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perseruna · 10 days

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heyyyy do you have any details/sources for the ca*ill being a jackass thing? ngl i watch twn for yen and jaskier so i was already planning on continuing to season 4 but i'd love some reasons to be actively excited for the actor switch. but i haven't kept up on the behind-the-scenes stuff so i'm kinda lost on that front if you're up for sharing any of what you know!

okay guys buckle up this is THE anti henry cavill megathread xoxo

First of all him dating a teenager as a 33 year old fully grown man literally gross and disgusting.

Also as this quote implies they started dating a year prior and only went public when she was 19 so they supposedly started dating when she was 18.

His entire dating history is a MESS. Sure the women he dated are not him, but he chose to date them, I wouldn't even associate myself with people like these let alone be in a relationship with them. He dated the infamous transphobic TERF Gina Carano, albeit before her loud controversy, but I doubt her harmful views were any different back then. His current gf has a history of doing black face.

His "Me Too" comments.

His comments on the Me Too movement are literally so vile. If you don’t want to be called a rapist, just don’t rape women, it’s literally as simple as that. They’re even more foul because they’re promoting the idea that women lie about their abusive for fame, promoting that harmful rhetoric especially in our times is incredibly dangerous.

Now onto his on set behavior.

We can't talk about his set behavior without mentioning the deuxmoi set leak. Here's the transcript of it:

[Transcript:

There’s something I really really wanted to read to you guys--it has to do with why Henry Cavill left The Witcher. I know that was something that you guys were super interested in when it happened, and I just recently got this message. Somebody was like “Hey, do you want to know what really went down?” And I was like “Sure!” So let me just read it. It says:

“At the beginning of the show, Henry was good to work with. A lot of difficult demands that made people feel like he wasn’t a team player, but that’s not unusual for a really big star. Though in TV it truly usually doesn’t happen until the second season. But in season two and three something shifted and he became really impossible for women to work with, which is always a big problem, but even worse here because the showrunner is a woman. He would try to overrule her and try to get changes made last minute across the board without her knowledge, which, if you know anything about showrunning, is completely fucked. The showrunner has to sign off on every miniscule detail down to the buttons on a costume. Female writers and directors were suddenly being completely ignored on set, unable to do their jobs. Every department head was complaining. He started making comments—it wasn’t a sexual thing, he wasn’t grabbing anyone or being lewd, but it was disrespectful and toxic all the same.

“He is deeply addicted to video games, to the point where it was like working with any other addict. He was distracted, he was late, he was obsessive, and a lot of people think the misogyny came from gamer world. Video game bro language is not how you talk to coworkers, and he wouldn’t stop. Someone on the show compared it to watching someone get brainwashed by QAnon, like his whole personality shifted. Eventually his disrespect escalated. He would rewrite scenes without even alerting the other actors in the scenes until it was time to shoot. He decided that he didn’t want any romantic scenes at all—no kissing scenes, no shirtless scenes, et cetera. He wanted complete control of storylines but really had no idea of the limitations of TV, structure, budget, et cetera. He formed a weird alliance with one writer who was also a gamer, who eventually got fired after multiple HR complaints were made and after that writer left, Henry did anything he could to hold up production and cause problems.

“Eventually top brass at Netflix was tired of him costing them money with delays and HR investigations and the showrunner was asked to construct a potential exit for him. Netflix reached out to him personally and he was given one final warning, and violated that warning with an email he sent to the entire writing staff right after that meeting. That was it. It’s very disappointing.”

End transcript.]

Now believe me or not, but I know from a really good source that the leak was indeed real.

There's a lot of patterned behavior that tracks with what we know of him and his past controversies.

After that leak came out, there was a lot of people from different places coming to comment that ‘yes’ they’ve heard a very similar story adding a little bit more details of their own.

this quickly deleted tweet from one of the writers/producers:

there were rumors about him being an asshole to Anya specifically.

He went on record that he doesn't "understand" sex scenes. Which I know the sex discourse is rampant nowadays and each to their own, but he specifically signed up for a role that requires those scenes and then refused to do them and was allegedly nasty to Anya about it and with the way he talks about women...

Also it’s important to touch upon the “writer he had a weird alliance with” that man in question is Beau DeMayo of the recent fame of getting fired by Marvel from X-Men ‘97. He was previously allegedly fired from The Witcher for being emotionally and physically abusive. And he allegedly got fired from X-Men for being abusive as well. One of The Witcher writers tweeted this after Beau smeared them for “disliking the books” Beau was literally the first person to start that narrative.

The fact that it was HIS idea not to say lines of his dialogue in S1 and instead grunt. To the point that Joey had to take Henry’s lines and make it his own, so the plot would make sense, he talks about it in this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Oyh0t117t0U&, and then once S2 press arrived Henry was talking about how he was trying to fight the big bad writers to give him more lines. Ridiculous.

Everyone is already pointing out that the cast looks so much happier without him, and it’s very true. Henry was never present on close to any BTS pics from filming the previous seasons, or on any cast dinners or birthdays. He wouldn't even do any shared interviews with the other three mains but only had solo interviews which to me was giving disrespectful like you're an ensemble you’re not the only lead here. It felt like he was above them to sit down and answer questions with them. When they were doing press junkets in Brazil and Poland Anya, Joey and Freya would always arrive together and leave together with that man leaving all the events early and by himself. And like people who post quotes from the cast about him being perfect from press junkets as “proof” are insane to me like Obviously they’re going to say nice things about him, not only they're newcomers, and he's an established industry name, but they’re doing PRESS for a show that he’s a STAR of (well, was lmao)

The fact that he never defended Anya from the racist trolls, even though most of them were HIS fans. Like she had to go through so much and that man couldn’t make a single comment about it as a leading man BUT he could make a whole IG post because people were being mean to his gf and calling her out for doing blackface.

And sure people might say that a lot of these are unverified sources, and I’d get it if it was a singular case, but there are a ton of these accounts that all match each other. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

#anti henry cavill #the witcher #mega thread

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sublimecatgalaxy · 1 year

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Read It and Weep- Part 1

Pairing: NFL!Player!Rafe Cameron x Journalist!Reader

Summary: Sports journalist Y/n is covering a pro-NFL football game when she gets knocked down by wide reciever Rafe Cameron. He helps her up and immediately can't seem to take his eyes off of her as they celebrate their win. After, at the post game conference, him and the reader share an interesting conversation and he learns (earns) her name.

Word Count: 3.5k

Warnings: Violence, swearing, I think that's it honestly.

Song: "My Ordinary Life" by The Living Tombstones

A/n: This might be the most excited I've ever seen @tee-swizzle get over a fic I've written. This is some serious hot and cute and angsty shit, buckle up, it's quite a ride. This is part 1 of 10!

I always thought the only time I would enjoy men running around in costumes would be on Broadway.

The sophisticated, planned, calculated moves, the falsetto notes they hit while running around in expensive costumes that took hours and hours to create. Men on Broadway are just a whole other breed- don’t get me wrong, all actors and actresses alike are all impressive beyond belief, it’s a hard field to be a part of. But there’s something so groundbreaking and heartwarming to see men of all backgrounds doing what they love to do.

There’s just an art to it- Broadway- a beauty that a lot of people brush off and denounce as girly or even something that’s remarkably easy. They call theater kids loony (which coming from one, I’d have to agree just a bit), they’re constantly bullied and harassed but not when they make it to the big times. No- then they are set up on this pedestal where they are to be paid hundreds or thousands of dollars to get on stage, to dance and sing their favorite show tunes together where all of a sudden they’re people to look up to, forgetting all about their high school days and all the failed auditions that teared them down. But once they’re on that stage together, creating music and art, they’re a family in a sense. Leaving it all on the stage for the viewer, us, to enjoy.

A brotherhood.

My new stage looks a little bit differently than it did when I was sixteen.

My new stage consists of something similar- men, running around in matching outfits, same bright lights shining on them, sweat pouring down their necks, and they’re still a brotherhood- maybe even more so in a sense. But with this stage, there’s profanities, there's violence and, most of all, there are too many balls in one place at one time.

Pun so intended.

The world of sports is not one that I saw myself getting into at the ripe age of twenty four, let alone football. I’ve always had a bit of a thing against football players but that happens when you grow up in the theater world where you’re constantly pushed around by the ‘higher class’ of the horrible high school hierarchy, being called names, shoved down stairs, having your lunch tossed into your lap. But the job that I was offered through a local journal in my hometown was just perfect for me- I couldn’t not take it. There would be no other job that could've come around that would’ve given me the same freetime and the ability to still have control over my schedule, all while supporting my home team. It gave me a chance to travel, to learn, and to be surrounded by attractive, sweaty men doing their thing.

There’s a bit of a silver lining to it, I guess.

Working as a journalist for a professional football team was not the intended goal when I got my Bachelors degree in Journalism, nor was it the plan for my Masters. I wanted to go into freelancing or maybe dabble a bit in the socioeconomic crisis our country’s suffering from- maybe even write a few articles on how to save the turtles or some shit.

But football?

I spend most of my days on the sidelines, sketching down stats, learning plays and keeping up in the personal lives of our devoted players. I’m like one of those cheerleading girls I used to hate, practically a groupie of the team at this point. Even the coach and the other behind-the-scenes workers are on a first name basis with me at this point.

Sixteen year old me would be disgusted- repulsed.

Current me? Not so disgusted as I’m watching a bunch of tall, bachelor-like men run around the field at top speed, tackling each other as the crowd colored in all different jerseys scream or boo in unison. I can’t fight the proud smile that’s on my lips as I look out at the field, just right there in front of me- I could reach out and just be a part of it. There’s something to home games that just gets your blood pumping in a special way, especially so close to playoffs, so close to glory and a big old fancy ring for our quarterback and team. It’s every team’s goal for the year but every news agency’s eyes are on us, watching us and the players so closely, betting and guessing that we’ll be the one to win everything this year. No pressure, right?

It’s an honor to be traveling with them all, I couldn’t have been paired with a more respectful group of men, even though some of them don’t even know my name or that I exist. They might see my name occasionally at the bottom of an article I’ve written about their triumphs or losses or they know me as the girl that they accidentally mistake for the water girl and who they then apologize profusely to following the mix up.

Sarah the water girl and I look awfully a lot we’ve learned.

There’s not a lot of time left in the game now, less than two minutes in the last quarter and it’s tight, too close for comfort as the men in the front row of the stands scream their asses off, acting like their words will have any weight in the overall game. With how we’re playing right now, the defensive line tuckered out beyond belief, we’re not looking at winning, especially if they hold possession of the ball like they have been. The other team is smart, I’ll give them that, gnawing down at the clock, running down the time so if we did get the ball, we’d barely have the time to do anything remotely impressive. We’re down by 6 and if we’d just get a touchdown we’d be good and we would win, but we just need to get possession of the ball.

I write down the numbers of the players who’ve stuck out to me the most on this team to calm my nerves; number three Cameron offense, number seventeen McHarley defense, number 4 the quarterback- wait.

Why is everyone cheering?

What just happened?

