#[plot hole is thing unimportant to the scene as a whole] | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gillianthecat · 2 years

Text

War of Managers Thoughts: in which I do a deep dive into why it doesn't work

warning: this is 95% criticism of the show

I watched half of episode 7 on Saturday and gave up halfway because I was annoyed and confused. I thought maybe I was just in a bad mood, but I retried tonight and I still felt confused and annoyed by it. Like, I think I could explain the plot, but it all feels incoherent anyway. Something about the way the show jumps from scene to scene felt confusing and arbitrary to me. Like there was no logical progression to the story, just a collection of moments. Which can work as a filmmaking style, but here it just felt like I'm being shown all these random pieces of their lives.

So I decided to take detailed notes on each scene and how it furthered the plot and character development. And the results were… I figured out why I was so confused, and it wasn’t me. The show did not improve upon close examination, but I think I determined precisely what was wrong with it. Basically, the plot arc and the emotional arc are disconnected and are happening to two separate pairs of people. Despite all the actions that drive the plot coming from the managers, the emotional focus is on Gus and Bew. It’s an odd and disconcerting flaw and one I don’t usually see, which is why it was so hard to figure out, and why it was so frustrating to watch the show.

Its unfortunate, because this show could be doing interesting work around the questions of fame, fanservice, shipping culture, and perhaps Thai work culture more generally. But part of me suspects it doesn't actually have much meaningful to say about all that, and it's all just plot point after plot point for the melodrama. The thing is, I don't have enough familiarity with that world to evaluate. I've watched very little in the way of Thai fanservice content, BL actor pairings or otherwise, and not much of that from elsewhere in the world. Perhaps it would all make more sense to me if I had, or if I was Thai (or at least much more familiar with Thai culture). Perhaps I would then be able to fill in what feels like holes in the storytelling with my previous knowledge. @moonchildridden has a fascinating post on shipping culture in War of Managers that was really helpful in understanding that world. But I still felt frustrated with the storytelling, which really dilutes the power of its message, whatever that is supposed to be.

edit: I just found @yeetlegay's amazing sociological examination of fandom culture, celebrities, and parasocial relationships. It was written before War of Y, but adds some really valuable context.

I find Cheewin fascinating and frustrating because he’s all over the place, and he often picks very compelling topics. Some things he does amazingly well, and he has some directorial choices that I hate. Since I’m already complaining about the show, I’m going to vent about some of them here. (I also complained a bit in my reaction to the first War of Managers episode.)

Chegwin has this habit of staging drawn-out scenes and focusing on little interactions which could be very interesting and revealing, but in his hands mostly feel stagy and awkward to me. They don’t feel like they add any meaning to anything. Like this whole big scene of Pla having to pee. I guess its a comedic moment, but to me it just feels random. One aspect of this is that Cheewin spends a lot of screen time on social niceties, like the rituals of introducing people who seem to be unimportant to the story. Would that be more significant to me if I was Thai? From my outsider's viewpoint it feels like filler. And he often sets up his actors to start scenes like they’ve been waiting for the camera to come in, so it doesn’t feel like they exist as real people in their world, continuing to live their lives off camera. I’ve noticed it in Secret Crush on You and War of Y: New Ship as well, but it seems even more obvious here.

The fatal flaw of War of Managers are the basic structural issues I described above, but I’m going to complain about some other flaws that annoyed me:

I have no idea how much time passes between any of these scenes. It just all feels so unmoored from anything.

Half the time I don’t know where they are. Whose office is this? Whose apartment? It also contributes to me feeling lost and adrift.

The music is so overdramatic and also adds to everything feeling fake.

I know Gus is supposed to be suspicious, but it mostly feels hard to connect with him as a character. The most interesting he is is in the scenes with that producer and on the rooftop. Which makes me suspect this is an issue with storytelling or directing not with the actor's acting.

I don't understand why Pla wants Gus to date Bew and pretend to be in love with him. A real relationship is not necessary for them to hint at having one. The reason that makes the most sense is to control Bew and keep him from leaving Gus career wise. But what they're all thinking is left opaque in a way that feels frustrating instead of intriguingly mysterious.

The staging of both of Bew’s accidents feels so fake. Which is fine, whatever, its a low budget series. But combined with everything else it's another thing making it all feel unreal and artificial and ungrounded.

I keep forgetting Bew is in love with Gus because it’s almost never relevant to what’s happening (this is part of the larger structural problem).

Bew keeps “hiding” in plain sight to eavesdrop, but no one ever sees him! Once he was even in head-to-toe bright red!

Cheewin has similar flaws in the other shows of his I've seen, but in those there's a lot of good things to balance them out. Here the fundamental structural issues magnify the rest of the problems. In addition, he often lets couple chemistry carry most of the show and here the structure prevents Gus and Bew from developing much chemistry.

This isn’t a criticism, but a question I’m throwing out into the world: I am very curious about the translation choices, and what the original Thai words were and what they imply. Are they calling their managers the same word they would use for their mothers? Is that a common thing to do? What do Toon and Pla call each other? Is it literally "Sis?"

My feelings about the show overall were kind of encapsulated in my reaction to the Big Reveal at the end, so I’ll share that here:

Toon's teary apology feels fake and I can't tell if that's bad acting or if it's supposed to be fake.

I guess all these dramatics were to create a reason to break up the working partnership.

Uh oh, here comes the big reveal. And like, even in this, Gus' face is hidden most of the time. And maybe it is intentional, but to me it feels like it's not done in a mysterious way, but just in a they didn't bother to include him in the blocking way.

Oh Gus. I guess I have imprinted on him despite the disaster of the storytelling, because he's low key breaking my heart here. I don't even know if I believe him (although based on the precedent of the New Ship section I should), but I still feel his pain.

Maybe I changed my mind on this blocking. Now that we can see that Gus is emotionally engaged in this conversation, having Pla framed as standing in between them is pretty evocative.

Oh my god, this reveal of Toon literally popping up from the backseat in that flashback is hilarious. I don't think it's supposed to be though.

They explain what they did, but they still don't really explain why tricking Bew would help them all. Also this whole flashback is the most soap opera feeling moment yet of any BL I've ever watched.

Yeah, I have no investment in Toon or Pla. I can't tell what's real or fake from them and so their emotions feel meaningless to me, and I can't care about any interaction they're involved in. I'm not even feeling sad for Bew here because my apathy for Toon is overriding it.

I am kind of fascinated by this blocking choice of having Gus literally obstructed by Pla most of the time he's even shown at all. It's an effective literalization of their dynamic. But it also continues the problem of the main characters' emotions being pushed outbid the storytelling for other people's drama.

This seems like it's setting up Pla to be evil and Toon to be... I actually have no idea who she's supposed to be. She doesn't really make sense as a character. Obviously she lies and is fake a lot, but as an audience we need some sort of sense of her core self and motivations under all that in order to connect with her. Maybe she'll become coherent by the end, but I'm not holding my breath.

This accident. I cannot get over how bad the choreography is for both these "stunts."

My prediction for the remaining three episodes: they're going to mainly focus on the managers' machinations for the next two episodes, and then in the last one Gus and Bew will somehow have developed a serious loving relationship without us ever seeing how it happened. I could be wrong. The big reveals of Bew finding out the relationship was fake (gasp!) and then Gus claiming that he fell for Bew anyway (gasp!) are the perfect set up for the two of them to have some lovely conflict and start building an honest relationship. I'm worried Cheewin won't choose that path, but the structure is so incoherent it's impossible to predict where he's going with it.

Anyways. I feel satisfied to have figured out what was bothering me about this show. It’s resulted in a lot of criticism, but it was fun for me to write it. I highly doubt I will examine any of the coming episodes in nearly as much depth now that I’ve solved the puzzle. This is of course a very subjective reaction, and I'm curious to hear if others felt the same, or if War of Managers is working for you.

#war of y: war of managers #war of y episode 7 #war of y critical #war of y #gillianthecat reacts to bl #reaction by gillianthecat #cheewin thanamin

3 notes · View notes

brainjuicey · 1 year

Text

u know what pisses me off about like. rape culture in conjunction with QT movies? it's that, like. women don't get to be unreactive/unresponsive, sex culture really is all about the woman's performance (externalised) validating the man's performance (internalised). so in some ways it's really the opposite to the man penetrating the woman. but that's silly.

my problem personally is that men don't want to actually acknowledge the submission of male power in the sexual setting, it's just not as interesting to them I guess. but on a broader note, my opinion is that women don't get to be stoic and ultimately in Inglorious Basterds, the woman who is supposedly revered for denying the PerfectGermanBoy throughout most of the movie, and celebrated for being cool headed and cold hearted, when she decides to "seduce" the Nazi (it's really rape though) in order to manipulate him as a last resort, is shot down ruthlessly by a man who has made himself appear meek and immature, and her death is a triumphant moment, on the side of the Nazi, and it's like. I fucking knew you weren't being genuine about that whole "she's a cold woman but she's allowed to be like that" when really it's "she has an unimaginably tragic backstory that makes her the way she is and ultimately she gets what's coming to her". i can understand nuance of morally grey characters but I really don't think that's what the point of the movie is. I think the point is "wouldn't it be cool if she was shot down and the Nazi actually won? wouldn't that be cool?". now I only have my own speculation given the context of the plot of the film and other QT films, his historical treatment of women and their sexualities for the benefit of the aesthetic, plot, male chrs, and his own personal fetishes. disclaimer I'm not well versed in this at all. just my preliminary and slightly uninterested, unimpressed opinion.

(btw!) let's totally not forget the death of B. Von hammersmark at the hands of Landa, it was so unnecessarily and graphically sexual, and again with the feet!. and given Landa's sexual aversion, the only logical conclusion is that the entire scene is for the benefit of the intended audience and/or its creators. bruh. makes me sick so see the degradation of specifically women like that so blatantly glorified also I will never forget the scene at the vets with BVonH with the bullet hole in her legs and the clear lack of empathy given to her even from the film's pov, not just the chrs, and how unbelievably inhuman her chr was portrayed there. like she's screaming from a leg wound and then talking like nothings happened with his finger in her bullet hole and everyone is just like this is normal and also I still don't trust her, after she killed an innocent man for them!! and it adds Nothing to the movie!! it's literally just to make her unimportant!!. and the whole thing is "well she's a woman on her own so we treat her however we like". no literally. literally. sickening. you sicken me.

that scene where Hitler says to Goebbels in the theatre that this is his best one yet and Gman starts crying. that is so obviously a satirical self-insert of himself and ?who miramax? producers anyway.

anyway I watched that film high as balls one time and paid such close attention to it I think I developed a genuinely deeper, richer understanding a film making because it made me see all the faults in what i thought was supposed to be one of the most progressive contemporary mainstream filmmakers right??? right??? bro dude was coked up to high heavens while making that for sure.

Michael Fassbender was supremely unlikeable too.

ok but my overall point is, this is a pervasive issue in a greater sexual culture, socially and in pornography. people lack empathy for women, and women aren't allowed to deny a performance for the sake of a man trying to fulfill his own masculinity. god gender theory makes me fucking depressed. why can't everyone let themselves be wild and passionate and free without any connotations of their own self-expression treading on the toes of anyone else's identity?

#my unquenched rage and bloodthirst for specifically Quentin tarantulas lifeblood goes unsatiated another night. maybe tomorrow he ends

0 notes

why-this-kolaveri-machi · 3 years

Text

it wasn’t power i coveted; it was acceptance.

Titans 3.06

y’know, i was just thinking the other day that 1.06/1.07 and 2.06/2.07 were the best episodes of their respective seasons, so i have great hopes going in to this one. fingers crossed!

as always, typing this up as i see the episode.

