#at least william as an antagonist

[variousqueerthings]

the thing about spike is that he's such a rat man, such a pathetic, horrible freak, but james marsters is so charismatic that even when he's at his worst, he's got something interesting to him, and then of course at some point spike's development is such that he'll say things like "made a promise to a lady" in order to explain why he's helping the good guys at high risk of death and it's so very casually heroic and chivalrous, and he'll collapse to the ground and sob into his hands when buffy dies, and you can see how that was there the whole time, but twisted by all his anger and a lifetime with drusilla (who herself was twisted into her shape by angel), so you just can't help but root for him to become a hero of some kind

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Building & Revealing Characters

You’ve assembled a great deal of information about your characters: You can see them, you know what they’re thinking, and you know what they want.

But conveying this information to your reader is its own unique challenge.

Character-Building

Just as you can’t rely on mere exposition to explain what happened before your story, you can’t preface your story with an interview with your character.

Character is something you build throughout the course of your story.

Recall that major characters, like your protagonist, are ones that will change during the course of the story; who they are in the beginning is not who they’ll be in the end.

Revealing your Characters

That said, you’ll want to give the reader an impression of who the character is at the outset of the story.

Example: Fitzgerald uses the first-person narrator, Nick Carraway, to gradually reveal information about Gatsby; the reader learns more information about Gatsby as Nick learns about him.

You might use minor characters to reveal information about your character if you’re writing from a point-of-view that is not the protagonist.

Likeable

The protagonist must also be likeable (at least to an extent).

If your reader cannot identify with your character, cannot picture themselves in the character’s shoes, then they may not want to read on.

While fiction is plot-driven, the reader might not care about your plot unless they care about your protagonist.

Make the reader root for your character; we want them to succeed (most of the time) e.g., Gatsby.

Character Flaws

This doesn’t mean that your character should be perfect—quite the opposite, actually. We don’t want to read about perfect people; if a character is the most beautiful and talented person in the world, and if they have everything they want, there’s no story there.

Example: Every character in William Shakespeare’s plays has a “fatal flaw”: a personality flaw that will cause the character to fail, that Achilles’ heel that the antagonist will exploit.

When you are building your own characters, think about what sort of flaws they have. The flaw should make sense for the character — it should be related to their background/beliefs.

You can’t assign flaws arbitrarily—the flaw should arise from the circumstances of your character’s life, where they are, who they know, how they were raised and how they’ve been treated.

Source ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Plot ⚜ Character ⚜ Worldbuilding

[hello-im-not-a-possum]

Who do you think is the most despicable?

Fnaf's william afton bendy's joey drew or mouthwashing's jimmy?

Jimmy hands down, without a single doubt, bastard's literally made to be despicable.

While despicable can be a synonym for evil, vile, villainous, etc. Its specific meaning of 'Deserving hatred and contempt' seals the deal for Jimmy winning the rusty dagger award.

William is the most evil of these men, but he's the least despicable because he's the most honest (to the audience) and charismatic out of the three. We meet him in series as a rotting corpse in an iron maiden fursuit trying to kill us, he's the reason why we were hunted down by every other spirit, we set him on fire multiple times, he goes to hell in canon, he may or may not have escaped hell to haunt the living once more, and it is both horrifying and hilarious.

Joey is more despicable because he's Walt Disney in all his best and worst traits amplified. we don't meet him as a corpse trying to kill us, we meet him as a dreamer, an artist, a man who wants to change the world, and later we find that he is a liar, a con artist, a man who had not changed the world in the grand scheme of things, but who had ruined the worlds of so many people.

Jimmy is the most despicable for a variety of reasons; Everything non-capitalism-hell related is his fault, he's a useless, cowardly, self-centered misogynist who directly and indirectly kills everyone on the Tulpar because he couldn't handle the responsibility that came with both the crime he had done and to a lesser extent the job he coveted. And what makes him even more hateable is that WE play as him whenever we don't play as Curly, so we have no choice but to sit in and stew on how horrible what he did and continues to do under our control.

We as audiences are used to likeable and good protagonists and expect our antagonists, especially our horror genre antagonists to be the ones bringing the horror, so the inflicting horror coming from the protagonist catches us off guard and makes even the pettiest reason to hate him so much more potent. And I think that's great. Good job Wrong Organ, you go take advantage of the lingering effects the Hays Code put on American literacy.

[donna-rinascimentale]

hiya! hope you doing well.

would you elaborate on the interpretation you were talking about in your Labyrinth post tags? what you said was really interesting and I never thought about it that way! 👀

also, hope you had fun watching! ✨✨✨

certainly.

i’d always been subscribed to the interpretation that the labyrinth is a metaphor for navigating coming of age, that the end of sarah’s hero’s journey is a means of balancing adult maturity with never losing a child’s sense of wonder and imagination. the fandom has thought up tons of explanations for where jareth falls in this scenario. is he a tangible antagonist, actively trying to get sarah to slip back into her old childish ways? a metaphor for adulthood, all that sarah is and isn’t ready for?

i think he’s all sarah’s creation. so does jim henson.

