#idk it was an unsatisfying day for storytelling

[leolingo]

(long post about purgatory and meta and rp)

sigh one thing ive been thinking is that it feels a bit unfair to see so many people complaining or doomposting over how purgatory affects the overarching qsmp rp story or how it ~interrupted arcs~ or is ~disturbing current storylines~ or ~narratively unsatisfying~ like. Sure. its a bit abrupt and most players were caught off guard because lore-wise it stems from the federation which means none of them were told about anything beforehand

but... its only been three days. maybe we could have a little faith? like idk ill be soooooo out there rn and say that maybe the admins did this now for a reason. maybe itll make sense later on. we already see lore repercussions with elquackity and his motives and all the nods to the eggs.

theres fair criticism to be made (when done respectfully) if youre mainly here for the roleplay but i feel like we sometimes need to remind ourselves that the qsmp storytelling is a VERY ambitious project. lmao. imagine being the writing team and trying to wrangle 20+ characters with distinct points of view and journeys on an ever-changing story because of the very nature of live rp. its practically IMPOSSIBLE to tie up every loose end neatly and at this point i dont think we should expect that. keeping up momentum with all plotlines must also be pretty hard, cc's schedules and outside factors like server programming and building and mod tweaking and all those meta elements considered and so on and so on

i DO also want the story to move forward and be cohesive and make sense in a satisfactory way. like i really do!!!!!!! but i try to understand that thats not ALL the qsmp is about. from the start quackity said the server wouldn't be exclusive to the rp aspect. it sure is that way right now, but thats because most of the active members are VERY passionate about roleplaying. thats a good thing! they have fun and its fun to watch and the experience is mostly good for everyone because it corresponds to their expectations to an extent

the thing about purgatory is that i feel like its a lot more meta than most people doomposting realize. it ties into the story, sure, but to me it feels like the sudden switch in environment and vibes and stakes isnt actually catered to the rp and thats FINE. like thats not what it exists for and thats fineeeeeee

pac for one has said he appreciates the event for the change of pace, though its very hard (lol), because regular qsmp was starting to feel a bit stale to him and he was kind of running out of things to do. THATS A GREAT THING! managing player engagement like that is awesome and sometimes necessary. YES, purgatory caters to a very different playstyle than what we're used to -- and thats one of its strenghts.

a lot of hispanic creators have also felt this!!!! roier, rivers and carre most prominently have been VERY excited about this event because its similar in format to a lot of spanish speaking events like mc extremo and such. a lot of these players are also not particularly interested in rp-ing and had not been logging on very often prior to purgatory.

even roleplay regulars like tubbo, fit and bbh have shown interest in purgatory for the competitive nature of the setting!!! thats cool too!!!! something different, new possibilities to play around with. thats what the events should be about. kudos to the admins and dev teams for attempting it in such a big scale. their effort shows and all the mechanics weve seen are really fucking cool

i love the roleplay!!!!!! its one of my favorite parts of the qsmp!!!!!! but its not ALL there is and it shouldnt be! non rp-oriented creators are also part of the project and deserve to have a little fun too -- not to mention a big chunk of the hispanic fan community that has blown up twitter with support bc what we have rn is similar to events they already love!!!!!!! im glad to see so many of them get excited again!!!!!!

at the end of the day, qsmp is a LONG long term project, and purgatory ends in two weeks. by the time its over, we can all choose to engage with it as we wish. it can be a big filler episode in your mind, if you want. it can be just for fun..... otherwise, if its not fun, your regularly scheduled qsmp will be back soon anyway :3 its fine to not like it, its fine to have something negative to say about it if properly tagged and not like. crazy entitled or blown out of proportion for what this situation is.

i just hope we can all manage our online experiences accordingly and avoid making things less enjoyable for each other. this is supposed to be fun

#rant kind of #i hate hate hate doomposting it drains me #lets not assume the worst!!!!!! lets wait and see!!!!!!! theres so much time!!!!!!! how about that #qsmp #discourse

[faithdeans]

western au fic recs part 1

i have loads of these but i've decided to re-read them all before reccomending them. idk how many parts there will be of this but probably at least another 2 and one for ficlets! anyway hiii have fun and pls let me know how you find them!!! i also left comments because idk how to shut up!

Vagabonds by chevrolangels [89k]

Dean is a sheriff in a tiny town in Colorado, restless and unsatisfied with his life. It's not like what he's read about in the dime novels since he was little, capturing dangerous outlaws and being the last word of the law. More like tossing the town drunk in a cell to sober up when they get a little too rowdy. But Dean's chance comes when a thief rolls through their town. He pursues the thief, which puts him right into the path of Emmanuel, a notorious outlaw. When he is captured by the outlaw and his gang to be held for ransom, Dean starts off on a journey he could have never envisioned, and learns that perhaps there's more to Emmanuel than meets the eye.

i reread this the other day and if you didn't already see my posts let me say i lost my damn mind all over again. the pacing and characterisation in this fic are perfect. it's a delicious slowburn, the action is amazing, and also as someone who has a hard time handling angst, this fic is the perfect level for me. the end makes me cry because i never wanna finish it. the stories of the side-characters are just as enthralling as dean and cas. i could read a million one-shots based on this fic. i'd probably say it's my favourite fic, period.

