#but i love these unexciting/ordinary scenes WAY more

[dramadramallama]

your honor,

this might sound very specific—and it is—but do you know how much i yearn for easy, quick, normal, simple, no slow-mo, just everyday regular SMOOCHING in romance kdramas?

you'd think it'd be as common a thing to witness as dramatic make-out sessions under the rain, or love confessions during the first snowfall of the year, BUT honest to god these quick kisses are the rarest of pokémons. and i am always so stupidly thrilled when we have a newly established couple just act like... a newly established couple????

please let me see them giggle and be disgusting and childish like, this is what i signed up for?? they're supposed to be freshly in love and high on the fact they're being loved back!!! they're supposed to be silly with it!

anyway, all this to say, thank you the story of park's marriage contract for giving me exactly, and i mean eXACTLY, what i want out of two fictional people in love. candid moments.

i rest my case.

[silvcrpanthera]

TRIGGER WARNINGS: CHILD LOSS TW, SEX WORK TW, MANIPULATION TW, THREATS TW, DEATH TW, MURDER TW.

kim yoohyeon. thirty three. non-binary. they/them. demiromantic pansexual libra. ☾ *ﾟ is that sera ‘zelda’ graves-seong behind the mask? whenever i see the radio host for 107.5 black dragon pearl, twitch streamer, and guitarist for vain rogues & ghost orchestra in pigalle, i think of house on a hill by the pretty reckless. rumor has it they are eccentric & loyal, but smothering & vengeful can be their fatal flaws. what their neighbors in other ( commune of coubron ) call them is the silver fox.

to consider sera’s childhood life a bundle of TANGLED MESS would be a gigantic understatement. their father passed when they were young and their mother had to raise them on their own in korea until she stumbled upon an enchanting man that she fell in love with after years of mourning over her husband. the two bonded and later, she found out that he was the head of twili family, of all things, which dumbfounded her but it had never halted the two and they eventually married. the mother and sera moved to the country, and sera was eventually considered as heir,

sera never minded and they weren’t necessarily impressed ether by it, or at least, they hadn’t been old enough to be analytical of their upbringing with their parents other than that the fleeting sensation of confinement here and there. something always seemed a bit amiss about the place, however, there were hushed encounters and people with crooked grins that domineered over the pair, but sera had always been lethargic about it. they weren’t all that interested in many ordinary things either, spending most of their time in their room either working on music or dissecting bugs which had crawled the walls instead of their duties. it wasn’t to say they were anti-social either, they knew how to play the part of being an amicable host, it was just not a lot of things kept their attention.

when travelling years later, sera stumbled upon DUSTIN GRAVES-SEONG at a circus. fascinated by his performance and the concept of circuses in general, they stayed until the show ended to speak to him behind the scene. there was an instant connection between the two and a kindling relationship, sera ultimately succumbed their first time to him that night and it was something that they had never regretted. however, they were not able to stay, though their feelings for him remained for a long time ahead.

the wealthy family’s supposed peace was, however, abruptly lacerated when an attack ensued and their parents were murdered in the process; sera witnessed with their own naked eyes the way their bodies had fallen limp, but before they were able to react much, they were ushered to safety to ensure the empire could be rescued.

too young to live on their own, sera was passed off to their strapped aunt; a middle-school english teacher who also worked as a prostitute at night. their aunt, while deep down unable to raise a child, lapped up the opportunity as she was promised the remaining of sera’s parents’ income. sera once again was emotionless to the toxicity that household possessed. they would watch their aunt come home with her clients late at night and some decided to even stick around at times, occasionally throwing inappropriate jabs at them.

sera was introduced very early to the realm of careless sex and drugs despite their feelings for dustin, in a way, the lifestyle assisted them in perceiving the world a lot less like an unexciting playground. their aunt wasn’t necessarily the best parental figure, and allowed sera to dig deeper and deeper into their vices. even thinking at one point that they’d somehow helped in bringing more client. eventually they reached a point where sera was pretty much sold around, whilst their aunt reaped the benefits. to those who had seen the heir before, they were not able to recognize them anymore, already cocked-up with everything that their aunt had molded.

their life twisted again when a client stumbled in and turned out to be a major television producer, and offered sera a place in their dating show. they agreed to participate, and here, they were reunited once more with dustin. it was as if fate had indeed desired for them to be together, as dustin ended up being their match. after completing the show, the two affirmed their relationship and then married, resulting in their first son JUNGWOON GRAVES-SEONG.

sera later reconnected with the producer, concerned that their income might not be fitting enough for a life together, and he introduced them to an owner of up-and-coming music label which aimed to experiment with pop-metal genre. though dubiety was quite apparent, they eventually agreed to sign the contract. sera soon clambered in reputation, and became a rather well-known sensation due to their skills and unique approach. luxury and fame were handed to them but they all did not come without a price.

not only did they begin to receive continuous inappropriate advances, they also later found out that their boss became obsessed with them and the money they brought. he didn’t plan of letting them go ever, and started straining them from their own family - including threats to their family if they did not stick around. perhaps their biggest loss occurred when jungwoon began to get ill for unknown reasons, his ailment worsened each day and they were constricted from him by their boss. jungwoon, unable to endure, then passed, sending both of the parents into spiral. still clenched within the boss’ grip, sera was still not permitted to leave and threat fell back on their spouse this time. with a heightening tension, overwhelming grief, and misbehaviors, the couple decided to split.

