#The year where there wasn’t a movie was 2021

[austinswh0re]

Confidential.

Pairing: Chris Evans x Wife!reader

Warnings: Smut!!! so please if you’re not into that do not continue reading!, fluff, Angry Chris?

This is my first time posting any sort of writing on here so please don’t come for me💀 I’m hoping this comes out as well as it is in my head lmao. Enjoy! Also! i’m aware Endgame did not come out in 2021, im switching up the timeline a little bit lol

Y/n gets ask a question she had been preparing to answer, but when it gets asked she doesn’t know how to feel about it. Chris keeps in everything he wants to say until later that night.

(The gif is making me scream)

…………………………………………

Press conferences. I always had a love hate relationship with them. I loved answering questions and being with all my friends at once but what i didn’t enjoy so much were the extremely personal questions. Such as mine and Chris’ private life.

Chris and I got engaged late 2020, we planned our wedding for July 2021, we wanted a summer wedding, getting engaged in December didn’t really give us much time to plan, but one thing we knew for sure was that we would not wait a whole year before we were married. It was a small wedding, we got married on the beach with all our closest friends and family. We went on our dream honeymoon to Hawaii, and once we came home it was time for a premier.

Filming Endgame was definitely filled with tons of emotion. It was mine a his last Marvel movie together and everyone was aware of this. After we had filmed the last scene tears were shed from almost the entire cast and crew. We still had the premiere, which I will forever be grateful for. We hadn’t posted that we had gotten married on any social media platform, well up until the night I posted a photo of us and my username had changed. I didn’t think much of it considering us being engaged was very much public, but many people were still shocked by the name change.

y/nEvans

“your favorite couple has arrived:) So extremely proud of this guy right here, I love you infinitely.”

1,234,536 likes

ChrisEvans: Thank you honey, I love you more than you know❤️

robertdowneyjr: Love these two!!

tomholland2013: I think you guys come in a close second to me and z

Y/nEvans: replying to tomholland2013: yeah yeah

user1256: sobbing. her username is y/nEvans.

user1437: Shut up. I cant do this rn. im so happy for them🥹

^^^^^^ the post in question*

We also had the press conference which gave me a few extra days with the people i love the most. We both knew the risk of having personal questions asked was high but that didn’t make it any less jarring.

Upon our arrival to the hotel we had been informed that we only had one bed in our room, which considering we were married wasn’t an issue. Although everyone else wasn’t to happy about this.

“Chris, can you come here please?” I called out from the bathroom slightly out of breath from struggling to zip my dress. “What’s up?” he said as he made his way through the door. “Could you please help me zip this dress, i can only get it halfway” “yeah of course baby”

He slipped behind me and slowly began zipping up the dress. Once he had finally zipped it all the way up he slid his hands around my hips and kissed the exposed skin on my shoulder and neck. “Chris we don’t have ti-“ “shh, I know, just trying to make a mental note of what’s happening when we get back” as if I hadn’t been turned on enough by the way his hands were roaming my body, the heat pooling in my underwear just grew more and more as he stood behind me and stared at us in the mirror.

Once we finally broke apart from each other and left the room, we made our way out to the limousine where many of our friends were sat waiting for us. “took you two long enough” Robert said as Chris climed and shut the door behind him. small talk was made amongst the group during the short ride to the event. The dress I was wearing was beautiful, and matched the green felt pants Chris had on

I had went for a felt dress as well, just so the colors would be a closer match.

Halfway there, Chris tapped on my thigh and pointed towards my phone. When i picked it up, I saw multiple messages from Chris all displaying the plans he had made for later that night.

“The way your body looks in that dress is making it hard for me to not take you right here in this car”

“you’re in for it when we get back, I can’t wait to taste you, hear those sweet noises you always make for me”

My eyes widened as I quickly turn the brightness down hoping no one was nosey enough to read the text. I shoot Chris a glare, one that says “seriously?” and he responds with his  signature smirk.

Finally, after what had felt like forever, we arrived to the conference, the second we stepped out of the car Chris grabbed my hand and gave it a light squeeze, reassuring me it’s okay. This wasn’t my first, but I still have quite a bit of nerves every time. We make our way into the building after tons of pictures and quick “i love you” glances to one another. We both took our seats, which luckily were right beside each other. Eventually the question began and the small pool of anxiety grew.

“This next one is for y/n, we heard you two got married, congratulations!” I slightly adjusted in my chair and crossed my legs towards Chris before replying “yes, we did, thank you!” “Of course, now this may be some what personal-“ great. I glanced at Chris and could tell he was focused on the person asking and he didn’t look to happy about it. “So many people have been wondering, how is he in bed? We’re sure he’s fantastic but we want to hear it from the one who gets to experience it.” There it was. The dreaded question of how he was in bed. Although he was fantastic and you thoroughly enjoyed sex with Chris, it wasn’t something you cared to share with the public.

“well, listen I don’t want to come off as rude by saying this but i’m not sure that’s really any of yours, or anyone else’s business besides ours.” Chris was furious, his eyes had slightly darkened and his jaw was clenched keeping him from losing his mind. “Can we please move on?” my voice came out slightly smaller than I had wanted but at the moment I felt uncomfortable and upset.

Chris on the other hand was pissed. He hated how uncomfortable the question made you feel and wanted to beat the shit out of the man who asked it. Instead, he looked at you with a sympathetic look and you responded by mouthing “it’s okay”, because you knew if you didn’t, Chris would kill this guy.

Once everyone had asked their questions, and many laughs had been shared, the group made their way back to the hotel. Chris and you were the first people out of the car and after sharing your goodbyes, he grabbed you by the hand and the two of you stormed up to your room. Before a word could be spoken between you and him he had you pinned against the door. His lips were on yours in seconds. The kiss was hot and sloppy, but you didn’t care at all. “Chris” you breathlessly moaned his name out. he responded with a hmm and continued to work his lips against yours.

He pulled away, his lips red, puffy, and stained with your lipstick. “We need to get this thing off if you” was the first words he said, spinning you around and unzipping the dress painfully slow. “Could you go any slower?” you questioned, usually you would be patient, but on this specific night you were extremely horny and needed him more than ever. “If you keep having that attitude i’ll go even slower” once the dress was off of you, Chris picked you up bridal style and dropped you on the bed. “You are the only woman who gets to know how I am in bed, fuck everyone else” he began kissing down your body. He pulled you up slightly, bringing his hands up the clasp of your bra and undoing it. His hands began to grasp and squeeze every part of you that was exposed.

“Chris please” you begged, your tone was needy but you didn’t care. “please what sweetheart?” He teased, “I need you” “what do you need? use your words” he continued to tease you through your underwear. “Fuck Chris just fuck me already” That was all he needed to hear. He quickly undid his belt and dropped him pants and his boxers, exposing his hard dick, already leaking with precum. He pulled down your panties taking in the sight of you. “you’re so beautiful, and all mine” he said as he stroked himself a few times. He parted your legs and began to tease your entrance with his tip. “Chris, I swear if you don’t-“ he leaned down and kissed your lips, hard and rough as he slid into you. both of you moaning into each others mouths. “that’s it, good girl” he grunted as he stared to slowly move in and out of you “Please, faster” you moaned making him fasten his movements. The noises coming from the two of you were all you could hear, and you were sure everyone else on the floor could hear it too. “oh my god Chris” “Oh fuck i’m close baby” He grunted in your ear “you’re taking my cock so well, taking all of me, fuck you’re so tight” That only made you squeeze around him, moaning his name as if it was the only word you knew. “Chris please don’t stop, i’m so close” you moaned “cum for me, come on baby” he said as he slid his hand between the two of you and began rubbing circles on your clit. “This. This is confidential. No one gets to know what I do to you” “oh yeah, that’s it sweet girl, cum for me i know you want to” was all he said and it sent you over the edge. You were a moaning screaming mess as you and him finished at the same time. His body rolling off of yours as you both steady your breathing

“That was , that was amazing” you breathed out turning over to look at him “only the best for you my love. I love you” He said pulling you into him “I love you more” was the last thing you said before the two of you drifted off to sleep.

#chris evans #marvel #chris evans smut

[chcrryade]

YOU’VE GOT TO TWIST YOUR BODY, TWIRL IT ALL AROUND! ⠀⸻⠀ meet the members!⠀⠀cw mentions of suicide, death.⠀long post !!!

Born in February 1998 to a small town in Daejeon, DOYEON had a relatively quiet life growing up. It was a place where everyone knew everyone, where people met up on weekends in town halls or community centres to share coffee and cake and pour over puzzles. There wasn’t much excitement, but DOYEON didn’t mind. He liked afternoons spent playing with his younger brother, or helping his mother in the kitchen. He didn’t need much entertainment to keep him happy, and was perfectly content as he was.

Or at least, he thought he was. The restlessness started to fester at around the age of thirteen, and it was a slippery slope from that point onwards. He’d seen all the movies in their singular cinema more than twice over, had tried every position there was possible without hurting himself on the swings in their tiny park (at one point he could hook his legs over the top bar and let himself hang, using it more like a gymnast than a bored child), and was sick to death of the jigsaws he helped with every weekend. He felt lost for a while, stuck still on his feet without an end destination in sight, retreating into his shell and keeping his head down—until he saw an rerun of Inkigayo playing on the old tv strung up in the corner of the café he had grown to like, and then all of a sudden he had brand new dream, a brand new goal to strive towards.

It was more the dance than the whole idol thing that DOYEON was interested in, and he enrolled himself into a few classes the second he was able. Dancing was all he did for the next few months. On the way home from school following whatever rhythm he was making up in his head, in his bedroom copying along to various choreographies, even while sitting down his feet would be tapping along to a beat no-one could hear but him. He was obsessed, poured everything he had into it. It felt like he’d finally found his true calling, and one day in 2015 while walking home from a lesson a FNC scouter seemed to think so too. He was introduced, handed a business card, and had shaken the man’s hand before he was gone again and DOYEON was left dazed and with a new opportunity tucked into his hand.

An opportunity he took, of course. His mother was worried about the move to Seoul, but DOYEON assured her he would call every week, ruffled his younger brother’s hair just to watch him complain, and boarded the train to his new trainee life. One that, once he was finally able to debut with SLOW MOTION, would have a rather sad end a little over a year after their 2019 debut. There was no egregious scandal or vicious fight between the five members that tore them apart, but instead they just.. Fell flat. With nothing to do, and not much chance to dance in front of adoring crowds like he’d wanted since he was young, when JAGUAR approached he was biting at the bit to take the chance.

⠀⠀ യ ‹ ⠀BASICS

STAGE NAME⠀DOYEON ( 도연 )

BIRTH NAME⠀KIL DOYEON ( 길도연 )

BIRTH DATE⠀11 FEBRUARY, 1998

PLACE OF BIRTH⠀DAEJEON, SK

HOMETOWN⠀DAEJEON, SK

ETHNICITY⠀KOREAN

NATIONALITY⠀KOREAN

⠀⠀ യ ‹ ⠀CAREER

OCCUPATION⠀IDOL

COMPANY⠀FNC ( 2015—2019 )⠀JAGUAR ( 2019—PRESENT )

YEARS TRAINED⠀FOUR

POSITION⠀LEADER, MAIN DANCER

DEBUT DATE⠀12 MAR, 2019⠀╱⠀1 AUG, 2021

⠀⠀ യ ‹ ⠀PHYSICAL

FACE CLAIM⠀JI CHANGMIN

HEIGHT⠀175 CM ( 5’9” )

WEIGHT⠀56 KG ( 123 LBS )

JALEN was born on a late spring evening in April 1997, to a nightclub-owner of a father and a karaoke-loving office worker mother—right in the very heart of Beijing. Music and dance and the raucous laughter of the young partygoers as they drunkenly tottered down in search of the next club to hit, shoes clattering on the uneven cobbles of the city streets that sat right outside his little flat’s bedroom window, were something he grew up with practically ingrained in him.

With no siblings to keep him company, and not many friends at school to bunk off classes or mess around on the walk home with, JALEN turned to music instead. At first it was just his hesitant accompaniment of his mother whenever she made use of her weekend off to enjoy a couple of hours at their local KTV, but from there it started to spiral. He loved singing with everything in him, really, but he also wanted to try and make some of his own. He was mostly self-taught, watching tutorials late into the night and messing around on his phone, starting with only simple mixes of his favourite songs, and then at around the age of seventeen/eighteen was when he started picking up DJ sets in his father’s club to really try his hand at the craft.

Becoming an idol was never really part of the plan. He would’ve been happy to work at the club for however many more years he saw fit, until his mother sat him down and pointed out that he could go so much further if he tried to get deeper into the industry rather than simply scratching the surface of Beijing’s nightlife scene. METRONOME was never at the top of his list either, but the auditions were the closest, and so on a hot summers day in mid 2015 the freshly eighteen year old JALEN packed a bag for the four-hour bullet train ride to Shanghai and performed the best he could for the panel before him—a simple song and dance routine he’d learnt back-to-front.

It was apparently deemed good enough for them to take him on, and so he made his move to Korea and the next three years were spent training until the eventual debut of ALGORHYTHM. But it only took a single member leaving for them to fall apart and for JALEN to be left with nothing else to do other than make beat after beat on his shitty laptop that he stubbornly refused to upgrade and then make up the routines for them in his head afterwards—until, of course, JAGUAR happened, and his life began to pick up speed again.

⠀⠀ യ ‹ ⠀BASICS

STAGE NAME⠀JALEN ( 잘렌 )

BIRTH NAME⠀DUAN JIEYANG ( 段揭阳 )

BIRTH DATE⠀27 APRIL, 1997

PLACE OF BIRTH⠀BEIJING, CN

HOMETOWN⠀BEIJING, CN

ETHNICITY⠀CHINESE

NATIONALITY⠀CHINESE

⠀⠀ യ ‹ ⠀CAREER

OCCUPATION⠀IDOL

COMPANY⠀METRONOME MEDIA ( 2015—2019 )⠀JAGAUR ( 2019—PRESENT )

YEARS TRAINED⠀THREE

POSITION⠀MAIN VOCALIST, LEAD DANCER

DEBUT DATE⠀16 JAN, 2018⠀╱⠀1 AUG, 2021

⠀⠀ യ ‹ ⠀PHYSICAL

FACE CLAIM⠀QIAN KUN

HEIGHT⠀176 CM ( 5’9” )

WEIGHT⠀60 KG ( 132 LBS )

Hailing from the very centre of Gangnam in the cold month of November 1999, with a near-supermodel mother and talent agent father, HAEIL had grown up vaguely in and around the rich and the famous. And while his older sister basked in the spare attention they naturally got as a result, HAEIL himself wasn’t too keen. The camera flashes made his eyes sting, the microphones shoved in his face by reporters with leering grins on their faces as they asked him—a child, barely nine or ten or twelve or whatever age he was when they did it—how it felt to have such wonderful people for parents made him want to turn and run back to his room, and the general feeling of being watched made his skin crawl, made him want to lash out and start yelling until it all stopped.

But it turned out he didn’t know how good he had it. Late 2011 was when his life came crashing down, so fast it almost felt like a blur. One day he was stopping in the corner shop to buy lunch for himself before school, and the next he was standing stock still in front of the newspaper stand staring at his mother’s debauched face streaked with makeup and mouth open in an angry scream at whoever was taking her photo. ‘Model caught in cheating scandal,’ read the fine print underneath, and then he was snatching a copy and running out of the store, back to the apartment, ignoring the yells coming after him. He reread the story until none of the words made sense anymore, until his father found him in his room and snatched it out of his hands.

The cameras and the microphones and the reporters got worse after that. His mother was nowhere to be seen, his sister didn’t revel in the attention so much as despise it, his father was a silent shell of who he used to be, and HAEIL himself wanted to scrub his life off of his skin, start over completely. That chance came only a year later, when he was approached on the tube of all places, on the way to school. The METRONOME representative had to tap him three times on the shoulder to get him to take his headphones off, and the first words he spoke to him were “Would you like to be an idol?”. It was his chance to make his name be associated with something other than his mother, wrapped in a bow named ALGORHYTHM, and HAEIL could do nothing but agree.

Alas, his chance didn’t last long. All his years of training turned out to be useless after ALGORHYTHM fell to the wayside after the departure of LEVI. He wanted to be known for something other than having a mess of a mother, but all that got him was being known for being in the group that couldn’t cope with one less member. He was desperate for a third chance, a final opportunity to make a name for himself, and so when JAGUAR rolled around he practically couldn't say yes fast enough.

⠀⠀ യ ‹ ⠀BASICS

STAGE NAME⠀HAEIL ( 해일 )

BIRTH NAME⠀JEON HAEIL ( 전해일 )

BIRTH DATE⠀15 NOVEMBER, 1999

PLACE OF BIRTH⠀GANGNAM, SK

HOMETOWN⠀GANGNAM, SK

ETHNICITY⠀KOREAN

NATIONALITY⠀KOREAN

⠀⠀ യ ‹ ⠀CAREER

OCCUPATION⠀IDOL

COMPANY⠀METRONOME MEDIA ( 2012—2019 )⠀JAGUAR ( 2019—PRESENT )

YEARS TRAINED⠀SIX

POSITION⠀LEAD VOCALIST, LEAD RAPPER

DEBUT DATE⠀16 JAN, 2018⠀╱⠀1 AUG, 2021

⠀⠀ യ ‹ ⠀PHYSICAL

FACE CLAIM⠀GOO GUNIL

HEIGHT⠀172 CM ( 5’8” )

WEIGHT⠀53 KG ( 116 LBS )

Born in the busiest part of Chongqing in January 2001, as the youngest to two older sisters and a branch-manager mother far too busy for her own good, YIJUN didn’t have heaps in common with his family growing up. His friends from school were fine, but it was all skin-deep. None of them ever wanted to hang around after classes were over, or go to the cinema when the latest flick came out, or hit the shopping streets whenever they had a bit of pocket money to spare on weekends. He was left to his own devices for a large amount of his younger years, and more often than not that translated into him being led awake at three in the morning with his phone propped up on the pillow before him while he led and watched music show reruns all night.

