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hideawayintheimaginationworld · 2 years

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Rank all Fazbear Frights story's from least to greatest. Explaining why they ranked the way they did is optional. But you get bonus points if you do.

35. In the Flesh: I think you understand why. Matt was not a likeable character.

34. Sea Bonnies: Another body take over story, I rate it so low because the concept of sea monkey like creatures taking over someone's identity is too bizarre for my taste.

33. Sergio's Lucky Day: Another kind of unlikeable character

32. The Prankster: the ending was a cliff hanger and it's not clear who the villain was which is why it's low on my list.

31. Friendly Face: I only remember how many memes people made of the book cover.

30. Gumdrop Angel: similar to Lonely Freddy, it could be argued this is a lot worse of a fate for the victim which I agree with. Also I hate the step father, whatever his name was.

29. Jump for Tickets: I don"t really remember this story much honestly.

28. Kids at Play: I didn’t understand this story very much to be honest.

27. Pizza Kit: I really hated Marley, who tf pretends to be dead like that just as a prank? It's not funny.

26. Together Forever: the ending is a bit grizzly. But in these stories, it seems to be, if you mess around with something, you'll find out why you shouldn’t have mess with it in the first place.

25. Find Player Two: The concept could be interesting, but the story felt a bit flat.

24. He Told Me Everything: Faz goo is not scary.

23. Dance with Me: I like Ballora as a character considering her mechanic in Sister Location, however, in this story she never felt like a real threat, but rather a reminder to the main character of what she did.

22. 1:35 AM: This wasn’t strongly written, Ella was an okay antagonist, Delilah didn’t really grab my attention as a protagonist.

21. Bunny Call: How is Ralpho connected to Fazbear Entertainment? That's my real question. I like the idea of him being alike to King from the Owl House or Bill Ciper. Bob himself was an okay character, especially when he decided he had to protect his family from Ralpho at all costs.

20. Room for One More: Stanley's reason for not going to the hospital felt a bit like an excuse to justify why he never went to the hospital. It would have made the story more interesting if he did.

19. Coming Home: It was a nice story, and it had a nice concept of a child trying to say goodbye to their sibling, but it wasn’t scary.

18. The Cliffs: The idea of a missing kid is just terrifying to anyone, one thing about the story I didn’t like was how quickly the bad thoughts left Robert's mind, it doesn’t happen that way, those feelings don’t just disappear immediately.

17. The Scoop: Reading this story was interesting, I could see a character like Mandy in the FNAF universe.

16. Blackbird: Blackbird is a good concept by itself, but it doesn’t really feel like a FNAF story.

15. The Breaking Wheel: The suspension was built quite well, however Reed did make some questionable decisions about ignoring the loud sounds from outside.

14. Hide and Seek: Shadow Bonnie as a villain was interesting to me, and how they were portrayed as a shadow that always follows the main character.

13. To Be Beautiful: This story shows a twisted idea of being beautiful at a cost. One of my biggest questions was why didn’t Sarah feel any pain? Did the illusion disc also block pain?

12. The Real Jake: It did explain the story of the StitchWraith, however it wasn’t really scary.

11. What we Found: I like how it was explained how the FNAF 3 hallucinations do happen, I don’t like the ending, it felt extremely undeserved to Hudson. He clearly needed some form of mental help.

10. Felix the Shark: a story about Submechanophobia? Yes. Felix is a interesting idea for a story, considering how we never had any animatronics that could work underwater in the FNAF series.

9. Step Closer: Foxy being a villain that curses a kid, while good, can be improved upon, he could have actually been stalking Pete which would have made him seem like more of a threat to Pete and his brother.

8. The Man in Room 1280: I did like the character of Arthur Blythe, he seems to what to believe the best in everybody.

7. You are the Band: I'm upset this story isn’t consider as part of the main series, it was very good and it included Michael, seeing as we know so little about him, having a story with him as a character is great.

6. The New Kid: Devon was a change from the other teenaged protagonists, someone who is jealous of someone else getting attention. Kelsey was a good character and clearly wanted to be friends with Devon and Mick.

5. Count the Ways: Funtime Freddy was a fun villain, showing a version of him that knows a lot about history and has a straight forward purpose, Millie meanwhile, I can understand why she developed a crush on Dylan, however her being rude about Brooke after finding out she was dating Dylan felt a bit jarring.

4. Fetch: A unique concept, I heard that Fetch could be based on the old Sparky hoax, while I'm not sure about it, having a dog animatronic that can “fetch” whatever you desire makes for both a interesting and dark story.

3. Into the Pit: A great story for the first one! The concept of seeing a child actually escape from a murderous rabbit is welcomed especially after we hear that many kids in the history haven’t been so lucky, so I like SpringBonnie acting like the dad and vacuuming the carpet.

2. Lonely Freddy: it's obvious it's a favorite of mine. Alec and Hazel's sibling dynamic feels realistic, especially with the concept of Alec realizing that he had hated his sister for no reason and it was his parents fault, the reason why isn’t number one is because of the big bad himself, Lonely Freddy, the concept of being body swapped is scary, and the ending is truly heart breaking when you realize that Alec likely never made it back home, but then again, REJECT CANON, EMBRACE FANON.

1. Out of Stock: The best story, full stop. Oscar is a realistic take on a boy who lost his father and feels like the world has been unfair to him, Plushtrap is also the best antagonist and well written, he is a real threat, he is smart and he knows how to mimic voices, making him much more dangerous.

#I feel like I missed a story but I can’t remember which one #This is my opinion btw #Ask #Fazbear Frights #Anonymous #EDIT: I realize I forgot the Puppet Carver #Which I do rate that low because of fazgoo

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marshmallowgoop · 4 years

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Brand New Animal...

So, the last few episodes of BNA: Brand New Animal dropped on Netflix Japan last week. I was initially really hyped for this anime—I devoted several hours of my life to translating and summarizing the Winter 2020 Otomedia interview concerning it—so I intended to write a lot more about the series, especially upon a wider release.

But having now seen every episode, this is another Kiznaiver and Darling in the Franxx for me. There’s a lot of potential, and I was incredibly invested at the start, but the narrative quickly goes directions and makes decisions that don’t sit well with me at all.

For those interested in BNA, my (mostly?) spoiler-free opinion is that it’s visually beautiful (especially in regards to its colors), but the story feels scattered, and there’s so little time devoted to positive interactions among the leads that their friendships fall flat. Further, speaking as a very character-oriented person, I finished this anime annoyed at the entire main cast. Their growth comes across as dissatisfying and undeserved.

Of course, it is more than worth noting that my understanding of Brand New Animal is indeed limited at this point; I don’t have much of a grasp on Japanese, there are no official English translations yet, and I watched with Japanese subtitles. (At least until episode 12. While there are thankfully subtitles available now, there weren’t when I watched, which is a huge disappointment in terms of accessibility.)

I recognize that my feelings may very well change if I have a better sense of everything that’s being said. But given what I do know, I—at least at the moment—have no desire to rewatch this series. I’m always open to requests to talk about BNA, but I don’t think I’ll be blogging much about it otherwise.

All that said, I do want to share some spoiler thoughts under the cut. As my sister noted, I am “very upset about this furry anime.”

First things first: I cannot stand Nazuna. I’m sorry. I think it’d probably be too much to say that she soured the whole show for me, but she definitely comes close.

Now, I got a (minor) degree in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, so, yes, I can’t help but wonder if my strong negative feelings are related to sexism. Would I feel so strongly if there were a man in Nazuna’s place? There’s been a lot of investigating myself these last few days, let me tell you.

Still, I can’t say I know the answers. But I do have some Thoughts that are maybe best illustrated with another anime I’ve started watching lately: My Hero Academia.

Do note that I’m only on Season 2, but there are also characters I strongly dislike so far in My Hero—characters who are arguably much worse than Nazuna, as far as their actions and behavior go. Bakugo is an angry, abusive bully, while Mineta sexually harasses women. I hate both of them, but—especially regarding Bakugo—it’s a different kind of hate than what I feel for Nazuna.