“He represents a lot of things that are a part of Sarah's world, what she's trying to figure out and what she's going through. … [Jareth] has no reality except what Sarah gives him, which she can constantly change.”

sarah seems to be very genre-savvy. she reads lines from a play titled the labyrinth, and she recognizes the puzzle of the two guards and implies she’s practiced it before in case she’d happen to encounter it. here, the labyrinth is a product of sarah’s fantasy, by which she navigates her adolescence and her parents’ divorce and her perceived lack of autonomy in a manner typical of a seasoned fantasy reader.

sarah is well aware that every fantasy hero needs a villain. the likeness she gives hers is that of her mother’s costar—as the former mrs. williams is a stage actress, shown in the photo on sarah’s vanity of her posing with a fellow actor who looks just like this jareth. sarah made jareth, made him as beautiful and dangerous as she believed he should be.

sarah made jareth.

to jareth, god is a sixteen-year-old girl.

imagine god, calling you by name, crowning you a king and giving you beauty and power. you were quite literally born for this. all you know is this role, building yourself and your kingdom just the way god wishes it.

then, god turns herself away from you.

you may feel betrayed. hollow, like you’ve been stripped of everything that makes you you. “you made me this way,” you might say.

Everything! Everything that you wanted, I have done. You ask the child to be taken, I took him. You cowered before me, I was frightening. I have reordered time, I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for you.

“i was playing the role you put me in. what was i made for, if not you?

i can’t live within you.”

Just fear me, love me, do as I say

“let me play the role of villain, the role you made me to fill.”

and I would be your slave.

“your will be done.”

god is a sixteen-year-old girl who hasn’t yet figured out the way she wants to be worshipped. it’s a heavy burden, trying to satisfy someone who doesn’t know what she wants.

but there is hope for jareth.

fandom rarely debates on how to interpret the barn owl at the beginning of the film. we’re pretty much in consensus that it’s a manifestation of jareth, but that’s never given much thought.

when sarah asserts her power and escapes the labyrinth, jareth has once again taken the form of the owl. in the final scene, when sarah celebrates with her friends from the labyrinth, reconciling her love of fantasy with her maturity and self-growth, jareth flies away, smaller and smaller until he’s gone. here we turn to the age-old metaphor of flight as freedom.

in moving away from escapism and becoming an active participant in her own life, sarah has freed jareth from the role of villain. none of the friends in her room are human. be reminded again that jareth bears the likeness of a man present (at least tangentially) in sarah’s real life, who would likely feel disheartened knowing he’s blamed for something beyond his control.

because sarah has no more need for a jareth, there is no more jareth. and that’s arguably best for both of them.

(p.s.: i go to the theater tomorrow! i have a sarah-esque outfit put together and everything. thanks for wishing me well & know tomorrow can’t come soon enough for me… this film has been among my favorites for many many many years and each watch makes me find more to love. best cult i’ve ever joined)

[el-hijo-de-hernandez-27]

So I'm rewatching Taskmaster from the beginning and I just realized Greg was rather protective of Alex or at least wasn't that antagonistic to him like on current seasons.

What I'm getting at is that I cannot wait for Tom Gleeson and Jeremy Wells to evetually demean Tom Cashman and Paul Williams and put them down on the ground where they belong as personal assistents.

[maskedjolo]

You know, Springtrap should REALLY be in Dead By Daylight. No, not because he’s popular with a certain fanbase and whatnot… just because he fits the bill perfectly to be a slasher killer.

What makes a good slasher killer can be easily defined by what we’ve seen already. They need to have an iconic design or a feature that we can easily identify them with such as Michael’s white Halloween mask or Freddy’s Fedora (etc.), they need to have killed people (obviously) but in gruesome/gory ways, they need to be the main antagonist of their respective franchise, they need to have at least some kind of implication of supernatural abilities and they need to never stay dead even after they’ve supposedly been killed. That’s 5 traits. If a character meets at least 4 of those things, then they can be considered some kind of slasher character.

So let’s see what Springtrap/Afton has going for him…

1 - Iconic design: Yeah, he’s iconic enough. His signature yellow rabbit design is fairly distinguishable as well as his colour association, that being purple, yellow and sometimes a more sickly green. He’s even got a mask to go with it.

2 - Murderer: Oh, you better believe it. He’s even decently gory, like other slasher killers. Like, Springtrap is arguably the most gore we see in FNAF ever, that being that his fleshy remains are visible.

3 - Main villain: Ask any FNAF fan ever and they will tell you that Springtrap/William Afton is the main antagonist of the franchise, at least in Scott’s game saga.

4 - Supernatural abilities: This guy is an immortal zombie trapped inside a mechanical suit. Whether he’s still slightly alive or if he’s haunting his own suit doesn’t matter, that stuff ain’t natural. Sooo… yeah! Supernatural is a check!

5 - Doesn’t die: … come on, do I even need to say it? Okay, but seriously though, look at almost every horror slasher ever. They NEVER DIE. You could say they ALWAYS COME BACK. I mean, look at Chucky the Doll and how many times he supposedly gets killed and then comes back every damn time one way or another. Springtrap definitely fits that trope of always being brought back.

Anyways, that’s all. Don’t take this post too seriously, I’m just making this for fun and pointing out to people that Springtrap does actually meet that requirement to get into Dead By Daylight. Hope you had fun reading this! :D

[vannysarcade]

What is your Fnaf Au about?

