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shimmershae · 3 years

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My thoughts on Episode 6--On the Inside

Very appropriate title by the way. Works in a multitude of ways.

As always, my randomness is going beneath a cut again to spare the eyeballs of those of you that don’t want to see it at all and also? Help those of you that have somehow stayed spoiler-free in this brand-new age of early release episodes. It is still so wild to me that I’m a full episode ahead of half the fandom. I don’t know what I’m going to do when we get to the final episode and they decide to make us all suffer together--because somehow I do feel they will do exactly that after spoiling us for the first 23 episodes. It is going to be agonizing.

Anyway. Without further ado, Shae’s stream of consciousness review (of sorts).

Not fair, Angela. Opening the episode with that shot of that big ass spider. I hate those suckers. So naturally, they’re an easy sell for setting the horror scene to me, lol.

Okay. Who the hell’s chasing Virgil and Connie? Walker No-See-Ums?

Barely a minute in and the atmosphere for this episode is moody AF.

What is this? Tara Jr. The Walking Dead? LOL. Where’s the Scarlett for this mini plantation house? Anyway. First three minutes of this episode? Just as attention grabbing as the first five episode openings this season. I don’t think people out there are giving our writers enough love for that. Every episode so far has opened like a mini movie.

With the way the Walking Dead logo keeps crumbling away with each successive episode, somehow it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the Carol and Daryl spinoff was eventually titled The Living and had flowers growing out of each letter, lol. I mean, there would be a certain sort of life-affirming symmetry in a show that’s been promised to be much lighter in tone doing just that.

More Carol and Aaron? Yes, please. I don’t necessarily like Carol staying at home and sitting the sidelines like a figurative happy little homemaker in the B story while the rest of the mains are trying like hell to sell the A story, but if she’s going to be totally prohibited from the main storyline until it’s time to blow shit up? I’m going to continue enjoy getting to see her do what she should have been doing for seasons--interacting with others in the community, especially Aaron and the ladies.

Truly. I really am loving my girl getting some quality Aaron and Rosita time. It’s so long overdue.

Bless sweet Kelly. Riding off to her sister’s rescue.

Why isn’t Lydia shown as part of these plans? For someone that could barely read last season, I doubt that big ass map was a piece of cake for her and it’s all just guesswork anyway without her guidance. I mean, why does it feel like they are cutting some of this stuff that might not seem like much plot-wise but would go a long way toward establishing different character beats? Personally, I would have loved to see her involved in the search and sharing scenes again with Carol and bonding with Kelly.

Virgil be having that “I always feel like somebody’s watching me” feeling. Don’t you hate that, lol?

“You haven’t slept in days.” But how many days, Virgil? I’m going to need a number because I’m confused AF about this timeline at this point. What we’re seeing and what different pieces of dialogue is telling us is not exactly lining up. I’m going to find it awful hilarious if it hasn’t even been two weeks since the cave in. For reasons.

Connie’s spidey senses are clearly tingling.

Alrighty, then. She’s clearly got PTSD. Understandable. They’ve all had it. Some have been treated more sympathetically than others, though.

I mean, it never seems to cross anybody’s mind how Carol probably sees Henry’s head on that pike, Mika’s pale and bloody body, Lizzie crumpled face down in a bed of yellow flowers, Sophia with a smoking bullet hole through her undead head whenever she closes her eyes but whatever.

Okay though. But what if Connie had really shitty, impossible to read handwriting? AKA doctor’s handwriting. What then?

Leah’s face honestly twists my insides whenever I see it, lol. It’s quiet a visceral thing. No, that does not make me a horrible person. Not everybody wants or has to drink the awesome, great, redeemable villainess Kool-Aid. IMHO, she’s got a face meant for a Walker. Perfect makeover idea. Eh. Mostly it’s her expression and the deadness of her eyes.

Anyway. Why is it always the fingers? Eff that.

Listen. If ya’ll can’t tell Daryl’s conflicted AF with the situation he’s landed in, you don’t know how to read NR’s face and eyes. He’s not a masterclass like MMB but he’s pretty darn good when he wants to be.

I honestly feel sorry for Redshirt Frost.

“You do what you gotta do.” Frost knows what’s what and he’s willing to walk the walk for Maggie. Impressive loyalty. I’m left wondering how the current, colder incarnation of Maggie inspired it because I’m still struggling to see it. Anywho. My point is the dude knows the score and just gave Daryl the okay.

Daryl taking off his angel vest before stepping into the role of torturer/interrogator=him shedding the persona/the man Judith and RJ and Lydia and Carol know him to be. Pushing away his man of honor status so he can just survive somehow.

Pope never quits chewing whatever the hell he’s got in his mouth. It’s kind of distracting.

Ohhh. We’re back to the Haunted Mansion. I mean house. Where are the Hitchhiking Ghosts?

All the eyes scratched out of those creepy pictures=spooky.

The good old fogged up bathroom mirror shot. Somebody’s been watching and studying their horror movies, lol. Not gonna lie though. I’m legit bracing myself for the jump scares I know have to be coming.

I’m loving the music/score in these scenes.

Truthfully, I could care less about these Reapers. But they are hella attractive, lol. Listen. Angela knows what she’s doing.

Kelly’s horse is so pretty. Prayer chain for that baby.

More dead horses? Why?

Connie’s slingshot? Sorry. I maintain, no matter how much I like these two, that they have the lamest weapons ever. Endless supply of Virginia rocks or not.

So. Did Virgil and Connie enjoy a little equine for dinner? Did they kill it before the Walkers fed? What monsters! Yeah, no. Not if they were starving even if I personally could not have. The more probable story is they fled the camp in a panic and left the horse behind and then it went down. Sorry. I didn’t exactly study the wounds on the poor animal because it is so traumatizing to me to continue to see them meet such dastardly ends on this show. I don’t know who the hell has such a score to settle with horses but stop it.

Days. It’s only been days. Not weeks. So many times with all that Daryl and Company have had to contend with since the cave in? Those do not exist, lol. They’re just a convenient, appeasing piece of dialogue thrown at a fanbase primed and ready to read everything into not much of anything. There’s just not been enough time for it to happen unless Daryl has literally been up 24/7 for all of them. You know, strategizing how to attack the remainders of Alpha’s horde, figuring out how to defend Hilltop before it fell, healing from the wound he sustained at Alpha’s hand, sitting on that log all damn night with Negan waiting on Carol to come home, having a lover’s quarrel with his best damn everything, taking care of the Grimes babies and Lydia, being the reluctant leader. Kang, why you playing them like that? Daryl’s a super guy but he’s not a superhuman with clones. So many times my ass.

Seriously. Who been watching Connie and Virgil? The MIA Oceansiders? Beta’s Fee Fi Fo Fum Ghost?

Nice. A Michonne mention. Maybe the truth will start to trickle out.

LMAO at Connie’s “I’m not staying here.” Me neither, girl. I would be outta that house so fast.

They really “Quiet Placing” this episode. Honestly? I’m kinda loving it.

WTF was that? I know she can’t hear but you telling me all the little hairs on her arms, legs, and neck didn’t stand the fuck up and say fuck this shit, I’m gone? Pardon my language, lovelies, but that moment had my heart kicking up several beats.

Okay, okay. To be fair to Connie, every hair on her body been doing that since the front door closed. Maybe they’re desensitized.

Gollum’s chasing Connie!!! He/She wants their Precious!!!

The knee jerk reactions about this episode sight unseen are OTT, honestly. And I mean no disrespect by saying that. I can understand completely where they’re coming from because we’ve been burned so long in this fandom. But it’s obvious the spoiler source has their particular biases and reads into things in such a way that don’t line up with what’s actually being shown onscreen. Daryl’s loyalty in this episode and all along quite clearly lies with his family and his community. He’s been playing Leah since the start and is truly just trying to survive somehow.

Awful thought. The Reaper that’s so suspish of Daryl--haven’t quite caught his name or really cared to. I feel like he might try to get to Daryl somehow. When he realizes that Daryl cares no more for Leah than any human would care for somebody (they thought) they used to know? He’s going after Dog. Or Carol should she finally join this story.

I refuse to believe Carol isn’t going to be a part of this story. Because they messing with her mans, lol.

“You’re ever with us or you’re not.” Now where have I heard those words before? I wish I could find that Daryl gif because that had to be one of the funniest things ever, lol.

Unrealistic suggestion to Daryl, Leah? Breathing oxygen seems to piss off Carver. Oh look. He finally has a name for me, lol.

I love how all three of the ladies--Carol, Magna, and Rosita--look at Kelly with such indulgent, adoring “little sis, you alright?” eyes.

They are seriously the most beautiful quartet of characters. I mean all of them are lovely but Carol and Rosita this season? Ugh. The unfairness of the pretty.

Human bones. Terminus callback, lovelies. How it all would have eventually gone down if Gareth and Co. hadn’t met the business end of Rick’s red machete.

So many horror movie homages in this one.

Virgil’s like “let’s leave this Texas Chainsaw Massacre behind.”

Connie and Virgil have obviously bonded, ya’ll. I’m surprised by how much I’m enjoying their scenes together when the character mostly got on my nerves with Michonne. He’s a good actor and the core of his character is sympathetic, but I’m not going to lie. I wasn’t super enthused when he was the one that rescued Connie because I didn’t know how their scenes would play out. But there’s a nice synergy there.

Okay. Does Carver want Leah for himself? Because I’m sure Daryl at this point would love to scream “take her, I know where I fucking belong!”

Daryl’s digging in deep because Carver has shown him Leah’s potential weak spot. Nuance is truly lost on some people, LMAO. He cares about Leah as a human being probably. He’s Daryl, after all. The sweet one. But he sees her as his way outta this and he’s going to exploit it.

It’s nice to have a silent Negan for once, lol. I can pretend he didn’t take my baby Glenn away from me and enjoy JDM’s pretty.

So. These cannibal people were the watchers? Hmm.

I’m really digging Virgil 2.0. Yeah. Nobody’s surprised more than me.

Sweet, sweet scene between Virgil and Connie. His determination to reunite her with her family brings back the sympathy I felt for him when he told Michonne “I promised her flowers. Every day.”

Damn. How many of those creepy crawly cannibals are there?

How brave of Connie to confront her fears to save someone she’s obviously grown to care about.

The Kelly/Connie reunion gave me chills and made me cry. Thank fuck Angela didn’t cheapen that moment by having it focus on literally anybody else. Kelly is the most important person in the whole world to Connie and vice versa. Just like Carol is the most important person in the whole world to Daryl and vice versa. Angela fucking knows. Everybody does. Except the people busy building castles out of sand while the waves of Carol’s and Daryl’s converging stories keep crashing closer and closer to shore.

Such a beautiful moment given to us by Angel Theory and Lauren Ridloff. So authentic and sweet. Kelly and Connie are home to each other.

Poor Frost. That’s all I gotta say about that.

WTF, though. Was Mel just not available or what? I want to see more of the ASZ characters that I care about, not the Reapers. Like I’d be fine with the story if all the characters not named Maggie, Negan, or Daryl weren’t surviving on crumbs during it. Especially the 2nd billed actress on the entire show. Angela. Please. Fix this.

One last WTF. Seriously. WTF has Maggie done to inspire Pope’s obsession? It better be juicy after all this shit.

Overall impression of the episode--

One of my favorites of the season so far. The horror aspects were fantastic, IMHO. I truly didn’t expect to like Connie and Virgil’s scenes as much together so that was a nice surprise. She got the reunion that felt most true and earned for the character and her story and I thank Angela from the bottom of my heart for that.

I would have loved more Carol but I always want more Carol. I’m okay with her taking a backseat because ultimately? This was Kelly’s moment with her sister. Carol and Connie will eventually have their time to sit down and talk. And pick back up their blossoming friendship because I truly do not feel Connie blames Carol at all.

I do wish Lydia had been included with the girl group. Last episode felt like it was leading up to that.

The Reaper storyline continues to be the weakest link because every time we see them the dialogue and interactions feel totally recycled from the time previous. I feel like it would have totally been helped by a tighter focus and less stretching out because 8 episodes of this is really diluting what I feel like Angela and Co. are going for. I’m not here for Leah being redeemed or being a bigger focus in any of the episodes because she does nothing of interest for me. I’m just peeking in on that story for the Daryl of it all.

Speaking of the Daryl? You lovelies out there gotta stop taking that spoiler source’s recaps at face value because it’s obvious to me at least that there’ some bias at work. Every action and word coming from Daryl is coming from a place of loyalty to his family and wanting to protect them, no matter how he has to dirty his hands. Leah is just a means to his ultimate end. She’s not his future. She never was. His future’s already spoken for and 2023 can’t get here soon enough. But like Daryl, we have to just survive somehow.

Oh goodie. More Maggie and Negan next episode and looks like no real follow up on Connie and the ASZ reunions. Hopefully, this is yet another instance of the previews being deceiving but I’m not holding my breath.

Until later, lovelies.

Hope my word vomit didn’t bore you too much.

#The Walking Dead #Season 11 #TWD spoilers #things that make me smile and cry #for reasons #ignore all the typos #with something this longwinded?#LOL #there's bound to be plenty

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lizacstuff · 3 years

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Bölüm 45 asks

Plus a few asks from 44, and one about the fragman for 46

Read more under the cut

Anonymous asked: I cannot believe that Ayse revived the "Kemal is Serkan's real father" theory but I think I'm down for it? At least now Kiraz has one decent grandparent and he seems like genuinely nice man. I've been wishing for him to have some scenes with Serkan because the way they set up this S2 plot, they could relate to one another and I was sad to see that he spent 5 years hiding instead

I'm down for this plot! See, now that I know they're doing the long-lost-father plot, it makes all the sense in the world why Serkan doesn't like Kemal and they didn't forge a relationship in the last five years. If they had, then finding out he's his dad would have been a lot less jarring and dramatic. Finding out now and then forging the relationship I think will be a bit more meaty story so it works for me.