Rap had always been something he was interested in. It was a genre that stretched far beyond his imagination, and he wanted to learn every inch of it: how to go fast, how to slow it down, how to keep to a beat and make it sound good at the same time. How you could mumble, words barely intelligible, and still make something worthwhile—however niche the audience for it might’ve been. He liked it so much he started to try it out for himself, bit by bit. Always in the quiet confines of his own bedroom, always with only himself to hear whatever words came out of his mouth.

He practised until he thought he was good enough, took to taking free sample beats from SoundCloud and rapping over them before uploading them on his own account even if a grand total of only 12 people listened to them. He practised until a calm summer day in 2016, when he was walking home from school and watched as a poster came drifting to the floor from where it’d been hastily plastered onto the side of the graffiti-covered bus shelter, one that simply read JAGUAR AUDITIONS with the time and place in fine print underneath. And while he’d never really believed in anything spiritual, the ‘divine interferences’ his oldest sister seemed to be marginally obsessed with, it was as if it had been placed there specifically for YIJUN to find it, and he wasn’t going to ignore such a glaringly obvious sign like that.

So he skipped school one early winter day, caught the train armed with his phone and the clothes on his back and barely enough money for a ticket, and walked into the auditions room like he owned the place. From there it was pressing play on the track he’d cobbled together in the weeks leading up to that very moment, looking them all dead in the eyes, and trying not to lose his nerve.

It worked, and he was moving out as soon as he got the chance. His mother accompanied him on the long plane ride over, gave him a short hug for the first time in what felt like years, and then he was left to his own devices once again, to get used to his new routine at JAGUAR. He was over the moon when he was given a chance to be in a group named BONSOIR, but all that excitement disappeared after the addition of JAEHEE—a blatant outsider, someone who didn’t fit in the slightest. YIJUN didn’t care all that much about the article that was known to many as BONSOIR’s downfall because, to him, BONSOIR wasn’t a group at all if JAEHEE was there. He wasn’t all that happy when given the offer of debuting with CHERRYADE, either, but he did it anyway—if only to terrorise JAEHEE some more.

⠀⠀ യ ‹ ⠀BASICS

STAGE NAME⠀YIJUN ( 宜君 )

BIRTH NAME⠀QIAO YIJUN ( 喬宜君 )

BIRTH DATE⠀26 JANUARY, 2001

PLACE OF BIRTH⠀CHONGQING, CN

HOMETOWN⠀CHONGQING, CN

ETHNICITY⠀CHINESE

NATIONALITY⠀CHINESE

⠀⠀ യ ‹ ⠀CAREER

OCCUPATION⠀IDOL

COMPANY⠀JAGUAR ( 2016—PRESENT )

YEARS TRAINED⠀THREE

POSITION⠀MAIN RAPPER, CENTRE

DEBUT DATE⠀22 OCT, 2019⠀╱⠀1 AUG, 2021

⠀⠀ യ ‹ ⠀PHYSICAL

FACE CLAIM⠀ZHONG CHENLE

HEIGHT⠀176 CM ( 5’9” )

WEIGHT⠀58 KG ( 128 LBS )

On a sticky summer night in Chiang Mai was when GOGO was born, June 2002. Despite his Thai hometown, he was born to two Korean parents (an eccentric traveller of a mother and a stay-at-home father who would willingly follow wherever she wanted to go next), and grew up having to juggle between speaking one language at school and another at home. This didn’t last forever, though, because at the age of eight their family of four (extended by the original three when his younger brother was born, when GOGO was seven and very much against the prospect of a wailing, screaming, wriggly thing he’d have to call his sibling) packed up and moved to Yangsan, in a country that was technically his homeland but didn’t at all feel like it.

Yangsan lasted for barely a year. Just when he’d been settling in, learning how to talk like the boys at his school did, how to leave his tie loose the way they did, how to act like they did, they were handing in their final rent payment and making the move to Jeonju. And just when he was finally making closer friends, getting to know the twists and turns of the neighbourhood like the back of his own hand, they were packing up again, and then Suncheon was his newest home at age 11. he almost didn’t dare to breathe, worried to say a singular word to his classmates in fear he’d get told the next day they had a new apartment waiting for them in another city far away, and he was right for it. Ulsan came a month before he turned 12, and it was where he and his family—the only people that hadn’t changed, his father and mother and irritating younger brother—finally settled.

So he adjusted. He blended in. He made friends, got comfortable, and soon it was like he’d been there since the day he was born all over again. His days were spent joking and laughing and play fighting, slipping out of the school gates before the first bell rang to the nearby arcades and basketball courts and crowding up against each other with someone’s phone propped up on a bench while they tried to learn the latest EXO choreography, then lying through his teeth back home about all the things he’d supposedly ‘learnt’ that day in lessons. His audition came about in a similar way—a mild September afternoon in 2015, while he and his friends were bunking off, wandering down the city streets, one saw a sign advertising SM walk-in auditions and hit him on the shoulder to grab his attention. “I dare you to go in there” was what he said, and GOGO could do nothing but agree. It seemed his mostly-freestyled routine to the tune of EL DORADO playing out of his phone speakers was enough to impress, or at least convince the people sitting in front of him that he had some potential, because the next thing he knew he was being told he should be expecting a callback. Then came the goodbyes, the moving into dorms, and the practice, day in and day out. 

He was perfectly content there, happy with his members and the group and the multiple sub-units he was given the chance to debut in—until he wasn’t. GOGO himself didn’t really know what changed, he just didn’t feel right there anymore. Didn’t feel like he fit. So when JAGUAR reached out with a request for him to join their little roster for a new group set to debut in 2021, it was all he could do to agree. He doesn’t regret a thing, and would do the exact same even if he was given a chance to go back.

⠀⠀ യ ‹ ⠀BASICS

STAGE NAME⠀GOGO ( 고고 )

BIRTH NAME⠀HWAN MINHUI ( 환민희 )

BIRTH DATE⠀16 JUNE, 2002

PLACE OF BIRTH⠀CHIANG MAI, TH

HOMETOWN⠀CHIANG MAI, TH

ETHNICITY⠀KOREAN

NATIONALITY⠀KOREAN

⠀⠀ യ ‹ ⠀CAREER

OCCUPATION⠀IDOL

COMPANY⠀SM ( 2015—2019 )⠀JAGUAR ( 2019—PRESENT )

YEARS TRAINED⠀FOUR

POSITION⠀MAIN DANCER, LEAD VOCALIST

DEBUT DATE⠀8 AUG, 2019⠀╱⠀1 AUG, 2021

⠀⠀ യ ‹ ⠀PHYSICAL

FACE CLAIM⠀YEOM TAEGYUN

HEIGHT⠀176 CM ( 5’9” )

WEIGHT⠀54 KG ( 118 LBS )

Suwon was where JAEHEE was born, in the month July 2002. As a child he only had his mother, his father having parted ways with the two in exchange for a new job in America. He was content with just the two of them until 2009, when his mother remarried and he was suddenly made to make nice and live with his new older step-brother and younger step-sister. It was a hard change for JAEHEE, and more often than not he felt left out, isolated from the new family of four as the forgotten middle child. He started to retreat into himself then, not going out unless it was to go to school or when sent on errands. There was nothing much to do except watch dramas all day, and it was then that he came to the quiet realisation that he wanted to try it out. The idea of pretending to be a different person, even if it was only for an hour or two in a school play, was something JAEHEE found he liked the idea of quite a bit.

He began acting by joining the drama club in school, and threw his all into it immediately. There he wasn’t the quiet JAEHEE, the one that barely greeted his mother and step-father when he got home before rushing up to his room, but instead he could be the sociable one, the one that greeted everyone with a smile and always had friends hanging off of his arms. He first got asked whether he wanted to be a real actor in 2015, and couldn’t be happier. From there it was a lot of forms and paperwork and older, far more important people than the talent scout he’d first been in touch with asking about where he wanted to go with his career, and him having to leave all of his school friends behind to enrol in a proper acting school, and lessons on etiquette and respect and a whole load of other things that made his head spin. Still, he loved every minute of it, and isn’t too ashamed to admit that he cried when he landed his first role—a minor one, with only a handful of lines, but a role all the same.

The want for change came around three years later, early 2018. It wasn’t like he’d lost his love for acting, but more that he felt he wasn’t going anywhere. It was background character after background character, extra after extra, and he was starting to get sick of it. He wanted something different, a complete cleanse. A challenge. That thought process was what led him down a year-long spiral that eventually landed him at JAGUAR in December, where he had to take a moment and ask himself if the life of an idol was what he really wanted.

But, at the end of the day, he didn’t think it would be too much of a high hurdle to jump over. He already had the whole pretend-to-be-a-different-person act down to a T, and the rest could be learnt and improved on with time. So he signed the form, started training, and it was then decided he would be debuting with BONSOIR. JAEHEE was wary, aware of the single they’d already released as a four, and for good reason—it was like they all couldn’t stand the sight of him, bar maybe HYEONMIN on good days. It was like walking on broken glass barefooted every day with them, and when the article that ripped back the curtain on how he was treated was released he could admit that he was a little relieved. And that relief only grew when he was told he was then going to be in a shiny, new, group—even if YIJUN (the one who, without a doubt, hated him the most) was going to be right there him.

⠀⠀ യ ‹ ⠀BASICS

STAGE NAME⠀JAEHEE ( 재희 )

BIRTH NAME⠀AHN JAEHEE ( 안재희 )

BIRTH DATE⠀8 JULY, 2002

PLACE OF BIRTH⠀SUWON, SK

HOMETOWN⠀SUWON, SK

ETHNICITY⠀KOREAN

NATIONALITY⠀KOREAN

⠀⠀ യ ‹ ⠀CAREER

OCCUPATION⠀IDOL, ACTOR ( FORMER )

COMPANY⠀JAGUAR ( 2018—PRESENT )

YEARS TRAINED⠀ONE

POSITION⠀LEAD RAPPER, VISUAL

DEBUT DATE⠀22 OCT, 2019⠀╱⠀1 AUG, 2021

⠀⠀ യ ‹ ⠀PHYSICAL

FACE CLAIM⠀CHOI HYUNWOOK

HEIGHT⠀181 CM ( 5’11” )

WEIGHT⠀70 KG ( 154 LBS )

HASUN wasn’t born into any sort of stardom—far from it, actually, with a mild-mannered librarian father and a mother that passed away a mere few months after he was born into a quaint neighbourhood in Incheon, August 2003—but he was very close to it. His father’s sister just so happened to be the mother of one CHOI YOONHAE, who in around 2015 would reach his peak as JAGUAR’s most successful (and only) soloist, claiming his place as reigning king over the quickly deteriorating duo JUST4U. His older cousin was what inspired him to want to be an idol in the first place. He wanted to sing just like him, dance just like him, succeed and soar to heights that at the time felt unattainable just like him.

Singing was where he thought to start. In the shower to instrumentals of his favourite songs, under his breath while studying or doing odd jobs in the library his father worked at, at the noraebang after school with his friends, belting out the lyrics louder than all of them. It was like his lifeline, and he was biting at the bit to be able to audition for JAGUAR. His father finally let him a month after his thirteenth birthday in 2016, on the strict condition that YOONHAE and his younger sister, EUNHEE (who had just recently started to work at the company also) were to watch over him any time they got the chance to make sure he was settling in alright. He painstakingly chose a song to audition with, practised it until he could sing the verses in his sleep (with a little dance to go along with it, a number he did so many times he almost wore out the soles of his favourite trainers), and his father came with him to the audition hall to cheer him on and treat him to hotpot afterwards.

When he finally got the news of his acceptance, he nearly cried out of joy. Despite it being a generally well-known fact that trainee life wasn’t always the best of experiences, HASUN loved every minute of it—turning up to every practice with a grin so wide it looked as if his face hurt from the force of it. Even when he was deemed not the right fit for BONSOIR did he become disheartened. He just kept on going, smiling all the while.

That was, until YOONHAE was found to have taken his own life in his penthouse apartment on a cold morning in December 2018. However much JAGUAR tried to sweep all news of it under the carpet, keep as much press away from it as possible, it still happened. And the worst part of it was the 15-year-old HASUN was standing outside the very block of flats the morning it was discovered, EUNHEE by his side as they stared on in silence. He almost went through a complete personality shift then, withdrawing into himself completely. There was no sunny smile anymore, and no laughter either.

But despite all of this, the tragedy that had befallen his family and himself, HASUN stayed. It took a good year or so after YOONHAE’s death for it to happen, but he started to gradually improve again, small smiles making their appearances again and mood seeming to brighten up, however slowly it was happening. He’s certainly not the same person as he was when he was thirteen, but he’s trying his best.

⠀⠀ യ ‹ ⠀BASICS

STAGE NAME⠀HASUN ( 하선 )

BIRTH NAME⠀LEE HASUN ( 이하선 )

BIRTH DATE⠀7 AUGUST, 2003

PLACE OF BIRTH⠀INCHEON, SK

HOMETOWN⠀INCHEON, SK

ETHNICITY⠀KOREAN

NATIONALITY⠀KOREAN

⠀⠀ യ ‹ ⠀CAREER

OCCUPATION⠀IDOL

COMPANY⠀JAGUAR ( 2016—PRESENT )

YEARS TRAINED⠀FIVE

POSITION⠀MAIN VOCALIST, MAKNAE

DEBUT DATE⠀1 AUG, 2021

⠀⠀ യ ‹ ⠀PHYSICAL

FACE CLAIM⠀LEE SOHEE

HEIGHT⠀176 CM ( 5’9” )

WEIGHT⠀52 KG ( 114 LBS )

#⠀⬦ ⠀˚⠀⠀ALL ABOUT ME⠀⠀⸻⠀⠀profile.⠀ #shake it up and make it fucking fizz this shit killed me #fake kpop oc #fake kpop group #fake kpop bg #fictional kpop group #fictional idol group #fictional idol community #kpop male oc #male oc #idol oc

[could-transition-save-him]

Anybodys from West Side Story (the original version I think)

Reasoning:

He says “why can’t I be male” in his song that was cut from the play, Girls Ain’t, and the entire song is basically him lamenting that he wasn’t born male and saying that he doesn’t feel like a girl. The lyrics of the song and a link to it will be the last part of the propaganda. There’s a scene in the 1961 movie where he tells Riff that he’s gonna need every man he can get in reference to himself. He is explicitly called “buddy-boy” when he is accepted into the gang by Ice, and he very clearly is extremely euphoric about being called a boy. He then responds by saying “Thanks, Daddy-o!,” which, to put it in casual terms, functions to confirm and build on the dudebro-ness of this interaction. Even after he literally put himself in extreme danger to save Tony from himself several times (getting him out of the rumble, spying on the Sharks, looking for him in Shark territory, and trying to get him to stop calling out for Chino), he immediately stopped trying to help him after he called him a girl. The fact that Tony used ‘you’re a girl’ as his default break glass in case of emergency insult to get him to stop trying to help him indicates that he knew that it would hurt him very deeply, and I don’t think a cis girl would get so upset about being called a girl that they would stop trying to help someone who is clearly very important to them (as a friend) despite putting themselves in extreme danger for that person several times in the past just because they called them a girl, especially if they were stubborn enough to obsessively attempt to force their way into a friend group where most of the members hate them with the passion of a thousand suns for months or even years. Basically, the possibility of getting arrested by the cops or killed by the Sharks didn’t deter him from helping Tony, but being called a girl did. He literally says “I ain’t no goddamn girl” in the 2021 movie.

submitted by @choppedupnotkilled

#could transition have saved him #does it still count if the character is already trans in 2021? #anybodys #west side story #trans headcanon #transmasc

[ladymunson]

Perfect 18+

Fic summary: Reader and Joel Miller have been friends for quite a long time, but been apart due to moving away. They finally reconnect after a year apart when one surprises the other with a unscheduled visit. Their reunion goes way different than either of them anticipated.

A/N: So here it is my very first Joel Miller fic, part one of three. Needless to say, this is going to contain serious SMUT! So definitely 18+ You have been warned.

Word Count: 2021

Warnings: SMUT 18+, oral sex (m+f giving and receiving), unprotected sex (bag it up people!), multiple orgasms, hair pulling, male ejaculation

Dividers made by the wonderful @firefly-graphics ❤️

Special thanks to @jobean12-blog. Thank you for your help 💕

I do NOT give permission for my work to be copied, translated or posted to any other platform.

Support content creators by reblogging

You’re having a week off, and you’ve earned it. After spending three months working every single day to get this project off the ground, you’re finally having a day to yourself. You slept in until 11 , then decided to go out and run errands stopping off at your favourite coffee shop on your travels.

As you step into the shop, a familiar bearded face comes into your peripheral. “Joel?!” You look at him, completely stunned. He comes rushing towards you. You smile as he reaches you and pulls you into a massive bear hug. You hug him back, holding him tightly for a moment. You wait for his hug to loosen before loosening yours. “Long time no see, how are you?” He asks as he releases you from the hug.

“I’m good, all the better after that hug!” You say with a smile. “What are you doing here!?”

