#and it was so awesome I think the allegory was so good and the dialogue rlly hit home. it’s such a nice thing to be represented and have so

[tomatoart]

Transgwender 🎉

TRANSGWENDER ‼️

#asks #spiderverse #gwen stacy #transgender #when I sat in the movie theater I literally started to tear up as soon as it started cuz I was like oh my godddd. she’s trans SHES .LIKE ME #and it was so awesome I think the allegory was so good and the dialogue rlly hit home. it’s such a nice thing to be represented and have so #much fun with it #sorry for the ramble it’s just so ^_^ !!! it meant a lot esp after getting denied hrt the same week so I was over the moon to see her #there is a little good in everyday etc etc

[hubby-wubby]

Spoilers for X-Men Red #6

- WHAT THE FUCK EWING

- this issue gave me an orgasm with all the sex allegories and reveals

- I'm in love with Craig Marshall of NASA already. It's good to see a human in the Marvel Comics Universe that's just a regular folk that's not a bigoted racist moron. He's just a regular guy doing his best in an apocalypse. I like that he's trying to protect a bunch of Arakkii children (side note I'm a bit appalled that they kill children in the Abyssal Prisons, everyday I'm happier Magneto bodied Tarn) even though he's just a human. Also I like that it shows the Arakkii are actually quite hospitable in their own way, they accept and trust an outsider to ~~help~~ contribute to the shared work, of defending the Broken Land. There are of course crazy creepy survival of the fittest zealots in Arakko, but most anyone is just a normal l, albeit hardened warrior, people.

- ALL HAIL TABLE DAY! That panel of Storm, Lactuca, and Sobunar floating is just ☠️☠️. I like how Storm asks to lead the fight because she knows this is a challenge to all and she's asking permission to join in the fight. I also like that she acknowledges that Lactuca could easily destroy the machine but that she wants to express herself. Sobunar is such a Omega daddy. Good to see speaking panels for him too. He makes a good point about guilt and responsibility to Storm. Additionally, Lactuca's powers is just awesome. I like how unconventional it's being shown throughout the chapter.

- Fisher King is of the Night Seats. Called it. Well that one was a bit obvious. But I like the little worldbuilding about the Night Seats. We get all of them revealed; we have the Fisher King (who is actually nameless - not Nameless the Shapeshifter- just that he has no name), we have a new face, Syzya of the Smoke who's basically Nightcrawler Tyrande, and the biggest plot twist of it all, we have freaking Sunspot as the third member of Night. I did not see that one coming, but it's a welcome surprise. I honestly didn't care or know much about Sunspot. I thought he was just a rich billionaor playboy who's biting more than he can chew, but damn am I wrong. You know how people's attracted to power? Well let's just say I'm caught in his stellar gravity.

- The reveal that Khora and Zsen are FK's daughters is surprising. Idk how to feel about that but I'm leaning to it being a good thing. Good to see Wrongslide getting some screen time too. Also, I like that no one is surprised about Brand's shady manipulations because everyone knows she's up to something and they're already planning for that (Wiz-kid, Cable, the Brotherhood)

- Magneto is so hot when he's angry and dying. I like how he says Team to Lodus Logos and Lodus and Xilo-as-of-now are like "wtf is that?". Note that Uranos knows that Arakko Prime is alive and sent one of his toys to kill it. I also like the dialogue he had with FK and the Night Seats. So it appears that Sunspot is actually pretty sneaky. He found the existence of Night Seats and convinced them to recruit him. The Night Seats is also comprised of Non Omega mutants which I think is a poetic check and balance to the rest of the GR.

- side note, I find it interesting that Apocalypse is actually the more "lenient" one between him and Genesis. He sees the value of creating mutant circuits whereas Genesis puts emphasis on individual strength. We also get to see her character flaw in that she's extremely prideful and disdainful of subtlety. She dissolved the Night Seats and had Ora Serrata blink them out of existence because she doesn't like that they are not Omega mutants yet they have power over her and the Great Ring's actions. One could say that this attitude pattern of hers contributed to Arakko's downfall.

- Storm and Magneto team up and all the sex imagery is the cream of the crop in this issue. Them forming a mutant circuit and Storm empowering Magneto is so freaking cool. (I'm not the only one who saw the ejaculation imagery when Magneto destroyed the silicone gorilla with white molten iron right????). Also "is this after care Ororo?" Aksjdbskdjjdksksbdk I ship them now.

- the last panel shot of the Brotherhood is just 😍😍😍. Even though none of them are more than 2 years old in comic terms, the line up is already feeling way better than the current X-Men line up (not that that one is bad per se). I guess the cool inhuman looking design is also a factor in the awesomeness.

- this issue is so good. It's a shame that all the build up of fighting Uranos is kinda thrown away/damaged by the 3 panel fight scene of Storm and Magneto just KOing Uranos (surprise surprise, it's Stark who saves the day 🙄) in Judgement Day #4. The only saving grace in that issue is the panel of Magneto dying in Storm's arms. I cried at that.

#arakko #storm #krakoa #magneto #mutants #xmen #eternals #xmen red #x men red

[drewandareview]

Horton Hears a Who! (2008)

Originally published May 30th, 2013

Dr. Seuss does this awesome thing where he combines imagination with depth.  His stories are essentially allegories, being fun to read while profound on a whole other level.  I'm definitely an admirer.

While I can't say I've read all his books, I think my favorite would have to be "Horton Hears a Who!".  It's a very moving story about an elephant trying to save a tiny world of people that nobody else believes in, but it also has incredible depth.  Just the fact that our world could be miniature or enormous compared to another is enough to take in, but the purporting that "a person's a person no matter how small" has a lot of spiritual significance.  It digs into the human psyche and what we define as worthwhile enough to save.  It's deep, guys.  Real deep.

I don't think ANY of Dr. Seuss's books should be adapted into a feature-length movie because they function much better as shorter stories, but if I had to pick one, it'd be Horton Hears a Who!.  There's a lot to work with.  The CGI adaptation of the book has been consistently referred to as "the best Dr. Seuss Hollywood adaptation out there".  "Best" isn't saying much considering its competition, but I thought I'd give it a watch.

Where do I fucking begin.

How it should have been: The characters should have been rooted in the world Dr. Seuss created for them, set apart from any specific time period.

How it was fucked: Hollywood slapped "modern" on it to make it more accessible.  Characters were constantly making pop culture references and using hip lingo.

How it should have been: Horton should have been the noble, courageous creature who has trouble fitting in that he was in the original book.

How it was fucked: They cast Jim Carrey as Horton who went full Jim Carrey for his performance and captured absolutely none of Horton's heroism or sincerity.

How it should have been: If it had to be feature length, they should have expanded on the world and the depth Dr. Seuss created.  Perhaps other world's could be introduced, or there could be an arc featuring the psychology of what makes a life worth saving.

How it was fucked: Hollywood at least showed how Horton's actions impacted the world, which wasn't quite in the book, but every other extra arc or character they added did NOTHING to expand on the book.

How it should have been: It shouldn't have needed to have jokes because the world and concept is already amusing enough.

How it was fucked: It had jokes, but some of the weakest and most painful jokes you could hope from a hack screenwriter trying to make a buck.

How it should have been: The movie should have captured all the subtlties of the book, showing things without explaining them.  It should have treated its audience as if it could be anybody and taken it seriously.

How it was fucked: There was way, WAY too much dialogue in this movie.  And the absolute worst part was that it pandered to children.  It treated the movie like "a kid's movie" and made sure to exaggerate and emphasize everything.  It added crazy movement that wasn't necessary or zany expressions that also weren't necessary.  It farted sparkles onto the legacy of Dr. Seuss by turning a resonating story into a money machine.

It at least had the good grace to follow the book fairly well and employ Seuss's signature animation, but honestly, that's hardly effort on their part.  All of that is obvious necessities of a Seuss adaptation and I won't give them any pats on the back for it.  This movie may be "the best", but it's worlds away from being good.  I'm ashamed that Dr. Seuss movies have been so bad that people have been conditioned to think THIS is the standard for a good Dr. Seuss movie.  You know what a good Dr. Seuss movie is?  A biopic of Dr. Seuss's life.  And THAT'S IT.

...but all of that said, I have to admit, things had looked up when the climax had hit.  For seven short minutes of Seuss-laden bliss, the movie had aimed and the shot didn't miss.  For that fleeting moment, I started to see how great a smart Seuss adaptation could be.

But then came the ending and things got shitty again.  REALLY shitty.  It managed to be the absolute worst part of the movie.  It was so bad that I literally had to pause the movie just to comprehend the shit I was watching.  You know, maybe there is a way to make a feature-length Dr. Seuss movie.  I certainly don't want to rule it out.  But Hollywood has to learn that a story's a story, no matter how small.

(And yes, the second to last paragraph was written in rhyme.  Shut up.)

[onlyonekenobi]

hiii i wanted to thank you for explaining the dean/cain/destiel thing to me, i hadn't picked up on those things when watching the episode and you did a great job explaining! i hope this isn't annoying but i was wondering if you could also explain the lamp thing to me? i see jokes about it all the time but i have no idea what it means lol 😔

(yeah, of course! I’m glad it helped! season 16 destiel college is a lot to unpack, haha)

So, Lamp. This one is a little more complicated, in the sense that it’s........ less complicated? Idk how to explain that. It’s Destiel tumblr in the year 2021, you’ll see what I mean.

-

The first thing we need to talk about is the Hays Code, which was basically a set of self-imposed censorship rules in Classical Hollywood. No sex, no gays, no overt innuendo, all that kind of stuff.

The next thing, for background parallel info, is this scene from 9x12, Sharp Teeth, which is important for a few reasons. One, this dialogue pretty clearly reads as a queer allegory, even without any other context being held up against it. Two, it’s specifically talking about Garth (who, even though he is now a werewolf, is someone Dean met and knows as a hunter- a peer) falling in love with and creating a life with a werewolf- someone “other.” Three, the fact that Dean can even say something like this and talk about it shows a lot of growth and, dare we say, perhaps the kindling of some self-acceptance, in both the sense of the queer allegory and the sense of the hunter/other dynamic. Four, it is again important that it’s specifically Garth we’ve set this up this conversation with, because:

Now that we’ve covered the background reading, it’s time to talk about the crux of the matter: episode 15x10, The Hero’s Journey.

