#which are mostly treated seriously but it's definitely a bit of black comedy

[saebyeog-i]

a formal occasion | pcy (m)

“He could probably hear your muttering but not any specific words, so you waved your hands subtly in an attempt to reassure him that everything was fine, nothing unusual was happening, and your boyfriend definitely wasn’t talking about sex while seated in the third row pew of a church.”

genre | established relationship idolverse au, romance-ish?, softer than I intended this to be, half fluff/half smut, my attempt at humor, a mostly unedited one shot

warnings | uhhh inappropriate whispering during church, mentions of drinking and celebratory tequila shots, under the dinner table fingering does that count as exhibitionism, dirty talk on the dance floor, semi-public sex, I’m a slut for PCY in a suit (a soft, overly romantic and emotional slut, but a slut nonetheless).

word count | this is 6.66k because i’m going to hell

pairing | PCY x f!reader

—

“I wonder if they fucked in the last week,” he whispers in your ear, leaning over from his place next to you in the pew.

Your eyes bugged out, pupils the size of saucers as your brain caught up and processed. Did you hear him right? Did he actually just ask that? “Oh my god,” you muttered, not wanting to cause a scene or feed into his poorly timed query.

“The dress is really pretty, she looks good, though the white’s not really accurate given… you know,” he gestured his hands vaguely in front of him, low enough that only you could see. “Now that I think about it, I can’t even count the number of times he bailed on plans with me or the guys to go hang out with her in the last six months. But I guess now we know it wasn’t just hanging out as much as it was—”

“Chanyeol!” You hiss, eyes darting around to see if anyone heard him.

“What?” He jeers back in a hushed tone, “It’s not like it’s a secret— ow!”

Were this a conversation the two of you were having in private (namely, in your own apartment or bed), then maybe your reaction would be different other than you reaching under his suit coat and pinching the flesh of his oblique muscles harshly between your thumb and forefinger. But it wasn’t in private— you were in public, in a church no less, at Jongdae’s wedding.

“Shut. Up. Now,” you muttered lowly through gritted teeth. They were only on the first reading, so there was roughly another half hour before the ceremony would end, depending on how long each subsequent reading and the vows would take. Even if his mind was wandering somewhere slightly inappropriate, you were grateful that despite being a groomsman you were able to be seated next to your boyfriend for the duration of the ceremony. Chanyeol knew you well enough by now to know that you really didn’t like just being an accessory if you accompanied him somewhere specifically as his date. Maybe it was selfish, but truthfully it was more because you barely got to spend time with him as it was with his busy schedule, but you preferred when he could stay by your side like this.

You knew most of the boys’ partners, and you all got along well. Hell, it was even you and Jongae’s soon to be wife who had the idea for all of you to get together when the boys were on tour last and have a good ol’ fashioned ‘girls night’, whatever that meant. (Wine. It meant entirely too much wine and an hour of promising you were going to take turns cooking different snacking foods only to end up ordering delivery. Though instead of sappy romantic comedies, the lot of you watched some zombie apocalypse movies and a few comedy specials. All in all, a good night.)

Even though you’d been together for almost two years, you still felt slightly anxious any time you accompanied him to an event, public or private. Publicly, you were just among the throngs of ‘Guests of EXO’, usually not getting to spend any time close to him. Privately, however, you were able to be glued to his side— not that Chanyeol would have it any other way. You were more on the introverted side of the spectrum, and sometimes having such an extrovert for a boyfriend was downright exhausting. But he’d been so excited to bring you along to the wedding, saying that it was the first big happy life milestone for a member of the group, and he wanted you to be a part of it.

It didn’t take too long for him to convince you, either. Once it became clear how far their management would go to protect the details of the event and keep as much of it as private as possible, you felt more at ease about joining him. You had your fair share of qualms about the label, of which Chanyeol was well aware (let’s just say you didn’t have the tightest lips when you’d been drinking), but so far today was handled better than you’d expected.

“Seriously though—” he whispered, tilting his head towards you again.

“Zip. It. We are in a church,” you shot back, locking eyes with him. On his other side, you could see Junmyeon leaning slightly forward, eyebrows raised and giving you both a questioning look. He could probably hear your muttering but not any specific words, so you waved your hands subtly in an attempt to reassure him that everything was fine, nothing unusual was happening, and your boyfriend definitely wasn’t talking about sex while seated in the third row pew of a church.

Said boyfriend held his hands up defensively, shoulders shrugging as he muttered under his breath “I’m just saying what everyone else is thinking! Everyone knows you can still have sex while you’re earlier on in a pregnancy—”

“Yeol!”

⬷ ❤ ⤐

Miraculously, you made it through the remainder of the ceremony without any mishaps and Chanyeol keeping any additional commentary to himself. The reception was held at a lovely partially outdoor venue with a garden and a large white tent, with plenty of room for dancing socializing. The number of invited guests was more than you’d anticipated, but then again, you guessed that Jongdae was a popular guy. You were seated at the head table with the rest of the bridal party, nursing a vodka soda while you watched the bridesmaids and groomsmen give their speeches.

And then it was time for the first dance of the newlywed couple.

Of course there was live music at this event— why wouldn’t there be? When the groom was a member of the nation’s boy group, it would have been near criminal not to have some nod to his livelihood. Chanyeol had been beaming with pride when he and Baekhyun had been asked to perform for their first dance, insisting that it was always their first choice, and not just because Kyungsoo was only able to get off base the day of the ceremony for leave from his enlistment and wouldn’t be able to rehearse at all. He also definitely didn’t count this as ‘sweet retribution’ for the tiny grudge he definitely didn’t still hold over his sister and the fact that Yoora had asked Kyungsoo to sing at her wedding for her first dance instead of him.

Watching Chanyeol perform on stage with the rest of his members or for his subunit with Sehun was always a treat, but there was something markedly special about watching him perform like this: playing an instrument, this time an acoustic guitar, side by side with Baekhyun on a pair of barstools. They were playing some love song you recognized but didn’t know the words to, and Baekhyun’s voice was doing a beautiful justice to the song. Every now and again, Chanyeol would lean forward into the mic angled in front of him and harmonize. They’d only rehearsed this a handful of times, what with busy schedules and each of them working on preparations for comebacks soon, but it still sounded heavenly to you. You watched appreciatively, even taking a moment to look around at the guests to see a number of cell phones out to film them.

For a while, it was if Chanyeol was in his own world that was just him, Baekhyun, Jongdae, and his now wife. But as the song approached its end, his eyes fluttered open and his gaze drifted to where you sat. You’d seen him through a plethora of different hair styles and colors in the time you’d been together, and while you loved his natural black hair, a different part of you was fond of the bleached blond hair he was currently sporting for filming a comeback music video. You smiled shyly, looking down at your glass for a moment before back up at him, the alcohol and the long day swirling together to make you feel just a little bit warm. He was the self proclaimed romantic of the group, the one who cried the most, and the one who talked about his feelings the most. Despite his stature and his sometimes intimidating persona when on stage, he was no more ferocious than a teddy bear, and you loved him all the more for it.

By the time the song had finished and he and Baekhyun had made their own rounds with the guests who wanted to say hello, compliment their performance, or ask for the occasional photo, you’d gotten just a little bit sleepy. You were chatting with Jongin, asking how his recent tour and promotions were going,  and he was telling stories of their recent show in Paris and how it was very different from the last time he’d been when you felt a pressure on the top of your head.

“Can I help you? You’re going to ruin my hair.” You didn’t need any indication of who was leaning almost their entire bodyweight on top of you. He was getting restless, so of course he was getting clingy.

“Was I good? Tell me I was good. You liked it right? Gosh, I know I’m so talented and so handsome, you’re really lucky to have a boyfriend like me,” he went on and on, fishing for praise and you rolled your eyes, looking to Jongin for some kind of aid. He only laughed, holding up his phone to snap a photo before firing it off into some group chat or another. You made a mental note to file this moment away for reference if there ever came a future time when Jongin would make pleading eyes for you to come to his rescue as he had so kindly failed to do for you just now.

You whined as Chanyeol leaned further forward, going deadweight on top of you at your lack of response. “Yah! Too heavy, you’re gonna crush me!” Of course he started to laugh, and of course he relented finally, pulling out the chair next to you and settling down. He flipped over his phone which he’d left on the table and began scrolling through his unread notifications, left hand reaching over to rest on your knee but his focus staying on his screen, so you turned back to the others to continue polite conversation.

Chanyeol was a very physical person. He was very touchy feely. But he wasn’t exactly big on PDA, unless you were in trustworthy company. It was not unusual for him to keep a hand on your arm, your leg, your waist, even if his attention was focused elsewhere when you were in such company. It was a slightly possessive habit of his, but not one you minded all that much. It was comforting, really, a reminder that he was still right there.

You never really minded it all that much until, that is, you felt that slightly possessive hand snake its way under the skirt of your dress via the slit on your right leg and up your thigh. You were mid sentence answering a question from Yixing about your most recent vacation when you felt Chanyeol’s fingers making their way under the fabric of your underwear and drawing circles on your hip bone. That was all fine and dandy, until a moment later when you felt his hand reach further over towards your core and then the pad of his thumb rub two harsh circles over your clit in quick succession, causing you to inhale sharply at the sensation and choke on whatever unimportant words were coming out of your mouth at that moment. You were definitely more awake now than you were five minutes ago.

“Babe? You okay?” He had the audacity of asking you, feigned concern spread across his face.

You grimaced and nodded, inching your chair forward slightly so your lap was covered by more of the tablecloth. Chanyeol’s fingers retreated to your hip bone. “Mmm. Just uh, a cramp, that’s all,” you turned back to Yixing with a smile and finished your earlier sentence as your phone buzzed on the table in front of you.

Quickly, you pulled it into your lap to read the message.

찬열 20:04 I thought your period was last week?

You really never should have given him shared access to the health app data on your phone where you tracked your cycle. Seriously. But he had asked, insisted even, saying that he wanted to be aware so he couldn’t know when you needed a restock on tampons, or maybe when having some extra dark chocolate lying around the house would be appreciated.

20:06 It was, you’re just a monster and it was the first excuse I could think of.

찬열 20:07 But if you really didn’t like it, you’d tell me to stop, wouldn’t you?

You shot him a dirty look and had half a thought to step on his toes with the heel of your shoe under the table. As if he could read your mind and your intentions, he retaliated preemptively by slipping two fingers back under the fabric of your panties and between your folds. You bit down on the inside of your mouth, hard, unwilling to be caught by any of the people surrounding you.

But he was right. You didn’t really want him to stop. If you were being honest, you’d been just a little bit horny all day— something about everyone dressed up all dapper, specifically Chanyeol in a suit with his hair styled up on the top like it was now. You felt the slightest hesitation in the movements of Chanyeol’s hand, and you knew it was in slight surprise to the amount of moisture he found. Eyes still focused on his phone screen, his fingers found their way inside of you and curled as he gave two drawn out pumps, placing pressure right where you felt it the most.

찬열 20:11 You’re so wet… have you been thinking about this all night? Fuck, you’re dirty

20:12 Shut up shut up shut UP Just fucking do me or don’t or I swear to god, Yeol

찬열 20:13 Oh okay, I’ll stop

“No,” you hissed out, a hand grabbing his wrist and stopping him from removing his fingers from inside of you. If he was going to tease you this much, he was going to finish the damn job. Across the table from you, you saw Minseok raise his eyebrows curiously at you while sipping on his glass of red wine. Like Kyungsoo, he’d also only been able to take leave from his enlistment for a single night, and it would be the only night he’d get for months yet to come, but he’d even said there was no way he was going to miss this.

The conversation around you resumed, and you politely remained as engaged as you could while your boyfriend was knuckle deep inside of you. and nodding when appropriate. You sighed out and relaxed against the back of your chair, inching your hips forward and meeting his fingers on a thrust inward as Chanyeol quietly and lazily fucked you with his hand. He was mostly just teasing you, lightly stoking the flame in the pit of your belly, keeping your desire going but never satisfying it. It was like he was timing his movement, his slender and well trained fingers never paying enough attention to any one part of your center to actually put you over the edge.

You could feel the crown of your head becoming damp with sweat. God, was he really able to work you up this much in public? Did you have a thing for exhibitionism? Did he? You’d never spoken about that as a potential kink together, but maybe based on your body’s reaction to current events it warranted a conversation later—

“Shit,” you coughed out quietly after one particularly hard thrust of his fingers and a rub on your clit almost sent you spiraling. Did Minseok just snicker? No, no way, he was talking to Junmyeon and his date, he wasn’t paying attention to you and Chanyeol. Involuntarily your walls clenched around him and you leaned forward covering your mouth with your napkin, trying to hold in a moan as you tapped out another message.

20:26 Could you PLEASE stop edging me and either make me cum or get your hand out of my pants while the rest of your friends are five feet away?

찬열 20:29 Mmmm you know I was thinking about it But now that you say it like that, no. Maybe if you asked nicely.

20:30 Fuck you I said ‘please’

찬열 20:32 Is that a threat or a promise?

Before you could even muse a comeback let alone type one out, Chanyeol quickens his pace, and one, two, three brushes against your clit and you’re tumbling over the edge. It was by far not the strongest you’d ever orgasmed on Chanyeol’s hand, and honestly you were grateful— it made it possible for you to (you thought) remain calm, demurely raise your water glass to your lips, and take a long drink while your eyes fluttered closed and he worked you through the waves, like a slow undulation washing over your body in warmth.  

Were you not actively in the middle of dozens of people, you would have half expected him to bring his fingers to his mouth and suck the cum off of them. You fantasized briefly about him doing it anyways, pinching the top of your thigh to snap out of the post-orgasm daze and remind yourself of your surroundings. Calmly, he wiped his hands on the napkin in his lap before glancing your way with a smile plastered on his face and planting a tender kiss on your cheek.

“What was that for?” You asked, your voice breathier than you’d intended. Even if it wasn’t that strong, the high mixed with the alcohol had you dizzy, drunk on wine and his affection and you thought again how good he looked in that suit.

