#genuinely on my first watch I related to juri the most

[echothelover]

The thing about relating too much to Juri is it can and will make you a Shiori apologist

[hannahwatchesbigbrother]

This has been a worse than average endgame (to say the least), but I want to acknowledge the highlights of bb25. I’ve been watching since bb16 (been a feedster since bb17), and this has truly been the most invested I’ve been. Despite how frustrated I’ve been with production this year, I really think this season has some really stellar stuff in it (especially pre-jury). So here is a (lengthy) list of how I’ll remember this season:

Cirie motherfucking Fields showing up!!

Izzy immediately clocking that Jared was Cirie’s son before the live premiere even ended

Izzy immediately clocking that Cameron gives serial killer vibes

Felicia destroying four mics by the end of the first week

Felicia falling into the hot tub

“Clean that shit up a bit”

Cameron thinking Felicia was related to Denzel Washington

“Izzy Fields” and the beautiful friendship between her and Cirie

Hisam’s villain arc

Cory in Blue’s pink outfit (and later Americas jumpsuit)

(Honestly just Cory being a genuinely good dude who would call out things that crossed a line and fought against toxic masculinity)

The target flipping every other hour for like the first six weeks of the game

Every time Zach Wurtenburger tweeted about BB

The nickname “fucking Bowie Jane” which was then just shortened to fbj

The still of Cory’s mouth wide open while he was saying “what the fuck” when they were thinking of keeping Hisam

Meme’s storage room rants

“If I’m a have not next week, I’ll self-evict” “I’ll be a have not with you” *america leaves* “(to self) Cory, are you the most pathetic person? They were right about you — you’re a pick me”

Felicia yelling at Jag while he was in a chicken suit

Felicia and “Mr. B” (smooches!)

The slow burn Americory showmance (I could write a thesis on how much I love it but I’ll spare you)

The fact they brought the pressure cooker back

Izzy crying about how much she hates being in the same room as Cameron

“Fuck jag and I said that shit” -America Week 4, a prophet

When Matt used the power on jag and even live feeders were shook because we had no idea

The fact that Cameron’s 14 hours in the pressure cooker didn’t matter because jag was just brought back into the game

Blue sucking up to Felicia bc she thought she was Jared’s mom for a solid 24 hours

Felicia’s sleep screaming/singing

The dramatic and out of no where red/Cameron break up

“Cam thinks he’s like a father to me, but really he’s like an absentee father who wants to sleep with my girlfriend”

Blue volunteering jag to go up as a “pawn” during Jared’s hoh

Cam winning hoh after being blindsided by the red vote (hate him but the absolute silence and his thumbs up is so funny)

“Okay Jasmine” “*crying* who’s jasmine?” “*singing* a whole new world”

Cam not telling anyone including production who he was putting up

Matt winning the prize swap veto but choosing the punishment bc he thought he’d get to hang out with the real Josh Duhamel

The Josh Duhamel punishment in general

Izzy’s kick jump during the piggy pals punishment

Jared destroying his game because Cirie was stuck in a kayak with Felicia for 48 hours

THE IZZY FLIP

(The fact the izzy flip happened bc she told Cory that he couldn’t sleep in the same bed as America anymore lol)

The Cory/Jared humiliverse fight

“To all my friends and family, trust I know that they are all liars and snakes… and cowards!”

“See you soon, pig!”

The Cirie/Felicia fight post-Jared’s eviction

Peak Unreliables when Jag fought for Cory’s LIFE against cams plan to backdoor him

People retweeting Meme’s tweets from over ten years ago that were weirdly relevant to the season

America lifting Cory after it was confirmed that they made jury

The musical that Cory got for his zing

The one time all the different stans came together was to celebrate Cams eviction

The “exquisite” bit

America causing Jag to want to shit his pants after telling him to “literally fuck off”

“Literally in this world, I am your biggest fan” 😭😭😭

Felicia being Cirie’s best friend and worst enemy (aka when she shaved her foot on her bed)

Americory saying “I love you” on Cory’s way out the door

Americas shrine to Cory/transforming into him

Cirie’s DR of her flipping off Jag, Matt, and Bowie

Izzy/Paige going as Americory for Halloween

The Americory “cradle robber” Halloween costume

“I’d be more impressed if [the wins] weren’t against two senior citizens, an airhead, and an idiot”

[melloggd]

Review: The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures

Capcom • Capcom • 2015 • Nintendo 3DS Played in The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles Read it on Backloggd: (x)

With every Ace Attorney I play, I become more and more aware of just how excellently crafted and set up that first game was with its original four cases. They may seem kind of quaint nowadays in terms of scope, but the pacing from case to case felt damn near perfect. A first case introducing characters, relations and game mechanics in a short-and-sweet way. A second case raising the stakes of the story and setting up things to come, remaining decently tame in solvability. A third case that introduces somewhat more elaborate schemes, whilst also giving you a break from the "main story" with something more zany, sort of helping you swallow the more outlandish murder method while also putting more focus on character dynamics than core plot progression. And then finally, a fourth case, that takes aspects from all of the above and combines them into one climactic final act.

For how tride-and-true the structure seems to be, the only games so far to really follow them are the first two games. With everything else: Trials&Tribulations, Apollo Justice, and indeed the game I'm gonna get to in a second, they've tweaked with this formula a bit. In my opinion its all been to somewhat mixed results, but with some really satisfying highs: T&Ts changes make it just the right kind of shake-up for a final game in a story arc, but it doesn't feel like it was thought through well enough, leading to a somewhat dragged-out middle half of nothing much happening. Apollo Justice's opening act is one of the best executed cases in the entire series and earns its far longer length by being genuinely climactic and affecting our characters in a noticeable way, but...then the second and third cases are thoroughly mediocre.

All of this is to say, that The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures is another one of Takumi's shake-ups to the original structure, likely the biggest one, and while its respectable in its ambition I can't help but feel like it stumbles just like, if not more, than the prior two games in doing so. Now of course, all of what I've been talking about has just been pacing and per-case quality: Let me just flat-out say that this game nails almost everything else it sets out to do. I finally do get the appeal and love for these games: The atmosphere of London, Susato and Naruhodo's banter, the music, the Jury system (mostly), the Deductions...Herlock in general! They were all absolutely stellar and it was easy for me to both see and experience why so many people have fallen in love with these games.

Yet everytime I think back to this game, specifically, on its own...it circles back to the story and its pacing, both of which still feel pretty half-baked to me. Don't get me wrong, its not thoroughly rotten or whatever, and Case 3 is one of my new all-time favorites. But then you have Case 1, that feels insanely dragged out despite not really doing anything to earn its length a la AA4. You have Case 2 that pulls a plot-beat that it in my opinion shouldn't have done until far later into the story, is overall mostly boring to play and predictable to watch unfold, and ends on one of the cruelest notes in the series that's brushed over weirdly casually. And then you have Case 4, which is quite possibly the most vapid and pointless case I've ever played in the series. It does nothing to forward any of the characters or raise stakes, it doesn't escalate the possibilities for how cases could be solved like the "typical" third case does...really, it mostly feels like its here for the sake of giving you another Deduction, which comes so early on and is so seemingly unrelated to the case that by the end of it you've pretty much figured out the whole (surprisingly simple) story of what happened.

Case 5 picks things up again as expected yet doesn't really...go anywhere. It takes up some interesting concepts to be sure, has some nice character moments and really funny parts, and parallels Turnabout Goodbyes with your relationship to the defendant. Yet the case itself was so thoroughly bogstandard and simple, with a character you have pretty much zero attachment to or against serving as the big bad antagonist. They did one somewhat-cool thing near the tail end of things involving a side character, but it felt far too late and as if the game could have made Case 2 and 4 build up more smoothly to this moment, rather than have "the core game" basically just be Case 3 and 5.

Character relations in general feel oddly unfinished here and there. SLIGHT SPOILERS: -Hosonaga just kind of disappears from the plot at a certain point -Stronghart doesn't do much other than tell you what to do and be the most predictable villain for the next game I've ever seen (written before playing Great Ace Attorney 2) -Kazuma doesn't get to do much at all before he's out and (unlike Mia) does nothing after that point beyond be flashback material.

And I get that its all for setup to a sequel, and its going to make that sequel a far better game, to be sure. But I believe each installment should still be a satisfying package on its own: Those loose threads should look good without being tied up by a separate game. And yeah, it does do a great job of investing me in the universe of these two games, and preparing me for things to come. I love these characters now and I'm already theorizing what all of these loose ends will lead to, but the game on its own, in my opinion needs more than that.

Last note on the pacing: The way there's not a single case with more than one Court or Investigation segment feels extremely bizarre to me. Rather than having cases split across multiple days with jumping back and forth between court and trial, it's all one huge block each per case. It's a bizarre break in the series' typically structure, especially given how Court sections later in the game end up dragging because of it. Case 3 somewhat makes up for it by making fantastic use of the evidence-examination mechanic, letting you examine the whole crime scene during the trial, but other cases (...4 and 5) feel like they do nothing but suffer from the lack of splitting court sections up properly. It also left me feeling like there wasn't as much investigating as there usually is in the series which, isn't really a complaint per se, but is just an odd thing to think about considering the game as a whole.

The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures is a weird little game. Simultaneously overachieving yet not doing enough, shaking up the formula yet paralleling past beats, and it has Herlock Sholmes in it.

The result is a game that made me fall in love with The Great Ace Attorney as a whole far more than it did make me fall in love with this first Adventure on its own. And if nothing else, that makes me thoroughly excited to play the sequel.

[Playtime: 30 hours] [Keyword: Unrealized]

[irohsteaa]

[under construction]

well, i guess it's time to start drafting a comparative analysis of humbert humbert and klaus poppe, because there's no such thing as too many drafts, am i right

[jebazzled]

Why Aren’t People Writing With Me?

Why aren't people writing with me?

Real talk: do you often find yourself waiting weeks or even months between partners replying to your posts? Do people seem to prioritize all their other threads over yours? Do people seem to be just not that jazzed about writing with you? It's the worst feeling, when you're spinning your wheels and on the outskirts, wondering why you're struggling to gain traction. Sometimes, sites just be like that - people writing with their friends, or closed groups hard for a newer member to break into, or folks writing on slow timelines, or not keeping track of how long they've kept a partner waiting. It comes with the territory. But sometimes, it might be your writing that's holding your threads back. I know what you're thinking:

But it's something everyone can genuinely stand to consider, when they're having trouble getting a thread to keep moving: how much of this is my thread partner holding me up, and how much of it is me? Is there anything I can do to keep things moving? No matter how long you've been writing or how advanced a writer you are, it can be easy to forget that writing is ultimately a game of improv, and writing well is only part of the job. Part of the job is setting your partner up for a good time, too.

This tutorial is about writing starters & replies that make your thread partner excited to write back.

We'll be covering:

Starters that stall vs. starters that enthrall (sorry! the rhyme was necessary.)

Common tactics for writing replies - and common pitfalls of them

Alternate approaches to writing replies

Hopefully, these tips and tricks will improve your rp experience - because aren't we all here for a good time?

Onward!

STARTERS

Ah, starters. The bane of every roleplayer's existence. Starters are difficult because they often require some scene-setting, leaving the writer to try to set up a premise and a vibe without powerplaying for their partner. And then, you've got to start the interaction. There's a lot to contend with, so a lot of people avoid starters at all costs.

Personally, I like starting a thread: this way, I'm not waiting on a post; I have control over when it goes up. Thread partners often appreciate you writing a starter for them, so it's an easy way to engender good will. And finally, for me, it lets me make sure the thread is off to a good, actionable start.

