#WHERE are you gonna get a justification for having a full record of the plot like

[tiffanyachings]

nona the ninth but as a podcast consisting solely of cam and pal’s tape recordings

[mrsbsmooth]

Red, White & Royal blue: live blind reaction.

I have never read the book, I have no idea of the plot, I have a two line summary.

Let’s go.

There is so much exposition in this it’s not even funny

PRESIDENT UMA THURMAN!

Is the book written like this what the fuck this is kind of bad

Where was Prince Henry’s actor when they were casting the crown fr he’s a dead ringer for baby wills

Don’t get me wrong. The two main characters are fucking hot as shit, but the actual story and the dialogue is so predictable

Alex has the eyelashes of a god

The budget for this is… not high. The president’s son can only afford to have like 50 people at his party? And it’s in a marquee tent with fairy lights instead of at a venue? The fuck? Lol

And they’re skipping all the relationship development.

Okay wait Get Low just came on

Henry watches TV, but he’s never heard popular music?

Oh this everyone getting low except then thing is kinda cute but a little cringe but actually a lot cringe. I refuse to believe that someone who drags their mate to the DF for get low isn’t getting aforementionedly low.

Aw Henry leaves when Alex kissed a girl, methinks he’s got a little crush

OH

OH I SEE

oooooooooooooooooooo

Aw cute Henry likes him. Wish we’d had a little more foreshadowing of that though cause it seems like they were just friends. Could’ve done with a bit more from Henry’s POV

God this snow is so fake though I’ve never even seen snow but that was so obviously a closed set

Pairing up the only two black characters I see hmmm

The actress who plays Nora is absolutely adorable

Both women leaders I love it

Omg did he not come to the party naur his poor little empty place card

Did his place card say “Prince Henry” I’m fucking sorry but a black tie event he would be “HRH” AT LEAST, and they would be using Alex’s full first name (assuming it’s Alexander) or just Mr. Full first name and Surname who wrote this you know nothing of etiquette 🤣

Miguel hot. Please don’t sleep with him though please Henry will be sad.

Alex you didn’t tell him off the record you eejit

REDRUM

OKAY HER WALKING IN ON THEM WHHXHCHHAHAHAHA IM DYING OMG THAT WAS SO GOOD

Are you still…. “Like Stonehenge”

“Your Royal hardness”

Omfg I’m dying 🤣🤣🤣🤣 that’s so cute

He did NOT just pat Henry’s ass in public babe you’re gonna get him in trouble

OH OKAY THIS JUST GOT GOOD LETS HAVE A BJ SCENE

oh wait no it didn’t. They really just faded to black on me 😒

“Keep it Casual” rude and not okay

And also wtf did Henry get off too or did he just blow Alex and leave. What happened to “I’m gonna do terrible things to you” like no sir it sounds like you just got a blowjob and then didn’t reciprocate. Lover of the year 10/10 (sArCaSm)

THOSE GREY PANTS HIDE NOTHING ALEX GODDAMN

Why are there bagpipes playing at a polo match?

I’m sorry but for people trying to keep things quiet they sure talk about their sexual escapades in public a lot

A mouthful muahahahha called it with the grey pants alex is hung like a horse

Oof Alex got swerved for the hand hold that’s a big ouch

Aww the bit where he’s not sure who’s topping and who’s bottoming it’s such a mood and it’s cute.

Okay stop. Wait. I’ve paused this. Anyone who says they went to boarding school as a justification for being gay or experienced is lying. I went to an all girls boarding school, and my husband went to an all boys. All boys schools are some of the most disgustingly homophobic places on the fucking planet. If he’s saying that all the boys are fucking each other he’s dead wrong. If anything he’d be so shamed for being even remotely gay that he’d be traumatised. Fuck boarding school. Okay back to the movie.

Ooooh damn alex has a great body

Oh wow this is actually really fucking cute

I can’t believe how wrong I was about you FUCK OFF THIS IS SO CUTE

Aaaaaahhhh!!!! AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! THIS SEX SCENE IS SO ROMANTIC AND CUTE!

I can’t help but laugh with the hand closeups though it’s so titanic and cringe

But the facial closeups are *beautiful*

These guys are phenomenal actors I’m so glad they didn’t fade to black for that scene. But the directing is… interesting.

