#Nicholas is just Simon but slightly to the left or something

[its-ezraaa]

Simon Snow be like:

Sometimes I think Nicholas and Simon share the same brain cell. And it's great. Screenshots from the (extremely awesome) comic Fence Rise.

#And they were RIVALS #OOHH they were rivals!! #Nicholas is just Simon but slightly to the left or something #(and Baz is what happens when you combine Seiji with Aiden but that's another topic) #Carry on #Simon snow #Fence comic #Fence #Nicholas cox #Snowbaz

[tiliamericana]

Muay Thai: 1.12

It didn’t look right. Nairi frowned and tugged on the hem of the jacket to try and change how it hung on her. Maybe she did need to start extending her wardrobe—the borrowed jacket was tight across her shoulders, and the cuffs didn’t quite reach the end of her shirt sleeves. “Are you sure this doesn’t look weird?”

“It’s fine, stop fussing,” said Agatha, reaching out and tugging at the shirt showing below the jacket cuff. “If you’re actually worried then tuck your sleeves up so they don’t show—”

Nairi batted her hand away without thinking, shaking her head. “No, it’s fine.”

“They’re just tattoos,” said Agatha, exasperated. “No one’s going to care.”

“I care,” said Nairi with a frown, and she tugged the sleeve down again.

“Perhaps you should have thought of that before getting them in such a conspicuous spot,” said Agatha with a touch of acid. She turned, ignoring Nairi’s stone faced look, and collected her phone and wallet. “Let’s go, then. I’m already getting texts from Linden.”

She kept her hand not gripping Linden’s present tucked in her pocket as they walked to Joe’s side-by-side, trying to unclench it from the fist it’d balled into without her permission. They didn’t talk much, shoulders hunched up against the January chill. It got colder here than Nairi was used to.

By comparison, the inside of Joe’s was an oven. The heat lamps were going, casting a warm light over the bar and its noisy occupants. Joe himself was up the far end, helping Mason and Flo with a very tall cupcake, lighter in hand. Linden appeared to have taken over the two booths at the back of the room, and she waved when she saw them, visibly brightening.

“You’re here!” she called with a distinctly tipsy exuberance, and she darted across to meet them, ignoring a reprimanding shout from Joe as she passed him. She caught both of them in the same hug, pushing her head between them and wrapping her arms around their far shoulders.

Nairi stiffened, but forced herself to relax, awkwardly patting Linden’s upper arm. “We are, yeah. Happy birthday.”

“Happy birthday, Lindy,” said Agatha, hooking her chin over Linden’s shoulder and hugging her back tightly.

“Thank you,” said Linden warmly, rocking back on her heels and beaming at them. She grabbed at their hands, tugging the two of them towards the back of the bar. “Come on, come join us!”

Nicholas was crammed into the corner of the booth, seemingly trapped there by a man Nairi didn’t recognise. He looked distinctly uncomfortable, nodding along with what the other man was saying, which apparently didn’t require much in the way of response. Or breaks.

He was speaking in a drawling tone, the words flowing, almost slurring into each other. “…I mean, Orwell wasn’t everything—Eliot himself actually rejected Animal Farm initially, did you know that?”

“Right,” said Nicholas slowly, looking extremely polite as he took a small sip from his half-pint of beer. His eyes flicked up and found Nairi’s, brow creasing with relief. “Nairi, Agatha, thank goodness—I mean, I’m glad you could join us. Have you met Simon?”

Simon turned to look at them, his head bobbling on his neck like some kind of novelty dashboard accessory as he did so. He gestured wildly, narrowly missing his glass. “Oh yes! Lindy talks about you two all the time—the jewess and the martial artist?”

Somehow Nicholas managed to look even more weary at his words, even as Agatha froze next to Nairi. “Like I said,” he said stiffly, his tone dropping even deeper. “We don’t really define people like that.”

“Oh yes, yes, I know,” said Simon airily, waving his fingers around. “It’s more interesting to find definitions of people that aren’t their names, one of my little quirks, you’ll have to forgive me.”

Agatha was so stiff next to her Nairi could almost hear her bones creaking. Nicholas shifted to escape the booth past Simon, his knees knocking up against the table. “Excuse me, I need to use the facilities.”

“We can get away with sitting in the other booth, right?” said Agatha under her breath as Nicholas jostled past them and fled to the bathroom.

“Mh-hm,” said Nairi, nodding with the knuckles of one hand pressed to her mouth. She’d met a lot of people who made her want to punch them, but it usually took more than one sentence.

“Guys!” said Linden blithely from just behind Nairi’s shoulder, seemingly having missed the whole interaction. “Cake time—Avery recommended the best little patisserie; you have to see this!”

Agatha turned immediately, and Nairi followed them the few steps to the bar as Linden jumped up to perch on one of the bar stools. She tried to deliberately lose track of Simon in the shuffle of the others budging up. Flo grinned and waved at them, Nairi awkwardly smiling back in response. Mason made a small ‘aha!’ noise as the lighter sputtered to life in his hand, and Linden squeaked as he lit the candle on the cupcake in front of her.

The cupcake was delicately frosted in little flowers, and it had a cheerful pink candle and two sprinklers sticking out of it, Linden grinning widely in the orange-yellow light. Mason leaned over her shoulder to light the sparklers, ever so casually brushing his arm along hers before leaning in to hand the lighter back to Joe. “And now we sing!” he decreed, grinning back at Linden.

Oh. Oh no.

The boisterous chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’ started up and Nairi mumbled her way through it with the others. Nicholas had reappeared, standing on the opposite side of the group to Simon with a small digital camera, taking a careful picture. Everyone yelled and cheered as Linden blew out the candle on the cupcake in front of her, and she laughed, clapping her hand together once and hugging Flo and Mason.

She let go of Mason much faster than she did Flo. Once she was clear Joe stepped up and deposited a ridiculous looking cocktail in a large glass in front of her. “For the birthday girl!” he said, grinning across the bar at her. “On the house—just this one, and just for you!” He emphasised this with an arched eyebrow and a point at her.

“Aw, Joe!” Linden laughed, leaning across and kissing his bemused cheek. “Thank you!”

“You’re very welcome, I wanted an excuse to try this recipe again—a buddy and I made it up back at my first bar job. It’s a cake cocktail! We played around with a couple of liqueur mixes and I wanted to try giving it more oomph with a smoother vodka so it didn’t lose those sweeter flavours.”

Linden took a sip and smiled at him. “Perfect! Exactly how I like it.”

Joe gave her a little flourish with a joking bow before he picked up the lighter from where Mason had left it. “I try! Now I gotta go take care of my other customers and put this away before we have any incidents. Have fun, kids!”

He winked and paced up the length of the bar towards the front, calling out a greeting to a couple of people who’d just walked in. Nairi watched him go, then Flo slapped the counter next to Linden, dragging her attention back. “Presents now!”

“Hope you don’t mind repeats,” said Mason, setting a holographic patterned giftbag on the counter next to her. “Flo and I pooled resources and just went ham down at Sampson Arts.”

“Hell yes,” said Linden, peering into the bag and poking through the contents with a grin up at him. “God, you two are gonna keep me in good sketchbooks and erasers forever, aren’t you?”

“I swear we’ll think of something better when our brains are less fried,” said Flo, hugging her around the shoulders and smushing their cheeks together. “Happy birthday!”

“Yes, happy birthday,” said Nicholas, setting a crisply wrapped box down next to the bag.

“Happy birthday,” said Agatha with a twitch of a smile, handing her an envelope. “I promise there’s a giftcard in there.”

“And I promise I’m not actually that materialistic,” said Linden, grinning back at her. “Thank you, guys, seriously.”

“I think you’re allowed to be, on your birthday,” said Nairi, handing her gift bag over. “So, feel free to get mad if my gift giving isn’t up to scratch.”

Linden looked in the top of the bag and squeaked, bobbling her head happily as she looked back up. “Well cheese is the way to a girl’s heart, so you’re safe for now,” she cracked, beaming between her and Agatha and hopping off the chair to hug Nairi and kiss her cheek. “Thank you.”

Nairi hugged her back properly this time, unsure if she was supposed to return the cheek kiss. Agatha was shifting slightly in the corner of her eye, expression uncomfortable, so she erred on the side of not.

When she separated from Linden she realised that Simon had disappeared. She glanced around, trying to figure out where he’d gone—she wasn’t certain she cared, but it was weird that he’d just vanished when everyone was focused on Linden.

There was no sign of him, and Nairi shook her head slightly, turning back to Agatha and Linden. He was probably just in the bathroom.

“…and how was your dad?” Agatha was asking.

Linden made a face. “Oh, you know, parents on big holidays. He was annoyed cause I didn’t come up for his big Christmas Eve party that he does with all his colleagues. I always feel so weird when I go to them ‘cause it’s like, half people I don’t know at all and have nothing in common with, and half people who knew me before, uh, everything,” she waved a hand in the air dismissively, “so they all don’t like me much to start with.”

Agatha snorted. “Assholes.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” said Linden with a rueful smile, taking a swig from her birthday cocktail. “It was nice to see him though—especially for a big ass meal I didn’t have to cook. I’m really just glad he’s given up trying to get me home for Thanksgiving as well, you know?”

“Hey, Lindy,” drawled Simon, interrupting them to drape himself over Linden’s shoulder.

Linden’s smile widened and she raised her hand, patting the side of his head. “Hey, honey. Behaving yourself?”

Simon laughed, kissing her cheek. “Never. Listen, I have to head home, I’m crashing something fierce, and I don’t want to be a drag on the party.”

Agatha muttered something under breath that sounded suspiciously thankful, and Nairi suppressed the urge to smile.

Linden ignored them, giving Simon a woeful look. “Aw, okay. I’ll see you on Saturday morning, yeah?”

“Yeah, of course,” said Simon, and he leaned in and kissed her in a way that was either a little too enthusiastic for a public setting, or that indicated Nairi was too unused to PDA. “Or just text me later, I usually get a second wind around two.”

Linden laughed, pecking his lips once more and indicating her drink. “Yeah I think by two I might be crashing myself. I’ll see you later.”

“Bye,” said Simon, kissing her cheek again and loping for the exit. He was still wobbling a little, and Nairi briefly wondered if she’d ever been that obvious.

“Very charming,” said Agatha mildly. “Nairi, can you grab us some drinks? I need to use the little girl’s room.”

“Sure,” said Nairi, smiling at her.

Linden giggled tipsily, leaning back in her chair as Agatha crossed the room. “You two are going well then?”

“Yeah, I think so,” said Nairi, digging in her back pocket for her wallet and looking up the bar to catch Joe’s eye. He gave her a thumbs up to indicate he’d seen her, and she glanced back at Linden. “You and Simon are too?”

Linden shrugged, gesturing with her drink. “I mean, he’s kind of a jackass—” no, really, “—but I think so! Nick definitelydoesn’t like him, though.”

Nairi snorted. “Yeah, I don’t think Agatha does either, just somehow.”

Linden laughed. “Oh, god. Sticks in the mud, both of them. It’s just ‘cause he doesn’t really know any of us except me yet, you know? He doesn’t fit in with our, uh, group dynamic.”

“Didn’t you meet him through Flo and Mason?” asked Nairi, frowning slightly.

Linden shook her head, taking another sip from her cocktail as she spun lazily on the stool to lean on the bar. “They have mutual friends, we met at a party. Oh! But like—you and Aggy are basically my closest friends, and I’ve never been a fan of third wheeling, we should totally do a double date!”

“Uh, right,” said Nairi slowly.

“Yeah!” said Linden, brightening as she warmed to her idea. “It’ll be great! Way more casual, no one being awkward ‘cause of couple shit, and not so many people at once!”

“I guess so,” said Nairi, and Linden beamed at her.

“Hey Nairi,” said Joe cheerfully, interrupting them. He was grinning widely, already setting a glass on the counter without waiting for her order, and he started talking almost immediately, pulling a silver and gold can out from the fridge behind the counter. “So, Linden mentioned you were coming back in and last time you helped me discover a hole in beverage selection, and then I remembered this stuff—my ex used to drink it all the time when he wanted soda before bed, you know?”

Nairi did not know, but she smiled and nodded at him anyway.

“Caffeine free coke,” he said proudly, spinning the can to show her the label before pouring it into the glass. “And remind me to get your opinions on kombucha later! Anything for the girlfriend or the birthday girl?”

“Ooh, yes please,” said Linden, draining her cocktail glass and holding it up. “Another one of these?”

Nairi nodded, pointing at it. “And the girlfriend, yes.”

Joe was nodding, already holding a bottle of the red Agatha usually ordered and a wineglass. “Easy as,” he said, taking Nairi’s cash and pushing the drinks across to her. “I’ll be back with the birthday special. See if you can convince Aggy to try some of the small label beer, for me!” he added with a wink.

“Deal, thanks,” said Nairi, nodding at him as she took the drinks.

Agatha came back over to them and smiled, kissing Nairi’s cheek as she took her wine. “Thanks, honey. Did I miss anything?”

“Double date!” said Linden brightly. “When are you guys free in the next couple of weeks?”

