#about the fact that claire is fun . and cool. and so capable of

[halechief]

in case you guys forgot about claire playing beer pong in the white house residency

#sorry. #sorry guys. #i hate to do go against my own vibes w my dark claire aesthetic and the fact that i came back to this blog literally to do fucked up #moral ambiguity #and i will and i am and it does interest me but there are times where i am just So. Upset #about the fact that claire is fun . and cool. and so capable of #silliness and devotion and kindness and compassion. she's so god damned cute #she's good at beer pong .. like literally good at it.. its canon. she let the secretary of state win #she's just so much more than like the Version of herself that she descended to and that was needed of her for the life that she's led #and i just. am so fucking emo

[prettywordsyouleft]

To Be Continued - Part 7

Summary: As an author, you had created Brian Kang for your current trilogy series to represent the ultimate man that everyone would love, along with Charli Evers - your female protagonist. What you hadn’t expected was for him to find a way out of the story and begin shaping up your world instead

Pairing: Brian Kang x female writer (ft. Park Sungjin)

Genre: writer au / romance / fantasy

Warnings: fictional characters coming to life / a bit of angst here and there / Sungjin as a cop (or does that only affect me?) >_>

Word count: 2198

Preview | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Epilogue

It was as if you were writing a new novel. Instead of focusing on how Charli Evers would finally get with her battered beau, you were at the peak of experiencing all the emotions and excitement that came from a new romance. You were enjoying playing the main protagonist for the first time in your life as well.

“What are you doing?” Brian asked with a hint of amusement in his tone. You leaned in even closer, already entangled together on the couch after watching a movie, and lifted your index finger.

“Counting.”

“Counting what?”

“How many lashes I gave you,” you murmured, your gaze honing in on one eye. You let out a whistle when you finished. “I gave you so many! Why are you this perfect?”

“I don’t see myself as perfect at all. You sure made a point of that in my creation, too.”

“How? You’re handsome, protective, honest, playful, charming, sensitive, and did I mention handsome?”

Brian’s lips curled up some from your description. “I think you might have said it twice.”

“Because you truly are that good looking!” you surmised, and Brian chuckled.

“Is being handsome all that matters to you?”

“Well, no.” You blinked a couple of times whilst trying to come up with an answer that didn’t make you feel shallow. The truth was, you really did enjoy looking at him a whole lot.

Over the past two weeks, that was what you had done an awful lot of. No matter what mundane task Brian did, he looked exceptional doing it. His laugh was music to your ears, and his voice made your heart flutter constantly. Any time he smiled, you worried your knees would give way, and on the rare chance they actually did, the way he caught you so easily with his strong embrace had you swooning further.

You wondered if this was all a dream. Instead of Brian coming out of your laptop, and your novel, perhaps you had died from your illness. That would explain why everything lately had felt so heavenly at his side.

Either way, you didn’t want to wake up or move on to the next realm. This was where you wanted to remain forever.

Especially when he kissed you. Leaning in to break you out of your reverie, Brian’s luscious lips pecked yours twice, a chuckle vibrating out of him when you realised you had zoned out again. “You’re too adorable.”

“Hardly.”

“If you keep calling me handsome, I’m allowed to call you how I see you.”

You sighed heavily and attempted to pull away from the man. “I don’t want to be just adorable if you’re handsome, Brian.”

“What do you mean?”

“Charli Evers is beautiful! She’s stunning and successful and has a body that would make any male swoon over her. She’s a goddess, and I’m just adorable.”

“You’re really adorable when you’re jealous,” he mused and shook his head, reaching out to pull you back in close to him again. “Charli isn’t real like you are.”

“What if she comes to her senses and finds out that you’ve left that world. She could come here, and it would be no competition between us!”

“You’re right. It wouldn’t be. Because I’d choose you over her every time.”

You scoffed loudly and pulled yourself away again, going over to the kitchen to get a drink of water to cool down. It was hard enough having insecurities as a person, and when you had lived alone, you barely thought of them, too busy up in worlds like Captivated to truly care. Your flaws, at points, made good fodder for some character traits, but you never wrote yourself fully into a world. You had come close in Destined, but even the main protagonist there was far more charming than you were to hook Park Jinyoung as she had.

Brian’s arms slipped around your waist, and he dropped his chin onto your shoulder. “It’s all about perception. You see Charli as superior to you. But she’s the type of woman you see in a magazine. Flawless, beautiful, and whilst you no doubt have made her relatable to your fans of the series as a person, as she does have a good soul, you are real. You aren’t sculpted to perfection. You aren’t going to star on the front cover of any Vogue or Marie Claire. Instead, you are starring as my leading lady.”

“I’m not sure if I’m flattered or not,” you mumbled, turning around to face Brian. “Maybe I want to be on the front cover.”

“It’s not in your personality to stand out like that. You much prefer this lifestyle. Domestic and homely and comfortable.”

“So she’s sexy, and I’m homely,” you deducted, whilst Brian groaned loudly.

“Can’t we go back to the part where we were thinking of just us? I don’t like you comparing yourself to someone else.”

“I’m sorry,” you admitted, lowering your gaze from his. Brian had a habit of making sure you were always looking at him, and he easily fished out your gaze again, smiling gently when he caught your eye. You sighed. “I guess whilst I made you to be the dream guy for me, and those who read my series, I never quite realised the impact you would have on my world if I actually had you.”

“If I have to make a point of telling you how much I appreciate and adore you daily, then so be it.”

“You shouldn’t have to though,” you pointed out, going around him and heading into your office. Brian followed you and leaned against the threshold as you sat down in your chair.

He nodded his head. “No, I suppose I shouldn’t. But isn’t that what makes a relationship work? I support you, and you support me. When one of us feels lower than the other, then it’s important to make sure they feel cherished and loved.”

“Loved?” you repeated, your eyes widening at his choice of words. Brian cleared his throat noisily, looking around your room as opposed to keeping eye contact. You smirked. He was cute when he was embarrassed.

“Isn’t it time to write, Miss Writer?”

“Perhaps I just got some inspiration for my starting point of Eternity. I mean, in the story, Charli Evers is cherished and loved by Brian Kang, isn’t she?”

“Have your fun at my expense.”

“It’s all those good lines I breathed into you. No wonder you make the world swoon, Brian. You’re full of the perfect lines to make any girl weak at the knee,” you told him as you opened your document for the final piece in this story. Admittedly, it was blank and had remained that way for some time. You knew it was because you were too busy with Brian in person that you couldn’t possibly think about writing about him as well.

However, you had received notice from Lily earlier in the day about your next deadline, and so you had promised after one movie tonight, you would end your evening with starting the next novel.

Glancing over at Brian who was still in the doorway, you smiled, and he nodded. “As long as you know it’s your knees I want to make weak every time. Have a good session, my love.”

However, two days later, you were still staring at a blank page. It wasn’t without trying, of course. You wrote, only to erase the sentence immediately. You told yourself to just let the words flow out and not edit them until you were done. Except nothing but a trickle of nonsense made it onto the document each time and after every gruelling session, you found yourself exhausted, mentally, and from simply staring at a blank page.

In all your years of creative writing, you had never been as stumped as you were now. It made no sense! You were living and breathing your own romance in life. Surely, the amount of affection Brian poured over you would easily inspire you enough to write it out. And generally, when you stepped into your office to write, it came from feeling inspired and uplifted to write about a world where love conquered all.

As soon as you were in front of your laptop, however, words failed you.

You had tried everything, from changing your writing schedule to practising with unrelated scenes. That had you hopeful. Every time you wrote a drabble about something outside of this series, you were capable of penning an entire world. In fact, you had now written a series of short stories about random characters and scenarios with relative ease. The success you felt from doing these was short-lived as soon as you opened Eternity, however. Nothing formed, nothing came to mind.

Nothing.

“Maybe it’s because I don’t want to share Brian with Charli,” you wondered out loud, immediately shaking your head. Whilst the Brian you were falling for fast, was that of the same Brian Charli would risk her all for, inside your literary world, you felt no need to keep him to yourself. You wanted Charli and Brian’s story to wrap up with a neat bow after their final tribulations of proving their love would outshine the obstacles in their way. You were determined to gift your readers what you had planned all along for the star-crossed lovers. And you needed to send Charli off on her merry way with a confirmed end.

Whilst your story with Brian continued.

“Just write something, Y/N!” you instructed yourself to do, poising your fingers above the keys.

It was a struggle, but they began to move, and you hoped this time would be the official start of your novel.

“So, what do you think?” you asked cautiously, staring at Lily as she read over what you had sent her.

Your editor didn’t say a thing, and sometimes that was a good notion. You had rendered her speechless yet again.

However, you knew better than that. She wasn’t speechless, she was in disbelief. Lily finally looked at the web camera on the video call and blinked several times. Pulling off her glasses, she wiped at them before placing them back over her eyes. And then she screamed incoherently.

“Lily, I can explain.”

“You better, and fast,” your editor stated back, trying to recompose herself. “This isn’t your writing.”

“Well, it is,” you told her, attempting to smile. Her laser glare wiped it off your lips, and you groaned. “So I think I’m having a writer’s block.”

“But you don’t suffer from writer’s blocks, you overcome them before they get to that level. What have you been doing for the last month that this is all you can turn in for me to look over?!”

“I’ve been a little preoccupied,” you announced, rocking back and forth in your chair. “And it’s sort of been hard to write.”

“I don’t buy it. You love to write.”

“I mean, I have been writing,” you agreed, grinning sheepishly. “Just not on what I’m contracted to be doing.”

“Y/N!” she whined, and you sighed heavily. “How are you going to make up time if you don’t even have a first chapter formed?!”

“I don’t know exactly, but do you think delaying the third story, especially since my second one is only at the publisher’s now preparing to print, can happen? I’m sure we don’t need to bang this series out one after the other. The hype from the wait will make it only more worthwhile for the fans!”

“Not if you plan on producing this type of rubbish! There’s no life in this part you’ve sent me! It’s as if Brian’s soul was sucked clear of this world and only Charli remains.”

You choked on the drink you had reached for, and this alerted the man in the adjacent room, your hands waving him off inconspicuously before Lily saw him.

You didn’t know what your editor’s reaction would be to find out your writer’s block stemmed from you dating someone. And you certainly didn’t want to find out either.

“That’s it, I’m coming over!”

“Lily, that’s unnecessary. You don’t have to!”

“Oh, but I do. My star writer is fumbling around and not focusing enough on what she needs to be doing. Boot camp is on its way.”

“I could help her,” a new voice added to the conversation and you clamped your eyes shut as you heard the wind being knocked out of Lily entirely. Brian crouched down at your side and smiled at the camera. “Lily Morton, correct?”

“You know my name.”

“Of course. You’re an important figure in my life.”

“I… I am?!”

“I mean, you help Y/N with her stories a whole deal, so that’s a special role to have.”

“Y/N, who is this person? He looks far too familiar and yet I feel I haven’t quite met him in the flesh before.”

“It’s a--” Catching yourself from your stalemate sentence, you smiled. And for some reason, you felt compelled to introduce him properly to someone. Before you even realised it, the words fell from your mouth.

“You’ve kind of met him already, Lily. This is Brian Kang, the star of our series.”

_________________

Part 8

All rights reserved © prettywordsyouleft

[DAY6 Masterlist] | [Main Masterlist] | [Request Guidelines]

#kwritersworldnet #young k #young k fiction #young k fanfic #young k fluff #young k romance #young k au #day6 #day6 fiction #day6 fanfic #day6 fluff #day6 romance #day6 au #pwyl; to be continued #kpop fiction #kpop fanfic #kpop fluff #kpop romance

[oneweekoneband]

a hugely inexpert, absolutely correct examination of The Planets and their role in taylor swift turning out to be such a freak

Astrology is real. Astrology is made-up nonsense. Made-up nonsense is real. One person’s chosen organizing principle for living is no more or less stupid than anyone elses. All of this is true or maybe it isn’t. Don’t roll your eyes too hard, but Joan Didion wasn’t lying—we do tell ourselves stories in order to live. It’s about all we do. I don’t understand the stars and planets because I don’t believe it’s my business what happens up there, plus I’m a little dumb, but I, like any blubbering narcissist, enjoy being told something about myself, and what is a horoscope but an opaque little love note designed to be interpreted by the reader in whatever way suits them best. There are astrologers who write beautiful, empathetic horoscopes that are a balm whether you believe them or not, and in this way astrology has a cultural value which makes any dubious scientific purity irrelevant. I don’t understand the stars and planets, but I have friends that do, and I like hearing whatever they sort out. Certainly, I’m not immune to believing in spurious little rituals; I was raised Catholic. Thinking that your star sign is responsible for certain aspects of your personality is no more impractical than keeping a Saint Christopher medal in your car to protect you from danger while traveling. These days I do both. Astrology is possibly real or possibly is not and maybe it matters what “real” means or else it might not, yeah, but the philosophical questions recede in the face of one fact upon which we can all agree: Taylor Swift has a profoundly upsetting birth chart.

