Too hot to handle, Too hot to ignore its...

MAX IRONS

Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. For this he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity. Oppenheimer (2023) dir. Christopher Nolan

New Actor Visuals for the Fullmetal Alchemist Stage

just got released on twitter!!

リン・ヤオ：本田礼生

Lin Yao: Reio Honda

メイ・チャン：柿澤ゆり��

Mei Chang: Yuria Kakizawa

フー：新田健太

Fu: Kenta Nitta

ランファン：星波

Lan Fan: Seiha

Bday gift for bestie @bunnyydust !!

Re: Dracula is ruining me for audiobooks. The background music adds such drama to the reading that just hearing a narrator on another book feels like it's missing something.

i love them both

NOAH SCHNAPP DOING THINGS WITH HIS EYES

insp. | requested by @ice-sculptures

Sex Education season 4 thoughts

The good

Aimee’s journey. As I’ve discussed online no end, I have complex PTSD. While I was never sexually assaulted like Aimee was, her avoidant trauma responses were very relatable to me. To see her taking the power back this season, especially when the burned the jeans she was assaulted in and did the photoshoot with them, made me feel a bit less alone as I try and heal. I cried my eyes out, so much so that I had to take a break from watching to collect myself!

“Even when I’m doing something I love… it feels like I’m still wearing them, like it never goes away”

Cal’s story as a non-binary person is very different to mine (and for the record, that doesn’t make either of us any less valid, because there is no singular way to be non-binary). Nonetheless, hearing someone I love as much as I do Gillian Anderson affirm our shared gender nonconformity meant the world. I’m sick of facing transphobia from society, but especially from people that I once considered idols. So knowing that Gillian embraced a role where her character supports trans youth healed something within me. It’s not the first time she’s showed up for our community though - she always makes a point to include non-binary people, for example in her Dear Gillian announcement video. I don’t mean to undermine the real hero of the story here: Dua Saleh, the actor who played Cal - it’s just that I had already formed such a deep connection with Gillian, so it hit me doubly hard from her.

The funeral scene. Just… the funeral scene. I really lost it when Mr Hendricks played With Or Without You on the piano and everyone else joined in.

Other people have spoken about this better, so I won’t get into it as much, but by god, the representation. One example that really struck me was the sex scene between Abbi and Roman at the end, where she said “I love being inside you”. It wasn’t a big deal, their transness was completely normalised.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I loved the Motis ending! Maeve made the right choice going back to America, and long distance relationships are really hard when you have no plans to reunite, so I get why they called it off. Also, relationships at that age don’t usually last, as much as I hate to say it, and yet via Maeve’s letter, the show managed to honour that they can still shape one’s life and be really important.

The bad

If it wasn’t clear, I’m a Jean Milburn stan first and a human second. Unfortunately, I was disappointed in how they handled her storyline this season. Firstly, I’m tired of every single female character on television having an arc that culminates in motherhood. Not knowing who the father was felt like bad writing for Jean specifically, like very out of character, because she’s a sex therapist, so she’s all about safe sex and communication around those things. By no means am I suggesting that they should’ve kept Jakob as a character (if you don’t already know, his actor sexually assaulted hundreds of women which, by the way, was public knowledge before he was ever cast), but they could’ve come up with a better workaround. Maybe I’m biased because Jean is a comfort character of mine, but I wasn’t very pleased with the fact that they didn’t allow her to be happy for a single second this season either! That being said, I do think it’s important that we don’t gloss over the postpartum depression representation here, which could mean so much to so many. I wish they’d brought Maureen in to help Jean though, because their relationship was so special and yet we didn’t see them interact onscreen once this season.

I haven’t heard anyone else mention this, but I was disappointed with how they handled sapphic relationships this season. Not only were Ola and Lily erased entirely, but the writers fucked up the storyline for the only established sapphic couple remaining (Roz and Sofia Marchetti). Like, why was the Big Plot Twist™️ that there was, in fact, a man intimately involved with their family? Our lives don’t have to revolve around men, you know? The show didn’t explicitly acknowledge the fact that genetics to not make a family in my opinion either, because Roz and Sofia’s conversation with Jackson was just about how his biological father was missing out on raising him.

The… mixed? Idk!

I deserve to be sent to horny jail for this, but Jean breastfeeding initially drove me insane. I quickly changed my tune though, because breasts are not inherently sexual and breastfeeding shouldn’t be sexualised, so it makes me feel a bit icky to see people thirsting over that.

I’m not sure how I felt about the development of Adam and Michael’s relationship. On one hand, I thought it was beautiful to see them both grow and reconnect. On the other hand, I was slightly concerned that it was veering into “you have to forgive your abuser” territory. I don’t have parental trauma, so I don’t have the authority to comment, but I’d be interested to hear other people’s perspectives.

I really appreciate how they tried to explore toxic relationships with the introduction of Beau as Viv’s love interest. However, I don’t feel that it was given the weight it deserved, because there was so much else going on.

