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luvsturniolo · 6 months

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hey girl i love ur stuff, do u think u could do a Matt imagine where the triplets are filming a baking video or smthn with the reader. There's a lot of speculation of whether Matt and reader are dating (idm if they're together yet or not) and reader minorly burns their hand or smthn and Matt makes a b-line to reader to comfort them? thanks ily<3

— ★ !! speculation

pairing : matt sturniolo x fem!reader

synopsis : desc is explained in the req !!

a/n : girl i'm SO sorry that this took forever. my inbox is literally so confusing & it stresses me out so bad to look at ; i need to organize it asap ! anyway im sorry this took so long, ur req got burried under a ton of others

anyway , i hope u like this bc u deserve it after waiting so long 😭 also, i'm trying a slighty different format for my posts (its so subtle idek if u guys will notice but i love it so wtv 🤞🤞)

wc : 1.8k

for the past few months, you and matt have been acting a bit differently on camera. normally, the two of you make an effort to stay decently apart so none of the his fans will notice that you're dating.

you've been friends with the triplets since middle school and you show up in their videos all the time. but last summer, matt finally asked you to be his girlfriend. you guys agreed to keep your relationship off the internet and since then, you two have been trying your absolute best to avoid eachother while on camera.

but it's harder than it sounds to keep a distance from the one you love. all you want to do it hold his hand, rest your head on his shoudler, or hug him. but you can't. and it drives you fucking crazy.

this morning, nick texted you and asked if you wanted to come over to film a baking video with them. seeing as you had nothing better to do, you happily agreed.

nick explained that you would be the one blindfolded. he and his brothers would be normal — able to speak, see, and hear freely. you were a bit nervous at first, knowing how horrible you are at baking. but you still agreed to film the video because you know their fans have been begging for you to participate in one of their cooking videos for years.

you're currently in the kitchen with matt as he sets out all the ingredients that will be used. across the room, nick is setting up the camera so you guys can film in a few minutes. chris is in his bedroom, searching for the bandana he set out for you.

"got it!" chris shouts excitedly as he rushes into the kitchen, waving the hot pink bandana around in the air.

you laugh at the sight of its bright colors before asking, "why the hell did you casually had that laying around your room?"

"don't worry about it." he responds, trying to be mysterious and dramatic.

he hands the bandana to you and you place it over your eyes. you wrap it around your head and end up fumbling with the ends of it, unable to tie it blindly. you sigh with annoyance but continue to struggle, too determined to ask for help.

suddenly you feel someone place their hands on top of yours. you immediately recognize them to be matt's. his fingertips are cold but his palms are warm, causing chills to wash over your skin like an ocean wave.

"you don't need to be so independent all the time," he tells you softly. "it's okay to ask for help every once in a while."

you feel his hands leave yours — meaning the bandana is tied. you turn around and blindly reach your hands up to find his face. you feel your hands graze his jaw and you smile, feeling the stubble of his beard brush against your skin.

you tip your head up and reach to kiss him. however, seeing as you can't see, you end up missing his mouth and kissing the corner of his lips. you feel his mouth pull upward with a smile before he moves his head to the side so you can kiss him correctly.

"i need to make this worth it." he says against your mouth. he pulls away to speak, but you lean forward to chase his lips. "i won't be able to kiss you until after the video is finished."

"then quit wasting your time talking and kiss me." you say. you feel his chest shake with an airy chuckle before he places his hands on your hips and pulls you closer against him, reconnecting your mouths to kiss you again.

"guys, what the fuck?" you hear nick's voice call out from across the kitchen. "you've been making out for the past three minutes."

"yeah," chris's voice agrees. it sounds like he's standing in the doorway. "we were trying to be nice and let you have your moment, but you just won't stop kissing."

matt lets go of your hips with a sigh. "whatever, let's get this over with."

"woah, kid!" chris exclaims dramatically. you can hear his voice move and his footsteps get louder as he makes his way over to where you and matt are standing in front of the counter. "don't sound too excited."

as unbelievable as this sounds, matt doesn't actually hate filming. he actually loves making videos for his channel. if he didn't, he would not be doing it as a job. what he hates is being away from you.

he's the literal definition of clingy. and you're like the exhausted mom who has to put up with his tantrums whenever you're torn apart.

"okay, the camera is set up." nick announces. "i'm gonna start recording, so get your coupley-ness over with so we can film."

it's kind of crazy how casual it's become for everyone to work around yours and matt's secret relationship. his brothers respect your guys' decision to stay private and they help you guys hide it from the media. it genuinely means a lot to you to know how supportive chrtis and nick are — even though they like to make jokes and tease matt for his clinginess.

"hey guys!" nick says to the camera. “today, y/n is going to be blind baking some santa-shaped cookies since it’s almost christmas!”

you can hear nick walk over to where everyone else is standing. he continues to talk to the camera when you feel matt’s knuckles brush against the small of your back — where the camera can’t see.

you smile, enjoying the physical touch. but you know how risky it is for him to do things like that. if you start blushing or acting weird on camera, the fans will easily put the pieces together and realize what it means. so you shift a little, causing matt’s hand to fall off your back and back to his side.

"okay," you hear nick's voice say. you jump at how close he is now.

"oh my fuck, nick!" you shout, turning to glare at him — hoping you're looking in the right direction. "you scared the absolute shit out of me!"

"i'm not nick." chris says.

you turn in the opposite direction and tilt your head dramatically, waiting for nick to apologize for scaring you. but instead of an apology, you hear matt say "i'm not nick either. sorry."

you huff out a scoff and turn to the last remaining direction where nick could be. this time you were finally glaring at the correct triplet.

you hear matt laugh from beside you and your stomach twists into a knot.

since you can't see, the rest of your senses have been heightened — meaning you're hyperaware of the sound of your boyfriend's laugh. everything in you is tempted to kiss and hold him and tell him how much you love him.

but. you. cant.

"as i was saying," nick continues, "matt set out all the ingredients before we started recording. so, everything is on the counter in front of you, y/n."

you nod in response, happily beginning your task. the first portion of the video is calm and kind of relaxing. you listen to the triplets' commands as you grab and pour random things into random bowls. honestly, you've lost track of what step you're on. it feels like you're just going through the movements of baking cookies rather than actually cooking a meal.

chris and nick have no problem with holding your hands or wrists to point you in the right direction. but matt? he hasn't touched you at all. he still talks to you and helps out when it's needed, but you both know better than to touch.

due to matt's intense clinginess, it's safest to stay apart. if not, nick will end up cutting out a large portion of the video where matt has to be pried off of you (it's happened before).

"now, you need to put the cookie tray in the oven." nick tells you. from the sound of his voice, you can tell that he's reading instructions off the back of the cookie box. you hear him set the box on the counter before he continues. "while you do that, i'll put the dirty dishes in the sink; chris will clean the counters so you can decorate the cookies when they're done; and matt can make sure you don't catch the house on fire."

"alright." you agree with the plan. you reach forward to grab the tray of cookies. you pat thepalm of your hands on the countertop, trying to find the metal board. but you can't find it. "what the fuck?" you mutter, knowing it was just right here.

"right here," matt's voice murmers against the shell of your ear. he reaches over you, his chest pressed against your back. you hear the cookies slide agianst the counter before you feel the cool material of the tray touch your hands.

you clear your throat awkwardly, trying not to think about him too much. "thanks."

"mhm," he hums. as he stands up straight, the warmth of his chest leaves your back and you're left feeling cold and empty without his presence.

you mimick his actions by standing up straight. you then carry the tray in your hands as you walk around the island to where you know the stove is. you're about to set the tray down to open the oven, but you hear someone come up behind you. matt tells you to just hold still and he'll open it for you.

you do as he says and wait for him to open the oven door. when you hear it unlatch, you reach down to slide the tray onto the rack.

apparently, you miscalculated the distance between you and the oven. because just as you were going to set the tray down, you felt a sharp pain in the knuckles of your pinky finger.

"fuck!" you shout in pained breath before dropping the tray to the ground.

"what happened? are you okay? are you hurt?" matt rushes out a string of questions, immediately taking your hand into his. he twists and turns it, examining the injury.

"yeah, i'm fine." you tell him. "i shouldn't have dropped the tray like that, it was kinda dramatic."

you hear him sigh, "what did i tell you? it's okay to ask for help."

"i didn't think i needed it." you tell him, dropping your voice to a whisper as you tell him your next concern. "plus, you might wanna get away from me. we're still filming."

"fuck the video, y/n." he says, pulling you into a hug. he holds you against him, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of your head. "you mean way more to me than a bit of speculation."

tags : @kasqnxx @lvrsparadise @prettysturniolo @strniolo @urmyslxt @cupidsturniolo @opheliaofficial07 @thetriplets3 @sturn1olo-ffics @uhnanix @deadxrx @kitaysworld @slaysturniolo @wilmalovegood @ladylokilaufeyson5 @sturniolopepsi @strnilolo @knowingnothingnoel @its-jennarose @lea0518

#luvsturniolo!!#sturniolo triplets #matt sturniolo #chris sturniolo #christopher sturniolo #nick sturniolo #nicolas sturniolo #matt sturniolo x reader #chris sturniolo x reader #baking #secret dating #privte not secret #youtuber #youtube #sturniolo #matthew sturniolo #lover boy

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maryangelex · 9 months

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Dark But Sweet

Maintenance Guy! Simon "Ghost" Riley x Reader AU

Summary: You just moved into a new apartment and facing the struggles of opting for cheap rent. But your building's maintenance guy, Simon, is making it worthwhile.

Warnings/Tags: 18+ content ahead, all fluff, crushing, shy Simon Riley, American writing British content.

A/N: Y'all I live in the US so I have no idea how apartment buildings work in the UK, or anything for that matter, please don't crucify me. But anyways...hope you guys enjoy blue-collar Simon fics as much as I do!!

Your new apartment was the best option out of the other ones you had viewed in the past six months of searching. "New" was a very liberal term to use for it, labeling it as "new" as in "freshly moved into". Otherwise, you would have used words like "shabby", "cheap", and "at least liveable" to describe it. It had been a few weeks since you had moved in; the place was still filled with boxes to unpack, but you had tried to make it look as organized and cozy as possible to give yourself a sense of home and some motivation to live in it.

