#this show reminds me of how much I hate the fish out of water trope

[booasaur]

The Man Who Fell to Earth (2022) - 1x02

#tmwfteedit #the man who fell to earth #justin falls #naomie harris #this show reminds me of how much I hate the fish out of water trope #time travelers and gods and apparently aliens #like...why don't you just observe for a bit instead of assuming everything's exactly like where/when you came from #my annoyance aside it's a PACKED cast #and of course naomie harris is always the most watchable part #and they did give me this scene with her arms #and shoulders! #so I can't fully hate

[hexalt]

Schitt’s Creek and the Transformative Power of Love

I first watched the pilot for Schitt’s Creek in the early part of 2019 and found it...eccentric. Not really funny, the characters weren’t speaking to me (except for Stevie (Emily Hampshire), whom I felt a kinship with), and the story seemed odd. I decided this show just wasn’t for me, and I had given it my best shot. Many months later, one of my best friends was posting about it frequently. Since we have the same taste, I thought maybe it was just the pilot. Maybe I should give it another shot. Maybe this time I’ll actually like it. So I started it from the pilot again, and I kept watching even if I wasn’t thoroughly entertained. I soon grew to love the two black sheep and having characters you understand always makes things easier.

What I didn’t realize when I started the show was that the characters were each more than they seem, they weren’t meant to be shallow jokes of themselves and their personas. The way they acted was often a façade hiding their insecurities of not being good enough in a variety of ways. The only other show that I’ve seen with a somewhat similar premise is Arrested Development, but there the characters are supposed to be absolutely ignorant, privileged assholes with no redeeming qualities.

I didn’t realize each season is better than the last, an astounding and rare feat in television. The quality of each season improves as the show quickly finds its footing by discarding early storylines that didn’t really work and letting the characters slowly becoming more grounded and open. This family that was once so distant that the parents didn’t even know their daughter’s middle name eventually develop genuine relationships for the first time with each other and other people.

Schitt’s Creek, co-created by father and son, Eugene (American Pie, Best in Show) and Dan Levy, wanted us to ultimately empathize with these characters, even if the remnants of their wealth can make them profoundly delusional and hilarious a lot of the time. Before writing the show, they created timelines going back to their characters’ elementary school years, detailing everything from where they worked to what they wore.

The fashion on the show is distinct and the best dressed I’ve seen in any show (and most films). Dan is huge into fashion and personally selects a lot of pieces worn in the show (some of David’s clothes are even from his own wardrobe). Instead of constantly telling the audience that this family used to be rich, we are reminded of it through Moira’s wall of wigs and couture black and white ensembles, David’s patterned black sweaters and low crotch pants, Alexis’s bohemian dresses and headbands, and Johnny’s array of business suits. When they enter any room in town, they are clearly fish out of water.

Schitt’s Creek centers on the Roses, a once-disgustingly wealthy family who lose their fortune and are forced to move to the only asset they have left: a small town named Schitt’s Creek that Johnny Rose (Eugene Levy) bought as a joke for his son, David (Dan Levy). So dilapidated is Schitt's Creek and so destitute are the Roses, they don't even have a house of their own; instead they are forced to live in a motel with two connecting rooms, forgoing all the luxury they had become accustomed to and, more terrifyingly, are now physically closer than ever.

While at first the family is horrified at the prospect of living in such a small town with townies, they eventually embrace the weirdness of the town, and it makes them grow in unexpected ways. Johnny was once the owner of the second-largest video rental store in the country and retains his businessman-like self through and through, but he also began the show more uppity. While he is often the most reasonable of the Roses, he often sees himself as above others in town and gets into awkward situations because of it. Over the course of the show he ends up developing a friendship with the town mayor to whom he initially had yelled “get the fuck out!” While he’s always devoted to his wife, he wasn’t so keen on his children, but being forced to live together makes him take a larger interest in their lives and become a better father.

Alexis (Annie Murphy) is the quintessential “dumb blonde” socialite who’s had a Schitt-ton of relationships with powerful men, making stories of her past highly entertaining, often illegal, and frequently frightening. She clearly grew up way too fast, never having had proper adult supervision. She’s reliant on men, and all she can think about in season one is trying to date cute guys. In the following seasons, she realizes it’s time to start growing up and gets her high school and Associate’s Degree to start her own PR business. She becomes a more enlightened version of herself, still deeply kind but also willing to put the happiness of others above her own. The Alexis who previously couldn’t see beyond her own nose becomes independent and more selfless.

David’s had hundreds of flings with people of all genders, but they seem to be replete with abuse, manipulation, and a lack of care for his being. This is unsurprising when we see how he hides his insecurity behind sarcasm and sometimes downplays things he doesn’t like to fit in. He fears showing kindness to anyone because others haven’t always been so kind to him. Early on, he has a panic attack and comes to the realization that he’s “really lonely here,” but he’s been lonely for a lot longer than that. What he doesn’t expect is to make his first best friend or find his soon-to-be husband in this backwater town. In the process, he learns to shed some of his armor.

Moira (Catherine O’Hara) was once on a soap opera, Sunrise Bay, and retains the melodrama in her day-to-day life and demeanor. She is constantly trying to become what she believes is a star: someone who acts in film, someone who everyone mourns when they die, someone who people will just pay one sliver of attention to. She’s desperately trying to cling to the spotlight, but in “Life is a Cabaret,” she finds what I believe will be her place come this final season. Rather than trying to constantly soak up attention, she gives Stevie the starring role in the town’s production of Cabaret (which Moira comes to direct) because getting that role was a “gift that once jolted [her] out of [her] little podunk routine.” From the wings of the stage, as Stevie slowly builds into “Maybe This Time” with such breathtaking passion and joy after starting off unsure and quiet, Moira is shocked at what she was able to bring out of Stevie. She’s finally realizing that her place isn’t center stage but in bringing out the best in others and helping them find their place in the world.

Stevie Budd begins as the desk clerk of the Schitt’s Creek motel until her great-aunt passes away, and she inherits the motel. From there she has to decide whether she’s ready to grow up and take over the family business, and she’s terrified. Johnny soon teams up with her in the business, renovating the motel and renaming it after both of them, so she sees the Roses aren’t going to abandon her. She is part of the Rose’s found family. Her and David are similar in their bluntness and sarcasm, but Stevie is insecure about never making it out of the town, never being more than a motel desk clerk, never having a long-term romantic relationship. She worries while everyone moves on with their lives, she’s “watching it all happen from behind the desk.”

Dan describes creating Schitt’s Creek as “writing a world that examines the transformational effects of love when the threat of hate and intolerance has been removed from the equation.” While homophobia is often front and center in any media depicting LGBT characters, Schitt’s Creek doesn’t give it as much thought. Where small towns are usually seen as ripe for homophobia, transphobia, and other discrimination, Schitt’s Creek doesn’t fall prey to this trope. Instead, this small town is bursting with love.

Dan purposely made David pansexual (it’s also the only show I’ve seen use the word) to challenge the viewer’s biases and push the boundaries of what it means to be masculine and feminine. David’s parents and others in the town never discuss it as anything strange or bad, it’s something he simply is and as common as the sky being blue. When David tells Stevie about his sexuality (“I like the wine, not the label”), she’s a bit surprised at first because she thought he was gay, but ultimately she doesn’t care.

This doesn’t mean the show never discusses what homophobia can be like, but it comes at it from a different lens.

For example, in “Meet the Parents,” David decides to throw a surprise birthday party for his boyfriend, Patrick Brewer (Noah Reid). What David doesn’t realize is Patrick hasn’t come out to his parents yet, they think David is solely his business partner. He tells David, “I know my parents are good people, I just...can’t shake this fear that there is a small chance that this could change everything.” David himself is prepared for homophobia from Patrick’s parents, but when they tell him they don’t care about that, just that he was hiding such an important part of himself from them, David who’s been trying to stay strong through it all wipes a tear.

“When I found myself in a position to tell stories on a global scale, I seized the opportunity to make a television show that might, in its own way, offer some support, encouragement and love to those who might not have it in their homes or in their schools or in their day to day lives. It’s a place where acceptance incubates joy and creates a clarity that allows people to see themselves and each other more deeply. It’s fiction, yes. But I’ve always been told to lead by example and this felt like a good place to start.”

— Dan Levy

I would be remiss to not touch on the comedic style of the show. This is a comedy that relies heavily on the physicality of its actors. Their facial expressions, accents and tonality, their limp wrists, each create uniquely funny characters with mannerisms unlike any I’ve seen. The cast brought nuance to the characters, when they could have easily fallen into vapid stereotypes.

As season 6 premiered on January 7, Schitt’s Creek is not done yet, and I can’t wait to see how its final season concludes. The characters are all happier now that they are achieving dreams they may not have known they had, they have fulfilling relationships with family and friends, and they all have grown into better people. Schitt’s Creek truly was their saving grace.

*

I’m in a TV group where we wrote essays on our favorite shows of the 2010s, so here is mine on Schitt’s Creek.

#schitt's creek #television #tv #lgbt #lgbtq #writing #mine #long post #*

[obxlife]

In Need of Help (Pope x Reader)

A/N: Okay, so I had this idea for Pope and I knew I had to write it! I just feel like it’s very sweet and soft and idk. Plus, it has an enemy to lovers trope, which I personally love. Also, the valedictorian and salutatorian at my school are also dating and I just got that idea from them lol.

Word Count: 3,513

Request: -

Summary: Pope finds himself with some trouble regarding his scholarship work, and he knows he can’t turn to his friends for this. Instead, he sucks up his pride and turns to you, the runner up for the Lucas T Vanderhorst Merit Scholarship. Oh, and his enemy regarding academics. 

Warnings: Mild swearing.

IN NEED OF HELP

Pope was in trouble. Not serious trouble like JJ regarding his dad or John B in relation to the DCS and basically being homeless. No, Pope was in trouble in a way that may almost seem absurd. 

He was struggling with his goddamn scholarship essay. And the worst part of it all was that he had technically already won the scholarship. 

See, this was just a follow-up essay he had to do to ensure he was not going to be ripped apart from the opportunity of actually getting the scholarship. And it had been the hardest essay he had to write. Mainly because it asked for more of a story instead of focusing on a scientific topic, and Pope had always struggled with that. 

The paper he was writing his draft on was filled with eraser marks and little doodles around the edges. Most of the doodles were of things he could see. His eraser, his pinky finger, his cup of water on his desk. There was only one he wasn’t really sure why he had drawn. It was the one object that was not in the room with him at that instant, and the worst part of it all was that he truly hated it. What had he drawn? You. 

For some reason, Pope had drawn you onto the edge of his paper. He didn’t really understand why he had because, as mentioned before, he hated you with a passion that ran so deep in his veins it was a part of who he was. Pope could not be himself if he didn’t hate you, and it was just the same for you. You couldn’t be yourself if you didn’t hate Pope.

Pope began to rub his pencil over the small drawing of your face, wanting nothing more than to get you out of his head. He hated that he had drawn you of al people, and he hated how stuck he was on this stupid essay.

Pope hadn’t realized how much force he was using to press his pencil into the paper until he ripped it. Throwing his pencil down, Pope sighed and pressed his hands to his head, stretching in his seat. 

“That’s it,” he said to himself before grabbing the papers from his desk, his pencil, his eraser, and his pencil sharpener into his backpack. He then grabbed the folder that had arrived through the mail and gently took it into his hands. Pope turned outside of his room and headed towards the shop in front of his house.

His father was behind the counter, checking an old lady out.

“Dad,” Pope called out to him from the door. “I’m heading out.”

The older man froze. He thought he had told his son to work on his scholarship. “I thought I told you to work on your scholarship. Now you know I don’t want you slacking around -”

“I know, I know,” Pope told him. “I just need to clear my head. I’m going over to John B to see if my friends can help.”

“Look here, boy,” Heyward called out to his son while pointing his finger out. Pope stood at the door, on hand already pushing it open. “What are your friends going to help with? They’re all a bunch of good-for-nothings.”

Pope sighed, only shaking his head and turning towards the outside, throwing a “Later, Pops” over his shoulder. The hot afternoon air made Pope’s body break into a sweat, but Pope didn’t mind as he headed deeper into the Cut towards John B’s fishing shack. 

The Chateau stood mighty and tall before the marsh and surrounding it were Pope’s friends. JJ was laying across the hammock sipping on a beer and a joint in his hand while Kie lay opposite of him, playing the ukelele. John B was nowhere to be seen, which meant he was probably inside.

“Hey, guys,” the dark-haired boy called out to the pair. He smiled as he saluted them with their usual handshake before taking a seat in one of the broken-down chairs. Pope set his backpack on the ground, careful not to fold the papers in his hands.

“What you got there, Pope?” JJ asked curiously. Pope knew what he held in his hands would not interest JJ, so he told the boy straight out what it was.

“Scholarship stuff.”

