#yeah i bought this movie on dvd so i could make gifs

[charmac]

Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day in Campfire Stories

They didn't physically interact in this movie, but they did to me, spiritually

#charlie day #rob mcelhenney #campfire stories #gifs #sunny cast #yeah i bought this movie on dvd so i could make gifs #sorry not sorry lol yikes im so unemployed #oc

[bizarrelittlemew]

okay. i just watched the movie Snakeskin (2001). i bought a physical dvd in the year of our lord 2024 because Taika has 6.5 minutes of screentime in it. and now i'm sitting here trying to process wtf i just watched asjdhfdjsk so here are the highlights (thank you Meow @blakbonnet for going through this experience with me)

first of all, enjoy these screenshots from the trailer (i'm still not sure if they're mandatory disclaimers?):

...but say yes to snake imagery, because there will be a lot of it

we are definitely in 2001. this is extremely apparent throughout the whole movie. but especially from this girl's hair

Taika's character (Nelson) and his girlfriend (Daisy, pictured above) drive around in a repurposed ice cream truck and sell drugs btw. it's called Mr. Trippy.

main character Alice (Melanie Lynskey) is a huge fan of ✨America✨. her best friend is in love with her but she only wants Bad Boys. also said friend's name is Johnny but it's actually Craig

ALSO Craig-slash-Johnny is played by Dean O'Gorman (Fili)??!?!?!?

their hobby is to drive around picking up hitchhikers but only those who look not boring

enter The American. this guy is the most American you have ever seen. americans wish they could be as American as this guy. no one else has ever Americaned harder.

as you can see, i'm not lying. he even says "howdy ma'am" so we're convinced he is a real American

three skinheads are after The American because he stole their drugs (i think). he also stole drugs from Nelson and Daisy, who now owe money and/or drugs to their boss, who also has beef with The American for reasons i'm still not totally sure of

The American not only steals drugs and money, he also has a real gun(!!!) and fucks pretty much everyone?

"darlin'. u gotta earn the raaaiht. ter wear snakeskins 😎"

oh my god the sunglasses emoji just reminded me of the fucking sunglasses oh no i'm not sure i can do this akjsdhjsk this will make sense later i promise

do not learn gun safety from this movie

at one point, there is a whole lotta sheep. we are, after all, in Aotearoa New Zealand. and ok this had the cutest moment of Taika yelling "SHEEPY" out of a car

there's a scene where uhm. uhhh no not gonna describe this i think but. yeah fair warning this movie has some period-typical homophobia let's just say 💀 this is the live reaction:

MOVING ON

if you enjoy the 2000s aesthetic of "look how edgy we are doing drugs" *colorful-haired people on couches in dark club* *echo-y laugh* *hallucinations* *it's mushrooms look it's mushrooms we're doing psychedelics* then this is the movie for you my friend

oh and Alice also did acid at some point while being very "i've totally done drugs before" about it (((doubt)))

GIRL GET UP FROM THAT DIRTY BATHROOM FLOOR

[New Zealand accent] "wow. six and acid." yes she is living all her american dreams as you can see

by nighttime, all three cars (main characters, mr. trippy, and the nazimobile) and the motorcycle (mr. drug boss) have made it pretty far up the mountain, it seems. cute moment between mr. drug boss and nelson. look how :D he is!

but you know a movie with Taika in it needs to have a father figure talk down to him so he gets very 🥺 right after this

lots of shit goes down (i won't spoil too much if by any chance you still want to watch this) and it turns out that the older skinhead guy is the best actor in the movie??

and NOW things get weird

Craig and The American have so much beef by now that they decide to solve it by russian roulette

Alice's reaction to this is something like "ugh, you guys are crazy, i can't watch this 🙄"

like she just walks away?? GIRL THEY'RE AIMING A REAL GUN AT EACH OTHER

she keeps COMPLETELY UNDERREACTING TO WHAT IS HAPPENING like (spoilers from now on) CRAIG IS SHOT AND KILLED and she doesn't even run over and she doesn't even say anything to The American?? WHO SHOT HIM???? he's just standing there??

and then. AND THEN.

ok this is where i fully lost it for several minutes and missed half the following scene. i was fucking HOWLING like actually crying with laughter, i couldn't see or breathe and my partner got worried ksjdhfdjsk ok so here's what happens

they're in the car. craig is obviously very dead. alice is kinda in denial i guess. The American tells her to shut his eyes and she's like why? BECAUSE HE DEAD GIRL!! but she doesn't, she doesn't shut his eyes, no, this is what she does instead

I COULD BARELY MAKE THIS GIF BECAUSE I KEPT LAUGHING TO THE POINT OF TEARS

NOT THE SUNGLASSES ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME. THE UNTAPPED MEME POTENTIAL HERE IS FUCKING RIDICULOUS

ANYWAY shortly after this we hear one of the funniest lines in the movie (and it's not even about the shooting and killing of Craig):

"fuck, Seth! this isn't fucking America, you can't just go around shooting everybody!"

oh yeah The American does have a name and it's Seth

i'll just post a few chat screenshots for the next part because i can't really describe it, i promise we're almost at the end

after some incredible visual effects™️, we end with Return of the Sunglasses (and me scaring my cats away because i was sobbing again)

i haven't even really talked about Taika's scenes much (the reason i watched this in the first place) because the ending took me OUT and honestly he is maybe the most normal person in this whole movie. one review (from the trailer) wrote this:

and yeah that may honestly be the best way to describe it. 10/10 movie watching experience, highly recommend. thank you for coming to my snek talk

#snakeskin (2001) #ida.stuff #🐭📓 #anyway if you still wanna watch this movie hit me up lmao #i recommend drinking #but seriously i will go to bed now it's past midnight but i had to get this out #taika waititi

[alpaca-clouds]

Dungeons & Dragons - Or: Why Capitalism Sucks at Making Money

If this past year managed anything, it managed to get me really into DnD. Before I did not play DnD much, rather going with Shadowrun or (heavily homebrewed) World of Darkness. But with first Honor Among Thieves releasing - and then Baldur's Gate 3 giving me brainworms tadpoles... Yeah, hurray. New hyperfixation unlocked.

But as I started to read through all the lore, but also meta stuff happening around it. And yes, I quickly understood why basically everyone was frustrated with Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast. But I also think, that this betrays one of the big issues with capitalist logic and how it often fails to reach an audience - for the reason I outlined before: capitalists are actually super bad at realizing what works and why, because they only judge based on spread sheets.

And yes, the headline is hyperbolic. But let me explain.

A Community-Based Game

I mean, the biggest scandal of DnD this year was probably the entire thing about the community license. And this is very much something that shows quite well, how bad WotC is at recognizing why DnD works and has worked so long.

DnD centrally has been build around this idea of community. Now, mind you: This community was very, very focused on cis white guys for the longest time, but everybody else just managed to get in there and make their own little bit of community. Which also lead to a lot of homebrew stuff, that at times tackled some issues that the rules themselves did not address at all or not well. The combat wheelchair is probably the best known example of this.

But even outside of marginalized communities... DnD always thrived through the community aspect itself. People self-publishing magazines and adventures for it since the fucking 70s. As well as play sets, dice and what-have-you. DnD was always very much about all this and thrived through it. And now in came WotC saying: "Oh, yeah, actually you will now have to give us a big cut. (The big irony was, how Unity made the same move later on.) The fandom outcry was obviously big, there was a boycot, it worked. And WotC went all:

Of course they basically won the world competition in backpaddling (though again, Unity was a big contender this year as well) and quickly went back on this. But of course there is a problem: When your entire product is so much build around community and your community starts mistrusting you, you got a problem.

And this is basically what happened.

The Audience Problem

There is another problem of course. Financially the DnD movie failed - and I actually think this says a lot about how WotC kinda misunderstands the audience.

Now, there will be people trying to tell you, that given that the movie had great reviews and stuff. But the movie had a production budget of 150 million USD and only earned a bit more than 200 million on worldwide box office. Given that the marketing budget was likely around 30 million, the movie barely broke even.

Of course, part of the reason for it was that it just had a bad release date. It released parallel to the Super Mario movie, which ended up being one of the most successful movies of this year.

A friend of mine could not believe that the movie had financially flopped. They were like: "What the hell? Literally everyone I know who watched the movie went to cinema like three times to see it again." But... Yeah, that is true. But the issue is that these people are a very certain group.

Because lets make one thing clear: The people, who adored the movie so much, that they went to the cinema several times and bought the DVD/BluRay on release... were mostly queer nerds. Because this is the group of people who this movie spoke to.

And let's make this clear: I love the movie for this. I love that it so clearly went for this audience. Because I am part of this audience - and I adore this film.

But basically the movie has a general issue in terms of audience. Because on one hand the movie is too nerdy to have a wider audience appeal of people who had never played DnD, while on the other hand the movie was kinda not nerdy enough to go full force for the nerd audience.

A lot of people in the fandom have instantly sussed out one thing about the movie: "Why doesn't Edgin cast any spells? And why do we see so little of the weirder species?" And part of the reason undoubtedly was budget related. But the other reason is that... well, it is currently a well accepted wisdom in media production that you cannot sell a high-magic story. At least not outside of animated media.

Hence... There is surprisingly little magic being cast in this. And we also do have a mostly human main cast - or why Doric is the most classically pretty tiefling you have seen with her human skin tone and all of that. Because media productions do not trust the audience to accept high magic concepts.

Who is DnD actually for?

Okay, let me talk a bit about DnD 5e - and a good decision, and a bad decision. And how that affected DnD.

Everyone, who is somewhat into DnD probably knows that 5e massively changed the game. With one simple goal: Make it more accessible. Which manifested in several ways.

For one, the game was in some ways made less offensive. Because prior to 5e there was a ton of racism, sexism, queerphobia and ableism inherent to the game rules and times to the game lore. This is just a fact. Things like species that are inherently evil and stuff like that - and also some of the real-life racial coding inherent to some of the species. Removing all that stuff is a good thing. Like amazingly good.

And also, they made the rules a lot more accessible. Before the rules were bogged down with a lot of stuff, that was simplified or removed. Again, this is a good thing.

And this worked. It worked really well. Of course, this was also partly due to stuff like Critical Role and other actual plays like that happening and promoting the game. The player base probably increased ten-fold from what it was before.

Yes, it should also be noted that there is probably a good topic for a study on how formerly nerd-thingies became more and more mainstream during the last 10 years or so, but yes, DnD was one of those things.

But in this there was also a rather bad decision made, which ironically also mirrors what happened with Marvel. And this decision is: Because we want to reach a wider audience, every single thing we release for this has to reach the widest audience possible - rather than allowing that certain things might have a more specific audience.

I am sorry to talk about the MCU here, but it is just such a perfect example of this: The MCU basically made two mistakes. Overwhelming their audience with too many releases. But also not allowing the movies to be for a certain audience, but for the broadest audience possible. A good example is how they dealt with the minority-lead movies. They got directors and at times even writers from that minority - but then basically did not allow them to be too specific and be too critical of, for example, a racist system because that might not go over too well with white mainstream audiences.

Now, WotC did not really do anything like that. But they also went with this idea that everything they officially released should have the broadest possible appeal. Hence the weirdly low-magic approach to the movie, of which I assume that it definitely was an executive decision made.

The fact that the movie resonated so much with the queers more than anyone else was also not intended - at least not from the production company. Like, let's be honest. No, Xenk and Ed were not supposed to be read as romantic. And how appealing the found family trope was, probably was not intented at least on the side of Hasbro (not sure about screenwriters and director).

The Lore Problem

This perfectly connects to one of the big issues that all the franchises going for a broad appeal after being very nerd-focused for so long, run into: The Lore Problem. And this is quite ironic, because I ran into the problem earlier this year as well.

See, as I was writing fanfics for DnD:HAT I quickly ran into the problem that I knew next to nothing about the world of Faerûn. Sure, once upon a time (like between 2007 and 2011, while I was living in Austria with my then-boyfriend, who really was into those games) I played the old games of Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate 1 + 2. But let's be frank: I barely remember shit from those games. And getting to understand what actually happened in the lore between and after... Well, there is just a ton of lore. I mean, people are playing around with this world for literal decades. So, yeah. This can very much be overwhelming for someone getting into it anew. Like, where can someone new even start?

The fact that - at least partly for legal reasons - most of the Actual Plays also do not work with the official lore, rather just using the rules to create their own worlds, obviously adds to this. Even the tables I played on so far always preferred original worlds, because the lore of DnD is just very intimidating.

The one thing that actuall ended up getting me into the lore was BG3, because it left open just the right questions to go into the Forgotten Realms wiki and just look for stuff, before also starting to listen to lore podcasts.

But here is the thing: WotC is also not helping with this issue. Like, they absolutel could create a proper accessible compendium on DnDBeyond that would just allow people to get an overview of the world and the timeline of things happening, maybe go into some of the major factions of the world and such. I mean, heck, they really, really want you to use DnD-Beyond rather than roll20. Yet, in DnD-Beyond I do not even have a monster compendium without paying, which roll20 offers.

Like, sure, WotC, it is okay to lock up the adventure modules behind a paywall, no problem. But if you do give me even the most basic tools to run a campaign, I am gonna use roll20, thank you very much.

