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kaediisarchive · 4 years ago

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Final thoughts on the 2021 Mortal Kombat movie.

LOTS of spoilers under the cut! Do not look at this post if you don’t want to see spoilers!

And remember, this is all just my opinion. It’s not like an actual in-depth review because I’m not a film student; this is just my perspective on what I saw as a fan of this franchise.

POSITIVE

Sub-Zero and Scorpion were great. Opening fight was great.

“Eddy Tobias” namedrop lmao

I love the snow preceding Sub-Zero’s attack. Very foreboding.

Score is AWESOME. My favorite soundtrack is probably the one that plays when Sub-Zero is attacking them in the city towards the beginning.

Sonya rigging her house with a secret bunker and trap doors is smart and fits her character.

I like that the dragon logo has an integral meaning to the story.

Loved Jax vs Sub-Zero. Not mad about the origin change of Jax’s arms. I like that he had to work through his feelings of inadequacy and failure; people don’t just immediately bounce back after something that traumatic. I also like that his arcana manifests to protect Sonya rather than in the heat of battle. It shows his emotional priorities and what separates him from people like Kano who manifest their arcana in a fit of rage.

Sonya “Throw Hands on Sight” Blade lmfao. They nailed her fighting style too and I am happy.

Kano is the best thing about this movie. No competition.

Kotal reference!

Nightwolf reference!

Shang Tsung’s soul magic being black and wispy and foreshadowing Noob Saibot.

KANO DID THE HEART RIP

CHEKOV’S GNOME I’M SCREAAAAAAMMMMIIIIIINNNNGGGGGG

I love Liu Kang in this. He is 1000000% a Wholesome Boi. I like that he’s younger and unhardened and not the fully realized champion version of his character yet. Let him grow into it so it feels earned later on. I like that he’s the underdog, and I like what they’ve set up for him in the future. Also, the casting for him was perfect and they nailed his fighting style, too.

That little “the FUCK” that the Kano actor improvised(?) in the middle of Liu Kang’s lines made me laugh more than it should have. I don’t know why that moment got to me so much but it did.

I love Kung Lao. And they nailed his fighting style, too! Great to see variation that represents the characters (though there were less shining examples, which I’ll touch on later).

LOW SWEEP! LOW SWEEP! LOW SWEEP!

Egg roll scene is best scene.

Kabal! I love his dry humor. And his voice reminds me of Duke Nukem, which I’m not mad about. It complemented his dialogue well.

Not mad about Kung Lao’s death because it was meaningful. His fatality on Nitara was sick, too.

Liu Kang taking the ribbon from Kung Lao’s hat and wearing it in his honor, giving an origin for his signature headband is FANTASTIC.

THE PIT!

FLYING BICYCLE KICKS!

LIU KANG’S DRAGON FATALITY!

SONYA’S ENERGY RINGS!

Sub-Zero was a GREAT final boss. They really built him up appropriately to make him feel like it.

Scorpion’s fatality! And his skull face!

NEUTRAL

Not sure how I feel about Sub-Zero being wholly evil and there being no involvement from Quan Chi. It’s more straight forward for sure. It makes him an interesting (and badass) character, and I’m really behind this portrayal in that he is one of the most believable characters in the movie, but I’m not sure if I like the implications for later films in how this has simplified the dynamic in the entire Shirai Ryu vs Lin Kuei plotline. Having Quan Chi be the Machiavelli was always one of my favorite MK twists. And how do we eventually end the feud now? If Bi-Han / the Lin Kuei were wholly responsible, why should Hanzo EVER make peace with Kuai Liang down the line? The complexity feels like it’s been stripped down a bit, but I do love this iteration of Sub-Zero. I truly do. That’s why this is in the neutral category and not the negative XD.

Why didn’t Jax tell Cole when he saw the mark? Why wait until his family gets attacked? Maybe he didn’t want to do it in front of his family to keep them out of it, but that ends up endangering them more. Not a gripe, just a curiosity.

Sound editing was a bit too intense at times for my taste. I have tinnitus, so...big boomy bass with very mild voices is a chore for my ears to switch between. My ears were ringing within the first twelve minutes.

Torn between “fuck you Reiko” and “Reiko deserved better”. He deserved just a little bit better, but Skarlet says “get fucked” anyway.

I don’t like the “shaky cam” used in the fight scenes. Not my cup of tea. Very hard to visually process at times.

Whatever cosmic force is picking the champions for Earthrealm is doing a shitty job at it.

Why did they change the location of the Sky Temple to a desert? Again, not a gripe, a curiosity.

“We will not see another full moon before the tournament begins” THEN WHERE IS THE TOURNAMENT BUDDY???

Not sure how I feel about the “arcana” concept. It’s an okay plot device but kinda hammy.

Kitana’s fan! But why? Why is it there? I could understand the Kotal and Nightwolf references because Sonya has been researching, but why is Kitana’s fan randomly in an Earthrealm temple? Purely cheap fanservice.

Nitara was really cool. Shame she had to die, but her death was cool and there have to be some characters that get killed off. Wish she had more screentime though; feels like another instance of fanservice just having her show up basically as a namedrop and a quick kill.

The phrase “Are you okay?” was said WAY too much in this film. So much that I actually notices how often it was said, and I usually don’t pick up on these things.

Pretty sure a camera operator fell at one point in a Sonya scene because the camera jerked around violently all of the sudden then stabilized. Whoops.

How did Sub-Zero know to take Cole’s family to the gym? WHY did he take them there?

NEGATIVE

Opening scene was awesome, but it’s emotional impact felt stunted. I feel like the order of events should have been twisted a bit. Hanzo find his wife and son should have been the big emotional climax of the scene, but it felt like a passing moment and gave him no time to mourn and no time for the impact to truly set in with me. It was an “oh no they died” moment instead of an “ OH MY GOD THEY DIED THIS IS SO FUCKED FUCK YOU SUB-ZERO” moment. I dare say that the Legacy web series did it better in spite of their lower budget and overall quality; the series of events had better pacing and gave more emotional impact because of it. I said what I fucking said don’t @ me.

Wish we got more Scorpion. I love Sanada, I love him as Scorpion, but they didn’t give us the time we needed with his character to truly get a grasp of him.

Cole Young is like white bread in a parade of decorative cakes.

Raiden, a normally passionate and protective character whose fatal flaw is that he involves himself too much in events because he cares about the people in his realm and ends up fucking things up because of it, now seems to not care in the slightest. He feels completely uninvolved save for an occasional pop in to give a nod of disapproval. I don’t like this unemotional take on one of the most emotional characters in Mortal Kombat.

Small complaint from my perspective as a martial artist but uh...”Throw your uppercut!” was a bullshit line in a bullshit scene. If you’re locked up with someone like that and the guy has his arms around your neck, you physically cannot uppercut. You cannot fit your arms between his arms because they are cinched tightly around your shoulders/neck. YOUR HEAD is between your fist + bicep and HIS HEAD. In that situation, the guy has also left his body completely unguarded, so the most logical thing to do since you CANNOT reach his head is to go for BODY BLOWS. Beat him until he lets go to protect himself, catch his floating rib with double strikes, or punch the dude in his fucking liver as hard as you can to DROP HIM. Cole is supposed to be an experienced fighter, yet he makes one of the most rookie mistakes a fighter could ever make. Normally I wouldn’t care to point out mistakes in fight choreography or whatever because it’s MK and I expect ridiculousness, but this is the WRONG kind of ridiculous. It’s just NONSENSE.

I have SO MANY issues with Mileena. I’ll make this as short as I can. I don’t like the design of her mouth. I don’t like her weird stacked voice. She shows NO personality, not in her acting or even her fighting style, just an evil minion that got angry because she almost got her ass kicked. The turned one of the principle characters of the entire franchise and a fan favorite into a GRUNT. There is NO mention of Kitana outside of literal “fan”-service. Not even a reference to one of the most important plotlines in all of Mortal Kombat. And then they KILL HER OFF!!! When they do inevitably bring in Kitana WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY GOING TO DO SINCE THEY KILLED OFF MILEENA???? I’m heated and biased and they did my girl dirty.

Speaking of doing characters dirty, poor Reptile. They turned him into an actual animal. What a waste.

Why are they so mean to Sonya if she doesn’t have a mark? She wouldn’t be as much of a “liability” if they would take the time to prepare her and teach her how to defend against fighters that have unlocked their arcana. Mind-numbingly stupid logic.

This movie relies A LOT on prerequisite knowledge to work. It’s like they want fans to fill in the blanks for them. But not everyone watching is already a fan; this isn’t an obscure release, this is a blockbuster movie released worldwide. These gaps in lore and prior knowledge don’t make sense for such a broad audience.

Cole Young literally could have just been Johnny Cage.

Where was Raiden when his temple was being assaulted?

Cole’s arcana is LITERAL PLOT ARMOR IM FUCKING DONE

No but for real that’s the most boring decision they just ripped off Jax’s MK11 heater effect and Baraka’s blades (I know they’re tonfa and they aren’t attached and I DON’T CARE). Also, now he’s suddenly good at fighting again? After being dog shit this entire movie??? And tanks Goro?????

If Raiden is an Elder God in this continuity, why is he allowed to help Earthrealm AT ALL? It seems like favoritism and bends the rules that the Elder Gods are supposedly bound by way too much. They really just shouldn’t have made him an Elder God; I honestly think they just said it to introduce the concept without a fuck given towards the actual lore of the Elder Gods.

WHY DID RAIDEN TELEPORT KANO TO SONYA’S HOUSE AFTER HE BETRAYED THEM I HAD TO REWATCH THAT SEVERAL TIMES TO MAKE SURE I JUST SAW WHAT I SAW WHAT THE ACTUAL NONSENSICAL FUCK

Cole REALLY should not have been involved in that last fight. Especially not after Scorpion shows up. It should have been Scorpion vs Sub-Zero ONLY for the final fight. Cole tag-teaming Sub-Zero with Scorpion cheapens Scorpion’s revenge.

Camera work in the final fight was not good, especially in the first portion. At one point Cole gets thrown into a fence, but it cuts to an awkward inverse angle that makes him look like he’s bouncing off of a trampoline. This continues to happen and ruins several shots for me.

Honestly Scorpion should have just possessed Cole. Permanently. No switching back and forth. No more Cole, only Scorpion.

PREDICTIONS

Lots of dead characters come back as revenants and / or with upgrades.

Kano comes back with cyber eye.

Mileena comes back with full teeth.

Liu Kang becomes MK champion, wins tournament, and kills Shang Tsung. As it should be.

Cole Young helps Liu Kang become champion somehow idk maybe he sacrifices himself or something just please don’t make Cole the champion I will start a riot.

Next movie will start IMMEDIATELY at the tournament since there was supposedly less than a month until the tournament starts in this movie.

New characters coming in will be Kitana, Shao Kahn, Jade, Quan Chi, Kuai Liang, Noob Saibot, Ermac, and Johnny Cage.

OVERALL

This movie was good, bloody fun! It’s not an A++ Oscar-winner, but if you expected that going into it, you played yourself. It was Mortal Kombat; it was stupid, it was gory, and I had a blast watching it. Kano and Liu Kang were the best parts of the movie for me, with Scorpion and Sub-Zero tied for third. Also I popped a lot for the cheap nostalgia hits. I’m overall satisfied with what we got in spite of my complaints, and I only complain so in-depth about the things I love lmao so trust me when I say I’m not actually mad, just nitpicky. I’ve watched it twice now, and I would watch it again. It’s like a 6.8/10 for me.

#mortal kombat spoilers #mk movie spoilers #spoilers tw #[ooc]

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et-lesailes · 5 years ago

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mellifluous // rhee’s 1k celebration

details on rhee’s 1k celebration ! SPOTS STILL OPEN !

pairing: chris evans x celeb!reader

word count: 2160

summary: you are a singer and actress working with chris on a rom com, and while the two of you are only vibing for now, he makes his move on the jimmy fallon show for all the world to see after a fun segment of google translate songs.

themes: fluff, comedy, romance

taglist: @viarogers , @evanstush , @chibi-crazy , @chalamet-evans , @world-of-losers , @songforhema, @sebabestianstan101 , @tanyam93 , @bval-1, @wonderwinchester , @little-miss-exo, @poerebel , @pining-and-tired , @gogomez-509 , @patzammit, @a-distantdreamer, @malthestorytellerblog, @rainbowkisses31, @jbug491writinghelp, @quaiderade, @melannie77, @gigistorm, @lille-kattunge, @teller258316, @rohaintahquil, @deidrashouseofpain, @firstangeldragonranch, @peach-acid, @allsortsofinterests, @xoxabs88xox

note: finally getting around to my 1k celebration requests, and this very first one was submitted by @raveviolet! i took a pretty different approach to this one. this fic is based off this jimmy fallon segment and these are the songs i used in order-- tbh i’d recommend watching these videos, they’re hilarious! one // two // three. in this fic, the words in italics are the actual lyrics and the words in bold are the translated ones.

GIF:

As co-stars in an upcoming rom com, you and Chris were currently on Jimmy Fallon to promote your new movie and you were excited. You had been on his show a couple of times before and each time had been great; it felt like fun rather than working or some boring interview. Now you could share the fun with Chris, the man who had come to be a very close friend over the past few months of filming and… perhaps something more? You had told yourself you wouldn’t let your roles impact your feelings. Yes, you played a couple in the film, but that did not mean you could automatically be compatible in real life. However, after spending so much time together off camera, it really felt like he was perfect for you. Funny, kind hearted, sincere, dedicated, always positive-- you could go on for hours about all of his good traits. Even better, you had a feeling he may have felt the same about you. Your relationship had started to become a little more flirtatious these past few weeks, and you had been spending a lot more time together. At the same time, you did not want to focus too much on trying to date him or get serious; it was also important to you that you maintain a good friendship first, and so you were perfectly fine with taking it slow and simply going through a “vibing” period with him.

“Alright, guys, we’re going to start our next segment. To those of you who have watched before, I’m sure you’re familiar with the game Google Translate Songs! Y/N, you recently released your latest album and it was a hit, so I’m sure you’ll kill this game. And Chris, you’re a pretty decent singer yourself, aren’t you? Don’t you even sing a little bit for this movie?” Jimmy asked as he turned to the actor, and he chuckles, nodding in response. “I do sing a little here and there-- I used to be very much into theater when I was younger, and as most people know I absolutely love musicals, so I dabble in singing every now and then-- just not professionally, like Y/N. She’s absolutely amazing, her voice is angelic.” He complimented you, and you smiled happily, playfully fanning your cheeks in an exaggerated flattered gesture. “Well, thank you! And I love this segment of the show, oh my God it’s so funny.” You giggled, fingers adjusting around the mic you had received for it.

Jimmy explained the rules of the game for those who did not know. A popular American song Google translated to another language and then back to English would result in very different, often funny and nonsensical lyrics that would then be sung by the show’s guests and Jimmy. For instance, “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” when translated into Croatian and then back would become, “The Evening Show that Plays Jimmy Fallon”. You were already smiling in amusement thinking of how funny the songs that had been arranged would be, shifting to sit on your knees on the couch due to the position causing for better vocals.

“Alright, Chris, how about you start us off?” Jimmy suggested, and the actor laughed but nodded his head, getting more comfortable. “Oh man, alright, I’m ready. What song do I get?” Jimmy looked towards the screen and clapped his hands in amusement. “My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion!” Chris laughed even louder as the audience howled loudly, looking around. “Celine, I’m sorry in advance.” He playfully apologized to the camera before turning slightly to look to the screen where the lyrics would display. Jimmy nodded towards the band and they started to play, Chris beginning to sing the skewed words to the tune as best as he could.