while they might have been aloof at the beginning, sera eventually cracked under the pressure of their loss, sinking more into the hellious pit where they started to overwork themselves in order to forsake the memories of crooked hands touching them, dusty disappearing, and the last breaths of their son. they began to experience issues with their severe loss of weight, and their drug consumption further stacked. their name was tainted on its own when they experienced minor accidents in public; drunken antics, temperamental outbursts. continuously losing their grip, they had to be burdened by more complaints from the peers and even more pull and shove.

fortunately, the separation itself didn’t last long as fate once again, eventually bound the mourning parents together. they were reunited with dusty, and their anguish towards each other eventually faded. despite this, they continued to propel downwards as dustin joined them in adventurous thrills, including robberies and unspoken crimes. engulfed in eventual remorse and guilt for what they had done, sera was later discovered overdosing at the penthouse of their then-roommate, ziv, and was tended to the hospital. eventually, they gradually began to mend their ways and agreed to couple counseling with dusty, to pierce back together what had been shattered. 

after a sudden, mysterious death of their ceo, the label dispersed altogether. sera opted to retire entirely from the mainstream music industry and resuming the counseling, they moved back in with dusty. there, they rekindled their marriage through knots and obstacles, and sera was determined to not mess up again. when they became pregnant again and agreed to keep the child, they realized this was the life they had always yearned; not all the fame that had raptured them. 

these days, sera finds themself working as a streamer, radio host, and performing with their band if they have an active schedule, but most of the time they prefer to remain at home with their spouse and finding relishment in domescity bliss for the first time.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION!

joined cyrek fawn’s band right after they retired from the industry as their guitarist, to continue playing music while keeping things low-key. they see cyrek as someone they could count on, and has no malicious agenda unlike others they have met.

their retirement from the label was very hushed and sudden, that some people speculated they had actually died from an overdose.

tol and foxy.

dyed their hair silver to do a complete transformation after their departure. they were once known to have their trademark pink highlighted brown hair and blonde with black bangs during their active career days.

has a gaming and vlog channel..

frequently has the vibe of someone who’s charming and sweet, but their eyes are always empty.

occasionally they would redecorate rooms, and at times imagine what it would have been like if jungwoon had been there to occupy them.

honestly an excellent singer but doesn’t sing as much anymore.

no one knows if they have actually forgotten about being the princess of twili family or they just don’t care anymore.

it’s just like no one actually knows if they were responsible for their boss’ death or nah.

they were famous famous at one point but have altered appearances ever since and so they are not as recognizable anymore. 

[kapina]

Yuletide 2018 placeholder

Dear Yuletide author--hi, sorry I didn’t have this up already, but hoping you get this soon now! Please also fulfill whatever desires YOU have because I will love reading something you loved to write. I’m pretty excited about some of the places you can go with these things!

Here is the deal.

Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

I think the relationship between Midge and Susie is delightful because of its unevenness. They don’t understand each other very well, but especially Susie feels a lot of loyalty and responsibility toward Midge, which I find adorable. The moments that they get to connect have the best emotional payoff for me, so if the story could include a little of them reaching new understandings about each other or being there for each other -- in their awkward, unexpected way, that would be great. 

I really had a Christmas theme in mind, New York in the city in that time period has a great atmospheric power for me. Honestly I think I’m thinking of Carol the movie when I say that, but I’m not into the melancholy of it, moreso that feeling of uplift and brightness that affects you even if it doesn’t fully penetrate your internal world. I’m also thinking of being a shopgirl I think, and Kate Chopin’s short story about silk stockings. There’s interesting negotiations happening between women and femininity and service careers and consumerism at this time period, since the turn of the century that are fascinating--and I think the show is also interested in this, particularly through Midge’s routine and self-policing and how she breaks that down or doesn’t, but Susie is also undergoing complex negotiations with rejection of femininity and yet she loves Midge’s comedy for it’s feminine-ness and believes in it and I think it’s not just for feminist reasons, but for feminine reasons, if that makes sense.

So really I think I’m asking for the characters of Midge, Susie, and New York in whatever combination or exclusion thereof. Could be a brief vignette of Midge’s (obviously not Christian) vs Susie’s experience, showing the contrast of their worlds, like the show tends to do. Could be them doing something together. Something like the slice of life outtake of the show. I’ll be happy if you take it in whatever direction you would like, please! What would feed my desires is something atmospheric of city life, maybe a historical detail that shapes their experience unexpectedly, something exploratory where life seems different from what you thought before, or a desire you didn’t know you had gets fulfilled, or things turn out to be more hopeful than you thought or if things turn out less hopeful than you thought at least it turns out that’s ok...getting very vague but take this as an opportunity to run with whatever you’d like! I’m just looking for something that has comfort and hope, however filtered, or striving for those things through female connections.