“Nothing,” he grinned even wider, “I just love you, that’s all.”

You let out a sharp laugh, flicking your eyebrows up critically as you began thinking of ways to get back at him later.

Junmyeon’s eyebrows furrowed as he called your name and asked, “Have you had enough to eat? You look a little flushed. Too much to drink maybe?” He offered hesitantly, ever the one to be caring and concerned.

Minseok rolled his eyes and snorted. “Sure, that’s all she’s had tonight.”

“What?” The leader asked, not quite catching on.

“Ah Myeonnie, I’ll tell you when you’re older,” Minseok mused, leaning back into his chair with a cheshire grin as he drank from his glass some more.

You were, of course, nothing short of mortified.

⬷ ❤ ⤐

The following hours passed and slowly, guests began drifting away, and the crowd reduced down to only a few dozen attendees as the clock neared midnight. You had finally gotten to see Jongdae and his now-wife and congratulate them on their marriage, and on the beautiful ceremony and how much fun the party was. You’d lost count of the number of drinks you’d had, and Chanyeol had stopped his intake an hour or so ago in order to sober up and drive home, only remembering that somewhere before that Yixing had convinced everyone to do two rounds of tequila shots together. One because they were all together again for the first time in ages as he lamented that only Jongdae could reunite the family, and two when he realized that the bride was unable to join in the celebration. “We all have to drink for her because she can’t!” He’d jeered to the group, immediately waving for one of the bartenders to supply the second round. You’d giggled at his antics, but no one objected as the glasses were refilled and lime wedges passed around again.

The music had switched to a DJ at this point, and after a long stretch of high energy popular dance songs to which you heard the drunken clamor of main vocalists croon humorously off-key to, the last few had been softer, quieter slow songs. You’d finally relented and taken your shoes off, feet aching after the last several hours, and were currently swaying side to side in a lazy slow dance with your arms draped around Chanyeol’s shoulders, face halfway buried in his chest. To avoid the chances of him accidentally stepping on your bare toes, you were balancing with the bridges of your feet over his dress shoes. You’d done this a few times before, always feeling a little shy about it, worrying that you were too heavy. And yet, every time, he’d insist that no, it was fine, with a kiss on your lips or your cheek or the corner of your eye. He rather liked you relying on him like this.

It was so rare that you got to spend an entire day with him like this, surrounded by friends and chosen family. Despite how anxious you’d been earlier about this day, you felt yourself falling more in love with him as you looked into each other’s eyes. Usually a comfortable silence would be appreciated, but there was a glint in his gaze and you were compelled to ask him what he was thinking about.

“Just thinking,” he murmured into your ear, “Of when it might be our turn.”

The way your hands suddenly tightened around his was something you couldn’t help. “Cut it out, seriously Yeol. Stop teasing me, I thought you’d have had your fill with earlier,” You had to look away, pressing your forehead into his chest shyly as you thought of how you’d quietly excused yourself to go to the restroom and clean yourself up from his ‘handiwork’ under the table.

“You know I can never have enough of you,” he murmured in earnest. “I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off of you, you know.” Your ears burned at the whispers. “Really though— pregnant with my child or not, if someone told me I had to go a whole week without feeling your sweet cunt, I don’t think I could do it.”

You clenched your thighs together, the ache from earlier returning full force.

“You’ve done it before, you could do it again. What are you, some kinda sex addict all of a sudden?” you mused, thinking back to the times he went on tour and you were left settling for breathy moans through phone calls at odd hours due to time differences and insane schedules. The heat inside you began building again, thinking of the frantic reunions that always followed those long stretches without one another.

Chanyeol’s laugh was lodged deep in his chest, and you felt the vibrations as you kept yourself pressed against him. “The less of that the better. Being inside you feels too good to willingly deprive myself of that.”

Your cheeks flushed once more. What was up with him today and the sex talk in public? This time wasn’t so bad, considering between the music and the distance from the people still gathered your conversation felt somewhat private—at least, more private than when you were seated in church pews. Clearly he was horny given this evening’s earlier events, but you didn’t think it was this much.

You continued to sway together in relative silence while Chanyeol began to hum absentmindedly to the song playing, one you recognized as the group’s own. And then you had a thought, and you were feeling bold, and so you gave the thought life and leaned forward to whisper in his ear.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you had a thing for weddings and formal events.”

His grip on your waist tightened.

“I’d think maybe, you get off on dressing up all nice, the whole wine and dine, everyone seeing you look so good,” you paused, mulling over the next thought briefly before continuing, “Though we already know you get off on the attention. That must be why every time you come home from performing you can’t wait to slam my back to the mattress and fuck me into next week, huh?” You teased, rocking your hips forward just enough to press against the front of his dress pants.

In doing so, you weren’t disappointed. Your thought was, more or less, correct. You rocked your hips forward subtly once more, relishing in the feeling of his growing hard on against you. “You just can’t stop thinking about pulling me into the nearest closet or bathroom and getting balls deep in me, can you?” This, you thought as your boldness grew, was payback for earlier.

He pushed away from you suddenly, and you backed off of his feet, stumbling. You were about to apologize, thinking you’d gone too far, when he wrapped his hand around your wrist and growled lowly, “We’re leaving. Now.”

You pulled your lips between you teeth in an attempt to stifle the giggles that threatened to erupt through you as you trailed along after him, retrieving your coats and bags from the chairs at the table as he quickly said goodbyes and gave handshakes and half-hearted hugs to anyone he deemed important enough in those two minutes. You grabbed your heels and quickly slipped them back on, not bothering to buckle them as you did you best to keep up with Chanyeol’s long legs whisking you towards the parking lot of the venue.

“I can’t believe you got me hard in the middle of the dance floor,” he said, voice hushed and gravely.

“I can’t believe you fingered me under the table,” you retorted, watching as he fumbled through his pocket with his free hand and retrieved his car keys.

“I still can’t believe you let me,” he laughed in response, clicking twice and listening for where his vehicle was parked. At the sound of the beep, his eyes widened and he began outright running, and you whined at the feeling in your feet as you somehow managed to keep up with him. “God it was so hot, you did so good baby,” he cooed as the two of you reached his car. He released your wrist only to pull you close to him and cup your cheeks in his palms and place a searing needy kiss against you, which you happily returned. “Please,” he whined as he pulled away, “It’s not a bathroom or a closet but please will you please let me fuck you in the back of my car? I don’t wanna wait til we get home.”

You couldn’t even bother keeping up with idea of teasing him because seeing him so hot and bothered in that suit had you feeling needy and willing for anything. You nodded enthusiastically and he sighed in relief, opening the door to the backseat and a hand flying to the zipper of your dress and tugging it down in one go before pushing you inside.

Usually, you made fun of the deeply tinted windows when you rode in his car with him, asking him if he could even see out the windows to drive. Now, however, you were silently grateful for them, because there was no way in which you could fathom waiting until the two of you got home.

Your heels dropped off to the floor of the back seat. His suit coat was thrown tersely over the head rest of the driver’s side. The straps of your dress fell down your arms, and he trailed kisses from your neck to your  collar bone to the space between your breasts, hands snaking around to your back and nimbly undoing the clasps on your bra. You reached for his slacks, undoing the belt and buttons and yanking them down less tenderly than he had your dress— maybe that was because you knew he had plenty of pairs, and he knew this dress had been a more expensive splurge for you.  His hands gently bunched the fabric of your skirt upward as you raised your hips, pulling the garment off over your torso and attempting to throw it carefully towards the back of the car. You began undoing the buttons on his collared shirt from the bottom and when your hands met in the middle after he’d started at the top, he grabbed hold of them to pull you forward in a another kiss, holding you so tight you would have thought your lungs were the only source of his air.

“Ow! Shit shit shit,” he cried suddenly, having raised his head up too quickly to finish ridding himself of clothes and slamming it against a fixture on the ceiling.

You couldn’t help the laugh you let out. “You okay? We can just go home if it’s too cramped— oh,” your words were cut off with a moan as his fingers found their way back into your center, and you had your answer. The cramped space didn’t matter, the throbbing on the top of his head didn’t matter, the only that that did matter was you and him and how he made you feel.

He caged himself over you, curving his back to dip his head down to reach your neck to bite gently at your skin and leave faint marks in his wake while his fingers continued to work at your clit. You raked your nails down his skin, head falling back and eyes rolling with it as he pushed you higher and higher. “Stop, stop stop— any more and I’ll cum, I wanna cum with you, please,” you begged, forcing your eyes open and taking his hand in yours to remove him from you.

Chanyeol looked to the side of a moment before sighing in defeat. “No condom,” he said sullenly, lips forming an adorably disappointed pout, “We ran out of the extra stash last month, forgot to replace it.”

You thought for a minute, heavy panting filling the silence in the close confines of the car. “Well, I was going to wait for an anniversary or a special occasion to tell you, but… I changed my birth control last month,” you admitted, your unoccupied hand trailing up his abdomen to his chest, “And instead of a pill that I could forget to take, I now have an implant that’s always there, so…” you trailed off, looking up at him and batting your eyelashes in your best attempt at seduction.

Chanyeol let out a deep and guttural groan. “Fuck, fuck please baby does that mean what I think it means?”

There was something about seeing your big strong boyfriend reduced to a whining for you that redoubled your confidence and gave you the willpower to take his hand, still covered in your wetness from just a moment ago, and take his fingers into your mouth and suck them clean. His Adams apple bobbed as he swallowed harshly, eyes watching your lips the whole time.

“It means,” you said lowly after removing his fingers from your mouth with a pop, “That I want you to lay back and let me ride you until you cum inside me.”

Your boyfriend let out a shaky breath, gaping at your bold words and actions. “Fucking hell, I was just gonna say let me eat you out and I’d settle for a hand job but oh my god this is so much better,” his mouth was on yours as he pulled you close again, and you smiled into the kiss as you felt his dick twitch against your thigh.

It wasn’t the first time you’d forgone a condom with Chanyeol, but it wasn’t a frequent occurrence. The only other time you could remember off the top of your head was when he was away on tour, and your work had miraculously sent you on an overseas business trip that landed the two of you in the same city for a night. Between being a few hundred miles from home and the shared need for one another, you both ended up saying you’d just deal with the morning after pill tomorrow.

But none of that was of concern now. Now, you straddled his thighs and pushed him back, taking control of the moment. You kissed him again, slower than before, mapping the insides of his mouth with your tongue. “Ready?” You asked, circling your hips over him, cupping his face in your hands like it was the most precious thing in the world.

“God I love you,” he whispered back, stroking his hands down your sides. Slowly, with as much patience as you could muster, you lowered yourself on to him and felt your neck go limp as you adjusted to the size inside of you, a heady groan finding its way out of you. “Oh my god,” he croaked, bringing his hand to his mouth to bite on his thumb from the overwhelming sense of pleasure he felt. You hated that the thought crossed your mind, but you really could feel him so much more like this. As you purposefully clenched your walls around him once, you wondered if he felt the same. The string of curses that left his mouth answered your question.

“Good?” You asked with mirth, and he nodded feverishly, hands returning to your hips and pulling you forward. You swatted him playfully in response. “Hey, my turn on top, I set the pace,” you teased. It wasn’t often that you were courageous enough to take charge, so you wanted to relish in it as much as you could.

He laughed and pulled his hands back, holding them up defensively. “Your wish is my command, do your worst.”

You laughed out a single breath. ‘Challenge accepted.’ Fully adjusted to his size now, you rolled your hips forward slowly and snapped them back again.

The teasing comments and banter quickly subsided, replaced with only soft exhales and the sound of skin against skin. You could feel your thighs growing tired as you continued to raise and lower yourself on him, trying to stay active and make it as pleasurable for both of you as you could. But it had been a long day, and you were still tipsy, and you almost just wanted to make him come and get it over with so you could go home and fall asleep together.

Almost.

As if he could read your mind, Chanyeol’s open pouting lips curled up into a smile and and thrust up into you, meeting your hips on a movement down that had both of you gasping as the coil of heat in your belly began to bloom. You began rocking back and forth as he laid back more, the new angle reaching deeper and making you see stars.

“M’close, m’so close Yeol,” you moaned out softly. His right hand went down between you and began rubbing on your clit once more, while his other hand clasped yours, threading your fingers together. You held on for dear life, like he was the only thing that could anchor you to this plane of existence.

There was something so strangely intimate about the simple act of holding hands while fucking the love of your life that notched you just high enough to go spiraling over the edge into your orgasm. It washed over you in waves, and Chanyeol kept thrusting up under you, working you through the aftershocks until he came himself, a low throaty groan coming through his lips as you felt his cum paint your walls and his hand finally fell away from your core. You whined at the feeling, collapsing on top of him as a shudder ran down your spine, every inch of your skin overly sensitive like a livewire.

He kept one hand intertwined with yours and took his free one to brush his thumb across your cheek and tuck the stray hairs that had fallen out of place behind your ear. So gentle, so tender, but when you sat up again to plant a kiss at the corner of his mouth, you saw the mischievous glint in his eyes that meant he had something to say. You raised an eyebrow at him, waiting as you continued to try and reclaim steady breathing.

“Is this gonna be an all the time thing now? Because I’m not gonna lie, I might just bust a nut again right now if you tell me this is gonna be an all the time thing.” Even in the moments after sex, he still managed to have entirely too much energy and could talk your ear off. Nothing about the every day moments was ever too serious with Chanyeol. Somehow, there was always a sense of playfulness

You shushed him with another kiss on his lips and laughed. “Don’t nut again but yeah, I guess this can be an all the time thing now.” You knew he was kidding because he wasn’t even hard again inside you. Yet.

“Ahh! Ahh!” Chanyeol began letting out faked moans and fucked his hips up and into you, throwing his head back dramatically and pretending to come once more.

You couldn’t help but snort. “You’re such a dork.”

“Yeah but I’m your dork,” he replied, his finger tapping the tip of your nose playfully.

