#cry cry i love kavi so much | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

crashingmeteorz · 4 years ago

Text

the original residents of the secret airbender city of mùchéng

continued from here.

so i imagine that 20 or so airbenders make it to mùchéng. more than half of them are 12 or younger, so a lot of the journey to the north mountains and the subsequent settlement is spent comforting the cries of young children. it’s tough, for the adults, however, because not all of them even are adults.

the youngest non-12-year-old is the patient and gentle madhur, who is 15. the nuns used to say they were born floating about like dandelions, because that’s how soft and loving they were as a child. madhur gets along beautifully with the younger kids, but unfortunately gets shouldered with a lot of undue responsibility because of this. some of the other teenagers try and point this out and help them, but the adults are far too busy trying to figure out how to keep their culture alive, which, you know, fair. madhur has an extreme sweet tooth, which the children relate to, of course.

next is the 17-year-old headstrong anila, who never quite felt like she fit in among the other airbenders. interested in material things like jewelery and pretty clothes, anila often dreamt of leaving her culture behind, and began traveling as soon as she was able. however, she was home when the fire nation attacked, and managed to smuggle out a couple of kids, meeting up with the group later. now that her people are gone, anila deals with survivor’s guilt, feeling she doesn’t deserve to be the one carrying on the air nomads traditions since she shunned them. however, it’s her appreciation for and understanding of earth kingdom societal norms that ultimately helps them survive, and she is one of the first to raise a family with an earth kingdom man, although not until her late 20s. she also helps with the kids, and can be stricter, but sings lovely lullabies to them at night.

kavi is 19 years old, and is a nervous wreck. he doesn’t even know how he survived the invasion, much less with the young monk boy he’d been mentoring on his back, but hey, it happened. he means well and loves his people, but he’s terrified to leave mùchéng, and thus spends most of his time learning to construct homes and pathways in the mountains with the materials they’ve gathered, so that he can be of some use. quiet children flock to him, as he is very good at understanding their fear and anxiety, soothing them with stories of their people.

ishani is a 25-year old airbender woman who invented a move at 16, gaining her arrows that way, and is very confident in her abilities. sticking to a strict moral code and somehow feeling she is personally responsible for the reestablishment of the air nomads, ishani often stresses herself out with the weight of her responsibilities. she and anila butt heads often, but as time goes by they become very good friends, learning from each other and appreciating each other’s stances. ishani helps anila to appreciate her culture more, and anila helps ishani to loosen up.

simran is a 33-year-old non-bending monk who left behind his great love at the temple, and feels guilt for mourning her more personally than anyone else. the genocide leaves him in a crippling depression, and for years he lives in a gray, empty world, despite his fellow nomads’ best efforts to help simran. however, as time goes by, he finds new love in their small city growing into something more.

reva and jamyang are a lovely wlw couple in their mid-40s. a very powerful pair of benders who happily cared for the air bison, they were devastated when their noble steed, jaya, died in one of sozin’s traps, affording them time to escape. they tell the children the stories of the air bison and how they were the first airbenders. reva, the more adventurous of the two, eventually tames some of the animals on the mountain so that the children may learn the joys of caring for another life. jamyang, meanwhile, the more creative, paints beautiful murals depicting different aspects of airbending culture: their animals, their foods, their most famous benders, avatar yangchen, all of it. reva and jamyang are basically everyone’s moms.

danish is in his early 60s and is very strict. he spends most of his time trying to figure out how to communicate in secret with the outside world, and let the other air nomads know that they’re alive and safe in a compound. though not harsh with children, they simply are not his cup of tea. however, being a fan of oral tradition, when asked, he will gladly go on long tangents about his journeys between the air temples atop his lovely bison dorji.

lina is a non-bender nun in her mid-to-late 60s who, like danish, is very strict, but in the opposite sense. she and danish bicker like an old married couple, danish insisting they reach out to their brethren, and lina insisting they do not do that, and instead focus solely on their new life here. lina studies earth kingdom culture intensely, wanting them all to blend in should anyone ever find their city. lina will often play story-telling games with the children, which are actually ways of getting them to memorize important details about the earth kingdom.

finally, the 80-year-old lhamo, a compassionate and wise woman who passes away a few years after mùchéng finally begins to look like a home. she guides these air nomads into the new age, offering advice and a shoulder to cry on at all times. because of her frailty, the adults are always insisting various degrees of “don’t bother her”, but lhamo seeks out company and somehow always knows what’s bothering you. she finally passes when a storm blows through mùchéng, threatening to tear the little wooden city apart, and lhamo practically controls the storm, bending the wind away from them with the help of the other benders.

so these are my mùchéng founders! i’ve been thinking about them for a long time, and am pretty happy with how they turned out. let me know what you think! also, huge shoutout to @zarakem for always supporting this headcanon. it meant a lot to see your consistent support 😊 if anyone would like to know the meaning behind the airbender names, they’re below the cut!

madhur: a masculine and feminine hindi name simply meaning “sweet”, with the scripts मधुर. this felt appropriate, especially with madhur’s personality being very sweet, and their love of sweet treats.

anila: the feminine version of the hindi name “anil”, which means “air, wind”. it’s spelled with the scripts अनिला. i liked this name for anila, because it would have been just another way she felt trapped in her culture. eventually she lives up to her name, incorporating both her culture and her personal choices into her lifestyle.

kavi: a masculine hindi name meaing “ wise man, sage, poet” with the scripts कवि. kavi is very wise, but often gets ignored because of his shyness and anxiety. his storytelling prowess is what draws the children to him, which is why i chose this name.

ishani: a feminine hindi name meaning “ruling, possessing”, with the scripts इशानी. ishani is a pillar of leadership for the survivng nomads, and has always been a leader-type. however, her name felt kind of like a pre-determined destiny, and caused her to at first be bossy in her youth. she quickly sheds this trait.

simran: a masculine and feminine hindi name meaning “recollection”, with the scripts सिमरन. simran makes it his mission to memorialize his lost love, and the other airbenders as well. he becomes a living memory, in a way.

reva: a feminine hindi name meaning “one that moves”, with the scripts रेवा. reva is adventurous and constantly learning new things, and perfectly fits her name.

jamyang: a masculine and feminine tibetan name meaning “gentle song” with the scripts འཇམ་དབྱངས. being a storyteller, jamyang’s voice often feels like a gentle song. she’s also a very kind and loving soul, befitting her name.

danish: a masculine urdu name meaning “knowledge, learning” with the scripts دانش. danish is a knowledge-seeker, and wishes to find the other airbenders. he devotes most of his life to studying texts and traditions.

lina: a feminine hindi name meaning “absorbed, united”, with the scripts लीना. lina’s whole goal is for the surviving air nomads to blend in with the earth kingdom and mesh their two cultures, so this felt like a fitting name.

lhamo: a feminine and masculine tibetan name meaning “goddess”, with the scripts ལྷ་མོ. lhamo is the fearless and graceful elder of these surviving nomads. she felt like no less than a goddess to me.

jaya: a feminine and masculine hindi name meaning “victory”, with the scripts जय. a brave and devoted air bison, jaya sacrifices herself, true, but her beloved airbenders escape. she considers this a victory.

dorji: a feminine and masculine tibetan name meaning “diamond”, with the scripts རྡོ་རྗེ. danish is kind of pretentious and considered his air bison to be a beautiful gem of an animal, mostly because she belonged to him. he misses his diamond dearly.

#secret airbender city au #yangchen #air nomads #airbenders #atla #avatar the last airbender #my stuff #my fanfic

19 notes · View notes

livealives · 5 years ago

Text

hello hello it’s kavi the menace again :D i’ve rambled about wolfgang and now i will ramble about phoenix. once again dont be afraid to hmu on d*scord ( greedling#3129 ) or shoot me a tumblr im.

APPLICATION

∽∕ [PARK SEONGHWA, CISMALE, HE/HIM ] hey! you must be that [ TWENTY-ONE ] year old player people were talking about! they kept saying your name is [PHOENIX MAY], but that you go by [ NYX ], and that you’re a [ PERENNIAL] and from [NEW YORK]. oh! and also that you’ve been working as a [PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR] while you’re in here. I really hope it’s true, ‘cus i’ve also heard that you’re [DETERMINED] & [SINCERE], but i’m not going to lie that some say you’re [ PESSIMISTIC ] & [ APPREHENSIVE ]. wait a second…now that I think about it, you kind of remind me of [ WILTED FLOWERS, INK STAINED HANDS, BLOOD SHOT EYES ], which is pretty cool! see you around then! ∕∽

TRIGGER WARNINGS: CAR CRASH, DEATH

STATISTICS

► basics;

full name (f, l): phoenix may age: 21 birthday: december 5 deathday: september 18 this year gender: cismale sexual orientation: gay occupation: private investigator main realm: skyline ► background;

place of birth: new brunswick, new jersey residence @ time of death: new york education: criminal justice major in progress ► physical;

faceclaim: park seonghwa eye color: brown hair color & style: when he died, he had soft brown hair [link] height: 5′10 tattoos, birthmarks, scars, etc: has a little heart shaped birthmark on his right wrist. in game: nyx has two distinct appearances. the first is blond hair [link] & pointed elf-like ears. the second is black hair [link] & vampire-like fangs. the reason? he just wanted to have a lil fun bc he didnt really allow himself to have fun when he was alive. also, he was very obsessed with fantasy as a child... thus the ears & fangs...

► personality;

positive traits: (mentally) strong, realistic, thoughtful, perceptive negative traits: blunt, hard-headed, anxious, uptight alignment: neutral good more: think a lot first, act later. makes lists to stay organized and on top of things. caring, borderline parental at times. takes care of others before himself; finds himself to be rather unimportant in the grand scheme of things. will take a bullet for someone he doesnt know the name of. analytical and very intelligent. he can make split second decisions but it isn’t something he’s comfortable with. if possible, he likes to sleep on big decisions so he can make the best choice (but lbr, he wont actually be able to sleep). drives himself anxious to no end bc of how much he overthinks. determined as all hell. hates making choices (think chidi from the good place). needs to let loose but never got the chance to.

► misc;

hobbies: taking care of plants, singing (but never infront of anyone that isnt his family) favorite book: lord of the rings & the hobbit. favorite music genre: alternative & rock pets: no pets, only plants

BIOGRAPHY

nyx was the oldest of three children. his younger siblings erew fraternal twins and were born when nyx was 10. their parents were extremely busy and had little to no time to spend with their kids. they werent bad parents, they were just busy and forgetful. nyx harbored nothing against them, in fact, he absolutely loved them. both of his parents worked as incredibly smart researchers and were somehow involved in the creation of utopia.

so nyx was essentially left to raise his siblings himself. he learned to be independent at a very young age so he could be a good role model for his siblings and take care of them properly.

he’s a mediocre cook, an incredible cuddler, a good shoulder to cry on, a good bedtime story teller & lullaby singer, etc etc i cant words right now

even when raising two kids, he managed to keep his grades high enough & do enough extra curriculars to graduate valedictorian and attend columbia as a criminal justice major. he got a license for private investigation and started a side job soon after.

last febuary, his entire world fell apart. he got a call from robert woof johnson hospital about his family. all of a sudden, his entire family was dead. the details were redacted, and he was told that it was ruled an accident. no matter how hard he pressed and who he asked, no one said a thing.

his grades faltered but he kept them up for the rest of the semester. he stopped working and isolated himself from his friends. he stopped taking care of himself and even the plants he loved so dearly started to die. he stayed up for weeks and months trying to piece together any sort of detail regarding what happened.

he died at the start of the semester that just started. scatterbrained and low on sleep, he was involved in a hit and run. the ambulance was able to gather data necessary to upload him to utopia before somewhat stabilizing him. in the hospital his condition worsened and he ended up passing that night. a friend that had once been close to him consented on his behalf for him to be uploaded into utopia.

in utopia, hes deadset on finding two things: his family and answers.

he still somewhat-works as a private investigator, meaning that if someone comes to him with a grievance, he’ll do anything in his power to help them.

this is short and barely coherent because i really dont have many details for him yet. basically, phoenix is just a very nice person trying to do nice things but nice things dont happen to him. connections page coming soon. i will leave u with this incredibly cute gif.