SPOILERS AHEAD

1. oh! um... that was a Cold Open, all right. *nudges* get it? cold? because it’s snowing? and two people got murdered in cold blood? eh?

... oh, i’ve just started.

1.5. i wonder if “i want to be sipping pina coladas on a beach with you” is the new “i’m just one day away from retiring.” i was so on edge after that--i kept expecting that car to explode. even so, the way they died wasn’t an anticlimax: brutal, and quick.

1.75. so i’m assuming that’s the titular lady vic! this show better bring up why this doll was important or why these two cops needed to be killed, and not leave it to the ether like jericho’s little mindscape jaunt in 2.08 (i’m still dying to know what that was about???)

i love how deliberately unappealing wayne manor is.

(sorry for the pic quality. i don’t have hbo max! ssshhh.)

2.3. i love the many references to “home” and “our house” when they’ve been here for less than a week and saw one of their friends get blown into pieces. i mean, i unironically love it: home is where family is, after all!

2.5. i’d like to say that kom is playing some sort of long game here, especially given the build-up we had last season and some of the more niggling details this season: why did kom choose now to use her bond to lure kory when she’s been on earth for months? why did justin call kory now, just around the time that she started getting kom’s visions? and what about kom’s ability to exactly imitate other people? hmmm.

2.75. the reason i wrote i’d like to say is that i’ve made the mistake of assuming plot complexity where there is none; i was so invested in the jason todd orchestrated his own death theory for instance, when it turns out that oops! ra’s al ghul just happened to leave a little lazarus puddle in gotham, and oh yeah! scarecrow just happens to have a network of henchmen working for him on the outside and a fully functional laboratory and a weapons cache fit for a new supervillain in the basement of the high security psychiatric unit/prison that he’s in!

(no i’m not bitter, why do you ask)

2.8. iiiii don’t know what to say about the implications of sex slavery being a thing on tamaran, so i’m not going to say anything at all. for now.

3. gotham, six years ago... wasn’t it five years before s2 that jericho died and the titans disbanded? and when was the flashback from 1.06 where dick let zucco die? i think it was after the events of 2.08: jericho? i can’t seem to find any transcripts or reliable information online, so i’m going to have to rewatch 1.06 at some point.

(i love the old-fashioned batman music in this heist scene)

3.5. “security is a joke... it’s my way of keeping my dad on his toes”. what you’re an ethical thief now, like an ethical hacker? i don’t think that excuse is going to sell, barbara, on the day you do encounter a decent security system and your father is forced to arrest you.

(then again, gotham’s security is piss-poor. did you know that you could just walk into arkham asylum without any official clearance, ply one of its most dangerous inhabitants with contraband, and said inmate could get away with having an entire laboratory and weapons cache--NO I’M NOT GOING TO LET THIS GO)

3.8 so that flashback between dick and barbara was really cute! and also illuminating:

a) dick sounds so light, so... um. look. i have some apologies to tender to mr thwaites, because while i’ve always thought he does a fine job as dick grayson, i’ve never been terribly fond of his cadence as he delivers dialogue. it’s often monotonous, i thought, but then again, he’s usually delivering exposition or dealing with one soul-crushing crisis or the other. so i was pleasantly surprised to hear dick sound so carefree and alive in his conversation with barbara, laughing frequently, his emotions so bare and bubbling to the surface. it’s really a fantastic contrast to the traumatised and world-weary dick grayson that we see now, even more so than the costume department just bunging a backwards-baseball cap on mr thwaites’ head and hoping that will convince us of his relative youth.

b) and god, when he wakes up from that memory, all alone in his bed, bleeding from bullet holes in his shoulder (bullet holes that are--in a somewhat convoluted way--barbara’s fault)? yikes. it’s great. you have my apologies, mr thwaites!

c) can you imagine dick just... crawling back to wayne manor, trying not to be seen by anybody, shedding his suit and just... collapsing onto his bed without even tending to his wound? the sheer emotional and physical exhaustion of it?

d) it’s so interesting to see how barbara and dick approach the idea of legacy--a big theme on the show!--in this flashback. barbara is the one bucking the idea that she should follow in her father’s footsteps, while dick seems pretty content with the batman-and-robin setup, and even tries to get barbara to join their team (robin-girl. pfffft). obviously after this several traumatic things happen wherein dick ends up questioning and then resenting his role as robin, his relationship with batman or even returning as a vigilante at all. and barbara... ends up replacing her father as commissioner. it’s tragic, really.

e) the dynamic between dick and barbara in the flashback reminds me of how it was between dick and donna in 1.08 and even between kory and dick in early s1. it’s like having an older, strong-willed woman by his side means he gives over the steering wheel for a while and lets himself... unspool, a little bit. it’s kinda endearing.

also:

*pinches his cheeks*

3. you know, we talk about dick and Eldest Daughter Syndrome, and that’s definitely valid, but here gar seems to me the embodiment of it, with all the emotional gardening and firefighting that he’s expected to do. he’s kind of the guy expected to keep his shit together and take care of everyone else while they are falling completely to pieces, unable to carve out time to process his own trauma. he’s also picked up dick’s and kory’s tendencies to bottle up their struggles and shun appearing vulnerable, and he’s struggling in the shadow of both dick and kory undergoing acute crises, his best friend (and frequent confidante) on the other side of the world, and seeing hank die, utterly helpless to stop it.

i’m glad that he got a chance to tell dick even a smidgeon of what he really feels, and i hope this is at least a semblance of a wake up call for dick to actually sit down and work with the people he repeatedly calls family.

3.5. it’s heartening to see that dick immediately makes it his priority to go talk to gar. but don’t blow off kory in the process, man!

4. i’m really loving this dynamic between kom and conner--i get the idea that both of them consider each other as Unknowns, alien two times over. but conner’s only ever known the titans, who embrace being different, and kom’s only ever known... well.

anyway, kory is Really Stressed, and honestly? #relatable.

when you’re forced to bring an estranged family member to hang out with your friends...

4.5. i love that the titans are spending so much time in the kitchen. a real family!

5. jonathan crane is a creep and i absolutely cannot stand him.

5.25. how did he get a whole lab setup (in the basement of a hospital...?) with a bunch of whitecoats to work for him? how did he just waltz into the viewing room of an operation theatre when he’s one of the most wanted men in gotham right now? why is jason wandering around maskless when--presumably--as the adopted son of the most famous person in gotham he’d be a tad more recognisable than your average joe?

why do i expect this show to answer anything anymore?

5.5. that’s not necessarily a criticism, mind; i’ve said since season 1 that titans is very comics-like in this aspect, all about the Aesthetic and the splash-page splendour rather than the niggling unimportant details of how or when the characters got to said location. like. the camera gliding over the operation being set-up, lady vic bursting in and doing her murder dance (imagine the luck of the poor intern who chose this day and this surgery to assist) and jason, shocked and slack-jawed, framed by blood.

5.75. it’s a sobering reminder for jason that, though he chose this path in order to gain control over a world that seemed like it was rapidly spinning out of his grip, he’s only succeeded in handing over even more control to a man with an agenda that is very clearly not aligned with his own. he’s in too far to stop now, though.

5.9. i have a lot more thoughts about jason! saving it up for the end of this recap, though.

6. more kitchen time! i better see dick do some cooking soon...

(”our kitchen”! it still delights me! kitchens are So Important)

6.25. so much of dick’s issues have revolved around his relationship with bruce, so it’s completely understandable that in the wake of a huge crisis where bruce literally asks dick to replace him and be a “better” him, dick would default to all the worst things he learned from the man. and i’m glad kory’s having none of it, but come on, guys. the woman’s literally fetched her fratricidal sister out of a hole in the ground with no idea what said sister is going to do next and experiencing a burgeoning sense of guilt far, far beyond her history with the titans, and dick’s too far into his autocolonoscopy that he can’t see that she needs help.

6.5. “he services your urges”--well, as far as we know, kory is the last person he had sex with...

7. “i hope [gar] isn’t angry with me...” SIR! i thought you’d already spoken to him! smh, as the kids say. kory wouldn’t be needing to reassure you if you just took the effort to build two way emotional relationships with the rest of the team. @superohclair was taking about dick’s relatively low emotional intelligence? i agree.

7.5. “i got my own problems [...] you and barbara? fix it.” YOU TELL HIM, KORY

8. man i really like this weird, sad tension between dick and barbara--this sense that both of them are approaching the other based on how they remember them and are ultimately disappointed by the truth. barbara thought she could trust dick to... well, be a better batman, but dick has not only failed at that in her eyes, but repeatedly undermined her while exploiting the authority that she gave him. in dick’s eyes, this is nothing like the barbara that he knew, rebellious and ready to do whatever it takes to find something.

like. this show sometimes really hits me in the chest about the ways it shows kids grow into adults and into caretakers, and the way it’s stop-start, the ways nothing can happen at all for a long time and then it’s Crisis Central all at once and there’s no space to breathe. the weird sort of sadness that comes with nostalgia.

8.5. oracle name drop! i agree with barbara, any system that can just randomly tap into gotham phonelines is a monster.

8.7. (i don’t know if it’s my imagination, but is dick holding himself... differently in this episode? like that wound is definitely bothering him, and he’s running on fumes)

9. man, that was a really sweet scene between kom and conner. “feeling alien in your own world”... “not quite here nor there”

honestly this team runs on conner and gar’s faith in their value as a family, and it’s a sign of conner’s generous heart that he extends that opportunity to blackfire. this arc of maturation for him, where he’s now able to consciously choose which parts of himself he can use to do the thing he wants to so--save people--has been so fulfilling to recognise. this baby’s grown with the titans! and what he’s learnt is that people can get fucked up, but the titans is a place where they can be fucked up, and grow.

MY MAN CONNER

10. oh man i’m drinking in the gar-dick interaction in this episode like i’m three days into the desert and it’s the only source of water for miles around!

a) gar is absolutely not dealing with dick’s bullshit this episode and I LOVE IT. it’s such a far cry from the man who was idolising dick/robin back in s1 and expecting him to solve all their problems. dick is fallible, dick is fucked up, but he Tries His Best and that’s ok.

b) dick, huffing and puffing through that vent, unable to put any pressure on his left shoulder, trying to have a heart to heart with gar... fuck i love this asshole.

c) bruce took in a kid who was suffering... “and made him into a weapon”. well. i absolutely agree with dick that it was bruce who put these kids into these horrible situations with him and they came away with a bucketload of trauma to add to the one that they already had. but we know that bruce was really trying with jason, and at the end of s2, dick was coming to acknowledge that bruce had offered him something that wasn’t just darkness. jason’s death and bruce’s reaction to that shattered that fragile progress.

d) “gotham got to me too.” i feel more sympathetic towards dick running off on his own than most, and it’s not just because i’m an unapologetic stan. we’ve seen before that dick... devolves when overwhelmed, and he lashes out and makes ill thought out decisions and just Does Not Deal. it happened after hearing the news that deathstroke had returned in s2, and it didn’t help that everyone around him was reeling at the news, either. this time, however, he has his salvation in his family, and despite some stupid decisions like running off and kidnapping supervillains without telling his team, he’s been really on the ball this season. thinking clearly and logically, holding it together and working on a plan, thinking two steps ahead of the villains... yes.

e) gar needing to believe that jason isn’t beyond redemption... there’s a lot of blood on his hands, too, from when he was manipulated by cadmus last season. it makes sense why he’d relate to jason’s predicament, and i hope dick picked up on that.

f) my head just added a plaintive ow after dick jumped feet first into the storage room

i need, crave gifs of this scene!

11. *sits on hands* i’m going to talk more about red hood, i promise!

12. more gar and dick! is it my birthday??!!

