#who made watching films with subtitles so normal!

[weareonejazzhand]

An afternoon at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures really reminds you why we watch our favorite movies over and over again. 

[wilbursprincess]

wilbur and dyspraxia or chronically i’ll partner headcanons! i never see fanfics with chronic disability recognition (as someone with a chronic disability)

Wilbur With a Chronically Ill/Disabled Partner

Wilbur Soot x Gender Neutral Reader

Warnings: Mentions of hospitals, pills and medication, vomit, just general illness stuff

You did specify Dyspraxia, so I threw that in, but wanted to add as many other symptoms as I possibly could because you’re right! It’s hard to find chronic illness representation! I have severe Endometriosis myself, and love to hear from my fellow chronically ill/disabled Wilbur fans! Another lovely request from @loserconfirmed that was written while I binge-watched Octonauts.

Headcannons below cut :)

~First of all, Wilbur’s just a total sweetheart. No matter what your diagnosis is, he’d be the most helpful person you could ever want.

~If your chronic illness sends you to the emergency room and Wilbur’s not by your side, he’s dropping everything to come and be there for you. Whether band practice, a gig, filming with the Sorry Boys, or streaming, he’s abandoning it for you.

~Nausea or vomiting? No problem. Even though Wilbur has said a few times he’s not great with vomit, he’d be right with you as you lean over the toilet, rubbing your back, holding back your hair if it’s long, and giving you sips of water in between.

~If you have a condition like Dyspraxia, affecting your coordination, Wilbur would be an absolute angel. If you needed help zipping your jacket, brushing your teeth, or anything in-between, he’s got it for you. He also wouldn’t make it a big deal or act like it’s out of the ordinary to make you more comfortable. Like I said, angel.

~Use a wheelchair? Wilbur would 100% push it for you if it was manual and your arms got tired, or make sure to keep it charged if it’s electric. King of researching accessible dates for you two, making sure every single place is wheelchair accessible.

~Has a timetable for all the pills you need. Would definitely have one of those labled pill boxes for morning and evening, because let’s be honest, he’d rather go overkill with organisation than have you miss a dose and feel worse.

~Have POTS or get dizzy and faint often? Wilbur would keep an eye on you, making sure you sat down and rested at the first sign you might faint or the second you get a dizzy spell.

~If you’re bedbound by fatigue or pain, it won’t phase Wilbur in the slightest. Just means you two get more time to cuddle, binge watch TV or movies, and spend time together.

~Being with a chronically ill/disabled partner has made Wilbur look more at the accessibility of both his gigs and content. He now only plays in venues with accommodations for fans with disabilities, adding subtitles to all his YouTube videos and putting them on Sorry Boys videos, too. All in an easily-readable font, color-coded for who’s speaking at the time.

*I don’t normally add an afterthought, but I just wanted to say that when I saw Lovejoy on the Road To 100 tour, the venue I was at had FANTASTIC disability accommodations , and I encourage anyone who’s hesitant to attend a gig due to their disability to check with the venue to see if they can accommodate you! I sat in the balcony and had no issues with flaring up during my show :)

[gemsofgreece]

recs for a beginner in greek? my interest is spurred via ancient greek, but i'm sure there are tons of tv shows and films that i'm missing out on

Do you mean Greek course recs? Or media recs? Couldn't tell.

If this is about courses, right now Duolingo is the one I would recommend the most for beginning up to reaching a low intermediate level.

Tons would be... an overstatement haha I do have some good recs though. You can watch all content in ERTFLIX, the ott platform of the Greek state TV channels, which is entirely for free and available worldwide. The TV series I personally recommend there is Καρτ Ποστάλ (Card Postal), it is gorgeous, introspective, philosophical. Then there is another famous show there, Κάνε ότι κοιμάσαι (Pretend you are asleep), which is crime / mystery / thriller, but I haven't watched it. A lot of people also love Τα καλύτερα μας χρόνια (Our best years), which is a family / period show set in the 60s-70s. I haven't watched this one either. Another personal rec would be Αγάπη παράνομη (Unlawful love), which is based on an old novel, but it gets very dark in a realistic way, so that's something you should know. Other than that, ERTFLIX also has foreign content with Greek subtitles, with which you could practice. And it has great Greek documentaries.

You could watch Maestro in Blue on Netflix. Season 2 will be out this spring! Beautiful show, fantastic performances, great music.

There's also a man, George, who has been making English subtitles for various classic Greek series, comedies and dramas, including top tier Είσαι το ταίρι μου (You are my soulmate), a hugely clever and unusual rom-com, Στο παρά πέντε (In the nick of time), a crime and mystery comedy which is considered one of the two best Greek comedies ever and must have the thickest plot I have seen in a comedy (very popular show with the Greek tumblrs here) and OF COURSE ΤΟ ΝΗΣΙ ΑΚΑ THE ISLAND, a drama which is the best Greek series to date and for which I have entirely normal reactions. Here I link the post I had made about George's platform.

If you don't care to have subtitles at all you can find these shows and many others in DailyMotion and especially the website greek-movies.com. (this needs vpn, you know). This one has it all. Literally all, including the classics, classic Greek cinema of the 50s-60s-70s was by far the best era.

I am currently watching Η Μάγισσα (The Witch). There are some talks that it could go to some international streaming platform after it ends but you can watch it in the aforementioned website anyway without subtitles. I love this show, it's semi-daily, so this season will have 70 episodes, and obviously it comes with the limitations of daily shows, but as semi-daily shows go, it is bloody fantastic, I am obsessed right now.

YouTube also has a lot of old Greek series. The first thing you should do after starting any Modern Greek course is to start watching Κωνσταντίνου και Ελένης (Constantine and Helen's) on youtube, the best Greek comedy, or maybe the best comedy in the universe, with only slight exaggeration 😜😇 The aforementioned Είσαι το ταίρι μου, is also available on youtube with George's subtitles.

Some additional links of older posts to check:

10 best animated movies to watch in Greek (foreign ones with great Greek dubs)

My favourite Greek movies

Check my #greek tv series and #greek movies tags for more.

[tayvengeance]

I just... need to talk about Li Ming from the perspective of someone with a friendship like his and Heart's.

Li Ming and Heart attending the deaf mass absolutely stole my heart. The way Li Ming is so ready to anything to make Heart feel normal... no. Feel HEARD. He sees the notes his mom leaves behind, he knows they keep him locked in the house, hell, he even SAW how Heart's own mom didn't even learn how to sign for him.

Li Ming, who knew Heart for like two days, picked up sign language to communicate better with him.

These little things he does, like just making sure Heart can see his face when he talks to read his lips, just resonate so deep with me, because that's what it's like when I'm with my best friend. Him bringing Heart over to the speaker to feel the music? I feel its synonymous to every discussion I've had with her about how music is made and how each layer has its place in a song.

(She did yell "WHY ARE THEY PLAYING MUSIC FOR DEAF PEOPLE! WE CAN'T HEAR SHIT!" when they started playing music at the mass, which had me laughing, but she accepted it for the speaker scene.)

((also important to note she has 1 cochlear implant so she can hear a bit out of one ear, but it's not like how hearing people hear. If you are ever curious about that, watch The Sound of Metal. She said it depicted her hearing almost perfectly when we watched it.))

I can tell Li Ming and Heart were handled with care and love, and they've had both of our hearts since ep 1. The scene where they are watching the movie together and Li Ming is telling Heart what is happening was my friend and I watching Parasite in the theatre (just the two of us because it was like the third day it was out, a foreign language film and didn't have oscar hype yet) because it was the only movie with subtitles out while she was recovering from surgery for a new implant and completely deaf for two months. There's just things Li Ming does and I just know exactly why he's doing it.

But yeah, just some thoughts about how they are portrayed pretty accurately, and that they make us happy.

[missyourflight]

some stuff i read and watched in december:

the buccanneers: never really hit the heights i wanted it to and most of the cast was not great! but kristine froseth is always watchable and kate winslet's daughter is darling, most importantly scotland doubling for cornwall was beaut. as ever god bless apple for spending money on nonsense

slow horses (s3): i don't know when river cartwright became my shit friend i'm unreasonably fond of but here we are! jack lowden v funny this season and i don't think it's just because i've decided he should be lymond in the billion dollar apple tv series that isn't happening and probably shouldn't bc who else is even blonde (harris dickinson?? i haven't seen the iron claw yet)

monarch: legacy of monsters: i started this and then due to my bad personality decided i had to watch all of the ~monsterverse for context, therefore godzilla december. strong threesome energy in the flashbacks, can't argue with wyatt and kurt russell playing the same character decades apart etc, love a disaster lesbian in crisis etc

~monsterverse interlude: most of these were silly, godzilla: king of the monsters was actively bad, godzilla vs. kong somehow my favourite due to the askars/rebecca hall (long beloved) combo plus all the neon. hollow earth let's go baby!

tokyo godfathers: loved this! love miracles in the city during the holiday season, love to listen to three different podcasts talking about the nuances of trans rep in subtitle translation etc

godzilla minus one: godzilla december! this one made me cryyy, the godzilla theme goes so unbelievably hard, cutest sweetest baby in the world, was incredibly happy to be emotionally manipulated by the endings etc

not going to get into all the christmas film rewatches but: coward's edit of the family stone (repeat the sounding joy!), crying at both little women 94 and little women 19 as per, moonstruck forever, bridget jones' diary colin firth the most sexually appealing colin firth 2 me etc

the wind rises: catching up with miyazaki before the boy and the heron and straight into my ghibli top 3, the love story stuff absolutely floored me

how to have sex: absolutely devastating god

the boy and the heron: very weird and beautiful and sad - saw the dub (robert pattinson you wonderful freak), seeing again with subs this week

jon krakauer, into thin air: a personal account of the everest disaster: i got about halfway through the first chapter and had to stop and ask my dad what the hell he was up to trekking to base camp on his own in the seventies. gripping, chilling, tragic

rose lerner, sailor's delight: rose lerner one of my favourite romance authors (true pretenses i love you forever etc), m/m age of sail romance set around the jewish high holidays with SO much longing and yearning my god

lizzie huxley-jones, make you mine this christmas: fun christmas romance - fake dating but she falls in love with the guy's sister! - that made me burst into tears like five pages in for reasons entirely unrelated to romance or christmas. a 2024 project for soph etc

barbra streisand, my name is barbra: did the audio version so even sped up i reckon i spent at least a full day and a half with barbra. as ever the parts about making things and artistic choices were the best parts, i respect her energy re: including every nice letter or compliment she ever received (my version of this would be reproducing nice ao3 comments etc). wild to me that she spent like 3 decades beefing with larry kramer trying to adapt the normal heart (with bradley cooper at one point lol) but i have to disagree with her impulse to tone down the gay sex to avoid alienating straight people!!

i am not here really but i was proud i managed to keep these little roundups going through the year so. happy new year friends

[reachingforthevoid]

Addendum to Doctor Who: Big Blue Yonder

Liking something is subjective, which is part of the reason why I rarely take a story to task in my mini-reviews. This story left me bored, aside from a few moments of visually exciting material. Yet, just about everyone I know loved it and were buzzing about how good it was hours after first watching it.

They were talking about stuff I didn’t notice. Loads of stuff.

And that made me stop and think. 

And then I realised that for most of it I couldn’t hear the dialogue. Or, to be precise, my brain wasn’t processing the sounds I could hear into meaningful speech. Just about the entire story to me was “blah blah blah” with the occasional clear word. It was incomprehensible gibberish, literally, to me.

One of the many things I learned when I went through the process of discovering that I’m autistic involved sensory processing differences. I’ve a few, but one of the main ones is auditory, and it’s complicated by the fact that I’m going deaf. My hearing was damaged when I was a young teenager and had several grommets put in to drain build up behind my eardrums. The specialist told me what to expect back then, and it’s happening a little later than anticipated. 