This morning, you woke up and rose from your newly assembled bed. As you walked out of your room and into the hallway connecting to the bathroom, you felt the wet sensation of a puddle of water on your bare feet. Your eyes had still not adjusted fully to being awake, all you sensed were the soles of your feet saturated in the mysterious puddle of water. Confused and half asleep, you followed the water flow to find it was emanating from your bathroom, and when you opened the door you saw the water flowing freely from the pipes under your sink. The realization jolted you awake.

"Great! Just fan-fucking-tastic!" you said to yourself throwing your hands in the air. You stomped to your room, slipping on the wet floor a few times which made your anger seethe even more. You grabbed your phone and dialed your landlord; she was already on your most recent contacts from having to pester the older woman with complaint after complaint.

"Mornin', Karen, it's me again," you said with an exasperated sigh, "Do ya know any plumbers 'round here, by any chance?"

The woman started off by inquiring what had happened that made you need a plumber, you followed by explaining to her how one of the pipes in your bathroom sink must've come loose.

"Oh, hon, let me just call Simon for ya, he's the maintenance guy for the building."

Maintenance guy, great, so he's the guy that hefty fee goes to, you thought. At least you wouldn't have to pay extra for the plumber. Why couldn't your friends have been plumbers so you could snag a deal from them?!

"Right, and is he any good?" you asked.

"Oh, he's lovely! He'll be there soon, he lives on the first floor! Gotta go now, hon, let me know if ya need anything but also please take it easy, bye-bye now!" she said in one breath, hanging up before even finishing, seemingly being at her limit with the gripes this lease was bringing you, and bringing her as a result.

You sighed as you pocketed your phone. You made your way to the closet in your kitchen that held your mop and bucket, clipping your hair up as you got ready to start your day off by mopping up the water coating almost your entire apartment by this point.

It had been about half an hour, maybe more, since you started mopping, still in your pajamas and bedhead barely held by your clip. A film of sweat was coating your body from your labor, plus the fact that the air conditioning in your apartment was turned off, something you read on the internet.

The whole time you mumbled to yourself, scolding yourself about picking such a cheap apartment, that a few bucks wouldn't have hurt, that you should've picked up another job to afford something better, and that this stupid "Simon" guy better be worth that maintenance fee.

Your mumbling and ruminating was interrupted by two knocks on the door. You put your mop in the bucket near you, your floors were slippery but at least they were no longer flooded, at least outside of the bathroom area. You made your way to your front door, knowing you looked a mess, but who cares? Certainly not you, since you expected an average maintenance guy to show up; middle-aged, stubby, probably balding, and with jeans at half his crack.

But once you opened the door, you were greeted by the complete opposite of that description.

A very tall man stood at your doorstep. Your eyes trailed up his body, craning your neck back to look at his face. He had choppy, dirty blonde hair covered by a backward black cap and rich coffee-colored hooded eyes. His outfit was extremely casual; bleach-washed gray jeans and a charcoal, loose-fit shirt that did his visibly muscular build no justice.

You were gawking at the man, like a deer in headlights as you stood there holding the door open, practically drooling.

"Um...I--..." you stuttered "S-sorry, can I, um, help you?"

He paused, then said with a gruff voice, "Karen sent me." The man looked down at you, his hand carrying a heavy-duty toolbag moved, signaling his purpose for knocking at your door.

Oh, that's Simon, you thought, your face flaring red.

"Right! Come in, sorry!" you laughed nervously, stepping aside to let him come in.

"She said you were having plumbing issues"

"Yes! I-it's the loo, there's water everywhere," you explained leading him to your bathroom, as water was still pooling slowly on the floor from it.

You showed him with a hand pointing at the leaking sink vanity. Simon eyed it, giving you a grunt as a response. He was evidently a man of few words, he simply stepped into the bathroom, dropping his toolbag on the toilet lid, and squatting down. He opened the cabinets of the vanity and examined the pipes; another grunt from him as he diagnosed the issue.

You stood there watching him, not knowing what to do with yourself, especially with his lack of conversation or explanation. As you watched him you fixated on more details on him. You noticed his heavily inked arm, the way the veins on his forearms pulsated as his hands fidgeted with the pipes and the way his face was littered with a few aging scars. You caught yourself gawking at him again.

"S-so what is it?" you asked, snapping yourself out of your trance.

"S'no big deal, just the wrong pieces barely holdin' the pipes together," he explained, almost a mumble. "Might take a while, but nothin' major."

He had a thick Manchester accent and a deep, raspy voice. Even his voice had your checks stained red, and the man was simply talking about plumbing. You nodded at his words with an affirmative hum, as if you knew anything he was talking about.

Suddenly, you became hyperaware of what you were wearing, and what you looked like. You had expected a much less attractive man to be at your home, you hadn't cared to put yourself together. But of course, instead, you had a man like Simon, when you looked the least presentable. Your hair was ratty, your pajamas consisting of stretched-out shorts and an ill-fitting tank top, covered in a mix of sweat and water from mopping. You walked away from him in shame and bee-lined to your room, to at the very least brush your hair and wet-wipe yourself. Now you were thinking about how much sillier you looked fixing yourself for your maintenance guy! Did you think you were living in a cheesy porno or something?

You shook your head and sighed as you looked at yourself in the mirror. When you came back out, you went to your kitchen to look for something to busy yourself with, when suddenly your stomach rumbled. Right, you hadn't eaten all morning. You thought to yourself some tea would be nice, for you and also for Simon, you wanted to be a good host after all.

You turned your electric kettle on and rummaged your cabinets through your tea selection, picking out two packets of Earl Grey. You leaned against the counter as you waited for the water to boil, thinking about how the day had barely started and you were already exhausted, then your mind traveled to thinking about the man in your bathroom, daydreaming about the things you had noted thus far about him.

You were crushing on your maintenance man and you decided to act on it, unabashedly. You briefly walked back to him and asked, "How do you take your tea?" with an awkward smile. Your sudden question startled him a bit, he looked at you and gave you a polite response, saying not to go through the trouble but you insisted.

"Cream, one sugar," he said with. a hint of shyness, giving up on your persistence. Your smile grew and you nodded before running back (slipping) to the kitchen to fix him a cup.

When you came back with two cups in hand, he took the one you reached down to him.

"Thanks, love," he said nonchalantly as he sipped the contents of the mug.

Love, you repeated in your head as your stomach did a flip.

"Sorry, I should've asked which tea you liked, I have a ton to choose from. I just picked out Earl Gray, thought I couldn't go wrong with that," you chuckled nervously bringing the mug against your lips as you leaned by the doorframe, trying to make conversation with him.

"My favorite," he said, looking up at you with the mug still on his lips, taking another sip.

Your face beamed with a big dumb smile, "Is it really?" he nodded in response. "Ya look like an Earl Grey kind of guy!"

Simon chuckled lightly at your comment, "Is that so? What does that look like, exactly?"

You laughed with him, your cheeks pink with a hint of embarrassment and shyness now surging in you, "Oh I don't mean it in a bad way! Just... dunno, dark but sweet maybe?"

A hum rumbled in Simon's throat as he swallowed his tea, putting the mug down beside him and sitting on the floor casually as he looked at you again with those rich dark eyes, the hint of a cocky smirk curled on his lips, "dark but sweet, huh?"

You nodded at him, still smiling. "Just what I've gathered," you said with a shrug.

The two of you were silent for a moment, you noticed how Simon raked his eyes over you momentarily.

"Sorry, I'll leave you to it, then!" you snapped with another awkward laugh as you stumbled back to the kitchen, leaving Simon to return to his work. You were trying your best to withhold the smile tugging at your cheeks but it was impossible, you wanted to squeal like a teenage girl at the way you cheekily flirted with him and made him laugh.

As Simon tinkered in your bathroom, you occupied yourself by unpacking a few boxes with items that belonged in your kitchen and living room. It was already almost noon.

In your peripheral vision, you saw Simon standing outside of the bathroom, drops of sweat covering his forehead as he adjusted his black cap. It was still hot as all hell in your apartment.

"Sorry, love, can I bother you for some water?" he said, taking the bottom of his shirt to wipe the sweat off his face and neck. You watched hungrily as his shirt rose in his grasp, revealing his lower abdomen; his torso was toned, his v-line protruding from his jeans, decorated with light brown hairs and rivulets of sweat.

Your pupils were blown as your eyes fixated on him, his unintentionally sensual performance. You gulped, heat pooling in between your legs from the sight alone.

Simon looked at you puzzled by your lack of response. You snapped out of it as you moved to fulfill his request "Y-yeah! No problem!"

You handed the man a glass of cold water and he took it from you, gulping it down. As he did so you watched the way his Adam's apple bobbed up and down with every gulp. You were staring at him again, today. Your stomach was fluttering and the heat between your legs seethed the more you watched the man. You were pining for him at this point and it was embarrassing how hot and bothered you so easily were.

Simon let out a satisfied sigh as he handed you the glass, thanking you as you took it from him.

"I should be done soon, sorry for the delay, the fucker that put it together did a shit job."

You nodded and told him not to worry as he walked back into the bathroom. If anything, now you were worried he'd be leaving too soon. You enjoyed his company too much already. That's when you had a bright idea of how to keep him just a bit longer.

A few minutes later, Simon walked out of the bathroom with his tools in hand, announcing his conclusion with an "all done." But he was taken aback by the sight of you with a sandwich and a glass of juice in your hand, placing it on the table for him.

"Oh, I didn't think you'd be done so soon!" You said feigning innocence; it was almost theatrical, how you looked at him with pleading wide eyes like a puppy begging him to stay and eat.

"You didn't have to," he said quietly, a bit embarrassed by the act but he couldn't help the fact that his stomach rumbled, and it was hard to say no to a face like yours.

You give him a silent invitation to sit and eat by placing your hands on the back of the dining chair. "Please, it's my way of thanking you for today."

And so he gave in once more, sitting down and devouring the meal. You joined him on the nearest seat with your own. The man was famished.

"Your boyfriend's a lucky man," he said between bites, looking up from his food expecting your response, a bit of hope in his eyes maybe?

You scoffed, "Yeah, he'd be lucky if he existed!"

Simon gave you a smirk, which you returned.

"So you live on the first floor?"

"I do, helps tend to people in the building better."

"Good, I'll be needing you around a lot," you said with a relieved sigh; this apartment needed all the help it could get.

"At your service, love," Simon said, tipping his glass to you before finishing it.

You watched him and felt a hint of sadness welling in your chest. You enjoyed Simon's company; he was kind and quiet, as alluring as he was attractive. He stood up from his chair and thanked you for everything, then grabbed his tools and made his way to the door. You accompanied him, showing him out and opening the door for him.

