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hello-nichya-here · 3 years ago

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Ok, so what in your opinion is the WORST mistake that the showrunners for Game of Thrones made in terms of content, either it's addition or redaction?

WARNING: Looooooong post ahead

Themes are for eighth-grade book reports

This absurd quote by one of the showrunners explains why exactly the show fell appart. They wanted to make a story... without themes. Anyone with a minimally functioning brain will tell that this is impossible because every story, even the simplest and least complicated story there ever, has a theme. Even a nihilistic story has a theme "Nothing matters". Every. Story. Has. A. Theme.

But Game Of Thrones didn't, at least not after the writers ran out of books to adapt and did their own thing. Everything every character did was no longer to build a narrative, but to essentially act as click-bait. The focus was to make people keep watching, not on making any content that was worth watching.

The first four seasons had it's problems, just like the books had it's problems, but Martin's writting was so brilliant that it managed to stay good even while being handled by absolute clowns. The moment season four ended was the moment the show stopped being an adaptation and became it's own thing - and like I explained before, said thing wasn't a story.

Shock

Both the show and the books had MANY shocking, heart-breaking and downright horrifying scenes: Daenerys being raped by Drogo; Bran being pushed out the window after accidentally seeing the queen fucking her brother; the whole deal with Craster and his daughters; the Dotrakhi destroying Mirri's village and her revenge against them and Daenerys; Ned's death; Melisandre giving birth to a shadow baby that killed Renly; The Red Wedding; Jeoffrey's death; Tyrion killing his father; Theon being tortured by Ramsay...

The difference is there were REASONS behind the shocking scenes Martin created. Even when you look at things like rape and torture scenes and threats of rape/torture - Martin used those scenes to remind us that the world he created is an EXTREMELY dangerous and downright vile place, and that the characters are never truly safe, and that there are WAY worse things than just being killed.

Dumb & Dumber on the other hand, gaves us scenes like an evil, former man of the night's watch evily making an evil speech to his fellow evil men, evily drinking whine from a human skull while nameless women were being raped in the background - but little does he know that Jon Snow, the hero, is about to wreck his shit. It takes something that could realistically happen (and that did happen in the books) and takes it up to eleven because the writers think shock is the same as quality and that the audience is SO STUPID that they need to practically make the actor jump out of the TV, grab us by the shoulders and scream "I'M EVIL! I'M THE BIG BAD! ROOT FOR THE HERO TO KILL ME!"

Pretty much every bad guy became a parody of Jeoffrey, ironically enough because the writers took Jeoffrey too seriously. He was a cruel, sadistic character, who had WAY too much power - but he was also a spoiled baby whose reply to Tyrion bitch-slapping him wasn't a threat, but "I'M TELLING MOM!" Jeoffrey worked because he was only allowed to do his thing whenever smarter, more competent characters like Tyrion and Tywin where not around, meaning his actions, while inhumane, never reached the point of no longer being believable.

The horrible things that happened to the characters no longer felt "right". For instance, Sansa had just been taken to the Eerie by Little Finger, who has a weird complex in which he sees her both as the daughter he never had with Catelyn AND as a replacement for Catelyn, and she was starting to truly be a player instead of a pawn... and then the writers realized "Oh shit, we should have not cut the Jeyne Pool/Fake Arya' plot, that was important" and forced it on Sansa, making Little Finger hand her on a silver plater to Ramsay and turning her into a victim AGAIN, this time to a man that dramatically fights his enemies without a shirt own, practically saying "come at me bro"

Compare this to Ned's beheading, or Catelyn and Rob being betrayed and killed by the Freys. These moments were shocking and downright depressing - but they were earned. The writting was on the wall for anyone to see: Ned was at the mercy of Jeoffrey, and the Starks had given the Freys, who are notoriously disloyal, a reason to resent them. These twists felt completely natural, were the only logical way for the situation the characters were in to play out, AND they had consequences to plot instead of just making the audience gasp and then being forgotten about.

Plot armor

It's kind of ironic and almost tragic that the show that became famous for killing characters later became the worst type of high-stakes series, putting the characters in situations they could NOT survive, not even if a goddamn miracle happened, and having them live anyway. What's even worse is that it happened repeatedly. If I had to see Jon Snow almost die and then survive anyway one more fucking time I was going to lose my mind.

There's no bigger proof that there were just no consequences for the "main" characters anymore than watching the second, third, and fourth episodes of season either. The first sets up that this battle against the night king and his army of undead is likely going to kill the majority of them, if they're lucky... and then in the third we see the plot armor in all of it's "glory", and then in the forth we find out that the Dotrakhi, who had ALL been killed, actually still have half the numbers they had the night before, somehow. Even red-shirts weren't dying anymore.

DORNE

This disaster needed it's own session because HOLY SHIT, it's a miracle/tragedy that everyone didn't go "Fuck it, I'm never watching another episode of this stupid show."

The Dorne plot in the books isn't perfect, but what the show did to it was so fucking bad that I'm pretty sure the writers didn't even read the Dorne chapters in the books, they just looked at a wiki, wrote down the names of a few characters and then did their own shitty thing.

In the books, Doran Martel is a clever, dangerous man, who pretends to be harmless so people will understimate him and step right into his trap. In the show, Doran Martel... died. That's it. I can't remember anything else that happened to him. Add him to the list of "Brilliant characters that became stupid due to shitty writing", I'm sure Tyrion, Varys and Little Finger will love making him company.

The sand-snakes, one of the main driving force of that plot, were all distinct characters in the books, with their personalities, goals, methods and motivations - basically they were created by a writer who knew what he is was doing. In the show they were all the same "character" who could be perfectly described by that horrible, cringy, PAINFUL line one of them (I can't even remember which) said to Bron "You want a good girl, but you need the bad pussy" (Seriously, if that actress ever kills the show-runners as revenge for having to say that, she'll be 100% justifyed in doing so)

And we cannot forget the driving force behind that unwatchable shit show: Ellaria Sand. In the books, the death of Oberyn made her believe that revenge only leads to more blood-shed. In the show, his death enraged to the point of wanting to avenge him and his family, and she did this... by killing his family. If that doesn't explain how insane and stupid this plot-line was, I don't know what will.

Hype = Character assassination

Many shows are based around the conflict between the bad guys and the good guys. Game Of Thrones is not one of these shows. Or at least it wasn't. As they ran out of ideas, the writers started mutilating every single character until they could be label as "Good" or "Bad", regardless of what felt right to the story and to the point that there was nothing left of said characters. Stannis's actor, Stephen Dillane, straight up said that the only thing he got from being on the show was money and that his character's motivations and decisions were nonsense - ironically enough, that kind of brutal honesty means that the writers had THE perfect actor play Stannis, and wasted his fucking time.

Here's a list of the characters that fell victims to this horrible fate: Catelyn Stark, Tyrion Lannister, Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, Jon Snow, Melisandre, Stannis, Jorah, Daenerys (bonus points for being mutilated into being both a generic, shitty "hero" and a generic, shitty "villain") Greyworm, Rhaegar Targaryen, Lyanna Stark...

Pretty much the only character who became more complex in the show than she was in the books was Cersei. While her book self was never just a "Generic Evil Queen", the show version of her was far more sympathetic, which made the stories she was part of interesting. Too bad the writers ran out of ideas of what to do with her after season six and just left her by the window drinking whine until Dany showed up to kill her. Which brings us to...

Why is this happening?

Cersei was seen as a threat in the last two seasons based on nothing but the things she HAD done. Her story just ended the very second season six did, but since she was still alive despite being one of the bad guys she had to die... I guess. She (and by extention Jaime) joined the list of characters that had nothing to do, but were still around: Davos, Theon, Yara, Melisandre, Bron, Sam, Gendry, Bran (the last one being SO unnecessary that he was cut from season five and no one noticed)

To combat that issue, the writers gave characters "motivations" that made no sense. For exemple: Sandor Clegane. His only reason to be in the show was so he could kill his brother. The problem was that Gregor was already dead. He was a walking corpse. There was nothing left of the abusive brother Sandor once knew, meaning he had no reason to fight him, and that, to keep Sandor around, the writers should have come up something new (like the redemption that book fans have been waiting for, and that has a lot of backing evidence). You might as well have had HIM be the one to randomly fly out of nowhere and kill the night king despite having no connection to him.

And since we're talking about the night king... Arya was the one to kill him. Why? Because the writers ruined Jaime's redemption arc, meaning that the only fitting ending for him was to die with Cersei, and so Arya could not kill Cersei despite wanting to, having the ability to do, AND having heard a prophecy that said she'd "Shutting brown eyes, blue eyes, and green eyes forever", the last one being the only one she had not done AND applying to Cersei. But Dumb & Dumber admitted they had no plan for this, so now that they were at the last season, they needed to do something with it, and they retconned it to mean Arya would kill the night king...

But Arya killing him meant Jon had nothing to do, so Dany had to go mad so he could kill her. To "hint" at that, they ignored all the not at all subtle foreshadowing the previous season had of Dany and Jon having a kid, and they even showed her getting jealous that he was technically the true heir... even though that made no sense since they were going to rule together anyway, and even after Dany went full "Mad Queen" she ASKED HIM TO RULE WITH HER. But anyways, he kills her and becomes king...

Except he doesn't actually become king and him being a secret Targaryen has no effect in the plot, because Bran needed to become king so there'd be a reason for him to be alive, because his magical powers turned into a plot-device. A plot-device that wasn't used at any goddamn point. Seriously, the only thing as bad as Bran becoming king was Euron's existence - dude was THE most useless villain ever AND the worst Jeoffrey parody.

A darker story (literally)

I could not end this rant without bitching about this. What is the point of spending an ungodly amount of money on sets, costumes, make-up, special effects... and then using such poor lighting that no one can see what the fucking is going on?

Anyway, this disaster of a series was so absurd it should be used as an exemple of what NOT to do.

#asks #long post #got #game of thrones #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #rape #violence #death

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 4 years ago

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Is It Really THAT Bad?

How many fucking times must I talk about this movie?

I feel like this movie doesn’t need an introduction. Everyone knows this film. Its reputation precedes it. It didn’t bomb and it’s not generally considered one of the worst films ever made (at least on the level of films like Robot Monster or The Cat in the Hat), but this movie is easily one of the most divisive films ever made. This film has generated enough arguments that, if we harnessed the energy of all the flame wars it has caused, we could probably power the entire world until the heat death of the universe.

With the impending release of Zach Snyder’s bloated redo of Justice League, I’ve decided to go back and ask myself of this film here… is it really that bad?

THE GOOD

Here comes the most uncontroversial opinion: the action scenes in this movie rock (or at least two of them do). The standouts are the titular showdown, which almost makes sitting through the rest of the movie worth it, and the epic warehouse fight Batman gets into, which is like something straight out of the Arkham games. It’s so good. And aside from that, a lot of the cinematography in the film is good. The film knows how to look good, though unfortunately it does end up being a lot of style with little substance.

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On the subject of Batman, I think Ben Affleck is a great and inspired choice. I certainly think he’s worthy of standing alongside Batmans like Clooney and Keaton, easily embodying both the Dark Knight and Billionaire Playboy aspects fairly well, though the writing does not always handle him quite as well as it should (we’ll get to that soon enough). Henry Cavill, while still a rather dour Superman, is as good as ever as Superman, and Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman was a great choice here, especially since she didn’t have control so that she could insert anti-Arab racism, like some DCEU movies.

Perhaps one of the movies most impressive feats is how, in an uncharacteristic moment of brevity, it manages to condense the backstory of Batman into the prologue, getting it out of the way and not making us sit through yet another Batman origin film. This is literally the only thing the movie has over the MCU; where that franchise just has the character Spider-Man inexplicably in existence without even a hint of his origins, they just get Batman’s tragic backstory out of the way so we can see him beating the crap out of people. If more superhero movies want to take this route and just condense the backstory into an opening montage like this, I’d be down for it.

THE BAD

I really could just say “most of the movie” but that’s such a cop out. Let’s actually look at the problems. Let’s work our way up through the things from least problematic to most, shall we?

The best place to start is what Zach Snyder did to Jimmy Olsen.

Jimmy Olsen is made into a CIA spook who is brutally killed early on, and yes, that was Jimmy Olsen. Snyder put him in to shock audiences with his senseless murder, and also because he felt the character had no place in his series. Does making Watchmen just turn people into joyless husks who like to horribly bastardize iconic characters? Jimmy Olsen is ultimately a small microcosm of the film, but he is the sum total of everything wring with the early DCEU. He is bleak, soulless, and shows a critical lack of understanding about the comics and why people enjoy them.