But yeah, what WotC should make just more accessible was just: Timeline, important places and the maps (heck, make them interactive, you have the fucking money), maybe also a proper list of the pantheons and factions within the world. Heck, add maybe some inspiration there for what players might want to do within one of the scenarios and then, under this, go and link "hey, we made this one adventure about this, if you are interested!"

Something I did not realize originally was how much freedom the lore still leaves the people. Like, often even the important settings and events are just set-ups for adventures that the characters can have in there. There might be a few novels or comics then, that go into an example of a thing certain established characters like Drizzt or Elminster did during the time, but there is a ton of freedom to explore.

But by basically locking everything up behind a paywall, you will never get people even interested in this kinda stuff.

Because here is the thing: I like my lore. I love lore. I adore lore. But... Without BG3 explaining some stuff and giving me specific questions to ask about it, the lore would have been very inaccessible to me.

Just think of people as... people

Of course among it all there lies the central problem that comes with capitalism running something like this. See, whatever CEOs and shareholders are sitting on those chairs with WotC and Hasbro, they do not see the players as players or the community as a community, but as consumers. Just as they see their employees not as valued constributors, but very exchangable wage slaves.

They do not see the value of the community exchange with stuff like fanmade modules and things. While incorporating a bit of homebrew stuff in DnD Beyond, they are absolutely not interested in the wider market of people just creatively interacting with DnD and making a little bit of money from it. If anything they see those people as potential rivals on the market.

Heck, they have issues seeing things like Critical Role or Roll20 as the enrichment for the franchise that either are - but more like potential rivaling forces and money they have lost.

And their employees? Yeah, as we learned... Most people who from the side of WotC helped the Larian team with BG3 have been let go by now. Because WotC and Hasbro do not care for their employees, they only care about having some numbers going up.

I fully admit it. Apart from Buying BG3 and the money I have invested in anything DnD:HAT related, the only money that WotC got from me, was some of the novels I bought on Audible.

But here is the thing: WotC is doing a shite job at wanting me to invest into any of their stuff. Partly because those modules I would like to have are not available anywhere anyway - and partly because... As I said, give me a reason to get something, rather than just expecting me to randomly get something.

And mind you, this is no slight against any of the people just working for WotC. This is mostly about shareholder and executive decisions made. Stuff that basically just sees either their employers or the players just as a ressource to exploit, rather than... people.

#dnd #dungeons & dragons #dnd:hat #honor among thieves #dnd: honor among thieves #baldurs gate 3 #bg3 #neverwinter nights #faerûn #wizards of the coast #hasbro #capitalism #anti capitalism #criticism #long post #fandom #tabletop gaming #ttrpg #rpgs #critical role #actual play #roll20 #dnd beyond

[kidney9-9]

Bad Day - Tom Holland

Hi guys, hope you enjoy this little blurb of Tom Holland taking care of Reader after a bad day at work!

Tom Holland x Reader [Fluff and Smut] Warnings: Smut, oral fem receiving, cursing Word Count: 780

-

When you got home, you were exhausted. The last few days at work have been horrible for you. The only sanctuary you got was from being at home and relaxing but the last few days, ever since you’ve been getting home, you’ve been going straight to bed. You needed something a little more to relax now.

That’s what Tom noticed too.

So, he decided to do his best and help you out. He lowered the lights a bit, so you didn’t get a headache from the blinding lights, made your favorite foods, and bought a few of your favorite snacks, and rented out your favorite movie.

“Hey baby, sit down and relax, I’ll make you some food.” Tom spoke up once you walked into the kitchen. Your eyes softened and you nodded back to him.

“Hi, thank you…” You trailed off, tired from your day. You slowly walked to the couch and sunk into the cushions, moaning out loud from the comfort. Tom chuckled from the kitchen when he heard that but felt back for you.

He brought out some food including some of your favorite snacks to the living room and turned on the television. Then he set the DVD player on and put in your favorite movie, noticing you practically had fallen asleep on the couch. He chuckled at that and quietly sat back on the couch and poked you awake.

“I made you some food and put on your favorite movie if you’d like. It’s okay if you want to go back to sleep though.” He whispered into your ear. You shifted in your seat and woke up, smiling softly at him.

“You’re the best.” You mumbled back to him and laid your head on his shoulder. After a few minutes into the movie started, you started to eat some of the food, groaning about how good it was.

Tom smiled back at you, happy that he was able to make you feel relaxed.

He had an idea that could make you relax even more though.

-

“Hey babe, I can make you feel even better if you know what I mean.” He brought it up, nonchalantly. You instantly looked at him with wide eyes.

“Oh really? You would do that for me?” You asked.

“Of course, I would, come here I’ll do it right now.” He laughed, causing you to roll your eyes at him.

“Oh, hush, I should have known you were joking.” You huffed out, making him shake his head at you. He was serious about it. He stood up in front of you and pulled your pants off abruptly, making you gape at him then he pulled your panties off, snaping you out of your shock.

“Tom! Oh god, you were actually serious?” You laughed loudly in surprise. He nodded back at you with raised eyebrows, then he bent down on his knees, spreading your legs open.

“Yeah, I am.” He replied.

And with that, he leaned down while you continued to look at him and the screen with wide surprised eyes. He kissed your inner thighs, each with an equal number of kisses and he slowly started to lick them, massaging you with his hands as well.

“Oh, fuck.” You whimpered as he slid his tongue to your pussy. He lapped his tongue over your pussy over and over again, then circled around your clit. You slid your hands into his hair, pulling him tighter against your pussy.

He gripped your thigh hard with one hand and licked you aggressively, making you moan loudly. He started to thrust one finger into your vagina quickly, surprising you and making you gasp his name.

“Tom…Tom! I’m so close already.” You cried out, grasping his hair in your hands harder.

He hummed against you, causing a choked-out moan to fall out of your mouth. “God, you taste so good.” He groaned, sucking in your clit, making you even closer to your orgasm, and you cried out again at his actions.

He pumped in another finger and that did it for you, pushing you over your edge and causing you to orgasm. You fell quickly into your orgasm, gasping out his name over and over again as he continued to pump into you and lick your clit harshly.

He reluctantly pulled away after he licked all of the cum away. He sighed as he pulled away and looked up at you, smiling when he saw that dazed out fucked look on your face. He waited a few moments for you to come back as he slowly smoothed a hand over your thighs, going back and forth.

“That was fucking good.” You finally spoke up, murmuring it. He chuckled softly.

“Then let’s go again, right?”

#tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland smut #thank you for reading

[xchxrryblossomx]

My little Angel

Summary: You are your dad Pedro having quality family time together

Warning: None

A/N: In this, you're 15 and your mom died after giving birth to you and it was just you and Pedro together as a happy family, and once again [...] is the translation so sorry cuz I'm using google

You just got home from school and saw your dad. You did what you usually did, you ran up to him and hugged him. "Hola papá", [Hey dad] you smiled. Pedro smiled and said, "Hola cariño, ¿cómo estuvo la escuela?" [Hey sweetie, how was school?] You sighed and Pedor immediately knew it was horrible.

"Qué ha pasado Y/n?", [What happened Y/n] he asked and you frowned. "My stupid math teacher gave us a test I wasn't ready for then people were asking me if I had answers from the homework which I did but I didn't want to give the answers to them". Pedro chuckled and patted your head, "How about we go out and buy some snacks so we can watch a movie to make you feel better". You smiled and nodded "¡Sí, papá, quiero bocadillos y películas!". [Yes dad I want snacks and movies!] He chuckled and you dropped your school bag in your room then you both got in the car.

Once he reached the store you both got out and walked in. You grabbed your favorite snacks and favorite drink while Pedro did the same. Once you both got what you wanted and paid you went to the Redbox outside of the store and looked at the movies. That's when someone noticed you both and took a picture. They then walked up to you both and said, "May I get a picture with you both?". You looked at your dad and he nodded so you said yes the person then took the photo and thanked you and Pedro for letting them take a picture.

The person then started a little conversation and made a joke both you and your dad laughed at then they left to go home you were guessing. After that, you and Pedro picked a movie you walked back to the car and got in. On the drive home you were looking threw Instagram and saw the person post the picture of you and Pedro and the post said, "Look at this adorable family. I'm so glad I got to meet them and take a picture with them. They were so nice and friendly". You smiled and said, "Dad the person who took a photo with us said we were an adorable family and very friendly".

You giggled and Pedro said, "Well he isn't wrong, we're very friendly and adorable". You both then started to laugh. Once you got home you went into your room to change into pajama pants and an oversized shirt. Pedro had some sweats and a red shirt that says "#1 dad". you bought him the shirt for his birthday last year and he wore it like every night. You just remembered that you both usually make a pillow fort so you quickly ran to grab pillows and blankets then you quickly went back to the living room.

He chuckled when he saw all the pillows and blankets you had, "Hija mía, ¿por qué tienes que correr? Podrías tropezar, ten cuidado, por favor." [My daughter why must you run you could trip, be careful please] You giggled, "estare bien papa". [I'll be fine dad] He looked at you, "Yeah until you fall". You giggled, "I won't fall". just as you said that you dropped a pillow and tripped but luckliy your dad caught you before you hit the ground. He started laughing, "You were saying".

You then started laughing, "I mean at least you caught me dad". After he picked up the pillow that fell you both then started building the fort and you put the movie in the DVD player and started it. Pedro smiled and said, "You know when you were 7 we made a fort like this and you always insested on watching a movie or show with me in it. You used to also get so upset if we didn't, it was funny". You smiled, "I know dad I remember, but I always wanted to watch the same show or movie over and over again".

"Those are some of my favorite memories". Pedro smiled, "Yep, those are some of my favorite memories too". You both then started watching the movie eating snacks and drinking your drinks. You fell asleep halfway threw the movie and Pedro paused the movie. He then picked you up carefully and walked to your room moving the blankets on your bed then laying you down. He then pulled the covers over you. "Buenas noches mi hija dulce sueño, te amo". [Good night my daughter sweet dream, I love you]. He kissed your forehead and turned off the light and shut the door half way. He then cleaned up the mess and went to bed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hope you enjoyed have a wonderful day/night ♡

#pedro pascal #pedro pascal fic #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal fluff #pedro pascal x reader #Pedro pascal x daughter reader #pedro pascal imagine

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

EIGHT CRAZY NIGHTS is such a confounding movie.

I recently watched a batch of deleted scenes, of which I wasn't aware of until rather recently. I had once listened to its director, Seth Kearsley, talk about the picture on a podcast as well. Fascinating stuff all around about its production, and all the ins and outs, how they went about their decision-making, etc. Seemed like it was a fun movie for many of its crew to work on, and they seemed to be treated well too. RARE for an animated movie of this caliber, it seems.

It has gone down, almost notoriously, as being considered one of the "worst" animated movies ever...

Weirdly, when I was 11 years old, I was lowkey OBSESSED with this movie. I didn't even know it existed until it was out on DVD, and when I watched the whole thing through, I was hooked for some reason. Maybe it was because it was, at the time, a good-sized 2D animated feature that wasn't set in the past, a fantasy world, a sci-fi setting, or anything like that. EIGHT CRAZY NIGHTS wasn't IRON GIANT nor EL DORADO nor SPIRIT nor TITAN A.E. nor TREASURE PLANET... It wasn't like LILO & STITCH from the same year either, which is also a contemporary story, but that has aliens in it! And was family-friendly. This was set in the present, it was more for adults, it was just people being people with *some* cartoony elements (such as cute anthropomorphic deer and some of the exaggerated, if not demeaning character designs), it was even really semi-realistically gross in some parts (and not in the sort of, say, exaggerated REN & STIMPY way), it could've easily been a live-action Happy Madison production. But it wasn't. Many of the movie's detractors feel it should've just been done in live-action.

The movie is inspired by the Whitey character from one of Adam Sandler's comedy albums, and sometimes I feel the movie could've worked better with him as the main character and Davey a complex deuteragonist. Going through the deleted scenes, you could tell the crew went through a few ideas of just how far they wanted to push the exaggerated, cartoony stuff. What kind of jokes they thought could work or that they could get away with, etc. Certainly a cartoonish decapitation of a kid, and a monkey that explodes into a gory mess would've easily landed this thing an R rating, but they weren't going for that ultimately. You have this weird mix of a very dark and often mean movie, but it's also PG-13 and it doesn't go too far so it's more accessible to kids and still fits the bill of being a "warm holiday special" kind of movie. I do gotta give props to the filmmakers for wanting to make a big, mainstream Hanukkah movie in a sea of gazillions of Christmas movies, no matter the end result.

And yet... It worked on this fellow when they were 11 years old, so Sandler, Kearsley and his crew must've done something right! I can quote most of this, that's how obsessed I was with this movie circa December 2003-January 2004. With holiday money or something, I literally bought the VHS of it. We had it on DVD as well, but I bought a VHS for myself because back then, I did not have a DVD player in my room... So, a tape it was. It came with the live-action short A DAY WITH THE MEATBALL, starring Adam Sandler's bulldog at the time, much like the DVD.