Hyouka

I keep bringing up Hyouka here every so often with the hopes a fish will bite. This ambling, slice of life, detective-ing innocuous schoolhouse mysteries anime is one of the best things. If you’re reading this and are intrigued, please watch it for yourself! I haven’t read the light novels, (though I’ve intended to for a while so if you want to build on something from that feel free), I’ve just watched the anime series. And it wraps up rather abruptly? I’m always looking for what happens next, especially with Chitanda and her position in her family, feeling that she has to make their farm grow and Oreki just realizing his feelings...what then?? And I adore Satoshi feeling so ordinary, struggling with just being not special. And Mayaka doesn’t get enough attention in the series. So anything exploring any dimension of the characters and their relationships plus growing up and taking on responsibilities and the mystique of Chitanda’s wealthy, traditional background would be awesome. Feel free to take the characters on an alternate universe adventure as well.

Diviners Series

Obviously the third book ends on some rising action with each of the characters off in separate directions with different goals (and lots of dead bodies), so you are welcome to explore what comes next. I put down Evie because I was very intrigued with the soft touch Libba Bray takes with describing what is obviously a substance use and reliance issue and perhaps mental illness in the form of depression or bipolar disorder? Because her description of Evie’s journey has been so delicate in the past two books, I’d like more detail about her day to day or her internal thoughts. How do her support networks work? What do mornings after look like? How did she get to that point of rejecting the radio? Even the Jericho incident was breezed through--I don’t think her trauma toward it was treated unseriously, but it kinda felt like for the purposes of plot Bray moved past it very fast because she needed to get the Sam scene in before he was taken...

Obviously a big fan of the Sam-Evie relationship and would welcome any exploration thereof, serious, silly, or otherwise. Any other characters from the series welcome as well, I was a bit sad to see so few were nominated. Might be nice to have a moment of connection between Evie and someone from the gang she hasn’t really talked to much. We get what she feels about Theta, but when has she ever talked to Henry or Ling? I think it might also be nice to see ghosts doing nice things or to see Evie’s object reading doing something nice, like her reliving a childhood memory (or the memory of someone else). We haven’t really seen their abilities and ghosts in enough friendly and comfortable situations. (Or else maybe she accidentally/not-so-accidentally experiences a private moment of one of the gang and they have to deal with the aftermath.) Again, would welcome cozy, atmospheric New York historical setting. But overall have fun with it author!!

Long Long Man Commercials

I threw in this amazing series of commercials in the interest of having something on here that would be extremely easy to watch in full. If you are unfamiliar with everything else and unexcited by whatever I wrote for our match--may I interest you in writing for me what happens next? There are so many questions about what’s going on you could play with. Who gets together in the end? Or did they find a mutually beneficial way to resolve their differences? How is long, long man always able to find them? Why is gum such a big deal? Just have fun with it, or treat it seriously, up to you.

General Likes

- character-oriented stories (but I also like plot-oriented crack or plot-oriented crossovers if they’re an excellent idea to riff); love especially characters noticing something about other characters that they hadn’t seen before and that transforming everything; love characters’ past history coming up in unexpected ways

- emotional buildup and catharsis, particularly with clueless or confused persons

- moreso leaning to canon stuff or canon divergence for this set of fandoms, but au sounds good for Hyouka or Long Long Man

- I’m looking for comfort this year, welcome dealing with hard truths but I hope things can end on a hopeful or peaceful note

- tropes like fake relationships or friends to lovers or rivals that love each other secretly

- any amount of sex in whatever sexual orientation--if you want to get really raunchy, what really works for me is when characters bring an immense amount of unspoken thoughts and feelings to sexual situations and reveal more than they wanted to (but not really dubcon or noncon for this set of fandoms); I also really enjoy non-sexual and non-romantic relationships, like family and friendships--they don’t get enough attention! they can be so important!

- straight narrative in whatever POV or a multimedia documentary/epistolary fic all sounds good

[charliejrogers]

Poltergeist (1982) (Or, an epileptic’s worst nightmare)

Wow. “What a picture!” to quote Al Pacino’s character from Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood. I went into this movie with very low expectations and said to my roommate seconds before we pressed play, “All I know is that this movie has something about ghosts, TV’s, and a little girl who says ‘They’re heeeeeere!’” And if that too is all you know about 1982’s Poltergeist, stop reading and go see this movie for yourself. This movie presents a visual spectacle from 38(!) years ago that can genuinely hold its own with the slickest CGI-fests of the 2010s (and certainly better than the average CGI flick of the mid-00’s.)

Yes, there is a plot to Poltergeist, and I’ll try my best to efficiently condense the complex plot in a succinct sentence: a family’s house is haunted. Yup. That about does it. Let this not be a critique of the film. The plot here merely needs to justify the existence of the film’s visual effects and serve as a link from one show-stopping scene to the next.

If I haven’t made it quite clear yet, this is a visually stunning film, but not necessarily from a cinematography point of view. That said, this movie could be used as a text book for how to make spooky establishing shots (the key? place a spooky object at a slightly askew angle very prominently in the foreground). No, it’s visually stunning from the standpoint of set design and practical effects.

This is really a movie that has three primary sequences and then some interstitial fluff. The first sequence of note is the ghosts’ initial assault of the family’s house including the (legitimately terrifying) abduction of the family’s youngest daughter, Carol Ann, into the paranormal recesses of her closet and the almost-abduction of their son Robbie by being swallowed by a tree. The second major sequence involves the family’s grand and “scientific” attempt to get Carol Anne back from the malevolent spirits, and the third great sequence is the film’s coffins-springing-out-of-graves grand finale as the spirits exact their final revenge on suburbia! Truly, during each of these sequences my heart was racing and my mouth was agape. It says something that even though I knew this movie was rated PG and therefore that it was unlikely that any character would die, the movie created enough suspense that I never safely assumed everyone would be OK.

