#also i use my 'saw' tag generally for the series so there may be sequel stuff youve seen that absolutely is not in the og so sorry there

[inkmaze]

i see so many post on my dash abt saw and every time im like "i should send this to that one person i follow that likes saw" and its. its your post every time. im gonna watch saw now

I'm cackling at this a little bit. pleEEAse if u do watch it lmk ur thoughts!!!!

[fanfic-corner]

Cockles

I found out this morning that apparently Misha knows that Cockles exists. So... that’s fun. I’ve never been sure where I stand on RPF, so I thought I may as well read some and decide what I think after. Anyway, here’s what I read!

Revenge of the Subtext by MittenWraith on AO3. (80,064 words).

Tags: Case Fic, Fake Relationship, Canon Divergence after 10.20, French Mistake style AU, Mutual Pining, Fluff, Humor, Smut, Crack, Light Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Supernatural Convention, Human Castiel, Switch Dean, Switch Castiel, First Kiss, First Time, Enthusiastic Content, Love Confessions.

My Rating: 5 stars.

Descrition:  Things are finally settling back down to normal since Cas gave up his grace to cure Dean of the Mark. Well, as normal as their lives are allowed to get. Sam relentlessly finds new cases to work, one right after the other; but Dean thinks they need a break to let Cas have some purely human fun, for once. It’s true they had a difficult time readjusting to humanity at first, but Dean thinks Cas deserves to do more than ride around in the back seat and follow them on monster hunts. Then again, Dean’s a little bit scared to ask exactly what Cas would want, just in case it doesn’t include spending quite so much time with him. And with Sam (of course).

Sam’s been tracking a series of odd occurrences in Laramie, Wyoming for the last few weeks that looks just enough like a case to finally convince Dean they should go check it out. Whether they like it or not, the goddess responsible for the weirdness in Laramie takes an immediate interest in the three less-than-perfectly-happy hunters who’ve stumbled into her town.

Notes: Absolutely adorable, such a good case and beautifully written. There are some other works in the same series which are also absolutely fabulous!

He Who Laughs Last (The Joke Is on Us) by anoradh on AO3. (4,248 words).

Tags: RPF, Fluff, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Silly.

My Rating: 5 stars.

Description: For the prompt: Jensen and Misha think they’re pulling the mother of all pranks on Jared by pretending to be a couple, but they’re in way over their heads.

Notes: This was cute and I love the sheer panic they caused in Jared - I couldn’t stop laughing.

Through the Screen by ArchOfImagine on AO3. (28,722 words).

Tags: Alternate Universe, Angst and Humor, Season 9 Divergence.

My Rating: 5 stars.

Description: "What would you do if you woke up in the Supernatural world?" A fan asked Misha. Little did the actor know, but a few weeks later he would actually be finding out the real answer to that question. Because when Metatron tosses Castiel out of Heaven at the beginning of season 9 -- he tosses him right into Misha's universe. Now Misha is stuck in the Supernatural world, looking at his husband's face but a different man.

Notes: This was funny and cute and just generally adorable!

Is It Really A Mistake? by BriMaco518 on AO3. (6,819 words).

Tags: Alternate Universe - The French Mistake, s6e15 The French Mistake, Angst, Coda, Fluff, Happy Ending.

My Rating: 4 stars.

Description: Dean and Sam Winchester find themselves in a world where the supernatural does not exist. Everyone calls them Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki respectively. Their efforts to protect the key that Balthazar gave them from Virgil, one of Raphael's angels, should be Dean's focus. Yet the elder Winchester finds himself distracted by the actor that plays Castiel, Misha Collins. Who also turns out to be the husband of Jensen Ackles.

Notes: Once again hit by not reading the tags, but if you read the sequel then that gets sorted out. Also, this is adorable and I actually saw the gifset it was based on afterwards, which confused me for a full minute.

Mistakes Are Better When They’re French by maraudersgirl47 on AO3. (21,791 words).

Tags: Episode: s06e15 The French Mistake, Fluff, Angst.

My Rating: 4 stars.

Notes: This was funny and touching and I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the ending!

Description: Number One: Dean would definitely never appear on a soap opera.

Number Two: Dean Winchester did not wear makeup.

And Number Three: He was not gay!

God, Cas, whoever was listening - Please get them the hell out of here.

Fever by lysanatt on AO3. (13,624 words).

Tags: Romance, RPF, Post S8, No Spoilers, Hurt/Comfort, First Time.

My Rating: 4 stars.

Description: It's Christmas and the otherwise so mild Vancouver is hit by a rare blizzard. Misha is hit by the flu and Jensen is hit by the urge to take care of Misha. Of course there are unexpected consequences to it all.

Notes: This was so sweet -  I love a good hurt/comfort and the way they wrote Misha was amazing!

Twisted French Mistake by literaryoblivion on AO3. (3,170 words).

Tags: Episode: s6e15 The French Mistake, Parallel Universes, Alternate Universe, First Kiss, Kissing, Mistaken Identity.

My Rating: 4 stars.

Description: If Sam and Dean get sent to the Supernatural set, where do Jensen and Jared end up? That's right, the world of Sam and Dean. But they're safe, and Castiel checks in on them and ends up learning more about himself and Dean from Jensen.

Notes: This was a really good idea - I remember watching the episode and wondering where Jensen and Jared were!

The Bubble by thunderpuffin429 on AO3. (21,035 words).

Tags: First Time, Fluff and Smut, Feelings, Character Bleed, Kissing.

My Rating: 4 stars.

Description: Cas has to choose between Heaven and the Winchesters. Again. For the final time.

Notes: The Destiel part of this was phenomenal but the Cockles part was mostly smut, which is fine but made me a bit uncomfy just because I’m ace and I’m not a massive fan of reading it. So, it wasn’t my favourite, but that’s entirely on me for not reading the tags properly.

Do You Know What You Think You Know by ljunattainable on AO3. (5,761 words).

Tags: Fluff and Smut, Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Romance.

My Rating: 4 stars.

Description: Everyone knows Jensen and Misha are together. Nobody even thinks about it. They just know. Except Jensen and Misha. They don’t know. A few things happen in the space of a few weeks that leave everyone at least knowing the same thing.

Notes: This was sweet and I loved how everyone assumed they were dating and they still didn’t know.

Method Acting (Or ‘In Which Misha Is Not, In Fact, Kidding Jensen’) by HigherMagic on AO3. (5,567 words).

Tags: Character Bleed.

My Rating: 3 stars.

Description: There's a little surprise in the script for the latest episode, Misha is unruffled, and Jensen is not amused, but he's determined to put on the best damn performance he can, 'cause it's the last season and, hey, he owes it to Dean.

Notes: This was pretty good but it did get me thinking... can you IMAGINE if we got a Destiel sex scene? Tumblr would have imploded. There would be a national holiday. 

Second Take by anonymous on AO3. (6,237 words).

Tags: Polyamory, First Kiss, Psychology, Character Bleed, Internal Monologue, Internal Conflict, Friendship/Love.

My Rating: 3 stars.

Description: Wherein Destiel becomes canon, and Jensen and Misha face the consequences of their first kiss.

Notes: This was fairly sweet, and Jensen’s internal monologue was written really well.

Still undecided, I think, but I hope you enjoyed! Some of the fics came off better than others, but some just seemed a little bit... not right? I don’t know how to explain it. Anyway, please remember that Cockles stuff should stay inside the fandom. I hope you find some fics you like!

[popculturebuffet]

Blog Updates: New Patreon Stretch Goals, Patreon Exclusive Reviews, New Story Arcs and Other Stuff

MHello everyone. For those of you seeing this through other tags my name is Jake. I do reviews on here that are usually full sumaries of an episode of a tv show or comic, with jokes and analsyis throughout. I’m doing this post as i’ve recently revamped by patreon a bit, check out VIA THIS LINK if your curious. I also have some other stuff going on with the blog that I thought might intrest the general public and especially you lovely followers. Thank you guys so much. Your support means a lot and feel free to interact with this post and any of the reviews. it’s always a pleasure. Leave your comments whatever. So let’s start with the patreon stuff

You Decide the Next Patreon Exclusive Review!: 

Yes YOU will decide the Patreon Exclusive review for May. How? It’s simple: i’m currently reviewing the Lilo and Stitch crossover episodes, the first two this week with the American Dragon Jake Long crossover “Morpholomew” done yesterday, the Proud Family episode “Spats” coming later this week, and “Rufus” (Kim Possible) and “Lax” (Recess) coming next week and the week after that respectively. 

As a way to gage intrest in the shows crossed over, and if I should review some of them on their own, i’m going to be watching the notes, and after the first week i’ll record how many a review got. This way the first review dosen’t get an advantage over the last and so on. Whichever episode gets the most votes wins and it’s show will get two reviews: One exclusive to Patreon in may you can check out for just a buck, and one for all of ya in June. So if you want to dragon up, get louder and prouder, check out what the sitch is, or have some recess, keep an eye on my blog and check out the review. Like it reblog, it, both. This is all in your hands. And if this little contest works out I may do another one like it in the future. 

New Patreon Stretch Goals!:

For those unfamiliar with Patreon it’s a site that helps creators like me get paid for their work, used by such luminaries as Linkara, Pushing Up Roses and greatest of all Rifftrax. 

Stretch Goals are an amount of money I get a month from patreons, that’s readers like you paying me. Even a buck a month would help a lot and help me put out a reviews and LIVE off doing this. But it’s a two way street so in order to entice you lovely people into paying me for doing my job and my passion with these reviews, i’ve updated the tiers, adding a wider and better range of rewards. I’m currenntly up to 15 dollars a month, or close enough that i’ve acitivated those rewards. And if you help me hit these tiers EVEYRONE gets PUBLIC, on here, for free reviews. Thanks to my lovely patreons Emma and Kevin you all are getting reviews of the first 5 Ducktales episode, aka Legend of the Golden Suns, with the second coming as soon as I finish this post. Even a buck helps us reach closer and for your dollar you get access to the discord, exclusive reviews, and to pick a short any time I review a bunch of shorts. And with Goofy’s birthday coming up next montha nd Donald’s after that, now is the best time for that. 5 dollar patreons also get one review as month, with 10 dollar ones getting two. You’ve already probably seen some of these: Kev has used one of his a month to have me review a house of mouse episode every month, and newest patreon and longtime friend Emma is using them to have me review the netflix dr. seuss adaptation “Green Eggs and Ham”. So whatever YOU want me to review I will and you’l lhelp unlock even MORE great reviews. So what do you get if you hit the goals? I’m glad you asked. 

We’re up to 15 so next is...

20 Dollar Tier:  Ducktales 87 Season 2 Mini Series!: Yes indeedy. Already on the Docket was the Super Ducktales Arc, which introducices the OG GIZMODUCCCKKKKK. But since that apparenlty wasn’t enough i’ve also added the OTHER mini series. While i’ll do super first since that’s the one with higher fan intrest once tha’ts done i’ll also review Time is Money, the time travel arc bringing in everyone’s faviroite scrappy Bubba. So if you want a buncha cruncha retro Ducktales pony up. But that’s not all the disney afternoon I got for this tier. 

A Darkwing Duck Episode A MOnth: This one has also been promoted every time I could and still stands. If you like that mind behind the shadow disguise, that daring duck of mystery, that champion of right, then you’ll get one review a month about him, as voted on by you patreons. 

Danny Phantom: The Ultimate Enemy: And since neither of these have helped me so far and stepping back into Amity Park made me realize how much I love the series, even if it’s creator is a 80 tons of smug asshole packed into a t-shirt he thinks is cooler than it is. So it only felt right to add  the ghost boy to the tier and the best way to kick that off is with it’s second best, and only barely second behind Reign Storm, episode: The Ultimate Enemy! Danny finds his future is imperfect and must battle his own evil self! If you want my thoughts on one of the series finest hours, then help me hit 20 bucks a month to keep making content. 

25 Dollar Tier: 

I removed the Tail Spin content, though rest assured I will be covering Plunder and Lightning sometime this year. But what I replaced it with is even better. 

One Danny Phantom Review a Month: YOu like teen superheros? you like ghosts? you like me slagigng off about butch hartman and trying to make it crystal clear his creation dosen’t wholly belong to him? Then you’ll like me reviewing Danny Phantom. And while i’m already doing that, this goal gaurantees one episode a month, and said episode will be voted on by my patreons. So if you pay for this you’ll not only get your monthly dose of going ghost.. but you’ll get a chance to PICK what it is. 

Disney Shows To Movies Trilogy : I’ve decided to make it a tradition for my 15 dollar stretch goals to do a bunch of disney movies. And like with my last batch, which you’ll be seeing in may, i’m doing tv shows that got their own movies, theatrical or otherwise. And this time we’re doing MY generatoin: Kim Possible: So The Drama, the best story in the show’s histroy and the best movie in the Disney Channels! Recess: Schools Out! The suprisingly bonkers unsurprisingly awesome finale to an awesome show! and The Proud Family Movie, another UTTERLY BATSHIT finish to a great show.  Lost at Sea and Seconds: This one’s for my scottaholics, fourth part of my Scott Pilgrim retrospective coming this week!. If you like me taking a look at Scott’s quest to punch the fuck out of his girlfriends exes while growing up a little, then if you help me get to the 30 dollar tier, i’ll also take a look at O’Malley’s other graphic novels Lost at Sea, which follows a girl who lost her soul and her boyfriend on a trip with what may be Young Neil’s older sister, and Seconds, the story of a woman with issues growing up who finds the ablitlity to travel through time.. or is it space? And some of you savvier readers my know he has nother comic. Where’s that one? wellllll

30 Dollar Tier:

Snotgirl: I’m saving this one for this tier. Reviews of each collected volume of snotgirl, Bryan’s first ongoing series, all three so far and any more to come about, unsuprisingly, a  hot mess of a person, this time who might’ve done a murder. You know instead of defintely did a murder but in self defnese and with a longsword. 

Gravity Falls Season 1!: One of Disney’s finest finally on this blog. All season 1 episodes reviewed in some way in some shape in some form.  Star Vs Finale Arc!: You’ve heard me bitch about the problems in Tom’s story, and wil lcontinue to. Now see the terrible way everyone elses ends! From an amazing build up to an awful finish, see reviews of Every story relevant season 4 episode from Butterfly Follies to Cleaved that won’t already be covered in my tom retrospective. It’s a road to crushing disapointment, come on inside! 

35 Dollar Tier:  More Disney TV Adaptations!: Doug’s First Movie! See Doug get really fucking weird in his sea monster based movie with a punch line of a name! Teachers Pet, a great movie out of a show I barely saw! Kim Possible Live action! it’s suprisingly okay! and Recess Taking the Fifth: a compliation movie for a season we sadly never got. 

Gravity Falls Season 2: Buillding on the first reward Gravity Falls Reviews will go beyond the first season and finish the job. From zombies, to dipcifica, to ford to weirdmageddon, I’m doin it all. 

40 Dollar Tier: 

Two HUGE Disney Focused Comics Retrospectives! 

Darkwing Duck: In addition to the show, i’ll start reviewing the awesome follow up comic that got me into it. From the start to both finishes: the unathorized crossover finale and the sadly short lived sequel series from joe books, the worst mistake disney ever made that wasn’t racist, before Artemis Fowl said hold my beer. Also the short lived Ducktlaes series because why not. 

The Incredibles!: The Family Dynamic! A comprehensive retrospective featuring reviews of the movie, the Mark Waid followup, the sequel that ignores said followup and the incomparable Christos Gage’s followup to THAT movie. Also that wonderfuly awful failed tv pilot bob made that he and lucius did a mst3k of. 

45 Dollar Tier: 

Disney Flims Lilo and Stitch a Thon: All four lilo and stitch movies, Lilo and Stitch, Lilo and Sitch 2, Stitch and Leroy and Stitch! All the hawaii, aliens and sequels you can handle!

Amphibia Season 1: I’ve done Season 2 as it comes out, i’ll be doing the same for season 3, so help me get here to see the start at least once a month, but two at a time!

50 Dollar Tier: The last one for now. I’ll probably go to 10 dollar tiers after this. 

The Owl House Season 1: While I wait for the second season to start so I can cover it, have me do the rest of season 1! The only exceptions are the already covered Enchanted Grom Fright and the earmarked for pride month wing it like witches!

The Two Loves and 87 Mistakes of Mordecai: A regular show romancetrospective, as we go through the downs, ups, higher ups and crushing lows of Modercai’s romantic arcs from regular show. His crush on margert, making his move, moving on, moving on to cj, and then the horrible cluster fuck I’ve talked about nonstop and will again and again as one of the worst romantic arcs in memory as they shot the relationship in the foot head and groin! Force me to relive it all!

So yeah I’ll add more tiers, again probably 10 dollars apart if I get to 50, but given I barely got to 15 i’m not optimistic. PROVE ME WRONG. HELP ME HIT 50. 

Other Stuff:

Finally outisde of Patreon, that was the main reason for this, I have news on my various arcs. For one thing i’ll be trying to keep the pace better, so expect at least one entry a month for ones i’m doing on my own time like the tom retrospective, life and times and Scott pilgrims. Ones kev does will be done weekly to keep my wallet afloat. 

I also have two more retrospectives incoming! The first is paid for by Kev: I’l lbe tackling ALL THREE SEASON 2 ARCS OF DUCKTALES 2017. After the headache of trying to cram the della arc into three weeks to keep up with the lena one, I decided i’td be better for pacing if I did all three at once and kev agreed to it, if using his patreon reviews to cushion the blows. So starting next month i’ll be covering the Louie, Della and Glomgold/Owlson arcs, swapping between them in episode order. With that I should be FAR closer to having covered every ducktales episode. Granted i’ll still have 17 to cover, but it’ll make that much more managable. 

The second comes in June specifically timed for Pride Month. With Scott Pilgrim Wrapping up in August just in time for the movie’s anniversary, I decided to start covering another one of my faviorite comics of all time. It’s time to transform, roll out and make this precoius it’s Transformers More than Meets the Eye! For those of you unfamiliar it’s an idw comic that follows a rag tag group of transformers, about half of them gay or gay coded, on a mission to find the lost knights of cybertron and bring ballance to a post war cybertron.. which quickly devloves into hyjinnks with a side order of heartrending deaths and charcter development... and references to dexy’s midnight runners. 

