#esp in comparison to their books

[sunnylemonss]

there's no higher betrayal than finding out your favorite book has been made into a movie and the movie turns out to be absolute garbage

[master-of-stupidity]

Ya think it ever fucked Snotlout up a lil that mfss kept comparing him to fcking Alvin n Spitelout?? Like the Alvin one esp is crazy like that is a 15 yr old kid hello?? 😭🙏

[eyepatchdate]

ok. i read tom king's mister miracle run and tbh? i don't think i vibed with it. but it DOES read interestingly as a proto-strange adventures though.

[kikuism]

i finished five broken blades

[lesenbyan]

There are few things worse, I think, than reading a call to action memoir that is so close to right but really should have been shelved for at least 5yrs before going to print so the author has time to learn enough to see all the false equivalencies that really hinder the point

[benicebefunny]

As a queer disabled theatre fan, Alex Newell's and Ali Stroker's wins mean so much to me.

As someone who's experienced workplace abuse, Lea Michele's awardlessness means almost as much.

[sunshineandviolets]

"Hey there baby bird, like what you see? "

Drew Georgia Young // Roommates with Benefits <3

[cyrsed]

you ever think about how mainstream gaming is the way it is bc it evolved from arcade games?

[dashiellqvverty]

sorry for writing 900 words about rwrb. as if i can help it.

[savrenim]

gods it's so weird reading my old stuff bc some of it is Great and some of it feels So Clumsy. and I wonder if it's always going to feel this way or if, like, in a decade since of writing my style has plateaued more and I will continue to produce consistent things going into the future?

[anghraine]

I don't know if it's become more common lately or just grates more after years in academia, but I genuinely dislike the whole "this wildly popular and enormously influential work is fun and it's fine to enjoy it, but there's no need to fool yourself into thinking it's genuinely good and actual Art."

Thanks for the permission, perfect stranger, but I don't get all that invested in things I don't think are good, no matter how conscious I am of their flaws.

I really do think Lord of the Rings is, by and large, a beautifully-written and well-constructed novel. The idea of respecting its trailblazing qualities but insisting that Tolkien is objectively a poor novelist or weak prose stylist is not actually my perspective on it at all. I have criticisms, some more serious than others, but do I still think it's a great work of art? Yes. I think Tolkien is actually incredibly skilled stylistically and shifts between registers and styles in a way that I find really impressive. The obvious point of contrast for me is the Narnia books, which famously he disliked, but which I enjoyed well enough as a kid—Aravis was one of my favorite characters growing up (and she still rules!). But the shifts between registers of style in the Narnia books feel so forced and artificial to me next to Tolkien's far more elegant and controlled handling of shifting registers in The Hobbit and esp LOTR.

I actually feel pretty similarly about the Star Wars original trilogy (blasphemy to some, lol). I think The Empire Strikes Back is, despite occasional misfires, really truly brilliant artistic cinema. I recently watched Flash Gordon, which has similarities of genre and inspiration and came out the exact same year as ESB, and as enjoyable as it is in, uh, realizing its own artistic vision, there's no comparison to ESB. I've seen reviews that can't resist the urge to get in digs at Star Wars even while calling for re-evaluations of Flash Gordon and other 80s schlock (even Starcrash!) and it just seems an absurd degree of snobbery to me, all the more in the context of cheesy movies that owed their existence to Star Wars taking tropes and genres seen as fun but essentially unserious and making beautiful films out of them.

I've even experienced this "it's enjoyable and influential but not great art" snobbery with works that are generally well-regarded. In grad school, other students were genuinely taken aback that I thought Pride and Prejudice is truly one of the greatest novels written in the eighteenth century and one of Austen's best novels. I'd encountered and been annoyed by the whole "oh, a truly discerning, sophisticated taste will prefer Persuasion or Emma" thing, but it didn't even occur to me that it would be at all controversial for me to think P&P is a spectacularly brilliant novel, all the more in the context of its time. But I've encountered quite a bit of discomfort with the idea that P&P is actually great art and not just enjoyable wish-fulfillment in an accessible style. And meanwhile, I'm like ... no, I really do think it is superior in characterization, structure, pacing, style, and cohesion than most English-language novels of its era, including several by Austen herself.

