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January 2026

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Westie's Basic Ass Exchange Letter

Apr. 14th, 2026 06:04 pm
westiec: yellow face with a wide smile and fangs (Default)
[personal profile] westiec
Hopefully this will get added to over time, but here's the basics!

OVERALL LIKES:

Trans Characters & Genderfuckery | Established Relationships | Rarepairs(+) | Polyamory | Non-Sexual Intimacy | Ace & Aro Headcanons | Queerplatonic Relationships | Fealty Kink | Identity Porn | Humor | Fairytale & Mythology AUs | Monsters & Supernatural Creatures | Vampires | Tentacles | Wings | Fangs & Claws | Body-Sharing | Feels About Having a Body | Body Modification as Self-Expression | Non-Consensual Body Modification as a Thing To Be Grappled With | Casual/Non-Sexual Nudity | Realistic & Loving Depictions of Fat/Trans/Disabled/Otherwise "Non-Normative" Bodies | taboo/"unhealthy" relationships that are nevertheless soft for those in them (including incest and underage) | 1st and 2nd Person POVs | Experimental Formats

ART LIKES:

Pin-Up Poses! | Cuddling! | Action Poses! | Casual Nudity | Haircare | Fun Clothes | Realistic Art | Cartoony Art | Symbolic or Abstract Art | Really Fucking Horny Art | "X-Ray" Details | Bara Art | Art that plays with scale and environments | Realistic & Loving Depictions of Fat/Trans/Disabled/Otherwise "Non-Normative" Bodies | Characters as Animals/Anthros/Mythical Creatures/Monsters | Characters Redesigns for a Fusion AU (as benders, as pokemon trainers, as Jedi, etc.) | I genuinely love lots of styles of art!

SEX/KINK LIKES:

Platonic/Non-Romantic Kink | Laughing During Sex | Genderplay | Gender-Affirming Kink | Body Worship | Fealty Kink (again) | Predicament Scenes | Bondage | Earned Praise | Masturbation | Selfcest | Voyeurism | Exhibitionism | Semi-Public Sex | Sneaky Public Kink | Erotic Rituals as a Normal Part of Society | BDSM AUs | "no, no, yes" Dynamics | Hypnosis | Body Modification for Horny Reasons | Monsterfucking | Alternate Erogenous Zones | Nonhuman Genitalia | Unrealistic Porn Physics | Watersports | Sex Toys | Magic/Cultivation Used for Horny Purposes | "Improper Use of [Canon Object]" Tags | Object Insertion | Un(der)-Negotiated Kink

Book Cull Reviews

Apr. 14th, 2026 01:30 pm
rachelmanija: (Books: old)
[personal profile] rachelmanija
As you may have guessed, I completely failed to live up to my goal of reviewing everything I read, even in brief. Rather than attempting to catch up to my backlog, I am re-starting from where I am.

Yesterday I did a quick book cull by pulling books off my shelves that have been sitting there for ages, reading the first couple chapters, and deciding if I was likely to continue. I focused on books I'd started before and not gotten very far into. Here are the books that landed in the "move to Paper & Clay's used section" bag.

Trouble and Her Friends, by Melissa Scott



See the new cover? If you've been wanting to read this, it's now available as an ebook!

This is a classic lesbian cyberpunk novel that I have tried to read at least three times, and never managed to get very far into. I kept putting it back on the shelf because it's a classic and probably objectively good, but I'm just not that into cyberpunk. If a lot of the action is taking place online, I tend to lose interest. Also, some books just don't grab me, due to a mismatch between me and the book, rather than being objectively or even subjectively bad. This is clearly one of them. Someone else can be thrilled to find it at Paper & Clay, take it home, and enjoy it.

The Splinter in the Sky, by Kemi Ashling-Garcia



A tea specialist becomes a spy in a far-future colonized world! Unfortunately, this starts with a prologue which reads much like the infamous "trade war" crawl at the top of The Phantom Menace. Yes, I know that turned out to be prescient, but the problem was that it was written in a stultifying manner. The next couple chapters were much more lively, but also had a tendency to clunky exposition - some of which was pretty cool, to be fair. This was the second time I attempted this book, and had essentially the same reaction I did to Trouble and Her Friends - not bad, but not for me.

Furies of Calderon, by Jim Butcher



This has been described to me as "Pokemon in alternate ancient Rome," which sounds amazing. For at least the third time, it failed to grab me. I got about four chapters in and there's still no Pokemon. Someone else will like it more than me.