Over my 55 years I’ve learned how to compensate for both these facts. I rely a lot on lipreading, and body language. It’s one reason why I don’t like phone calls unless I already know I can process a person’s voice or not. It’s also why video calls exhaust me, because so much of the non-verbal cues are obscured.

Sometimes the sound mix on TV or film makes it really hard for me to follow a story. Subtitles have become a necessity for quite a few things, but not everything. Bad subtitles are exhausting, too, and most subtitles aren’t great.

I realised late last night that I cannot process David Tennant’s voice when he plays the Doctor (I can when he talks “normally”; it’s not an accent thing, incidentally, but a role dependent thing), and I cannot process Catherine Tate’s voice when she plays Donna Noble. I struggle with some of her other characters, too.

How do I know it’s them doing those roles in particular? The pre-credit sequence in Wild Blue Yonder involved other actors playing other parts, and I had no trouble with them. I did with Tennant and Tate in that scene. (Although I gather what I heard of the “joke” made more sense than what was actually said. Not all bad, then.) The same happened at the end with a certain other actor who I could understand clearly.

How have I not noticed it before? Because there have always been other actors and characters I could understand and the context meant that missing what they said didn’t matter so much. An hour’s story in which the vast majority of the talk — and there was so much talk! — was between two actors playing characters that I can’t process what they say… Yeah… it became impossible for me to ignore.

Solution? I’ll have to use subtitles and hope they can do the job.

Oh, it’s not purely a Tennant Doctor and Tate Donna problem. There are other actors/characters, radio announcers, and people I know in-person, who I struggle with. It’s literally a “me thing”.

[servin-up-surveys]

survey #210

In what form of communication did you last use to talk to the person you're currently interested in? Discord.

When was the last time something really cute happened to you? When I was at Girt's house a few days ago, when his mom got home, I called hi to her and she got so excited, exclaiming, "My girl's here!!" and she comes into his bedroom to hug and kiss my head and it was so adorable she's so pure

Has anything happened to you within the past month that's made you really happy? Girt started talking about engagement rings with me (he started it, not me) and was deadass taking notes in his phone lmao. I'm not in a rush or anything, but HIM bringing it up was validating that he genuinely wants to be with me forever. Ever since Jason I still struggle to imagine anyone at all ever wanting to marry me.

What was the last thing you looked up on YouTube? Rammstein albums, lol. I've gone through their entire discography before but I did a massive bulk of it a second time and I found I like even more songs than the first time, and that was already the vast majority of their entire history of songs.

Did the last guy/girl you kissed have any piercings? No, I could never picture him with any and I don't believe he wants any.

Do you actually love your parents? Yes. I would die without a millisecond of thought for my mom. I hold some bitterness and hurt towards my dad, but yes, I still love him.

Where did you get the underwear you are wearing right now? I'm in my pjs, I'm not wearing any. Who in the hell wears undies in their pjs, that entirely ruins the comf. I know for a woman it's not healthy to wear them 24/7, anyway. let yo pussy breathe

Do you feel uncomfortable sharing drinks with other people? The one and only person I'll comfortably share a drink with is Girt, if I can make out with him I can drink after the guy lmao. I'd still very much prefer my own drink, though. It doesn't really matter who you are.

Have you gone through a lot emotionally, or has life been easy thus far? blink blink blink

Last person to make you seriously mad? Our landlord.

Who have you recently made up with after fighting? Nobody.

Funniest name you have ever heard? This is a very mean question, next.

When people ask "how are you?" do you say "good" even if you aren't? No, actually. I might downplay how bad I am, but I don't pretend to be well if I'm not.

Do you wear your hair up or down most often? It's too short to go up, so.

Have you ever eaten tofu and if so, did you enjoy it? I don't believe I have. It doesn't look like something I'd enjoy whatsoever.

Have you worn make-up today? I couldn't even TRY to remember the last time I wore makeup...

Can you hear anything right now? I have "Tattoo" by Rammstein on.

What was the last fruit you ate? It was either pineapple or grapes.

Have you ever watched Parks and Recreation? I watched some with Sara when I visited her once, because it was one of her favorite shows. I thought it was fine, but I didn't have any strong feelings. Television shows normally don't do it for me.

Have you watched a movie this week? No, movies are another thing I don't generally care for much, unless it's a theater experience. I can't remember the last film I watched.

How far away is the closest McDonald’s from your house? Around 5-ish minutes by car, depending on what traffic lights you hit.

Have you ever been to Hawaii? No.

How old is the mattress on your bed? It's rather new. I don't think I've had it even a year yet.

Do you keep magazines by your toilet? No. Bring your phone bro

Do you watch movies with the subtitles on? No, unless it's very quiet or foreign. I generally find subtitles to be distracting.

Are you happy? I'm currently rawdogging my mental illnesses with no medication, no :^)

Do you still talk to the person who hurt you the most? Nope.

What do you wear to bed? Loose pj pants and a tank top.

What are you excited about? This weekend Girt and I are going to Charlotte to meet a couple that are some online/gaming friends of his, and we're gonna do stuff around the city. It's more than a three hour drive and we're going there and back in the same day so it's gonna be a long day, but I'm looking forward to it.

Best summer? I'm supposed to remember this?

What type of foundation do you wear? I don't wear it.

Have you read the Pretty Little Liars series? No, but god my sister Misty was obsessed with that and its show when it was a thing.

Do you actually read privacy policies when signing up for new things? Does literally anyone?????

Can you juggle? No.

Do you like Nerds candy? I love them.

What is your favorite color(s) of eye-makeup? It's all about the black, baby.

Do you have sensitive skin? Yes.

Who in your family would you describe as a “character”? My dad.

What color is your best friend’s hair? Black, although like his dad, he's graying very early so there's a lot of that grizzled in.

Do you think your neighbors have any complaints about living near you? No. We mind our business and our dog doesn't bark much.

Is there something you want to tell someone? Two somebodies. I doubt they'll ever be said, though.

Are you interested in more than one person at the moment? No.

How frequently do you pee at night? Once or twice. A night where I don't get up at least once is basically unheard of.

Is there a stuffed animal you still take places with you? No.

Have you ever done something illegal with a family member? What about with your best friend? Possibly, I don't feel like thinking about this forever.

Would you rather get high or get drunk? High, but only on like, weed. No serious drugs that are truly dangerous if you take a responsible dose. Being drunk doesn't sound pleasant in any way, tbh.

What was the last thing you cooked? I don't cook, I pop shit in the microwave lmao.

Have you ever gotten alcohol poisoning? No, that sounds like hell.

Do you want to see someone at this very moment? Yeah, Girt.

Think of the person who has hurt you the most in the past year, who is it? I saw the woman TWICE and it was my last psychiatrist. She did me so much harm in such a short time.

Do you think two people can last forever? 'Til they die, anyway. I don't pretend to know what's gonna happen once my body's dead.

Last person you talked to on the phone for longer than 5 min? My dad.

Are you a morning person or night person? Morning.

Who was the last person in your bedroom? Mom. Besides me, anyway.

Did you ever lose a best friend? What adult hasn't at some point, honestly?

How many piercings do you have? Six right now. Others that have closed either intentionally but mostly unintentionally due to being hospitalized and piercings having to come out.

What is your middle name? Marie.

Could you handle living with the last boy you texted? That's my dad, and yeah, I'd be fine.

Have you been to the beach this year? No, doubt I will.

Does it take a lot to make you cry? Sure doesn't.

Do you have a favorite classical composer? No.

Would you ever visit a psychic medium? No, they're scam artists.

Do you use a dishwasher or wash dishes by hand? Dishwasher.

Who was the last non-relative woman you spoke to in person? The woman who took my blood today.

What’s a topic you’ve drastically changed your opinion on? I was once a conservative dicklord of a teenager. Now I'm politically left and feel very strongly about these beliefs.

Have you ever had a dream in which you died? Multiple.

Do you use Snapchat? No.

Do you know anyone who’s struggling with addiction? Yes.

Have you/Do you know anyone that grows weed? Not knowingly to me.

Which accents can you emulate pretty well? British and country are about it.

Have you ever been a complete fangirl/fanboy over anything? ...........................................................

What’s the weirdest way you’ve ever heard somebody die of? Oh I dunno.

How many true heartbreaks have you had in your lifetime? One true one, romantically.

Do you have any gay family members? My mom's cousin or something named Tom is gay.

Who was the last person to sleep over at your house? Girt.

Would you ever get a boob job? If I lose all the weight I want, I want to get a breast lift. Obesity does things.

Would you be upset if you caught your boyfriend looking at porn? No. I would only be upset if he tried to hide it from me.

Have you ever been punched? No.

How do you feel about bats? I love bats, I think they're very cute. Especially flying foxes and similar species.

Has your Facebook ever been hacked? No.

Have you ever played laser tag? Yes, it was extremely fun.

Is anyone you’re close to in the hospital right now? No.

Who or what sleeps with you? Roman, my cat. He starts off in my bed, anyway; throughout the night he goes to different spots.

Are you pro-life or pro-choice? Pro-choice as fuck. It's not even a matter of whether the baby is truly "alive" or not to me, if it's in MY fuckin body, my wants and needs come first.

Who was your first kiss with? Jason.

What aren’t you afraid to stand up for? LGBTQ+ rights, for one. I'd die for the right to love and to be true to your own body and however it feels like home.

Do you have any STDs? I don't.

Do you have a favorite NASCAR driver? I couldn't care less about NASCAR.

Who’s your celebrity crush? a stupid german rockstar old enough to be my dad 😭

Have you ever intentionally trolled? Hm, not to my recollection.

What is your favorite type of cat? Oriental shorthairs.

What ancient culture intrigues you the most, if any? Maybe Egyptian.

[diaryofanobsessivefangirl]

1. Hi! I think the 1987 film Opera would be up your alley - it’s very loosely based on the phantom of the opera. It’s a horror movie but it’s not too gory. Also the musical Notre Dame de Paris, you can watch it in French with English subtitles on YouTube, it’s actually fairly close to the book (especially certain songs). I think the Italian version has the best lyrics but I can’t find the full subtitled version. But certain songs like “Bella” and “Mi Distrugerrai” can be found w eng subtitles.

It's been AGES since I've received this comment, then took me months before watching the Opera (1987) and now I'm finally answering my mail box. Anon, I've failed you. So Opera unfortunately didn't win me over T_T It broke a sacred rule: his interest for her comes from her connection/physical resemblance to an ex-lover AND the personalities between the two women were completely different. Her mother was a sexual criminal and sadist, while the protagonist was just a normal girl.

Usually "replacement gold-fish" ships are very tricky for me cause it's already hard to accept that someone else had power over him before the main girl. If their personalities are similar, meaning the first girl was not a villain either, I'll probably ship the villain with first girl more than with second girl - it will be the superior villain/heroine cause she literally ruined him for anyone else. However, if the personalities between the women are completely opposite, I can't ship either: villain/villainess simply doesn't hit as hard as villain/heroine (SPECIALLY if it's off screen), but the only villain/heroine available is meaningless because the guy is not in love with her soul. She is just a projection, a poor replacement. Which was a shame cause I liked how in the end she pretends to reciprocate the villain - always a smart move from the heroine that promises many interesting scenes between the two characters. Oh, I have found Notre Dame de Paris the musical as a teenager. You can't stalk villain/heroine fanvideos without bumping into it 👀 HOWEVER I had no idea the italian translations would hit EVEN HARDER then the original french!

"And that winter heart of mine It's a spring flower And it burns in hell As if it were made of wax You are the one who fans the fire You, beautiful foreign mouth I spy on you, I want you, I invoke you I am nothing and you are real"

Oh Notre Dame, for once I'd like through her door, to enter her like a church

[rebeccalouisaferguson]

Hi there! This question is likely rather out of the blue given everything going on with Mission Impossible. Hope that’s okay!