"Thanks again, love," he said lowly, his tone was kind and a bit sultry, "I'm in 1B if you need anythin' else."

"Thank you, Simon," you said with a smile as you watched him nod goodbye and be on his way.

When you closed the door behind you, you leaned against it, finally letting out that squeal you had pent up all day. You giggled to yourself, immediately dashing to get your phone and dialing your best friend.

"You're not gonna believe this!"

A/N: Guys!!! This was too long!!!! Part 2?!?!? I was kicking my feet, twirling my hair and giggling writing this please let me write part 2!!!

#call of duty mwii #cod mw2 #ghost mw2 #ghost riley #simon ghost riley #fanfic #simon ghost x reader #cod fanfic #simon riley au #alternate universe #ghost riley au #fluff to smut #fluff #simon riley fluff #maintenance guy au #blue collar simon riley au

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twig-tea · 5 months

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2023 BL/GL/QL Round-Up Post

I thought for posterity I'd post a reflection on everything I watched that completed in 2023. For me, that means anything that started in 2022 but the last episode was in 2023 is on this list, but anything that will still be airing after 31 December 2023 11:59 my time (EST) is not on this list, even if the bulk of the show did air in 2023.

A few stats:

110 discrete pieces of content (series/films)

clocking in at est. 600 hours of NEW BL/GL content only

from 9 different countries (Cambodia [1], Philippines [3], Hong Kong [1], Japan [18], Korea [19], Myanmar [1], Taiwan [6], Thailand [56], Vietnam [7])

~50% of the content I watched on this list is from Thailand

~85% of my content was on YouTube [40%], GaGaOoLaLa [23%] and iQIYI [21%].

[Note that this year a lot of older GMMTV shows moved off of YouTube and onto Viki so if you're looking at these stats to decide what to pay for, this won't account for that.]

This doesn't include re-watches or catching up on old shows [e.g. I re-watched Love Sick, My Ride the Series, Semantic Error, ITSAY/IPYTM, Our Dating Sim at least 3 times lol, and anything with a s2 I re-watched s1 to prep, among others, watched Fujoshi Ukkari Gei no Kokuru (2019) for the first time] or non-QL [e.g. Heartstopper s2, Our Flag Means Death s2, Taskmaster s. 15 & 16, Uncanny Counter s2, One Piece s1, etc.] but does include films as well as shows, though I don't count special episodes separately (so Wedding Plan counts once, though I watched both the show and the special).

I hope you all appreciate that with this much content, and with my general brand of being unable to make decisions, I really struggled to narrow down a top 10 list. What follows is the best I could do lol

Top 20 Shows I'd Recommend From This Year:

Moonlight Chicken

Our Dating Sim

Bed Friend

The Eighth Sense

La Pluie

Sing My Crush

Tokyo in April Is...

Wedding Plan

Laws of Attraction

I Cannot Reach You

I Feel You Linger in the Air

What Did You Eat Yesterday S2

I Became the Lead in a BL Drama

If It's With You

Love in Translation

Our Dining Table

My Personal Weatherman

My Beautiful Man: Eternal

My School President

Be My Favorite

+10 I liked but I would only recommend with caveats:

Love Class 2

The New Employee [for the Rainbow Rice Cakes]

Let's Eat Together Aki and Haru

Never Let Me Go

Kiseki: Dear to Me

Unintentional Love Story

The Day I Loved You

End of the World with You

A Breeze of Love

Jack O'Frost

Bonus: Not a BL but worth calling out:

One Room Angel

Midnight Museum

Grand Guignol

The Warp Effect

Sadly, of the GLs that aired this year, I wouldn't recommend any of them. The best one was Show Me Love, which was not actually good but had very gorgeous women and a LOT of flirting.

The other huge thing that happened this year was that I stopped lurking! Thanks specifically to @lurkingshan and @bengiyo demanding everyone start talking about La Pluie, because they got me to post my first meta post. And because I started actually talking to people, I started making actual friends, and participated in organizing things like the Be My Favorite clown checkpoint for ep 11. I also disappeared a month because of life, and am still catching up on everything I intended to write this year. But it's been really rewarding finding this corner of tumblr with likeminded people who like good shows, like to think about these shows, and who are interested in talking about them in a way that's insightful and respectful.

It's been a long time since I felt comfortable enough participating actively in a fandom, and I just want to say to everyone I've interacted with this year: Thank you!

Full list under the cut for anyone curious! [Mostly in order it aired but may be slightly off].

Love Bill

Director Who Buys Me Dinner, The

Star Always Follow You, The

Cutie Pie 2 You

Between Us the Series (Hemp Rope)

Reason Why He Fell in Love with Me Special & S2 [international release]

New Employee, The

I Will Hit You/I Will Knock You

Individual Circumstances

609 Bedtime Story

GAPYuri / GAP the series

My School President

HitBiteLove the Series

Never Let Me Go

Moonlight Chicken

History 5: Love in the Future

Oh My God (ToDo) the Series

Warp Effect, The

End of the World, With You

My Blessing the Series

Our Winter (miniseries)

All the Liquors

Once in Memory: Let Me Be Yours

Shoulder to Cry On, A

Jack O'Frost

Our Dating Sim

Midnight Museum

Me, My Husband, and My Husband's Boyfriend

My Colleague at BL Shop might be My Meant-to-Be

Unintentional Love Story

Chains of Heart

Bed Friend the series

Bad Brother the Series

Stormy Honeymoon

Eighth Sense, the

Bad Brother the Series

Future Series

Tin Tam Jai the series

Crush on You

House of Stars the Series

Happy Merry Ending

Boss and a Babe, A

Pastsenger the Series

Love Mate

Love Syndrome the Series

Promise the Series, The

Day I Loved You, The

Our Dining Table (Bokura no Shokutaku)

Our Skyy 2

My Story the Series

Starstruck

Love Tractor

Naked Dining

Luminous Solution, The

Omai Series / Is My Roommate A Foreigner

Stupid Genius

Step By Step

La Pluie the series

Tie the Not

Sing My Crush / Follow the Wind

Tokyo in April Is .../ Shigatsu no Tokyo wa

Senior Love Me?

Be My Favorite

Show Me Love

Dinosaur Love

Low Frequency

Stay Still

Stay By My Side

Jun & Jun

Wedding Plan the Series

Laws of Attraction, the

Love Class s2

Minato's Laundromat S2

Hidden Agenda

Bon Appetit

Why RU the Series [Korean adaptation]

Be Mine Superstar

Star, The Season 2

Love In Translation

My Beautiful Man: Eternal

My Personal Weatherman

Bump Up Business

Naughty Babe Series

Only Friends

Grand Guignol

Dangerous Romance

If It's With You / Kimi to Nara Koi wo Shite Mite Mo

Y Journey: Stay Like a Local

I Feel You Linger in the Air

Venus in the Sky

Kiseki: Dear to Me

I Cannot Reach You

You Are Mine

Breeze of Love / Weather Forecast of Love

Mr. Cinderella 2

Let's Eat Together Aki and Haru

One Room Angel

Marry My Dead Body

Lucky My Love the Series

Pure Vanilla: Recipe for Romance

Absolute Zero

Memories, The

My Dear Gangster Oppa

Shadow

What Did You Eat Yesterday? S2

Middleman Love

Beyond the Star

Bake Me Please

You and My Stars

I Became the Lead in a BL Drama

#2023 round-ups #bl meta #multi bl #typed so i can stop thinking it #twig talks #top lists are so hard for me this is the best I could do #if anyone wants to know anything about any of these shows feel free to ask!#best of bl 2023 #long post

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kdramaspace · 1 month

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MEMBER ADMIN OF THE MONTH ↳ to our dearest Layla @moonlightsdream

💌 NOTES FROM THE ADMINS

Sam: we've been meaning to do this for the longest time so I'm glad it's finally happening!! I don't know what we would do without you Layla. you keep this blog so organized and up to date (don't even get me started on the dramas page --- she's a masterpiece.) also to anyone who doesn't know, layla singlehandedly makes all our graphics/icons/headers and I'm blown away every time with how creative she is. I made the header for this post and that was already too much for me and it's not nearly as good (truly so much respect for you Layla!). gifs are always *chefs kiss* with how crisp they are. I'm forever grateful that we've built this network together and I couldn't have asked for a better person to be our founding member! (also I have too many favorite works of yours 3 is not enough) ↳ favorite works: [ 1, 2, 3, 4]

Alexa: Layla oh my goodness!!!! It's about time we took a moment to highlight you on the blog! Both as one of our admins and as an individual creator! You do so much amazing work for kdramaspace from your graphics, to your icons and all your help keeping up with the theme and pages. That alone is worth PARAGRAPHS worth of hyping you up. But on top of that, you're such a talented creator and I'm always excited to see what shows and films you're watching. I love how you work with colors in your sets and I think you do a great job of choosing really intriguing moments and scenes that really highlight the themes and key points for the media! It's so wonderful to have you as part of our team and I hope we can continue to work together and create together for a long long time!!! ↳ favorite works: [ 1, 2, 3 ]

Lilly: Laylaaaa! Where do I begin? your gifs are so beautiful. Your rich contrast and deep colors have always inspired me in my own works, not to mention your ability to organize sets in such a pleasing way. You bring a whole new distinct vibe to everything you create that really elevates the original media. That's not even touching how much work you've put into making this blog what it is! Others who have been apart of it longer than I have gone into more detail, but it goes without saying that you are irreplaceable. <3 ↳ favorite works: [ 1, 2, 3 ]

Sya: Layla!!! Dearest Layla congratulations!! So glad this happened! I have been a fan of your creations since I came back to tumblr (still very much in awe till now) and I have so much respect for all the contributions you made (icons/header EVERYTHING) for the network. Thank you for feeding us with amazing, lovely, high quality content and I love it when we watch the same shows 😍 I can't say enough how much I love your minimalistic, cinematic, vibey sets, they're always inspirational. Looking forward to more when you're back from hiatus💕 ↳ favorite works: [ 1, 2, 3 ]

#member of the month #motm #@moonlightsdream

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odayakajanai · 8 months

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Vocaloid Songs You Might Have Missed - September 2023

Hi, welcome to my blog. I'm a long-time fan of the Vocaloid scene. In recent years, numerous Vocaloid star producers have broken out and become household names in Japan, while others have cornered the utaite market and find continuous viral success on YouTube and Nicovideo.