Indeed, JJ shrugged and turned around, bringing the joint back to his lips to take another drag of it. Kie, instead, showed interest in the papers held between Pope’s fingers.

“What do you have to do this time? Another essay about something science-y?” she wondered. 

Pope nodded but then shook his head. “Sort of. It’s an essay but they want a story. But I don’t know what to write about. Like, most of the stuff we do is illegal.”

Kie laughed at this before saying, “Then lie. Just take the illegal parts out.”

“Hard to do when they’re essential to the story,” Pope replied. 

Now JJ laughed, smiling at Pope and diving into one of the many illegal memories they had made together.

While this helped Pope clear his head, it was not guiding him as to what to write for his essay. After about an hour or two hanging out, Pope sighed, knowing he would now have to work on the essay.

“Okay guys, I need y’all to be serious right now. I really need to get this essay done. Any ideas?”

Kie and JJ stared at him blankly, not really knowing how to help. Pope groaned at their reaction, but then groaned even louder when Kie said:

“Why don’t you ask Y/N Y/L/N? Wasn’t she second place for the scholarship?”

“Kie, I literally hate her. We’ve been competing over the top spot in our grade for our whole lives.”

Kie shrugged. “Yeah, but now the scholarship is yours anyway. And besides, didn’t you say the only thing she was better at than you is story writing?”

“I said that when I was drunk,” Pope deadpanned.

“Doesn’t mean it wasn’t true,” JJ said quickly before taking another sip of beer. 

Pope really didn’t want to go see you. He had way too much pride to do so. But his options were wearing thin and he had to send this essay in a week, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to do so himself. 

“Well, even if I went to Y/N, I doubt she would be willing to help.”

Kie gave him a hard look. “You don’t know that.”

“Neither do you, Kie,” Pope sighed. “Look, I’ll go to her but she probably hates my guts. I did take the scholarship from her.”

“Hey!” JJ scolded. “Don’t say that, man. We know you won it fair and square. You deserve it.”

“I know I did. But that doesn’t mean she won’t hate me for it. We all know she needs that scholarship just as much as I do to get into college.”

It was true. You had lived your life down in the Cut, working just as much as Pope did with his father. Your mother was the owner of a small boat repair shop which she had received after your father’s death. Because she couldn’t and didn’t know how to work on boats and because your father had taught you everything you know, you were the head repair woman there. Everyone on the island knew how much time you dedicated to the shop, almost as much time as you dedicated to school. 

“Look, man. Let’s be real. Everyone born on the Cut knows they’re probably going to be stuck here forever. You and Y/N were just lucky to have the opportunity to might have not been stuck here, but in the end, you got it. I’m sure she won’t be bitter towards you because she probably still expected her life to be spent on the Cut either way.”

Pope sighed. He knew what JJ was saying was probably true but he hated to think of that. 

“Just go to her, Pope,” Kie told him. 

With that, Pope collected his belongings and headed out towards your shop. It wasn’t far from the Chateau, maybe a five-minute walk, but Pope managed to get there in thirty minutes. He was trying to push back the inevitable. 

Once he arrived he stood outside for another good ten minutes, building up his courage to go in. Breathing in deeply, he told himself that he was going to be fine and that your hate for him had probably dissipated a bit since the end of the school year. He opened the door to the shop and found it was empty except for two men looking down at the bottom of a boat. 

They didn’t turn around when Pope had entered, too concentrated on the person Pope just now saw that was under the boat. 

“What you thinkin’?” one of the men asked as you pushed yourself from out under the boat. The skateboard you were laying upon was uncomfortable and your muscles sighed in relief as you stood up next to them. 

“We’re gonna need two orders of plugs from Guffy and then we can start working on this bad boy,” you told them before wiping your forehead. “Well, I’m off, boys.”

And just as you spun around your eyes fell upon the boy at the door.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

Pope could only smile innocently, hoping you would spare him some time of day. 

“What do you want, Heyward?” you asked rudely while heading towards the back of the shop. Pope began to follow you around, sparing a glance at the two men you stared at him dirtily. 

Pope was sure you hated him now.

“Look, I-I need your help, Y/N. And I know you hate me but I really need it.”

Anger and pain were laced in your eyes as you spun around to face the dark-skinned boy. “Yes, I do hate you. And I don’t want to help you. You took the scholarship from me, Pope.”

“Well, technically I didn’t. I won it. But,” he raised his hands in defense when you gave him another murderous look, “I seriously need your help. They gave me a task I know you’re better at than me and I don’t know what to do.” 

You began to tie your hair into a ponytail as you felt your skin grow hot with anger. “So what? You thought you would just strut in here and I’d be willing to help?”

“N-no, but I thought -”

“You thought what? That out of the kindness of my heart I would actually help you? Need I remind you that you took the scholarship from me?”

“I didn’t take the scholarship from you! I won it, fair and square and you know that!”

Your eyes fell to the ground, defeated. You knew what Pope was saying was true, but the denial had helped you cope with the fact that you weren’t enough for the scholarship. You weren’t enough to get out of the Cut.

“Look, Y/N,” Pope began awkwardly. He was scratching the back of his neck, not sure if he was going to be able to get you to help him. “I know you wanted the scholarship - hell, you probably wanted it more than me. And I’m sorry you didn’t get it because you truly deserve it, but I’m not sorry that I got it. And I know that’s selfish, but let’s be real here. We both want to get off the Cut, and we always knew that only one of us was going to make it. So please, please, please help me get out of this place.”

You thought about it. Really hard. And Pope stood before you fidgeting with his fingers and doubting if what he said was the best thing he could have said. He opened his mouth, a rant about to burst through his lips.

“Fine,” you stated. You were going against your instinct, but at least you would get him to shut up. “I’ll help you. But I get free groceries for a month.”

Pope stuttered before answering. “What - you - I - you know I can’t do that! My dad would kill me!”

“Well then, you’ll have to pay with your own money.”

“Okay, fine! But only because I’m really desperate.”

****************************************************************

And so you and Pope began to work together every day for the following week. It only took two hours for you to drop your grudge against him and laugh at his stories and jokes. He would smile at your reactions and feel his previous hate for you to slip into something more similar to love. He began to notice how pretty your eyes were when they seemed to sparkle in the afternoon light and how your skin reminded him of warm summer days. You began to notice how your stupid hatred for him began to transform into a crush. His chocolate brown eyes reminding you of coffees on chilly, winter mornings and his soft smile reminding you of innocence.

Between your hours spent working together, you would talk about other things. You told him about your mother and her disease (which didn’t let her work at the shop with you) and how your friends at school were all out of town because of a road trip they had planned which you couldn’t go on. He told you about the Pogues and the pressure he felt sometimes from his dad. You both told each other a lot more than you had ever expected to share, but the feeling of comfort and understanding that followed these confessions was enough to maintain the both of you stuck together.

Exactly a week after Pope had approached you at your boat shop, you both headed together to the post office that was near the police station. Together you sealed the envelope containing the finished essay and placed the post stamps onto it. You watched Pope pay for the dispatch of the letter and then you walked out together. 

You felt dread in your stomach, not wanting to have to turn your back on your new friendship. You didn’t know if Pope felt the same way as you did, but you felt like you had come to the end of your short relationship. You felt as if, years from now, you would look back and remember Pope as the boy you only helped write an essay and nothing more, which made you afraid to no end. You didn’t want Pope to be only that.

Unbeknownst to you, Pope felt the same way. He was expecting you to turn towards him and say goodbye, followed by a snarky remark. He expected you to go back to hating him and not thinking about him. All he wanted was you to prove him wrong.

“Do you want to grab something to eat?” you both asked at the same time. Then, your eyes widened at the same time, both of you shocked that you wanted to carry on with your friendship.

“Wait, you still want to hang out?” you asked him. Pope nodded vigorously.

“Yeah. Did you really think I wouldn’t want to be your friend anymore?” he asked, a little hurt.

“Shut up, you thought that about me as well!”

With smiles on both of your faces, you turned around towards the Wreck, where you knew Kie would give Pope a discount.

**********************************************

The Pogues hadn’t seen their smart friend for a month. Ever since JJ and Kie had convinced him of reaching out to you for help, he had disappeared.

“Pope pulling a Houdini,” JJ remarked as he arrived at the Chateau to find that, once again, Pope was not there.

“Have you guys even heard from him?” John B asked. 

JJ shrugged but Kie bit her lip. “I see him at the Wreck every once in a while. He’s been hanging around with Y/N.”

“Y/N?” John B said almost laughing. “Okay, we both know they hate each other and that’s a lie.”

“I’m not lying, JB,” Kie rolled her eyes. “I literally saw them there yesterday.”

“No way! Pope has to be dating her!” JJ exclaimed. “It only makes sense! Future valedictorian and salutatorian.”

“That would make a cute couple,” John B muttered while thinking about it.

Kie coughed, trying to bring the boys’ attention back to the main issue they had. “Look, guys, we need to get Pope to hang out with us again. He’s been blowing us off and I do not have enough patience to keep you two from doing dumb shit.”

“Mama’s mad,” JJ whispered. This earned him a smack on the head of the girl.

“Let’s just head over to her shop and see if they’re there.”

*********************************************

“Wait, so JJ stole some boat plugs?”

Pope nodded, perched upon the edge of the boat you were working on. He was leaning back, a book in his lap, as he told you one of his many crazy stories about his friends.

“I don’t know why you asked for my help for the essay when you have so many stories to tell.”

Pope sighed. “As I’ve said before, most of them are illegal.”

You nod your head at what he was saying, agreeing with him. You continued to work on the boat as you felt his eyes upon you.

Pope was looking at your eyes at first. He was counting how many flecks of color they held. Then, he moved onto your skin, noticing how smooth it looked. He wondered if it would feel smooth against his fingers, or if your mouth would feel smoother. He then noticed how plump your lips looked, and Pope could feel himself leaning closer to you.

“Y/N?” he called out so softly you almost didn’t hear him.

You spun your head to look at him, suddenly noticing how small the distance between the both of you had become. You felt butterflies erupt in your stomach and you wondered if he felt them too. Your heart was pounding in your chest, and you could only wait until his lips were pressed to yours.

Feeling nervous, Pope began to speak. “I d-don’t want this to be awkward but I’ve been wanting to kiss you for a while.”

You nodded your head, inching even closer to him. His lips looked a little chapped, but you were sure that it wouldn’t matter once you kissed him. 

“And I don’t know if you feel the same or if you -”

“Shut up, Pope,” you giggled before plunging forwards. You pressed your lips to his own, moving them and giving him a few seconds to respond. When he did you smiled a little before continuing what you were doing. Your arms reached up to hold his face while his arms brought you closer to him and positioned you between his legs. Pope’s thumb was drawing circles right at your waist, and you finally broke apart from him when the door of the shop opened.

You didn’t break eye contact with Pope, but a sudden loud whoop made you stumble away from each other. Spinning around you found JJ, John B, and a girl you recognized as a Kook standing before you. You were frozen in place as Pope headed over to them to cover up JJ’s lips. 

“Pope boy finally getting some action!” John B hollered while you felt your cheeks go red. The girl rolled her eyes at his friend before sending you an apologetic look.

It only took Pope three seconds to round them up and take them outside. You got back to working on the boat, trying to distract yourself from what had happened. You felt embarrassment rise up inside of you at being caught kissing the boy you liked.

Soon enough, Pope returned inside and stood next to you. You didn’t turn to look at him in shame and fear at what he might say.

“They wanted to see me since, you know, I haven’t been hanging around them recently.”

“Oh.” This was the moment Pope was going to tell you he didn’t want to be friends with you anymore and that he had now noticed how you were all too time-consuming. However, the boy surprised you.

“They invited us to hang out tomorrow. They said they want to meet you.”

You smiled and turned to look at him. “Really?”

“U-um, yeah. They kind of think you’re my girlfriend so…”

You blushed at that thought. Being Pope’s girlfriend was something that made your insides swell and feel light and soft and good. 

“Okay.”

“Okay as in ‘yes, I want to hang out with them’ or as in ‘yes, I want to be your girlfriend’?”

You furrowed your eyebrows. “Is that your way of asking me to be your girlfriend?”

Pope awkwardly nodded before looking at you. The smile on your face seemed to be glued on and Pope copied your facial expression. You leaned in again, kissing him softly.

“Take your guess, Pope,” you teased him while smiling. 

“I really hope it’s the second one.”

#outer banks #obx #obx netflix #pope heyward #jonathan daviss

[esonetwork]

Timestamp #226: Let's Kill Hitler

New Post has been published on https://esonetwork.com/timestamp-226-lets-kill-hitler/

Timestamp #226: Let's Kill Hitler

Doctor Who: Let’s Kill Hitler (1 episode, s06e08, 2011)

Hello, sweetie.

Prequel

A phone rings as the TARDIS is in flight. The answering machine picks up and Amy leaves a message.