Joel grins before replying, “I’m here to man the international space station, why do you think I’m here? You smell amazing by the way!” He puts his arm around you as he leads you over to a table, his hand lingering longer than it should. “So what are you having?” He asks as you sit down.

“Just a latte for me” you reply.

“Okay, back in a few” he says as he makes his way to the counter. While he’s gone you sit and think about how you both met all those years ago. Who knew that meeting someone in a chat room fifteen years ago would lead to a friendship like yours? And who knew that you lived a few blocks away from each other?

You spent so much time together over the years, watching football together, poker nights, movie nights. And all as just friends, nothing has ever happened between you besides the occasional snuggle while watching a movie, when you’ve fallen asleep on him.

“Here you go” he says as he places your drink in front of you. He puts his drink down and takes a seat. You weren’t single the last time you saw each other and neither was he, things are different this time. You’ve gone from just friends to sexting buddies over the past six months, almost the entire time you’ve been away. You don’t remember how it happened exactly but the thought of taking this friendship further, excites you.

“So... how is work?” You ask, unsure how to start a conversation that isn’t sex related. Until you moved away, normal conversation wasn’t as issue for you but since the sexting began…

He laughs before answering you. “Work is tiring and boring compared to sitting here with you.” You blush.

You continue talking for over an hour, the excitement building the longer your conversation goes on.

“So... do you have to rush off? I’m only here for three days and I’d love to hang out more.” He asks.

“Nope, I’m off work for so I have no plans for the rest of the evening.” You reply with a shy grin.

“Good.” Joel says before taking your hand and getting up from the table. He walks you outside, putting his arm around you again to keep you warm as the cold wind picks up. He hails a cab and you get in, he gives the address of the hotel where he’s staying and the taxi turns in the needed direction. Joel pulls you close and you sit together, you snuggle into him and hear him sigh.

The journey to the hotel takes around ten minutes, when you arrive he pays the driver and you walk together up to the entrance. Butterflies dancing in your stomach in anticipation for what is to come.

Joel takes your hand and leads you in the direction of his room, his speed increased slightly from earlier. You get to his room and he uses his keycard to open the door, he lets you in first and steps in behind you. He switches on the light and closes the door behind himself. You shrug out of your jacket and place it on the hook on the wall beside the door, walking further into the room.

Joel grabs your hand and pulls you towards him. “I’ve been waiting six months to do this” he says as he spins you around and pushes you against the door, pinning your hands above your head. His mouth crashing down on yours as he kisses you hard. He lets your hands go momentarily as he takes off his jacket, before grabbing them again and deepening the kiss. Your tongues lapping furiously together as the passion heightens. He breaks the kiss, “Don’t fucking move!” Joel commands as he bends and unzips your boots, removing them and tossing them across the room. He then grabs the hem of your shirt and pulls it over your head, exposing your full breasts in your favourite red bra. He groans before pulling his shirt off too, throwing it aside, then grabs your chin with one hand. His other takes ahold of your hands again as he kisses you with even more passion and hunger than before.

Joel grabs your left breast in his hand roughly, making you moan into his mouth. Before the hand makes its way down your body, rubbing your pussy over your leggings. You moan again louder making his touch even more urgent. He reaches inside your leggings and panties to find your pussy, wet and waiting. Joel growls as he parts your folds and touches your clit, you groan as he rubs circles around your clit. It hardens at his touch.

Joel drops to his knees and grabs the top of your leggings and panties pulling them down and removing them. He parts your legs before grinning up at your and places his whole mouth over your mound. You gasp and grind your hips instinctively, your breath quickening.

His tongue flicks over your clit making you sigh before parting your lips with his fingers and taking your clit between his lips and sucking gently.

Your hands that had stayed above your head fall down and your palms push against the door. Your hips still grinding into his mouth. Your breathing becoming heavy, you put your hands on his head and pull him closer, his mouth and tongue exploring your pussy that’s getting wetter by the second.

“Ugh! You’re gonna make me cum... Joel... I’m gonna cum!” You scream, he grabs ahold of your ass so you can’t pull away, his licking and sucking getting faster. Your orgasm hits hard, you writhe and moan. His sucking gets harder as he tries to take in all your juices, he moans, the vibration running through you making the orgasm last longer.

You eventually come down from that massive high. He kisses your sensitive pussy gently, sending mini shockwaves through you.

He stands up, your breathing still jagged as he kisses you. He whispers your name before kissing you again. You push him back giving yourself room to get down on your knees and open the belt and zipper of his jeans, pulling them down. His erection bouncing as it is exposed. He steps out of the jeans and looks down at you. He growls and grabs you by the throat, pulling you to your feet.

“Let’s see if you really do like it” he growls as he drags you over to the table. Bending you face down over it. Your hands splayed out on the table either side of your face, anticipating what is coming.

Thwack!

The sound of the spank echoing around the room, followed by you gasping and moaning.

Thwack!

He slaps the other cheek, causing a similar echo followed by a louder moan. He looks down and sees your pussy dripping with lust, another growl escapes his lips.

Thwack!!!

The sound of both cheeks being spanked at the same time eludes you as you concentrate on the ecstasy of the feeling. He drops to his knees again and kisses up your thighs, skipping over your dripping pussy to kiss away the sting of the spanks. Before burying his face in your dripping pussy once again. You groan loudly as his mouth clamps over you, sucking hard, his tongue flicking up and down. He stiffens his tongue and slides it inside your wet cunt, your eyes widen and you let out a gasp.

He groans again before standing and placing his cock at your soaking wet entrance, “Bare?” Your mouth opens as you feel him rub the head up and down. Covering himself in your slick before sinking inside you.

“I don’t want anything between us.... Oh fuck!” You gasp again as he reaches the deepest part of you. “Y/N...” Joel groans out as he backs up, then sinks inside you again. His hands on your hips as he moves in and out of you. You grunt every time he hits that sweet spot deep inside of you. You smirk to yourself then use your inner muscles to squeeze his cock.

He lets out a loud growl and he pounds into you harder. He begins moving more urgent, more frantic. Chasing the orgasm he craves.

“Y/N... fuck... yes!!” Joel groans between thrusts. You reach up and put your hand on the wall, raising yourself a little. Hoping to catch a glimpse of you both in the mirror. He senses what you’re trying to do so he grabs a handful of your hair, pulling on it so your head is high enough to see in the mirror. You catch Joel’s eye and you make eye contact, he curls his lips in a snarl and fucks you harder. Your eyes roll back in your head as you let the lust fill you, your orgasm building.

“I’m gonna cum inside you, you hear me?” He growls. You nod. “I can’t hear you!” He grunts.

“Yes. Cum in me. Please!” You beg. He lets out a roar as he climaxes, unloading inside you. His grip on your hair tightening, as he yanks you back into him.

Your climax hits hard, you jerk violently and scream out loud. He continues to fuck you hard as he rides his orgasm out inside you. Your legs growing weak as he finally collapses onto your back, breathing heavily as he kisses your shoulder. He stands and pulls out of you, your mixed cum dripping out and onto the beige carpet.

Joel reaches for you and pulls you to you, your legs are shaking so he sweeps you up into his arms and heads for the bed. Laying you down gently and climbing onto the bed beside you. Pulling you close, holding you as your breathing returns to normal.

“That was worth the ten years wait!” Joel says with a grin.

“I thought it was six months?” You question, confusion clear on your face.

“Nah I lied, I’ve wanted to do that as long as I’ve known you.” You blush and bury your face in his chest. He rolls you over so he’s on top of you.

“And we’re gonna do that again, just as soon as I can.” Joel says as he kisses you. You moan into his mouth as he kisses you. You wrap your arms around his neck and kiss him back. You feel movement down near your legs. “Looks like it’s not going to be a long wait”

TO BE CONTINUED

Next

Tags: @bettyfrommars @jobean12-blog

#joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #ladymunson #smut #18+ only

[dykebelova]

White Widow #1 by Sarah Gailey review.

We can all agree that we all fell in love with Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova in Black Widow (2021) and for many people, including me, she was our first introduction to the character. And as an absolute, completely sane and normal person, I said to myself “Why not read all of her appearances in the comics ?”, and I did.

Surprisingly, both characters are incredibly different. Nonetheless, both interesting and amazing on their own. While I agree that MCU Yelena has more depth and perhaps, more personality, comics Yelena is still a good character. The way she has been written has been very disturbing, even sick and twisted sometimes, like Pale Little Spider (2002) or Black Widow (2001). Sometimes messy, and I suggest everybody forget her Adaptoid phase or anything that ever happened in Secret Avengers (2013) for her sake. But still, you don't erase almost 25 years of a character's development, even if it has been inconsistent, just because you felt like it.

In the comics, Yelena has always been in Natasha’s shadow and has never had her own original story. In Widowmakers: Red Guardians and Yelena Belova (2020) and Winter Guard (2021), we had a glimpse of hope to finally see her character evolve despite Red Guardian’s appearance, a character linked to Natasha. When a limited-serie on White Widow, a character that hasn’t been properly developed and deserved to, was announced, I fucking cheered man. But then I remembered the curse of a character’s MCUfication, because Marvel never does anything right. And oh boy was I not prepared for what was coming…

I don’t even know where to begin. It all felt like a giant fanfiction written by someone who has only ever seen the movie and didn’t even bother to check on other writers’ previous work on Yelena’s character.

White Widow (2023) #1.

There are lots of things wrong in this picture. First and second panel, where does the needle come from ? After I checked and double checked just in case, there were NO records of Yelena being abducted or forced to do anything she has done in her life. She chose to join the Red Room. She chose to be a Black Widow and she was determined to outperform Natasha’s results during tests. She even had a whole mental breakdown about it.

Pale Little Spider (2002) #1

Now, let’s try to find excuses for the use of the needle… The first one would be the Red Room using the Black Widow’s serum they used on the 28th original Widows, during Natasha’s era. But our good ol' Grigor Ivanovich just ruined this theory.

Black Widow (2004) #4

Excuse number two, the Red Room used some sort of a mind-control serum which wouldn’t make any sense too for all of the reasons I said above.

Now the third panel… I’m at a loss for words. Where the fuck does it comes from. Where the FUCK was it during Secret Empire (2017) ? Yelena wasn’t even there anymore, bitch was dead. We didn’t see her until Tales of Suspense: Hawkeye and The Winter Soldier (2018), until she was brought back to life WITH Natasha. Also, she has a real family and they’re even mentioned in Black Widow (2001), Yelena calls her mother and her aunt Olga is mentioned.

White Widow (2023) #1

Now, the board... It looks like it has been made for a MCU tie-in more than anything.

Although I'd like to adress one thing that has been said on Twitter, about the "Hate nationalism → Imperialist invasion". There is a difference between nationalism and patriotism. Being a nationalist is being way too extreme about your country when being a patriot is to love your country, its people and its culture while also being critical about the way its being led.

Now, we know when she was young, Yelena was kind of extreme. In Black Widow: The Things They Say About Her (2005) #1, she admitted she was willing to sacrifice herself for the Motherland more than once. During her Black Widow era, she was naive and had a blind love for Russia which was her biggest weakness.

Black Widow (2001) #3

But as her character continued to evolve and grow through her appearences, Yelena is far more reasonable now. She considers herself like a true patriot and she has always been proud of being Russian. In conclusion, this board's section is not as bad as people make it out to be since Yelena went from being an extreme nationalist to a patriot.

Widowmakers: Red Guardian and Yelena Belova (2020)

I know many of you like Kate Bishop and Yelena’s friendship due to their duo in Hawkeye, I too, am a big fan of them… But unfortunately, they only interacted once in the comics. And they didn’t even talk to each other. That’s why mentioning Kate Bishop in her like section is purely fan service and although it is a nice nod to the series, it doesn’t make any sense here. Yelena has interacted with Clint Barton way more than the better Hawkeye, which is sad.

Black Widow (2020) #10

I'd like to come back in the hate section just a second to say I don't know why she hates the Infinity Gauntlet so much that's it's written in caps. It's 100% a nod to the MCU again but here it also doesn't make sense. But again, a lot of things doesn't in this issue.

I wont bother talking about her attitude and how she looks like a teenager swallowing vodka directly from a bottle when she used to be classy and extra with manners. I wont bother talking about her new suit's design which sucks more than her previous one. This is not the Yelena Belova we used to know, it's a complete new character made to match her MCU self and please a small public who mostly watch the movies/series.

I saw a lot of people celebrating Yelena's changes to match Yelena's Florence Pugh more. I know the character has become more famous because of Flo', but this is actually terrible and wasn't handled correctly.

We hoped for a more mature story, maybe a little darker than usual. A new start for her character, to follow her path in making the world a better place and get out of Natasha’s shadow for good. With a little backstory too, nothing much. The bare minimum. Instead, we had a copycat of her MCU counterpart and it is just heartbreaking to see a character I loved so much being destroyed like that.

I could go on and on about why this piece of junk is just a bunch of nonsense and laziness and how Sarah Gailey’s just went for the easiest writing ever… But I will stop there. I just hope she knows that us, fan of comics Yelena, are fucking disappointed. Everything that made her character so special and dear to us, disappeared in one issue. The damage is surreal.

It’s only four issues long so I will continue to read it until the end, but I expect nothing from it anymore. I hope the writer won’t destroy Yelena’s character any further, because things can only go downhill from here.

#yelena belova #white widow #marvel cinematic universe #natasha romanoff #black widow #comics #marvel #mcu

[siryouarebeingmocked]

Glass Onion (2022): Mixed company, mixed feelings

This movie is very Current Year, even though it finished shooting in 2021 and is set in May 2020. One minor joke early on; Blanc plays Among Us during lockdown, because he's so bored.

I am not making that up.

I had the same issue with the first movie. I wasn't sure what all the Topical References™ added to the movie. And I know we love to say that great art is timeless.

But as someone who actually does read a lot of old, public-domain, popular books, many  had topical social issues in them. Heck, the first Doc Thorndyke book is about fingerprinting, which was cutting edge science at the time, and even makes a self-depreciating joke about it's inspiration, Sherlock Holmes.

I've enjoyed the odd Clancy or Connelly or Cussler or Cavanaugh or Patterson thriller. And those tend to be pretty topical. (obnoxiously so, in one case) Not to mention my love of the Vorkosigan Saga, which was so progressive in the 80s it's still progressive now.

I've also seen stories that had poorly integrated topical issues and much better-handled ones in the same show. The same episode, even.

So I don't know why the political stuff in the two movies rankled. I'd say my issue is "politics I disgree with", but I just mentioned enjoying a book series which is clearly waaay to my left.

Heck, both movies are blatantly inspired by Agatha Christie, and I distinctly recall topical stuff in my mum's old copy of *Third Girl*.

Like, literally the whole plot.

I read it a long time ago, but I think I'd still enjoy it.

Other, less important criticism. And spoilers.

-Blanc intially felt like a caricature, which was very different from the way he appeared in the first movie. turns out that's deliberate. He later says he was playing up the folksy Southernness.

Even though he's an internationally famous detective who lives in a $10,000,000 Park Avenue penthouse.

Don't ask me about the high-waisted pants, the cute little scarf around his neck, or the 19th century bathing costume he wears to the pool. Apparently his style in this movie was partially Daniel Craig's idea.

Also, he's gay.

It's not made explicitly clear during the film, and the guy he's living with could be a roomie or friend or assistant, but Johnson confirmed it. I'm not sure what it adds to the film, except an explanation for the scarf.

And also some irony when Birdie flirts with him, even though he's famous and probably publicly known to be gay. Heck, just his visible discomfort in those scenes would be irony enough, whether or not he liked women.

Miles Bronn -possible shallow Elon musk parody --he’s fooling people w/ fake genius, when he's really just a charismatic idiot. And one who gets swindled, possibly. -There's one bit of irony. Early on, Miles guests on his private island get a COVID vaccine. It later turns out Miles is an idiot.

Since the movie takes place entirely in May 2020, the implication is that Miles should know it's basically impossible to develop a proper vaccine in just a few short months.

Cough.

The actual main protagonist isn't Blanc, it's Cassandra "Andi" Brand and Helen Brand. Andi is a tech genius who Miles ripped off. And also murdered. So her twin sister Helen, a teacher, steps in.

Anyone familiar with the Trojan War is probably going "hey, wait a minute..." Did I mention that this takes place on a Greek island in the Aegean Sea? Which has Troy on its borders?

And the first things we see in the film are tantalizing wooden boxes?

Helen poses as Andi with Blanc's help, so they can investigate the murder and figure out which of Miles friends, “the Disruptors”, killed Andi.

Both Brands are played by Janelle Monae. A famously left-wing singer and actress, whose biggest film role was in the movie Hidden Figures, where she played one of a team of black women in STEM forgotten by history.

And in this movie, Monae plays two hidden figures, eclipsed by white men. One maliciously, one charitably.

Birdie --Birdie is an idiotic middle-aged singer who keeps getting cancelled because she does dumb stuff. -She sexually harasses Blanc. This is possibly why Blanc's gay, to make it extra ironic. -She's introduced at a party during lockdowns. When she arrives at the island, she wears a completely decorative facemask.

-Birdie prides herself on her honesty. In this case, it means she's inconsiderate and narcissistic, with no filter. Which makes it kinda ironic (or something?) when the day is saved in the end by a combination of lies and truth.

Duke -Dave Bautista plays an alt-right mra. Supposedly.

-He supports a girlfriend and his mother, who abuses him. He's  three or four times mom's size. He goes "Mom, I told you not to interrupt when I'm recording!" and she physically slaps him. Not even any ramp-up, she just does it.