“(Every night in my dreams) Every night in my painting cream

(I see you I am agradable to you

(I feel you) Beethoven

(That is how I know you go on) I know I know you

(Far across the distance) Remote

(And spaces between us) And there was a gap between us

(You have come to show you go on) I showed you

(Near) Off

(Far) Yes

(Wherever you are) Check it out

(I believe that the heart does go on) If you have a heart valve”

The music stopped and everyone burst out into laughter; Chris had already been stifling laughs as he had been singing, and if anything, you were impressed that he had been able to hold it in for so long. “Where did Beethoven come from?!” you exclaimed in amusement, clapping your hands as you continued laughing, almost getting breathless. “I have no idea,” Chris was gasping out in between loud laughs, instinctively reaching his hand out to grab your left boob, though only hitting your arm because you were covering your face with your hands. After everyone had finally calmed down, Jimmy turned to you with a smile. “Your turn, Y/N! Are you ready?” You giggled as you wiped around your eyes as lightly as you could to avoid ruining your makeup, nodding. “Oh God. Yes, what song do I get?”

“We’re going to get a little festive here. I’m pretty sure almost everyone knows this song-- All I Want for Christmas is You, by Mariah Carey!”

You smiled in excitement as the band started playing, looking towards the screen brightly as you began to sing.

“(I don’t want a lot for Christmas) I do not get a lot of Christmas gifts

(There is just one thing I need) I only have one

(I don’t care about the presents) I do not care about the price, please

(Underneath the Christmas tree) Christmas tree festival

(I just want you for my own) Simply want to own

(More than you could ever know) Perhaps more imagination

(Make my wish come true) Make my wish become a reality

(All I want for Christmas is you) I want for Christmas is you~

It was already hard for you not to laugh, but while you were so focused on singing, you did not notice the way Chris was looking at you in pure and utter awe and fascination. He had always loved hearing you sing, and even though this was meant to be a comedic segment, his breath was still taken away with how beautiful you sounded, though he was laughing at the same time simply because of how messed up the lyrics were. You continued on with the chorus,

“(I don’t want a lot for Christmas) Do not get a lot of Christmas gifts

(There is just one thing I need) I only have one

(I don’t care about the presents) I am a duck

(Underneath the Christmas tree) In the shade of a tree

(I don’t need to hang my stocking) No need to interrupt my tights

(There upon the fireplace) There is no air conditioning

(Santa Claus won’t make me happy) Santa, you are not satisfied

(With a toy on Christmas day) Birthday other Diploflix sports

(I just want you for my own) I want to be alone

(More than you could ever know) Click here for more information”

You finally stopped, unable to help but laugh loudly, the band pausing in their playing. “Wait, what?!” you exclaimed loudly, looking towards the screen with a giggle. “How did these lyrics change from the first verse?” Jimmy laughed too, shrugging playfully. “We used a different language halfway through! Why’d you stop, it was so great!” At this point, Chris was practically cracking up, clapping his hands as he beamed widely. “There is no air conditioning,” he repeated through his laughter, finding the particular quote hilarious, shaking his head as he clapped you on the shoulder. “Man, I don’t know how you did all of that with a straight face.”

“Well, you better get ready to do it yourself, Chris, because it’s time for you and Y/N to do a duet!” Jimmy said with a playfully devious grin, arching an eyebrow. “I take it you two know the Aladdin soundtrack pretty well? Especially you, Chris, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard you know the entire soundtrack.”

“Hell, yeah I do. What are we doing, “A Whole New World”?” he guessed, and Jimmy nodded, making you squeal in excitement. “I love that one!” you spoke happily, sitting straighter once more and glancing to him with a giggle. “You ready?” He laughed and squeezed your thigh lightly and briefly, nodding his head. “Oh, of course. I was born for this. Let’s go.” Taking the part of Aladdin, he began,

“(I can show you the world) I can add it the clarity of the world

(Shining, shimmering) Shiny, shiny

(Splendid) Large

(Tell me, princess) Now when I want to talk to princess

(Now when did you last let your heart decide) Finally decided to make up your mind

(I can open your eyes) I can turn in your eyes

(Take you wonder by wonder) You’re a miracle band

(Over, sideways, and under) The assailants of cross and in-low

(On a magic carpet ride) In a tour carpet magic

(A whole new world) A new entire world!

(A new fantastic point of view) Please check the new dreamlike point

(No one to tell us no) Does not say us not

(Or where to go) Or I’ll go there

(Or say we’re only dreaming) No say that that separates some dreams

You kept a straight face as best as you could, now ready to sing your part as Jasmine.

“(A whole new world) A completely new world!

(A dazzling place I never knew) A stunning location where I did not know

(But now from way up here) But here all the way

(It’s crystal clear) It’s glittering and translucent

(That now I’m in a whole new world with you) That now a new world and I wish you I’m”

The music ended and the two of you started cracking up, especially at the last part that ended so abruptly. You loved how both of you could find these silly, stupid things so hilarious; you had the feeling that both of you wouldd be binge watching Jimmy Fallon’s Google Translate Songs together later on in the night once you were going home from this show. “Man, I’ve been singing Disney songs all wrong this whole time,” Chris joked, earning laughter from Jimmy and the audience. Looking towards you, he smiled as he added, “but damn, hearing Y/N sing was still just as amazing as ever. You are really talented, you know that?” You couldn’t help but blush but smiled as you genuinely returned the compliment, “You’re a good singer too, you know! Maybe we should do a collab one of these days…”

The audience cheered loudly at that and all of you laughed again, Chris playfully leaning over to give you a squeeze. “The fact that you want to do a collab with me is flattering in itself. Thank you.” Jimmy chuckled as he watched, arching an eyebrow. “You know, you two seem pretty close in general. Is there something we should know about…?” You were about to say something but Chris suddenly spoke up instead, smoothly replying, “I mean, there could be in the near future, if Y/N agrees to the date I was going to ask her on tonight…”

You were practically speechless, which was for the best at the moment anyways given the loud gasps and cheers arising from the audience; looking to him in shock, you giggled slightly, biting your lip. “Um, yeah, of course I’m gonna go on a date with you, why would I ever say no to that?” You practically blurted out, and everyone was clapping their hands, even giving a standing ovation to support the two of you. You could see how happy he was, but you definitely were not expecting what he did next.

“Do you think you’d say no to a kiss, then?” he asked innocently, and you widened your eyes. You weren’t even sure how to verbally respond, but the light blush on your cheeks and the way you bit your lip gave him all the answer he needed.

Leaning in, he framed one side of your face and gave you a gentle and loving kiss right then and there, in front of the audience and for all the world watching to see. You kissed him back immediately, no hesitation in your mind as you did so, smiling against his lips as you brought your own hands up to lightly touch the sides of his neck. Even Jimmy was cheering now, clapping his hands in support of the two of you, though you could barely even hear him or the audience; you were far too lovestruck now, already in way too deep as you pulled back to look into Chris’ beautiful blues, but you had a feeling that this was the best choice of your life.

#chris evans x reader #chris evans fluff #chris evans imagine #chris evans fanfiction #chris evans x you #rhee's 1k celebration #i'm sorry if this is a little confusing???#but it took 5 years to edit holy shit #so i'm really hoping it all made sense

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mst3kproject · 4 years ago

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Sorority Girl

It can be hard to find this specific movie, since several others have been made with the same title, even as recently as the nineties. Us MSTies, however, demand the original – the one with Susan Cabot and June Kenney from The Viking Women and the Sea Serpent and Dick Miller from Gunslinger and It Conquered the World. It was produced and directed by the reliably awful Roger Corman, and Ms. Cabot has apparently said in interviews that they didn’t really have a script, just a list of stuff that was supposed to happen. Sorority Girl is a step up from Curse of Bigfoot, but that’s praise so faint that you’d need the Hubble Space Telescope to pick it out.

College student Sabra is a colossal bitch and nobody likes her. Unsurprisingly, the only person who doesn’t understand the correlation between these two facts is Sabra herself. Determined that others should suffer the way she has, she plays her sorority sisters against each other until her mind games drive one of them to attempt suicide. Then I think she drowns herself. The end.

On a technical level, Sorority Girl looks and sounds very nice – the photography is crisp and the blocking and direction, while nothing spectacular, tell us what we need to know. You can tell who’s who and remember everybody’s names, and the costume designer did a good job of suggesting everybody’s personalities and goals through their clothing. The soundtrack puts both music and silence to pretty good use. The only glaring flaw in the film itself is a scene in which the sound of rolling waves almost drowns out the dialogue, but that might just be my sound system.

It’s sufficiently well put-together that it makes me kind of angry, because all that relative competence is in the service of this nasty, depressing movie that hates everybody and everything. Watching it makes you feel like you need a shower. The movie is here to show us women being horrible and spanking each other (no, really), but it’s not even over-the-top enough to be any fun.

I don’t understand who we’re supposed to root for in this movie. It can’t be Sabra herself, because she’s thoroughly horrible and there’s not even any reason for her to be doing what she does. It’s not like the others have wronged her in any way – if they had, perhaps we could take some nasty joy in her revenge but we can’t. If the rest of the girls had any sort of spine we could root for them, but they’re nonentities. Future student president Rita stands up tall in front of voters but is a pushover in a crunch. Shy Ellie is nothing but Sabra’s punching bag and we feel sorry for her but she’s too pathetic to actually like. Troubled Tina is pregnant and we feel for her predicament but she, too, is more an object of pity than a heroine. Sabra’s mother seems to love her but doesn’t understand what she needs.

Sabra’s motivations remain a mystery even to herself. She makes various excuses for them throughout the movie – she claims she wants revenge on Rita’s boyfriend Mort for snubbing her. She gets Tina to join her in her blackmail scheme because she says they both need money. At the end she yells at everybody, saying she was driven to this because they wouldn’t let her into their clique. No sort of excuse is ever given for her appalling cruelty to Ellie, who really does seem to look up to her. In Sabra’s own words, she just feels driven to hurt people and doesn’t know why.

All her schemes fail anyway. She doesn’t manage to take Mort away from Rita. She doesn’t manage to get the money she tries to blackmail him for. She doesn’t even succeed in staying out of trouble for the shit she’s already pulled, since at the end everybody gets together, agrees she’s terrible, and turns her in. We’re left feeling like this whole story went by and nothing was ever accomplished. The other characters’ stories don’t come to any conclusion either. We don’t find out if Rita won the election or if she and Mort will get married. We don’t find out what’s going to happen to Tina other than that her parents are coming to pick her up. We don’t find out if Ellie got a life. Everything is just left dangling.

It is never explicit how old any of these characters are supposed to be, but both Sabra and Tina are said to be financially dependent on their parents, and the movie seems to be going for some sort of statement about young people getting into trouble when unsupervised, so I’m going to assume they’re undergraduates. All the actors are, of course, about thirty. Some of them, like June Kenney as Tina, look younger. Some, like Barbara Cowan as Ellie, are trying to look younger and failing. Others, like Dick Miller as Mort, look older. The biggest casting mistake was forty-year-old Fay Baker as Sabra’s mother. She’s just barely old enough to have a college-aged child, but Susan Cabot is in no way young enough to be that child. I could buy Baker as Cabot’s stepmother, but when she’s supposed to be her actual mother I just keep thinking of Space Mutiny.

Perhaps it’s not fair to complain about Mort’s age, since he manages the campus pub and may not be a student. If that’s the case, though, it does make one wonder about his relationship with undergraduate Rita… and the string of prior student girlfriends he’s mentioned… so let’s just not go there.

We get hints that Sabra may be mentally ill. She seems to be upset by her own inability to stop doing terrible things, and at one point reaches out to her mother for help. Her mother assumes she just wants money, and brushes her off. Perhaps we’re meant to think Sabra feels ignored and powerless, and therefore seeks power in whatever form she can get it. We’re probably supposed to feel sorry for her but other than the one visit to her mother she never seems to make any real attempt to better herself. She gives up, goes back to school, and resumes trying to ruin everybody’s life. It’s really quite appropriate that the movie is bookended by Sabra sitting on the beach whining about how she wishes she could start over, because it ends exactly where it began. Sabra is still a colossal bitch and nobody likes her.

If this movie were going to have any sort of punch, I really think it needed to be just a tiny bit longer. Rather than watching Sabra just sit and cry on the seashore, we needed to see her face the consequences of her actions, whether that was arrest, expulsion, disownment, or some combination of the above. Her implied suicide is just a means whereby both she and the writers can avoid any thought of consequences, and is inherently unsatisfying.

Watching the movie for the first time, I really expected Tina to jump and for the truth to come out only after she was dead. Realizing she had somebody’s blood on her hands might have been enough to shock Sabra out of her self-absorbed haze and actually try to be a better person, only to find it was far too late. That this does not happen is in some ways a relief, but it also kind of feels like the movie chickened out. Tina dying would certainly not have made Sorority Girl into a good movie, but it would have been a far more impactful one.

On the other hand, Tina not dying includes the single detail in this entire movie that I actually liked. Throughout the movie, Tina has been sitting on her terrible secret and wondering what to do about it. She never tells a soul – Sabra only finds out because Ellie, Tina’s room-mate, heard her talking in her sleep – out of fear that she’ll be branded a slut and treated as an outcast. Such was the 50’s. Certainly the thought of telling her parents never even seems to occur to her.

But the movie never treats the situation as Tina’s fault. Her pregnancy is not a punishment as Paula’s was in The Violent Years, it’s just a problem that exists and one Tina isn’t coping with very well. Other than Sabra, everybody who finds out about it takes steps to help. Ellie immediately tells Sabra because she believes that Sabra will know what to do – and when Sabra orders her to keep the secret for Tina’s sake, Ellie does so even when interrogated by the house mother. Sabra, being the colossal bitch she is, then blackmails Tina into blackmailing Mort, threatening to tell everybody he’s the father unless he gives her money. Mort refuses to be blackmailed but he doesn’t judge Tina for being pregnant. Instead, once she’s gone he gets in touch with her parents for her… and they don’t judge her either, but immediately come to her aid. So good on the writers, if there were any, for that!

This solidarity also makes the point that all the girls in this sorority really are there for each other and it’s literally just Sabra who is the reason they can’t have nice things. I still don’t know if we’re really supposed to feel sorry for Sabra but this particular detail makes it even harder.

Of all the movies that were ever on MST3K, the one Sorority Girl most reminds me of is The Sidehackers. They don’t have anything in common plot-wise, but both have endings in which nobody wins and it seems like there was no point besides to make the audience feel crummy and lose all faith in the human race. I don’t know what was going on in the year 1957, but here in 2020 we do not need help with that shit. I’m gonna go watch Pixar movies for the rest of the week.

#mst3k #reviews #sorority girl #episodes that never were #tw: suicide #fuck this movie #50s

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gravecinema · 5 years ago

Video

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Why Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Important - 05/09/2020

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a very important piece of fiction. No, I’m not talking about the groundbreaking television series that premiered in 1997, ran for seven seasons, and spawned a spin-off that ran for five (I’ll get to that some other time). I am referring to the redheaded step child of a movie from the early 90’s that came before it. The movie version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of the most important vampire movies ever made. I will also say that it is pretty clearly not the best vampire movie ever made, but it’s impact on the genre continues to be felt on the big screen, and most importantly on the small screen, even to this day.