You pulled your face away, trying to think up some snarky remark to give him shit, and instead could only smile and let out a small laugh under your breath. His palms gently pressed to your lower back, holding you to him as if you’d disappear the moment he let go. Your hands returned to his face, thumbs brushing across his cheeks once more as you leaned in and kissed him again, slower and deeper than before. Everything you’d been through together, every secret meeting and fear of exposure and invasion of privacy, often times it felt like it might be too much— until you had moments with him like this, relishing in the feeling of connectedness and warmth and him.

After a short while of your head pressed to his chest and his hands gently stroking your back, you felt him begin to shift under you and pull out. You whined at the loss of him filling you and the skin to skin contact you craved, thinking for a heartbeat that you could just stay like this with him all night. He laughed softly, laying tender kisses all over as he mumbled apologies for needing to move, something about the side door of the car not being the most comfortable thing to have pressed against his back. He reached into a seat back pocket and fished out some stray napkins, using them to clean up the cum that spilled from you when you shifted off of his lap.

As the two of you redressed lazily and only enough to feign a sense of public decency and you crawled your way into the front passenger seat, you let out a yawn.

“Mmm see? Now we can go home and cuddle in bed,” he teased, ambling his way into the driver’s seat and buckling up as he pressed the ignition on the vehicle. Soft music filtered through the speakers, demos of his own work that he only let you listen to while they were still rough, and you felt overwhelmingly at ease with him.

With your head resting on your hand as you stared out the window at the Seoul city skyline, you felt a sense of calm settling over you, daydreaming of the softness of your shared bed that was waiting for you to collapse into it as soon as you got home. You could see from your peripheral Chanyeol’s gaze flicking over to you and then back to the road ahead as he came to a stop at a red light. “Hmm?” you mumbled, wondering if something was wrong for a moment as you shifted your gaze over to him.

“Okay, but seriously, how many times do you think they had sex today?”

“Chanyeol!”

—

author’s note | sksksksks oh my god this was so bad I am so sorry I just could NOT let go of this idea please don’t hate me I drank an entire bottle of soju and watched a supercut of the EXO section of the 2019 SM Town concert in Japan when OT6 performed in those fucking suits and then I wrote the first draft of this, sue me. Yeol really is just a big puppy that can’t let go of a question or an idea once it crosses his mind. my smut is always gonna be this kind of soft unless I’m feeling extra angsty just so you know

[monicalorandavis]

I was an intern at Comedy Central and it mostly sucked

File this under the category of “Who Cares?”

Everybody knows interns (at basically every company) are treated like shit.  They are used strictly for running errands and little else. It was likely that a TV network should follow suit. To no one’s surprise, Comedy Central treated interns like shit. I was. The interns around me were. I didn’t really think anything of it at the time. I had so little work experience and I was so grateful for the opportunity that I figured it was part of the process of getting to where you wanted to be. It wasn’t until I ran into Joe, an assistant (who had particularly made my life hell) at a party a few years later that I even thought about how mean he had been to me. I wanted to let it go. But he had been really fucking mean and it stung to think about. He wasn’t alone. It was actually a whole group of assistants who I’d felt had humiliated me. I remember going to lunch at the same time the assistants were leaving for lunch. They caught the elevator and I had asked to join, trailing just a step behind them. Joe barked “No”, closed the elevator doors in my face and I heard them all laughing at me on the way down. I stared at the closed doors, shocked. Never in my life had I been treated like such a loser. I was in a fucking teen movie being bullied by complete pricks. And the worst part was, these people were definitely the kids who’d been bullied.

I caught the next elevator and when I arrived on the ground level, they were waiting for me. They didn’t say anything. They looked guilty like they’d realized they’d been mean to an intern who would likely say something to someone in HR and decided to extend me the kindness of waiting for me. Only I didn’t want them to wait for me and I would never say anything. Unlike them, I didn’t like making people feel like shit. We walked to get salads in silence. They resumed their conversation but I paid and left before them. It was so weird after that. For like a day. And then, it started all over again.

There were exceptions during that time and I would like to name them and give them all their credit. Tony, one of the early writer/producers of Workaholics (a gig he got during my time there), was fabulously kind to me. He never made me feel lame or stupid and I was sad to see him go even though I knew writing was his goal. Walter was nice. Gary was nice. Seth. But I have forgotten many people’s names and you’ll forgive me as this was almost a decade ago. That time exists in a haze. I was living downtown with two of my girlfriends in a loft apartment that didn’t have walls. I had no bedroom. Just an upstairs “room” with a bathroom with a toilet but no shower. I paid $500 a month for a glorified port-a-potty and thus, acted like a degenerate. Every night, I either smoked weed until I fell asleep or scoured the streets for a cute boy to spend the night with. It was during that time that I was lucky enough to get an internship at a company that could change the course of my life - Comedy Central. It was a gift to work there and I knew it. I didn’t have any Hollywood connections.This was it. I would take it seriously, I promised myself. So, I did.

Comedy Central used to be the mecca. Before Tosh.0 and Jim Jefferies, it was the home of Chappelle’s Show. I am not exaggerating when I tell you this: that show changed the whole goddamn world and I was no exception. it changed me. It was the blueprint. Comedy could be brutal on white people. It could get real and gross and political and stupid all at the same time. Comedy nerds like me ate it up.

Dave Chappelle’s two season masterpiece of a show infected college campuses in 2004 when it was released on DVD. That was the year I started college. By happenstance, I was part of the DVD revolution. We would crowd into each other’s dorm rooms and cry laughing and then watch the same episode again. It caught fire. Dave Chappelle bridged the gap between black and white, famous and normal while still keeping himself removed from the whole thing, aloof - distinguished...better than us. His skewering of racism was a glass through which we could see in fact, we were all participants in the same system albeit on other sides. 

So, Chappelle’s Show was important to me. I wanted to work at a place that had created art. I would try to shine there and let my own ideas blossom into projects.

But in spite of my eagerness, I was aware at the time (as we all were) that Comedy Central had paid Dave Chappelle $50 million for a third season but instead of delivering, he walked off set and fled to Africa. This was the story we were told. This was before Twitter and Instagram. The internet swirled with rumors that he had gone crazy and was going to live in Africa forever. He had abandoned Hollywood for good.

But the whole thing stank of racism, buried just underneath the surface. Why was Chappelle suddenly crazy when he didn’t want a huge sum of money? Yes, that’s a huge sum of money but deep down I thought, those people are trying to exploit him. Intuitively I felt like Chappelle knew he was part of a bigger racial-bridging that was allowing white people access to private areas of black culture. He had invited fans to shout famous lines back at him. Lines that Chappelle himself and other black actors had killed with. But, lines that white fans should never say. They were insensitive to the privilege shared by black people to communicate to other black people. White people want to say the n-word and it’s not theirs to say. It’s a truth other black comedians have shared.

When Chris Rock was caught in conversations with racists who relayed his “niggers versus black people” bit back to him he retired it permanently. The price of being an honest black comedian in this country is that white people can retell your insider information as intel. White people who would otherwise have no interaction with black people now has an arsenal of information. They have evidence that was not acquired through firsthand experience. They have heard the inner monologue of black America and instead of fixing racial injustice, they are repeating their favorite lines. And in spite of all of that, in spite of all the drama between Comedy Central and Dave Chappelle, in spite of the racial implications the media had thrown around, I got a job as an intern in hopes just being in the same office that created Chappelle’s Show could imbue me with some genius or good fortune.

It didn’t.

It was whack. There were like 40 of us on a rotating schedule where three of us would work certain days together and then another three would work another group of days and sometimes you would see other interns on your day because they couldn’t come in on their regular day. Since there were so many interns doing the work that one capable assistant could perform we were all basically twiddling our thumbs, trying to look useful and eager. Some interns dazzled executives with their epic notes on scripts, replete with a solid three act structure and relevant examples, figures, marketing suggestions. Others buried their noses up anyone’s ass who lingered near them long enough, offering to get coffee, lunch, snacks, dry cleaning, children from daycare, gifts for spouses, you name it. I employed none of these strategies. I scoped the most eligible bachelors and tried to dazzle them with my charms. The married ones would have been the smarter bet. Married men are more willing to go out on a limb for a cute, inexperienced graduate with a lot to prove. They won’t cheat but they like feeling important to women still so they’ll toss around bread crumbs. The single ones are still so obsessed with themselves that they can’t see far enough past their noses to help. I was vying for the attention of one executive I was sure would marry me, given I had enough alone time with him in the kitchen, when I learned he was getting engaged. It was devastating. Of course I would choose to be in love with someone just about to propose.

It dawned on me that marrying your way into the entertainment business was sort of gross and I was at Comedy Central to make a name for myself. Meaning, I should make it for myself. Not rely on somebody else giving me a handout. I had to go out and earn my job. Unfortunately, it seemed that only a few at Comedy Central had actually earned their job from sheer hard work. Most people had arrived there from a combination of knowing someone and favors and white privilege that is the winningest cocktail of all time. But, even they didn’t really like their jobs. It made no sense. The ones with the worst attitudes, who were the most lazy, cranky, emotionally unhinged seemed to know the most people. And they hated everything and everyone.

Below them, were us, the interns. And to my chagrin, I’d been wasting entire weeks of time pining over some man who’d hardly noticed me while these nerds were working their asses off. I was light years behind and frankly, unwilling to break my back for a job that didn’t seem like it would ever come my way. I was this sore thumb. I felt like a step sister and everyone else was The Brady Bunch. Primarily, I looked very different than everyone there. I wore ripped jeans and had tattoos and listened to hip hop. Wearing hoop earrings to work basically identified me as a member of the Crips. These people were so white and goofy that the only person of color they’d managed to hire had gone to private school their entire lives.

This sounds bratty already and I swear to God, I am not an ungrateful asshole. I am writing this to say that the experience crushed me a little bit. I left the internship at the end of the summer with no interest in staying in touch with anyone. With the exception of running into Joe at a party, I’ve run into one girl, Sarah, at my exercise class. I reveled when she feigned confusion when I asked if she’d remembered me from Comedy Central three years prior. I thought to myself, “I’m about to ruin this bitch’s day” and I’d like to think that her trembling, noodle-like legs during my class were some karmic retribution for her unkindness.

Besides that, I have no ill feelings towards anyone presently. To be fair, the assistants were only a year or two older than me at the time and wielding an unnatural amount of power. They did not handle power well. Not many do.

[evvazi]

Why you should read: The Promised Neverland

I came across The Promised Neverland or Yakusoku no Neverland for the first time just a few days ago in a bookstore and was immediately intrigued but didn’t buy it because they didn’t have the first volume. But two days ago, I heard someone talk about how it was fresh wind for shonen jump, which intrigued me even more, because it doesn’t exactly look like a jump manga, and the description doesn’t make it sound like one either, so I started reading out of curiousity. And. Oh boy. I did not stop unless I absolutely had to and blew through the entire series in just two days. It’s so goddamn good and everyone should go read it right mcfucking now (or at the very least keep it in mind when the anime comes out winter 2019 and give it a try then). So I’ve compiled a handy, mostly spoiler-free list for you, with reasons to read this masterpiece:

1. The premise. This manga is about a group of children aged one to eleven, living happily in an orphanage with their caretaker whom they call Mama, but from the very beginning, it’s incredibly obvious that things aren’t as peaceful as they seem. Normal children don’t only wear white, have numbers tattooed on their neck and take incredibly difficult tests every day. Our protagonists, the eldest children, eventually discover what’s wrong, and from then on try to orchestrate an escape, if possible with all their 30+ little ‘siblings’ in tow, most of whom are less than six years old. It’s interesting and opens possibilities for plenty of cute, exciting and downright creepy moments.

2. The writing. None of the kids have any kind of super powers or weapon training (no weapons in an orphanage either), so all the battles they have are mental battles. There’s action scenes, but even later on, it’s all about strategy and information. It’s incredibly fun watching the kids form strategies and change them according to every tiny piece of new info they find as they desperately struggle to outsmart adults that know so much more than they do. It always feels like you’re finding out new things about the world and the people in it, while more and more questions open up, so you never get bored. And while I could predict some of the plot twists, others caught me completely off-guard, but in the good way, because all the hints were there I just didn’t see them but oh my god in hindsight this makes so much sense!

3. The female protagonist. While the series focuses on three kids, Emma, Norman and Ray, Emma is definitely the main character. Despite the premise, she’s pretty much the standard jump protagonist - energetic, straight-forward, pure, a bit naive, and unwilling to give up even in the worst situations. Still, she has enough individuality to not feel like just a carbon-copy of someone else (even though she does look a whole lot like hinata from haikyuu). But you know what? Even if she didn’t, I wouldn’t care. There’s a girl protagonist in a shonen jump series even though it’s not ecchi, comedy, or romance! And she gets treated just like all the male protagonists in other series! She fights! She protects her family! She does stupid, impulsive things! She talks bitter adults into giving her idealistic approach one more try! And through all of this, there’s absolutely zero creepy fanservice, no panty shots or sexualized outfits or bathing scenes! Not even anyone trying to protect her on the basis that she’s a girl! Fuck I’ve wanted this forever!

4. The supporting cast. If you’re the kind of person that likes to adopt fictional characters as your own children, this is definitely for you. There’s so many children in this manga, and all of them are so good. I’m so proud of Emma, Norman is way too nice he needs to be protected and someone has to take care of local emo child Ray it might as well be me (or you). And then there’s Phil, the cutest, smartest, bravest and just overall best four-year-old boy to ever exist. I can’t say a lot about the villains without giving away too much, but so far I’ve enjoyed all of them, both the ones that are sympathetic and the straight-up evil ones. They’re always interesting and seem just difficult enough to defeat that you can’t be sure who will win a certain confrontation.

5. Diversity. There’s tons of female characters and they get treated really well, the female heroes can fight and win and get seriously hurt, and the female villains are serious threats without being flat, and nobody ever gets sexualized. The racial diversity isn’t quite as good, but there’s more black or brown (no character has a specific ethnicity in this for plot reasons) people than I can count on one hand, which is already better than at least 99% of anime and manga, and while none of them are really main characters, they do at least get treated the same as the pale characters (which I think are mostly meant to be europeans, but some of them might be east asian there’s no real way to tell). My personal fav Phil seems to be some kind of south-east asian, and again, he’s the best. Sadly there’s nothing about lgbt+ people (though to be fair, neither romance nor gender are really important topics in this manga). There’s no disabled people in the orphanage (which is pretty consistent with the plot), but in later chapters characters with lost limbs and PTSD (or at least something similar, I’m no expert and they don’t have any in-universe experts on this either).

