucial. To see how that plays out in their lives, and also how they bring that back to the community of Kode with Klossy—they come back and help teach in our camps, and they go on to build apps and projects that are impacting their communities, and solving problems that reach many people that are far beyond even just Kode with Klossy.  So it’s pretty awesome. 

CT: I was just thinking about Haiti because I hadn’t thought about it in so long–you don’t have any photos from that trip, do you?

KK: I do! I’m gonna find those.

CT: If you do, that would be fun to revisit, because we have so many photos from events and things that aren’t that exciting and we’ve only shot professionally together, really, once.

V: Yup, it was your Cole Haan campaign.

CT: It was a while ago. Then we did Edward [Enninful’s] last cover [for British Vogue]. Otherwise, most of our life has been doing other things. But we’re connected through it and it’s really lovely. I love our story, Karlie.

KK: I love our story. Well, maybe we need to do a V shoot together.

V: Let’s please do it!

CT: Next Mother’s Day!

KK: Exactly!

[emotionallychargedtowel]

Hello! For the ask game: 🍪☕🌴??? Rose💜

🍪 If you were a cookie, what kind would you be?

This is a tough one for me. I like to bake, so I have too many ideas here. But I think I’ve settled on one.

If I were a cookie, I think I’d be a “magic bar” a.k.a. a “seven layer bar.” It serves the purpose of a cookie and can take on the role of one, but it isn’t a cookie in the strictest sense so it doesn’t quite fit in. It’s kind of trashy in a mid-20th century way, like something you’d find in one of those cookbooks put out as fundraisers by churches and civic groups. (Is that an American thing, or did they have those everywhere? They were big when I was a kid in the 80s.) It’s kind of like the cookie equivalent of a casserole made with condensed soup or those notorious Jell-O salads.

It’s not so much made as cobbled together, like a weird take on trail mix got glued together with sweetened condensed milk and pressed into a graham cracker (or crushed cookie) crust. Sometimes people go a little wild and put pretzels or corn flakes in it. It has a sort of bored-housewife-trying-to-be-creative vibe that could be endearing or a bit cringe-y depending on how you think about it.

The magic bar is kind of old, kind of weird, and doesn’t go about things in the usual way. It looks pretty funky. It comes at you with a conglomeration of textures. In short, it’s a bit much. But it can be surprisingly compelling. Sometimes it unexpectedly wins over a diehard food snob or gets reinvented by a hip young chef (who you just know was probably high at the time). There’s a weird little kid at the potluck who keeps going back for one more. The magic bar actually has a lot to offer if you can look past your first impressions.

In case folks aren’t familiar with these things, here’s a classic version and here’s a fancier variation. Maybe I should try one of those recipes or even make up my own variation, in true bored suburban mom style.

☕ Coffee or tea?

I can’t do caffeine in significant quantities—it gives me migraines, not to mention being kind of a lot on top of my ADHD meds—so no coffee or black tea for me. Occasionally I have decaf but it makes me shockingly hyper.

But I’m a big ginger tea drinker lately. I had a barley tea (mugicha) phase a while back. I like rooibos chai, fruity herbal tea, and iced hibiscus. And sometimes I drink hojicha (roasted green tea), which is low in caffeine but has lots of L-theanine, the stuff in tea that makes you feel relaxed.

My ginger thing involves steeping sliced fresh ginger for at least 20 minutes and adding lemon juice, cane sugar, and yuzu “tea” (it’s more like yuzu jam/marmalade that dissolves in the water and has peel bits that kind of steep in the water as well). It’s lovely. Honestly, just writing this makes me want to make some right now. Which I might do.

🌴 Desert island item?

I’m indecisive and not great at packing light, so I’m terrible at picking this sort of thing. But I’ll try.

Actually, the first thing that comes to mind is a white noise machine. I can hardly sleep without one anymore. My family and I have had two power outages recently that lasted multiple days and both times, being without white noise messed up my sleep really badly.

[justforbooks]

Michael Caine wears two watches: an analogue for the time and an Apple for everything else. It even knows his pulse, he says, impressed. Right now, it’s telling him his flat is 26C: warm enough for his wife, Shakira, to pour iced coffee into his flask, but not hot enough for those balcony doors to be open: “It’s blowing a bloody gale in here!”

I slide them shut slightly. Is that OK? A bit more. Enough? Bit more. I close them completely. He’s happy now.

Caine lives in Chelsea Harbour: posh 80s condos and Princess Diana’s gym. He likes the security and tolerates the helicopters. His London penthouse has caramel carpets, 360-degree views, two Oscars and 5,000 photos of his grandchildren.