Released in July of 1992, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was directed by Fran Rubel Kazui, and the screenplay was written by a then young unknown writer named Joss Whedon. The concept that Whedon had come up with was brilliant. After viewing many monster movies before where the young blonde girl walking alone in an alley would get killed by a horrible monster, Whedon thought it would be a pretty fun idea to see a movie where the young blonde girl was getting stalked by a creature like a vampire, and it would instead be the girl that would turn around and kick the vampire's ass. It was a brilliant concept that Whedon would later explore and perfect in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series, however, the movie adaptation of his work would first prove to be a flawed, but still entertaining, execution of the concept.

The main plot of the movie is of course about a young blonde girl named Buffy, played by Kirsty Swanson, who is told that she is one of the rare chosen ones who has been gifted with the powers to fight and slay vampires. Guided by her watcher Merrick, played by Donald Sutherland, Buffy learns and trains how to slay vampires, while also receiving help from a rebellious young man name Pike, played by Luke Perry. Rutger Hauer plays the main vampire Big Bad Lothos, with his vampire minion Amilyn, played oozingly well by Paul Reubens, who has a scene stealing death that continues even into the credits. David Arquette has the fun role of Benny, who is Pike’s best friend who gets bitten and turned into a vampire in the first half of the film. There’s even a quick cameo by a very young Ben Affleck.

Now, to address the major criticism of the movie, the main failing of the movie is one of direction. The script was good, the cast was decent, and the concept was solid, but Kazui’s direction just didn’t mesh well with the original intent and tone of Whedon’s story. Whedon even expressed his frustration while they were making the movie in a behind the scenes video, saying of the movie that “It was funny when I wrote it.” Whedon was so frustrated by how much of his vision was being mishandled and re-written, that he eventually left the set during production and never came back. This frustration would later lead to Whedon wanting to explore the concept further on his own terms with the eventual television series on the new WB network. The television series would later go on to become the best genre television show of all time, but as I said before, that’s a topic for another discussion.

One major thing about the movie that really stands out to me every time I watch it is just how slow the fight scenes are. It looks like everyone is fighting in slow motion and have little actual skill when it comes to fighting, even though some of the vampires are supposed to be hundreds of years old, and should know how to fight. This makes it hard to take the action parts of the movie very seriously. If you ever want to see how not to do an exciting fight scene, then watch this movie.

There was clearly an evident clash of styles and ideas with the writing and directing when it came to making this movie. Kazui wanted the film to be lighter in tone than what was written in the script. Kazui appeared to want to make a seemingly funny and not very serious movie that happened to have vampires in it, while Whedon wrote a serious vampire movie that also happened to be funny. Whedon obviously had the better and right idea, since the serious and darker moments of the film tend to carry more weight and interest for the viewer, while the humorous elements seem to fall flat and a bit out of place. Most genuine laughable moments tend happen because of how bad they are.

Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t a few scenes that don’t give me a chuckle. Future star movie David Arquette’s charisma shines through whenever he’s on screen, and he does a terrific job at playing the recently turned vampire of Benny. He and Luke Perry have great chemistry together whenever they are on screen, and they share some of the film's most genuinely humorous scenes. The most laugh-out-loud moment of the film also has to be when Buffy stakes Amilyn, and Paul Reubens then proceeds to improvise the single greatest vampire death scene in all of cinema. The humor of Buffy is there, but it ultimately just wasn’t brought to its full potential with the film.

The darker elements of the film also have their place, even if they are downplayed more for a lighter overall tone. In Whedon’s script, Merrick was originally supposed to kill himself to prevent from being turned a vampire and revealing to Lothos who the Slayer is. The dream sequence of Buffy with Lothos also has a nice eerie feel to it that I wish was dialed up more through the film than in just this one scene. The big vampire fight at the dance in the climax of the film was also supposed to result in Buffy burning down the school gym. This detail, while omitted from the movie, would later be included in the television series as Whedon would retcon the backstory to his original script.

There is one aspect of the film that I think is truly perfect, and that’s Kirsty Swanson’s portrayal of the main character herself, Buffy. She plays the ditzy blonde valley girl stereotype very well, which is exactly what Whedon was going for in his original concept. While Sarah Michelle Gellar would prove to be the perfect Buffy for Whedon’s later television series, Kirsty Swanson proved to be the perfect Buffy for what this film wanted and needed her to be. She has her blonde California valley girl moments, but she also shows a strong personal character growth throughout the film. Swanson would also receive the film’s only award nomination, which was for Best Actress for the Fangoria Chainsaw Awards. Not exactly the Academy Awards, but still the only form of recognition that the film received upon its release.

Even for all the rewriting and adlibbing that Donald Sutherland did on his own to his watcher character of Merrick, he is still a great actor who plays the part well enough, even if he had little respect for the material. He maintains that older presence of a mentor that Buffy needs, and is one of the few serious and less comedic parts of the film. Donald Sutherland also hated the title of the film, so he was probably doing everything that he believed to make the movie better than what he thought it was, and the director would let him do whatever he wanted. It wouldn’t be the first instance of someone dismissing Buffy the Vampire Slayer just because of the title alone.

For all of the movie's missteps, they serve to illustrate how a movie of this genre should not be handled and can later be improved upon in the television series and other works of the genre. The good aspects of the film also show what can work in the genre when it’s done right. The first season of the television series would also experience some of these growing pains when trying to find just the right balance of horror and comedy. The importance of this movie is that it is essential in laying the groundwork for future vampire stories to come, and the high-school-is-hell metaphor. It basically further helps to define the teen vampire genre that was started with The Lost Boys in 1987 and continues to this day.

The movie is always going to be overshadowed and overlooked by the vastly superior television series, but it still holds an important place in the history of the vampire genre. While the more lighthearted take of vampires in it may have prevented it from becoming a true classic, it also makes it a good movie for younger kids to watch and to be introduced to the genre at a young age. This is a very important aspect of the film to remember, and it cannot be overlooked. It was a favorite of mine to watch when I was a younger kid growing up, and it certainly led me to the superior works of the genre, including my favorite television show of all time. Without this movie, we would never have gotten the great television series of the same name, and for that reason above all, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie will stand the test of time as being significantly important to the vampire genre.

#buffy #buffy the vampire slayer #review #video essay #essay

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jjkpls · 5 years ago

Text

(y)our name 2 - one (m)

> genre : fluff, angst, light smut

> pairing : jeon jungkook x reader (f)

> total words : 6.7k

> warnings/content : friends to lovers, unrequited love, slice of life; a LOT of cursing, oc is... chaotic, thirsty, panicked; Bad Editing Le Retour™

You could not look any less serious. With your badly dried hair, your face glazing from the cream you just applied in a rush and your whole frame, vibrating in childish excitement. “You know what, Guk? We can decide to make it weird or we can decide to be two grownups, responsible and smart and like reliable and- and be like 'Well yeah we had sex, whatever, it’s not gonna change anything!'”

There's a heavy silence blaring in the hallway. You're too ecstatic to let it affect you but still, you wish he'd appear a little less impenetrable. He's not giving you anything to work with. And even though you can't imagine any other alternative than the one you just suggested, he has to confirm he's willing to go along. “Right?” You're defying him with your gaze, hands attached to your waist, head tilted to the side. The smile stretching your lips grow less natural and more rigid. Jungkook simply shrugs, shifting about on his feet.

“I guess you’re right.” He says but he doesn't look like he means it. He looks preoccupied. And a thought, disturbing, invades your mind. Something is burdening him. And from the frown on his adorable face, it's at least mildly serious.

“Are you okay?” You’re pouting as you ask, not meaning to tender him the way you do but you can see his troubled heart all over, in his stance, in his giant eyes. You feel bad for being the idiot concerned about that night when there is something wrong with him. Anything could have happened during those excruciatingly long and testing three weeks. Your merciless dumb ass may have missed a drama in your favourite boy’s life and the fact that you could have actually let it happen breaks your heart. “Is something wrong?”

He gazes at you, wide-eyed. They’re shining with a curious apprehension. It’s as if he wants to say something. The tiny tremble of his lips hints there is something, just right there, at the tip of his tongue. A simple little push would have the words out. “Tell me.”

Instead, he shakes his head, one of his hands rising to mess with the already chaotic pile of dark locks. “S'nothing. I’m good.”

“Jungkook.” He’s already down a few steps, his back turned to you. “You’re not gonna tell me?” There’s a tiny little edge in your voice, as if your heart's been wounded. It brings him to spin around to peek your way. You’re not that stupid. You know three weeks of break in a friendship that has, in almost a decade and a half, never had any before, must impact it somehow. You detest the idea. “You know you can tell me anything.”

“I know.” He says, softly. He seems all tiny, hunched over as he is, several stairs down.

“Still, you’re not gonna say?” He looks up from his shoes. There's this contemplating pout on his mouth. Again, he looks like he's debating internally.

“If- It’s not important. If I need to, I will, ok?” Your heart stings. But you want to trust him.

“You promise?”

Jungkook rolls his eyes, biting a smile back. “I don’t need to, you already know.” Grinning you jump on the step next to him, wrapping with great difficulty an arm around his shoulders, you lead him down the stairs.

You're rambling loud in the resonating hallway about how you spent the whole night watching your favourite zombie movies in prevision of the day you're about to spend. He doesn't need to hear you say it all as he already knows. His phone along with him didn't have any sleep last night, as you kept sending him messages of extreme importance regarding all the technics and strategies you were actively learning watching the films and how useful they were all going to be for the zombie apocalypse-themed escape game you had made reservations for.

You are so excited, you can't contain yourself. Finding him back after having missed him so much and for so long, you just can't accept to spend any more time without him. Which is ridiculous. You two would have to get back to your lives and go to work for starters, but not now. Now you've dumped your shift on your kindest colleague at work, quite last minute, so you could have the whole day with Jungkook. Planning on going to that escape game you two had been talking about for months, making a checklist of all the places you could visit afterwards to eat and take pretty pictures if he wanted to, adding a list of the potentially interesting movies now in theater if you still have time left. Yes, you really did miss him. You don't want to say it out loud as it's been said enough the night before, but you hope he knows from how hard you hug his arm against your heart that you're still overwhelmed by the joy brought from him filling the staggering void in your chest again as if he'd never left it.

Your phone lights up on a too-familiar face and a name you feel too uncomfortable to pronounce out loud. It’s Namjoon. Again. You see Jungkook’s eyes catch it before you turn it off, and they divert awkwardly as if terrified to meet your own. Your heart stings again. Like a sharp scorching needle piercing through the thing. You can’t bear the awkwardness. You used to be able to talk about anything. Even some things that require litres of liquid courage and lead to consequences such as burning ears and heavy sweating. But never anything has just been brushed over. The realization that something is installing itself between you hits. A new norm, where some subjects must remain unmentioned. It’s horrifying so quickly you blurt out, “We broke up!” Jungkook looks up from his bubble tea, eyes large like saucers.

“Yeah, I heard so. From Jimin.” He doesn’t ask for more information and it’s upsetting. You want him to know he can ask anything. Anything that is yours, anything that is you is his too.

He should know it all.

“It’s just- he is- he is not an asshole but I don’t know, I guess we didn’t agree on everything. He wanted me to choose between you and him.” Your eyebrows raise, head shaking in remaining disbelief. He had some nerves. You felt bad momentarily because it meant Namjoon believed your relationship to be strong enough to face this kind of ultimatum. But he was so rude about it! So rude and assertive, it didn’t even give you the willing to clarify things up with him, to sort things out, consider a compromise. As if you’d ever sincerely only dare think about giving up Jungkook for anyone or anything else. You would never.

Jungkook smiles around the straw he's gnawing on and you chuckle. You're sharing the same mischievous glance you used to when younger, you would find some shenanigans to ditch a third party you were not inclined to stay with so you two could play and be yourselves exclusively together. Like a secret handshake, you have your secret smile. There you know you'll be fine.

After some time, he feels comfortable enough to bring Namjoon back to the conversation. It's just to apologize again about what happened. He doesn't leave on any more information, any answer to the burning question you've carried with you since the incident but you decide to not push it. It was fucking weird, this whole mess of a situation. So unlike him to hit someone. So unlike you to turn your back on him as if there would ever be a valid reason for you to stop loving him. A piece of the puzzle is missing, however, you trust him with it. Surely, he'll give it to you one day and that's fine.

You're cutting the calm quietness surrounding you with a sudden burst of giggles. He squints at you, eyebrows frowned as if he already knows and it makes you laugh harder.

“Shut up!” He groans while trying to reach for your phone on the table. Your reflexes are cat-like though, and before he knows it, the hilarious video you shot today of him, fighting incredibly poorly a zombie, plays for the two of you to enjoy. He's screaming so loud, cursing a bunch of profanities you've never heard him say, and when his ass hits the ground without the actor touching him you're throwing your head back, crying in hilarity. It's been torturing you for the past two hours. Each time your brain starts to putter, the video comes knocking and you just can't help the bubbling mess to rumble from your chest. You only stop when he starts to threaten you, saying he is going to leave and head home.

You really don't want to go home. Or more like, you don't mind going home but he has to come and stay with you. Why couldn't you have been born as Siamese twins?

Sticking the lollipop out of his mouth, he winces in pure disgust, “That'd be horrible!”

“What? Why? It'd be awesome! We'd be stuck to each other all the time!” Which is an enchanting thought -maybe it needs to be precise. You're sure he thinks the same. The grimace intensifying on his face is just comedy.

“We'd be siblings, by the way. Not best friends. That wouldn't work.”

“Let's hot glue the shit out of our hips so we can test this theory out!”

“What are you even-” You don't interrupt him, he does himself, deeming it's pointless. Halting his steps, sighing deep and loud as he stares down at you like you're crazy. Maybe you've turned a little bit insane. That's what too much Jungkook and sugar do to you: you're sincerely considering the whole hot-glueing thing. “Ok. You're going to bed.” It's a gasp that answers him and like a dad who knows how to handle his misbehaving child, he cuts you off before you even get to say anything.

“___, it’s 3 am. Don’t you have work tomorrow?”

“I start at 5 pm!” You pester, hitting the ground with your foot.

“Still. Don’t be ridiculous. You need sleep.” His huge eyes blink slowly, his face contorting weirdly as he contains a yawn. He's the one who needs sleep but-

“But-”

“You really did miss me, huh?”

He's all smug eyebrow-dance and wiggly shoulders so you decide to simply be honest, that'll shut him off. “Of course I did!” He tsks, not having expected this as he stares off the distance, looking anywhere but you. You pout, hitting his ugly sneakers with your own boots. “Why do you keep wearing those things?” The offending bulky things are daring you to criticize them further.

“You don’t know fashion.”

“Oh is that fashion? Ok, I guess I really don’t know then.” When you look up at him, grinning, he has that look on. Head slightly tilted to the side, tight-lipped smile, the one that pinches the skin around his mouth into a tiny dot, eyes looking soft but implacable. It’s the look he has when he’s telling you off and it makes you whine indignantly. “I don’t wanna go home yet.”

“But you will.” He decides, sticking the lollipop back against the inside of his cheek, gaze all ominous before he's throwing you on his shoulders. You'd scream if it were not the middle of the night and you didn't mind having people calling the police on you two for night fuss.

It's not the end anyway. You're dramatic and greedy because it feels natural to be in these circumstances but you know you two will be fine. You should let him go home to sleep without fearing losing him again.

There's no doubt in your mind. Still, instead of your brain to sink in the happiness and let you fall peacefully asleep on your two ears, the uncooperative thing just wouldn't let you rest. Keeping you wide awake and alert, bringing thoughts way too joy-filled to not render you giddy and fidgety.