The Shawnee Trail by emmbrancsxx0 [166k]

In 1887, Dean Winchester and Castiel Novak lead a peaceful life in Lawrence, Kansas. Dean and Sam are stagecoach messengers for Wells, Fargo and Castiel is the town doctor. When Castiel's patient, Kelly Kline, knocks on their door one night about to give birth, she asks for the Winchesters and Castiel's help in protecting her son against one of the west's most notorious outlaws. To fulfill that promise, the men set out on a journey full of shootouts, trouble with the law, gambling, and an important discovery: Dean and Castiel really need to define the nature of their relationship.

okay to everyone asking which fic i was talking about when i posted "fics that make you pace around your room at midnight while sobbing", i was talking about this. this fic felt like a movie, it felt like i was living it, like i was riding with them. the storytelling is unbelievably vivid. i was hanging on to the "angst with a happy ending" tag for dear life. this fic is a rollercoaster of an adventure and a wonderfully moving ode to the western genre. it's truly one of those fics where you finish it and you can't believe this is supernatural fanfic and not a critically acclaimed piece of literature.

Lonesome Rider by onwardorange [67k]

Dean Winchester, better known as the “Lonesome Rider” throughout the Wild West, spends his days galavanting from town to town, drinking, dancing, and flirting his way into people’s beds. He’s got no responsibilities and no direction in life; it’s just him, his beloved horse, Baby, and the open road. And that’s just the way Dean likes it𑁋or so he tells himself. That is, until the day Sam falls deathly ill. When nothing is able to cure him, Dean makes a desperate deal to save Sam’s life that puts his own on the line. Enter Castiel Novak, a small town preacher in possession of the Colt, a gun rumored to be able to kill just about anything as well as the one thing that could save Dean’s life. When the gun is stolen by a gang of infamous outlaws, Dean and Castiel must travel across the West together to get it back, though what they discover between themselves along the way may turn out to be more powerful than the Colt itself.

this fic was so sweet and full of heart that it actually left me breathless in places. the way dean and cas bickering was written was so s spot on. hurt/comfort that will blow your cock and balls straight off. and the pining!!!! oh the pining!!! something about this story is like a warm hug and i just didn't wanna put it down. also the constellation scene and certain recurring themes to do with it. *dies*

#worm.rec

[silent-partner-412]

I HAVE FINISHED ZERO TIME DILEMMA

tbh it’s been a long time coming… me and my friends played 999 last year over the course of a week, and then we took quite literally a year to start and finish VLR. genuinely we started it in June last year, and due to us sucking ass at scheduling we didn’t finish until this month. it wasn’t even an issue with the game, i loved VLR, just that the game is so long and we sucked at committing 😭

anyway i just sped through ZTD in three days by myself and it’s been very interesting. somehow i’ve found a lot to love about the game but also i kinda understand why it has something of a reputation among Zero Escape fans. i have a few thoughts.

first of all, since this is the first ZE game i played by myself, the escape rooms were a fucking treat. i never needed help on any of them but they still were super confusing and puzzling in the best way. i have multiple pages of notes from this game and it was such a joy to go through one of these games without the help of my friends who are way smarter than me. idk if the escape rooms are as good as VLRs but i loved the experience i had regardless.

second of all, the overarching plot was definitely not as good as the last two games, it was kinda convoluted and left a lot about VLR unanswered or unsatisfying. but there was still a lot to love, D team was on the whole fantastic (the fact that this is the only team Uchikoshi wrote himself really shows) and while C team wasn’t as good i thought Carlos was absolutely precious and Junpei and Akane have only continued to grow on me as this series has gone on. honestly, the two endings for D team were just fucking fantastic, i really liked Diana as a protagonist and the amount of lore we got for Sigma and Phi was just wonderful. definitely all my favorite moments of this game were with this team.

but then… there’s Q team. and goddammit if this game has an achilles heel it’s these bitches. these three just do not work as a unit; pretty much all their scenes range from boring to nonsensical to frustrating, and when that started spilling into scenes with the other teams it was immensely frustrating. Q/Sean was fine i guess, he was a little bland but mostly interesting as like the AI type character?? but the other two… my god. Mira was mostly a non presence but when she did do something in the story it kind of fell in the “so bad it’s good” range for me? like her serial killer shit is on the Korekiyo range of ridiculous, but at least it was kinda funny lol. Eric on the other hand i think is fucking terrible all around. pretty much all the worst and least interesting conflict surrounded him; as a villain he was boring and stupid, but then when the game wanted to make him sympathetic he just ended up being pathetic because his entire emotional core is fucking MIRA, a SERIAL KILLER. 9/10 times when i was groaning or yelling at my screen it was because of him, the story would probably still have a lot of issues without him but having him gone would’ve saved me so much headache. definitely the worst Zero Escape character imo.

honestly tho i’m just happy to finally say i’ve completed this series. it’s a shame ZTD was so low budget and didn’t come together how a lot of ppl hoped, but this is still a super awesome VN series that does a lot of interesting things with the idea of timelines and unconventional storytelling, with some super fun gameplay segments to boot. i don’t really expect a ZE4, but i guess i’ll be ok with AITSF2 in the mean time lol.

[constantvigilante]

I’ve got them “character was finally accepted to the game and I introed them but no one’s responded yet and I’m kinda bummed about it” bluuues

And we didn’t die in D&D, miraculously, but this pair of doofus brothers is so annoying and disruptive, they waste so much time and keep getting us in trouble, R1 and I are going to have to start reining things in because we ain’t here for your lame-o comedy act

I just want to tell stories and explore my characters man, and this joker’s getting in the middle of shopkeeper feuds. Does this contribute to the overarching narrative of orc and goblin attacks in any way?

#and scene partner didn’t tag me back :( #idk it was an unsatisfying day for storytelling

[redxblueihateloveyou]

Yeah... I honestly rarely get into show like this anymore because the only great one in my eyes was Free!... even if they butchered the third season but you get what I mean. If I want to see people passionate about something maybe I should watch kono oto tomare or something like that

lol same, but I’ve lost hope already to find something as good, also seeing the recent trends I doubt things like that will come out. it’s pretty rare these days to find smth with a great emotion payoff, too. instead it’s mostly a pretty picture, but zero passion, depth, intensity or literally anything. I pretty much watch many new things these days and just completely forget about them in a week. most animes that really got me aired like 8 years ago or smth. 