Below us lies Battersea Bridge, tide low, shore glittering. No, he shudders, he’s never mudlarked. Why not? After all, his first novel, out in November, is about binmen who find uranium down at the dump. “Well,” he says darkly, “other people do things and it goes all right. I do them and bad things happen.”

He looks at me. We’re waiting for his co-star, John Standing, who is stuck in traffic. Caine is a big man with whom to make small talk. It’s not just that your brain short-circuits each time he speaks (Michael Caine?!?!), it’s that at 90, he’s still 6ft 2in, undiminished and simply intimidating.

In 1987, he gave an acting masterclass in which he revealed the secret to being forceful on screen was a) don’t blink and b) mascara. It works face-to-face, too. The first one, anyway.

During the Blitz, says Caine, he watched the city get flattened from his dormer in Camberwell; from here, he’s seen it rise up again. He loves new-build and soft furnishings with the passion of a man raised in an attic with no hot water, one outdoor loo and rickets. Every time a bomb fell, the mattresses doiiinged. “Me and my brother would laugh all through the bleedin’ air raids!”

An update: Standing will be here shortly. I praise the pot-plants and Caine mourns his garden. He was evacuated to Berkshire, where he was fed a tin of pilchards a day and locked in a cupboard for the weekends, and then to rural Norfolk, where he discovered a love of horticulture – later energetically indulged at his own places in Oxfordshire and Surrey.

Less so in Hollywood. He sold up there after someone told him that if he wanted to grow daffodils he’d need to put the bulbs in the fridge for a fortnight. “That was it! Final straw!” But did he do it? “Oh yeah. It worked.”

In comes Standing, 89 but nimble as a debutante, all polish and apologies. They settle down, discuss the weather and a window is discreetly opened. Caine goggles at my iPad, which he mistakes for a phone: “Blimey, that’s a big one!”

The Great Escaper is brilliant, I say. Caine is surprised I’ve seen it, let alone enjoyed it. Didn’t he? “Yeah. But I’ve had films where I liked it but other people didn’t agree with me.”

No wonder it tempted them from retirement: meaty roles dry up as you approach 100. Caine plays Bernard Jordan, a real-life Royal Navy veteran who made headlines in 2014 when he travelled alone from his care home in Hove, East Sussex, to Normandy for the 70th D-day anniversary. The film – flintier than you might think, and very moving – fictionalises a friendship with Arthur, a former RAF pilot (Standing) he meets on the ferry.

Both actors did national service in Berlin after the war; Caine was then drafted to Korea – “a bugger”, he says (his memoir suggests this is understatement). “When we got there they said: the Chinese have just sent a million troops. What? But they were just young kids and old men to take all our ammunition. You shoot at them and then the real fighters come. And that was the Chinese in a nutshell.”

In the film, the pair make a pilgrimage to the war cemetery at Bayeux in Normandy. “What a waste,” cries Bernard as the camera zooms out to show the rows and rows of headstones. Caine doesn’t agree. “You had to have full cemeteries because you’d had to fight the German army, which was not a load of idiots. And the Germans had to be stopped.”

And Korea? Well, communism is “perfectly frightful”, says Standing. Caine nods. “It doesn’t take care of the working class quite the way they say. My father was a fishmonger in Billingsgate, so I knew when I saw the communists, they had no idea what it was all about. Do any working-class people want to live in North Korea?”

They both think national service should be reintroduced. “It gives you a whole new realisation of life,” says Caine. “I notice how different young people are today. They’re so free with everything. Military training makes you think about helping other people. My grandsons – all they do is play football.” (Still, he adds later, they’re also “incredible, unbelievable, and they worry about other people – which is handy”.)

Standing chips in: one of his daughters is “a bit woke” and cautions him about getting cancelled. “It’s horrible! We’re not allowed to say anything. I loathe it. My God, you’re not allowed to have mother-in-law jokes! It’s sort of barking.”

Then again, “things were far less complicated” 70 years ago. He smiles benignly. “Your telephone alone is the most complex thing anybody’s ever dreamed of. You’ve got all the information you ever want. You can chat to Henry VIII. Have you seen the man made of wood and iron playing the most immaculate game of ping-pong and thrashing the ordinary Briton at the other end?”

I haven’t. Caine confesses some concern over robots – that’s partly what his novel, a thriller, is about. “But I’m 90. I don’t worry about the future. I worry if I’m gonna make it to lunch.”

Caine and Standing first met on another hot day, in the summer of 1976, shooting another war movie, The Eagle Has Landed. Caine played a Nazi eager to assassinate Churchill; Standing a rather flaky vicar. Memories of the shoot seem thin on the ground, but they agree moviemaking hasn’t changed much.

“I make my own world,” says Caine. “And if they employ me, they gotta leave me to do it my way. Otherwise I screw it up. And even if I do it my way, I screw it up as well.”