I guess it wasn’t that terrible. It wasn’t bad at all. You did apprehend it. Not only were you two to start hanging out again after a pause that felt like an eternity, but you had also to do so after spending the night that you did together. It seemed easy enough on his part. Maybe because he seemed already preoccupied with something else. Either way, it went smoothly. Like riding a bike. Something you never just stop knowing how to do. Jungkook and you, it’s natural. It’s pure fated affection, there’s no place for any lagging. This you confirmed today.

As the days pass, the routine reinstalls itself, with morning breakfasts shared, impromptu hellos, and stray kitties pictures sent out throughout the day.

It feels wonderful. You can appreciate what you used to have with a whole new level of intensity. It’s like hovering over the Earth on a candy cloud. You’re not lucky, you’re blessed, gifted. Nothing is that upsetting. Nothing is that tiring. Everything fixes before it even breaks because there’s Jungkook and the happiness he brings everywhere along with him.

You’re not that bad at being cool about the whole one-night thing. Not as good as him but still good enough. You manage to prevent anything potentially compromising to slip, refract any impulsive gesture towards his arms or his chest or his thighs even. You do end up blushing furiously sometimes when an unexpected careless babe falls through his lips, or when he mutters your name quietly to bring your attention to him and the breathless calls from this one night remind themselves to you. And of course, it would be like this. How could it not? How could you just say each other’s name so casually when you heard them being moaned by the other the way you did. That’s what you think. But he doesn’t seem on the same page as you. And that puzzles you. Not greatly, you know him to be more used to unattached sexual affections, but still.

How could he not be affected when you’re pretty sure you screamed his name? That’s the other thing about the fateful night and its consequences, the more time passes the less you remember every detail of it, and you dread it. You wish it would stay intact, untouched in your head, as grandiose as it was when it happened.

It’s worrying. How obsessed you are about the incident. But not for the reasons one could expect.��

Your friendship is not at stake per se. Or maybe it is in a way, and that’s why you’re not presenting yourself to him with those thoughts.

It’s not about Jungkook or more so, it’s less about the feelings you adorn for him, and more about his skills. Because he does have skills. You have no idea where they come from. If he’s spent years secretly attending sexology seminars or if he was born an incubus and for some reasons you knew nothing about that, point of the matter is: he blew your mind. He ruined you, opened up a door inside you had no idea was there and it felt so good during and after, that you find yourself feeling miserable at the idea that maybe, you won’t ever fall upon a lover like him.

Namjoon was fine. He didn’t have the best stamina and was a bit too stiff to plant and bloom passion as intense as Jungkook managed to in few minutes but he was ok. Taehyung was fine too. Perhaps tending to be a bit selfish, forgetting to give back if you didn’t remind him but for the most part decent -he did have a huge shrine that wasn’t so handy in practice but still managed to entice you and make you squirm before you realized that, except for pain and discomfort, the hugeness of it didn’t bring much more.

And that’s the thing that annoys you the most: they used to be good. They used to be in your mind more than good enough. You didn’t question the possibility of having more. It was alright. You didn’t come each time. You never came more than once in one encounter. But it was fine for your standards. You didn’t know any better, that there could be more to it. Now Jungkook swirled in, wrecked you, leaving you a satisfyingly empty shell lain in a puddle of your own arousal and that’s the mind-blowing sex you want to have for the rest of your life. The thought that maybe he is one exceptionally proficient guy, member of a very rare and exclusive club of fucking abnormally phenomenal lovers that has the secret access to a secret magic to Orgasms -with a capital O because what you thought to identify as orgasms before definitely are not the same things as what you experienced with your best friend- it’s depressing and horrifying and makes you want to start a fucking riot against the universe and maybe against men for not all being as good. Because they should. Fuck, there would be no more cheating partners, no more lonely solo underdogs, eternal peace in the world if everyone dared be as good of a lover as Jungkook.

Maybe you’re over exaggerating. Maybe. Probably not.

How, how in the hell are you supposed to just brush that memory like a simple anecdote, marking your history like any other tiny souvenir would, like that first time he cried in front of you right after he scratched his hands falling from his skateboard and you had kissed it better, or that time he lied for you so you wouldn’t get your ass beaten by your parents after having skipped two classes to go make out behind the school with Kim Seokjin.

Well, you can’t. It’s impossible. And at first, it’s fine. It just means you spend a little more time in the shower, you're a little slower at work because you have to constantly bring your brain back to the task ahead, you’re overall a little more angsty and every time you meet up with Jungkook, there’s a little apprehension. It’s a little less 'I can’t wait to see that dumbass’ cute face even though he might bully me for not having showered', and a little more 'I’m going to meet with my good old friend who happens to be the man who fucked my brains out that one time, so maybe I should put on that skirt'.

The permanent tension doesn’t last that long. He’s too much like he’s always been. You’re too happy with him like you’ve always been.

Things go along as they should. You repress actively your deviant brain, decide you’re going to get over him because he is not the only man on this fucking Earth and there’s no way, there’s no fucking way -it’d be too unfair- he is the only good man worthy of your time.

Soon you realize that in fact, he is. In a way or another, by some curious black magic or something, he managed to make himself the only man left on this Earth. What a dick, you think. Because now he’s gotten back to his life, his awesome life of an awesome dude, unbothered, untroubled by whatever the fuck happened when you, on the other hand, are all broken.

There's this thing about you. You used to fall a bit in love with every person you’d see when you'd be single. There would be this tall guy with his beanie low on his forehead pushing his fringe in his eyes, reading some manga on the train, and you’d start making up a sweet history for him and you’d wish he’d look up for a second and fall in love with you too. But he’d leave without noticing you and then this young woman would walk in with a dude on her toes. She’d look saddened while the guy would look annoyed and you’d start thinking about where you’d like to take that girl out and what cute pet name she’d like you to give her when you’re not even into girls -allegedly. You’re desperate for love. You’ve always been. Which could be surprising as instead of having a childhood deprived of it as often have the people who grow to be very demanding when it comes to affection, you were spoiled with it. Instead of curing you, the force-feed love rendered you addicted and you've always wanted more. More people to meet and discover and adore. Rarely enough. Except when you’re in a relationship. You’re not simply loyal you’re fully invested. You want to be good, to be the best, bring the most. You know how to direct all your time and attention and aspiration on one person without wanting to look away.

And that’s what you need again. Maybe. Someone to prove you that sex is not it all. You never thought that before stupid Jungkook but now, you're questioning it. He did break you. You think constantly about it, not wondering what compliment that one stranger like to hear, what place that other stranger would love you to make them discover, you're wondering if they could make you feel good. If their bodies would be as hard and hot as Jungkook's. If their sexes could fill you up and stretch you, hard and right the way his did. And fuck Jungkook because not only did he change your way of considering people -which is fucked up, by the way, you feel like a creep every time you catch yourself doing it-, he made them all uninteresting. None, even in fantasy, do it for you. You don’t want them to touch you. You don’t want to touch them. You wonder what’s under their clothes without really wanting to know. That’s not that surprising. You’ve always been a very emotional person and perhaps it’s just not something for you. Perhaps you can’t fuck without affection. But at the same time, it’s what you want, it’s what you need. Just purely wild and relieving sex.

It’s the reason why you end up grabbing your phone, tapping your passcode in a fury because the print sensory thingy won't work and you’re already pissed enough as it is. Wrist hurting, breathing laboured, pussy quivering uselessly around nothing, you quickly get to your chat log with Jungkook. You’re mad. It’s the umpteenth time that you try to get yourself off and end up on the verge of crying from frustration because you can, physically, feel yourself craving for a cock to fill you up -possibly his. It’s the worst feeling. A degree of desperation like you never have felt before. And it is insane because never in a million years could you have imagined that sometimes a woman, and you of all, could have your cunt yearning for something that bad. It’s like it builds and builds, not phenomenal but seemingly good enough, and then it snaps but as you come, you feel the lacking spoiling completely your already low-quality orgasm. One of the worst experience of your life. You’re enraged and delirious from the dissatisfaction and that’s why you end up sending him this message:

you : thinking bout u

Read. Right away. There are the three little dots blinking on the screen, your brain adds a mental drumroll to accompany it. And then they disappear. Five minutes pass, you’re dying, feel like your pussy might catch a cold staying open like that -which is quite dumb and lewd but you’re so upset, you spent so much energy on attempting to get off that you can’t even get yourself to roll over to the side (it’s not even like he’s going to teleport himself there and just slip inside at any instant). The dots don’t come back so you decide to text him again, a bit more apprehensively.

you : do u think about me?

jungkook : are you making a YouTube video?

You’re confused for a while, reading multiple times the text over, simply not getting it until the phone vibrates again in your palm.

jungkook : like a lyric prank

Ah.

you : Ah no. And why would I chose a song from 2009 to do that

jungkook : It’s not 2009 and cause you’re lame like that

This is absolutely not going the way you planned, you think finally closing your legs together. Then you remember that you didn't plan shit.

you : 😐

jungkook : What do you want anyway? Why aren’t you sleeping

jungkook : ?

you : I just told you

jungkook : I don’t know what you mean

Is he messing with you? Or does he sincerely not know? Fuck, you hate texting. You never know what the person on the other line genuinely means. You're not being a coward tonight though, so you send:

you : You said to tell you if I ever think about you

The torturous three musketeers are back, cackling right in your face as you stare, for an eternity, wishing for something, anything, to replace them. It’s outrageously long. It’s like he’s typing his eulogy or something. Until the dots are replaced but by worst than any text, no text at all. They disappear and nothing else comes through. The embarrassment is so overwhelming, your body finds the strength to fully wince, your legs jerking up to your chest and your whole body falling sideways from just the cringe. What a fucking idiot. Your face buried in the pillow, you wail and groan in emotional pain. Then it shakes again, the cellphone, the cursed object you shouldn’t be allowed to own. You grab it with your eyes shut close, terrified at what the screen has to show you. When you gather the courage to look, you frown: it’s a link. A URL you don’t recognize. You tap on it, gnawing nervously on your lip as Safari takes forever to load the page and once it's done, and the title of the page appears, you wish it wouldn’t have loaded at all. Fucking hell. You’re going to die. You’re dying of embarrassment tonight, it’s decided.

'69 Best Masturbation Tips for Female Orgasm'. It’s an article about masturbation. He sent you that. To help probably. Because he doesn’t want to do it himself and doesn't know how to say it. Of fucking course he doesn’t want to and oh-my-fucking-god how could you have been so fucking stupid.

you : Sorry

There are the dots again but you can’t bear to see them again so quickly you type a desperate:

you : I’m really sorry, didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or anything. Sorry sorry JK please just forget I said anything sorry good nighttt 😅 😅

It’s the worst moment of your entire life. And this thought, the thought that it’s so terrible, nothing will ever compete for that title, is the sole reason why you decide to not suffocate yourself to death in your pillows. The worst just happened.

You’ll just avoid him. For a few days. If he lets you. He probably will. The poor guy is probably feeling even more awkward than you. You were acting so normal, regular platonic friendliness and suddenly he learns that you’ve been lurking over his ass for all this time. For fuck's sake. You’re the worst. There's a tiny voice in your head that's not a bitch and keeps telling you that a couple of days would suffice and eventually your cheeks’ crimson will reduce and progressively the whole thing will be lost in your memory like those events that sometimes fade so far away, you’re not even sure if they were ever real or simple dreams. Except this one is a fucking nightmare and as you toss and turn around relentlessly for the whole night you’re sure you won’t ever forget it did happen and the shame that you felt.

And you’re wrong about that. Because as you wake up the next morning after having successfully fallen asleep for an hour around 6 am, the memory is blurry. It’s flimsy. The burning devastating emotions are gone like they hardly ever existed and you can sigh in relief as you stretch out of bed, body sore and rusted but mind fresh and enthusiastic. You feel like you’ve just woken up from a power nap -you know the fatigue will strike you half-dead later, around 10 am or 2 pm, you’re not sure yet-, feeling positive and wanting to move the world with how productive you feel like being today.

And then your initial hypothesis is proven right. As you reach for your phone by rote, meaning to check the time and your notifications as you usually do, you fall upon the text Jungkook sent you right after you shut your phone off, the night before.

jungkook : It’s okay

That’s it. Hell befalls once again on your stupid self. It’s like last night, all over again. Your eyes well up, aiming to fill up the tenuous rivers dried up on your cheeks. You fall on your face back in bed, yelling full-on in your mattress. It’s horrible. It’s horrible. It’s horrible.

“Are you okay?!” You hear Eun ask from the other side of the wall. Her voice is all hoarse from sleep and now you feel even worse for having woken her up with your idiocy. Stupid and selfish you are.

“Yes, sorry!” There’s a loud thump as you assume she lets herself fall back to sleep. You’re glad she’s too tired to register the tremble in your voice and the obvious desperation even you could decipher.

'It’s okay' with no emoji, no nothing. The emptiest text you’ve ever received. It’s worse than one of those 'ok' assholes send sometimes as an answer to a long invested text. You know what it means. It means it is not okay. He is too sweet to tell you off the way he should or wants to. He knows you’re not an inconsiderate bitch and that you will read through the pixels with this simple two words that it is not okay, he’s not interested and he feels bad but that’s just how things are.

The alarm of your phone rings loud. You’re reminded of your stupid duty you’re supposed to attend to: your job. You feel like a teenager again. Well, in reality, you never really stopped feeling like one. When something would happen, you expected the whole world to stop for you to deal with it. You were too spoiled as a kid. People would actually stop. You remember walking down the playground, eager to play at something but not knowing what and sauntering about looking out for your different options and all the kids, no matter what they were busy playing at would stop and stare, sharing quick nods of approval before one of them, one for each group, would walk up to you and try to convince you to stay with them. Everybody liked you at the time, everybody always loved you without you completely realizing, only occasionally would you suspect it with a sheepish mischievous smile hidden in the corner of your lips.

And now you’re twenty-three and someone, the person who’s supposedly is always cherishing you, doesn’t want you. Which is fair. Fair enough. You’re friends and it’s weird for him, you get it. But he said that you could call him whenever you thought about him. He said it. And he said something else. You can’t remember properly now but you remember what you thought at the time: that he was suggesting you’d do it again. That happened. Whatever the exact terms were, he did hint at wanting other times to happen. Then again, he did say a lot of things that night. And obviously, those were spurred in the heat of the moment. You guess he’s smooth along with being talented. His words are part of the whole thing and for good reasons, it works like a charm.

But, therefore, of fucking course, you’d take it seriously. Of course, it’d take roots in your weak mind and bloom into invading, overpowering desires.

You’re pissed at him now, you realize as you struggle to apply mascara from how much your hand is shaking. You’re angry because he is the asshole behind all that. Even if he did not do it on purpose, he’s made you like that, fucking obsessing over his fucking dick like it’s the only one left and you’re meant to save humanity from extinction. He didn’t have to be that good to you. And why would he say those stuff if he didn’t mean them? That’s fucking sick. And why does he not want you anyway? He didn’t have a problem with you being best friends the first time. He sure enjoyed it, right?

Right?

Your memory is hazy.

You’re not sure if you just made it all up from the pleasure you were experiencing. He is good. But maybe you suck? Maybe he just went along and concluded with you because he was too sweet to back up and stop in the middle of the course of action but in fact, he didn’t enjoy it. You didn’t do a lot, that much is true. You didn’t feel too bad about it before because you were sure he still had his fair share of pleasure but now that you’re not sure, now that you consider the idea that maybe your brain affected the real turn of events to spare your ego and feed that magical experience you had, you feel like shit. It must be it. With all those girls, beautiful, liberated you’ve seen him with over the years, he must have had expected and wanted more. He didn’t end up that talented with no one to practice with. And there you were, awkward potato who couldn’t keep the lights on -which apparently was such a big deal-, way more inexperienced than you thought yourself to be, giving him the worst sex of his life. Of fucking course, he wouldn’t want to do it again.