To me this story works on a lot of levels, and makes sense with who Serkan is and his very strained relationship with Alptekin. It's like Alptekin sensed it, and resented Serkan his whole life. For those worried that Serkan will no longer have the last name Bolat, I'm not sure where that's coming from. Maybe I'm just not familiar with other cultures, but that is his name, Alptekin raised him, adults don't just up and change their name because of genetics. If you're adopted and you meet your bio dad as an adult, you don't change your name to your bio dad's.

Serkan's name is very much a part of his identity. Which is why this story has so much potential, because it could shake Serkan to his very core to find out who he thought he was, was wrong. He thought he was unlovable, most importantly maybe he'll finally realize there was more at play there and it wasn't at fault.

Anonymous asked: There were a couple things in the last episode that didn't sit well with me. 1. I can't believe Eda made Serkan sleep outside at night and didn't feel bad in the morning when she realized he got sick! 2. The way Seyfi announced Aydan and Kemal's secret relationship. It wasn't his secret to tell, though Aydan did deserve the way everyone reacted. So I got over that pretty quick. 3. Burak!!! He's not the one for Melo. She deserves better and if they end up together in the end, I'm gonna protest.

1. Unless you're going to put the same energy into not believing that Serkan had the gal to remove his bed on the floor as a way to maneuver himself into Eda's bed before she was ready, I really can't relate. It was done for comedy, my advice is to unclench and just giggle along.

2. Or you could look at it as being unfair of Aydan to burden Seyfi with that secret and require he lie to his other employer for five years. I mean I don't disagree that it wasn't his secret to tell, but Aydan had plenty of chances, and it was time for it to come out.

3. This one we are in 100% agreement about. MELO DESERVES BETTER. I will die on this hill.

Anonymous asked: Hi! Do you think Serkan actually believes in Kerem's abilities (he trusts Eda's faith in Kerem) or is this part of his plan to win Eda back? Either way I'm okay, just wondering what you think.

No, I do not think he gained a sudden belief in Kerem's abilities, but I do think he believes in Eda. And if Eda believes in Kerem then when push comes to shove that is enough for Serkan. Of course, he did it as part of his plan to win Eda back. Serkan is taking every opportunity to let Eda know that he respects her and believes in her and I think this was another example of that. There was also an aspect of him trying to win over another person in Eda's circle who was suspicious of him. The fewer people he has working against him, the better! He knows he has no shot with Burak or Ayfer, so this episode he worked on Melo and Kerem. But mostly it was him trying to make Eda's life easier, by smoothing over a personnel problem she was having, thus making working out of Art Life a more attractive option for her. All of those things in one!

Anonymous asked: What do you think about Eda and Piril's friendship? This episode really highlighted how close they've gotten.

Yes, they have gotten close, and I'm happy Eda has a friend, but at the same time I don't trust Piril. This is a woman who discarded Eda and embraced Selin when she was manipulating and abusing a brain-damaged Serkan.

Eda might be able to forget, but I can't. Also as a character she's just boring, rigid and humorless. One of my least favorites on screen.

That being said I do like the triad dynamic of Kiraz/Can, Serkan/Engin, and Eda/Piril, it was fun when they were calling each other at the same time.

Anonymous asked: Idk if they reached out to Maya just because she looked like Hande considering she had no acting experience, but this little girl is like the best casting I've seen. The chemistry with Hande and Kerem is amazing. She's so expressive. I am a Kiraz stan.

She's doing a fantastic job, precious thing! I have no idea how they found her, I know she was an instagram model, but the SCK casting director strikes again. This season doesn't work if we don't fall in love with Kiraz. Thankfully, we did!

Anonymous asked: Hi! Since it seems that we will have 13 episodes, do you think that Edser reconciliation/wedding will be left for the finale, 12-13 ep? Cause Ayse loves to drag and keep them apart.

I think the wedding might be closer to the end, but I think reconciliation will be a bit sooner than that.

However, I have to say that it's really not like they're apart.. is it? I mean this episode we had them living together, sort of casually planning their future together. Next episode we have them pretending to be married and ramping up the sexual tension to white-hot-sun levels, these are all good things. With episodes like this, I don't personally consider the show dragging it out.

In fandom I see a lot of peeps upset because Eda isn't getting immediately back with Serkan and I am feeling inpatient as well, do you think the writers are making a mistake keeping them apart?

Again, I guess my response to you is, by what definition was this episode "keeping them apart?"

Yes, they aren't having sex, but they are living together, working together, raising their daughter together, and I'm a-okay with having a couple of delicious episodes of that while they are still not fully back together romantically. Let's be real, they're still waking up in bed together, flirting, and having a romantic dinner together, so it's not like things aren't moving forward, they are. I'd advise putting aside your impatience, and just sit back, relax, and let the story take its course. There is no need to be anxious with this one. They are going to end up with their happily ever after together, but what we're seeing right now is delightful. It's them in family and domestic situations, them with their child. Most shippers only dream of getting to see this.

This sort of goes back to my stance on episodes 16-24, I know that was a frustrating time for a lot of fans because they were "broken up" but I've always said they may have been officially broken up, but they were in a committed relationship that entire time. And I enjoyed those episodes from that perspective, that tension of them being "apart" but still functioning as a unit and still being emotionally tied together underneath it all. There's kind of a similar situation here, they aren't officially back together, Eda is resisting him, but they are in a committed relationship and I don't understand what the need is to rush through this part? Enjoy the sexual tension of them living together, but not sleeping together. Enjoy the rom com romp of Serkan trying to get in her bed, and Eda taking steps to keep him out. Enjoy their daughter putting them in situations that force them into close proximity, and enjoy them falling into easy compatibility without even trying. Enjoy Serkan planning romantic dinners, and Eda enjoying it despite her every effort to protect her heart.

To me this is very good stuff, and spending this time being impatient and wanting what didn't happen yet, instead of enjoying what did happen is pretty much the recipe for unhappiness not just with this show, but life.

Anonymous asked: i feel like i've seen the exact same frustrations ppl have had with eda right now back around the 20s too after serkan told her about her parents' secret. it was like, now that he's told her the truth, she should automatically forgive him and get back together. same thing happening here, with him accepting his role as kiraz's father. it feels like the same impatience that's put on eda to just forgive him already bc everyone wants happy edser and she's in the way lol.. like girl needs time!

Agreed, and it makes me wonder if these folks have ever watched television before, lmao. Patience! There's a story unfolding and from the first 6 episodes it's clear they have a season long arc planned. All in due time.

Eda spent five years thinking that Serkan stopped loving her, and discarded her for work. The second time he used that excuse to break her heart. My goodness, it's more than okay if she needs a little time to adjust and learn how to trust him again. PLUS that means we get to watch him work on her, try to make inroads, romance her, forge a relationship with his daughter and earn Eda's trust back. What's bad in that?

What did you think of the fragman? It's kind of dumb and unrealistic that they have to dance for a school admission interview.

LMAO. Yes, yes it is, but my question to you is, sana ne?

I mean why do you care if the set up is dumb or not? Or if it's realistic? It's a device to get Serkan and Eda to pretend to be married before they're fully back together and an excuse for us to see Edser smash themselves together in a sensual tangle of limbs while they pretend to be unaffected, while both are being engulfed in USTy flames.

I'm not complaining, why are you?

Come on, this show is silly, it has been from day one, enjoy the fact that we are getting silly plots that force our couple into hilarious and hot situations, because Hande and Kerem are going to give us gold, I guarantee it and I'm going to smile through every second watching it.

xxxxxxxxxx

These asks are from episode 44, they came in and I didn't have time to answer before 45 aired:

Anonymous asked: Do you think there is a point when there are too many “parallels” and it becomes more like scenes are being recycled? Because I kinda felt that way in the last episode. Like she’s just tossing in as many things as she can from those first 11 episodes but I’ve already watched those and Id rather we focus more character progression. I feel like they regressed from those honest conversations last week and were back to being petty this week.

I guess my answer is... no, I don't think there have been too many parallels. Episode 44 was partly about truth bubbling to the surface, with the biggest truth being that Serkan has been in love with Eda every minute of every day since they parted. That is a very important thing for Eda to understand and know and they really can't move forward until she does, because she felt unloved and forgotten all those years. Most of the parallels were illustrating that by showing that he held on to their history, he remembered their history and he honored it. Okay by me.

Anonymous asked: There were some amazing dialogues in the episode. I have two that tie for top. One was when Kiraz said that Serkan was her wish (when blowing her birthday candles), and the other was when Serkan said Apollo was never going to give up on the woman he loves nor on the cherries! Oh my heart had feels both times. What were your favourite dialogues in the episode?

Oh man my head is in 45 now, but both of those examples of yours were great. I loved both of them.

The other than springs to mind is while fishing, Eda telling Serkan that he didn't need to be perfect for Kiraz to love him, he just had to be himself.

Swoon.

That's so important for Serkan to hear, because he doesn't think he's worthy of love as himself, so hearing that from Eda is impactful.

Anonymous asked: reading your ep review, i think a big reason some people are hanging on to hate the s2 plot no matter what are just bc they hate the writer. of course not everyone, but a lot of people will just hate on anything she writes out of spite, even if objectively the episode is very good. idk why that is or when ppl decided they hated her but it's not warranted at all imo. i can understand not liking the premise of this season, but after watching it so far there has been SUCH an improvement edser-wise.

People can like, dislike, love, hate anything they want. Consuming entertainment doesn't have to be a team sport. That being said, from what I've seen I'd agree with your assessment. Teams have formed (Anti-Ayse, Pro-Ayse, etc) and the former are too invested in hating everything she does, the former possibly too forgiving at times. That's their choice, but I have to say I feel bad for the anti brigade, this is a show they loved, and most of them are still watching, but they've completely sabotaged themselves from finding any joy in any of it and I think they're going to regret it once it's over.

Also season 2 is so much better than I thought it could be. I honestly thought there was no way to get back to the early quality, but it's here. The show is really watchable and fun this season, and it's a shame for those who've let their attitudes get so negative that they can't enjoy it.

Anonymous asked: Ok so I'm aware this would be highly uncharacteristic of a dizi - but if they know there's only 6 eps left, my dream would be no more big bad events and just spend it rebuilding EdSer as a couple and a family. Would that be too much to ask lol. They've jumped from one disaster to another. Since we're at the end & they have the luxury of knowing it, I just want to see them working through things as a real unit. They've dated for like 7 eps out of 45? Can we get that above 10 at least????

Congratulations! Because that's exactly what we've gotten so far in season 2. Once we got past the trauma of the 5 year time jump, all the drama has been internal to Eda and Serkan and their relationship. The whole season so far has been about rebuilding Edser as a couple and a family. And if you're watching without the tauntruming twitter teens in your ear, you'd realize we ARE watching them work through things as a real unit.

I'll say this until I'm blue in the face (apparently) just because they are not currently sexing each other up, does not mean they aren't emotionally doing all the things necessary to reach their full potential as a couple.

They are. It's happening. Enjoy it.

#Sen Çal Kapımı #sen cal kapimi #edser #sckask #sck 2x45 #sck 2x06 #sck episode discussion #edser discussion #asklizac

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mayabishopapologist · 3 years

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station 19 - season 4, etc

this is long but i want to put down my thoughts before thursday comes and i guess i have A Lot To Say.

honestly didn’t pay much attention to this show until halfway through season two— always liked maya and was glad that they gave her more to do. going into season 3, i was excited for more character development &stronger storylines. however, by the end of 301 the dip in quality was glaringly obvious. a quick google search revealed that there was a new showrunner and, well, it showed.

while the show had been going in a really good direction with balancing the screen time between andy and the other regulars, this season, the plot was all over the place. it was uber dramatic and just. so much happened just to happen? seemed like every other episode had a major event(deaths alone; ryan,rigo,pruitt?!!?). they were so frequent, it was hard to process. it was also hard to get invested as the characters themselves moved on(or were shown to have moved on, extremely quickly!)

i enjoy the show for what it is and i have no delusions about broadcast tv shows (or shondaland productions, for that matter)but the suspension of disbelief.... i mean: a stabbing, a robbery, a shooting and a car crash? all in one episode? please! lmaooooo. drama for dramas sake is always boring and weakens the story.

