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#can tv shows stop making it literally impossible for people to ever want to rewatch
skywalkerbc · 4 years
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So like...what was the point of anything?
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jinkicake · 4 years
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Really? You Still Have A Boner?
Nothing like your family being the ultimate cockblocks.
Ushijima Wakatoshi x Reader 
For @dontfuckwpigeons !! I hope you like it!! I recognized your username and realized you were one of the first people to ever send me a request </333 !!! Sorry it took me so long to get to this,.... Ah, my brain is all Ushijima right now,,,, I wrote about 5k for him today HAHAHA ,,, only for my Wakatoshi! 
SMUT // NSFW
W - 2,204
~~~
“Wakatoshi!” You exclaim and wrap your arms around his waist, it’s been too long since you’ve last seen him. “I’ve missed you.” Ushijima takes one look at your pouty lips and loving eyes and can wholeheartedly agree that it has been too long. 
You glance up at him and then at your stairs, darting your eyes back and forth between the two. Ushijima slowly turns to look at the stairs, his curiosity gets the best of him. He looks back down at you and nods, giving you all the confirmation you need. 
That’s how you end up in your room, on top of him, kissing him with your entire being. 
“You don’t know how much I’ve missed you,” You whisper and flip all your hair to one side of your neck, you drag your clothed core along his own while ghosting your lips along his jaw. Already, you can feel him hardening in his pants and it sends a lick of heat straight to your belly. “I’ve missed you so much." You bring your lips to his, capturing them in a fierce kiss. Your hand cradles his jaw so you can tilt his face, giving you better access to control the kiss. Ushijima’s large hands grip your hips, pulling you along his clothed length, dragging you slowly so that you can feel everything. Your tongue snakes past his lips, molding with his own before tracing the back of his teeth. 
You feel so hot, the temperature in the room is blazing and it’s only getting warmer. 
Muffled moans sound throughout the room, your sweet ones mixing in with Ushijima’s low noises. You keep moving your hips, grinding against him with purpose. 
The front door of your house opens quietly and you barely even hear it, you would’ve missed it completely had your mother not called for you.
“(Y/N)? I’m back!” Her voice rings throughout the house and you reluctantly pull away from Ushijima. You dip your head and rest it on his chest as you try to catch your breath, fuck you didn’t realize anyone was going to be home. 
You push yourself off of your boyfriend while eyeballing the tent in his shorts, your hand reaches out to pat him gently before winking at him. 
“Already? I have Ushijima over.” You yell back after opening your bedroom door, your mother goes silent for a few moments.
“What are you two doing upstairs?” She comments curiously and you refrain from rolling your eyes. 
“Homework since we still have school, how was work?” You ask as you walk down to the front door where she is. 
“It was alright, not that many people have been coming by the bank.” She smiles cheerfully and you awkwardly scratch the back of your neck. “Don’t mind me, okay? I’m going to be in my office working from home.” She pats your head before heading straight to the other room, glancing at you once before closing the door. “Say hi to Ushijima for me~” 
You stand there in the hallway of the front door and blink owlishly. Ushijima comes down the stairs and stands behind you, with one glance at his shorts you still notice the slight bulge. You point to his shorts and Ushijima raises a brow, an unspoken conversation going on between the two of you.
“Oh, I have to take a call so you two need to be quiet.” Your mother warns as she pokes her head out from behind her office door. “Hi Ushijima, how is your mother today? I saw her the other day at the grocery store.” 
You glance back at your boyfriend and subtly shuffle to stand in front of him, making it almost impossible for your mother to see his shorts. 
“She is doing well, I am sure she would be happy to hear from you.” Ushijima smiles back politely and your mother places her hand over her heart. 
“I’ll have to call her then.” She glances back at you and narrows her eyes. “You two behave.” She warns again and then goes back to her office, when she finally closes the door you lean back against Ushijima. 
You let out a sigh of relief and simply relax against his chest, purposely rubbing your ass against his bulge. Ushijima stiffens behind you. His hands automatically grab your hips to stop you from moving but it doesn’t work. You turn around in his arms and wink at him again before making your way to the kitchen.
“Do you want to make something, I don’t know like, bake cupcakes?” You ask and Ushijima spins you around, pressing you back against the counter as he lowers his head to kiss you. It’s fast and quick, taking all the air from your lungs. You reach up to wrap your arms around his neck, a muffled moan escaping you as he presses himself further into you. 
One of his muscular thighs rests between your own legs and you happily grind against it, squirming like you can’t get enough. Ushijima gently bites down on your bottom lip, sucking it into his mouth as the grip he has on your chin tightens. It all feels so good-
“What’s up, fuckers?” Your older sister slams open the front door. You gasp and pull away from Ushijima, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand as you try to smooth down your hair. One glance at his shorts and you can already see the tent rising back up. Fuck.
“Yuki, how many times do I have to tell you not to slam the door!” Your mother yells as she pokes her head out of her office. 
Quickly you grab Ushijima’s hand and sneak into the living room, you push him down onto the couch before sitting in his lap. At the pressure of your ass on his hard cock, your boyfriend releases a quiet groan and tightly grips your thighs. You turn around to flick his forehead while trying to silence him, not realizing that you moving like this is just making it worse. 
“What are you guys up to?” Your sister peeks her head into the living room and coos at the sight of you and Ushijima. “Aren’t you two just the cutest.” She gushes and sits down on one of the other chairs in the room. 
“Not much, what did you do today?” You warily glance at her, noticing the familiar teasing look in her eyes. 
“Literally nothing,” She groans loudly and picks up the controller. “ooh let’s rewatch Attack On Titan.” Ushijima lowers his head onto your shoulder and you awkwardly pat his thigh. “What? You guys don’t have to watch it with me, just go up into your room or something (Y/N).”
You would if you could but judging by the boner you’re sitting on, you two won’t be able to go anywhere.
“No, let’s watch it. I’ve been meaning to anyway!” You lie straight through your teeth and your sister glances at Ushijima, a bold smirk appears on her face. 
“Well then, let’s begin.” 
You barely get through the first episode before you realize you are bored out of your mind, Levi doesn’t even show up for the first nine episodes so what is the point. Judging by how engrossed your sister is with the characters in front of her, she isn’t going to go anywhere. Silently you beg that she leaves for the bathroom or to get a snack so you can sneak Ushijima back upstairs.
Nothing like that happens and before you know it, you’re already on the third episode. You shuffle around on Ushijima’s lap, despite the way he tries to keep you still, moving so that you can lay down and cover his lap with your thighs. 
“Why do you guys watch this shit?” Your mother opens the door and glances at the tv with a grimace on her face.
“It’s not shit, mother.” Your sister sneers and turns to her. “It’s art.” 
“Right, well, I want to go out for dinner. Yuki let’s go.” She leaves the room and your sister looks around. 
“Why do I have to go with you?” She snorts and rolls her shoulders back arrogantly before looking at you. “Make (Y/N) and Wakatoshi come with us.” 
“I never get to see you Yuki, you come back from college and avoid me!” Your mother yells and the groan your sister lets out rings throughout the house. 
“You should be offended that she doesn’t want you two to come.” Your sister flicks you off before following your mother out of the house. A loud slam signals their departures plus the sound of your mother scolding your sister for once again slamming the door. 
You glance at Ushijima and wait a few moments before even deciding to move, it seems too good to be true. 
“Really?” You whisper and point at the tent in his shorts. “You still have a boner?” Ushijima simply stares back at you, a deadpan expression on his face. You roll your eyes and stand up from the couch, grabbing his wrist to pull him up as well. 
“I forgot my fucking wallet.” Your sister yells and slams the door open once again. You throw yourself back onto the couch, splaying yourself all over Ushijima’s lap. “uh-huh.” She eyes you two oddly before picking up her wallet from the chair she was sitting in. 
After her descending footsteps, the door slams again and you freeze as you try to listen for any other noise in the house. 
“Are they actually gone?” You whisper and Ushijima tenses underneath you. 
“I don’t know,” His fingers comb through your hair and you sigh appreciatively. You glance up at him and then at the stairs and once you get that familiar nod, the two of you are sprinting back up to your room.
That’s how you end up back on your bed, this time with Ushijima’s head between your legs and your hand covering your mouth. 
“Oh, Wakatoshi,” You sigh loudly and Ushijima nips your thigh, you have to stay quiet. 
“Quiet,” Ushijima warns as he thrusts his fingers into you. 
“I-I can’t, I don’t even care if they hear me.” Your hands tighten in his hair and your thighs squeeze around him. Ushijima shakes his head before closing his lips around your clit. He sucks harshly on the little bud and it causes a high-pitched moan to slip past your lips. You can’t help but tighten around his fingers, just having Ushijima close to you is enough to make you cry out. 
Ushijima rolls your clit with his tongue, the noises vibrate throughout the room as he slurps all he can get. 
Neither of you has any shame. 
His thick digits curl along your walls, stretching you deliciously and another mewl escapes your lips.
“Just like that Wakatoshi, I can’t,” You whimper and squeeze your eyes shut. You genuinely do not care if your family hears you right now, you don’t even know if they are back in the house. All you can focus on is Ushijima’s hot mouth devouring you whole. “yes. Yes!” 
Ushijima’s name falls from your lips over and over again as you grind your core into his face, your back arches off the bed. 
“Please, more,” You beg and Ushijima slips in a third finger, his tongue laps at your clit to soothe the stretch and your head begins to cloud over with pleasure. One single curl of his fingers is enough to make you rise off the bed, holding his head so he continues to suck on your clit. “I’m cumming Toshi~”
Ushijima continues to thrust his fingers and stimulate your clit, he works you through your orgasm to prolong your high. His favorite part is watching you bloom. Once you finally settle down and Ushijima has had his fill, he gently pulls his fingers out of you. He sucks on his digits while staring up at you and you groan at the sight, pressing your ass into the sheets as you clench around nothing. 
In a second, your mind realizes how loud you were being and you cover your face with a pillow. 
“They probably heard everything, they’re going to kill us!” You whisper, quietly screeching about your family, and Ushijima simply tilts his head at you. “Don’t just stand there, fuck me one last time before we die!”
Ushijima shakes his head and gets up to hover over you.
“They aren’t even home,” He tells you and you raise a brow at him. 
“What do you mean?” You ask curiously and reach over to grab your phone, expecting some kind of teasing response from your sister. 
It simply read : this hag is dragging me to an onsen, see you in the morning! Mom said no toshi for the night but honestly, do whatever you want! 
“I didn’t hear them come in yet.” Ushijima reports and you toss your phone to the side before wrapping your arms around Ushijima’s neck and bringing him down so you can kiss him. 
“They’re not coming back tonight,” You tell him excitedly and Ushijima simply blinks at you. “we don’t have to worry about them interrupting us.” You slowly continue to explain and Ushijima nods his head. You reach up to peck his lips before gently tapping his head. “Get to work!”
~
Taglist.
@yams046 @why-am-i-sad-and-sleepy @xhanjisungiex @xxashshs @chaosamu @angelkogane @augustdearly @kunimwuah  @littleshopoflove @osamuonigiri @pearzuko @darksxder @macaronnv @nerdygremlin @buzzybeebee​
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miggydiaz · 3 years
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for the salty ask: 3, 7, 10, 11, 15, 16, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25 and 27 for spn
I had to do this one today because I have a LOT of Supernatural feelings and so a lot of these are even longer than my CK one. But thanks for the ask @wonderwolfballoon!
UNPOPULAR SUPERNATURAL OPINIONS AHOY: INCLUDES ANTI-DESTIEL SENTIMENTS AND OTHER UNSAVORY ELEMENTS
3. Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion? 100000000% I have unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion in the SPN fandom. SPN was the fandom that taught me to make JUDICIOUS use of the blocking feature tumblr offers in order to curate my experience. I would actually encourage anyone and everyone to use the blocking feature if they disagree with people. Honestly, we don’t owe anyone our time or energy, especially on the internet! It is much healthier than sending or responding to hate, IMO. 7. Is there anything you used to like but can’t stand now?* This is actually a hard one for me to answer, so let me start by saying -- I have not seen a SINGLE episode since 9x05? I think? Whichever episode was the Dr. Deanlittle one where he talks to animals. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the first 5 seasons, and they are all I watch anymore and I pretend nothing else exists after that (except The French Mistake because that episode is hilarious). But uh... I guess the simple answer is when I was originally watching it, I really loved Dean. He was brash, snarky, rough around the edges... but kind of soft in a I’m too toxically masculine to deal with my softness sort of way that I love seeing characters grow out of as they mature. But when I go back and rewatch now, much older than I was in 2006 when I first started watching, I see how awful a lot of his older behavior truly was. I still love Dean, and I will be a Dean girl until I die probably, but sometimes you gotta remind yourself that your faves have been problematic in the past so you don’t put them up on fandom constructed pedestals.
10. Most disliked arc? Why? AND AS A BONUS, MY ANSWER to 11. Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why? I could write a literal essay about all of the problems I have with the later seasons (the ones I watched, which encompasses 6, 7, 8, and a few episodes of 9). But by far and away, the thing I hated most, was the Men of Letters.
Okay, this is where I am going to recognize my love of certain characters is at FUNDAMENTAL ODDS with how that character develops later and what history and background we get later on them. I RECOGNIZE this character is problematic, and I would NEVER STAND for his shit IRL, but fiction is complicated and nuanced, and fantastic circumstances do not make for normal behaviors. That being said, with all warnings I could possibly give, and with the full understanding that what I am about to say is basically fandom blasphemy of the highest order...
I like John Winchester’s character.
I know, I know. If you wanna stop reading and block me now, you are free to do that. I will not hold it against you. I am not about to apologize for anything he has done. I just need to contextualize why I have such an issue with the MOL storyline and it starts with the simple fact that I liked John Winchester as he was originally presented.
To me, and with the full understanding that I am answering this from the perspective of someone who DOES NOT regard anything past season 5 as personal canon, John Winchester is the perfect example of a truly complicated character. Here’s a parent who, if we take the pilot and the original s2 Djinn episodes at face value, could have been a great parent, who then got shoved into a fantastically impossible situation and made terrible choices that he thought were necessary in order to keep himself and his sons safe. That does not EXCUSE the heaps of abuse that he piled onto Dean in any way. We know John and Mary didn’t have a great marriage. But we also know from the pilot that John was at least a caring and present father, mostly,  for the 4 years he got to parent in a normal world, and that if Mary had lived, John would’ve been a softball playing dad who raised his kids and had a loving marriage with his wife. (Again, I need to reiterate, I did not watch anything past the early episodes of s9. If there is later canon that negates this, I do not know about it, nor do I want to because I don’t think of anything past 5 as canon) This is all important to me because these things emphasize that John was “NORMAL”. He was a mechanic, from a family of mechanics, whose father didn’t bail on him (a man in the episode where Dean is transported back in time to Lawrence tells John to ‘say hi to your old man for me’ or something to that effect). He was just a midwestern dude. Giving John Winchester a fantastical background through this Men of Letters bullshit made me SO MAD. First of all, I hate when later canon negates previous canon. I cannon TELL you how much I hate it. And the later seasons of Supernatural are riddled with stuff that doesn’t make any damn sense in the context of original, Kripke written canon, which is exactly why I stopped watching. That’s not ~Evolution of the show.~ That’s conveniently forgetting stuff that made your show and its premise so successful to begin with in order to keep filming episodes so you can keep making money. It’s the sacrifice of art for capitalism and yes I know this is a stupid TV show but as a writer myself it PISSES ME OFF.