It’s decided you’re never meeting him again. It’s not his fault. It’s yours. You suck balls. Or rather you don’t and that’s the issue.

Fuck. This is so embarrassing. It's been a couple of hours since the curse text he's sent, and you don't feel any better. If only you could focus on those dumb coffee orders and forget about your stupid pussy for a second.

It’s a little easier after a few mistaken cups of weird lattes, when your manager, perched like an owl on a bar stool, starts staring at you like she’s about to fly to you and bite your head off.

It gets harder when you finish your shift and your mind is left to think about him again and the atrocious humiliation. You’re cringing the whole ride home. Having to stop yourself from growling out loud in frustration, not wanting to freak people out by making them think you’re rabid or something. And it turns the hardest when you have to walk past his door and ignore it, when it’s right fucking there, to quickly flee in your apartment. You’re sweating and shaking once you’re inside, pressing yourself against the door, praising the barrier protecting your ego from him.

Wow. That’s insane but you don’t want to see him ever again. Or at least not until it quiets down. It’s too much. You know there shouldn’t be a seat for shame in your friendship but you can’t help it. It’s just Jungkook but it’s also the best lover you’ve ever had and, you can't deny it anymore, an extremely attractive man. And you’ve humiliated yourself in front of that man.

It’s the reason behind your avoiding him. You don’t even take the time to think about it and try to rationalize, think about what he might be feeling, think about the implications of your action, about how childish you’re being, you just do it.

At first, it’s a blast. Knowing you would work hard to precisely avoid him makes it more bearable for your existence. You don’t wake up with an awful tummy ache and a migraine just considering having to talk to him and act fine and casual as if you’re not dying inside. You won’t see him so it’s fine. It requires a little effort though. A little checking the area for safety with an unsuspecting Eun. A little hustling as you have to steal all of your colleagues' early shifts so that you don’t have to be home for breakfast and see him land in your living-room to eat with you. A little stealth when you have to come home as you do in the early afternoons and you don’t know for sure if he’s not working from home, eagerly tending the ear to try and catch you coming home. His ear is very sharp and you know when you don’t pay attention and are loud climbing up the stairs, he can hear you from his apartment. He told you before that he recognizes the sound of your stepping, different from Eun’s and that’s how he knows you’re home safe when you get off work at ungodly hours of the night, and knows to send you a sweet encouraging text when he hears you leave ungodly early.

It’s because of those messages that you start feeling too bad to handle. The first time, in a panic, you had answered the text with a raccoon gif. He responded with a sympathetic laughing emoji and you decided you sucked faking casualty and would simply restrain yourself from answering his morning texts. It’s been cleared out already that you should not be allowed to use a fucking cellphone.

He's too powerful though. The kindness of his texts and the guilt you’re facing directly proportionate to it adds to the fact that you miss him. It’s been five days and you miss him immensely. It’s when Eun who asks why the boys haven’t been around in so long that you realize you’re really being a bitch. He deserves better than that. Therefore, laying down on the sofa, legs propped on the armchair, naked feet shaking in anxiety in the air, you pick up your phone because you never learn apparently.

you : you wanna have a ““““spooky””””” movie night? Netflix put up the scream movies + pizzas

It's natural enough. Doesn't mention anything risky and that's perfect.

jungkook : I’m in busan rn

you : What? Why are you in Busan?

you : And since when?

jungkook : Two days. I’m coming home tomorrow night

jungkook : For a seminar

jungkook : And you would know if you were not so busy avoiding me

Well, here goes the not-mentioning-anything.

Another quirk of yours: when your mind is set on something, hardly anything can make your aim waver.

you : *gasp* I don’t appreciate being called out like that

Nicely played.

jungkook : Don’t care

But he's going to be difficult.

you : 😐 😐

jungkook : Are you embarrassed about the other night? That’s fucking dumb

you : You fucking dumb

jungkook : Why are you so embarrassed? I told you it’s fine

you : But it’s not though. I feel terrible still

jungkook : There’s no reason everybody gets horny

you : But I rubbed it in your face when clearly you don’t want it I’m verysorry

jungkook : Stop apologizing

And again, as always, it just goes smoothly. You don't understand this. It used to be so simple being friends with him. But lately, it's like everything is a challenge. You always doubt before being proven that yes, things are like they've always been. You have no reason to doubt your friendship, nor him. The weight lifted off of your chest feels incredible as it leaves, bringing a few relief tears to the corner of your right eye. It's the end of it, at last.

jungkook : who said I don’t want it

a/n : yes, it’s happening, (y)our name is back. Way sooner than expected but it’s kookie’s bday so i felt i had to give him another chance. So, there should be 2 other chapters to follow, all in reader’s pov. I’d really like to know what you guys think. I feel like it’s too messy (it took me a while to write and i’ve been feeling stressed out so i think it transpires too much). in any case, i really hope you enjoyed, i know a lot of you anticipated a sequel so i hope i don’t disappoint. i’ll try to have the second part up next week-end. until then, peace out boys scout!

& a happy birthday to our angel, please bid your well wishes hard enough so they can reach him.

Hugs and kisses and love to you all. 💜

▲ Comment ‘tag’ if you want to be tagged when I post the next part! ▲

#btssmutclub #gukkienet #btswriterscollective #jungkook smut #bts smut #bts angst #jungkook angst #bts fluff #jungkook fluff #bts fanfic #jungkook fanfic #my writing

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sulietsexual · 5 years ago

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So, I finally saw the new Little Women on the weekend, and I have to say, I was ... really underwhelmed, especially given the extreme over-hype which has surrounded this film for months.

Little Women is my favourite novel of all time and, yes, I am an avid fan of the 1994 movie. The book always fills me with warmth and emotion and I love the March girls so much, each of them in their own way. I went into this film with muted expectations, so I wasn’t disappointed per se but it definitely left me wanting more.

Let me start with the positives; the film definitely has a certain charm to it. I appreciated that they tried to include a lot of dialogue from the novel. The cinematography was very pretty in places. And I genuinely loved the actresses who portrayed the March sisters. Saoirse Ronan’s Jo was vivacious and fun and she imbued the character with Jo’s clumsiness, lack of propriety (a little too much sometimes, which I will talk about later) and overall likability. I don’t know why everyone’s complaining about Emma Watson, as I found her Meg to be lovely. I thought she perfectly captured Meg’s softness and her gentle stoicism, although I could have done with a little more fire to her character, people tend to forget that Meg has a bit of a feisty side. Florence Pugh was great as older Amy, and bless her, she tried her hardest as young Amy, but I still maintain that Younger Amy needs to be played by a younger actress, otherwise she comes across as far too bitchy, as opposed to just bratty. Eliza Scanlan was fine as Beth, but I wish they’d given her more to do (more on this later).

As for the rest of the casting ... I was a bit underwhelmed. I was excited for Laura Dern as Marmee, but she disappointed me, which probably has more to do with the writing of the character. She felt far too modern and very under-developed. Timothee Chalamet (sp?) as Laurie was a total miscast, he was far too melancholy and kind of creepy? Laurie is supposed to be a cheeky and vivacious character, with the occasional fits of melancholy, not the other way around. Meryl Streep was wasted as Aunt March, but I knew she would be, given what a minor character Aunt March actually is in the book. None of the other actors made much of an impression on me, tbh.

Unfortunately, for me, the negatives are greater than the positives and one of the biggest complaints I have about this film is that it really seemed to lack soul and heart. Little Women is a novel which makes me cry every time I read it and I didn’t shed a single tear during this film. Scenes which I love from the novel left me cold during the film.

I appreciated that the film tried to include events from the novel which often aren’t portrayed onscreen, such as Meg buying the expensive silk knowing she couldn’t afford it, Beth and Mr Lawrence’s friendship, Amy telling Laurie off for his indolent ways and Marmee’s speech to Jo about how she is angry every day. But a combination of rushed dialogue, the weird back-and-forth jumps between past and present and a script which didn’t slow down to appreciate the emotions of the scenes meant that many of these scenes felt empty, as if everyone was simply going through the motions. The film is accurate to the book and captures many of the events, but it misses so many emotional beats. I want any adaptation of Little Women to fill me with warmth and emotion and this film just ... didn’t. A particularly egregious example is the fact that this movie didn’t film Beth’s death scene, opting instead to have Jo wake up to an empty bed, in a scene which is obviously supposed to mirror the previous scene and drive home how Jo “couldn’t save” Beth this time around, but all it does is undermine the emotion of Beth passing and the grief her family - particularly Jo - feel over watching her pass away.

And while we’re on the subject of Beth, can we talk about what a non-character she was? I know that Beth is the least developed of the sisters in the novel, and as such, adaptations sometimes tend to overlook her, but she was barely a character in this film. Even her illness - arguably the biggest component of her characterisation and arc - was overlooked and under-played. I didn’t feel any fear or trepidation for her when she first fell ill, and her entire sickness was so rushed and downplayed. Eliza Scanlan is an incredibly talented actress (just watch Sharp Objects for proof of this) and yet they gave her so little to do.

Laurie too became almost a non-character, and I feel that this was a result of the constant time jumps. There was no room for him to develop or grow and many of his Big Moments were omitted from the film (such as him sending for Mrs March when Beth is ill, the way he swears to keep their secrets and provides the PO Box for them, going to London to make himself worthy of Amy). Also that disgusting scene from the New Year’s Eve ball when he turns up half-dressed, drunk and with two women hanging off his arms; no where in the novel would Theodore Lawrence ever behave like that, and the fact that this scene was our second introduction to the character soured his entire characterisation. Laurie was such a pale shade of what he is in the novels, and because of this, his relationships with all the sisters is severely undermined and downplayed. You certainly won’t ship Jo/Laurie from this movie, but nor will you feel much semblance of friendship between the two, despite the fact that they’re such kindred spirits in the novel. He shares more scenes with Amy, but they’re devoid of feeling or emotion (and chemistry) and so his eventual marriage to her falls flat.

I think one of the reasons for Laurie’s lack of characterisation is the weird time jumps. I know that a lot of critics are praising this technique, but I hated it. For one, it was often confusing as to whether we were in the past or the present, given how quickly the scenes jumped between the two. Secondly, this style of storytelling severely undermined characterisation and character development, and it juxtaposed scenes in a very weird fashion, negating the original point of the scenes and the lessons the girls were supposed to learn from them. For example, Meg’s misbehaviour at the Moffats being directly juxtaposed with the scene in which she confesses to John that she bought the expensive silk makes Meg look like she hasn’t grown or changed in five years. We missed the beautiful scene where she confesses her “sins” to Marmee and the growth which came from that experience, and instead jumped straight into what looked like an unhappy marriage (and why in god’s name were we introduced to Meg and John’s marriage before they had even spoken to each other in the past? Once again, the development of this relationship was undermined by the fact that we saw their courtship in reverse - we didn’t get the impact of Meg promising to love John despite his poverty only to betray him by buying the expensive silk). And this is just one of many examples of this technique robbing us of the emotion of the scenes.

The film felt so rushed at times and because of this, it has a very modern feel to it which I really didn’t like. If you want to “modernize” the story, fine, but do so by placing it in a modern setting. Having a period setting while using modern dialogue and a modern sense of propriety didn’t work. A scene of Jo hiking her skirts up to her knees with her bloomers on display while in public was awful, as was the scene where she unabashedly started to strip down while Laurie was in the room, and both scenes just undermined the period setting and were extremely jarring. Again, because the film was so rushed and the dialogue so quick and rapid-fire, we lost the emotional impact of many scenes. Period pieces need to be slow, you need time to savour the dialogue and actions, to feel the emotions and take time to appreciate the depth of the events and relationships.

And speaking of relationships, I cannot get over how much this filmed missed the mark when it came to the sisters’ relationships. Such a huge part of the appeal of Little Women is the bonds between the sisters and this film just blew right past them! I didn’t feel any deep connection between the sisters, and this was particularly noticeable with Jo and Beth, who share such a deep bond in the book. I think part of this problem stemmed from the fact that it took five scenes for the sisters to actually share a scene together; our introduction to the girls happens in four separate scenes, with each of the girls by themselves, in their own setting. Compare (because I have to) with the 1994 movie, in which the first four scenes of the film focus on the girls together, only separating once Meg and Jo attend the Gardiners Christmas party. The sisters’ relationship is such a huge component of the novel, but this film spends little time or focus building it and it is definitely a big reason as to why the film feels so empty.

There is so much more I want to say (for example, the horrendous way in which the film somehow made Jo look like she’d regretted turning down Laurie and held onto said regret for five years and how they juxtaposed her sending him the letter saying she would marry him, which WTF, never happened in the novel, with Laurie returning, having married Amy, like, way to pit the two sisters directly against one another, which even the 1994 adaptation had sense enough not to do) but this post has already turned into a freakin’ essay and most of my grievances have been aired.

To end this (very long) rant on a positive note, I want to reiterate that this film was charming in many ways, and while I do have many complaints, it was still a decent adaptation of my favourite novel, which wasn’t so far removed from the source material that I couldn’t enjoy it. It will never match the emotional depth and warmth of the 1994 movie, but I can see myself coming around to it in the future and liking it for what it is. I just wish more care and effort had been put into it and it had concentrated more on the emotion of the novel rather than the events.

#little women #little women 2019 #little women spoilers #phew this was long #long post

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sleepykittypaws · 4 years ago

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The Christmas House

Original Air Date: November 23, 2020 (Hallmark) Where to Watch?: Hallmark will replay it multiple times this season, and for every season in perpetuity

It's impossible to review Hallmark's The Christmas House without noting that this time last year, then-Crown Media CEO Bill Abbott was personally taking phone calls from a SPLC-designated hate group, and pulling a Zola ad showing two brides chastely kissing from his network, at that hate group's behest. The ensuing firestorm of well-earned criticism following Abbott's bad judgement, is, without question, what brought us to today, with Abbott ousted, a woman of color, Wonya Lucas, now at Hallmark's helm, and a still totally G-rated holiday lineup that now regularly features former Hallmark no-gos like, interracial romance and LGBTQ+ inclusion, improving Hallmark's abysmal diversity record, one movie at a time.

So, even though Hallmark had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, it's still hard not to be at least a little emotional that they're finally joining us here. The bigots are still having online temper tantrums about losing their all-white, all-straight safe space, but Hallmark's holiday ratings are up 7% year-over-year—a significant jump in a world where cable subscriptions are declining by 10-15% annually.

Now, what that progress looks like on a network known for being “clean,” conservative and about as unwilling to take risks as any channel on the planet, is another story. Frequent Hallmark star, and out gay actor, Jonathan Bennett, has been tirelessly talking about The Christmas House, since the day it went into production. And Bennett brings a lot of energy to this ensemble story, written by co-star Robert Buckley, of a family getting together to decorate their home one more time before it's sold.

Buckley and Bennett play the sons of Sharon Lawrence and Treat Williams, a recently retired couple struggling with that fundamental shift in their relationship. Buckley is the star of a ridiculous court show, Handsome Justice, of which we luckily get to see a clip, and Bennett, a baker, and his husband, played by Brad Harder, are waiting to hear about an adoption, after several previous disappointments.

