#i think about these guys waaaaaaayyyy too much

[xechoecho88x]

some midwest headcanons that refuse to leave my mind

ohio has two degrees, one in astrophysics and the other in aerospace engineering (his love for planes and space coming together in one degree)

the only times you'll see minnesota and indiana angry is when hockey or basketball are involved, respectively. the rest of the time they are unanimously considered to be the nicest and most peaceful midwestern states

minnesota can and will hold grudges, but it's very rare that he's obvious about it

indiana sometimes works as a car mechanic, but he loves to buy old cars and restore them before selling them again

wisconsin has a harley and is extremely proud of it

every year, minnesota and wisconsin go hunting together on the first day of hunting season, there is no hope of contacting either of them that entire first week

illinois is a closet theatre kid. he doesn't want to admit it out of fear of being called chicago even more than he already does

illinois has a personal vendetta against The Bean. the only joy he gets from that thing is calling it "The Bean" to piss off the artist

michigan is the go to driver when it comes to midwest events. not only is he the best driver out of the group, but he also refuses to get in a car if ohio, wisconsin, or illinois is driving

kansas has a dog called Toto because he unironically loves the wizard of oz. his favorite musical is, of course, wicked

kansas has a little farm with chickens, goats, a vegetable garden, and a sunflower garden and tries to live off the land as much as possible

michigan and wisconsin love to make the states outside of the midwest try to pronounce their city names

ohio is attracted to fire like, well, a moth to a flame. the same goes for fire to ohio. even when he has nothing to do with it, things just happen to spontaneously combust around him

[cleanlenins]

The Reason I Stopped Watching Doctor Who

( For everyone even reading this, the very last episode I watched of Doctor Who was the Robin Hood episode. That just gives you some idea. Any episode after that, I have no clue if it will follow into what I am about to say. I haven’t seen it, and I might try to watch it eventually but it is not on my list of things to do.

I will go ahead and tell you if you are looking for Anti-Moffat, Pro-Moffat, any kind of Discourse on this, that is honestly not what this is about. If it was, I would never have felt even a LITTLE bit tempted to write anything because people have wrote about all of those reasons, and I can say nothing more than those.)

Hi, I’m Hannah. Probably a lot of you originally followed me as AllonsyMyTardis when I was an almost exclusive Doctor Who Blog. As you can see, I have not really blogged about Doctor Who in years. So, Why do I suddenly feel like talking about Doctor Who?

Because I suddenly realized why I, Personally, Just me, Stopped liking it. 

My Issue was, I got BORED with the show. 

And until about 5 minutes ago, I could not for the life of me figure out WHY I had lost interest in the show. The Characters were likable in my opinion. I honestly really liked Clara and 12 looked like a really great Doctor. The stories were not as bad as a lot of people paint them. They could have been better, but so could any of the hundreds of stories that Doctor Who has had over the years.

When someone asked me why I was bored with the show, I would say that the stories just got too much of a “blockbuster” feel and were too “big” and I didn’t feel connected with the story, and none of which really EXPLAINED it because I couldn’t explain it myself.

And then the other day I saw this video.

I link the video but I am also going to try and explain it, because its kind of long and it is specifically about Anime. I know that not everyone who likes Doctor Who likes or knows anything about Anime, and Vice Versa. However, if What I am saying doesn’t make a ton of sense, go ahead and click on the video. He does do a better job at explaining it than me.

Specifically, it is talking about a specific genre of anime called Shonen. These are those huge anime with tons of action and waaaaaaayyyy too many episodes. You know, Like Naruto, DragonBall Z, Bleach, Fairytail. You may have heard of them even if you haven’t watched them.

Keep with me, its getting to Doctor Who.

Now, this video talks about how Shonen’s Biggest problem is with Escalation. The constant need in these Anime to make the next challenge SOOO much bigger than the last one. And then the NEXT challenge even bigger! Until you get to the point that you really don’t care about it anymore. You know the hero is going to save the day. You know that there are going to be very little consequences in it. It is not really engaging. 