I’m assuming you have watched “Vi” but if not, feel free to ignore my message. I watched the film a while back and found it interesting. Not my favorite film of hers, but it made me think a bit and I can’t really find any interviews (in English or with English subtitles) where Rebecca discusses her role in the film.

I would love to hear your thoughts regarding Rebecca’s character, Linda, and perhaps also your reading of her choices in her performance.

No rush to respond and I understand if you’re not able to. Thanks so much for all you do to support her career!

Hi! irina here! Both of us watched Vi (Us) sometime ago. No, there are no interviews about this film/her role because it was a very small production. If you are curious I can tell you that the budget for this film was only 13.000 EUR (150 000 SEK). All the actors worked for free (they were not paid) and the director gave his own apartment for filming. When it was finished they did crowdfunding to get it released, a small company joined to produce it so the actors were paid a bit in the end and the film got a theatrical run. It was filmed over the course of 5 weeks. So it was a very small production you can imagine there was no press for the film, though there was a formal premiere.

The film sure deals with mature subjects like codepending unhealthy relationships. I remember really liking Rebecca's chracter - Linda, she felt very real. I related to her as friend who is firmly stands her ground and wants to protect her friend from these abusive relationships. I liked how she interacted with Krister, Gustaf's character. She was firm, unapologetic, gave him the piece of mouth that her friend couldn't, and i think this is kind of the intention of the script - to show through Linda that Ida got lost in those relationships and should have reacted like Linda but she was completely detroyed. So Linda is an important chracter showing us how the relashionship should look to the outsider. Her and Ida's night out as well as girls talk remind Ida of the normal carefree life she might or should be having. The script was character driven and I think Rebecca's acting shined:)

This is what Andrea thinks: "She was the best part of it. Her interactions with Ida felt real and her role as friend and colleague.She was imminently more watchable than whoever played Ida (I forget her name). Rebecca also bounced off Gustaf really well so it’d be interesting to see them work together again. Her role felt like a real person I guess which is a compliment."

We have tag for the film on the blog if you want to look through some edits: https://rebeccalouisaferguson.tumblr.com/tagged/vi https://rebeccalouisaferguson.tumblr.com/tagged/2013%20vi%20premiere

Thank you for following the blog and sharing your thoughts with us!

[madi2112]

Madi's Meanderings vol. 43

Dresses and limestone

I got an email with a notification about the Outshine LGBTQIA+ film festival showing in Miami. It was playing on a Thursday (my day off) and was only 4 hours away.

So of course I had to go.

The film that night was from Germany and called Oskar's Kleid. Which translates into Oscar's Dress.

It's the story of a 9 year-old transgirl named Lilli. Oskar is her deadname.

She has a supportive mother and stepfather but her biological father struggles with Lilli's true identity.

I had a difficult time watching it. Not because of the fact it was German (with English subtitles) which was cool as I could pick up on lots of words. My almost 3 years of German from Duolingo paying off.

It was difficult to watch because it hit close to home in so many ways.

About 60% of the film could have been taken directly from my childhood.

The parents argued over who's fault it was, people refusing to acknowledge the change, Lilli wanting to dissappear, her wishing she was normal.

Those were but a few of the things I immediately recognized.

The parts of the film I definitely did NOT recognize was having support from the mother, the acceptance of the school and her sister.

Basically anything positive.

I certainly didn't recognize the happy ending.

At all.

It was still a good watch, despite the tears and numbness I was feeling afterwards.

<outside the theater >

While I was down in that area I also visited a tourist spot I had seen in a cheesy television series back in 1981 "In Search of..." was the show "Castle of Secrets" the episode. Narrated by Lenard Nemoy.

The Coral Castle was built by a heartbroken hermit named Ed Leedskalnin.

His marriage to a 16 year-old Agnes never happened as she rejected him. He then moved to Maimi from Latvia in 1923 and spent the last 28 years of his life building this place in her honor.

The blocks of limestone weighted as much as 30 tons and moved from as far as 10 miles away.

He single handedly cut, shaped and placed every stone alone. Refusing to allow anyone to watch him.

No one knows how he did it. He was only 5' tall and approximately 100 lbs and had only a few primitive tools made of scrapped auto parts.

An amazing feat in the name of love.

~Madison

[watching-pictures-move]

Put On Your Raincoats | Buda (Stagliano, 1997)

I was interested in checking this out because in John Stagliano in his Rialto Report interview made it sound like one of the few things he’s made with actual artistic ambition. This is set in Budapest and a lot of the actors speak Hungarian with intermittent subtitles, so you know this is artsy. But more seriously, there is an attempt here to meld the feigned verisimilitude of gonzo style with a crime thriller narrative that is interesting in concept, if not consistently engaging to actually watch. The most notable thing about this is the early digital cinematography. At this point digital cameras offered nowhere near the fidelity you would get with film, but you can sort of see this movie working with those limitations. A good chunk of the movie is shot outside at night or in darkened rooms, and the limited colour range of the digital image has a collapsing effect. Shadows become stronger and more impenetrable, while the lighting seems starker, and even things like lens flare feel more gradated and tactile. You could argue this presages what Michael Mann was doing in the 2000s, if you wanted to talk out of your ass. There’s also a club scene with harsh red and blue lighting. You could argue this is just like Suspiria, if you wanted to talk out of your ass.

Anyway, you mix this digital cinematography with the frequently seedy location work (this was shot guerrilla-style, and Stagliano notes that a kidnapping scene was mistaken by bystanders for the real thing, and some of the actors had connections to crime, with at least one being arrested during the shoot for possession of a gun) and there’s a compellingly sleazy atmosphere here, particularly during the nocturnal sections. That being said, I do think this highlights the difficulty of truly adapting gonzo style to a conventional narrative. For much of the movie we’re sticking closely to our hero Rocco Siffredi, but the camerawork will frequently detach from his perspective and pathologically home in on the actresses’ buttocks. As Stagliano is the Buttman this shouldn’t be entirely unexpected, and in his defense, the actresses here have some pretty delectable derrieres. And I do think he sometimes pulls out some unexpected angles or otherwise accentuates the mood with how his camera floats and lingers. But I understand a lot of this was improvised, and Stagliano’s shooting style ends up drawing things out far beyond of interest. For normal people watching this to jerk off, they probably won’t mind, but for those of us with Letterboxd-induced brain damage trying to watch this like an actual movie, this is sometimes a challenge with its three-hour runtime. There’s also a jittery industrial synth score that starts off helping the mood but then keeps playing, even over other scoring. The sound mixing is pretty horrible, and while the digital cinematography has its benefits, the quick shooting and lack of conventional lighting setups results in Stagliano cranking up the brightness on some scenes to hideous results.

I will also note that while Rocco Siffredi has his fans, I am not one of them, and while he’s more tolerable here than the porno Klaus Kinski he would become later on, I still don’t think he’s good enough to carry the movie. I also think a lot of the sex scenes, while ably performed and featuring stunningly beautiful actresses, suffer because we don’t have a good sense of who most of these characters are. The best ones here are between Siffredi and the heroine Holly Black (who was thrown into the role after the original lead actresses left the production but handles herself well enough, and looks kinda cool with a gun at the end), and between Siffredi and Ursula Moore as the villain’s sympathetic sister. The one with Moore is the movie at its best, Stagliano’s horny camerawork allowing us to grasp her attractive qualities and letting her evoke a sense of mystery before the action begins, at which point the shadowy visuals accentuate the energy pretty nicely. It is, dare I say, genuinely erotic.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Stagliano has a role in this, essentially playing himself. When Siffredi shows up with Black at their hotel room, Stagliano remarks “He gets the girl at the end of the movie", asks to shoot a Buttman scene and then leaves. The sign of a great actor is that they can lift up their co-stars and make them better by giving them something to play off of. Stagliano does not do this at all.

[seeminglyseph]

I'm like. having a brain blast like. "My ADHD is taking me on a journey I do not fully understand" kinda thing.

And I'm definitely still caught up in the idea of this horror film called Temple that was covered by a podcast, and they were like "Ugh this movie is bad why is it like this" and I watched it and it's fully a Japanese movie that had large English segments and should be watched as a Japanese film, in the context of a Japanese film. and the fact that they watched it as like.. an American film made in Japan because there were Americans attached to the film making process and there were large parts of it in English... but a lot of the Japanese audience understand English well enough that, if they subtitle the movie they'll find it entertaining. It was a film intended to watch subtitled in Japanese, probably. There's subtext probably missing because the English dialogue wasn't subtitled with like. a Japanese script that explained what it was intended to mean and the English was just really simple translations that the Japanese audience was more likely to be able to understand from mandatory English lessons.

It is creeping in my brain constantly that this podcast wrote this movie off immediately as bad without even knowing the target audience or context or what it was about. The research gal did no research into it and was like 'there's no trivia available at all, so weird' and compared the *Shinto Shrine* to the podcast *Tannis* because she thought it moved, not realizing the actual story was about curses. And I understand that like. *I* am a fucking weeb freak who knows too much about shit and people that don't care about Japan or Japanese culture don't know anything about Shintoism or curses or Youkai or Kitsune or Tengu or the chaotic neutral alignment way trickster spirits work or how the whole 'tourists keep to the assigned tourist destinations' is like. a point the movie is trying to make and an issue in Japan (and around the world) and there's a lot of subtlety being overlooked based entirely on the fact that no one is realizing it's a Japanese movie instead of an American movie. And Research Gal even said "it's cheaper to make movies in Japan." to complain about bad looking special effects work??

And I feel so fucking petty and stupid for still being bothered by this. Why am I still in my feels about this? Help me. I need to have normal emotions right now. What the fuck is my brain doing right now?? Aaaa.

[adamwatchesmovies]

Rollerball (2002)

While I didn't enjoy this film, that doesn't mean you won't. No matter what I say, the people involved in this project did it: they actually made a movie. That's something to be applauded. With that established...

It’s a shame movie-making is such an expensive enterprise. If it wasn’t, pictures like Rollerball would get the release they deserve and get buried in the middle of a desert, never to be seen by audiences. Instead, this screams of the kind of production that wasn't quite there and was worked and reworked until it become an unintelligible, tasteless mush the studio hoped would recuperate their losses at our expense. This film isn’t merely bad; it’s bad in ways you’ve never seen before. Normally, this might make it interesting but it’s also painfully dull.

NHL hopeful Jonathan Cross (Chris Klein) joins his friend Marcus Ridley (LL Cool J) to play professional rollerball in Kazakhstan. This violent contact sport in which two opposing teams skate around an 8-shaped track and attempt to score with the help of their designated motorcyclists is gaining traction overseas. The game’s promoter, Alexi Petrovich (Jean Reno) believes Jonathan is the key to rollerball going global.

Even if you haven’t seen the 1975 film upon which this remake is based, you will immediately recognize why this scenario isn’t working. Firstly, it’s set in present day rather than a futuristic dystopia like in the original. Here, rollerball is simply another sport. It has no meaning to anyone watching beyond basic entertainment. We might as well be watching a normal sports movie. Except it isn’t a normal sports movie because no one watching knows what rollerball is. It doesn’t look like a normal sport because the players all wear crazy Death Race 2000-like costumes for no reason. It made sense in The Running Man. Here, it’s simply distracting. The audience has no emotional attachment to the game and the film’s attempts to make us care via sports commentators explaining the rules fail completely to engage.

These problems are the tip of the iceberg. Had the film been well shot, it might’ve actually been fun to discover a whole new violent pastime. The cinematography and camerawork will have your head spinning so fast you'll wonder if you accidentally took some bad medication. The action scenes are basically unwatchable. Either because the camera cuts abruptly to awkward shots that mean nothing, the editor is trying to stitch together two clips who feel barely connected or the cuts come in too frequently. Even those are minor compared to some of the biggest sins committed. In many scenes (particularly during the beginning), we're introduced to the characters in rapid succession while they're playing a fast-paced game and asked to read subtitles at the same time. It’s too much to handle but even this is not as bad as it gets. There is an extended chase scene in the desert shot entirely in night vision. Not seconds of all black-and-green; full minutes. You’ll be begging for a power outage or anything else that’ll turn the movie off.

