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lazuliquetzal · 2 years ago

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Comedy Is A Lie: I’m Going To Explain The Joke And It’s Going To Make Everything Worse

A buddy asked me why I cut a good joke from one of my fics and my immediate answer was “it killed the tension,” which, upon reflection, is a pathetic answer that is mostly inaccurate and does not even come CLOSE to how much thought I put into comedy in my writing. So I guess I’m going to write this out and excise the demon of over-explanation.

Part The First: What Is Funny

The biggest thing I try and keep in mind when writing editing comedy (and anything, really, but especially for comedy) is rhythm. Lots of parts to rhythm! Most obvious is the word-to-word/sentence-to-sentence flow. Timing is a really important aspect of verbal comedy, which is why performance is a good medium to use. You get to control the delivery of every sentence and the spaces in between. But when you’re writing, you have significantly less control over how a reader will interpret the rhythm: all you can do is word your sentences as best as you can and give them rhythm cues via punctuation. (This is why I use so many em dashes and commas… I'm working on that…)

The other part to rhythm is on a more macro scale. There are jokes that will roll along with the flow of a story. For me, these are jokes that don't deviate from the context of the scene too much. They connect one subject to the next, or they build off of each other (a ‘yes, and’ sequence, for example). Alternatively, the joke is delivered in a really understated way. Like passing off something objectively batshit as status quo. Either way, they flow!

Then there are jokes that will halt a scene in its tracks. These are jokes that recontextualize a situation, or make a particularly large leap from the current topic. Or, you've been setting up for this punchline for a while and this joke is payoff. Or the joke is just really, really funny. These are the kind of jokes where you need to give the characters (or the reader) a beat to process them. Sometimes. We’ll get back to that.

Part the Second: How Is Funny

So the point of all that rhythm stuff is that comedy has a flow! If every line is a witty one-liner, none of the lines are witty one-liners! If every joke is a one-hit-KO, you have left your reader unconscious. Basically, if you are constantly being #Funny, you become repetitive and predictable, and that is the death of tension (and humor is a tension-driven element).

One way to think of comedic pacing is setup (AKA building tension) and punchline (AKA payoff). It’s a balancing act: the more you build up tension, the more satisfying the payoff is going to be, but if you spend too long building up, you start dragging. You want the reader to think, “I can’t wait for the punchline!” and not, “oh my god, PLEASE get to the punchline already.”

Fun way to make the tension last longer is to put all those flow-y connector jokes along the way. The reader’s anticipating the Joke, so by giving them little jokes, it meets their expectations in little ways so that they don’t get too antsy.

Hey, what’s tension, you ask?

Part The Third: Why Is Funny

When I read a book, there are two emotions that get me to turn the page:

I don’t know what’s going to happen next, and I’m curious!

I know X is going to happen, and I’m anticipating it!

That’s tension. (Something something semantics—I’ve never taken a creative writing class, I don’t have a vocabulary)

You can have the calmest, low-stakes fluffiest fic in the world but as long as your readers are experiencing either curiosity or anticipation, Congrats! You have tension! I, however, like putting readers on fast-paced rollercoasters, so that’s the lens through which I’m tackling this section, which is: how do I use jokes in a story structure context? What purpose does a clown serve?

I mentioned earlier that some jokes are bricks to the face: they demand to be processed. Most of the time, I put high-impact jokes in places where I need the story to “reset” in a way: force a beat so the reader can process both the joke and the plot. That’s using humor to release tension. Literally. Laughter relieves stress.

But! You can also use those jokes to make the tension even worse! If you drop a bomb and immediately press forward, no processing allowed, you get stressful comedy. You want to laugh, but also a bunch of other stuff is happening and it feels kind of rude to laugh, so you get stressed. Sometimes humor can undermine a climactic moment, but if you use the right joke in the right spot you create shrimp emotions. If you’ve read DotF ch8 you know what I’m talking about.

Jokes also just make for good plot points? A lot of jokes are built on recontextualization. Everybody loves a good twist/reversal/surprise in a plot. Just make a joke and re-frame it, and bam! You’ve plotted! (Everything I’ve ever written started off as a joke.)

Wait, What Was The Question?

Why did I cut the joke? It was a waste of a brick to the face. It was too referential, it required the audience to know/agree with something completely unrelated to the story, it didn’t build upon what I already established. It ruined the rhythm.

I need to emphasize that, despite all my Thoughts on this, the way I appraise my jokes is 80% vibe-based. I probably could have kept the joke, and it would have been totally fine. But I would know. I would know that my intended rhythm is broken… it would haunt me until the end of time…

#this isn't even getting onto building a Comedic Cast or nailing down a Comedic Characterization or Comedy-As-Action or Varying Your Humor #I'M JUST SAYING #my writing tends toward stupid crack comedy but i take my crack comedy extremely seriously #the short rule is that if it's funny it's valid #the long rule is that the more effort you put into something the funnier it becomes #it's about PURPOSE #writing #lazuli writes #comedy #lazuli talks

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c-is-for-circinate · 6 months ago

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MCU Rewatch #3: THOR (2011)

General Impressions: I'm allowed to like this one for reasons unrelated to objective quality! I'm also allowed to dislike it for same!

Thor does a good job at a bunch of things. It manages to really succinctly outline what Asgard's deal is, who the major players are, and how this complete fantasy world works, while remaining in the context of a two-hour movie that mostly doesn't even take place there. It's very funny in places! It's not at all a deep movie, but it's entertaining and fantastical and that's fun. This is -- and was! -- the perfect movie to watch in a cold movie theater during a hot summer, munching popcorn and explosions, and that's a perfectly valid thing to be.

Anyway, for me the best parts and the worst parts of this movie were the same, ie Loki. We'll get there -- he was by far the most complex part of this really quite simple film, and that has its plusses and minuses!

All in all, there's nothing wrong with a simple film, and for the most part that's what I'll say about Thor: it was a simple film with good fight scenes, and nothing much was wrong with it.

OH. Except the sound balancing/editing. That was absolutely criminal and whoever was in charge of sound design for this movie should be shot, not just for their crimes here but for the many years of emulation to come.

The Hero: Like the movie, simple but endearing, with a genuine heart.

Thor is definitely not as compelling as Tony Stark, but he's likeable, and his emotional arc is definitely both present and the most genuine part of this movie. In a lot of ways, what we see here is that Thor is a big kid. He makes decisions without thinking about consequences. He does not bother to try and read a room. He's arrogant in a way that reflects his position, but he's also arrogant in a way that suggests he hasn't considered his position -- having his powers, hammer, and home taken away from him is a shock because he's never thought about the fact that he had them in the first place. Getting sent to Earth is more or less a boy being grounded by his father to try and teach him responsibility. Thor is almost a coming-of-age movie, except that it never quite feels like Thor actually gets there -- he's better, by the end, but not quite a man standing on his own two feet just yet. Breaking the Bifrost is a sacrifice on his part, not a decision carrying the weight of the responsibilities Thor will have as an adult and future king.

That said, I really enjoyed the sincerity of his confusion and grief over being told Odin was dead. He's a hurt little kid, asking his brother if please, can I go home. The scene with Selvig in the bar is one of the best in the movie, with Thor admitting vulnerability and doubt and regret over how he left things with his father. (And again, telling that all of these are feelings about his dad, with a man old enough to be a dad/granddad, and that's the energy Thor needs to lean on right now -- Selvig, not Jane, gets Thor's emotional breakthrough moments, because Thor is a tall handsome child who hasn't grown past needing a parent.)

Also, I vaguely remember some fan back-and-forth about whether Thor is kind of dumb, or very smart but trolling, or very smart and just ignorant of local customs. Upon rewatch, Thor may or may not be smart, but he doesn't particularly care. He does shit on Earth because he doesn't care enough to pay attention to whether it's appropriate. Nobody else is smashing coffee mugs, and the diner is totally lacking in raucous celebratory energy, but Thor wants to be raucous and celebrate, so he's going to do so whether it's appropriate or not. Doesn't matter that he's been driven around in cars his whole time on Earth, he doesn't spend thirty seconds to think about what might be appropriate travel, he's going to make assumptions. This is more of that self-centered teenager logic, where he doesn't bother to try and think about the existence of points of view outside his own.

The Villain: If I end up having Loki Feels by the end of this marathon I'm going to stab something. I refuse.

Anyway, Loki was the most complex part of this really quite simple film, which has good and bad sides! I can and will be objective about how well/poorly that complexity was rendered, but sitting here thirteen years after this movie came out, I can admit it: I really fucking hate the Evil Adopted Kid trope. It's a shitty trope and I don't like it, for personal reasons, and that is always going to color my experience with Loki in any movie where he shows up

That aside, Loki's actual motivations and plans in this movie were baffling and kind of a mess. The problem is that Loki is a complex character, with a lot of doubts, full of love and jealousy and insecurity and pride, but we very rarely get to see him from the inside. It feels like the movie was really invested in surprising people with the end twist of Loki killing Laufey in front of Odin, revealing that actually he was on Asgard's side all along! and does not hate his family! So therefore, for the movie before that, we had to be witness to everyone else's doubts about him and only seeing his actions from the outside, to keep that a surprise. I can see how it'd be effective on a first watch, when the suspense of 'what is this guy going to do and what side is he on?' can pull a viewer through the movie. On a rewatch, knowing what Loki's ultimate deal is, it just feels confusing and inconsistent. What exactly was your plan for when your dad woke up, Loki? Did you actually intend to leave Thor on Earth forever? Were you or were you not actually hoping to kill your brother? What the fuck was your endgame here?

I think there is probably a very interesting story here where Loki's plans seem muddled because he's muddled, awash with emotions and doubts and the inner conflict between love of his brother, twisting jealousy, the objective truth that Thor would be a terrible king, and the fact that Loki, like Thor, is also still very much a grown-up kid. He's making dumb decisions by the seat of his pants and his motivations are contradictory and messy. That tracks, with what we see, but we don't get to see that because this movie is too invested in its twist and its simplicity. Allowing Loki the time and space to be this complicated would steal the entire show from his simpler, genuine brother, and because the movie itself wanted to be simple and straightforward, there wasn't room to hold the layers of its complicated villain. No wonder the Tumblr girlies went wild for him.

The Ensemble: Weak romantic lead with an A+ comic sidekick, hobbled by needing to run two casts at once.

I think this is where we really see Thor suffer from the problem of having to establish two casts at the same time. The New Mexico side of the equation, Jane and Selvig and Darcy, simply doesn't get time for character development. We know next to nothing about Jane, except that she cares about her research and once dated a doctor. Why this research? How did she get into it? How long has she been in New Mexico? What university does she even work for??? It's true that we don't get a lot of details about, say, Pepper's backstory, but it doesn't matter because we understand from the very beginning how she fits into her life and also Tony's life. Jane is a brief three-day whirlwind in Thor's existence, and that's not enough time for him or us to understand who she is or why we should love her. It feels like the movie went through the motions of having a Lady Love Interest, and it doesn't work out great.

Darcy and Selvig actually fare better, simply because there's less need for them to be more than they are. All we know about Darcy is that she's a polisci major who's working a summer internship way outside of her field, but we don't need to know more -- she's there to be fucking hilarious and indeed she is. Selvig is there to help facilitate Jane's choices and Thor's emotional development, and he does his job well.

The Asgardians have a similar problem. Thor's four friends are basically interchangeable (Sif's only notable distinction being that she's a girl). Thor's mom...shows up? We get the impression that there's more going on with Odin than we've seen, but I wonder if some of that is just me remembering Ragnarok -- either way, given that Odin is literally in a coma for 3/4 of this movie, it doesn't mean much. Heimdall probably has more characterization than anyone else in Asgard other than Loki, and that is...not a lot.

It's a lot of just not very much, across the board.

The Franchise: We're already seeing the formula start to get built and tested in the moviemaking labs.

It's fascinating watching Thor on screen directly after two back-to-back movies of Tony Stark, because Thor has some of Tony's same growth arc with none of his fascinating complexity. On the surface they've got the same vague sketched outline: careless, self-involved privileged prettyboy must learn to think outside himself and care for others to become a hero. Thor takes that plotline in a very different direction, which means the movie doesn't feel same-y, but a more cynical viewer might wish to speculate about what boardroom or producer's office suggested that the writing team follow that.