She also tries to disrupt his call with his friends by "helping" him solve Miles' puzzle box, right up until it's done, and she stops caring.

So the show decided to mock MRAs by...making one a male victim of domestic violence and emotional abuse from a woman.

And from what I saw on Youtube, plenty of people didn't notice the irony. In fact, I found an official Netflix short of the scene, and the comments were glad he was getting "put in his place" because he politely asked him mom to let him do his job.

Also, remember when I mentioned how Birdie sexually harasses Blanc?

This movie includes two examples of the exact sort of issues MRAs talk about all the time.

-I know he's supposed to be a parody, but of who, exactly? jordan peterson? andrew tate? Pewdiepie? All of the above?

I think they even got some alex jones in there when they mention how he sold pills. Specifically, "performance" pills for men, made from rhino horn.

-Duke carries a gun near his crotch at all times for most of the movie. Specifically, an underpowered Tokarev, I've read. On top of the abuse, he also self-cucks himself so his GF can try and pillow-talk Miles into supporting Duke's next endeavour.

Subtle.

And while I was looking up the gun, I found someone on /r/liberalGunOwners saying "well, maybe it's supposed to look Russian because he's pro-Putin like a lot of right-wingers?"

That's possible, but it would be a really obtuse reference in a movie chock full of really blatant references.

-Also, there's something a tad ironic about a supposedly (alt-)right influencer being a large, muscular, tattoo'd Hispanic man. Unless that's supposed to be a tan.

Claire -Claire is a left-wing, environmentally friendly politician. She wears beige, and always looks terrible (to Katheryn Hahn's frustration). She's also a hypocrite.

Some TVTropes editor: it's about progressive politicans that gradually turn conservative.

No, the message here isn't "conservatives bad". It's "hypocritical left-wing politicians are bad". And I'm not sure about the "left-wing" part.

Duke is a hypocrite because he self-cucks for advantage, and is also physically abused by his tiny little mom. Claire is just a straight up liar, as politicians often are. There's a contrast between his performative peacocking in every aspect of the way he presents himself, and Claire's beige cold mess.

I'm not kidding. That was the stated intent of her costume and makeup.

-claire calls duke an MRA. I'm not sure if the writers were wrong, Claire's wrong, or Duke actually calls himself an MRA in-universe. He's certainly a traditionalist, which MRAs usually aren't. He also wants women to get back in the kitchen, which MRAs usually don't.

And finally, there's Miles’ No 2., tech wizard Lionel, who spins Miles' straw - or napkin ideas - into gold. In fact, he spends most of the movie with a gold wishbone pin on his lapel. GEDDIT?

Duke is a right wing tradcon MRA who cares about physical appearances even though he has a bad social rep, Claire is a left-wing progressive with a terrible physical appearance and a good social rep, Birdie is an idiot who keeps saying un-PC things, and Lionel is the smart guy, who is apparently more or less apolitical.

Also, the movie has obvious inspiration from Christie's "And Then There Were None". And maybe Clue. Or Among Us.

Or all three.

#knives out #glass onion #netflix #tv #television #personal #writing

[asphaltmeadowws]

Do you mean basics about his career or his personality? //

Both if you don't mind 🖤

He played football at Athens High School and you’re going to see that to this day he still represents his school whenever he can.

The he moved to Ohio State University but didn’t get many chances to become the starting QB there, so after graduation he moved to LSU where he became a college football legend hehe

He won the national championship with LSU playing with Jamarr Chase (who now is also at the Bengals) and Justin Jefferson (now playing at the Vikings).

He was the number 1 pick overall in the 2020 draft but unfortunately he suffered a season-ending injury in his rookie year at the NFL.

He recovered and came back in 2021 leading the Bengals to the Super Bowl, in which the Bengals suffered a narrow defeat to the Rams.

The current season was a very tough one. He suffered a calf injury, missed training camp and wasn’t fully recovered in the first few games. Then last month against the Ravens he suffered another season-ending injury and is currently out.

As for his personality, he’s very quiet, very private about his personal life. He used to be more open and spontaneous during his college career but that changed once he got to the NFL.

But all of his team-mates describe him as a resilient, kind and calm person. His mom has said several times that he’s shy and he doesn’t really enjoy being a celebrity, but he understands it comes with the job.

He seems to be super nerdy and goofy, loves Star Wars, Marvel movies, TV shows like The Office and Sponge Bob. He’s also into fashion and is always rocking som very cool game day outfits, and also LOVES UFC.

He has a foundation which focus on mental health and food insecurity. He had this beautiful speech when he won the Heisman trophy that triggered major donations to help out kids and families struggling with food insecurity, I recommend watching it.

I think that covers the basics, anon!

#asks

[sparkiekong]

Halloween Movie Review (2023)

Did this last year and maybe the year before, but I can't find it... I watch scary movies all month and give you a brief overview. It's become a tradition for me... Some are craptastical...some are not so bad, but here's what I got so far.

----

The Appendage (2023) Hulu

3/10 – (-7 cause I didn't like it.) Bit cheesy in the way of monsters, it’s like 80s movie magic. The premise was about negative self talk being a bad thing and making a monster from it via chimera dna. Interesting premise, but poorly implemented. No pet death, no kid death. Bit of blood and guts.

----

No One Will Save You (2023) Hulu 5/10 – (+4 for interesting film process, +4 for actress and -3 cause I had to read up the producer’s explanation of the ending. Suspenseful, not scary… Interesting because there was all of two words spoken in the entirety of the movie. Not like A Quiet Place, because it wasn’t sound based, but it was very emotive. The actress did a good job emoting but the story premise sort of fell flat. Not her fault though, she did good with what she was given.)

No pet death, no kid death - Interesting and weird premise about suffering and conversion from an invasion force learning human culture.

----

Mirrors (2008) Max – HB0 7/10 – (-3 cause it's older) Kiefer Sutherland – Mystery movie about mirrors. It was a pretty good. No kid death, no pet death, but the kids were potentially going to be harmed. Interesting movie about mirrors and a demonic influence...not sure how this one got past me in 2008.

----

The Pyramid (2021) Max - HBO

3/10 – (+3 for the Anubis and Set) awful script, decent set, budget blown on a cool Anubis looking monster. Acting was not good... don't watch it.

----

Prey (2020) Hulu

3/10 (+4 pts for the accuracy of First Nation Comanche Peoples and -1 for being a crappy movie about toxic masculinity)

• The only thing I liked about the movie is that it gave some backstory on Predators. Would have liked a movie about that more than anti-toxic masc-crapfest.

• Canine death (Not the dog, but a wolf) - Animal Death • Lots of gore • The First Nation Comanche portrayal historically accurate. • Dumb toxic guy trope… historically accurate I suppose in this context. Besides jerk trappers... First Nation Males gang up on a female who kicks their chief’s ass… Said toxic males don’t listen because she’s a girl… historically accurate I suppose in this context. • Bunch of toxic males picking on lesser animals to prove their badassery… historically accurate I suppose in this context. • Having personal problems why Predator(s) keeps coming to a place where they get their booties kicked in most situations because they themselves are so toxic they don’t see females as a threat… sick of seeing this trope. Plenty of males find females intimidating these days.

----

Talk to Me - (2023) VUDU 8/10 Genuinely spooky! (-2 for the brutality... that was crazy unnecessary)

• Brilliant piece - Kids find a embalmed hand of a psychic medium and then use it to get a high off of getting possessed for 90 second. • Brutal piece – Sort of a Shock and Awe piece in the brutality. • Teenager dies - Kid Mutilation (sorry it’s a spoiler…) It’s sort of necessary for the story, but maybe not so necessary to see it. He lives… • No canine death - Animal death (by car)

---- Hell Baby (2013) Hulu – Defined as a Horror Comedy

6/10 - (-4 for the mentions of gentrification of a black neighborhood) Supposed to be a funny campy trip about a couple due to have babies and buy a house to remodel. • No canine death (one avian) • Little bit of devil baby violence

----

I See You (2019) Netflix 7/10 - (-3 for Helen Hunt's face... she's scariest thing in this. Sorry Ms. Hunt... you shouldn't fight aging.) Overall it's not a bad movie...

Home invasion and kidnapping - teens get shot, no animal death

The weird thing about that one was there were people living in the walls. Called it Phrogging. Where you sneak into someone's place and crash there for a few days without anyone knowing you're there but there was a twist at the end, so it spun back around to being somewhat decent.

----

Incarnate (2016) Netflix 7/10 (-3 for trope of no one listening to easy instructions.) Had some Constantine vibes, standard demon hunter type trope. Why do scary movie characters never listen?

• Demonic possession movie • No canine death - Kid sorta beat up a little because he was possessed • Stupid people not listening to instructions.

----

The Nun 2 (2023) Vudu

7/10 - (-3 for weird tie in to explain why Irene was important.) Not bad. Good tie ins to the Warrens universe... actually would have liked it if the two movies had been one movie instead.

• Finished the story from the first one so if you haven’t watched the first, watch that one first. This one will make more sense. • No canine death. • Bullies – Typical school mean girls • No child death

----

The Ritual (2017) Netflix

2/10 - I despise this trope. Getting lost in the woods and then deciding to keep doing the exact opposite of what you should be doing if you're lost.

• Group of British fellows go on walk about through spooky forest and get lost • Like Blair Witch, but with a creepy monster and a cult • No canine dead, but dead animals here and there. • Monster was cool. Reminded me of Wintekowa from Conrad's Stevenson's Paranormal P.I. game.

----

The Boogeyman (2023) Hulu 7/10 - (-3 for lack of genuine unique spook... everything was telegraphed I could see it happening before it happened.) Stephen King story... overall not bad, bit dark themed with a family recovering from a parents death • Kids get harmed but no dead • No canine death or animal death • LOTs of fire… • So so… not incredibly scary, but good chiller/thriller

----

The Hole in the Ground (2023) Max – HB0 5/10 - (-5 kinda boring to start... got better at the end so... very slow burn)

A story about changelings

----

Friday the 13th Part 1 Uncut + 2-4 Vudu

7/10 - (-3 for age) I can't say anything bad about these. Yeah, they're old and that means the the movie magic isn't great, but it's just .... CARNAGE ... and for the time these were top of the line scary. I bundled these together because they're all basically the same.

• Cult classic had to watch some of it on Friday the 13th that happens in October… that’s like a rule or something • Standard slasher horror film • Nudity, savage deaths, some trope-y stuff but if you've never seen them, you should watch them at least once if you like horror movies.

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

The Immediate F troop....

The Lure (2015) – HBO Max – sadly no dubbed version – Kong doesn’t like to read while being scared. It’s a shame because I wanted to see mermaids as monsters.

Hellhole (2022) Netflix – Polish with no English dub.

The Empty Man (more like Empty Movie) 20 minutes of distant / semi-serious gazes while their friend stares into oblivion to get to the title… yeah… no.

Oracle (2023) HBO Max -So bad that I didn’t finish it.

Skinamarink (2022) Hulu – What? Ok… so this is too Indy for me. House with kids trapped inside??  dad missing, no way out?? Had old video tape / found footage vibes. Coulda been cool, but 14 minutes in, it’s just basically looking at a dark room with maybe 10 words so far. NEXT!

I would love love LOVE to watch the scary movies outside of the US, but it's a FLAW of mine... I can't read and be scared at the same time. So I could read the text, but then I miss the spooks... or I could watch the spooks and miss the text. So I have to fail them... I need dub versions or I can't pull them out of the F troop... sorry.

I cannot stress enough how amazingly wonderful this website is for getting you past triggers that you do not wish to see. There's ALOT of triggers covered here. So you can check a movie before you buy now.

#kongs halloween movie review #kong rambles #2023 halloween movie list #part 1 halloween movie list #text #nonsims

[dyinggraysons]

8 and 15 for Dick Grayson please :)

aw :) for better or for worse dick grayson is my bestie!!

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

um…lots of things. but i want to add a disclaimer? obviously, there is a large fandom surrounding bat characters, some of which has little basis in actual comic/cartoon/movie canon. if someone wants to engage with these characters exclusively through (or primarily though) fandom, i honestly don’t care! i hope they have fun.

however, i’ve been reading batman comics since i was 11 years old (#cringe #embarrassing), so I’m going to be interpreting these characters a little differently from how they’ve been crafted in fandom.

what bothers me about fandom dick grayson is he’s often framed as being childish and unintelligent. yes, he’s a bit of a goofball! but he’s also somber and has some rage, ya know? grayson is just a guy who loves his friends but is constantly in his flop era (luv him though).

also the sexualization is becoming a bit much. it’s now spread into publications, and it just makes so mad. i do think comics should be a bit cheeky and naughty. superheroes are sexy, dude!but it was nearly impossible to find a batman-related comic from late 2021 to 2022 where there wasn’t a comment about dick grayson’s ass. that’s weird! any fun subversion is now totally lost.

15. What's your favorite ship for this character? (Doesn't matter if it's canon or not.)

literally this man and all his friends! dickkory is great! dickroy heck yeah! dickjoey makes me feel bananas (in a good way)! dickbabs has its moments. dick and vic?? people should be getting on that. there’s probs so many more but that’s what comes to mind rn.

sorry to all the dick and wally folks out there. it’s not my vibe :(

#asks #dick grayson #batman #teen titans

[kolbisneat]

MONTHLY MEDIA: June 2023

Summer months here we go! Just wrapped up my time with Zelda so I foresee more reading and tv in my future again. In the meantime, here’s how I spent June!

……….FILM……….

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) Saw it twice and the first time was very nearly too much to take in. The second viewing was far less overwhelming and still a joy. While it didn’t feel like a complete story following Miles, at least there’s some satisfying conclusion with Gwen. I’m glad part 2 comes out in less than a year. 

Ali Wong: Baby Cobra (2016) Maybe I wasn’t in the right mood or maybe going with one of her older specials wasn’t the right call but I wasn’t really feeling it. I can see hints of overlapping themes that pop up in BEEF (which I loved and why I wanted to watch one of her specials) but that was more interesting than it was funny. Still gonna check out her other specials.

Goldeneye (1995) I have more memories playing the game than watching the movie but still a big fan of this flick. Really great characters and locales and I forgot just how comedic it is. So many one-liners! Always feels a little long at the end but worth it to see Boris’ death scene.

Encanto (2021) Late to seeing this and really great! Beautiful and personal and peak musical songs where characters basically ONLY share their personality through song.

……….TELEVISION……….

Ted Lasso (Episode 3.11 to 3.12) I was really dragging my feet about finishing the series as I found season 3 wasn’t as consistently enjoyable to watch. But those last two eps really stuck the landing. Some beats were expected, some were welcome surprises, and there were so many callbacks that were naturally woven in that I was really impressed. Some of the best from the season (and on par with the rest of the series) and I’m really glad I finished it.

……….YOUTUBE……….

Do "gun buybacks" work? by Vox A really succinct breakdown of how the US can do better, and an honest look at why this needs to be a part of a more complex plan. VIDEO

Agnostic TTRPG Prep Method by Map Crow Really fun way to use all the books that you’re not currently using! Watch the vid and then if you like the process you can pick up the bundle HERE (not affiliated, just a fan). VIDEO

The Station Toronto Needs by RMTransit Hey I’m a big fan of trains and I just found this channel. This was my first introduction to them but I’m keen to watch more. More trains! VIDEO

How Editing Creates Comedies That Make You Cry... by The Editing Podcast Another channel I recently came across and I’m keen to watch more. I know very little about editing but am keen to learn more.  VIDEO

……….READING……….

Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber (Page 7 of 285) Clearly I’ve only just started this (thanks to me dragging my feet on The Righteous Mind) but really excited to dig deeper. The prologue is the original essay that inspired the book and that alone already has so much in it! A really great primer and I wasn’t expecting it to lay a lot of the blame at capitalism’s feet so I think it’s gonna be a great read. 

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt (Complete) The first time I read this (at a time when the COVID-19 vaccine was just coming out and folks were choosing not to get it) the book really helped me understand the reasoning behind other people’s choices. For that it was really helpful. This time around, with more time and more political moves behind us, I find it glaringly obvious just how out of touch (or conservative-leaning) this book is. There’s a whole section about how the free market and capitalism is good for healthcare. Wild stuff. If you want more in-depth reviews explaining why this didn’t sit right with me this time around, I found Storygraph had a lot of great write-ups (also Storygraph is great if you want an alternative to the amazon-owned Goodreads).

Delicious in Dungeon Vol. 12 by Ryoko Kui (Complete) Listen I sing this series’ praises every time I read a volume and this is no different. Somehow the story, setting, and characters grow while still remaining connected to the main theme of “what if we ate the monsters we fought in an RPG?” It’s truly top-tier and I can’t stress enough that if you like charming, funny, expertly-illustrated comics, you should try out this series.

The Fade Out by Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, and Elizabeth Dismang (Complete) Really fun read. Old Hollywood murder mystery with a lot of really nuanced characters. The resolution felt a little abrupt and unsatisfying, but without giving anything away I think it was appropriate. I’m also not sure if it was a stylistic choice but all of the women have different shadows than the men. It feels like they’re living in two different worlds but maybe that’s intentional? Still really great.

……….AUDIO……….

PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation by King Gizzard (2023) Loved King Giz’s first foray into metal and this continues that trend. I may not love everything that they do, but I love that they do everything that they do.

……….GAMING……….

Oz: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) The Tuesday Crew is currently up against a young dragon (Dragonette) plaguing a mine (recap HERE) while the Mof1 Crew is divided across Munchkin District and each dealing with their own small crisis. They say never split the party but I think the trouble gets way more interesting when you do.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Nintendo) Finally moving on from this after countless hours spent in this world and it’s all bittersweet. Loved the familiar stuff, loved the new stuff, and loved the overall arc of the game. Hopefully the next game in the series goes back to something smaller and focused.