Right off the bat, just from an aesthetic standpoint, this image (above) is not inviting. I don’t like to see it. When I wrote about Taylor Swift on this site in 2013 I didn’t know my moon or rising signs. This knowledge was not yet mandatory for trying to date girls and/or understanding jokes online. I was, at that time, far from even the semi-astrologically-literate state I am in now, yet even then if you’d have shown me this image, I know I’d shudder. It doesn’t take a scholar of any kind to see this and feel a chill down your spine, the itch of cold, spectral fingers closing around your wrist. Look at it again. The painful bisection by those angry blue lines. If you found this painted on a cave wall you’d turn and run back towards the fresh air of the opening, blinking back tears, certain some undead beast was following in your wake. This is a birth chart that says I am capable of writing songs like “All Too Well” but sometimes what I like better is to name a cat after the worst David Fincher movie and do a anti-homophobia music video that actually is so bad it felt somehow like it itself was homophobia. This is a birth chart that says I am going to release my new album, Red (2012), with a promo wherein Papa John’s will bring you a copy of it along with your pizza. This is a birth chart that says yeah, I used to do a fake twang as a teenager, and then I dropped the fake twang, but I can bring it back with no notice sometimes so all the girls (mentally ill adult women who have a Pavlovian response to anything that kinda sounds like “Hey Stephen”) go wild.

Taylor Swift is a Sagittarius. That’s the one with the arrow. It’s one of the good signs, theoretically, because it’s one that I have a lot of in my own chart, and because it’s in November and December, which are months where you can wear all your coats. Some other Sagittarians include Brad Pitt, Britney Spears, Janelle Monae, 8th US President Martin Van Buren, Jane Fonda, my friend C., who, in fact, happens to share all three major placements, sun, moon, and rising, with Ms. Swift, but I still don’t think she’s murdered anyone, and, of course, Jake “Twin fire signs / Four Blue Eyes” Gyllenhaal. So we have basically a lot of hot people and one guy who died of asthma, but who did manage to get the highest ranking job in the country first, though the country was a lot smaller then, and didn’t even have McDonalds yet to serve to teams that win college football tournaments. All in all, seems okay. Her moon is in Cancer. I think this connotes something about the watery depths of her emotional self, and it’s the only astrological placement which gets a shout out in the Joni Mitchell song “Little Green”. Her rising sign is Scorpio which is, like... Well, Scorpio to me is Halloween and Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl. Medically speaking, I think that influence is how the stylings for the reputation era turned out so very Hot Topic. My moon is in Scorpio so this is a self-own as much as anything else.

Now look at this. What does it mean? Impossible to say, but that will not stop me from concluding that whatever it does mean is definitely bad. It will not stop me from extrapolating that probably a “multiple planet opposition” is the kind of thing that makes a person go to Stonewall during Pride for a surprise appearance but perform “Shake It Off” instead of any of the actual really good and sexy songs. But then, I bet it probably also factored into her developing into the kind of creative mind who would write something as weird and funny and vital as “And I’ve been meaning to tell you / I think your house is haunted / your dad is always mad and that must be why,” so possibly bad is good and good is bad and the various astrological signs just signify the different ways we relate to death. I don’t know. I’m scared.

In the documentary Folkore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, released on Disney+ last month to accompany the record, because this daughter of three generations of bank presidents is nothing if not a money-maker, Taylor wears a terrifying outfit that I started to like rather than recoil from by about halfway through, and while wearing it espouses a belief that we are all monsters, which I happen to figure is correct. In Madame Clairevoyant’s Guide to the Stars, essential book on astrology and, importantly, the vagaries of the human heart, the incomparable Claire Comstock-Gay writes, “For Sagittarius, the desire is shifting and undefined. This is a drive, above all else, to see, to learn, to experience, to continually seek knowledge. It’s a drive to live a life that never asks or requires that you cede your freedom and never requires you to stop searching.” Certainly, this is the kind of internal compass which would lead to making the unusual, dramatic, and frankly very cool decision to entirely re-record your first six albums when ownership of the original masters has fallen into the hands of a little creep named “””Scooter””” who refuses to relinquish this morally, if not actually legally, false claim. For years I have speculated that actual murder of a human would not be outside of Taylor Swift’s capabilities. This is a statement made with neither praise or criticism attached. It’s a clinical observation from a sterling mind. What I feel with equal conviction, but admit more grudgingly, is that, if it happened, she’d have a perfectly logical reason. (Note: Taylor, if you’re reading this, I am not the type who’d rat anyway. It’s fine. Please don’t sue me.) I’m positive the astrological facts support my findings on this, and if I’m wrong, fortunately I will never find out. Anyway, the next full moon is in 22 days. I always want to look at it and then I forget. There’s a lot going on in space, and while I do feel that any cosmic forces which would put me and Taylor Swift on Earth at the same time are sort of inherently malevolent, I guess it’s been pretty fun, too.

#taylor swift #folklore

[kazbrekkerrs-remade]

ekrjhak i lov eu and to further enable you: ur thoughts on blue, gansey, ronan and adam and henry? and their group dynamic????? 👀👀👀

Wow this took me ages sorry dfjfhd. Claire... u enable me too much these are my onions <3. Under a cut because I went. overboard :3. I’m probably going to have to shorten this I don’t know if tumblr will even let me post something this long dkshjfhg. (Also I wrote half of this in word so if there’s proper capitalization in places that’s why, don’t let it cloud my image as a cool, laid-back bitch that doesn’t care for grammar.)

i’m starting individually then moving onto group dynamics heh

blue i like blue but it did take a bit of growing on me djjdjhjss. i like her a lot bc i relate to her a lot, but i do think there was a lot of room for improvement. she said she wanted to see the world and make it better but how exactly.. is that a roadtrip? i mean i guess it’s a start in a way, but i think it would’ve been much better if we saw her join an activist organization.. volunteer for a non-profit or something. Also her misguided feminism ah! But I can be a bit more lenient with that bc she was still very young when the series ended so. Also she was revealed to be part tree and then like. Nothing substantial came of it? idk

Ganseyboy! I have to be honest my.. fave uwu. There is a Lot of room for improvement  but I just. Optimist!! insecurities :( also he KNEW he was gonna d*e I’m. sad. Anyway like I said a lot of room for improvement as in like.. not everything is about you king <3 also he needs more… idk I don’t wanna say empathy bc i think that’s something different but like. He needs to realise that what he thinks is best isn’t gonna be the way everyone deals with something, if that makes sense? Like basically the “how do you know what’s good for me?” “THAT’S MY OPINIOOONNNNN!!” vine. THAT SAID I love him so much.. he held up the mouse to his face! And smiled!! mon dieu.. when he made bird jokes to make adam laugh… “am I in your dreams?” AH! In a way, blue and gansey are sons of the same gun: I love them both but there could be more done with them tbh. But I have a lot of fun with Fansey, a.k.a: fatima gansey. Kind of like fanon gansey except no one’s opinion matters besides mine <3 (basically it’s  the *aggressively kicks off shoes* “yee haw”, parts of gansey, and then me giving him the arc he deserves) maybe we could sum it up to “ma’am that’s my emotional support projection character” but like. That’s my business.

ADAM! Previous endorsements include: “might fuck around and become an adam parrish stan account.” “I’ve only had adam for a day and a half but if anything happened to him I would kill everyone in this room and then myself.” “I go :D whenever I see it’s an adam chapter” (these are more or less verbatim from my previous posts.) that said, I don’t have many fully formed thoughts because I uhhh don’t remember the books that well and also I repress the adam chapters bc they hit too close oops :). tbh I don’t have many complaints at all heh. That’s not to say he doesn’t have flaws but a) I will excuse them because he’s justified, adam does anything problematique and I’m like he can have a little murder. As a treat. and b) I genuinely loved his arc so. No complaints for real!! Also.. adam realising he is capable of loving and being loved…. *kermit meme* I have nearly teared up while writing this. :( one more half baked thought: trc having being “known” as a mark of being loved but then adam being like “i am unknowable” and then there was a moment of him with ronan like “how foolish of him to think he was unknowable”.... *kermit hearts meme intensifies*

RONAN O CLOCK to be honest. I. don’t have any meta or complaints I just love him. I love him a LOT okay.. very much. Big love. Sharp edges tough guy but he names his dream animals chainsaw and gasoline and has a pooping blanket for chainsaw… I can’t remember the quote but that but in cdth where he was like the point is dreamer or not if people are going to get hurt I’m going to stop it… Much to think about. HIS GROWTH. IN THE DREAM THIEVES wow can you believe I read him in TRB and was like ‘I don’t care for him’ ddhfjdhf and then in the dream thieves I’m like.. I have rescinded all previous callouts of ronan lynch. Oops. HE LOVES HIS FRIENDS SO MUCH oh my gosh. Ronan just… he has so much range for feeling!! he feels so much!!! I love that about him so much omg

Henry. Ah. This is where we get kind of controversial jdhjdfh I’m sorry but. I’m going to be honest I like him well enough as a character but I don’t care for him much I’m sorry I just. It’s because he was introduced so late. And only became an important character towards like.. the last half of TRK? I mean, I’d have loved him if he was introduced earlier, hell at least have him come into play in BLLB. The issues I have with him isn’t because of anything about him as a character though, I think it’s all about the way he was handled. I think because he came in so late, there just wasn’t enough time to do justice to the depth that he had, or give him an arc or anything, or enough time to connect with him. Also a part of me feels like he was in there just to kind of tie up Blue and Gansey’s stories and give them something to do after the end of TRK (which sucks because like… making your only canon POC being primarily to develop/give your white characters storylines… (blue isn’t white in my mind but like she was written “colorblind” and when that happens it usually means the author viewed them as white at least in the beginning jhfhgfj. but i don’t remember it too well so if i’m wrong lmk please!)). But probably my biggest problem is: I couldn’t help get the vibe that MS was facing criticism for the lack of diversity and so decided to bring in an asian character. Like, I feel that way bc he came in so late, and because of that he was so half-baked I’m.. gah. GAH. That’s unfair maybe henry is a cool dude hdhfg but I just can’t warm up to him because of this :/

Group dynamics!! With the gangsey I have to *sobs* I love them so much I’m.. what a strange constellation they all were <3

blue and ronan!! BROnan amirite… omg. That moment when blue nearly slips and ronan immediately catches n holds on to her… she would have to remember that :( sons of the same gun. Best friends!