#utopia:intro #fucking FINALLY only took me 5 hours

7 notes · View notes

jirousthighs · 3 years ago

Note

yes sir! here you go <3

-> okay so you, Tanaka and his sister spent the whole summer together and y'all made marmelade, juice- you cooked so much food. you cooked everything over the fire outside and Tanaka would sit with you like on his back? He'd be sitting on a log of wood and you'd be koala hugging him from behind, resting your head on his shoulder as you both watched the food.

-> he LOVESSSS when you tag along to practice and loves it even more when you come cheering for him at games. He also said in the anime that he needed a sexy girlfriend to come cheer for him. Sexy boyfriend Kavi? Even better. You'd be wearing one of his shirts, standing beside his sister like all the way in the front, leaning out of the railing and cheering. You know when he was struggling at the nationals? Yeah you were there. And you fucking screamed with Saeko when he finally scored the point, both of y'all crying. He also does that thing where he has to kiss you while you're standing on the balcony things.

-> Maroon 5 is Tanaka and yours band. It's just yours. It fits so well to your relationship, so fun and chaotic but also serious. You guys have a playlist and y'all dance SO HARD when it's playing. He loves dancing, even tho he isn't really good at it. You claim you can't dance so he promises to take the lead, but honestly, that didn't help. You two also dance A LOT of Just Dance. Like there's a new high-score every time. You once brought the Wii to a team sleepover and the others got crushed by you and Tanaka's skills.

-> You said "I love you" first. He did say "love you" and "love ya" and stuff first, but it was always just some fun stuff. But it was on the way home from practice and you were sleeping over at his house. Holding his hand, him blabbing away about some new recipe Saeko found that she think he should try out. You had a hard time not to think about fucking lucky you got with this man. And suddenly you just said it like "Tanaka, I love you."

Poor man had a heart attack. He literally freezes totally still. He was staring at you before breaking out in a sappy fit of "Babe that's not okay!! I was planning on saying it first dude! Man?! You just took my cool dominant boyfriend moment!" "So I'm not the cool boyfriend?" "Of course you are!! You're amazing and I love you too but I was planning on saying it first!!" He of course bragged about it to Noya, saying that he said it first. Bring tissues when you expose him, please.

-> He buys you plushies/gifts/snacks every time y'all see each other after more than 24 hours. The longer you're apart, the bigger the gift. When you were on vacation with you family for two weeks, he was waiting in the airport with a big plushie and flowers for you. Like he waited at the gate for you. The team was there too, just to watch. As well as Saeko who was gossiping away with the first years and Kiyoko. Sugawara filmed it all. As soon as you stepped out of the gate and spotted him, you laughed so bad. Your parents grabbed your stuff and urged you to run. The whole team was making a big scene out of it, making random people whisper and giggle while filming, finding it cute. You shyly ran to him of course, letting him pick you up and spin you around. "HEY LOVE! I MISSED YOU SO MUCH, DUDE"

yeah he calls you dude. you call him that too. it doesn't make him love you less tho, both of you just think the usual nicknames are too cheesy.

HERE YOU GO BAE.

AHHHH

HOW

I NEED TO GIVE YOU A TENDOU FULL-LENGTH FIC RN FOR THIS

YOUR SO AMAZING

AHHH

<33

#favorite.flavors = lixxie #self-ships.tanakavi

1 note · View note

ofwoodsandwaves · 7 years ago

Note

you're writing a novel??? wow????? how did i not know this??? i should start paying attention to things more often, probably. but nonetheless, you mentioned some stuff in your posts abt being willing to share excerpts with ppl who asked so i was wondering if i could read some??? also, seriously, /nice/ with writing your novel either way

Ahhh don’t worry Kavi, I haven’t talked much about it actually, the idea for the Novel has been in my mind since last winter, i think (i’d have to check with Vanessa & Estel to be sure) but I only picked it up again recently!

I’m hoping to have enough of the plot and the outline written down that I’ll write my first draft during Nano, which is why I’m obsessing a lot about how to organize my notes, figure out the story’s timeline, etc. (which ends up with me buying more notebooks, aka stress relief).

And thank you so much for asking to read it??? it makes me want to cry a little… for now I have only one excerpt written down but it’s more like a small scene that makes zero sense without the context but that I love dearly because it introduces one theme that I want to be recurrent in the novel…

I’m babbling, sorry, but I will write you down as interested in the novel and as soon as I have a Real Scene to share I’ll reach out to you, Kavi 💖

Also a summary so far would be: College AU with fake dating, but not for the reasons you think.

(I hope you don’t mind my posting this, i just figured i’d introduce the Novel to everyone in clear terms since I hadn’t yet)

#moltengoldichor #kavi #asks #the novel;

4 notes · View notes

josiesimblr · 8 years ago

Photo

Mars and Kavi Flashback

Customer: I’m so excited about this appointment, Mr. Salgado! I’ve waited three months to finally see you about designing my tattoo. I want to get the name of my boyfriend. I just love him so much! I want his name on my upper-

Mars interrupts: Is he dead or dying?

Customer confused: Um, no.

Mars: Then don’t get his name. Okay? Because in a few months, you’ll see he’s a piece of sh*t who doesn’t deserve you, who doesn’t make you happy at all, who upsets you and makes you cry and doesn’t even know the real YOU. And you might have a guy who actually deserves you right in front of your face but you’re so blind, you can’t see it. And you’ll friendzone the good guy, while your idiot boyfriend cheats on you, and you’ll f*ck up your happy ending, and all you’ll have to show for it is a crap tattoo.

Customer disappointed: Oh. Um. Does this mean you won’t do it?

Mars sarcastic: Sure, I’ll do it. And I’ll charge you extra for the cover-up when you’re back here a month from now.

Tennille Salgado overhears the conversation, and approaches her younger brother and his customer.

Tennille: Sweetie, excuse us. I’m going to have a word with Mars for a moment, okay? We’ll be right back.

Tennille grabs Mars by the arm and hisses furiously at him.

Tennille: Mars! Get your feelings for Kavi Vincent under control. The woman doesn’t want you! Be an adult about it. And stop scaring our customers!

#ts4 #the sims 4 #ts4 gameplay #mars salgado

21 notes · View notes

aurulenthuntsman · 8 years ago

Text

-- aurulentHuntsman [AH] 8egan pestering decastichAmazifier [DA] at 17:38 --

AH: Greetings, Kavi! ~}==>

DA: o hey

AH: How are you faring this fine afternoon? ~}==>

DA: lmao uh like ngl im p much blastd

DA: so i mean its a thong

DA: 8thing

DA: wow

DA: charasistic typos

DA: fuckin noice

AH: Hmm???????? ~}==>

AH: It seems a little early in the day for drinking! ~}==>

DA: hey listen

DA: friend

DA: man

DA: len me ur ear

DA: consider this

DA: concept: its night in at least 5 places rn

AH: A fair point... Time is relative! ~}==>

AH: And perhaps that is a social construct that we put too much weight into ~}==>

AH: But traditionally, early drinking is something of a red flag... ~}==>

AH: I beg your pardon if I'm being presumptuous, but is everything alright? ~}==>

DA: uh lol i mean hello no

DA: well yeh but no

DA: idk its complicated

DA: so

DA: shrugmojis

DA: jus think about me like the fun winemom on Facebook

DA: or like those old sitcoms where its funny

DA: and not a issue like yah kids w/e

DA: u n your bottlerockets and blowin up hotdogs in microwaves

DA: i'll go get my xanex and gin

DA: laughtrack

DA: or Karen

DA: you saucy bagel u

DA: fuckin #relatable #classic #same #mood

AH: I see... So, if it's purely recreational, then the fun would only be doubled with company, correct? ~}==>

DA: oh uh....... yah gimme

DA: 45 mins

AH: Certainly! ~}==>

AURYHN: *exactly 45 minutes later, there's a little CLUNK at his window... followed by another a few seconds later.* ~}==>

KAVI: *Shitpissufck now he's gotta... he's gotta... SHOWER. And clean up. He can't be a mess anymore that's enough of that. He got all gross and pathetic on Nellie and he doesn't think he can take looking like a goddamn fool in front of another one of his friends. He quickly got showered and stumbled about his room. Now he only SLIGHTLY smells like vodka. NICE.*

KAVI: *Jumps at the window clunk.... o fuq. He goes to the window and opens it*

AURYHN: *on the ground, waving up at him with a big stupid grin on his face* ~}==>

KAVI: *WOW that's far.... also he's a smiley guy.... lays right against this window sill... Leans and lays, sliding down to chinhands at him..... casually* hhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeyyyyy *calls while sliding*

AURYHN: ... HELLO, KAVI ~}==>

AURYHN: If you would please stand aside so I can climb in through your window, that would be much appreciated! ~}==>

KAVI: o

KAVI: yah

KAVI: *flumps back.... but at least he didn't see that*

AURYHN: *scurries up the tree like he had the night he slept over until he's swoocing through the window, landing gracefully on the other side.* I've arrived! ~}==>

KAVI: *Stays right here on the floor... WHY? HE DOESN'T KNOW..... but his leg is on the wall*

KAVI: *peace sign* sup

KAVI: hey

KAVI: ur sup

KAVI: is was up

KAVI: for me at least

KAVI: wbu

AURYHN: *stands over him, hands on hips, for a moment... before he drops down next to him with his feet propped against the wall as well.* Oh, you know! Exploring the city and what not ~}==>

KAVI: *Hello mountainous man tiddies, oh, hello the whole Auryhn* o... yeah sounds fun

KAVI: still gogogoin

KAVI: none naps n shit

KAVI: s'not good

AURYHN: *chuckles a little, turning his head towards him* I've managed to find time for sleep in my busy schedule... At your behest ~}==>

KAVI: *grins a lil* hah really? well damn... good yeah

KAVI: that's good, i'm glad you r

AURYHN: It was sound advice! After all... Early to bed, early to rise... Makes a man strong, wealthy and wise ~}==>

AURYHN: *grins cheesily some more, but then looks back up at the ceiling... not without a little side eye, though* I do hope you're exercising similarly healthy habits... ~}==>

KAVI: ............. *Feels the side eyeing and sweats mildly* i mean

KAVI: lol

KAVI: so

KAVI: i can

KAVI: i have some off dayz

KAVI: zzzz

KAVI: ss

AURYHN: Ah ha, so you are having an off day! ~}==>

KAVI: ...... *oh gdi* uhhhh

KAVI: alternattitvely.....

KAVI: what the fuck are on days even???????

