#watch trailer Female on the Beach

[f10werfae]

Mr. Clingy and Kal

pairing: Henry Cavill x Actress!Shy!Oblivious!GF!Reader

summary: Fans retell the moments of Henry and Y/n L/n’s relationship despite her being quite the opposite of him. (major clingy Henry) (Requested by anon)

likes, comments and reblogs are appreciated♥️

Henry Masterlist, Full Masterlist, Taglist Form

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@/fansdaily: Anyone see that Henry posted a mirror selfie of him and Y/n in his hotel room, her face hidden in his neck with her arms around his waist, WHILE HE IS KISSING HER FOREHEAD WITH AN ARM AROUND HER WAIST TO KEEP HER CLOSE. Can someone confirm if they’re dating already?? Seeing Henry with someone quieter than him is the best trope

@/barbraturth: Guys Henry just confirmed his and Y/n’s relationship on Instagram!! He posted a picture of Y/n and Kal walking in front of him, with the caption ‘my whole world right in front of me’!!

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@/Peoplesnews: Henry Cavill confirms year long romance with his female lead, Y/n L/n. The younger beautiful star has captured hearts all over the nation, not only for her shy nature, but also for her warm kind heart! We wish the happy couple the best♥️

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@/jointloveduo: Henry just spilled major details on a podcast😭 Apparently for the first two months he was supposedly “courting” Y/n by bringing her flowers and lunch nearly everyday AND SHE DIDNT EVEN REALISE. Instead during one of their extended vacations while on set, he took her swimming and because she’s a weak swimmer she held onto him the entire time. Then he says he kissed her under the sunset on the beach and they’ve been glued together ever since

>> @/lovebug101: I’ve been watching Y/n for years and i’m so glad she’s found someone perfect for her♥️ All of her exes have come out saying she’s too quiet for them, but we all know they jus can’t handle her beauty

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@/beautyandtheleast: I just saw THE Y/n L/n in pets at home with Kal, she was bringing him up and down the toy aisle until he chose something! Henry came up behind her and just hugged her, kissing her cheek and everything😭

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@/Purplerains: When Henry posted a video of him building his PC and then he panned the frame to Y/n who was on the other side of the table, building her own set of legos he bought her🫶 He got her the flowers from the botanical section

>> @/judywrench: “Why are you on the floor love? What are you doing?” When I heard Henry say that while videoing Y/n eating nachos while on the floor of their kitchen at 2am, I fell in love with their relationship. THEN HE JOINED HER AND THEY HAD A WHOLE SNACK SESSION

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@/mysterymachine69: Henry just posted a picture of Y/n laying face down on their bed, their blanket just above her waist AND I JUST WANNA ASK HOW SHE HAS NO BACNE? And was that a hickey I saw on her top left shoulder along with bite marks 😳

>> @/Badbieferrer: Did no one else notice the handcuffs on the bedside table, they’re so purple and fluffy. We always knew Henry was a kinky bastard, he’s completely ruined our Y/n 😂

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@/Loosecanon: Y/n said that before her and Henry dated, he used to help her get to sleep because he knew she had trouble sleeping in trailers. So he would accompany her until she fell asleep and even made her a sleep playlist full of songs he’d play during the day

>> @/cavillgyal1010: Did you see also for his birthday she took him out and absolutely spoiled him. Paid for his dinner and all the things he wanted to buy. What a girlboss.

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@/popincolour: Y/n took Henry to her niece’s sports contest and he started acting like the typical overprotective uncle. When she was knocked down by a boy, Henry started shouting at the referee like a madman😭

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@/HenryCavill: Proud to announce that my best girl, Y/n L/n, has just received her doctorate in (certain job) can’t be prouder to be her man♥️

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@/Pucygrinsh: Henry said that whenever they cuddle Y/n tucks her cold ass feet under his thighs to get warm and whenever he has food she always steals it off him even though she “isn’t hungry” Henry then said that the only way for him to actually get food is to kiss Y/n jus so he can taste it ���️

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@/Rainbown: Henry and Y/n have their own kiss routine, first her forehead, cheeks, nose then lips.

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@/beautifull101010: Henry said he hates when Y/n wears lip gloss, because when he kisses her it gets all over him. SO NOW HE CARRIES AROUND WIPES FOR WHENEVER HE WANTS TO KISS HER AND THEN HE REAPPLIES THE LIP GLOSS FOR HER

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@/mjtochond: Y/n said in a recent podcast that whenever she needs to pee in the middle of cuddling, Henry will literally accompany her to the bathroom and just chat to her while sitting in the bath tub. What a cute idiot, he’s so in love with her it’s crazy.

>> @/Y/n/L/n: He’s so clingy it’s adorable, he’s like an extra Kal on my leg😭 Only Kal actually leaves me alone when I need the toilet

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@/Turtlensaps: The first time Henry saw Y/n without makeup was when she was having the flu real bad and Henry said she’s never looked so pure and beautiful. She had his sweats and hoodie on, her hair all over the place and all she wanted was hugs from him. Henry then went on to say that she didn’t let him kiss her but he stole one anyway and got sick the next week. SO THEN Y/N HAD TO PLAY NURSE NEXT😩

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@/Exposedtruth: Henry Cavill Spotted with long-term girlfriend Y/n L/n getting close by his childhood home in Jersey! Surrounded by his brothers and their children, the happy couple are seen to be cradling one of Henry’s nephews on their lap, a possible foreshadow for their own?! Y/n was wearing a stunning sun dress which matched Henry’s button up, the image definitely giving off a happy family. Where’s that ring Henry??

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Taglist Tags (Form is up there^^): @pandaxnienke @thereisa8ella @kimhtoo17 @beck07990 @vrittivsanghavi @dumb-fawkin-bitch @madebylilly @tinyelfperson @athena-roy @fdl305 @kebabgirl67 @mysticfalls01 @marvelgurl @uwiuwi @stormcloudss @princess-paramour @mansaaay @girl-of-multi-fandoms @misshale21 @hallecarey1 @alina02 @bookfrog242 @alexxavicry @nikkitc0703 @mischiefsemimanaged @oliviah-25 @sparklemarysunshine @i-beg-your-pardon-laufeyson @aerangi @lastwandastan @hp-hogwartsexpress @angelmather1 @diyabhanushali1 @spencerreidat4am @keiva1000 @acornacre @ninasw0rld @ggmimitf @teti-menchon0604 @thebaileybugle @p4st3lst4rs @grxnde-dwt @kzhlvlysstuff @thoughtsofreid

[tilbageidanmark]

MOVIES I WATCHED THIS WEEK (#196):

4 UNUSUAL DOCUMENTARIES:

🍿 KEDI (2016) is a love song for a beautiful city and its wonderful stray animals. Istanbul is known for its millions of street cats who peacefully co-exist with the humans who manage to feed and care for them. [With one glaring negative: There's no mention of any attempts for spaying and neutering the huge population!]. (TRAILER ABOVE).

It's a very simple film, basically shot after shot of different people petting a lot of different cats. So it's charming and calming. 7/10. [*Female Director*]

🍿 JOE HISAISHI IN BUDOKAN, 25TH ANNIVERSARY STUDIO GHIBLI CONCERT, was unexpectedly my happiest movie experience of the week. It is my second real-life affair from Sunada Mami (After her other Ghibli bio-pic, 'The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness'). A magnificent 2008 concert with full orchestra and 2 large choruses, (with as many as 400+ musicians). They played for 2 hours bits from the many scores which Hisaishi had composed for the films of his friend Hayao Miyazaki. Simply magical. 9/10. [*Female Director*]

🍿 BALLYMANUS (2022) is an Irish documentary about a German sea mine that exploded on a remote beach in 1943 and which killed 19 youngsters of its small community. It's interesting mostly for the feel of the rustic village and its people, gently-told.

🍿 YOOPER CREOLES: FINNISH MUSIC IN MICHIGAN'S COPPER COUNTRY (2019) is about old traditions of folk music, which were developed by the many ethnic communities in the upper peninsula in Michigan. Part and continuation of the Alan Lomax archivist projects.

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SPRING IN A SMALL TOWN (1948) was voted the best Chinese film of all time by the Hong Kong Film Critics Society. It was made during the Chinese Civil War, but was a surprisingly modern, feminist tale of an unrequited love in a village setting. It's a love triangle with an obedient but unhappy wife, a bed ridden husband, and his doctor friend who comes for a first unplanned visit in 10 years. It's a small lyrical and intimate miracle, worth discovering. It reminded me very much of David Lean's simultaneous story 'Brief Encounter'.

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CONTINUING MY OCCUPATION WITH ISABELLE HUPPERT X 2:

🍿 My second film by Jean-Paul Salomé (after last week's 'Mama Weed'), THE SITTING DUCK (2022). Based on a true story, it's a feminist corporate thriller about a steel-willed top executive whistleblower, who was viciously attacked for her steadfastness. It's basically Huppert's movie. 7/10.

🍿 LOUDER THAN BOMBS, my 3rd uninspired drama by Joachim Trier, his first outside of his native Norway. It's a family drama about widower Gabriel Byrne, and his two sons, who are trying to come to grips with the suicide-by-car death of Isabelle Huppert, playing here a scarred war zone photographer. Unfocused alienation, dislocation, and miscommunication, it's about the difficult dynamics of feeling lost. 5/10.

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"A doctor?... The boy is drunk!...

YOU ARE NOT ALONE was a landmark coming-of-age story about 2 boys who fall in love at a Danish boarding school in 1978. It was controversial in that the relationship between the 12 and 16 year old boys were shown honestly and naturally in a Scandinavian style (nudity, kisses, genuine affection - but no explicit sex). Olsen Banden's Ove Sprogøe plays the strict 'bad guy' headmaster.

It gave me a shot of sentimental nostalgia for that exact time and place. Even though I was 12-15 older than the boys, it rang so true: I remember the clothing, hair styles, cars, roads and ice cream shops, the Kim Larsen songs, the moods and attitudes of that time. It's like re-living it again. Wow! 7/10.

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SORRY WE MISSED YOU (2019), my 6th (and probably last!) powerful gut-punch by British socialist Ken Loach. A fantastic piece of Neo-realist social drama, but one which is so-so depressing that it took me about a week to sit through it. I doubt I'll be able to follow up with more of the same. A working class family struggles mightily to stay floating above water, and is constantly defeated. Since the Reagan-Thatcher Axis of Evil, the infrastructure in England had been degraded as thoroughly as the one in the US, and the only option left for the ordinary poor is to go and fuck off. It's a dreary, anxiety-inducing nightmare of train-wrack coming toward us, unstoppable, merciless and uncaring. 8/10.