So that’s all for now. thank you for reading, please support my patreon as the next pay term is at the start of next month, so if you want me to start on any of those stretch goals, nows the time. Please help me earn a living and until all are one, i’ll see you at the next rainbow. 

[jadelotusflower]

April 2021 Roundup

Welp - a few days late on this, but I’ve had a busy week, including finding a blue-tongue lizard in my house. I have no idea how or why the poor thing got in or where it thought it was going, but it gave me quite the shock. After some trial and error I was able to herd it into a box and release it in the backyard, where I suspect it’s made a home in my compost bin.

Other than that, this month I was lucky enough to live see my first live musical in over a year - The Wedding Singer. I love the movie and have listened to songs from the Broadway cast album, but this is the first time a professional production has been staged here. It was enormously fun, with an exuberant cast and tongue firmly in cheek. It was so nice to be back in a theatre (with social distanced seating) after everything was cancelled last year.

Reading

David Copperfield (Charles Dickens) - I’ve never really read much Dickens outside of A Christmas Carol, but I enjoyed the Iannucci film so much last year I decided to go back to the source material. I was surprised at how much that adaptation retained from a novel so large, at least in terms of important plot points, but then there’s a great deal of characters sitting in rooms and talking about things only tangentially related to the plot. It was an enjoyable read and of course Dickens is a witty writer, even if I found some parts a bit tedious - anytime Mr Micawber or Mr Peggotty shows up my eyes tended to glaze over. But the novel is dense with so many intersecting characters and plots that  I can certainly see why it’s been well read and much studied. 

A Column of Fire (Ken Follett) - the last (chronologically) novel of the Kingsbridge series, this time set in the 16th Century amid the Catholic/Protestant conflicts in England and France, but also touching on Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands - even the Caribbean. Follett’s favourite tropes are all here; lovers kept apart by circumstance, despicable villains with too much pov page time, rape as a plot device, the apathy/self serving nature of kings and queens. Ned Willard is a typical Follett male (self insert) hero, and as usual it’s the female characters who are far more interesting - Margery the devout but conflicted English Catholic, and Sylvie the enterprising and determined French Protestant. Both are the object of Ned’s affection, which I suppose is telling, and Follett desperately needs to learn how to write some other kind of romantic plot.

Of course it packs in the historical events for them to witness and/or participate in, from the end of Mary I’s reign all the way to the Gunpowder Plot - but it does feel that the latter is rushed in at the end and the novel probably could have ended at the Armada. While I did enjoy the broadened scope, a part of me missed the locality of Kingsbridge as a microcosm of England - this book was more concerned with the macro perspective where the other books (particularly Pillars) was effective in telling the story through Kingsbridge-as-a-character. On the other hand, I did enjoy the France side of the plot (mostly for Sylvie) that covered the machinations of the Guise family, the struggles of French Protestants, and events such as the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre (a rather harrowing section).

Watching

Shadow and Bone (season 1) - I went into this show completely cold (other than the trailer and general excitement on my dash), and really enjoyed it. Alina was a bit generic spunky heroine at first, but she grew on me by the end although I can’t say I really cared much about any of the romantic plots (and want to stay faaaaar away from the discourse). It was the Crows were the real draw for me, and while I was aware that their material came from later books, for me (not knowing any better) their integration into the Grisha plot was seamless. 

While I was impressed by the worldbuilding I could have done with a bit more exposition - I still don’t know who the Shu and Suli are, where Fjerda is in relation to Ravka and what the basis of the conflict between them is. On the other hand, I can appreciate they resisted the urge to do too much “as you know”-ing and assume the rest of the world will be revealed as it becomes relevant. Still, I think if shows can learn one thing from Game of Thrones, it’s the value of finding some way of presenting a map to the audience to give some geographic perspective - a few times I did find myself needing to think about which side of the Fold the characters were on at any given time, and have no idea where Nina and Matthias were meant to be at the end. But then I’m the person who constantly flips to consult the map at the front of a book while reading - I need to see it.

I’ll add my disappointment to the RH fans at the chance of seeing Lucy Griffiths again, only for her role as Luda to be a brief flashback that saw her promptly stabbed to death (her entire demo reel could be made up of death scenes at this point). It’s a real shame, because she is perfect for a series like this (in a role like Genya perhaps), and it seems like such a waste.

Mighty Ducks: Game Changers (episodes 1-6) - The new strategy for family entertainment: taking a property that was popular with young Gen X-ers and/or Elder Millennials in their childhoods, and rebooting/reviving it as a show they can now watch with their own kids. The premise is simple enough - the Ducks are now a corporate juggernaut of the live long enough to see yourself become the villain variety, cue a new rag tag underdog hockey team, training at the run down ice rink owned by a disillusioned Gordon Bombay.

It’s mildly entertaining, the child actors are all very good and I’m always here for Emilio Estevez, although I can do without the inevitable romance with Lauren Graham (the team’s coach and mother of one of the kids). But the most recent episode, where a bunch of the og Ducks (sans Charlie) appear, coupled with liberal use of the Ducks Theme, hit me right in the childhood. They got me! They got me with the nostalgia! Because I am a sucker.

The Handmaid’s Tale (season 4, episodes 1-3) - I was very frustrated with this show last season, because it seemed more concerned with endless extreme close ups of Elizabeth Moss emoting rather than telling a coherent story. June is a character with the thickest plot armour I’ve ever seen, while almost every person she comes into contact with meets a bitter end. Rather than the slow domino effect to topple the regime depicted in the original novel and its sequel The Testaments, the show is moving at a breakneck pace, while somehow little actually happens except rinse repeat torture/endurance porn.

More interesting is the Canada side of the story with Moira and Emily (the excellent Samira Wiley and Alexis Bledel), and the difficulties for refugees adapting to life outside of Gilead, which wasn’t explored in either novel and could use more focus in the show. Ann Dowd is absolutely compelling as Aunt Lydia, and a far more interesting villain than the Waterfords (whose scenes have become interminable) yet funnily enough doesn’t get the devoted close-ups, long speeches, or writer interest they do. I’m still watching, if only to see if the show follows her story in The Testaments or not. 

Writing

Not a very productive month on the writing front at all, I can’t even bring myself to look at the meagre word counts, so I’m going to let them roll over into May.

[shrinkthisviolet]

Author Interview Tag!

Tagged by @maipreciation, thanks for thinking of me! This looks really fun :D

(Note: I’m keeping this as a running list, so if you’re ever wondering what fics im working on/brainstorming, make sure to check here! Last update was on 12/12/2020)

Name: Lavi! As of 12/5, I’m no longer going by my real name (see this post)

Fandoms: so many 😂 check my bio, I think I have them all listed. I’ve posted fic for Hamilton and ATLA, and then there was a huge Inktober compilation I posted last year with a whole host of fandoms. Currently, my major fandom is ATLA, and probably Kipo as I’m starting to move through S1

Where you post: I have an AO3 (lavi0123)! I used to have an FFN and a Wattpad, but I don’t use either of those anymore :/ tbh, I’m embarrassed of anything I still have up there 😂

Most popular one-shot: Most definitely we’ll give the world to you (and you’ll blow us all away), one of my contributions to Maiko Week! I’m not surprised it’s an ATLA fic, but I find it interesting that a fic with Izumi in it blew up so quickly. But hey, if y’all want more Izumi content, you won’t be disappointed 😉

Most popular multi-chapter fic: ...I’m really embarrassed to say because I don’t think I’ll ever finish it...but En Hamilton Heights is the only multichap fic I’ve published so it’s gotta be that one 😂 hopefully soon I’ll have another fic to add to that, since I’m working on one (sorry EHH fans but it’s been too long and tbh I don’t remember where I was going with it :/ I’m thinking I might orphan it)

Favorite story you’ve written so far: you think this world is a dream come true (but you’re wrong) for sure! It’s super niche but it’s something I wrote out of love for a movie I discovered this Halloween and absolutely love. Though all you’ve got to do is want something (and then let yourself have it) is a close second. Basically, anything I write that sounds absolutely bonkers as a concept is one that I love 😂 (and it’s no coincidence that both fics are Mai-centric! I love all my Mai-centric fics nearly equally)

Fic you were nervous to post: Is there an “all of the above” option? 😂 I’m always nervous to post. But in particular, I was nervous for if you ran away (come back home), because it was Mai-centric and longer than any one-shot I’d written thus far, and also you think this world is a dream come true (but you’re wrong), because it’s Mai-centric and a Coraline AU, which makes it BONKERS as an idea

Why was I nervous to post Mai-centric fics, you ask? Two reasons: 1) Mai is very different from who I am as a person (I vibe a lot more with Aang and Ty Lee, sometimes Katara and Sokka), so I didn’t want to upset the Mai stans by writing her incorrectly. 2) Mai is generally not well-liked in the fandom at large, so I especially didn’t want to attract antis who would accuse me of writing Mai as too emotional and loving (which is why I tried to justify that in my tags). Luckily, my comments have all been lovely, and I’m far less afraid to post fics about her now that I’ve written three fics with her as the focus! And the shoutout from @nonbinary-crafter-aang praising my portrayal of her?? I was touched 🥺 still am

How you choose your titles: Song lyrics or movie/book lines that speak to me, occasionally a pun. Remember that post I rb’d about how authors title their works? My tags pretty much say it all 😂

Do you outline: Ehh...define outlining 😂 for my one-shots, nope. But for my upcoming multichap works (see below) and Nanowrimo work (original fiction, so I won’t talk about it on here, but send an ask if you’re curious), YES ABSOLUTELY!

For my Nanowrimo work and one of my upcoming AUs (a Soulmate AU), the worldbuilding is so complex that it’s an absolute necessity. For the other upcoming AU (a time travel AU), there are just too many things that need to happen at certain times so as not to interfere with canon events, and things I want to change from canon and things I want to keep...I think you get the idea 😂

Complete: Basically my entire maiko halloweek series! Check it out if you want some fics about the most underrated canon ATLA couple :)

In-progress: ...En Hamilton Heights again...but not for long, sadly. Still trying to decide between a quick conclusion and just flat-out orphaning it. Still haven’t made up my mind, but either way, it won’t be what I originally planned, unfortunately.

I’m also counting my ATLA Soulmate AU on the basis of forever in my mind (only you), which has the worldbuilding and fits into the AU without much problem (the AU is going to be a series of one-shots, not a multichap fic, because there won’t be enough deviations from canon imo to justify multiple chapters. And one-shots are just less pressure for me 😂)

[EDIT 12/12/2020: added another fic because I’m an idiot and forgot about this too 🤦‍♀️😂 it’s a year-old idea that I started writing but I’m picking it back up thanks to the Heist banter in MatPat’s St Jude stream!]

-A fic series combining Escape the Night and Who Killed Markiplier (Heist and Date are part of it too, but only tangentially at the moment. Depends on how involved I want DA Y/N to be). Tentatively titled A Heavy Cost, and definitely won’t happen in any of Mark’s projects, but in a way that’s actually for the best 😂 the canonicity for me stops at ETN S3 (with some S4), then it’s canon divergence

Coming soon/not yet started: OOOH YESSS HERE WE GO

Okay okay sooo we’ve got two main things:

–An ATLA Soulmate AU, featuring platonic and romantic soulmates! I know I called it in-progress, and I stand by that even though I haven’t actually set up the series on AO3 yet, but this AU is about to be SO MUCH MORE than just a few Maiko moments. Because...drum roll...it’s gonna be entirely Aang-centric (with maybe one or two exceptions)! Like Mai, Aang is a character that doesn’t get as many -centric fics as he should (and being an Aang stan also isn’t unanimous for some reason??), so I’m gonna fix that. Plus I want to dive further into his mind, and I think I’m more equipped to do that than I was with Mai, since Aang and I are very similar in attitude.

–Bumizumi time travel AU, which can be read as platonic until the last couple chapters (it’ll be multichap) but definitely has a romantic agenda throughout. So just. Be warned if you don’t ship them. It’s gonna be chock full of comedy and antics! Also A LOT of platonic affection between Izumi and teen Zuko (and just between Izumi, Bumi, and the Gaang in general), because platonic affection is underrated and also I can :D I’m also probably gonna make fun of how some elements of affection have become solely romantic territory, because...um, no, hugging and holding hands and cuddling can be done between friends, thanks! (Maybe it’s the ace in me talking. But regardless)

There are also vague concepts I’m spitballing, like:

-Zukaang telepathy AU (Platonic Zukaang, the only romance I’ll ever write in ATLA is for the canon ships, prompted by a dream because apparently ATLA lives in my head rent-free forever now 😂)

-Evil Zuko AU (Azula doesn’t exist, mostly prompted after watching Aang make fun of Zhao and realizing that if Zuko had been in any position of power during the War...the Gaang would have stood no chance at all)

-Bumizumi Arranged Marriage AU (Bumi and Izumi both think the other is hotheaded/reckless (Izumi @ Bumi) or uptight (Bumi @ Izumi). So Kataang and Maiko (along with Sukka, Ty Lee, and Toph because...duh) set them up in an arranged marriage, with the presented reasoning being that they already know each other’s families, it’ll be a great symbol of unity, and this way Izumi doesn’t have to worry about suitors. They both agree to it (it’s arranged, not forced), and over time, they warm up to each other...and maybe even...fall in love?? Prompted because we need more arranged marriage fics! On that note, I’m gonna plug shadows and steel by @dearestpartnerofgreatness because arranged marriage needs more rep and this fic does it and with Maiko to boot!)

-Zukaang as Brothers AU (I saw a fic about this, but it wasn’t complete. If it’s not done by the time I get to this concept, I’m gonna write it, because just...imagine the possibilities! Zuko and Aang are already basically brothers in canon anyway, this is just making them brothers in blood as well as in their hearts. This is especially vague because I have no concept of how this is gonna work 🤷‍♀️ I’ll get to it eventually)

(Can you tell I’m obsessed with Zuko and Aang’s friendship? Because I am!)

[EDIT 11/25/2020: I’m adding two more because I forgot these have been swirling around in my head too 😂]

-A fix-it fic based on May You Always Be Satisfied, a backstory fic for Who Killed Markiplier by @blackaquokat! I recently reread it and remembered that I was gonna write a fix-it for that fic. Not because the fic sucks, it’s actually amazing! I’m just a sucker for the main (requited unrequited) pairing, and there’s at least five ways to make that pairing canon and avoid the mess of Who Killed Markiplier. And THEY ALL DESERVE TO BE HAPPY OKAY

-A Finnrey fix-it for the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy (this one is especially vague, and I probably won’t write it since a bunch of these already exist, but it’s fun to think about. Maybe if I ever run out of WIPs 🤷‍♀️)

Upcoming story that you’re most excited to write: I’m equally excited for the Soulmate AU and the Bumizumi Time Travel AU! I’m also excited for my Nanowrimo work to be finished, but that’s more so in-progress than upcoming

Tagging:

@nonbinary-crafter-aang @dearestpartnerofgreatness @ohsalamanders @blackaquokat (no pressure ofc, only if you want to! But please tag me if you do, I’d love to see it!)

[thejustmaiden]

The Sesshomaru F*cks Debacle

Hey, fellow Inuyasha fans! How we feeling?? I imagine a lot of us are doing quite fabulously after the recent news we got about the sequel coming out this Fall, "Hanyou No Yashahime." So if it wasn't obvious already, I want to take the time to discuss the topic of- you guessed it- Sesshomaru. Go figure! 

***THIS IS A REPOST OF MY ORIGINAL BLOG THAT DISAPPEARED FROM THE TAGS. PICS/GIFS HAVE BEEN REMOVED TO HOPEFULLY REPAIR THAT.***

Let's be real, as much as probably (and literally lol) all of us have viewed him as "daddy material" at some point or another during our teens, Sesshomaru being physically intimate with another being, much less a human, is difficult to conjure up in our minds. And there's nothing wrong with that, per se, as sex and romance doesn't come so easily to some as it does to others. Then again, that's not to say a romantic relationship is completely impossible or unattainable for him either. 

I, for one, am not a huge fan of the idea of Sesshomaru siring children of his own. Granted, adopting/protecting children and other small companions is kinda his thing (I saw one user even describe him as a 'walking daycare' 🤣), and maybe it'll just take some getting used to, but all in all it's not entirely unfathomable to picture him having biological children. Though I'd be lying if I said I still didn't prefer he just took these two twin half-demon girls in and under his wing instead, like he did Rin. However, seeing as that's unlikely the case since the two girls resemble him in some fashion, the chances of that coming true are slim, which must mean that Sesshomaru did in fact bone some lucky lady. That's not to say I don't acknowledge that there's still a chance these kids aren't truly his but we'll see! 

Which leads me to the real reason behind this blog! I'd like to address in-depth why I and so many other Inuyasha fans consider shipping S*ssrin as wrong and why it makes a lot of us extremely uncomfortable. 

BUT FIRST BEFORE I FORGET, I want to give a little unofficial disclaimer by stating that this blog isn't intended to upset certain fans regarding my stance on the controversial ship. Thus I will not tag it under that ship name, and I suggest others who agree with me to do the same in any of their future posts. 

Because let's not forget that the most important thing is that we're all fans here. We fell in love with this story and hold its beloved characters close to our hearts for a reason. And that still counts even if you're returning to this fandom a decade later. So please, let's try and remember that and be civil towards one another. Putting people down by attacking and insulting others in real life really doesn't make us any better than them. I REPEAT, please do not engage in this post unless you plan to be kind and respectful of others who may have a differing opinion than you. There's never a need to be ugly towards another human being. That goes for all shippers and fans of Sesshomaru in general. Thank you in advance for your understanding and compliance. 😊

Again, none of these comments are aimed at being inflammatory towards those fans who have a different approach to this pairing. If any of you are reading this now, please keep that in mind before deciding to participate in any discourse with me and other antis. 