(actually, according to the tamil calendar, it is my birthday! my “star” birthday)

12.5. excellent. dick using some implausible training that bruce taught him to solve a mystery? passing some of that knowledge onto gar? that proud smile when he sees gar perfectly execute moves that he taught him? MY HEART IS EXPLODING

13. aw, i love flashback!dick and barbara, they’re so cute <3

13.25. why does it not surprise me that the way he proposes a relationship to barbara is by saying “we make sense”? this guy can deduce exactly who was present where and what weapon they were holding from a garbled audio recording but other times he’s utterly clueless, and that’s a consistent character beat right from s1

13.5. so.... that’s why lady vic has it out for... barbara....? i don’t get it. it’s flimsy. but hey! the fun thing about titans is that i don’t have to get it. the payoff has nothing to do with the plot.

14. i can’t believe that barbara fell for that, but at least that wheelchair fight looked awesome, so.

15. oh yeah, i forgot that red hood bullied the mob into helping him and scarecrow... at least that explains the whitecoats and the elaborate set-up.

15.5. honestly i love how this dynamic between kory and kom is developing, though i wish more of the team would pay attention to it. time to call justin, i think!

16. i wonder what happened after that second flashback where barbara got hurt during that heist. did she give up on doing any more (maybe jim caught her)? was it because dick was called away by bruce and then the titans and got caught up in his own issues? maybe barbara froze him out because she wasn’t looking for the relationship that he was looking for? maybe the idea of doing that with someone turning into batman-lite was just... unappealing? scary?

whatever it is, it doesn’t look like dick ever processed the end of that relationship. it’s very intriguing to see where their dynamic goes next.

17. so.... what, did vic deliver some fear toxin to barbara? i... what?

17.5. and i TOLD YOU that they would never explain that doll or why vic attacked those two cops at the beginning! oh, titans. never change.

18. did jason just randomly have tim’s restaurant burgled? god, i’m feeling a bit nauseous... are they going to kill tim’s father?

18.25. i feel like the rest of the season is going to wrestle with jason’s culpability in the horrible stuff he’s doing and i’m already seeing that prospect divide fans. on one hand, his story is taking a lot of oxygen away from other equally interesting story arcs, and he’s done some truly awful things, like indiscriminate murder, threatening to kill children, blowing up hank, and potentially killing tim’s parents.

there’s something to be said for the kind of hold that crane has over him, and the so-called ‘anti-fear’ drug that he keeps plying jason with--he’s alone, drugged almost constantly (to the level of dependence), fresh from the trauma of being bludgeoned to death. he hasn’t conquered fear; he’s ruled by it. on the other hand, given that he’s the one character on the show given an obvious and identifiable ‘mental illness’ arc (maaaaybe dick too), one can argue that it’s irresponsible to show this progress into such violence: jason was vulnerable because he was struggling, and that left him vulnerable, but it took only a push before he became a fucking serial killer.

but that could mean we underestimate the degree of that vulnerability, and the mechanics of this universe where he fell into the clutches of the one supervillain perfectly designed to exploit that vulnerability. that helpless spiral into further and further self-destruction is all too real. it’s valuable to know that someone who has sunk that low can still seek help--actual help--and get it.

18.5. i don’t know. it’s not a question i’m going to resolve at the end of an overlong recap at 1 in the morning. i don’t believe it’s even a question that titans can resolve. but i am interested in where they’re going next with jason.

19. this episode was genuinely great! i’m pumped for the rest of the season!

#titans #titans spoilers #meta #dick grayson #koriand'r #barbara gordon #garfield logan #conner kent #komand'r #jason todd #jonathan crane #a byronic cupcake #badass strawberry truffle #manic pixie pop tart #a tragic jalebi #this is a 3k+ MONSTER yikes

49 notes · View notes

theoneeyedwriter · 4 years

Text

why writing the first line of your wip is so difficult.

i hate it

you hate it

we all hate it

writing the first line for your wip is probably the hardest part of writing it. the first introduction to the character you, the writer, already love, but have to make sure the reader will also fall in love with. introducing a world or scenario you already know so much about to a reader that knows absolutely nothing. the first sentence is the deciding factor on whether people will fall in love with a piece of your soul or not.

no pressure or anything though.

so why is the first line so hard? because you already know your characters. you already know the ending, and the subplots, and plot twists, and later introduced characters. you’ve already spent hours on end with your characters that introducing them as though for the first time is almost impossible. you’ve spent days perfecting the major and minor conflicts and tweaking the minor characters, that you can’t even imagine what it’s like to be meeting them for the first time all over again.

now on to:

tips on writing the first sentence/chapter of your wip

so how do you write a good first sentence? first chapter? first dialogue?

look at all your favorite books, what do they have in common? the first line catches your eye.

the obvious example is “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” it brings in your attention. makes you want to know, what makes them normal? why do they feel the need to accentuate on the fact that the Dursley’s are in fact normal?

your opening line should be an attention grabber. not like the first line in your high school essays were you have to state your thesis, or when doing a book report and must include certain things pertaining to the book in your first sentence.

make it intriguing, interesting. make your reader yearn to know “why are they normal?”.

how do you do this?

action. dialogue. decisions. normalities. a change. a sound. a pleasant view. a morbid or terrifying view. a poem, relevant to the story.

in the famous “And Then There Were None” by Agatha Christie, before the first chapter even begins, she includes the poem about the ten little soldier boys which is incredibly relevant to the story. think, are there any poems, quotes, etc that relate to your story? foreshadow something major? include that then build a first line derived from the quote.

dialogue is a more tricky starting point. you don’t want to start with just:

“Hey,”

“Hey.”

that’s boring. something simple like that needs more finesse that shows a bit more about your character. for example:

“Hey!” Her voice carried across the alleyway, making the monster on the other side turn abruptly, baring it’s teeth.

“Hey,” The monster replied, mocking her tone.

see the difference? it’s already more interesting because now you have to wonder 1) why the girl is so casually confronting a monster. and 2) why the monster is such a jerk.

(i do suggest using a more attention grabbing dialogue for a first line, but a simple line like this can show a bit about the character’s personality.)

a good example that i always look to for an opening with dialogue is from “All Fall Down” by Ally Carter:

“‘When I was twelve I broke my leg jumping off the wall between Canada and Germany,’”

another good example is from “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card:

“‘I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one.’”

action is a very obvious and typical way to start a story. take the first line from “The Clockwork Angel” by Cassandra Clare for instance:

“The demon exploded in a shower of ichor and guts.”

the immediate jump into action intrigues the reader. it also informs the reader that the character(s) being introduced somehow hunts, fights, or got in a dispute with a demon.

action is an easy way to jump right into a scene that helps introduce what kind of character your mc might be.

making minor (and normal) decisions is another good way of starting a book. have you character have to chose between two (or more) things. one chip brand from another. whether they want a blue sweater or a orange one. something unimportant to the story, but gives the reader a glimpse of how this character makes decisions, if they are easily influenced by other people, and it gives the reader a window into the normalities of the characters life.

minor and unimportant decisions can make a character seem more real and alive. and, i’d love time know which color sweater the character would choose.

a big or small change in the characters life is also a good way to start a book. this can be something small, like moving towns, or something big, like a family member dying.

how does your character react to the change? what makes in minor? major? will it affect the rest of the story? will it forever change the character?

exposition is a common way of introducing a fantasy/sci-fi esc story. describing in detail (but not too much, too much exposition gets tiring for the reader)

the first book i think of is “The Hobbit” by J.R.R. Tolkien, which starts with the famous first lines:

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”

in these brief two sentences, you learn what a hobbit hole is. it is very concise, simple. nothing too much, nothing too lengthy. you just learn that a hobbit hole is a place of warmth and comfort, which almost sets the vibe, or overall mood of the beginning setting.

sounds, i find, are harder to pull off. what’s something that’ll richoette through the readers mind. i want to be able to hear the sound your describing as though i’m experiencing it with your character.

something like “the rumble of the thunder reminded him of the snor of a sleeping dragon, or the snarl of a werewolf a mere minute after the full moon rises.” makes the simplicity of thunder more interesting.

“the shriek that escaped the little girl resembled that of a banshee on the cusp of claiming its next victim.”

comparing simple noises to that of a supernatural creature can make it sound bigger, and give a simplistic sound a whole new characteristic that just saying “the little girl shrieked” or “the thunder rumbled” can do.

#writers block #writers on tumblr #writing #writingtips #writers of tumblr #authors of tumblr #books #inspiration #motivation #writer #writing troubles #writing help #writing community #writer support #writer shenanigans #teen writer

42 notes · View notes

kinetic-elaboration · 3 years

Text

December 29: The Wrath of Khan

Today’s movie watching was Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

My overall impression versus TMP is that this is clearly a smoother and more consistently entertaining film. It has a definite story with very little filler, good pacing, a lot of great little dialogue and character moments, and a strong conflict at its center.

But its sci fi bona fides are much weaker. Like by a lot.

Mom and I are talking a bit about Genesis and the more we talk, the weaker it appears to me. First, it’s not really as believable, imo, as a lot of Star Trek. Maybe it’s because it’s not alien based, but I just have a harder time suspending disbelief to think this is possible. Second, it’s not clear why anyone thought this was a good idea. I mean, as McCoy immediately pointed out, it just seems so CLEARLY dangerous: an object meant to foster creation that could so easily be the worst weapon the universe has ever known--nothing could go awry there! Third, the reason for creating such a device isn’t obvious at all. Carol mentions the “growing population” and “food scarcity” but nothing we’ve ever seen of the Federation implies they’re running out of space. Or, frankly (Tarsus IV aside), food. And fourth, there really isn’t any point to Genesis in all its particulars in this film. Like, obviously, its actual purpose is a plot device to resurrect Spock. Within just this film, it doesn’t do anything. Khan wants it, for some reason I’ve already forgotten even though I just saw the film, and he gets it, but I didn’t even notice that happening, because it was so unimportant. His REAL mission is his single minded revenge fantasy on Kirk. Genesis is just a McGuffin/space filler/plot device for the next film.

And honestly that’s not such a big deal, except that when you compare it to TMP, ,and its central idea of a human made probe that gained so much knowledge, doing what we taught it to do, that it became sentient and then started searching for the meaning of life, and how this relates to the search for meaning experienced by the main alien lead, and how his search, in that film and throughout the series, is a mirror for humans and OUR need for purpose... well it just seems really weak. “We made this really dangerous and unrealistic thing for no reason whoops!”

Mom is now criticizing Kirk for being too slow on the uptake when he first encounters the Reliant, which is fair. That’s pretty OOC of him. The idea that he’s too old for space is both one that I must personally disregard, and one that the film would have you discard, since we’ve already heard from TWO characters, the people who know him best, that his best destiny is as a starship captain, and command is his proper role. And that he might be a little rusty is also not a great explanation imo, because the rust was supposed to have come off in TMP. So, plot hole probably.

We were trying to do some math--TMP is at least 2 years post 5YM and TWOK is at least 10 years post TMP, so at least 8 years post TMP. I can understand more rust growing but like... he was already an Admiral in TMP and the idea that he was out of practice with actual command was a big part of his arc there. So it doesn’t seem warranted to do that again.

Also, the way he was commanding poorly in TMP was very IC: he was pushing too hard, trying too much, caring too much about the mission and not enough about...the laws of physics. That’s very Kirk. Being slow on the uptake, caught with his britches down--that’s not Kirk. Plus, with no one to call him out on it, like Decker did in TMP, his poor command doesn’t seem like a big character obstacle to overcome but just like...sloppiness all around.

I thought Khan was over all... just not that interesting. I guess I’m just not into the obsession/revenge plot. Also...idk man he didn’t seem that super to me. He outsmarted Kirk, like, once, and Kirk outsmarted him like 4 times. He tortured some people--but regular humans can do that. He used those sandworm thingies, which is also something humans could do. Overall, he didn’t seem to have any particularly special skills. The only time he really seemed like a worthy adversary for Kirk was when Kirk wasn’t really being IC himself.