This is episode with the infamous dream sequence scene wherein Dean does an old fashioned dance routine with a lamp for a partner. Here’s where we circle back to the Hays Code. When the movie-makers weren’t allowed to be as overt as they wanted, they settled for pushing the envelope as far as they could. They suggested relationships in other ways: prolonged eye contact, a man being Really Good Friends with another man and then kissing a woman who was wearing a suit while the Friend was in the shot next to her, dancing with stand-in or inanimate partners(.............. like, say, a lamp), things like that.

It’s also important to note that the song used in this scene is “Let’s Misbehave” by Cole Porter. Cole Porter, rather famously, was a gay man in a lavender marriage. And I’ll let the lyrics speak for themselves about breaking rules and “social norms,” but remember: Porter was queer! So this is inherently a song about queer relationships. And sure, maybe they just used a classic old timey dance song. But whether it’s coincidence or not, authorial intent is dead and there are No Coincidences, so it’s officially a piece of the puzzle.

And then, critically, this episode ends with a shot of Sam and Dean watching through the window as Garth and his wife, Bess, are slow dancing together inside the house. We pan back to the boys and Dean says, “You know, I always thought I could be a good dancer, if I wanted to be.” Sam cracks a joke about Dean being awesome at the Macarena, and Dean has another half second of a wistful look on his face before he drops it to say, “Yeah,” and get in the car. And because everything everyone ever says has subtext- especially in the case of repression king Deano- we absolutely know that him saying “I could be a good dancer” while watching a married couple dance is not about the dancing, but about the couple. Dean is saying he thinks he could be good at that. That he wants to be good at that. And the show literally just paralleled him to it, mere minutes before.

And some might say that the lamp could be a physical stand in for the “lack” of anyone in Dean’s love life, but I have two primary rebuttals to that. One, it doesn’t align with the playing into the Hays Code as well (which is what they were doing, whether they meant to or wanted to or not). And, two, this absolute gem of bts/ meta. Please also note as they drop episode numbers in that post, that the first scene we were just discussing (“Who cares where happiness comes from?”) was from 9x12, right in the the thick of all that happening.

So, in conclusion, the lamp is a metaphor/stand in/allegory/what have you for Cas, and there’s, like, a weird amount of evidence and parallels to back that theory up. A lot of the time now when people reference “lamp” or scream “WHY LAMP” there is an element of joking to it, but you can see here that it is rooted in some very real and very worthwhile analysis.

I hope this has been enlightening (pun moderately intended) and as always please feel free to send follow up questions! (And fellow readers, please feel free to provide further examples or correct any mistakes I may have made.) For supplementary memes, please feel free to scroll through my tagged/lamp and tagged/why_lamp pages, and thank you for attending today’s lecture!

xoxo professor itsinjustbeing

#asks #anon #long post #why lamp

[whatever-lola-wants]

SPOOPY SEASON MOVIE  RECOMMENDATIONS

Hi. I watch tons of movies, and love horror that doesn’t rely too much on jump scares or CGI monstrosities running at the screen, so this list will be just movies with atmospheric horror, mindfucks, and animatronics/practical effects.

Hereditary (2018) Starts off as a family drama and quickly progresses to one of the most unsettling, emotionally disturbing, and straight up frightening movies of all time. There’s layers upon layers of diverse horror here. Expertly crafted slow burn. When there are visceral moments that are truly scary, they are earned. There are no gimmicks in the cinematography, no jump scares, just great shot composition and plenty of atmosphere with top notch acting. If you’re feeling adventurous, perhaps also check out one of its inspirations, Don’t Look Now(1973) based on a Daphne du Maurier story.

Starry Eyes (2014) - Awesome low-budget movie, an allegory for just how evil Hollywood is (but really, showbusiness in general), and an extended character piece. Brilliant script that progressively reveals so much about our protagonist as the movie goes on. She's a real person, not a character in a movie, and you empathize and are horrified with her. A slow burn with immense payoff. While Neon Demon is another movie with a similar premise, I like this one far more because of just how personal it is.

The Thing (1982) I’ve been waiting forever to gush about this. A true masterpiece. One of the best movies ever made, regardless of genre. Visceral and tense, with themes of paranoia, isolation anxiety, and the fear of societal and cultural change (the movie is from the 1980s after all), and some of the most creative, gross, downright beautiful animatronics and practical effects ever created. Characters act in a sensible manner according to the information they have. There are no “No! Don’t do that! Are you dumb?!” horror movie tropes here. The story follows a science team stuck in an Antarctic research station for the winter, with a nightmarish alien who lives to infect, assimilate, and assume the form of any living thing. Naturally, suspicion and paranoia run amok, as one or more of them might have already been taken over. “Man is the warmest place to hide”, indeed. Avoid the 2011 prequel at all costs.

Shin Godzilla (2016) A monster movie where the real monster is the bureaucracy. It’s a story told primarily through the lens of Japanese politics and culture and has plenty of satire and dark, quirky humor so it might not appeal to too many people who just want a run-of-the-mill Godzilla movie, but it has plenty of kaiju horror goodness, some very memorable scenes, and if you would only go into this movie with an open mind, you’ll know why this is the best Godzilla movie ever made.

Suspiria (1977) Ballet dancer enrolls at a German dance academy to perfect her art and quickly discovers the place is not what it seems, and neither are the people. Yes, witches are involved. Word to the wise, giallo horror is a very specific subgenre which has a distinct “this can’t possibly be real” quality to everything from the characters to the dialogue to the gore. It’s not for everyone. Given that, I love Suspiria, I think it’s unique within the giallo sphere because of the supernatural elements, the beautiful cinematography and pretty colors (lol), the ludicrous displays of gore, the music, and would definitely recommend it. I’d actually recommend the remake Suspiria (2018) with Tilda Swinton too cause I like it for very different reasons, but that one is a classic case of overthinking things and I’m meh about certain subplots and the ending. But whatever. Make up your own mind.

Videodrome (1983) - Classic Cronenberg. Surreal, reality warping body horror (oh, and how.) with plenty of commentary on the nature of advances in technology, the nature of entertainment, and their effect on society. The premise and message are still relevant in 2020.

#horror movies

[friendly-eldritch-horror]

My Review of Star Trek Picard

TL;DR: It is Trump news cycle crossed with TOS reboot movies with an unnecessarily big budget crossed with the most stupid “why optimism in Star Trek is wrong” review, cut by a film student who just learned about switching scenes and was told to give things a sense of “mystery” who interpreted that as  no background information. 

In conclusion: it is not a implausible theory that the original people involved with Star Trek are trying to torch the franchise.

Don’t watch it. It is less of a Star Trek story than Threshold (VOY:S.2,Ep.15) is, and that ends with the captain and the navigator having lizard babies and abandoning them on a planet due to “evolving” into a “previous form of humanity” (which was apparently lizard) because of “breaking the warp 10 barrier”. None of that description is made up. But Picard lacks the core of optimism that all of the old series always had, even in defeat.

Here’s my experience with the show, as I remember it unfolding. I don’t actually remember if this is the precise chronological order, and I don’t care enough to check.

(Spoilers for Star Trek Picard below, tw violence mention, tw torture mention, tw weird mind manipulation bullshit mention, tw questionable romance things mention, tw mention of mercy kill)

[you can see from these tags why I don’t like it, because these things are all on screen, but hey, here’s the reconstructed live-blogged version because I am pissed]

Star Trek Picard: We’re going to begin with Picard giving a cool speech, perfectly encapsulating the spirit of TNG. Apparently lots of bad things happened in the past, but Picard has a moral compass. We want to make sure you know that.

Me: That was a great speech. This is going to be cool

Star Trek Picard: Okay, we’re going to make Starfleet cynical and have all of the problems of the current day US. And we’re going to introduce a cool character and kill her off immediately. This is definitely not episodic.

Me: Okay, maybe this is a bad beginning and the world is going to be better? The lack of stability makes me feel bad but that’s probably just a me thing.

Star Trek Picard: You know that speech Picard made? That was a bad idea. And we’re going to leave the two characters most qualified for this particular mission behind on Earth doing presumably farm work, to probably be killed by assassins and no one comments on this or thinks it’s a bad idea.

Me: Okay, my friend is still invested in this... 

Star Trek Picard: Hey, we’re going to add in an allegory for 9/11 truthism being correct. And not tell you anything that’s going on in any coherent format. Also, there are scenes where we wanted the characters to argue but didn’t nail down what their positions actually were before we wrote it, so the dialogue makes no sense. Hope you don’t mind

Me: ...i guess it’s good i swallowed TVTropes? i think i can mostly pin down the tropes they’re trying to use... Okay, at least there will be good fanfics of this which go back and sort out everything other than the main plot thread. Because that does have some promise

Star Trek Picard: And Picard is an asshole. He abandoned his son figure and his former first mate for fifteen years and never even said hi. And doesn’t apologize for either of these things. And he’s also willing to be performatively insulting to Romulans for being Romulans.

Me: Is ... is Patrick Stuart just trying to torch the whole franchise?

Star Trek Picard: Here’s some romance scenes where both characters are trying to manipulate the other. And they have sex. Lots of scenes like this. Most of the screen time of the most plot-important new character is just her getting intimate with this random Romulan guy who’s trying to find out what she knows before eventually intending to kill her. But hey, she wants to know something from him too, so it’s fine. Except that it’s not clear that she consciously knows what she’s trying to do. The person who would be manipulating her is probably supposed to be good. Also here’s some suggestions of incest. And vague prophecies that are plot important.

Me: I suppose most people like the romance. I don’t, but I know I’m not a good judge of things like that.

Star Trek Picard: Oh hey, you know that character from Voyager you liked and sorta named an OC after (Icheb, former Borg kid and awesome)? Yeah, well, he’s going to get graphically tortured to death in the cold open of the episode, then mercy killed by his mother figure. In a flashback. (And we do mean graphically because we have a fancy effects budget and think this is a good place to spend it.) All for the sole reason that we need to show his mother figure, Seven of Nine, that Starfleet cannot be depended on and that the world is dark. And this is the only thirty seconds of screen time he has. I’m sure you enjoyed seeing him again!