And now we get to the characters. From Rebecca Romijn-Stamos to Jean Reno, nearly everyone dons a bad and unconvincing accent. Chris Klein gets to speak in his Native American which is too bad. Had he been given some kind of weird drawl or verbal tick he might’ve been more interesting. As is, he’s so bland he’s almost translucent. It feels like an eternity before the obvious and predictable story properly kicks in. Even if it were worth as much as your average piece of used bubblegum on the sidewalk, you wouldn’t care. It’s impossible to care.

Even the sophomoric appeal of blood, violence and Romijn-Stamos taking off her top combined cannot earn this film even the fragment of a star. There isn’t a thing about this movie that’s good. Not the score, not the costume design, not the dialogue and certainly not the direction. Shortly after completing the film, John McTiernan was emprisonned for hiring someone to spy on Rollerball producer Charles Roven. I hope they tacked on a couple of months for making this movie and wasting my time.

Rollerball is like a memory of being mugged by a bully. You can’t learn anything from it but there’s no way you can forget it happened. I suppose that qualifies it as traumatic, though saying so gives it a much grander position than it deserves. Just try your best to push Rollerball out of your mind. It’s the worst movie I’ve seen in some time. (On Blu-ray, April 1, 2020)

[ja-khajay]

Mature animated film recommendations

My followers expressed interest for this, so here’s a post compiling some animated films. Please note “mature” does not mean adult, some of these are watchable by family audiences, but they are not meant with children as a target audience in mind. I will also be excluding animation for adults that goes straight for crudeness. The criteria for my choices will be the following:

They have to be films I have seen in full and recommend, but I will describe them as objectively as possible.

These are not series, but either feature length movies, or shorts. All picks here will be watchable as standalones.

They have to be animated. This includes stop motion, full CG, traditional media, as well as a mix of techniques.

For each pick will be included a short spoilerless description, some of the major themes, as well as any content warnings that might apply. More movies might be added to this post in the future.

The rabbi’s cat

2011 - France - Hand-drawn 2D. Family friendly

Contains descriptions of colonialism, antisemitism, racism and misogyny. A single on-screen fight scene has two men stabbed to death.

Philosophy, adventure, religion, humor

An animated adaptation of the comic of the same name, that compiles several of its stories in a single one. The rabbi’s cat has the wild adventures, talking beast premise and pacing of a fairytale, but whose characters are individuals full of personality.

A charming movie with unusual pacing and great acting. Watching the original french dub is a must.

Is on Amazon Prime to stream. Moderatly famous movie, should be easy to find copies of.

Bob spit - We do not like people

2021 - Brazil - Stop-motion

Has nudity, cartoon gore/violence, implied sex. And lots of drugs

Art and being an artist, life journeys, comics, post-apoc, 80s

Part pseudo(is it?) documentary, part fantasy, it’s a film where brazilian cartoonist Angeli is interviewed, talking about his creative endeavors and the current crisis he’s in, half set insides his imagination, where his ugly and weird creations set on a journey across the wastes to prevent him from killing them like he loves to do to his characters.

While made by a fan of and acted by said artist and his friends, you can enjoy this film without knowing anything of his work. The physicality of the stop motion puppets and backgrounds works delightfully with the grimy punk vibes of it all and it’s not afraid to get weird.

Unfortunately not widely available, but english subtitles exist.

My friend who shines in the night

2020 - France - Hand-drawn 2D. Family friendly

No content warnings

Death, friendship, slice of life

A staggeringly normal guy finds a lone ghost in his garden and decides to help them find out who they might have been in life and why they’re stuck here, unable to pass.

This is a student film of exceptional quality and heart-warmingly down to earth for a story about, well, not being quite on this earth.

Watch here for free (english subtitles)

Redline

2009 - Japan - Hand-drawn 2D. Family friendly(*)

(* Has swearing and 1.5 instances of bare tits. No other content warnings apply)

Sports, cars, sci-fi, anime extravaganza

Participants from all over the universe compete in the titular car race, a high stakes, no limits, completely illegal event that hypes the entire galaxy, much to the dismay of the planet the cars land on.

On a technical standpoint, Redline is insane. Animation, pacing, writing and music are perfectly calibrated to deliver a film that builds up hype the entire runtime. Don’t expect depth, you won’t need it - this is a movie that is just pure adrenaline and fun. Not liking cars shouldn’t be an obstacle, it’s to racing what Dragonball Z is to kung-fu.

I recommend watching the english dub. It’s fully on YouTube, albeit in bad quality.

Egg

2018 - Denmark/France - Hand-drawn 2D

This is an extremely hard film to watch. See description for content warnings.

Mental illness, dysphoria, eating disorders

Depicts the inner monologue of a woman trying and failing at battling her eating disorders. Alone in a room, she sees herself, her surroundings and her thoughts morph into monstrosities.

A gutting and raw depiction of the suffering caused by mental illness. While a remarkable movie, it’s one of the most disturbing ones I have seen, and heavily recommend skipping if you are having second thoughts about the topic discussed.

Watch here (NOT free)

La traversée (The Crossing)

2021 - France - Paint on glass animation. Family friendly

Depictions of genocide and child abuse

Persecution, immigration, travel, growing up

A brother and a sister flee their village to escape a pogrom, and soon find themselves alone, traveling through a fictional continent, trying to find ways to go further at each step, meeting a gallery of people along their way.

Literally an animated painting due to its technique. The story was inspired by the one of the creator’s own family, and she voluntarily chose a calm, down to earth, focused tone to depict the difficult subject matter. Never does this film try to push emotions onto the viewer, letting you travel alongside the protagonists instead, with no commentary, to experience their journey.

Unfortunately not localized that I know of.

Tekkonkinkreet

2006 - Japan - Hand-drawn 2D and CG. Family friendly-ish (*see description)

Pretty graphic descriptions of violence towards children

Growing up, change, imagination

Two street kids watch the neighborhood they call home lose itself to gentrification. Their situation takes a dire turn when the local mafia in charge of operations decides to get rid of them once and for all - progress cannot be stopped by nobodies who exist outsides the law.

Although suffering from a rushed ending, it’s a story that provides many layers to get lost in, served by superb visuals and music. The two little protagonists and their sometimes troubled relationship are extremely endearing, and the film is emotional without being cheesy. (*)While I consider it an adult film, I’ve seen many fans say they grew up with it...hard to judge.

Famous movie, should be widely available to buy/rent

Ruben Brandt: Collector

2018 - Hungary - 2D and CG mix. Family friendly-ish

Unreality, child abuse

Crime, fine arts, psychology, dreams

A psychiatrist is haunted by terrifying nightmares, ruining his life. Featured in all of them are famous paintings he, an art connoisseur, knows well. His clients learn of his troubles and decide to help the man fight his demons through a therapy they’re familiar with: high crime.

Ruben Brandt is a love letter to painting and art that does a lot of things very well. Charming characters, an investigation to follow, both fun and disturbing. The art style, voluntarily semi abstract for it’s characters, might take some time to get used to, but is very striking in it’s weirdness.

Should be on Netflix.

Yûl and the Snake

2015 - France - Hand-drawn 2D

Child abuse

Slice of life, growing up, petty crime, authority

A boy accompanies his older brother during a visit to his boss in a remote corner of the wilderness. The two men play power games, taunting each other, and lash out at the boy.

This movie stands out for how naturally it’s written and acted. It’s intense and upsetting because it feels so real.

Watch here for free (french)

Summit of the Gods

2021 - France - Hand-drawn 2D

Child death in a single scene

Mountain climbing, investigations, human relationships, nature

A journalist interested in the quest to scale Mount Everest catches a glimpse of a Japanese mountain climber long thought to be dead. He decides to track down the man and discover the truth.

This is a film you forget is animated very fast, but who’s animation itself is great, daring realism and an eye for technical detail.

Should be on Netflix soon.

Millenium actress

2001 - Japan - Hand-drawn 2D. Family friendly

No content warnings

Love, life purposes, acting, passion

A dedicated fan interviews a once-famous Japanese actress. In front of his camera, she relives her entire life, role by role, revealing the motivation she’s had all this time: reuniting with the man she fell in love with when she was young.

Lighthearted, earnest and charming, just like it’s leading star; it has fantastic animation and a unique, fascinating way to deliver its story. A classic for a good reason!

Famous movie, should be widely available to buy/rent

Just A Guy

2020 - Germany - stop motion, paper animation, hand-drawn 2D, claynimation

This is an extremely hard film to watch. See description for content warnings.

Love, sex, violence, shock, fan culture

The animated interviews of three women, telling of their relationships with a violent serial killer and rapist, whom they willingly contacted when he was in jail, awaiting his death sentence.

A wild ride of an animated short due to its blend of techniques, animation style, and the brutal honesty towards its subject matter. While cartoony and not containing any footage of the crimes committed, it centers around a very real criminal and details the fan culture around him, especially the sexual aspects, viewer discretion is advised and all that...

Watch here (NOT free)

Chapped lips

2018 - France - Hand-drawn 2D

Transphobia, suicide

Childhood, gender

A child, seated at lunch, has been sent home from school for causing trouble yet again. “He” tries to tell “his” mother about what weights on “his” mind. The conversation is tenuous.

This is a slow, raw short about the difficulties faced by transgender children, which is depicts very honestly. Not sure how to word this, but it might be very upsetting to watch for people who have experiences similar situations.

Watch here for free

Rooty toot-toot

1951 - USA - Hand-drawn 2D. Family friendly

No content warnings

Musical, old timey, justice, crime, humor

A beautiful little lady stands in court for the murder of her man. Her attorney is ready to defend her. This cartoon is paced like a musical, and its art is at the peak of famous USA company UPA’s iconic art style, that still influences productions to this day.

Peak 1950′s illustration style, delightfully animated and really fun.

On YouTube fully in 480p

Mind Game

2004 - Japan - Hand-drawn 2D and paper cut

Mild violence, some sexual scenes. The beginning of the movie has a pretty graphic scene of sexual assault.

Life and what it’s about, trippy, wild

After dying in a shitty way, a young man cringes himself back to life, which he decides to live to the absolute fullest to prove God not a single instant of that second chance he’s taking will be wasted.

You often hear of the merits of 2D animation that it lets you depict abstraction you just cannot reach with any other medium, and MindGame is the perfect example of that notion. Every part of this movie is drawn to a beyond ridiculous intensity, following the characters’ mindsets across the adventures they live together. It’s a masterpiece in animation and a one-shot kill for your suspension of disbelief.

Famous movie, should be widely available to buy/rent

Iâhmès and the Great Devourer

2016 - France - cut paper. Family friendly

Child death

Death, mythology, childhood

A child just died. He finds himself in front of the gods, ready to weight his soul, but he refuses to go this way and tries to run away.

A dreamlike, sensible movie about death who uses a rarer and interesting animation technique.

Unfortunately not localized that I know of.

The Apostle

2012 - Spain - stop-motion. Family friendly(*)

No content warnings in particular but could be too scary for young children.

Folk tales, religion, history

A thief finds himself the host of a remote village in the middle of the Spanish countryside, posing as a pilgrim, while he tries to retrieve the loot his fellow criminal anc convict instructed him to get... But the village is off. He wants none of it, of course, but he cannot escape the things that happen in the night.

A story about local legends that itself plays out like a folk tale. Both fun and spooky, it’s an especially interesting look into european catholicism - the old, old type, who’s weird rituals feel strangely...un-christian.

