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scorchroots · 5 years

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TV Writing Outlining — for Pantsers!

Hey everybody! I’ve seen a few posts around the writeblr community about writing scripts. I’ve been working with television formatting for a few years now, and as a chronic pantser, I struggled at first to outline within such a rigid format. Plus, even with the popularity of streaming platforms, shows do follow the same structure that they do when there are commercial breaks mandating when the beats hit the hardest!

I recently talked to a writer who is just now starting to work in scripts, and she commented that having the structure background of screenwriting is also very helpful for novels (even if it feels hard because the structure is much looser).

This will focus on outlines for hour-long TV, usually five acts, which is my expertise (I’m not that funny, haha), but it can be applied to the three-act structure for half-hours and can be adapted for novels as well.

If you learn screenwriting academically, this is usually taught as an hour long lecture, so it is long! Bear with me!

First, let’s cover why TV is structured the way it is.

If someone watches a TV show from the beginning, you have anywhere between 7-15 pages to hook the viewer. Why? Because that’s when the first commercial break hits. Viewers are willing to watch something they aren’t sure about until then, but if it’s not good by the first commercial break, they probably won’t stick around through the ads to see if it gets better.

Your show has to tell the viewer what they’re getting for the rest of the hour by the end of that. You have to end with the hook of the episode, so that people will be interested beyond that commercial.

However, the big twist moment of the episode comes around page 30. There has to be a seriously interesting beat at that point, because that commercial break is generally the longest of the episode (it runs about double the length of any other commercial).

The action after that generally drops, and then builds again, with one big beat around page 40, and then your climax beat at page 50, which is the “all hope is lost” moment before the fifth act wraps it up (and, since TV is serialized, usually still leaves on some kind of cliffhanger).

(In half-hours, the beats are around page 10 and page 20. They can be staggered a little further, as they probably will be in the editing itself.)

So we get five distinct acts:

Act I: 10-15 pages. Might start out with a 3-7 page cold open. This should introduce the show and present the hook of the episode. If it’s a pilot, it might set up the backstory, but if that’s how you’re writing it then you want to create the episode hook pretty immediately after.

Act II: ~15 pages, ends around page 30. This should be tension central; you need to build to a pretty big moment by the end. This is the biggest chunk you have so use it to establish stuff that will play out later.

Act III: ~10 pages, ends around page 40. There must be a vague resolution of whatever bombshell you dropped at the end of Act II. This is rising action, back to a smaller peak at the end of the act.

Act IV: ~10 pages, ends around page 50. Building up to the climax; much bigger peak at the end of this act. If you have a lot to set up for the next episode (many shows are heavily serialized now), you might resolve your climax at the end of this act, though that resolution should form its own kind of setup—asking more questions than it answers.

Act V: ~10 pages, ends around page 60. Resolves this episode’s plot and sets up the next. Might deal with the season arc, if the show has one (and nowadays, every show does, even comedies). Usually still ends on a high action beat.

(Sidenote: hour-longs are 60-page scripts, and half-hours are 30-page scripts, even though each page is roughly one minute of screentime and there will be commercials. Why? Because scenes will get cut at every step of the process until it hits the screen, and the writer is only step one.)

Okay, now how do you outline for this?

My strategy is to plan around those act endings.

I grew up watching soap operas, so my biggest strength in writing is setting up cliffhangers. These are the moments that TV is built around, so build your writing around them!

I start with the ending. Where do I need to get the characters by the end of this script? That’s usually the easiest moment for me to plan. Especially if you’re writing pilots, this will lead into the rest of the episode. Set that last cliffhanger first.

Then find your episode plot ending. That’s your Act IV ending.

After that, you want the beat that sets up the plot to get to that Act IV ending, which is the Act I ending, and then the big twist that happens halfway through (Act II end). The Act III ending is the least important to have set in stone at this stage, but once you do set it, I find that the rest of the episode is easier.

So, by now you have (in the order you planned them):

Act V end (show setup)

Act IV end (episode resolution)

Act I end (episode setup)

Act II end (big twist)

Act III end (small upbeat)

All five of these moments, by the way, should serve your A-plot.

Unless you’re writing a bottle episode (which is quite different), there are 2-4 plots in every TV episode, in order of importance:

A-plot (main plotline of the episode—usually focusing on conflict between or surrounding one or two characters)

B-plot (secondary plotline—might follow the characters in the A-plot but on a more emotional than physical journey, or it may be a totally different storyline surrounding a couple different characters)

C-plot (tertiary plotline—usually a small emotional journey; this doesn’t come up as much in half-hours, but most hour-longs have one)

D-plot (the smallest story; most episodes don’t have this but it can come up)

Now that we have our major beats and our 2-4 plots, we can do the outline.

Here’s the trick with this: I handwrite this on a blank piece of paper, and make a grid, five rows and three columns.

I label the rows with the acts, and the columns with the plots.

Then I fill in the major beats for the A-plot, writing them at the bottom of each row. This grid should take up the full page!

You should also have similar emotional beats for your B- and C-plots, by the way. Fill those in.

Then, write down each moment that you need to get from beat to beat. I usually have around 5 for acts I and II, and 3 or 4 for the rest. If your moments in between feel like they jump too much, add another moment in between. But because you already laid out your main beats, the in between pacing should be roughly correct for an episode of television.

Eventually, you’ll want to break these down into individual scenes, which vary in length and emotional impact, but this is the basic structure for how I outline scripts.

I hope this was helpful!

#this kind of turned into a quick course on screenwriting #but the outline structure is at the end #screenwriting #writing tips #writing #writeblr

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pass-the-bechdel · 5 years

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Supergirl season three full review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

100% (twenty-three of twenty-three).

What is the average percentage per episode of female characters with names and lines?

57.23%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

All but one (it was that crappy crossover episode). All but four have casts over 50%.

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Zero.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Forty-four. Twenty who appeared in more than one episode, five who appeared in at least half the episodes, and two who appeared in every episode.

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Thirty-four. Ten who appeared in more than one episode, four who appeared in at least half the episodes, and one who appeared in every episode.

Positive Content Status:

Not bad; a handful of episodes included some sincere effort to make quality statements about social issues, but they were pretty clunky about it and not always successful; certainly never impressive enough to increase the content rating (average rating of 3).

General Season Quality:

Middling. It was full of useless plot threads and wasted time, and much of the content had no real function; consequently, the central story arc lacked stakes, emotional resonance, and heart. That said, most of the episodes are basically solid viewing, and there was infinitely less rage-inducing content than there was in season two. That’s a weak win, but still a win.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

Hey, remember Morgan Edge? He was in four episodes at the beginning of the season, served no real narrative function despite his prominent treatment within those recurrences, and then Lena had him arrested using the most obviously-coerced confession in history? Sure, he was guilty, but he confessed under duress while being actively threatened with death by drone, the evidence of both the tape itself and of the testimony of the many eyewitnesses to the attack would have had him bouncing out of jail like that. The ridiculousness of that plot ‘resolution’ was even worse than the meaninglessness of Edge’s character in the first place. Remember when, briefly, they pretended that Morgan Edge was important?

Edge is a prime example of the fatal flaw in this entire season: pointless plot threads that went nowhere, meant nothing, furthered no characterisation for regular characters, and had no impact on the central arc of the season. Story-wise, the season lurched all over the place, and while it wasn’t without its good elements, ultimately it achieved very little. Sure, the season ended with a number of apparent changes for most of the major characters’ lives (though, conspicuously, not Kara’s) - Alex is now head of the DEO, J’onn is doing...something else, hopefully not something that removes him from the show, Winn has apparently gone to the future, traded out for our new friend ‘Brainy’ (a change I will be happy for if it sticks), and James has publicly revealed himself as Guardian - but the thing is, these changes are mostly last-minute, not things that the season was building toward all along. These changes are mostly not the result of character arcs, they’re just things that are happening now as set-up for next season. This season itself? Not much happened.

We wasted quite a lot of time with Mon-El, AGAIN, which is especially disappointing because it’s the largest time-and-attention-suck of the season, and it is completely irrelevant to everything; at least when we were wasting time with Mon-El last season, it was because he was the centrepiece of the (awful) plot. This time around, he’s just there to draaagg out the fallout from his departure, so that instead of getting over the relationship within the six months between the end of last season and the beginning of this one, Kara can continue to pine ridiculously and then get caught up in ~complicated feelings~ when Mon-El reappears, back from the future and bringing his new wife with him. That’s the closest thing Kara gets to a personal arc this season, actually; having ~complicated feelings~ about Mon-El. So, her story isn’t really about herself, it’s about whatever Mon-El is doing (again!), and then after wasting the entire season on that sorry excuse for a story, they amicably split in the end and he goes back to the future and that’s...it? I sincerely hope that’s it, and that he won’t be appearing again as a regular on the show, but it’s also a super disappointing waste of time. They didn’t have to bring Mon-El back at all, not for some drawn-out version of ‘closure’ for Kara, and not for any of the other nothing that his presence achieved in the meantime. Honestly, having characters show up FROM THE FUTURE and then not doing anything useful or important with it is so weird. We coulda dropped Brainy here and sent Winn away in a short-arc subplot, it’d have been neater and less time consuming, and we wouldn’t have troubled with all the Mon-El and Imra crap. As much as Mon-El kept carrying on about how he would never disrespect Imra, the story itself disrespects her by giving her no other meaningful narrative function than to be a barrier between Mon-El and Kara (which, as the story plays out...didn’t matter anyway). The whole thing amounts to a lot of bluster with no real impact; we end the season with Mon-El gone and Kara having to move on, and that’s EXACTLY HOW WE ENDED LAST TIME.