And in the present day, Seven doesn’t forgive this like we think old Star Trek would have asked her to and instead she wants to shoot the person who cold-bloodedly ordered this done to her son (and the person just wanted to make a profit and didn’t see him as human, just so we’re clear). And we’re going to say that this desire for revenge demonstrates that Seven isn’t fully human. Have fun :D Also, p.s. we’re killing off another character from the old Star Trek after under two minutes of screen time, who we spent the entire episode finding. Because ... why not? He could have given you some context for what was going on, and we don’t want that.

Me: Fuck you. 

If we take this as cannon, which I don’t, shooting is the least thing that should have happened. Seven should have assimilated the bastard; shooting her is far too restrained. If this monster going to disassemble Borg for their parts, she should be faced with the logical consequences of that.

Also, anyone in production who thought that this was a good idea is hereby formally invited to absentmindedly acquaint their eyes with muscle relaxant menthol cream residue.

#originally I was going to look for fix fics #now I'm not going to even bother #it is a steaming mess #don't watch it #Every character in the show deserved better #no consistency of character #the plot is clumsily executed #no coherency #no hope within the universe #they had way too big a budget and thought that flashy toys would cover up serious flaws #Star Trek Picard

[wortlby2]

Too PC since 1963

You know, there are valid criticisms to be made of series 11, and if the 13th Doctor isn’t your thing fine.  But this whole “Doctor Who is all PC now!” or “Social Justice Warriors are ruining Doctor Who!”  thing is like....have we been watching the same show all these years?  

I mean first off...the Doctor is a warrior for social justice.  That is the Doctor’s thing.  If you don’t believe me, just ask 4:

The Doctors’ mortal enemies have been irrational, racist, armored space squid Nazis since uh...the second serial of the entire show. 

Being political and doing social commentary didn’t start in the New Who era either.  Remember that time the Doctor was 100% done with Brexit 45 years before it actually happened?

Or the time the Doctor got annoyed enough at late stage capitalism to start a people’s rebellion? 

And then there’s The Happiness Patrol, which everyone agrees is a political allegory for...something.  Even if no one can agree on exactly what, except that it’s anti-Thatcher?  Imma have to let actual British people weigh in on that one though. It’s certainly anti-authoritarian.

The show’s also been sassing sexists since it was in black and white.

If you were annoyed about Twice Upon a Time making fun of One’s chauvinism...well, that’s not new either.  

The show hasn’t always been consistent about this (when has it been consistent about anything) but it’s generally been fair for it’s day and it’s hearts are in the right place. 

Even the idea of a female Doctor predates the hints Moffat was dropping for years.  No, I’m not talking about the DoctorDonna, this idea has been around since at least the 80′s

And why is people of color getting some rep so terrible now?  Remember when the Brig retired and they gave his job to a black woman?  Who had a white boyfriend from Arthurian England in a different dimension because it’s Doctor Frikkin’ Who and that’s the kind of thing that happens?  Also she was awesome. 

Or the time the Brig made an ass of himself to the Chinese ambassadors and the Doctor smoothed it over by being polite to them in their native language.  And the Communist Chinese were portrayed as largely sympathetic characters by actual Chinese people?  In 1971?

But of course since I brought up the portrayal of Chinese people on the show I suppose we have to talk about The Talons of Weng Chiang.  Ugh...fine.  Look, even if you’re one of those people who think Doctor Who is “too PC” now, can we maybe agree that having more people of color involved in this show could save us from embarrassments like this:

Because as a fandom I don’t think defending yellowface is a hill we want to die on?  Also, I have my problems with this season, but Rosa is a good episode?  Because maybe open minds and diverse perspectives make for better sci fi?

Let’s be real here.  Your problem isn’t that Doctor Who has suddenly made a drastic change from it’s roots, because it hasn’t.   Your real problem is that you feel like somehow the show isn’t for you if it doesn’t revolve around a white dude.  Which is kind of sad.  55 years of Doctor Who has been teaching kids how to have empathy for the other and you haven’t gotten the memo somehow.  Seriously, this is a show that once had an episode that was basically the plot of Alien (years before Alien existed) except instead of the monster being a mindless, implacable threat, the Doctor figured out how to communicate with it and it turned out to have pretty sympathetic reasons to attack and lay its eggs in the human crew of the spaceship. While they did eventually have to throw it out of the airlock, it wasn’t before the Doctor offered several times to help it, even after it had killed a few people in a truly horrifying way.  The humans did not actually come out looking great.  Inviting you to consider Alien from the perspective of the horrifying bug monsters and choosing understanding and dialogue as your first go tos instead of terror and violence...that’s the show!  But somehow seeing yourself in a female hero is a bridge too far, even though you’re probably going to run into a lot more women in your life than scary looking aliens.  If you don’t like the current series, that’s fine, but if you’re one of the people out there devoting a lot of time to hating on Thirteen and people who do like her, I’m not convinced the Doctor was ever really your hero. 

Edit: Someone pointed out to me that this post has basically already been done, but in much more exhaustive detail here:  Sartorial Geek Doctor Who and Political Awareness

And if that article is to be believed, the whole idea of a female Doctor back in the 80s came from Tom freakin’ Baker.

[credit where it’s due, some of the screencaps were made by me, others were found in random places on the internets, but most came from the excellent selection of Classic Who gifs made by cleowho.tumblr.com]

#doctor who #first doctor #second doctor #third doctor #fourth doctor #fifth doctor #seventh doctor #tweflth doctor #thirteenth doctor #UNIT #dr. who #13th doctor #OhnoesruinedFOREVER #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #120mm #13 #TARDIS #sartorial geek #Sjw #tom baker

[dreamerdagn]

Steven Universe: Change Your Mind reaction

wait I just remembered I’m allowed to make a big text post when I’m Feeling Things

INITIAL FEELINGS

VERY SOLID CONCLUSION, very satisfying culmination to a long story. High steaks, great tension, good amount of drama.

I’m also deep deep in an “end of series” funk. It’ll pass eventually. I way prefer things to have good endings than to go on forever.

AYY IT’S NITPICK TIME LET’S GET THIS OVER WITH

Not nitpicks so much as...just y’know a reaction! It’s less “this should’ve been changed” than reasoning through my emotions.

Ever since seeing the title, I knew that reaching the point of having all the antagonists do a 180 would be...challenging to do in a satisfying way in 22 minutes.

I think the reasoning was pretty solid; I totally bought the internal conflict each diamond had when Steven confronted them. It just felt rushed. Again, I’m not suggesting anything should have been done differently, I just kind of felt...like if only things worked like this irl. I suppose we were working with the premise that they had always had the foundations for being a loving family, as opposed to fundamentally not caring about each other which would make any of them beyond reason. Also, having their missing family member back might be the catalyst for change that they needed - but it still felt weird to have implied millennia of a totalitarian regime upended so quickly. AGAIN. NOT BAD. just my gut feeling. I think when I was a child I wouldn’t’ve felt the same way, and this is after all a story to inspire children.

On a similar note, the way it was an allegory for accepting your loved ones as they are seemed too on the nose at some points, and I wished the dialogue had been subtler - but again, if it’s a child’s first exposure to the “accept me as I am” concept, then it might be necessary to be very straightforward about it.

ALSO DID WE SEE THE LAWYER GEMS IF SO I MISSED THEM, I was really hoping for Blue Z to reappear :(

OKAY I THINK THAT’S IT ONTO GOOD STUFF

GOOD STUFF

Obv the animation I’m still processing it, It Good

Also all the voice acting, everyone, so good I will need to talk about it l8r when I’m able to

Every last moment where it turns out he’s in a memory or flashback, the fact that it’s genuinely a surprise when he’ll realize it’s Pink’s memory is awesome

I said that the diamond’s change of heart seemed rushed, but I also very much loved the scene with Blue. Steven calling her out and her reaction was very touching.

Rainbow Quartz 2.0 o////-/////o

OBSIDIAN O//////////////-//////////////O

Okay but back up the entire RQ2.0 scene was possibly my favorite sequence to watch, just absolute joy from start to finish, every moment made me smile

I want Obsidian to punch me full on, that is how I want to die

SHE’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE

Everything with Pink Steven

“She’s Gone” and Steven refusing were the highlights for me. also the scene of Pink morphing forms.

The ending montage was as good as ending montages get, I loooooved the scene in the fountain it was such a good use of motifs of every character in water up until that point

I think....that is all I’m able to think about atm. Anyway congrats to the entire Crewniverse for sticking the landing, it was a beautiful series and it’s hard to end something satisfactorily and you did it. You nailed it. I need some time to stop feeling emotions I’ll watch it again when I’m better 👍👍

#steven universe spoilers #su spoilers #steven universe reaction

[thetypedwriter]

Love & Gelato Book Review

                                  Love & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch

Love & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch is one of those books where you are immediately drawn to the cover and yet hesitant of the story because quite honestly the synopsis sounds so basic and rudimentary that I’d rather get a root canal at the dentist than spend a few hours of my life reading it. Overall, I wouldn’t say it was root canal status, but more like a cavity.

You can ignore the pain for the most part, but as soon as you eat something hot or cold the pain is immense and immediate. Tooth allegories aside, Love & Gelato had both good and bad aspects that turned it into an enjoyable, yet forgettable and problematic read.

So synopsis: teenage girls goes to Italy, falls madly in love, and encapsulates almost all Mary-Sue like qualities except for two things: having curly hair and liking to eat. I’m sorry Ms. Welch but having a main character that enjoys eating gallons of gelato in Italy is not quirky, it’s realistic. I don’t think I ate anything else while I was in Italy two summers ago. Also, why does curly hair always have to equal crazy in books? Not everyone with curly hair thinks their strands have a mind of their own, some people enjoy, even relish I dare say, having curls. So there’s that.

In addition, the main character’s name is Lina because of course it is. Reading about a character with a normal female name in young adult literature is like winning the lottery-a one-in-one-millionth chance.