“What?” said Agatha, eyebrows rising high above her glasses.

“Double date, with me and Si, so we can hang,” said Linden, hopping up off her chair. “Nairi thought it was a good idea. I gotta pee, back in a sec.”

And then she was off and gone before Nairi could say that she hadn’t really been instrumental in thinking anything was a good idea.

When she turned her head, trying to figure out what to say, she was already being glared at. “Really?” said Agatha acerbically.

“What?” said Nairi, uncomfortably.

Agatha rolled her eyes and drank deeply from her glass.

#serial fiction #series honey tree #book muay thai #lgbt fiction #112

[john-taylor-daily]

Full text of the article:

Want to feel really old? Oh, go on then. Duran Duran turn 40 this year: the band, that is, not the members. For them it’s worse: Simon Le Bon is 61, John and Roger Taylor, each 59, and Nick Rhodes, the baby, 57.

As you would expect of a pop group who always appeared happiest hanging off a yacht in ruffled Antony Price suits, accessorised with a supermodel and a cocktail, they intend to celebrate in style, coronavirus permitting. So the plan, announced this week, is that on July 12, exactly 40 years since their first gig at the Rum Runner in Birmingham, they will perform in Hyde Park, headlining a bill that includes Nile Rodgers & Chic and their pal Gwen Stefani. Four of the original five will be there: the guitarist Andy Taylor, 59, left the band in 1985 and, after rejoining in 2001, walked out again five years later. In the past, the guitarist Warren Cuccurullo has filled in; this time Graham Coxon from Blur will take his place.

Then in autumn Duran Duran are releasing a new album, their 15th, which they are halfway through making.

Growing up in the West Midlands, I was a Duranie; my first gig was theirs at the NEC in Birmingham. To give an idea of the level of devotion, I had house plants named after each of them. John, his initials “JT” written on the pot in nail varnish, was a begonia; Rhodes, a busy lizzie; Le Bon, a rubber plant; Roger and Andy Taylor were cacti. My memory, foggy on so much, still holds the name of Nick Rhodes’s cat at the time (Sebastian). The household appliance “JT” would choose to be? “A refrigerator, so I would stay cool.”

But despite previous opportunities, I’ve avoided them bar an awkward backstage handshake with Le Bon. In the meantime, they have notched up record sales of 100 million, had 21 Top 20 hits in the UK and, unlike many bands who came to fame in the 1980s, they produce different, exciting, if not always lauded albums, working with new producers and musicians. They’ve had top five albums in each of the four decades they’ve worked. Their last album, Paper Gods (2015), produced by Mark Ronson and Rodgers, was their most successful for 25 years.

Now 46 and with no desire to anthropomorphise greenery, I meet Rhodes, the keyboardist, and John Taylor, the bass player, once described as having the squarest jaw in rock. Rhodes suggests his “local”, Blakes hotel in Chelsea, near the home he shares with his Sicilian girlfriend, Nefer Suvio (he and Julie Anne Friedman divorced in 1992; they have one child together, Tatjana). Taylor, just in from Los Angeles, home to his second wife, Gela Nash, who runs the fashion label Juicy Couture, invites me to his flat in Pimlico. Le Bon, still happily married to the supermodel Yasmin Le Bon with three grown-up daughters, is busy in the studio and Roger Taylor, four children and with second wife Gisella Bernales, is otherwise occupied.

Rhodes, who joins me in the bar at Blakes, has the same peroxide mop and alabaster skin that were always his trademark. He wears black trousers by the English designer Neil Barrett and a Savile Row jacket dressed down with a rock T-shirt from the Los Angeles company Punk Masters.

Four days later, I arrive at Taylor’s flat in a garden square where he greets me at the door dressed in black jeans and T-shirt, with sculpted bed-hair. I’m reminded of the time my brother splashed Sun-In on his to emulate Taylor’s bleached New Romantic fringe.

It’s good to have them back. They started on the new album in September at Flood Studios in Willesden, northwest London, and, as well as Coxon, have been working with three producers: Giorgio Moroder, Ronson and the DJ Erol Alkan. “The whole place is filled with analogue synthesizers, so it’s just joy for me,” says Rhodes, who began life as Nicholas Bates but renamed himself after a make of electronic keyboard.

Rhodes met Moroder — the “godfather of electronica” and the man behind Donna Summer’s I Feel Love — through a mutual friend of his girlfriend. “We talked about music and what had happened to us,” Rhodes says. “He is as sharp as a razor, 79 going on 45.” They worked with Ronson, who has produced Amy Winehouse and Adele, in LA. “The first thing Mark always says is, ‘Let me hear the rest of it,’” Rhodes says with a laugh. “He is quite competitive.”

Taylor, who leads me into a room that’s more gentlemen’s club than rock-star pad with an open fire, armchairs, brown furniture and bad Victorian paintings, says the break of five years has refuelled them. “We have to starve ourselves of creativity long enough that when we do show up we have something to say,” he says. “[The studio sessions] are quite exhausting because we have been down this road. We can finish each other’s sentences and I guess, to some extent, we can do that musically as well. We are working with the same cast; it’s like a soap opera. That’s why collaborators become so important as you need to keep the spirit lively.”

Rhodes, who says the new album is more “handmade” and “guitary”, explains the working dynamics: “John and Roger’s rhythm section often drives a track. Simon, the lyricist, gives all the songs our identity; it’s his voice that tells you it’s Duran Duran. My part has more to do with sonic architecture.” That may be the most Nick Rhodes phrase yet.

We move on to Andy Taylor. “Forty years ago we had Andy in the band and he was a strong flavour and a northerner and brought a rigour,” says John Taylor. “Filling that vacuum has always been one of the major challenges of version two of the band; we did it with Warren Cuccurullo and with Graham on this record. But it’s not the same. Andy didn’t mind telling people what they were doing wrong.”

He pauses. “We had a reunion with Andy [in 2001] and that was enormously difficult, actually.” How so? “That’s a book really,” says Taylor, who has written about the saga, along with his struggle with drink and drugs, in his excellent 2012 memoir In the Pleasure Groove. “Or it’s a mini-series.”

“It was very uncomfortable for us,” Rhodes says of Andy leaving in 1985. “For sure, it had become stressful over the previous year — we were all burnt out from not having stopped for five years — but we didn’t see it coming at all.”

What are relations with Andy like now? “I don’t really have any,” says Rhodes. “I haven’t seen him for many years since he left the last time. I was not even slightly surprised when it did fall apart. I was relieved. As much as Andy is a great musician he is not an easy person to play with.”

I mention to Taylor that Andy has just announced his own UK dates in May, playing Duran songs. “Uh-ha,” he says. He didn’t know. Does he mind? “I don’t mind at all. All power to him,” says Taylor. “I would rather he be out playing.”

Taylor has the sanguine air of someone who has spent decades nuking his demons (he’s currently working on guilt; he had a Catholic mother). He has been sober for 26 years after an addiction which in part led to the break-up of his marriage to the TV presenter Amanda de Cadenet in 1997. Was it hard at first? “It was like turning round an ocean liner,” he says, his voice posh Brum with a California chaser. “I work a daily programme and that’s what keeps me sober. It’s not something that just happens; it takes a lot of attention.”

We move on to the themes of the new, as yet untitled, album. Le Bon lost his mother recently, so we can expect songs inspired by loss. Taylor says he took inspiration from “the challenges of long-term relationships . . . Take a song like Save a Prayer, which personally I think is one of the greatest ever songs in praise of the one-night stand,” he says. “It comes to the point where you can’t write something like that. It’s not age-appropriate; yet it is sexy. So how do you write from the perspective of someone who is trying to keep a long-term relationship together? That is the challenge of any late-age pop star. How do you make it chic, to use one of Nick’s favourite words.”

It is hard to forget how impossibly chic Duran were in the 1980s: from their beginnings in Birmingham (Nick and John, anyway), where they met when Rhodes was 10 and Taylor 12, to a world of famous friends, beautiful partners and exotic travel. Le Bon married Yasmin after seeing her in Vogue, Rhodes was with the shipping heiress Friedman and Taylor the teenage de Cadenet. Andy Warhol was a close friend of Rhodes.

While others were singing about the dark side of Thatcher’s Britain, they were . . . more opaque. “In the 1980s a lot of what we did was somewhat misunderstood because we were living in the same gloomy years with high unemployment and miners’ strikes and civil unrest as everybody else,” Rhodes says. “But our answer to it was we have to get away from this and make it a little brighter because it didn’t seem like a particularly promising future.” Don’t expect that coronavirus torch song any time soon.

Their association with Bond — they wrote the 1985 theme A View to a Kill — only added to the glamour. What do they make of the new one by Billie Eilish? Rhodes admits that he mostly listens to classical music these days but “was thrilled to hear Billie Eilish. I think it’s by far the best Bond song since ours.”

But not better than yours?

“I am very happy that she reached No 1.” Duran’s got to No 2.

Taylor is more critical. “I thought it was lacking in a bit of Billie Eilish to be honest. It could have been madder. It was a little bit too grown up,” he says.

Is it as good as A View to a Kill?

“No!” says Taylor, theatrically. “Although,” he admits, “it was the most difficult three mins that we have ever produced.”

It had a great video, in which the boys slunk around the Eiffel Tower. Taylor frowns. “I hate that video. So stupid. I can’t watch it.” One for the fans, then.

A secret of their longevity, Rhodes says, is not bowing to nostalgia. “I like to keep my blinkers on and look forward.” Having said that, he sounds ready to write his own memoir. “I would do a book yes,” he says. “I haven’t read John’s on purpose. I even wrote a foreword for it for the US version without reading it, but I did own up to it. I think mine would be very different from a lot of the rock biographies. The one that sticks with me is David Niven’s.”

Rhodes featured in Warhol’s diaries and Warhol, the subject of a show at Tate Modern in London that opened this week, would surely feature in his. He “invented the 20th century”, Rhodes says. “Andy was making reality TV in the Sixties. Can you imagine what he would have thought about the internet? It was all his dreams come true, but he would never have got any work done.” Rhodes says he stays off social media for that reason. “It’s not that I don’t like it; I fear it. I am going down a rabbit hole I may never get out of.

They’ve spent twice the time being famous as being unknown. Are they the same people they were in Birmingham 40 years ago?

Rhodes nods. “Yes, yes,” he says. “There have been big changes — marriages, divorces, kids, moving countries in John’s case — but when we are all together we have known each other for so long there is no room for anyone to behave in a way that would be unacceptable. There is no room for divas. We have lasted longer than most marriages; it is like being married to three people but we each get to go home on our own every night.”

Taylor tells me: “Without getting into recovery talk, a lot of that is about scrubbing away the masks that you tend to accrue to cope, so I think I am as close to that person as I was 40 years ago.”

Rhodes says tolerance is the key. “Sometimes when I arrive at the studio it is really bright, maybe someone is writing, and so everyone accepts I can’t cope, and so the lighting comes down.” I tell him I once read he always wears dark glasses before noon. He laughs. “Pretty much. That’s funny. I am hyper-sensitive to light. It’s not just pretentiousness. “

They appreciate they will have to prepare physically for the dates. For Rhodes, a terrible insomniac, that means “fruit and vegetables and grains” and lots of walking. But no workouts (“I am not a big fan of gymnasiums”). Taylor says he needs to start practising bass and the need to get back in shape is “keeping him awake at night”. “I like to run, I do Pilates, I do yoga and I think about everything that enters my mouth, everything. I am 90 per cent vegan. I don’t drink, take mind-altering chemicals. I am on and off sugar.”

Perhaps the greatest sign that they still have it is that their children want to see them play. Taylor just heard from his daughter, Atlanta, who lives in New York and is soon to be married to David Macklovitch from the Canadian band Chromeo.

“It’s a surprise when you get a text from a child and they say, ‘You’re playing Hyde Park — my boyfriend and I want to come.’”

#duran duran #DD40

[spidxysense]

Back to You | 03

Summary: He broke your heart, but you’d always love him. Two souls that not even the universe could tear apart, even if you wanted it to at times.

Pairing: Tom Holland x Reader

A/N: Hi guys! I’m back! I took a much needed break from writing when my dog died so I’m sorry for the lack of updates until now, but I might release another chapter later if I can get enough brain juice working to squeeze more out, hope you guys like this one, just a bit of a filler chapter to lead me to what I have planned upcoming (If you know what I mean, or if you have any predictions on what I could mean, message or ask or comment them and I’ll answer them.) If you have any questions about the fic or the characters in the fic, feel free to ask me as well. GREAT TO BE BACK GUYS AND THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL THE SUPPORT!

Word count: 2,562

Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3

“For our next guest, why don't we all watch this clip from her latest movie?" Ellen gestured for the video to play as the audience cheers while your performance for Rewrite the Stars plays on the screen behind her.

Once the video ends, the screams get louder. You walk out, waving happily at the audience and finding your seat on the guest chair.

"So, Y/N. It's been months since the Greatest Showman premiered and it's still up there in the Billboard top 100, I heard you wrote some of the songs?"

You shook your head, smiling so hard that you were squinting, "No! No! I just helped!"