AURYHN: Kavi, PLEASE ~}==>

AURYHN: You must know, I don't fuss over others often... ~}==>

AURYHN: I only wish to know if you're alright ~}==>

AURYHN: And if you aren't... then I would like to offer you comfort in whatever way would best help you ~}==>

AURYHN: You're my friend! And a very important one ~}==>

KAVI: *Makes a face... why does everyone have to be so supportive... why can't he just be sad and miserable and he kinda feels like shit for just dancing around it when Auryhn DOES give a shit. Even still it makes him sad to talk about and just the friendfection and the sad feels his face gets a little red.. sighs*

KAVI: *rubs his face up so he doesn't start crying again. So he just.... rubs the tears back in his eyes with his palms. Ace strats* me and.. Den, broke up. guess i'm bein a pissbaby about it idk w/e w/e

AURYHN: *oh... now he feels bad prying so much, but maybe he would have felt bad no matter what kavi said. he only knows this wasn't what he expected to hear, and he gazes at the other boy sympathetically* Oh... I... am sorry to hear that ~}==>

AURYHN: Kavi... It's only natural to feel so hurt over something like that, isn't it? ~}==>

AURYHN: *offers him a hand to hold* I certainly can't blame you ~}==>

KAVI: *Looks at the hand then at Auryhn, his brain still going way faster than his mouth can currently keep up but he looks incredulous? And definitely teary* how can u be so sure? how, how do you know i didn't fuck everything up? i can fuggin blame me easy,

KAVI: gee Kavi, maybe you can't shut the hell up about how goddamn gay you are for p much everyone??

KAVI: or maybe ya try so fuckin hard for the approval of others that you backflip off the fuckin deepend as far as people close to u are concerned

KAVI: oh, oh, here maybe you just plain weren't fuckin good enough to handle anyone on an intimate level because you're too wrapped up in your own shit to connect really?

KAVI: or just that you THINK relationships can fix anything and everything and that's myth goddamn busted because look at you!

KAVI: you can definitely blame me, i can blame me and it's deeper than that and why the fuck does anyone GIVE a shit for a fakeass dumbass when they just DON'T. KNOW. *And he's being hysterical... nice. Good job. Just. Gurgles and puts his hands back over his face, get back in there tears. Maybe it was for the best Auryhn kept seeing him like this. An Ass. His final form* i'm, fuck

KAVI: i'm sorry i, ffffffuugghhhh *gibberish and just rolls over, good bye forever*

AURYHN: *stares at him stunned for a good long moment. he doesn't have that much experience dealing with high emotion coming from other people... but listening to all this, he did understand one thing: how it felt to be critical of yourself, the need to always be impressive, the self preservation... he knew those pressures, even if he always denied them. seeing how they effected someone he cared so deeply

AURYHN: for, it sure put things into perspective for him.* ~}==>

AURYHN: Perhaps I don't know you quite as well as I think I do... As well as I would like to ~}==>

AURYHN: *flexes the hand kavi didn't take, deciding to place it on his shoulder* 8ut I have seen your compassion... When you treat me with kindness, do you mean to say it's out of selfishness? I dou8t that very much ~}==>

AURYHN: If you've made mist8kes, that's all that they are! You are not defined soley 8y your worst moments... Nor are you defined soley 8y your 8est ~}==>

AURYHN: I only mean to say... You should allow yourself this heart8r8k, Kavi ~}==>

KAVI: *While he tries to hide his shame and cry lowkey. super lowkey like... no one would suspect. He listens to Auryhn's words. Quietly sniffing and trying to keep his breathing even. They made sense.... which was good but he also didn't feel like he deserved those kind words. Like he's dropping this plate of Hot Mess(tm) that's his own damn self and no one is backing up with their hands in the air*

KAVI: ....why're u so nice..

AURYHN: *scoffs* You know, not many people would agree that I am... I know that for a F8CT... ~}==>

AURYHN: *sighs* But it is easy to be kind to someone who has been kind to you, I believe ~}==>

KAVI: *that's so.. cheesy but also.. it helps. He loves cheese. Sniffs again and wipes his hands on his shirt, trying to calm down* cheddar... pure... 100% milk gdi, ugh... i'm so gross rn

KAVI: you came here for a good time and now idk ur nice you probably don't feel attacked rn

KAVI: it's like playing the floor is lava and we're laying in this shit right now

KAVI: because we're on the floor

KAVI: no imagination required on that part

AURYHN: *snorts* Then what are we doing on the floor? Allow me to rescue you from a fiery demise! ~}==>

AURYHN: *rolls to sit before scooping up kavi with no real warning* I used to play "the floor is lava" when I was a wriggler ~}==>

AURYHN: And I would pretend to be a wise dragon sentinel in my castle upon a volcanic mountain! ~}==>

AURYHN: Which I later went on to insist upon a hive of my own... Though I could not find a volcano, the snowy Avalon mountains suited me just fine ~}==>

AURYHN: *carries kavi over to his plush pile and sets him down. there. he's safe here.* ~}==>

KAVI: *Oh he got scooped. His face is all red from the crying as he looks up at Auryhn while he talks and walks with him. The story is a cute one, he breathes out a short laugh then looks away. Not now dokis gdi* wow... hah

KAVI: yeah they, they did you good *sniff* that's pretty cute tho

AURYHN: *kneels in front of the pile, grinning at him* A young Auryhn would disagree... It was quite a noble pursuit ~}==>

AURYHN: But present Auryhn has the insight to agree that, yes, it was rather adorable... ~}==>

AURYHN: Also, are you comfortable? ~}==>

KAVI: its cute and noble lol he'd have to deal with it *settles back in all this gd plushness*

KAVI: also

KAVI: hell yes

AURYHN: Excellent! ~}==>

AURYHN: Would you like anything else? A blanket, perhaps? A pair of strong arms to cry into? ~}==>

AURYHN: *FLEXES* ~}==>

KAVI: .....

KAVI: yes

KAVI: *lifts arms*

AURYHN: *here he comes, leaning in for the snuggles. welcome to his STRONG embrace.* ~}==>

KAVI: *This is a nice embrace..... He cuddles into it. Nice.... :'S :') :'S *

AURYHN: *squeezes him close, resting his cheek against his head. the closeness makes his face flare with heat, but... that's hardly appropriate right now! he ignores it as best he can.* There there... ~}==>

KAVI: .....*SNRK*

KAVI: where is my broom?

KAVI: where are my pets

KAVI: i need my awkward distant pets

AURYHN: Your broom???????? I thought you were a wizard, not a witch ~}==>

AURYHN: *LAUGHS. he might not get the Reference, but he thinks he's hilarious...* I can provide you with sincere, close range pets, however ~}==>

AURYHN: *rubs at his back* ~}==>

KAVI: lol i'll take those..... and also i'll show you memes later *snuggles into him*

AURYHN: Memes, hmm? Well, I look forward to it... ~}==>

AURYHN: *rumbles a little in his chest. he tries not to chirr much, but... now seems like a good time to break out the comforting bug sounds.* ~}==>

AURYHN: For now, you relax ~}==>

KAVI: you'll regret it... but we're makin it happen *laughs softly and cuddles up here against these bug noises... he does like him some bug noises...* kk i'll do that

KAVI: you're cozy

KAVI: great cuddlemate

KAVI: a plus plus smiley face

KAVI: and thanks lol

AURYHN: You're welcome, Kavi... You're welcome for my comforting embrace... ~}==>

AURYHN: *gentle snickering, but he's starting to get relaxed enough to nap himself...* ~}==>

#decastichAmazifier #in which you're welcome for my comforting embrace

1 note · View note

amorremanet · 8 years ago

Note

2, 10, 42, 47

asks for fanfic writers

well, no. 10 and no. 42 are over here, but!

2. things that motivate you

* The stereotype that autistic spectrum people are only good for STEM-related things. Like, for all of the folks on the spectrum who are good at STEM things, that’s great and I wish them all the best — but I suck at math and I can’t do anything science-related without turning it into, “how can I make a sociopolitical sci-fi critique out of this” or, “but do gay aliens believe in me,” so nah, I’m gonna pass on doing anything STEM-y.

I’d much rather give a big middle finger to everyone who has this ridiculous notion that autistic spectrum people are completely and utterly uncreative, and that we are only ever good for STEM things, and I’d like to do it by being successful in my chosen creative pursuits, please and thank you.

* Tangentially? Temple fucking Grandin. I don’t actually have any problems with her, herself — but I have a lot of problems with how allistic people hold her up as The One True Way To Be A Successful Person Who “Suffers From” Autism™ and how about fuck that, no. I want to be a successful autistic writer who is nothing like Temple Grandin, apart from both of us being white autistic women/dfab people who are going to be identified and treated as women by other people irl regardless of any wibbly wobbly messy gender feels on our part.

* Talking with people about my projects. On one hand, it’s a way of getting feelings kind of like validation. On the other, and way more importantly for me? I love getting feedback from people, or hearing the questions they come up with — like, on NYE, my aunt and I chatted back and forth about my novel while playing a weird card game with one of my cousins, and Aunt Kelly asked some questions that got me to put a few ideas I’ve been playing with into words more concretely, which was super-helpful — and I get a lot of motivation to work from getting jazzed up about things through talking with people.

* Totally a petty thing, but? Getting cranky with JK Rowling over all of the Good Ally Cookies she doesn’t actually deserve to claim, or all of the characters of hers who Deserved Better (lol, uh. today, my therapist learned that I get Upset about Percy Weasley very easily and about my longstanding hate-on for his parents, and bless her heart, when I went, “uh, I just over-identify with Percy Weasley a lot and there’s a good deal of projection going on here but I also don’t think I’m wrong,” she kinda smiled and nodded and went, “I can tell :)” — she’s great, I love her)

or how, even ignoring all of the #Problematic things about her body of work in the Potterverse, there’s SO MUCH GOOD SHIT in the HP series but she’s so clearly invested in the plot as she envisions it and the story she wants to tell for Harry, to the exclusion of all else, that she ends up completely short-changing basically every other character who is not named Severus Snape or Hermione Granger (most of the time, but not 100% of the time)

Like, I’ve said it before and I will say it until everyone is completely sick of me saying it, then I will continue saying it anyway: JKR views all of her characters — barring Harry, and sometimes Snape and Hermione — as plot devices more than she views them as characters.

She’s a bit better about some of them (Remus, Sirius but not as much as Remus, Ron and Luna but not as much as they deserve, Neville and Draco but not in the ways that they deserve)

but she’s really bullshit about most of them (this is not a complete list, but: Cho; Ginny; Cedric; Tonks; Fleur; Albus, Aberforth, and Ariana; Voldemort — not in that I need her to be sympathetic toward him but ffs, some 101-level consistency in his characterization would be nice; Kingsley; Percy; Wormtail; James; Lily;

Lockhart — “I’m not bitter about JKR’s ableism and victim-blaming with regard to Gildylocks,” I say bitterly, with a bitter expression, while hanging up informational posters about how bitter I am; Andromeda and Ted — deserved better, this is not a question or a debate, I want to say that it’s not even an opinion, but tbh, I know that it is, so hmph; Regulus; Barty Crouch Jr. because he is my Favorite and I can’t make this list without mentioning him;

Bellatrix — again, I don’t need her to sympathize with Bellatrix because how about no? but Bellatrix Black Lestrange is one of the shittiest villains I’ve ever read, in terms of HOW she was written, and I think a lot of the flaws in how JKR wrote her could have been remedied if she actually did anything to make Bellatrix a fully realized character, which would’ve made her a more effective and meaningful villain, and not a shrieking Saturday morning cartoon caricature;

Molly and Arthur — I’m not going into full detail about why I hate them today, you lot can just go read my tag on the subject if you want to know, and I don’t think that JKR’s “plot device first, people second” method of characterization is the only problem? But I think it’s a major contributing factor to The Problem Of Molly And Arthur, because she presents them as this image of Idyllic Domestic Perfection even when their actions and the internal fabric of the Weasley Family, don’t support that claim, and it sucks)

—basically, JK Rowling motivates me by fucking up a lot, because she was one of my idols as a kid and as a teenager, and she was a relevant and immediate source of inspiration because Oh My God You Can So Too Write Novels For A Living And Make A Difference In People’s Lives, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that she saved my life a few times, albeit mostly in indirect fashions…… but she fucks up a lot, and this is motivating for me because it makes me want to do better than her.