And I think Doctor Who suffered some of the same kind of Escalation, in my opinion. Not in the weekly episodes, really, but in the Over-Arching Season story. It just became very apparent to me during Moffat’s tenure.I’m not saying he is a bad writer, because I don’t really think that. However, from up to the episode I saw (Again, the Robin Hood Episode) it feels like this is true. 

I started to go into every single plot line for every season, but honestly. I haven’t watched it in so long I am not sure I could give a very accurate account. However, up until I stopped watching it, it felt like every season needed to be bigger and better than the last season. And Bigger isn’t always better. Focus more on the personal and the characters. Instead of making the entire universe at risk, its fine to make the finale something personal. Because if its something that the characters find terrible to lose, the people watching will be engaged. Like Doomsday. Its one little office building. On one planet.Yet many people still really like that episode because of all the tension between the characters.

“But Hannah. Look at your blog. Its filled with Shonen anime! Why are you attacking Doctor Who for something that you don’t seem to mind in Anime?” 

A good and fair question, voice. I really like that type of anime. But there is one big difference.

There are 13 episodes in a series of Doctor Who. Thats a lot of Escalation in 13 episodes.

Leading up to the fight with Freeza in Dragonball Z? 67 episodes. The escalation is absolutely there. And it is there way worse than anything in Doctor Who. But it is over a much longer period of time. Its much more gradual feeling. 13 episodes fly by in comparison. And the story goes faster as well. So I guess, the escalation just bothers me more. The story is faster. And, I honestly can’t say that the escalation in anime doesn’t bother me? I mean, always, by the time you get close to the end of those story arcs, you have the feeling “Can this be over already? I know whats gonna happen!”

Anyways, I think this is why I got bored with Doctor Who. I have know clue what you guys think about it, but it is the conclusion i have right now.

[noona-la-la-la]

how long does it take for you to write one-shots? i've been working on an one-shot for almost a week now and i'm honestly worried about my working rhythm. do you think that's normal? D:

I wouldn’t worry about your working pace.  Write what you can, whenever you can.  Personally, I’m really slow getting stuff done because my work is very time consuming, my motivation is inconsistent, my mind wanders a lot while writing, and I edit as I go instead of just getting the story out and editing later (which really slows me down, but I can’t seem to do it any other way).

For example, I think Nursemaid took me about 3 weeks to work on.  I got the idea to do a Jimin handjob smut after seeing a particular gif of him and then I bounced the idea around in my head for a couple days until I came up with a rough idea of a plot line that I liked.  Then I changed the plot line the next day.  Then I started writing it but only got a few paragraphs in before I paused writing to go focus on writing chapter 12 of The Fitting instead.  Then work got really busy so I couldn’t write for a few days.  Then I went back to writing but thought I should really do a little research to make sure I understood what kinds of masturbation techniques men used (thank you reddit for all your ideas) and then I thought I should watch porn to see what those techniques actually look like (and I spent waaaaaaayyyy too much time doing that).  Then I decided I needed to buckle down and really write, so I dedicated an entire day to writing but instead ended up writing a paragraph and then taking a nap, write another paragraph, take another nap, etc... Days later, when I got to the main smut scene, I decided I needed to do more research on handjobs because I don’t have a penis of my own and I wanted to make sure I was being true to the male perspective -- so back to reddit and some other websites to get a guy’s take on what it feels like to get a handjob and what they like or don’t like.  Then wrote some more until I was done (probably another 2 days.)  

As you can see - I have no discipline or order to writing  Other people are very disciplined and focused; I envy them.  But whenever I try to be more efficient or structured in my approach, I see the quality of my writing suffer.  I think you just need to find what produces the best result for you and not worry about how long it takes.

[ennaih]

The Americans, season 5, ep 5

My god, this show.

Spoilers and a whole lot of disjointed blather under the cut.