"Pish posh, everyone here has watched Ben Hardy's interview here." Ellen waves you off as the crowd goes wild, "He told us your wrote some lyrics."

You wait for the audience to die down, "I will kill him." You laugh, "I'm kidding, he was just being a good friend."

Ellen sends a look at the camera, "Y/N is still friendzoning Ben!" She laughs as she points to you and the audience laughs, she turns to you, "I have seen compilations of Ben Hardy in interviews saying you’re his crush and yet here you are still friendzoning him, is nobody good enough?"

The smile on your face slightly falters, but it's something Ellen and the audience notices because suddenly it's quiet, "Well, I just don't think I'm ready. Ben's cute and all but not the type of person I think I'm looking for right now." You smile sady at Ellen. Ben and Tom were very boyish and charming, sharing similarities in their personalities that sometimes, you could see Tom in Ben sometimes, “I mean, Tom was a great guy.” You bite back the tears and swallow the words that seemed stuck in your throat, “and no offense to anybody but following that, I just need more time to find someone that can be as great as Tom was or even better, because we have to treasure how we’re being treated before anything else.”

Ellen gives you an understanding smile as the audience cheers, patting your knee, "Well, how's it been? We haven't seen you since your press tour, and even then you didn't come here alone since you were with the cast."

You shrugged, "I just think I needed some time to reflect and get a feel of what I want, wrote some songs, you know, I let inspiration flow through me."

"And speaking of songs." A picture of texts between you and Ellen pop up on the screen, "It says there, you promise you'd give me an update on that upcoming album, and I told you I'd tell you when I want to hear it." The crowd goes crazy, "And I want to hear it now."

You give the audience a sheepish smile, “I mean…is that what you guys really want?” You gesture towards the audience before they’re screaming and applauding in their seats.

Ellen gives them a “well what do you know” look and turns to you, “I think they said yes.” she laughs, “You haven’t released an album in years, there were the occasional singles or collaborations, but no live performances or music videos either.”

You rub your arm, the last time you went on tour was the one Tom visited and that was one of the hardest tours you had to finish, you just had so much anxiety and panic in you head that would lead to cancellations and that would just end up making you feel bad so Tom came up with the idea to not do anything that made you uncomfortable for the meantime or a few months, but those few months ended up getting longer until they reached to this point, and it wasn’t like Tom never encouraged you to get out there and write music, or act in the occasional project or two, but it was just something you felt you couldn’t physically do. In you eyes, Tom was social enough for the both of you.

“Well,” You clasp your hands together, “I’ve been hard at work in the studio, and I’m proud to announce that I’ll be releasing an album, but not just one.” The audience gasps before applauding once more, “I’ve written so many songs that I had enough to make two albums out of them so I’ll be releasing them when I feel I’ve written everything in my heart  and I am honestly so excited for everyone to hear what I’ve been working on not just the past few months but also the past few years.”

“Alright, well we’ve got time for one more game here, since it wouldn’t be a Y/N guesting if we didn’t play at least one game with you here, so in commemoration of your singlehood, I’ve set up the Who’d You Rather.”

You gape at Ellen, “Who’d you rather what, Ellen?!” The audience laughs.

She shrugs, “I’ll make a follow up game for you, ‘What would you rather’ and we’ll play it here on your next visit.” She gives you a cheeky smile before turning to face the screen behind the two of you.

The screen flashes to two pictures, one on the left side and one on the right side.

“Oh wow, you’ve got pictures.” You tilt your head at the choices, it was between Nicholas Hoult and Liam Hemsworth, “Well, Liam’s with Miley, and she’d kill me if I picked her hubby, and Nicholas Hoult has been in so many great movies, I mean have you seen him in Mad Max?!”

Ellen laughs, “I love how you’re treating this so seriously.”

You give her a confused look, “Was I not supposed to?” You gape at her as she waves her hand in the air.

“No no! Keep going just keep doing you!” She laughs.

You laugh, snorting slightly and turning to the audience, “What if they’re all just lined up backstage waiting for who I pick.” They laugh with you.

You shut your eyes, “Alright, I pick Nicholas Hoult! He’s older than me though.” You point out, then the picture of Liam changes to Ansel Elgort, “I have listened to his EDM soundtracks!” You jump in your seat excitedly.

Ellen shoots the audience a look, “Ansel it is, then.” They laugh.

The picture of Nicholas turns to Dylan O’Brien, “Okay, this is unfair, I’m pretty sure you had a list of things I liked and just found people in them, I mean!” You gesture towards the screen, “That’s Stiles!” The crowd cheers loudly, “You can’t ask me to pick between Stiles and Augustus Waters, are you kidding me? But, yeah, Stiles please.”

Ellen bursts out laughing, “Alright, Dylan, who’s next?”

Nick Robinson replaces the picture of Ansel, “Oh, alright, Love, Simon? Yes please, Nick Robinson please.”

Ellen gapes at you, “You need to pick a lane.”

You gasp, “I thought I was just playing a game?!” The audience laughs, and suddenly the picture of Dylan o’Brien is replaced by a picture of Tom Holland and suddenly, you can hear a pin drop in the room.

You make a ‘no big deal’ face at the screen, “Well, that’s unfair, that’s the love of my life, I choose Tom!” Suddenly the tension s no more and everyone is cheering for their favorite couple and you’re smiling out at the crowd but you feel your heart breaking into pieces.

“Alright, next is Ben Hardy!” The crowd laughs as you roll your eyes, “Obviously, Tom.” The crowd gets louder.

Then it’s between Nat Wolff and Tom, “Oh, I starred in that movie with him a few years back! Nat if such a sweetheart! But Death Note was terrible, I told him not to do it.” You shake your head at him, “Tom.”

Nat’s picture transitions to Logan Lerman, “Oh my god, I had such a big crush on him! We went out once when I was like 15 or 14 and I hadn’t met Tom yet and I remember he was such a gentleman but he was nervous about getting caught out on a date with me because we were both just starting out and you know how fans can be.” You sigh at the fond memory, “Tom.” The audience aws at the fact that you still picked Tom.

Suddenly, an unfamiliar face pops up as you stare at the picture in confusion and unfamiliarity.

“That’s Timothee Chalamet.” Ellen points out, “Isn’t he pretty?” Ellen gives a wink to the audience, as they laugh already expecting you to choose Tom over this celebrity you didn’t even know.

You hum, “There's something about him.” You furrowed your eyebrows, “I mean yeah, he’s beautiful but look at his eyes, I mean, wow.” You look at the screen, “I pick Timothee.”

Ellen’s eyes widen, as the audience gasps in surprise and Tom’s picture is replaced by Michael B. Jordan, “Oh wow, Killmonger and Creed.” The audience laughs.

“I think I’ll stay with Timothee.” Michael B. Jordan gets replaced by Cameron Monaghan, “He was absolutely wonderful as the Joker, have you seen him in Gotham?”

Ellen nods, “I thought they would for sure cast him in the movies, it’s so crazy how good he is!”

“I’ll pick Timothee.” You give Ellen a tight lipped smile as an applause starts to build up in the audience.

“Alright, this next one has really nice eyes as well.” The picture turns into that model you’ve seen now and again, with that peculiar name, Lucky Blue Smith.

You give an intake of breath, “I don’t know Ellen, I still pick Timothee.”

The picture then turns into Thomas Brodie-Sangster, “Oh! He is such a sweetheart! I met him at the premier to my movie, he is so sweet!” You give Ellen a sheepish smile, “But I’m gonna have to say Timothee.”

“Alright, final round.” Ellen announces, “We’ll bring him back just to make sure. Tom or Timothee?”

You bit your lip, looking hard at the screen, “It’s a tough choice Ellen, but there’s something about Timothee, so I’ll just pick him again.”

“Wow! You ended up with Timothee!” Ellen stand up to hug you, “Come on out, Timothee!”

Suddenly your eyes get big, waiting for a boy to walk from backstage, “Just kidding!”

You let out a sigh of relief, and laugh, “What if all of them were just backstage? That would be hilarious, I would have no idea what to do.” You shake your head as the audience laughs, “It’s so crazy how awkwardly clumsy and uncoordinated I am around boys.”

-----------------------------------------------

You were in the backseat, your manager on the other side of you, typing away on her phone as you stared out the window at the fans lined up outside the studio, "Want to say hi to them?" She suggests.

You shake your head, your chest feeling heavy and your breathing slowing like you were hyperventilating through a plastic bag, "What if one of them pulls me out through the window? Or worse what if they throw things at me?"

She scoffs, "Well, they're fans, they won't hurt you."

You shrug, taking a hard swallow, "What if all of them aren't though?"

Your manager sighs and turns to you, “I wanted to talk to you about that.”

You narrowed your eyes at her, “About what?”

“The big guys in Def Jam want you to do a tour sometime this year or next year.”

You scoff, “No.” You shook your head, “No way.”

“Y/N, they’ve been patient with you. The only reason they’re even willing to keep you on as an artist was because I sent them those songs you gave me to sell to other artists-”

“And we made a lot of money from that!” You groan in exasperation, “Taylor Swift bought majority, and the rest were distributed to other artists, you still hear them on the radio! I made the record label money, and I didn’t even perform, they got a lot of the sales.” you point out.

She sighs, “Look, Y/N, you can make as many songs as you want and sell them to other people, but at the end of the day it’s still not gonna make you as much money as when YOU’RE the one who’s singing them, I think we should look into some professional help for this problem you’ve got going on, maybe see a therapist or look into some medication from a medical professional’s point of view-”

“I didn’t need them before.” You point out.

She pinched the bridge of her nose, “Yeah, well 5 years ago, I could still run a marathon, but I can’t exactly do that anymore.”

“Whatever this is, I’ll get over it, if I didn’t need a therapist before, then I don’t need one now-”

“You had Tom back then.”

Well that shut you up.

“Now you don’t, and you’ve gotten lazy.” She clenches her jaw, “You did one movie, and after that, what then? You’re back to locking yourself in your room. You have to keep moving, Y/N, keep adapting to stay in the spotlight, through this break up, the cameras and lights were all on you and all you did was lock yourself in your room and drink wine out of a bottle. So I don’t care if you’re making money, not when you’re doing it half-assed-”

“Am I not allowed to be hurt?” You snap, the tears already welled up in your eyes, “Am I not allowed to grieve this relationship that I’ve been in for the past 3 years and have put my whole heart and emotions into? I lost this whole other half of me and now I just feel so empty that sometimes I feel like I can’t function normally and at the end of the day, it’s still him I think about. For three years, all I ever knew was him and I and now that I’m all alone, I don’t even know what to do without him and this whole time it’s been like I was lifted off the ground and now I’m just falling into the earth and all this time I’ve just been waiting for the crash.”

She blinks at you sobbing in your seat as your emotions eat you up, she says nothing but instead embraces you.

“We all lose ourselves, Y/N. Let us help you find yourself.” She rubs your back, “It might be uncomfortable in the beginning, but it will be all worth it in the end.”

You pull away, fixing your clothes, “One step at a time.”

“And speaking of one step at a time.” She hands over her phone, an email opened up to an image of a script.”

                                                     “Celia”

                                                Screenplay by

                                                 James Ivory

                        Sequel to the film “Call Me by Your Name” by

                                             Luca Guadagnino

“They’re asking if you’ve read the script.”

You bit your lip, knowing exactly where the script was. It was stacked together with the other scripts you left unread for the past year, still in your old room. The one you shared with Tom, The same house that Tom lived in now.

You sigh, “I haven’t, but I know where it is.”

“And?”

“It’s in London.”

This gets her attention. “Should we call Troye to get it ready by the time we get back to London?”

“It’s not exactly with Troye at the moment.”

Her eyes widen in realization, “Oh.”

#tom holland #tom x reader #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland fic #back to you #selena gomez #spidxysense #i'm back

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Movie Review: Dark Phoenix (Spoilers)

Spoiler Warning: I am posting this review the weekend after the movie is released worldwide, so if you haven’t yet seen the movie do not read on until you have or check out my non-spoiler review for a general overview.

Retelling Mistakes:

Alright so this is a Simon Kinberg movie first and an X-Men movie second, by which I mean I don’t think it should be judged as an X-Men movie before being judged as the brainchild of Simon Kinberg who is writer, producer and director of the movie.

Kinberg famously also wrote the script for X-Men: The Last Stand in 2006 which was the first cinematic attempt for him to tell the Dark Phoenix story. I want oit also to be noteworthy that The Last Stand is definitely a poorer movie in terms of story flow by trying to combine the Phoenix story with the Mutant Cure story and also for practically zero character development and an ending that felt as if the original trilogy fizzled.

However, despite Dark Phoenix being a slightly better movie overall than The Last Stand, it is almost as if Kinberg simply rehashed the same script but modified it to fit with the current group of characters who are somewhat different to those from the original trilogy.

Much like Mary Poppins Returns, Dark Phoenix has almost exactly the same scenes just told in a different way.

Starting with Jean in the mansion’s medical lab, just as she was after being found by Wolverine and Storm in X3. The only differences are Jean is there of her own accord after returning from seemingly absorbing a solar flare, Xavier and Logan aren’t examining her instead Hank is and the scene doesn’t end with a steamy romp on the table and instead Jean says she feels great and is dismissed.