6. The art. All of the colour illustrations are gorgeous, and the art in the manga always looks at least good, and often it looks really fantastic. It’s especially great at selling you the creepy parts by contrasting it with the cute character designs.

Lastly, some reasons you might not want to read this: If you don’t like seeing children get hurt mentally or physically or possibly even die (even though that happens mostly to ones we’re not attached to), this is probably not for you. It’s not super gore-y for the most part, but it’s not cartoony violence either. This is also a manga full of children and romance doesn’t really have a big part in it, so if you’re invested mostly in shipping and don’t want to feel creepy because the oldest kids are eleven, you gotta power through quite a bit and hopefully enjoy some other things until you reach two nice, shippable adults and a bunch of teenagers. Other than that, there’s really no reason to not go read it immediately.

[drink-n-watch]

Genre : Josei, Horror, Mystery, Psychological Thriller

Studio: J.C.Staff

Have I used that as I title before! I feel like every single episode review for every single show, I’ve ever written could have been titled this way.

this could be the start…never mind…

I’ve been trying hard to destroy my blog under pretense of renovating it and as a result it had to get reset at the beginning of the week. A handful of posts got reverted back to draft in the process and I lost all of your comments from last week. This really irks me because I wanted to bring them up again this week and now I don’t have them anymore.

Oh well, I guess I’m on my own this week.

For better or worse (I hate to say it but mostly worse I think) they tried to start inserting humor into Angels of Death. Now I am normally a big comedy fan so on it’s face, I would consider that a good move and it still may turn out that way, but I saw a few definite flaws in the execution.

execution, get it???

Right off the bat, we were treated to Zack (Isaac’s) creepy goofy shtick and saw him vomiting rainbows in reaction Rachel’s death seeker persona. At this point I was all in. Although I know that the rainbow vomit is sort of a classic anime staple, it immediately made me think of KonoSuba and I ended up liking Isaac more by association. Also having a psychopath seriously creeped out by the concept of someone wanting to die vaguely made me think of my bestie Nagito….Long story, medium length, I was all in at this point. Sure, there was no trace of scary anymore but black comedy works for me. I wanted to see where it goes.

Unfortunately where it went was to that cliched straight man and weirdo routine, with an emotionless, hyper rational little girl and a weird intimidating yet goofy big guy. We’ve seen this pairing a lot. It can be fantastic but it’s certainly not innovative enough to be the only hook.

odd couple, how original

As I watched the two go through their little schtick I grew considerably less thrilled. It took me a few scenes to realize what was off. To me, there’s simply a total lack of chemistry. The voice actors are quite good in their own right and embody the roles well in my opinion, but when it comes to interacting with each other, they fall completely flat. The banter is stiff and uninteresting, the jokes don’t land and the very few emotional moments feel false.

I was tempted on blaming entirely on Isaac’s over the top crazy freak stereotype but as soon as they separated, he became considerable more bearable, while remaining as unhinged as ever, possibly more so. I really enjoyed his laugh for instance and his frantic nervousness seems to be covering up a lot of fragility rather than just being a psycho for plot’s sake.

I can tell you’re just reading the script

Accordingly, even the story became so much more interesting once Rachel and Isaac are isolated from each other. Abandoning the standup routine, the plot dove back into slightly ominous mystery. I quite enjoyed the odd and apparently all knowing letters. The personal files in the room. I liked the notion of having all those unfinished, preemptive graves and how badly it was messing with Isaac’s mind. I really enjoyed the cliffhanger ending.

The good news is that chemistry between actors can and often does improve through the run of a show. Moreover, it would be fairly easy to separate the two leads and have them running parallel stories. They seem to be setting up Rachel (the lone sane man) as the most terrifying thing in the menagerie of monsters, which is also a little cliché but nevertheless something I enjoy.

I dunno, I wanted to put a different lookin pic

On the other hand, the exaggerated insane maniac role Isaac slips into can get old fast. I believe both Karandi and Raistlin mentioned the villain being a bit too overbearing for their tastes in my episode 1 review (you’ll have to take my word for it), and while I was generally ok with it as long as they were plot devices, not more than set pieces to serve as obstacles in Rachel’s way, it’s a different story if one of them is going to be a deuteragonist. There is potential for an intriguing and complex character in Issac Foster (another super British name I might add) but so far there’s just as much chance he’ll end up insufferable.

As for Rachel, I quite like emotionless characters, not only because I relate to them…However, there’s a fine line between delightfully neutral and painfully boring. She can afford to be rather bland as her role is to even out the outlandish plot and cast but if she is to carry the entire show, there needs to be something there. At least one thing…

So this second episode was a flush for me. It had roughly the same amount of ups as downs and I’m left uncertain as to what to expect. To wrap things up on a high note though, I really loved the lighting in this episode. I think the use of light and shadows was interesting and enhanced the atmosphere quite a bit.

fine, I’m curious again

I didn’t realize as I was watching it but somehow all my screencaps ended up looking the same…

Angels of Death ep 2 – Cautiously Optimistic Genre : Josei, Horror, Mystery, Psychological Thriller Studio: J.C.Staff Have I used that as I title before!

[kitsunebellproductions]

Thoughts on Voltron Season 7

SPOILERS, OBVIOUSLY! Things that annoyed/angered/saddened/frustrated me: *Kuron still being treated as though he was nothing more than some evil monster and convenient spare parts for Shiro. I am still nauseated by the whole thing. This poor precious baby boy deserved so much better. *Shiro’s hair -I mean come on, his fringe was pure white before but now it’s grey? What, did the whole process leach colour from the rest of his hair yet restore some to his fringe?! I will just assume it’s meant to be white but they felt this particular shade of white/grey worked best aesthetically with his outfits etc. *Too little Shiro for too many episodes. *Too much Keef. (Sorry, fandom has completely ruined this character for me, he’s not a bad character but I am repulsed by his mere name thanks to the toxicity in this fandom. I wish I could go back to the beginning of watching Voltron when he was just another decent character that I felt neither yay nor nay about, but it is what it is.) *That weird game show -if it was some magical space mage mumbo jumbo thingy that just transported their consciousness, why wasn’t Shiro there? And the whole ‘comedy family’ shtick with the Galra... I mean, it was a bit funny but... mostly weird tbh. The funniest parts were the commercials. *Way too little background/interaction with Shiro and Adam. *Also Adam’s design -like, why do you make an entirely new character that looks a lot like a mix of two other characters who are father and son (Matt and Sam)? You could have done literally anything to his design but you went safe and way too familiar? I mean holy moly did you see Kinkade? Fuck yeah what a gorgeous design, that is exactly what my hopeful heart pictured for Shiro’s boyfriend but nope. Give us generic floppy-hair glasses boy with a generic medium brown palette, it’s so fresh and new and interesting. Not. *Adam FUCKING DYING before Shiro even got back to Earth. You could have at least let the poor boy have a reunion with someone waiting for him on Earth before burying some more gays, but no. He must suffer. *Shiro getting like three seconds to mourn Adam. 

*Speaking of burying your gays... (not to mention a delightful dash of the ‘evil lesbians’ trope): Ezor and Zethrid. Yayy on their relationship, nay on them being presumably killed off (I mean killing 3 out of 4 queer characters while keeping the straight characters safe is not a good way to show how queer friendly your show is. And no the ‘we had to show how dark and dangerous war is’ excuse doesn’t work when the only characters you kill are the queer ones. There were plenty of characters back on Earth we’d have felt just as deeply about -or more even- considering we’ve heard about the other paladins’ families back on Earth but we’d never heard of Adam until now. Just imagine if Veronica had died -that would have been intensely emotional and really had gone to show all that you wanted about the dangers of war -especially as I don’t doubt for a second that Lance would have gotten an entire episode at least to mourn her while Shiro got like three seconds. Because Shiro is apparently not allowed to mourn). *And isn’t it funny how the most alien-looking Galra women are the evil ones, while the ‘good’ ones look more or less like lavender-skinned human women (and are also very pretty, petite and with slender, ‘sexy’ bodies.) Like, seriously... *Not to mention how creepy it is that Keef’s Galra mom and the other ‘good’ Galra woman (Acxa, who for whatever reason the show tried to force some out-of-the-blue yucky heteromance together with Keef) look disturbingly much alike (and they look to be the same age too more or less. So sick and tired of the ‘hot young-looking mom’ trope in media but especially animated shows. And especially when the kids end up banging girls looking to be more or less the same age as their mom). *Shiro not reacting when Ezor and Zethrid went for Pidge -he’s consistently been shown to be very protective and self-sacrificing, yet here he barely bats an eye. I get it was a scene framed to lift Lance, but it felt extremely ooc for Shiro to not at least try to help. *Ezor and Zethrid’s relationship being honestly way more explicitly stated than Shiro and Adam’s (which was the relationship hailed as the big lgbtq+ rep for this season). No, they definitely didn’t need to get back together for Shiro to still be considered lgbtq+ rep -you don’t need a partner to be lgbtq+! But when you wave a specific relationship around as a big banner of glorious lgbtq+ rep to come and then barely even hint at it in the show... well... not so much of a rep then, is it? *Not showing Shiro in that worldwide message of ‘these are our beloved brave heroes from Earth’. Like, this boy was kidnapped by aliens, spent a year being tortured, brainwashed, cloned, dismembered, pretty much violated in every concievable way, then immediately after escaping (with a shitload of PTSD in the baggage) he was sent back out into space and chosen to lead some war against seemingly impossible odds, a war that really wasn’t his war to fight, a war he still fought bravely and selflessly despite his physical and mental issues, a war he died in, but meh I guess he wasn’t worthy of mention. (And I don’t know why Keef wasn’t mentioned either, but maybe being half Galra makes you too much alien to be considered part of the world you were born and grew up in *heavy sarcasm*). *Shiro’s bond with the Black Lion and his role as the Black Paladin being pretty much erased/retconned -it’s like Keef gets to sit his ass comfortably down in the seat Shiro shed blood sweat and tears for and struggled so hard for, easily just gliding along on what Shiro has paved the road for but without acknowledging the huge role Shiro had in it all. Shiro was the one who brought out the wings for Keef in the end of the last season because Keef was unable to do it himself, because Keef had never bonded with her the way Shiro did -Shiro and the Black Lion found and saved each other in so many ways, and the Black Lion loved Shiro so much she saved his ‘essence’ inside herself, yet now we’re supposed to just accept that Shiro is old news and no longer worthy of being considered part of the ‘mighty Paladins of Voltron’. Myeah, did not like the feeling I got of this saturating this entire season. Keef can still be a big hero -or even your new main character- without grinding Shiro down into the dirt on the way. *That arm... it’s so big and clumsy-looking it makes him look weirdly lopsided. The comically large arm works for Sendak, considering his ‘evil sadist who loves crushing people with his alien prosthetic’ shtick, but for Shiro it just looks too big to be practical. If it was intentionally meant to imply that Allura just grabbed a prosthetic modelled after someone bigger than Shiro and remade it, and that’s why it’s so big on Shiro, that’s fine. But it feels impractical for anything other than fighting evil alien generals. *Shiro not getting to fulfil his arc as the abused victim and underdog by overcoming and defeating the evils pushing him down, but instead being forced to take the backset to a character forced into a leadership role for what seems like nothing more than a desperate clinging to nostalgia. It is mindboggling that everything Shiro has worked so incredibly hard for, everything he’s struggled and fought for is being taken from him and he’s supposed to be satisfied with a consolation prize. Yeah, Shiro going full Magical Girl Princess was amazing but he didn’t even get to deliver the final blow in any fight -not even his personal fight with Sendak- because apparently Shiro is not allowed any victories at all. *The whole sense of Shiro being punished for choosing his life’s dream over becoming the obedient house wife of his ex -he had only a short few years left to fulfil his dreams, and yet he’s painted as the bad guy for ‘abandoning’ his boyfriend (who was the one that left Shiro, actually). Yes, Adam had the right to choose to not want to separate for so long -during what was likely the last few years Shiro had enough mobility to do all the fun things couples dream of doing together- he had the right to say ‘I’m sorry but I can’t put my life on hold, and I wasn’t really prepared to go straight to caring for someone with a debilitating disease without a few more years of fun in between, I want to break up’. That still doesn’t make Shiro’s choice to follow his dreams any less valid than Adam’s choice to not wait for him. I bet Adam had an exciting bucket list waiting to start ticking off as a consolation when Shiro was denied the role of pilot for the Kerberos mission -I doubt he’d expected Shiro to actually be allowed to go and that probably seriously stumped him- but it’s incredibly cruel and selfish (and ableist) to expect a person to sacrifice their last few years of being able to fulfil their dreams just so their able-bodied partner can fulfil their small dreams and wishes of things they want to do for the last few of that person’s fully mobile years. And yet everything about Shiro’s arc paints a very very grim and ableist story of ‘you chose your own dreams over bending to your partner’s will, now let us show you what a horrible decision that was by torturing you relentlessly throughout the rest of this series without ever letting up. You will never be allowed happiness again because this is your punishment.’ I agree with other people that the way Shiro’s been treated throughout this series -constantly tormented without ever getting a single break or getting a real chance to fight and overcome his demons- seems way too much like torture porn. *The feeling that Shiro’s Magical Girl Moment was only there to blind us to the fact that him being probably the only one able to transform the Atlas means he’ll be conveniently grounded next season, forced to stay on Earth to ‘protect his home’ while the rest of them get to go off being the ‘amazing Defenders of the Universe’, leaving both Shiro and his legacy behind, unsung. I hope I’m wrong, but I get an overwhelming feeling that Shiro is being pushed into the background because they never intended for him to be the hero of the series but by the time they realised that’s exactly what they’d created with him it was too late to take it back, so now they’re trying their hardest to push him back into some mentor/backseat role in a sneaky enough way that they hope people won’t notice because they’ll be dazzled by the shine of his ‘new role’. ... Things that made me happy/excited/pleased: *The animation level. I mean holy mamacita Shiro is so beautiful he glows in like every single frame. *HUNK. Love this big gentle boy and love that he got to show more of who he is and what he has to give this season. *Seeing the families we’ve heard so much of. Seeing them reunited. Seeing flashbacks to happier times with the families. *Pidge finally getting her entire family back together. *The designs of all the alien/Earth tech. Gorgeous. *The design of some of the new characters <3 *So many new Galra characters with faces and personalities even if we only saw them for a few seconds. *All the ‘Earth preparing for alien invasion’ scenes/episodes. *Finally getting to know more about Iverson and who he is as a person. *Sam and Colleen. *Shiro being the new Princess of the new Castle ship. *Shiro fucking transcending being the Princess and transforming the entire Castle ship Atlas into a new Voltron type battle robot. *The Atlas being this beefy paladin type knight on top but t h i c c femme legs on tippy toes/high heels on the bottom. 10/10 what a beauty. *White Lion Shiro... I mean, I’m certainly not the only one thinking it, right? *Just Shiro. Wow. What a strong, beautiful, good person who cares about everybody else above himself. Someone give this poor traumatised boy hero a fucking vacation with the softest bed surrounded by therapy animals. Perfect cinnamonroll too pure for this world. *Shiro fighting Sendak hand-to-hand on top of a fucking space ship free-falling (read: CRASHING) to Earth instead of trying to escape I mean this boy *Keef fucking anime-slicing Sendak in twaine for daring to try to hurt the person he loves like a brother (bloodless and nice for the young’uns of course, but still). *Hunk carrying Shiro. *@ anyone claiming Lance ‘never gets screentime or development’ -fuck you. Look at this brave, strong boy who started out as a self-centered antagonistic jerk yet has grown into such a good and mature person. I may loathe the Lance I see portrayed in the fandom, but in the show he’s still such a good character. *Coran, Coran, the gorgeous man <3 *The mice and Kosmo the space wolf for MVP *Kaltenecker, most chill character in the entire universe. *Shiro’s prosthetic not being attached -at first I was like ‘noooo’, but then I realised... fuck yeah this is exactly what people in fandom need to stop erasing disabled characters. It is way too common for people in fandoms to claim that a person having any kind of high-tech or magical prosthetic that makes their disability less visible (For example Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist) isn’t actually disabled at all ‘because it’s like they have normal limbs’. Having a prosthetic arm that has a big void between itself and the shoulder attachment makes it impossible to ignore the fact that Shiro is missing a whole arm. (And maybe, just maybe, people will finally stop with the shitty ‘he’s got a full sleeve of tattoos instead of a missing arm in this AU fanfic because erasing disabilities is super cool’ trope.) *The entire Shiro/Atlas transformation scene -ugh so beautiful <3 ... Phew, that got long! (=A=;;) I’ve probably forgotten a lot of things -but it’s been a few days since I watched it so it isn’t as fresh in my mind as I’d have liked, however I don’t have the time to rewatch it right now to refresh my memory so it’ll have to do. These are just my personal thoughts -things I found negative might be things someone else found positive, and things I found positive might be things someone else found negative. This isn’t meant to be a debate or attack -just a way for me to put my thoughts down and remember them for the future. And one last thing -please remember to be kind to each other -and don’t go attacking cast or crew -most of them have no real say in what happens on the show anyway, and harrassing and threatening castmembers to the point where they’re scared to even show up at cons is not the way to make the higher-ups listen to your complaints -however legitimate they might be. Now I guess we’ll just have to brace ourselves for season 8...