The Hum and the Shiver, by Alex Bledsoe



A race of people called the Tufa have lived amongst normal humans in Appalachia since the beginning of time. They can see ghosts, have music-based magic, etc. This opens with a Tufa woman very very clearly based on Jessica Lynch, who was a real-life American soldier who was wounded and captured in the US/Iraq war, returning from Iraq. I found this in poor taste. The general style also got on my nerves.

While doing this, I got sufficiently grabbed by the openings to keep reading and finish Maureen McHugh's Nekropolis, which hopefully I will actually review. I also returned Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies and Tanya Huff's Sing the Four Quarters to the shelf.

I swear only this city knows

Apr. 14th, 2026 03:32 pm
sovay: (Silver: against blue)
[personal profile] sovay
Because I had a doctor's appointment downtown, from Storrow Drive I saw the cherry trees on the Esplanade blooming like soft fireworks in white and sugar-pink. The weather has catapulted itself into summer: asphalt-simmered air, huge tufts of cloud stacked over a haze-blue sky, lines around the literal block for Ben & Jerry's Free Cone Day. Sails all over the Charles. Afterward [personal profile] spatch and I ate Greek takeout on a picnic bench by Spy Pond, watching a solitary Canada goose glide across the water as our summer in accelerated miniature looked like building toward thunderstorm. It is my father's seventy-fourth birthday.

It's maybe five minutes onscreen

Apr. 13th, 2026 11:18 pm
sovay: (Silver: against blue)
[personal profile] sovay
Things in my neighborhood are starting to bloom, so I got out of the house in the on-and-off overcast and photographed some.

When it's just me against the sky. )

I agree with this post that the human body was not designed to know what the worst person in the world is doing every fifteen minutes, but it was not possible for me to avoid hearing that the man in the White House shared AI slop of himself as Jesus healing the sick for Pascha. It was much nicer to discover that Aimee Mann circa 'Til Tuesday belonged so clearly to the elusive Bowie–Swinton species. She could have starred in Liquid Sky (1982).
starandrea: (Default)
[personal profile] starandrea
Mom Cat Shows Her Kittens The German Shepherd Is Safe, youtube vid from Laffey and Amy

just an adorable german shepherd befriending some kittens with a little help from mom
snickfic: Giles from Buffy, text: Bookish (mood reading)
[personal profile] snickfic
A collection of short stories translated from Hungarian. I picked this up from the library because I'd seen references to the author writing cosmic horror, which is apparently one way to get me to read a short fiction collection I otherwise know nothing about.

Veres has a direct, unsentimental style that reminds me a bit of Lisa Tuttle, although with less interest in women. Like Tuttle, one gets the impression he doesn't like people all that much. I enjoyed the eastern European perspective, adding extra flavor to ideas I've seen American or British versions of before. Veres also is really good at spooling out the key information, so that apparently unremarkable scenarios get weirder and weirder as we learn more detail.

And indeed, there is some straight up Lovecraftiana in here as well as two different body horror twists on the idyllic rural past, all of which are squarely my kind of thing.

Favorites:
Well, both the Lovecraft ones. "Multiplied by Zero" is a travel report from a man who's gone on a guided tour of a Lovecraftian horrorscape. I enjoyed the contrast between subject matter and tone all the way along, and then it really stuck the landing.

Meanwhile, "Walks Among Us" is an inside view of a Lovecraftian cult, aka exactly my jam, seen from the perspectives of two people raised in the faith and struggling with it and one who's married in. I'm amazed by how deftly Veres weaves all the backstories together with the present day timeline. This is extremely nonlinear and yet I never had any trouble following the action. One could argue the discussion of the cult as a religious minority is not great, given that this minority really is into murder and slavery and all that, but I enjoyed the Watsonian view of the world too much to quibble about the Doylist implications.

The two farming horror ones are honestly quite similar in subject matter, if not theme, to the point of feeling a little repetitive. "Return to the Midnight Soil" has the more interesting and imaginative body horror, but I think the title story "The Black Maybe," about a family from the city doing farming tourism, wins by a hair because it's more horrific, rather than tragic like the first one, and because I cared a lot more about the daughter in it than about either of the boys in the other story.

And "The Time Remaining" is the slashy entry, a story about a man whose life keeps getting worse and the devil whose life's purpose is to convince him to lead the armiese of hell. VERY shippy.