I also feel like smth changed in ways of storytelling, or like the creators got worse at their time distribution, cause I don’t get sometimes what they waste their only 12 episodes on. Like we’ve already said the same old s3 of Free! (haha oh, our talks during s3 lmao, painful times, painful lmao lets hope we won’t go through this again later on), that was just a bad story distribution first and foremost, like comparing it to the structure of s1 it’s laughable. Bc you can in fact fit in 12 episode a great, logical, emotionally fullfilling story, that will give you a satisfying ending, even when it’s not the end of the whole story. But these day no one for some reason can distribute it in a right way, it usually ends up to be like an extremely unsatisfying one, when you feel like it was too much too fast and like “we don’t have enough time”. or it’s not and ending at all. Like “see you next year” if you’re lucky or most likely “see you never”.

For example, I do not feel rn after ep11 like sk8 can end in a satisfying way. One episode left, there is just no way everything will fall in the right places. They’ve lost too much time on a storyline that didn’t even give any logical payoff and now its only one ep left. And previous one already felt like they were trying to get somewhere too fast too soon and it looked hella dumb.

They waste time on some things that don’t matter at all, but rush and cut the important stuff, that would’ve def given much more depth to some things. All the useless running around, that lead you to coming back to the beginning, all the blown up dramas that at the end weight nothing and you go like “what was even the reason for this” is just weird to me. I’m not used to such storytelling and never will be tbh.

Kono oto tomare? Oh, I remember how I saw  poster to it and thought that it was like a love triangle or smth and scrolled haha idk I’m not sure about music either, maybe I’ll check it out.

#answered #averiina #anime

[unbearablylight]

Trevor Teaches

IDK, basic storytelling i guess? I really feel like I shouldn’t have to do this.

And you’re getting proper capitalization and punctuation, so you understand I’m Serious™. And fun drinking game: take a shot every time I use some form of the word subvert.

So, I recently made a post about spoilers and the lukewarm-at-best takes that have been going around about how stories can/should be predictable. That was bad enough, but then I came across this monstrosity:

And enough is enough. I try to not criticize writing advice on this site (even if I personally think it’s Bad), because a lot of advice is rather open-ended and if it works for you then that’s great. Different strokes, and all that. And this isn’t even writing advice so much as it is critique of mistakes in recent media, but once it starts circling around writeblr, it kind of becomes a form of advice and something writers, especially newer/younger ones, may take to heart.

But it’s just objectively wrong. Like not even Bad Advice wrong. It displays a complete lack of awareness for the craft of storytelling, especially through a medium such as film or television.

Now, disclaimer: I don’t take issue with the part about one being prioritized over the other. Writing, like most things in life, is a balancing act. Prioritizing any one element over another in a story is probably going to lead to some unsatisfying results.

But I had to laugh at the idea that the “new obsession with subverting expectations... is ruining cinema and television,” because it’s wrong on so many levels I’m having a hard time deciding where to begin.

As a lot of people know, there are generally no hard and fast rules when it comes to creative writing (or any art), which is why most advice posts are just that — advice. Tips you can take or leave as you see fitting. Outside of the usual basic grammar and formatting rules, pretty much anything goes.

Screenwriting is a little different. I would argue that screenwriting actually has two capital-R Rules (at least that I can think of; there may be one or two I’m forgetting). They are:

Show, don’t tell.

Subvert the audience’s expectations.

Yeah, that “new” obsession that’s ruining cinema is actually one of the basic, fundamental Rules of how to tell a good story. So much so, that I learned it in my very first screenwriting class, even before the idea of “show, don’t tell” was hammered into my head.

Think about how many stories there are, how many pieces of media people consume in their lifetime these days. Do you think they want to see the same thing over and over again? That’s not even a rhetorical question, and I’m not going to let you answer it. The answer is NO!

I’m not talking about the minutiae, like a certain trope or character archetype someone may enjoy seeing in much, if not all the media they consume. And if any of you come at me with, “But Trevor, nothing is original!” I will beat you back with a stick.

Every new, unique piece of media, every story, subverts your expectations one way or another. It’s part of telling a story. Say, for instance, you have an ordinary young boy just living his life.

But wait, he’s a wizard. But wait, he’s a Jedi. But wait, he’s a demigod. But wait, he’s left home alone!

Guess what? Expectations have just been subverted. And those are just the smallest of twists, the inciting incidents when the story has hardly begun. But you know what they do? Grab an audience’s attention. They make the audience care about the story that’s being told, because they want to know where it’s going. They want to find out what will happen next.

That’s why subverting an audience’s expectations is so important — it keeps them interested.

Still, I’ve only mentioned some minor moments, some things that you’d probably already know going in. Those aren’t really dependent upon shock value, so surely it shouldn’t matter in creating a story?

Let’s look at some iconic cinema moments:

“No, I am your father.” (Star Wars, duh)

The Cool Girl monologue. (Gone Girl, which gets a bonus for being a novel first, making my argument valid across mediums lol)

The top keeps spinning. (Inception)

All of those were major shocks and a complete subversion of the audience’s expectations. Which is why they’re so well-known and highly regarded. They threw a wrench in the story as we knew it, changed it from the direction we thought it would go (or the ending we thought it would have).

And the stories are all the better for it.

Subverting expectations is not a new obsession or even a new trend; it’s a facet of good storytelling as old as stories themselves. (The woman in the candy house eats kids! Medea straight up murders her own children!)