Okay, let me go ahead and list a few of the main arguments fans of this particular ship use to support them together. Then I'll give my reasons why those aren't enough to justify their relationship turning romantic:

1. Rin will be an adult before they get romantically involved

2. Sesshomaru didn't raise her and therefore isn't her father; he was never like a father to her in the first place

3. Sesshomaru hasn't been grooming her, not then and not now. Besides, it was Rin's choice first.

4. Age difference shouldn't matter when you look at other relationships in the series (InuKag, Koga x Ayame, etc.)

5. It was always going to be canon because the drama CDs exist

 These are the main points I'm seeing around. Now let's dissect them, shall we? These are my direct responses- I'll try to keep them short and concise. Fyi: Jk! I'm lying, that never happens. 😆

1. Rin may be an adult, but from our standpoint that doesn't make much of a difference. It doesn't matter because it's all about how her relationship with Sesshomaru started off and how it continued onwards. From that moment, it was basically established from the get-go that their relationship resembles that of one a young girl shares with an older man who winds up becoming her guardian. She initiated it by trying to bring him food while he was injured, and he reciprocated by deciding to bring her back to life that fateful day. 

Of course we're all happy that he did, because he's a better demon for it and a similar thing could be said about her! Therefore you must understand that fans against this pairing find it very hard to grasp the notion of a budding romance here when we look at their history. For us, it's synonymous to imagining a father eventually falling in love with his daughter or someone else who reminds him of a daughter, and vice versa. But let's just say he's not a father to her like many of you claim and more like, say a modern-day babysitter. Isn't it still bizarre to you that a young girl could fall in love with the man who looked after her and cared for her at that age, maybe even played games with? One day or on multiple occasions he even sees her naked because she had an accident and got hurt so she needed help changing or something. I admit it's more realistic that it was Jaken if anyone who'd be in charge of this, but why does it really matter who was tasked with what? Sesshomaru may have not been around all the time but that doesn't mean he's any less involved or invested in Rin's general care and well-being. So it's that thought alone that keeps many of us from even contemplating a romance forming between them. Whether he hardly interacted with her over the years or not is irrelevant, because it's clear to me that they have both formed a strong enough bond that constitutes calling them family. I highly doubt he ever even planned to keep Rin in his company as long as he did. But it happened, and whether you want to admit it or not, meeting her changed his life. Meaning Rin was never just some girl he traveled with or hardly knew. Despite his feigned indifference and stoic ways at times, I'm pretty sure we can all agree that Rin grew on him and was the first person to really influence him in a way that helped soften and open up that heart of his in a way nobody ever had before. One's significance to any given person isn't solely measured by the quantity of time spent alongside that person but by the quality of how that time was spent with said person. It's safe to say that in the case of Sesshomaru and Rin, they definitely fall under that category. 

2. Fair if you don't view Sesshomaru as Rin's father, but you must acknowledge that he did fill some father figure-like role to her at the very least. Or let's just call him her vassal if you think that's a more accurate description. Also, can I just quickly stress again that it doesn't matter how long she spent by his side or whether she spent more time in the village or not, because he still ended up playing a major part in her childhood as an adult male role model. Regardless of the title you give him, it still stands that although he may not be her official adoptive father, he is LIKE A FATHER. There really is no point in denying that, because their dynamic exudes one of a father-daughter. I guarantee you that any outsider looking in would agree that if not her father then at the very least he embodies a male relative of some kind. Honestly, the details of their relationship dynamic specific to this show (regional/period differences, human vs. demon culture, etc.), don't really matter here. Why? Because one can assume that the general consensus here is that a large percentage of fans perceive their connection as a familial one. Yes, most would unanimously agree that Rin and Sesshomaru, along with Jaken and Ah-Un, are a FAMILY. 

If she had first met him as an adult, then we'd possibly have a very different story here. The point of the matter is that he didn't, so that should be where this discussion ends. Unfortunately, for many, it's not. The bottom line is that a child he knew and cared for should never be someone he begins to view in a romantic light. I don't care how many years have passed (or that to demons years are like days or some less inconsequential length of time), and how much she's matured or how specific marriage customs were back then (if they're no longer appropriate now then why are we still condoning these backward practices?). Rin should NEVER have the desire to be sexually attracted to this father figure she's always looked to and trusted to protect her. Maybe it's vastly different from a demon's perspective (even though still unjustifiable in my opinion), but as a human, Rin's feelings towards Sesshomaru wouldn't and shouldn't suddenly change towards him and in such a drastic manner mind you. Yeah, maybe she used to have an innocent crush on him, but I'd like to think our smart and compassionate little Rin would learn that was simply because she was a child who didn't know any better. Besides, growing up with Kaede and around other humans I'd like to think she fell in love with another human sometime over the course of all those years. It only makes sense, right? Don't you think that's part of why Sesshomaru left her there in the first place? He wished for her to experience what it was like to live a normal human life, falling in love and marriage both being a key part of that. If I were Sesshomaru, I'd be deeply troubled if I started to develop feelings for a little girl I once protected and kept in my company for quite an extended period of time, which was at least a year from what I understand. (Pls correct me if I'm wrong because I gather it may have been longer.) 

3. Apparently in the manga and the Final Act, we see Sesshomaru still visits the village to check on Rin from time to time. He even brings her gifts, such as beautiful and luxurious kimonos. I recently learned from another Tumblr post that kimonos are what older men gift in order to sort of earn their favor with these young ladies, AKA they're wooing them. If that is indeed true, then that would mean he's basically grooming her and has been for however long she's lived there in the village but potentially even longer. To put it nicely, he's courting her. If this was another young lady (maybe not an adult perhaps but still of marrying age) who he DIDN'T assist in raising, then I could possibly get on board with this.

The thing is, it's far from that with them two if you consider everything they've gone through and endured together! Because he not only met her as a young girl but he got to know her first as a young girl, and she became one of his traveling companions all while she was only a young girl!!! Their bond will always be defined by that time when she was just a young girl, and nothing can or should change that he will always see her in that same light. Kinda like how our parents or other family members from older generations tell us that they'll always see us as their babies. So the fact that her time spent with Sesshomaru is constantly compared to her time spent in the village shouldn't apply here. Don't we all know this already? That we can can come across someone in our lifetime and maybe the time with them is short-lived, but that doesn't make it any less significant or those people any less special. Sesshomaru made an impact on her as much as she did on him, that much we know is true. Sure, it was years ago, but that's not something you ever forget. Sometimes when you look at loved ones you haven't seen in a while, there are just certain memories you have of them from over the years that will come rushing back to you without fail and that you will always cherish no matter what. I'd like to believe that when Rin looks at Sesshomaru and he looks at her, that they can both look back fondly on their times traveling together. This explains why I'm really struggling here to picture how anyone could sleep with someone they used to treat as their guardian/father/ward/daughter/what have you. So someday and somehow, this person just stops viewing them that way, is that it? I mean, how does this work exactly? It's not like you can just flip off a switch and forget everything from your past with this person, ya know? Unless you have your memory wiped, what I'm understanding is that S*ssrin shippers approve of the idea of these two characters KNOWING that they are or used to be like practically FAMILY to each other, yet agree that these two characters in question still have the capacity not to mention desire to pursue HAVING SEX with each other anyway. Do I got that all right? Did I miss anything?  

Originally I provided two examples of fan art I found to help put what I'm trying to say here into better perspective, but since they've been removed, just type in "Sesshomaru and Rin" on Google and you'll find plenty of examples of what I'm talking about here- and no, it's not S*ssrin images. I realize Sesshomaru has never been the touchy-feely sorta guy like it's depicted in some of the fan art, but that doesn't necessarily diminish the affection he feels and attachment he has towards Rin. He just has a different way of expressing his love is all, even if he doesn't outwardly show it. The real question here is, can you really look at sweet pictures of an adult comforting a child who's been under his care for a significant amount of time and then suddenly be like, "oh man, I can't wait till they bang!" I'm sorry, to each their own, but you gotta admit why we must find that creepy. 

4. Regarding Inuyasha and Kagome's relationship, we need to remember that he didn't age after all those years stuck to that tree. And besides, demons age differently so this is a pretty unfair comparison. This isn't the best example, but think about how a cat's lifespan works. 10 years in (indoor) cat years is like 56 in human years. So technically in demon years, Inuyasha is physically and emotionally compatible with a human around Kagome's age. Hell, even though he's over a hundred years older, Kagome is still a whole lot more mature than he probably ever will be! 😂 (Psst! We still love you, Inuyasha! 💋)

Now as for Koga and Ayame, this also isn't comparable to Sesshomaru and Rin. Koga met Ayame one night, only not to see her ever again until she was older and of age. After rescuing her on that night when she was only a girl, he gives her a piggyback ride and you can tell he just wants to cheer her up when he mentions her being his wife someday. (And boy, did that work wonders on Ayame!) Then they gaze at this stunning lunar rainbow together, which I think is quite rare judging by looks of it. This is not an attempt to defend this proposal- if we can even really call it that- but all I'm saying is that I don't think even Koga knows what overcame him in that moment. Fast forward to present-day when they cross paths again, and Ayame still remembers his so-called promise, but guess who doesn't right away? Yep, our man Koga! It takes a quite a while for it to come back to him, too. This further proves my point that something beyond Koga and his power possessed him to say all those things to a little Ayame for some reason. Maybe you can call it destiny, or maybe it was some special kind of magic caused by the lunar rainbow, Idk! All I know is that they do end up together in the Final Act and that it wasn't until they met as two consenting wolf-demons that they really grew to know each other and coincidentally- or maybe not so coincidentally- fall in love.

 5. From what I understand, it appears these drama CDs are some kind of satire which doesn't equate to canon. Perhaps Rumiko did not debunk them but she also didn't confirm they're true either. I'm hearing conflicting reports, however, and her involvement in them is questionable. Like her name is supposedly on the cover or something? But then I've also heard that she has spoken out against this ship. From the sounds of it, there is enough evidence- or lack thereof rather- to conclude that fans cannot use this as proof enough for their ship already being or soon-to-be canon. 

Finally, I'd like to end on this note where I'll be addressing ethics in entertainment. When it comes to our choice of entertainment, there's always a level of escapism implied, sometimes so much that we project ourselves onto certain characters. Delving into a fantasy world like that of Inuyasha can really help some people better cope with real life problems, but it's all about striking the right balance, as each individual has different wants and needs. The thing is there's only so much escapism one can allow in a fictional world before basic morals from our own world begin to take precedence. I can always enjoy some good fantasy, but it's not long until I start to reflect on how I personally relate what entertainment I'm currently absorbed in to real life. It's inevitable really. For example, if certain relationships portrayed on screen conflict with strong opinions I've adopted on a sensitive topic, especially those that take children into account, then I feel it's my responsibility to speak out against any media that even remotely promotes it. Yes, even if it's just fiction. Because art imitates life, right? (And yes, sometimes the other way around.) So in other words, our stories should mirror our way of life to some degree. History has seen its fair share of ugly events and traditions we are surely ashamed of but that we've hopefully learned our lessons from. Most societies nowadays seriously frown upon or condemn stuff like pedophilia, child grooming, or anything of the sort. Of course it doesn't help that we see still see these kinds of issues glossed over so much that we've become desensitized to them in many respects.

The thing is we cannot allow this way too common older-man-dotes-on-young-girl trope (or anything resembling it) to continue to be glorified or romanticized. It matters not that feudal Japan was a drastically different time to be alive and that this was the norm back then, or even that this remains a popular ship in Japan. All it comes down to is if whether we would currently tolerate such acts and behaviors were we to witness them in real life. If your answer is 'no', then it should be 'no' in every respect. If you deem it acceptable just because it's fiction, then I'm sorry to say, but you're going to have to answer to a lot of people. No surprise there, that goes for all fandoms. I guarantee you it's not just the people who personally identify as victims who have serious qualms with this ship either, because you don't necessarily need to have bad experiences of your own in order sympathize and see where a lot of these people are coming from. And no, just because I'm unhappy with the possibility of S*ssrin going canon does not mean I'm whining or that I'm attempting to spread negativity about this series before it's even out. Remember, fans have the right to be critical of whatever content it is they're watching/reading, and if they demand something in the storytelling be represented better, then of course they can challenge that. After all, none of us should feel like "canceling" the content we love is our only hope to fixing a story. That's not how it ever should be. Fans are fed up, and can you really blame them? Nah, we can strive to do better in this area, plus it's not like there isn't always room for improvement. So let's please be more vigilant about how the content we consume translates to reality, in addition to being mindful of how it can directly correlate to real life problems for ourselves as well as others around us.  

That's a wrap, y'all!! I hope you enjoyed what I had to offer on this topic, and here's hoping I actually contributed something new to this conversation! I'm aware that that's unlikely the case for us fans who've been living in this tag the past couple days (like me lol), but I'd like to believe I put my own spin on it and it was still worth your while. 😉 

P.S. Overall, I remain optimistic about the new show! So are there any friendly Inuyasha group chats on Tumblr I can join? If so, please do invite me! I need to obsess about this sequel even more than I already am, EEEK!!!

[sailorstarr-chan4]

PSA: I need a break from Inuyasha fanfiction

I’ve been mulling over posting this for ages, but here it goes: 

Other than slowly working on my WIPs and fun little conversations on Discord, I am officially and utterly Burnt Out™ on Inuyasha. It’s been on/off for a long time for me (some may recall my brief “break” last year), but the recent Drama in the Ship Wars and general Losing Their Shit Over the Sequel has been the catalyst this time. (Yes, I initially found it all amusing, until I saw it literally drive away mutual bloggers on “both” sides of the situation. I’m just.... done. Also, small aside, I still am working on my “essay” that is more of my personal experiences with fandom and shipping as a rule, but I digress.)

This year has been hellish for all of us due to The World tearing itself asunder, so why the hell has fandom circles decided that NOW is a good time to be toxic? Not that any time is ever good, but you would think that this year would be .... like, a break from all that nonsense. 

On top of all that, I have found myself agonizing over my personal feelings for the Inuyasha series, characters, ships, etc as well as my “place” in the fandom. I am basically suffering a weird case of “Imposter Syndrome,” a la fandom-style. I feel like I have “forced” most of my writing, that I am not nearly “as big a fan” as the other creators, and yet simultaneously feel the perceived pressure of disappointing my readers with this whole.... thing. 

BUT, just to reiterate: even after posting this today, August 5, 2020, and I happen to update one of my Inuyasha fics in the next few days, weeks, months, do not take it as me back-pedaling. Like I said, I will work on my WIPs on my own time because I love them dearly, but I am officially taking a step back from direct “involvement.” I will post chapters here and on ff.net and AO3, but I will not tag anyone, and I kindly request those who have tagged me in their fics to please refrain from doing so again from now on. It has NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING, to do with your writing or fics or what have you. It is solely a “me” issue. 

FYI: after you see this post, if you still see me like/comment/reblog/review on people’s Inuyasha fics, again, don’t take it as hypocrisy. Even small doses of fandom love are okay during a break. ^.^ I just ... wish to make myself clear. Fandom is supposed to be an escape. Lately, it’s been feeling like a burden and I don’t like that. I need to step aside. 

I wish you all the best and to remain safe and sound! 💕

[misunderstoodnotevil]

Downton Abbey Oppositions tag game (that was created by @naevery)

@lifeisjuicy92 and @jolie-goes-downton tagged me. Thank you!

 It took me some time to post this because of two reasons.

A.      I watched the series hastily the first time, like ‘one season per day’ hastily and tbt I have everything hazy in my mind. I’m in the process of re-watching so by the end of it, I may rewrite this if my answers change.

B.      I was afraid of being lynched due to my answers (joking… maybe)

I will call the attention of @bitletsanddrabbles, @singingman55, @mister-barrow, @mr-barrow, @waistcoat35​, @uneassasymphonie (if you have already done it, my apologies) & anyone else who likes these. if you want and have some free time...  

1. Favourite plotline from your least favourite season?

My least favourite season is season 1. Story telling wise I think it's all over the place. Characters are mostly used as plot devices. To me, it seems very clinical. And I'm trying to find a plotline that I liked (I mean I gave up on watching the series back in the day). So what did I like the most in season 1? Gwen trying to better her life with a new job.

2. Least favourite plotline from your favourite season?

I think I like all other seasons equally. Season two mishandling Thomas’ experience of the war.

3. What’s a quality that you actually like about (one of) your least favourite main/regular character(s)?

Generally speaking, I like and dislike each character equally. I may like them one episode and dislike them in the next. So for this question, I’m going to pick Mr. Carson, whom I dislike mostly not because of his actions, but the fact the audience has to see his actions as the decent thing. Always. But, he married Mrs. Hughes so well done Charlie for falling in love with Elsie.

4. What’s your least favourite quality of your favourite character?

Thomas’ inability to keep him mouth shut in some (most) of his jabs, mostly because of secondhand embarrassment.  I should elaborate; Thomas is a character who has a goal. And he keeps sabotaging himself by his inability to keep his mouth shut. He’s not stupid, he knows what he does and he keeps on doing it and while it’s entertaining (to some) it’s a quality I don’t like

5. What’s your favourite thing that your least favourite main/regular character has done?

Again, I don’t particularly dislike characters but since I have to choose one here I’ll choose the one who annoyed me for almost a whole season. Daisy (yes, I know, bad opinion!). I'm not certain if there was a more annoying thing than her pre/after marriage behaviour. It was driving me up the wall. Anyway, her will to access knowledge and better herself.

6. What’s your least favourite thing that your favourite character has done?

Thomas' stealing the wine. There was no explanation whatsoever. Plus, his treatment of Phyllis.

7. What’s a positive aspect about (one of) your least favourite ship(s)?

I will also use Violet’s romance with Prince Kuragin because I saw it as a waste of time. And the Prince is inspired by a War and Peace character who is kind of creepy (understatement). What do I like about it? Violer is another human being with feelings and has her heart broken at some time. 

And there is an alternative option that I will keep to myself until my rewatch ends.

8. What’s an aspect about your favourite ship that you don’t like?

Thomas/Richard. Their screen-time. Richard’s screen-time. I can’t find a way for him to have had more screen-time tbqh, but, I know, make a sequel about Thomas Barrow. Just Thomas Barrow and his Royal Dresser & let everyone else be secondary characters. 