Looking up from my notepad, I watch as our defense runs the ball in the opposite direction that we were going in before, instead towards the opposing team's endzone, indicating that, indeed, there was a turnover of some sort while I wasn’t paying attention. If that’s all it takes, my job just became a whole lot easier.

The play resets, our offensive line and our quarterback stumble onto the field with a bit more pep in their steps compared to their previous run. They’re cheering and high fiving the defense as they pass each other in the middle of the field, bright smiles calming everyone's general anxiety and setting the record straight that we’re still in the game. There’s still a chance.

They set themselves up within seconds and in moments they’re hiking the ball. I watch number three, one of my favorite wide receivers to watch, simply because of his overall spunk and sass for the game, subtly loving when he gets into little fights with people because I can always manage to hear his silly, boyish insults. He tries so hard to act tough, when he's really just the biggest puppy of all time.

I’m so caught up in thinking about him, I completely miss him barreling my way just as the quarterback throws the ball in his direction. Cameron is wide open, no one even close to tackling him and I can hear him whooping as he runs towards the end zone. I grin wildly as he catches the ball, solidifying our win, and before the refs even signal for a TD, the whole crowd erupts in giggles and cheers. I go to clap and cheer for him but before I can, an opposing player is giving him one last shove for good measure and he is tumbling onto the ground, the ref beside me immediately throwing a flag into the air, just as Rafe slides in my direction full force.

Before I can move, he takes me down to the ground. Hard.

I hit the floor with a loud thud, ears ringing as my head slams against the turf and I can hear muffled voices and hands grabbing at me, brain rattling around in my head as I shove my eyes closed as tightly as they can, hands reaching up to cradle my aching skull. I can feel people trying to pry me up onto my feet, to help me up but I’ve barely even processed that I’ve fallen or that my favorite wide receiver is currently laying on both of my legs, trapping me to the ground.

My eyes pop open moments later at the realization and I see cameras around me, mostly pointed at Cameron who’s kneeling in front of me, soft, blue, worried eyes gazing back at me as I struggle to find my voice. He looks at me, waiting for me to speak and, when I don’t, he simply reaches out, placing a firm, protective hand on the side of my head, steading my spinning eyes. I feel my body warming up at his touch, the loud, thrumming music playing in the stadium as an attempt to celebrate is drowned out by his voice filling my ears, his whole body leaning towards me so he can speak directly against the shell of my ear.

“You good?” He yells over the cheering, thumb brushing against my temple, and I realize he’s not even celebrating the fact that he just won the game that’s sending us to playoff games, mapping the road to the Superbowl. I give him a half assed nod and a flushed smile and before I can say anything else, his teammates are pulling him up and into their arms, screaming loudly as boys can, all for the cameras as they pat each other on the helmets, knocking them together every once in a while.

“Yeah, I’m good.” I mutter to myself, pressing my pointer finger and thumb to the bridge of my nose to aid the headaches that’s creeping up the back of my neck, taking deep breaths and praying I don’t have a concussion. From across the field, through the mess of players and confetti, I can see number three looking over at me with kind, worried eyes that seem to want to say more than what he’s already said to me.

His eyes make me nearly forget that it’s my job to interview them.

I guess I’ll ride my headache out and wait till the post game conference.

–

From the time I got knocked down to the time when I stepped foot into the conference room, there were at least twenty-six different people who asked me if I was the one who was ‘tackled’ by Rafe Cameron after he caught the winning touchdown. After the third time, I started to feel a bit sheepish and honestly a bit embarrassed, wondering how long they’re going to string this out and ask me what it was like to be tackled by America’s most loved wide receiver.

It was rough, I hit my head, it hurt- what else do they want from me? Do they want me to say I’m honored that he was so close to me, fangirl over his presence, that he made eye contact with me? Hell, he’s human and so am I. His reaction was purely a moment of humility and humanity shining through.

But I totally did get butterflies.

But, to be honest, he is probably the most wholesome, mama’s boy you’ll ever see.

Dirty blonde, shaggy hair, blue shining eyes, overall toned to a T and he’s all meathead minus all of the misogyny and toxic masculinity. He’s always respectful in interviews, polite to women- it’s obvious he was raised well and anyone with a brain can tell that he’s wildly intelligent from his masters degree in Sports Communication. It’s impressive, his story.

“So, you won the came, Cameron- how does it feel?” An interviewer calls out from the audience beside me, the happy smile on his face only feeding into the fact that he’s definitely a fan, and Rafe smiles handsomely, looking out across the audience with a simple, humble shrug.

“Felt good taking the team to the playoffs. I couldn’t have done it without my quarterback, number 4, Greg Abernathy.” He reaches over to slap Greg on the back and I grin, scribbling down some words on my notepad, a small smile on my face as I listen to the boys commend each other in a bro-mance type love. They’re always very supportive of one another, having a type of relationship where you really don’t see one without hte other. They’re constantly training together, getting dinner together, having literal sleepovers at each other’s apartments (or so I’ve heard). They’re brothers, there’s no better description for the boys. “But I really have to give it up to the nice lady that I tackled, I feel horrible. I’d like to dedicate our win to her today since she obviously was a part of my excitement. You can put that in writing.”

I’m sorry?

Dedicated?

What?

All eyes turn to look at me and I feel my face drain of any color, every hair on my body sticking up as I suddenly feel so small in this room full of my very own coworkers and competitors. I can hear Rafe mutter a quiet ‘shit, she’s here?’ away from the mic and to Greg, who just chuckles and points in my direction, the direction that everyone happens to be looking in. I can see the looks in other journalists' and reporters' eyes, they want to talk to me, they want to shove microphones in my face but based on the ‘deer in headlights’ look I’m giving everyone, I think I’ll be safe from their interrogations. Rafe looks at me and his smile only grows, fingers reaching out to wrap around the mic to pull it closer to his lips as I anticipate what’s to come.

“Hi nice lady that I knocked over, are you okay?” His voice is ten times deeper than it was just moments ago and I can feel my brain melting just at the feeling of him looking back at me, matching my gaze as if he’s just as excited to be speaking to me one on one.

Me.

“I’m okay, just a bit banged up.” I call out, shakily shoving my pen and paper into my bag beside me to give him my undivided attention which, it’s not like he has to fight for it, I’m practically drooling simply because he’s gazing at me, giving me his complete and utter attention as hands raise around the room. The way he’s staring at me, eagerly hanging onto every word I say and I can see it, it’s not like he’s even trying to not seem completely enthralled with my every breath.

“Man, you traumatized the poor girl.” Greg mutters into the mic and the room erupts in laughter and I bite back the laugh that wants to escape me but I don’t dare allow the giggles to leave me when Rafe is just staring me down with a soft look and a gentle smile, something completely opposite of his rowdy behavior and profanities on the field. But after a second, a look of realization passes across his expression and he turns to look at Greg with a worried expression before glancing back at me.

“I did not- you’re not traumatized, right?” He asks me and I laugh, waving him off as I reach up to knock at my own head. What a stupid move, Y/l/n, get it together.

“No, god no. It happens.” I chuckle, brushing off his concerns of injury and he visibly relaxes, head bobbing in a gentle nod as he laughs sheepishly, almost embarrassed that he seemed to care so much in front of a room of random people. “It could’ve been worse. Could’ve been the other team, they wouldn’t have helped me up.”

“So you’re saying his charisma and manners is what saved him from being brutalized all over the internet?” Greg interrupts before Rafe can say anything with a wide eyed, shocked, teasing look.

“For sure.” I grin proudly, already thinking about how excited I’ll be to call my dad after this conference and tell him all about how I got to talk to and compliment one of his favorite players in the NFL. He’s going to shit his pants. He’s been gushing about his stats for the two years that Rafe’s been on the team, every Sunday, blabbering about his stats, his goals, his story- hell I probably know more about him than anyone else in this room right now.

“Well, I appreciate that. My step mom will be happy to hear she did something right.” Rafe blushes warmly, the redness creeping down his neck and under the polo that he wears as another rumble of laughter rolls over the room like a wave and I keep it in the back of my mind to make it known in my article that he’s definitely some sort of mama’s boy through and through. No wonder he’s so respectful.

“Happy to help.” I smile warmly, the room falling awkwardly silent again before the reporters buzz with questions like angry bees, eager to move on from Rafe and I ogling each other oddly from across the room. I can’t fight the butterflies fluttering in my stomach at the conversation we just had; there was no hint of annoyance, only eager questions and concern that I genuinely do appreciate. He didn’t need to follow up with me, he didn’t need to call me out in regards to their win, all that without even knowing I was here.

But he did.

That matters for something, right?

Right?

“Hey, before we move on, I just wanna get your name- what’s your name? Are you one of our journalists?” Rafe asks, quickly grabbing hold of the mic firmly in his fist before Greg can pull it away from him and I nod firmly and proudly.

“My name’s Y/n Y/l/n and, yeah, I’ve worked for you guys for nearly eight months.” I swallow my nerves, now suddenly aware that he knows who I am and can talk to me and look for me in any crowd and just know who I am. Rafe Cameron knows who I am.

It takes a second but I’m slowly realizing that he’s truly just a person and not anything to be afraid of.

Right?

“Oh my god she’s the one who wrote that article about your tweets on twitter like two weeks ago.” Greg gasps and the room turns to me once again, confusion and shock written across all of their faces and, I’ve got to give it to him, I’m shocked that they even read articles about them. I assumed they just filter it out and try not to pay attention to the news headlines with their names in it but, now that I know that they read them, I’ll be more careful when throwing the word ‘handsome’ around in my pieces.

“Guilty as charged.” I breathe a sigh, reaching up to rub at the back of my neck awkwardly and a sort of tension falls over the room as everyone waits for a more in depth answer from me, their eyes (especially Rafe’s) practically begging for why I wrote the article. “I think it’s nice for young viewers, especially young boys, to see someone who’s a better influence than most of the sports players that are in the media.” A nod of agreement falls across the room and Rafe smiles wholesomely, looking at Greg with a happily proud expression written across his face, like he’s made it.

“So I’m a role model, that’s what you are saying?” He asks but there’s no cockiness or arrogance to his voice- no- just pure and utter pride and vulnerability at the thought of doing right by the football world and, in my opinion, he definitely has.

All of the gala’s he’s attended, the hospitals he’s visited to talk to and to comfort young children, the way his smile lights up the locker room- even if they lose- the beaming smile he shows if they do win, and all of the money he’s donated to so many important organizations- my point, and the point of my article was, is that he’s what the NFL should be fronting, not the garbage-like, questionable, geriatric old men who need to retire.

“Exactly what I’m saying.” I smile firmly, not tearing my gaze away from his as he nods, leaning back in his chair and he finally appears content with our conversation because he finally allows Greg to take the mic back, but his eyes do not leave me as the room fills with questions once more.

“Hey, that was sweet and all, but can we talk about football now?”