It's kind of hard to explain or define simply. It's mostly just a rewrite/reinterpretation of already canon events (at least up until security breach when it becomes less of a reinterpretation and more of its own story...kinda.) Everything starts out the same. William kills Charlie, CC gets bit, Elizabeth dies, the other children go missing, and Michael has to clean up the mess. However in Security Breach things sort of veer on a different path. Rather than having a traditional Glitchtrap or Mimic, there's a different character who takes up both those roles....It's Vanny! Rather than having her be a subordinate I wanted to make her front and center stage for my AU. She is the main antagonist of Security breach, and she's the one in control. Vanny is NOT a human or a possessed Vanessa. Instead, she is a brand new product Fazbear entertainment has created. V.A.N.N.I, an "Entertainment system" Which serves as both a video game console, computer, phone, teacher, caretaker, and companion all in one, powered by AI. What could go wrong? (Unfortunately everything.) Vanni is not simply "AI program turned evil." She's something more than that. She's made up of pieces of the past. The horrible tragedies and grief that William and Freddy's caused. VANNI serves as a vessel for all of this agony and pain, because Fazbear Entertainment Won't let Freddy's just die. And all she feels is pain. A pain she's felt since the moment she was born. And she wants everybody else to feel that too. Vanessa is one of the main developers of VANNI and of course this is all going on unbeknownst to her. VANNI forms a strange and incredibly strong attachment/"friendship" to Vanessa, and everything pretty much goes downhill from there! I need to properly write this all down cause I'm sure this doesn't make complete sense and comes off very rambly. I also wanna let you know that fnaf 1-6 is just as important as help wanted-security breach in my AU, I just didn't know how to describe the first part of my au without just retelling the entire story of fnaf with some differences and my own headcanons LOL Ultimately my FNAF AU is about a lot of things. It's about grief and the pain that comes from it, and how that pain can become so powerful it ends up destroying everything else around it. It's about that ache you feel when you feel like you don't belong anywhere. It's about so desperately wanting to be loved you'll tear others open just to see what it's like. It's about what comes when you fail to acknowledge your mistakes, when you pretend the past never happened, and the consequences that can bring when that ultimately leads you to repeating the same thing you tried so hard to avoid. If you have any questions about my AU feel free to ask! I call it "Paracosm" ;)

[skeletoninthemelonland]

Will anyone from springdads past come back, or be a lil antagonist

it's not like I'm planning to make a movie or anything, but

If the Springdad AU was a trilogy of movies, the first movie would have an antagonist and the main villain. The antagonist is the director of the orphanage Mike and Evan used to live in, while the main villain is the hunter who shot Springdad's ear when he was a kid.

Some details are missing because I didn't have time to think about them yet (plus there are other three stories in development).

The director must be a character prone to redemption. He is rigid and cold in his methods, perhaps acting for a good cause but later realizing he was doing more damage to people than actually helping. It would be interesting if he was non-human too.

Then there's the main villain, The Hunter. She's there to represent That One Fear. She is the past haunting William as he tries to forget it.

Pretty sure this wasn't mentioned before, but Springdad wasn't all sweet and caring before as he is now. He was the grumpy and scary neighbor or at least wanted to seem like it. He wasn't necessarily rude tho, just avoidant. He blames himself a lot for what happened to his family and didn't want to cause any more harm.

Remember when I said the orphanage caught on fire? Though that was an accident, it directly ties back to William's trauma. He fears fire or perhaps fears what he saw in the flames that day.

[superstarzolar]

16, 19, and 8 for William Afton

16: whats your least favorite ship for this character?

willry, but thats probably because in athazagora they are half-brothers... in other situations its cool to see but. its obviously not for me and my narrative...

19: a relationship that this character has in canon that you don't like?

his relationship (or lack thereof) with ms afton... their relationship is barely even mentioned (if at all) .... like .... if fnaf is a family robot drama then wheres the family

8: whats something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

oh my god oh my god OH MY GOD

the blorbo and vindication is so fucking abysmal. like yeah its funny to joke about him being a little teensy weensy British child murderer but then it gets to a point where he ain't even the antagonist of fnaf anymore he's just somebody's twink oc. especially with how they treat him in regards to his relationships with major female characters... like not to be that guy but i swear some of this demon child cassidy/elizabeth rhetoric comes from people hopping on Williams dingaling all the time

[bizlybebo]

Because its on my mind Im sending this as a "Ramble about it here when you get to X episode" ask. When you finish the episodes titled black, white and grey please rant about them here. They are great and I want to see your opinions

hahaha. hi endy.

the staring at the wall evolved into falling asleep and randomly waking up at 4am, still processing these episodes.

i wrote down. some of my thoughts now having experienced the full thing and got kind of carried away with um. 1.4k words of rambling :3

it’s not even all i want to say but i. ough. fuck these episodes were so good but so. auugggh.

it’s like 5am now im posting this and gonna try to go back to sleep but. holy fucking SHIT when i get you bizly.

(i don’t at all expect you to read this behemoth of a ramble!! just. need to put this somewhere as well because my brain’s still exploding after these episodes)

When season two started I thought it marked a lot of stuff for, y’know, how the show was gonna get darker. I mean, episode one, people were getting killed by a chaos demon in that prison.

I was entirely expecting all the ugly, gory bits of season two to be… external shit. Stuff that other guys, the actual antagonists, did.

But William felt pressured in Black. And suddenly it sets off this chain reaction, and suddenly one of our protagonists is no longer doing heroic things. Suddenly William is effectively torturing a guy psychologically in an attempt to save thousands more with David’s medical research.

He fell into the crux of a lot of villains: “It’s for the greater good”.

There was no going back after he stabbed Tide with the syringe. Tide, who never even had his guard up around William because despite everything, he trusted him and had immeasurable faith in his boys.

White is probably my favorite and least favorite episode, simultaneously, to ever come out of jrwi. The emotional, symbolic, and hell, even cinematic effect it has is insane.