As the camera pans across the console and the dark control room, Amy asks if the Doctor will fulfill his promise to find Melody Pond. Even though she knows that everything turns out okay, she doesn’t want to miss Melody’s childhood.

The Doctor listens intently, but doesn’t pick up the phone. He’s clearly wracked with regret and sadness.

Let’s Kill Hitler

It was once a nice wheat field. Then the Ponds plowed through it, scrawling the word “Doctor” into the crop. They stop in the middle of the O – a giant crop circle – to find the TARDIS and the Doctor in his new pea green double-breasted coat. The Doctor shows them a newspaper article chronicling the event.

It turns out that this was the only way Amy and Rory could figure out to get the Doctor’s attention. He consoles Amy: He will find Melody because River lives. The moment is shattered by police sirens, a speeding red car, and a woman named Mels. The new arrival holds the Doctor at gunpoint and demands to be taken in the TARDIS. It seems that she wants to kill Adolf Hitler.

Flash back to a long time ago in Leadworth as young Amelia, your Rory, and young heretofore-unknown Mels grow up together. Apparently, Mels knows all about Amelia’s “imaginary” friend, the Doctor, and that knowledge gets her in trouble. A lot. Including stealing a bus. She’s also present when Amy finally figures out that Rory loves her.

In the present, Mels, Amy, and Rory take a trip in the TARDIS. Mels actually shoots the TARDIS console while in transit to Nazi Germany. In Berlin, 1938, those same Nazis are being observed by a team with future technology as a machine (posing as a custodian) shapeshifts into a Nazi officer. That team is inside the machine, a highly advanced ship called the Teselecta, which shrinks the Nazi officer and draws him inside. Since the officer is responsible for a series of hate crimes – after all, what Nazi wasn’t? – he is disposed of by a series of “antibodies”.

The Teselecta then goes to Adolf Hitler’s office and activates Justice Mode, but two things interfere in the plan. First, they are too early in Hitler’s time stream. Second, the TARDIS crashes through the wall into the office.

The Doctor evacuates everyone from the TARDIS as it smokes away, then stashes Mels’s handgun in a bowl of fruit. The travelers are beside themselves for actually saving Hitler. The Teselecta tries to attack Hitler again, but he shoots the ship before being stashed in a nearby cupboard by the Doctor and Rory. The Teselecta feigns a fainting spell while the crew analyzes the TARDIS and determines that the most wanted war criminal in history has arrived.

Also, Mels has been shot by Hitler.

Mels, short for Melody, regenerates into a very familiar form. Mission complete. Well… sort of. This new woman has no idea who any of her traveling companions are, she is incredibly self-centered, and has maintained her programming that demands murdering the Doctor. She tries multiple times with every weapon in the room, but the Doctor is several steps ahead of her, but he misses the poison lipstick.

Melody jumps out of window and takes on a squad of Nazis. The soldiers try to shoot her, but she survives due to her regenerative state and uses the discharged energy as a weapon. She picks up their guns and drives away on a motorcycle. Rory and Amy give chase with the sonic screwdriver, followed by the Teselecta disguised as a Nazi soldier.

The Doctor enters the TARDIS and extracts the smoke. He consults with the TARDIS voice interface – the sequence of trying to find a face that doesn’t remind him of his failures is hilarious – and determines that regeneration is impossible due to the poison extracted from the Judas tree. The interface mentions “fish fingers and custard,” inspiring the Doctor to set a course in the TARDIS.

Melody storms a restaurant and demands that the patrons give her their clothes. Outside, the Teselecta takes Amy’s form and miniaturizes Amy and Rory. Just before being killed by the antibodies, the Ponds are given clearance privileges and taken to the control room.

The Teselecta nearly passes judgment on Melody for killing the Doctor, but the Doctor arrives in a tuxedo and top hat. He uses a sonic cane to scan the ship. He also verifies that the Ponds are okay. The Teselecta places Melody in stasis before the crew explains that the mete out justice to war criminals at the ends of their respective timelines. Amy convinces the crew to offer any help they can to the Doctor.

The Silence, a religious cult who believe “silence will fall” when the oldest question in the universe is asked, are behind the plot to kill the Doctor. When the Teselecta crew reveals that they don’t know what the question is, the crew resumes their torture of Melody.

The Doctor asks Amy to save her daughter, so Amy disables the crew’s privileges so that they will all be attacked by the antibodies. The Teselecta releases Melody and the crew is teleported away to a mother ship. As the antibodies descend on Amy and Rory, the Doctor tells Melody to save her parents.

As the Doctor faces his imminent demise, he begs Melody to help him. She talks to the TARDIS and learns to fly the ship, rescuing Amy and Rory before returning everyone to the Doctor’s side. Melody Pond, a child of the TARDIS, wonders who she is. The Doctor asks her to find River Song and pass on a message.

As the Doctor falls unconscious, Melody asks who River Song is. Amy uses the Teselecta to show Melody her own face. Melody decides to pass on her regeneration energy – all her remaining lives – to the Doctor with a kiss, thus becoming River Song.

River wakes up in a hospital with the travelers looking on. The Doctor’s message was that no one could save him, which made her think that she could. This is how she learns Rule #1: The Doctor lies. The travelers leave her with the Sisters of the Infinite Schism to recover, complete with an empty TARDIS-shaped diary. She’ll find her way back to them in time.

As the Doctor ponders the data he downloaded from the Teselecta, River Song enrolls at the Luna University in 5123. Her motivations are simple: She’s looking for a good man.

There are a couple of items working against this fun ride: First, the introduction of the previously unknown Mels. Second, the crux of the assassination of the Doctor relies on him being the smartest man in the room again.

The first can be explained if we’re looking at the events of this season through Amy and Rory’s perspective, therefore seeing a low-impact change in the timeline after Melody’s birth and abduction. The second, while an annoying feature of the Steven Moffat era of Doctor Who, adds a lot of humor and hangs a lampshade on the Doctor’s blind spot for River Song. Especially considering the fact that she is the person who kills the Doctor, an act for which she is imprisoned and is now revealed to be a fixed point. The second also hearkens back to the Ninth Doctor in Boom Town, but it worked there because it wasn’t as much of a storytelling crutch for Russell T. Davies.

That humor, coupled with the character development for River and the Doctor, really makes this story work. The origin story for River Song helps tie off her story and could have provided a convenient story terminus if not for the character’s immense popularity.

The humor also worked because it was self-deprecating. The scene with the TARDIS voice interface poked at the ongoing theme with companion departures and shame, invoking Rose, Martha, and Donna in the process. The scene also point us back to a moment of combined shame and innocence by invoking Amelia Pond, whom the Doctor had not yet screwed up but did leave hanging for her childhood years.

Going back to Rule #1, we find out in this story that temporal grace – the state in which the TARDIS interior exists – houses a “clever lie”. The Fourth Doctor claimed that weapons could not be used inside the TARDIS in order to stop Eldrad in The Hand of Fear. Of course, we already knew that it wasn’t absolute from Arc of Infinity – “Nobody’s perfect,” claimed the Fifth Doctor when challenged by Nyssa about a Cyberman shooting in the console room – as well as The Invasion of Time, Earthshock, Attack of the Cybermen, The Visitation, and The Parting of the Ways.

With all of the discussions about Doctor Who canon/continuity in fandom, it’s a good reminder that Doctor Who canon/continuity has never been consistent.

This story also presents a fascinating parallel to The Caves of Androzani, during which the Doctor was poisoned by could survive by regenerating. The Doctor had several lives to spare at that point, but this encounter comes at the supposed end of the Doctor’s regeneration cycle due to the events of Journey’s End and The Night of the Doctor.

There are also several other franchise callbacks: We’ve seen “justice machines” in the past, though they were in the form of the Megara; We’ve previously seen the TARDIS materialize in a micro environment, courtesy of Carnival of Monsters, and materialize in a micro state, courtesy of Planet of Giants; We’ve seen the TARDIS materialize around people and objects before in Logopolis, Time-Flight, The Parting of the Ways, and The Waters of Mars; We’ve also heard about transferring regeneration energy in previous adventures like Mawdryn Undead, the TV movie, and The Ultimate Foe.

I’m also a sucker for the “Doctor who?” title drop gag, which has been around since the beginning. It makes me snicker every time.

All told, I really enjoy the action, the spirit, and the heart of this story. It takes a tired time-travel trope (“Let’s kill Hitler!”) and turns it on its ear to both develop characters and move a story along. Well done.

Rating: 5/5 – “Fantastic!”

UP NEXT – Torchwood: The Gathering

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

#Doctor Who #Eleventh Doctor #Timestamps Project

[elizabeatrice]

Feeling Blue, Seeing Red (Chapter 69)

Let’s Talk About JSHK Manga #5

Updated: 19/8/2020 (more thoughts)

Bea is back with the lame punny titles~

Warning: !!! MANGA SPOILERS UP TO CHAPTER 69 !!! Duh.

Soooo I opened the raws this morning. Saw the spicy and went 'ohh shoot'. Then some of y'all say that some folks are hating Akane bc of this chap. I proceeded to panic, because fandom war is scary af. So I translated the chap for myself. And I just gotta say:

Aoi, Nene, your boyfriends are idiots. Y'all gonna be punching and headbutting the idiocy out of them for the rest of your lives and I'll be willing to pay for your karate classes.

The teen drama made me laugh so hard ahahahaha I guess this is what you get for hoping sensei will drop a bomb this month lmaoooo.

P.S. Teru you little shit

Man I don’t even know where to begin. This chapter is oozing doraaaaama and I can’t take it seriously no matter how much I try. I remember thinking, “Shoot, this is the ‘I hate you, I hate you too, proceed to make out’ trope in JSHK’s classic ‘oooh serious moment, eh? PSYCHE!’ style,” before bursting into laughter.

I swear I’m not making fun of it.

Because it’s already fun to begin with. Ahahahaha.

I do however, take seriously the long-awaited insight into Aoi’s mind. I hollered in joy, y’all. ‘Cause like ... finally!

(Also like ... ngl the development of Aoi and akaoi in this arc might come into play in my Shrek AU. Pls don’t ask. Yet. That’s not the official AU name I swear I just wanna confuse my readers ahahaha)

Back when chapter 64 came out I wrote something that was supposed to be the first of the Let’s Talk About JSHK Manga series but I ended up not posting it because I wasn’t sure about a bunch of things. Here’s an excerpt from that post, titled ‘Aoi and Her Blues’:

I mean, what did the minions do to her? ‘Remove unnecessary things’. Someone said they removed her inhibitions (I’m terribly sorry I forgot who said this because it’s been so long so I can’t put the link here, but if you know, feel free to send me the link).

But she has to be brainwashed, right?

She remembered enough about Nene. Enough to call her out on her feelings (that she still denies btw lol) and recognize Hanako from Nene’s wonderful description (or because Aoi could see him all this time and never said anything, who knows?).

Most importantly, she remembered Akane.

So apparently they weren’t unnecessary enough to be erased from her memory. Which I’d beg to differ if I were going to make this girl willingly sacrifice herself.

Would she let her best friend fall down into a pit full of giant insects, or let her childhood friend get impaled? I mean this is the same girl that cried when Akane and Yamabuki got together (by accident) and when Nene started talking to herself like a madwoman.

So yeah. Definitely brainwashed. Pretty sure now.

The one thing that bugged me is what she said though.

“I’ve always wanted to go somewhere far away.”

“Nothing will stop me from getting my wish.”

Btw these aren’t accurate word for word I’m just drawing from memory.

Is that a wish forced upon her by the brainwashing, or has Aoi been depressed all this time and ... y’know, therefore thought about ‘going far away’? I’m personally leaning more towards the first, but it still got me thinking.

Remember back in The Clock Keeper arc when she said there was something she wanted to tell Nene?

Can some creepy hands showing up in the gardening club’s album photos really warrant that kind of expression? Is it just me who got disappointed when the thing she wanted to tell Nene ended up being just that?

But if she did have such thoughts, why?

Maybe she was lonely? I mean Nene got so busy with supernatural shenanigans. Akane’s busy with student council stuff (and school wonder stuff). Though I don’t doubt for a second that he’d drop everything for Aoi, but Aoi’s not the kind of person to do that. And to be honest, I feel like so far Aoi hasn’t been shown having genuine interaction with anyone aside from Nene and Yamabuki without the other person being completely enamored by her. And even with Yamabuki that was just in that After School chapter.

So I guess my hunch wasn’t that far off. Still though. Still though. Is she or is she not brainwashed? Because as much as Aoi likes-but hates-but actually kinda likes Akane, I still don’t think she’s the type of person to stab her childhood friend until he’s got a hole through his fucking torso.

Throwing Nene into the bug pit I guess makes more sense if Aoi knew all along that the pit won’t lead anywhere too dangerous, and that Hanako wouldn’t leave Nene’s side. Nene’s perfectly safe with him. Sorta. She did get kidnapped and were about to be sacrificed after all. But heeey Hanako still showed up to save her in the end.