But can I talk more about the set design for a second? Prior to this movie, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and its final mine-cart battle was, in my view, the gold standard for achievement in set design. This movie really gives Indy a run for his money, despite the film taking place almost entirely within a cookie-cutter home that’s part of a large, sprawling, and bland housing development that scars the otherwise beautiful California landscape around it. Despite some curious architectural choices within the house (that staircase!), we see that there is literally special about this home. The patriarch of our film, Steve Freeling (Craig T. Nelson) is the best salesman the housing development company has, and we see him sell houses that look exactly identical to his own. Yet, for all its ordinariness, there are so many tricks hidden behind the set’s walls that are revealed slowly throughout the film (and then very quickly at the end!). Everything from the ominous tree outside the children’s bedroom window to the unfinished pool to a closet door and to, yes, even those stairs(!) gets completely transformed before our very eyes from ordinary, safe, and boring to being part of the other world’s attack on our own! All of this comes to a head in the fantastic, jaw-dropping conclusion where skeletons and coffins pop out of the ground as if they were buried with springs (and the fact that in developing the set they probably buried with springs really makes me smile that the cast and crew were walking all over this set with booby-trapped coffins below their feet at least some of the time).

While it was a decision that was probably made due to the technical limitations of the time, I love that the coffins and skeletons are lifeless entities and not zombies. There is something infinitely more creepy about invisible forces acting as a puppet master over lifeless bones than the cheesy/overplayed model of the living dead. Furthermore, zombies are boring, unexciting villains… they walk slowly and stupidly hunt for brains. Clearly the force behind this film’s haunting is smart. It likes toying with the family. As we are told in the film, it knows what the family is afraid and uses it.

But more than just the set design, the practical effects in this film are wonderful in a way that’s no longer possible. I’m still scratching my head at how they filmed that scene where in seemingly one continuous shot, the film’s matriarch (Diane played by JoBeth Williams) pushes in all the chairs at the kitchen table, bends down to get something out of a cabin, and upon standing back up she (and we with her) see all of the chairs now stacked precariously on top of the table. The sequence takes five, six seconds, and is filmed to look like ONE SHOT! How did they do that?! Similarly, even just the scenes where chairs slide across the floor are magical in a way that is no longer possible in today’s era where I would know some computer was responsible for any on-screen trickery.

That the movie is such a successful spectacle no doubt is due to the influence of one Mr. Stephen Spielberg. He doesn’t direct this movie (Tobe Hooper does), but Spielberg wrote and produced it, so unfortunately for Mr. Hooper, Spielberg is primed to get most of the credit, as this film fits so perfectly in the Spielberg directorial canon. The movie came out a month before E.T. and certainly feels like a wonderful companion piece. It truly is a “kid’s horror movie” in the best sense of the phrase. The scenes where the family’s young boy, Robbie, is alone in his room dealing with his irrational fears are among the movie’s best. He sees faces in the tree outside his room, he throws a sweatshirt over his creepy clown figure, and investigates the darkness underneath his bed. All this is filmed with enough tension to perfectly capture and remind audiences how it felt to be afraid as a child.

The other hallmark of a classic Spielberg film? It doesn’t take itself too seriously, which is refreshing compared to if this movie were made today (and judging from the artwork from the 2015 remake I seem to be correct in my assumptions). In today’s age of developing deep “lores” and cinematic universes, the film isn’t too interested in fleshing out its paranormal theory. There’s a nice little piece of the film where one expert in ghosts explains her theories about the afterlife and what happens to the soul, but it mostly stays at a superficial level. We don’t know why there’s a particularly angry spirit haunting this house, and frankly it doesn’t matter!

Additionally, despite the serious and deadly circumstances the family faces, there’s a good deal of whimsy to this film. Just take the film’s ending. After the Freelings make a daring and heroic escape from their haunted home just before it is completely swallowed up into a blackhole, the movie ends with them checking into their room at a Holiday Inn for the night. As the camera zooms out on the closed motel room door and the credits roll, the film’s theme song plays. It’s a song that has an unironic, easy lightness to it that fits more in a Christmas movie than a Halloween movie. To me, it symbolizes that despite the destruction of the house, the spirits that inhabited it finally have reached their peace. It makes you wonder who were are supposed to be rooting for in this film… the Freelings or the ghosts? More on that in a second.

But no better example of the film’s whimsy exists than when the family enlists the help of local parapsychological experts (i.e., ghostbusters.) It is clear to me that the film Ghostbusters wouldn’t exist but for this movie. Anyways, the ghostbusters at one point brag about their credentials and knowledge of the paranormal, explaining that they once saw a toy car move across a room over the course of hours all by itself. Mr. Freeling (at this point with perpetual bags under his eyes from constant stress about his daughter residing in the spiritual world) grunts politely but with lack of interest. For in the next second he opens the door to the paranormal hub of his home where all the furniture is floating and spinning around by itself. The ghostbusters just about shit themselves.