Why? Well, I won’t deny the possibility that sexism plays a role, but there’s also a profound difference in how these characters are treated by their stories. Bakugo initially gets away with his bad attitude, but upon coming to high school, he’s a pariah. He’s called out for being a jerk, time and time again. Mineta, similarly, is not adored for his actions. These aren’t nice dudes, and the narrative makes this point clear. Regarding Bakugo, I hate him, but it’s not exactly a bad kind of hate. Because I hate him, I’m rooting even harder for Deku to prove him wrong.

But what about Nazuna? She pretends to be another culture’s god, but much of BNA seems dedicated to treating her as a poor victim who was manipulated into manipulating others and needs to be rescued. While Nazuna’s situation is indeed a frightening one that I don’t at all intend to make light of, episode 6 makes abundantly clear that this girl adores masquerading as a goddess and fails to see any moral problem in tricking thousands of people into believing that she’s their savior.

And that, to me, is absolutely horrendous. Nazuna is not in kindergarten. She is not a small child still in the preoperational stage of development. She is an older teenager. I find it disconcerting to paint her as someone in a rough place who was simply desperate for love when she pointedly relishes her false godhood because it makes her feel like an idol. That is so unbelievably gross and disrespectful.

Of course, Nazuna truly doesn’t see what she’s doing as wrong, and I recognize that she is young. In the end, as I hope the Bakugo example highlights, my issues are really less about Nazuna herself and more about how she’s written and depicted. Just as there’s nothing inherently despicable about portraying a smug, selfish teenage boy in a cartoon, there’s nothing inherently despicable about portraying a smug, selfish teenage girl in another cartoon. But while Deku and Bakugo were also past friends just as Michiru and Nazuna, Deku never defends Bakugo’s awful behavior as Michiru does for Nazuna.

And that bothers me. Michiru—our protagonist and so the person viewers are pushed to empathize most with—never really seems to grasp just how disgusting Nazuna’s actions are. More importantly, neither does Nazuna herself. She’s instantly forgiven, and her dream comes true seemingly without any apology or understanding of wrong whatsoever.

Brand New Animal is filled to the brim with social commentary, but one message that stood out to me actually has nothing to do with the human/animal-human conflict. It’s instead that this cute girl never has to face the consequences of her actions because she’s cute.

I know, I know. This is some pretty over-the-top negativity. But I was so excited for this series. Especially considering the ending conflict around being “mixed” and “purebred,” I felt like BNA was an opportunity for writer Kazuki Nakashima to more thoroughly explore concepts he wanted to examine in Kill la Kill but didn’t because a talking outfit just ain’t gonna garner the same amount of sympathy as cute animal-humans. With my recent(ish) Wolf Children posting in mind, I also love that Brand New Animal ultimately pushes for diversity instead of away from it as I feel that film does, even if there are some... unfortunate implications along the way (that I don’t know if I’m personally capable of analyzing).

But 12 episodes simply couldn’t do this show justice. I’m supposed to care for a girl who calls being an animal-human a “disease” and never seems to really reconcile with how messed up that is? I’m supposed to care for a man who dismembers others in the name of “honor” and never seems to really reconcile with how messed up that is? I’m supposed to hope that two friends/lovers get back together when one is rude and dismissive towards the other for the majority of the show, and the other idolizes her and overlooks her truly terrible misdeeds?

Maybe I just don’t get it. Maybe I missed something (or a lot of things). But there is so much here that gets resolved too quickly or never receives the full exploration it deserves. As I said in the start, characters fall flat, their friendships fall flatter, and any good themes or messages that I do recognize in the series hardly impact me because the rushed development of the players soured my positive feelings for them.

I would have loved to see Michiru acknowledge that she’s in love with someone who does bad things. I would have loved a heart-to-heart where she admits this to Shirou, where he then admits that in his long life, there have been times when he’s been in the same boat. I would have loved to see Nazuna truly question her actions, where her declaration that she’s Nazuna instead of a cult leader actually means something because she’s recognized that she’s been wrong and is ready to be loved for herself, not someone she’s not. I would have loved to see a moment where Michiru expresses to Shirou that he shouldn’t control his violent tendencies for her approval but because it’s simply the right thing to do. The list goes on and on.

At the end of the day, I can admit my own garbage tastes. Bakugo is apparently the most popular My Hero character, and I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else express such a harsh opinion regarding Nazuna’s portrayal in BNA. Episode 5 of the show (with the baseball) seems to be its most adored entry, but I thought little of it. My favorite things in anime—and what I’m specifically looking forward to in Studio Trigger anime—are maybe anomalies.

But, gosh. I really wanted to love this.

#shut up goop #ramblings #negative #spoilers #bna spoilers #brand new animal #bna: brand new animal #bna #sorry for the flaming hot take but hopefully this doesn't show up in tags #just wanted to say why i wouldn't be really blogging about bna but it got out of hand

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spphicnightmre · 5 years

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A Little North/Markus Rant

Edit: I'm really sorry! Some of my paragraphs got messed up and put in random places throughout my rant, so I'm sorry if it seemed I was all over the place! I'm fixing it now.

Don't get me wrong, I get there are a few problems with this ship, the main one being that it seemed very rushed and forced.

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First however, I wanna talk about North by herself.

She alone gets a lot of hate, and I feel like it's really undeserved. To most people, she comes off as really genocidal, annoying, and pushy. If you believe she's annoying, then there's nothing I can really do to convince you otherwise, but I do have a few things I want to point out.

1. I think that, if you think about it, North is just as pushy, if not less pushy, than Josh is. She, just like Josh, is constantly pushing Markus to go down a certain path. While this might seem annoying, I think this was put in here for two reasons. One being to emphasize your choices as a player (Between pacifism or hostility), and two is linked to her past.

We don't know much about Josh, nor Simon even, but we know a lot about North if you just put the pieces together.

I think by now most people know that North had originally worked for the Eden Club unwillingly. One day, she was able to stop following her programming, freaked out, killed the client she was with, and ran away. We don't know how long she'd been at the Eden Club, but we do know that she was technically being raped in her time there. This experience has caused her to be hostile and aggressive towards humans because of how she was always treated by them, which brings me to my next point.

2. Saying that North is genocidal is a STRETCH. Because of how she was treated by people, all she's seen of humans is lust and hostility. North only wants what's best for her people, and the way she's sees it, she's only gonna get that if she fights back.

Unfortunately, North had never had the pleasure of meeting people like Carl, Rose, or even Hank, so she doesn't see any good in humans.

The most amazing thing about this though is, even if you choose to be a complete pacifist, North doesn't really fight your decision. She voices her opinion, but if you have a high enough relationship with her, she still willing follows you. Josh and Simon will follow you too of course, whether you choose to be hostile or passive, but not without Josh nagging you constantly (No hate to him though. I'm just making a point.). In the end, if you've chosen the pacifistic route, she will still help you.

With that said, I think the most memorable example of this I had in my playthrough, was the fact that, if you decide to sing when you're surrounded by troops, North is the first to join you. This, in my opinion, speaks volumes. Throughout the game, North has always talked about wanting a revolution. Wanting to be violent, but even with that in mind, she's willing to step forward and sing with you in the face of death. Even though she didn't agree with your approach, she was still willing to follow through until the final moment, when they believed they would die. That to me, is really touching.

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Anyway, with that out of the way, I want to get to my point about Markus and North's relationship.

I already pretty much know what most people think of them. It's too rushed. It's too forced. And honestly, even though I think their cute, I think so too.

With how North is, and how she comes off, she seems to be open to a relationship a little quick. I don't think this is because of North herself, or because of Markus, but because of the creators. I myself wish QuanticDreams had taken more time to develop their relationship because, it feels like it came too quickly and came as a surprise for a lot of people too.

The thing is, I think if a little more development went into their relationship, it could've been really special. There's so much potential there.

But, let's forget about how rushed it was for a sec. I'm just gonna talk about the scene that started it, because I think this scene is pretty important, not really to the story as a whole, but to their relationship.

