#i watched some of the cut scenes afterwards and like?? biggest complaint was how the crew felt like noncharacters | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sluttyminghao · 4 years ago

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when at an awards show... | w.jh x h.vc

w.c: 4.2k genre: smut! pairing: junhui x vernon x fem!reader contains: dom!junhui, dom!vernon, sub!reader, cockwarming, degradation kink, praise kink, slight mentions of mirror sex, also a little bit of car sex oop, sex without protection (please wear protection tho), a bit of spitroasting too? warnings: alcohol mention right at the beginning :) a/n: for my darling @junsol on her birthday, i hope you enjoy reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it! thank you for giving me the opportunity to do this ily!

The room was dimly lit and the idol awards show was well underway, but your mind was elsewhere. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to be there to support your best friends and their achievements, but you could think of other things you could be doing with your time, rather than sitting for hours on end listening to the hosts ramble on about meaningless topics.

You sighed and looked down at your drink, swirling the orange substance around in the glass before picking it up and taking a large swig, and setting the almost empty glass back down afterwards. The slight burn from the alcohol made shivers run down your spine, and you couldn’t help but smile at the warm feeling that spread throughout your veins.

“Hey, are you okay?” A deep voice rumbled from next to you, making your head lift to face whoever was asking. When your eyes finally adjusted to the darkness, you let a lopsided grin take over your face when Junhui’s beautiful features came into view. A small smile appeared on his face when you nodded your head slightly, before resting your head on his shoulder.

Junhui was probably the closest to you out of all the band members; he had seen you at your highest points and your lowest and was always the most sincere and genuine towards you. If you were completely honest with yourself as well, you’d probably had the biggest crush on him ever since you had first met. It didn’t help in the slightest that his naturally flirtatious nature made your heartbeat a thousand times faster, and send a blush to your cheeks that didn’t go unnoticed by him.

“I just wish I could go home right now,” you pouted, reaching out to play with Junhui’s fingers. He scoffed and lifted your head towards his so that your eyes were peering into his own. “You want to go home? Do you think I want to be here? I’d much rather be back at the dorms with you, snuggled up in my bed,” he retorted, and his words not only brought a blush to your cheeks but also a wave of arousal flowing throughout your body.

The banter between you and Junhui was always like this; bickering with an underlying tone of flirtation that was just enough to make the other members roll their eyes or tell you to take it elsewhere. Only one person didn’t complain about it, Vernon, with whom you were also particularly close. He would always tease you about the flirtatious banter, but his eyes would show hints of jealousy every time he spoke with you afterwards.

It confused you, to say the least.

“You think we would just be snuggled up in bed? I thought for sure you’d want to go further than that,” you replied with a smug smile, making Junhui tense up. He chose to not reply and instead placed a hand on your exposed thigh, squeezing the flesh gently. Your and went to rest atop of his, lacing your fingers through his and sighing softly at the contact.

From across the table, you briefly caught eyes with Vernon, whose expression was unreadable. He cocked a brow at you as if to ask something along the lines of ‘what are you looking at?’ but the small smirk that graced his features told you that his expression meant something else. His eyes darted down to your phone as if to tell you to check your texts, so you picked up your phone and your eyes squinted as they adjusted to the sudden bright light of the screen.

A simple text from Vernon, but it made your whole body heat up as you read and re-read the message.

‘You’re acting a little bratty right now, trying to impress someone? Or just doing it to be an attention whore?’

Another glance up and you noticed that Vernon had disappeared from his place at the table, and your eyes found him walking towards the bathrooms. Deciding to follow him, you quickly excused yourself and earned a wink from Junhui, before you were making quick steps towards the bathroom in hopes to catch your close friend.

You and Vernon had previously had a small fling that only lasted a few weeks, but your friendship overruled and you mutually decided to remain friends. While you enjoyed being friends with him, you couldn't help the spark of excitement you would feel whenever he let his hand linger on yours, or if he sat a little too close to you when you watched movies.

He was closer than you thought he was as you made your way down the hallway he had disappeared into, as you were quickly pulled by the arm into an empty room, a small yelp leaving your lips before a hand was covering your mouth, and you panicked even more. “Relax, it’s just me,” Vernon hissed, letting his hand off your mouth and taking his hand off your arm.

“What the hell, man? Why did you drag me into this room-” your complaints and worries were immediately cut off by Vernon pressing his lips to yours hurriedly, pulling your body flush against his own. Instinctively, your hands wrapped around his neck and let yourself melt into his touch, making a smug smirk pull to his lips.

“I love your lips. You taste amazing, I’ve wanted to do this for so long,” he whispered between kisses, letting his hands fall from your waist to your ass and squeezing. You could only sigh softly against his mouth in response before he was pressing himself to your mouth again, letting his tongue press against yours and meld as if you were one person.

He tasted vaguely of peppermints, and you couldn’t say you didn't like it.

Vernon pulled away from you briefly, letting you both catch your breath while he adjusted his suit. “Well, that was hot, have room for one more?” another voice filtered through the room and made both you and Vernon jump before you both turned to see Junhui leaning against the doorframe, eyebrow cocked and his lips upturned into a smirk. He walked towards you both, and you couldn't help but feel small under his burning gaze.

“I-it’s not what it looks like,” you began, letting your body back up against the wall. The older man laughed and rolled his eyes, before moving quickly to stand in front of you, while Vernon stared at him slack-jawed. “Sure, you say that, but I saw the text that Vernon sent you and it looks pretty suspicious if you ask me,” he chuckled, holding your phone out to you between his thumb and middle finger. You couldn’t help the burn that covered your cheeks and spread throughout your body.

“What are you even doing here?” Vernon questioned, putting his hands in his pockets and looking towards his friend. “I volunteered to come and look for you both since you’d be gone for a while, and I’ve gotta say, it looks like you two were having some fun though,” Jun let one of his hands reach out to tuck a strand of your hair behind your ear, only making your skin burn up once more.

“And why would you care, hm? I don't think whatever we decide to do is your business… But if you're so curious, yeah, we were having a great time.” You began, studying his face to see how he would react, quickly glancing at Vernon from over your shoulder, who did nothing but look at you with a smirk filled with amusement before you bit your lip and winked at him, just to tease Junhui. "I couldn't help it, Junnie… Vernon has such hot and warm lips… Whenever I see him, I can't control myself. He's such a good kisser, makes my head spin." You sighed, feeling your body go warm just thinking about it. “And also, although you're so handsome and hot yourself, you're just bark and no bite. I doubt you could ever gather the courage to put me on my knees like him." You pouted, grazing your pointer finger over the side of his neck, his eyes following your every action. "He can make me submit to him in a heartbeat, he knows how to be in charge… But you? Junnie… You're just my soft, flirty friend, aren't you?” You spoke cockily, making Junhui’s brows furrow in clear annoyance.

The room fell silent for a few beats before Junhui was walking forward and pressing his body against yours, large hand squeezing your cheeks and forcing your face up to meet his dark, lustful orbs and letting his breath fan across your neck.

"I can see you're testing your luck tonight, baby. You have such a sharp tongue." He spoke darkly, a breathy chuckle erupting from his throat as the pads of his fingers wandered from your jaw, to down your neck and collarbones, setting your skin aflame. "I never thought our first time would be like this, I must admit… But since you're having such an attitude, I might as well teach you that you shouldn't use that pretty mouth for anything other than sucking on my dick as soon as I ask you to."

Your breathing became hitched as he let his lips skim across your jaw, and you wondered if he had locked the door before he came inside. Vernon kept watching the scene in front of him, secretly loving the bickering between the two of you.

“Did you lock the door?” You asked breathily, your fingers brushing through Junhui’s soft strands of hair. You knew where this was going.

“Now where’s the fun in that? Maybe I want people to walk in here and see how much of a mess you are once we’re done with you,” his voice was like velvet as he spoke, and sent shivers cascading down your spine. It was no secret how aroused he was already, feeling his rock hard cock pressing against your stomach, but to be fair, you weren't any better.