#rafe #rafe x reader #rafe cameron #rafe cameron x reader #outerbanks #outerbanks fic #rafe cameron smut #rafe smut #rafe fic #rafe cameron fic #outerbanks series

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lambsouvlaki · 9 months

Text

For the Hell of It - Date Night

Characters: Jason Todd x fem!oc

Rating and warnings: G, no warnings.

Word count: 1,237

Summary: Dating a vigilante is hard, but worth it. Early on their relationship, she has to face that.

Masterlist

--------

On an early autumn night they strolled across Robinson park. Actors in Elizabethan costume were prancing around the low concrete stage, doing some warm-up crowd work. Jason’s arm was slung over her shoulder, and her dog Marlow trotted happily alongside them.

They weren’t great at the actual Dating aspect of dating just yet. It was still early days, and they had sidled into being together by following the same trajectory as their friendship, now with sex. They supported and trusted each other, they were both loyal and committed. They had already had two years to figure all that out.

Romantic nights out had been planned, postponed, and cancelled. Andy had eaten alone at a restaurant booked for two, not to know until later that Jason was fighting Killer Croc in a cage match. The week after he was blowing up an exotic animal trafficking ring before the major players could flee to south america.

He was apologetic and self recriminating. She could already see the barbed little seeds of ‘can this even work?’ trying to take root in his mind.

But she wasn’t a quitter.

It wasn’t the first time he’d been forced to stand her up. It wasn’t even in the first five, and she’d long since made her peace with it. It just felt more calamitous because now it was called a date.

It wasn’t a big deal, she decided. If other people could make it work, the partners of firefighters, nurses, other on-call professionals, then Wonder Woman help her, she could too.

Despite telling herself it wasn’t a big deal and she wasn’t worried, when Friday night swung around: bright, warm, and dry she let out an audible sigh of relief.��

The light was swiftly dying but the park was surprisingly busy. It was the last Shakespeare in the Park of the year, and there were food trucks and little battery-powered candles for sale. Families and couples of all ages milled about looking for good spots. A polite group of children came over and asked if they could pet their dog, to said dog’s eternal happiness.

“I propose a strategy,” Andy said.

“Hit me.”

“We split up to look for clues, and by clues I mean the best food trucks. That yellow one has empanadas, and we passed a flag before that said something about paella.”

He nodded seriously. “You take Marlow, I’ll take the backpack, and we’ll meet back here in ten.”

They broke off like fighter jets zooming away, and roughly ten minutes later they returned with arms full of delicious smelling cardboard boxes. They set up their picnic blanket on the slope some distance from the stage where they had a good view of the whole area. They’d arrived at the perfect time, because the park was filling up.

They sat on the ground and laid out the spoils of their hunt, just as the show was starting.

The empanadas were sold out, but they had choripan instead, which Andy picked up for Jason. The paella was with shrimp and mussels, and was absolutely delicious, if a little small. Jason had found Korean fried chicken, and little skewered things called tteokkochi that neither were familiar with but were excited to try.

It was a confused and messy dinner that they dove into with relish, and some negotiations over final bites.

Getting the choripan was a strategic move on her part, because Jason was a sucker for anything in the neighbourhood of a hotdog. The fried chicken was the perfect counter, he knew her weaknesses. The tteokkochi turned out to be deep fried rice cakes slathered in sweet and tangy hot sauce, that had them both licking sticky fingers and promising to try them again some time.

Up on stage a short performance of the play within a play from Midsummer Night’s Dream was finishing up.

Next up, and the main show for the night, was an abridged version of Much ado Nothing. Jason scrunched up their food packages and lobbed it into the nearby trash can, and Andy got out the thermos of non-alcoholic mulled wine from the backpack for them to share.

They relaxed together on the slope, leaning back on their hands, with Marlow sitting up next to them on look out.

Jason glanced away for a moment.

“Hey, can I borrow your scarf?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure.” She handed it over without questioning the strange request.

He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek then wrapped it around his neck so he could pull it up and hide his face.

“I’ll be right back.”

He snuck away through the crowd.

The play continued, the actors hamming it up appropriately. The night had set in properly now, and large lights beamed down onto the stage leaving the rest of them in darkness. The audience around her laughed at the jokes and gags.

She leaned against her dog.

The night was getting cooler.

Why did it hurt more now than it had when they were just friends?

She’d had no expectation of him then, she supposed. She hadn’t wanted him to be hers.

No. That wasn’t true, she had wanted him badly for some time, but squished it all deep down inside of her. Now it was out, with promises made and claims staked, it was hard to keep that once contained desire on a leash.

He would give his life for her if the situation demanded it. She knew that, with the same confidence she knew tomorrow would follow today.

But he would give his life for just about anyone if the situation demanded it. He was never going to change. She wouldn’t want him to.

She looked at the silhouettes of people in the dark around her, an elderly couple on camping chairs to her side, and ahead of her a family with two children who were fast asleep on a blanket. Not very long ago this park was so dangerous people rarely came here during the day.

She looked at her things around her, and thought about what she would need to do if he didn’t come back tonight. She would take a taxi home and bring his stuff with her, hold onto it for him until he could come to her place to pick it up. It could be in two weeks, it could be tomorrow.

This was going to be her life, forever.

She pulled in deep breath and leaned her forehead on Marlow’s neck.

“Okay,” she said to herself. “Okay.”

About twenty minutes after Jason left, Marlow looked up and to the side. She followed his sight line and she saw Jason returning through the crowd. He dropped something into the trash can with such a casual air it took a few moments for her to recognise it as a disassembled pistol. Nobody else noticed him at all.

He stretched out on the blanket behind her and gently pulled her back against him, his hands around her waist. He returned her scarf, wrapping it loosely around her neck. The knuckles of his right hand were grazed. He drew no attention to it, acting for all the world as though nothing had happened and nothing was ever going to happen. He definitely hadn’t just disarmed whatever dangerous hooligan had been planning to do something terrible.

She loved this man so much it hurt.

“What’d I miss?” he said in her ear.

“Not much.” She leaned back against him. “But I’m starting to think this Benedick guy doesn’t actually dislike Beatrice after all.”

He snorted a laugh. They settled in for the long haul.

Next>>

#jason todd #red hood #dc #jason todd x oc #red hood x oc #jason todd x fem!reader #jason todd x reader #for the hell of it #my fanfic #fluff #angst #yearning #dating a vigilante is hard and lonely #but no less rewarding

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supercantaloupe · 11 months

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Magic Flute Thoughts

i liked nathalie stutzmann's conducting a lot more in this than i did for don giovanni. granted i am much less familiar with zauberflote than i am with don g so i'm not like hyper picky about tempi or whatever yet but anyway i liked her

flute soloist! glockenspiel soloist! FLUTE SOLOIST!!!

i just like lawrence brownlee man idk what to tell you. i think he's neat. i think he's singing something here in the winter and i'll definitely try to get tickets to that if so

i really liked erin morley as pamina! actually i thought all the main cast did a good job no one stuck out to me as being particularly Amazing or Bad. kathryn lewek got a HUGE applause (and standing o) tho and i mean kudos it was her fiftieth performance like damn.

interesting choice to play the queen as physically frail as she did; i think it works and the performance is very good, although the heavy age makeup sticks out a bit on hd cameras lol

the queen's three bitches. i'm free on friday (twirling hair)

also i hope those three kids who played the old men get to borrow their outfits again come october because they have the funniest possible halloween costume opportunity in the world now

VERY funny to me that papageno's costume makes him look like he's drenched in bird shit

okay speaking of costumes. do i 100% Get It with the like suits and colors and everything....not really but i don't think i can say that i Get a lot about this opera tbh. what i did get was the very obvious dark/light symbolism going on with pamina and tamino wearing white and the queen and her cronies wearing all black. and i think zauberflote does benefit from some heavy handed symbolism bc what else is this show about actually without that....then again the fact that sarastro and his priests or whatever are all in dark colors too kind of undermines that a little so 🤷‍♀️

same thing with the whole reason vs superstition thing too like...sure you can claim Truth And Reason as good all you want sarastro but the constant invocation of isis/osiris and Mysterious Rituals kind of undermine what you're going for there lol. i think my point is that i don't feel like i really Get what zauberflote is like...going for, thematically. i mean i get the Themes but not a clear Point. maybe if i was an enlightenment era freemason i'd get it lol but alas i am not

that said......i didn't go into this one expecting a rock solid plot and honestly who does....it's zauberflote....it is very obviously not designed to work or be interpreted on a literal level and i appreciate that it never tries to ground itself in reality. that its plot and characters exist in a completely fantastic realm works and it works with the weird plot and its vague theming.

which itself is of course accomplished through good design and holy SHIT. this is truly the shining strength of this production. the design is INCREDIBLE.

the orchestra isn't totally onstage but they are raised up in the pit to the point where they are fully visible the whole show. i love an onstage orchestra so this made me very happy. and it allowed for actor/orchestra interaction which i also love!! like tamino coming down into the pit to hand the eponymous magic flute to the flute soloist and bring him onstage with him (i was wondering during the overture why the flutes and oboes were swapped places seating wise -- it's so the flutist can easily get onstage! delight!!), or when papageno brings his glockenspiel to the percussion soloist to play (the player being 'missing' at his last solo, making papageno play by himself, and he enters late with a cup of coffee...lmaoo). also stutzmann giving a big ol grin and thumbs up to papageno during his duet with papagena at the end. so sweet

also blocking around the orchestra seating of the audience and up the aisles! so much fun we love immersive theater

the set itself had this big flat platform in the center hoisted at each corner by a cord so it could raise/lower/tilt in any direction. made for some very neat staging with levels and slants and i enjoyed that, especially since the production forgoes any kind of traditional set pieces

papageno's birds were done in such a beautiful way omg...they have an ensemble in black wandering around stage and following him about when he's doing stuff and they each have a 'bird' made of a folded in half piece of paper that they flutter about stylistically (some of the orchestra members have some too that they flutter during his entrance aria). description does not do it justice, this was a beautiful way to stage it...so simple and evocative.

the designer was saying in the interview between acts that this production was meant to combine the high and low tech aspects of theater to connect present performance practice with the opera as it was originally done (hence the visible orchestra) and i looove that philosophy. and it worked here really well i think

THE FOLEY AND PROJECTION ARTISTS. STARS OF THE SHOW. i am not joking

they get to be onstage (albeit off to the sides) the whole show too and i love it. i love that the cameras on the broadcast kept cutting to them periodically to show off their work.

the use of live projection art was really well done -- he managed to make Writing On A Chalkboard captivating!!

and the foley. the FOLEY!!! i've done sound design and a bit of live foley before so i have a soft spot but wooow she did an amazing job and it was SO much fun to see all the props she played with to make the scenes come alive sonically. plus her little interactions with papageno were very funny. give her a tony award

i do think there were a couple of small moments here and there that didn't entirely work for me or a scene or two that dragged out longer than necessary but overall it was a joy to watch. the beautiful and whimsical design of the whole thing totally makes it worthwhile even if the plot itself is a bit lacking.

easily THE coolest production design i've seen the met do yet, and the best lighting and projections from them for sure. when it comes on demand i am forcing anyone i can to watch it with me bc that SET! the LIGHTING! the SOUND! the STAGING! it ticks all my boxes it hits all my buttons it was MADE for ME SPECIFICALLY

#sasha speaks #sasha reviews #the magic flute #die zauberflöte #die zauberflote #if someone actually understands what the magic flute is supposed to be about feel free to enlighten me lol #i don't know exactly what i was SUPPOSED to get from that but the production was so fucking good i don't even care tbh #tldr: watch this if you're interested in theatrical design. go go do it now do it

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echidnana · 10 months

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constellations! (a prsk unit shuffle)

been thinking about this for a bit so decided to make a post for it! this is our master post for our sekai shuffle units. each group includes background for each character :)

this was initially just a reason to play dress up in the costume menu but now it's a full fleshed out au. oopsie

edit 1/31/24: there are a few small changes we've made that are outdated in this post! we switched after dark's name to Crescendo at Dawn, and switched kohane and minori's band roles (kohane is now the drummer and minori the synth player).