& as for the characters... .

everyone felt like a hollow version of themselves this season and it was hard to watch sometimes, actually. characters switched motivations /personalities for the sake of the current episode and i know this show is very ‘monster/emergency of the week’ but. some consistency! please! like—

maya: she’s always been determined and focused but they went so far with it this season, it was almost cartoonish. her competitiveness was hinted at in season 2 but she was always portrayed as self aware. ‘the beast,’ as she dubbed it to andy, was something she knew of and tried to contain, because she knew it could get out of hand.

yet, in season 3 she suddenly forgets this and just. becomes the most power hungry/singularly focused person, ever. she goes after the captain position behind andy’s back, (citing andy’s emotional state, because of the death of her best friend as a reason she shouldn’t get the job?? huh. since when is maya this purely callous??!) she just doesn’t give af, suddenly, about andy at all, and goes for a job that she is hardly qualified for(she was lieutenant for like, a few months?)

and then after she gets the position, she just. loses all sense of reality? literally she was so unhinged(fun to watch but so much) and it was like. um?? maya has never been the uptight one (they've mentioned and depicted andy as being the one like this, multiple times!) and we know she knows how to have fun, so, for her to all of a sudden just. not know how to read the room? yeah okay. to make her so intense and severe, especially w the drills and training was, a choice. a bad one, on the writers part. like, i get that they needed her start as captain to be dramatic or whatever, but there were ways to do that. and even the animosity with the team and her went so far, i just think that whole storyline was amazingly lazy, honestly.

and the friendships!! andy and maya’s friendship is just, a mess. at this point they've spent more time at odds, and the idea that they're supposed to be best friends with this super close bond? yeah, i just... i dont buy it tbh. if they'd spent more time building up their connections and making us understand why they would be friends and showing them being there for each other past a few scattered scenes her and there? maybe. but so far, that hasn't been the case. making that bond real, solidifying that friendship, would have made this conflict have more of an emotional impact. but doing it now? making maya ‘turn’ on andy, this soon and this drastically just. it made her seem like she was extremely jealous and had been waiting to pull the rug out from under andy all along. and also, why would they stay friends when, so far, maya has showed, time and time again, that she’s willing to let her wants/ambitions leech on her loyalty to andy? (jack thing, job thing, etc). although, it’s not like andy’s a good friend to maya either, she’s selfish and seems to like it when maya is in her corner but isnt always there for her. they went so far with the idea that maya was this coldly calculating asshole that she was almost a villain?? it was so silly to me.

and the traumatic home life plot they gave to maya was clearly their attempt at some adding nuance to her character and trying to explain why she would act the way she did, but to me? it fell flat. it was rushed, and they went from zero to 100(why did her mother come to talk about her divorce/abuse at maya’s job? like she was literally working? idgi. no boundaries lmaoo)

and i actually relate and sympathize w maya a lot. and while i liked that they were exploring the many ways abuse can present itself, it was very... hm, ham-fisted. just super rushed and then wrapped up so quickly. they have, i think, written themselves into this dark place i fear they have no intention of exploring.

and while i understand it, i hated how far they let maya go, especially because i don't feel they’ll adequately address it. they move on so quickly( maya was deaf for like half a season and then. she just. wasn't) and i hate the idea of her just being ‘fixed’. a relationship and an apology doesn't undo years of abuse, idc. also will they ever address maya’s um, thoughts about death??? because that was super heavy and not just something someone gets over? going to need for her to get actual professional help. that isn’t her girlfriend, like. asap.

speaking of carina, i do like her and maya together a lot. big part of why i watch, ngl. but i need their relationship to be a lot more reciprocal. like, lets dial it back on the codependency, maybe. carina cant (and shouldn't have to) hold her up so much ! that’s not love. also maya needs to start being a good girlfriend. they started off that way, i know they can get back there. but like, we hardly got to see them settle into it, we got those cute 30sec clips of sweetness then maya was lashing out and cheating and it was like. wait a minute! what???

for s4, i want to see them working at reconciling—im talking, groveling, awkward in-between moments where carina isnt sure she can trust her. okay, tough conversations, hell, even jealousy because let's be real. maya working with jack is a lot for carina to just. take? i know i absolutely would not be happy about that, but i also wouldnt take maya back so... anyway! brushing over that would not just be a missed storytelling opportunity, but it would also be super unfair to carina and do a huge disservice to their relationship as a whole. as cute as they are, having cute moments with no real depth would get very old, very quickly.

carina: what can i say but-perfect, amazing, fantastic, WOW

seriously, carina is almost unrealistically perfect. she takes a lot and has been through the most (can they be nice 2 her this season? like just for fun) going forward, im going to need her to be more than a plot device to calm and soothe maya. i get that she was introduced as a love interest, but in season 4(as a season!!regular!!) that cant be all she is.

speaking of, it was really weird to me that she was promoted to station 19 and not greys because... what is a gynecologist going to do at a fire station? the general consensus seems to be that she’ll join warren’s PRT but like. she’s not a general surgeon so that’s a reach but, i want her around so ill buy it. i just want better and more for her tbh. not just screen-time, but also character development and depth! also friends! tired of carina being isolated, they did it on greys which. a waste! i meaaan, amelia was RIGHT. THERE. just look at the material! for s19, i want her, vic and travis to be friends or even just her and vic, like yesplease! i also want to know more about her and im tired of her being treated badly. like, i think society had progressed past carina being shitted on, thanks!

vic: my fave!!! they did so lazy by her this season ugh. she’s so charismatic and charming and just so good!! yet, her storyline was all over the place. we hardly got to see her sit with her grief (spontaneous crying aside; barrett doss is so good!) she was just kind of... around. and that relationship w jackson. lol. it was so obviously for crossover potential and well. i didnt hate it or like it. actually, i was mostly indifferent. bored, even when they were onscreen together. i just didn't care and wanted more of vic, not vic and whoever. i know they're up in the air rn but i wouldn’t be torn up if he doesn’t come back.

i want more for vic past just romantic entanglements. i know we’ve gotten a bit of her past, but i would like to see more! also, what about employment accomplishments? her artsy theatre friends? her family? just. more vic, please!!

she’s so fun and cool and when they let her, she shines. they need to let her!

jack: my boy! so dumb, but i love him sm. he def needs like. major help, though lmao. and maybe it’s just me but im tired of his sex addict plot. like, we get it, but can we move on now? kthanks. they need to let him work on himself especially, the constant self sabotage. it's getting old. for ALL of them, actually, seriously, how many times can they all get in their own way.

andy: don’t really think about her. the mom storyline seems like it would be wonderfully dramatic, im intrigued. she and sullivan are cute, i guess. hope they make it.

ben: no major issues w his storyline, hardly remember it honestly. i liked the rapport he was building w vic and want them to explore that relationship more, its cute.

travis: so funny and adorable, let him do more.

dean: loved him in all his entitled first born African son glory. i didnt so much love the baby plot but that always bores me. his sudden love for vic though. lol. since when? it def, came out of no where and while i really enjoy their friendship, to me, there is zero romantic chemistry there so i would prefer it if they just. stopped. lmao. also. the way he treated her because he could get a handle on his emotions? ridiculous. has humanity not like, gotten past the ‘he’s mean bc he likes you’ thing?? like grow up maybe?

and this isnt just about dean but like. are there not more single young people in seattle? why do they all have to sleep with the same 5 people. ik for the sake of plot, workplace relationships are easier but still. i think they should branch out. really.

overall, i want better for all of them, and i think if the writers would just. take a moment and stop trying to tell so many stories in such little time, they could do better! also, whoever’s out there. please, enough w the crossovers! dont want to be forced to watch greys just to know what’s happening on 19. i get that they're in the same universe. it’s only mentioned every other episode. we. get, it. i liked what they did with private practice, it was like once every few seasons. and i know they won’t do that, but maybe, two a season.

this is so much. but this how does have a ton of potential and i just really want it . like, get there.

#either way #im still watching lmao #h8 it here lol #station 19 #maya bishop #vic hughes #andy herrera #dean miller #jack gibson #ben warren #travis montgomery #s19 #mtxt #if u see spelling mistakes #no u didnt xx #me writing dissertations to justify why im stuck here lmaoo

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mrs-evadne-cake · 4 years

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Hey!! I love your fic. I was just wondering - and yes, i know it's unrealistic - if in an ideal, paradise world Stranger Things decided to go the stoncy route, how would you want them do do it? If you were in the writers' room how would you develop it in a convincing way that fits with the rest of the show? (I'm genuinely curious since you wrote them so well in IASL)

First, thank you so much!

I mean, first and foremost I always want it to be a little bit of a mess since we’re dealing with a time and place where the word "polyamory" was not in circulation and there was no real poly community or overall awareness of polyamory as a way to be. They might be aware of free love in the ‘60s and the concept of swingers but mostly as far as they’re concerned they’re out here in ‘86 Indiana inventing the concept of a triad and it’s hard enough learning normal relationship skills as a teenager without adding unlearning socialized ideas about exclusivity and jealousy on top of that.

So let these idiots fuck it up a bunch, is what I’m saying. Bring on the return of Nancy ‘Say the Meanest Possible Thing to My Boyfriend(s)’ Wheeler.

How would I make it fit the show...man this would be easier if these three had shared a scene together for more than two minutes since S1. This is probably going to get long so more after the cut!

The show loves to trot out ‘shared trauma’ so in this perfect world they actually remember that it applies to Steve, too. So he’s dating around town but it’s not working out with anyone since it gets really, really awkward trying to explain to the girls he sleeps with why he shouts the name of an ice-cream shop during his nightmares without mentioning Russian spies ‘cause yeah, retail is hell but it’s a little excessive.

With Jonathan gone Nancy starts hanging around with Steve more often because she too remembers that he exists and went through all the same shit with them and that he ramming-speeded a Cadillac Eldorado into Billy Hargrove’s face to save her life, and her entire over-14 support system is gone. Steve thinks its a little unfair (and Robin thinks its a lot unfair) but he still cares about her so he goes along with it and Nancy is sort of surprised by how different he is from S1/Early S2 Steve.

Robin is like ‘Oh so you can lie on truth serum ‘cause you’re definitely still in love with her.’ which Steve vehemently denies. He’s just a good friend, buddy, pal. No romantic feelings at all.

Jonathan is in Arizona or Illinois or friggin’ Derry, Maine knowing Joyce’s luck obviously very much missing Nancy. They talk on the phone and Nancy mentions that she’s been hanging out with Steve- now this could go either way the ‘Jonathan Byers is An Angel’ route where he’s okay with it right off the bat or the ‘Jonathan Byers remembers how he and Nancy got together the first time and tries to be okay with it because he is above petty normal people things like still being jealous of the ex-high school jock but can’t let it go and the two of them get into a fight. (where Nancy probably says the meanest possible thing to her boyfriend’ route. Obviously I choose the second one.

We get a scene of Jonathan getting worked up talking about it to Will who is like :/ bro, you are mentioning Steve A LOT in this conversation, aren’t you pissed at Nancy? And Jonathan is taken aback because yeah, he is sort of obsessing about Steve.

Nancy also mentions the fight to Steve because Nancy is bad at this whole ‘don’t put your ex in awkward situations regarding your current relationship’ thing. Steve feels bad.

But before it gets resolved plot stuff kicks off and Joyce and Murray are off to ...sigh...fight evil Russians and free Hopper from a Soviet gulag. Jonathan and Will and El end up back in town however they do and we all wonder why they moved in the first place.

Jonathan, Nancy and Steve end up teamed up FINALLY (In this world Robin ends up on Team El, Max, and Kali because fuck everyone who hates her, Kali is here too and Max deserves her best friend, a big sister, and a tiny super-powered vigilante punk-rock aunt after what they did to her last season. They all kick Brenner’s ass like the last scene in Death Proof, the end) And at some point the boys end up separated from Nancy and try to make awkward conversation and Steve tries to assure him that he’s sorry and he would never get between him and Nancy and once he gets started apologizing he just sort of keeps going- for all of High school, and if he ever ate his bagels in a really weird way, and for the fight and blaming him and Joyce for Will and calling him queer and the two have a real adult conversation where they bury the hatchet and move past high school.

And because I love the fanfic classics, that’s when a monster tries to eat them and Nancy saves them (bonus points if she uses the bat) and afterward they’re just like, ‘Fuck this town, why do we do this EVERY YEAR’ “I MOVED.’but they obviously realize that they make a really good team and actually enjoy each other’s company. The rest of their plot line has them growing increasingly comfortable with each other as they investigate whatever Nancy has dragged them along to investigate. Jonathan says he was wrong to be jealous and Nancy says of course he was because she’s always right because this is still Nancy motherfucking Wheeler and she will never not be that bitch.

Monster stuff. The teams all come together. Hopper is back and the evil Russians defeated, yay. Robin is glad Steve is not dead and vice versa and Steve is like where did you pick up the hot punk-rock chick and did you get her number? And Robin is like long story and yes, why is Jonathan Byers looking at you with heart eyes? Which is information that overloads Steve’s brain and he’s almost glad when the series climax where they all fight a giant monster or a hole in the universe happens right then.

No one dies, or fake dies, or maybe dies or maybe ends up in a Soviet gulag again.

Post- Climax wrap up where we actually see what everyone is doing that night directly after saving the world instead of flashing forward to months later and missing loads and loads of important character moments. After we’ go through everyone else Your Love By The Outfield starts playing because it’s 1986 now and I can FINALLY use it since it was released in ‘85. Steve goes home to (everyone say it with me) an empty house and he seems to debate with himself a little before calling Robin with a question. Nancy and Jonathan are together wherever the Byers’ and Hop are staying when the doorbell rings and it’s Steve who obviously immediately regrets this decision the minute they answer but they bring him inside and the music becomes diegetic as Jonathan puts on the record and closes the bedroom door behind them.

So apparently even in my perfect world where I’m in charge it sort of ends up mostly ramping up to stoncy than pure stoncy over one season. I’m pretty firmly of the opinion that the three of them just messing around in increasingly inclusive ways comes way before any actual poly negotiation or reflection or discussion on their respective sexuality and you can’t show that on PG-13 Netflix so we’re just crashing to black and credits.

Thanks for the ask anon- sorry to make you wait, I knew this was going to be a monster of a post. And the fact that I just spent like, a hour and a half writing this has made me realize I might be in the mood to *actually* write again, so thanks!