The problem then, as I alluded to before, is a lack of balance. The character arcs, relationship dynamics, tropes, and plot elements — and the twists, the subversions in all those things — are all important in telling a good story. Prioritizing one over the other is usually going to lead to them all falling apart. The characters won’t feel properly developed, the plot will feel disjointed, and any subversions aren’t going to be satisfying. They’ll feel like cheap tricks, smoke and mirrors, bread and circuses.

But the solution is not to do away with them entirely. There can still be good shocks, there can still be satisfying twists. So long as everything else is there, too. They have to exist in balance.

(It has taken all my willpower not to reference the Thanos quote since he’s like... part of the problem.)

Subverting your audience’s expectations is a necessary element of good, original storytelling and should be practiced and crafted as such. Any post telling you it’s ruining any form of media or should not matter is wrong, objectively so.

So, please, go forth and craft elegantly soaring character arcs, sweeping, epic narrative journeys, and for the love of all things storytelling:

Give me something I wasn’t expecting.

#writeblr #writing advice #writing #creative writing #writing tips #sorry for the #long post #but it's important so i'm leaving it all out there #i'm labeling this advice and tips as if i don't say it's the exact opposite lmao #also please don't play the drinking game it will be bad lol

[jeanmoreaux]

Oh wow oh wow oh wow. I finished. I’m not even sure how I feel about life anymore. I loved the goldfinch but I’m a little unhappy with the ending!! Like it was fine! Idk how I would’ve wanted it to end but I was expecting a bit more like once I got to the last page I was like “oh that’s it?” Not that it was abrupt! I just im not even sure what I’m trying to say lmao. Anyways it basically destroyed me the past couple days and also I love Theodore decker with my whole heart

hey there! you really flew through this book, didn’t you? :) my copy is more than 1000 pages, i think, so kudos to you for reading this massive piece of literary fiction in the span of a couple of days!

nonono, i totally get your emotional reaction to the goldfinch’s ending! it is quite clinical and detached in a way, but i believe it works quite well in the context of the book. it is a tragic story, and somehow the ending still is the closest to an happy ending as theo would ever get. he’s such a tormented soul, and he made some pretty horrible decisions, but there is a sense of closure and acceptance to his suffering in these final pages. his story is beautifully painful, and the questions of inevitability, fate, destiny, and hamartia the last chapter poses perfectly ties into the greater schemes this book discusses: the meaning of life and the human condition. the experience of living is full of hardships you can’t escape, but it’s sprinkled with rare moments of pure bliss & love that make all the suffering worth it. mostly, though, life is just this thing that happens to you, that you surrender control to or try to control, and you never know if your efforts ,or lack there of, ultimately change the course of your life. the book’s arguably underwhelming ending isn’t really an ending in itself. theo’s story continuous, it’s not over yet, but we don’t get to see how things develop because theo, as the storyteller and storywriter, decides to not show us. instead, the story ends somewhere unspectacular without extravaganza because that’s just how life is for most of us. the ending represents the content of the book; everything literally comes full circle – we part with theo at the same point we meet him. there is so much symbolism and metaphorical meaning in this narrative choice that you can interpret however you like.

so i completely agree with you that it is an unsatisfying ending, but the book’s ingenuity & depth strongly depend on this particular conclusion to deploy their full potential. 

#i uhhhh might have went a little overboard here; i'm sorry #i got carried away #have you read donna tartt's other books? #i absolutely loved the secret history too #and i am planning on reading little friend this or next month #i think donna tartt is a brilliant writer #there is so much depth and meaning buried in her works #i am in awe whenever i contemplate her stories #anon #answer #Anonymous #the goldfinch #bookish talk

[iabsolutelyresentthiswebsite]

The Last Jedi Sin #5

I just talked about how Rey’s character was completely inconsistent a little bit ago, so let’s go with another Rey-centric Sin.

Well, here it is, guys. I know you were waiting for it...at least, just a little.

5. The Parentage Reveal-???

It’s been about 3 days since the worldwide release of The Last Jedi and about 6 days since the embargo on spoilers has been lifted, so if you don’t already know who her parents- allegedly- are, STOP READING NOW. 

So, her parents are nobodies, junkers who sold their daughter for drinking money. 

Gonna have to stop you right there.

What?

Like, I get what you’re going for. You’re trying to say like, “You don’t have to be a Skywalker or anyone important to be strong in the Force. The Force is for everyone. Anyone can have it.” Blah blah blah blah blah.

See, I’m one of those people who has always believed that. I’m actually someone who believes that The Force knows when the balance is really out of whack and will help to fix it by endowing more and more people with the Force in order to help balance itself. It’s a nice concept. I don’t know if that’s supported by canon, but that’s not the point of this post. 

I believe anyone can have The Force and be strong in it. 

But Rey is not a nobody...I’m so sorry. 

Having her be a nobody is completely unsupported by TFA and Marketing. 

Why the hell was there such a hype over her lineage?

Of course it was perpetuated by fans because we love the mystery, but if it really didn’t fucking matter who her parents were, y’all could have downplayed it. But y’all played into the hype like nobody’s business. It was made so important that we know who her parents were that literally almost everyone was convinced she had to have been someone’s daughter or granddaughter.

The most popular fan theory was that she was the daughter of Luke Skywalker because *chokes* IT WAS THE ONLY LOGICAL DEDUCTION FROM THE FORCE AWAKENS. 

All the parallels made between her and Luke/Anakin, all the same visuals, being a great pilot inexplicably, being really strong in The Force, being thrown into a world they weren’t really ready for, the Skywalker Legacy Lightsaber calling to her, what she wore, how she carried herself, literally everything in TFA pointed her to being connected to Luke in more than just a future Master-Padawan relationship. 