[notoriousgrd]

Shocktober Days 1-28

Ok, it’s Sunday and I’m not at the folks’ as usual because my brother’s working today, so taking the time to update my Shocktober log post. This is a long one so fasten your seatbelts,

The Devil Rides Out (1968) - been meaning to watch this for over twenty years, finally did and loved it. Christopher Lee and Charles Gray are excellent and I can see how the whole chalk circle bit influenced me at of Doctor Who:Battlefield.

Hotel Transylvania (2012) - I’d planned on another movie but with real world being so horrific that day, changed plans and watched this really fun animated movie.

Dr. Terror’s House Of Horrors (1965) - not the first portmanteau movie I ever saw (that’d be Twilight Zone:The Movie) but the first Amicus one and definitely my favourite. Cushing and Lee, DJ Alan “Fluff” Freeman Vs plants, Roy Castle and his voodoo trumpet, Michael Gough and Donald Sutherland as a doctor. Cushing and Castleford reunite later that year for a certain movie involving Daleks.

Quatermass And The Pit (1967) - last Quatermass I saw, having seen all the television versions and other movies over the years. Much like the Doctor Who/Daleks movies nicely compresses three hours of black and white telly into an hour-and-a-half of glorious colour. I hadn’t seen this when I saw Doctor Who:The Daemons so the parallels were not apparent to me. Andrew Kier is an excellent Quatermass, just behind John Mills in the 1979 telly story.

Christine (1983) - I hadn’t seen this in a long, long time, enough that I completely forgot Harry Dean Stanton and Robert Prosky were in it. Been even longer since I read the book, so can’t say if it’s a good adaptation, certainly a good movie though, the non-cgi car repairing effects still look awesome.

Deep Red / Profondo Rosso (1975) - the only Dario Argento movie I’ve seen and decided to rewatch after Mr Ash mentioned it. Looks lovely, an awesome soundtrack,

Deep Star Six (1989) - One of a few horror films rushed ahead to try and cash in on all the hype for James Cameron’s The Abyss. This one sees many of the people behind Friday The 13th doing an underwater m onter movie. It’s daft fun, I like the monster and it’s got one of my favourite actors, Miguel Ferrer in it.

Ghosts Of Mars.(2001) - One of the three John Carpenter movies I’d not seen, seems to get a lot of stick, but again, a fun action horror movie, with a really good cast (Natasha Henstridge, Pam Grier and Jason Statham) and a nice way of telling the story.

AvP:Requiem (2007) - we were kind of on a trash train for a bit, as this is another movie decried as the worst thing ever when it’s a perferctly competent horror movie with some really nice deaths and a nice basic concept. Take eighties slasher movie environment, add alien death machines.

Life (2017) = This was really, really good. a relatively realistic sci-fi horror that starts off a bit Andromeda Strain but end up Alien. Another great cast, and kudos for a certain point for having a disabled character who’s treated the same as any other crew member right until the moment they fall into the tired trap of his disability leading to his death. Other than that though, really enjoyed this, some really nasty deaths and nothing really set off my “SPace doesn’t work like that!” sense.

Leviathan (1989) = The other movie trying to cash in on The Abyss hype. Another good, fun underwater monster movie with a great cast (Peter Weller, Amanda Pays, Daniel Stern, Richard Crenna, Ernie Husson, Meg Foster), a great Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack and some nice effects work.

The Rezort (2016) - recommended to me by Mr Ash of the Hammered Horror podcast, low budget zombie movie with a great premise, that being that they got the zombie plague under control and have actually set up an island where people can pay to go and shoot zombies on a kind of undead safari. This is also used to try to help people who were traumatised by the zombie event. Of course, this being a horror movie, things rapidly go sideways. Barring a couple of moments, the small budget doesn’t show and the premise is a nice change from most zombie movies.

Waxwork (1988) - I’d seen the sequel to this years ago, when in 1994, my then local Blockbuster was having a massive sell-off of ex-rental tapes wuth no covers for a couple of quid each. Me and my flatmate at the time bought a pile of them, probably fifty tapes between us and this was one of them, a very silly hoor movie with a premise that lets them do little horror vignettes as part of a bigger story. This does that too, it’s another fun romp, with some lovely distinguisdhed actors (David warner, Patrick Macnee and John Rhys Davis) havnig fun with the material.

Friday The 13th Part IX:Jason Goes To Hell (1993) - I’d made my way through the first eight movies a while back, but as always got distracted and forgot to go back and finish off. So with it actually being Friday The 13th, I decided that day to fix that. This is…not great. Jason is killed and becomes a body surfing demon. Really only notable things are Kane Hodder;s wee cameo as an FBI agent, the Book Of The Dead form Evil Dead being being found in the Vorhees house (and thus being what brough Jason back from the dead at some point) and Erin Grey.

Friday The 13th Part X:Jason X (2001) = This one however, is a huge amount of fun, Jason is captured and the plan is to put him in cryogenic status to stop him from killing again as it’s obvious at this point, he can’t actuaslly be killed. Of course, things go sideways and him and the doctor responsible for freezing him are found hundreds of years later when Earth’s a wastland and taken back to a spaceship. Yes, this is Jason Goes To Space and takes a lot of cues form other sci-fi things, space marines, holodecks, evil corporations etc and uses them to make a fun action horror romp that never takes itself too seriously.

Mr Vampire (1985) - One of my all time favourites. Saw it in the mid-nineties when Channel 4 had a seasib if Hong Kong action movies, many with a spooky side to them. This movie introduced me to the Jiangshi, Chinese hopping vampires and this movie is a fun, action comedy with plenty f great action scenes, slapstick and scares.

The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (1970) - As mentioned above, I’d only ever sene the one Dario Argento movie, so decided to fix that. His directorial debut is a mirder thriller where the main character witnesses an attempted murder and soon finds himself in danger with plenty of twists and turns along the way. Great stuff.

Until Dawn (2015) - this is a game for PS4 rather than a movie and with the length it could easily count as between four to six horror movies. It’s an interactive adventure game with excellent motion captured performances, a great plot, great setpieces and with the choices you can make, anywhere between everyone and no-one can survive. I made it out with only two deaths and I know how those can be avoided. One of the best horror games I’ve ever played and highly recommended. Virtual Peter Stormare in particular veeres into the uncanny valley on several occasions. Great stuff.

The Raven (1935) - on the title cazrd it says “suggested by” Poe’s poem, but all that amounts ot is the name and a character who’s a bit Poe obsessed with nods to a couple of his other works in there. Has Lugosi and Karloff, is okay as these things go.

The Car (1978) - was surprised to find most review sites think this is a load of bollocks. I enjoyed it as a kid and still enjoy it now. It’s basically Jaws with a car that appears to be possessed by the devil. Been so long since I saw it, forgot James Brolin and Ronny Cox were in it. there’s some nice direction at points and it’s definitely not as bad as its reputation would have you think.

The Raven (1963) - Another part of my plan is to watch the ROger Corman Poe adaptations, I picked this first because it has the trio of Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and boris Karloff in it and the last movie I watched with them all was Comedy Of terrors which was a blast. I could happily watch Price and Lorre mucking about for hours, the first half-hour is mostly the two of them sparking off each other. It’s a tale of warring wizards, everyone looks like they’re having so much fun and I had a grin on my face throughout. Lovely and highly recommended.  Also has a young Jack Nicholson in it.

The Fall Of The House Of Usher (1960) - Corman, Price and Poe again, a far more sombre affair but again really good. Vincent Price is one of those actors I can watch in anything.

Suspiria (1977) - Back to Argento with weird goings on in a prestigious ballet school. The plot is not really important, you watch Argento mivues for the visuals and amazing soundtracks. Really enjoyed it.

Phenomena (1985) - Argento once more, with Donald Pleasance (with a lovely Scottish accent), JJennifer Conolly in her movie debut and a chimp with a razor. The usual sumptuous visuals, great soundtrack (with Iron Maiden and Motorhead showing up at points) and the usual twisted plot. Had one of those rare monets I really go “Ooooh!” and curl up a bit when someone gets stabbed in the hand with scissors.

The World’s End (2013) - probabl;y the worst of the Cornetto Trilogy (Shaun Of THe Dead and Hot Fuzz being thew others) but still a brilliant movie. It starts off as a middle aged man trying to recapture his youth by getting his childhood friends to finish a pub crawl they never managed as teens, then turns into Incasion Of The Body Snatchers/ Great all-star cast and two of my favourite fight scenes in horror movies, the one in the gents toilets because of the wrestling moves and thew one in the pub a combination of Nick Frost (I love big lads kicking arse) and the remix of Silver Bullet’s Twenty Seconds To Comply backing it.

Attack The Block (2011) - I had difficulty with this first itme I watched it, I live on a council estate and the main characters weere a bit too true to life for me to begin with. This time though, no problem. Premise is a load of big gorilla wolf motherfuckers crash land in a council estate in London and a bunch of ASBO kids and a nurse take them on. It’s notable for having John Boyega and Jodie Whittaker who would both go onto much bigger sci-fi things with Star Wars and Doctor Who. It looks great, sounds great, the creature design is unique and this time round I spotted little references like the tower block being Wyndham Towers and it being near a Ballard Street.

[weekendwarriorblog]

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND August 2, 2019  - LUCE, THE NIGHTINGALE, TEL AVIV ON FIRE, THE RED SEA DIVING RESORT

There are some really good movies out this week, and I want to shine a bit of focus on some of the limited releases before getting to the bigger releases.

First up, there’s Julius Onah’s LUCE (NEON), starring Kelvin Harrison Jr. from last year’s excellent Monsters and Men as the title character, a well-liked African-American high school student who seems to have it all together. His adopted parents, played by Naomi Watts and Tim Roth, love their son and are willing to give him the benefit of a doubt when one of Luce’s teachers, played indelibly by Octavia Spencer, finds something in Luce’s locker and tries convincing his parents that maybe he’s not the perfect son.

This film deals with the difficulties of being an African-American student in modern times and the expectations put on you. In Luce’s case, he was adopted after being rescued from an African war zone by his adopted parents, and they think he can do no wrong. When Luce’s teacher finds something in his locker, she thinks he’s putting on a front and fooling everyone but her.

Luce reminds me quite a bit of HBO’s Big Little Lies, a series I absolutely loved, because it’s about the interactions of these characters and their differing viewpoint on what’s happening. It also reminded me of the remarkable work done by Todd Field in his two movies, particularly In the Bedroom.