Meanwhile, back at the actual central arc for the season, shit was still whack, y’all. I wondered what they were gonna do with it after they went and had Reign show up so early in the piece (I thought maybe they were gonna build over the course of the season with Samantha progressively losing more control, but, that woulda required narrative pacing and story building to be in play, and the creators weren’t into that kind of crap this season), and what they went for was a completely pointless side-distraction with two other, lesser world-killers, who appeared out of nowhere, fooled around for a few episodes, and then died, ne’er to trouble the story again. Reign absorbing their powers didn’t have any effect (particularly egregious since the Legion was so worried about Pestilence, only to declare their work done once she was gone because apparently, Reign wasn’t gonna go around using that particular world-killer power anyway, because...reasons), they might as well have never included other world-killers at all, the only reason they were there was so that the plot could tread water for a while after revealing its Big Gun at mid-season and having nowhere left to go. Selena and her fellow witches, likewise, proved utterly pointless, just another distraction that wound up easily dispatched, and meanwhile Reign was killed/separated from Samantha only to return again and then be pretty easily defeated anyway with a combination of shoddy time travel and the last-minute addition of a convenient...magic fountain. Yeah. Even the oft-repeated notion they hammered about saving Samantha by recalling her to herself, using her connection with Ruby, etc, turned out to be a total smokescreen - Samantha and Ruby both proved to be total plot devices rather than characters in their own right, foisted on the pre-existing characters to generate artificial emotional stakes with a friendship that burst forth fully-formed in the space of two episodes, and giving Alex a child to focus her maternal instincts on for a while. Presumably, we’ll now never see them again.

Oh, and did I mention that Kara finds out that her mother and a whole chunk of Krypton actually survived, but they totally underplay it and she has essentially no emotional reaction to this development at all? Since this seemingly life-altering revelation also has no impact on character or story, they might as well not have bothered, I mean, Kara is more hung up on losing her asshole boyfriend from last season than she is on discovering that a whole piece of her world (friends/family included) is actually still around, so. Who needs logical characterisation, anyway? For all that Kara complains about feeling out of balance living two lives, she also spends almost no time living as Kara Danvers instead of Supergirl in this season (especially the second half); remember when her job as a reporter used to matter to character or story, like, at all? Remember when actually being seen to balance things was a source of narrative conflict and development? Now, if she had discovered that surviving part of Krypton near the BEGINNING of the season instead of in the fourth-last episode, maybe she could have spent the season having, I dunno, a sort of character arc about dealing with it? Selena and the relevant mythology on the world-killers and the ways to kill them/make them/whatever could have all been introduced in earlier parts of the season so that they could BUILD THE FUCKING NARRATIVE instead of just throwing in convenient new plot devices and information at the last second? Maybe the whole story could have been improved by making it actually about the character the series is named after, and analysing her still-developing relationship with her identity and its duality? It’s such a fucking obvious character arc I want to punch something. How, HOW was this not what the whole season was about? How did we end up futzing around with Mon-El and pointless future-visitors and extra antagonists who didn’t matter to the season or its characters at all?

If you forgot that they also had some time-wasting with some fanatical cult crap on Earth that mostly just served to provide Kara with yet another character to drop explainers about things instead of having her learn stuff in some kind of plot-related fashion, I could understand; it was pretty forgettable. Alex and Maggie broke up, which was rather sudden and wasteful, really, but at least it was tied to Alex’s realisation that she wants to have children and that constituted one of the only solid character threads of this messy, wishy-washy season (though it also often kept Alex distracted in other parts of the story and not having those all-important sisterly interactions with Kara which formed the backbone of the show in the first season, so, boo for that). J’onn had his dad around for a while, and that was legitimately pretty good stuff (y’all know I’m weak for Martians), though I really hope it has some strong narrative fallout in season four because otherwise it seems like a plot designed to torture J’onn emotionally, as if his story isn’t already tragic enough. They also wasted James less this season? Unfortunately, they wasted Lena more, and I’m especially suspicious of the way they not only strangled the amount of story she spent with Kara as a friend, they also threw in this awkwardly-executed situation with Lena actively disliking Supergirl and turning Kara’s secret into something which jeopardises their future relationship. Their interactions last season were so strong, and the effort to put space between them in this season feels overt (giving Lena a romance with James and a new/old best friend in Samantha contributes to this); I can’t help but wonder if the Powers That Be were upset that they’d accidentally made a female relationship with more chemistry than the canon-lesbian couple (and at the same time as they were badly failing at giving Kara a believable hetero love interest, no less) and decided that breaking up one of their best character partnerships was preferable to anyone reading the hero of the story as anything other than straight. They’ve made so many hugely questionable decisions about Kara’s personal life at this point, no BTS fuckery would surprise me. Remember season one, when the plot had a shape and the characters generally did things for understandable reasons? Those were the days. We’re closer to getting back to them now than we were after the disaster that was last season, but I’m still not banking on the show ever regaining the focused quality which made the first season work so well. To do that, they have to start telling stories about Kara again, at minimum. That would be a start.

#Supergirl #Supergirl season three #Bechdel Test #female representation #full season review

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couragehopelovefaith · 5 years

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My review of the Shadowhunters-finale part 1

Shadowhunters-finale… even the sound of it feels surreal. I tried so hard to figure out a great way to start this - so far - last review of this series that taught me so much, but I couldn’t manage to find anything clever enough, so sorry about that. Since the finale is longer than other episodes, I will share this review in a couple of parts. I fully understand if you disagree with me, and hurting other people is not my intention.

Given that Freeform only gave the gang two hours to bind everything together, the episode was MARVELOUS. I loved the dialogues with different, perhaps even unique, allies. They gave us as much glimpses as they could about what would’ve happened if this show hadn’t been cancelled and left some things open because they trust our imagination and wanted to leave room for spin-offs and renewals. This episode made me laugh, clap, ship and cry my heart out. So many sacrifices and surprises. I still can’t accept that this might be it.

At this update, I want to focus on the main character of this show - Clarissa Fairchild.

You don’t have to believe me, but this is the truth. When I first saw the trailer of 3B, I was reading the last book of TMI. And the moment I saw Clary running away crying, the first thought that came into my mind was: “Oh my God, what if they erase Clary’s memories in the end, like they did with Simon?” I almost wrote about it here, but I did not have the guts, since I strongly believed that I would be “torn apart”. So I actually had time to process that. And after seeing how that ending was reacted to, I am really glad that I did not. I understand why people are mad about this resolution, since Clary is the main character who grew up so much during the series. I am upset about that too. The thought about her suffering silently, being alone, forgetting the huge part of herself, ripped away from the world and people she loves so much... it tears me apart. But…

It is sad how some people can never be satisfied. When the spotlight was on Clary, people wanted more of the downworlders and Malec. When we got it, some of us were bitching about the lack of Clary. Of course we are able to express our opinions about certain characters and wanting some of them more than others, and I have done it myself. But this is everyone’s show, they did their best to honor every character with the time they had, and we should appreciate even the smallest things we got. There is only so much you can do in 40 minutes’ episodes (or even two back to back), and you still have to keep plot going. It is not easy, no matter how experienced the makers are. And I strongly believe that if show had continued, we would’ve gotten even more balance to it.

When the show started, Kat was constantly criticized for her acting, perhaps the most when it comes to the cast. People compared her to Lily Collins (and I was one of them, ashamedly) and kept telling that she looks and acts nothing like Clary. Yes, gladly many people recognized her growth and ability to evolve in acting along the way. But still, when you look at the Tumblr-pages, almost everyone else got more attention than Clary. She was tossed aside by fans. Many people shrugged the Clary and Jonathan plot line away as disgusting - which is kind of right, since incest is not right in any circumstances. But the books represented that and wanted to show that there are some issues like this in the world - and the show wanted to honor the books. And whether we like it or not, this was a huge part of Clary’s storyline.

The word that mostly came out of people’s mouths when describing Clary, was “annoying”. Yes, she was a little spoiled in the beginning, and keen focusing on finding her mother might have seem somewhat selfish, but she was really compassionate, brave and headstrong person that cared deeply for others and learned to widen her point of view. She was the one who was first given the greatest angelic powers and who knew how to invent runes. She learned a hard way and by the long journey that she has also the darker parts in herself. But like she said herself, she was afraid that she couldn’t ever be this person she used to be. She might have caused a serious trouble sometimes, but she always felt guilt and wanted to make things right. See her loved ones smiling again, being happy - even though she could not have that same happiness herself. And this was really emphasized in this last episode. She, and Magnus, brought downworlders and shadowhunters, who had fought against each other for centuries, together, united. She is someone who would sacrifice herself and her truth to save people. Her actions go way more far than “allowing Malec to have their wedding”. It's kind of sad that some people seem to notice her awesomeness just now, when she’s kind of gone. I guess it’s true: one really realizes what she or he has until its gone. She is not perfect, no one is. But we had much character developements and events with her, but some of us took them for granted.

Even though losing her pains me, she still got her redeeming moment with Jonathan. That moment was really moving and soul-wrenching, and I don’t wonder at all why Luke said that they actually cried after that one. You could just see that Clary meant every word she said to him, even though she had to sacrifice him. The moment she got her wings… “Let me go.” “I will.” </3 I was not ready for that. And as if that wasn’t enough, it was clear that in that moment she knew she would lose everything else as well.

We got to see her with her mother again (kind of) – and in the same place where she died, which was both poetic and heartbreaking. She never got to say goodbye to her mother, so this was really touching. I am happy that Jocelyn’s actress was able to return for this. Even though in the end she was struggling being strong, she got to share her last moments and fights with almost everyone she loved and really go through her journey. I especially loved the moments between her and Simon and her and Magnus. Simon always knows what’s up with Clary, even if he did not completely see the context. She got to see how her “father” got his happy ending by being a shadowhunter and with Maryse, (even though she never got to work side by side with him :’( ). It’s upsetting how she only almost got Maryse as her kind- of-stepmother. They never got many scenes together, but I like that with Maryse Clary is the closest to telling the truth. She is able to see how his “godfather” and her “frenemy-brother” found love and proved that love still exists. And that she didn’t want to interrupt their dance.

Even though I will forever be sad that we didn’t see her and Izzy being parabatais together, it still may be possibility in the future, whether to our eyes or not. They really saved each other. I am also glad that Clary wasn’t showing any jealousy for Sizzy, but was clearly happy for them.