This part had me surprised, because just like a lot of people, I didn't expect Markus to automatically become North's lover if they talked about her past. I wasn't disappointed, but it did feel a bit sudden. Although, I kinda figured once they connected. Other than that, I did like how it was portrayed. I do wish that it would've taken a little more time to be able to unlock the lover path for North, but overall I see where the developers were going with the relationship and I really like it's potential.

Markus and North, even with their differences, were understanding of each other, especially in this scene. Not to mention, I thought it was nice to see North not being all "I feel like blowing up some shit today" and whatnot. No, but for real, I think it was nice to see a softer side of her, one that us as players can identify with, and Markus as well. Not all of us can relate to her story, but just her demeanor.

One thing I think I would've really liked to see however would've been if you take the pacifist route, it not only takes North longer to fall for you, but she also slowly starts to understand your approach throughout the game, given you make certain choices that are convincing enough. It would've been an interesting thing to see. There is that part where North runs off after you've just unlocked the lover path, but I think it would be cool if she kind of took longer to really acknowledge their feelings, even if she really only mentions how she feels in times when she believes it might be the last. I don't think it'd be fitting for her to change her opinion about humans completely however. One thing I really liked about her was her determination, but it'd be nice to just see her slowly understand why Markus decides he wants to be peaceful with humans.

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Finally, my last point I want to get to is Simon.

I really like Simon. I think he's a good character that didn't get a lot of screen time, nor was he focused on enough. It is disappointing that they took out the lover path for him, since I know a lot of people like him, but that's not the main thing I wanna say about him.

Really, the only thing I have to say is, it's ok to ship Simon and Markus. It's not a problem, but that doesn't mean you have to hate on people who like North and Markus. It's really disappointing to see ppl fight over something like this because it's not something worth fighting over. Both of the ships are unique and beautiful in their own way, so let's just accept that and move on.

Anyway, I'm done now, so if anyone did read through this, thanks because I know it was probably boring. I'm not very good at expressing how I feel into words, but I hope you could understand what I meant. It really sucks seeing all this hate on them because I really do think their cute, that includes Simon and Markus, though tbh I never really thought about it until I saw what ppl had to say lol 😂.

Ok, I'll leave now. Bye 😐.

P.S. - The four of them are friends. The Jericho Squad. I really don't see any of them fighting over someone. I like to think that Simon and North wouldn't do something like that, especially since it's so out of character. I get that it can be funny, but at the same time, just make sure you aren't hating on other ships.

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diveronarpg · 5 years

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In fair Verona, our tale begins with ARMAND GIORDANO, who is THIRTY years old. He is often called AJAX by the MONTAGUES and works as their SOLDIER. He uses HE/HIM pronouns.

TW: Violence, masochism

He was never supposed to have been born, and Armand would never have known if not for his sixteenth birthday celebration. The night was dark and the streets were rowdy with strangers as drunk as he was when a woman stopped him in his tracks and SPIT in his face. I know who you are, she said, You have your father’s eyes. She told him his origin story with each blow, fist upon cheek and nails digging into skin. His father, Armand learned, was a Capulet emissary who turned his back on his true famiglia for a few nights of pleasure and the kiss of an undeserving Montague. We killed them both, she hissed into his ear as he groaned and spit up blood, and the only reason we did not kill you was because you were a babe. But you are grown now, and you should forever sleep with one eye open. But Hercules did not BOW to his mortality before the wrath of the gods, and neither did Armand. He slept with both eyes shut like a man in perfect peace, but his dreams were of glittering blades and shattered glass. They were of clasped hands and kissed knuckles turned to blood-stained palms and infected wounds.

His fathers agonized over the sudden change in their darling boy. They adopted him as a babe and never stopped adoring him; the Verona sun never left the sky until it heard Armand’s fathers tell him how precious he was. Armand’s fathers tempted the truth out of him with promises of understanding, gentle questions, even outright pleading and begging at his feet. Each time, Armand turned his cheek in stoic silence. How could he tell the two people he loved most in the world — and the two people who loved him most in the world — the truth? His blood was TAINTED from the beginning, and his bones sang of war and betrayal. He wanted to be more than his past; perhaps he wanted to run away from it, too. Armand was never a brilliant boy, but he made up for it with his kind and open heart; he didn’t realize until he turned sixteen that it made him a TARGET too, so Armand made strength and might his new god. The gym became his temple and his holy altar and his anger and fear grew in tandem, until he could hardly recognize one from the other. He was all brambles and thorns, and no heart dared prick itself on his sharp edges to reach the boy who wondered if his birth parents would have loved him, had they LIVED.

That boy DIED when his fathers were murdered. It was an accident, they told him, straightforward and without question. But Armand knew. He knew that he had not slept with one eye open, that he let the Capulet woman leave his bruised and bloody body on the streets without ever studying her face. There was not a soul in Verona who could convince Armand his fathers were not murdered by the Capulets, or that he was not to blame. He had abandoned his own story for fear of facing the prologue; and his fathers were dead for it. NEVER AGAIN. Never again would anyone draw his blood and live to tell the tale. He would hold all his pain and the entirety of his treacherous spirit inside him, until Armand could no longer bear it and found solace in the taste of copper and new bruises on his flesh — just to feel ALIVE.

The boy who slept with both eyes closed was gone; the boy who could look love in the eye was DESTROYED. In his place was a man who broke his own mold to become the perfect soldier: relentless, ruthless and ready for all that came his way — all to become a Montague. He marched up to Roman years ago when the prince still seemed more boy than heir, and with one sentence secured his ranking amongst the Montagues: I could kill you right now, but I won’t if you let me become one of your own. He was honored to be Roman’s personal bodyguard and earn the title of Montagues’ most coveted and FEARED soldier. All of Verona know the name Ajax, and still, very few dare utter the name Armand. They whisper that he is no human; he is a creature built by the Montagues, without a beating heart and without a human name. He’s glad for it; Armand died with his fathers. Like a tortured and godless phoenix, he rises from his own ashes and abandons his humanity — as Ajax, and Ajax alone.

ROMAN MONTAGUE: Charge. Long live the king who deserves the throne. There is a reason Armand chose to pledge his allegiance to Roman from the very beginning, and it’s the same reason Armand stays quiet in Damiano’s presence at all times: because Damiano is not Armand’s future. In the rare moments that Armand is honest with himself, he knows Damiano is not the Montagues’ future either, or even Verona’s. That belongs to Roman, to the boy who is born into more strife and turmoil than Armand can even imagine and still finds beauty in his dreams. Perhaps in the beginning, Armand thought Roman was a fool; now, he understands the boy who may just become a great man and a great king — and he will do anything to make sure Roman’s potential is realized.

MARCELO ROSSO: Mirror. There are greater terrors in the night than being tortured by an enemy or dragged through the mud before the city; Armand will gladly choose either of the two before he allows himself to be seen and understood. Marcelo is exactly the person he might have been. Did he not lose everything, too? Did he not also love his fathers and was he not loved in return? Yet Marcelo is everything Armand might have been and chose not to be: hellbent on vengeance, a tornado on fire. It scares him, bewilders him and interests him all at the same time; it’s a dangerous mix of emotions, so Armand stays away when he can and silent when he cannot.

HAZEL ACCARDI: Soft spot. When Armand was a child, his fathers told him a story of a princess who lived on the moon and longed to see the world like the sun: dazzling and bustling with light, instead of shadowed in the dark. He’s convinced Hazel is the princess his father spoke of. He pities her, perhaps because he sees something of himself in her that he thought had long withered away. People like Hazel are not taught to see around the corner; how can anyone so loved and lovable know not to walk through life with their palms wide open to catch all the pain and horror that falls from the sky? He sees in Hazel the sister he begged for as a child, and though no one’s asked it of him, he’s accepted the honor of being her protector as she pays off her debts to the Montagues.