While Lina was alright to have as a narrator the other characters seemed to intensely sway into the “saint” or “pure evil” categories. Example one: Howard. Saint-like man that adopts the daughter of the woman he once loved but broke his heart into a million pieces, pays for all of her food and clothing, wants to keep her in his life like a surrogate step-daughter, and doesn’t seem to mind too much that he was gipped out of an entire domestic life with his one true love. Wow. And then there’s people like Matteo: abusive, arrogant, predatory, delusional, and violent. Okay.

What I mean to get at here is that Love & Gelato borders on the highly unrealistic for several reasons, the large part of which revolve around the characters. While enjoyable to sometimes read about, the characters were definitely two-dimensional and lacked the proper depth that makes you want to keep reading and devour a book. It felt like Jenna Welch tried really hard to create characters that were awesome, but seemed to fall as flat as Italian pizza apparently is.

Going along with the characters were the dialogue and the inner monologues. Two things nearly made this book unbearable for me: the colloquial lingo and the attempt at relatable humor. There is nothing that teenagers hate more than people trying to assume what they like and how they talk (trust me I would know-I’m a high school teacher). So when you have a book with a narrator that says “literally” every other page and answers “totally so cool” to something like the sight of the Duomo in Italy-a massive work of architectural genius and artistic design-then yes, I get a bit annoyed.

I know what Ms. Welch is trying to accomplish-relatibility! Comparison! Connection! Instead, it comes across like that try-too-hard uncle that wants to be in on the what the young people are doing and saying but just ends up being pathetic and laughed at. Sorry Jenna.

The last negative I’ll mention is the falling in love aspect of course. It’s ridiculous. Most love stories I can get into, but it was obvious to any person with any remnant of a brain cell that Lina was into Ren and not Thomas. The fact that it took Lina almost 300 pages to figure out the same thing was annoying and tedious. She is the epitome of the Oblivious Narrator to aggravating extremes.

Take into the account that the whole plot would have collapsed and died if Lina had just read her mom’s journal in one go gives you the same feeling of pointlessness you get when you eat directly after getting your teeth cleaned (every time). Add in the fact that they were saying “I love you” after only FIVE DAYS and you’ll find that you’ll develop a tooth ache as well.

So the negatives summed up: totally two-dimensional characters, so totally collapsible plot, totally annoying thinking, and totally not so cool dialogue that slapped you in the face with its juvenility. I’m sure you can see what other bit was problematic.    

On to the positives! Reading about Italy and all the places Lina traveled was actually very cool. As always, it is much appreciated when an author takes research or their own life experiences and utilizes it in their writing to make it lively and credible. I liked learning about the different flavors of gelato, tourist attractions, Italian phrases, and the stereotypical aggressively bad taxi drivers.

Second, it was an easy read. Sometimes you don’t want to be analyzing The Scarlet Letter or breaking your brain over something Vonnegut wrote, you just want cheap and easy entertainment: like watching The Bachelor (yes, I watch that show. It makes for an incredible drinking game). Love & Gelato delivers on that. It’s a simple love story about a girl in Italy and makes you as a reader fall in love with the idea of love and traveling.

Third, I actually liked the reasoning behind Lina going to Italy. Instead of a baffling or arbitrary motive like, “Italy is just so romantic!” she actually had a solid intention based on grief and loss. I can relate to that. I was definitely the most profound aspect of the book. Lina’s loss and her attempt to grapple with it gave the book a much needed layer that made it emotional as it was heartening. Although I think Jenna Welch could have focused on it more to add a few more layers to her book, it was something I appreciated seeing in YA.

Recommendation: If you feel like going to Italy but can’t afford it, you can live vicariously through this book and experience loss, love, and gelato if you can get around the millions of “totally’s” and “literally’s” that are littered throughout.

  Score: 6/10

#love and gelato #italy #jenna evans welch #book blog #book review #ya fiction #bookblog bookrecommendations

[thebluemeany]

Alexander Siddig Master Post: What to watch and where to watch it

WATCH: Good Candy

Peaky Blinders: most shows mash up all their cool shots with a soundtrack for their trailer. Peaky Blinders is that, only all the time. It’s beautiful, slick and oddly soulless: like a Vanity Fair photoshoot come to life. Siddig’s only in the romantic subplot of Series Three (£9.49 Amazon), but wait to buy as it’s on Netflix from September.

Cairo Time: Set in Egypt. Nice little love story. Surprisingly British in a repressed ‘I’d better go/ yes you better go’ sense. Except they all drink coffee rather than tea and smoke hookah. On YouTube. Worth cost of DVD.

Hannibal: Elephants crossing the Alps on a BBC Drama budget: what’s not to like? Actually done very well and in a sort of documentary style. Added bonus that Scipio is Rose Tyler’s Dad. On YouTube.   ☩

Spooks: Nest of Angels episode: Traumatic. Remember seeing it as a kid in 2003 before UK suicide bombers were a thing. It’s harder to watch now. But definitely do as it’s a bold early attempt to tackle a lot of issues. It was and still is a brave piece of drama. On YouTube.   ☩

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: 7 Series, all available on Netflix: hour after hour of episodes. Say goodbye to at least two months of your life. Noticeable increase in quality and complexity Series 4, 5, 6.

Lawrence After Arabia: interesting, well written and with a young Ralph Fiennes. Pace and style is more like a play than a film. Can rent for £4.00 on Amazon.

WATCH DEPENDING ON YOUR TASTE:  aka. The Marmite flavoured Liquorice

Doctor Who - 1001 Nights (audio play): Really neat idea at the core. Doesn’t really get to Siddig’s story until episode four, but listening to the other parts really adds to the build-up. Yes, it’s £12.99, but it’s made by Big Finish (all round reliable candy makers) who employ a lot of old UK actors & writers, so resist urge to torrent.

Waking the Dead:  Endgame part 1 and part 2. Don’t be fooled by the CSI set up - this is a level up in violent and gruesome. You can watch it on the BBC YouTube channel for £1.99.  ☩

The Phantom of the Opera (audio play): faithful to the novel. Adapted by a Dalek. Good Commuting Material. Tad expensive at £12.99. Slightly cheaper if you use monthly credit on Audible.

Syriana – complex little film, full of a great cast. Intriguing, realistic and with worrying similar themes to Lawrence After Arabia but set a century later. Tad heavy going. Available free on Amazon prime.  ☩

The Flat Earth (audio play): Weirdly like Lost. Don’t listen to it on a flight. I think the writer may have been going for a sense of the transcendent in a way that was meant to be life affirming. But it actually conjures up some pretty horrific mental images…so, yeah… part 1, part 2  ☩

OKAY IF YOU’RE BORED: aka. Chewing Gum

Inescapable: the landscape is shot nicely but the story is dull. £5.10 to download on Amazon, but you can rent for 99p on iTunes which is fine because it’s not a film for repeat viewing.

True Love: only improvised drama series broadcast ever on BBC One. Turns out there is a reason for that: actors need writers.  Siddig is in episode four, which is the least mundane of the bunch. Bonus of Jane Horrocks.

Doomsday: post-apocalyptic movie. Oddly similar ‘flee to Scotland’ vibe as Reign of Fire below.  Not done well. 99p on Google Play, but seriously just go watch the infinitely better 28 Days Later instead.  ☩

Doctor Who – Sisters of the Flame/ The Vengeance of Morbius (Audio play): Worth it to hear Siddig play a centipede. ‘Cause its radio you just hear the hundreds of feet pattering every time he enters. £8.99 so try and buy when Big Finish have a deal on. Part one is both better and has more Siddig than part two. ☩

Un Homme Perdu:  version in Arabic & French but I can’t find a copy with English subtitles. That said, there’s not a lot of dialogue: if your French is moderate like mine you can muddle through. Intention kind of reminded me of the British 60s film Blow-Up. Kind of dull in an ‘art-film’ way even without language barrier.  

24 - Season 6: By this point of watching the back catalogue, I’ve got to admit I was getting pretty fed up of variations on Islamic Extremism stories. Siddig’s in episodes 2 – 7 and 9. £7.99 for whole series on Amazon, but low res version available on Dailymotion.  ☩

Reign of Fire: so the poster looks AWESOME (dragons destroying London, hell yes!). But that all happens off screen. Lacking dragon destruction, Siddig, female characters or emotional stakes. Contains FAR too much Matthew McConaughey. Rent for £2.48 to watch Christian Bale valiantly attempt to make the best of a bad job.

BARELY IN: aka Empty calories

Game of Thrones: you’ve probably seen the whole series already. If you want to watch just the episodes with Doran in, these are limited to Series 5: episodes 2, 6, 9, 10 and Series 6, episode 1. The entire globe has downloaded it illegally already, but ignoring that, you can buy it on Google Play for £1.99 per episode. ☩

Turmanbay (audio series): available free on BBC iplayer. Game of Thrones but on the radio. Bit repetitive.

Atlantis: in various episodes across Season 1. Scrappily put together and feels like a kids programme. It’s £12.49 to download on Amazon but I wouldn’t bother. 

Primeval: Theoretically in all of Series 4 and 5 – but in reality very little actual scenes until last two episodes of Series 5 (and even then, the amount of acting is debatable). Crappy production values and scripts lacking depth. If you really want to watch it, its £6.99 to stream on Amazon. ☩

Strike Back: Episodes 5 and 6: SAS video game masquerading as a TV show, or one of those books where the cover has a desert and a bullseye on it and the name of the author is in bigger print that the title. Generic variation on Islamic Extremism story…again… ☩

Doctor Who – The Wreck of the Titan: It’s not bad, just a sort of average Sixth Doctor story and for £12.99 you can live without it.

Merlin: meh, not worth it. Series 1, Episode 10: On Netflix. Better than Atlantis and Primeval though. ☩

The Nativity Story – feels like something they make you watch in school. Pretty, but totally lacking humanity or emotion. Part with Alexander Siddig as the Angel Gabriel is here.

DON’T WATCH: Just plain bad

Clash of the Titans: APPALLING MOVIE. WARNING, WARNING. DO NOT WATCH. Can rent for £3.00 on Amazon, but again DO NOT WATCH.  Should also be under ‘barely in’.