Blue and adam.. gah. As friends it really goes hard. Get you someone who will stab you if you fall too deep into the nether-realm <3 but uhh. As dates. YIKES. Blue really just. Kissed noah while dating him. And didn’t even think for a second “I have a bf” :( not very cool of her to tell gansey about the kiss curse but not telling adam which I mean, I know that happened to show that they weren’t a good match but. Still yikes. Blue was lowkey cheating on adam the whole time during tdt huh :( also bro I am number one stan of the “I wish you could be kissed jane” scene but it happened literally RIGHT AFTER she broke up with adam I’m. relax <3. I wish that was kind of addressed but meh, overall it doesn’t bother me too much. I think they’re great friends :)

Ronan and adam… I can’t talk about it too much. I really can’t!! I really really can’t! the fact that adam goes to gansey like what is love and gansey is like she makes me quiet… and then adam is like “he was so still inside”.. :( omg the bit during trb when ronan is going on a swearing tirade and adam is like “they didn’t start making the civic until ‘73 <3” what a JACKASS I love him. Second secret!! --okay! Wait I have to say: while this one is not really a big deal compared to all their other moments, my favourite quote is “ and he realised that while he’d been looking at ronan, ronan had been looking at him” :uwu face:

Blue and gansey: :3 :33333 maybe it’s the muslim but I really like the tragedy of not being able to kiss :( I would beg just one off you! Under all this! Maybe I’m crying because of the inherent romantic-ness of the night sky with all its stars and late night drives :( wow I love them. Also i know most people find it annoying but I personally love the “I’m never gonna fall for this person” *fast forward to getting to know each other* “ahahah. :) I have rescinded all callouts of ____. she is now my girlfriend (long story)” (not to be confused with enemies to lovers <3 (not to be confused with enemies to friends to lovers <3)) also they can kiss now thank you very much.

Okay I will just preface this with: gansey’s relationships with both ronan and adam have the “how do you know what’s good for me” element to them so I don’t have to address it later hdfgjlfj but bro they love each other so much I’m… “dream me the world… something new for ever night” you’re leaving for TWO DAYS.. gansey gave up monmouth omg what became of that I really forgot khffhk did he get it back. I don’t even need to elaborate on ronan, “ronan would do anything for gansey” :(

ADAM AND GANSEY I been WAITNG for this one! Turn it up! Bro if you saw the whole face I made when I realised it was time for this kdhfhfkhu this is so loaded despite the fact that I cant articulate it <3 the.. idk what to call them. Parallels? Foils? I didn’t take lit sorry but he RANGE we could have had there… remember when gansey was shocked in trk bc :0 you guys came with me and also “they had run for him”. bro their whole relationship had so much. Tension because of their different backgrounds and fundamentally different outlooks because of their backgrounds, and I think if we had seen them properly connect then both of them could have grown from that. I know we see adam understanding gansey a bit better I don’t remember when that happened but I know it did at some point hhdsf but gansey.. never does! Huff and puff. It’s really so FRUSTRATING to me bc that could have key development for gansey but also for adam and gansey’s relationship. And also I feel like we didn’t.. see them try either? Which is so frustrating like idk if it’s a fault on stiefvater’s part or just with YA lit in general that platonic relationships are kind of ignored. Or maybe it’s because idk I remember ms saying she had a lot of issues while writing trk.. but still. We could have really had it all but instead I have to live with “don’t break him adam” I’m (: ok but now I must lighten the mood hjsdhf so might I add: when one of them sees the principal in his crazy funky junky hat and goes “yee haw”… when gansey is like :DDD hey ADAM guess WHAT and adam is like ? and gansey is like oh it was a fully casual problem with the ALTERNATOR of my car of COURSE it was the alternator, it was really simple and I fixed it with much ease :D and adam is like :’D felt like the had hatched a baby bird.. my uwus. ADAM! give me an idea! ALSO if anyone will allow me to venture into adansey territory…. the fact that adam is cabeswater’s magician and gansey now.. is cabeswater in a way. MUCH to think about. I still spend a lot of time thinking about the dryad au the problem is I have never been to progress past the “vague concept” stage of stories and this is why I don’t write dhfjhfdhf. But yes. I think about it often :3

i also like the henry with the gang, i think it could work really well but once again it wasn’t given the time for me to really see it :( also. ronan being racist. and adam laughing along with that. why was that included, ms turn on your location i just wanna talk

okay once again thank you for enabling me claire and i’m so sorry for this monster dsjkhfjkdhg

#aha. am i more than you bargained for yet <3 #claire tag #asks #mutuals #anyway if for some reason you ever wanted a comprehensive guide on my thoughts on the trc characters here it is <3 #though it's not really comprehensive kjhdsjkhfg #when i reread trc. and remember it this time. then you will know #anyway this took me three weeks sdhfkjdfh sorry

[magic-and-moonlit-wings]

How Turning Jim Into A Troll Disempowered Jim As A Character 

or, Why Some Of The Audience Found That Sequence Distasteful And Are Still Bitter 

(Screenshots are sourced and abridged from the springhole.net article ‘On Writing Empowered & Empowering Characters’ - this website offers advice for structuring and analyzing narratives, characterization, setting, and themes, and also a bunch of fun generators for those things.)

Jim did not consent to being turning part-troll. Consent gained through coercion is not consent, and “everyone you care about will probably die horribly if you don’t do as I say” is coercive. 

Jim gets a strength and agility boost from being shape-shifted, which, yes, did give him an advantage when fighting Gunmar in single combat, but 

fighting Gunmar in single combat went against the show’s ongoing theme about how Jim’s capacity for teamwork gave him an advantage that past Trollhunters did not have, and 

in a coordinated group attack, either Claire’s teleportation or Toby’s flying hammer could have let them get Jim into a position to land the kill strike against Gunmar without Jim needing to change species. 

Jim lost his abilities to 

eat food of the sort to which he is accustomed, 

be in sunlight, and 

be in human-occupied spaces without a disguise, unless the humans are either already aware of and cool with trolls or believe he is in costume. 

His freedom of movement and who he can interact with socially and under what circumstances has thus been severely curtailed. Furthermore, the loss of familiar things, such as any old favourite comfort foods, is not good for emotional health. 

Jim has to adjust to completely new instincts and a completely new body. I have commented in the past that, logically, the changes to his height, weight, limb length, center of gravity, and reflex speed, could have added up to Jim being completely uncoordinated and needing to relearn how to fight from scratch after his transformation, defeating the stated purpose of said transformation as a means to defeat Gunmar quickly. 

Jim’s personality has also been changed by his transformation. In his sparring match with AAARRRGGHH and Claire, he was more confident and playful, and in the final battle he demonstrated more aggression than he usually does. 

Neither of those developments are bad, but having those changes come about abruptly, as a side-effect of a magical transformation, is unpalatable compared to a gradual shift in personality over time. It feels like a cop-out from writing character development. 

Furthermore, if Jim notices his personality is different post-transformation, this will exacerbate the identity crisis that he still hasn’t finished resolving. 

+=+

Jim being turned into a troll has been speculated about since the first season, and I think the fan theories about it may also have influenced the negative reaction from some sections of the audience. The fan theories and related fanfics posited three broad categories of ways Jim might become a troll: 

1) Troll Magic Overexposure. Jim’s transformation would occur by accident, akin to Blinky’s transformation into a human, probably due to exposure to some trollish artifact or potion, or possibly as a cumulative response to all the trollish magic Jim has been exposed to over the series. 

2) Changeling Heritage. Jim’s transformation was something he was always hypothetically capable of, or a natural part of his puberty, due to trollish ancestry of which Jim had been unaware prior to that point; usually James Lake Senior being a Changeling. This could and often did cross over with the first idea, with troll magic being the catalyst which activated Jim’s troll genes. 

3) Enemy Action. Jim’s transformation would be forced on him by an enemy, usually crossing over with one or both of the previous theories. I believe I recall a couple of stories where Gunmar’s attempted use of the Decimaar Blade on Jim was the catalyst to activate Jim’s previously-unknown Changeling genes. 

Because expectations existed, there is a natural inclination to try and make the data fit that pattern. 

Considering Merlin’s treatment of Jim in the episode in question, it is easy to file Jim’s canonical transformation under the ‘Enemy Action’ theory. The fact it was done by a supposed ally clashes with the theory’s premise, encouraging anyone who considers this theory canon to emphasize Merlin’s cruel and abusive behaviour towards Jim in the pre-transformation scenes, and to consider other instances of Merlin’s callousness towards various characters as evidence Merlin was an antagonist masquerading as an ally all along. 

The majority of pre-Season Three Troll!Jim stories also had the transformation reverse, wear off, or (in the Changeling!Jim stories) Jim’s human and troll forms become shapes he could shift between, so having a supposedly permanent transformation occur drew backlash from those invested in this possibility. 

+=+

Having Jim transform only three episodes before the end of the series was a poor decision on the writers’ part. The audience was not given enough time to bond with Troll!Jim before he entered the Big Final Battle that the audience had spent three seasons anticipating finding out how Human!Jim was going to win. 

Just as Jim fighting Gunmar alone went against the series’ emphasis on the importance of teamwork, Jim becoming a troll to fight Gunmar went against the series’ emphasis on how Jim being human - physically human, with the squishiness and ability to survive in sunlight that this implies - could give him an advantage against troll opponents, who aren’t used to fighting humans who have sufficient armour, weaponry, and training to not be immediately overrun. 

Jim’s strategic thinking and the different culture of his upbringing still allows him to come up with strategies that a troll raised among trolls wouldn’t think of, but the physical advantages and disadvantages of being a human fighting a troll have been cast aside, and now he’s just a smaller troll fighting a bigger troll. 

This can still result in cool fight scenes, but when opponents start out with extreme differences in size, strength, and fighting style, reducing the contrast between them makes their fights less visually and narratively interesting than they could have been if the original extreme contrast was left alone. 

+=+

In case it is not visible, the clipped article from Springhole in the screenshots above reads as follows. 

[begin screenshot 1 of 2, medium-blue text on pale blue background] 

What can undermine a character’s perceived empowerment: 

These are some tropes and traits that can potentially undermine this character being perceived as empowered or empowering by audiences. Some issues to watch out for include: 

The “empowering” traits come from something that happened without the character’s consent. 

For example, by being forced to undergo experimentation or training that gives the character new powers or skills. It’s important to note that this isn’t always bad, especially if the character uses these traits to gain freedom. However, it can still leave a bad taste in some people’s mouths, especially if what happened to the character was especially brutal or torturous, or if the character isn’t actually responsible for getting free. 

[end screenshot 1 of 2] [begin screenshot 2 of 2, same colour scheme, medium-blue text on pale blue background]

The “empowering” traits are not actually within the character’s control, or they even cause the character to lose agency.

For example, if the character’s powers only manifest under high stress whether the character likes it or not, or only manifest at random or at the whim of another*, or if they force the character into a mindless berserker-like state**, or are just generally too unstable to have proper control over.

The empowering traits come packed along with significantly disempowering ones.

For example, a procedure that gave a character awesome powers also caused such severe mental damage that near-constant supervision is required to prevent the character from doing something disastrous, or the character’s powers often end up causing severe weakness or a loss of consciousness.

[end screenshot 2 of 2]

*The Amulet of Daylight and Merlin’s ability to manipulate it also come to mind. Although Jim does develop skill in controlling the Amulet after its erratic behaviour in the early episodes, the way that Merlin wrested control away from Jim was similar in tone to the moment in various superhero shows where a character’s power suit is ‘hacked’. 

** This is why Strickler dosing Jim with Grave Sand wasn’t an empowering scene. (To my knowledge, no one’s been arguing that it was; I’m just giving an example.) Jim had little control of the situation even before he was drugged, and less afterwards. This was presented in the show as a bad thing, so having Merlin later do something similar and trying to present it as a good thing is jarring.

+=+

On a tangentially related note, I noted in Jim’s one appearance in 3Below Season Two that he’s still wearing the Eclipse Armour, even though Gunmar is dead and Jim doesn’t need the Triumbric Stones anymore. 

Palette swaps are one of the cheapest ways to change an animation model, so unless the studio was already over-budget, this suggests there was a narrative reason why Daylight wasn’t in use instead. 

I posit that Jim has decided to keep using the ‘for the doom of Gunmar’ incantation because he doesn’t really feel like saying ‘for the glory of Merlin’ anymore. 

Or he still hasn’t managed to get the armour off since the Eternal Night, but I like this other idea better.

(Queued/posted before Wizards aired and potentially confirmed or refuted this.)

+=+=+

If I recall correctly, and if this information is still accurate, tumblr only shows Original Posts on the main page of the first five tags listed, to prevent people from tag-spamming to get on as many pages as possible. 

As such, I have put the #Troll Jim tag low in the list, so it will still be searchable on my blog - I file reblogs of content both for and against Jim’s transformation under that tag - but this post should not be hassling the pro-Troll!Jim contingent by showing up in the main tag. 