I want to highlight some of the best yet-to-be-discovered music being produced with Vocaloids and other vocal synths.

More under the break.

This is a personal list, so I'm mostly avoiding certain kind of song that I call "vtuber bait." I've struggled for weeks to articulate what that means, because I'm wary of saying that everything I don't like is "vtuber bait," but it's the kind of thing where you know it when you hear it, right? No hate (mostly) but there's just so much of it out there.

I left some notes on the most standout or interesting songs on the list, but I'll throw my weight behind every one of these being worth your critical listen. Finally, excuse the broad categories. It's mainly for my own organization, but it's also no fun to start a song expecting one thing and getting a face full of distorted gabber kicks.

Full playlist here, individual tracks below.

Pop

フールフールフール / ゆきち feat. 初音ミク Reminds me of namigroove. A lot.

Daze Heat / Rulmry feat. 初音ミク

.mp3 / イナナキ feat. 花隈千冬、重音テト

下の階の人へ / ノアミユウ feat. カゼヒキβ Lo-fi hip-hop beats with interesting chords and one of the stranger vocal synths currently out there.

愛してるときは同じ言葉で / Eiguft feat. 初音ミク

天使のニューゲーム / 阿修 feat. 鏡音リン

点 / Aa feat. 花奏かのんβ

死刑執行 / ドラネコ feat. 小春六花、ずんだもん Zundamon execution song.

Ranunculus / NoR feat. 初音ミク

Rock

リビングデッド / タオ feat. 初音ミク This song and the previous one are probably the closest to "vtuber bait" on the list. What's the throughline: song structure? A thumbnail image that suits drawing your own character in its place? I don't know.

焦燥 / kinoue64 feat. 初音ミク This one actually came out as a single earlier this summer, but was out with the album in September. It's rare enough to get Miku shoegaze at all, let alone anything this good, so I figured I could bend the rules a little.

ブリキの心臓 / Kay Kamio feat. 花隈千冬

Electronic

八月 / サセガワ feat. 初音ミク Miku over a 2 step beat.

アイドレイン / NAL feat. 重音テト

ドリミンガル / うめみや feat. 可不 Umemiya giving some serious Yasutaka Nakata energy.

sui / ukaihi feat. 初音ミク

film / 初音ミク、ナースロボ＿タイプT

KEEP YOUR HEADACHES / いおぎりょう feat. 重音テト Finally, Teto hyperpop!

虫我 / Kolaa feat. 言和AI It feels like the Chinese synths are way more rare in the wild, or maybe they're just walled in on bilibili. This one is insane.

PC_Angel / Kizuari feat. 初音ミク There's a lot of skittering programmed drums on this month's list, but I think this song has my favorite. Kizuari (and kinoue64) both got a shoutout on Patrick St. Michels' excellent Make Believe Mailer last week. Their albums can be purchased on Bandcamp.

感情透過性 / 橘しとら feat.初音ミク

#music #vocaloid #hatsune miku #kagamine rin #kasane teto #kafu #hanakuma chifuyu #nurse robo type t #yanhe ai #utau #utauloid #cevio #cevio ai #kazehiki beta #kanade kanon #koharu rikka

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capinejghafa · 29 days

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Idk if you've ever talked about it and i'm kinda new here but you're an archivist right? how did you come to that job? it sounds kinda cool tbh!

love your gifs and the kanej fic recs you've been giving us

Hi! Yes, I'm an archivist! I mention it I'm passing more than anything lol

I have a bit of a weird start to archives because I spent so much of my early 20s working at a pretty abusive retail job... and I wasn't doing anything with my associate degree lol

So I was looking for a change, and I got some really helpful advice from a long-time friend who was getting their master's degree (unrelated to what i wanted to do). But I decided to go back to school and get a BA in History (minor Film Studies). During my undergrads, I went to a workshop like WHAT TO DO WITH A HISTORY/PHILOSOPHY DEGREE... which admittedly is pretty bleak if you're not going into adm or teaching... or getting a Master's degree. So, I wanted something that I could actually use this degree because what would be the point of all this if not to use it? I had experience with getting the associate in Healthcare, but again, nothing came out of that.

Anyway, I got invited to a mini lecture (during my final term of my undergrads) on the M.L.I.S. program (Master's in Library and Information Science), and I really loved how the advisor talked about history and organizing. I really wanted to go to a larger school with the same program, but the deadline was a month after I graduated from my undergrad so... I picked the school that was closest also because I didn't want to wait a full year. Like a lot can happen and I was getting restless to leave my job... so much of my motivation was to leave that job. I was living on spite and a dream.

And then I got a new job as I quit my retail job and worked in private airlines for a while during my Master's. So after I started the program, I got another job as a graduate assistant at one of the archives on campus.

I say this kindly, but not everyone is going to love this job... it gets mundane at times and somewhat repetitive. But for me? My area of specialty is religious archives, like that's where I thrive the most. But it's also a niche category within an already niche community... and then factor in that I'm Latina in predominantly white field. It's tough. It's hard work, but I think it's worth it.

I had to move for my career, and for me, it was worth the risk. I honestly started off as an assistant and got promoted within a year and a half as Director of Archives. I greatly appreciate that people believed in me.

Thank you so much for your kind words, I truly enjoy the Kanej fic recs!

#anon #reply #myra irl #i will say my path to archives is kind of strange bc i had no idea what it was until the workshops lol #dont be turned off by religious archives a lot of places hire nondenominational lay people lol

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supervillainarchaeologist · 24 days

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Superhero Movie Fatigue Thoughts...

The seemingly infinite obsession people have with thinking the Russos are an authority on all things comic book film means of course they've been forced to wade in on this never-ending conversation about "what's gone wrong." For what it's worth, I thought their answer was fairly diplomatic and anyone who has been following me even briefly knows it costs me QUITE a lot to compliment them (to be honest, Winter Soldier was definitely very good) but they do have a point. I think they're only part-right that viewing habits between generations is to blame, but they were hardly likely to be more frank and say "yeah the recent offerings have been absolute ass" when they're more famous than they could ever dream of being due to Marvel/Disney. Before I get into my own relationship with comic book films I need to give some other context: I am genuinely a film fan in general and the lack of choice some months in the cinema thanks to Marvel Release #367 has started to annoy me. Sometimes there'll be a different film I want to see and it's a case of blink and you'll miss it. Life gets in the way and you didn't find the time to go to the cinema for that one six hour window it was actually playing. I know this seems pretty rich coming from someone who mostly blogs about Loki and other science fiction/fantasy stuff but I do genuinely love films. Despite the existence of streaming my husband and I have a huge Blu-ray and DVD collection. We want more original content at the cinema. I really enjoyed Barbenheimer last year, I can't remember the last time I wanted to go to the cinema for a double feature before then - I think it was 2019! I know there are ways you can criticise that phenomenon too but it felt like an organic build up to something that was a lot of fun and, depending on your view point, you got to see 1 or 2 pretty good films out of it. Christopher Nolan has this whole counter movement and counter-counter movement surrounding him that isn't exactly unearned (I'm boring and fall in the middle, he's got good and bad points) but Oppenheimer was a genuinely great film in my opinion. It didn't feel like three hours and the main performances were all outstanding. By contrast I remember feeling every minute of Endgame's run time. That's not me saying I can't sit for three hours, that's me saying that I think my brain was simply done with the Infinity Saga by that point. (Going to put this under a cut because it's getting quite long...)

Now to circle that back to what the Russos were saying, I do think a lot of folk in my generation basically decided Endgame was a good time to check out. Many of us had seen the bulk of any comic book releases between circa 2000 and 2019, that's from childhood/teens through a lot of life changes. It's not that we don't necessarily love comic book films any more, it's that you become a bit more time poor as you get older for various reasons and you're maybe a bit more choosy about what you are willing to schedule among everything else in your life. Personally I don't have my own kids but I have family (mine and my husband's) scattered all over England and Scotland (which requires a lot of time to visit them) and I've become busier at work over the last five years. A lot of my tumblr posting happens during evenings/weekends or in a flurry when I'm on a tea break. I got to the point with the MCU where I realised that I was getting attached to characters and storylines and canon was just never going to give me the things I wanted. You accept this is part of following fiction btw, it's just that I took the view "what's the point in wasting my time on something that isn't bringing me the joy it once did?" Hence I decided I would no longer go to the cinema for every Marvel release regardless of how good it allegedly was - quality didn't factor in my decision, I think "maybe I'll watch it on Disney+" - which is what I did with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol3. The other thing in the equation is that over that 19-20 year period I mentioned I think people forget that there were other non-MCU films where there's a LOT of drek. I have never enjoyed a Fantastic Four film. The X-Men and original Spider-Man trilogies seemed to fall off a cliff during their third entries and my personal take on that is that both of those third films are overstuffed with references and characters and they also contain stupid decisions like doing the Dark Phoenix saga yet killing Cyclops. At the same time, and speaking of Christopher Nolan, I will always love the Dark Knight trilogy even though TDKR skirts around that third-movie disappointment thing. The MCU felt so much different for a while because even when there were films that maybe felt not quite as good as some of the others, it still managed to pull you in and make you care. But I always knew there was a point where it would start groaning under its own weight and although some people point to the Multiverse Sage I feel it was already happening in Phase 3. Just think of how many characters were on the posters/general promo for Endgame - how many of those characters were in the entire run time for probably less than a dozen or so minutes? It was just too much. But you forgave it because you were invested in seeing how it ended. And then it ended, pissing some people off in the process, and you're surprised that a lot of the audience just doesn't want to do this any more? You know what else this reminds me of... ...welcome to comic books Marvel Studios. You have finally created a wholly authentic page to screen experience right down to people getting fed up of keeping up with everything. I guarantee now the original actors are aging out of their roles you're considering blowing it all up aren't you? Aren't you?! So yes, the Russos are maybe right that younger Gen Z and Gen Alpha would rather consume things instantly in their own time than gather around for event TV/films. But considering that many of us across the generations are into older media and technology (e.g. collecting physical media) I know from observing the audience at my screening of Barbie that there are younger folk who would go to the cinema for an event film...it's just that maybe the MCU defined their childhood in the way the older comic book films (and I mean stuff from earlier than the 00s too, things that were on TV on a Saturday afternoon!) did for me and now that chapter of their life is a nice memory to look back on - they maybe just can't be bothered with going through all that again.