I think Thor actually does better about wasting time trying to set up the future of the franchise. We don't spend a ton of time on Coulson and Hawkeye here -- if we watched this movie with no idea who they were or that they were here to set up anything at all, they'd function fine as Generic Government People (with an inexplicable thing for archery). I think the place where the setting-up hits worst, actually, might be with Loki: he needs to be complex and sympathetic enough to be interesting as the main villain of Avengers, but we can't resolve anything about him before that. (Not sure how far they'd planned the plot of Avengers at this point in the production run, but I wouldn't be surprised if they'd already called him as their bad guy.)

Thinking about the big thematic MCU premise of a superhero world without secret identities -- the choice of Thor as our next hero in the franchise, somebody who neither has nor needed a secret identity to begin with, is clever there. They're not going back on the freedom from overworked secret identity bullshit that they've promised, but they're also not stuck making a second movie about the lack of them, which would just end up looking like a retread of IM2. The secrets we do find here are all kept by SHIELD, which is clearly trying to keep superhero stuff in, and just as clearly is not managing it. (Loki also has a secret identity, with his discovery of his Jotunn heritage...hmm, much to think about there for the future.)

We pretty much lose all themes around the military-industrial complex here, and the movie is probably the better for it, considering what a hash IM2 made of the subject.

VERDICT: A breezy, light 6/10

Thor is in every respect a perfectly fine movie. It's simple, it's straightforward, it manages to do a bunch of things and establish a brand new fantasy setting without actually putting much depth into any of them.

I suspect that, as I get further on in this franchise, 'perfectly fine and no great flaws' is going to be the verdict on a lot of these movies, and I'm going to start dropping my number rating lower and lower every time something shows up that's simply fine. For now, with the context of only IM1 and 2, 'does light summer adventure flick competently with some sincerity and doesn't fuck it up' feels like an improvement over IM2's messiness, so that's where I'm rating it.

Except for the sound design. Anyone who thinks their battle sequences need sound effects roughly 800% of a standard dialogue scene should be forced to watch their own movies with the sound on a pair of unremovable headphones set to a flat however-loud-it-needs-to-be-to-hear-people-talking. Perhaps, after the deafness ensues, they will change fucking careers.

#C watches MCU 2024 #Thor #MCU #every version of this character and title are just different variants on saying Thor #well and also I guess #Loki #oh Loki #not looking forward to the Avengers rewatch segment about you

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dailycharacteroption · 1 year ago

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Races Among the Stars 8: Kobolds

And we end off this week’s special with your, mine, and the internet’s favorite: Kobolds. Those delightful little draconic scamps that have wormed their way into our hearts (and other bodily organs) over the years.

Kobolds weren’t initially in Starfinder officially, partially because when the system first launched, the writers had trouble finding a niche for them in the setting that already had so many small-sized lovable scamp species in it, ranging from old classics like gnomes and halflings, to the recently promoted core option of the ysoki, and of course the Pathfinder staple of goblins, it’s hard to justify yet another such species, or so goes the claim. Personally the fact that there’s literally a planet in the Pact Worlds with an entire continent of dragon-ruled nation-states seemed like the perfect basis for me, but that is just my two cents.

In any case, kobolds are back, first appearing in the Alien Character Deck along with other Golarion staples, and later being expanded upon in Interstellar Species!

But kobolds have changed a bit in the millennia since the days of Pathfinder, so let’s go over that real quick-like!

When the Gap ended, kobolds were… conspicuously absent from the multiverse, and many assumed that they shared the same fate as the missing world of Golarion.

However, a century later (which is still several centuries before the current point in the timeline), the first experiments with witchwarping magic began, and while those first forays mostly brought into existence strange machines that seemed to be non-functional within the constraints of local physics and reality, with them came reptilian humanoids which were apparently, by all analysis and their own admission, the missing kobolds, leading to an entire population of them inhabiting Absalom Station and beyond.

Where things get especially strange, however, is the effect these first-generation kobolds had on reality. They had in their possession keys to empty apartments that somehow nobody had noticed before, credentials for jobs that seemed not to exist before. It was as if reality was bending to give the kobolds a place in the world. Whether this place was folded into the main reality when they arrived or existed before and was obscured is another mystery.

It seems apparent that during the Gap, kobold-kind, or at least some of it, saw whatever even the Gap obscures coming and use advanced reality warping technology and magic to shunt themselves off into a pocket reality somewhere between another universe and a demiplane, perhaps the border of the main one, until the event had past and further witchwarping events and experiments called them back. Of course, wherever they were, they did not escape the effects of the Gap itself, and have no memory of that time.

The result is an origin that is one part an excellent way to give kobolds a new refreshing backstory in this far-future age, as well as a funny meta-joke about literally injecting kobolds back into the setting.

However, it should be noted that while that first generation warped reality around themselves, kobolds born into the setting’s universe properly have not manifested nearly as many strange, reality warping events, though the secrets of witchwarping are now heavily associated with kobolds in the same way that draconic power and magic is.

Starfinder-era kobolds were introduced after Pathfinder Second Edition came out, meaning that they have the distinctive appearance from that edition, which I was not a fan of, but the design has grown on me over time.

Kobold are small reptiles with somewhat oversized craniums covered in scales that come in a variety of colors ranging across the rainbow and even rare metallic shades, reflecting the traditional colors of chromatic and metallic dragons and plenty in-between. Additionally, they also possess horns, most commonly two oversized backwards-sweeping ones, though some sport up to 8 smaller horns. They also possess sharp teeth and a long tail for counterbalancing their craniums, though their small size and unimpressive physiques usually make these unappealing options for self-defense.

It is also notable that most kobolds also go through rare periods of flux, their bodies changing as the witchwarping magic that infuses them makes changes. Usually these are benign, things like bouts of nausea, developing a new allergy or repelling pathogens, but others are more extreme, manifesting dramatic spell effects. The most disruptive are thankfully rare, but aspiring witchwarpers use them as the basis for their magic, developing and controlling these warps.

Kobolds are a communal species, and so they often seek to aid their communities whenever possible, and a kobold child can be expected to be raised not just by their parents but by the whole community. However, kobolds also have a deep pride as a people, stemming from the truth that they know in their heart of hearts: kobolds are dragons, and the fact that their forms a diminutive and weak is one of the universe’s great injustices. Plenty believe that in whatever reality they were in before returning, they wore the mighty shape of true dragons, while others believe that this is a convenient folktale. Either way, this has birthed several philosophies, including those that seek to unlock their draconic heritage, those that seek to reclaim the power and wealth they believe they deserve, and of course those that seek to ignore all that and just live their lives in the reality they find themselves in.

Kobolds are agile and passionate, but frail.

That being said, their scales provide some decent protection in a pinch.

With their keen minds, these tiny reptiles have a special knack for engineering and physics, true to their long history of trap and weapon building.

The colors of a kobold’s scales are not just for show. Indeed, that coloration indicates some genetic similarities with various forms of dragon, granting them resistance to acid, cold, electricity, of flame to match.

Kobolds have a lot of fun options as characters. Their charisma and association with the art makes them excellent witchwarpers, not to mention other charisma classes like solarian, envoy, and the like. Their agility also makes them good picks for operatives as well as most any ranged combat build, including ranged soldiers, evolutionists (particularly those seeking a draconic form), and so on. Their love of building and intricate devices also makes mechanic and technomancer thematic choices as well, and biohackers might seek to unlock the secrets of dragonhood in their genetics. They also have a history of magic, making mystic and especially precog good choices as well. Their only real weakness seems to be their con, making nanocyte, vanguard, and any especially tanky builds somewhat difficult, but not impossible. Additionally, beyond classes, the Interstellar Species book has lots of feats meant to represent kobolds unlocking their draconic potential, ranging from wings, a breath weapon, and outright gaining a draconic alternate form!

And that’s it for this week! Through a curious accident of how I’ve been picking which species to cover, this week has been mostly species that are relics of the fantasy origins of the setting, which is neat to point out. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed it, and look forward to more options next week!

#starfinder #race #kobold #Alien Character Deck #Interstellar Species

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illegalvampire · 2 months ago

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Hiii! Welcome to my blog! :3

Aka the only social media I actively use, lol. Here, I post a variety of things! It's mostly Detroit: Become Human (DBH) related things, memes/funny text posts, politics, and my original works (art, fanfic, etc.), however this blog is mostly just a catch-all for things I'm interested in and/or enjoy! :)

Here's a little bit about me:

✦ My name's Aves! :D

✦ I use she/they/he pronouns! You can call me what you like, as long as you call me 🤙😉

✦ Genderqueer, bisexual, gay mess 🏳️‍🌈✨️

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✦ Self-proclaimed cool person 😎

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Reed900 (Gavin Reed x RK900) [DBH]

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Blorbos🌟 and Fav Characters:

DBH: 🌟Connor (RK800), 🌟Nines (RK900), Gavin Reed

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Random robots: Rozzum Unit 7134 (The Wild Robot), Eva (Wall-E), prolly more that I can't think of rn

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I will edit this post as needed for my ever-changing internet presence to reflect my ever-changing life! (Last edit: 11/28/2024)

I think that's all! Thank you for reading! Happy travels on my blog, internet friend!!!

Stay safe and drink enough water, love you <3

~Aves :)

#pinned post #pinned intro #pinned info #info post #introduction #blog intro #mine #illegalvampire

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bethl8765 · 3 years ago

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Sceptic - Crit Reflection

SCEPTIC:

Sofia Akram - Director

Beth Lindsay - Writer, Production Design, Boom Operator

Tom Spurin - Producer, Sound Recordist, Sound Designer

Alex McNeill - Director of Photography, Editor

It was so lovely to see everyone’s work at the crit on Thursday :) every film was enjoyable and successful in different ways, and I’m really looking forward to working with more people on the course! I feel inspired to just go out and create more! I thought our group did a great job, and even though we were all very sick of seeing and hearing it (spiritual shade of my beloved one...) I think we should be proud of our film.

some key points of feedback -

- Performances were great, especially Director. Actors worked well together.

- WHIP-PAN - everyone loves the whip-pan.

- Drug scene - mixed opinions. Was it needed? The action itself needed to be more believable.

- Script was a success, pacing was great. A funny and enjoyable film!

- Sound design - very underwhelming towards the end.

I wrote this script after the film still task, thinking of how I could subvert the gothic horror genre and wanting to create something fun and unique. I agreed with all my original script feedback, most of which regarded health and safety on set – in the original script I had planned to use lit candles and have Julie smoke a cigarette, neither of which were allowed. To work around this I changed the smoking to snorting cocaine, which received mixed feedback at the crit. Many people said that if the cocaine was there to make the story more ambiguous it didn’t work because drugs don’t kick in that quickly, I totally understand this confusion...but I think I stand by my decision as Julie’s drug taking was more of a reflection of her character and her being fed up with the director and film she is in, rather than her hallucinating.

I was production designer for the film, so after finalising the script I got to work on designing mood boards and character profiles. I built upon what we had done for the original film still, using candles, books and random antique items to create a realistic looking shrine. It seems to have been a success as the production design feedback was positive! Several people mentioned that the contrast between film world and real world was achieved well, and that the space we had was a great choice and was used well to add to the tone and atmosphere.

During pre-production, I felt that sometimes the lines began to blur between roles. Obviously I wanted to help distribute the workload for the others after I had completed my production design work, however I felt that sometimes this backfired and I ended up with a lot on my plate that wasn’t actually related to my role.

As I wrote in my shoot reflection, most things on set ran smoothly! We had some issues with kit (one headphone not working, LAV’s not recording) but I do not feel any of this hindered us in terms of the success of the final film. In fact, we all felt mostly positive at the end of the shoot, aside from the expected tiredness and nerves to see the footage! I have to praise Alex for that whip-pan - the film would not have been half as good without it.

The main piece of feedback we received was regarding sound design. In one shot in particular, where our main character is being haunted and there are objects being thrown into frame, we chose to foley most of the items. Recording this we thought went well – we had lots of objects in different shapes and sizes that we recorded in different ways (throwing them in different directions and with different force) however we didn’t import enough of these sounds into the edit making this moment underwhelming. Zoe described the sound design as being very “light” which I definitely agree with - there was so much potential there which we didn’t achieve, but I think we have learnt so much and may even go back soon and improve on what we have done already. We also chose a droning/scratching sound to accompany the final shot and follow on into our credits. This was a last minute choice. We originally had a buzzing, flash bang type sound which we felt was very cliched. I liked the sound we chose in the end, I thought it was creepy and different, insinuating the man from the picture is about to do something terrible to Julie, but this opinion wasn’t shared by everyone.

