#it is so weird about its soap opera plotlines

[yellowocaballero]

mcu peter parker vs miguel o'hara is nepotism baby vs other much weirder nepotism baby

NO JOKE JAKLDSF

Yeah, I make fun of MCU Peter, but Miguel "I got scouted early and especially picked to advance quickly through the megacorp and recieved personal attention from the VP because I'm just that great" O'Hara is a) so much worse and b) so much more annoying about it. Bright side is Miguel steals Evil Corp from his dad and then proceeds to vindictively run it into the ground. Socialist king. Peter take notes.

I don't know why Miguel didn't go IMMEDIATELY to the tabloids with the "bastard son of Evil Corp VP tried to addict his son to drugs" story, but maybe Miguel prefers direct action and takes care of his problems himself (kill his dad). Miguel's story arc involves being a member of Evil Corp and trying to save lives, becomes a cult leader and has Marx forcibly dictated to him by Thor worshippers as he tries to escape yet another guy trying to smack him with a DCMA claim, and then engages in praxis by killing capitalists and neoliberals. Great character arc over the series where becomes better and also somehow a lot worse.

Anyway, I think in a time travel situation Peter would have a conspiracy theory that Miguel is an immortal vampire who is secretly using Tony's genetics laboratory to make everybody else into vampires (Miguel has red eyes and fangs in the comics, because he was made in 1994 and he is fantastic). In 2099 Mobius is the patron saint of several small Eastern European villages and the vast majority of Finland, so Miguel takes this as a compliment. He goes by Miguel Ojeda, because he hates all three of his parents.

I have actual legitimate theories for Miguel's appearance in ITSV but I think the funniest possibility is that Miguel involves himself in inter-dimension saving, but the minute a portal opens up back to 2099 (probably 2/3ds of the way through this fake movie or comic) he walks straight through and goes back home, leaving everybody else to do all the work. This happened in the comics. Everybody extends sympathy that he lives in a dystopia. He thinks everybody else lives in an unlivable hellpit because their universes contain libertarianism. And/or smartphones, much in the same way if I stepped inside a utopia without internet I would turn around and walk right out. Somebody tries to explain democracy to him, which he also finds statistically and scientifically inefficient. They should have Doom as a "president" like in 2099. He makes the trains run on time.

[chthonic-cassandra]

Hello friend, I was thinking about the Mina-as-a-reincarnated-love-of-Dracula's plot element from the 90's movie and once more wondering where the hell it came from. Do you have any idea if the germ of that element was present in some other vampire/dracula-related media?

Hello my friend! This is an excellent question that others have sought to answer over the years. This is my best recollection right now without consulting all my sources; if others (@atundratoadstool, @forthegothicheroine, anyone else?) remember something I'm forgetting here, feel free to jump in.

The Coppola film was not, properly speaking, the first Dracula adaptation to include a reincarnated wife plotline; that dubious honor goes to the 1974 Dan Curtis adaptation starring Jack Palance, though there the reincarnated wife is Lucy rather than Mina, and also takes much less of the attention and runtime than it does in the Coppola. Blacula, made around the same time as the Curtis film, also has a reincarnation plotline, though there it's of course not involving the characters of Stoker's novel directly.

Dan Curtis was previously the creator of the long-running vampire soap opera Dark Shadows, which I have not myself seen but which I understand has a prominent 'vampire finds the reincarnation of his love' story, and really popularized it as a trope.

Most people trace the origins of the trope to a different undead narrative - the 1932 The Mummy, directed by Karl Freund (cinematographer on Tod Browning's Dracula) and starring Boris Karloff. The Mummy, which I finally watched for the first time a few years ago, is a strikingly compelling though unambiguously orientalist film, and there's a lot in it from which I think subsequent Dracula adaptations have pulled.

The relationship between the undead Imhotep and Helen, who recovers memories of their tragic past life together, is in many ways persuasive. Like the occult opportunist Kay in Son of Dracula to whom I think Helen is rather akin, Helen seems stifled in the modern world (in her case the impression is exacerbated by the hints we get of racism she experiences as a half-Egyptian woman), and it's a rather direct line from her characterization to Lucy Seward in the Badham Dracula, Mina in the Coppola, and ultimately Vanessa Ives. Helen and Imhotep's love cannot succeed because he has the unfortunate impression that he has to kill her and resurrect her as a mummy so they can be together, but the sense the movie conveys of her connecting with her whole self when she recovers her earlier memories, and especially of her devotion to Isis, is quite moving.