Available to buy on their website for under 10 euros.

Junk Head

2017 - Japan - Stop-motion

Some mild puppet gore and body horror

Post-apocalypse, adventure, comedy, just some guys hanging out

In a far future, one of the remaining humans is sent to investigate the underground for the sake of science. Blown up before he can reach solid ground, his head tumbles down there, from a floor to another, encountering the friendly locals who each time, give him a new body and welcome him to their weird little micro societies, before some slapstick disaster promptly makes his head fall once more...

This film was animated by a self taught solo artist (animation, music, puppets/props, writing and most of the voices!), which is already insanely impressive. Should it be the lack of any pressure from higher ups or no being told what to do by executives, but Junk Head is a batshit movie that screams fun for its entire runtime - and a lot, lot of heartfelt passion for movies. It’s weird, it’s funny, it’s touching, because it wants to be these things. A rare gem who stands out as utter opposite to corporate cinema.

Benefits from rare theater screenings, otherwise hard to obtain legally. No US release yet.

Memories

1995 - Japan - Hand-drawn 2D

Unreality (Magnetic Rose), no other warnings.

Scifi, thriller (Magnetic Rose); adventure, comedy (Stink Bomb), dystopia (Canon Fodder)

Memories is not one movie, but rather three short films mashed together with no transition in the hour and a half format. Each of these stories is fully independent and has its own art style, and all three are worth your time. I will present, in order, each individual short.

Worth noting - as I write this (summer 2022), a remastered version has been announced to get back in theaters! Otherwise, it is a remotely famous movie that should be easily obtained online.

Magnetic Rose: the crew of a spaceship follows an SOS signal which leads them to a long abandoned hunk of metal. Two of the men enter, determined to rescue whoever sent the signal. The deeper they go, the stranger the world around them becomes, as they slowly fall prey to a labyrinth of grandeur and illusions.

Of all three, Magnetic Rose struck me as the best film in the compilation. Great atmosphere and visuals, and very emblematic of that bygone 90s anime art style that flirted with realism.

Stink Bomb: a guy goes to work at his lab with a killer cold. Tired of sniffling all day, he tries out a new form of medecine, only to wake up a day later, only person left conscious amidst a disaster he knows nothing of. The national alarm is raised, and he sets off on a one man quest to help the nation, unaware of the damage he has done.

This is an over the top, expressive and very, very silly film. Nothing too deep, but it’s a really good time, and showcases some insanely good animation.

Canon fodder: one full day of the daily life of a mother, father and son, living in a gigantic dystopian nightmare town who’s culture is centered around a single thing - shelling an invisible enemy.

Writing-wise, the weakest of the films, but compensantes with incredible art, more illustrative than animated in style but animated nonetheless, like a strange, obsolete children’s story book from a non existing place and a bygone era... This is a weird, uneasy movie that does not tell much but keeps you watching.

Backflip

2022 - Germany - CG, live scans and AI animation

No content warnings

Comedy, AI, content creation

Speaking to us viewers using his own synthesized voice, a 3D model of the author explains to us his quest - using a computer simulation to learn how to do a backflip.

Hard to summarize or explain, this short film is a treasure of creativity that uses techniques I have never seen in animation.

Unfortunately not yet distributed.

****************************************

proofread and corrected by the nerd @redthepear​

Films I will not be including:

Akira. There is no point including Akira on a list of films to discover. Of course, I recommend watching it, but at this point who hasn’t? Not family friendly, CWs for body horror, gore, and medical trauma

Waltz with Baschir. An interesting and shocking film but who I did not enjoy enough to recommend it. Not family friendly, CWs for war, trauma and genocide, including actual footage of dead bodies

Anomalisa. Extremely interesting visually but again, not a movie I enjoyed. Not family friendly.

Perfect Blue. There is already a Satoshi Kon movie on the list, and Perfect Blue is a film I have issues with. Not family friendly. CWs for rape, violence and stalking depicted in the movie, as well as ableist writing.

Tokyo Godfathers and Paprika - not included for the same reasons as PB, but I also haven’t seen it. I will some day!

Films on the to-watch list:

Belladonna of Sadness

Angel’s Egg

Persépolis

A Scanner Darkly

Mad God

****************************************

Updated on July 7th 2022 (The Apostle, Junk Head, Memories, Backflip) + addition of list of the films I won’t be adding.

[mirai-studies-languages]

How to practice listening in a foreign language

Hi! Listening is a tough skill to improve, but I’ve found myself gradually improving as time has gone on, so I thought I would try to offer some advice to anybody who needs it. I think the key to improving your listening is increasing your vocabulary, and practice. I’m basing this mostly on my French (B2) and Spanish (A2/B1) studies.

Figure out what you should listen to! It is important to listen to something that is at your level. For complete beginners, just focus on your textbook exercises and beginners podcasts like Innovative Languages, LingQ and Coffee Break Languages (I highly recommend these by the way). For less difficult languages like French and Spanish (or whatever is close to the languages you speak), you might want to try watching a few Easy Languages videos, since they use topic specific vocabulary. I don’t really recommend this for languages that are very different from the languages you speak though, since it might just be confusing. For upper beginners, you can focus on watching short YouTube videos on topics that interest you (for example in Spanish, I watch a lot of YouTube videos about language learning). You can also try listening to learners podcasts. There are also a lot of YouTube videos out there made for learners that are only in your target language for beginners, like the Innovative Languages YouTube accounts. Just look up “[Target language] beginners listening practice” and something will probably come up. You could also watch children’s shows because of the simplistic language. For intermediate learners, it might be time to start properly dipping your toes into native material. TV shows, podcasts and films are good, but if you don’t like them, then there is a wealth of listening resources to be found on YouTube. Make sure to avoid anything that uses jargon or outdated language, like historical dramas and videos about science. The radios and comedy skits are great for learning informal language (e.g. Cyprien for French). For lower intermediate learners, I would recommend to also focus most of your attention on intermediate podcasts (e.g. For French: InnerFrench and Piece Of French are really good). You should be able to understand about half of it, and as you continue learning French this will increase. I’d say you are at an upper intermediate level once you can understand pretty much everything that is said in these podcasts and videos, and can also understand a fair amount of native material. For advanced learners, historical dramas and university lectures might be good for this. You might also want to look into content for more difficult dialects (unless you are only focusing on one). Just listen to anything and everything that challenges you, and you will start to improve over time. Across all levels, song lyrics are good too!

Read and listen at the same time! Audiobooks and subtitles are the best for this. Make sure you are actually listening instead of just reading. This improves both your listening and your reading skills!

Dictate what you are listening to! Try to write down everything that has been said word for word, and make sure you get the grammar correct too. Once you have finished, compare it to the actual transcription or subtitles and make corrections. Maybe memorise any new vocabulary, and review any grammar points you got wrong.

Shadow! This basically means repeat what is said after it is said. This improves listening AND pronunciation! 

Research how pronunciation changes! When I say this, I basically mean explore how pronunciation changes in the spoken version of a language when compared to the proper version of the language. Read articles with examples on informal and spoken language, and the way syllables will meld together or be shortened. You might want to memorise the most common slang too. Also, for languages with complex politeness levels like Japanese, research that too. Make sure you look out for these in whatever you are listening to, and make sure you listen widely in both informal and formal versions of your target language.

When you learn topic specific vocabulary, listen to content made about that topic! If you learn vocabulary related to the beach, then watch a beach movie. If you learn vocabulary about furniture, watch those DIY videos on YouTube. Learn topic specific vocabulary, and then put it into practice! You will find a wealth of vocabulary resources on this site alone. At first, learn the most important topics, then gradually expand to more niche ones when you become more advanced.

Listen without any help at first! For me, I will get a short YouTube video and listen to it without any help. Then, I will watch it again with subtitles (in my target language), and will pause to turn any unknown words into flashcards. I will go through those flashcards and memorise them. Finally, I will listen to the video again, and again, until I can catch and understand every word. This takes time, but it gets good results. 

Summarize what you just listened to! I would suggest doing this before looking at a transcription or subtitles. Try listening to audio and write a quick summary of what you were told, and then look at the transcription to see how accurate you were.

Replay the audio until you can understand everything! This is especially important for upper intermediate learners, because their goal is to understand everything. If you don’t know a word, then memorise it, and listen again! As time goes on, you will be able to understand everything better.

Adjust the speed of the audio! For beginners and lower intermediate learners, you can make it slower in order to understand it better. For upper intermediate and advanced learners, I recommend speeding it up. The faster it is, the easier you will later find normal native speed.

Just keep listening to your target language! The sounds of a language is something that takes a long time to get used to. You just need to keep on listening, and keep on practicing, and eventually you will start to improve. Listen to your target language whenever you have free time, and over time it will start to pay off. You’ll find that the speed that used to intimidate you will just sound normal, and as your vocabulary increases, so will your listening ability.

Thanks for reading this post! I hope it was useful!

[marveldc-imagines-hub]

Subtitles: Episode 1, Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience

Subtitles Masterlist

Summary: [Y/N] has been living in Westview for more almost a month now and yet to properly put down roots. What they hadn’t been expecting was to work so much, have unpacking be so hard, and for a new couple to move in the other house for sale, directly across the street.