No matter how heartbreaking this all is, it’s also life. In one moment, you can have everything, but it all might be taken away in another. So one of the messages of this show really is: cherish the now. And even though Clary’s fate was more than unfair after everything good she did, the law was against her. Angels aren’t completely pure and saint, and those who have demon blood are not purely evil. That has been the continuing theme of the show and it’s reasonable that it still somewhat remains. She knew the risks and made decision. She saved everyone. And that’s really brave.

Jace and Clary… Jace’s words to her, the fact that he continues being absolutely honest to her.. her love confession.. the fact that Jace didn’t have time to say it back… her not being able to keep the kiss too long, because she knew that Jace would break down if he saw her not seeing them…their tears… Not being able to say the proper goodbye to Jace really shows how much he meant to her. Even though I was not the biggest fan of Clace, they grew in me and Kat and Dom overdid themselves in this episode, together and apart. Clary’s letter was truly beautiful. And to the people who say that Jace doing nothing to get Clary back is out of character, Simon is right. They both want her to be happy and might be afraid that telling her everything would upset her too much. But just like for Alec, for Jace falling in love deeply works only with one person, and it fucking hurts. You can see it by the way he acts, and he continues being her guardian angel. He still knew how important art used to be for her and came to support her mentally even though she could not see him. We got to see that even though she had changed outside and became this strong woman, still something was missing. And it’s really poetic how her past comes out through her art, just like the first time. Like the showmakers told us, this ending implies that love conquers all and she will become shadowhunter again – no matter how long it takes. Jace and Clary are able to reconnect and fall in love all over again in a world that – perhaps - is more peaceful now. Perhaps this is the “Angels’ way of forgiveness” – a new start. Ruelle’s song in the background tells it all to us. This does not decrease her character development – she has gone through her own struggles also in the life she remembers and I am sure that she would or will become even more awesome. And if there will be no spin off or renewal, we get to imagine our own kind of ending to them.

All being said, even if she wasn’t on screen as much as generally hoped, this was still Clary’s episode and her legacy will move on, whatever comes of her. She is talked among every character in the show and is never forgotten. That’s why, in my opinion being happy about Shadowhunter-cancellation or “ending of this shitshow” (as someone calls it) because of Clary’s fate is no use. Kat really did this character justice, has grown up with her and is hopefully on her way to brighter success. So those, who loved Kat and Clary from the start, keep supporting them and spreading their legacy. And those, who got into the train of their fans somewhat later or just now – it’s never too late to start.

#shadowhunters #clary fairchild #clary fray #clary morgernstern #my opinion #kat mcnamara #clace

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go-redgirl · 4 years

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2019 Was the Year That Democrats Went Off the RailsCOMMENTARY.

By Frank MieleDecember 30, 2019

Every year at this time, it is incumbent upon us columnists to gird ourselves with chest-high waders and a deluxe trash grabber as we venture back through the muddy waters of another annum in search of significance.

Sometimes, it’s as clear as the pimple on a teenager’s nose. Other times it’s as obscure as the reason why anyone would invest their life savings in blockchain — whatever that is. Usually, it’s a mixed bag. You pays your money and you takes your choice.

For me, I’m going to remember 2019 as the Democrats’ last stand. The party of Thomas Jefferson was given the keys to the nation’s future and told, simply, don’t drive it off the road. Instead, the Democrats honored their Southern roots and decided to go mud bogging! Might have been fun if they had four-wheel drive, but they were stuck with the antique transmission of the Constitution. Voters were sure to notice when the yee-haw Democrats covered them with dirt, ground the gears to dust, and spun the engine into oblivion.

How we got here:

Jan. 3: Democrats took over the Animal House of Representatives and immediately pledged to take down President Trump in the mistaken belief that he is really Dean Vernon Wormer. Nancy Pelosi auditioned for the role of chapter president, but was told she was born to play the John Belushi part of “Bluto,” the pathological sergeant-at-arms. That big nasty gavel sure does make power go to one’s head — and you don’t have to be a good ol’ boy to understand that!

Jan. 15: An apparent messiah complex leads Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand to join dozens (hundreds?) of other Democrats offering themselves as the Chosen One to defeat DJT. Political spin doctors warn that the delusion could spread rapidly and, indeed, before the year is half over, it has infected Jay Inslee, Marianne Williamson, John Hickenlooper, Beto O’Rourke, Bill de Blasio, Julian Castro, Steve Bullock and other non-entities. It appears, however, that although non-politicians were for the most part immune, a related condition resulted in uncontrollable laughter whenever two or three people gathered to discuss the state of the Democratic primary.

Jan. 29: Democrats encountered a detour on their road to ruin when “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett claimed to be the victim of a hate crime on the streets of Chicago in the middle of the coldest night of the year. The noose still hanging around his neck when police came to his door later may have seemed like the perfect prop to TV star Smollett, but to everyone else it seemed like a giant neon light shouting, “Give me attention!” Did I say everyone? Oops. Not Democrats, who have mastered the marriage of victimhood and hagiography. To them, St. Jussie was the second coming of Tawana Brawley. Oh, wait. This is getting way too uncomfortable! It’s almost like Democrats specialize in phony attacks and disingenuous outrage. Hmmm. On Feb. 21, Smollett was arrested for filing a false police report, but thanks to a corrupt system in Chicago, he walked away without even a slap on the wrist for his staged hate crime. Did I mention Chicago?

March 22: I know Democrats thought that Robert Mueller was the Easter Bunny, but when he delivered his report on Trump and Russia, it turned out to be a big goose egg. Attorney General Bill Barr tried to warn the nation that there was “no there there,” but we didn’t know he was talking about the space between Mueller’s ears until July 24 when the special counsel testified before the House Judiciary Committee. Turned out that Mueller doesn’t even recognize the name of Fusion GPS, the company that hired Christopher Steele to write the dossier that was behind the entire phony Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy sham. Case closed. But the Democrat conspiracy elves cobbled together a new hoax that was ready to go 24 hours later — the Ukrainian extortion quid pro quo bribery scandal. This time, surely it would be the beginning of the end for that impostor president!

March 25: CNN’s preferred candidate for president, porn-star lawyer Michael Avenatti, is arrested for a real extortion scheme he allegedly plotted against Nike. Over the next month, Avenatti, the darling of the Never Trumpers, would be indicted and charged with north of 40 federal crimes. The presidency would have to wait for a better con man.

April 25: Enter Joe Biden. Ignoring former boss Barack Obama’s wise counsel that “You don’t have to do this, Joe,” Biden commits professional suicide by announcing his candidacy for president, thus ensuring he will leap from comfortable irrelevancy to irrelevant corrupt con-man politician who will eventually have to answer for his bragging about a quid pro quo in Ukraine. Talk about poetic justice!

May 3: Unemployment falls to 3.6% in the United States, the lowest in 49 years. By October, it is down to 3.5%, setting the 50-year record, and jobless numbers for blacks, Latinos and other minorities are at all-time lows. Nor surprisingly, the Democrats blame Trump for the horrible economy because — well — there was nothing else they could do.

June 27: Wait, there actually was something else the Democrats could do. All 10 Democrat candidates in the first presidential primary debate on NBC raised their hands when asked if they would guarantee health-care coverage for illegal aliens. Democrats swooned, but the rest of us just felt sick.

Aug. 24: At their summer convention in San Francisco, the Democrats voted against holding a climate-change presidential debate. Three days later, 16-year-old climate phenom Greta Thunberg arrived in New York City propelled only by her own hot air across the Atlantic from her native Sweden. Told she is too early to appear as a teenage blimp in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, she decides instead to testify at the U.N. on gaseous emissions, of which she has become an expert. Somehow she never gets around to telling the Democrats what she thinks about their decision to sidetrack the climate debate. How dare they!

Aug. 28: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand withdraws from the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. LOL.

Sept. 3: The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passes a resolution calling the National Rifle Association a “domestic terrorist organization.” In response, the NRA passes its own resolution calling the San Francisco Board of Supervisors “a lime Jell-O salad with marshmallows.” At least that’s what I think they did. Reporting on this is somewhat vague.

Sept. 8: Disgraced former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford announces his primary challenge to President Trump. As part of his doomed bid for attention, Sanford simultaneously announces he will be departing the race on Nov. 12, but because he is not wearing a noose around his neck, the media misses the story altogether.

Sept. 9: The inspector general of the intelligence community, Michael Atkinson, draws the short straw and is forced to launch a third unsuccessful coup attempt against President Trump by the CIA involving the “urgent” and “credible” whistleblower complaint that turned out to be “irrelevant” and “partisan” a few days later when President Trump released the consensus transcript of his call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. When will they ever learn? Oh, well, after Trump is reelected, they will have four more years to get their impeachment-coup machine in working order. If at first you fail to smear, try, try again.

Sept. 20: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announces his withdrawal from the presidential race. New Yorkers tremble in fear at the prospect of his return to work.

Sept. 24: In a legacy-building move, Nancy Pelosi announces she will go after the Guinness Book of World Records title for shortest successful impeachment proceeding in history. In a surprise, she also added a last-minute bid to win the title for the impeachment with the least evidence, and Guinness decided to award her that one summarily. As one Guinness judge was overheard to remark about Trump’s call with President Zelensky, “That was a perfect call. How the hell does she impeach with that call? Damn, she’s good.”

Then, in a shocking turn of events, the entire fourth quarter of 2019 was canceled on account of impeachment. Speaker Pelosi, who had been holding the nation hostage since September, is expected to free the impeachment sometime early in 2020, but the nation itself will remain a prisoner throughout most of the year as Pelosi and her henchmen in the media continue to pretend that the other shoe is about to drop, leading to a bombshell revelation that this is the beginning of the end of President Trump, who will nonetheless breeze to reelection on his pledge to Keep America Great and to keep the socialist Democrats at bay.

I, for one, can’t wait for 2020, but it will be hard to top 2019 if you enjoy a good laugh at the expense of liberals.