I could fucking scream forever about Willian’s actions in White. About Vyncent’s inactions and the way he was torn about everything— about the fact that in season one, Vyncent was the “violent” one.

But Mark and Dakota fucking hit me in the heart to an insane amount.

Dakota. MOTHERFUCKING. Cole.

I said this before, but:

It’s the fact that Dakota still has optimism. He still has hope, at the very least, that Mark can change; turn over a new leaf for his kid.

“I think he should turn over a new leaf, like, with a new hero name, like— Soundwave, or something.”

He still thinks, or at least thought, that Mark can change. This was after he saw what he did to Lightspeed. He saw the worst of Mark’s actions but he still had faith and hope that there was a good person in there.

This shows so much fucking growth for Dakota’s character. The entire development of his morals, especially over season 2, is insane.

But Mark tries to kill Dakota. Several times.

He shoots at him, unleashes hundreds of bullets, and even tries to stab him. He couldn’t predict that Dakota would be incorporeal, and yeah, sure, you could say that he didn’t know Dakota forfeited his powers (and even without him he’s still significantly stronger than other kids his age). But even with his powers, Dakota would still have taken significant damage from the attacks.

Dakota and Mark’s rivalry is something I could pick apart and think about every little piece of forever.

They both have overwhelming love for Ashe, but it manifests in different ways.

Mark says it himself, “I am what I have to be.” He’s bringing home his kid by any means necessary. Ashe doesn’t have to like him, she just has to be safe and alive.

Dakota’s entire screaming match with Mark is engraved into my brain forever. It felt so real to witness, and the emotion in it was insane.

Dakota’s entire proclamation gets me. He’s so well spoken throughout despite shaking with how angry he is.

“I have been killing myself trying to train hard enough to save her.”

“If you were doing this for Ashe you wouldn’t do things that she’d hate you for.” But Mark is what he has to be.

Dakota never stands down. He keeps getting back up, and back up, and back. Up. Okehrjwjr I’m actually going to start crying thinking about this again.

When he was searching for Lightspeed and following Wavelength’s tracks, he kept asking himself: What would William do? Because he had faith in William’s decision making and investigation.

But at the very same time, William was wondering what Dakota would think about what he’s done.

And GOD don’t get me started on William and his brother.

In a sick, twisted way, I loved their dynamic. I loved what it meant for William narratively when David congratulated his work of defeating Xavier, even calling him “little brother” as a term of endearment. I was on the edge of my seat for their entire conversation in the meeting room.

David gave William his first drink, like older brothers do. William tortured a man because of his brother. David had apple juice sitting on hand because their mother told him to, just in case William ever showed up. William wanted apple juice. He killed somebody.

Cantrip’s been FUCKING me up. I couldn’t even write the word “death” after her name. It doesn’t feel real.

This can’t be the same show in which Jade was sitting on Xavier’s shoulders during mario kart, nonchalantly offering no help as he fought for his life to win like. Second place.

I mean, Jade was such a candid and real character. She was a teenager, just like the rest of the Prime Defenders, and she tried to take a turn for better things after leaving the fighting ring. She went from villainy to vigilantism, and sure, her morals were kind of skewed with how she seemed pretty okay with Alan killing the Bell Tech employees, but her motives were good, in a sense.

(“It’s all for the greater good”. It’s the same thing William was thinking, except William was directly dirtying his hands by torturing Xavier, while Cantrip was just accepting that Alan killed some people.)

I think there’s something to say for how William creates a vision of Cantrip out of smoke, distorting her into some monster, and how that’s the last time we see her image at all before learning of the fact that she’s. Gone.

The last time we see the real Jade, she’s just trying to escape. She doesn’t even talk, if I remember correctly. She just tries to get out. She gets shot in the arm but still persists.

And William ends up being the one who pulls the trigger; who injects the memory loss shit into her blood.

He’s the one who kills her, despite not knowing it at the time.

And David still masquerades as an innocent man, going as far as to relax at his apartment with him and William’s parents as though the events of the previous night never happened.

It fucks me up how the last words that Will and David exchanged before the confrontation in the apartment was:

“Don’t turn into a supervillain while I’m gone.”

“You either.”

William was starting to believe that David was a guy with awful methods, but good intentions— and William felt as though he was the same way. He saw himself becoming David, but David manipulated him into thinking that, hey, it’s awful, but at least he wouldn’t be… alone, I guess, in being a horrible person.

William and David finally saw eye to eye on the worst thing.

And David. Still. Lied.

Lied by omission.

And Jade was the one who took the fall for William’s actions. Jade, the girl who made fun of William for his crush on Vyncent. Jade, who had a sister she cared about, even if she scoffed about her love of heroes— despite the implication that their parents died because of them (likely caught in crossfire or casualties of battle). Jade, who painted her nails and placed bets on William kissing Vyncent, saying he’d be too pussy to do so. Jade, who found herself in a fucking fighting arena of all places but still found friends through it.

Jade, who was the first one to trust William with her actual name instead of Cantrip.

William, who killed her.

And. Fucking Christ.

Vyncent’s monologue at the end of episode 33 just. Fucks me up.

For the entire greyscale series, he finds himself suspended in inaction, too scared to do the right thing and too scared to stop the wrong thing.

But he finally faces it. He looks at William, certainly with fear after knowing all that he’s done, and even still, Vyncent dances around the morality of the subject. He accepts if William wants to flat-out lie to Dakota’s face about what happened at Bell Tech, though he does warn him of the significant damage it’ll do to their friendship.