You could hardly form a coherent sentence towards him when he nipped at your skin, a pretty pink mark blooming where his teeth had been. His nimble fingers moved your dress straps down your arms and exposed your breasts, a low whistle coming from his lips at the sight. “God, how have I gone this long without seeing these gorgeous breasts of yours?” He hissed under his breath, immediately dipping his head down to nip at the buds.

~~~~

Vernon stood a few feet away from you, feeling his erection grow when he saw how your body reacted to Junhui’s actions. He couldn’t help himself but to move forward and let his hands reach out to play with the bud of your free breast, making a whine spill past your lips. “You look so pretty like this, you’re so hot,” he murmured, and your skin burned at the compliment, making both men chuckle.

“Now, we don’t have a lot of time in here, doll, so let’s make this quick. I want you to come and sit your pretty ass on this couch and pull your dress up for me,” Junhui whispered the words against your lips, making heat pool in your abdomen, and you felt as if your legs were jelly when you finally made your way to the couch he was referring to.

You made quick work of pulling up your dress, feeling more exposed than ever in front of your two best friends. The lust clouding your mind overthrew those feelings, and it wasn’t long before Junhui was kneeling in front of you, a small smile hanging on his face. He let his lips linger over the top of yours, captivating your senses and your being until you couldn’t take the pressure and pressed your lips to his heatedly. There was a clash of teeth and tongue and he took the opportunity to slide his hand down and play with your soaking folds, eliciting a gasp from you and the men couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Look at how needy you are for us, and we’ve hardly even done anything,” Vernon chuckled, letting his hands roam across your upper body while Junhui pulled away and focused on your swollen bud. You didn’t even have the chance to react to their ministrations before Junhui was letting his tongue dart out to collect your juices. A loud moan passed your lips but was silenced quickly by Vernon placing a hand over your mouth. “Can’t be too loud here, babe, we don’t want to get caught now, do we?”

With the way they were both teasing you, it wasn’t long until you were on the brink of orgasm and begging for a release. “P-please...need to cum!” Your pleas were muffled by Vernon’s large palm still, and he gave you a stern look that said that if you were to cum, they wouldn’t let you cum again. “Just relax, baby, don’t cum yet and you’ll get a bigger reward afterwards,” Junhui cooed, sucking little love bites into the skin of your inner thigh.

It took all of your willpower to not cum, and they finally cut you some slack when they both pulled away from you, letting you catch your breath. You whined as your powerful orgasm ebbed away, but it wasn’t long until another flow of arousal was coating your inner thighs as you watched both men pull their cock out of their suit pants and pumped, letting small pearlescent beads of pre-cum gather on the tip. Your mouth watered at the sight, and you just knew that no matter who was inside of you, you’d end up walking funny for at least three days.

“Ass up in the air sweetheart, see that mirror that’s hanging on the wall there?” Junhui tilted his head in the direction of the floor-length mirror, which you had seemingly missed in your hurry to get their lips on you. You nodded and turned your head back to Junhui, who smirked and shifted your body so that you were facing the mirror, and you could see how truly fucked out you had become from these two men.

Vernon situated himself behind you and smoothed a hand down your back, making sure that you were in a comfortable position and wouldn’t get too many marks on your body to seem suspicious. You could feel his erection pressing against your thigh, and you couldn’t help but wiggle your ass at him and whine loudly, getting impatient.

“Please fuck me! I’ve been so good for you, I’ll even suck your dick later!” You pleaded, giving him the best possible puppy dog eyes you could muster up in your given position. Without a warning, he had thrust the tip of his cock into you, before pulling out in a teasing manner. You whined even louder, letting your frustrations be known to both of the men, before Junhui finally stepped in front of you, cock in hand. “I know a good way to get you to shut up, whore, open up that pretty mouth for me and get to work,” he spat, letting his pre-cum stain your lips before pushing the tip inside of your welcoming mouth, bobbing eagerly up and down the first half of his erection.

While you focussed your attention on Junhui’s cock inside of your mouth, Vernon took the opportunity to slide his cock the rest of the way inside of you, your moans and whines of appreciation reverberating around Junhui’s cock and in turn, letting a hiss leave Junhui’s lips. “Fuck, your mouth feels amazing,” he murmured, thrusting his hips into your mouth and causing you to choke on his thick cock. Vernon’s hips never let up inside of you either, thrusting deep inside of you and hitting all of the right places. A small glance into the mirror showed tears running down your face and your makeup ruined, but neither of the boys seemed to care.

You were going to be in so much trouble after this.

Vernon’s cock was thick and long, and with the way he was thrusting erratically, he brought you to orgasm relatively quickly and sending you into a spiral of incoherent babbles and leg spasms. You had also taken the time to deepthroat Junhui’s cock, taking as much of him as possible and doing your best to stroke any remaining shaft that you couldn’t take. The feelings were becoming too much, and your mouth was becoming slack.

“Fuck, she’s getting tighter, I think she’s gonna cum,” Vernon rasped, spanking your ass before doubling his pace, making a cry fall from your lips as the feelings of your orgasm began to wash over you. Your vision turned white as your orgasm turned your body rigid, Junhui’s cock fell from your lips and you couldn’t stop the moans from escaping you, even more so when you heard Vernon’s loud groan as he came too, filling your walls with his hot cum.

When you finally regained your vision, you saw Junhui smiling softly at you, and wiping your cheek to rid it of some of your mascara. “You did so well, sweetheart, so well for us,” he hummed, letting you rest for a while before helping you to stand.

When you stared at your gaze in the mirror, you knew that if you bumped into anyone on the way back to the table, that they would instantly know what you had been up to. While Vernon adjusted himself in his boxers and fixed up his suit, you glanced over at Junhui, who very clearly still had a raging erection since you didn’t get to finish him off.

“Don’t you wanna cum too?” You asked him, letting your palm land against his clothed erection and begin to rub gently. He closed his eyes and let out a sigh through his nose, holding back on a groan before opening his eyes again and reaching for your hand. “I do, so badly, but I wanna be inside of you, and I have a plan, don’t worry,” he replied, kissing the palm of your hand before helping you to straighten your dress and fix up your hair so it doesn’t look like you had just been fucked in a random room at an awards show.

Carefully, you all walked back out to the ceremony and noticed that they were wrapping up with a performance from a rookie group. You sighed as you took a seat, and brushed off everyone’s confused and concerned glances thrown around the table. “We thought you got lost!” Chan piped up, a chuckle leaving your lips at his somewhat innocent demeanour. “We were just worried, that’s all, you didn’t even tell anyone where you were!” Seungcheol commented, a concerned look present on his face even with the dim lighting of the room.

“I’m fine! I think I did get lost in the hallways, there’s so many of them,” you stated nervously, scratching at the back of your head. Junhui had resumed his earlier position with his hand on your thigh, but this time it was sitting higher up, and you couldn’t help but lean into his touch. “I can’t wait for this to be over so I can have you all for myself,” he whispered into your ear, sending shivers down your spine.

“What do you mean by that?”

“You’ll see.”

~~~~~~

You don’t know how he managed to do it, but somehow, in some way, Junhui had managed to secure you sitting on his lap on the way home, as dangerous as it was. “Isn’t this illegal?” You spoke hurriedly, not even having the opportunity to choose somewhere else before the van was moving off. “I mean, probably, but you won’t be complaining soon,” he retorted, a cheeky smile covering his face.

From the angle you were sitting on his lap, you could feel his rock hard erection pressing against your ass. You wiggled around a little to tease him, but when he gripped your hips with an iron-like force, you halted, knowing he was about to return the same energy to you.

With quick movements, he had lifted you off his lap a little, freed his cock from their confines before shifting your dress and panties to the side. Without warning, he sunk you back down onto his cock, and you had to try your absolute hardest to stifle your moan. Luckily, Vernon was sitting next to Junhui and was having the time of his life, watching you try to contain your moans.

“Now, you’re gonna sit on my cock back to the dorms, and if you cum at all, we get to punish you, got it?” He teasingly whispered into your ear, and you could feel his chest moving back and forth with the way he lightly chuckled.

He knew it wasn’t going to be easy for you.

It also wasn’t made any easier when Vernon managed to slip his hand underneath your dress and find your swollen bud with ease, drawing slow circles onto it and making your legs twitch. “V-Vernon...please…” you whispered out, earning a low groan from Junhui as you bumped against his cock. “Fuck, stay still if you know what’s good for you,” he moaned out, only earning a whimper from you in response. With the way that Vernon’s nimble fingers were pressing to your clit, and the feeling of Junhui’s thick cock filling you up in all the best ways, you could feel your orgasm impending and it was beginning harder to maintain control over yourself.

“I-I…” you managed to stutter out, before it was too late and you could feel your orgasm washing over you, your juices running down Junhui’s cock and your thighs and getting onto his pants. He hissed at the way you tightened around him and wrapped his arms around your waist to keep you on his cock, thrusting up into you lightly so it wasn’t obvious to anyone else in the car. You rode out your high and immediately felt your cheeks burn, and looked up to see Vernon feigning disappointment.

“I guess we need to teach you a lesson then, don’t we? But first, Junhui wants something from you,” Vernon spoke lowly, nodding his head to the man behind you. You weakly turned your head around and saw his dark eyes pooling with desire, and you knew he was only moments away from his breaking point. “As soon as this car stops and everyone is out, I’m going to be fucking you so hard into this car seat you won’t be able to walk inside.”

You gulped and took note of where you were, less than 5 minutes away from the dorm and you couldn’t help but feel excited over the prospect of having both of your best friends cum inside of you. He kept you situated on his cock, seemingly having an innocent conversation with Vernon while you tried to remain as quiet as possible. It became increasingly difficult, especially with speed bumps making you bounce up and down on his cock, but you finally made it back to the dorms, almost on the brink of yet another orgasm.

The three of you watched as everyone filed out of the van, making sure everyone was out before the door was pulled shut and Junhui had immediately flipped you over, pounding into you as if his life depended on it. He had given you no warning, and the moans and whimpers were flying out of your mouth like a mantra. “God you’re so fucking tight, look how well your pussy takes my cock,” he groaned out, slamming his hips into yours repeatedly. By now, Vernon had taken his cock out and was stroking it languidly, his bottom lip pulled in by his teeth to prevent any noise from falling out.

“I’m gonna fill you up, sweetheart, gonna pump my cum into you and make you walk inside with it,” he whispered, loving how your eyes rolled back into your head at his comment. You could feel his cock throbbing inside of you, and it only took another few moments of him praising you that he too, came inside of you with a loud groan. A hand flew down to rub your clit in fast circles, sending you over the edge once more with a loud cry into Junhui’s palm.

Your breathing was erratic as he pulled out, and out of the corner of your eye, you noticed that Vernon had found a tissue to cum inside of and was casually tossing it into his pants pockets and getting himself back into his pants. Junhui had done the same to himself and was slowly placing your clothes back into their rightful positions so that they sat properly.

“That was...amazing,” you breathed, sitting up and cringing slightly at the feeling of their cum dripping down your thighs. Both of the men nodded and hummed in agreement, before opening the door of the van. “I think that we should continue this inside though, I still have a little bit of energy to burn,” Junhui commented, earning a scoff from Vernon and a slap from you, but you couldn’t say it didn’t turn you on. “What did you have in mind?” You spoke up, earning surprised glances from both of them before their eyes turned dark once more.

“Why don’t you come inside and find out, sweetheart?”

#kpop #kpop smut #seventeen #seventeen smut #junhui smut #vernon smut #kpop imagine #kpop idol #seventeen imagine #seventeen scenario #jun smut #jun imagine #jun reaction #vernon imagine #vernon reaction #idol smut #kpop reaction #kpop scenario #seventeen reaction

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streets-in-paradise · 4 years ago

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I want to talk about some of the main family relationships in Troy

As I already told once in one of my posts, I adore to overanalyze family relationships in the media I consume. I’m still in the process of writing another one as a second part to my sibling relationships post talking of more family relationships from various of my fandoms but, since that one is taking me too much time to finish, I'm writing now this shorter one for my Troy appreciation series.

I already started this ramble in the same post I referenced. There I talked about my favourite family bond in the entire film, the sibling relationship of Hector and Paris. Still, there is a lot to discuss about family dynamics in the story this movie tells. Even since I was writing that post I kept thinking on how many family related story arcs this movie has and how, if you pay close attention to those, you can capture the essence of the characters. Because of this, I decided to dedicate a separate post to the main family relationships portrayed there and the important role they play in the development of the story. I will try to skip the ones i already talked about before. This are, for most part, the relationships inside the trojan royal family. Since i already discussed those, most of this will be about family bonds of the greek characters.

As i stated in previous posts, this is a talk about the characters and actions in the movie. I’m not talking from an adaptation” movie vs book” point of view. I can occasionally mention some of the differences but there would be more references than comparisons.

As always, i apologise for any possible mistakes in my writing. I’m still in the process of getting used to writing long texts in english. Also, I give proper credits for the images to the original sites hosting them.

Agamemnon and Menelaus

The movie establishes them clearly as the main antagonists. Precisely, one of the many scenes I love in this movie is the one in which they show up to the gates of Troy commanding the greek army and they argue with the trojan princes over the terms of the combat between Paris and Menelaus. The first thing I always notice in that one is how alike Hector and Paris look when they get down from their horses, it reminds me of the actual part of the Iliad in which it is said that Paris gets confused for a brave man because of his looks. Going back to my point, in that scene I get the vibe of opponents these characters have just by the display of the dynamics between siblings.

Agamemnon is using his brother’s problem as an excuse for a war highly profitable for him. Menelaus is aware of this and he doesn’t care because he is too consumed by his wish for revenge and, it seems that this mutualistic beneficial goal is what sticks them together. Their first scene together, when Menelaus goes to Mycenae asking his brother for help, summarizes their relationship in a great way. Menelaus seems to have a rather servile attitude towards his brother and Agamemnon clearly takes advantage of that, having in that particular time a perfect excuse to attack an enemy he had wished to conquer for a long time. If you think about it, this is the exact opposite relationship of Hector and Paris. I love how well this scene fits as a contrast to the argument in the ship scene of Hector and Paris . In both, Menelaus and Paris are basically asking for the help of their older bros, one doing it on purpose and the other one half aware. Their family relationships are established so well by those two scenes.