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2 FROM BRAZIL:

🍿 THE END OF MAN (1971) is an unusual and bizarro Brazilian low-budget religious fairy tale. A naked stranger with very long fingernails emerges out of the sea, 'Messiah'-like, to influence everybody he meets. It's made by a pioneer of Brazilian horror genre, in the local B-movies style called 'Mouth of Garbage Cinema'. It's like an early Jodorowsky but without the drugs and the philosophy and also without Alejandro's considerably-mad talents. 3/10.

🍿 ELETRODOMÉSTICA (2005), my 3rd by Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho (After 'Bacurau' and 'Neighboring Sounds'). A stay at home housewife is going about her day, taking care of her 2 kids, cleaning and cooking, while also finding time to toke a hit of 'Mota' and to ride the spinning cycle of the washing machine for a quick release.... It's easy to recognize the same town as his first feature. Cute.

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First watch: Sam Packinpah's 1974 neo-Western BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA. A rough, desperate treasure hunter and his prostitute lover driving a beat-up jalopy to look for the head of a dead gigolo. Dirty Mexican mise-en-scène. Kris Kristofferson plays a raping biker-thug. 3/10

RIP, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON!

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“I love you with all my love...”

Grandiose genius Coppola directed my all-time favorite film ('The Conversation'), as well as my all-time favorite trilogy, so I was looking forward to finally see MEGALOPOLIS, his new end-of-life Opus Magnum. But this bloated, didactic, "operatic" epic about Shakespearean "Great men" like Cicero and Howard Roark and Cesar Catilina passed over my head until boredom come. The bullshit metaphors about the fall of the Roman Empire were indulgent and excessive. I can't see where did all the money go. I liked that Talia Shire played again the power-hungry matriarch, and I liked that Dinah Washington started singing 'What a different a day make' at a certain point, but otherwise, I had a hard time just finishing it.

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Stanley Kubrick directed only 12 features and 4 shorts during his 50-year career. FLYING PADRE (1951) was his second film. A documentary about a Catholic priest in rural New Mexico who flies his own Piper Cub plane to administer to his flock. It's told in voice-over, without actual sound.

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2 CANADIAN SHORTS:

🍿 PEEP SHOW, an early short (1981) by Canadian Atom Egoyan. A man at a photo booth tries to take some snapshots, but the photo booth misbehaves...

🍿 THE RIDE (1963), a Buster Keaton inspired joke of a chauffeur dreaming about a toboggan ride, while waiting for his employer. 4/10.

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My 2nd or 3rd re-watch of the very last episode of 'Succession'. With Open eyes, which is recognized now on some lists as the 'greatest TV episode of all time'. It's brutal all right, and proves to show that shoulder-slouching Kendall Roy was indeed a loser all along, a permanent Don Jr. Noted: It's interesting how the opening credit scene had been expanded from season to now. Also, how fluid and jerky was the camera work, full of "unfocused" blocking and cinéma vérité tricks. ♻️.

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TIM WALZ IS WALKING HIS RESCUE DOG and being interviewed by the guy from 'We rate dogs'. 17 wholesome minutes of a guy who's not weird. Cute!

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(ALL MY FILM REVIEWS - HERE).

[mirambles]

Welcome to SamdalRi - Disappointing is a mild word!

Let me say it up front - I adore Ji Chang Wook. He is so handsome, so gorgeous and an extremely talented actor. He is good at everything - action, comedy and emotions but no one serves angst like he does! I end up watching all his dramas and sadly have liked none since Suspicious Partner. That is my all time favourite - that was also Peak JCW - chemistry and acting everything!

Needless to say despite me not liking the FL of SamdalRi much , I was looking forward to this drama and quite enjoyed the beach town , light hearted feel of the trailer. The first 4 episodes were decent and even if the drama was tropey and predictable I would have enjoyed watching it if the execution was right. But the drama went downhill sooner than I expected.

The show starts with FL being wrongly accused and prosecution by media & public alike without any proof of the accusation. On spot reflection of Korean public towards celebs. I expected this plot to play out and FL to fight hard to prove her accuser wrong, but that plot had no consistency and emerged in the series on and off.

People will hate me for saying this, but all that SamDalRi became was a poor copy of Hometown Cha Cha Cha and Reply 1988.

Reply 1988: Families as neighbours/best friends. Gang of 5 friends 4 guys and girl - love triangle.

Hometown Cha Cha Cha:

1. Career oriented FL comes back to her small town after this setback

2. Genius ML opts to stay in small town sacrificing big town opportunities (Are plaid shirts a thing for small town men in Korea?)

3. Halmeoni gang of villages

4. Trauma for ML (death of loved one)

5. Apply ointment on wound of ML scene

6. Drunk sleepover

7. Beach town setting

8. Mid-late 30year olds behaving like teenagers after confessing their love

Now many will say these are common tropes in Kdrama land, but given that HomeTown Cha Cha is recent - the comparisons are most likely.

The lazy writing in SamDalRi made me appreciate HomeCha even more, especially the female characters in that show - small or big were exceptionally written. I couldn’t even empathise or feel for the FL of SamDalRi, forget the sisters or the mom. You take an actress like Kim Mi Kyung and give her a role where she is only staring at everyone barring one breakdown scene.

And what’s with all the adults hitting each other all the time, yelling at each other and the sisters being constantly drunk!

The Haenyeo gang was the most irritating in this show. My biggest gripe though was the age group of the leads and their friends! Who behaves in such a childish manner at 38 , which man is hanging onto his childhood crush till 38 despite knowing his best friend and her are dating or doesn’t express his feelings when those two split up and take his chance, then wants to express his feelings when the couple is back together! I have no idea if the writer understands the sensitivity around these things.

What’s the Korean drama obsession with showing 38 year old couple who has dated before behaving like they are in their 20s or teens when they get back together again! FFS there was a scene where the dad finds them sleeping in her bed and is mad at them and they are behaving like they got caught for first time!

SamDalRi tried to do everything - friends to lovers to exes to lovers, love triangle, childhood friendships, friends more than family, small town found families, giving up on dreams, scandal, capitalism, life of haenyeos, grief after loss of loved one, a healing drama. It failed at everything, because it couldn’t focus and decide what was the main theme and the sub-plots.

The writing was lazy, there was no character progression or growth, and the audience couldn’t connect to any characters. The acting was quite average barring JCW who excelled in every scene. I know SHS fans liked her performance, but she didn’t move me or make me want to watch more of her dramas (this is the 3rd drama of hers I have watched and the only one I didn’t drop cause of JCW).

I wanted to tweet first, but I started to type and realised it would be too long a thread and so a post was better to rant about this show! I ended up skipping most of the scenes post E8 and only ended up watching scenes that featured JCW, even though he excelled and looked great - this was another ordeal of a drama to finish!

Come on JCW choose better scripts. Do justice to that awesome potential and come back in a mature, slow burn romance with Nam Ji Hyun, because no one else has 🔥 chemistry with you like she does and no one else matches you in all aspects like she does!

[buttherainbowhasabeard]

The Beauty of Barbenheimer

A combination of the COVID-19 pandemic and a surge in streaming platform content has made life very difficult for cinemas in recent times. Why venture out, find a parking spot, queue for snacks and sit with strangers in the dark when you can watch whatever you like from the comfort of home, right?

But convenience can come at a cost. Our at-home screens and digital devices have been dominated by superheroes, seasons and remakes of late, and fatigue is starting to set in. Franchises have ballooned so much that even die-hard fans are finding it hard to keep engaged, let alone keep up. This bombardment of unimaginative content has left many lovers of cinema bored.

Enter the Barbenheimer phenomenon.

Dubbed Barbenheimer due to the dual release date (July 20th here in Australia) of Warner Bros. and Greta Gerwig’s ‘Barbie’ and Universal Pictures and Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’, these films have been smashing it at the box office, persuading people to return to their local cinemas in droves.

Sure, a saturation of ads, interviews, trailers and exclusive clips have had something to do with their success so far, but it’s mostly been fuelled by a desire for fresh stories and a contagious case of FOMO.

The notion that both movies are best experienced in the cinema surfaced organically with the hype, and a healthy dose of cross-promotion from the creatives of both sides has been yet another driver for record ticket sales.

Nolan is known for his large-scale epics of practical effects, big sights and even bigger sounds, so it was only natural that ‘Oppenheimer’ was going to be promoted as a must-see on the big screen.

Veteran Nolan collaborator Cillian Murphy (who plays J. Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb”) is mesmerising is his first, proper leading role in Hollywood, and is backed by an all-star ensemble cast that includes Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett and Kenneth Branagh. And Ludwig Goransaon’s suspenseful score acts like a character of its own.

Although most of us knew a bit about The Manhattan Project, the Trinity test and the subsequent (and horrific) bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, very few of us knew about the man behind the story.

‘Oppenheimer’ is an explosive, 3-hour look at his early life, his work and relationships, his obsession with quantum physics and his eventual role as the face of the Atomic Age. It’s about the biggest, global gamble to date (the bomb was either going to exacerbate all wars, end all wars or end the world), and it plays out in typical Nolan fashion with staggering IMAX camera visuals, going from the dusty desert vistas of Los Alamos, to the black and white colour gradings of claustrophobic courtrooms.

Gerwig on the other hand, is best known for acting in mumblecore movies and directing arthouse style, female-led films like ‘Little Women’ and ‘Lady Bird’.

‘Barbie’ is her first turn at a blockbuster, with an ensemble cast that is yes, mostly women, but has some stellar supporting male actors in the mix. With a picture-perfect Margot Robbie at the helm, ‘Barbie’ follows the titular Mattel doll’s journey from Barbieland into the real world, where she is confronted with an existence that is wildly different to her own.

Hilarity (and some heartfelt moments) ensue, with Ryan Gosling stealing every scene he’s in as her peroxide blonde, lovesick sidekick Ken, plus some fun supporting performances from the likes of America Ferrera, Issa Rae, Kate McKinnon, Michael Cera, Will Ferrell, Simu Liu and Kingsley Ben-Adir.

Gerwig’s plastic fantastic, feminist world gives off serious summer vacay vibes, all technicolor blue skies, hot pink dreamhouses, glittery dancefloors and sunny beaches - with a super catchy soundtrack to boot!

With one movie about a bomb and the other about a bombshell, on the surface, it looked like they were going to appeal to two very different types of moviegoers. But we couldn’t have been more wrong, and hallelujah for that!