Least favorites:
"To Bite a Dog," about a woman who discovers the psychic power of dominating other creatures by biting them and her boyfriend who can't decide how he feels about it. The most Tuttle-feeling story of the collection because of how damn bleak it is. Also I just don't like animals being upset or in pain. It's rough being a horror fan sometimes.

"Fogtown," an epistolary story composed of an unfinished manuscript about someone else's unfinished book about an incredibly popular underground band that seemingly no one ever actually heard. I love this kind of thing normally, but the nested epistolary layers (complete with editor's notes!) were hard to keep track of, and the underlying story just didn't have any meat to it. I've read this story before with less effort and at least as much reward.

Those were the first two of the collection, so I'm really glad I pushed through to the ones I enjoyed! In fact, I ended up liking the collection enough that I bought his new one rather than waiting for it to show up at the library.

Yesteryear, by Caro Claire Burke

Apr. 13th, 2026 11:35 am
rachelmanija: (Books: old)
[personal profile] rachelmanija


Natalie is a wildly successful trad wife influencer. She and her husband Caleb have a farm and six adorable children, and Natalie has parlayed carefully edited clips of her perfect life into a lucrative career. (She leaves out the two nannies, 30 farm hands, and the fact that Sassafras the cow is actually four sequential cows, replaced every time one dies, like goldfish.)

Then Natalie suffers a mysterious fall from grace. And then she finds herself in what appears to be an alternate version of her own life in the 1800s, with a husband very similar but not quite identical to her original husband, and children who claim to be her own. Has she time traveled? Is she delusional? Has she gotten kidnapped into a non-consensual reality show?

This is an extremely interesting novel that makes a good companion to Saratoga Schrader's Trad Wife. The beginning of the book is extremely similar, though Natalie is much more successful than Camille. Burke's version of a trad wife influencer deluding herself and lying to her followers about her supposedly perfect life is much better-written than Schrader's. But that's a double-edged sword, because it makes Natalie much more unlikable. She's an incredibly hatable character and the book is from her POV, and that makes a lot of the book not really enjoyable to read.

But the book turns out to be much more ambitious and clever than it seems at the beginning. When I finished it, I was glad I'd read it and appreciated it a lot. That being said, I enjoyed Trad Wife more on an emotional level.

I highly recommend not clicking on the cut unless you're 100% positive you'll never read the book. I really enjoyed the non-spoiled experience.

Read more... )

Content notes: Domestic violence, rape (on-page, graphic), child abuse and neglect, farm animal neglect/poor caretaking (just mentioned), gaslighting, non-consensual drugging, current American right-wing stuff.

While attempting to buy Saratoga Schaefer's Trad Wife, I accidentally bought a different novel called Trad Wife by Michelle Brandon. And Sarah Langan is coming out with yet another book called Trad Wife in September. I am now on a mission to read all four trad wife books, to compare and contrast.

(no subject)

Apr. 13th, 2026 04:42 pm
thawrecka: (Default)
[personal profile] thawrecka
I watched the Another Story OVAs and I cannot believe they somehow made Shitenhoji grow on me just by having an episode where one of their team tells them all they're not funny and don't need to make so many jokes 🤣

Other thoughts:
  • The Inui-Fuji friendship is deeply underrated. I've said it before and I'll say it again! I'd love to see more of their off hours adventures in Osaka.

  • Aw, the young Hyotei episode! Atobe and Oshitari looked like they were having fun! I'm also amused by Oshitari getting on the wrong train. TBH, Hyotei are my favourite of the rival teams and I think part of it is because they seem like they have fun and make time for friendships. I also liked the Jirou episode about his sleep disorder and his admiration for Marui from Rikkai. It was kind of cute.

  • Even when trying to make a fun charming backstoy episode for Kirihara, Rikkai still seems grim and joyless, with only about two characters who ever seem to have any fun...

  • Kintaro has grown on me, and he and Ryoma playing across the river is entertaining. Though I think my favourite moment was actually Eiji catching the ball.

  • I really liked the conversation between Eiji and Oishi about going to different high schools, not just that Oishi is a little pained about it and has struggled to tell Eiji, but also that Eiji is instantly so supportive. Obviously they're soul bonded on the tennis court, but it's nice to see them having those increasingly mature conversations outside of it.

  • I don't think I ever noticed until now that Taka and Tezuka talk more than I previously realised?!?