They both chuckle. “Michael, darling!” says Standing.

Have they changed?

Standing sighs. “We’re just so bloody old.”

“And we’re still here,” says Caine.

“Which is incredible! All my mates are brown bread.”

“Oh, mine and all. Sean Connery, Roger Moore. Everybody’s dead. It’s amazing.”

How does that feel?

“Lonely,” says Caine. “I had dinner last night here with eight women. Shakira gets ’em. I don’t get ’em. They’re the wives of my friends. I’m often sitting with a table full of widows.”

Standing empathises. “Hundreds of women round one all the time. And you sit there thinking: give us a break! Ask me something, anything you like!”

Caine nods. “Ask me a question about football! But I’m perfectly happy with all the girls. I love them.”

Again: consult his memoir for more details, but this is putting it mildly. Caine spent the 50s, 60s and early 70s hoovering up hotties across the continents, pausing only for relationships with Natalie Wood and Nancy Sinatra and to refuel on vodka with Terence Stamp and Peter O’Toole.

So when he says he was tired of bachelor life by 1972, you can believe it – he must have been exhausted. He had a night in, saw a Maxwell House ad on telly and resolved to fly to Brazil the next morning to marry the woman with the maracas. No need, said a pal: she was Indian, not Brazilian, and lived on the Fulham Road in west London.

This is one of Caine’s regular chatshow yarns and he duly does it for us today: “I tracked her down! Incredible!” Caine is a bit of an anecdote jukebox – tales triggered by the briefest mention of Cary or Larry or Frank – but with material like his, it’s hard to object. Though charming, he also dominates conversation in general – about which Standing is a gent. Does he miss the 60s? “I don’t miss it, but I love having done it. I used to get into trouble all over the place.”

He and Shakira have been married more than 50 years. Ageing is less awful, he advises, “if you’re married to someone really beautiful who doesn’t grow old. I wake up every morning and there she is!” It’s true: Shakira, 76, does seem preternaturally patient and gorgeous. “What is great about her is that she’s very bright. She was the secretary in the … I forget which country she comes from [Shakira was born in British Guiana, now Guyana], but she was the secretary of the American embassy, so she’s a great secretary for me. She runs everything. It’s unbelievable.”

At the heart of The Great Escaper is another enduring marriage, between Bernie and Irene, played by Glenda Jackson in her final film. She and Caine first worked together 48 years ago. “She was very young and pretty,” he says. “Very attractive. Bloody good actress. But a left-wing socialist and I’m all for making money because I come from a very poor background.” They never talked politics – bit busy making the movies. He saw her five days before she died in June: “She seemed fine.” He’s relieved it was quick.

Bernie and Irene are a devoted couple who, though the film doesn’t discuss it, didn’t have children. Might that have changed their dynamic? “Oh, tremendously,” says Caine. “You don’t have any other separate thing to talk about. You talk about each other. And you don’t have to judge how people feel about someone else. Only you.”

It’s a sharp insight, particularly given that he’s personally “always had children around me like wildfire”. His eldest daughter, Dominique, was born when he was 23, during a brief marriage to the actor Patricia Haines; he and Shakira have another daughter, Natasha. Picking up his eldest grandson from the school is, Shakira tells me later, the highlight of his week. “I love kids,” he says, a bit wistfully.

Standing murmurs agreement. He’s also been married for yonks. The secret, he says, is “laughing with each other”.

Caine is less on-message: “Don’t argue. Don’t try to prove it with arguments or a row. Let ’em do it.”

“Women are No 1 anyway,” says Standing.

“It’s the only place you can get babies,” nods Caine.

“But I gotta say this, Michael: have you seen what women do now?” says Standing. A dramatic pause. He’s a West End veteran, light comedies a specialty. “Cage fighting!” He turns to me. “What possessed your sex to do something like that? For men to cage fight is unthinkable. For women – boom, boom, boom, on each other’s faces! Deranged! But that’s modern life.”

Has Caine seen that? “Oh yeah,” he says blithely. “On television.” And? “I was stunned.” Why? “I wouldn’t do that to anyone. Even if I didn’t like them. I’d just knock ’em out and walk away.”

The real theme of The Great Escaper is – perhaps not one for the poster – that the only escape from old age is death. Yet Caine and Standing continue to produce work that will live on after they’re gone. Caine wrote his first novel bedridden during lockdown, and is now writing a second. Standing is a professional painter. They have six children between them. Are any of these enterprises better or worse as stabs at immortality? There’s only really one, says Caine: “Kindness.” And maybe Alfie. And The Muppet Christmas Carol.