Now let’s move on to the more exciting problem to discuss: the villains. I don’t even think it’s worth wasting much time discussing what’s wrong with KGBeast. While it is kind of interesting they’d think to use the guy at all, the fact he never dons the costume and dies by the end of the film is unfathomably lame for a character named KGBeast.

Now, onto the main antagonist, and the most infamous part of the movie: Lex Luthor.

Lex Luthor is horribly, horribly miscast. Jesse Eisenberg is a great actor for sure, and he’s effective in movies like Now You See Me, The Social Network, and the Zombieland films. But here he is being asked to play one of the most diabolical cunning geniuses in comic book history, and rather than play him as such, he plays him like a cartoonish twit. This Lex is utterly unrecognizable as Superman’s greatest foe. Does anyone think Lex Luthor would send a jar of piss to someone as a joke before he blows them up? That’s more something the Joker would do on an off day. Lex is not cunning, not intimidating, and not diabolical in the slightest, and yet there are moments where Eisenberg’s acting chops shine through and Lex, for a moment, is almost engaging. Luthor really suffers the way Doctor Doom tends to in film adaptations: the filmmaker clearly doesn’t get why people like the villain, and decide to do some weird, unique take that will only cause to alienate fans.

But perhaps the worst of them all is Doomsday. Doomsday has exactly one claim to fame, and that’s killing Superman, so as soon as he shows up if you have even a passing awareness of the character you know how the movie is going to end, which robs the film of tension for its last battle. The fact he also appears with little buildup and doesn’t have any characterization doesn’t help; Doomsday is just the Big Gray CGI Blob that superhero movies try and pass off as a final boss for the heroes to fight. This has worked precisely once, in Iron Man. The Incredible Hulk and Venom did not make it work, and this film is nowhere close to being in the same ballpark as Venom.

By and far the biggest problem, though, is the movie’s incredible length and its very existence in the franchise at this point in time. This is an epic superhero crossover in which two of the biggest comic book characters of all time fight and then team up… And it is the second movie in a franchise. While they do a good job of establishing Batman rather quickly, Wonder Woman comes out of nowhere. And then at the end, Superman ‘dies.’ We have had one single movie prior to this to make a connection to the guy, and yet here he is getting a temporary comic book death with no buildup whatsoever that we know is going to be reversed sooner than later because the movie telegraphs this to us.

Imagine if, instead of building up the character over the course of a decade and putting him in all sorts of different stories, the MCU went right from Iron Man to Endgame. You go from a simpler, character-driven piece to a massive crossover where a hero dies right away, and it doesn’t give anyone time to care. Tony Stark had multiple films worth of characterization under his belt before they threw him in a crossover, let alone killed him, but Snyder expects you to give a damn about a Superman who just started his career in the previous movie of a franchise.

And the ass-numbing length of the movie is no justification. Even before the director’s cut came out this film was a slog, and the director’s cut really does nothing to earn its existence. All it does is add more runtime to an already tedious and bloated film, leading to the same exact ending and fixing none of the overarching narrative problems of the thing. The problem with any director’s cut is that ultimately the movie is still going to be Dawn of Justice, it’s still going to lead to extremely rushed character decisions, and it’s still going to be a mess. You’d have to redo half of the film to make this into a worthwhile and coherent narrative that’s actually worthy of being an entry in a superhero franchise.

And to top it all off, the movie spends far too much time foreshadowing for its own good. People criticized The Mummy for shoehorning in way too many shared universe elements right off the bat, and if that movie was bad for it, so is this one. The cameos from all the members of the Justice League, while striking, could be excised from the plot with little to no impact, and the Knightmare sequence is just excessive and weird.

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Is It Really THAT Bad?

The answer to this question has never been harder.

On the one hand, this film does have some merit. There is some good casting choices, good cinematography, good action… But then, on the other hand, the film is overly long, pretentious, has poor writing and dialogue, mishandles everyone aside from Superman, and is just incredibly unpleasant.

This film is in many ways the exact problem Christopher Nolan created with his Dark Knight trilogy. Nolan, by grounding the fanciful characters of comic books into a realistic setting, created a climate in which someone could suck any sort of joy or meaning out of comics. The success of his films meant that people would see dark, gritty realism as preferable to joyous, colorful escapism, and the negative effects of his films, however good you find them, are still felt today even as filmmakers are finally shaking off the grit. Dawn of Justice is the zenith of Nolan’s style of superhero film. There is nothing fun, joyful, or engaging to be found here; it is simply the characters you know and love forced into dark, miserable scenarios that ends in death and misery. Where’s the fun? Where’s the color? Where’s the wonder, the excitement, where is any of it? This film paints a bleak and miserable and hopeless picture of a world of superheroes. It really makes me think of this rather famous comic panel:

I absolutely hate this movie, but not because I think it’s bad. I hate it because it has enough good ideas where it should be the best thing ever, but it really isn’t. It’s a miserable slog of a film that does nothing to justify or earn its massive runtime whatsoever. It really does belong somewhere between 5 and 6 on IMDB, because I can almost see why people like it, but it just isn’t even remotely close to being how good its fan say it is. This is not a good superhero movie, and this is not how we should want superhero movies to be. There is a market for serious superhero fare of course, and there’s no reason that these films can’t engage with mature themes or anything, don’t get me wrong. But this is absolutely not the way to do it.

#Is it really that bad #IIRTB #Review #movie review #Batman v Superman #Dawn of Justice #Zach Snyder #Batman #Superman #DCEU

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dangertoozmanykids101 · 4 years ago

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Salma Hayek Says Filming The Sex Scene In Desperado Was Traumatic

This is an interesting article discussing how this was the first sex scene she had to do on camera and how freaked out she was buy it. No one appears to be at fault. She is NOT BADMOUTHING Rob Rodriguez nor Antonio Balderas. They were wonderful compassionate snd supportive collegues during her experience, but that didn't wash away how nervous she was.

I'm sharing this article because 'being a new up and coming costar with [insert Muse of choice] is such a familiar and favorite trope. I found Selma's recount of her experience to be so honest and vulnerable - a great reference and inspiration for writing similar scenes.

"Desperado [Desperado II, aka Once Upon A Time In Mexoco] was also a very graphic film, obviously including a lot of violence. However, it was the film’s sex scene that troubled Hayek. In a recent interview on the podcast Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard and Monica Padman, Hayek opened up about her traumatic experience filming the scene. She reveals that the love scene was not originally in the script, but was “demanded by the studio when they saw the chemistry” between Hayek and Banderas. She notes that even though Banderas and Rodriguez were wonderful about the situation, she still found it unsettling.

“The wife of Robert Rodriguez [the producer, Elizabeth Avellán], at the time, became my best friend. Robert Rodriguez, thank God, can also do everything on a film set… He can do the sound, he can operate the camera, and he was like my bro. So they closed the set and it was Robert, Elizabeth, Antonio, and I.”

Hayek admits that this was nice, but because she hadn’t don’t anything like this before, so when shooting started she “started to sob,” repeating “I don’t know if I can do this” and “I’m afraid.” She cited Antonio’s free spirit as a part of what scared her.

“He was an absolute gentleman and super nice and we’re still very close friends. But he was very free. So, it scared me that for him…it was like nothing. And that scared me because I’ve never been in front of someone like that in that situation. And I started crying and he’s like, “Oh my God, you’re making me feel terrible.” I was so embarrassed that I was crying.”

Hayek continued, stating that "they were great but I was not letting go of the towel.” Banderas, Rodriguez, and Avellán tried to make her laugh to get her to take it off, but as soon as she did she began crying again.

Hayek makes it clear, however, that Banderas and Rodriguez were “amazing” and “magnificent” and that neither of them ever put pressure on her. Hayek also revealed that the scene was comprised of such quick cuts because of her trouble filming and because she couldn’t stay in the scene. Hayek admits that, even now, she can’t enjoy that scene while watching it.

She also touches on the double standards placed on women, by admitting that a part of the reason why she couldn’t get into character to get through it is that she was thinking about her father and brother. When the movie came out, she told them they couldn’t watch the scene and escorted them out of the theater for its duration. She said they were incredibly supportive, but she and Shepard commented on the unfair pressures put on women to not only respect themselves but also protect the egos and reputations of the men in their life.

While not foreign to the world of Hollywood, more and more celebrities are opening up about their traumatic experiences being vulnerable—and in the worst cases, harassed or assaulted—on sets. It’s important to hear these stories so that Hollywood can change and adapt. By employing intimacy coordinators and other on-set safety measures, Hollywood has taken steps to ensure experiences like Hayek's on the set of Desperado aren't repeated, so hopefully the industry will continue to grow and adapt.

I think I'm more in love with Antonio Banderas now than I ever was. Omg, his roles in the SpongeBob movie and in the Doctor Doolittle movies. He is the sexiest pirate I've ever seen!!!! Just sayin'. But that's a whole other post!

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night-unfurls-its-splendour · 3 years ago

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So I think it's time for my review of the Breaking Dawn movies.

Breaking Dawn has always been a part of the story I enjoyed. I didn't get squicked by it like a lot of the Fandom did, so I've always been very charitable to it.

That out of the way, I think BD:2 was the most wasted potential out of any of the adaptions. Given the sheer volume of content in the book I knew that would be the case, but nonetheless it makes me a bit sad because it's a lot worse than it needed to be for one very specific reason, which I'll get to in a bit.

But first, Part One. On the whole, I think Part one was handled pretty damn well and easily ranks highest out of any of the movies for watchability (besides New Moon, which is my favorite of the adaptions).

As usual the biggest problem lies with the lack of development in the Wolf Pack, and tampering with the dynamic. One of the things I like about Jacob's POV is how in depth a look you get at how the Pack Mind works. This was the only big chance the movies had to work with that and they just didn't. The Pack spilt happened way too fast and was far too easy. It makes the "absolute law" of not harming an imprint seem way more like a cop out resolution to the conflict between the packs than an emotionally informed solution based on in-universe logic. What little magic system there is in Twilight goes virtually unexplained in the movies, but besides that, the solution feels even more Staples Easy Button because the aggression of the Uley Pack in the movie drastically out-sizes their response in the book. There is huge stress in the book on how difficult it is for the wolves in either Pack to have to fight against each other. Sam's knee jerk reaction to attack the Cullens is based in his insecurity as the Alpha,his Resentment to the Cullens for triggering his transformation and ruining his life, and simple fear of the unknown. But it's a knee jerk reaction. the all-too-simple solution of the "absolute law" is further compounded in simplicity, considering that a diplomatic meeting initiated by sam in the book is turned into a double-cross initiated by Jacob in the movies. The easy "haha I imprinted you can't touch her" resolution after that feels a little hollow, and it's harder for me to believe that Sam would let it go when Jake was faking them out. You also are robbed of the insight shown in the book that Embry and Quil are big flight risks that Sam can't afford to let go. Given the chance, they'd both join Jake. Which has to sting double for Sam on Embry's account, given the very high likelihood that Embry is Sam's biological half-brother.

Also the split scene happens so fast and ye gads they couldn't have done a worse job on the Pack mind execution. This is the only time you get to see them communicate psychically and they just... first of all, you could have done a standard slightly echo-y voice over but, no they had to give ALL of the wolves a double-timbre--something that you should only hear with Sam, and only when he's laying down an Alpha injunction. That and it was truly the worst voice-over work I've ever heard. Who directed that part? They should be fired.

The only other let down for me was the delivery/transformation scene, because this is the most vivid passage in the books for me. It did not feel hectic enough. Bella never even loses consciousness. Until her heart starts to give out. And then Edward does all the work. I was really looking forward to Jake's desperation and he hardly does anything. And Edward waits way too long before he starts biting her arms and legs. It ruined the tension for me.

Part 2 is less fun and that's primarily because this is the most rushed of all the movies. There's so much to get through and they had little enough time as it was to make the "worst case scenario" fight as long as it was.

Now don't get me wrong, I understand the need for it thematically. It could have been a great addition, but it relied way too heavily on shock value and sucked up precious time than the movie could afford. The whole first half of the movie? I barely remember it, they whizzed through it so fast, nevermind the time taken away from the international covens. Specifically, I have to ask: why did they bother to include the Irish at all? Siobhan had, what? One line? When, aside from the Denalis, the Irish are probably Carlisle's closest friends.