If there’s some political commentary in this movie it’s very surface level and doesn’t distract from the spectacle. I was dreading this being a plot revolving around building the housing development on “sacred Indian burial grounds” and therefore the Native spirits were exacting their revenge. The movie actually addresses this head-on saying explicitly that the housing development was not built upon such land. It’s not that white people don’t deserve cosmic revenge for the way we (I’m white) as a people destroyed multiple civilizations… but that’s just such a tired, lazy, and slightly offensive trope. Instead, we find out that the original land developers built on top of a regular cemetery, moved the headstones, but never the bodies. Thus, the disturbed spirits and the subsequent haunting.

Still, even with this paranormal explanation, the movie is not-so-subtly critical of suburbia and suburbanites even if it’s critiques aren’t clear or fully fleshed out. As I noted above, towards the beginning of the film, the camera pans slowly across what is a beautiful California hilly landscape only to reveal a seemingly endless expanse of identical homes as part of this housing development. There’s an implicit sense at the very start that these people and their cookie-cutter existence and petty problems (like getting into a war with neighbors over the faulty TV signal), don’t belong here in this beautiful land… something made rather explicit by the film’s end when the ghosts fight back and finally get their peace.

As for more unclear symbolism, there’s got to be some meaning to the ironic fact that Mr. and Mrs. Freeling are both open-minded pot-smokers and Ronald Reagan-voting YUPPIE’s, but I never quite figured it out. Ultimately though, the specifics of Diane’s and Steve’s characters are not that important. They’re just supposed to be stand-ins for everypeople and they serve those roles very well. They are very, very likable as a couple with a strong, supportive, and obviously sexual relationship. And it’s clear they love their children very much. When told that Steve had to yell at Carol Anne sternly in order to save her life from ghosts, Steve hesitates because it is not within him to be harsh with his child. And as for Diane Freeling, she is the model of the perfect mother. She is devoted, loving, tender, but above all unafraid to risk her life to save her babies. It is clear the writers of Strangers Things had her in mind when they created the character of Mrs. Byers.

In every review I write, I get surprised by how much I end up writing. This is objectively a silly, inconsequential movie about a family whose house is haunted. It has no grand themes or ideas, the performances are all perfectly adequate, and some of the dialogue is downright silly. So how is there so much to say? It’s the way the director Tobe Hooper so perfectly recreates feelings of childlike fear and the way Spielberg and co. worked so hard to create such a grand spectacle that is better than some of the biggest budget movies of more recent yearsmakes this a true joy to watch. This movie knows exactly what it wants to be, sets out to do it, and comes away having it a big time home-run. And in its embrace of whimsy comes out on top over so many other movies it inspired who took Poltergeist‘s cutes on big set pieces, but forgot about its heart.

****(Four out of four stars)

[soap-brain]

alright! i guess it’s time for the big jurassic world meta post that nobody asked me for or is interested in!! i have far more important things to do and i’m running on five hours of sleep but i guess it’s whatever.

@bottomkirk @trappist-1p @tari101190 lookie it’s the j-world meta post!

~major spoilers ahead~

so the thing i found so interesting about jurassic world was that it looks completely ordinary and boring, fourth in a series that was once spectacular and breathtaking, a spielberg movie that continues to beat a horse that’s at least dying, if not already dead. the storyline is almost completely unoriginal, the accompanying moral questions the same as in jurassic park (further described as j-park) - “have big monster for money” vs “maybe we actually Shouldn’t and it is Bad”. jurassic world (further described as j-world) add a teeny tiny spin with “maybe use big monster for military”. it’s an american action movie, what do you expect? j-world also keeps the storyline of “someone wants to steal the research”

so, storyline? unoriginal. the actual ‘monsters’, especially the indominus rex? kind of pale against the sheer magnificence and terror of the t rex in j-park. 0 awe effect. it looked ... boring and made up and not primitively terrifying like the t rex. it had some spikes though, and it could camouflage itself even though that was used as a plot device and then dropped like a hot potato. then there were lots of other plot holes that i’ll come back to later.

now towards what makes it surprisingly interesting: the characters.  they look basic, at first. surprisingly, we have a woman in charge of things even though it’s a hollywood movie, but that’s where representation ends. we have two boys of regular medium age as protagonists so that a larger audience feels included, and they do come across as “boys will be boys” at first. but there’s actually quite a lot more to that, as well as to most other major characters, so i’ll be looking at each of them.