“Michael, darling,” says Standing, “I said to someone the other day: ‘Have you heard of Peter O’Toole?’ She said: ‘Well, I know the name.’ Once you are dead, you are dead. You think of Bogart! But young people only know Goose. What’s he called? Gosling. Big names in the theatre – Gielgud – mean nothing.”

That craft and that class is history, they reckon. When I ask Caine who today’s version of him is, he agrees there isn’t one.

“Because you don’t get young people now who are that far back in society. That had to come forward in great leaps. I think my type of person is extinct. I can’t think of anybody who had a life like mine.”

It wasn’t just the poverty, he says, it was Korea and then, six months later, malaria (he nearly died). “And so it never stopped, you know? Until it did.”

And yet it sort of hasn’t. Caine remains an icon of a time and an energy that feel increasingly exotic. He still calls himself working class and frets over any potential betrayal of his roots. The fate of his brother, Stanley, troubles him. “He just stood there and watched me become a millionaire when he didn’t even have a job. I turned him into someone who couldn’t move. I should have gone and moved him.”

Once, Caine was shopping for a sofa and Stanley – who’d been awol for a while – appeared as part of the team lugging it in from the back. “I grabbed him. I said, ‘You are outta here.’ Oh, it was terrible. I didn’t know where he was.

“He became an alcoholic. So I bought him two houses: one to live in and one to rent so he could have some money to buy some booze.” Caine’s eyes are rheumy. “He’s three years younger than me. And he’s been dead for five years.”

There was an older brother, too, David, born with severe epilepsy and confined to an institution. Caine only found out about him after their mother’s death – though she had visited David secretly each week. Caine then made him as comfortable as possible. His mother spent her final years living in one of the houses he’d bought her with a carer and her two young sons, “who loved my mum like a grandma. I was very happy with that. I did everything for everybody. So that’s it. I’m sitting here, I’ve done it. I can’t do any more.”

The Great Escaper has been widely described as Caine’s final film, just as Harry Brown was in 2009, and then – 24 films later – Best Sellers in 2021. It’s not. He’s shooting another in January: “It’s about someone who is so famous I’d never heard of him. Charles, Charles …”

“ … Darwin,” says Standing.

“Yeah. I play Charles Darwin. And that’ll be it. I won’t do another one after.”

He’s sure?

“No! But the point is, can you do it? Can you remember all the lines? I’ve got used to not working and staying in bed till 11am and staying out late at night. I love it.”

In The Great Escaper, Jackson has a line about life being fun when you’re young, but once you hit her age, “you’re basically buggered”. Present company queers that pitch. “Oh blimey,” says Caine. “I have a great time.” Standing nods. His one concession to old age has been to give up tap-dancing – though you suspect he might oblige in an emergency.

Neither man can think of a single instance in which they’ve been ill-treated because of their age.

“Nobody patronises me,” says Caine.

“We don’t look like we need help,” says Standing.

In Caine’s case, that’s not entirely true. His skin is smooth, his cheeks full – “I’m very lucky the whole face has not collapsed” – and The Great Escaper showcases them with loads of fantastic closeups. Yet he does use a walker and wheelchair. Never had qualms about being seen with them, he says. “Nope. It’s my life and I do what I want.”

“I think you are bloody brave,” says Standing. “Michael, man-to-man, it was an admirable thing to say: ‘Bollocks, I will do the film’, in spite of all those things.’”

I think he’s right. For someone with an image as familiar – and cultivated – as Caine’s, to visibly concede frailty feels courageous. It’s a shame, I say, that “mobility issues” were given as the reason the Queen didn’t attend various events near the end – as if being seen in a wheelchair was inconceivable.

Caine opts not to criticise the Queen. Instead he cues up the story of the first time they met, at a dinner, when she asked him to tell her a joke. He couldn’t think of a clean one. “She pointed to the man on her other side and said: ‘I’m gonna talk to him now. In five minutes I’ll be back and I want a joke.’”

I don’t know what I’d imagined Michael Caine’s Queen impression to sound like, but it’s definitely a lot more mobster. That was quite frightening, I tell him, once he’s finished the joke (long, about a chicken). Does he see any similarities between them?

“I think everyone sees a similarity between themselves and the Queen.”

Even Standing, an actual baronet, demurs at that one. But the fact Caine believes it adds weight to the idea they do share something – the ability, perhaps, to unsettle others through their presence alone. The Great Escaper taps that, too. Bernie prompts in people – Arthur included – profound reckonings, without really trying. Can Caine relate?

“I don’t know,” he says. “A bit, probably, yes. But it could be quite unpleasant. I don’t do things that are unpleasant.”

But you feel you have that power?

“Yeah, oh yeah.”

And what’s that like?

He grins. “Great.”