Not only is the Worst Case scenario fight too long, but the casualties on the Cullen side are unrealistically high, given the powers they have. This is a tiny nit to pick, given that we all know the real reason this sequence was invented was for a shock twist and to add action, but bear with me: the idea that "incarnation of some forgotten God of War, radiating pure violence" Jasper would be killed so easily is not only unrealistic, but insulting to a charcater who has the ability to make his opponents lose focus, become lethargic or even probably suicidal. Throw Bella's shield into the mix, the probability of Jane incapacitating him? Very low.

Zafrina can blind the whole Volturi host. It's that depicted? No. Benjamin waits that long to open up a fissure? I doubt that. I notice that they had to write out Renata entirely for there to even be a scenario in which Carlisle charges directly at Aro.

That there should be losses in a fight scenario Like this one is a given. And showing Aro that, even in a fight scenario, when the Cullens side takes losses, that there's no way he wins, that was a great move, I just think it takes too long and poorly executed.

So all in all, Breaking Dawn as a double feature is a lot of fun, and has some great dynamics, lots of faithful writing, but ultimately is a bit dissatisfying. I keep forgetting that I've watched all the movies and there's no more to see.

#twilight saga #twilight renaissance #breaking dawn #breaking dawn part one #breaking dawn part two

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terryballs · 4 years ago

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My favourite Doctor Who writers

10. Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is one of the most talented people to ever write for Doctor Who. Of course, talent alone is not enough - Douglas Adams, Alan Moore, and Naomi Alderman all miss out on this list. What makes Gaiman special is his fairytale, fantasy approach to the show. He has big ideas, full of heart, and I am always delighted by them.

Why isn’t Mr Gaiman higher up on the list? Simply because he has only done four stories. One of them, “The Doctor’s Wife”, is an all-time classic, while the others are at least good. With a couple more stories, Mr Gaiman would surely be higher.

9. Paul Magrs

Coming in at #9 is one of the most important writers of non-televised Who. Paul Magrs has written nine Big Finish Main Range stories (most notably “The Peterloo Massacre”), three Companion Chronicles, and two Eighth Doctor Adventures, including the exceptional “The Zygon Who Fell To Earth”, as well as a huge number of spin-off adventures.

It’s in print where Magrs really flourishes, though. It’s quite hard to get across just how influential Paul Magrs has been. Firstly, his three books in the Eighth Doctor Adventures range - The Scarlet Empress, The Blue Angel, and Mad Dogs and Englishmen - are hugely ambitious metatextual delights. These stories introduce Iris Wildthyme and the Smudgelings to the Whoniverse, and have each inspired their own spin-off series, collectively called the “Magrsverse”. Iris’s parody of the Doctor is a rip-roaring delight whenever she appears - and as you know, she’s famous for it - and will prove a lasting legacy for Mr Magrs.

I suppose, at this junction, I should mention Lawrence Miles, who has had a similar influence, but I just don’t find to be quite as good a storyteller as Magrs.

8. Rob Shearman

You probably know Rob Shearman for “Dalek”, the first good New Who story. What if I told you that “Dalek” is Shearman’s worst DW story?

The titles of Shearman’s audio plays are enough to send shivers up the spines of those who have heard them. There’s “Jubilee”, the loose inspiration for “Dalek”, which explores the Daleks as fascist iconography. There’s “The Holy Terror”, where the Doctor and Frobisher the Penguin Shape-Shifter have a similarly horrifying experience with a religious cult. There’s “The Chimes of Midnight”, possibly the definitive Eighth Doctor story, and “Scherzo”, itself perhaps the most experimental story in Doctor Who history, and “Deadline”, in which the villain is Doctor Who itself.

Like many of the writers on this list, Shearman has an eclectic back catalogue full of obscure oddities. But few people have quite his capacity for knocking it out of the park.

7. Chris Chibnall

It’s true that Chris Chibnall’s work before becoming showrunner is inconsistent at best. “42″ is bad and “The Hungry Earth” is uninspired. “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship” is a fun romp, while “The Power of Three” is a great story that is let down by the ending which had to be re-written hastily due to unforeseen production issues. And Chibnall’s contributions to Series 11 range from “fine” (”The Woman Who Fell To Earth”) to “bad” (”The Battle of Ranskor Av Kolos”). But in “Pond Life” and “P.S.”, Chibnall shows that he knows how to write affecting character beats.

It’s in Series 12 that Chibnall really takes things up a step. His stories become sprawling and ambitious: globe-trotting thrillers crammed full of ideas. He’s still occasionally guilty of trying to throw too many ideas in, but his love for the story really shines through. There’s barely a weak moment in Series 12, and that’s largely because Chibnall himself steps up to write or co-write hit after hit after hit. It all culminates in the epic three-part finale, “The Haunting of Villa Diodati”/”Ascension of the Cybermen”/”The Timeless Children”, a hugely ambitious story that crosses space and time and pulls together disparate elements from the history of Who. It’s a million miles from “The Battle of Ranskor Av Kolos”: a fan-pleasing story that is truly epic.

6. Vinay Patel

Why is Vinay so high? Good question. Thinking about it, I can’t really justify this placement. Patel reliably produces great stories - “Demons of the Punjab” alone marks Patel out as a great, and to follow it up with “Fugitive of the Judoon” shows that it wasn’t a fluke. But Mr Patel has only got four stories to his name - the aforementioned TV stories plus “Letters from the Front” and “The Tourist” - so for similar reasons to Mr Gaiman, a high position is difficult to justify.

So instead, let’s give this position to Terrance Dicks. Mr Dicks has a bit of a reputation as more of a “jobbing” writer than someone like Chibnall or Shearman, Terrance Dicks was, first and foremost, a script editor. Yes, he co-wrote “The War Games” and was the sole writer for “Horror of Fang Rock”, but he’s best remembered for script editing the Third Doctor era (and part of the Second Doctor era), as well as producing an absolute mass of Target novelisations. But that’s not all - Mr Dicks has written original novels (VNAs, EDAs, and PDAs alike), Quick Reads, audio stories, two stage plays, and even the Destiny of the Doctor video game.

Sure, Mr Dicks didn’t burn as bright as Mr Patel. But his contribution to the Whoniverse is unparalleled.

5. Nev Fountain

Comedy writer Nev Fountain has written several of the very best Doctor Who stories. For some reason, these stories tend to centre around Peri (Fountain is married to Nicola Bryant). “Peri and the Piscon Paradox” is the best Companion Chronicle by far, due to a combination of great acting by Bryant and Colin Baker and Fountain’s sizzling script. “The Kingmaker” is an outrageously funny historical with incredible dialogue and multiple ideas clever enough to carry a whole story.

Frankly, those two alone should be enough to convince anyone of Fountain’s brilliance. But there is so much more - “The Widow’s Assassin”, “The Curious Incident of the Doctor In the Night-time”, “The Blood on Santa’s Claw”, “Omega“... if you like Doctor Who, make yourself familiar with Nev Fountain.

4. Robert Holmes

More than anyone else, Robert Holmes is responsible for the esteem which the Fourth Doctor is held in.

Holmes first wrote for the show all the way back in Series 6, with “The Krotons”. He wrote the very first Third Doctor story, “Spearhead From Space”, in which he also introduced the Autons. They reappeared a year later in “Terror of the Autons”, which introduced Jo Grant and the Master. In “The Time Warrior”, Holmes introduced the Sontarans, a pastiche of imperialism.

It was in the Fourth Doctor era that Mr Holmes really made his mark. He took over from Mr Dicks as script editor. In his own right, he wrote “The Deadly Assassin” and “Talons of Weng-Chiang”, but he also turned “The Ark In Space”, “Pyramids of Mars”, and “The Brain of Morbius” into usable stories, even appearing in “The Brain of Morbius” as the Doctor.

After stepping back from script editing, Holmes returned as a hack to write stories like “The Caves of Androzani” (probably the most popular story in Classic Who) and “The Two Doctors”, before dying shortly after his 60th birthday.

3. Jamie Mathieson

Putting Mr Mathieson above Mr Holmes really shows my bias towards New Who, but honestly, I’d rather re-watch “Mummy on the Orient Express”, “Flatline”, or “Oxygen” than any of Holmes’ stories. Mathieson is very inventive and extremely good at maintaining pace and tension. I’m sure we’ll get more stories from him in the future, but the ones we have so far should be used as inspiration by anyone wanting to writing exciting Who.

2. John Dorney

It is hard to exaggerate Mr Dorney’s contributions to audio Who. He may lack the external fanbase of Mr Gaiman, the influence of Mr Magrs, or the legendary status of Messrs Dicks, Chibnall, and Holmes, but make no mistake, Dorney is exceptional. In almost every range he tries his hand at - Lost Stories, Novel Adaptations, Third Doctor Adventures, Fourth Doctor Adventures, Fifth Doctor Adventures, Dark Eyes, Doom Coalition, Ravenous, Time War, Companion Chronicles, Short Trips, Jago and Litefoot, Missy, UNIT, Diary of River Song... Dorney reliably writes the best story in the set.

In particular, Dorney’s stories are notable for the way they focus on character drama. Look at stories like “A Life In A Day” or “Absent Friends” for particular examples of stories that use sci-fi concepts to draw emotion out of characters, particularly the stoic Liv Chenka. Other highlights of Dorney’s include “The Red Lady” and the “Better Watch Out”/”Fairytale of Salzburg” two-parter.

1. Steven Moffat

What more is there to say? Moffat is truly exceptional, reliably writing the best stories in TV Who for several consecutive years. The classics are too numerous to list, but the stand outs amongst the stand outs are “Blink” and “Heaven Sent”/”Hell Bent”.

Some of Moffat’s best work comes away from TV. The minisodes “The Inforarium” and “Night of the Doctor”, the novelisation of “Day of the Doctor”, the short stories “Continuity Errors” and “the Corner of the Eye”, and lockdown stories like “Terror of the Umpty Ums” are Moffat deep cuts which deserve to be held in the same regard as his great TV stories.

Moffat’s imagination lead to him creating multiple iconic monsters - foremost amongst them, the Weeping Angels and the Silence. Moffat emphasised the use of time travel within the stories themselves; other themes in his work include memory, perception, paradoxes, identity, sexuality, and responsibility. He is, without a doubt, the greatest Doctor Who writer, and I am so lucky to have lived through the period where he was active.

#Doctor Who #top ten #Steven Moffat

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aslibekroglu · 4 years ago

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Okay, what another AMAZING episode!! I'm seriously impressed with the writers for keeping me hook week after week. So, there was so many things I loved, I'm just gonna list them.

1.CanSel were seriously cute!! After weeks of angst I'm glad they got cute and teasing moments

2.Canan and Akgün!! That scene in the kitchen! When she told him he'd always have a plate at their table. Oh man, I almost burst into tears along with Akgün

3.Soner and Akgün's fight. That scene seriously made me tear up. It sucks because Soner does have a point. People will always judge them and be wary of them. Alperen is seriously such a GOOD actor. The way he was visibly flinching from Sober 's words. And his utter devastation clear on his face. That's the first time he's let his emotions completely take over. Usually he's able to control himself. Even Yağmur was sort of shocked to see him like that

4.Selim telling Akgün about his childhood. And Akgün listening to him attentively like a child. You could tell the story resonated with him because it's so similar to him. And then at the end slyly asking about the university lol. I really want Akgün to go back to college

5.The dinner scene LMAO. Akgün looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him whole, Yağmur with her sarcasm, and Canan sitting back and enjoying the show

6.Finally Akmur. What can I say about them?? They were absolute PERFECTION!! Alperen and Hafsanur are soo good together!!!Their cute secret meeting, Akgün dropping her off to school, jealous Akgün striking again lol. Him introducing her to his dad. Yağmur being shy, she's adorable. I feel like we were robbed of the full kiss. Idk how I feel about the proposal. Like I'm happy but they're still too young

Oh and last thing Akgün running after Selim is calling for him. LMAOOO, the way I rewinded that several times. Meme worthy!

Sorry if this got too long. I'll try to control myself next time

Lolll do not even worry about controlling yourself, you are 1000% free to go wild in my askbox 😂😂😂

Cansel was adorable in this ep. I am voluntarily choosing to forget that part where he insulted her ability as a lawyer, but everything else was cute! That part near the end, before their meeting with that mafia guy, when Selim was staring at her and she pushed his head away, absolutely adorableeeee.

