#but it being a sequel and all the same models makes me crazy

[solargeist]

i Do like the idea that Majora's Mask is a metaphor for Ocarina Link's grief--but i don't think he's dying or anything, i think everything in the game Does happen, its real, but its also grief manifesting... perhaps...........

[barbieb0y]

song of the tulips.

DAY 7 YAYYYYYYYY we going out with a bang here people. this is probably the longest one ive written for this event

today, i went with a crown of flowers upon the head + picnicking among nature’s beauty + a dance of blooming roses ! okay that last one is kinda untrue bc i wrote about tulips instead bc apparently theres a tulip garden in san fran and it's amazing bc tulips are my fave flowers. crazy

this is actually a sequel to my day 2 entry ! you dont have to read that one to get this one but you'll get the references i put here if you do!! also a little disclaimer this one is kinda suggestive. nothing too wild, just a joke and a subtle nudge but yeah. if i could write smut i wouldve done it for these two believe me (not for this week/event but in general)

enjoy what may be my last uppercut fic for a while. thank you scrunkly week for enabling me and my selfship these past few days, you have NO idea how much this means to me 🥺

Queen Wilhelmina Garden is fairly far from where they reside in Haight Street, especially if they are to ride there on Joe’s bike. Luckily for the couple, Joe has a rare moment of pure genius (yet a common moment of money spending for Paper Cut).

A peaceful smile creeps onto Paper Cut’s face, relieved that his lover took his advice to heart. It’s not uncommon since Joe sort of sees Paper Cut as the all-knowing doctor but it does well to remind himself that the biker is as stubborn as Paper Cut himself.

“Wow, you actually bought a car this time around.”

And beautiful it is. Paper Cut does notice something about it though.

“Yeah! Look at her – beautiful, ain’t she?”

“Considering it’s the exact same model as the car you rented that weekend in summer, I’m guessing you got emotionally attached to that car.”

Joe lets out an awkward laugh then falls silent, and so does his smile.

“...We don’t talk about that car.”

Right on the money, Paper Cut thinks. He’ll humor his boyfriend.

“Anyway, shall we get going then?”

A smile that can rival the sunshine instantly makes its way to Joe’s lips.

“Last one to get in the car is a rotten egg!”

“And soooooo Sally can wait…”

“She knows it’s too lateeeee as we’re waaalkin’ on by~”

It’s full-on karaoke mode in that freshly-bought car. Though Paper Cut always insists he won’t sing along (“I’m not as good as you.” “It’s not about being good, babe, it’s about having fun!”), a part of him subconsciously makes him belt out to radio hits either way.

“Man, I love music.”

Paper Cut’s confession prompts Joe to let out a hearty laugh. The freedom in Paper Cut’s singing voice is already proof of that fact but it’s nice to hear it from the man himself. Then Joe has a flashbulb moment.

“I oughta take you out to the disco sometimes.”

“Oh God, no thank you. Too many sweaty people dancing in one small, dark room sounds like a nightmare.”

Joe often attempts to drag Paper Cut into social situations knowing he won’t ever do it himself. As introverted as he is, he’s still a social creature as far as Paper Cut’s concerned.

Joe had expected this response. The reasoning is just a bonus. But his spirit is not broken so easily (which is merely a delicate way of saying he’s stubborn).

“When you put it that way, it sounds like one! Don’t worry baby boy, I’ll make sure you’ll have a good time.”

Paper Cut falls into red, bashful silence at the phrase “baby boy”, cursing himself for being so weak to pet names as such, but especially that one. Joe only smirks, knowing his victory is sealed. After a minute, Paper Cut sighs.

“Okay, but still, I don’t dance.”

Well, now he’s just straight up lying, Joe thinks.

“You did yesterday. I saw you.”

Joe genuinely thinks this is a good argument – it would be if it weren’t for the fact that Paper Cut was not made aware of this fact.

“It is very not nice to peep on people!”

Paper Cut gives Joe’s shoulder a light hit, the blush never leaving his face. Joe manages to scratch the back of his head in shame with one hand.

“Yeah okay, but you looked like you were having a good time!”

“Keep your hand on the steering wheel, dammit!”

The two keep on bantering for the rest of the journey, the radio karaoke forgotten entirely.

They wouldn't say the idea of having a picnic here is anything original but they definitely expected less picnic blankets strewn about. But it's a pleasant sight – friends, couples, families, even individuals are out here surrounding themselves with nature's beauty with sandwiches in hand.

Thankfully, despite the amount of people, the couple still manages to find a spot for just the two of them, a little ways away from the rest of everyone else just in case Paper Cut gets too anxious (and in case Joe wants to initiate some “socially unacceptable” PDA – the two tries not to lament on the fate on couples like them too much).

They start unpacking their lunches – fried rice and fruit juices courtesy of Paper Cut, mineral water and (of course) sandwiches courtesy of Joe.

“Man, you’re out here serving us food like we’re kings meanwhile I just brought us plain-ass water and peanut butter jelly sandwiches like we’re kindergarten kids.”

The exaggeration pulls out a laugh from Paper Cut.

“C’mon, it’s not that serious. As long as it doesn’t kill me, I’ll put it in my mouth. And no, that’s not your cue to joke about you-know-what.”

A pout makes its appearance which Paper Cut ignores in grace, continuing to set up their little picnic spot with a little hum of a radio hit on his lips. With gentle sunlight and the scent of newly-bloomed tulips embracing the couple, Paper Cut feels like he’s a budding plant himself.

They start digging into their food; Joe sees this as a prime opportunity to gossip about the going-ons of their neighbors and the neighborhood kids while Paper Cut relishes in people-watching from their place.

At some point, Joe, being the kinaesthete that he is, gets up to walk around the garden but not without a quick heads-up to Paper Cut. Paper Cut, on the other hand, takes this as his cue to dominate the picnic blanket and lie down as if he’s making a snow angel (a picnic blanket angel, maybe). He soaks up the sun while he can, before he eventually retreats into his “man cave” as some locals have described his residence.

He tries to gain some inspiration from the springing of mother nature that surrounds him. Grass greener than the other side, the rows and rows of tulips in different hues reminiscent of a Holland rainbow, laughter tickling his sensitive ears, and skies as blue as his lover’s gentle eyes. Paper Cut never thought it was possible to feel this alive. Should this even be a bandage? It is an emotion so heavenly that it may transcend corporealness.

“Enjoying yourself, arent’cha?”

All things come to an end, yes, but beautiful things can begin right after. Joe snaps his boyfriend out of his trance with his teasing voice and the beautiful skies he has for eyes. In addition, he comes bearing gifts, which he then proceeds to rain down on his boyfriend who’s in the process of sitting up. Literally.

“What the–”

He is met with a shower of flowers and their healthy green stems, in which he tries to shield his face from by dropping his head and raising his hands, forming futile gates. Joe giggles and as he sits down, utters a quick apology for the prank. Paper Cut doesn’t take his teasing to heart but he pretends to sulk anyway, prompting his lover to elaborate on the sudden appearance of flowers separated from their fields and gathered on their picnic blanket.

“There’s a bunch of stray flowers around so I just hoarded them for no reason. But then this really nice lady taught me how to make flower crowns for them so that kinda took a bit of my time. You don’t mind, right?”

Paper Cut gives his lover a small laugh at his recount of his little walk. It’s difficult to get mad at this guy.

“Not at all. It’s very ‘you’ to already be making friends out here.”

Joe guiltily rubs a hand on the back of his head either way, offering an apologetic smile. His boyfriend merely shoots him a knowing glance.

“So lemme guess… you wanna try making flower crowns with me?”

Paper Cut starts to fiddle with a flower, staring at it curiously. He doesn’t have any kind of flower crown knowledge or experience so it’ll make for an interesting activity.

“Yeah! We can make them for each other!”

Joe is beaming once more. If the sun ever feels like retiring, Joe can easily fill in the vacancy.

“Haha, alright then.”

Well, at least he can say he tried his best?

For a first attempt, he’d say it’s not that bad. His demons are fighting amongst themselves to whisper in his ear that it could’ve been better while Paper Cut himself basks in the simplicity of having had fun making the flower crown.

“You finished?”

Paper Cut looks up from where his crown lay in his lap at the question and merely nods, a bit shy to show off his creation. Meanwhile, Joe raises his own like a well-earned trophy.

“Ta-da!”

The boundless wonder in his eyes can only make Paper Cut smile tenderly, matching the demure nature of the flower crown Joe made – all pale pink and yellow tulips, it’s a color combination that Paper Cut thinks is spring itself.

“It’s beautiful.”

“Not as beautiful as you.”

That is all he can muster up to say aloud. There is a proud twinkle in Joe’s eyes that eventually transitions into an affectionate one, once he places the flower crown on his boyfriend’s head.

Paper Cut is as red as the flowers on his lap now and he averts his gaze out of embarrassment. A light chuckle escapes his lover’s lips but he doesn’t say anything else.

“W-Well… I made this. It’s not as good as yours but…”

The blushing boy somehow manages to mutter and, still without looking at his lover, outstretches his hands to show Joe his flower crown. It is a dance of crimson tulips, and Joe can feel Paper Cut’s deep love and passion in his creation.

“Cut… this is the prettiest thing I’ve ever laid my eyes on. Aside from you, I mean.”

That manages to bring a laugh out of Paper Cut, his embarrassment subsiding slightly. He rises to his knees as Joe leans down to aid him in placing the crown on his head. They both laugh this time and Joe makes the first move to revert to his original position, allowing the flower crowning ceremony to resume.

They then proceed to gaze into each other’s eyes, both enamored by each other and unsure of what to do next with all this tension. But as usual, Joe initiates – once the two of them are within suitable proximity, he leans in for a delicate kiss. Paper Cut takes a second to overcome his shock and then reciprocates.

The world around seems to dissolve as they kiss and as Joe shifts to lay Paper Cut down. The former leans down once more to plant more kisses which the latter returns with no hesitation. Mother Nature sways in a sudden breeze, as if to shield them from prying eyes.

It is until Paper Cut lets out a little noise that clarity hits him like a truck. He instantly puts a hand between his face and Joe’s to stop him from continuing.

“Okay okay okay, I think that’s enough. We’re in public, remember?”

He insists as he watches Joe’s consciousness snap back into place as well. Joe only sighs, whether satisfied with their little love session or discontent that he was interrupted, Paper Cut doesn’t know. But it’s a reminder much needed for the both of them.

“It’s easy to forget when I’m around you, really.”

This time Paper Cut only rolls his eyes in amusement. His lover truly takes any chance to charm him to death.

“Corny.”

Joe guffaws as he pulls Paper Cut to sit up together.

“You like it though.”

Paper Cut lets out a brief “hah”, now leaning on Joe’s shoulder. Joe follows suit.

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”

They enjoy each other’s company for the remainder of the afternoon until they eventually have to head home (“Actually, can we stop by a mosque on the way home? It’s getting kind of late.” “Honey, you should’ve told me earlier, I’d hate for you to miss your prayer because of me!”). More bantering and singing ensue in their little car, with the addition of another kissing session once they’re actually home. But perhaps, home is wherever and whenever they’re together.

Spring is the season for the new, and the flower crowns that adorn their home walls mark the beckoning of a new chapter for the couple.

[dogshit-enchantment]

Watched all the cutscenes and plot for totk since I can't be bothered to slog through the game to play it and I'm just left sad and disappointed.

It feels like there's no real stakes at the very end of it all. Like, all of the potential for consequences and actual danger are just artificial. There's the whole plotline with Zelda that would have made for a cool post-game quest of "we have to find a way to return her to normal" but instead is fixed with a 15 second cutscene of Heterosexual Beam TM, same with Links arm which I feel should have been permanent.

The gameplay itself leaves me frustrated and sad.

Ultrahand is clunky and only fun when used to exploit the game, not as it's intended use. The game also over relies on it for puzzle mechanics.

Recall is literally often forgettable.

Fuse is frustrating and serves to fix a problem by making a worse one. The weapon durability system was often heralded as the worst part of botw, so to fix your hesitation to use/break cool weapons they just! Got rid of all of them! And made the durability worse!

And instead of bombs being a reusable source on a cool down, it's now an item you feel you have to hoard. I personally have "I should save this for when I need it" syndrome so this went from "wow they put bomb flowers back in the game!" to "I can never use bombs ever"

The removal of cryonis was also extremely frustrating.

The removal of all Sheikah tech was also extremely frustrating and confusing.

It's so confusing for the plot too, there are so many sections where things don't make sense. Zelda being "blood related" to Sonia and Rauru only makes sense if they have a child. Which is never alluded to or shown, so how could they reasonably be related? The bloodline would have ended with them! The game also mentions the guardians, but never explains where the divine beasts went or that calamity ganon was a thing.

Also the end boss being, effectively, the dragon form of calamity ganon feels so bizarre and lazy??? The dragon back boss was cool but somehow feels uninspired. Like was the dragon spiraling around the castle in botw not the exact same model??

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills with everyone going "this game just isn't for you" when I've played every single game in the series. If it's not for Zelda fans, then who is it for? New comers? I guess that would be the only other demographic but that feels like a waste. And even from a newcomer perspective the game still has the same exact gameplay flaws and game design issues.

If the next Zelda game is open world like this I'm probably going to end up skipping it. Currently debating selling my copy of totk since I don't really feel inclined to touch it ever again knowing that the plot literally doesn't matter. There are no consequences to any of the protagonists actions. There really are no stakes.

Overall I would put this game at like, a 4/10. It's a technical marvel and I enjoyed the new enemies and caves added in, but frankly it should've just been a 40$ dlc campaign to botw. Having it be a confusing 70$ maybe-not-really sequel is just. Frustrating.

Edit: I FORGOT ABOUT THE ENTIRE FUNCTION OF ASCEND BECAUSE OF HOW FORGETTABLE IT WAS. God. It also destroyed almost all of my enjoyment in botw for mountain climbing cuz I was instead left frustrated at "wheres a spot I can ascend" what a fucking circus this games design is

[heyyyharry]

Happier

(inspired by happier by Olivia Rodrigo)

Word count: 2.4k

I'm selfish, I know, I can't let you go So find someone great, but don't find no one better I hope you're happy, but don't be happier

Part 1: Drivers License

Part 2: Deja Vu

A/N: I edited the original lyrics to match the POV :)

.

.

.

Harry had come up with a thousand scenarios of how this day would play out. Actually, he’d been thinking of this day since the moment he’d received the news. He didn’t dare to hope that she’d say yes to coming back for a sequel. He’d been sure that they would write her character off, give a lame excuse for how his love interest could not make a return and make his character forget about her completely to move on with a new girl in town. It would have been great if it was that easy in real life. Once someone was written off the script, they were gone for good. Real-life relationships were not that simple. Goodbye didn’t mean ‘never see you again’. You would still share the same friend circle and social bubbles, and it was worse when you two worked in the same industry. Harry didn’t know how he’d lasted a year without running into her, not since the Grammys.

“Didn’t you two date?”

“No.” Harry shook his head, but his eyes stayed glued on Y/N from across the room. She wasn’t looking his way, too busy saying hello to everyone else. “No,” he repeated, more to himself than to his co-star. “We didn’t.”

“But she wrote an entire album about you,” said the other twin. What was her name again? Lulu?

“Luna!” cried her sister, Lex. “You can’t ask him that!”

“No, it’s okay,” Harry said with a tight smile, slightly annoyed by the blonde twins, but he didn’t want to seem like an ass on the first day of filming. “And I don’t know if it was for me. You should ask Y/N.”

“Ask me what?”

Harry flinched when he looked up and saw Y/N padding towards them. She hugged the twins, who seemed way too excited. Harry guessed they were Y/N’s fans. They gave off crazy fangirl vibes, probably just pretending not to know the drama to interrogate him. He couldn’t blame them for assuming he was the villain and definitely could not blame Y/N for portraying him as one. It was more important that he knew who he was and how much he had changed since his last relationship. Maybe they could finally be friends.

“Were they bothering you?” Y/N asked him once the twins had left.

Harry nodded. “They’re your friends?”

“Oh, I met them last year on tour. I’m surprised you don’t know them. They were on Disney.”

“I don’t watch Disney,” Harry admitted with a smile. “Well, not today’s Disney.”

“Understandable.” Y/N nodded and bit her lip. She seemed guarded with her straight back and hands hidden behind her. She eyed him up and down, quite subtle yet noticeable. “How have you been?”

“Pretty good,” he said, nodding slowly. “You?”

“Yeah, but mostly tired because of tour.”

“You’re done?”

“Yup, last night was the last show.”

“Nice.”

Y/N raised an eyebrow. “Nice?”

Harry blinked. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No.” Y/N giggled. “You still sound very...you.”

“Well, shouldn’t I?”

“Yeah, you should. But it’s been a year so…I mean, you haven’t changed much.”

“Right,” he said lowly, his eyes falling to his feet. Harry supposed he should say something else, perhaps bringing up another random topic to discuss, but all he could think about was what had happened between them. Things had been messy, hadn’t they? How could they go back to before that? Before her first song about him. Before he’d chosen someone else over her.

Or he could talk about her new relationship. She’d been in a happy relationship for almost six months, right? No wait, hadn’t they broke up two weeks ago? He wasn’t sure because he hadn’t been catching up. If they’d broken up, he’d sound like an ass to even mention her ex’s name. He should just stay quiet.

“I’ll see you later?” she said, gesturing at her stylist who was waiting by the door.

Harry could ask her right now -- the reason she’d agreed to film the sequel to their first movie together. He’d heard from a very reliable source that she’d specifically asked her agent to decline any project that he was in. So did this mean they were good? That she didn’t hate him anymore? He could have gathered his courage and got the answer right then…

“Yeah, see you.”

...but he didn’t.

And so she gave him a smile and a little wave, then happily returned to her stylist.

.

.

.

“See you tomorrow, Y/N!”

“See you, Annie!” Y/N said as she put the rest of her things into her tote bag. Her new driver had got her schedule mixed up, and so she had to wait here for another half an hour. She was in no rush. It had been a light first day, and she’d had a fun time getting to know the new cast members and catching up with old friends.

She sat on the sofa in the lobby, legs crossed, texting her best friend about her day. She’d purposely left out the short off-screen conversation with Harry, and her best friend didn’t even bother to ask. In their world, he didn’t exist, and his name was censored in every conversation like a curse word that was even worse than ‘cunt’. Nevertheless, she didn’t hate him anymore. She was doing just fine on her own, being busy with her career, and she’d been in a happy relationship after her fall out with him.

She and the guy, a model, had broken up two weeks ago due to long distance and some differences that they could not change. They had ended on good terms and decided to stay friends. They said you could only stay friends with your ex when you still had feelings for each other, or you had never loved each other that much in the first place. For her, it was probably the latter. Her previous relationship had been more platonic than romantic, apparently. So she had nothing but the best to say about him.

As she was going through her camera roll, just reminiscing about the past, she heard footsteps approaching and looked up to find Harry. He offered a smile and gestured to the spot beside her on the sofa. “May I sit here? My ride is late.”

“Yeah, sure.” She hurriedly scooted over.

“Good job today,” he said. “You were great.”

“Thanks, so were you.” She smiled, and they both looked away at the same time. This was so awkward. She hated small talk. She’d never had to have small talk with Harry. Conversations with him used to be so easy and natural and silly. Whatever this was, it wasn’t them.

“Can we just be normal?”

At first, Y/N thought she’d been the one who’d said it, so when she realised it’d been Harry, she was speechless.

He swallowed and sat a bit straighter, still not looking at her. “I don’t want us to be weird and awkward.”

“Okay,” she said.

He cleared his throat. “Wanna try again?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Okay, not to sound like an ass but when Joey kept forgetting his lines, I was so pissed off, I could throw a chair at the wall.”

“Right?!” exclaimed Y/N, feeling free to have finally broken out of her shell. “Like, he doesn’t even have many lines. I know he’s new but damn...you can’t get far if you don’t learn your goddamn lines.”

Harry shook with laughter. “Oh God, we sound like dicks, don’t we?”

“Maybe.” Y/N laughed, covering her mouth. “But you know what? We can’t be nice in this industry. It’s impossible.”

“Shhh, if someone heard this, we would be into big trouble.”