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archandbillwiseguys · 5 years

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Toy Story 4: Pixar Pulls Strings

June 20, 2019

Toy Story 4 **** Rating: G Run Time: 1 hour 40 minutes Stars: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Annie Potts, Tony Hale Writers: Andrew Stanton and Stephany Folsom Director: Josh Cooley

Bill: My feelings about Toy Story 4 could not be more mixed: It’s extremely well-produced and it’s nice to see these characters again — yet I sort of wish it had never been made.

Arch: I know how you feel. I’m not bowled over by it, and some of it dragged. But I wouldn’t criticize it. I came away feeling the movie is just a solid, safe bet. It’s not very creative. I supposed you could say it advances the story of the first three films, but it’s an easy way for Disney to program what’s in theaters. You can’t argue with Tom Hanks voicing that character Woody, and I suppose it sort of answers the question “What happens to toys when they become antiques?”

Bill: True, but that question was actually answered in Toy Story 2, when a collector wanted to put Woody on display.

Arch: I guess you’re right.

Bill: There’s one stroke of brilliance in Toy Story 4, and that’s the introduction of Forky, a toy made by a little girl out of a spork and pipe cleaners.

Arch: Yes! And he’s voiced by Tony Hale. I’m glad to see him building on that great character he created on Veep.

Bill: Not to mention Buster on Arrested Development.

Arch: I noticed that in Toy Story 4 they play Forky up and play Buzz Lightyear down.

Bill: It’s a testament to how real these characters became in the first three films that I spent much of Toy Story 4 feeling bad for Buzz. He’s really pushed back into a supporting role. We see more of Bo Peep than we do of Buzz, and even the scenes he’s in are for the most part tangential to the plot — or plots, actually, since this film has four or five storylines. It very much plays like it was written by committee — you can almost imagine being in the writers’ room: “Let’s have Woody ride a zip line”…”Yeah, and we’ll have a wild chase through a carnival.” No one is really concerned with a story arc. Which is unfortunate, because the one thing you could always count on in a Pixar film was a nice, clean narrative.

Arch: Still, there’s continuity. For example, I noticed that they still use the voices of dead people. Don Rickles was in there, and he’s been gone for two years!

Bill: I was surprised to hear Don — and I noticed the film is dedicated to him. There are lots of voice cameos that go by so quickly the only way you’ll know about them is to wait around for the credits. There’s Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner and Betty White and Bill Hader and Carol Burnett. Some of them get just one line. It smacks of a marketing gimmick — they can have all those celebs go on TV and talk about the film.

Arch: I did like Christina Hendricks as Gabby Gabby, a creepy talking doll who has nefarious plans for Woody. And Keanu Reeves is fun as a Canadian stunt driver toy. Plus Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key are delightful as a couple of plush carnival prizes.

Bill: I predict they will be the next spin-off.

Arch: I must say as fantastic as the animation was in the earlier Toy Story films, the computer animation in this one seems even more advanced.

Bill: There’s a scene where the toys are walking behind a display case in an antique store, and there are cobwebs floating around above their heads. It is absolutely haunting.

Arch: The way the characters move and talk is as realistic as can be.

Bill: Well, as real as walking, talking toys can be!

Arch: True.

Bill: Of course, back in 1995 Woody and Buzz were designed for ease of animation — just like Walt Disney made Mickey Mouse all circles, so he’d be easy to draw over and over. Now, in Toy Story 4, some of the newer characters are so meticulously detailed the old guys almost seem like they’re from a different movie.

Arch: There are some real scares in Toy Story 4. Gabby Gabby is already creepy, but then she’s got these henchmen who are hideous ventriloquist dummies.

Bill: They are terrifying! I just might end up with nightmares about those guys. The way they drag their feet and their heads hang off to one side. Argh!

Arch: Old guys like us will notice they look like demented Charlie McCarthies.

Bill: Ventriloquist dummies are always terrifying in the movies. Remember Magic with Anthony Hopkins and the dummy who orders him around? I feel like Gabby Gabby’s name is a throwback to The Great Gabbo, where Erich Von Stroheim plays a mad ventriloquist.

Arch: There’ s also a reference to The Shining thrown in, which is kind of fun. But you know, the toys climbing around and going on adventures dragged a little for me. It was the same old thing.

Bill: What bothers me about Toy Story 4 is what you were getting at earlier: Yes, it advances the story, but I feel like it advances the story the way The Godfather Part III did. The sense seems to be: Let’s take these iconic characters and shoehorn them into a plot. Toy Story 3 was so perfectly constructed there were no loose ends to tie up. The writers had to go all they way back to Toy Story 2 to find an unresolved element: Whatever happened to Bo Peep? Everything about this film is pretty perfect, but it’s sort of like going to a class reunion when you really said all your goodbyes last time.

Arch: Interesting you should say that. I went to my 50th class reunion five years ago, and now they’re having another one. The 55th. But I’m not gonna go. I had my big reunion.

Bill: We should brace ourselves for Toy Story 5, which will be like you having to go to your 60th reunion.

Arch: What do you think? Will Forky become the new lead in the series? It’ll be interesting to see if Woody returns. Tom Hanks is our Henry Fonda.

Bill: Whatever they do, you know the execution will be first-rate. And I must add that the folks at Pixar do know how to plug into your sentimental side, even when you’re trying to resist it. There was exactly one point in Toy Story 4 when I found myself tearing up — toward the end, when we encounter a little girl who’s lost at a carnival.

Arch: Oh, yes.

Bill: We have never seen her before, and narratively she simply serves as a handy resolution to a problem. But that scene — the lighting, the character design, the sheer emotion of the writing — it’s what stuck with me when the movie was over. It just shows the power of good storytelling, even in its briefest form.

Arch: And it’s significant that it’s the one part of the movie we feel like we’ve never seen before. It was a real child in peril, and they played it just right.

Bill: Despite all my complaints, I’d recommend Toy Story 4 to anyone who loved the first three films. Go ahead, capitulate to your Disney Overlords.

Arch: All Hail Mickey!

#ToyStory4 #Review #ArchCampbell #BillNewcott #Toy Story 4

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faygosmayhem · 7 years

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Story Time #3- Final Fantasy & Me: Part Three

Landmines EVERYWHERE:

I love Final Fantasy XII. I also hate it with seething contempt of 10,000 scorned and angry Cactuars. When the game launched I couldn’t even let myself get excited. I was deep into a period of ‘permanent grounding’ that cut me off from the world and everything else I loved (another story for another time). I stayed that way from February to December of ‘06, miserable and only getting worse. Come Christmas my parents gifted me with Final Fantasy XII. I thought it needlessly cruel at the time because they were still holding all of my electronics hostage and I had no way of playing it, but I came to understand that in giving me the game they were also giving back most of the things they had taken.

This time, I was also given a guide to go along with it. At the start, and probably against my better judgement, I tucked the guide away with the rest of them for use only after had gotten through the game once, as usual. I had gotten a good half-way through before I decided to take a peek to look up some information on where I could find a particular spell. ‘Just that one thing,’ I told myself as I flipped through to the index.

Of course, as I was going through a picture happened to catch my eye. Unable to help myself, I went back to it to check if I was really seeing it correctly. The picture was of 12 treasure coffers neatly lined in rows of four along a beach, with a note beside it in big,bold, lettering warning not to open ANY of them. I read a little further and discovered that this was one of four spots in the game where opening the treasure causes the best weapon in the game to disappear forever.

At that point I nearly threw the game out the window, who does shit like that? There is absolutely no way for that to be discovered on your own, as the game makes no mention of it anywhere. I could have continued playing as I had planned, but if the game was going to pull tricky crap like that I was going to be in for one hell of a second playthrough. So, already about thirty hours into the game I scrapped the file and played it over while following the guide, grumbling about it the whole way. Turns out there’s more than one section in the game that’s nearly impossible without help if you don’t want to spent countless hours banging your head against the wall.

Final Fantasy XII is hard. Not only does it have a lot of complex puzzles and tough enemies, you basically have to program the AI yourself or the party is going to be completely ineffective. It really doesn’t help that the game makes you pay for those little bits of code either. It takes a lot of repetitive grinding to get through everything, and I can’t tell you how many hours I spent looping the zones over and over for LP, and Gil.

The story is probably the most mature in the series, and full of socio-political intrigue and complicated scientific concepts. I used to play the game with a dictionary handy so I could decipher what the hell Vayne and the Judges were talking about. The cast of characters is rather polarizing for me, containing one of my all-time favorites, Balthier the debonair sky-pirate, and my least favorite of all the games- Penelo.

I didn’t like her character from the start, I found her voice annoying, had an unexplained problem with her attitude, and absolutely could not stand her costume and hairstyle. The true reason for my hate of her, however, is that in my version of the game, for some unfathomable reason, her AI would set off EVERY SINGLE TRAP in the dungeon- even with Libra on. I had to switch her out or control her manually to stop this from happening, and since I was doing my best to level the party evenly just leaving her alone was not an option. By the end of the game I was so fed up with babysitting her I used to kill her on purpose out of spite. Yeah, I could've saved myself the effort by just making her the leader when it was the girls’ turn to grind, I found it much more enjoyable to watch Fran walk instead- her tail physics were hypnotizing.

Final Fantasy XII caused a lot of frustration for me. There were several times I wanted to just set it down and never think about it again, but in the end it became the game I’ve spent the most time on. The game is very long and some of the individual fights can take upwards of 4 hours (I went to go make sandwiches twice while fighting Yiazmat, about 50 million HP is a little much, don’t you think devs?), but became one of the most rewarding once everything was completed thanks to that stupid Sky Pirate’s Den feature.

If you’re reading this and skipped XII for whatever reason when it first launched, I recommend looking into the new re-master, Zodiac Age. It’s been tempting me for a while, I was actually at the Distant Worlds concert in Pennsylvania when the information on the remaster was first leaked by the game’s composer, I just don’t know if I have the will-power to pick it up again.

A Visually Appealing Corridor Simulator:

After finally finishing XII in ‘07, I didn’t touch a Final Fantasy game for about four years. Not like there really was anything to touch, exactly- but that’s beside the point. During those four years my life took a rather interesting turn, and I found myself immersed more in Tabletop RPGs and MMOs than anything else. It wasn’t until 2011, a year after I left my life in Arizona behind and moved to Pennsylvania that I once again found myself as the recipient of a shiny new PS3 and a copy of Final Fantasy XIII.