And that’s it. See you in July!

#Monthly Media #Kolbisneat #Andrew Kolb

[the-rewatch-rewind]

An old movie with a very relevant name.

Script below the break.

Hello and welcome back to The Rewatch Rewind! My name is Jane, and this is the podcast where I count down my top 40 most frequently rewatched movies over the last 20 years. Today I will be discussing number 14 on my list: MGM’s 1944 psychological thriller Gaslight, directed by George Cukor, written by John Van Druten, Walter Reisch, and John L Balderston, based on the play by Patrick Hamilton, and starring Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, and Joseph Cotten.

So first of all, if you’re thinking, “Gaslight? As in, to deny someone’s reality to the point that they can no longer trust their own perceptions?” then, yes, you’re absolutely correct: this movie (and the play it’s based on and the 1940 British film it’s a remake of) is where that term comes from. So I’m just going to give a blanket content warning for this whole episode: I will be talking a lot about psychological and emotional abuse. This is an incredibly well-made movie, which is why I keep revisiting it, but I recognize that not everybody is in the right place to hear stories about gaslighting, so please, take care of yourself, and skip this episode if you think it’s going to cause you distress.

That being said, I truly have no idea why “gaslighting” suddenly became a popular buzzword in the last 10 years or so, or how it has evolved to be misapplied to any form of lying. I’ve even heard people talk about how someone is “gaslighting” them when they merely disagree about something. So despite how incredibly dark and disturbing this movie is, I really think everyone should watch it, if for no other reason than to learn how to use the term correctly. But there’s obviously a lot more to it than that, which I will get into. But first, my traditional plot summary:

When her aunt and guardian, a famous opera star, is murdered in their London home, young Paula Alquist (Ingrid Bergman) is sent to Italy to train as a singer. Ten years later, she is swept off her feet by her new accompanist, Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer), and after knowing each other only two weeks, they get married. Though she is still haunted by her aunt’s unsolved murder, upon hearing that Gregory has always wanted to live in London, Paula suggests that they move into her old house. As they settle in, Gregory’s behavior gradually changes, and Paula begins to feel like she is losing her mind.

The main thing I remember about the first time I watched this movie was thinking it wasn’t a very good mystery, since it’s pretty obvious fairly early on who the bad guy is. But by the end it became clear that it was never meant to be a mystery, but rather a map of red flags to watch out for, as well as a surprisingly sympathetic portrayal of how easy it can be to ignore them until it’s too late. Or, I guess I should say, almost too late, since, spoiler alert: the movie does have a mostly happy ending. Anyway, I had never seen a movie like this before and it fascinated me. I watched it twice in 2003, once in 2004, once in 2006, once in 2007, twice in 2008, three times in 2012, once in 2013, once in 2014, twice in 2015, twice in 2016, once in 2017, once in 2018, once in 2020, twice in 2021, and once in 2022. I also saw the 1940 version once in 2006. I don’t remember much about it other than I thought it was pretty good, but the remake was better. And a big part of that is because of the cast of the remake. One of my 2015 views of the remake was part of my watching through Best Actress winners project because Ingrid Bergman won the first of her three Oscars for this film. Apparently at the time I ranked this performance as the 7th best to win that award, and now if anything I feel like that was too low. The more I rewatch this movie, the more impressed I am by what a difficult job she had and how thoroughly she crushed it.

Paula is an incredibly complex character who undergoes a significant emotional journey. At the beginning, though she’s definitely still haunted by the trauma of her youth, she’s mostly happy and hopeful and vivacious. And then all of that slowly dims as Gregory’s manipulations escalate, almost as if she is a gas light that he’s turning down. That’s not why the movie is called Gaslight, though; it’s called that because one of the early signs that something sketchy is going on is when Paula starts to notice lights dimming as if someone turned a new light on somewhere else in the house, but nobody else seems to notice this and she can’t find a good explanation for it. But watching Paula go from a lively, lovestruck newlywed to basically a zombie struggling to find a shred of reality she can trust also feels like watching a gas light flame go down. And it would have been so easy to either overdo or undersell this descent into confusion, but Ingrid Bergman perfectly balances every moment. You can see Paula starting to doubt herself more and more as her actions and words become more hesitant and her looks become more vague, until she begins to resign herself to the fact that Gregory must be right, she must be insane, there’s nothing more she can do. It’s so painful and heartbreaking that I desperately want to reach through the screen and comfort her and tell her what’s really going on. And then, just when I almost can’t stand it anymore, Joseph Cotten shows up to do that for me. He plays Inspector Brian Cameron of Scotland Yard, a childhood fan of Paula’s aunt who happens to see Paula one of the few times she’s out with Gregory in London, which leads him to reopen the cold case of her aunt’s murder and figure out what’s going on just in time to help Paula. The implication that Paula needs a man to rescue her is one thing I don’t love about this movie, but at the same time I think it’s important to acknowledge that Gregory was so effective at – for lack of a better term – gaslighting her that she could not have escaped that situation without help.

Not to take any of the credit away from Bergman for her stellar performance, but I do think it helped that George Cukor was the director. Longtime listeners may recognize his name from Holiday, which was number 33 on this list, and Adam’s Rib, which was number 27, both of which have significantly lighter tones. Gaslight feels much more like an Alfred Hitchcock picture than a George Cukor one. Cukor apparently didn’t like being referred to as a “woman’s director,” but he had a reputation for his ability to coax great performances out of actresses, and this is certainly no exception. In order to help Bergman keep track of Paula’s gradual descent toward madness while shooting out of order, Cukor would tell her the whole plot up to the scenes they were filming each day, which Bergman initially resented, but then he stopped doing it for a few days and she realized how helpful it had been, and they went back to doing it that way. I do think Ingrid Bergman would have been great in this role regardless of who the director was, but George Cukor helped elevate her to the best she could possibly be.

While Bergman’s performance is far and away my favorite aspect of this movie, the rest of the cast is also phenomenal, albeit rather small. It definitely has that based-on-a-play feel of limited locations and few characters, although that also works very well with the story. Part of Gregory’s strategy is to cut Paula off from the rest of the world so she won’t have a safety net. Consequently, for most of the film she only interacts with him and their two servants: the kind but mostly-deaf cook, Elizabeth, played by Barbara Everest, and the saucy, flirtatious maid, Nancy, played by none other than 18-year-old Angela Lansbury in her film debut, both of whom are absolutely perfect in their roles. I love Everest’s delivery of “I see just how it is” when Gregory is trying to keep Elizabeth on his side without realizing that she’s always been firmly on Paula’s. And Lansbury embodies the exact attitude required for Nancy: flirtatious toward Gregory, disdainful toward Paula, totally oblivious to how she’s being manipulated until the end – all conveyed with every look she gives and line she speaks as if she’s a veteran actor. It comes as absolutely no surprise that she went on to have such a long and successful career, with this as her first screen performance. She was even nominated for an Oscar! And then there’s the neighbor Miss Thwaites, played by Dame May Whitty, who adds some much-needed levity with her “diggy biscuits” and morbid curiosity about the house in her square where there was a “real murder!” Joseph Cotten’s role is honestly pretty bland – kind of the film noir version of a classic Disney prince, in a way – but he makes the most of it. And then there’s Charles Boyer, giving one of the best creepy villain performances I’ve ever seen, which was also Oscar-nominated. He starts out just sort of vaguely unsettling, raising one or two red flags right off the bat, but like, he could still be okay, and then by the end he is full-on terrifying. He has this amazing stone-faced look that makes your blood run cold. There’s this one moment in particular, kind of toward the middle, when Miss Thwaites and Inspector Cameron (posing as her nephew) have tried to visit them, and Gregory tells Nancy to send them away. Paula wanted to let them in but he freaked out so she backed down, and then after Nancy leaves she again says she wanted to see them, and he’s like, “Oh, why didn’t you say so?” and it makes me want to scream. Then he tells her she didn’t have time to see them because they’re going out to the theater, and Paula’s like, “I didn’t know that…or did I forget?” and Gregory, facing the camera with his back to her, opens his mouth to respond, and then stops and waits for her to dwell on that for a few more seconds before he tells her that no, this is a surprise, and both his face and her face are so perfect there, I love it and hate it so much. Like, I love it from a “this movie is so well acted” perspective, and I hate it from a “this character is a horrible human being” perspective. And then Paula gets overly happy, since she’s been trapped in the house for so long that him letting her go out seems like a wonderful gift. But then he “notices” that a picture is missing from the wall, and makes her think she hid it, and they end up not going out because she’s “too unwell.”

That’s the main way he manipulates her: by moving things and making it look like she took them. What’s particularly interesting about the way the movie shows this is we never actually see Gregory taking any of the things, but it is nevertheless clear that he has been. But he is so insistent that she’s doing it that we can easily believe that Paula wouldn’t suspect him, or that if she did, she would have significant doubts. And even if she did figure it out, it’s not like there’s anything she can do about it. She’s in London for the first time in a decade, she doesn’t know anyone, she doesn’t have anywhere to go, and she’s not sure she can trust her own mind. And I think it’s so important that the movie at no point faults her for ending up in that situation or for not being able to leave. The movie also gives no indication that Gregory is physically harming Paula, but leaves the audience in no doubt that he is an abusive husband. And I feel like the messages that abuse doesn’t have to be physical and that it’s never the victim’s fault are still too rare in media today, let alone nearly 80 years ago. I feel like back then most unhealthy relationships in movies were in the His Girl Friday vein of “they’re kind of both abusing each other so it’s fine” or would find other ways for excusing or explaining the abusive behavior, like “the abuser was drunk” or “the victim was asking for it” or what have you. And if they weren’t like that, the victim usually ended up dead. In Gaslight, Gregory has no excuse. I mean, he does have a reason, but it’s a terrible reason that in no way justifies his actions. And Paula not only survives, but also gets an incredibly satisfying confrontation with Gregory after Brian and another policeman have tied him up. When the police leave them alone together, Gregory pleads with her to get a knife and cut him free, and for a moment you think she’s actually going to help him, but she gets her revenge by pretending she can’t find the knife and saying she’s too insane to help him, forcing him to admit that he has lied to her and she isn’t actually mad. And she wraps up her great payback with: “If I were not mad, I could have helped you. Whatever you had done, I could have pitied and protected you. But because I am mad, I hate you. Because I am mad, I have betrayed you. And because I'm mad, I'm rejoicing in my heart, without a shred of pity, without a shred of regret, watching you go with glory in my heart!” So she turns his gaslighting around on him, and it’s amazing. Although I must admit that right after that when she cries, “Mr. Cameron! Take this man away!” is the one part when I feel like Ingrid Bergman overdoes it just a little bit and gets too melodramatic, but after everything Paula has been through, she deserves as many melodramatic moments as she wants.

I would prefer it if the movie didn’t conclude with the implication that Paula is going to end up romantically involved with Brian, but again, she deserves all the happiness she can get, and if that’s what’s going to make her happy, I’m all for it. And I guess we can claim Miss Thwaites as aroace representation, since she seems to be an old maid with no interest in romance. This movie also speaks to my aromanticism and asexuality in a different, unique way. Because to a certain extent, being aroace in an allonormative, amatonormative society kind of feels like the entire world is gaslighting you. Of course, I don’t mean to imply that my experiences have been anywhere near as horrendous as someone like Paula’s – having your reality cruelly and intentionally twisted by a partner is on an entirely different level from not quite fitting in with the dominant culture’s concept of reality. Still, being constantly bombarded with the message that all mature humans frequently experience sexual and romantic attraction, and that a universal top life goal is to find a partner you’re attracted to that way, when you don’t feel those attractions and don’t desire that kind of partner, is incredibly confusing and disorienting. Once you become an adult, or even a teenager, people start giving you knowing looks when they hear you’ve been hanging out with a friend one-on-one, especially if that friend happens to be of the opposite sex. And you don’t think you like any of your friends “that way” but you also don’t really know what liking someone “that way” feels like so you start to think maybe you don’t know your own feelings. And if you’re lucky, your brain subconsciously decides that you do have crushes like a normal person, they’re just always on movie stars, most of whom are dead, which you realize is weird, but it’s an understandable kind of weird. Nobody believes you when you say you don’t have a crush on anybody, but if you show them a picture of Cary Grant and say, “I have a crush on him,” that makes sense to them. And so you end up becoming convinced that you’re experiencing types of attraction that you’re not, to the point that when you first hear about asexuality you don’t even consider the possibility that it could describe you. And of course, when I say “you” I mean “me”; I can’t speak for all aroaces, although I do think most of us experience some form of that confusion before we figure out that our identity exists. I feel like there’s a relatively widespread perception that aromantic and/or asexual people are just single allos who want to feel special by giving themselves a label, but for me, the opposite is true. Using the aroace label makes me feel less special, because now I know there are other people out there like me, after spending so much time trying to play along with the attraction I thought I was supposed to be feeling. It’s honestly been kind of difficult to unlearn this, to teach myself how to even recognize, let alone trust, what I’m actually feeling versus the socially acceptable way to be feeling about other people.

It’s weird because, looking back, it’s so obvious to me that I was faking crushes, that I was just parroting things I’d heard when I talked about them, that I was just smiling and nodding when people would say things like, “Isn’t that person hot?” But at the time, I absolutely could not admit that, even to myself, because I felt like, in order to be human, I must be experiencing what I’d been led to believe were universal human emotions that went along with sexual and romantic attraction. Back in 2013 I blogged about all the movies I’d seen at least 10 times in 10 years, and I just re-read my post about Gaslight, in which I apparently wrote that I found Joseph Cotten attractive in this movie. I don’t remember thinking or writing that, but I’m sure if I’d been asked to elaborate, I would have said I thought he was hot or whatever, even though I absolutely did not, I just thought I was supposed to. I wasn’t consciously lying; I had become convinced that I felt things I didn’t. Although, now that I think about it, maybe I really was attracted to him, not sexually or romantically, but in terms of the way his character functions in the story. I desperately needed someone to show up and tell me that the problem wasn’t with my mind and provide me with some key information I was missing that would explain what was going on, just like Brian does for Paula. Again, her experience was much more horrifying than mine, but learning that some people are aromantic and asexual, that not feeling those kinds of attraction is perfectly normal for those people, was almost as revelatory to me as learning that her husband killed her aunt and was trying to drive her mad was to Paula. Maybe it sounds like I’m the one being melodramatic now, but I don’t know how else to explain how messed up it is to spend decades convincing yourself and everyone else that you’re feeling things you’re not, and what a relief it is to learn that you were right all along and can finally take the mask off. And that’s why I’ve been focusing so much on looking at movies from an aromantic and asexual perspective on this podcast. Because I don’t want anyone else to go through all that. I want everyone to know that amatonormativity and allonormativity are lies, both because I want people on the aromantic and/or asexual spectrums to understand themselves sooner than I understood myself, and because I want alloromantic, allosexual people to know that not everyone is like them. I don’t blame the allo people I was surrounded with for perpetuating these norms because they didn’t know better. I know they weren’t really trying to gaslight me. But I would like to live in a society where most people do know better.

Anyway, I appreciate this movie for understanding me in ways that I couldn’t articulate until recently. But that’s far from the only reason it’s this high on my list. Again, I truly cannot overemphasize how phenomenal the acting is. Ingrid Bergman was always wonderful, but she took it to a whole other level here, and the rest of the cast were similarly at the top of their game. I never get tired of watching them act together, particularly when I’m in the mood for something a little darker. Like the other Ingrid Bergman movie I talked about, Notorious, I’m not sure whether Gaslight “counts” as film noir, because it has some of the typical noir tropes but lacks other important ones. But from a lighting and cinematography perspective, it definitely feels like a noir, so if you enjoy that style, you’ll probably appreciate this movie. It was nominated for a total of seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Screenplay, and Black-and-White Cinematography, in addition to the three acting nominations I mentioned earlier for Bergman, Boyer, and Lansbury. The only Oscar it won besides Best Actress was for Art Direction, which is something I don’t generally pay a ton of attention to, but the set is particularly important in Gaslight. The house almost functions as a character: it’s Gregory’s accomplice in torturing Paula, and the increasingly cluttered look of the rooms helps emphasize the way it’s trapping her. And, of course, there are the real, vintage gasoliers that give the movie its title and add greatly to its mood. So both of this movie’s Oscars were thoroughly deserved.

Thank you for listening to me discuss another of my most frequently rewatched films. This wraps up the 4-way tie of movies I saw 22 times from 2003 through 2022. I wonder how many other people out there have watched Beauty and the Beast, A Mighty Wind, His Girl Friday, and Gaslight the same number of times in the last 20 years. Anyway, I didn’t watch any movies exactly 23 times, so next up is the only one I watched 24 times, which is also one that I have a LOT of feelings and personal stories about, so stay tuned for what I’m sure will be a particularly long and rambling episode that I hope will be fun to listen to. As always, I will leave you with a quote from that next movie: “I don’t need to act things out in order to write them. I have what we like to call an ‘imagination.’ Have you ever heard of that? Oh, no no no no no, please tell us more about the old man… and the boat.”

#gaslight #ingrid bergman #charles boyer #george cukor #angela lansbury #the rewatch rewind

[hippolotamus]

Having some thoughts for the last official day of Pride 2023. A common theme I’ve heard from friends this year (other than, y’know, their very existence being challenged) is angry commentary from family or strangers wondering why Pride is even necessary. Why does every show or movie need a gay/lesbian/queer/trans character or couple? Obviously, none of these are new, but the fact remains that these hateful questions still haven’t gone away. Seriously, WTF?