9. What’s your favourite and least favourite styling/outfit of your favourite and/or least favourite character? (feel free to add pics if you want!)

It’s not that I don’t like the uniform (it’s Thomas. He looks great in almost everything, but I like it less than anything else.  (Give me rope and I shall hang myself) I don’t think it really fits him well. With the exception of the grey undershirt. That was nice.

And that bowler hat, throw it to the fire. Thomas is not John Steed.

I like Thomas in waist coats and shirtsleeves. And I also like Thomas in pajamas as was shown in seasons 2, 3 and 6. 

Also, the newsboy cap and short coat from episode 1. That’s a good style. 

Ah and this one here.

[yeats-infection]

@sqvalors tagged me in a lil writing meme... if you’d like to participate please do and tag me! 

ao3 name: fluorescentgrey but i also post some things as drglass (dr. glass is the second song on the fluorescent grey EP by deerhunter, so if i make another pseud it will be likenew, then washoff, etc.) 

fandoms: about two thirds of my fics are harry potter or star wars but there are a lot of random little goodies. currently i have shifted into the terror (2018) mode. 

number of fics: 59 right now... i will throw a party when i get to 69... 

fic i spent the most time on: this is funny because some of these technically took me like six months or more of working on them extremely intermittently... namely, bone machine. the series in the garden has taken me the most time generally... and in that, minuet did take me several months of working really hard while i had a schedule / commute that was not conducive to having a creative practice... 

fic i spent the least amount of time on: hilariously, literally my most popular fic by ninety miles, the witcher PWP that i wrote out of spite in two or three hours. 

longest fic: the source codes series... particularly heelstone which is 102k. i wrote these two stories in a single summer like a crazy person and i hate talking about them because i find them WAY too gooey. honestly, that’s why they are so long. it’s all the gooeyness!!!!!! 

shortest fic: yes, the answer is the witcher porn again (this silly thing is going to be the answer for many other questions in this little meme but i’m just going to stop talking about it while i’m ahead). the west end is just about 50 words longer and is much better and is a much better and more interesting story. 

most hits: we’re just going to pretend it’s sex and dying in high society, which has the second most hits. this is certainly due to the fact that @wolfstarwarehouse hypes this story a lot for which i am endlessly grateful! 

most kudos: recovery position has the second most kudos so let’s go with that one! i have been very touched by the response to this story, though i do personally like the sequel beachcoma a little more... i understand why not everyone wants to read it because it is a little more bittersweet. but it also comes from my soul. 

most comment threads: the two stories in the source codes series are leading here, because i only posted two chapters at a time so that i would get maximal validation, lol. 

most bookmarks: in order to talk about a story i haven’t talked about yet, the rosary has the fourth-most. i think this fic is truly my r/s swan song... i said everything i wanted to say and did everything i wanted to do. it’s a really good mystery/noir story that i didn’t think i could pull off until i did! and i love the OCs in it who have sort of manifested these secret headcanons for me that i may expostulate upon someday. thank you to @piovascosimo for the inspiration to write it. 

total word count: 1,000,478. lol! 

favorite fic i wrote: cannot possibly choose but probably the top five in order of date posted are: desperado, a handful of dust, doom town, beachcoma, jump into the fire

fic i’d rewrite / expand on: i already said all of source codes because it’s way too gooey, i also could make hard time killing floor blues a lot tighter, and a memoir of the flesh deserves a way better ending because i was rushing to make the yuletide deadline...

share a bit of a WIP: i was trying for a while to write a band of brothers AU where they are vietnam vets who start growing cannabis... based on the steve earle song “copperhead road.” this could have been SO good but the plot was too huge and unwieldy so i gave up. my roommate is obsessed with this idea and keeps asking me how it’s going so i may yet finish. but there’s a bit below the cut.

The knock at the door in the night was a sharp shock, bright as lightning, that sent them both back to Khe Sanh and before. Nix ducked. Dick went behind the doorframe. They kept low into the kitchen, where Nix took his old officer’s pistol out from where he kept it hidden behind the fridge. Then they went to the door, keeping to the edges of the hallways.

On the porch was Liebgott. He could have made his own way in likely right onto the couch without either of them noticing, so it was something that he had knocked on the goddamn door. It was particularly something given that none of the boys from Easy should have known about the grow operation, or even about Dick’s farm, being as Dick’s address on file at the V.A. was a post office box in town and Nix’s was still in Jersey. These considerations were nil to somebody who had spent the better part of five years in the bush of Vietnam. He took a last draw from his cigarette and put it out against the rubber sole of his boot, then he put the butt in his pocket. As far as Nix knew, he hadn’t said a word since January 1970.  

“Joe,” said Dick diplomatically. He put his hand out and Liebgott took it. Then he took Nix’s. He had handsome dark eyes, but they were full of a wall. You could tell he saw you, but it was like nothing followed the necessary channels to the brain to spur emotional response. It had been like this even while he was still talking, and after a while you got used to it.

“You comin' in,” said Nix, knowing he probably would even if he wasn’t invited.

Inside, they all three sat at the kitchen table in silence nobody was about to break. Finally Dick got up and went to the drawer where they kept the rollies and their share of the product. He passed a sheaf of papers and a film canister full of bud to Liebgott across the table. Nix understood as well as Dick apparently did that there would be no getting anything over on this kid, who had eyes in the back and sides of his head. He’d probably had a nice tour of the property before coming inside. “You hungry, son,” Dick said.

Liebgott shook his head. He extracted one of the buds from the canister and inspected it. They did look mighty good if Nix said so himself. They looked artful in Liebgott’s hand. There were black scabs across his knuckles and a dark rime of filth under those fingernails which still existed. He seemed satisfied enough with what he saw to take a paper out of the sheaf and start shredding the flower into it.

“Captain Nixon calls it Easy Diesel,” said Dick, like he was trying to pretend it wasn’t the funniest thing in the world.

Liebgott looked up and a smile flashed across his face like the savage golden light of a flare falling over the far hills. His smile was sort of brutal, like the edge of a knife in a barfight, or like a seething animal. Luckily it went away as quickly as it had come. He rolled the joint with a quick grace and lit the business end with his old silver Zippo Nixon hadn’t seen since the war. There was a skull engraved on one side and on the other it read IF YOU ARE RECOVERING MY BODY, FUCK YOU.

“I don’t know how you found us, Joe,” Dick said thoughtfully. “You don’t have to… tell us. But we ain’t exactly keen to have just anybody here.” He paused and looked quickly to Nix, who tried to make it abundantly clear by means of eyebrows that he wasn’t sure they ought to go down this road, wherever it was leading. Dick ignored him. Liebgott was watching them, fully understanding their attempted clandestine exchange. “We ain’t exactly keen to have the DEA here,” Dick said at last.

The cherry at the end of the joint atomized with a crackling hiss. Liebgott looked between Dick and Nix with extreme seriousness sullied only by his exhaling a dignified white cloud out his nose. Then he nodded, once, curtly, demonstrating he understood his orders as they had been relayed.

Nix flashed Dick what he thought was a what have you done type look. But Dick looked totally unbothered. He should have gone into this business years ago for how violently unflappable he was. He said to Liebgott, “I’ll get some blankets and you can make up the couch.”

Liebgott shook his head to say no need. He got up, careful not to scrape the chair against the floor, shook each of their hands again, and in less than a minute’s time he was back out the door with nothing more than what he’d come in with except the joint.

Nix and Dick, on the porch, listening to the crickets, watched him disappear into the darkness.

“Are we hallucinating,” said Nix eventually.

“I sure as hell hope not,” Dick replied. “We’ve got to ship all that product or we’ll starve.”

-

In the morning Nix was in the field, inspecting the plants. Liebgott was standing there at his quarter for god knew how long before he cleared his throat and Nix jumped about six feet in the air. There was a smirk shifting across Liebgott’s face that he would have been better about hiding when Nix had been his commanding officer. He looked like he hadn't slept. Back over there he had looked like that a lot, but it had been different, because of all the uppers they were taking. He cocked his head back over toward the long driveway and then he was off across the dew-wet grass which had already soaked through the hems of his canvas pants and his destroyed shoes.

Nix followed, like a duckling behind a hen. Liebgott still walked as though there were eyes in all sides of his head quickly processing information as he moved. Nix doubted you ever lost that kind of skill, even if in the real world it made you look like a mental patient. He caught up so they could walk side by side through the dew-wet grass. “What did you think,” he asked Liebgott.

Liebgott passed Nix the universal sign of furrowed brow that meant please clarify.

Nix gestured with pinched fingers to his own mouth as though Liebgott were also deaf. “The grass.”

He shaped his hand into an a-ok sign.

“You get any sleep?”

He nodded an infinitesimal nod, like the answer was a secret just for Nix to know.

“Well if you think it could be better just tell me how.”

Nix had had a high school friend whose sister was deaf from scarlet fever and whom he had watched on occasion communicate with her by means of sign language. Early on, back over there, he had sent off to command for a book, but by the time it came he understood it wasn’t that Liebgott couldn’t speak, he just didn’t want to. It was something like how people’s hair supposedly turned white if they witnessed some evil thing, or how people became ascetics in the name of god. If you were really fucked up on drugs or fear or otherwise, or if the natural magical thinking from childhood hadn’t been fully beaten out of you, you might have seen it as the sacrifice he had given to the forest for letting him out without a scratch so many goddamn times. It had been a bit of a trial to explain this to Spiers, who was practical almost to a fault, sometimes.

Liebgott showed another a-ok sign. Then he did a thumbs up which Nix knew meant it was good.

All in all it was smart. If he was still talking, Nix might have asked him, what have you been up to? You been sleeping on the street? You been to the V.A.? What did they tell you? And the answer would’ve been nothing good. Instead they just walked in the cool grass together in the sunshine and the morning was beautiful, and the air was sweet. It was all lovely until Liebgott had to physically stop him, laughing, somehow silently but also hysterically, from stepping right onto the razor-thin tripwire stretched invisibly across the dark gravel.

In the kitchen, Dick was doing the numbers. He took his glasses off when Nix came in and put the coffee on. “He learned a thing or two from Charlie,” Nix said, leaning against the counters.

“Who, Joe?”

“Our driveway is thoroughly ratfucked.”

“Hmm,” said Dick. He put the glasses back on and turned back to the accounting book. He was going to do this whole thing as above board as was humanly possible. The vivid daylight came through the window and struck the lens of his unstylish Ray-Bans and threw a kind of prism of color upon the white paper and the chicken-scratch sums. Nix felt like maybe this was something you would paint if you had the necessary implements and artistic ability. “Maybe we should see if we can get any more help.”

-

He was mildly ashamed to say it, but the doc had always kind of creeped Nix out. He imagined a hypothetical conversation with Dick, who he knew loved the kid, almost like a son: Listen, don’t get me wrong, he’s a good kid, I owe him my life, yadda yadda. But either he’s dropped the brown acid one too many times or the voodoo exorcism went FUBAR.

The doc had arrived on the farm on the heels of Sunshine and Rainbows, aka Mr. Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed, aka one Edward “Babe” Heffron. Nix had written Babe in South Philly, being as he was a connoisseur of bud and once upon a time had been famed among their company for smoking anything anyone put in his hand, often to his own detriment. The operation was getting big enough that Nix needed another pair of hands, other than Liebgott, of course, who was still fortifying the long driveway whilst giving away his cover by playing Led Zeppelin IV as loudly as was possible. It was a tough calculation, because Babe was a genius of pot, but he couldn’t keep a damn secret, and lo and behold he had dragged along with him a dark shadow in the human form of Eugene Roe. They came up the driveway in a big old Ford pickup that rattled its rust off in the potholes. Liebgott had dismantled the traps specially for their arrival when they had called from Williamsport to say they were an hour out.

“I figured we could use a medical professional to lend some credibility to the operation,” said Babe thoughtfully, sparking a joint on the porch over sweating jam jars of iced tea.

Roe snorted or something but it wasn’t really a normal person’s self-effacing laugh. Winters clapped his back. Nixon knew Roe had dropped out of medical school after two years but there was no need to say anything. Everyone knew that. Now he was working construction and Babe claimed to be working as a mechanic in a garage, but this seemed suspect given the state of the car they had driven up in.

“Well we sure as hell are glad you boys are here,” said Dick magnanimously.

Babe exhaled an opaque cloud that rivaled Nix’s own father’s ability with a stogie. “Can we see the bush?”

They went out all together to the field and ducked between the rows of corn. Babe knelt in the soil. It was damp with dew and quiet in here. It would have been almost like over there except it smelled good. “What’s the cross,” Babe said, inspecting the plants.

“It’s an indica blend…”

“Well, I can tell that,” he said.

“So you’re an expert on the plant now too?”

“I’ve just smoked an awful lot of joints in my life, Captain Nixon.”

Roe snorted again. When they all looked to him he said, “You said in the letter there was some kind of altruistic reason for all this.”

“It’s medicine, Gene,” Babe said gently, but also like they had had this conversation thirty thousand times. Nix filed away for later the intimation that Roe had read the letter he’d sent Babe at home in South Philadelphia.

“I guess you don’t remember the psychic break you had at the Do Lung Bridge.”

Babe waved this remark off, even though Nix remembered it too. It threw a chill down his back, like a water balloon had hit him at the base of his neck. “That was laced,” Babe said.

“With what!”

“I don’t know! Something bad!” Babe turned to Dick and Nix. “Gene’s teetotal,” he said, like this was a big old point of contention.

So that counted out the bad acid. Maybe he was just like this. Maybe he had had those big sad bug eyes as a child or an infant or a fetus in the womb. “Good on you, Doc,” Nix said.

“I ain’t trying it,” Roe said, folding his arms over his narrow chest, “no matter what it does.”

The doc was a tough cookie. Babe had claimed, over there, about as high as the Byrds song, that the doc came from a long line of the kind of folks described in Dr. John’s “Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya” and that, as such, he could heal wounds with his mind. When it didn’t work, as on the night when Jackson died, or the night when Hoobler died, or in the forest when Muck and Penkala died, or the night when Liebgott stopped speaking, he went to sit for a while on the edge of camp until Dick went over and made him eat something. Nix watched them in a state of confused envy, and then he went to write the letters to the families, so that Dick wouldn’t have to.

At dusk, after they ate a light dinner of corn on the cob and rice and beans, he took the boys up into the hayloft with an armful of blankets. “Sorry this is the best we got,” he said. He had said that about a hundred god damn times since they got here.

Roe looked like he wanted to say, you’ve got to stop apologizing for everything. Instead he said, “Where does Lieb sleep.”

Babe perked up. “Joe’s here?”

“You didn’t see him in the driveway?”

Nix sighed. “He’s gonna want to know what he did wrong that you saw him,” he said.

“Does he still — ”

Nix shook his head. “Not a peep.”

In a couple days time, he couldn’t take it anymore, and he was hot and tired and stoned, up to his elbows in earth in the field, showing Babe how to replant the hatchlings he’d grown from seed. “You guys room together or what?”

“Me and Gene?” Babe’s eyes were red in the corners from smoking and from the sun. “What about you and Dick?”

Dick, who had the radio on inside turned up as loud as it would go, so that they would hear it in the field, playing Crosby Stills and Nash doing “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.” “What about me and Dick?” said Nix.

Babe was a smart kid. He realized this was going nowhere. With muddy hands he popped one of the seedlings out of its little pot and cradled it into the ground. “Well, I think he thinks he’s looking after me, but in actuality, I am looking after him.”

[dweemeister]

When Worlds Collide (1951)

Stop-motion animator György Pál Marczincsak garnered pan-European fame for his pioneering Puppetoons series of short films in the 1930s. Sensing tumult in continental Europe, he fled his native Hungary to Britain as the Nazis rose to power in Germany. With the assistance of Walter Lantz (the creator of Woody Woodpecker), he moved to the United States, changed his name to George Pal, and attained American citizenship. In America, Puppetoons resumed with Paramount Pictures’ financing until 1948. Puppetoons, unlike most stop-motion films, utilized “replacement animation” – a form of stop-motion animation where a new hand-carved, wooden puppet would be used for each photographed frame rather than modifying the same figure for each successive frame. Though Paramount discontinued the series due to its increasing costs, Pal nevertheless remained in good standing with the moviegoing public and the studio’s executives. Transitioning from an animator/director to producer, George Pal took an interest in a genre that – since the silent era’s end – had been relegated to low-budget serial films and comic book stands.

As the world’s nations shuffled to take sides for the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union’s greatest engineering and scientific minds were imagining new possibilities in aerospace. The renewed interest in space flight and scientific discovery led to Paramount’s Destination Moon (1950), produced by Pal. Destination Moon was the first film released by a major American studio to consider a speculative human landing on the Moon. For Pal’s follow-up, he purchased a science fiction property gathering dust at Paramount. The property: When Worlds Collide, based on Edwin Balmer and Philip Wylie’s novel of the same name. With acclaimed cinematographer Rudolph Maté (1928’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, 1940’s Foreign Correspondent) as director and providing aesthetic expertise, When Worlds Collide is the origin of all subsequent apocalyptic movies where a celestial body smashes into another celestial body. In two inconsistent films that deem their characters’ humanity as secondary, George Pal rejuvenated an entire film genre in the United States – and Hollywood has never looked back.

In South Africa, astronomer Dr. Emery Bronson (Hayden Rorke) instructs American pilot David Randall (Richard Derr) to pass along confidential, unsealed photographs and research to his American counterpart, Dr. Cole Hendron (Larry Keating). Drs. Bronson and Hendron will warn the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) that a star named Bellus will strike and destroy Earth within a year. Shortly before the projected impact, Bellus’ sole orbiting planet, Zyra, will pass by Earth close enough to wreak gravitational and geologic devastation before the Earth’s ultimate destruction. Bronson and Hendron thus propose the construction of human spaceships – “arks” – to transport human survivors to Zyra just before Bellus arrives. The astronomers are not taken seriously by the UNSC. However, private donors such as wheelchair-bound businessman Sidney Stanton (John Hoyt) provide the necessary funds for the ark’s construction. 