Then there’s Jean’s home battle death in the first act. During X3 this is the scene almost immediately after the medical lab scene where Jean returns to her old home in a very fragile state. Xavier, Storm and Wolverine arrive to help Jean while Magneto and his new Brotherhood arrive to acquire her. It results in a couple of separate fights ending in Phoenix destroying Xavier.

In this movie though, Jean returns home and is hit with a bombshell about her past, leading the Phoenix to take over and be the sole combatant against the X-Men who arrive to help her. However, Mystique is the one who dies at the telekinetic hands of Phoenix via impalement rather than disintegration.

The ending scenes of the movie begin with shots of the X-Mansion before going on to Magneto playing chess. Here the shots are of the newly named Jean Grey School which go on to Xavier and Magneto playing chess in France while in X3 the shots of the mansion are of Storm welcoming new students and Magneto is later shown playing chess in the park.

It’s annoying when movies rehash the same scenes from popular movies but X3 is critically hated and mostly mocked by fans as potentially the worst X-Men movie aside from X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Also these scenes did not contribute to the original Dark Phoenix story and even to die-hard X-Men fans who remember these scenes from the animated series, you can’t help but compare to X3.

Characters:

Alright so now my big grumble with the movie is over, I am going to be talking about these characters in order of importance for the movie and in part my favourites the franchise as a whole.

Jean Grey:

Sophie Turner does a brilliant job here and is definitely the star of the movie, it could be argued Jean Grey has become the first X-Men character aside from Wolverine to get her own solo movie as “Dark Phoenix” is centric to her character.

But it is a fact that Sophie Turner did a fantastic job at brilliantly portraying the inner struggle that Jean had in this movie both physically and mentally. My favourite scene from her is probably when she is sat in the rain trying to scrub Mystique’s blood off while questioning her inner demon otherwise known as Phoenix as to why it made her do it. It was a short scene and if yo have seen it in the trailers you’ve pretty much seen it, but something about it in context works really well in the movie.

Also Jean as a child was also rather well portrayed, again we have a scene with Jean as a child opening X3 but while that scene is rather played down and strictly about Jean demonstrating the extent of her powers at that age, this one shows that her powers were in fact instrumental in her childhood trauma as she supposedly was responsible for killing her parents while her powers protected her from the debris.

This was of course proven later to only be partly true as her father somehow survived the accident while her mother didn’t, but then her father effectively disowned her and gave her to Xavier.

Either way Summer Fontana does an okay job at portraying young Jean as an almost three-dimensional child dealing with what she has dealt with and feeling she is broken despite Xavier claiming she isn’t.

I really enjoyed seeing a better, more diverse, use of the Phoenix powers. Not only in the explanation that Jessica Chastain’s Vuk gave to the extent of the Phoenix power which felt very Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 with Ego’s demonstration of his powers, but also in the way that Jean took control of Xavier’s body and made him walk up the stairs.

It wasn’t just simply a case of Phoenix being able to make things disintegrate and float as opposed to how it was in X3. I also really loved the pink energy that Jean had when using the Phoenix powers. I know in the comics this is Jean’s standard colour for using her powers like Scarlet Witch is red and Polaris is green but they never established Jean’s powers using pink energy before and the almost pink fire that accompanied the Phoenix powers made for a rather nice effect.

Jean’s relationship with Scott never felt as forced as I thought it would. It was pretty much the same set up as the Bruce/Natasha relationship in the MCU. I didn’t hate it there and I didn’t hate it here, I simply didn’t focus too much on it.

Although I will agree that in those early scenes at the mansion and that party that the way Jean was acting when with Scott was very Bella Swan from the hair to the almost socially awkward posture and movement.

However, I did love that the first official intimate moment between the two was after Jean was enhanced by the Phoenix which heightened all of her emotions, so you could say it was a three-way relationship at that point.

I did think the added development of her father being alive and Jean discovering that he had effectively disowned her added to her further decline to succumb to the Phoenix power.

Also seeing a fully-powered Jean explored here was fun to watch. From seeing her fly to using her telekinesis to operate a helicopter and even when she was Phoenix and dismantled Magneto’s Helmet, all of it was an impressive display of power.

We all know the timeline is slightly screwed in this universe but we are supposed to believe that in 1975 Jean Grey is 8 years old and with the present day events here being set in 1992 that would make the character 25 years old...there is little to no age difference between Jean here and in Apocalypse maybe aside from hair and fashion and that was set in the 80s.

I thought Jean’s sacrifice at the end was both obvious and poignant. Obvious because Jean is meant to die at the end of the Dark Phoenix story but poignant because it was quite an emotional sacrifice more so than in The Last Stand.

I loved the inferno of pink fire that surrounded Phoenix and later Vuk as Jean kills them both essentially, it made for a more interesting climax than just Jean standing there disintegrating everything.

Overall Sophie Turner was definitely the best thing about the movie, I do think she maybe could have been a little bit more diverse in her acting as mostly she delivered lines on the same monotonic level but other than that I have no complaints...except maybe wanting to see her in the Dark Phoenix costume.

Beast:

I will continue to say this, people do not give Nicholas Hoult enough credit as Hank McCoy/Beast.

Considering how he, McAvoy, Fassbender and J-Law are the only ones left from First Class, I think Hoult has played an under the radar performance but still one of notoriety.

I will say my only negative for this version of the character is I feel the way the fan-favourite character is portrayed is affected in the same way as Mystique has been portrayed in that the actors (Hoult and Lawrence) do not want to be in the blue make-up all the time and want to be able to be themselves for parts of the movie.

Now whereas Mystique can easily shapeshift and that is how they get away with that, to my knowledge once Beast’s mutation accelerated and turned McCoy into Beast, it was not irreversible in the comics but because of Hank’s serum he was able to shift between the two during Days of Future Past and Apocalypse.

Here though there didn’t really seem to be any explanation as to why he was able to shift so easily and rather than it being a case of a serum injection, it seemed to be more Hulk-like. I’m not complaining at seeing Nicholas Hoult in all his glory, but Beast being my favourite X-Man I want him to be treated with the respect he deserves.

In the positives, I really liked seeing a darker side of Beast. But it wasn’t a straightforward Dark Beast as everyone believed it would be and simply Hank deciding that Xavier was not the answer in this situation and that Magneto was. I was fully on Beast’s side in this movie because not only did Jean accidentally murder his lover, but Xavier had such an incompetent attitude to the whole thing for fear of ruining their recent claim to fame that he had set aside the original morals he intended for the X-Men.

It is a testament to Hank’s morals though that after Xavier made his half-arsed apology that Beast decided to protect Jean because that is what Mystique would have done.

I am unsure how I feel about Beast now being the headmaster of the school, now called the Jean Grey School. I am all for the fact that Xavier decided to retire after the complete hash he made of “protecting his students” and I get that Hank is now the longest-serving member of the X-Men...but I do wish we had another movie to see him as a teacher/headteacher for me to decide fully.

I would like to see Beast in the MCU at some point either as Nicholas Hoult or Kelsey Grammar, but overall I just want Beast to return at some point as he is my favourite and I feel he needs more of a chance to shine.

Professor X:

I am thrilled with this movie for showing the darker side of Xavier, the only problem is rather than hinting at his darker side as they did in The Last Stand, they went down a hubris egotistical route before even starting to hint at his darker side which made what he did to Jean seem more like it was feeding into his hubris than actually doing the wrong thing for what he believed to be the right reason.

Also, as I said with Beast, Xavier simply came across as incompetent a lot in this movie and most of it seemed to be because he thought he was above reproach. When he agreed to send the X-Men into space to save those astronauts he was called out on his reason why by Mystique and yet played it off as him keeping the peace between humans and mutants so that they don’t go back to being hated.

When the team try and detain Jean, he is fine letting everyone put their lives at risk to try and stop her but when Beast has a taser ready to shoot, Xavier stops him and the cops in order for Mystique to talk her down which leads to her death...why not just let Beast taser her and then let Mystique talk to her back at the mansion?

Then when Hank and Xavier are having that talk, Xavier simply talks about how Mystique was in First Class rather than taking responsibility or apologising for not letting Beast take the shot, and even tries to turn it around on him for making him feel bad after burying his foster sister...bullshit!

I don’t know why or how the X-Men are suddenly public superheroes because Xavier was the one during First Class who stated that anonymity was their first line of defence and now the President has an X-Phone, it just seems like something the Avengers or Justice League would be but not the X-Men.

Also I loved it when he got talked down by Storm and Nightcrawler, it was simply the last straw that he had lost the respect of his students and team.

Don’t get me wrong, James McAvoy did a great job in the role as always, he like Hoult is one of those actors I will watch a film for regardless, but there was just something that didn’t feel as organic as the Xavier he had built up for the past 8 years.

I know McAvoy was filming Glass around the same time as this and you can tell because of the weight that he put on for the Beast role in that, but while McAvoy got the look of Xavier down with his fashion it was just something about the character’s motives that seemed really off.

Mystique:

This was a straightforward character assassination for a great X-Men villain, particularly with what Rebecca Romijn did with the character in the original trilogy to have it being so desecrated in the 30-45 minutes that she is in here is such a shame.

For one thing, she is never called Mystique once in this movie. Secondly, the make-up has gone from lizard-like to fancy dress. Third, as much as I liked Jennifer Lawrence’s delivery in this movie I detest the fact she died a hero, and that she was eulogised as “doing what she did best, dying trying to protect her friends”...

Mystique is a villain, she has moments of anti-heroism and her soft spots are often shown for her kids, but other than that she is manipulating, cold and calculated. She would definitely not die and be eulogised as “being the spirit of the X-Men”.

Also I say in the comics she has a soft-spot for her children, that’s great but in seven movies they have not established any familial connections between her, Rogue or Nightcrawler...despite many opportunities.

I do have positives though, as I said I did like Jennifer Lawrence’s delivery. I thought her line about how it usually being the women saving the men and changing the team name to X-Women was a good line, even though Mystique, Storm and Jean are really the only female members of the team they’ve shown in the First Class trilogy but they are still the more interesting ones, aside from Quicksilver and Beast.

I also liked it when she suggested to Hank that they leave the X-Men and run away together. I understand why Hank said no but I do agree that if they had done so it would have saved both of them.

Her duration in this movie simply felt like J-Law waiting to be released from her contract, you could tell that from her opening delivery to Nightcrawler as she exasperatingly says “Yes Kurt, we’re going into space” and the scene when the other rocket explodes and Mystique looks like she’s waiting for the inferno to take her.

Overall I am saddened that this is how Mystique ends in the movie universe, but at least there is still some good takeaway from her in the movie.

Magneto:

Could Magneto just pick a side and stick with it?! For one thing Genosha just seemed like a wilderness estate rather than a Mutant safe-haven. But while he was trying to be the peacekeeper here as soon as he hears of Mystique’s death he is right back into being a bad guy, but then a pep talk from Xavier and he is back being a good guy again.

I wouldn’t mind but he berates Xavier by saying “you’re always sorry and there’s always a speech but it never matters”, yet after Xavier gives a speech in the train he is somehow won over.

I really enjoyed the display of his powers in the movie, as always. The fact he and Jean battled to control a helicopter and both actors didn’t oversell it or make it look memeable is a testament to them both.

But I loved it in that street battle when he pulled up that underground train from the subway and managed to use it as a barricade between the building and the outside. Then later he equipped the SWAT agents’ guns in a full-on firing brigade against Vuk...yes it didn’t work but it was awesome.

I’m not too happy with where his story ended in this movie, the fact that he is now being Xavier’s saving grace seems a little bit against type for the character and also the fact he would either abandon Genosha or welcome his ethical enemy to Genosha just doesn’t sit right.

Cyclops:

I still enjoyed this version of Scott Summers than James Marsden’s performance, but I do agree that Cyclops’ visor really prohibits the actor wearing it from getting across much emotion in the scenes.

To be fair, Tye Sheridan does try and succeeds a lot here, but I still didn’t feel bad or empathetic for him most of the way through this movie.

I think his optic blast power is one of the best the X-Men has both visually and from a power stand point, and I loved how the Blackbird has apparently become equipped with a blaster pod for Cyclops’ optic blast. I did want to see more of that but really Cyclops is the only member with that kind of power. Storm can easily carry out her powers regardless and the rest need to be within a certain distance.

Nightcrawler:

I felt myself very confused by Nightcrawler towards the end of this movie. When he tried saving that one SWAT agent whose son was a fan of his but was too late and so got angry, it just seemed very out of character to me.

Yes Nightcrawler has been involved in conflict in the comics but in the original trilogy he was very much the religious pacifist type of character. Going full demon could have been an interesting pathway for the character considering his father is Azazel, but literally slotting it in for five minutes of the final film does seem a bit like a throwaway plot point.

Also, despite it still being Kodi Smit-McPhee, I felt a lot of the freshness he brought to the character in Apocalypse was gone here, maybe because they didn’t show him as much but a lot of the humour from the last movie he had was gone here.

Vuk:

Everyone is simply calling her Jessica Chastain and to be fair it makes no difference what you call her because she’s barely developed as is.