What you’re about to read are only my thoughts and opinions, so take it for what it is. You’re free to disagree and have your own. 

I’ll start with why is Pride necessary? One of the first things that comes to mind is something I first saw on instagram a few years ago, and it has stuck with me. A quote from munroebergdorf ‘Pride is important because someone tonight still believes they’re better off dead than being gay.’ Like, holy fuck, it doesn’t get more real than that, does it? 

From an evolutionary, biological standpoint humans have a very real fear of abandonment, and loss of protection, for straying from the pack. Unfortunately, it takes far too long for most of us to realize that another pack is waiting with open arms and love. That we do not owe our bio pack unconditional loyalty simply because that’s the family we were born into. Genealogy does not make up for lack of acceptance. 

Pride is important because it’s meant to be a safe space. The festivals, parades, queer owned restaurants and businesses. I can’t speak for everyone, but my experience is that being part of the LGBTQ+ community usually involves living life as more than one person. Most times are spent taking our most colorful pieces, boxing them away, holding our breath, and hoping the wrong person doesn’t learn our secret. 

That’s where all those previously mentioned events and places come in. It’s an opportunity to finally take a fucking breath. To be yourself. To hold your partner’s hand, or look at them meaningfully, and not have to worry. It may not always feel like a big deal to parcel yourself away. But then you find yourself in a place you can finally let go and it’s like dropping 50 pounds of baggage to the floor. 

Part 2 (also, bless you if you’re still reading any of this): Why does every [popular form of media] need [inconveniently not straight] person or couple? This sort of ties back to earlier with the bio pack and the ability to find a new pack. Books, comics, television shows, movies need these characters so we don’t feel so fucking alone. 

If I remember correctly, my first encounter with a queer character was a really super awkward Lifetime movie. The next significant memory was what I refer to as my Queer Reawakening, when I met David and Patrick from Schitt’s Creek for the first time in 2021. The idea of a place built around the idea of total acceptance? Where no one cared who you loved? Where queer people had a happy existence? That was life altering. I was chemically reconfigured. From there I found a phenomenal community of friends that know me better than most of my IRL people. 

I swear I’m not trying to make this about me, but this would be incomplete if I didn’t mention Heartstopper (aka the Repressed Queer Grief era). This, to me, is the height of why representation is needed across various media. I have heard, and read, many similar comments to mine from friends and articles about this show and the graphic novels. How different life might have been if we had something like this as kids. To know that sort of existence was even possible. That just maybe some form of joy was attainable, and it wasn’t always going to be living a dual existence. 

Just like it’s important (for example) for little girls to know they can be president, or for little boys to know they can be in the ballet if they want… it’s important for every child to know that they are not wrong for who they choose to love, they are not defective if they don’t feel romantic or sexual attraction like other people, and it’s okay to question that maybe the body they were born with is not the best one. 

Part 3 (bonus!) I know this is quite long. Again, bless you for still being here. This is a piece I will just never not bring up. I feel it’s important to reiterate the importance of The Timeline of Self Discovery aka No, you’re not too old to come out/learn this important info about yourself. Some people just know from an early age that there is something different about them from their peers. That’s amazing. Enjoy being ahead of the curve. Then there’s the crowd that sort of figures it out during the teenage/young adult years. Yay! Awesome! That’s so cool! Very proud of you!

Now, what about everyone else? Not realizing until later in life can feel like a real suck fest. You were just going along, living your life, happy as a clam and then… fuck. It’s all different and nothing is as it was and how the hell are you supposed to trust your instincts if you couldn’t even see that coming? Listen. Take a deep breath. Chill for a sec. You good? Okay, perfect. 

So, here’s the thing. There is no timeline. There is no deadline for figuring these things out. It’s not like if you don’t figure it out and rush to tell the world by a certain point you’re doomed forever. For that matter, if you choose to never come out? That is also a perfectly acceptable option. You can tell as many or few people as you want. And only you get to do that. Not one single other person on the face of this earth is entitled to pressure you or take that moment from you.  

The other cool super secret thing is you can change your mind. Gasp! It’s not necessary, but more likely than you think. Maybe a bi label felt good at first but then gay or lesbian or queer felt better. Ultimately, labels are always highly personal and there is zero requirement to use one. Personally I’m a big fan of referring to myself as queer. It’s easy and people tend to understand it better than the Pan label. Again, labels are completely optional. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s necessary because they’re rude and no you don’t. 

Stay safe out there, friends and Happy Pride 🌈

#a few thoughts #ha! #who was i kidding? i never have a few anything #hippo rambles #pride 2023 #pride month 2023 #happy pride 🌈 #long post

[denimbex1986]

'In the autumn of 2021, Christopher Nolan knew just where to find Cillian Murphy. The director flew to Ireland with a document in his hand luggage, Hollywood’s equivalent of the nuclear football. It was a script for his top-secret new film, printed, apparently, on red paper. “Which is supposedly photocopy-proof,” Murphy explained. He wasn’t surprised by the in-person visit. The two had worked together on five previous films, and every Nolan script, Murphy said, had been dropped off by Nolan or one of his family members. “So, like, it’s been his mum who’s delivered the script to me before. Or his brother; he’ll go away and come back in three hours. Part of it has to do with keeping the story secret before it goes out. But part of it has to do with tradition. They’ve always done it this way, so why stop now? It does add a ritual to it, which I really appreciate. It suits me.”

Murphy met Nolan at his Dublin hotel room – and Nolan left him to read. He read and read and read. All 197 pages; the rarest kind of script, written in the first-person point of view of the film’s protagonist, J Robert Oppenheimer. All action, all incidence, swirling around this character – a big-brained, psychologically complex giant of world history. Murphy had never played a lead in a Nolan film before, but had committed to this role as soon as Nolan told him about it, before he’d even seen a page of the script. “He’d already called me and said he wanted me to play the part. And I had said yes, because I always say yes to him.” The afternoon ran out. “And he doesn’t have a phone or anything,” Murphy said. “But he knew instinctively when to come back.” Nolan in command of time, as ever. They spent the rest of the evening together, and then Murphy took the DART train home, and got to work.

The result was one of the most watched and most acclaimed films of 2023 – a nearly billion-dollar blockbuster about a tormented genius (and, yes, the father of the atomic bomb). The performance affirmed for many what has been quietly known for some time: that Cillian Murphy is, or at least was, one of the most underrated actors in all of Hollywood. In small potent roles in those other Nolan movies. As a shapeshifting bit player and lead in dozens of films and plays over the past three decades. And, of course, across 10 years and six seasons of Peaky Blinders – the hit series that made him truly known globally. “Some years ago,” Christopher Nolan said, “I made what was probably a mistake in some moment of drunken sincerity of telling him he’s the best actor of his generation. And so now he gets to show that to the rest of the world so everybody can realise that.”

Part of the reason that Murphy still felt like something of a secret until recently is that he lives, breathes and resides at a remove from the noise. This is by design. In 2015, Murphy returned home to Ireland from London, already some distance from Hollywood proper, to a quiet hamlet on the Irish Sea – not exactly off the grid, but one ring further outside the blast radius of his industry.

One evening this winter, I took the DART down the coast from Dublin city centre to Monkstown to have dinner with Murphy. We met at a restaurant where, he told me, “I have a usual table, would you believe it?” He sat there comfortably for most of the night, bouncing, leaning forwards, his floppy rocker-dad hair swept casually across his forehead, his famously light eyes drawing in passersby like two pockets of quicksand.

Murphy and his wife of 20 years, artist Yvonne McGuinness, live by the sea with their two teenage sons. In Ireland, the abundance of their creative existence is all around them. The art galleries all seem to be filled with work by his family members. The music on the radio is curated by friends – or Murphy himself. There are occasional pints with his elder Irish actor idols, Brendan Gleeson and Stephen Rea.

Life here for Murphy is filled with, well, life. His boys are approaching exit velocity. There are exams. Chores. Errands. He and his youngest were flying out in the morning to attend a football match in Liverpool. “I would’ve taken you elsewhere for some Guinness,” Murphy said, “except I have to drive to drop my boy off at a party tonight.” The brand of busyness felt quite far from the bubbles that typically cocoon the leading men in the film industry.

“I have a couple of friends who are actors, but a majority of them are not,” Murphy said. “The majority of my buddies are not in the business. I also love not working. And I think for me a lot of research as an actor is just fucking living, and, you know, having a normal life doing regular things and just being able to observe, and be, in that sort of lovely flow of humanity. If you can’t do that because you’re going from film festival to movie set to promotions… I mean that’s The Bubble. I’m not saying that makes you any better or less as an actor, but it’s just a world that I couldn’t exist in. I find it would be very limiting on what you can experience as a human being, you know?”

Cillian Murphy, at least on that weekend last winter, seemed to me to have something so deeply figured out that I spent the month after our time together unable to shake the experience of being in the presence of someone living so much the way that so many other actors – so many artists, so many people – claim to want to live. Away from it all, but in highest demand. Delivering Oscar-worthy performances while also seeming convincingly content to disappear for a long while, at any point, no questions. The stabilising forces at home seemed to work as an anchor point from which Murphy could go off and wander as an artist. “He has this rare blend of humility with this supercharge of creativity,” Emily Blunt said. “He’s just a lovely, sane person. He’s so, so sane. And yet he’s got such wildness in him in the parts that he’s able to play.”

He was the first of his friends to have kids, and thus will be the first with an empty nest. More time for films. (Maybe.) More time for music. (Certainly.) More time to go on runs at night, when the lights streaking by make him feel like he’s going faster. Even more time for sleep: “I sleep a lot. I do 10-hour sleeps.” He seemed immune to the need to be in the mix – of fame, of fashion, of free dinners, the titillating offerings of a scene. A lot of actors age out of that compulsion, but the thing is, Murphy’s not old. Forty-seven. At the height of his powers, entering his prime. Not exiting the industry, but just floating lightly beside it until called upon, which he often is, and will be more now than ever.

He tries to do one movie a year, preferably not in the summer, when he likes to spend most of his time on the west coast of Ireland, doing nothing much but finding new music for his radio programme on BBC Radio 6 Music or walking his black Lab, Scout. He is perfectly happy to be “unemployed” while he waits for the right new film to come his way. “There could’ve been a situation when Chris called me up that I was doing something else,” he said. “And that would’ve been the worst of all scenarios.”

In this way, Murphy seems to adhere to his version of Michael Pollan’s adage about healthy eating: “Make movies. Not too many. Mostly with Christopher Nolan.” Imagine the discipline, the confidence, the peace of mind, to not worry about missing an opportunity, a lunch, a party, a fork in the road back in one of the frothier Hollywood hubs, but rather to stroll along emerald shores, as the days stretch out until 10pm, knowing that they know you – and that, ultimately, they know where to find you.

In Monkstown. Probably at his table. Looking present. Clear-eyed. Like any local, but with more moisture in his skin. At dinner, he asked me just once not to put something in the piece: a nuanced take he shared on a local establishment. Nothing so dangerous as an unwelcome opinion in a small town. No truer sign of someone “just fucking living” there. The dream.

Nolan had first seen Murphy in 2003, in a promotional image for 28 Days Later that had run in the San Francisco Chronicle. “I was looking to cast Batman, looking for some actors to screen test, and I was just very struck by his eyes, his appearance, everything about him – wanted to find out more,” Nolan told me. “When I met him, he didn’t strike me as necessarily right for Batman. But there was just a vibe – there are people you meet in your life who you just want to stay connected with, work with; you try to find ways to create together.” So Nolan put him on camera just to see what happened. “He first performed as Bruce Wayne, and I saw the crew stop and pay attention in a way that I had never seen before, and really have never seen since. And it was this electricity just coming off the guy, it was an incredible energy. And so I called some executives, and they were impressed enough with him that they let me cast him as Scarecrow. Those Batman villains at the time had only ever been played by huge stars – Jack Nicholson, Arnold Schwarzenegger. So it’s just a testament to his raw talent.”

Batman Begins was the first of his smaller roles in Nolan’s three Batman movies, Inception, and Dunkirk. “I hope he won’t mind me saying, but when I first worked with him, he was all pure instinct, and the technical side of acting wasn’t something that had registered as important with him. We would literally put a mark down and he would just walk right over it,” Nolan said, laughing. But over two decades, “as I saw him develop his technical facility, it did not in any way distract or diminish the instinctive nature of his performance.”

For the lead in Oppenheimer, Murphy prepared at home for six months, focusing first on the voice and the silhouette (in other words, shedding weight to reflect the skin and bones of a world-renowned physicist who subsisted primarily on martinis and cigarettes during his years developing the bomb). On set, as the days of filming wore on in the New Mexico desert, the significance of what Murphy was up to started to spread across the set among the cast and crew “like a rumour,” Nolan said. “I remember the same thing with Heath Ledger on The Dark Knight.”

Blunt, who plays Oppenheimer’s beleaguered wife, Kitty, first got to know Murphy well on A Quiet Place Part II. “Cillian’s really kidnapping to be in a scene with. He pulls you into this vibrational vortex,” she told me. “He loves a party. But when he’s working, he’s intensely focused, and won’t socialise very much at all. Certainly not on Oppenheimer; I mean, he didn’t have anything left in the tank to say one word to someone at the end of the day.”

Matt Damon told me that when they were shooting out in the middle of New Mexico, he and Blunt and the rest of the cast would go down and eat at this one little café. “It was like a mess tent,” he said. “And Cillian was invited every night, but never made it once.”

Murphy was back in his room, preserving his energy, prepping for the next day, minding the Oppenheimer silhouette.

“OK, he’s losing weight, he can’t eat at night, you know he’s miserable,” Damon said. “But you know he’s doing what’s best for the movie that you all want to be as good as possible, and so you’re cheering him on. But at dinner you’re sitting there and you’re all shaking your heads, going, ‘Man, this is brutal.’

“The one thing that he would allow himself, his one luxury, is that he would take a bath at night. I mean he would allow himself literally a few almonds or something. And then sit in his bath with his script and just work. By himself, every night.”

The performance is so big, but so much of it is invisible to the audience, in the concentrated intensity of the interpretation. The nucleus towards which so many elements subtly draw us, closer to his character. Just one example: if it were period-accurate, Murphy said, everyone would be smoking and wearing hats, but he’s the only one doing either: “It’s emphatic, but subliminally so.” The author Kai Bird, who co-wrote American Prometheus, the monumental biography of Oppenheimer on which the film is based, spent a day at the Los Alamos set, watching Murphy play the scene where Oppenheimer talks to his team of scientists about the bomb while someone drops marbles into a fishbowl and a brandy glass. “At one point during a break, he approached wearing his baggy brown suit and turquoise belt, and I raised my arms and shouted, ‘Dr Oppenheimer, Dr Oppenheimer, I’ve been waiting decades to meet you!’ ” Bird said. “He especially captured the voice and Oppie’s intensity.” (At one point during our conversation, Bird asked me to confirm: “Those are his blue eyes, right? Or is he wearing lenses?”)

The film was released on Barbenheimer weekend, just after the SAG-AFTRA strike began, and despite enjoying some lighter time with Blunt, Damon and the cast, Murphy was relieved to cut short the promotion of the film. “I think it’s a broken model,” he said of red carpet interviews and junkets. Outdated and a drag for actors. “The model is – everybody is so bored.” Look what happened when they went on strike, he said. It all stopped. But the fact that the film was good, and Barbie was good, two at the same time, with people going crazy – it just shows you don’t need it. “Same was the case with Peaky Blinders. The first three seasons, there was no advertising, a tiny show on BBC Two. It just caught fire because people talked to each other about it.”

Murphy’s reticence in many interviews is palpable. “It’s like Joanne Woodward said,” he told me. “ ‘Acting is like sex – do it, don’t talk about it.’ ” Although I wouldn’t characterise his disposition on, say, late-night TV as gruff, he’s basically just incapable of going full phoney. He is, in other words, reacting the same way you might to being asked the same question for the hundredth time in a week. I’m curious to watch him suffer through his first Oscar campaign, where answering the same questions about his performance is essentially the point, for several months.

“People always used to say to me, ‘He has reservations’ or ‘He’s a difficult interviewee,’ ” Murphy said. “Not really! I love talking about work, about art. What I struggle with, and find unnecessary and unhelpful about what I want to do, is: ‘Tell me about yourself…’ ”

Nonetheless: He grew up in Cork. Went to a Catholic school better suited for a certain kind of athletic boy than an artistic soul. “I always fucking hated team sports. I like watching them. But I was terrible at them,” he said. That classic system for schooling was not good for him, “emotionally and psychologically,” he said. “But at least it gave me something to push against.”

Murphy played in a successful band with his brother, half-heartedly entered the local university as a law student. While at school in Cork, he stumbled into a performance of A Clockwork Orange and fell in with the stage scene there. He hadn’t trained in any way, but he got the first role he ever auditioned for, in Enda Walsh’s Disco Pigs, which travelled around the UK, Europe and Canada, and transformed his life. “It all happened to me in one month, in August ’96: we got offered a record deal, I failed my law exams, I got the part in Disco Pigs, and I met my wife,” he said. “I now look back and go, Oh, shit, I didn’t know then how important all these things were – the sort of domino effect that they would have on my life.” I asked Murphy, who has said in the past that he identifies as an atheist, if such a confluence ever made him wonder if there was indeed a higher power organising all of this. “Ohhh,” he said. “I love the chaos and the randomness. I love the beauty of the unexpected.”