/rant
ALSO, the idea that this toxically masculine family was set on this path by Heaven, and inherited this curse that put them on this path from their mother was such a good plot twist in its heyday. We spent four seasons thinking of Mary Winchester as a victim of circumstance, whose fate could not have been avoided because she was the mother to Sam, who is effectively cursed. And then, we learn that its BECAUSE of Mary that this ball even got rolling in the first place. IDK if you were around for that time in the fandom but at least in my circle, this was a big fucking deal. There had been so much (rightful) discourse about John before this, and what kind of parent he was, that Mary became almost deified in the same way Dean deifies her. And then we find out that this whole story gets set in motion by a decision she made because this was the life she found herself in. This was great. It was interesting. And even though the MOL doesn’t negate any of this, it does give John this weirdly fantastical that isn’t necessary. Let this guy be just some Joe Schmoe who fell in love with a kick ass hunter and had no idea any of this even existed. Let Mary and her want to be ‘normal’ be a complicated moral choice that fundamentally altered the paths of her husband and sons. It’s good tv!
Also, I fucking hate the bunker. The best episodes are Dean and Sam having moments in the car, or while in motel rooms on their cases, or whatever. I don’t mind them having a home base. I’m fine with that. But if a building could ever be a Mary Sue character, the bunker is it. I hate all of the MOL storyline, starting with this place.
I may not even tag this as Supernatural, I don’t need angry later season stans in my inbox.
15. Unpopular opinion about the manga/show?
There’s nothing good about anything that happened after season 6. It’s all a bunch of retconning bullshit. Season 6 had its moments where it was interesting, so I cut it a little bit of slack, but as far as I’m concerned, the show ended in season 5. I’m not sure that’s necessarily unpopular, but it does feel that way on tumblr, so. 
16. If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?
Aside from ending it in season 5?
Oooh, I’m about to blaspheme again. I am definitely not tagging this as Supernatural.
I would never have introduced Castiel, and I would’ve given that entire storyline to Anna. Or, alternatively, I would’ve flipped their story lines.
Look, for whatever it’s worth... I agree with the idea that Dean Winchester is a repressed bisexual. His Dr. Sexy love, the entire storyline with Benny in season 8, etc. I just don’t think he feels romantically about Castiel. And like, that’s okay! Just because you’re not into someone who is into you doesn’t mean you owe them a relationship or anything, no matter what the fandom thinks.
But I also think Dean has a big problem when it comes to women. Again, obviously later on in the series, Dean shifts and Charlie happens and Claire Novak and I know all of these things from gifs okay, context is not applicable here because I have none. But early on, Dean struggles A LOT with thinking of women as A) capable and B) trustworthy. He exists in a perpetual state of identifying women along the Madonna/Whore binary. Even Jo, however you feel about her, and to be clear, I loved Jo, but he doesn’t stop thinking of her really as a kid until they’re about to shoot the devil. Up until then, he’s genuinely surprised Ellen lets her out of the damn house.
Giving him a strong, capable woman who rebels against Heaven for HIM would have fundamentally altered Dean’s perceptions of women much earlier on than we get and would have forced him to examine some of that misogyny head on.
Dean has no problems trusting men. This is why the entire Gordon fiasco happens, right? It was less work for him to trust Castiel because Castiel is the inverse of Ruby. Angel to her Demon. Angels and demons don’t really have genders, but for the sake of presentation of vessels, man to her woman. Not even getting me started on the problematic parts of having significant demons mostly symbolized by women (Meg, Ruby, Lilith) and having significant angels mostly represented by Men (Castiel, Michael, Lucifer, Zachariah, Gabriel, Raphael), and how that ties into the idea of Original Sin and yada yada, but just like it’s interesting to have Mary and her decisions be the catalyst for the story, it’s interesting to have this badass warrior angel in Anna who marches down to Hell to yank Dean out, and through her interactions with him, decide to rebel against the ultimate patriarchy, while Dean gets an equally strong female counterpart to Sam’s Ruby, a woman for all intents and purposes that he respects as a soldier and an ally and not just a potential piece of ass.
Also, Castiel fans being literally unbearable is why I left the fandom. Nothing against Misha or anything, and not even anything against Cas as a character (who I very much enjoyed in seasons 4 and 5), but his fans have always been the worst and they try to insert him into everything.
19. What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?
Castiel/Destiel fans, which even though I also hated the direction the show was going, drove me out of the fandom. Not like, personally or directly, but just the sheer mental hoops they had to jump through in order to make their ship work and I just got tired of seeing all of the contrived meta on my dash. Oh, and the rampant misogyny that came out of those early Castiel fans. I didn’t appreciate it from the Wincest corner, and I definitely didn’t appreciate it from the fans of the new guy. Gross.
22. Popular character you hate?
Oof. I don’t know. I don’t really hate Castiel, because again, I liked him a lot in seasons 4 and 5. Even 6 was interesting, even if I don’t regard it as my own personal show canon. I don’t think there was a popular character in those first five seasons I ever really hated. I didn’t fundamentally hate a character at all until the MOL stuff came around. Um. Yeah, I don’t really have an answer for this.
23. Unpopular character you love?
Pretty much every female character ever. Jo, Ellen, Ruby, Meg... although Meg became more popular as the series went on, Anna. Um. OH, BELA. Bela ESPECIALLY, I recently rewatched season 3 and I cannot emphasize how MUCH I love Bela. She was the best purely human foil ever. Bela is hands down the character I love most that the fandom had frothing at the mouth hatred for. It doesn’t help that I legitimately think Lauren Cohan is one of the most beautiful women on the planet. But seriously, Bela. Hands down.
24. Would you recommend XXX to a friend? Why or why not? 
I have! Many of times, and ALWAYS WITH THE CAVEAT to stop at the end of season 5. Not a single one of them has listened to me and almost all of them came to me at the end of the finale and were like WHY DID I WASTE SO MUCH TIME, and I don’t want to say I told them so, but like, I explicitly in neon colored text once told them so, so like, idk what to tell them. But yes! I think if someone is interested in some classic mystery television that has an overarching theme of family and forgiveness and striking out against the boxes that life tries to put us all into, SPN is a great show. But only the first 5 seasons. Also, be prepared for some thematically problematic parts of the show because there’s a lot of cishet toxic masculinity in those early seasons, and we should examine our media critically. There’s also a lot of good though too, and IMO, the good outweighs the bad.
25. How would you end XXX/Would you change the ending of XXX?
I would’ve ended it at season 5. I would’ve had Sam escape the pit and seen him standing under the street lamp, but then I would’ve had him walking away to leave Dean with Lisa (btw, side note, I DIDN’T like Lisa because I don’t think Dean would ever be truly happy with someone completely outside the life). Not because Sam doesn’t love his brother, but because he *does* love his brother, and because he would want Dean to be happy, even though Dean and Sam’s ideas of what makes the other happy have always been a little bit screwed up.. but that’s a different story.
27. Least shippable character?
Probably Zachariah. God, could you imagine? And... maybe Alastair, but I’m sure there are fics out there that I do not want to think about.
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fizzingwizard · 4 years
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I wanted to do the Kizuna countdown these guys made but I uh forgot. And I’m gonna forget again before friday because I tend to pass out after work and dinner. Sooo... I’m just gonna do it all right here right now, since it’s the last weekend before Kizuna!
First thoughts when Kizuna was announced:
“Holy shit they’re making another one!? How long will they try to squeeze every drop of nostalgia out of us? Because as for me I’m pretty sure that well is bottomless soooo can they just go on making new Adventure movies forever and ever?”
Expectations for Kizuna:
Based on what I’ve heard it kind of seems like the Digimon sequel we would have expected... but got Tri instead. I really enjoyed Tri, though it was far from perfect, so I’m not sure how to feel about Kizuna! But I’m really excited to see the kids as adults trying to balance adulting, their dreams, and the things they care about in their daily lives.
A headcanon/theory you’d like Kizuna to make canon:
Can’t think of anything, sorry.
Expectations for the new characters:
New girl has a butterfly in her hair. She’s probably a harmless guide/informant type. New guy looks strict and apparently is rather blunt. But my guess is he’s not the big bad either... maybe distrusting of the digital world though. There’s probably more to both of these guys but Idc as usual, I only care about my children.
First Digimon memory:
Was a 10 year old Pokemon fan. All 10 year old Pokemon fans thought Digimon was a rip-off (how were we to know it was actually the older of the two, and already part of an established monster tradition in Japan!). We were also obsessed with Pogs and had fights over Pogs on the playground, which I think says a lot about our mental state.
My bro rented some Digimon VHS from Blockbuster (fuck yeah 1999!) and it was the whole Devimon saga. I scoffed and then sat down and watched with him. Then I was freaking HOOKED. I turned on the TV to see the new eps, but actually the show was starting back at reruns before moving on to the Myotismon saga at the time, so I got to watch the whole thing from start to finish in chronological order. I cried buckets when the final episode aired and mourned for weeks.
Favorite Adventure series:
does this mean Adventure or 02? or including Tri? Anyway the answer will always be Adventure. That’s nostalgia central for me. A lot of it was pretty straightforward storytelling, other seasons did more creative stuff, but I think that’s to be expected - this series built the foundation for all that. And it’s great in its own way. What I particularly liked was always the whole “kids trying to figure shit out on their own” bit. For a kids’ show, they actually did it pretty well. Usually kids in that situation act just like really competent adults and don’t really struggle. Digimon certainly had that too, but it let the kids be crybabies, be selfish, be ignorant... it was really about their personal growth and that’s why they got to be kids as well.
Favorite Adventure Chosen Child (older 6):
Taichi!! Do I even need to explain myself? I will anyway. I didn’t care about him much when I was ten. For a long time I didn’t have a favorite character. It was Yamato for about thirty seconds, and then it was Takeru for about two years. After 02, I rewatched both seasons, and suddenly realized Taichi was Everything to me. I never really went for leader characters, never liked brash, brainless, bring-the-brawn types, or stern, distant ones, cold except when showing their passion for their mission.
But Taichi isn’t like either of those. He has bits of both - he can be brainless, and he’s pretty brash, but he’s calculating too. I liked that mix, but mainly I liked that he just seemed like a regular kid who the others were naturally drawn to as a leader because he was Mr. Get-shit-done. The older I get, the more I appreciate that proactive factor in people. Sometimes you just need someone to say the thing that’s on everyone’s minds. It can be scary. So I feel gratitude when someone takes the lead when I can’t. I think that’s how the other kids felt towards Taichi - for all his flaws, he kept them going, he didn’t let them waffle and miss their chances. I like him for a ton of other reasons too but I’ll end there for today!
Favorite 02 Chosen Child (younger 6):
Takeru. He was my original fav and I really really wanted to see him be awesome in 02. Unfortunately, he and Hikari didn’t really get much development. (They still made out better than all Frontier kids not named Kouji, though.) But I loved his anger issues and his facing his trauma. They should have done so much more. I really wanted him to bond with Ken over the fact that they’d both lost partners... I loved seeing older Takeru in Tri, the trauma issue came up again when he was the first one to realize his partner was infected. I’ve never been so moved by a crying plush doll lmao. Also his fashion sense, woot.
The runner-up is worth a mention since she wasn’t part of the original Adventure group and therefore could be considered my true 02 fav - Miyako. I loved the nerdy glasses girl because I was a nerdy glasses girl. I wasn’t as outspoken as Miyako, but I could go on and on about things I liked. I loved how pure and flawed she was and I loved her inner sense of right and wrong and her frankness. It’s refreshing when so many characters hide their true feelings. And I loved her and Hikari. Hikari and Miyako are the true girl friendship in those series. Sora and Mimi are nice but didn’t get the same level of development. Of course, I headcanon they were all awesome girlfriends.
Favorite Digimon partner:
This is an IMPOSSIBLE question, I love ALL OF THEM. I can’t pick one.
Gabumon: the way he and Yamato don’t need words, he just understands him, and when he doesn’t, always assume the best and gives him space. Their connection through music. And the way Gabumon will tease him especially over Taichi XD Gabumon keeps Yamato in line.
Gomamon: the way he is just what Jou needs, someone to keep him positive. I’m anxiety-prone myself and one reason I love my job working with young children is they make me see the bright things that I used to be able to see all the time when I was a child. I never really wanted to grow up. I think Gomamon is that for Jou, the child in him he doesn’t want to let go of, and doesn’t actually have to, because we take that part of us into our future.
Tentomon: because was he not MVP of the YEAR in Kokuhaku!?!?!?!?! That was amaaaaazing. Also he is easily the funniest Digimon and I love how he brings out the affectionate side of Koushirou. Again he’s exactly what Koushirou needs.
Patamon: Because he’s cuuuuute!!! and gives Takeru something to nurture and protect while also protecting him. Takeru, the youngest, who needed to be protected but also needed to grow, got a Digimon with those exact same qualities. PERFECT MATCH.
Hawkmon: I always loved him paired with Miyako. He was my favorite 02 partner. He was grumpy and irritable yet caring with Miyako, basically the compass she needed when she felt panicky. And he was COOL. Like he had the best evolutions lol. And as the only male/female partner set (I know Digimon don’t have true genders but this isn’t a made up thing either), there was a slightly different dynamic, like Miyako needed someone a bit more her opposite than other Chosen, to help push her in new directions.
Agumon: He gets honorable mention in particular because of Tri! But also because of 02. In Adventure, Taichi didn’t have a strong grasp of what it meant to raise his partner. He and Agumon saw each other as equals - which they are - but you do see a shift in that balance as Taichi gets older. Agumon is very powerful, but very child-like and thoughtless. In 02 and Tri, we see Taichi taking care of him much more like a big brother with a young brother. In Adventure, they just played together and wound each other up. What this means is Taichi’s grown up to be quite the caretaker, out of necessity - his partner is a bit high maintenance compared to the others! And caretaker isn’t usually the quality that jumps to mind when you think of “anime protagonist” or even leader. So I LOVE it. Also, Agumon struggles to express big concepts. But he can express really important things in simple ways, and Taichi needs that simplicity when his head gets all muddled with complexity. We definitely saw that in Tri. Agumon is kinda the Doraemon of Digimon, lol.
And I love literally all of the others and could go on about them for ages. But I’ll stop here. Will continue the countdown (er, I guess I can’t call it that when I’m doing it like this) later.
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leofcwler · 5 years
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shania twain vc: let’s go girls!
PREFERRED NAME — bri
PRONOUNS — she/they
AGE — 21 bt i’m turning 22 on sunday baybee!
PINTEREST — bada bing bada boom
DISCORD — bri#0458
TUMBLR (PERSONAL/MUSE/RPH) — yeehaw!
MYER-BRIGGS — istp
HP HOUSE — slytherin
ASTROLOGY — gemini
DO YOU BELIEVE IN ASTROLOGY? — my only current tattoo is the gemini symbol not to sound like a total white girl but yes. yes i believe in astrology.
HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU STARTED RPING ON TUMBLR — honestly im not sure probably 13?? wipes sweat from my brow
WHAT YEAR WAS IT? — i think that makes it 07??? fcking hell
NAME A RANDOM ROLEPLAY THAT STICKS OUT IN YOUR MEMORY — i was in this harry potter next gen rp i’m not kidding all of high school like the entire 4 years it was a wild ride
WITHOUT GOOGLING IT FIRST, WHAT DO YOU THINK SIR ELTON JOHN’S NET WORTH IS? — i think like $500 million tbh Big Mans Got Money
NAME THE FIRST SONG ON YOUR DISCOVER WEEKLY ON SPOTIFY OR THE FIRST SONG THAT COMES ON APPLE MUSIC / ITUNES SHUFFLE — if only i was a poet by staffan carlen
NAME A BOOK THAT YOU READ IN SCHOOL THAT YOU SURPRISINGLY LIKED — tbh i think my fave was brave new world
NAME A BOOK YOU HATED THAT MOST PEOPLE LIKED — maybe great gatsby?? i just thought it was so dull..................
WHAT TV SHOW DID YOU RECENTLY BINGE? — im rewatching the office for the 4th time rn lawl but other than that i watched the society in like less than 24 hours
FAVOURITE QUOTE — “if you live to be a hundred, i want to live to be a hundred minus one day so i never have to live without you.” - winnie the pooh baby!
LINK TO A VINE THAT EXUDES YOUR ‘ENERGY’ — x
DO YOU WRITE OUTSIDE OF RP? WHAT DO YOU WRITE? — i used to write novels and stuff but i haven’t in a long time i should probably start again
THREE YOUTUBERS YOU STILL TRUST — tiny meat gang, kurtis conner, drew gooden/danny gonzalez (i couldn’t decide between them)
A CELEBRITY CRUSH THAT JUST WON’T QUIT — harry styles i would die for him
EVER MEET A CELEBRITY? SHARE YOUR STORY — i literally just met kurtis conner at the 1975 concert this monday that was truly wild
WHAT’S YOUR PICTURE-PERFECT NIGHT? — frankly probably drinking and doing something fun with my friends
A CONSPIRACY THEORY YOU KINDA BELIEVE IN — mandela effect is REAL!!!!!!!!!!
ARE ALIENS REAL? — yes
GHOSTS — yes ofc i’ve had so many experiences w them they are OUT THERE
BIG FOOT — honestly maybe but also? mostly doubt it
THE LOCHNESS MONSTER? — the ocean’s so big it’s impossible to imagine it’s not real and out there also some pics? quite convincing................
WHAT WAS THE GENRE OF YOUR LAST DREAM? — i honestly can’t remember the last dream that i had i’ve been on so many meds fr back issues it’s like fritzed my brain and made it impossible to dream i think
DO YOU STILL PLAY POKEMON GO? — no i kinda miss it i might start it up again tbh
WHAT’S A FILM YOU LOVED WHEN YOU WERE YOUNG AND RECENTLY WATCHED, ONLY TO FIND OUT YOU DON’T ANYMORE — i haven’t watched a lot of movies from when i was young recently i won’t lie also i’m not hard to please i would probably still love it
DO YOU COLLECT ANYTHING? — i have like 1000 lipsticks also lots of notes and memorabilia from high school?? and hearts haha xP 
WHAT’S SOMETHING YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT BUT YOU’RE TOO LAZY? — guitar tbh i took a class freshman year of high school but never got actual lessons
THREE LANGUAGES YOU DON’T SPEAK, BUT WISH YOU COULD — french, spanish, and latin
A GUILTY PLEASURE MOVIE — land of the lost it’s literally one of my fave movies even tho i kno its trash
A GUILTY PLEASURE MUSICAL ARTIST — 5sos even tho i’m not guilty........... they’re good.
TELEVISION SHOW — i watch riverdale and i do feel guilty about it it’s not good but i can’t stop.
NAME A FICTIONAL CHARACTER FROM TV/FILM/MOVIE/GAME/BOOK THAT YOU FIND YOURSELF PROJECTING ON / YOU RELATE TO — probably kelly from the office i’m not gonna fuck around
DO YOU FOLLOW ANY SPORTS? WHO DO YOU ROOT FOR? — i have and never will willingly sit through a sports game any day of my life and you can take that to my grave.
HOBBIES BESIDES WASTING AWAY HERE? — idk spending time with my friends, drinking lawl, reading, used to take vocal lessons??, rotting away on netflix
PLUG A TV SHOW / MOVIE / BOOK / VIDEO GAME / ETC… YOU WISH MORE PEOPLE WOULD CHECK OUT — um?? i feel like the show dark is really underrated but it slaps Dumb Hard
WOULD YOU EAT A STRANGER’S FINGER FOR A MILLION DOLLARS? — who am i to deny myself a tasty snack for a truck load of money
TEAM EDWARD OR JACOB? honestly i was a bit of both but ig edward in the end idk team jasper if anything /:
LIVE-ACTION DISNEY MOVIES, YAY OR NAY? — ya i like them i don’t even give a hoot and holler i love disney........ there. i said it.
ON A SCALE OF 1-10, HOW MUCH DID YOU HATE FILLING THIS OUT? – like 6 i don’t even know who i am
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beccaland · 6 years
Text
Beccaland reads and responds to an article about Doctor Who that she really should have known better than to have read in the first place
You know how you KNOW you should never read the comments sections, but sometimes you just can’t help yourself? That’s usually how I feel about reading articles about Doctor Who during the past few years, except from a handful of trusted sources. Yet there I was this morning, checking my regular email from Tor.com, and out of a slightly-morbid curiosity, I found myself reading “How It Feels to Want to Watch Doctor Who Again” by Alex Brown.
Partly, I really am interested in the fans who are getting interested in Doctor Who again. They left for a lot of reasons, and really you can’t begrudge anyone’s waning interest in a TV show. And it would be far, far more silly to begrudge them regaining interest! I’m excited for the awesome changes that are coming on October 7th, too. And I am fully aware that not every era is every fan’s cup of tea. On the other hand, I also know that I’m frequently irritated by the shallow criticism levelled in order to “justify” some fans’ disaffection. So there I was. Reading an article I knew very well was probably going to annoy me, like a masochist.
And just because I feel like it, I’m going to quote a bunch of it and offer my own commentary. I’m going to be as fair as I can, noting where I think a given critique is valid, where I think it’s valid but still disagree, and where I think it’s the same old tired, inaccurate nonsense.
Here we go:
“I miss Doctor Who.”
ME TOO!
“There was a time when I watched it fervently, reverently, passionately. It was something I put on when I was stressed or overwhelmed or needed to be reminded of the good things in life. The relationship wasn’t perfect, but it was powerful and affirming.”
Yeah, I do that too, but I never really stopped.
“Until suddenly it wasn’t.”
I mean, sure. Doctor Who did something on a purely personal and emotional level for the author, and then it stopped. That’s totally fair.
This actually happened to me with the novels in the ‘90s–they just weren’t doing enough for me imaginatively or emotionally anymore to justify the challenge of finding them and the expense of buying them. It happens. (I still wanted Doctor Who in my life though, so I rewatched my VHS tapes instead, until they had degraded in quality to the point where that wasn’t very fun either.)
“The show twisted into something unrecognizable and unpleasant. And so I abandoned Doctor Who just as it had abandoned me.”
The really negatively loaded language here bugs me a lot, but this article is a personal fan narrative more than it is a review, and it’s impossible to refute a subjective response. Clearly, it’s true that Alex Brown and the show were no longer on the same wavelength. So, fair enough.
“If you asked me in 2016 if I would ever watch Doctor Who again, I probably would’ve shaken my head and sighed. The chances of the show making the kind of changes necessary to pull me back seemed slim to none. But here we are, fall 2018, and I am so excited about the Season 11 premiere that I can barely stand it.”
I’m really happy about everyone coming back. I share this excitement!
[I’m omitting a couple of paragraphs here where Brown describes more of what Doctor Who meant to her when she first encountered the show during an obviously extremely difficult time in her life. It’s really moving, and I find it relatable in some ways.]
“With the takeover by Steven Moffat in 2010, my relationship with the Doctor shifted dramatically. As much as I loved Doctor Who, I wasn’t blinkered to its myriad problems.”
See, my issue with this is simply that it implies that people like me ARE “blinkered by its myriad problems.” We’re not. But sometimes we disagree about what those problems are, or where the blame (and praise) for those problems (and their amelioration) properly lies. Hence this post.
“Trouble was, the annoying but tolerable issues were magnified into something unbearable by Moffat’s numerous faults as showrunner. Under Moffat, seasons went from episodic romps loosely knitted together by repeating themes—think “Bad Wolf” Easter eggs throughout the first season—to Lost-style mystery box seasons bogged down in an increasingly convoluted and grimdark mythology.”
I think it’s fair to say that the series 6 arc in particular was much heavier than previously attempted by the show, and this was a turnoff for some viewers. Personally, I liked it a lot conceptually, but I acknowledge that it could have been better executed. It’s also not representative of Moffat’s whole era; he experimented a lot with structure. That in itself was probably frustrating to some viewers–again, I liked it a lot, but that’s neither here nor there.
However, calling the Moffat era “grimdark” is frankly bizarre. It seems to confuse a shift in LIGHTING with a shift in TONE. The Moffat era’s TONE was, if anything, substantially more hopepunk than the RTD era (to say nothing of Torchwood, which Brown also professes to adore).
“River Song, Cybermen, Daleks, and the Master work best when used sparingly,”
Yeah, I agree.
“but Moffat dragged them out of the toy box so often that they lost their appeal.”
A criticism that (aside from River, for whom YMMV) applies equally to the RTD era.
“Even the Doctor suffered from too much focus. Doctor Who is a show that flourishes when it cares more about the people the Doctor helps than the Doctor. The Doctor is much more interesting as a character who drops into other people’s stories than when everyone else exists only to serve the Doctor’s narrative.”
This is a matter of taste, and on that level cannot be refuted.
But I’m not actually sure it’s true that the stories in the Moffat era focused more on the Doctor than was the case in previous eras. It didn’t seem that way to me. I suppose one could develop some way of objectively evaluating the validity of that premise, but I’m not going to go to that much trouble.
“Worse, women went from equals with their own vibrant lives to codependent followers.”
This is not merely a matter of personal taste. It is an assertion about content of the sort which could hypothetically be supported by evidence. If it were true. And it is literally the opposite of true. It’s a gross mischaracterization of the Moffat era companions, and moreover ignores the sometimes-problematic characterizations of the RTD era companions. I’m skipping the rest of that paragraph, which merely rehashes worn-out, shallow readings of Amy and Clara’s characters. I have nothing to say about those arguments that I haven’t said elsewhere before.
“[Moffat’s] seeming disdain for how fans interpreted the series,”
Showrunners SHOULD disdain how fans interpret their work. Or, more accurately, they should ignore it. Since fans are a motley bunch, the alternative would be a total lack of creative vision, either deeply bland or utterly fractured.
“for critiques of his own biases and bigotries,”
In reality, Steven Moffat demonstrated a remarkable openness to critiques of his biases and made steady progress in addressing them both in front of the camera and behind the scenes.
“and for the depth the show was capable of became a virus that infected everything.”
From where I sit, Doctor Who demonstrated far more depth during the Moffat era than during the RTD era (and some of the deepest scripts in RTD’s era were written by Moffat and according to RTD, barely touched by his editorial influence). I’m willing to consider the possibility that the RTD era displayed depths that I failed to perceive, but given the number of times I’ve rewatched it and the fact that I study texts for a living, I have to say I think that’s a long shot. I would welcome a persuasive analysis of the depths of the RTD era.
“I have never been one to shy away from dropping shows that I no longer like, but I held onto Doctor Who longer than I should have. I finally tapped out after the frustrating penultimate episode of Season 6, “The Wedding of River Song.” Reductive, repetitive, and boring, the episode encapsulated everything I couldn’t stand about Moffat’s storytelling.”
OK, Brown has got a point there. I love TWORS for purely personal reasons (it was just FUN, in the same way that the more crazy-ambitious failures often are in Doctor Who), but I’m under no illusions about its quality. In addition to being “reductive [and] repetitive” that episode was also rushed and full of holes. I didn’t find it boring, but that’s a subjective thing.
It’s a bit weird though that Brown claims to have quit watching Doctor Who at the end of series 6, since earlier she critiqued both Clara and Moffat’s “over"use of Missy, both of whom post-date Brown’s purported exit. Hmm. Seems like (as is not uncommon, in my experience) people who dislike Moffat base a lot of their dislike on mere hearsay.
"Although Moffat drove me away from Doctor Who, other factors kept me from coming back. A not insignificant chunk of my exhaustion came from the frustratingly limited diversity and the frequently poor treatment of characters of color—see Martha and Bill, plus the weirdness around the few major interracial relationships.”
OK, this is approximately half fair. There WAS a frustrating lack of diversity which continued well into Moffat’s era. Martha and her weird marriage to Mickey are RTD’s doing entirely. And the author claims not to have ever seen series 10, so she’s hardly in a place to evaluate Bill’s treatment (which, for the record, seemed pretty great to me–vastly better than in any previous era, anyway, though there’s no doubt that there is still room for improvement).
“Prior to Season 11 there had never been an Asian or South Asian companion despite the fact that people of South Asian ancestry make up nearly 7% of the population of England and Wales, according to the most recent census. Islam is the second largest religion in the UK, yet Muslims are also largely absent from the show, and certainly from the role of companion.”
This is a totally fair criticism.
“Moffat said it was hard to cast diversely without impinging on historical accuracy,”
Gonna want a citation for that one; I admit it’s possible he said something like that at some point but I feel like I would remember if he had.
“a notion that is patently false and wholly ignorant of actual history.”
A point which Sarah Dollard makes in the series 10 episode “Thin Ice,” with the enthusiastic approval of Moffat himself.
“To be fair, Moffat also admitted this claim was nonsense and rooted in a white-centric view of history and acknowledged that the show needed to do better…then made absolutely no changes.”
Thanks for being fair…almost. In fact he made substantial changes during his tenure, though most happened after Alex Brown quit paying attention. Seems to me that if you’re going to write an article for a blog affiliated with a major SF publisher, you might actually want to check your facts rather than relying on information that’s several years out of date (if it was ever true).
“And don’t even get me started on frequent Moffat collaborator and Who writer Mark Gatiss who infamously whined about diversity initiatives ruining historical accuracy because they cast a Black man as a soldier on an episode about Queen Victoria’s army battling Ice Warriors on Mars.”
Yeah, this I do remember. Ew, Gatiss! What were you thinking?
“Not to mention Moffat’s asinine declarations that we couldn’t have a woman Doctor becausehe 'didn’t feel enough people wanted it’ and 'This isn’t a show exclusively for progressive liberals; this is also for people who voted Brexit.’”
This is also the man who wrote the first-ever gender-changing regeneration (of the Doctor, no less!) in his comedy special, “The Curse of the Fatal Death,” the first female incarnation of a previously male Time Lord (Missy, who turned out to be incredibly popular), and the first official, non-comedy, on-screen gender-changing regeneration scene (the General, in Hell Bent), thus paving the way for even many of those non-liberal, Brexit-voting audiences to accept a female Doctor, and making it virtually impossible for the BBC not to do it without looking like total assholes (though by that point they were totally on board and needed to further persuasion).