(ID in alt)

1) All/egro (school sekai)

shiho, kohane, minori, and an + meiko

- shiho is still trying to become a professional band member- she spends most of her time in live houses and practicing on her bass. however, she doesn't feel very satisfied with where she's at. shiho wants to be in a band as part of a group, and not just as filling in like she is now.

- an hangs out around live houses pretty often, both for singing and listening to different groups. she starts playing guitar as a way to expand her musical abilities after seeing a particularly impactful band performance. while hanging around the live house shiho works at, they become acquainted. they get along really well because of how serious they both are about their music and dreams. while shiho wants to become a pro musician, an wants to be part of an event that surpasses radweeknd. however, after spending more time with shiho, an starts to think about going pro. after knowing each other for a bit, an suggests they team up and form a band as it would be good experience for both of them. shiho is hesitant at first because she feels like an is more dedicated to vivid street and the community there than going pro, but eventually agrees.

- Minori, as an idol fan, wants to do the same thing her heros do- spread hope through music! she's trying to decide how to do that when she meets kohane and Shiho. she hears shiho playing the bass and loves it! after some convincing, shiho takes her and Kohane to a live house to see some bands perform, and Minori falls in love with the atmosphere and power of the drums. she decides to start learning how to play and throws herself into practice. after a bit, she asks shiho if she'll help her and Kohane learn to play as a group better, and before long, the four of them are all playing together.

- kohane played the piano a little bit as a kid, so after seeing a band play at the live house with shiho and Minori, she decides to try it again! she gets a synth and starts playing with Minori for fun before they both realize they really love it and are serious about playing. they get shiho to help them practice and an tags along (since they're sort of partners). kohane is instantly stricken by an's singing and her resolve to play is solidified!

- the four of them, although at first not officially a group, start playing together so often that it just makes sense for them to go pro together. minori and Kohane initially picked up playing their instruments to try it but both ended up totally deicated to playing, Minori in order to spread hope and Kohane in order to achieve her dream with her friends. an is super stoked to be a part of a full band, and while shiho is hard on them to make sure they have a fast pace, she's elated to have a group of people who genuinely share her dream.

2) BlastOFF! (stage sekai)

tsukasa, ena, shizuku, and nene + kaito and rin

- tsukasa, instead of aspiring to be an actor, wants to become an idol! I think it's very in character for him. he wants to be a star and spread hope and joy through performing on stage :)

- shizuku, after quitting being an idol, runs into tsukasa for the first time in years. his enthusiasm and motivation to become an idol reignites her passion for it and she offers to help him become a professional idol through both her dance/singing abilities and connections in the idol world

- Nene, having quit singing, misses it a lot. one day she sings in an empty classroom, assuming everyone has already left. tsukasa overhears, declares she has the most beautiful singing voice he's ever heard, and begs her to give him lessons. after much convincing, she agrees because she's a bit endeared by him (and, though she wouldn't say it to his face, thinks he'll become a great idol that inspires a lot of people) and misses singing a lot.

- ena, instead of being an aspiring artist, is a dancer. she works really hard but doesn't have a lot of natural talent for it, similar to shizuku, so she has to put a lot of effort in. she took lessons up until middle school before being told by her dad that being a professional dancer is unrealistic and that she wouldn't be any good at it. after this she mostly dances in private, recording dance covers and such to post online. she and Tsukasa were classmates in middle school and practiced dancing together, but after that, ena did online school and they lost contact. tsukasa, now taking steps to become a professional idol, comes across Ena's channel online and reaches out to her, asking her to give him dance lessons!

- the group, initially with the goal of the girls helping tsukasa become an idol on his own, (re)discover how much they love the idol world and end up deciding to become an idol group together! it works out well since shizuku is already well known and Ena has a decently large following online, combined with tsukasa's larger-than-life personality and Nene's quieter demeanor. they balance each other out in a way that works really well for an idol group

3) AQUILA SQUAD (street sekai)

ichika, akito, haruka, and mizuki + len

- Akito has the same storyline- he sees radweeknd and becomes determined to surpass it! instead of meeting Toya, however, he becomes a duo with Ichika. he really respects ichi's dedication and maturity in regards to music and has a lot of respect for them

- Ichika still loves music and decides to begin doing street performances as a way to both build confidence and be closer to the music world. ichi and Akito are sort of aware of each other as they're both the same age and do performances on vivid street, but they don't team up until Akito watches ichi performing one day and asks if they'd be interested in becoming a duo. Ichika, who has a lot of respect for Akito as a performer, accepts.

- mizuki becomes involved in the music scene on vivid street as a way to be themself- vivid street has a ton of queer musicians and community, so they turn there to feel more accepted. the sense of community is incredibly important to them so they start spending most of their time there (also hanging out with an at weekend garage!). they become friends/acquaintances with Akito first and knows Ichika through him

- haruka, after quitting being an idol, visits vivid street to see an and becomes enamored with street music and performances. she feels like the performers are all incredibly authentic and reaches the audience on a personal level, similar to how she felt with being an idol. she starts spending more and more time in vivid street, eventually beginning to sing again at weekend garage with an's encouragement. that's how she meets everyone else, agreeing to join their group in order to reach more people and continue performing with others.

- they're all very dedicated to their music. akito's dedication mostly comes from his experience with radweeknd, ichika's from Miku music and the way one can communicate through music, haruka wants to use music to be her authentic self and spread hope, and mizuki wants to be accepted as themself and into a community. they're all able to find this in vivid street and begin to enter events as a way to build experience in the hopes of putting on an event that surpasses radweeknd.

4) Smile x Parade (wonderland sekai)

airi, emu, kanade, and saki + luka

- airi quits being an idol due to feeling she isn't really making a difference for people. a little later still bummed out, she goes to phoenix Wonderland and sees some of the shows. they cheer her up immensely and she realizes it's the first time she's been able to genuinely smile and laugh in a long time. it's like a switch is flipped and she realizes how plays/musicals can reach people and the impact they have. she decides she wants to give theatre a try! that's when she meets emu, who's trying to put a troupe together in order to save the wonder stage. airi agrees, of course, and becomes the troupe leader as the senior performer of the group

- emu's still trying to save the wonder stage. just when she's worried she won't be able to find anyone to help, she meets airi!

- saki has just been released from the hospital and is excited to live life as a teenager! she goes to phoenix Wonderland since she hasn't been able to go in so long and gets super excited about the shows, as they had such a huge impact on her as a young child. she decides she wants to get a part time job at pxl as she sees the amusement park as a place of youth and joy! while applying, emu meets her, and adores her bubbly and can-do attitude. she asks her to perform with her on the wonder stage, which saki happily agrees to! since saki does still have health issues, when she isn't able to do the more physical performances she contributes by writing the scripts! it's her way of staying involved in the plays without having to keep up with the rigorous demands of rehearsals.

- kanade is still working to compose music that will save someone. after visiting pxl and seeing a musical, she's inspired to try composing different types of songs, beginning to write musical numbers. kanade keeps going back to pxl to be more immersed in musicals. emu recognizes her and how intently she pays attention to the shows, so she asks if she'd like to be involved with performances at the wonder stage! kanade decides that by composing music for live shows she can reach an audience even more directly and agrees to emu's offer.

- the group puts on shows on the wonder stage, successfully preventing its destruction and bringing more attention to the park! even though they all have their own strengths (airi and emu are the main performers while saki and Kanade are more ensemble + crew) they're able to come together as a cohesive unit and perform.

5) After Dark (empty sekai)

mafuyu, toya, rui, and honami + miku

- Mafuyu turns to music in order to cope with the pain he's experiencing and comes across rui's songs. similar to what happened with kanade, Mafuyu tries to use rui's music as a catalyst to better understand himself. they end up connecting and talking online while Mafuyu begins composing his own music separately.

- in middle school, Rui turns to composing music as a way to vent his loneliness and frusturation. he posts his songs online and withdraws from the world around him, focusing on making more music and inventions as a way to cope. after meeting Mafuyu, he realizes that his music actually has an impact on people, and wants to use it as a way to connect with others like him in a way he wants able to in real life.

- Toya, instead of going to vivid street, withdraws completely to his room and starts drawing. he uses art as a way to cope and rebel against the expectations set for him. his art is really expressive and cathes rui's attention after he makes a piece based on one of rui's songs. they connect online after that.

- as honami was more and more isolated and felt like she had to pretend in order to be accepted at school, she comes across rui's music. it leaves an impression on her, and she decides to attempt making a video for it. it doesn't go super well but she feels like it's how she can contribute since she can't draw, and she's pretty good with computers/editing software. although it's not very polished, the video honami makes very clearly expresses the message of the song, and it catches rui's attention. they talk more after that and Honami meets everyone else.

- after the four of them connect online through music, they begin making music videos together. all of them contribute to the music composition and idea stages while Rui polishes the instrumentals, Mafuyu writes the lyrics, Toya makes the art, and Honami compiles the video. they work like this for a bit before discovering Sekai and mafuyu's mask falls, and they all in turn become determined to help each other. they all have a lot of internal pain and use their creative processes to cope with that.

+ 6) the Vocaloids!

bonus v singer looks!

#this got so long oml #our posts #unit shuffle!#sekai shuffle #sekai shuffle au #project sekai au #prsk au #constellations! (a prsk unit shuffle)

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hisui-cotton · 3 months

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It’s interesting to see how long fashion can last beyond it’s presentation. It’s not uncommon to see styles or trends come back around but another aspect of it within media is how integral it can be to the show’s image. When you think of a character, you think of how they dress too. Good costume design can bring a full image together or reflect a new side of someone. Games can implement skins, armor, and character customization to express new sides of a character or allow players to create looks that directly reflect the outfit’s origins. Today though I want to talk about 2 shows, One Piece Live Action and Buffy. I'd like to ruminate about some of the outfits I loved and how the outfits added to the shows unique and iconic imagery not by being just stylish but relevant to characterization of these already iconic characters.