Stabbing Akane like that tho? Even if she knows he wouldn’t die in a boundary especially in his school wonder form? It just doesn’t feel like Aoi, man.

Then again she did say no one really knows her, and that anyone who does would end up being disappointed in her.

I’m really happy to know that she does not, in fact, appreciate all the attention given to her. Comedy framing aside, constantly having some random guy approach you to ask you out presumably every day is ... annoying at best. Kid deserves better.

So ya girl got some extreme trust issues. Strangers, even Akane and Nene, I could understand. But her dad tho? Is something going on in the Akane household? Bruh ....

How long has Aoi not been able to trust anyone enough to let them get close to her? Because if she’s been feeling like that about Nene all this time, Imma be super sad bruh. Nene is one of the most genuine kids ever (perhaps only second to Kou).

I understand that Aoi’s disappointed because Nene’s been keeping secrets, but honestly, who would believe you if you come up to them and say, “Hey so I summoned a toilet ghost and now I’m stuck as his assistant. The rumors about supernaturals are like, totally real, and can endanger everyone in this school for real, too. Also I turn into fish when I come in contact with water.”

Sensible best friends would either a) not believe you, or b) try to get you as far away from supernatural shit as possible ‘cause hello? Ya ain’t Miles Morales ya can’t just blast What’s Up Danger when monster of the week shows up.

Even if Aoi does let it continue, wouldn’t she wanna get involved? Would Nene let her get involved when Tsukasa’s still around? Ya girl got cursed, thrown off the top of a boundary, sent to literally nowhere and everywhere, almost got her body stolen by mirror monsters, kidnapped and taken into a fake world, and now trapped in literal Grim Reaper’s realm. Honestly, who would involve their best friend in this sort of shit?

It just makes me sad to think that all this time Akane and Nene have genuinely cared about her but she didn’t think they were. Aoi, my girl Nene literally threaded hell boundaries and high shallow water to save you!!!

Unrequited platonic love hurts just as much as romantic ones, y’all ....

Speaking of romantic love.

Hey, uh, Akane. For claiming to despise Hanako and calling him a slimy pervert, y’all kinda act the same way with your respective girlfriends when things get a bit heated up, huh? Even the teasing part.

Boy, you’re dumb af. You deserve that.

There it is y’all, it’s official. We got punches for akaoi and headbutts for hananene.

You deserve this too. But Teru’s face here is really annoying, I’ll give you that. Teru you little shit.

At least you’re finally gonna be useful. Let’s just see.

Hmm I guess I have to address the thing now.

Ahem. The thing. The pushing (pulling?) Aoi down, grabbing her neck thing.

Yeah I don’t get it either. Whether it was a creative choice taken in consideration to the actual character’s state or to just pander to the trope that seems to be marketable in Japan or both, I don’t really know.

I do however, have to remind you that none of these kids are in their right mind. One is possibly still recovering from the effects of brainwashing and dealing with not only extreme trust issues and insecurities, but also the sight of a gaping hole on her childhood friend and perhaps crush’s torso, not to mention having to deal with this in the middle of nowhere. The other one is the said person with a gaping hole on his torso, who almost lost his life-long crush, and even got stabbed by her in the first place.

They’re lost. They’re tired. They’re emotional. They’re frustrated. They’re two hormonal teens.

I think Akane thought Aoi wouldn’t listen to him unless he makes her. Which is why he went with exposing her by saying he hated her. Which is still a dumb move in my opinion. But Aoi rightfully got back at him. And honestly I didn’t think he really hurt her. I mean, it’s Akane after all. *shrugs*

The way I see it, the entire thing was a result from not only their current condition but also the uh ... not telling each other how they really feel all this time. Aoi with her issues, Akane with his secrets. They’re a ticking bomb. It’s horrible that they ended up hurting each other because of this (physically and emotionally), but I could see why it went like this. These two are flawed. Most importantly, they’re teenagers. They’re bound to fuck up in this equation.

Heck, I’ve fucked up worse in less endangering situations before.

But heeey once things get cleared between them they fall right back to each other. Sure things aren’t entirely resolved. But they’re gonna be okay. Teru’s there. Should be fine. Probably.

The thing is we as the audience who come into the story with a clear head can easily figure out the best, most sensible way to deal with the characters’ problems. But these problems affect the characters in (physical, physiological, psychological, emotional) ways most of us can’t immediately empathize with, which can make their bad decisions frustrating for us to see. We know it’s wrong. And when these characters have calmed down and healed, they’ll know that it’s wrong, too. If they’re not dicks, that is.

You know how it feels when you’re fighting with someone, and you know the best thing to do is to talk it out, but you just can’t bring yourself to? It makes things worse, right? And you’re frustrated, right? Unfortunately that’s just how humans are.

Even I let my emotions get the best of me when I judged the villagers’ actions back in chapter 68 hahaha (but I still think they’re awful).

It’s just my opinion tho.

And whooo everyone is officially here but Yamabuki (and Sakura and Tsukasa, but they’re bound to show up)! Catch up soon, my citrus child.

Lastly, I have the moral obligation to remind you that if akaoi’s confrontation ended up like this, imagine how hananene’s would be.

I’ll leave you to your deductions.

As always, feel free to discuss. Just ... don’t fight, onegaishimasu.

#jibaku shounen hanako kun #jshk manga spoilers #tbhk manga spoilers #aoi akane #akane aoi #minamoto teru #yashiro nene #let's talk about jshk manga #bea rambles #just in case it's not clear i'm not supporting physical abuse okay #i have really morbid sense of humor #and i still love my sons no matter how idiotic they are #i do tho pity my daughters #(this is about the karate class comment at the beginning btw)

[canumoveurseatup-no]

Fortress

summary: he doesn’t get in your brain, he doesn’t fill up the spaces. you don’t whisper his name now that you’ve built a fortress.

word count: not sure? but there won’t be a keep reading tab bc i am on mobile.

pairings: peter Parker x black!reader, father!rhodey x black!reader

warnings: it moves fast, angst hoe, bad boyfriend (peter even though i feel like he wouldn’t be one), running away from your problems trope.

a/n: inspired by fortress by lennon stella. please reblog and comment, it’s 2019- support your fandom authors :)

————

“Let it out, sweetheart,”

You never cried over a boy. A fucking boy. Never had anything moved you like this and it shook your spirit and didn’t sit well with you.

“I hate him,” nose stuffed, lips dry from the salt in your tears, you could only imagined how bad you looked.

It’s not like he cheated, he was just a shit boyfriend then had the nerve to hit you with “it’s not you, it’s me” bullshit.

You had no idea why he even called it a relationship- it was an unrequited love. But he thrived having someone finally pine after him, he was addicted to your sadness and it’s taken this long for you to see that?

———

“Stark!!” You stormed into the compound in search to give him an earful about how much of an ass his verbally adopted son has been.

“Uh oh,” he muttered and turned around but not before sighing to himself and praying for the Lord to give him strength, “Y/N!!,”

You were seething, finger trembling as you pointed at him, “Don’t you Y/N me!!,”

“What did he do now?”

What didn’t he do? He completely blew you off in front of your friends just to hang out with MJ and Ned as if he hadn’t been the entire week. You’ve only been seeing him at school and Avenger related tasks.

You explained everything to Tony but it’s not like Tony could do anything. What could he do? Give peter a wag of the finger and a time out? That’s not how it works.

You sigh and realized this was going to fix nothing, so you stormed out and went straight to your room to sit and think what could be done.

———

Did he even care at all? He could have called it off a long time ago to avoid all of this but it probably gets him off to see you still double texting and sliding up on his stories to reply just for him to leave you on read.

It wasn’t until he hadn’t texted you all day or even talked to you in school that you decided to build those walls up all over again and move on. It might be ridiculous to let a simple boy get to you like this but something has to be done.

“Dad, I think I want to go to that all girl’s boarding school,”

Sitting with your hand in his, you felt him squeeze it in reassurance. He proposed that idea a while ago, knowing the horrors of public schools.

“Y/N I don’t think you should be letting him run you off like this,”

“It’s not me running away. It’s self care,”

A simple bandaid on a gunshot wound.

“If you’re sure... I’ll call in the morning”

———

All those quiet nights Peter spent on you had you thinking he meant it when he was really talking out the side of his neck, making you think he was deep while he talked about something he supposedly wanted.

But it was really what you wanted, and he knew that... he knew exactly what to say and because of that you kept letting him take you.

“I can’t believe after crushing so hard for so long you’re finally mine,” you whispered, head lying on his chest, hearing the steady beat of his heart. He was so good at lying to you that you couldn’t even hear a skip when he lied.

“I care so much about us and where we end up. Thank you for letting me in,” every time he kissed the side of your head your cheeks would heat up and every nerve in your body would tingle.

The show he put on was always so believable, he deserved a standing ovation now.

“Tony says he’s proud I chose a good one. I can see what he means. You mean so much to me”

Did he ever feel the way you did at all?

———

No one knew you were leaving, they didn’t need to. Rhodey arranged the plans and as bad as it hurt to see some fucking idiot run his daughter off, you said this is what you needed and who was he to argue with that? You were old enough to make your own decisions.

Everyone threw a conniption when they were informed of your absence weeks later when it came time for another battle and it was all hands on deck and someone finally had the courage to ask where’d you’d been.

“Well where’d she go? Rhodes?” Natasha frowns and stares at the man who wasn’t reacting like everyone else.

Peter didn’t miss the way he cut his eyes to him before shaking his head.

“She’s fine, that’s all that matters”

“Bullshit!,” Tony guffaws

“Y/N wouldn’t just leave,” Peter pipes up.

“Oh what do you know?,”

Peter looked across the table at Rhodey and didn’t have much to say then. Peter then realized he never knew you at all. You were just someone who showed him the attention he was starved for.

He became an Icarus and had flown too close to the sun.

Running out of the room to dial your phone and only getting a dial tone.

You cut your losses, knowing you’d never be the same after this. You hated feelings, you hated crushes, because someone always gets... crushed, and not in a good way.

Peter tried calling he doesn’t know how many times until he tried the compound phone itself. The caller ID came up on your phone as “home #2” but you knew it was probably him.

You ignore it. That’s be the best. You were thriving. You made friends- your friends were your own- you didn’t have to share his, you didn’t have to worry about mutual friends.

This was for the best.

———

Ned and MJ were doing their best to calm Peter down but did he really have a right to be upset? He didn’t give a fuck about where you guys ended up nd everyone could see that, even if he said he did.

He just saw it too late.

“I hate to break it to you Peter but... I don’t think this is fixable,” MJ shrugs, “She’s come to me about her feelings multiple times and I’ve tried talking to you about it for her but you just won’t listen... she built those walls back up. Her heart isn’t on her sleeve anymore it’s surrounded by a fortress now,”

Peter didn’t want to hear that. He looked to Ned for help but all his best friend could do was frown and look away, knowing the truth of where you stood.

“How could I let this happen? How did I let it get this bad?,”

“You got off on finally having someone, especially someone as sweet as her. I don’t know what it is with the male species but you all are so attention hungry that you forget to take yourself off your own mind for even a millisecond to see the damage your self centered tendencies have caused,”

MJ was not the one to sugar coat it. Sure as Peter’s friends that didn’t do much to help because they did always hang out even if you and Pete had plans.

“A sweet girl like her can only get her heart broken once before she’s never the same again,”

———

Break was here that fast? Were you ready to go back? Were you ready to see everyone? Ready to see him?

Months have passed and he’s tried calling from different numbers, leaving 9 minute voicemails and long ass text messages. You applauded yourself for the self restraint.

You were better than that. You are better than what you were receiving.

“You know he’s going to be there? I can get you a room at a hotel if you want to avoid it,” Rhodey was good to finally have you home for a good month. Visiting you every weekend didn’t do justice for your bond as father and daughter.

“I’ll be fine. He doesn’t move me”

You’ve told yourself that enough to the point where you believed it without a doubt and that’s why you could walk in the doors of the compound and greet everyone without batting an eye at him.

His breath hitched at the sight of you. You were glowing- you were smiling- something he didn’t see much before you left.

Your eyes were already red from lack of sleep and worrying yourself. Skin always dull from pushing yourself to seem put together. He now sees how fake and pitiful your smiles were before. Seeing you now was how you first were when you two started “dating”- it should have never gotten to that stage of no light.

“We missed you, kid,” Clint picks you up and twirls you around.

“I missed you all too,”

“It’s late, but let’s get you settled in and you can tell me all about life where you’ve been,” Natasha took your bags.

Being in your old room was refreshing. Everything was the same and nothing was moved not even. A centimeter. Nat let you clean up in your own space before you called her back.

Hearing a knock on your door, you expected it to happen.