But sure, go ahead and cherry-pick a couple of real-but-not-representative Moffat quotes to perpetuate your misogynistic Moffat pseudo-narrative.
[Cutting the rest of that paragraph because it adds nothing to the critique]
“Why can’t we have a trans or disabled companion? Why can’t the Doctor be a queer woman of color?”
These are totally legitimate questions, and we should keep asking them.
“Do you know what it’s like to be told by someone in a position of power that you don’t belong here? That you are an aberration, a glitch in the matrix, that including you would be so inaccurate that it would collapse the narrative structure of a fictional television show that features a frakking alien traveling through time in a police box?”
Yes. I do.
And when you dismissed Amy and Clara as mere sexist stereotypes, mere codependent hangers-on of the Doctor, you re-inflict that wound on me and many other fans, because you’ve been granted a position of power, a platform in the blog of a major international SF publisher.
“Hearing that message all the time from pop culture is hard enough, but to get it from my favorite show was heartbreaking.”
I feel ya, Alex Brown. This needs to continue to be addressed.
But I’ll also remind readers that the Moffat era, despite its still-too-limited representation, gave us more disability representation than any other era of the show up to that point.
“Cut to the Jodie Whittaker announcement in July, 2017. For the first time in years, I watched the Christmas special—live, no less. To give credit where credit is due, Moffat’s swan song exceeded my (very low) expectations and Peter Capaldi was as excellent as I hoped he’d be. Whittaker had almost no screen time, but what she did get left me with a smile a mile wide.
"On top of her pitch-perfect casting, Thirteen will also be joined by three new companions, one a Black man and another a woman of Indian descent. Plus, the Season 11 writers’ room has added a Black woman, white woman, and a man of Indian descent. Several women will also be directing. New showrunner Chris Chibnall proclaimed that the renovated show will tell 'stories that resonate with the world we’re living in now,’ and will 'be the most accessible, inclusive, diverse season’ ever produced.
"These changes go beyond tokenism and into real diversity work. The show isn’t just sticking a woman in the titular role and patting themselves on the back. Diversity can’t just be about quotas. It must be about inclusion and representation in front of and behind the camera. Marginalized people need to be able to tell our own stories and speak directly to our communities. The majority already gets to do that, and now that conversation needs to happen across the board. The show still has a lot of work to do, both in terms of undoing the status quo of harmful tropes and in laying strong groundwork for later casts and crews. Yet, somewhat surprisingly, I feel hopeful for the show’s future.”
I totally agree with these three paragraphs (except I had high expectations of TUAT, which were also exceeded). In fact these paragraphs are a big part of why I felt like this article was worth sharing. I just couldn’t do it without significant reservation.
“And isn’t hope what the show is really all about? Doctor Who is a story about the hope for a better tomorrow, faith in your companions, and trust that you’re doing the right thing. It’s about a hero using their immense powers responsibly and in order to benefit those who need it the most. The Doctor creates space for the marginalized to stand up and speak out, to fight for their rights against those who would silence or sideline them.”
I’m not totally sure that that’s ever really been true before, but it’s an ongoing aspiration that the show keeps moving closer to.
“For too long, that ideal was lost to puzzle boxes, bloated mythology, and trope-y characters”
No it wasn’t. See above.
“but with the appearance of each new Thirteenth Doctor trailer, my hope grows a little more.
"It’s not often that you find your way back to something you loved and lost. At first, Doctor Who was a touchstone during my trials and hardships. Then it became a cornerstone in the foundation of the new life I was building. For a long time I left it encased in a wall, hidden in the basement of my subconscious, untouched and unwanted. Yet here I stand, sledgehammer in hand, putting a hole in that wall. I have set free my love of Doctor Who as Jodie Whittaker cheers me on. October 7 can’t come soon enough.”
This sentiment is really lovely. Welcome back, Alex Brown, and every other fan returning to Doctor Who after an absence of any length and for any reason. It’s shaping up to be a great new era.
Please remember, though, when talking to other fans, that other eras meant as much to some of them as this one means to you, and for similar reasons.
To those who are leaving because of toxic discourse about previous eras making them feel like their presence isn’t welcome and/or participating in fandom right now will only cause them pain: I’m going to miss you. I hope your DVDs and Big Finish and stuff continue to bring you joy. I hope you’ll come back again when it’s safe to do so.
To those who are leaving because they don’t like the idea of a female Doctor and/or two POC companions: BYE BYE! To be honest, nobody will miss you, but nevertheless I hope that eventually you realize how silly and harmful your biases are. When you do, I hope you’ll come back to Doctor Who. And you’ll be welcome.
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incarnateirony · 6 years
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I hope I'm not asking a stupid question, I really don't know anything about your field. How many people do you estimate watch the show? Including illegal streams, Netflix, other methods, etc...
Not a stupid question at all! People generally don’t think about this and there’s a reason why I constantly re-state that the ratings we see are just the tip of the iceberg and why most of our audience *is* online.
It’s impossible to put a dead set number on this but I’ll clarify as much as we can with what we have released.
SPN currently runs a 0.55~ with roughly 1.687M~ viewers in season 13. However, as my digital call release information sits in season 12 still, we’re going to use S12 numbers: 0.6 and 1.675M~. You may notice that despite the demo going down in S13, raw viewers went up. This is why raw viewers are unreliable as a tracking source for advertisers (which in the end is what ratings are all about.) A lower number of people may be watching TV across the nation, ergo, it takes less people to make a higher percentage and our landscape is always changing. More people, in raw numbers, watched S13 than people watched S12, but S12’s demo looks higher.
However for the sake of cohesion, we’re going to go with demos, as they’re what matter most anyway. S12 had a 0.6 demo. It pulled an average of +0.4 on +3 views and generally only accumulated another +0.1 on +7. Between +3/7, they generally panned at a +0.5~ over the 0.6, or with Live+SD+3+7, SPN’s demo hits about 1.1. In viewers, that leaves us in the area of 3.3-3.4M depending on the year’s general flux, with classic TV and DVR, in the US exclusively.
This does not, however, touch on methods Nielsen fails to track in those ratings, such as Streaming Video On Demand (SVOD) services. Things like the CW app, hulu, amazon, and anywhere else you can “purchase” the right to watch online do not report to these numbers. In season 12, SPN hit the #16 (I thought it was #18 but doublechecked, it’s 16) most popular show online (this is the first time we ever hit the top 20, marking our continued growth), with an average demand expression per capita of 3.59, or efficiently, the equivalent of an online global demo report of 3.59. These views still subject viewers to ads of misc sorts and in result, do pull them money the same way classic TV ratings work.
While I can’t break down country by country in the digital, what we can gather from that, and the estimated 3.2 billion people online, is that there were 891,364,902~  digital calls for SPN during S12. Presuming, with reasonable margin of error, that these were divided across 23 episodes, that leaves 38,754,995 digital calls. And, even culling it for rewatch, under a fairly bold and likely inaccurate assumption that there’s an average rewatch value of 2x per episode (such as across other device or rewatching with friends), we’re left with a number of about 19,377,497 global digital individuals, which we’ll even be conservative and round down to a flat 19 Million global watchers on the digital side of things.
I admit I haven’t collected all the other country’s independent ratings results for their live airings, but what I can say is:
Roughly 3.4 million americans on classic TV+DVRAt least 19 million people internationally on digital venues (SVOD).
We’re looking at no less than 22 million viewers, and that’s not minding other countries I haven’t pulled reports on where some people may still watch it exclusively on their TV. Sometime ages ago I reblogged a map of the hottest viewing locations around the world and some do, per capita, compete with the US. I couldn’t tell you those with good conscience off the top of my head but minding several large countries with dedicated demographics, it’s safe to air on the side of 25 million viewers globally and easily possible to reach towards 30 million+, depending on how much vector overlap we want to assume classic TV and digital viewing have.Assuming most countries maintained a similar demo, with enough to drag 0.6 down to a 0.5 and 0.4 DVR due to people having snuck early watches through backdoor means, it’s fair to give SPN a global classic+digital demo of 4.49~ with reasonable margin of error as, without more thorough release or, frankly, me treading through finding the L+SD+3/7 demos of literally every country it aired in, some of this is negotiating what’s simply realistic.
Keep in mind, while I try to speculate at “viewers,” repeat watches can continue to earn ad credits and will make them money, regardless of rewatch, though depending on the platform or service, it may be less, or they may not be getting direct ad revenue as much as a purchased episode without commercials depending on the surface, in which case a one time buy (usually at about 1.99) goes to the office. These one-time purchases generally don’t re-count towards digital calls, however, so they wouldn’t be turning up as duplicates in our viewer approximations anyway. Those who purchase under these methods are actually giving space for the “x2″ assumption to fill x3+ watches on people who do use recurring methods like the CW app. 
Without direct access to CW’s reports on SPN, I can’t give you an on-the-nose number, but it’s completely realistic to assume it’s in the realm of 30 million global viewers, and possibly higher.
Some math just for fun: with that digital demand call, assuming even only 25 cents of ad or purchase profit reaches the CW, after working things out with the SVOD vendors and whatever wanting their chunk of the buck, and minimizing rewatch values of adverts, etc, CW would still be pulling $222,841,225 on season 12′s digital release alone. With a last known release of a 3 million per episode production cost, or roughly 69 (we’ll say 70) million per 23 episode season, the CW are making out like bandits and there’s a reason Pedowitz is willing to beat this pony until it stops farting rainbows and gold dust. And again, that’s my narrowing the margins down ridiculously. TVD ran #15 on the same list and the Flash runs at #5 with almost twice the digital value. You may notice these are the three shows CW treats like their Hope Diamonds while acting like they DGAF about anything else. What the audience considers dismissive of Pedowitz in his decisions is more like terrified sentry defenses lest they somehow ding that global reception based on what *he* thinks could harm it. 
(Though Wayward is not so simple, as he also was receiving pressure from CBS as one of their parent networks to try another Charmed reboot, and had the Plec dev contract among other things, hence the “contractual breakdown”. Plec would run cheaper while TVD hangs in the same digital region as SPN. With Charmed already eating out dev budget with no real promise of potential, he has to consider banking on respective losses.)
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transmxnfenris · 6 years
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EVERY BOTANICAL ASK
WHY DO YOU DO THIS Jasmine: what mythical creature do you wish existed? Ooooh, probs Selkies. They are so pure, good and lovely. I would strive to protect them all. Lavender: soundcloud or vinyls? Vinyl because I’m a True Hipster Primrose: what book does everyone need to read right now? The Book Thief because it changed my life. Lunar mist: do you like wearing other people’s shirts/jackets? You know the answer to this Richie, I am literally wearing your shirt right now you are right next to me you absolute dork Bird of Paradise: what was the best thing that happened to you this month? Moving to my new place 💖Gardenia: what’s a promise you’ve recently made to yourself? Um well it’s faith related and kinda secret and I can’t remember any others Lion’s fairytale: would you rather be the sky, the ocean, or the forests? The ocean for sure Whirling butterflies: would you kiss the last person you kissed again? A thousand times 💖Marmalade skies: do you plan your outits? Kinda, I wear the same three outfits all the time cause I am autistic Apricot drift: how do you feel right now? Pretty great. I’m happyEverlasting daisy: what’s the last dream you remember having? Oh you were there! I dreamed we went to Costco last night but it was closed down so you (Richie) cried Queen’s cup: what are you craving right now? McCoy’s Cheddar and Onion crisps like I always am Lavender dream: turn ons/turn offs? Turn ons: well created art Turn offs: unnecessary nastiness Water Lilly: when was the last time you cried? Why? I don’t know I cry all the time I cry because puppies are too cute sometimes Lily of the Valley: did the one person who hurt you most in your life apologise? No, and that’s okay because I don’t need him or his apology. I’m moving on now. Winterberry: do you bite or lick your ice cream? Bite Honey perfume: favourite movie ever? Mulan Snapdragon: have you ever met or seen in person a celebrity? My dads cousin is a quasi famous comedian but I can’t tell you who he is cos my and him have the same last name Night owl: how many countries have you visited?Nine? I think it’s nine Heliotrope: have you ever been in a castle? Yeah loads of times, last one was Hellsinger castle in Denmark where Hamlet’s set. It was awesome. Creams and sky: what’s the craziest/bravest thing you’ve done? Skydiving probs Lantana: what’s on your mind right now? Finishing all these god damn questions you’ve set me you dingbat Pumpkin patch: what’s your zodiac sign? Aries Tulip: name five facts about yourself. Amethyst is my favourite crystal but that may change soonSunflowers are my favourite flowers but I’m starting to prefer daffodils I want to go to Japan I want twelve cats seven dogs and five rabbits I think Icarus deserved better Daphne: do you believe in karma? Kind of Queen of the meadow: ever been in love? I’m in love with you you dingbat Wisteria: whom do you admire and why? Carrie Fisher because she beat addiction and let herself be crazy Angel’s face: what was your favourite bed time story as a child? The Jolly Christmas Postman Remember me: did you make someone laugh today? Yeah you a handful of minutes ago Iris: do you believe in ghosts? Kinda Lilac: If you could go back in time which time period would you visit? Ancient Egypt or Shakespearean times so I could be bffs with Shakespeare or Tutankhamen Caramel kisses: would you want to live forever? Why/why not? When you believe the universe is all connected this question feels hard to answer Primula: what makes you sad? Other people/animals being hurt Rain lily: was today tropical? Why/why not? Not really, cause I live in England. It’s sunny though? Queen Anne’s Lace: who do you trust the most? You ofc 💖Lady’s slipper: what did you have for breakfast today? I skipped breakfast but I had a Tesco’s meal deal for lunch Forget me not: do you have any regrets looking back on life? Yes but I try not to Lunaria: what’s your favourite fictional universe? Why don’t you just ask me to pick a favourite child while you’re at it... probs Persona? Or Star Wars. Or Harry Potter. Or Discworld. Idk this is too hard. Violet: favourite tv show? Hmm ... For quality Mr Robot for rewatchability and comfort Friends Sunflower: share a quote. “I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it's true I'm here, and I'm just as strange as you.” - Frida KahloSnowdrop: what does your ideal day look like? A picnic with my boyfriend on a sunny day with no worries at all Tiger lily: do you have any hobbies? Writing, gaming, role playing, reading, and I like swimming Peony: share a small random book passage that means something to you. “oh I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.” - Sam Black Crow, American GodsIM GONNA STOP NOW cause I’m too tired and this too long
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woozapooza · 6 years
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Black Sails: The Verdict
not to be obvious but this was a really good show
If I try to get into all the things I want to say about this show I’ll be writing this post for the rest of my life so I’m just gonna touch on the most important things.
I’m not sure there’s ever been a show that had this much of an emotional impact on me. I woke up in the middle of the night last night thinking about the show. I guess I must have been dreaming about it and dreamed so hard I woke myself up. I’m sincerely hoping that the day is not far off when I can think about this show more calmly. I think I’ll be able to enjoy it more when the very thought of it doesn’t make me drown in feelings. I’m grateful for the BS humor videos on youtube that are helping me take the show less seriously.