Various arks are assembled across Earth, but When Worlds Collide concentrates on the effort spearheaded by Drs. Bronson and Hendron and financed by Stanton. This American ark will also include co-pilot, Dr. George Frye (Stephen Chase), and Dr. Hendron’s daughter/assistant, Joyce (Barbara Rush). Joyce is attracted to David because 1950s science-fiction films always seem to have an obligatory romance.

With an acting lineup filled with B-movie stalwarts and future television stars (who may be recognizable by those who know their ‘50s-‘70s television), When Worlds Collide is hindered by stiff line readings and an emphasis on the mission rather than its human characters. Screenwriter Sydney Boehm (1952’s The Atomic City, 1953’s The Big Heat) has written a procedural screenplay, one where decisions about the ark’s construction, its flightpath, and the selection of its passengers are the film’s primary drama. From that screenplay, only John Hoyt, as the irascible Sydney Stanton, distinguishes himself in the film with his patrician sneering. Disaster films and invasion literature during and prior to the mid-twentieth century typically did not privilege individual viewpoints, and that trends continues in When Worlds Collide.

That is to the film’s benefit and its detriment. It is a mechanical motion picture, with the occasional reminders that humanity, collectively, is staring down its certain destruction. Once Drs. Bronson and Hendron have made their presentation to the UNSC, every character in the film is henceforth defined by the looming apocalypse. Whatever lives they lived outside their work are extinguished in service of constructing the arks. All over the construction facility, numerous signs read:

WASTE ANYTHING EXCEPT TIME TIME IS OUR SHORTEST MATERIAL

The privileged few tasked with the ark’s construction and its piloting are but a fraction of a fraction of humanity. Even among the several hundred persons (unsurprisingly, due to a complete lack of imagination, they are all white) involved, everyone reacts differently to the situation they all share. Some are despairing, believing they have not lived a fulfilling life; some commit to their final purpose, subsuming their emotions in service of a space age Noah’s ark; some are possessive, concluding that their involvement with the ark makes them more worthy than others to embark the ship come doomsday. With precision, the elements comprising the ark’s first and final flight are assembled. Perhaps the most unrealistic aspect of When Worlds Collide is the uncritical adherence to the scientists by the faceless masses who construct the ark (the scientists’ hand-picked survivors are few, but these individuals’ placement on the ark is somehow never questioned). Interpersonal and inter-group conflict does not appear until far later than is realistic – the film’s romantic triangle is devoid of comprehensible motivation other than the fact that the film’s top-billed actor and actress should end up together somehow. Anyways, When Worlds Collide is not depicting a humanity akin to Star Trek at its most utopian. Thus, one must assume there will be at least some level of destructive human ego that confounds the ultimate task. Here the film falters, as the characters become the means to the end.

Maté and Pal choose not to show Zyra’s passing and Bellus’ catastrophic impact. Only their aftermaths are shown. On paper, any similar decision in a modern apocalyptic movie would be hounded across the Internet – but it works for When Worlds Collide. Here, the aftermath of Zyra’s passing is portrayed in a montage of film miniatures, matte paintings (mostly of the ark and its surroundings), and tactful slow-motion. With no computer-generated imagery to assist these scenes, the special effects team outdo themselves. Special effects artists Harry Barndollar (1946’s Cloak and Dagger, 1956’s The Ten Commandments) and Gordon Jennings (1942’s Reap the Wild Wind, 1953’s War of the Worlds) contributed to the miniature-heavy montage of Zyra’s approach. Their colleague, artist Chesley Bonestell (known as the “Father of Modern Space art”, Bonestell also worked on 1941’s Citizen Kane, Destination Moon, and 1953’s War of the Worlds) provided the novel idea of the ark beginning its launch on a one-mile mostly horizontal ramp (the miniature of this ramp was an enormous 700 feet long) rather than the conventional vertical launch.

Zyra’s approach is visceral terror in its timing (the effects are felt several seconds after scientific projections), sharp editing, and mass bedlam. Where the impacting sun will vaporize the Earth’s remaining inhabitants instantly, the passing planet will leave survivors left to wander or repair, perhaps futilely, the pre-apocalyptic wreckage. When Worlds Collide’s final minutes are special effects wizardry, partially redeeming the film of its ill-conceived storytelling and sketchy science. Yet, there could have been more in the film’s final minutes. George Pal envisioned a scene featuring an ark miniature resting on the surface of Zyra. Due to success of Destination Moon, Paramount expedited When Worlds Collide and rejected Pal’s request for an additional $5,000 (almost $50,000 in 2020’s USD) to cap off the Zyra scene. This forced Pal to utilize a Bonestell concept painting instead for Zyra’s surface – and it is too obviously concept art.

When Worlds Collide solidified George Pal as one of Hollywood’s best producers, and Pal already set his eyes on a sequel: After Worlds Collide (based on the novel’s sequel of the same name). But the failure of Conquest of Space (1955) led Paramount to nix the idea. The coming decade saw the Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States and an explosion in American science-fiction films. Whether these 1950s sci-fi features contained spacefaring, exploration, or alien invasions, they invariably influenced succeeding entries into the genre that have made it dominant in contemporary Hollywood. George Pal, as a producer uniquely suited to special effects animation, became a science fiction and fantasy film innovator in the second half of his career. When Worlds Collide, though seemingly primeval compared to its sci-fi contemporaries a decade or so after, was fortuitous in its timing and for having George Pal as its producer.

My rating: 7/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

[umbralich]

Get to know me

Rules: Always post the rules. Tag 11 new people you’d like to know better.

1. Dogs or Cats?

I like both, I’ve had both and I’m perhaps a bit more cat person nowadays. Still dogs will always have a special place in my heart. Especially German shepherd dogs. They’re actual people in dog form, I swear.

2. YouTube celebrities or normal celebrities?

I’m not into either. Though if I had to pick one, then maybe normal. I may be old-fashioned, but I find it quite odd one can become famous by just filming their everyday life instead of being an actor in a movie, writing a book or composing an album.

3. If you could live anywhere where would that be?

Japan. Sure, every country has their own problems, but in Japan I like how they generally seem to appreciate nature, their community, healthy food and work still has value. Their street fashion also seems to be so multicolored I’d fit in pretty well, unlike in my current country.

4. Disney or DreamWorks?

I’m not a fan of either, but if I had to choose, definitely DreamWorks. One: they make better movies and more original ones, and two: I’ve never understood the Disney hype anyway.

5. Favourite childhood TV show?

Power Rangers. Though watched later also the original, Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, and it was a lot better than the US version. Recommending warmly!

6. The movie you’re looking forward to most in 2020?

Usually the more some franchise has sequels the more skeptical I’m becoming of their quality. However, I’m a fan of the first three Saw movies and Valak is definitely squad goals, so I was thinking of going and watching The Organ Donor and Conjuring 3.

7. Favourite book you read in 2019?

I still haven’t finished it thanks to a certain MMO, but I have The complete fiction of H.P. Lovecraft on the go.

8. Marvel or DC?

I don’t like either, I’m not into superheroes. I also have the same problem with Marvel as I have with Disney: the hype. It’s so unfathomable it has distanced me. Though DC has Watchmen and Rorschach was amazing in the movie, so I guess DC?

9. If you choose Marvel favourite member of the X-Men? If you choose DC favourite Justice League member?

Uh... the what? *googles Justice League* ..... I have no clue who these characters are, haha. They’re all so muscular... and pretty... and hero-looking... urgh. I think I’m feeling a bit sick. Where’s the villain I can be salty about when they die? And why isn’t Rorschach on the list? He’s the hero I deserve!

10. Night or Day?

Definitely night. Feeling like a corpse during days, and once it becomes dark it’s like “LET ME SING YOU THE SONG OF MY PEOPLE.”

11. Favourite Pokemon?

I have to choose just one? Mismagius, Haunter, Kadabra, Mewtwo, Espeon, Umbreon, Houndoom, Suicune, Mightyena, Absol, Darkrai, Cofagrigus, Zoroark, Chandelure, Hydreigon, Reshiram, Mimikyu, Corviknight, Zacian

12. Top 5 bands:

Beast in Black, Kamijo, Heilung, Nox Arcana, Nightwish.

13. Top 10 books.

The Witcher series, Assassin’s apprentice + sequels, all Dragonlance books with Raistlin and Dhamon saga (except the 4th one; it sucked so bad I’m pretending I didn’t see anything and it doesn’t exist), The Shining, Pet Sematary, The complete fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. I’m quite picky with my books, but I guess that still makes even more than 10 books.

14. Top 4 movies

Pet Sematary (1989), Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead, Scary Movie 3. No matter how many times I watch these they just keep getting better.

15. America or Europe?

I’m evenhandedly disliking both for having an uncontrollable infestation of nazis, flat earthers, climate change skeptics, LGBT-phobes and religious fanatics either killing people or slowing down or banning basically anything that would be an improvement to someone else’s life except themselves. If we had inhabited other planets I would’ve been out of this disgrace of the universe eons ago. (:

16. Tumblr or Twitter?

Both are good, though personally I like tumblr more, since you can fit more stuff in posts. Though the new censorship and porn bot problem are beyond ridiculous.

17. Pro-choice or Pro-life?

Pro-choice. Duh.

18. Favourite YouTuber?

Cryo Chamber, Rapid Liquid and Li Ziqi. Especially Rapid Liquid’s quality content sums up perfectly what’s going on inside of my head when it’s not full of night terror creatures.

19. Favourite author ?

Either Andrzej Sapkowski (the Witcher), Robin Hobb (Assassin’s apprentice) or Stephen King. Can’t decide.

20. Tea or Coffee?

This... must be the most difficult question I’ve ever heard. What a horrendous sacrilege to even ask such. I couldn’t live without either.

21. OTP ?

I’ve never understood and most probably never will understand the fascination of pairings. Seems to me like everyone else are hyper excited of watching the grass grow and I’m just like ?? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ??? ?

22. Do you play an instrument/sing ?

I used to play piano when I was a kid, but then I got Playstation and I quit. Nowadays I have an ocarina, and can play A Place to Call Home and Black Mage Village from FFIX and Lilium from Elfen Lied. Would love to learn to play cello once I find some energy, time and money to get started.

---

Tagged by @sakuyamori and @lareine-kira

Tagging: @hangedemperor , @kyrie-silverwings , @paleshadeofrose , @roxinova​ , @haila-wetyios​ , @a-sharlayan-abroad​ , @trahja-tia​ , @muted-howl​ , @eorzeasfrozenknight​ , @under-the-blood-moonlight​ & @kiara-nocturne​

[fus-ro-nah]

Tag Game

Tagged by: @historicfailure Thank you for the tag! (Sorry it’s taken me so long- I’ve been swamped atm ^^”

1. Do you create playlists for your stories or characters?

Tbh, I waffle about on this. I toss them around in my head and have started a few, but never actually made a complete playlist for a character. I haven’t really considered making them for any of my stories, simply because they usually grow out of proportion and each arc will have a different theme of character growth/regression, etc.

2. What is your stance on endings that don’t end with some hope?

It honestly blows my mind as to why anyone would want a hopeless ending. I mean to each their own and people can like what they like. But for me, life sucks enough sometimes, so why would I want my escape (reading, writing, etc) to have the same negativity? It makes me feel trapped and messes with my head to have a hopeless or angsty ending. 

3. What author would you love to hear feedback from on your WIP?

No mainstream authors off the top of my head, though I wouldn’t mind some feedback or bouncing ideas off a few of my mutuals.

4. What is the genre of your WIP(s)?

UHHHH. Kinda complex because there’s different genres they each fit into. There’s generally a good dose of angst and a theme of self-acceptance or growing through circumstance. My stories also tend to center around the idea of family, whether they are through blood or through miscreants coming together and deciding they are family. There’s sometimes romance, but one of my current fics is purely about developing platonically, finding place in the character’s family, and exploring familial love rather than romantic love (though there will be romance in the sequel bc it’s a soulmate fic).

5. How do you come up with new ideas for your WIP(s)?

Honestly, it comes and goes. I’ll go through spells where I find everything inspiring new fics/scenes/characters, and then there are times when literally nothing inspires new content. Usually listening to music, watching music videos, or reading feelings-driven fanfics by other authors helps (I always have to do something with the leftover emotions they gave me, which gets my gears turning).

6. What do you use to keep all your writing on? (Scrivener, Google Docs, good old pen and paper…)

I generally just use Microsoft Word (I get a free subscription through my school, so I just use a personal account to separate creative and school-related work). Though I usually find pen and paper really good to use sometimes (also, all of my outlines and random plot ideas that may or may not be used are on paper) and the switch-up can sometimes get the creative juices flowing. I use Google Docs for beta-work, but I’m always editing others’ work and have never actually had someone else edit my own (which is why sometimes my personal stuff seems like it wasn’t edited- I put all of my editing energy into other people’s things ^^”)

7. What gave you initial inspiration for your WIP(s)?

AHAhahahaaaa.... Let’s see if I can remember.

My oneshots are inspired by whims.

Singularity was created when I was going through a really hard time. The OC I created for it (though it’s written as a reader insert) and a lot of the plot were to help me manage myself several years ago. So my emotions and desire to overcome what I was going through inspired that.

Red-Eyed was inspired by some artwork I saw here on tumblr and people liked the setup/prompt I reblogged it with, so that was pretty random.

Ill-Fated started off as a smut that grew some plot. Idk.

The Eyrie is a fic that was based off of an angsty oneshot I wrote after reading a particularly angsty chapter of End My Lonliness by @historicfailure. So it grew a backstory (I have a bad habit of thinking about the psychology and influencing histories of characters that I create ^^”) for the character and so this fic is kind of a prequel to the oneshot?

8. How long have you been working on your WIP(s)?

Singularity has been in the works for almost 4yrs off and on now, though I have only been writing it for around 9mo. The rest of my fics are 6mo or less because I have no self control.

9. What was the first thing you came up with for your WIP(s)?

For Singularity, I think it was a scene in the build-up to the final climax? I think I was waffling over a character overcoming a problem. But I don’t think it was much, because I started working on the main character next and the plot started filling in as I created him (scenes that would alter him, problems he would encounter, why he deals with certain aspects of his personality and angst-related feelings, etc).

10. Have you considered Hogwarts houses for your characters? If so, what are they?

I’m probably going to get flak for this, but I’ve never read or watched the Harry Potter series. Since it’s still on my bucket list, not yet.

11. What do you find easiest to write? (Description, dialogue, etc.)

I find dialogues the easiest to write, though action sequences are the easiest to create in my mind.

I’m too tired to put a coherent thought together, let alone think about who has/hasn’t already been tagged or would have fun doing this, so anyone who wants to, please feel free to do this! And be sure to tag me so I can read your posts!

[imagitory]

D-Views: Aladdin (with guest input!)

Hi, everyone! Welcome to another installment of D-Views, my on-going written review series where I take a look at Disney-produced and/or owned properties, as well as occasionally non-Disney films that were influenced by Disney’s success! For more of these reviews, you may consult my “Disney reviews” tag, where I’ve discussed such films as Treasure Planet, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and Dreamworks’ The Prince of Egypt!

Today I’ll be doing something a little different. In lieu of the live-action Aladdin remake premiering in less than two weeks, I decided it’d be best to re-watch the original 1992 classic, and I invited two of my good friends, Christina and Jen, to help me analyze it. I will note any of their input when it arises, and hopefully you’ll enjoy hearing three voices for the price of one!

Aladdin was released in the midst of the Disney Renaissance in the 1990′s, sandwiched between the landmark hits Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. Out of Disney’s biggest blockbusters, Aladdin is easily the most “of its time” -- it relies on pop culture references for its humor and uses era-specific slang (i.e. ”NOT!” and “Made you look!”) more than most Disney films do and features a celebrity voice in a prominent role, which was quite uncommon, compared to previous Disney projects. (The best examples I can think of prior to this was having John Hurt, Peter Ustinov, and Vincent Price play villains in The Black Cauldron, Robin Hood, and The Great Mouse Detective, but...yeah, as amazing and well-renown as those men are, they weren’t insanely popular media stars of the time the way that Robin Williams was.) One could attribute this “hipper” aspect at least in part to Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was head of Disney’s animation department at the time, and Disney CEO Michael Eisner, both of whom put a lot of focus in following what was popular and marketable. (Katzenberg later put all of his attention and focus on molding Pocahontas into a historical-fiction retelling of Romeo and Juliet as he assumed a forbidden love story would be a hit, while Eisner kicked The Rescuers Down Under to the curb a year before Beauty and the Beast came out all because it didn’t break the box office opening weekend.) Fortunately the approach paid off and Aladdin was a big success, fueling two direct-to-video sequels, a spin-off TV series, and a show at Disney’s California Adventure that transformed into a full Broadway musical. Even now it’s still very well-loved by Disney fans, many of whom are now looking forward to the live-action remake coming out this month. As my followers might know, I’m still very on-the-fence about the remake myself, as I haven’t reacted very warmly to Disney’s other recent live-action remakes, but my two cohorts Jen and Christina are much less cynical about the prospect, so hopefully any commentary we might make about what we’ve learned about the remake compared to the original will be minimal. Now that our context is framed, let’s board this magic carpet of a movie and see where it takes us!

To start with, Arabian Nights is just such a fantastic musical introduction to this story! Aladdin was the last project that lyricist Howard Ashman worked on before his premature death in 1992, and like in the rest of his work, the word play in the songs he wrote for this movie (Arabian Nights, Friend Like Me and Prince Ali) is just masterful. Arabian Nights in particular just emanates “adventure” -- it was later used as the opening theme for the Aladdin TV series, and it got me so pumped up whenever I watched it, just as much as it probably excited those who first saw the movie in theaters. Fun fact: while listening to the intro, one might notice the names Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio credited as two of the film’s screenwriters, alongside directors John Musker and Ron Clements -- down the road, Elliot and Rossio would also write the screenplay for The Road to El Dorado, join the writing team for Shrek, and be the main writing force behind the Pirates of the Caribbean films. 

As much as I rarely go for films that market themselves as comedies, I feel like Aladdin handles its comedy really well. From the beginning, we see the comedic, spontaneous tone in the peddler’s narration scene, and that tone is taken on by Gilbert Gottfried as Iago until Robin Williams reappears as the Genie later. It makes it so that, unlike Mulan where the comedy kind of starts and ends with Mushu, the comedy is a constant fixture in the story, never distracting from the plot and never feeling out of place. 