I’m also not into the fridging of his wife. Think how much cooler it would have been if she’d still been alive! The only non-super human in the bunch and she’s still there! Ex-Starfleet and bitter!

The K/S in this film is very soothing. Imo they are clearly together here, and the whole film is better if you assume they’re boyfriends and everyone knows. That Vulcan convo that Spock and Saavik have? Waaaaay funnier if you think she’s talking about his boyfriend (”not what I expected....very human” “Well no one’s perfect”). Every time they call each other ‘friend’ like ““friend”“? All the Looks? The birthday gift?

Also the “I have been and always shall be your [friend]” scene is a wedding I will not be taking criticism on this opinion. Could it have been written more like a vow? I think not. It’s not quite This Simple Feeling but it’s the best this film has in that regard.

I liked Saavik and I do think she’s one of the better later-movie additions (though I only like her, as far as I can remember, when played by Kirstie Alley). She didn’t necessarily strike me as super alien, though, at least not at first... But I appreciated how persistent she was about the stupid test, and her regulation quoting. I enjoyed her. I also liked how she was obviously Spock’s protege, which makes her Kirk’s step-protege, and they had just a little bit of that awkward dynamic going on. (”Did you change your hair?”)

The Bones and Kirk relationship was great in this film. You can really feel their friendship and their history with each other. Bones knows him so well and can be honest with him, just when Kirk needs it most.

I also love how Kirk has the SAME conversation with both Bones and Spock (re: being a captain again) but with Spock it’s sooooo much flirtier. In case you weren’t sure what the difference in these two relationships is.

Bonus: this bit of dialogue: Spock: “Be careful, Jim.” / Bones: “WE will.” Lol Spock people who aren’t your boyfriend do exist.

Obviously, I cried during THAT scene. Honestly AOS should have taken note about how to do emotional scenes like that: they come after the main action is over and the villain is defeated. Then they hit at the right time and to the right degree. Kirk just slumping down after Spock dies....like he’s boneless...like he doesn’t know what to do... I CANNOT.

I feel so bad for him that I’ll even forgive him that awful eulogy. Spock died for Genesis? Uh, no, he died for the Enterprise, and for YOU. Spock is the “most human”? You shut your whoreson mouth

I remember hating both Carol and David but I actually hated them less this time, Carol especially. My mom is being really harsh about her, though, which makes me feel less confident in my assessment. I mean first off, she’s the inventor of Genesis, which is a pretty big strike against her. Second...pretty lame to keep Kirk from David. Although I did some vague math and Kirk would only have been about 21, still in the Academy, when David was born, so you can see how that would work out. Also, she distinctly says “Were we together?” which means they were not--this was a fuck buddy arrangement for sure. More complicated. But it still feels weird to retcon that, like, he’s known THIS WHOLE TIME that he’s a dad and we’re only learning about it now, as an audience.

Anyway I’m getting off track. Carol. What to make of her? Is she unstable? Is she still mad at Kirk? My mom points out that she just decided on her own that David would want to join Starfleet if he knew Kirk was his father--whereas what seems to have happened instead is he didn’t just become a civilian scientist like his mom but became her specific protege--working on a project where everyone was probably handpicked by her? I would assume? Also..he hates Starfleet. Not to put everything on the mom, but how did that happen?

Also...going down the rabbit hole of this and feeling awkward about it... but David KNEW Kirk. As “that guy you hung around with.” That means Kirk was in his life for quite a while, long enough for him to have memories, and long enough for those memories to still be with him even into his 20s. But he was never allowed to know who Kirk was. That means Carol’s rule must have been “You can see your son but you can’t tell him who you are” which in some way seems meaner to me than just “please don’t contact us again.” If he was already on his way into space, that could even make sense--”I know you’re not going to be able to be a family with us, so let’s not pretend, let’s make a clean break now.” But that wasn’t what happened!

Anyway whatever not to be HAICG!Kirk about this or anything lol

David is mostly annoying because he’s so anti-Kirk lol. I found him least annoying when he came around to Kirk at the end. Another big strike against him: he wore his sweater tied over his shoulders in such a Preppy manner. I honestly don’t see what about him is supposed to be reminiscent of Kirk.

David/Saavik was definitely happening lol. I wish I could have heard that conversation. It sounds like she told him a lot!!! Not sure why she attached herself to this particular annoying human so fast but I guess she did.

....I think that might be all. The uniforms and general styling were much better than TMP (though less funny/entertaining), and it was certainly an enjoyable overall yarn. A lot to pick apart and critique but in a fun way. Will probably watch The Search for Spock soon.

#the year 2020 #2020: star trek #2020: fandom thoughts #star trek tos

4 notes · View notes

nanowrimo · 5 years

Text

Get a Kick-Start on Editing Your Rough Draft

Sometimes, the editing process can be more intimidating than writing a novel! It’s hard to shoulder the pressure of making your writing better. Today, Young Writers Program participant Ashton Kay shares a few tips for making editing a little bit easier:

You've created some quirky characters to keep the story flowing, constructed a world that your characters dwell in, and you're finally done with torturing the protagonists through a countless number of hardships and conflicts. Guess what? You've finished writing the rough draft!

If you're internally (or perhaps, externally) screaming, 'Aaah! Editing!' it could mean two things; you're either eager and excited to start editing, or you're simply dreading to go back to your draft.

Good for you if you're getting urges to make the rough draft better! But fear not if you're the in the latter situation. Even if it seems like your first draft is already perfect and ready for publishing, that's almost always never the case. There's some room for improvement at all times. Now, stop procrastinating, and get your hands onto the keyboard. I've got some tricks up my sleeve that you might happen to find helpful.

1. Take a break.

I told you to 'get your hands onto the keyboard'—I guess I lied. Sorry about that. Get your hands off the keyboard. Now's the time to pat yourself on the back and take a break. Free yourself from the stress of writing, and feel proud that you've finished the first draft. The important fact, though, is that taking a break is essential for you to obtain an objective view of your writing. A week or two is a reasonable length of time, but it's up to you to decide how long you want your break session to last.

2. Get a big picture of your story.

Once you're ready to start typing again, read through your story and get a generic, big picture of it. Search for any plot holes that you might have missed, and review your story arc. Think about how the protagonist and antagonist's motives clash, and make sure that their actions are led by the motives.

3. Add in some foreshadowing.

Foreshadowing's actually pretty fun to add in, now that you have a detailed and certain idea of how your characters are going to end up. It's important for you to have enough foreshadowing so that the ending doesn't seem too sudden and abrupt. Glue your readers' eyes on the pages with some hints of what's going to happen later on in the story!

4. Adjust your story pacing.

It's time for you to adjust the pace of the scenes and actions. Make the dramatic scenes slower-paced, and get rid of any events that contribute very little to the story, or that are unimportant. It can be painful to delete a large chunk of writing that you've written, but if that's what makes your writing better as a whole, it's probably something that’s worth gnashing your teeth through.

5. Get other people's advice.

Ask your friends, teachers, relatives, or a friendly neighbor to read through your draft and give constructive criticism about it. They don't necessarily have to be someone who enjoys writing, as long as they're willing to give some advice to you. Readers are normal people, and it doesn't take a writing expert to find out if a book's compelling or not. Don't get discouraged even if you get negative feedback. You still have a lot of time to go back and edit!

Editing is part of the writing journey that you're on, and the journey cannot be complete without the process of editing. If you've enjoyed the thrill of writing the first draft, I'm sure you'll find some fun in editing as well. Get a cup of hot chocolate with a marshmallow, and keep the writing vibes going!

Ashton Kay is an aspiring writer in her teens with a boundless passion for literature. She is usually buried under mountains of math worksheets, yet she magically manages to find some time to write. When she's writing, she enjoys traveling through time and space, making risky deals with a villain, and fighting away mutant monsters with her characters. She is a possessor of a mind that buzzes with intriguing thoughts and ideas twenty-four-seven.

Top photo by Jason Briscoe on Unsplash.

#nanowrimo #writing #amwriting #editing #now what #ywp #young writers program #by nano guest #ashton kay

82 notes · View notes

whumpbby · 4 years

Note

So, Will the movie Cassandra be our Cassie or just some Cassandra? Cuz... Not getting Cassandra Cain vibes from her. Thoughts?

I.. I am seriously having no hope for this to appeal to me... If someone likes the premise and digs the characters, more power to them, I’m happy they’re getting something entertaining. God knows we need some good entertainment form DC at this point because laughing at Joker only takes one so far...

I am putting the rest under the cut, because it’s been a long, hard week, the Christmas break made me even more tired than the months leading to it, and I need to vent on a fairly unimportant subject that doesn’t influence anyone’s life, not really. If someone reads it and does not agree with anything I’ve said, swell, I am not interested in conversation on this subject, keep on stepping. Unless you agree and want to bitch together, then we can bitch together, I am not above some therapeutic bitching.

I am just not a fan of the new iteration of Harley and neither of these characters feels right... Cass seems like just some thuggish-kid, they’re all dressed like a trift-shop vomited on them... like this style I see often in some female-driven media “I want to dress them up cool, but not too good so they can’t be accused of being too attractive or too sexy so even when I’m making a sexy costume I will make it look like something Clarissa would wear! And also the budget is short.” which just translates to layers of unattractive clothing meant to look ‘relaxed and I-don’t-care’... which just looks uninspired and tells us nothing about the character (non-sexy doesn’t have to mean unattractive, and this comes form someone who dresses for comfort and doesn’t mind a standardised uniform at work). Costuming is important, at least for me, I like a good, distinctive notes in my character ways of dressing (please consult Good Omens for ideas on that). And this promo looks like they just rolled up to the shoot in whatever they had laying around?

And I didn’t miss the fact that in promo material the Birds wears dark colours whereas Harley gets the brights, cause you know, most marketable character of the bunch so PUSH HER QUIRK QUICK MAKE HER DO/SAY SOMETHING QUIRKY AND CRAAAYZY

It’s either that or the director is perma-stuck in the early 90′s fashion sense...

What I am seeing in the future is a show that’s trying really hard to get out from under the weight of the Suicide Squad that gets lambasted by nerdgeeks for supposed plot holes and bad script (Listen if Titans gets a pass from the fanboys on it’s weak script and cinematography, and hideous costuming of season 1 then Harley&Co should be in the safe, right? Be prepared for the slew of “I have nothing against women in shows but this is bad for a completely unrelated reason” from every Youtube neckbeard with more than a dozen subscribers) that I will feel bad for not defending, because I am so no annoyed by Harely becoming The Hot Girl of he DC universe... to the point of unseating Barbara Goddamn Gordon in her own damn team, because DC’s perceived target audience won’t fap to a mature, collected powerful woman on a wheelchair so they can’t have her in a film or some marketing executive may get an aneurysm=_=

(If they pull some last-minute reveal of the Oracle pulling the strings from the shadows I will punch a bus stop, but I will be happy about that broken hand, cause she’s there at least)

Like, look guys, my dislike of the character’s recent iteration is one thing, but in this case I am looking at this whole DC cinematic verse with the eyes of a hardened cynic that knows a bit how marketing works and nothing about it sparks a shred of positive reaction in me. My absolutely favourite DC character since I was 10 was (ad still is) Superman and there’s nothing redeemable about Man of Steel or BvS, nothing.at.all. I am so tired of the marketing taking over storytelling and BoP looks no different to me - a marketing ploy, just with a different audience. Because giving Harley a hyena is more important than being faithful to the rest of the characters, I guess.