Starters come with pressure - the starter sets the tone for the thread. A dud starter will stump your partner on replying, and they may even grow to dread posting. Which isn't fun for either of you!

Some things to consider when crafting a starter that will get your partner excited:

PREMISE Whether you're writing an open thread or a plotted thread for a specific partner, every starter needs a premise. The premise might be simple: perhaps your character is going to pickpocket your partner's. Maybe it's two friends catching up. It could be two strangers bumping into each other in an alley. It might also be more complex: maybe you're setting up an enemies-friends-lovers-enemies-rivals-lovers-friends-enemies plot. Maybe your character is defending the teaching of evolution to schoolchildren before a jury of his peers. Maybe it's a duel.

Generally, the more specific the premise, the better. This doesn't mean you need every beat of the thread plotted out, but it is good to think about: What do we want each character to get out of the thread? 

Think of this as your overall goal for the thread. Is one character seeking reassurance or advice? Is there a business transaction being made? Have you and your partner agreed to hurt one character in a duel? If you can't think of an overall goal or point for the thread, the chances of stalling are high. This is common with "catch up" threads, especially ones in which neither character has particularly exciting updates to share. If only one character is "getting something" out of the thread, be careful in your own posts to set up plenty for your partner to respond to. Not every thread will have equal actionable payoff for both characters, which isn't inherently a bad thing. But if your posts don't give your partner much to engage with, the thread can read as selfish or one-sided - which isn't anyone's intention!

How do we want the events of this thread to impact this character, moving forward? 

Related to the above, if both characters can walk away from this thread without any change - perhaps reconsider the premise or necessity of your thread. There is no shame in not doing a thread when it wouldn't mean anything to character development or plot progression for either character! "Just because" threads are always the first that drop on thread priorities - why not save yourself the trouble, and plot something you will both be excited about?

What is the most reasonable entrypoint for this thread? 

Reality is filled with filler - moments in which nothing interesting happens, but which carry us from point A to point B. Conversation that goes nowhere and just happens for the sake of filling silence. But this isn't reality, this is fiction, which means we can cut the boring stuff and jump straight into the meat. If your premise is Character A pickpocketing Character B, don't open with Character A just wandering around the market, waiting for Character B to wander around the market, so Character A can pickpocket them: close your starter with Character A's hand around Character B's wallet. This gives your thread partner something to respond to (the theft) and in two fewer posts than it would have taken otherwise.

ACTION Dialogue is an engine for plot progression and for character development, and there is nothing quite as satisfying as strong dialogue. But questions, greetings, and other standard ways to launch an in-character conversation aren't your only options.

All a starter needs is action, and saying "hello," "what are you doing," or "hey! That's my pod racer!" are all actions. But actions can be silent, too, so long as they trigger a reaction from your writing partner. Character A pulling their hand out of the butt pocket on Character B's jeans, wallet in hand, begs Character B to react. Character C puking into the same trash can where Character D is searching for the utility bill they need for proof of address gives Character D something to dodge. Character E speedwalking through the grocery store and destroying the greeting card aisle gives Character F something to be horrified at. Even if A, C, and E all do it without saying a word. One thing you'll notice about each of the above premises is that they involve doing something - pickpocketing, puking/dumpster diving, grocery shopping. If you suspect your starters are leaving people underwhelmed, consider building your premise around action. The action doesn't need to be dramatic like the above examples. For instance, let's say that Character G is catching up with Character H after her divorce. They can do this over coffee in Character G's living room - but if they're walking their dogs while Character G's kids are with her ex-husband, you and your partner can use the dogs as emotional stand-ins:

Hannah dug her heels into the ground as Penelope started after a squirrel. Beside her, Gloria and Fifi both seemed not to see it. Hannah had never seen Gloria so out of it, so disconnected from the world around her. It frightened her. "How's Fifi holding up?" she asked, quietly, once Penelope calmed down and they kept walking. "I know Mike wasn't great to her, but - she probably misses the routine?"

Giving the characters some sort of verb to do beyond talking gives you more lenses through which to view an interaction, plus more opportunity for body language for your partner to respond to.

STARTERS: TL;DR Now that we've talked about how to start a thread on the right foot, let's quickly review our main food for thought items. Mind Snacks, if you will:

What do we want to get out of this thread?

Start on track for that result - do not lead with a detour!

Build around action - even small ones

Is the concept of this thread important or interesting? Would we be better served skipping it and writing something else?

REPLIES

Now your thread is off the ground. Excellent! It's a few posts in but your partner doesn't seem very excited - maybe they don't message you about how much they liked your reply, or how fun the thread is so far, or maybe they don't react to the tag in the server; maybe it's radio silence from them until they reply a month and a half later, when they're caught up on the threads they seem to keep shuffling ahead of yours. How do we move your thread up in the shuffle? Make it fun to reply to, and easy to reply to.

COMMON APPROACHES  An easy way to tackle a reply is by having your character react to each action and dialogue from your partner's character:

Maycey slid into the navigator's seat of the L2-47 spaceship, almost kicking over a cup of Dark Matter Decaf.

"Sorry," she said, not looking at Brooks. "Are we still checking out Planet 42601, or did General Berry have us change course?" Brooks watched Maycey enter the cockpit, snorting as she almost knocked over his coffee. Though it wouldn't be funny to see what the brew would do to the controls of the L2-47. "No problem," he said. "General Berry wants us to do a pass over 42601, but we aren't doing a full landing."

This reply covers everything Maycey did in her post, but doesn't advance the thread. What comes next? Brooks hasn't given Maycey much information to process, nothing to act on, no juicy body language to consider. Maycey's writer is fully on their own to advance the thread. To move it forward in a meaningful way, they might come up with a plot development they need to run by Brooks's writer to make sure it's not stepping on anything Brooks had planned. They may need to make up some lore. They may need to expand the premise of the thread. Brooks may or may not have helpful input, but when push comes to shove, Maycey is the one who is going to put it in their reply.

Maycey whipped her gaze to her captain, shocked. "But sir - we've come all this way to rescue 42601. Berry - sorry, General Berry wants us to abandon them? Their distress signal took three days to reach us; the atomospheric poisoning has got to be lethal by now." Her hands didn't touch the controls - she couldn't bear to take them off course to the desperate planet. "Sir, we have to do what's right." Brooks took a sip of his coffee, thinking about his own family back on Orbital Sphere 23-Y2K. They'd put out a distress signal years ago, back in his own training days. He'd seen it during radar detection class, and he'd had to ignore it. For the Good of the Galaxy. Not a day goes by that he doesn't think about the flashing signal on his screen, and about clicking the popup window. Dismiss. This, too, is for the Good of the Galaxy. He has to pretend it doesn't bother him. "The right thing is what General Berry says," he said, putting the coffee cup back in its cupholder. "For the Good of the Galaxy."

All of that work from Maycey, and Brooks only gave us one sentence to propel the plot. Yes, he had a lengthy internal monologue debating it - but that interiority means nothing to Maycey, who isn't a mind-reader. In this scenario, the focus on Brooks's tragic backstory, without giving Maycey anything actionable, sets up a very one-sided dynamic. If this happens consistently over one or many threads, the tragic backstory no longer feels tragic in a meaningful way, but just feels like a trite device to be trotted out - to tell rather than show a reader that a character has depth.

How could this post give Maycey more to work off of? Below is the same reply from Brooks, with additions made in green, rearranged wording in blue.

Brooks could feel Maycey's stare - bewildered and accusatory. He can hardly blame her, but she should know by now that this is how the Galaxy stays out of the Great Bezosian Black Hole. Sheer obedience. He avoided her eye contact, took a sip of coffee. Sheer obedience. Just like years ago - back in his own training days. He'd seen it during radar detection class, his own family's distress signal back on Orbital Sphere 23-Y2K, and he'd had to ignore it. For the Good of the Galaxy. Not a day goes by that he doesn't think about the flashing signal on his screen, and about clicking the popup window. Dismiss. This, too, is for the Good of the Galaxy. He has to pretend it doesn't bother him. "The right thing is what General Berry says," he said, putting the coffee cup back in its cupholder - his hands are shaking; it misses the rim twice, sloshes onto the knee of his parasuit. "For the Good of the Galaxy."

This version acknowledges the primary beat of Maycey's post (something we will talk about later) - that is, her accusation - and adds body language betraying his doubts. While interiority is great, externalization makes it possible for other characters to engage with your character's thoughts and motives. Brooks's new post gives Maycey more to engage with, which will better set her up to give Brooks more to engage with, and so on. When you both do the lifting, you both have a better time.

Another common method - especially in conversational threads, especially in "catching up" premises - is to lean on dialogue and, more specifically, questions. But most conversations we have in life aren't nonstop questions!

"Trudy said you got married," Annabelle said, fiddling with the edge of the linen tablecloth. "Is that true? I thought you didn't like Edgar - not like that." Sasha took an enormous bite of raw cucumber, not even bothering to slice it. "We just got engaged, we're not married yet. Don't you like Edgar?" Annabelle looked away, suddenly nervous. She didn't know why it mattered to her whether or not Sasha liked Edgar - only that it did. "He's fine, I guess. But do you like him?" "I do! I love him. Will you be my maid of honor?" Sasha grinned at her friend. She wanted nothing else in the world but for Annabelle to be part of her special day.

This series of posts involves a number of questions both stated in dialogue:

Is Sasha married?

Does Sasha like Edgar?

Does Annabelle like Edgar?

Will Annabelle be Sasha's maid of honor?

And unstated:

Why is Annabelle nervous?

Why does Annabelle care whether or not Sasha likes Edgar?

The stated questions are yes/no questions, somewhat procedural. The unstated question and its implication - that Annabelle cares about whether or not Sasha likes Edgar because she might like Sasha - is a juicier question than the minutiae of wedding planning. But Sasha's writer isn't letting Sasha notice or react to any of Annabelle's body language (her nervousness, her fiddling with the tablecloth) and focuses instead on the simple questions, which are a cover for what isn't being said. Information does not need to be voiced for it to be acted upon. Let's look at the same line of posts, with additions in green for Sasha and in pink for Annabelle.

"Trudy said you got married," Annabelle said, fiddling with the edge of the linen tablecloth. "Is that true? I thought you didn't like Edgar - not like that." Sasha had wondered when Annabelle would ask. She seems on-edge, fiddling with the tablecloth, as though they've never had a picnic outside before. She's not sure why Annabelle is out of sorts, but it's making her feel out of sorts. Sasha took an enormous bite of raw cucumber, not even bothering to slice it. "We just got engaged, we're not married yet. Don't you like Edgar?" She gently grasped Annabelle's fingers, unclenching them from the hem of the tablecloth. "Edgar thinks you're the bee's knees." Sasha's hand on hers - her stomach did a flip, palms instantly feeling clammy, like she could swoon in the summer sun. Annabelle looked away, suddenly nervous. It's worse that Edgar likes her. Makes her feel vile for resenting him like she does. She didn't know why it mattered to her whether or not Sasha liked Edgar - only that it did. "He's fine, I guess. But do you like him?" It's a silly question - of course she loves him; how could she have said yes otherwise? But Annabelle seems not to believe her. Annabelle seems to worry. Annabelle is worried so much of the time - and so much for her - she tries to be reassuring, gripping her friend by the shoulders, offering a grin. "I do! I love him. Will you be my maid of honor?" She wanted nothing else in the world but for Annabelle to be part of her special day. Annabelle is her best friend - the only person she could stand at the altar with besides Edgar.

See how much more complex the dynamic is between these two when they have things to react to other than dialogue?