Going back to the one scene I mentioned first, the exchanges between characters are awesome. Not only because you can appreciate directly how this differences play a role in the conflict, but also because you can totally appreciate how every character involved is the exact opposite of the one who challenges. The exchange between Hector and Agamemnon is fantastic. I love how Hector cuts the crap on Agamemnon’s cocky bullshit, their short interaction is priceless.Also, i almost feel bad for Paris because “ the sun was shining when your wife left you” is his best line in the entire movie and he gets his ass kicked by Menelaus immediately afterwards. I like how, despite being a coward, Paris is a sassy little shit.

Something i need to add about these brothers is that the Director’s Cut adds a better perspective on Agamemnon’s care for Menelaus. There are many short hints, especially after Menelaus’s death, that show how he actually cared for him. I think that this small glimpse should have stayed in the final version. Even when Agamemnon is a piece of shit of the worst kind and his brother was not very different, it is nice to see him caring for something else than his own imperialist desires from time to time and to get a real family vibe from those two.

Achilles and Patroclus

Before starting with this two i want to clarify that i am fully aware of the very different interpretation their relationship got in this movie. I heard that the romantic approach was explored in Troy: fall of a city. I haven’t watched it yet, it is on my to watch list and at some point i will do it. Now, speaking of what we have seen in the context of the movie, i have to say that i love the adorable family bond they have since the first scene they share. This is by far my second favourite family bond in the film.

As i said before i have a weakness for family relationships and tragedies regarding them are the biggest pain i can imagine. I don’t have anything against romantic Achilles x Patroclus, i just enjoy a lot the family approach it took here. First, i think it happens because i saw the movie far before reading any piece of trojan war related fiction and second because I happen to enjoy seeing family bonds more than romantical ones. My basic example for explaining this is the complaint I had over Kili x Tauriel and how it kinda shifted the focus of the previously established family story of the Line of Durin. If i have to choose between a family or a romance story of any kind, I will always end up more interested in the first option because i relate to and enjoy those better.

In this version, they are cousins with a very brother like relationship. I feel like here Patroclus acts like a little bro that hero worships Achilles. We know that his parents died and Achilles took care of him but we don’t know when that happened. What we do know is that his protection is the only aspect Achilles feels responsible for in his life. His bond with him reflects the best and the worst of him. It displays his softer and his most terrible side. Without paying close attention it looks like the romantic subplot with Briseis is the part of the plot that is supposed to show his soft side and, partially, it does but i think that job is already done earlier with the introduction of Patroclus. The story with Briseis serves mainly as support of what was already established there. The kindest, more human side of Achilles is clearly there when you look at his interactions with Patroclus.

One of the main reasons why i enjoy this relationship so much is because, plotwise, it serves as a perfect point of encounter for the two main heros’ characterizations. Despite all the effort the storytelling makes in pointing out the many differences between Hector and Achilles, these two apparently opposite men share the same limitation. Hector’s goal is to protect his country, Achilles’s goal is immortality through fame, but both find themselves lost when their reckless younger relatives endanger themselves and both react the same way. When Paris was at instants of dying by the hands of Menelaus Hector had to choose between saving him or letting him get killed for the good of Troy. The man who serves as paradigm of honesty and sacrifice, the most noble hero of the story, broke the agreement and killed Menelaus. He broke a pact and gave his enemies an even better excuse for war that will doom Troy because his brother’s life was at risk. Achilles’s madness over grief for Patroclus fits so well family related in this particular narrative because it originated in the same feelings. Paris and Patroclus may be opposites, one being a coward and the other the embodiment of reckless courage, but both become the limit of tolerance for Hector and Achilles. At the end, both heros are driven by love for their families. In this version where Hector and Paris have this strong bond that works perfectly as a mirror for Achilles and Patroclus, it fits so well for them to be family. The chain of deaths unleashed with Patroclus’s death becomes a natural response to the bonds previously mentioned between the four characters involved. Everything becomes a big family tragedy and that is devastating.

One more comment i will make about them is that i also love how some of Achilles’s friends add some more sweet or happy hints to some scenes. Eudorus, despite the formal servant-like way in which he speaks to Achilles, gives me a long time friend who is almost family vibe. Of course, i have to mention Odysseus here as well. Patroclus and Achilles sparring scene has an amazing chill domestic fun tone and he adds even more fun to the moment once he arrives. They are the most likeable greeks of the movie and you get such a friendly feeling of them. I live for these guys. The main scene they shared is the happiest of the film.

Bonus mentions

The Director’s Cut has a lot of scenes that help you understand some of the characters' motivations and lots of them are family related. One small scene I wish really hard the should had kept is the one in which Priam explains the reasons for his deep religious devotion. He listens to the high priest’s terrible advice and ignores his son’s wiser words not because he is a nice but dumb and inept king. He believes Apollo saved Hector from a disease when he was a baby boy. There is a reason for his blind, sometimes naive, faith in Apollo’s protection.Other cut out moment with a similar meaning is the one in which Andromache tells Hector she lost seven brothers in a previous war. She is tired of losing people, her husband is all she has. Having this in consideration her story turns even more tragic.

I could mention a few more characters and moments but this is getting too long so i will end it here. I think it is enough for the topic i wanted to write about and the only main character i feel i skipped a bit here is Priam but i had talked enough about the trojans and how much i love them so i think it is enough.

I enjoyed writing this, as fast as i can i will upload the general post for family relationships i’m working on and i’m thinking of making a special one like this for lotr. @hrisity12 I tag you as i always do in all my Troy content.

Thanks for reading this ramble i intended to keep short but, as always, ended up longer than i expected.

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makdynasty · 5 years ago

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Thoughts on the Future of the TF Movie Franchise.

I have to say, after watching BumbleBee and closely examining the status of the franchise, I must say... I don't really have much confidence for the franchise moving forward. These are just my thoughts on the matter though. I"ll briefly do a review of some sorts for the movie as I segway into my main topic of discussion.

Now, I'm not saying that I think the movie is bad or anything, but it was very dry and lukewarm for me. Unpopular opinion, I know. The thing is though, for a movie that is supposedly going to be a "reboot" to a movie franchise that has been standing the test of time for over a decade, it wasn't a very strong start. Pretty much the main thing that it has going for it is the whole G1 appeal that they feel the need to constantly stress along with the fact that this is not a movie directed by Micheal Bay.

Now, unlike some people who I've discussed the movie with, I'm not going to give the movie a ruff time for it's lack of action in comparison to the original 5. I understand that they wanted to tell a more calmer and down to Earth story and I like small number of Decepticons that BumbleBee faced on Earth as well as the battle back on Cybertron was sufficient enough. I also liked how the action was cleaner without too many explosions going on as well as being mostly one-take without the weird jump cuts in movies like TF 4 and TF 5. I am however going to talk about the movies large cast of dry and one note characters.

For a movie that takes pride in how it's story is supposed to be deeper then the past few movies, and how it has a substantial amount of "heart" that the previous movies lacked, apparently, it all feels pretty artificial at times. Most of the characters that are showcased in this movie (Not including the characters that made cameo appearances.) are very one note without much of anything defining them aside from: Charlie, BumbleBee, Dropkick and Shatter, and maybe Optimus. I didn't include John Cena because the dude pretty much played himself, so I'm not exactly sure how to critique his performance. This movie shouldn't even really be called BumbleBee seeing as how most of the movie is spent focusing on her struggles above the struggles of the actual main character that the movie is named after. A common complaint from people who watched the other movies that is conveniently swept under the rug this time around like most of the films flaws.

Next is the how the movie handles emotion. For a movie of it's nature, it handles the subject pretty well. Charlie is by far the best character in the movie with great development and progression making her easily one of the most developed human characters in the movieverse. However, this of course has it's fair share of flaws as well. Most of the emotional appeal is focused on her and her solely to the point where other emotional moments in the film don't feel at all important like Cliffjumper's death for instance. That along with BumbleBee's supposed death midway through. Not only that, but the movie at times feels like it's trying too hard to get a reaction out of you with how it constantly brings up Charlies dead father. I can understand the movie constantly reminding us of his death in order to emphasis that she's constantly thinking about him, but it could've been handled much better if the movie didn't feel the need to have her emotions feel so exaggerated.

It follows in line with how many modern day t.v. shows nowadays try appeal to audiences by making them feel heavily for the characters. It may be charming at first, but over time it starts to feel disingenuous with how much the characters struggles are constantly shoved in front of our faces as if we don't realize that these characters are going through hard times. This issue is especially prevalent in the later seasons of shows like Steven Universe where the feeling has noticeably dipped down for some people because the over-exaggerated emotions eventually leave people out and end up making the characters seem whinny above all else.

BumbleBee is a low budget live action movie and it shows in several cases. Clearly a lot of the design work went into BumbleBee and maybe even Dropkick and Shatter. The CGI while nice enough with G1 designs and realistic looking enough, is noticeably toned down, a little too fluid to the point where every movement made by the Transformers feels oddly floaty and not very grounded, and a lot less detailed than the previous films. For ancient sentient alien robots that have been fighting in a war that has been ravaging their entire planet, they look a little too clean in comparison to how they looked in some of the previous films. Aside from some casual rustware and scratches on all other Transformers that aren't BumbleBee, which you may not even notice unless you were looking hard for these details like I was, there isn't much battle damage or carnage displayed afterwards.

The CGI effects in general seem lackluster at times. It's clear that a majority of the budget went into the Cybertron war scene, though it feels as though that's where the CGI begins to look the most cartoony. In fact, many elements of the Cybertron war scene look suspiciously animated to the point where it feels almost like an odd design choice as a homage to the G1 show and movie. Wouldn't put it past them and it would admittedly make for in interesting design choice if that were the case, yet I feel as though that sacrifices a lot of the believability of the movie for that particular scene. Prime example (No pun intended.), the scene where Ravage was ejected out of Soundwave's chest. That whole transition always look off to me. It was smooth, but very noticeably off in terms of movement. This is just a personal complaint however as I am more used to the realistic movements as well as designs and atmosphere of the previous films.

As I conclude this brief overview of the BumbleBee movie and transition into my main thoughts and feelings towards the future of the Transformers movies, I want to talk about the biggest issue I have with the direction of these new movies. Aside from the people behind these movies not at all knowing whether or not they want these movies to be a fully reboot or not, BumbleBee felt like it was meant to appeal to nobody, but G1ers, people who didn't like the previous films, or just casuals in general really. I feel like this is a big step backwards personally. What made the previous films so special was that they were a thorough rejection of all of the things that defined how Transformers are "supposed" to be. In a time where the franchise was dying out and people where constantly saying that nothing outside of G1 works, these movies came along and proved those statements wrong. In return, the changed the mythology and way we all perceived the Transformers forever. The movies were able to appeal to all forms of Transformers fans because they didn't stand for one single mythology and acted as an amalgamation of many different forms of the franchise. Had they gone with there original plans for The Last Knight, they would have even incorporated Optimus Primal somehow, and that would've in turn appealed to the Beast Wars fans. G1, as good as it is, on it's own does not appeal to everyone which is something that Hasbro doesn't seem to understand. I'm not a G1er, so aside from some semblance of odd nostalgia as well as making it easier to spot out some fan favorites, these designs just don't do much of anything for me personally.