(Who the fuck is that Cass? Who the fuck is that girl, tell me?! She’s not there to let us know her. She’s there to look at the hyena and draw our attention to the fact that “wait, this isn’t normal, you are so crazy, Harley!” She’s in a scene and that scene tells me nothing about her to make her seem like any other kid. I know nothing about these characters because 80% of the promo only pay attention to one, I only know how Harley bounces off them. Like I‘m reading a fanfic where the main character is so darn unusual everyone has to comment on it!)

There’s hope for Wonder Woman 2 being good, because atm she’s the sole pillar holding the whole verse up and Patty may get some more freedom to make the movie she wants to make with a decent budget and no need to score woke points by making all of her girls into disgruntled rebels that dress up in a dark room=_=

#disclaimer #rant?#rant #venting #move long #tired old woman shouts at a cloud #Anonymous

11 notes · View notes

tazzmanien · 4 years

Text

Every Day the Protagonist Wants to Capture Me - Review

I finished Every Day the Protagonist Wants to Capture Me during winter break and it took me a while to write a review for reasons.

Did I enjoy the novel? - Well kinda. Would I recommend it? - Not really. Would I like that others read it, so that I can talk to someone about it and gush over Xie Xi, Fu Chongyi, Wei Ciyin and Demon Lord Yan Heng? - A huge YES!

But let's get in the details for a bit here... SPOILERS AHEAD!

The good:

Length - Happy it was relatively short; reasons in the bad.

Pace - The pace at the beginning was quite fast, which was nice for the fact that I really didn't want to read a book about a 13 year old child falling in love. I’m not big on teenager love stories. But ... see the bad.

Narration - point of view - I love how the inner monologue of Chu Yu is written, so that it could also be interpreted as the narrator voicing his own thoughts. I caught myself thinking “the narrator is funny” several times, before figuring out that this was actually Chu Yu thinking.

World - Not sure about this point. I would have probably liked the world if it were described better at times.

Fights - The fights were actually really fun to read. Very simple, yet entertaining.

Characters

Chu Yu our main guy - A simple soul that did not particularly receive a privileged treatment from mother nature when he was created; a moron I gladly adopted within seconds. We must be related I think. I love him. Why? Well, I can complain about cliches all I want, at the end I always end up liking the most cliche characters (Chu Yu) or the biggest or craziest villains. I loved the fact that he did pretty much gave up on his aloof act. I don’t think I would have liked reading about another unapproachable older and wiser figure transmigrator. BTW pretending to be dead to avoid the enemy could be a genius move from me, love you for that lil brother. It was also nice that he got the protagonist plot armor at some point.

Xie Xi our mains love - At the beginning he was “The Cutest™ with cheeks made for pinching” and later became “naughty flirting master say one word and I'm all yours”. No but honestly, at 16 he already had the flirting skills of an immortal master! It made me a little uncomfortable to be this into his flirting. Even if you don't give this book a chance, then at least read the wine incident (chapters 16 - 18). I'm still blushing thinking about it. I once wrote and am still standing by it: "Xie Xi, you are not flirting with me and aren't even real and yet I’m blushing like crazy. How about you grow up a little and then come to reality and pay me a visit" And honestly he only got a) better at it and b) more blatant over the course of the novel.

For the rest ... Even though there were characters that did not get enough screen time or story, there were a few that I really really loved, like Wei Ciyin (a sensual lil bastard), Demon Lord Yan Heng (I mean wouldn’t you fall in love with a stunning demon lord whose laughter sounds like crows above a burial mound in the middle of the night?) and Fu Zhongyi (you beautiful creature, you and your lil adorable fox awwww). Worth mentioning:

007 System - My queen! (I decided it had to be a woman.) I loved that there was a comment function in this system. Although towards the end it wasn't used as much and in general it could have been used more effectively in my opinion. Nevertheless, a nice touch.

Chu Sheng - If you think Chu Yu is dumb, well then just wait til you get to know his overprotective brother. He would even win an idiot competition against me, which should tell you all you need to know. Love him nonetheless. Also he deserved better! To have to do the things he had to, is really devastating! I am a proud member of the “protect Chu Sheng squad” and will forever love the fact that Fu Zhongyi exists!

Insects (would you count them as characters?) - You know what, I have no issue with insects in general, but swarming insects are a thing I could gladly live without. There were a few chapters that gave me the creeps. I guess this would be called good writing, as it arouses emotions from the reader. It had the same effect as the face disease in Tian Guan Ci Fu on me. So a “negative” good I guess?

Couples

Main couple - First and most important Koala snuggling will never be a boring couple trademark. I was a little nervous that the beginning would drag and we would have to watch a 13 years old child falling in love with a grownup for too long. So I was glad they skipped that part soon. They got together quite fast after the skip, which was more of a negative thing for the overall story, but it also was kinda nice to read more on how they grew as a couple. For example how Chu Yu showed more and more love over time. So even though the story suffered it was kinda nice to follow this couple.

Other couple - Chu Sheng and Fu Zhongyi were even a better couple in my opinion, but unfortunately we didn’t get enough of them.

Side-plots - A few side-plots were kinda nice I must say, but could have had more detail and better transitioning into the big plot.

The bad:

Writing style - The writing style, or maybe partially the translation (which I don't believe as they did a terrific job with SVSSS), is not my thing. Short sentences, with little to no flowing transitions in the writing. Many things don’t get describe at all, like the surrounding, the looks of characters or any background information about why certain things were happening. But it is quite an easy read, maybe exactly because it’s written this simply. Still it took me a little to get used to it and finish it.

Pace - The time jumps were, well how to describe it? Sudden, weirdly placed and paced and mostly never really effectively used for shock effects (even though the author surely had those intentions). There was this one jump where Chu Yu was talking with Wei Ciyins father (forgot his name) and then it just cut the scene to the future and it never got resolved satisfyingly. It should have been important, but when it was mentioned again later it was just ... well boring.

World - As written above, the world was not really described in detail, so I’m not sure about this point.

Characters

The novel had a decent amount of characters and should have been able to build their side stories properly, however, was not able to deliver many details for most of them. I think only for that reason I was kinda bored whenever Shizun Lu Qingan or what was his boyfriends name again appeared.

Chibi Chu Yu was fun, but stayed for far too long for my taste.

Xie Xi - At times he didn't seem very bright, which put me off somehow. After he got together with Chu Yu he lost most of his "screen time" and whenever he appeared it was just to ask for fish (papapa). To be honest the plot could have ended without him, as he had no importance in the second part of the novel, which was very mehh I mean why write a strong, charming, troubled and loving character and just make him this second grade s** obsessed fangirl annoying our main guy. Okay, yes, he did that to Song Jingyi and had one decent high grade fight, but this was not enough for my taste.

Wei Ciyin - I don’t know what it is about picturing Wei Ciyin with his devilishly beautiful face, dressed only in a snow-white inner robe, lying on top of a cluster of flowers while drinking wine, but that part got stuck in my head and I was so disappointed to find out, he was just an unimportant sort of villain canon fodder and had not much of an important story overall.

Villains in general - Well, what to say about the villains? They were strong, mystic, menacing and cruel, but somehow the whole novel felt like the author was not sure who the big bad boss was supposed to be and jumped from one canon fodder villain to another and "killed" off the supposedly strongest villain Demon Lord Yan Heng within 2 chapters. Why? He was amazing! Give me a whole novel about this character only, NOW! In the end there was a red string throughout the whole story, but it was not as good as it could have been, exactly due to the fact that the villains were so unconnected somehow. Well, I should probably mention Song Jingyi, who was a decent a-hole at least.

Couples

Main couple - Even though I was happy we got a time skip early in the story. The main couple got together waaaaaay too early for the story to be able to go on without a very intriguing plot, which the story unfortunately did not have.

Other couples - Even though it seems like a nice fan service, I think it is quite boring to give every character a love interest (reciprocated or not doesn’t matter). So some of them just were kinda meh in the end.

Plot - It felt like the novel was full of subplots. The big plot lost all its drive due to the way the novel was written. At the end of the book you can clearly see a red string throughout the whole story, but while reading it all just felt unconnected, like a collection of short stories. The mains couple love was the driving factor, but the fact that they got together in the first half (or was it even third) just killed the suspense totally and felt like those american shows that drag on for 8 seasons, when you would have loved it to stop at season 3.

But my biggest disappointment in this novel is not what you might think... It is actually this: Xie Xi was asking Chu Yu “let’s do it” like at least 100 times before their first time. So of course I was hoping that before they actually have their first time, Chu Yu asks Xie Xi the same thing in retour. That would have been perfect. At some point he said something like "are you not going to do it”, which was ok, but not THE THING!

Conclusion:

Lots of potential, but not the best. Still I liked it a little. I’d call it guilty pleasure, if for nothing else then at least for Xie Xi.

#every day the protagonist wants to capture me #zhujiao meitian du xiang gonglue wo #xianxia #transmigration novel #chinese web novel #tazz reads #yaoi #edtpwtcm spoiler #zmdxgw spoiler #chu yu #xie xi #chu sheng #qing duan

8 notes · View notes

badnewtattoo · 6 years

Text

the gang makes paddy’s great again- thoughts.

i wrote this whole thing and then tumblr refreshed and i lost it.. this is why i use mobile. these are basically my overall thoughts and feelings on the episode with as much intelligence as i am capable of. i’ve never been one of those people who writes long analysis of iasip or anything, this is as close as we’re getting. also if you can’t tell already, i absolutely love meellisday.

-i can’t believe they all had sex with the doll... especially my boy charlie kelly i mean i expected it from mac (duh) and frank is kinda gross but... my boy, pls

-i don’t remember what i already wrote here because this is my second time doing this becauseeeee it got deleted

-there was more positive content i swear

-i liked cindy and the fact that she radiates pure evil. she was really weird, man. she was strange, i am a fan. i hope she comes up in the future here and there suggesting that they do more freaky shit and acting like a groupie for success.

-ok my biggest problem was the dialogue of this episode. there were a lot of cases of things just being straight up repeated? there was a line that dee said out loud at the dinner table and then repeated under her voice as a kind of ad-libbed chatter type thing and that was rough for a show so strong historically with its talking over each other scenes, improv, and fast dialogue. the jokes about mac banging the sex doll were ok to be repeated, i guess, but they kept making the same jokes about him with the exact same words and tone. in fact i don’t really get why they made the “mac is having sex with the doll” joke so often. since they all ended up having an orgy with it i rlly think there was a missed opportunity, they should’ve made fun of him for having sex with it after it was confirmed they all did because there could’ve been a moment of “..... wait but yall arent any better.... the” does that make sense? it does to me? like i know they did make a comment about it when dennis got back but it was a missed opportunity to not point out the irony.

-the storyline was not good. or the whole liberal tears thing was just very strange. it felt like they abandoned the show’s usual character driven aspects for the sake of driving the plot. they went with a humorous plot i guess but no jokes were made about the liberal/conservative thing from the gang so therefore it wasn’t funny? the gas scheme and the garbage schemes, for example, wouldn’t have strictly been funny on their own or excecuted by different people but they were good episodes and were funny to me because of the gang. the door to door song, the misspelled sign, the entire ridiculousness of the limo. maybe the plan was meant to be very run of the mill and unimportant because cindy was running it, like schmitty, but it was weeeeiiird and i think could have been done differently in a way that would have more positively impacted the story and overall episode quality. the labels, for example, could’ve been much better. my favourite part was the strip club and their interactions there, i wish there had been more of that vibe. also i think there was more to be done with charlie fighting the sex doll.

-dee didn’t have sex with the doll so ha, go 2 hell incest supporters

-dee was pretty great in this episode actually. the only thing i disliked was her reason for wanting cindy gone being that she felt that she wasn’t special anymore because there was another girl. that was kinda dumb and i would’ve easily accepted had she just decided to go back with the gang without any reasoning. it doesn’t seem like dee to hate on another woman like that without reasoning, sorry if i’m wrong i really don’t know shit. it just didn’t sit well.