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m00nslippers · 5 years

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Would you go more into how creators could make Tim more interesting and sympathetic? I neither like nor dislike like him; but i like intereting thoughts and ideas. I’ve always heard he’s the most like Batman, a detective. I’ve seen a lot of contrast between him and Jay not only as rich boy/poor boy, but since Jay’s his predecessor. Other than that I don’t know much.

Do you mean like fan-creators or how I think the comic writers should make Tim more interesting/sympathetic? I don’t know what you’re asking, but I’m just going to speak generally.

I think Tim is very sympathetic as it is, his problem isn’t that he isn’t sympathetic. I have some ideas about what the issue with Tim’s character is but the issue actually changes based on what Tim we are really talking about. There seems to be three very different versions of Tim IMO, and each have different problems.

Tim 1.0 (OG Tim) is an enthusiastic, very empathetic kid who was stoked to be a superhero who tried his best and accomplished a lot despite being of only slightly above average talent and was otherwise extremely normal and ‘relatable’ despite a neglectful/abusive homelife.

Tim 2.0 (Red Robin/some N52 Tim) is an anxiety-ridden mess who worries constantly and has fears of inadequacy but is also overconfident in his deductions and judgements of other people. He’s experienced a lot of hardship and to cope he relies heavily on his friends for comfort and goes a bit crazy when their support is taken from him.

Tim 3.0 (Rebirth Tim) is a know-it-all tech genius and master combatant who is a bit sarcastic and full of himself and feels the need to micromanage those around him because he feels personally responsible for everything within his field of influence.

Okay first of all the problem is that there are like…three different versions of the character and some of the traits are mutually exclusive. Writers writing Tim need to settle on one version.

The problem with Tim 1.0 is that large parts of that identity are not sustainable, they are reliant on the character being young and shiny. Once you’ve been a superhero for five years and gone through all the hardships and downs involved, can you really still be so eager and ‘normal’? Is that realistic? Certain aspects of this character have a time limit which requires this him to change or evolve and take on different traits. The writers realized this and started trying to change him over time by including more anxiety that dampened his enthusiasm, made him more subdied and experienced.

The problem with Tim 2.0 is that he has a well-crafted personality and backstory and is a great evolution of Tim 1.0 as a person, but his superhero identity falls to the wayside. He’s no longer Robin anymore and suddenly it’s hard to say why he’s a hero, why he’s necessary, why he’s there apart from that he’s just always has been and it’s inertia at this point. That’s the huge problem with ‘Red Robin’. Who is Red Robin? What makes him unique? What does he do that no other character really does? The writers made a more mature character, but then started taking away everything he had that was his own (mostly, his friends). I think Lobdell actually tried to help with this by giving Tim some tech and his team back in N52 Teen Titans, but his personality suddenly didn’t make sense because a lot of what made him like that way was retconned out of existence, which brings us to…

The problem with Tim 3.0, which is that he’s an empty shell, he’s the opposite of 2.0, he has superhero traits but he lacks personality and backstory. He’s barely a person and the personality he has is radically different from the other version so you can’t really cut and paste to flesh him out. Know-it-all control freaks are not bad characters, they can be really fun, but the existing framework for Tim’s story does not support the personality that was given to him. You have to go back and change a lot of who he was at the beginning for it to work. This character really needs to be reworked from the ground up.

Now the problem I think a lot of fanwork-Tims have is that they can’t decide which Tim they want to do. Because they really are different. Basically, just pick one. And probably don’t pick 3 because it’s trash, honestly. Don’t try to mix and match too much and do them all because it’s not going to work very well, for the most part. Just make a decision and go from there. I think a lot of people try to put all the skills and control-freak aspects of 3.0 onto version 1 or 2 to make him ‘cooler’ and it actually makes the character less likeable and make less sense.

The other problem I see in fanworks is just plain favoritism-based reality warping (sometimes also called Mary-Su/Gary-Stu-ness). What I mean by that is that the writer constantly manipulates the plot and the other characters in the story so as to put their favorite in the most sympathetic light and praise their accomplishments above all others. This is especially bad if it causes other characters to act out of character in order to feed the narrative that Tim is to be loved above all others. Characters are suddenly unrealistically unfair to Tim because the reader must sympathize with him the most. Everyone disagrees with Tim about the plan and then later they are proved wrong and have to apologize to Tim. That kind of thing. I think in this fandom it’s used very subtly, but it’s still there. When Tim is constantly the one who is rescuing grown ass-vigilantes with more experience than him, and he never needs rescued himself, that’s a problem. When he’s always a step ahead of everyone else, even those who as intelligent and as smart as him, and he is never confused or at a loss, that’s no good.

Considering all the people around Tim, realistically he should not be the most capable/knowledgeable person in the room at any given time (especially for versions 1 and 2), because everyone else in the batfam is equal or superior to him in most skills. I think a lot of what makes earlier Tim likeable, and one of the few things that makes him different from the other Robins, is that he’s an underdog. He’s not the most whatever in the room but he tries hard and you want to see him overcome his obstacles. Making him more capable than he’s supposed to be actually makes him less interesting, IMO. So don’t be afraid to let him fail, to let him need help, to let him mess up. Those are good things. They don’t make him weak or dumb, they just make him human. Otherwise he’s just a caricature.

#Tim Drake #Timothy Drake #Red Robin #Robin #Drake #meta #fandom #creators #comics #critique #fanwork #fanfic #writing

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ninwrites · 5 years

Text

Shadowhunters 3x16: On Clary’s Actions and the Consequences For Those Around Her

No, I cannot confirm that there is actually anything coherent here. Just my rambling thoughts, collected as well as I could. For the record, I don’t hate Clary, I just don’t think that the writers consider the impact of her actions on the people around her and I’m getting more than just a little tired of it. Please read at your own discretion.

Also, shout-out to @magnusbicon for encouraging this & @izzybabewoods for the inbox message that started it all. you’re enablers in the very best day and this wouldn’t exist without you.

Here’s the thing.

In season one, the majority of Clary’s arc was quite self-centred. And that’s fine. For all intents and purposes, she is the main protagonist, and the reason we’re introduced to the rest of these characters - the Lightwoods, Simon, Magnus, Valentine, even the Clave - is through Clary’s connection and interactions with them. As the audience, we’re following her into this new world, and it’s as she learns things that we become aware of them too – we’re not just watching her go on this journey, in a way, we’re going on it too. If Clary wasn’t at the focus of the season, we’d miss out on important knowledge that helps with our understanding of the shadow world and the characters that inhabit it – because it is quite a large and complex world.

Then comes season two. Jocelyn comes back, who – as much as I adore Luke – is mostly concerned with Clary, and rightfully so. This is her daughter, who she chose to keep in the dark about the shadow world, there’s a lot there to catch up on and to mend between them, and Clary needs somebody who she (supposedly) will listen to, to counteract her rash and impulsive behaviour, because as much as she’d love to think that she knows everything, Clary at this point really has no idea what world she’s come into. There’s a part of her that has already made up her mind about the shadow world, about Downworlders and Shadowhunters and her role here, and whether it’s right or wrong takes the backseat, leaving the season’s arc as the driving force. Or, rather, her part in it. Because – and here’s the bit that frustrates me the most – the character arcs, the desires of others, their hopes and goals and wishes all fall second, or third or somewhere closer to last, to whatever Clary wants. Despite not actually being brought up as a Shadowhunter, she manages to sustain quite the assumption that she is the most important person in the room, and therefore, that whatever she wants comes first.

Sometimes, this is a good thing. Often, the line is blurred.

Her intentions often come from a good place, with the consequences falling short because of her impulsivity more than an inherent ill-will. Look at Simon – he’s still in the show, yay! Only … he did die. I’m not saying that I would have done any differently, but from a factual standpoint – it is Clary’s desire to have her best friend back that turned him into a vampire, and by a tenuous, albeit valid thread, it is because of Clary that Simon was coerced and manipulated by Camille; homeless; all of the back and forth mess with Raphael; got turned into a Daylighter; got coerced into joining the Seelie Queen’s court; turned Heidi – and we all know how that turned out; got the mark of Cain; lost his mother; bit his sister; lost the mark of Cain. I’m sure there’s more that I can’t remember, but again, I’m not saying that Clary is the sole person at fault here. However, I am saying that all of this is – per the butterfly effect – because she didn’t think about the consequences past not wanting to lose her best friend. Additionally, I’d argue that through most of the above, Simon didn’t have the support from Clary that he deserved, or that she should have given. In that respect, the relationship between them feels awfully one-sided, and has since the first episode. There are moments, of course, but they’re becoming even fewer and further in-between.

I could probably write a whole thing on Clary’s relationships with people she supposedly cares about (*cough* Luke *cough*), but I’m getting off point. I want to talk about 3x16 in particular.

Firstly, the rune power. Maybe it’s just me - though I have a sense it’s not - but Clary’s rune power is getting a few miles north of the city of Absolutely Fucking Ridiculous, and veering towards Overused/Abused county.

(Does that metaphor make sense? I have no idea).

Anyway. Being able to just suddenly make a portal to Edom that doesn’t just summon Lilith, but literally pulls her from Edom – from essentially the cage that Asmodeus put her in using Magnus’ magic, which has already been hinted to as just as powerful, if not more, than a Greater Demon – without any resistance? Really? Seems a bit unrealistic to me. Because, either this means that Clary is actually an Angel, for all of the power that she apparently wields, or that she’s more powerful than Magnus, and actual Greater Demons. I personally chalk it up to convenience from the perspective of the writers, but that’s just me. Back to the rune – the idea that Clary has this power at all is already a bit of a stretch, especially with how willy-nilly the writers are when it comes to using it, but now it’s reached a point that is just nonsensical. No Shadowhunter is this powerful, not even the great Clary Fray.

Then, there’s the part where Clary is the first Shadowhunter to possess this power, as far as we know; there is nobody that has the prior knowledge to train her, so again – for the sake of convenience, I’m sure – it’s something that apparently just comes to her as naturally as breathing. Which – okay. Fine. They don’t exactly have time to show a montage of her learning how to deliberately create these runes. I get that. But that doesn’t mean they have to render this power unreasonable. Creating portals? Cool. Realistic. I don’t actually mind that, even if I think it got a little to Clary’s head. The sunlight rune? Pretty cool, I won’t lie. I liked how that came about – there was a heightened emotion to the moment, it made sense that a rune would manifest under such stressful circumstances. But Clary just deciding that, because she wants this rune to exist, it instantly will? It will work, just by the strength of, what, her willpower? I know it’s quite strong, but this logic isn’t. It’s ridiculous. It doesn’t make sense. It’s cheating for the sake of an easy plot, without minding the six-feet deep holes left behind.

Now, I’d also contend that as helpful as this power is, it doesn’t magically fix everything around her. Sometimes, it makes things worse. Such as during 3x16.

The biggest thing that pissed me off about Clary in 3x16 is the fact that she decided they all had to do whatever they could to get rid of this rune, because she was sick of it and couldn’t handle it, so that must mean that everybody else has to turn all of their attention and focus towards her, regardless of whatever they were doing before. And what are we told this is prompted by? Her snapping at Simon; (which, by the way, wasn’t as harsh as I think we were supposed to believe. Clary going through PMS probably would have resulted in the same reaction. It was snappy, and angry, and a little rude, but not … evil. Simon looked more shocked than anything. Maybe if she’d snapped at everyone, it would be more believable. But like a lot of this episode, this felt a little bit like a cop-out.)

Mere steps from this conversation, Magnus was lying unconscious because of magic that wasn’t his, that he’d sold his apartment for, because he didn’t feel like he was worth being alive, worth existing, without his magic, that his magic was all that made him special – which, he’d sacrificed for Jace, no less. Granted, Clary likely wouldn’t have known about how Magnus felt about losing his magic, but I do find it hard to believe that she wouldn’t have even realised that losing it at all would have been an incredible trauma for Magnus.

Then again, it does feel like Clary only cares about Magnus when it suits her. It’s harsh, but I sometimes wonder if she’d care more if Magnus had died, or if she’d just be upset because she’d lost a resource. This mostly stems from how she’s written, I’ll admit, but it’s still how I feel.

And I think canon backs me up here. After all, look at what Magnus has gone through at the end of 3A and into 3B alone.

He sacrificed his magic to Asmodeus, the man who abused and emotionally manipulated him, who probably made him commit heinous acts, of which murder I’m sure wasn’t off the table, all after having to grovel and endure soul-crushing humiliation at the hands of aforementioned abuser, who he most likely had gotten comfortable with the idea of never seeing again, all to save Jace from Lilith’s control (only to return to see the love of his life bleeding out with no way of saving him – I don’t blame this on Clary, but it is a factor that has affected Magnus. How could it not?) After Magnus returns, mortal, mundane, barely half of the man he used to be – his feelings, not mine – he’s ostracised by Lorenzo and ignored by the rest of the warlocks from Lorenzo’s command, excluding Catarina, his only friend at this point. Just there, he’s given up everything for Jace, and whilst it’s possible that Clary doesn’t know, it seems a little far-fetched to assume that Jace wouldn’t tell her. If he did, it seems a bit unfair for Clary not to consider that, but then, there’s almost an assumption that sacrifices made for people that Clary explicitly loves – Jace – matter more than the people who made the sacrifice.