That Canan and Akgün scene had me tearing up!!! I love their scenes so much! I know y’all like to say that Alperen does not look 20 years old, but in those scenes with Canan, he becomes so childlike and polite and innocent. Idk I feel like it’s believable in those moments.

Oooof, that fight with Soner and Akgün was sooo sad. Soner really verbalized all of Akgün’s worst fears in that moment. And poor Soner, like he’s scared to follow Akgün down this path because he feels like he doesn’t deserve to change, that he’s trash and he’ll always be trash. Not only that, but comments on youtube convinced me that part of the reason why he reacted in that way was because he’s scared Akgün’s going to leave him behind. Like he said, they’re all each other has. He feels like if Akgün actually changes and is actually accepted by Selim and his family, then he would have no one and would really be all alone. So-nerrrrr bby! Also, on a lighter note, how adorable was Akgün about the club in this episode??? He was just so excited and he was taking it so seriously and was so hopeful!! I loved seeing him like that!!

Oh my god that dinner scene had me dead!!!! It was so awkward and uncomfortable and HILARIOUS!!!

Akmur’s flirty-ness was at an all-time high during this episode, I could not believe!!! And Akgün at Yağmur’s school, showin up and showin out in front of everyone, trying to let them know that she’s taken. UNBELIEVABLEEEE! HE’S SO ANNOYINGGGG 😂😂😂😂 And Akgün introducing her to his dad had me crying. When his dad said that Akgün was right and that she’s as beautiful as his mother, oh my god. I couldn’t handle it.

Now the proposal. At first, when I watched it live and without translations, all I could really get from Akgün and Selim’s conversation was that Selim’s past was similar to Akgün’s and then he met Canan, changed his life and went to law school for her, and then proposed early on in their relationship. So, when Akgün proposed I understood that he was kinda following in Selim’s footsteps, but I still couldn’t help but feel like it was all a little out of nowhere and too fast. After, watching with the subtitles, it really made so much sense why he proposed. Like he is literally in the same position that Selim described. He’s scared of the kind of person he is/his past, he’s having a hard time adapting to this new version of himself, and what did Selim say helped him overcome it? Canan. So, of course Akgün’s going to think, well if Canan was Selim’s savior, then Yağmur is mine, of course he’s going to propose. So on one hand, I do still think that it’s way too fast (like damn can they go on a normal date first before we get to the kız isteme???!), but on the other, I am incredibly emotional over the fact that Yağmur is Akgün’s miracle and that Akgün genuinely wants to spend the rest of his life with her. And since he has every intention on telling Selim, I am so interested in seeing how that’s going to go in this next episode. Although, I am wondering if Yağmur even says yes to Akgün’s proposal. I mean she’s got plans for her life and wants to have a career and become a lawyer and everything (not to say that marriage and a career are mutually exclusive or anything), plus her parents got married young and she knows how that turned out for them, specifically for her mother. I just wonder if all of that will be a factor in her decision.

#like you said another great ep #13 eps and they have not disappointed once!!!!#and yes akgün did seem interested in going back to school during the talk with selim #i wonder if he’s going to pursue that or if he’s going to stick with the club #sonyaz ask #xinging-unicorn #sonyaz spoilers #ALSO i am so stressed out about that watch thing omfggg

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bettsfic · 5 years ago

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betts, i'm having trouble with letting myself "write badly" (and with coming up with ideas, but mostly the former). how do you do it, how do you teach yourself?

first of all, major props to you for trying the shitty first draft. this past semester it was the #1 thing i wanted my students to take from the class. for those who do not yet know the power of the SFD, i have made a very helpful visual aid:

let’s say you read anne lamott’s “shitty first drafts” (and you absolutely must read anne lamott’s “shitty first drafts”), and you come out of it believing in the three draft method:

down draft: get it down

up draft: clean it up

dental draft: check every tooth

but you think, potentially, the better your down draft is, the better your up draft will be, and the easier your dental draft will be. perhaps you think, the shittier your first draft, the shittier your final draft, or maybe, the more you’ll have to revise.

NAY.

i’d like you to turn your attention to my gorgeous and professional graphic which took me a whole 30 seconds to make. i’ve drawn two spectrums which indicate the quality of writing, from :( (awful) to :) (most excellent) based on your own definitions of good/bad writing.

let’s say the top line represents a writer who has written a very decent first draft. the absolute best they can do. they’ve put their all into it. they revise it once and it’s a little bit better. they revise it again, but at this point it’s mostly fixing a typo here and there. they have checked every tooth. but it’s still not great.

the bottom line represents a writer who projectile vomited onto a piece of paper (metaphorically) and then cried for an hour (literally). their first draft is written partially in wingdings for reasons they don’t know. they forgot the word for “wrist” so they wrote “hand ankle.” objectively speaking in the grand history of the universe, according to god, it is in the top 1% of worst things ever written.

then this writer cleans it up a bit. now, it’s about where it would be if the writer had tried to write a clean first draft. it’s something they might be willing to show an extremely tactful friend, or someone with very low standards.

and now, magic happens. they revise again, and the draft is infinitely better than what they knew they could write. i don’t know why this happens! but it does. it’s happened to me. it’s happened to every student who has had the terrible fortune of stepping into my classroom. i promise you it works.

writing badly is not just about getting your ideas down in a somewhat messy way. it’s about writing intentionally badly. it’s about aiming for the absolute worst of what you’re capable of. to write badly means to identify and define what you think is good writing, because you’re aiming for the opposite. maybe you hate stories that have run-on sentences, or which seem to lack self-awareness. that means your first draft is going to be FULL of run-ons and have no idea what it’s trying to be. but run-ons can be tidied up to create beautiful prose. and mindless nonsense that relies on tropes and cliches can be organized and added upon to be meaningful. but you need to get it down before you even know what the thing you’re writing is. we write as the process of thought, not the product of it.

which brings me to my next point: *commentator voice*

THE UNKNOWN

i’ve written before on the interaction between fear, the unknown, and writer’s block. one day i’ll write a big fancy craft essay on it that i’ll try lamely to publish, but for now i’ll be very blunt:

all writer’s block is fear. all fear is the unknown. to resolve fear, you must make something known. to make something known, you enact a procedure.

this is true of almost everything in life. everything you hesitate to do, everything you procrastinate or put off. every bad attitude you have. it’s all the unknown. if you open yourself to the process of knowing, everything in life becomes less scary.

how do surgeons perform life-saving surgeries? how do pilots keep a plane from crashing? how did i go to work as a bank teller in a bad part of town, day after day, knowing i would eventually get robbed? we have procedures. if this happens, you do this, this, and this.

as mary ruefle puts it in her essay “on fear” -- what is the poet’s procedure?

this is, of course, a rhetorical question, but i’ve taught this essay many times, and read it many more, and i am obsessed with the idea of a writer’s procedure. combined with donald barthleme’s essay “not-knowing” which is also about the making things known, we have a foundation for which to understand the process of knowing.

so what is the process?

i have my own process which might work for you, which i adapt from project to project, but you’ll have to make your own. and when you do, you have to trust it. writing badly is easier when you know, like me, you have at least 8 more drafts to do no matter what. no matter how good i think it is, i will do every step of the procedure, every time. i have faith in my process. there is no point where an element of the story is so unknown to me that i am afraid to continue. i know that by the end of the process, i have done my best work, and there’s not much more i can do without the help of the people who have accepted it to be published.

recently i’ve decided i want to start drawing. it’s a daunting endeavor -- i used to draw a lot when i was a teenager, but like many of us, certain creative interests we had when we were younger get shoved to the side for one reason or another. for me, i never got the hang of shading, and i couldn’t handle ruining my lovely line drawings with my hideous attempts at making things look three-dimensional.

now, i’ve tasked myself with picking it up again, but i’m afraid. i ask myself why i’m afraid. it’s because i don’t know anything about drawing anymore. i don’t know what to draw. i don’t know where to draw. i don’t know what to use to draw. i don’t know when to draw.

but now, just by acknowledging what i don’t know, i have a list of things i need to make known, one small thing at a time.

what to draw: i take a picture of a fruit basket. i follow some mandala artists on instagram. i look at art blogs. i make a list in google keep/drive of things i want to draw. i keep my mind open to inspiration as it arrives.

where and what to use to draw: i need tools. i’m interested in watercolors, ink drawings, and calligraphy. i go to amazon and i pick out a couple things -- a watercolor notebook, crayola watercolors, micron and brush pens. it’s about $20. enough to get me started at least.

when to draw: i schedule two hours three nights a week to draw. i download the harry potter audiobooks to encourage me to do it.

when it comes time to draw, the only unknown thing is where to place the first line. there is no risk in it, no fear -- i do it with pencil. it can be erased. there is no way to be wrong. once the first line is down, i move to the next and the next, making the drawing known one line at a time.

the first step in the process of knowing is naming what you don’t know.

so my advice to you is this: make a list of questions you have for your narrative. if they’re too broad, break them up. make them tiny. then ask yourself, not what are the answers, but “how do i make these things known to me?”

the response is usually “i don’t fucking know” followed potentially by “well i’ll have to try doing this thing that i know is wrong.” it might be wrong, but it’s known. and so you have to write it down, then trust that it will eventually be right.

thanks for the great question, anon. more on this at the start of the new year, but soon i’ll be launching a ko-fi gold! if you’re interested in getting one-on-one feedback for your writing or would like to buy me a coffee, feel free to follow me on ko-fi!

and here’s my writing advice tag.

#writing advice #dow19 #the poet's procedure #Anonymous

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doomedandstoned · 3 years ago

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Spiral Grave Match Powerful Singing to Damning Riffs on Their Debut LP

~By Tom Hanno~

As we all dealt with the enormity of the Covid-19 pandemic, there were many bands who were taking the down time to write, record, or were making preparations for their completed works to be released upon the masses. Among these was the Maryland based purveyors of doom, metal, and power, the mighty SPIRAL GRAVE. On July 16th, the band released their debut album, 'Legacy of the Anointed' (2021), via Argonauta Records.

You'll know this talented singer as soon as the vocals hit, because you're hearing ex-Iron Man frontman, "Screaming Mad" Dee Calhoun, a man whose vocal work is influenced by legendary guys; guys like Rob Halford and Dio. He brings with him the surviving members of Iron Man: "Iron Lou" Strachan on bass duties and Mot Waldmann pounding the skins.

Spiral Grave also utilizes guitarist Willy Rivera (ex-Lord), and he really brings the goods on their debut album. His riffs draw from the normal doom/stoner influences, but he is able to put a spin on that sound that is refreshing to my ears. I'll let his quote from the bio explain a bit better:

I wanted to step away from the extremity of my former band and get back to writing songs that were heavy but had hooks and a strong vocal presence. For this band, I wanted to draw from bands such as Dio-era Sabbath, Candlemass, Metal Church, Armored Saint, Mountain, UFO and Judas Priest with enough experimentation that would allow us to branch out on future releases.

I think that desire to be different, while keeping future music in mind, is a big part of why this record has grabbed ahold of me so perfectly, you can just hear that these guys are out to make you remember their music long after you initially hear it.

Legacy of the Anointed by Spiral Grave

On to my picks for the standout tracks! "Nightmare on May Eve (Dunwich Pt. 1)" opens the album up and is among the best songs on this record.

I hear some Thin Lizzy in certain parts, particularly in the melody lines that are used throughout the track, a bit of Iron Maiden in the guitars, and a pretty distinct heavy metal tone overall. Plus, Lou's bass guitar has the sound that I like to call the "ping pong ball effect", that bouncy, DD Verni (Overkill) tone that is one of my favorite bass sounds ever.

I really love the way Dee has worded it his lyrics for this track, for example:

Young Master Whateley – growing up so fast To see you it’s so hard to think just fifteen years have passed The Wizard would be proud of you were he alive to see Destiny fulfilled – you set your father free

Since I'm not usually very good at deciphering lyrics, I asked Dee what this track was about. He told me:

It's an adaptation of HP Lovecraft's 'The Dunwich Horror.' It tells the first half of the story (hence the "pt. 1"), and the Iron Man song, "Thy Brother's Keeper," tells the second half.

That description also explains the old style of wording used, and makes the track even more interesting.

Legacy of the Anointed by Spiral Grave

Another song that I feel is worthy of chatting about, is called "Tanglefoot." What I love about this one is that old school, doomy, guitar intro. It doesn't last long before bursting into an energetic riff that drives everything forward, and the contrast between the riffs is so powerful.