-the waitress!!!!!!!!!! i love her!

-ok so i think mary elizabeth is a great person and is also a very good comedic actress. she’s on santa clarita diet (i literally went through the show just to watch her) and i’m not even being biased when i say she is really good on that show. she’s so talented and funny on that show and shines in a way over there that i never really felt she did on sunny. not by any fault of her own but i don’t think the writing for the waitress has ever been all that interesting or with potential to stand out. i like the waitress because although she thinks she’s better than the gang and then charlie she is so obviously just as garbage as them but also has that quality of being just about the most mundane person on the planet. what i’m getting at here is she deserves better writing and could be as iconic and funny as all the other side characters and i think finally bringing her down to living with charlie could be a really good change for her character. you still have the potential for delusions of superiority, similar to how mac thinks people like him and thought he was straight or how dennis thinks he’s a lady’s man, the waitress similarly thinks she’s better than these people while being a garbage person who uses charlie and is now literally living with him. she’s always been pretty similar to charlie (more so as it’s gone on) but tells herself that he’s worse and again.. now that they really are in the same living space and are more clearly placed beside each other in the eyes of the viewer, i hope she can have more coooool and exciting story lines. hope that wasn’t too repetitive. i just want everyone to know how funny and awesome she has the potential to be and she deserves shining moments that characters like cricket, maureen, and the mcpoyles get. etc.

-hearing charlie kelly call the waitress “honey” and “sweetie” is so, so weird and again, that’s a testament to how good they are at acting

-also i wish they’d addressed the pregnancy thing they were going for (she could’ve at least been annoyed at him that it didn’t work out or whatever) and it didn’t make sense to me that the season 12 finale saw charlie as being uncomfortable with the waitress expecting a relationship with him and this episode didn’t see him as really annoyed or uncomfortable, or at least it seemed to be at a different degree and from a different angle. how charlie treated her was a bit similar to how he treated dee in rules the world but i wish the waitress hadn’t been at all submissive? like she slept with the sex doll and was being funny/rude about it?? i wish she had been that way the whole time or at least more significantly? i get that the joke was that she now was desperate like charlie had been but i can’t say it was done all that well or consistently, from my perspective? i wish they had more fighting and banter and whatever. idk man.

-they said it was their apartment so i kind of wonder if frank is still living with them?

-also i felt like there wasn’t enough frank!!!!!!!!!!!! he was hardly there. i also missed the charlie/frank dynamic. if you can tell by this point,,,, i am a big charlie fan.

-but yeah the first thing i noticed was a lack of frank. my deal is that it felt as though the gang hardly really interacted within themselves? everything felt pretty impersonal. usually there’s scheming and yelling and really fast/smart dialogue but it felt more plot based and focused on getting across a specific set of events as opposed to thoroughly being true to the characters. the sex doll orgy felt out of place and these stranger elements of the episode reminded me of the ski episode and flowers for charlie in the way that they were detached from how i recognize the gang’s personalities. yes.

-dude!! i missed dennis! i didn’t realize how much i would want dennis back until he showed up and started doing that thing where he makes black and white judgements based entirely on personal preference. like in charlie rules the world at the end, i love that stuff.

-i actually think dennis was the most true to form in his character, my only things i’d change would: i’d add in a “move past it” in his explanation of his return, i’d make the bird thing more natural, and i’d have him be more protective of the 80s (that was the insult, right? she said he dresses like the 80s? anyways we know den loves that shit pls)

-mac was cool too! as i said earlier i wish they’d repeated that joke a wee bit less but aside from that i absolutely loved the mac content because he doesn’t always get the best stuff to work with. rob, as i’ve said before, is truly underrated for his performance as mac because the character is so easy to read. mac is very easy to understand as someone who craves validation and easily speaks his feelings while also have distorted versions of self, though that seems to be going away (with the coming out, the obvious truth of him being ripped, and him straight up asking if they like him) which is really funny because instead of him being wrong about who he is and being oblivious, everyone else is oblivious about him because he used to be?? yes, her. though he’s still a denial ridden dumbass in many ways, now the gang is in denial about his apperance. anyways rob killed this episode and i hope people come to see that is equally as distinctive as charlie and dennis.

-i really did like dee here, as i said earlier. she was also rather true to form. no complaints, and i like how she seemed more integrated into the gang. i love when they all work together, or at least work with dee, and everyone is equal and none of them continually put down dee. that’s way more fun.

-alright i think this is all i have to say for this episode? it seemed pretty foreign to sunny’s usual formula and reminded me the most of “flowers for charlie” in how it definitely strays from how what i view as a normal episode for the gang. there were good enough moments but it isn’t going to be one of my favourite episodes of the season. i really hope they don’t fall into the same hole arrested development did where they once would reach a conclusion every episode and stick to a format which changed in the 4th season for sure. i am ok with change but i hope not much is sacrificed. anyways, i am still a fan and am anticipating the rest of the season still! yes i’m aware that this is overwhelmingly negative but every negative i have for any sunny episode is usually leaps and bounds better than episodes of pretty much any other show.

#sunny 13 spoilers #s13 spoilers #iasip 13 #my post #long post #sunny spoilers #idk what else to tag sorry

46 notes · View notes

emkayoh · 6 years

Text

Spider-Man: Homecoming Fic Recs

Alright, I snapped y’all. I’m blown away by the quality of writing in this fandom and I want to share some of my absolute faves that I’ve found. Especially since I haven’t really seen any fic recs and these fics deserve to be spread like wildfire. So here are my top favorite reads, mostly Tony and Peter centered because of course.

(Under the cut because this is looooooong):

How to Repair a Broken Heart by InfluentialPineapple (WIP)

Summary: The Mechanic has a lot on his plate; Thanos is coming, the Guardians of the Galaxy are marooned, Thaddeus Ross is reaching right down his throat, and a budding super hero deserves his full attention. He's also dying. No big deal. He can fix it. He can fix anything.

And he can do it all without even opening that stupid phone.

Now, where did those notes on Extremis go...?

Relationship: Tony and Peter

Rating: Mature

Notes: Holy shit, y’all. This is definitely my favorite fanfiction... ever. Out of everything I’ve ever read. It’s still a WIP so beware of that, but I am extremely confident in the author’s ability to finish it. And honestly, it’s well worth reading even if it isn’t finished. It has some of the most spot-on characterization, an amazing plot that rivals whatever Marvel cooks up for Infinity War, and glorious writing. 10/10 I am in the fandom for this fic specifically. (Warning: Violence, torture, lots of death.)

The Long Way Round by undeerqueen

Summary: Tony wants him to hold on. Peter just wants to go home.

Relationship: Tony and Peter

Rating: General Audiences

Notes: Okay, warning... this is a death fic. But it’s my favorite death fic ever written. It’s so beautifully written in a way that keeps you hanging on until the very end and leaves a hole in your heart that never goes away. If you’re like me and enjoy that kind of stuff, please, please, please for the love of god, read this fic. (Edit: This is a whole series now!!! Even more pain abounds.)

three words that became hard to say (i and love and you) by madasthesea

Summary: Tony likes giving gifts to prove his love, but they don't usually have four paws and a tail.

AKA: Tony, Peter, and a dog named Maggie learn how to be a family.

Relationship: Tony and Peter

Rating: General Audiences

Notes: I’m crying???? I’m usually not a fan of fics that kill off May so that Peter and Tony can be a family because she deserves better than that, but this fic is the ONLY exception. May isn’t cast aside as unimportant, Tony struggles to make Peter accept him as his new guardian, and there’s a dog! What could be better than that? (Edit: It’s a whole series now!! Tears from beginning to end.)

Everyone You’ve Ever Loved by JBS_Forever

Summary: “You will lose, Tony Stark,” the man says. “You have taken everything from me. Now I'm going to take everything from you.”

(Or: A masked-man threatens to destroy everyone Tony Stark has ever cared about. He starts by taking Peter.)

Relationship: Tony and Peter

Rating: General Audiences

Notes: I honestly had a hard time picking out a JBS_Forever fic to include in this rec list, because everything they write is amazing and I recommend all of it, but this fic stands out. It’s a classic “Peter gets kidnapped and Tony has to save him” fic, which is a favorite trope of mine lol (are you noticing a pattern with the fics I tend to like?) It’s a oneshot but it’s MASSIVE and really realistically portrayed. I love how she writes Tony and Peter and I was holding my breath the whole time.

Astronomy In Reverse by pansley (WIP)

Summary: A year after the Winter Soldier failed his mission in DC, Bucky Barnes is doing his best to stay under the radar from both Hydra and Steve Rogers. His hope for a peaceful day-to-day life in limbo goes awry, however, when he meets Queens’ newest hero; a pure-hearted kid with a death wish and a ridiculous pair of red and blue pajamas.

The last thing Steve expects when he finally tracks Bucky down is that, not only has the man been living in Queens all this time, right under his nose, but also that, in the two years since they last saw each other, Bucky somehow acquired a kid.

Alternatively: How Peter Parker effectively fucks over Bucky Barnes, and also totally saves him.

Relationship: Bucky and Peter

Rating: Teen

Notes: I guess I should mix things up a bit and rec one that isn’t a Tony and Peter fic! This one took me by surprise. I read it because I was intrigued by the relationship tag between Bucky and Peter and didn’t know how it would work. Spoiler: It works very well. It’s so different from a Tony fic but it’s so precious. Featuring foster kid/homeless Peter Parker. Also a WIP and only in the beginning stages but I sense a really interesting plot. (Warning for attempted sexual assault in one of the chapters! But it’s very, very brief. )

Weak Spot by grilledcheesing

Summary: Peter Parker has been sent back in time hundreds of times after their last face off with Thanos to do the one thing nobody else can: save Tony Stark.

Unfortunately, he has to find a way to kill his past self to do it.

And the last thing Tony is going to do is let him.

Relationship: Tony and Peter

Rating: Teen

Notes: Back on my Tony and Peter bullshit. This author is a very prominent author in the fandom so I’m sure you’ve read at least one of their fics if you’ve read a lot of Homecoming fics, but this is my absolute favorite of theirs. It’s such an interesting (and heartbreaking) concept and it’s another one of those stories that leaves you feeling empty inside. Warning for more character death.

pretending by ace8013

Summary: Natasha reflects on what she noticed.

Relationship: All of the Avengers really, but come on I read it for the Tony and Peter

Rating: Not Rated

Notes: I’m honestly... flabbergasted that this fic has so few kudos. Pls go read it and give it more. It’s really short but so poignant and says so much with so little. I honestly love it so much. It’s in Natasha’s POV which is really interesting and the author really nails her personality. It’s absolutely soul-crushing and it will only take you like 2 minutes to read please just do it. (Warning for so much character death...)

Tony Built a Son by Footloose_Poets

Summary: Peter navigates learning to be human. Tony navigates fathering an android.

Relationship: Tony and Peter

Rating: General Audiences/Teen

Notes: Ohmygosh... this one probably isn’t surprising considering the massive amounts of fanart I’ve drawn for it. The idea is so obvious yet so unique and satisfying to read. The author does an AMAZING job creating a realistic world where Tony builds an android son to keep his loneliness at bay and keeps both Tony and Peter so in character despite the vastly different circumstances from their movie counterparts. And it’s a whole series! Every new installment is a beautiful read, and the author even created a tumblr: @friendly-neighborhood-android to post mini ficlets, art, and factoids in the interim.

5 Times Peter Thought Tony Was Mad by caraminha

Summary: ... and one time he actually was.