Our director wasn’t able to attend any of the sessions where we edited the sound, or recorded foley. This was mentioned in the crit and I feel it’s important to note that we exported our work several times and sent it to her, but communicating feedback via messenger was not exactly ideal for any of us. I think Tom, who was our sound designer, as well as me and Alex tried our best with the sound design, but towards the end struggled with time and ultimately things ended up being rushed. This was made even more difficult by the fact that our group only had 4 members, although I must say this was the only point when I felt we were disadvantaged to have one less member than the other groups. It would be so easy for all of us to be internally pointing fingers at who they feel caused certain issues regarding sound, but honestly it was a collective group issue. I hope we can all learn from it and move forward positively!

When the submission was due, we had issues exporting the film. The colour was very over saturated meaning we had to wait 2 hours after the submission deadline for someone from the Screen Academy to help us export properly. This was stressful to say the least! In the end though, we managed to create something fun and (mostly) successful, which is a big achievement. I think I have been too harsh on the film at times, mostly because it became the bane of my existence for many days...but I had a lot of fun working on it and I have learnt so much. I hope the rest of my group are proud and shared the enjoyment of making this!

#filmgenre

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lemonietrinket · 4 years ago

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Cosiest Place on Earth ||| Kun x Reader

Summary: Where Kun is relaxing in peace, and a certain someone decides its a prime time to ‘annoy’ him Genres: Sickly sweet fluff, plus some humour Warnings: Tiny bit of scary but it’s not actually anything scary (if that make sense) Word count: 1259 Song: Heart Flutter - W24 AN: an edit of an old piece revamped to—hopefully—a much higher standard. reading the original wasnt.... painful but it wasnt exactly fun either :/ im so sorry guys for subjecting you to my writing back then

gender neutral reader

~~~

The night was oddly still, a starless sky beckoning darkness across the thin face of the moon, an icy wind trickling through the smallest gap in the window behind a set of closed curtains, encouraging them to breathe in the shadows. Despite this, Kun was soaking up the peace.

He loved his groupmates, he really did. They were extremely talented, funny and, on the whole, easy to get along with people. They were annoying sometimes yes, but they mostly did as they were told, and after hearing from other leaders at the award shows, he realised he could have had it a whole lot worse. However, the thing they were best at was reminding him of how precious some true quiet really was.

And so, as soon as they all became preoccupied with some new racing game he hadn’t been paying enough attention to remember the name of, he leapt at the chance. Cut to now, and Kun was curled up in his bed, buried neatly under three blankets to combat the cold that had defeated the radiator. He had shuffled himself into the corner of his bed, as close to the hushed lamp as he could get without the bulb blinding him from the gap in the very top of the shade, and bundled the covers beneath his feet to keep in as much warmth as possible. Book in hand, his eyes trickled across the page, occasionally having to jump back as soon as he caught his thoughts scattering.

He wasn’t used to the silence and it showed. As much as he relished in a small period of it, he couldn’t ignore the gnaw of unprovoked concern. His life and the ones of those around him were so hectic that as soon as that chaos stopped it felt like something had gone wrong.

He had been about to sigh when a creak from the door stopped him mid breath. Leaning to get a clearer look, hands slipping the bookmark between the pages as he went, he felt his eyes widen as an abnormal fear etched itself inside his stomach.

Between the gap approached a figure from the dark. It had pointed head and disproportionately long arms, with strangely hackled shoulders and no face to speak of. It approached so uneasily, and Kun was already glancing at the window so as to be ready if he needed to make an escape, until the creature’s foot reached the light’s boundary.

He recognised that leg.

“Y/N…!” he groaned, flopping back into the cushions behind his back and shoving his book to the side.

You came to a halt proudly in the light, staring at him confusedly from where you’d tightened the hood of your stolen jumper around your face. “What?”

“You scared me, love…!”

“Huh?” You looked down at the layers you had put on to try and fight the cold before turning back to take in just how dark the rest of the room. You couldn’t help but giggle as you continued to make your way to your boyfriend, “Oh, I’m sorry…!”

He scoffed, watching as you came to the side of the bed. “Pssh, no you’re not.”

“I am!” you whined, beginning to clamber across the mattress. Your destination? The cosiest place on earth.

Kun shook his head as he carefully began to lift the blankets up for you to join, chuckling as you finally reached him and immediately burrowed into his side while he tucked the blankets around you. “Cold?”

“Nope, wearing hoodies like this is just part of my new fashion statement,” you sassed, waiting for him to wrap his arm around you before you linked your cold legs with his, much to his dismay.

He yelped at the contact, kicking the blankets around your feet even more. “You are so lucky that I’m such a good boyfriend.”

You just laughed, nestling your nose further into his neck and releasing your hands from your sweater paws. Unfortunately for him they weren’t much warmer, and he practically shrieked as you clutched at his jumped beneath the covers.

“Jesus, Y/N—!”

“Are you though?” you slyly enquired. “A good boyfriend?”

“You think I’m not?”

You hummed. “Well, last time I checked good boyfriends can tell the difference between a cryptid and the best thing that has ever happened to them.”

His laughter was soft and rich, and it thrummed by your ear—immediately coaxing your smile into a full blown grin. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, huh?” he murmured, gentle hand easing your hood open and off to free your hair from its confines, just so he could ease it between his fingertips. “You’d better keep it down when you say that, I don’t think it would end well if the other’s found out.”

You snickered, pressing a chaste kiss to his neck before settling back down again. Kun knew you could hear how his heart skipped a beat at you and how precious you were, and he didn’t care a single bit. Pulling the covers further up so you would be warm enough, he traced his thumb across your temple, smiling as your eyes closed happily. The two of you dipped into a momentary quiet—not an uncommon occurrence between the two of you, as comfortable silence really was its own blessing—but it wasn’t long before you spoke up coyly.

“Kun?”

“Yes, love?”

“Would you still love me if I was a cryptid?”

His love-swarmed gaze didn’t change. “Of course I would,” he said, “but please don’t go out there and get yourself turned into one. And if you are one, well… you better tell me if you are, yeah?”

You chuckled, though he noticed the ease of tiredness in your voice. “I would tell you, baby, and I’m not, I promise.”

“Sounds like something a cryptid would say,” he whispered, smile simpering upon his lips at your sleepy one. You were too adorable for him to fully comprehend in words. “Would you like some music?”

You hummed a no, and so he reached for his book from where he had discarded it by his thigh, careful to not disturb you. “I’ll read again, if that’s ok?”

He had expected a little backlash perhaps, since it would mean you wouldn’t be able to have a hand stroking your arm—the shock, the horror! Kun had to admit, then, that he was surprised when you managed to work up the rest of your energy to ask, “Read to me?”

Opening the book as best he could with one hand and placing the bookmark on the bedside table, his heart swelled at your words.

“Of course,” he replied, planting a kiss to your crown, before he turned back to the paper, words much clearer to him now.

“Hundreds of fireflies drifted over the pool of water held back by the sluice gate, their hot glow reflected in the water like a shower of sparks. I closed my eyes and steeped myself in that long-ago darkness. I heard the wind with unusual clarity. A light breeze swept past me, leaving strangely brilliant trails in the dark. I opened my eyes to find the darkness of the summer night a few degrees deeper than it had been. I twisted open the lid of the jar and took out the firefly...”

With the warmth long seeped throughout your body, cradled in the arms of the man you knew would love you through thick and thin, it wasn’t long before the words dissipated into the air, as his tender voice lulled you into sleep.

~~~

an: book excerpt is in italics and is not mine! its from a book called Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami that i really recommend you read, if you are ok with very strong themes. i studied it for my english literature coursework and i didnt hate it once! even through all that rereading and stuff so.. yeah :))

if you enjoy please leave a comment or reblog with hashtags or drop something in my asks i dont mind sksksk they really help me keep want to write!

Masterlist

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brokehorrorfan · 4 years ago

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Unboxing HorrorPack - March 2021

HorrorPack is a subscription box featuring monthly shipments of four different horror movies on your choice of Blu-ray or DVD, including a limited edition title. As someone who collects horror movies and enjoys mystery boxes, it's right up my alley. I’ve detailed the films included in the March 2021 shipment below.

The only title I was familiar with in the package was Critters Attack, the fifth installment in the Critters franchise. Bobby Miller (The Cleanse) directs from a script by Scott Lobdell (Happy Death Day). Dee Wallace (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial), who starred in the 1986 original, returns to the series as a bounty hunter - although her character has a different name for apparent legal reasons. Tashiana Washington, Ava Preston (Rusty Rivets), Jack Fulton, and Jaeden Noel (Killjoys) also star, with Steve Blum (Star Wars Rebels) voicing the crites.

Despite being made on a low budget as a Syfy original movie, the film boasts impressive practical creatures. The designs are faithful to the Chiodo Brothers' classic crites, and they have just as much personality. The film introduces a friendly crite, like Gizmo to Gremlins; a bit of an odd choice but it mostly works. The one-dimensional human story - revolving around a babysitter (Washington) watching three kids when the small yet vicious aliens invade - is regularly broken up by bursts of carnage, earning the series' first R rating.

Critters Attack was released on Blu-ray (with DVD and Digital) in 2019 via Warner Brothers. Special features include: Engineering Gore: Designing Critters featurette, Critters: An Out-of-this-World Experience featurette, The Critter Ball featurette, and scene-specific audio commentary with Miller and a crite. It also came with a slipcover.

As a collector, the greatest appeal of HorrorPack is the exclusive Blu-ray. These limited edition titles are often indie movies that otherwise may never be available in high definition, with past exclusives including The Barn, Dead Hooker in a Trunk, Night of Something Strange, 4/20 Massacre, The Black Dahlia Haunting, and President's Day.

This month's limited edition Blu-ray is After Dark. The 2013 effort is directed by Rico Johnson, who co-wrote the script with Carl Earhart. Korrina Rico, Scott DeFalco, Jesse James Youngblood, Mekia Cox (Once Upon a Time), David Thomas Jenkins, Marisa Saks, Lane Compton, and Jonathan Nsien star. The only special feature is the trailer.

I was hoping to enjoy this one, but it's a painfully generic slasher with a finale reflecting the then-popular so-called "torture porn" trend. It also features hateful language that no longer flies in 2021. It follows a group of shallow teenagers - entitled bros and catty girls - on a Spring Break trip to the sand dunes. While the film is hindered by its low budget, no amount of money could have saved it. It's so cliche ridden that it almost feels like a parody - except it's not (intentionally) funny.

Killer Movie premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. Largely populated by TV talent, the cast features Paul Wesley (The Vampire Diaries), Kaley Cuoco (The Big Bang Theory), Gloria Votsis (White Collar), Jason London (Dazed and Confused), Al Santos (Jeepers Creepers 2), Adriana DeMeo (Without a Trace), Leighton Meester (Gossip Girl), Nestor Carbonell (Bates Motel), Torrey DeVitto (Pretty Little Liars), Robert Buckley (iZombie), and NSYNC's JC Chasez.

Reality TV director Jeff Fisher (The Challenge, The Simple Life) makes his feature debut as writer and director. Drawing on his background, the slasher follows a film crew in a small North Dakota town shooting a reality series about an underdog hockey team, but the focus shifts to true crime when a masked killer who films his murders strikes. The reality show-style talking head interstitials provide some levity but not enough to push it into horror-comedy territory, which could have improved the film. It has good production value, a strong cast, and a fun setup, but there are too many underdeveloped characters and subplots that merely pad the runtime.

Killer Movie was released on Blu-ray in 2009 by Phase 4 Films. Special features include a behind-the-scenes featurette and the theatrical trailer.

Child of Satan (also known as Neron) is a 2016 film co-directed by Mitesh Kumar Patel and Sam Son and written by Lekhraj Patel. Kacey Clarke (Resident Evil: Afterlife), Eric Roberts (The Dark Knight), Yves Bright, Caite Upton (The Amazing Race), James Martin Kelly, Raymond Forchion, Inger Tudor, and Kirk Bovill star.

Between the title and the artwork, it came as no surprise that this one is a riff on Rosemary's Baby. It doesn't bring anything new to the table, but it's so unintentionally campy that it's almost enjoyable... almost. After the premature birth of her son Neron (!), Allison (Clarke) begins to suspect there's something wrong with her baby, only to be dismissed by her husband (Bright) as the bodies of those close to her pile up. Roberts receives top billing despite limited screen time as a knowledgeable priest in an ill-fitting costume, though he earns his paycheck with his commitment to the balderdash he spews.