Then, because he felt so empty and lost without his magic, Magnus had to forego his pride and dignity to ask for Lorenzo’s help – his mortal enemy, basically, who has always disliked Magnus – selling his apartment in the process, his home, only to then be rejected by the magic, resulting in him having to give it up to not die. Because of that, he has to go through the process of losing magic again, even if it’s not quite the same as his own, which would have teared his mental health to shreds, and completely destroyed any progress he’d made towards feeling better, feeling more like himself. Now, I do believe that Magnus understood the weight of the transplant and all of the ways it could go wrong, which just makes this even more painful, because he felt that dying was a better alternative to not having his magic – if it weren’t for Alec, and Catarina, and Madzie, I don’t think Magnus would have had the strength to give Lorenzo’s magic back. Yes, there’s an argument to be made that he only did it for Alec, but I personally think it was Alec’s insistence that he couldn’t lose Magnus – wouldn’t, lose him - that prompted Magnus into remembering that they were people out there who cared for him, and loved him, even if it’s impossible for him to understand why. Depression warps a person’s perception of themselves anyway; add on all of the trauma Magnus has undergone, and in such a short period of time, and it makes sense that he’d find it easier to do this for somebody else, than for himself. I don’t think this makes his decision or his reasoning any less valid, but I’m getting a little off topic here.

Magnus doesn’t know who he is without his magic, and in this episode especially, but not solely, it doesn’t feel like Clary cares – because without his magic, he can’t help her, and if somebody can’t help her, they cease to matter.

(Again, this is my perception.)

Speaking of people who only matter if they can help Clary – let’s talk about Cain. ‘Cause I haven’t seen a lot of discussion on him, and I feel like he deserves the attention.

Cain has lived with this guilt of succumbing to Lilith’s manipulation and killing his own brother for longer than I think it’s possible for us, as the audience, and the characters of the show to understand. You can see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice – he carries this burden with him, and it’s suffocating. Inescapable. He couldn’t get rid of his mark, so cruelly named after him, and now he’s stuck living in a sewer, living off rats, because he’s dreadfully invincible. I have no doubt that he still felt Lilith’s hold on him, like a shadow, constantly creeping around him, that sensation that there’s something over his shoulder, something behind him ready to attack, but there’s not, there never is, it’s just him and his guilt and the sick crawl of Lilith’s voice taking hold of him, the drowning ache that never leaves, because if he’d been stronger, his brother might not have died.

The last thing he wanted – or needed – was to see Lilith again.

I can’t even imagine how that would have felt. Seeing the woman who destroyed you, knowing that nothing could ever keep her locked away, that there was no cage that she couldn’t break out of – he probably felt her power leaking out, creeping under his skin, whispering to him even as the direction of her voice was focused on the others. From the moment she addressed him, she had him hooked. Just as he knew she would. Because he warned them – he told them he wouldn’t do it. The only reason he helped was Simon – because he related to Simon, because he could see the guilt in Simon and knew that was no way to live, because he wanted to save Simon from suffering a fate as bad as his own. Cain trusted Simon. Because Simon trusted Clary. And now, he’s stuck with his abuser, because the plan failed just as he’d told them it would, because once again, Clary only thought about what she could gain out of this, and not how it would affect anybody else.

Because when Clary wants to jump, she doesn’t take the time to notice who could be supporting her fall.

You know who often has to take the fall for Clary’s actions? Alec.

I cannot see the actions of this episode as anything less than taking advantage of the fragile situation that Alec was in, for Clary to get what she wanted. The love of his life – and I refuse to believe that Clary doesn’t recognise that, for all of my complaints I don’t think she’s actually stupid – was lying unconscious in the infirmary, and really, none of them could be certain that he’d be okay, that there wouldn’t be further consequences when he woke up. Because, again – he was unconscious!! And Clary, honestly thought – hey, there’s this rune tying me to my psychotic sibling and it’s torturing me so instead of formulating an actual plan and thinking through options to get rid of it, I’m just going to go ahead and summon the mother of demons, to get rid of it for me, and darn the consequences. Never mind the fact that the Head of the Institute has yet to hear of this plan, let alone sanction it - he’s too busy worrying about the health and well-being of his unconscious boyfriend, so why bother him about it and get clearance on a dangerous mission like this, when we could just, go ahead and do it anyway.

(Because even in this fragile state, Alec never would have sanctioned it.)

Clary doesn’t take a second to think about the consequences this could have on Alec, and she never really has when it comes to missions; the only thing she has ever considered is how it can benefit her. Stealing the mortal cup from the Institute? Sure, why not. It’s super dangerous and can be turned into a weapon if in the wrong hands, and is locked away for a reason, but rules are made to be broken, right? Season one, whilst frustrating, could be brushed off as Clary just not quite understanding the power structure – sure, Jace did, and he should have done more about making it clear to her as opposed to just going along with her plans because he was thinking with his stele, but again, season one.

And, sure, there’s that bit in 2x10 where Alec has spent the entire night searching for Magnus’ body in the Institute because, despite his best wishes, he can’t deny the possibility that Magnus is one of Valentine’s Downworlder victims, and Clary remembered that they portalled in – cause, Magnus made the portal, as far as I can remember – but she lost him after that, and hadn’t even thought since then about his whereabouts, or his safety, or even considered that he might have DIED. But, you know. Season two.

This is season three. The second half, for that matter. And Clary is still thinking with herself in mind first, without even a second to regard how it affects others. If the Clave find out that Shadowhunters under Alec’s supervision took a traitor’s weapon, adjusted it so that it was capable of electrocution and used it to trap a Greater Demon – and Lilith, at that – only for her to end up escaping, all whilst he was preoccupied with his warlock boyfriend/technically making threats to the High Warlock which could, if Lorenzo was so inclined, damage relations between the Institute and the High Warlock – well. To say that they wouldn’t be impressed would be quite the understatement. He could lose his title over this. And then what? Who is going to save their asses from suspension/the silent city then? To be quite crude; if the Clave find out about this, and then pair that with Alec and Isabelle’s investigation into Project: Heavenly Fire, Alec would be fucked. They wouldn’t give him the Institute after that, and he certainly would no longer retain the reputation he spent so long building back up after his not-wedding. I don’t know if Alec would care that much about his reputation, he seems quite content with just doing what he wants and letting people’s opinions be exactly that – their opinions. Of no matter to him.

However, that doesn’t automatically make them go away. There would still be people dying to see Alec fail, to see him crash and burn, to talk shit behind his back because of their own feelings towards decisions he’s made, both in power and before it.

Clary doesn’t think about any of that – about anything, really, that doesn’t involve her. And it’s fucking exhausting. I want to like Clary, so badly, because she is a badass character and there’s a lot to admire about her. But I can’t love her when she’s so selfish that other characters are consistently suffering because of it. When sacrifices are made and her response is to completely disregard them in favour of achieving something that she wants. When episode, after episode – season after season – she’s allowed to just do whatever she wants without care to the consequences and how it affects others.

Clary could be a fantastic, game-changing character. As it is, she feels more like a petulant child who throws a tantrum when she can’t get what she wants, and refuses to listen when she’s told something that she doesn’t want to hear.

I hope my opinion of her improves over the season. But I won’t be holding my breath.

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serenagaywaterford · 5 years

Note

Oops... I think I messed up, have no idea if I sent that ask or not... anyway, my question is if you’ve seen the play by play people posted on Reddit of episode 11. If so, what do you think? And then specifically going forward, how do you think the June/Serena relationship is gonna be, if at all.

Both came through :)

Yeah, that play by play and the Aussie synopsis… synposes??? were what I was taking into consideration. (Not those other weird spoilers that may have just been trolly fakes?)

I HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT THAT PLAY BY PLAY TBH

But mostly, I hate 2 things: Everything they’ve written for Serena. And the fact apparently the Canadian border is….everywhere? Okay, this is just an really stupid ongoing problem with THT that is so nitpicky for me tbh. I just… I could literally rant about the border for like 40 pages rn but I won’t.

As for Winslow’s attempted rape of June… *sigh* I just… Really? Is that what I need to see? I knew that was coming cos the Israeli trailer shows it lol. WHAT THE FUCK IS SO GODDAMN SPECIAL ABOUT JUNE? I’m not saying that to be mean but seriously? This season every single man seemed hellbent on bending over backwards for her. Fred’s always been weirdly preoccupied and predatory. But wtf Stabler *insert Law & Order sound*? Like he wants what Fred wants??? And Fred wants what Lawrence has… and like, there’s Serena in this equation too. Everybody is so damn obsessed with June. Obviously Gay Stabler (can I even call him that anymore?) isn’t doing it out of lust. It’s power and control.

Anyway.

I am literally 28392309 times more interested in the Marthas’ plan than June’s. Sorry.

I still hang onto a tiny shred of hope about Serena’s Secret Master Plan For Revenge–but seriously, her fucking Fred is just… makes me pretty much call that as impossible. I know, I know you could go into a whole thing about the psychology of domestic abuse victims, and how they often do swing back into “love” or whatever with their abusers. And often it’s frustrating as FUCK to see from the outside. But it happens over and over, usually until either they escape the relationship or they are killed by it. So, Serena being manipulated into this fantasy romance again isn’t exactly unrealistic. It’s just unwanted. I don’t want to see that. And I REALLY FUCKING DESPISE THT for glorifying that and romanticising it, or I dunno, just ignoring the violent assault(s) AND the first 4 episodes of S3 entirely.

I don’t think this show is making any sort of nuanced commentary on the psychology of domestic abuse. I think they’re literally just writing all the opposite things that most people want to see.

Cos, let’s break it down:

If you hate Serena, this romantic portrayal is boring AF and repulsive.

If you like Serena, this romantic portrayal is aggravating and offensive.

Who wants to see Serena fuck Fred in a tender way?

ABSOLUTELY ZERO PEOPLE EVER.

ZERO.

I hate Fiennes too btw. I’d just like to throw that unfair nugget out there. Cos I feel like if such a name actor wasn’t the one in that role, this may have been slightly different. Certainly less sympathetic to Fred at any rate. Fred is a low, pathetic, disgusting creature and I am just angry that I have to spend ANY time watching him say or do anything at all. I just want him dead and gone. But oh no, we can’t do that to Joseph Fiennes.

-_-

They keep hinting that Serena has something going on… but I’ll believe it when I see it. And I won’t see it.

But like… Why would Serena say goodbye to Rita like that if she thought they were just going to some fucking farmhouse in rural Vermont or whatever? So… Yeah. Little hints. Can’t get any hopes up at all.

And, even if Serena is conning Fred and working with Tuello (best case scenario), WE DON’T NEED A SEX SCENE. WE DON’T. THERE IS NO REASON FOR IT. Other than to disgust and/or bore viewers.

Anyway

About June/Serena, I think that’s pretty dead in the water tbh. Especially if Serena is having romantic tender disgusting fucking sex with that abusive fungal pondscum. Even ignoring the non-canon romantic shippery aspects of June/Serena, I don’t think we’ll get to see much at all cos they’re 100 of miles apart again with totally different stories now. I actually don’t think they’ll have any more scenes together this season. So… yeah. I think this is where the fork happens.

Either Serena is working with the US/CDN gov’ts and is bringing in the bigger fish, and then staying in Canada–or she’s legit arrested for good and therefore in prison. Either way, she’s nowhere near June and doesn’t seem to be for the rest of the season according to the synopses. The finale: “Fred and Serena have to adapt to their new life” ?!!?! Excuse me while I hurl. Both vomit and sharp objects at the TV.

And…

I’m just really angry?

It feels like they’ve ripped the heart out of the show. I’m not saying just because June/Serena has been murdered, but because the stories are all over the place, are saying really creepy things, and the characters are like… I don’t even know anymore, and everybody is fractured all over the place. It doesn’t feel cohesive. It doesn’t feel like they know what they’re doing and the writers are just flinging a bunch of shit at a wall and seeing what sticks.

Not to mention whatever “tragedy” is gonna happen to Luke, Moira, and Emily.

So, basically, S4 may have been renewed but… meh. I think this is likely gonna be it for me tbh. I can’t see myself sticking around for another season of this fuckery. All it does is make me sad and angry and frustrated and offended, so yeah.

There’s still a chance I’ll change my mind, but to be frank, I can’t really see how they could possibly salvage my interest in this show anymore if this is the direction they’re going. And that makes me sad. It’s like when you know you need to break up with someone but can’t do it right away… We’ll just finish this vacation together and then I’m dumping you, sorta thing.

#stumble14

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alicewritesthisstuff · 5 years

Text

One year of being on tumblr

Ok, so I’ve been on tumblr for a little over a year and I really need to get some things off my chest.

So, I guess this is going to be what some would call a “rant”.

When I first joined tumblr, it was because of a dare. My best friend wanted me to post my writing online and I was pretty sure that tumblr was the “safest” place to do so - aka none of the people I associate with irl would ever find it, seeing as I’m over the age of 30 and live in Germany. Yes, I know there are a few Germans on tumblr as well, but they’re not exactly the kind of people I hold close relations to irl. Every time I actually mention tumblr to anyone, their eyes tend to glaze over and their most frequently used answer is: “huh?”

So, in short, I was confident that no one I’d ever get in personal contact with would read my writing, and that was quite alright with me.

I actually am a published writer, abide I write under a synonym and quite different things that I tend to publish on tumblr, so it’s not like my creative ego needed a boost - it only needed an outlet. Plus, missing her was driving me insane. It’s better now....most of the time.