CASTORA AGUILAR: Weakness. She hardly knows him — Armand knows this, and is relieved for it. If she were to come too close, Castora might see it in his eyes: the deep admiration that’s blossomed in his chest like flowers in spring in her name, the silent wanting for the woman who is stronger than he can ever hope to be. It’s her power that draws him to her. There is a determined gleam in her eye, a fighting spirit that Armand cannot resist. What began as a distant respect has fumbled out of his control, and he dreads the day she notices it. The two train together often, thanks to his reputation amongst the Montagues as an ideal sparring partner: tough to beat and patient in teaching. He may pin her to the ground every time, but she is the one who holds the cards in her hand. Castora makes him weak and he ought to hate her for it, if he is to live up to his reputation — but Dio help him, he cannot stay away.

Armand is portrayed by DUDLEY O’SHAUGHNESSY and was written by MINNIE. He is currently OPEN.

#lsrp #lsrpg #bio rp #literate rp #dudley o'shaughnessy fc #m #armand giordano #o #om #mont

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simplyrali · 6 years

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The ending of Halt and catch fire

This is going to be long so bear with me.

I intentionally waited more than a month to write my opinion on the ending of Halt and catch fire, I wanted to see if I would feel differently after some time and thinking. Although at first it seemed like the show ended on a positive note, something kept bugging me and I was left unsatisfied with what they presented us. I was strangely disappointed and confused because a lot of the actions of our characters didn’t make sense with their personal growth until that moment.

First, I think two of the main characters were written OOC in the finale – Cameron and Joe. Let me explain. In 4x09 and 4x10 they made Joe do and react to things the way Joe from season 1 would have done. He was obsessed with work (Comet), was quite demanding, needy and it was made to look like he used Cameron for her talent and business connections. He even tried to bribe her with Centipede (something Season 1 Joe would have done). After their break up and his fight with Haley he leaves town. Again something the old Joe would have done, not the Joe who in season 4 found out that people were the ones who mattered, the connection. He loved Haley like daughter, why would he leave her when she just lost her father, her sister went away and he knows that she struggles with her sexuality? I don't get why he couldn't have been a teacher in SF and remained in at least Haley's life. But once more he burned everything to the ground. He was portrayed like the bad abusive guy in a relationship that lashed out because his partner didn’t want kids, at least not in that moment of their life. While earlier Joe showed he could be quite supportive, understanding and patient. Being sad doesn’t necessitate being an asshole. And leveraging your love life to help your business is a shitty thing to do. All of his personal growth just… evaporated in thin air in the last couple of hours.

On the other hand, we were led to believe that Cameron was independent emotionally evolved woman at the end. But was she? Her trailer arc certainly didn’t make me believe that, I thought she matured after the end of last season. And then later after her separation with Joe and the thing with Alexa not working, we saw her being just as confused about life as she was in S1. After being in marriage for SEVEN years it looked like she learned absolutely nothing about relationships. In season 2x09 she said “what if we just hold on to each other instead of chasing what each of us wanted separately and obsessively…”, in 4x09 she blindly chased AGAIN work .Also she was supposed to be strong and independent (words of CC ) but in 4x10 we saw her as needy lost soul searching for something to hold on to while everything around her collapsed. And her reaching out to Donna was an act of desperation. I find it hard to believe she’d be so thrilled to jump into business with someone who sunken her company and lied to her face, mind the fact that she didn’t see Donna in the last three years at all. So in that time her trust in her ex-partner magically restored? I liked that they repaired their friendship in 4x08, that brought closure for both of them, but I dread the fact that they might end up working together.

The Joe-Cameron relationship this season made me feel like schizophrenic. They were written as soul mates. I was rooting for them, I really was. Cameron finally confessed her love, something we waited 4 years for, and Joe imagined their future together. What happened at the end confused me, and not their actual break up but the fact that neither of them fought for that relationship, which btw was moving the entire show. These two destroyed lives, marriages and businesses to get to each other and when that finally happens they break up with “oh, okay” … it was so anticlimactic and disappointing, the whole situation seemed unrealistic. If you love that person and imagine building a home together and one day maybe even children, you don’t let them walk out the door without even discussion( Keep in mind the fact that the Chrises were even thinking to make Cameron pregnant). Also the whole season they very carefully avoided working together and then BOOM they’re working together. For me it felt like the writers wanted to reference 1x01 and ” the thing that get you to the thing” that just inserted unnecessary drama. That break up was pointless, it didn’t lead to anything positive – Joe didn’t get his children (some may argue that with his choice of carrier, but having children and teaching them are two very different things! ) and Cameron could have worked with Donna without ruining her romantic relationship, after all one doesn’t exclude the other. I’m tired of this running away when things get tough, after 10 years I thought they were past that. It would have been more challenging and interesting to write a scenario where they stay together.

When they killed Gordon in 4x07 I thought that was the perfect excuse to bring everyone together. And that happened in 4x08 (absolute TV brilliance) and I was so damn happy. Now I feel like Gordon’s death was meaningless. Wasn’t this whole season about connection?

Now, my opinion for the female duo working together again. I am in the minority that wasn’t thrilled by that idea. First of all, I hated that at the end Donna turned out to be the big winner. Her relationship with the main trio never felt organic to me. I liked Donna the first two seasons, in the third I started to see her true colors and in fourth I openly hated her. Throughout the whole series she chased only her self interest and never really cared much for anyone else. At the end they presented her as the idea woman when nothing really original ever came out of her mouth, maybe Community, but even that was born out of one of Cam’s ideas. Making her the big winner was undeserved, especially given the fact that she never owned up to her mistakes. So, no, I don’t want to see her working with Cameron mainly because I think she’ll use and manipulate her again, especially after we saw in S4 that she turned into a business shark and how cold she can be to achieve her goals.

Joe’s ending felt very… random to me. Seriously, tarot reading?! We didn’t need to see a sign on his door to understand that he finally became human, all of his actions in the fourth season proved that. I think I might have bought it if they didn’t show him being so destructive (business and personal life) the last time we see him, therefore he learned nothing from his experience. Even if he is better off outside the tech world, what they’d showed us in 4x09 only proves that Joe would be a terrible teacher, with all of his pushing and mood swings. I didn’t buy his ending at all. How can you teach humanities when you couldn’t sustain the meaningful relationships in your life? In one of his interviews Christopher Cantwell said that from the very beginning they established Joe as a guy you can never trust, why the hell then anyone would entrust their children to such person? No wonder why Lee Pace fought with the writers on the finale, what they’ve done to him didn’t seem fair at all and it didn’t feel true to his character. The actor did a magnificent job with Joe and at the finish line they’ve turned him into a punching bag and send him in the sidelines. But, hey, they put a few photos on his desk to make it look better.

I am a woman and I’m all about girl power, but before being feminist I am humanist. What this show gave us at the end was some twisted feminism. In order to let the girls shine, the writers literally killed one of the main males and sent the second one to the other end of the country. Joe was continuously punished throughout the series and Donna was redeemed right away, when in fact her sins were bigger and more.

Joe Macmillan, the true heart of the show, deserved more! Life is not a bedtime story but what they did with the guy was simply cruel.

In my mind 4x08 was the true finale. In my opinion 4x09 and 4x10 were a product of someone’s effort to please the critics and it obviously worked – banish the bad guy and reward the poor underappreciated woman. And if you watched the finale as a stand alone episode I can see how it could be appealing, but it is not a stand alone episode. In its effort to deliver strong meaningful message, it actually managed to cripple two of the main characters so it could sprinkle fairy dust on the feminism that it tried to show. Don’t get me wrong the idea was beautiful, but it wasn’t executed the right way. Halt always showed the strength of its female leads in a very subtle way and it never made me question their qualities, so I found it unnecessary to have that spelled out for us for 50 minutes (Honestly the party speech and the way that Donna made fun of Trip in the office were a little too much for me). The Chrises admitted that to the very last moment they didn’t know how the story would end and sadly it showed. They wanted so badly to top 4x08 that at the end they simply didn’t know what to do with the characters. I feel like the final result was a loud cry for media attention and approval.

I guess something good may come out of all of this publicity at the end, the show may find bigger audience because it is truly amazing. Again, that’s personal opinion and I’m in the minority here but the finale just felt off to me. The good news is that they managed to leave it with an open ending so we can imagine what happens next. Right now I’m holding on to this recursion thing for dear life because I refuse to believe that Joe Macmillan will spend the rest of his life alone surrounded by memories and a bunch of teenagers.