One niche interest of mine that I rarely get to delve into is color psychology, and oh BOY, does this film give me a lot to talk about there! Aladdin’s production designer, Richard Wende, used a very simple, yet striking color palette for the film that favors blues, reds, and golds. The effect is a beautifully lush setting while maintaining a “desert” feel: any greens that appear really stick out, like when Aladdin and Genie arrive in an oasis after escaping the Cave of Wonders. It also makes it so that when the background is mostly red or gold, any blue shades draw focus, or when the scene takes place at night and is mostly shades of blue, anything red or gold likewise draws focus. This post goes into the color symbolism more deeply, but generally blue is representative of good characters, while red represents evil, with gold being a sort of middle ground. Primary colors often are used in properties marketed toward children (ex. Team Valor/Instinct/Mystic in Pokemon Go, Snow White having all three colors on her dress), so it’s understandable that so many kids from the 90′s gravitated toward this movie, but the palette never feels restricted or simple. The deep, saturated fusion of reds and blues and reds and yellows creates a lot of texture despite the limited color range, and it beautifully communicates the heat of the locations and creates a unique visual style for the film. I’ve noticed that in the trailers for the remake, this color symbolism was discarded in favor of a more “Bollywood” look, not unlike how the Beauty and the Beast remake likewise ignored the color symbolism of Belle being the only villager to wear blue (which accents how much she stands apart from the crowd) and decided to dress a lot of people in blue during the opening number Belle. I can only hope the decision means the film is just choosing to make Agrabah more like India than Arabia, rather than this just being a stylistic choice with no substance, but I think the subtle color psychology in the original film is very clever short-hand for the audience, even if they’ll likely not be able to consciously express how the color palette affected their viewing experience.

As Jafar and his stooge Gazeem come across the Cave of Wonders, I’m reminded of how awesome the Cave’s design is. It was made primarily with CG animation, yet the CGI is never distracting: on the contrary, it fuses together beautifully with the rest of the hand-drawn background. Even the sandy texture on the Cave is very well rendered. Christina also noted a neat detail I hadn’t picked up on before: the tiger head has an earring in one ear, just like the Genie whose lamp lives inside the Cave!

After the Cave of Wonders devours Gazeem, declaring that it will only allow the “diamond in the rough” inside, we meet our title character and resident “diamond,” Aladdin. Voicing Aladdin is Scott Weinger, or Steve of Full House fame, who brings such charm, energy, and personality to the role. I honestly think it’d be hard for anyone else to match the sheer likability rippling out of Scott’s voice. Accompanying Weinger and Robin Williams in this stellar cast are Broadway actor Jonathan Freeman as Jafar (who has since gone on to play the character in everything from TV shows to the Broadway musical), raucous comic Gilbert Gottfried as Iago, and three voice-acting legends -- Frank Welker (who voices Shaggy and Scooby Doo) as Abu and Rajah; Jim Cummings (the current voices of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger) as Razoul; and Corey Burton (who is best known for playing Ansem the Wise in Kingdom Hearts) as Prince Tiger-Fucker Achmed. Even Jasmine, who was voiced by the at-the-time-fresh-faced actress Linda Larkin, had her singing voice done by Broadway legend Lea Salonga, fresh off her success premiering the title role in Miss Saigon. Even though many of these names aren’t celebrities like Robin Williams, and so I would hesitate to call this an “all-star cast” exactly, it doesn’t change how much talent was accrued by Disney’s casting agents! 

Unlike most main characters in a Disney musical, Aladdin doesn’t get a full solo number to call his own. Originally Howard Ashman wrote a song for Aladdin called Proud of Your Boy, where Aladdin sings to his mother (who played a large role in early drafts of the story) about how he’ll make good for her. Unfortunately the story’s focus on Aladdin and his mother’s relationship ended up taking focus away from Aladdin and Jasmine’s romance and Aladdin’s character arc to accept himself, so the screenwriters ultimately had to cut the mother character from the story, at which point the song no longer fit. The decision was very difficult for the filmmakers at the time, given that it was one of the last things Ashman wrote and it’s such a beautiful, raw song, but I ultimately think it was the right decision. Putting Aladdin on his own with no one but Abu for company and giving Jasmine no emotional support outside of her naïve, misguided father and her pet and only friend Rajah I think goes a long way to explain why they’re such kindred spirits. Aladdin and Jasmine each become the friend and support that the other needed. (This is also why Christina and I are concerned about the inclusion of a servant/friend for Jasmine, as the choice would likely weaken any rationale Jasmine could have for leaving the palace and for connecting so instantly with Aladdin.) Plus I think Aladdin’s reprise of One Jump Ahead is just as beautifully raw as Proud of Your Boy, just with a slightly different message and less words. I really feel Aladdin’s frustration and yearning for something better, and Aladdin’s singing voice Brad Kane is able to stuff so much pathos into such a short tune that a longer song isn’t even necessary. And fortunately Proud of Your Boy was later utilized in the Broadway musical version of Aladdin, so it got its dues eventually. 

At the palace, we meet our heroine, Jasmine, who was Christina’s favorite Disney character as a kid and who I personally think is the prettiest of the Disney princesses. Jasmine was designed by supervising animator Mark Henn, who modeled her after a picture of his little sister, which honestly is so sweet that I can’t stand it. What I really like about Jasmine in comparison to other Disney princesses is that she is fiery, but clever: determined, but calculating: proud, yet compassionate. It’s this balance that makes her interesting: in my mind, Jasmine is the ultimate Slytherin Disney princess (with just as Slytherin of a prince!), because unlike Ariel, she isn’t reckless in her rebellion. What’s also very cool about Jasmine is that her circumstances are a perfect contrast to Aladdin, placing them in a more romantic Prince and the Pauper set-up where they envy each other, and yet they want the same thing: freedom. In fact, all of our protagonists do -- namely, Aladdin, Jasmine, and Genie. Aladdin wants freedom from his poverty. Jasmine wants freedom from her privilege. Genie wants freedom from his purpose. They all have different cages, but they all want to be free to live their own lives, and it’s through Aladdin learning to empathize with Jasmine and Genie and see their respective prisons as clearly as his own that he grows as a character. (For a video that delves into this thought process further, please consult this piece by ScreenPrism -- it’s just beautifully done!)

Throughout the film, three animals emerge over and over -- the cobra, the elephant, and the tiger. Tigers -- which we see not only in obvious examples like Rajah and the Cave of Wonders, but also as a carving in the back of the Sultan’s throne -- are generally associated with courage and heraldry, not unlike their feline cousins, lions. The heraldry aspect I think is most relevant here -- only one who is deemed worthy, namely Aladdin, may enter the Cave of Wonders and access the wealth of kings, and when Jasmine runs away from home, she leaves Rajah, a symbol of her noble heritage, behind. Elephants in comparison are associated with wisdom and more notably royal power. In the film, Abu is transformed into an elephant steed for Aladdin when he becomes Prince Ali, and even the Sultan sits in a throne decorated with a statue of an elephant. As for the cobra, it’s entirely connected to Jafar, first as his magic scepter and then as a form Jafar takes on himself. Snakes overall are associated with many things like healing, rebirth, eternity, and the dichotomy of good and evil, but cobras specifically are the most poisonous snakes on earth. Legends even claim that Cleopatra, the last Pharaoh of Egypt, committed suicide by cobra bite. I reckon that meaning is more than enough reason for it to represent Jafar.

Through the use of a bizarre storm-making machine powered by Iago running on a treadmill-like wheel that Christina, Jen, and I thoroughly don’t understand and kind of find hilariously ridiculous, Jafar is able to discover the identity of the elusive “diamond in the rough.” He then sends the guards out to arrest Aladdin so as to coerce him into aiding him in his goal to enter the Cave, but in the process gets caught by Jasmine as he’s exiting one of the secret passages. Jen brought up the lovely point that Jafar seems to be the only person who knows about these passages in the palace, even though the Sultan presumably was raised in the palace just like Jasmine was -- this isn’t necessarily a problem, but it does make both her and me want to know the story behind this! Was Jafar basically raised in the palace too? Did Jafar partially create those passages? Were they forgotten after years of non-use and Jafar came across them by chance? It seems like there could be some fun explanation here, if someone wanted to write a fic or fan theory about it.

Okay, I really don’t want to express my concerns about the remake yet again, but I just have to say this flat-out -- there is no way that Abu in the remake could be as funny as he is in the animated film. Let’s be honest, CG characters in live-action films are almost never very charming if they’re more on the cartoony side compared to the so-called “realistic” world they’re supposed to inhabit. You can have very likable, well-developed CG characters -- just look at Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia -- but he wasn’t solely comic relief the way Abu is, and Abu’s comedy in particular relies on a lot of cartoon-like squash and stretch that would be difficult to recreate in CG for a live-action movie. Best case scenario, you’d have something like Pip in Enchanted, which is only irritating and visually out-of-place sometimes, but alternatively, you might get something like Alvin and the Chipmunks (where the humor falls flat), Dobby in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (where it’s clear he was never actually there the whole time), and/or the enchanted objects in the live-action Beauty and the Beast (where the characters end up looking creepy, like something out of the Uncanny Valley). Basically if they want Abu to work in the live-action setting, it’s likely they’d have to make him more like an actual animal, which as I said would make it so he is a lot less funny.

Anyway, not long after Abu unlocks Aladdin’s shackles, Jafar arrives to bust him out, disguised as an old man. Just as Jafar’s storm-making machine makes no sense, the three of us all concluded that his disguise makes no sense. Not only does Jafar suddenly look a good foot and a half shorter, which even with him crouching shouldn’t be possible, but he’s changed his teeth with no visible dentures (which would’ve slurred his speech anyway) and he can get rid of all of the white hair and beard he put on just by ripping off the beard in a single gesture. As Jen brought up, even the Evil Queen used a potion to turn into the Hag: if Jafar had used magic, these sort of physical changes would make sense, but he didn’t.

Back to the Cave of Wonders again, and now I get to talk about one of the most revolutionary aspects of Aladdin: the Magic Carpet. Our sweet little Carpet is a perfect fusion of CG and hand-drawn animation -- supervising animator Randy Cartwright drew the outline and tassels of Carpet with so much personality and silent comedy, and rather than have to animate Carpet’s detailed pattern in every single frame as the fabric folded and contorted, the pencil tests were handed to the CG artists, who melded the pattern perfectly to the line work, making it one perfectly cohesive character. Carpet’s pattern also has allusions to different parts of the film, including the Cave of Wonders, the magic lamp, and the flames that appear when Abu touches the red gem. Even if the technology of CG animation is much more advanced now than it was in 90s, it doesn’t change how seamless the finished result is.

As mentioned, the Cave doesn’t remain safe for our hero very long. When Abu snatches up a gem after being warned not to touch anything, the whole place starts to fall apart, raging with lava and fire. Christina brought up the question of why the Cave would allow Abu inside, since he wasn’t the diamond in the rough (yes, Abu was hidden in Aladdin’s vest, but the Cave was magical, did it really not know he was there?), but I almost wonder if it was an issue of Aladdin having trusted Abu when he shouldn’t have, which would end up being the true mistake in this scenario. Regardless, the CGI in this particular escape sequence is some of the more outdated material of the film. The flight on Carpet is still kind of fun, as it probably would make for a very exciting thrill ride, but it still looks incredibly fake, especially in comparison to other CG elements used in other scenes. Honestly, I’d say this Cave chase and the tower used in the “ends of the earth” sequence later are the worst instances of outdated CGI in this movie.

And finally, at long last, we get to the big, blue guy himself, the Genie. As much as I wouldn’t say Genie steals the show, as Aladdin has such a likable hero and heroine and an excellent villain, Jen, Christina, and I will say categorically that Aladdin would not be as good of a movie as it is without Genie and without Robin Williams. The directors Ron Clements and John Musker wrote the character with Robin in mind, but thought there’d be no way they’d ever get him -- fortunately Eric Goldberg, the supervising animator for Genie, got the idea to make an animation of Genie speaking a piece of one of Robin’s comedy routines, and the animation amazingly won Robin over and got him on board. And really, it is that flawless combination of Robin’s acting and Goldberg’s animation that really makes Genie as likable as he is. Even Robin’s humor, which still is very funny, is not what makes Genie as great of a character as he is, in my opinion -- if anything, I’d say it’s how much sincerity Robin gives the role. Genie is never a sidekick in this movie, as he has his own distinct motivations and feelings separate to the main character and their goals, and Robin just makes you feel so much for Genie and his own desire for freedom. One quote of Genie’s that has stuck with me since I was a kid thanks to Robin’s beautiful delivery is “To be my own master -- such a thing would be greater than all the magic and all the treasures in all the world.” It makes it so his humor is a sign of how resilient Genie is, despite how unhappy his circumstances are, which is something I understand very well as someone who has suffered from depression and I’m quite sure Robin himself understood very well too. I think it’s why so many people found Robin so likable and felt so much for the characters he portrayed over the years.

Speaking on Friend Like Me specifically, I’m afraid I’ll have to go off on a bit of a tangent and share a story with all of you. The day that Robin Williams passed away, I was working at the World of Color show at Disney’s Calfornia Adventure. When the Friend Like Me segment came on, I danced along to the music while in the walkway outside the show, trying to keep the grief off of my face and just make others happy, the way Robin used to. As the segment ended, everyone applauded like crazy. Then, all of a sudden, we Cast Members became aware of a strange, sputtering, almost sobbing sound. One of the show fountains in the water had gotten out of alignment and it sputtered softly in the background as the next segment (Touch the Sky) began, before after a minute slowly quieting and coming to a stop. It was as if the show was crying for Robin, this person who had given so much joy to so many people. And this, among other reasons, is why I feel so very sorry for poor Will Smith, who somehow has to try to fill the shoes that Robin wore. Jen, Christina, and I aren’t very optimistic about his prospects (I still personally might have offered the role to Wayne Brady instead, given that he can sing, he has done comedy, and he worked with Robin in the past), as even Dan Castellanetta, who voiced Genie in the Aladdin TV series, was never able to match Robin no matter how hard he tried.

On the note of Genie’s motivation, as well, we hear about it in a scene accompanied by the beautiful instrumental “To Be Free.” It’s one of my favorite pieces of instrumental music from the film, which became one of Christina’s favorite songs from the Aladdin musical, To Be Free, which is a solo sung by Jasmine. As very pretty and appropriate the song is from Jasmine, I do also really appreciate the number accompanying Genie’s monologue. The instrumental comes across as more spontaneous and thoughtful, like it’s making itself up as it goes along, until it gets to the sincere, meaningful line about freedom, at which point the melody that inspired the song To Be Free's chorus starts.

Another neat touch with Genie is his use of Yiddisms, such as “punim,” meaning face. Of course, Genie’s animator Eric Goldberg is Jewish, and the idea of Genie being Jewish as well I just find so unbelievably charming, particularly when you place him in an Arabian-like setting full of (presumably) Muslim characters, given that the Sultan at one point references Allah. Therefore Genie and Aladdin’s (adorable) friendship could be thought of as a friendship between a Jewish person and a Muslim! I think that’s really cool!

We return to the palace, where the Sultan scolds Jafar for Aladdin’s supposed execution, only for Aladdin to burst onto the scene, dressed as the dashing Prince Ali. During this scene, Christina noted the fun juxtaposition of Jafar’s fashion choices compared to the Sultan, Genie as a human, and Aladdin as Ali. All of them wear very similar robes and turbans, but the Sultan, Genie, and Aladdin wear turbans with more rounded, floppy feathers, which Jafar’s feather is sharp and straight. Aladdin’s and the Sultan’s feather even flop into their faces sometimes, whereas Jafar’s is rigid as a board. As Jen likewise pointed out, Jafar’s design gives him this pointed, slender look not unlike Dr. Facilier in future Disney project The Princess and the Frog. The shoulder pads on his shoulders also serve to give him this sort of sharp “T” shape, contrasted to the more rounded and well-proportioned characters. Couple that with a black/red color scheme that contrasts the more saintly tannish-white of the other three, and it really does communicate the “black cloud” nature that Jafar’s supervising animator Andreas Deja wanted to give the character, to compliment the “Severus Snape” level of dry sardonicism Jonathan Freeman gave the character.

Even though the Sultan is very impressed by “Prince Ali,” Jasmine most certainly is not. Genie counsels Aladdin (with a few outdated pop culture references) that he should tell her the truth -- the nice thing about the pop culture references is that, really, even if you don’t get the jokes, you can still understand them, and the jokes still drive dialogue and plot forward enough that those lines don’t feel like a waste of time. I mean, I didn’t get most of the jokes as a kid, and it didn’t hurt anything for me -- I still thought the Genie was funny because of his comedic timing and odd voices. (Oh yes, and since Jen brought this up while we were watching this -- Aladdin does not say “take off your clothes” while up on Jasmine’s balcony: the line that Weigner improvised for when Aladdin is trying to shoo Rajah away is “take off and go.” Get your brains out of the gutter.)

Fortunately Aladdin is able to soften Jasmine enough that she gives him a chance, and the two go on a magic carpet ride (a.k.a. the fastest world tour ever, as Christina described it! LOL). Accompanying this scene is, in my opinion, the single most romantic song in the Disney canon. A Whole New World was the very first song Alan Menken and Tim Rice wrote together. After the loss of his good friend and most constant collaborator, Howard Ashman, Menken was very nervous about working with someone else. Fortunately, as soon as he and Tim Rice met, they came together pretty quickly while working on the aforementioned love song, which ended up taking some inspiration from their circumstances as new collaborators in its melody and lyrics. So yes, one could listen to this song and some of its lines -- a new, fantastic point of view -- but when I’m way up here, it’s crystal clear that now I’m in a whole new world with you -- unbelievable sights, indescribable feelings -- with new horizons to pursue -- every moment, red letter -- let me share this whole new world with you -- as being not just about these two characters falling in love, but also about a brand new, exciting friendship.