“Oh please, I’ve had worse articles written about me than ‘Y/N speaks facts about her lazy co-star’.”

Harry tossed his head back and cackled. “The worst one I’ve got this week was ‘Harry Styles hates therapists.’”

“What?!” Y/N gasped. “No way! That’s so stupid!”

“Right?” Harry rolled his eyes. “I could get all my therapists to speak up for me but I’m kinda immune to bullshit now.”

“Therapists? Like plural?”

“Yeah, one in every city.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah.”

Y/N rubbed her hands onto her legs. “Rough year?”

Harry’s eyes rolled to the back of his head as he leaned back. “You have no idea.” Then he swept his hair out of his eyes, sucked in a breath, and finally looked at her. “I wish I could have talked to you, though.”

She bit her tongue, knowing what she was about to say next would disappoint her best friend so much, but she had to. “So do I.”

Harry looked taken aback before his lips curled into a smile. “It’s silly, isn’t it? I haven’t talked to you in a year, and I feel like I know everything that’s happened to you except that I don’t.”

What he’d just said might make no sense for most people, but Y/N knew exactly what he meant. She nodded and wetted her lip. “You only know as much as everyone else does.”

“Yeah, I got updates on you from the news and our friends.”

“Same.” Y/N smiled back. “I hate how they write articles about your new haircut but not mine.”

“I like your new hair colour.”

“Thanks. I like your new car.”

Then they both burst out laughing. It was fun and also a little bit strange that Y/N didn’t feel the same anxiety talking to him as she used to. It must be because they had grown and were now meeting again as better people.

“Damn, my ride's here,” Y/N said as she read the text from her driver. “I gotta go now.”

“Oh, okay.” Harry stood up and followed Y/N to the entrance. “Hey, just wondering--”

“Yeah?”

“Am I...am I still blocked?” He looked a bit flustered as she tilted her head and squinted her eyes. “On your phone. Because I remember you having my number blocked--”

“I unblocked you on your birthday.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah.” Y/N shrugged. “I should’ve sent you a happy birthday text but...I didn’t want your girlfriend to get the wrong ideas.”

“My ex.”

“Yeah, I know.”

They smiled at each other one last time before saying goodbye. Y/N knew it was silly, but she was hoping he would go after her.

Ding.

A notification popped up when she was in the car. She was almost home, and it was from Harry’s number. He’d sent her a link with a message that said, “Hope you like it :)”.

Curious, she tapped on it and was directed to an audio file titled ‘Track 5’. The upload date was last year. About two weeks after their short conversation at the Grammys.

Hurriedly, she fumbled inside her bag for her iPods and put it on before she pressed play.

“Hey, Jeff, I couldn’t sleep so I wrote this song. Listen and let me know if it should go on the album.”

Then came the piano intro. It sounded good, so Y/N wondered how it hadn’t ended up on his last album.

But when he started to sing...

We ended a while ago Your friends are mine, you know, I know You've moved on, found someone new One more guy who brings out the better in you

And I thought my heart was detached From all the sunlight of our past But he’s so nice, he’s so funny Does he mean you forgot about me?

Oh, I hope you're happy But not like how you were with me I'm selfish, I know, I can't let you go So find someone great, but don't find no one better I hope you're happy, but don't be happier

And does he tell you you’re the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen? An eternal love bullshit he might not even mean Remember when you were with me I meant it when you heard it first from me

And now I'm pickin' him apart Like cuttin' him down will make you miss my wretched heart But he’s charming, he looks kind He probably gives you butterflies

I hope you're happy But not like how you were with me I'm selfish, I know, I can't let you go So find someone great, but don't find no one better

I hope you're happy I wish you all the best, really Say you love him, baby Just not like you loved me And think of me fondly when your hands are on him I hope you're happy, but don't be happier

The song was for her. He’d written it when her new relationship had gone public. Y/N sat there, staring blankly ahead until the honking of a car tore open her inner peace, and reality came crashing back in. The driver dropped her off at her house. Instead of going inside, she stood on her front steps and replayed the song one more time. When it ended, she decided to text him: Why didn’t this make it to the album?

She didn’t know where he was now, but it showed ‘typing’ in less than a second, as if he’d been waiting in their chat since he’d sent that link.

You would’ve hated me, Y/N.

True, she replied. Still, I would’ve loved the song lowkey. And added, I love it btw.

He took so long to type that it was driving her crazy. She flopped down on the concrete stair with her phone clutched in her hands, her heart thundering against her ribcage. Anxiety popped like a balloon when his message appeared: Were you happier?

She reread it again and again.

No.

I wasn’t either, he responded. I kept getting deja vu.

Ha, nice reference.

That song is my guilty pleasure. Love listening to you roasting me on loop.

That last message made Y/N bury her face into her palm and giggle like a fool. She thought for a second and wrote: I could come roast you in person now if that’s what you prefer. I think we’ve never had a proper roasting.

Can we meet, Y/N? Or are you busy now?

No, not busy.

Great, I’ll pick you up.

Just tell me where, she responded with a smile on her face. I got my drivers license now :)

[felassan]

Some DA trivia and dev commentary from Twitter

There’s a lot of different tweets, so I’m just pasting and linking to the source rather than screencapping them all or making several different posts or something. Post under cut for length.

User: Was dragon age 2 your favourite in the franchise?

David Gaider: DA2 was the project where my writing team was firing on all cylinders, and they wrote like the wind- because they had to! Second draft? Pfft. Plot reviews? Pfft. I was so proud of what we all accomplished in such a brief time. I didn't think it was possible. [source] DA2 is, however, also where the goal posts kept moving. Things kept getting cut, even while we worked. I had to write that dialogue where Orsino turned even if you sided with him, because his boss battle had been cut and there was no time to fix the plot. A real WTF moment. >:( [source]

Mike Rousseau: I remember bugging that! And then being told it wasn't a bug, and being so confused. Doing QA for DA2 was an experience. Trial by fire. [source]

DG: So I think it's safe to say DA2 is my favorite entry in the DA franchise and also the sort of thing I never want to live through ever again. Mixed feelings galore. [source]

User: (I personally blame whoever it was for ruining most romance arcs in other games for me; they don't live up to Fenris's romance storyline)

DG: I wrote Fenris, so uh - me, I guess? Or maybe his cinematic designer, who put in the puppy dog eyes. [source]

User: If DA2 had just been an expansion, do you think it would have been better received? There was a lot of great stuff in there, and I think my initial dislike of it was because of the zone reuse. If it hadn't needed to be a full game, would that issue not have arisen?

DG: Hard to say. It was either going to be an over-scoped expansion or an under-scoped sequel. If it had stayed an expansion, it might never have received the resources/push it DID get. [source]

User: I'd love to visit the universe where you had an extra year or so to work on it. You did a very good job as it stands, but it definitely had rough edges. Not just the writing team either. The whole game had hit and miss moments, that just a little more dev time could have fixed.

DG: On one hand, DA2 existed to fill a hole in the release schedule. More time was never in the cards. DA2 was originally planned as an expansion! On the other, if we had more time, would we have started doing that thing where we second guess/iterate ourselves into mediocrity? [shrug emoji] [source] 

Jennifer Hepler: This is what I love about DA2. Personally, I greatly prefer something that's rough and raw and sincere to something that's had all the soul polished out of it. Extra time would have helped for art and levels, but it would have lost something too. [source]

DG: Right? I think we could have used some time for peer reviews (and fewer cuts), but I think the rawness of the writing lent a certain spark that we usually polished out. [source]

JH: Definitely. I think the structure (more character-driven) and the tightness of the timeframe let each individual writer's voice really come through. Polish can be very homogenizing. [source]

DG: I should add I'm not, by any means, against iteration. Some iteration is good and necessary. The problem that BioWare often had is that we never knew when to stop. Like a goldfish, we would fill the space given to us by constantly re-iterating on things that were "good enough". [source]

Patrick Weekes: I appreciate your incredibly diplomatic use of the past tense on "had". :D [source]

User: DA2 was my gateway into the series and I’m so happy it is. I love the game the way that it is. It’s one of my favorites of all time. But I am also aware of everything that was said here. If it were remastered, do you think it would change?

DG: I'd be surprised if it was ever remastered. If it was, do you really think they'd change things? Do remasters do that? No idea. [source]

User: Both sides got undercut as I recall. Didn't that whole sequence also end with the mage leader embracing blood magic? It was very much "a plague on both your houses" moment, at least for me.

DG: Yep. Orsino was supposed to have his own version of Meredith's end battle, which only happened if you sided with the templars. That got cut, but the team still wanted to use the model we'd made for him. So... that happened. [source]

DG: I would personally say that DA2 is a fantastic game hidden under a mountain of compromises, cut corners, and tight deadlines. If you can see past all that, you'll see a fantastic game. I don't doubt, however, that it's very difficult for most to do that. [source]

PW: I love DAI with all my selfish "I worked on this" heart, but DA2's follower arcs and relationships are probably my favorite in the series. [source]

User: As I've expressed many times, I love the game, especially it's writing and characters but, for me, the most impressive aspect of it, in consideration of it's lack of time for drafts and revisions, is the 2nd act with Arishok.  What amazingly complex character and fantastic duel

User: Just played it again and I have to agree. Though he is bound by the harsher tenants of the Qun, he makes valid points about free marcher society. Though it is obvious that he and Hawke will come to blows eventually, the tension builds gradually and understandably

DG: Luke did such a fantastic job with the Arishok I found myself sometimes wishing the Qunari plot had just been THE plot. [source]

User: What do you think would have changed, story wise, if you had more time for DA2?

DG: I would have taken out that thing where Meredith gets the idol. It was forced on me because she needed to be "super-powered" with red lyrium for her final battle. Being "crazy", however, robbed her side of the mage/templar argument of any legitimacy. I hated hated hated that. [source]

User: I deeply lament that there wasn't/couldn't be some sort of DA2 equivalent of Throne of Bhaal's Ascension mod.

DG: I'd have done it, if DA2 had allowed for anything but the most rudimentary of modding. ;) [source]

User: I mean, and I think I understand where you were trying, but how much legitimacy did the Templars and her as top Templar have after they're keeping the mages locked up against their will in the old slave quarters? Feel free to not reply.

DG: I think it's the kind of discussion which requires nuance, and which discussions on the Internet are not prone to. [source]

User: Was a compromise that the quest lines don’t branch? It felt like it was supposed to be that way but then you end up in the same place later regardless of what you pick. Like I hoodwinked the templars so good to help the apostates escape but in Act II they were caught anyway.

DG: I remember us having a lot more branching in the initial planning yes. Most of this got trimmed out in the first or second wave of cuts, in an effort to not cut the plots altogether. [source]

DG: "If you could Zack Snyder DA2, what would you change?" Wow. I'm willing to bet Mark or Mike (or anyone else on the team) would give very different answers than me, but it's enough to give a sober man pause, because that was THE Project of Multiple Regrets. [source] I mean, it's the most hypothetical of hypotheticals. It's never gonna happen. I wouldn't be surprised if EA considered DA2 its embarrassing red-headed stepchild. We'd also need to ignore that in many ways DA2 was as good as it was bad BECAUSE of how it was made. But that aside? [source] First, either restore the progressive changes to Kirkwall we'd planned over the passing of in-game years or reduce the time between acts to months instead of years... which, in hindsight, probably should have been done as soon as the progressive stuff was cut. [source] I'm sure you're like "get rid of repeated levels!" ...but I don't care about that. All I wanted was for Kirkwall to feel like a bigger city. Way more crowded. More alive! Fewer blood mages. [source] I'd want to restore the plot where a mage Hawke came THIS close to becoming an abomination. An entire story spent trapped in one's own head while trapped on the edge of possession. Why? Because Hawke is the only mage who apparently never struggles with this. It was a hard cut. [source]

User: I would LOVE to hear more details about this! I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a short story?

DG: I don't even remember the details of the story, sorry. There was a fight, and you caught the bad guy and then realized none of it was real and woke up idk [source]

DG: I'd want to restore all those alternate lines we cut, meaning people forget they'd met you. Or that they knew you were a mage. Or, oh god, that maybe they'd romanced you in DAO. So much carnage. [source] I'd want to restore the Act 3 plots we cut only because they were worked on too late, but which would have made the buildup to the mage/templar clash less sudden. Though I don't remember what they were, now. Some never got beyond being index cards posted on the wall. [grimace emoji] [source] As I mentioned elsewhere, I'd want to restore Orsino's end battle so he wouldn't need to turn on you even if you sided with him. And I'd want an end fight with the templars that didn't require Meredith to have red lyrium and go full Tetsuo. [source] Heck, maybe an end decision where you sided with neither the mages nor the templars. Because it certainly ended up feeling like you could brand both sides as batshit pretty legitimately, no? That was never planned, tho. No idea how to make that feel like an actual path atm. [source] Maybe an option to go "umm, Anders... what are you DOING?" 👀 [source] And, of course, a Varric romance, because Mary took that "slimy car salesman" character we'd planned and did the impossible with him. I can feel Mary glaring at me for even suggesting this, tho. [source] Lastly, the original expanded opening to the game which allowed you to spend time with Bethany and Carver BEFORE the darkspawn attacked. And, um, that's about it off the top of my head. Zack Snyder, WHAT PANDORA'S BOX HAVE YOU OPENED. [source] Shit, I remembered two more things: 1) Restore the "Varric exaggerates the heck out of the story" at the beginning of every Act, until Cassandra calls him on it. Yes, that was a thing. 2) Make DA: Exodus. Yes, I am still bitter. [source] God damn it, I meant "Make DA: Exalted March". The DA2 expansion, NOT Exodus since that was DA2's original name and makes no sense. Because the expansion ended with Varric dying, and that will always be on my "things left undone" list. [source]

User: Whaaaat?

DG: Well, you know that scene in Wrath of Khan where Spock goes into the dilithium chamber because he's a Vulcan? Well, imagine that but with Varric and red lyrium and because he's a dwarf. ;) [source]

John Epler: I distinctly remember referencing the bit from MGS4 where you crawl through the microwave corridor in the split screen, while cinematic battle rages on the other half. [source]

DG: It would have been glorious, John. Glorious. [source]

JE: I don't think I've ever been so certain what a shot should look like as I did Hawke coming in and finding Varric in the broken throne, just like when he was telling Cassandra his story. [source]

DG: It would have come full circle! Auggghh, it still kills me. [source]

User: Lord, you folks are a little too good at this.

JE: The true secret behind videogame narrative is knowing how to make yourself seem a lot more clever than you actually are. [source] 'Oh, we TOTALLY planned that.' [source]

User: Ok, this thread [the DA2 regrets thread, which is the big chunks above] but Inquisition.

DG: My regrets about Inquisition are, more or less, the normal kind. Nothing so dramatic, I'm afraid. [source]

User: You can keep your Varric romance, I want a Flemeth romance goddamnit!

DG: I would allow for one flirt option, and then a recording of Kate Mulgrew laughing for three minutes straight. [source]

User: I had a hypothesis about the repetitive caves in DA2. They're repetitive because it's Varric telling the story and he didn't consider them important.  They're like sets in a play.  (Okay, I really suspect it was a time/money/resources thing but I like my fake explanation better.)

DG: Hang a lampshade on it, maybe? Cassandra: "But that's the exact cave you were in last time?" Varric: "Whatever. They all look the same, I'm not THAT kind of dwarf. Can we move on?" [source]

User: that makes sense, hypothetically to make Varric romanceable and keep his arc—that had to happen for the main plot—I imagine you would have to make double the content (or more)? which would've been a tall order given the time/budget constraints the game was under

DG: Right. When it comes to "romance arc" vs. "follower story arc", we generally only had time to do one or the other. Never both. Romancing Varric would have meant not getting the story of his that you did. [source]

Mary Kirby: The one exaggeration I really, REALLY wanted, that we never got to do was Varric narrating his own death scene with Hawke weeping over him, then cutting to Cassandra's pissed off glaring at him. [source]

DG: Haha! The one I wanted was Varric's plot where he takes on the baddies single-handedly, sliding across the floor like Jet Lee, action movie-style, until finally Cassandra gets irritated and he has to admit Hawke & the rest of the party showed up to help. [source]

MK: We did that one! (He didn't do any Jet Lee moves, though.) Jepler gave him letterboxing to get The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly showdown vibes while he shot a ton of mooks single-handed. [source]

DG: Wow. Shows how much I remember. [source]

JE: I found it! I remember seeing this sequence as my treat for doing a bunch of much more challenging work. It was fun to see how far I could push our limited library of animations. [link] [source]

DG: Heh awesome. I could have sworn it was cut, honestly. I think I was even in that meeting. [source]

User: no disrespect but that’s surprising and rich of Mary “Hard in Hightown” Kirby to think DA2 shouldn’t have had a Varric romance when she wrote an entire book of Varric’s self-insert character pining over his Hawke insert character… HIH is the reason we had VHawke Summer 2018

DG: I can't *really* speak for Mary, or how she feels about it now compared to back then. I only know how she felt about it back then, and I'm not sure it was as much the concept of the romance but that Varric's entire story would be bent to "romance arc" ...a very different thing. [source]

JH: I remember pushing to have the first DLC start with Hawke having an option to ask Varric, "Did you tell Cassandra about us?" and if you picked it, Varric would answer, "Of course not, baby. I told her you were sleeping with X..." and then proceed as if you had had a full romance. [source]

DG: I still wonder how that would have gone over. x) [source]

JE: Okay, one more DA2 thing. Putting together the cinematics for this scene was a blast. [link] [source]

MK: These lines are my greatest legacy. I want "Make sure the world knows I died... at Chateau Haine!" inscribed on my tombstone. [source]

JE: I was so glad no one said 'no' to the crane shot. [source]

MK: It needs that crane shot. It's the perfect icing on that cake made from solid cheese. [source]

DG: The designers were all "we need more combat" and I think we were all "I think you underestimate just HOW interesting we can make this dinner party". [source]

JE: And finally. I think @SherylChee wrote the one-liner. I think we had a collection of like, 20. [link] [source]

Sheryl Chee: Yeah! Something like that! I remember submitted a whole bunch and Frank said you only needed one. Wish I'd kept the other fifteen. [source]

JE: A random chooser where, each time through the scene, you get a different one-liner. [source]

JE: DA2 is the project I'm the proudest of. I also absolutely get that it didn't land for a lot of people. But I don't think it's inaccurate to say that, in a lot of ways, DA2 defined my career. [source]  Everyone spent a year working at their maximum ability. I was a fresh cinematic designer and was given all of Varric's content, as well as the Act 1 Finale mission. It was a lot for someone who had been doing the Cinematics thing for literally 6 months. [source]  There's some stuff in there I can't look at without wincing. And there's some stuff I'm genuinely proud of. Not to mention, it was my introduction to most of the writing team. Several of whom I'm still working with today! Albeit in a different capacity [source] Also, weirdly, one of my most enduring memories of Dragon Age 2 is how much Bad Company 2 we'd play at lunch. It was a LOT. [source] Every game I've worked on has a game I played attached to it. ME2 is Borderlands. DA2 is Bad Company 2. DAI is DayZ. I, hmm. There's a progression there. I don't know how I feel about it. [source]

User: Is DA4 going to be tarkov then?

JE: I've kind of churned out of Tarkov for now. Probably Hunt Showdown, at least right now. [source]

User: I think people also don't take nuance into consideration -- like I FULLY acknowledge the flaws in my favorite games and will openly criticize them, but that doesn't mean they're not my favorite games anymore??? You can like and thing and still be critical of it.

JE: A lot of my favourite shit is deeply flawed! I acknowledge it and I think it's interesting to dissect the flaws. [source]

User: I still wish Justice was an actual character in DA2 rather than a plot point.

DG: There was a moment during DAI where we *almost* put in you running into Justice with the Grey Wardens, and he's all "Kirkwall? I never went to Kirkwall" [source]

User: Does that imply that Justice was shoehorned in to DA2?

DG: Nah, it was an in-joke where we thought it'd be fun to suggest that "Justice" was simply some demon that tricked Anders in DA2. Wooo those tricky demons! We didn't do it, though. [source]

User: [about templars]  except, I don't think it had very much legitimacy to begin with. keep in mind, we interact with other characters with the same argument. The one that comes to mind is Cullen, a sane templar in power. The templar's side of the argument is inherently flawed.