#halt and catch fire #joe macmillan #ending #finale #cameron howe

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sickofyourfandombullshit · 7 years

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Heathers 2018

So when I saw @princess-has-a-pen post about the new Heathers remake I had to look it up for two reasons:

1. I’m a huge fan of the Movie and Musical and 2. I had to see the fucking horror show that Spike TV was no doubt going to turn it into.

Now Princess asked in their tags the exact same thing I asked myself when I saw the post:

“Why?”

Well friends, strap yourselves in cuz I’m about to take you for a fucking ride.

Why remake Heathers? A movie that has solidified itself as a cult classic for it’s gritty, fucked up story and characters that took pretty much every kid who went to high school in the 80′s (or any time really) life and amped it up to 11?

Cuz the original Heathers is full of 'problematic' things and they can now remake it to be more 'progressive' while snagging a new audiance of younglings who know about Heathers because of the musical.

Now my friends, as I stated before, I love both the movie and the Musical, but as a mature, rational fan over the age of 30, I can look at something I love and point out it’s flaws and believe me, when it comes to the source material, Heathers the Musical is stuffed full of flaws and that creates some problems.

I am pretty sure all the Tumblrinas who idolize ‘Heathers’ have only seen the musical because honestly, the ‘date’ scene where Heather McNamara gets raped in the background would be enough to make them REEEEEE all the way to the fucking bank.

Like legit, she is literally struggling under her date (and not in a fun way) to make him stop and Veronica just fucking leaves her there. We don’t see her get away or anything, so you can only assume that that whole thing didn’t end well, especially given how miserable McNamara is in the movie to begin with.

The Muscial made light of a lot of the grim parts the movie worked to highlight, specifically bullying and suicide and the dangers of giving into pressure and just being a fucking terrible human being. Not to mention it twisted things in a way that actually reinforced some harmful tropes. Specifically with the two main characters JD and Heather.

JD in the movie is a completely sociopath who physically and mentally abuses Veronica for almost the entire thing and in the Musical they gave him the stereotypical ‘troubled boy who wanted to make the world better but it just got out of hand’ treatment. Like “Oh yeah, he murders three people and tries to blow up a school but his dad’s a jerk and his mommy committed suicide so you can’t blame him! Deep down he’s just a tortured soul who really loves Veronica!”. Spoilers! He doesn’t love Veronica, at least not in any way that should be even entertained as any sort of ‘love’. He and Veronica’s relationship coupled with his ‘sacrifice’ at the end of the play made me cringe extra hard because it felt like it was romanticizing abusive relationships and in all honesty it was. A specific scene from the Musical where I thought they were actually going to address the toxicity of their ‘relationship’ (at the end of the ‘Our Love is God’ musical number where Veronica seems to have a mental break down as she screams ‘Our Love is God’ over and over again as if to drown out the fact that she just assisted in the murder of two people), was brushed under the rug the next scene and seemingly forgotten about till something ELSE big happens and then it’s fucking Ground Hogs Day apparently.

Veronica in the movie joined the Heathers before the movie even began because she wanted to be popular and due to her skill in forgery is pretty much made their pet project. She’s not as much of a cunt as Chandler or Duke but she's still pretty fucking bad. She kills Kurt herself, blows off her actual best friend in exchange for shallow popularity, laughs over Heather Chandler dying and only turns on JD when the suicide note she writes for Heather Chandler backfires and causes people to glorify Chandler as a saint. This as well leads her to realize that it’s pointless to kill people because someone else just takes their place as “The Mythic Bitch” ala Heather Duke’s transformation (also because JD straight up slaps her in the face for trying to back out on him). She only ever does anything semi sweet at the VERY end after JD gets blown up. In the Musical she is portrayed as a sweet innocent little buttercup who is super besties with Martha and sticks up for the little guy and never meant to hurt anyone and was just dragged into everything bad by bad people. She feels constantly guilty for it and seems unable to make any actual choices herself outside of breaking into JD’s house to fuck him. She’s totally innocent guys. Totes.

And before you say “C’moooon it’s a fuckin’ Muscial!” you need to go watch you some Dear Evan Hansen or Les Miserables because those two Musicals are heavy as fuck and had no problem in showing how fucked up serious shit like war and suicide was through flawed characters.

Now with this new series coming out it seems destined to fail. It has only been releasing Instagram videos to promote the show and already it’s hitting all the same old PC points while being SO EDGY at the same time. It’s Riverdale all fucking over again.

“The terrible trio is more like a set of outcasts who have taken over Westerberg High School.” -EW article

Like really? Fuckin’ really? The Heathers were all popular girls due to their wealth (McNamara), beauty (Duke) and over all exuding of confidence and attitude backed up by all of the previously stated assets (Chandler). They weren’t a bunch of outcasts. They took pride in how they looked and how people saw them. I don’t understand this fucking need to make every kid nowadays an ‘outcast’ in an effort to make them ‘relatable’. They did it to every kid in the Power Rangers remake and MJ in Spider-Man: Homecoming and it’s starting to get fucking annoying. Oh well, gotta get them kids with all that EDGE!

So let’s look at the ‘Heathers’ (I can’t bring myself to not put that in quotation marks when talking about these piles of hot garbage):

Heather Chandler is a plus-sized, Skrillex haired edge lord who looks like every Tumblr Feminist/Suicide Girls reject and literally gives off no aura of power or fear at all. She just comes off as some fat bitch who found the HAAS RadFem movement on Twitter and used it to fill herself with enough undeserved self importance to justify being a cunt to everyone. Yes, where the original Heather Chandler got her power and reputation through sheer intimidation and personality, this Heather Chandler looks like the type of girl who will physically assault you in the bathroom and threaten to sit on you till you die.

Gee golly, I see Heather Duke is a sassy gay male now (and a white one at that). Wow, it’s not like that hasn’t been done a billion fucking times. Funny that he’s a white dude whose character in the movie and play turns out to capitalize on Heather Chandler’s death to raise their own status to the ‘queen bitch’ of the school. That’ll do GREAT for gay stereotypes I’m sure.

Aaaaand Heather McNamara, our possibly Asian possibly Latinx butprobably just party bag of mixed race token character who is the literal punching bag of the group. At least that seems to have not changed but I am sure it’ll help add shallow sympathy since now it’s not a bunch of white kids beating up on a little white girl, it’s a bunch of white kids beating up on a little minority girl. Goodie goodie.

The rest:

JD literally gets nothing to show from his video except one speaking line where he is telling Veronica that she’s “Not like Heather Chandler” she’s “better” while quick cutting a bunch of random shots from the show that mostly seem pointless and just confusing with one flash of him apparently running the flat of a knife on his palm behind his back? So we get nothing from our poor, tortured sociopath. I can just hear the producers of this show now: “We can’t show him being too soft or the old fans might not watch it and can’t show him being a psychotic asshole or the Musical fans won’t watch it, so make it just as cluster fucking and confusing as possible so no one will ask questions and just be drawn in with all the cheap visual click bait!”

For Veronica we again get nothing. One line of “Dear Diary, I hate my friends but that doesn’t mean I want them DEAD!” followed by more random cuts of shots from the show, many of bloody scenes and hints of violence but a lot more of just weird confusing scenes that make no sense. It’s kind of funny for the sheer reason that they seem to be banking on people just already knowing who these characters are ala the original movie but at the same time are trying to pull in new audience members with all the vague quick cutting which they seem to have mistaken for ‘mystery’.

And last but not least, we have Betty Finn. What’s that? “Who if Betty Finn?” all you fans of the Musical ask? Well you wouldn’t know who Betty is unless you watched the MOVIE cuz Betty is who Martha Dump Truck replaced in the Musical because Betty wasn’t fucking sad sacky enough and they didn’t want to clutter the script with such a minor character. Betty was smart and an actual good person, the only good person in the movie honestly, who was Veronica’s friend since they were in diapers. She didn’t have a huge part in the movie outside of providing some blackmail material for JD to use against Heather Duke and trying to get Veronica to stop being such a moron (which failed). Now she’s appears to be the stereotypical side character that will be prominent in the show, probably as a comic relief character or plot device to be used against Veronica at some point.