Set a few months after Aunt May's death where Tony is Peter's legal guardian. Navigating a new life together and settling into being father and son is a rollercoaster - falling in love with the kid? Easy. Dealing with a grieving teenager, and trying to figure out how to do this whole parent thing? Uh... not so easy.

Relationship: Tony and Peter

Rating: Teen

Notes: Oh no more dead May. But I promise I only recommend these fics when they’re really well-written! And this is a REALLY good fic. I got so many feels reading this and domestic Tony and Peter really gives me life. Tony messes up a little but more than makes up for it, and then Peter messes up a lot but it’s okay because Tony loves him. It’s so adorable and heartwarming and I had the warm fuzzies the whole time.

Only Human by tonysta_k

Summary: When Flash takes things too far - pushes Peter too far by mentioning his fathers and what happened, Peter can't take it anymore.

Or, an au where after civil war, Steve was put in prison, Tony has a hard time facing his feelings, and Peter just wants to see his pops.

Relationship: Steve/Tony (Past), Tony and Peter

Rating: Teen

Notes: Damn. I don’t even ship Stony. I don’t like it, Steve has hurt Tony too much for me to ever see them as romantically involved, but if Stony just so happens to be in an intriguing Tony and Peter fic... fine, I’ll read it, so sue me. But wowowow did this fic hit me where it really hurts. It’s good because it acknowledges Steve and Tony’s failed relationship and puts Peter right in the middle of a REALLY nasty divorce. It’s really heart-breaking and realistic and claws at your emotions. 10/10 had to hug my parents right after reading.

for good by Madelinedear

Summary: "Sorry, May, we can't all be best friends with a celebrity.”

May opens her mouth to retort reflexively, the words 'we aren’t even friends' on the tip of her tongue before she closes her mouth. Because they are friends, now. They’re way past that point.

Oh my god, she thinks somewhat hysterically. Tony Stark is my best friend.

(or; Tony Stark, May Parker, and the road to something like friendship)

Relationship: Tony and May

Rating: General Audiences

Notes: YES!!! YES!!! YEEESSSSS!!! Finally, the Tony and May fic I’ve been waiting for!!! To end this rec list on a fluffier note (because boy do I love angst, huh?) this fic is hilarious, heartwarming, and so in-character. It’s a really good study of how May and Tony’s relationship might evolve over time due to their mutual bonding over fiercely loving Peter. It’s everything I ever wanted in a May and Tony friendship fic and more.

---

And these two are not necessarily Homecoming fics but I have to include them because they are on the list of my all time favorite Spider-Man fics:

Weaver of Silk and Dreams by a_stands_for

Summary: Ben Parker sighed as he looked up into The Thing's eyes, so expressively human in spite of the rest of his rocky appearance.

“My fifteen-year-old nephew--who's practically my own little boy!--” he choked out with a tight voice, “h-he can't pass for human anymore. He's scared, and he's isolated, and he just needs someone else to talk to! Someone who can understand. Please."

_____

Some alternate realities are unrecognizable, and some are indistinguishable. This one lies somewhere in between.

Peter Parker's life was derailed when he mutated into a strange human/spider hybrid, and he knows that's not the way things went down for him in other realities. Still, he's determined to forge a new path and make the best of it. Sometimes "the friends we made along the way" really is the greatest treasure anyone could ask for.

Relationship: Peter Parker/Wade Wilson (Peter Parker/Johnny Storm)

Rating: Mature

Notes: Okay so this is more based in the comic-verse, but I pictured Tom Holland Spidey while reading it anyways. I don’t even ship Spideypool tbh but I got curious. I didn’t even watch the Deadpool movie or know anything about Deadpool (or the Fantastic Four, who feature prominently in this) but still... it’s SO. GOOD. More spidery Spider-Man isn’t a thing I knew I needed until this fic, and it honestly reads almost like a fantasy. The world-building is incredible and the fic also comes with great drawings to help you visualize this strange new Peter. (Warning though: There are sex scenes. I was kinda hesitant about whether or not I should rec this because of that, but honestly the fic is worth it. I don’t usually like to read fics with sex scenes, but the plot more than makes up for it.)

I Like Birds by chinashopbull (WIP... possibly abandoned?)

Summary: Peter has Asperger’s/ASD. Yes, of course he’s still Spider-Man. Deadpool tries to accommodate, with mixed results.

Some feeble plot happens eventually, blood gets on the walls, etc. I play fast and loose with canon but try to stay true to (what I perceive to be) the spirit of the characters.

Relationship: Peter Parker/Wade Wilson

Rating: Mature

Notes: Okay, so this fic predates Homecoming so it’s definitely not about that Spidey (even though I picture Tom Holland anyways), the summary doesn’t do it justice, the way the fic portrays Tony Stark makes me sad, and it’s most likely abandoned because it hasn’t been updated since May 2017 (Edit: This totally updated after a whole year. It’s still going!!!)... but hear me out. This fic is worth the heartbreak of reading an abandoned fic. First of all: Autistic Peter!!!!! Written by someone who is autistic themselves so it’s very accurate!!!! I know I say this a lot but the plot is AMAZING. There’s an amazing side story about suicide bombers that’s really intriguing. I love the mystery element of this story so much, it reads as it’s own standalone work of fiction. Also, the slow burn is so slow that the Spideypool never happens, so if that’s not your thing, don’t let that stop you from reading this truly incredible fic. (Warning: A really, really graphic eye injury in one of the earlier chapters that’s pretty gruesome. )

---

IS THIS LONG ENOUGH FOR YOU?? If you read any of these fics KUDOS AND COMMENT because the authors deserve your love! Feel free to send me any recs too! You know what I like. ;)

#spiderman homecoming #peter parker #tony stark #fic recs #homecoming fics #i've been thinking of doing this for a long time and i finally snapped #i love these fics with all my heart y'all #a lot of them i've read multiple times #the first two i've drawn fan art for lmao #let me know if you've read any of these!

468 notes · View notes

ladyloveandjustice · 6 years

Text

Winter 2017 Anime Overview: Recovery of an MMO Junkie and Anime-gataris

Recovery of an MMO Junkie

Recovery of an MMO Junkie is a sweet and sincere show and a solid romantic comedy. In a rarity for anime, the protagonist is a woman in her 30s. The story follows Moriko Morioka, who quit her soul-sucking corporate job and instead chose to hole up in her apartment and play MMOs. She plays as a hot guy character and quickly partners up with a cute girl character named Lily. Then in real life, she runs into a guy that has ties to her MMO world.

The English name for the show is a bit misleading- Moriko’s recovery isn’t really from being a MMO junkie, but from being burnt out on life in general. Her decision to quit her taxing job is actually presented as largely being a good decision for her, which is refreshing (and probably pretty important and positive, considering the amount of work-related stress issues people in Japan face) (it’s unclear how she’s supporting herself though. I guess she saved up?). The MMO world actually helps her heal, allowing her to make new friends and be comfortable with herself and it’s presented as a positive outlet for her if she moderates it. However, as the show goes on she starts to interact with the real world a little more too, which is also good.

The romantic relationship the series centers around is a wholesome one, and Moriko’s love interest is a genuinely nice guy. Also, while the series presents MMOs as a positive place, it doesn’t ignore the sexism female gamers have to deal with- it’s mentioned that one female avatar had to fake having a boyfriend because she got so inundated with unwanted advances. It doesn’t delve too deeply into it, but it’s nice that this is acknowledged. Another thing it doesn’t delve too deeply in is the gender-play aspect of things- the guy-playing-as-a-girl and girl-playing-as-a-guy aspects don’t lead to any real exploration of gender dynamics or identity or anything, but they’re not done in a gross way either, so at least there’s that. Moriko’s apparent attraction to the female avatar isn’t really explored in a satisfying way either.

Moriko is a very relatable protagonist- she’s shy and awkward but she’s trying, and her dorky freakouts are very cute and amusing- the voice acting is very funny. She has a lot of insecurities, but the series makes it clear she’s fine the way she is and her friends and love interest are supportive.

It is a little unfortunate that Moriko’s forays into the real world mostly have to do with dating guys and cleaning herself up to look cute for them- I’d have liked to see her gain some real life female friends and such. There’s also one character whose behavior sometimes crosses the line- it’s a bit uncomfortable how he pressures Moriko into going out with him and REALLY uncomfortable when he makes a date-rape joke. Though at the very least the character he makes it to (her real love interest) doesn’t find it funny and in fact freaks out and runs over to check that Moriko’s okay. Still, the whole bit was gross and unnecessary. The show’s reliance on coincidence also became a little much- some of the coincidences were very unnecessary.

The show may have some hiccups, but the main couple is dorky and cute and the storyline is heartwarming. It’s not anything super deep or daring, but it is a fun fluffy watch if you like the sort of things its about. And thanks to it’s unusual and loveable protagonist, I’m very glad it exists.

Anime-gataris

God, this was a trip. Anime-gataris is an anime about an anime club. Yep, we’ve reached that point. It follows a girl named Minoa who doesn’t know much about anime, but fondly remembers one anime she saw as a child. She gets dragged into an anime club and learns all kinds of things and also she meets a talking cat for some reason. The first bit of the show basically deals with club shenanigans- the evil student council wants to shut them down! They go to a con! Hot springs! They gotta make an anime! Then in the last three episodes it gets REALLY WEIRD. It was like a three episode long anime shitpost, and if you follow my blog closely, you probably saw me posting all the ridic screencaps.

Upfront, I gotta say this show has a lot of problems. There’s a teacher side-character who’s nothing more than a walking gay stereotype. There’s some of the weirdest handled fanservice I’ve ever seen- basically each episode opens with Minoa’s friend who is into sports but largely unimportant to the plot doing something sexy-ish as the camera leers. (or in one very silly episode, saying some tormented over-the-top catchphrase after some little boys have apparently looked up her skirt I can’t really describe it okay it was weird). These scenes have nothing to do with ANYTHING and are just there to be like “hey hot high school girl, now onto the actual ep”. It’s friggin’ weird. There’s other fanservice too, though less bizarre. Also, one of the girls “ships” her two guy friends which is presented uncritically and largely as a “oh fujoshis!” bit.

Also the show is just a mess in general. It’s a mashup of random plotlines and gags and all kinds of nonsense. But it’s an INTERESTING mess. Which seems to be exactly what the show was going for. It pretty much says that outright a few times.

Congrats, you succeeded.

It starts out as a standard club anime, with the bizarre and (at first) unexplained addition of Minoa opening a magic door and finding a talking cat. Minoa learns more about anime through the quirky club members, the student council wants to club to close for no real reason, lots of offbrand titles are mentioned (”HAVE YOU SEEN RU: ZERO”). It largely just sung the praises of anime and the industry- it never had anyone be uncomfortable with the more unpleasant aspects. It would have done a lot to balance the show just to have one character maybe say “I don’t wanna watch incest anime” or “lolicon is gross” but no, apparently ALL ANIME IS GOOD FOREVER and anime fans just adore all of it. It was mildly entertaining and cool to see overseas fans acknowledged, but fairly "eh”.

Then the episode where the anime club made an anime happened, and it was pretty darn funny and clever. Mostly because the anime they made came off as an anime that kids would genuinely make, with flash-animation and a ridic hilarious plot that stuffed in every anime cliche it could think of.

It was pretty great. Then the show went completely off the rails and got obnoxiously meta in the best way. Minoa started realizing everyone around her was an anime and that anime was slowly taking over the world and it just got more and more ridonk. And also led to a lot of #relatable lines and shitposts in screencap form.

AMAZING. It even had the characters themselves discuss how the show had ‘waited till episode 11 to jump the shark” and worry they would get canceled. Nothing made sense and the anime became much more entertaining because of it.