Word count: 8,425

Warnings: Sit down and grab a snack because this one’s a bit long! Otherwise nothing, really. Maybe second-hand embarrassment caused by a thirsty Reader.

~~~

    Ever since you left both home and family behind some years ago, you’ve always felt a little out of place in the world. It was a hard time for you, leaving everything you knew behind and instead branching out and trying to find your place in the world. Actually, not only was it a difficult time in your life, but a confusing one; when you attempted to reflect on those memories, all you get is a head of foggy feelings, including a particularly sick sensation that leaves you out of commission for the rest of the day if you’re not careful.

    When you settled in Westview, it was like a breath of fresh air. Finding a home in a nice neighborhood was easy and the moving was done in a pinch thanks to a local moving company helping you get the boxes to your door, though you couldn’t afford to pay for them to do more. You were even lucky enough to find a street with not one but two open houses to pick from; you chose the smaller, more modest abode, as you had no family in town and no intention of getting married or starting a family any time soon. Despite this lack of them nearby and generally solid memories, though, you knew you had a good relationship with your family because as soon as you found a place, you were receiving housewarming gifts and postcards and letters from not only your family but close and extended relatives alike. Needless to say, it didn’t take long for your new house’s already installed fridge to be covered in pamphlet-worthy pictures of places across the nation and kind words from your mother, grandmother, and cousins. 

    There was still unpacking, now of both the furniture and gift variety, that needed to be done before anything else. Then there was the question of a proper source of income—while the money you received from your relatives would cover a month or two while you got yourself settled, you suspected there wasn’t going to be anything else for a long while and, either way, you wanted to be able to fend for yourself. Finally, after the necessities were dealt with, there was the matter of making your house and the neighborhood your home and by making some connections; while you were perfectly content living alone, it would be nice to not feel like such an outsider, to have friends to go out on the town with or take the occasional trip with on the weekends. These were normal goals, you figured, and, with as easy everything else has been so far, they should be simple enough to complete.

    Right?

    Well, at least getting a job was easy enough, you thought as you sat on the stack of boxes that, over the last month, had become a chair by the door that you used to pull on your shoes before work, as you were doing now. It also functioned as a coat and hat rack, as proven by your growing collection of jackets and headwear piled on it, and the occasional bookshelf after a trip to the local library. It used to be a place to hold your keys but you have yet to make that mistake again after sitting down one day and getting a sharp jab to the backside. 

    You were right that getting a job was easy enough—you received a callback for a secretary job at a computational services company only after a week of job searching—but you had yet to follow through with your other aspirations. It’s not like you haven’t tried, but when it came to unpacking, your job left you with very little energy to do much other than collapse on a couch-shaped collection of boxes when you get home and only a semi-decently decorated bedroom to show for your work. In terms of bonding with the locals and making some friends, let’s just say that Dottie is convinced you purposely spilled red wine on her perfect white parlor gown—who wears white when drinking red wine?—and now all you received from the neighborhood husbands were side-eyes and grumbling after telling them you found their attempts at humor in poor taste. At least you’d managed to charm your boss and his wife when they came over for dinner and now Mr. and Mrs. Hart invited you over for the occasional drink and gossip; Agnes, a woman from across the street and down a house, was also among your few successes, and she was a hoot to be around in a big sister or wine aunt type of way, despite her loudness. 

    Speaking of which—

    “Hey, [Y/N],” Agnes hollered from somewhere outside, “haven’t seen you out of the house yet! Better hurry up, the streets are antsville today! Or, at least, you could come with me to say welcome the other new neighbors!”

    Agnes came knocking on your door the same day you moved in and since then, she’s apparently committed your daily schedule to memory because if you’re not heading to work right on time, you get a holler from across the— Wait. New neighbors? You hopped up from your boxy perch after making sure your shoes were secure and peeked out the nearest window. Sure enough, the other house that you had considered moving into, the one immediately across the street from your own, no longer had a FOR SALE sign stuck in its yard and the yard and curtains appeared to have been decorated. Your heart lept into your throat as you wondered when that had happened; you desperately hoped that it hadn’t happened too long ago because you’ve been on a work rampage for the past few days and haven’t noticed much else. Yet another thing you haven’t done correctly. 

Agnes was also by the front yard, leaning against the fence and chatting with the mailman as he walked by. After he passed, she looked up and caught your eye, grinned, and waved. “Come on, [Y/N], no time like the present!”

You wanted to join her and introduce yourself to the new neighbors, you really did. Unfortunately, you would definitely get to work late if you didn’t get a move on, especially if the streets were as crowded as Agnes mentioned them to be, and you definitely didn’t want to greet the neighbors without a housewarming gift in hand. Perhaps you could stop by a shop on the way home and pick up a plant or a pie and welcome them this evening.

“Now, don’t flip your lid, Agnes,” you teased back with a smile as you walked outside. This response earned you a mock scowl, then Agnes’s smile again; you walked over to your vehicle and tossed your bag into the passenger’s seat. “I wish I could join you but you caught me; I am in fact looking to wind up late and I’ll be cruisin’ for a bruisin’ if I don’t leave now. I’ll try to stop by after work!” 

“Well alright then,” came Agnes’s reply, while you hopped into the driver’s seat and started your chariot up. “I’ll tell them you say hi. Congrats on no longer being the new guy!”

Too bad I still feel like the new guy, you mentally grumbled, rapping your fingers on the steering wheel. You took a breath, checked that your hair was in place and your shirt wasn’t wrinkled in the mirror and headed on your way.

“Oh, hello dear; I’m Agnes, your neighbor to the right! My right, not yours. Forgive me for not stopping by sooner to welcome you to the neighborhood. My mother-in-law was in town, so I wasn’t.”

Wanda watched the woman on her doorstep, visibly a bit perplexed but smiling either way. She was confused about what special event she and her husband were supposed to be celebrating tonight after seeing a heart on the calendar but now that she had an unknown woman—no, not unknown; one of her neighbors—here, Wanda couldn’t possibly be a bad hostess and turn her away. 

Not that the woman, Agnes, would have let her do so anyway. She shoved the plant she was holding into Wanda’s arms and walked inside, talking without giving Wanda any space to chime in. “So, what’s your name, where’re you from, and most importantly, how’s your bridge game, hon?”

Wanda quickly shut the door and trotted after the woman. She was newly stressed over the unknown event but now also giddy; this was the first neighborly welcome of many, she was sure of it! She reached Agnes’s side and stretched out a hand with a big smile. “I’m Wanda.”

“Wanda,” Anges repeated as if to see how the same felt on her tongue, before taking Wanda’s hand in a solid shake, “Charmed.” She paused, glancing around the house—Wanda felt an odd pang of anxiety—then continued, “Gol-ly, you settled in fast! Did you use a moving company?”

Wanda struggled momentarily for an answer. Of course, she didn’t; she’d used her powers to unpack and decorate quickly, but she couldn’t say that to this stranger. She decided to go with an affirmative answer as it was the easiest route. She went to reply—

“If you did,” Agnes went on, “I should get the name from you. Our other new neighbor across the way still has a house full of boxes!”

Wanda blinked, her head tilting to one side out of curiosity. “Other new neighbor?”

“Why the house directly to your front!” Without waiting, the other woman walked to the front window and yanked back the curtains; she gestured to the house in question. “[Y/N]. They live on their own, you see, and probably could have done well with the help. Actually, they were going to stop by with me but they were running late for work. I told them I’d tell you hi for them—Hi for them!”

The loud car Wanda had heard a few minutes earlier must have been this other neighbor rushing off to work. It was nice to know that even though it hadn’t happened, there had almost been a party of two to welcome her and her husband to the street; it’s too bad that he had left for his own job only a while earlier.

Wanda made her way over to the window as well and took a look. It was more modest in size and build than Wanda’s own home, much more suited to house a single person. Despite Agnes’s claim of them having not unpacked, a few lawn decorations were set up and a pair of [F/C] curtains hung neatly framing the home’s front window. Wanda could make out various boxes leaning up against the window, evidence to Agnes’s statement, but otherwise, the place seemed well-kept. The yard was taken care of, though Wanda wondered if it was because the person had moved in just as recently as she and her husband did or if they just enjoyed garden work.

Apparently, she’d wondered this aloud because Agnes responded, “They’ve been here for about a month, just been too busy making a good impression at work and making a fool out of themselves to the other neighbors to make their house a little more homely. Poor thing’s a darling but struggling in the social department.”

Wanda continued to watch the house as if this other, slightly older newcomer was about to drive back up the street to home. Consider her interest piqued. Wanda wanted to know more about [Y/N], all of her neighbors really, but more importantly, why there had been multiple houses open and if it was common. She hoped this neighborhood was as friendly as it seemed and that it wasn’t danger or unkindness that had made multiple people move out. She opened her mouth to ask—

However, Agnes had moved on to a different subject, as well as a different part of the house. “So what’s a single gal like you doing rattling around this big house?”

“Oh no,” Wanda, sighing softly, switched gears with her and replied, “I’m not single.”

You gulped down a gasp of air as you tumbled out of the elevator of Computational Services Inc, which earned you a few odd looks from unknown coworkers passing by. You’d bumped into one of them while skidding to a halt and you felt a blush creep up on your cheeks and ears and you stepped away, apologizing profusely. You tried to reach your desk in a quick but professional manner, only stopping briefly to make sure your clothes and hair were still in order in the reflection of an office window. As you got closer to your desk, a small thing in an area separated from other employees, you heard the comforting sounds of typing and radio music. You got to your desk, pulled out your chair, sat your bag down, and began to sit, only for a voice to catch your attention.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, there is. Would you be so good as to tell me what exactly we do here?”

A British accent? Not something you hear every day around here. You pushed your chair back into place to prevent another worker from bumping into it and walked over to peer around the corner. You recognized Norm, a kind and well-mannered employee that filled out computational forms in this section of the building, standing and chatting with a taller, paler, glasses-wearing man that you didn’t know.

The British voice spoke again and now, at least, you could put the voice to a face. “Do we make something?”

The British gentleman was very tall indeed and quite handsome. He had light wavy hair in a side part, with a sliver’s worth that looked like it could fall into his eyes at any moment; you felt the strange urge to push it back before the idea of running your hands through a stranger’s hair made you blush again. His suit fit his lanky body well, though you’d expect nothing less as Mr. Hart was very strict about his workers’ appearance. His tie was interesting, a dark color with a simple, lighter print of four spots, two larger ones encased in a rectangle, and his glasses framed his curiosity-ridden face very well. Above his lovely-looking, light-colored eyes, his brows were furrowed as he looked animatedly around, as though his workplace was a puzzle he was trying to solve. You noticed he talked with his hands quite a bit and you also noticed that his large, long-fingered hands seemed slightly out of place compared to the rest of his body. They seemed like nice hands, though, and they probably did their job well.

Goodness, [Y/N], now you’re just being ridiculous. You squeezed your eyes shut and pressed your head against the wall you were hiding around. No, not hiding, because that would make your creeping seem even more bizarre. Definitely not creeping. Investigating.

You shook your head to refocus and looked towards the men, listening again. He is a bit of a dreamboat, isn’t he though?

Norm was answering the man. “No and no.”

“Then what is the purpose of this company?” the stranger continued.

“All I know,” Norm replied with a smile, “is since you’ve gotten here, productivity has gone up three hundred percent!”

Three hundred? That was a startling thought, almost enough to give you a headache. So you’re the reason I’ve had more files on my desk.

The stranger picked up one of said files and flipped through it. “Yes, but what is it that we’re producing?” 

He’s quite interested in figuring out the answer to that question, isn’t he? You felt another pang in your temple. How strange.

Your brows knitted together as you, curious, leaned into the pain a bit. The pain seemed to follow the British employee’s questioning, so you focused on it.

What did they do here anyway?

The harmless pangs quickly turned into a full-blown migraine, similar to what would happen if you thought too hard about your past. You grimaced in pain and reached for your head, only to lose your balance completely and fall forward, into the room you were observing. You hissed as your knees hit solid ground and you braced yourself with one hand while the other gripped the hair closest to your temple. You tried to look around for something else to focus on but your vision was blurry and you couldn’t tell if you were even moving your head.