[ampresandian]

Okay so season 1 was definitely Percy's story like between the flashbacks and his development over the quest The Lightning Thief is Percy's Story. The whole series is Percy's story but the way they produced the first season of the show is especially Percy's, and I need them to continue to develop this in the rest of the seasons.

Season 2, Sea of Monsters, should definitely be Annabeth's. Percy (and the readers) get to know her better--she opens up to him about her past, not just introducing him to the world they share (the Olympians) but to Her World and How it Got to Be that Way. We see more of how who Percy is impacts her (esp with Tyson), and she takes on a lot of responsibility for saving their quest. Unlike the Arch or Crusty, Annabeth is the one that saves them from Circe and takes on Polyphemus one on one.

Season 3 I think is Thalia's. It's the only chance we really have, as readers, to get to know her--we're thrown into her relationship with Percy at the beginning of the book, after our only introduction to her being her saying her name at the end of som, but we travel with her on this quest, and I think flashbacks, etc. in this season should be about her. It's the best way to let the audience get to know her, and I think we need to get to know her to understand her choice at the end (and to be excited when we see her again later). We need that her sudden disappearance at the end, when she leaves without saying goodbye and just as suddenly as she appeared she's gone, to hurt and to feel wrong and making her the Character is the way to do that imo.

Botl in season 4 I think is tricky at first glance (esp since we've given Annabeth som already) but tbh it needs to be Grover's. Flashbacks can be about his time in schools as a protector, and his time searching for Pan. Grover's development is kind of sudden in this story, but I think showing him when he's younger and like as he's been off Doing Things it would be more dramatic and honestly Grover is a fantastic character that Rick seems to forget about/ignore a lot and he should make it up by showing us what his life is like when he's not with Percy (which is increasingly often) and letting us see his independence develop to the point that he's ready to take on his new mantle and be a leader.

Season 5 is obviously Luke's. Even the book is written like that. We need flashbacks to his life and childhood just as much as Percy does, and they need to humanize him and let us empathize with who he was and how he got to who he is by the end of the story before he dies. I think they should give us flashbacks to his quest here, too, and probably the conversation he clearly has with Hermes before he goes on it (he's obviously bitter when he talks about it in tlt, and he had to get his magic shoes, and I think they need to utilize having that conversation in person so we can see how Hermes tries and fails to relate to him and also to make LMM make very very sad eyes as Luke leaves because he knows his son is at the end of his time as a hero). They can milk this for all the comparisons between Luke and Percy. I think flashbacks to his claiming, and not having to move cabins but probably like getting a bed or something now that he's here Forever, and when he becomes the Cabin Counselor. How/when he meets up with Thalia. Him seeking out fights as they make their way to camp. The battles he fights on his quest, facing monsters he's working with now, getting the scar.

[raggedytiger]

how do you draw so.. raggedy ann..

aargh such high praise!! this ones especially for you!

for real thank you so much :D a few people have said this, esp since i've drawn ragatha. and to be honest i am pleased as punch. i've been watching that 1977 movie on repeat it's so beautiful.

if you wanted an actual answer, i don't know if i'm bright enough to be able to explain it, but i think its mainly a mix of medium and the way i draw fabric!

the raggedy ann & andy movie is traditional hand-drawn animation, ann herself being primarily animated by the one and only Tissa David. most of my character art is scanned in from pencil on paper and edited for higher contrast. this might be why, since that gives it a slightly sketchier finish, which raggedy ann definitely has (in comparison to like, recent ghibli movies).

as for fabric, i really like drawing fabric. it's so fun to make ragatha as soft and stitched and pillowy-looking as possible, especially compared to a kind of rubbery, stretchy-toy pomni. in my head, ragatha hugs pretty much replicate the feeling of being cosed up in bed.