I’m very glad I was able to go into this game with very little expectation, else I would’ve ended up disliking it a great deal more than I did. For the most part I don’t hate the game, but I can understand why a lot of people do. Final Fantasy XIII mostly just makes me sad because of what the game could have been. All those beautifully designed and intricate set pieces were reduced to nothing but bland hallways because of an attempt to appeal to a larger American audience, mostly due to the fact that the game was released cross-platform for the Xbox 360 as well.

There are a lot of problems with Final Fantasy XIII. The characters are annoying and not very fleshed out, the plot is not cohesive and almost indecipherable, and about 80% of the game is walking down a never-ending hallway, and they don’t even get around to fully fleshing out the mechanics until the game is almost over.

Despite all of this I thought the game was OK. I was impressed by the cut-scenes (the one at the end where they all roll up to Eden during the hover-bike race on the backs of their Eidolons is a personal favorite), thought the fast-paced combat was pretty fun, and had a pretty good time making fun of the ridiculous characters. The ending was another very serious “WTF?” moment, but pretty much the whole game up to that point had been, but I do admit to tearing up when Sazh is re-united with his son.

I was even thankful, though a bit disappointed, to find out that I didn’t even need to play the game all the way through again to complete it. That is, until I tried to do it. It’s no secret that completing a Final Fantasy game, or any RPG for that matter, takes a great deal of time and dedication to repetitive action. Completing Final Fantasy XIII, however, was the most mind-numbing endeavor I’ve ever attempted. Prepare yourselves for a rant involving lots of math, because this shit got real (I’ll set the math between lines so those that really don’t care can just skip it).

To get one of the gold trophies, you need to own one of every weapon and accessory in the game. The only way to get most of these things in the game is to upgrade them using Gil and drops acquired from monsters. The only way to make money in the game is by selling monster drops. The item worth the most is a 25% drop from the hardest enemies in the game. Even If you execute the strategy needed to kill them absolutely perfectly, which is incredibly tricky, it still takes 5-6 minutes just to kill ONE of them, and there are only about seven or eight different spawn points for them in the game (don’t quote me on that), most of them in the same zone.

In order to upgrade everything I needed by the time I was ready to tackle this challenge, I needed about 1.5 million gil. The 25% common drop from the monster is worth 150,000, and you need SIX additional abysmally rare drops from the same creature in order to get every character their best weapon. In a perfect world, you need to kill around 40 of these stupid things for the money alone, and I would about quadruple that value for the rare drops. In an imperfect world, there are also days where you have no luck, mess up the strategy and take too long to kill the monster, or get killed yourself and get set back.

The fastest way I found to get everything I needed was to use the long hallway right before the final boss where one of the creatures spawns at the beginning. There”s a save point at both ends of the hallway and it’s littered with other difficult encounters that can yield some other items worth a decent amount of money if done correctly. Passing through this hallway in one direction fighting everything takes about 30 to 45 minutes. Using some easy zone-out manipulation you can fight a grand total of THREE creatures in the span of about an hour and a half.

For the final stretch of this game I spent upwards of eight hours a day, everyday, for the span of about two whole weeks doing nothing but running down that hallway fighting the same monsters, in the same patterns, over and over again until I finally had everything I needed. This reason alone is why I will never again touch a copy of Final Fantasy XIII.

Want More? Hell No. Well...You’re Getting It Anyway

XIII-2 and Lightning Returns were games that served almost no purpose. Even though the end of XIII didn’t make a whole lot of sense, it was still an almost complete resolution that didn’t really leave any loose ends. Aside from the obvious ‘to make money’ there was no real reason to give us another entry for a story that most people were unimpressed and dissatisfied with, rather than making the games that were already announced that the fan base was dying for.

There’s an optimistic part of me that wants to believe that XIII-2 was created mostly out of desire to fix the gaping flaws of the game that came before and give the fans and developers a chance to see what XIII should have been.That satisfies me, until I remember that they ended it with a cliff-hanger that needed yet another game to resolve.

I did enjoy playing XIII-2, and was happy to finally have a more complete version of the world from XIII. What they did with the story, however, was not something I was a fan of. The plot of XIII was complicated enough. Throw in time travel, world paradoxes, and non-linear story telling, and you get something so contrived it’s not even worth trying to piece together.

By time Lightning Returns finally graced us with its presence, I was done. I played the game for about two hours, became infuriated that the game was based around mechanics I absolutely loathe and set it aside. I didn’t even bother looking up the end of the story on YouTube- by that point I really didn’t care. I don’t think I’ll ever be desperate enough to pick it back up again.

What We’ve All Been Waiting For:

Think back on the past ten years of your life. While doing that, remember that during that whole period, the devs of Final Fantasy XV were working on the same project. I can’t even begin to imagine what that cycle must of been like for those people, and what a triumph it must have been to see it finally on the shelves.

It’s even harder to reconcile what we got with how long it took them to make it. The incomplete feeling of the story from XV is very hard to deal with thinking back on just how much time they took to tell it. Part of me gets it; DLC, money, also making realistic games is hard and takes forever. I absolutely understand that the developers were trying to take a new angle with the series, and that they didn’t want to get to crazy with ham-fisted storytelling like pretty much every other installment, but even with the DLC we’re still missing some pretty significant chunks of the narrative.

Honestly that’s about my only complaint about the game, and it’s with good reason.

I fell more in love with the characters of Final Fantasy XV than I have with any other form of media. The casual interactions and mannerisms of the four boys are so heartfelt, so real, and such a joy to watch. From that first moment spent pushing the car to the opening notes of ‘Stand By Me’ (which is now my favorite into sequence in the series), I could tell that these characters were something special. The first time I heard Ignis’ exclaim “That’s it!” after staring idly at a random sign at a diner my heart fluttered, and I was completely charmed. The first time Prompto sang the victory theme I knew I was hooked for good.

Something about these boys just makes me happy. Not only are they all so nice to look at, but their mannerisms and interactions really make you want to know them. I really don’t understand how this game got away with having such fantastic characters in a terribly fleshed out story. While playing, I cared deeply about what happened to the four boys (and still do, as evidenced by how much time I still spend in the fan community). When they laughed, I laughed. When they were sad, so was I. When they were hurt, I couldn’t wait to get out there and ruthlessly murder the cause of it. I wanted to know everything about them, and found myself filling in my own information when there was none offered (particularly with Ignis, because that boy gets ZERO backstory).

It’s no secret that I’m obsessed with this game, and likely will be for quite a while still. Even with the problems I have with the story, it’s still at the peak of series for me. I can only hope that in the future they fill in the holes, and we can keep the boys with us for a long time still to come.

Well. That was a thing. All total I spent about 18 hours writing this out, and had more fun with it than I’ve had writing anything in a while. Final Fantasy is such a huge part of my life and it was almost astonishing to look back and really remember what each of these games mean to me, and why nothing will ever replace them.

Thanks to anyone who took the time to read my long-winded rambling, you are wonderful. If you’re feeling a nostalgic as well, then I know I’ve done my job right. It will be interesting to see what else comes out of this little experiment of mine.

Until next time

~Faygo

#Final Fantasy #Dafetcha'sDumptruck

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bisexuallittlefreaks · 7 years

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wip

list all the things you’re currently working on in as much or little detail as you’d like, then tag some friends to see what they’re working on. this can be writing, art, vids, gifsets, whatever.

tagged by @cilophyte <3

A Discussion on Monogamy

this is a little mcspirk post beyond ditty (okay, i say little...) that happened because i’m a diehard mckirk shipper but beyond was so damn spones-y and i love mcspirk so ta da. it’s two chapters in--one focusing on jim freaking out that bones might leave him, the second a pwp mcspirk goodness, and there’s one chapter left to write. i swear i will write it soon, i swear to god.

Untitled McSpirk Longfic

this is the reason i’m so determined to finished a discussion on monogamy. because it’s the prequel to this long ass fic i have almost entirely planned out with some great whumpiness (esp on bones’s part), badass ladies, a guest appearance from jocelyn and joanna, and much more. the worst part is i haven’t written any storyboarding down for this... ha.

Make Me Alive

we move away from star trek but not away from karl urban. this is an Almost Human fic (and if you haven’t seen it, do because it’s only 13 episodes and greatly underappreciated--just make sure to watch it in production order, not airing order). i’m over 20k words into this one and i’m just finishing up the first of three acts. ha. it’s basically a shippy (jorian) season two featuring more danicas, vaughn’s return, and ANNA. i’m trying to explain all those plot holes we were left with because only one season and i’m about to introduce some new characters, my favorite being the medical examiner, reilly glover, who is genderqueer and epic. we have a couple more murders to solve and vaughn has yet to show his face, and let me tell you the resolution with vaughn is going to be so. damn. satisfying.

i’m putting a read more here because at this point everything else is original work

Lights in the Mountains (Gisola)

a long time ago i finished my first full original book. it was a grand total of fifty pages and i’d been fighting with it for about seven years. i then went to a writing workshop and came out with the courage to trash it finally. i spent the entire next day with a notebook trying to come up with a new story. i decided to pick out bits and pieces (settings, characters, storylines) from all the other stories i’d come up with over the years that i always loved and mash them together. this is the result. it’s about two cities who suddenly find themselves under attack from a monster from the mountains and two individuals who travel over the mountains to try and find a solution. instead they find out that everything they thought they knew was... well, not wrong, exactly, just... misconstrued. it’s an urban fantasy with polyamory, queerness, false gods and evil racist asshats, a small dragon-like creature who’s everyone’s lovable uncle, and a weird mix of technology and magic.

there is also a prequel planned for this story called Secrets in the Sea that features an asexual siren and i can’t really say more without going much more into detail about Lights in the Mountains.