The Diary of River Song: “I went to a marvelous party” episode (audio play): Story is boring and heavy handed on the allegory. Add to that the fact it costs £30.00(eek!) makes it a ‘skip it’.

OTHER/ STUFF I CAN’T FIND

Recon: Seriously does this movie even exist? I can’t find it anywhere. Possibly just an elaborate front set up as a tax dodge…

The Big Battalions: missing, presumed wipe. I work near the BFI so went in to see if they have a copy. They didn’t even have a record it exists. Still, it was made by Carnival Productions (who thirty years later churn out Hollow Crown & Downtown Abbey) so was probably good with high production values.

Wild Arabia - documentary narration kindly recommended by little-Vulcan for its ‘dope landscape shots’. On Netflix

#Alexander Siddig #Siddig el Fadil #Deep Space 9 #Gotham #star trek ds9 #This isn't a complete list #If anyone has links to other stuff online or to download at a reasonable cost #Please do add #:-) #public information post

[painterlegendx]

The Real Reason Behind Real Paintings Animal Crossing New Leaf - Real Paintings Animal Crossing New Leaf

Fake Beautiful Statue

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How To Spot Fake Paintings And Statues In Animal Crossing .. | real paintings animal crossing new leaf Ancient Bronze (Dogū - Unknown): The affected adaptation of the bronze has its eyes open.Beautiful Bronze (Venus de Milo - Unknown): The affected bronze has continued hair.Gallant Bronze (David - Michaelangelo): The affected adaptation of the bronze has a anhydrate over both shoulders.Great Bronze (King Kamehameha I - Thomas R. Gould): In the affected adaptation the man is captivation his duke with his approach adverse downwards, rather than upwards.Motherly Bronze (Captoline Wolf - Unknown): In the affected adaptation there is alone one adolescent below the wolf, back there should be two.Mystic Bronze (Bust of Nefertiti - Thutmose): The affected bronze has a angled crown.Robust Bronze (Discobolus of Myron - Unknown): In the affected adaptation it looks like he's throwing a aerial saucer, back it should be a bland disc.Valiant Bronze (Nike of Samothrace - Unknown): The affected adaptation of the bronze has bat wings, instead of angel wings. The Real Reason Behind Real Paintings Animal Crossing New Leaf - Real Paintings Animal Crossing New Leaf - real paintings animal crossing new leaf | Allowed to be able to our blog, on this moment We'll teach you concerning keyword. And from now on, this is actually the very first picture:

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Animal Crossing New Leaf Crazy Redd's Art - Real and Fake - real paintings animal crossing new leaf | real paintings animal crossing new leaf

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[c0rpseductor]

vtm gehenna: time of judgment novel spoilers ahead. im just reviewing this shit

surprisingly pleased with the novel, actually. i’d heard it wasn’t great and i don’t necessarily like gehenna scenarios as my personal WoD headcanon, but i really enjoyed this one. it definitely confirmed for me some headcanons i had about both caine, and the take about what it “means” to be kindred on a sort of philosophical level was actually one i REALLY liked. the ending was oddly very satisfying even if it was kind of depressing, and personally it dovetails pretty perfectly with what i’d always felt about how Being A Vampire should or could work - the idea that it was individual choice and attitude that had to do with everything rather than something so abstract as Fate or Damnation. and ultimately that has a broader meaning as an allegory for regular life, as well, because the point was that everyone should choose their own meaning and purpose in life and that kindred had sucked precisely because so few of them did and accumulated power as an end rather than a means.

i really enjoyed beckett’s characterization, though his dialogue left just a touch to be desired to me; it wasn’t QUITE formal enough compared to how i’d gotten used to it in vtmb. it was REALLY fun, however, finding out that he’s actually kind of a big softie for a vampire, and seeing him make a whole bunch of dumb goofs. he’s really extremely likeable and i’m very glad he was the main character. his relationship with caine was also great, especially because caine was like......also kind of soft, at least for THE FIRST VAMPIRE, but then again i’d always considered that he must be so to some degree because he’s kind of portrayed as sad and guilty. so that was kind of gratifying, actually, was just chill friendly caine

theo bell was another favorite of mine in the novel and honestly the only thing that made me like him more was remembering his backstory that hadn’t been touched on in the book. as soon as i remembered who he was i was like, “HOLY FUCK! THEO BELL!” it was really awesome to see him defect from the camarilla for the Right Reasons and he just was extremely amazing the whole time. theo bell KING i love you

i am of two minds about jack, however. it was VERY interesting to see him pick up gardening, and also very humorous that the author included him snatching a goldfish out of a pond and licking it, for reasons that only made the vaguest sense. him suddenly being into noddism was weird but kind of interesting, and his character had shifted just enough while remaining recognizable that it felt not unlike going to a high school reunion and discovering the delinquent of the class had taken up knitting as a career or something. so all that was fun. it was ALSO interesting to see him decide to fight against the institution for something a little deeper than just himself, even if that’s also part of what made him so fun in the first place. 

i would have liked better if his motivations were more clear, though. i assume he wanted jenna cross’s people to win out against the camarilla to ensure a bunch of oppressive shitheads didn’t pick the reins back up once gehenna was over if there were any survivors, and maybe that he would’ve wanted them to resist gehenna, because i literally can’t imagine jack ever accepting the apocalypse or taking it lying down even if he KNEW it was coming. i also don’t think his death was intentional on his part like the wiki implies. but it didn’t seem like a fitting end for him at all. i understand it’s because oukulos/samuel had him in a bind by potentially fucking cross’s movement over for good, and that because he couldn’t kill samuel he was kind of fucked in that regard, but it still seemed too passive for him. i would’ve accepted it better if at LEAST he had died in an extremely cool and jack-like way, but he did not.

the idea of him actually making a sacrifice for someone else or the good of a cause is actually a really interesting end to his arc, though, i will say that. i like the idea of jack only answering to jack, but sometimes i think that almost clashes with some of his political leanings, so it’s an interesting choice to have him decide he’s going to take a stand about something that doesn’t directly benefit him or that’s primarily for the sake of someone who isn’t him. and i think both that and the way jenna cross looked up to him SO hard is a nice nod to the marginally softer parts of his character, insofar as any part of jack could be called “soft” at all.

once again, though, i think all these ideas could’ve been executed in a way better manner than “jack lets himself get stabbed by some douchebag.” that was unsatisfying even from the standpoint of gehenna being  worst case scenario, and really just did not sit well with me. i’d known that was the decision for the time of judgment timeline, but i’m not into it. if jack had to go down during gehenna i would be much happier to see him go guns blazing, you know? i don’t want him to die at ALL but that would just be a better way to kill him off if it HAD to happen, because he wasn’t the type to take things lying down that way.

honestly in regards to the other characters i don’t know most of them well enough to comment, because i’m not all too familiar with the other novels. lucita’s arc was pretty cool and i enjoyed reading about her but i’m also biased toward loving the token lasombra even if i hate that individual lasombra as a person. it’s complicated.

overall i think it was a really good novel and my only particularly significant gripe with it was that smiling jack got unceremoniously stabbed and died in the lamest way possible, which just makes me irritated and sad, because that’s not right or how he’d want to go and him being so passive is like, fucked. also the author made him use a slur, and that’s not nice.

EDIT: i almost forgot because i did not want this to be true but that business with the tremere means strauss probably met a horrible gruesome end and i’m so upset about it. strauss did NOT deserve that shit he is the most valid tremere on earth and i LOVE HIM and i [cries]

[coshayphinelove]

just some thinky thoughts after i wrote a tag essay that got way bigger than the tags.  feel free to read if you want, but forewarning... i have more questions after writing than before so..

so before i start anything i’d like to clarify that i love ob.  most of my issues with it are bc i got my hopes too high and held the creators to the standards i hold myself, which is not fair in art.  also, i’m only talking about the ob team and the characters, not the fans.  don’t get all in a twist, this is just me... thinkin.

so ep 5 was great.  2013 me would have loved it.  but 2017 me is like.. hard into communication and explicitly labelled representation.  and cophine is neither of those things.  like... i can understand that there’s not enough time to linger on stuff the way i would want to.  i get it.  but like... there was enough time to linger on alison.  for five seasons.  the first time she ever did anything main plot-moving was this season, she was always almost completely seperate.  she got flashbacks out the wazoo to explain her entire life story.  we met her mom.  her monitor is redeemed.  

i just am very unhappy with the doling of screen time.  like... it’s not even about shipping anymore.  it’s about plot holes and i am genuinely confused about the story at this point.  like delphine and donnie are easily comparable characters.  donnie monitored alison for close to a decade.  lied to her for a decade.  once he found out about the clones started doing things without alison’s knowledge or consent.  he is forgiven.  almost immediately.  for everything. 

delphine lasted as a monitor about... a month?  she was so bad at lying that cosima caught her.  she immediately came clean.  then in the flashback begged cosima to believe that she would always protect her.  and yet?  the conflict surrounding delphine for the entire show is ~is she good or bad???~.  and at every turn she is keeping that promise while making and keeping other promises.  and everybody, including her love interest keeps throwing her mistakes in her face.

donnie gets side plots and new dynamics to explore.  delphine has to have all of her characterization as a subset of cosima’s screen time.  donnie gets a seat at the bubbles table, delphine does not.  she has to leave and get shot (a whole different rant of equal length).

on another note, alison and cosima are also easily comparable characters: side characters used to provide info for sarah to react to.  cosima’s safety is always at risk, she’s been boiled down to her love interest for several plots, and she doesn’t ever get to acknowledge her Very Obvious PTSD and abandonment issues.  alison has low stakes conflict (up until this season, but that’s already over), she is never boiled down to donnie’s wife, and we got to watch her parse through her issues in s2 in great detail.  

like even the flashbacks.  like alison got half her episode told in flashbacks and it was gorgeous.  i by no means wanted that when there’s so much going on but i thought we would get at least a little more.  

we met alison’s parent.  we hear about her in a natural and very not forced way.  cosima gets one very long line about her family very late in the game in a clunky and almost pointless way.  (like... why was it in there?  what purpose did it serve?)