REPLIES PART 1: TL;DR So now we've addressed two common approaches to replies and seen how they can fall short, and discussed tips for elevating them. Your main takeaways:

Acting is reacting - react to your partner's dialogue AND body language, and give them some to work from, too!

Dialogue is not a game of Questions Only

If you're not driving the thread forward, you're slacking - don't leave it to your partner every time!

SYNTHESIZING: YOUR NEW APPROACH TO WRITING REPLIES

Now that we've discussed the pitfalls of action-by-action responses and dialogue-only threading, let's synthesize all of the above into one methodology for writing replies. The common pitfall of action-by-action responses is that one writer ends up only ever progressing the thread one sentence at a time - thinking of a post in terms of beats helps separate what actually needs substantive response, versus what is background information to inform your response. When I write a reply, I copy and paste my partner's post into the wordcounter window where I write my posts. I read their post and identify the beats - that is, what actually happens. For example: 

Getting elected student body president was no joke. Hattie had worked for eleven long years to earn the position - bossed around her peers all the way from preschool. Back then, she'd been interested in power and prestige. But by the time she'd won the election junior year, she was exhausted. Now, on her first day of senior year, she was just excited about the choice parking spot. And yet, someone had the audacity - the nerve - to cut her off on the turn into the Keppler Family Parking Pavilion and slide right into her coveted parking spot. Crooked, so they took up the access lane to the adjoining handicapped spot. Too far forward, enough that she could see the metal RESERVED FOR STUDENT BODY PRESIDENT sign shaking on top of its pole. She threw herself out of her car, aiming the sole of her left Doc Marten into the license plate of the offender's Buick. "Hey, genius, there's no fucking run-off election this year!"

Because this is a starter, much of this is scene setting, which my partner could choose to echo, but the main things for them to react to are what my character - Hattie - offers in the moment:

dramatically throwing herself out of the car

kicking their license plate

swearing at them

Once I've distilled a post to the beats I need to respond to, I work my way through them, creating beats for my partner to respond to. With this method, a reply to the above might look like this:

Aunt Mildred's car was affectionately called The Boat for the first ten years of its life. Huge and unsinkable. That had changed when Aunt Mildred died in a boating accident over the summer, leaving Mikey the Boat's captain. Now, he just called it the Buick. And he wasn't very good at driving it - already he'd been honked at twice, overshot the turn into the parking lot, tires riding up on the curb. He pulled into the first available space. Figured he was outside the lines - but it seemed like the Buick was too wide to fit between lines anyway. And Aunt Mildred had never been one to follow rules. The terrible park job was in her memory. The sound of metal crunching at the back of the car, however, was not. If it's an accident, the Boat - the Buick - always wins, so Mikey gathered his violin case and drawstring backpack from the passenger seat, opened the driver's side door, and slowly got out of the car, turning his beanie backwards as if it mattered while he shuffled in his Adidas slides to the trunk, where a very short, very angry girl driving a Smart Car was trying to put the Boat - the Buick - in its place. "The car's not moving," he said, pulling a roll of Bubble Tape out of his backpack and taking a huge bite out of it. "But thanks for telling me my voting rights."

Mikey responds to Hattie's abuse of his car, but also gives Hattie a lot to respond to - minor dialogue, but a LOT of personal eccentricities that are bound to piss her off.

The dialogue and the action contribute to the trajectory of the thread - and giving Hattie something to play with keeps the musing about Aunt Mildred from feeling self-indulgent.

It's a small shift, going from thinking of posts as paragraphs to respond to to thinking of them as specific, small, actionable moments - but it makes a difference, especially in encouraging writers to be more thoughtful about creating opportunities for their partner to react.

REPLIES PART 2: TL;DR

beats, babey! not every sentence requires a response, but be sure to write some that do, whether it be dialogue or action.

ACTING IS REACTING!!!!!! if you don't give your partner something to react to, you are letting them down!

And that's all there is to it! Hopefully these examples are helpful as you think about ways to drive your plots and threads, and how to keep your own writing great for collaboration. The most important thing is to think of your writing partner. What do they need to be able to write back? What will make this thread exciting for them? How can you make sure this thread isn't serving you alone? Cheers, and happy writing!

[panvani]

I would love some Leo thoughts, if you dont mind! <3

How I feel about this character

REALLY FUCKING FUNNY. MY SIXTEEN YEAR OLD DOOMER OTAKU PROPHET MASTER WHO TAKES PLEASURE IN WATCHING ME GAMBLE MY LIFE’S SAVINGS FOR A GACHA JPG

Ultimately I have less to say abt most of the child characters in PH but there’s a lot to say abt how Leo relates to Glen as an entity... the thing is Lacie Knew that in order for society to be restructured to no longer isolate Abyss/to end the oppression of the Children of Ill Omen Glen would need to incarnate without being directly cursed by Jury... meaning that she knew her brother would need to be killed/the Baskervilles destroyed..................... but that’s about Lacie

Mostly he was a traumatized child who was WAY in over his head and like Vincent unreasonably believed that it would be better for his loved ones to have never met him at all than to suffer his existence. Which is why their relationship is so important lol (and why I’m honestly more invested in Vincent and Leo’s relationship than Leo and Elliot’s... we love it when characters are foils)

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Elliot tho I’m not really an ElliLeo person I think ultimately the point w their relationship was that Leo’s complete inability to function without Elliot around was... a problem. And actually this is something I can talk about in my controversial opinions section

My non-romantic OTP for this character

I used to not care about Vincent and Leo’s relationship much but now I think about it a lot it’s so so so good that they’re friends who love each other very much it is literally the funniest shit ever

Their relationship reminds me of Oz and Echo’s in a lot of ways in that they both felt as though they were in the same boat except in this case the two of them made an agreement to actively hack at the base of the ship while it was in the open ocean. Their relationship is Leo going hey wait if we keep doing this Vincent is going to die and I kind of love him actually and this would suck

It’s actually ultimately all words to VINCENT that gets through to Leo, ironically, because he understands Vincent as someone very similar to himself. And while none of these things really got through to Vincent because he finds himself to be fundamentally unworthy of existence it got through to Leo because it allowed him to recontextualize his feelings to be about someone else who he genuinely cared about. It’s good I’ve been thinking abt them a lot recently

My unpopular opinion about this character

ElliLeo is not a bad ship if you ship it that is fine I think it was the least evil outcome for being by far the most popular PH ship. However a LOT of ElliLeo stuff romanticizes Leo’s obsession and emotional dependency on Elliot despite Leo’s arc being about learning to actually see value in his own life outside of his worth to others.

That also comes back to the Glen thing (you see it most strongly in Gil) because the whole process is to convince the person in question they shouldn’t be allowed agency or allowed to want things for themselves. They’re all very deliberately taught that they have no worth outside of their “Master” (when first taught this it’s Glen [as the mouthpiece of the Jury] but the clear implication is that it eventually switches to the Jury itself) because it’s easy to continue the self destructive, oppressive structures Glen is made to enforce if Glen feels he has no power to end them. This feeling still exists without the Jury’s direct intervention, though, because of how being Glen also attracts misfortune to one’s person. Leo sooner convinced himself he was insane than start meaningful conflict with Elliot because he felt he had no place as an active participant in his reality.

And then there’s the whole matter of Leo’s feelings for Elliot being compared to Vincent’s feelings for Gil ad NO. LEO’S FEELINGS FOR ELLIOT WERE NOT UNHEALTHY ON THE LEVEL THAT VINCENT’S FEELINGS FOR GIL WERE, but the point being made on the whole is that obsession with another person without any sort of self worth is analogous to suicide. Ultimately, Leo’s love for Elliot came from a genuine respect and admiration for him as a person, and I don’t want to imply that it’s on the level of Vincent’s feelings for Gil, which are themselves an act of self harm. It’s just... the very obvious conclusion trying to be communicated is that Leo’s obsession with Elliot after his death was unhealthy and self destructive.

Elliot and Leo’s relationship definitely wasn’t inherently unhealthy. It was built on mutual respect and admiration and a desire to see the other and be treated as an equal. I just really hate the way the fandom romanticizes Leo’s dependence on Elliot when it’s something the narrative very deliberately condemns.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Wish Leo and Vincent had been shown to actually interact a few more times than they were because their relationship is incredibly important to the both of them but they get like 3 really really intense conversations and nothing else

[gamercock]

I hate to bring up the onceler in the year of our lord 2020 but now that I’m a flaming communist the lyrics to “How Bad Can I Be” hit a little different. I guess what I’m trying to say is . . .

Un-Ironic Lyrical Analysis of “How Bad Can I Be”

Now, at first glance both the song "How Bad Can I Be", and the book The Lorax, seem to be discussing man-made climate change. When I first read the book, and when I first saw the movie, this was the only thing I picked up on. People destroyed ecosystems and polluted the world for their own gain, and suffered the consequences for it.

Then, when one squints a little, they seem very anti-consumerism. People kept buying more and more thneeds, so the Once-ler "biggered" his factory and supplied more and more. No one thought about the consequences of their actions. Then, the last truffula tree is chopped down, they run out of thneeds, and the Once-ler is left with a great expanse of empty blackness and nothing more.

But when one looks deeper still, especially at the lyrics of the song "How Bad Can I Be", a very strong anti-capitalist message is revealed. This doesn't happen very often, but the movie actually seems to have more political themes than the book. Without further ado, let's put the lyrics of "How Bad Can I Be" under a microscope.

It starts off tame enough, with the Once-ler explaining that he's just doing what comes naturally. He even says that it's his destiny. A common argument for capitalism is that it's natural, that it's humanity's base state. This is patently untrue, as humans have the desire for both competition and cooperation. You could also make an argument that someone saying "just following my destiny" and then driving the native ecosystem out and destroying the natural flora could be a reference to the 19th century belief of Manifest Destiny.

Now let's skip all the way down to the line "I'm just building the economy". This is where the message really shifts from "capitalism can be bad sometimes" to "modern capitalism is a nightmare we need to fight".

"I'm just building the economy" here, the Once-ler justifies his immoral actions by implying that he's creating jobs and spreading money. This is an argument often used by large corporations and billionaires, and it's untrue. There's no excuse for leaving the poor to die in the streets when you could pay for them all to have homes and healthcare a dozen times over.

"Just look at me petting this puppy," here, he attempts to justify it by saying "I'm not that bad! Look, I think cute things are cute! I'm relatable!" Note how in the music video, the puppy is placed on a pedestal. It's clear he doesn't actually care about the puppy, he's faking care and empathy while the cameras are on him to appear more palatable to the general public. And even if he did care, it wouldn't make up for the crimes against humanity and nature that he's committed.

"A portion of proceeds go to charity!" in the music video, this portion of proceeds is a single coin. A billionaire donating a few thousand dollars to charity is the equivalent of you donating a penny or two, and the music video clearly shows it. Not to mention, it also shows that the homeless man featured is an actor, and the whole thing is a PR stunt.

And here things get intense. This is the part of the song that honestly gives me chills. The backing track suddenly acquires a dark tone with powerful, severe beats, and a ghostly choir chanting "Bad!" The lyrics are genuinely terrifying. The truth in them is haunting.

"All the money's multiplying!" here, he counts his bills and shoves the Lorax aside. He cares more for his money than he does anything else. He'll commit all kinds of atrocities for the tiniest increase in profit, much like modern billionaires.

"And the PR people are lying! And the lawyers are denying!" these two lines share almost the exact same message. Megacorporations have powerful PR teams that can make even the most openly horrifying actions seem justified and understandable. Their lawyers are the same, manipulating the judicial system with ease, and occasionally just straight-up paying judges/juries to do what they want. These two lyrics could also be referencing the McDonald's coffee debacle, in which a woman was served coffee so hot that when she spilled it she ended up with third degree burns. Her name was Stella Liebeck, and when McDonald's ran a smear campaign against her everyone ate it up. Even now, most people think she was some entitled customer deserving of ridicule.