BumbleBee was a good movie, not a great movie imo. It doesn't do anything to try and shake up the formula and feels mainly like it was just meant to cater to fanfare without any proper intentions of being the start of a new generation of Transformers movies. Budget issues aside, the movie plays itself far to safe even for what they had intended for their story to be. It isn't at all perfect and yet it could have been so much more.

...

So with all that said and done, how exactly does this translate into me worrying about the future of this movie franchise???

This personally makes me feel a tad bit worried for the future of the franchise. The franchise now lacks a sense of direction because it's being seemingly forced to transition into this new form without a proper plan of action. As much as I liked what Travis Knight did with BumbleBee, I would prefer if a more experienced director took the wheel from here on out.

As far as money goes, the franchise is also on a step decline with BumbleBee being the lowest performing movie yet. You may say that money doesn't matter in this case seeing as how the movie made back a significant amount of money, it's still considered a financial flop in comparison to the other films, and rightfully so. Transformers is a multi-billion dollar franchise and as such should be expected to make as much money with it's big projects like these. BumbleBee was expected to bring in huge numbers regardless of it's low budget, but didn't. However, because it was well received, it's getting a sequel, but the numbers have to start rising or else.

They also don't seem to know what they want to do with the sequel aside from making it a buddy movie of some sorts with Optimus Prime. At least the director recognizes the importance of staying true to the previous movies to a certain degree to go as far as to include "Bayhem" into the movies going forward.

All in all, the future of the franchise while promising, is by no means going to be guaranteed success. It's very easy to see how they can potentially mess this up without proper direction and focus. That's all for now.

#Transformers #Bumblebee #Hasbro #Michael Bay #Travis Knight #Transformers Movies #Transformers Franchise

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peterstanslizzie · 5 years ago

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Re-watching Lizzie Mcguire: Episode 1.7 (Here Comes Aaron Carter)

Aaron Carter Hype

- During lunch break, Lizzie storms into the school cafeteria and eagerly informs Gordo and Miranda that tween pop star, Aaron Carter is coming to their town to shoot a Christmas-themed music video. Our favorite ‘know-it-all‘ Gordo doesn’t know who Aaron Carter is. Really, Gordo? You know x,y and z about everything else but you aren’t aware of one of the biggest teen heartthrobs to emerge in the late 90s and early 2000s? Oh wait, it’s because he’s a 13-year old straight boy. No shade though.

- I also want to know why Aaron and his team decided to film their video in that specific town? Where does Lizzie and co. live anyways? I’m thinking it’s some small town in California.

- Lizzie is curious to know where exactly the filming location will be and this opens up the opportunity for Gordo to utilize his knowledge of film and set locations to help her figure it out. Besides meeting him, Lizzie wants to also interview Aaron for the school web-zine and Miranda wants to sing for him in person. Gordo is thinking of using this opportunity to make a behind-the-scenes video of the video shoot.

Brainstorming Session

Let’s go get the tea on this video shoot location

- Our trio are coming up with possible locations for the filming to take place. They do a good job brainstorming places that are big enough for production but the problem is, they have a least a list of 40 locations to narrow down from.

- Matt enters Lizzie’s room and observes what they have been doing and he seems to know where exactly the filming location is because Lanny, his silent but not mute best friend told him. This is the first ever mention of Lanny in the series. I actually like Lanny; He is just as playful and adventurous as Matt but I think he has more charm to him than Matt. I think it’s because he doesn’t talk, like at all lol. But this might be an unpopular opinion.

- I don’t know why they trust in him and Lanny knowing where this place exactly is but regardless, they decide to ask Matt to reveal the location and he will only do that if he is able to come along with them. They agree and he tells them that it will be held at a warehouse and as siblings usually do, Lizzie double crosses Matt and tells him he can’t go but Matt does a comeback and threatens to rat them out to their mom. Lizzie gives in and Matt is able to tag along.

- So what if their mom knows? It’s not like she would be against the idea since Lizzie is planning to interview Aaron for the school web-zine. It’s kinda like a class assignment but only cooler.

Plot Twist

It’s such a random coincidence that Sam got backstage passes from his client

- Sam Mcguire comes home late from work and reveals to Jo that his client gave him 2 backstage passes to Aaron Carter’s Winter Wonderland-themed music video shoot. Jo, elated by this, tells him that they should surprise Lizzie and her pals with those passes but in fact, we know that they are planning to lie to her parents and go to the video shoot and leave a note saying they are out working on a school project. Again, Lizzie should have been honest and told her parents the truth from the get go.

Operation Sneak-In

- Lizzie, her friends and Matt arrive at the compound of Ren-Mar warehouses and they devise a plan to walk right up to the entrance and walk past security like they own the place.

Doesn’t this scene remind you of the Beatles album cover where they were walking along a pedestrian crossing on Abbey Road?

- They do a good job at first but when a security officer lays his eyes on them, they panicked and bumped into one another. He requests for them to show their passes but Lizzie says that she a member of the press and she’s allowed to be there. That’s great and all but when your press badge is a measely piece of paper that looks cheap, it’s just not gonna cut it. And as expected, they are denied entry.

- Sam and Jo Mcguire reads Lizzie’s note about being away for a school project and Jo suggests to her husband to head over first to the video shoot while she waits for them to come back home so that she can bring them over. Yikes! This doesn’t look so good for Lizzie and her friends.

- Matt tells the group he devised a Plan B and takes out an elf costume from a sack he’s been carrying around. Apparently, he kept elf costumes since last Christmas when he and his family took pictures for their family Christmas card. He suggests they dress up like elves so that they can blend in with the Christmas-themed set and performers.

Matt isn’t going to dress himself up as an elf. Nope, he is going in as Aaron Carter. At first, I thought he was joking but he was actually serious and tricked a producer to think that he is a stand-in for Aaron. Good job Matt but the producer needs to get his eyes checked asap.

- Lizzie, Gordo and Miranda weren’t so lucky and were denied entry once again. Lizzie isn’t quick to lose hope and she comes up with another plan to get them in. She spots a car pulling up to the security check and leads her friends to hide by the side of the car, away from the security officer’s view. I’m guessing they haven’t installed security cameras in the area yet because they successfully manage to sneak their way in.

- Turns out, the person driving that car was her father, Sam! He spots Lizzie for a second but she quickly ducks away before he could realize that it was actually her. This adds on to the list of things Lizzie needs to worry about today.

Looks like things are getting more complicated than before

Getting In Was Hard, But Staying In Is Harder

- Just when Gordo is about to film a short video intro of Lizzie and Miranda for his documentary, the same security officer spots them and we then get a funny but childish chase sequence. They find themselves at the waiting area for the video shoot that is also used for crafts service and Lizzie’s dad is also at the same area.

- Meanwhile at the Mcguire home, Jo listens to a voice message left by the security officer at Ren-Mar warehouses who tells her that Lizzie is causing some trouble over there. Jo immediately goes into ‘mom mode’ and starts charging her way to find her daughter and probably ground her for all of eternity.

- Lizzie, who is hiding under a red sack on a sleigh spots ‘Aaron’ when it was actually Matt. I don’t get how she manages to confuse the two; Matt is way shorter than the real Aaron and she should know that. They stumble onto the stage where rehearsals are taking place and they are spotted by the director of the shoot and the same security officer who has been giving them a tough time.

- We then get the same, stereotypical troupe of the overweight security guy chasing a bunch of kids and the kids are too fast for him. I probably enjoyed this chase-scene when I was younger but now as an adult, I am just not amused.

- But I did enjoy the scene where the security officer tells Jo that he doesn’t know where Lizzie is and she freaks out on him. That was gold! But she was detained afterwards and held in a detention room. Sam joins her pretty soon afterward because he tried to eat one of the donuts from the crafts service table.

Aaron Carter!

- Lizzie, Gordo and Miranda are hiding inside a room, which turns out to be Aaron Carter’s dressing room. Convenient much? Is the security around here that incompetent? Suddenly, Aaron’s manager enters the room and demands to know what are these kids doing here.

- Lizzie tries to butter her up and explains to her that meeting Aaron would be the best thing ever and it would mean a lot to them if at least one of them gets to meet him. The manager agrees and Lizzie actually sacrifices her chance to meet him by giving it to Miranda.

Lizzie, you really did not have to give up your chance like that.

- WHAT!? Lizzie really did not have to do that. She did most of the work to get them there and she was the one who first heard about Aaron coming to town. And she gives it up just to let Miranda sing to him and get his autograph? That’s being too much of a good friend. Miranda should have insisted Lizzie went instead. I’m beginning to understand why Miranda is not such a liked character overall by the fandom.

- Luckily, everything ends up being A-okay because we have another convenient plot point where Lizzie left her tape recorder at Aaron’s dressing room and goes back to find it. She knocks on the door and standing in front of her with Lizzie’s tape recorder in his hand is Aaron in the flesh.

Rant Time!

Ohh puh-leaze!

- He gives her tape recorder back and he wishes her Merry Christmas and they share a KISS under a Mistletoe!!!??? I love Lizzie Mcguire and all but that moment was completely and utterly ridiculous! I’ve never heard of a fan meeting their idol-crush and then 5 seconds later, he gives that fan a kiss on the LIPS (NOT CHEEKS), LIPS without asking their permission. It’s so mind-boggling and unrealistic, even for a tween show on Disney.

- It’s very clear that Hilary Duff and Aaron Carter were dating at that time and the producers just had to slip in a kiss scene between the two of them in this episode to take advantage of their cute relationship.

I Want Candy!

- The video director and Matt find Lizzie and her friends and all thanks to Matt, they also get to be a part of Aaron Carter’s music video.

Cue the music video

Overall Thoughts

- I think this was a fan favorite episode of Lizzie Mcguire due to how they managed to bring in Aaron Carter to guest star and perform his ‘I Want Candy’ song. It’s a really cute and fun episode to watch. But obviously, this episode lacks real substance. The kiss scene between Lizzie and Aaron was cute but totally unnecessary (read my Rant section). It also felt weird seeing Lizzie having no problem or showing no remorse when easily lying to her parents and disobeying authoritative figures and such. It was a little out of character, don’t you think?

- Despite all of my complaints about this episode, I will give it a pass because this is considered to be a ‘special’ episode in a way and certain things should be brushed aside for entertainment value. Plus, it was nice to see a young and adorable Aaron Carter thrive in a time before going through so much difficulties in his life from drug abuse to his various personal health issues.