  • I did also like Momo and Kaidoh taking on the pressure of a team that's now going to be defending champions, as opposed to before when they were just part of an underdog team... It's a very different vibe, to be sure. And Higa popping up because they don't have the money to go home 🤣
starandrea: (Default)
[personal profile] starandrea
gardening journal updates~

♥ compost added to the rock garden, fence replaced to keep dogs from trampling my crocuses, many minutes spent sitting in the sunshine admiring the spring bulbs and bleeding hearts; gently cleared the side and patio gardens again to make sure that everything that needs sun is getting it

♥ dahlias watered, remaining cannas into holding pots, refrigerator bulbs into porch planters

♥ circle garden shoveled raked out from under its snowplow-induced burial mound: lilies coming through strong of course, vinca growing under the dirt of course, but also hosta, irises, and bleeding hearts are all there; accidentally pulled out the thread-leaf coreopsis with my vigorous raking but it was a late arrival last year and seemed to have good roots despite everything, so I just put it back, patted it down, and hoped for the best; dug up and reset some of the stones to make the border more clear

♥ pansies installed in the roadside planter, sedum soldiers on, new lilies coming in next to the old

♥ got out the first outdoor watering can of the season; ordered a new rake (the head on my metal one keeps falling off) and replacement wheel for the garden cart (allegedly a no-flat tire, totally true as long as I put air in it three times a day)

♥ dog accompanied me on compost mission that ended at the library where we learned two important things: there is now a "doggie stick library" out back where you can take a stick for your pup (no need to return), and also solar lights on the trail between the library and the church which are rainbow-colored
sovay: (Viktor & Mordecai)
[personal profile] sovay
I had to quit out of this afternoon's virtual memorial for [personal profile] minoanmiss right after the singing of "Lift Ev'ry Voice" in order to meet my mother for advance birthday baking, but I got to hear remembrances in the form of stories, poems, an illuminated manuscript of a slide show, a painfully pertinent lesson in public health, songs both folk and filk, and people just talking with love and grief and anger that she need not have died; she did not consent to the sacrifice. She had formed an incredible constellation of interests and affections that her mourners flared to life. It is just that one wants the person herself and not only the space left between her stars.

In memoriam: the braided liberation of Anthony Russell and Veretski Pass' "Lift" (2018). The queer shift of Jake Blount's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" (2020). Kadra Ahmed-Omar in late-nineties Goth haute couture. A Graeco-Armenian papyrus from late Roman Egypt. Apparently people need reminding that Carthage was bad-ass. The election news from Hungary. The full-body college flashback I experienced on hearing Aimee Mann's "Say Anything" (1993) on WERS. Earth.

I cried when I got off the Zoom and then I made myself a bowl of angel hair pasta with lemon and pepper and sardines and thinking of food among her love languages went off to turn a recipe into a savory pie. I am glad she was remembered so well and so fully. I will always want to have seen her art for Artemis II.
petra: CGI Obi-Wan Kenobi with his face smudged with dirt, wearing beige, visible from the chest up. A Clone Trooper is visible over one shoulder. (Obi-Wan - Clones ftw)
[personal profile] petra
Primus Inter Sub-Pares: The Crisis in Leadership on Naboo in the Declining Days of the Galactic Republic (175 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, Star Wars - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Sheev Palpatine, Padmé Amidala, Jar Jar Binks
Additional Tags: Abstract, in this essay I will, political science, History, article
Series: Part 4 of Star Wars Prequels in 2020s Media
Summary:

The abstract of a historical journal article.

snickfic: Giles, Buffy: since the beginning of time (mood feminism)
[personal profile] snickfic
(I guess I'm letting out all my bottled-up words today...)

A collection of essays on feminist topics. I've been meaning to read some Solnit ever since everyone was reading her book Hope in the Dark during the first Trump administration. I randomly was in need of an ebook to read, and this was the book of Solnit's available through my library, so here we are.

On one hand, I did not find this a challenging read. Most of what Solnit had to say, I've encountered in some form or another before, and most of these essays are surface-level examinations of their topics. OTOH, there's something to be said for having thoughts laid out in a coherent essay format when one has previously only encountered them via social media, haphazardly and in fragments. And even though the collection had a strong feminism 101 feeling for me, I did highlight a bunch of quotes, which I am putting below under a cut, mostly for my own use. So, clearly I got some value out of the book!