People have turned Barbenheimer into an event, getting big groups together, dressing up and booking back-to-back screenings. There’s even merch and memes, but more importantly, there’s hope. Hope that Hollywood still has more to offer than CGI, stunts and sequels.

In their first three days in the theatre, Barbenheimer generated a whopping $244.5 million dollars combined. If that’s not the definition of going off with a bang, I don’t know what is…

‘Oppenheimer’ 4/5 stars. ‘Barbie’ 4.5/5 stars.

[svynakee]

1 serving of feminism, societal change not included: a critique of Barbie's conflicted storytelling and feminist message

Really enjoyable movie. I don't see the point in actually reviewing the movie itself as a movie. I would recommend it. Watch the trailers if you're on the fence. If you like what the trailers show, the movie is basically that, but more.

Unfortunately, whatever the movie tries to say about girl power keeps getting undermined by itself for sassy jokes about The Patriarchy. And it doesn't have much to say.

Spoilers ahead.

I'm going to spoil the whole ending here so seriously, last warning.

The final thesis of the movie seems to be "allow women to embrace human flaws instead of demanding perfection from them", or something along the lines of how women have the burden of keeping within a very narrow set of standards just to be acceptable. This is delivered by Margot Robbie's Barbie choosing to become human, embracing old age and eventual death. No longer Stereotypical Barbie, but Barbara Handler. Which is a powerful ending and a logical one to a journey that started with Barbie thinking about death, i.e. deviating from the plastic perfection of Barbieland towards self-realisation. Her individual journey as a character and how that journey relates to the feminist message works well.

The issue is that the rest of the cast and the setting doesn't seem to follow. It's like watching one of the movie's many group dance sequences, but the background dancers are moving at an entirely different tempo to Barbie's lead.

At the beginning of the movie, the narration says that the Barbies believe they've fixed gender inequality because of their female empowerment, the tone clearly sarcastic. It's laying out to the audience that Barbieland as a whole is naive and misguided, but well-meaning. If we think of Barbieland as a character itself, then the arc is pretty clear: Barbieland will have a rude awakening via Margot's Barbie, learn the error of its ways and take a more nuanced approach to feminism.

The actual arc that happens is that Ryan Gosling's Ken learns about patriarchy, brings patriarchy (or his parody of it) to Barbieland, which causes all the Barbies to become brainwashed. Margot's Barbie, which has been to the real world and seen (real) patriarchy, becomes the only Barbie capable of resisting the brainwashing and has to educate the other Barbies about their self-worth to undo their subservience to the Kens.

Firstly, some interesting conceits that the movie completely avoided exploring:

If Barbieland's empowered female leaders could be so easily brainwashed by a version of patriarchy that's "give men beers and listen to everything they say", it raises questions about how shallow that empowerment was. The Barbies completely forgot their self worth and autonomy because a guy told them men and horses run the world. Does this mean their plastic version of feminism is inherently fragile and centred around male perception? Or a reflection of how Mattel (in the movie) is company controlled by men who manipulate the idea of gender equality/female empowerment to protect their power? Really mad this isn't addressed beyond "the Barbies have no self defence against patriarchy, like a disease". I'd like to think that a woman raised in a matriarchal society would have some, if not more, resistance to the ideas of patriarchy.

Barbieland's normal culture: all the Barbies had careers and lead society, the Kens were background decoration. Margot's Barbie even says she doesn't know where the Kens live (my theory: they sleep on the beach). She refuses to let Ken stay for girls night at her house, which is reversed when Ken takes over and hosts a boy's night at her house. But it's not a complete reversal: Ken invites her to stay as his wife or girlfriend. He offers her what he was denied, albeit conditionally. And we see other Barbies in the house during the boys night. In Barbieland, Kens are second class citizens, excluded from most activities besides choreographed dances (I think one of the nurses might have been a Ken?). In the Kendom, Barbies are second class citizens...but they are included in the normal activities because Kens need to mansplain and play guitar at them. They need to hand Kens beers, so they are interacting with the Kens. They don't need to demand attention from Kens the way the Kens had to in Barbieland, doing flips and saying "hi Barbie". Both societies are flawed...but Barbies have more value in the Kendom than Kens had in Barbieland.

"It's like a spa day for your brain". That's what the former President Barbie says to Margot's Barbie when asked why she agreed to do patriarchy. This actually fits in with the movie's message about the demands placed on women to always be role models, always excel. That's apparently a demand borne of patriarchy, but this one line of dialogue shows that in the Kendom, Ken's patriarchy offers a relief from that. But all Barbies are 'freed' from patriarchy by being reminded of their achievements and self worth. This line of dialogue just sits there, like a big fat fly in the pudding. At the end the Barbies return society to the same as before, but with a few Kens in minor government positions and an acknowledgement of Weird Barbie and the other discontinued outcasts. So the choice for women is to stay in Barbieland and chase perfection, or be ordinary and human and die? There's no in-between, where a normally high-achieving turbo-empowered woman can decide "today, I'm going to read a cheesy romance novel where the man has galloping abs and a hazy idea of consent". All Barbies must be what their label says. President Barbie must always be President Barbie, even during sleepovers. She can never play guitar badly at someone on the beach, or do a shitty drunk podcast about horses. She can't be goofy and fail a flip on the beach. A Barbie can't do Ken things.

The outcasts. Weird Barbie is the only one who is acknowledged at the end, where President Barbie apologises for calling her weird behind her back and also to her face. Weird Barbie responds with something like 'it's fine because I like being weird'. But she's not the only outcast of Barbieland (and the Kendom). Growing Up Skipper, Sugar Daddy Ken, Magic Earring Ken, Midge the pregnant doll, Videogirl Barbie and even Allan form the group of discontinued dolls, who don't really have a place in their society. Like the movie's initial critique of Barbieland's feminism, the plastic nature of it means its inflexible. It does not acknowledge those that cannot perform their roles: girl power* (*terms and conditions apply). I hate how that's handwaved with an apology and the spokesperson of the weirdos saying "no problem sis". That's not how it works. Except it is; if you're a minority you've seen it. It's the "I have a black friend so I can say it", the "my nephew is autistic so I can argue about autistic issues", the "there's a gay comedian who said it wasn't offensive to the gays". It's so poorly handled. No, it's not okay because Weird Barbie doesn't mind being Weird. That's not the issue. The issue is that Weird Barbie was excluded from society because she was weird. The problem isn't her weirdness, it was Barbieland's attitude to it, and that CANNOT be fixed with an apology to ONE MEMBER of the community. Weird Barbie gets to join the government though so yay big win for the weird girls out there, really feeling the love and empowerment here.

Overall the issues regarding women's rights or whatever that the movie raised felt very stale, which led to several scenes falling flat for me. Most notably the big cathartic rant by America Ferrera's character, a human woman and mother who works for Mattel, just completely failed to land. I think the idea is that she's giving voice to all the frustrations faced by women daily under our society but I've heard all these talking points 10 years ago by female comedians. It didn't make me feel Seen and Valid, nor did it raise new points that made me think. In my life, women are already talking about these things, and the frustrating thing is that we can't seem to agree on how to address them. The fact they exist is old news. The one point I actually liked during the rant is the acknowledgement that women do turn on other women for being "too high achieving", I feel like mainstream girlpower movies usually avoid talking about that.

Maybe it's because I'm queer POC in STEM so my exposure to feminist discourse is different from the mainstream (American?) audience Greta Gerrig was aiming for but those scenes just bogged the movie down. It said nothing, and I felt nothing. I guess I felt a bit bored. I'm not saying that I expected the Barbie Movie to solve feminism, but I do feel like if that's the big climatic moment the movie's building towards, I needed to hear more than "stuff my coworkers rant about during lunch break". And we do say it in front of our male and nonbinary colleagues. They don't care. It's old news. They've heard it before too.

Also this rant is apparently the key to fixing the patriarchy-brainwashed Barbies. The movie washes its hands of Barbieland with the line "the Kens will eventually have as much power in Barbieland as women do in the real world" which I felt was really cynical and completely fails the message for a cheap final dig at patriarchy.

If Barbieland started out as a naïve, inaccessible, unrealistic, inflexible, shallow and corporate idea of feminism/gender equality...where does it end up? Where does that line, delivered by the all-powerful narrator, leave it? Barbieland thought it was an inspiration to little girls, empowering them to be strong and successful women. It wasn't. So that means it can never achieve that? Is the message of the movie that Barbieland is always fated to be a mere reflection of ours, with all its limitations and prejudices, except men and women have swapped places? Maybe that is Gerrig's message but holy shit is it a dark one.

The ending I would have actually liked to see is something like this:

We return to the beach. The volleyball court has mixed teams of Barbies and Kens playing, with 2 cheerleader Kens and a cheerleader Barbie. One of the Barbies playing is Doctor Barbie, who gets hit with the ball. The ambulance rushes over and Doctor Ken (possibly Magic Earring) helps her. Doctor Barbie says its nice to be the one being treated for once.

Reprise of the award show. Gosling's Ken is receiving an award for being 'dedication to Beach'. Midge and Skipper are also in the seats, ready to receive awards. A Barbie receives an award for something completely mundane, because ordinary women are supposed to be celebrated too.

President Barbie gets a brewski?

The movie left me with the impression that the story about womanhood, motherhood and surviving as a woman in modern society was at odds with feminist talking points. I couldn't tell if it wanted to critique or support modern feminism, whatever its idea of modern feminism is. The character's journey would sometimes just hit a pause button to Educate about Discourse, but without actually saying anything meaningful enough to educate. That detracted from the impact of the character's journey and took away some of the interesting points about the setting.

I felt like Gosling's Ken had a much better storyline, it was compact and tied up neatly. Maybe because it's a woman's take on a male narrative ("what if the GENDER ROLES WERE REVERSED? and men were OPPRESSED? ooOOOooHhh"), whereas the "being a woman is hard under patriarchy" story is something I've seen too many times. Or maybe Ken's struggle with self worth is simpler than Barbie's struggle with existential dread. I almost feel like Ken's subplot should have been cut, if its sacrifice would have allowed more focus and polish on Barbie's narrative.

[mortallyclearwonderland]

Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken

We’re getting a trailer for the movie in about a week.

Who made the movie?

The film, which had been made under the working title of Meet the Gillmans, is directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Kirk DeMicco (Vivo, The Croods, Space Chimps) and produced by Kelly Cooney Cilella (Bilby, Trolls World Tour). Faryn Pearl (storyboard artist on The Croods: A New Age, Trolls World Tour) is co-directing.

I know those movies aren't most populations favorites but I'll wait for the trailer. I expect it to be on a funny and silly side.