#Marvel Cinematic Universe #Marvel #cinema #films #Russo Brothers #superhero films #superhero fatigue #Barbenheimer #ramblings #meta #maybe...idk?#comic books #comic book films #long post

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dailyanarchistposts · 1 month

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Yesterday an active-duty Air Force soldier named Aaron Bushnell self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy. His last words were “Free Palestine.” Of the cops responding to the scene, some pointed guns at him while others sought to extinguish the flames; the image of a cop pointing a gun at a man on fire is the most American thing I have ever seen.

On June 11th, 1963, a Buddhist monk named Thích Quảng Đức set himself on fire in Ho Chi Minh City (then Saigon). In South Vietnam, Buddhists were an oppressed majority, ruled by a Catholic minority—the Buddhist flag was banned, Catholics were chosen for all the better jobs, and protesting Buddhists were being murdered in the streets or sent to concentration camps.

So Thích set himself on fire and calmly burned in front of hundreds of spectators on a public street. There’s a film of it, and I’m not big into “watch people die on film,” but some moments in history are worth seeing. He didn’t cry out; he just sat in lotus position, engulfed in flames. Afterwards, the cops tried to take his remains, but thousands of angry protestors took him back, and they re-cremated him for a proper funeral. His heart didn’t burn. It solidified in the fire. Today it is today a sacred relic. I have no explanation for this.

Other monks in Vietnam followed his example. By the end of the year, the CIA led a coup and toppled the Catholic dictator of the country. This isn’t “the US being good,” mind you, they’d been propping the asshole up in the first place. Thích’s sacrifice is often credited as what brought down that regime.

Two years later, the first American set herself on fire in protest of the Vietnam war. Alice Herz was a German Jew, 82 years old. She’d seen some shit. She’d fought for feminism in 1910s Germany, helped bring about the Weimar Republic, fled Germany to France only to end up in a Nazi concentration camp. Survived. Made it to the US. Lived in Detroit and became a Unitarian. Then one day she wrote a letter about how horrible the Vietnam war was, went out to the street, and set herself on fire. She wasn’t the last. In South Vietnam and the US alike, Buddhists and Quakers and Catholics set themselves on fire in service of the same cause.

When a 16 year old Catholic named Ronald Brazee set himself on fire in October 1967, a Catholic Worker named Father Daniel Berrigan wrote a poem for him called “In the Land of Burning Children”

He was still living a month later I was able to gain access to him I smelled the odor Of burning flesh And I understood anew What I had seen in North Vietnam I felt that my senses Had been invaded in a new way I now understood the power of death in the modern world I knew I must speak and act against death because this boy’s death was being multiplied a thousandfold

The Dutch resistance to the Nazi Occupation was characterized by a unique nonviolence, focusing primarily on hiding Jewish people and acts of sabotage. This wasn’t necessarily an ethical or even strategic decision, but one forced onto them by circumstance—according to one resistance fighter, since the Dutch government maintained a firearms registry before the invasion, the Nazis were able to acquire that list and go door-to-door to disarm the Dutch population.

But what the Dutch resistance lacked in firearms it made up for in mass participation. Roughly a million people were involved in sheltering people, secreting people away, striking, or helping those who were doing such things. The two most active groups were churches and communist organizations.

The Nazis responded with collective punishment. The occupiers cut off food supplies inside the Netherlands, blockading the roads between farms and cities. The entire population of the country went hungry during what’s called the Hunger Winter of 1944-1945. Between 18-22,000 people starved to death. Four-and-a-half million people were living off of something like 600 calories a day each. A whole generation of children born or living at the time suffered lifelong ailments. Audrey Hepburn grew up in Occupied Netherlands (and as a preteen performed ballet to raise money to support the resistance). Her time in the hunger winter left her with lifelong ailments like anemia.

In case the parallel I’m drawing is not obvious, Gaza is currently being starved by the Israeli government.

Quite notably, quite worth understanding in the modern context, the Hunger Winter persisted despite relief efforts until the Allied forces liberated the Netherlands from the fascists in May 1945.

Aaron Bushnell was twenty-five years old when he died. He sent a message to media outlets before his act: “Today, I am planning to engage in an extreme act of protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people.”

He posted on Facebook: “Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”

His last words, engulfed in flames, were “Free Palestine.”

I know that what stopped US involvement in Vietnam was the military victory of the Vietnamese people against US forces, combined with the direct action action efforts of the American Left that made the war harder to execute. I know what ended the Nazi occupation was the Allied invasion. I know what stopped legal chattel slavery in the US was the deadliest war in our country’s history. I also know that what stopped Jim Crow was… nothing. Nothing has stopped it, not completely. The long, hard, thankless work of a combination of reform and direct action has mitigated its effects somewhat.

I can’t say I think others should follow Aaron’s example. I doubt he wanted anyone to. An act like this needs attention, not imitation. What we can follow is the moral courage. What we need to decide for ourselves is how to act, not whether or not to act. I don’t have any answers for me, and I don’t have any answers for you.

I can say that he shouldn’t be forgotten, that he ought to be remembered when we ask ourselves if we have the courage to act.

I can also say that it takes an incredible number of people doing an incredible variety of work to effect change. That poet, Father Daniel Berrigan, did a lot more than write poetry. He and others in the broader Catholic Left raided draft offices and burned records, directly impacting the US’s ability to send young men off to die in an imperialist war. A group of people who came out of their movement (but were primarily Jewish and/or secular) raided an FBI office and uncovered the spying and disruption that was done of the peace movement under the name COINTELPRO.

A vibrant and militant counterculture sprang up, drawing Americans away from the clutches of conservative propaganda. They built nationwide networks of mutual aid and they helped draft dodgers escape the country.

An awful lot of American soldiers in Vietnam directly defected, enough that “fragging” entered the English language as a verb for throwing a grenade at your commanding officer.

As for the Hunger Winter, it was not ended until the Nazi party was ended through force of arms, but its worst effects were alleviated by the bravery and thankless work of uncountable people who cobbled together meals from nothing or who organized to bring food aid in across German lines.

In the US now we’re seeing a growing movement opposed to our country’s collaboration with the genocidal regime in Israel.

It’s impossible to know if it will be enough. When you pile straw onto the proverbial camel, you never know which straw will be the last. We just keep piling.

And in the meantime, we remember names like Aaron Bushnell, Ronald Brazee, Alice Herz, and Thích Quảng Đức.

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susannaius · 5 months

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On the new Netflix YYH live action series...

Okay, so cramming two seasons worth of anime (52 episodes) into just 5 hours of live action (5 x 60 minutes) is just WILD. It was obviously possible, but it was wild. They made some bold editing choices on the way to make it happen, but they made an overall good job of it (well, as good as anything can get when you cram 52 episodes into 5 hours...). Anyway. Spoilers ahead.

My overall impression is that I had fun. They made this series a lot more edgy and dark than the anime, but they kept a lot of its goofiness, and managed to find a good balance. The visuals were also fantastic. I honestly did not expect the drawings to translate well into film, but the animation / FX crew did a great job. I have some minor qualms against how everyone looks like (like Kurama's hair or Hiei's turtleneck, who came up with those???), but they did not matter to me that much overall.

What I really missed was something I'm not sure how they could have reproduced in just 5 hours, and this is the sense of accomplishment and stakes. How long does the first two seasons take in the anime? Half a year, maybe? (Yusuke spends the summer break training with Genkai, then there are another 2 months (?) before the Dark Tournament.) So there is a lot more time both for bonding and level-upping.

There are a lot more steps, and those are a lot smaller, progress is a lot more gradual, and each step leads to the next a lot more organically. Here, this is somewhat compensated by the editing choices, like Kuwabara following Yusuke around (I especially liked the "slice the boulder" trope), or by Hiei wanting the dagger in the first place so he can find Yukina. But this way we end up on our very first joint mission fighting Karasu and Bui as well as the Toguros, in Kurama's yokai form and with the Black Dragon. Which is again, WILD, if we consider that as far as we know Kurama has not really used his yokai powers over the last 17 years, and Hiei has just made the Jagan eye for himself (which he did not even end up using that much).

Which is all... not necessarily relevant if someone has not seen the anime and accepts that okay, these boys have a lot more in them than what we were shown at first glance. They are yokai, after all, and we are shown very little of their stories. But I still miss how in the anime we were able to follow how Kurama hones his plant magic to artistic levels and how he learns to combine the strengths of Shuchi and Kurama, or how Hiei very slowly becomes domesticated, or how Kuwabara chills down and becomes a reliable ally.

And then there is Yusuke. They really managed to capture the essence of the character, and I loved them for it. At the wake, his picture was a really nice touch, I loved that face saying "Why do I have to smile for the camera? Please leave me alone?" Or how gentle he can be when he is not ordered around. They got his priorities right, and the steps that make him who he is were all there.

But again, time was VERY short. I mean, he was training for about 3 weeks with Genkai, and for the first two weeks he was mostly slacking. How am I supposed to believe that this is enough to defeat fucking Toguro, who was one of the strongest men to start with, then sold his soul for power, and spent the last 50 years becoming stronger and stronger, to the point when not even the scariest monsters currently available in the human world could satisfy him? Yes, Yusuke got the "orb", but consider that in the anime at that point he had been fighting and training almost constantly for half a year, receiving the orb still almost killed him, and then he had to sleep it off for several days. I am just... not convinced, sorry.

If anything, I think the live action series is a good gateway to the anime. Like, if someone is new or even not yet into the "fight and level-up" anime genre, this can be a great motivation for them to check it out. YYH is almost 30 years old, after all, so there might (might!) be people who have not yet come across it, even though they would probably enjoy it.

TLDR: I think the Netflix YYH Live Action series is fun, it is gorgeous, it has some solid editing choices that help it cram fifty-fucking-two episodes of anime in just five hours of film, and if it helps some newcomers find and enjoy the anime (or even the manga, which I don't know), I'm only happier for it.

#yu yu hakusho #yyh #my five cents

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reasoningdaily · 9 months

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The Milton Hershey School in Pennsylvania is one of the wealthiest education centers in the world. Founded in 1909 as an orphanage for “male Caucasian” boys, it was awarded 30 percent of the company’s future earnings by Milton S. Hershey upon his death. Thanks to the success of Kit-Kats, Reese’s, and Whoppers, the school is worth a staggering $7.8 billion.

Now home to more than 2,000 students, it owns a controlling interest in the $22.3 billion Hershey company—a chocolate maker with roots in child protection and education that, in the worst form of irony, allegedly relies on cocoa harvested by child laborers in West Africa.