It’s not even exclusive to HP fic, either. Like, she’s one of my biggest sources of motivation to work on my novel and put thought and love and heart into making it the best that it can be — because I want to do better than her and even if I never have her kind of money (which lol, never gonna happen), I still want to beat her at something. Once I earn it, I will happily accept beating her at artistic integrity and commitment.

Is it petty? Yes, definitely. But hey, man, fish gotta swim, dogs gotta eat, and sometimes, I gotta think about my issues with JK Rowling to remember that I need to do better than her and motivate myself to do the work

* You know those, “do it for her/him” memes based on that one thing from The Simpsons that people make with their fave characters and/or celebs? Yeah, I kind of want to make one for myself with Oscar Wilde. Because there’s a lot about him that wasn’t ever perfect (he was a white guy in Victorian England, even accounting for his Anglo-Irishness, so…… yeah), and there are several points on which I don’t agree with him (like, for example: if you are such a shit to your wife that your boyfriend, who is so completely up his own ass that it’s a miracle he hasn’t found a way to Narnia, notices and calls you out on it? I’m kinda thinking that you might want to reassess how you treat people and stop being like that, bub)

—but I also want to be a fabulous gay Slytherclaw social satirist who uses that #aesthetic and the popular tropes of the day to do my own thing and redefine outside the box, and hey, if I ever get a, “wit and wisdom of…” book published with some of my coolest quotables in it? That would be an awesome bonus.

* “Okay, but seriously: how obvious can I be that Yael and Elizabeth are a big, ‘fuck you’ to Marvel about all of their queerbaiting with Charles and Erik before I can get sued for it? Because while Yael and Elizabeth are still characters in their own right, their original inspiration was, ‘hey, what if I flipped the bird to Marvel about all of their fucking queerbaiting with Charles and Erik, and did it with extra lesbians? that’s be pretty fucking cool,’ and I don’t want to be sued, but I also don’t want for my point to be missed here”

—or more generally, “I can’t die before I finish my novel, I have a lot of people to piss off and call on their crap through the magic of the written word *makes a sparkly rainbow with my hands like Spongebob going, ‘imaginaaaaaaaation!!! :D’*”

* So, there’s this one bit in Dry, Augusten Burroughs’ memoir about the early parts of his struggle with alcoholism and addiction. In his rehab, one of their assignments for group therapy is to write letters to people in their lives and feel their feelings about these relationships. He writes to Pighead, his best friend/“it’s complicated,” who is HIV-positive.

Reading the letter at group, Augusten finds himself crying, then shares the whole tangled-up backstory that he and Pighead have together, from how they first met on a phone-sex line, to how Augusten fell hard in love with him, to how they were friends with benefits and then he told Pighead that he was in love with him and Pighead plays the, “I love you but I’m not in love with you” card (that is verbatim what he says in the book, and the way Burroughs reads it in the audiobook kills me every single time), so Augusten dates other guys and tries to fall out of love with Pighead, only for Pighead to come see him first when his HIV test comes back positive and realize that he’s In Love with Augusten only, “after he became diagnosed with a fatal disease”

—which gives us the great line, “Part of me felt deep compassion. And another part felt like, You fucker.”

(Which is seriously one of my top ten lines in all literature, ever. tbh, it’s probably top five, but the top ten list would be hard enough to come up with to begin with, and I’d have to parcel things out into Poetry, Prose [possibly split into Fiction and Nonfiction, at that], and Dramatic Writing just to get it down to ten things on each list, and? It’s just a perfect line, oh my god)

At the end of it, Augusten has a moment with Kavi, another one of the patients at his rehab, who is addicted to cocaine and sex. Kavi tells him about how he left his lover who was HIV-positive after his diagnosis, so that he wouldn’t be the person getting left for once, and about how he feels like cocaine never leaves him. And we get: “Suddenly, I want to drink.… I don’t want to drink in a jovial ‘Highballs for everybody!’ way. I want to drink to the point where I could undergo major knee surgery and not feel so much as a pinch.”

I just.

There is so much about this section of the book that fucks me up so hard, but in ways that I love so much — and there’s a lot that I love about it for a lot of reasons, but like?

Speaking entirely with my writer hat on right now?

That part is just immaculately written. Every word is perfectly chosen, and they are strung together just right. Burroughs chooses the exact right images and scenes to characterize his and Pighead’s developing relationship, and his moment with Kavi, and it’s just

This part of the book makes me remember why I write. Because I have been reading and rereading this book since high school — I have had my battered up and taped together paperback copy with the yellowing pages since Easter 2005 — and this part STILL fucks me up, every. single. time. The audiobook version of it still fucks me up every. single. time.

Back in high school when I first read it, it hit me so hard because I had a habit of falling in love with girls who were straight and/or just did not like me back (and it would get worse, because the girl I was in love with who dared me to write D*rarry just to see if I could? Would go on to put me in the position of being her Girl Friday while I got to watch her love everybody but me, and praise the creative work of everybody but me, and go on about how two of her other friends were totally brilliant and misunderstood creative geniuses because they were incomprehensible and it was totally bourgeois for me to want to write to be understood but it was okay she knows I’m ~mainstream like that, but then still call on me — which made the whole Augusten/Pighead thing hurt so much more for me because I was kind of her, “I love you, but I’m not In Love with you”)

(I will say this about that relationship: I didn’t handle it well, either. I was petty and jealous, and waaaay more damagingly? I hadn’t yet grasped the idea that you sometimes have to just let people be messed up at you about the shit they’re going though without trying to fix everything for them, especially when there’s nothing that you can actually do to fix it. In retrospect, it’s kind of hilarious that I loaned her a copy of Perks of Being A Wallflower that I never saw again, because the whole idea that you can’t just constantly put someone else’s needs before your own and call it love, and the related concept that doing this is actually kind of a form of selfishness, in a way?

………yeah, that was VERY relevant to how I handled that relationship, and she rightfully called me on a lot of shit related to those ideas, and I spent a lot of time having an unfair chip on my shoulder because I was jealous on one hand, and indignant about how her other friends got to be Real Artists™ because their shit was incomprehensible but I got to be a Poser Artist™ because I wanted to be understood and not just fap around with some neo-Dadaist nonsense — and as seen here, I still do have a chip on my shoulder about Dadaist anything, but in fairness, I’d have that with or without any of this story because Dada is the worst — and I’m not saying that I was totally pure or innocent in anything here.

But at the time, I cried a lot over Augusten/Pighead feels because I felt that whole, “I love you but I’m not in love with you” situation and trying to fall out of love with someone only to crumble when they needed you and resent them for needing you but hate yourself for resenting them — I felt all of that so hard.)

My appreciation for this part of the book has evolved and changed over time, and it’s deepened — as I’ve learned more about LGBTIQ history, I’ve come to appreciate the context of the story more and gain more of a sense of reverence for the LGBTIQ people who came before me and actually fought through the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and it has changed how I read this part of the book more than anything else (c.f., my passive-aggressive addition of the REST of the quote to one post of the, ‘deep compassion vs. you fucker’ part because I was really annoyed with a bunch of straight people who were reblogging it without the full context and acting like they actually had any idea what it’s like to be gay and in a situation like Augusten is with Pighead here) — and I just

The biggest thing about this part of the book that’s made it stick around for me? is that no matter how I’ve appreciated it at any point, and no matter which parts of it have been the most important to me at any given moment, and no matter WHY it’s fucked me up — it’s still fucked me up so hard every. singled. fucking. time…… but in a way that has always made me feel a lot less alone in the world

It’s sort of similar to something that one of my fiction profs in undergrad once said about creating characters: we were talking, in one of our biweekly one-on-ones, about a story I’d brought in with one of my more off-putting characters (his name is Emerson, he’s an abrasive little shit who does a lot of very fucked up things and was kind of influenced by the Kurt/Karofsky plot back in season two of Glee because that was happening on TV at the time and I had a lot of feelings about it that I didn’t have any other way to deal with because I didn’t want to write Glee fic about all of it. He was more similar to Karofsky than Kurt)

I was convinced that everyone would hate him (not least because he an asshole to basically all of the other characters and assaulted the guy he had a crush on while he was high). Instead, he was actually really popular and one of my classmates, who I admired because her writing was so lyrical and confident and she was a great person, said that she found herself identifying with him, especially during some of his worst moments in that draft. While I was boggling about this, Professor Lucy said that one of the reasons why Emerson went over so gangbusters in workshop was that, instead of going the route of creating a tabula rasa character like Stephenie Meyer wrote Bella Swan to be, I’d given him so many clearly defined character traits and behaviors

According to Professor Lucy, the specificity is what makes it easier for people to identify with characters and feel for them, because it makes them more fully realized. (The, “according to” is just for the sake of attribution because this is a point that I’ve taken to heart and that I do totally agree with Professor Lucy about.) And I feel that a lot with the Augusten/Pighead part of the book because it’s so specific and it’s so grounded and it’s so REAL

And that’s a huge part of why it’s always gotten to me emotionally, and why it’s stuck with me after all this time, and why it’s consistently made me feel less alone and irreparably freakishly weird

Anyway, this got way longer than I intended to get, but the ability to affect someone so deeply with your work — that’s a responsibility that I take very seriously when it comes to writing, with regard to all different aspects of how you can possibly do this with the written word — and this part of Dry is such a source of motivation for me because it’s such a great example, for me, of How To Do An Emotionally Affecting Writer Thingy Well

I use technical language like this because I am such a Serious Business Writer, oh yes I am

47. how many unfinished ideas/stories are you working on at the same time?

I usually don’t count, because it’s usually a lot and not all of them are really guaranteed to ever be properly finished, oops.

#memes for ts #mine: personal #actual about me #mine: writing #mine: asks #writing is hard #fandom shenanigans #actuallyautistic #opinions for ts #jk rowling is not a gift #about me: if i were psychic do you think i'd be writing #about me: slytherin pride #augusten burroughs #i just have a lot of feelings #alcohol cw// addiction cw//#Anonymous #asks for fanfic writers

4 notes · View notes

thenicedolphin · 8 years ago

Text

Oscars Analysis With Biting Commentary: 2017 Edition!

Better the day of than never, amirite??? The 5th annual Oscars post from The Nice Dolphin (see links here for 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013), where Matt always provides excellent, impressive, insightful, groundbreaking commentary, and Alex comes in flaccid, flubbing around, rambling about James Harden, Andy Dalton, and some scary movie that no one watched. It’s a tradition for the ages! Matt will be in regular font, and Alex will come in with the bold font.

Okay, first of all, say what you want, but if there’s one thing my takes AREN’T it’s flaccid. Anyhow, fun production note: Matt emailed me his musings at like 3am last night in hopes that I wouldn’t have time to take his shoddy, poorly-reasoned, informed-by-Buzzfeed opinions to task. Bad news, Matt -- ya boy is WIDE awake and ready to talk Oscars!

Best picture:

“Arrival”

“Fences”

“Hacksaw Ridge”

“Hell or High Water”

“Hidden Figures”

“La La Land”

“Lion”

“Manchester by the Sea”

“Moonlight”

I’ve seen all nine films this year. I think I once was sorta embarrassed by that, but at this point, I don’t care… I WANT THE WHOLE WORLD TO KNOW. We got some classics in this field, and I would say I generally appreciated all of these films, but we gotta hand some critiques out too. Buckle up.