Voice cast:

Lana Condor (She was in those terrible To all the boys movies.), Toni Collette (I haven't seen anything she was in.), Annie Murphy (I haven't seen anything she was in.), Sam Richardson (A comedian actor who was in so unfunny productions like Velma and HouseBroken.), Liza Koshy ( I know nothing about her or her work.), Will Forte (Again, I know nothing about him or his work.), Colman Domingo (He's fine. I never watched anything he was in.), Jaboukie Young-White (He was in the Disney's Strange World as a token gay.), Blue Chapman (Blue is a trans boy who is best recognized for his role in the series Council of Dads where he plays a transgender character named JJ. By the way he's only 13 and was way younger when transitioning! I don't care if it's offensive to you. It is creepy and wrong!), Eduardo Franco (He's an actor known for his comedic roles and being in Stranger Things. I haven't seen anything he was in.), Ramona Young (I haven't seen anything she was in.), Echo Kellum (He's apparantly a comedian and was on Arrow. You know, that terrible CW show.), Nicole Byer (Unfunny comedian I've never heard before with a terrible book.), and Jane Fonda (The bitch who called for the murder of Pro-Lifers.).

So what? The voice actors are their own individuals with their own opinions. Just because an actress is a piece of human garbage doesn't mean the whole company shares her views. And it's not like a movie will be talking about her political opinions.

It's a great opportunity to see if those people are any good. It's the script that matters! But the history of the cast isn't getting my hopes up or fill me with any excitement. As long as they'll say their lines and won't be too annoying it will be fine.

I want to say this. Even though I'm pro life and don't agree with transitioning kids who are way too young to know the consequences of their actions I would never call for murder or any harm for those people.

What's the story?

The story follows a shy 16-year-old named Ruby Gillman (Condor) who learns that she is the next in a legendary line of royal sea krakens. Despite her lofty destiny, all Ruby wants to do is fit in. At school, she falls for a skater-boy that she’s tutoring who shows no indication of feeling the same way about her. Ruby struggles even more to fit in because her mother (Collette) forbids her from going to the beach with any would-be friends. But when Ruby decides to disobey her mom’s instructions, she learns that she’s descended from the warrior kraken queens and will one day ascend to her grandmother’s throne (Fonda) as the Warrior Queen of the Seven Seas.

In the film, the krakens are a race sworn to protect the world’s oceans from the vain, power-hungry mermaids, and the two sides have been battling for eons. The generational confrontation comes to a head when a popular mermaid named Chelsea enrolls at Ruby’s school.

I really hope this movie won't go the ''Pretty girls are mean and superficial. I'm shy and not like the other girls. That boy just has to learn to not judge by the appearances.'' I believe that Dreamworks is better than that and will make great deconstruction of that trope. In The Croods New Age they had the chance to make stupid love triangle drama but didn't.

I'm worried about the lack of male characters. The plot only talks about female mermaids and queen krakens. No mention of males even in art. I hope it won't be the case that males don't transform because that would be such a waste.

Here is the link

https://www.cartoonbrew.com/feature-film/teenage-kraken-dreamworks-kirk-demicco-226970.html

I hope it's reliable. But if it's just some fun made think and I got played well I guess only time will tell. And if that's the case I will just make another post.

[nosleepwriting]

What WN means to me:

i watched it initially for Avatrice, ofc i did. one day during lockdown i randomly saw a crack vid of avatrice and decided to watch it. not even knowing if they end up together or if they kiss or if they become canon. i didnt watch the whole vid so i wont spoil everything, which was weird because ever since lexa, i dont watch shows without knowing that the sapphic couple would be together and happy.

did you know where i stopped? i stopped during the part where ava phased out of the wall, breathless and scared, and beatrice was there to catch her. maybe it was the way she looked, the way kristina's eyes shined as beatrice holding alba's ava in her hands that convinced me that yup these two are in love. or at least bea is. this isnt a crack ship. this is real.

so i watched s1. tbh, im one of the people who thought s1 was slow bec if im being rlly honest, i watched it for avatrice. but i wasnt expecting to love ava, that running on the beach scene loving life, alba's acting of laughing and crying and breathless under the stars with the sand below her and the ocean just in front, and watching THAT during the fucking pandemic ???? that saved me from a lot of dark thoughts swirling in my head. i wasnt expecting a family. a real found family that even when mary and lilith were fighting each other to death you can tell that there's love, there's history. there's sisterhood. i wasnt expecting that from a show with 'Warrior Nun' as a title. and not bec i thought it was silly but bec i thought it was one of those female-led show made for men.

long story short, i finished it. search tumblr for a bit for content, then twitter, then ao3, as one usually does and then nothing. i moved on, peacefully. even if that s1 cliffhanger was far from peaceful. bec i was sure there would be an s2 with that kind of ending. i went on with my life and continued to consume other media.

until october 2022. i didnt even knew they were filming s2. i saw the s2 trailer in yt randomly again. there they were. dancing. i was like how did these two go from fighting an angel?-jesus-like-incarnate in s1 to dancing casually in a bar?? i was scared at first, maybe this isnt the same show that i'll come back to bec lets be honest most s2 of a really good s1 most of a time is a let down. but then i saw the "your jealous" "that's absurd" part and i was like yup those two are in love and im going to watch this just so i can see how they do it.

for extra context (i know this is getting super long but i honestly dont care im doing this for me), im reviewing for the boards and getting invested in anything other than my studies would be really bad. i was catious with what media to consume because i need to focus on my studies. even so, i watched the final ep for context and carry the feeling before watching the first episode. the legendary fucking first episode. the hands behind teasing walk, the kiss cheek, the dance, the stare (i dont have to explain this, u know what im talking about) i replayed all of those moments 10 times bec WOW they weren't holding back.

then everything else. the little moments leading to the big ones were satisfying and so perfectly excuted that i cant even watch it with my girlfriend bec she gets mad that i keep repeating the scenes and slowing them down to take it all in. halfway through s2, i knew i was gonna watch it again. and i only really did that for 2 other shows (shera and the wilds s1, atla and tlok dont count bec i rewatch them periodically and not right after finishing) but u know what i didnt do to those other two that i did with warrior nun? i watched it a third time in a bigger screen just so i can see more. i watched in a 4th time with my girlfriend. i watched it a 5th time just so i can move on with my life and i watched it a 6th time because i missed them and i can't. i watched it a 7th time because i won't. and at this point i lost count at how much i rewatched the show. i would stream it during studying just so i could have them on screen and be inspired with finishing so i can watch them.

im just really heartbroken right now. with all this.

[aysametric]

Alchemy and its possible relation to Death Stranding 2: a theory (SPOILERS FOR DS1)

Hello porters, I have recently gotten into Death Stranding. It was a fantastic game with what felt like a good ending, so imagine my surprise when I saw that the second game had not only already been announced, but had a trailer! Well, I may have watched that trailer a few too many times, and I may have a solid theory on the main motifs of the next game, this being (as I stated in the title) alchemy. More specifically, the concept of the Rebis. For those unfamiliar with this concept, allow me to paraphrase the Wikipedia article for you. The Rebis is the end product of the alchemical magnum opus, or great work. It is a hermaphrodite, two souls (one male and one female) joined together within a single body after undergoing the stages of death and purification. This being sometimes is also portrayed with two faces. The most important part to know for my theory, however, is that this being is a reconciliation of spirit and matter. Now, on to the theory. Most people I’ve seen online thus far discussing the trailer seem to be in agreement that the red cyborg at the end of the trailer is Higgs, Amelie, or a combination of the two. For my theory, it is more likely that the latter is the case, making this cyborg the Rebis. Other evidence to support this is the fact that the cyborg uses Higgs voice, but wears Amelie’s quipu. Pair that with their mask, which has feminine features and acts as a second face, and you have a near-perfect match with the description of the Rebis. Now, the goal of the Rebis is to reconcile the physical and the spiritual. In the world of Death Stranding, this distinction is already made quite clear with the concepts of Ha and Ka, with the Ha interacting with the physical world and the Ka interacting with the spiritual world of the Beach. Therefore, it is my belief that the Higgs-Amelie combination cyborg (referred to as Rebis from here onward) has the goal of reconnecting Amelie’s beach to the rest of the Beaches and, by extension due to the existence of the Chiral Network, Earth itself, resuming the Final Extinction. Where Louise plays into all of this is as of yet unclear, but my best guess would be that Rebis needs her due to her past as a BB to facilitate connections to the Beach. Yeah, that’s all I got. Feel free to interact and let me know your own thoughts.

[hisuian-history-makers]

My Scarlet experience so far, warning spoilers.

I chose Fuecoco as my starter and named her Gala cause she looked like an apple. Koraidon helped me through a cave by standing on his/its back legs. Arven gave me the dragon’s Pokéball and—I got sidetracked exploring the large area where Drowzee spawn in the ruins. Gala evolved due to grinding. Made it to the Academy and saved Penny from Team Star.

Apparently, spent a few weeks/semester going to school before the Treasure Hunt began. Took on the Stony Cliff Titan then beat the bug gym. And spent a lot of time going places so I can fly back to Pokémon centers. Gimmighoul’s wandering form was annoying to hear when I couldn’t see them. I know I needed a bunch of their coins this I kept all the ones I collected. Up to 492 at the moment, chest form gives you fifty-ish in the watch towers scattered around.

Anyway, I took on the fire type Team Star base barely managing to take down the car. Went after all the rest of the Titans cause I knew they would unlock Koraidon’s abilities. If you do the flying Titan, you still have to wait for the gliding ability. Burned the grass type gym. Here is where I got super side-tracked exploring other areas to fill the Pokédex. Ended up near the snowy part of the map, Gala was a Skeledirge by this point. So I took on the Ghost type gym and then the Ice-type gym scraping the wins.

I finished those two before completing all the titans, Koraidon climbing vertical places is the last freaking ability it gets! The false dragon has two phases with the second one being strong for such a little Pokémon. Now, besides sounding like a crazy person doing all these—I thought what they meant by “you can do things in any order” was gyms increased difficulty for every badge you have. Like if you could save the grass gym for last it would be an eight-badge team strength. The trailer meant you can do any of the paths in whichever order.

I also. Took on the fighting type Team Star base which seems to be the strongest one. Poor Arven has been waiting days at the Lighthouse while I am doing all this. Will probably finish up the bases, beat all the gyms, and grind out terra dens for exp candies. This is my main save so I will fill up the Pokédex as much as I can.

As for my trainer up there, I introduce to you—Carmen! They are technically a self-insert oc who’s past lives went through previous games. There is this lady in the academy town that gives you phone cases stylized from other Pokémon games data. Her thing is past lives.