DG: I don't doubt that many people agree with you, and yet people can and do argue on behalf of the templars as well. My place isn't to pick a side, but to provide evidence that players can interpret for themselves [source]

User: Can you shed some light for us on how DA was able to do multiple same-sex romance options for different genders but the Mass Effect team treated them like the plague? What process existed for your team that just wasn't their for the other tentpole franchise?

DG: Different people making the decisions, almost different cultures. I don't know what it's like now, but for many years the Mass Effect team and the Dragon Age team were almost like two different studios working within the same building. [source]

User: It truly boggles the mind. Kudos for doing demonstrably better on consistent queer representation than the ME teams. Y'all never needed us to make petitions to try to get the studio's attention and ask them to do better by us. That's the fight we're once again embroiled in now.

DG: Honestly, I don't feel like tut-tutting the Mass Effect team. They did their part, and if they were a bit later to the show than the DA team they certainly did more than almost every other game out there -- and willingly. [source]

Updates begin here

User: So what was the reason for naming Dragon age 2 "Dragon age II" and not using a subtitle?

DG: As I recall, that was purely a publisher decision. I think they wanted to avoid the impression it was an expansion. [source]

User: Is there no chance of ever remaking DA2 under better circumstances? -Somehow remove the repetitiveness of gameplay by making changes and updating the tech and adding much more to the storyline. It could almost be a new very exciting game.

DG: I'd say there's zero chance of that. Let's keep our hopes up for the next DA title instead. [source]

User: I am a little confused here, help me out here please! How exactly was the cut boss battle with Orsino supposed to work out? How it would've kept him from turning against the player?

DG: It means that, if you sided with the templars, the entire boss bottle at the end would have been against Orsino and the mages. No fight against Meredith. The end decision would have been more divergent. [source]

User: I do remember that one of the reasons going around for that, was that resources were going to the transition to Frostbite. I'm still not fully sold on that having been a good choice. I felt that more time should have been given for that transition considering it was made for FPSs

DG: We didn't transition to Frostbite until DAI. Given our time frame for DA2, I don't think we *could* have transitioned to a new engine. [source]

User: Since your talking about the what could have been for DA2. Could you say what your script was for Anthem? Cause I remember reading that you wrote the plot on that game.

DG: I created a setting for Anthem and scripted out a plot - but, as I understand it, almost none of that ended up being used. So it's a bit pointless to talk about what I'd planned, as that'd be for some completely different type of game. [source]

User: [in reference to the exchange above where DG said “Being "crazy", however, robbed her side of the mage/templar argument of any legitimacy. I hated hated hated that.” re: Meredith] except, I don't think it had very much legitimacy to begin with. keep in mind, we interact with other characters with the same argument. The one that comes to mind is Cullen, a sane templar in power. The templar's side of the argument is inherently flawed.

DG: I don't doubt that many people agree with you, and yet people can and do argue on behalf of the templars as well. My place isn't to pick a side, but to provide evidence that players can interpret for themselves. [source]

If I missed a tweet, got the wrong source link or included a tweet twice, feel free to let me know and I’ll correct.

Edit / Update: Post update 22nd April

[realllllfangirllllll]

Beyond Lovers || Chp. 31

{More Than Friends Sequel}

Chairman!Jaehyun AU x CEO!Reader AU

Summary: You find yourself falling deeper and deeper in love with the former CEO after overcoming your fear of love. Although there were rough patches, both of you are now stronger than ever. However, you realize that maintaining a relationship and a company at the same time can be very difficult, especially if someone is out to destroy the both of you.

(Context: This scene takes place in the time frame of the last three chapters of MTF)

Masterlist

{Previous / Next }

4 months ago...

“Come meet me in Paris. I’ll send you the address.”