So yeah, I find it a fascinating movie to this day, not because of its battlefield of tones (life itself is tonally uneven, too) or some of its truly strange sequences such as the one where the product placement all comes to life in the mall, but because of its history and also... The visuals are quite nice. IRON GIANT animation team involved (the boy Benjamin kinda reminded me of Hogarth anyways, of course I made the connection at a young age), and even the songs I find amusing. They got Alison Krauss to sing on at least one of them, so that's a plus. Some of the eleventh hour rushed stuff, such as the declining animation quality on the townspeople during the Bum Biddy bit, is fun to spot too. And I do overall like the premise of this movie; a relentlessly kind man who is overlooked by his community Odd Couple-ing with a total asshole who had a tragic childhood, in a sort of blah and miserable blue-collar town setting, some heavy stuff that this movie that - with more tact and less poopy jokes - could've really handled well.

I hate the term "guilty pleasure", but this could possibly be that for me. That's what I like about "bad" animated movies of the '90s and early '00s, there's usually something very interesting going on in it, whether it's through the seemingly-confused storytelling or the idiosyncratic choices in the visuals. I think with a slew of cheap live-action movies, those are indeed efforts at the end of the day, but with an animated movie... There's a lot more to it, and that it's a miracle one of these things even gets finished, let alone released. In live-action, it's just they shot a bit and did some post... With an animated film like this, a lot happens along the way, no matter the end product. It's easy to say "it's all negated by the script", but I think it's more complex than that... And that's part of what I find appealing about EIGHT CRAZY NIGHTS to this day.

#Youtube

[eternally-smitten]

Drabblecember #2: Falling Asleep Somewhere That Isn't the Bed

pairing: Trevor x Natalie

word count: ~ 1k

author's note: was this supposed to be a drabble? Yes. Did I still go above and beyond and go crazy writing for this? Also yes. What can I say? I love writing for Trevor!

"For the last fuckin' time, no!" Trevor rolled his eyes.

"Oh come on! Please?" Natalie pleaded, holding a DVD case in her hands, "It'll be funny!"

"I am not spending money on that piece of shit." He tried to wrestle the case out of her hands to put it back, eventually winning.

"What if I paid for it?" She asked, grabbing the case off the shelf again.

"I ain't watching it."

"You are such a dick!" Natalie pouted, "It would be so much fun to watch this, make popcorn, and make fun of it! You're a smartass, I thought you'd love this!"

"Yeah, but this?" Trevor poked the DVD case, "This is well beneath me."

"Fuckin'! Fine!" She huffed, putting it back in the wrong place, "Assfuck."

"I just ain't spending money on that shit!" Trevor chuckled, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her away, "Besides, we'll find some shit to laugh at on the tube anyway. Cable is always worse."

"I guess." 

"Aww, come on, hon." Trevor grabbed her chin between his thumb and pointer finger, tilting her head up to look him in the eyes, "Tell ya what. Instead, how 'bout I get you some snack ya like. Or somethin' else."

"Something else?"

"Yeah, darlin'."

Natalie smirked, "I'll tell you when we're back at your place."

"What? You're seriously not making me drive back somewhere just to buy you something while we're already here, are ya?"

"No, no! This can't be bought! Come on!" She hopped into his truck and leaned over the side of the door, "I don't wanna be late."

"Be late for what?" Trevor got in the driver's side and revved up the truck, "There's always some cheap, tit filled, badly filmed horror movie on TV. Don't worry, you ain't missing anything."

"Why are you so against this date night idea?" Natalie stuck her bottom lip out to tease him, "Do you just hate me that much?"

"No! Of course not." He answered seriously, "I just can't believe you wanted me to spend money on a piece of shit movie just to pick on it and then send it back home tomorrow!"

"Oh, come on! It was like five bucks you cheap bastard!"

"Five bucks that I could spend on more important things!"

"Like what?" She lightly hit his arm, "A PlayBoy magazine and a bottle rocket?"

"Hey!" He sneered at her, "What kind of asshole do you think I am? I wouldn't get a bottle rocket! I'd get two porno mags, thank you very much!"

"Oh, do forgive me Mr. Financially Wise!"

"You're forgiven." Trevor turned back to the road, trying not to laugh at his own joke. The ride back to his trailer didn't take much longer, mainly because Natalie kept telling him to hurry up and well, he'll do whatever he can to make her happy. She practically tripped over herself getting out of the truck, she was so excited. Trevor closely followed after her since he had to unlock the door. She ran inside as soon as he opened it, booking it to his bedroom, "Hey, what is that thing you wanted?"

"I'm finding it!" She called from his room. Trevor shrugged and threw his jacket on the back of a chair before taking a spot on the couch. He heard Natalie let out a gasp before she shuffled out of his room, holding one of his shirts.

"A shirt? You wanted a shirt?" He raised an eyebrow, "Shit, honey. You coulda just asked me to buy ya one of those."

"No, no!" She rubbed the soft material between her fingers, "It's your shirt!"

"So?"

"So!" She quickly changed out of her old shirt and put his on as a replacement, "It feels nicer. It smells like you, too."

"Aww, well don't that just make ya feel all warm and fuzzy?" Trevor pretended that it didn't affect him that much, but he could not deny that it made his chest flutter a bit, "Now, plop that ass down and pick something shitty to put on."

"Dontcha want any popcorn?"

"What? You don't think I can make it myself?" He squeezed her shoulder as he got up, a playful expression plastered on his face. 

"I didn't say that!" Natalie kept playing with his shirt, "But I will mention that the last time you tried to make us something, it ended up as a burning, charred brick in the trash. Besides, I'm fucking great at making popcorn."

"Wow. Just wow." Trevor opened up his fridge to grab a beer, "Ain't you a master chef?"

"Well, jeez! All you gotta say is no if you don't want any!"

Trevor took his spot again and peppered her cheek in kisses. Natalie couldn't help but laugh because his stubble kept tickling her. When he pulled away, he gave her a proud smile, "Let's just put on a movie, eh?"

He handed her the remote, and they started a long channel hopping journey. After a long fifteen minutes of bickering about what to put on, they finally settled for a cheesy 80's style slasher film that looked like it was filmed with a flip phone. 

"Oh fuck, this looks fantastic." Trevor rolled his eyes, resting his arm on the back of the couch.

"The music reminds me of those oddly specific exercise tapes from the 70's." She quipped before cuddling into him. They continued going back and forth with snarky remarks until they somehow got invested in the movie and its plot. Both fell silent, only making a joke or comment every now and then. That is until Trevor suddenly noticed that Natalie slumped over quite a bit more than before. 

"Hey," He said softly, "You alright?"

Natalie only hummed before laying on his lap. Trevor paused before realizing that she was dead asleep. He chuckled quietly before grabbing the blanket draped across the back of the couch and draping it on her. He placed his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently. 

"Night, hon." He murmured, yawning himself. He flipped through the TV channels before settling on the news. He only watched for a short time before falling asleep himself. The only light on in the trailer was the television, and it illuminated the snoozing couple almost perfectly for the rest of the night.

Tag list: @timothymcgees, @frozenhi-chews, @bobmckenzie, @alexlovebug, @greghouse, @ofhergrandfeelings, @speedstershipping, @obscureotter69, @gideongrovel lmk if you want to be added/removed! ♡

#my stuff ♡ #drabblecember #"=⌕ unprofessional professionalism/ #ok to rb!

[dougjounes]

IMAX RANT

I understand the elitist tone of saying moviee should be watched in theatres, but I genuinely do think movies should be watched in theatres. I saw some people getting mad at Villeneuve's comments about IMAX, and my first reaction is yeah they do kinda suck but I don't think he's wrong. There is something about a massive screen, a group viewing and "supposedly" perfectly calibrated sound/picture that is actually really important. If the first time I watched 2001 was outside of an IMAX theatre I don't think I would or could have appreciated it nearly as much. When I saw Blade Runner 2049 on opening night in a packed theatre and the credits rolled there was an eerie silence and for two minutes before anyone dared to move. Tenet is genuinely the only movie to make me scared of a gun going off. These are all experiences I don't think you can get at home without having the money or space for a decent sound system and a BIG 4K tv, and how many people want or can have either of those things.

Nobody can afford to see every movie in theatres, and not every movie will be playing in a local cinema once it stops it's intial run and this is where I side more with the descenters. IMAX is big and square. Most tvs are niether of those things. Not to go on a back in my day tirade but I remember when you bought a blu-ray and the aspect ratio would change to try or completely fit the whole IMAX picture into the release, but since the streaming takeover they've given up. Most home releases keep a consistent aspect ratio for the whole runtime. I think maybe it confused the average movie goer and I get that, but in the streaming era people buying physical copies want the closest thing to a "true" experience as they can at home. Not even providing an option means these movies are largely incomplete unless you have the means to see it during its intial run at one of the few IMAX screens in the world.

Yes IMAX video on regular TV's look weird but when you start repeating the cycle of PAN and SCAN VHS then we have a bigger problem. There are better examples of how much you lose not seeing some of these movies in IMAX especially DUNE, and that I think is what's unexcusable. The best and the only are two separate things. Disney has started to put out IMAX cuts onto DISNEY+ but completely ommit them from the dvd releases. Your mom or your dad might not think they care but when you lose so much of the frame and context they might actually relize that they do actually like it when they see the full thing. That's irrelevant though because you just don't have that option, even if you spend thousands of dollars to get as close as you can at home you will never be able to because of some studio bullshit.

That's the goal though. They don't want you owning it. Even after you buy your 4K collector's edition, they want you running back to the theatres for the release because you being the savy film enthusiast know that's the only way to actually watch the full movie. They don't want your one purchase, it's not enough, it's never enough. History repeats itself. First VHS and now this, do I think we will ever have studio concede? I don't know, it's possible but not for decades. All the media people consume is wide not square, TV's got wider to accommodate the content. Projectors aren't really an issue if you have a home theater the screen can grow and shrink. We have had rolling TV's for awhile, maybe that's what's next. TV's that roll up to accommodate square IMAX movies and roll back for eveything else but some wacky tech like that isn't something people are going to even start to want until half the movies coming out are filmed in IMAX. Even then most movies and tv that's coming out is mixed for 5.1 by default and it's been that way for a long time even on streaming but I will bet most people listen to it on something that is stereo or mono.

#reddit moment #jibber jabber #incoherents #tolietposting

[lustforreid]

Broken Confessions

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader

summary: you and spencer were afraid to say what you two really feel for each other, until one night it all unravel.

catergory: fluff, angst, miscommunication, hurt/comfort

a/n: half of this story was deleted and I had to re-write it all over again but I made it. anyways, I really hope you would enjoy reading this! again, I would really like to apologise if there are any grammar or language mistakes! also, thank you for all of your support with my stories, I really appreciate them sm so thank you <33

————

I love you.

The word I love you is sweet and simple. However, that same word left you hyperventilating and crying on Penelope’s shoulder when you realise that you were in love with your best friend, Spencer Reid.

How could you not? Spencer is the epitome of a man written by a woman. He was the sweetest, kindest, smartest and the most prettiest man you have ever laid eyes on. He’s patient, understanding and caring. Any women that he calls his is lucky.

“Hey, you okay?”

You jumped at the sudden voice, looking up from your desk to see Spencer holding two mugs of coffee. This was one of the many reasons why you love Spencer. He would always bring you coffee—perfectly made coffee just how you like it.

“Yeah—um, yeah i’m fine,” you cleared your throat, fixing your sitting posture as Spencer gently place down your mug. You gave a tight smile and muttered a ‘thank you’ as you took a sip of the coffee he made.

Spencer sat down at the edge of your table, his face concerned. “You didn’t came to the coffee shop this morning. I—uh, I couldn’t help but notice how you have been quiet around me these past few days… a-are you okay?”

You look up at him with a pained expression, not knowing how to explain your distant behaviour towards him. You were supposed to meet him this morning at the coffee shop. It is a Thursday and the two of you will always get the Thursday special. You studied his face, a look of melancholy hinted at his pale face. You felt bad for treating him like that—especially when he doesn’t know what is the reason for him to be treated like that.

“I’m sorry… i’m just tired. Hey, how about I make it up to you? Movie night, tonight?” Those words left your mouth without you fully evaluating what you’re saying. Shit. You just offered your best friend—who you’re in love with—to have a movie night together where it is an intimate activity to be doing and can possibly make the feelings stronger.

You saw his face lit up as though he was a kid receiving their Christmas gifts. He nodded fervently, putting his mug down. You couldn’t help but smile weakly at how happy and adorable he looks.

“My place? I went to the new bookstore that just opened recently near my apartment and they not only sell books, but old movie DVDs and I couldn’t help but buy a few interesting ones so we can watch together.” Spencer said, jumping off your table and going to his desk to continue his paperwork. As much as he wanted to talk to you, there were still piles of paperwork to be done and the only way to have a movie night tonight is to finish it as quickly as possible.

He bought DVDs so the two of you can watch together? You couldn’t help but repeat his last sentence over and over, the butterflies in your stomach multiplying. You hid your smile behind your mug as you took another sip of your coffee.