Stepping back from the specificity of Dracula as a story, I actually think the reincarnation plotline makes a lot of sense as something that comes into play when you're dealing with immortality and undeath. One of the things that I think makes the way that the Dracula adaptations use it so weird and awkward, aside from the pure arbitrariness, is that they're divorcing the trope from the spiritualist connotations it clearly has in The Mummy, leaving it flat and metaphysically inexplicable. The Mummy is a text with clear origins in the spiritualist movements of its time, with their attendant orientalism - questions about reincarnation are all over those.

I played once myself with trying to recuperate the reincarnated wife trope in a Dracula fic, though I didn't touch the spiritualism stuff. I've been thinking about it, though, because I'm trying to work on Penny Dreadful fic and it's all over that canon (and also because I've been reading some Dion Fortune). I'll keep thinking about it.

[greatcheshire]

What is the deal with Twin Peaks Season 2?

Oh gosh so

Twin Peaks season 1 was a huge surprise hit for ABC, which obviously the executives loved. What they didn't love was the fact that the show, which focused on finding the killer of Laura Palmer, ended its first season without revealing the killer of Laura Palmer. In addition, the show was also such a big hit that they ordered 22 episode for season 2, about three times as many as the 8 episode first season, which meant a lot more space that needed to be filled.

There's also another thing here where season 2 also marked David Lynch putting more... Lynch things in the series. Season 1 had touches of supernatural or surreal elements, sure, especially compared to other TV shows at the time, but for the most part could still be enjoyed or viewed as a standard small town mystery soap opera by a wide amount of its audience. Compare this to early season 2, which introduces spirits, a cream corn ghost child, and sunglasses that possess you and make you smoke cigarettes. A lot of people were put off by this turn, either by it getting too weird for them or for simply not liking the more overt supernatural tone the show was taking.

For what it's worth, in my opinion, the first 9 episodes of Season 2 are phenomenal. Some of my favorite stuff in the series. The moments where Twin Peaks really becomes its own beast. One thing about this section is that this is where ABC was really pushing for Lynch and Frost to reveal the identity of Laura Palmer's killer, something they had never wanted to do but ended up having to do anyway. The end result is the killer getting revealed 1/3 of the way into the season, and the final three episodes dealing with the reveal of the killer and the aftermath are honestly amazing. Fantastic work. Episode 7 has probably my favorite TV moment of all time. It's that damn good.

But then a problem came - the killer was found. The central mystery had been solved.

And there's still 13 more episodes left of the season.

What happened next is one of the most famous quality drop offs in television history. Lynch, both due to his frustrations with ABC and also due to his obligations with filming his movie Wild At Heart, took a step back from the show, letting other writers try to fill in for him. The result was disastrous, with writers struggling to figure out how to replicate Lynch and Frost's style and what Twin Peaks could even be about without the Palmer case.

Some plotlines that are in Twin Peaks season 2, I shit you not:

A business owner gets PTSD and believes himself to be a confederate general, forcing everyone around him to recreate the Civil War with miniatures

David Duchovny shows up as a trans woman FBI agent

The show's Hannibal equivalent disguises himself as a horse and tranq darts a military general involved in classified Area 51 material

The show's Hannibal equivalent kills some random guy and stuffs him in a giant, house sized chess piece as a calling card

Local cool biker James Hurley leaves Twin Peaks, discovers a woman who is trying to scam him into killing her husband but that scam is also a scam from the husband who is also her brother to convince some boy to do a fake scam and attempt to kill him or something and it takes up five episodes and nothing happens and then James leaves the show

The main planned romance arc was vetoed by one of the actors so they had to come up with new love interests solely so fans would stop shipping the two of them. The two new love interests are played by Heather Graham and Billy Zane. They get nothing to do. Heather Graham is a suicidal nun named Annie Blackburn. Billy Zane is a cowboy named John Justice Wheeler

A 40 year old woman with an eyepatch and super strength gets amnesia and believes she's a high school cheerleader. They let her onto the wrestling team because of her super strength and she starts dating the jerk jock there because she's able to dom him

A woman becomes a door knob

They decide to host a beauty pageant to raise money to save a pine weasel. This is the plotline for the final few episodes.