i think the problem is subtext.  everybody is always talking about the subtext.  but the problem is there are several issues that the writer’s address almost explicitly.  like alison’s drinking problem.  we learned all about that and we cheered for her when she went to rehab and we we sad when she relapsed. with cosima it’s.... two instances of smash cuts of bad memories and her reacting to them.  ......*gestures with flailing arms* ISN’T THAT ALSO IMPORTANT???  

like.  i’m going to keep talking about delphine but.. that’s just where my head is rn..

but from s1 to s2 her arc was learning what her role would be in clone club and then how to do that.  and she made some big huge strides there.  and then she comes back for s3 and it’s gone.  she’s just.. not doing that anymore?  like they took the time to film her telling cosima immediately after she messed up that she had, in fact, messed up.  and then, what, a few days later she Can’t Tell Cosima Anything Anymore?  and don’t get on me about screen time here.  it could’ve been like.. 2 more lines.  “it’s not safe, they’ll hurt you.”  “b-but delphine??” “i’m sorry.”  LIKE?  they just wanted the drama of cosima not knowing.   which i can see wanting, but it didn’t end up working.  because then you had scenes showing delphine doing things for clone club.  so then... it was just.... confusing?  and imo drawn out for too long.  

but even to this day I, a delphine stan, am still kind of iffy.  she literally made an ultimatum (promise me, everyone.  you will never make an ultimatum in your romantic/sexual/platonic relationships.  that’s a manipulation tactic that a lot of abusers use.  slippery slope please don’t do it.)(i’m also not saying that delphine is an abuser or that you’re an abuser but just.. it’s a thing to be careful of.)  

“accept our toxic relationship as is or leave.”

IN WHAT WORLD IS THAT OKAY??? like i get the sentiment behind it.  like she was saying, ‘hey cosima i know i’ve been bad but like you don’t have to stay if you don’t want.  i’ll stop kissing you and everything.’  but then....  have her say that?  everything delphine ever says to cosima is wrapped in 3 levels of subtext.  or alternatively, cut the kissies in half and let them have a few lines about a new promise or something.  idk if that’s just her being extra or if that’s just.... the writers.

bc the creators... bless them.. they’re trying.  but when it comes down to it they were predominantly straight men.  and they did add tatiana as an executive producer which is like.. the head idea guy who tell the writers what to write.  which was awesome!  but like.. she’s straight (as far as we know).  so like.. i really don’t want to pull the sexuality card here.  but i think i am.  

bc it’s one thing if you don’t give romantic, mental health, or communication plot lines very much time.  it’s another if you give a straight couple plenty and a wlw couple scraps.  it’s one thing if the straight couple gets to delve into things multiple times and the wlw couple gets ten seconds before the plot needs to keep going.

i get that the cosima-centric ep was very plot heavy, stuff was happening, i get it.  but like... if you cared about giving good rep as much as you claim you do wouldn’t you... re-structure so that they have more than 10 seconds?  wouldn’t you sacrifice some of that oh so dearly beloved body horror to let them just... talk for a hot sec?  or let them be in the same room?

i know it’s hard work.  the longest original work i’ve ever finished is a 30 page script.  and even then it’s a lot of ‘is this dialogue working?’  ‘would that character say that?’ ‘that’s a plot hole’  ‘wait where is he going again?’  i get that there’s a lot to keep track of so like... knowing who cosima’s parents are wasn’t on a post-it note on the beat board.  but i just...  one of the questions i always ask myself is ‘is this healthy?’  so like... i always make sure that if the dynamic isn’t then i either address it somewhere else or change it so it is.

i don’t think they were asking themselves that.

bc straight guys are used to power balances in their relationships.  they’re used to ultimatums.  whether it’s in their life or in fiction, that’s what they see.  and they’re socialized to see that as normal.  so when they’re made aware that the media they’re making is feminist/progressive, these guys seemed like they did research and tried to make it more so.  but... they missed the mark.  bc straight men will never know what it’s like to be a wlw or a woman.  that’s just how it works.

and then.. like... they were so hyperaware of the fans and what they wanted.  and i think the thing they understood the best was that they wanted cophine kisses.  bc a lot of ppl wanted that and like...ppl who are cophine critical sometimes also want cophine kisses.  so that’s the loudest thing they heard/saw. and instead of doing the emotional work and the plot work they thought every scene had to have kisses.

and they also knew that they could always fill in the gaps at panels.  WHICH.  not canon if you say it at a panel y’all.  they knew the fans would spread their patches all over the place.  so instead of doing the work and explicitly taking a stand they just.. let people ask them questions so they knew what people were wondering about and then...... answered.

i don’t think they did any of this maliciously but like.. the whole drama surrounding sarah’s sexuality, the great debate of whether it was problematic or not.  like... knowing now that they didn’t intend it to come off as her lashing out and having a mental breakdown helps, but.... that’s still what it looked like at first glance.  and if i’m just a DVR viewer who doesn’t meticulously stalk everything ob online, i wouldn’t know that.  and they do that with delphine’s intentions a lot.  they do it with sexuality a lot.  they do it with gender a lot.  and it’s like.... it’s representation but... label-less to the masses.  like my dad was in the room when sarah was kissing a girl and he made some snide comment about it.  and it’s like... they were just too aware of fans that they gave them what they wanted (sarah kissing a girl/cophine kisses) without thinking about if was the healthy thing for the moment.  they didn’t think about the ramifications.

and it’s just so frustrating.  bc i love this show, i do.  there’s so much to talk about and so many themes and allegories and cool stuff.  but they just... do a lot of stuff that..... really grinds my gears.  like this isn’t even a comprehensive list.

#blog stuff #thinky thoughts #i think i like that tag...

[therealdragonnerdagain]

So a couple weeks back I noticed people were still making arguments about why we should all hate the Railroad in Fallout 4. I’ve debunked a fair few arguments on this blog, but today I figured why not debunk one more?

The last argument I saw said the Railroad was a bunch of hypocrites because they send you to “indiscriminately” kill coursers, who are synths, the very people they are trying to save.

That’s actually not true.

Every courser you’re sent to kill has thrown in their lot with the Institute and is glad to be serving the same people who enslave them. Every last one you fight in a RR quest is a cold, cruel killer (I’m assuming you actually talked to them like I did on my first playthrough – I don’t talk to them anymore, just kill them), and it’s not like you can talk them down from what they’ve been sent to do. In fact, they’re pretty hell-bent on doing it.

The same way you can’t talk down Gabriel in Libertalia and why the hell should you bother? Gabriel made the choice to be a raider – evidence enough that he is sentient – and so, just like every other raider in the game, I will kill him for attacking me and other innocent people. Ironically enough, Gabriel is the only raider in the game (minus the Forged leader) who just wants to talk to you.

Or at least I would kill Gabriel if Fallout 4 presented that option. I think a person who’s undercover with the Institute would need to bring Gabriel in alive so as not to rouse suspicion. Because the more important thing is infiltrating the Institute, not coddling synths who are grown-ass people who can make bad decisions like the rest of us.

Glory was a courser. She chose to do the right thing and help her brethren. And we meet yet another ex-courser in Far Harbor. They can make the choice to turn against the Institute because they are self-aware. Unfortunately, we are required to kill a great deal of them before they have an epiphany. But who’s to say they will? Could you seriously see X6-88 suddenly turning on the Institute? (Which is a shame because he’s such a cool follower)

What’s more important here? Freeing synths who actually want to be free or coddling some coursers who have already chosen to help enslave their own kind???

The person went on to make another argument that they hated Desdemona and Z1 because you are asked to kill a bunch of innocent Institute scientists when you finally make the attack on the Institute.

Bethesda did this on purpose to make sure that no one got a perfect, happy ending – for which I am glad.

This is war, people. This is the price you pay to end slavery, to free people from cruelty and oppression. It often means that innocent people die in the crossfire. My SS did not gleefully gun down the scientists there. She felt bad for them, but at the same time, ending the Institute and putting an end to its reign of terror is more important than five people.

This is where pragmatism steps in. An idealist would believe that there was some way to stop the Institute without violence or the death of innocents. A realist knows there isn’t. A realist knows that gunning down those five innocent people will free hundreds. A realist knows that in order to survive the Commonwealth, they are going to have to make difficult, sometimes terrible decisions and live with them.

My SS didn’t do the right thing in killing those scientists. She did the necessary thing.  

People who make these arguments sound like Patriot to me, too naive to understand that freedom isn’t free but often comes at a very high price. Did you seriously think no good people died in the Civil War??? Wake up.

And do you really hate the Railroad for asking you to kill a few coursers? The Brotherhood asks you to bully your own settlements. On top of that, they regularly ask you to kill super mutants who haven’t done shit to you, just so they can get their hands on some tech the mutants happen to be sitting on. Super mutants are people too. Yet we-the-player storm into their homes while they’re minding their own business and slaughter them all. Sure, super mutants sometimes attack settlements, but we can’t really judge an entire group of people based on a few.

That would be prejudice.

Bethesda sometimes does things throughout the game to remind us that SMs are people too. You can overhear their dialogue when they’re in their homes, just like raiders. You can sometimes loot teddy bears from them. They scream in horror and rage when you kill their brothers and dogs. They have backstories and scribbled notes, just like the raiders.

SMs have feelings and are people. If Strong isn’t enough to drive this home, I don’t know what is. Maybe that SM in Far Harbor? Eric? Seems like he was added as an afterthought once Bethesda realized they had screwed all the factions up by making them mindlessly, constantly hostile. Your character even says in the game that Gunners are just raiders with better gear – which goes to show that Bethesda either doesn’t grasp the lore or just doesn’t give a flying fuck (probably the latter).

I think people make these arguments mostly because they’re ashamed of the fact that they hate the Railroad and don’t want to look like bigots, so they grasp at straws, trying to justify their disdain. Sorry, but you do look like a bigot every time you sneeringly refer to the RR as SJW lunatics. You look like a real asshole, probably the kind who has that one black “friend” and makes racist jokes about them behind their back. Congratulations! You are part of the problem that is this toxic culture we are stewing in.