I’ve seen five out of the nine nominees: Arrival, Hell or High Water, La La Land, Manchester by the Sea, and Moonlight. I’m watching Hidden Figures as I’m writing this, so that should tell you all you need to know about my level of interest in Fences, Lion, and Hacksaw Jim Duggan.

First, I want to talk about the 3 films that were originally the top contenders before La La Land took the frontrunner perch solo on a storm of bright colors and happy dancing. Leading into the season, we had La La Land, Moonlight, and Manchester by the Sea.

I watched Moonlight first (out of all of these films actually, cool story bro). Moonlight was hyped in the critic circles and fairly unknown to the public… this made for an interesting watch at a fairly general Regal theater. Let’s just say the crowd was NOT expecting it to be an indie film about a gay black man in Miami struggling with his identity and they were NOT digging it. Sorta a weird atmosphere to sit in, but that didn’t stop the movie from shining through with its brilliance. Moonlight is a great, great film. It’s a beautiful study of a tragically hurt and isolated lead character. It is full of unique, fully-breathed characters.

Moonlight is a film of three acts following the life of our main character Chiron, and in each act, we have Chiron played by different actors portraying different ages of his life. That shouldn’t work as seamlessly as it does, but Barry Jenkins somehow pulled that magic trick off. The actors look enough alike, and they have enough similarities in their wounded souls, to show that they are Chiron. It’s remarkable. As much as I love Boyhood, it sorta makes that film’s structure feel more like a gimmick. Who needs to film scenes over 12 years when you have a vision as strong as this?

More importantly, Moonlight’s story is so powerful, and so well-told. This isn’t just some story about a gay black male who is bullied and conflicted about his sexuality. This is that story, done in such a poetic and powerfully told way. The patience it has telling its story. The way each of the 3 acts ends. Moonlight is a film that haunts me when contemplating its best scenes. I don’t think it’s for everyone. It certainly wasn’t for everyone in that theater when I watched it. But I would vote it for Best Picture.

Moonlight is a FANTASTIC film and if there was any justice in the world (there’s not), it would win Best Picture. Director Barry Jenkins is a master behind the camera, showing the audience everything we needed to see and nothing we didn’t. Moonlight is at once heartbreaking, uplifting, uncompromising, and relatable. Nothing is phoned-in or painted in broad strokes. Jenkins withholds judgment as he lets his characters’ lives unfold against one of the harder backdrops in recent memory. Plus, I’ve always wondered what 50 Cent looked like as a child.

Also, I gotta hand it to the bully in the second act for mocking Chiron’s jeans for being “too tight,” even though they were your typical straight-leg variety. Taking something completely innocuous and turning it into a source of mockery is a classic bully move. Outstanding work here.

NOTE: as I’m writing this, our hip-hop correspondent Kavi D. texted me the following: “Moonlight > La La Land. But like Adele beating Beyonce, we know what’s going to happen tonight. Such a joke.”

But Moonlight probably won’t win. La La Land will. And I’m ok with that too! I really loved La La Land! I love the vision of Damien Chazelle (Whiplash was aces). I love musicals. It was really fun. The love story was pretty good! La La Land has flaws to be sure. The white-man-saves-jazz issue is hard to deny, even if you try to justify it with the fact that well, John Legend’s character is cooler than Gosling’s, and their band’s song is pretty good! Gosling and Stone aren’t Gene Kelly or Rita Moreno in terms of their singing and dancing abilities. In the end, I was still enamored with the film’s joy along with the story’s emotion. And that ending was great. How is Chazelle so good at ending his films?

La La Land’s other backlash is that it’s another movie about Hollywood, appealing to the Oscar voters. Some also think it’s winning on a gimmick, as the first original musical in a while, sorta like how The Artist was the first silent film of note in a while. Well let me tell you something… The Artist? Sucked. La La was way better.

The amount of love La La is getting does annoy me. I mean, I’m cool with it winning Best Picture in the end, but getting like 10-11 Oscars? Some of these other films deserve some love too.

/Locks the door

//Looks out the window

///Takes the phone off the hook (lol landlines)

////Re-checks the locks

I gotta be real here: La La Land SUCKED. Before we get into it, let’s cover the positives:

1. John Legend’s song - that was sick!

2. The montage at the end - that was real!

3. La La Land did manage to be a very serious movie while keeping the tone light and bouncy, which is no easy feat, so I can give it some respect for that. Everything else though…?

The music was terrible. I’m not a big musical guy to begin with, but I can certainly appreciate a catchy showtune. Here? Not a one to be found. Gosling’s creaky-ass voice grinding out a third reprise of “City of Stars” doesn’t cut the mustard.

The dancing was shitty. Whether it was those losers rolling on the hood of their cars in the opening number, Stone’s way hotter roommates bumbling around their apartment, or the leads irritatingly floating in the planetarium, everything looked stilted and unrehearsed. The “Dick in a Box” video had sicker moves.

The leads had zero chemistry and were completely unlikable. Fishface Emma Stone and Jazz Hero Seb were such bores, I couldn’t find it in my cold, black heart to care about either one of them.

Also, do we really need white-as-a-sheet Ryan Gosling lecturing us about saving “real” jazz music? Here’s the thing, Seb: Jazz is/was all about innovation and being on the cutting edge of music. So the fact that he’s obsessed with sticking jazz inside some snow globe time capsule is actually 1000% more harmful to jazz than John Legend freshening things up and pushing jazz into a new, modern direction.

Chicken on a stick up my ass, gump!

Personal note: each year on Christmas, my family goes to the theater to watch a flick. The past few years we’ve seen joints like The Wolf of Wall Street, Django Unchained, Fury, and The Hateful Eight. Real family-friendly stuff. Well, this year we let my sister pick and of course she picked La La Land.

For the record we ALL hated it, even my sister. This is only the second movie I’ve ever seriously considered walking out of (shout out to Adventureland, you piece of crap). Anyhow, I would like to thank La La Land for giving me this nugget to hold over her head for the rest of eternity.

The last of the original top contenders, Manchester by the Sea, made me cry numerous times. I mean, I thought that shit was gonna be sad, but that trailer definitely made me figure there was a little more levity in it than there was. This ain’t Good Will Hunting. I thought Manchester had some great acting, a story that really weighed on you, and had several scenes in particular that really devastated me.

Matt must’ve fallen asleep during the last third of Manchester because for about forty-five minutes it becomes a network TV sitcom, with Affleck helping lil buddy get laid and selling enough pints of blood (BAC .08) to buy a new engine for the boat.

But hey, this is a good-to-great flick, although it could’ve used a re-edit -- what, was Billy Walsh too busy working on the new season of Johnny’s Bananas? Manchester suffers from what I call the “Boston bloat.” Any film set in New England is automatically twenty minutes too long because it has to constantly remind the audience that it takes place in New England. It’s already called Manchester by the Sea! We don’t need close ups of analog TVs showing the Celtics or slo-mo shots of ugly white guys in various shades of grey and khaki shooting Irish Whiskey.

SPOILER ALERT: (Matt’s note: the next paragraph has massive spoilers)

Also, uh, is it just me or does Lee get off kinda light (in reality and in the movie) for essentially murdering his three kids? Like hey motherfucker, you did an awful thing maybe you should at least TRY to atone for it? The cops are like “you burned your house down in a drunken stupor and it claimed the lives of your three children -- we’ve all been there!” “Yeah! I torched my place last spring, lost two kiddos and the dog, a real shame.” I get that you’re tortured bro, but maybe think about someone other than yourself for once?

Also if this movie (and most NE-set movies) are to be believed, women are only good for banging; otherwise they’re shrill nags, out to ruin a good time. Exactly none of the women in this movie are given any sort of depth or character beyond “I want to fuck her” or “She won’t stop bothering me.” The movie even kinda blames Lee’s kids’ death on the mom!

And the climactic conversation between Randi and Lee? The crux is that even after all this time, she still wants to fuck him! She can’t resist his grubby, down-home, chawm! Pathetic.

Arrival is my favorite film that didn’t ever get in the talk for Best Picture. And why the hell not? It’s loved by many who’ve seen it, it was a popular box office hit. Arrival got on my radar early 2016 when I heard about the film starring Amy Adams and the guy (Villeneuve) who did the superb Sicario. I checked out the short story Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang, and it blew me away. Arrival takes a pretty challenging high-level concept and somehow manages to portray it well onscreen. When I read it, I thought damn, how are they gonna make that a film? But they did. Villeneueve is a true talent. Arrival is intriguing sci-fi with an ending that truly impacts you.

Arrival was the bomb! Great flick and an amazing adaptation of “Story of Your Life.” Matt’s right about the movie breaking down an insane concept into something that’s easy to understand while still delivering that emotional gut-punch.

Amy Adams had better rapport with the fuggin aliens than Stone did with Gosling, just sayin.

I’ve seen a few pieces mention Hidden Figures as a possible late surprise winner. While there’s no real chance at that, it’s cool to see the box office love it’s gotten. When I first saw the trailer for Hidden Figures, I thought it came off to me like standard Disneyfied civil rights fare (like 42, if you will). But then the critics’ reviews came out, and then my friends spoke of how good it was. And it is good! Hidden Figures has 3 strong leads in Henson, Monae, and Spencer. They have well-developed characters. They don’t need to have strong white heroes saving them – the white characters (primarily Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons), aren’t overly white saviors or overly mustachioed villains. There’s some prejudice. There’s some goodwill from good people like Costner’s character or John Glenn. But these are supporting details surrounding the main stories of these brilliant black women facing the shit they had to deal with at the time. That’s good cinema.

Hidden Figures is sounding pretty good in the background right now, so I’ll probably go back and actually watch it at some point. I was initially put off because it looked like The Help in Space and I didn’t need to see another scene where Sandra Bullock tells a black mother what’s what. Apparently it’s not like that? That’s good.

Fences is a well-acted adaptation of a powerful play by the great August Wilson. Fences covers the story of a black family dealing with their issues, primarily stemming from the father, Troy Maxson, during the civil rights era. Maxson is a stubborn, difficult man, and that causes some strife in the family. It’s uncompromising and tough stuff to watch, and it’s really a challenge, in a good way, to the viewer. I’ll have more thoughts on it below with Best Actor, but I thought that it had a great story and a somewhat limited vision with its adaptation. The direction by Denzel could have been more creative, but its lacking transcendance from the stage reminded me too much of the Doubt adaptation.

Fences looked like Denzel sitting on a porch for two hours. That’s cool for Denzel, but I’d just as soon sit on my own damn porch.

Hell or High Water was a really solidly done film. Jeff Bridges, Ben Foster, and Chris Pine basically are the film, and they’re great. Really glad to see Pine get to do something good outside of his always strong role as Kirk. The story’s pretty straightforward - Foster and Pine play brothers trying to rob banks. Bridges and his partner are going after them. But it’s not Point Break, and the nuances of the clever dialogue, the creative characters, and the way the movie builds - that makes the film a special quality film.

This is a movie right here! I love me a modern western, and Hell or High Water delivered! The cinematography was gorgeous and bleak at once, really bringing home the message of the movie. It was good to see Pine bounce back from that atrocious Star Trek 3 film, and the banter between him and Ben Foster really pushed this movie to the next level.

I gotta be real though, the audience I saw this with was laughing a little too hard at Jeff Bridges’ racist-ass character. Kinda uncomfortable.

I was pretty dubious about Hacksaw Ridge. I think I found it to be somewhat cheesy and somewhat excellent. The first half of the film is basically cheesy goodhearted Andrew Garfield as he decides in life that he doesn’t want to hold a gun during WWII but still wants to help, and the struggles he faced trying to convince the Army to let him do that. At this point, it felt pretty cliche and lame to me. Then the battle scenes began, and I was pretty impressed and enthralled… what Garfield’s character, Desmond Doss, did was heroic and incredible. The film is strong when showing those aspects. It’s just a little held back by the stuff around that.