It is this irony that serves as the motivation behind a class action lawsuit filed Monday against Hershey and two of its competitors, Mars and Nestle. The complaints, filed by three California residents, allege that the companies are guilty of false advertising for failing to disclose the use of child slavery on their packaging. Without it, the plaintiffs claim, the companies are deceiving consumers into “unwittingly” supporting the child slave labor trade.

“America’s largest and most profitable food conglomerates should not tolerate child labor, much less child slave labor, anywhere in their supply chains,” the complaint reads. “These companies should not turn a blind eye to known human rights abuses... especially when the companies consistently and affirmatively represent that they act in a socially and ethically responsible manner.”

The class action suits seek both monetary damages for California residents who have purchased the chocolate and revised packaging that denotes child slaves were used. It’s a new approach to an old problem: the chocolate industry’s deep, dark, not-so-secret scandal. It’s been 15 years since the first allegations of child slavery in the chocolate industry caused national outrage. Will this be the final straw?

***

West Africa is home to two-thirds of the world’s cacao beans (cocoa), the main ingredient in chocolate—a product that’s fueled a $90 billion industry.

The first group to question the financial strategies behind the industry’s wealth was a British organization called True Vision Entertainment. In a shocking 2000 documentary titled Slavery: A Global Investigation, the group reported on the chocolate industry’s alleged connection to cocoa harvested by child slaves.The award-winning film opens on stick-thin adolescent boys in the Ivory Coast slinging hundred-pound bags of cocoa pods on their backs, followed by an interview in which the boys express their confusion over not being paid.

Later the filmmakers meet with 19 children who were said to have just been freed from slavery by the Ivorian authorities. Their guardian describes how they worked from dawn until dusk each day, only to be locked in a shed at night where they were given a tin cup in which to urinate. During the first six months (the “breaking-in period”), they say, they were routinely beaten. “The beatings were a part of my life,” says Aly Diabata, one of the former child laborers. “I had seen others who tried to escape. When they tried, they were severely beaten.”

The boys’ stories are sickeningly graphic. Before beatings, the boys say they were stripped naked and tied up. They were then pummeled with a variety of weapons, from fists and feet to belts and whips. In the film, some of the boys get up and imitate the beatings. Others stand to reveal hundreds of scars lining their backs and torsos—some still bloody and scabbed. They get quiet when the filmmakers ask whether any are beaten today and say some are simply “taken away.”

Asked what he’d say to the billions who eat chocolate worldwide (most of the boys have never tried it), one boy replies: “They enjoy something I suffered to make; I worked hard for them but saw no benefit. They are eating my flesh.” Toward the end of the segment, the filmmakers meet with one of the “slave masters,” who admits he purchased the young boys and that some of his men routinely beat them. His reasoning: He is paid a low price for the cocoa and thus needs to harvest as much of it as he possibly can.

The release of the film in late 2000 sparked national outrage. No one seemed more shocked than the chocolate companies themselves. In June 2001, Hershey senior vice president Robert M. Reese told Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Bob Fernandez that “no one, repeat, no one, had ever heard of this.” After internal investigations, several companies, including Hershey, expressed concern over the conditions of laborers in West Africa.

The news made its way to Congress, where U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel quickly drafted legislation asking the Federal Drug Administration to introduce “slave free” labeling. After gaining approval in the House of Representatives, the bill moved to a vote in the Senate, where it had the support needed to win passage. But just before the legislation made it to a vote, the chocolate industry stepped in with a promise it has yet to keep: to self-regulate and eradicate the practice by 2005.

The Engel-Harkin Protocol (or Cocoa Protocol), as the agreement was called, was signed in September 2001.

Eight companies—including Nestle, Mars, and Hershey—were signatories of the massive accord, pledging $2 million to investigate the labor practices and eliminate the “Worst Forms of Child Labor,” the official term from the International Labor Organization, by 2005. When the July 2005 deadline arrived with the industries yet to make major changes, an extension was granted until 2008.

When the next deadline came and went, a new proposal arose. By 2010, the companies basically started anew with a treaty called The Declaration of Joint Action to Support Implementation of the Harkin-Engel Protocol. This document pledges to reduce the worst forms of child labor by 70 percent across the cocoa sectors of Ghana and Ivory Coast by 2020.

In the 15 years since the documentary sparked outrage, there are more child laborers in the cocoa industry than ever before. The companies have not only failed to stop the “worst forms of child labor”; they’ve seemingly made it worse. A report released on July 30, 2015, from the Payson Center for International Development of Tulane University and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor found a 51 percent increase in the number of children working in the cocoa industry in 2013-14, compared to the last report in 2008-09. The number, they found, now totals 1.4 million. Those living in slave-like conditions increased 10 percent from the 2008-09 results, now totaling 1.1 million. The study concludes that while “some progress has been made,” the goal of reducing the number of children in the industry had “not come within reach.”

The California plaintiffs’ false-advertising claims against Nestle, Hershey, and Mars are the latest effort to pressure the chocolate industry to fix a problem it has known about for more than a decade. “Children that are sometimes not even 10 years old carry huge sacks that are so big that they cause them serious physical harm,” the complaint alleges. “Much of the world’s chocolate is quite literally brought to us by the back-breaking labor of child slaves.”

The complaint goes into detail about the lives of the estimated 4,000 children allegedly working in forced labor conditions harvesting cocoa in the Ivory Coast. Many of the children are sold into slavery, some for less than $30; others are kidnapped or tricked into thinking it’s a real job, the complaint alleges. Once there, the children are allegedly trapped on isolated farms, threatened with physical abuse, required to work when they are sick, and denied sufficient food.

While the plaintiffs mention each company’s individual pledges to tackle the problem of child labor, they consider these promises to be “false assurances” that have done little to solve the problem. As long as the companies allegedly continue to use child slaves, the plaintiffs say they believe consumers have the right to know.

In the eyes of Miki Mistrati, an award-winning documentary filmmaker who released a movie on the subject in 2014, Shady Chocolate, the lawsuit may help, but it won’t be the answer. “There is no doubt that a campaign about the reality in chocolate production will harm the chocolate companies,” Mistrati said. “Modern slavery with children is a part of the chocolate industry today. But I do not think that it can be the real game changer.”

Mistrati, who consulted with UNICEF and the U.S. Department of Labor, among others, for his movie, said he witnessed child slave labor firsthand—and believes it can be stopped quickly. “Mars, Hershey, and Nestle have had every opportunity to stop the trafficking of children and illegal child slaves,” he said. “I have seen small children, 6 years old, being trafficked from Mali to Ivory Coast. It was so heartbreaking to watch. But the companies have not had the will to end it for many years. Only empty words and expensive advertising instead of using money to pay back to the children on the ground in West Africa.”

Mistrati stressed the importance of Americans taking at least part of the blame. “Consumers have not been critical enough,” he said. “They have not asked why a chocolate bar only costs $1 when the cocoa comes from Africa. Customers have been too easy to trick with smart ads. It is over now. This trial is a unique opportunity for the world to see how their chocolate is produced and why it is so cheap.”

***

Nestle responded quickly to a request for comment on the allegations, calling the lawsuit “without merit” and claiming that “proactive and multi-stakeholder efforts” are necessary to eradicate child labor, not lawsuits. Of the three chocolate makers, Nestle appears to be taking the lead in fighting child labor. The company is the first cocoa purchaser to set up a system for tackling the problem, with concrete measures in place.

The company’s more than $100 million action plan involves building a child labor monitoring and remediation system to identify children at risk, enable farmers to run profitable farms, and improve the lives of cocoa farming communities. “Child labor has no place in our cocoa supply chain,” a spokesperson from Nestle told The Daily Beast. “We are taking action to progressively eliminate it by assessing individual cases and tackling the root causes.”

Mars representatives echoed Nestle’s sentiments on child slave labor, saying the company “shares the widely held view that child labor and trafficking is abhorrent and rooted in complex economic, political, and social issues.” In an official statement to The Daily Beast, the company said it was “committed to being part of the solution.”

At the moment, that solution seems vague. The company points to “Vision for Change,” an initiative it launched in 2012 that, according to its website, is meant to “achieve sustainable cocoa production” and “address farmer productivity and community issues.” Mars mentions that it has built 16 Cocoa Development Centers and 52 Cocoa Village Centers in the Ivory Coast, where farmers are taught how to manage their land and crops efficiently. How it specifically targets child labor is unclear.

Steve Berman, managing partner at Hagens Berman, the law firm representing the plaintiffs, confirmed that Nestle seems to have launched the most tangible program but said it has yet to yield results. “They claim they’ve been taking steps. They partner with the Fair Labor Association to investigate, and they claim they’re committed to eradicating it, but the fact is the recent reports show the number of children in the cocoa industry has increased,” Berman told The Daily Beast. “We doubt that Nestle is taking this very seriously.”

“The consumers reaching out to our firm have been outraged to learn that the candy they enjoy has a dark, bitter production cost—that child and slave labor have been a part of Nestle, Mars, and Hershey’s chocolate processing,” said Berman. “These companies fail to disclose their use of child and forced labor, tricking consumers into indirectly supporting the use of such labor.”

Berman added that he believes Mars, Nestle, and Hershey’s failure to eradicate child labor in the cocoa trade boils down to one thing: “cheap labor; dirt cheap.”

After interviewing Hershey about the 2000 documentary for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Fernandez decided to pursue a book on the company’s trust. That book, The Chocolate Trust, was released in June. In the final chapter, he remarks on the oddity of a company with roots in child welfare making its billions on the backs of child laborers.

But it’s the 15-year gap that most baffles Fernandez, who remembers being shocked by the initial revelations. The fact that alleged child slavery persists to this day seems almost too difficult to believe. “The thing is the industry said it would solve it in 2001; then they said they’d do it by 2005,” he told The Daily Beast, before asking the pivotal question: “What happened?"

Update: Hershey sent The Daily Beast the following comment:

At Hershey, we are committed to the ethical and responsible sourcing of all of our product ingredients and have no tolerance for illegal practices, including children used as forced labor in cocoa farming.The allegations in the lawsuit are not new and reflect long-term challenges in cocoa-growing countries that many stakeholders, including NGOs, companies in the cocoa supply chain and the U.S Government have been working diligently together to address for a number of years. Poverty is a fundamental issue in the cocoa-growing region of West Africa, and companies across the entire cocoa supply chain have been actively involved in substantial initiatives to improve the economic, social and labor conditions in these cocoa-growing communities.