Our time is up. Caine checks his watch. “28C,” he says, “and that’s with the bloody windows open.”

© 2024 Guardian News, Catherine Shoard

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[shwoo]

Nearly forgot about the new Fionna and Cake episodes, (Destiny and the Winter King) and had to go to bed immediately after watching it, but now I have thoughts! About those two episodes specifically. Very overthinky thoughts in places.

I got tired and took all day writing this, so it might decrease in coherency as it goes on.

-It's nice to see Simon having motivation again. Even if that motivation is to... basically die.

-Simon is such a nerd, with his excitement about the library and his Ship of Theseus joke! I love him. Why did he not actually go into the library, though? :(

-I wrote a fanfic once when a Farmworld character comments on a normal Adventure Time style character's lack of nose, and the character covers it self-consciously! It was... weirdly validating to see the show make the same joke?

-Farmworld Jake is still alive... Did main world Jake not die of old age? I'm sure a normal dog wouldn't have a longer natural lifespan than a magical talking dog who is also half stretchy alien.

-Farmworld Finn's named kids have the same names as Finn's pillow kids in Puhoy! That was a cool callback, even though pillow Bonnie's name made more sense. Did Finn not name her after Princess Bubblegum in the pillow world, or did he also know a Bonnie in Farmworld?

-I thought Jay was a girl for most of the episode, until someone referred to him with masculine pronouns. I like living in this world where I could think that despite his thing for Little Destiny being obvious from the beginning. (I like that gay relationships are more commonly and casually depicted in fiction than they used to be)

-I like Farmworld Finn. He's a good person who's doing his best. I hope he didn't die in the end. It seemed a little ambiguous.

-Simon, you of all people should know not to talk positively about the crown to someone who was cursed by it. Unless he didn't realise Finn ever wore the crown?

-After Simon assumed that Jay's dad was another version of him, I was hoping he'd find out what did happen to him in this universe, but I guess the corpse was a little bit close to the giant nuclear bomb thingy.

-Cake apparently reads AO3, or at least something adjacent enough to know what enemies to lovers is, which is impressive for someone who was a normal housecat like a day ago.

-The next episode has a Gumlee subplot for some reason? Okay! And Gary's not wrong that Fionna flaked out on him. She could've at least tried to explain where she was once Winter King fixed her phone, but she didn't.

-Also I love that Ellis P was randomly at Fionna's apartment too. They only just met.

-I wonder how much of the differences between the Winter King and Simon are intrinsic to this world's Simon, and how much are a result of him using the crown. He's definitely still influenced by the crown, but I'm not sure what his line about Betty is implying. Did he start feeling that way because of this universe's point of divergence, or did the point of divergence happen because he never liked her as much as the main Simon did? He reacted so calmly about her that I don't think he was lying.

-Interesting contrast with Simon being fine in the snow while Fionna and Cake are clearly freezing. That's some superhuman cold tolerance Simon has.

-"How'd you stop being Ice King" "I just tried REALLY HARD and now everything's great!" "Oh, okay,"

-Was it winter in the Fionna and Cake world in the first episode? The world is obviously affected by Simon's mental state in some way, and now it's snowing over there.

-I'm not sure what to think about ice Marceline, but wasn't she older than that when she turned the family axe into some kind of lute? I don't know if this world's Marceline is supposed to be dead or not, but Winter King seems to have depicted her at that age for a reason.

-I thought it was a role reversal world when the Candy Queen showed up, but all her Ice King-like traits were just foreshadowing! Disturbing, disturbing foreshadowing. I thought it was interesting that she did the same leg kick thing while playing the piano that the Winter King did. Or maybe that was a just a callback.

-Simon seemed to legitimately like her song. He's so sweet when he's not marinating in self-hatred.

-No wonder the Candy Queen feels such a sense of kinship with the Winter King that she wants to mash them up in a blender. He's giving her all his negative traits so he doesn't have to deal with them.

-The Lemoncarbs were never going to like Gary's proposal. They're Lemongrabs and he's a Princess Bubblegum, and there's been multiple episodes about how incompatible their interests are.

-Fionna did that weird demagickifying Prismo thing like Cake did with one of the hot dog people in the second episode. Does that only happen when they're feeling happy and accepted, or was the timing coincidence? Also, I think it might have something to do with why Prismo's not supposed to create things, since it uses the same effect as his powers. Their world is probably inherently unstable regardless of whose head it's in, or something dramatic like that.

-I'm glad Fionna's rethinking her self-centred worldview. Maybe she can also realise that her own world isn't as boring as she thinks, because I'm pretty sure that's also a metaphor for Simon's self-hatred. Though would it still be a metaphor if she's not currently in his head?