That winter weekend, while walking around Dublin on a bit of a Joycean ramble, we passed a bookshop. “This was my favourite bookshop when I first moved up to Dublin. I didn’t have any money and I was living with my mother-in-law. And I would come in here and get a coffee for 50p, but then they would, like, refill it, you know? So, I’d sit in there all day and just read plays and then put them back on the shelves, and then go home and my mother-in-law would feed me dinner,” he said. “Just to educate myself. To catch up. ’Cause I didn’t go to drama school, so I’d read all the plays I should’ve read if I went to drama school. I’d ask all these writers and directors to tell me all the plays that I must read.”

“Theatre is the key to Cillian,” director Danny Boyle told me. “Weirdly, given that he is such an extraordinary film actor.” It’s the ability, from the theatre, to travel the great distance of an extreme character arc. “Everybody talks about his dreamy Paul Newman eyes. And all that’s to his advantage, of course, because behind is this capacity, this reach that he has into volcanic energy.” (The other key to Cillian, Boyle said, is that he’s a bloody Irishman: “He’s one of the great, great exports, and the homeland clearly nourishes him constantly.”) Boyle cast Murphy in 2002’s 28 Days Later, the first film of Murphy’s that made him known. It led, in its way, to the Nolan partnership, as well to working with Boyle again on 2007’s Sunshine. “When we did 28 Days Later, he was really just starting off,” Boyle said. “By the time he came back for Sunshine, he was a seriously accomplished actor.”

In the noughties, Murphy was working frequently. Some of the movies were better than others. “Many of my films I haven’t seen,” he said. “I know that Johnny Depp would always say that, but it’s actually true. Generally the ones I haven’t seen are the ones I hear are not good.”

I asked him if he’d seen Oppenheimer.

“Yes, I’ve seen Oppenheimer…” he said, rolling his eyes.

When Nolan finished the film, Murphy, his wife and his younger son flew to Los Angeles to watch it for the first time in Nolan’s private screening room. “It’s pretty nice…” Murphy said, trying to balance obvious enthusiasm with not giving too much away. “You know, he shows film prints there. The sound is extraordinary.” How many seats? “Uh, I’d say maybe 50?” So, Murphy did see this film of his – in perhaps the most dialled-in home cinema known to man.

In the summer of 2005, just a couple of months after Batman Begins came out, Murphy was back in cinemas with Wes Craven’s Red Eye. It was villain season. And the two roles, in close quarters, seemed to coalesce around a feeling: that guy creeps me out. When casually canvassing people about what they think of when they think of Murphy, I was shocked by the imprint that Red Eye had on an American of a certain age.

“Oh, I know, it’s crazy!” Murphy said. “I think it’s the duality of it. It’s why I wanted to play it. That two thing. The nice guy and the bad guy in one. The only reason it appealed to me is you could do that –” he snapped his fingers “– that turn, you know?”

“They say the nicest people sometimes make the best villains,” Rachel McAdams said, recalling her time with Murphy on the cramped aeroplane set of Red Eye. “We’d listen to music and gab away while doing the crossword puzzle, which he brought every day and would graciously let me chime in on... I think the number one question I got about Cillian way back then was whether or not he wore contact lenses.”

“I love Rachel McAdams and we had fun making it,” Murphy said. “But I don’t think it’s a good movie. It’s a good B movie.”

During that same stretch, Murphy starred in Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes the Barley, one of the best films he’s made, and one that Murphy is uniquely proud of. It’s a period epic that tells the story of a crew of Irish friends who find themselves fighting first the British, in the Irish War of Independence, and then one another in the Irish Civil War. The film is lush, harrowing, relentless and transporting. Murphy has a face that sits cosily at home in any decade of the 20th century. He is at his most vital in the ’20s, the ’30s, the ’40s – and that’s one of the factors that works so convincingly in Oppenheimer. Matt Damon, for better or worse, looks like Matt Damon. Emily Blunt, again for better or worse, looks like Emily Blunt. Whereas Cillian Murphy looks like a scientist from 1945.

Murphy and his filmmakers have run this play several ways in recent years. In Anthropoid (2016), as a Czechoslovakian resistance fighter in Nazi-occupied Prague. In Free Fire (2016), as an IRA member caught up in an arms deal gone horribly wrong. In Dunkirk (2017), as a British “shivering soldier” suffering from PTSD. And, of course, in Peaky Blinders (2013–2022), as a First World War hero turned gangster in 1920s Birmingham. With that face, he can play every side of the die of the embroiled conflicts of pre- and post-war Europe. “Cillian’s always laughing about how he’s perpetually playing people who are traumatised,” Blunt said. “There must be something about his face that sort of entices those kinds of offers.”

In the first frame of Anthropoid that Murphy appears in, a moonbeam strikes his cheekbone like it’s a plane of alabaster, and the question immediately pops to mind: are you a Nazi or the resistance? Are you the good guy or the bad guy – or both, that “two thing”? The stable and the wild. The duality. The pull within.

In Dublin, we found ourselves walking through busy streets, beneath abundant winter sunshine and caustic seagulls. We were approached by fans at a shocking clip – but also by sisters of friends.

“I’m not a stalker…” one said, politely.

“Oh, hi, Oona!”

I asked him if he’d sensed that his life had palpably changed in any way since last summer, given that a billion pounds’ worth of people saw him in practically every frame of one of the biggest films of all time. “To me, it always seems to go in waves,” he said. “When Peaky was at its kind of apex, you’d feel a different energy around, walking around, a little bit like I do now – but then it settles down again. It kind of comes in waves. And then you don’t have something in the cinema for ages, and people forget about it. So. It seems to be like that, and you sort of ride that, and then things go back to normal.”

With all due respect to the Peaky hive, this film did seem to go especially wide.

“Yes,” he said, laughing. “But you’d be surprised. Peaky is still the thing I get asked most about in the world.”

As if on cue, Murphy was approached by a fan on the street, who asked for a photo.

“Oh, I don’t do photos,” he said to the disappointed lad, who nonetheless got 20 seconds of Murphy’s time to chat.

“Once I started doing that,” he said, “it changed my life. I just think it’s better to say hello, and have a little conversation. I tell that to a lot of people, you know, actor friends of mine, and they’re just like, I feel so bad. But you don’t need a photo record of everywhere you’ve been in a day.”

“There is a culty, effervescent kind of wonder about Cillian,” said Blunt. “I think for someone as interior as he is, this level of kinetic fame is, like, horrifying for him. If anyone is not built for fame, it’s Cillian.”

To make it up to that fan, I asked Murphy what the status is of a potential Peaky Blinders film. “There is no status, as of now,” he says. “So I have no update. But I’ve always said I’m open to it if there’s more story. I do love how the show ended. And I love the ambiguity of it. And I’m really proud of what we did. But I’m always open to a good script.”

We passed some young people in dark dresses and heels, absolutely the worse for wear. “Look at these guys, out from the night before,” Murphy said, smiling. I asked him if he had his days of partying in Dublin, in London. “I mean, I did, but it was with my friends. I was never part of any scene – or went to, like, acting clubs. I would never go to the premiere... The idea of going to a premiere that isn’t your own, seems to me like…”

We passed Trinity College, an occasion to discuss the breakout Irish series Normal People and its breakout Irish star Paul Mescal. “He is the real deal. He is like a true movie star. They don’t come along that often. But,” Murphy said, serving the lightest and rarest touch of pride and swagger, “luckily, they seem mostly to come from Ireland.

“It’s a good time,” he added, “to be an Irish actor, it seems.”

We stopped in at the Kerlin Gallery to see the show of his sister-in-law, Ailbhe Ní Bhriain. She and Murphy’s wife were friends in graduate school in London, and Murphy’s brother met her while visiting Cillian there. This is his scene. He walked around admiring the pieces, which he’d heard about at family functions but not yet seen in person.

“Now this work immediately appeals to me,” he said, “because you can feel it’s pushing at big, big themes, and to me, that’s what I’ve always loved. I don’t really go for pure entertainment. I love when it makes you feel a little bit fucked up. Not in a horror-genre way, but in a psychological, existential way. That’s what I love in all the work that I enjoy and the work that I try to make.”

Murphy executive-produced the last three seasons of Peaky Blinders, but had been looking for a first film to produce. He secured the rights to Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These, a Booker Prize finalist, and one night on the set of Oppenheimer, while they were just sitting there in the desert, Damon told him about Damon and Ben Affleck’s then unannounced new company, Artists Equity, whose novel financial model is based on profit sharing with the crew. Murphy sent them the book and Artists Equity ultimately financed the film. “Normally, you’re trying to put together all these different entities, and then you have all these points of view on the edit,” Murphy said. “This was just those guys.”

Small Things Like These centres on an average man about Murphy’s age in a small town in County Wexford, who, one Christmas, stumbles upon a horrifying secret in the local convent – the Magdalene Laundries, which from the 18th century to the 1990s held thousands of girls and women prisoner in Church workhouses. I asked Murphy if, with his new power, it was important to him to tell Irish stories. Not especially, he said. The only criterion was: what’s the best story for right now? “Still,” he said, “it’s a good time to be looking at that story, because we have distance from what happened with the Church and everything. But yet I don’t think we’ve still fully addressed it. So, if you can make something that’s entertaining and moving, but also asks a few questions about who we are as a nation, and who we were as a nation, and how far we’ve come – then that’s great. But, again, they should happen after you’ve gone and had a reasonably entertaining evening at the cinema.”

Murphy joked at one point that he spent the actors’ strike at home “eating cheese,” but what he really did was spend the strike editing Small Things and overseeing “all the lovely stuff that we actors never get a look in on.” (His production company, Big Things Films, would’ve been called Small Things Films, he said, except that Small Things suggests “a lack of ambition, perhaps.”) Small Things will premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival this month.

One film a year, control, restraint, a hand firmly on the wheel.

Murphy has a natural propensity to an analogue lifestyle that works well with Nolan, who doesn’t use email or have a smartphone. “I aspire to that life,” Murphy said. “I was just clearing stuff off my phone, but have to keep the apps for music and music discovery.

“I still have all my CDs and DVDs and Blu-Rays,” he went on. “I cannot get rid of them. I did get rid of my VHS, though. I just left them on the street because nobody wanted them. I went and brought them to a library and was like, Look at this pretentious collection of art films! and they were like, No thanks, man…”

I asked him if he saw the viral TikTok of Nolan showing a zoomer how best to project Oppenheimer. He started laughing. “My son showed me that. A clash of cultures.”

Working with Nolan can feel like a much-desired retrenchment from modern life. “When I’m on a Chris set, it does feel a little bit like a private, intimate laboratory,” Murphy said. “Even though he works at a tremendous pace, there’s always room for curiosity and finding things out, and that’s what making art should be about, you know? There’s no phones – but also no announcement: everybody just knows. And there’s no chairs. Because he doesn’t sit down. Sometimes a film set can be like a picnic. Everyone’s got their chairs and their snacks and everyone’s texting and showing each other fucking, you know, emojis or whatever, memes – which I do know,” he said, referring obliquely to the meme of Cillian Murphy not knowing what a meme is. “But why?”

Do you know what Nolan is doing next? I asked him.

“Nooo. But, like, I didn’t know that he was writing Oppenheimer. We don’t stay in touch that way.”

It’s like Mission: Impossible. Do the hard thing together, then sever communication. “Chris is the smartest person I’ve ever met,” added Murphy. “Not just the director stuff, but everything else.”

Nolan had told me that he’d wanted to give Murphy the role that he would be dogged by forever – that he would spend the rest of his career trying to crawl out from under. “And,” he said, “I think I’ve done it.”

When I put it to Murphy, he took a beat: “There’s a big, big body of work that I think people that know know.” I think it was his modest way of saying: I’ve got a few others too.

Murphy told me he’d heard that “one of the Sydneys” – Lumet or Pollack – once said that it takes 30 years to make an actor. He believed that. “I’m 27 years,” he said. “So I’m close.”

After Nolan hand-delivered the Oppenheimer script to Murphy and left him to read in that Dublin hotel room, he made his way to the Hugh Lane Gallery, and, more specifically, to the Francis Bacon studio there, a perfect preservation of the impossibly messy London studio where the Irish-born painter had lived and worked for much of his life. Murphy and Nolan share a love of Bacon – a towering figure of the 20th century, born in its first decade, dead in its last. Besides the reassembled studio, the museum has several paintings by Bacon – some finished, some unfinished. In all instances, though, the portraits of people – ghoulishly distorted figures – are rendered unsparingly. Never perfect representations. Never straight impressions. But rather an artist’s interpretation of another being, reconfigured into a stark image. You can see what might appeal to both a director of a biopic and his leading man.

That winter weekend, I made the same journey across the River Liffey that Nolan did, past a poster for Oppenheimer in a Tower Records window, past the Garden of Remembrance (for all who gave their lives for Irish freedom), and met Murphy at the museum. He had on a black puffer jacket, a black hoodie, and a pair of black Ray-Bans with that starburst that movie-star lenses do when subjected to a flash on a red carpet. He removed them inside and took the well-worn path back to the Bacons. “Most people don’t know about this place,” he said. “It’s kind of like a little secret. But I just come here when I have time to spare in town.”

We looked at Bacons. Bacons everywhere. We talked about the Bacon biography that came out in 2021. “I love the work,” Murphy said, “but just the life. That kind of unique relentlessness that he had as an artist.” I asked if he read actor biographies. “When I was starting out,” he said. “I always worry, though, reading them – because I can’t remember what I did last week... I often wonder about the self-mythologising.”

We peered in on the studio itself, every cigarette butt and crate of champagne archived and put in its place. “Chaos for me breeds images,” Bacon had said.

Do you have a room in your house that looks like this? I asked.

Murphy laughed. “No, I do have a man room, a man cave. But it’s incredibly tidy.”

In another room of the museum, we sat before a looped TV special on Bacon from 1985, an hour-long interview with presenter Melvyn Bragg, where the great painter spits off charisma and wisdom in pithy responses to the biggest questions an artist can be asked, all while wearing a perfect black leather jacket. We sat there quietly together, until Murphy interjected: “It’s kind of mesmerising, isn’t it?”

Before I’d arrived in Dublin, Nolan had told me that Murphy’s career tends to make sense if you think of him more as an artist than an actor – as you would a painter or a musician. That his filmography isn’t a line going up or down so much as filled with distinct periods of development. It helps explain the approach to the work. How patient and restrained. How clear the point of view. An act of accretion rather than explosiveness and volatility. So unshaken by the things that rock the boat for so many actors. It’s the clarity. The authenticity. The answer to the question: when you’re tested again and again, what is there? Who is there? Here is a man – a 47-year-old who could play 27 with the right light and 67 with the right make-up – who is probably going to win the Oscar for best actor, but whose mind couldn’t be farther from the chatter of his industry and the noise, the noise. At one point, I asked him if he feels like he’s uniquely well-positioned to play roles of middle age – if Oppenheimer feels like the first film of what could be the strongest stretch of his career.

“I really don’t know,” he said. “I really haven’t thought about it.”

Here, then, was another thing Murphy had seemingly figured out – consciously or not. Almost all religions, coaches, gurus, and enlightened friends tend to offer the same advice: don’t lose yourself in the past, don’t fixate on the future, but focus six inches in front of your nose, and on the Now that you can control. “I really am kind of like, pathologically unsentimental about things,” Murphy said. “I just move forward very quickly.” The past wasn’t a problem because he couldn’t remember it – or wouldn’t romanticise it. The future wasn’t a concern because he didn’t like to plan too far out. And so: the one film on the horizon; the one song on the radio or the one painting on the wall. He was, in this way, an authentic presentist. Or, less abstractly, just a good listener, a good seer, a good scene partner, a good person to have dinner with.

There, in the museum, we sat and we sat, watching the Bacon interview as though there was nowhere else to be (because there really wasn’t) and nothing else to think about (what more was there than how an artist’s life might be lived?).

Murphy broke the silence. “Did you ever hear this theory that [Brian] Eno has? About the farmers and the cowboys? There’s two types of artist – there’s the farmers and the cowboys. The farmers, like in his studio for example,” he said, gesturing to Bacon on the screen. “He’s mostly kind of doing the same thing, refining and refining and refining the same thing. And the cowboys, who go off, they’re like prospectors, that go off and do mad work. Eno puts himself in the second bracket, ’cause he’s such an innovator, with the music and the production and all of that. Or somebody like Bowie, constantly reinventing. Neither one is better, it’s just a different way of making work.”

Which do you fall into? I asked.

“Definitely the cowboy, I think. But there are actors that just play similar parts, versions of themselves all the time. Again, I don’t think either one is better.”

Do you think that sometimes an actor falls into the other category by accident, when their public persona intersects with – or eclipses – the work? I asked.

“Perhaps. Yeah. I’m sure that’s the case. Yeah.”

He sat back and sank into the film again, giggling at some of the things that Bacon said and did. “There’s a few things he says that I always think apply to our work,” he said. “ ‘The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.’ ” Provocative movies. Provocative performances. No easy answers – but perhaps a few new questions.

Don’t give it all away. Don’t even give most of it away. Retrench. Be clear. With yourself, but not necessarily with others. Let the fame wave pass. Live by the sea.

He said it again: “Deepen the mystery. That’s it, isn’t it?”'