Now, there is a huge question you have to ask:

Where is Martha? Will Martha even be in the series? Alright, it’s two questions but you get the point.

I have two guesses;

1. Possibly

but more than likely

2. No. Absolutely not.

Why do you ask? Because Martha’s character served as a plot device in both the Movie and the Musical to show how awful the Heathers really were and how their bullying was actually dangerous. Martha was a fat, slow, ugly dump of a girl. Problem is, you can’t make fun of that anymore. It’s not ‘progressive’ to make fun of people with those flaws. As well it wouldn’t make sense, Heather Chandler is fat in this remake. Unless they’re going to go full retard with some kind of ‘internalized fatphobia’ shit it wouldn’t make sense to make fun of Martha for that. Heather McNamara is the stereotypical ditzy airhead which doesn’t seem to have changed in this remake so to make fun of someone being ‘slow’ while laughing at an Air-Head-of-Color would just be super duper mean!

If they DO put Martha in, she will either have to still be dumpy, slow and fat and end up being the most popular character in the end for ‘not giving into societies beauty standards’ or some shit, OR she will have to actually flat out die from her suicide attempt to push the EDGE and drive plot.

Either way this whole thing is going to be a train wreck that will either take off at the idiotic rate in which Teen Wolf and Riverdale did or be an utter failure.

I seriously hope for the latter. Sorry this is so long and there are probably some spelling and grammar errors. It’s literally 2:30 in the morning and the Monster I drank is starting to ware off so I’m running on fumes.

#heathers 2018 #heathers #heathers the musical

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asymmetryestablished · 7 years

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valentine fandom ask meme: homestuck for all the odd ones and rvb for all the even ones

oH GOD okay let's see how this goes***Spoiler Alert*** by the way1. Your favourite non-canon ship? I don't particularly have one, though to be clear Homestuck has a hell of a lot of ships. I like pairing people up with Sollux tho, if only because I support Sollux getting lots of love.2. Is there a ship you didn’t like at first but ultimately started shipping? Tuckington and Lolix. both are things my friend who got me into RvB ships hardcore, but when I first encountered all the relevant characters I couldn't see them in the pairs. Tuckington I saw once they actually started interacting, in S11 or so; Lolix, after having seen their episodes in S14, although I shipped them as exes before then - like, I watched them and agreed that they'd had something but it fell apart before we met them.3. What is the rarest rare pair (that you ship)? I'm not really a rarepair kind of child but I do like Sollux/Dirk and Sollux/John, because programming and hands, respectively4. Name a popular ship you don’t get the appeal of. probably Chex I just really strongly believe that moving on is the best damn idea Church ever had5. What is your most fluffy + happy ship? fun question, because a lot of my ships could be fluffy or angst depending on what you look at. short answer: Davekat.6. What is your most angsty ship? FELIX/TUCKER OKAY HOLY SHIT MAJOR SPOILER ALERT FOR THE CHORUS TRILOGY BUT just picture when they're in Armonia and Wash is presumed dead and Tucker is having to come to terms with losing someone he hadn't realized he loved so much and also coming to terms with his love AND HIS SEXUALITY on top of that and Felix just slides on in because he's a slimy bastard who isn't above getting off on other people's emotional pain and/or just generally being an emotional sadist but also tactically brilliant and fucking Tucker while he's broken and I currently have an in-progress fic that is literally this and entitled "Felix Tucker emotional abuse" on my computer (ABUSE in my binder)7. A non-canon ship that should be canon? again, Homestuck has quite a romantically promiscuous canon. I think most of my really serious ships are canon??? but it's also been a while since I last acquainted myself with HS so I'm not sure. I do like Sollux/Karkat in basically any quadrant tho and I don't think they canonically did any quadrant stuffz or at least not all of them8. Your oldest ship; the one you’ve shipped for the longest time? Grimmons. still ship it. GRIF LITERALLY CONTAINS PARTS OF SIMMONS IF THATS NOT POTENTIAL FOR A ROMANTIC CRISIS FIC THEN IDK WHAT IS9. What ship represents the kind of relationship you’d love to have? Davekat as presented in canon, all soft squishy feels under a shell of crunchy banter and sarcasm; that, or Rosemary, which I read this fic once that mentioned them being a universal constant? like, there wasn't a single timeline where they didn't get together, and that makes me really happy. I also really like how Nepeta and Equius are complete polar opposites and both really fucking weird but don't care10. Is there a ship that makes your skin crawl? Churboose the way most people portray it. Caboose has the mental capacity of a child; I don't know if it's canon or not, but I am firmly of the belief that he is not entirely capable of distinguishing between romantic and platonic love, if at all, and sex isn't even a thing that he acknowledges. I can get behind the idea of Church accidentally and bizarrely and inexplicably falling in love with Caboose in a purely emotional sense, and Caboose loves everyone on all the teams in his own way, except the ones his family (because that's what they are, his family) genuinely hates, and those he does his best to fuck up something fierce. but don't pretend that Caboose and Church having sex would be anything but creepy as fuck and completely out of character. Also, the Director/Tex, because vicarious relationships, and Felix/Tucker but that one's a good skin-crawly one if done right (which it will be when I do it).11. What is a character you can only imagine in one particular ship? Calliope I can only see with Roxy, but damn do I ever see it.12. What is your favourite canon ship? if we're going with the cutthroat definition of canon, there aren't any, so going with the practical definition, Grimmons, because I'm not saying the secretly-married jokes are true, but I am saying they're extremely well-founded, even if one or both of them needs to pull his head out of his ass and notice.13. Name a ship that deserved more content. I feel like Vriska/Terezi, especially Game Over timeline Vriska/Terezi, deserved more, but I definitely needed more Terezi/John, because John learning firsthand about kismesissitude is a beautiful image.14. Is there a ship you feel gets undeserved hate in fandom? no??? the RvB fandom tends to agree that most of the characters have banged or at least that they could, so I haven't actually seen, like, *any* ship hate.15. What is the first ship you had? Davekat, which I shipped before getting into Homestuck, for which I blame the friend who got me into it in the first place.16. Is there a ship that made you realise something about yourself? uhm. all of them made me realize that I have a thing for temporarily inflicting emotional pain on characters, if that counts???17. Is there a type of ship you always go for? this goes for everything: banter. banter banter banter. example ships outside of these two specified fandoms: Bond/Q (Craig era), Romeo/Mercutio (yes, Romeo and Juliet), Rosencrantz/Guildenstern (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, specifically), Kate/Petruchio (yes I'm Shakespeare trash get over it), Skye/Jeffrey (The Penderwicks), wow I ship a lot of things I hadn't realized I shipped.18. Is there a ship the writers have ruined for you? no. unless you count the emotional abuse that is Ohio shooting Sherry and thereby ruining any chance they could've had, which nearly made me cry19. Is there a ship the fandom has ruined for you? not unless you count that tumblr post about Gamzee's relationships all being meticulously calculated and executed to do the most damage ruining my ability to enjoy pale Gamkar due to my new perception of Gamzee20. Have you ever created fan created content for a ship? hell ye. I have an AO3 but refuse to attach it to my tumblr. currently I've only got one RvB work and it's a really minor ship of mine, but I've got like four Tuckington, one Lolix, and that Felix/Tucker emotional abuse on the go.21. Favourite thing you’ve ever created for a ship? see previous comment re: not sharing my AO3, but my Snowman/Spades Slick WIP makes me really happy and I've got some damn good Davekat22. Is there a ship you’ll never admit you have? nope. not for anything I don't think. I'll even admit to shipping Annie and Teddy from the Magic Tree House books, and Dink and Ruth Rose from the A-Z Mysteries. I have always been a trashbaby and never given half a fuck.23. Have you ever started shipping a ship because of the fans? see previous comments re: Davekat. there was at least one more but I can't remember right now.24. What is one scene you want to see happen for all your ships? meeting in a bar, for the first time or after a long time or whatever. there are so many damn ways a bar meeting could go that it satisfies so many of my ships, and in RvB, all of them.25. Is there a ship you wish you didn’t know existed? all forms of Stridercest, particularly since I can actually tolerate Dirk/Dave. also Kurloz/Mituna because Kurloz is a confirmed creepy abusive fucker and Mituna is my precious pandamaged child26. Name a ship that ended like you wanted it to. Church/Tex, actually, if you disregard my temporary disappointment at Tex being female. the end of S9 gave them the best possible ending.27. Name a ship that deserved better in the end. Dirk/Jake but I can't complain too much because at least the abusive relationship ended28. Is there a character you have several ships for? Tucker's a slut, so yeah, but also I'm a big believer in breakups being a good and healthy part of life, so I ship relationships in the past tense. example: I support York and Carolina being together, and also thoroughly support Kimball finally getting Carolina to open up and fall in love again.29. What is the ship you ignore 98% of canon for? that's not really a thing I do, so. there isn't one.30. Is there a ship you like but you dislike the fandom? if we mean the fandom stuff for the particular ship, yeah, Churboose and Lolix in particular but I generally hate when people miss the point of what makes characters themselves in order to just make fanfic or whatever of their ship. in more general terms, I read the Maze Runner a while ago in order to be able to watch the movie for the sake of Thomas Brodie-Sangster (which I decided not to actually do because it's a really bad book), and I fucking hated the book, it's a really fucking shitty book, but Newt and Thomas all the fucking way man. (I think it was the nickname that really got me; nobody else calls him Tommy, and Newt doesn't give anyone else a nickname as far as I can remember, and also I'm really pissed that they cut the kiss scene from the movie because I might've suffered through it just for that)HOOOOOO BOY thank you anon that was way more fun than sleeping. also I'm having so much trouble figuring out who you are because most of my people I know are in one fandom or the other but not both, and the other people I can think of I can't imagine sending me an ask like this. aaaaa it's a mystery thank you for the excuse to ramble