We begin to learn more about UFOs and aliens and the existence of a dark dimension called the Black Lodge

Two men compete to see who is the real father of the sheriff assistant Lucy's child. At one point, they believe he might be the spawn of Satan.

They take Cooper out of the FBI because he went to Canada without permission and place him in Lesbian Flannel for the rest of the season (The only time Lesbian Flannel is a downgrade for a character)

The mayor's 80 year old brother, who investigates UFOs, dies by getting fucked to death by his 20 year old wife. The mayor brings a shotgun to the sheriff's office and plans to shoot the wife for killing his brother with sex and witchcraft. The police solve this by locking them both in the room together until they start to have sex and announce their plans to adopt

And this is just the simplified version of it!  All of this caused Twin Peaks to drop HARD in the ratings. Like literally from the top of the charts to the bottom. This stretch of episodes aren’t entirely bad. There is some good stuff there, the lore is important for future things, and the episodes start to pick up when the Hannibal equivalent Windom Earle gets introduced. But as a whole... OOF is it hard to watch.  Lynch would come back again to direct the season finale of season 2, hoping to generate enough interest from viewers and executives in giving it a season 3. He tossed out the script that was written by the season 2 writing team and made his own thing and it rules. The finale for season 2 is one of the best episodes of TV ever. A high mark of Lynch’s career. It’s so fucking good. It’s so good, it’s worth season 2 despite it all. And it ends on one hell of a cliffhanger. 

Only to get cancelled. 

Lynch was given the opportunity to do a movie to end the series properly and resolve the cliffhanger. Instead he made a prequel. A move that angered many at the time. And then 25 years later, Twin Peaks finally got a third season, one that was so good, it was named the best movie of 2017 by Sight & Sound. But the effects of season 2 live on, the way that it alienated audiences and put Twin Peaks solely into niche territory one baffling decision at a time. 

[whomst-the-hell]

just finished obx4 (yikes lol) so heres my thoughts: the entire jj plotline died in the water nd it dragged the rest of the story with it (THIS IS THE FAULT OF THE WRITERS NOT THE ACTOR. I KNOW THEY KILLED HIM OFF BECAUSE THE ACTOR WANTED TO LEAVE. THAT IS COMPLETELY WITHIN HIS RIGHTS, AND IT WAS THE WRITERS’ JOB TO DEAL WITH IT. CLEARLY THEY DIDNT. STOP BEING WEIRD)

ok anyway my thoughts on the show: i was so fucking excited. i love pirates, they said edward teach i was saying yippee hooray and other things of that nature. but this season was not about treasure it was about jj and a lazy soap opera ass plot twist. chandler groff singlehandedly made the show worse. if the barbary pirates had been the primary villains, focus could have stayed on what should have been the A plot (the treasure hunt) but for some fucking reason they decided to introduce a second tangentially related guy and make him the main villain by retconning JJs whole deal. this snowballed into literally every other character (JJs arc was incredibly lame and underwhelming, kiara didnt do anything the whole season, pope and cleo were off on their own basically the whole time and also OOC af, and john b and sarah’s plotline was only better than JJs because the bar was in hell, the barbary pirates were largely redundant and forgettable (did they even have names??) and rafe seemed like he was kinda just. there for some reason??)

like ok sure. jj is a fan favourite character, and so far the A plots (treasure hunts) have mostly focused on, in order, john b, sarah, and pope. so you want s4 to focus on jj. logical. at the end of the season you’re going to have to write jj out of the show, because for whatever reason the actor is quitting. bit of a wrench, but if you’re any good at your job you should be able to do it. if i had to make barbary pirates personally relevant to jj maybank, i would have just made his mum one of them. like she has no prior lore AT ALL. you can do the gutpunch thing, because you could have so easily made out that jj romanticised his mum in some way, fantasised about her coming to save him, thought of her as the better parent, etc, and then it turns out, no, both your parents suck, its smugglers and pirates and salt lifers all the way back. he spirals, he loses sight of himself, he crashes the fuck out to warpigs with red and green lighting (cool as fuck) and then when push comes to shove he sacrifices himself for his friends (instead of having a useless redundant death after all the action was done anyway) and shows that he is better than where he came from. i even think having jj be the one to die could be thematic because, for a lot of viewers including me, the first taste of real brutality in the show was the scene with luke and jj in the car in s1. having jj be the one to die could have been sort of meaningful because (if you hadnt shot yourself in the fucking foot with a bullshit secret father reveal) jj is the most emblematic of “pogues” like literally in the intro monologue john b says he’s a proper salt lifer, hes fucking proper white trash poverty, so of course the brutality hits him first, brutality always hits them first, thats the point, thats the tragedy at the heart of it all