-So we've had a revisit of Farmworld, where FInn was negatively affected by the crown's curse, and a world where Princess Bubblegum is negatively affected by the crown's curse. Is Marceline up next? She was at least as important a secondary character on the original show as PB was. And more important personally to Simon.

[thebuckblogimo]

A natural born mother who still has what it takes.

September 24, 2024

When I met Debbie, a young nurse from Cleveland, the person who would become my wife, I recall sitting near the ocean with her one night under a starry sky, talking into the wee hours about the things we deeply believed. I also recall one of my strongest impressions of her at the time: This woman is destined to be a great mother.

As things turned out I was absolutely right.

We wound up having four children together. And when the kids were toddlers, and despite working midnight shifts at Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital, she was always there for them. Hugging them. Coaxing them. Encouraging them. Loving them. Sometimes all at the same time as they sprawled out atop our bed.

Often she did those things while feeling thoroughly exhausted due to the demands of her job.

Now, over four decades later, our oldest son is 40, battling depression and sometimes, when he gets into a funk, she'll listen to him for hours as he unloads what he needs to unpack over the phone. She is always there for him--listening, counseling, comforting, loving--while never seeming to tire.

She's a natural born mom that way.

Over the recent Labor Day weekend, one of our daughters gave birth to her second child, a healthy girl. So we camped out at the home of the young family for about three weeks, helping them as best we could. It was my job to shop for groceries, play chef and walk the young family's rambunctious German Shepherd. Debbie's primary responsibility was to care for the young parents' two-year-old while they attended to the needs of their new baby and our daughter healed from her C-section.

During our stay I was able to take breaks from my duties. Ocassionally I'd get up early to go to a greasy spoon for breakfast. Or watch a little TV. Or read the newspaper on my laptop on the back porch. But Debbie was at it practically all day. Every time I glanced over at her she would be in the living room or dining room, comforting the two-year-old in her arms, or maneuvering stuffed animals with her on the floor, or stroking the back of her head before putting her down for a nap.

Albeit in her 70s, being a mom seems like riding a bike for my wife.

I'd like to think that I did my part as a young father back in the day: changing diapers, watching the Little Rascals with the kids on morning TV, or getting them out of the house and buckling them into the car seats of our van so Deb could get some sleep after working all night at the hospital.

As the years went by and they got older, I was usually the one our kids went to for advice about getting shit done in college, or persuing their careers, or how to navigate office politics.

Today, when they're hurting, whether physically, mentally or emotionally, Debbie is the one they usually go to. And now, with our having three grandchildren, two in Detroit and one in Chicago (where there's another on the way), she plays a starring role as "grandma."

But, really, she's a mom, a care giver at heart. It's what she was born to do. I was certain of that from the start.

[atamascolily]

princess tutu re-watch, episode 18

oh hey, it's the forest from the opening credits!

and we open with Fakir having a real KNIGHTmare, so to speak

Fakir: My subconscious can go shove it.

meanwhile, Ahiru, Pike, and Lilie are all excited about Fakir's return to school but for wildly different reasons

they are interrupted by a group of avant-garde theater kids practicing mime, one of whom (who identifies as "Shrimp") instantly pegs Ahiru as "duck".

[I am impressed by how long those two girls can hold her up in mid-air, that's quite a feat of strength]

They want Mytho to dance in one of their performance, but Ahiru correctly believes this to be a bad idea and so volunteers Fakir instead

this is Fakir's CALLING, by the way, I've been saying this for a while now, but is he grateful for the opportunity? Of course not.

Neko-sensei is unexpectedly helpful, calling into question whether there is truly such a thing as "impure" love, name-dropped Odile (the Black Swan, aka the inspiration for Rue) as an example

Fakir: This script hits a little too close to home. A ghost knight? And what happened to the ending? There's a pattern emerging and I don't like it… So, uh, where did it come from?

Drama Club: No idea! We just found it one day and figured we'd put on a show! And the fact that there's an actual ghost knight running around means more publicity! What can possibly go wrong?

Fakir touches original copy and has instant war flashbacks.

Fakir: Okay, I'll do it… but I sure hope this doesn't awaken anything in me!

Drosselmeyer: Hey, Ahiru, what about those heart shards? You had ONE job…

oh THAT's why Mytho was so dismissive about Rue's chances of capturing a heart… because the Raven's whole schtick is built on the premise that no one will ever love her but the two of them (and you can only capture someone's heart if they love you enough to surrender it willingly).

cut to a stellar sequence of Fakir practicing his role for the play, A++ use of animation budget

Drama Club: This is great! It's like he was BORN to play this role or something!