Pausing to find out if the actors are gay

Unconfirmed for both. I ship them together they look beautiful as a couple.

“I’m learning” oh fuck off that’s beautiful

Oof the plane home is a mood alex is so in love.

His mum is right though. She can’t do shit unless she gets re-elected

Wait was he formerly allowed to speak to the press lol since when??? As if he’s authorised.

“Yes madam president” oh shut up you angsty teenager 🤣 this is so “you just don’t GET me mom and daddddd”

Awww he’s so cute with his Texas thing though

THE EMAILS BACK AND FORTH

WHAT DID I JUST SAY ABOUT TALKING ABOUT THIS SHIT IN PUBLIC

Wouldn’t it have been more romantic for him to be waiting in Alex’s apartment because then he actually would’ve been able to greet him properly instead of just grabbing his shoulder like “what are you doing here”

Miguel KNOWS and this is bad bad bad. Why the evil Hispanic man though?

AHAHHAHAHHA ZAHRA STORMING IN WHERE IS SHE omfg she is by far my favourite character in this whole movie

“Who knows about this?” “Literally no one but you. And the secret service. And Percy. And Nora. Oh and I told my sister. Oh I didn’t know that? Yeah she’s really happy for us.” BSHCHJCJSHAHHAAHHAHA

That was my favourite line so far hands down

Technically I’m the spare CHCISOOAK PRINCE HARRY CODED 🤣🤣🤣🤣

As for you little lord fuckleroy I will brexit your head from your body OKAY ZAHRA HAS THE WORLDS BEST DIALOGUE NEW FAVOURITE LINE

THE BOW - your royal highness omfg I’m dead Zahra deserves an award and an Oscar the actress is so good

Aw the talk with mum awww this whole thing is cute. Bestie Uma is an ally. Her telling him about bottoming is so iconic omfg

Aw look at Henry in a flannel shirt 😂

The karaoke omfg and he sucks ���

Alex is so in love holy shit

Aw and Alex’s dad loves him

THE SHUFFLE CLOSER ON THE DOCK

WHAT A CALLBACK

oh

Oh no

Oh I don’t like this

I don’t like the look on Henry’s face rn

Oh wow alex just got swerved.

I— *splash*

That’s how I’m leaving every uncomfortable conversation from now on. Just roll away and splash into the water.

HES LEAVING COMPLETELY?!!!!???!

Aw i like your dog what’s his name

Wait where’s the dog I want more dog

Quickly checks doesthedogdie.com

Only one report and it says no so I think we’re good.

Did you actually end things with Alex though? NO YOU DID NOT. You just GHOSTED HIM

Nora’s right go to london

OH HES HERE HES AT THE GATE shkskskksksks

oh my god Henry’s speech is heartbreaking.

“I can love you and want you and still not want that life. I’m allowed. And it doesn’t make me a liar. It makes me a man with some infinitesimal shred of self preservation and you don’t get to come in here and call me a coward for it.”

Okay whelp now I’m crying. Being a prince do be like that. Except fuck Harry and Meghan for reals.

Well you can’t just not let anything happen to you. Because nothing will ever happen to you. Isn’t this what Dory says to Marlin in Finding Nemo wtf 😂 PLAGIARISM

I’m pretty sure the royal family don’t have a key to the British museum please correct me if I’m wrong, they could have magic skeleton keys to every building in Britain but it seems unlikely.

Circling a sculpture of a male torso like sharks hmm yes the deepening of the movie such imagery much wow very meaning

Please don’t dance amongst the statues that’s really cringe

Aw okay no I take it back it’s cute.

Elvis? it should’ve been a Bowie song just saying.

OH WAIT THE DOGS NAME IS DAVID I JUST REMEMBERED awww yesss hope nothing happens to david

Aw they’re dancing like they’re at a school disco 🤣

History huh? Bet we could make some.

PLEASE Alex waking up in Buckingham palace 😂 that’s gonna be an awkward walk of shame past the paparazzi 🤣🤣🤣

The chain on that key is new it is not old. When did he make that necklace yesterday?