But I wonder at Philip making the decision for Elizabeth too. She’s not necessarily at the same place he is. He can’t, he can’t say, “It’s us” like she feels the need to stop killing the way he does. He doesn’t know that, he can’t say that.

And yet I forgive him for it. Because Philip. Because Matthew sells the sincerity so beautifully.

But Philip was so strange through this ep. I still don’t understand the flashback. Were those potatoes? Truffles? What?

Sidenote: how freaking beautiful is baby Philip? And his dad ... super hot, even if he is a bit emaciated with hunger, sorry.

No, but I mean there was this scene. And earlier with Paige ... why didn’t he say something? He just let her walk out of the room without even trying to help her like a parent should. I wanted him to say, “I understand, Paige. But if I could find your mother, you will find someone too. It may not be Matthew because Matthew is the most boring person on the face of the freaking planet but there will be someone worthy of your courage and your intellect and your heart.”

But he didn’t say that. And then there was this scene where he’s so broken, irrevocably broken. (like the way he broke that guy’s back.) 

I love that though, you know? I love how the deaths are taking their toll on these two, how they wear those wounds as they should, the awful responsibility and heaviness of their deeds. 

For Elizabeth this ep, it seemed like that seduction, the sex was taking its toll on her. In all the silences and spaces in that call to Philip, telling him she misses him when she’s just slept with Aussie Brett Tucker ew hello. I was frankly astonished she believed him but then I realised yeah, that guy doesn’t have the imagination for subterfuge. He has just enough for his white saviour bullshit and that’s it.

I wuz right about Henry, wasn’t I? Sudden academic advancement. And oh it hurt to see them try and fail with him, and then to see Philip have uncomplicated father-son fun with Tuan. And now I realise all the while there is the threat of another son, Mischa, through this ep.

My god, that scene in the park killed me. The humiliation and agony of Mischa’s broken English and Gabriel trying to make him understand, and then that brilliant turnaround of Mischa saying “Do you understand?”

It never occurred to me they would flat out deny him the chance to see Philip. I legit teared up, just wailing in my head, “But he came all this waaaaaaayyyy!” I was so afraid Gabriel was going to kill him somehow. Now I’m deathly afraid of that happening over the next eps. Because if it’s so dangerous just for him to see Philip, then he’s a loose cannon, a liability they can’t afford. The best thing would be to eliminate him. And that, oh fuck that -- I was thinking either the show will kill him and then let Philip find out about it. Or somehow he will meet Philip and then the Centre will kill him. 

Either way, Mischa dying could well be a trigger for Philip to go rogue. I don’t know if that’s too trite and unsophisticated for our show but we’ll find out.

I LOVE that Philip has worked out Renee could be a spy. Kinda squealed quietly to myself when he said that and hugged myself. Also I fucken love that Philip patterned his disguise after the EST guy. I was so complely confused for like five whole seconds before I realised and laughed a little.

So many quiet bombs in this ep. The thing about Evgeny getting that job which would give them access to the CIA peeps ... woah! 

Food again, did you notice? With the Maccas in the last scene. Fathers and sons, and Philip looking at this meal he’s brought his fake son and he can’t bring himself to eat it. McDonald’s, if there ever was a symbol of gluttony and capitalism. 

My god, I love this show so much. And the way Noah shot this ep ... oh praise be. I adore him so much. His pacing and framing is so wonderful. 

I am so fucking OVER this Oleg storyline, FUCK! Like seriously when he walked in, I was like “What is this, the Bachelor, Burov style?” Urgh. Do NOT Want. I don’t know what I want for Oleg but it isn’t this faffing around! Bah.

Notice how Philip’s dad looks uncannily like Philip’s son? What clever casting, and happy accident with the way Keidrich’s face has changed but not changed.

I wonder if Claudia will be the one to kill Mischa. Just from the interview with Margo Martindale I read on Vulture today. I wonder. What are they going to do with him?

I don’t know. I just love this show. It makes my heart so happy even as it stresses me the fuck out but I wouldn’t trade one second of that stress for any less quality.