Fallen

this is my baby. this started out as a book, and then it was a stage play, and now it’s a miniseries. this was inspired by a snapshot scene in a dream of an angel waking up to realize her wings are falling apart. in her grief she absolutely tears them to shreds herself. the imagery was so compelling i came up with an entire six episode story around it and that scene doesn’t happen until the last fifteen minutes of the last episode. the full story is about two very different women who survived the apocalypse and start to (unwillingly at first) gather a group of survivors with the sole purpose of trying to survive. (well, and for one of the women to exact revenge on a demon for the death of her little sister.) very much supernatural inspired (in case that wasn’t obvious...), but i like to think it’s better if only because there are queer characters, complicated moral issues (that angel ain’t so angelic and that demon ain’t so demonic), a lot more women (though, to be fair, they were all dudes until charlie bradbury died and i went on a rampage through my stories of WHY DOES THIS PERSON HAVE TO BE A DUDE? THEY DON’T. THEY’RE A LADY NOW. FUCK YOU), and an actual ending in sight.

The Dragon Princess (not the final title)

the dragon didn’t kidnap and eat the princess, the dragon /is/ the princess. and no one knows until izzy, a firework maker’s apprentice, is literally picked up into the air by said dragon princess. kind of a lesbian beauty and the beast story except the dragon/beast is sweet and ridiculously socially unprepared instead of a bit of a dick. there’s also a gaston-type villain, but he’s a Nice Guy (TM). i really don’t have much figured out beyond that for this story, but there you are.

No Man’s Frontier

this was a novel and then i realized i don’t know cowboy stories well enough so it’s now a movie where i’ll get some good experts to come in and help. this is one of those mixing two story types together things--dragons live in the western area of north america. the railway has died because of the dragons and people are moving back east. our asexual hero (yep, more asexual characters--you can expect a lot of them in my original stuff) meets a dragon who’s been outcast from it’s pack and injured and realizes maybe dragons aren’t all that bad after all. we have all the classic cowboy story elements including the chieftess of an american indian tribe, a grizzled old asshole cowboy, and of course--ending with a ride into the sunset. just this time it’s on a dragon instead of a horse.

The Children’s Circus

this is a television series that has some heroes elements in it. long ago in the 30s, 40s, there was an orphanage that was hit with lightning and all the children suddenly found they had powers. that same night the woman in charge of the orphanage disappeared so the oldest boy (who’d been out when the lightning hit and therefore didn’t get powers) found himself in charge but too young to work and still take care of the children. he decides the best way to keep all these children together and safe is to start a traveling freak show. fast forward to modern day.

a construction site’s found something odd and the police are called in. our two cop heroes investigate to find there’d been a mudslide on the site decades--almost a century--ago and somehow everything was perfectly preserved. everything being a freak show full of children. while they’re looking around, the children start moving. not only were they perfectly preserved--they’re still alive.

and that’s just episode one.

No Time

i’m not sure what this is going to be--book, movie, television, etc. this is a vonnegut inspired story so that alone should tell you a lot about the vibe at the very least. it takes place on a planet where the cloud cover is so heavy that there’s no night or day. there’s no way to measure time, so by all rights, there is no time. the planet is very peaceful and chill until one of our heroes who asks too many questions finds a way to send a small shuttle above the cloud cover and discovers there’s an entire universe out there. this leads to a complete societal meltdown.

Time Menders

this is a movie trilogy with elements of doctor who, firefly, terra nova (another fox network scifi series that ended too soon), and star wars. ...probably some of things as well, but those are the most obvious. ...i have no way to explain the plot of this story right now without way too many words, so i’ll just say there’s time travel, alternate universes, black holes, and slightly psychic children (in the manner of river tam).

and there you have it. my wips. i won’t tag anyone, but feel free to do this if you feel inclined :*

#jesus fuck this is long #hi yes i have too many story ideas

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visionandperception · 7 years

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Eurus, The East Wind

From TFP’s trailer:

Every choice you have ever made, every path you have ever taken, the man you are today, it’s your memory of Eurus. - Mycroft Holmes to Sherlock Holmes (he’s in 221B, so I’m guessing his interlocutor). (x, check with your own ears).

What a trauma she did to Sherlock so he built his entire life from one name?

It’s more than “kill his dog”. It’s deeper. More horrible, I guess; she tried to harm Sherlock. Eurus did something that marked him in a way as deep as the ocean.

Don’t you get it?

“I’m a high functioning sociopath”, even though “caring is not an advantage” was taught by Mycroft, all of his self-hatred, his repression, all of this, ALL, was caused by someone. Why is he like this?

The East Wind. Eurus. She was the incarnation of the bedtime story that when he was a kid used to let him terrified. Wonder from where, no, from whom Mycroft took the inspiration for the tale? Eurus Holmes.

The neglected daughter. A sociopath, that wouldn’t mind to do whatever it’s needed to be done to get what she wanted.

All Sherlock is, is due to the actions of his, I’m guessing, elder sister.

She must had done something awful, so horrible, that he didn’t see her after that. And he was young, less than 15, I’m sure (intuition, I say). This is why he never identify “Faith” or “John’s new therapist”. He doesn’t remember her face in a way he can know how she would be like when she was 40-50 years.

Look at a picture from your childhood. Could a stranger, or your childhood’s friend say you are the same person from the photo, now that you are in your 40′s? No. Specially, because Sherlock managed to hide all his memories related to The East Wind, that was always coming to get him in his darkest nightmares.

When he was dying, the monstrous force that would get him wasn’t a fairy-tale. It was his sister. Sort of a representation of the death. Death waits us all in Samarra. Pay attention, people.

He knows, obviously, that Eurus is the god that represents the East Wind, even subconsciously. And Eurus is his beloved sister. But she probably hates him. The gold boy, perhaps?

She wants revenge. But why?

She’s probably done something when they were kids-teens and was sent away “forever”, erased from her parents’ photos, transformed into the secret, a person who people related to The Holmeses know that exists/existed, but it’s never, ever, mentioned, because it hurts.

Look. After god knows how many years, she comes back, the great force, and do all of that, carefully planned, to burn her brother’s heart. Why would she want to kill John? She is inserted in 221B, she know her brother died, resurrected, was tortured and killed for J. Watson. It’s not the biggest deduction: he loves him deeply.

But there is more, always, we can’t just have this plot twist alone, can we?

She wrote something on that paper:

Miss Me?

This sentence has a particular owner. When you use an iconic sentence like that, you have an intention:

You make a relation between two characters. But wait.

They have done this before! Mary’s video was entitled “Miss Me?”. Guys, there is not such thing as coincidences on a television show that is carefully planned and calculated. Specially when “Miss Me?” was on the fandom’s mind for such a long time, three years per God’s sake!

Now, we see Sherlock finding the paper from Faith. But how will he know where to go? A sudden deduction that Faith is John’s therapist and she’s gonna kill him? Sorry, I love his “power of deduction”, but I want to know all of his reasoning if he appears there the moment Eurus squeezes the trigger? And then we get Garridebs and all? It will be dramatic, I will adore it, put on frame, but wait.

Is there the bloodstain, right? However, how did he identify someone’s blood? Just like that. A look. How?

I hope all of these questions will be answered in The Final Problem, also known as Family Business. No wonder why the Russians preferred this title...

But let’s move to another topic:

Who’s Eurus? We presumed she’s Sherrinford, but the possibility is there.

“Why people stop looking after three?” (I’m quoting from my mind)

Also, she’s one of the four Wind’s gods. Wouldn’t be nice, the universe working for Moftiss, if as they are four gods, there are four siblings?

I’ve seen people pointing out that:

1) Sherrinford is Eurus’ tower. Where Mycroft keeps her under surveillance, or at least attempt to, but she’s so clever, brother mine, you wouldn’t imagine.

2) Redbeard’s is Sherrinford’s nickname when he plays “let’s be pirates”. And Eurus killed “Redbeard”, that is, their brother.

3) Redbeard was really Sherlock’s dog. Eurus poisoned him. Sherrinford can be anywhere in this equation.

4) Eurus and Sherrinford are the same.

5) Eurus and Sherlock are twins X Sherlock and Sherrinford are twins

Among others. This powerful, intriguing woman is now the focus of attention. Jim wouldn’t be happy, he loves to be the center.

@badsnowfo pointed out about the possibility of all of this trauma being related to how Sherlock perhaps revealed, when he was young, that Mr. Holmes was cheating on Mrs. Holmes. You can find this here + my addition that’s more like a headcanon, but anyway, I’m putting the link.

We have to keep on our minds that whatever she did, this event determined everything that happened after on Sherlock’s life. How he acts, how he understands the world. Himself.

And this will be somehow related to The Final Problem, that traces a line to Jim Moriarty, therefore burning Sherlock’s heart (apparently, everyone is invested on this, from Eurus to Mary(she’s still a villain, whether you like it, or not)), consequently to John Watson. From there, we have the leaked photo, so the line goes to Mycroft Holmes (M-Theory says hi). And we still have to have on this episode a soft kiss, at least 5 minutes dedicated to this resolution. It shouldn’t be one more among the others that are needed to be given to us. A little bit messy, isn’t it? And don’t forget, please, all The Six Thatchers’s inconsistencies. They need to explain it all. In 90 minutes? And do it in a way we get johnlock in the best scenario, as well with all of the others thing. Are you still waiting for The Fall’s explication? Good luck with that. Oh, and John’s letter to Sherlock. Who’s watching from the window.

Now, I believe that Eurus is going to exceed expectations.

(x)

And wait. I don’t have the episode here, with me, but aren’t these, behind her, apples? Well then, if they are, you all know this is a blatant nod to Jim Moriarty.

She does a long walk to reach John. She could just shot him from the beginning, no explanations. But she likes the audience. They always do. What’s the fun if you can’t reveal the truth and see the shock on their faces?

She goes through a lot of trouble.

She is the one John had an affair with, even though it was “just texting”.

She is the one who spent a whole evening with Sherlock, leading him to Culverton’s case. Did she pretend to be suicidal just to see what he would do? A glance at her little baby brother before giving a great finale to his life?

She is the one that pretended to be his therapist, just to get him there.