Soon enough, the love trance broke and you snapped out of your love daze. He bought DVDs so the two of you can watch together. What does that mean? Why would he do that? That doesn’t have to mean anything, right? You two are friends and movie nights are the you and Spencer’s thing. Oh, Spencer Reid, you’re going to be the death of me

————

You knock at Spencer’s apartment door, biting your lips nervously as you tap your heels on the floor while waiting for Spencer to open the door. You let out a soft chuckle when you heard his footsteps running towards the door.

“Hi,” Spencer breathed, panting a little as he brush off any wrinkles or lint from his shirt. You softly laughed, playfully pushing him out of your way as you enter his apartment, setting down your bag on the floor.

You jumped on his sofa, letting out a sigh at the comfortable position. You let yourself relax, telling yourself that there is nothing to be nervous about. This is your comfort place, your best friends apartment, Spencer’s home, it’s just Spencer, the sweet sweet guy who you would give up everything for.

You let out a gasp when you felt your leg being thrown off the sofa. Spencer was snickering at you, taking a seat beside you, placing the popcorn in between his legs. Before your eyes could linger more, you quickly turn your gaze away.

“Here, let’s watch this one. It’s a little on the romantic side but it’s still interesting…” Spencer continued to talk about the movie but all you could focus on was how beautiful he looks. The only source of light is from the television and you could see his sharp jawline move as he rambles.

You watch as his hands place the DVD in and he sat back down, a smile dancing on his lips. You watch as he sticks his tongue out to the side while he focus on trying to get the movie to start. Once he figured it out, he opened his arm out. Usually, you would lean in and lay your head on his shoulder, but right now, you avoided doing that.

Spencer took a double take at you, his brows furrowed. He looked at the empty space beside him and then back at you. Confused, he then took the remote and paused the movie that just began. You looked at him in confusion but you were surprised when you see Spencer look at you with a stoic but calculating look.

“Spencer?” You called, your heart beating fast not knowing what you did wrong to maybe piss him off. He didn’t answer, just held the intense eye contact.

“You’re acting different,” Spencer stated, his face still serious.

“What are you talking about, Spencer?” You sighed, turning your head away from his and burying it in your hands. How the hell are you suppose to get out of this? You let out another sigh, feeling the pressure of his stare on you. “Spence, can we please just watch the movie?”

“Y/n… you are my best friend,” Spencer whispered, his voice cracking. You let out a bitter laugh. Best friend. That’s what you are to him. That’s what you will ever be to him. “And it pains me to see you act this way, and I can’t help but think I did something to you. I-I’ve only notice you being dismissive towards me and uh, just please, tell me what’s wrong.”

You didn’t realise you were crying until you felt your throat burn and tears drop on to your lap. You quickly wiped it away, afraid Spencer would see.

Of course, Spencer never took his eyes of you. He scoot closer to you, his hands slowly reaching out to yours and taking it off your face.

“Y/n, please. Tell me what’s wrong.”

You shook your head, the ache in your heart was painful. “I can’t,” you whispered, shaking your head and hiding your face behind your hands again.

“Yes, you can—“

“No, I can’t.”

The room was now silent, the only sound was your occasional sniffing. You regretted raising your voice like that, but you needed him to move on from this subject.

When Spencer doesn’t say anything, you raised your head from your hands. He looked sad, his face full of concern and worry. You couldn’t take it. You couldn’t take the risk of ruining your friendship with him. Not when he was the best friend you’ve never had.

“I’m sorry Spence, but I gotta go,” you sniffed, standing up and stride your way to your bag that was on the floor.

“What? Y/n… Y/n!” Spencer finally snapped, his temper rising for a few seconds before going back to normal. “Y/n, please, what is going on? What is your problem? I want to know if you’re okay, see if I can do anything to help—anything. Please, Y/n, I’m your best friend and I—please, Y/n.”

“That’s the problem, Spencer,” you muttered, wiping your tears angrily.

“What?”

“That’s the problem, Spencer. You’re my best friend.” You said, whispering the last part.

“Y/n, what? I’m not understanding—“

“Never mind, Spencer. I just— I have to go. I’m sorry,” you said and got out of his apartment. Once you were out of his apartment building, you sobbed your way to your car. Great. Just great. You have ruined your best friendship yet.

You couldn’t bear yourself to go to work on Monday, so you called Hotch and told him you weren’t feeling well. You had spend the weekend alone, ignoring all of Spencer’s calls and messages. You wanted to answer—really you did. But you couldn’t. So you completely isolated yourself away from him. Of course, a part of you felt like this was unnecessary and dramatic but the other part of you felt like you needed alone time to figure and calm yourself down.

You were seated comfortably on your bed, reading a book that Spencer gifted you. Spencer always knew which book is the perfect book for you. Every book that he gave you were all your favourites. Soft knocks broke your focus from the book. You made your way to the door only to stop mid-way when you heard a familiar voice.

“Y/n… please, I know you’re in there.” It was Spencer. You felt your heart ache when you heard his voice. Broken and sad. The feeling of guilt in you now becoming heavier. He didn’t deserve this—truly.

You stopped right in front of the door, waiting for him to maybe go away. But he didn’t.

“Y/n, I’m really worried about you. Please, I-I couldn’t stop thinking how you looked so sad the other night. Y/n, all I want to do is hopefully make you feel better—that’s all. Please, Y/n… I love you.”

You felt your breath cut short. Your hands immediately finding itself turning the door knob and then you were greeted by your favourite brown-haired genius. Except, he looked so sad. So sad. You fought the urge to put your arms around him and rub his back comfortingly. You wanted to hug him, run your fingers through his hair, kiss him on his forehead.

“Spencer…”

Everything just clicked. The distancing, the hesitance, it was all understood—all forgiven. He knew. You knew. You felt his hands wrapping itself around your waist, pulling you close to him as he nuzzle his face into your neck, inhaling his favourite scent. You did the same. Then, everything was a blur. Spencer looking into your eyes with his beautiful smile, his fingers wiping the tear that you didn’t even realise was falling, Spencer asking you if he could kiss you, your absent-minded nod, and then, his soft lips were on yours. You felt the tingling in your stomach multiplying, the feeling of his lips on yours soothed every worry you ever had. He held your face with so much delicacy, afraid he would break you. Your fingers threaded itself in his curls, the other clutching his sweater. 

Your lips danced tentatively against his; moving slowly and gently. Spencer pulled away from the kiss, desperate for air. He leaned his forehead on yours, pulling you impossibly closer. Your eyes were still shut, not wanting to let this moment go. You slowly flutter your eyes open and your heart flutter at the sight of his beautiful brown eyes. Then, a soft giggle escape your lips, and Spencer mirrored your laughter before looking at you lovingly.

“I love you, Y/n. I have loved you ever since I’ve laid my eyes on you. You are special to me, Y/n. You make me feel special. You made me realise that I am more than just—a genius a-and someone who is worthy. You know, William Shakespeare wrote, ‘Hear my soul speak: the very instant that I saw you did my heart fly to your service.’ It pains me to see you so—sad and down. But, I understand why you felt that way. Realising that you’re in love with someone, could be overwhelming, but, right now, I just want you to know that I love you, Y/n Y/l.”

You felt a tear trickle down your cheeks and then the soothing feeling of Spencer’s soft fingers wiping it away. 

“I love you too, Spencer. In fact, all of this mess we’re in is because i’m in love with you. I was so afraid that you didn’t feel the same way… that I would ruin our perfect friendship. I’m sorry if I hurt you these past few days, I was just… scared.”

Spencer softly pulled your head in and gave a chaste kiss. “Shh, it’s okay. I love you.”

You sniffed, looking back at him. You place a soft kiss on his neck, before looking back at him with a soft smile. He returned the smile and leaned in to connect your lips with his again. You sighed into the kiss, wrapping your arms around his neck as you began to divulge his mouth. The kiss then began to become more lustful and hungry. Spencer groaned as he felt your tongue reached out to seek his own. You quickly pulled him in your apartment, walking the two of you to your bedroom.

You and Spencer spent the whole night trading lustful and amorous whispers, making up for all the lost time, showing each other how much love the two of you have and bring each other to a rapturous states of pleasure.

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x you #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid smut #criminal minds

[newmih]

Hi! Could I request a Platonic! Stiles Stilinski and gn reader having a movie night? Scott could also appear too! Mb even attempting to cook something or build a pillow fort to watch the movie in for fun and chaos? This could end up as a best friend sleepover. Sorry if it's too much! Thank you!

Movie night

Words: 1028

Characters: Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall, gn reader

Autor's note: I'm really sorry it took me so long to respond. But I guess I wasn't in the mood to write about Teen Wolf. I don't really know if I fit your expectations but I hope you like it. Also the ending is so lame but we'll skip that. /English is nit my first language. Sorry for any mistake I made./

Masterlist

Bonne lecture

You pressed the doorbell and waited by the door, arms already outstretched so that when Stiles opened the door, he would be the first to see what you had brought. You had been planning for a couple of weeks to spend an evening together. It had been a really long time since you guys had managed to see each other and you really missed your best friend.

"Surprise!" The door opened and a laugh rang out. This was definitely going to be a night to remember.

[...]

You were in the kitchen when someone gave three loud knocks on the door. You rolled your eyes at your friend's excitement. You were preparing something to eat. Well... you were making something to eat while the other idiot who occasionally served as your best friend clowned around you without letting you work in peace. You were going to drive him into a wall if he continued. Even if all things considered, it was probably a very extreme reaction... Derek had surely rubbed off on you a bit.

The dark-haired man returned accompanied by the alpha of your pack or as you called him Scotty. You squinted in his direction and he smiled goofily at you before waving.

"Hi Y/N.

-Hi Scotty." He huffed at the nickname but said nothing. You were holding a knife in your hand right now and he didn't want to risk accidentally running into it in his arm. No... That had never happened.

He sat down beside you and tried to help you. But the hyperactive one had decided that annoying you until you exploded was the activity he wanted to do. You sighed for a long time, pinching the bridge of your nose.

"God give me patience, you huffed.

-I think what you're trying to say is: God give me strength.

-If God gave me strength right now, you'd be dead." He looked at you wide-eyed, shocked at what you had just said even though it happened frequently with you and he should have expected it. He mentally reminded himself to stop bothering you when you were in a kitchen, the place in the house where there were the most deadly stabbing weapons. He then bolted to the living room where he began to prepare the couch to act like he was doing something.

The wolf hid his big smile behind his hand and bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from howling with laughter. We didn't know what to expect with you right now.

[...]

"You want chips!" you dared your voice just enough for Stiles to hear you through the house and his answer made you spit out the water you were drinking.

- HELL YEAH! I'M ALWAYS A BITCH FOR DORITOS!!! The whole neighborhood had probably heard him say that and Scott who had just finished making the popcorn looked at you, shocked.

-I'm telling you, he spent a lot of time in your company Y/N." You dared your shoulders and smiled, proud of the monster you created.

[...]

"So I brought some DVDs." The human looked at you, skeptical while Scott seemed amused. Every time it was the same thing, for as long as you could remember. You always ended up putting Stars Wars on the TV. The disc case was damaged from use and this was probably the third copy you bought.

You smiled as the boys looked at what you had brought. Then you clapped your hands and walked over to the DVD player. They handed you the movie they had taken ten minutes to choose.

"Seriously!!! This is the third time this month you've forced me to watch it! You didn't get a response and turned to look at them. "Guys!!! Can't we watch something else?" Scott, who certainly agreed with you, didn't dare speak up. Seriously, he didn't know anyone who had ever won a fight against Stiles Stilinski.

You end up putting it on and grumbling. They were lucky that there was enough food for you to eat for the duration. Otherwise, you would have grumbled and ended up fighting with pillows because you wouldn't let them enjoy it in silence.

One of them threw popcorn at you and you turned around, shooting lightning bolts with your eyes. Who dared to play with food? Neither of them spoke up and you smiled at them. Thanks to them you had the perfect excuse not to have to clean up in the morning.

"You can do the cleaning in the morning." They walked away, but the music of the credits started, which made them forget the reason of their discontent.

[...]

It had probably been a good hour since the movie started and you had been lost in your thoughts for ten long minutes. Getting lost in your head even for such a short time was certainly felt longer. You opened your eyes wide as you finished your thought. Albert Einstein who?

"Dude !!!! Most dust is made up of microscopic pieces of skin, so vacuuming robots are carnivorous robots and one day the dust won't satisfy them and they'll rise up against us and devour us all. silence followed your tirade, even the TV was silent. Stiles was the first to respond, still shocked by what you had just said.

-Can we get back to the movie? The question seemed rhetorical and probably was, but you couldn't help but answer.

-Wait-" A pillow flew from your right, straight to your face. Your head snapped back and you slumped, not wanting to make a move after that quick humiliation.

You mumbled, your voice muffled by the pillow you didn't have the strength to remove. "Idiot."He chuckled, then returned his attention to the screen, which was obviously more important than your big reveal.

[...]

The sun finally rose, only two hours after the last of you had fallen asleep. You opened your eyes, and then closed them again because of the blindness. But you had time to see what was in front of your face.

"STILES STILINSKI! IF YOU DON'T GET YOUR FILTHY FEET OUT OF THERE IN THE NEXT FEW SECONDS, I'LL MAKE YOU EAT THEM!"