I’ve been looking at other people’s reactions to the finale and two things are clearer than ever (and they were already pretty clear): 1. This is a very complex show where no one is ever totally right or wrong. 2. My standards for TV are a lot lower than many TV fans’. I’m impressed by people who are able to be like “here’s why such-and-such episode didn’t make sense/was dissatisfying” and I sort of envy people who are that good at watching TV but I’m a lot more willing than some people to accept what a show gives me and that’s just the way it is. So I understand some people’s complaints about various things about how the show ended, and I also understand the people who have the complete opposite points of view because this show is wicked complex and there are no right answers to a lot of the big questions about it. Anyway, the following are just my onions.
Ultimately I think my favorite character was Silver. I’ve never seen a character with development like his. I know his actions in the finale are very controversial and I’m trying not to take too hard a stance on them in one direction or the other, but I think what he did was ultimately right. He prevented a war that would have been devastating (because it’s a war) and that England probably would have won anyway. It’s not like the fact that the war got cut short means people aren’t going to keep resisting the bad things about the British empire. As for what he did to Flint, I’ve seen some people get very angry with Silver for essentially selling Flint into slavery, which okay yes, but…what was he supposed to do? If he wants to end the war, he has to sacrifice Flint. Flint’s whole identity was built around fighting civilization. If Silver wanted to end the war, he had to end Flint, and the only ways to do that were to kill him or “unmake” him, and what’s the best way to do that latter? By forcibly removing Flint from his life of piracy and reuniting him with the very thing whose loss turned James McGraw into Captain Flint in the first place: Thomas Hamilton. Flint’s life was basically miserable and I can’t see any way Silver could have found happiness for Flint except by reuniting him with the man he loved. It sucks that Flint is basically trapped on the plantation, but he hates the world anyway, so I’m not sure he’d be all that devastated about being shut off from the world for the rest of his life. Plus, it was repeatedly stressed that this is place as humane as it could be while still being what it is—I mean, no one got mad at Thomas for stopping work and hugging and kissing his lover—so it’s not like he’ll be treated terribly. I’m not trying to pretend that what Silver did was totally fine, but he gave Flint the happiest ending realistically possible. What else was he supposed to do?
I know some people suspect that Silver actually killed Flint and made up the story about sending him to the plantation, but not only is that needlessly depressing when the show is throwing a much happier option at us, it doesn’t even make sense. I mean, I don’t understand the logic of literally seeing something happen and then being like “well what if that didn’t happen!” Like, it’s a show, none of it really happened, but there is still a reality at the fictional level and if the show is clearly telling us that an event is part of that reality I don’t understand the impulse to reject that event as real.
It’s striking—and pleasing—that for such an angsty show, the ending was relatively happy. The world changes, civilization wins out, but that doesn’t mean everyone’s lives are over, that there’s no room for them to be happy going forward. Flint gets to “walk away from the sea and find some peace” with his true love. (Also note that he and Thomas were separated for approximately ten years, which is, well, half the time Odysseus and Penelope were separated? So the parallel sort of works. Half works.) Silver and Madi have gone through a very rough patch, but Madi returns to Silver and I have to believe that that means she’s come to see that his point of view is legitimate, that the issue of the war was an impossibly complicated one and the fact that they had different opinions on it doesn’t make either of them wrong, and that he really loves her. I know Silver has a wife in the book (which I CANNOT WAIT TO READ), so I assume we’re supposed to think he and Madi worked it out and got married. I’m more than willing to think that. Jack and Anne are still together (till they put us in the fucking ground!), still doin’ piracy, and Jack got another lesbian for his collection. (Hi, Mary Read!!!) Max is still running Nassau, happy, powerful, able to make the world a better place, and on good terms with Anne and Jack. Featherstone is governor! I love it! Everything sucks for Woodes Rogers, which, while I didn’t really like him, is not entirely fair, to be honest. He was no more a one-dimensional villain than Flint. Billy is, uh, marooned on Skeleton Island, I guess? Well, I know he can’t die yet because he’s in the book. Actually, let me start a new paragraph about Billy.
I know a lot of people ended up straight-up hating Billy, but I didn’t. I don’t want to go into too much detail because quite honestly I’m afraid I’m going to end up saying things that are just factually incorrect but I think Billy had good intentions that led him astray. It’s sad, really. His hatred of Flint was honestly totally justified but it led him to do things he shouldn’t have done, like going through with the raid on that one plantation. I don’t know, maybe I’m going too easy on him because he was so wonderful in the first three seasons, but maybe it’s not a bad thing that I choose to remember who Billy used to be and try to see that person in who he became.
I have a ton more things I want to say but those things will have to wait for other posts. Some of them I won’t be able to articulate unless I rewatch, and god knows when I’ll have the strength to do that. I’m just so fascinated by the theme of stories (one of my favorite themes for any show to have) in particular as it relates to my dear boys Flint and Silver. Both of them take on identities they didn’t start with—civilized lieutenant James McGraw becomes “the bloodthirstiest buccaneer that sailed,” Captain Flint, and tiny precious happy John Silver becomes Terrifying Indestructible Pirate Long John Silver—and we see the stories that spring up around both of those characters but we also see these guys for who they truly are underneath all the legends and ahhhhh I’m becoming inarticulate so I’m gonna just stop that thought here. In fact, I think it’s time to wrap up this post because if I even try to say more I’m gonna be here forever. Oh, but let me just say bless Jack Rackham for that beautiful speech about stories. Whenever a character in a show or movie makes a grand speech on that topic I’m GUARANTEED to just lose it emotionally.
Last thing: the reasons I wanted to watch this show in the first place were simply that it was a period drama about pirates that had quality gay/bi representation. I built it up so much in my head that I was apprehensive about watching it but guess what, it totally met my expectations! The representation was beautiful (I want to say more words on that topic but I’ll save that for another post) and, like, there were pirates. If I may end on a shallow note (which I may because it’s my blog and I’m in charge) anything with pirates is guaranteed to be awesome.
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mayamatiln · 7 years
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what are you favorite top degrassi seasons?
This question is so difficult!! I’m serious I spent an hour writing down all the seasons and weighing all the pro’s and con’s of each season to figure out the order I would put these in. I know you didn’t ask me to rank all the seasons and tell you why I think that… but I am… because I feel like it… so let’s move from the worst to the best shall we?
18. Season 11 - I hated it the first time I watched it. I hated it the second time I watched it. I don’t plan on sitting through the whole thing ever again. I loved the introduction of Zaya and that is about it. I didn’t ship anything. This was the season that made me stop shipping Eclare which I literally used to OTP so hard. 
17. Season 13 - This was the only season that I ever completely stopped watching because I was so bored. I was still nursing my heartbreak over losing Cam and then all of a sudden they ripped Adam from me too. After that I tried to keep up but I just didn’t really care because it hurt too much. Maya was moving on with Miles (which I still don’t get the appeal) and Zig was all but forgotten up until halfway through. The Paris plot was so stupid. And Alli one of my favorite girls was being uncharacteristically dumb (and she’s not very bright as it is). And to top it all off they gave Clare cancer for about 10 episodes then all of a sudden she was better! (I’m not even gonna mention Ew… I mean Clew) Lol no. Bye.
16. Season 14 - 14B just swooped in and saved the entire show for me. After the longest hiatus the show has ever had and about a year and a half after me only watching this show when I noticed it was on, the promise of seeing Alli Bhandari and Clare Edwards graduating was just enough to pull me back in. So before 14B I binge-watched season 13 and the first half of 14 (because I didnt really pay attention the first time) and BOY IT CHANGED MY LIFE. Not because the storylines were good but BECAUSE. OF. ZAYA. Never in my life had I gone from hating a ship (yeah yeah Zig was trying to break up Camaya so I hated him) to thinking it was the most well built pairing on the show. The rest of 14 was crap though. Zoe forcing people to send boob pics = dumb. Clare’s baby plot = dumber. So yeah I fell in love with Degrassi again because of Zaya and it’s probably the reason I’m here today. 
15. Season 1 - Shocked to find what started it all so low on the list? Yeah me too but that’s the way the cookie crumbles. Overall not much happened this season. It built the world that we left behind in Degrassi High over again and introduced us to the new generation and thats about it. But Sean and Emma’s first date, Emma’s first period, and the ecstasy plot = CLASSIC DEGRASSI. 
14. Season 8 - No one is surprised. Honestly though I LOVEEE this era of Degrassi. This was the first season I watched from beginning to end as it was airing so it will always hold a special place in my heart. Not only did I instantly love Alli and Clare to bits, but finally my all time favorite character Johnny DiMarco had an actual girlfriend and showed that he actually has real feelings. WOW. 
13. Season 9 - Yeah this is only a step up from season 8 because it was the epitome of Dolly J. The chemistry was through the roof. One of the hottest couples Degrassi has ever had. Plus this season had MORE JOHNNY so yeah I loved it but not a huge amount of hot topics were covered. 
12. DNC Season 2 - It covered hot topics but it didn’t really have that spark. I think since it was made at the same time as DNC season 1 that they put so much effort into making the first half great so it could attract more people but yeah it was a bummer. Honestly the only reason it’s above s8&9 is because of the reunion episode and the Craig Manning appearance… I appreciate them attempting the Black Lives Matter plot but it didn’t get me in the gut. I much preferred the Connor and Dallas racism plot in season 13 even if it wasn’t fully fleshed out.
11. Season 10 - This was when Degrassi reinvented itself for the first time and I must say it had me hooked from the beginning. This was when they started airing an episode a day for several weeks and it was so exciting. Everyone was falling for Eclare. And Adam was stealing everyone’s heart. It was so exciting and different and really a breath of fresh air. Were the plots amazing and jaw dropping? No not really but it kept me super entertained and frankly saved the show and I will gladly give the credit where credit is due. But seriously… Eli was better when he was with Morty just sayin…
10. DNC Season 1 - This was the second time that Degrassi reinvented itself and it was MUCH better done than season 10 was. After being so scared of losing the show altogether, seeing the beginning of Next Class really gave me hope. The cast was smaller and so were the lengths of the seasons but they worked so much harder to really make all the plots count and make every minute of screentime the best it could possibly be. After 4 seasons of really long seasons full of random plots that didnt always make the most sense, watching this season felt like coming home to the Degrassi that I fell in love with because for the first time in a long time they really cared about making EVERY plot the best it could possibly be. They still had a couple of kinks and issues to work out but this season really felt like it “went there” again.
9. Season 5 - The first time ever watching the characters you’ve grown up with graduate from Degrassi is one of the hardest things. DTNG’s 100th episode and S5 finale, High Fidelity will still make me cry at the drop of a hat. Watching Paige, Ellie, Marco, and Hazel graduate and thinking that you’ll never see them again still hurts me so much. And the scene where Jimmy forgives Spinner - SO MANY TEARS. Also this season gave us the iconic Manny line “You can sell this for a million dollars because I’m gonna be famous.” Also Darcy and Spinner’s Christianity plot still hold such a special place in my heart.
8. Season 6 - This season was a rollercoaster. One minute I’m flipping out over Sean and Emma being back together then the most heartbreaking TV death in the history of TV ripped my heart out. To this day I cannot watch Rock This Town without bawling my eyes out. I mourned for JT as if I had grown up with him myself. No other fictional character has ever made me feel emotions that were THAT REAL before. As sad as it was it was the moment that sealed Degrassi as my favorite show of all time and even though it’s been 9 years nothing else has even come close. 
7. Season 7 - Probably the darkest season the show has ever had. It began with Darcy’s rape and then followed her entire journey throughout the whole semester. On top of that we see Spinner reach the darkest place he has ever been when he gets cancer. And boy this season was just so sad. Especially with the addition of all the Lakehurst kids who we’d eventually learn to love like Holly J, Jane, Sav and Anya. On top of that we get to see Emma, Manny, Liberty, Toby, Spinner, and Jimmy graduate which really was a LONG time coming. These were the people who began the show and now that they were leaving it truly was the end of the Golden Era of Degrassi. 
6. Season 4 - This was the season that showed how dark the show could really get and it ultimately proved that Degrassi would “go there.” The fact that still to this day one of the most well known pieces of information about Degrassi is that Jimmy got shot by Rick truly iconic. It’s impossible for me to watch Time Stands Still without getting chills. Also this season featured Kevin Smith and who doesn’t love Kevin Smith.
(to be fair these top 5 are all pretty equal in my eyes and the order in which they come changes frequently)
5. DNC Season 3 - The first thing to note about this season is that it was released at 2am in the morning and I stayed up all night and watched the sunrise because I simply had to finish it all in one sitting. After s14 I was sure that the days of Degrassi’s fantastic seasons were through with and when Next Class began I thought there may be potential but this season went above and beyond all of my expectations. For one MAYA MATLIN. I cannot sing enough praises to the writers for treating her depression and suicide attempt in such a realistic way. And Lola’s abortion plot was the best one they have ever done and was handled in the most beautiful way. This season truly was the darkest season since season 7 and everything about it was So. On. Point.
4. Season 3 - Some of the best and most iconic episodes are from this season and they are the ones that time and time again I find myself rewatching because they never get old. Father Figure, Pride, Holiday, Accidents Will Happen, Take On Me, and Rock & Roll High School all have a solid place on my favorite episodes ever list. This season helped to build Degrassi into the longstanding and iconic show that it has become. During this season we no longer had to introduce characters and get used to them. By now we knew most of our main cast and they instantly felt like family - a concept that is the single most important reason why Degrassi is my favorite show ever.
3. DNC Season 4 - Even though it just came out, I could not imagine putting it any lower on this list. This season accomplished everything I could have possibly wanted and more. The genderfluid plot was so well done and it is something I’ve wanted the show to cover for years. And it tackled terrorism and Islamophobia. Not to mention that this season bid adieu to possibly my favorite graduating class that the show has ever had. It gave each and every one of them the respect and closure that they deserved while not granting any unrealistic and too good to be true endgames (*cough* Eclare). The season focused on the characters themselves and not just their romantic relationships and it really solidified who they have become as people and how much they have grown. And best of all it opened the door for a newer class to come in and keep the show going strong.
2. Season 12 - Wow this season came out of nowhere. In the midst of 2 of the worst seasons Degrassi has ever had was this gem. What made it stand out is that for once the writers went into the season with a plan of where they were going and where they wanted the characters to end up. The entire season was building to Cam’s suicide and how all the characters would be affected by it. Therefore this season had more direction and meaning that many seasons before it were severely lacking. Not only was the over arching plot of this season fantastic, the smaller pieces of it were as well. I was so invested in Campbell Saunders from the moment he showed up on my screen. His relationship with Maya became one of my favorites the show has ever done and it also made me love Maya as a character. This season was also the epitome of Eclare’s relationship for me. They were healthy and in love and finally on the same page (well until Bitter Sweet Symphony). We also had fantastic ships like Fimogen, Drianca, Jatie, Jonnor, and the beginnings of Bhandallas to pass the time. And another one of my favorite Christianity plots featuring Jenna took place in this season. This season’s success caught me by complete surprised and drew me in when I was beginning to not care about the show anymore. More specifically Campbell Saunders and Dylan Everrett’s acting saved Degrassi for me. Without that character I don’t know if I would still be watching the show. His character made me believe that Degrassi still had the ability to make me feel these emotions that other TV shows can’t and therefore this season holds such a special place in my heart. 