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rwbyconversations · 6 years ago

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A retrospective look on the second half of Volume 6

Just over a month and a half ago, I did a retrospective on the first half of Volume 6- everything from Adam’s short up to The Grimm Reaper. Now in hindsight if I’d known the season was getting cut down an episode I’d have done the analysis a week earlier so it would be perfectly symmetrical, but life comes at you fast. I adored the first half of Volume 6 and still rank it as the best string of episodes quality wise that the show has ever had. It was very clear even early on that the crew over in Austin were going all out to prove that they knew what they were doing and could still create a stellar season of a show. I was confident at the time that the back half would stick the landing, and while it wasn’t as good as the first half, Volume 6′s second half still retains the quality that makes it one of the best volumes of the entire show and a standout piece of animation by any standards.

As such, this will be a review of every episode from Chapters 8 to 13, spoilers obviously will follow if you haven’t watched those.

Dead End- the stumbling block

So you know how I said in the retrospective for the first half of the volume that if chapter 8 was good than we’d get the longest uncut string of good episodes in all of RWBY? I’m pretty sure someone upstairs heard that and chose deliberately to make Chapter 8 the weakest episode of the season. There is good to be found here, but unfortunately every race has someone end up dead last and chapter 8 drew the short straw.

While the opening scene with Caroline and her minions is funny at first, it quickly drags on for too long and desperately needed another few goes with a weed-whacker to condense the scene. Barring setting up Corvodin as an obvious antagonist little is gained from the scene, especially given how much of the episode it consumes.

Jaune’s scene with Oscar remains... sketchy on a moral level, especially the accusation Jaune makes that Ozpin has been pretending to be Oscar the entire time. Jaune’s still not truly processed his grief over Pyrrha’s death and while I’m glad to see his anger at Ozpin return after it went missing in Volume 5, I think Jaune crossed the line when he decided to start manhandling Oscar. It’s also still really weird how outside of Yang and Weiss saying “Jaune!” with the concern you express when someone stubs their toe, no one actually runs over to pull Jaune off. It’s just a weird moment, I still don’t really like this scene or many of the defenses for it. Fuck’s sake, Oscar’s trembling like a leaf in a hurricane afterwards that stuff ain’t right.

Ruby’s scene with Maria is the real saving grace of the episode, especially since we finally got some solid information on the Silver Eyes, accompanied by some wonderful background music and cinematography. Maria really is one of the best characters in the show and it’s amazing how much audiences grew to love her in just one single year, so kudos to the writers, designers and actors for that. Maria’s Semblance is simple but neat, and you can actually go back and listen to the Maria vs Tock fight for their auditory trigger which is an insane attention to detail touch.

Also something I couldn’t fit in anywhere else; it’s sad but fairly realistic that Qrow falls right back off the wagon after the Corvodin meeting goes south.

Dead End has some quality to it, mostly in the back half with Maria and Ruby bouncing off each other wonderfully to create a great teacher-student dynamic, but the first half drags and is let down by an overly long intro before pouring gasoline on the fires of the anti-Jaune crowd.

Lost- The Refound Footing

Remember what I said in the first half of the volume retrospective, Em and Merc appearing is an instant thumbs up in my book. So an episode where they get half the episode to themselves, and even get to be in the thumbnail for the first time since Volume 3? Hoo boy, that’s a solid contender for episode of the season right there. And it nearly is, in all honesty. In fact, Lost’s only mis-step is how a part of it feels like the third act to a trilogy when we never saw the second part, but we’ll come back to that.

Mercury and Emerald’s scene is nothing short of breathtaking. There’s a lot of great lighting choices in this scene such as Emerald initially sitting in the darkness before rising and coming into the moonlit parts of the room after being confronted with her denial to believe that Cinder’s a monster, that lend the scene a bit of extra weight. Yuri and Katie are their usual amazing selves, especially since this is the first time either of them have been given some really meaty dialogue in a while.

Kerry had already teased content for Mercury was coming in the Reddit AMA, and we already knew the kick boi was sporting one of the darkest backstories of anyone in the show, but the curtain was uncovered here to make it absolutely obvious how much of a bastard Marcus Black was and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that interest in Mercury jumped up after this episode and the average theory on Team Jaded went from “Emerald will defect and Mercury will stay or die giving her a chance” to “Emerald and Mercury will leave as a group.”I also love how the Yang and Mercury foil status only continues to amplify, as now we have both of their fathers giving different advice and training in regards to their Semblances- Tai encouraged Yang to learn to control it and not to use it as a crutch unless she was sure it would finish the fight, while Marcus stole it so Mercury never got reliant in the first place.

Merc’s backstory is also making me salivate for when he finally gets to cut loose in a fight, since his two biggest fights- against Pyrrha and Yang- were him holding back, so Mercury fighting needing to worry about keeping his cover would be an insane fight. And if Cinder and Neo is any sign of the CRWBY’s skills with hand-to-hand fighting... yeah, Merc’s next bout will be something to look forward to. I also love that Merc spends this scene training his punches, showing that he’s covering his bases for the next time he gets to fight Yang or another brawler.

Emerald is still the best girl in this show. I love to hate how the music changes to a soft version of Cinder’s theme when Emerald explains why she’s backing Cinder, as if Emerald is twisting the music itself to make Cinder out to be the hero. Mercury bluntly telling her to stop living in fantasy land was a great moment that I’d been waiting years for, and “I’m sorry you didn’t have a mommy who loved you, but I had a father who hated me,” is just solid gold in writing.

I love how Merc’s smirk as he calls Emerald out on her denial just melts off his face because he cares enough to want Emerald to stop being delusional, but he’s not going to be nice about it.

Also can I just say Mercury, the whole “I think I’m right where I’m supposed to be” crap would work if literally every other one of your scenes this volume didn’t show you scared and clearly rethinking your life choices.

Tyrian’s tail upgrade is fine, but the real treat to his grand return is Tyrian playing psychoanalyist on Mercury and immediately calling bullshit on his above line- Merc’s only here because he’s been in a cycle of violence his whole life and is too afraid to leave it. The way he practically begs them to run because he called dibs on hunting them down is way too gleeful for my liking but given how Merc and Tyrian are two of my favorite villains right now, them finally getting to chat was a delight. I can’t wait until Volume 7 when we get to see Tyrian bounce off Watts without Mama Salem’s watchful eye.

OK I’m done talking about the best scene in the Volume. Now let’s talk about another great scene.

So first off I’d like to give my apprecation to the crew for making new Argus locals every episode we spend in it. It gives the city a lot more weight as a locale to see different streets and environs every week instead of prop recycling like a motherfucker. It gives Argus a lot more weight and makes it feel more lived-in than the few samey environments of Mistral that we got to see, and the streets are beautiful as a consequence. It also lets me play my new favorite spot, Spot The Emerald Clone!!

Jaune’s scene at the statue is a beautifully shot and acted scene, no complaints from me here and Forever Fall has already killed me and claimed my soul. I love how it calls back to the Volume 1 OP as well, and Miles and Jen kill it here. It’s on its own an amazing scene, but the wider problem is what sets it down. This is JN_R’s only scene this volume, and as a consequence it feels like it needs to include most all of their character beats since they won’t get the chance to otherwise- their mutual grief over Pyrrha is brought up, Nora tells Jaune to drop the suicidal tendencies he suddenly gained at Haven and Ren... is there. If JNR had more to do this volume I wouldn’t mind but this scene just gives the vibe of “JNR get one scene to develop and justify them staying to fight Salem and that’s it!” So nothing wrong with the scene itself, more the problem around it.

Finally we have Oscar’s sudden return. I think even if Chapter 8 hadn’t been the episode before the New Years break, fans wouldn’t have liked how this played out. Oscar really needs more character moments, especially after spending much of Volume 5 as just a fleshsack for Ozpin. Him going solo would have been a great way for Oscar to develop on his own and come to terms with his part to play in the war against Salem, maybe even have Ozpin or Ozma manifest and talk to him. Instead, he just goes and buys a new costume.

I still think Oscar lifted Qrow’s wallet for the record. And I still like his new outfit. The bandages give me Bungou Stray Dogs vibes.

So in this retrospective, I’ve been pointing out little moments for Ruby in each episode, moments where the writers pointedly have her take center-stage, even if just for a minute, to remind the audience that she’s the leader. Here, her moment is... fairly weak. Ruby’s inspirational speeches are never her strong suit, but her telling Qrow that they “didn’t need an adult” when he saved her from Tyrian back in V4 and Maria saved her from the Apathy just a few episodes ago is almost darkly comedic. Her quiet exasperation with Qrow when she finds him on the stairs is a much more understated moment that landed for me. Her hero worship for Qrow has been pretty much shattered at this point and now she’s just tired of his crap.

Lost is just an amazing episode. Mercury and Emerald are easily the most interesting characters in the series for me, this episode gives us more sights of Argus, the statue scene is wonderful and now I have the mental image of Oscar lifting Qrow’s wallet to go stress shopping as my favorite headcanon of the volume. Ruby’s speech is a little phoned in but it’s still a decent ending to a fantastic episode, and it’s easily my favorite episode in the entire season as a consequence.

Stealing From The Elderly- Most Apt Name For An Episode 2K19

The Argus Battle episodes all vary in quality- while none of them are outright bad episodes, some flow more smoothly or have more standout moments than the other. There is, however, one constant.

They’re all too fucking short. Half of the episodes are just barely fourteen minutes long, and taking out the Genlock preview and the opening and closing credits, it’s more generous to say they’re ten to twelve minutes on average. While I will take shorter, more concise episodes over something that drags on longer than it needs to (see Dead End and the opening scene again for my thoughts on that), there is a point where I must bemoan the length being too short. Especially when some of these episodes are insanely good.

Jaune’s plan is alright. Not quite as much of a disaster as some make it out to be, it’s a decent plan if lacking in contingencies. I think it’s noteworthy that had Adam not intervened, the plan would have gone off without a hitch.

The first half of the episode is also really funny. Corvodin’s guards are a lot easier to manage in the shorter pace of the episode and Maria is just a goldmine of comedy. Like I said earlier, it’s amazing how fast the fandom fell in love with this salty old grandma. I also love the joke that Maria’s jargon was perfect (which it is in real life btw I checked), but the guards knew something was up because their pilots aren’t old women.

The one real drag to the episode is Qrow having another angst episode and bemoaning how everything is his fault again, which just seems to be in the episode so Ruby can have another Ruby Moment. This is perhaps the weakest of all of her moments in the season, as it feels the most shoved in for the sake of being able to say “We gave Ruby something to do in every episode!” Which is fine, but repetition is a beast best avoided when possible in writing.

The mech is kinda cool, at least. And for the record, Corvodin is the guilty party in this conflict- yes, Ruby and co stole military equipment, but it was Caroline’s call to escalate to the Walking Gen;Lock Ad. They could easily have just dispatched other airships to catch the protagonists.