#teen wolf #stiles stilinski #scott mccall #stiles stilinski x reader #gn reader #Y/N #y/n #imagine #imagines #scott mccall x reader

[bukojuiice]

she’s not afraid of scary movies, she likes the way we kiss in the dark.

ೃ pairing: (uni student! izuku midoriya x fem! reader)

ೃ  warnings: slightly suggestive content

ೃ genre: fluff overload

ೃ word count: 1,059 words

ೃ  my nav  →  my mha writing masterlist  → my katsuki bakugo x reader smau

ೃ bakugo’s valentines fic (nsfw!)  → shoto’s valentines fic  → virtual valentines hcs

ೃ  please reblog, reply or leave like if you enjoyed! it means a lot! c:

ೃ song inspo: she’s not afraid by one direction

ೃ it is your weekly movie night with Izuku and co, but whilst waiting for your other friends, you and your boyfriend had the most wonderful idea of watching a gory horror movie.

“I’m not sure about this.”

Izuku says nervously as the credits of the horror film you’re watching starts to roll.

“Izuuu-kun.” You put a hand on his knee and pat it. “It’s okay. You’ll be fine.”

“Yeah.” Your freckled boyfriend laughs nervously. “I know but… still.”

This was his idea after all.

Izuku had wanted to face his fears and watch this gory horror movie with you.

 It’s not that he wasn’t fond of the entire genre, he was just as much as a movie buff as you were! It’s just that he wasn’t used to very graphic terror and always preferred the psychological horror movies or thrillers. Which was fitting for him as he was very inquisitive and always loved mysteries.

Every week, you would have movie nights with him after long and intense university lectures.

Sometimes, you would be watching with the Dekusquad and sometimes it would just be the two of you.

All of you even take turns in choosing movie genres. Izuku always opted for Marvel or DC movies, Ochaco loved to watch low budget Hallmark movies ironically, Aoyama preferred Rom-coms, Shoto was very much interested in Disney Pixar movies, Tsuyu loved Coming of Age films and Tenya was all for True Crime documentaries.

  Whenever it was your turn to pick, you were the one who always chose Horror Movies.

Not that you loved them per se, but it’s fun to see your friends laughing, screaming and making fun of low budget cheap jumpscares.

  When your friends said they would be coming late for this week’s film night, Izuku asked you if the two of you could watch a gory horror movie before your friends arrived.

You agreed, of course.

It just caught you off guard that Izuku would suddenly want to watch a horror movie after he has heavily expressed time and time again how much he disliked very graphic films.

The two of you were snuggled together. Comfort was bountiful between the two of you as you were very affectionate with each other. It was very sweet.

  You were holding a bag of microwaved popcorn when you notice Izuku slightly quivering in fear as the opening credits start to roll.

  The very intense opening scene comes in and Izuku tenses up.

  You stifle in a laugh as you watch Midoriya squirm in his seat.

  Blood and a horrific scream can be seen and heard on the screen as Izuku jumps out of his seat and yelps.

  He blindingly grabs your hand and squeezes it hard. You stifle in a laugh again.

“(Y/N)-chan…” He says shakily.

“Yeah?” You turn to him, hoping your calm façade won’t break.

Izuku looks at your calm face and shakes his head. Oh, how looking at you brought him comfort and peace even for just a moment. “Never m-mind.”

You look away from him and smile. Holding his hand even more tightly than he already was doing with yours. You rub his thumb affectionately trying your best to calm him down.

  Another blood-curling scream and very graphic imagery of a character meeting their demise is heard and seen as Izuku jerks backwards.

A few more screams and jumps later, you put your hand again on his knee, almost feeling the shivers running down his spine and circulating all over his body. You knew that you had to stop the movie.

  “S-sorry Izu-kun.” You say, a look of concern on your face. “Do you want me to stop the movie?”

“I-it’s, ha, okay.” He says shakily.

“Izu-kun, love, it’s okay. If you can’t take the movie anymore, I’ll pop the DVD out.” He starts protesting until he sees the look in your eyes. “Yes, please. Dear god, please.”

You chuckle and get up to remove the disk. But, only before Izuku grabs your hand rather carelessly.

You feel your body bounce back safely on the couch as your seaweed-haired boyfriend topples over you. Pinning down your wrist, with you lying down on the couch as passion and love begin to spark in his eyes.

“I’m sorry if we had to stop the movie.” His breath hitches and tickles your face, “How can I make it up to you?”

“You can make it up to me now.” You wink seductively as the both of you lean in for a heated kiss until…

“INTO THE UNKNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWN!” An all too familiar voice speaking in a thick French accent echoed around your apartment.

“INTO THE UNKNOOOOOOOOOOWN! OOOOOH OOOOH!” A squeaky feminine voice followed.

The door pushes open as your friends barge in so hastily without a text message to notify any of you. Your eyes twitch to the side, glancing at your friends who were talking animatedly with each other.  

How amazing besties they were for barging into the two of you like this and for ruining the atmosphere!

“Aaaaah~ Look at you two looking like a Disney couple-“ Ochaco hums instinctively. She was facing backwards whilst entering the room so it was only when she turned around that she saw what position you and Izuku were in. “Oooooooooooh.”

Ilda clears his voice, glaring at your other friends for failing to be normal people that knock on doors before entering another home. (Even though he was one of them.) “Let’s come back tomorrow. I think we interrupted them building a snowman.”  He continues the reference of Disney Frozen songs, earning snickers and giggles from your other friends.

“Guess we’ll come back when they’ve built the ice castle.” Shoto jokes in a very deadpan tone. Your friends crack up even more as they continue to tease you.

“See you at tomorrow’s movie night instead (Y/N)-chan and Midoriya-chan!” Tsuyu waves goodbye in unison with the others as they drop the snacks they bought in preparation for tomorrow. They leave the apartment as if nothing happened.

“T-that was kind of embarrassing.” Izuku says, flustered. A blush ever so prominent on his face.

“What can we do? They’re our friends after all.” You try to shrug off the very weird situation you were just in right now.

Izuku chuckles, standing up to walk towards the bathroom. You grin slyly and tiptoe after him.

“(Y/N)-chan?” He calls out to you. He looks out the bathroom into the direction of the living room, and you jump out and scream “Boo!”

He screams and jumps back and cowers on the floor. You laugh and help him get up.

-Fin.

#izuku midoriya x reader #mha x reader #bnha x reader #my hero academia x reader #deku x reader #boku no hero academia x reader #mha #bnha #mha valentines day #valentines day #midoriya x reader #izuku x reader #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #mha fluff #bnha fluff #izuku midoriya fluff

[agust-june]

GOT7 HEADCANON: VALENTINES DAY

Warning: I did not edit this

Mark

Mark would make dinner and show a romantic movie. He would take have BamBam and Jackson distract you for the day just so you can be out the house. He will buy the most expensive wine there is transform your living room into a Fort so the two of you can watch movies and cuddle.

"What movie are we gonna watch?" You ask

"Definitely fifty shades"

"We may as well just-

"I'm kidding! We're watching Cinderella the one with Brandy?" Mark wasn't sure about watching that version but he heard you talking about it with BamBam.

"REALLY?! YES!"

Jaebeom

Jaebeom would make you dinner. But no I think he'll take it a step further if his S/o was foreign he would take the time to learn how to cook your cultural dishes. It would take him a long time to figure out even mess up on some tries but it worth when he saw the look on your face. At first you were so happy he took the time put of his day to cook for you. However, when you saw the food you were nervous. Once you gave it a try you just smiled at him then gave him a kiss for effort. In the end he ended up buying takeout.

Take a bite of the food Jaebeom cooked for you. You hum forming a smile as you nod.

"Do you like it?" You did want to say it but it just didn't taste right so you just smiled and nod. Jaebeom just nods and takes a bite as well before taking a napkin and spitting it out as you do the same.

"Next time I'll let you cook" he says before ordering takeout.

(Black stans what soul food dish do you think Jaebeom messed up on? I'm betting on the mac and cheese he put bread crumbs on top)

Jackson

Jackson asked you what you wanted to do the week before valentines day. So when you said roller skating he was all for it. At first you suggestedthe Zoo because you didn't think he could skate. However Jackson insisted you guys go because it's what you want. He got you flowers some chocolate and a teddy bear. Then he took you roller skating but the gag was Jackson had no idea how to skate so when he go on the floor he clung to the wall for dear life. He doesn't want to let go of it until you offer to teach him...it all went down hill when you let him do the cha cha slide. You had to leave early because he fell on his back so fast and too hard. The rest of the night you buy Jackson dinner and try to help him feel better buy watching his favorite movies. I also see him cuddling with the bear he bought you.

"I'm sorry" you apologize

"For what?" "Taking you skating"

"Oh yeah that was your fault- Ow ow stop! I'm sorry"

Jinyoung

Jinyoung would have everything planned. Start off with a nice breakfast, run you a bath, pick out your clothes, leave the house and take you to run an "errand" but went to Jaebeom's place to get your necklace he bought you a month ago. Then take you  lunch he was going to take you somewhere else but changed his mind because you wanted to go ice skating. After you go home and when you get there the house was decorated I'm talking candles and rose petals everywhere. But it wasn't the end there he made another bath this time with him in it and afterwards he cooked dinner.  Basically Jinyoung treats you like a Queen.

"I had fun today, thank you" you say was Jinyoung holds you in his arms.

"I'm glad you did I love you" you turn around to kiss him.

"I love you too...now let me show you my appreciation"

#ParkJinyounggotlaid😎

Youngjae

Youngjae was sweet the day started off cuddles and it ended with you crying. Youngjae want to do everything for you then he'd take you to back some and set the DVD player. The man wrote a song about you and created a whole video collage about your relationship. He then gets down on one knee and reveals a box. You thought it was a proposal but it was a promise ring. You gave him the biggest hug and out of nowhere the rest of Got7 shows up.

"Did you-" you cut off Youngjae with the longest kiss as tears run down your face.

"I love it and I love you"

BamBam

Would take you shopping and would buy any and everything. If you saw something in the store last week he'll buy it. Even if your eyes looked he bought it. Bambam will spoil you to a point where it concerns you. Then he'll buy you a nice outfit and take you to the most expensive restaurant. He will also buy dinner.

"BamBam this is too expensive!" You say looking at the dinner menu.

"And? What's that supposed to mean?" You just look at him as BamBam before sighing. You don't know how your gonna top off his birthday gift.

Yugyeom

Yugyeom would do something so cheesy but I feel like Yugyeom wouldn't know what to do but make something from his heart. Which is why he gives you a personal coupon book. At first you were confused  but later appreciated it. You never gotten a gift like that and thought it was sweet a lil cheap but you knew his heart was in the right place. At the end of the day you used all of them except for free hugs and kisses.

"What about free hugs and kisses?"

"Why would I need those? I already get free hugs and kisses" you walk off as Yugyeom pouts but runs to you. He wanted hugs and kisses.

#got7 #got7 yugyeom #got7 fanfic #got7 mark #got7 bambam #got7 jackson #got7 jb #got7 youngjae #got7 jinyoung

[cosmic-navel-gazin]

This is something a bit different from me, but in light of the recent announcement from Ubisoft that there’s going to be a remake of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time coming out in January 2021, I thought I’d share some thoughts.

(This started out small but got outta hand so super long post incoming, no spoilers for the games)

So first off, a bit of my history with the original game.

 I’m a big fan of the Prince of Persia (PoP) franchise, and I’ll fully admit that nostalgia plays a big part in it. You see, in many ways this 2003 classic was my real entryway drug into the world of videogames.

It wasn’t the first videogame I had ever played. My friends had consoles, there were some games on the school computers, but I didn’t own games as a kid. As far as my parents were concerned, these were all the spoils and soul damning devices of Lucifer himself. You know how it is, every generation goes through this thing of blaming all the world’s problems on a new artform: rock and roll, comic books and then videogames.

So yeah, a gaming console or buying games for the home computer was a BIG NO-NO! 

But of course, the more an authority figure says you can’t have something, the more you want and crave it. It was only a matter of time until the opportunity presented itself to me.

And then the day finally came.

It was just me and a couple of friends, going to this new magazine store near the school. And there it was: the dvd case that came with a gaming mag for like 5 euros if I remember correctly, stupid cheap for such a great game. 

There was doubt, there was fear, there was anxiety. I didn’t know much about the game, only the old 1989 DOS Prince of Persia:

This had the same name but looked different. I was seduced immediately.

The case stared longingly at me:

 It’s not my fault, I was bewitched and I bought it.

My symbol of rebellion, my first big transgression, and my first real treasured posession that I bought with hard earned money.

PoP:The Sands of Time was my original sin so to say:

Accurate representation of what happened that day

I furiously installed the game as soon as my parents left the house. Played it for a couple of hours and stood in awe at the thing - the cinematics, the cool parkour moves, the arabian nights setting, the time manipulation to undo mistakes when platforming or in combat, the Prince breaking the fourth wall saying:”no no no, that’s not what happened, let me start over” whenever I died and got a game over…

You have not experienced true fear if at some point in your life you didn’t feel the cold sweat running down your back as you hear the very distinct sound of your parents’ car arriving when you’re doing something “prohibited”.