It didn’t take long for me to stumble upon the eating disorder community here on tumblr. It always seems to find me, no matter where, and I don’t think that will ever change. I have approx. 20 years worth of personal experience with anorexia and bulimia and I’ve been working with people suffering from eating disorders for quite a few years as well. Some may call that hypocritical of me, but I’m very good at my job - because I know EXACTLY what’s going on in my patient’s heads. That makes me a pretty good person to talk to and I’m proud to say I’ve helped many people onto the road of full recovery. I’ve tried several times to do the same thing for myself, but that’s where all my rational sense tends to go out the window. I’ve been stable for roughly six years - ever since I became a mother - and I’ve managed not to get myself into a life-threatening state since then, but I’m not going to lie and pretend that I’m miraculously healed. There’s no coming back from an eating disorder once it’s turned chronic, and that’s another reason I’m so passionate about helping young girls (and boys) get out of this hell as soon as possible - they have no idea what’s in store for them if they continue down this road. None at all.

Anyway, I found the eating disorder community on tumblr and went through my usual inner turmoil of disgust, anger, sadness, pity and - yes - envy. I still get triggered by the bodies of pre-teen girls with tiny limbs and missing hips and bones running visibly beneath their pale, cracked skin.

It’s not that I find it attractive - I honestly don’t - but I know the state of mind that goes along with having that body (because I’ve been there more times than I could count) and I somtimes miss it, even if it did bring me to death’s door.

It’s not rational, but, like I said, rational thinking tends to go out the window when I let myself peak into the box in the back of my mind labled “ED - do not open or you will lose everything good in your life”.

First thing that deeply annoys me about the ed-community members on tumblr:

I will follow a girl for a couple of weeks, read their posts about losing weight, about comments people make, about their families starting to worry about how tiny she’s become, about being cold all the time, etc. and I compare it to my patients and think “that poor girl’s going downhill fast”....until she posts one of those ridiculous and heavily triggering “body check” pictures - mostly lying on their backs on matresses with arms stretched above their heads, like that won’t make pretty much anyone look “thin”, but more about that later - and I realize she’s at a perfectly healthy weight.

Now, I do realize you do not need to be underweight to be classified as having an eating disorder - remember, I work with eating disordered patients daily - but for ANOREXIA, there are certain symptoms that are stated as required to be diagnosed as such. And one of them is being underweight. However, there is such a thing as ATYPICAL ANOREXIA, which is not classified by being underweight, only by showing anorexic behaviour.

BUT - and I start to wonder if this might be a problem of our current first-world economic state - have our images of a healthy weight been so distorted that we now think that being a healthy weight is the same as being underweight?? Why would everyone comment on how thin you are and why would your family worry? Are we getting so used to seeing overweight people that that has become the new norm? I find this quite unsettling. I feel like this is mostly a problem in the US but it’s slowly creeping overseas to infest Europe. Great Britain seems to be having a pretty big issue with obesity as well - I was there to give a talk about overweight children to parents that were partly actually shocked when I told them their child is heavily overweight, they just did not SEE it because it seems to have become the new norm - and here in Germany, I see more and more bulging bellies as well.

So are we really getting so used to seeing overweight people that families actually start to worry about their child becoming normal weight?? And does that child then really start to see themselves as “anorexic”? This of course brings up a whole different issue - who is really the one with disordered eating and distorted thinking?

So, on we go:

The pictures...Of course, we all know that the “thinspo” pictures are triggering. And most of them are of A) Models, B) pre-teens or C) heavily photoshopped A&Bs...

Most people are aware of this, but the images still burn themselves into your brains and distort your vision for what is actually a slim, healthy body. That’s fucking sad, especially considering how young (AND NAIVE) most tumblr users still are. But I think that’s on the parents - there needs to be MUCH MORE control about social media usage and parents need to be educated about these things - also about eating disordered behaviour, which is another thing I actually do, and it’s scary how much parents actually DON’T KNOW.

This is also something I’d like to say to the young kids on tumblr cussing out their parents for being “emotionally abusive” or “mean” or “dumb” - you really shouldn’t say these things about the people that love you more than anyone else and are (and this goes for the vast majority of parents) only trying their very best to be there for you and raise you right. Show some fucking respect and be thankful they’re there for you. They HUMAN, they cannot know about every little thing going on inside your heads right now, especially if you’re not talking to them about it, and what you may feel is “emotionally abusive” is just a fucking normal comment, only you’re so damn sensitive in your puberty-state that you take huge offence and log onto tumblr to complain about how terrible your mother is...that’s childish and very unfair.

There are kids out there being emotionally and physically abused by their parents and that is a terrible thing, but PLEASE, take a moment to really step back and consider the situation and what YOUR part might be in it before blaming your parents for every little thing going wrong in your privilaged lives right now.

PS: My parents didn’t realize I had an eating disorder until I was hospitalized being 25lbs underweight. Because I fucking hid it, like most people with eating disorders do. And that’s a pretty common thing, so don’t blame your parents for not “paying attention”. Eating disorders LIVE off secrecy. Really, parents have little to no chance at all recognizing it in time to save their child’s live. It’s not their fault. You have a voice - USE IT.

Something else about those “body check pictures”:

I get really angry at the girls posting these pictures (contorting into incredibly awkward positions to make sure a bone is sticking out somewhere) and titling them with totally unrealistic weight and/or BMI stats.

Like I‘ve mentioned earlier, I work with people with eating disorders, so I can pretty much tell you the BMI of any person just by looking at them (in my job quite useful but otherwise an incredibly useless and triggering “talent”).

So if there’s a girl titeling their pic with “BMI 16.5″ or something like that when they are CLEARLY somewhere around BMI 20...what the hell do you think that’s doing to those impressionable young girls looking at the picture?? Can you imagine them thinking “oh wow, if she looks like that at BMI 16.5 then I’d better aim for BMI 10″...can you even begin to realize how fucking DANGEROUS that is?? If you’re embaressed by your BMI to the point that you feel the need to lie about it, WHY MAKE THE POST AT ALL? Is it really so impossible for you to get validation for something else, somewhere else?

God, think about your actions for one fucking second, would you?

I get so, so angry about this, honestly, and I experience pure joy in reporting those blogs.

And lastly, and I know I’m pissing A LOT of people off with this - but then again, the whole post probably already pissed a lot of people off - the eating disorder community on tumblr is fucking toxic.

That whole bullshit about this being “a safe space”, “a place to vent” and “giving support to each other” is CRAP. The only thing running a tumblr blog about having an eating disorder and following other blogs about eating disorders does is make you spend even more time in the grasp of said disorder and sinking deeper and deeper into it.

That’s the reality of it and deep down, I think everyone fucking knows that.

You’re just making yourself sicker and sicker, and - even though I try to follow these blogs to offer help to the poor souls actually suffering - I really do hope they are all shut down once and for all.

I’m not stupid - like I said, I have 20+ years of being anorexic myself - there will always be an online community of poeple with eating disorders triggering the shit out of themselves. But you should at least be honest about it and not call it “a safe space”. Becuase there is NOTHING safe about a tumblr blog about an eating disorder. And I just wish people would finally realize that and stop fucking lying about it.

Rant over. Merry Christmas.

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mannatea · 6 years

Text

incoherent ranting below

so i’ve been in this constant ‘i hate men’ mood for like, weeks, probably because a coworker of mine works nights at the bar sometimes and men are unsurprisingly disgusting and hateful creatures who prey on women who dare to exist in any space, especially if that space is one that demands she serve him in any capacity, no matter how professional

and i realized something i hate about shows that are dark & gritty and claim to be (by the fans or creators) “realistic for the time” which of course everyone wants to claim = superior writing

first of all NO it’s not better just because it’s “realistic” and LOL at “life just blew chunks back then that’S JUST HOW IT WAS” like??? can we stop pretending that everyone was miserable always that’s your shitty modern air conditioning loving ass talking through your overlarge facehole.

secondly history is written by the winners, which we know, so we mostly have rich white men who obviously still don’t have a fuCKING CLUE what goes on in their OWN GODDAMN HOMES let alone what goes on around them like are we really going to believe that what they say was real was not only real for them but like, commonplace???? lol

but even if a show managed to be 100% historically accurate, there’s no need to adhere to history because (and CHECK THIS OUT, it’s WILD) this is

fictional

fucking

story!!!!!!!!

anyway what i hate about gritty grimdark “”””realistic”””” pieces of media is this:

i’m tired of them!!!!!!!!!!

and hey, maybe because they all subscribe to the same newsletter, which has some kind of nutty philosophy: to be dark and gritty we gotta deal with Controversial Awful Topics preferably in ways that feel like they cOULD be historically accurate just to acCENTUATE how terrible life can be

like man i love realism as much as the next guy, but when it’s piled on too thick it’s just a drag to stick with, you know???

i watch a mediocre tv show that wants very badly to be a wholesome family western drama. it’s called when calls the heart and it lacks diversity. it lacks good writers. it lacks a good budget. it has its good moments of course. there are some amazing characters, some lovely moving scenes... but it’s not The Family Western Drama, and so a number of fans put it down because they think it ought to be more like The Family Western Drama of the 90s: dr. quinn medicine woman.

which was one helluva brave show for its time!! don’t get me wrong here. it dealt with scary topics for the 90s: homophobia, racism, domestic violence, and the most controversial topic they dealt with (according to lashback from viewers): hitting children is abuse.

but the characters in dr. quinn are downright HATEFUL when you look away from the main cast and their bffs. the townsfolk are all extremely racist, bigoted, sexist, violent, women-hating pigs who want to shoot literally everyone for any possible reason they can come up with. they don’t change. all they do is hate, have an episode arc of learning something or maybe some backstory that makes you feel something for them, and they go right back to being hateful again.

and look, i do wish wcth had more courage. i do. i rEALLY do. the structure is sound. it could be so good if it tried and it had the budget. but it doesn’t, and it isn’t, and honestly? i’m okay with that.

sometimes it’s nice to have a piece of media where the men aren’t all irredeemable fuckwads!!! where i can pretend the town is made up of open minded loving people who usually mean well and aren’t hateful!

it’s soothing to watch a show where i don’t have to see men treating women with blatant disrespect, where i don’t have to look at them being viewed by the characters as property. where the saloon in the show DOESN’T HAVE whores at all, let alone whores that are OWNED BY THE OWNER and regularly treated like shit throughout the series.

like look i get it, yall like dr. quinn cause it’s “”””realistic”””” but it’s hard to enjoy a show that’s just more of the same irl stuff i deal with AND it never gets better AND the characters all remain civil and friendly AND it’s just accepted that that’s how those characters are AND--

i mean, i get having to be civil to your neighbors because you’re the town doctor and this is now your home and you have kids to take care of!! but how can you love a town where nearly everyone in it wants your cheyanne friends dead and would shoot them themselves if given half a chance? like, i can’t love that town. and i want to love a town a tv show centers around.

gilmore girls featured stars hollow and it was a nice town. not everyone was wholesome and good but there were people to like. the town means something to the characters = it should mean something to me by proxy. who didn’t fall in love with avonlea in anne of green gables, right? hope valley is likable. colorado springs in dr. quinn is not. it’s hateful.

anyway i just wanted to vent. dr. quinn is a decent show. sometimes it’s really good. but most of the time i just sit there and prefer mediocrity. i want to like the town! i want to like the featured male characters! i want to like the world these characters come from, even if it’s not always kind to them. but in dr. quinn it’s like??? i can’t. i hate the town. it’s shit.

as a writer i want flaws. i like seeing characters change and evolve. but in dr. quinn it’s like they don’t ever change. they’re still nasty and evil and willing to turn on one another at the drop of a hat. the fans say it’s good, realistic writing. i say it’s trash writing on a good budget. again, “””dark””” material doesn’t make the writing good. if i’m gonna watch mediocrity i’d rather it be something that gives me characters and a town i enjoy seeing on the screen, even if it’s “not realistic” or “fake.”

and like, i’ve dissed when calls the heart for trying too hard to be “feminist” and accidentally going in the other direction, but at least they made an effort? at least they tRIEd to give us strong characters? sure they failed and disappointed me but i can tell there was an effort. and their failure generally didn’t ruin the characters for me, either.

it’s painful watching dr. mike forgive the evils of her fellow townspeople every single episode only for them to be fine letting her or her kids or her beau or the cheyanne or the immigrants die because of one (1) minor thing happening

(and hey i know shit like typhus was a big deal but maybe actually write the fear in there and make a real episode about it? it stops meaning something when your characters fly off the handle about lITERALLY everything. like at this point neal and i start a new episode with: who’s gonna be irredeemably evil today? hank, jake, or loren?)

dEEP BREATH

maybe i’m being a little unfair. it’s interesting to have a town of characters where some are just completely terrible people and that’s just how it is because they’re There and It’s Their Town Too and so on.

but that doesn’t mean i want to watch it. and i don’t think it necessarily means it’s a better written show, either. it’s just exhausting to me. i don’t need to see more anger. i’m tired of it. it’s everywhere.

okay okay at its core this was a rant about the bullshit fake ass “realistic media” = better media thing but also...

why would i want to subject myself to 30104012 hours of nonstop violence against women, when it’s been a part of my everyday life from the moment i stepped out of the womb?

no thanks. i hate men as a general rule but i like to indulge in the fantasy that there could be a town made up of mostly good ones!! so sue me if it means i like a shittier piece of media!! i don’t care!! I DO NOT CARE!!! i just want to think ‘hey this is a nice place these people live in and everyone has their faults but they’re not waving guns around beating up people.’

i literally don’t care how “unrealistic” that makes the show. do not care. i give...no fucks about that. let me indulge.

and also, you know what? other shows were brave in the 90s, too, but i don’t see people talking about touched by an angel even though it handled all the same topics that dr. quinn medicine woman did AND MORE

lol but i guess it’s embarrassing to admit you got something out of tbaa huh

again, don’t get me wrong. there are things i enjoy a LOT about dqmw. but boy does it piss me off to see wcth compared to it as if dqmw is this paragon of good writing that all other period dramas must aspire to, and if you don’t do literally all of these grimdark things that dqmw did, you’re not good enough...is just so exhausting. there’s nothing wrong with a show choosing to skirt the horrible things for a lighter fare. sometimes that’s just what the audience needs.

and like lmao none of this is real it’s ALL MADE UP!!!!! so who cares if abigail’s a female mayor in 1915 like

that’s the magic of fiction, babe!!!!