"Who cares if a few trees are dying?" here, the Once-ler has stopped lying to both himself and the public. He doesn't care about the consequences of his actions, and he never has. He's selfish and greedy, and he believes his profit to be more important than the very world around him. This behavior can also be observed in modern billionaires.

Overall, both the lyrics and music video are a very, very clear metaphor for the corruption and destruction that modern capitalism spawns. By the end of it, the Once-ler is completely disconnected from reality. He's become so selfish, so greedy, that it has never occurred to him that he lives in the world he's destroying. Once again, there's a clear connection between his beliefs and actions and those of modern billionaires.

What really drives this billionaire/Once-ler connection home however, is the beginning of the book The Lorax. "He peeks, out of the shutters, and sometimes he speaks, and tells how the Lorax was lifted away. He'll tell you, perhaps... if you're willing to pay." And a few pages later, "Then he pulls up the pail, makes a most careful count, to see if you've paid him the proper amount."

You have to pay him for his information! He hasn't learned anything! After everything, after the Lorax's warnings, and running his company into the ground after chopping down the last truffula tree, and living alone in a bleak wasteland, he still cares more about money than anything else! The only person willing to partake in the unethical business practices required to become a billionaire is someone who was unethical to begin with. He's never cared about anything other than personal profit. We weren't watching absolute power corrupt absolutely, we were watching absolute power empower a really terrible person.

In conclusion, the book The Lorax, and the song "How Bad Can I Be" carry really strong anti-capitalist and anti-billionaire messages, and I honestly feel a little robbed that the song (and the entire movie, frankly) was turned into such a meme when it has such an obvious good message.

I speak for the trees, and they say eat the rich.

[yasuda-yoshiya]

Thoughts on Revolutionary Girl Utena

So, as a first step in my ongoing effort to detox from 800 episodes of card games and expand my anime horizons a little, I've spent the last month or so watching Utena. Wow, what a cool and fascinating series! It honestly felt to me like a really strikingly bold and subversive show even by today's standards, let alone for the time it was made. Having had some time to think on it, here are some tentative thoughts:

While I definitely enjoyed and felt engaged with this show the whole way through, I think the last few episodes were what really pulled it all together for me. Up to that point, I absolutely loved Utena and Anthy as characters and their relationship, and found the general surreal presentation and aesthetics of the show really consistently beautiful and intriguing in a way that made it always feel engaging to watch, but it also felt like a kind of episodic and disjointed show where the various characters' stories didn't really seem to connect with or impact each other in any meaningful way.

But the endgame of the series was where it really took me by surprise in how it went so far beyond what I would have expected! The way the show had been framed up until then, I was basically expecting the big finale to be about Utena definitively making the choice to be Anthy's "prince" and rejecting the role of the "princess" that Akio wanted to push on her - and I would still have really appreciated and admired the show even for that alone, for Utena's gender non-conforming presentation and relationship with Anthy being portrayed so positively in general and for the way her feeling pressured to be more like a "normal girl" was always so explicitly framed as the "wrong choice" by the narrative - but I felt like the show really took things a step further in not just upholding Utena's role as the prince but outright rejecting the prince/princess framework and the hierarchy of the dueling game system altogether. It felt like such a daring ending to me in the way it totally breaks down and reframes the whole premise of the series up to that point, and made me look at a lot of the characters and themes of the series in a whole new light! It honestly made me realise that I'd probably been projecting my expectations of this kind of story on Anthy in much the same way as Utena had, and it made the show end up feeling really intelligent and insightful to me in its willingness not just to overturn gender role expectations on traditional romantic narratives and flip the bird to heteronormativity (which it still absolutely does, and does very well), but also to really question and criticise the assumptions behind those narratives on a fundamental level.

And the more I think about the series since then, the more I feel like so much of the series' broader imagery and themes really clicks for me in that light? The whole system of dueling over the Rose Bride feels like a very apt metaphor for the way so much of mainstream society and media does present romantic love, as a struggle to "win" your ideal partner as proof of your self-worth and as a magic cure for all your personal unhappiness and insecurities, as a sort of contest where the “losers” who can’t “get” a partner look up at the “winners” with envy and resentment - and the way Akio ultimately pulls back the curtain on that system to reveal that the ideal castle that all those people were fighting to reach was just a false image he was projecting to them to serve his own ends, that their attempts to escape their insecurities and "revolutionise the world" through winning the duels were really just upholding and reinforcing the status quo, felt really powerful to me. While I was watching the show, a lot of the side characters and their subplots had sort of frustrated me at times with their frequent emphasis on unrequited love stories that felt really obviously shallow and unhealthy, but I felt like the last few episodes really successfully reframed a lot of that to me as a remarkably perceptive commentary on just how much those kinds of empty romantic ideals and societal conventions can constrain people and warp their individual potential on a systematic scale.

In that sense, I feel like I can really appreciate the show's portrayal of how even fundamentally decent people like Miki and Saionji can be warped by the system into people willing to objectify Anthy and fight to possess her as a way of alleviating their own insecurities, even when they wouldn't have been naturally inclined to be that kind of person, through the pressure of the people around them accepting it as the norm and the false promise of the ideal happiness waiting on the other side. How people like Wakaba and Keiko can be made to believe that happiness is impossible for them and to resent the people around them for "stealing their happiness away", because everything around them has led them to the subconscious belief that the only "happiness" out there is being noticed by a popular guy like Touga or Saionji. Even Utena, the one who most explicitly rejects the dueling system and specifically sets out to treat Anthy as a real person with her own autonomy, still ends up unconsciously projecting her own ideals on her and playing into the established system in the ways she goes about being her "prince", because the influence of those flawed ideals and norms is so deep and pervasive that it's almost impossible not to internalise some of it.

It feels like something I can definitely relate to as someone who absolutely did buy into a lot of that crap as a teenager and seriously hurt other people as a result - and while I did eventually manage to break out and see the toxicity of the system for what it was, it's also horribly easy for me to see how easy it must be for people to stay constrained by it and live out their whole lives without "breaking the world's shell", without even realising how the toxic assumptions they've inherited from "the world" are killing them and distorting the ways they interact with other people - how their attempts at escaping from their insecurities are hurting themselves and others, and ultimately just perpetuating the same system that's strangling them. Akio is a horrifying villain because the ways he insidiously manipulates and influences the people around him feel absolutely real - he's able to play to people's vulnerabilities and unexamined assumptions, to make them follow along with his script while keeping them always genuinely believing that they're making their own independent decisions and fighting for their own happiness and fulfilment. It's very hard to fight something that embeds itself on such a deep and unconscious level in people's basic assumptions and frameworks for viewing themselves and the world, where people don’t even see the ways it’s influencing them.

But I think Utena's ending feels very honest and hopeful in acknowledging that, while the system can't really be defeated or destroyed by individual people in any meaningful way, what people CAN do is make the decision to step outside it and not allow it to have power over them - and, hopefully, to inspire other people to be able to make that choice for themselves too. That part towards the end of the film where the other student council members came to the rescue and helped Utena and Anthy escape, wishing them well in the outside world - "We still haven't found our own way out yet, but we'll definitely get there some day" - honestly made me tear up a little! It really communicated a strong sense of hope to me in the idea that these kids might have made a lot of mistakes and still have a lot of growing up to do, but it's still possible for them to break free from Ohtori and everything it represents the same way Utena and Anthy did - that the present doesn't have to keep following the way of the past. It’s still possible for the next generation to escape it and leave it behind. The whole imagery around the film's ending - "it may be a world without roads, but we can build them" - felt really uplifting and beautiful to me as well; as ridiculously bizarre and surreal as the film was in a lot of ways, it felt like it capped off the series' themes really nicely.

All in all, I ended up feeling really fulfilled and satisfied with this show! It feels like a very deliberate series that's extremely conscious of everything it wants to do, and generally executes it well. I would say I probably didn’t really connect with a lot of the individual character arcs on a particularly deep level - Juri's resolution with that one guy who popped in completely out of nowhere felt particularly odd to me, and I wasn't a huge fan of Nanami or Touga either - but I think it really nailed the bigger picture in terms of its thematic project and the ideas it wanted to convey, and on the whole I feel like I just have a huge amount of respect for the things it had to say and the way it went about saying them. The whole imagery of the setting with the school as an isolated, self-contained world with its inhabitants unknowingly being overseen and controlled by Akio from his tower as "the highest place in this world" really feels like such a strong and vivid metaphor to me, and I honestly felt really impressed with just how perceptively and accurately the show manages to portray the subtleties of the various ways social and patriarchal pressures really do operate on people (and on young teenagers who are still figuring out how love and relationships work in particular). It's weird to say about such a surreal and often goofy series, but I honestly feel like I haven't seen a story that approaches those kinds of subjects with this kind of clarity, and I feel like this show's framework has honestly helped me to reexamine and better understand a lot of my own messy teenage experiences as well. Definitely a show whose whole feels like more than the sum of its parts for me, I think, and one that I expect is going to stick with me for quite some time!

[larkfeather1153]

I'm watching ducktales for the first time

I'm using this watch order list to figure out what comes when because I'm using Disney+ and apparently it's even more out of order than when it originally aired. I think I'm about halfway through the first season (last ep I watched was The Living Mummies of Toth-Ra), so no spoilers please!

Thoughts so far:

I had to take to google to figure out which triplets are which. Found a quote from Disney archivist Dave Smith: "the brightest hue of the three is red (Huey), the color of water, dew, is blue (Dewey), and that leaves Louie, and leaves are green." This is the only damn way I can remember their names

So far I've gotten that Huey=nerd/goody-two-shoes and Louie=Slytherin. Jury's still out on what Dewey's characterization is supposed to be.

Webby has Mabel's VA and I think that captures her character perfectly [Edit: I have been informed that she does not. I still think she bears many similarities to Mabel, most notably the grappling hook]

Beakley needs way more appreciation from literally everyone on this show and if there isn't a mother's day ep in which she receives all the love from all the triplets plus Donald and Scrooge (and McQuack) i will riot

Donald is best Dad Figure to the kiddos and I also need the above treatment for him on father's day ok. When he threw hands with a thug twice his size because they messed with his kids? Iconic.

"I can't keep track of all your enemies" i died

Also Louie got "then perished" by a mummy

Webby is hopelessly gay for Lena's whole "bird vanessa doofenshmirtz" thing and honestly? I cant blame her

Flintheart has a doofenshmirtz-esque villainy about him that i respect and appreciate

Launchpad is bird kronk and i will not take constructive criticism

We haven't even met this bitch but already i can tell that della duck is a rose quartz/king micah mashup and again i say to you i will not take constructive criticism

Where are donald's parents. Where is the triplets' dad. Where are webby's parents. You cant just "granny-uncle" your way through this i want a family tree goddammit

Follow up: scrooge is not the triplets' uncle, he is their great uncle and therefore i can and would die if someone calls him "grunkle scrooge" as a gravity falls reference. Bonus points if it is webby, despite her not technically being related to him.

The humor is reminicient of phineas and ferb and i like that

I also like that all the dog thugs are motivated by their genuine love of their mom. It's a subversion of the "i hate my parents" villain backstory trope and it gives me life

It took me a disturbingly long time to realize scrooge is voiced by david tennant because it occurred to me but then i went "not all scottish accents are david tennant you dumb nerd" and somehow managed to roll with that until the last ep i watched, when i saw it in the credits

I love the librarian lady. Especially the whole "how much of this is us doing your work for you" "about 50%" exchange.