In summary

I’m not disappointed with how this season turned out overall. Although it definitely wasn’t perfect, I thoroughly enjoyed watching it, and it made me very happy. I do recommend checking trigger warnings before watching it though, because it is a lot darker than previous seasons.

I’d missed this show and these characters more than I’d realised, and I can’t believe I’ll never see them again. It was really hard to say goodbye!

If they brought Andrew Garfield Spider-Man back they could do movie Spideypool… think about it

haikyu's dumpster batte is only going to be around 1 hour and 24 minutes, oh it's genuinely bokuakaover

The crazy tension between ex lovers ft. jihoon implying he's having sex with eden to make hyunbin angry

BONUS: someone save this baby, he's confused

I've seen things after SOTUS extreme actor harassment, I've been here through BMF "hate watching flashmob" and you know what, this year I will actually stop tolerating BL fans (at least on tumblr) who don't even have the decency to just ignore things they don't like and who think bullying someone is a good fandom sport, and start calling out. No matter if you believe clickbaits or you're a proud member of celebrity witchhunt or just don't believe people and situations can change, whatever, I really don't want to see KristSingto hate if - when - they will come back with another BL series.

Peraya fans have been waiting and hoping for KristSingto reunion for years, they wanted it themselves for so long as well, and we've unfortunately encountered way too many people who don't use their braincells and who encourage others to follow their footsteps when making derogatory comments about (mainly) Krist or Singto who they don't even know about, or their shows. For years. Some even go to talk shit and laugh right at his face. What the hell.

Maybe don't ruin someone else's parade and don't turn a nice community lake into a swamp. If you consider yourself a good person who can have an opinion "I just don't vibe with this person/show", watch it unbiased, be open minded and if you don't have a full picture, ask fans of the actual story or do research and read proper compilations about him instead of blindly stacking your opinions on repeated echoed insults from yt and tiktok. And if you aren't willing to be open minded and rational, well, let the fans celebrate and stick quietly to your swamp.

It's really no fun to gather around to discuss something and slip on poop piles thrown around for no reason. What happened to civil discussions?

the song hatchet town from nerdy prudes must die is sooo good and just perfectly displays the panic and paranoia everyone in hatchetfield is feeling perfectly as well as being a bop!!!

I got to see Cirque du Soleil’s Koozå and was immediately infected with brain worms because the Trickster is just SO cool. I’ve thought about nothing but them for like an entire week

(Putting this in a separate post because I sort of scattered my thoughts across two different posts last night.)

So by now we've all probably seen the Ask that Neil answered saying that the kissing scene in GO 2 required only one take. There were a couple of things that came to my mind when I read this, and perhaps the most immediate was that the OP asked how many times the scene had to be filmed, and that means the scene entire--the confession, the pleading, everything--not necessarily just the kiss itself. To that end, I wonder how Neil was answering--i.e., referring to the entire scene, or just the kiss. Because as it stands, the question (and answer) are a bit ambiguous/confusing, and lend themselves to greater discussion.

Assuming that this is all true, however, and that the kiss/scene was filmed in one take (though I'm not sure I believe this was actually the case, given the multitude of camera angles and other cinematographic necessities), I'd like to share a few thoughts. I keep seeing people say that Michael and David are actors, consummate professionals, and how could one underestimate their abilities so as to think they would need more than one take. The thing is, we do know that they are actors. Two of the finest this world has ever seen, even. But it is also abundantly clear that if the kiss was achieved in one take, it was not simply because they are actors, but because it was Michael and David. Together.

To stand across from someone and give/react to such an emotional performance involves so much intimacy and trust, in a way not many of us can understand. If we draw a comparison to OFMD, Rhys Darby and Taika Waititi talked about their kiss in season 1 being awkward, even though they have been friends for a long time. Michael and David, by contrast, have been close friends (if not more) for only a few years, yet there was not a moment's hesitation in that kiss. David, who was nearly blind in that scene from the combination of contact lenses and sunglasses, found his way to Michael's lips with a practiced ease, an approach borne of both skill and familiarity. And Michael trusted David so fully in that moment--trusted him enough to be vulnerable, to let himself be kissed and give up control to David.

The gasp when their mouths met. The hands coming to rest on David's back. The way Michael seemingly leans up partway through, leans into David while expertly conveying the myriad of emotions Aziraphale is experiencing. Could it all have been done in one take? Perhaps. But that still doesn't mean there wasn't more to it. The accumulation of so much that had built between Michael and David over the intervening years between season 1 and season 2, further adding to their already incredible on-screen chemistry. All there for us to see, to make us want more. To make us ache.

Whatever the case may be--whether the kiss truly was accomplished in one take, or was the result of countless rehearsals between Michael and David in the days/weeks/months beforehand (be it at the S2 table read, while working on scene blocking, or the two of them "rehearsing" on their own) we are beyond fortunate to have witnessed something so precious and rare. And hopefully we'll soon get to hear Michael and David themselves telling us all about what it was like...

“You’ll hang for this.”

“Seven years serving you? I deserve worse than that.”

Sule Rimi as LIEUTENANT GORN in ANDOR (2022)