The performances all around are fantastic, making me think that this could work just as well as a play*, but there are some nice surprises in there like Andrea Bang as Stephanie Kim, a fellow student who might have been involved in an assault. I would not be remotely shocked if Spencer gets another Oscar nomination for her role in this (which ends up being far more complex a role than the one she played in the thriller Ma), but the entire cast and the way Onah tells this story is equally riveting.

What’s especially good about Luce is that it’s likely to start a lot of conversations, hopefully between white and black viewers, but it’s just one of the better adult dramas this year, and I’m sure Onah* has a strong future ahead if he keeps making movies like this. (Note: I feel a little silly because when I wrote this I didn’t realize that the movie was indeed based on a play and that Onah had directed The Cloverfield Paradox which went straight to Netflix.)

Rating: 8/10

Jennifer Kent’s THE NIGHTINGALE (IFC Films) is the follow-up to her 2014 horror film The Babadook, which is thought to be one of the best horror films of the past decade – and I’m not going to disagree with that sentiment.

The Nightingale is a very different movie, a period revenge thriller set during the days when Australia was caught in a war between its indigenous people and the British army. In this environment is Aisling Francisoci’s Clare, a young Irish ex-convict who has been bought into service by an Army officer (Sam Claflin), who will not release her after she fulfills her duties.  One night, her husband and baby daughter are killed, sending Clare on a path of vengeance. Along for that journey is Baykali Ganambarr’s Billy, an indigenous tracker who knows that being black means he’s just as at risk of getting murdered as Clare.

This is not the groundbreaking follow-up some might be expecting, but it’s still very good, and it proves what a talented filmmaker Kent is, both with the screenplay that’s authentic to the times and the way she directs

I think what surprised me most about The Nightingale was how pretty boy actor Sam Claflin is able to play a complete slimeball, which is very much against the characters we’ve seen him play before. This is as much a testament to Claflin as it is to Kent for realizing he had it in him.

Some people might try to sway you off seeing Kent’s film due to the violence, which includes brutal rape, but honestly, I’ve seen far worse from male filmmakers like Lars von Trier and Gasper Noé, and in this case, it’s keeping with the way women would have been treated during these times.

I don’t think The Nightingale will be for everyone, especially those who first became fans of Kent’s from her earlier venture into horror. This is a tough and serious drama that still has genre elements, but it leaves a lasting imprint on you, not always in a good way.

Rating: 7.5/10

Lastly, I want to draw special attention to Sameh Zoabi’s TEL AVIV ON FIRE (Cohen Media), a witty comedy set in modern-day Israel where a Palestinian soap opera filled with dysfunctional characters becomes the center of a conflict more bizarre than the one in the Middle East. It stars Kais Nashif as Salam, a consultant on his uncle’s show who gets stopped at a checkpoint by a soldier Assi (Yaniv Biton) who doesn’t like the way that the Israeli soldier is portrayed on the show. He offers Salam a few tips, and Salam’s uncle and the show’s primadonna star like them enough to promote Salam to writer… except he relies on Assi to help him with that duty.

The movie definitely veers into the world of the absurd as Assi has to contend with his wife (an avid fan of the series) and Salam is trying to reconnect with an old flame, all the while dealing with the tense situation between the Israelis and Palestinians in the region.

This movie mainly surprised me because I didn’t go into it expecting a comedy, so when it proved to be particularly witty and entertaining, I was glad I made the effort to see it.

In fact, I had a chance to speak with Zoabi last week, an interview I’ll be running soon, but I wanted to share a few tidbits from it now.

“The comedy decision was more of a natural progression as my voice as a filmmaker,” he told me. “My first feature was a comedy, and I went to school here at Columbia University and did my masters here and did my BA in Tel Aviv, which is interesting because in Tel Aviv, I studied mostly European cinema more than American cinema, so the arthouse world is more prominent in the studies there. Then you come to the U.S., and it’s a totally different business, which is entertainment. I always felt like it was interesting if you could find your voice in the middle where you can be talking about something important, but still entertain at the same time. I think gradually I realized while watching the news and the media all the time, it’s always the fighters and the victims, and there’s nothing in between, which is a daily reality that I grew up with, which is that people are funny. People don’t wake up in the morning and think, ‘Oh, my God, today I’m going to go kill five, six people.’ They wake up in the morning and they still have to do [everyday] things. These are the characters that never make it to the big media. I grew up with comedies. People in my village, my town, my family, they never talk about serious things. It’s almost like every third line has to be a joke. I always said that if I want to talk about these issues and I want to present the reality closer to what it is, I think humor is an essential part of it. It comes really natural. Once I look at a situation, it’s almost like back home when I tell my friends a serious story, everyone is waiting for the punchline. It’s not an effort. It’s something you grow up with.”

“As a writer, you evolve of course, and hopefully you get better from one film to the next, but the voice of it has always been there, and I love the creation of comedy, because it brings people together in different ways.”

“For this film in particular, it cannot be done without a comedy, because it’s all about stereotypes,” he continued. “It’s about how Palestinians see the Israelis and how Israelis see the Palestinians. The best way to deal with it is a comedy, and the seriousness comes from the soap opera.”

“I actually grew up watching more soaps than films. I grew up two TV channels, and my Mom controls the remote, so we always had to watch soap operas. Years after, with all these satellites and millions of stations, there’s more soaps in the Middle East – from Turkey, from Syria, from Lebanon, Egypt. When I grew up, we only watched Egyptian soap operas, and this soap opera in my film is almost an homage to one that was very popular about an Egyptian spy who comes to Tel Aviv. I changed the narrative and made it a woman, but what’s interesting is that when I was writing the film, I was home with my Mom watching one of her soap operas, and she was crying at a moment when I was laughing, because of the overacting. I asked, ‘Mom, do you really believe this?’ and she goes, ‘What? The movies you make are better?’”

I’ll have more from this interview soon, but if you have a chance, do check out Tel Aviv on Fire, which opens at the Quad Cinemaand the Landmark 57in New York on Friday.

Of course, the big movie of the weekend is gonna be Universal Pictures’ FAST AND FURIOUS PRESENTS: HOBBS AND SHAW, and I’ve written quite a bit about that over at The Beat, including my interview with writer/producer Chris Morgan and a box office preview. My review will be live later on Wednesday. Not sure what more I can say about the movie… I enjoyed it!

I’m also excited that A24 is expanding Lulu Wang’s THE FAREWELL nationwide this weekend after it broke into the top 10 last week. I’ve been meaning to see it again myself and probably will this weekend, but it gets my highest recommendation, especially if you want to learn more about Chinese culture and traditions than you may have been able to get out of Crazy Rich Asians. Even though this one also stars Awkwafina, it’s a very different movie and it’s a very different, more dramatic role for the actor, and I wouldn’t be shocked if she’s in the Oscar (and Indie Spirit) conversation at year’s end.

LIMITED RELEASES

Opening in L.A. this Friday at the Landmark Nuart and in New York at the Quad on August 9 is Garret Price’s Love, Antosha, co-produced by Like Crazy director Drake Doremus, which is about actor Anton Yelchin, who was at the peak of his career when his life was cut down suddenly in a bizarre accident. This is a really sold documentary that’s quite heartbreaking, and I want to write more about it and hope to soon…

Opening at New York’s Film Forum on Wednesday is Stephen Wilkes’ doc Jay Myself (Oscilloscope), a film about photographer Jay Maisel, whose six-floor building The Bank on Bowery and Spring Street has been wrapped in mystery until the filmmaker is given access just before Maisel’s planned move after selling the building.  It will open in L.A. on August 18.

One movie I had heard about out of Sundance but didn’t have a chance to see was Britt Poulton and Dan Madison’s Them That Follow (1091), which has an amazing cast that includes Oscar winner Olivia Colman, Walton Goggins, Alice Englert, Kaitlyn Dever from Book Smart, Jim Gaffigan, Thomas Mann and more. It takes place in the Appalachias in a community of snake handlers run by the Pastor Lemuel Childs (Goggins) as his daughter Mara (Englert) is getting ready for her wedding day when a secret is revealed about the church.

Lots of odds and ends after that, mostly low-profile stuff really …

Claudio Giovannesi’s Piranhas (Music Box Films) based on the novel by Gomorrah writer Roberto Saviano stars Francesco Di Napoli as a 15-year-old who lives with his mother in Naples in a neighborhood ruled by the Camorra mafia, although he has dreams of leaving, something that gets him involved with selling drugs.

Latin American filmmaker Mariano Llinás’ 14-hour epic La Flor (Grasshopper Films), which premiered at last year’s New York Film Festival, will open at Film at Lincoln Center in New York on Friday. It’se a “love letter to the history of cinema” filmed on three continents in six languages with the director making appearances to explain the structure. I just don’t have 14 hours to see this so I probably never will.

Adam Dick’s Teacher (Cinedigm) stars David Dasmatlhcian  (Ant-Man) and veteran comic Kevin Pollak that follows the downward spiral of DastMalchian’s high school English teacher who is trying to protect his students from bullies while challenging a wealthy patron in the community.

The other movies opening this weekend are Fred Grivois’ 15 Minutes of War (Blue Fox Entertainment), starring Alban Lenoir and Olga Kurylenko, based on the 1976 hostage crisis when Somali rebels kidnapped 21 French children; Sara Seligman’s crime-thriller Coyote Lake (Cranked Up),  Zach Gayne’s States (Indiecan Entertainment) starring Alex Essoe; and Diane Krueger’s psychological spy thriller The Operative (Vertical), directed by Yuval Adler.

I don’t know much about The Grateful Dead: Meet-Up at the Movies 2019, which is taking place on Thursday, August 1, although apparently, the entire Giants Stadium concert from June 17, 1991 will be screened.

STREAMING AND CABLE

Netflix’s big release of the week is RED SEA DIVING RESORT, a dramatic thriller based on true events starring Chris Evans, Haley Bennett, Michael Kenneth Williams, Alesandro Nivola and more. It deals with the true story of a group of Ethiopian Jews who are seeking refuge from the warlords in Jerusalem, so it’s up to Evans’ Israeli special agent Ari Levinson to find a way to get them out of the country. He does so by having the Israeli government lease a rundown tourist spot in Sudan, to where the Ethiopian refugees can be brought by Michael K. Williams, as the man dedicated to saving them all.

Levinson has to deal with a lot of pushback from the government, including his handler played by Sir Ben Kingsley, but he puts together a crack team of Mossad agents (including Bennett and Nivola) to make this operation happen.

I wanted to like this movie more, due to it being based on an inspirational story, but it’s tone is all over the place, sometimes to the point of ridiculousness, and bouncing back and forth from the serious to the frivolous is not something that works in this case. I just don’t think Gideon Raff, who both wrote and directed this, is a very good filmmaker, and he’s made a fairly bland movie that’s so inconsistent, it’s hard to get

It’s a shame, because this seems like an important story to tell, but when you compare it to something like the recent Hotel Mumbai… or even Terry George’s Hotel Rwanda … it’s obvious why this isn’t getting theatrical distribution.

Rating: 6/10

Also, Cindy Chupack’s Otherwood, starring Angela Bassett, Patricia Arquette and Felicity Huffman will stream starting Friday. They play three friends who are feeling forgotten on Mother’s Day, so they drive to New York to reconnect with their adult sons. (How come MY mother never has done this??!)

Also, it looks like Dear White People is back for its third season, and though I haven’t seen it, creator Justin Simien is a good dude, who I used to work with in his film publicity days, so check it out! (In other words, do as I say, not as I do.)

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

Opening Friday is the Metrograph’s retrospective on Czech New Wave filmmaker Luraj Herz called “In and Out of the Czechoslovak New Wave.” This continues in the tradition in the past year of rep theaters getting into the Czech New Wave, and the series includes the filmmaker’s 1978 take on Beauty and the Beast, his 1981 film Ferat Vampire, and then next week, it will screen a restoration of the filmmaker’s 1969 film The Cremator. Also Friday, Metrograph will begin screening a new 35mm print of Joan Tewkesbury’s Old Boyfriends (1979), starring Talia Shire, John Belushia, Keith Carradine and Richard Jordan. In preparation for the release of Nanfu Wang’s excellent new doc One Child Nation, the Metrograph is also showing her previous two films, Hooligan Sparrow on Saturday (with the filmmaker doing a QnA) and 2017′s I Am Another You  on Sunday.

This week’s Late Nites at Metrograph is John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness from 1987, while Playtime: Family Matinees  will screen the 1953 monster film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, which was a huge influence on the making of the original Godzilla.  “Pier Paolo Pasolini: A Future Life Part II” concludes this weekend with screenings of 1970’s Notes Towards an African Orestes and Pasolini’s collaboration with Godard, 1963’s La Ricotta, which will screen with three Godard shorts, all in 35mm. Rob Nilsson’s 1996 film Chalk will play a couple more times before the weekend, as well.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

The Forum continues its amazing Burt Lancaster series with Atlantic City and Luchino Visconti’s 1963 film The Leopard on Wednesday, plus John Cassevetes’ 1963 film A Child is Waiting on Weds. and Thurs. 1983’s Local Hero screens on Friday and Saturday and more, as the series continues through August 6.

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

Tarantino’s movie is still mostly showing Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood for the next few weeks, and it’s also mostly sold out, but the Wednesday matinee James Bond movie continue today with On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), George Lazenby’s only movie as Bond, but a good one nonetheless. The weekend KIDDEE MATINE is Disney’s amazing Mary Poppins (1964), and then Monday’s matinee is John Waters’ original 1988 musical comedy Hairspray.