earlier today me and a friend were at college on a bear-hunt online for this spread, which he found, and which is so fun and informative:

note the unironed dress, baggy shoulders, and hands like mittens a size too big! literally adorable.

i want to get my hands on the book that this came from because hoo boy there are some beautiful drawings from it i've seen dotted around niche animation blogs and forums.

anyway thank u so so much and if you were looking for an attempt at answering your question then i hope u have it ^_^ if not then anyone can feel free to ask/recommend/show me stuff about illustration & animation bc it is my study and i love to talk about it! if anyone wants the few other development pages of the raggedy ann & andy movie that i've managed to scoop together then do ask!! (& if anyone has links to more then u know what to do o_<)

[papenathys]

This whole trend of accusing reviewers of color of being white and racist because they didn't like your favourite BIPOC author's books reeks of fandom culture, token diversity and cult of persona. A book by a non-white author can have valuable themes and other merits, and still not resonate with minorities. We are not a homogenous community and there are different types of lived experiences with no "one size fits all".

Reviews can have valuable criticism too. If you have convinced yourself that there is a strict binary of Victim (poor BIPOC author) versus the Evil Insecure Haters (the reviewers, who are often ALSO marginalized), bookish/publishing spaces will successfully continue to be dominated by a small circle of authors of color, whose writing and representation shall be taken as "word of god". Such spaces will continue marketing those racial/cultural/religious narratives that are easily palatable to a Western audience as some universal bipoc lived experience. And once again, we shall forget that there are divisions of privilege that extend beyond a single racial identity– divisions that may not be felt by white readers and reviewers but are felt by reviewers of color.

So many reviewers I used to follow have started backing out of these forced positivity, identity-centric bookish circles because you might notice all the booktwt and bookstagram drama that happens daily when bestselling authors screenshot reviews and invade reviewing spaces. But it gets worse, and more mean-spirited when pedestal tokenism convinces you that only your favourite marginalized author has something to say of value, and the rest is just a rabble of haters being bigoted and miserable. "Are you white?"– and often, the reviewer is as marginalized as your favourite author, perhaps more, considering different categories of privilege.

(Don't get me wrong, poc authors do have their fair share of racist criticism esp in comparison to the most normcore white litfic, but that's not what the post is talking about, it's about the mystification of authors of color as some universal speaker of political truths. This, ignoring the obvious and most ground-level truth that often..... books by bipoc.... can also be racist to other minority communities.) But how does it matter, because we are all mean, racist and don't get your favourite novel that makes you feel like a good person.

[plasma-studios]

ok but Suzanne Collins made the right choice setting the prequel in/from the Capitol's perspective. Aside from giving Snow his villain origin story (i personallly think he's always had villainous traits, but if the idea of control hadn't been instilled in him by Dr Gaul, he might not have grown into a fully fledged villain) it really expands on the perspective of Capitol citizens.

It's so easy to think of such a group of characters in dystopian settings as a mere plot point to 1) back up the main big bad 2) show a contrast against the suffering of the "common people" (i.e. the districts). However, it's really easy for this to become a black and white comparison, esp since a lot of dystopian books fail to capture the nuance of THG and see dystopian setting as aesthetic backdrops, not as a way to criticise and point out real world issues as THG did.

The issue with the black and white comparison is that it often doesnt delve into the actual reasoning and factors behind how and why the Capitol became what they were in Katniss' time, and as we know, history almost repeated itself with Coin.

I'm not saying the Capitol was justifed in their actions, I'm saying TBOSAS showed how it got that far. By Katniss' time, the Capitol had become so powerful they held the "big bad" role of the villains in most dystopian worlds, but that naturally resulted in a pov that couldn't explicitly flesh out the factors behind the Capitol's moral degradation. Although by the end of Mockingjay, seeing the same things pop up in the rebellion and Coin definitely called it into question (and with enough reading comprehension one also wouldve extrapolated it from the og trilogy anyway). Whether or not there was light in the Capitol's darkness, whether or not there were those who fought against the Hunger Games, in the end their darkness still swallowed the light.

i get that people (by people i mean me) want installments of characters that we already know (e.g. Finnick, Johanna, Haymitch, etc) or even new characters with a perspective that we're used to (e.g. maybe a victor from another district, but still from the districts), but I truly think that the impact would not be as powerful as either the original trilogy or TBOSAS because, we already know the districts are suffering. It's made abundantly clear, the cruelty and exploitation. It's so cruel that one thinks, how did things get to this point?