I’m not saying there aren’t valid reasons to hate the Railroad. In fact, the more I play the game, the more I dislike them. And I think it was supposed to be this way. There are no easy answers. It was supposed to be hard to blow up the Institute and to pick which path to take.

For me, it was easy to choose the Railroad because I’m not down for slavery. But that path wasn’t perfect and I was still required to do some regretful things in order to make that ending happen.

By the end of the game, my character was weighed down with guilt for having murdered her own son, who she lied to and deceived for the sake of saving the synths. Sometimes she stands at the big hole where the CIT used to be and just thinks of him. And whenever assholes like Carrington give her grief, it just makes her angrier about what she had to do.

The ending is not supposed to be easy or even happy, but – geez – I wish to god there had been no stupid cutscene with SS whining about the Great War.

So you probably wanna know why I dislike the Railroad.

I have one good reason, which I’ve already talked about here.

I really dislike that they wipe the synths’ minds.

I think Glory never gets her memory wiped because she knows it’s stupid too (Glory and I were always on the same page). The Railroad is responsible for Libertalia and everything that happened with Gabriel because they wiped his mind. After the Minutemen fallout, he approached Bunker Hill for food, not realizing he was close to blowing their cover, so they paid him off to keep him at bay. When Bunker Hill refused to help him, he slowly and gradually became a raider as an alternative to starving (could be viewed as an allegory for what people of color have to go through in real life, committing survival crimes because they can’t get jobs and thus becoming “thugs”).

This entire situation is the Railroad’s fault, and yet they never do anything to stop Gabriel simply because they knew him once and feel bad for him. They created this situation and left it to stew (sounds like real life, huh?).

It’s my belief that after everything with Gabriel, the Railroad – rather than realizing mindwipes were bad – started sending synths from the Commonwealth after the mindwipes. Which was dumb. It’s just an unnecessary increase of risk. And what I hate the most is the fact that DiMA blames SS for the mindwipes. Just because you’re part of the Railroad, you’re seen as guilty by association???? Wtfe. Ugh.

On my most recent playthrough as Nose Nora, I started to dislike the RR even more after Patriot’s death, mostly because of the way Desdemona seems to blame you for the kid’s naivety. After Patriot’s funeral and shitty suicide letter, my character began to distance herself more and more from the RR. And now, knowing that Desdemona – and Carrington – both treat you like shit after everything you’ve done to help them, right down to killing your own son, it’s going to be hard to go back to the RR quests on subsequent playthroughs, knowing how many crappy attitudes I’ll have to deal with by the end.

But I’m glad Bethesda did it that way because it’s very realistic. You don’t do the right thing to be praised. You do it because it’s right. Ending the Institute was necessary. Choosing to free the synths was right.

That being said, you can not apply that same logic to Nuka World, and – lol – I can’t believe people are trying to.

Players aren’t angry about Nuka World because we wanted to be rewarded for being good. 

Players are angry about Nuka World because we wanted fulfilling content for being good. 

Just as the base game presented fulfilling (lofuckingl) content each time you saved settlements and helped people, rather than leaving you bare-assed in the cold, with an empty theme park that could have been the most awesome settlement ever but instead is left useless because Bethesda thought you’d fill it with raiders and didn’t care enough to make the DLC worth buying if you didn’t.

#fallout 4 #bethesda critical #synth rant

[ishiireviewer]

RATING: 5 Stars.

REVIEW:

God, what a beautiful book! I absolutely loved it. So so so much. It drove me close to tears at one point.

I want everyone to read this book. It’s not like other LGBT books out there because this one focuses on the person instead of the couple.

It had such a flowy quality. So easy to read through in just one sitting.

And I just loved this book so much and I don’t have any words for it.

ANNOTATIONS:-

1. I really love them. I send a steady, visible stream of it—love—from me to them. From my chest to their chests. From my brain to their brains. It’s a game I play. It’s a good game because I can’t lose

2. But it feels good to love a thing and not expect anything back. It feels good to not get an argument or any pushiness or any rumors or any bullshit. It’s love without strings. It’s ideal

3. Ms. Steck reminds me of the arrow—one of Zeno’s arguments. The idea is that an arrow shot at a target has to move through time, but since time is made of tiny moments, the arrow, in each tiny moment, is at rest and not moving. “That’s like saying that if I take a picture of Clay”—I point to Clay, who is wearing his Kurt Vonnegut asterisk T-shirt today—“while he’s running hurdles and I freeze that moment in time… that he never really moved during the race.” Ms. Steck says, “Yes. That’s a little like what Zeno was trying to say

4. Hippocrates. Father of Western medicine. He said this: “There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance

5. She said, “This will be a time of asking questions and not rushing to answer them. A time of poking holes in your own theories. A time of thinking and not knowing

6. Like—moving. He said it was impossible to move because time stands still inside each little split second

7. She sighs and rolls onto her back. “So what’s the big deal about some philosopher who said motion was impossible? Philosophers said all sorts of crazy shit. Wasn’t that their job?” “Their job was to find truth.” “And did they?” I look at Dee and I think that Zeno was totally right, even though that’s not what he meant: For people, motion is sometimes impossible. For Dee. For my mom and Ellis. For nearly everyone. (I wanna understand this)

8. think if we kept a calendar of who gets called gay in high school, there would be a new person on every single day of the 180-day school year. Gay, dyke, fag, lesbo, homo, whatever. Every single one of us has heard it somewhere along the ride. It’s more common than the flu. More contagious, too. Nobody gossips about whether you have the flu or not

9. (Her mum is hating on ignorant people and she believes that she herself isn’t one. We think we know, but we don’t. Not really. What is knowing, though? It’s all thinking anyway, isn’t it? Idk)

10. She leans in to kiss me good-bye, and when she does, I wish I lived on the right planet where kissing Dee Roberts wasn’t a big freaking deal. Where it didn’t mean I have to affix a label to my forehead so people can take turns trying to figure out what caused it or what’s wrong with me. And I wish I didn’t have to lie so much (Yeesss)

11. When Dee kisses me, the taste of her is enough to make me die right here on the spot. I don’t care if some mountain biker zooms through on the path. I don’t care about anything. Not Zeno or Socrates. Not motion or truth. When Dee kisses me, I am alive. I am moving. I am the truth

12. I’ll go,” I say, seemingly out of control of my own mouth. Why did I just say that? I think I can do Thursday,” Ellis says. “Great,” Mom answers. “We’ll go Thursday.” She doesn’t look at me when she says this. Her hand is still on Ellis’s arm. This was like a private conversation they had. My offer to go along stayed in another dimension (Awwwww. Poor baby I love Astrid)

13. We start our unit on the Allegory of the Cave. It’s a part in Plato’s Republic where he wrote a dialogue between his brother Glaucon and his teacher, Socrates. The short version: People chained in a cave are only able to see a wall. The wall has shadows cast from a fire they can’t see. They guess at what the shadows are. Their entire reality becomes these shadows. Clay has read it before. Of course. Knows all about the Allegory of the Cave. “The only life these prisoners know is the sounds and shadows of the cave. Imagine living like that!” he says. “Or maybe we are living like that, right?” Ms. Steck stops him before he can spoil the rest. Apparently there is more excitement to come for the prisoners in the cave. For now, all we have to worry about is a three-hundred-word essay from the point of view of one of these prisoners exploring the realm of belief versus the realm of knowledge (Man) (I wanna read philosophy!!!)

14. “No,” I say, trying to be gutsy, too. “I’m also going to say that if you—if you think you love me, then shouldn’t you treat me like you love me and respect me? And be patient with me?” I realize that I’m saying this not just to Dee but also to my mother. And Kristina. And Ellis. And Jeff. And maybe even myself. (Awwww baby. I wanna hug you)

15. “I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t know.” I watch a plane zoom across the sky, and envy the power and control of it. I simultaneously realize that without a pilot, it would crash. “I need to be my own pilot,” I say. “And I don’t understand why my copilot is saying stuff like shit or get off the pot. It just doesn’t seem like a good team

16. I sigh deeply and lie back down to look at the sky. No airplanes. No passengers to ask. So I ask the clouds. Did you guys know there’s a wrong side and a right side? Why didn’t you tell me? The clouds don’t answer. “So when you said shit or get off the pot, you didn’t mean for me to make up my mind,” I say. “You meant for me to just come out, be gay, and be done with it.” “Well, yeah. I don’t see what the holdup is.” “You wouldn’t understand,” I say. “Obviously, this was a piece of cake for you.” “Are you saying you might not be gay? That this is all just some kind of joke or something?” “It’s not a joke.” “So what is it, then?” “It’s a question. And I’m answering it. But I don’t know the answer yet, and I’m sorry

17. Isn’t it enough to be in love with Dee’s amazing eyes and the smell of her hair? Isn’t it enough that she thinks I’m funny? That we have fun when we mess around at work? Why does everything come with a strict definition? Who made all these boxes? (And then the marriage proposal couple. How cool. The boxes being jewish stuff. I love how the questions she asks has a response from up above)

18. “I don’t know. Isn’t that what you learn in humanities?” I think about what Frank S. would say. But I say nothing (Is that because socrates says nothing? Awesome)

19. Maybe it’s okay that people talk you into things. Maybe if they didn’t, you’d never go anywhere (Yus)

20. I feel an intense paranoia that if I use their toilet paper, they will be even more pissed off with me than they already seem to be (I wanna help her. Why is she so insecure? I feel protective towards her)

21. I hear my dad’s voice: You have to let people get to know you before you decide they don’t like you (Yyaaasss)

22. What does the airport look like at four o’clock in the morning? Did they even have coffee brewing? Was there toilet paper in the stalls? And why don’t I feel ashamed right now? Is that a sign? (Because its not your fault. Passenger’s story about her friend and her and two boys who took advantage. She finally feels okay about it. That’s because she finally accepted that what happened wasn’t her fault. Which is the same in case of astrid and cops busting gay bar)

23. All we can see is the wall Mom wants us to see. On it she’s drawn the people we know in shadow. For me, she’s drawn you and Dad and the residents of Unity Valley. For you, she’s drawn me and Dad and the residents of Unity Valley. Based on Mom’s shadows, I see a sister who will always be better than me. A sister who will always win because I am a loser. She has cast this same shadow for Dad. We are the losers in the Jones family illusion, and you and Mom are the winners ME: Now imagine we were set free from this illusion. Our chains removed, our heads able to turn and look at each other. What would I look like to you? And what would you look like to me? And what would Dad look like to us? Would we still rely on the shadows, or would we see the real people? ELLIS: You’re starting to worry me, Astrid. ME: That’s because you’re still chained ME: I guess not, too. ELLIS: But if I change the way I think, Mom will stop loving me. ME: How do you know? ELLIS: I know because that’s what she did to you (Aw)

24. They say: Did you hear? Did you hear? Did you hear? But no one actually talks to us. (Wow. Yes. They hear it from others but never from us. And they believe what others say.)