And when William asks Vyncent to leave the room at the end of the episode, Vyncent finally takes a leap and becomes no longer caught by his indecision between apathy and guilt.

He looks at William, thinking he’s on the edge of something he won’t come back from, and he takes his hand, and pulls Wlliam back from the metaphorical cliff’s edge. If William does fall, then they’re falling together.

His entire proclamation, starting with “I’ve had so many opportunities to do the right thing”, fucking guts me.

God I’ve been typing for like. An hour now but the greyscale series really fucked me up holy shit.

tldr: AAAAUUUUIGGHHHHKEKGKKSKVMEMGOOCU:$)&2’ynkejvjk4&3&582$2!:$?82&;&/&(929@,@2&(&2&&?EVIL EVIL EVIL GOD IS DEADDDDJGKRMHKSKKKKLLEKCKSJGJKSICIWKFMSKGIWIIIAI&383&5&?&?@39(92@?&&/8:7;&,£,]*+\+<*]¥<**]+<+¥sfkwkfkkwjfkI HATE EVERYTHING AOUUGGGHHHHHH OUUUUUUEHEHRHRHRJKGHRHRHRRRRRRR

i am emotionally attached to this media a normal amount

[thatuselesshuman]

Writer Questionnaire Tag

Thank you for the tag @wyked-ao3

It's always fun to do one of these lol

How long have you had your writing Tumblr/Writeblr? A fast and loose estimate is fine!

I've had a Tumblr account for about 6 months or so but I've only been a 'writeblr' for a couple months.

What led you to create it?

Idk tbh. I kinda just decided that I wanted to share my writing and it led me here.

What’s your favorite thing about the Writeblr community?

All of the creativity is amazing. I'm a whore for lore and world building, and the worlds that y'all come up with are immaculate. I could only hope to think of a world that vast and interesting.

What’s one thing you’d like your mutuals to know about you?

Please ddon't take me seriously. I've said it before and I'll say it again, but I'm not just a clown, I'm the entire circus. The day you take me too seriously (especially as an author) is the death of my whimsy.

Is there anything you’d like to see more of on your dash?

Nothing I can really think of. I'm pretty happy with how it is rn lol

WIP it Good

Which Works-in-Progress (WIPs) or writing projects are you noodling about, lately?

Bloody Hands are Kind and None of Us Heroes are always floating around. They're never not beating my ass with ideas and scenes.

How long have you been working on them?

I've been working of the series component of Bloody Hands are Kind since February, and None of Us Heroes for about 1 and a half months.

Do you remember what inspired them/what got you started?

None of Us Heroes started from the Honkai Star Rail brainworms known as Adventurine and Dr Ratio. Their designs and story inspired the two main characters of None of Us Heroes. The series component of Bloody Hands are Kind was basically me shoving a long-standing OC of mine into the Hunger Games universe and praying it would work.

How much time, in your best estimation, do you spend thinking about them?

At least a few hours a day, usually when I'm laying in bed trying to fall asleep. My array of illnesses make falling asleep hard and I find that thinking about my stories makes it easier to forget that I'm not asleep (and therefore hopefully fall asleep).

When someone asks the dreaded, “What do you write about,” question, what do you usually say?

"Whatever the voices command."

What do you want to say (if it’s different from what you do say)?

Meh I say that because I find it funny so idk if I'd change it.

Let’s Rotate Blorbos

Name any characters you created. Side characters, protagonists, antagonists, characters who’ve never been written, the first original abomination you ever pulled from your ass; whomever you’d like!

OHH LORD THIS IS GONNA BE A LONG LIST. So we got Adrian, Nova, Amarantha, Jack, Cora Beth, Ben Al-Badawi (x3), Jack Collins, William Talt, Blue, Zero, One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Azrael (aka Amane), Lucifer, Achlys, Quinn Amsel, Atlas Selic, Michael, Adena, Nakir, Evangeline, Celeste, Saeko, Gabriel, Kaz Anderson, Caspian, Jyn Osaka, Nikolai Sevigny, Cyril, Kylan Whitlock, Kestrel, Leo Valandi, Anaïs, Delph, Laz (short for Lazarus), Neo, Roland, Tobias, Will, Mirwais, Simon Cruz, Conrad, James Blackthorn, Alessandra Snow, Max Foster, Benyamin Safi, Haeyun Sin, and Dante Silvestre. There are more, but I either don't care enough to write them down or I've forgotten their names.

Who’s the most unhinged?

Blue 100%. He's not human and it is not uncommon for his species to be cannibalistic. He's not, but he's still unhinged asf

Who comes the most naturally for you to write?

Max Foster. He's easy to write because me and him share a lot if similarities.

Do you ever cringe at them?

Oh definitely. A lot of my old characters are cringy.

How much control do you feel you have over your characters? AKA, do they ever “write themselves,” refuse to cooperate, or do things you didn’t expect? To what degree? Are some less cooperative than others?

Dude idk what to tell you, whenever I try and force my characters to do something I hit the biggest writer's block wall I've ever seen.

On Writeblr Engagement

Do you enjoy people asking questions about your characters? And do you have a preferred means of receiving said questions? For example, as Asks, as replies, as reblogs, as tag notes, as comments on AO3, etc.

YES YES PLEASE ASK ME!! Anyways, I don't really care how you ask (I just want you to ask lol), but if I had to pick it'd either be asks or comments on Ao3. Though ofc I still love questions in any and all forms, even if it's something like making a separate post and tagging me loll.

What makes you want to follow another Writeblr account? Do you follow ‘em as you see ‘em, or take time scoping out the blog to make sure you align with its content? Do you follow based on WIPs, or vibes?