Hershey is proud of the cocoa sustainability and farmer training programs we have established through NGOs and other partners in West Africa during the past few years. We have begun to see success from these programs. This includes programs in Cote d’Ivoire that are now beginning to take hold after years of political unrest that had hampered progress there until recently. From the work the industry has undertaken in recent years, it is clear that addressing the challenges will require an aligned and sustained focus from all stakeholders, including the cocoa industry, local governments, and NGOs and non-profit groups. That’s why CocoaAction, the industry response being led through the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), is so important. These aligned efforts are aimed at accelerating sustainability and improving the livelihoods and social conditions of cocoa communities in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire.

The cocoa industry, including Hershey, will invest more than $400 million in West Africa by 2020 to accelerate both the supply of certified cocoa and reduce instances of inappropriate labor by investing in better cocoa communities. These industry-wide efforts seek to reduce the occurrence of inappropriate farming practices that involve the use of children by reaching tens of thousands of farmers and their families in cocoa-growing areas, educating farmers about the risks and dangers of child labor, and training farmers and professionals to safely manage riskier tasks in which children have previously been involved. The combined and focused effort of the entire industry and other stakeholders is a very encouraging and positive development.

#child slavery #cocoa #hersheys #stop child slavery for candy #cocoa industry slavery #ghana #cote d'ivorie

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libratxt · 5 months

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it’s that time of year again… 🎄🎅🎉🎊 no. the highlights of your 2023 media consumption of course! just like last year, i want to know your top 5 films, books, tv shows, songs/albums, pop culture moments if that’s your thing, and as a bonus: any favourite personal moment/achievement in the last year? new to you, new in release, either works! can’t wait to see your response and wishing you a happy new year! 😁🩷

yay!! i was so excited to receive this in my inbox again this year 💖 overall i feel like i consumed less media than last year? but here's a roundup of some of my favorite things this year:

movies

so most of the movies i really really enjoyed this year didn't actually come out this year lol but i really enjoyed:

skinamarink - i love horror and while this one might be too much of a slowburn for people, it really filled me with dread so yay!

birdman (or the unexpected virtue of ignorance) - i'd been meaning to get around to this one for a while and finally did! totally worth it. the writing and acting: immaculate!

stop making sense - one thing about me is i will enjoy a music doc. the energy in this is so so wonderful. i love david byrne, i love talking heads. left the theatre in a great mood

saltburn - a controversial pick probably. but i had fun! don't really care for the criticisms that it fails at being class critique. it's about being a little pathetic freak and wanting to crawl into someone else's skin for me.

crash (the cronenberg one) - another one i'd been meaning to get around to for a while. i've seen most of cronenberg's stuff and i deeply deeply enjoyed this one. it's about sex, it's about violence, it's about desire, it's about all the weird things the human body can do. i love cronenberg and this one was perfect to me. mwah!

music

crash (charli xcx) - i know, i'm a little late. i listened to this religiously this year. having seen cronenberg's crash this year also added a little extra flavor. obsessed. love it. several songs are on my spotify on repeat as we speak.

this is why (paramore) - ahh so much fun! i love paramore, love getting a new paramore album. the remix album is great too. i also got to see them this year and had a blast! paramore was the first concert i ever went to so getting to see them again is full circle for meee.

desire, i want to turn into you (caroline polachek) - fun!! i do prefer pang but i had fun!

skylight (pinegrove) - sleepy, twangy indie album. i enjoyed! it was soothing this year.

joy as an act of resistance (idles) - the opposite of a sleepy, twangy album! i'm hoping to catch idles in the new year since they're stopping in town :)

not a great tv year for me tbh

succession - succession my beloved! banger of a final season. it will go down in the annals of my favorite tv shows for the rest of all time. kendall roy you will always be famous.

adventure time - revisiting adventure time for the first time in forever. it's fun, it's sweet, i have a soft spot for it. i'm on its final season but have yet to finished because i'm emotionally attached at this point.

video games

baldur's gate - all i've done with my time lately is play baldur's gate. eat, sleep, breathe baldur's gate. i have not touched my sims in months because i have no space but for baldur's gate on my computer. finally got a ps5 and immediately got baldur's gate so that i can finally play it properly because my mac can only barely run it!!! i'm emotionally attached to my little tiefling cleric. i am already fantasizing about my next playthrough.

top me moment!

lol as for personal successes this year: i got a fellowship with a really well-recognized poetry organization in my city that i have so much love for and that truly does so much good work for our community. i have been slowly working my way through the ranks. i started as a mentee last year, taught some poetry classes for them, and this year helped run their month-long festival, and am now working directly with them to help plan their month-long festival for next year. it feels so aligned with the kind of career i'd like to have in my life. next goal is to hopefully lock-in some kind of permanent position with them once my fellowship is over. hopefully i will have good news about that in next years wrap up! thanks again for asking this, i truly get a kick out of it!!

#ahhh i can't help but write an essay #i wish i had consumed more media this year but genuinely felt like i didn't have much i was interested in?#i think potentially the writer's strike and actor's strikes may have had some influence on that #anyway thanks again for asking imo 💖#cheesehair #yearly roundup

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fierypen37 · 9 months

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Junior

@snowlealee This prompt nearly killed me. I've never seen the film, so let me tell you, that was ride for research. So here it is: a flash fic inspired by the 1994 Arnold Schwarzenegger film Junior where the male protagonist becomes pregnant through lab fuckery. Tw mpreg.

Junior

“Are you sure about this, Doctor Snow?” his partner Samwell asked. Jon stared at the test tube holding the embryo: made from his sperm and Dr. Daenerys Targaryen’s ovum. With Expectane in limbo with the Food and Drug Administration, what other choice did he have?

“What else can we do, Sam? What pregnant woman is going to volunteer to use an untested drug? I have to,” Jon said, feeling decidedly queasy at the prospect.

This experiment was risky. Not only for his professional career, but his body. Surgery to implant the experimental uterus and birth canal. Weeks of IV fertility drugs before at last implanting the embryo. The busy statistician in his brain calculated the increased risk of bleeding, organ damage, trauma, insomnia, hormone replacement therapy. The mind boggled. And then how would the . . . the pregnancy progress? How would he keep it secret?

But if he succeeded . . . if he succeeded, Expectane would reduce the risk of miscarriage by as much as fifty-three percent! Thousands of mothers and babies saved from pain and heartache. Wasn’t that worth the risk? What about Dany? This invisible embryo in its cozy test tube was as much hers as it was his. An embryo that would grow into a fetus and then a child. Their romantic relationship had been rocky for months—their marriage was official ticked as ‘Separated.’ This hairbrained scheme would hardly endear her to him.

But maybe . . .

“Let’s do it, Sam. Tell Mel to prep for surgery,” Jon said.

#jonerys #daenerys targaryen #jon snow #jonerys fanfiction #fp37fic #flash fic #mpreg #I'm going to hell #ask answered

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brad-bakshi-loves-bugs · 2 years

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my biggest theory for brad is that, even when the rest of mq inevitably realizes what's going on with him and try to help (namely david for obvious reasons, dana because she's so far one of the few good people in the office, and cw because him and brad have been shown to have a closer friendship than most), he's not even going to realize it.

because brad is clearly used to being seen as the bad guy, an evil person, so the idea that anyone might show him compassion isn't even on his radar. he's not looking for help, so he doesn't expect to receive it, so when he does receive it he never even notices. people tend to not notice the completely unexpected, after all.

it's going to be little things, too. his coworkers making more of an effort to talk to him casually. maybe carol even organizes some office parties and morale-boosting days like therapy dog visits. (my dad's office brings therapy dogs in a couple times a month just to hang out and destress the employees. mythic quest isn't a great place to work, but maybe as people start to become more self aware they'll try to be better.) dana brings him lunch every day, and every day brad gets annoyed because he doesn't eat lunch, but sometimes it's his favorite food or something he's craving in that moment and he can't help but nibble at it. sometimes he doesnt even hate himself or make himself sick after he does, either.

it'll be david bringing him chinese takeout half the times he visits brad's apartment and showing brad all of his favorite shows and movies. most of them are romcoms, and brad isn't a fan, but david pays attention to what he seems to like (dark comedy and slasher films, of course) and makes an effort to watch more of brad's favorite genres. david hates horror and slasher movies, but he asks jo to keep him up to date on new ones being released and give him recommendations. jo, of course, does it because she KNOWS david hates it, so she always recommends the goriest, scariest ones, because she knows david will be squeamish over it. she doesnt know that brad is even watching them, and especially not that he's enjoying all of her indirect recommendations. she doesnt need to know.

brad isn't ignorant. he can tell when the mood shifts in a room, when he's receiving more attention than before. but it isn't for several months before he realizes what's going on, and at first everything comes crashing down around him and he breaks because he never wanted this. never wanted to be exposed and vulnerable without even realizing it. he never wanted people to see him as someone worth saving.

but his coworkers don't give him much of a choice but to go along with it. hell, even ian has stopped speaking over him and shutting him down as often as he used to, because ian can clearly see brad's worth to the company and he'd really like to avoid another casino fiasco, thank you very much. he knows that brad dying might be a bit harsher of a blow to the company than him taking a day off out of spite. well, probably, at least.

so, as horrified and disgusted and weak and patronized as brad felt when he first discovered the new dynamic his coworkers had with him, he can't help but start to enjoy it. he finally feels heard, and he's getting more of what he wants when he wants it. poppy hasn't called him a soulless money-suck in a long time (although part of him thought it was a pretty cool title), and david's stopped pestering him about donating more to charity. and brad's still, well, somewhat of a sociopath, so he takes advantage of how much more lenient everyone now is with him.

everyone else thinks brad is coming around to having people give a shit about him. in reality, he's fully embraced being able to get away with pretty much anything. because he's brad bakshi, and he needs to have some greater, nefarious purpose to accept help or compassion. and taking advantage of others is an easy justification for why he would ever accept help (or. well. acceptance). that's his excuse, anyway.

it'll be a long time before he admits that he actually sort of enjoyed the new attention, appreciated the sympathy the others now extend toward him.

but he will never, never admit that they've saved his life, no matter how many times they do.