Dee sounds amazing here too, there's a definite Dio meets Rob Halford feel that is aided by the way the guitars move underneath his vocals; but my favorite section of this track is when everything shows down.

As the music drops it's distortion, and the band settles back for a more subtle approach, is where I feel Dee shines the most.

So many promises each night – vows to make it right Can you tell me what I’d really like to know? So many mirrors in the smoke – the true reflection always cloaked Misdirection hides the nature of the game.

I just love those lyrics, and the way they're performed is absolutely perfect for the section, and the track as a whole. As it turns out, these first tracks that we've discussed are also Willy's two favorite tracks, I'll let him explain:

As cliche as it sounds, I’m proud of all the songs on the album but if I’m forced to choose. It’s a tie between “Tanglefoot” and “Nightmare.” I love the former because it breaks the convention of what people should expect from a “doom” band and it has that cool Budgie section in the middle, which is a contrast to the rest of the track. But at the end of the day "Nightmare" is my favorite.

It was one of the last songs written for the album and is a cool amalgamation of everything you’re about to experience in the album.I wanted a strong opening track to the album and was thinking of something like Ozzy’s “Over The Mountain,” but with touches of Mercyful Fate and Iron Maiden. I think it’s the perfect way to break expectations right out of the gate and it opens up the possibilities for us as songwriters.

Now we can move on to my personal favorite, "Abgrund," which is also Dee's pick for his favorite on this album. Since that's the case, I'll start by letting Dee expand on why he picked it, and then I'll try to do the same. Take it away, Dee!

"I'd probably go with Abgrund. It's heavy and epic, and the idea of staring into the abyss until finally the abyss stares into you was always a concept I wanted to write about. At the end of the day it's a song about being your own worst enemy, and realizing that the abyss is actually you, staring back at yourself. Plus, it's great fun to sing and scream my fool head off in."

I must say that the lyrical theme is one that I myself can identify with, as could many others. I believe that anyone who spends their life attracted to the darkness , will eventually attract that darkness to themselves, and once the black sees you, it can never unsee you.

"What does it see – has it found the crack in the armor? What does it know – the ghost in the blackness above me? What do you want from me?"

Musically, this is one heavy track, perhaps the heaviest on this album. The riffs are written for maximum effect, and once you hear how Dee screams over them, you'll stick around for repeated listens.

There are five other tracks on Legacy of the Anointed, and not one of them is bad, but I feel that I've held your attention for long enough. Now, do yourselves the favor of going to check out this magnificent album, because a disservice will be done if you deprive your ears of these mighty songs. The album can be found here, and physical copies can be ordered at Argonauta Records. Enjoy!

Follow The Band

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#D&S Reviews #Spiral Grave #Baltimore #Maryland #doom metal #hard rock #Tom Hanno #Argonauta Records #Doomed and Stoned

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moodysnowflake · 4 years ago

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First of all, gigantic

SPOILER ALERT

'Cause everybody shoud say it before starting.

Sure, it's not really a spoiler by definition, 'cause it's been 23 years, but still.

It's almost like with Harry Potter. Who read the books knows, and if you just started, it would be a really mean and dickish move to say anything.

Just because you've played FFVII, it doesn't give you the permission to rob the experience from new players, if they try not to get spoiled. Even if the game has been out there for two decades.

It would be like if, knowing the actual plot by Nomura-san himself, I will leak it you, old player.

You wouldn't like that very much now, would you?

Also, please let's keep it human and reasonable, this is just a stream of consciousness and my personal thoughts, I'm not going to insult anyone, nor players, nor Square Enix, so I would appreciate the same respect. Thank you.

I've already written stuff so far in order not to reveal, and if you, knew player, are insisting on continuing...well, what can I say? You've got a big storm coming; you just decided you didin't care, I'm not going to be responsible for ruining your experience. I warned you, you've spoiled yourself, and I'm sorry for that.

That being said.

This is exactly what it looks like, a huge steam blow, to get all my convoluted trains of thoughts out of my head, and see if someone else is perceiving the same things as me or, if not, is able to discuss it in a civil and constructive manner.

What I think about FFVII:R story and ending.

To start, I will be referring to the gameplay's events as timeline 2, and the original as timeline 1. You'll get why.

I think that, despite the dubious ending, we've all been already played, and what we think being the first destiny's divergence, a.k.a. Zack's survival, is actually a flashback of timeline 2. So yes, something that already happened in the actual game and influenced the story so far.

Why is that?

Let's start from the beginning. Or the end, depends on how you look at it.

Aerith.

'Not Sephiroth?' you might ask.

Nope. Not Sephiroth. Aerith indeed.

In timeline 1, she died, and become one with the Life Stream. We know it. That's okay, I'm not trying to argue with that.

I'm considering it for its very meaning. Aerith became one with the planet, so one with destiny itself.

Let's try to look at this perspective: if you were given the power to change destiny, anywhere you want, for everyone you know...Would you really not give it a try? If you were ever given the chance to save the person you love, and everybody who died because of your fuck ups, would you not even consider to change things? Not even once?

Aerith has always been energetic, sometimes naive, so full of life and hope, especially HOPE, despite everything, even being afraid of freedom and the unknown, but giving it a go anyway. So why couldn't she have tried? I can see that happening.

It wasn't Sephiroth who destroyed the Whispers of Midgar in that shiny, golden, big-ass explosiong which knowcked Zack off of his feet. It was her.

Zack was not supposed to reach Midgar, and Aerith interfered, saving him...for what time we're allowed to see until the end of the game.

Being the Whispers a sort of "defence line", I don't think that she got rid of them for good, because they're part of the very backup system of Gaia, so I'm more inclined to think that she just managed to temporarly shut them down.

Hoping to give Zack more time...but, in my opinion, not that much.

Let's be real; Zack's death has been one of the most tragic and emotional ones of the compilation, because Zack Fair is as near as you can go to the definition of Best Boy and everybody should love him. Yes, he was not immune to the SOLDIER's madness, because he was obsessed to become a hero, to be able to save someone.

But we have to thank him if Aerith decided to sell the flowers; if it wasn't for him, Aerith and Cloud would never have met (in every timeline).

He was the reason of the Seventh Heaven's name. He's the reason of that goddamned squatting minigame (yeah...you didn't think about that, did you?).

And naturally, he's the reason why our adorkable Cloud Strife not only is still alive, but also the source of his combat abilities.

Sure, Spike was trained and filled up to the brim with mako, but where do you think he was pulling all of his batshit crazy stunts from, if not Zack's memories?

e.g.: the very first landing in Crisis Core is e x a c t l y the same movement, the only difference being Zack touching the ground putting the weight on his right side while Cloud did it on his left. The only reason I can think about is because Zack wasn't holding the Buster, and that is how you would handle your balance if you were rigth-handed.

First digression done...it's gonna be painful...

Nobody is forcing you: don't like, don't read.

Feel free to stop whenever you like, I'm not gonna get offended.

So, Aerith tried, because she is the ultimate cinnamol roll and she wants to believe. She's fantastic and hopeful, and she firmly believe in trying to change destiny, saving as many people as she can. Why wouldn't she?

So she tried (why not from his mother's death? She could have tried, but Ifalna migth have said she didn't want to be saved. Who knows. I definitely don’t.), but it simply didn't work, because Zack had to die anyway, the Whispers de-bugged themselves and everything spectacularly backfired.

The question is how he's gonna die. If Crisic Core’s death was the worst, how could it go more bananas? I have some alternatives:

- Cloud (by Sephiroth intervention) killing Zack with his own hands without realizing it until the very end, Zack accepting it and trying to comfort him while drifting away [the less likely one for me];

- Zack dies again (maybe in the sewers?) because of Cloud's fault, either giving him the Buster to defend himself (remaining disarmed) or because he physically shields Cloud from a bullet shower or an explosion (something has to get rid of Shinra's troops to let Spike escape);

All of these theories imply that Zack still dies like a hero and knowing it.

- Let's go Cruelty: Full Cowling. Let's shatter even that one joy, the most important thing Zack managed to accomplish in his mad chase, reaching for his dream: die a hero. He could have managed to hide Cloud, giving him the Buster, running in the opposite direction and getting captured instead of insta-killed. Returning in Hojo's nightmare, this time dying a slow, agonizing, dark death. What if the bastard, in Zack’s very lasts moments, will deceive him, telling him they found Cloud, even if they haven't, just to mess up with him? That would be devastating: Zack would die feeling completely useless, absolutely worthless, even if he's not. He's still a hero, but he will never know.

This is where Sephiroth might come along.

Specifically, Advent Children's Sephiroth.

Who, at some point, gave/activated/infused/whateverisgonnabe timeline 1 Cloud's memories into him. Because Cloud has friggin’ Jenova's cells within him, so Sephiroth can do what the heck he wants and toy with the guy as long as he sees fit. As he has done throughout the game.

When could we see it?

- "I've killed you with my own [hands]...": Sephiroth is doing a vibe-check, to see how much Cloud remembers, and simply goes masterfully along with it, starting to fuck with him right then; he needs for Cloud to be as mentally unstable as possible, because of Black Materia reasons. He is one of the best manipulators in the game, after all. If not the best one.

- "But that is then, and this is now." Criptic af, could be interpreted as both Cloud canonically remembering in a modified timeline 1, or timeline 2 innest. Being Sephiroth, the jackass could be referring to both of them, just becasue he can.

- "Promise you'll come and save me" scene. Timeline 1 Cloud shouldn't remember it at that point in the game. Also, this wouldn't lead to the heart to hearth with Tifa right after. If it's not a modified timeline 1, to show that spiky boi is not a total socially awkward blond artichoke.

- Aerith's death and Holy's flashes. What could possibly confuse you more than that, together with a blasting migraine? I think this is Sephiroth not-verbal way to say "You're not gonna be able to save her. Ever. You didn't succeded then, you're not gonna make it now, not even if she knows it. It's gonna happend anyway."

- At the Edge of Creation, when he asks for Cloud's help, Cloud has a blink-moment in which his right hand seems to move towards him, an uncoordinated gesture, but still there (memory of timeline 1...when he sort of did it)

*What about Zack's name being said in Emerald Park and nothign really happening to Cloud? Well, if you have been innested another timeline's memories, things would be pretty screwed up in your head, wouldn't they? That could be why Cloud had just a crippling aneurisma hearing it: his brain was probably trying not to melt in a puddle. Also, Aerith could have been interfering with it (but I'm explaining that later), blocking his possible messed up recollection, because that would have been quite the situatuion both for Spike's sanity and the players'.

Advent Childrend's (AC) Sephiroth? Why not another one? Come on, we've got plenty of evidence of it during the gameplay (I'll be referring to both English and Japanese [coming from the Italian adaptation, which is the closest one {yep, I’m Italian, but I think the English adaptation is still the best in terms of localization and conversations’ management}]):

- The very first thing he says to Cloud, when he blabbers "You're not real...You're...dead.", is the trolling (and perfect) "I am?"...I mean...has he ever really been? Cloud's words implies (because this is Japanese) that you might also read it as "This is just my PTSD fucking with me, you're a memory".

- Aaaand which line hits you like a truck? "I will never be...a memory." (last line of Sephiroth in AC before smiling and disappearing)

- Last Sephiroth's line of the cutscene, which in English is a very uncospicuous (but very menacing, almost Itachi-like) "Hold on to that hatred.", in Japanese is "Never forget me." That's pretty different.

- Aaaand which line hits you like a wrecking ball again? Never forget me..."I will never be...a memory."

- While you, old player, are still wondering what the fuck just happened, 'The Promised Land' (AC soundtrack) starts playing...

If all of this wasn't enough to let your plot bunny run like it was on a carrot high, let's talk about the scene in Hojo lab's corridor, when Cloud, seeing Sephiroth materializing, yells in pain and grips fiercely at his left arm. Which happens to be the very same arm that is gonna get Geostigma (Sephiroth's lovely life-threatening plague-ish gift to humanity in AC).

And the three glowy whispers in chapter 18? Have you noticed that they move like Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo, and have the same weapons (one-handed sword, a gauntlet and two guns, respectively)? With a lot less whining, fortunately. Colors' scheme seems to make sense as well: Kadaj should be Sephiroth's hatred and rage (red), Loz his strenght and speed (yellow) and Yazoo the coldness and detachment (blue/green).