But it was HYPED. It was HARPED UPON that we KNOW. The actors were not contractually allowed to say JACK DIDDLY SQUAT about it. 

Why would it matter if she wasn’t Luke’s daughter or connected to someone otherwise important? 

If she truly is a nobody, the storytelling in TFA, the reused visual representations, the marketing, making the actors keep the information on lock like they did, is completely all for naught, utter shit, misdirection, and proves that TFA was a rehashing of A New Hope. 

But assssssiiiiide from all that truth, let’s talk about how it was revealed to her.

It was shoe-horned the fuck in there like nobody’s business. 

Kylo just saying, “You know the truth. Say it.” (What is this, Twilight?)

“Your parents were nobody. They were junkers who sold their daughter for drinking money. Dead somewhere in the sands of Jakku. You might be nothing, nobody, but you’re not nothing to me.” - Something to that effect. 

Like...there was almost no build-up to it, except that Kylo said he “saw her parents” and her in the water mirror cave thingy, where The Dark Side...rEfUsED to show her her parents. Like...that’s suspect. 

Watching the movie, that reveal that fans have been literally waiting 2 years for felt like it was an after-thought. Like Rian was like, “we gotta answer this question”. “But where?” and he’s like, “Shit IDK, let Kylo tell her something.”

Also, it felt as if Kylo was being dishonest with her. A lot of people are unsatisfied with this answer because it felt completely wrong and was completely unsupported by everything leading up to this movie. A Lot of people, in fact, think that he was lying to her to make her angry and more willing to join him on the Dark Side. Being a nobody relieves her of many of her perceived obligations, doesn’t it?

I, for one, hope JJ retcons that bullshit choice because it is wrong for this narrative and completely delegitimizes The Force Awakens for what it did establish. 

Why the hell was there a scene where 4-year-old Rey was being left behind and her parents, or caretakers, were flying off in a ship...off the planet?! What the hell does this flashback mean now?!

We all know it.

Also, y’all really expect me to buy her not being a Skywalker when on two separate occasions, when Kylo Ren, a confirmed Skywalker kin, and Rey of Jakku, an alleged nobody, fought over the Skywalker Legacy Lightsaber, it- first- chose Rey over Kylo and second, couldn’t fucking choose and snapped in half! You expect me to believe she is just a nobody?! 

Moreover, making her a nobody is actually a little insulting to her character because a lot of her pain stems from her family abandoning her. That she will never be able to face the people who caused her this kind of pain, not be able to reconcile with them, never meet them or see their face, having Kylo off-handedly reveal this incredibly unsatisfying information...seriously?!

Y’all built her up to be a somebody, related to somebody, and literally cut her down with no explanation and no justification, when there was no evidence of her ever being a nobody. 

Part of a director’s job is to put hints in there so that audience can discover the answers to questions they have before it’s actually revealed and many did, so this “Rey Nobody” shit is completely out of left field. 

I just...don’t fucking buy Kylo’s story. 

And I don’t buy it because y’all made me not buy it with everything you showed us in the movie, everything you said, everything she said and did. It doesn’t make sense. 

This is a sin because it’s bad storytelling, bad writing, a bad choice, makes no sense, is completely unsupported by everything leading up to the movie, and is a lazy, cop-out that...little do they know...actually requires more exposition for fans to understand. 

I don’t understand why they did this and I never will.

#the last jedi sins #tlj hate #rey skywalker #tlj spoilers #rey nobody

[bthump]

though actually while i’m on this subject, I do kind of have a big issue with how this frames griffith.

cut bc this probably doesn’t really make sense lol, i’m rambling and i’m not entirely sure how to explain my thought process lol

like, if pre-eclipse griffith was a symbol of guts’ potential to have fulfilling relationships and find a place where he belongs, that guts then totally fucked up by “abandoning,” and post-eclipse neogriffith is a symbol of guts throwing away his potential to have fulfilling relationships by pursuing a stupid self-destructive dream, then there’s a bit of an awkward contradiction:

during the golden age, guts distancing himself from griffith was a bad thing that caused all his problems. after the eclipse, guts distancing himself from griffith is the narratively correct choice. this makes technical plot sense because in between griffith transformed into a demon lol, but thematically i think it’s unsatisfying.

griffith has essentially been replaced with guts’ protective relationship with casca. he fucked up and abandoned her, just like he fucked up and abandoned griffith, but now he’s making up for it by sticking around and protecting her - something he never got a chance to do w/ griffith. like, there was no magical cure to heal griffith, no long journey of personal growth, nada.

ignoring who could be blamed for what if berserk happened in real life, bc this has nothing to do with morals or literal interpersonal responsibilities, from a fictional storytelling perspective guts destroyed griffith when he made the wrong choice by leaving. griffith’s year of torture and then eclipse causing despair is the direct consequence of guts’ narrative mistake, and femto/ngriff is an antagonist of guts’ own making.

so to then say that the right thing for guts to do is to try to forget about him rubs me the wrong way. it’d be one thing if griffith was dead and there was nothing guts could do except try to avoid repeating his mistakes, but he’s alive and currently acting on the world in a capacity that is, at least by some standards, negative lol. the way stories work, that’s guts’ problem to fix.

so if the thematic takeaway is that guts should just ignore neogriffith and move on, and if he goes back to obsessing over him that’s bad, then... i’m not satisfied with that lol.

also like, if the manga decided to draw a very clear and explicit dividing line between human griffith and neogriffith, essentially declaring everything human griffith represented to guts as dead, that would also be one thing, but miura deliberately muddies the waters both by teasing the audience about his beating heart and by guts’ emotional conflict a la “the instant I saw him I’d forgotten my urge to kill,” and “longing,” and by continuing to utilize the light/dark imagery for their relationship, and having guts reminisce about original griffith after seeing him, etc.