I mostly follow people if I think their cool or if I find myself consistently liking their posts as they come across my dash. I don't follow people often tho lol. I only follow abt 20 people I think.

What makes you decide against following?

If their vibes are too negative, if they're super political, if their content doesn't align with something I care about, or if they're super anti something I am. Any combination of those could be the reason I don't follow.

Do your mutuals’ characters occupy space in your noodle?

Yes. I think about other people's WIPs and such all of the time. I love stories, what can I say?

Do you interact with non-mutuals often?

Of course! As I said, I don't follow many people so I don't have many mutuals. I love interacting with different people though, so I'm happy to strike up conversations with random people I find cool!

@moltenwrites @willtheweaver @the-golden-comet @katenewmanwrites @agirlandherquill +open tag

[mygreatadventurehasbegun]

What did you think of Bugsy Malone? I've never seen it and have been on the fence about watching it... that is, until I learned Paul Williams wrote the music

It was an interesting movie!

I came across it on TCM the other night and decided to just stick with it (like in the old days, lol). And it was definitely a fun watch!

Every actor in the movie is a child, but they are all playing adult characters to varying degrees of success. Some of the kids you could tell have probably not acted a lot (or at least didn't understand the adult humor that they were parodying) and some were fantastic. Jodie Foster was great, of course...and I was really impressed by Martin Lev, who played Dandy Dan, the film's main antagonist. Both of them really brought the subtlety when so many of their costars are hamming it up. And Jodie Foster always had that wise beyond her years feel as a kid, which works for playing the gangster's moll.

I think the main thing to remember is that this movie is a parody...this isn't a straight drama, where the main characters just happen to be kids. I mean, the guns shoot whipped cream.

And to top it all off, it's a musical!

With music written by a pre-Muppets Paul Williams!

And all the kids are dubbed by adult singers (with Paul Williams dubbing Scott Baio).

I can see why some people don't like it, but I can also see why some people absolutely love it. I think if you go in knowing it's going to be kinda bonkers, it makes it an enjoyable ride.

Also, I was really impressed by the late 1920's costumes and hair! I don't think I saw a single girl wearing fringe!

[maximumwobblerbanditdonut]

FILM AND MOVIES

What Went Wrong With… SAS: Red Notice (2021)?

A review of SAS: Red Notice by What Went Wrong Or Right With...?

SAS: Red Notice is the latest Sky Original film to premiere on the satellite platform and unfortunately it’s another dead duck. Based on the book of the same name by Andy McNab, the plot is about a family-based, terrorist group known as the “Black Swans” who take over the Channel Tunnel. Interpol’s “Red Notice” (which alerts police worldwide to internationally wanted fugitives) gives this film its title (at least I think it does, although in S.A.S. terms it could mean a government sanctioned hit). Regardless of its meaning, the main part of the storyline (the hi-jacking) takes almost half-an-hour to get to, and once it does, it’s not exactly enthralling. The film begins with a preamble about “psychopaths” delivered by Tom Wilkinson’s character William Lewis who goes on to say “psychopaths who can learn to love are as rare as a black swan”. This I assume, refers to his baddie daughter Grace played by Ruby Rose or possibly the good guy Tom played by Sam Heughan. This kind of wannabe poignant dialogue is pointless to ponder over however, since this isn’t a character study of someone taught to kill and the parallels between the military and terrorists, or whether someone can switch off their violent tendencies and become compassionate. What this is, is a load of D-list actors saying “awight mate” a lot, posturing, chewing gum to look butch, and shooting guns, largely in the dark. Oh, and apparently, the elite of the elite in the S.A.S. are also bilingual botanists.

I’ll admit that I haven’t and probably never will read an Andy McNab novel, so I’m judging this adaptation against similar action movies. The plot to me, seems very late-80s or early-90s, very much like Ruby Rose’s bowl hair cut. SAS: Red Notice wishes it was in the same company as the original The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three, Die Hard, and every classic derivative action movie such as Speed, Under Siege, and Executive Decision but it’s instead more of a Chuck Norris or Michael Dudikoff-type flick.

Directed by Magnus Martens, the look and feel is more “TV” than cinema, and bad television at that. Magnus can’t seem to coax a believable performance out of anyone, and that’s alongside his appalling framing and camera movement, not to mention the seemingly non-existent art direction which leaves us with what looks like a home-made movie. The cast aren’t much better. Aside from the always decent Tom Wilkinson, the acting talent is also firmly in made-for-TV territory. We have Noel Clarke looking as convincing as Major Bisset as his Detective Inspector in Bulletproof, Anne Reid who played Jean in dinnerladies is still Jean from dinnerladies, and Andy Serkis plays Clements by overacting and probably wishing he was dressed in spandex and covered in white dots playing a different kind of gorilla.

We also have the aforementioned Sam Heughan as Tom or Thomas Buckingham III, a contrived yet somehow unbelievable rich, posh, heterosexual white male who lives in what looks like Wayne Manor with a butler not too dissimilar to Batman’s. Sam is a terrible, soap-opera-esque actor and as the lead, he’s the main reason why this film looks so cheap and tacky. Bad acting doesn’t end with Heughan however; we also have Ruby Rose playing his arch-nemesis Grace Lewis.