Fakir finishes his routine and is disappointed to discover Ahiru ran out halfway through to run errands, lololol

The Drama Club asks him to join them permanently and Fakir should totally say yes, but instead he's having PTSD and walks out and everybody chalks it up to him being a broody Byronic hero-type.

Mytho: I love your hair, Rue. It's just like feathers, which are objectively best, and like crows, which are better.

Rue: you need to work on your pick-up lines, dear.

The two of them decide to enlist the ghost knight to fuck with Fakir.

Fakir (walking through fog just like his dream): I HAVE A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS. To the stables! *horse neighing*

Ahiru: Wait, how did I end up in this creepy forest?

Fakir: HI-YO SILVER, AWAYYYYYY!

Turns out the Headless Horseman ghost knight has a heart shard, and Fakir's plan is to fight to the death and have Tutu deal with the aftermath. Ahiru is less than thrilled with this and jumps into the battle instead, forcing Fakir to tackle her to safety.

Tutu wins by her signature finishing move: a hug.

The ghost vanishes, Mytho gets his sense of Pride back, and Tutu collapses, and returns to duck form, leaving Fakir to cradle her in his arms and cry.

meanwhile, a hooded figure steals the original copy of the script out of the storage cupboard in the drama club room and walks off

Drosselmeyer: Oh shit this is bad, and I don't have anyone I can bully into fixing this! If only my puppets didn't sacrifice themselves… It's so hard to get good help these days… nobody wants to work anymore... blah blah blah...

the episode ends before the performance, so we don't get to see what happens there, but I still think Fakir should join the drama club. It would be so good for him!!!

[semper-legens]

65. Gleanings, by Neal Shusterman

Owned: No, library Page count: 426 My summary: The world is run by the Thunderhead, and kept in line by gleanings from Scythes. We’ve seen Scythe Anastasia and Scythe Lucifer’s stories. But what about the other stories we haven’t seen? The past, present, and future of this world - art contests, communities denying the existence of Scythes, a dog’s revenge, tragedy in space. This world is so much bigger than ever before. My rating: 4/5 My commentary:

I didn't know this book existed! It's a further novel in the Arc of a Scythe series; I say novel, it's a collection of short stories set across the timeline of the Arc of a Scythe canon. There's at least one story that takes place just as the Scythedom began, and at least one that takes place after the events of the series. I wasn't entirely sure what I was getting into when I started reading this one (see the fact that I didn't know it existed), but hot damn do I love Neal Shusterman's work, and this certainly did not disappoint.

Standard disclaimer: not talking about all the stories, just the ones that jumped out at me for whatever reason. And the first of those is The Mortal Canvas, featuring an early Scythe coming to an school and challenging four pupils to a contest - create the best art, and gain a year of immunity from gleaning. I'm of two minds about this one. I really liked the view of the early days of this world, where the younger generation have been born into immortality but the older ones still remember fearing death. I just wasn't too sure about the actual art contest element. See, one of the worldbuilding points in Arc of a Scythe is that humanity is just a tiny bit creatively sterile, everything being safe and standardised. This is encapsulated in the students, Wyatt being unable to create art without relying on formula and program, and Morty wanting to create something original. Morty ends up submitting an incredibly provocative oil painting of the Scythe that shocks the onlookers into silence. His is obviously the best art, though Wyatt wins the contest, but I'm not too sure about the messaging going on here. Much is made of the idea that a fear of death and mortality is an impetus for great art, but it smacks of the whole 'if you get help for mental health issues you won't be able to Create' mindset so common in reality. Then again, the issue is less of individual response than collective artistic stagnation - it's not that Wyatt is himself bad for not being able to create, more society's fault for prizing cookie-cutter copies of great art rather than something more creative and challenging. Hmm. I think I just did a 180 in my opinion on this one.

Another of the stories featured a young man who has emigrated to Mars and wants to return to Earth, study, and really make a name for himself there in a way that he can't do in a backwater like Mars. He applies for and, through an act of desperate murder, gains the role of a valet to a visiting Scythe. Who charges him with a 'great act' that will shock Mars out of complacency. See, Mars is out of the jurisdiction of the Scythes, not having a large enough population to necessitate gleaning of the populace. This leads to some complacency - without gleaning, the people quite literally cannot die outside of major accident. So he causes that accident. Blows up a damn nuclear reactor, and ends up impressing the Scythe so much that he gains an apprenticeship. And he wants to choose the name Goddard. I gotta admit, I was lukewarm on this story, but the twist at the end punched me straight in the chest. Knowing the backstory of Goddard was interesting enough; reading this story with full knowledge of where this kid is going to end up is delicious. Seriously, baby Goddard, you threw your friend to his death to get the valet role over him? What an absolute scumbag.