Jaehyun’s mind spun like lab rats on a hamster wheel as he contemplated the idea of meeting face to face with Xiaojun. He had set his mind on getting y/n back and he couldn’t act scared now. He needed her in his life and this was his only chance.

~~~

The bright sun was hanging low in the clear sky as Jaehyun let out a yawn. Although jet-lagged and stressed, the thought of being on the same grounds as y/n made him feel a bit better. After all, it seemed like he hasn’t seen her for years. He chuckled to himself upon the realization of how much y/n’s presence affected him.

He stepped into the luxurious hotel lobby and made his way to the glass elevators before he quickly pressed the button to floor six. When the room door opened, he found himself sitting on the lonely chair placed across from the lush couch with his heart beating nervously. Never had he been more nervous for a meeting, in fact, he usually wasn’t the type of person to get nervous at all. He guessed that y/n and Xiaojun were definitely of blood relation as they were the only two people to ever make him feel even slightly nervous.

His hands were clasped politely in front of his lap as he tried his best to sit as straight as possible. On the other hand, Xiaojun sat comfortably yet arrogantly on the couch with his legs crossed. His stern, sharp gaze examined Jaehyun from his neatly gelled hair, his casual yet sleek navy dress shirt, to his expensive leather shoes. Jaehyun didn’t move an inch and allowed Xiaojun to take in whatever he wanted to see. He dressed casually but neat with the intent of giving off a good, first in-person impression. He didn’t want Xiaojun to think of him as an egotistic rich boy but a hardworking and polite man that is sincere to y/n.

Xiaojun suddenly let out a chilling laugh that did nothing to clear the tension in the room. “You don’t have to act so stiff, treat me comfortably.” 

Jaehyun nervously chuckled as Xiaojun broke out an eerie smile and offered, “You must be exhausted from that flight. Want something to drink?”

Jaehyun looked at him and saw that his eyes held a stonecold stare that shouted ‘refuse if you dare.’ He quickly responded with a yes and Xiaojun’s eerie smile returned. As if he prepared for this scenario, his hands grabbed the bottle of liquor on the marble coffee table and filled the two empty glasses by its side. He set the bottle aside and asked as he quirked his eyebrow, “You do drink whiskey, do you?”

Jaehyun responded with a quick, “yes sir,” and Xiaojun chuckled, “No need to be so formal with me. You are about the same age as me after all.”

Jaehyun almost choked on his drink at his words and stuttered, “Y-yes if that’s what you want.” Hesitantly, he continued, “By the way...How do you know my age?”

Xiaojun chugged his drink and rather loudly before he bluntly told him that he had searched him up online, read articles about him, and even had some intel from someone on the inside. Jaehyun’s eyes widened at his last statement. He wasn’t new to this sort of investigation as he had done so himself around people he found suspicious, especially with Jaemin. But he was surprised, yet amused, that Xiaojun was that kind of person as well. 

He cleared his glass of whiskey and set it down on the table. “You seem to be a very reliable person.”

Xiaojun gave him a questioning stare as he waited for him to elaborate on his words. Jaehyun chuckled, suddenly feeling more comfortable around the man in front of him and slightly loosened his stiff body. “It’s only right to keep an eye out on suspicious people. I would.”

At his elaboration, Xiaojun’s expression seemed to change into one with slightly more approval. His cold stare shifted to a warmer gaze as he uncrossed his legs and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. His eyes first looked down at his interlocked fingers and then seriously up at Jaehyun. “What is your endgame with my baby sister?”

Jaehyun sat up straighter again and responded with slight confusion in his tone, “Endgame? I don’t have one. My love for your sister isn’t a game.”

Xiaojun smirked and asked, “Then what is it?”

Jaehyun never broke eye contact with the man in front of him and said sincerely, “To me, loving y/n is like living in a warm home. I only want to make her feel happy and comfortable like how she makes me feel. I want her to feel what being loved means.”

He hoped that wasn’t too blunt and stopped himself before he could say anything more, but Xiaojun chuckled. This time, he didn’t have an eerie smile but a genuine one. He poured the both of them more whiskey and said in a gentler yet firm tone, “You’re the first, you know.”

“The first what?” Jaehyun said a little softer, scared that that statement might hold a negative connotation.

Xiaojun peered down at his glass of whiskey, slightly moving the cup in a circular motion before setting it down without taking a sip. “Guess I don’t need this whiskey anymore.”

He looked up and saw Jaehyun’s puzzled look. “You are much more innocent than I thought,” he laughed. He sat straighter, breaking from his previous position and told Jaehyun nonchalantly, “You are actually the first to tell me something worth my time. You see...most guys that previously held y/n’s interest will walk into my door and say some bullshit. I’ve heard countless fuckers say they date my sister because she will make a great couple with them, she will light up their day, or some equivalent shit.” His eyes hardened and stared straight into Jaehyun’s. “I don’t want to hear that. Ever.” Jaehyun unconsciously gulped and Xiaojun chuckled, “But you on the other hand. You are different. While others think about themselves, you think about y/n.”

Jaehyun felt relieved but not a second later, Xiaojun gave him the same cold stare again. “But y/n means the world to me. She’s my only family and the only person I will sell my soul to protect. You got that?” Jaehyun quickly nodded in response and Xiaojun’s tone softened again. “I don’t know how far you are in this relationship, but you must know that y/n didn’t have parents growing up as they abandoned us quite harshly.” He glanced at Jaehyun’s expression and figured he knew what he was referring to. “So you do know. Well then your relationship must have been going on for quite a while…”

“Not really,” Jaehyun replied a bit hesitant. 

Xiaojun quirked his eyebrow, “How long then?”

“Technically...only a few months,” Jaehyun rubbed the back of his neck, unsure of whether he should give him all the details of their complicated relationship, “But we’ve kind of been circling around the first month…”

“Circling around?” Jaehyun gulped, afraid this would give him some negative points on his approval but Xiaojun stared intently at him and suddenly burst out laughing. He knew that his younger sister was never the one to wait for initiation. She wasn’t careful with things she didn’t care for. All her previous relationships started fairly quickly. But when y/n really liked something, she would wait, go through a ton of inner debation, and finally come up with a decision. Xiaojun knew that because she does the same with photography. She never rushes the process and would take her time finding the right angle, the right natural lighting, and the right model. She would often tell Xiaojun, “Precious moments are to be dealt with carefully because they are especially fragile.” 

Now that Jaehyun confessed the upbringing of their relationship, albeit vague, he realized just how much y/n valued this man that sat nervously in front of him. He muttered to himself both out of amusement and astonishment, “Wow y/n...So he’s the one huh?”

He stopped laughing and stared seriously at Jaehyun again, “Listen up lover boy. The reason I told you to come here was to either show you that you are not worthy of my precious sister or to beat you to a pulp if you didn’t listen like some arrogant douches I’ve encountered in her past relationships.” Unknowingly, Jaehyun chuckled at his last statement and Xiaojun’s ears perked, “Did you just laugh?”

Jaehyun’s eyes widened upon the realization of what he just did and immediately corrected himself, “No no, I didn’t mean it in that way.” He scratched the back of his neck again and continued, “I actually just,” he paused and let out a light chuckle, “I just relate to that as well.”

Xiaojun was caught off guard as he blinked in disbelief at the man’s reaction, “You what?”

A sense of respect coated Jaehyun’s tone as he clarified, “Some people call it reckless, some people call it crazy. But in the line of business I work in, those hypocritical people only fear those with the power of the fist and intimidation.” He let out a bitter chuckle and told Xiaojun, “With y/n around, especially, I just feel the need to make sure she doesn’t get hurt by ignorant people.”

Xiaojun smirked, “You’re not half as bad as I thought Jaehyun.” He smiled and continued, “Anyways, y/n may be my baby sister but ever since we were little all she has done was make sure I was happy. She took care of me more than I did with her. She supported and helped me with my Youtube career and tagged along without any complaints. And because of that, she never really had a stable place to call her home. I’m glad she was able to open up to you. She usually never tells someone about her parents until at least a year into the relationship. It shows she really is comfortable around you. And judging from the way you react to my words and actions, it seems I don’t need to play the role of a protector for her anymore. You seem to suit the role.”

Before Jaehyun could respond Xiaojun immediately cut him off, “But one more thing. As a Youtuber, I know the public forum can be harsh and the spotlight will never be easy. For that, I know the situation at the Starship Charity Ball was not entirely your fault,” His cold stare came back as he stared seriously at Jaehyun, “But don’t you ever dare forget this. When you walk out this door and go to y/n, you will do everything in your power to help and protect her. It might not be entirely your fault, but it was because of you that y/n is now in the spotlight.”

Jaehyun replied in agreement almost immediately and Xiaojun continued, “Take the consequences and make the best of it.” He narrowed his eyes and made sure Jaehyun understood his commands. “But don’t you ever let y/n get hurt by it.” He continued and emphasized his last point in a much deeper and darker tone, “You hurt my only family and I will show you no mercy. However hurt y/n becomes, I will give that back to you threefold, understood?”

“Of course! I will always be by her to protect her. No matter who or what gets in the way,” Jaehyun replied quickly and genuinely. 

Xiaojun shut his eyes for a moment and nodded, content with his response and overall behavior. 

“Effiel Tower,” he opened his eyes again and looked at Jaehyun with a soft and somewhat hopeful gaze, “She should be somewhere around the Effiel Tower right now.”

Jaehyun immediately popped up from his seat, ready to meet his love again. Before he twisted the doorknob of the hotel room, he turned around and told Xiaojun with the utmost respect, “I will treat her like my own family, I promise.”

Xiaojun chuckled and leaned against the soft pillows on the couch, “You better lover boy, my fists are ready to fight any time of the day.”

———

• Dropping a post early since I’ll be off to celebrate my bday!! •

[miraculouscontent]

(non-Miraculous asks)

Anonymous said:

Ok this may just be me but I hate deconstructions. I feel like they are always mean spirited and try to be dark and edgy and thinks that every single person is an asshole because that’s “realistic” when no it’s not. This maybe because I like superhero stories and love it when the heroes overcome their struggles.

I can agree for the most part. Whenever I hear “okay but what if it was dArK--” I’m just okay, gonna stop you right there.

Anonymous said:

I swear, nothing bothers me more than people who want Miraculous Ladybug to literally just be Yandere Simulator(with Marinette as Ayano, Alya as Info-chan, Adrien as Taro, Chloe as Osana, Lila as Kizana, Kagami as Megami, and Luka as Budo). It just grinds my gears, especially because they're, once again, framing Marinette as a stalker, which just makes her look bad, AND pits all the girls against each other for Mr. Generic Harem Protagonist, once a-fucking-gain. Just go play the actual game, ok?

All I'm hearing is that now I have to ship Ayano and Budo and write a fic where the ghost girl uses fancy fantasy magic to merge her soul with Ayano and lets her actually have emotions, healing her from being a yandere while the ghost girl (in a way) gets to live a life she was cut short of, also allowing Ayano to be happy and go onto be friends with all the rivals.

Extremely convoluted but that’s the only way we get happy endings in this house.

Anonymous said:

I remember how, when writing Sailor Moon, Naoko Takeuchi refused to bow to older male writers wanted, say, for the girls to be stereotypical manga characters, with one being overweight, one being a stereotypical nerd, etc. But Naoko wanted each of the girls to be beautiful and feminine. While I don't like that they all share a body type, I admire how she didn't listen to grown men when writing for and about young girls. And I can't help but think about how Madoka is the antithesis of all that.

I can appreciate writers who put their foot down to stick to their values. There are limits of course, but yeah, a women writing women probably shouldn’t be listening to a man’s input. I’m sure good advice exists buuut...

Anonymous said:

What is your ranking of the seasons of the year from most to least favorite and why?

Summer - I work best in the warmth

Spring - Always brings images of flowers blooming to mind

Autumn - Things are getting cold and I don’t like it

Winter - It can go choke for all I care

Anonymous asked:

Someone on TV Tropes actually said that the name Feminist Fantasy should be changed because "feminism excludes men the same way meninism excludes women" and actually had the nerve to link that to the "Not So Different" trope, as if women haven't been excluded throughout the history of almost every human society. Fortunately, someone responded to them in a way that technically amounted to "do your damn research" but I'm still facepalming so hard at TV Tropes' "what about the men" rhetoric.

I feel like I lost braincells reading this.

Anonymous asked:

I feel like in fiction written by men there are only three flaws that female protagonists are allowed to have: clumsy, boy-crazy, or ashamed of their flat chests. I hate it.

Don’t forget, “having to listen to the men for how they’re supposed to feel.”

Anonymous asked:

Jatp. Nominated. For. Seven. Emmys. SEVEN!!!! Miraculous could NEVER. Literally.

omg!! Congrats to Julie and the Phantoms!

Anonymous asked:

WHAT ARE YOUR FLASHBACKS TO EVER AFTER HIGH?? I GOTTA KNOW? OMG?

Oh, I’ve seen basically the whole series, though the one I remember most is definitely Epic Winter. It was my favorite one though Beauty and the Beast is my favorite Disney movie so I’m biased.

I also like a lot of the “twists” and just--crazy concepts they rolled with, like with Red Riding Hood’s story and how Apple White gets woken up from her slumber.

Anonymous asked:

You're gonna be happy to hear this...I just started watching Cardcaptor Sakura today, and holy shit not only do I love it, but I also love how freaking META it is! I know you said you're not all that knowledgeable about Magical Girl, but this show is AWARE that it's a Magical Girl show! From Tomoyo(the main reason this show is so meta, tbh) realizing Sakura is a Magical Girl and asking if she has a transformation pose, to designing outfits for her(more on that later) to videotaping her(aka literally making a Magical Girl anime out of her Magical Girl friend), it just has fun with itself and plays with Magical Girl tropes without making a mockery of them like all those "dark" male-aimed ones do(lookin' at you, Madoka Magica and Yuki Yuna!).

And not only is it hilarious and adorable(especially with Sakura's crush on Yukito, Tomoyo's crush on Sakura, and Touya picking on Sakura, but playfully), but I love how it's riddled with girl power. While watching some of the first episodes I was looking forward to seeing Syaoran(partly because I love male Tsunderes and partly because I can't pronounce his name), and was surprised that he wasn't in the first few episodes, but more importantly I was so happy to see a show that treats its female characters with respect and shows women unironically receiving support from other women and being shown possessing power and authority.

I love Sakura and Tomoyo's friendship even if I hate the trope of "Lesbian Never Gets The Girl"(not that I think she's entitled to Sakura's affections or anything, but still.) and watching her support Sakura in her magic endeavors without being jealous or vindictive, I love that they're allowed to be independent and smart but that the show doesn't forget that they're kids, instead of making them like Manon and Chris, and I love that the show passes the Bechdel test in pretty much the first or second episode, and that pretty much every important and unimportant character we meet that's not Sakura's family members, Kero, or Yukito(plus maaaayyybe the Shadow Clow Card) are female.

Even little things, like all FOUR of Tomoyo's bodyguards in the second episode being female without there being a "reason" or the show making a big deal of it(either in a "yay girl power!" way or a "what but women can't x" way or an objectifying way) fills me with insurmountable joy. Also, I love that the show follows the Magical Girl trend of pretty much admitting that femininity is power, since frilly dresses are stated to be the most "fitting" thing for a Cardcaptor to wear, as without it, they might not be mentally up to the task, and this is an unironic truth rather than a joke(although Sakura is shown to be embarrassed, but it's much more likely that she's simply not used to that kind of gear due to not being rich as Tomoyo is.) or a gag.

I just thought I should tell you this because I know you like Cardcaptor Sakura, and with the crappy episodes that just came out of this show, I think you deserve to read an ask that's about a GENUINE girl power Magical Girl show, instead of yet more Miraculous Ladybug salt or Madoka Magica hate(not that there's anything wrong with either of those two, but it just gets grating after a while.). Overall, I'm looking forward to watching this show, since I've been looking for a Magical Girl show to watch nowadays(I've been meaning to watch Star Twinkle Precure but I can't find the third episode and all of Cardcaptor Sakura is on YouTube now, so.). So excited!

Hey, I’m glad that you’re having fun with it!

Though, just a warning, you might wanna steer clear of the Clear Card arc. It’s a sequel to the original series made waaaay after the original (think the equivalent of Yashahime for Inuyasha, though continuing with the original characters) but omg I hated it.

Anonymous asked:

With the crappy Season 4 episodes that just came out I'm glad I got into Cardcaptor Sakura when I did. Who needs "Marinette needs to make a mistake every episode and learn something from it" when you can have genuine girl power and sweetness incarnate?

Alya could never compete with Tomoyo, I’m just sayin’.

Anonymous asked:

Your comment about white men feeling "disenfranchised" because more shows are about black people and/or women(I say and/or because the two aren't mutually exclusive.), as if there aren't a million other things they could be watching instead is so true! It reminds me of how I was talking to someone recently about the new generation of MLP, in which I stated that we didn't need a male mane pony(spoiler alert: they have one, sadly.), and he claimed that it would be beneficial since many shows aimed at boys at least try to include at least one main girl, and that it would be good for G5 of MLP to have at least one strong male lead so that boys could have a role model and know that the show isn't "girly".

Okay, so far, so good, but this I could chalk up to just unconscious internalized misogyny, especially since he didn't say it in any sort of "way". So I respectfully told him that the scale regarding representation is already not equal and that boys can look up to girls and that a show being girly is not a bad thing and all that stuff that you already know about. Then he responded claiming some stuff about how he keeps trying to pitch stories about straight white male characters and how nobody is accepting his offers and so this means that straight white men are underrepresented compared to everyone else. He even explicitly said, and I quote "White people are actually critically underrepresented in media right now. Especially boys."; I swear to the Goddess above.

At this point I was officially upset as a black girl, to hear this white(and presumably adult) man telling me that he was underrepresented in media compared to me, even saying that the media execs are practicing "quotas and tokenization"(and yes, he repeatedly used those terms for any instance of representation, even when I asked him politely to stop.) by replacing women with men or white people with pocs and are making white men look like incompetent doofuses.

He also kept saying stuff about how shows are always shoehorning people of color in where they don't belong by casting them in settings such as Shakespeare and medieval times when "realistically" there were no people of color during those time periods(which is obviously not true, it's just not what the history books show us.), and made a really insensitive comment about how black children in the USA today don't know the significance of having the first black president because the media supposedly already shows them black people in various professions(despite also claiming he couldn't speak to the "black experience" and yet here he is whitesplaining that shit.).

It got to the point where he was seriously and unironically using the word "blackwashing". When I pointed out to him that white men aren't underrepresented and that it's just his self-centered ego telling him that they are, that the word "blackwashing" isn't a thing, and that mis/underrepresentation in media DOES affect black kids negatively(even citing myself as an example) he went on to claim that I was being tone-deaf and that "blackwashing" is just as bad as whitewashing, and that making Ariel black is just as bad as making Jasmine white.

At this point I had to bang my head on the table and explain to him the difference; his ass still wouldn't get it. Eventually he started saying some really skeevy and hypocritical shite that white men say all the time when whining about how "oppressed and underrepresented" they are: that black people and/or women

(it looks like there might be an ask missing here, in which case, sorry if Tubmlr ate it!)

avor of supporting the commonly believed LIE that "women and/or minority groups don't have as much history worth learning about, so there's no point in focusing on them." He also kept using patronizing, condescending, mansplaining language such as "let me explain it to you" or "you still don't get it do you?", and when he said women had nothing to contribute to society because "oppression" he even had the nerve to tack on "welcome to the unequal society" as if I hadn't been lecturing him about just that.

Because obviously only white men did anything worthwhile or important in history. At this point, I had to block him. I couldn't take it anymore and this was on an MLP site of all places(although I'm probably just as guilty of that part, but at least I wasn't an ass!). I just can't stand white men who "want to be oppressed so bad" but still want to claim that their achievements are more important and deserve to be more prominent. Honestly, so many white men are so fragile the second they're not in the spotlight. I can't help but think that despite all the privilege afforded to their class being a white man sounds like the worst thing ever.

“he claimed that it would be beneficial since many shows aimed at boys at least try to include at least one main girl, and that it would be good for G5 of MLP to have at least one strong male lead so that boys could have a role model and know that the show isn't "girly". “

I might be looking too deep into that but I don’t like the idea of, “Well WE squeezed in a girl and therefore YOUR SHOWS--” like it’s some sort of matter of “fairness” or that boys’ shows aren’t putting in girls out of a genuine like for them but because they “need” one or it’s some sort of obligation.

Also, we need to stop this idea that boys can’t look up to female characters and vice versa for girls. You already said it but yeah.

And yeah, I hear "quotas and tokenization" and I officially tune out of whatever the person is saying, lol. White men are critically underrepresented???? Newsflash, maybe it’s just because others are being represented more??

Just the whole thing about whites being “underrepresented” boggles my mind. White people don’t have some sort of special ability or skill that other races can’t do themselves unless you count the “superpower” of white privilege.

Like, oh my god, all that “whitesplaining” and having to read the word “blackwashing” was physically painful. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I don’t know how they got hold of the technology to communicate with you from whatever time period their from, presumably the Stone Age.

Don’t even blame you for blocking them. There’s just a level of absolute... blindness? Arrogance??? That comes with the territory with them sometimes, I swear. You had every right to be upset; other races come to ask for equality and fair representation and suddenly you have these white men (not all obviously but damn) coming by and crying that they’re being oPpReSsEd. U_U

Like, honestly, my father in particular is absolutely that kind of person so I’ve heard that kind of stuff before. it’s all gross.

On a slightly unrelated note (trying to end this with some positivity), I hadn’t even heard about a fifth generation of MLP until I read this, and just wanted to let you know that I really hope you have a really good time with it! Hopefully the male character isn’t... well, you know.

[sankyeom]

+.*☆ the boyz masterlist ��*.+

special series

➪ an au a day (2k celebration au series) [ongoing]     ⤷ the boyz x reader  summary: a collection of 11 AUs, one for each active member of the boyz, to celebrate reaching 2k followers!! ➞ 2k celebration masterlist

multiple members

juyeon / changmin

➪ idolised (social media au) [completed]     ⤷ idol!reader x idol!juyeon/idol!changmin (idol au, love triangle) summary: in which you collaborate with the boyz in an effort to stop your company from disbanding your group ➞ series masterlist

sangyeon

➪ [07:22pm] (635 words)     ⤷ i missed you (exes to lovers, idol!sangyeon)

➪ tattle-tale (5.9k words)     ⤷ teacher au summary: in which teacher!sangyeon has a crush on teacher!you and anonymously leaves little gifts for you on your desk, only to one day be caught by your entire class ➞ from my 2k followers celebration ‘an au a day’ series

jacob

➪ letters (3.9k words)     ⤷ college au summary: in which jacob accidentally gives you a love letter meant for someone else

➪ lullaby (5.4k words)   ⤷ neighbour au summary: in which your new neighbour sings you to sleep every night since the walls in your building are so thin, and you fall in love with his voice ➞ from my 2k followers celebration ‘an au a day’ series

➪ and they were roommates! (social media au) [completed]     ⤷ introvert!jacob bae x female extrovert!reader (roommates to lovers, college au) summary: in which you desperately need a new roommate to cover your rent and your best friend kevin takes matters into his own hands, offering your place to his childhood friend jacob when he moves to town ➞ series masterlist

➪ [10:03pm] (361 words)    ⤷ you’re cute (strangers to lovers, college au)

younghoon

➪ [03:48pm] (186 words)     ⤷ coffee runs (established relationship, barista au)

➪ the c in ceo stands for cute (7.2k words)     ⤷ ceo au summary: in which your handsome boss is often mistaken as cold due to his good looks and forward personality, but is actually the sweetest introvert you’ve ever met ➞ from my 2k followers celebration ‘an au a day’ series