Then there was shouting, which didn’t help the throbbing pain at all, and you felt what seemed like a hundred pairs of hands grasping at you. You couldn’t understand the yelling other than recognizing the voices as male; you tried to tell them you were alright, shake the hands off and get yourself some space, but nothing in your body seemed to be working quite right. Because of this, the voices and the various hands—or was there just two hands?—didn’t know what you wanted and instead of space, they crowded you. You felt grips on your shoulders and arms, even on your back— Then you were being lifted. Completely off the ground or only to your feet, you couldn’t tell.

Then the hands—only one on your back and another pair holding your arm now—guided you to a place where you could properly sit.

It was quieter now and you could feel the floor beneath your feet and an office chair holding your weight. You realized your eyes were closed so you opened them and you found your vision beginning to refocus. You looked around. 

“Goodness, are you alright?”

You could feel how red your face was—it was probably bright enough to be used as a neon stop sign—when you found yourself staring into a man’s torso. A torso that was quite close. You looked up and directly into the face of the British man, who no longer looked troubled by curiosity but rather quite concerned by you. 

Oh, yes, definitely a dreamboat, you thought without really meaning to.

Then Norm came rushing over, a cup in hand. “[Y/N], are you alright?”

“[Y/N],” the stranger repeated. He took the water cup from Norm, who hovered nearby, and squatted down to be at eye level with you. 

You wouldn’t mind hearing him say your name again.

Good Lord, stop it, you almost passed out!

“That is my name,” you managed. You even managed a definitely awkward smile, a couple of seconds of definitely awkward eye contact.

“Here, you should drink this.” He offered you the cup and once you took it, he pressed the back of his hand to your forehead. “You’re burning up!”

I would imagine so, with how I feel. You sipped the water. Maybe you didn’t look as bad as you thought you did.

“Looks like you’re about to throw up too,” Norm very helpfully added.

Thank you for the commentary, Norm.

“[Y/N],” the other employee said, drawing your scowling gaze back from Norm, “do you have someone you could call? You look ill; perhaps it would serve you well to go home.”

“I’m fine,” you assured him. He did not look convinced but you pushed on, whipping up a quick white lie to cover up your jarring headache. “I didn’t eat this morning and I rushed to work to escape the antsville. I must have gotten overheated on the way and I’m sure an empty stomach helped that. Sorry for worrying—”

“What is going on out here?”

You both jumped to your feet; you moved too fast for having just recovered and stumbled but luckily both Norm and his colleague caught you and straightened you up before you fell over. No one wanted to be seen out of place by the boss and you were currently both out of place and sorts. Even though you knew Mr. Hart already saw you—hell, he was standing directly in front of you three—you glanced around for a place to hide. Instead, you saw files and papers scattered across the floor, the result of your migraine-induced fumbling. You groaned and dropped your head into your hands. 

“Well?”

There was a moment of silence. You felt Norm take a step away from you and you expected the other man to do so as well. He didn’t but you raised your head and squared your shoulders, preparing for the worst.

“Sir—” you started.

“Sir,” the British gentleman interrupted, taking a step forward. “[Y/N] here was walking back to their desk and tripped, and in my haste to help them, I knocked over a pile of files on my desk. I apologize for the racket and the mess I’ve caused; I’ll deal with it right away.”

Mr. Hart looked from him to you to Norm, who was quaking in his nice shoes, then back. There were yet a few more moments of quiet before he spoke again. “Vision.”

Vision?

“Yes, Sir.” 

You glanced at the man to your right. Vision. What an interesting name for an interesting person.

“You better hope dinner tonight goes well after this charade,” Mr. Hart barked. “This better be cleaned up by the next time I come out here.”

Rather than looking upset or stressed, Vision looked relieved. He made a heart with his hands and muttered, “Mr. Hart. Of course…”

“And you,” the boss’s glare now settled on your face. “You were late this morning. In my office. Now.”

“Dammit,” you muttered after Mr. Hart had turned his back. 

“Sorry, don’t think I can help you that one,” Vision chimed in. He was rubbing the back of his head and squinting at Mr. Hart’s back. “You’ll be alright?”

“Promise, it was just a bit of the spins.” You gave him a friendly pat on the arm and made your way to hopefully not get fired. “Nice meeting you!”

“You as well, despite the unfortunate circumstances. Good luck!”

    Mr. Hart was waiting for you by his desk when he entered. He gestured for you to shut the door before he sat and as you did, you saw Vision beginning to clean up your mess before the phone on his desk started ringing.

    “Ugh, I’m exhausted.” You were exiting a shop downtown, squinting against the light of the setting sun. You held the door open with a toe of one shoe while you adjusted the bags on your arms, then moved around to properly hold the door for Agnes, who strolled out after you. “Hart was an absolute villain today! Barks at me for coming in late and not getting work done but then does it for an hour! Well now who’s keeping me? Then this British gent—I swear I’ve never seen him before but he’s apparently the cause of my last few busy work days!”

    “The looker?”

    You blushed a bit; Agnes will never you live it down now that you’ve slipped up and said you’d found the man attractive. “I may have mentioned that earlier—but I digress! As charming as the man was, helping me out even after I knocked over a bunch of his things, he’s still a powerhouse of an employee. Tripled my load of work with his own; now I get what Norm meant when he said productivity has gone up by three times! Imagine, being yelled at by my boss—who was one of the few well-off relationships I’ve had since moving to town—for an hour, and then, when you finally get back to business, your desk is buried in files! I’m barely breathing at this point! Ain’t that just a bite.”

    “Who’s flipped their lid now?” Agnes said with a cheeky grin. You responded with a tired glare and she scoffed. She moved her own bags to one arm so she could give your shoulder a good pat. “Just teasing you, dear! We can’t all be superhuman, unfortunately. Although you’re damn near close; thank you for helping me home, by the way. Ralph had a last-minute “meeting” with some “coworkers” tonight and I’m helping out our new neighbor plan a very important date!”

    That’s right, you had a new neighbor across the street. You’d almost forgotten. You knew there was a reason you’d felt the urge to pick up a small houseplant on your way through the checkout.

    “You have the mouth of a sailor, ‘Nes,” you quipped, cracking a grin.

    “And a drinking tolerance that would put any soldier to shame!” Agnes agreed with a short laugh. After a quick pause, she added, “It’s not like I said ‘fuck.’”

    That time both of you laughed and for the first time since your disastrous day, you felt yourself relax. After bringing up sailors and soldiers, Agnes lept into one of her half-complaint, half-stories about how, one time, her husband Ralph got drunk and tried to fight an entire bar—“Everything including the stools!” While she talked and you escorted her to your car, your mind wandered, curiosity about your new neighbors piqued again. You reached the sidewalk’s curb and helped Agnes stepped down, then opened the vehicle’s passenger door and took her bags. 

    Instead of sliding inside, Agnes watched you as you moved around to the other side of the car and put the bags in the backseat. “You’re a bit of a flutter bum yourself, dear. Look at those manners; you’ve been out and about all day and still came to help me with the groceries! And that voice! Absolute apple butter sometimes, when you want it to be. I’m surprised you aren’t already circled with a couple of children along the way!”

    You snorted as you opened your door and slid behind the wheel. “Just not in my plan, I suppose.” You gestured for her to join you in the car and started it up when she did so. “You didn’t see me today either. Creeping around corners, then these annoying headaches got to me and I was stumbling around knocking down everything! Not to mention the new guy, sweet as pie, saw me do all this and go absolutely red just from looking at him. Sweating, cottonmouth, everything. I must have seemed bonkers! It was awful.”

    Agnes offered, “I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as you think.”

    “I’m sure if he ever sees me again, he’s going to turn heel and walk in the opposite direction,” you stated. Then you shifted into gear, pulled away from the sidewalk, and turned towards home.

    You were in the one room in your house that wasn’t a part of the United Boxes, your bedroom, standing in front of one of the few pieces of furniture you’d managed to unpack since moving in. You fussed over your reflection in the mirror, pushing your damp hair from one side to the other, adjusting your tie one moment then readjusting it the next, holding up various hats and cardigans.

Your casual wardrobe was much more unique than the business attire you kept for work, which was generally neutral in both color and style. Tonight, you wore a collared button-up in a bright pattern of your favorite color paired with a tie that was darker in shade but equally bright in color, and you were debating between various cardigans in complementary colors. The pants you wore were more muted, a neutral color to go with the shiny black dress shoes and good quality belt that you usually only broke out for special social occasions. For a little more pop, you also wore a few colorful bracelets on each wrist and a ring or two. You even added a little more color to your still tired-looking face, despite you feeling much better after a nap, shower, and change of clothes. 

You finally settled on the combination of a brighter colored cardigan a more muted hat to pull your entire look together. Slipping the cardigan on and flattening out any creases, you flashed your mirror self your friendliest smile for practice’s sake. Then you gave yourself a twirl, craning your neck over over your shoulder to make sure everything looked just as nice from the back as the front. 

Now we’re cooking with gas, you thought. Hopefully, the neighbors think so too.

Satisfied, you made your way out to the living room where your outfit-appropriate handbag and housewarming gift waited. The young plant, a pachira, sat in a pot whose color accented the color of the house you were going to visit this evening as opposed to the simple white it’d come in. The pot itself wore a big ribbon bow that you’d attached yourself and sticking out of the soil was a card welcoming the neighborhood’s newcomers. 

Perhaps you’d finally make some friends tonight.

You picked up the plant-based gift in one hand and placed it securely in the crook of your arm, then picked up your handbag in the other and made your ways outdoors. It was a quick walk across the street and once on the neighboring house’s doorstep, you steeled yourself with a deep breath. You smiled, then frowned, then smiled again and repeated this a couple of times to make sure the first smile your neighbors saw wasn’t a strained one and raised your hand to use the oddly realistic-looking lobster door hanger.

Much to your surprise, however, the door opened before your hand ever reached it.

And there, in front of you, looking just as shocked as you felt, was your boss and his wife. 

“Mr— Mr. Hart?” you stammered, stumbling backward and almost dropping the plant under your arm. Remembering the last time you and your boss “conversed,” your friendly face twisted into more of a deer in the headlights look. “Mrs. Hart? What are... What are you doing here? You didn’t just move in, did—?”

“Is there a problem, Mr. and Mrs. Hart?”

Not only did you recognize the Harts but you recognized the British voice that came from behind them and the face that appeared with it. 

“Vision?”

“[Y/N]?”

The two of you stared at each other in surprise. That is until Mr. Hart cleared his throat; he and Mrs. Hart still stood directly in front of you, with Vision unintentionally blocking them from stepping back inside. You yelped an apology and stepped to one side, then had to catch yourself on the doorframe as you almost tripped down the front steps.

“Yes, that’s right,” Mr. Hart said slowly as he stepped outside, giving you a particularly unpleasant look, “[Y/N] here lives in the neighborhood as well. Say, you live directly across the way, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” you responded immediately with a tilt of your head in the direction of your home. Then you glanced over at Vision and raised the pot you held slightly for him to see. “I was just coming over to introduce myself and offer a housewarming gift.”

Mr. Hart gave a strained nod, clearly still out of sorts about your work performance today. “Well, we were just out the door after the first dinner with the Maximoffs.” He made it sound like having dinner with your boss, while important, was something more of a religious experience. 

You hoped Vision did well. 

“He did just fine,” Mrs. Hart piped in.

There you go, accidentally wondering things aloud again.

“Congrats!” you chirped in Vision’s direction. You noted that he seemed as uncomfortable being in this situation as Mr. Hart acted and you felt. Perhaps you should have just visited in the morning.

Out of the group, Mrs. Hart seemed to be the only one unphased. She gave your shoulder a friendly squeeze and complimented your outfit—the one that her husband eyed distastefully—then lowered her voice so only you could hear. “I heard about your little brawl at work today. Don’t get bent too out of shape about my husband’s behavior; he has to work the weekend and he’s about excited as a cat that doesn’t get fed on time. We’re still on for bridge this weekend, right?”

You always liked Mrs. Hart. She was a good counterweight to her ever so charming husband and she always made sure to make you feel at home here in Westview, even if you struggled to do so yourself. You gave her a smile and a nod. “Of course, ma’am. You look stunning tonight, by the way.”

“Charmer.”

As you were talking to Mrs. Hart, Vision settled things with the mister, and things finally seemed to be calming down. However, Vision was wishing the Harts a safe way home, and you gave them a “Good night!” and a wave while wondering if you should just go home yourself, when a clatter came from inside the—what was it?—Maximoff household.

A voice followed, “Vis? Is everything alright out there, dear?”

You felt yourself deflate a bit; you already forgot that Mr. Hart had mentioned Maximoffs. Maximoffs, not one Maximoff. You were somewhat disappointed that, from what it sounded like, your new dashing British acquaintance had a partner, not that it was a surprise. He must have had people throwing themselves at him at one point in his life before he settled on The One and they immediately got married and moved into their cozy-looking, bigger than your own, house. Or, perhaps, maybe he was the awkward one falling all over himself to impress the person of his interest and when they finally picked him, he felt like his heart exploded into a billion heart-shaped butterflies that found their home in his stomach.

Of course you were the only one on the block who was single and living alone.

You wondered if they had kids.

“... come in!”