Carmen woke up after the move to Paldea oddly confused. It felt as if they were waking up from a long dream they could barely remember. Strangely enough, they were mailed a Celestica flute and personal hisuian Pokedex. No return address was written on the package so they were unable to return these items. A latent talent for battling shows itself after they receive a starter from Principal Clavell. Later on, it’s a lesson during history class that cuts through the strange confusion they felt.

Basically for a story series, I am hoping to write with Carmen. So Koraidon and Miraidon both crash onto the beach escaping something. I don’t know the ending to Scarlet so I just assume them not wanting to battle is like the situation with Ash’s Gliscor then Gligar. Small detail I came up with is Carmen has trouble working a phone. Tends to capture the controls of their rotom phone whenever taking selfies. Being non-binary I feel would be a bleed over from their past lives, multiple runs of different pokémom games cause I like replaying some.

They have orange eyes and wine-red hair in a long bob. I kinda matched Koraidon’s color scheme to create them. Also my first in-game shiny is a female Stantler named Jingle.

[into-the-center-of-things]

Part 2/2 of Day 2:

I refilled my water bottle with the same stupid method. . .

Maybe I'll just buy bottled water next time idk.

Anyways I took a nap until we arrived in Raton NM around 4:30pm, which would be our last stop before we entered Colorado.

This is the stop where the Boy Scout backpackers got off to begin their excursion...and got replaced by a new swarm finishing their own. I think Raton is close-ish to the Grand Canyon? Hence to it being a backpacker stop. Not much else to say here.

***

About an hour later, we arrived in Trinidad CO, where a lot of the Amish got off (and more got on). This is also where I parted with the Amish couple who got on with me at Union Station in Los Angeles—the husband came up to me and wished me safe travels, explaining that their daughter was having seizures due to pregnancy and since she lived in Colorado they were going to get off here (this explained the usage of the flip phone—it was out of necessity as well as worry about their daughter's wellbeing). I wished them best of luck.

From that point, Z approached me again and asked me what my favorite poetic forms were, and I shared with her the villanelle and it launched into a discussion about form and Z reciting the different poems she knew off the top her head. She had some really poignant remarks to make about word stresses being different from Greek to English, and was wondering about the musicality of older languages like Egyptian but I was so out of my expertise I didn't have much to say. I know form on a practical usage level but as a historical artifact of language and translation—there really is a lot an MFA cannot teach you!

***

We had a brief stop in La Junta to stretch our legs. I tried to wave and get the attention of the blue haired girl from yesterday but she didnt seem to notice me. Instead Z and I met with the girl who sat across the row from us, who I shall call A.

When we got back to our seats I asked if A ws hungry and shared a yam with her among some other things. A and I talked through the rest of Colorado and into Kansas—she grew up on the outskirts of in a little town outside of Albuquerque and was visiting her e-boyfriend she met through mutual friends for the very first time in Chicago IL. This conversation made me realize the vast differences in American experiences. She recalls dirt roads, her high school (she went to a classical high school or something, I want to look into this later) mostly being a handful of trailers parked along the highway until they could afford a school building. Her home is a large trailer (she used a specific phrase—destination trailer perhaps?) and she pays rent to her parents and works at a Chinese restaurant for 14 dollars an hour between school semesters with her media classes. She wants to learn more Chinese phrases because of this, since the restaurant she works at is a small family restaurant and she wants to work with the employees better. She has never really been to a large natural body of water and I told her about California beaches. She has never lived in a place with public transit and I told her about LA transit in the most detail I could. She said that 900 was too expensive for a studio and that 3.70 a gallon was too expensive for gas and I shared with her the avergae studio price im LA (1.5-2k) and gas price (4.50-5.20 per gallon). We discussed our love for thrifting and browsing antique stores. We kept pointing out the farmhouses we were passing and wondering about the lives of their inhabitants. I don't know if this is making sense but I am realizing how just two states differentiate in life experience. She really had the small town middle America experience. It's making me feel weirdly emotional. God I love humanity. I love female solidarity.

Anyways quiet hours started early because we jumped to Central time...A and I watched a crazy storm of lightning we spotted across the Kansas plains. I caught a video of it.

**[video to come]**

It's late and we are rolling through Kansas. A eagerly pointed out to me the meager gas prices at Dodge City—a feeble 2.90 a gallon! I want to stay awake until Kansas City but I don't know if I can stay awake throughout the night. I know they are going to sit someone next to me and I hope its someone my age again but I doubt I'll get lucky twice. We'll see.

[putsomethinggoodon]

Double Feature: "No Hard Feelings" and

"Shiva Baby"

archived from wordpress, june 28th 2023

Air-headed as she might be, Bianca Stratford ("10 Things I Hate About You") asks the pivotal question: "I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?"

Walking out of the movie theater Friday afternoon, I was, well, whelmed. A weird purgatory between pleased and pissed. I saw "No Hard Feelings," a female-led sex comedy starring Jennifer Lawrence and directed by Gene Stupnitsky. I was eager, after seeing the trailer months ago. A vast majority of the public, myself included, were foaming at the mouth for something mid-2000s-esque. A girl can only take so many overstimulating superheroes in spandex or bone-snapping exorcisms before she's depleted.

It'd almost be easier if "No Hard Feelings" was a dumpster fire. Easier to pick apart and say "Here! Here is where you royally fucked up!" But I wanted more, like if "The Way Way Back" and Judd Apatow had a baby.

Don't get me wrong, I was cackling along during Lawrence's naked bully beatdown on the beach. Somewhere along the line, however, I was psyching myself up for something and found myself half-satiated. To be fair, the movie saddles itself with a fairly large burden. The plot? A 32-year-old woman agreeing to "date" a 19-year-old ("We can't send him to college like this") in exchange for a car to help her pay off the skyrocketing property tax on her family home. It's no small feat to deliver something like that, much less to deliver it successfully.

Frankly, it felt a lot like trying to chase down the female orgasm. Right there, right there, right th-- well, alright.

I think a lot of the ambiguity comes from the muddy character dynamics and motivations. There's a strong beginning and end, but the middle is lacking, like a PB&J with phenomenal bread and not enough spread. Maddie's initial desperation for a car is evident and her first advances on Percy are overt. When a quasi-kidnapping for a rendezvous at her house doesn't go as planned, she takes Percy on a date. Even a sultry skinny dipping session afterwards isn't enough to send him tumbling into bed. It's here, when Maddie treats Percy's anxiety rash, that he emerges from his shell.

This is where I would have wanted to see a clearer shift in Maddie and Percy's dynamic. Because we as an audience assume our protagonists won't actually end up together in the end, it's within our expectations to expect an unlikely friendship to develop. Instead of continuing to date, Maddie could have double-crossed the parents and taken on a sex-guru slash mentorship role. I think this shift could have easily balanced humor and heartfelt, while accomplishing the necessary narrative beats. It'd be a more effective paradigm, Percy trying to follow in her footsteps--the man becomes the man eater--while unknowingly teaching Maddie to embrace the softer side of herself. Enter Maddie's eventual guilt over turning sweet Percy into a player and trying to pass off his deflowering to uphold her end of the deal. In this alternative direction, "No Hard Feelings" would shine.

Unfortunately, Maddie and Percy continue to date, albeit at a slower pace. What ensues is an odd combination of romance and friendship and a rushed third act. Perhaps that messy middle is a testament to how real life romance has devolved, skirting around the idea of committing fully. It's an amalgamation of moments that could have worked well in separate timelines (a second chance at prom, an accidental throat punch, etc.), but all together fail to form a united front. I applaud Maddie's eventual choice to gift her house to Sara and Gary, adopt former drug dog Milo, and leave Montauk, but I wish the journey to that happy ending transpired much differently.

All hope during my double feature Friday, however, was not lost. I curled up on the couch afterwards to watch "Shiva Baby," which has been on my watchlist for far too long. Director Emma Seligman might as well have kissed me on the forehead and handed me a bagel and lox.

Shiva refers to the week-long mourning period in Judaism, and what better place to create unbearable tension than a funeral. The close quarters, packed with people, combined with the film's strategic score feels like an itchy sweater an old relative would make you wear. Maybe it's a side effect of being the youngest, queerest child in my family, but I've been in Danielle's shoes. Minus the sugar-daddy-turned-fellow-mourner arc.

"Everyone has three lives: a public life, a personal life, and a secret life." Gabriel García Márquez

Any twenty-something person will tell you, there's an inevitable molding process that occurs when you go home: shifting, shrinking, shirking certain parts of yourself that don't align with the childhood version of you. It resurfaces in little moments. Unloading the dishwasher for your parents, bickering with your siblings, ignoring any and all discussions on politics, questions about your love life (or lack there of). Danielle is being pulled in three separate directions: her public live, catching up with family; her private life, running into an ex-girlfriend; and her secret life, keeping her sugar baby status under wraps.

The threads that connect each of these three become a taut, tangled mess and every conversation takes on its own three lives: hey Daddy, distracted, babysitting, female entrepreneurs, how do you guys know each other, he's not for you, are you disappointed in me, talk to me/I can't, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

With every interaction, you're wondering what will it take for those threads to finally snap?

(Spoiler: It's the shiva baby.)

Thank you "Shiva Baby," for lodging yourself deep in my brain. "No Hard Feelings," you could have be so great.

Suffice to say, you couldn't pry the coming of age genre from my cold, dead hands. It can be as expansive as a post-graduation roadtrip or confined to Saturday detention. This double feature Friday, go back to your roots, however gnarly.

[idontcarejustletmelive]

Bad Movie Decisions

Old (2021l

Okay, let's watch this bitch. May contain spoilers for the 2021 M. Night Shyamalan film, Old.

04:13 These kids had better get old fast. That's the whole premise, right? If Big was a horror film and actually engaged with the fact it unwittingly made a pedophile of the female lead?

05:59 They're on a beach. Maybe the Beach That Makes People Old. Which, as I understand from the trailer, is what this film is actually about. (I was joking about the Big thing, although it is horrific if you stop and think about it).

06:38 Patented Shyalaman approach to characterisation there - have two kids go and ask everyone their name and occupation.

10:07 Why is this dude wearing sunglasses at night?

10:19 Abbey Lee 😍

11:38 The sunken-eyed resort manager wants a troubled family to get in a van to a secret beach that he describes as "an anomaly". I'm sure this is fine.

14:38 M. Night is the van driver. Abort! ABORT!!!

18:35 The rapper's eyes are gonna have rotted out of his head when he takes the sunglasses off. Calling it.