(disclaimer: i’m horribly bad with names, so i’m just not gonna use any names bc i already forgot them tbh)

let’s start with the first character we see: the mom. she seems normal at first, but if you look closer see she’s immature, emotionally distant and decidedly emotionally abusive of the older son, while also having some serious issues with herself. we first see her packing the car. kind of weird that the younger son doesn’t bring his own luggage, seeing how he’s allegedly so excited to go to j-world. instead, he’s looking through dias of dinosaur drawings in his room, decidedly unexcited to go somewhere where he later can barely stand still. almost as though he’d rather stay away from the mom. then the older boy says goodbye to his girlfriend, and the parents’ reaction really shocked me. because i understand gentle teasing; my family does that a lot. but the boy’s parents’ reaction is not teasing. it’s belittling and shaming, absolutely not taking him serious as a person and laughing about him. and they drag the younger boy into doing the same. next, the airport scene: the mother makes a huge deal out of letting the boys fly on their own, flapping around the younger one, being exaggeratedly tearful and scared. watch the scene and look at her facial expressions. completely exaggerated. all her attention is focused on the younger boy and she practically ignores the older one. shouldn’t she at least hug him? next, her phonecall with her sister, the aunt. it turns out that the aunt doesn’t actually spend time with the boys. the mother then starts crying - bear in mind she’s in a public setting just having stepped outside of a meeting. and yet she starts to actually bawl over the fact that her sister isn’t spending time with her nephews. now, we know they aren’t particularly close - the sister hasn’t seen the boys for seven years, which is one hell of a long time. meaning, the two of them have very likely not met up at all during that time. the mom then begins saying some things that the sister doesn’t want to hear; we’ll get to that later. the call ends. we see the mother again, briefly. she’s panicking over why her boys won’t pick up the phone, even though she doesn’t have a reason to assume they are in any danger. dinos are already so implemented into regular life that j-world is like a zoo resort. the mother has no reason to think anything is wrong, and usually when kids don’t pick up during an activity that you specifically believe is lots of fun, it means that they are having lots of fun. but from the way she stresses over that, we can assume she’s very controlling of her children (also they have to call her every day. in the age of texting and whatsapp, that’s maybe a bit much). also: if she stresses that much about her boys technically being with her sister, she obviously doesn’t trust the sister much; yet she sends her children to stay with her for a while week. the last time we see her it’s during the reunion scene, where she’s crying again and also for the first time showing some warmth towards her older son.

now to the father. he’s clearly emotionally completely uninvolved and uninterested. while the mother loads up the car and gets the sons, he sits at the steering wheel, already completely ready to go away and get the kids gone as soon as possible, being annoyed when they take too long. and not annoyed in the “you’re gonna miss your flight”-way. he also participates in belittling the older son. then we see him during the reunion scene (which i generally have problems with). all of a sudden, he’s warm and amicable and hugs both his sons, even ‘allowing’ his older son the ‘emotional vulnerability’ of hugging.

so let’s look at the boys. the older one is completely emotionally numb and only physically present when with his parents. he’s completely given up and withdrawn into his shell - listening to music, being on his phone when spoken to, exclusively interested in girls, especially his girlfriend.  the way he says goodbye to his girlfriend is a bit much, too. he’s only going away for a week, yet they make such a huge thing out of it. so either “kids will be kids” and “he’s in that age, you know” apply here, or there’s something else, and man, if my parents treated me the way his parents treat him, i’d be fleeing into every direction i could, too. he’s completely disillusioned in regards to his parents’ love for him - he can’t wait to get out of the household (see his conversation with his brother about their parents possibly divorcing each other. to paraphrase “who cares? i’ll be out of there in two years anyways”). it’s all he can think about, getting away from home. he also does his best to be uninterested in his surroundings, completely shutting himself off from the outside world, including his brother. they’re obviously not very close, and it’s very likely the older boy thinks his brother is in on the familial bullying towards him, even though the younger boy probably just doesn’t know better.

but the younger one isn’t as illusioned as the older one thinks. he realizes his parents’ abuse / emotional neglectment as well, and he flees into his world of dinosaurs. i know that his character is a play on the dinosaur phase that’s allegedly a big part in all boys’ childhoods, but my cousin went through his dino phase, and he sure as hell couldn’t talk about all the topics the younger one knows stuff about. the kid is around twelve, yet he’s talking about dna, genetech, can correctly sort complicated chemical structures - there’s some serious hyperfixiation with a hint of academic brilliance there. add to that his almost non-stop talking about his special interest and inability to pick up on social cues (see especially the scene where he greets his aunt, who he hasn’t seen for seven years, who he probably has no actual memory of, yet he runs to hug her), and you have a pretty good possibility of him having a form of asperger’s. considering the family, it’s likely undiagnosed, ignored and even ridiculed.

then let’s consider the aunt. she’s the slightly unscrupulous business woman, her life perfected to a t, everything punctual and perfect. listen to the speech she gives to the investors during the lab tour: it sounds like a power point presentation. the epitome of someone who’s pretending to be the “strong woman who don’t need no man”. she also obviously doesn’t hold her family ties in high regard - her work is far more important and she has no active desire to interact with the boys, hence why they run around with her assistant. she does hold some kind of misplaced affection / misunderstood sisterly duty for her sister though, but they obviously don’t have the best relationship, if you consider their phonecall. the aunt doesn’t want kids, probably doesn’t like them, either. she has definitely been teased harshly about that, in the way of “oh, you don’t know real work until you’ve had kids, but it’s so worth it :))” of the middle-aged white soccer moms on facebook. but the aunt doesn’t want kids. she doesn’t want a family, she doesn’t want a boyfriend, and, depending on how you read her phonecall with her sister and her conversation with owen at his cabin, she might even be asexual and have been heavily teased about that and ridiculed by her family. the phonecall ends when the boys’ mother begins using the same arguments her mother has used towards the sister. normally, that wouldn’t be cause to end a call, but the j-world sister is suddenly very interested in doing just so, and instead of asking her sister how work is, or whether she’s alright or any other meaningless platitudes, she just says bye and is gone. please also consider that the boys’ mother clearly (subconsciously or consciously) tries to manipulate j-world sister into spending time with her children by starting to cry on a phonecall during a meeting about how she wanted this to be “family time” with an aunt who was never interested. and then j-world sister later says “now you’re beginning to sound like mom” and ends the call. there seems to be some kind of correlation between that.