Aladdin and Jasmine connect, Jafar is banished from the palace, and the Sultan blesses Jasmine’s decision to court “Prince Ali” -- but yeah, just as everything looks like everything’s coming up roses, things start to fall apart when Aladdin breaks his promise to set Genie free. (Another fun story: when I first saw this scene in the Aladdin Musical Spectacular at Disney California Adventure way back in the day, I couldn’t stop myself from yelling “BOO!” from the audience. The people around me giggled. Then the actor playing Genie, without looking away from the actor playing Aladdin, raised a hand and pointed out at the audience. “You hear that?” he said. “That’s my THOUGHTS.” I died laughing.) But yes, thanks to Aladdin’s mistake, Jafar is able to take advantage of the situation and snatch Genie for himself, singing his own quasi-solo, Prince Ali (reprise). Like Aladdin, Jafar doesn’t get a full number to call his own, but fortunately he doesn’t end up needing one: Prince Ali (reprise) is more than powerful enough on its own, and it concludes with the most amazing, deranged laugh in Disney history. Really, as good as some other Disney villain laughs are, I would say that Jafar’s is easily the best.

Jafar becomes the Sultan of Agrabah, imprisoning both Jasmine and the Sultan and banishing Aladdin to the ends of the earth. Even if Jasmine’s a prisoner, though, she is no damsel: in Christina’s words, she’s the Princess Leia to Jafar’s Jabba the Hutt, clever and proud as ever and ready to do whatever is necessary to break free...even if it means kissing our villain in order to distract him long enough for Aladdin to try to snatch back the lamp. (Insert a cringe from all three of us here.) Alas, the ruse fails, and Jafar discovers that Aladdin has returned alive and well. The “Battle” track used for this climax is just epic accompaniment, easily being up there among some of the best “final confrontation” instrumental tracks in Disney history like Sleeping Beauty’s “Battle With the Forces of Evil” and The Great Mouse Detective’s “Big Ben Chase.” The visuals as well are also thrilling -- speaking as someone with acute ophidiophobia, Jafar turning into a giant cobra is pretty terrifying.

Despite all of the odds being against him, our diamond in the rough street rat nonetheless is able to outsmart Jafar, and Jafar, tricked into the form of a Genie, is imprisoned in his own pitch black lamp, possessing all of the power he longed for but ignorantly sacrificing the power of autonomy he had already. (As Jen said, and I quote, “Karma, bitch!”) I just adore how Aladdin outwitted Jafar too: not only does it really suit his Slytherin personality to win through craftiness rather than just brute force, but it also perfectly showcases the difference between Aladdin and Jafar: namely, that Aladdin knows empathy, and Jafar does not. Jafar only sees what Genie has that he doesn’t have, supreme magical power, and longs to possess it -- Aladdin sees Genie’s circumstances fully and knows that he is both amazingly powerful in a magical sense and utterly powerless when it comes to making his own choices.

Accompanying the film’s resolution is the beautiful instrumental “Happy End in Agrabah,” which dips into lighthearted whimsy, resignation, bittersweet joy and exhilaration, alongside echoes of both “To Be Free“ and A Whole New World. Aladdin gives Genie his greatest desire -- his freedom -- and in the process makes, in Jen’s words, the most selfless wish you could make...for only a diamond in the rough would make a wish for someone else, not for himself. And as Jen also pointed out, the Sultan follows Aladdin’s lead, giving Jasmine her freedom just as Aladdin gave Genie his. Our story ends with all of our protagonists earning the freedom that they’ve so longed for -- the freedom to achieve their own happiness -- through their love of each other.

Aladdin may be very “of its era” from a humor point of view, but it’s a movie that truly becomes more resonant with age. When Jen, Christina, and I were kids, we all enjoyed this movie’s flights of fantasy, humor, characters, and songs, but as adults, we can feel for these characters and their desire for freedom more than ever. We can understand how similar these individual characters are, and how even though they’re all in different prisons with different advantages and disadvantages, they all need the same key to unlock their cages -- love and empathy. However much the new Aladdin film diverges from the animated version, I only hope that they remember that core of the movie and how it is integrated into the entire story, from how much Aladdin wishes people would “look closer” when looking at him to Genie’s last words to Aladdin being that “no matter what anybody says, [Aladdin will] always be a prince to [Genie.]” And if it doesn’t, well, we still have the 1992 original...

...and Christina, Jen, and I give that movie three thumbs up!

[beyond-far-horizons]

My thoughts on Last Jedi, the backlash and its relation to the archetypal storytelling of the Star Wars Saga.

I have been trying to gather my thoughts on this film, the reaction and the Sequels in general. My overall reaction, after two viewings, some reflection and looking at both sides, is the same as it was when I first saw it - mixed. But given how much the series means to me and others I think analysing our reactions is important.

Spoilers for Star Wars including TFA and TLJ and the film Labyrinth. This is my opinion - repeat just my opinion and won’t be tagged because I don’t want to get into a fan war or debate. Aggressive attempts to do so will just be blocked so play nice ;) Warning for a long-ass post.

Let’s start with what I liked -

It was fun overall. 

The opening fight with Poe was amazing, fast, funny and emotional.

More Poe was a good thing (mostly) and his dynamic with Leia was great - I loved that they had a headstrong male pilot with Leia as his mentor. I also liked the fan observation that Leia puts up with some of his antics because he’s like the son she should/could have had (no disrespect to Ben/Kylo.) Oscar Issac even notes the maternal relationship and that is super cute. 

Leia - nice to see her more front and centre - a general, a stateswoman, a force-user (yes), a mother, a sister and still looking fabulous. Carrie will be missed so much. I grieve for her, her family and for the story we could have gotten in Ep 9.

That moment between Leia and Kylo - sad face.

Rey, Kylo/Ben and Reylo - very happy they went in this direction. I can understand certain people’s/groups misgivings about this when projecting a RL dynamic on it, however the large section of us that enjoy this dynamic, I believe, do so on an archetypal level - which is primarily what Star Wars is about. The fairy tale, the myth - the Light and Darkness battling it out to transcend the opposites in the end. I loved their connection (even though the cuts were quite modern), I always adore it when the hero/heroine and villain start off hating each other, are opposed to each other and then gradually find parallels and similarities, and since ESB, Star Wars has always been fantastic in finding that Yin Yang and Jungian Shadow concept. The way they show the dangers of the path - that Rey could make the same mistakes as Ben and therefore why she wants to save him, just as Luke did with Anakin. It’s so human. The acting was fantastic, the moments soft and then intense - I loved the ‘Force skypes’ and the Throne Room scene. Indeed that application of the Force was just an extension of Luke and Vader in ESB and in a deleted scene in Jedi too. Also as sad and heartbreaking as it was I’m so glad Rey did reject him and didn’t give into his bullshit. I can sympathise with him but she didn’t compromise herself and that is so important. Like in the film Labyrinth at the end, Rey chooses her own sovereignty and morality despite temptation and it was the right thing to do. Also I feel (without getting too RL and social justice on this) women are often seen as the always loving, forgiving redeemers, the healers, the saviours and the nurturers - a powerful archetype that can sometimes be in play but also can be terribly damaging when constantly applied. No person can forever hold the weight of an archetype and in some cases shouldn’t, no matter how sad it is. Rey did her best but Ben ultimately needs to save himself, to make that choice as Vader did and that can be a hard pill to swallow especially when we see he hasn’t got the critical mass (yet) within himself to do it. 

Rey - in two minds given how TLJ treated plot points from TFA - but I continue to love her spirit and vulnerability as well as her moments of humour. 

The Throne Room confrontation was fricking epic! I loved it and I loved seeing the Battle Couple/Back to Back Badasses/Dark and Light take on the guards.

Rose - not so keen on the plotline but the character was adorable and we need more like her. It was also special for me because for years when I was training to be an actress in London, the friend who let me live with her for minimal rent had a Far East background and looked like Rose and always struggled to get decent parts despite her talent and tenacity. Seeing the hope and inspiration Rose gave to her in her career recently was amazing. 

The planets!!! Ahch-To and Crait just blew me away - oceans and islands - check, crystals, deserts and rock formations - check. Glorious!

Those crystal foxes!

I will always be a Reylo fan but Finn and Rey still have a special place in my heart and that hug at the end was gorgeous. If they get together at the end it’s okay with me as long as I can have some Reylo resolution too. 

Rey and Poe finally meeting. Okay I’m Reylo, I like Finn and Rey…but I always liked the idea of Rey and Poe too - yes I can have my cake and eat it thank you. 

The Supremacy - I may consider joining the Dark Side if I can have that ship!

The Codebreaker - there’s always a place in Star Wars for crafty grey characters and I liked DJ, not 100% keen on where they went with it but I liked him.

Holdo’s sacrifice - amazing  - those shots and that silence - just epic.

The initial idea of Luke as a hermit and the Balance which they sort of went with and then…hmm we’ll talk about that next!

Things I didn’t like or thought could have been handled in another way - 

This is interesting and has taught me a lot about how we project ourselves onto stories and what we do or do not get or expect to get out of a story. As we know this film has caused huge dissension and rather than throw crap at people - I respect they have their opinions - I want to analyst mine and other’s responses and find out why. I’ll note my personal reactions and then the issues that may have contributed to such a division.

Luke’s arc - I can see the de-constructivist allure of having Luke fail and why some people have taken heart from that message but as Mark Hamill has said it just isn’t Luke to me. As for him trying, even in a moment, to kill his nephew and best friend’s son after he was willing to sacrifice himself and everything else for his ideals to show his father - Darth freaking Vader -  a better way, also doesn’t ring true. Then to abandon the Republic/Rebellion for the First Order to take over - nah…If they want me to buy it, they need to give me more than what we got.

Admiral Holdo - ugh. I see what they were trying to do but if you have to withhold plans and make a character hold the Idiot Ball for you to do a plot twist it just doesn’t work. Also the whole feminist message was patronising and I say this as a woman and lifelong feminist. Treating men like idiots isn’t going to make them respect you. Also as others have pointed out, Leia was already a trope-breaking example of this done in a much better way in ANH. People were making the point that Holdo was soft and feminine and that’s why Poe and the menfolk in RL didn’t like her or feel she could have been in the military. I’m all for surprising people and frankly she can wear what she wants even though it was incredibly impractical but as an actress I noticed in her physicality she does not convince as someone of any gender who has been in a military force let alone in command. It does something to the way you stand and behave that she didn’t have and putting examples like her in only undermines the progressive course to me. 

Godspeed? God fricking speed?! We are in a Galaxy far far away! It’s the Force you idiot! Also ugh her and Leia just sounded like they were at a socialites party in the US not Star Wars when they say goodbye. I’m so up for female bonds and unexpected characters and roles but it was handled badly in my opinion - an example of shock value, not well thought out world-building. 

Snoke - WTF? Don’t build him up just to kill him off early! He is the reason all the shit in the Galaxy has happened - the return of the Dark Side, the corruption of Ben Solo, Luke’s Hobo arc - how does he link to the OT or even the Prequels (it’s a saga remember - a family saga, themes etc). To kill him now, without those answers, undermines the whole plot and undermines Kylo Ben as a result. Snoke was the reason he did all those heinous things, Leia says in the book he has been essentially grooming her son since he was in the womb (gross!). The OT draws out the Emperor until ROTJ and the Prequels spend 3 movies giving us insights on his dynamic with Anakin that primes us to understand (despite poor execution at times IMO) Anakin’s fall to the Dark side. We have none of this for Kylo bar a few hints. This lends weight to the accusation he is a pathetic, whiney (angry, privileged, white) boy who turned to the Dark Side cos Mummy and Daddy (our OT heroes) didn’t love him enough. Then we are given a vague flashback that Luke Skywalker of all people wanted to kill him for an instant and yeah…it doesn’t do anyone - Kylo, Snoke, Leia, Han or Luke - a service. Plus the ridiculousness of Kylo and Hux at the end undermines the finale and the hopes for Episode 9. I admit Snoke freaked me the f out - the undertones of the child molester/evil guru were strong and might have been a bit too much for kids but hell a good writer could have found a way to develop it properly without being too full on. 

Canto Bight - Finn and Rose. It was…okay…but again I could see the message loud and clear and there’s a difference between an archetypal mythic theme and hitting someone on the head with identity politics. Also I loved Finn and Poe’s dynamic and Finn and Rey’s dynamic in TFA - I wanted more of that. The plot arc just didn’t interest me or feel woven into the main plot as much as I wanted it to. And that sucks because Finn and Rose were cool and it was groundbreaking for Star Wars to include them in their own arc. Due to the lacklustre scenario I felt Finn wasn’t utilised enough. I felt he was slightly short changed by TFA and TLJ didn’t really shift that for me.

The Crait Plan - why not tell people the plan? To have it suddenly appear like a Deus Ex machina was shoddy esp when the First Order find out immediately anyway.

Leia’s Superman impression. It was a shocker and beautifully filmed. Extra poignant when remembering Carrie’s loss but…it’s not Star Wars! There’s a difference in developing the world-building and the magic system (I know this as a writer) and crapping all over it to introduce something ‘cool’. I have wanted Leia to use the Force since ROTJ. I would have totally been down with her using it here (like Nynaeve in The Wheel of Time) when she finally surrenders to this mystical power she doesn’t understand (and likely associates in her heart with Vader) in the face of her political and military might being crushed. It had the potential to be such a beautiful moment. She could have been in a pod or something and then dragged the exploding pieces back together - that would have been in line with previous Force users - Yoda, Dooku, Vader. But to be exploded into space where the vacuum alone could kill you, lack of air, cold etc etc and then fly like Superman just felt so wrong. Yes you need to suspend your disbelief to watch SF/F but the created world needs internal consistency (look up Tolkien’s On Fairy Tales or Mark Wolfe - Building Imaginary Worlds: The Theory and History of Subcreation or the Laws of Sanderson for confirmation on this.)

Luke’s Force Projection and Death - it was beautiful and shocking (again) but (again) didn’t ring true with Star Wars for me even with the call-backs to the Binary Sunset and Obi-Wan’s cloak. Those just made me sadder. If they wanted to make it more Star Wars, more full circle, then why doesn’t he do a proper Obi Wan - face Kylo and become one with the Force in their duel? Also I just felt there was so much more for him to do, so much more to be shown and frankly as much as I love the Sequel characters, I and most of us are here because of the OT characters. This is and always was Luke’s story. We care about Anakin initially because of his connection to Luke even if he wasn’t really in the Prequels, so to have him go out that way and have so little relevance ultimately to the story of the Sequels just felt wrong. I’m not ready for this to be fully Rey’s story yet as much as I like her and what she brings to it. 

There was no real training arc - Luke didn’t even finish his third lesson to Rey. I would have loved to have seen Luke and Rey training and duelling. This also highlighting the unfortunately implication that Rey is a little bit of a Mary Sue and I hate that. The Force just made her awesome - again not consistent with Star Wars. Anakin and Luke, even after training, get their asses handed to them by Dark sider users. Yes Kylo had handicaps and Snoke does well to highlight them in TLJ but it would have been much better to either have had her train under Luke before and had her memory wiped or be trained now to account for her aptitude. It undermines her positive points as a character and it is irritating now to look back at TFA and see her so good at everything just..because…

A main point many people have pointed out - TLJ doesn’t respect the plot points and setups of TFA. This is worse than not respecting the previous trilogies because it’s bad storytelling and each episode is supposed to reinforce the arc of the others. Sure Lucas made similar mistakes but Abrams, Johnson and Disney had years of reflection and fan reaction to draw upon to make sure that didn’t happen and mostly in the OT Lucas made it work to a point they do make senseas whole. Why aren’t Disney and co making these stories to fit each other? They are a trilogy - a beginning, middle and end, not an opportunity for each director to ‘make their mark’ on Star Wars or ‘bring something different’. That’s like hiring a new director for each LOTR film! Again people can cite upending expectations but this was throwing out substance for the sake of shock value and that never works. The Vader plot-twist worked because it deepened the story, the plot-twists that Snoke and Rey’s force sensitivity and parentage don’t matter cheapened it. For the record I liked her parents being nobodies but we don’t get to see her explore that and JJ drops numerous Chekhov’s Guns about Rey’s background in TFA - Han, Leia and Kylo’s reactions to her, Maz’s talk, her visions, Luke’s reaction - that all now looks stupid. Kylo lets an officer go after his tantrum then force grabs him as soon as he mentions a girl. This and his latter interactions with Rey, esp in the novel, make him look like a desperate virgin that has never been exposed to a human female before. 

Phasma - where art thou?

I could go on but those are the main points.