It’s a great plan. So when you take the mask off there is the extra drama and “oh. my. god!”? All for that?

Oh, I was almost forgetting... there is the hallucination that Sherlock has, twice. He as a child, dressed as a pirate, playing on the beach. Redbeard is there, don’t you remember? There is also someone, some say is Mycroft, others say is a girl. Uou, well done, now you can even name her! Eurus Holmes with her ponytail. But this is a hidden memory. This is why it comes to his mind when:

1) Mary gives him that paper with a... what’s the name? that think that makes him faint? Anyway, I guess you remember, apparently it’s called The Church Scene, and it happens on TST.

2) He has a “relapse” (he screams with pain, the river is there, all that water) when talking to Faith/Eurus about how she can’t get her life from herself, because it’s not hers to take, she won’t be there to doesn’t have it.

So either something BAD happened that day, or it’s just one more memory he preferred to “delete” about Eurus. But he can’t really delete this kind of information. It’ll be always there, with a fog around. He can’t get rid of her. He knows probably exactly what happened, who she is, but avoid any memory that makes him remember he has a sister.

The only way to get over this trauma is facing it, facing her. And we know he’s stronger with John by his side. So, guess he’s going to be there if we get a confrontation. Perhaps we’ll find next episode, John bleeding, Sherlock finding him, and Eurus already away; because she heard her brother’s men were coming. I don’t know. I don’t believe she is going to get her end in the beginning of TFP. Not really.

Mycroft is going to go to 221B to talk about Eurus. But don’t get hopes about how this chat will clarify everything. Although, at least at the end of the episode, they will pull all the rugs. They need to explain SO MANY THINGS. And the things they will let unsaid, for Season 5, will be different from the last seasons. Now we get the conclusion of an arc. Remember, this is a music! Theater! Something so big is coming that well, Benedict said that after seeing the season we would understand why a time between this and the next season is necessary.

The East Wind comes to get us all, in the end.

#meta #sherlock #s4 #especulations #Eurus #eurus holmes #mycroft holmes #sherlock holmes #jim moriarty #the east wind #spoilers #s4 spoilers #sherlock spoilers #sherrinford #tfp #burning sherlock's heart

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kansascityhappenings · 4 years

Text

President Trump doubles down on striking cultural sites in Iran

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump insisted Sunday that Iranian cultural sites were fair game for the U.S. military, dismissing concerns within his own administration that doing so would constitute a war crime under international law. He also warned Iraq that the U.S. would levy punishing sanctions if it expelled American troops in retaliation for a U.S. strike in Baghdad that killed a top Iranian official.

Trump’s comments came amid escalating tensions in the Middle East following last week’s strike on Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds force. Iran has vowed to retaliate and Iraq’s parliament responded by voting Sunday to oust U.S. troops based in the country.

Trump first raised the prospect of targeting Iranian cultural sites Saturday in a tweet. Speaking with reporters Sunday as he returned to Washington from his holiday stay in Florida, he doubled down, despite international prohibitions.

“They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn’t work that way,” Trump said.

The targeted killing of Soleimani sparked outrage in the Middle East, including in Iraq, where more than 5,000 troops are still on the ground 17 years after the U.S. invasion. Iraq’s parliament voted Sunday in favor of a nonbinding resolution calling for the expulsion of the American forces.

Trump said the U.S. wouldn’t leave without being paid for its military investments in Iraq over the years — then said if the troops do have to withdraw, he would levy punishing economic penalties on Baghdad.

“We will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame,” he said. “If there’s any hostility, that they do anything we think is inappropriate, we are going to put sanctions on Iraq, very big sanctions on Iraq.”

He added: “We’re not leaving until they pay us back for it.”

Earlier Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. military may strike more Iranian leaders if the Islamic Republic retaliates. His comments came as other repercussions from the attack played out: the U.S. military coalition in Baghdad suspended training of Iraqi forces to concentrate on defending coalition troops; and in Beirut, the Lebanese Hezbollah chief said U.S. forces throughout the Mideast are fair targets for retaliation.

In Tehran, Iranian state television reported that the country will no longer abide by any limits of the 2015 nuclear deal it signed with the United States and other world powers. Trump withdrew the U.S. from the deal in 2018 and stepped up economic sanctions on Tehran — actions that accelerated a cycle of hostilities leading to the Soleimani killing.

The State Department had no immediate comment on Iran reportedly abandoning the nuclear deal, a move that holds the prospect of Iran accelerating its production of materials for a nuclear weapon.

Trump had issued warnings to Iran by tweet Sunday afternoon. “These Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner,” he wrote. “Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless!”

That tweet also appeared to serve as a warning to Congress – that Trump would respond quickly to any attack and without first gaining the approval of lawmakers. Democrats in Congress have complained that Trump’s order to kill Soleimani took place without first consulting with or informing top lawmakers, noting that Congress still holds sole power to declare war. Trump did meet the 48-hour deadline required by the War Powers Act to notify Congress of the deadly drone strike, though the document provided Saturday was entirely classified and no public version was released.

The White House faced a barrage of questions about the killing’s legality. Pompeo said the administration would have been “culpably negligent” in its duty to protect the United States if it had not killed Soleimani, although he did not provide evidence for his previous claims that Soleimani was plotting imminent attacks on Americans. Instead of arguing that an attack had been imminent, he said it was inevitable.

“We watched him continue to actively build out for what was going to be a significant attack – that’s what we believed – and we made the right decision,” he said, adding later: “We continue to prepare for whatever it is the Iranian regime may put in front of us within the next 10 minutes, within the next 10 days, and within the next 10 weeks.”

Congressional Democrats were skeptical.

“I really worry that the actions the president took will get us into what he calls another endless war in the Middle East. He promised we wouldn’t have that,” said Chuck Schumer of New York, the Senate’s top Democrat.

Schumer said Trump lacks the authority to engage militarily with Iran and Congress needs a new war powers resolution “to be a check on this president.” To which Pompeo said: “We have all the authority we need to do what we’ve done to date.”

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said the administration violated the Constitution by not consulting with Congress in advance.

“It’s also important because one, you potentially get members of Congress to buy in ahead of time, and two, they may ask that hard question that’s not asked in an insular group,” Warner said.

Congressional staffs got their first briefings from the administration on Friday, and members were expected to be briefed this week.

Pompeo’s appearance on six news shows may have been aimed at dissuading Iran from launching a major retaliation for the Soleimani killing. The Iranians have said the U.S. should expect a strong response. They have a range of options, from cyberattacks to military assaults.

It was unclear whether the administration would attempt a back-door communication with Iran in pursuit of its stated goal of “de-escalation” of tensions. Retired Gen. David Petraeus, an ex-CIA director and former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said he believes the administration needs a strategy for tamping down the chances of all-out war.

“I think the real question for the United States is, will there be a diplomatic initiative that says, OK, look, this is not headed in a good direction. We truly do want to de-escalate. Everyone is going to lose if this continues to ratchet upward. Can we now sit down and talk,” Petraeus said.

Pompeo declined to say whether he had sought to communicate with Iran since Friday. He stressed the U.S. resolve to hold Iran accountable for its interventions in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere in the Mideast.

Pompeo said the Obama administration had tried to “challenge and attack everybody who was running around with an AK-47 or a piece of indirect artillery. We’ve made a very different approach. We’ve told the Iranian regime, ‘Enough. You can’t get away with using proxy forces and think your homeland will be safe and secure.’ We’re going to respond against the actual decision-makers, the people who are causing this threat from the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

He said the cost to Iran if it uses proxy forces to hit American targets will come down on no just those proxies, which are present in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and elsewhere.

“They will be borne by Iran and its leadership itself,” Pompeo said. “Those are important things the Iranian leadership needs to put in its calculus as it makes its next decision.”

Pompeo tip-toed around questions about Trump’s tweet Saturday threatening to attack Iranian cultural sites, a military action that likely would be illegal under the laws of armed conflict and the U.N. charter.

Trump wrote that if Iran were to strike “any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD.”

Pompeo said any U.S. military strikes inside Iran would be legal.

“We’ll behave inside the system,” Pompeo said. “We always have and we always will.”

One U.S. national security official said Trump’s threat had caught many in the administration off guard and prompted calls for others in the government, including Pompeo, to clarify the matter. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly to the issue, said clarification was necessary to affirm that the U.S. military would not intentionally commit war crimes.

Oona Hathaway, an international law professor at Yale and a former national security law official in the Defense Department’s legal office, said in an interview that Trump’s threat amounted to “a pretty clear promise of commission of a war crime.” She said the Soleimani killing likely also was illegal because the administration has not shown the threat he posed was imminent in the sense that it was so urgent that action was required without consulting Congress.

She cited legal problems with both of Trump’s Saturday threats — the threat to hit 52 targets in Iran for symbolic reasons, and the threat to strike Iranian cultural sites. Both, she said, would be war crimes — the targeting of 52 sites because Trump justifies it on symbolic grounds of retribution for Iran’s hostage-taking 40 years, and the hitting of cultural sites because that would be illegal under the 1954 Hague Convention for the protection of cultural sites.

The Pentagon’s chief spokesman, Jonathan Hoffman, referred questions about the Trump tweet to the White House.

Some of the Democrats running to challenge Trump in November questioned whether he had a long-term plan for the Mideast.

Former Vice President Joe Biden said Trump was ill-prepared for the repercussions of the strike on Soleimani and had alienated allies by not alerting them of the plans. “I think we need a president who could provide steady leadership on Day One,” he said. “The next president is going to inherit a divided nation and a world in disarray.”

Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana. said: “When you’re dealing with the Middle East, you need to think about the next and the next and the next move. This is not checkers. And I’m not sure any of us really believe that this president and the people around him” are “really going through all of the consequences of what could happen next.”

And Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a juror in Trump’s upcoming impeachment trial, wondered about the timing of the attack on the Iranian general.

“I think the question people reasonably ask is, `Next week Donald Trump faces the start potentially of an impeachment trial. And why now?’ I think people are starting to ask, `Why now did he do this? Why not delay?’ And why this one is so dangerous is that he is truly taking us right to the edge of war,” she said.