21:30 Hmm, she's dead, but she's not... Old 🤔

21:43 The rapper still has eyes. Very disappointed. He does have a nosebleed, but very tame compared to my headcannon.

22:51 Grandma's surely gonna cark it next, even though it'd make more sense for it to be Gustave the Yorkshire Terrier.

31:29 Rufus Sewell plays this same arsehole in everything and I'm okay with that.

32:54 The "stay in pairs in case anyone blacks out" plan is going really well.

39:51 Looks like we're going to be treated to some impromptu beach surgery. My favourite.

42.39 The plot points this guy will use to avoid an R rating. Incredible.

45:10 If everything is undone when they finally find a way back through the timey wimey cave, I'm gonna throw shit.

46:56 The rapper has already been here hours longer than the others, surely? Was he a fucking child when he arrived? This film makes no sense!

51:24 This cast is too good for this.

1:08:03 I hope I look as good at 70 as half these people apparently do.

1:13:57 Why hadn't anyone just clubbed Charles over the fucking head by this point? Why is he still being given free rein to stab everyone up?!

1:14:51 Why is everyone behaving like Charles is some unkillable Jason Vorhees maniac when he's just a confused, rapidly-ageing surgeon with a teeny tiny knife?!

1:17:41 "SUBTEXT IS FOR COWARDS!" screams Shyalaman, taking off his shirt to reveal a tattoo of Robert McKee's face.

1:21:23 Make-up department: "All right, so did you want Gael to be bald or go grey or what?"

Shyalaman: What? EWWW! No, gross. Just a few cute wrinkles and that's it. We don't want him to look DISGUSTING!

Make-up: But grey hair is a natural part of-

Shyalaman: *covering ears and screaming*

1:24:08 Genuinely, what does the resort get out of this? I get that there's some vague hand-wavy stuff towards it being a scientific study but to what end?

1:25:42 He definitely thinks this sand castle scene is profound.

1:31:22 My question still stands. This is not how you science. This would not stand up as viable fast-tracking ANYWHERE.

1:40:18 HOW IS THIS STILL NOT OVER?!

1:41:23 Finally.

[suckitsurveys]

Are you currently in love? I am.

Are you afraid of stink bugs? No.

What is the one room in your house you spend the most time in? The living room.

What do you think of your current president? I know I should be paying more attention but politics are just so mind-numbingly BORING to me. I don’t want to spend my time keeping up with it because it’s mostly just so depressing. I know enough to know that he’s doing at least somewhat better than Trump, but that isn’t really hard to do.

Is there one website you visit regularly, but would never admit to? Nah. Maybe certain fan fic pages hahahaha.

Do you own any pets? I have three kitties.

Would you rather have no legs or have no arms? I guessssss no legs.

Are you afraid of the dentist? I don’t like it.

Have you ever done anything illegal? Of course.

Do you like McDonald’s sweet tea? I’m not a fan of sweet tea. I like my tea as bitter as my soul.

Do documentaries bore you? Depends on the subject.

Are you usually happy or sad most of the time? I don’t know. I don’t feel one way more than the other honestly. I’m mostly content.

Does money make you happy? It does. Fuck capitalism but gimme all the monies thanks.

Have you ever had a storage locker? If so, what is/was stored in it? No.

How far away is the nearest capital city? 2 and a halfish hours. The capital of Wisconsin (Madison) is actually closer to Chicago than the capital of Illinois (Springfield).

What was the last movie trailer you watched? The last one I recall watching was Dumb Money, but I know there were some before Bottoms but I don’t remember which ones.

Are you expecting anything in the mail? No.

Have you ever broken any bones in your feet or hands? I broke my wrist if that counts as a hand bone.

Do you remember the first house you lived in? I do. We moved into the house my dad still owns when I was 5, but I remember the apartment we loved in before that.

Have you stayed up past 3 in the morning this week? Nope.

Is there anyone you know by the name of Frank? Yes.

Are you currently in a smoking environment? Nope.

Do you ever not speak to someone because you’re afraid you’ll annoy them? Eh, that’s on them, bro.

Have you ever known a guy who caused a lot of drama? Most men I know have caused drama in one way or another.

Is there anything you’re saving up for? Eh.

Have you ever punched someone and broke their nose? I’ve never punched anyone to begin with.

One word to describe your most recent ex? Irrelevant.

Do you like snow? When I don’t have to drive in it.

Can you tie balloons? I can.

When was the last time you were at a pet store? Last month.

Do you know anyone who is terrified of dogs? I don’t think so?

What’s your favorite horror movie? I’m not a huge horror movie fan.

What cover do you think is better than the original song? I’ve never met a cover of Chelsea Hotel #2 I didn’t like.

What’s a TV show you have gotten into recently? I’ve just been watching House Hunters lol.

What is a food you think is nasty that most people enjoy? I don’t know. I like a lot of “gross” foods.

Was the last person you hung out with single? Nope.

[TW: ABUSE] Have you ever been in an abusive relationship? Not really.

Do you like drinking diet sodas? Nope. If I’m gunna have soda at all I might as well go for it.

Who was the last person that cried in your presence? My niece.

What was the last thing someone gave you? Ummmm my sister made me a sandwich for our apple orchard trip if that counts lol.

Who is the person you often go to for venting? Here or Mark or Sarah.

Was the last person you kissed male or female? Male.

Who were you with the last time you went swimming? I was with Sarah. We went to a beach in Maine when I was out there visiting her.

Do you say “I love you” even when you don’t mean it? No.

Is it hard for you to be “just friends” with the opposite sex? Nah.

Do you prefer wheat or white bread? Wheat.

What’s your opinion on fast food? It’s fine in moderation.

Have you ever dated anyone while they were in jail? No.

If you’ve ever babysat, do you like it? I don’t mind watching my nieces from time to time.

Do you get a lot of spiders in your house? Yup. Basement living perks.

Name two of your favorite things as a child. Playing on the swings and Pokemon.

Do you own a pillow pet? I did.

Have either of your parents gone to jail? I imagine they were both arrested at some point. They were both hippies lol.

Do you have OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder)? I don’t think so.

Do you know a hoarder? My grandmother was.

Do you think homosexuality (anything besides heterosexual) is a choice? Absolutely not.

Do you have any interesting scar stories? Nah.

What’s a reasonable amount of time before two people get engaged? Whenever.

Do you hate the texture of meatballs? No, I actually love meatballs.

Do you get migraines? I do.

[blackhorrorthoughts]

Blog Post #2: Us

Us was the one Jordan Peele work that I had consciously avoided watching as someone who is not an avid fan of horror movies. The soundtrack, trailers, and overall promotional material for the film was too creepy for me to sit in theaters and watch—a decision I ultimately regret, because the themes and messages in Us were the most thought-provoking out of the movies he has released so far.

The first thing that I caught onto and enjoyed with Us was the fact that the story followed a dark-skinned black woman as the main character for an original story. Further than that, there was a lot of thought put into putting together a full family of black, darker complexioned characters living in a fairly middle- to upper middle-class setting. This reminded me of the importance of Son of Ingagi written by Spencer Williams, and how that was the first movie to portray the black middle class in well-respected positions, such as scientists or lawyers. Even 80 years later, we are hard pressed to find fair portrayals of black families, or with a black female lead. The place Jordan Peele purposefully makes for underrepresented demographics in Hollywood only makes it look worse for other directors, who use any excuse to make it seem “difficult” to write and cast darker complexioned actors.

I was also very intrigued by the portrayal of neurodivergence as somewhat of a superpower with Jason. It’s only ever stated outright by the two sisters at the beach towards Zora, calling him weird, but throughout the movie there is a sense that Jason is different from the others—he has somewhat of a hyperfixation with his lighter and enjoys playing “tricks.” Despite this, his family never treated him very differently, and rather encouraged him in their own ways. It is also subtly implied through the movie that Jason is a lot quicker to realize the Tethered’s tricks, coming to a head when he realized Pluto’s intentions to set them on fire and subsequently killing him by mirroring his actions. I think this is confirmed by the end, when he finally realizes Adelaide is actually the Tethered, and swapped herself with Red when they first came face-to-face with each other. Jason’s neurodivergency as a positive in this movie is something I haven’t seen much of or even thought of with a movie plot, where a hero doesn’t need to be “normal” just to survive.

[stcrgazings]

Unexpected visit | (c.l)

note: sooo, this is my first imagine ever so please be nice, English it’s not my first language so if there’s any mistakes pls let me know.

it’s a fluffy, trying to cheer y’all up after these crappy two weeks, it’s written in a she/her kind of narrative since I’m not a fan of y/n, but I couldn’t thing of any names for the protagonist, might made this a small series if y’all like this one so pls let me know. I’m kinda proud of how this one turn up so pls you liked it

pairing: Charles Leclerc x Female Character/Reader

summary: Charles girlfriend goes to surprise him at the Austrian Grand Prix, after getting some small vacations at work and missing him too much

warning: Some sexual jokes nothing major and maybe some bad French but give me a break I kinda ghosted my teacher

words: 4.2K

———

She missed him, every day and every night, she missed him when she was about to go to sleep, remembering all those times they would FaceTime right before bed, even when he was at the other side of the globe and it was 9am where he was, he would always be sure to call her before bed, she missed those times when he wasn’t traveling, those few days between races where he would stay in their apartment and wake her up with breakfast in bed, or take her to the beach or just driving around in the city of Monaco, right now she was in Atlanta shooting for her new film, but she couldn’t really get her boyfriend out of her mind, needing to see him, hug him, kiss him, feel him and just be with him in general.

It wasn’t more than a week since the last time she saw him, they reunited in Monaco right after Silverstone’s huge disaster in which he did a wonderful job keeping good positions most of the race but getting Ferrari to fuck him over once again getting a disappoint p4 and a really angry Charles at his own team, but at least Carlos had won and she was truly happy for the Spanish’s first win.

Then they both traveled back to Charles hometown, Montecarlo. Her first on Sunday afternoon and Charles joining her later on Monday morning, they stayed there for a good two day, or so, she was supposed to join him at the race but sadly she had to comeback to Atlanta earlier than anticipated, her boyfriend driving her to the airport at two in the morning on Wednesday, leaving her sobbing on his shoulder before catching the plane.

He wanted to come with her, to see her in action like he said, but his schedule didn’t really allowed it, having press conferences and practice a day earlier because of the sprint race.

"And cut!” The director yelled at her direction, getting her out of the small trance she had entered thinking about her boyfriend. “We are done for the day ladies and gentlemen”

“That’s it?” She asked, at little bit confused thinking she had to film some other things before the end of the day.