Let me know if I need to rearrange things, or take that tag off long enough to let this post get off the tag’s first page.

#Controversial #commentary #Trollhunters #Tales of Arcadia #Merlin needs to be Rule Number 3'd #shapeshifting #consent through fear is not consent #Jim Lake Jr #Troll Jim #3Below #toaWizards #Amulet of Daylight #Grave Sand #long post

[cafeleningrad]

janiedean a réagi à votre billet : What sacrifices do I make that I read the...

at least fast and furious provides eyecandy

not my type of guys but take it with a pinch of salt since my type of men corresponds more to Wiillem Dafoe or Paul Dano. xD  Technically the fancontent creators of the respective YA andoms are without doubt highly taleted, and I saw gorgeous creations out of them. It’s just that the original content irks me on many level of being to be bear only this much of paper thin writing quality.

At a certian level I understand the unfairness how male-targeted media is given a pass that it’s mindless entertainement, and women-targeted entertainement is trashed mercilessly, on the other hand I’m also prone to abrasive reactions towards latter content because just because it’s written by women it’s no indicator that it has better quality. I’m supposed to like it because it’s expected to like romance as a women? But no? Most of the time I don’t care that to characters with the personality of stale toast have raging hormoes for each other and consider it undying love? How? Bar the fact that I read a lot of officially published by-women-for-women-content that was stuck in a genderrole understanding rivaling the one of Zack Snyder (”Not like other girls but hot by looks, by character either she’s an meotionless fighting machine, or a naive sweetheart only out for men...). But women writing women badly is not my type of fun, and then the general issue of bad writing and blaring logic gaps

All in all, I dislike F&F (The camera and editiog in tokyo drift... I don’t like F&F but at least make the drifting scenes cool, not a constant distant front ankle!) as much as Outlander (how is it relevant that Claire is from the 1940s when nothing of her behavior is relevant to the time? She could be equally the stereotypical hsitorical fiction gal who magically is more emancipated than the rest of her peers, none of her behavior expresses he being a woman of her time.)

Basic competent writing, that is missing in the entire conteporary romantasy!YA sectiona dn still the authors make money. Not even the uncreative content is the probem, the lack of skill...! And then one book costs 30€ for boredom and no story cohesion? I don’t get how the market let’s this happen. I see all the issues about “problematic” reapeat over and over whereas I think the most glaring issue is people actually accepting an entire genre burdend with a writing that many fanfiction writers can overtrump easily. No surprise romances get so often dunked on if the writers make money of the most unlikable characters fiding themselves in stories full of plotholes, nothing happening, and women only existing in catergories of “heroine”, “coniving love rival bitch, and “supportive always-happy-bff”... it’s tiring that a genre dominated by women can’t do better. Not to rpove it, the sexist burden will always exist, but that it can’t prove to itself that it’s capable of good writing - epspeciall if girls and women actually do enjoy reading more than just the same bland story in different coveres over and over again.

#janiedean #Lewis ranting

[orionsangel86]

Season 14 Wishlist

Alrighty then! As per the last few season’s, each autumn before the season premier I will write a wishlist of things that hopefully will happen in the coming season, which I will then go through once the season is over.

For those of you curious:

Here is my wishlist for season 12 and here is my season 12 wishlist review

Here is my wishlist for season 13 and here is my season 13 wishlist review

Now as a slight disclaimer I need to stress that this isn’t meta, or me promising anything to happen (since I’m not a showrunner nor psychic) and is purely meant for fun - having said that most of the items on my wishlist are at least somewhat realistic wishes and within the realms (at least in my opinion) of actually happening.

So without further rambling here we go:

A decent arc for Michael!Dean. Yes, we all expect it to only last 3 episodes. which I find deeply disappointing. I would prefer if things are not as they seem and it turns out to last far longer than that.

Scenes inside Dean’s head. Like we got with both Cas and Sam when they were possessed, I really want to know where Michael has got Dean stashed away inside his head - and exactly what kind of experience that is for him. I can think of a whole bunch of different ways that could go - will Michael put Dean through hell? Or will he distract him the way of the Djinn with his idea of heaven? I am extremely excited by this idea and hope they don’t pass on the potential.

The missing scene from 13x23 when Dean said yes to Michael. There was definitely more to that and I hope so much we will see it - though I don’t think this is particularly likely.

Cas’s grief. Obviously. Last year I was all about Dean’s grief arc. This year, I need Cas’s to be just as bad. This is 10 years since the original story. Stopping Michael and changing allegiance to stand with Dean was Cas’s origin story - Remember how he reacted in season 5 when Dean was thinking about saying yes to Michael? Oh ho ho I can’t even begin to imagine how this will affect Cas. I want this to be a mirror of last year, and far worse than season 10. 

Sam’s continued leadership role. Now where I want to see Cas absolutely broken with grief over Dean’s possession, what I think would compliment it perfectly is Sam’s fearsome determination and functional leadership. It would be a great way to show how far the brothers have come to breaking the toxic codependency which has bound them to each other - that Sam is capable of functioning without Dean and without immediately trying to sell his soul or give his life for his brother. 

Sam and Cas working together. One of the things that I really hated about the start of season 10, was that without Dean around, Sam and Cas’s relationship just fell apart, and Sam was made to look pretty much like a douche by the show implying he had kicked Cas out of the bunker and blamed him for breaking his shoulder?!? (I found the whole thing very out of character for Sam but then destiel’s continued refusal to become canon tends to make Sam look occasionally douchey - but that is a meta for another day). Give me Sam and Cas as a team. Supporting each other in their grief and acting like the brothers (in-law) that they are.

Jack and Cas father/son bonding time - I mean I saw the promo and it looks like Jack is gonna be grounded for a little while... >.> but once he has written 100 lines of “I will not suggest killing my dad in front of my father” I think Cas will forgive him. I’d like to see Cas trying to teach Jack human things or mundane tasks with Dean watching them with a fond expression!

Addressing Dean’s abuse trauma - this one has been going around on tumblr recently so I’m latching on to other wonderful meta a bit here, but since last season explored Sam’s Lucifer trauma (and to an extent Cas’s Naomi trauma), it would be fitting if this Michael!Dean arc is followed up with an arc of recovery for Dean, not just from Michael, but from everything he has suffered since the apocalypse.

More seeing “behind the mask” with Dean. I think he has already massively grown into himself and out of his fathers shadow, but I’d just like more examples like with the chick flicks and the cucumber water.

Cas truly breaking free from heaven. Now I think that the ideal situation would be that Cas is the one to fix heaven, and that he leaves the angels by choice, and with them all respecting him and being thankful to him. But Cas needs to start to break free from that duty and obligation that he still feels to heaven. Even in season 13 he carried that guilt, and whilst this is more endgame stuff, I desperately want to see more progress on this. 

More hints towards Cas desiring human things and human feelings and basically desiring humanity for himself (no jokes guys, this time I DON’T mean Dean). I am a staunch human!Cas endgame girl after all. The show spent a lot of time in season 9 and 10 building on this for Cas and then it went a bit quiet. I’d like to see those threads picked up again.

In fact, when it comes to Cas, how about he starts answering some of those hundreds of unanswered questions that have been thrown at him since Carver era? How about he finds his place, where he belongs and AS WHAT in general? Cas, you have a home now and a family. Stop lingering in doorways. 

Sam showing us more of his personality. I think now that his Lucifer trauma has been somewhat addressed, Sam should be a bit lighter and more carefree. I’d like to know some more about him other than his obsession with serial killers which is frankly a worrying hobby Sam!

Mary and Cas bonding - in fact I just want to see all of the rest of Dean’s family bonding with Cas more. I want more knowing looks from Mary and even a conversation about the topic - oh wouldn’t that be a dream!

Dean coming out of the closet. Yes yes I know I know. Every year... But it is 20gayteen and next year is 20BITEEN and dammit the world is full of rainbows right now - Bert and Ernie made it official... Why can’t Dean Winchester? I’m totally cool with someone slipping THIS to Dabb. I won’t even ask for credit. ;)

Last year I wanted Sam to build on his relationships outside of Dean and we did pretty well last year with that. But of course, I want more. Maybe some Sam x Rowena? I’m game. 

On that note WITCH!SAM. I am still a huge lover of Sam practicing magick. It’s a story line with so much potential.

More badass ladies kicking ass. Aww man we were kinda blessed with this last year weren’t we? Keep it up show. Please keep it up.

Billie continuing to play a large role as Death. I find her captivating and want more.

Wayward Sisters returning. It still hurts, but we need to know what happens next.

JODY AND CAS NEED TO MEET GODDAMMIT. Also I want Cas to reunite with Claire again.

As per last year: The return of the mixtape. BRING BACK THE MIXTAPE (yup I’m gonna wish for it until I get it).

Please dress Cas up. The closest we got last year was the cowboy hat and the dreadful nazi uniform of AU Cas. Why can’t we have him in plaid? PLEASE.

Absolutely no Lucifer, Lucifer vessel or any hint of Mark Pellegrino. Plus no Kentucky fried chicken pantomime villains either. I’ll be happy if season 14 is free from this nonsense.

Saving the best for last, what do I always wish for above all else? You guessed it - DESTIEL. Do I want it to be canon? Well yes eventually of course. But in season 14 my wish is for their story to continue as it did in early season 13. More obvious destiel content, more of destiel built into the narrative and ideally, made explicit. A love confession? Even if only to a third party? That is undeniably romantic. Zero “no homo’s” would be nice. I just wish for further development on the destiel narrative. That is all. 

As always feel free to add to this with your own wishes! 

BRING ON SEASON 14!! :D

#supernatural #season 14 wishlist #season 14 #destiel #castiel #dean winchester #sam winchester #rowena #michael!dean #wayward sisters #human!cas #breaking the toxic codependency #destiel dreaming #nougat winchester #jack kline #billie the reaper #spn positivity #spn speculation #my wishlist #my stuff #personal opinions

[lobsterdex]

another fun fact about my star trek fic i had the vague idea of jim going to live with his lesbian aunts on tarsus then 5 min later realized i would have to change the plot around so that they wouldn’t die 

who wants to hear about them bc i’m going to talk about them anyways they’re an interracial lesbian couple and their names are claire and ina, claire is george kirk’s younger sister and ina is her wife, they’re both tall and have an ongoing argument about who’s taller which changes day by day depending on what shoes they’re wearing and how much they’re slouching. claire loves xenobiology and agriculture and ina is a mechanical engineer who specializes in farm tech but ironically breaks things more whenever she tries to fix them, they met in college, thanks for coming to my ted talk, here’s another excerpt

Farming on Tarsus IV is nothing like farming in Iowa. 

Tarsus IV is a farming colony. Iowa is in a farming region, and Riverside is very much a farming town. They live on a farm. It never occurred to him to do any research on the Tarsus colony because he thought it would be like Iowa, but a little bit off.

They still farm traditionally in Iowa, twenty first and second century style. The land there isn’t capable of doing much else, at this point. In theory, they could do better. There are more efficient methods, but some combination of tradition and lack of money keeps them in a rut. The routine is comforting, and people in Riverside don’t like to learn new things or new ways of life. That, and whatever funding they get from the government is limited and can’t be wasted on fucking around with the harvests. 

When he thinks farming, he thinks of the endless, rolling fields beneath blue Terran skies. 

There are a lot of trees on Tarsus IV. A whole lot. The sky has a purplish tint to it, and the main part of town is in the middle of the woods.

Jimmy can count on his hands the number of big trees in Riverside. Two of them are on their property. The trees on Tarsus look nothing like any of the trees in Riverside, and botany has never really been his thing, so all the other trees he knows of are ones he’s seen on the news and in movies. He can’t recall any that are quite like this. 

It must show on his face, because Claire launches into a surprisingly enthusiastic explanation. 

“Cool, right?” she says. “Not what I was expecting either, especially after growing up in Iowa. But it’s much better for the existing ecosystem and all the shade keeps things cool in the hotter seasons. There are only three seasons, too. Warm, warm and rainy, and hot. We have things growing all year, but it’s mostly roots and cover crops in the hottest season. Ina’s telling me to cut it out behind your back, so I will, but only because you’ll learn all of this in school. It’s required coursework. Get excited!” 