i just feel like if he had to die you should have done something with it?

[moinsbienquekaworu]

Yeah I've had a S4 poster on my wall since middle school and I still have a deep deep fondness for the show, I mean I'm reading fanfics for it still, but if you think that Eurus Holmes was a good and well executed idea I don't know what to tell you :')

Unstoppable force (I really really want to rewatch some Sherlock BBC episodes and my brain won't let me do anything else) vs immovable object (none of them are actually good and I don't want to go through that experience again)

[magic-multicolored-miracle]

Listen, I understand that "they changed it, now it sucks" is the battle cry of the internet.

But if you're writing an listicle about why a tv show is bad compared to its source books... (I am going to write a counter-list of the issues with common complaints but it's too long, so now it's under a cut. The short version is "you need to remember it's a different type of storytelling, you're boring, and I hate you.")

1) If you complain about storylines being cut or changed, or potentially being cut that are about rape and/or incest...you're gross. And creepy. And I don't trust you or your opinions on anything.

2) If your complaints are about character changes are that they are more outwardly ambitious instead of secretive and scheming, consider the fact that books have the ability to portray internal thought processes and decision-making, tv has to show it visually and ideally without weird omniscient narration. So a character may be doing the same scheming, it just looks bolder/less secretive. Also if you have 80 characters who are all scheming schemers who quadruple-cross each other, it gets confusing and hard to follow, even in a book. In a show with limited time, plotlines get streamlined and some of those 80 characters stop playing the long game.

3) If you complain that characters are less sure, somber, level-headed, strategic etc. than their book counterparts, consider again that the tv can't show their internal thoughts, so being outwardly expressive suits the medium. Also, many of these characters are starting at different points of their story, and character growth is interesting and relatable. Also also, a show full of just somber, cold, strategic men and level-headed self-assured women is frankly Boring. (A book is too, but at least with internal reflection you can add more depth and variety so it isn't unsalvageable.)

4) If you complain about secondary characters being cut or having their storylines given to others, think about the practicality of scripting, casting, filming all of those side things, who never appear again. It's not practical. TV shows have a limited time, audiences have a limited attention span.

5) If you are upset about storylines being changed or replaced by entirely new ones, ask yourself "was the original one convoluted, difficult to follow, nearly identical to another storyline, or only tangentially connected to the main characters and plot?" if the answer is yes, there's a good reason for it getting altered. Cohesion and focus are essential to storytelling, especially when you have a limited amount of time and resources to work with. Unfortunately, most shows are not syndicated daytime tv soap operas that run for 40 years and can tell an evil twin, amnesia, or surprise return from the dead story every three seasons (I'm being generous to say they wait that long).

[scenics]

Honestly, though, I’ve seen the og Bungee Jumping movie and it is fucking weird, but its faults could have largely been sorted with a smart screenwritter in charge. A couple of extra scenes here and there (which would have been possible, considering it was getting turned into a drama with plenty extra screentime), a reworking of the general structure (perhaps a change of ending too lmao), and it could have turned into a sort of arthouse drama hybrid that condemned both homophobia AND the weird ass age gap/power imbalance.

Plus the role itself was interesting, in terms of showcasing acting range: Jaehyun would have been playing a character that is actually two characters, with an age and gender transformation within the same body at one point. It would have certainly showcased his talent, if he has any and managed to pull it off. Very different from the usual silly romantic dramas idols get typecasted into.