"Yup, i have a meeting with some of the producers and stuff so I’ll let you when the filming will start tomorrow morning”

She nodded standing up from the floor she was previously laying, walking to her trailer, her assistant running toward her at a full speed.

“He got p2!” She exclaimed excitingly, and probably the whole of the set heard the small scream that left her mouth, whilst a brilliant smile lit of her face.

“Really? Oh my god i knew it, I’m so proud of him” She said hugging her assistant, and taking the towel out of her hand to dry her wet hair and body that came out of the previous scene she was just shooting.

“Did he call?”

“No, not yet they just finished i was watching it live from the app like you asked me to”

“Thank you so much, Ana” she genuinely thanked her assistant, she was really nervous for Charles and a little bit upset that she was going to filming be in between scenes during the sprint race and even though Charles insisted that it wasn’t that big of a deal and that she should be focused on her filming and that he would call her as soon as he could to tell her everything from his mouth, she still asked her assistant if she could watch the race for her so she could be updating her in between shoots and the young girl didn’t denied.

“Yeah no problem, it was actually kinda fun”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it, Ana”

The blonde started telling her a little bit about how the race went as they both made their way to her trailer, the girl telling her that Verstappen had gotten p1 but her boyfriend still scoring some great 7 points and Carlos some other 6 from the sprint, something the team need for the constructors championship if they still wanted to be competitive, when all of the sudden her phone started ringing as they arrive the door of the trailer, the name of her boyfriend adorned with heart emojis lighting up her screen.

“I’ll leave you two to it, bet he’ll tell you the story better than me”

“Thanks Ana, see you tomorrow, love you”

“Love you too, bye”

“Bye!” Was the last thing shouted back to her assistant as she entered the trailer, answering her boyfriend with a big proud smile on her face as she throw herself on the bed of the big car.

“Baby guess wh-“

“My favorite 7 point winner!” She celebrated smiling through the screen, Charles face all light up because of the happiness he was feeling after scoring some good points that he truly needed, her heart flustered at the sight of his bright smile and redden cheeks.

“You got to watch it?”

“Something like that”

“What do you mean something like that?” He ask as he accommodated himself in his drivers room.

“I made Ana watched and update me while filming” she admitted embarrassed, cheeks tinting with specs of red.

“Don’t me embarrassed ma chérie, I love it when you do small things like that for me, it’s cute”

Her cheeks turned more red with every word that came out of the monegasque’s mouth, a small laugh coming out of his lips when he noticed how nervous he was making his girlfriend.

“Stop Charles, or I’ll punch you when I see you”

“I’ll rather have a kiss if it’s up for discussion mon amour” she smiled, admiring proudly the boy on the other side of the screen, it has been a while since he has been this happy with anything race related, he truly loved the sport but the awful strategic choices that he’s team constantly made, we’re making him frustrated and sad, so it breath of fresh air seeing him that happy, even with a p2.

“I hate you, Charles”

“No you don’t” he gives her smirk on his side of the screen making her roll her eyes and give him the finger.

“No, I don’t” she gives in a small grin flashing her face. “But I do miss you, so much baby” she finally admitted to him, she never liked to tell Charles that she missed him because she didn’t want him to feel guilty like he usually does about everything that surrounded him, even things that didn’t have anything to do with him, like Silverstone and Azerbaijan.

“I know baby, I miss you too, all the frinking time, but summer break it’s right around the corner and then I can join you in Atlanta to see you film like I’ve always wanted and then take you to Monaco beaches and we can go traveling the Italian coast like I promised you, it’ll be just the two of us, and believe me when I tell you that the only time I’ll leave your side it’s when I’ll be on top of you”

“Charles!” The girl chuckled, redden cheeks once again.

“Making you scream just like that”

“Charles, I swear to god” she started laughing as she scolded him through the phone, as a goofy smile adorned her boyfriends face.

“It’s okay, you can also be on top of you want baby, I’m always here to please your needs” he gives her a small grin as she tries to keep her laughter from coming out with a serious expression.

“I’ll hang up now Leclerc”

“No wait, I want to tell you about the race”

He pouted and she gave in with a small sigh never been able to be mad or

to say to him, accommodating herself on the trailers bed ready to her all of what her beautiful boy had to say.

So he excitingly began “it started When Verst…”

(….)

“Baby I have to leave you, Binotto is annoying me about press”

“M’kay baby, I love you” she mumbled as she was falling asleep, not because he was boring her or anything but because Charles voice always had a way to soothe her, and relaxing her, she has always had sleeping and anxiety problems, but since their calls before bed she has slept like a baby, not to mention that when they sleep in the same bed she can pass out for 10 hours straight with her head on her chest or with him spooning her both like he loved to.

“Love you too, sleep well” he hangs up smilie face and everything but not before throwing some kisses at the camera just for her.

She smirk like a stupid person at the phone, as she throw it in the bed to plug in the charger, the time was 10 pm o’clock and she realized she had just spent almost 3 hours on the phone with her boyfriend and that the girl that handles the schedules for the next day at 8 pm sharp never showed up.

She shrugged her shoulders, as she prepares for bed walking towards the bathroom to begin with her respective skincare routine, but several loud bangs on her door interrupted her halfway.

“Oh my god! You won’t believe it!” The voice that clearly was her assistant’s echoed throughout the whole trailer, excitement clearly noticeable in her tone.

“What happened Ana?” She mumbled why grumpiness opening the door.

“You now have free week and a half”

“Yeah and- Wait, what?!” She exclaimed still half sleep not sure that she had heard correctly.

“Yeah! You have more scenes done that anyone here so meanwhile the others catch-up with you the producers and directors took the choice of giving you a week and a half break so they don’t have you here doing nothing”

“Oh my god!” She squealed loudly, jumping up and that, that meant that she could go see Charles and spent time with him.

she could even see him race tomorrow!

“That means that i can go-“

“See Charles, yeah i’m way ahead of you, I already book you a ticket for Austria, your flight leaves in two hours and a half” her assistant interrupts her as she hands her the flight information and the tickets. “You’ll get to Austria two hours before the race, and you’ll get to the circuit about half an hours before the star of the race”

“Did I tell you that I love you?” She said admiringly, almost swearing that Ana was basically glowing like a divine intervention right now.

“Yeah, yeah I’m amazing now go to your place, and pack a bag because I don’t want you to make me watch the race tomorrow while I listen to you for two more hours about how you miss Charles”

“Ok” she said softly before wrapping the small girl in a tight hug full of gratefulness.

“Thank you”

“Sweetie my job is to make you happy, and you’ve miss that boy with every cell in your body since you got here on Wednesday, so go now and have fun before producers regret and call you back to have you here to do nothing”

The girl pulled her outside of the vehicle as she handle her the keys to her car and pushed her to hurry, she thanked her again as she basically ran to the vehicle needing to see Charles more that anything in the entire world.

(…)

She landed at about 11 am, and the drive from the airport to the hotel where Charles was staying took about an hour and a half.

who would know that Austrian traffic is a real bitch?

When she got to the hotel, Charles’ manager had someone meet here there with the drivers room key and a car to take her to the race.

She went to the room, a big ass smile plastered on her face from the moment she opened the door and the smell of her boyfriend invaded her nostrils.

She basically run at the speed of light into the bathroom from how fast she got in there to take a shower and change herself into a more adequate closes for the race, so she put herself into some cute black pants, a white top and a Ferrari jersey she got from Etsy with Charles’ number embroidered into it, she had been dying to show it to the driver, excited for when the next race was going to be and now she could finally show it to him.

When she got to the circuit, all she could see was a freaking horde of orange and Red Bull caps, and obviously the typical Red Sea of the Ferrari Fans or tifosi how they are usually called.

She got out of the fancy black Ferrari car that had picked her in the hotel, with the paddock pass hanging from her neck, black dark glasses covering her eyes, when all of the fans got the sight of her the screams became significantly louder.

A small laugh got out of her, as she approached some teenagers that were begging for pictures with her, one of the girls throwing a cap with her boyfriends number on it.

“You sure you wanna lose that?” She ask a playful smirk adorning her face before put it on for a picture with them.

“Keep it! I have a few others at home bu I’ll never get the chance again to say that Charles’ Leclerc girlfriend wore my cap to the Austrian Grand Prix”

She burst out in laughter whilst signing her phone case. “Thanks cutie” she said winking her eye action that she had adopted from her boyfriend before walking away.

She got in smoothly with the paddock pass, it was impressive those little plastics work, she walk nervously towards the Ferrari garage, anxious to see Charles’ face.

All the engineers and crew from the team saying hello to her since she was there for most of the start of the season when she was taking a little break from acting.

The first Ferrari drivers that showed up on her sight was no more or less than Carlos Sainz who’s face turn up a big smile when he saw her.

“What are you doing here?!” He wrapped her in a tight hug lifting her a little making her shriek excitingly, when he put her safely back on the ground she explained to the Spanish driver that she was there to surprise Charles. “You’re boyfriends over there on his typical pre-race ritual, very stressed, Binnotos’ there with him trying to calm him down, seeing you will do him really good”

“Yeah I missed him like crazy, see you Carlos, good luck”

The driver left with a friendly kiss on her cheek sprinting to his car, she smiled to him one last time before walking away, every step that got her closer to where her boyfriend her heart pounded faster, hands shaking uncontrollably, she was excited but also a bit nervous because when racing, Charles would get on this different mindset and it kinda worried her that he wouldn’t like that she was there, it was very unlikely but this was the first time she surprised him showing up to a race unannounced.

But when she saw him, his back facing her, headphones on his ears as his elbows were on his knees while staring on his phone, she could swear that the smile on her face made her look like a crazy person, her heart beating so fast she could feel it on her throat so with shaking hands she started walking towards him.

(…)

Charles was stressed, a pit in the bottom of his stomach worried about what would the result of this race might be, he was tired and worried, he would oftenly text or call his girlfriend when feeling like this, cause she would always knew how to calm him down and exactly what to say to make him feelbetter, but he knew that she was working and didn’t really wanted to bother her, he knew she wouldn’t mind but he didn’t want to get her worried.

Charles adored his girlfriend, he would take a bullet for her on the spot without a hint of hesitation, sometimes he wonders to himself how he got to be with such an awesome girl like her, he loves everything about her, every time a race ends the very first thing he thinks about it’s her, about how he wants to celebrate his wins with her in every way possible, and to be in her arms everything time that something goes wrong, which have been the case lately.