My favorite two outfits from the One Piece Live Action were Nami and Luffy’s Baratie outfits. I feel like Nami’s was both poppy and cute, a Pink top and Orange pleated skirt, in the realm of party wear whereas some of her other outfits were more obviously for comfort on the sea or in combat. The way Emily Rudd wore it was also very confident which I feel is important for the character. Part of what I think makes Nami’s strength and so great is her own confidence and will, where she will confidently take the action she believes. Likewise Luffy’s outfit is a bit more of a modern casual version of his usual outfit but still works for his character. Luffy’s usual clothes are supposed to be ones he happened to have found, where as these feel like some he perhaps got before leaving Syrup Village as they’re much cleaner. The style of them though is still super fun, almost childish, and just similar enough to his usual that you don’t feel a difference in his presentation. Iñaki Godoy has a really energetic and in some ways naïve play of Luffy and so the outfit and the it fits that makes it feel like something Luffy would wear with blue jean overalls and a bright red hooded t-shirt.

For One Piece it’s not too hard to figure out how it can be so distinctly styled. Oda’s art and designs are fairly unique. If you see Luffy’s outfit off of Luffy, it’s still recognizably his outfit. But what was kind of unexpected within the show was that even in other outfits they always felt like something he’d wear. Most of the costumes were adapted from Oda’s Color Walk 1 and 2 but costume designer Diana Cilliers has mentioned that there were costume changes made for function and to better fit the cast in ways. But it’s fun to know that it wasn’t just actors and set designers trying to recognize Oda’s vision for the world but also the costume designers trying to bring more of his work directly into the production.

I think this is a good vision for the show to go by too. Taking the both iconic characters and Oda’s sense of design for them and making it integral to the iconography of live action’s production, recognizing that the clothing and fashion of the world is just as important, is wonderful.

Now you may be wondering how I am transition to Buffy in this or how I even relate these two together. Actually I had seen Buffy a lot when I was younger, my mom and Aunt watched it quite a lot. From time to time they also like to rewatch old shows while doing chores and stuff just as background noise. At the time OPLA came out, my mom happened to be rewatching Buffy and something about how stylish Buffy was stuck with me the same way I was noticing OPLA was really stylish. Thats about how they ended up being compared in my case but something I noticed actually was how both felt like they tried to authentically represent and evolve the characters outfits.

In One Piece where the outfits are more involved with the characters and clothing functionality, Buffy’s feels more about the way it grounds the fantasy of the world in Sunnydale and it’s time. Buffy has returned to the fashion zeitgeist as Y2K fashion has made a some back in many places. Which makes sense with the way the show has a pretty iconic sense of fashion. Buffy and Willow both have the most distinct styles in the show an that definitely left a note on the fashion culture at the time. Within Buffy it’s pretty interesting to note that not all the outfits were bought or pieced from everyday fashion, some were specifically designed and made for the show. A lot of the ones that were bought were also sourced from around LA and it’s surrounding cities, the closest thing to Sunnydale there probably is. In one interview for Paper Magazine Cynthia Bergstrom mentions the brands Ver Wang which was located in Beverly Hills, Mark Wong Nark who had a store on Sunset Blvd and Cynthia Rowley out by the coast and south of LA and Huntington Beach.

Just as much as the show set trends in style, leaving ever iconic looks for characters, it also captured a lot of the actual clothes of the time. Willow’s clothing evolution is probably the one most people recognize across the series. Going from varied, almost hand me down fashion, to an almost casual punk or alternative style. From there it kind of naturally matures into outfits that feel more mature overall. One of my favorites though is from the episode where she meets Tara during a Wicca Group meeting. The episode is HUSH, a well known episode for being one of the more terrifying ones based on the idea of silence and terrors that lurk in that and take advantage of that. Willow’s outfit that I like has probably one of my favorite balances to match her personality and budding interest in this dark power in her. It has this cute cropped pink sweater and jean-patchworked Maxi skirt. It feels like it’s somewhere between the sweet and kind Willow and then the alternative grungy-naturalistic aesthetics of magic. In a lot of interviews it sounds like Willow was one of the easiest to style for and it shows quiet well. Willow always has a developing style all the time but it’s a very natural and understandable one and I love being able to see that.

The other outfit in this show I absolutely LOVE is from another legendary episode, Band Candy. Joyce, Buffy’s mom, and Giles, Buffy’s Mentor, essentially get their brains turned to teen-age from the chocolate sold from the school. Technically all adults who eat the chocolate get affected but we’re focusing on these two because Joyce looks great. Stacy’s mom? NO! Buffy’s mom. She and Giles go on a trek through the chaos that ripples through the town. Giles being the british-punk warlock he is steals a coat she wants from a shop window by tossing a trash can through it. Now when I say Joyce looks great in this episode I mean it’s undeniably one of the best outfits in the series. With suede (?) knee-high boots, a short formfitting skirt and the layered, ankle length jackets, one of which topped with an almost fur like feather collar, on top of a nice pastel V-neck shirt, is one of the most cohesive and timeless outfits seen in the run of the show. Giles’s outfit also fits this episodes' event change where he rolls his t-shirt sleeves up with a plaid shirt tied around his waist and plain jeans. It’s really simple but echos the general look of the younger punk scene Giles likely was a part of in his youth.

What I feel makes Joyce’s outfit stand out as iconic though is how it showcases something that actually people saw in a recent tiktok trend. People were swapping clothes with their parents and it made a lot of their parents look a lot younger. In many ways it showcased how style trends not just across time but across age can be irrelevant because of how the fashion itself is worn. A newer style and a certain level of trends can really affect the way a person’s age can present themself. When Joyce wears this outfit along with her acting younger it feels cohesive. The way she wears it and how it looks together, just like with Nami, Luffy or Willow, plays into the relevant parts of the character. She is teenage brained from a story standpoint but from a visual standpoint it helps to actually showcase that difference by evolving her outfit. Yet it still feels like her, not just because we see her in it but because of what we see in Joyce’s character in the rest of the series. She enjoys art, she jokes with Buffy and her friends a lot, and in being Buffy’s mom has raised her to be confident and fight for herself, even if she hadn’t always known Buffy was the Slayer. There is a deeper character that may not dress the way she does in Band Candy all the time, but has an origin and side to herself that would dress like that.

So when I say Fashion is always relevant, it’s not just a statement on how relevant it can be to a time. Most of what makes it so relevant in storytelling is the character and how believable it can be to see that outfit or costuming applied to said character. In live action series this can add a really thoughtful layer and be used to develop subtle, or overt, storytelling points. So when you find your next favorite show, see how much your impression and idea of the characters comes from how they dress. It might surprise you to see just how much it can change with a few outfit differences.

Anyways I’m no style expert, I just wanted to talk about some cool feelings I had over the fashion in these shows. Above is the full body picture I drew as a nice little doodle of the outfits I talked about here (You can also see part of it in the header for this post). Hope you like it. Here are all my sources and interviews I read to write this up:

Buffy:

One Piece:

#Hisui Notes #buffy the vampire slayer #one piece #one piece live action #opla #Buffy #joyce summers #text post #blog post #fashion #one piece fashion #my art #anime blog

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whoiwanttoday · 2 years

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So there is a Captain Carter comic these days with Marvel and I dove into it since it is well... Peggy Carter and a creative team I enjoy. It's alternate universe fun so far, we get the typical What If of what is different (in this case the US and Russia are fighting over her along with the UK since everyone feels entitled to her as property until she gets up and walks out because you know, she's not property) and the What If slightly dystopian hints of a secretly authoritarian UK which is a critique on the real world in a way you can never quite do with the mainline stuff (whatever your politics you cannot in a superhero universe have the US run by Nazis because it becomes an on going concern of why the fuck aren't the Superheroes doing anything about it). And we get the fun, "I know her" bits as Betsy Braddock becomes Peggy's partner at STRIKE, though she goes by Lizzie Braddock. It leads to lots of fun speculation built on what you know of the "real" world. Where is Betsy's telepathy? Why the hell isn't she Captain Britain? Or maybe she is all these things and it hasn't been revealed but where are the X-Men and why haven't mutants been mentioned? Anyway, I am enjoying it but it isn't life changing but it is why Hayley Atwell is here. I am sure to some that might seem strange, posting her based on a comic book that she is decidedly not in cause it's art, not photographs. Well, that is because she is the artist I believe will be forever linked with Peggy Carter. For those who aren't ancient or just got into Marvel stuff from the movies, Peggy Carter was a pretty nothing character for most of my life. If you had asked me who she was I would have known, she was Sharon Carter's Aunt. Great Aunt I guess. Look, it was confusing but Peggy was barely a character herself, she was created as a back story for Sharon Carter. This is because Steve Rogers great all time love was not Peggy Carter, it was Sharon Carter, Agent 13. She started as a much older sister, then became an Aunt, and finally a great Aunt. Honestly, she barely appeared until Ed Brubaker started writing the book and even then she was there to add texture to Sharon, not to Peggy. Still, because Sharon Carter was the great love of Cap's life and a major player in the best Cap story line of the current era when the movies were made it made a lot of sense for Peggy to be in the first Cap movie given it was set during World War II. I don't know what their plans were aside from that but I assume Peggy was there to lead to Sharon in the minds of whoever was setting all this up. I don't think they counted on Hayley Atwell being so charming and magnetic in the role that Peggy would forever be changed from footnote to the greatest love of Steve Rogers' life. And that is why Hayley Atwell is here, it's her portrayal that made Peggy Carter everything she is. Here DNA will forever be entwined with every future depiction of the character because everything that comes after will be built on the foundation of what Hayley Atwell did. Comics are great because they are shared universes but a lot of truly great characters have a single creator entwined in them that you can't separate them out really. Kitty Pryde hasn't been written by Claremont in a meaningful way in 30 years now but because he build what Kitty is from here on out everyone is working with a character who is inseparable from Chris Claremont. Even if no one realizes it they are writing things that are steeped in Claremont's artistic trope. Same goes with Daredevil and Frank Miller or Illyana Rasputin and Louise Simonson. The building blocks are 100% this artist and what they do best. Hayley Atwell is the only actor I can really, really think this is true for. Sure stuff changes when movies come out and they try to shift things to match the publics perception of a character. Costume changes, looks, mannerisms but it all falls away after a few years. This is the only character I can think of offhand (though you know, maybe I am blanking on something obvious, I have no issue with being corrected here) that the actor is the greatest creator to ever be associated with her. For which I am thankful because Peggy Carter has become an amazing character that I deeply love and feel affection for, it is a gift that has been given to us. So here are pictures of Hayley Atwell both as Peggy and as not cause she looks good both ways. Today I want to fuck Hayley Atwell.

#Hayley Atwell #brunette #Actress #whoiwanttofucktoday

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flicksnfilms · 11 months

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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)

A charming thief and a band of unlikely adventurers undertake an epic heist to retrieve a lost relic, but things go dangerously awry when they run afoul of the wrong people. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves brings the rich world and playful spirit of the legendary roleplaying game to the big screen in a hilarious and action-packed adventure.

TL;DR: Do I recommend it? > For sure, yes.