1. Season 2 - The first time I watched it I did not realize that this would be my favorite season ever. Because to me this season is the Degrassi essentials. It is the bare bones of what makes this show great in every way. Craig’s introduction in When Doves Cry will forever be the greatest introduction to a character I’ve ever seen. It’s so rare to meet a new character and become so drawn in and attached in a single hour that it blew me away. Degrassi introducing Craig as a new character in the season premiere and showing him having an abusive parent was absolutely heartbreaking. To be honest the first time I watched it I didnt understand. I was too young to fully grasp the magnitude of how important this episode was but it was. Moving forward, this season also went on to introduce Marco and Ellie and cover Paige’s rape which was the first time Degrassi truly “went there.” Another personal unsung favorite of mine is Don’t Believe The Hype that shows Hazel’s struggle to accept her heritage and it’s the first plot covering Islamophobia. And how could I possibly not mention one of the most iconic episodes to date, White Wedding that features Spike and Snake getting married with most of their old Degrassi High friends in attendance. This episode also features the cutest most adorable first kiss between Sean and Emma that stole my heart in season 1 but gained OTP status by season 2. In essence, season 2 is the heart of Degrassi.
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lavila27 · 7 years
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Beauty & the Beast- a movie review by Lauren Avila
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I’ve just returned from seeing the live action remake of Beauty & the Beast for the 2nd time within a week. I have so many thoughts about this movie but in a nutshell: I LOVED IT!!
Let me begin by saying that I’m extremely biased because I’ve been a lifelong fan of this movie. I was born in ‘89 and this movie came out in ‘91. We haven’t long existed without each other. As a child, this was the first obsession I ever had. Obviously, I’ve since become obsessed w/ many movies, tv shows, books, places, people, and yes, ships. It all started with B&TB though. I could go into greater detail about all the merchandise, the endless hours of rewatching, the pic of little Lauren w/ the characters, etc. but I think you get it. I love this movie. So I’ll move on. Regardless of my favoritism, I tried to watch this movie with a clear head. I would be lying if I said that I didn’t have high expectations. I’m really not kidding when I say that I’ve had the countdown on my phone for the release of this movie for 900 days or so. In all that time, I’ve had my fair share of ideas and fantasies of how this could turn out. I had high hopes right from the beginning.
While driving to the theater on the night of March 16th, my sister asked me: Are you nervous? And I said “No, I’m excited. Unless they stray 100% from the animation, I know I won’t be disappointed.” I was right. It was basically impossible for me to be disappointed. In fact, even though it turned out quite different than I imagined, I was very pleased with it. Having said that, I would like to discuss the movie in my honest opinion. I could fangirl all over it and say that it was the best thing I’ve ever seen. However, I do have some slightly critical things to say. So let’s start.
***SPOILERS AHEAD***
The moment the movie started with that iconic opening music, I swear I stopped breathing for about a minute and a half. I appreciated that it began with the castle, the rose, and the first few lines that we know from the animated classic. The changes started right away. I didn’t mind this Prologue at all though. It thoroughly explained the Beast’s curse and even gave us the first step into greater detail than the cartoon did by mentioning the memory curse. I love that this version gave so many direct nods to the animation. Just to name a few: scratching out the Prince’s face, the opening of Belle, Belle about to leave after the Wolf scene, the Transformation, etc.
For some reason, there’s something about the village scene that bothers me. I’m not sure if it’s the ensemble that just seems like an under-rehearsed community theater group. Or if it’s that the library has like twelve books inside. Or if it’s because Emma Watson’s voice is dripping w/ autotune. It’s really too bad because I can tell that Emma’s voice is just fine the way it is. But I’ll discuss this more later. Anyway, I really adore all the costumes in the film. Belle’s blue dress looked great to me. It really suited the provincial look and Belle’s simple style.
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Now would be a good time to talk about Luke Evans. When I heard the casting as each member came onboard, Luke was one of the few I had never heard of. Oh my goodness though, he really makes Gaston his own in an impressive performance. Plus, his singing is fantastic! He is arguably the best singer in the whole cast. But that is seriously up for debate. Of course I should also mention the perfect casting of Josh Gad as Lefou. I mean, perfect casting. That’s all I can really say. While on the subject of casting though, should we discuss the equal opportunity employing going on with the horse. 90’s kids know that Philippe is famously played by a brown horse and is now played by a white horse. I’m just going to leave it at that.
Back on subject, I want to note some more changes in the movie. They planted the seeds of a deeper back story for Maurice and Belle by bringing up her mother right away. Maurice sings a tender, new song while creating a music box as a tribute to his late wife. I got emotional quickly as this scene began because I didn’t realize how much I wanted to hear about Belle’s mother until this scene was unfolding in front of me. When Belle asks, “Please, just tell me one more thing about her.” It cuts like a knife. You’re reminded that Belle knows as little about her as we, the audience, does. “She was fearless” seems to have a great weight to it in a foreshadowing kind of way.
This version had all the beloved songs from the animation, but sadly no songs from the stage musical. That’s alright though because they added a few really lovely, new songs. I did notice that they hinted at songs from the musical here and there. The first scene between Belle and her father had the exact setup of “No Matter What” but no song. Later, in “Days in the Sun,” Belle sings a line “a change in me.” She also refers to the castle as home when they leave Paris. This, I think, is a shout out to “Home.” I believe there was one other reference in the movie but I can’t recall it right now. I also noticed that a few songs had been altered and musically rearranged as well. “Gaston,” “Be Our Guest,” and “The Mob Song” had lyric changes and additions. I really love the new songs but my favorite is probably “Evermore.” I’ll talk more about it soon.
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Kevin Kline as Maurice was excellent. He was funny and endearing. The bond that Kevin and Emma had was very believable. I like the way they changed Belle’s sacrifice. It seemed that the Beast was kind of impressed with her decision to take her father’s place. Quite the opposite however, I did not like that they had Lumiere and Cogsworth give Belle a bedroom. That’s the first bit of kindness the Beast shows Belle in the ‘91 movie. It plants a seed in their relationship. Not only this but they took away another opportunity too. When the Beast gifts Belle his library in the animation, he knows how much it will mean to her. In this version though, it’s so blase. He’s so passive about giving it to her. I don’t know. It takes a little getting use to.
Sidenote: I’m sorry but I couldn’t help but get a few Harry Potter feelings during the movie. Yes, I know Emma is not eternally Hermione but Belle is very similar: smart, strong, and compassionate. The villager who couldn’t remember what he forgot. Gaston’s dark magic reference. And something about that crazy wardrobe makeover in Belle’s room reminded me of a Potter movie. Belle’s parents’ apartment reminded me of the Shrieking Shack. And also of apparating. Emma Thompson working with Emma Watson. I don’t know. An HP fan’s mind can never roam too far away from the movies.
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Be Our Guest was quite the number. At first I wasn’t a fan of it. I suppose I was expecting something really big and stunning. I still feel like something is lacking a little but I did enjoy it much more the second time. I expect it will appear better and better every subsequent time. My first impression was that the singing was flat, the set was underwhelming and the mix between real and computer animated objects was distracting. I know it’s hard to live up to a cartoon that has spoons swimming, candlesticks bending in line, and forks doing a kick line but what can I say? I’m a huge fan of this scene. Upon seeing this scene again though, I warmed to it pretty quickly actually. With a new perspective, I decided I really like the new arrangement of the song and some elements of the “show.” I’ll definitely say it’s exciting and doesn’t disappoint in the end. In fact, I’m the one who led the applause on opening night right after the number. The whole theater joined in too! I just wish I could put my finger on what’s missing though. Oh well. C’est la vie.
Let’s talk about another dance number. “Gaston” turned out great. Yes, they changed a bunch of lyrics but overall I was happy with it. You ain’t seen nothing like the stage version but I digress. I thought that the added elements were funny such as the “I just realized I’m illiterate and never had to spell it before” line from Lefou at the end of the song. Luke Evans’ Gaston had a certain charm to him. Even though he was doing horrible things, he was so set in his own convictions, it didn’t seem to bother him. The whole audience I was with at the opening gasped when he punched Maurice and left him for wolf bait in the woods.
The wolves were great by the way. The whole battle with the wolves seemed so real. I also really liked that when Belle went to help the Beast she said, “I need your help. You have to stand.” (Or something like that.) It indicated that they can help each other through teamwork and must literally lean on each other. It was the first time they connected. He saved her life. She tended to him and showed him compassion. It broke down their barriers. I’m so happy they kept their little spat intact. You know the whole, “You should learn to control your temper” talk. This scene also lended itself more toward backstory. We learn that the Beast lost his mother as a child and his father twisted him into a selfish prince. I thoroughly enjoy little details. At the very beginning of “Days in the Sun” we see that the Beast has a tear or two in his eyes after dreaming of his mother. I really like the whole song. Furthermore, I love the side of the Beast we begin to see when he heals. The Shakespeare conversation they have and then the “Some of them are in Greek” joke in the library… so adorable. It’s also really sweet that he wants to sit by her during “Something There.”
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The addition of the magic book from the Sorceress was an unexpected but pleasant surprise. It was a heartbreaking scene but I think it was a great investment in Belle’s emotional journey. However, I feel it opened an unnecessary window into a whole chapter we will never know more about. Granted it answered a question that the character of Belle had, it created an added element that felt like a bit of a tease. We only got a few minutes with this magical book and know so little about it. I almost feel like there could be a whole other movie about it. I love the symbolism behind it but I can’t help but feel so curious about it. Can they still use this book now that the curse has been broken? Where would the Beast like to go to? So can it transport in time? If so, did the Beast use it to see his mother? Did Belle ever use it without the Beast? Could she have potentially used it to visit her father? Can the Enchanted Objects use it too?
Moving on. Let’s talk about Belle’s iconic yellow dress. I’ve heard many people say that they’re not a fan of it and I can understand why. Surprisingly, I really love it. Even when I saw the trailers for the movie, I didn’t hate it. I was cautiously optimistic. Then I saw the movie and fell in love with the soft and romantic look of it. It floats gracefully when Belle moves and dances. I love the layers, the glimmers of gold, the simple but beautiful style especially keeping in mind that this is probably the prettiest thing that this poor village girl has ever seen. I adored her hair, her jewelry, and I’m sure her shoes were great too but we didn’t see them. I loved the whole look and would definitely wear it myself. I could practically feel the fabric through the screen. I may be the only person to defend her dress, but I give it my stamp of approval.
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The dancing scene was perfect! Both times I’ve seen it, I’ve cried. I’m so thankful for all the moments they kept from the movie especially the camera pan up to the ceiling (loved the instruments playing!) and down to the Beast spinning Belle to the side. I also really enjoyed the bit where he picks her up and spins her amidst twinkling lights. Have I mentioned yet that adding the organ sound of Cadenza to lots of pieces of the score was an awesome decision?! I really loved this ballroom scene and felt the love for the project, the love between the characters, and the love toward the original creation all oozing out of this scene.
Coming out of the movie, I think the part that I can’t stop thinking about is “Evermore.” I am obsessed with the new song and I’m so in love with this scene. It completely gutted me both times. The lyrics and melancholy yet so beautiful. Dan Stevens, ladies and gentlemen. First of all, I am fascinated with his Beast talking voice but his singing voice has captivated my B&TB-loving heart. He sings with such passion, I was surprised to find out that he “learned” to sing for this movie. I would’ve guessed he had a prior career in the West End. But I’ll stop gushing now. Bravo to all involved in the making of that scene including the brilliance of Alan Menken and Tim Rice!
I dare say I loved “The Mob Song” more in this film than I did in the animation. I’ve already mentioned how impressed I was by Luke Evans but it’s worth noting again. There was something about this scene that really felt right. The singing was on point and they added a fantastic new line for Lefou too! He says that there is definitely a beast but the wrong monster has been released. Awesome addition! It’s probably just the Menken Maniac in me but it had an epic parallel to “Savages” from Pocahontas. By the way, did you all catch the Darth Vader theme in the battle scene in the castle? Am I mistaken?
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Boy was the finale dramatic! Gaston shot the Beast three times. Three! Belle’s wrestling w/ Gaston’s gun. Everyone’s making risky jumps on the rooftops of the castle. You’re on the edge of your seat the whole time. My favorite part of all this was the line, “I am NOT a beast.” Too bad Gaston couldn’t leave well enough alone. It’s doom and gloom for him. Speaking of gloom, the transformation of all the Enchanted Objects into ordinary objects was the saddest scene in the whole movie. I cried both times. It had such hopeless finality to it. You would have to have a heart of stone to not feel something.
No matter what form I see the end in: animation, stage, live action, I just love Belle and the Beast’s tearful goodbye and new beginning. Emma did a phenomenal performance as she said “No! Please don’t leave me. I love you.” Tears falling out of her eyes and her pleading voice… oh my goodness. I couldn’t handle it. Then the beautiful and goosebump-inducing transformation. It was exactly like the animation and I loved that!! Although I was hoping to hear Belle say “It is you,” this wordless scene still left me completely satisfied. Dan and Emma have wonderful chemistry. Not many couples could pull off a vital scene without dialogue. Fortunately, Dan and Emma conveyed so much with their eyes and expressions… and lips.
I was very happy with the end including the choreography of the dancing, the lovely Audra McDonald singing, the beastly beard joke, and especially with Belle’s white dress. Gorgeous!! The Prince looked quite handsome as well. I even liked the credits. Both times I’ve seen the movie, I’ve stayed for the entire thing. It’s wonderful to hear Celine Dion sing in B&TB credits again. I’m really happy with the way John Legend and Ariana Grande sang the title song too. I’m a longtime fan of Josh Groban so to hear his version of “Evermore” just adds a cherry on the sundae. Though I must say, I think I prefer Dan Stevens’ emotional rendition of the song. Visually the cast credits are well done too.
If you’ve read this far, thank you for your patience. Obviously, I have a lot of thoughts on the movie. I hope to go see it again before it leaves theaters. So I think that goes to show that overall I really loved it. There were a few things I’d tweak a bit but again, I’m generally happy with the whole film. I was pleased to see it at my Cinemark theater that has comfortable reclining loungers. They also had souvenir popcorn tubs and cups. I just had to get those too. And so readers, I would most definitely recommend Disney’s 2017 live action Beauty and the Beast! Now playing in theaters nationwide. And once you get your B&TB movie fix, maybe venture to some chain stores that are currently selling fun movie merchandise. Plus, Disney Parks are promoting the movie pretty heavily these days as well. I might just check it out. Stay tuned for more!
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songs-and-noms · 7 years
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Do you have any writing tips? Especially for writing action scenes/establishing strong characters. You do it really well!
Thank you so much, I really appreciate hearing that!
I’ve never really answered a question like this before soforgive me if this goes on a bit long, but I will do my best to give a goodexplanation.
Writingaction scenes
I highly recommend watching lots of examples of beautifullydone actions scenes from movies and TV shows to get a sense of how actionshould flow. I recommend the fight scenes from ‘The Raid’, ‘The Raid 2’, and ‘CrouchingTiger, Hidden Dragon’ for great examples. I often rewatch them when I’m feelinga bit stuck or need inspiration.
For the actual writing, I prefer to write action scenes in avery literal and visual way, almost more like choreography than anything. Iwant my readers to be able to fully visualize the action and replay it in theirmind like a movie. Each action needs enough description to give thevisualization, but not so much that you overwhelm the reader with unneededinformation.