Jimmy just grins, but he can’t help but get a little excited at her enthusiasm and at the thought of learning something completely and totally new that he’d probably never learn in Iowa. Ina rolls her eyes again and slings an arm around his shoulder as they head towards the house.

#st fic #yeet #baby feet blabs

[mermaidsirennikita]

May 2018 Book Roundup

I don’t know when I got so into thrillers--but here we are.  Of course, I’m not as into the types of thrillers that are about a cop pursuing a killer.  It’s more the insidious types of domestic thrillers that catch my attention, about idle suburbanites who secretly harbor paranoid minds and little hatreds.  That’s probably why I enjoyed “A Simple Favor” by Darcey Bell and Liv Constantine’s “The Last Mrs. Parrish”, however much they polarized readers.  They both feature horrible women, stupid men, unreliable narrators, and endings that don’t neatly tie up loose ends.  In other words, they’re perfect summer reads.

The Defiant by Lesley Livingston.  3/5.  The second in a series, The Defiant returns to the world of female gladiators and in particular Fallon.  Now triumphant and happy in a ludus run by her sister, Sorcha, Fallon expects to have it easier.  However, her life is upturned when the women of the ludus are accused of rebelling, and Sorcha goes missing.  I rated The Valiant, the first book in this series, four stars so I must have enjoyed it, but I also don’t really remember it, aside from the basic plot and being interested in Sorcha and Fallon’s relationship.  I would still say that the sister relationship is the core focus of the plot, which is different (and distracts from a fairly shallow romance between Fallon and Cai, a Roman soldier; there’s an opportunity for something cooler, but the author bypasses that completely).  But I think I’m over this series; this book drove home that it skews too young for me to enjoy it.  The gladiatrix thing is cool, but there’s so much in this book about how the ludus is home, and like... hasn’t everyone been enslaved by Romans to some degree?  Taken from their homelands?  Forced into a blood sport to be entertainment?  It’s fun, and I won’t say that it isn’t without merits, but this is too shallow for what it takes on.

Fatal Throne by Candace Fleming et. al.  4/5.  A collaborative novel from the perspectives of all six of Henry VIII’s queens--and Henry himself.  What impressed me about this book was how it wasn’t really straightforward.  It seems like it might be at first; Catherine of Aragon’s section kicks it off by detailing the beginning of Catherine’s life in England, up until her marriage is collapsing.  Now, don’t think that this makes it a bad story; I quite liked it.  Catherine of Aragon is, in this version, for once more than a stereotypical zealot queen, though the author does that thing where a character whose native tongue is Spanish constantly throws random Spanish words into English sentences, which doesn’t feel real.  But anyway; many of the other stories are less traditional.  All revolve around the queens’ downfalls or deaths; for example, Anne (or Anna, as she’s called here) of Cleves has a story that really centers around her dying days, and the ghosts of her past.  There’s a weird, haunting creepiness to everything.  Though there are some rather shallow moments--including one bit in the Anne Boleyn story that seemed... pretty off--and there isn’t any reinventing of the wheel, it’s a sad retelling of the wives’ story, where the central villain is undeniably Henry VIII.

Ash Princess by Laura Sebastian.  2/5.  Theodosia was a child when she was forced to witness the murder of her mother, the queen of Astrea.  Since then she’s been beaten and terrorized in the submission by the conquering Kaiser, forced to live as Lady Thora, the Ash Princess.  The combination of being forced to commit a terrible act and the reappearance of a childhood friend wakes Thora to the reality of her people’s suffering, and spurs her to action.  She’s given a task: seduce the crown prince, and kill him.  So yeah, pretty typical fantasy stuff, but that doesn’t mean it has to be bad.  What makes it bad is Theo’s flip-flopping as a character and a truly dismal love triangle.  Neither romance feels real, and Theo’s constantly between dithering and acting like... Stormborn-lite.  Oh, yes.  The GoT influence is strong in this one.  I just wish it had been more interesting.

Love and Ruin by Paula McLain.  3/5.  The turbulent romance between Ernest Hemingway and his third wife, writer Martha Gellhorn, is told from Gellhorn’s perspective.  I remember really liking McLain’s version of Hemingway’s first marriage, “The Paris Wife”, but that was so long ago that I can’t remember much of it.  And for that matter, that marriage--which occurred during Hemingway’s years as part of the Lost Generation in Paris--was a very different animal from what he shared with Gellhorn.  You get the expected beats--Gellhorn and Hemingway meeting, her being initially starstruck while harboring her own ambitions, their work during the Spanish Civil War, the affair that led to a marriage, and that marriage’s destruction because Hemingway was incapable of holding a decent relationship and Gellhorn’s fierce independence kept her from being the idealized wife he wanted--but while the writing is pretty... the expectedness keeps the book from being more than exactly what it is.  And though obviously Gellhorn was a good bit younger than Hemingway and obviously her love for him and hero worship of him allowed to overlook shit long enough to up and marry the guy...  I just don’t really buy that Martha Gellhorn would speak and act the way McLain seems to think she did.  She’s so over the top as a young woman in love.  The book is fine, it’s just uninspired.

Trespassing by Brandi Reeds. 4/5.  Veronica is at her wit’s end, caring for a toddler while her husband is often gone for work as a pilot, while at the same time pumping herself full of hormones for her fertility treatments in order to have a second child.  Still traumatized by the miscarriage she suffered recently, she is shocked when her husband, Micah, doesn’t come home--on the same day that their daughter claims that “Daddy went to God Land”.  Swept up in a mess of emotions and falling under suspicion from the police, Veronica flees with her daughter to the Florida Keys, where her husband had a house in her name.  But the island life presents even more questions.  Who are the children in the photos she finds, and why is Micah with them?  This is a solid, engaging thriller that somehow is at its most disturbing when you consider the fact that Veronica’s mind is rattled in part because of what she’s put her body through via fertility treatments.  Veronica is sympathetic, and rather than stupidly accepting things like thriller protagonists often do, she’s paranoid, protective, never quite trusting anyone.  Why should she?  While I won’t say that the reveal in the end is one of the best I’ve read, the story as a whole is very interesting, and I appreciated the fact that Reeds really delved into the mind of a woman with a bit of feminine body horror--like, in a sensitive way.  It’s different.  The book is as much about Veronica’s identity as anything else.

The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine.  4/5.  Amber envies the lives of glamorous trophy wives, none of them more than Daphne Parrish.  Daphne has it all: a handsome, doting, extraordinarily wealthy husband, two daughters, and all of the possessions she could desire.  So she begins her plan: befriend Daphne under the guise of a homely, Pollyanna type and steal her life.  But as Amber becomes closer to Daphne, she constantly has to look over her shoulder for ghosts from her past that could disrupt her plan.  Little does she know that the real danger could be closer than she thinks.  This book was kind of disturbing and definitely does not have the type of ending that will leave you.... feeling morally good.  But it’s juicy. It’s Big Little Lies kind of juicy, about vaguely psychotic women with rich and famous lives.  Frankly, I would have appreciated more development of the female characters aside from Amber and Daphne, but the two of them were great as is.  You spend about half the book in Amber’s mind, and she is HEINOUS.  But in an interesting, darkly funny way.  The book isn’t going to be for everyone, but I found it extremely entertaining.

Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton.  2/5.  Marisol has never been to Cuba, the homeland her grandmother, Elisa, fled as a young woman.  She returns to scatter Elisa’s ashes after the death of Fidel Castro.  However, she didn’t expect to connect with Luis, a historian and dissenter in the current regime--nor did she expect to discover that her grandmother had an affair with a revolutionary.  This book has a lot to say about Cuban politics; and I value that.  But unfortunately, the political backdrop takes over the story, which is very paint by numbers.  Nothing surprising happens.  The characters are dry.  I wish I loved it, but I just didn’t.

From Twinkle, with Love by Sandhya Menon.  3/5.  Teenage Twinkle is an aspiring filmmaker, out of sorts as her relationship with her best friend Maddie--newly popular while Twinkle remains a bit of nerd--deteriorates.  She’s surprised when Sahil--the shy twin brother of her crush, Neil--asks her to collaborate on him on a gender-flipped version of Dracula, but it isn’t long before she’s starting to look at Sahil in a very different way.  At the same time, however, she’s corresponding via email with her secret admirer, N--who she very much suspects is Neil.  What is Twinkle to do?  I loved Menon’s debut, When Dimple Met Rishi, and I’m still very excited for the spinoff of that book.  It was a perfect little romcom.  This was not.  This book read much younger--and Twinkle and Sahil are a bit younger than Dimple and Rishi were.  But their voices were also VERY immature, and in general it just... missed the mark for me.  I think someone younger would love this book.  It did touch on several really great threads, especially with Twinkle’s family.  But I didn’t feel the same thing I felt with WDMR at all.

Furyborn by Claire Legrand.  4/5.  When her best friend Prince Audric finds his life endangered, Rielle saves him--exposing herself as capable of wielding all seven types of elemental magic.  There are two people foretold to have this gift; one will be a queen who brings light and salvation, while the other holds blood and destruction.  Put to the test in a series of trials, Rielle must prove exactly which one she is.  A thousand years later, bounty hunter Eliana is shocked to find her mother kidnapped, with the only person who can help find her being a rebel leader.  In joining up with him, Eliana defies the empire she’s worked for--and puts herself in terrible danger.  This book is an interesting one; the two narratives you’re following are focused heavily on their respective leads, and neither woman is traditionally “good”.  Eliana has the charm of being a tortured rogue, at least--Rielle is more complex, obsessed with adulation and self-centered to the point of callousness.  But I enjoyed both of them, with Eliana’s story picking up a few points over Rielle’s towards the end... which was a pleasant surprise, as at first I wasn’t sure if Eliana’s side of things would measure up to Rielle’s.  There is a lot amgoing on, so things can get a bit confusing--and this makes the middle drag a bit.  But the ending left me dying for more, with the only other complaint I can make being that Legrand could work on her sex scenes a tad.  But if you’re looking for a female-centered story with a few guys who are all about that undying devotion thing, plus a sexy villain and moral ambiguity, I recommend this one highly.

One Match Fire by Lissa Linden.  2/5.  Twelve years ago, Paul and Amy were camp counselors--and he broke her heart.  Now Amy is back to run the camp after Paul quits, though they don’t realize that they’ll be meeting up again until she’s at his door, physically different but emotionally still affected by what happened between them during their teen years.  Both frustrated and with few other options, they make a deal: until Paul leaves, they’ll have a purely sexual relationship.  But Paul wants to know what really has Amy rattled--and he doesn’t want to leave anymore.  I like romance, I like erotica--I wasn’t sure how to categorize this book, as most of it is graphic sex but I don’t know, the erotica bells weren’t quite ringing for me--but I still need stakes.  They don’t need to be fantasy stakes.  They don’t need to be thriller stakes.  It could be that the family business is about to go under; it could be that the leads are dueling lawyers.  STAKES.  This book has no stakes.  I thought that Paul did something super shitty when these (28 year old) people were kids, but like... it was a bit douchey, but tons of people were dicks to me in high school, I was a dick back, and I don’t remember much of it.  Certainly, I found Amy’s reaction a bit over the top.  At the same time, Paul was--very shortly into this sexual relationship--being like “give yourself to me emotionally Amy” and I was like lmao dude why y’all haven’t spoken there is no reason for you to be so invested in this woman.  He was so pushy, it really irked me.  The sex scenes were okay.  “Will these two people run a camp together” just wasn’t a big enough question to keep me interested.