The long of it:

Studio: Paramount Pictures Director: Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley Writer: Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley (screenplay), Michael Gilio (screenplay, story), Chris McKay (story) Music: Lorne Balfe Cast: Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis Runtime: 134 minutes IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Official Site

Watched: at the cinema on April 2nd and 5th

Reaction: ± It feels like a D&D game from character intros (at the same time stalling), to plans not going to plan (classic D&D), to time pressure skill challenges, to spells (most identifiable to players), to the mess of characters (of course no cleric in the party), to the comedy mixed with character drama (very meta), to the level 20 NPC guide (the hottest, most badass paladin), to the personal hook turned moral call to action (why can it never just be about gold). Of course, there were some rules gripes --as i am a bit of a rules lawyer-- but overall i liked it. Very much an enjoyable romp.

My first watch through with my best friend was indication to me that it's a fun, fantastical, enjoyable film even to someone who's never played. My second watch through with dnd partymates was indication to me that we're nerdier even than initially assumed :)) Identifying spells, arguing possible subclasses, nitpicking rules, recognizing references. Both times incredibly fun.

Memorable aspect of the movie: + Storytelling. CGI. Cinematography. Costumes. Character development. Actor chemistry. Plot development. Music. All of it.

#films i watched in 2023

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what-do-1000-swords-look-like · 2 years

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I’m sorry but you guys give D&D way too much credit. You really think these idiots went “ok so we’re gonna make Dany leave her hair up and Jon too so people can see their sex is a service and not love.” This is D&D we’re talking about.

Hi, Anon.

Well, short answer: Yes, I do think they did that.

1) when speaking on the GoT commentary, Dan was notoriously obsessed with the tiniest details (which to GA would have seemed inane and not worth their time), to the point where even David would tease him about it. Dan was also the one that allegedly got upset about 8x03's airing and being so dark.

2) Have you seen behind the scenes of the Dany and Sansa scene in 8x02? D&D were directing Emilia on how to gesture to Sansa to sit, even though David Nutter was the credited director of the episode. This once again, goes in line with the point above.

3) D&D were the ones to convince GRRM to do a show in the first place. He had turned down offers before that. The story is infamous at this point, and GRRM confirmed that one of the reasons he agreed to their pitch is because they had guessed who Jon's real mother was, after going back over the books.

4) They had crew working for them that played into the details like the hair being left up or down. Sophie Turner confirmed that Sansa's hairstyles usually echoed who she was learning from and/or channeling. If you look, you can see at one point in the series for each queen who Sansa learned from/was channeling. Season 8 has Dany-style hair for Sansa even. Michele Clapton, the costume designer, has confirmed that not only did she put little clues into the costumes as much as she could, but that the crew did these types of things knowing full well that people would go back and rewatch the series over and over again, and their goal was for the viewer to find something new each time (a la the books).

5) The show utilized different storytelling devices that many television shows and films use, across the board. That includes different shots and angles, framing, panning, set dec, props, music cues, lighting, costuming, blocking (like when Dany is moved away from fire), actors' performances/notes, editing, and of course, the dialogue/writing. Each one of these examples is present over the course of the series.

Look, I'm not saying that D&D didn't screw things up in the end nor am I defending them nor am I calling them as geniuses, but they both did do some decent work as showrunners at some points during the show. I don't think they were stupid as much as I think their egos grew too massive and got in the way. They literally rushed the last season so they could go make Star Wars which lol they didn't even do. They had started pulling their celebrity friends in for cameos (that had nothing to do with the show or industry at all, I think one of them was an NFL player iirc), and even put themselves into the show (in 8x04 as the widlings Tormund is boasting about Jon to). Some might say, well Taylor Sheridan put himself into Yellowstone or 1883, and they would be right. But the difference is, the characters he embodied worked with the story, and he was an actor before being this highly successful writer. These two simply put themselves into the show because they wanted to be immortalized in this series (and they chose the feast scene of all scenes to do it) and did it in the last season because that's what they were doing with all of their celebrity friend cameos. Getting it in as a last hurrah. Massive. Egos.

So to go back to your point, Anon, yes, I do think they did that to show that Jon was simply giving Dany what she wanted. When you break down the boat sex scene, it's pretty easy to spot what they did there. They are still in the Queen Dany and Bent-the-knee Jon here. Same as in this scene:

youtube

If they were in love or just having really great sex but bonding then we would have seen Dany like this:

Or Jon like this:

Especially when you compare it to Dany's love scene with Drogo where she takes control, the seduction scene with Daario where she takes control, and then her pillow talk scene with Daario (photo above).

So yes, Anon, I don't feel that we're giving them too much credit. I do think they absolutely kept in mind that people were going to rewatch the series and find new clues each time, just like they themselves used to do with GRRM's books. Listen, they screwed up in a lot of ways, but as for what they showed with Jon and Daenerys in that boat scene, I don't think they did.

Hope you have a great rest of your day!

#ask #ask answered #got #game of thrones #d&d critical #due to ask #antijonerys #anti jonerys #slightly

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belltrigger · 2 years

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Hey so in your isekai story what’s the world like? Or the specific isekai trope? Do they level up like in video games? Are they only allowed specific magic to learn based of abilities or personality? Or is any cool? Do they go after any specific profession if rail roads aren’t invented?

Hi!!! So I am still gonna make a more official post once more information is finalized, but here's some answers for you o(*°▽°*)o

For the World, we haven't defined much quite yet, so for now, think about your stereotypical Isekai anime - fantasy based, adventurers, monsters (think Dragon Quest combined with The Rising of the Shield Hero - which coincidentally, Nobori's Masters voice actor is in). There's probably going to be some flavor changes, but these have the kind of vibe I imagine the world having.

They do level up in this! In this world, you can improve your skills through use - the skills/spells get stronger, or obtain new effects, the more you use them. Although all of Nobori's skill levels are very high, he cannot seem to access any of them. He can see them displayed in however his HUD looks (still working on that part), but they are greyed out - the conditions to unlock higher level skills are even checked off as if he has completed them. Kudari is really not sure why Nobori is locked out from his own skills, but explains it away as a delay due to his disappearance. Nobori's just got to practice and train a little, and everything will go back to normal!

Even to Nobori, Kudari's level is displayed as ??? (perhaps with a skull like some games have when something is so overwhelmingly above the player's level). Kudari claims that Nobori should be the exact same level as him, but Nobori can't bring himself to tell his twin that he cannot tell.

They actually have magic very specific to them! Nobori is a support/healing type, while Kudari is a damage type. Nobori struggles to use his magic, partially because of the skill locks, but also due to fear of coming across as threatening. To quote my AU co-conspirator, "for Nobori's magic: he’s a bit ominous and scary because life powers in this world take the form of pulling a soul back to its body/mending it. Kudari is the inverse: his powers look like light but overloading any being with light will pretty much disintegrate their soul." Kudari also very specifically has an angel theme going on with his costuming - the hat is meant to mimic a halo.

It's possible to learn skills outside of those ranges, just with higher xp requirements. Someone joked that Nobori put all his points and experience into being a good house husband, but I will admit, I like the idea of more domestic things being learnable, similar to the disciples of the land/hand from FF14 ARR.

As for the trains, naturally they have fantasy flying trains! Of course of course, they run them, and had a hand in the creation of them. (I tried to emulate his Subway Master coat in the last outfit I drew but I don't think that's their official outfit XD ) We don't have any details on the trains themselves, yet, because Nobori and Kudari are spending much of their time travelling and training to get Nobori back to where he was in terms of power.

The important part here is that Nobori still feels like the nobody he was before, but now he has a sweet brusband who has tons of expectations for him.

#blankshipping #Isekai AU #cocacolaclown

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fursasaida · 2 years

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last night I saw a fun, interesting production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. a lot of things about the staging were inventive and cool--the effects they used for the magical love-potion flower, for instance--and there was some really effective double-casting. (Oberon and Titania also played Duke Theseus and Hippolyta, the Players also played the lower fairies, Puck played Hermia’s father--in that case it wasn’t just the same actor, but literally the character Puck was playing that part: the actor gave the audience a sly, direct look as she exited her last scene as the father.)

they also took a lot of liberties with the script, most of which worked really well. (some of the dance/movement-based interludes were unnecessary or a bit overthought, IMO, but that’s about it for the “didn’t work” column.) it was a predominantly Black cast, and a certain style of ad-libbing reminiscent of gospel, soul, and pastoral speech was clearly encouraged (including but not limited to singing). this allowed some of the smaller roles to get a lot more definition and personality than they often do. the Players had a sense of developed relationships with each other and group camaraderie that even got a little mini-arc through singing (this arc also made me way more invested in the play-within-the-play than usual). Snug became incredibly endearing (also, i think, maybe implicitly autistic? there was a lot of stimming) and the whole room was pulling for them hard when it was time for them to actually perform as Lion. the performers playing Bottom and Hermia were the best I’ve ever seen in those roles! (the scene where the four lovers keep trying to fight each other, culminating in Hermia attacking Helena, was absolutely god damn transcendent.)

however--or, sort of a however; I’m not sure what I think about this--the biggest change was that they reversed Oberon’s and Titania’s roles.

that is: they had Titania dose Oberon with the love juice and Oberon fall in love with Bottom. (basically this meant changing one line in the speech where Oberon Titania lays out his her plan, and then after that they essentially switched parts but kept their names.) from the dramaturg’s note in the program, the point of this seems to have been giving the women the upper hand, and emphasizing the forest as a place where female desire is consequential and to be honored. this also obviously lets them make Oberon and Bottom queer. (as an aside, Oberon’s costuming and performance conveyed this EXTREMELY effectively from the first second of his entrance, and that part I unreservedly loved. you could have had that without the plot change!) doubtless related to both points, the note also said that they tried to take the shame out of the whole episode of sleeping with a donkey-man and let it be a delicious thrill instead.

my thing is that i’m not sure this is all really coherent. this paragraph is going to sound like a “your choices are hashtag problematic, you have Sinned” list but that’s not really the point: it’s that they set that kind of contemporary moral-political goal for themselves, and i’m not sure they achieved it because, you know, Shakespeare inhabited a different world and all that. whatever’s #problematic here (if anything is) is of interest because of the incoherence it reveals, not because it might be read as losing Progressive Points. so: if the point is to honor female desire, then it seems a bit upside-down to change the play so Titania never gets laid. wouldn’t it make more sense to destigmatize the Bottom episode and let her keep it? but at the same time: i’m not sure it’s really possible to eliminate the negative or debasing character of that sexual act, because both Puck and Oberon (here, Titania) are so gleeful over what a bizarre creature the object of the prank has fallen for. and so now that glee and bizarritude is attached to queer sex? it also means that the transgression of sexual consent becomes not just a general thing that happens in this story a bunch but something that categorically happens to men and only men. is this feminist or is it Girl Power stuff that hasn’t been fully thought through? and more importantly, what does it do for the play?