Also be mindful when you’re writing, and later editing, tomake sure you aren’t writing a list of actions but rather a fluid interchange.Also make sure you are mixing up your ‘ing’ and ‘ed’ actions.
You don’t want to end up with something like this.
She ducked. Hepunched. She dodged and then attacked. He blocked. She thrust towards him. This is overly simplified, but it’s really easy to catch yourself doing itbecause in your own mind you can clearly see what the characters are doing so minimalinformation seems okay, but it’s your reader you are trying to convey thisawesome scene too (And it will be awesome).
(This is long so lets put a break here, yeah?)
Here is one example with lots of movement from Lost Magic,Chapter 77
Varz shot forward, herbare feet slapping against the ground. Lexi met her in the middle of the arenaand opened with a low, swiping blow aimed at the girl’s legs. Varz deftlycartwheeled over the attack and thrust out her sword. Twisting, Lexi avoidedthe attack and stabbed forward as Varz landed. Varz parried the attack andreturned with a slash that forced Lexi back a step. Varz took the space andmoved in close to unleash a furious series of jabs. Lexi weathered them,meeting each attack with skillful precision until an opening appeared and sheknocked Varz’s sword to the side. Stepping forward she swung her fist andconnected with Varz’s cheek.
Varz accepted themomentum of the punch as she flipped back onto one hand. Her body twisted andshe brought her sword around, aiming towards Lexi’s legs. Off balance, Lexijust barely managed to block Varz’s blade, but not the leg she had swung aroundto follow up the attack. The heel of Varz’s bare foot caught Lexi in the cheekand staggered her to the ground.
It’s only two paragraphs out of the entire scene but a lothas happened between the two combatants already. Action should feel exciting soI do my best to keep the pace of the battle upbeat and not create any lullsfrom one action do the other. Also, even if you write something literal likethis, there is no reason not to add in imagery.
Varz moved like leafcaught in a driving wind. Her body twisted and contorted in ways that made heralmost impossible to follow.
That’s a small addition that helps the reader understand howthe character Varz is moving and in doing so adds a little more depth andinterest to her character. The more information the reader has, the more vestedthey can become in the character.  
I also think it’s important to add in your charactersfeelings, thoughts, and emotion to keep a sense of urgency in the scene. Actionis great, but if there is nothing at stake, no sense necessity, it can becomesomewhat boring for the reader because they have no reason to really care aboutwhat is happening. I want my reader to feel, or at least understand, what thecharacter is feeling.
Hereis an example from a futurenovel.
Bloodburst from his nose as he was thrown backwards and sent rolling across theground. Stabbing his knife into the ground he stopped his momentum and broughthis head up, blinking away the darkness that threatened to envelope his vision.He heard more than he saw the next attack, throwing himself to the side androlling across the ground before diving forward and swiping at Dracula’sstomach as he went past. Even though the armour was weaker, he still failed topenetrate, his blades only able to leave long gouges on the steel plating.
Draculafollowed his movement and swung the sword towards him. Owl was barely able toblock the attack and was sent stumbling back. Dracula kept on him, his paceincreasing as he forced Owl completely onto the defensive. The claymore swungaround faster and faster. It was all Owl could do to defend himself, attackingwas barely a thought.
Buthe had to attack. No matter how well his defense was eventually Dracula wouldbreak through again. But how? A cut wasn’t going to do it. Dracula armour wastoo thick and he was too weak to break it.
Therehad to be a way, but Dracula wasn’t giving him time to think, and he couldn’tjust keep running.
Hehad to find an opening.
Grittinghis teeth Owl came to an abrupt stop and charged forward. Dracula met him headon, stabbing his large blade forward. Owl made no attempt to parry the attack,instead dropping to his knees and sliding across the stone floor. As Dracula’sblade passed harmlessly overhead Owl popped back to his feet and drove directlyinto Dracula’s stomach, thrusting forward with both hands.
Hisblades slammed against the armour, and for a moment Owl was sure he had made amistake, when he finally felt a give as the tips of his blades penetrated.Roaring with bloodlust Owl continued forward, driving the blades deeper intoDracula’s stomach until he reached the hilts.
Owlcould hear nothing but his own breath as he felt Dracula slump forwardslightly. As the ringing in his ears faded he heard a loud clink as tip of theclaymore dropped down to the ground. Owl let out a relieved sigh that died inhis throat as Dracula let out an indifferent sniff. A chill ran down Owl’sspine and he jumped back, drawing the blades free and bringing them up just asDracula swung his sword around with both hands.
Evenbefore the weapons made contact Owl knew he should have dodged the attack.
When writing this I tried to blend in Owl’s fear, pain, anduncertainty into the action scene. I also want to express pain and consequencewhen something does go wrong for Owl, which is why I add in the blood and theblackness in his vision. It’s a balance of detail and action sequences.
Lastly… Make it fun. I write actions scenes the way I dobecause I legitimately enjoy them and I think other people do as well. I wantto have my characters do things that make people go “That was awesome!” Aswriters we have no budget constraints. If you want something to happen then itcan happen. You are the creator here. I spend lots of time building these fightscenes in my mind, going frame by frame until I have something that I believeis worthwhile to write and worth my reader’s time to read. If you’re not havingfun with it… Then what’s the point?
Even though that was a lot longer than I meant it to be,I’ll try to answer the second part of your question now.
Establishingstrong characters.
This question is a bit harder to answer but I would say themost important thing is to create your characters motive and voice early on,but be aware that you don’t have to stick to that initial concept.
Let me try to explain that better with an example.
Let’s take Lexi from Lost Magic. Upon introduction she isclearly as badass character. She speaks soft and carries a big stick (sword).She’s the Action Girl and there is no apology for that. But she’s also caringtowards her friends, likes sweets, and has a soft spot for children. The wallsof her room are covered in weapons and her bed is pastel blue with more softfluffy pillows than any one person could ever need. She works hard to achieveher goals and blushes when she gets compliments on her appearance and skills.She has goals and desires and she feels happiness and frustrations when shedoes or doesn’t achieve them. She is immature sometimes but works to correcther mistakes when she makes them.
The gist of what I’mtrying to say is that strong characters, in my experience, don’t start out thatway, but rather develop over time. Nothing more than an idea, like Lexi theFierce, Cross the Apathetic, Romeo the Romantic, Banksy the Witty, Makina theBrat, but they don’t, and shouldn’t, remain static to that one attribute.
Characters are like real people. They have certain definingtraits, but those can change and evolve as time goes on and they experience newthings. That’s what creates depth. You don’t need to be afraid of using theusual archetypes because you can develop that into your own unique character
Thanks for letting me ramble on. If there is anything else I can help with feel free to drop another ask or even message me directly. As you can see I sometimes have a lot to say.
Also, I can stress how helpful a beta reader can be. I’vebeen lucky enough to have @darkpurply to read over things and tell me when I have justcompletely lost it (I swear it’s happening less and less).
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astudyinrainbows · 7 years
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rewatch ramblings
So, i have rewatched tfp and made a list for myself of things that stood out that i havent seen talked about, or that are just at a level of fucky they need to be repeated yet again..here it is. I tried to clean it up nicely and make it into categories of some sort or another but as you might know by now im not very good at wording things professionally, im so sorry, here goes. 
 Fuckery, fakeness, fraud 
•that whole clown scene, just.. Mark’s acting? It’s so bad? But it’s so good bc he had to make it look so bad and that is hard let me tell ya 
•"Mother and Father" do you mean… “Mummy and Daddy”? No really like, Mycroft doesnt usually say that, why now? 
•ok i know this has been mentioned tenfold but THE EXPLOSION is the literal epitome of fucky fakeness, like, knowing their budget.. i couldve edited that to be more realistic? If you stop it at the right time it looks like they had stunt doubles and just put paper cutouts of ben and martins faces on them tbh, also nothing even remotely burned?? Sorry ill shut up its just..so fake
•even sherlocks actually fake fake blood from trf looked more realistic than this supposedly real blood when the govenor offs himself, that just looks like fingerpaint if im being honest, or jello
how did she suspend the middle sign? and how does she just step through it when attacking sherlock??
•john waking up standing and dry as a bone (no pun intended… well, yeah no, pun actually intended) in the well?? And yeah the chains ofc we all know i just????? Yeah 
•how does eurus know about sherlocks dreams? eg the waterfall scene??
•Mary’s speech sounds fake? Like? It kinda sounds like a voiceover. So does moriartys “welcome to the final problem” and, while were on the topic of sound and speech, mycrofts “the roads we walk have demons beneath them” sounds different than it did in the trailer? Might be dramatic editing idk how trailers are made just, i noticed so imma point it out 
 OOCness 
•mycroft: not giving a shit about the fucky video; leisurely smoking at home when we know he isnt used to it(hlv); his over the top yelling.. i remember pissed mycroft a bit differently; “how is any of this possible” uhh, dont you always know everything? Or at the very least pretend like you do? When has mycroft ever casually admitted, no, let slip that hes confused by the goings on?? 
•sherlock: ignoring vatican cameos, not even asking for more information like? he didnt have to take the earpiece out wtf; “good luck boys” ……. just. no. 
•john just chilling while sherlock puts a gun to his own throat? I think fucking not
Just plain ??? 
•the explanation/resolution of tlds cliffhanger. Oh i got shot btw, but anyways…. ??? Uh? No? 
• so, eurus is lost in her mind, scared, alone whatever but she can.. turn it off? Within .2 seconds? Just switch back to her normal voice and be a calculated psychopath? doesnt sound all that lost to me.. 
• who the fuck is uncle Rudy? 
Lost and.. well. Not found(yet) 
• the groundbreaking tv history 
• the special, beautiful soundtrack. Soundtrack at all tbh like? There were? Three? Songs.. that were hardly new? Well then 
•bens monologue??? 
•martins intense scene? 
 Refs/parallels/mirrors (no guarantees) 
• the ring. I havent seen this so idk if theres any message we should take from the parallels but like? Its v unlike this show to dare i say parody other movies?(not counting tplosh and princess bride, those are for gay things, but when have they ever made it such a cliche horror and then not even come up with their own version?) 
•"which one’s pain?“ "You always feel it but you dont have to fear it” honestly no clue what i wanna tell you with this it just popped up when i rewatched this part so im throwing it out there 
•"theres a plane in the sky that isnt going to land" “ its not the fall that kills you its the landing” plus maybe sherlocks od from tab when he thought that he wasnt gonna be landing with that plane 
•eurus has “passed beyond view, cant be reached” as a parallel for sherlock? Theres clues to her being a sherlock mirror, hell mycroft even says it “the man you are today is your memory of eurus” so.. EMP then? Hes in “too deep, way too deep" 
 • now this one is potentially almost definitely crack but its still a thought that occured to me and im goig to burden you with it: after sherlocks been tranqed, he slips into oil/tar… so uh, how many of you have watched dont hug me im scared? ….. i mean, as i said this is most likely bullshit but.. theres hella meta for dhmis out there, and tbh sherlock is such a "dont hug me im scared” person as in he would say/think that and both mean it and still really want a hug idk ill shut up im so sorry 
 And now onto a very fun game of “are these the writers talking??” bc boy oh boy do i have some faves in this category, strap yourselves in: 
• cue Mycroft: “WHY? Why would you do that pantomime? Why would you do that to me?" 
"This is a lie” “yes." Well, good to know
 "How is any of this possible?" 
"This is inhuman, this is insane" mark knows...
"Im afraid were gonna have to give her hope(..)she is the one whos going to crash it" 
"How could you?” “I was trying to be kind" 
"He did his best” “hes very limited then" 
• "You were upset so you told yourself a better story”
“no no the countdown is for me. withholding the precise deadline will apply the emotional pressure more evenly”..bot telling us when we get ep4 huh? 
“Im particularly focused on internal conflicts where strategizing round a largely intuitive moral code appears to create counterintuitive results” this is against their moral code, this is not what they wanted to do to US but they were conflicted
•"theres always a place for the people who are desperate, terrified” “Refuge for the desperate 
•when life gets too strange, too impossible, too frightening, theres always one last hope. When all else fails there are two man sitting arguing in a scruffy flat like theyve always been there and always will. The best and wisest men ive ever known. My baker street boys” too starnge too impossible........ but we will always have baker street as a refuge, this is outpr safe place they will never take this away from us!
•“clown costumes would at least be satirically relevant”..so uh.. you included a clown costume just ten minutes ago..satire then? I take that as a yes, thanks
•“it justifies dressing up or any damn thing i say” some things justify disguising things......
•“if youre putting a baby in a major youre asking for trouble” is that.. shade?
Ok enough (for now) i need a break. Wouldnt be surprised if i got back to this some time. Feel free to add onto this
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agent-fitz · 7 years
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I'm asking you all the questions to get even for you asking me all the questions. It's gonna take me forever to answer them :P
1: it's the apocalypse. you lay next to the person you trust and love most, and start talking. you know your time is limited. what is the one thing you want them to know before you two die? that life is a great adventure, and it’s been an honor to go through it with them beside me, but that there is even more adventure to come, and not to despair.
2: you are faced with an almighty spirit. it tells you that you must choose two emotions\feelings - one of them you will never feel again, and the other becomes your most dominant. which two are those? this is really difficult because i can see how every emotion can be vital in certain circumstances. is boredom an emotion? can I choose to never feel bored again? and my most dominant emotion... excitement. just, pure eagerness and enthusiasm for life. like that feeling when i’m standing on a mountainside.
3: what is the one thing you want your best friend to never do? why? how will you react if they do it? regardless of which best friend i’m referring to, i never want them to settle in life. because we only get one of these things and we should really not be rationalizing “the logical thing to do” but instead living it the way we want to live it. but, my idea of them settling might not be their idea of them settling, so if i were to feel like they had settled i would love them through that and support whatever decisions they’d made--while still nudging them toward whatever forgotten dreams they might have.
4: do you have a favorite tv show? why is it your favorite? what is the reason you started watching it, and what is the reason you continued? er...i jump around with shows a lot, so it’s hard to say. i guess my all-time favorite has been grey’s anatomy, though it at its current state is definitely NOT my favorite show on tv. but it’s my favorite because it allows me to feel things, and gives me reason to feel things, that i often don’t get to feel just on a daily basis. it reminds me of hidden things that need to be addressed. or, it used to, before it became all drama. i started watching it out of curiosity, because i was stuck at home in 9th grade and needed something to cry about. i continued because my heart got attached.
5: do you have a favorite musical instrument? if yes, why exactly is it your favorite? can you play it/would you ever? i really like the cello or the violin. it just amazes me that those instruments can make such a wide array of sound, and they’re so full of life and zest and emotion. i don’t know how to play it nor will i probably ever learn.
6: who is your all-time favorite character? why exactly? do you relate to them, and how? all-time favorite character...this is nearly impossible. okay, whatever, this is probably not my all-time favorite but for character development purposes we’re gonna say it is, I’m going with Zuko from Avatar the Last Airbender. His character arc is done FLAWLESSLY and he just represents so much of what and how a person wrestles with finding who they are. I really, truly love watching him grow into his own person, and especially how real it is with the amount of times he messes up or second guesses himself. And yeah, I definitely do relate to him, because he just feels things so intensely and sometimes it’s too much and he literally wants to explode and that’s...me.