Now to the deeper issues -

Most of us loved the Original Trilogy and while we want to repeat the magic  - to have the same but different - that story was essential told. It has a poignant, satisfying ending - Luke redeems Vader, the Empire is defeated, the Jedi are reborn, Leia and Han get together. It reached a natural conclusion and that conclusion gave it its power. That is a lesson that many of us and especially the entertainment industry don’t want to learn, hence why they milk franchises and stories until they mean nothing. Just as death gives life meaning so does the ending to a good story. However I have always been intrigued by a Sequel trilogy because it was something Lucas toyed with for a long time. I heard rumours of Leia and Han’s children in a forest scene for years and that was so magical! What happened next?! Lucas was notorious for tinkering with his creations and then saying he planned it that way all along (read Star Wars - A Secret History for confirmation and also an amazing insight into the creative development.) As an aside I think that part of the creative process is that it evolves and it interests me how many directions and stories could be told branching from A New Hope, ESB, Jedi and then even TFA. The stories that different groups wanted to be told and the story we got. However something that lent more weight to the Sequel idea was also Lucas’s inspiration of Flash Gordon, Buck Rodgers and those old sci-fi serials that suggested the story could have gone on for episodes before you arrived in the cinema and continued long after, so I was interested to see if they could make it happen. Perhaps it would have been better done years earlier so the original leads could have had a more active role or set in the future so their legacy would have held longer but this is a family saga so…

Despite their love for Star Wars and its superficial appeal I’m not sure JJ Abrams, Rian Johnson and Disney understand the core of Star Wars and the archetypal themes underpinning it. This is the absolute core of the issues with Sequels (the Prequels) for me - I think it could have worked despite everything else but you need to understand the archetypal motif which is textbook Star Wars. A fantastic book that illustrates this is Star Wars - The Magic of Myth. I think they got bits of it but they didn’t really understand the whole and had other agendas in play that meant the worthwhile messages in Leia/Poe/Holdo, Finn/Rose and Luke/Rey’s storylines were lost, dissonant or just sledge-hammered in without respecting the characters, plot or themes. I was so looking forward to seeing a development in the mythos of the Light/Dark sides of the Force and the Balance - how acknowledging anger, abandonment and desire for power and control aka the Shadow, can help you understand yourself and the human experience but not(like Kylo did) by giving into it. This understanding grants you Balance and Transcendence - a true expression of the Jungian Individuation process and the Taoism way that Star Wars was inspired by. This could have been accomplished even with Luke going off to be a hermit which is counter to his character as Mark Hamill stressed. If you want a new story you need to set up conflict and this would have been a great conflict for a more mature Luke to have - that the Dark Side will always return in some way, so how does one counter it? When we found out in TFA he had gone looking for the first Jedi Temple, then we got the 1st trailer and the hints about the Balance of Light and Dark, I was excited. Luke hadn’t abandoned his sister and friends and the Galaxy! He had a painful setback but was still searching for something more. When they dismissed that in the movie and had him be this despondent bum who had vanished just to find some hole to die in, I was so disappointed. Yeah you could have it (as they did) as part of his character arc, to learn failure, to repeat the cycles/mistakes of his masters and be reminded of his younger self in Rey, but as others have pointed out Yoda and Obi Wan went into exile because they needed to and Luke transcended them at the end of Jedi anyway. So it needs a deeper reason for me than what we got.

The Backlash/Conflict and the questions it raises.

It seems broadly to come into two camps, but there are also many people in the middle across a number of different issues. The main camps boil down to either loving the OT - its themes, characters and relationships within the Skywalker Saga and feeling the Sequels haven’t respected that, and the other is enjoying the new direction of the Sequels and feeling Star Wars is now more modern, more progressive, more inclusive, either as a worthy development of the OT or without caring about previous instalments.

This, as I said at the start, comes down to stories - our stories, internally and in the outside world, and the archetypal stories we cling to across generations. Star Wars was always going to matter because it is one of a kind - a modern myth that called to us on this archetypal level as well as being so pervasive in the physical world through advertising, merchandise and different media that it has literally become a religion to some people and inspired many more.

Given that, the stories I’m hearing from the media and the progressive side is that the Last Jedi is fantastic because it’s breaking boundaries, it’s passing the torch, it’s giving us feminism, inclusivity and life lesson moments that are much needed in the current climate. And in a way stories do need to change and adapt to stay meaningful or, as we see, people change them to fit - create fanfiction, art, create their own worlds, write meta taking the pieces that make sense to them. Many people feel more included in the Star Wars saga and as such a powerful phenomenon I’m glad about that.

However to others, Star Wars already deeply meant something to them and some feel the Sequels, in their urge to move things along or having done so brashly, haven’t respected that legacy. Although there are undoubtedly racist, prejudiced idiots out there using Star Wars as part of their ideology, this goes against everything Star Wars and Lucas was trying to convey. So personally I think a lot of the deeper backlash is because of the Sequels ignoring the archetypal hero journey and themes at the heart of Star Wars - a journey first brought to us by Luke and his companions. Star Wars is not the type of story that lends itself to deconstruction, shock value twists and hopelessness - it’s a hopeful fairy story, that while filled with peril and battles with evil, nevertheless gives us the strength to face the dark symbolically and find the best in ourselves. While it has had its storytelling and world-building issues (especially with the Prequels hence the backlash with them at the time) it does have its own mythos and internal consistency, something I feel the Sequels have ignored time and again,and even undermining the setups in TFA. To call people ‘losers’ stuck on simple nostalgia or ‘man babies’ (as a friend of mine did) for having these objections is unfair. Archetypal stories/myths come from the Collective Unconscious and that moves very slowly in relation to society which is why we read stories from thousands of years ago and they still resonate. That doesn’t mean you have to copy the Hero’s Journey from the OT point for point - there are a galaxy of myths out there and our own minds for exploring how the legacy of the OT can be respected and yet developed, as well as including more women and POC as it needed to.

I will still watch Episode 9 and take the things I liked from it, TFA and TLJ, but to me the OT will always be the true Star Wars. However nothing is in vain and honestly I think this debate can be used by anyone to learn from the power of stories - what works and what doesn’t for them and go on to create their own original narratives as Lucas did all those years ago…I’m also really interested in getting the perspectives of kids seeing the Sequels vs the Prequels and OT as these will be ‘their’ Star Wars and the things we see and love as children always have special significance as they are the first to charge our awakening imaginations.

[kaoarika]

Wrote a bit about this on Twitter, but GUESS WHAT MOVIE I WENT TO SEE ON THE CINEMA THIS WEEKEND.

Of course, potential spoilers... although, in general... it’s the Benizakura arc. I mean... it’s kinda spoilerish? Now that the manga is already ending?

It was a pleasant experience although, I would like to point a couple of things: I went to the last day (a Sunday) of exhibition, in the first showing, which was, as pointed in my ticket, at 1 PM. We were like... 5 or 6 people, including me, so... I don’t know how well the movie made through this festival. I remember reading somewhere that the anime movies didn’t do well when they were shown (two years ago, although I DO consider other factors, too, as lack of promotion- I would have gone to see them... if promotion was more present, but LOL no one of my IRL acquaintances LIKE Gintama-, and availability -a.k.a. going to the other side of my city w/no transport whatsoever except spending much more on public transportation than a freaking ticket- so... it’s very obvious Gintama isn’t an exact mainstream title that may do well in Mexico.

However, other factors may have influenced too - I went on a Sunday, and at 1 PM. Almost a Matinée showing, too.

Anyway.

I was amazed that some distributor may have shown interest in this, tbh. WAY too soon (7.14 is when the roadshow STARTED in Japan) even, although somewhere in the official page of the movie it was mentioned that the movie WOULD DEFINITELY be shown in the American continent.

The movie was pretty good?? As expected from Fukuda Yuuichi, who I previously enjoyed his work on Yuusha Yoshihiko and the drama adaptation of Aoi Honoo. Most of the comedy was top-notch, and the actors do KNOW how to time their comedy acts while balancing out the drama aspect of this storyline, which, obviously, is Benizakura-hen, once again.

I cannot complain that much about how this arc was chosen over a proper introduction (although in usual Gintama fashion, ACROSS ALL MEDIA, the cast joked about this same fact), but with much more reason, this is the arc that the roles of important characters are introduced and Gintoki’s past and present clash, and of course, it has a long term effect on the series. Kind of amusing watching this movie with the proper future context (I wasn’t the only one there, tbh... people behind me were talking loud about manga spoilers). It would be very interesting if there was a sequel... probably adapting another arc -crosses fingers, PROBABLY for Yoshiwara in Flames... although the one with Itou betraying the Shinsengumi would be interesting -again, Kiheitai present, but also introducing Bansai who was absent here... although I’m pretty fuzzy if he played an important role in Benizakura, too *it’s been a long time since I read the arc*.

Then again, the adaptation had its own issues, I guess? I cannot complain about that either... then again, it’s not one of my favorite arcs of the series... most of the things I have issue with, are in origin. But there were a bit of few missed chances. I mean, Gengai has a past thing with the Kiheitai... Otose WAS mentioned (but not seen)... although maybe I’m losing something there a msitranslation somewhere? At the end of the day, the subs that the movie had were somewhat bad.

META REFERENCES. WHAT. I’m pretty sure I lost some of them, lol. There were a few directed to Oguri (Gintoki), to Hashimoto (Kagura)... to the same series, for freaking hell... Nice, nice.

This is mostly personal opinion, but I enjoyed this adaptation even more than the AnKyou movie that I went to see last year. I know it’s like comparing apples to pears (different tone of story, different directors), but then again... as an adaptation, I think this is how you CAN make it, while trying to put original content (pretty sure the whole Henpeita part was played with a much more humorous tone here than in the manga/anime... then again, he is played by Sato Jiro, and I’m certain it was mostly ad-libbed... see the whole Buddha talks in Yuusha Yoshihiko and TELL me they aren’t ad-libbed), too. Not that I’m biased, btw. I was... mostly dissapointed in how the timing was managed in the AnKyou movie (and the fact that they DID announce the entire cast at the start, only promoted a few of the actors who had “relevant roles” in the movie(s), besides some key scenes... tell me, did the rest of the 28 students* -besides you-know-who- did something MORE useful than just a couple of scene of wonders or being shells of their original counterparts? because from all the cast that was announced in the Gintama one, THEY ALL DID SOMETHING) because at the end, they decided to tell a 21 volume manga story in 2 movies of 2 hours each. Heck, I liked Suda Masaki here as Shinpachi EVEN BETTER than his Karma.

To people who judged pre-release of the movie: I get it. The anime seiyuu cast is and always will be our beloved characters of this series. For some of you it has been a decade, almost a decade, five years, etc. You cannot hear them and seeing them act with another actor or voice in minds, but the actors DID a good job. No matter how they don’t look as “handsome” as their original manga/anime counterparts (which is one of the most... “what” complaints I saw here when I explored the series tag), they really became the essence of their respective characters. Oguri was a good Gintoki, and using the Suda example, while Sakaguchi Daisuke will always be Shinpachi in my mind and heart, he was also incredibly good at being and ACTING like Shinpachi.

Heck, even a couple of the voice actors reprised their roles in the movie? Takahashi Mikako was Sadaharu (I wasn’t that much bothered by the CGI... I mean, it’s Gintama, and I can pass it on...) and Yamadera Kouichi was Shouyo-sensei’s voice (with an actor stand-in). And I’m kinda certain that one of the initial amanto cameos is voiced by Sugita (anime!Gintoki)??? There isn’t too much “bad blood” even if it’s just an industry standard. (There were even seiyuu cameos in some charas BOTH in Aoi Honoo and Yuusha Yoshihiko, just saying).

While my expectations on the SaiPSI movie aren’t very high, I DO expect a pretty fun and decent movie. If Gintama proved to be something, based on my previous experiences, then there’ a high chance it will be fun. Again, both are directed by the same director. Trust me on that one. 

(Although there’s now 0 chances that that movie would be released here. Gintama may not be THAT mainstream AND there WAS a release of this, but Saiki???)

(*) In defense of the AnKyou movies, though, let’s be real here: Not many of them received decent development in the manga, either. BUT STILL. Some key elements were lost here??? I mean... adfsfsf.

[magic-and-moonlit-wings]

Strange Magic Fandom Welcome Basket

(Based on Humanity-in-a-Handbag’s post and my extension of it, so I’m not just reblogging that one over and over as I’ve been doing. I streamlined it a little, since some people no longer appear active in the tag or on fanfiction sites. This Welcome Basket is mostly the same as the last one, and the one before that, but reposted instead of reblogged to appear at the top of the tag again, and with a few typos corrected or bits added and gifs changed around.)

Welcome to the fandom, stranger!

So, you’ve watched Strange Magic a few (dozen) times, or maybe you saw it on the Disney Channel, and now you want to get into the fandom! There’s a tag on Tumblr for the movie, but that sometimes has negative reviews in it. Here’s a list of people in the fandom you can check out. 

humanityinahandbag herself, of course, and thatchickwiththeheadphones are the Bonnie and Clyde of the fandom. If you’re looking for angst, go there first. They also do comedy, and thatchick does fan-art.Humanity, like many in the fandom, is also on AO3.

suzie-guru has a little bit of everything - a post-movie series, a canon-divergence series, and a Human AU series, along with one-shots.

dainesanddaffodils is a delight with a whole bunch of AUs, mostly human.

artbymaureen is the Fandom Aunt; one of the animators of the movie! She also does fan-art and sometimes comments on people’s meta or characterization posts.

Meredith Anne Bull, the voice of Dawn, is on tumblr and open to chatting with people about the film!

Endorathewitchandawriter is … possibly the most prolific writer in the whole fandom.

abutterflyobsession works mostly with alternate universes - such creativity cannot be bound to just one world!

joons has art, gifs, and meta.

r2ninjaturtle and amirattus have done Strange Magic cosplay.

siffieleafy mostly reblogs things but comments in the tags.

margoteve writes cute and fluffy fics.

sophaoat has a bit of everything and a handy-dandy ‘Strange Magic’ tag right on the side of her blog for easy searching.

deluxetrashqueen organizes event, makes videos, and makes fan-art, as well as writing stories.

ladybajingo makes and reblogs fan-art.

magically-strange has fics, gifs and art! They’re on AO3 under their old user name, MagicalStranger13.

goldwerewolf is a artist of high caliber.

faery-goblin is a great illustrator and has at least one story in-progress.

magic-and-moonlit-wings writes stories, also on fanfiction.net and AO3.

RavenDiablo’s sequel to the movie is on DeviantArt, posted as separate chapters, and on fanfiction.net.

Cedar-King is also on AO3 under the name Pikuna - there’s a lot of overlap within this fandom.

Bifacialler (or Ler on AO3) has a variety of creative and detailed Human AUs, as well as at least one post-movie fic and canon-divergence story.

jaegereska (RazormusPrime) has an ambitious post-movie series in progress, with a lot of pre-movie world building.

owl-quill started the Strange Magic story prompts/requests page on AO3.

Katra21 and touchofgrey37 are go-to writers if you need a Potionless fix, thought neither one seems to be generating new content.

gleefully-macabre has also begun a Potionless story, among other works.

teddy-feathers is a good sources of reblogged material and may be scheming to wow us all with works of their own someday.

jupiter235 also reblogs a lot, and has a Dracula AU in progress, as well as some other AUs and some completed one-shots.

megamegaturtle has a whole bunch of one-shots and at least one multi-chapter in progress.

Emersonian has a sequel set years after the movie, about one of Marianne and Bog’s children being cursed as a baby, trapped in another dimension as a teenager, and ending up in a high school for villains.

spirrum doesn’t seem active in the fandom anymore but still has some good stories archived.

dancesonmoonlight has a whole bunch of AU stories on AO3 and fanfiction.net.

Islenthatur has AO3 and FFnet stories, some of which are ongoing.

whimsicalitywhee has some one-shots buried in their archives, along with some characterperspective explorations mid-movie, a dancing Bog gif, fan art, and an ongoing human/ghost AU, the last of which is also on AO3 and fanfiction.net.

celepom has both artwork and high-quality screenshot collections.

tamiletrange has a tutorial for Marianne’s makeup!

catesartworks is an illustrator/painter/animator reworking the story for greater racial diversity.

freyamaat is an artist with a Beauty and the Beast semi-crosssover in the works.

levele3 has written a collection of Human AU stories.

noprimroses is a joint fanblog with art, headcanons, fanfiction, gif sets, and edits.

danger-flammable, or a3rie, has illustrations and wrote a cute one-shot about the Imp’s backstory.

hellfire-bunny is plotting Butterfly Bog Angst.

Marianne Is The Best Disney Princess, Cedar-King and OwlQuill Scribblings are all Strange Magic-dominated side-blogs, because the users found Strange Magic posts and reblogs were taking over their other blog.

(Anyone and everyone, feel free to tack on more names, or tag a new fan you notice so they can have the list!)

And here are a list of headcanons to decide, if you need prompts to get you started on your own world-building:

What exactly is Sugar Plum?

What happens in the winter? Do fairies migrate? Do goblins hibernate? Does everyone hibernate?

What happened to Marianne and Dawn’s mother?

What happened to Bog’s father?

How did Bog come to be king - inheritance from one of his parents, or defeating the previous ruler in combat/assassinating them?

Will Marianne and Bog (and Dawn and Sunny, for that matter) be able to have biological children?

What happens next for Stuff and Thang?

Are Marianne’s tiny sparring partners pixies or sprites? (I’ve heard but not confirmed that, if the movie is played with subtitles or Descriptive Video, they are called pixies, but it never comes up between the characters so it’s still up in the air.)

What are the fuzzy people, seen in both the Fairy Kingdom (Marianne dropped a baby one off a bridge by accident in the opening) and in the Dark Forest (one fell in love with a mushroom)?

What is the Fairy King’s name? (TV Tropes says it’s “Dagda”, but since it never came up in the movies or the credits it can be changed.)

Is Roland a redeemable character?

Who/what is the insectoid person Roland was dusted for?

What is the backstory of Bog’s first love interest? What happened to her after That Fateful Day?

Where is the music come from? Can the characters hear the background music?

Are humans a thing in this universe? If so, is it modern times, sometime in the past, or some time in the future?

Some animals can talk and some can’t. What’s the boundary line carnivores and omnivores use to determine sentience?

Do fairies eat meat? For that matter, do elves or goblins eat meat? (We know from the blackberries on the table in the lofely snack room that goblins eat plants.)

What is Marianne’s makeup made of, and where does it come from?

Why does the Fairy Kingdom have more metalwork than the Dark Forest?

How deep does the implied racial/species segregation in the Fairy Kingdom go?

Where are Bog, Griselda, and any other goblins who lived in the castle going to live now?

What other kingdoms, countries, etc. does each kingdom have contact and/or trade with?

How did Dawn and Sunny first meet?

Are fairies born or hatched? Are they born/hatched with wings or do those grow later?

Fountains in the fairies’ ballroom suggest plumbing - how common is that?

How do Pare and Sunny know each other, beyond living in (probably) the same village? How well did they know each other pre-movie?

Do the mushrooms have another language that the goblins mistranslate, or do some messages actually change along the mushroom line, or do they not enunciate clearly, or do the goblins on messenger duty happen to have poor hearing?

Did any goblins secretly date or marry during Bog’s love ban?

To close, here’s another gif:

You are Sunny. The dandelion seeds are the overwhelming number of various fanworks you now have access to. Have fun!

Quick reminder - anyone not already on the list, it’s not that I don’t like your stuff, I probably just forgot to add a link you! Message or Ask me and I will put you in! (Also, if someone is shy and doesn’t want to be in the Welcome Basket, that’s okay too.) Every time I repost this I get at least one message of “don’t forget [name]!”