Pompeo appeared on ABC’s “This Week,” CNN’s “State of the Union,” NBC’s “Meet the Press,”’ CBS’ “Face the Nation,” ”Fox News Sunday” and Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” Schumer was on ABC, Warner and Warren were on NBC, Petraeus was on CBS, Buttigieg was on CNN and Graham was on Fox News Channel.

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2020/01/05/president-trump-doubles-down-on-striking-cultural-sites-in-iran/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2020/01/06/president-trump-doubles-down-on-striking-cultural-sites-in-iran/

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oniontheterrible · 6 years

Text

Sorry, Netflix.

Alex Strangelove is trash.

“Spoilers” under the cut....? Not that you should care; don’t watch this.

Ok.

This movie is just bad.

Why do these “Teen LGBT movies” feel the need to give the main lead such AWFUL friends? I’m not talking regular awful. A friend who PULLS OUT HIS DICK IN PUBLIC when you suggest you *may* be Bisexual to “Prove” to you that you are not? Oh, I’m sorry, not wanting to look at your best friends dick (in puBLIC!!!1) means you can’t be attracted to men at all. Got it. Your dick is just that magic, I guess

Same friend: “Do you listen to Panic at the Disco at night while jerking off to pictures of Vampires? No? THEN YOU ARE NOT BISEXUAL!!!”

Sigh.

Same friend: hurling insults at the school’s token “Gender Queer” (played for laughs) person and exclaiming loudly about how “no one is straight anymore” and how “people are transitioning into god knows what”.

AND THIS “FRIEND” IS NOT TREATED AS A VILLAIN OR A BAD GUY - IN FACT, HIS ENTIRE “B” PLOT IS ABOUT HOW HE STALKS THIS GIRL SINCE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL - SENDING HER CREEPY PICTURES OF HIMSELF SHIRTLESS - AND THEN YEARS LATER IT TURNS OUT SHE SAVED THE PICTURES AND OH LOOK THEY GO TO PROM TOGETHER and also he is somehow a good friend or something.

It’s just a bad movie.

It’s one of those MANY, many “Teen LGBT” movies where the entire thing is about “Finding Yourself Cliches”. He has the perfect girlfriend who is both super quirky and adorable and perfect but also smart and hot and basically perfect - bUT WhY WonT hE HAvE sEX wiTh hER??? - and meets basically the EXACT SAME PERSON but with a penis and now EVERYTHING CHANGES! Up is down, left is right, etc. etc.

.....but surprise! Main Lead and Same Sex Love Interest only have like 2.5 scenes together (where quirky “Totally Not Just Your Current Girlfriend But A Male Version” do quirky things together and flirt - He introduced him to the B-52s! How QUIRKY AND HIPSTER!!!!) before the SSLI is G O N E until the last scene of the entire movie. Cause he is just a device, not a person.

The rest of the movie is just BAD TEEN ANGST as the lead tries to stick his dick in as much vagina as possible to get rid of gay thoughts, ruins his relationships with his ~beard~ (er, girlfriend), best friends and family by holding all those emotions inside and lashing out. DRAMA!!!!!

It ends in a terrible prom scene. That alone is bad enough.

The “Drama Club Kids” are weird, flamboyant stereotypes.

The main lead’s hair is weird.

Everyone is just awful.

This script has been sitting in a drawer for a good 10~25 years. It seems to take place in 2018, but apart from some weird lines about how everyone is all “fluid and questioning” it is VERY dated. It’s one of those movies that is clearly written by someone in their 40s who has a lot of anger about High School and wants to mock children for it.

Of the parents we see, Girlfriend has “Mom Dying of...Cancer? Questionmark? Did I skip over that part?” and Main Lead has “Stern Dad Who Thinks He Should Apply To More Places Than Just....Yale? Something Pretentious?” and “50s Housewife Mom With Two Lines”.

Main Lead is clearly into his girlfriend at the start of the movie - his fucking name is “Truelove” and when he meet cutes her (she is drawing an octopus and he likes them, too...or something) all these insane heart effects show up on screen. We get no sense of him not liking her apart from the fact he is scared to have sex - and even that seems to be explained by the fact she has had multiple boyfriends and he is a virgin and is scared.

When he meets this quirky boy, he is obviously into the boy, too. So he thinks....”maybe I am bisexual?” ....and I’m thinking, yea, probably, that is like, a thing that people are - not just vampire loving Panic at the Disco fans.

But then he falls into a pool while high off licking a toad and remembers being called a fag as a kid and then now he’s actually just full 100% gay. Confession: I skipped a LOT of that scene so it might have not been that, I could not handle this part.

WHY. NOT. MAKE. HIM. BI.

They downplay the existence of bisexuality SO HARD and openly mock it multiple times, but they make this lead out to be VERY BISEXUAL! He loves this girl, but oh wait this guy comes along and maybe he wants to make out with him, too? Not that he loves that guy, cause they spend NO TIME TOGETHER.

I’m actually paused at the end of this movie because I can’t watch the last fucking bit of the movie it is so bad.

This is just a bad Love, Simon. And I didn’t even think Love, Simon was all that good. But man..........it at least is cute and genuine.

They end the movie on coming out clips on youtube. Because the shallow frame of the movie is that he has a youtube channel about....animals? He likes animals or whatever. It’s stupid. Alex DOES NOT EVEN COME OUT REALLY.

Ok, so yea, he comes out to the girlfriend and then they time skip and I guess he is “out”? But this is N O T a coming out movie. It skips that part almost entirely. I wonder how coming out to “pop out my dick to prove you are not bi” friend went?

Don’t.

Watch.

This.

Movie.

Fucking hell, Netflix....

HOW IS THIS 92% ON ROTTEN TOMATOES????

Also the Same Sex Love Interest is named “Elliot”. I feel like that is just such a basic gay guy name at this point. Every SSLI is named Elliot.

Also, the bad friend makes a terrible NAMBLA joke. Of course.

OH! And the SSLI got kicked out by his father for being gay and it is a throw-away line that is NEVER addressed - like, it’s just a thing that happens to queers, so we gotta throw that in for some character identity....? What? Also, he graduated high school and now....does....what...?

SSLI lives in the family home of his best friend! Who we NEVER SEE AFTER THE 2 MINUTE INTRODUCTION SCENE because, lol, why even bother right?

Whole side-plot about what school he is getting into. Entire teary-eyed scene with his rejection letter. AND THEN NOTHING! NO RESOLUTION!

Not a lot is resolved, TBH. Prom scene, kiss, done. Thats a wrap?

I need to stop.

This movie is bad.

#I should delete this post later. I just needed to rant.

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kansascityhappenings · 4 years

Text

Pompeo: US may hit more Iranian Ieaders if Iran retaliates

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military may strike more Iranian leaders if the Islamic Republic retaliates for the Trump administration’s killing of Tehran’s most powerful general last week by attacking Americans or American interests, Secretary of State and former Kansas Senator Mike Pompeo said Sunday.

As Pompeo conducted a round of TV interviews to explain President Donald Trump’s decision to target Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the repercussions from that attack played out: The Iraqi Parliamen t called on the 5,200 U.S. forces in the country to leave; the U.S. military coalition in Baghdad suspended training of Iraqi forces to concentrate on defending coalition troops; and in Beirut, the Lebanese Hezbollah chief said U.S. forces throughout the Mideast are fair targets for retaliation.

Even a Trump ally, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called the move by Iraqi lawmakers “a bit concerning.”

The State Department had no immediate comment on Iran reportedly abandoning the nuclear deal, a move that holds the prospect of Iran accelerating its production of materials for a nuclear weapon.

Democrats in Congress complained about the administration’s failure to consult with legislative leaders before conducting the drone attack Friday against Soleimani, and the White House faced a barrage of questions about the killing’s legality. Pompeo said the administration would have been “culpably negligent” in its duty to protect the United States if it had not killed Soleimani, although he did not provide evidence for his previous claims that Soleimani was plotting imminent attacks on Americans.

Instead of arguing that an attack had been imminent, Pompeo said it was inevitable.

Congressional Democrats were skeptical.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said the administration violated the Constitution by not consulting with Congress in advance.

“It’s also important because one, you potentially get members of Congress to buy in ahead of time, and two, they may ask that hard question that’s not asked in an insular group,” Warner said.

Congressional staffs got their first briefings from the administration on Friday, and members are expected to be briefed this week.

Pompeo appeared on six news shows while Trump kept silent on the final day of his holiday break in Florida. The appearances by the top American diplomat appeared aimed at dissuading Iran from launching a major retaliation for the Soleimani killing. The Iranians have said the U.S. should expect a strong response. They have a range of options, from cyberattacks to military assaults.

It was unclear whether the administration would attempt a back door communication with Iran in pursuit of its stated goal of “de-escalation” of tensions. Retired Gen. David Petraeus, an ex-CIA director and former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said he believes the administration needs a strategy for tamping down the chances of all-out war.

He said the cost to Iran if it uses proxy forces to hit American targets will come down on no just those proxies, which are present in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and elsewhere.

“They will be borne by Iran and its leadership itself,” Pompeo said. “Those are important things the Iranian leadership needs to put in its calculus as it makes its next decision.”

Pompeo said any U.S. military strikes inside Iran would be legal.

“We’ll behave inside the system,” Pompeo said. “We always have and we always will.”

The Pentagon’s chief spokesman, Jonathan Hoffman, referred questions about the Trump tweet to the White House.

Some of the Democrats running to challenge Trump in November questioned whether he had a long-term plan for the Mideast.

“When you’re dealing with the Middle East, you need to think about the next and the next and the next move. This is not checkers. And I’m not sure any of us really believe that this president and the people around him” are “really going through all of the consequences of what could happen next,” said Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

And Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a juror in Trump’s upcoming impeachment trial, wondered about the timing of the attack on the Iranian general.

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2020/01/05/pompeo-us-may-hit-more-iranian-ieaders-if-iran-retaliates/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2020/01/05/pompeo-us-may-hit-more-iranian-ieaders-if-iran-retaliates/

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