OH MY GOD NO NOT THE EMAILS

#Hacked

No

No

No

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

WHY WONT THEY LET THEM TALK THIS IS DUMB AND STUPID

Surely someone has a sneaky phone they can hook them up on COME ON!!!!!

I fucking knew it was Miguel. Even when I thought it was the palace I knew it was him.

“This is about privacy” eek Prince Harry is gonna love this IRL

That whole speech from Alex was beautiful. Also means they can’t deny anything which is probably not the best strategic move I hope Henry’s not mad that he did that. Stupid idealistic Americans.

ZAHRA IM OBSESSED WITH YOU YOURE THE REAL QUEEN AND SHES FUCKING THE EQUARRY OR WHATEVER HIS NAME IS IM IN LOVE IS ZAHRA SINGLE I WANT TO MARRY HER

SKINNY PERFECT ASS hjcicidoskkcncjidisokncnnfmdkskskkckkckcjncnsnamkck

“Baby” 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

“I’m coming to london” WHY DID YOU NOT DO THAT AS SOON AS THE EMAILS GOT LEAKED

Omg that hug on the stairs stop it they’re actually so beautiful together

HES NOT PLAYING YANKEE DOODLE ON THE PIANO

Did Henry see Alex’s speech tho I kinda need to know

OH YAY HE SAW IT jcjcjdkksoxjjcncks

“Your boyfriend”

Oh the king wants to see them oh shiiiit

THE SIGNET RING

Shut the fuck up Phillip you Poncy cunt

THEY

No

NO THEY DIDNT

They did not get STEPHEN FUCKING FRY to play a HOMOPHOBIC KING

Bsbchjcjsjdjkckfkkdmsa I am laughing so fucking hard right now I’m crying I actually had to pause it I’m laughing so hard

THIS CASTING DIRECTOR EITHER NEEDS AN OSCAR OR A RAZZY I CANT DECIDE

Why haven’t they bowed all the royals now to each other

He smokes lol the king does not smoke they would consider it vulgar these days

That is a LARGE glass of whisky. Like that is four shots minimum.

Dear God, this King is so fucking stupid if he thinks that this can be explained with Clandestien reports after Alex has just done like a super romantic beautiful speech publicly acknowledging their relationship .

Like what is he expecting Henry to say that Alex was lying and he was making it up to further his mums political campaign?

Hommo sek siual 🤣🤣 I’m sorry but Stephen fry playing a homophobe is just so far outside the realm of me being able to suspend my disbelief I’m just PMSL

They will not accept a Prince- just wait

Now is the part where there’s a giant crowd supporting him

CALLED IT

GO

YAYYYYYYYYYY aww they’re so cute together aww aww awww yayyy look at all the pride flags

Of course the election hangs on Texas lol

It’ll come down to Austin

Writing her concession speech on election night I think not this would’ve been preappproved weeks ago

Prince would not be on stage he wouldn’t be allowed either by the royals or by his security team or by the Democrats lol

AND THE MOVIE’S OVER

Rachel Hilson that’s her name I love her

Someone needs to tell me if the book has better pacing than this because the pacing was all over the place for the first 45 minutes. The rest of the movie was great but idk

OH THERES A POST CREDITS 🤣 aww cake YAY that’s so cute abbdbsjajhahahahqh

There we go.

Overall not bad but the pacing and exposition was really off at the start. Lucky I’m procrastinating from writing otherwise I might’ve turned it off lol.

Love the actors (especially Alex’s eyelashes babe what mascara you using damn) and their chemistry but idk the writing was a bit cringe in parts. Really well acted though.

Recommend-ish?

Edit: it’s now the next day and I’ve had time to think about it. And the more I think about it the more I’m fucking in love with this movie

How rarely do we get to just see two silly little boys in love with none of the trauma dumping or anything just a beautiful little romcom for two happy little gays

10/10 idc about the exposition and cringe I loved it and it deserves the world.