 As soon as I heard that sound, I quickly quit the game, uninstaled it (I could not run the risk of them finding out I had tainted their machine with a videogame *gasp!*), and ran to my room to hide the game before opening the door for them. 

Neetheless to say, I never made much progress since I had to start over every time after quitting and uninstalling the thing. I would just play those first couple of hours over and over, never knowing how the story progressed, but I was happy all the same. At one point I knew every line of dialogue, every music cue, every sound effect of that beginning part. It would be some years before I got my first laptop and finally managed to complete it. 

All of this to say that the game means a lot to me. Not just as a product or piece of entertainment. This wasn’t casually playing on someone’s gameboy advance or PS2 to have a bit of fun and pass the time.

 This was more intimate.

 It was just me; the game; a dark room and a blanket; and a sincere and charming, simple but compelling story told seamlessly through mechanics that only enhanced it. This was me witnessing gameplay and storytelling going hand in hand in a way that even many of my other favourite games don’t do, or don’t do as well (there’s usually some disconnect where a game only manages to really excel at one but not the other).

Ok, so on the announcement and trailer:

As a big fan you might think I was super hyped for this. 

But I gotta say…no, not really.

I’m not super angry, but I’m not really excited either honestly. And I don’t think it’s just the rough and uncanny character models and animation that people are pointing out all over (although that doesn’t help).

I guess to talk a bit on that, I should stress out that my problem isn’t that it doesn’t look realistic enough. To be honest, and this is going to sound rich from a big Witcher 3 fan, I think that the gaming industry overall, moreso big tripple A titles, seem to have this unhealthy obsession with photorealism. Like, I don’t need to see the characters’s pores to care about these polygon people. Strong art direction is what I feel is more valuable. I just don’t think this arms race to photorealism is sustainable. Games are taking longer to make and fund, and I’d rather have dev teams spend more time polishing and refining the games’ mechanics and/or story if the trade-off is less “realistic” graphics.  

It might just be personal preference, but I wish we were getting more stylized character and world design. Go look at some screenshots for Pathologic 2, a game that came out last year that hits that sweet spot between full-blown cartoony/caricature and realistic by today’s standards:

And I think that is somewhat what they were going for with this remake’s character models (or I hope it was). But it’s still not quite there, hopefully they’ll work on improving those so they can hit that sweet spot also.

(in defense of my hipocrisy and love of The Witcher 3, I think the more realistic look was appropriate for the world they were portraying, it benefits from it. However I don’t think I would love it any less if it had less detailed models and environments)

One last thing on the graphics.

I will say this though, at least from the footage we see in the new trailer the team seems to be capitalizing on colour. Big vibrant reds, blues, whites and yellows in the environment look great, and really captures the 1.001 nights/arabian nights feel that I absolutely love. I appreciate that since there’s always this tendency for remakes to suck all the colour and life from the original (in both games and movies), regardless if it fits the setting and tone or not.

Anyway, I think the reason I’m very much without a big reaction is that I believe the 2003 original is a true classic, a masterpiece even - I guess I should stress out that when I say masterpiece, I don’t mean it’s perfect. Just that the whole is bigger and better than the sum of its parts, that the things it does right, it does so right, that it completely overshadows the flaws. 

The story, the art direction, the gameplay (the holy trinity of platforming, combat and puzzle solving), the brilliant introduction of the dagger of time as a gameplay and story mechanic (one of my favourite mechanics in all of gaming), the music, the charming duo that is the Prince and Farah, the tight pacing with the game being just the right length and not overstaying its welcome, the outstanding level design where you’re never stuck doing one thing for too long (the game is always juggling between combat, story, platforming and puzzles, mixing and matching)… 

Looking at all these things, I just really don’t think we need a remake because I don’t think there’s that many glaring terrible flaws that could justify it. 

Adding more scenes and content could be good, or it might backfire: bloat and ruin the game’s already excelent pacing and fluidity (which I think is the main keyword that better describes the original, everything flows superbly). The original was only 6-8 hours long and it is better for it. I’m not confident that adding dozens of hours of gameplay like the big tittles today would help at all.

The only real improvements I can see are: 

tweeking and perfecting the combat (I’ve seen it mentioned that they’re implementing a targeting system which sounds good); 

perhaps also better Farah’s A.I during combat when you have to help protect her from swarms of enemies;

Maybe throw in a couple more enemy types? The cut sand tigers for example? 

usual things like adding the option of subtitles, add the ability to skip cutescenes;

But other than that…

I don’t even think the graphics of the original look bad. They’ve aged of course, with the game being 17 years old, but still. I installed it last night and played through the first hour to take some screenshots and I think they’re still good:

I can understand the MediEvil remaster, the Spyro remaster or the more recent FFVII remake in terms of wanting to update the graphics. I can understand that not everyone can easily go back to these low poly lads:

 But this game? I know I’m influenced by nostalgia and all, but I don’t think it needs that makeover that badly, especially when compared to these other remakes and remasters. Funnily enough, I just noticed that these examples I just listed were all PS1 games. PoP: SoT was a PS2 , PC and Xbox game. PS2 era games have aged far better visually and don’t need that big a makeover in my most humble opinion.

It would be one thing if the original was out of print like a Rule of Rose scenario ,where you can’t find the game unless you go to ebay or something and it’s stupid expensive. Or if it was a pain to get running on modern systems like it was with Grim Fandango, until it got a remaster. 

But no, you can find the Sands of Time trilogy and the PoP (2008) reboot on GOG and Steam (on Steam only there’s also the PoP:The Forgotten Sands midquel). So there isn’t the usual problem of the game no longer being accessible to people who want to play it, which helps justify the need for a remake.

The original still plays nice, sounds nice and looks nice, so I guess this all goes to show that at the end of the day, this remake just feels a bit unnecessary to me, at least from what little the trailer showed (I would love to have my bitter cynical ass proved wrong though!). 

 Maybe I just have a superhuman tolerance for older games and how they look, I really don’t have that big a problem if the game itself is good or interesting, so I don’t always think older games need remakes.

Maybe my falling out of love with Ubisoft in this last decade has curbed forever any hype I might have for their announcements, even when they pull out my  son, my baby boy Prince of Persia out again.

 Maybe I’m just burnt out and too pessimistic about remakes, remasters and adaptations (although game remakes usually do better than film ones).

And this makes me a bit sad because I don’t want to sh*t all over the first piece of “new”  Prince of Persia content we’ve had since 2010??? Oof, it’s been a while.

Especially knowing that Yuri Lowenthal is coming back and excited to voice the Prince again. And I also don’t want to be too harsh since we’re looking at an alpha of the game. But so far I’m just very numb to this, I do seriously hope it turns out good and that they don’t rush it out the door. But I’m not convinced we need a remake in the first place. The original is a milestone, a game changer. I’d rather see a game that had great ideas and poor execution being remade than something people already love and consider a masterpiece.

 Guess we’ll see how I feel once more news and footage come out.

Oh and feel free to share your own thoughts on this remake. I’m curious to know what both fans and newcomers alike think.

small edit: I can’t believe I was just watching this Sands of Time playthrough on youtube and at one point it is said: “Another game that is designed similarly to this is Soul Reaver actually.” 

Of course! I didn’t even see it! All of my favourite things are connected!!! Maybe that detail was another thing that helped me getting really into Soul Reaver as I was first playing it.

#prince of persia #prince of persia: the sands of time #prince of persia remake #ubisoft #videogames #my ramblings #I can't seem to write a short post to save my life!

[strawberrysoup]

Let’s Review || Chapter 9

Peter Parker knew that his big sister would do anything for him to be safe and happy. She’d given up everything for him twice over already and would do it again in a heartbeat. And that’s why, when the criminal mastermind Tony Stark started inextricably following him around, he didn’t say a word. Because he knew without a doubt Penny would do whatever she had to if it meant keeping Peter safe. He had to protect her, just like she always protected him. He never considered what would happen if Stark decided both Parker siblings were worth taking. Never considered who else in Stark’s inner circle would agree. He just wanted to protect her and yet somehow, they both ended up with needles in their necks.

relationship: Steve Rogers/Original Female Character/Bucky Barnes, background Peter Parker/Tony Stark rating: Explicit/18+ warnings: Dark Steve Rogers, Dark Bucky Barnes, Dark Tony Stark, Dark Avengers, kidnapping, non-con/dub-con elements, underage Peter Parker, emotional and psychological abuse, very dark 

Bucky was honestly impressed by Penny’s pain tolerance. Or maybe her stubbornness. He wasn’t sure which had seen her half way through a very thorough spanking with minimal noises, but it was only at swat 27 out of 50 that small sounds of pain started escaping her. Nothing loud or obvious, just short whines that could’ve been easily mistaken for exhales if he didn’t have enhanced hearing. Her hands, held carefully in his metal grasp behind the small of her back to prevent thrashing, were tightened into fists, skin going whiter with tension after every smack.

At 40 she was audibly whimpering and he could smell the salt of her tears. Her ass was dark red, hot to the touch, and would be sore for several long days. It was only fair, she’d broken Steve’s nose and stabbed him with a fucking fork— not being able to sit right for a week was almost not enough. But it was also her first punishment, it wouldn’t do to go too hard right off the bat.

At 44 the door to the apartment opened and Steve walked in with two black eyes, nose and thigh already beginning to heal. At 45, a loud cry escaped and Penny started openly sobbing. If it weren’t for his legs trapping hers, she would have started kicking out of desperation.

“Almost there baby,” he cooed, laying another hard swat down.

She wailed in response, going boneless over his lap. The high-pitched cry turned Steve’s stomach and he started forward. Bucky hurriedly gave her the last four before the blond could intervene, seeing the intention on the man’s face. Steve swept her up immediately when he got close enough, tucking her into his chest tightly.

“Shhhh, baby, you’re okay, you did so good,” he murmured, rubbing carefully up and down her back while she clung to his torso, legs hooked over his hips, “it’s all over baby, you’re done.”

Bucky came up behind her, running a hand through Steve’s hair and down his cheek, gently sweeping his thumb over the bruise under his left eye. There had been multiple times when he and Steve got into physical fights and wailed on each other. He’d certainly given his boyfriend much worse injuries than what Penny had done.

“I’m gonna go grab some arnica cream and her shorts,” he told the blond quietly, motioning towards the couch.

Steve nodded, maneuvering to lounge on the couch with Penny lying on her front against his chest. She was still sobbing and he couldn’t blame her; Bucky had made sure the spanking would leave a remind of her behavior for days. He gently moved her to lay on his thighs, turned more on her side than flat on her front and pressed her cheek into his chest.

“I know baby, cry it out,” he kept his tone soft and gentle, pleased by how she clutched his tank top in her fists, pressing as close to his torso as she could.

He shifted her again when Bucky came back, rotating her enough that her reddened behind was easily accessible. The brunet was almost treated to a foot to the face as Penny tried to scramble away at the first brush of his fingers against her burning skin. Steve tightened his grip, hushing her quickly when she cried out.

“Bucky’s gonna make it feel better baby, hold still.”

“No please!” Penny was wailing, desperately trying to thrash away, “please, please, please—”

“Penny, baby, breathe,” Steve hefted her slightly higher against his chest, adjusting his grip and pressing his cheek against the top of her head, “he’s gonna put lotion on that’ll make it feel better.”

“Please don’t, it hurts please, please don’t!”

Bucky sighed quietly and got off his knees to sit on the edge of the couch by Steve’s hip, laying his hand on her back, “I’m gonna be as gentle as I can sweetheart.”

She cried through the whole process as he carefully applied the arnica cream to her bruising skin, begging him to stop whenever he hit a particularly sensitive spot. Both Steve and Bucky winced the whole time, her pain giving them almost physical aches.

“Shhhh, it’s done baby, I’m done,” Bucky cooed softly, “we’re gonna skip your panties, I brought some really soft shorts.”

“No, no, no, no, no…” it was sobbed and Steve had to hold her arms tighter as Bucky slipped her feet into the silk shorts, carefully pulling them up her legs.

She screeched, more in fear they assumed than pain as Bucky pulled them over the curve of her ass and adjusted the band around her waist. They were the softest pair of shorts they’d bought her, pale pink and purchased specifically with punishment aftercare in mind. Both were hoping spankings would be enough, they didn’t want to have to graduate to more painful punishments.

“See baby, they’re soft,” Bucky rubbed his hand over her exposed thigh gently, “and the fabric’s nice and cold.”

“Let’s move to the bed,” Steve nodded towards the door to the bedroom, shifting carefully on the couch before swinging his legs over the edge and standing with Penny clutched to his chest.

Bucky manipulated her legs to tuck around the blond’s hips, making sure there wasn’t unnecessary pressure on her ass before moving ahead to open the door. He watched his boyfriend carry her through and lay down on the bed with her still on his chest, never shifting her more than a few inches. He felt a slow smile crawl across his face as she clenched the fabric of his tank top in her hands, pressing her forehead to the bare skin above the neckline. Penny would inevitably pull away from him as the one who delivered the punishment, but Bucky didn’t mind too much if it meant he was privy to sights like the one in front of him.