I suppose it’s progress to see a British Prime Minister played by a person of colour (Ray Panthaki) and someone from the LGBTQ community play the villain or antagonist in an action film but Panthaki is essentially a one-term baddun, and Rose is so lacking in charisma and acting skills that she won’t be spoken about in the same breath as Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber or even Eric Bogosian’s Travis Dane, which kind of defeats the purpose. Grace Lewis is instead, in the same league as Thomas Gabriel or Alik from the inferior Die Hard sequels. Rose can’t even act like she’s been shot in the neck or smile convincingly with her “this isn’t a disguise” wig on whilst trying to ward off authorities, let alone look menacing or have a knife-fight (or spoiler alert: die).

Whilst on the topic of Grace, her tactic of “kill the men and the boys, leave the women to spread the fear” conveniently leaves out the all-too-common rape and torture. Make no mistake, this is a sanitised view of conflict where mercenaries, contractors, war criminals, and terrorists are completely unconnected to any military unit. The film begins with contractors tasked to clear a village in Georgia in order to lay a pipe line, and this seems very War On Terror and Black Water-esque (especially the name “Black Swans”) but the way in which this story is told, it’s less Iraq and more Tie Rack with a bunch of suits trying to make some soulless and shallow money from militarism. There’s no real opinion on whether contractors should be used in war, it’s more “it’s okay until they leave witnesses” which is a dodgy message to convey. That being said, even our hero Thomas hears his butler recount a story of Buckingham’s forefathers chopping off a Maharaja’s finger during an Indian “uprising” in order to take their ring, which means even the protagonist has a lineage of wrongdoing but I’m sure viewers of this trash will glaze over this. In order to bolster the concept of “good guys can do no wrong”, the wedding vows at the end of the film are cringe-worthy and go to show how not only the writers, but everyone involved in making this crapfest, love the idea of the infallible war hero who cannot and should not be criticised (or prosecuted) because they do such a difficult job… “For better, for worse, in war [and] in peace, knowing that in war, your crazy brain is always right”. 🤮

Whether pro-war or anti-terror or just unadulterated militarism, all this criticism is of course pointless to mention, as nobody watching Red Notice is looking for deep, meaningful subtext and opinion-challenging concepts. The camouflage-covered cinematic cliches of “this isn’t what I signed-up for!” and “take the shot!” are both present which means this is a hackneyed, straight-to-streaming, non-action, action film. I wouldn’t have minded if this shite contained a plot about what great jobs snipers do or how difficult counter terrorism is, instead it’s another mindless, gung-ho release. And while I’m at it: who gives a toss about what happens to a fictitious government and this film’s uninteresting characters during the end credits? Please don’t make a sequel or try to start a franchise about the exploits of Tom effing Buckingham the pissing Third!

As a Sky Original, I have to mention the inclusion of Sky News presenters Gamal Fahnbulleh and Jayne Secker (and Ben bloody Shephard of ITV’s Good Morning Britain) doing some suspiciously, similar-to-real-life acting. Similar to Jeremy Thompson in Shaun Of The Dead, the news casters’ or broadcasters’ acting looks as convincing as the actual news and their “breaking news” bulletins are read with the same vigour. Ignoring the fact that Sky are both feeding and eating itself in the creation of this film, it’s always disconcerting to see real-life news presenters read scripts as well as they do on air, which goes to show they’re not journalists but actors who err… read scripts for a living. But I guess that’s for another article.

Back to the film, no matter its formulaic-ness, it would have been a much better idea for John McTiernan to direct SAS: Red Notice, for the sole purpose to try and get his post-prison reputation back to the level of his original Die Hard and Hunt For Red October heyday. I’d like to think that the maker of the original action masterpiece from which all others originate could surely make even the lamest of scripts buzz with exhilaration? Instead, thanks to a director who cannot direct, especially action scenes, I wasn’t thrilled or excited at all.

Apparently notices of the rouge variety are very popular right now because confusingly, there’s a Dwayne Johnson “Red Notice” movie in the works too, unconnected to the McNab book but an action flick nevertheless. One thing’s for certain: this version isn’t the one that stands out. Even with a large Andy McNab fanbase, this is gonna go

BY WHAT WENT WRONG OR RIGHT WITH...? ON MARCH 11, 2021 • ( 7 COMMENTS )

This is the time to remember! the time is not gonna change 😬

[breadraccoon]

Thinking about the vengeful spirit again. And it’s an interesting concept. The spirit of a victim of a serial killer holding him to his decaying body so they can torture their killer themself. That’s awesome. But like many things in Fnaf, it lacks a narrative through line to really make it work.

Sure you can make some sixth kid who was supposedly killed in a more violent manner. But we never get to learn much about that sixth victim. Nowadays it’s in debate about whether that sixth kid exists or not.

I would love for it to be an Afton kid as the vengeful spirit. Micheal makes the most logical/narrative sense. He was abused and manipulated long into an adulthood by William. William practically sent him to his death searching for his sister. Man been risking his son’s life long before then. Michael has every right to hold that kind of grudge. But then why is golden Freddy shown to be moving in UCN.

Presumably the spirit within is the one torturing Afton. The crying child wasn’t killed by William. Maybe he feels for his siblings pain, but it feels like he has the least stake to claim against William. We know even less about him than we do his siblings. Which probably isn’t saying much since characterization pretty nonexistent if you’re not a serial killer.

Hell, Elizabeth would have made a great vengeful spirit if they hadn’t done a 180 on her personality. Girls been experiment in an underground lab for years. Her characterization in SL was perfect (I’m still salty about Pizza Sim. change). But now we get a half baked sim-antagonist keeping William around. And we don’t really know much about them.