You zoned back in from being lost in your thoughts to catch only the end of what Vision was saying. He stepped back from the doorway and held the door open for you and looked at you expectantly and, not wanting to make more of a fool of yourself that you already have in front of him today, you made your way inside, just hoping he hadn’t said anything important while you had been wondering about his romantic life. You felt heat on your ears and cheeks.

Vision, on the other hand, didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. Now that the Harts were gone, he appeared much more relaxed, leaning on the door with one leg crossed over the other and even smiling at you as you walked into his spacious and already unpacked living room. 

That was the first time you’ve seen him smile, you noted. He had a very charming smile, one of those that made his eyes smile too and seemed much more in place on his face than any other expression. 

Vision closed the door behind you as you looked around the space with mild surprise—how long have they been moved in? How had they gotten unpacked so fast?—then he gave you a friendly squeeze on the shoulder. It was then that you noticed more clattering coming from behind a door that you assumed belonged to the kitchen.

“If you’ll excuse me for just a moment,” he said, making his way to said door, “As you know, my wife and I just finished dinner with the Harts, and my darling Wanda is doing all the dishes. I’ll tell her to wait a moment and come join us! Do you drink fluids?” You must have looked at him oddly because then he stumbled on his words a bit before clarifying, “Alcohol? Or would you like water, juice?”

He certainly did talk with his hands a lot. You liked the way he clasped his hands and fiddled with his fingers while trying to untangle his words.

“Water’s fine,” you replied with a friendly smile.

Seeing that you weren’t bothered by his slip-up, he smiled back and made his way into the kitchen. Halfway through the door, he chirped over his shoulder, “Please feel free to take a seat! I’ll return momentarily!”

Being alone again for only a few minutes still had you beginning to feel the weight of the day’s chaos again. You placed your housewarming gift on the coffee table and rubbed where the pot had been digging into your arm, then wriggled your toes; because these were shoes for special social occasions only, something you didn’t go to very often, they weren’t very well broke in and your feet were beginning to hurt. 

The clattering in the kitchen had stopped but now the muffled voices of Vision and Wanda, which was somehow comforting. You looked around, taking in the classy but simple room. How on earth they’d managed to get unpacked so fast unless they used a company or stylist or somehow bought the place pre-furnished, you had no idea—well, you had a few, clearly. It was still surprising though. However they managed, you hoped your own living area looked half as nice. When you got around to it.

You perked up again as you heard the kitchen door creak… and then felt like your heart exploded into a billion heart-shaped butterflies that immediately found a home in your stomach.

If Vision was a dreamboat, his wife was a, well, literal vision. Wanda wore a dress that was just as simple and charming as the house she lived in, paired with a pretty necklace and pair of heels. Her curled hair perfectly framed her face and despite appearing as frazzled as Vision had when you first showed up at their doorstep, she wore a smile so gorgeous that your heart, which had apparently recovered from its explosion of butterflies, decided it preferred to do somersaults in your throat.

The pair of them were standing hip to hip with Wanda carrying a set of glasses and Vision a pitcher of water. They were chatting lightly about how well dinner went as they walked into the living room before turning their set of beaming smiles in your direction. 

Your body couldn’t decide whether it wanted to melt, tie itself in knots, or spontaneously combust. You decided to make it stand to properly introduce yourself instead.

Just living in the same neighborhood as these two was going to be cataclysmic. 

“Wanda, darling, this is my coworker [Y/N], the one I told you about earlier this evening.” Vision detached himself from his partner’s side and began snagging glasses from her hands to fill and place on the coffee table as she walked closer. “And [Y/N], this is my wife, Wanda.”

You and Wanda watched him hop around from her to the coffee table and back two more times with amusement, then Wanda looked at you and gave an incredulous shake of her head, offering her hand. “Hi, hon. Don’t mind him; he’s not usually this dancy but dinner with the boss was a bit unexpected on both our parts. I had to pull something together last minute and he’s trying to make up for it.”

“You did so much in such a short amount of time,” Vision added, finally settling on the couch beside Wanda after the two of you shook hands and got seated. “You deserve a break. I can handle filling a few glasses and doing up the dishes.”

“Speaking of which, I hope you got a break yourself, [Y/N].” Wanda’s comment and concerned look made your eyebrows raise with confusion. She elaborated, “Vision mentioned covering for you at work today.”

You flushed slightly and rubbed the side of your neck. Vision noticed and gave you an apologetic look.

“Oh, yes,” you replied, “I get these awful migraines sometimes. One just happened to hit me at a particularly bad time today and I fell and knocked over a bunch of files. Your husband was an angel, did something he absolutely didn’t need to do and said it was all his fault.”

“And yet you got punished anyway,” Vision said, still looking apologetic. He wrung his hands a bit as well; you wanted to hold them to make him stop.

Wanda did instead, giving him the sweetest smile in the process. 

“But if it weren’t for you,” you chirped, “I may have just gotten fired. So I have to thank you for that. And I can’t imagine how that may have affected your dinner tonight, if I had known you were having the big boss dinner tonight, I wouldn’t have let you. I’m so sorry, by the way, for barging in immediately after your dinner, too; you two must be exhausted!”

“Oh, nonsense,” Wanda piped up again. She patted you on the wrist; you kind of wished she’d left her hand there but she went to pick up her water instead. “Dinner went quite well actually, if not a bit ill-planned. We had a bit of a misunderstanding of what the calendar said.” She gave Vision a playful glare and he responded with a bashful smile that he tried to hide by running a hand over his face.

“I drew a heart, for Hart,” he explained. “We forgot and thought we missed an anniversary instead.”

You thought back to when Mr. Hart mentioned the dinner at the office and Vision had made a heart with his hands, then tried to suppress a grin of your own. “That’s an easy misunderstanding. Happy to hear I’m not the only one good with planning, though, no offense.”

“Well, maybe you two should be married.” Wanda glanced between the two of you, the playful look in her dark eyes paired with her suggestion making your throat dry.

“You couldn’t remember it either, darling,” Vision countered, giving her a peck on the forehead, “If that’s the case, maybe all three of us were meant to be.”

You went to swallow and ended up having to suppress a choke. You reached for your glass, only to see it empty—when did you do that?—but Wanda was quick to refill it.

You gave her a sheepish smile and soft “Thanks” in return, took a drink and decided to play along. “That would explain why we ended up living directly across from the street and why I’ve been single almost my entire life.” 

You mentally kicked yourself for mentioning that last part and coming off way too desperate. However, when you glanced the couple’s way, Vision was chuckling, and Wanda was giving an understanding nod with a pleased look on her face. Maybe she thought her joke was going to hit wrong? Maybe it hadn’t been a joke?

Don’t get your hopes up, you thought.

Then Wanda spoke again. “You must be joking. You’re living on your own in that house?”

    You shrugged and responded, “I have a fish.”

    “I’m sure they’re wonderful conversation,” Wanda quipped back. 

    “No romantic interest in sight?” Vision asked. 

    Well, I wouldn’t say that but I’m certainly not going into that right now. You shook your head and decided to shift the conversation to a topic that was less likely to make you feel, if either or both of them did happen to ask you to marry them at that very moment, as if you would immediately throw yourselves at them. “Speaking of houses and all that, what a coincidence that we happen to find each other living next door the same day we meet. That’s what I originally came over to do, introduce myself to my neighbors and give you a housewarming gift.”

    You gestured to the pachira on the coffee table and Wanda reached over to touch its leaves, then used Vision’s still-full water glass to water it. “That’s right. It is a lovely plant, thank you very much. I think it will look nice in the kitchen, or perhaps over by the window.” 

    “It’s supposed to bring good luck to the house,” you offered, “and red ribbons are often associated with it but I’m not sure why.”

    “Well here’s to good luck then,” Wanda said, clinking Vision’s empty cup with your half-full one. She read the card you’d attached, smiled, then picked up the plant and offered it to her husband. “Here, dear. Since you’re taking on the role of house-husband tonight, why not take this and see how it looks over by the window.”

    Vision was already standing and taking the plant from her hands before she finished her sentence. “Of course, darling. Tell me where you think it looks nice.” Then he added to you as he walked by, “I may be skilled many things, like filling out computational forms, but the interior decorating is all her. I’m practically color-blind. And furniture-blind. And generally design-blind. Possibly blind-blind, if I’m being honest.”

    Wanda rolled her eyes but she still giggled, then pointed out where she thought the plant would look best. It was off to one side of the window and she explained that she thought it would be visible from your window as well, and thus give both houses good luck. 

    “Maybe it will give me the luck to finally unpack and decorate like you two already have,” you pondered allowed, finishing off your water a second time; Wanda promptly offered to fill your cup again but you politely declined. “The two of you have been here, what? At least a few days now and your home is already made in the shade. I’ve been here in Westview a month if not more and I usually spend my time lounging on a couch made of crates and boxes.” 

    You noticed Vision glance oddly at his wife as he sat back down but Wanda didn’t seem to catch it. Still, she answered quite quickly, “We used a company.”

    “Ah.” You glanced between them but the strained energy that suddenly appeared just as quickly as it came when Wanda gave you another sweet smile and offered to write down the company name for you. “No need, I couldn’t afford it anyway. Thank you, though.”

    That response didn’t seem to please Wanda all that much. She pursed her lips in a way that looked partially pondering and partially pouty—it was a very cute pout—before leaning over to Vision and muttering in his ear. His attention was immediately drawn to focus only on her and they chatted quietly among themselves for a few moments.

    You suddenly felt awkward again and took to looking around a bit. You first looked at your feet and noticed how close one of Wanda’s own was to yours; in fact, the three of you were sitting so close together that her dress poofed out over your leg. Then you happened to look over at where your arm was resting across the back of the couch. Vision’s was too and you suddenly became keenly aware of how, if he were to start talking with his hands like he does, his would most definitely brush your own. You wondered if it already had while you were too engrossed in conversation to notice, then you wondered if you should move farther to the other side of the couch.

    You began shifting to do so when Wanda suddenly leaned back to her normal spot and grabbed your wrist. “Why don’t we come over sometime this weekend and help you unpack?”

    You blinked. She seemed closer than she had been earlier, or maybe it was just the fact that hand hadn’t pulled away yet. Her eyes were as bright and welcoming as they had been since you first saw them, eyebrows raised in what you could only place as eagerness, and you officially decided that if you were to look up the word “sweet” in a dictionary, there’d be a picture of her smile.

    You were so suddenly flustered that for a moment all you did was stare while you figured out how to talk again. When you did, you were surprised at confident your voice sounded when you replied, “Sure.”

    “Great!”

    Wanda and Vision looked equally excited when you looked at them both, which confused you before you remembered that you were only the second person from the neighborhood to visit them since they moved in. Thinking of it now, you were also feeling energetic from the conversation and not just because you happened to be sitting next to a very attractive-looking pair. This was the first time you sat down with people from the neighborhood and it did not only go well but you were thoroughly enjoying yourself; you also enjoyed spending time with Agnes but Agnes was just outwardly friendly to everybody and even if you ran out of things to say, she had enough stories to add filler to seven different conversations at the same time. Wanda and Vision seemed to be just as awkward as you, making unusual jokes that might not make it through and fumbling over themselves and on occasion just being awkwardly silent at times, but it was a weird kind of awkwardness that also felt comfortable, comforting. You felt like you were among friends. 

    Conversation flowed easily for the rest of the night. The three of you made plans to spend the next day at your place, unpacking and decorating and just getting to know each other better, then conversation shifted smoothly from one random topic to another. Wanda had a lot of questions about the neighborhood and the people in it and she and you swapped stories of first meeting Agnes. You were somewhat fascinated with Vision’s almost eidetic memory and couldn’t help quizzing him on random subjects but luckily, he seemed to be just as eager to answer. Wanda mentioned Vision’s ability to play ukulele at one point and he felt is was absolutely necessary to perform and after mentioning Wanda’s breakfast cooking ability—and your stomach grumbling in curiosity—she brought you to the kitchen and made the best breakfast you’d ever had, despite it not being morning, while Vision kept to his word and washed the dishes. Eventually, though, the night caught up to the each of you and you said your goodbyes, hugs included, at the door and you headed back home with a goofy grin on your face. 

    Upon getting home, you kicked off your shoes that you’d long since forgotten were causing your feet pain and went to your bedroom. You quickly stripped, put on your bedwear, and faceplanted onto your sheets. You laid there for a moment in comfortable bliss before turning your head and catching yourself in the mirror. Though looking utterly exhausted, it was mixed an almost childish happiness. You finally felt content in Westview, like you’d finally found your place. 

    You scrambled around to get under the covers and curled up. Quickly dozing off and still grinning, you muttered, “I think I’ll like it here.”