next we have owen. ex soldier with probably a lot more baggage than is good for him, living some kind of dream of being a gun-slingin’ raptor cowboy. he certainly considers himself to be an expert and like he’s some kind of super ranger and savior in need of a damsel in distress.

and that’s the point.

you have all these different people living in their dream worlds:

the mother lives in her dream world of being a highranking business woman who fabulously manages to juggle jobs and kids

the father lives in his dream of being a serious adult and a proper man without all the emotion-showing.

the older brother lives in his dream world of “soon i’ll be out of here” and “i don’t care about my family anyways”.

the younger brother lives in his dream world of dinosaurs.

the aunt lives in her dream world of being 100% in control of the situation, managing the huge theme park perfectly.

owen lives in his dream world of being the cool gunslingin’ raptor whisperer, some kind of cowboy fantasy where he has pet monsters instead of pet horses. major delusions of grandeur here.

the multimillionaire investor (purple shirt) lives in his dream world of the world being his oyster and everything being exciting and a game.

the military guy lives in his dream world of soon establishing some kind of übermilitary with intelligent dino-soldiers.

the one controller dude (the one in the j-park shirt) is living in his dream world of rebuilding the glory of the first park.

and they all fail horrifically.

the mother has some kind of emotional breakdown, hopefully realizing she’s an abusive shit, but at least realizing that her children mean something to her other than just being trophies.

the dad (hopefully) realizes that he should love his children and it’s not cool at all to be distant and cold.

the older brother realizes that he can’t be some kind of lone wolf and that he does need his brother, his family.

the younger brother realizes that his idolized dinos are actually monsters.

the aunt realizes that she isn’t in control and that she went too far, and that she can’t do everything on their own.

owen realizes that when worst come to worst, all he can do is try to survive. the dinos aren’t as trainable as he thought. he isn’t some kind of dino-alpha.

the multimillionaire investor hopefully realizes that life isn’t a game.

the military guy, who thought raptors were the next super soldiers, tries to reason with one of them and gets eaten.

the controller dude realizes that no matter how hard he idolizes j-park, genetically engineering monsters actually leads to genetically engineered monsters that aren’t family friendly.

and all the protagonists realize they need other people in their lives. not necessarily each other, that’s bullshit (please dear god, tell me where this weird-ass owen+aunt romance subplot came from, and why they say they’ll “stick together”. it makes 0 sense - they have nothing in common and why should their relationship magically work just because they survived a raptor attack?), but they realize that on their own, they’re not as invincible as they once thought.

but all that doesn’t meant that the movie isn’t still not precisely good and lacking quite some good sense, so let’s take a quick look at that.

the events of j-park are canon, so we can assume that the events of j-park 2 and 3 are canon as well, meaning dinosaurs (ie the ‘cool’ dinos people want to see, aka the one with many teeth and all) have already proved themselves to be actual monsters; nevertheless, a park opens with the same objective and it’s not like, idk, illegal. also it opens on the same island as the first one was set to open on. their idea on how to make it safe so that the dinos don’t hurt anyone? uhhh idk make more and more dangerous dinos i guess.

that being said: cloning / genetic manipulation / bioengineering / whatever the fuck they call it is apparently legal and ok and completely fine and there’s no problems with that whatsoever in that world.

two boys (16 and 12) know how to fix up a car all by themselves, even though i sincerely doubt they’ve ever been shown how to.

convenient loss of signals. possibly due to .... *spins wheel* the signal bocking capacities of the dinos. i get that it’s a dramaturgic effect, but please, at least make it make sense!

she prances over grass and sticks and stones in pumps. she outruns a fucking t rex in HEELS. stiletto heels!! have you worn heels before? do you know how much you’ll break your ankle?? no matter how “trained” or whatever you are ... you do not do that in heels wtf. it’s pretty damn impossible.

a highly trained team of swat-esque personnel. *shoots rocket launcher at bigass dino* *misses by like ten meters* *shoots rocket launcher at far smaller target that’s fare more agile* *bullseye*

i’m not too sure the indominus rex could’ve actually, y’know, reached the place where the implant was.