#Cillian Murphy #Christopher Nolan #Batman Begins #Scarecrow #Dr. Jonathan Crane #28 Days Later #Danny Boyle #Sunshine #Small Things Like These #Disco Pigs #Anthropoid #Oscars #Peaky Blinders #Emily Blunt #BBC 6 Music #Barbenheimer #SAG-AFTRA #Inception #Dunkirk #The Dark Knight #Heath Ledger #Normal People #Paul Mescal #A Quiet Place Part II #Matt Damon #Kai Bird #Los Alamos #American Prometheus #Enda Walsh #Red Eye

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My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Cowboys Rule | E.Edwards

summary; the number one rule of cowboys - wear the hat ride the cowboy

-

Mark had decided on a whole cowboys and country theme for his twenty first birthday so everyone went all out with the dress up.

You and Ethan had set up the venue from early morning; a local bar and you’d gone all out even getting a mechanical bull.

You’d just finished pinning up the last banner when you felt two hands on either side of your waist and pulled your body down from the ladder

“Okay, we’re done! We gotta get ready” Ethan announced, pulling you away from the decorations.

“I just have to-“ “No! You’ve done enough we’ll be late if we don’t go now”

You laughed and gave in “Okay, Okay let’s go I need to get in my get up!”

“Get up?” He chuckled, eying you.

“Oh yeah I have this cute black and white cow print hat and the matching boots, it’s glittery and everything!” You squealed in excitement.

Ethan smiled at you “I can’t wait to see, meet you back here at eight?”

“Got it!” You replied, running off towards your dorm.

You’d arrived at the party later than intended and it was already in full swing.

Managing to find Mark and Duke when you arrived you passed off your birthday gift “Happy Birthday Woodruff!!”

Rolling his eyes Mark pulled you in for a hug “Thank you, thank you for setting up and everything! You’re the best”

It was hard to hear over the music so you were leaning up to shout in his ear “Where’s Eddy?!”

Mark looked around before pointing over in the corner you could see Ethan helping some girl up onto the mechanical bull, his hands resting on her ass even when she was situated.

You rolled your eyes and you could feel Mark giving you a sad glance while he rubbed your back before he was pulled away.

“Hey there’s our cowgirl!” Arm thrown over your shoulder and you leaned into Mackie while Luke appeared on your other side.

“Hey guys, enjoying the party?”

“It’s awesome, you want to plan ours?” “You wish - I like Mark that’s why I spent so much time on it”

Luke pulled a face “Harsh but we love you so we’ll forgive” before lifting your hat off your head and walking off.

Mackie held is hand out for you and quirked his eyebrow “Join me?”

You looking from his face to his hand you smiled softly nodding your head and putting your hand in his.

Ethan had watched you waltz around the bar alongside his teammate with jealous eyes.

There was a grey zone you two were in right now with mutual feelings but all the stupidity not to say anything just living in the constant agony of jealousy. It wasn’t fun to see all these girls throw themselves at him just because he was a hockey player while you just had to sit and watch.

When it was announced the cake was coming out you stood up on a table along with a couple other girls to see over everything while you sang.

“Happy Birthday, dear mark, Happy Birthday to you”

As the song finished you screamed out a cheer before you tried stepping down from the table. You were about to jump when Mackie held your waist and lifted you down letting out a laugh, hands on his shoulders to stabilize yourself.

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142 notes - Posted October 20, 2022

#4

Best I Ever Had | L.Hughes

Summary; solely based off “set it up” because that’s my favourite movie ever. It’s actually only based on one scene the rest I made up lol.

pairings: luke hughes x fem!reader, mark estapa x fem!reader, umich hockey x fem!reader (platonic)

I don’t like how I ended this but I couldn’t think of anything else.

-

Barging in through the front door you heard everyone shouting at one another.

You stopped in the doorway looking at the boys arguing over something while the TV still had static

“I gave you one job, have the game on before I got here and you don’t have the game on!”

The yelled ceased and they all turned to you, smiling “We can’t figure out the remote”

You sighed, snatching the remote from Mark’s hand and fiddling around with the buttons until the game finally appeared.

“Did you guys get food?” You asked, jacket being discarded onto the floor. There were an array of mumbles before Ethan spoke

“Yeah I put yours on the table in the kitchen” you smiled a thank you before off to retrieve the food, making your way back and throwing yourself into the tiny space of the armchair Mark sat on, your legs cascading over his lap while he used your shins as a makeshift table for his plate.

While everyone was eating and watching the pre-game highlights your eyes cast over the room, eyebrows furrowing when you noticed something missing.

“Hey, where’s Luke?” You felt Mark still underneath you, everyone else doing the same.

They all looked at one another before Duke said “He’s on a date”

Your heart fell, and consciously you tried not to let it show on your face “Oh- who with?”

“You know that girl from our marketing class?”

“Lily?” “Yeah, her”

Lily was pretty, she was the typical ‘NHL wag’ type. You hadn’t spoken to her much but you saw her around in class and at games, she would always interrupt conversations with the boys to go on about how much she just ‘loved’ hockey and when you would so innocently say

“Oh, we’re looking for more people to join the girls team actually!” She would snarl and reply with a snarky “no thanks”

You could see the faces of the boys looking at you with pity. You wanted to attention away from you and your feelings so announced

“Ok anyone wanna place a bet? I’m on Jersey winning 4-2”

Everyone started yelling out their bets, wagering money on it and you felt Mark lean in closer behind your ear before he whispered

“He’s not worth getting upset over, he was stupid to pick her over you”

The game finished, jersey winning 4-2 over Pittsburgh and you went home a lot richer that night. You had helped Nick and Jimmy cleaning up the kitchen from the takeout you got when Luke got home, you saw him come in with a smile on his face walking straight up stairs not for a second registering your presence in the house.

You slipped out after you heard his bedroom door shut, not saying so much as a goodbye to the boys that were downstairs.

The days following Luke’s first date you didn’t see him much. You’d hung around with the team, saw him in passing and he spoke to you briefly in class but nothing like normal.

Luke hadn’t noticed the lack of you in his life for the influx in Lily, but everyone else had.

When Quinn would call he’d ask about you but was met with answers like “Oh I don’t know where she is”

And Jack had come to Detroit for an away game asking Luke to dinner, expecting you to join as you always did but instead Luke had brought Lily.

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158 notes - Posted September 21, 2022

#3

Vancouver | J.Hughes

summary: after a hurtful breakup he never thought he’d hear her voice again.

not entirely sure what this is but have it anyway

-

Through high school and all the junior clubs he went through, Jack stayed devoted to you and your relationship.

It surprised a lot of people. He was the supposed heartbreaker and player of the group of friends but he proved everyone wrong.

It all went downhill after the draft.

You’d been alongside him when he was drafted, cheering the loudest alongside his family. You were so proud of him.

He wasn’t like Quinn, he didn’t want to take time out or go slow into his career. When he heard first pick it went straight to his head.

It hurt to see what he became right infront of your eyes. He made the move straight to Jersey, threw himself into the team and proving himself to the organisation while pushing you away in the meantime.

The breakup was slow and he was oblivious. You’d stayed in Michigan after he left so the phone calls got fewer and fewer, you stop flying out to visit so much and even stopped hanging out with his family.

It became final when you flew out to Jersey to watch a game. He hadn’t done much with you being there and when the weekend ended and you had your bags packed you held onto him for just a little longer.

“Goodbye J” you mumbled, a slight crack in your voice.

“I’ll see you in a couple weeks at the red wings game, right? No need to be upset babe”

You shook your head “No, Jack I- I don’t think I can do this any longer”

“What? What are you talking about?”

He reached out for your hand but you pulled away

“I lost you Jack-“ “I’m right here! What are you on about?”

You were trying so hard not to get upset “I lost you, the real you, my Jack back in Vancouver. The day you became Jack Hughes the devil I lost you”

He had been rendered speechless, stumbling back a few steps.

“Goodbye Jack”

No reply. Just the sound of your suitcase wheels squeaking out the door for the last time.

He was heartbroken.

The days, weeks, months following he reflected on everything that had happened since he had been drafted.

Maybe you were right.

He’d tried filling the void with random party girls, set ups and dating app girls but nothing ever came close.

His family saw you around still. You went to lunch with Luke oftentimes but he never told Jack about it.

You’d told him that you’d dropped out of college and signed a record deal. You were finally getting your dream of creating music, being a voice and being heard.

“We’re really proud of you - all of us. We’re just really sorry”

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172 notes - Posted October 22, 2022

#2

Speak Now | L.Hughes

This has been in my drafts so long I needed it out

-

Everyone knew this was a bad idea, that Luke was crazy.

He shouldn’t be here. He knew that, but he was.

Victoria saw him before anyone else, slipping discreetly past mingling guests and tugging his suit sleeve in a way to get his attention before she snapped

“Don’t ruin this for her Hughes, this is her day”

Luke visibly gulped and replied “I don’t know what you’re talking about Vic, I’m just here for an old friend”

She scoffed “old friend, yeah ok”

He found his friends, his parents and brothers all grabbing drinks next to the bar.

“I really thought we’d be up there in those stupid blue suits on her wedding day, with you of course Hughesy because we are the best men in your life” Duke was clearly trying to make a joke but it failed, Mackie poked him in the ribs to warrant a stop.

He then gave Luke a face and said “Man, we’re sorry I know it’s not easy-“

“I’m fine, I’m just here to support you know. They did invite me” Luke added, gulping down the rest of his drink.

“Owen told me they fought about your invite” Kent added, giving Luke a soft smile in a way to make him feel better “She really fought to have you c my ome today Luke, she cared a lot you were here”

Luke shrugged “Yeah i guess, she’s close with my family you know? I mean my mom and dad are here, Quinn and Jack”

The group couldn’t help but roll their eyes at his blindness.

“You know that’s not why she did it Luke and you know it”

The wedding planner started filing people into the venue, to find a seat for the ceremony.

“Luke sit in the middle”

“What? No, why? I’m taller than you I gotta sit on the outside to I can move my leg”

“Because if you sit in the middle then we can stop you when you try to object”

He rolled his eyes “I’m not going to object to her marriage dipshit”

Ethan held his hands up “I’m just saying”

In the back room you were finishing getting ready when Victoria finally let it slip. She was adjusting your necklace, looked you in the eyes and caved

“He’s here” your eyes shot up to hers and your mouth dropped open.

“Really?” She nodded “Really.”

Nodding, you let out a huge breath you didn’t know you were holding in.

“We can walk away right now if you want to, I’ll hold your hand and if anyone tries to stop it you’ve got a hockey team to defend you from any evil mother in laws”

You laughed at her and shook your head “I’m okay, I’m glad he’s here”

She brushed your hair off your shoulder and beamed “All ready! You look gorgeous!”

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196 notes - Posted October 26, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

#46 with luke

“Stop being a fucking prick”

-

Milo’s birth had been the best kept secret of Michigan.

You honestly thought Mackie would’ve spilled the beans at one point.

You were cautious when Ethan left to play in Jersey. With Luke having left the year prior and Milo being a couple months old now, you waited for the

how come you had my baby and I didn’t know? text.

It never came.

So, you carried on with life. You were close to graduating and looking for a job. Not having a job after graduation wasn’t an option at this point, being a mom was expensive.

“Hey, you wanna go watch the Red Wings Devils game this Saturday? Eddy says that he can get us tickets” Mark asked, shouting through the house.

“I’m down but we’ll have to take Milo because his babysitter is out of town”

“Eddy also said ‘tell her she better bring Milo because I miss him’” you laughed, always one step ahead.

At almost a year old, the little boy was beginning to develop noticeable features from his parents. He had Luke’s hair and nose while he had your eyes. He hadn’t fully developed a smile yet but the way he gave his gummy half smiles with a certain slant you knew they’d be just like Luke’s.

Dressed up in his Devils jersey, a gift from Ethan when he left. Milo had been to so many hockey games in his short little life, being a common spectator at Yost.

While Luke wasn’t in the picture you still wanted to bring those certain aspects of him around Milo. You took him to hockey games, you celebrated certain Jewish holidays with him (after a lot of googling). People thought it strange, you hadn’t told Luke by choice but wanted to keep him around.

Your reasoning sounded stupid to some but others understood where you were coming from. Luke broke up with you after loosing out again at Frozen Four.

The devils organization were there in Tampa. Luke had signed before he even got out of his jersey.

He told you it wouldn’t work, how you were going to be too far apart and that he wanted to experience life as a rookie in New Jersey with a fresh start.

You planned to tell him that night, you were pregnant. You never got the chance. Instead, you nodded and wished him well in Jersey.

You then didn’t tell anyone for months until you were all leaving for the summer and you bid your goodbyes very tearfully. You weren’t sure what would happen next year, if you’d ever be back in Michigan with your friends.

You told them, they dragged it out of you and you made them promise to not tell Luke.

It was awfully quiet at the lake house that summer.

Everyone had brought their partners and Luke was alone for the first time in years, he felt lonely. He missed you. He screwed up.

“Have you got his bag? His ear defenders? Oh did I pack snacks? What about-“

“You gotta calm down, what’s up with you?” Mark stopped you, taking milo out of your arms and looking at you bordering on tears.

“This is the first time I’m gonna see him Mark, I thought I could do it-“

“You can! Luke knows nothing about Milo and I’m sure he won’t even notice us there. I’m right here with you”

His words of encouragement calmed you, nodding in agreement and making your way to the car.

It was a busy night and Milo was loving all of the attention he was getting from random people that passed, all waving and smiling at him.

“C’mon buddy let’s go find Ethan and get your first NHL puck” Mark announced, taking him from your arms and walking down the stairs to ice level.

See the full post

282 notes - Posted November 13, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

[whaleofatjme1920]

Those can be those who you deleted but didn't update the masterlist. It's basically those who i can't access. But some where my favorites so yep. All the non functioning links, i'm not counting the ones that open on browser, since they technically work... Kinktober list 2 went back to work btw Kinktober 2021 - Day 24 and 30 Proxies list one- A movie that doesn't have your full attention. Literally Car sex Getting and interesting text (i cried this one i went back many times to read) Licking Weapons Burlesque Dancer But fun fact about list one you put the same fic there twice, it's SO who returns after a long time in the Ticci Toby list. Proxies List 2 Under the table cause he said so Hoodie, Masky and Toby in a poly relationship EJ, Slender and Jeff list one. In the passenger seat, distracting the driver Interesting Text and licking weapons again EJ, Slender and Jeff list two. He loves me he loves me not, the link to AO3 Ben Drowned Sitting on the "sofa" Ben and his ears SCP Dr Kondraki: Size Kink and Other Smut Thoughts Clef: It's rude to make me blush. SO that has a thing for praise Spice and Long distance Rights: General Spice Gears: Spicy Thoughts Multiple: Different Strokes for Different Folks Dr. Kondraki, Dr. Clef, and Dr. Bright Walking in On Solo Time Clef, Kondraki and Bright with a Mommy Dom SO Dr. Glass, Dr. Light, Dr. King and Dr. Iceberg Walking in on Private Time Darkwood Wolfman: Those Damned Eggs Won’t Get Themselves Call of Duty Simon Riley: Over Coffee Finished.

OH YEAH THOSE WERE ALL DELETED

Except for the coffee one. Not deleted. That’s weird.

I usually talk about the things I delete here but people don’t really read those (which I don’t mind). Just know I sometimes go through and burn things.

Anyways thank you !!

When I’m not busy I’ll (maybe) come through and delete a bunch of those. I have a ‘real’ life now, and this blog is pretty dead to me, so I don’t really bother with the upkeep anymore. I haven’t cared for like…. Over a year now ☹️

Some of these got saved on AO3. Some didn’t. I wasn’t proud of a lot of those. Regardless, thank you so much.

#conversations with a fish woman #people seemed to be sad when I got rid of he loves me he loves me not #look I wasn’t happy with it #but I still have the Fics on my drive!! #should k reupload????

[wildemaven]

Tagged by two lovelies @psychedelic-ink @something-tofightfor

1 - Are you named after anyone? I would say yes. But if you ask my mom she says no, she just liked the name. Here’s the thing though… My grandma’s name is Heidi (her mom)…. And I have a cousin on my dad’s side named Heidie (she’s older by like 3-4 years. So?? But here’s the kicker! My middle name is my mom’s high school sweetheart’s mom’s name, and then she married him when I was 8… 🤨

2 - When is the last time you cried? I honestly don’t remember and that is odd cause I usually cry a lot

3 - Do you have kids? Yes. I have 3

4 - Do you use sarcasm a lot? Probably more than I should.

5 - What is the first thing you notice about people? Probably whether or not they smile when I first meet them or their eyes

6 - What's your eye colour? They’re like a green blue

7 - Scary movies or happy endings? Happy Endings

8 - Any special talents? Uhhh I don’t think so

9 - Where were you born? San Luis Obispo

10 - What are your hobbies? Writing, Photography, baking, drawing, crafting in general

11 - Do you have any pets? 2 cats, 2 dogs and a leopard gecko

12 - What sports do you play/have you played? Played volleyball growing up, track in high school. Now I guess CrossFit. I was really deep into it in 2021 and was hoping to try and compete in local comps… but then I got preggers 🤪 I’ve been back at it again for the last 2 months so we’ll see what happens. I entered into the Open one year but definitely didn’t make it lol

13 - How tall are you? I'm 5'5”

14 - Favourite subject in school? English and History (Although I wish it wasn’t so whitewashed back then, definitely make a point to find actual examples of real history for my kids)

15 - Dream job? Hairstylist & Photographer (which I did), Designer (started going to school for fashion, but then went to beauty school), Interior Designer, Writer (this is still a goal of mine, so I’m gonna make it happen)

NPTs: @heythere-mel @kteague @mvtthewmurdvck @gnpwdrnwhiskey @words-are-fireproof @nothoughtsjustmeds and anyone else who wants to share

#tag game