Jen, do you have any favourite classic vintage movies (Christmas or otherwise) that have really heartwarming or comedic endings? I'm looking to add to my watchlist, and you're my expert.
J! Yes! Ok, these are just off the top of my head, the ones I tend to watch EVERY year, but I'll think about it and add more later:
The Thin Man - Takes place around Christmas, but not about Christmas. DELIGHTFUL banter, funny, smart. A+
Christmas in Connecticut - Definitely a Christmas movie. Barbara Stanwyck at the top of her game. Funny, sweet, romantic. A+
The Man Who Came to Dinner - Monty Woolley being the worst houseguest of all time, featuring Bette Davis as his long-suffering secretary. Another DELIGHT. Always recommended.
Holiday Affair - Oh, this one's so sweet. So, so sweet. If you love a holiday romance, watch this one. Gosh. Robert Mitchum and Janet Leigh are so great together.
It Happened On Fifth Avenue - An unhoused man moves into a Fifth Avenue mansion every winter while the owners winter in warmer climes. This time, he gets caught, but not how you think. A fabulous little movie that's easy to overlook. Very enjoyable!
The Bishop's Wife - Cary Grant is an angel whose mission is to help a struggling Anglican Bishop, David Niven, and his sad wife, Loretta Young. A classic for a reason. Just rewatched it last night and it holds up beautifully.
The usual suspects: Miracle on 34th Street, It's a Wonderful Life, The Shop Around the Corner... all marvelous.
ETA: HOW COULD I FORGET BELL BOOK AND CANDLE!! KIM NOVAK AND JIMMY STEWART. SHE IS A WITCH. ELSA LANCHESTER IS HER AUNT AND JACK LEMMON HER BROTHER. ERNIE KOVACS IS A WACKY WRITER. Anyway, top notch. TOP notch.
THANK you for posting about the fake nipples i've been thinking that for ages but i was too afraid to google "chappell roan real nipples"
RIGHT i couldn't even be like "haha boobs *sip*" because i was so bothered by THE MYSTERY OF WHERE HER NIPPLES WENT and how the heck did this dress work. then i finally saw an article with chappell's makeup artist and could enjoy boobs in peace:
Rather than leaning into the exaggerated glam Roan is often known for, Dahling approached the makeup as a supporting character—one that allowed the intricate faux tattoos, jewelry, and sculptural details to take center stage. "There was so much going on—the tattoos, the prosthetic nipples, all of it, but overall we wanted everything to feel cohesive and really honor the dress and the medieval world we were living in," he says. "The glam came from that."
WAIT back up people are rebranding the omegaverse to be less nasty? THAT'S THE SECRET SAUCE OF OMEGAVERSE. IT'S THE HORNY WET AND WILD WEIRD MONSTERUCKING FANTASY TROPE BUCKET what on EARTH needs rebranding
alright. for the sake of integrity i am downloading this app to investigate. this will be in my app store history forever, by the way
i'm gonna level with you i started doing a deep dive and came up here to add a read more because i've just gotten to the point of this whole thing and we're not even in the deep end yet
so first the app is asking to allow notifications. immediate deny. next, it would like me to set up a profile. i can pick from the Three Genders (female, male, other) and my age.
it would like me to choose up to 3 of my favorite genres. the genres offered to me are:
romance
billionaire
mystery
erotica
werewolf
fantasy
thriller
paranormal
now of course, my immediate concern is that erotica seems to be its own category, where i'm assuming all of these books have fucking in them and i'm going to be really upset if they aren't all smut
additionally, i don't think the billionaire category is about becoming an agent of the proletariat, infiltrating the bourgeoisie, killing the billionaire, and redistributing the wealth. in minecraft. red son superman would never stand for this
okay now my cat (tarazi) is loafing on my phone. i think she's trying to protect me.
here is the photo for the "werewolf" category, which i think raises more questions than it answers
okay so that's not what a werewolf looks like, to my knowledge
top stories in werewolf. we have "alpha knows best" and we have "mated to my alpha stepbrother" which- i looked at the summary and he's not her stepbrother yet, they're college seniors and he's the son of her mom's new boyfriend who i guess is going to be her mate? but any time you have to say "it's not technically incest" it's not great, ryan!
okay here's a top story called "alpha max." no this one is in high school, backing out immediately.
also want to mention the stepbrother one just updated an hour ago. so this is like wattpad but i think the writers get paid? it has 54 fucking chapters
so these aren't finished, published works. i mean they're published in a way, but they're not whole stories, which i guess explains why the site advertises itself as "romance & fanfiction books" when all of the content is original sort of technically? it updates like a fic site.
so! here's what we're looking for. these stories have microspecific tags, but where there is "alpha" there is "luna." i have seen this a few times- okay wait! here's something interesting. i have found a story listed in popular werewolf that is lgbtq+. This alpha has a straight mate? Okay steven whatever helps you sleep at night. now HERE is something interesting. this has "alpha" as a tag, but no "luna," but ALSO no "omega." INTERESTING.
okay, let's go into the lgbtq+ tag on here and. see if that gives us more insight
OKAY! OKAY! this DOES have stories with omegas in it! is the second one listed bts fic? yes! okay but the FIRST one that comes up is called "my omega" bills itself as having a "female" alpha and "male" omega, although this description is so incredibly, beautifully problematic that it really defies common conventions of thought
okay i skimmed the first 50 words and the "female" alpha is... gross. like misogynist gross. so we're back at square fucking one here folks
okay here's a different one where they use Omega specifically as like... an Evil Luna? which is like- there is ALMOST something here by accident. like YES! make a lilith complex! i know that's not what you're doing, but you should! there's a hint of an idea here! you're so close to doing something almost maybe a little bit interesting!
to circle back to the original question of our study, "are they making omegaverse less nasty?" i think it's a complicated answer. the people who write for this app would probably balk at being called less nasty or not smutty enough, but at the same time, they've taken conventional romance and just put a slightly furry skin on it. and i know when you criticize the romance genre people are like "so you don't think women can read?" and i'm like you know what? maybe i fucking don't. maybe none of us should read and we can all run directly back into the sea. if one fucking amoeba millions and millions of years ago hadn't gotten above its station and crawled out of the ocean, we could all be jellyfish right now, and this wouldn't be in my downloads history. forever. again. i am stuck with this in my history forever
like the omegaverse has a very storied history but it's kind of wild to restyle it in a way that makes it more misogynist. like this was invented by people watching supernatural. and somehow this crop of "writers" is worse to women
i honestly hesitate to call this omegaverse at all. i know there were articles a few years ago about legal battles in the world of omegaverse and plagiarism and all that jazz, but this is not omegaverse. this is barely werewolf. this is soulmates with some growling. and so really, what's the fucking point?
okay wait this one is 2 alphas sharing an omega. now we're back to fucking literature
Friend I ordered your book and it arrived this week and it is wild to me that I used to read your Battlestar Galactica fanfiction and now you've written a real book I can hold in my hands. I'm so excited to dive into it over the holidays.
IT'S WILD TO YOU AND ME BOTH, PAL
I was just thinking about BSG fandom this week and feeling very grateful & nostalgic for it, too!
I don't know that I've grown away from the MCU fandom so much as we're on a break because they Endgamed all over me BUT I'm going to get sucked back in when they release all of the D+ content BUT i'm surly and conflicted because The Trust Is Gone
but also I still want to watch because a) Don't Hurt My Favourites and also b) What If Somehow It's Not Terrible Again :D?
The MCU and I have a complex relationship, by which I mean they do what they want and I lie to myself about what they do to make it better while also being very angry about their choices. It works for us.