➪ crazy rich evasions (social media au) [completed]     ⤷ rich kid!kim younghoon x female rich kid!reader (enemies to lovers, rich kids au, arranged marriage au) summary: in which your family arranges an engagement between you and your childhood nemesis kim younghoon, and the two of you swear to make the other break it off, no matter how many crazy schemes it takes. ➞ series masterlist

hyunjae

➪ [04:42pm] (264 words)    ⤷ cute wallpaper (online classes, college au)

➪ let’s play pretend (6.6k words)    ⤷ fake dating au summary: in which your sister’s wedding is right around the corner, and you don’t want to spend the day telling your relatives that your boyfriend cheated on you, so you ask hyunjae to accompany you ➞ from my 2k followers celebration ‘an au a day’ series

juyeon

➪ [11:14pm] (528 words)     ⤷ i spy with my little eye (spy au)

➪ i spy with my little eye (8.3k words)     ⤷ spy au summary: in which the company you work for is the main rival of juyeon’s company, and you’re known for always being one step ahead of him; even when it comes to realising his feelings for you (based on this timestamp by the same name) ➞ from my 2k followers celebration ‘an au a day’ series

➪ splash! (5.1k words)     ⤷ lifeguard au, summer love summary: in which you fall in love with the lifeguard at the hotel pool during your summer vacation and don’t want to have to say goodbye

kevin

➪ [02:42am] (266 words)     ⤷ phone call confessions (best friends to lovers)

➪ picture perfect (8.5k words)     ⤷ art student au summary: in which you find a sketchbook filled with drawings of you, and go on a mission to find the owner ➞ from my 2k followers celebration ‘an au a day’ series

new

➪ [08:02pm] (267 words)    ⤷ a date with destiny (blind date with a twist)

q

➪ [11:33pm] (458 words)     ⤷ horror-fying (established relationship, you hate horror films but you’re dating ji changmin so you deal lol)

➪ fortunes and misfortunes teaser (883 word teaser!)    ⤷ the boyz royal au series summary: in which you are required to find a royal suitor to finally be crowned queen of your kingdom, but find yourself falling in love with a nobleman – who may be titled, but is no royal – instead ➞ from my royal tbz series coming soon!

ju haknyeon

➪ [11:59pm] (349 words)     ⤷ my type (best friends to lovers)

sunwoo

➪ break your rules (social media au) [completed]     ⤷ brother’s best friend!sunwoo x reader (enemies to lovers, college au) summary: in which nobody knows why you don’t get along with your brother’s best friend sunwoo. or, alternately: you and sunwoo spend the night together and have to hide it from your brother eric. ➞ series masterlist

➪ [03:09pm] (382 words)   ⤷ completely clueless (best friends, sunwoo is a fool)

➪ pose (3.6k words)    ⤷ model au, enemies to lovers summary: in which you are forced to work with sunwoo, your attractive sworn enemy who never fails to get on your nerves, in order to shoot your dream magazine cover

eric

➪ [05:58pm] (606 words)     ⤷ first date (first date au lol that’s obvious by the title)

➪ batter up! (6.1k words)     ⤷ baseball player!eric sohn x reader summary: in which you are assigned to interview the unapproachable baseball team ace eric sohn, and things end up going sideways.

➪ make or break (social media au) [completed]    ⤷ [sequel to break your rules, can be read alone]    ⤷ ex boyfriend!eric x ex girlfriend!reader summary: in which you transfer to your ex boyfriend’s university and you find it hard not to fall for him all over again. (loosely based on the song make or break by the boyz) ➞ series masterlist

➪ do you believe in angels? (8.1k words)     ⤷ part of the otherworldly collab     ⤷ guardian angel!eric sohn x reader summary: in which your guardian angel eric accidentally reveals himself to you, and you get to know heaven’s secrets while teaching him about humans.

➪ kiss me if you can (4.8k words)    ⤷ eric sohn x female reader summary: in which you’ve given most of your friends a tipsy kiss except for eric, who has a massive crush on you that you’ve never noticed. when he points out this injustice, you’re happy to offer him a kiss too.

[franki-lew-yo]

I really hate 2d purists. No, not 2d animation. Not 2d animators.

2d purists.

The sad thing is it’s gotten to the point that I really cringe hearing any pro-2D sentiment at all. I hate the arguments I agree with because how often they're misused and weaponized by idiots.

Let me make my stance here clear - 2d is NOT appreciated and 3d is used for everything! The layman Karen-mom who doesn’t have an artistic bone in her body looks at stupidsmooth 3D Grubhub ads and assumes quality cause it “looks more real” (aka ‘rendered’). I know as much is true because I literally have a member of my family who told my sister and I that she thinks 3d is better (and also that she “tolerated THOSE movies for us kids”. Touching words. My sister was taking an animation course by the way). Combined that with the studios either using 2D for cheap stuff or finding good 2d animation too “costly”, I get it and I’m not even any animator. I'm just a worm an illustrator.

but holy HELL -

There’s a backlash from the artistic community that's it's own kind of insufferable and deserve to be addressed.

“(insert2Danimatedfilm) is better BECAUSE it's 2D!”

followed by: "Animation is a visual medium and the quality of the art affects how much the story means !!!!”  

Yes. Totally. Animation is a visual medium and the look and style is important. Sadly, people use this excuse to really obnoxious ends, insisting that design being pretty is '' everything ''. When you treat a movie more as a special effects demo I get why you talk about the artistry at hand; but I’m sorry, visuals are not the only thing important and it’s why I’m also getting sick of the sameElsafacesyndrome rants too! There’s this attitude that's reads as "but it LOOKS better fromaproductionimage/teasertrailerwhichapparentlyisindicativeof all themovieactuallyis so it MUST BE better".

-“3D should only be used to make things look realistic!”

I think I know the logic this criticism is made in response to, and that’s the Sony + Illumination films which look just as good in 2D as they do in three dimensions. I know it feels like people are twisting this medium to try and make it like a classic cartoon when by all means people can and would love a classic cartoon being a classic cartoon. That I get- From the unsung 2D animator’s perspective, that’s more than valid !

But it’s a huuuuuuge slap in the face to 3d in saying it should only be used for "realistic animation" because

1: It’s not like realistic animation could age badly or look uncanny in the next few years. It's almost like technology is constantly improving, which I guess 2d animation never did and it was always the same technique and quality as every film that came after it.

2: The industry does treat 3d as a magic-moneymaker for this reason. Just listen to these people call the 2019 LION KING “live action” as if they’re embarrassed to call it animation. It IS animation! It would be impressive if you acknowledged that what it is, but like the CATS, you basically are treating it as just a neato tool to better your live action and not it's own artform - which it is!

3: By this “three-deeonly gud when real liek in da toystories” non-logic I guess 2d should ONLY be for flowyflowy SPACE JAM cartoons and maybe some Disney*. Just that though. You can’t do anything more with 2d. It’s never supposed to be realistic I guess. Good thing Richard Williams only did 'toons' and just toons that’s why we need 3d in the world I guess.

Wait no - that’s stupid.

"I HAVE to see the “Land Before Time 14″ when it comes out! I mean it’s a 2D animated film!"

Lost in the aether that is Youtube comment chains removed from kid's videos is a stream of this very VERY stupid argument supporting the buying of the 14th LAND BEFORE TIME film because it’s supporting 2D. My sister and I can be found on that chain arguing against this stupidity. All you have is my word, but trust me: it really did happen.

I’m sorry but...no.

Unless you have a friend or a family member who worked on these movies there’s no reason to see this and ESPECIALLY no reason to insist it’s a win for the 2D community if you buy up this crap - and I'm not judging if you do like it, but come on! LAND BEFORE TIME 14 isn't where your money should go if you really like this medium.

What’s so infuriating about this argument is you can tell it’s made by nonanimators. Real animators will tell you to support their movies cause they want some respect for their artform which is why there’s such a push from the PRINCESS AND THE FROGcrowd that you SEE and LOVE every 2d thing out there, regardless of how good it is because any recognition for it is k i n d o f what they're after!

Kiddy sequel schlock isn’t even in the same ballpark as KLAUS or WOLFWALKERS; these films DID have very limited theatrical runs (Klaus so it could be nominated; Wolfwalkers in places where theaters opened up after Covid) and should have been supported because they were labors of love made by people who love animation.

As other people have already pointed out, one of the reasons for the lack of interest in 2000sera2D animation is that the only films released alongside critical+financial 3D hits were cheaper 2D films that either coincided with daytime tv shows or should have been just direct-to-video. It’s not to say art couldn’t come out of these flicks, but dayum if it wasn’t abused as much as the texture software that era's CG used... Point being, should the world ever go back to normal: If you hear about an out-of-town showing an acclaimed 2D animated film, make time to trek out and see THAT!

Don’t give your money to see yet another made-for-tv movie on the big screen because all that tells the studio is: “yeah 2d IS cheap and only good for cheap stuff let’s just keep it cheap. Only 3d is important 8D 8D 8D !!!"

“I don’t understand how it works. So it sucks.”

This text is from an ANIMATOR btw.

“I don’t understand how it works” and “it’s just some computer rendering” is the exact same wave of logic the people who prefer cgi use.

The plebian Karen I mentioned earlier? She understands the basics of 2D animation as much as you did from one of those cruddy flash classes you took in middle-school. She 'understands' the basics cuz she watched how it was made on the DVD features or maybe back on the WONDERFUL WORLD OF DISNEY. To her, the illusion is broken and she’s not impressed by 'just some drawings on paper'. You, an animator, know the process is more complicated and is intrigued by knowing how it’s made - not bored or disinterested -

Neither you nor Aunt Karen have really good cg-animation software at your house and unless you ARE a 3D animator you probably DON’T know all the ins-and-outs of how these movies are modeled, rendered, and animated.

Aunt Karen is bedazzled by them cause she doesn’t know how it works and the technical aspect makes her brain hurt so it might as well be magic and she can feel like a cool kid sharing Minion-memes. Aunt Karen is the nonartistic type who just wants to feel safe. You're not. You want to feel challenged.

I get it: you’re pissed off cause you’re in a field no one, including Aunt Karen, appreciates; told to work in cg which it's an artform you didn’t devote your life to and told to learn it cause THIS style sells! 3D is everywhere and is starting to look like 'garbage' even if you don’t animate 3D models yourself you just KNOW, I guess. Besides, you know all there is to know about 2d!! You know all there is to possibly know about this artform and have to fight this 'war' against "r e a l" animation! And I mean even when 3d software is there to use, it's not like you can actually make anything worth while in it, especially not anything that transcends the medium. Right Worthikids?

TL;DR: This argument is basically just " BWAAAAH I’M NOT GONNA USE IT I HAVE STANDARDS (a chip on my shoulder cuz art should be what I deem it to be) "

“PRINCESS AND THE FROG is-”

There’s a reason I can’t say I truly like PRINCESS AND THE FROG even though it's not even a bad movie! Like, stop reading this and watch PATF if you haven't it's good. It's my 'FROZEN', in that; I see a lot of potential in it I just think it needs some serious rewriting and that bugs me. Always have felt that way, tbh.

I dislike this movie because the response from the animation community seems to be it was perfect and the Academy was just Pixar-crazy with UP ((ftr, the Academy IS Pixar’s bitch and I personally advocate a sequel be made to WAKING SLEEPING BEAUTY about Mike Eisner’s sabotage of the 2D department at Disney which is still in place now!- but that’s a story for another day)). I’m sorry but UP was just a better story. So was CORALINE. So was FANTASTIC MR. FOX. Honest to god it feels like poor PATF is brought up as just a talking point and never for it's own worth as a labor of love - which it was! I'd like to honestly know: had PRINCESS AND THE FROG come out now and been cg if it would have even half the defenders for it because now it doesn't "look" like how a Disney movie "should" look...

If you like PatF more than the currant Disney lineup because of it's culture, it's music, it's feminism, it's black representation? Awesome. Great. Those things should be appreciated and I never want that taken away from you. But if you seriously think PatF is better just for how it was animated and looks - I lowkey may hate you.

“ALL OF DISNEY’S LATEST MOVIES SHOULD HAVE BEEN 2D! THEY ALL LOOK AWFUL IN 3D!! ALL OF THEM!”

TANGLED, FROZEN, and MOANA? Yeah. Sure. But um, e x c u s e y o u- WRECK IT RALPH sooooo doesn’t work in 2d! It could have used different between the various worlds but it’s about hopping through different video games. I’m also of the opinion that ZOOTOPIA and BIG HERO 6 are fine the way they are. Their 3d is awesome.

The latest fairy tale Disney films are really big on their place alongside the 2D canon esp in marketing. They keep trying to mimic 2D to varying results though I don't think it works as well as the movie's I'd previously mentioned. Me personally, I would love a mix of 3D and 2D technology, like if the backgrounds in FROZEN still got to be 3D but the characters were handdrawn and shaded ala KLAUS ((sweet sigh)). But even then are they truly unwatchable just based on how they're animated to you?

MOANA would have been incredible in 2D but for the record - I don't think it feels out of place in it's style. It reminds me more of a Pixar movie with the heart of a Disney classic which is it's own just as good.

“2D is the oldest form of animation and it’s being replaced.”

Actually, if we’re talking animation in film, stop motion is the earliest form of animation. The stop motion animated THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED and TALE OF THE FOX predate Disney’s SNOW WHITE. And yes: stop-motion IS still a form of animation even if it’s a serious of pictures taken of real life things and not drawings, so don’t you dare come at me with the "but that's not animated"/"Technically it’s LIVE ACTION" crap or I’ll envoke the spirit of Sandman to get you at night.

“Every animated film would look better in 2D! Even PIXAR would look better in 2D!”

Again, Stop Motion.

No, I mean it.

Lemme ask: Would ISLE OF DOGS or FANTASTIC MR. FOX carry any of the same effect if they were generic 90s toons? I know NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS wouldn’t. Christ, don’t even get me started on Svankmajer!

Sometimes the problem is that a movie is envisioned with a specific artform in mind. Pixar started out with toys and bugs for a reason and that’s cuz they were always gonna be a 3d studio and they needed to first overcome the placisity of the models. Over the years they’ve gotten really good at effects and blending unrealistic proportions with real textures (and also not so much- ONWARD and THE GOOD DINOSAUR really needed some different character designs and yeah, I do think would have looked better with a 2d artstyle, but not the ones they had in their films. THE GOOD DINOSAUR needed more realistic-speculative looking dinos and ONWARD needed a grittier HEAVY METAL/BLACK CAULDRON appeal to its designs.) My point being that the problems with these movies aren’t even inherently the animation as much as it is a problem of style. As someone who runs a group speculating different styles and designs for movies and tv shows I’m all for envisioning a 2D ZOOTOPIA or Bluth-inspired FNAF. That’s amazing!

But that’s also the talk of fan artists and nerds and not the professional artists working on visualizing their stories!!

Since I ate, slept, and breathed NIGHTMARE in my youth I’ll use it as an example: All the concept art ever done for TNBC was on paper and 2D was used in the final film. However, even when Tim Burton was thinking of making it just a tv special it was always going to be stop-motion. NIGHTMARE’s puppet cast do work very well in two dimensions, believe me, but the film was made as a love letter to Rankin/Bass and the art form of stop-motion. Skipping to another Henry Selick-helmed project (haha), JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH was also always envisioned as a multimedia film to give it a truly dream-like atmosphere. If you know anything about Henry Selick you’ll know he’s 1) a perfectionist, and 2) loves mixed media and different types of animation and puppetry at once. That’s why he was the perfect pick to direct TNBC at the time, why JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH and CORALINE are so beautiful and why MOONGIRL, his only fully 3d film, doesn’t have the same appeal.

As for what films I couldn’t imagine NOT being 3D? Probably; 9, Padak, Next Gen, Soul, Finding Nemo, the Toy Story films, Wreck-it-Ralph (as previously mentioned), Wall.E, Waltz with Bashir, Robots, Inside Out, Arthur Christmas, The Painting, Happy Feet, Shrek, Enter the Spiderverse, Megamind… just naming a few here.

“I want a traditionally animated film [and by that I mean a 90s-Disney/Don Bluth looking movie] of ‘x'-popular live action/stage thing!”

Okay I’m cheating a bit but it’s my blog and so I’m gonna stick this one in because it’s related.

When I see musings about wanting live-action or CGI shiz to be in 2d again a lot of the time this argument actually boils down to " I want this to look like a 90s Didney movie ". Or, if it’s about animals - " I want it to look like a Don Bluth film! "

Like...there ARE other styles of animation out there...you know that right?

Frack, Disney themselves tried different styles throughout the 90s it’s just that the peak of the Disney renaissance films (LITTLE MERMAID, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, ALADDIN, THE LION KING) and the many imitators that followed tended to have the same look to them where only film/animation nerds kept watching into the era that was TARZAN, HERCULES, and ATLANTIS along with the kids. Aunt Karen wasn't singing Part of your World in the carride with you every day.

The Don Bluth argument is especially irritating because...what exact feeling do you WANT from a movie if it looked Bluthish? Each of the four ‘quintessential’ Bluth movies (NIMH, AMERICAN TAIL, LBT, and ALL DOGS) have such a different feel to them that’s complimented by that style; SECRET OF NIMH is a drama about wild animals trying to understand humans; LAND BEFORE TIME is even more squarely about an animal’s perspective as there’s literally no humans around; AMERICAN TAIL uses animals stowing away on the ship to tell a story about refugees; and ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN is ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN.

What the frack are you even asking for with that because I think there’s a certain flavor to the Bluth-styled oeuvre as well as the 90s Disney catalogue that would clash too much stylistically with some films.

Also come on! Like some Bluthian-style 2d would really fix THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS or SCOOB!, bite me.

I think this fixation solely on these two hand drawn styles and nothing else is based on nostalgia goggles, refusing to step outside the norm and discover different films and feelings than Disney and Bluth, and just preference. Goin back to NIGHTMARE there will always be a special place in my heart for Henry Selick’s stop motion, but I couldn’t imagine CHICKEN RUN or ANOMALISA in it's unique style.

Also I’m tired of every time there’s a "lets make an animatic to ‘x’ musical theater song" it’s reliably just Disneyesque or realistic. WHY envision an animated version of the show at all if it doesn’t have A STYLE to it??!?! I’m sorry but 90s-Disney does NOT fit CABARET!

“3D is so CHEAP now! Why can’t they just do 2D again?”

I think - on the cusp of the 2020s and the Grubhub hatedom, there ARE changing times ahead for 3d and 2d. The general public are starting to get tired of the same looking 3d films and wanting some 2d back, but they don’t have the best resources or opinions on animation to know what it is they want. Meanwhile, the animation community + industry is trying to figure out what to do and you have a lot of turmoil between the monopoly that is the industry, the high standards of the artists, and the mixed wants of the animation fanbase deciding what art needs to be.

It’s a tough business. And in the spirit of that tough business - maybe DON’T act like the means of a film’s production is solely your control, that you know best, and know definitively what the artists should have done....cuz you don't. Sorry my fellow criticalfanomanalysist-folks we DON'T and in an age of standom where fans and critics think it's okay to hackle indie animation studios about not getting their pitched cartoon out fast enough - we need to reserve these discussions to our circles and not treat them as gospel.

3d animation and 2d animation have to share this world. Stop acting like they’re either interchangeable in terms of budget, means of production, or artistry or that one has to be superior to the other.

The industry already says one art form is better (spoiler: it’s always live-action), we don’t need anymore of this purist garbage. Just stick to what you like while trying new things on the side. Be critical while also being compassionate. And remember:

[ordinaryschmuck]

What I Thought About The Mitchells vs. the Machines

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is up there as one of the best installments of the MCU. Sure, the action and CGI sucks, and the season finale could use a bit more polish, but there is so much more of what it does right. It brings up an engaging discussion through Karli; the bromance between Bucky and Sam is incredible; Zemo's surprisingly a riot, and U.S. Agent is a character whose inner psychology is something I would like to study. Plus, the series really dives deep into the themes of race and the realistic hesitance that comes with making a black man Captain America. It's easily an 8/10 series that is worth an in-depth discussion.

But f**k that s**t, because I'm talking about The Mitchells vs. the Machines instead!

I know it might be questionable that reviewing a movie starring a predominantly white family of idiots saving the world instead of the TV series about the powerful journey of a black man taking the mantle of an American icon...but this movie is fun, alright? And yes, I'm going to spoil it to explain how. So if you still have a Netflix account, I highly suggest you check it out when you have time.

Because, random people on the internet who most likely won't read this, this Ordinary Schmuck who writes stories and reviews and draws comics and cartoons is going to explain why The Mitchells vs. the Machines might just be my favorite film of the year (steep contest, I know).

WHAT I LIKE

The Animation: Let's get this out of the way right here and right now: If a single person ever tells you that this movie has awful animation, or the worst animation they have ever seen, just go ahead and assume that person is an idiot. Because holy hot cheese sticks, does this movie look amazing!

Say what you want about most of Sony Pictures Animation's movies, but you have to admit that they nail making a CGI movie looking like it could be in 2D. And The Mitchells vs. The Machines is the peak of that style. Every character in nearly every frame looks like they could work well if the movie was hand-drawn, and I love it. I am addicted to seeing films that look 2D with a 3D makeover because there has to be ten times the amount of effort to get that look just right, what with modeling each character in unique ways to nail that style wherein a hand-drawn film, you could just, well, draw it. Not to mention that the cell-shading and certain hand-drawn elements also add to the aesthetic.

Plus, there is so much attention to details, such as most of Katie's character model being covered in sharpie, or how you can see a hint of Eric and Deborabot 3000's drawn on faces even though their black screens are showing something else. Seriously, you can listen to any criticism this movie gets, but don't you dare let someone get away with telling you that it looks awful. It doesn't. It's incredible, and I SO wish that I could have seen it all on the big screen.

The Comedy: On top of being incredibly well-animated, this movie is also incredibly funny. Like, really funny. I shouldn't be surprised since it's made by the same people responsible for Clone High and The Lego Movie, but yeah, I found myself laughing, chuckling, and snorting with nearly every joke in the film. Not every joke works, to be fair. But because of the fast-paced humor, the bad jokes are almost immediately followed up with better ones soon after. What's even better is that the writers know when to take a break with the humor and let some surprisingly compelling drama take over. And even then, when there are jokes during the dramatic moments, they add sincerity to the scene rather than take anything away. Looking at you, The Amazing World of Gumball...I mean, I love you, but sheesh, you need to learn to let a solemn moment play out.

Anyways, the comedy is hilarious. And while I won't spoil every joke, I will go over some bits that might have gotten to me the most.

Katie Mitchell: Let's just go ahead and add Katie Mitchell to the list of characters I highly relate to on a personal level (which is getting longer by the minute, hot damn). But jokes aside, I really like Katie. Her love and desire to make movies is something I identify with, and her goal to just go to a place where she feels like she belongs is easy to understand. Trust me, if I found out there was a group of weirdos who like the same things I do and enjoy the things I make, I’d be willing to pack everything I have and go to them as fast as possible too. Plus, I feel like a lot of us can relate to a character who lives in a household where people question if our career goal is something we can make a living with. I remember two years ago when I told my aunt that I wanted to make my own animated series, and her reaction is a little too similar to Rick's when Katie showed him her movie. They mean well, but sometimes it's for the best to have a cheerleader rather than a critic, especially if that person is family.

Now, Katie isn't perfect as her enthusiasm can get a little annoying at times, and her desire to leave can be conceived as a little too harsh as well. Still, she's pretty cool and serves her role as a protagonist pretty well...also, if the movie gets a sequel, let's hope she and Jude become cannon by then. GIVE KATIE A GIRLFRIEND, DAMN IT!

Aaron Mitchell: But as great as Katie is, it's this goober that earns the reward for my favorite character. At times it looks like Aaron is nothing more than a source of comedy, but he handles some dramatic moments really well. Partial credit goes to Michael Rianda for that one. Yeah, having a child actor would have made Aaron sound more like a kid, but no other voice could have fit him better than what Michael offers as he comes across as weird but never obnoxious.