Child of Satan was released on Blu-ray in 2017 via Cinedigm and ITN Distribution. The lone special feature is a trailer.

From best to worst, I'd rank HorrorPack's March 2021 films as follows: Critters Attack, Killer Movie, Child of Satan, After Dark. While I wasn't a big fan of any of the selections this time around, the thrill of the unknown is what makes a mystery box so appealing. HorrorPack certainly delivers in that sense, along with the added allure of an exclusive/limited edition release. HorrorPack Blu-ray plans start at $24.99 for a single month and go as low as $22.74/month with an annual plan.

#critters attack #killer movie #child of satan #after dark #horrorpack #horror pack #unboxing #review #article #critters #dee wallace #eric roberts #kaley cuoco #leighton meester #paul wesley #jc chasez #torrey devitto

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bywordofaphrodite · 4 years ago

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Book Reviews 1 & 2: The Enchanted Wood and Adventures of the Wishing Chair by Enid Blyton

This review’s theme is magical children’s fiction ! Audience age range: early childhood !

Fun fact about me: I have fairy tales running through my head most hours of the day.

Magical lands and whimsical characters run freely through my mind any minute I have to spare, or even the ones I don’t. It has always been this way for me, whether in school, university or at work- when I am meant to be working on assignments or attending to patients in the hospital I work at- and Enid Blyton’s stories played a part in this, so it seems fitting I discuss her writing for my first post.

When faced with choosing a project for myself this semester, it was actually the memory of Enid Blyton’s novels that prompted me to decide to write book reviews of childhood favourites. I’d forgotten her name at first, and all that remained was an illustration of blue jelly and a boy with silver hair… and the name of the artist who illustrated my copies of the series: Georgina Hargreaves. One google search was all it took to remember it all! Then I ordered all three Magic Faraway Tree books and the Wishing Chair ones in the exact editions I had as a child, because I have no impulse control whatsoever.

Nostalgic review

Rating: ★★★★★

For my nostalgic review- otherwise known as my thoughts on these novels purely as I remember them from childhood- I’m giving five stars. They meant everything to me as a kid, and I reread them more than any other books I owned. I would choose a chapter before bed and travel into the magic lands at the top of the tree along with the main characters, exploring whatever good, evil or downright silliness happened to be up there at the time (and then stay there for a good few hours past my bedtime using the light under my door to squint at the pages and destroy my already dreadful vision just a little more for good measure. Sleep schedule who?)

I easily favoured the Magic Faraway Tree books over the Wishing Chair ones, though I loved them both dearly. I’m going to assume the reason behind this was because I preferred the tree to the chair, as- aside from Jo- I don’t recall ever having an affinity for any particular child amongst the main characters. I do also remember a great deal more of the goings on in the lands above the tree than I can the adventures in the chair, so it seems fair to say I read one a lot more than the other.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, these books cemented who I wanted to be when I grew up: a writer- a published author, to be specific- and an artist. Not just these two series, but anything Blyton wrote- her teen detective and boarding school series being notable favourites of mine. As detrimental as this dream has been to my family’s wish for me to become a lawyer, I must insist that everyone blame Enid Blyton for this and not me!

The Enchanted Wood Review

Post-read: ★★★

Synopsis: three children move from the city to a small country house with a forest out the back which they later come to know as the Enchanted Wood. There they come across a giant magical tree known as the Faraway Tree, where they befriend the many magical creatures living inside the tree, and explore the lands that settle above the tree every day.

Okay so! First up, I finished it so quickly. I’ve always been a very fast reader but even so I expected it would take several hours to read… it took roughly an hour despite minor interruptions by my siblings, so it’s very simplistic and easy to read. However… this level of simplistic is not, in this case, a good thing, at least in my opinion. I’ll elaborate on this further toward the end of this post, but the best word I can think of to describe the writing is ‘stunted’.

I read a few articles to see others’ thoughts on the novels, and one review stood out as being critical in multiple ways, some of which I agree and some I don’t really care about. I’ll link it here.

This review reflected a lot of the same points I considered upon rereading the books. Charming points: google buns and the Land of Birthdays; weak points: repetitive and a bit too holier than thou in the attempt to teach ‘lessons’. In terms of Flood’s (the review author) criticism, the renaming of the children from Jo, Bessie and Fanny to Joe, Beth and Frannie in new copies does not really bother me, although my own editions have the original names (the change of the children’s cousin from Dick to Rick was a wise choice, though Rick is an ugly name as well, but I digress). As with many modern changes to old novels, older generations criticise ‘politically correct’ motives, and Flood does exactly so here- miffed at the decision to rename one of the recurring Faraway Tree villains from ‘Dame Slap’ to ‘Dame Snap’. Flood likens the character’s previous habit of slapping naughty children to the witch in Hansel and Gretel locking children in cages, (I would think the cannibal element of this tale would reinforce the comparison more but maybe that’s just me???) asking why, if that fairy-tale hasn’t been changed, should Dame Slap have to adhere to modern discipline? Personally I’m mostly unconcerned with this either way, though Flood makes an interesting point. The woman is a villain either way, so a little clip over the ears is likely to properly drive the point home in my opinion, anyway.

And before I move on from this review, Flood’s hot take on the Saucepan Man is 100% on the ball- why was a grown, non-magical man walking around strung up with pots and pans all over himself and hanging out with a group of children? To be sure, he was not in his right mind, so I’ll shift the question to the parents here, who were fully aware that their children were spending time in the woods with this man. Very odd business indeed.

Characters who aged well: Most of the main characters remained likable to me. Jo was always my favourite as a kid, and he remains so- his impatience provides some comedic quotes and he never leaves his younger sisters behind on adventures, unlike many male characters in Blyton’s novels (I am looking DIRECTLY at you, Famous Five boys). He also doesn’t belittle his sisters at any point, even when they’re frightened, which is another thing that irked me about many of Blyton’s male characters. Using only the first book of the series for this review means that it’s possible that Bessie and Fanny are more prominent characters in the other books, but in this one it felt very much centred around Jo than I remembered- they are likable but don’t really do too much aside from Fanny’s banger of a birthday party which I’m rather jealous of. Upon rereading I like Moonface a lot more, but that’s probably because I resented my grandmother calling me ‘Moonface’ (I’m aware I have a round face, I do not need to be reminded of my eternal struggles on the daily). Silky is still a queen in my eyes- pretty, feminine, funny, kind and best of all a fairy. No flaws at all, I love her. In retrospect, Silky is equally my favourite alongside Jo.

Characters who aged badly (to me): as aforementioned… the Saucepan Man. To be fair, I never cared for him in the first place, and the same goes for his best friend Mr. Watzisname because he was downright maddening. Also, Dame Washalot can drown in her own washing. She managed to annoy me more than Dame Slap… at least Dame Slap was entertaining.

Favourite scene/quote: “‘Fishing!’ said Jo, in disgust. ‘Who wants to go fishing in the middle of a birthday party? Let’s get back at once.’”

This quote sounds so mundane but in context I just find his tone very amusing- Jo is always exasperated and impatient so his perpetual annoyance with everyone’s nonsense is relatable and funny. Furthermore, he says this during my favourite scene in the final chapter where they all travel to the Land of Birthdays for Bessie’s birthday. Bessie invites everyone living in the Faraway Tree to her party, which is essentially formed up in the land above the tree. Upon arrival, everyone can go into a small house with fancy dress costumes and choose anything they like, and then choose a table in the middle of a field. The table is set with cutlery and plates, and from there you must ‘wish your own tea’, as Silky says, which fills the table with jellies, lemonade, chocolate blancmange and other party food. Best of all is the birthday cake- also known as wishing cake- which grants a wish to anyone who eats it. Unfortunately, the Saucepan Man’s poor hearing ends up turning ‘wish’ to ‘fish’, and Fanny has to waste her own wish to get them back to the party, hence Jo’s vexation. The ending is very sweet though, with Moonface gifting his wish to Fanny and all of them happily going home. It was a lovely way to end the first book in the series.

Adventures of the Wishing Chair Review

Post-read: ★★

Synopsis: two children discover a magical chair with wings in an antique shop that leads to a host of new adventures and a new pixie friend they rescue along the way.

Like I said earlier, I preferred the Faraway Tree series to the Wishing Chair and that remains the same. The concept of lands coming to the top of a tree- and choosing whether to go up there or not- is more my style, and if the weather is bad you can just stay home, while the chair you just have to go with it. The Faraway Tree itself is also really wonderful, with all the interesting houses and shops inside it, and especially Moonface’s slippery-slip. On the contrary, the main location for the Wishing Chair series is the children’s playing room, and the chair itself is an utter menace. The villains are more irritating in this series- which is their job, I get it- but the children themselves aren’t quite as likable as Jo, Bessie and Fanny either. Mollie and Peter argue plenty and can be very selfish and silly at times, which is realistic, sure, but that doesn’t make them any less meh. The other main character is a pixie called Chinky (yes, I’ll get to this soon) who they rescue from slavery in a giant’s castle, and my opinion on him varies between chapters. There are some really cool places they go to and the illustrations make reading this more enjoyable despite the hasty writing and relatively flat characters.

Characters who aged well: ???? I mean… Mollie and Peter aren’t exactly my favourite children ever but they’re not too bad. My main criticism would have to be that there isn’t really anything defining about their personalities; to a degree I would say they are just a whinier version of Jo, Bessie and Fanny. I don’t think Enid bothered too much about changing base character traits in her stories, to be honest. There are a few characters like Witch Snippit and the Windy Wizard who help Mollie and Peter when troubles arise, but as the adventures always begin with the chair in the children’s playroom there aren’t really many magical recurring characters to properly consider.

Characters who aged badly: the children’s MOTHER. She is beyond irritating in certain chapters- like when she decides to take the wishing chair to her own lounge room simply because she likes it, even though the children themselves bought it and expressed how much they love it. Plenty of parents do this in real life and it is just as annoying in fiction. Secondly, the wishing-chair. Magical chair that grows wings and can fly to magical lands is cool, yes? Sure, except when it has mood swings and randomly decides to fly through storms or simply land in the sea for no reason I can think of. This is a very petty chair… yet I know I would keep it anyway so I can’t complain too much. I’m going to add Chinky here too, and not because he got saddled with a slur for a name- he gets fired up about minor things way too quickly and causes drama for no good reason, though perhaps I should cut him some slack after his time spent in forced servitude. Also, he makes a few sexist comments to Mollie so maybe the giant had a point after all.

Favourite scene/quote: ‘One rabbit turned upside down and danced on its ears, and that made Peter laugh so much that he had to get out his handkerchief to wipe his tears of laughter away.’

Peter being this happy just made me happy. This quote is from my favourite scene, when the children fly with some elves to attend a magician’s party. There is no villain to be seen, and the room is filled with classic Blyton details of top tier food like cream buns and blancmange, and beautiful birds that sing sweetly before flying freely. The magician has dancing cats appear, and ‘six plump rabbits’ that dance while the cats play violin. Finally, the magician gifts everybody a tiny egg he tells them will hatch later. When they arrive home, Peter’s hatches to reveal a tiny silver watch and Mollie gets a necklace of beads that look ‘exactly like bubbles’. This always sounded so pretty to me, and I had a necklace from my mum that looked exactly as Mollie’s was described, so I’ve always remembered this scene very well.

Overall verdict:

I’m torn. I love parts of these books so much, I love the nostalgia surrounding them, and yet I must admit that without a childhood connection it would difficult for a new reader to enjoy, and probably not the first choice in a bed time story to read to children nowadays. I think for me, I like having these books back on my shelf again, and I like knowing I can go back to read my favourite chapters whenever I want, despite the criticisms I have. In a way, I like knowing I am capable of recognising the books’ faults while still appreciating the good parts of them. I do not regret buying these books again- in fact looking at the artwork and reading the words has inspired me to get to work on my own plan to write a book of fairy tales (with the representation I would’ve loved to see alongside the magic as a child, and minus the problematic details).

With this in mind:

- Blyton’s writing skills… are sorely lacking. Her sentences are stunted and sometimes she changes locations so hastily within one small paragraph that if you so much as skim over one sentence you’ll find yourself in another land entirely (haha). I am wholly aware these books are intended for children but I have read other novels for that age group that have been well-written, so my criticism stands.