A Simple Favor by Darcey Bell.  4/5.  Widowed, neurotic mommy blogger Stephanie has found the best friend of her dreams in Emily Nelson, a wealthy publicity exec with a handsome husband and beloved son Nicky, who happens to be the best friend of Stephanie’s son Miles.  So when Emily asks Stephanie for a “simple favor”--to watch Nicky for a few hours after school--Stephanie doesn’t hesitate to do so.  But when Emily doesn’t show to pick Nicky up--when she isn’t even home by the time her husband Sean returns from a business trip--Stephanie goes on red alert.  It isn’t long before the police find Emily’s body; and it also isn’t long before Stephanie begins taking her place.  As Stephanie begins receiving odd messages, the question is impossible to avoid: what really happened to Emily Nelson?  Alternating between Stephanie’s blog posts and the characters’ perspectives, “A Simple Favor” is one of those thrillers that is kind of balls to the wall insane.  You can expect to find that Emily wasn’t all that she appeared to be.  But Stephanie’s secrets are just as great, if not greater.  I’ve seen a common complaint regarding this book regarding the fact that none of the characters are good people.  For me, that just made it more delicious.  Emily is this enigmatic, alluring figure luring over the entire story, and you just can’t shake her appeal.

#books #book recs #book roundup

[mothermaidenclone-blog]

Rampage or Rock, Ape, Lizard...and a Really Big Wolf

Well, Rampage was the most fun I’ve had at the cinema in a long time. This could be thanks, in part, to having absolutely zero expectations, but I have to give credit where credit’s due, Rampage was just a really good laugh. It was unashamedly a stupid film, but didn’t - for the most part - fall prey to the many sexist tropes that unfortunately seem to come with B-movies.

*Rampage Spoilers Follow*

Although Rampage is basically about big animals smashing stuff, with a sub-plot of Davis Okoye (Dwayne Johnson) and a massive gorilla being bros, there was a female lead. Dr. Kate Caldwell (Naomie Harris) features as a capable scientist and relentless investigator, used as a scapegoat in a vast corporate conspiracy, who is determined to uncover the truth, right the wrongs that her research has been used for and clear her name. It is always wonderful to see a talented black actress take the lead in anything, especially in the genre of monster movies, which is usually dominated by swooning blonds. In alarming and spectacular news, at no point did her shirt become tactically torn - despite Kate surviving a helicopter crash - and she doesn’t snog the male lead at the end! Woohoo! Kate is introduced in a way that I feel is usually reserved for male characters; she is someone who’s fallen on hard times and is struggling to get her life back together. So, when we meet her, she is woken up late by a phone call, stumbles out of bed, throws some clothes over the underwear she was sleeping in and drinks something out of a cup that was just lying around. Whilst this is obviously not a positive portrayal of a woman, it could be a realistic one, and it’s always interesting to see female characters being given the opportunity to display stereotypically male behaviours. People aren’t straightforward and we don’t all react the same way to problems. At least it makes a difference from women being shown watching sad romance movies and eating ice cream out of the tub as their coping mechanism. Also, Kate is given plenty of time to showcase her many talents and positive attributes as the film progresses.

One of her great traits is that she continually calls Davis out on his shit. Firstly, when he and government agent Harvey Russell (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) square up for a round of macho intimidation, she interjects, “Let’s all take a breath…Or we can all get in each other’s faces and see who’s the toughest.” In addition, when Davis describes his ludicrous plan to fly a helicopter down a collapsing building as, “We just need to get enough lift to stay on top of the building as it falls, you know, just like riding an avalanche,” Kate replies with the only sane response, which is, “No, I don’t know!” There’s no implicit, doe-eyed trust in Davis’ machismo methods and madcap schemes, all of that has to be earned.

As well as an abundance of common sense, Kate also displays a number of practical skills, such as using her brain - not just brute strength - to smash a window without hurting anyone and pulling off some impressive hacking, even if it is very Hollywood silly. Therefore, Kate acts as a good counterpoint to Davis’ brawn and emotional behaviour as far as animals are concerned; she is an intelligent and rational scientist, as well as an exceedingly sensible and pragmatic human being.

Whilst Kate has to share the limelight with Davis as the hero, the antagonist of Rampage was undoubtedly a woman. Claire Wyden (Malin Åkerman) was a superb B-movie villain and mastermind. Whilst culpability was technically divided with her brother Brett (Jake Lacy), he was portrayed as an almost Shakespearian fool; comically sweating and stress eating pop tarts - another example of supposedly traditional coping mechanisms being gender swapped. Claire was two-dimensionally evil - the first thing we hear her say is, “Either you come home with my research, or you don’t come home at all,” to an astronaut on an exploding space station. Usually, this would be a bone of contention for me, but this is a B-movie, baddies aren’t supposed to be complex. I think it’s enough of a victory that she is the vastly more competent sibling by a million miles, the Brain to her brother’s Pinky if you will. Claire remains cool, collected and in control while Brett falls apart. Naturally, she doesn’t survive this - Rampage is a monster movie after all, of course she is gobbled up by a giant gorilla, what else did you expect? The factor to consider when weighing up sexism is if it’s something that only affects one gender, and in this case, the answer is no. Brett is also subjected to a gruesome comedy death; his is in fact much more visceral, he is squashed flat in a bloody mess by falling debris. So, in the eyes of Rampage at least, characters seem to be judged by their deeds, not their gender.

Two minor named female characters remain; the first is the aforementioned astronaut, Dr. Kerry Atkins (Marley Shelton). Whilst we only briefly see her before her escape pod explodes in the vacuum of space, she shows great courage and willingness to endanger herself for a greater cause. For someone who’s just a device to get some canisters to land on a bunch of animals, she is shown to be very strong in her short time on screen, it’s a shame she was killed for such an arbitrary plot point.

The second background female character is Amy (Breanne Hill), a colleague or possibly student of Davis. Amy is a bit more of a dilemma, as she is portrayed as much more capable and calm in the face of danger than her male counterpart, Connor (Jack Quaid). However, she does flirt in a really gross way with Davis, pretty much throwing herself at him and saying that she wants to learn about “submission techniques.” On the other hand, Connor is also portrayed as a bit of a reprehensible idiot, making up adventure stories to impress Amy and coming out with some fairly offensive white saviour bullshit. It could be that both of these characters simply serve to make Davis look like an all-round wonderfully good person, but a woman offering herself up to him sexually is always going to come off as creepy and seems unnecessary.

Overall, most of the women in this dumb movie are surprisingly confident and capable. They may play up to stereotypes here and there, but they’re character based ones - such as pragmatic scientist and megalomaniacal villain - rather than ones involving gender. Mostly, it was just really fun to have a guilt free laugh at a silly B-movie without having to bludgeon the bit of my brain that thinks about the representation of women into silence.

And now for some asides:

When Dwayne Johnson choked that guy out he says, “That’s a big arm, don’t fight it, sleepy time.” I really hope he talks about his body like that in real life.

Also he has like five had signals that communicate the whole of the English language? Amazing.

I really related to that guy saying, “I’ve started using vegan deodorant, I smell like guacamole.” I just had to put some vegan shampoo in the bin because it made me retch, please make things that smell nice and aren’t evil!

#rampage #monster movie #b movie #film review #movie review #dwayne johnson #naomie harris #jeffrey dean morgan #malin Åkerman #jake lacy #marley shelton #breanne hill #jack quaid #sci-fi #scifi #science fiction #feminism #cw: language

[ethanalter]

'Outlander' postmortem: John Bell talks Ian's 'cool uncle' Jamie Fraser

John Bell as Young Ian Fraser and César Domboy as Fergus in ‘Outlander’ (Photo: Starz)

Warning: This post contains spoilers for the “Creme de Menthe” episode of Outlander.

You’ve heard the phrase, “Like father, like son”? Well, when it comes to Outlander‘s dynamic printing (and smuggling) duo of Jamie Fraser and Ian Fraser Murray, it’s more like, “Like uncle, like nephew.” As the youngest son of Jenny and Ian Murray — Jamie’s beloved sister and brother-in-law — the 16-year-old Ian is still regarded as a child by his parents, hence his affectionate nickname, “Young Ian.”

But good ol’ Uncle Jamie (Sam Heughan) looks at the boy and sees the man inside yearning to break free. “Jamie knows that Ian is capable of being independent, and he’s loving the fact that he’s giving him this freedom,” the 20-year-old Scottish actor John Bell tells Yahoo Entertainment. “Young Ian’s story is almost young Jamie’s story. He’s also this young boy who grew up on a farm, and has a wide-eyed view of the world. I think Jamie sees a lot of himself in Ian, and Young Ian wants to be Jamie. He looks at him, and thinks, ‘Here’s a guy who has got it all together: he’s got his print shop, but he’s still a badass and doing things like smuggling and other treasonous activities. He’s more like the cool uncle rather than the dad!”

Uncle Jamie is so cool, he doesn’t even get angry when his nephew burns down their place of business: the A. Malcolm print shop where Jamie and Claire had their 20-years-in-the-making reunion. To be fair, Young Ian didn’t light the match that torched the place himself. He’s simply there minding his own business — and by “business” we mean a close encounter with a lovely tavern wench named Brighid (Zoe Barker) — when he hears an intruder rummaging around searching for the contraband liquor that Jamie is smuggling. In the ensuing struggle, said intruder fires a gunshot that shatters alcohol over an open flame, allowing the fire to spread and eventually consume Jamie’s beloved printing press, Bonnie. The perpetrator flees — though not before getting a faceful of acid thrown by Young Ian — while Ian himself is trapped in the blaze after trying to douse the flames.

Faster than you can sing, “Here I come to save the day,” Mighty Jamie plunges into the burning shop and hauls his nephew to safety. Naturally, the actors were never in any actual danger during that scene. Bell says that he and Heughan only saw the staircase being set ablaze — the rest of the burning interior was filmed without them present — and there was a fire crew standing by the entire time. “It was so much fun,” he says. “I love doing stunts and getting thrown about. Fire and throwing acid — it doesn’t get any better than that!”

Claire (Caitriona Balfe) watches Jamie’s print shop burn down in ‘Outlander’ (Photo: Starz)

For Jamie and Young Ian, of course, the fire is more devastating than fun. And it doesn’t matter that the elder Fraser absolves Young Ian of any wrongdoing: the teenager condemns himself to feeling guilty pretty much forever. “He’s riddled with guilt,” Bell says. “He’s absolutely ashamed of himself, and feels he’s the one to blame. It won’t sit well with Ian for a while; that’s his whole life that went up in flames, and he feels he needs to take responsibility for it.” Of course, Bell jokingly suggests that there’s another culprit Young Ian could blame the fire on: recently-returned Auntie Claire. “Jamie convinced Ian that everything’s going to be okay because he’s got Claire back in his life. But [the fire] happened after Claire turned up, so that was the problem,” he says. “She’s a trouble magnet — blame her!”

Rather than blame Claire, let’s maybe acknowledge that being a cool uncle doesn’t necessarily make you a great father figure. While Young Ian’s admiration for Jamie holds no bounds, Claire quite rightly questions some of her husband’s actions, like lying to Ian’s parents about his whereabouts or puritanically judging his own daughter, Brianna, for her taste in beachwear. Bell says that, off-camera, Heughan didn’t exactly adopt the manner of a father figure either. “He’s a big kid on set,” Bell says with a laugh. “I’ve got more sense on set than Sam does. But he works hard, and that’s something I love to do, too. He also says things like, ‘You’re doing good, son’ and things like that.”

As Bell recalls, Heughan didn’t offer any words of wisdom when it came time for Young Ian to engage in a time-honored Outlander pastime: a passionate sex scene. “He left me in the dark,” he mock-complains. “I was a total TV virgin. I hope I did all right!” It’s safe to say that viewers were likely satisfied with Young Ian’s sweetly romantic encounter with Brighid. After sweeping her off her feet at the tavern, the lovestruck teen brings her back to the print shop and asks her to be his guide. “Tell me how you like it; I’ll do whatever you want,” Young Ian says, showing more affection and care than most 18th century men likely would.

And that’s just another way that the boy takes after his uncle; just as Jamie is completely enamored with Claire, so too does Young Ian give his whole heart to the woman in his arms. “He’s definitely a bit of a romantic,” Bell confirms, adding that he and Barker felt more nervous than romantic the day their love scene was filmed. “That was the first time either of us had ever approached a thing like that! I’ll let you in on a secret: we did have a wee tipple of whisky beforehand. That really helped set the mood. Young Ian’s supposed to be a bit drunk anyway, so that helped create this moment of pure happiness, and finally feeling like he’s becoming a man.”