Then you look at TBOSAS and think,

oh, thats how.

[obsidianpen]

the fact that harry canonically is smart and magically powerful makes my mood improve several times a day, but i don’t get the overwhelming tendency to dumb him down in fanfiction, especially when paired with tom/voldemort. and when i say canonically, i really do mean that it’s written black on white in the books: his grades, which are a bit higher than even an average student, considering how little time harry actually spends studying; his brilliant memory, almost to the point of making me wonder whether it can be classified as eidetic (he remembers spells and wand movements he’s seen maybe once or twice before perfectly, not to mention remembering a spell hermione cast a whole year prior and successfully casting it himself on the first try; remembering specific placements of objects or random things he’s read in passing); continuing on from the previous examples, his ability to cast correctly and successfully a wide range of spells, some being quite advanced, on his first few tries; his ability to plan, strategise and then lead people into said course of action.

obviously, he is hotheaded and impulsive and stubborn and self doubting to a fault, distrustful in his own abilities when it costs him the most, but that doesn’t negate at all his intellect and magical proficiency. he’s not dumb, he’s not just interested in quidditch and he definitely isn’t a goody two shoes, who would tremble at the thought of manipulating, lying or using dark magic to get his own way, as long as the end goal aligns with his ideals.

i’m not referencing any of your specific work here, this is not the point of this ramble, rather i wanted to bring forth something i’ve noticed happening quite a lot and wondering what your opinion is, as a fanfic writer yourself?

i just feel like there is no need to sacrifice one character for the sake of another — in this case, building tom/voldemort’s character at the expense of harry. he doesn’t have to be stripped down of all the things that make him compelling and complex just so voldemort can seem grander on page. we already know he is intimidating and powerful and captivating. he already demands the attention of the reader when making an appearance.

but two characters can be as equally complex and intricately built, and still coexist on the same page. that’s the baseline of their great chemistry, i think: how well they bounce off of each other without even trying too hard.

well, I can’t really speak to whether or not this happens all the time with harrymort or not, as I don’t read a ton of fics, so I’m taking your word on that being true. And I don’t know if I put Harry on quite as high of a pedestal as you do - I do think he is above average in a lot of things and exceptional in a few, but I also think he’s relatively average in many respects, which is why I like him. All that being said, I’d guess it has to do with a few things.

first I’d say it’s that a lot of people like to write extremes, esp when it comes to villain/hero type pairings. They like Voldemort seeming extra big and bad and strong, and so yeah, they make Harry smaller and weaker in comparison. Maybe some do it in reasonable ways, and others do it in a, Harry’s a 5’0” omega male in heat or wtf ever (no shame there if that’s your thing!). It’s fun to write and really does something for a lot of people. I’d imagine this happens with all sorts of pairings.

I’d guess another reason is that, if you have been reading fanfiction for a long time and you come across this weaker/smaller/etc version of Harry a lot, you might start to forget what he was like in canon, and you’re being influenced by the content you are taking in and therefore writing Harry like this, too. Happens all the time in fandom.

lastly, I think this may happen because it’s a lot easier - and therefore fun - (imo ofc) to write extremes than it is to write two characters who are closer together, across the board. There’s a lot more nuance when the couple is much more evenly matched. It’s hard. It’s hard! So much simpler to figure out what’s going to happen next when the power dynamic is 10/90 instead of 50/50. A game of chess with a master versus a novice is over fast; a game with two evenly matched players who like to sit and stare at each other binge analytical can go on a looooong time!