- I should just rewrite the books myself. I don’t care if this sounds arrogant, I know I could make the stories more compelling with a few tweaks to, say, writing skills, story structure, making better use of the amazing concepts, fleshing out the characters more, etc. (again I’m aware they’re children’s books)

- Enid Blyton herself was not a very nice person, and her own daughter criticised her writing for being emotionally immature and seeing things as ‘black and white’. Anyone who has read her other novels knows that she was very racist- ‘gypsies’ managing to be the villain in most of her teen detective stories, amongst other issues, so Chinky the pixie is not exactly a surprise appearance. It was Chinky, in fact, who first alerted me to racial slurs. As someone with partially Asian heritage at an almost completely white school, it took me asking my (rightfully) concerned father what ‘chink’ meant when some kids started calling me by the word in school… I then connected this to Blyton’s pixie and to this day am morbidly entertained by this unfortunate memory. I’ll link the article here, in case of any further curiosity about Blyton.

In the Faraway Tree series review I linked earlier, the writer said of the books, ‘it’s an odd feeling, finding the classics of your childhood don’t really stack up’. In many ways, I feel the same. Is it all nostalgia, after all? Yes and no. Having such a balanced opinion on an old favourite is likely healthier than clinging to past memories, anyway. With all of these thoughts jumbling through my mind, it’s possible that my rating of these novels changes depending on my mood- and more importantly, which chapters I read. Perhaps the fact that my favourite chapters are all devoid of confrontation is something a therapist would suggest looking into, but you know what? It’s fiction. If I have to get my happy endings in books alone then so be it!

#book review #book rating #enid blyton #the faraway tree #the wishing chair #british books #children’s book #fiction #magic books #university project #nostalgia

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drawbauchery · 5 years ago

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The Inherent Eroticism of Clowning

fic by cartoons-tothemoon

At some point, Rico realized that Kowalski wasn’t a smiler.

He wouldn’t call the guy happy or well-adjusted, but, then again, could he even call himself that? And he smiled all the time!

But Kowalski…

It wasn’t like he was an especially angsty guy, he was just…moody. Emotional. Maybe even more so than Private. Private had two modes that he volleyed through, and otherwise remained at a middle point of the emotional equilibrium where he was just…fine. Skipper’s emotional state also seemed to be apathetic unless under great stress. But Kowalski? Kowalski bounced back and forth between that spectrum, it might as well been like watching a tennis game.

It fascinated him on some level that their resident nerd seemed to share many of the same instabilities as he did, and on some level, he was able to find a kinship in that.

Of course, Kowalski was never receptive of such a friendship, and why would he be? It would mean, on some level, admitting to being some sort of freak. An overly-emotional basket case with some unexamined problems here and there.

Sure, it was fine to BE like that, but admitting to it meant some form of culpability. The only reason Rico usually didn’t have to deal with consequences like that was because Skipper didn’t usually bother over-examining the issues that laid before him or the little discipline he gave him was harsh and swift enough to be a simple slap of the cuffs for five minutes before Rico could go on with his life.

Kowalski wasn’t the type to receive a slap on the wrist. He was, for lack of a better word, good. Not morally good, but, good by the standards of the team. He could be building his third edition of a death ray, but as long as he stayed out of Skipper’s way in the morning he might as well be a saint.

Come to think of it, Kowalski stayed out of everybody’s way, pretty much. Sure, they ate meals together and watched movies, but unless Skipper called them together or he had something to show off, he mostly kept to himself. He was usually in his lab or in Private’s greenhouse…

These were the facts as Rico knew them. Kowalski was a paradoxically over-emotional logical man of science, who gave off the vibes of being a gifted student in grade school, and kept to himself.

And he wasn’t a smiler. Over-emotional, yes, overly positive emotions? Not quite.

Rico figured it was his job to change that.

———

Over breakfast that morning, Private and Skipper went through their strange morning charade of being simultaneously open and loving and incredibly repressed, which, made for good entertainment on slow days.

However, this was not going to be one of those slow days. He had the lofty goal of trying to make Kowalski not only smile, but laugh. Laughter was easier to gain without just simply asking than smiling. It was sudden and explosive, while smiling was quiet and demure. Not his style, but he was looking for something of the same effect.

And besides, to get a genuine smile out of him in the first place, what was he really going to do? Complimenting him would feel weird, and anything else felt like uncharted waters for a reason. He might be known as the impulsive and weird one, willing to dive into anything, but, that came to violence and action. Those things made sense to him. Social things, even benign ones like these with people who he has known for years, had their own rolling tides associate with them. He didn’t know if these seas would treat him unfavorably, but he would never truly know until he took the plunge.

As plates were set down on the table of some weird sort of Russian pancake that Private had found on the internet and had wanted to test out in the kitchen, a thing that seemed to make him rather proud, enthusiastic to try something new, Rico dropped a line in Kowalski’s direction he had found on the internet.

A spoon was dropped.

Private looked scandalized, his palms practically super-glueing themselves to his face in shock. Skipper looked a little horrified, eyes briefly flittering to Private to read his reaction. Yeah, he saw that. Kowalski seemed to share in this same look of horror, jaw agape, blinking once or twice to get a read on the situation before letting out something of a confused scoff? - He was guessing that was what it was - before he wrapped a hand around his mouth too and turned to the side to cough.

He couldn’t guess what his own face looked like, but he guessed it was a little vacant, at the least. didn’t see anything wrong with what he said, but he probably should’ve guessed he’d be wrong about that given his track record.

And that was how Rico once again found himself forever trapped in the ‘too horny on main’ corner that seemed to exist only because of him, with cold blintzes and an empty kitchen to return to.

He was forced to acknowledge it. In the event of being given the choice to sink or swim, he sunk. And everyone knew he did.

———

Upon reflection, Rico was starting to think that Kowalski might have been a happier person than he thought he was. He knows that whenever Private tells him a lame pun or joke, he gives a small laugh or two to keep him from getting discouraged. Not to mention, whenever Skipper praises an invention, be it an actual “good work, Kowalski!” or a back-handed “I like that it hasn’t killed us yet” seems to make him rather excited, though that could just be the pure enthusiasm he has when it comes to his work carrying him through a demonstration.

Come to think of it, Kowalski doesn’t smile a lot around him. He might if they’re in a group, when they’re all celebrating something with this big mob mentality thing going for them, but, otherwise. Nah.

Maybe this is because they don’t hang out a lot? He WAS banned from the lab. There was a sign and everything.

Maybe he just didn’t like him all that much? It’s not like he ever SAID anything really, but who could be for certain?

These were the things he had to think about while he braided Julien’s hair. Well, tried to, anyhow. He didn’t exactly understand how it worked, and no matter how many times Julien explained it to him, even that day, he didn’t think he was ever going to get it. However, on some level, it was their “thing” to do together, on days where they didn’t feel like doing anything but lounging around, but still wanted to do something more than watch TV. So, that seemed to be their afternoon, trying to figure out a French braid while he contemplated the emotional state of another man. It would sound almost scandalous if Julien didn’t know.

“You are like, the funniest guy on the planet,” Julien stated. “The idea that he can’t even shine a smile at you is a thing that is preposterous.”

Rico hummed at that, giving him a small head scratch that had Julien reaching for his hand to keep at the motion, but his mind was still somewhat elsewhere.

Julien probably only thought such a thing because he already liked Rico, and this love of his had made him dumb. Just yesterday he read online that he should microwave a metal spoon before having ice cream, so it’s easier to scoop out of the tin, and Kowalski had to save what he referred to as his “souped-up electromagnetic baby” from such an act as soon as the sparking had drawn his attention.

Yes, truly it was love that had made him dumb. Nothing else, be it circumstances nor his general careless nature, could be the cause of such a thing.

At least the microwave thing had made Julien laugh. Watching Kowalski scramble from his seat at the kitchen table to wrestle a uranium-powered microwave off the counter, forgetting in his panic that he could’ve simply unplugged the thing. Such an act toppled him over, almost crushing him underneath the device. Julien found the erratic movement funny enough to laugh, even if it turned Kowalski three shades of a flustered red in the face afterwards.

Rico was also there. He knew what was going to happen when Julien had suggested it, and wanted to watch the sparks fly with him. He should’ve expected Kowalski to prevent them from absolutely destroying his creation, but he didn’t expect that.

Perhaps Kowalski was full of surprises like that. Multi-faceted. A puzzle.

That almost frustrated Rico more. He HATED puzzles. He liked things direct. To the point. Muddling through ambiguity was just such a weird and fussy thing to him. There was a reason he was the only one in the group with a functional romantic relationship that was able to stand more than three months of time, but it wasn’t that easy.

For one, Julien had asked first.

For second…what was he even supposed to say? “Have you secretly hated me this entire time or are my jokes just simply that terrible that you can’t even smile in my presence out of principle?” That was too direct. That got to the heart of this weird insecurity that had only popped up in the last week, and Kowalski seemed like the type to be frightened by that kind of thing.

And besides, the last thing Rico wanted was to look insecure. The second last thing Rico wanted, though, was to BE insecure, so those two conflicting thoughts sort of kept him from taking action. Or, at the very least, taking action at this point in time.

He was considered sort of an absolutist in his own right. An all-or-nothing sort of guy. However, that didn’t mean he was incapable of walking the thin line of gray that lined the black and white.

He just wasn’t capable of doing that right now.

After all, he was trying to learn how to braid a French braid.

———

Rico decided to lay relatively low for the rest of the day. Nothing during lunch, no weird comments during dinner. Nothing.

Sure, he still talked, but, it was a casual sort of thing. All very shallow stuff like “hey, how was your day?” Or “hey, dinner was pretty good tonight.” You know, normal things that sounded so utterly strange out of him. He might as well have been flying a kite at night, that’s how unsavory he guessed it came off given the ire that Skipper gave him during dinner, though Private seemed to welcome it.

It was a movie night tonight, though, and it was Rico’s turn to pick, so he figured he’d take advantage of the situation he was in. Especially since Private and Skipper were busy making up the popcorn (why there needed to be two of them when they weren’t even using it as an excuse to make out, he’d never know) and Julien and Maurice were chilling in the other corner of the room, reading or looking at their phones or something of the sort.

He had to seize the opportunity that he had so carelessly squandered earlier.

Rico flickered through a bunch of action movies, a few catching his eye for later viewings, but none of them really appealing to him at the moment.

He turned to Kowalski and shrugged.

“Y-You got any n-nature docu-documentaries you’re lo-looking to watch?”

“Are you feeling alright?”

“O-Only if they’re, if they’re cool.”

Kowalski seemed a little surprised at this. He shrugged. “There’s one about anacondas I’ve been looking to watch.”

“A-Are you s-sure that isn’t m-meant f-for pri-private viewing?”

Kowalski had to take a second to think about it before returning slightly scandalized, though more mad than anything else really. “It’s the REPTILE. That’s a dated joke even by your standards.”

Rico laughed a little to himself before sobering up. “I g-guess I ha-have been acting, acting weird t-today.”

Kowalski regarded this at first dryly, but then with a touch more compassion than Rico thought he was capable of showing towards him. “Oh, uh,” he began elegantly.

Rico sighed. “There’s-there’s a lot of el-elements t-to how I’m f-feeling, ya know?”

It looked as if Kowalski was about to put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder, but he seemed to hesitate for a reason Rico didn’t understand that well, but also didn’t want explained.

“Yeah. L-lots of el-elements. H-hydrogen, Ox-oxygen, RadoN, Yttri-yttrium…The lot.” He sighed once more, trying to keep the smirk from sliding onto his face.

The hesitant hand that was at first drawn to Rico’s shoulder found a place under his chin as Kowalski slowly thought about what he said and how he compiled it together. When Kowalski realized, his eyes widened and Rico received a punch in the arm as Kowalski laughed, genuinely LAUGHED at such a stupid, corny science joke! He could’ve sworn Kowalski would’ve called him a son of a bitch as he did if he was that type of a guy. Seeing him laugh made Rico laugh too, with a sense of camaraderie that came with it, which kept Kowalski laughing as well in a sort of self-perpetuating cycle.

Rico let out a heavy breath as he had finally gotten it out of his system, and out of the corner of his eye, saw something he had never really picked up on before.

When Kowalski laughed, perhaps for too long, or maybe a little too much, or he just didn’t want anyone to pick up on it, he went to cover his mouth with his hand. It helped to mask the emotion somewhat, and it wasn’t the first time Rico picked up on the motion as a way to maintain a pokerface, but he saw it in a somewhat new light, so to speak.