Then again, this is Korean tv, and I have absolutely no faith they would have managed to rework the script into a better version of itself, so it’s probably for the best that it got axed. We were probably just going to get an extended version of the original, or they might have even managed to make it worse with all the extra time 😵‍💫

i think most kdrama writers aren’t super good at their job (or maybe they are), they always fall into the same tropes + plotlines. in general kdramas are just glorified soap operas disguised as legit dramas that are really borderline cw dramas. i’ve watched too many of them and i believe that every good kdrama writer (there's not many of them) eventually has to give into studio (even audience) demands. i understand your wish for jaehyun’s drama but sk is NOT at a stage where age gaps+homophobia are being openly criticized in mass media. as for jaehyun.......i know you want to believe the best in him (i do too), but i know he took this role on (personally chose it, was EXCITED about it) because he's a very unrealistic overshooting romantic. an out of this world absurd romantic. yes this was a very dynamic role for him but i've looked at his movie+media recommendations and that's really all i need to know about his taste.

[jbk405]

Carole & Tuesday was a fun, enjoyable series with some very good music.  Interesting characters (mostly) and very subtle sci-fi worldbuilding.

However it could not bring its disparate storylines together, and instead came across like three different shows that barely took place in the same fictional universe, let alone interconnected.

Carole and Tuesday themselves are in feel-good comedy about kids forming a band and playing music together.  Rising to superstardom while not selling out.

Angela is in a soap-opera drama about the pitfalls of the entertainment industry and the crippling dehumanization it has on child stars.  How isolating and traumatizing fame is.

Valerie, Tuesday’s mother, is in a political pseudo-thriller about compromising your morals for power.  Her story is pretty much “What if Hillary Clinton ran her campaign like Donald Trump?”

Tao has his own fourth story which is....I dunno, sci-fi thriller?  The dangers of brainwashing the populace through AI control?  It never seemed to go anywhere.

These almost never intersect.  Valerie is running for president and apparently leading a morality crusade against immigrants and music that is feeding a cultural swing towards intolerance, but until Skip is hassled and arrested in the literal second-to-last episode the main characters never actually encounter any of that.  They’re never harangued for playing the wrong type of music, Carole is never heckled for being from Earth, it’s just not an issue for them at all.  Amer’s deportation comes close, but even that never manages to bring the two stories together.  Plus, considering that Valerie isn’t even elected yet and at the end we see the cops already hassling Skip -- even storming the finale concert in full combat armor -- it seems like government policy already outlaws a lot of expression.  So what is Valerie even campaigning for, and why is this regarded as a change for Martian politics?

Angela has a new Issue almost every episode that comes up, is dramatic, and then disappears almost without comment.  Her mother used to do something bad when she was a kid, which is why she doesn’t live at home anymore, but what that is is never revealed and after that episode it’s not even mentioned again (Although I am so glad they didn’t reveal Dahlia was a child molester, like I thought they were foreshadowing).  Dahlia reveals on her literal deathbed that Angela is adopted (And is apparently a genetically engineered designer baby which...what the heck?).  After Dahlia’s death Angela falls deep into drug abuse, ODing literally on stage at the Grammy’s, despite never having been shown with a drug problem at all beforehand.

Tao was weird.  Just....weird.

If you ask me, they should have excised Valerie’s plotline completely.  Have her only role be as the Rich-but-smothering-parent that Tuesday is escaping from, with none of the politics at all.  Devote that time towards Carole and Tuesday building more of a music brand and experiment with actual performing.  Put on a few more actual shows.  The best parts of the series were them figuring out how they wanted to sound.

That would give them more time to properly develop Angela’s storyline as well.  Tao could maybe be left in, but as a supporting character in Angela’s story instead of whatever he turned out to be here.

The series was worth the viewing despite its flaws, but it could have been so much more.

[reyloforcebalance]

Confessions of a Rated-T Fanfic Writer

I have something I want to get off my chest as a relatively new member of the fanfiction community (specifically Star Wars and Reylo). At the end of this post, I have a list of my favorite reylo fics, so if you like, just skip to that.

When I started writing fanfiction after The Last Jedi, I wasn’t much of a reader. This article from the Atlantic introduced me to the world of fanfiction, and I gobbled up Forms and Interstellar Transmissions but quickly found reading others’ work made me self-conscious about my own. So, in the interest of preserving my confidence, I focused on writing.  