I’m leaving the last variable at the end, ‘cause this way I don’t seem a complete paranoid, even if it has been there all the way: the black feathers. The flippin’ black feathers. Which Sephiroth has ONLY at the end of FFVII: Advent Children. Then, and just then. Not everywhere else. Nowhere.

They’re there from chapter 1, joyfully swaying in the wind, Cloud sees one and it doesn’t seems to have that much of a significance, like for new players (meanwhile old players are screaming for their life, looking for cover), and they keep coming up, up, up, up, all over the place. And at the very end, the player sees that gorgeous black wing and they think “Oh! Holy crap, he has been there the whole time.”...and the old players yells “Fuck! He’s AC Sephiroth? We’re screwed. We’re done. This was his plan from the very beginning. Crap, crap, crap.”

This is the game tellying us “Shall I give you dispair?”

All the other interactions could easly come from timeline 1 events, up to the end of the game, and that's okay, because they make you realise that Sephiroth knows shit he's not supposed to have knowledge of at this point. He’s in total control, he has been through the entirety of the game, the sexy bastard.

So yeah, after making his last elegant and terrifying threat to AC's Cloud, our favourite one-winged angel decide to go back to the first checkpoint and retry in Critical Mode.

Fancy meeting timeline 1 Aerith there, in timeline 2, already fucking shit up in his stead. I can see him in my mind's eye, witnessing her intervention and thinking "This is actually really nice!". Since destiny has to be restored, he would have destiny itself playing by his side; he seriously couldn't ask for more.

Do I think part of Aerith is coming back from future too? Yes, she behaves like she knows too much stuff:

- "It's good for nothing at all" when you met her after projectile-crashing from the upper plate; if Zack dies like I hypothsized, this line would get all the more meaning, having her failed to save him;

- When Cloud is on his merry way of vivisecting Reno precisely in half, in English she yells "Stop!", but in Japanese she actually says "No, it's wrong!". How could she possibly know that Cloud shouldn't kill the Turk?;

[short digression over Cloud murderous behaviour towards people (a.k.a. Johnny and Reno) compared to the original game: why not, since he’s been bombarded by splitting headaches, seeing the man (who was his hero and destroyed his life) he killed with his hands very much real (to him but not to anybody else) and messying around, driving him cracker day by day. Anyone will lose their cookies.]

- On the highway, she and Sephiroth have an educated banter, in which she clearly knows something's up with the Sephiroth who's standing in front of them. He's the wrong one. But, at the same time, he's the true one too; He's not a projection channeled by Cloud Jenova's cells, nor using a copy to be seen by the others. So he's not using someone else from timeline 2, he's not part of timeline 2, that's why he's wrong. Not just because he wants to, you know, eradicate life from the planet. Despite him being his true self, the last one existing, he's from timeline 1, so he doesn’t really belong in timeline 2. That's the biggest hint we have about Aerith coming from whatever happens after, together with the next point;

- When asked how the heck she knows about destiny’s crossroads, she answer with a nice "I'm not really sure.". She's not really sure...anymore, due to the Whispers trying to reset her consciousness and memories back to square timeline 1. She says she loses something everytime they touch her.

I imagine the scene of Aerith feeling Zack's death, again, while she's at home, at night, among the flowers, feeling useless, realizing she couldn't do anything in the end: that is gonna be nerve-wracking.

Sephiroth would appear, maybe using Marco's body (or maybe even his own body), emerging from the darkness of the alley. They would look at each other while he slowly walks down the wood stairs and glides over the surface of the pond, speaking while never breaking eye contact, both knowing where and when they really are from. He would probably say, in his soft velvet voice, something along the line of "I told you it was not meant to work. You're playing with powers you're not able to control, and you're destined to fail. I'm going to ruin him (Cloud) and everything else you cherish. You will experience what true despair means (because why not, let's throw another AC reference, shall we?)." A very Sephiroth way to say "You did such a good job. Here, let me help you screw this up more, Aerith."

He would lift from the pond, silent and tall and silver and monstrous, smiling with his jade eyes pinning hers down, stretching his black wing out, towering over her, before folding it around himself and disappear (like in AC), leaving only Marco behind to collapse over the bed of flowers.

That would be a heck of a war declaration.

Last, and least, the final confrontation at the Edge of Creation, a.k.a. Sephiroth ultimately fucking with our sanity.

Paraphrasing his first senteces, ”I’m not gonna die and I won’t let you die as well”, should be the very final hint which shows he’s AC Sephiroth, as he used Cloud’s memories of him to create a core indipendent from the Life Stream (this is how he managed to bounce back); he needs Cloud to remain alive in order to exist himself. That’s why he feels (to the very confused new players, and the grumpy old ones who think Remake Sephiroth is not coming from the future) so obsessed with Cloud now; he wasn’t in timeline 1 until the last part. This would make sense for now to be timeline 2, because he understood how important it is to keep Spike alive and as insane as possible.

Cloud tries to open Sephiroth up like a can using Omnislash, the original killing blow, and Sephiroth parry and deflects it. Smirking, probably thinking “Nope, I’ve already seen this happening before, not gonna fool me twice.”

The bloody "7 seconds till the end. Time enough for you...perhaps. But what will you do with it? Let's see"

Which in Japanese is - 7 seconds remaining until the end. But you're still in time. The future is in your hands...Cloud -

The flippin’ end. Which one, Aerith or Meteor? I personally think it’s Meteor.

The future is in his hands because he was the one shutting down the Whispers with the final blow? Are they really gone this time? I don't think so. The future might be in Cloud's hands, but Sephiroth is gonna make sure to have his strings tightly wrapped around them.

The fact that he appears way more in the remake makes sense because of what he’s doing (at least what I and other people think he’s doing), and it doesn’t make him less dreadful. Not one bit. Cloud’s reaction seeing him for the first time should set the mood for the new players (I don’t know who this big-ass silver tree is, his voice is so soft it’s disturbing, his eyes are making me really uncomfortable and apparently he should be dead, but still scare the main badass character shitless, so I should watch out for him as well) as much as the old ones (Holy fuck, what the heck are you doing here, Seph?! How? It’s impossible [you do realize you and Cloud had the same emotional response, yes?{Chadley pun perfectly intended}]).

Anxiety is not resolving during the game; he’s still intimidating and scary as fuck whenever he comes out of fricking nowhere, creeping all over you.

I think the only one who knows what's up is him, and he's not gonna give anything away anytime soon. He's just gonna smile, drop an emotional bomb whenever he can and flutter away, leaving behind utter confusion and sheer panic.

Is Aerith gonna die? I really hope so. Don't get me wrong: I love her to the very bottom of my heart, but FFVII is not only a story about love, courage and fight against destiny, it's also about loss, suffering and death. As much as I would really like for her to survive, she shouldn't.

Like Sephiroth, she's a singuarity too, and at some point, she will have to met her fate, regardless of what’s happening.

Did they really have to show Zack? Everybody was secretly hoping to see him, nobody could make me think otherwise. And again, this is another surprise effect, recreating that same impact that old players got: ��who’s this guy that looks like Cloud and has his sword (and he’s probably the guy Aerith is talking about)?”, while we are freaking out looking at him dragging spiky boi, limping towards Midgar, criminally handsome and very much alive.

New players don’t really need to know more, because that’s exactly what we knew back then.

As for Sephiroth’s presence in the game. In the original, he appears way later. Here, it’s conceptually the same; he’s there because of Cloud (mind, body/cells, memories) and the copies. He’s the real, complete one only at the very end, that’s why One Winged Angel is playing only then, and it’s just a faint presence here and there, merged in previous tracks (interestingly, it’s also the very first musical phrase we hear in the gameplay, and I think that’s because Aerith sensed him coming from somewhere. It wasn’t because of the whispers, I think it was because of him).

Same for Sephiroth’s backstory, which is none existent, for new players: that’s okay. you see him, you get that he’s unhinged and awfully strong. He’s a cold, collected bitch and he’s clearly plotting something.

That’s okay, it’s enough for now, they’re gonna get the rest in the next rounds. And boy, do I dread that day, ‘cause that’s gonna hurt.

Am I forgetting about Stamp? Of course I am. Not.

Barret stated in chapter 5 that Shinra changed the breed for the military propaganda, and that’s okay. We saw his graffiti, and he’s a beagle. In Zack’s scene, an empty chips bags flies around, clearly showcasing a different Stamp, a terrier of some sort. With a big-ass “Original“ claim in the top left corner. This might mislead you to believe that you’re looking at a different timeline.

Well...too bad the very same bag is laying on the table of Jessie’s parents...

The hint has always been there: Original. Barret said they changed the breed form the original one...so, yeah, this might prove Zack’s scene is a flashback.

Is Wedge alive? Probably yes.

Is Jessie alive? Probably yes.

Why Bigg's still alive? I don't know.

But I know that you don't build characters up that way to let them live a long life and die peacefully. Someone in this story is really good at giving hopes and then crushing them in the blink of an eye...

The Remake, as it has been said, is incorporating The Compilation, and it’s evident througout the gameplay, from Before Crisis all the way to Dirge of Cerberus and the novels (Leslie and Kyrie come from those. Still waiting on Evan).

I don’t think it has been made to rewrite nor modify FFVII, but to create a definitive end which organically weaves within it.

The story is still alive, kicking, and is the very foundation of the remake. You still have to play the compilation to have the ultimate understanding, because that is the destiny trying to be defied by Aerith and Sephiroth.

You can’t try to change fate, if you don’t have one to mess up with in the first place.

Lastly, if Zack will ever be playable at some point, I hope with all of my heart and soul to find myself beating the ever loving crap out of someone with a white and blue parasol.

*End Of Rant*

I'm forgetting something for sure, but well, this is the majority of the stuff that I needed to get out of my system.

If you managed to reach this point, thank you for dealing with me and my madness.

If you want to share your thougths you're very welcome to do so, as long as you can articulate your opinions in a civil discussion.

Have a good day/night.

Finger crossed for 2023.

#ffvii remake #ffvii #ff7 #ffvii compilation #ffvii theories #let's see #this may hurt #like really bad #ffvii spoilers #i warned yall

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literaphobe · 5 years ago

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Okay on the fatphobia as a teen thing? It fully robs you of respect. Im hilarious, and i dont mean that as a brag or whatever but i can make my friends laugh like hell, but in secondary school (high school) people would not give me the time of day. Id say a joke and no one would laugh, and then someone would say my joke nearly word for word and everyone would laugh. It was a nightmare for my self esteem and its only now that im in college that people respect me and think im funny

growing up fat is like.... getting told by the world that it doesn’t matter what you’re good at or how good you are at something, someone less talented than you will be valued anyway because they are skinny. now that you mention it, when i was 14 i got picked to play one of the main characters in a play for a theatre competition. it was a big deal to me, because all the other main characters were played by our seniors who were all at least 15, and it made me feel really good to be seen as that good.

it was an adaptation of a midsummer night’s dream, so i was playing a romantic counterpart, and sadly, there were a number of people who were unhappy that our professional director cast me, some were girls who were older and jealous to have been overlooked, and i won’t talk about that bit but my costar’s efforts to get my character recast were what hurt most. apparently, he said that i wasn’t attractive enough for him to put on a convincing performance. he also said something about how i should maybe put on some eyeliner, i think? anyway it was. really painful. and i knew it was because i was fat, because fat means ugly in the eyes of fatphobes, also i know he definitely said i was too fat at some point in his. displeasure. at having to act alongside me

anyway. it all worked and my character was recast. a very skinny somewhat conventionally attractive senior was given my role, and i was reassigned a smaller more comedic role. i was devastated at first, i think i either cried or wanted to cry, and rehearsals went on. crazy thing is, i did really well in my new role and had a lot of fun with comedy, and i thought it was a blessing in disguise. who needed to be the main character anyway? why do so many scenes when i could do less scenes?

meanwhile, the new girl was doing horribly. she could barely act, and it was clear that i was much more talented than her and did a much better job, even though i didn’t have the sexy skinny beautiful body and face that one might have associated with the character (the character in question was a girl who had two suitors and she only liked one of them but her father objected and wanted her to be with the other one. but hoooowww could a fat girl like me make judges and audiences believe two men could want me so desperately, right). our director who was really good at bringing schools to victory in this competition, realized enough was enough. she was the final authority, and it didn’t matter if people were unhappy. she quietly told me i was back to my original role, and the original person who played my new comedic character would be back in that spot. the skinny girl who was recast as my character wouldn’t have a role at all

(yes i know even when i got recast someone else was kicked out so I could still be in the play this is what happens when ur unbelivably talented 😔🤟�� fjsjdjdj jkjk)

anyway!! this time everything went great and rather smoothly. i had p much proved my talent as a performer, and my previously really annoying and fatphobic costar realized that acting with me was fun and that playing out a romance didn’t really mean shit LMAO. so we went on to do the competition and my teacher cried because during the play some of my cast members accidentally messed up parts of the set and knocked over props (all of which i needed to use in an upcoming scene) and she very nervously told me what was up before i went in for my scene and that if it was possible could i try and fix some of it and i was like “lmao ok” and went in and treated all the mess ups as a natural part of the set and fixed everything in a way that made sense for the character and when my scene ended and the lights went out i quickly reset the last set piece in a flash then ran out so the next scene could begin with the set perfectly back to normal. so ya i was an absolute hero and my teacher cried because she was so proud of me KFKSKDKDK

anyway we won distinction (the highest thing u can get it’s like getting gold) and the judges sent this feedback sheet to one of our teachers and in the feedback the judges pointed out my character as one of the best acted ones etc etc so 😌✨ it turned out good but the whole point is i wouldn’t have had to suffer so much and been through so much conflict and drama if not for fatphobia, and if that skinny girl had even a smidge of talent i would never have been allowed to play that role again even if i was objectively better at it

and like. something like this always happens when I graduate from a school and move on to another school’s drama club. i ALWAYS have to prove myself again and again because no one gives me a second look otherwise

sorry for turning this into a long ass story about me, i completely feel for u, having people straight up steal ur jokes is the WORST and im so glad ur finally being acknowledged as the funny legend u r!!!!!!