He just had to be casual about it.

“Y-you do that every time?”

“What? Oh.” Kowalski said, hiding a smile behind his fist, though to call it hiding was generous in its own right, if not inaccurate. It was more of a self-soothing gesture. A comforting gesture, more than anything else. “Well, we can’t let you get too egotistical, huh.”

Then it took Rico a moment to think, and Kowalski used the time to grab the remote and select the documentary. When Kowalski pressed play, that’s when he realized it, “you mean this morning you-!?”

“Shh! It’s starting.”

———

“They didn’t even wait for the popcorn.” Private pouted, his arms wrapped around the largest bowl they could find in the kitchen.

“Did you hear how they were dancing around each other? Get a clue, am I right?” Skipper muttered as he grabbed a handful of popcorn from the bowl.

Despite their misgivings and their grumblings, they too soon could be found in front of the television for a movie night, even for a movie like this.

(I didn’t want to genuinely write out some sort of ass-clapping joke, but that’s probably the kind of joke Rico told. I know it in my heart, but with the ambiguity there you can kill the author who killed the previous author, so to speak and say what kind of joke he made. I capitalized the parts of the elements that spell out the secret message. You learn something new every day, but nobody ever said you learned something useful every day. You just happened to today. )

#cartoons-tothemoon #fics #submission #pom #yells into the void #KOWALSKI AND RICO ARE SO SMITTEN WITH EACH OTHER #and they are the ONLY ones in the house that are smitten no one else #jsdflsd i love the insight as to how rico #is the only one who's capable of maintaining a romantic relationship #he may be insane but he doesn't bullshit around #also i got so giddy at the twist in the end there #rico you need to wake up and realize just how 'in' with kowalski you actually are #the only thing left to do is make out

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kingliam-rys · 5 years ago

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can I request for prompts with little one #4 & 33 for Liam x MC, Thanks!

Thank you so much for the request!! I had so much fun writing this. It’s truly pure fluff and I love it. 💜 I combined both of these instead of writing two separate fics/drabbles. Hope you don’t mind! Idk how it got to be 1k+ words, i’m sorry.

Apologies if there are any grammatical errors or spelling mistakes, I edit these and then tend to find(and fix) a bunch of mistakes after I post…

Prompts are from here!

4. Being immensely proud when little one takes their first steps alone./33.Waking up to little one crying out in their sleep.

A Royal Family Morning (Liam x MC)

A tiny wail from the baby monitor, interrupted the peaceful trance that the King was in. It took a moment to register his surroundings as he groggily looked at the clock. 5 am. He patiently waited to hear the monitor crackle to life again, hoping Ellie soothed herself back to sleep. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he regarded his wife, as she laid next to him. Hair tousled from their late night activities, blankets cocooned around her small frame. She rested peacefully, a soft snore passing her lip. God he loved her.

“WAHHH-HAAAAAAAA” Liam didn’t even need the baby monitor to hear that cry. Since the royal family was at Applewood Manor for the week, their sleeping arrangements were in closer proximity, and Ellie’s makeshift nursery was right next to their room.

He rolled his way out of bed, grabbing his discarded sweatpants and shirt from the floor to go comfort his baby girl. Eleanor’s cries were continuing as he spotted her sitting up in the crib, big tears filling her blue eyes, and rolling down her cheeks. His throat tightened at the sight, his heart hurting to see his princess so upset.

“Hey Ellie-belly, daddy’s here” He whispered, leaning over to pick up the almost one year old. Upon hearing her father’s deep voice, Ellie’s cries immediately stopped, reaching her chubby hands towards Liam, and resting her head against his shoulder. Only a few whimpers and hiccups caught, as she began to calm.

Liam sat with her, in one of the comfy chairs sitting in the corner, “What’s wrong princess? Did you have a bad dream?” He soothed, running a hand along her back, as they rested in comfort. Knowing she wouldn’t answer, he continued “it’s okay Eleanor, daddy’s got you now, you’re safe. No more tears.”

Liam heard a gentle sigh leave Ellie’s lips as she stared up at him, gingerly reaching her tiny hand up to his face. He placed a kiss to her palm, a grin on his face, as she settled. Ellie giggled at the scratchy feeling from Liam’s morning stubble, letting out a babbled “Da-da, da-da.”

Liam’s eyes crinkled at the corners, as he rocked her, murmuring to her-at first soothing words, then trying to lull her to sleep describing the plans and events that were scheduled for that afternoon.

Riley watched from the doorway, her heart, warming at the sight in front of her. She had woken from hearing Liam’s one-sided conversation on the baby monitor left in their bedroom, and decided to wake and take part in comforting her daughter as well. After dressing, she made her way to the nursery, but didn’t want to disturb the father-daughter moment in front of her.

“You shouldn’t stare, it’s rude,” Riley heard, her thoughts interrupted as she saw the two pair of blue eyes fall on her. She chuckled at her husband’s comments, taking a step into the room. “I wasn’t staring, just admiring.” She approached kneeling next to the chair, placing a kiss to Ellie’s hair. “What were we talking about?”

“We were just discussing our plans for later today, I was telling Ellie all about the fun and excitement that await her at the start of today’s opening celebration. Though, with her waking up two hours before she normally does, may throw off her nap schedule. I had hoped she’d fall back to sleep.” He explained, wrapping an arm around Riley as she moved to sit on the arm of the chair.

“Why don’t we all go lay in our bed, see if she’ll fall asleep there, and if not, we can just relax in bed until we officially need to be awake for the day.”

“Sounds perfect.” He remarked, adjusting Ellie further on his shoulder as the couple made their way back to their bed. The sun, beginning to peek through the curtains, Eleanor falling asleep between them, as they gazed at one another, sharing loving grins.

After a fairly relaxing morning of playing with Eleanor, drinking coffee and finalizing last minute press details for the annual Apple Harvest festival, Liam and Riley both took turns to dress, while the other watched Eleanor. Riley had taken Ellie to the nursery, to wrangle her, in her own black and white plaid dress, similar to the one she had on. Ellie’s eventful 5 am wakeup being mostly forgotten as the little girl giggled happily at her mother’s funny face, a way that kept her distracted from when Riley attempted to change her.

“Okay, Ellie-girl, let’s go see daddy,” Riley exclaimed, holding onto her daughter’s hands, walking her in between her legs, down the short hallway to the entrance of the manor.

Eleanor babbled happily as she was guided by her mother, taking careful steps. The eleven month old was on the verge of walking, but still required the assistance of her mother.

As they rounded the corner, Ellie’s eyes lit up at the sight of her father, tentatively letting go of one of Riley’s hands as she reached out towards him.

“Come on Ellie, come to Daddy.” Liam kneeled down, his arms outstretched to his baby girl.

Eleanor looked back to Riley, then again to Liam, “Go on Ellie” Riley encouraged, beginning to let go of her daughter’s hand. Eleanor took an uncertain step, wobbling at first, until she realized, she was steady on her feet, and quickly paced forward. Laughing as she reached closer and closer to Liam.

Riley watched and shook in excitement as Eleanor took her first solo steps, trying not to voice it too soon, afraid it would hinder her progress. Liam’s expression mirrored the same, a wide grin spreading on his face, as he regarded his daughter taking her first steps.

Ellie was within her father’s grasp and he immediately lifted her in the air, twirling her around cheering for her, “Ellie you took your first steps, you’re walking baby girl.” Riley joined their embrace, wrapping one hand around Liam, the other running along Ellie’s cheek. “You did it baby girl!”

“Our little baby is walking Liam, she’s growing up too fast,” Riley reflected how quickly her daughter’s first year of life has gone by, though the excitement of Ellie learning and discovering hindered the sadness most of the time. She still couldn’t believe they would be celebrating her first birthday in a few short weeks.

“Yes she is, but we get to watch every moment of it.” Liam leaned in, to place a quick kiss to Riley’s lips, their elated bliss was interrupted, as Eleanor squirmed in Liam’s arms, wanting to be set back down. Placing her back on her feet, Liam watched as his daughter began taking more hastened steps heading off on her own, roaming around the foyer of the manor, her little laugh’s echoing throughout the room.

“Uh-oh, looks like we’re going to have our hand’s full now.” Liam remarked to his wife, chasing after her, his heart full of love and joy, scooping up Ellie. And airplane-d her back towards Riley, Ellie’s laughter roaring louder than before, as the family made their way out to the manor grounds to kick off the festival.

#Anonymous #cristinawrites #liam x riley #liam x mc #the royal romance #the royal heir #king liam #king liam x mc #playchoices #trr #trh #apologies if i reblog this later #but i posted this super late #and kind of think it deserves more notes

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womenhoodlooniness · 4 years ago

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Mean Girls: Private School Edition

During the infamous quarantined lockdown of March 2020, not only did my procrastination habits worsened due to me having to lose all sense of time but it made me reflect amidst all the silence.

This might sound selfishly cliche but if it was not for the whole world shut down, I would have not been able to come to terms relating to my self-worth.

Let's time travel back to my high school days: 2015-2019.

Yes, I'm getting old.

So I went to an all-girls, private high school in Burbank, IL. At first, I thought I was going to hate it. All of my other friends were going to public schools within the Chicagoland area and here I am, the only person going to a school that nobody has ever even heard of.

As if looking like the most big-headed whitest chick at my school didn't make me feel like an outcast enough.

To be blunt, it did make me feel uncool. But I understood my parents wanted me to have a good education that was not at a sleazy neighborhood school.

Even if it did mean taking my voice out of it completely.

Long story short, I ended up liking the school. It felt like a crackhouse made for girls. Meaning, it really was a place for us girls to wind down, get comfortable, and not having to worry about any boys. It was a place of femme empowerment but also endearing chaos.

However, there is always a price to everything beloved.

Last year, when the peaks of quarantined lockdown were at an all-time high, I allowed myself to do a lot of retrospect thinking.

A lot of this thinking was rooted in how my experiences at the private high school were actually fueled by naiveness and all things non-endearing. This retrospect made me question a current friendship I was undergoing at the time in quarantine, questioning if it was really meant to be.

I was friends with two girls at the time. Let's call them X and Z. Mostly because it sounds cool.

I was friends with X for the longest. We remained friends even after the private high school shut down and had to part ways during our sophomore-junior year. I thought she was cool. We had similar music tastes, taught me things I did not know and just overall looked at her as a big sister. Mind you, I was too naive to even think of the other side of our friendship.

Z was a mutual friend that was also close friends with X. I found her cool as she did with me, but she and X were more considered as each other's best friend than all of three of us combined.

But there's a twist to it all: Z actually used to be my bully in freshman year of high school. To put it short, she bullied me because she thought I was "weird" even though I never even tried to talk to her. She would always have a way to tease and make fun of me.

At first, I would try and laugh along but after a while, it started to feel forced because it would barely hit me at times that she could not stand me. Like all bullies, she had the tendency to feel above me since apparently I was seen as a target: The weird, quiet girl.

Who would have thought?

On top of that, X would actually laugh at the "jokes" Z would use against me! Yeah, the same girl I was friends with the longest...go ahead, call me stupid now.

I even brought it up to X at a later time and her response?

"That was just my humor at the time."

Ah yes, creepily looking at my old Facebook profile pictures and laughing at them is DEFINITELY the humor to have. Even after that sketchy comment I still was friends with her for about another year or so. I would rant about her behavior more but I'll just save that for another post...

Anyways, sometimes it would feel weird to even be offended by Z's "jokes" because not only I had one but two mean girls entrapping me. I feel like I had no other choice BUT to feel okay with it. There would be times where confrontation was needed, but the attention was very intimidating to me.

The private school was such a small school so anything that goes would flow smoothly from one period to the next. The drama did spread like wildfire at that forsaken palace of gossip.

Overall with there not being a confronting witness, it really felt hard to get the motivation to stand up for myself. If anything, it helped fasten the depreciation of my self-worth. All because there was nobody to give me a smack of reality to tell me that I should not let that slide.

Also because of the naiveness that came with not realizing the meanness of those comments and the reason why they hurt.

It's even frustrating to also think back about how it would have been best for myself to be the doormat I was, no matter how weird and uncomfortable it got. I say this because Z was SO liked back in that high school. Every girl thought she was funny and cool; she was definitely on the popular scale.