“Peter,”

You didn’t even have to turn to look to know it was him.

“Y/N,”

You were placing clothes in your dresser when he stood awkwardly at the door.

“How you been?,”

“That’s not why you’re here. Now is it?,” no point in beating around the bush right?

“Why’d you leave?”

“Why’d you turn a lover into a savage,” spinning on the heals of your feet you shoot a question right back and found it amusing how he looked like a fish in water trying to thin of an answer.

“All the words you don’t say speak the loudest, Peter,”

“I never meant to be so bad. I- I let it get to my head that I finally had someone who liked me and while I didn’t feel that was at first, I was getting there-,”

“You can’t force yourself to like someone, Peter,”

He knew that. But he feels that way now- but at what cost? it’s too late and he knows that.

“You said you gave a fuck about us but you didn’t and now I see that and that’s fine,”

He went to speak but you stopped him. He had more than enough time to realize his lack of effort before it got this far.

“You don’t get in my brain, you don’t fill up the spaces. My brain is finally void of any thought of you and it’s honestly exhilarating!!,”

You’ve thought about this moment for months. Rehearsing what you’d say until everything was scrapped now and you found the right words.

“I can finally see things that used to remind me of you and not whisper your name. You can stand right there and probably get on your knees begging for me back but I still wouldn’t let you in now!,”

“I’m so sorry, Y/N. I should have been better,”

Yeah- he should have been. Maybe this will be a lesson for him to do better, to be better.

“Tell me,” you step closer and look him in his eyes, “Did you ever feel the way I did at all? Before it even got to this point?,”

He couldn’t even maintain eye contact- that was all the answer you needed

“Get out,”

“Wait, Y/N just listen-,”

“You don’t get my attention anymore!!,” voice booming over his, you stormed passed him and opened your door wide, “Now get out!,”

He still hesitated and you stomped your foot in frustration, now he wanted to stay and be around you? Now that you didn’t want him... how rom-com of him.

“Now!!,”

Your shout was like a jolt of electricity in him that got in to move quickly. You slam your door behind him and catch your breath. Breathing slowly to calm down. That needed to happen. Now you feel like you can finally move on, you said your piece, getting any last words off your mind and feelings off your chest.

Now that you’ve built a fortress, you’ll never be the same. He never felt the way you did at all.

——————

This was probably bad? But I finally had inspiration to write so I hope this is enough. It’s 3 am and I needed to write this before I couldn’t.

Please reblog and comment!!

tags: @vozit @yournonlocalpoc @babybubastis @blackreaders-assemble @retroxvailles @mokacoconut @marvclheaux @dumbchick @warmchick @spideys-wife @xye-weirdo @m00nlightdelights @micki-smiles @veryhellshdia @never-enough-time-for-sleep @here-for-your-bullshit @valynsia @valkyriesnymph @chonisberonica @valentinevirgo @crawlingnightmares @hisxblackxqueen

#black!reader #avengers x reader #mcu imagines #mcu x reader #black mcu imagines #marvel imagine #marvel one shot #marvel x reader #poc!reader #poc reader #peter parker x reader #peter parker x black!reader #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker oneshot #peter parker angst #peter parker imagine #avengers fanfiction #mcu fanfiction #marvel fanfiction

[raayllum]

Why the Boat Scene in 1x05 Gives Us All the Warm Fuzzies (And Solidified Rayllum As A Romantic Pairing)

Evident from my S1 Rayllum Meme, the Boat Scene from 1x05 is my favourite moment in my favourite Rayllum episode in the first season. So, with S2 now a few months back, and me somehow having never talked about this scene before, I figured now was as good as time as any. But before we get into body language, soft looks, and foreshadowing, as always, let’s take a look at the context. 

Rayla hates boats. Callum suspects this ( “Is there maybe another reason you don’t want to take the boat? Something you’re not telling us? [...] So wait, are you like this back-flipping, tree-climbing, sword-stabbing elven warrior, but scared of a little splish-splashing?”) but none of the kids can deny that using the river would save them a lot of travel time, and Rayla agreed, so here they are.

And Callum decides to tell a story and a joke, as Ezran is busy with Bait and Rayla seems out of sorts, although not to the extent she is later. And although his joke doesn’t work, it is worth noting that it was a genuine attempt to make her laugh/smile, and even to show off a bit:

C: Bait loves the water, but he should be afraid of it. You wanna know why he’s called Bait? R: Not really. C: Well, I’m gonna tell you anyway. It’s kind of a sick joke I guess. Glow toads? They’re apparently delicious. R: Gross. C: Deep sea fishermen use them to catch giant fish, stuff like that. That’s why he’s named Bait. Get it? That’s my stepdad’s sense of humour. 

The joke doesn’t work though, and Ezran interrupts them over concern for his scaly friend. Having tried humour and telling a story of his own, when Rayla’s state gets worse, Callum shows real sensitivity to her discomfort in addition to attempting something else.

C: Are you doing alright? R: I’m doing great. I just love boats, so much. That’s why i’m down here. To be close to the boat. C: Tell you what. I’m gonna ask you five questions. R: Please don’t. C: C’mon, it’ll be a fun distraction. Help take your mind off things. R: Five questions. That’s all you get.

Like before, Callum won’t be deterred. Instead of focusing more on himself, he’s also turned his attention to be more wholly on Rayla and to get her talking, instead. His first question is about Xadia, naturally, as he’s already shown a big interest in magic and Xadia “this place with just magic everywhere.” He’s incredibly eager to hear what she has to say, pushing even when she gives a very finite answer: “Yes, next question.”

And Rayla lightens up as well, turning away from the boat to the nature around her. 

R: In Xadia, magic is in everything. It’s no different than saying everywhere you look there’s nature. It’s just part of the vibrance, or spirit of things, you know?

Callum becomes more invigorated as well, completely abandoning his previous paddling of the boat. He moves and gets up to face her now that she’s shifted her position as well, and watches her as she speaks.

Her nausea and unease have completely faded (and notably, do not return) and she even looks like she’s enjoying the boat ride now, gazing at the scenery and thinking fondly of her homeland. A fondness and appreciation that Callum, a human, also expresses in wonderment, like he’s homesick for a place he’s never even been.

C: I can’t wait to see that. It sounds incredible. R: Yeah. Yeah, it is.

And Rayla’s voice softens as she agrees with him, because perhaps she wasn’t thinking of Xadia was incredible, but it really is and he’s reminded her of that. Callum leans into her space and they share a soft smile, and this moment more than any other read as ‘romantic’ to me. Not just because lovers on a boat ride is a very old trope in Western literature, popular since the 1800s. For most of my ships, how their future might look and how compatible they are in the long run tends to be very important on if I can ship something. Antoine de Saint-Exupery once said, “Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.”

This scene told me that Rayla and Callum were looking in that same direction through the appreciation and shared wonder they could both have for Xadia. Callum, for unlearning his prejudice and expressing excitement and respect, and Rayla, for it being where she belongs. And as Callum’s interest and desire for magic only grew stronger throughout the season(s), it only strengthened the foundation this scene put down: these two, post war, living in Xadia together, and reminding each other of how incredible the life they’ve built together really is.

Then, there’s also the sweetness of how Callum has genuinely cheered Rayla up, almost despite her best efforts. 

C: See, it’s working right? Don’t you feel a little better? R: Maybe so. Ask your next question.

And his elation at having successfully completed his goal of cheering her up leaves him, unlike before, humble, with the use of “little better.” He’s no longer smug or puffing himself up in every way. And not only does Rayla admit that she’s achieved it, but she also gives him permission to continue his questioning that she reluctantly agreed to before. In addition to this being a sweet scene all around, it also highlighted one of Callum’s main motivations in S1 (which I’m sure we’ll see more of a return to in S3, although it was always simmering below in S2) which is to get to know her. He likes this girl, in his own words, and even against his better judgement. 

Hence why his next question moves from her country to something more personal of her family, because he genuinely and really does want to get to know her at basically every opportunity he gets. Even earlier when he was asking about her fear of water, it was an attempt to know.

And this scene shows her letting him in, and them discussing the place I truly believe will be their home some day, and why Rayllum taking a romantic turn in S2 was something that did not surprise me at all.

Life, after all, is like a river.

#rayllum #tdp meta #tdp #s1 #1x05 #analysis #analysis series #water motif

[velvetgons]

hyunsuk as your boyfriend

word count; 3.3k i’m sorry 

warnings; hmm i don’t think anything but possibly swearing i can’t be sure!! 

requested; no uwu i’m a new blog :) 

(also to gif makers; if you don’t want me to use your gif for any reason please just tell me and i’ll remove it!! apologies in advance if that’s the case!!) 

gif credit; bggon on tumblr!! please tell me if you’d like it removed :)

ok so uh let’s just give it a lil background

you decide to go out n get some new clothes bc u know. u got some extra money to spend why not

and you take some of your friends!! and you’re shopping and having a good time and everything is great

until you see this cute lil blue dress and you’re like ‘that’s The One, i need that dress……very necessary to my daily life’

so you tell your friends that you’re just gonna go find your size and they’re all “yes!! get the cute dress!! we’ll see you at the check-out!!”

so you’re about to grab the dress when you see,, the exact same dress except this time! it’s in red

so now you’re completely torn obviously because :// do you want the blue one or the red one,, they’re both cute,, but what’s gonna look nicer on you,,

and you’re just kinda stood there staring at them both because it turns out both colours have your size and now you don’t know what to do with urself

n just as your about to pout and go find one of your friends to help you pick you hear a Boy VoiceTM  

and it’s just a quiet lil, “you should get the red one!”

but it makes you turn around because whom said that to you

and you see….a cute boy….just kinda smiling at you while he looks at a shirt or something,, and he smiles even bigger when you look at him and just kinda shrugs before saying, “it’s a prettier colour!!”

part of you is like ?? i’m not gonna get the red one just because a random stranger thinks it’s a cool colour

but the other part of you wins because it’s like “:) you’re right red is a rlly cute colour :) i’ll get this one thank u fashion advice stranger”

and he smiles back at you before he turns back to the clothes he’s looking at and you know you’re supposed to just grab the dress and go now

but. you,, want the cute boy stranger to turn around again,, so u grab another random two articles of clothing and tap him on the back to be like “what about out of these two??”

and you just. keep doing it. and he keeps answering,, to the point where he doesn’t even turn around anymore because he’s giving you all his Focus

so now you have an armful of clothes that ur not gonna buy and he’s offering to carry some for u while u get them checked out and ur like “haha! of course! this is a great idea!”

and like. he isn’t dumb he knows what ur doing so he’s like. hyping himself up in his head like ‘come on!!! she’s clearly into you!! you’ve got this!! just…ask her out and if she says no! it’s all good! we’ve got this bro!’

so he takes a deep ass breath (n u think for a second that you’ve done something wrong) n is like “or…u could like idk man just…idk get the cute red dress and wear it…when i pick you up for a date…maybe like…tomorrow or something…” and in his head it sounds really smooth n nonchalant

but in reality it’s just a jumble of incoherence but you heard date and tomorrow so you’re like “yes!!!!!!!!!! yes this is Very Good i am free tomorrow pls do that” n give him your phone to save his number in

and he’d save it as ‘fashion god (a.k.a hyunsuk)’ with like fifty hearts next to it