[runningonmarvel]

little things in Hamilton

I was extremely, extremely lucky to be able to see Hamilton again tonight, so I made a list of some of the little things in the show that I just love, especially from the specific show I saw.

Act 1

Burr in a red-blood-wine coat when everyone else is in white, even from the beginning

desperate™ Hamilton trying to talk to Burr

Hamilton already touching/hugging Laurens as soon as they meet

Hamilton and Laurens walking off with their arms around each other after the story of tonight 

Hamilton and Laurens doing two handshake hugs in less than two minutes

just so much unnecessary touching between Hamilton and Laurens 

in my shot, at first Hamilton is just by himself and kind of standing still but the ensemble gradually joins in until everyone’s dancing bc they’re caught up in his ideas

Eliza bopping Peggy’s nose in the Schuyler sisters

the entirety of farmer refuted honestly. what a genius song

Hamilton literally jumping up on the box with samuel seabury

King George stomping his foot and the lighting turns blue above him

also rowing his staff like an oar 

the staging and the lighting in right hand man my god it’s amazing

throughout the whole show: Burr serving as the only one “out of time” who can sing with perspective and see the entire scenario to the end play out

Peggy’s celebratory dancing with Eliza’s letters from Alexander in both helpless and satisfied 

Hamilton celebrating by dancing after Philip Schuyler gives him his blessing and then quickly going back to standing maturely when Philip looks over at him with the death stare

Washington fixing Hamilton’s collar before the wedding

Hercules Mullligan as the flower girl; I’ll never be over that

Angelica’s frozen toast as the ensemble and characters spin backwards and the lighting on her

Hamilton and Angelica standing so close in satisfied and he kisses her hand

Hamilton and Eliza stepping away and Eliza facing away while Angelica sings her internal monologue in satisfied

Hamilton and Burr actually sounding like friends in story of tonight reprise: smiling and bantering

Laurens getting offended when Hamilton starts talking to Burr and then drunkenly asking about Theodosia

Charles Lee looking genuinely offended when Hamilton calls him inexperienced and ruinous 

Hamilton’s hand on Eliza’s stomach in that would be enough

Burr literally climbing on the rail and jumping up and down to convey how excited he is about Lafayette. relatable 

passing the letter around in guns and ships until it gets to Hamilton

Eliza kissing Hamilton before he goes off to fight

the harmonies in right hand man and history has its eyes on you

Washington taking off his hat when he’s vulnerable

Hamilton repeating “history has its eyes on me” to himself softly while Washington says it the second time

Hamilton sheathing the sword Washington gave him in time with the music

waving the coats around before Hercules Mulligan jumps out in Yorktown

Hamilton’s boots

Laurens’s high note when he dies

Hamilton continuing to talk to the jury while Burr roasts him

in non-stop, the turntable taking Angelica away from Hamilton while he watches her and the turntable brings Eliza to him

Washington being physically above Hamilton but Hamilton is still so confident and sure

Hamilton letting go of Angelica’s and then Eliza’s hands so he can go to the top of the stairs

Act 2

Jefferson pointing out into the crowd in what’d I miss

Madison giving Jefferson a nod like “this is what we’re dealing with” after Alexander cuts in to introduce himself 

that mic drop in cabinet battle 1

Madison’s love for his handkerchief 

Philip smiling so big after he counts to nine and kicking his feet

then throwing his hands up and running up when he finishes his poem

the callbacks to helpless in say no to this

pink light on Angelica while she narrates her letter to Hamilton

Maria turning away while James Reynolds reads off his letter

Angelica and Eliza being missing for so long around say no to this

all the subtle ensemble consume changes just…. wow

Burr watching from the walkway above for the first cabinet battle

Burr sitting in the chair in the second cabinet battle because he’s a senator

and nodding along with everything jefferson says

the mirror table in the room where it happens

Maria standing in the back for all of act 2 until hurricane and the reynolds pamphlet 

Burr awkwardly going up to Jefferson after cabinet battle 2 and starting to sing about washington

the silence in the audience after “southern motherfucking democratic republicans!”

“follow the money and see where it leads” foreshadowing we know

Washington stepping forward as he takes over singing the address in one last time and hamilton steps back

the entire ensemble getting together in coats to appreciated George Washington

Maria subtly standing behind the Hamilton family in one last time

king george making his assistant move the stool over so he can sit

the red flash in the Adams Administration

Jefferson grabbing the letter in we know and squinting at it with the most incredulous look on his face

Philip standing on the walkway in the shadows during we know

“alexander, rumors only grow. and we both know what we know” followed by the blue lighting and piano

THE WHOLE STAGING DURING HURRICANE: PASSING THE LETTER AROUND AND MARIA HANDS HIM THE PEN AND SLOW MOTION AND EVERYTHING

the incredible amount of paper thrown around the stage in the reynolds pamphlet 

Washington giving Hamilton the most disappointed look of anyone ever when he reads the Reynolds pamphlet 

the actual fake play with a play happening during blow us all away

Philip pointing his gun up before they even start counting

Eliza’s scream in stay alive reprise and moving her hand away 

Hamilton actually sobbing so much in it’s quiet uptown that it’s hard for him to say his lines

Madison crying in his handkerchief, desperate to get back to politics

Burr smiling so big because he’s so sure Hamilton will support him

Jefferson’s reaction of surprise and happiness and a little dance and Burr’s smile slowly fading from shock to anger

Hamilton sending like twenty letters to Burr while he leans on the staircase in shock

the ensemble doing Burr’s weird dances in slow motion while he rages at Hamilton

the finality of the world was wide enough

“near the same spot my son died is that why”

the ensemble member playing the bullet

Hamilton trying to go stand on the box during his monologue like he did in my shot but the bullet is already too close so he has to get down

the sadness in “Burr, my first friend, my enemy”

the philip/laurens actor spinning around to play both of them in two seconds

Eliza just missing Hamilton when he mentions her in his monologue

the stage clearing so quickly and suddenly it’s just him and burr and the dark

Angelica gets to say: “every other founding father story gets told. every other founding father gets to grow old”

the actress for eliza singing “will they tell our story?” instead of “will they tell your story?”

Hamilton and Eliza walking around each other as the ensemble sings and then him guiding her forward at the end

the gasp

[yaachtynoboat711]

The Gala, Part 1

A/N: So I’ve been working on this for damn near 24 hours now. I decided a few minutes ago that I was going to makes this a two-part ting. I’m a very visual person, hence the links and pictures you’re about to see. Thanks in advance for the support!!!!

Warning: Language, Fluff, Black Love in action!

Word Count: Stop micromanaging 😭😭

Abdullah, Carnes, & Associates. 12:43 PM.

“Have a great weekend and good luck tonight, Yaa”, her receptionist Jessica exclaimed as she walked past Yaa’s door.

“Thank you, sweetheart! I’ll see you tonight, yeah?” she quickly replied as she’d hoped Jessica heard the latter end of her response. She didn’t. Yaa cursed to herself and returned her attention to the brief she had been working on for the past week and a half. A few minutes later, Jessica called Yaa. “Attorney Abdullah, your 1:00 is here early.” “What? Hold on, Jess.” Yaa placed the call on hold to the calendar on her desktop. She didn’t have a damn appointment at 1:00. She resumed the call, “Jess, I don’t have an appointment at 1:00. I’m coming out there.” Yaa rolled away from her desk and reluctantly strutted down the hall. She didn’t want to entertain anything related to law for the rest of the week. Tired was an understatement; she was Black woman tired. It was a draining half-day to say the least. She’d been in three meetings, one being a long ass session for an upcoming high-profile case in the judge’s chambers. With tonight’s awards gala on her plate, she needed to retain all of her energy.

Yaa was the youngest, first African-American, and second woman to be nominated for the Richard T. Sheinbloom Award— one of the most prestigious awards for a lawyer to receive in the country—and she deserved it. She’d been working tirelessly for the past five years defending clients who’d been wronged by discrimination and injustice in this country. In a field often dominated by old white men, Yaa was standout. Yaa’s work was brought to forefront with her riveting TED Talk on intersectional feminism and the law. When she was in the courtroom, she was in a zone. She was a master orator and knew how to read a jury. After a few years, even the most experienced lawyers across knew not to match with her. She commanded attention and respect just by walking in a room. She was ever-present on social media, which appealed to her generation. Unless you had been beaten by her in the courtroom, no one had anything negative to say about her. I mean, let’s face it: she’s a young, curvy Black Muslim woman that practices law, makes hard-nosed white men shudder at the mere mention of her name, AND she’s Winston Duke’s girlfriend of almost three years?! Sis is the physical embodiment of #BlackGirlMagic! However, you would NEVER know she was a big deal or even an attorney for that matter and she wasn’t going to tell you either. It’s a wonder Winston hadn’t wifed her yet. The Devil worked hard, but trust, Khalida Abdullah worked harder.

Yaa regained composure and began to plaster a professional smile for her mystery appointment. She turned the corner into the lobby. Her fake smile shifted into a genuine smile as she saw her Winston standing there looking like a damn feast for five. “Shit, this nigga lookin type delicious” she thought to herself as she walked up to him. “Damn ,K.D., this suit is looking waaay too good on you,” Winston says as he looks you up and down with a stupid smirk on face, “You seeing somebody on the side?” Her face dropped and she punched him in his arm. “Boy, fuck you!” she said through her teeth. He laughed as he picked a box up from one of the chairs in the lobby. “I think you may enjoy these, my love. Consider this the first of many gifts today.” Yaa scrunched her eyebrows at him as she carefully opened the box. A rather striking box of flowers met her gaze. “Baby!” she squealed. He watched in satisfaction as his lady swooned over her gift.

One thing was for certain: Winston Christopher Duke loved him some Khalida Yaa Denae Abdullah. He loved everything about her: her laugh, her personality, her devotion to law (he hated at first, but after a while, he understood), the way she snored (baby girl be tired AF), and even the way her 5’3” stature struggled to kiss his ol 6’5” ass every time they kissed. Today, however, he loved the way her wagon was fitting in them pants. Yaa was thicker than racial tensions in the 50’s. From the backrolls to the thunder thighs to that fat ass to the lil fupa she wasn’t afraid to flaunt; Yaa had Winston hooked. The tattoo on her hip drove him insane every time he saw it. She filled her suit out perfectly and the way her thighs touched in those plaid pants, Winston was thinking about baby names for their hypothetical child.

The couple laughed and talked in her office for almost half an hour until she looked at her watch. She damn near broke her neck packing her purse and running in her pumps. “I gotta go! I have a whole day of prepping for this stupid gala.” she commented. Winston stared at her and chuckled to himself. “You haven’t eaten all day, have you, baby?” he said calmly. Yaa stopped dead in her tracks as she cursed to herself. How did this man know her so well? Was he the feds or something? Was he dicking her down so good that she never noticed him putting a chip in her arm or some shit? “No, I haven’t. Where you tryna go?” she asked. He smiled and walked with her to her car. They went to a small bistro down the block from her office. After lunch, the couple drove home to get ready for tonight’s festivities.

Yaa pulled onto her street and noticed cars parked in front of her brownstone. She only recognized three: her friend and stylist Tanisha’s, the makeup artist’s, and Winston’s. The other two were a mystery. When she got in the house, she damn near cried when she saw her parents and siblings lounging in the living room. They’d traveled all the way from Alabama just to come see their Khalida win an award. “Ummm…so y’all just gon’ lounge around here like y’all pay bills in here or something?!” She exchanged stern looks with the people in the room before bursting out laughing and hugging everyone.