So if I had brought the issue up to the school, then perhaps most definitely they would have looked into it as it did intrigue some feelings of "unsafeness" in me. Now that I think about it, I mean this with seriousness.

I say this because one time, Z called me a bitch because I would not let her copy my homework for the 5th time. And that's just one of many examples.

But as for the students? That would of most likely been the messiest. Especially since Z literally had the popular benefit of being listened to and influencing others.

From that, I should ask, who would have the most sympathy:

the preyed underdog or the praised show dog?

Fast forward to March 2020 where I was questioning the genuinity of everything to the point where I felt like it was best to not associate myself with those two girls again. For the sake of saving myself some pressure and self-depreciation.

I must admit, I mostly wanted to back up because of X's current behavior at the time instead. So this post is most likely going to be considered as a first-half as it does display a "blast from the past" theme. While the second post would be presenting more so recent events. Nevertheless, both posts are still relevantly intertwined as they are important in strengthening my points.

Also, I can not keep typing forever.

Overall, I wanted to bring some of my traumatic past up because not only it presents an aspect of internalized misogyny (again) but also portrays something bigger.

You see, I started to feel at ease at the private school because I felt like I had all the supportive relations I could have with my femme peers. In retrospect, that was lacking to a very large degree.

I did not realize it until I was in college as I gained more maturity and knowledge when dealing with other (girl) friends that were so much different than the ones I numbed myself to.

I had been exposed to a kind of respect that I never thought I would have experienced. It felt so fucking surreal. And because of that, it leads me to compare for the better and for the worse.

It helped paved the way for me to grow.

But the fact I even thought that I would have not had the same respect as Z, no matter how much I cried out of injustice, is what concerns me. How could I think that private school was so beloved with femme love when there was a huge possibility of numerous girls going against me, all because I was not on the popular spectrum?

Perhaps I am wrong. Maybe there is an alternative timeline out there involving myself getting justice served and respect granted. Despite the judgment that is forced upon me.

But this is why concepts such as internalized misogyny and girl-girl bullying need to be brought up more. All because it can plague ourselves in which can rapidly plague entire environments within spaces that are meant to bring support from one girl to another.

Also, yes, we can forgive them because most likely these bullies are going through something too in which can cause them to act aggressively to us - based off of jealousy or attention, whatever can be interpreted the best.

I actually forgive Z because I had learned that she was going through a rough time during freshman year which at times does make me speculate if her actions were based on jealousy..but let's not be bitchy narcs here.

Even with that, it still does not allow for me to succumb to being seen as some fucking fool to her. It does not favor her to make me feel like a doormat. And it definitely should not be permitted for me to feel like shit because I had no choice but to do so.

Where is the self-worth in all this? Because I need it just as much as she does.

We need to prevent further harm so we won't hurt others and most importantly, ourselves.

#mean girl #mean girls #bullying #womenhood #looninees #femme #private school #all girls #internalized misogny #doormat #undergod #underdog #popularity #private high school #high school #burbank IL #IL

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lesbeet · 5 years ago

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not to be a nerd but i accidentally just wrote a whole impromptu essay about editing ndjsdksksk im throwing it under a cut bc it's fucking inane and really long but honestly... i just want other people to become as passionate about editing as i am lmaooooo

i also recommend 2 books in the post so if anything at least check those out!

quality books about editing... *chef's kiss* a lot of the basic ones (including blog posts online n such) are geared towards beginners and end up repeating the same info/advice, much of it either oversimplified or misrepresented tbh. but i read one yesterday and i'm reading another one right now that really convey this passion for editing + consideration for it as its own sort of art and i just!!

it's such a weird thing to be passionate about lmao but i AM and i've spent a lot of time the past year or so consciously honing my craft (ik i mention this like 4 times a week i'm just really proud of how much i've learned and improved) and kind of like. solidifying my instincts into conscious choices i guess?

and these GOOD editing books have both a) taught me new information and/or presented familiar information through a new perspective that helped me understand something differently or in more depth, and b) validated or even just put into words certain preferences or techniques that i've developed on my own, that i don't normally see on those more basic lists i mentioned

btw the book i finished yesterday is self-editing for fiction writers: how to edit yourself into print by renni brown and dave king, and the one i'm reading currently is the artful edit: on the practice of editing yourself by susan bell.

the former was pretty sharp and straightforward. the authors demonstrated some of their points directly in the text, which was usually funny enough that i would show certain quotes to my sister without context

("Just think about how much power a single obscenity can have if it’s the only one in the whole fucking book." <- (it was)

"Frequent italics have come to signal weak writing. So you should never resort to them unless they are the only practical choice, as with the kind of self-conscious internal dialogue shown above or an occasional emphasis."

or, my favorite: "There are a few stylistic devices that are so “tacky” they should be used very sparingly, if at all. First on the list is emphasis quotes, as in the quotes around the word “tacky” in the preceding sentence. The only time you need to use them is to show you are referring to the word itself, as in the quotes around the word “tacky” in the preceding sentence. Read it again; it all makes sense.")

and like i said, i also learned some new ideas or techniques (or they articulated vague ideas i already had but struggled to put into practice), AND they mentioned some suggestions that ive literally never seen anyone else bring up (not to say no one has! just that ive never seen it, and ive seen a lot in terms of writing tips, advice, best practices, etc) that ive already sort of established in my own writing

for example they went into pretty fine detail about dialogue mechanics, more than i usually see, and in talking about the pacing and proportion of "beats" and dialogue in a given scene, they explicitly suggested that, if a character speaks more than a sentence or two and you plan on giving them some sort of dialogue tag or an action to perform as a beat, the tag or action should be placed at one of the earliest (if not the first) natural pauses in the dialogue, so as not to distance the character too far from the dialogue -- bc otherwise the reader ends up getting all of the dialogue information first, and then has to go back and retroactively insert the character, or what they're doing, or the way they look/sound while they're giving their little speech

and like this was something ive figured out on my own, mostly bc it jarred me out of something i was reading enough times (probably in fic tbh) that i started noticing it, and realized that it's something i do naturally, kind of to anchor the character to the dialogue mechanic to make sure it makes sense with the actual dialogue

so like. ok here's an example i just randomly pulled from the song of achilles (it was available on scribd so i just looked for a spot that worked to illustrate my point djsmsks)

the actual quote is written effectively, but here's a less effective version first:

“Perhaps I would, but I see no reason to kill him. He’s done nothing to me," Achilles answered coolly.

see and even with such a short snippet it's so much smoother and more vivid just by moving the dialogue tag, not adding or cutting a word:

“Perhaps I would, but I see no reason to kill him.” Achilles answered coolly. “He’s done nothing to me.”

the rhythm of it is better, and the beat that the dialogue tag creates functions as a natural dramatic pause before achilles delivers an incredibly poignant line, both within the immediate context of the scene and because we as the readers can recognize it as foreshadowing. plus, it flows smoothly because that beat was inserted where the dialogue already contained a natural pause, just bc that's how people speak. if you read both versions aloud, they both make sense, but the second version (the original used in the novel) accounts for the rhythm of dialogue, the way people tend to process information as they read, AND the greater context of the story, and as a result packs significantly more purpose, information, and effect into the same exact set of words

and THAT, folks, is the kind of editing minutia i can literally sit and hyperfocus on for hours without noticing. anyway it's a good book lmao

the one i'm reading now is a lot more about the cognitive process/es of editing, so there's less concrete and specific advice (so far, anyway) and more discussion about different mental approaches to editing, as well as tips and tools for making a firm distinction between your writer brain and your editor brain, which is something i struggle with

but there have been so many good quotes that ive highlighted! a lot of just like. reminders and things to think about, and also just lovely articulations of things id thought of or come to understand in much more vague ways.

scribd won't let me copy/paste this one bc it's a document copy and not an actual ebook, but this passage is talking about how the simple act of showing a piece of writing to someone else for the very first time can spark a sudden shift in perspective on the work, bc you'll (or at least i) frantically try to re-read it through their eyes and end up noticing a bunch of new errors -

or she talked about the perils of constant re-reading in the middle of writing a draft, which is something i struggle with a LOT, both bc i'm a perfectionist and bc i prefer editing to writing so i sit and edit when i'm procrastinating doing the actual hard work of writing lmao

it's just this side of fake deep tbh but i so rarely see editing discussed like this--as a mixture of art and science, a collaboration between instinct and technique, that really requires "both sides of the brain" to be done well.

and because of the way my own brain works, activities that require such a balanced concentration of creativity and logic really appeal to me. even though ive seen a lot of people (even professional writers) who frame it as the creative art of writing vs the logical discipline of editing. but i think that's such a misleading way of thinking about it, because writing and editing both require creativity and logic -- just different kinds! (not to mention that the line between writing and editing, while mostly clear, can get a little blurry from up close)

but like...all stories have an inner logic to them, even if the writer hasn't explicitly or consciously planned it, and even if the logic is faulty in places in the first couple of drafts. when you're sitting and daydreaming about your story, especially if you're trying to figure out how to bridge the gap between two points or scenes (or, how to write a sequence of events that presents as a logical, inevitable progression of cause and effect), the voice in your head that evaluates an idea and decides to 1) go with it, 2) scrap it, 3) tweak it until it works, or 4) hold onto it in case you want it later? that's your logic! if an idea feels wrong, or like it just doesn't work, it's probably because some part of you is detecting a conflict between some part of the idea and the overall logic of your story. every decision you make as you write is formed by and checked against your own experiential logic, and also by the internal logic of your story, which is far less developed (or at least, one would hope), and therefore more prone to the occasional laspe

but while ive seen a number of articles that discuss the logic of writing, i don't see people gushing as much about the art of editing and it's such a shame

the inner editor is so often characterized as the responsible parent to the writer's carefree child, or a relentless critic of the writer's unselfconscious, unpolished drivel

and it's like... maybe you just hate thinking critically about your work! maybe you view it that way because you're imposing external standards too fiercely onto your writing, and it's sucked the joy out of shaping and sculpting your words until they sing. maybe you prefer to conceive of your writing as divine communication, the process of which must remain unencumbered by lessons learned through experience or the vulnerability of self-reflection, until the buzzkill inner editor shows up with all those "rules" and "conventions" that only matter if you're trying to get published

and like obviously the market doesn't dictate which conventions are worth following, but the majority of widely-agreed-upon writing standards, especially those aimed at beginners, (and most especially those regarding style, as opposed to story structure) have to do with the effectiveness and efficiency of prose, and, in addition to often serving as a shorthand for distinguishing an amateur from a pro, overall help to increase poignancy and clarity, which is crucial no matter the genre or type of writing. and even if you personally believe otherwise, it's better to understand the conventions so you can break them with real purpose.

so editing shouldn't be about trying to shove your pristine artistic masterpiece into a conventional mold, it should be about using the creative instincts of your ear and your logic and experience-based understanding of writing as a craft to hone your words until you've told your story as effectively as possible

thank u for coming to my ted talk ✌️

#long post //#editing #wref #sefa rambles

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movienotesbyzawmer · 5 years ago

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Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

I mostly like Quentin Tarantino's movies, but when I saw this in the theater I considered it one of his worst. But I still liked some stuff about it. I liked the thick atmosphere of late-sixties Los Angeles, and I liked Leonardo DiCaprio's character's arc & his performance, and I liked some of the playful touches, even though some of them feel indulgent. "Indulgence" is a big concern when it comes to evaluating QT's movies. Sometimes his indulgences are charming and sometimes not so much. I'm kind of hoping a second viewing will make me like this movie a bit more. Okay, here goes…

Vintage Columbia logo. That kind of thing always works well on me.

First five minutes or so are cinematic in a familiar way, not much to note. But at about 0:06:15 there's a jarring little interruption where a narrator tells us LD just lied. The only moment of narration at all.

Then Al Pacino is reflecting on some of the movies he's been watching, and we see some clips. They look kind of vintage, but also kind of Tarantino-y. Like, that scene where LD torches Nazis doesn't actually look like it could be from the 60s.

"Bounty Law! Starring Rick Dalton!" Then a cut to a dorky TV musical sketch. Kind of funny. Not subtle. I love that announcer voice that says "Bounty Law!"

One thing that often works well in QT movies is when he has an actor deliver, and savor delivering, a weighty minute or so of dialogue that really sets up a situation. Think Christopher Walken's monologue in Pulp Fiction or the first scene with Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds. This AP conversation where he talks to LD about where to take his career is like a mini version of one of those but doesn't last as long.

0:15:10 - First really nice period shot of LA. Very nice to look at.