so there’s this sense to me that neogriffith is simultaneously a symbol of guts’ self destructive dream (revenge, fighting stronger and stronger enemies, becoming griffith’s equal) and a symbol of guts’ mistake in pursuing that dream the first time - a symbol of what he threw away by leaving - and to me it feels unsatisfyingly contradictory.

and then on a purely emotional level lol it frustrates me that if the moral of the story really is that guts needs to move on and forget about the past and griffith and focus on the relationships he does have, then that means griffith was essentially a casualty of guts’ one step forward two steps back style character development. a character, from the perspective of his relationship to guts, who existed to be a consequence of guts’ mistake and teach guts a lesson through his destruction. and that just strikes me as unfair lol. idt guts should get to move on when griffith never had the opportunity - OR when griffith did take his opportunity ie the sacrifice, if we’re counting that, because then griffith moving on is evil but guts moving on is good.

and yeah maybe it’s a statement about moving on by suppressing your emotions vs moving on by forming new relationships, but griffith was railroaded by the narrative lol, he never got the chance to move on by forming new relationships, he was irreparably fucked the day after guts left. so if that’s the case then it’s weak.

but idk maybe i’m looking at this from entirely the wrong perspective. idk i’m just thinking outloud again rly. and until we find out what happens when casca has her mind back, it’s too early to draw any real conclusions anyway.

#idk #a #b #character: guts #character: griffith #theme: guts leaving #theme: critique #well sorta

[just0nemorepage]

My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories || Stephanie Perkins || 321 pages ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Top 3 Genres: Young Adult / Short Stories / Romance

Synopsis: If you love holiday stories, holiday movies, made-for-TV-holiday specials, holiday episodes of your favorite sitcoms and, especially, if you love holiday anthologies, you’re going to fall in love with My True Love Gave To Me: Twelve Holiday Stories by twelve bestselling young adult writers, edited by international bestselling author Stephanie Perkins. Whether you enjoy celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah, Winter Solstice or New Year's there's something here for everyone. So curl up by the fireplace and get cozy. You have twelve reasons this season to stay indoors and fall in love.

Finished: December 14th, 2017.

Progress: 13 / 50. 26% complete.

My Rating: ★★★★★. [5/5]

My Review: [Under the read more - NOT SPOILER FREE]

Alright, it's been three days, I've seen the new Star Wars on opening night, survived my office's Christmas party and a trip to the mall, spent a night with Tyler and an evening out with my entire family for my dad's birthday, ticked off another D&D session, woke up early to do some dog sitting, passed out in bed before 11pm on both of my days off cause – who knew – I am tired, SO, it's about time I wrote this review.

Gift wrapping still needs done today too.

REVIEW FIRST.

CAUSE THIS BOOK DID THINGS TO ME.

To be fair – as with all short story books, some stories fell kind of flat, most others were either neutral or just generally enjoyable, and the rest were like JESUS CHRIST I WANT A FULL NOVEL OF THIS.

I also had a fun time trying to identify which of the ice skating couples on the front of the book corresponded with each couple in each story. 😁

So I suppose I'll do a breakdown of all twelve stories, with individual ratings and comments for each one, knowing that the whole book gets a full five stars cause holy shit my heart.

Midnights ; Rainbow Rowell - ★★★☆☆. 3/5. One of the ones I felt kind of neutral towards, and maybe even fell a little flat. It was cute, definitely, and a good start to the book, but the characters felt so... "young adult." They didn't feel real at all. It felt like an extremely romanticized version of a friendship turning into a romance, and like it was more a stylized painting of a relationship than an actual relationship. But, it was still cute.

The Lady and the Fox ; Kelly Link - ★★☆☆☆. 2/5. The writing was beautiful and poetic, but the relationship was... weird. I know that a lot was left unexplained and up to your imagination on purpose, but there was so much left out that I don't know if it was actually on purpose or if it was just poor storytelling. I also don't like the concept of a young girl meeting a strange older man, and as she "ages into it" they eventually fall in love. Especially since he was mean to her at first. Plus her personality change into "goth/punk" and the witch's appearance and deciding to let Fenny out of her grasp happened very abruptly, and left me feeling very unsatisfied. And Elspeth sort of just.. appearing in the middle of it all? Already fully understanding the situation? It was weird and needed much more explaining to feel like a fully developed story, and without it just felt like the bare bones outline of a story that could have maybe been decent with more flushing out.

Angels in the Snow ; Matt de la Pena - ★★★☆☆. 3/5. Yaaas Mexican main character, and mixed-race relationship. The story was all extremely adorable and felt very real, and I like how the ending wasn't necessarily happy. I also like how the whole situation was messy, and neither character is completely likable – Shy had his pride, was a chronic liar, and had issues with expressing healthy emotions, and Haley never fully explained WHY she wanted to break up with her boyfriend, and also had a night of cheating on him. These things are what made me feel genuinely annoyed enough to not actually be able to enjoy the story and the messiness of everything. But – BUT – Shy understood consent, and Haley understood things were no longer fair and healthy between her and her boyfriend, so she broke up with him that very same night she cheated. I heavily appreciate and respect these things, and I must say that even though the character's annoyances cut through too deep for me to rate the story any higher, it was very powerful and actually pretty well done.