Firstly this massive mystery role of hers is revealed to be the leader of a D’Bari army who seek the Phoenix power that destroyed their homeworld to help them remake Earth into their new homeworld. That’s great, and the D’Bari were in the original Dark Phoenix saga story, but nothing else is done to make Vuk menacing or threatening or even interesting.

I don’t understand the stomach twisting power they seemed to have, because it seemed like the biggest threat these aliens offer is to give their victims the worst stomach cramps imaginable, but the most laughable trait of theirs was literally charging at Jean as the Phoenix during the end of the film...even Vuk did.

I’m not saying they were bad as villains, they certainly filled that role, but they didn’t offer anything new or threatening and they certainly didn’t exceed what Apocalypse did.

Quicksilver:

Quicksilver was shelved in this movie. Not only was he in the movie all together for probably 3 minutes less than Mystique, but also they cut everything about him that made him such a likeable character in the previous two movies.

The humour was barely there, there was no brilliant slow motion speed scene, they still didn’t establish the relationship between him and Magneto despite Apocalypse seemingly teasing it would be explored. I know he got injured during the confrontation between the X-Men and Jean but to not even be mentioned for the rest of the movie except for a 5 second appearance right at the end?

Storm:

I will give Storm credit for being the only character in this movie to be called by their moniker, but Storm is only called by her moniker. Mystique calls Cyclops, Nightcrawler and Quicksilver Scott, Kurt and Peter on mission but also calls Storm Storm. Why not Ororo?

Also her powerset, particularly with Alexandra Shipp, seem very limited. The younger version of Storm only really seems to produce lightning and electrical attacks with the occasional heavy breeze. Here though she seems to also produce ice cubes for parties...because that’s a good use for one of the strongest X-Men?

Future:

I am unsure about the future of the X-Men now, while I cannot wait to see what the MCU does with them, Feige has stated that it won’t happen for a while at least.

I am hoping they start drip-feeding them in soon, say with Storm in Black Panther II and maybe Professor X in Doctor Strange II if they introduce the Illuminati.

I have loved these past 19 years of X-Men movies, yes there have been bumps in the road but it is a great comfort to watch and I don’t ever feel like they’re a guilty pleasure.

Overall I rate this movie a 7/10, it’s not an offensive movie like X-Men Origins or The Last Stand but it isn’t as strong as X2, First Class or Days of Future Past. I would still love to see a faithful Dark Phoenix saga movie maybe over the course of a couple of movies rather than just rammed into the one but I cannot really mark it down too much because it gave me the nostalgia I have whenever I watch an X-Men movie.

So that’s my review of Dark Phoenix, what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Marvel Movie Reviews as well as other movie reviews and posts.

#x-men #marvel #dark phoenix #x-men: dark phoenix #phoenix force #phoenix #20th century fox #fox #jean grey #professor x #magneto #quicksilver #nightcrawler #mystique #cyclops #storm #vuk #beast #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #peter maximoff #kurt wagner #raven darkholme #ororo munroe #scott summers #hank mccoy #sophie turner #james mcavoy #michael fassbender #tye sheridan

[malecsecretsanta]

Merry Christmas, @sallsmum!

“Magnus? You home?” Alec toed off his boots in the loft’s entrance and hung up his jacket. Magnus had told him to be home for an early dinner and that he had something special planned. He could smell a hint of cinnamon in the air and followed it to the kitchen, hoping to find his boyfriend there.

However, he was unsuccessful in his search and only found a small pot of water with cinnamon sticks on the stove’s lowest setting.

“Magnus?” Alec tried again.

“In the bedroom!” Magnus called out, slightly muffled. Alec padded his way to their bedroom, curious as to why the the only thing cooking was a few cinnamon sticks. Surely Magnus didn’t expect him to eat them, right?

“I’ll be out in a moment, just wait out there.” Alec shrugged to himself and laid down on the massive bed. Within a few seconds, Chairman Meow made his presence known and jumped up to walk over Alec’s chest. After turning in a couple of circles, he deemed Alec a good enough resting place and plopped down, immediately purring when Alec started petting him.

“Are we going somewhere? Should I change?” Alec asked, raising his voice a little so Magnus could hear him from inside the closet.

“No, I thought we’d stay in. I have plans for you tonight, my love.” So it was going to be that kind of night. That was the tone Magnus used when he wanted something from Alec, usually involving them both being naked.

“Yeah? What did you have in mind?” Alec winced at how gravelly his voice sounded. God, he should not be as turned on as he was - he’d been with Magnus for over five months, he shouldn’t still be affected by the tiniest of flirtations!

“This kind!” Magnus announced as he exited the closet wearing… something Alec had never seen before. It was a red suit, with a large black belt around Magnus’ middle. The most surprising part was that it wasn’t fitted. Usually Magnus’ pants are tight enough to show the silhouette of his legs, but the red pants were baggy, and sloppily tucked inside a pair of black boots. Of course, they were much more fashionable than Alec’s hunting boots but they looked similar enough that he raised a brow in confusion. To top it all off, sat atop Magnus’ head was a red and white stocking cap with a little puff at the end.

That was the most jarring part of the entire ensemble, Alec thought. Usually Magnus hated wearing things on his head since he took such pride in his hair.

“Magnus… what are you wearing?” He hesitantly asked. Alec knew his boyfriend had an eclectic taste in clothing, but this was completely different to anything he’d ever seen Magnus in before.

“I’m Santa!” Magnus proclaimed. “Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas? Ring any bells?” Alec shook his head. “Alexander, don’t tell me you never celebrated December 25th!”

“I mean, I know mundanes celebrate the virgin birth as a gift from the Angel, but no. It’s not a big thing for shadowhunters, or at least it wasn’t for my family. Is there something else?”

“Alexander, my love, you have been deprived of the most wholesome of all holidays! Remember how I told you about Halloween back in October?” Alec nodded. “This is another mundane holiday. Just as the Angel - or god, or whatever you believe in - gave a gift to mankind, so we give gifts to each other in celebration! Yuletide is all about coming together and giving gifts from your heart. Almost like Thanksgiving, except it doesn’t originate from the murders of indigenous people.”

Alec nodded along. “So, you’re dressed like this because…?”

“Right! Mundane children are told the tale of Santa Claus, a jolly old man who brings gifts to the good little boys and girls. Here, I’ll show you.” Magnus fishes out his phone from one of the deep pockets in the suit. Sure enough, Alec is greeted with an image of a large man with a rather magnificent white beard in an outfit similar to what Magnus has on.

“Okay, I think I get it. So what exactly are we going to do tonight then?” Alec asked. Magnus gave an excited little shimmy before sitting down next to Alec on the bed and proceeded to explain his plans.

***

A few hours later, the loft was decorated from floor to ceiling with tinsel, ornaments, and a little bit of magic in the air. If Alec wasn’t dating a warlock, he’d say it was just the spirit of yuletide but the sparkling snowflakes that dissolve a few feet above the ground prove him otherwise.

They’re curled up together in the center of a huge couch - a new one that Magnus said matched the decorations - and watching a cute movie about kids trapped in an airport, mugs of hot chocolate warming their palms. Alec leaned forward to place his on the coffee table and change his position so his head was resting in his boyfriend’s lap.

“So what do we do now?” he asked. Sure, the decorating was fun, and the music was nice. Hell, Magnus had even coaxed him into wearing a particularly terrible red sweater for the evening. He knew that Christmas was on the 25th, but that was still a good week away.

“Now,” Magnus started, running his free hand through Alec’s hair, “we can plan to celebrate together with family and friends, or just the two of us. We can exchange gifts if you wish, but it’s certainly not necessary. Just you being here is more than enough for me.” Alec blushed. “I don’t always have a big party, every few years I’d have Catarina, Ragnor, and Raphael over for some spiked eggnog and to catch up, but usually it’s just me and the Chairman.”

“I think I wanna tell Izzy and Jace about it. I’m pretty sure Izzy’d jump at the chance to buy me something new and Jace would feel left out. Of course then he’d want to bring Clary. But I suppose that’s okay because you want to invite Simon and Maia, right?” Alec pondered aloud.

“Well, Simon’s Jewish, so he probably won’t have the same Christmas spirit as the rest of us. But I’m sure we could figure something out. Hanukkah is coming to an end pretty soon, so I could talk to him and see if he’d like to join us in a few days instead of on the exact day. If that’s alright with you, of course.” Magnus sounded hesitant, as if he was worried Alec would veto his idea.

“Magnus, he’s your family. And my whole family will be there too, so it’s only fair.”

“Your… whole family?”

“Yeah. Izzy, Jace, me, and you. Mom and Max are in Idris, and Robert won’t be receiving an invitation from me anytime soon.” Alec explained.

“You consider me family?” Magnus looked away as he tried to process what Alec was implying.

“Magnus, I love you. Of course you’re my family.” Alec said, like it was the most obvious thing to him. Like Magnus’ world wasn’t turned upside down.

“God, I love you so much,” was all Magnus said in return, before pulling Alec up and maneuvering them so Magnus was straddling him. “You are my world, Alexander.”

He put every ounce of the love he felt for this wonderful man beneath him into the kisses he plastered all over his face. They were sloppy but neither cared because they were together at the end of this extremely trying year, and they were so god damn in love

#sallsmum #malecsanta17 #*fic17 #*gifts17

[andryuska]

REALLY  LONG CHARACTER SURVEY. RULES. repost, don’t reblog ! tag 10 ! good  luck ! TAGGED. stolen off the dash! TAGGING. @extasiie @moscowsdragon @goodcousin @dearbewildered @inburgundy @anastcsie @bolkonskxya @youngwiife 

BASICS. FULL  NAME : Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky NICKNAME : Andre, Andryushka (and many more, see this post) AGE : mid/late 20s - early 30s BIRTHDAY : November 13, sometime in the late 18th century. ETHNIC  GROUP : White NATIONALITY :  Russian LANGUAGE / S : French, Russian, English, German. SEXUAL  ORIENTATION : Greysexual. ROMANTIC  ORIENTATION : Demiromantic. RELATIONSHIP  STATUS : Verse and year dependent - Married in 1805, single from 1806 - 1809, courting and then being betrothed to Natasha in 1810 - 1811, single again in 1812. Generally dating Natasha in modern college verse, and single in modern verse. CLASS : Titled Nobility HOME  TOWN / AREA : Bald Hills, Russia CURRENT  HOME : Bugocharovo, Russia, as well as various other estates. PROFESSION : Adjutant to General Kutuzov, member of Military Council, Army Officer.

PHYSICAL. HAIR : Dark brown, and kept fairly short. What slightly longer parts there are near the top of his head are significantly wavy, but not necessarily curly. Parted on the left. EYES : Dark brown and very intense, made prominent by dark eyelashes and slight bags underneath.  NOSE : Average and pretty much not notable. One nostril is slightly larger than the other. It has never been broken. FACE : Conventionally handsome, though slightly asymmetrical. He has fairly well defined lines with his cheekbones and jawline ( though the latter is hidden under a short and well kept beard ). His eyes are deeply set and averagely far apart, and dark rimmed as well. He has no laugh lines, but his forehead has a couple wrinkles on it from stress, and there’s a crease between his well-shaped eyebrows that becomes especially visible when he’s troubled by something. LIPS :  Thin and usually pressed into a thin line. He’s usually either neutral or frowning. COMPLEXION : White and pale, but not to the point of being quite noticeable. Has a better tan on his face and hands than everywhere else, on account of wearing a uniform. BLEMISHES : Two small moles on his neck. A small birthmark that’s paler than the rest of him on his left hip, where the bone protrudes a little. SCARS : Some small, faded scars on his arms from childhood roughhousing. Larger scars on his side + back from being wounded at Austerlitz ( he was knocked over the head while carrying the standard into battle, and in lying there, was likely injured further in being trampled or by stray artillery fire. ) TATTOOS : None. HEIGHT : 6′0″. WEIGHT : 170 lbs. BUILD : Fit, but on the thinner side. FEATURES : Generally assertive and adult-looking. His features make him look responsible, though not entirely friendly. As said, he’s conventionally handsome. ALLERGIES : None. USUAL  HAIR  STYLE : Well-kept, and otherwise left as it is. USUAL  FACE  LOOK :  Andrei’s resting expression is a rather annoyed one. He doesn’t naturally smile or frown, but has a neutral mouth, and his eyes give off a very intent sort of apathy and indifference. He looks like he’s bored with everything and has seen it all before, and is irritated to have to experience anything at all. Of course, as soon as someone he likes engages him, or gets him on a topic that he has opinions about, he’ll animate in a very intense way, take on a very perplexed and troubled expression in arguing for what he thinks is correct. He very rarely smiles, and when it does, it’s usually small and somewhat veiled, and often without any real joy. USUAL  CLOTHING : A staple to any of his outfits is black boots and trousers. At home, he usually wears a shirt that’s somewhat open at the collar, and often prefers suspenders to a belt. Most of his shirts are whites or light blues, with minimal patterns, and most suspenders are darker colors, again without a lot of vibrant patterns. He tends to roll his sleeves. In going out, he has a heavy grey coat that’s fairly long, with leather sown into the shoulders for protection against rain and cold. His more formal wear is usually his military uniform, which consists of a green coat darker gold embellishments, occasionally worn with a sash. There are white trousers and a black leather belt to go with these. In terms of accessories, he has a saber and a pistol, both worn off a belt for that specific purpose, though he prefers not to carry these things around with him.