IMO, by far the strongest essay is the one where she gets into specifics, and that's the final essay, "Giantess," about a 1950s film called Giant starring Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson. I feel like I might vaguely have heard of this movie, and although it doesn't sound like my usual jam genre-wise, the politics sound progressive even today, so I'm tempted just from a point of historical interest.

quotes )

2613 / Fic - The Pitt

Apr. 12th, 2026 04:20 pm
siria: (the pitt - jack has concerns)
[personal profile] siria
Care and Feeding
The Pitt | Gen | ~750 words | For [tumblr.com profile] ceeturnalia

(Also on AO3)

Jack does not have a cat. )
umadoshi: (lettuce 01 (leesa_perrie))
[personal profile] umadoshi
Our impending new raised planter is still showing as scheduled to arrive tomorrow while we're both home/not working, so here's hoping!

We just spent a while sifting through some seed listings on the Halifax Seed website (and I mostly kept myself from looking at tomato seeds, since we are not growing any tomatoes from seed*).

*I really wish there were some indication of what tomato varieties will be offered as seedlings, and also wish I knew if the different plant nurseries tend to offer similar varieties of tomato seedlings or not. (ALSO-also, we need to decide whether to focus on trying a few different types to see how we like them vs. focusing on a few determinate plants with the intention of just processing most/all of the fruit into sauce.)

(The seedling sale from a relatively nearby nonprofit that I'm hoping to make it to does offer a short list of potential varieties of things, with the caveat of "These are all the options that we have intended to grow but as all farmers and gardeners know, not every crop pans out. We apologize in advance if some of these options are unavailable, or not ready." For tomatoes, it says "Roma, Brandywine, Scotia +more! / Tropical Sunset, Sungold, Red Torch +more!")

But as noted yesterday, we don't plan to put tomatoes in the actual planter anyway. Thoughts for the actual planter so far: thoughts + variety notes )

Oasis fic and other fannish things

Apr. 12th, 2026 11:09 am
snickfic: (Oasis walkon)
[personal profile] snickfic
Assorted items:
+ [community profile] seasonsofdrabbles spring round signups close today!

+ Having posted the fic below, I seem to have gotten all my Oasis feelings out for the moment, or maybe just all my writing feelings. I spent the last couple of weekends going to art museums, and I've also finally found the brain space and desire to read again. It feels really good. I've finished two books in the past week! Amazing!

+ Currently actively reading:
- In the Forests of Serre by Patricia McKillip
- It's Not a Cult by Joey Batey (thanks to [personal profile] troisoiseaux, who passed their copy on to me <3)
- The Beginning Comes After the End by Rebecca Solnit




I wrote a fic! Not even for an exchange!

doughnut hips (6511 words) by Snickfic
Fandom: Oasis (Band)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Liam Gallagher/Noel Gallagher
Additional Tags: Chubby Kink, sensory play, Light CBT, Light BDSM, Anal Sex, Porn with Feelings, Oasis Reunion (Band), Sibling Incest, Crying, Weight Gain, Kissing
Summary:

Liam settled his hands on Noel’s hips and then wondered if he shouldn’t, but there weren’t a lot of places for him to touch Noel that weren’t softer than they’d been sixteen years ago.

Noel cleared his throat. “I didn’t think you’d care if—you know. If I put on a few pounds.”



This was supposed to be a quick kink-focused one-shot, but it almost immediately grew a bunch of reunion feelings and became a lot more emotionally dense than I planned, and it ended up taking me about five months to write (across 19 days of writing). It was really satisfying to finish, and I feel like I did all the things I set out to do.

On the theme of "every kink applies to Gallaghercest," this has my first ever CBT and sensory deprivation. I've never had even the faintest inclination to write those before, did not go in planning to write them here, and yet: here they are.

I'm calling this a fill for [community profile] crackthewip, which makes it the first fic I've finished for that event, despite having run it for three years (and then passed it on to [personal profile] chacusha). Yay.

This fic really filled a niche, apparently, because I got the most feedback on this that I've ever gotten in the first week of posting an Oasis fic (not counting the one last year that I was posting in daily installments). It's so gratifying to write things that people want to read. ;______;
forestofglory: Cup of tea on a pile of books (books)
[personal profile] forestofglory
Back in January I said I was going to make “comfort” my media theme for the first quarter of the year and then think about if I wanted to change. The first quarter of 2026 has been over for a bit. I’ve been having an amazing reading year so far! Other media not so much – I’ve been watching things only with other people, but that’s fine. Honestly I’ve not been thinking about my media theme much. So I guess it's going fine? I don’t see any need to change it anyways.

But now that I am thinking about my theme I kinda want to watch another crossdressing girl drama – those are so fun and comforting.

And now for some thoughts on recent media. It’s been a bit because I was busy and sick – but I’m doing better now.