So yeah, Anime-gataris is a problematic mess that goes a million different directions but it never really pretends to be otherwise. It wants to be a messy, weird anime with a slapdash storyline that both celebrates and lampoons its medium. And it definitely managed to be that! It’s also definitely memorable as hell. So if you don’t mind some tropey bullshit and if you want to see a show just go off the rails at the end in an enjoyable way, go for this one.

#recovery of an mmo junkie #recovery of an mmo addict #net-juu no susume #anime gataris #winter 2017 anime #my reviews #anime overview #fall 2017 anime

72 notes · View notes

emotten · 4 years

Text

Planner vs. Pantser

Hi there. Today, I wanted to really talk about what goes into writing something, and my story creation process, because I’ve been doing a lot of leg work for my next few projects and I know that it is going to pay off. I’ve struggled with outlines and story preparation for a long time, and I think I’m finally getting the hang of it.

How does one write a story? Well... It usually starts with one thing; an idea for an event or story, a character, a place, or something else. Once you have your story idea, your characters, your locations, all of your details picked out, you string those ideas together the best you can to create a story. It doesn’t usually come out the way we imagined it would, but sometimes it comes out even better. And sometimes (most of the time) we hate it either way.

I used to be a “pantser” which means that you write by the seat of your pants with not a whole lot of real planning. I thought it worked for me, until I realized that I had begun writing five different stories and none of them had endings. I’d also find myself scrolling through pages and pages of document just to find out what color eyes I thought I character should have, because I’d forgotten.

So, I’ve come up with an organized and comprehensive plan for building a solid story outline with character and setting information peppered in where necessary, and I’d like to share the process of how I create a story, from start to finish.

Please, keep reading to find out more. Or visit my website / bookstore to see / puchase some of my work. :)

Website: www.emotten.weebly.com Bookstore: www.lulu.com/spotlight/emotten

Step One: IDEA.

Once a story has taken shape in my mind, I make sure I know exactly what the closing image and opening image are going to be like. Basically, I get the bread for the sandwich ready first, then I worry about what’s going to go inside. I come up with main events, important moments that have to occur, and take note of them. I make sure there’s a main story and a B-story, and I make space for the organic evolution of a ~love~ storyline as well.

I use note cards, notebooks, pinterest, etc. to organize and plan, but I’ll explain that later. First, I’d like to talk about the evolution of a scene. And for this topic of conversation, I’m going to use my story Muse for examples.

Step Two: OUTLINING and PLANNING.

I have an idea for a story, I know what’s going to happen in the end, and I’m ready to start building onto those ideas. What now?

Lay it out in scenes. List your scenes/events, each in just one simple sentence, until you’ve completed your story in the most basic, simplistic manner possible. Here’s an example of what a very, very rough first outline looks like for me:

Each little + sign denotes a new chapter or scene. Let’s look at just that very first line. “Apartment - Can’t Art.” That’s a whole scene, a whole chapter, in one sentence. It might not make sense to anyone else, but in my brain, in makes perfect sense, because I already know the story.

Once I have all of my lines down, and the whole story is complete in this form, I have to evolve it. This is where the notecards come in. I like to tack them up on a cork board, tape them to a big piece of cardboard, or tape them into a book to organize and order them and keep the scenes straight. Some methods that work for me may not work for you, but in case it’s something you haven’t tried, give it a shot, see what happens.

So, from that one line “Apartment - Can’t Art,” I’ll write a longer scene description, like this:

Along with that, I’ll throw in a colored notecard with Heather’s character description on it. Each chapter that introduces a new character, I’ll have a colored card for them, too, to stick next to the scene. This makes describing characters a breeze, plus I know where to look if I forget someone’s eye color in the future.

Now, from that scene description, along with Heather’s appearance and attitude details, we’ll write the whole scene/chapter, and it will look a little something like this:

So now you see how three whole paragraphs of story evolved from one half-assed sentence. All you have to do is start with single sentences, evolve them into paragraphs, and evolve those paragraphs into scenes.

Complete the story in simple statements, then complete it in loosely described scene descriptions, then put it in order so you can check for plot holes or dead areas or unimportant parts. Here’s an example of the Muse short story being organized in a book:

And here’s an example of a novel being organized:

Once the whole story is completed on notecards and put into order, when everything uneccessary has been removed and holes in the story have been filled, that’s when I start writing. That’s when I add the whimsy and emotion and specific writing style to bring the story to life. That’s when I add the detail into locations, bring characters to life, and create chaos and harmony inside the little world of my own creation. Using the book or board as your guide, writing full scenes is so simple, because you have what needs to happen already figured out, you just have to see how your characters react when put into those situations and boom, you have your story.

Let me know how you plan and plot. Or are you a pantser?

To Read Muse in it’s entirety, visit my website. :)

#writing #process #writer #novel #planning #plotting #outline #short story #write #emotten #author #books #read #read more fiction #fiction #fantasy #reading #written #amwriting #writeblr

0 notes

gojaimas · 6 years

Text

More Comments

MyloMatsuri: “I feel like you could've put this at the very end, after the story was finished. Dont get me wrong, I loved the little interlude. just thought that from a narrative standpoint, it would've been interesting to see this after reading how Gwen, ben, and Lucy reach the conclusion to this story.”

I disagree. It’s important to completely understand how Gwen feels at this point, so I wanted the readers to know everything about her and Ben’s past. Now is the last opportunity to show that.

kinglan10: “So while this author has Gwen describing herself as "not religious," this could mean anything from an Atheist, to an Agnostic, to a Christian who doesnt attend church often and/or doesnt think about God and religion often. And since it's somewhat open to interpretation I choose to pick the one that favors my views, which I'll go as far to say that no I dont believe Gwen is an atheist.”

Pretty much. I wasn’t expecting people to think this much about it. Gwen being religious or not isn’t important, I just figured it would come up at least once in the conversation if two people were to discuss whether or not incest was okay. I can share more about how Ben, Gwen, and Lucy think in terms of religion if people are curious, but it isn’t gonna come up in the story. It’s actually good character building exercise for me to answer unimportant background questions about them, so everyone should feel free to ask me whatever they want about the characters.

csgt: “Interesting twist to make Gwen herself the one who asked for the trip instead of her mother, but Natalie was very supportive of the whole thing. I wonder if this will be a plot point that will come up later, that Natalie might unexpectedly react better to the Bwen relationship than the rest of the parents (usually, in my stories included, Natalie is the most fiercely opposition to the cousins)”

Natalie actually being kind of nice deep down is probably a plot twist no one was expecting lol. I’ve had people commenting recently about how cold she seems compared to Frank, which is how I’ve purposely portrayed her so far, so it was fun to make her show how much she really cares about her daughter for once.

Guest: “I never thought about it before but it was weird that Gwen didnt come out to laugh at Ben hanging when she was in the Rust Bucket the whole time. This fic is now canon.”

Yeah, they didn’t really explain why she didn’t do anything at that point. And I always thought there were some holes in Gwen’s story about being forced by her mother to go on the trip with them. I definitely prefer my headcanon too.

Guest: “Lucy’s into girls? Her and Gwen just seemed like friends in the original serious but oh well. I have friends who’re bisexual so I’m not homophobic but I just can’t seen them as anything more than friends but that’s just my opinion.”

Lucy being bi isn’t something I based on anything from the original series. I just thought it fit because most of the girls I’ve known with her kind of personality have also been bi. Also, I figured she would have sort of a Captain Jack Harkness attitude towards the whole thing, as in, if she can be attracted to aliens who look nothing like her own species, she’s probably not gonna care too much about gender.

Guest: “Nice to see you following your idol Egaraptor’s “don’t break the chain” technique and caring about your fans so even when you can’t get the big chapters done just yet by uploading an interesting nostalgic take on the very first episode of Ben 10. Take your time, it only makes me more excited for it because there’s gonna be a lot of weightage to it. I can assure you’ll be as successful as Ego with your writing skills. Also Game Grumps is great”

Thanks! “Don’t break the chain” is a technique I’d recommend to anyone who wants to write a story as long as mine. I haven’t been watching a ton of Game Grumps lately, but I still love Egoraptor and everyone else on the channel.

Guest: “Something tells me this’ll go real south like ddlc”

What makes you say that, FriendGuest? Everything is fine. I am a perfectly normal hu-man.

Guest: “About the bathroom screen, yes we have seen her express other emotions before besides her trademark smiley emoji and prancing around the playground personality but for someone so seductive and sarcastic, panting from being close to Ben’s touch and running to calm herself down is the thing you’d expect someone like her to and something you’d expect Gwen to do. Deep down, we all have emotions and that can go both ways”

Well said. Lucy is a very emotional person, and that means experiencing both the highs and the lows.

Guest: “It saddens me the producers didn’t have the balls to end Oreimo right. I mean he rejected 4 girls for a short amount of time with his sister? They pussied out and gave an half assed ending. But hopefully, looks like you’ll set the record straight and please all your fans even though the ending is sadly nearing”

I actually suspect that Kyousuke used the “I will do one thing you ask of me” favor that Kirino owed him to break their original agreement and get back together in the end. But I agree, they didn’t end it well. Sorry to all you #RuriSquad people out there, but Kirino totally deserved to win.

Guest: “Julie’s a pretty underrated character tbh. I mean she was plainly made just to be Ben’s Girlfriend from the ghetto but she did have an understanding and likeable personality. They actually had good chemistry in alien force and unlike your story, Gwen was the one pushing Ben to go talk to her. They had their ups and downs in ultimate alien and broke up in omniverse for Ben yelling at a video game when he’s in a phone call with Julie. What?!”

Wait, that’s really how they ended that pairing in Omniverse? God, what were they thinking with those sequels?

Guest: “Uh I’m totally fine with Lucy having feelings for girls but with Gwen seems weird... they always seem to have a Sister or bestie relationship. It’s like pairing up Ben and Kevin to be gay when they act like bros or shipping Captain America and Bucky.”

I never said Gwen was into girls. As for why Lucy would have feelings for Gwen specifically, try not to view my story entirely through the lens of the actual show, as my story differs from it in many ways. If I haven’t done a great job of establishing it using my story alone, that’s my bad, but I hope I’ve done a good enough job of showing how Lucy’s feelings have developed over time.

Guest: “Tara Strong is the voice of my childhood”

Same! I love that woman.

Guest: “Do you watch HighSchool DxD? I mean I know it’s an ecchi anime, it’s like Game of Thrones, you watch it for the plot and the “plot”. What’s your impression on the Season 4 art style?”

I do watch it, and I’m only half-ashamed to admit that haha. I love Crossover Cosmology and I love hot girls, so what’s not to love about it? I’m not a huge fan of the change in art style, but I’m fine with it as long as Koneko is still cute.

Guest: “'This is how we met' that was a genuinely sweet moment between Ben and Lucy and something I wish would’ve happened in the canon timeline.”

Me too. Every chapter I write makes me realize more and more just how much potential the show wasted with Lucy.

Guest: “Since you have interest in drawing, after you’re done with the story, the multiple endings, moving onto others or the one shots. I hope you or someone can illustrate this in a manga or a light novel kind of way or even animate it, although a masterpiece like this definitely deserves an adaption that would be a real big deal”

I was serious earlier when I said I’d pay people to make fan art of my story if anyone was interested. The entire story is way too long for a complete manga or animated adaptation, but individual scenes might work. I might do some drawings of my own once I’m finished with the story, but my drawing practice is mostly on hold while I’m working on it.

Guest: “as much as I adore Bwen, are there any Bency stories at all? Even if they are, I doubt they could portray her character and the chemistry between her and Ben so well that makes me root for them too even this started off as a Bwen Fanfic”

I’m sure there are more out there, but I haven’t seen any. Well, aside from a single erotic oneshot I read once, but I probably shouldn’t link to that publicly haha.

#Comments

0 notes