((also as a side note you’d have to text him ur own name because he wouldn’t even ask for it in the store…… a charismatic king))

and that would be the story you’d have to give to your kids one day about how you met their dad :) very romantic

anyway! with that being said! let’s get into actually dating him

hyunsuk is a Loud Boy and is most of the time a Happy Boy

and he would constantly try and make sure that you’re feeling equally as happy as him because!! he really just hates the idea of you being upset or down

he hates it so much when your upset because of something outside of his control (like school, work, college) because he just doesn’t know how to fix it?? and he’d resort to doing really dumb stuff to get you to smile at him !! because seeing you :( makes his heart physically hurt

honestly he would melt if you did the same thing for him…..like….if you showed clear concern for him or hyped him up in anything he does the babey smile you know the one loll and feels his heart go zooooooom

i don’t think he’d actively go out of his way to show affection in public but it would definitely just happen

like. sometimes he’s just walking and the next thing he knows he’s tangling his hand with yours and giving your knuckles each a lil kiss

or you’re standing in front of him and his arms just kinda outstretch and pull you really close to him and he’s burying his face into the crook of your neck

or you’re just stood next to him minding your business when you’re tugged into his side and feel him leaving lil kisses on your cheeks while he calls you cute

all of his friends are Disgusted and beg him to not do that right in front of them 24/7 but like. he genuinely doesn’t notice until he’s already done it

however! if you initiated affection (in public) he,,,, blushes,,

in private you two are always attached somehow so it’s more unusual for you two not to be touching

his favourite form of affection would be when you were cuddling and you snuggled your face into his chest ! he’d literally go blank for a second before he’d yell something abt u being cute

i also personally see hyunsuk as someone who would wanna talk about so much all the time??? like…his mind is just buzzing with stuff all the time and he’d love having someone to share that with

and you’d have to do this late at night a lot (because of his schedule) but when he’d come to yours and if you were still awake, you’d both kinda just lay facing each other in bed with ur pinkies linked really loosely while you talked about a bunch of different stuff

they’d be long conversations too!!! you wouldn’t need to ask each other what you’d been up to that day because you’d be talking pretty much all day oof

so you’d be talking to each other about random stuff you thought of!! he’ll ask you about your views on stuff like ghosts and aliens and conspiracy theories, and you’ll get to hear his, and he’ll talk to you about his favourite songs and why they’re his favourites and he’ll really want you to explain yours too, he’d also ask dumb stuff like “do u think fish can see water” and would want a genuine answer 

but overall those would go on for hours and you’d only know he was ready to finally sleep when he curled an arm around your waist to pull you closer to him

speaking of cuddling!! hyunsuk would go between being the little spoon or having you lie on his chest to sleep

he loves being the little spoon because,, it’s such a warm experience,, so safe,, and bundled up,, and he’d definitely wrap himself up in a blanket before doing it for Maximum Comfort

but! he also loves having you sleep on his chest because “you’re my baby!! you’re so small it’s where you belong!!” (even if you’re taller than him hyunsuk what) he just,, loves how close you feel to him when he knows you can hear his heartbeat and he can feel how warm you are and he can see you falling asleep and it makes him feel so !! warm inside

he’d definitely introduce you to his friends really quick into dating you lol because?? what if you guys don’t get along?? they literally mean The World to him??

but of course you would i mean. what’s not to like

and they’d tell you embarrassing stories about him (seunghun would go into immense detail of how hyunsuk talked about your first date, including an oscar worthy rendition of hyunsuk talking about your first kiss)

you’d probably tell hyunsuk that you were scared of byounggon and hyunsuk would CACKLE

he’d be like “him?? he?? he’s a Baby! he’s the Sweetest Boy!” and then place all of his efforts into getting you and byounggon to be certified best friends

and like. it would work but more because you and byounggon had to bond over who would take care of him in his chaotic inventive ways to get you and byounggon to talk and communicate (including: accidentally locking you two in the practice room so you’d talk through ‘your issues with one another’ which would literally end up with you showing byounggon dumb pictures you had of hyunsuk on your phone and him giving you music recommendations)

[a/n; using that as a way to talk about something else,, writer of the year :)] we all obviously know that hyunsuk is very music orientated as a person!!! and he wouldn’t hesitate to share that with you through either his performances, his producing, or just music he likes

he’d make multiple playlists for you that would be for different things! (songs he wants to show you, songs that remind him of you, songs he wants to you to listen to and tell him whether performing them would be a good idea etc.)

he’d also love for you to show him your favourite music because he’d personally see music sharing as something very intimate and special!!! and if you ever told him about songs that reminded you of him he might actually have a heart palpitation

but i think in general he’d wanna be involved with something you’re interested in because you supported him so much in his passion!! if you were into art, he’d wanna know all about what you were drawing/painting and he’d find cute museums to go to together! if you were into writing, he’d wanna know what you were writing about and he’d wanna find you cool notebooks and stationary to use for it! he’d just wanna involve himself in any way possible to let u know he cared about it too!!

now onto his other Big Hobby

he…is now your personal stylist…a fashion king…he will not let you change his name in your phone…

he wants to go shopping to find cool clothes all the time! and now he has someone else to take with him! and someone else to try and dress!

i know there’s like the dumb Boyfriend Trope of ‘no :( you can’t wear that because it’s revealing :(‘ but like………hyunsuk wouldn’t care lmao

he sees something he thinks you’d look cute in?? he immediately jumps to get you to try it on for him!! it’s not a weird thing he’s just a fashion king and needs everyone to know that you two are the Best Dressed Couple

speaking of which! dating hyunsuk would be such a healthy thing !

he’d be a lil heavy-handed at first just because he’s not 100% on what he’s actually supposed to be doing

but once he figures out how dating actually works, it’s over for literally everyone else

like, at first, he might get jealous quite a lot because :(( what if u find someone better :(( but then he’d kinda re-evaluate and be like ‘i could…literally talk about this…what’s stopping me…’

and then you’d have a conversation about it where you’d reassure him that he’s your man!! you like Love him and stuff!!

from then on i think dealing with issues that came up in your relationship would just,,, get easy to him??

like, you’re jealous over someone else? that’s okay, you guys can talk about it and work it out!! he’s stressed and tired and just wants alone time? he’ll explain it to you in a calm n rational way without snapping at you!! you snap at him because you’re stressed and tired and just want alone time? he understands, but he tells you to tell him next time!!

he just can’t comprehend that any of the things you two work through are actually genuine problems for other couples because?? he finds them so easy to avoid

that’s not to say you two wouldn’t argue, because like, everyone does. but arguments would just,, end so quickly because

first of all: he hates there being tension between you two, and hates the idea of upsetting you even more

and second of all: he’d calm down quick enough to talk things through calmly and discuss a good way for both of you to fix your problems

and ! the relationship would never ever feel one-sided

you’d support him so much!! you’d remind him to get sleep, and to eat and drink regularly, and to not take the criticisms too harshly because he knows how good he is

((a side note: you’d probably Go Off at some point about yg and how gross he is for being so mean and never complimenting hyunsuk because you knew it upset him and you’d be ranting and gesturing around with your hands and probably yelling a lil bit and hyunsuk would just be looking at you like (✿╹◡╹) because his heart is so warm while you’re talking about burning the yg building down for him))

and he’d support you just as much!! he’d remind you to not overthink things, and to take breaks if you had studying to do, and would call you at least once a day if his schedule was packed just to get a quick run-down on how your day was going

also, on the topic of phone calls, sometimes he’d just call you and leave the call going while he did other stuff

most of the time it’d be while he did writing or producing

but if he wanted you to ‘be there’ during his dance practices he’d facetime and just kinda,,, leave it going while him and everyone else did their routine

and you’d either be doing other stuff or watching but either way you’d hype them all up for how well they were doing

and hyunsuk is（￣ε￣ʃƪ）because oh boy!! he loves you a whole bunch

onto another topic but he’d really wanna have you meet his family only after he knew it was gonna be serious with you two !

and he’d already know his family would love you so he wasn’t stressed (you definitely were, but he was just like “no!!! they’ll love you because they love me!!!”) and from then he’d really love for you to be close to his family

but oh boy meeting your family. he’d have a heart-attack

what if they didn’t like him?? what if they thought he was a bad influence?? he couldn’t handle that

(you’d go to meet them and you’d be calming him down because “you’re literally the cutest sweetest most charming boy i have ever met?? how could anyone ever hate you??”) and he’d still be super nervous but. two minutes into being through the door he has it! he’s got ur whole family just as whipped for him as you are by the time he leaves

he’s like the meme of ‘your mum asked me to ask if you wanted to come to dinner with us at your house tonight :)’

hyunsuk is also definitely the type to wanna get you guys a couple item!! and he’d try and find something really ugly because he’d think it was funny to see your reactions to the cringy couple shirts and hoodies

but then one day he’d come over n be like “hello i have done it again!!”

and ur like “oh no. why. what did you do. i’m too young to go to prison hyunsuk pls”

and he’s all “:) no silly we finally have a couple item”

and ur immediately like. “no. i won’t have it. take it back! no more micky and minnie mouse matching hoodies!! i won’t do it and you can’t make me!!!”

but he’s like “no i promise it’s a good one this time :( please”

so u allow him one chance…..just one….to prove himself…..

and boy! does he do it!

he gets out a cute lil box n he’s chanting like a lil kid when he gives it to you and he’s like, “open it open it open it!!”

and you do and :(( it’s this cute lil locket and you look up at him like :O

and he’s grinning so big and nodding for you to open it and when you do there’s your favourite picture of him in it and you’re !! so happy that you don’t know what to do with yourself

but then he’s like “wait! that isn’t even the best part!” and he shuffles about for a second and wham! he’s wearing a matching one

and ur like :O this is the cutest thing in the entire whole wide world

but ! he opens it up and he’s grinning at u n he looks like he knows something you don’t and there!! is a picture of you where you’re in a shirt of his and the lighting’s kinda bad because you’re kinda sat up in ur bed and ur grinning real big at something

and ur like “:/ hyunsuk that is the ugliest picture of me”

he would be. genuinely offended. he would pop off ! he would be gesturing around with his hands and rambling about how “that’s so dumb??? u look so happy?? and so cute??? and it’s my favourite picture of you ever???”

from that day obviously you wouldn’t take yours off because uhm that’s so cute

but like you just think he’ll wear his when it fits in with whatever the current days LookTM is

but………he wears it All the time…..(but he does take it off to sleep n shower because he’s scared to damage it!!!)

also i firmly believe hyunsuk isn’t the type to get jealous very easily anyway, but as i said earlier he wouldn’t find talking about it difficult

like,, if there was a situation where someone was being too touchy with you and it made him uncomfortable then he’d wait until later and then tell you kinda like, “hi idk what u think of this but it just made me kinda uncomfy :// can we talk abt it” and you would !! and you’d find something that worked for both of you !!

i mean hyunsuk really is like. that boyfriend

i know this is super long already so i’m gonna go into a quick fire bit;

he would completely and totally buy you chapsticks whenever he saw any !! like now he just buys two of each as a natural reaction to seeing them

leaves u notes if he has to leave early however they’re not like ‘ily see u later mwah’ they’re more like dumb jokes he thinks of or drawings of weird animal combinations he thinks of

totally accidentally steals the covers in the night if you guys move away from each so he buys you the cutest most fluffy blanket he can find as an apology

also!! his kisses would be the best ever?? he loves giving you lil cheek and forehead kisses 24/7

has to give you one (1) kiss every time you have to leave and one (1) kiss every time he sees you  

but he gives you two (2) kisses every single time you compliment him!!!

overall! i think hyunsuk would be one of the most relaxed and easy-going ((and best but you didn’t hear that from me)) boyfriends anyone could ever have

thank you for coming to my ted-talk

#this was just something to get started if anyone sees it lol #ygtb scenarios #ygtb imagines #yg treasure box scenarios #yg treasure box imagines #ygtb reactions #yg treasure box reactions #:)) uwu thank you if you read it #writings//

[boystownbirdie]

LMRTV4U: Round 2

Welcome to the second edition of Let Me Recommend TV 4 U? This post was created especially for those lost souls who don’t know what to watch next. Also, this post contains NO SPOILERS. So proceed willy-nilly!

Best show you can easily catch up on: The Path

It has recently come to my attention that this show is NOT being watched by everyone. Here’s the deal: Aaron Paul (of Breaking Bad fame, duh) stars as a happily married man who finds out the religion he was a part of is actually kind of a cult a la scientology. Michelle Monaghan is his wife whose family has deep roots in “the movement” and Hugh Dancy is an up-and-coming leader in the faith. It sounds hokey on paper but give it a chance. Maybe it’s my obsession with the Jean Valjean vs. Javert thing all over again but I love when a story doesn’t have a clear villain and when the sincere motives of opposing sides is so clear. Aaron Paul is totally justified in questioning his faith but his wife is also right to believe the “movement” is doing actual good. I love a grey area and this show is full of ‘em

Where can I binge? Hulu- It’s a Hulu original and the first season (only 10 eps long) is available now! Season 2 is coming out as we speak with 1 ep being released per week.

Where to start? Start with season 1, episode 1 or you’ll miss

Skip it if: You’re cult-ed out after Going Clear and the Master and the recent revelation that Tom Cruise is probably responsible for a Trump presidency. http://theslot.jezebel.com/the-scientologists-voted-for-trump-1791558434

#1 reason to watch: The acting is amazing and Aaron and Michelle’s teen son “Hawk” is a Heath-Ledger-look-a-like with all the angst and sexual tension of Heath himself back in the 10-things-I-hate-about-you days

Best comedy that will also have you bawlin’:One Mississippi

Tig Notaro stars in this semi-autobiographical series based on the time period in which the real Tig Notaro suddenly lost her mother, went through a breakup, was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy, and then had a terrible, ongoing case of c.diff. Sounds hilarious, right? The real gem here is the slowly evolving relationship between Tig and her stepfather which is at times painfully awkward and painfully sweet. And it’s impossible not to imagine the cautiously flirtatious scenes between Tig and her now-wife Stephanie Allynne as re-enactments of their early courtship. (ps: the gif below is NOT from O.M. but still shows Tig and Stephanie together) 

Where can I binge? If you have Amazon Prime it’s on Prime instant video

Where to start? It’s a short series- only 6 eps at 20-something minutes apiece- start with ep 1

Skip it if: You’re not a Tig Notaro fan/ you just don’t like that whole deadpan-thing

#1 reason to watch: If you are a Tig fan, it’s amazing to get a deeper glimpse into this time period that seems to be the worst possible combination of circumstances. It’s a sweet reminder to know that life can get really, really, really shitty and while nothing can replace your loss, you can still find true love, have adorable twins, and do some of your best work as a performer.