#feminism and women's studies #thoughts about writing #i edited like 5 times in 3 minutes i'm the worst

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depizan · 7 years

Text

First off, this is just my opinion and my feelings. No objective worth or lack of worth is being allotted here. Second, fanworks are a whole different ball of wax. Fanworks always have an element of reaction to them, so a fanwork being darker, grimmer, more realistic, or more “realistic” than canon does not have the same meaning that canon becoming any of those things has.

I am irritated with new canon. I am not pleased that the set up for The Force Awakens turns the success of Return of the Jedi into something very temporary and flawed. At first I thought that was a mistake - that the creators were too busy recreating A New Hope to realize what they’d done to the original trilogy’s hopeful ending. But new canon is just so thoroughly... darker... grittier... pessimistic... more “realistic”... *waves hands* ... worse than old canon and the old EU/Legends stuff (excepting perhaps the extra-galactic torture aliens I try not to think about) that I just don’t think it’s a mistake any more. What I’d taken for a bug is, in fact, a feature. A feature I do not want.

I know I’m kind of comparing actual canon to semi-canon, but Lucas/Lucasarts did sign off on the old EU/Legends stuff, so I don’t think it’s entirely unfair of me to do so. Besides, I think some of what irritates me actually predates the canon reset. (And I’m not talking about the extra-galactic torture aliens.)

Maybe I’m in a minority, but I feel like hope and optimism are a baked in part of what makes Star Wars, well, Star Wars. Take that out - take out the idea that love (familial love, at that) can save the galaxy; take out the idea that the heroes are good and heroic; take out the fantasy of it all - and what you have is no longer Star Wars.

Sure, in the old EU/Legends stuff, building the New Republic took work, and there were struggles (and an absolutely absurd amount of Imperial remnants and ridiculous super weapons involved), but for the most part I felt like the writers tried hard to keep the problems within certain bounds. That they tried to maintain a sense that the New Republic was definitely better than the Empire and that all our heroes had done mattered.

The new EU stuff - not to mention that the New Republic basically only exists in The Force Awakens to get nuked from half way across the galaxy by the Mega Death Planet (because a Death Star just wasn’t metal enough, or something) - focuses much more on the struggles. In a way that is, sure, probably more realistic, but way less optimistic and hopeful. (Not to mention that whole cross galactic nuking kinda makes it all seem pointless anyway. Or maybe that’s just me.)

And then there’s the interpersonal relationships. Luke is Sir Not Appearing in This Tie-In in all the tie ins after RotJ (so far as I know - I have not read them all), Lando barely makes an appearance, and even R2 and 3PO seem to have decide to take a multi-year vacation for unexplained reasons. (Which makes a plot point in the Aftermath trilogy really bizarre, not to mention more obvious than it should be.) Leia and Mon Mothma, who were good friends in the old EU have a seriously strained friendship in the new one. Just because. (I mean, yes there are in story reasons, but those didn’t just happen. The author/Disney/whatever decided to set things up that way.)

Weirdly, there’s also - and this could very much just be me - kind of a playing up of romance and a playing down of friendship. In the Aftermath trilogy, it takes until the third book for the characters to start doing things out of friendship. (Whereas the second book revolved around romances/sexual relationships - nearly all heterosexual ones, I might add - to the point that it irritated the heck out of me.) In the new Marvel comics, everyone seems really peeved at each other most of the time (and all of the new relationships in those stories start with people not liking each other or otherwise having conflict) and Han and Leia are portrayed as a couple before it makes sense for them to be a couple. (To the point that the writers could use ye old dead trope of “whoops your wife showed up.” Which, granted, worked out better than that trope usually does, but I am still deducting several hundred from Gryffindor for them having used it in the first place.) Even A New Dawn had to make romance...well... Kanan grossly wanting to get in Hera’s pants, but we’ll pretend it was romance... the motive for Kanan wanting to team up with Hera in the first place.*

Going along with that, you’ve also got Rebels which seems to think that abuse is friendship. But that’s it’s own can of worms.

And then, as a background to all of this, you have this overall darkening of tone and replacement of hope with pessimism. (Something that I feel started with the Clone Wars show, really.) It’s harder for me to pull out specific examples, because it’s not that scene there, or whatever, it’s a whole pile of things that mostly probably sound innocuous on their own.

It’s the Aftermath trilogy heroes repeatedly using threat of torture (successfully!) to get information out of people. (And, no, it doesn’t help that I really hate that trope. And boyhowdy do I hate that trope.) Also characters deciding to be bad in service of good instead of good in service of good because George RR Martin’s books sell really well because that’s more “realistic.”

It’s repeated instances of fake big picture thinking by heroes - and I say fake big picture thinking because they’re not sacrificing someone or ignoring a problem because they have clear bigger goals that doing something would jeopardize; they’re sacrificing people or ignoring problems because of vague amorphous goals.

It’s weird shit like the Marvel comics thing I just read where the Rebellion has a secret prison (why? how does this make any sense? someone? anyone?) so that a Rebel spy can attack it to kill the prisoners because the Rebellion can’t be soft. (Yes, you read that right. No, it didn’t make sense in context. It just made my brain hurt.) Oh, at the Rebel spy had some kind of weird disease he caught from being Force Lightninged by the Emperor. Or something. I don’t fucking know and I just read the damn thing. If it was supposed to be burn scars, it somehow didn’t show up right away and it didn’t look like burn scars, it looked like pustules.

It’s a general graying of the morality of the franchise, which, yes, okay, sure that’s more realistic... but... this was never a realistic franchise. This was a franchise where the galaxy was saved by the power of love. A franchise where people chose friendship and were right to do so. A franchise where the right thing to do - consistently - was to believe in the good in other people.

And, yes, as far as the new heroic trio from the new trilogy goes, it does look like it’s shaping up to carry that same heart. At least I hope so. But so much of the rest of the new stuff is missing that heart. (And, while believing in the good in other people unspokenly seems to work with Rey, Poe, and Finn, it very much didn’t work when it came to Kylo Ren. I really don’t know what that means for the overall theme of the new trilogy, either.)

In short: I want my optimistic heroic fantasy with spaceships and laser swords back please. The one in which believing in people was basically always right. I don’t care how simplistic and unrealistic that is, that has always seemed the heart of Star Wars to me.

*A New Dawn has to win some kind of award for tie-in book that took me from not liking a main character to pretty well despising a main character. I’m pretty sure tie-in books aren’t supposed to do that.

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

Link

Jeh Johnson, Barack Obama’s second-term secretary of Homeland Security, quips in a recent Washington Post op-ed that “abolishing ICE is not a serious policy proposal; it’s about as serious as the claim that Mexico’s ‘gonna pay for the wall.’”

It’s a bit unfair. Both the idea of a Gulf-to-Pacific border wall and the idea of coercing Mexico into paying for it suffer from essentially insurmountable technical problems, whereas ICE in its current form only dates back to 2003 and clearly the bureaucratic org charts could be redrawn again to get rid of the agency.

But on another level, it’s a decent analogy. Building the wall and making Mexico pay was a potent campaign signal that marked Donald Trump as an advocate of unusually harsh border security measures and a confrontational attitude toward Latin American governments. It was a slogan that people understood and connected with — both supporters and opponents — on an emotional level, even as they almost certainly understood that the specific elements of the program were a little fanciful.

“Abolish ICE” is the progressive response. Democrats are adopting the line as a signal to voters that they reject Trump’s vision of a closed America, one that separates children from parents as they seek asylum. They aren’t offering a 17-point plan to restructure immigration enforcement.

ICE is operating exactly as designed when it rips screaming children from parents. That’s exactly why we must abolish it.

We MUST have the moral and political courage to #abolishICE.

Weak half-measures do nothing. This is a defining moment of our time – the time to act is now. pic.twitter.com/0viiQ4qdz8

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) June 19, 2018

Democrats are following in Trump’s footsteps by prioritizing emotionally resonant constructs over detailed, practical agendas for action. Other popular progressive rallying cries of the moment, from “Medicare-for-all” to “free college” to “guaranteed jobs,” are incredibly ambiguous as policies. The activists and elected officials promoting them often seem more focused on building support for the slogans than for a particular vision of what they mean. It’s striking, for example, that most “Medicare-for-all” proposals would enroll people in programs that are very different from existing Medicare.

This is an aspect in which Trump very much is normal. What’s abnormal was the fad for most of the Obama years for very literal campaigning. An old saying about American politics holds that you campaign in poetry and govern in prose. In the Trump era, it’s back to poetry. And all of us — perhaps especially the literal-minded among us — had better get used to it.

Once upon a time, of course, Barack Obama was the airy, sloganeering fantasist of American politics.

His 2008 health care plan was basically unworkable, which Clinton pointed out at the time. Obama implicitly acknowledged this in office by adopting her individual mandate proposal that he rejected as a candidate. As a first-term senator, he seemed underqualified for office. He vowed to violate traditional diplomatic protocols and norms of office by holding direct talks with the leaders of rogue states, and his most memorable campaign pledges were “hope” and “change you can believe in,” rather than actual policy promises.

It turned out, however, that the president can’t unilaterally change American political culture — especially when the opposition party in Congress has a vested interest in stymying him by turning everything under the sun unto a partisan food fight.

What he can try to do is make people’s lives better in concrete ways, which is what Obama did. He pivoted his political strategy to emphasize that fact.

Detail-oriented, policy-focused journalists like Michael Grunwald, Jonathan Chait, and a number of other writers who now work at Vox created a supportive online media environment for his approach.

Then Republicans drew the comically-inauthentic but plausibly-competent Mitt Romney as their nominee, and Obama’s reelection bid turned into a historically unusual wonk-off.

Obama attempted to pass the baton to Clinton, who had long been openly derisive of his more idealistic streak and whose approach across two primaries and one general election campaign might be characterized as featuring the audacity of hopelessness.

[embedded content]

I’ll confess that I, personally, always liked this about Clinton. Clinton was an open practitioner of Max Weber’s politics as a vocation in a world full of phonies preaching unworkable charismatic leadership models. At the end of the day, though, part of embracing an ethic of responsibility is recognizing that you need to win to do anything. And plodding literalism is not a great way to do that.

The important thing is to be ready to govern, not to spell it out in detail on the trail.

Bernie Sanders’s 2016 primary campaign annoyed a lot of establishment Democrats by being so obstinately, flagrantly unrealistic.

People who lived through bruising congressional debates that ended up killing even a weak public option and exempting auto dealers from Consumer Financial Protection Bureau oversight knew that there was simply no way Democrats were going to spend 2017 enacting a single-payer health care system and breaking up big banks.

But by detaching itself entirely from the practical realities of the legislative landscape, Sanders managed to get in touch with a much clearer set of values that animate people in progressive politics. The reason that Democrats fought for the Affordable Care Act is they didn’t think people should find themselves blocked from the ability to get medical care by lack of money. And while the ACA took large strides in that direction, various proposals to further tweak it did not speak to those values in the same way that a call to extend Medicare coverage to everyone did.

Since the election, most Democrats seeking national leadership have been trying to capture some of that magic. And that drive to articulate values more clearly has — even more than movement to the left on policy — been the main shift inside the party.

While endorsing the call to “abolish ICE,” for example, Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) didn’t really say anything different on policy than what Obama said in his second term. What she found was a more emotionally resonant way to say it.

I believe we need to protect families who need help, and ICE isn’t doing that. It has become a deportation force. We need to separate immigration issues from criminal justice. We need to abolish ICE, start over and build something that actually works. https://t.co/JtSN68k4Fd

— Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) June 29, 2018

What exactly starting over to build something that actually works entails is unclear, just as nobody has yet written a “Medicare-for-all bill that explains exactly where the revenue will come from. The point, however, is that most Americans believe that people should be able to get medical treatment they need regardless of ability to pay. For Democrats who want to own that brand, signaling that the party shares the public’s beliefs on health care, “Medicare for All” is a profound, important, and useful statement of values.

There’s no sense hectoring normal people for preferring comprehensible slogans and high-minded aspirations to tedious disquisitions on the art of the possible, and there’s certainly no sense in hectoring practical politicians for trying to give people what they want.

That said, it is always worth keeping in mind that governing is difficult. Republicans over the years have veered so far into the realm of sloganeering that they barely retain any capacity at all to develop policies that bear any resemblance to their campaign rhetoric. Years of promises to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act with something that would address some of people’s frustrations with the program turned out to be completely vacuous — which seemingly surprised even many GOP members of Congress.

Democrats should remember that even their more wonk-oriented party suffered from some serious failures of policy substance — most notably an underpowered stimulus bill, a health care law that wasn’t structured to support short-term economic recovery, a group of excessively timid and unimaginative Federal Reserve appointees, and an inability to grapple with the foreclosure crisis in a timely manner — that played a larger role in generating electoral defeats than any shortcomings of sloganeering.

It’s incumbent upon politicians embracing the new poetry of the activist left to spare some time for thinking about what, exactly, it is that they want to do if they take office.