*raptor attack* people run screeching in circles for half an hour, not trying and definitely failing to get cover.

how is the indominus rex so super strong that it can break through steel and concrete walls, but a meagre t rex can fuck it up that badly. you’d think the strength would also be in its jaws, but ... apparently not.

why did they try to get the pig out of the raptor cage??????

why did the younger boy photograph uuuuhh like that? also, why did he have such an ancient camera? they’re clearly in the age of holograms and glass computer screens, and his camera almost looks like it’s using film, while his brother has a smartphone (that also looks pretty old but whatever)??

owen: “o shit there’s a bigass dino monstrosity loose that i know can’t be killed by bullets!! better grab my mediocre rifle, i’m sure that’ll help”

owen: “oh heck there’s this poor dino here that’s dying (from three and a half scratches). man, me and my mediocre rifle wonder whether there’s something we can do to put it out of its misery. man, better pet its head.”

raptor: “o shit a new alpha in town!!! better than the human!!” *two hours later* “oh man i sure love my human alpha. i’ll now turn on the new alpha, the one i obeyed for the past hours, for my human man”

and lastly i’d like to give a shoutout to the product placement team. good job guys, i really understood now that i have to buy starbucks, mercedes and coca cola. appreciate the heads up.  (aka this was worse product placement than in i, robot and what did they do that for? also i think i may have missed the odd brand that i don’t know)

also i’d like to point out that they didn’t even get themselves a higher-ranking chris :(

tl;dr: fuckign j-world, man

please remember to rb my indominus rex pastel edit of “cool girls don’t look at explosions” or whatever, it’s a good post

[foursprout-blog]

This Is What Following Your Dreams Really Means, Because It’s Not All Inspirational Quotes And Moving To NYC

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/happiness/this-is-what-following-your-dreams-really-means-because-its-not-all-inspirational-quotes-and-moving-to-nyc/

This Is What Following Your Dreams Really Means, Because It’s Not All Inspirational Quotes And Moving To NYC

Lena Bell

Following your dreams is a very romantic idea, until you start doing it.

When it’s just a far-off possibility, when it’s just a maybe someday kind of idea that lives in your brain, it’s much more appealing. Because that version of following your dream is the highlight reel. It’s you consciously or unconsciously imagining your ‘dream achievement’ montage in your head, in which you’re writing late into the night next to a beautiful cup of coffee, or taking an invigorating breath before a huge presentation. That’s the romantic version of following your dreams that lives in your head.

But if you actually start to follow them, if you actually dare to believe that you deserve to pursue something that makes you happy, it all becomes very unromantic. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Because in addition to being unromantic, following your dreams is at times very boring. Or painful. Or monotonous. Or exhausting. Or frustrating. Or heartbreaking. Or all of those things at once.

Following your dreams is very slow.

Once in a while, you live inside one of those picturesque moments in which you are working until the sun rises or walking down a city sidewalk in your dream-accomplishing-uniform (beautiful peacoat? converse sneakers? all-black outfit that is unbelievably chic?) and you know in your gut that they would include this scene in the movie of your life.

But in-between all those lovely moments are a lot of incredibly uneventful, dull, and even painful moments. Thousands and thousands of moments in which you look terrible and you create something that you are convinced is shit and you get in a fight with someone who’s just trying to help you because you’re being overly defensive and you cry in front of the refrigerator or, worse, you just stand in front of the refrigerator feeling nothing and waiting for some interesting food to appear.

Following your dreams is really unextraordinary and really mundane. It’s not always the story of moving to New York City with $7 in your pocket. Following your dreams is often a lot more unexciting than that. There are the occasional, pretty shots of your cappuccino while you’re working in a cafe or the exciting phone calls where you actually hear even the smallest bit of good news. But fifty times as often as that, there is that one piece of criticism or feedback that makes you wonder if you need to stop doing this immediately because you’ll never make it. There is that certain something you’re incredibly proud of that gets a lukewarm reaction from your boss or the audience or even just your friend when you test your idea or product or creation out on her. There is staying up until 3 in the morning and having nothing to show for it. There is hearing your alarm go off and thinking about how you’d rather be anywhere but in this moment, because you’re not sure that you can take another day of following your dream.

There are the life-giving moments of joy, sure. And there are the soul-crushing moments of pain and rejection, sure. But there’s also a lot of moments that involve you just feeling mediocre, or average, or uninspired, or unremarkable.

And often, these feelings are a thousand times worse than the painful feelings. Because at least the pain directs you somewhere, it challenges you to either let yourself keep sinking or to pull yourself out of it. But feeling unexceptional, or average, or how-am-I-ever-gonna-make-this-happen type of feelings? Those keep you on a plateau, where you can see out in a thousand different directions but not one of them includes a clear pathway from where you’re standing.

This is what following your dream is. It’s a lot of pain, it’s a lot of heartbreak. But more than that, it’s a lot of ordinary days, and hours, and minutes. It’s a lot of open-endedness. It’s a lot of monotony and flatness and tedium. It’s a lot of plateaus and a lot of open plains.

And yet somehow, through all of that, you have to find the spark – the thing that makes your heart race and opens your eyes and gets your blood flowing and makes you want to be so much better than you are right now.

Following your dream is finding that thing within you, call it whatever you want – passion, creativity, magic, inspiration, your muse, the universe, your soul, the guidance of a higher power – that thing that makes you impervious to thoughts of giving up, because you know that when you add them up, all those tiny little uneventful moments are the moments when slowly, and patiently, and fervently, and unextraordinarily, you begin to follow your dream.

So live in these moments. Keep doing the boring things that make way for the bigger things. Keep working that day job and do it with pride. Keep stumbling through this life and keep learning from that criticism and keep asking for help. Do this hourly, minute-ly, second-ly. Do it uneventfully, do it unglamorously. Be exhausted, be uncertain, be dedicated, be boring, be ordinary. Be all of this every day, do all of this every day. That’s how your heroes did it.