Outlander airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on Starz. Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

‘Stranger Things 2’ Chapter One recap: Return that frown to the Upside Down

Shemar Moore suits up for more than action with ‘S.W.A.T.’

Ricky Gervais talks two new TV series, new Sirius show, possible ‘Office’ reboot

#caitriona balfe #_revsp:wp.yahoo.tv.us #starz #zoe barker #_author:Ethan Alter #outlander #_category:yct:001000086 #sam heughan #john bell #_lmsid:a0Vd000000AE7lXEAT #interviews #_uuid:a1de531f-cb01-33f6-b103-9778b441f1f6

[rogerdvies]

léo’s 1k follower celebration. yaay. another celebration !! i just finished the last one omg. first off, it’s absolutely insane that there are 1k of you souls following me?? my mother is most definitely paying you fml instead of buying me friends she could be buying me food so i don’t starve buuut. on a more serious note (yes i’m capable thank you very much), i know that 1k (1,000 holy hell) doesn’t sound like much compared to some blogs, but to me that means that there are 1,000 people out there who think my blog is worth following. worth having on their dash every day. worth putting up with my shitposts for. and that... is really touching to me. it means a lot to me. siriusly. to those of you who i interact with often and those of you who i have never interacted with before, thank you for being on the journey of running this blog with me. from the bottom of my heart -- sincerely -- thank you. omh i’m getting sappy it’s time to move on. 

“so... 1k... léo, congrats and all, that’s great, but what are you going to do for us followers to celebrate it and show how much you appreciate us?” oh, i am so glad you asked. it involves confetti (ominous, right?). confetti? what does that mean? well... confetti, it’s obviously a... wedding ??  

as many of you know (or are very quickly about to learn), gregory goyle is the love of my life. the stars in my sky. the light of my universe. i love headcanons about him, i love aesthetics, i just love him. alright? alright. and i’d like to celebrate my (imaginary) wedding to gregory goyle with all of you followers! and also get to know you a bit better. so how am i sending out invitations to my wedding, you ask? well, through a birthday page, of course! name, birth month and day, and, of course, your guest (favorite harry potter character) are all i need to make the reservations !! so come on over and celebrate this joyous occasion with me !! let’s have fun with this, shall we ??

of course everyone is invited to the wedding, but the list of vips (friends) and special guests (link to blogroll) are below the read more!

RULES TO JOIN

must be following our lord and dragon savior

reblog this post (likes don’t count)

send me an ask with: your name + your birthday and month + your favorite harry potter character

also you better send me a congratulations on getting married or else i will be offended this is my wedding after all. jk. i’m kidding. though if you want to have fun with this please do. it’s literally a shitpost celebration but let’s have fun.

if this doesn’t get 20 notes then it never happened.

PERKS OF JOINING

on your birthday (or during the month of) i will make you one of the following related to the character you sent in: a moodboard, a playlist, a name aesthetic, an edit, a headcanon list, etc.

OR 

i will make you an url edit, url moodboard, name aesthetic, solo blog promo, or something of the sort. 

OR

if i get really swamped that month i will do group promos.

either way, you will get a surprise gift sometime during the month of your birthday if i can’t get it to you on the exact day.

PLEASE BE AWARE i know i’ve said this already but  these may not be published on your exact birthday date. something in life might come up and i may not be able to publish it exactly on the day, but i will post one of the above things sometime during your birthday month. as a full-time university student who also works two jobs, i do tend to get very busy.

THE PASTOR.

@unspeaxables. everyone, you have pastor alexis to thank for this wedding. she not only encouraged me to make my 1k follower celebration wedding-themed (because i’m a dork like that), she also helped me plan my wedding with wedding questions and excitement and all-around fun. besides helping me with the wedding preparations, there are some things you should know about alexis. she is a lot of fun. she is great at cheering people up. she’s super sweet. she’s open-minded, and willing to engage in any conversation or talk about any topic. her passion for the harry potter characters is contagious.. i am going to say this lots, but i don’t know what i did to deserve such good friends on tumblr - she’s truly a sweetheart; an angel with a kind soul, and i am grateful to have met her.

alexis also helped me come up with the name for my first son: achilleo. ignore the fact that both gregory and i are male and cannot have children shhh what is logic. 

MAID(S) OF HONOUR.

@hermioneganger. AVA. MY LOVELY AVA. THE AVA WHO RULES MY DRAGON KINGDOM NEXT TO ME. there is so much to say about ava. ava was the first person i spoke to on when i made this tumblr, and she was so kind and welcoming and she’s been beside me ever since as a friend and that was a stroke of luck on my part to meet her so soon and be lucky enough to get along with her. she’s always positive and kind and excited and it always pumps me up for everything too. ava is an honest-to-god blessing, a tumblr angel. she’s always willing to look over my stuff and then get me pumped up and proud of it by being supportive and telling me her honest opinion of it. honestly, i don’t know what i would do without ava’s constant support. well, i do: i probably would never post anything. 

@nviles. julia deserves all the love. honestly. she’s so sweet and precious and such a kind soul -- she’s always brightening my day with these cute little thoughtful messages that she leaves me and these headcanons about character and these beautiful edits and these interesting stories about her life. she’s also, like, super open-minded about new ideas and that’s so cool. and she lets me sneak into the ravenclaw dorm; we have a niffler named nev and a bowtruckle named noot together and they are best friends and she makes sure that i don’t accidentally kill my bowtruckle noot because i’m horrible with plants. she also supports my marriage to gregory goyle. enough said. ♥

BRIDESMAIDS / GROOMS.

@auroremus. @delacouvr. @starrylovegood. @aurrorevans. @rvvenclaws. @siruisblack. @vveirdsisters. @holy-snitch. @howlingremus. @chrlieweasleys. these are my very-special mention blogs. all of these blogs are aesthetically gorgeous and top-notch, but on top of that (and more importantly, to me) all of these bloggers are super sweet and super kind and just phenomenal human beings to interact with. like, let’s go in order.

bruna is hilarious and thoughtful and adorable, claire is a total doll who can always make me smile even if she doesn’t know it, alex can make me laugh at anytime and she also inspires me, joanna is willing to go on wild headcanon rides with me and she definitely pushes me to be more creative and think outside the box and develop my ideas further, rae encourages me to broaden my horizons with amazing book recommendations and this intellectual conversation not just harry-potter based (though she’s afk right now and i miss her), charlie surprises me a lot with random shit and makes me laugh, teresa’s creativity pushes me to develop myself and my own creativity more and also spurs my passion for things i love that i sometimes feel insecure about, nana is super sweet and even though we haven’t spoken much she’s another one of those people who pushes me to actually develop my ideas and put things into action instead of just thinking about them, and sandhya is another one of those bloggers that i haven’t spoken to as much as i would like but from what i have she’s super sweet and supportive and funny and her blog is to die for and was one of the first i followed when i joined. all of these people are just... ahhh. then there’s vaan, the cool dragon uncle who is a total sweetheart and hilarious in the percyprotectionnet chat and so friendly and sweet and who also pushes me to expand my creativity from just “thinking” to actually “doing”. they are just great, and they make my experience with this blog so much more alive and personal and fun.

BLOGROLL.

i started off writing each and every url here... but i soon realized that i follow a lot of amazing souls, and i don’t want to leave a single one of them out. so please, check them all out here !!

#follower celebration #1k celebration #confetti its a... wedding? #confetti its a... wedding? (1k celebration) #OKAY BUT WHAT TYPE OF CELEBRATION EVEN IS THIS #I BLAME THIS ON ALEXIS SHE GOT THE IDEA IN MY HEAD #AND AVA AND JULIA ENCOURAGED IT #AND NOW LOOK AT ME #BEING A GIANT FUCKING DORK #SERIOUSLY #A WEDDING #TO A FICTIONAL CHARACTER #SURE LEO THIS IS A GOOD IDEA #how are there 1k of you following me look what i have done #RIP

[lastcenturykindagirl]

Finished Defenders and it basically was what I figured it would be, which is a big bag of MEH.

Spoilers. Long.

Putting the characters all together required a sacrifice of some of the integrity of the character of their individual shows, even though they obviously went to a lot of effort to shoot scenes in the style (or interpretation of the style) in each of the other shows.

Danny is a white savior character, and even though he’s not the main (and still has no charisma), it’s all about him and his being Iron Fist and How Important That Is, which we know because they make Asian characters say things like, “You have the heart of a warrior” and “I also used to have masters”, and they never make fun of a white guy being the Iron Fist like everyone else gets to do. Nope. Not here for it.  Drinking game for every time Danny tells someone he’s the Iron Fist or mentions his “chi”.

The plot is terrible and the fight scenes all blur together.  Nobody ever knows exactly what is going on, take forever to trust each other (it’s mentioned a few times in show), they kind of connect the dots in places, but they’re always one step behind, and it doesn’t really do anything to amplify the supernatural twist ending in this, it just feels like hacky comic book schlock, to be honest?  There’s no deep dig for real knowledge, no real investigation. They obviously wanted to avoid showing real dragons, but the MacGuffin here are dragons. Talking about dragons and not showing them is beyond weak. 

I get what the Hand do, but who cares?  They are bored wealthy semi-eternal people who are afraid of death and crush up dragon bones so they can say they serve life by never dying. I mean, I get the gist of it, but it would’ve been nice if someone who could actually write dialogue had been able to explain why this mattered and How It Would Change Everything?  It felt like underneath all of this is a very spiritual vein about how Kun-Lun was heaven (even though that’s a hard sell), and the Hand were like fallen angels who got kicked out and wanted to get back in at any price, but they don’t explain it in a cool way and in fact all the members of the Hand seem pretty incompetent after ruling for centuries.

Which brings me to, the Hand has been lead for centuries by a white woman who got kicked out of Kun-Lun.  She’s like the evil version of the Ancient One, with all the same uncomfortable hallmarks of Asian appropriation and imperialism: her lieutenants are Chinese, Japanese, African, you get my point. They’re associated with ninjas (the joke is made repeatedly) but lead by a white woman for centuries. Whatever, Marvel.

Elektra gets done dirty again and obviously they are very comfortable with having her as a villain, not an anti-hero.  She is a tool for the leader of the Hand and the only way she gets her identity back is because she remembers how Matt made her have real feels.  Which, I guess is a thing, but it’s just reinforces how their relationship is all kinds of fucked up and irresponsible and that Matt is really a hot mess, too. I love the actress, I just wish she’d gotten a redemption arc instead of her entire journey boiling down to that she just wanted Matt for forever so they can play their fucked up cat-and-mouse-game.  But then, she did kill that bastard Stick, so, HIGH FIVE ELEKTRA!

High POC body count in this.  Decapitations and body parts being sliced off are a fav throughout the series. Lots of violence, as you would imagine.  Good guys losing their cool and doing torture as well.

I really enjoyed all the stuff with the female supporting characters helping each other out, but it would’ve been nice if they weren’t just insert scenes, like you have a cop, a nosy talk radio host, an investigative reporter, a doctor capable of doing forensic analysis, and a former member of the Hand all gathered together, but Jessica goes off to investigate alone.  Matt finds architectural plans inside a piano!  Brilliant!  Um, not really.  This is all because the Hand might find and hurt their friends/lovers and because of Matt’s secret identity the DD people can’t talk to the other people (even though they keep talking about how it’s not that hard to figure out Matt and DD are the same person). But it’s a superhero show and all the female love interests are not people that stay on the sidelines (again, they talk about this in-show) and eventually don’t.  But they could’ve found a way to have them help move the plot forward.  Claire, Colleen and Misty get a little bit more of this than most, but then get repeatedly sidelined.  It’s also annoying how  no one will every explain anything fully to Misty even though she helps them out?

Jessica finally apologized for the horrible thing she did to Luke, which was good, but it felt very convenient that only happened after they’d been forced to work together and went through hell?  It would’ve been better if they’d had that talk fairly early on to me, so they could get square, but Jessica is never shown feeling worried that she makes Luke uncomfortable and that he might have trust issues (!!!) but they cover over that by making Luke generally the most soft-hearted member of the team who easily forgives.