During this period, I noticed most of the Reylo fandom was interested in rated E or M fics. Explicit fics were the most popular on Ao3 with a significant difference in the amount of attention and praise given to them verses rated T works, and the more I noticed this, the more resentful I grew. It bugged me to know that so many readers would never give my story a shot simply because of its rating.

Then one day on a whim, I clicked on a fic by Kylotrashforevor and got sucked in HARD. I found refuge in AUs because they weren’t set in the Star Wars universe and didn’t make me second guess my own plot choices. It’s like the sky opened up, the sun came out, and suddenly, I understood. I no longer felt resentful of readers who exclusively searched for rated E fics because WHY THE HELL WOULDN’T THEY!? Rated E fics have the whole package— great story, great characters, AND the sexy stuff.

Almost overnight, I became the very reader I hated. I snorted rated E fics like cocaine while barely giving fics with other ratings a glance. I was ashamed of my hypocrisy, but this did little to stop me.

Then, I started noticing a strange pattern. There were several times when I’d start a fic, get really into the plot, but when I got to the smut parts, they were just “so-so.” I glazed over the sex scenes but didn’t feel like I’d been robbed because I enjoyed the story so much the disappointing smut hardly mattered. That’s when it struck me…

Why am I only searching for E-rated fics when I’m clearly enjoying a lot more than that? If I can read an E-rated story and still love it despite so-so smut, why bother limiting myself?

So, I started opening my searches to all ratings and haven’t looked back since. I found rated G and T gems that I kicked myself for after reading because what if I’d never grown out of my stupid rated E exclusivity and missed them!?

So, if there’s a moral to the story, it’s this: You will greatly enhance your fanfiction reading experience if you put your biases aside and try a little of everything. I used to think most rated E fics were smutty trash heaps until I found Kylotrashforevor. I used to think AUs were weird, crossovers were nuts, and crack fics were just worthless. I was WRONG on all accounts. Trying new kinds of stories helped me better appreciate the breadth of talent and creativity in the reylo fandom, and I want to encourage others to do the same. 

So, if you usually read only E or M fics, try giving T and G stories a shot. I think you’ll be surprised by how little you miss the smut.  If you usually read T and under, let me assure you the explicit parts of many M and E fics are easily skipped. Don’t let a couple of sex scenes keep you from some of the best stories out there. Broaden your tastes, and I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Below are links to some of my favorite Reylo fics. In the spirit of this post, they represent a variety of genres and ratings. For simplicity’s sake, I’ve divided it into canon and AUs and noted if the work is incomplete.

Try a little of everything and enjoy!

CANONVERSE

Darkness Rises… And Light to Meet It series by @a-nerd-obsessed. A dark Rey role reversal fic where Rey and Ben grow up together in the Jedi Academy and struggle with their understandings of the Force. My ABSOLUTE favorite. Currently on part 3 of 4.

Higher Ground by @kathknight and Seraphprotocol. Post TLJ fic with hands down THE BEST actions scenes I’ve read in a reylo story.

The Machine by @vespaer77. Post TLJ fic that explores the role of the military industrial complex in the Star Wars universe. Incomplete.

Darkness, Take my Hand by @kathyswizards. Post TLJ fic where the Raddus rams into the Supremacy before Rey can respond to Kylo’s offer to rule the galaxy.

Sky-Marked Souls by AnonymousMink. Post TFA soulmates fic where Kylo and Rey get marks on their skin whenever the other feels physical pain.  

Like Sands Though the Hourglass by @jeenonamit. Someone’s posting Reylo fanfiction to the First Order’s Intranet and Kylo IS NOT pleased.

Pillow Talk by @themoonmoths. Post TLJ fic where the bond brings Rey and Kylo together every night for bed-sharing and conversation. Incomplete.

Strike Me Down by Mericat_Blackwood. Post TFA fic where the spirit of deceased Han Solo is dead set on bringing his son back home. Incomplete.

When the Force Ships It Too by Neuvoreylogirl. Alternate TLJ plotline that pits Snoke and Luke against one another in a galactic Reylo soap opera. Snoke is the worst “cool dad” ever... 

Stand in the Sun Then by @the-reylo-void. A Galaxy’s Edge-inspired fic where Kylo notices a certain three-bunned hairstyle has become very popular on Batuu.