She hadn’t seen her family since the holidays and this year they didn’t come up for her birthday, which was their excuse for visiting her in July in hot ass D.C. Her mom cheesed when she hugged her oldest born. "Winston didn’t want us coming this close to the gala, so we just held out. We came in this morning and just woke up from our post-flight naps not too long before you got here. I’m so proud of you, baby.” Yaa’s mom Khadija was practically glowing as she spoke to her daughter. Yaa was holding tears back. She just hugged her mom to keep them from flowing. She finally got it together before responding, “I should’ve known not to trust Winston with the guest list. He wouldn’t tell me who was coming. Boy was Fort Knox with the tea” she said as she started laughing and wiping away stray tears from her face. Justin, Yaa’s makeup artist, came downstairs and hugged her. “Whenever, you’re ready, we’re ready.” Yaa excused herself from her family and ran upstairs to shower. After her shower, she pranced into her glam room.

Since she didn’t have kids, Yaa utilized her four bedrooms well. The room catty cornered to the master bedroom was her “Glam Lounge” as she called it. All of her hair products, wigs, makeup, and whatever wasn’t in her closet was in the Lounge. She took pride in her room. Time seemed to stop as Yaa, her mom, and her sister Farrah all caught up on life while getting glammed; Umi and Farrah looked amazing. Yaa was the last to get ready. While Farrah was re-twisting her locs, Yaa’s phone buzzed and whistled; it was Winston.

“Just got home. I hear you all upstairs having too much fun up there.”

“Negro, please. Ain’t nobody stuttin’ yo ass. Let us Abdullah girls get pretty in peace.”

“I keep telling you y’all don’t need makeup. But you don’t listen. 😠”

“When have I ever listened to you, Chris? Since when?! 🧐😂”

“Bye, Denae.🙄”

Since tonight’s gala was possibly the most important night of her life, Yaa opted to pay respects to her Muslim upbringing. Her dark, neutral glam look and poppin’ highlight paired well with her platinum locs and signature red lip. She chose a breathtaking custom Valentino gown with red pumps and a matching sequined turban Farrah styled for her. After a chorus of gasps filled the lounge, the Abdullah women took Instagram worthy pictures in the hall. Khadija Daniels Abdullah made some beautiful daughters. When Khadija and Farrah went downstairs, all Yaa could hear was her father, Mustapha, whistling at and catcalling her mother. It was disgusting.

“Khalida, sweetheart. We’re all waiting for you!” Her father yelled. “I’m coming! I’m finishing up, I promise!” Yaa yelled in response. Tanisha was fastening Yaa’s shoe while Yaa was adding her rings to her fingers. “You look stunning, sis. I’m just…wow…bitch, I’m fucking shook!” Tanisha says as she takes her wig off and hands it to Yaa. “You gotta chill, Neesh! Put ya fuckin’ wig back on!” Yaa said as her fell back in laughter. There’s a knock door. Yaa knew that heavy ass knock from anywhere. Tanisha quickly went to the door and answered as Yaa retreated to her changing area. Tanisha loved giving Winston a hard time—that’s what best friends do.

“The fuck you want, Duke?” Tanisha asked harshly

“Well, MS. HOLLOWAY, I came to see if the love of my life was ready for us to g--”

“Nah, dawg. She ain’t ready. Sit ya tree ass down stairs and wait like everyone else.” The two exchanged two of the pettiest stares they could muster. Yaa had to intervene, but first, she had to stop laughing. “Alright, chill you two! Babe, do like Neesh said and go back downstairs. I’ll be out in a minute. Swear.” Yaa could hear Winston mumbling as he walked in defeat down the stairs.

Finally! Tanisha came down in her midnight blue mermaid gown and cleared her throat dramatically. “I present to you, the lady of the hour, Khalida Yaa Denae Abdullah, Esq.!” Tanisha had the extended mix of “Get Me Bodied�� playing on the Bluetooth speakers throughout the house. There to meet Yaa at the stairs was her Winston, lookin the fuck goodt. He stood there, mouth agape, and shook his head in total admiration of the immaculate figure that was his lady descend down the steps. When she made it down the stairs, Winston walked up to her to meet her half way. He gently caressed her chin and kissed her forehead, “Well good evening, Ms. Abdullah. Could I have the honor of being your date tonight?” There was a mutual laugh and affectionate look between Yaa and Winston, “Of course. I’d have the most beautiful man Allah created by my side. What could be better?”, she replied.

Neither of them noticed that everyone around them was recording them and putting them on social media stories with #BlackLoveGoals plastered everywhere. They could have cared less. Yaa loved Wins and Wins loved Yaa. All they needed was each other.

Daveon, who had arrived while Yaa was upstairs, took the initiative to break up their little moment, “SOOOOOOOO...are we leaving or are we leaving? The cars are here and we’re tryna watch you win this award.” Everyone including the couple burst into laughter and began heading out of the door. Yaa and Winston had a car for themselves. He walked behind her and held her train as she walked to the black SUV. “After you, my love.” Winston said as she opened her door with one hand and still holding her train in the other. “Thank you, baby.” Yaa sweetly replied.

The car ride was surprisingly quiet. Yaa was hella nervous. If she didn’t tell it, her body language sure as hell did. Sensing his lady’s worry, Winston took her tiny hand into his big hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze and a kiss,”Now before you lie, it’s okay to be nervous, K.D.. You’re so deserving of this award, it’s not even funny. Enjoy the night, loosen up, snatch some wigs, and let me see the smile that has changed my life.” She gave him a side eye out of this fucking world. When she looked at him again, she shook her head and displayed a smile the world could see the light from. To him, it was such a humble and inviting smile. A smile that could peace to the Middle East if she just opened her mouth. The fact that she only had one dimple made it even better for him to enjoy. “There she is!,��� he exclaimed as she shook her head and kept the goofy grin on her face. “You HELLA aggy, Chris, please know that.” She over her armrest to give him a peck on the cheek. Their hands remained intertwined right until the pulled up to the Kennedy Center.

Part two is coming later on tonight! I’ll be finishing as y’all are reading this!

MY SUHS:

@eriknutinthispoosy @thiccdaddy-mbaku @muse-of-mbaku @kumkaniudaku @vanitykocaine @dacreskars @uhlxis @teheeboo @niquelafleur @mbakusthrone @erikismybitch @killmongersaidheyauntie @killmoncoochie (lmk if you wanna be tagged!)

[man-i-dont-know]

BNHA Chapter 183-185: Thoughts and Spoilers

Aiight I’ll be honest, i had to go back and see how many chapters behind I was, summer got me in a funk. So if I did three whole chapters I would bore myself to death so I’ll be selective about what I talk about. With that said, let’s get into it.

The festival turned out great and while Deku was scolded it was only minor, which I am happy about because it shows that Deku made some of the best choices he could and the pros recognize that. Eri had a lot of fun (which is all that matters), the upperclassmen apologized, and the beauty pageant was won by Nejire (she was phenomenal, flying around like a fairy confirmed her victory). On top of all that, Deku somehow found time to make candied apples for Eri since the school wasn’t selling them. Anything with Eri is heartwarming.

Gentle and La Brava are being questioned, but is seems that the police officer that is interrogating Gentle is actually quiet understanding and hasn’t full condemned him as a criminal. Well like he obviously is a criminal but the officer is... sympathetic. Or at least not as hard as he could be. I really like this touch for a handful of reasons. A lot of series that deal with villains don’t exactly deal with them legally (a.k.a., beating the tar outta them), but when it is done, the outcome is essentially predetermined. What I’m getting at is that justice systems in action comics of any type are painfully rigid and or simplified so that the villain having been beat is a guarantee that they will be in prison forever and simply isn’t an issue anymore. I would give One Piece as an example for a rigid/simple justice system, but the only prison we have really seen has been broken into and out of so that doesn’t really apply. I suppose that the “jury” works for my example, meaning One Piece courts are really straight forward, just not really the actual containing of prisoners. So seeing Hero Academia put effort into  making the system seem much deeper and much more real is greatly appreciated (though I could argue that since there is more emphasis on it, the likelihood of something going wrong is much higher, like prison break theories that have floated around since when Stain was arrested).

Next chapter starts with the surprise announcement that Eri will be living at UA (dreams do come true). It is for public safety reasons but I will take it. Amajiki suggests that it is actually possible that with time, Mirio could make a return to the heroing world, but I think that statement will just get our hopes up so I am not listening to it at the moment. The Wild Wild Pussycats, plus Kouta, makes a surprise appearance and a handful of nice things occur. Tiger apologizes to Bakugou for not being able to prevent his kidnapping (Bakugou shrugs it off); Kouta is embarrassed but is already buying Deku merch (rockin’ red shoes); Ragdoll is still without a quirk, but will be taking a desk job to provide support; and the Pussycats are thrilled with how high their Billboard Hero chart ranking is and want to continue to work for their fans. Their is an ominous monologue that All for One gives in his prison cell, about wanting to get out to “give back” the quirks he stole (honestly, villain dialogue has so much potential when they can offer something nice and it still come off as a threat). Then we see the Top Ten Heroes. Almost all the familiar faces have some kinda costume upgrade which makes me wonder if that changing costumes just happens all the time or if it is a response to All Might retiring, though almost anything could be a result of All Might retiring. Dragon lady Ryukyu is there, Old Man Samurai has a rad design, there is a washing machine, Kamui Woods is 7th which surprised me, I didn’t realize he was that popular, there’s an aggressive rabbit lady, Edge Shot, Best Jeanist, Hawks and Endeavor.

The next chapter begins with a brief speech and each of the top ten are suppose to give their remarks. Hawks seems to be the restless type and is whispering to Endeavor before the introduction is over. Seeing he won’t get a response for the fire man, Hawks zips his lips shut (that motion struck me cause I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone else do that in a comic, besides the CP9 guy in One Piece but that is an extreme). The first handful of heroes give pretty generic speeches, with the exception of the Rabbit Girl who calls out all villains and that she is ready to beat the crap outta them. Hawks, now thoroughly bored/irritated, cuts off (unzips his lips cause they were still zipped from when he tried to talk to Endeavor) Edge Shot who is talking about conserving the peace, saying “Who cares?” Edge Shot isn’t surprised by this and the Rabbit Girl respects his guts to do that, Hawks then snatches the microphone and gives his own speech.

This speech kinda threw me for a loop and I had to think about it for a while, and my interpretation may be quite different from yours so bear with me. He starts off by saying that the most important thing right now is the approval ranking, which is only one of the factors that goes into this ranking system. He says we can no longer stick to the status quo, we can’t do things as we have before now that they are missing their symbol. He calls out the other heroes for not changing during this major transition period, he wants the heroes to act their part and talk like heroes. My interpretation from this is that the current hero system only worked because of All Might, and now that he ‘s gone, it can’t continue like this. That tied in with the fact that he favors approval ratings above all else, what I am guessing his goal is to change the public’s opinion of heroes in general and gain their support. He is already suggesting to do what the principal at UA is trying to accomplish, mass produce heroes in the absence of their symbol. Hawks goes a step beyond saying that the only way to win is if we have the approval rating of All Might among all of our heroes. He goes on later to say to Endeavor that he doesn’t want to be All Might nor does he want to be a leader, so the idea of trying to make a whole slew of heroes the symbol would make sense since if there is only one symbol, one hero falling brings all the peace with it. So that’s what I think he was getting at, we need the people to trust us again, but the current heroes aren’t doing anything to actually fill that gap (at the end of his speech the narrator comments that Hawks is 22 and rose to the top ten when he was only 18, which by then he had his own agency, the kid is a damn powerhouse and is funny but is arrogant as well).