AERO  (LA):

It now looks like the EGYPTIAN THEATRE will shut down for renovations but the Aero is back, taking up the “Highballs and Screwballs” double feature series with My Man Godfrey  (1936 )and Danger (1946)on Thursday, followed Friday with a double feature of Billy Wilder’s 1950 classic Sunset Boulevard and Preston Sturges Sullivan’s Travels (1941)… the latter two are in 35mm, the first two as DCP. Friday’s midnight movie is the original Child’s Play, and then Saturday, it’s back to “Highballs and Screwballs” with the Oscar-winning It Happened One Night  (1934) and Ida Lupino’s The Hitchhiker  (1953). On Sunday, the Art Directors Guild brings Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo  (1985) with production designer Stuart Wurzel in person.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

Apparently, the IFC’s usual series are back… or maybe the theater finally decided to add them to its website because it looks like this began back in early July, and I didn’t see any of this on the site before this week. Anyway, I’ll try to get over the fact that I missed most of July with the August offerings. Weekend Classics: Staff Picks Summer 2019 will screen James Gray’s Two Loversthis weekend, while Waverly Midnights: Staff Picks Summer 2019 will show Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle and Late Night Favorites: Summer 2019 will show… for the 5,000th time… Ridley Scott’s Alien. (There must be a lot of demand since this seems to show at the IFC Center every month.) Also, “Abbas Kiarostami: A Retrospective” continues over the next few weeks with two more panels by film critic Godfrey Chesire and Jamsheed Akrami this Saturday and Sunday.

FILM OF LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

“This is Cinema Now: 21stCentury Debuts” concludes on Wednesday with double features of Neighboring Sounds (a fantastic Brazil-set doc) and João Pedro Rodrigues’s 2000 film O Fantasma, as well as a double feature of Eduardo Williams’ The Human Surge and Helena Wittman’s Drift.  This week’s free double feature on Thursday is Todd Haynes’ Velvet Goldmine (1998) as well as Alex Ross Perry’s fantastic recent film Her Smell with a reception in between! And did we mention... it’s FREE?!

BAM CINEMATEK(NYC):

BAM’s series “We Can’t Even: Millennials on Film”  continues this week with Beach Rats, The Bling Ring, Tangerine, Greta Gerwig’s Oscar-nominated Lady Bird, David Fincher’s The Social Networkand the Edward Snowden doc Citizenfour, basically movies from the last ten to fifteen years that appeal to Millennials. On Saturday, the “Beyond the Canon” series will screen Haifaa Al-Mansour’s Wadja, along with Wim Wenders’ 1974 film Wind in the Cities.

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

The “See It Big! 70mm” series is a bit of a knock-off of what Lincoln Center did a few years back, but some of the same movies will be shown including Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, as well as Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, plus more in the coming weeks. Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, starring Jennifer Connelly and David Bowie, will screen every afternoon from Thursday to Sunday as part of its “Summer Matinees: Fantastic Worlds” series. (While there, also check out the Jim Henson Exhibition!)

ROXY CINEMA (NYC)

New York’s downtown (and downstairs) arthouse will show the 1966 political thriller Torn Curtain in 35mm on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART  (LA):

This week’s Friday night midnight movie is Tommy Wiseau’s The Roomfrom 2003.

Next week, we have a bunch of wide releases including Paramount’s Dora and the Lost City of Gold, the horror anthology Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, the female-driven crime thriller The Kitchenand more.

[yohanes-magic-circle]

Digital Disguise: Chapter 4

(Impatient? Don’t like reading fics on Tumblr? The whole thing is up on AO3 now. I hope you enjoy it!)

[Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3]

By all measures, Yoshiko Tsushima should have been miserable as she walked through the front door of her family's apartment. She'd got her English test results back that day, and they were only just a step above failure. It's not that she hadn't tried to improve. Inspired by Mari's random outbursts, she'd asked for help, but even when she could be torn away from her duties as the school's director, she didn't end up being much use. It turned out that mixing Yoshiko's tendency to slack off with Mari's lighthearted nature and love of joking around was a recipe for very little actual studying to take place. What's more, she was struggling to nail the timing for Aquors' new dance routine – she was always half a step ahead or behind, and attempts to correct the problem always resulted in overcompensation. Nobody was holding it against her, but she knew she’d need to get it together before the preliminaries.

Despite all of this, the first-year student was wearing the kind of smile that suggested that she didn't have any troubles at all. “Welcome home,” came the habitual greeting from Yoshiko's mother. She wasn't expecting her greeting to be welcomed with a cheery “Hi!” from her daughter, and didn't have time to react before Yoshiko's customary retreat to her bedroom. It wasn't much, but it was nice. Having worried about Yoshiko's social skills throughout middle school, her mother credited Yoshiko's good mood to her school idol activities – making some less eccentric friends was the best thing that could have happened.

Thankfully for Yoshiko, her mother didn't know the truth – Yoshiko was in fact grinning from ear to ear entirely because of her weirder interests. School wasn't the only place she made friends, after all. Yohane Time mostly earned Yoshiko fans rather than friends, but some of her more regular viewers had earned their way into what she liked to call the “inner circle,” a small group that she considered to be friends. She'd ask about what was going on in their lives, entirely in character of course, and always made sure to prioritise them for fortunes and rituals. They didn’t know much about the real Yoshiko, but they seemed to like Yohane, and every time she considered just not streaming, it was the mental vision of their disappointment that caused her to think twice.

Quitting hadn’t been something that Yoshiko had seriously considered for a couple of weeks, though. Lately, it seemed like she might be gaining a new friend by the name of Musashino, and when you cut to the core of it that was what was behind Yoshiko's good mood – she was streaming again tonight, and that meant another chance to interact. This newcomer had shown up about four weeks ago, and hadn’t missed a show since. They’d quickly found their feet amongst the regulars in the chat, and while their messages were a little slow, they were always interesting. (Was that down to a laggy connection or slow typing speed? Yoshiko couldn't tell.)

When viewers had been asked what Yohane needs, Musashino had responded with “a demonic familiar,” and Yoshiko most definitely wanted a pet. When another viewer had asked what kind of film a Yohane movie would be, they had already suggested it’d be a tragedy before Yoshiko had even been able to address the question – that’s certainly how she preferred to characterise her rotten luck, even though in reality it tended to lean more towards slapstick comedy. One time, when someone began to question Yohane’s fortune telling as being far too giving for a being from the netherworld, Musashino had leapt to her defence by noting that Yohane hadn’t become a fallen angel by choice – clearly  somebody  was paying attention to the backstory – and that she still had kindness in her heart. As Yohane had talked of the celestial conflict that would herald the end of days, Musashino had been fascinated (and even taught Yoshiko a new word – eschatology). It seemed as if this person was really on Yohane's wavelength.

Yoshiko already considered Musashino as part of that special inner circle, one of the little demons she held dearest. In fact, she was quickly coming to consider Musashino as her favourite, and she was incredibly pleased that they seemed to be just as committed to viewing her stream as she was to hosting it – it wouldn’t be the same without them any more. Whenever she found herself zoning out in class, it was inevitably Musashino that she ended up thinking about, largely because she was curious as to what this person was like outside of their interest in Yohane. Their messages didn't give much away as to their real life, though. Even the name was impenetrable, though Yoshiko assumed that it was a rare detail pertaining to their offline persona – most people chose something meaningful, even if only to themselves. She’d seen a train line with that name when she visited Tokyo once. Maybe this person lived in that area? Maybe, if she could get her mother to tag along for safety, they could even meet? Yoshiko ran over the scenario in her head. “Hey, can you take me to meet my friend from the internet? They’re a fan of my streams and I don’t know anything about them.” Yeah, that’d go down a treat. Without anyone to ensure her safety, Yoshiko reluctantly reasoned that meeting up was probably not such a great idea.

Glancing over at the clock, Yoshiko could see that it was getting close to stream time. She began to prepare the scene, shutting her curtains, lighting candles and changing into her fallen angel clothes. Tonight, her plan was more interactive than usual – the idea being to learn more about her viewers, or at least how viewers saw Yohane. The last thing she did, as always, was uncover her webcam. She was still trying to separate Yoshiko and Yohane, and she’d decided that the best way to do that was to ensure that the two worlds never met – Yoshiko’s schoolmates should never meet Yohane outside of Aqours shows, and Yohane’s online fans should never see Yoshiko. One stupid error with the cam would be all it would take to ruin that, by revealing what was in truth a pretty ordinary bedroom.

With a deep breath and a click of the mouse, Yoshiko became Yohane.

“Gathered in the dying light, a congregation of the wicked, awaiting the angel whose beauty so angered God that she was cast out of heaven. I will grace you all with my presence, but you must know that summoning Yohane is a dark bargain indeed. In exchange for my protection, I require evidence of your devotion. Little demons! You entered into a contract with me, and now an offering must be made. So tonight, my sinful servants, I ask of you – what will you bring to appease me?”

Yoshiko watched as the responses came flooding in.

any1 got sum crosses? Ill hang em upside down   I can sacrifice another goat.   1000 BLACK FEATHERS!   we can mail you a letter   Tabasco sauce and something with cayenne peppers

Truth be told, she had hoped her viewers would be as imaginative as she was. That first one was too stereotypical, the second she hoped was a joke… dull, bland, tasty. Wait, tasty? What the heck? And there they were again – Musashino had sent that suggestion. It was an odd one. Yoshiko definitely had an appetite for spicy food, and she’d genuinely like those things as gifts, but that wasn’t something she’d ever brought up during Yohane Time before.

“Musashino, you make an intriguing suggestion,” she said, trying to figure out her mysterious fan’s motivation. “Why do you believe these items to be a worthy gift?” Yoshiko was struggling not to break character, and the anticipation of the inevitably delayed reply was not helping one bit.

Because the heat would remind you of Hell, and I think you’d like hot food

Well, that was certainly a plausible in-character explanation, and it was the best of the answers – or at least, the thing Yoshiko most wanted at that point in time. It was still an odd one, though. “Congratulations, little demon! You have stumbled upon one of the ways to Yohane’s blackened heart,” she conceded. After verbally assessing some of the other suggestions, she decided to change the subject. “And what sort of place would you all pick to make your offerings to me? Choose wisely!”

a ruined church!   How about a sauna? They’re hot like Hell too.   letz go 2 onsen heh heh   HOW ABOUT AN ARCADE?   Why not Tokyo?

These suggestions were definitely better than the last ones, minus the onsen one which earned the idiot a swift banishment from the chat. The ruined church would definitely look amazing and have the right ambience. The sauna one, they were at least trying – although they might not have been so blatant about duplicating Musashino’s reasoning. An arcade would be nice, but was more of a Yoshiko answer than a Yohane answer. And, last as usual, Musashino’s answer.

“Allowing me to demonstrate my demonic powers on your mortal games would be terribly foolish,” she declared. “What would the glory seekers do when faced with the insurmountable obstacle of Yohane’s high scores? And Tokyo… another strange suggestion that has earned my interest. Musashino, are you perhaps a fellow user of magic?”

Again, Yoshiko couldn’t deny that she’d like to visit Tokyo. She was always drawn to the city more than the country, and besides, you could get everything there and there were some amazing stores selling occult goods. If she could go for her birthday, which was coming up soon, she’d be pretty happy. Again though, that’s a Yoshiko thing, more than a Yohane thing. Musashino’s reply had come through.

I’ve heard it’s a city stained with sin, a place of true terror. That sounds like a place where demons would gather.

Yoshiko couldn’t fault the reasoning, but this time it was even more suspicious. She was sure she’d heard someone say something like that before. It was a silly notion, of course – Tokyo was amazing – but she couldn’t dwell on it long as some of the other users quickly began to mock Musashino.

Did you know Osaka is the gateway to heaven?   musashino are you from the past?   LOL I BET YOU BELIEVE IN HANAKO-SAN IN THE TOILET

“Enough! With so many people in Tokyo, it is easier for demons to blend into the crowd. If Musashino is fearful of the grand metropolis, they are fearful with good cause! And that is all the more reason to offer this lost lamb protection.” The fallen angel had surprised even herself with this stern rebuke, as she didn’t often have to deal with a rowdy crowd. Some of the apologetic comments that followed suggested that certain viewers quite liked Yohane’s unusual disciplinarian outburst, though mercifully they stayed on the right side of the creepy line.

“Now that you’ve calmed down, my little demons, I shall express my desires – with this information, you will be able to make the ultimate offering to Yohane,” Yoshiko began again. “Though the material temptations of this lowly world are truly enticing, my true wish goes beyond such trivial objects. When one of my little demons is in danger, I would even display my true powers to see that they come to no harm – and as my little demons, I expect you all to get along. If you are to descend with me, you should be loyal to me and everyone who descends with me,” she continued. It was a sentiment delivered as Yohane, but it came from Yoshiko’s heart. Her efforts to be more normal at school, her joining Aqours, all of that effort was made because the thing Yoshiko wanted the most was to have good friends. “So even in times of great danger, when the divine and the damned finally clash, will your loyalties waver or will you stand behind Yohane?”

I’ll be standing shoulder to shoulder with you!   ill stand behind yohane   I WOULD DIE FOR YOU   Your wish is my command

Yoshiko was pleased to have everyone back on the same page. “Very well, you have pleased me. Now, I will open my magic eye and reveal the secrets of your futures,” she said, bringing things back to a place where she firmly controlled the dialogue.

After a good half hour of fortune telling, it was coming time to wrap up. “It is almost time for this tragic beauty to retire to the shadows, but I leave you with a warning,” Yoshiko said with all the gravitas she could muster. “Those of you that have made this contract tonight must abide by it. Failure to perform your duties as a little demon will see you banished to the abyss!” The stream ended and for the first time in a while, Yoshiko was pleased to finish up. That one had ended up getting pretty weird between the onsen creep and the goat sacrifice.

Still thinking of weird things, Yoshiko was drawn back to Musashino – were they an esper or something? She couldn’t quite believe how well judged those offerings had been as she scrolled back through the chat. Then she got annoyed all over again as she got to the section where people turned on them. These people were wrapped up in a fallen angel’s stream and they made fun of someone for having some slightly odd thoughts on Tokyo? Yoshiko thought it somewhat ridiculous. She couldn’t help but defend Musashino, as they had become one of her favourite little demons. Still, she’d managed to sort things out by insisting on solidarity amongst her little demons. It brought a smile to her face as she read the declarations of loyalty again, but… where was Musashino? She scrolled back up.

I’ll be standing shoulder to shoulder with you!