Best British import: Fleabag

Similar to One Mississippi, it’s on Amazon Prime, it’s a short 6-episode series, it’s a “comedy” which will leave you in tears (maybe now is the time to tell you that it doesn’t take much to make me cry so take all of this with a grain of salty tears), and it’s about a woman dealing with several recent losses and breakup. Fleabag is a BBC import based off of an award-winning play by star Phoebe Waller-Bridge whose titular character is irreverent, crass, over-indulgent and unexpectedly poignant all at once. It’s kind of like Shameless (but in this case Fleabag is more of a Frank than a Fiona) meets Girls. There’s also a bit of mystery wrapped up in there, too.

Where can I binge?  Amazon Prime instant video

Where to start? Again, only 6 short eps so start with ep 1

Skip it if: You’re easily grossed out by a woman talking frankly about her bodily functions and sexual exploits. Also if you are in the mood for a comedy that WON’T make you cry.

#1 reason to watch: It’s way different than anything else out there and it’s an easy show to power-through in a few hours.

Best new sitcom (no, really!): The Mick

I had my reservations, but I was pleasantly surprised! The Mick stars Kaitlin Olson (who you probably know as Dee from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) in her first major solo-endeavor. Dee has never been my favorite Sunny character, but this role is perfect for her brand of humor and gives her room to grow away from male-centric Sunny. The plot is a classic fish-out-of-water premise where Olson plays Mickey, an estranged aunt who suddenly finds herself as the guardian of her wealthy, East-coast-elite nephews and niece. Mickey is a hard-drinking, fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants grifter while the Pemberton kids are coddled, country-clubbers. It sounds like sitcom 101 but trust me, it’s with a twist.

Where can I binge? Hulu- new eps are coming out since it’s currently airing on Fox

Where to start? Since only a few eps are out, start with the pilot. But you can jump in anywhere

Skip it if: You’re over the traditional sitcom format or you’re easily offended by a bloody nose

#1 reason to watch: The 3 child (well one is an older teen) actors are all pretty stellar which really makes the show. Plus Olson is perfect in the role and is able to play a more layered character than Sunny has ever allowed.

Best show I really shouldn’t have to be justifying because just watch it: RuPaul’s Drag Race

So if you’ve read my other LMWTV4U posts or you’ve ever met me, this will be the least surprising thing ever. BUT SERIOUSLY this show is so good and if this kind of thing is important to you, it’s a recent Emmy winner for best reality-TV-show host (RuPaul). But to call it a reality TV show is kind of a stretch because the actual best thing about RPDR is how manufactured and self-aware it is. There is, of course, heaps of drama, but everything is served with a wink. RuPaul comes sweeping in to provide a critical eye and guidance in each episode and always leaves the queens with her classic advice “good luck and don’t fuck it up.” Every episode ends with a “Lipsync FOR YOUR LIFE” which results in one queen “sashay-ing away” while the other gets to “shante you stay.” Somehow, among all of the ridiculousness, the show makes room for genuine emotion. The “villains” are eventually encouraged to explore their own insecurities and under-performing artists are given second chances and a helping hand from their competitors. It’s really not like anything else on television and the best part is, season 9 is coming this spring so you still have time to get caught up on past seasons before the new one arrives!

Where can I binge? The show airs on Logotv, which you almost certainly do not have in your cable bundle, but seasons 5-7 are on Amazon Prime and last I checked seasons 6-8 were on Hulu (along with All Stars 2). Also most of the seasons are usually available to stream on logotv’s website.

Where to start? It might be hard to find but I’d really recommend starting with season 3 or 4. You can start anywhere but if you start in later seasons you’ll find out who won previous seasons which can be a bummer. Also, by season 6 and 7 there are already way too many inside jokes and catchphrases from previous seasons to keep up with. Don’t start with season 1 (it’s a completely different show) or All Stars (for obvious reasons).

Skip it if: You hate camp and kitsch and all things drag.

#1 reason to watch: Every single episode ends with RuPaul saying “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love somebody else? Can I get an amen?” followed by an onstage dance party

Best season 2 that you might have given up on but deserves a second chance: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Maybe you didn’t like Kimmy Schmidt season 1. Maybe you loved it but thought season 2 was too weird and gave up. Or maybe you loved both seasons and, in that case, why are you reading this still? But let me make my case for season 2. Yes it’s way more out-there than season 1, but it contains one of the best instances of my favorite guilty-pleasure of the TV trope world: the musical episode. It’s pretty subtle, but in episode 5, “Kimmy Gives Up,” Titus scores the entire episode with songs from various “forgotten” musicals (aka parodies of Broadway classics from husband-of-Tina-Fey and music producer Jeff Richmond.) My personal favorite is “Just Go On” from “Gangly Orphan Jeff, the ill-fated musical that premiered a week after Annie.” It hilariously mocks “The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow” while also allowing for Titus to face his fears, Kimmy to begin to mourn her lost love, and for both Lillian and Jacqueline to revel in their parenting abilities (for their kids both literal and of the tenant-sort). Season 2 is less about a woman who missed the last 15 years clumsily learning to live in the modern world of a cartoonish NYC and more about a woman who’s been through trauma coming to terms with her past and trying to find her purpose. Season 2 is more lived-in and where season 1 allowed Titus to point out all of the “things people don’t say anymore,” season 2 finds both Kimmy and Titus bumbling through modernity together, like when Titus eagerly explains the internet as a “series of tubes.” Like my fave show of all time and fellow Tina-Fey-creation, 30 Rock, Kimmy Schmidt strikes a delicate balance between a satire of our society, foolish and off-the-wall characters, and characters facing real-world emotions with tenderness.

Where can I binge? Netflix!

Where to start? I mean it’s a short series so start with season 1, ep 1. But if you need a good intro, start with “Kimmy Gives Up!”

Skip it if: You can’t handle all of the ridiculousness.

#1 reason to watch: Titus, especially in his audition that is NOT for gum, “Your teeth are bones that live outside. They hang from your lips like bats. Oh, outside bones, outside bones. Never forget that teeth are outside bones. They're bones that you wash and when you're a kid they fall from your head. And to make things less weird we say they got stolen by a demon that your parents know. Trident!”

#RuPaul's Drag Race #unbreakable kimmy schmidt #the path #one mississippi #fleabag #the mick #LMWTV4U #tina fey #titus andromedon #kimmy schmidt #rupaul #tig notaro

[bakechochin]

Book Reviews - War for the Oaks

War for the Oaks - Emma Bull - I’ve been up in London fairly frequently recently and I’ve confirmed something that I’ve long suspected; I have a crippling need to always spend money in new and exciting book shops -> Waterstone’s at home is common fare now, but you show me a Foyle’s or god forbid give me freedom to shop with the Folio Society and I’ll have spent fifty quid before I even know what’s happening; I knew of this book’s existence prior to my impromptu regrettable Foyle’s spending spree, but it wasn’t until I’d found it in this new and novel book shop that I actually bought the bloody thing - This book is beautifully written, managing to capture the perfection and beauty in every minor thing with some pretty fucking sweet metaphor, from simple character descriptions to the very entertaining to read music-playing segments - The fey in this book are easily some of the fucking coolest I’ve seen in a long arse while, because it’s got everything that I want; a variety of diverse and somewhat fucked up forms, part of a pretty much entirely unknowable society, and what this book does especially well on is the fantastic fey dialogue, all antiquated and otherworldly and shit -> Like contrast this book with other books like The Invisible Library or The Copper Promise, wherein all the fantastic otherworldly beings have boring and trite human dialogue and act just like regular geezers, and you can see where I’m coming from when I say that this book fucking aces the sheer alienness of the fey - There are some pretty cool urban fantasy tidbits in this book, with some great intermingling of fantasy and reality; I found it quite funny how the phouka pretty much just looks like Prince, and I’m a great fan of some of the intertextuality banter in this book, like how the antagonist takes the garbs of stereotypical Disney villains (it reminded me of Media taking the forms of Bowie and Monroe in the American Gods TV show, or Incubus taking the form of Jareth the Goblin King in Kill Six Billion Demons) - I liked how in this book there was limited reliance on fish-out-of-water tropes; the protagonist just kind of goes along with all this supernatural magical bollocks quite easily, and whilst there is a bit of the usual hackneyed ‘you need to adjust to our way of life’ sort of bollocks from the fey characters integrating into human society, it didn’t go on for long enough for me to start hating it - The ending, whilst resolving everything rather quickly and anticlimactically, was pretty fucking cool; wankily written as it was, there’s nothing that makes me happier than magical band battles (a lesson I have learnt from such quality reads as Sing No Evil and the Scott Pilgrim series - yes I’ve noticed that the references to other stuff in this review are rather eclectic) - I’m not really too fond of most of the characters to be honest; our protagonist Eddi is the best one out of the lot because she’s competent and human and generally alright (if seeming like a bit of a heavy-handed personification of some trite ‘girl power’ message), but all the other characters are just wacky funsters or boring stereotypes, and to be honest I didn’t even think that they absolutely had to have stayed around for as long as they did -> My main complaint with the characters is the phouka, who the book insists on sexualising; they start off by describing him as unsettling and manic-featured and pretty damn threatening, and a bit later on he’s described as a mischievous trickster scamp, and whilst both of these character vibes could make for an interesting relationship between Eddi and the phouka not based on romance, soon enough he’s being described as gallant and saucy and it’s really not what I had in mind -> In fact shit he’s not even the only saucy gent lining up for Eddi’s affections; fuck’s sake, I’m having flashbacks to The Invisible Library with this procession of hunky boys who I didn’t ask for marching in and flaunting their boyish charm and perfect hair - Not wanting to spoil too much, but all the phouka’s talk about having a secret nefarious agenda has little to no fucking payoff, and if it wasn’t for the characters spouting some half-arsed nonsense about ‘oh don’t worry, plans for bigger things have been set in motion, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens!’ I would have forgotten about it entirely, so good job Bull for notifying me of an instance you bollocked up - The book does include a fair bit of radical fey war malarkey, but it’s not the best at describing events on a grand scale (which I suppose can be attributable to the first-person perspective, but even still it’s a bit disheartening when the first dramatic battle between the Seelie and Unseelie courts is built up at length and then when it does happen we get to see like five seconds of battling before our protagonist fucking runs away and meets a pond monster or some shit) - The twists in this book really lack any sort of impact; they have little to no buildup, and are just kind of said as flat-out facts, and then never have any real relevance or consequences later on (besides the obvious predictable plot events that are necessary for plot progression and artificially raising the stakes); you might think that all the human characters would be a bit surprised to know that they’re surrounded by fey entities, but no, they just roll with it, and that’s fucking that - 7.5/10

I have a load of other book reviews on my blog, check that shit out.

#book reviews #war for the oaks #emma bull #wait a second where the fuck were the oaks #bull spends fucking aeons chatting shit about all the million types of flower she knows but i don't recall any important oaks in this book #i first heard of phoukas from my spiderwick chronicles bestiary and in that phouka was spelt as phooka #which is a way better spelling #the phooka in the spiderwick chronicles bestiary was like a little black cat monkey owl thing #way better than the phooka in this to be honest #you know what hell yeah i could shag the queen of air and darkness in this book #we'll slot her alongside ursula monkton and that one maid from rivers of london #who knew that i'd have to create an organised list of 'fictional characters i want to shag but are also monsters so i probably shouldn't'

[spynotebook]

All Photos Courtesy Warner Bros.

Praise Zeus, Wonder Woman is finally here and it’s even better than we hoped it would be. While it’s a standout superhero film all on its own, there’s something inherently special for women to see Diana of Themyscira, an iconic female and feminist role model, onscreen for the first time.

io9's Katharine Trendacosta, Alex Cranz, Cheryl Eddy, and I sat down to discuss every aspect of this groundbreaking superhero film, including Steve Trevor’s role as a male ally, and what the film’s success could and should mean for the DC Expanded Universe. No boys allowed! (Except in the comments.)

Beth Elderkin: All right, ladies. Welcome to Themyscira! How’s everyone feeling?

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Katharine Trendacosta: I am feeling great and not like I need those hours back again, which is such a relief.

Cheryl Eddy: I agree with Katharine... I don’t think it was a perfect movie, but I had a really good time watching it.

Alex Cranz: Yeah, I was genuinely concerned before the premiere that people were so eager for a success for DC—and for women superheroes—that people were being unnecessarily kind to Diana. They were not! Her movie is good!