[spidersmiceandeverythingnice]

Gonna write my scatterbrained Spicy Hot Takes on Agartha before the news is stale and I delete this annoying and boring chapter from my mental landscape, so bear with me:

I think Agartha’s main issue was just straight up poor writing. The Japanese direct translations being as downright offensive as they were is one thing - but overall, the chapter is just one plot contrivance after another. It tries so, so hard to go for a certain tone but can’t seem to stick to any one thing or idea. Disregarding themes about sexuality probably would have been the very best way to go about this chapter, since I think the most interesting part was the theme about storytelling and in-authenticity - we all know that That Line was annoying af in a game like FGO, but it CAN work in a series like Fate as a whole. I had a helluva long day at work so allow me to explain in the least scatter-brained way I can manage right now:

Here’s what I’m thinking: Scheherazade, whose name I guarantee I will spell wrong/differently every time I write it even though I’ve been able to pronounce it properly since I was thirteen (I was in a speaking competition and told some of the Thousand and One Nights using her framework as the opening monologue, long story short ANYWAY -) is traumatized by her ordeal with the king. This is a really good and interesting thing to explore! Fitting it in with the theme of storytelling - Scheherazade is deeply afraid of dying and will do whatever it takes to live, so she makes a fantasy world and fills it with legends, and feeds their energy to a Holy Grail. With this, and the power of a Demon God at her side, she plans to reveal magic to the human world in the most destructive fashion possible, allowing the fantastic to become ordinary, and destroying the Throne of Heroes itself in the process. Fate is a series were stories have power - but Scheherazade survived basically by telling the most fantastical, interesting tales she could and never finishing them. She always would pause in the middle, and say, “That’s all for tonight.” I think this is the kind of thing we can run with in terms of setting.

Dahut is the weirdest example because it’s the one story in the chapter that I know next to nothing about. At one point it’s mentioned that Dahut is impossible to summon as a Servant, and so Drake was “forced” into the role of the Pirate Princess. Ys is probably the weakest part of the chapter for that, but I did like the idea of her being “Drake Alter,” where Drake vibrantly pursues her goals and desires but takes nothing for granted; Dahut gives into her every whim and takes absolutely everything for granted. The conflict between “Drake” and “Dahut” should have been emphasized more instead of having the player/Da Vinci dismiss her as “Oh, it’s not Drake, except when she conveniently comes back to delivery us the MacGuffins Ex Machina in the eleventh hour.” Dahut has little connection to Drake - it’s not her story, but a role she was forced into because Scheherazade was building a very specific kind of world. Therefore it is inauthentic. Perhaps that’s all it needs to be in this context. 

This can also work with the Amazons. Scheherazade never told stories of the Amazons, but she has access to basically all stories in the world through her Noble Phantasm - she learns that they are a society of warrior women who live without men, and so decides that they will be a society which oppresses men due to her fear/bitterness towards men after the ordeal she suffered through. The “oppressing men” plotline was honestly dumb all around but using the Amazons as a mechanism to explore Scheherazade's trauma would’ve been more interesting than just having them be the Big Bad before the Big Bad Columbus Reveal: Scheherazade doesn’t like fighting, but wishes that she had been strong enough to protect herself. Because she views herself as a coward and her ordeal with the king has complicated her view of sexuality - “I’m better suited to a bedchamber than a battlefield” - she uses the Amazons of Agartha as a mechanism to cope. 

This brings us to Wu, whose design I’m still not happy about even though I think the in-story justification is somewhat fair. (Let Helena and Wu be gray-haired grannies together or so help me!) Wu was absolutely an authoritarian ruler who did, in fact, invade and conquer several nations and institute a terrifying network of secret police. In her later life, she was given to decadence - but her tenure on the throne showed her to be a highly competent administrator. Notably, she ruled over an era of religious tension and balanced matters quite well, and though she was accused of undoing meritocracy to put her supporters into power, many of the men she appointed held positions in government long after she’d died because they were actually good at their jobs. Wu has been heavily mythologized over the years - later Tang emperors and Neo-Confucian scholars wrote her off (Wu founded her own dynasty under her own name, so they kind of had to legitimize it somehow), she became associated the nine-tailed fox spirit thanks to a few popular novels and poems, etc., etc., etc. The crazy thing is that Wu actually left very few records of herself behind, apart from some poems. Even the inscription on her tomb is blank! People can say whatever they want about her - it’s extremely difficult to know the full truth of the matter without any objective observers in the field (and without Wu’s own words to give context/another story), especially if you don’t read any Chinese. 