Also, let's give the writer points for making a character who is clearly neurodivergent. Yet also refraining from having him be annoying or useless to the rest of the cast. No one ever really disrespects or belittles Aaron and instead chooses to work with him rather than against him. Especially Katie, who forms a solid sibling bond with Aaron as a fellow weirdo. It's genuinely sweet to see, and I loved every minute that the writers showed that just because someone acts on a different wavelength doesn't mean they shouldn't be treated any less because of it. You get that with Katie, a little bit, but I see it much more with Aaron, for some reason. And I love him every minute, so that’s a win.

(Plus, I may or may not have had a dinosaur phase when I was younger, so go ahead and add him to the list of relatable characters too.)

Rick Mitchell: This is probably a character you will either love or hate, and I can see both sides of that argument. Because on the one hand, I really like Rick Mitchell. His motivation is clear and understandable from the first set of home videos with him and Katie, both near the beginning and the end. Sure, he messes up a lot, but he is still a man who cares deeply about his daughter, as well as his entire family. He gets to the point where he would make great sacrifices for all of them, especially Katie. Plus, it's just pleasant seeing a cartoon dad who isn't a complete idiot or overprotective regarding his daughter's love life.

However, there are times when Rick comes across as an irresponsible d**k. When he does things like smash the family's phones without telling them or giving them screwdrivers for "presents," you're either gonna find that funny or you won't. Personally, I enjoy Rick and his antics, and I have no problem with irresponsible cartoon dads. As long as they don't cross the line toward Modern-Peter Griffin territory, I've got no problem with dads like Rick, who I believe has never even got that bad. Still, some people might think differently, and I can't blame them. Because after getting great cartoon dads like Greg Universe, I can understand if some people won't be interested in characters like Rick Mitchell.

Rick’s and Katie’s relationship: Alongside the top-notch animation and gut-busting comedy, Rick and Katie's relationship is what I consider the movie's most essential asset. These two are the main characters of the film, and as such, they develop through each other. And what's crazy is that they have very conflicting goals. Katie wants to escape and be with her people, where Rich just wants one last chance to have a good memory with Katie before she leaves. To do so, they first have to understand each other. Katie has to learn why Rick is so desperate to spend time with her, and Rick has to realize why Katie is, well, Katie. What I love most about it is that they try. These two don't spend the entire movie arguing and being at each other's throats until a sudden "Oh" moment in the end. No, there are actual moments when they genuinely try to understand one another and fix their relationship. It's nice to watch, and I especially love when it cuts to Linda and Aaron celebrating each time Katie and Rick get closer to each other. When recommending this movie, I'd say come for the animation and comedy, stay for the phenomenal relationship building.

Monchi: There are probably people already comparing Monchi to Mater or the Minions due to being a comic relief with nothing else to add...but gosh dangit, do I love this little gentleman. Maybe it's because I'm a dog person, but I find Monchie to be incredibly adorable, and I will fight anybody who disrespects this king of kings. Probably not physically, 'cause I'm a wuss, but I will verbally. So WATCH IT!

“HeLlO. i Am DoG.”: Have I mentioned that this movie is funny?

Rick’s videotapes of him and Katie: And right there. Rick's motivation for everything is set in stone through a solid case of visual storytelling.

PAL: The writers do almost everything they should have with this character. PAL might not have the most creative evil plan in the world, but to me, a villain can have a generic scheme as long as they're funny. Thankfully, PAL is funny. Not only is the idea of a smartphone ruling the planet hilarious in all the right ways, but Olivia Colman delivers such a great cynical energy that the character needs. The way PAL reacts to people explaining why humans are worth living is just the best, and her flopping around in a fit of rage successfully gets to me.

If I had to nitpick, I'd say that I wish PAL had more of a meaningful resolution to her character. The movie builds up that she makes a big deal about Mark dropping her, so it feels weird that neither of them really get any actual closure with each other. I'll get more into that in the dislikes, but I wish PAL had more of a fitting end than just dying after accidentally getting dropped in a glass of water. Other than that, she's a great comedic villain for a comedic movie.

PAL MAX Robots: These guys are the funniest characters in the movie. Half of it is the bits of visual humor, while the other half comes from the solid line delivery from Beck Bennett. Especially with Bennett's and Fred Armisen's Eric and Deborahbot 3000. These two are definitely the comedic highlights, as nearly every line they say is both hilarious and kind of adorable at times. And just like with Monchi, if you dare disrespect these characters, I will fight you. Because they are funny, and I will not hear otherwise.

PAL demonstrating what it’s like to be a phone: Have I mentioned that this movie is funny?

(Don't disrespect your phones, kids. Otherwise, they'll try to take over the world.)

PAL turning off the Wi-Fi: Again, have I mentioned this movie is funny?

“I love the dog. You love the dog. We all love the dog. But at some point, you’re gonna have to eat the dog.”: It's the sick jokes that get to me the most. Everyone booing Rick afterward is just the cherry on top.

Attack of the Furbies: Have I. Mentioned. That this movie. Is funny?

Seriously, if you haven't lost your s**t during every second of this scene, then you never had to deal with the demonic entity that is a Furby. In a way, I commend you. But you also don't get to appreciate the comedic genius of all of this. So I also weirdly feel bad for you.

The Mitchells deciding how to celebrate: You don't have a real family if you spend more time arguing about how to celebrate after saving the world than you do about how to save the world. I don't make the rules. I just abide by them.

The PAL MAX Primes: There's not much to say about them. The PAL MAX primes look and act pretty cool, are brilliantly animated, and raise the stakes while still being funny at times. I love 'em, but I don't have much to analyze with them either.

The origin of the moose: ...I'd make the "I didn't need my heart anyway" joke, but to be honest, it's still shattered after WandaVision.

(For real, though, this is a really effective scene that establishes why Rick makes a big deal with the moose and why he might feel hurt that Katie is willing to disregard it completely)

The Theme of Technology and Social Media: There's a theme about how family is important, and working hard on making things work is worth the effort. But that's a bit too generic for my tastes, so instead, I'm gonna talk about the equally important message this movie has about technology. Because as twisted as she is, PAL makes a great point. The technology we have today helps us in a variety of ways. It's especially useful with sites like YouTube, allowing content creators like Katie to reach out and share their voices. The only issue with technology is how people use it. Take note that the main reason why the Mitchells stand a chance against PAL is by using her own tech against her. Yes, over-relying on all the advancements around us can be dangerous, but if we're smart with how we use them, we can get by just fine. This movie isn't about purging all technology like most robot apocalypse stories are. Instead, it's about using it correctly and not being helpless sheep the second the Wi-Fi gets turned off. Which might just be the most unique thing this movie has going for it story-wise (more on that later).

The Climax: The Mitchells vs. The Machines has everything that I think I climax should have. First off, it utilizes callbacks and jokes that I wouldn't have thought twice on actually coming in handy for how the Mitchells win the day. But showing that Monchi causes the robots to malfunction turns a pretty "eh" joke into a solid case of foreshadowing.

Second, everyone does something. Some characters do more than others, sure, but the fact that every Mitchell, even Monchi, has a hand in beating PAL and her robots is a great sense of writing to me. It shows that you really can't cut anyone from the main cast, as they each add value to how they are essential to the plot. Even Aaron, who arguably does the least in the climax, still manages to be the catalyst to what is easily the best scene in the movie. Speaking of which...

Linda Kicks Ass: By the way, that's the actual name on the soundtrack. I'm not even kidding. Check it.

Anyways, for the most part, Linda seemed like a decent cartoon mom. She's insanely supportive but still has the common sense to keep her foot down, like agreeing with Rick to stay safe in the dino stop the second the apocalypse starts. A pretty fun character, for sure, but nothing too noteworthy...but the second she loses her s**t, Linda Mitchell frickin' SKYROCKETS to the best-cartoon-mom territory! Believe me when I tell you that seeing her slice and dice robots like a middle-aged female Samurai Jack is as awesome as it is hilarious. Does it make sense how she can suddenly do this? No, but at the same time, who gives a s**t about common sense?! Because this moment was epic, and I don't think I'll ever get tired of watching it over and over again.

Rick Learning How to Internet...Again: I consider this the funniest moment in the movie. Trust me, the Furby scene is a close, close, CLOSE, second...but I think this scene was funnier.

The final goodbye: This is what I'm talking about when I say humor adds to the dramatic moments. The Mitchells saying "I love you" in moose is pretty funny, but it's also a sweet moment given that this is absolutely how this family of weirdos would say goodbye to each other. And, yeah, I got a little misty-eyed during this scene. Especially when Rick saw Katie pocketing the moose. That s**t just cuts deep, man.

Alex Hirsch Voices a Character: ...That's it. I look up to Alex Hirsh as everything I want to be as a creator, and the fact that his name is on this movie fills me with joy. He's also a story consultant, so that can also explain why the movie turned out as great as it did...although there are some imperfections.

WHAT I DISLIKE

Katie-vision: What's Katie-vision? Well, throughout the movie, we get to see how Katie views the world as there are these hand-drawn elements that look like effects Katie would add if she was the one who made the movie. At times it can be subtle and cute, like when this little beating heart appears when Katie is talking with Jude and her other friends. It's when the movie is in your face with Katie-vision does it get annoying. Like showing how Katie is lying about being certain she can drive up a vertical ramp or signifying what is the Rick Mitchell Special. Even if you justify that this would be how Katie would edit the movie, it still doesn't change how obnoxious these moments can be. For instance, Monchi is justified to be essential for the plot, but that doesn't mean people won't hate him...I'll still fight them if they do, but that's beside the point.

I can totally accept this being a personal issue, as I'm sure some people enjoy it. As for me, I think Katie-vision works best when used subtly instead of crudely.

The Meme humor: It's something similar here. Because some people like meme humor...but I don't. To me, it just dates your story if you reference memes even once. Now, a show, movie, or book being partially dated is nothing new. We Bare Bears, a series that I love, reference memes, apps, and social media constantly. Yet, the show still has a timeless feel to it as it doesn't rely on those references too much. The Mitchells vs. the Machines doesn't rely on memes as much either. But even then, that doesn't make a difference about how annoying that gibbon monkey joke was. Seriously, what the f**k was that? And how is THAT the joke that gets used twice!?

Underutilizing Mark Bowman: It really bothers me how this guy barely does much. I mean, Mark Bowman is the main reason that anything happens in the movie. Because he mistreated PAL, Mark acts as the catalyst for events to come. So the fact that he could have been written out the second PAL takes control doesn't make sense to me. It's worse since I could see more potential with his character through his relationship with PAL. These two could be anti-Rick and Katie, as Mark and PAL show what happens when people disrespect their family. So separating them halfway through the story, and keeping them as such, is a huge mistake as it results in neither having a proper resolution to their arcs. Like I said, Rick and Katie develop through each other, and the same could have happened with Mark and PAL. It doesn't, making it something that I can't help but feel disappointed about.

The Poseys: These are characters I feel like work better with multiple appearances. Sure, they only have the one joke about being a perfect family, but at the same time, you can make a joke like that work. Look at Yvonne from Shaun of the Dead (Which might just be my favorite movie). That's a bit-character whose only purpose is showing how better she is than Shaun despite being in an eerily similar situation. But she works well as we constantly see how great she's doing in every instance we see her. The same could be done with the Poseys, as using a similar joke for one scene is underutilizing great potential to make an already good movie into a better one.

Plus, if you're gonna shoehorn in a romance between Aaron and Abby Posey, the least you could do is have more than one scene developing that...just saying.

Katie’s and Rick’s “Oh” Moments: I want to make it clear that I actually like these scenes. They're well written and effectively emotional. My problem is that they also happen two seconds apart. There's nothing wrong with having a character realize the error of their ways through a tear-jerking moment. It's a popular tactic for a reason. And given how both Rick and Katie are the protagonists, they both need their own "oh" moment. But you gotta space them out, as it makes things easier to see the emotional manipulation that you're clearly trying to pull on the audience. They work, but putting them back to back is an issue easily solved with at least two minutes of padding, not two seconds.

Katie’s Death Fakeout: This is one of the few instances that a joke doesn't work in the movie, made even more annoying with the fact that I could see the punchline a mile away and kept thinking, "Just get to it already." I'm pretty sure no one bought this, especially when Katie didn't look like she could have gotten killed in any way after throwing PAL. It's poorly handled and proof that even the funniest comedies have a stale joke every now and again.

Nothing New is really being done here: Keep in mind that in terms of style, this movie is incredibly innovative. And here's hoping future animated projects can take notes. But narratively speaking? Yeah, there's nothing really new that this movie is offering.

A story about how technology will be the death of us? Been there.

A story about a group of idiots miraculously saving the world? Done that.

A story about a father forcing their teenager on a road trip so they can spend quality time with each other, thus ruining the teen's chance of hanging out with their girlfriend? Believe it or not, I have seen A Goofy Movie...multiple times...both as a kid and as an adult.

Now, I have no issue with a movie's plot being a bit by-the-books, and in some cases, cliche. If done effectively, and if I still have a good time, I don't think there’s much to complain about. And there isn't with The Mitchells vs. The Machines. The problem lies with that I'll forget this movie along with the dozens of others like it in a couple years. Which might just be the biggest issue any film can have.

---------------------

Overall, I'd give The Mitchells vs. the Machines a well-earned A-. It has nitpicks, sure, but it's still a blast to watch. It might not be innovative or groundbreaking as movies like the last Sony Pictures Animation movie, Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse. However, it is fun. And when the world is burning down around us, it's nice to have a fun movie that can distract us from all of it. So feel free to log in to Netflix the next time you're in the mood for a film that is great for the whole family. You won’t be disapointed

(And I will talk about The Falcon and the Winter Soldier pretty soon. I just needed to get this out of my system first.)

[selfmadesuperhero]

i’m very much not okay 

and i’ll probably take very long for me to explain why

i don’t know how to write this. i don’t know where to even start. i’m here because i just don’t have anywhere else to go. i can’t afford therapy. i no longer have any close friends other than Mabu (gf).

it’s getting pretty bad inside my head

i know most people’s lives are hell this year and i’m not special. i know that. to me, this year is feeling like the last nail in my coffin because 2019 had already chewed me up and spit me out. 

i kept my last job for eight years. after my first year there, another developer came in, and we became friends. we worked side by side less than 4 feet apart for six years. our hours were flexible but we always agreed upon our schedule just so work would be more bearable, because we both hated it and often had to team up against our boss’ downright abuse. it was a very small company (at its biggest we were only 7 employees). we were also going to graduate at the same time from the same school (different majors), so we had a bit of a pact to leave our shitty boss once we’d graduated and start developing our own, way less shitty games.

at the start of 2019, he got an excellent job offer. i was thrilled for him and told him to of course get out of that hellhole we hated so much, we were only there because the pay was decent and the hours were flexible so we could get our degree, you know? it stung, but i was happy for him. on the last day i gave him a ride home (which is also something i did almost daily), he surprised me by hugging me and telling me i was like a brother to him and our plans weren’t going to change. 

i believed him, and went back to work. he was soon replaced, obviously, by a junior developer because that’s how capitalism works. but suddenly, i no longer had someone to take a stand with me against my boss - there was no one left that i knew, everyone had resigned or been fired and i was the oldest employee. you’d think that’d earn me something, after eight years being dedicated to the same company, right? 

(shortly after, my grandma passed, after years and years of agonizing in a wheelchair. we lived together)

fuck that

the first months were fine. i was being the senior developer and teaching the junior constantly, so my boss stayed out of my way. but see, this is where he started to get ansty. the more the junior stopped being a junior and was actually useful for something, the more that piece of gigantic ass just started thinking only about our salaries. i started in that company in 2012 making little more than 3 bucks/hour (remember i live in a third world country, but it was still specialized work), but by 2019, my salary was pretty much double of what the junior was making, and every penny extra i got during those years was a CONQUEST. i also worked six hours while he worked eight, so.

my boss basically started treating me even more like shit. he wasn’t nice to be around before, but he was bearable in small amounts. suddenly it was obvious to everyone that he was really fixating on me and my performance, and to me it was obvious he just wanted me to walk away too so he could replace me with TWO junior developers instead of just one measly charlie. 

then, the nationals elections began. oh boy.

this probably wouldn’t read as news to anyone, but i’m a huge leftie, obviously. if you’re at all interested in politics, read about what socialist policies have done for uruguay during the past 15 years and how they turned us into AT LEAST a developing country, but i digress. 

the people that sat in my office even shared my political views or whatever, but my boss is actually part of the conservative party and started actively campaigning. every time something involving politics happened, he made a point to come barging in the office and telling me and specifically me about it like i was personally running against his party. i actually recorded him once to have proof of him at least screaming at me, so i could check if i was crazy for thinking he had something against me. he frequently called me communist and just mocked my views. if you’re wondering, yes, this is illegal, but nothing happened. 

then, two big things happened at once: we lost the election, and my recently adopted puppy was diagnosed with distemper. yes, it happened on the same that and it’s a day i’ll never forget. 

my girlfriend and i had talked about getting a puppy once we moved in together. we’d named him like two years before it actually happened. we moved in together on may 2019 and on september i found the most precious boy for adoption on facebook and i was innocently all like “oh i’ve had to put rescue dogs for adoption before, let’s give back!”. 

on october 27th, he had a seizure and the vet told us it was likely we’d have to put him down because only 20% of dogs survived, and it was even less for puppies. 

when i went to work, i had to put up with my boss laughing and mocking me for winning the election “against me”. i guess i missed my running for anything?

this post is already too long for me to get into details about my dog’s disease. for months, every day we looked after him constantly. i read everything there was to BE READ about distemper online, spent thousands of pesos on medicine and treatments just in case he had a chance. good news is he did! this is the only positive note in this post. 

it still wasn’t easy. he made us cry at least three times a day. we really thought he was dying, and we’d made the mistake of naming him 2 years before he was even born. we’d taken PERFECT care of him while he was unvaccinated, but the vet told us it was most likely he was already infected before he came home to us. i’d never seen such a small puppy so sick. he hallucinated constantly. if you don’t know, distemper is a neuro/digestive/skin/bone/HELL disease that’s really nasty. he’d have seizures almost daily and poop and pee himself. he stopped being able to control his body other than his two front legs, which he didn’t even have full control of. when he stopped being able to walk, he started crying constantly, it really tore the heart out of my chest

we called another vet, a dog physical therapist, so she’d tell us how we could help him. she told us to make him stand as long as possible, so every time he had a meal, i’d bend down with him and hold his hips - so he’d be able to stand, and slowly gain back some muscle mobility. every day we massaged his legs and flexed his joints, even his tiny toes, so he’d avoid atrophy. and we did it!! as i’m writing this, he’s one year old now, he’s no longer sick even if he’ll carry with him plenty of lifelong sequels, and he walks and runs and barks like the best of them ♥ i wasn’t going to plug anything but if you wanna see his progress, it’s on instagram @hamiltonthefighter

okay, i guess i ended up talking at length about his disease in the end, sorry. his walking again had a price to pay for me: my own back. for two or three months i was bent over this dog, you know? i still can’t get out of bed without help sometimes lol around december it got really bad but i just kept popping pills because joy oh joy, i was doing my thesis and i didn’t really have time or money for anything else. my job was basically paying for our rent, my university classes including the thesis course which was ridiculously expensive, and our dog had given me credit card debt out of desperation (we even had to buy those rubber things used for yoga to place on our floors so he’d have something to use his nails against instead of constantly slipping on the floor, we tried every medication that might help, we gave him CBD oils, all kinds of vitamins, constant vet visits where during the first two weeks he got like three different shots every day, etc)

i’m rambling, and i’m sorry, but i don’t really think anyone will read this. i started this post crying my eyes out and writing about my dog at least has been calming, because even if he’s a drooling mess now, he’s still the same he ever was and i love him very much and he’s sleeping soundly next to me and he’s finally close to fine. 

remember the friend i talked about like half an hour ago? the one that worked with me for six years? nothing changed between us during the first months. for my thesis, i was going to develop a videogame with Mabu, but we were allowed to have external coding help because it was about GameDev, not the actual coding. i knew how to code, obviously, but Nico (the friend, guess we’ll give him a name) was also part of our project so he was gonna help us code so i had more time to focus on art and 3D modelling. the idea was kill two birds with one stone, make something we all liked, mabu and I were going to graduate with it and then we’d keep working on it during 2020 as we’d always always talked about.

by december, even if nico and i still talked regularly, i could tell he had just moved on with his life. he’d said he’d help us, but he was doing his own thesis, so i told him not to worry at that time, our final due date was in february. he asked us to forgive him during december and promised us he’d come back in january to DEVOTE himself to the project. i started coding the project besides working on the art and i was thankfully able to meet all the deadlines, so it was really fine, of course i understood where he was coming from. 

then, on january 7th, Mabu’s grandma passed away. she was scheduled for a heart surgery that supposedly only had 1% risk, and she passed on the table because of a doctor’s mistake. the surgery was here in the capital, but Mabu’s family lives five hours away. she comes from a very big, very loving family, and her grandma (being the mother of five children) was very much the center of it. i also loved her. she’d replaced my grandma the second she passed and every time i saw her she hugged me like i was a lost grandson. 

when my girlfriend called me during her surgery, i immediately left work because i just knew she would be crying if things were okay. this was a nightmare come alive for a family of 20+ people, and most of them were 5 hours away from their own house. my mother in law was (and still is) devastated by the lost of her mother because she was the one to encourage the surgery and she still thinks she killed her. i drove my her, my girlfriend, her sister and her sister’s boyfriend on my mother’s in law van for five hours while they all cried or slept and i had to really, really pinch myself because i was EXHAUSTED but what else could i do? 

logically i missed work the next day. LOGICALLY. i had the service to attend and i was 5 hours away from the office and i didn’t even have my own car with me. i told my boss to discount the day, since i wasn’t entitled to the mourning day by law because it wasn’t my grandma. he didn’t even reply - he almost never talked to me by this point unless it was to berate me for something. i went back to work the day after the service.

now, remember we were doing our thesis and it was due in february? it really wasn’t great timing for anyone to die, but i was trusting Nico’s promise that he’d have more free time and he’d make up for not helping us code sooner. i told him the news about Mabu’s grandma, and then basically had to tell him to say something to her for her loss because he was supposed to be her friend, what the fuck, why aren’t you at least sending her a text.