I hope all the Hand are dead now and we can stop talking about them? I hope we don’t have to see Danny anymore but that’s just wishful thinking?  Luke+Claire 4ever.

[amongwclves-archive]

her relationship with/feelings regarding the cullens

send me a topic to write a meta about my muse on

        headcanon. unlike many of the other faces around both forks and la push,claire has little issue with the cullens ; being around the black pack as achild, she had been taken to the cullens home more than once, and taught to becivil with them —— especially after learning the truth of what they were. whileshe had gone through a brief phase during her preteen years where she wasslightly uncomfortable around them (specifically after learning they werevampires), she was quick to get over it as she realized how serious they wereabout their vegetarian diet, and as she started spending more time with theyoungest of the clan.          obviously, of all the cullens,she is closest with one RENESMEE CULLEN. the two girls bonded quite quicklyonce claire hit her teens, finally catching up to the younger imprint inphysical age; and once they started hanging out a bit, they realized theyactually had a fair share in common, from being the youngest of theself-declared ’wolf girls’, to conflicting issues regarding their wolves, tosimilar tastes in music and mutual feeling of missing out on certain aspects oflife due to their respectively ’sheltered’ lives (renesmee from being raisedaway from humans, while claire had sheltered herself by focusing too much onher dance and the pack and not enough on living a more ’normal’ life). the twoare quite inseparable; if claire isn’t with her friends leslie and alexis,she’s with nessie.         whenit comes to the rest of the cullen coven, she’s not neccesarily close with anyof them, her relationship based primarily on running into them when overvisiting ness, or looking for various pack members. still, she doesn’tneccesarily hate any of them.         in the case of renesmee’sparents —— claire’s got a lot of time for EDWARD CULLEN and BELLA CULLEN. whilecertainly not her favorites of the clan, she’s got a relative amount of respectfor them, more-so for edward. the two are more than capable of having a civilconversation, most typically about music. as for bella, while she’s had herreservations about the newborn, they manage to get along relatively alright,the reservations fading away a bit more once she got older and they began tofind common ground to stand on. she certainly can find the two of them to bequite annoying from time to time, but for the most part, they’re cool in herbooks.          she holds DR. CARLISLE CULLENand his wife ESME CULLEN in the highest of esteems, has ever since she was achild. this probably had something to do with how kind and welcoming the twoalways were, more than pleasant to her, even when she was in one of her moods.because of this, she’s grown to have a very high opinion of the two, always onher best behaviour when speaking with them. she doesn’t spend a lot ofone-on-one time with carlisle, unless it’s for a medical reason (as he acts asher interim doctor, seeing as she doesn’t have a family doctor and herspecialists are all located out of town). however, if ness isn’t around, esmeis often the first cullen she’ll seek out, offering opinions on whateverprojects the maternal figure is working on, sharing tips and ideas she’s seenon emily & rachel’s pinterest, and small chit chat of that sort.         there’s something about EMMETTCULLEN and JASPER HALE that —— well, that’s f a m i l i a r, mostly due to thefact that they remind her so much of the pack members. her relationship withthe two boys is very similar to her relationship with a lot of the guys, mostlya lot of eye rolling at their nonsense, snarking back at their quippy jokes,the occasional laugh here and there. she finds them to be very light people tobe around most of the time, and doesn’t mind being in their presence most ofthe time; especially when she needs a pick-me-up.         ROSALIE HALE —— well, theymanage to stay civil, at least. it’s not surprising, with the two of them bothbeing very headstrong, independent people with strong opinions, that the twowould butt heads. and sure enough, it’s not a rare occurrence for them to getinto an argument of some sort, mostly just a bunch of sniping back and forth.still, it doesn’t mean claire has anything against rosalie —— in fact, sheholds her in a similar esteem to her aunt leah, in that she’s a strong,independent woman who she looks up to in a sort of way. —— she just thinksshe’s a bitch, is all. but nothing wrong with that.         really, the only cullen clairecomes close to having a problem with is ALICE CULLEN —— and it’s not that shedoesn’t like alice, because she does. she just finds the small vampire to be ——well, t i r i n g. especially when she’s consistently trying to convince her tochange her hair, update her wardrobe, try a pair of high heels, get a makeover.and her personality —— well, she just a bit OVER THE TOP for claire, as the twoare almost polar opposites. but in small doses, or when she’s toning it down afair bit, she can actually be a fair bit of fun to be around.

                                                         ( someone was just being curious )

#anonymous #ᵗʰᵉʸ ᶠᶦʳᵉᵈ ᵃʷᵃʸ | ask box replies #ᵃ ᵇᵃˡˡᵉʳᶦⁿᵃ ᵗʷᶦʳˡᶦⁿᵍ ᵉⁿᵈˡᵉˢˢˡʸ ᵗᵒ ᵃ ᵇʳᵒᵏᵉⁿ ᵐᵉˡᵒᵈʸ | headcanon #god bless this ask

[fashiontrendin-blog]

Please, Don’t Let ‘Set It Up’ Be the Future of Rom-Coms

http://fashion-trendin.com/please-dont-let-set-it-up-be-the-future-of-rom-coms/

Please, Don’t Let ‘Set It Up’ Be the Future of Rom-Coms

Everyone’s talking about Netflix’s newest romantic comedy, Set It Up. Some are heralding it as the return of the romantic comedy. It’s hard to find a negative review, which is why I’ve spent the 24 hours since I saw it wondering if I watched a different movie. I understand the appeal of its unapologetic cheerfulness, even if it didn’t speak to me specifically, but I’m struggling to wrap my head around the idea that it somehow moves the rom-com needle, as so many are claiming it does. If this is progress, I think we need to expect more.

Admittedly, the last romantic comedy I remember being excited to see was Obvious Child, which came out in 2014. Before that, it was Easy A, in 2010. There was a time though — you could say my entire adolescence — when rom-coms were my drug of choice. I owned and watched How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Two Weeks Notice, Notting Hill, Win a Date With Tad Hamilton, You’ve Got Mail, 50 First Dates, The Wedding Planner and most of their generational counterparts enough times to memorize each of their male protagonist’s romantic speeches, which usually appear about 95 percent of the way through the film, always to win back the girl. Sometimes I started them over immediately after the credits rolled, just to rewatch them with the director’s commentary. (R.I.P. DVD extras.) It wouldn’t be unfair to say that the late-’90s-early-aughts rom-com boom played a large role in shaping how my younger self saw the adult world. It informed how I identified myself, who I wanted to be when I grew up, how I flirted. I’d resent that if I hadn’t been such a willing participant.

While it’s true that even commercially successful rom-coms have rarely received critical acclaim, there was a time when the genre carried a certain cultural cachet and was capable of making A-list stars out of B-list actors, shaping romantic attitudes and generally steering the zeitgeist. That was over a decade ago. In the years since, the original mid-budget rom-com has been pushed out by multi-hundred-million-dollar extended-universe sequels and reboots and remakes. But it’s not just about money — tastes have changed, too. Some blame Hollywood’s disinterest in stories about women (or Katherine Heigl, generally); others blame a lack of depth and nuance. Regardless, the classic rom-com formula that guaranteed success in the early aughts came to look and feel old-fashioned, both in its technical execution and especially in the tropes it traded in.

But in the past couple years, rom-coms have regained some of their lost footing in popular culture, with people like Emily Nussbaum, Mindy Kaling and Chrissy Teigen defending the genre as a valid art form. At the forefront of this neo-rom-com revolution, as you might expect, is Netflix. According to IndieWire, Set It Up, which stars Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs, is the seventh rom-com the media service-cum-production studio has put out in 2018. And for some reason, it hit a feel-good nerve the others didn’t.

“Set It Up is remarkably refreshing,” writes Elena Nicolaou for Refinery29. “The movie marks the first time the classic rom-com format has been shaped around our particular moment in history, and made specific to the millennial experience.”

“This film has it all — at least by the standards of a fun, disposable romantic comedy, the likes of which Hollywood rarely bothers to release anymore,” writes David Sims for The Atlantic. “Set It Up might just feel like a fluffy rom-com, but it could also be the start of a genuine realignment within the industry.”

“It’s not perfect, certainly, but it’s an emotional support blanket of a film, an old-fashioned rom-com led by stars with palpitating chemistry. I see myself putting it on every so often, scanning to hit my favorite scenes,” writes Esther Zuckerman for Thrillest.

My Set It Up movie-watching experience more closely resembled a vigorous exercise class than an emotionally supportive snuggle. As in, my cohorts spent the duration groaning or calling it quits, while my sister, who suggested it, apologized profusely for what she’d done. She swore she saw positive reviews, but maybe they’d been satires? Turns out they were not, but the joke was still on us.

Written by Katie Silberman and directed by Claire Scanlon, Set It Up follows Harper (Zoey Deutch) and Charlie (Glenn Powell), two overworked assistants who work for high-powered, high-maintenance bosses: an ESPN journalist named Kristen (Lucy Liu) and a venture capital executive named Rick (Taye Diggs). When Harper and Charlie meet-cute in the lobby of the New York high-rise building they all work in, they conspire to set up Kristen and Rick in the hopes that love might make their bosses less ambitious and thus free up their schedules.

The story is cheesy, full of plotholes, and generally predictable, but that’s to be expected in a rom-com. In fact, people who know the genre better than I do have broken down exactly why Set It Up lives up to its predecessors so successfully. What confounds me most are the myriad claims that Set It Up retains what’s great about the classic rom-com, nixes the more offensive qualities and updates it for today. With all due respect, I do not agree.

To the movie’s credit, it is distinct from the rom-coms of the aughts in a few ways. For one, it is technically more racially diverse than its forbearers, with Liu and Diggs in two of the four lead roles. It also makes an attempt at subverting gender stereotypes by casting a man and woman as a cowering assistant and intimidating boss, respectively. Unfortunately, the execution of these decisions ultimately reveals more about the creators’ awareness of how to check boxes than actually be progressive. The story and characters are just a groan-inducing as, say, those in The Wedding Planner, albeit more unlikeable, in my opinion.

Take the movie’s handling of race. Set It Up may star Liu and Diggs — for which it’s been applauded — but race is never addressed as a part of the modern experience, and the story is actually about their two assistants, played by white actors Deutch and Powell, whose personalities are given more attention and nuance. Casting people of color is a good first step, but it’s worth remembering that representation in movies is also about giving those characters nuance, telling their stories and placing their stories in a world where race exists — especially if it’s set in modern-day New York City. It’s hard to imagine that ever being done well as long as the vast majority of movies continue to be written, cast and directed by white people, as Set It Up was.

Sexism and gender, however, is addressed, at least in small moments — possibly the result of the film being written and directed by women. Unfortunately, this doesn’t guarantee success either. As Glenn Kenny wrote for The New York Times in her review of the movie, “[T]he expectation that a female-written, female-directed effort would yield something refreshingly different is scotched within the first few minutes.” The female characters mostly fall flat. Harper is rom-com-recognizable in that she’s beautiful but doesn’t know it, lives in a huge apartment but is an assistant, loves pizza more than her friends, and loves sports. She’s a classic Gone Girl-style “cool girl.” Kristen is a frigid, sexless career woman who, despite knowing how to handle herself professionally, is totally clueless about dating. And then there’s Charlie’s girlfriend: a beautiful model who has no personality. None of it makes me angry; it just makes me yawn. But my ears perk when someone calls the movie “specific to the millennial experience.”

Not every piece of media has to be seamless and say something meaningful; some might argue rom-coms are best when they do neither. But shows like Insecure and Dear White People and movies like The Big Sick and Bridesmaids prove that the marriage of romance and comedy can be delightful, digestible and feel distinctly new, even if it isn’t always perfect or realistic. To me, modernizing the genre has less to do with making the white female protagonist like sports and have career aspirations (How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days did both in 2003) and more to do with telling stories we haven’t heard before through characters we haven’t met before.

Maybe rom-coms just want to be fun popcorn flicks and I’ve simply lost my taste for them. And that’s fine! I’m happy to skip the next one. But when they’re reviewed as beacons of progress or watched en masse and become cultural touchstones, like Set It Up has, I think it’s worth asking if our expectations are high enough.

Feature photo via Netflix.

http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js