Polaris is Where You'll Find Me ; Jenny Han - ★★★☆☆. 3/5. THIS ONE WAS SAD. I wasn't expecting a fantasy story in this book, and it was a pleasant surprise! BUT IT WAS SAD. I loved that the MC was Asian, and the concept of a human raised amongst Christmas elves is a pleasing one to me, especially since these elves seemed more like LotR elves than Elf elves. But that Natalie was so unaccepted and unwelcomed by everybody? That Santa (as her father) seemed relatively oblivious to it all? That Flynn apparently has had feelings for her and only showed it after he provided her with Lars's address, already knowing she's likely to go back to the human world to choose Lars than stay where she knows she doesn't belong? Annoying, hence the three stars, BUT SO SAD. Probably the saddest story in the book, and having an ending that wasn't necessarily happy and left so up in the air REALLY was a nice surprise.

It's a Yuletide Miracle, Charlie Brown ; Stephanie Perkins - ★★★★★. 5/5. THE FIRST ONE I ADORED. OH GOD. This is also my first ever Stephanie Perkins story. If all of her shit is like this then OH MAN OH MAN. The story and the situation was so fucking cute, and actually believable, and holy wow *another* PoC MC, and paganism treated as real and respectable and legit and holy shit it's actually in a story (which legit made me want to find ways to celebrate the Solstice in addition to Christmas cause fuck man that's closer to what I actually feel than anything else out there), and I just, idek. EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS STORY was fucking amazing and incredible and I want a whole NOVEL of it. I mean I could re-read it again right now cause AAAHHHH. This isn't doing the story justice at all and I feel horrible for it but I CAN'T ORGANIZE MY THOUGHTS OKAY.

Your Temporary Santa ; David Levithan - ★★★★☆. 4/5. A gay couple!! Treated as completely normal and not about coming out and not facing shitty people and oppression!!! That in itself is fantastic. And then there's the "oh, this is more complicated than I thought" thing that pops up right about when Lana comes out to taunt the (Jewish!!) MC, who I think I just realized went unnamed in the whole story. It's never stated clearly but it's heavily implied that the last person to wear that Santa suit is Connor's dad, who is also heavily implied to have left the family. Riley is still too young to understand, Lana is SO ANGRY about the situation and takes it out on everyone and everything at only 12 years old (that poor kid), and Connor seems to just want to do something for his baby sister without realizing what it might do to the rest of the family.. that, and that the MC crawls into bed with Connor at the end of it when it was both implied that he wasn't yet properly introduced to the family, AND that to do so would give away the Santa secret.. those last couple things are what made me go "?" and docked the one star off. Otherwise though, it's powerful and sad and I am a HUGE fan of the diversity in this whole book cause omg.

Krampuslauf ; Holly Black - ★★★★★. 5/5. THE SECOND ONE I ADORED. At first it seemed like it was too try-hard and edgelord, but then quickly proved to be a PERFECT combination of my aesthetic – cause I mean, a faun IS going to be my next costume project, so there's that, AND justice is a massive turn-on, SO. Creatures from some sort of fae realm showing up during Christmas to deliver justice against a cheating sexist shit-head as a gift to the girls he's wronged, especially in the form of a fae woman with a knife and a satyr who's probably the sexiest character I've read about in a book to date (the gold-painted goat-legged Krampus self-dubbed Joachim), is EXACTLY my kind of shit and oh my god I want like – a whole novel or a whole series of novels about this. Just oh my god. Once I realized what was going on I was like "HOLY SHIT" and almost felt like it was written specifically for me because it fit so perfectly. I mean of course it wasn't – BUT STILL. I WANT MORE. I was NOT expecting darkness or anything seductive in a CHRISTMAS story so this took me so off guard and asdhkjhkdhf.

FAE, BUDDY. YOU DON'T MESS WITH THEM. THEY ARE GOALS IN LIFE.

What the Hell Have you Done, Sophie Roth? ; Gayle Forman - ★★★★★. 5/5. Another one I thought was utterly fantastic. The storytelling and the characters and the setting felt so well done and so real, and ANOTHER mixed-race relationship (AW YISS), and the MC being a card-carrying intersectional feminist in all but a specific statement saying so, and, DUDE, SHE'S JEWISH, and idk this one was SO FUCKING CUTE and I loved it to pieces. She reminded me SO much of myself – a personality and sense of humor that doesn't really fit in and tries so hard to be aware of other peoples' plights and troubles, and that she actually fucks up and handles it, and just. IT HIT ME IN THE FEELS.

These comments with each story are probably getting less and less clear and concise as I go on but idgaf.

Beer Buckets and Baby Jesus ; Myra McEntire - ★★★★★. 5/5. I didn't adore this one as much as the other five starers, but it still gets five in just how pleasantly surprised I was, and how all my stereotypical expectations were blown completely apart and proved totally wrong. Troublemaker guy has a crush on pastor's daughter, who is dating the star football player, and all these people end up coming together to put on a Christmas pageant troublemaker-guy is responsible for as his act of community service for all the trouble he gets into. And it's set in the south. Quite frankly, it sounds sickening and like I'd rather suck on a cactus.

BUT. Pastor's daughter (Gracie) COMPLETELY proved to be her own, strong, willful person who doesn't even seem to be SUPER religious – still religious, sure, but more into science and historical accuracy than "Bible this and Bible that", who knows what she wants and goes for it and is complicated and fucking smart (valedictorian!), and Vaughn – troublemaker guy – eventually sees all of this and COMPLETELY RESPECTS ALL OF IT. No taking advantage of her, no thinking less of her, no belittling her, IS RESPECTING OF CONSENT, sees her completely as her own person, respect everywhere, oh my god. And the football star Gracie's dating? Is ALSO ACTUALLY PRETTY RESPECTFUL. And nice. And it turns out the situation there was just a cover for a long-distance relationship he's in that his family wouldn't approve of, that she's understandably not a fan of and wants out of, and they promise to handle it and fix it like mature adults. So. DUDE.