let’s just say, january wasn’t a great month for Mabu and myself. two weeks after the passing, we still hadn’t had news from Nico. Mabu didn’t even have time to properly mourn because we had to turn our thesis in like, little over a month. i wrote to nico just downright ASKING if he was gonna be able to help us or WHAT, to which he said to me...

he’d never promised anything because he was really busy with his own stuff and he didn’t want to bring it up sooner because he knew Mabu was mourning and things were hard for us at the moment? 

like that’s great pal, thanks for telling me at the last POSSIBLE second you were just dropping out altogether, what the actual fuck? it still baffles me that someone can be so thick headed, but he kept saying he had made no promises and both Mabu and I knew that was a lie and i honestly just couldn’t deal with someone so selfish he couldn’t at least give a heads up sooner

the icing on the cake during the beginning of this year is someone i haven’t even mentined: MY PIECE OF SHIT BROTHER. talking about him may deserve another post, because this is already so long and convoluted and i haven’t even talked about his involvement in my misery during 2019-2020. i’ll try to make the story short if anyone’s still reading this far: 

a lot of years ago, our maternal grandmother moved to uruguay from russia and bought a tiny shitty house here next to my mother’s. my mother still hasn’t talked to me since 2013 because i’m trans, but that’s neither here nor there. i tried to keep in touch with my brother (we don’t share dads so he was no relation with my side of the family), and around 2017 i finally succeeded in making friends with him. or so i thought, clearly. 

that grandmother passed... sometime. i don’t really know because they cut me off. she didn’t speak to me either, she was literally a crazy old nasty woman and i didn’t even care when i heard she’d died, to be honest. she was such a nasty woman, she’d put her tiny shitty house to my and my brother’s name just to keep her own daughter out of the inheritance when she bought it. 

that also meant i was inheriting something for the first time ever, even if it was shitty. BUT my brother had his own fake grandma (the woman who looked after him his whole life instead of our mother) who was very old and frail and asked me if he could house her there. i said yes because again, i didn’t give a shit about the inheritance or the house or anything regarding my mother’s side of the family (other than him obviously), so for years this woman occupied the house. my brother basically took all existing furniture and appliances because he was moving in with a girlfriend and i even loaded up my shitty car with his stuff. all i wanted to inherit was the couch set, which had come all the way from russia and everyone had promised me since i was a wee lad, but he started whining about his fake-grandma not having a living room set and nowhere to sit and i didn’t even live by myself yet so i let them have the fucking couches, too. 

oh boy this is already too long but now i’m too lazy to make a separate post

anyway, sometime during 2019, the woman moved out to an old folks home because she could no longer take care of herself. i immediately asked about the couch set with hope in my heart that it could finally be mine, but my brother told me our mother didn’t want me to have it. 

he wanted to rent the house to make a profit, which sounded good to me because of that dog related credit card debt i talked about. and here’s where you might think i’m not that there in the head, but all my life i didn’t want anything to do with that house until my mother was in the ground - not out of hate but because i thought it was a shitty thing her own mother had done to her, and the inheritance should have been hers. she doesn’t have a degree or a stable job because she’s a russian translator so hey, whatever, they needed it more than i did. but then my brother starting getting ideas about improving the house so we’d make more money, and how we should do it together, and... i think i might have mentioned already why i didn’t exactly have time to redo a house? i was doing my thesis? about to graduate? my boss was constantly on my case? my dog was about to die? 

i helped as much as i could at first, but then december came, and then january, and my brother just kept nagging me about the house like i was purposefuly sitting on my ass doing nothing, because oh every day it’s not rented it’s money lost. no amount of explaining how stretched thin i was seemed to suffice, not even when mabu’s grandma died and nico left us hanging with the thesis and i had less than a month left to code the whole project by myself while ALSO taking care of the art. 

by the end of january, i was so stressed, i called a doctor after a panic attack. he gave me a weeks rest because of my back, because i wasn’t even able to get up without help at that time. it wasn’t much of a rest because i still used that time to sit at the computer and code 15 hours a day at LEAST, but hey. 

it was the first time in 8 years i’d taken medical leave of ANY kind. i didn’t even get medical leave when i got my chest surgery. it happened on a friday and i was back to work the next monday. i’d never skipped more than 2 days of work at best when i had a bad case of the flu or something, but that was it. 

when i went back to work, my boss immediatelly called me to his office. he started berating me about my performance again, bringing graphs comparing the amount of lines of code i’d written next to my coworkers. i didn’t mention this, but the graphic designer had also quit during 2019, so i was also covering that workload and no, that didn’t exactly translate to lines of code. i also had to spend HOURS every day tutoring the junior because he was too much of a cheap shit (didn’t use those words) to hire an experienced developer. i’d even WORKED AS A GRAPHIC DESIGNER FOR MEDIA CONTENT FOR HIS POLITICAL CAREER, EVEN IF IT WAS AGAINST MY BELIEFS AND NOT AT ALL RELATED TO MY JOB. he denied everything. EVERYTHING. he stuck to the narrative that i was just lazy and the proof was i’d just taken AN ENTIRE WEEK because “my back just hurt a little” and i had the audacity to skip work for someone else’s grandmother dying

i’m not exaggerating, i swear to anyone who might be reading this. that day was brutal and i’m still not over it half a year later, i don’t care if that makes me sound like a wuss. i worked eight years of my life in this fucking place. 

this argument lasted for hours, but i kept my head down because i couldn’t afford to lose the job, specially not then. i even apologized for any loss in performance and tried to explain my point of view and what i was going through (which i’d already done to another superior weeks ago anyway). but just when i thought i’d MAYBE be able to keep my head above water, he told me he was denying my the request i’d made to take two weeks of holiday days before the thesis final due date. 

i had already explained everything to him. everything, even nico dropping the team and my having to do everything by myself. i broke down and i told him he was forcing me to leave my job, i’d just have been certified by a doctor and i was asking for leave for SCHOOL (all things that are protected by law here), but he just kept repeating i could either walk away from my job or show up during those two weeks. he just wanted me gone, but he couldn’t fire me right away without having to pay me THOUSANDS because of my seniority (by law). he knew what he was doing to me and he didn’t care about it. he didn’t even let me TOUCH MY COMPUTER, he told me he wasn’t the one pushing me away, that i was doing this to myself, and he’d ask for a lawyer to check my computer for any “inconsistencies in my activity”, even. i really have a hard time just thinking about that day and how utterly humilliating it was. i lost a lot of personal files, because i sat at that desk for eight years and of course i had personal files because sometimes i stayed after hours before going to class. 

imagine for a second a sixty year old man, rich as shit, political candidate, standing in front of a computer, disconnecting the mouse and keyboard so i couldn’t touch it, yelling at me i was doing this to myself and i was losing my job because i had the audacity to ask for two weeks leave to finish my fucking school thesis. 

and yeah, i lawyered up. i didn’t have actual money to AFFORD a lawyer, but mabu’s cousin’s girlfriend was a lawyer and lived one block away and i immediatelly told her everything there was to tell. she brought me to the firm she worked in and they guaranteed me i had a pretty strong case and i was at least gonna be able to walk away with something.

that put things in hold for a while because the “trial” or whatever wasn’t gonna be held until after the thesis, so i tried to forget about it. my boss even owed me my untaken paid vacation days, which i told the lawyers because i was pretty sure he’d just forgot, but i wanted to know if it made a better case against him. they agreed, and i left it at that. 

but you know who was still making my life miserable even when february began and i had less than three weeks to finish our project right? MY SWEET BABY BRO. he was constantly nagging me about having to do all the work himself, like I’D ASKED ANYTHING FROM THAT HOUSE TO BEGIN WITH. but see, the nastier he started getting, the more apparent his lies began to appear. he got nasty to the level where ON THE DAY I WAS TURNING THE PROJECT IN he kept calling me demanding MONEY for stuff he’d paid for the house without checking in with me. i was honestly baffled by his level of selfishness, i was already sleeping three hours a day tops and he expected me to what, paint walls? he was FIERCELY against having to wait for my project to be done even if it was two weeks away and he was asking and asking for money when i’d just told him i’d lost my job without a penny to show for it. nice guy, really. 

suddenly, the following lies became clear: 

 my mother didn’t care if i took the couch set, he told me that because he was moving again and he was planning on taking the couches himself. (he ended up doing just so, too). he lied to me with the thing that hurts me most in the world: my mother hating me. he had even made a joke about it, because my mother had bought a new couch not long ago, and he didn’t “get” why she “didn’t want me to have anything”

 years ago he’d told me he had refinanced a tax debt the house had, and i gave him money for it. now that the house was about to be put up for rent, he pretended that had never happened and suddenly started talking about how we needed to take care of that

 he wasn’t planning on splitting the rent three ways between him, our mother and i. he was gonna keep two thirds, and i later even found out my own mother had given him the idea. 

 then poor mabu confessed to me once, two years ago, she’d wore a skirt one time visiting my brother and his then girlfriend, and he had told her nasty stuff to her year upon saying goodbye and she had never said anything because didn’t want to hurt our sibling relationship 

talk about final nail huh? 

i confronted him and he denied everything, obviously, he instantly played the victim card, how dare i think that way about him, how dare i break his dreams of reuniting the family again. he said things to me i’ll also never forget like, apparently, it shows that i’m a shit person because i have no friends and no one wants me around, unlike him that has so many. he told me i thought the world owed me when i was shit and i believed anything anyone told me before believing him. no one told me any of his lies, i caught them all by myself, but whatever. he cursed me and told me he never wanted anything to do with me because i was rotten and i only cared about money and i was so so selfish. this must have been around march and i still don’t know anything from him, or care.

what do i have to do for that side of the family to leave me alone, i wonder? all i ever wanted to do was be his friend

the “trial” against my boss came and suddenly every lawyer that worked at that firm was taking a fucking holiday except for the one that was supposedly leading my case - except suddenly, i didn’t have much of a case at all. i walked away with less than 2 thousand dollars and that was WITH the vacation days i hadn’t taken. the agreement was the lawyers were gonna keep 25% of however much i made but THAT vacation money wasn’t supposed to count because it didn’t come out of the “trial” thing, you know? 

well, it did. the lawyer screwed me over too. but hey, at least he’d gotten me unemployment for a couple of months (you only apply for unemployment if you’re fired, not if you walk away from a job, and my having been fired or not was what was being contested), i still tried to be optimistic, i had a few months to figure things out while i looked for another job, and at least i was able to finish paying for school with that money.

yeah, this was late february, beginning of march. joke’s on me for being optimistic at all

my own brother plotting with my own mother against me has done a number for my mental health. i already had baggage aplenty, like every trans dude or girl whose parents would rather see them dead than be a dyke/fag (my mother’s own words, ladies and gents)

my boss of eight years kicking me to the curve at the worst moment in my life in the most humilliating of ways while blaming me for it has left me feeling so worthless to people in general. i’m getting better with time, i think, but i’m still all not there. i have a really hard time thinking my work is worth anything at all.

i keep thinking my brother was right, and i’m a shitty friend, and i don’t deserve anyone around. my only real friend at the moment is my girlfriend, which makes it really hard to have any arguments because i start feeling like my life is ending because she’s pretty much all i have left and she’s the most important thing in the world to me because i wouldn’t have survived all this shit i’m writing without her by my side. i would walk to hell and back for her. but nico also left me behind without a second thought, after telling me i was like a brother to him, no matter how many times i invited him to hang out or anything to keep in touch. i’ve been a shitty friend to a lot of people, but not him, and he still didn’t care about me at all, so i just stopped trying. 

but now social distancing has got me all fucked up. i can’t trust people. i can’t go outside. everything is scary to me, i have at least two or three panic attacks per WEEK and they get nastier and longer every time. i know i need help, but i can’t even afford rent, let alone therapy. Uruguay has the worst unemployment rates since 2006 now thanks to our baby-Trump right now. i look for jobs daily even if the notion of having a job even SIMILAR to the one i had before gives me the shakes. programming isn’t as hard as some people may think, but the workplaces are usually VERY toxic because you’re valued by the amount of lines of code you write, and i’m so so tired. i’m still looking because I NEED. TO. PAY. RENT. but not because it’s something i want in life, at all. i’d much rather be poor and just do freelance work instead, but i’m failing.

i thank the people that have helped me or commissioned me these past few months from the bottom of my heart. i’m sorry i’m not more active, i’m sorry i’m still rusty and can’t draw faster, i’m sorry i sometimes spend half a day crying my eyes out because i just don’t know how to move forward. i have a week left, i still haven’t made enough for rent, let alone the bills or food. mabu used to get plenty of art commissions on etsy, but she hasn’t sold anything since march either and she’s younger than me so our financial struggles have an even deeper impact on her

i’m just so, so tired. i’m lucky to have mabu, and that is about it. i honestly don’t think i could have survived this year without her. for months the future has looked like a black screen to me. i can’t even trust the vegetable market in front of my fucking house because some piece of shit spread the rumor that i’m trans and now i can’t even open the door to my front house without getting stares sometimes, it’s ridiculous. i wish i could trust more than one person in the world so that everything wasn’t on her shoulders.

i’m not okay. we’re not okay.

that’s about it. i’m sorry i can’t end this on a more positive note. at least we graduated with an excellent score. not that we had a graduation, obviously. thanks corona.

thank you for reading if you read this far ♥

[frasier-crane-style]

Terminator: Dark Fate

I have no idea how TSCC came up with two seasons’ worth of innovative scenarios about Terminators and these cinematic universe motherfuckers can only redo T2 with more CGI.

This movie is plotless. It has no real plot. It’s like Now That’s What I Call A Terminator Movie! There are so many callbacks and borrowings from all the other Terminator movies that it passes the point of homage and just becomes plagiarism. The bad Terminator is the same as the T-X, metal endoskeleton with a T-1000 shell. They kill him with a Terminator power core. They say Come With Me If You Want To Live and I’ll Be Back (twice! It’s the first thing Sarah Connor says and it makes no sense in context, it’s just something people say in Terminator movies). In fact, it has anti-plot, since it undoes a lot of the story developments in Terminator and T2.

The premise is basically just we’re going to remake Terminator 1, but people don’t like reboots, so we’re going to bring back Linda Hamilton and make it a technically kinda sorta sequel (sure, Skynet was wiped from existence, but another, completely different, yet exactly the same AI called Legion was created and did the exact same thing. Which also happened in T3, but they had the decency to still call it Skynet). But otherwise, it’s entirely people being chased by an evil robot from the future and trying to destroy it. 

That’s it. That’s all there is to it. T2 had the whole thing about preventing Judgment Day before it happened. T3 had Judgment Day actually happen. This one, nothing. There is nothing going on under the surface other than a bunch of action sequences and explosions. Even T3 got some mileage out of the idea that Judgment Day was inevitable. Here, our cast learns that Judgment Day was already ‘averted’ once slash that it’s destined to be repeated and they basically go “Eh. Figures.” I’m not kidding.

Wait, that’s not fair. Let’s count out the TWEEESTS.

1. In a very contrived way, the script waits an hour and a half to actually explain why heroine Dani has been targeted for termination--you know, the thing Kyle Reese explained to Sarah Connor the moment they were out of danger--all to set up this big ‘reveal’ that Dani isn’t the NuSarah, she’s the NuJohn (yes, they actually say this aloud, just so you soup sandwich motherfuckers in the audience get it). Hear that, neckbeards, John Connor is now a woman! And Mexican! And she’s got a bit of a gay vibe, because it’s 2019 and God forbid we have a heroine that isn’t a bit bicurious. If she has a cock and balls, my bingo card will be a winner.

2. Months after killing John Connor and thus completing his mission, an Arnold-model Terminator started a family (wow, that was quick) and learned the value of human life and eventually switched sides. This is a crazy new idea that also happened in Terminator: Genebissss, so it’s done and dusted in ten minutes, even though Arnold is the most engaging character. (He’s saddled with a lot of yuk lines about how he’s a comically serious Terminator, yet (teehee) works as an interior decorator, but at least he has a personality.)

3. The other good Terminator is Grace, who needs meds to keep up her cyborg strength or she’ll crash (this never affects the plot) (it’s like they read something about Rey Palpatine having no flaws and so they decided to give Grace the ‘flaw’ of literally having her own Kryptonite). She’s not a Terminator, she’s an augmented human, which means she can make MCU-style wisecracks every five minutes. (”I didn’t hear anything.” “That’s because you’re not a cybernetic super soldier from the future.” Actual dialogue.)

4. Linda Hamilton is back, baby! Yes, that’s right, they dragged her away from doing guest spots on Lost Girl! Can you believe???? She’s become a Terminator hunter that ambushes Terminators as they come back from the future and destroys them, because Skynet was both able to send back an infinite number of Terminators AND because now they can easily be destroyed by one five-hundred-year-old woman. 

This makes it a bit confusing why they have so much trouble taking out Ghost Rider, given that he’s a T-1000 skin with a creamy T-800 center. It seems like if you hammer him enough, he’s got no endoskeleton, and that’s all she wrote. That’s what happened to the T-X. Can his liquid metal skin just walk around without the other half of him? If so, what’s the point of the endoskeleton? The T-1000 managed without it and that seemed a lot harder to kill. At one point, Sarah hits the bare endoskeleton with a bazooka, which seems like it should’ve been a mortal blow, but it’s the first act, so I guess not.

And is it supposed to be funny that the opening takes place in a car factory where (in 2019!) the human workers are losing their assembly line jobs to machines? Because they’re all Mexicans? None of them ever look at a Terminator and go THEY TOOK OUR JOBS, but man, that one is all teed up for the Rifftrax boys.

For a movie with, as I said, no plot, it’s very rushed. They seem to be saying “yeah, it’s a dumb Terminator movie, you know the score,” (even tho it’s halfway aimed at people who aren’t Terminator fans; more on that in a minute) because it seems to take all of ten minutes for both good guys and bad guys to find Dani and start getting into CGI stunt double fights, which means the story has very little time to breathe and we have very little time to get to know any of the characters. The bad guy spawns practically at Dani’s front door! And pretty much does everything by massacring a bunch of people and then hacking a computer. The T-1000 had some intelligence, some charisma. This guy’s a big nothing.

And the Dani character is useless. She starts the story already super assertive, is barely traumatized at all by her loved ones being killed and her own life being endangered. There’s none of that relatable feel of an everyman suddenly being told they have a grand destiny and an incredible responsibility, because right from the start she’s standing up to her mean boss and doing the Nevertheless She Persisted thing. And all this while being literally five feet tall and looking all of twelve years old. 

I love these Spy Kids movies.

And at least the original two movies were smart enough to leave the future John Connor mostly to the imagination. This one actually shows us Dani as grizzled military badass, beating up guys and delivering inspiring speeches (would it surprise you to know that humans fighting among each other “is exactly what Legion wants”?), and it’s just--oh man. If ever a political leader is enough to make people think back to the good old days of Trump and Biden...

And if we’re going to talk shit (rightfully) about Jai Courtney’s Kyle Reese not being at all scruffy or traumatized or feral, it should be noted that Grace seems pretty well-adjusted for a post-apocalyptic guerrilla fighter (who all wear Starship Trooper uniforms). Aside from a tendency to smash the face in of everyone she comes across, whether they’ve done anything to deserve it or not (Sample dialogue, to a doctor who is looking at her X-rays after performing life-saving surgery on her: “Did I give you permission to look at my private parts?” SMASH. No, really!)

They really go all in on this cringey, woke af “You’re not the mother of some MAN, Dani. YOU ARE THE FUTURE!” And yet, there’s a hilarious amount of toxic masculinity in this movie, just without the dongs. About every other line Sarah and Grace have is generic tough guy bullshit about how they’re going to kick someone’s ass, how they’re suspicious of someone, how they’re hostile towards someone. If they had dongs, you would think they were the smallest dongs possible, because they are compensating for something, BIG TIME. Between the T-800 and Sarah and Grace, everyone in this movie seems to outright hate each other, to the point that Arnold’s killer cyborg is one of the more pleasant characters. It gets to where you just want someone to order a fucking decaf. Does the fact that Sarah Connor has a vagina keep it from being ridiculously over the top how she spends all her time either blowing up robots or drinking herself into a stupor? C’mon. You can’t complain about male characters having ‘man-pain’ then give Bad Grandma a pass over her ovaries.

And that’s it. It’s a Brundlefly shit between yet another dumb girlpower reboot for the people who’ve never seen a Terminator movie and a sequel with Sarah and Uncle Bob to try and get that last drop of blood outta this stone. They’re trying to make something that appeals to both people for whom this is their first Terminator and people for whom this is their latest Terminator and it just doesn’t work. The newbies don’t have any emotional investment in these characters and the Terminator fans don’t like it that all the old movies were rendered meaningless to prop up Grace and Dani.

Hilariously enough, I actually played Terminator: Resistance recently, which is a fun little mid-tier shooter that was meant to tie in to this movie... and it completely ignores all the Dani/Grace/Legion BS to take place in John Connor’s future war and tie in to the first two movies. That’s how forgettable this movie is. Its own damn video game adaptation pretends it doesn’t exist. Fuuuck.

Oh! Oh! Oh! And in that big, bad, sexist original Terminator, which was so unwoke and problematic, Sarah saved herself and finished off the Terminator herself. Here, Dani has to be saved by Arnold at the climax. The 35-year-old movie is more feminist than this one. Fuck you very much.

[padme-amitabha]

You know I’m glad suitless!vader isn’t canon or that Anakin still retained his good looks if it means cant Disney make him a fuckboy in the comics! It was bad enough worry this writers would try to spin some weird sexual fantasy bullshit with Vader and some potential love interest...

I couldn’t agree more! It’s one of my biggest pet peeves in the fandom. Anakin’s journey is modeled like every tragic hero’s: his own choices and his flaws are his downfall. His injuries are a result of his own actions. I don’t see any reason to prefer Suitless!Vader other than because he would still have his good looks. If Anakin had not been stopped on Mustafar, he would have been unbearable and he would be even more arrogant because of his abilities. His defeat was necessary as Count Dooku predicted in the beginning of ROTS (“Twice the pride, double the fall”). Anakin shows his arrogance when he is denied the Rank of Master and shows it again on Mustafar when he decides he can overthrow Palpatine. The first time it leads to his moral downfall, and the second time it leads to permanent physical injuries. Star Wars has morals and the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker is a cautionary tale. It’s like a curve: the more Anakin rises in station in life, the more his arrogance grows and in ROTS, it peaks and then falls to the point he no longer cares about his force potential and he is back to his original position as a slave.

While Hayden is a very attractive man and helped bring the character of Anakin Skywalker to life, he isn’t Anakin; the actor is not the character. A character is more than just his looks. Still, there’s fanfiction for that. But I just can’t condone Disney sexualizing him or making him another Kylo Ren because that’s exactly how a Suitless!Vader is portrayed in most fics (and would probably be in the actual story). Besides, growing more and more powerful without check would make him a Gary Stu. His defeat was proof that being the Chosen One didn’t grant you immunity or plot armor. His injuries humbled him and he learned from his mistakes so he grew as a character. Anakin as a child was a simple good-hearted boy but being raised in the order - where everyone thought he was special - had made him arrogant. He started believing he was special and better than others. His constant complaining makes sense and his defeat made me realize he was not invincible.