#ask #idt i was like overlooked in terms of comedy #people thought i was funny but #it became a thing where people only found me funny #or nice or at the v least cute #i think for the longest time i just wanted to be told i was beautiful and pretty #and like u know. its a stupid thing to yearn for but also #i still yearn for it #sometimes i think stupid things like #if i lost x crazy amount of weight people would think im gorgeous #but... yeah lmao

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natsspammityspamspamham · 5 years ago

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Dino Watches Anime (April 26)

I haven’t made one of these for a while, and after the first draft went and deleted itself, I wondered whether it was worth making another one (I make these primarily for myself then get really surprised whenever people notice these). During harsh times like these, I find myself being drawn to the cheesiest and the most cringe-inducing shows, but maybe I just like them because you can put them on double-speed without missing a thing because you know what’s going on. It’s like instant noodle broth: satisfying, warming, but you know it’s going to kill your insides with self-crisis. Seriously, I didn’t come to terms that I really, really like romance as a genre until a little while ago.

With that being said, I want to take a short break from romance now.

I often ask myself, “Why are you watching these when you can be watching really good anime?” Well, that’s probably because I don’t want to have my analytical brain on right now. I want to watch an anime that takes two brain cells to enjoy. I only have two. Once I garden some more, maybe then will I get into the stuff I know I will enjoy like Hunter x Hunter (2011)

Things that I just started but couldn’t get into

NHK ni Youkoso! (1/24)

For one, I didn’t want to watch this before because it would’ve hit too close to home. The show’s about a NEET aka a freeloader (not in employment, education, or training), and I’m... almost that description (but that’s mostly because of the pandemic). Really, this show is riddled with paranoia, and it wants you to really know that with its changing art styles to its cynical script lines to its main character honestly needing some help (seriously, he needs help). I read further (aka spoilers) and realized that I probably won’t have fun with this anime right now, and I will never touch the manga because that stuff is even more insane than its adaptation. NHK ni Youkoso is about people who fall between the cracks of normal standard society and their desire to seek their own normal by any means necessary, and during stressful times, I think it belongs on the backburner.

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (2/12)

After seeing how much I enjoyed Kakushigoto (which will be mentioned later, I just thought, “Wow, I want to see that other really famous work!” I didn’t enjoy it at all. I forgot why I put the series on-hold. It’s about a suicidal teacher who will stop at nothing to die then ask people why they almost killed them. Through a bunch of errors, he ends up becoming some sort of a harem king to his students (and he attracts the weirdos). I enjoyed the lengths Studio Shaft went to to make this anime appear the way it does (which helps in a lot of ways), but I just can’t continue with it until a much later date.

Appare-Ranman! (2/?)

I just lost interest after looking at the rest of the cast. I’m all for being vibrant and out there, but some of those character designs imitate more of a “racial stereotype/caricature”. I’m not saying that I dropped the show only because of that (I’m quite dense when it comes to that), but I didn’t like the characters either. I can’t get behind a show that won’t let me enjoy it a single moment over two episodes.

I’ll pick it up again later (probably)

Free! (5/12)

I feel like they’re shoving fanservice a lot. I try to skip every fanservice scene, and I managed to watch up to episode 5 in less than an hour, and I didn’t even get through them all. But I will say that ending is stuck in my head now. (humming)

This show has taken me at least two attempts to watch so far. Let’s see how many more it takes before I finish/give up!

Darker Than Black (18/25)

I’ll probably finish this one for the sake of finishing it. I just find that the episodic nature gets stale after a while, and the overarching story is often disregarded. In exchange, we do get some fun side stories, character development, and world building, but I’d like to settle down too, you know?

Clannad (1/23)

Yeah, I’m doing that now. I’m going to see whether my feels bones are as strong as they were before... after I take a hiatus because I’m not sure if I’m in the appetite for that kind of romance now that I’ve watched two shoujo in a row.

Sousei no Onmyouji (20/50)

I bet you, someone was like, “Let’s throw all these shounen cliches into a pot then see what comes out!” Bruh, this is bordering that story I wrote when I was 14, and I’m not even dissing this anime. I enjoyed it but need a break now. It’s very cliche, predictable, and honestly, I can see why it has such a low rating. Studio Perriot likes cutting corners sometimes with their long-running series (*stares at Naruto*), and this anime is no exception. Sometimes, it feels like a visual novel. “We don’t need to animate anything if she’s so fast that no one can see her.” Dang, but it gets repetitive. It also has a magical girl power that only works when the main couple does it? Cool, but that also gets repetitive. I just didn’t see myself watching the same thing another 30 times (at least right now).

Maison Ikkoku

I’m actually on the fence about continuing this one. It’s really sweet, but I’ve had my fill of romance. I have been wanting to watch some more Rumiko Takahashi works though. There’s no reason for me not to continue this. It gives me strong Princess Jellyfish vibes (which I should also finish).

Recently Finished

Itazura na Kiss

Just... end my suffering. It’s not worth it. The thing about shoujo anime is that I watch it late at night when my brain is at its worst when it comes to analyzing or taking in any emotional circumstances. Then I asked myself, “Would I want any young, impressionable people to watch this?” And my first thought was “F**K NO!” This anime was an absolute trainwreck. As my Discord friend put it “It’s so bad, yet you can’t look away!” But what makes this anime unique? What sets it apart? It shows life after high school. Just like Clannad, it shows that life is more than your secondary education. There is more to life than just being a teenager. I’m not saying these characters ever grew though because that’d be a FAT JOKE.

Episodes 1-13: Girl gives boy a love letter. He laughs and doesn't even want it and goes "no thanks". Girl gets upset. Then they find out they're living under the same roof after the girl's dad made them a house out of popsicle sticks (because the dads are childhood friends). She keeps trying to push herself onto him, and his mom joins in and is plotting so much more than you'd expect. The best part is that this main girl already has a childhood friend who's like "please marry me. I'll cook for you, work for you, take a bullet for you, slice my head off if it means you won't chip a nail--" then the girl replied by chasing after the guy who calls her stupid on a daily basis and genuinely believes she can't do anything.

Episodes 14-25: Guy gets dragged to his own wedding and generally does not care for the girl unless she’s either not looking or is on death’s bed. He practically deserts her every other time, and we’re supposed to think it’s romantic when he finally gives a crap about his wife (even when she’s pregnant). The show constantly reminds you that even other characters have doubts that our main character cares about anyone other than himself and his aloofness. They have a bunch of missed affairs including a hoe that tries to leave her husband on her honeymoon to get with Mr. Aloof and a nursing student that genuinely cares about MC and the fact that her husband doesn’t care about her at all.

The moral of the story of this anime: If you chase after somebody long enough, they will cave in and marry you even if they don’t like you, want you, insult you, bully you, or generally show all the signs of an unwilling partner.

Anyway, this anime is crap. I can’t believe I watched it. I want those few hours back (I fast-forwarded a lot, okay?) I can’t believe I finished it. Looking back makes me want to press undo. Having this under my history is a shame to my family. Even if I was sleepy and generally out of it, that’s no excuse for choosing this. Sayonara

I will say that Daisuke Hirakawa and Nana Mizuki did give good character voices despite the circumstances. That, and I haven’t heard from Hirakawa besides those couple of scenes from School Days (which... is a different type of romance), Free! (which I dropped when his character joined), that gumball scene from Jojo, and that introduction to him being the new Demon Slayer villain. I didn’t realize he was that old though.

Special A

This is one of the anime that my sister watched, and I thought, “I need to be reminded of what a somewhat healthy relationship can be” I wasn’t disappointed because the last anime left such a bad taste in my mouth that literally anything could’ve soothed the aching wound which was bad decision making. Even under regular circumstances, I probably still would’ve enjoyed it, but since it came at the right time, I give it an extra nod of approval. I also never realized that the second opening was inadvertently drilled into my brain because I kept overhearing my sister watching it. Now that I’ve grown up, I realize I was listening to the voices of some of my favourite seiyuu. Go figure.

The story was really sweet with characters that I genuinely liked by the end (not my favourite cast by a very long shot, but it was slightly above average). It was slightly above average for me in a lot of ways (ironically), and it was enjoyable. The art is very fitting for its time, the music was very... ordinary, and the story was simple enough that you knew exactly what was going to happen at any given moment. This show should be titled: Special A(ppreciation for those brave people who have fallen in the friendzone; we’ll get ‘em next time).

Akatsuki no Yona OVAs

Unlike the actual TV series, this stuff actually ends conclusively without ending on the CLIMAX OF THE BIG ARC. SERIOUSLY, I WAS ROBBED. You can say, “There’s a perfectly good manga right there.” Shut up. I want my fight scenes animated with a big helping of a strong female lead. It gave me a sudden appreciation for Hiro Shimono and his character Zeno who literally just inserted himself in last minute in the anime (but these OVAs perfectly explain everything). You probably shouldn’t watch the anime without watching these OVAs because they’re canon, funny, and touching at times. It enhances the series.

According to the animation, we know it can do fight scenes. Give us another season, cowards! Actually, it’s Studio Perriot, so if we ever get it, it might be two stickmen duking it out.

Haikara-san ga Tooru Movie 2

You know, I really enjoyed the movie. The first one. This one? Not so much. Actually, I felt so done. I was looking forward to this so much. It’s like going to a restaurant, expecting really good pasta, and then being served some leaves from the weeds out back. Eventually, it tastes better when you add some dressing and cheese, but it still isn’t a bowl of pasta. This show casts aside everything I like about it (present-tense because they didn’t kill everything of it) and leaves one little inkling of its valued ideas. Instead, we get a romance-chasing movie that feels a bit more like an amnesia fiction that’s slightly higher quality than usual. I can’t say I regret watching the movie. There were some redeeming qualities, but they jumped from a 9/10 to a high 6/10 that managed to squeak itself into an overall 7/10.

(This gif is from the first movie, but I can’t find any from the second movie anyway)

Currently Watching (Not Seasonal)

Samurai Champloo

This anime is a staple of Shinichiro Watanabe, and after this, I will probably watch Cowboy Bebop, Carole & Tuesday, and Space Dandy. I did enjoy Sakamichi no Apollon and Zankyou no Terror.

Plus, after all that romance, I need some samurai slaughter. The fight scenes and the music get me every time. I don’t even need to say anything else about the anime. The fight scenes are enough to watch alone.

#dino watches anime

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comingupforblair · 5 years ago

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Spider-man: Far from Home spoilers ahead

The plot twist at the end of Spider-man: Far from Home as well as how the MCU has handled Spider-man in general and how much it has deviated from the comics, something MCU fans will never admit to, just highlights the difference in expectations and treatment of Marvel films and DC films.