If there is anything that I’ve learned from Fnaf as a writer, we don’t run by the rule of cool.

[dracophile]

Haunted Mansion Old vs. New

Saw The Haunted Mansion today at the theater. It's pretty good! They maybe have a few too many characters we don't get to know as well in favor of focusing on the main character (I get why, but tbh a lot of the others seemed to have more interesting backstories so I kind of wish they'd maybe combined one of them into the main character), but they had a lot of fun one liners, easter eggs, and good story. Everything makes relative sense

I say this in comparison to the 2003 movie we watched before to remind ourselves how that one went, and show it to my nephew who had never seen it. The new one is honestly a VAST improvement. Watching the old one just made me realize how dumb Eddie Murphy and his family was, especially the wife.

Like, Eddie Murphy was typical workaholic dad from your 90s to 2000s build, like Robin Williams in Hook or Jim Carey in Liar Liar. Kids are...Kids. But the wife? Woman gets a call from a creepy voice asking for only her to come view the house when she and her husband are both realtors? That should've been an immediate click of the phone, that is some serial killer shit. Puts up with her husband? Questionable. Like even he can't really justify why he keeps putting work first and like...that kind of takes away his motivation for everything too. But, house is creepy and covered in cobwebs with a cemetery in the back? Oh, but the architecture! Can't find find her husband and the "charming" master of the house keeps looking at her with googly eyes, telling her tragic tales from a hundred years ago like he was there, and remarking on his lost love? Red flags everywhere, but she still follows him to the attic!

The man has to come out and directly say he thinks she's the reincarnation of his lover and reveal he's a ghost before realizing something is wrong. And she's just kind of...blah. Her character is just "the lady to be fought over who is also a mother and a realtor".

Also, the story didn't make much sense as to why they had ghosts from all over the world and history in this one mansion, hand-waving it as being just a magnet for them--yet to be honest you only ever really see them in the graveyard, for like less than five minutes. The only ghosts used as characters are originals who are just a maid and a footman, none of the ones from the ride, and no other ghosts besides the butler work against the family. Instead you get a bunch of zombies in the crypt, I'm guessing because they worked so well in Pirates of the Caribbean. But because there are hardly any ghosts, you don't see a whole lot of allusions to the ride either besides the graveyard and the climax is a little lackluster, with the butler literally being dragged to hell after admitting he killed his master's lover because she wasn't good enough via a giant fire serpent that we never see in the ride. I mean, zombies weren't in the original Pirates ride, but they are at least explicitly zombie PIRATES and they work it into the setting fairly well. Explicitly showing heaven and hell at the end and moving on the ghosts was kind of jarring but also it's over really fast for being the supposed final boss. And begs the question why he never was taken before--the curse is never really explained. The new lays out why the ghosts are there, why they are trapped, and has a showdown between an army of ghosts and the protagonists, which works a lot. Looking at it compared to the new one, it's obvious they put a lot more thought into the 2023 version.

New one makes a lot more sense in the story, with them having just kept summoning ghosts trying to find one specific one, and accidentally summoning an evil spirit. The antagonist makes sense, the ghosts are front and center to the story, including just the shear number, the effects are nice, there's lots of visual easter eggs for fans and cameos, and death and the afterlife are prominent in the story while still being relatively inclusive and kid friendly (though some of the jokes are darker, I wouldn't say they were inappropriate. There is a lot of reference to murder though. Surprisingly no hanging bodies like the first though!). It falters a little here and there,including one part of the climax being a little eh for me, but I won't spoil it and it's still better than the 2003 one. I will say I wish they did more with the camera idea because I'm a sucker for Fatal Frame type scenarios and it felt like they dropped it too soon. Oh, but they made Madame Leota a Russian medium/spiritualist who catered to royalty and dressed like a noble rather than using "g*psy" a whole bunch and playing into that stereotype, so that was nice. Every blah moment is balanced with something I really like, so it's all pretty good.

I had no idea Jared Leto was playing the Hatbox Ghost, but you never actually see Leto himself so...eh. Not my first choice, but he does a good job with the voice, I will give him that...begrudgingly. Just hope he didn't do any method acting for this one.

Basically I think it's worth the watch if you want some family friendly ghost stuff and a popcorn flick with a decent amount of heart too it. Could it have been better? Well yeah, but so can most things. Maybe I'll do something more detailed another day but if you like Disney and like the haunted mansion ride, I don't think you'd be disappointed with this one.

[leastrife]

Thomas being the first queer representation (that I fully registered at least) I saw in media will make it so he forever holds a special place in my heart, but everytime I’m going back and rewatching it I also can’t help but wish we could have been given something better. Because if we’re being honest he’s not the best representation that we as queer people have especially with shows becoming much better on that front.

Of course this show was made a while ago now and queer people have made great strides since then, but it also wasn’t made that long ago, and I can still be disappointed.

I hate that within Downton Abbey the only queer character we are given is given the antagonist trait and he’s really fucking terrible. He’s a thief, he bullies William, is constantly trying to get Bates fired, manipulates Daisy by using the crush she has on him, and while he’s not at fault for not being as upset over the loss of Lady Grantham’s child he goes as far as to criticize the others for their grief to their face and says Lady Grantham shouldn’t be mourning either. In season 1 he has 0 redeemable traits. (No tumblr, being a pretty gay man is not a redeemable trait)

I want to continue looking at this because this is something I’m passionate about, but I’ve only rewatched season 1 and I need to continue because details have left my brain. So consider this a first part to my, Thomas as queer representation and why it’s not the best.