Adam’s return was a bit of a wet fart, unfortunately. A CRWBY episode released days prior to this episode releasing accidentally had mocap footage of someone fighting with Adam’s style, and storyboards that could be seen in this episode showed he was fighting Blake during it. Had the CRWBY episode not been so blatant in spoiling the surprise the twist of him suddenly arriving may have had more impact, but alas. I will say on an animation level, the fight in the tower is pretty good, if a bit clunky compared to what comes after. It makes good use of the environment and has Adam and Blake constantly crawling up and down the tower, giving the fight a bit of a unique quality to it. I also like the new visual additions to Adam’s Moonslice such as the bolt of lightning that crawls up his back.

Stealing From The Elderly is a decent, if very short, opening act to the Argus Battle episodes. It sets up the major conflicts of this trilogy of episodes, and has some great wit at the beginning, but doesn’t have much to make it stand out on its own.

The Lady In The Shoe-

Pretty. Fucking. Stellar. This episode is almost all fight scene, and works for the most part.

The mech fight is unfortunately the letdown of this part, and I’d probably rank it as the least exciting fight of Volume 6. While it does have some great moments such as Ruby getting to run on goddamn missiles, Ren actually getting to do something and not job for once, Ruby and Weiss’s great moment on the Lancer, everyone getting a moment to themselves where they get to land a blow on the mech (barring Oscar) and a new song in Big Metal Shoe, it’s overall a very slow battle that never really picks up. It doesn’t help that Caroline as a villain is very one-note, an exaggerated caricature who we know won’t stop the heroes, she’s just a stop gap for them.

Honestly though, the fight in this part of the episode just peaks at Ruby zooming up and firing her sniper rifle one handed at Caroline, and landing a no-scope right on the window. Heck, go and look and it’s at head level with Caroline. Ruby went right for the kill shot! God it’s so cool to see Ruby being a badass again.

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But of course the real highlight of this episode and of the entire Argus Battle sequence was Adam’s brawls against Blake and Yang, the latter of which has already earned a spot in most people’s favorite fights of the entire show list. Every time I thought Volume 6 had peaked fight wise, it got one more burst of energy and make a new “best of the season” fight to top the last. Cinder vs Neo was topped by Maria vs Tock, and now that was beaten out by Adam vs Yang. I can look at this fight and find a new favorite moment each time- Blake putting Adam’s sword into her sheath and disarming him for a few seconds while dual wielding for the first time in years, Adam’s almost instant turns whenever Blake uses her Semblance on him and him breaking Gambol Shroud, Yang smashing Adam with the bike, the list goes on. It’s not only great to see the Adam/Yang test footage getting remade to give the fight an extra edge, but as someone who wrote a lot of words on what the Battle of Haven did to Adam’s reputation, it was great to see the CRWBY remedying that mistake and giving him and Yang a fantastic battle, easily their strongest outings. Yang in particular really has evolved since Beacon, with her style having specifically changed to counter Adam and a whole barrage of new tricks- that rapid-fire machine gun punch is beautiful.

If this is how Yang fights now, her rematch against Mercury is going to be a fucking treat.

Adam’s face reveal was also a big shock. Some people had predicted branding but I don’t think anyone specifically called that he would have the SDC logo plastered on his eye socket. It’s a rather haunting sight, and puts his utter hatred for humanity in a startling light. It doesn’t excuse Adam of his actions, especially the abuse he put Blake through, but it puts a lot of Adam’s older actions- his disregard of the people on the train the Black trailer, his sadistic grins in his short whenever he was dominating humans- in a new context. Kudos to CRWBY for finding a way to take what most people thought they’d called already and putting a new spin on it.

While the mech fight isn’t stellar (though Nora’s moment of “You get back here with MY MAN!” was adorable), Adam vs Yang on its own makes this a high-ranking episode of the season with what cannot be stated enough as a good fucking fight. Melanie, you are a goddamn boss and I can’t wait to see you get that team working on more battles.

Seeing Red- The Assassination of Adam Taurus by the Not-So-Cowardly Blake Belladonna

So uh... last episode had Maria’s ship get hit with a missile, then it’s fine in this one? No smoke trails, not even any damage? OK?

Mech fight isn’t as good as it was last time, unfortunately. Ruby’s speeching is still rather annoying but at least she makes up for it by jumping into the cannon to make sure we all realize Volume 5 Ruby is a thing of the past. A really nice touch was her psyching herself up for a second before taking the second shot. It reminded me of Wonder Woman when Steve dies, he takes a second to breathe before firing. I like that she didn’t succeed with the first plan to shoot the missiles, it added a little tension to the fight. I also loved her moment with Qrow when he tried to stop her, it was a really soft and humanizing moment for both of them.

Adam vs Yang and Blake is still great, but last episode has it beat for sheer choreography. I very much enjoyed seeing them tag-team Adam, but part of me finds it funny that after Lady In The Shoe’s declaration of “We’re protecting each other,” Blake gets knocked out 40 seconds into the fight while Yang has to fight Adam for over a minute.

It was great to see the fire hair finally make a return, and having it serve as part of a climax where we see Yang correct her error when she fought Adam at Beacon- literally, they recreate the move where Adam cut her arm off but this time Yang dodges to the side first- was an amazing touch. And the hair looks pretty great too.

Adam’s death was a bit of a shock. It’s karma, no doubt, and ultimately this fight was only going to end with either him or the protagonists dead. But to be honest, I don’t think anyone expected him to win, especially after Weiss and Cinder took a spear to the narrative stakes last year. After the branding reveal I was personally hoping (but I was 90% sure he’d die) that Adam would get knocked off the cliff (I suppose I wasn’t wrong on that front at least) and get picked up by Cinder and Neo, then he’d become a problem in the Atlas arc. In particular I feel it would have been a great way to tie Adam into Weiss’s plot, as a way for her to see first hand that the SDC under Jacques is directly creating the monsters that go on to kill Weiss’s family. I’m fine with the death here, so long as what Jacques has done to the Faunus still appears in the Atlas seasons. But I feel this was a good place to see him off. On a technical level it would have been difficult for the crew to top the fighting scene in Chapters 11 and 12, while on a thematic level unless Adam went full-in on the Faunus cause he would have felt like dead weight. In effect, he’d have become the villain’s version of ReNora in how useful he really was for the plot. Additionally, even with the choreography here, had he run away again or lost I think that would have been a nail in the coffin for Adam’s threat-factor regardless. So ultimately, this was the best place to get rid of him, and at least he went out with a good death. (i really hope none of this paragraph gets twisted by someone trying to say i’m an abuse apologist, been down that road already thanks)

Also Blake breaking down was harsh. Her and Yang are gonna need to have a long conversation or six about trauma because that’s the closest either of those girls are getting to therapists in this death world. But for real, the finale all but confirmed that Blake and Yang are endgame, and whether your own thoughts on that, their arcs next volume should be about addressing that before romantic tension comes in. We’ve got at least six volumes left, the show can afford to take it slow and have them get some therapy before they get a Tinder profile.

... though I will complain about one thing about the fight. Adam’s sheath is a gun, why didn’t he just try and shoot Blake and Yang after he lost Wilt? He just rushes for the broken fragments of the sword when he has a working gun at his belt. Literally, the one thing I don’t like about the fight itself and it’s the epilogue to it.

Seeing Red’s fighting choreography might not be as impressive as Lady In The Shoe for either fight, but both are augmented by instead focusing on the characters and nailing a lot of the symbolism in its key moments. Ruby gets to shine with a hell of an insane move, and the show parts ways with its first real villain.

RIP goatboi, you were trash but at least it was fun to watch you swing your weeb stick. Thanks for sucking in Volume 5 so much I started writing narrative essays about the show as a consequence.

Our Way- And now, the end is near, and so I face, the final curtain

As an episode, Our Way is pretty cool. As a finale, it’s a bit weak, continuing the meta trend of season finales getting shorter every volume since V3. Nothing here is inherently bad, in fact it’s a lot of good material, but it’s not finale material.

Ruby’s arc (well it’s not really an arc but that’s a subject for another post) has been building up to the moment where she finally become a proper leader, and her facing down the Leviathan was that moment. The shots of this thing looming over Ruby are cinematic gold. I love that Ruby uses Jinn’s time stop feature to cheat out a few more seconds to prepare her Silver Eyes, and that Jinn, albeit begrudgingly, admits that she made a good play. When a near omnipotent lamp admits you’ve got some moves, you really have come a long way as a fighter.

The 2D stills of the Beacon season moments were a delight to behold, especially thanks to the added detail they gave moments like Weiss giving Ruby coffee and Penny’s death. The Summer appearance was amazing and made the finale for me, and it fading right as the lyrics to Indomitable kick in is a fantastic rush of emotions. Four lines and that song’s already my most anticipated track on the volume. I’m kind of bitter it wasn’t the credits song if I’m being honest.

Corvodin getting the final blow on the Leviathan was mixed. I appreciated how fucking anime it was that she used her DRILL THAT COULD PIERCE THE HEAVENS to kill Bubbles, but that the Leviathan was just so casually one-shotted made for a bit of an anticlimax to the battle. I’m not exactly also fond of the racist old hag being given a “soft” redemption but whatever.

Really that’s my one big problem with this. I get that there was no real way to have another big Grimm fight, but it makes the Battle of Argus feel like a bit of a cheap fight as a consequence. I’m overall fine with the result, but it does weaken the finale as a direct consequence. If the Ruby Silver Eyes moment didn’t land for you I can imagine this finale being rather weaksauce. Still, at least most of it was onscreen this time, so progress over Haven. It’s overall an OK episode but it needed a bit more time in the oven to make it a great finale. I didn’t hate it, but I can’t deny that outside of the character moments it wasn’t as climactic as I hoped it would be, especially once they cut episode 14 as I assumed that meant a longer than normal finale to compensate for the runtime. If you like Ruby, this is a great conclusion to a season that’s been great for her overall. If you don’t? Well, twelve out of thirteen good episodes.

Really though, Our Way made clear one important fact. Blake will never be allowed to solo her own songs, she will always have to share it with someone else. Honestly after From Shadows, Wings, Like Morning Follows Night, This Time and now Nevermore, it has to be deliberate that Blake only gets duets.

Also you remember how I pointed out that each even-numbered season up to V6 opened with Em and Merc? Well the tradition was kinda kept alive because they closed out Volume 6. Fitting that they be the ones we close out the Mistral seasons with, alongside literal flying monkeys. At least Mercury has his eyebrows back to normal now so... character arc?

... oh yeah and Neo and Cinder were in this I guess

Conclusion

Volume 6 is stellar, superb, at times outright spectacular. As a fan who felt Volume 5 was at best mediocre and at worst just bad, Volume 6 is an immediately counteraction and a redemption arc for RWBY as a show. Almost all of the major criticisms that had been levied at the Maya Era since Volume 4 started- janky animation, poor pacing, underused characters, weak fights, poorly explained backstories and weak villains among countless others- were all addressed and fixed to a certain extent. Ruby finally feels like the protagonist of her own story, Salem and Ozpin’s backstories have been explored, Adam was given a shred of sympathy before his death, the songs were great, the fights were stellar and it managed to, for the most part, stick the landing.