PSYCHOLOGY. FEAR / S : Failure, lacking a proper legacy, appearing vulnerable or weak, being completely isolated and unreachable, being inadequate, intensely emotional discussions... ASPIRATION / S : At first, Andrei wants very hard to define himself as a military commander and to rise to greatness in leadership. After Austerlitz, he makes it a goal to reform the military code as to bring more order to warfare. Once Natasha breaks her engagement to him, however, Andrei wants to punish Anatole on a very low level, and otherwise has not life goals or aspirations, he’s just tired of living. POSITIVE  TRAITS : Intelligent, polite, considerate, loyal, reflective, determined, responsible, trustworthy, committed, thoughtful. NEGATIVE  TRAITS : Irritable, cold, tends to over analyze, doubtful, selfish, easily bored, self-isolating, tends to internalize, unfriendly, condescending, MBTI : INTJ ZODIAC : Scorpio TEMPERAMENT : Melancholic VICE  HABIT / S : Paces relentlessly, escapism via intellectual discourses, doesn’t hold eye contact, clicks / plays with writing utensil ( or whatever is in his hands ), occasionally argumentative on purpose. FAITH : Russian Orthodox, but not strictly devout or heavily practicing.  GHOSTS ? : Undecided. AFTERLIFE ? : No. REINCARNATION ? : No. ALIENS ? : No. POLITICAL  ALIGNMENT : Conservative, and loyal to the Russian Empire. ECONOMIC  PREFERENCE : Used to living with wealth, though largely unconscious of it. He doesn’t care much for luxuries, and instead would rather his money be used for functional purposes and necessities. SOCIOPOLITICAL  POSITION : High class. EDUCATION  LEVEL :  Taught both at home and abroad by his father and a variety of hired tutors. Extremely well-read, and knowledgeable of politics, philosophy, and history. Still has some education to complete in military affairs. His poorest subject is mathematics.

FAMILY. FATHER : Nikolai Andreevich Bolkonsky MOTHER : Unknown, died when he was young. SIBLINGS : Marya Bolkonskaya EXTENDED  FAMILY : None of note. NAME  MEANING / S : Manly, brave. HISTORICAL  CONNECTION ? : It’s likely that the Bolkonsky family was modeled after the historical Volkonsky family, which had a few Russian generals who would have been Andrei’s age during the course of the Napoleonic wars. Additionally, it’s likely that Andrei was named after his grandfather.

FAVOURITES. BOOK : Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes. He thinks it fairly correct in many of its assessments, and himself has little optimism about human nature. MOVIE : Dunkirk (2017) dir. Christopher Nolan 5  SONGS : I Am a Rock - Simon and Garfunkel // The Show Must Go On - Queen // Smoke Gets In Your Eyes - The Platters // Tell My Father - Civil War // Miserere Mei Deus - Allegri DEITY : None. HOLIDAY : None. MONTH : None. SEASON : Autumn. PLACE : His study at home. WEATHER : Partly cloudy and somewhat cool. SOUND : Natasha’s voice when she sings. SCENT / S : Vanilla, cold autumn air, pine forests. TASTE / S : Rye bread, white tea with sugar. FEEL / S : Finely spun wool that’s very soft, being held by someone he loves / trusts, cool polished wood, cold marble, clean linens, general smooth, cool or cold surfaces. ANIMAL / S : Snowy owls, barn owls. NUMBER : Three. COLOUR : Blue.

EXTRA. TALENTS : Content analysis, writing academic prose, understanding political problems, organization and planning, debating and arguing, leadership. BAD  AT : Casual conversation and small talk, complex mathematics, handling emotions in a healthy way, comforting others, being supportive. TURN  ONS : Infectious laughs and smiles, unburdened happiness and brightness, private / secret intimacy, possessive talk ( you’re mine / you belong to me / etc. ), gentle and genuine reinforcement. TURN  OFFS : Overdone emotions and extreme acts of affection, publicity and PDA, vulgar talk, idiocy and ignorance. HOBBIES : Reading and writing. TROPES : Byronic Hero, Awful Wedded Life, Intelligence Equals Isolation, The Stoic. QUOTES :  “To spare oneself from grief at all cost can be achieved only at the price of total detachment, which excludes the ability to experience happiness.” - Erich Fromm. // “The majority of the people of that time paid not attention to the general course of things, but were guided only by the personal interests of the day. And those people were the most useful figures of that time.” - Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace //  “It’s not given to people to judge what’s right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more so than in what they consider right and wrong.” - Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace.

FC INFO. MAIN  FC / S : Nicholas Belton ALT  FC / S : Blake DeLong OLDER  FC / S : None YOUNGER  FC / S : None VOICE  CLAIM / S : Nicholas Belton GENDERBENT  FC / S : None.

MUN QUESTIONS. Q1 : if  you  could  write  your  character  your  way  in  their  own  movie ,   what  would  it  be  called ,  what  style  would  it  be  filmed  in ,  and  what  would  it  be  about ?           A1 : Okay, so if I made a movie about Andrei’s life ( it would be sort of a biopic, but it would mostly focus on the wars ) it would be called War Weary and it would be a pretty stylized drama. I’d want to use a lot of symbolic methods for exposition and have mostly just natural sounds, and hold off on an elaborate soundtrack. It would start with the sky at Austerlitz and end with the Borodino wound, so it would kind of go full circle. It would get like three Oscars, I promise. Q2 : what  would  their  soundtrack / score  sound  like ?           A2 : It would be largely instrumental, and done in late classical style. Lots of minor keys and broken chords. It would have to give the impression of thoughtfulness, of never having any stillness, as to represent Andrei’s inability to stop thinking of things. The only really bright part would still have to be slow, and wouldn’t come to the very end. Heavy use of stringed instruments and piano, with some underlying percussion. Dave Malloy would compose it. Q3 : why  did  you  start  writing  this  character ?           A3 : I read War and Peace, and identified a lot with Andrei right at the beginning. That kind of gave me the idea of making a blog for him, but at the time, I wasn’t really in RP at all. After reading the book, I made a blog, and it sat there for a bit before I finally decided to start to actually put effort into it. INTJ solidarity also played a part, and encouragement from others on RP blogs that I did try and bring back later in this past summer. I really don’t make blogs lightly, and I don’t make a lot of them, so it really must have been a strong connection, because here I am, writing Andrei. Q4 : what  first  attracted  you  to  this  character ?           A4 : He’s so disinterested in social situations and other people, like he comes in to Anna Pavlovna’s soiree and just... Does not want to be there at all, basically insults a bunch of people, then goes off and complains about it to his only friend. That’s me. That’s a thing I have done. So yeah, I kept an eye on him since. Q5 : describe  the  biggest  thing  you  dislike  about  your  muse.           A5 : He can be such an asshole sometimes, let me tell you... Like there are reasons behind it, which you can find in numerous headcanon posts, but he can just come off in such a terrible and cold way. It’s especially bad when it’s to the people who are trying to help him / be good to him. it kills me that he pushes them away in favor of just isolating himself instead of dealing with his problems. Q6 : what  do  you  have  in  common  with  your  muse ?           A6 : Lonely. Single. One friend. In seriousness though, all those things, plus some more. We share a personality type and a general cynicism about the world and about other people. Honestly, I probably have a lot of his bad traits, which isn’t great, but hey, if there’s one thing Andrei and I can’t do, it’s change for the better. Q7 : how  does  your  muse  feel  about  you ?           A7 : We would probably be intellectual rivals... I can see us fighting over politics and philosophy, on account of having rather different ideological views. But like, not in an angry way, in a courteous and debating way. I don’t think Andrei would like me, to be fully honest. Q8 : what  characters  does  your  muse  have  interesting  interactions  with ? A8 : ANATOLE KURAGIN  ( blame extasiie, kay made me aware of anadrei ),  Pierre, Natasha, Marya B and Marya D ( especially in my modern college verse ), Sonya ( aka bring on the Angst ), and a whole lot of others. Q9 : what  gives  you  inspiration  to  write  your  muse ?         A9 : Reading War & Peace. There’s a few sections that I go to and reread if I don’t have muse - Andrei’s introduction through to his dinner with Pierre, his return from Austerlitz and the trauma that follows, sections with Natasha, his last conversation with Pierre, and his death. These usually get me thinking in character and it helps to read the source to get the style of prose right. For modern college verse, which I write in a lot, I can usually just go right into it without a lot of inspiration, because college!Andrei and I have plenty of similarities. Q10 : how  long  did  this  take  you  to  complete ?         A10 : I didn’t do it all in some sitting, so I don’t know. A couple hours at least.

#about #headcanon #this took about a million years jeez

[neverbeenbroken]

[IDEAS/FACTS] SPELLBOUND 5.0? | to be updated

This is going to be a long list, so I’ll put under a read more. If you have anything to add, let me know!

BROOKE ADAMS

was not a supporter of lohen

did not trust juliette and felt like something was off about her

called spencer babybear

was a fan of jesse

was one of the people that called emily mini keler

was super close to james

was close to valerie

was close to tyler

almost seemed like she had a thing for sam, but that could just be playful!brooke

seemed close with cordelia

the aunt she’s close with is named jemma

thought blake without alcohol is boring

convinced that brooke is bi

she broke up aaron and melanie

used tyler’s crush on melanie for him to do it

was the one that audrey that wyatt slept with alison

had or has feelings for aaron ( this never happened in any rp)

has feelings for wyatt

sort of resented audrey (during the og rp)

was pissed because she either overheard audrey tell wyatt that brooke liked/loved him or wyatt confronted her

she kind of drove a rift in wydrey’s relationship because the two didn’t want to cause her any more pain

this was during the time in the hospital when she overdosed on vervain

wyatt blamed himself

can’t tell if she’s closer to audrey or alison, probably loves samantha more than both of them honestly

kissed aaron during a movie “date”

discovered she had feelings for wyatt when she kissed him during truth or dare

hates ashlee

super close to blake

my dilemma is brodrey’s theme song

had a headcanon that brooke kept sabotaging audrey’s relationships because she had a crush on her

AARON ANDERSON

broke up with his girlfriend because someone else told him too (can you say FAKE)( should probably figure out why he did that)

grew closer to spencer after saving her from some bad college guys

didn’t think she would like him

made audrey apologize to brooke cause he knew brooke wouldn’t have

calls audrey doll

was close to valerie

was close to erica

close to emily

considers wyatt his bestest best friend

considers brayden his boyfriend and will fight tyler for him

really caring towards others

calls emily emsi

calls melanie melly g or melly bear

trying/tried to get melanie back

wanted to be friends with melanie

close to brooke then audrey then alison

doesn’t quite get along with samantha

liked the fact that samantha owned up to being a bitch

knew of brayden’s feelings for audrey and thought he should’ve squashed them

was probably more of a wydrey fan then a braudrey fan

melron is my otp and i considered them locked but now i knind of want melanie with brayden (this is an idea, but they could’ve happened once upon a time)

ever since i thought about it, i can’t stop thinking of why audrey and aaron never crossed my mind. like not in a romantic way, but a rip your clothes off way. like i think they’d have some pretty hot sex. i think that’s why.

used to hook up with rose, stopped when he began dating melanie, did it again once he broke up with her

isn’t sure if he likes brooke more than a friend due to their shared kiss

would date wyatt if he could

SOPHIE BARNES

never had a sophie long enough

CORDELIA BENJAMIN

lost all of my cordelia blogs

when she first arrived, she was slightly cold

i think sam (?) cracked her shell first

is close to melissa

is close to maddison

doesn’t quite get along with blake

is close to samantha

is close to audrey

is close to tyler

is close to carson

had a fling or something with simon

changed during her junior year, must’ve been because she dyed her hair

turns into a vixen when she’s drunk

otherwise nervous to have sex with people cause she can’t control her powers

CARSON BENSON

had sex with a teacher

would probably only stay for that teacher

super close to blake

close to juliette

closer to brooke

did not like audrey at first

audrey accused her of having issues so carson called her rude and said that she didn’t like her

close to cordelia

close to samantha

is a part of the evil genius club

likes erica

is really forward, blunt

ASHLEE BOURNE

ashlee found out she had sisters when she was 12?

she didn’t understand why audrey didn’t like her

but reciprocated the feelings

can’t control the evil in her

misses her father

sees ben as her second father

started a fwb rel. with tyler

grew feelings for him

doesn’t like emily

stopped liking cordelia

hates brooke

considers wyatt a close friend

thinks audrey broke wyatt’s heart

knows that juliette and her tend to bring out the worse in each other but still loves her and wants to be her freind

took april uner wing

took nick under her wing

closer to brayden

doesn’t particularly care for alison

close to rose

likes blake

DIANA BROWN

didn’t have her long enough

ELIZA BURTON

used to be jennifer burton

is a (junior) ronan’s knight

blake tried to drink her blood when they first met

one nickname for blake is psycho

one nickname for blake is monster

eliza wasn’t the nicest

no matter what, she alwasys ends up on blake’s list

it never fails

blake took her off once

had feelings for blake

made out with blake like three times?