Hacksaw Ridge, the Finest Hours, Deepwater Horizon -- can we tell any of these movies apart? Do we care? Really happy for Mel Gibson though, getting to film another critically-acclaimed gratuitous bloodbath.

Lion was my least favorite film, and I’ve seen a few friends here and there who disagree with that. But I found it to be lacking. The true story is amazing, the emotions of that conclusion are powerful, and Dev Patel is my boy. But the story is poorly paced for me; at times, just a little too much focused on his childhood. At times, a bit slow and clunky in his search. That being said, that film made me cry still, because that story is sad and moving. And I got love for my girl Rooney Mara. But it was the least of the 9 for me.

Just go back and read my rationale for skipping that awful Life of Pi remake. I’m sure all the same arguments apply here.

I can’t speak too much of Best Picture snubs this year. I was pretty content with this field. EXCEPT FOR CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR; WHERE’S DA LOVE.

Captain America: Civil War was great...as long as Cap was off-screen. Dude is the most vanilla-ass leading hero we got out here. More Iron Man, Black Panther, Spider-Man, Ant-Man, really anyone else, PLEASE.

Allow me to play to type and suggest that The VVitch got snubbed! Along with The Lobster and Deadpool, some real contenders got left at the altar. Also, let it be known that Matt had a huge bone for The Accountant despite it looking like trash from day one. Apparently some non-studio-plant redditor promised it would be great. Once the reviews started trickling in though, Matt was inconsolable.

Best director:

“La La Land,” Damien Chazelle

“Hacksaw Ridge,” Mel Gibson

“Moonlight,” Barry Jenkins

“Manchester by the Sea,” Kenneth Lonergan

“Arrival,” Denis Villeneuve

Chazelle is the likely winner here, and it would be well-deserved. He had a great vision for La La Land, and his visuals and energy are such strengths in the film. I would also wholly support my dude Villeneuve getting some love here. He really put together a great film for a short story that deserved it. He has lots of patience getting to the points he wants to make, and he treats the audience as adults, not holding their hands.

Jenkins’ direction of Moonlight leads to some damn good poetry, so I gotta give him props too. Lonergan does good work, but I don’t really consider the strength to be in his direction but more for his writing (to discuss later). Gibson put together some awesome battle scenes, but man, he had some corny scenes building up to it.

If Jenkins doesn’t win this, I’m jumping out my window like dude from the Mad Men credits.

/moves into first-floor apartment

Matt touched on it earlier, but how stupid does Richard Linklater look now? It took him like two decades to make Boyhood, and Jenkins knocked out a better version in like a month! It’s like Linklater, bro, we have actors for a reason..

Apparently Chazelle winning is a done deal, but cmon! Jenkins told three PERFECT stories, tied them together with the exact right amount of narrative tissue and knocked it out the f’n park! But yeah, Chazelle sucked off Hollywood and made the smog-trap that is LA look halfway redeemable.

Lead actor:

Casey Affleck, “Manchester by the Sea”

Andrew Garfield, “Hacksaw Ridge”

Ryan Gosling, “La La Land,”

Viggo Mortensen, “Captain Fantastic”

Denzel Washington, “Fences”

This race has come down to Affleck and Denzel. I haven’t seen Captain Fantastic and have heard Viggo is pretty good. Garfield does good work in Hacksaw, though his accent is a little spotty, and I can’t get over how corny he is at times in the film. Gosling was better to me than Stone in La La Land, but I can’t quite say that either of their lead performances screamed “Best Actor/Actress” to me. I think the race should come down to Affleck and Denzel.

Casey Affleck was the frontrunner for a while until Denzel Washington won the SAG award, which shifted the momentum in people’s mind. Affleck’s history of sexual harassment has come up a bit leading up to the Oscars, and some think that has affected his chances here. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I think the accusations were likely true. I think if so, it’s fair to make the argument that you don’t vote for him here. It’s an award for who’s the best actor, but there isn’t strict criteria, and these are voters who have a right to show support for who they want to. If that means denying a vote to a sexual predator who was privileged in what he got away with, then maybe that’s what people should do. Constance Wu broke it down pretty well, as you can read here.

If I somehow had an Academy vote, I don’t know what I’d do. I think I might vote for Casey in the end. But that debate aside, I wanna talk about their performances now, and I’d say I thought better of Casey’s.

His performance as Lee Chandler really really impressed me. It’s one of my favorite acting performances of recent years. I’d take this role over other recent winners like my boy DiCaprio in The Revenant or McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club. Affleck embodies this character, full of subtle sorrow and guilt and pain. I felt for him every step of the way, and I never felt like it was done with cheap acting or overly acted emotion (see: Sean Penn; Mystic River). Lee Chandler is the film, and Casey Affleck is the film, and he carries it all on his tortured shoulders.

I gotta agree with Matt. The entirety of Manchester by the Sea rests on Casey Affleck’s shoulders and he absolutely crushes his role. The pain and the patheticness that define Lee Chandler come through even in the film’s happier moments and Affleck never fails to show how Lee’s grief is hardwired into his DNA and informs all of his decisions, from where to live, to whether he should punch out the drunk Santa lookin’ guy at the bar (he does).

That being said, Affleck is a sexual harasser! So I’m not shedding any tears if he loses to Denzel, who is great and keeps me in good hands, insurance-wise.

Denzel is really good too. Casey is better. Denzel has a tough character to grapple with here. I think he might be hurt a little for me just because I don’t very much like the character of Troy Maxson. I felt like this when I first read the play for a class in high school, and I feel that way now. It makes it tough. Maxson is not a likable character. I like him less than your usual villain, and I think that’s always somewhat hampered my view of the story. Maxson is not good to his family, and he infuriates me in several ways. I know that in some ways that’s supposed to be showing the effects the time period had on a man like him, but some of his decisions in the story are too much for me to overcome.

That’s somewhat the brilliance of the story by August WIlson. It’s uncompromising and brutal. But it’s always been a tough pill for me to swallow and affects my view of Denzel’s performance. When I separate that take, I do think Denzel was excellent in the role though. One of his best roles in recent memory.

Lead actress:

Isabelle Huppert, “Elle”

Ruth Negga, “Loving”

Natalie Portman, “Jackie”

Emma Stone, “La La Land”

Meryl Streep, “Florence Foster Jenkins”

This category is hampered by the lack of Viola Davis, who pushed to be labeled as Best Supporting even though she’s very clearly a lead. Stone is the frontrunner, and she’s pretty good, but she didn’t blow me away. As mentioned before, I liked Gosling’s work more. I saw Jackie, and Portman was quite good in her portrayal. I would support her getting it too. But I’d be surprised to see the Academy give her a second Oscar this early on.

Amy Adams got robbed of a nomination here. She was the heart and soul of Arrival, and Louise Banks is a great protagonist. I thought she was wonderful in it. Why again is Streep nominated for everything she does? I feel like she could voice a 5-minute role in an animated film and still win Best Actress. Was she really better in Florence than my girl Amy? I’m dubious.

I haven’t made it to Loving yet so I don’t have a take on Ruth Negga. Huppert is apparently a dark horse for Elle; a film I haven’t gotten to yet that has a fascinating premise.

What the hell is always up with the movies the Best Actress noms come from? With a few exceptions, they’re always floating out on their own, like “Best Actress” is its own movie genre. Needless to say, I haven’t seen any of these besides La La Land, and that’s one I wish I hadn’t seen.

Supporting actor:

Mahershala Ali, “Moonlight”

Jeff Bridges, “Hell or High Water”

Lucas Hedges, “Manchester by the Sea”

Dev Patel, “Lion”

Michael Shannon, “Nocturnal Animals”

Mahershala is all you gotta know here. After some solid turns in House of Cards and Mockingjay, this charming-ass mofo is magic in Moonlight. Juan is one of the best supporting characters in recent memory. He has several brilliant scenes, not requiring overacting but just sheer nuance and charm. He makes such an impression on the film in not much time. He’ll win, and he’ll deserve it big-time.

After this year, they should rename this the Mahershala Ali Award for Best Supporting Actor. Ali is amazing as Juan, Chiron’s unlikely father-figure. He commands the screen in every scene he’s in, but like Matt says, it’s not with overacting or scenery-chewing, but with the amount and specificity of emotion resonating from his character.

Bridges is his usual awesome self in Hell or High Water, and I really dug what he brought to the table. Hedges is a quality support role to Affleck in Manchester, and he does good work as the young nephew struggling through his father’s death. He’s Boston as hell and he does it well. Dev is great too, even though he’s clearly a lead role. Glad to see him getting continued work after Slumdog and good to see him knocking it out of the park. Dude is jacked now! He ain’t no babyface lucky punk anymore.

I’ll give props to Hedges for staying focused on banging out two chicks at the same time despite his dad randomly dying. I love that speech he gives Affleck (“I don’t care that I’m an orphan! I can’t move to Boston -- I’m banging two chicks!”).

Bridges was cool; I always wondered what Bad Black would be like if he were on the other side of the law.

I love Michael Shannon. I haven’t seen Nocturnal Animals. But Shannon could make any role magnetic. He’s just sheer willpower tour-de-force. I don’t know what that means, but it makes sense to me.

Supporting actress:

Viola Davis, “Fences”

Naomie Harris, “Moonlight”

Nicole Kidman, “Lion”

Octavia Spencer, “Hidden Figures”

Michelle Williams, “Manchester by the Sea”

Viola Davis is remarkable and is so key to Fences. She’s great. I hope she gets the Oscar. And she probably would have won for best Lead too. Rose is a tough character to portray to me. She’s often reactionary to her husband, and she doesn’t have as much stage presence per se. But Viola brings that necessary gravitas and strength to the role to make it not just a one-person show. She’s lovable, tender, compassionate, etc. AND she does a good job explaining how she deals with/puts up with Troy. It’s a hell of a role.

If not for Viola in supporting, I would give the win to Michelle WIlliams. She’s really good in some key scenes in Manchester by the Sea. She’s emotional, tortured, hurt, and so relatable in the things she says and does. Otherwise, Naomi Harris really nailed it as Chiron’s mom during Moonlight (and in only 3 days of filming apparently!). Spencer was quite good in Hidden Figures (though I loved Monae more; I also just love Monae in general, what can I say). Kidman is good in Lion, but I can’t say she really knocked it out the park for me.

From what I understand, Viola Davis probably deserves an easy win here, but man, Naomie Harris was raw as hell in Moonlight. That scene where she shakes Chiron down for cash nearly made me call in sick to work the next day.

Michelle Williams in Manchester by the Sea was...not great, though I blame the material more than her. “But but but Lee! I still wanna fawk you! Let’s have lunch! We can get ya favorite chowdah!” She tried her best, but the dialogue was never going to let her rise above Southie Harpy #2.

Adapted screenplay:

“Arrival,” Eric Heisserer

“Fences,” August Wilson

“Hidden Figures,” Allison Schroeder and Theodore Melfi

“Lion,” Luke Davies

“Moonlight,” Barry Jenkins; Story by Tarell Alvin McCraney

Moonlight is bizarrely marked as adapted even though it was based off an unpublished play. Whatever. It’s an excellent story. I think it’s supposed to win, and I’ll approve of Barry getting his Oscar here.

Damn, I gotta agree with Matt again! This is truly a weird spot for Moonlight to be in. It’s like “oh shit, I adapted this movie from an idea I had once -- okay!”