Steve was taller than him by a few inches, but much slimmer. His shoulders were wide, his torso tapered sharply into his hips and his ass was to die for followed by tree trunk thighs. Penny’s shape and size allowed her to slot perfectly against the front of his body, head rested to the side between his pecs, her soft chest and stomach cushioned along the dip of his abs. Her hips were wide enough that her legs splayed comfortably over his thin waist, resting on the bed on either side of him and her feet tucked back over his knees. She’d tucked one arm up along her body, fist still wrapped around his shirt and rested under her chin with the other hidden under her hair on the other side of her head.

“Incoming,” Bucky directed the quiet statement at the blond, jerking his head back slightly towards the front door, “you good?”

“Yeah,” Steve sighed softly, his eyes fluttering shut as he wrapped his arms around Penny’s back, hands tangling carefully in her hair, “keep me updated.”

“Shouldn’t be much,” he crossed the room and kissed Steve’s lips gently before kissing the back of Penny’s head.

Penny was half asleep, exhausted from the stress and crying. She could hear them talking but couldn’t really understand what they were saying. It didn’t really matter anyway, nothing they said meant anything.

Her head hurt and her throat hurt and her ass hurt and her stomach hurt too. Everything hurt in special and inconsistent ways; throbbing, aching, stabbing, shooting pains. Her arm hurt especially, where she’d fallen on it in the kitchen. She couldn’t believe she let herself get so worked up over a spanking. Had it hurt as much as she thought or had she just freaked out? Her ass was on fire, a deep throbbing that kept time with her heartbeat. It had just been such a repetitive pain, the same spots, the same tender skin, the same pressure with each hit. It had built to an overwhelming agony at the end.

She swallowed a sob, feeling her body shake with force of it. Steve was quick to start hushing her, making quiet noises and rubbing her back soothingly. His legs twitched and the next thing she knew he was pulling a heavy comforter up over them, tucking it carefully along her shoulders.

“Let’s take a nap baby, you’re so tired,” he cooed, nose brushing against the top of her head.

“Perhaps a movie will help, Captain? My records show that Ms. Parker regularly falls asleep while watching DVDs on her laptop.”

It really emphasized how tired she was, that Penny didn’t jump at the sudden sound of the AI’s voice. Honestly, she kind of appreciated the technology butting in; it was hard for her to fall asleep in a quiet room. Steve was quick to agree, asking the AI to project a movie onto the far wall. JARVIS must’ve been watching her closely for some time, to know that her favourite movie to sleep to was Toy Story.

Only a few minutes of the movie went on before Penny went slack in Steve’s arms and he felt himself start to finally relax. He’d been tense the entire time, just knowing she was in pain and so distraught had him tied up in knots. The punishment had been necessary, she’d acted in an unacceptable manner, but it had hurt his heart to listen to her cry while enduring the spanking.

If everything went according to plan, she would adapt before long. She’d acclimate to her situation, settle into her new life, and the fighting would stop. Penny would calm, accept them.

“We’ll make you happy,” he whispered to the sleeping woman, stroking his hands up and down her back under the blanket, “you just have to let us, babydoll.”

It took two hours for Bucky to come back, Penny was still sound asleep when the door opened and he walked in. Thankfully. His entire front was saturated with blood, it was literally dripping from his hair. Steve’s eyes passed over him carefully, looking for any injuries but saw none.

“You couldn’t have cleaned up before you came home?” He raised an eyebrow at his boyfriend, “what if Penny had been awake?”

“I checked with JARVIS,” Bucky rolled his eyes, stripping his shirt off as he crossed the room, “said she was sound asleep. From his tone, I’m assuming he’s mad at me.”

“JARVIS is mad at you? The computer that lives in the walls?”

Bucky shot the blond a scowl, “he has emotions, okay? Stark programmed him too well and he could take over the fuckin’ planet if he wanted to.”

“Drop your pants and shirt down the incinerator,” Steve ordered when his boyfriend started to drop his soiled shirt into the laundry basket, “I don’t want those where Penny could see them.”

“I like this shirt!”

“Then you shouldn’t have worn it for an interrogation, Buck!”

“Interrwhaht?”

They both froze at the sound of Penny’s voice, Bucky swiftly divulging himself of his bloody jeans and wrapping them and his shirt into a wad. Steve had one hand pressed gently to the top of her head, a small attempt at preventing her from trying to look around, and frantically gestured to Bucky’s hair with the other hand. The brunet practically dived for the bathroom when she batted his hand away and pressed herself up with one arm, looking around blearily.

“S’it Bucky?” She frowned, squinting around only for Steve to shush her and scoop her back into his chest.

“Buck’s in the shower baby, he went for a workout,” he lied easily, tilting her chin up to nuzzle her face, lips ghosting over her cheeks, “are you hungry? You’ve been asleep for a couple of hours.”

Penny hummed, turning her head this way and that to avoid him, “not hungry.”

“You sure doll? You don’t have to sit at the table, we can eat on the couch,” he implored, running a gentle hand over her backside under the comforter.

The reminder had Penny going stiff in his arms, having nearly forgotten about the pain. Coming out of sleep, she’d forgotten about everything almost. But only for a moment. Pain and anger and fear hit her with force and she wasn’t sure which feeling deserved the most attention.

“Don’t tense up on me, sweetheart,” Steve didn’t want to lose the little bit of sleepy intimacy she’d allowed for just a few moments after waking, clutching her against his chest, his hands running up and down her back, “shhh, come back to me, baby. You’re safe, right here, you’re warm and comfortable.”

“Let me go,” she grit her teeth and began to squirm, raising the arm that didn’t hurt to press against his shoulder, “let go!”

A firm pat against her ass made her yelp, tears welling in her eyes at the pain. Steve had barely used any pressure but it was enough to ignite the skin back to a stinging burn, his hand running over the spot softly moments later not going anything to ease the pain.

“You need to calm down, Penny,” his voice was stern and he used one hand to direct her face, forcing her to look him in the eye even as a few renegade tears dripped down her cheeks, “I know that you don’t like it when we tell you to calm down, but you’re working yourself up. You’re okay, you’re safe; there’s no reason to panic or get angry. Now take a deep breath and decide how you want this to play out.”

“Be sweet, babydoll,” Bucky’s voice came from the bathroom and she turned to see him leaning against the doorjamb, towel wrapped around his waist, “maybe that’ll be what we call rule number two: Be Sweet.”

Steve’s arms wrapped around her, a deliberate squeeze giving her the option of either pulling away or leaning against him. A tremble ran through her, bone deep as she considered her options. The first was, obviously, to follow the lead and let herself be tucked into his chest. The second was to continue to fight, but the shocking pain still burning through her ass gave her pause. It would hurt, so much, if she kept fighting. And it already hurt so much. Her bruises were bruised.

But giving in was hard. Where her body hurt in the literal sense, the idea of letting herself be cuddled and coddled hurt her soul. A searing sensation ran through her chest, a physical manifestation, and more tears began falling down her cheeks. There were just a few more seconds of hesitation before she leaned forward, letting her forehead press into his shoulder.

“Precious,” Steve’s voice was breathy and relieved and he leant back into the pillows against the headboard, bringing Penny with him, and relaxed with her reclined on his chest, “that’s such a good girl, Penny, thank you babydoll.”

A hand slid into the hair at the nape of her neck, fingers carefully massaging the tension. Bucky joined them on the open side of the bed, resting on his side, pressed up against Steve with his head also on the blond’s chest. A heavy, content sigh escaped the man, his unused arm wrapping around his lounging boyfriend.

“This is perfect,” he murmured, feeling his eyes growing heavy at the sheer level of contented bliss running through his veins, “JARVIS, will you project another movie onto the wall please?”

“Of course, Captain.”

Steve was quick to realize that the AI must’ve actually been mad at his boyfriend, because the movie that started was Coraline; a movie that Bucky found deeply disturbing, especially for a kid’s movie. His mouth opened to say something, but Penny let out a small noise before he could.

“I love this movie, thank you JARVIS,” she looked towards the ceiling endearingly and Bucky shut his mouth, teeth clicking audibly.

The AI sounded positively smug as he responded, “my pleasure, Ms. Parker. Enjoy your day in bed and please alert me if there is anything I may do to make you more comfortable.”

JARVIS was mad at Bucky but apparently adored Penny already. The two men exchanged glances at the realization; JARVIS was irritated because Bucky had punished Penny, she’d cried and was in pain and it was Bucky’s fault as far as the AI was concerned.

“This could be a problem,” Steve murmured quietly towards Bucky, ignoring Penny’s questioning glance.

“Oh, I’m sure it is a problem.”

#steve rogers x oc x bucky barnes #steve rogers x oc #bucky barnes x oc #dark!steve rogers #dark!bucky barnes #dark!tony stark #dark!mcu #let's review #let's review chapter 9

[lunnanunna]

Frozen

Stray Kids Extra Member AU:

Summary: Ollie gets the boys to spend some time together and watch a movie.

A/N: Here’s the Stray Kids post I promised like... a while ago. 

P.S. This gif fit this so well, lol.

Requests are open! And feed back is greatly welcomed!

“Why is it so cold in this place?” came a muffled voice from down the hall. 

Everyone in the living room looked up, curious at what was going on.

“Noona, you’re gonna fall over,” Jisung said as he emerged from the hall holding some pillows.

“It’s fine. The blankets will break my fall,” Ollie stated as she followed him, or better put, a pile of blankets followed him. 

“Uh, what’s going on?” Chan asked as he quickly got up to walk over to the two. Ollie popped her head out as much as she could, balancing the giant pile of blankets and pillows hugged in her arms. She looked at him with a smile.

“Channie! Can you help me, please?” she asked and he quickly grabbed some of the items from her and followed after Jisung who just plopped everything on the floor in front of the couch. Both Ollie and Chan did the same.

“How long have you had that Olaf onesie?” Changbin asked with a laugh from the couch. The others finally looked up from the pile on the floor and looked at her.

“I found it yesterday at the mall,” Ollie stated with a wave of her hand. 

“I went shopping with you yesterday though. I didn’t see you buy it,” Felix asked completely confused.

“Oh, yeah. After I finished in Victoria's Secret, you were still in that new video game store, and I saw a bunch of cute onesies in the store next door, so I went in, and immediately saw this one and then I bought it,” Ollie said shrugging nonchalantly, playing with the carrot nose on the hood. Ollie could practically hear the multiple eye rolls around the room, along with some laughing.

“Okay, now that that’s settled. And I am happy to see that you’ve added another onesie to your collection, but why?” Minho asked from the floor, motioning to the mountain of blankets and pillows.

“Don’t look at me. She grabbed me as I walked by her room and forced me to carry all this,” Jisung said, holding his hands up and walking to where Felix sat and joined him. Once he said this, everyone looked at Ollie, who stood with a wide smile, rubbing her hands together.

“She’s like a little monster,” Hyunjin said, leaning away from her.

“Noona? Should we be worried?” Chan asked, standing next to her. She whipped her head so quickly, that her glasses almost flew off. The leader laughed and reached over to fix her glasses for her.

“Thank you,” Ollie said, smiling at Chan, “Now sit.” 

Chan chuckled and then sat next to Seungmin and Jeongin.

“Okay, so I’ve been doing some thinking. And I know that things lately have been stressful” Ollie cautiously looked around and saw some smiles disappear. “Comebacks are always tiring for us and we tend to get snappy,” she added.

“So, here’s the plan,” Ollie clapped her hands and gathered everyone’s attention, “For tonight, we’ll do a movie night. Then starting next week, we’ll try to take some time to have a movie night or a game night, or whatever other ideas anyone has. This week I’ll chose a movie, then we’ll work out a schedule for each one of us to take a week and plan things for us to do. We’ve been spending too much time away from each other these last weeks, and I feel like now more than anything, we need to be with each other.”

Everyone nodded liking the idea, and Ollie felt her heart swell at the sight of her boys smiling.

“So, the blankets?” Seungmin asked.

“For maximum comfort!” Ollie cheered. Everyone laughed.

“Noona, can we have hot chocolate too?” Jeongin asked, a smile breaking out.

“Only if you help me make it,” Ollie answered folding her hands as if to beg.

“You know he’ll always say yes to you,” Jisung rolled his eyes.

“Well yeah, that’s cause I like Noona more than you,” Jeongin stuck his tongue out.

“Just help organize all the blankets,” Ollie told Jisung who again rolled his eyes, but then smiled. 

While she and the maknae were in the kitchen making hot chocolate, Ollie could hear the boys in the other room arranging all the furniture and blankets.

“This is really nice, Noona,” Jeongin stated looking down at Ollie, putting an arm around her shoulder,

“Yeah? Well, hopefully this will get everyone’s spirits up,” Ollie said, taking his hand and giving it a squeeze. They then set out mugs to pour the drinks in.

“Do you guys need any help?” Changbin asked looking at the steaming mugs. 

“Yeah, actually. Can you take that tray, Innie take this one, and I’ll grab this one,” Ollie directed and the three of them walked into the living room and placed the trays on the coffee table that was moved to the side.