prefers allie to julia

is usually caught in the middle of them

is eden’s best friend

has/had feelings for jesse?

was called little bird by blake

was called shorty by blake

used to called blake mr. nerd

was never scared of blake for some reason

this is lowkey all about blake

called tyler mr. dude

hated kailey

tyler showed her how to get other people to do their homework for them

had like 4 friends

DYLAN CARVER

only came to spellbound because of julia

was simon’s mentor

didn’t really like simon at first

told audrey to give simon a chance

hated chloe

found valerie annoying and too talkative 

soon grew fond of chloe

they bonded over their crushes hanging out with each other

came to stop julia from doing something stupid

did not expect his sister to come too

always gives girls hickies after dates?

prefers to be invisible rather than noticeable

would probably go back to new york for college

valerie called him mean but said that she likes it

when i say val i’m talking about skye

wanted audrey to ber his campagin member and would run for school or student council president

LILLIAN CARVER

tagged along

would most likely stay at spellbound

DARREN CHEN

feels pressure from his family

can choose his own mate

would probably return to spellbound

loves dancing

is close to audrey

grows close to april

is close to julian

JULIAN COHEN

is dating or dated natasha

these might just be old headcanons from anna

cares for tasha but sometimes feels like giving up on their relationship

was not happy when he found out about blake & tasha

JULIETTE COHEN

super close to julian

went to therapy for her anger management 

was cheated on by jesse

grew close to blake and started dating him

had no idea that she fought with tasha over another boy

sam told her about the love pentagon (sam, jules, blake, lindsay, tasha)

secretly hates that blake still cares about lindsay

super close to tyler

close to samantha

CHASE COLLINS

idek

ANNA-ROSE COOKE

has a dark side

refers to adurey as her mom

refers to april as her sister

calls simon chimpunk

REID COOPER

came to  

NAOMI DALTON

almost had a thing with tyler 

ALEXANDRIA DANIELS

feels superior to julia

JACOB FLETCHER

has a crush on rose

BRITTANY FULLER

used to flirt with audrey

gives no fucks

may grow feelings for rachel?

should definitely have sex with blake

doesn’t know that linds and blake dated

AUDREY GANNER

broke up with wyatt because of what brooke told her

he still doesn’t know exactly why

he thinks it was the rose kiss

finds drinking blood gross

super close to blake

MELANIE GANNER

could’ve had a thing with brayden

was in love with aaron

wonders why tyler doesn’t like her

calls audrey audbo

aaron calls her melly bear, g-money

NICHOLAS GARCIA

was sent to spellbound to spy on april and her pack

ended up growing close to april

things ended cause she found out

now the two avoid each other

dated valerie

still has feelings for her?

doesn’t like james?

sam hates him

close to audrey

close to jake

sam wants to punch him in the face

figured out that val has a daughter?

almost told sam something about val and james

told sam that val had a kid and the father was james

sam did not believe

PAIGE GARNIER

tried to kill a teacher

JENNIFER GRANT

used to be jennifer burton

VALERIE HALE

has a kid with james

melanie considers her her favorite blonde

is dating samantha

used to almost have a thing with brooke?

SETH HAMILTON

idek

don’t think he did much in the other rps

SAMUEL HARRIS

anya is his childhood friend

had a crush on her

MEAGAN HART

likes valerie?

DANIELLA HASTINGS

idek

MAXWELL HASTINGS

probably left

VANESSA HENRIE

thought brent was pretty cool

JAMES HUNTER

has a kid with valerie

has feelings for valerie?

SPENCER HYLTON

is blake’s little sister

was adopted by supernatural parents

RACHEL JAMES

hooked up with wyatt

DANIEL JUNG

we’ll see

JASON KANG

we’ll see

EMILY KEELER

mini keeler

loves coffee

has a crush on aaron?

has a crush on tyler?

hates ashlee

close to audrey

totally steals her clothes

danced with blake at a dance

a version of emily gave no fucks

the only other person that calls blake, blakey bear

was not scared of blake

hates when blake calls her sweetpea

almost shipped them

SAMANTHA KEELER

troublemaker

creator of the EGC

BONA KIM

idek

BLAKE LAWSON

refers to Robbie’s friend group as the “Miller Posse”

didn’t like rachel in a more-than-friend way and found her annoying

everyone thinks that he broke her heart

but he only told her the truth regarding him and her

very blunt

protective of those he truly cares about

slightly scared of carson

thought samantha was really prety

had a fwb with natasha

was in a relathionship with lindsay

still has lingering feelings

audrey was the only other person he told about his relationship

carson knew while it was happening 

audrey knew after it ended

only kills people who truly pisses him off

MIN-JOON LEE

idek

JOHANNAH LEWIS

idek

CHLOE MALAWER

had a crush on reid

had a crush on dylan

used to date simon

MADDISON MARTINEZ

idek

ALEXANDER MCHALE

idek

LINDSAY MCKENZIE

used to date blake

SCOTT MENDLER

used to date april

ROBERT MILLER

tbd

ALISON MITCHEL

tbd

ANYA MOORE

tbd

NATASHA MOORE

tbd

KIRSTEN MORGAN

tbd

EDEN NEWMAN

tbd

SIMON NOVA

went on a date with audrey

kissed her

kissed april

was roommates with chloe due to a mistake

dated chloe

is in a love/hate relationship with april

dylan was his mentor

had a thing with cordelia

maybe went after brittany

likes older girls

APRIL PICKETT

no one knew she was also half-demon until her sophomore year

hates simon

likes simon

hates chloe

likes chloe

loved nick

dislikes nick

enemies with melissa

enemies with brooke

thought she was straight until she met julia

close to jennifer

close to mal and jojo

grew close to darren

started trusting scott again

kissed simon

was nicknamed wolfy by sam

calls sam witchy

JESSE PIERCE

prefers natasha to jules

was nosy about blake and jules relationship

kept provoking blake

thinks julian sucks and that he would be a better boyfriend to tasha

was close to brayden

KAILEY PORTER

brooke’s cousin

gives no fucks

once got drunk and made a sex tape with valerie

caused samantha and valerie to grow apart

audrey supported the val and kailey ship

grew close to robbie

BRENT PRESCOTT

one of the ronan’s knights

CHRISTOPHER REED

was changed by alexandria

has a crush on anya

WYATT REED

used to date audrey

she broke his heart

was heartbroken when she started dating brayden

slept with valerie

slept with rachel

NICOLE ROSENBERG

idek

TYLER SMITH

is a player

feels like everyone will leave him

has a little sister

dated erica

dated brooke

almost had a thing with naomi

went on a date with chloe

is rose’s husband

likes melanie or liked her

conspired with brooke to end melron

ROSEANNA STEVENSON

kissed wyatt

used to have sex with aaron

has feelings for jake

doesn’t like alison

didn’t really get along with audrey

considers tyler her husband

was one of the firsts to find out that spencer was blake’s sister

was willing to help her 

KYLIE SUMMERS

idek

ERICA TODD

dated tyler

addicted to candy

close to carson

close to juliette

close to audrey

close to aaron

close to samantha

close to brooke

close to spencer

dated noel jones

ISABELLA VEGA

got attacked by robbie

MALLORY VINCENT

idek

CHELSEA WARD

doesn’t want to be invisible anymore

BRAYDEN WESTERLY

could’ve had feelings for wither melanie or ashlee

been in love with audrey

ignored audrey during the first rp

was a great boyfriend during the second one and etc

audrey is his oldest friend

died and became a whitelighter

aaron’s boyfriend

but also tyler’s

used to be called apples by samantha

NATALIE WOOD

idek

JULIA WOODS

was the “ghost” that paige saw

STEVEN WU

idek

CALEB YOUNG

idek

#ref: spellbound #neverbeenbroken #out of magic #this helps me weed out those that dont' have plots

[analogmagazine]

“Black Dots” by Nicholas White,

Nicholas White is a young British photographer who creates magnificent images where composition, use of light and attention to detail are the main characters. Drawing inspiration from artists such as Simon Norfolk, his carefully composed projects deal with the relationship between humans and landscape, revealing hidden details that one can only perceive through deep contemplation and by eliminating the surrounding noise. In his project “Black Dots”, images of mountain refuges and their users are combined to create a poetic visual story of the British wilderness. A story that reminds us our origins as civilisation and invites us to reflect about our future.

Following we present an interview that we had with Nicholas:

am - First of all thank you very much for your contribution to our project. Can you please introduce yourself for us? NW - No worries! My name is Nicholas White, I'm a photographer based on Dartmoor National Park in the South West of England. I wanted to be a musician originally, but took a diversion at the age of 18 and ended up studying photography at degree level - I graduated from Plymouth College of Art in 2013. I've just returned home from a few months travelling through South East Asia & New Zealand and I'm currently researching for a number of new projects which should begin later on in 2017.

am - What is “Black Dots” about? NW - 'Black Dots' is a journey into the wonderful world of bothying in the United Kingdom. Bothies are small, primitive shelters often located in the lonely corners of the British wilderness. These buildings are left unlocked all year round, providing shelter and security for people who venture into the lonely places. It began from curiosity - I wanted to find answers to the questions; what are these buildings? why are they here? who uses them? To find these answers, I spent almost three years trekking to a large number of bothies, to not only document them and the surrounding landscapes, but to photograph the faces of those who make use of them.

am - What inspires your work? NW - I generally don't go out of my way to force the creation of new work, or to search for things to photograph. Much of my work grows organically from a single conversation or discovery and I think that's a really healthy way to approach it. I'm inspired a lot by the outdoors - that's certainly what triggered ‘Black Dots’, but I also find that being in these wild places unlocks a part of my brain that I struggle to gain access to when I'm surrounded by all the clutter of home. I'm also constantly surprised at how much inspiration you can get from a short chat with a complete stranger...

am - Who are your favourite photographers / artists? NW - Simon Norfolk is one of my favourite photographers - when I stumbled upon his work in Afghanistan, it marked a huge turning point for me and my photography. We use the landscape in slightly different ways, but his mentality, approach and the meticulous nature of his photographs continues to be a huge inspiration to me.

am - If you could travel and stay in a place for one year, where would you choose to go? NW - Honestly, it would be Scotland. It may only be a day's drive from my front door but I've fallen in love with the place! You could spend a life time there and still not scratch the surface. The landscape is wild and unforgiving, the towns and hamlets are teeming with character and the people are fantastic. I'll definitely be returning there to make new work in the future.

am - Favourite songs / bands at the moment? NW - I don't have a favourite band/song - my music taste is pretty eclectic. I always load up a huge playlist before leaving for a shoot - if I'm on my own I'll usually hike with my headphones in. I suppose most people would expect me to be listening to something really focused and contemplative - but I'm actually a huge rock and metal fan. My friend introduced me to a band called ‘Mastadon’ when I was shooting Black Dots on the West Coast of Scotland and I'm still making my way through they discography - I'm playing them a lot at the moment!

am - What’s your favourite movie? NW - I was never a film buff, but if I had to pick something it would actually be ‘The Revenant’. Not exactly one of the "classics" I'm supposed to like, but the cinematography of ‘The Revenant’ and attention to light-quality was mindblowing.

am - What is your favourite photo book? NW - Bryan Schutmaat's ‘Greys The Mountain Sends’ is a personal favourite, alongside Simon Norfolk's ‘Afghanistan’ and Jon Tonks' ‘Empire’.

am - Thank you very much for your time and your contribution to analog magazine. NW - No worries!

Do not forget to see more of Nicholas’ work following the link on his name above.

#film photography #analog photography #analogmagazine #analogica #analogue #photography #Pellicola #fotografia #fine art #art #arte #kunst #UK #Scotland #Contemporary Photography #contemporary art #landscape #Minimalistic #largeformat

[cutsliceddiced]

New top story from Time: The Best TV Shows of 2020 So Far

No matter what you expected out of 2020, the reality has almost certainly been different. As the coronavirus swept from country to country, making especially brutal landfall in America, even those who remained healthy and employed struggled with loneliness, boredom, anxiety, cabin fever. And in late May, as Americans in major cities faced their third month of quarantine, the senseless death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer launched a wave of protests against law enforcement’s violence toward the black community. Television, frankly, seems pretty insignificant in the face of both crises. But it did help us stay informed, connected and sometimes even intellectually stimulated at a time when the mere sight of other human faces could serve as an inoculation against loneliness and despair. From the holy agony and ecstasy of The New Pope to the unholy high school terrors of Dare Me, here are 10 shows that helped me weather the first half of this difficult year. Here’s hoping they make whatever you’re living through right now slightly more bearable, too.