25. You’re completely wrong, you know. You’re completely full of shit.” “That’s not what we heard.” They say that in unison, like the creepy girls in The Shining. They say: That’s not what we heard. (Because you didn’t. Not really)

26. She asks, “What do you think Plato meant to say when he talked about the freed people returning to the cave? Did he think they couldn’t handle the outside world? Did he feel they needed to be controlled? What does that compare to in our society? Do we have places like the cave?” She glances at me when she asks this, but she doesn’t call on me, and I send love to her for it. Ms. Steck, I know you sat in that faculty room and heard every stupid rumor. I love you because this discussion is exactly what I needed. I will not be like Kristina and go back into the cave

27. I replace the word gays from her sentence with these other words: blacks, Hispanics, immigrants, women, people of mixed race, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Gypsies, Russians, Poles, Yugoslavians, Ukrainians, mentally and physically disabled

28. Frank Socrates, and he says, in my head, Settle for nothing less than the truth. Even if the answer is I don’t know

29. When I see the first plane, I make a deal with its passengers. I say: Look, this is a loan. I don’t know if love is something I will run out of one day. I don’t know if I should be giving it all to you guys or not. Today, I feel like maybe I should have kept some for myself for days when no one else loves me. Not even my best friend (Awww boo)

30. And then I send the love up. It’s as easy as it always is, and it’s hard, too, because I really don’t know the answer to this mystery. Is love something that will always be available? Will it always be confined and untrustworthy like it feels today? Is there enough to go around? Am I wasting mine on strangers? (Awww. No baby. That’s what makes you a wonderful person.)

31. (God this book is so fucking beautiful. Drove me to tears. After the above, a guy in plane feels bad about not feeling loved and then he receives Astrid’s and he feels happy. And astrid thinks it’s a waste which is proved wrong by this dude. How fucking beautiful.)

32. While I’m brushing my teeth, I think about how our sisterhood deteriorated. I blame Mom. Of course. But as I look at myself in the mirror, I see some other stuff. My snubbing her when she decided to be a small-town girl. Me deciding she didn’t need me anymore when she got old enough to stop watching The Wizard of Oz. Me not inviting her when Dad and I would make stuff together. Me deciding that Mom would always like her more… and having it reflect on her instead of just on Mom. So maybe I helped it happen. Maybe we’d be closer. If I told her the truth, she’d probably accept me eventually, and we could just be sisters again

33. As he walks away, I think about what he said about Justin in the locker room, and I think about Ellis and her gross towel thing this morning, and I figure out what confuses people so much about other people being gay. They think it’s all about sex (Yyyeeesss. As if that’s the only element about their personality.)

34. NO wins, twelve votes to ten. Ms. Steck doesn’t say anything. She just leaves the results on the board above the ugly homophobic signs, and all I can think of is what she called us: Unity Valley’s best and brightest. And we’re three votes short of equality. (Best and brightest being a paradox. And 3 votes short which makes her paradox “equality is obvious” ring true)

35. I think about what she said to me last night. How I had nothing to lose and how she had everything to lose. I count eight people at her table. I count zero at mine (Does this mean in a revengey manner?or was she just justifying kris’ statement?)

36. First, to define equality. Then to define obvious. I mean, I can even try to define is if I want, because equality isn’t really working in the present tense, is it? Because equality isn’t really obvious to most people. And I don’t mean to say the world is filled with racists or sexists or homophobes. I mean to say: Everybody’s always looking for the person they’re better than. In fourth grade, it’s the second graders. In ninth grade, it’s the eighth graders. Adults look at teenagers like we’re the stupidest creatures on the planet, when really we’re just lining up to take their jobs in T-minus five years. I am equal to a baby and to a hundred-year-old lady. I am equal to an airline pilot and a car mechanic. I am equal to you. You are equal to me. It’s that universal. Except that it’s not

37. I feel myself getting pissed off, so I take a minute to try to figure out how to say what I want to say. Frank S. lights Dad’s pipe. I have no idea how he knew where to find it, but I guess if I made him up in my head, he must know everything I know. I feel relaxed by association

38. Still, it’s none of your business until I’m ready to tell you. Calling it a lie is wrong. And kinda hurtful. I really know what you’re trying to say, but try to think about it from my side. It just sucks that you’d hold my own confusion—which tortured me for months—against me. Seriously.” (I agree)

39. Why? I’m right! All those people who are chained here thinking that their reputations matter and that this little shit matters are so freaking shortsighted. Dude, what matters is if you’re happy. What matters is your future. What matters is that we get out of here in one piece. What matters is finding the truth of our own lives, not caring about what other people think is the truth of us! (Yyyaaasss)

40. I take a second to think about him—Frank Socrates—and I decide he’s my new hero. Not because he shows up in my life and talks to me when I want him to, but because of who he was and what he stood for. I just love how he rejected all the boxes

41. The world is made of so many types of different people, and we have to learn that though they might be scary at first, they are not inherently bad because they are different.” He starts this way and goes on to talk about his days in school as a mixed-race Latino and how hard it was for him growing up. He got beat up a lot. Teased every day. I start to feel resentful. You mean to tell me that it’s 2011 and this guy gets paid to have remedial talks with high school students about how they shouldn’t hate other people? Isn’t this elementary? Shouldn’t it be automatic? What kind of species are we if we have to have people come talk to us about this crap? And how, if we’re that stupid, did we get to the moon and help build a space station? He tells a story about how his mother was from Cuba and how she hated Puerto Ricans. He says, “No matter how many times I tried to explain to her how stupid this was, she never changed. It was just ingrained in her. “Some of you have it ingrained in you. You weren’t born with it. You were taught. No baby has hate for anything.” He produces a baby (a real baby) and bounces the kid on his hip. “We were all babies once, right? This little guy doesn’t care what country you were born in or what religion you might practice or how much you weigh or who you might love

42. I just went to my twenty-fifth class reunion, guys. Let me tell you—people change. The girls who passed around rumors about all the weird kids? Are nice and have their own weird kids. The so-called losers who graduated at the bottom of the class? Are driving luxury cars and running big businesses. The kid who made fun of all the gay kids? Is gay. I’m not saying this will happen to all of you, but what I’m trying to tell you is that high school doesn’t end here. You guys will know each other for a long time, and you will get to see how life changes people. I only hope that for right now, you remember that there is no place for hate in a happy life. I don’t care who you are, where you come from or what God you believe in. I can guarantee you that if you hate, you will never achieve true happiness

43. “I don’t know why this is so important for me to tell you, but I’m a virgin. Seriously weird for me to be telling you that, I know, but this whole thing, it’s not about sex. I just fell in love, and it happened to be with a girl.” “O-kay,” he says. “When I told you I didn’t know if I was gay, I was telling you the truth. I just know I’m in love—with a girl. I had no idea of anything past that. It’s very Socrates, you know? I’m not questioning my sexuality as much as I’m questioning the strict definitions and boxes of all sexualities and why we care so much about other people’s intimate business.

44. And if any of you has a problem with any of it, then it’s your problem. Being gay is hard enough without having to worry about your family being weird about it.”

45. How can we say nobody’s perfect if there is no perfect to compare to? Perfection implies that there really is a right and wrong way to be.(but that keeps changing, no?) And what type of perfection is the best type? Moral perfection? Aesthetic? Physiological? Mental

46. By the end of the day, I’m exhausted. Frank S. must have been one hearty guy to argue on the streets of Athens all day the way he did. Our humanities class enjoys a bunch of snacks and a Socrates Project party in the humanities room, where we all debate one another’s paradoxes and are reminded by Ms. Steck to question everything and continue to challenge others with our open minds long after we remove our togas

47. I listen to the air. I don’t hear a thing. Not one thing. They say: They say:

48. The nice thing about the passengers is they can’t say anything back. I can’t see any faces full of disappointment. I can’t hear them saying bad things about me. I can’t hear them call me the politically correct term for Indian giver… on Thanksgiving Day. Anyway, it’s not like I want my love back. I’m just slowing down business. They can have a little. I can say, “I love you!” when I see a plane. I probably always will. But they can’t have all my love. I have too many uses for it now

49. Okay. I sent them my love because I didn’t need it here,” I say. “Mom never loved me, and Dad was too busy doing other stuff, and you didn’t love me because Mom had turned you against me, and then when Dee came along, I knew I couldn’t love her even though I love her more than anything. But I knew I wouldn’t be allowed. Not by Mom, not by Unity Valley. Not by you. Not by anyone

50. will notice, you know, when you find some cute guy and marry him and have a bunch of kids, that you might not be gay and sleeping with your lesbian sister. If they believe lies, then that’s their problem, not yours (True)

51. And then I look out the window and down at the green-and-brown landscape, and I toss my love to whoever might be there to keep it safe. Maybe if you catch this love, you can keep it safe? I ask them. Maybe someone down there knows what to do with it while I go and get brainwashed by people who hate me? Dee says, “What?” I try to think of what just happened, but I can’t explain it. All I know is that a huge, overwhelming feeling of love has just landed in my heart, and I have to keep it safe for a while. “Nothing,” I say. “Don’t worry about it I’m left with this feeling, though. A lucky feeling. I squeeze Dee’s hand and kiss her on the cheek. I can do that now. I can do whatever I want. I look at the plane, and I send my love. Don’t worry. I’ll keep it safe. Stay strong

52. (I thought the ending would be her sitting on a plane and receiving the love of someone else but this is way better. And so much better)