BTW - the first thing I learned history class is that when you’re dealing with primary sources, you must always remember that translators have agendas. Every word is a deliberate choice, and it changes the meaning from the original text. When dealing with historical documents, this is not always a good thing. 

Scheherazade reads some, but not all of these stories, and integrates Wu into her world as the sadist empress with an iron grip on her decadent mythical city. 

Do you see what I’m getting at here? It’s a lot, but I’m not done. Now we have to deal with Columbus - there’s “In Defense of Columbus” video is floating around in the Agartha tag, but I haven’t watched it in full and haven’t done like, any intensive research on Columbus in particular, so I’m going to apologize right now for any historical inaccuracies/misconceptions that I’m about to write. The point I want to make here mainly is that Columbus, like Wu, has been heavily, heavily mythologized for both good and evil at various points. The thing about Columbus that is also interesting is that the authenticity of his journals is or was apparently a subject of debate. The man who published most of them actually happened to be Bartolomew de las Casas - one of the founders/first vocal supporters of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. The reason de la Casas supported this is because he believed that using African labor would be an improvement over enslaving the native populations of the New World. Soon after, he had a change of heart and devoted the rest of his life to fighting against slavery in all forms. De la Casas went on to be named a saint, and was possibly the first person in history to propose the idea of universal human rights - which is how I had heard of him until literally just this afternoon; I had no idea he’d ever supported the slave trade until I was looking up basic info about Columbus’s writings so I could write this long-ass post. History is full of complicated people. 

But as I mentioned in Wu’s bit, it’s very important to note that in many ways, Columbus is literally just whatever people decide he is. Like, he never even set foot in any land that would become the United States, and yet he’s a huge symbol here! Along these lines, his amnesia would fit the theme of inauthentic storytelling, choosing what to read and what to believe in. Columbus regaining his memories was an understated moment, which is actually fucking fantastic because it could be used to really emphasize the choice that is being made here. He’s a Heroic Spirit who can choose to be whatever he wants. He can choose to be the simple hero-explorer that schoolchildren sing about, or he can choose to be the Big Bad, the first and perhaps most infamous conquistador. And he chooses to be the bad guy. That is so fuckin’ fantastic, y’all! I honest to God love that not only did FGO portray Columbus as a villain of history but that the bad reputation is something he chooses to maintain! I can write a list of Servants who were less than stellar people and got a makeover for Fate. Nero is probably one of the worst examples but like - Ozymandias absolutely owned slaves in his life as a pharaoh. Hercules and Medea murdered their own children. Asterios literally ate humans as the Minotaur. Gilles de Rais exists as a playable character. Jack the Ripper is your daughter. Hell, Nobunaga burned temples with the monks still inside - but she feels bad about it now! Enough digressing but I a hundred percent get why Japanese fans found Columbus “refreshing” at his introduction. He owns his cruelty, his desire to exploit others - he challenges the narrative that everyone is redeemable because he doesn’t even want to be redeemed, he just wants to get rich and famous, and he doesn’t give a shit who he steps over in the process! Like, Columbus said, “I’m just doing what comes naturally,” at one point when he still had amnesia, so when he got his memory back and turned on the player, I really would’ve liked for him to say is something like, “You’ve already decided that I’m the bad guy, right? You know my story, and I’m nothing if not a man of my word.”

These kinds of questions/debates could have been used to emphasize the themes of Agartha. Legends are what people decide they are. People make choices and history decides whether they were good or evil or important retroactively. Can you know what someone is like by reading a translation of their poetry? Can you judge a king’s reign by the words of their successors or their rivals? Does the context of a story matter? This all could have been super interesting to explore!

Like I said, the main theme of Agartha being “inauthentic storytelling” could have been hella, hella good considering that this is a world created by Scheherazade’s fears and trauma feeding into her escapist desires. But Minase’s incompetence as a writer made everything so hamfisted and awkward that everything just suffered under his desire to insert his fetishes at every moment. It was so obvious that he didn’t read any material for old Fate characters - like Astolfo you poor sweet thing, you deserved so much better! - and even the new characters that he clearly did research on, like Columbus, fell flat because he couldn’t figure out what he was trying to say beyond mildly-to-extra offensive sex jokes.

[sorayahigashikata]

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