I WAS SO SURPRISED.

It gets a full five stars just for shattering all my horrible expectations and actually being completely everything I could ever want in this situation.

More things need to shatter my expectations like that! I was so happy!

Welcome to Christmas, CA ; Kiersten White - ★★★★★. 5/5. Oh man another one I loved. Maria reminded me so much of my boyfriend, and this whole story is just so adorably sickeningly cute and sweet and I can't get enough of it. Candy's boyfriend can go FUCK HIMSELF and I am so happy she got away, and also so happy that Maria came to see the truth of things and adopted a much more healthy outlook at the end, and I am HALF CONVINCED Ben's story of "juvie" is just a cover-up that he's a Christmas elf. Though I also accept the story that he's actually from juvie, cause fuck, people with those kinds of backgrounds NEED more stories of hope and success and still making a good life for themselves.

I'M FEELING ALL FLUFFY INSIDE AGAIN JUST THINKING OF THESE STORIES I LOVED SO MUCH JESUS CHRIST.

I'm gonna have to bookmark them or something so I can re-read them again whenever I want omg.

Star of Bethlehem ; Ally Carter - ★☆☆☆☆. 1/5. Seemed more like a situation that was trying too hard to be a thriller, and with an ending that was a COMPLETE flop and let down. I spent the whole story trying to figure out wtf the real issue was and why Liddy was as scarred as she was. So when it got to the end, and it was revealed that she was a teen music star and the "bad guy" was her manager-turned-guardian and was only missing the goatee and steepled fingers for as typical of a "bad guy" as he was – I mean, he all but yelled back "YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE LAST OF ME" like some Batman villain – just, man. I was so disappointed. It all was so fast and so basic and so stereotypical and so one-dimensional – I mean, the family and town would all accept her just like that? No anger that she lied at all? Aunt Mary actually wants to adopt her after just a WEEK? She let Ethan kiss her and actually felt okay with it amongst all the rest of it? I mean – wasn't he upset about Hulda? He knows nothing about this girl and just knows she's lying and could hurt his whole family – how could he feel anything good at all, let alone romantic feelings toward her? None of it made sense and none of it fit and it actually felt kind of... bad. I mean, okay, the underlying story was interesting, I appreciate the idea of someone famous just wanting to be normal again and have a loving family again, and I like the idea of a family seeing through someone's completely obviously bad coverup story and taking care of the person anyway, but I DON'T like the lack of consequences, the complete inconsistencies in character development and plot, and how friggen rushed and horribly written the ending and the reveal was. This one was probably my least favorite story in the entire book, and left me feeling actively annoyed and disappointed.

The Girl Who Woke the Dreamer ; Laini Taylor - ★★★★★. 5/5. AND THEN THERE'S THIS ONE.

OH, MAN.

I almost want to just leave this review at JUST THAT cause holy shit how do you review this one.

It was SUCH a perfect ending to this book, I just, oh my god, it was so beautiful and perfect and wonderful and fantastical and FUCK THAT MINISTER MAN and idk it seemed all about the "fuck Christianity pro-nature pro-paganism" that I feel down in my bones and the depth of my soul, and I JUST COMPLETELY ADORED THIS STORY. idk other people might be able to say that it's "fuck a very specific kind of Christianity", which I get and agree with. But this "very specific kind" is like.. 99% of all people who follow it. Including all of history and what America was founded on and what people are trying to work into American law. So like. Yeah.

Enough about that though. Oh my GOD, this whole story and situation and everything about it. THE WRITING. OH, MY. THE WRITING. Holy shit I do not do favorite authors, but I think Laini Taylor just found her way into a spot amongst my favorites anyway. This is not the first story of hers I've read that has been written this beautifully, so I believe it's a consistent thing and I AM IN LOVE.

The only thing that made me sad was leaving all the other girls behind in the dust. So things went WONDERFULLY for Neve... but what about all the others? Are they going to be left behind to rot in unwanted, rape-y relationships? Was this society and the situation fixed at all? Was the shitty oppressive religion silenced in favor of the old one, the real one, the one that doesn't empower horrible people and punishes ACTUAL wrong-doings and sees all people as equals?

I sincerely hope so.

A BOOK COULD BE WRITTEN ABOUT IT TO ELABORATE.

Yanno. Just saying.

Oh my god I am so happy with all the diversity and differences and equality and YAAAAS in this book. SO HAPPY.

Things that could have made it all even better: A LADY-LOVE ROMANCE. Or some other form of gay relationship – like maybe someone who's bi! Or even ace or pan – THAT would've been wonderfully rare and unexpected!

I do realize that the average of my star ratings should put my overall rating at about.. a 3.8. But, seriously – the ones I loved, I loved SO MUCH, that it completely overrode any feelings I had about any of the ones that I didn't. They were just THAT GOOD, that I could ignore the meh ones' presences entirely and go right ahead and fucking love the entire compilation anyway.

I mean, it's not like I didn't appreciate the efforts and the stories and what all the others were trying to get across. Everything still had its own sweet or sad notes and it all still felt appropriately Christmas-y to me.

So, yeah, I can still honestly say I adored the whole book and would shove it in the faces of people who are in the mood for some cute romantic shit and are ready to barf Christmas everywhere. :D Barfing Christmas everywhere is my LIFE each December. So this is absolutely for anyone who does the same!

Those five-star stories I'll read YEAR-ROUND anyway, not even gonna lie, they were THAT GOOD. I'll barf Christmas in JUNE to re-read that shit.

#book reviews #my true love gave to me #stephanie perkins #★★★★★ #young adult #short stories #romance #favorites #stunning covers #owned #print book #stand alone #jomp original