Better Call Saul (AMC)

With more and more shows ending or getting canceled after a couple of years, so as not to wear out their welcome in a Peak TV moment infatuated with novelty, Better Call Saul’s fifth season demonstrated the value of patient, thorough character development. It took this long to trace downtrodden public defender Jimmy McGill’s (Bob Odenkirk) transformation into the slick, morally flexible Saul Goodman whom we encountered fully formed in Breaking Bad. In season 5—arguably the series’ best to date—we watched him become a so-called “friend of the cartel,” a designation which earned him a harrowing hike through the Mexican desert with Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), among other brushes with death. But the most exquisitely painful story line traced the impact Saul’s emergence will inevitably have on his partner Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn)—a captivating character in her own right, torn between her own capacity for mainstream success and an internal compass more aligned with his outlaw ethics.

Better Things (FX)

After executing a full, successful third season of her single-parenting dramedy without disgraced co-creator Louis C.K., Pamela Adlon had nothing to prove with season 4. The show loosened up under her solo leadership, adopting the vérité-style rhythms of 20th-century independent films and growing more confident in that meditative style with every episode. Like some of her avant-garde influences, Adlon doesn’t tell discrete stories so much as create scenarios whose themes spark reflection on the part of the viewer. This time around, she had me thinking about the power of friendship among parents (especially divorced moms), the way raising multiple children might feel more like a cycle than a series of individual timelines, how we deal with our anger at people who’ve wronged us but will never take it upon themselves to make amends.

Betty (HBO)

Crystal Moselle’s adaptation of her wonderful 2018 indie film Skate Kitchen could be Better Things’ little sister. Like that show, Betty, which debuted in May, consists of half-hour episodes that prioritize character-based insights, emotional resonance and dilated moments of crisis and transcendence over tightly constructed plots. But its subject is that glorious, terrifying transition from teenage life to adulthood in the big city, where freedom looks like a skateboard, a fake ID and a little bit of pocket money. Coming-of-age stories are never in short supply, yet the distinctive faces and personalities who make up the show’s central all-female skate crew are like nothing I’ve seen on TV before.

BoJack Horseman (Netflix)

There are great shows that ended badly (Game of Thrones, Lost, Roseanne 1.0), and then there are the divisive finales: The Sopranos, Seinfeld, Mad Men, Girls. Much rarer are series that go out on the perfect note, not just bidding fond farewells to characters viewers have grown to love (or love to hate) but elegantly tying up their most salient themes. When BoJack mastermind Raphael Bob-Waksberg left his titular anthropomorphic horse (voiced by Will Arnett) and the ghost writer who became his most insightful friend (Alison Brie’s Diane) in silence on a rooftop after six excellent seasons, his finale joined the ranks of Six Feet Under, Halt and Catch Fire, M*A*S*H and very few other shows that left us exhausted, tearful and grieving but ultimately satisfied.

Dare Me (USA)

Netflix’s hit docuseries Cheer made cheerleading a TV sensation this winter—which only made it more frustrating that Dare Me attracted so little attention. Set in a Midwestern town whose local real estate magnate (Paul Fitzgerald) is angling to cash in on the talent of a cheer squad that happens to include his two daughters by different wives, this thriller springs to life when he installs a tough, beautiful new coach (Willa Fitzgerald of MTV’s Scream) who challenges the top-girl status of his rebellious eldest child, Beth (Australian actor Marlo Kelly, beguiling). In the center of a conflict marked by escalating violence is Beth’s best friend Addy (The Get Down’s Herizen Guardiola), a quietly determined cheerleader still figuring out who she is. It was a riveting mystery, adapted from co-creator Megan Abbott’s novel, but equally enthralling was its dark, dreamy atmosphere. Before USA canceled it, in April, Dare Me promised to become everything I’d hoped HBO’s more popular, less original teen drama Euphoria would be.

The Great (Hulu)

This period dramedy is about as faithful a depiction of Catherine the Great’s rise to power in 18th-century Russia as Comedy Central spoof Another Period was a document of upper-crust Rhode Island life in Edith Wharton’s time. And that—along with Elle Fanning as a young Catherine, Nicholas Hoult as her debauched imbecile husband Peter III and dialogue from the droll, raunchy mind of The Favourite co-writer Tony McNamara—is what makes it so fun. Like its Oscar-nominated predecessor, The Great is a hilarious satire about gender and power as well as a reminder that European history wasn’t all as polite as Masterpiece miniseries make it out to be.

Mrs. America (FX on Hulu)

You could see the backlash to this all-star historical drama—which earned almost universal acclaim from critics, this one included—coming as soon as it was announced. Creator Dahvi Waller’s nine-part miniseries cast the beloved Cate Blanchett as Phyllis Schlafly, tracing the right-wing ideologue’s origin story in tandem with the implosion of a 1970s feminist movement led by women like Gloria Steinem (Rose Byrne), Shirley Chisholm (Uzo Aduba), Bella Abzug (Margo Martindale) and Betty Friedan (Tracey Ullman). So it was easy for some to accuse the show of making Schlafly too sympathetic. Here’s the thing: depiction isn’t endorsement, and Waller’s inquiry into what made feminism’s most influential female enemy the tyrannical, bigoted, infuriating person she was did not by any stretch of the imagination constitute apologizing for the harm she wrought. On the contrary, this smartly written, beautifully acted and subtly insightful series made it possible for even those of us who find Schlafly’s self-hating views mystifying to imagine how flesh-and-blood humans can devolve into self-serving monsters.

The New Pope (HBO)

Religion has become an unexpectedly popular subject for TV, in the afterlife comedies that don’t stop coming (The Good Place begat Forever, then Russian Doll, Miracle Workers and most recently Upload), in explorations of identity like Ramy and Unorthodox and in accounts of political conflicts driven by religious differences, from Our Boys to Derry Girls. A sequel to the 2017 miniseries The Young Pope, which took Jude Law’s upstart American Pontiff on a journey from bad faith to true faith, Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino’s The New Pope is something extremely different. With Law’s Pius XIII in some sort of divine coma and Muslim extremists terrorizing Catholic targets, his lieutenants at the Vatican recruit a depressive British cardinal (a tender, delicate John Malkovich) to take his place. Rather than dissecting 21st-century Catholicism, both seasons feel like an attempt to conjure the headspace of religious mysticism, in shots with all the majesty of a Renaissance fresco, a story whose mystery rivals the Book of Revelation and a sense of humor steeped in existential absurdity.

The Plot Against America (HBO)

In 2004, the late giant of American literature Philip Roth imagined an alternate reality in which Charles Lindbergh won the 1940 election, kept the U.S. out of World War II and set about reshaping the country to suit his isolationist, anti-Semitic views. Sixteen years later, with xenophobia, nativism and white supremacy on the rise, Roth’s novel about a Jewish family caught in this nightmare didn’t need much tweaking from The Wire collaborators David Simon and Ed Burns to resonate. The prestige-TV veterans simply stacked the adaptation with an ideal cast (Winona Ryder, John Turturro, Zoe Kazan and Morgan Spector are all spectacular), warmed up its shots with the unnerving golden light of nostalgia and got out of the story’s way… until the very end, which replaced Roth’s too-neat conclusion with something more suitable for 2020.

Vida (Starz)

It was not Tanya Saracho’s choice to end Vida—the drama she created about two Mexican-American sisters who return home to L.A.’s Boyle Heights neighborhood in the wake of their mother’s death and attempt to save her poorly managed bar—after three seasons. Given just six supersize episodes, a reduced budget and a shortened production schedule with which to complete her expansive meditation on family, community and identity, Saracho and her writers had to do the heartbreaking work of “killing our darlings,” as she put it in a recent interview, to make room for all the “stories we owed.” The result bordered on miraculous: a thoughtful, emotional, sexy season of television that, without feeling rushed, probed mysteries that the sisters’ mom left behind, set every major character on a path of richly deserved growth and ended with a scene that had this viewer crying as hard as the characters themselves.

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

#Time #top stories #IFTTT #news

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Movie Review: Dark Phoenix

Disclaimer: This will be my non-spoiler review for X-Men: Dark Phoenix, with my spoiler review posting hopefully sometime this weekend. I am posting this review the day the movie is released in the U.K. which is two days before the U.S. so if you haven’t seen the movie don’t read on until you have.

General Reaction:

It comes to something when I can safely say that after two attempts to cinematically tell what is possibly the greatest comic-book story of all time, a 90s animated series had better success than Fox first trying in 2006 and now in 2019.

That’s not to say I thought this was a terrible movie or on par with X-Men: The Last Stand, but it isn’t the Dark Phoenix saga that die hard fans of the X-Men franchise and comics know and want to see faithfully adapted on the big screen.

As I have said with every post I create about the X-Men, I love this franchise. It means a lot to me from when I first saw the animated series and the original movie trilogy to now. I have enjoyed every movie and television series that accompanies the X-Men brand...to a degree. X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Legion are really the only two properties I don’t enjoy the former because of every reason stated by anyone before and Legion because I found it a very slow series.

The fact that Dark Phoenix is the movie that culminates nineteen years of the first superhero cinematic universe, it didn’t go out in a blaze but rather a sombre but dignified simmer.

Everyone, even fans like me who are die-hard fans, can agree that the X-Men movie continuity is absolutely f!!ked up, and this movie does not do anything to help that...in fact by the end of this movie you will be left questioning the climactic scene in Days of Future Past showing how the future had changed and I will be discussing that in my spoiler review because it is one of the most annoying things about the movie.

I am still struggling with the question of if I felt this was a true X-Men movie, yes the official title is X-Men: Dark Phoenix, but it is also simply called Dark Phoenix and unlike X-Men: Apocalypse you can take away the X-Men from the title and it still hold its own as a title. So my feeling is that without Bryan Singer, I feel it lost that X-spark that the other movies had.

Even the title sequence didn’t feel like an X-Men movie, I cannot tell you how much I miss Singer’s traditional X-Men title sequence which always ended with the Cerebro doors closing and the lock turning as the camera zoomed through the iris. Bryan Singer obviously has had troubles both in his personal and professional career of late so it makes sense as to why he’s not helming this movie, but to not even be acknowledged with an exec producer credit after what he started back in 2000.

If/when Feige and Disney finally bring the X-Men into the MCU, I do not want to see Simon Kinberg down as director, writer or producer because he has now had two opportunities to tell this story and failed twice. Dark Phoenix again has some very good moments and is slightly more faithful than The Last Stand, but it isn’t as accurate a retelling as hopefully Disney would make it.

Also, somehow, Kinberg managed to screw up the franchise’s obituary to comics creator Stan Lee but clumsily placing the in memory of message in between the cast and exec crew credits. Not having it as a mid-credits type of sequence or at the very start of the credits but it just felt like an after-thought.

Cast:

I thought I was going to be hating on most of the cast for this movie or trying to find redeeming qualities in my favoured actors or characters but actually the cast do that for me by delivering solid performances.

The MVPs of the movie, for me, are Sophie Turner who proves that despite the fact her time with the X-Men movies may be up there is still chance for her after Game of Thrones and James McAvoy who finally showcases the reason why Xavier is such a multilayered and morally ambiguous character.

I also want to give a shout-out to Nicholas Hoult because not only is he one of my favourite young actors who doesn’t get enough credit for what he does, but Beast is my favourite X-Men character and he continues to go unappreciated even though he has had quite a substantial role in this franchise.

Everyone else was okay, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence and Tye Sheridan were good, Jessica Chastain and Alexandra Shipp were slightly pointless but I think there to fill role types, which I’ll explain in my spoiler review. Kodi Smit-McPhee wasn’t as bubbly as he was in X-Men: Apocalypse but I feel he was there to fill-in for Evan Peters who I am so peeved off with the way he was benched in this movie. Genuinely the snippets you see of Peters in the trailers are pretty much what you see of him in the film.

There were some fun and interesting additions where if this was a continuing franchise I’d be interested to see these characters again but because this is the last of this particularly story it seemed slightly pointless to include them. However again the characters I have watched throughout the franchise didn’t disappoint for the most part.

Recommendation:

People have often accused me of having filters on when discussing the X-Men movies because I love the franchise so much. This is wrong as I have stated there are moments and characters I love but there are also movies and characters I get frustrated by.

This is somewhere in between. It is not the best X-Men movie, however I do want to see it again.

I recommend this as a movie to see if you have grown up with the movie franchise as I have, just to see how it ends if for no other reason. However, if you are just an X-Men movie fan and not a comic-book fan then you may get something out of this that I am possibly too stubborn to accept because of my love of the source material.

The movie does have some interesting moments and ideas, there are some funny moments and the action sequences are quite good particularly seeing the Mutants use their powers.

But there is also some disappointing moments and wasted opportunities that I feel has been the bane of the X-Men movie franchise for Fox.

I look forward to seeing what Disney does with these characters next but I will miss this interpretation of the property because on the whole it isn’t insulting to the source material but it does require a lot of acceptance and acknowledgement of fault.

So that’s my non-spoiler review of Dark Phoenix, what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Marvel Movie Reviews as well as other Movie Reviews and posts.

#x-men #dark phoenix #x-men: dark phoenix #simon kinberg #sophie turner #james mcavoy #nicholas hoult #michael fassbender #jennifer lawrence #tye sheridan #jessica chastain #alexandra shipp #kodi smit-mcphee #evan peters #stan lee #x-men: the last stand #x-men: the animated series #kevin feige #disney