Granted, the first half is far better paced and written, the pacing does take a hit once RWBY reach Argus, but a conscious step was taken to avoid the Mistral House Round 2, we only spend three episodes in the Cotta-Arc house and a large portion of time outside it to boot. Miles said in a post-RTX interview that the plan was for each episode to have at least one new location per episode to avoid repetition and for the most part, they succeeded. As a consequence, the world feels more alive than it ever has before, Argus feels much more intimately known and we see the characters reacting to new environments and stimuli. But regardless, things slow down and hit a roadblock at Argus and while the pacing smooths out, it does break the stellar flow the earlier episodes had managed to keep going.

The Argus Battle episodes, while as a whole better shot and choreographed than last year’s battle at Haven, have far smaller stakes. The mech fight has some entertaining moments but fails to entertain, but the slack is thankfully picked up by Adam vs B&Y which will top a lot of “best fight of the show” lists for a while to come. But still, the episodes feel less wide-reaching than the Beacon or Haven versions, and perhaps because of this, the final episode fails to excite as much as it does due to the Battle for Argus having no real stakes or danger. It leads to a great moment, but it’s not as exciting as it could have been.

While overall the pacing was very good, one plot did drag- Cinder and Neo. This did not need to be in Volume 6 and while I liked their fight, Cinder’s plot is rather blatantly just there to set up Volume 7 and their threat there. While it did give the crew a chance to finally explore Mistral’s criminal underworld that had been teased in the World of Remnant, Mistral still feels woefully underused compared to Vale thanks to a shoddy start. As well, plain and simply, I just don’t like Cinder and Neo as much as I do the other villains, and I’d have rather their screentime be used on the other villains- a segment of Adam stalking Blake in Argus, more of Emerald and Mercury processing Cinder not being around anymore, Hazel and the duality of his want for pacifism and his utter hatred of Ozpin, Tyrian and Watts and the inevitably buddy cop drama that will ensue from them. This is a personal gripe, I’m aware, but Cinder has still failed to grab me as a villain six volumes in- hopefully now that there’s one less villain to juggle, she can finally get something to hook us in next volume. Also I just don’t like Cinder’s new outfit, give Em and Merc new outfits already for Christ’s sake.

Another plot that didn’t so much drag as was just removed was Oscar going missing. I was sure this would lead to an Oscar solo scene where he’d get to confront Ozma and Ozpin and figure out his place in life. As it is, it feels like he just went missing so Jaune, Ren and Nora could have the statue scene. At least his new costume is nice.

But overall, the second half was good, no, great a lot of the time after the awkward stop in Dead End. Volume 6′s second half may not have been as grandiose as it could/should have been, but it still maintained a steady pace, gave us a lot of fantastic standout scenes, great combat and character beats while finally leaving the ghost of Volume 5 behind on Mistral. I am thoroughly onboard for Volume 7, and I am now eager to see where Miles, Connor, Kerry and Melanie steer the ship.

Thank you for reading.

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withallthingslove · 6 years ago

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Captain Marvel Spoiler Filled Review

A completely chaotic “review” that is just my random thoughts

spoilers under the cut

- i saw this movie with three of my close friends (one who is a dude and lifelong comic fan, and then two girls who are hella feminist) so I will include some of their reactions as well just to give an idea of what it was like for different people

- right out of the gate the Marvel intro montage is all Stan Lee. It was very heartfelt and the entire theater clapped. That pretty much set the mood for the entire movie

- I know a lot of critics found the beginning to be slow, and while I agree I didn’t mind it. One of my friends said she thought the beginning was a little too jumbled and she described it as “it’s like the directors learned how to direct as the movie went on”.

- The movie opens with Carol (at this point called Vers) having a confusing nightmare and trying to decipher it afterwards with little help from those around her. Because Carol has amnesia, the audience is left to feel what she feels which is confusion. I get what the directors were going for, but it was a little jumbled.

- I did find the dream sequence effective and did feel Carol’s confusion and fear when she woke up.

- She goes to her mentor yon-rogg and asks if he wants to practice fighting. They banter, and it becomes immediately clear to the audience that although Carol is confused they have a rapport with each other and she trusts him. Although he teases her, he *appears* to care for her. During the fighting scene there is more banter, but yon-rogg also tells Carol to control her emotions better. I know there were a lot of complaints from fuckboys about brie larson being stoned faced, but it makes sense for the character. She has emotions, and then is told to suppress them.

- it was satisfying to see her zap him with her powers anyway, and the whole “don’t show emotion” garbage he was telling her reminded me of like every female experience ever and first clued me in on yon-rogg’s shadiness

- On the train ride back from fighting, carol and yon-rogg have very flirty banter and eye contact and i was like ohhhhhhhh and interpreted it that they were a thing. I’m not sure if this was on purpose, but jude law and brie larson had great chemistry (brie had chemistry with everyone though tbh) and it was very hard to ignore. Plus they’re both hot. I leaned over to my friends and asked “they’re a thing right?” and they said “yes I thought so too” and “i think it’s implied”

- When Carol gets sent to the artificial intelligence place to be approved for her first mission I did find that scene pretty confusing and jumbled

- The mission itself was very dimly lit which made it a little confusing to understand/see what exactly was happening

- But it was cool to see Korath from GOTG. One thing this movie did really well was tying into other MCU movies and connecting everything. This movie definitely feels fresh compared to other origin stories but also fits in the the universe and makes it feel more complete

- When Carol was captured and her memories explored, ben mendolsohn’s voice came on as a voice over for talos and I leaned over to my guy friend and went “i fucking love ben mendolsohn” because ITS TRUE. His voice is so recognizable and then even underneath the skrull make up his acting was so distinct

- The memory exploration scene was jumbled like the nightmare, and it made me wish that we got more of carol’s human life backstory. I got the vibe that those scenes would have been better if they were fleshed out more instead of just little tidbits for the audience. that was one of my biggest complaints for the movie is the order the flashbacks appear and how little there were

- Carol screaming at one of the skrulls as she escapes was super funny and showed a lot of her personality. I think it separates her from a lot of heroes because most are nervous as they are trying to escape but she seemed confident in her powers and her ability and therefore could joke around a bit more

- The story definitely picked up once she crash landed on earth, and the 90s nostalgia was very funny and all of those jokes landed with the audience

-Samuel l jackson did a great job as a young fury. This fury is different. He’s much more idealistic and optimistic about the world, and functions more as a good cop than the fury we see in other mcu movies. It was also cool to see coulson again

- I really really enjoyed the scene when carol is able to make contact with the rest of the kree warriors the first time from the phone booth. Even though I got a bad vibe from yon-rogg I did get the feeling that he genuinely cared for carol’s safety. By the end of the movie my opinion about that was conflicted but I think that scene did a good job of showing that she was with them for 6 years which is a long time and why it took her so long to process everything that happened later because it countered everything she knew. It also did a really good job of showing that when she first landed on earth, she still was more kree than human. Her report back was very matter of fact compared to her later contact with them.

- Brie larson and samuel l jackson had GREATTT buddy cop comedy chemistry

- The train chase was very fun to watch, and like the trailer it was very satisfying to see Carol punch the “old lady”

- the scene where fury and talos (disguised as a SHIELD agent) look to see if the dead skrull has a penis got A LOT of laughs

- There’s a scene where Carol is standing outside trying to figure out her next move and this motorcycle dude pulls up and revs the motorcycle and tells her to smile. She just glared at him and then stole his motorcycle and it was ICONIC

- Again I really really really love the dynamic between Carol and Fury

- the second phone call when Carol makes contact with the Krees shows her more human side coming out. Brie Larson is great at showing emotion and as she was starting to put the pieces together everything was making more sense and less sense at the same time and you could feel her confusion and panic that something was off.

- Ben Mendolsohn is a gem and needs to be protected pass it on

- I LOVEDDDDD the moment when Coulson let Carol and Fury go without ratting them out just proving once again that he is one of the best and while i love loki i also hate him for killing him because coulson is too good for this world

- Things got really good when Fury and Carol went to Maria because I STAN FEMALE FRIENDSHIP SO HARD. From the first look they had so much depth and Maria played a huge part of helping Carol understand who she was.

- Also go Maria for being a badass pilot and single mom and amazing best friend

- MONICA IS THE BEST OMG. Her line to her mom about setting an example for her was A++++++

- Goose the cat was also great the only thing I’ll say about this is that Goose is a scene stealer. I don’t want to give the spoilers for Goose away because while predictable they are things I wouldn’t want to spoil for anyone

- I loved the subtle nods at gender inequality

- While the “twist” of Talos and the skrulls being good was predictable it was still very enjoyable. The predictability of it did not take anything away from it. There were references to how other planets treat refugees and Ben Mendolsohn did a great job with the pathos required for the role

- He also did an A+ job with the humor which I won’t give away because those lines are worth hearing fresh

- I think yon-rogg ‘s shadiness at the beginning is what tipped me off to the twist that he is the true villain of the story.

- Again, the movie’s flashback scenes felt like they should be my favorite part and filled with drama and be the emotional backbone, but they just didn’t get there. It took so much effort to decipher them that you didn’t really get to sit back and process the emotional weight of them. So when Carol ran out crying once her memories returned while I thought the acting between her and Maria was great, the meaning of the conversation and hug did not have the full weight because the audience (or me) was still processing what we just learned

- Annette Bening is my mom. Also if there was ever a biopic on elizabeth warren she should play her. Also I don’t like that we didn’t get as much Mar-Vell and the reveal that she was helping the skrulls was very rushed and I feel should have had more of an emotional impact. Plus more about her relationship with carol

- Talos reuniting with his family was incredibly sweet

- It’s cool to see where exactly the tesseract ended up between CA: TFA and Avengers

- Okay.why.do.yon-rogg.and.carol.have.so.much.sexual.tension. I was worried it was just me and I looked at my friends and was just like wtf is this are they about to fuck? and we basically agreed that their sexual tension kept building throughout the final act of the movie and that they wanted to hate fuck. After one moment during the fighting it kept building my friend went “yep THIS IS CANON” because you guys I am not kidding like I don’t ship them because yon-rogg SUCKS but they had the best accidental chemistry of any co stars ever

- The scene where Carol breaks out of the restraints and realizes her full power was BADASS. I loved the flashback montage of her always getting back up again and embracing who she it. POETIC CINEMA

- Though I personally did not like the scene where she is fighting off the Kree on the ship.. . I just wasn’t a fan of the song choice and some of the lines were just cliche. It was nice to watch Carol smile with each hit as her power increased because she was enjoying it which is something we dont see a lot i feel like but the scene did not reach its full potential for me

- It was cool to see ronan and have the space marvel movie characters be tied in. And interesting that we saw ronan before he went “rogue” Again this movie did a great job connecting the dots to other marvel movies

- CAROL IS SO POWERFUL OH MY GOD THANOS IS GOING TO GET HIS ASS KICKED AND IT WAS SO SATISFYING TO SEE HER JOURNEY

- speaking of satisfying watching her tell yon-rogg she doesn’t need to prove him anything and then blasting him into a rock cured my depression

- again i dont really understand their relationship because there’s the sexual tension, the seemingly genuine caring on his side that is conflicted with his utter manipulation and lying (a very good example of how abusive/manipulative people often don’t come across that way)... the fact that she doesnt kill him? like girl kill him and be done. It was funny when she grabbed his hand and then just dragged him to his ship, but then when he told her he couldnt go back empty handed the way jude law delivered the line made it seem like he was confiding in her and there was this intimacy. And then she was just like “boy bye im ending this war and idgaf what happens to you” because shes a queen and is done with his lies

- The ending with Carol and Talos was cute

- The ending with Coulson and Fury made me want to cry and scream because the avengers theme song began to play and we see the beginning stages of the avengers initiative which just made me think about how we have one month till all the characters we love die and this franchise has meant so much to me over the years

- the mid credit scene continued that excitement and dread.