In the comics, Spider-man’s identity was voluntarily revealed by Peter himself in support for the Registration Act in Civil War and at the behest of Iron Man, whose relationship with Peter had been built for years prior. It was intended as a major moment, Peter doing the thing he had once considered to be his worst nightmare and opening himself up to untold consequences. It was also intended as a big moment for his supporting cast, particularly J Jonah Jameson.

It forced Jameson to confront how the same kid who he, for all his jerkish behavior, always regarded with a degree of affection and saw as a son to him, even if he had difficulty expressing such feelings, had secretly been his most hated enemy the whole time. It showed the complicated feelings of betrayal he experienced and anger towards Peter.

It was a moment that would change Peter’s life forever as all the teachers who saw him as shiftless and unreliable, the bosses and landlords frustrated at how his brilliance was so often undermined by his apparent laziness were forced to confront the truth that had been hiding under their noses the whole time.

The MCU handled Spider-man and the arc in a completely different way. Peter is introduced in the MCU and Tony in Civil War while the comics had built up their relationship for years prior and the film, due to only taking the basics from the source material, doesn’t have Peter forced to confront his feelings of betrayal as Tony goes off the deep end in his support for the Registration Act and eventually switch to working with Captain America.

Peter’s identity is also revealed by a J Jonah Jameson with whom he has no relationship and whose hatred of Spider-man has never been established in this continuity and in a way that robs Peter of his independence in making such a decision and the consequences he must face as a result.

None of this bad in itself. I don’t think writers are absolutely indebted to the source material and I think “they changed things from the comics” is a useless non-criticism masquerading as a smoking gun. Some of my favorite villains in recent comic book adaptations came from writers ignoring the source material and adding their own spin. The issue is in how the MCU is allowed to build Peter’s arc in a way that only deviates from the comics but contrasts how people insist these arcs should be developed which is influenced by the MCU but give the DCEU shit for taking the same liberties and not sticking to the rules that they insist are absolutely unbreakable.

Part of this is due to the DCEU working with characters and stories people know and have seen great adaptations of before so they don’t understand why writers wouldn’t just do that again in contrast to the MCU which has worked mostly with lesser known characters and adapting stories people don’t know as well or like as much (The Dark Knight Returns is considered a classic while Civil War is seen as an embarrassment to Marvel).

Fans will say that this is due to the MCU having amassed so much good will that they are granted more freedom to take such liberties but that kind of confirms what I and other DCEU fans have said, that our franchise is being held to a much harsher standard with less margin for error.

This is the core of a lot of frustration DCEU fans experience, not only at the difference in how the films are treated compared to the MCU but in the staunch refusal of MCU fans or detractors to acknowledge any such differences or that the DCEU is being treated in any way unfairly or even that such mistakes were more understandable when put into context.

Instead, they cling adamantly to the idea that every bit of vitriol and criticism directed at the films, no matter how extreme or irrational when examined, is both earned and fair, occasionally adding that they wouldn’t face such issues if only they had done whatever action that is useless unless time travel has been invented, and that any defense of the films or attempt to offer another perspective that undermines the negativity is simply blindly loyal fanboys who refuse to hold the studio accountable.

People will snark and respond that this is due to the DCEU not pulling off those changes very well but that’s my point. It means the usual complaints about deviating from the comics is meaningless as that’s not an issue in itself. It also means they don’t need to abandon such ideas or avoid it in the future, merely improve the execution. They don’t need to recast or reboot Lex Luthor, just improve the execution of how they have reimagined him. The same is true with other characters and stories.

The MCU can take as many liberties as they want, even with major story lines and characters, and no one cares. But the DCEU is not granted the same privilege or level of creative freedom.

It’s a double standard, plain and simple.

#dceu #mcu #spider-man #spider-man: far from home #spider-man far from home spoilers

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 4 years ago

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Michael in the Mainstream: Artemis Fowl

Since the early 2000s, Artemis Fowl has been languishing in development hell, and it really is a mystery as to why. The series has everything you could possibly want for a blockbuster young adult franchise: it’s a charming blend of science and fantasy with rich worldbuilding and mythology, it has enjoyable and even complex characters who go through great character arcs over the course of the series, it has an enjoyable major antagonist, an insufferable smug villain protagonist who goes through a stellar redemption arc over the course of the series, and tons of crazy heists that combine scheming and fairy magic. There was no reason this couldn’t have existed as a competitor to the Harry Potter series, but alas, it was not to be. The young adult fantasy franchise languished for decades in development hell, until finally Disney pulled it out and put Kenneth Branagh at the helm. Finally, we were going to get the Artemis Fowl adaptation we deserved!

Except we didn’t.

Artemis Fowl is legitimately one of the worst adaptations of any work of fiction ever. It has been held up alongside The Last Airbender and The Lightning Thief as part of the Unholy Trinity of terrible adaptations, and I’m not even going to try and pretend that this “Honor” isn’t well and truly earned. This film is an utterly abominable bastardization of the beloved franchise, to the point where this feels like an entirely different story that had familiar names slapped on it at the last second. If you want to know what horrific extents this film has butchered the story and characters, read onward, but there’s no way I’m going to pretend this film isn’t awful right off the bat.

There is literally nothing in this film that works. Nothing at all. Starting from the opening scene, the establishing shots, you can tell things are wrong – there are news people around Fowl Manor? Mulch is being interrogated? What is going on? The film from the word go is simply making one thing absolutely and abundantly clear: this is not the Artemis Fowl you know. The film goes out of its way to do the opposite of the franchise, merely using names and vague concepts in an attempt to sucker fans into watching it. Butler’s first name, an emotional reveal from the third book, is common knowledge; Opal Koboi, a cunning and threatening major villain who was the antagonist for almost every novel starting with the second, is here reduced to basically a personification of the voice on the phone from Scream; Root, once a short-tempered man who was hard on Holly as a method of tough love to push her to be the very best LEP had to offer to prove women belonged on the force, is here a woman who, while just as angry as ever, robs Holly of a major part of her arc and reduces her to plucky female sidekick. And even outside of that, as its own thing, the movie is just utterly incomprehensible. The story is rushed and confusing, with lots of exposition and action but with no context or cohesion. Things happen and things go from scene to scene, but none of it makes any sort of sense. A character will switch allegiances within a few minutes, characters will somehow find a way to survive deadly attacks offscreen… the worst offender is a character death they try to push off as emotional, despite there being no reason to care for this character, and when all hope seems lost, a deus ex machina saves the day! My wife, who is unfamiliar with the series, and I, a huge fan, both struggled to figure out what was going on at any given point; the movie is really that bad at communicating what is happening, which is even more baffling because the film is a pathetic hour and a half in length, a distressingly short amount of time to establish a new science-fantasy franchise of this scale.

The characters are almost all terrible. Artemis is the standout with how awful he is; no longer the cunning criminal masterminds of the book, Artemis here is more of a somewhat smug little brat who is overly emotional and, worst of all, NICE. He’s so nice in fact that by the end of the film he has managed to speedrun his character development and arcs with Mulch and Holly, who consider him their close friend and ally. Butler is pretty bad here as well, mostly because he is given almost nothing to do and is seemingly only there because he was in the book. In fact, his crowning moment – when he took on the troll – is instead given to Artemis and even Holly, with Butler ending up severely injured. It’s a bit nasty that they changed Butler to be black and then had his (white) master steal his greatest moment; it’s giving me flashbacks to Kazaam. Opal is hit pretty bad as well; being made the big bad of this loose adaptation of the first book’s plot – which is amusingly one of the few books she had absolutely no role in – wouldn’t be so rough if she was more of a presence and not just some vague, hooded figure who threatens Artemis over the phone and generally does nothing to warrant being an adaptation of the baddest bitch in the series. She’s rather ineffectual and they even try and give her a sort of sympathetic motivation, one where she resents humans for pushing her kind underground. It really is a disgusting waste of a character who could easily rival heavy hitters like Voldemort in the awesome and theatrically evil department.

Holly is almost okay, but her entire arc and a big chunk of her narrative purpose is robbed by making Commander Root a woman. Root, played by Judi Dench, is honestly one of the better characters since Dench has Root dropping lines like “Top o’ the morning to ya” with gravelly deadpan seriousness which makes the character unintentionally hilarious, but the cheap laughs don’t really make up for butchering the story of one of fiction’s finest ladies. As a side note, they have made Holly 100% white despite her skin being described as nut brown rather frequently in the book, and the now white Holly together with Artemis steal away Butler’s biggest moment. And that’s not even getting into how they neutered Juliet, who has also been race lifted but was turned into a child who barely appeared in the film. I’m not usually one to toss about racism accusations, but there’s a lot of red flags here that Branagh’s usual colorblind casting just doesn’t excuse.

The most consistently enjoyable performance is Josh Gad’s as Mulch. From the moment he was cast, I knew he’d do a good job and capture the spirit of the character, and he does! ...sort of. The decision to have Mulch be a giant dwarf and narrate the story in a crappy Batman impression while also violating literally the most important law of fairy culture (don’t tell the humans anything about us) by spilling the beans to M16 is unbearably stupid, and a lot of his jokes are just relentlessly unfunny. But I think that Gad does leak a bit of that Mulch charm at a few points, and it’s apparent he at least somewhat gets his character, which is not something that can be said for anyone else in this film. Sadly, much like his standout performance as Lefou in the live action Beauty and the Beast, he can’t possibly save the trainwreck of a film he’s in.

I guess I’m not entirely surprised by this film. I mean, a lot of quality young adult literature from the past two decades has been horrifically mangled in the wake of Harry Potter – Inkheart, The Golden Compass, The Lightning Thief, Ender’s Game, and Eragon – so this movie really isn’t an anomaly. But it is the culmination of a horrible trend. This is the zenith of horrible young adult adaptations, or perhaps I should say the nadir of adaptations as a whole? For all the flak I could give those other adaptations, on some fundamental level they still understood something about the source material. Ender’s Game still understood it could not erase the ending where children are revealed to be being conscripted to perform the ethnic cleansing of an alien race. Eragon couldn’t completely ruin Saphira, try as it might. The Lightning Thief… well, I mean, I guess the Medusa scene was mostly faithful. But Artemis Fowl? Artemis Fowl goes out of its way to be the opposite of its literary counterpart that there is no way to justify even saying it is based on the book by Eoin Colfer; it would be like having a movie about kids hanging out at the mall and doing mundane stuff, except they’re all named Jesus and Peter and Paul and then saying it’s based on the Bible. Just using names doesn’t mean anything, you actually have to use the themes and characterizations too, and this movie does none of that.

This movie is most comparable to The Emoji Movie. Neither of these works really deserve to be called a “Film” since they are basically whatever it is they’re trying so desperately to be stripped down to the bare essentials. The Emoji Movie is the most basic, by-the-numbers animated adventure film with a “be yourself” message you could ever hope to see, with a story so absolutely basic that just watching the trailer will allow you to predict the every motion of the plot. Artemis Fowl on the other hand is the most cliche-ridden fantasy epic franchise-starter you could imagine, and that’s if you’re able to penetrate the ridiculously dense and cluttered story and are able to make sense of what’s going on. I can think of absolutely no one this film could ever appeal to. There’s not a single redeeming thing about it. The movie is flashy, trashy junk that should never have been released, and Disney honestly did the right thing by releasing this on their streaming service because it would be outright disgusting to charge movie ticket prices for this tripe. The fact Disney has more faith in the eternally-delayed New Mutants theatrically speaks volumes about the quality of this film.

I can’t in good conscious say that this is the worst film of all time. F4ntastic is probably a much worse butchering of characters than this film; Disaster Movie is much more horrendously offensive and unfunny than this; hell, Chicken Little is probably a worse Disney movie because as awful as everyone in this film is, at least they aren’t Buck Cluck! But I don’t think there’s a single movie I hate more than this one. Lucy can finally move over and sleep easy knowing that the fact it’s not based on a pre-existing work has finally saved it from the #1 spot on my worst list; Artemis Fowl is now the reigning champ. Kenneth Branagh should be ashamed of himself for making and releasing this (and doubly ashamed for having the gall to unironically compare his slaughtering of Artemis Fowl’s character to Michael Corleone), Disney should be shamed for putting more money into this film than they did into BLM charities, and I hope that Eoin Colfer finds whatever he was paid worth it to see his greatest creation butchered and disrespected like this.

#Michael in the Mainstream #Review #movie review #Artemis Fowl #Kenneth Branagh #Eoin Colfer #fantasy film #fantasy #science-fantasy #Josh Gad #Judi Dench #Disney #Disney+#disney movie

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