ALTERNATE UNIVERSE

First Order IT, Can I Get Your User ID? by krossartist/ @theeamazingem. Mechanic Rey likes her job except for when the computer screws up and she has to call her least favorite IT guy for help.

Fireflies by quixoticlux. ABO meets Mansfield Park meets Clueless when high school Rey can’t stop crushing on her cousin Ben. Incomplete.

Nine Lives by on_my_toes. Doctor Ben becomes increasingly concerned when he notices the barista at his favorite coffee shop has a habit of putting herself in harm’s way.

Stay Out of Trouble by Deathtoallstars. Cop Ben keeps arresting the same wily college kid who always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Incomplete.

Bleeding Edge by Succubusybody. Westworld meets Stepford Wives in a dark fic where Rey takes care of scientist Ben’s every need until she makes a shocking discovery.

Can’t Turn Off What Turns Me On by audreyii_fic. Omega Rey and Alpha Ben come together during her heat and an intense connection sparks.

Miles from Where You Are by Mooncactus. Rey and Kylo get into an online battle about Star Wars films.

Nevertheless, She Persisted by @dawninthemtn. Campaign staffer Rey is tasked with keeping an eye on her boss Leia Organa’s aloof son. Incomplete. 

Self-Inserted by @kylotrashforever. College student Rey happens upon journal belonging to Ben Solo, an old crush from high school she assumed hates her. As it turns out, he doesn’t…

Epithumia  by Pontmercy44. Engineering student Rey keeps falling asleep in Introduction to Classical Art and Literature. Professor Solo is less than pleased.

[jeffhane]

dynasty live watching: an incoherent post so that i’m not spoiling people on the twitter tl (i doubt any of this will be chronological or coherent enough to actually contain spoilers but better safe than sorry!)

oh my god the “previously on” - i forgot abt fallon and evan....

Theyre at a FUNERAL??? this was actually predicted but oh my god. if its steven i am going to be so mad. what an unfitting end to the- WAIT WHAT SIX MONTHS? what was that font;;;;:; whes sueiwjwk

copper arch🥵🥵🥵

this is cute. this is cute i like faloon pretty women so true

BYE I FORGOT ABT THIS VASE

fallon is genuinely such a bad person this is so bizarre,,,, i think she needs to calm down about oiterally everything ever

“This wedding is our chance to break the cycle of craziness” babe ur literally the one making the cycle of craziness

w. was that an ikmenn of liam getting his head off

JEFF MY BELOVED HE LOOKS STUNNING IN THAT OUTFIT. WHYS ALEXIS HERW “POWER COUPLE” YOU WERID MANIPULATIVE PERSON GET AWAY FROM HIM LOL

alexis is up to no good. bad bad jpeg. why do they write her dialogue like this

adam is acted so well lmao he’s the most unhinged person to ever exist *screams*

ohhh dominique, i don’t remember much abt her 😭😭😭 this woman she’s with is beautiful

ITS LAGGING????? i cannot Believe tjis

~rebrand~ ok girlboss!!!!!!!!! can we ship this businesswoman i dont recall her name with fallon???? id like that i think

too many plotlines have happened in too many minutes, i’m already forgettint things that have happened... isn’t blake supposed to be in prisoj? no? Ok: sure

adam is constantly doing this expression that is like 👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁 HI SAM HI SAM HI SAM BEAUTIFUL MAN I LOVE HIM WHOS THIS MAN

raf is so stunning ughhhh i’m loving the costumes this season, everyone looks great! is this man a sam love interest? nervous? that is kinda cute. i miss stevej though. sadness. so many emotions

UHHHH hi alexis sure ig ur here

~OMENS~ babe that’s a tad dramatic don’t you think?????????? “Ignore the lore at your own peril” alright

WHOS THAT? WHOS THAT? OH HER OK

bye everything is going wrong for this......:..:::... *rubs hands together evilly* that will certainly be entertaining

credit scene!!! such a beautiful cast! where’s anders, oh how i miss him... i miss monica too wasn’t she supposed to be BACK🤔🤔🤔🧐🧐🤨🤨

its a commercial break... havent had to watch the show with these for so long😑😑😑. getting american ads is so funny bc the vast majority of them are Not at all relevant... at all