If I was ranking the movie as a critic, I would probably give it 65%. It was good, I was never bored, the performances were great. But it definitely should have been better. There were just some parts of it that were underwhelming or didn’t deliver the way they should. My guy friend said it was just okay and that it felt more like a tie in to endgame and less about captain marvel herself. My other friends agreed on the 65% from an objective opinion, but we all want to see it again.

As a hardcore marvel fan, I give the movie 75%. I loved the characters, the easter eggs, the acting, the way the movie felt like a new beginning for marvel while still tying into past movies. It was everything I love about this franchise

#captain marvel spoilers #captain marvel #carol danvers #maria rambeau #brie larson #yon-rogg #jude law #nick fury #samuel l jackson #marvel #mcu #annette bening #mine #avengers endgame

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seiteumseite · 4 years ago

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Review: Siege and Storm

author: Leigh Bardugo | first published: 2013 | series: The Shadow and Bone trilogy, book 2 | pages: 435 | goodreads

Hunted across the True Sea, haunted by the lives she took, Alina must try to make a life in an unfamiliar land, all while keeping her identity as the Sun Summoner a secret. But she can’t outrun her past or her destiny for long.

As her power grows, Alina slips deeper into a game of forbidden magic. Somehow, she will have to choose between her country, her power, and the love she always thought would guide her - or risk losing everything to the oncoming storm.

Nikolai.

I’m breaking my own unwritten rule to never start with the good things first, especially not the best one, but let me repeat: Nikolai.

With that out of the way, overall, I liked this book better than the first one, but not enough to give it a higher rating.

My biggest issue: Alina Starkov. At this point, I can’t stand her much, and it’s making it hard for me to read the story from her perspective. How many times did she do something, and then afterwards she was like ‘oh, I know I shouldn’t have done the thing, but I did it anyways, and now everyone has absolutely every right to be angry at me!’ Maybe use your brain next time? To be fair, she did have some great moments here and there. She wasn’t incompetent all of the time, which gives me hope for the final book.

Also, there’s a certain couple that got on my nerves after a few chapters. Their relationship had a simple pattern: a cute scene, followed by a pointless fight, followed by a cute scene, followed by – oh, would you look at that, another pointless fight! It wasn’t enjoyable, to say the least, especially since it could’ve been avoided if the characters involved had been honest and open with each other.

Other than that, I don’t have many complaints. I enjoyed the action-packed first chapters as well as the last ones. The pages flew by without me realizing. I love how dark the story got from time to time. There weren’t that many twists and turn as in the first book, I think, but some scenes stuck with me as if I was watching a movie. The middle part felt a bit slow, maybe even a little boring here and there, but nevertheless, it still managed to keep me entertained. And by ‘it’, I mean Nikolai, mostly. However, the slow parts in this book and in the first one got me thinking that this series could’ve easily been cut short to a duology.

While there is one important side character that I found to be very… colorless, I’m glad to say that I liked most of the supporting cast, especially the new ones we got in this book. Also, contrary to the protagonist, there’s one female character whose choices and actions I totally understand, although I might not agree with her all the time. She’s been through so much already, and it only got worse. I wish someone would find her a safe place and keep her away from anything evil for the rest of eternity.

“You know the problem with heroes and saints, Nikolai?” I asked as I closed the book’s cover and headed for the door. “They always end up dead.”

I’m curious to find out what the final installment will bring us, and I’m very hopeful that it’ll be a fast-paced conclusion to the trilogy!

☆ ☆ ☆

#annies review #book review #siege and storm #leigh bardugo #3 points #young adult #fantasy #the shadow and bone trilogy

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mistakemessenger-imagines · 8 years ago

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How would the RFA + V and seran to an Mc who is a really bad cook but when she made their favorite food it surprisingly turned out great. How would they react?

Yoosung:

Sweet bean baby really doesn’t like your cooking

bUT OF COURSE HE’D NEVER EVER TELL YOU THAT BECAUSE YOUR PRECIOUS HEART

He usually makes excuses on why he can’t eat your cooking (e.g. “I ate already!”)

But he couldn’t get out of it this time because he’s weak can’t say no to you

When he finds out you made one of his favorite foods, omurice, he’s so downcast

Yoosung just doesn’t want to hate his favorite food why does the world do this to him

With a trembling hand, he lifts his fork up to this mouth and takes a bite

The dish itself didn’t look bad, but hey, you never know

His face was ready to fight off the look of disgust but surprisingly, he went in for another bite

h o l y crappoli this was amazing

He’s constantly praising you inbetween bites

Really proud of your drastic improvement!!

He can finally start to cook together with you without the fear of causing a house fire

Jaehee:

You can bet that Baehee does most of the cooking in the house

She usually receives a packed lunch from you before she heads out for work

But once she reaches work, she tends to throw it away and goes for buying lunch instead

She feels really bad for doing so, but she can’t help it, your food makes her feel icky

Today was her day off, so she couldn’t get out of eating your cooked lunch and you refused to let her cook instead

The menu item for today was a bento

Knowing with your skills, gas station bento sounded more appetizing at this point

When she saw the look of anticipation on your face, she sighed and reached for her chopsticks

Upon taking a bite, her face instantly turned into one of enjoyment

“MC, can you pack this for my lunch? It’s amazing!”

She’s so relieved that all the practice turned your cooking a complete 180 towards a better path

Zen:

You were always trying to cook him healthy dishes

Vegetables were always bland and mushy, meat wasn’t seasoned properly, rice was overcooked, something was always off with your cooking

He usually ate before coming home, so there wasn’t a need for you to cook for him

Not after he ate that dish that left him on the toilet for hours

One day you decided to surprise visit him at his studio and you made goldfish bread for everybody

When you walked in with the basket he greeted you, asking you what it was

His face paled upon hearing that it was made by you and not bought from the cart outside his house

Not wanting to cause a scene, he anxiously watched everyone on set take one and bite into it

You can imagine his surprise when everybody began devouring them one after another

Once he took a bite of his own fish, his face lit up with utter joy as he grabbed another fish to murder eat

As time went on, he learned that your baking skills were waaaay better than your cooking

Jumin:

Jumin Han, proud and powerful businessman, was afraid of your cooking

You rarely got to do it since there were personal chefs, but when you actually got to do it oh b o y

Because he loves you so dearly, he’ll try to eat most of it before telling you that he isn’t very hungry

He is very ecastic that you think of him enough to cook for him though, so it never goes without a ‘thank you’ and forehead kiss!

Tonight was one of the times you got to cook dinner and Jumin spent atleast 45 minutes mentally preparing himself

You decided to make a favorite of Jumin, steak

When you brought it out to him, he made sure to have some wine at hand for when he needed to wash down the taste

He proceeded to cut out his bite and much to his surprise, it was very flavorful and...

and well, not disgusting

After happily eating the rest of it, he asked if you did anything different this time while cooking

You admitted that you’ve been taking a cooking class in your spare time, and he was very pleased upon hearing that

Now you were urged to cook more frequently and maybe replace the chefs

707:

Saeyoung isn’t a picky eater

He’s said himself that he really doesn’t care about flavor and that he only needed HBC and PhD Pepper

But knowing his diet, you pushed to cook for him everyday so he would be healthier

True to his word, he really didn’t care about the taste of your cooking, it was just really bland to him so he had no problem scarfing it down for your sake

On the days where the dish actually was bad, he’d still eat it all and compliment you for it (not without a ‘thank you’ either)

Around lunchtime he was called out of work as per usual for food

This time though, he was greeted by a heavenly smell

The smell was stir fry noodles, something he actually kind of liked

He took his usual seat next to you on the stools and thanked you before digging in

For the first time, he genuinely enjoys the taste of your cooking

You even had to serve him seconds, which is a first!

When he finishes helping you clean up, you’re immediately picked up and spun around, “Saeyoung iF YOU DON’T PUT ME DOWN I’M GOING TO THROW UP”

To tame his suspicions, he hacked into your search history only to find heaps of recipes and cooking tutorials

He should definitely ask if you can make Honey Buddha Chips now

This precious, amazing, holy man

A man who we do not deserve

Eats every single thing you make with no complaint whatsoever

All Jihyun does is love and praise you and your cooking with many, many compliments, no matter how awful it actually is

Bless his soul

You could bring him a slice of burnt toast and he’d still eat it with a smile and thank you for it I swear to god

One day you served him this huge ass plate of pasta

And only the lord knows how much this man l o v e s pasta, because MAMA MIA

Imagine this skinny, lanky man engulf a large plate of pasta

He did mentally take note that compared to everything else, this pasta was freaking amazing give him more

After watching him literally absorb that plate, he has the biggest smile plastered on his face as he asks for a second plate

After he finishes the second plate, the shower of compliments wave onto you during the couch cuddle session

Eventually Jihyun passes out though because food coma

Please protect him, he’s too good for this world,,

Unknown:

The first time he ever took a bite out of something you made, his face immediately scrunched up in disgust

You know that he dislikes your cooking, but you’re determined to get better

Ever since then, you’ve cooked atleast one of his meals everyday, much to Saeran’s dismay

He loves you, so he’ll begrudgingly take a few bites out of it until he ultimately says that he can’t eat anymore

Try and try as you might, it always ends up with the same result every day

Until one day you see him snacking on some Pepero and immediately remember his love for sweets

So you try exactly that for breakfast

When he walks into the kitchen the next morning, he’s surprised to smell something sweet wafting through the air

You gesture him to sit down while you bring a plate of hotteok to him (basically pancake with cinnamon-peanut syrup filling)

He slowly takes the first bite, and afterwards he’s instantly hooked

“You finally made something good, MC,” his words are muffled through his mouthful

But his dorky smile was the best part

#mystic messenger #mysme #yoosung #Yoosung Kim #jaehee kang #jaehee #zen #hyun ryu #jumin han #707 #luciel choi #saeyoung choi #mystic messenger 707 #jihyun kim #v #mystic messenger v #mystic messenger unknown #saeran choi #mystic messenger zen

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