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” is a classic of American oratory notwithstanding the fact that it was not, strictly speaking, accurate. But the New Deal itself became an iconic success story because Roosevelt married his rhetoric to policy initiatives that (mostly) worked on a technical level.

The tough question for Democrats on immigration isn’t really about whether or not to abolish ICE or even what exactly that means, it’s what should the entire progressive program on immigration look like in an era when the quest for a grand bargain is dead. But the trend toward putting the poetry back into politics ought to be seen as a welcome turn to normalcy, not some kind of objectionable left-wing flight of fancy.

Original Source -> Democrats are campaigning in poetry again

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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jvpielago024-blog · 7 years

Text

My Review of My “Review”

Sorry in advance, this is going to be a decent amount of writing, but it's only because I feel like my evaluation was completely subjective by the reader. Almost every case they bring up seems to be backwards, at least to me. Not here to argue that it's perfect, of course not. But I'll dissect it and show examples of how I feel it was vastly overlooked. Overall it feels as if it was read very much at the surface level and only literal, when I intentionally wrote it was mostly allegorical and meant to have depth with most sentences. Even so that most lines change on a second reading, when you know she's fucking with him. I get there can be too much dialogue, but to pretty much say most the dialogue isn't good/needed is tough to say when it's a dialogue driven film based on MANIPULATION and COMMUNICATION. Feels very much like a "judging a fish by it's ability to climb a tree". Obviously a poor claim to make, but you slap the name Sorkin on something, people will want to devour and honor every word to an extent. Just feels like I paid for a "professional" evaluation and they immediately viewed my script as "Amateur". I feel if I'm giving you money, it should be viewed as if a professional sent it in, and professionals try to add depth and layer to their work, so to have it pretty much dismissed is very frustrating. I am more than fine with someone "not getting it" or the ideas aren't conveyed as well as I think, all for criticism. But it seems much more like this evaluator had a personal agenda to address the things they personally did not like, which then overshadows everything else. Hopefully you can see that when you view their evaluation.

"The screenplay opens with an extremely long conversation featuring Jeff's immediate family, but aside from his mom popping up a couple times, they aren't featured heavily in the screenplay."

That's called a choice. If you're parents aren't around a lot when you grow up or they are passive, it is 100% going to affect who you are. Which is what it was supposed to be doing.

"Can come across as sexist and odd. Jeff takes to hitting Eve too easily, even getting some weird rush from it that she knew he'd get somehow. It's mentioned this is due to her spiking his wine with Ecstasy, but Ecstasy is known to have the opposite effect of inciting violence."

So then this person has never actually done drugs. Ecstasy doesn't just equal happy fun time. It's a feeling and if you didn't know you were being GIVEN that feeling, you would correlate it to the things happening around you, say THE WOMAN SEDUCING YOU. And he doesn't take to hitting easily, he's actually appalled and it happens from impulse and accident. But then he likes it. So completely different. It's called empowerment. If you've never felt that power, but then you are encouraged to and it feels good because you're also drugged AND with a dream woman? You're so right, any person would be able to just say no to all that great feeling, walk away easy. That's the whole point, it's a character study. It just feels insane I have to literally argue every point my script. And she knew because SHE'S SMART. Literally watch any slight thing about Manson and how he worked. Manipulation is easy as shit. It's about making a monster and then saying "But what did I do, YOU acted on it". She knows offering this opportunity to hit someone is a chance, either they take it and love it or they don't and SHE MOVES ON. It's a movie, Jesus, not trying to treat the audience like idiots. That's the point, this boy who's extreme sheltered/lost/whatever adjective you want to use happens to run into this. His character being given this "awakening" in his eyes, something he feels everyone should get, like in the movies he even says. That's the anglerfish part. It's a forced awakening and he doesn't realize because he's just never felt good in his life. That's why there's so much character background, you have to see how cyclical and absurdly mundane he feels the world is until he gets his own little fantasy. Case in point:

"her first couple of meetings with Jeff come across as implausible and almost read like the writer is exercising a fantasy in overpowering and abusing women, which is off putting to say the least. "

So here is where it really makes me upset. It is fantasy. But at no point has the CHARACTER Jeff expressed any of this has what he dreams about for desire, if only he could just grab that woman neck. He's actually kind of afraid of basic intimacy, theres a whole scene showing it. It's a case of it all happens so fast and what's dumped in his lap he runs with. Of course he ends up loving it personally, but it comes from her being calculated. She is pulling the strings from the get go. SHE IS MAKING IT SEEM LIKE THIS FILM FANTASY. That's literally the point. To him it really is. And that's a big theme of the whole thing. That the world lies. Everything is too good to be true. Your fantasy, all the chance and destiny all that- nope bullshit. There are manipulative ass people on this planet and other people are their play toys. The actions of few dictates the lives of many. To someone who's never felt loved, HE WANTS THIS. He's naive and stupid in thinking the world owes him something and this is finally it.

I think it's massively unfair that the evaluator seemed to take the fact my actual name is the same name I used for the character, so therefore I must be using this to get this vicarious movie made for myself to satisfy my sickness. It was mostly a nod to my one of my favorite films Blue Velvet, also about AGGRESSIVE SEXUAL AWAKENING. It has nothing to do with overpowering and abusing women. It has to due with power in manipulation. She's the aggressor the whole time. She has the real power, she is literally MENTALLY overpowering and abusing him. It feels insane I have to point out this straight up opposite. SHE'S A LITERAL ANGLERFISH. HIS FANTASY IS HER LIGHT and she fully knows that. And then you get to see the real monster, it's an allegory for becoming an adult. Realizing how scary it all is when you thought it'd be so grand. How everyone lies to make your growing up seem in line with "what it should be". This is about stepping off that conveyor belt society builds for us. How can every person grow up to be a good person? Most people believe they will but everyday a new monster pops up. I could go on with the questions raised about character and humanity, yet this person seems to think its about my woman beating and sex fantasies. A true read would show actually the exact opposite. She's not a victim. And the beginning has to be a fantasy in order to achieve the twist:

"It has a unique tone that shifts through an almost teenage sex romp into some seriously dark places, which is hard to pull off."

Seems remarkably contradicting, literally just nailing me for the whole fantasy teenage sex romp thing. The bigger the shift you want to pull off, the more you're going to have to front load it. So yeah, A Graduate-esque fantasy and self discovery seems like a pretty valid, genuine lead in from Jeff's perspective, "his view" of how this movie is going. And then LIKE MANY GREAT CRIME THRILLERS BEFORE, he's in far too deep before he can realize and it all happens so quick. HER MOVIE SWALLOWS HIS MOVIE. She know's exactly what she did. Blind him with enough love to transform him and distract him from thinking so before he knows it, he's already"changed", her little monster. Just not what he was expecting because he's never given the option to run this path before in life. Seems unfair for them to pretty much say we liked the end a lot but the beginning sucks, but the whole point of the beginning is to load it up for the end... And the beginning and end are supposed to feel like two separate movies in a sense. Respect that the first part was trying to do its own thing, the point was it didn't matter, fuck your discovery boy, we're on my train now.

"The entire screenplay is too wordy, from the descriptions, to scenes that aren't needed, to scenes going on for too long, to the dialogue itself"

An entirely valid point and criticism, but to be so blunt in pretty much saying look how much shouldn't be here or should be different you idiot, and then following it up with zero suggestions... pretty bold. Especially when, as I've stated, all the dialogue is meant to be important, lend to the bigger picture. It's not some action flick, it's about people. So it is easy to widdle and shape dialogue, but just making a claim like that shows not even an attempt to look at the actual depth of the dialogue. Pretty much a different movie on a second read.

"It's a simple story that takes forever to get going."

Okay, it's literally not. It's a character study. I even put that. That's the reason why most the other characters are ancillary, they serve a purpose to Jeff's journey. If it was a simple story, I would't have spent all the time making two complex characters, because well you know, it's a character study as i've had to repeat. It's barely about the "story", its about human nature and who you become in this life and the lies of the world. Again all very allegorical.

"Uses '/' frequently in the dialogue for some reason."

I'll be honest I've mostly read and written theater and the '/' is pretty common for cutting off the sentence of the person to start yours. I guess maybe just more a theater thing, but to encounter it like it's an alien seems odd. Could've been nicer in suggesting that change. And the reason there are a lot is because if people are always talking over each other, never letting anyone finish, then lines get blurred, communication suffers- oh my god another theme. She can overpower him easily, already knowing what she wants to say. He views it as communication, where as we eventually see for her it's all manipulation.

"It's also too long, displays unsettling violence towards woman, and is unrealistic"

Length is a valid thing to comment on, sure. Unsettling violence. He hits her a few times, her pretty much FORCING him too. She makes him choke him. Not to be a dick or cocky, but if you're a handsome guy, some girls are actually very into the dominance like that, "rape-fantasy" esque by someone they trust and find attractive. That's not the push my agenda. That is reality. I've experienced it and it is well documented. So to say this really stretches the bounds of violence against women and reality seems pretty harsh. Especially when its some women who ask for it. And when once again, the whole point isn't the violence or sex. It's the power and manipulation. I even made it clear we pretty much never see them have sex, all implied, because ITS A TOOL. NOT MY FANTASY TO JUST PUT ON PAPER. The line of love, power, manipulation, a tool- literally just more themes. And unrealistic... just seems like an added little slap to put in there. Oh are all your movies either 100% realistic to the bone or just zany no rules fantasy? Has to be one? Oh ok...

"However, with a LOT of tightening up and some better focus on what actually matters in this story, it could have some chance at commercial appeal."

On what actually matters in this story?? You mean the part where it's supposed to make you think? And how it's about dark human nature and the myriad of themes I've recounted throughout this and literally not about beating woman? The label you put on it? Truly feels any depth or attempt to look at "what actually matters" was swiped aside to stick it to me and my misogynistic ways. So then what actually matters? Again, how can you make such a bold claim and follow up with not an ounce of suggestion or what you could mean, especially with this feeling of "oh I know but I won't tell you". It really feels like I got a case of the wrong person reading my script. This very much feels like the polar bottom that could've been hit with this script, and because it's my first review, no one is going to see a 4. That's fact, how the website works. I would like another evaluation without cost, I feel extremely duped. I've read countless reviews that are professional as can be, but I've never seen one seem so personal until I read mine. Look at the log line I give versus the one your evaluator gave:

Me- "A young man who's never felt anything but "lost", finds himself in an unorthodox isolation. As he faces the pressures of growing up in a modern world, one woman takes it upon herself to make sure he feels everything..."

You guys- "A depressed late teen boy starts a romance with a rich older woman who encourages him to do violent and criminal acts."

Ok so mine, implies vagueness so that you can have this seemingly fantasy awakening movie, not be fully aware of where this could develop or end up, and that makes the dark turns from nowhere really work. Your person's logline pretty much ruins most of work I did in my script. If that longline was shown off for others to read, that's a solid chunk of my hard work down the shitter. And it just shows how literal and surface level they took it in as. That's why I would like another evaluation, as it seems I got unlucky and got the wrong eyes. If a second evaluation just reinforces the first one, then I'll gladly lie down taking it. Just unfair I put so much work in the cerebral and emotional feelings of confused youth and the way words seem to work these days, but then all we're shown about being young in the "media" is you should party and be consumers because, Hey you're young right? YOU SHOULD BE! You like cool shit and external validation, we got all sorts of stuff for you, vapid and airless but it's shiny so you'll buy it.

This is how some young people feel, you grew up into a world of lies, Life is one giant too good to be true, just live love. Maybe love isn't special, it's a cycle based on people's wants and people wanting to feel empowered. A woman could say she loves you one day and the next be gone in a cloud of dust. It's a messed up world and I was trying to show that through a unique Lense. Also a bit insulting saying how much wouldn't work or appeal but all I did was pull from the classics and greats. Badlands, Blue Velvet, Fargo Season 1, The Graduate, Spirited Away, Blood Simple, I mean I could go on.

Just overall feels like a massively disrespectful evaluation that tried to tell me what I wrote, when the reality is the reader didn't seem to take any time to think or approach with a thought that maybe there's more depth than meets the eye. Insulting when I write in the inspirations, I specifically say allegory and anglerfish and basically how its a movie about feelings and themes around a complex young man coming up into the world in an unorthodox way, not just some "simple story". This is a massive age and highly misrepresented. People are hit with bipolar and other things at this age. This shift and this time is crucial, especially in this world that's giving less of a shit day by day. Everything was a choice to lend to these feelings. While I agree I can cut dialogue, I have a hard time seeing what scenes need to be cut. I had everything for a reason, each incident inciting the next so its all tight and connected. Please let me know the steps I can take, I apologize for the rambling. Just very frustrating and hopefully you can see that when you go over my complaint. I'm not going to be told I have bad character and want to harm women when the reality is I was trying to be smart. And she's the smartest, most control person in the whole thing. I think women are infinitely smarter than men and she knew she was smarter than him. She saw exactly who he was when she first played eyes, that's why she went for him. Seriously read or watch some Manson stuff, it's true fascinating. So the claims are a bit hard to take, really seems like the opposite was taken for most things. A second eye would be appreciative and frankly necessary. It seems ridiculous these views would seem universal, as many other evaluations and reads have proved quite the opposite and fruitful with discussion, so I really feel I got a bad apple.

Please let me know if you'll be giving me one, I would like to put a revised PDF in for the new evaluation if all these "/"'s are really gonna be a sticking point. I really don't see how this situation can't be the reader was mostly offended by a woman being hit and then letting that be the only thing that matters

Hopefully you read this all and understand, not just some bot response.

Thank you for your time reading, apologies on length. But a lot needed to be said.

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