Ollie took a look around the room and smiled. They boys had moved everything around and placed cushions on the floor, along with some pillows to create the illusion that it was a giant bed that they could all fit on. All the blankets were arranged to add extra fluffiness and more were at the corners for them to use to keep warm. A bunch of stuffed animals were also placed around, making it the most comfy looking “bed” that Ollie has ever seen. 

“I love this!” Ollie said and the boys found their seats around the “bed”. 

“So, what movie are we watching?” Hyunjin asked.

“Isn’t it obvious,” Minho asked pointing to the Olaf that was now searching through the movies on the shelfs.

“Are we really going to watch Frozen. Again?” Seungmin asked.

Ollie turned to face the boys with said movie in her hand. “Oh, don’t pretend you don’t like it,” Ollie smirked. She then proceeded to place the movie in the dvd player. 

Once that was done, Ollie grabbed the remote and walked over to the boys. They had already picked the best seats and now the only ones were the ones way up front where Ollie would have to crane her neck. So she did the only logical thing. She sat in between Chan’s legs, back resting on his chest.

“You comfy?” the leader chuckled. Ollie nodded her head, just as the opening credits came on.

“The hot chocolate!” Ollie all but shouted. Minho quickly handed them out to everyone and then sat back down, cuddling Jisung, who was very content with the set up.

Ollie smiled, happy that her boys were happy. 

“Yah, Ollie! You better not sing along,” Hyunjin said looking straight at the tv.

“It’s Disney. It’s illegal not to sing along,” Ollie protested.

Ollie’s Masterlist

#stray kids #stray kids au #stray kids 9th member #stray kids fanfic #stray kids oneshot #stray kids reactions #stray kids imagines #kpop scenarios #kpop reactions #kpop oneshots #bang chan #lee minho #seo changbin #hwang hyunjin #han jisung #lee felix #kim seungmin #yang jeongin

[the-desolated-quill]

Toy Story: Why I Love Chucky - Quill’s Scribbles

Yes! Yes! Yes! I know you’re waiting impatiently for me to continue reviewing Doctor Who and I will get back to it, I promise. But the trailer for Orion Pictures Child’s Play reboot was released yesterday and I want to take a moment to talk about quite possibly one of the weirdest horror franchises ever made.

My long term followers will know that I’m not really a fan of gory horror films due to the fact that I’m a grade A wuss whose backbone went on holiday to Barcelona in 1996 and never returned. However, as squeamish as I am at the sight of blood, I don’t mind gore so much if it’s in a comedic context. It’s why I don’t find the gore in Deadpool frightening. It’s cartoony and over the top, knowingly poking fun at other violent superheroes like Wolverine and the Punisher. The same is true of the Evil Dead films. Yes they’re violent, but there’s also a camp silliness to them that relieves the tension. The Child’s Play franchise is different in that the first three films (the first Child’s Play in particular) are intended to be straightforward horror films. A serial killer transferring his soul into a child’s toy and killing people. And yes, that is really scary... but... it’s a child’s toy.

It was this that allowed me to get into the Child’s Play movies. Yes it’s gory. Yes it’s often frightening. But it’s also downright hilarious.

I mean just listen to the premise. A serial killer called Charles Lee Ray, aka Chucky, uses a voodoo spell he just happens to have learnt to transfer his soul into a doll in order to escape from the cops. Then rather than do something sensible like keep a low profile, he instead chooses to start killing the family who bought him. Then, weirder still, he tries to transfer his soul into Andy Barclay, the boy who owns the doll, and that’s his motive for each subsequent movie because Andy is the first person to learn the secret of Chucky and therefore is the only eligible body Chucky can possess. Oh yeah, and if Chucky doesn’t possess Andy, then the doll will become more human and his soul will be trapped in it forever.

I mean... what can you possibly say to that? It’s so odd and random, it practically borders on self parody. Which is fortunate because that’s EXACTLY what the franchise ends up doing!

After Child’s Play 3, the next two films in the franchise, Bride Of Chucky and Seed Of Chucky, veer heavily into horror comedy territory. We’re introduced to Chucky’s girlfriend Tiffany, played by Jennifer Tilly, who also gets her soul transferred into a doll and the two try to possess the bodies of an eloping couple. Then at one point in the film, the two dolls have sex... somehow... and at the end Tiffany gives birth to a ventriloquist dummy called Glen. 

But wait. That’s just Bride Of Chucky. Seed Of Chucky is even weirder.

So Glen reunites with Chucky and Tiffany in Hollywood and the three of them try to possess, I shit you not, Jennifer Tilly. Yes. The actual Jennifer Tilly. They also kidnap her chauffeur for Chucky and for Glen they need a baby to possess, so Tiffany gets Chucky to masturbate and then inseminates Jennifer Tilly with a turkey baster. 

Oh, and then it turns out Glen has a split personality called Glenda who has inherited all of Chucky’s murderous impulses because this film isn’t weird enough already. The plan completely falls apart however when Chucky refuses to give up being a serial killer in order to raise a family, wanting to now stay as a doll forever, Tiffany dies and Glen kills Chucky. Five years later, Jennifer Tilly gives birth to twins, Glen and Glenda, and she then kills the nanny, revealing that Tiffany managed to transfer her soul into Jennifer’s body after all. So Jennifer Tilly is playing Tiffany playing Jennifer Tilly.

Yes, I know. It’s stupid. It’s crazy. It’s convoluted as fuck. These films make absolutely no sense whatsoever... and I LOVE them!

I know there are die hard Child’s Play fans who really don’t like Bride and Seed, but I personally adore them. They are just so unashamedly daft, it’s hard not to enjoy yourself watching them. I think what helps is that the central premise itself is inherently silly, so it makes sense to dive headfirst into the ridiculous comedy of it all, and Bride and Seed seem to take the Gremlins 2 route of being satires of horror sequels rather than being actual horror sequels. Hell, Chucky basically gives up his quest to find a human body and chooses to stay as a doll simply because it’s a good marketing gimmick. How can you not love that kind of tongue in cheek self awareness?

Bride and Seed are canon by the way. I’m not even joking. The next two movies have narrative ties to them. Tiffany even shows up in Curse Of Chucky, still in Jennifer Tilly’s body, and the writer Don Mancini has said that Glen/Glenda will be coming back too.

After Seed Of Chucky, Child’s Play went the straight to DVD route, but unlike most straight to DVD movies, Curse Of Chucky and Cult Of Chucky were actually surprisingly good. These films go back to the original Child’s Play’s darker horror roots, but manage to maintain the self aware humour of Bride and Seed. They’re not as funny as those films, but they’re still really entertaining and really suspenseful, as well as adding interesting lore to the franchise. In Curse Of Chucky, the family he’s terrorising turn out to have been old friends of his until he killed them and severely injured a heavily pregnant Sarah, which caused the main character Nica to be a paraplegic and is actually the crime Chucky was running away from in the first film before transferring his soul into the doll. After that, in Cult Of Chucky, we see a now grown up Andy Barclay return and we’re introduced to the idea that Chucky somehow managed to transfer his soul into multiple dolls. I haven’t the faintest idea how that works, but it honestly leads to some of the funniest scenes in the movie, so I’m not complaining. It’s also nice to see a horror film set in a mental hospital that doesn’t make mentally ill people the bad guys. Oh and Kyle, Andy’s step sister from the second film, comes back in a post credits scene to torture the original Chucky doll, so that should be interesting.

And that’s the original Child’s Play movies. They’re intense, frightening, silly, farcical and utterly enjoyable. I’m not in any way suggesting they’re groundbreaking movies, but they’re unique in that they’re a real oddity in the slasher genre and have managed to carve a nice little niche for themselves.

In my opinion, two things contribute to Child’s Play’s success. The first is Brad Dourif as Chucky. He’s amazing. A maniacal, charismatic performance that’s both frightening and hysterical in equal measure. Like Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger, Dourif has become intrinsically linked to the character. You can’t imagine anyone else playing him. The second is the franchise’s creator Don Mancini. Unlike the vast majority of horror franchises that are often ripped away from their original creators and become little more than shallow cash cows for movie studios, Don Mancini has managed to keep hold of the rights to Chucky. He has written every single movie and directed Seed, Curse and Cult. He’s like the Doug Naylor of horror movies. He created this franchise, he loves this franchise, he got the franchise through its various rough patches and when he became sick of studio interference, he just went ‘fuck it’ and decided to make his own Chucky films instead. So there is a consistent narrative voice throughout all the films, which is rare not just for horror films, but films in general. Films, especially sequels, are often passed from screenwriter to screenwriter before being approved for production, so to have a franchise authored entirely by one person makes Chucky stand out. It’s what made the bizarre comedy in Bride and Seed feel less alien to the much darker Child’s Play trilogy and the straight to DVD movies. They’re clearly written by the same person and use a similar foundation to build off of. It’s this that also makes the films unique. Franchises, especially horror franchises, tend to grow stale as they end up just rehashing the same material over and over. Child’s Play looked like it was going in that direction, but then Bride Of Chucky came out and the franchise took a complete left turn, taking both the story and the audience in a new direction we weren’t expecting. It’s Don Mancini’s willingness to experiment and try new things and take risks that has allowed the franchise to continue this long and maintained people’s interest. We want to know what happens next. We want to see what the next weird thing is going to be.

Speaking of which...

Yes, not even Chucky could escape from Hollywood’s obsession with rebooting 80′s movies rather than coming up with their own ideas. Yesterday we got our first look at the new Child’s Play movie, which... Yeah.... Looks okay, I guess.... So lets talk about it.

For starters, there’s some confusion as to how this movie even exists. Just to be clear, this film isn’t canon to the original movies and Don Mancini’s version of Chucky is still going to continue. In fact this is the first Chucky film where Mancini isn’t involved, which should tell you everything you need to know about this movie in and of itself. I’ve been looking into how all this works. Apparently MGM hold the rights for Child’s Play, but Mancini holds the rights for Chucky. So Mancini can still make Chucky films. He just can’t call them Child’s Play. And MGM can still make Child’s Play films. They just can’t use all the voodoo magic stuff. (I think that’s how it works. If someone wants to correct me, feel free).

So the new Child’s Play doesn’t have a serial killer trying to transfer his soul into a little boy. Instead we have a rogue AI terrorising a family whose son looks far too old to be playing with dolls anyway. 

This does not feel like Child’s Play... and yet, strangely, it is.

When Mancini first came up with the idea for Chucky, he envisioned it as a satire on commercialism. How the modern world has become obsessed with objects and possessions, using Chucky to represent our own materialist culture attacking us. Obviously that’s not what the films ended up being, but just like how the the Nightmare On Elm Street remake resurrected Wes Craven’s original idea of Freddy Krueger being a paedophile as opposed to a child killer, the Child’s Play reboot seems to be playing around with this idea too. You could argue there is a commentary to be made about how dependant we’ve gotten not just on commercialism, but smart AI as well. And no, I’m not talking Skynet or the Terminator. I’m talking about something on a more intimate scale. In this digital age we live in, nearly everything is connected to the internet. Our TVs, our phones, our computers, our cars, our electricity meters and, yes, even our children’s toys. Giving Chucky power over the wifi, making him representative of our dependency on technology and how much AI has become entrenched into our society, could be a really scary idea to explore and it gives this reboot some real legitimacy.

But here’s the thing. The idea of smart technology running amok as a way of commenting on our over-reliance on it is a great idea for a horror movie in and of itself. But does it really need Chucky? Or are they just using brand recognition to get bums on seats?

Earlier I said that Hollywood prefers to reboot old movies rather than come up with their own ideas. The truth is there are plenty of new ideas in Hollywood. They just don’t want to take a risk on a new IP. So they’ll take an existing brand and tie it into the new idea in the hopes that it’ll get people interested, rather than trusting in both the creative team behind the idea and the audience to go and watch the bloody thing. It’s a really annoying trend that needs to stop. Once upon a time, Chucky was an original idea that someone took a risk on. Now it’s a profitable franchise in its own right and it’s still going strong. The same is true of Star Wars and Harry Potter and many other popular franchises. We can’t keep returning to the same well. If we do, the industry will become stagnant and audiences will eventually get bored. Studios need to take risks in order to find the next Star Wars. The next Harry Potter. The next Chucky.

I’ll still go and see the reboot. Mark Hamill is no Brad Dourif, but he’s an amazing voice actor in his own right and I’m sure he’ll be good in the role. And who knows? Maybe the film will be really good and reinvent the wheel. I just don’t understand why this needs to be associated with Chucky when it’s premise would work just as well, if not better, without him.

Fortunately, regardless of what happens with this reboot, the original Chucky will continue. A TV series is currently in development as well as a sequel to Cult Of Chucky and plans for a crossover with Nightmare On Elm Street tentatively called Child’s Play On Elm Street (I confess I haven’t seen any of the Elm Street films, but having watching the Chucky movies and from what I know of Freddy Krueger, that just seems like a match made in heaven. I can’t wait to see it). Don Mancini will be continuing to write for the franchise for the foreseeable future and I’m excited to see what’s in store for Chucky. It may not be the greatest horror franchise ever made, but it’s definitely the most unique and creative.

#child's play #chucky #quill's scribbles