I think the intended audience for this movie knows details about the Manson murders that most moviegoers don't actually know. For example, the ominous close-up of the sign for Cielo Drive. I don't think it's a mistake; I think he's knowingly alienating some viewers so he can give a better experience to those who do know about them. So I can't imagine recommending this movie without also strongly suggesting studying the Manson murders first.

Brad Pitt speeds down a boulevard in West Hollywood, a filming location which has been very lovingly decorated in the style of the period. The production design of this movie was rightly heralded.

Sequence with BP in his trailer making dinner for himself and his dog. Vivid; at one point they cut to a closeup of a pinup poster. Doesn't seem to be a reason for that except for "I'm Quentin Tarantino and I do whatever I feel like". Indulgent, is what I'm saying.

Also indulgent is this minute we're spending watching Roman Polanski drive to this party at the Playboy mansion.

I don't remember noticing this before, but that's Damian Lewis playing Steve McQueen and that's kind of perfect.

Scene where Kurt Russell is telling LD that BP has a creepy vibe and killed his wife, then we cut abruptly to apparently a scene of BP having a mundane argument with his wife maybe… okay, leaves the audience wanting more info, but maybe in kind of an irritating way.

Now this scene with Bruce Lee holding forth. Bruce Lee probably didn't generally speak in arrogant, bullying Quentin Tarantino monologues. Entertaining scene though.

But the left-me-wanting conversation from the previous scene helps this scene with Bruce Lee be more tense. Also the not-ringing-true snottiness of Bruce Lee makes it funny how that fight goes down.

0:52:30 - Okay, LD is in costume as a bad guy on a show, and he's got the long hippy hair that was spoken of in the AP scene. Just saying, I like that it was described and now we're seeing what I'd pictured.

And now this memorable conversation between LD and the little girl actress. The kid acts so grown up. This could have failed because of course no eight year old talks like this girl. But this scene is awesome. And without movies by QT, there aren't scenes like this.

Now Margot Robbie. We've seen her in a few scenes so far as Sharon Tate, but she's only been depicted as a dancing starlet bopping around town. For those of us that know she's a Manson victim, it works in a certain way. But does it work otherwise?

Okay, this is a peculiar part of the movie, it's pretty fun but kind of insider-y. LD is talking about being in the running for Steve McQueen's role in The Great Escape, and they edit in some outstanding CGI scenes of LD in the actual movie of The Great Escape. Playful, but just a weird bit of color…

…but then here's this next scene where MR, playing Sharon Tate, happens upon a cinema playing a movie she's in, and after a leisurely-paced interaction with the cinema workers, she goes in and watches the movie. Unlike the CGI trickery demonstrated in the last scene with LD, we watch actual Sharon Tate on screen. MR is visibly delighted to see "herself", and to hear the audience reacting to her performance. It all works, maybe more in spite of than because of QT's ever-present choice-broadcasting (which is also why we get a good look at MR's feet in this scene).

This is followed immediately by the sequence of the TV show LD is shooting. More playful indulgence. We see the scene edited as it probably would have been edited in 1969, but shot with modern cinematography, and interrupted by LD calling for his line, then backing up and redoing some of the scene. Can it be justified beyond just the undeniable fact that it's pretty interesting? Maybe that's enough. Maybe I'm being a snob, but also, what, was I not supposed to acknowledge it at least?

Stuff now starting with BP picking up Margaret Qualley's dirty hippy flirty cultist character. Before she even has any lines, the screen is practically bulging from the force of MQ's personality. It's entertaining.

1:28:30 - More of the TV show. We get to see LD's character be a good actor, and impress the director and the kid actor, which touches him, it's nice.

It's an hour and 38 minutes into the movie, and now we're to the scene on Spahn's Movie Ranch. I'm already thinking that by now we should be deeper into some kind of story than we are, and now this scene that I remember vividly. Not totally in a bad way, but for all the good things about it, it is stretched way out. Suspense is built up, skillfully, but without the kind of payoff we'd probably like. I mean, it's like a horror movie, with the rat squirming in the trap and the tense music and the "HE MAY BE TIRED" line from Dakota Fanning, but then it's back to not being a horror movie….

…in fact, it's on to this charismatic-tough-guy scene that feels Pulp-Fiction-y. Our MINDS are BLOWN that he hit the guy so hard and made the cultists so mad, it's a fantasy come to life, but just in a movie!!! This stuff is long, but not THAT boring, but maybe it could have been a little less boring, plus more relevant to later events.

LD and BP are now watching an episode of a show he'd done. Way more violent than TV shows probably were in 1969. They like watching his little "heavy" role and chuckling about it.

Then a SIX MONTHS LATER card, and some narration for the first time since that little jokey bit in the beginning. Also jokey is the fact that this new section is narrated, VERY narrated, and is the fact that Kurt Russell is the narrator also jokey?

2:02:50 - "…going back to Missouri." LD's character is from Missouri? With that accent? Is this also an in-joke?

The aforementioned narration persists for a long time. Seems gratuitous. QT was clearly like "We'll do the first two hours of the picture without a narrator, and then suddenly there will be a whole bunch of stupid narration hahahahahahaha! No one else would do that!!! That's reason enough for me to do it!!!!"

Finale is going on now with the Manson cultist killer people approaching the house. If you know what really happened, you're freaking out. But if you know what really happened and you already know how this movie changes that story… it's entertaining. What I'm saying is that it's funny this second time through, without the worry about seeing what really transpired.

"And you were on a horsie!" "Nah something dumber than that" Hahaha BP is super funny in this scene.

Dang, the dog just mutilates Tex, and it's funny!

He violences that woman very very very much, it's nuts, kind of funny but so disturbing.

LD flamethrowers that girl in the pool. She's in the pool. But still dies from being on fire. /shrug

We never did get the whole story about BP killing his wife.

The last scene, MR talks to LD, inviting him up for a friendly drink with her friends. It ends with us thinking how nice it would be if she and her friends hadn't been the victims of a cruel slaughter just moments earlier. That's not a bad way to end a movie. But it's a long movie, and I'll say this again: indulgent. You might not feel that in on the jokes, and even if you do, you might not have as much time for them as this movie requires.

#once upon a time in hollywood

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inevitably-johnlocked · 6 years ago

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Let’s talk about The Twist of Good Omens (Pt. 2 of 2)

[PART 1]

So this is the second part to the meta / scene analysis of the Twist ending of Good Omens, which I explain in Part 1 as being one of my favourite tropes ever. The first part is more meta, this one is more headcanon-with-canon-evidence, and will be significantly shorter than the first part, mostly because it’s just me spewing out my brain thoughts to the æther, LOL.

[EDIT: And now because I took so long people smarter than I have better theories, so... just humour me, my self esteem is garbage lol]

Here’s a thought that’s been niggling at my brain: So upon receiving the final prophecy, Aziraphale and Crowley weren’t certain what the prophecy meant:

C: What’s that?

A: [hands over the scrap paper to Crowley] It fell out of Agnes Nutter’s book.

[scrap of paper reads: “5004. When alle is fayed and all is done, ye must choofe your faces wisely, for soon enouff ye will be playing with fyre”]

C: “For soon enough you will be playing with fire”? So this is the final on of Agnes’ prophecies?

A: As far as I know.

[...]

C: You don’t have a side anymore. Neither of us do. We’re on our own side. Like Agnes said, we are going to have to choose our faces wisely.

SOURCE: Season 1, Episode 6 Subtitles, 24:40-27:00

Okay sorry, I mis-remembered them until I finally typed out the above. It’s not DIRECTLY said they don’t know what it means, but I don’t think they immediately knew how it was to be interpreted. I feel as if they didn’t know that a body swap (or technically, a face swap or illusion spell since they retained their original traits with a different face) was possible between demon and angel. And, it’s apparent that either the Archangels and Demon Hoarde didn’t know that it was possible either, OR they knew but it was one of those... long forgotten things or they assumed Crowley and Azzie were too dumb to think of that. I’m leaning towards the first option, because I feel that there’s more canon evidence to that:

The immediate first thought of both parties when the Hellfire / Holy Water didn’t work was, “OH! They’ve been here so long they’ve become human!”, not “Oh, I bet you they switched their faces!” DESPITE the fact that in the presence of the Archangels and Beelzebub’s Hoardes, they were acting rather uncharacteristically to themselves, no one questioned it at all. GRANTED neither Crowley nor Azzie are respected among their peers, so that last point can be written off, but I thought I’m going to make it nonetheless.

Aziraphale asks if anyone is looking just before they switch back, and GRANTED this is because they’re trying to ensure that their ruse isn’t discovered but could it also be – and I realize this is a stretch here – they don’t want either side to know that a swap is possible between angels and demons? That not only gives them a safety net if either party ever decides they want to enact revenge on them, but also it is something that could be seen as dangerous knowledge for the Sides to know about... imagine if a Demon knows about this, and possibly could kidnap an angel and force a switch to destroy Heaven or tempt humanity who would see an Angel as trustworthy? Sorry my brain is just filled with possibilities here. There is a possibility that each party needs an emotional connection with one another to enact a switch (which I’ll go into more detail in a sec, because it’s part of my headcanon), but again we don’t KNOW the logistics of it.

So how did they figure it out, that it was going to work OR it was at least worthy of trying in lieu of everything else?

Here’s where I enter little headcanon territory (well, more than it already is, anyway): We know that Azzie went back to Crowley’s flat (or at least it’s implied) and Azzie spent the night at the very least. My little headcanon is this: they found out about being able to switch after a, uh, bonding session... where they found out Angels and Demons CAN in fact trade faces, so long as both parties share a strong emotional connection with each other (as kind of a fail safe to ensure that Angels and Demons aren’t kidnapping each other all willy-nilly and sneaking into each others’ realms without being invited in and causing havoc). There’s a good chance Azzie and Crowley are the first in history to ever have such an emotional connection to each other. And of course, no one would ever think THAT would be possible ever, what with them being eternal enemies and all that jazz.

So what if, when they got back to Crowley’s, in the general safety of privacy, the weight of everything that has happened FINALLY hitting upon them, realizing they almost lost each other, and they embrace, perhaps clasp hands or forehead touches (I’m more impartial to the latter, it’s my jam), and when they pull back, they’re shocked to see their own faces staring back at them. Realization hits them... is this what was meant by the prophecy? Could it really work? Discussion, experimentation, elation, possible coupling happens (kinky part of me says they tried the coupling as each other, how’s that for a first time). Showing off to each other that they can BE each other, and concerns about “what if the properties of our own bodies weren’t also transferred in the exchange? Is this a mind or a face swap?” Love confessions and worry for each other’s safety ensue, hoping that the prophecy really does mean “face” because Agnes was nothing if not precise in her wording. I think Azzie would know this better than Crowley since he spent so long reading from the original prophecies, and I think he’s the one who is certain it will work.

Which could also explain their behaviours in Heaven / Hell. Crowley-as-Azzie is confident and not worried at all, because Aziraphale told him it would work (as well as it being a reflection of how he perceives Azzie as brave and clever). Azzie-as-Crowley seems a BIT more hesitant, because he REALLY wasn’t sure of himself, but didn’t want Crowley to worry. And then Azzie gets into the tub and realizes he isn’t going to be eviscerated, and he gets cocky and sure-of-himself, and is more comfortable in Crowley’s skin.

Another thought I had, totally separate but not really, and it was spawned from this possible observation that was pointed out on this post here: Could they have found out about the ability to switch when they got on the bus? LOL imagine THAT happening and then in their excitement about solving the prophecy, tried to trigger it again when they got back to Crowley’s place, cue sexy times because DAMNIT they almost lost each other again.

The funny thing is (or ironic?), in the end, is that they really have gone native, but not in the way that the Angels and Demons think is what happens when you go native. They learned to love in the same way humans do. They both wore each other’s faces, saw how the other side really treats the angel/demon they’ve come to love, and know now that they only have each other. That they are better together. And there’s that nice little thought that their love was always to be, prophesied by Agnes Nutter herself.

Sorry I took so long to get this part out... I’ve had real-life paying projects to finish before I was able to sit down and write this out and edit it into coherence rather than the jumbled mess all my freeform meta start out as. I hope you enjoyed my ramblings! I’d love to know what you guys all think and if you guys have any additions to this specific point to the discussion!

Thanks again for humouring me LOL.

#good omens #go meta #my meta #go headcanons #go final twist #my thoughts

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