Hawks hands the microphone over to a genuinely pissed Endeavor, who says that despite trying to stir up trouble, Hawks kinda had a point, and that all he has to say is “Just Watch Me.” But how he said it is filled with power and confidence and shook an audience who had been shook by a loud mouth bird man. Off stage Endeavor is pissed off and trying to get answers from Hawks, who laughingly said that he did what was necessary, shook things up, and set the stage for Endeavor. Hawks was actually quite impressed with how Endeavor handled the situation, and then asked a serious question. Hawks is having Nomu activity in his part of town and he wants Endeavor to team up and help out. The next scene is someone from the League of Villains talking to a Nomu named “High End” who is not only bigger and with a much more badass design, but is also intelligent and capable of understanding and replicating speech and taking orders. High End gets me so hyped up but also strikes fear into me because we know how powerful Nomus are, and this one is obviously much, much more dangerous. And that how the chapter ends.

I am purposefully leaving out discussion about the relation between Hawks and Icarus because by now you’ve probably seen it. This analysis really watered down Hawk’s character, but I do like him quite a bit, if he shows some genuine niceness, then he will become a fast favorite, I just worry his arrogance will be too much (again, Icarus). I would pay to see Tokoyami’s internship with Hawks cause I think Hawks would be chill with whatever edgy thing Tokoyami said but still have no real clue what he actually said. One last thing: I spoke with a friend about how some of the heroes don’t really seem to belong in the top ten (mainly the washing machine), but I look at it this way, ostracizing people in this universe doesn’t really occur because your quirk is “weird.” My case is that both of Tsuyu’s parents are straight up frogs, her friend is a snake with hair, trash grape boy is a trash grape boy and every hates him cause he’s a pervert and not because he is three foot flat with odd hair and a diaper, Sero has tape in his elbows, just to name a few. Our weird doesn’t really work in Hero Academia, so a washing machine in the top ten wouldn’t be strange if he has the credentials (I also said that Mister Clean is probably more famous than some sport stars, and that was the argument that convinced her so I’m not sure if my other one needs more work).

So that is it. Thank you for sticking to the end and reading all, some, or just parts of it, I write these just to get ideas out there and start conversations. Take what you want from my opinions and ideas if that will start a discussion. Again, thank you fro reading, and I hope you have a great day.

[hannahwatchesbigbrother]

BB20 First Impressions/Predictions!

It’s that time of year again! Please ignore this long post if you don’t care--it’s for my own amusement.

Faysal- There’s nothing I inherently dislike about him. I don’t know, he just seems too soft to me. I can’t see him going very far unless he gets into a showmance or a bro alliance (which is likely to happen but still). I think he seems sweet though, but I see early jury for him.

Tyler- I, weirdly enough, quite like him. He kind of reminds me of Johnny Mac, and I think he’ll end up being a secret threat in the game. I appreciate that he knows his archetype gets evicted first haha. I can see him going really far, actually. Maybe winning.

Hayleigh- She’s cute and bubbly! (I’m a bubbly person, so I like bubbly people haha) I think she’ll inherently go far. She seems easy to like and nonthreatening, but I can see her saying something maybe early on that gets her booted earlier. Her bio gave me weird Aaryn vibes, but her interview changed my mind on that--now she reminds me of Shelli. I have high hopes for her overall.

Brett- I thought his bio was funny for some reason haha. But then I watched his interview, and I got the full picture: he’s the bland white boy of the season. He’s going to take over and dominate for the middle part of the season and we’re all going to hate him until he eventually wins or has a tragic downfall. He feels like a less iconic version of Cody.

Angela- “Girls are threatened by me” “Naturally I relate more to guys” blah blah blah. She likes Rachel Reilly though so #respect. I don’t think she’ll have a good time figuring out big pictures, and she’ll get blindsided pre-jury because she’s a threat. She kind of remind me of Becky or (bb16) Amber? I don’t know enough about her to hate her, but I don’t really like her.

Bayleigh- Omg I love her. I think she’s so iconic already haha. I don’t know how well she’ll do in the game though (especially early on if a guy wins HOH, I’m a bit worried for her). My gut tells me she’ll probably be an early boot (which I hate to say), but I do think there are certain scenarios she could thrive in.

Angie/Rockstar??- I don’t know how I feel about her haha. I think I like her? She’s seems very honest and real which I don’t think you find too often in Big Brother, so that’s refreshing. I can’t really see her going any further than pre-jury though. Sure, maybe she’ll surprise me, but I think she’ll be too inherently off-putting to make it far. She’ll be the “easy” target from day one just because she stands out.

Kaycee- I like her overall. I think she’ll end up being a floater, and we might see the return of something a kin to #BeckyUpdates with her (just because I can see her getting along with mostly everyone and staying out of drama, so in terms of the show, she might not be the most relevant). I think she’s cool though and very genuine. I think she could place top 6 if she doesn’t come off too threatening in the beginning.

Rachel- There’s something about her that I like. I didn’t like all her answers in her interview with Ross (”I want a showmance” eww. “I’d rather lose and be loved” also eww), but there’s a certain genuine quality that she has that I like. Also I inherently like theatre girls because I’m a #theatregirl. I don’t know--I can’t place where I think she’ll place. She’s someone I’m very interesting in seeing how she is in the actual house.

JC- Aww, he’s fun! I like him a lot. He might end up being a bit too much, but you know, most iconic houseguests are a bit too much at some point haha. I have no idea how he’ll do in the actual game though. I can’t even pinpoint if he’ll go pre- or post- jury. Either way, I think he’ll be fun, regardless of how long we have him haha.

Chris/Swaggy C??- Haha I like him! He’s very real, and I hope he ends up going far because I think he’ll be a lot of fun. I think as long as he doesn’t become *too* confrontational, he’ll be fine, but he does run that risk. Part of me wants to say that he’ll be a pre-jury boot, but something in my gut is telling me top 4 or 5.

Steve- I think I like him? Weirdly enough haha. I don’t know why that whenever they recruit an older person, they always choose a family man guy who sounds like he could be in the mob, but I think he has the best chance out of all of the ones they’ve had haha. It’s always hard for me to say where I think these old guys will place because they always display that they know strategy and could be good players, but they’re always at such a disadvantage because the rest of the cast is no where near their age range. I don’t know. I like him, but I’m not attached.

Winston- Okay, I didn’t like him from his bio, but I like him a lot better based on his interview. Out of the “bro-y” types, he’s my favorite so far. I feel like if there were to be a “Brigade 2.0,” he would be the Hayden. He’s very cute and likable, and he seems to know a lot about the game. He’ll inherently do well as long as he stays out of trouble, and if Big Brother repeats itself (as it does sometimes), he could be a potential winner.

Scottie- It’s like Cameron and Ramses had a baby and then Johnny Mac and Steve had a baby, and then those babies had a baby and he was Scottie haha. I don’t know how I feel about that. I usually am not that put off by the nerdy archetype, but I feel like there has been so many iterations that I’m over it by now. However, I feel like he’s more overbearing than the usual archetype, so I don’t see great things coming from him, but who knows. I think this is looking like a quirky cast, so that might help him.

Kaitlyn- Omg she’s so iconically cracked and hippie dippie. She’s not going to go far. She’ll probably be used as a pawn and go home with a vote flip or something. I don’t know, but I’m along for this ride that is Kaitlyn and her hippie dippie shit haha.

Sam- She’s cute. She reminds me a lot of Jordan. I would say that she’ll probably be an early boot, but I think she’ll be a dark horse in the competition. I think she’ll be able to make strong bonds and make it far based off that. Who knows? There’s just something about her that I like.

Well, that’s all 16! I think I really like the cast so far. I’m really excited to see where this cast will go, and as long as there’s no vets coming in and ruining anything, I think I have high hopes for this season right now (which is risky to say, but I just have a good feeling :) )

[not-wonderlandd]

Dancing With The Stars - Week One

So I've never done any kind of review/predictions post, or even anything dwts related if we're being really honest. However, since season 23 I've become a big fan of the show (TeamStopAndGo won me over and I'm still not over them not winning) and after watching last nights show I just felt like putting into writing how I felt. 

 After watching them dancing and reading a whole lot of opinions I've decided to do a kind of predictions post and split them into 3 groups: Longshots, Wildcards and Frontrunners. So here we go.

LONGSHOTS 

Barbara & Keo - Here we go, giving Keo the way too enthusiastic older lady of the season. I actually couldn’t help but smile throughout her entire routine, but having the lowest scores of the night and such a big personality can really hurt someones run. She could be the next Tommy.. or the next Charo.

Terrel & Cheryl - After writing 12 names down I had to actually go and search for who was the 13th couple on the show, and that goes to show how forgettable this guy is. I’m actually kind of sad for Cheryl cause I think she’s great, and he’s actually not a bad dancer in general, but I’d take something pretty huge for him to get people’s attention in the right way.

Debbie & Alan - I am kinda sad by this one, because Alan’s excitement is one of the most precious things in the world and Debbie’s story is really moving. On the other hand, their performance was way too forgettable and aside from people excited about Alan, I have genuinely not seen anyone talking about them. If they make it through the first double elimination it will already be a big win.

Drew & Emma - I’ve read a lot of people saying not to count him out yet because HGTV has a big fanbase, but if 3 weeks into learning one routine it came out this messy imagine how 2 routines in one week will look like. Although if he does pull that out I’ll be willing to reconsider big time. Side note, his personality is really getting tired already, but that’s just my personal opinion.

Nick & Peta - 4/1 odds my a**. Everything he’s got in terms of attention came from other people, whether it was Peta, who’s a pretty popular pro, Drew, who definitely didn’t share the dancing genes, or the damn married v married thing, which by the way is getting real old real fast. Once you get past all those layers there’s nothing he brings to the table, unlike the other half of the couples quarrel.

WILDCARDS

Sasha & Gleb - She is is no way on the same level as the rest of the people in this group, but have you been to the dwts tag on twitter? You’d think the show was about her by the amount of support by her fanbase, so I’m taking them in consideration. Also, she has a really nice personality and I do see a lot of potential coming from that first dance once she gets rid of the nerves.

Vanessa & Maks - All preseason long Vanessa would only be referenced as Nick’s wife but as soon as her package started she automatically became so much fun and relatable. To top it off she has some actual dance skills as well, the better half of the couple. I will be truly pissed if TPTB pimps Nick instead of her or if Maks slacks on coreography.

Frankie & Witney - Jury is still out on this one tbh. Sure he was one of the most pleasant surprises of the night, specially considering how much he had talked about nerves and stuff. His partnership with Witney is adorable, the dance was really good and he was one of the most talked about last night. Still, we have yet to see him in a more upbeat latin dance, than we can actually rule him as a contender or not.

Derek & Sharna - Talk about a pleasant surprise, Derek came out week one with stage presence, confidence and right from the start commanded the stage, dancing front and center in a number with troupe and props. To top it off his partnership with Sharna looks like so much fun and doing lifts for week one? Of course there is still a lot of room for growth, technique wise, but he just jumped from first out to actual contender in the eyes of so many people that I can’t help but let myself create expectations. C’mon Sharna.

FRONTRUNNERS

Nikki & Artem - When there are only two people dancing the same style comparisons are somewhat inevitable, and when the other person was the best of the night you might suffer from it. Having said that, the hype around Nikki is still strong and she checks every box when it comes to dwts success: Physique, personality,  work ethic, age, fanbase...

Lindsey & Mark - Lindsey getting in the final is almost too obvious, and that might her. She has some past experience with ballroom, having danced with Derek before, she obviously has rhythm from being a musician, and she’s got Mark, who is not only brilliant in choreography but is still riding on the buzz of being back. Seriously, unless there is a huge upset (Heather style), I don’t see any way she is not in that final.