He got up, taking off his headphones and passing her hand trough his hair, he check his phone once again to see if his girlfriend had answered his texts, seeing that there wasn’t any response he turn it off again a little worried with the fact that she hasn’t even read the text he had send it the night before after they had FaceTimed but he shrugged it off knowing that he had to focused on the race and knowing that probably the reason of his girls disappearance was because she was filling or learning lines.

He put his phone on one of the tables in his garage when suddenly he felt some thin arms that he could recognize even in his sleep wrapping around his waist, and the characteristic coconut smell hitting him all at once as the girls head curled against his neck as she purred “Hi baby”

“Mon ange” he whispered in disbelief that this was her, right there with her arms wrapped around him, face on his neck, he wasn’t dreaming and she wasn’t thousands of miles away from him, he could swear that the smile that formed on his face could be seen from outer space.

He took a deep breath trying to take it all in, as she rested his face on his neck whispering “how much she had missed him” He was still a bit shocked that this was happening, as he took her arms on his hands to free himself from her grasp to turn around, cupping her face with one one his hand as the other snaked it’s way to her waist.

“I can’t believe you’re here”

He said softly rubbing circles on her waist while she had one of the most biggest beautiful smiles that he has ever seen looking almost proud that she could pull this off and that he was so happy to see her.

but how couldn’t he be? When every time he was around her he felt the world was lifted off his shoulders, that there were no longer expectations and disappointments and it was just him and her pretty ass smile, it made his heart fluster that it was all because of finally seen him, that she was just as happy to see him so he knew he couldn’t restrain himself any longer when he crash his lips against hers.

When they finally kissed after all those days that felt like an eternity, they both felt like nothing had ever felt so right as they basically melted against one another, her arms curling through his neck, both hands petting his hair, and right there she felt like crying from how much she had missed him and how much she loved him, Charles right behind as he finally relaxed after all those stressed days where he wished she had been there with him, the kissed was one feel with sentiment love irradiating from the couple as his tongue pressed her upper lip asking for permission, the girl smiling mid kiss just to kiss the driver once again.

“ I missed you so fucking much “ Charles murmured again her lips, giving her small pecks through her face making her giggle.

“I was so nervous” she admitted, both her hands resting on his face, as his arms kept still around her waist.

“Why?” He asked genuinely confused, she then proceeded to shrugged it off saying that it was just her being dumb, Charles denying with his head as her cheeks turn red.

“Mon ange, I don’t ever want you to think that I don’t want you here with me, because I mean, if it was for me I would have you tied up to my side day and night, okay?” She nodded as he gave her a small kiss and hugged her again, this time his face on the crook of her neck.

“My pretty girl” he whispered as he went leaving kissed on her jaw and neck, her giggling once again. “Came all the way from Atlanta, with a jacket with my number on it”

“You liked it?” She asked excitingly as Charles laughed against her neck, separating from her.

“Are you kidding me? I love it” he smiled against her, as their foreheads touched, her baseball cap falling to the ground, he separated from her as he knew that the would calling him for the formation lap any minute now, the engineers all in their world as they wanted to give them their privacy, he grabbed his girls hand as he dragged her trough the garage while asking her about her trip, she excitingly telling him every single thing about it as he now rested against the outside wall of the garage, putting on his suit and drinking some water, while looking at her like she was the only thing in the entire world, just for him, with a jacket and a cap to prove it.

“What? Am I talking too much?” She asked while playing with her hands getting a bit embarrassed that he was boring him”

“Oh non chérie, you just look really pretty with my number on you” he smiles to her as she chuckled, rolling her eyes.

“Charles I know your happy that your girlfriend is here but Mattia will have a stroke if you don’t get in the car right about now” one of the engineers informed them, making them both giggle as Charles lean towards her for a last kiss before put in his helmet on and get in the car.

“I love you” he said as their lips touched once again, her smiling against him.

“Good luck baby, go kick their asses like you know how to” she encourage as she peck his lips one more time, leaving him with a small smile as he put his helmet on.

“Yes ma’am” he said as he finally separated from her and got on his racing car.

“Love you, be safe” was the last she shouted to him as the car started and she walked towards the paddock and he gave her a small thumbs up.

(….)

She felt like she was about to throw up right there and then.

Carlos sitting beside her, still very angry about his DNF and his engine problems but borrowing his arm for her to squeeze as his boyfriend was suffering in the track, his throttle giving him problems with only three laps left and Verstappen on top of him.

“Turn three it’s really difficult” he said through his radio as she felt like she could pass out from her nerves for her boyfriend, the win almost his for the taking.

So when he finally passed the checkered flag, a couple of laps later she felt like she could finally breath again as everyone around her celebrated and even Carlos who was still down from his engine problem clapped and celebrated for her boyfriend.

“Go celebrate with him, he’ll want you there when he gets here”

She got up from her sit as Carlos encourage her moving his hand from front to backwards as she rolled her eyes smiling starting to run to the garage to receive her boyfriend from his winning race.

So she stand there as he park the car as he celebrated and hugged his engineers, but when he finally saw her she smiled to him with everything that she had as he launched himself to her to wrap her in a tight hug.

“I love you, I’m so proud of you” she scream throughout the noise as Charles took of his helmet, to gave her a winning smiling as she felt herself so full of excitement for him, being able to see him happy and excited again, his eye’s lighting up as his face was basically glowing from how happy she was and she was so thankful that she was there with him, and so incredibly proud of what he had just accomplished too.

So when he took of his helmet he crashed their lips together once again, catching her of guard as she returned the kiss placing her hands on his cheeks.

“Won that race just for you chérie, I love you so much”

And with that she kissed him again, both their hearts beating at what it felt like a thousand miles per hour, as they both thanked everything around them and that they were together to celebrate Charles’ win.

So she screamed like a crazy fan when he was in podium and got redden cheeks when he wink to her as he lifted the trophy to then bathe her with champagne and laughed and kissed as they enjoyed that well deserved rave that the driver most definitely needed.

Her wishing for a celebration of the both of them just later.

Her unexpected visit wasn’t so bad after all.

[kiaracarrera]

The Summer I Turned Pretty

Interrupting your OBX regular to talk about TSITP. Some light to medium spoilers about to follow.

I need people to talk about this series with because when I say this is the first series that made me fall in love with reading at the tender age of 14, just over a decade ago I mean it. The excitement I’ve been holding in, in anticipation for this series far outweighs any other and now that I’ve binged the show from 9am to 2am I have THOUGHTS.

- First of all, I loved it. Book to tv/movie adaptations are always a risk and almost never a comparison but with Jenny Han actively at the helm this series felt safe and it was - there were changes but mostly they felt for the better and the parts that I preferred in the book even felt understandable in the series.

- The casting! Amazing. 10/10. Admittedly I was apprehensive over the Conrad casting initially but a few teasers/trailers in and I was sold, Chris Briney does the broody/longing/lost so so well. Jeremiah’s casting took the longest and it shows because Gavin Casalegno IS Jeremiah, the perfect golden boy/sunshine kid. Lola Tung is radiant, this is Belly’s series and she is the main character is all the ways. Susannah/Laurel/Steven/Cam/Shayla, all just so wonderful I really couldn’t fault this cast.

- Unpopular decision I know but I have been a Jeremiah girl ever since I read It’s Not Summer Without You, Chapter 8 and I have stood by that decision to this day, ignoring book 3 because my Jeremiah would never. Howeverrrr, dare I say I have been converted Team Conrad? 🫣 The chemistry between this cast is just insane and all throughout the show I found myself flip flopping over who I was rooting for, I am still processing my ship thoughts but whilst I’ll always always have a special spot for Team Jellyfish that last scene with Conrad and Belly at the beach was just 😩 *chefs kiss*.

-But ummmm for all the absolute HATE that Jeremiah Fisher gets in book 3 over what happed when they were on a break why you gotta make Belly be actively kissing both brothers mere hours apart from each other? Like I loved it but also I hated it because now I’m going to have to watch that golden retriever get his heart absolutely smashed when Belly initially picks Conrad over him next season (assuming of course) I think I preferred the books where Belly wasn’t making out with Jeremiah and giving him false hope before driving off into the sunset with his brother.

- Taylor! I absolutely loved all the Swifty (and Olivia) songs and that in itself could (and possibly will be) it’s own post but I want to actually take a moment to acknowledge Rain Spencer’s Taylor. I actively chose not to re read TSITP before the series came out in order to be able to fully appreciate both mediums but I feel like from memory Taylor, at least in book 1 was not my fave. In the series however, I absolutely adored her. Whilst she fucks up a little bit I feel like Taylor is a true ride or die and her character is very reflective of a 16 year old growing up with insecurities and desires and I for one fucked with the way she didn’t fuck with Conrad. Because she didn’t see Conrad in the way viewers did, she saw him as someone who’d played with her besties heart and I absolutely would have been the same if I was her.

- Speaking of relationships I loved to see - Susannah and Laurel finally got their moment to shine and I loved loved loved them. There’s not much to say here because imo they were just the best. Also I really liked Shayla and Steven, Claire Cho who?

- Cam Cameron I love you.

- Redsox girl! Nicole was great, we stan female friendships and women who know their worth. I much preferred this version of them the one in the books, even if the clothes stealing thing did leave me feeling all the rage towards the deb girls.

- Cleveland Castile was okay. I liked having someone that Conrad could confide in and escape too but like I would have preferred to see more of the Conrad/Laurel relationship? Hell I think I would have preferred to see the dynamic between Conrad and John than introducing someone new. Speaking of parent/children relationships I wish we got more Susannah and Belly, they didn’t feel as close in the series as I had imagined they might and that was slightly disappointing.

- Adam sucked. John was fine, I liked him even. John and Laurel seem like soulmates on some level, whether that be as deeply connected friends or more, I’d be interested to explore this relationship in future seasons. Obviously the true soulmates are Susannah and Laurel, I just loved that John knew that and loved Susannah too.

- The infinity necklace being in this book was an interesting choice. I’m not mad about it but it will be interesting to see how this progresses the future story. Also did Susannah agree to doing the trials in the book? I’m due a re read but for some reason I feel like she didn’t? Either way I feel like we all know what’s going to happen if they intend on following along with the books in any way, which is *cue the Vanessa Hudgens clip* terrible but like inevitable? I cried in episode 7 heaven forbid anything heavier.

- The one thing that made me cringe was a few of the camera shots e.g. the weird flashback transitions and the binoculars scene 🤭 someone tell me they found those as cringe as I did 😂

- Overall, I know I’m missing some things and I might come back later to add to this post but I really loved this series and I’m so so excited for a season two. Someone come talk to me about it!!