Bennett and Buckley bring more humor than is normal for Hallmark to their portrayal of loving, competitive brothers, who clearly enjoy ribbing each other.

How conservative was past hallmark, you ask? Well, that Buckley's girl-next-door love interest is divorced, not widowed, is still a somewhat shocking twist in that world, as is the fact that both Buckley and Bennett are "allowed" to sport some facial scruff, rather than be clean shaven. Oh, and that the family next door is (gasp) Latino, is also something we likely wouldn't have seen in the Hallmark of yore. All of which is just mind-blowing, since those “days of yore” for this TV network were [checks notes]…2019, not 1968.

Lawrence and Williams are believable as a long term couple, and their life-change struggle to re-center their relationship feels real, but the way it's revealed is almost as anti-climactic as its resolution. The movie laid very unsubtle hints along the way—all storytelling progress aside, Hallmark movies are still written so you can half watch and not a miss a thing, allowing folks to join 20 minutes in, or do the dishes and come back without being confused—that Williams and Lawrence's wanting to have "one last Christmas" was about more than just downsizing in retirement.

When Lawrence told the story of the clearly-actually-brand-new-and-from-Homegoods Santa pot, and what it meant to her, I thought Williams was going to later accidentally break Checkov's sentimental teapot and, in her anger, Lawrence would blurt out something about that's why they were separating, shocking their grown sons.

And, honestly, as predictable as that would have been, it would probably have had more impact than what did happen…Lawrence just casually telling Buckley while stringing lights, and then nobody really mentioning it again, excepting oblique references during a single conversation between the brothers, and then Lawrence just announces at breakfast that they're not doing that after all.

Definitely feels like Hallmark's aversion to conflict in its stories is one of those provisions that is still firmly in place. (We saw a similar unwillingness to commit to actual marital difficulties, despite that being the central plot point, in Cranberry Christmas.)

Which is too bad, because Lawrence and Williams being much better than the actors usually used for these parent roles, could have handled a more realistic story well, and brought some real emotional beats to the movie.

As expected, Buckley's romance with Ana Ayora was the definite A-plot here, but why did their memory lane rekindling catalyst have to be close-up magic, the worst of all entertainment options? Was there no mime troop they could have been teenage members of? When it comes to magic, and jazz, I'm like Indiana Jones and snakes…Why'd it have to be magic?

Also, no way that 29-year-old guy they have playing "teenage" Mike grows up to be Robert Buckley. Nope! They definitely had to soft focus all the mostly unnecessary flashback scenes so that those actors, easily less than a decade younger than our leads, didn't quite look their age.

And, c'mon, Buckley, who, again, is the star of his own TV show, gives the love of his life a necklace he bought…in high school? For real? I'm surprised we couldn't see her neck turn green in real time. At least get a gal a little upgrade. Sheesh!

The whole rival real estate agent thing went nowhere. And what was that subplot even supposed to be about? Would have much rather seen a scene from the Handsome Justice episode where Buckley's character defended a dog accused of murder, than that whole waste of time.

On the other hand, loved the Grift body spray mentions, and so glad we go to see that ad. Hallmark doesn't do subtle—"But will they get it?" is basically the network's motto—but this is one case of subtext just being text that worked.

Oh and, how did his parents buy a house on the Hudson river just by selling a nice, but fairly average, suburban home? Sure, they said it was a fixer upper, but anything on the water is gonna be way more pricey than where they were, and you've still got to have the cash to do the fixing. Also, you know the old adage about how nothing soothes a struggling marriage like a whole house renovation project, amirite?

Speaking of money…Why didn't Buckley just buy his folks the house right away if he didn't want to see it go? I mean, even if he's only a mid-level TV star, this wasn't some extravegent manse, and certainly wouldn't be an unusual thing for a well-off child to do for their middle-class parents. Why all the rigamarole with the weird guy and the rescinded offer? And, like, what was that all about? So many stories I'd have rather seen from this talented cast than some of the filler we actually got.

Harder didn't get nearly enough to do, but he and Bennett had decent chemistry and they got most of the best lines. The joke about "Will we decorate like this for our kids," and Bennett's emphatic, "No," cut the tension of an emotional scene well, with perfect timing, making it actually, laugh out loud funny—a Hallmark rarity. And when Harder appears in doorway after hearing from the adoption agency, and Bennett knows just by looking at his face what the call said, I got emotional.

That all the couples in this one got to kiss, including Bennett and Harder, is important. With the specter of last year's Zola debacle absolutely lingering over the entire movie, it's hard to think of a better, actual example of #LoveWins, than that moment.

I also teared up when we saw Bennett and Harder's family at the end, not only because it was a long overdue Hallmark milestone, but also because Harder's real-life son, Kael, played he and Bennett's on-screen adopted child, and is just so stinking cute.

Am I giving this bonus points for finally having an LGBTQ+ storyline, even if it was pretty far from the foreground? For sure. But Buckley and Bennett also brought humor and heart to this one, of a variety not usually found on Hallmark, and Lawrence and Williams also upped the ante on the quality here. Notable that Hallmark also sprung for two actual, name-brand holiday songs, so they were willing to spend a little bit of extra cash on this effort, which says more about their “commitment to diversity” than years of empty promises ever did.

Would have liked House even more, if Hallmark had been brave enough to swap the storylines; Bennett falling in love the boy next door, and Buckley and his bride waiting to hear about adoption, but barring that, do wish it had been bit more of a true ensemble (i.e. all three love stories had equal weight).

Despite quibbles, I'm still putting this on top of the 2020 Hallmark heap, at least for the moment, because I laughed, I cried and I felt good about the progress that has been made, no matter how long overdue it is.

As I've said so many times, representation really does matter, particularly on a channel like Hallmark, which caters to exactly the audience that most needs to see LGBTQ+ people laughing, living and loving, just like every other family.

Representation really can change lives. It opens hearts and minds. It can help those struggling within themselves feel seen and worthy. Really can not underestimate how transformative these normalizing glimpses can be, particularly for a network like Hallmark, with a large "conservative" audience.

"Conservative" is in quotes, because there's nothing genuinely conservative about human rights, and respect for those unlike you. Empathy and acceptance for others should be a baseline standard for living in a society—not a political statement.

No one has the right to deny someone else's humanity, and someone's choice to hold hate in their heart deserves no respect from Hallmark, or society at large. Really hopeful that some kid out there who feels excluded and awful about themself because their family and upbringing has told them everything they're feeling is wrong and sinful, can now see representation like this on their family's safe space TV channel, and know it's going to be OK.

It's a small step, but it's definitely a good one, and I'm really looking forward to the actual lead LGBTQ+ holiday romances coming soon, like Hulu's Happiest Season (Nov. 25), Lifetime's The Christmas Setup (Dec. 12) and Paramount Network's Dashing in December (Dec. 13), and hoping Hallmark joins that club in 2021.

Until then…

Final Judgement: 3 Paws Up

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mrspettyferr · 5 years ago

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Okay I have to vent. Please someone talk to me about this movie. I just...

I have no idea what this movie was. This was like, ten ideas thrown in a hat and just shuffled around. This was...the same guy who did TFA? Really? This post is so long and has spoilers so I’ll just put it under the cut...

I have too much to say about Reylo so I’m going to keep that separate. So...

The PACE OMG MY NECK IS BROKEN. This movie needed to sloooow doooown holy shit. We’re in a new location like every five seconds.

Not a fan of the “McGuffin” aspect. It was very contrived. Everything they needed to find was always conveniently found. Oh, there’s the ship we’re looking for! Oh look, there’s the dagger! Oh look, thanks for rescuing us Lando and giving us exactly the info we need! Oh, thanks for that Zorii, that’s exactly what we need to escape! Eh...

I felt so little? Why did I feel so hollow? Maybe because of the pace? It didn’t let you BREATHE. Unsurprisingly, the Rey/Ben scenes were where the real emotion and heart was but even they were so brief.

ROSE. I’m so insulted on KMT’s behalf like wow, way to sideline a really good character who could have easily just gone with the group on their “adventure.” She really should have gone with Poe and Finn, leaving Rey to do her own thing. But no, gotta have “the trio” that was painfully forced.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but even Hux is underutilized and I’m not even a fan of his. His “betrayal” also felt super random and petty. (Richard E Grant is so classy though like he just makes a good baddie.)

Janna was nice, but didn’t really need to be there. Same with Zorii, though I liked that she brought some background to Poe. Lando was more of a throwback than really needed as well, but I’ll happily have his cameo.

Pleasantly surprised with Poe--then again, Oscar is a very charming and compelling actor. But I am convinced Finn was supposed to have this arc. Between the two, Poe definitely has a larger role and better overall arc.

Which makes me scratch my head on why John dragged Rian when Finn once again, didn’t do much except for worry about Rey. Does Finn have any reservations about fighting stormtroopers? Nope. Thinking of that stormtrooper rebellion? Nah. We’ve literally never had a stormtrooper and they do nothing with this story line. Nothing.

I’m thinking maybe John cares less about his character and more about just having a role that’s revolved around filming with his besties. He got to film with his buds and Finn being Force sensitive is implied so he got what he wanted I guess.

Wow I’m still back to being angry about Rose. Finnrose...they completely disregard TLJ. You’d have no idea the impact Rose had on Finn based on this movie and that’s really, really sad.

Not enough Ben Solo man. The style, the look, the cockiness even though he has one line...I cry. I’ll come back to him on my second post.

Palpatine’s return isn’t explained beyond “I have died before. Some say the paths to the dark side are unnatural” or some shit like that. I have no idea how he’s alive or what the hell machine that was that he’s hooked up to.

The sith temple or whatever that was looked cool but there’s...not really a fight? I know this is Star Wars but ships blasting at each other is far less fun to watch than say, Rey and Ben kicking ass together. I was bored by the space battles. Now I’m wishing for that damn Matt Smith theory where Palps takes on a younger form so Rey and Ben could have a battle together. At least we had some prequel jumps I guess...

They actually did pretty well with the Leia footage I was very surprised. Carrie forever. <3

“You cannot deny the truth that is your family....unless your family is bad, then you can deny it and change your name and everything!”

Dyad. What does this mean. Why was this barely touched on. Why if they share one life force is Ben not a Force ghost where is he I need to know.

I will rant on this later but...how am I supposed to celebrate and smile at the end when the literal conflicted hero who’s story we care most about just died. Saving the girl he loved. And the damn pacing gives her NO TIME to mourn or process this. I am...

This movie...is a mess. It does have some enjoyable moments, clearly the Rey/Ben dynamic is the highlight, but it’s a chore to get through and by the end, you’re just tired and need some water. I feel like I need to see it again but I...don’t want to.

Oh and Rey saw a vision of her and Kylo on the throne together. 1) I need to see it, because that throne only seats one person. 2) The movie probably would have been 100% better had she joined him and we see where that goes.

#reylo #tros spoilers

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growingpaynes-art · 5 years ago

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The Lion King 2019 Review: What I Liked, What I Didn’t, and How It Compares to the Original

Non-spoilery overview and note to anyone debating watching this-

If you’re looking for this film to give you something that the original didn’t, you will be disappointed. This is a nearly shot-for-shot exact recreation of the original for most of the movie. There are some minor changes, but no major differences in plot.

However

It’s definitely worth seeing- once on a matinee ticket at the very least- if you enjoyed anything about the original. It’s pretty faithful to the source material and the hyper-realism of the animation really is best viewed on a big screen. The comedy is solid, the changes they made to the story and characters were good decisions, and as a guy that was literally raised on the original movie and grew up loving every part of it, i did legitimately enjoy seeing this remake with my mother (who introduced me to the original when I was very little) and getting to share this story that I loved with my younger sister for the first time.

If all you are here for is the “Let’s Go Lesbians” guy you will be satisfied

Spoilers under the cut

What I Liked:

The visuals of the opening sequence alone are worth the price of admission. They’ve lovingly recreated the iconic intro nearly frame for frame in astounding detail. It really succeeded in taking me back to my three-year old self seeing the original for the first time on my family’s little box tv, captivated by the visuals and score.

Timon and Pumbaa were legitimately funny and are stronger characters than in the original.

They kept the aspects of Scar that made him sinister, conniving, and creepy without stepping into queer-coding territory. They also didn’t apply racial coding to him in the overt way they did in the original.

At first I was disappointed by Rafiki’s lack of a staff in the opening, but I was later pacified by its appearance for the final battle. I would however, have liked to see the “oh yes, the past can hurt” bit between him and Simba, which was absent in this version.

I felt that the introduction of the hyena characters in the elephant graveyard was stronger in this version, but i do wish that the chase scene had gone on for longer. It’s significantly shorter than the original, and the cubs don’t fight back like they did in the original.

The hyenas played a larger role where they had much more agency, and the relationship between them and Scar was on more equal footing. Shenzi was an especially welcome change, presenting a truly chilling presence easily rivaling Scar’s. Florence Kasumba’s performance really stands out. Additionally Eric Andre and Keegan-Michael Key’s hyena characters served as quality comic relief without any jokes straying into possible able-ism.

The ‘pinned-ya’ scenes were re-choreographed to be more like two kids wrestling and didn’t have the awkward sexual implications some people point out in the original.

This version offers a quick explanation as to why Scar is living with the pride despite the typical customs of real lions

The mouths were really animated very well, and were for the most part very expressive. They were a bit hard to track during the songs, but generally words were formed pretty believably in their mouths and expressions such as smiles or grimaces were rendered very clearly without looking foreign on an animal face. This was by far best achieved on Timon and the hyenas, but was decent on the lion cubs, Scar, and most of the minor characters as well. The other adult lions weren’t as expressive, but they’re weren’t terrible either.

The animation of Timon, Pumbaa, and the hyenas continually impressed impressed me throughout the course of the film. They were simultaneously the most consistently realistic looking and the most expressive. I honestly don’t understand why some people are coming for Pumbaa and saying he’s ‘nightmare fuel’, his design was both very friendly looking and accurate to real warthogs. He and Timon seemed to be the favorites of both the kids and adults in my theater.

The short scene where adult Simba gleefully pounces after a pair of butterflies and invites a scared Hartebeest hang out, oblivious to his own status as a carnivore, was pretty adorable.

Timon and Pumbaa were more or less confirmed to be a gay couple, and are shown with their own piglet during the ending sequence. This isn’t lingered on for longer than necessary, just long enough for you to appreciate how adorable the little striped piglet is, and thus it comes off as more genuine than performative allyship (it’s definitely better than Beauty and the Beast’s “exclusively gay moment” or Endgame’s Gay Joe Russo). It also helps that Timon isn’t being portrayed by a straight guy leaning as hard into the camp gay stereotype as possible. It was a moment that I, as a queer person, actually enjoyed.

What I Didn’t:

I felt that the musical score wasn’t as strong as the original. I wanted that first note over the sunrise to shake the theater, to bang across the screen in brilliant gold, and when it didn’t, I was disappointed. I felt this way regarding the score and soundtrack for much of the film.

While much of the dialogue matched the original nearly word for word, the delivery of most of it was much more subdued. I understand that they were going for a grittier tone that was less cartoon-y, but a lot of Scar and adult Simba’s lines seemed like they were mumbled off at the end of a work day and they’d just given up on trying to get a better take. Donald Glover seemed to teeter between Marshall Lee and complete disinterest a lot of the time.

I would have liked to have seen more of Rafiki than what we got, and I’d been hoping for an expansion on his role from the original rather than a reduction.