#mythic quest #brad bakshi #we are fleeting we are feeling #wafwaf #fanfiction #david brittlesbee #dana mythic quest #ian grimm #poppy li #cw longbottom #headcanon #carol mythic quest #look okay I know this is a long one #but hear me out #brad is the opposite of naive however. people don't tend to notice things they aren't looking for #and he's certainly not looking for sympathy #this is all based in part because a couple weeks ago I went to a psych ward on a 1013 (meaning I was a risk to myself)#and my parents told my extended family and im on vacation with said family rn and I've noticed a dynamic shift since we arrived #and its not BAD but the only reason I've noticed is because I know they know about what happened and I know they love me #so like. I expected this #brad on the other hand would NOT #so im playing around with that difference and what brad would do in shoes similar to mine that just don't quite fit #im happy with this though #tay rambles

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accio-victuuri · 1 year

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from an article published by GQ Lab

Accidentally spoiled the exclusive behind-the-scenes of the press conference of "Hidden Blade"? ?

Yesterday, we were invited to participate in the creative conference of the film "Hidden Blade" which will be released on the first day of the Lunar New Year. Reportedly, there will be no movies at the event, but there are spoilers.

In the cinema hallway where the press conference was held, every two steps you can see a wheat ear flower basket. Judging from the information on the greeting cards, most of them come from fans who hope that the idol's new movie will sell well.

The staff said that from the day before yesterday to yesterday, the theater had received almost 300 golden wheat ear flower baskets, and there was really no room for them, so the flower baskets delivered later had to be placed at the door.

We are vaguely puzzled by the wind blowing wheat waves from fans and friends:

We will not be the only viewers of this press conference who will write articles when we go back, right?

We asked the theater staff, these flowers will not be lost in a few days, right? What a waste.

The theater staff said, how can I be willing to let it go for at least a month.

The theater hasn't been this vibrant in a long time.

Before entering the venue, the organizer asked us to send a one-inch photo with a white background, saying "you need an electronic work permit". No one thinks much.

When we entered the venue, we discovered that this method of checking documents is also very characteristic of the movie: the scribbled ID photos we found randomly appeared on a large horizontal screen of 16:9 with a width of one to one.

It turns out that this is the feeling of being on the big screen, which is wonderful and even a little cruel.

But everyone knows that there is IMAX here.

The press conference was only open to the media, and the audience was not satisfied with an IMAX screening hall, but 150 security guards came. The person in charge of security at the press conference said that it wasn't even considered that the artist had brought it himself.

The bodyguard standing guard at the entrance of the press conference has worked in this company that specializes in security for performing arts events for eight years. He introduced that today’s well-ordered work is the easiest and cheapest, with an hourly wage of less than 100; the highest earning is for top-tier pick-up and drop-off, with an hourly wage of 200.

We are curious: Who are the top players now?

He broke his hands and said, there are 8 of them.

While the scene was (generally) orderly, they were really busy.

At the very beginning of the event, there were scalpers leading dozens of fans to fight guerrilla attacks, trying to rush into the theater through various safe passages. The big security guards could only rush passively like whack-a-mole, temporarily blocking the escape doors one by one with moving barbed wire and wooden bolts.

like this:

The uncle in the cinema marketing department is used to this situation. He said that every time a theater comes to stars and holds events, the same scalper will lead the fans to the entrance of the safe passage. Over time, he can be said to be the most familiar stranger to the theater staff.

The uncle sighed after finishing speaking: I haven't seen him for a long time.

In general, the theater staff is still a little excited. It's been a long time since they've seen a battle like this: this is the fifth time in the Year of the Tiger that a star has come to promote a movie. In last year, there were five press conferences, that is, one month's worth.

As the only main creator who appeared without makeup in the audience, Wang Chuanjun was a little edema visible to the naked eye. We asked cautiously: Yes, did you have a drink last night?

Wang Chuanjun said, hey.

After the press conference, the main creators still have various materials to shoot, except for Huang Lei.

He left after the press conference and wanted to go home to make soup for the children.

The main creators greeted each other with "Are you thinner again" and "Have you crowned yet?" and exchanged in-depth infection experiences. Dapeng came out on top with 40.4 degrees.

The atmosphere at the scene was relaxed, but everyone still turned on their mobile phones to check the pre-sales, and found that the pre-sales had already reached 5600w, temporarily ranking as the champion of the Spring Festival pre-sales.

Cheng Er also took a look, and said "Oh—" very calmly.

A man who has seen great storms.

The press conference started and the main creator entered the venue. Wang Yibo did not cause a commotion, which shows that everyone at the scene is still a very professional media personnel.

But judging from the Weibo forum later, everyone just endured it very well.

There was a link at the scene, each main creator drew a red envelope, and the red envelope contained the crew's New Year's greetings to the main creator.

Cheng Er received a blessing of "cure obsessive-compulsive disorder", although everyone at the scene said "qiáng obsessive-compulsive disorder", Cheng Er still chanted "qiǎng" obsessive-compulsively.

Cheng Er said: Thank you for your blessing, but I will not change it.

Forced to recite qiǎng. Cheng Er is right.

Wang Yibo received the "thrilling" entry, he said "not only the fighting scene, but also my kissing scene is thrilling", the scene was silent.

But this caused an uproar in our work group. We all said that Wang Yibo dared to say it too much, and this was too exciting. Wouldn't everyone give a little reaction? Sure enough, he is a media person who has gone through a lot of troubles.

Half an hour later we realized that what he should have said was, Literary drama.

Our expressions are like Tony Leung who is connected remotely:

The actors are very relaxed and tell a lot of truth.

Huang Lei: I am a special actor, which means that there are not many roles.

Wang Chuanjun: The films I come to direct are usually for burying people.

Dapeng: The props of the crew are all real ingredients. The Japanese ingredients are really amazing. I eat them like crazy, and I drink real wine. The wine is very precious.

Chief Producer Yu Dong: I just found out that you all really eat those Japanese ingredients!

Director Cheng Er's previous work "Frontier" invested less than 10 million yuan, "Romantic Disappearance History" invested more than 100 million yuan, and this time "No Name" invested 300 million yuan. It is still Bona's key film, with both producers and directors.

But the producer Yu Dong was still attracted by Cheng Er's talent, and the only request this time was to "add a little more commerciality". In order to prevent everyone from seeing Cheng Er and mistakenly think it is a literary film, a large watermark of "super commercial film" was specially made on the poster when it was announced.

We have another task on this trip, which is to help shoot a group of films that are vaguely related to the plot for today's press conference.

We have prepared the largest portion of freshly baked popcorn as a prop to help you enter a state of enjoying the movie.

10 minutes later after the group photo was taken, we got the popcorn back to find it was a third missing.

When looking back at the group photo, an artist agent commented: This popcorn looks delicious.

Very sincere evaluation.

Here you can enjoy this group of live photos of eating popcorn. In fact, they are based on the relationship between the characters in the movie. As for the relationship between the characters, everyone is welcome to figure out freely.

We asked everyone to look up at the screen when these few photos were taken. Wang Chuanjun asked: What movie should we pretend to watch?

We said: That must be "Hidden Blade ".

Cheng Er said: It may also be "The Wandering Earth"!

The staff said that this might not be appropriate, but Cheng Er said happily: There is nothing wrong with helping others to do publicity.

For various reasons, the press conference to promote the movie did not show the movie.

But when we walked out of the theater, we were all happy.

It's been a long time since there was a Spring Festival that made people enter the cinema so impatiently.

However, if you walk into the screening room of "Hidden Blade" a few days later and see such a scene, don't be surprised:

Please believe that we are not the only ones who can't wait to sit in front of the big screen.

In fact, not only "No Name", we also hope that "The Wandering Earth 2", "Man Jianghong", "Deep Sea", "Bear Infested 3" (in no particular order)... In short, all Spring Festival movies this year will be big sellers.

Because good movies are the small but sure joys of our lives.

Please believe that this is very important.

#wang yibo #hidden blade #hidden blade movie #i think yibo is trolling everyone lol #i wanna see this film on lunar new year too 😭😭😭😭

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scrapyardboyfriends · 7 months

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Caught up on today's episode...

They're just so proud of their editing skills this week and it's just so bad. Haha. The little recap flashbacks at the beginning. Constantly cutting back to the stupid car stunt for dramatic effect. The weird blue tone stuff. It's just so annoying and distracting. I feel like they think it's so cool and innovative but it's mostly just repetitive and rather pointless.

I mean I guess it's a little better than those three trees they kept pulling down in the storm and the cow stampede but that's like...a really low bar. Haha.

As for the actual stories....ugh. They really are going full Rebecca with Chloe aren't they? If she wakes up with brain damage or some other long term thing that prevents her from taking care of Reuben or something I just....I can't. They love repeating stories but they also seem to love repeating the worst ones. This is the Hell Plot if they made every worse decision. And none of it is even worth it because who at this point is even really rooting for Mack and Charity to be together (unlike when we all wanted Robron back and were counting the days).

Ah well...at least Matty got to appear outside the Hide and got a line and he and Amy seemed like an actual couple I guess.

I still just hate that they did another rape story so the Lydia stuff just annoys me. Also that they had her burn the evidence. I know Rhona actually did the right thing after Pierce but now we've had two in a row where the victim destroyed the evidence. I feel like if I had to endure this again, it would be better if they let her at least have kept the clothes and not burned them. Sigh.

The Sharma stuff again just seems shoehorned into this week just so they could do more special editing effects with it and use that dramatic beat of music some more. It shouldn't be there. Also, again, all of this stuff would play way better if Rishi were either still alive, or if we had seen Amit come back for the wedding and had them interact and there was actual suspicion over Rishi's death. Cause dropping it for two months and then having Amit randomly show up with this twist just feels really silly. Like...are they going to show flashbacks? Did they film something with Bhaskar?

And then there's the Aaron stuff...sigh. Haha. I mean Angry, snarky, Chas-hating Aaron is fine and whatever. But the fact that they engineered Chas dating Harry unbeknownst to everyone involved just so they could have her get put into a car boot (everyone gets a turn!) for this week and had Aaron steal money from the Italian mafia just so they could pay him off is just...so contrived within an inch of its life. It's just too many ridiculous convoluted things with zero organic build up. There's no natural flow of events.

I always think about the story transitions in 2015/2016 from Who Shot Robert to Chas's ptsd to stabbing Diane to Diane's cancer story leading to her meeting Gordon, which led into the abuse story for Aaron and the eventual Robron reunion. All of that was clearly meticulously planned out but it happened in a much more natural way over several months where each story fed into each other. I don't know...I miss that kind of thing. Now you can feel the gears turning in every story and it's not a good viewing experience. Either that or things come out of absolutely nowhere. Neither is good.

Ah well...at least this latest attempt at super soap week is almost over.

#emmerdale complaints corner

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