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Beth: I mean, it’s a huge deal. This is the first time we’ve gotten a superhero movie of this magnitude that stars a woman. Going beyond your experience as a moviegoer, or even as a comic book fan, how did it feel as a woman seeing this character in her own movie on this scale?

Cheryl: It was very satisfying.

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Alex: It’s not the first time. This is just the first good film.

Katharine: Yeah, I present to you... Catwoman.

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Beth: True, that movie did have a $100-million budget.

Alex: Katharine, no. Shh. But yes, Catwoman, Elektra, Supergirl, and Tank Girl, all comic lady movies. And all films that were disasters either critically, financially, or both.

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Katharine: It is shocking and upsetting, though, that all of those characters got movies before Wonder Woman.

Alex: But where Wonder Woman really sets itself apart is how gleefully violent it is. I love that this was a superpowered woman just fucking shit up for a big chunk of the film’s two-hour running time.

Cheryl: I think it was longer than two hours? That’s one of my few complaints, that it was too long. But that’s par for the course.

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Katharine: Yeah, I don’t know for sure what Zack Snyder was involved in, but that really long fight scene felt like the end of his last two DC Expanded Universe movies.

Alex: Only you could tell what was happening.

Beth: So, obviously we have to talk about the core of the film, Wonder Woman herself. I liked Gal Gadot in Batman v. Superman, though you don’t see much of her in it… but I’ll admit I was worried how she’d do in the starring role. But to me, she was Wonder Woman, mind, body, and soul. I was thoroughly impressed. What about y’all?

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Cheryl: I thought she nailed it, really and truly.

Katharine: It was a good idea not to go with a really recognizable actor for this.

Cheryl: Completely agree.

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Alex: Gadot has so much damn charm.

Katharine: I loved that they made the other Amazons mimic her accent, instead of making her get rid of hers.

Cheryl: ME TOO OMG.

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Alex: It was a true delight. And I liked how young Wonder Woman was for much of this film.

Beth: One thing I loved about Gadot’s performance was how earnest it was. Diana was innocent but not naive. Like that scene in the street, where she’s taking everything in with a combination of disgust and wonder… and then she spots the baby!

Katharine: I liked that moment and I thought they did just the right amount of fish-out-of-water stuff. It would have been really easy to go overboard on that stuff.

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Beth: Which would’ve fallen into the “Born Sexy Yesterday” trope.

Katharine: Or just turned this movie into Thor.

Beth: What were your favorite fish-out-of-water moments?

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Cheryl: I liked the shopping scene with Etta Candy, and also when she sees snow for the first time.

Katharine: It’s the baby moment for me.

Alex: I just loved her entirely foreign concept of war and why it was waged. It was so beautifully naive, like you wanted to wrap her up and kind of protect her from the awfulness of the world... until she beat a man with a tank.

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Beth: This is the first DCEU movie where the lead character is allowed to be joyful. And it feels so overdue.

Katharine: Joyful, but the movie wasn’t devoid of darkness. It actually balanced that stuff.. My god, why did it take this long?

Alex: Because girls are icky, Katharine.

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Beth: Anyone else feel an extra tinge of happiness when Diana spared Doctor Poison? Different circumstances than Man of Steel, but still… I don’t think I’ll ever be okay with Superman murdering Zod.

Alex: Completely different! And I mean, Diana kills people.

Katharine: I’m sorry, Beth, I was busy getting mad that they had decided Diana was the Goddess of Love instead.

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Alex: Let’s talk about the erasure of Greek goddesses in this film. Because Diana has always been an embodiment of the Pantheon right?

Katharine: And specifically truth.

Alex: But this film kills them off screen, and never acknowledges that she’s supposed to be representative of all of them. Instead, she’s just another god.

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Beth: I mean, she’s technically the last one right? If Ares is dead now.

Alex: Apparently!

Beth: I don’t know if I’d classify her as a love goddess. Her strength came from her love—not for Steve, though that was surely part of it—but it was her love of humanity and her need to do the right thing.

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Katharine: I’m still mad, because Hollywood has one setting for goddesses and it’s always love.

Alex: Whatever Katharine, I loved her line about love. I didn’t interpret it as her being the Goddess of Love, but simply as her saying there are alternatives to war.

Katharine: I gave them the first moment, but once they went back to that well, I was very worried.

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Cheryl: I wasn’t mad at that, but I think it’s because my first exposure to Wonder Woman was the 1970s TV show, and it’s there in the theme: “Stop a war with love.”

Alex: Well, I think they make it very clear she’s a goddess of compassion... of compassionate love.

Beth: Exactly, being a goddess of love and a goddess of compassion are two different things. Love just has fewer syllables.

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Alex: Yeah, her saying compassion would not have had the same impact.

Beth: Let’s shift gears for a bit and talk about Steve Trevor. I loved Steve in this film, and Chris Pine’s performance was, in my opinion, kinda revelatory. I’d argue this might be one of the best portrayals of a male feminist ally that we’ve ever seen in a mainstream film—especially a superhero film.

Katharine: I forgot that Chris Pine was that charming. He’s basically just been famous for doing a great Shatner take for so long, I actually forgot there was another actor there.

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Alex: I confess to hating Chris Pine for over a decade, so I was really surprised to like him in this. He knew when to take a back seat.

Katharine: He’s leaped ahead in the Chris rankings.

Beth: Oh, he’s miles ahead of Chris Pratt for me now. It’s almost like the two of them have had a Freaky Friday situation, where Pratt is the typical leading man dick and Pine is the supportive male hero.

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Katharine: Chris Evans better keep an eye out. When Pine tried to seduce Doctor Poison, I was like, “Yes. This is your role, Steve.” Diana does the fighting, you are the Honey Trap.

Beth: And he did such a good job of it too. I love how he wasn’t bumbling or incapable, nor was he cocky about his skills.

Katharine: Or all angsty about it.

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Alex: He was that hyper-competent love interest that usually falls in love with Chris Pratt.

Beth: That “shield” moment in No Man’s Land was my absolute favorite in the entire film. Steve wasn’t forcing Diana to change her fighting style to suit his needs—he recognized what she needed and provided it for her, no questions asked or thanks needed.

Alex: I mean, Steve had his moment of fuckery, but I loved that Diana was immediately like, “I AM DONE WITH YOU.”

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Katharine: The fact that their conflict was based pretty much entirely on them having different world views actually made it interesting. Rather than him being, “The world looks like this, put this dress on and shut up.”

Beth: He recognizes that just because his worldview is different doesn’t make it more right than hers. In fact, he knows that his world is screwed up.

Katharine: I did love that for once it was the dude’s backstory that was cut. Because he briefly mentions having run from the war for too long and then says something like maybe he and the rest of humanity doesn’t deserve to be saved. Like, clearly there was something in his past they meant to bring up to make that hit home better, but, eh. He’s just Steve Trevor, so who cares.

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Beth: I kind of like it better without it. I feel like I knew just enough about him to understand his conflict.

Alex: You know what was really revelatory about Steve Trevor? The moment she saves him from the plane. Any other film it would have been his story from then on. It would have been about him using these women to win the war, and teaching them how everything was different. And the movie never ever ever went that direction.

Beth: That reminds me of my next big talking point: Patty Jenkins’ direction. In particular, how she handles “The Gaze.” There are a lot of shots in here that could and likely would have been exploited for titillation in the hands of another director, like Zack Snyder with Sucker Punch. But I admired how Jenkins handled the fight scenes and choreography, as well as Wonder Woman’s superhero poses. Jenkins didn’t subvert the male gaze, apart from the Chris Pine bathing scene, because she didn’t need to. She simply made it not matter.

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Alex: This was not a sexual movie at all—despite some Grade-A off-screen banging. We never see unbridled lust on screen.

Beth: To me, and this might sound weird on its face, the movie felt like the difference between stripping and burlesque. Both of them have similar elements, but they serve different purposes. A character like Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises is shot one way, focusing on her assets for the audience, but Wonder Woman was thankfully never exploited. Her body wasn’t hidden, it was celebrated—as well as her looks, because come on, she’s a gorgeous woman—but it was on her terms and for her purposes, not for the male audience. And I think Jenkins was a big part of that.

Alex: I know a lot of people were concerned about Jenkins because her last film was small and not about action at all. But the woman shot really good action and it wasn’t just all in the hands of animators. I mean the final fight is just a cartoon, but the Amazons versus the Germans was not!

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Cheryl: Her direction of the actors, especially Gadot’s performance, as well as the “moments” like the baby and the fight with the shield, were great.

Katharine: This was a movie which embraced the simplicity of its story for the sake of its characters.

Alex: I think we’re gonna see a lot of comparisons, inevitably, to Snyder, and what I loved is Jenkins can actually direct actors and bring emotion into a film. But she also can nail those loving straight from a picture book shots that are Snyder’s bag. She out Snyder’d Snyder in the best possible way.

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Beth: Snyder’s contribution to the film appears to have worked out well, as a story creator and producer, and his recruitment of Gadot was spot-on. I feel like putting him in the director’s chair is where the problems arise, as well as when his direction overly inspires other films in the franchise.

Alex: No doubt that final fight was in the works long before the film was tinkered with, but you can see Warner Bros/DC’s attempt to keep Wonder Woman from being as dour as Batman v Superman. Like the great ice cream gag—that’s a moment that was clearly shot after the rest of the film to brighten things up. And it worked.

Katharine: Ice cream and superheroes have been a fruitful pairing in live-action.

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Alex: If Batman v. Superman had to happen so we could get Wonder Woman enjoying an ice cream cone, I am okay with that.

Beth: Speaking of awesome scenes: No Man’s Land.

Cheryl: People in the theater were cheering so much.

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Beth: I love how Steve’s like, “You can’t go over there, it’s No Man’s Land.” And Wonder Woman basically replies, “I AM NO MAN!” I’ve seen people saying that might go down as one of the best scenes in a superhero film we’ve ever gotten, and honestly, I agree.

Alex: It didn’t end! It was a constant WONDER WOMAN SMASH, which is all I wanted.

Beth: I never wanted it to end!

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Alex: Though admittedly things slowed down so much immediately afterwards that I got a little whiplash. There was a pacing problem in the script that the director just couldn’t resolve.

Beth: I don’t know, I liked the drinks and dancing. It made the tragic bombing of the town so much worse.

Alex: I liked it, but I still felt a little snoozy.

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Beth: What else do you wish had been done differently? My biggest beef was Ares, because I didn’t feel like the big reveal was earned.

Alex: Ares is a bad villain rooted in Christian symbology that makes no sense, but that’s a comic problem.

Katharine: I liked the shape of the villain. Yes, the weird Christian-Greek mashup is a comics problem and I don’t like that, but I actually did like the idea of Ares not being who we thought. I didn’t like... his entire speech at the end.

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Alex: You know what was actually bad about all the Greco-Roman stuff is how firmly they shut the door on all of it. Diana is banished from Paradise Island, her entire god family is dead, it’s just done. Now she basically exists for Justice League.

Katharine: The best thing about this film is that it stands on its own almost entirely, unfettered from the baggage of the rest of the DCEU.

Cheryl: Setting it years in the past was a good choice.

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Alex: Yeah, it didn’t fall into the Captain America: The First Avenger trap. Ares didn’t even do a “worse is coming” death croak.

Cheryl: I get why they framed the story with the photo seen in BvS, so I was okay with it even though it was so obvious.

Katharine: The fact that Bruce Wayne wasn’t literally there was nice. Honestly, I kept expecting the camera at the end to pull out and the rest of the goddamn Justice League to be sitting there listening.

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Beth: I’m so glad it didn’t.

Katharine: So glad.

Beth: I’m also glad there were no post-credits scenes. I don’t care about the rest of the Justice League, I only care about Diana.

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Alex: Well, I care about Aquaman.

Beth: I’m hoping I do, too.

Cheryl: Same.

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Beth: Speaking of which, how does this movie make you feel about the future of the DC Expanded Universe?

Cheryl: Will that future include Wonder Woman 2? Because otherwise...

Alex: It better.

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Katharine: I think that this is proof that the DCEU should have been doing standalone movies with other directors the whole time.

Beth: I’m honestly shaky about Justice League. I already feel like it could be a lost cause, and we’re simply having to look beyond it at this point. The trailer gave me little confidence.

Katharine: Yeah, I’m mostly looking forward to Aquaman. He and Wonder Woman are the ones having the most fun in the Justice League trailer.

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Alex: I have hope. Slap a Blue Lantern Ring on Diana, because Wonder Woman gave me hope that the ship can be righted, and we can get some good damn movies out of the best superhero comics.

Beth: This has been so awesome, and I’m hoping/betting this movie does well enough to keep DCEU going on the right path… with a sequel. In closing, what one word would you use to describe Wonder Woman? Mine is “refreshing.”

Katharine: “Punchy,” in both senses of the word.

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Cheryl Eddy: “Love!” Just kidding... I would say “entertaining.”

Alex: She fucks.

#IFTTT #Feedly