The “I killed Mufasa” bit was done very well- Chiwetel Ejiofor’s delivery of the line was chilling (although not as much as Jeremy Irons’), the expression in Scar’s eyes was very sinister, the light of the fire hit him just right. The following revelation of this truth to the lionesses however was bumbly, and seemed like it was originally written to be longer but was quickly and awkwardly condensed. It really didn’t flow as well as the original.

The end battle between Scar and Simba was anti-climactic. The choreography and visuals were much more creative and suspenseful in the original. The blows didn’t really have much weight or ferocity to them, and they didn’t coincide as well with the score. There also was no sick kick move, Scar literally just accidentally rolls off the cliff. The showdown between Nala and Shenzi is far better- it’s vicious and animalistic, with a few shots having them silhouetted with fire roaring behind them, Nala’s massive teeth shown off impressively in profile.

From the very first introduction of Scar, it’s strongly and very overtly implied that Sarabi is the one that gave him the scar after he attempted to advance on her despite her rejecting him. This is revisited again when he commands Sarabi to be his queen upon his assuming of the throne. She again rejects him. With this moment being played twice, I expected this to be a plant for a later third scene of Sarabi temporarily putting Scar back in his place, or at least threatening to take his other eye, to replace the scene from the original where he slaps her across the face. Scar and Sarabi do eventually come to blows as Simba and Nala return to Pride Rock, but it’s very brief and sort of just a clumsy grapple without a clear winner, and with no reference to their apparent backstory. This comes off as a case of planting without payoff. I expect that either a scene such as the one i described was originally planned and cut for time, or it was thought that the implications of such a scene might bring the film up towards a PG-13 rating.

I wish that in the more harrowing sequences, such as the elephant graveyard chase and the stampede scene, that we could see some real fear on the character’s faces. There’s some really good tensing of the body and some bared teeth, but there’s not much in the eyes. I feel the emotion would have been communicated better if the pupils were dilated, if the eyes were darting back and forth with the whites showing at the edges occasionally, the ears flattened down hard against the head.The child actors put forward some really believable fear and sadness through their voices, but the faces just didn’t quite match it. I do however understand that this is a kid’s film, and that showing a hyper-realistic lion cub gripped with sheer terror or coming to the understanding of the gravity of death is probably too much for most young kids. I personally just prefer to have truly heartwrenching, impactful, and emotional scenes in the media I consume, and I often walk away unfulfilled in this respect (although, i admit i am very difficult to please in this area- i’ve been a die-hard mcu fan for the better part of a decade and i left my first watch of infinity war almost completely unaffected.)

Continuing from the last point- The eyes on most of the characters were very static. They rarely blinked, only really looked straight ahead and lacked any range of expression beyond neutral and slightly squinted. The expression of emotion could have been greatly facilitated by the use of the brow muscles, dilating and contracting of the pupils, more squinting and widening, some side-eye or eye-rolling, etc. Even using some more body language would have made a world of difference (for example- an excited cub wriggling with excitement, his paws shifting and his little butt scooting in the sand because he just can’t contain himself, his shoulders shaking with high-pitched giggles) Emotion was delivered quite well through the mouths, but almost not at all through the eyes. This made the scene where Simba discovers his dead father especially awkward looking. JD McCrary delivers some heartbreaking cries and a few tear-choked lines, and the little cub body shakes and cowers, but Simba’s cgi face retains a completely neutral expression. Its a very cute, and perfectly realistic face for a lion cub, but it’s a face that feels inappropriate for this context. Adult Simba and Nala are the worst offenders in this respect. Simba looks almost like a plush doll, almost never changing expression at all. Nala looks superbly hyper-realistic, but... too realistic. She’s as perfect of a cgi lioness model you could possibly ask for, but because of this, there’s no intelligence in her eyes for some of the shots. It’s strange and distracting to hear a human voice come out as her mouth moves realistically while the eyes retain a vacant animal stare. This is really weird to me as there are multiple moments in the film where they absolutely nail the eyes- the sequence where Simba chases Rafiki through the dense jungle, several shots of Nala sneaking away from Pride Rock by moonlight, the close-up of Scar as he reveals to Simba that he killed Mufasa. The commonality between these shots seems to be strong directional lighting, where light from the moon or a fire can catch the irises and make the expression in them really pop. Closeups of Mufasa’s face showed that they had unprecedented control of the facial muscles- they moved with intricate complexity under the skin and fur- and yet the eyes were blank. It’s disappointing that they clearly had the capability to get the eyes right and apparently just didn’t allow the cg artists enough time to apply this consistently.

The slow motion zoom away from Simba’s face as he watches his father fall from the cliff face is admittedly ridiculous looking in cgi. This “long live the king” doesn’t come anywhere close to the original. Mufasa’s climb up the cliff is pretty good, but the fall feels flat and unemotional.

The sequence tracking the wad of Simba’s hair went on for too long.

The story seemed much faster paced than the original, and each scene seemed to be too short, leaving me wanting more. Some of the scenes feel awkwardly chopped or condensed, and some of the dialogue is a bit bumbly. This movie kinda relies on you being very familiar with the original.

#lion king #the lion king #lion king spoilers #lion king review #review

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storms-dnd-archive · 5 years ago

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My Top Fav Starkid Shows

Since I just watched Black Friday’s digital release now seems as good a time as any to rank my favorite musicals from Starkid. I in no way think you should find these to be your favorites, they're just mine. I’m gonna rank them in ascending order and explain a little why I chose that spot. Please share with me your top lists as well! Also, please be my friend and talk to me about musicals.

12. Ani: A parody - I am sorry if I offend anyone, but I did not enjoy Ani very much. I did like how it seemed like a sports movie, and I didnt hate it. There were some funny moments. But on the whole, was just not a huge fan of this one.

11. A Very Potter Senior Year - I know the quality is lower because they didnt have the same sort of time or resources to make it as nice as the other shows, but I think that warrants to be lower on the list. Also, the songs were not as memorable and the plot felt like it was forced a little. Still enjoyable, just to many issues to be higher on the list.

10. Holy Musical, B@tman! - First, Lego Batman totally took inspiration from HMB, I can feel it in my bones. So, I liked this musical, but there are not as many really strong songs that I catch myself remembering or wanting to sing along to. It's a cute story and I really like this one, it's just a little lower in quality for me. Dark, Sad, Lonely Knight

9. Black Friday - This could possibly go up once I’ve seen it a few more times. I liked it, but the songs were not my favorite and as a story, it seems like it would have worked better as a play than a musical. But, maybe once the YouTube version drops I’ll feel differently. I have spoiler opinions as well for the show, about what I super liked. But that will have to go on its own post. Also, this has got to be the saddest show in the bunch. Like oof-a-rooni. I has the sad. - cant name fav song, but Dylan Saunders ya’ll -

8. Me and My Dick - Like A Very Potter Musical, this one is a classic for me. I watched it a lot when I was younger. I think it is incredibly funny and the plot is so off the wall surreal that a musical was literally the best choice medium it could have gone. This spot is mostly nostalgic for me. Ready to Go!

Bonus Tin Can Brothers: Spies Are Forever - Not the same group so technically should not be on the list at all, but it has enough of the same actors and people working on it that I think there is value in adding to the list. I really liked this show at all. The songs were ok, but like Black Friday I think it would have worked better without being a musical. Still keep the opening song but perhaps it be a play the rest of the time. The plot and story for this show are really great, the plot twist is amazing, and Curt Mega being a gay spy during a time during the Purple Scare is really something. (Check out Silvana LTD. on Youtube for a more comprehensive look on how brilliant this is.) Overall great show and I hope the Tin Can Brothers make more shows.

7. Trail to Oregon - With some really great songs and one of the funniest shows in the lineup, there is so much to lobe about Trail to Oregon. It may not be the most dramatic plot or best songs, but because of how funny and enjoyable it is, it deserves a high spot. Basically, just a lot of fun. You Gotta Go - or - Pays to be an Animal

6. Firebringer - LESBIANS! -cough- So, this musical is great. It has a really nice polished feel that I think shows how far Starkid has come from its humble origins. It's also an original story and not a parody of anything, and that in its own right I think deserves a high spot on the list. Because it shows Starkid are not one-hit parody wonders. I think there is a lot to love about this one, with the lovable characters, political commentary, and really awesome visual effects. Also, “I don't want to do the work today!” Into the Night!

5. A Very Potter Sequel - A really solid sequel. In its own right has a great plot while still tying to the first show's plot really nicely. Characterization is still great and all the new characters are very enjoyable. There are some great songs. Overall, it really pairs nicely with the original. Harry Freakin Potter - or - Guy’s Like Potter

4. A Very Potter Musical - The OG, a Classic. Forever timeless. Where it all began and without we would have none of the other shows on this list. I wish more people or studios would put musicals online. Original, parody, or otherwise. There is such a strong need for creativity and fun musical entertainment. More people should take a chance. But anyways, such good music. Almost every song is a bop. The characters are hilarious and the plot is amazing. I could go on but anyone bothering to read this post knows how good AVPM is. Granger Danger!

3. Twisted - I cried! This show is so well done. The blending of Wicked and Aladdin is so well done that you wish more villans would get this treatment. I would love to explore more stories in this manner. Not being a villain apologist but changing the story a bit and seeing a story from the perspective of someone everyone sees as a villain. Gosh, I love that concept. This musical is great and I have very little critiques for it. Also, Dylan Saunders. If I believed in Wishes!

2. Starship - This originally would have been my absolute favorite and has been for a long time. But TGWDLM is just so catchy and the quality is so nice. Starship has better quality songs if comparing the two. The songs are really what make this, where almost every number is perfect and lends to the plot in the most cohesive way of all the Starkid shows. Also, a parody of Starship Trooper and the Littel Mermaid, sign me the fuck up. That is so original! I love all the characters immensely and think that the character arcs are perhaps the best here than in any of the other shows. Overall, one of the best Starkid has done and I am always surprised it does not get more love from the community. Also, the puppets are so great ya’ll! The puppets! Ok so my favorite song is Kick it Up a Notch, and it's my favorite villain song and possibly musical song, period. It is so jazzy and cool and catchy, I sing it all the time. Dylan Saunders has an amazing voice and this song highlights it in all the best ways. Also, Pincer looks amazing. God, I love Starship.

1. The Guy Who Didnt Like Musicals - Number 1! So, I gushed so much about Starship, how could any musical top it? Well, that's what I thought too until I watched TGWDLM a few times. While being a parody, on musicals as a whole and old SciFi, it is a fairly original plot. The acting here is some of the more natural feeling and better acted acting in all of the shows. It could practically be a movie (and I've seen so many requests that it become a movie, like please please become a movie!) The songs are perfect and have an emotional punch with each placement. None of them feel out of place and the ones that do feel that way with purpose since the Apotheosis is unnatural. The plot is just amazing, with perfect timing on emotional impact and moving purpose. The characters feel real and have good arcs. And although it ends rather bleakly, the twist ending actually lends to how unique and awesome of a musical it is. (Giving me strong Little Shop of Horrors vibes.) Overall, this is a musical I have watched several several times and recommended to a lot of people. It is really great and I will be the first person backing any Kickstarter or call to action that a movie would need to be made. Best Song, besides all of them? La De Da De Day - or - Join Us (and Die)

#starkid #Team Starkid #starkid musicals #musicals #my top ranking #my thoughts #lost-in-pink #the guy who didn't like musicals #starship #twisted #a very potter musical #black friday

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sparklebitch · 5 years ago

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Dan and Phil’s Impact

Okay this is going to be long and rambling because I’m trying to type it on my phone in the car and my thoughts are all over the freaking place and I don’t blame you if you don’t want to read the whole thing I’ll put a tldr at the end lmao.

So first of all I’ve been watching Dan and Phil since like? 2014~ And for a while there wasn’t a minute that went by where I didn’t think about them. Their videos got me through so much shit in my life. Even dumb video game videos were like my reprieve from real life. And yeah a lot of stuff was super cringy and I was definitely borderline one of those creepy people that wanted to know everything about their lives (obvs not anymore lol) but that aside they were such good freaking influences on me? I looked up to them so much and, sure, I have a lot of role-model-worthy people in my life, but no one like them.

Everyone around me is so aggressively religious (although a lot of them are totally cool about it and not bad peoples !! But the rest of them are total dicks) and I felt like I couldn’t... question myself I guess? About literally anything. I felt like I couldn’t question religion, sexuality, the things I liked, what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be. It was like everyone’s lives revolved around church stuff and people were basically born knowing what they were going to do? And there I was, an awkward, sexually confused, homeschooler who had 2 friends that she wasn’t even that close to. I felt like I was the only one in the world like this. Everyone seemed to have a place in the world, except me. I often thought that maybe it was a mistake that I was in this world, that there was some cosmic screw up and that I was never meant to be born. I felt incomplete and it was so confusing and horrible. I was sure that that feeling was never going to go away. I had no one to talk to, no one to explain to me that it was okay to screw up. It wasn’t the end of the world to question things or yourself, everything was going to be okay. All I wanted in my life was for someone to tell me that.

Then I found Dan and Phil. And yeah, they’re two British boys on the internet that will never know who I am. But that’s okay. They don’t need to know me to have an impact on my life. I mean, who’s ever been impacted by a song? A movie, a book, an actor, an artist? The human race is always searching for someone or something to look up to. Religion, famous people, a father figure, a friend. Someone. And that’s what they were to me.

People didn’t understand what it was that I liked about them. And, if I’m being 100% honest, I guess I didn’t really know either. Sure, they’re funny, and the chemistry between the two is very compelling but there was just something about them that spoke to me. I loved them. More than I had loved anything in my life. I looked up to them, and listened to the things they said, listened to the things they believed it. Through them I discovered so many of the things that I love in my life. I started writing and drawing because of them! It’s crazy to think that I am the person that I am today because of them. I can’t imagine what I would be like if I hadn’t watched their videos.

There’s a lot of uncertainty in my life right now as I’m finishing up getting my General Associates and I’m in the process of starting a daycare with my older sister. It’s a lot for me to process because for the longest time all I wanted to do was get away from here. I wanted to go somewhere and be someone new. And it wasn’t until recently that I realized that’s not what I actually wanted. I love my family and my friends, I love living here (aside from the bigots but they’re everywhere so there’s no escaping them). What I really, truly wanted was to be myself. It wasn’t my family and this town that I wanted to get away from, it was the me that I was pretending to be. I just wanted to be myself, that was all. I didn’t care if it was in a big town with new people, i just wanted people to know me. I wish I knew this back then, then maybe I wouldn’t have gone into a tailspin when I was getting ready for college but hindsight I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When I finished high school it was like I was paralyzed. I didn’t know how to make decisions for myself or do anything on my own. All I knew was that I was not straight, seemingly surrounded by homophobes, and I was very very tired. So, toward the end of summer my mom pushed me enrolled me at a community college near home (which I am grateful for lol) and then I was going to transfer to a university after 2 years. Things started to feel better after that. Around that time I also started taking medication for depression and anxiety and it has only completely changed my life. No longer am I the super quiet painfully awkward person who’s so afraid to say something wrong that she instead stays silent, not telling anyone about my interests or passions in fear that I would be ridiculed, hiding core parts of me while the whole world passes by. I was talking and making jokes, I wasn’t constantly terrified to talk to people or to even simply leave my house to go places. Things were better. I was happier!