I do wish Arrival could win too, because Heisserer’s feat is impressive considering the degree of difficulty here. Story of Your Life (Arrival’s short story) is a lot simpler than the plot of the film. Heisserer had to develop more of a global conflict to the story and had to figure out how to take plot elements from the short story and make it work on film (the short story is a lot more first person narrative; he did a lot to adjust that for the screen).

Still, no one has to be madder about Moonlight’s odd placement than the Arrival folks. They took an impossible-to-adapt short story and fuckin flamed it out into an amazing motion picture. Really impressive stuff.

Fences is cool because Wilson had that screenplay around for a while, and it got made after his death once a black director (Wilson stipulated that the director be black) finally was able to put the project together. And it’s a great story. Just not as deserving to me as Moonlight/Arrival.

Original screenplay:

“20th Century Women,” Mike Mills

“Hell or High Water,” Taylor Sheridan

“La La Land,” Damien Chazelle

“The Lobster,” Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthimis Filippou

“Manchester by the Sea,” Kenneth Lonergan

I still haven’t seen The Lobster and want to. I think Alex will vouch for it. Otherwise, this is a category where La La won the award at the Golden Globes, but I really hope it doesn’t win here. Manchester’s screenplay is so good to me. The way it intercuts between past and present, the way it slowly reveals different plot points, and the way it writes dialogue of sad scenes - that’s some good stuff right there.

I gotta go with The Lobster here. To call it’s screenplay efficient is a severe understatement. I previously lauded Barry Jenkins for showing audience exactly what they needed to see. In The Lobster, Lanthimos strips the entire endeavour down to the bare essentials. Why use three words when one will do? Shit, why even use words at all? Beautiful stuff, b.

On the other end of the spectrum is Manchester by the Sea, where every possible scene and/or conversation gets its moment to shine. This leads to a lot of great moments and conversations, but also to a fair number of middling ones.

Cinematography:

“Arrival,” Bradford Young

“La La Land,” Linus Sandgren

“Lion,” Greig Fraser

“Moonlight,” James Laxton

“Silence,” Rodrigo Prieto

Bradford Young can get it.

Dayum.

That Linus dude will probably win for La La, and it’ll be deserved. I just thought Moonlight had some hella cool shots. Also, Silence gets a nom here. I wanna see that at some point, even if it ended up not getting the love it expected to get.

La La Land will win here because Hollywood loves seeing itself glammed up for the silver screen and not as the tepid, plastic cesspool it is (note: I actually love LA, but am I wrong?).

Film editing:

“Arrival,” Joe Walker

“Hacksaw Ridge,” John Gilbert

“Hell or High Water,” Jake Roberts

“La La Land,” Tom Cross

“Moonlight,” Nat Sanders and Joi McMillon

Another La La win, probably suggesting its best picture victory.

I already burned my Billy Walsh joke, so I’ll just say this HAS to be Moonlight, right? I mean, it won’t be, but it’s economy in telling such a resounding tale defines Oscar-worthy.

Best documentary feature:

“13th,” Ava DuVernay, Spencer Averick and Howard Barish

“Fire at Sea,” Gianfranco Rosi and Donatella Palermo

“I Am Not Your Negro,” Raoul Peck, Remi Grellety and Hebert Peck

“Life, Animated,” Roger Ross Williams and Julie Goldman

“O.J.: Made in America,” Ezra Edelman and Caroline Waterlow

Really strong year for docs. I still haven’t gotten to the long, really-a-TV-documentary-series OJ, but I’ve heard such incredible things about it. The 13th was brilliant and would certainly deserve a win too. And I can’t wait to see I Am Not Your Negro.

Gotta confess, I haven’t seen any of these, but this looks to be one of the strongest years for docs in recent memory.

Animated feature:

“Kubo and the Two Strings,” Travis Knight and Arianne Sutner

“Moana,” John Musker, Ron Clements and Osnat Shurer

“My Life as a Zucchini,” Claude Barras and Max Karli

“The Red Turtle,” Michael Dudok de Wit and Toshio Suzuki

“Zootopia,” Byron Howard, Rich Moore and Clark Spencer

Zootopia appears to be the winner here, and it really was an impressive animated film to me. As I watched it, I was like damn those themes got a lot deeper than I expected for a kid’s film! Moana was really enjoyable too, though it didn’t quite reach the highs for me that some other recent animated classics have (I would put Frozen ahead of it, for instance).

Zootopia is my JAM. Love that sloth at the DMV. Moana was fine, but did nothing to distinguish itself from any other generic-ass cartoon.

No love for Sausage Party? Damn.

Best foreign language film:

“A Man Called Ove,” Sweden

“Land of Mine,” Denmark

“Tanna,” Australia

“The Salesman,” Iran

“Toni Erdmann,” Germany

The director of The Salesman, Asghar Farhadi, was not allowed to come to the Oscars after the executive order a few weeks ago, and then he decided not to come too out of protest. He also directed the incredible A Separation, which I finally recently saw. That film was so devastating and moving to me, and if The Salesman is comparable at all, it would certainly deserve a win here too.

Toni Erdmann is apparently going to be remade with Jack Nicholson, so I’m for sure curious about that too.

Give it up to Tanna, man. It was filmed in Nauvhal, which has like 4,500 native speakers.

Original score:

“Jackie,” Mica Levi

“La La Land,” Justin Hurwitz

“Lion,” Dustin O’Halloran and Hauschka

“Moonlight,” Nicholas Britell

“Passengers,” Thomas Newman

Original song:

“Audition (The Fools Who Dream),” “La La Land” — Music by Justin Hurwitz; Lyric by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul

“Can’t Stop the Feeling,” “Trolls” — Music and Lyric by Justin Timberlake, Max Martin and Karl Johan Schuster

“City of Stars,” “La La Land” — Music by Justin Hurwitz; Lyric by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul

“The Empty Chair,” “Jim: The James Foley Story” — Music and Lyric by J. Ralph and Sting

“How Far I’ll Go,” “Moana” — Music and Lyric by Lin-Manuel Miranda

La La will definitely win for best score, considering it’s a damn musical. Arrival should have gotten some love here, but the Academy dqed it because they were worried that this brilliant song used in the film would get confused as part of the original score. But the score is great on its own!

La La Land will win, which is garbage! As a Houston native, I will no doubt be pulling for Moonlight, as the whole f’n thing was chopped and screwed.

Two La La songs are nominated here, and City of Stars should likely win. I would love to see Lin-Manuel get the win here and complete his EGOT. How Far I’ll Go didn’t really stay with me the way other classic animated film songs have. Heck, I would rather have seen You’re Welcome get the win here.

Yeah, the two songs in Moana worth a damn (“You’re Welcome” and “Shiny”) got robbed, and both those LLL songs are trash. I gotta take a moment and recognize the special kind of horrible that is “Can’t Stop the Feeling.” I dare you to find a more written-by-committee, “Happy-”humping piece of corporate garbage that polluted the airwaves this year.

Does this mean I’m cheering for Sting? Fuck.

Also, Sing Street should have DEF got some love here. It was robbed. Sting got a nom instead? FOH.

Sound editing:

“Arrival,” Sylvain Bellemare

“Deep Water Horizon,” Wylie Stateman and Renee Tondelli

“Hacksaw Ridge,” Robert Mackenzie and Andy Wright

“La La Land,” Ai-Ling Lee and Mildred Iatrou Morgan

“Sully,” Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman

Sound mixing:

“Arrival,” Bernard Gariepy Strobl and Claude La Haye

“Hacksaw Ridge,” Kevin O’Connell, Andy Wright, Robert Mackenzie and Peter Grace

“La La Land,” Andy Nelson, Ai-Ling Lee and Steve A. Morrow

“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” David Parker, Christopher Scarabosio and Stuart Wilson

“13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi,” Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers, Jeffrey J. Haboush and Mac Ruth

Kevin O’Connell apparently hasn’t won after 21 nominations, and he’ll probably lose to La La Land here. Well, I hope he somehow gets a win.

Let’s revisit a Matt quote from the top of the article: “Matt always provides excellent, impressive, insightful, groundbreaking commentary.” You’ve really outdone yourself here.

Last fall I was at WB Studios and they explained the difference between sound editing and sound mixing and I was like “Finally! I’ll have a real opinion when the Oscars roll around!” Well, I don’t remember what I learned that day, so let’s just give these awards to Arrival for that little pewpew sound of the aliens squirtin’ their ink.

Production design:

“Arrival,” Patrice Vermette, Paul Hotte

“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” Stuart Craig, Anna Pinnock

“Hail, Caesar!,” Jess Gonchor, Nancy Haigh

“La La Land,” David Wasco, Sandy Reynolds-Wasco

“Passengers,” Guy Hendrix Dyas, Gene Serdena

Visual effects:

“Deepwater Horizon,” Craig Hammack, Jason Snell, Jason Billington and Burt Dalton

“Doctor Strange,” Stephane Ceretti, Richard Bluff, Vincent Cirelli and Paul Corbould

“The Jungle Book,” Robert Legato, Adam Valdez, Andrew R. Jones and Dan Lemmon

“Kubo and the Two Strings,” Steve Emerson, Oliver Jones, Brian McLean and Brad Schiff

“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” John Knoll, Mohen Leo, Hal Hickel and Neil Corbould

Rogue One had some good visuals, bro.

Damn, my X-Men couldn’t get a nod here? I guess the Academy is saving all their mutant love for Logan next year. Hail, Caesar! Is such a joke of a movie and represents Hollywood’s masturbatory tendencies at their worst. So it’ll probably take home an Oscar here.

I’ve heard Doctor Strange is like trippin off acid without trippin off acid, so if you’re trippin off acid when you watch it, it looks pretty normal. Yeah, I’m certain that’s how it works.

Makeup and hair:

“A Man Called Ove,” Eva von Bahr and Love Larson

“Star Trek Beyond,” Joel Harlow and Richard Alonzo

“Suicide Squad,” Alessandro Bertolazzi, Giorgio Gregorini and Christopher Nelson

Costume design:

“Allied,” Joanna Johnston

“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” Colleen Atwood

“Florence Foster Jenkins,” Consolata Boyle

“Jackie,” Madeline Fontaine

“La La Land,” Mary Zophres

Apparently Matt died before he could finish this? Anyhow, Star Trek for makeup and hair? Except for that one chick, who was really lookin all that different? Give it to Suicide Squad, I guess.

Is the real Florence Foster Jenkins still alive? I wonder how she’d feel knowing that, in a twisted way, her awfulness was winning all kinds of awards. She’s probably dead, so it doesn’t matter, but still.