I'm gonna use my last paragraph here to be a little more general. One thing I always praise about Shusterman's work is that his worldbuilding is ridiculously expansive; he just commits to the bit, putting extra detail in, even if that detail is weird or kind of silly. Like retelling the Masque of the Red Death, for example. And this is a good way to see the parts of the Arc of a Scythe world that have been backgrounded to this point! Like what happened to Citra's brother, or the Dream shared by the people of one region, or what it's like to be an Unsavory, or getting a conclusion on the rockets sent into space at the end of the series. It's a way of broadening the scope of the series that doesn't bog down any of the novels' narratives, and it was greatly appreciated. If you read and enjoyed Arc of a Scythe, this is a worthy followup and welcome addition!

Next, more Junji Ito, and a man barely human.

[mashitandsmashit]

AGT Season 19: Auditions 6

12: Full Steel Combat. Stick to Renaissance Fairs...

11: Ry the Healer. Well, it's not much of an act, but I'm certainly feeling slightly less of my usual grouchy self...But not enough to say yes to that weird dancing cow...

10: Ada Filppa. Even if she had a REAL horse, this wouldn't have worked (and it would have been quite chaotic...) But I'll give her points for jumping over MOST of those bars...

9: Tyler Burke. Well, he's good with a whip, and can catch an arrow...I can even forgive missing the ring three times (near-impossible trick anyway) if he had a better presentation...Maybe this would work if he made it a comedic act like Lioz Shem Tov...Or joined the Indiana Jones show in Disneyland, since he's a Californian (maybe he tried that already...) Otherwise, the best part of this act was picturing Simon Cowell in the starring role of an action-adventure movie...

8: Alex Sampson. This audition seemed like a near-copy of Oscar Stembridge's last week, between being the second segment of the show, having a vlog of him in his hometown in the opening package, doing an original song, and being one of the handsomest dudes ever to grace TV...I thought Oscar had a stronger voice and a more meaningful song, but this young man gets points for a nice, catchy, throwback-y little ballad...Naturally, the singer-songwriter category's getting pretty stacked this season, but I liked him enough to be curious to see how he progresses in the coming rounds...

7: Espiritu. Look, I see what Howie's saying; These kids don't hold a candle to quite a few dance groups we've seen in the past...But they had plenty of energy, choreography, and one jammin' track! They won't get far in this game (especially with Howie's pickiness), but this is certainly one of the better “dance recital” type acts I've seen lately...

6: Praveen Prajapat. I very nearly put this guy at #8 (the lowest rank among the acts that actually passed this week), but I figured what he pulled off here is enough to bump up two ranks...Very cool and impressive, but it's hard to imagine what he's going to do to follow this up...

5: B. Thompson. This guy is definitely talented...Possibly even more so than Avery Dixon, who's still one of my favorites from recent years...That being said, soprano sax CAN be a little pitchy...Might make it difficult to listen to him for an hour or so...But Simon better watch it with his criticism of the song choice, lest he insult people still mourning the great Tina Turner...

4: Reid Wilson. I guess Howie had to give the GB to at least one singer...He can pick whoever he wants after giving the other one to that awesome dance group a few weeks ago...And honestly, this kid wasn't half bad a choice either! He was DEFINITELY nervous, but I didn't think it did much to hide those amazing pipes! I'd say so far this season, he might be the best singer in terms of raw vocals...So I wish him good luck in this game...He could go very far indeed!

3: Balloon Taro. I guess third time's the charm...This is probably the best birthday party act I've ever seen on this show! Of course, I knew he was gonna make it up the platforms, since that clip was shown in all of the previews for this season...Never thought I'd say this for a goofy naked Japanese guy, but I'm actually looking forward to seeing what else he can do!

2: Super Silva Jr. While it's hard to compare this with the more traditional aerial acts we've seen over the years, this was very innovative as far as trapeze acts go! Like most of the other acts in here, I look forward to seeing what else he has...

1: Helen the Foot Juggler. It was almost like an upside-down dance! It started out impressive enough, but once she brought in that little table, THAT'S when it went from good to one of my favorite acts so far this season! She's better juggling with her feet than most jugglers are with their hands! It's tricky to imagine how far she'll go in this competition, but maybe her skills and the sentimental factor with her pwecious daughter will help her out...Needless to say, I will be rooting for her!

Whereas last week was heavy on singers, this week was heavy on goofy rejects...Still, I'd say all of the ones that DID make it had enough to appreciate!

Next week, Sophia uses up the last Golden Buzzer...And let's be real, it's most likely gonna be that singing girl shown so prominently in the promo...

We'll see if I'm wrong...See you then!

Edit: Perhaps not...If it WAS her, they wouldn't have given her audition an early preview on Youtube...