I think Anakin has always been a prideful person (especially since he was of humble origins and longed for a life of significance) but he still managed to keep it to himself (like you can see him relent in the council meeting and he mostly complained to people he trusted like Padmé and Obi-Wan). It’s in the body language: he wants to be free and exercise free will but, in the end, he’s very submissive. In the same way, Vader has big plans with Luke but in front of the Emperor, he is submissive. He didn’t attack his Master till the very last moment when Palpatine wants to kill and not injure Luke. Becoming Vader was a part of his character development and it’s so much more interesting to see a hero actually struggle to adjust to his new life and deal with the repercussions and become a villain in the eyes of the next generation of heroes. I think it’s so much more relatable because everyone has dealt with mistakes in their lives. We are all shaped by our experiences.

 I don’t care all that much about sequel trilogy or their new content but it does bother me when they change pre-established characters for fan service. They just had to change Lucas versions of Anakin and Vader to fulfill fanboys’ male power fantasy when Lucas tried so hard to establish both of his heroes as  anything but generic male protagonists from action movies. I don’t think Marvel Vader is completely horrible but the way he deals with pain and memories of his past makes me completely unsympathetic towards him and I don’t believe he deserves redemption (especially since he continues to repeat the very things he regrets in the first place and because he is unnecessarily brutal). He is not Lucas!Vader so I don’t particularly care about other people’s fanfictions. Both TCW!Anakin and Marvel!Vader are more stoic than their Lucas counterparts and some of their actions are completely out of character, and they are also more overpowered (Lucas Anakin and Vader didn’t win in every duels they fought). And that sexual fantasy bullshit enrages me because while people are free to amuse themselves in whatever way they want, it should not be in Disney material they label as canon. They didn’t even need Suitless!Vader to come up with these absurd storylines.

Though as unbelievable as that crazy obsessed stalker nurse issue was, it still sent the message “Don’t be crazy and fancy Darth Vader”. The nurse got what we had all predicted in the end but Kieron Gillen’s OC is the worst character to ever exist because it seemed like he was having fun including his twisted fantasies. The entire “potential love interest” bit is rubbish because nobody can replace Padmé. Anakin was a demisexual and a romantic and sensitive guy but like TCW they want him to act like a straight white male and rob him of his individuality. Vader in the movies was respectable and this OC made everything into a joke. Did we see Boba Fett and other bounty hunters joking around with Vader and him tolerating that sort of nonsense in ESB? These writers have been given far too much creative liberty to screw around with good and complex characters. At this point, I think the comics are what I hate the most about Disney’s Star Wars.

[bill-beauxquais]

Blogging my Bravely Default II Playthrough - Chapter 2

Here we are for a new chapter!

As usual, spoilers for up to chapter 3′s title card below the cut (so all of chapter 2, none of chapter 3), you have been warned.

Overall opinion: The game is still fun to play and while I sometimes laments being so slow, I like that I can play a lot without feeling like I’m goind too fast. On a story standpoint, I’m a bit bummed that this chapter didn’t really make any real progress in its main thematics, but on a gameplay level, it was fun.

Gameplay: I talked about there being more strategy in battle already, but I realise I didn’t mention why. Compared to previous games, it seems like enemies use brave and default a lot more, and they actually go into negative. It happened in previous game, but if my memory serve, it was only certain enemies who had this quirk baked into them. Also, nearly all of them have counters and immunity, preventing you from just braving 4 times and calling it a day (albeit it still works reasonably often).

However, I did notice a flaw as well in the balancing. Some sidequests (most notably, the mushrooms sidequest) only opened to me after I finished the chapter’s story, but they took place in a dungeon where every enemy was WAY underpowered. I’m still getting underdog bonuses in the story, so I’m not overleveled. I don’t know what exactly unlocked the sidequest, but I checked everytime I set food in Wisward. On the other hand, the sidequest boss actually took me some planning, while I basically Yolo’d all the asterisks of the chapter. Weird. In the end, the whole dungeon was simply a long corridor (every enemy fleeing from me), with one tough boss at the end. Jarring.

Speaking of dungeon, this chapter really made them a lot longer than anything the serie had until now. On one hand, they can get a little boring and frustrating after a while, but on the other, I do like that they allow you to really train your new asterisks by putting more time between each of them, so overall I’d say it’s a positive.

Speaking of which, I finally looked into what you get from the boat, and I need to mention the inclusion of JP orbs, to give you JP experience on the go. It makes it easier to level up jobs without having to grind with ill matched teams, which is a good idea, since ill matched teams are sometimes really unforgiving because of the immunities and counters mentioned earlier. You still end up having to train jobs the old fashioned way, but any shortcut is good.

Speaking of grinding, I was surprised that I didn’t need to grind even once, for now. I wouldn’t qualify the asterisk battles of underwhelming, they took me half an hour on average and demanded strategy and quick thinking or risk taking, but I went into most of them with in-training teams full of ill matched underleveled and redundant jobs and still won. For me, that’s just the right difficulty to be interesting without getting frustrating.

My favorite asterisk of this chapter probably was the Shieldbearer for more Gloria Tankness (I also noticed it pairs well with White mage for a tanky healer)  , but Ranger is good as well (but I’m biaised from the previous games. Always liked hunter). I appreciate that they changed red mage to be less of a watered down mix of Black and White, but I’m not sure I’m using it very efficiently. It just doesn’t seems to deal a lot of damage, and I prefered the old one’s design. This one looks a lot more boring. As for Artist, I’m not really using it very well for now either. I feel like there’s already tons of debuffing skills in other classes.

I didn’t really get the point of Wayward Wood, since you know where the correct exit is, there’s not much point in making a looping/”lost wood” kinda dungeon, because it’s not like you will get lost (unless you’re doing it willingly the first time just to see what happens). Maybe it’ll open other paths later, who knows.

Writing: Still good, albeit I think i prefered Savalon. I suppose I expected to see more of Elvis’s backstory and family, why did he come study magic, how did Lady Emma pass away... But nothing of the sort. I don’t think like it really helped see Elvis any more in depth, sure he is a good friend, but that’s something we already could infer. I would’ve liked to see his character broken down more.

I’m always happy to see dead kids stories (don’t get me wrong, I love kids, but I also roll my eyes quite a lot when writers chicken out on having anything bad happen to a kid in their stories) but I don’t know if this was strong enough to be the focus of the entire chapter. I don’t think it had any connection to Musa’s downfall or the crystals. But I could see Wiswald coming back later in the story to tie back into these themes, and maybe that was just the Wiswald introduction chapter.

With the dead kids, crazy people, greenery, hunter & red mage asterisks, and those darn Mushrooms and flower enemies, it’s also hard to shake the feeling of this being Florem.02, and Florem will always be extra special to me.

Writing - Theories: Definitely called it for Edna’s veiled ass, although introducing that silver haired lady just before almost threw me for a loop. I’m assuming she’s the traveler handing out asterisks like candies, and Adelle probably knows (or at least she knows her sister is related to asterisks in some way)

I don’t know if I mentioned it, but I had a theory back when playing Default for the first time, that asterisk made people crazy or at least, more extreme, and that’s why they all made the perfect little mascot for theirs each time. And also why Ringabel *and* Artemia in the anthology lost their memories when they lost their asterisk: it plays into their brain and personalities. So, nice to see theory confirmed by the sequel.

As expected of its unredeemable bosses, Folie kicked the bucket, which begs the question: I fully expect them to have another gauntlet like the previous games. So is a timeloop/universe hopping all but confirmed at this point, or will this be something else? Will the characters’ deaths be retconed or explained away? I feel like some of these characters could be redeemed in a timeloop, and stopped an saved before they do much damage. The asterisk are pretty much the ones to blame in nearly every case for the sudden change of heart of their holders.

I’ve got that flimsy theory that Shirley is Emma’s kid, based on a similar hairstyle, the fact the gambler asterisk pairs well with black mage, and that Shirley mentioned her mother leaving her father. Who knows. I liked Shirley.

Adelle is definitely crushing hard on Elvis, but I think he’s pretty much ace. Interesting to see how this develops.

Graphics: Gonna hand it to them, i was impressed that they actually made a unique model for Mona, all to use it for one cutscene. Long gone are the days in which they just reused Yew and Magnolia’s models for Altair and Vega, two majors characters. This is the kind of attention to detail we like to see here. No cutting corners. They even made a model for the paintings, too.

The fog effect was pretty rad as well, and definitely got me running a few laps like a giddy kid. You like to see it.

Elvis’ head looked pretty big compared to his friends, noticeably so. But I suppose Bravely Default 1 and second weren’t that much better, and even worse. The main 4 were DEFINITELY chibised compared to other characters (which made Alternis look like a baby in the Eternian team)

Performance: I noticed a bit less lag, but I also made the battle speed slower, this is probably related. Else, it’s the same things.

Music: Elvis’ theme is pretty good. I remember listening to the first drafts that were datamined from the first demo back in the day, and it was already my favorite.

However, I wasn’t a fan of Wiswald’s overworld theme, and the city’s was forgettable.

[bananaofswifts]

Your guide to the singer-songwriter’s surprise follow-up to Folklore.

By

CARL WILSON

When everything’s clicking for Taylor Swift, the risk is that she’s going to push it too far and overtax the public appetite. On “Mirrorball” from Folklore, she sings, with admirable self-knowledge, “I’ve never been a natural/ All I do is try, try, try.” So when I woke up yesterday to the news that at midnight she was going to repeat the trick she pulled off with Folklore in July—surprise-releasing an album of moody pop-folk songs remote-recorded in quarantine with Aaron Dessner of the National as well as her longtime producer Jack Antonoff—I was apprehensive. Would she trip back into the pattern of overexposure and backlash that happened between 1989 and Reputation?

Listening to the new Evermore, though, that doesn’t feel like such a threat. A better parallel might be to the “Side B” albums that Carly Rae Jepsen put out after both Emotion and Dedicated, springing simply out of the artist’s and her fans’ mutual enthusiasm. Or, closer to Swift’s own impulses here, publishing an author’s book of short stories soon after a successful novel. Lockdown has been a huge challenge for musicians in general, but it liberated Swift from the near-perpetual touring and publicity grind she’s been on since she was a teen, and from her sense of obligation to turn out music that revs up stadium crowds and radio programmers. Swift has always seemed most herself as the precociously talented songwriter; the pop-star side is where her try-hard, A-student awkwardness surfaces most. Quarantine came as a stretch of time to focus mainly on her maturing craft (she turns 31 on Sunday), to workshop and to woodshed. When Evermore was announced, she said that she and her collaborators—clearly mostly Dessner, who co-writes and/or co-produces all but one of these 15 songs—simply didn’t want to stop writing after Folklore.

This record further emphasizes her leap away from autobiography into songs that are either pure fictions or else lyrically symbolic in ways that don’t act as romans à clef. On Folklore, that came with the thrill of a breakthrough. Here, she fine-tunes the approach, with the result that Evermore feels like an anthology, with less of an integrated emotional throughline. But that it doesn’t feel as significant as Folklore is also its virtue. Lowered stakes offer permission to play around, to joke, to give fewer fucks—and this album definitely has the best swearing in Swift’s entire oeuvre.

Because it’s nearly all Dessner overseeing production and arrangements, there isn’t the stylistic variety that Antonoff’s greater presence brought to Folklore. However, Swift and Dessner seem to have realized that the maximalist-minimalism that dominated Folklore, with layers upon layers of restrained instrumental lines for the sake of atmosphere, was too much of a good thing. There are more breaks in the ambience on Evermore, the way there was with Folklore’s “Betty,” the countryish song that was among many listener’s favorites. But there are still moments that hazard misty lugubriousness, and perhaps with reduced reward.

Overall, people who loved Folklore will at least like Evermore too, and the minority of Swift appreciators who disapproved may even warm up to more of the sounds here. I considered doing a track-by-track comparison between the two albums, but that seemed a smidgen pathological. Instead, here is a blatantly premature Day 1 rundown of the new songs as I hear them.

A pleasant yet forgettable starting place, “Willow” has mild “tropical house” accents that recall Ed Sheeran songs of yesteryear, as well as the prolix mixed metaphors Swift can be prone to when she’s not telling a linear story. But not too severely. I like the invitation to a prospective lover to “wreck my plans.” I’m less sure why “I come back stronger than a ’90s trend” belongs in this particular song, though it’s witty. “Willow” is more fun as a video (a direct sequel to Folklore’s “Cardigan” video) than as a lead track, but I’m not mad at it here either.

Written with “William Bowery”—the pseudonym of Swift’s boyfriend Joe Alwyn, as she’s recently confirmed—this is the first of the full story songs on Evermore, in this case a woman describing having walked away from her partner on the night he planned to propose. The music is a little floaty and non-propulsive, but the tale is well painted, with Swift’s protagonist willingly taking the blame for her beau’s heartbreak and shrugging off the fury of his family and friends—“she would have made such a lovely bride/ too bad she’s fucked in the head.” Swift sticks to her most habitual vocal cadences, but not much here goes to waste. Except, that is, for the title phrase, which doesn’t feel like it adds anything substantial. (Unless the protagonist was drunk?) I do love the little throwaway piano filigree Dessner plays as a tag on the end.

This is the sole track Antonoff co-wrote and produced, and it’s where a subdued take on the spirit of 1989-style pop resurges with necessary energy. Swift is singing about having a crush on someone who’s too attractive, too in-demand, and relishing the fantasy but also enjoying passing it up. It includes some prime Swiftian details, like, “With my Eagles t-shirt hanging from your door,” or, “At dinner parties I call you out on your contrarian shit.” The line about this thirst trap’s “hair falling into place like dominos” I find much harder to picture.

This is where I really snapped to attention. After a few earlier attempts, Swift has finally written her great Christmas song, one to stand alongside “New Year’s Day” in her holiday canon. And it’s especially a great one for 2020, full of things none of us ought to do this year—go home to visit our parents, hook up with an ex, spend the weekend in their bedroom and their truck, then break their hearts again when we leave. But it’s done with sincere yuletide affection to “the only soul who can tell which smiles I’m faking,” and “the warmest bed I’ve ever known.” All the better, we get to revisit these characters later on the album.

On first listen, I found this one of the draggiest Dressner compositions on the record. Swift locates a specific emotional state recognizably and poignantly in this song about a woman trapped (or, she wonders, maybe not trapped?) in a relationship with an emotionally withholding, unappreciative man. But the static keyboard chord patterns and the wandering melody that might be meant to evoke a sense of disappointment and numbness risk yielding numbing and disappointing music. Still, it’s growing on me.

Featuring two members of Haim—and featuring a character named after one of them, Este—“No Body, No Crime” is a straight-up contemporary country song, specifically a twist on and tribute to the wronged-woman vengeance songs that were so popular more than a decade ago, and even more specifically “Before He Cheats,” the 2006 smash by Carrie Underwood, of which it’s a near musical clone, just downshifted a few gears. Swift’s intricate variation on the model is that the singer of the song isn’t wreaking revenge on her own husband, but on her best friend’s husband, and framing the husband’s mistress for the murder. It’s delicious, except that Swift commits the capital offence of underusing the Haim sisters purely as background singers, aside from one spoken interjection from Danielle.

This one has some of the same issues as “Tolerate It,” in that it lags too much for too long, but I did find more to focus on musically here. Lyrically and vocally, it gets the mixed emotions of a relatively amicable divorce awfully damned right, if I may speak from painfully direct experience.

This is the song sung from the POV of the small-town lover that the ambitious L.A. actress from “Tis the Damn Season”—Dorothea, it turns out—has left behind in, it turns out, Tupelo. Probably some years past that Xmas tryst, when the old flame finally has made it. “A tiny screen’s the only place I see you now,” he sings, but adds that she’s welcome back anytime: “If you’re ever tired of being known/ For who you know/ You know that you’ll always know me.” It’s produced and arranged with a welcome lack of fuss. Swift hauls out her old high-school-romance-songs vocal tone to reminisce about “skipping the prom/ just to piss off your mom,” very much in the vein of Folklore’s teen-love-triangle trilogy.

A duet with Dessner’s baritone-voiced bandmate in the National, Matt Berninger, “Coney Island” suffers from the most convoluted lyrics on Evermore (which, I wonder unkindly, might be what brought Berninger to mind?). The refrain “I’m on a beach on Coney Island, wondering where did my baby go” is a terrific tribute to classic pop, but then Swift rhymes it with “the bright lights, the merry go,” as if that’s a serviceable shorthand for merry-go-round, and says “sorry for not making you my centerfold,” as if that’s somehow a desirable relationship outcome. The comparison of the bygone affair to “the mall before the internet/ It was the one place to be” is clever but not exactly moving, and Berninger’s lines are worse. Dessner’s droning arrangement does not come to the rescue.

This song is also overrun with metaphors but mostly in an enticing, thematically fitting way, full of good Swiftian dark-fairytale grist. It’s fun to puzzle out gradually the secret that all the images are concealing—an engaged woman being drawn into a clandestine affair. And there are several very good “goddamns.”

The lyrical conceit here is great, about two gold-digging con artists whose lives of scamming are undone by their falling in love. It reminded me of the 1931 pre-Code rom-com Blonde Crazy, in which James Cagney and Joan Blondell act out a very similar storyline. And I mostly like the song, but I can’t help thinking it would come alive more if the music sounded anything like what these self-declared “cowboys” and “villains” might sing. It’s massively melancholy for the story, and Swift needs a far more winningly roguish duet partner than the snoozy Marcus Mumford. It does draw a charge from a couple of fine guitar solos, which I think are played by Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver, who will return shortly).

The drum machine comes as a refreshing novelty at this point. And while this song is mostly standard Taylor Swift torrents of romantic-conflict wordplay (full of golden gates and pedestals and dropping her swords and breaking her high heel, etc.), the pleasure comes in hearing her look back at all that and shrugging, “Long story short, it was a bad ti-i-ime,” “long story short, it was the wrong guy-uy-uy,” and finally, “long story short, I survived.” She passes along some counsel I’m sure she wishes she’d had back in the days of Reputation: “I wanna tell you not to get lost in these petty things/ Your nemeses will defeat themselves.” It’s a fairly slight song but an earned valedictory address.

Swift fan lore has it that she always sequences the real emotional bombshell as Track 5, but here it is at 13, her lucky number. It’s sung to her grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, who died when Swift was in her early teens, and it manages to be utterly personal—down to the sample of Marjorie singing opera on the outro—and simultaneously utterly evocative to anyone who’s been through such grief. The bridge, full of vivid memories and fierce regrets, is the clincher.

This electroacoustic kiss-off song, loaded up with at least a fistful of gecs if not a full 100 by Dessner and co-producers BJ Burton and James McAlister, seems to be, lyrically, one of Swift’s somewhat tedious public airings of some music-industry grudge (on which, in case you don’t get it, she does not want “closure”), but, sonically, it’s a real ear-cleaner at this point on Evermore. Why she seems to shift into a quasi-British accent for fragments of it is anyone’s guess. But I’m tickled by the line, “I’m fine with my spite and my tears and my beers and my candles.”

I’m torn about the vague imagery and vague music of the first few verses of the album’s final, title track. But when Vernon, in full multitracked upper-register Bon Iver mode, kicks in for the duet in the middle, there’s a jolt of urgency that lands the redemptive ending—whether it’s about a crisis in love or the collective crisis of the pandemic or perhaps a bit of both—and satisfyingly rounds off the album.

[soliverse]

Ellie’s Idea Factory aka WIP

These are all of my pending works for this year, most of them are mostly collabs.

You can click on the collab links and message the following admins if you want to join as well.

Also note that all of these are still subject to changes and the final fic may be different as advertised here.

As always, take care and love y'all!

-Ellie

✭∽✭∽✭

Title: The ‘Entity’ Project

Inspiration: One Punch Man/My Hero Academia

Genre: Fantasy, Angst

AU: government agent!reader x model!jungwoo

Synopsis: You, Jungwoo, and your sidekick Mark Lee is ready to take over the world by creating the world’s greatest(-ish) superhero.

Collab: No Capes Collab by @/kabira

Date of Publication: March 2021

✭∽✭∽✭

Title: Meaning Of You - The Sequel to Call Me A Fool (Doyoung fic)

Inspiration: Ghost of You by 5SOS, Meaning Of You by IU, D (Half Moon) by Dean (songs)

Genre: angst, fluff, slow burn, friends to lovers? (who knows)

AU: bestfriends!reader x doyoung

Synopsis: After Doyoung missed an important phone call, you finally decided to stop being a doormat and cut him out of your life. Doyoung finally realizes how much you mean to him.

Collab: Heartbreak Hotel by @/nct-writers

Date of Publication: March 25, 2021

✭∽✭∽✭

Title: The Song of The Haunted Hills

Inspiration: Full Moon by Sunmi/Girls by Nature (song)

Genre: Angst, Horror, Thriller, Romance, Smut 

AU: ghost!reader x heir!renjun

Synopsis: A spoiled city boy just got the news that he's inheriting his estranged father's mansion. His initial plans to sell it is tarnished when he's bothered by the secrets of the house and the hill beside it.

Collab: Rich Kids Collab by @/neowritingsnet

Date of Publication: June 30,2021

✭∽✭∽✭

Title: How I Met Your Father

Inspiration: How I Met Your Mother, Ang Huling El Bimbo (The Last El Bimbo)

Genre: Fluff, Romance, Smut

AU: highschool student!reader x indie rapper!taeyong

Synopsis:

Collab: 90s Love Collab by @/ethereal-eirene

Date of Publication: June 2021

✭∽✭∽✭

Title: This Is Not A Love Story

Inspiration: That one story arc on Lookism (webtoon)

Genre: Fluff, Smut, Angst, Slow burn, Mystery

AU: idol turned ceo!reader x ai idol!jaehyun

Synopsis: You bought the already dying SM Entertainment, along with its patent to create AI Idols. One AI model in particular is awfully familiar.

Collab: AI Collab by @/pastelsicheng

Date of Publication: June 2021

✭∽✭∽✭

Title: Why Women Kill

Inspiration: Chicago (The Musical) - Cell Block Tango (song), Why Women Kill (tv show)

Genre: Noir, Angst, Thriller, Smut

AU: wife!reader x husband!lucas

Synopsis: You are under trial for the unexplained death of your idol husband, Lucas. The whole world is just dying to hear what was actually happening behind closed doors

Collab: Noir Collab by @/suh-insane

Date of Publication: August 2021

✭∽✭∽✭

Title: Love Me Not

Inspiration: Percy Jackson Series (book)

Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Angst, Fluff

AU: daughter of ares!reader x son of aphrodite!ten (ft. Yangyang)

Synopsis: After a failed mission, you get stuck with a love spell inclined to make you fall for Ten and your impending doom.

Collab: Modern Magics Collab by @/rosyrenjun

Date of Publication: October 2021

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Title: The Tamashi Experiment

Inspiration: Danganronpa (game/anime)

Genre: Angst, Science Fiction, Murder Mystery

Synopsis: Ten people are caught up in a murderous video game, disguised as a collaboration, where you need to kill people in order to win.  Things started to change when you realize that people in real life suffers that same fate as their game avatars, all while being watched by the whole game community on Twitch.

Collab: Gamer AU Collab by @/navyhyuck

Date of Publication: =

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Title: How To Be A Heartbreaker

Inspiration:  How To Be A Heartbreaker by Marina and the Diamonds

Genre: Angst, Romance, Lovers to Enemies

Synopsis: You learned that Haechan dated you for the reasons and he’s planning to break your heart at prom night. Well, not if you break his heart first.

Collab: Tainted Love Collab by @/meow-bebe

Date of Publication: =

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Others that I’m still brainstorming on:

Shotaro Renaissance Fic

part of the Neo-Renaissance Collab by @/neojaems

Date of Publication: May 2021

Winwin Smut Fic

part of the Love and Debauchery Collab by @/immabiteyou and @/ncteaxhoe

Jaemin Villain Fic

part of the The Devil’s Pawn Collab by @/nctream

Mark Crash Landing On Fic

part of the Painted By You Collab by @/urlocalnctstan

Beautiful, Dirty, Rich

Crazy Rich Asians AU with WayV + Renjun, Chenle

Heroine

My birthday fic

Red Lips