7: is there anything you believe in? what is it? why do you believe in it? can you tell us something that explains this belief? I believe in God, and I believe in Jesus Christ, and I do believe that He is the Son of God and He came down to earth and died for all of us so we can have relationship with them again... I believe it because every other option sucks, and because I’ve seen how God has changed me and countless others, and frankly because the evidence points to it being true. Jesus clearly was a man who lived, and most people like to say He was a prophet but not God Himself in human form. Except, Jesus said himself that He’s the Son of God...so He’s either a liar, a raving lunatic, or telling the truth. And men actively chose to give their lives based on the truth that Jesus rose from the dead and is the Son of God. I believe in logic, and the logic of all of that says that Jesus was telling the truth. And why be afraid of that? If he was telling the truth that means there’s a loving, forgiving, desperate God out there who wants to KNOW me and love me and take care of me. Why would I want to convince myself that that’s not true?
8: you are locked in a room until the day you die, and have a choice to spend this time with one person. will you choose someone? if yes, who is it? why? Okay, well, can I choose Jesus? If I can’t choose Jesus (which would be stupid and I totally choose Jesus) then I think I probably have to pick my cat. OR a character from Harry Potter because that would just be entertaining. Also, both Jesus and an HP character could get me out of the room so...going with them.
9: what is the book that got you into reading, if there even is one? what was so special about it? when did you read it? I dunno, either the HP series or the Magic Treehouse series. Dope stuff.
10: what is the song i have to listen to so i could know you better? Stay Alive by Jose Gonzalez.
11: do you prefer being outside when its sunny or when its dark? When it’s sunny.
12: do you like the rain? why? do you prefer storms or light dripping? I do like the rain, but I prefer the weather either cold or warm sunshine, so rain isn’t my favorite. If I had to choose I’d rather a storm, so it makes it dark inside and you feel like you should light candles.
13: hot chocolate with cinnamon, marshmellows, both or none? Marshmallows.
14: do you like tea? why? if yes, what is your favorite kind? The only tea I’ve really enjoyed was the English Breakfast Tea I had in London when I went for afternoon tea. That stuff was addictive.
15: do you enjoy coffee? if yes, do you drink it for the taste or for the caffeine? COFFEE
16: what is your perfect playlist for studying? where is the perfect place to listen to it? I like the productive morning one on Spotify, or the soft jazz. In a coffeeshop.
17: what is your favorite color? why? what is your least favorite shade of this color? So I like gray, green, and pink. Gray can be any shade. Green needs to be a darker green or a like...almost camo green? Anything that’s a more faded shade or forest green. Pink, gotta have it blush or soft pink or salmon or something. NOT hot pink.
18: think of a person you love. now describe them, using only stuff that only you would describe them with. (for example - my person would be described by reading a new book while there's a storm outside.) Eating burgers and fries after playing little league baseball.
19: what is the song you feel like you HAVE to know to play? I do not fully understand this question but it is my goal to learn the full Titanic theme song and be able to play it with TWO HANDS, like accompaniment and all.
20: do you like writing? do you prefer to write on a computer or in a notebook? I love to write. And it depends on what I’m writing. Stories are better on the computer, thoughts and journal things are better on paper.
21: shuffle your playlist until you get to a song you will never skip. what is this song? why do you never skip it? do you recommend it? Boston, by Augustana. It feels like it was written for me. And that piano riff, I can’t skip that. Yes, obviously do recommend, especially if you’re feeling nostalgic. 
22: do you like stargazing? why? Yes. Because I love realizing how small I am, and how little my worries matter, and how little my decisions matter, and that there is this entire universe out there and yet God loves me and takes care of me. It strips me of all my fears.
23: what is your favorite hour of the day? I think I enjoy early in the morning, right after the sun has come up.
24: what is your harry potter house? did you get sorted on pottermore or do you think it represents you better? Slytherin. I did get sorted my pottermore, yeah. And before that, I didn’t really know where I belonged. I thought my Ravenclaw or Gryffindor, but I see now why Slytherin fits and I wouldn’t belong anywhere else.
25: what is your patronus? A brown owl (:
26: do you want to write a book? if yes, did you start already? Yes, I do, and if by having started the first few pages that means I started, then yes.
27: what is your favorite smell? Christmas trees :D or just the woods in general.
28: picture yourself at ease. now describe what exactly did you picture - with who you are? where? what exactly put you at ease? I’m in a field laying on a blanket, the sun is warm on my face, I have a good book and my journal with me, I can hear some water nearby so I can go play in the river when it gets too hot, and I’m alone. I’m at ease because I’m in nature, but also because I’m free of any responsibilities.
29: you have the option to forget one book/series completly and reread/rewatch it from the start. what book/series is it? Avatar the Last Airbender, for sure. 
30: what do you love most about humanity? That we’re all connected. It doesn’t feel like it, but we’re all so similar and we have the same pain and the same wants and the same needs and there is so much love that is needed and so much love that could be given if we just stopped to realize that once in a while.
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darklingichor · 6 years
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Gilmore Girls Season 2 Eps. 11 & 12
Okay, I figured out what I'm going to do
Every time the show makes me want to hit something (ie any love triangle bullshit) I'm going to write about something else. Just for that section of the show. Could be a run down of the anime I'm rewatching, could be about what I am currently reading or crocheting, or if I get really desperate it could be about my struggles with learning excel. We won't know until we get there. Consider it a commercial break to save my blood pressure. I know I could just stop watching the show, but I really like Luke and Lorelei and I want to see how the family dynamics work out. And I'm writing about it because I am amazingly bored.
So, to get back on track. Episode 11
This episode is great, I love the bits with Kirk and Mrs. Kim and the termites. I liked Lorelei trying to get a loan, and Luke trying to give her one.
I loved Paris trying to Scooby Doo Rory's Psat scores out of her. Their relationship is starting to feel like Paris is a kingdom who is convinced it is at war with a neighboring kingdom while the neighboring kingdom is just doing its thing and wondering what all the screaming next door is about. I admire Rory here, so much of college shit you see on tv (and a little in real life) makes you think that you are in competition with every person who submits an application. That way madness lies! Rory's got a better approach, she's in competition with herself. Still stressful (because if you have a bad day it can put you into a tail spin) but more manageable. If you are in competition for personal things like grades and activities it is going to drive you nuts because you can't know how everyone is doing! Plus it makes it impossible to work with others when you see them as competition... As we have seen from Paris.
The sort of half fight between Rory and Lane was intersting. I sort of get why Lane would be into cheerleading. There's music, showmanship and timing to think of. All things that are factors in performing. Don't get me wrong, I never was never personally into cheerleading. For me it seemed like a lot of time, money, and effort to put into something that would end up sitting me on a bus with far too many people and I would have to watch a sport I didn't care about. It was extra useless in my public school days. When I was in 7th grade, our school's football team didn't win a game all season, not only that, they lost *hard* as in no points. One of my friends was a cheerleader and the day after the last game of the season she came running up to me: "We scored last night! A touchdown!
"We won?!"
"No, but we scored a touchdown!"
Our school's team scored a total of six points over the course of the season. Gotta make you wonder what the cheerleaders did during those games. If I had been one of them I would have alternated between making up cheers that would have amounted to: Hey, at least you guys don't have concussions! And trying to convince someone to bail with me and catch a movie.
Anyway, I also kind of get why Lane didn't want to tell Rory. As Rory pointed out in episode 10 with all of the ugly baby pictures, she and Lorelei mock people, that's what they do.
I also get why Rory was pissed though, she's sort of alienated at school and feeling like Lane is cutting her out would suck!
I loved that Lane made sure to have some of her personality come through in the cheerleading with the music. Too many times cheerleading is seen an a weird mind control cult.
So the loan part. What is it that they say? You know you're getting old when you start to agree with the parents rather than the kids in tv shows? Well, I guess I'm old becaise I totally agree with Lorelei about Rory bringing the loan up to Emily.
Sometimes you get the feeling that Rory thinks that she's the one making sure that everything gets done. And I kinda get it since Lorelei can seem a little flakey but as she pointed out, Rory has never gone without and Lorelei has kept her alive, healthy and thriving for sixteen years. Any other kid with any other parent would only have done what Rory did if their mom broke their leg or something and their house was going to fall down along with no paycheck coming in.
Lorelei would have gone to Emily for help if it came down to it. I mean come on, the house wasn't going to collapse in three days. They were taking all of this from Kirk... Kirk the guy who gets paid in carrot sticks in two episodes.
Honestly I even liked that Emily using cosigning for Lorelei's loan as a way to hold her DAR meetings at the Inn. That really benefits everyone. Emily gets to use the Inn and Lorelei gets more rich business from all of Emily's friends seeing the place and keeping it in mind for weddings and meetings of the tightass brigade.
Episode 12 - Wow, Richard is a dick. I get he's bored but to come into Lorelei's work place and chew her out about how "business relationships" are suppose to be conducted? And what he did is socially acceptable? Dressing down your daughter about something that you have no say in what so ever? Could it have occur to him that the hospitality industry and the insurance industry are different? Or maybe his rigid adherence to these norms is why he was being phased out?
And the shit he pulled with Rory and Dean? Fucking no! Look, I grew up with my grandparents as in my mom and I literally lived with them from the time I was three until they passed away. They helped raise me, absolutely. But my mom was in charge of my upbringing. As it should be, unless the parent is in someway incapable of raising the child. Richard stepped over the line and then sprinted into the next fucking county. And then we're suppose to put the fault on Lorelei when after she stood up to him he sings a sob story about how he hates being retired?
First, him being retired and butting into how Rory is being raised have nothing to do with each other. He essentially said "I didn't realize retirement ment I would have to entertain myself, you should just let me fuck up your life because I'm bored and this is somehow your fault."
Jesus, he had to go straight to messing everyone up? No books to read? He couldn't build ships in a bottle or go backpacking across Europe? Shit, he thinks everything that comes out of his mouth and falls out his ass is golden wisdom? Write your  damned memiors. That's what rich fucks do when they retire, sit down and write volumes about their lives and how, even though they don't have any particular insight, they know they are better than you.
One of the only times I have liked Dean is when he stood up to Richard. Good for him. I will say a lot about Dean that is mostly bad, but of he could wrap Rory in bubblewrap and carry her strapped to his chest, he would. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had crash test dummies and a lab in his basement to ensure that that car was safe.
I adored Paris trying to find some dirt in Stars Hollow I loved when Luke was talking to her and had this tone of "what planet are you from?"
This is the episode for getting me to not hate Rory's boys because I sort of like Jess's G rated Tyler Durden movie swap thing to get Rory's censorship picture out of the video store. Course it gets ruined in the next episode but at least This one ended well... Not counting Richard going home pouting because no one will let him be an irritating human leech.
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woozapooza · 6 years
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Community: The Verdict
This show was streets ahead, folks.
I sort of wish I were better at viewing TV objectively, but I’m not, so fair warning, this is likely to be “here’s what I got out of the show” rather than “here’s what the show was.” On the other hand, shows are meant to be watched and reacted to. So I’m going to set aside, like, fandom philosophy and just react to Community:
Jeff Winger is a garbage man who deserves everything good in the world. I got really worried during the finale that they were going to do what the writers of Ripper Street did and leave the protagonist alone, stagnant, and depressed. That would have been a horrible move for a show with such a warm heart to pull. He’s definitely stagnant and I do think he has psychological issues that the show could have dealt with better, but at least he’s not alone. I feel justified in thinking that he won’t be alone going forward, either. While I never got super attached to Frankie and Elroy, their existence is important because it shows that in the pilot Jeff didn’t magically stumble upon the only six people he could ever be friends with. Plus, the amount of character development he went through, to the point where he could tell his friends he loved them, makes me hopeful that he’ll keep developing and maturing. It’s clear he still has a lot of maturing to do. The way he dealt with the “show” coming to a close—by frantically imagining various possibilities for the future—reminded me an awful lot of Abed in the opening episode of s4, when he keeps retreating into a fantasy world where everyone is happy all the time and nothing ever changes. Now Abed is moving away and moving on and Jeff is stuck trying to stop time. Abed even has to tell Jeff to distinguish between fiction and reality. If I reassure myself that Jeff will have a wonderful future, I can practically hear Abed’s voice—the voice of s6 Abed, that is—telling me that I’m ignoring the actual message of the show in favor of my own impossible delusion. But just because Community is bittersweet doesn’t mean it’s not a fundamentally optimistic show. So I’ll try not to fall into the same trap as Jeff, but I am going to believe that Jeff isn’t so dependent on his friends that he’ll fail to function if, one by one, they all just fade away. If he’s mature enough to let Annie go have a bright future, he’s mature enough to find something to (I use this word very loosely) replace her. He knows how to be a better person now. He knows how to have friends. He means so much to me!
Britta Perry is the embodiment of that post—actually there might have been more than one post along these lines—about how the things you hate about yourself in real life are the very things you’d love if you were a fictional character. But also, even though she screws up a lot, I agree with all the many people who said the show and its characters were too hard on her. As with Jeff, I wish her the world, and as with Jeff, it pains me to know she didn’t—and probably never will—get the grand happy ending I’d like for her. As with Jeff, at least she now knows what it’s like to have people who love her. Whenever I feel like I’ve Britta’d something, I’ll remember how I feel about Britta and try to feel that way about myself.
Abed Nadir is legit one of the best characters in TV history. I’d even say he’s probably in my top twenty or so favorite fictional characters (and I have a lot of favorite fictional characters). I have never seen a character like him—a character who’s basically a living love letter to film and television and all their tricks and flaws and complexities, yet never feels like a caricature or a mere device for throwing lazy jokes at the fourth wall. I didn’t actually cry watching the finale, but the closest I came to crying was when he got choked up obliquely mentioning Troy.
Annie Edison probably will be president one day, as Jeff said. I don’t feel as strongly about her as the other three but she’s still dear to me and I’m glad that her future looks bright.
Community is everything I want in sitcom: the warmth of The Office, the emotional resonance of Scrubs, the cleverness of Arrested Development. It’s in a category of its own. But it’s such a self-aware show that I’m apprehensive about saying anything about it because I worry that it’s already refuted whatever I want to say. What can I even say about this show, you guys??! Well, here are some miscellaneous things:
I’ve always thought of The Office, Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock, and Community as being a set. Like, I always believed on some level that they all took place in the same universe. So it threw me off that Community made references to the other three shows. I guess it exists on a higher plane.
Lord Huron is my favorite band! I’ve been looking forward to hearing one of their songs used in a TV show since I learned that Community had used Ends of the Earth, which was long before I watched the show.
Chang was the weak link all the way to the end. I found him neither likeable nor interesting :/ There were some times I felt the show wanted me to sympathize with him and I was just like are we forgetting that he literally tried to murder the study group?? That said, he was quite nice in Wedding Videography. Should I put him on my list of gay and bi TV characters (which, btw, is very close to taking up a whole page in the journal I keep it in!)? He did pretty unambiguously come out at the end but I don’t really want to.
I loved that they were finally allowed to use real profanity! That was weirdly really satisfying!
I’ll definitely have to rewatch this show—at the very least seasons 1-3—sometime. Then maybe I can share profounder thoughts about how it works its magic.
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