on the one hand, putting Titania in charge of all of this does foreground some elements of what they want to foreground, in that her sympathy for Helena and Hermia and distaste for Demetrius’ dickery looks much more like #WomenSupportingWomen. (i repeat my question about girl power.) she takes on in some ways almost an auntie role: in observing the mortals’ drama she’d say things like “oh, girl no” (Helena early on) or “okay! yes, girl!” (Hermia spurning Demetrius). when the fairy sovereigns make their last exit, and--in this case--Oberon says Titania has to tell him how he came to find himself sleeping on the ground among these mortals, she said “i ain’t gonna tell him!” to the audience. i was getting some “the man is the head but the woman is the neck” energy, partly reinforced via both the double-casting and the way Hippolyta was played (exasperated with Theseus). again i repeat my question, but: i also think this is just less interesting?

when Oberon rebukes Demetrius’ behavior at the same time that he’s being such a dick to his Queen, it speaks I think to something about the fairies’ alienness, and also about the relationships between the different parts of the play and what it means for it to be a comedy. the rest of the dramaturg’s note is about how Midsummer foregrounds theater as a kind of magic, something that makes and regulates the world and undoes social station, and in that sense the play-within-the-play and the action in the woods mirror each other. i think that’s right (and things like the double-casting brought it out well!). but i don’t think they’re quite the same as each other, and i don’t think they should be. i don’t think the Fairy Queen should be motivated by, like, gender partisanship?

because the other way in which the forest action mirrors the other parts of the play is that ultimately it is about restoring order: putting everyone in their proper places. (the note claims that the ultimate goal of Midsummer isn’t weddings, as is usually the case in comedies, but rather the staging of a play. this isn’t wrong, but i think it overstates things a bit.) there’s that whole great speech about how the fight between Titania and Oberon has deranged nature, right, which implies that the love-tangle-plus-patriarchy the mortals are dealing with is also unnatural, or the initially proclaimed outcome (Hermia has to marry someone she doesn’t love, join essentially a convent, or die) would be. the fairies can set this right in a way human law cannot; in a sense the whole play can be read as a staging of the sovereign exception/decision via the device of embodying law and decision (or nomos and auto-nom-y) separately, in two different courts, sovereigns, and settings, one of which is patriarchal and one of which is magical. (this makes a lot of sense: Schmitt always insisted that sovereign decision was equivalent to a miracle). i have no problem with the Fairy Queen rather than King being the ultimate sovereign who can step outside of all the conflicts and resolve them. to the extent that this choice reinforces the difference between the fairy and human courts, i think it’s a good choice. but i do, I think, have a problem with the implication that she’s doing what she’s doing because men ain’t shit. it’s too human. it draws the wrong kind of equivalence. it’s important that the fairy court does mirror the mortal court without being identical to it, that fairy power and its objects of concern be different from mortal power and its objects. i want her thing to be that she thinks mortals, rather than men, ain’t shit--if you see the distinction i’m drawing. (Puck still brought that across very well.)

you could still do a lot of what they wanted to do without swapping the roles, IMO. you could make both Fairy Sovereigns men, or women, for instance. you could keep in the queer aspects of how they were each portrayed (when they had their first argument it basically started as a walk-off) without the swap. or you could do what they did and just change some of the extratextual stuff to get away from that “men ain’t shit” business. but again, i’m not exactly even mad at it--just, turning it over in my mind. it mostly worked, or didn’t not work. the actor playing Titania/Hippolyta was excellent, so i’m certainly not complaining about her having more to do.

either way, i have never in my life enjoyed Hermia so much or laughed so hard at the play within a play, and i’ve never attended a Shakespeare performance that got this much crowd interaction going. (especially for a pretty sparse crowd!) it was good overall for sure. if you’re in the DC area, consider dropping by the Folger Shakespeare Theater’s production of Midsummer at the National Building Museum; whatever else I think, it was definitely worth seeing.

#just jibbin'#theater #shakespeare

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baiyu-universe · 2 years

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Bai Yu CCTV quick Q&A, Sohu interview and Sina interview.

CCTV 8: If you could only have one type of noodle for the rest of your life? What would it be?

Bai Yu: (A long long long pause) Shaanxi noodles.

CCTV 8: That's cheating.

Bai Yu: Ok, ok. Hot oil noodle.

CCTV 8: What's your recent goal?

Bai Yu: Practicing running. I've been doing it for 3-4 days and I hope I can keep up.

CCTV 8: Is there a drama of yours that you'd watch repeatedly?

Bai Yu: None is that good. I mostly watch my dramas to find out flaws in my acting.

CCTV 8: Which comment made by the audiences makes you the happiest?

Bai Yu: "I didn't recoginize that's Bai Yu." I hope my roles are very different from myself. It's something that gives me joy.

Sohu: What's the biggest challenge for you acting as Xun Xu?

Bai Yu: He's from ancient times. His manner and language are somewhat different from us.

Sohu: How did you prepare for this role?

Bai Yu: Mainly through my own understanding and other costume dramas I've watched. I think ancient people act and talk slower.

Sohu: You've said before that you had an eureka moment in acting. Could you explain it to us?

Bai Yu: It's not acting the role of Xun Xu that gave me the feeling. It's the whole process of participating in this project. I've seen many good actors, good director and their way of working, giving me ideas for later works. So I feel that I've improved.

Director Lu Yang's attitude towards his work is something that's worth learning for me. Before I used to think only about my own part of work. After collaborating with them, I have better vision of the overall situation, which helps me to develop my role better.

Sohu & Sina: What about the scene that Xun Xu got hung upside down and drown in water?

Bai Yu: It's not something I've tried before and I had no idea how it should feel realistically. So I decided to try it for real as the security measure was good. It indeed helped me in my acting (the scene) as the flooding of the blood into your brain put you into a trance, so the acting was more realistic.

Sohu: Were you choked by water?

Bai Yu: Yes. But it was nothing, really. This would happen to you even when swimming.

Sohu: Hearing how you described it, it sounds like something addictive?

Bai Yu: (Laughs) You could try handstanding at home.

Sohu & Sina: Fans like to ask: your roles tend to suffer a lot. Do you have a preference for roles like that?

Bai Yu: I don't have a preference for roles that suffer. They may have suffering in common, they're not the same. You have to understand: I'm not attracted to them because they suffer or get tortured. Besides, the more you suffer, the faster you grow up.

Sohu: In The Bond, Qiao Yicheng have so many worries that "white hair coming out of his head." What about Xun Xu?

Bai Yu: Xun Xu isn't that worried. Xun Xu is a blind player who listens to his heart and seeks for the truth. He isn't as complicated as other characters in the drama.

Sohu: You've acted in several detective dramas. Did they help you in your reasoning skill?

Bai Yu: (Laughs) More or less a little. It actually helped me more in paying attention to details.

Sohu: So if you participate in a detective variety show, will you be the one that carries the show?

Bai Yu: Absolutely no. I'll likely be the brawn of the show, someone who doesn't use the brain (laughs).

Sohu: How do you feel about playing as Chen Kun's character's older brother in law?

Bai Yu: We've discussed about it. Brother Kun was funny. He actually questioned about it saying that he was much older than me. But it's totally reaonsable. We (our characters) knew each other and becam brothers first and he met and married my younger sister after that.

Sohu: What about the age gap?

Bai Yu: It's totally OK as I look old.

Sohu: Some people say that watching The Wind Blows from Longxi requires a lot from the audiences. What's your opinion on that?

Bai Yu: I don't think it's a drama that's hard (to get). You just need to sit down and concentrate.

Sohu: A lot fans are still expecting you'd do livestreams as you haven't done that for a long time.

Bai Yu: Am I not hard working? I'm still filming on set.

Sohu: So fans have to wait?

Bai Yu: I'll try to find a time.

Sina: Chen Kun mentioned that you'd bought noodles to them. Is it true?

Bai Yu: Yep. That's right. I want them to get fat (laughs).

Sina: What's your opinion on the character Xun Xu?

Bai Yu: Xun Xu is a constant.

Sina: How did you feel when you first tried the make up (of Xun Xu)?

Bai Yu: I looked like a terracotta warrior. (laughs) I'm old Qin people afterall (proud smiles).

Sina: What's your most memorable scene?

Bai Yu: There was a scene with Chen Kun that lasts 16-17 minutes. It was very energy consuming. I had a lot of lines in that scene and they were worried that I'd forget some lines. But I managed all the lines the first time we filmed the scene.

Sina: What about the relationship with Liu Ying.

Bai Yu: They're attracted to each other but they have their own side.

Sina: Is Liu Ying Xun Xu's first love?

Bai Yu: No! (laughs) How can it be counted as first love? You'll have to watch the drama. I can't reveal more.

Sina: You've been seen wearing a broccoli pajama on set.

Bai Yu: I just want to wear something simple as we'll change clothes constantly on set.

Sina: Why broccoli?

Bai Yu: It's healthy.

#bai yu #白宇 #the wind blows from longxi #风起陇西 #interview

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ruminativerabbi · 2 years

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Sukkot 2022

When the Bard has melancholy Jacques step forward to remind the audience that “all the world’s a stage / and all the men and women, merely players,” the point is not that nothing that happens in the world has any real importance in the same way that nothing that happens on stage in a play really matters.

In the theater, nothing ultimately matters because it’s all make-believe: when the show’s over, the actors head for their dressing rooms, take off their costumes, put on their street clothes, and go home to their real lives. Even the people killed on stage are fully resurrected in this magic manner: when the curtain goes down, they wash the fake blood off their faces, send their tomato-juice soaked outfits to the show’s laundry service, put on their blood-free (or rather, tomato-juice-free) street clothes, and go home to their husbands or wives or cats or whatever. But the Bard’s point is specifically not that nothing that happens in the world matters, but that society functions in many ways as though we were all part of a theatrical troop of players: people endlessly entering our stage and exiting it, behaving foolishly or wisely, interacting maturely or childishly, successfully summoning up the courage to be brave or good or failing to find the inner strength to behave virtuously at all. And this as well, the Bard implies: as we wind our way through the years of our lives, we all have the potential to transcend the role written for us by the all-seeing and all-knowing Playwright whose magnum opus is human life itself and, even while sticking to a script written by Another, investing enough of our own moral selves in the roles we are called to play to make the part, somehow, our own. That, as any theater critic will agree, is specifically what makes some actors great and others not, that specific ability to be true to the script and yet somehow also to be fully personally and wholly idiosyncratically invested in the role.

So that’s what the Bard meant to say. What the Bard surely did not mean to say is that it is ever morally justifiable to treat other people like pawns in a stage drama, like people who have somehow accidentally stumbled onto a stage without even realizing that there is a huge audience watching them and waiting for them to say a word, without understanding that they have been cast as players in a drama of which they haven’t ever heard, regarding the plot of which they have no idea, and the author of which they cannot name.

And that is the set of thoughts I brought to my analysis of the decision of Governor DeSantis’ decision to spend Florida taxpayers’ money unilaterally to round up fifty refugees who landed in a state a thousand miles to the west of his own and then to ship them to a third-state-destination so that the cold, unfeeling reception he must have been sure they would receive could function as grist for his own political mill, as proof positive that even those airy-fairy liberal types in, of all places, Martha’s Vinyard, would become immigration hawks as soon as they were faced with having to deal with actual refugees on their own turf and not merely by watching them on television as other people try to deal with what all sides to the debate agree is an unmanageable situation as it now stands.