#by Alex and Matt #Oscars #Jimmy Kimmel #Moonlight #La La Land #Manchester by the Sea #Hidden Figures #Lion #Fences #Denzel Washington #Ryan Gosling #Damien Chazelle #Barry Jenkins #Emma Stone #Natalie Portman #Viola Davis #Lin-Manuel Miranda #movies

1 note · View note

choriocytosicinquisitor-blog · 8 years ago

Text

DENNAB: -After peddling around Skaia, it's time for Dennab to head back to his makeshift studio. If there's no room for it in his dorm, Dennab has definitely shanghai'd an empty storage room for it. But first, a visit to the showers probably. He slinks.- KAVI: =HOLD IT. He needs tom TLC with his baby. He's glad Den got out today, that he was exploring around and getting some air. After looking for him a big he meets him in the hall and just.... drapes on the wall= hey there.... :point_right: ;) DENNAB: -He should have known Kavi was stalking him a lil. Den stops in his tracks, taking a second to process this. And the dismay that follows soon afterwards.- SHIT. i forgot to tell you i was gettin' close to bein' done. KAVI: no man it's cool just checkin up on ya, seein how you are and what not DENNAB: uh... guess i'm cool. -If you call rattling at himself for two weeks, living on nothing but microwave burritos, gatorade, and a handful of sleep hours.- almost done with the paintin' like, i said. DENNAB: ... DENNAB: now it's shower time, lol. totes eventful. -leans by the wall also. Fingers toying with a cheese stick like he can't get over the twitches. It's been a time for him.- you????(edited) Mishroom - Yesterday at 8:24 PM KAVI: =he's gonna try to approach him and touch his arm, pets and soothes= KAVI: well.... i'm glad you're good..... mind if i join you then?... low stress chill KAVI: been hangin with Nellie and Auryhn, doin shows, uh, some... other stuff we can talk about later DENNAB: -looks at him with the tired eyes, acting as if the affections weren't being absorbed like liquid fire into his skin. So thirsty for it.- i'm down for the low stress stuff. DENNAB: ... -falls quiet and then just struts off. Leading the way to the dorm room.- what kinda stuff? KAVI: well. for one you look like you need a hug and several naps... are you hungry babe? =maybe he should've hounded him a bit more= KAVI: or... do you wanna get away? we can go to my mom's place... vannylociraptor - Yesterday at 11:24 PM DENNAB: -rubs at his face and shakes his head. HHH, full body shake.- nah, i ate already. i'm good!!!! DENNAB: i just want a shower... or whatever. -they get to the dorm room and Dennab peeks, wondering if Satomi was home. It didn't look like she was.- KAVI: ok... =watches him and rubs his shoulder... Satomi didn't seem present which was good.= we'll just shower and chill out yeah? KAVI: =He looks over Dennab and... usually he felt like he could help him. That he had a handle on most things but right now he wasn't so sure... he still knows Dennab of course but. Some things you don't know how to help= you wanna talk about anything? DENNAB: -lets the both of them in. As Kavi can see, his side of the room looks scarcely used...- nah, it's just... one of those things??? i don't know what's on my mind except just. RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. FUCKERY. DENNAB: -makes his way to the bathroom.- let's talk about you instead. KAVI: if you're sure man... =watches him more. Observing him and his side of the room.= KAVI: uh... well, like i said i've been chilling with Nellie and Auryhn a bunch KAVI: me and Nel got like a spa thing we're gonna do tomorrow also, oh, lol KAVI: so, i was out and about today right and i see Auryhn doin his like.... mountain man fuckin hackity swordy swing exercises KAVI: and then Jareth is there doing his thing too, long story short there was a shady sword deal and he was like, at Jareth, i'll get you a sword if you wanna trade for some clothes for me and my main man Kavzizzle lol.... KAVI: =gets out his Space Jammies and pokes at Dennab's stuff.... where's he been if this room hasn't been used= vannylociraptor - Yesterday at 11:45 PM DENNAB: -Painting vigorously... he twitches and shifts on his feet, gathering up his stuff for a bath.- sounds like you been busy as HELL. but i mean?? that's good??? wish i could have been there. DENNAB: be there. or-- yeah. -shuffles into the bathroom, avoiding looking at Kavi.- it sounds fun. KAVI: yeah.... you should come hang KAVI: uh, we can do like regular lunches and shit =Follows him, eyeballing the twitches= get everyone together... DENNAB: i think i'm good lookin' at all the status updates and SHIT first. -Oh. That came out more biting than he intended. Fucking... the regret sets on him immediately as he stops in his tracks. Wringing his towel.- i'd just ruin your fun, bro. KAVI: =Yeah.. that was a bite and not the good kinda either. Kavi walks around to Dennab's front and tries to take the hands wringing the towel= KAVI: no.... you wouldn't KAVI: =sighs= man KAVI: i dunno, shit's.... stressful and crazy KAVI: you can't lock yourself away though that's bad news bro KAVI: we can be doin shit together, we can go hang out and see sights and there's tons of fun here DENNAB: -He doesn't fight Kavi taking the towel from his hands but... the general kind and patient way he did it was more than enough to bring a stinging wetness to Dennab's eyes. It was more than he ever treated himself. His hands drop to his sides.- DENNAB: but why tho?? what's the point? if i end up feelin' like i'm just holdin' you back??? you deserve... to be out there????? hangin' out and laughin' and singin' and preformin' not-- DENNAB: waitin' around for me to get my SHIT together and come out and be there for you???????? DENNAB: or feel like-- no. KNOW you could be doin' so much better than me??? he's right there in front of me! he's been there, i FUCKIN' know he has! KAVI: no, no you're not holdin me back.... Den-- =he furrows his eyebrows= what?? KAVI: babe, no. it's not... nothing is a competition? you need me so i want to be here and i want to help you work through this i just-- i dunno what, to-- i want to be here for you DENNAB: i know!!! that's why i know it's not your FUCKIN' problem! it's not fair of me to think it or say it or ANYTHIN' cuz it's not my goddamn RIGHT. i should be happy but i'm not!!!!!!!! -His face just screws up even more. Copper streaks down his cheeks and ears pinned, he's gross in the face and knows it.- DENNAB: i'm just BATSHIT wantin' you to only pay attention to me and want me even tho i'm just??? me????? what the FUCK is so great about me??? who do i think i am?????? DENNAB: i only want you but like??? how the FUCK is any of this fair??????? it's not! i'm the one doin' this to you! KAVI: =makes a bit of a face but tries to keep talking, abandoning the towel to hold Dennab's hands= Den, look at me KAVI: you are so, fucking, important. you are, you're so goddamn good dude i know who you are! KAVI: you're nice and thoughtful and you got so much fuckin love to give but you also kick your own ass a lot and you... you're hurt okay? but that's-- KAVI: it's, we can, i..... i want, we can compromise? KAVI: spend more time together which is the fuckin ideal lol.... right? =Looks over his face hopeful, maybe that could help... maybe it was enough to ease him a little= DENNAB: why? -pitiful and tearful.- i love that... you make anywhere you're at your own. i'm not goin' anywhere, i just... DENNAB: can't stand that i'm the one tellin' you that you can't. -rubs his eyes, head hanging low. Unable to meet the hopeful look on Kavi's face- you can't fix me. i ain't gonna stop. even when i have it good, i find a way to ruin it. DENNAB: that's not... fair.... that's not what you deserve... Mishroom - Today at 12:47 AM KAVI: =He just searches Dennab's face, expression falling into worry and edging on hurt and desperation= i.... don't i get to decide that? KAVI: i get to chose what's good for me or what i deserve or whatever the fuck i-- so, maybe if i can't wait-- fuck no, KAVI: you don't HAVE to be fixed! KAVI: you're so fucking good you're so good, Dennab you are so goddamn good! KAVI: i'm not LETtING you ruin a goddamn thing DENNAB: -he flares back, similarly hurt and desperate and feeling so awful for it. The worst.- so, what we just??????????? DENNAB: pretend like aurhyn ain't been wantin' to put the moves on you since before we started bein' a thing???? he's moon over the FUCKIN' mountains for you!!!!! and like why wouldn't he be?????? he was the one bein' a threat enough that i thought-- FUCK. DENNAB: i'm never goin' to see kavi around after this! how long's it gonna be before he takes off and forgets about me too??? how FUCKED up is that to think before jumpin' into datin' someone????? it's wrong, kavi! it's really, really wrong! KAVI: i.... =Oh.... he just... frowns at that....... not sure if Dennab meant that how he said it.... That he was just kind of jumping ship on people and latching onto other people.= KAVI: =That he just left and forgot about Sapire and that he might do the same thing to him= ....n... no KAVI: i, KAVI: wouldn't do that to you KAVI: i love you and i just.. want us to be OKAY =he's tearing up but its not about him but maybe he is being too much of a flirt. His mind racing while he tries to shift things about= no, i'm KAVI: we're okay KAVI: it's okay, we're okay we can fix it DENNAB: we shouldn't... HAVE to FUCKIN' fix it if it wasn't broken to start with???????? -He feels choked up, immobile on the spot to be the one doing this. Saying these things. It's a knife to the bloodpusher.- there's nothin'... FUCKIN' wrong with you, kav. KAVI: .. yes there IS i'm not, you know i'm not.. i fucking..... STAY in my head all the time! i-i get so fucked up on my anxiety and stupid fucking peer perceptance that i end up in some shitty expectation spiral and when i fuckin break that i flip my shit??? KAVI: i don't, i'm not PERFECT, i fuckin need to, i can't, i don't =He's crying now, lip shaking= i'm a fuckin TRY HARD and i'm good at it and i fuckin, flirt too fuckin much and that DOESN'T HELP KAVI: I have problems too we're BOTH in the shit DENNAB: when the FUCK is flirtin' too much an issue??? it's not! HOLY FUCK. DENNAB: the issue is you tryin' hard and just tryin' makes you like???? eons of FUCKIN' good and great and maybe not perfect????? DENNAB: but good!!!! -rubs his hands into his hair aggressively, muscling through the brunt of the heartache.- it ain't no surprise people are drawn to you. i mean, i was??? am????? currently am bein'???? KAVI: it's not good it's fucki- what... what do i have to DO? =He sniffs and just opens his arms he wants to make things like they are. He wants them to be like they were, he didn't want to lose Dennab he COULDN'T lose him= KAVI: i just... i want us how we are... i want, tell me what the fuck i have to do i don't want, to- KAVI: ..what can i do for you? DENNAB: i don't want it either but???? how the FUCK do we make somethin' like this work?? -It's not a question at Kavi but to themselves. Each other.- maybe we just don't..... focus on it??? DENNAB: we just... -vague gestures before dropping his hands down in defeat.- don't do the romance thing a while?? see how like.... DENNAB: that works out for us. if we end up workin' out then we do and if not, then... DENNAB: it just goes back to how it was. before we started mackin' and SHIT. cuz that was like... -rubs his arm, expressioned pained.- never more important than just. DENNAB: plain lovin' you. KAVI: =There's a lot of pain to go around... he feels a heavy hurt in his chest and he knows.... they. It's not forever. It's, maybe it just needs to be some time to calm down.. it could be helpful for Dennab. It might help him. Maybe being the other way was better... still that doesn't make it hurt any less= KAVI: =He's crying but he nods anyway and just. Sucks it back up. He just takes a breath and shoves it down and nods again= i... yeah, i uh.. KAVI: yeah.... just, bein there KAVI: that's more, that's more important.... uh... i'm still. here KAVI: for anything, everything i'm still here.. DENNAB: -he's gotta touch him then, or at least pull him into a groudy hug. What with the lack of a shower and all. He smells heavily of corn chips and dried paint.- DENNAB: -none of this stops him from burying in face right into his hair.- i'm sorry this is all such... DENNAB: (fuck shit.) KAVI: =It's such a good smell.... it's a smell he's come to love. It's Dennab and being so close to him and wrapped up in it just makes him want to start crying again. His hands come to Dennab's sides then to his back where he clings hard= KAVI: no...just...it'll be ok KAVI: =buries his face in Dennab's shoulder= (... it can help... but it's definitely fuck shit) DENNAB: -easily lifts this soft bara with all his wiry strength, just to hug him even closer. Always stronger than he looks.- i FUCKIN' love you from the whole goddamn moons and back. all of them sumava BITCHES moons. KAVI: =HUP, there he goes and that does get him to smile a little. Giving Dennab a good squeeze= hah, i love you too, so much okay? =He really wants him to know that... that he was worth so much but... ugh. Maybe he shouldn't dwell on it so much= DENNAB: yeah baby doll. -scritches a hand into the back of his hair.- i know.

#decastichamazifier #dennab logs #in which dennab says he's cool but then turns out to not be cool at all

0 notes