NewsPrints by Ru Xu —Sometimes I read a thing that it seems like I should be really into and I'm just like "This is nice" That's how I feel about this book. It's got a crossdressing girl, cool diesel punk tech, found family! I'm not sure why I don't love it. (I started reading the squeal but it was somewhat darker and I didn’t really want to deal with that.)

Justice Society of America vol 1 and 2 by Geoff Johns, Mikel Janín et al. —I ended up reading this for convoluted reasons: I read Stargirl and the Lost Children because it had an appearance by a minor character that I was curious about, and then I wanted to know what happened next, which is told here. I would have liked even more lost children. But really the problem with this is that its too much story for the space, everything happens very fast and there is not enough time to get to know the characters. Probably I’m expected to come in already knowing and caring about some of them, but since I didn’t it really just felt like no one got much space to be interesting.

I Shall Never Fall in Love by Hari Conner—This queer regency romance is billed as “inspired by Jane Austen and queer history” but you could just as easily call it “a queer retelling of Emma”. I enjoyed it! I love how expressive the faces are. Also I really appreciated the facts and references in the back. And It’s super cool that all of the clothing is based on existing surviving garments or historical fashion plates!

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girlvol 1-2 by Ryan North, Erica Henderson, et al— this continues to be very fun! Featuring such delights as dinosaurs and a zine issues!

Nezha (2019)— I watched this Chinese animated movie with my group watch discord. So I generally I write up notes on each item for these posts a day or two after finishing it so it will be fresh in my mind (Then I wait until I have several things so I can post them all together) But this time I had to run off after watching Nezha and now its been a week so I don’t remember this as well as I’d like. It was fun though.
Content Note traumatic childbirth, gross bodily fluids

Movies: Exit 8 and Forbidden Fruits

Apr. 12th, 2026 10:36 am
snickfic: Buffy looking over her shoulder (Default)
[personal profile] snickfic
Exit 8 (2026). A man who has just found out his ex-girlfriend is pregnant gets lost in a seemingly infinite subway tunnel.

This is a Japanese movie based on a Japanese video game that was apparently a huge hit a few years ago. It's also the second movie this year based on an essentially non-narrative video game with long stretches of "yup, this sure feels like I'm watching someone play a video game." Like Iron Lung, they really have to work here to stretch their premise to a 90-minute runtime with an actual story. Things get pretty repetitive after a while, since the tunnel acts essentially as a spacial time loop (as elegantly depicted by the movie poster).

That said, I mostly enjoyed the experience, in large part because of the lead actor Kazunari Ninomiya, who is great. I've learned he was a beloved Jpop idol 20+ years ago, and I believe it, because he has loads of charisma while acting basically alone for the first 2/3 of the film. I would absolutely watch him in more things.

The movie is also occasionally really stylish. The opening scenes are IMO the best part of the film from a filmmaking perspective, starting with our guy on a crowded train listening to Bolero to the camera-eye POV first loop through the subway tunnel (as a nod to the game being a walking simulator).

However, I think my favorite part of the movie is the interlude where we see the backstory for the other recurring character in the subway tunnel, a man walking robotically with a briefcase. That's easily the best horror material in the film.

--

Forbidden Fruits (2026). Three women named after fruits who work in a mall fashion boutique tentatively welcome a new member into their girl-power coven.

This movie is kind of all over the place. It leans a bit too hard into satire, which loses me sometimes, while also not seeming to have a clear idea what it's trying to say about female relationships. In my opinion Lili Reinhart as the coven leader is one of the weak links, although I've seen a lot of people say the opposite. On the other hand, Victoria Pedretti as the airhead recovering alcoholic stole the show for me. I didn't even recognize her at first because Cherry is so different from the Mike Flanagan characters I've seen her play, but she's hilarious and heartbreaking.

The movie is also very stylish, and the fashion is incredible, like truly impossible to describe, you have to experience it for yourself. Each of the four gets their own consistent look: glam seductress, gothy femme, girl next door, sexy baby.

The movie also, after an hour and fifteen minutes of campy satire, suddenly goes extremely hard. It gets gnarly, you guys. It fucking commits. It must have been a real challenge to market this film, because if you're watching it as a horror movie, it takes over an hour to get there, but if you're not into horror, you are in for a nasty surprise at the end.

Put this on the list of "wasn't quite for me, not mad I saw it, happy it exists." It had style and ambition, and that goes a long way with me. (Typing that out, I realize it has a ton in common with last movie's football horror movie Him, with a lot of the same strengths and weaknesses. So if you were into that, try this.)
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