For the first time she could recall, Musashino had been quicker to respond than anyone else. Not only that, they’d gone further to affirm their loyalty than anyone else. Who was this person?

Yoshiko was too tired to consider the matter any further. As she switched her light off and went to bed, she decided that she’d have a better chance of figuring it all out in the morning.

[junker-town]

What we learned from Backlash 2017

Backlash had a few disappointing moments, but in many ways, this was also a gamechanger for SmackDown and WWE.

Backlash was SmackDown’s first post-WrestleMania 33 pay-per-view, and while it didn’t fully deliver in every match or angle, the ones it did hit managed to hit real, real hard. We have a new WWE World Champion, Shinsuke Nakamura’s debut is now behind us, the women’s division maybe hinted at its next steps, and we might have just witnessed the rebirth of the SmackDown tag team scene.

Let’s break down what we learned from this Sunday in May.

Shinsuke Nakamura def. Dolph Ziggler

Dolph Ziggler introduced Shinsuke Nakamura to WWE’s main roster with every major move he knows, but it wasn’t enough. Frustration built up until Ziggler spit in Nakamura’s face, but all that did was infuriate Shinsuke. Maybe Ziggler should have spent a little more time watching Nakamura footage instead of making jokes about how there wasn’t any!

What we learned: If you aren’t familiar with what Nakamura is about, you are now, at least to a degree. He’s kind of a weird dude, but in a charming way, and he is super into kicking and kneeing you as hard as possible whether it’s in the face or the chest or the kidneys. ZIggler knows this, or, at least, he will once he wakes up and wonders why he’s so sore and were his headache came from.

It’s a little disappointing Ziggler got in as much offense as he did, as it kept Nakamura from seeming as next-level as he is, but it’s early enough in this run that we can wait and see where it’s going before going in too hard on that point.

The Usos defended the SmackDown Tag Team Championships against Breezango

This match was incredible. It was hilarious, it had real wrestling in it, it made Tyler Breeze and Fandango look like legitimate competitors who could win the SmackDown Tag Team titles from the Usos if they figure out a way to keep them from bending the rules... it had everything. Just a perfect tag match and a great way to hit reset on a division that desperately needed it.

Plus, Tyler Breeze had not one, but two disguises, coming back during the match dressed undercover as an old woman for some reason.

WWE.com

Wrestling is the best.

What we learned: See above. The fear heading into this match was that Breezango would not be treated as seriously as they should be, but they let the pair — Breeze, especially — show off their comedy chops while also looking like a serious threat to the Usos’ reign. We should expect more from both teams in the future, as SmackDown had one of the best tag matches they’ve put together since the brand split made the show live.

Sami Zayn def. Baron Corbin

Sami Zayn... won? That was unexpected. Mostly because it’s always unexpected. That’s not anything against Zayn, by the way, but there’s a reason that his nickname includes the word “underdog” in it. And Baron Corbin has been nigh unstoppable whenever he’s not facing off against the likes of John Cena or AJ Styles, so, you know, 2 +2 wasn’t supposed to equal 5, and yet here we are.

What we learned: Well, Baron Corbin losing a pay-per-view match before Money in the Bank might be SmackDown’s way of trying to make us think that he won’t be the one who wins the titular match of that event. WE’RE ON TO YOU WWE WE KNOW THE TRICKS.

Also, like, Sami Zayn won a big match! And now presumably has some momentum heading into Money in the Bank! This definitely won’t end in any kind of heartbreak for us or Zayn!

The Welcoming Committee def. Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, and Naomi

This was a surprise for a number of reasons. Becky Lynched tapped out clean in the middle of the ring — surprise number one. The second surprise? None of the faces turned heel causing Becky and Co. to lose here. This was the Welcoming Committee of Natalya, Carmella, and Tamina securing a victory just like they said they would, and Becky ended up taking the L.

What we learned: Just because no one turned yet doesn’t mean we’re without a turn. Becky being the one to get submitted and lose for her team means that blame is likely to shift to her via Charlotte, so maybe we get Becky vs. Charlotte out of this, with one of the Welcoming Committee — Carmella or Natalya, most likely — facing off against SmackDown Women’s Champion Naomi because of this win. We’ll have to wait until Tuesday to see what the next step is.

WWE.com

Kevin Owens defends the United States Championship against AJ Styles due to countout

Countout losses are usually horrible, but one managed to fit in just right. Owens had targeted Styles’ leg throughout the match, and then the US Champ helped get Styles’ injured limb stuck in the announce table where he couldn’t escape in time to return to the ring and beat the ref’s count. Owens then attacked the trapped and hurting Styles while he was defenseless just because, ensuring that this feud is going to keep going.

What we learned: A countout victory for Owens paired with the subsequent attack means this feud isn’t over, which also gives us some insight into the potential look of the Money in the Bank ladder match at next month’s MITB event. If Owens and Styles are tied up in a US title match already, that most likely means neither will be trying to climb a ladder for the WWE World Champion contract found within the briefcase at the top. That opens the field up quite a bit for potential MITB entrants and winners.

Luke Harper def. Erick Rowan

Former Wyatt Family brothers collided over the fact that Luke Harper was able to leave said Family, and with no desire to return to it. Rowan, still trapped within the cult but now alone on SmackDown in that regard, was unable to exact the revenge he hoped to against the now-independent Harper.

While this was a clear cooldown match between championship bouts, it did continue the recent trend of Rowan looking like a capable wrestler, and his character work earlier in the evening frightening the Kickoff Show commentator panel was a highlight.

What we learned: Harper is still the man, and this feud should help secure him a spot in the Money in the Bank ladder match. Rowan, too, by virtue of lasting as long as he did against Harper and putting up as much of a fight as he has, could be an entrant, as a way of bringing preexisting feuds into the multi-man affair.

We’ll see if that last bit is the case, though, since this could also be an opportunity to further separate the Wyatts, letting Rowan begin to question his decision to stick by the absentee Bray, and becoming more of his own thing in the process like Harper has.

Jinder Mahal defeats Randy Orton to become the WWE World Champion

Man, it happened. Jinder Mahal defeated Randy Orton, and now Jinder is the WWE World Champion. Like him or not, this is a huge moment — WWE’s history of people of color winning their primary championship is a list short enough that you don’t need all your fingers to count it, despite the fact the belt dates back to 1963.

WWE.com

Jinder won under some BS circumstances, with the Singh Brothers helping him distract Orton long enough for Mahal to sneak up from behind and deliver his finisher and get that 1-2-3, but he’s the bad guy here: BS circumstances are a totally reasonable way to go about this. Especially since the story SmackDown has been telling for weeks now is that Jinder wasn’t a winner pretty recently, sure, but he found a new attitude and some new friends and the two of those made him a threat against anyone, even if he couldn’t do things by himself.

What we learned: SmackDown is really hammering home this land of opportunity thing, and Jinder Mahal as WWE World Champion shows they aren’t just saying it. WWE World Champions should remain something of an exclusive list, but for too long it’s been white dude after white dude after white dude, with wrestlers of color generally held a level beneath that title regardless of how popular they were or could be. (And even when someone as hugely popular as Rey Mysterio was allowed to win the championship, those reigns were brief.)

SmackDown has Kofi Kingston, a longtime WWE star who has won basically everything in the company except for the WWE World Championship. They have Big E, who in a just world would become WWE World Champion someday, but since he (like Kofi) is black, that just world didn’t seem to exist within the confines of WWE. They have Shinsuke Nakamura, they have Jason Jordan, they have Rusev.

In the past, it was just assumed that black wrestlers, foreign wrestlers with heavy non-United Kingdom accents, or anyone from anywhere in Asia would never win the top prize in the company. If WWE is having Jinder, a man of Indian descent who speaks Punjabi on camera, win that belt, though, then the game has potentially changed. And that’s as good a thing as it is overdue.

[100wordanime]

Overview:

The Black King has stolen half of the chain chronicle (which apparently documents everything that happens in the world) and now he’s using it to engulf the world in darkness. The heroes have already tried to defeat him and failed, but have they given up hope? I reviewed Chain Chronicle week to week so if you want thoughts on the individual episodes click here.

Review:

Before getting into this there’s a couple of things I’m going to make clear. I am a major old-school fantasy fan. I have read pretty much every sword and sorcery style fantasy book I could get my hands on growing up and read out entire fantasy sections of school and public libraries. My appetite for these kinds of stories is voracious and I’m not too picky about quality as long as it isn’t boring. Therefore, when I say that this story is lacking in originality but still really fun, you should probably understand that it really only applies if you are equally fixated on good vs evil, hack and slash with swords, with some magical explosions and the occasional dragon thrown in.

When this came out in Winter I was really happy because it has been a long time since we’ve gotten an anime that is so unapologetically classic fantasy. It wasn’t trying to give us a subversive hero, add in unnecessary self-aware comedy, give the villains complex backgrounds and having people make morally grey decisions. There is nothing wrong with any of those things, but they aren’t classic fantasy and while they can make for stories that feel a bit different, I still just like my fantasy pretty straight forward. There’s something comforting about the familiarity of light vs darkness and the good guys will be down but not out for three quarters of the story before they rally for the final conflict. So I’m not going to spend much time discussing the plot but rather the characters and the execution.

The issues that emerge from these sorts of stories though usually concern lazy writing. Because the story is so familiar and the characters are such well-worn archetypes, writers end up taking short cuts and you kind of feel like you are reading a plot synopsis or a description of a movie rather than being immersed in a story. The other issue that comes along is that the writers themselves are aware that everything they are writing is derivative and so they don’t give anything the extra attention or oomph it needs to make it stand out.

So does Chain Chronicle have these issues?

Yes and no.

The villains do suffer incredibly from poor writing and limited screen time. They are either mindless summoned puppets who can get cut down in droves and just respawn (so zero care factor from the audience) or they are so beyond cliché in their dialogue it is impossible to take them even vaguely seriously as a threat. Plus, there’s the lingering question of even if they succeed in dying the world black, what then? Is there some sort of grand plan beyond make everything black?

Realistically this is my biggest complaint of this series as a whole is the lack of real motive or care put into these villains (that and what is with that female villain’s armour). Also, we see not one but two of the ‘heroes’ of the story get turned into demons through their own inner doubts and losing to their inner darkness.

Yuri, as the main hero, has a whole group of friends continuously rallying behind him and trying to bring him back. His character and back story get quite a lot of exploration to understand why he gave in to the darkness and to really hammer the point that anyone can fall. Also giving the whole love, bonds, and friendship theme a boost in the final episode.

Burkhardt on the other hand turns evil and mostly people spend the rest of the series shouting at him and then the Princess cuts him down declaring that she would take on responsibility for him. Um, Princess, wouldn’t it be better to believe in him and try to get him back like Yuri’s group are doing for him? Aren’t you kind of writing off your own subordinate fairly cheaply? And why is Yuri so much better? Then again, Burkhardt’s character is portrayed as a proud narcissist before he turns, we get no back story, and no development. And it turns out he has no friends so clearly he doesn’t fit with the theme of bonds and friendship and so must get unceremoniously crushed.

It’s fairly contradictory the way these two characters are treated and while I get that we probably don’t have time to explore the back story of every character, why introduce Burkhardt at all and why have him go evil if you aren’t doing anything with that. Or even if they tried to turn him back and his inner self resisted and continued to give in to darkness forcing them to kill him it would have made more sense because it would have shown the moral choice of being evil despite having someone reach out for you.

So yeah, the villains were not great.

In terms of all of the other characters, the biggest issue is the sheer number of them. This story wants to be an epic. It really does with the scale of the threat and the number of alliances and people caught up in the battle. But with 12 episodes instead of grandiose and epic what we end up with is a shallow view of a much deeper world and we don’t really have time to deal with the ins and outs of most the characters.

That said, some of them were really fun. By the half-way point I kind of loved Aram. He was such a cliché character getting picked up by the heroes in a random village and then apparently being excellent at fighting before he learns about hope and bonds and ends up all but being the main hero of the story. Plus, he picked up Furball who was adorable, and then transformed into a dragon (needed a new name, seriously who calls a dragon Furball). Aram was awesome and yes he gave in to the shout your ideals loudly at anyone who disagrees philosophy that so many young, male anime protagonists fall into but due to the sheer number of other characters the effect of this was somewhat diluted making that aspect of his personality tolerable.

The other character I really enjoyed and wished we’d learnt more about was Shuza. He was such an antagonistic character throughout most of the series and I really wish the show had spent a bit more time on him so that we could really appreciate the moral ambiguity he really represented. Everything else in the story was incredibly divided into darkness and light but he managed to be technically on the side of light but had some pretty dark views and really the ending gives us no clue about what now. In my own head I’m seeing him take his army and sweeping across the continent taking advantage of the fact that all the other armies have been significantly weakened. But we don’t actually know what he is doing other than still leading the army because pretty much no time is devoted to him after the battle.

There were other characters that I either liked or didn’t but essentially if you can think of a character who usually appears in these kinds of stories, they are likely to show up somewhere along the way, even if only for a little bit and even if their actions seem pretty inconsequential.

There also some really cool settings and locations, though at times you’ll get sick of them being on yet another road. Also, don’t pay too much attention to travel time. Apparently armies can fast travel (not really but realistically they must have for all of those armies from all of those different locations to be able to arrive in that location at that time). Time and distance mean very little in this story and you kind of just have to go with it.

All and all, as I said at the start I had a lot of fun watching this. There’s definitely issues and at times common sense has to be dismissed just to get through a certain plot point, and I really wish that they’d either trimmed down the scale of the conflict or given this another 12 episodes to actually flesh out the world in a way that made it feel a bit more real, but entertaining nonetheless. I’d really only recommend this to major fantasy fans who are wanting something just to casually watch where they don’t have to think too much and they aren’t wanting anything unexpected. Otherwise, there’s probably better stories out there to spend your time on.

Still, fun.

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Karandi James.

Chain Chronicle – The Light of Haecceitas Series Review Overview: The Black King has stolen half of the chain chronicle (which apparently documents everything that happens in the world) and now he's using it to engulf the world in darkness.