But as the time for me to transfer to a university drew near that paralyzing feeling crept back into my skin. I hated my classes. I hated college. I was suddenly plunged back into the world of endlessly scrolling through social media and watching the same shows on tv over and over, isolating myself from everyone and everything trying to ignore the world around me. I felt like everything was hopeless again. I was only occasionally watching dan and Phil videos at this time, having very reluctantly grown away from them (it was a sad day when I realized that I didn’t care if I skipped a video or two. I literally cried that day). But I was bored then, so I started watching their videos again. This was around the time that dan posted his video on depression (that’s a while other long ass post I could make but probably won’t because I’m already tired of typing) and i damn near called my mom (even though she was just downstairs) on the spot to tell her what I was feeling. Hearing that there was someone else out there that felt like I was was enough. But not only that, he explained that recovery is not a straight road. There are twists and turns, there are setbacks. It’s not like I was going to get better and everything was going to magically be awesome all the time. Some stuff was going to suck. I was going to go through shitty times and that was okay.

Because of him, I ended up going back to the doctor and explaining that my meds weren’t working anymore, and I got it taken care of. I feel so much fucking better now than I did before, and I know that it’s okay if I don’t always feel this way. I told my parents that I didn’t want to go to a university and they were okay with it, provided that I finished my 2 year degree at the community college. And while some things still suck, and I’m still worried about my future and whether or not I’m going to meet someone and fall in love, things are absolutely positively 1000% better than they have ever been. And a lot of it is thanks to them. Obviously it was me who actually took the steps I needed to to get here, but it was because of their being my role model that I had the courage to get where I am today.

Dan and Phil have such a unique platform and following. They could say jump and so many people would (metaphorically ofc) jump off the cliff, me included. But they don’t do that. They use their fame to positively impact people. They use their platform to encourage people and talk about important things in life. They share things about their lives in the hopes that it will help even 1 person out there... and I’m not the only one who they’ve positively impacted. The number of people that owe everything to them is crazy.

Okay so now I’m going to go a little bit into labels. (Not too much tho I’m seriously tired of typing lol). Dan talked about them a lot in his video. An entire freaking chapter of it was dedicated to labels. When I was younger I knew that I liked girls. I liked boys too though, so I just shrugged it off as Really wanting to be friends with girls. I didn’t know what the word gay meant until I was like 12 because I was a very sheltered child. My parents never talked about it and the only time I ever remember hearing the word before then was when one of my siblings called another sibling “gay” at the dinner table. The only thing I knew about the word was that my parents Did Not Like it. While I eventually stumbled onto the internet and learned a Lot of things, and a lot about labels, I became overwhelmed. There were so many words with so many meanings, and lot of times people didn’t agree on what the literal definition was. (Like bisexual meaning Only men+women vs. just like.. more than just 2+ genders) So for a long time I identified as pansexual because.. I didn’t know what to do. And based on my experiences on the internet, being bi was basically saying that you were excluding people. Idk it was fucked. The label ‘pan’ didn’t really feel like it fit me either, but it worked for the time being.

Dan’s comments on labels really got me thinking. I don’t think I’m a lesbian, but I don’t really know about bisexual either. When he said that he loved to use the word queer it just.. fucking hit me in the chest like a ton of bricks. I literally couldn’t breath. And it’s not like I’ve never heard people use the word queer. Tons of people identify as queer. But it was just something about the way he explained it? And maybe it was just the fact that it was him explaining it because, as I said before, I look up to him. He has a huge impact on my life. Saying queer gives me comfort. It feels less... restrictive I guess, for a lack of better words. I don’t know if this will be /the/ label for me, but that’s not the point. There doesn’t have to be a label for me. I, no one, should have to be pressured into finding a label so that other people have something to call you?? Fuck labels. Fuck people who pressure you into picking one. You be you.

So, in conclusion (honestly I feel like this has all been so incoherent I apologize) I don’t want to hide forever. I don’t. I hope that some day I can have even a fraction of the courage that Dan has to tell the people that I care about who I truly am. And the first step is telling someone.

So, to everyone who sees it here, most of which probably know or don’t care,

I’m bisexual, bitch. And I use the word queer.

It took so much fucking courage for dan to post that video and I have crazy amounts of respect for that man. I’ve said it a thousand times already, but I’m going to say it again. I’m so. Fucking. Proud of him. And I know he’s probably going to get thousands of stories like this one (if he hasn’t gotten that many already) but I’m going to tag him anyway. @danielhowell , you’ve changed my life. You’ve changed millions of people’s of lives for the better. Thank you. Thank you for everything you’ve done.

Tldr; dnp mean everything to me, even though I’ve grown away from them, they have been and always be a big part of who I am and i am so fucking proud of Dan.

#daniel howell #dan #dan howell #dnp #danisnotonfire #lgbt #queer #bi #bisexual #personal

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cathygeha · 5 years ago

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REVIEW

Making Up by Helena Hunting

Shacking Up #4

Cosy Felton is a college student working in an adult toy shop to make ends meet. When Griffin Mills stops by the store to buy a list of items for a bachelor party Cosy makes a less than fun shopping trip a lot less embarrassing. As Griffin is drawn to Cosy he returns later to ask her on a date...and though she says no they do eventually go out. For awhile the eleven year age difference seems it might be a stumbling block but not for long...nope...soon other things seem to pop up that cause problems. There are ups and downs in their relationship but throughout the story it is impossible NOT to see them together.

What I liked:

* Griffin: WONDERFUL book boyfriend!

* Cosy: a nice balance to Griffin and his soul mate

* The meet cute

* The way the two usually ended up talking things out rather than giving up

* The steamy scenes

* Griffin’s family

* Knowing how the characters were feeling and what they were thinking – first person dual points of view

* How it all worked out

What I did not like: * Imogen – Griffin’s Ex-fiance

* Armstrong – Griffin’s cousin

* The drama of the ups and downs though they did allow for a lot of making up

* All the comments about the age difference although there were times Cosy seemed younger than 22

Did I like this book? Yes

Will I read more in the series? Yes

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC – This is my honest review.

4.5 Stars

Synopsis:

A new standalone, laugh-out-loud romantic comedy by New York Times bestselling author Helena Hunting.

Cosy Felton is great at her job—she knows just how to handle the awkwardness that comes with working at an adult toy store. So when the hottest guy she’s ever seen walks into the shop looking completely overwhelmed, she’s more than happy to turn on the charm and help him purchase all of the items on his list.

Griffin Mills is using his business trip in Las Vegas as a chance to escape the broken pieces of his life in New York City. The last thing he wants is to be put in charge of buying gag gifts for his friend’s bachelor party. Despite being totally out of his element, and mortified by the whole experience, Griffin is pleasantly surprised when he finds himself attracted to the sales girl that helped him.

As skeptical as Cosy may be of Griffin’s motivations, there’s something about him that intrigues her. But sometimes what happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas and when real life gets in the way, all bets are off. Filled with hilariously awkward situations and enough sexual chemistry to power Sin City, Making Up is the next standalone in the Shacking Up world.

Excerpt

We’re a couple of minutes away from my apartment, which also means we’re almost at the end of our date. End-of-date protocol often means a goodnight kiss.

And I’ve eaten onions. Lots of them. What the hell was I thinking? I feel around in my shorts pocket, hoping I have a random stick of gum. I find a tiny square packet and pull it out, along with an old tissue. I shove that back in my pocket and sigh with relief as I carefully open the Listerine Pocketpak. There’s one strip left. I pop it in my mouth, wishing I had water since my mouth is dry and I’m suddenly super nervous.

Griffin pulls up in front of my apartment building. I swallow a bunch of times, trying to get the strip to dissolve on my tongue and glance out the tinted window, seeing it from his perspective. I don’t live in a bad part of town, but I sure as hell wouldn’t leave this car sitting out here for any length of time unless I wanted it keyed or stripped down.

Griffin shifts into park and turns to me, one hand resting on the back of my seat near the headrest. “I had a great time, Cosy.”

“Me too, thanks for dinner.” I tried to fork over my share, but he was quick on the credit card draw.

“It was my pleasure.” He leans in the tiniest bit, a nonverbal cue that he’s going in for a kiss.

I mirror the movement, giving him the go ahead. My stomach flutters in anticipation. I exhale slowly through my nose. Even though the Listerine strip should be doing its job to mask the onions, I don’t want to ruin the moment by breathing that in his face.

His fingertips skim my jaw, and I close my eyes. And then his lips brush my cheek. I wait for them to move a couple of inches to the right, but after what feels like a lot of seconds—and is probably only a few—I crack a lid.

Griffin is still close, a wry smile on his lips and a smolder in his eyes.

“Seriously, that’s it? A kiss on the cheek?”

His smile widens, making his eyes crinkle at the corners. He’s nothing like the guys I usually end up on dates with. College boys don’t take things slow. If I were out with one of the guys from school, I’d be sitting in a beat-up Civic with some stupid music playing, and he’d be all over me with his tongue halfway down my throat, copping a feel.

“I thought all the onions you ate were the equivalent to garlic for vampires.” Griffin fingers my hair near my shoulder. I’d really like him to finger something else. Wait. I mean I’d like to feel his hands on me. Not in my pants. Okay, maybe I’d like them in my pants, but not after date number one.

“I wasn’t thinking, and I really like onions. A lot. In hindsight, it’s not a great date food. I feel kinda dumb. And I guess at first I wasn’t so sure about you. How was I supposed to know you’d actually be kind of normalish?”

“Normalish?”

“Well, you drink club soda on purpose, so you can’t be all there.” I tap his temple.

Griffin circles my wrist with his fingers and drops his head, lips brushing over my knuckle. “We can’t all be perfect, now, can we?”

“I suppose not, and perfect is boring.”

“That it is.” He hums against my skin, and I feel it through my entire body. “I would like to try that kiss again, if you’re still interested.”

Buy-Book Link: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250253378

Author Bio:

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of PUCKED, Helena Hunting lives on the outskirts of Toronto with her incredibly tolerant family and two moderately intolerant cats. She's writes contemporary romance ranging from new adult angst to romantic sports comedy.

Helena Hunting Blog Tour Q&A

What inspired you to write Making Up?

I’d introduced Griffin in the previous Shacking Up Series novels, Shacking Up and Hooking Up—he was a bit of a mystery for readers because he was talked about, but not really present. I had a very clear picture in my mind of who he was, and the kind of woman who would end up being the perfect fit for him, and it was not his fiancé from the previous books.

Introduce us to your main characters!

Griffin Mills is the oldest of the three Mills brothers. At thirty-three he’s had several very long term relationships and was formerly engaged, but that relationship went up in flames. He’s gorgeous, smart, loves the numbers side of the family business he’s part of—a chain of hotels he’s set to inherit with his brothers. Also, he’s a little awkward, which I love, because there’s nothing quite like a hot guy who doesn’t have all the lines and fumbles a bit when he’s dealing with someone he’s attracted to. It makes for some hilarious banter with his love interest, Cosy Felton. Our heroine is a twenty-two year old who has been a bit of a nomad for most of her life, but is finally finishing school and happens to work at an Adult Toy Store part time. It’s definitely not her favourite job, but it pays the bills. She’s sassy, not much of a planner and definitely more than Griffin bargained for.

Lots of aspiring authors out there. Any advice for them?

Just keep writing. Every day put words on the page and surround yourself with positive people who are there to support you. Ask questions, join book groups, be an avid reader and an observer.

How is Making Up different from your other books?

Making Up has a trope I’ve never really explored or played around with before, so it was a lot of fun to write. While I’ve written age gaps before, it hasn’t been a key part of the storyline, or had a significant impact on how the characters perceive the relationship. Griffin and Cosy are from two very different worlds and balancing their expectations and insecurities was one of my favourite parts of writing their story. Making Up has my signature quirky, sassy heroines and I love writing heroes that are sexy, yet a little awkward. While it’s a light read, there’s some drama, and some heavy baggage, which I think grounds the story and balances out the hilarity.

I know asking someone’s all-time favorite book is a loaded question so what’s your current favorite read?

I’ve been so lucky to read so many amazing books this year but I’m going to go with Broken Knight by LJ Shen which releases this August. I love YA/NA romance and angst, and she knows how to deliver both flawlessly.

Alright, the ultimate question: why should we read your book?

We all need a little escape from our own realities once in a while and Making Up is a fun, sexy romance that’s perfect for the summer. Also, Griffin is hot, and not particularly suave at times. I think we can all appreciate a guy who doesn’t have all the lines, especially if he looks like he should.

A famous movie producer wants to make your books into movies and they want you to cast your characters from Making Up. Which actors/actresses make the cut?

This is always a fun question and I’ll be 100% honest, I never actually look at actors prior to writing a story because I generally have a picture of the character in my head. But, I went on a Pinterest mission and Alex Morgan (she’s a soccer player, not an actress) would make a fabulous Cosy if she suddenly switched career paths. Hailee Steinfeld (Bumblebee) is super sassy, and could definitely play up the humor in this story, so she would be a legitimate actress choice. Gabriel Macht has a great smolder and can rock a seriously sexy suit, so I think he’d be great as Griffin.

Favorite quote or scene you wrote in Making Up?

Making Up is definitely a rom-com with some incredibly hilarious moments, but Griffin has some heavy baggage, which means there are also serious moments, and this is one of my favourites: “Talk to me. Fall apart on me. Show me your weakness so I can give you my strength.”

What inspired you to become a writer?

I’ve always loved to write, but finding time was a challenge during university and then afterward I was building a career and we renovated a house down to the studs—which takes up a lot of time and doesn’t leave much of an opportunity for putting down words (but it was an amazing experience). When I gave birth to my daughter she struggled to sleep—or rather stay asleep—and that meant I spent a lot of time awake in the middle of the night. So I started writing again during those late nights, and finally penned my first full novel.

What is a typical writing day like?

I usually start with a run and then copious amounts of coffee while I manage the administrative side of things—ie emails, social media posts etc. But when I sit down to write I have a playlist I put on repeat, more coffee, sparking water (so I can stay hydrated) and my cat Pumpkin generally lies on top of my closed laptop and supervises me for the day.

Do you have any interesting writing quirks or habits?

I listen to the same playlist while I write a novel. So if it takes me two months, then I listen to the same set of songs for two full months. I’ve destroyed A LOT of albums for my husband over the past several years. I just need the background noise, and listening to the radio or unfamiliar songs can be distracting.

What has been one of the most surprising things you’ve learned as a published author?

I’ve only been in the industry for five years and there has been so much change, learning to adjust and adapt and just staying true to your personal goal is really the most important thing I’ve learned. I think when you start out there are just so many unknowns, and taking risks can be scary, but if you don’t take those risks, it’s hard to grow as an author.

Can you tell us about what’s coming up next after this for you writing wise?

I have one more book in The Shacking Up Series, HANDLE WITH CARE, which releases at the end of August! Griffin’s cousin and best friend, Lincoln Moorehead, is the hero and if you didn’t know, he is also Armstrong’s brother. Lincoln is the polar opposite of Armstrong so it was so fun to write. I can’t wait for people to meet Griffin and Cosy and Lincoln and Wren.

How can readers connect with you online?

They can connect with me all over social media! (add links)

Website→ http://www.helenahunting.com/

Amazon → http://amzn.to/1y6OBB7

Twitter → http://bit.ly/HelenaHTwitter

Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/helena.hunting69/

Pinterest → http://bit.ly/1oQYRVN

Instagram → http://instagram.com/helenahunting Goodreads→ http://bit.ly/GoodReadsHH NEWSLETTER → http://bit.ly/HelenaHnewsletter

Bookbub → http://bit.ly/BookBubHH

Facebook Reader Group → http://bit.ly/TheBeaverDenHH

#Helena Hunting #Shacking Up 4 #Contemporary Romance #Macmillan publishing #St. Martin's Press #SMP

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