But that’s precisely not what happened. The people in Martha’s Vinyard rose to the occasion nobly and kindly, providing the newcomers with lodging and hot meals. AP Spanish students from the local high school were pressed into service as amateur translators. Eventually, the government will have to decide what to do with these people. But the people in the Vinyard, whose problem this could not possibly have been less, responded decently and generously: they saw homeless newcomers in their midst and they did what normal people do when confronted with hungry, homeless people: they fed them and found them lodging. What happens next is hardly their call. But on the small-stage level, they responded just as decent, goodhearted people always should: compassionately and humanely. Good for them!

The Bard had a point, but Jewish tradition takes a different tack: the whole world may well be a stage, but the lives we live on that stage are better compared to a journey than to the performance of a play. And that notion of life as a journey is at the heart of Sukkot, which begins this Sunday evening.

The other two pilgrimage festivals, Pesach and Shavuot, are tied in our tradition to specific events: Passover to the actual night on which the Israelites finally left Egypt and set forth on their journey to freedom, and Shavuot to the great moment at Sinai when the people, for a long moment transformed into prophets, heard God speak aloud the first ten commandments of the covenant that would forever more bind the people Israel to its God. But Sukkot, the third pilgrimage festival, is not tied to a specific event, but to a long, protracted experience—the one of wandering in the desert for decades until finally arriving at the boundary of the Promised Land.

The rituals connected with Sukkot are reminiscent, each in its way, of this concept of life as a journey. The Israelites who left Egypt died in the wilderness; their children knew no other life until they finally did arrive in Canaan. So for both generations, life was motion, journeying forward, travel through uncharted (and unchartable) territory dependent on God for their lodging (Scripture specifically says that God somehow provided them with the sukkot in which they dwelt as they made their slow progress through the wilderness), their food (the manna fell from heaven specifically to provide them with sustenance), and their water (the pillar of cloud-by-day and fire-by-night led them from oasis to oasis so that they always had enough to drink). And that experience of life as journey became so embedded in the national consciousness that it eventually merited being honored with an annual festival, one that commemorates nothing other than this notion of life as movement forward towards destiny under the protective wings of the Shekhinah, God’s indwelling presence in the people’s midst.

Perhaps that is why Jewish people are so predisposed to honor others whose lives have become an actual journey. I feel that way myself—and not because I am in favor of people not obeying the laws that govern immigration or, more ridiculously, of opening our nation’s borders to whomever wishes to cross over without exercising any control at all regarding who may or may not settle here. My own great-grandparents were immigrants to this land and they certainly (I actually know this for a fact) obeyed all the rules and settled here fully legally. My own wife came to this country from Canada and I can assure you that we followed each of a thousand rules to make her status here fully legal. All of that is true. And also true is that I have no idea who these poor people flown to Massachusetts as fodder for Governor DiSantis’s campaign mill really are, whether they deserve to settle here as legitimate refugees or are just poseurs taking a chance to improve their lot without waiting on line or following the rules that govern immigration to our nation. I have no idea who they are! But I was beyond impressed by the Martha’s Vinyard residents who, also having no idea who these people are, responded to them compassionately and warmly, leaving the federal officials to work out what their eventual status should be and specifically not using that detail to justify turning away from lonely, hungry people in need.

The road, the voyage, this lifelong excursion through the wilderness that is our lives—that experience of life as journey under God’s watchful presence is at the core of Sukkot, an idea that grants majesty to the human condition not by boasting crazily about our permanence and power, but by owning up honestly and humbly to the transient nature of all life…and to the fragility that inheres in living our lives, as we all do, on the road to Jerusalem. I responded to the story of those refugees the governor flew north because they, like my own great-grandparents once were, are on a journey regarding the destination of which they can only hope. But I too am on that journey. So are we all. And Sukkot is our annual opportunity to set aside the natural fear that that image of life-as-journey engenders and instead to embrace the hope that the road we travel through the years can generate…when viewed not as punishment but as opportunity, not as a death march but as a march of the truly living, not as a torturous trek through an unfeeling, uncaring world…but as the road to redemption. Our ancestors eventually found their way to the Promised Land and they celebrated the journey that took them there. So should we all!

#Sukkot

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deltaswap2442 · 8 months

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More UnderSwap Stuff

Asgore is the guardian of the Ruins. He's kinda and gentle yet blames himself for what happened to his children and with Toriel. Doesn't hate Toriel but also doesn't want to get back with her just yet (he's more forgiving than her cannon version). He's slightly graying and wears reading glasses but also has cool orange and blue sunglasses when he's vibing. He actually wears a professor kind of outfit (turtleneck sweater and tweed vest) with a pink flower tie under his robe. Kinda a dork. More reluctant to fight you than Toriel. Makes really good tea as opposed to pie. Likes to read about slimes (foreshadowing for future swap). When you call and flirt with him after you call him dad he replies "Why'd you have to call me daddy is such a suggestive way my child". Believed Frisk to be the future of humans and monsters yet also believes that if things don't change there will be no future for either.

Toriel is the reluctant queen. She put herself in charge and looks down upon Asgore (she doesn't want to admit he's right). She's stubborn and kind of a bitch. She sucks at gardening and instead knits. What does she knit? Duplicates of the Temmie Plush her lost child had. Can't handle grief. Offers pie to you before the fight. Despite her curvy armor she's still rectangular. Uses a scepter with MKs face engraved on it to never forget why she's doing this. Instead of keeping coffins for the humans she dolls for each of them (just an excuse to design the other 6 fallen human who actually do swap). She's more cold than Asgore but only because she knows that if she lets the slightest emotion show she'll break down in tears.

Alphys is the captain of the Royal Guard. Her building is completely different from Undyne's tall and slender body. She's short and stocky and proud. Her weapon, an axe, reflects this which opposes the thin spear Undyne uses. Don't worry she's not wearing actual skulls. Just replicas. Trains with Sans but doesn't let him join because of his low stats and just the fact he's a middle aged man in a mock superhero costume. Has trouble controlling her anger. Has a tough and gruff voice but a squeaky laugh. Unlike most swap Alphys she's just as THICC outside of her armor as she is inside and is proud of the way she is. She still has a crush on Undyne she refuses to admit even more than cannon Undyne. Doesn't wear an eye patch because she thinks her scar makes her look more badass. Also has a crush on the queen (she likes dominant women) but not the player (with the whole hating humanity thing) or the unknown (she doesn't believe in that). A bit more willing to do her "date" since she admires the humans ability to outdo her. Passes out not from heat but just from exhaustion as it never occurred to her to train in cardio but still requires water. Anime is real right?!?

Undyne is the royal scientist. Likes anime styles video games slightly more than anime. Her favorite is Oki Doki Art Club starring Hop Hop Muscly Sorree (or some name like that). Has anime body pillows. Experiments with determination. Wants to insert herself into your invention. Built Napstablook a robot body after coming to his video game club. Still kinda hot headed. Has a slight lisp as opposed to a stutter. Should wear braces but doesn't because she doesn't want to look like a "complete nerd". Gets flustered easily. Keeps secrets..... Is blind in one eye but never tells anyone how. Her date dress is the same one cannon Mettaton wears during the music segment but more proportionate to her (she claims she looks like a cute anime girl in it and you better agree with her on that).

Hapstablook (yes that's what I'm calling him. Deal with it) is the recluse ghost. Dreams of being an actor but has stage fright. Afraid of criticism and flustered by praise. Easily startled with makes him cry glittery tears. The houses don't swap just the details of them. I know cannon swap Mettaton isn't pink but I think it's fitting for him to have a slight pink hue. A hopeless romantic who writes romance stories of star crossed lovers. Listens to motivational podcasts through his earbuds. Has a Fancyblook attire where he makes either a fancy hat or dress with his tears (I can't decide). Gender fluid. His covered eye is heart shaped but he finds it grotesque which is why he covers it. Wishes he had legs. Owns a slime farm which he and his cousin cared for. Misses his cousin. Would you smooch a ghost?

Napstabot is the idol of the underground. His box form is an old timey radio and his ex from incorporates sound equipment. Doesn't cover his eye but it does glow during neo form (which will be revealed on the special genocide addition. More masculine than Mettaton and uses bro rather than darling. Instead of oh my he says "radical!!!!". Uses a fake nineties cool dude voice but his real voice is soft and gentle. Likes his arms more than his legs which is demonstrated in the order they fall off. He gets more easily flustered by compliments as he's not used to direct compliments. He's also not used to insults which cause his self esteem to shatter and he starts crying but eventually he will get over it and even try and better himself. He actually cries ALOT in private. He also isn't as social as he acts on camera and actually prefers to be alone or with his cousin or Undyne. Cries when killed to add extra guilt (he takes it as you not liking him or if it's done before he's sparable he takes it as you being a false friend). And I normally don't get into battles but since Mettaton's fight is my favorite ill cover Napstabot's. For starters his interruptions are as follows: a musical quiz show, setting up a music studio with the last instrument being a human soul but Undyne requires a synthetic human soul, a quest where you must find him a new prop, and finally a big musical number where he wears classic Alphys dress and a top hat. During ex he has a Livestream where you have to raise likes through posing (seductively causing napstabot to blush heavily), boasting (which shocks napstabot and makes him a bit jealous of your ego), and heel turning (which he takes personally). You can also throw your stick which he nervously fetches much to his embarrassment. His attacks are a punching attack that mimicks Mettatons kicks, a five way punch, sound wave speakers speakers replacing Mettatons punches, electric heart (unchanged), discoball (unchanged), bomb attacks (unchanged), union regulated break (the text now says "I'm not feeling up to working on my break dude"), small napstabots that shoot music notes, and boxes (unchanged) he also shoots a single small lightning bolt the turn right after he loses one of his limbs and a tear the turn after his health becomes fatal. Instead of an essay he asks you to write a song. If it rhymes he gets shocked and remarks "that's better than I could ever do.....". Similar responses as Mettaton's if it's basic. If you compliment him he blushes and gets flustered. If you compliment his legs he's shocked as he thinks his legs aren't desirable. If you compliment his arms he blushes and flexes for you (so sexy). If you compliment his hair he blushes and remarks how it has a natural bounce. If you compliment his personality he blushes, gets flustered, and remarks how he wishes more people paid attention to that. If you compliment his voice he sings a short melody. If you compliment his dancing he mentions Undyne literally giving him two left feet. If you mention loving him he blushes and remarks how despite getting that alot he always gets flustered by it. If you mention Toby he remarks how that's not his name but it does sound sexy. If you insult him he cries but then gets an annoyed expression and the music stops while he replies "insults are a gateway to the way you feel about yourself" then a "bitch" sound effect plays and then things go back to normal. If you curse he mentions getting demonetized. Ok this is too much.

The rocks swap with the dummies. Not much to remark because this is already too much so......

Well that was a lot...... I still feels as if I missed some things. Oh well

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