Victoria & Val - The sweetest personality in the cast, tearjerker backstory of overcoming all obstacles, pretty good technique for week 1 with lots of room for improvement, and that’s not even taking in account the fact that she can’t feel her legs. Add to that the most popular pro on the cast and it becomes pretty hard to screw up that recipe.  

Jordan & Lindsay - Talk about a match made in heaven, Lindsay and Jordan are such a perfect fit that the only thing between them and the finals is if the ringer thing gets too intense. And even if it does, by that time he will most probably have won everybody over with his personality. 

[survivorfillory]

Nicole’s Jury Question

Jess:

Jess of the House of Lies, the Probably Sixth or Seventh of Her Name, Queen of Zwooper Crackheads, The Commander of Fillory, The rightful Queen of the Canadian North and The Protector of Your Premade, Queen of Montreal (I think?), Queen of Your Own Heart , Breaker of Deals and Mother of Your Kiddos Dani and Maynor.

I honestly think you played a strong game but I have issue with voting for you because of how aggressive and transparent your game was, especially from my perspective. Please list one GENUINE fun fact you know about every single person in the jury (not including things we can find in their bios, profiles, etc.)

Maynor:

HELLO, I applaud you on getting me out. You literally came out of left field and used the people in your group as a meat shield which is a smart UTR strategy. Still, I want to know more about your game. Please tell me the three key points in your game where you felt you had the most influence over your group and how these events helped you get to where you are.

Touché Nicole! (It took me 5 minutes to do that :( (jkjk…. )

Alright let’s go.

So first up we have Lily. Lily is from Michigan and is getting married soon-ish? She also wants to move to Arizona at some point in the future because she hates the cold. She was also on vacation during the game in Arizona I believe? She had fun!

Then we have you. It’s hard for me to distinguish what I know about you from VL’s and others so bare with me here…I know you are a HUGE Game of Thrones fan, you enjoy a good alcoholic beverage from time to time, and obviously we both share a love for Alyssa.

I will admit our relationship was rather game-focused most of the time.

Colin! Colin has recently gotten into Drag and was considering a few pretty awesome drag names! (I really hope I’m not outing you here, if I am y’all can remove this! :O). I think I also convinced him to start watching Game of Thrones? Side note: I’ll never not hear “Baby can’t you see.. I’m Collin” in the song “Toxic” from now on because of him.

https://www.tiktok.com/@colinstayballin/video/6691796730830130438?u_code=d1aad05dh299m3&preview_pb=0&language=en&timestamp=1558879632&utm_campaign=client_share&app=musically&utm_medium=ios&user_id=6584353126340657157&tt_from=copy&utm_source=copy

Stevie. I believe Stevie works more than one job and they both involve pharmaceuticals or medicine?? I believe one revolves around him physically working at a pharmacy. He also is obsessed with “Stars are Blind” and considers it an ANTHEM, he also added it to my ORG playlist.

Dennis. Dennis is another person who I need to try and distinguish what I know from other’s/vl’s and within this game. I also know for a fun fact he enjoys shows like Game of Thrones and The Vikings. We also both have cats!

I will admit a lot of our talks were game-related.

Dean Dean’s is super difficult because he literally wrote his life in DETAIL in his bio.

HOWEVER, I did not know that fun fact, he is an actual PUBLISHED author (I believe) until this game (which is super impressive wtf). Also Dean has trouble functioning unless he has a solid 6+ hours of sleep and a coffee in the morning.

Dani Fun fact I learned about Dani this season is… I honestly didn’t know that Dani wanted to continue her education at a collegiate level. I literally didn’t know she went to school at all let alone go to school and study a subject such as Psychology (or something along those lines).

Nicole:

1. The first major point was getting Keaton out. Keaton had the most relationships in this game. In doing so he wanted to be in with everyone. He was connected with me, you, dennis, jess, dani, dean, stevie, jacob. I dont know his relationship with the others but he said he like knew everyone playing. Voting him out helped others people’s games and my own. I wouldnt have to worry about him being in the middle and leaking info. I love him but didnt trust that he would be with me in this game. 

2. The second major point was taking you out in the f8. This was was very crucial to my game because if we pulled it off, we would have had majority (me dean jess dani). I was worried about it being a 4-4 tie because colin trusted you and Dennis a lot so i knew i couldnt trust him not to tell you guys. When he said he was going to be busy all day, i took the opportunity to talk to him and I guess maybe i was the only one because we both mention Stevie as a target and he sent his vote in. I planned the 4-3-1 vote from the beginning. Only got worried if Colin came on and saw that you and Dennis wanted Dean instead of Stevie. Thus I decided to be safe and play the travelor’s idol on Dean. Securing that you went. And gaining Dean’s trust in the game moving forward because i saved him. 

3. Taking out Dennis is third big key moment in my game. This vote was very tricky. We had Dennis/Stevie voting Dani. Dani/Jess voting Dennis.  Me and Dean were the middleish kinda. We were already leaning on voting Dennis because Dean felt he was the biggest threat left in the game. It was set to be 4-2 but Jess mentioned to me earlier in the game about Stevie’s peak a vote. This threw a wrench in things because Dennis got paranoid and we talked and called. In that i told him that they wanted to do Stevie and that i only had the vote in to see if i could trust stevie for the game moving forward. Peak the vote was in effect until tribal, so my vote was Dani up until 1 minute was left for voting and i switched it to Stevie. Which caused Dennis to play his idol on Stevie instead of himself which where he was voted out in a 3-2-0* vote. Getting Dennis out gave me jess dani majority but also gave me an opportunity to possibly go with Dean and Stevie if i felt my path was better to go with them. Getting Dennis out in f6 left me having control in the endgame and making sure i had the best way to make it to the f2.

[aaroncutler]

June 5: The link above leads to the website for the Brazilian festival Olhar de Cinema (“Cinema View”), whose eighth edition begins today and runs through June 13th. For this year’s edition, I served on the selection committee for feature-length films together with programmer colleagues Carla Italiano, Eduardo Valente, and the festival’s director, Antônio Junior. The bulk of my work was spent on the festival’s Classics, Special Screenings, and three competitive sections, in addition to the Focus section – devoted this year to the work of the instigating Chilean filmmaker Camila José Donoso – and the Retrospective section, which this year proposes a dialogue between a small body of films directed by Raúl Ruiz and a number of works made by Brazilian filmmakers during periods of exile.

When I look at this year’s program, I feel pleased with the presence of a high number of strong films that offer diverse expressions, many of them non-commercial in nature and filled with compelling reflections on present times. Since each individual viewer’s taste is different, I will not recommend any titles here, but will instead encourage anyone interested to contact me through the information listed on the Mutual Films website. I will also wish and hope for all of Olhar’s attendees this year their best possible experience of the festival.

June 18: In the days since the conclusion of the most recent edition of Olhar de Cinema, a few different versions of a historic photograph have been circulating online. The version in what I understand to be the best resolution contains four of the festival’s prize-winning filmmakers posed together. From right to left: Letícia Simões is holding the Critic’s Award that was given for her feature-length film Home, a delicate first-person tracking of the relationship between herself and her mother in Bahia. Maíra Bühler is holding the Best Film prize for the festival’s main international Competition section, which was awarded for her nuanced Let It Burn, a humanistic communion with recovering crack addicts at a rehabilitation center in the city of São Paulo. Camila Freitas is smiling after having won two awards – the Audience Award and the international competition’s Special Jury Award – for her film Landless, a largely female-led portrayal of members of Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement in the state of Goiás. And Cris Lyra, in addition to being one of Landless’s cinematographers, is the winner of the Best Brazilian Short Film prize for her film Breakwater, a warm study of a young lesbian community on New Year’s Eve on a beach in São Paulo state. 

I am always concerned, when reading or writing festival wrap-up pieces, that a focus on prizewinners will take away from reflecting on other films and on the program as a whole. In this case, however, I find it difficult for the grouping of filmmakers listed above not to catch attention. The eyes can open wider when one additionally considers some of the other prize-winning filmmakers and films. For example, the international competition’s prize for Best Short Film went to Aziza, in which the director Soudade Kaadan considers questions involving her native Syria through a grouping of actors playing archetypal scenes. The chief prize of the Other Views section went to At Jolie Coiffeure, in which the Cameroon-born director Rosine Mbakam concentrates closely on a beauty parlor in Belgium run by another Cameroonian immigrant woman. The Other Views jury further gave an Honorable Mention to Indianara, a documentary portrait of a contemporary trans female activist in Rio de Janeiro. The prize for Best Film from the New Views section went to Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream, an indelible film diary narrated in the first person by the openly gay French director Frank Beauvais. The top prize and honorable mention for shorts in the Mirada Paranaense section (awarded to films from the Brazilian state of Paraná) went to works with LGBTQI+ and indigenous themes, respectively.

The festival of course had some films (and even some films with prizes or mentions) that were made by or about ostensibly white and ostensibly heterosexual men. But I do believe that something amazing happened in this year’s edition of Olhar, which is that historically underrepresented voices took prominence in ways that I had never previously imagined happening in a general international festival’s lineup. The most amazing aspect of this occurrence, for me, is that it happened in what hindsight makes seem like organic fashion. The festival’s juries gave their prizes and mentions to films in competition sections that featured record-breaking numbers of works directed by female and LGBTQI+ male authors. And, as part of the festival’s curatorial team, I can state that these sections took their shapes as a result of our group’s rigorous yet fundamentally simple efforts to screen as much of the best of contemporary world cinema as could fit into the program. In other words, there was no theme, nor thematic intent, that was adopted in relation to the general selection of new films: The shape of the program, rather, came to reflect something that is genuinely happening in global arthouse and independent cinema today, at the levels both of filmmaking and of audience responses to it. (Filmmakers, after all, are also viewers.)

I write this while also thinking about how all five of the programs in the festival’s Special Screenings section featured female and/or LGBTQI+ authorship; about how the festival’s Focus section spotlighted the work of Camila José Donoso, who brilliantly collaborates with a variety of marginalized human subjects; about how the Classics section featured a unprecedented four programs of films directed by women in addition to films directed by men with urban trans, Aboriginal Australian, and indigenous African protagonists; about how the festival’s Retrospective section featured female directors for the first time thanks to the presences of films by Lúcia Murat and Helena Solberg; and about how Raúl Ruiz might seem like an outlier, were it not for the fact that (among other reasons) his widow and collaborator Valeria Sarmiento edited more than two-thirds of the films that he shot and is still intensely involved with continuing his legacy in addition to developing her own directorial projects. There are other examples of expanded views of cinema that were present in other sections and programs at Olhar this year, and I will refrain from trying to give them in the interest of space.

One could claim that the broader idea of an expanded view of cinema, both from a historical and from a present-day perspective, cannot possibly be maintained. In response, I would circle back to the photograph. In a year in which Olhar’s lineup also featured an unprecedented number of strong Brazilian films, it strikes me that all four of the award-winning female documentarians in the photograph are also Brazilian. Anyone that has read an international news report recently is likely to know that Brazil is going through hard times. Even so, its cinema today seems to be offering hope to the world in an uncommonly humanistic way.

I also sense a particular hope through the presence of Cris Lyra in the photograph and the fact of her being held equal to the other three filmmakers - not because she is a self-identifying lesbian, but rather, because she is the director of a short film who, in this moment, is being given the same amount of attention afforded to three other directors that have all made feature-length works. In multiple ways, the film world still treats works under 50 minutes in length as being inherently inferior to those possessing running times of 50 minutes or more. This prejudice creates what is among the most nefarious and long-lasting divisions that continue to exist among people who work with and watch cinema. It is one more wall to break down.