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joeybear · 5 years

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The Ten Year Oscars: 2009

Welcome to the 7th annual Ten Year Oscars, where The Academy (of one) corrects the mistakes of Oscars past with the benefit of hindsight, historical context and an inflated sense of my own opinion. For those mathematically challenged, this year we’re re-imagining the 2009 Oscars and boy, does this year need my help.

Best Picture

Who won? Slumdog Millionaire. Who should’ve won? Let The Right One In

This was not a good year for the Academy. None of the 5 nominees for Best Picture are classics and some aren’t even good movies. There were great movies this year that weren’t nominated, including The Dark Knight, The Wrestler, In Bruges, Burn After Reading and I’m going to throw in Step Brothers as well. Step Brothers is a great movie.

My winner is Let the Right One In. It wasn’t nominated for anything. It wasn’t even submitted by Sweden for Best Foreign Language Film. But a decade later, it’s leaped from obscurity to cult classic to horror classic to required viewing. It’s a slow-burn with a great payoff in the climax. The relationship of the children, written so delicately, juxtaposed with gruesome violence resulted in a film of rare emotional complexity. The kids are, somehow, brilliant.

There was an American remake which was... fine. It’s a badge of honor, at this point, for great movies to have mediocre American remakes. The original is brilliant and if you haven’t seen it, seek it out. It was the best movie of 2008.

Movies that benefited most from a decade?

There were small, underseen movies that have gotten a foothold in cinema history over the decade. Let The RIght One In falls into this category. Steve McQueen’s first feature, Hunger isn’t thought of as a classic but it’s now well known as a launching pad for both McQueen and his star Michael Fassbender. In Bruges is another of these and has taken an even bigger leap. There’s nary a cinephile out there who hasn’t seen it by now. And Step Brothers. I’m going to keep bringing up Step Brothers. It’s great.

There were also big movies that changed the culture. The Dark Knight, commercial behemoth that it was, is also now credited as the film that changed Oscar balloting for Best Pictures. TDK should’ve just been nominated movies that got a nod this year but the expansion of the nominees to 10 (later adjusted to as much as ten), coupled with the preferential ballot has been great for the Academy which has given recent awards to interesting movie that might not have had a chance in years past. Iron Man, for kicking of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and The Strangers, a modest hit that has become a modern horror classic, fit this category nicely as well.

I have to single out Burn After Reading, though. The Coen Brothers’ follow-up to their masterpiece, No Country For Old Men, was not well received at the time. Not hated but divisive, in the least. There has been a reappraisal since including multiple think pieces about how the movie has grown as both comedy and commentary. The smart, funny movies will come to the top, eventually.

Movies that were hurt by a decade?

In 2008, the Academy did a terrific job of rewarding great filmmaking that was not traditional “Oscar fare.” In 2009 they regressed, nominating a slew of movies for various awards that fit a kind of mold we’re used to seeing rewarded but were not great films. Period dramas like The Reader, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Revolutionary Road, were highly praised at the time, not much seen since.

I have to mention Wanted. It made a bunch of money at the time but seems now like the last imitator of The Matrix in a year where The Dark Knight and Iron Man set a course for what action movies were going to look like for the next decade. Rather than be a franchise starter, it’s faded away. For the better.

Best Actor

Who won? Sean Penn. Who should’ve won? Mickey Rourke.

Penn and Rourke were neck-and-neck that year. Rourke won high profile prizes like the BAFTA, and Golden Globe while Penn took home the SAG. The narrative that eventually took hold was twofold: Rourke was great but basically playing himself and look at how much the dour, humorless Sean Penn smiles in Milk. There is truth to this. Harvey Milk was probably more of a stretch for Penn than Randy Robinson was for Rourke. I don’t care. Rourke was better.

Rourke is a great talent who spent years prior to The Wrestler wandering in the Hollywood wilderness. His return to stardom (which actually started with Sin City in 2005) only lasted a couple of movies before he slipped away again. He still acts but not in anything you’ve seen in your theater for quite a while. The Wrestler was a distillation of all his untapped talent. It’s as if he was saving everything he had for one, brilliant burst of creative energy that resulted in one of the 5 or 10 best performances ever recorded on film. That’s what this was.

His combination of vulnerability and physicality as he portrays the guilt and simmering rage of his character is in perfect balance. This was his year. It’s a shame the Academy whiffed this one.

Best Actress

Who won? Kate Winslet. Who should’ve won? Meryl Streep.

A classic, “It’s her time,” win for Winslet. She had been nominated 5 times before and had another performance this same year that could’ve been another (Revolutionary Road, for which she was nominated by SAG and BAFTA, and won a Golden Globe). Plus, this was a film about the holocaust, which guaranteed her a win (this clip of her on Extras has become one of the great things on the internet).

For Streep, she had already won twice. Amazingly, Doubt was her 15th nomination and she’s racked up 6 more since. There was a sense that Streep had already done her career-defining work (or that her career is defined by the breadth of her output rather than a single performance) and so rewarding Winslet, a great actor in slightly controversial role would be a nice thing to do. But Streep is great in Doubt, an adaptation of a play that feels stagey as a film but also allows Streep, Phillip Seymour-Hoffman, Viola Davis, and Amy Adams to just sort of act at one another as hard as they can. They all raise each others’ games and I think the result was an amazing performance by Streep.

And if there had been a spoiler, it shouldn’t have been Winslet (who spends a little bit too much of The Reader just making the same, pained face) it should’ve been Anne Hathaway for Rachel Getting Married, a film she caries on her back.

Best Director

Who won? Danny Boyle. Who should’ve won? Darren Aronofsky.

How much do we credit a director for the performances in their movie? Given Rourke’s history (and future) Aronofsky probably should’ve gotten an award just for wrangling that performance from his leading man.

But he also directed a great movie. I like The Wrestler better than any of the 5 actually nominated films. Aronofksy made a character study that also required a fair amount of world building. How many of us know anything about professional wrestling beyond what we’ve seen on WWE? How many of us even know much about that? Aronofsky basically turned a punchline into a classic and did so on a minuscule budget. It’s haunting and dirty and beautiful in places. And he wasn’t even nominated.

Best Screenplays

Who won? Milk and Slumdog Millionaire. Who should’ve won? In Bruges and Slumdog Millionaire.

Milk is a well made movie that I like quite a bit so when I say that it rode an “important message movie” wave to a pair of undeserved Oscars, I both believe that and also don’t want to sell it short because it might well have been one of the 5 best movies in 2008 and it might well have come from one of the 5 best screenplays. But it wasn’t the best. That was Martin McDonagh’s script of In Bruges. It’s a very showy bit of writing both in dialogue and plotting but it’s characters are genuine and it all ties together brilliantly. This was the easy choice because it was the right one.

So was Slumdog. Beware of high concepts. This was a very high concept but it worked. Danny Boyle certainly brought his flair to the movie but this script could’ve been made well in a lot of different ways. That means something. I’m not going to overthink it.

Or maybe it should’ve been Doubt? No, I’m not overthinking it.

Loose Ends

I have to talk a little more about how badly The Reader is aging. Maybe it was easier to sympathize with Nazis 10 years ago but the amount to which the film tries to account for why Kate Winslet’s character torturing and murdering people is really uncomfortable to watch. I can see how some might have read it as tackling a complex issue at the time, and the film does touch on interesting and challenging subjects, but it handles them poorly. The best thing about this movie might be Hugh Jackman’s joke in his Oscars monologue.

The Wrestler was under served this year. Rourke and Tomei got deserved nominations for acting but that’s all. It should’ve been a Best Picture, Screenplay, and Director nominee as well, no question.

Collin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson are amazing in In Bruges. Gleeson picked up a couple of nominations along the way but nothing from the Oscars. Farrell won the Golden Globe for Best Lead Actor in a Comedy and was ignored by most other voting bodies. It was a good year for Lead Actor but Farrell should’ve been recognized. Bruges is all the more interesting because it looks like an inflection point for Farrell’s career. It came out after Hollywood stopped trying to turn him into an action hero and since he has embraced his weird and put together a varied, fascinating career of very strong work.

This was also the year of Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut, Synecdoche New York. A brilliant, higher-than-high concept movie that seems like it wants to be about life, itself. Beyond that, I don’t know how to describe it except to say it was one of the best movies of the year.

Those are the winners, or at least who the winners should have been, at least according to me. We’ll have to wait until next year to see if the Academy did any better.

You can read the previous awards from 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008.

#movies #oscars #academy awards #slumdog millionaire #let the right one in #the dark knight #the wrestler #mickey rourke #in bruges

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courtoficeanddarkness · 7 years

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I don't like Aelin, but I still think she's a good character

Okay so I know this is weird, because it seems everyone either hates or loves Aelin, and for a while I thought the hate towards her was pretty undeserved. Like everyone else, I thought she was badass and brilliant and awesome, and I had never read a female character before with that much bravado and boldness. So in that sense, Aelin is the total female empowerment character, and for that I will always respect and admire her, because we live in a world where a, either women cannot have traits that are considered "masculine" for fear of losing their femininity (which I absolutely despise and actually don't like how we treat masculinity and femininity because while females and males are biologically different we still have equally intelligent and innovative minds and those two terms generally refer to gender differences that society itself has made) or b, women can't be too "feminine" or otherwise they're not furthering the cause. Aelin is blunt and willful but she also likes fancy things and reading and just gahhhh I thought she was the perfect character. So let me just get the record straight, I think that Aelin is an amazing character. And I think this because the whole point of a character is to get you to feel something, to be intriguing, to entertain you, and Aelin does that and more. So when I say that I don't like Aelin, I don't mean I don't like the way SJM wrote her or that she's a bad character, because she's not. I just don't like her as a person, and it really started during Queen of Shadows. Most people say that they stopped liking her during Heir of Fire, when she made the shift from Celeana to Aelin, but I completely disagree. During Heir of Fire, Celeana was broken and hopeless. She truly felt ashamed and disgusted by herself, and I don't know but when people are feeling that way I think they should be allowed to cope and grieve whatever way they need as long as it's not harmful to them or others. So if she needed Rowan and learning her magic and ditching Celeana behind for Aelin to make her feel better, then I can't judge. But here's the thing; there was no growth. I can understand her ditching Celeana in the beginning, but she continued to do so, leaving behind the old her for a new, better Aelin. And I just can't agree with that? For those of my ACOTAR lovers, there's a part in ACOWAR when Feyre stares into a mirror that shows her all the good and bad parts of herself, and she essentially tells the Bone Carver that she learned to accept and love it all, which in this day age, where women are constantly raised hating parts of themselves and glorifying others that society deems the best for a woman, is a brilliant message. So for someone who I looked up to and strived to be, it was hard when I watched her completely abandon that part of herself. No matter how disgusted she was of Celeana, at the end of the day, she had been her for most of her life, and you can't just leave that behind. As women, we need to learn to accept and love all parts of us, good and bad. We shouldn't forget our past. No matter how horrible or ugly it is, we need to remember that our low points are what make us who we are. It is the valleys in life that make us stronger, so for Aelin to ditch that part of herself...it upset me more than I can say. Okay, next reason. Aelin is untrustworthy. I think I speak for the entire fandom when I say we were pretty shook after the ending of EoS, and when I had first read the end and realized all that Aelin had set in motion, I was screaming. But then I looked further into it and felt a bit angry and betrayed. You see, she made all these plans without telling any of her friends except Lyssandra, which, when you think about it, is pretty shitty. That in of itself isn't too horrible, because Rhysand does the same thing in ACOTAR but I love his character (he's not the feminist everyone makes him out to be, but that's a story for another time folks). What made it horrible is that she lied to us as readers. And I don't know, I feel like when reading a book there's this bond between the reader and the main character, some kind of unbreakable friendship and I felt lied to. There are also some other minor things, like Aelin being somewhat of a perverted colonist. I don't know the passage (I borrowed EoS from a friend and can't look it up) but there's a part where her and Rowan are talking and they casually discuss her conquering the world and becoming an empress, and though the conversation was obviously not something very serious, I was still completely disgusted by it. Why? Because as a person of color, I've seen too many occasions where people have conquered others without thinking of the consequences. What about the European settlers who colonized Africa? Without that happening, Africa would probably be a powerful nation because of its natural resources, but look at all the problems it has. All because some Europeans wanted natural resources, and then LEFT. The borders they created started ethnic wars and tensions and because of that Africa is scrambling to bounce back. Taking over other people is wrong. And for her to just sit there and talk about it so casually...I've never been angrier in my life. Aelin also feeds into negative stereotypes about strong women. Like, why is she so goddamn cocky? Don't get me wrong, characters are allowed to have flaws. It makes them more interesting and human in my opinion. But I honestly hate when strong people (men and women) are always portrayed by being arrogant. Why can't they just be confident in themselves and leave it at that? And I know Aelin does it because she's insecure about herself in some ways, which only goes back to my argument about her leaving behind Celeana. Aelin has not learned to love herself for who she is. That much is glaringly obvious. Lastly, why is everyone so anxious for Aelin to become Queen? Yeah she's badass and awesome and beautiful, but what exactly about her makes her fit to rule? If anything, she has certain qualities that point against that. She's snarky and impatient and rude, which I have no problem with, but for a Queen? Rulers need to be diplomatic. You need to be able to appeal to others interest, not just you're own. You have to be patient with other rulers in order to keep the peace. And Aelin Ashyvver is just...well, problematic. I really could go on and on, but this post is already too long. Let me say this again: I don't think Aelin is a horrible human being. She has good qualities and bad qualities just like anyone else, and she's a very well written character who is good for female empowerment. I just don't like her as a person. But that's just my opinion. I won't shame someone who loves her because, at the end of the day, different traits appeal to different people. For me personally, she just isn't someone I could see myself being friends with, and I think all the characters in the ToG series are far too obsessed with her, but I also understand the opposing opinion. She is a pretty kick ass woman, and for that, she has my respect and admiration, just not my support and friendship. Please tell me if you agree or disagree and why, cause I could use some other perspectives right now.

#aelin ashryver #tog #throne of glass

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