BACK TO DYNASTY!!!!!! was that a slinky? huh? oh ok that’s why the marriage is happening at the manor. #whenyouonlyhaveoneset oh hi ok monica so shes not going to be here?????😑��😳

WHY IS SHE GETTING A CAR I FEEL LIKE THATS FORESHAWDOIWIJG FOR UMMMMM.... NOT GOOD THINGS ..... ITS LAGGING AGAIN 🤨

blake having dinner... ok hi cristal,,,,; is the priest subplot back? that was a weird one

adam???? how on earth does adam work his way into everything? NEXT GUEST? HUH? are you cheating on your wife? HI CULHANE! HI!

“straight people are exhausting” i mean yes, objectively, absolutely, but culhane is #notstraight .... idk how i feel about sam and this man. also what? huh? staying here? ok cool ig

OHHHHH he got married i see i see

“Haven’t you milked the carrington cow already” but....... she is literally the person who deserves the stuff..... k......... i don’t like dominique but she was given the short end of the stick also blake stop manipulating people just bc they tell u the truth😶😶😶😶😶😶😶

frustrated that we haven’t seen fallon in any non-wedding related stuff yet i always liked her more ~dramatic~ plots . like she’s a sweetheart but i do want her to evolve beyond thsi. idk if that makes sense. ok bye

“A relative’s happy marriage” uh???? we live in a society😔📈

who is father lynch<3333 oh he is in the hospital that’s not great oh adam upset that’s new /s

y is kirby dressed like an elf. god bless.

ughhhh i just think adam is not good for kirby. he’s not good in general. so true . what is he up to. ads again hhhhhhhhhh💯

omg we are back!!!!! blake wear the suit!! hi liz!!! i’ve seen pictures of this outfit, it looks nice. “I really want things to work out with liam” now that would be great but you’re in a soap opera so the chances of that are .... I DONT EVEN ONOW IF U CAN WEATHER ANYTHING W CRISTAL...)))))!$$ NOT NECESSARILY THE BEET CHOICE????

~technically it wasn’t cancelled~ alright love i feel as though you’re not telling the full truth here. ok his name is ryan . we know that now . cool . this relationship is awkward but it could be sweet

what the Fuck is dominique talking about this is so creepy😭😭😭 please do not market lingerie to ur niece 🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂 why does no one in this show know how to be polite

“You want me to stake my personal assets” i’m sure this would be meaningful if i knew anything about finance????? WAIT WAIT WIAT WAIT WAIT DHE REHEARING THE SAM DONS G THE SONG ALEXIS DONT INTERRUPT HER SINGING THE SONG🧐😔😔😔🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🥰🥰🤬😤😤😤😤😤😤

~duplicitous sham~ that’s quite a juicy phrase ms fallon. alexis i dislike your marriage. and you in fact. yes x . “We were just like any other newlyweds” except the newlywed factor........:

anders. oh my god i adore him so much. he reminds me of my grandfather . YES adam is dangerous. anders i love you so much. be my grandfather figure. top 10 cool old dudes of all time.

liz is so beautiful how am i suppised to “Focus” on the “storyline” kirby just went 🥰🥰 also hi culhane ily babe

“My father’s convinced adam is pure evil” you see, that is......... trueeeee...........:.::: im sorry culhane ily love

this dialogue unfortunately does not flow all that well LOL . people dont think up things like this on the fly “my love is like that boutineer” sir i guarantee that metaphors r not going to save ur relationship... HI sam. so true. hi ily. samhane? culsam? 😳😳

DONT STEAL ANDERS SPOT OH HI JEFF YOU LOOK STUNNING.......... BEAUTIFUL BOY ....... HI!!!! ~you are the only family you’ve ever needed~ shit none of this wouldve happened if the Carringtons werent so greedy ij the first place

~true love has many faces~ how many anti liam omens can they sneak in into the episode 😭😭😭😭 hi laura whats up

the poor waiters at this establishment...... why does laura look like a rlly young version of my grandma........: huh.... wont think abt it /... alexis bad mom.jpeg

“I don’t want to miss my sons special day” ok bye i don’t #care she’s kind of rude

fallon trying to avoid future drama is confusing to me as that used to be her ENTIRE THING? HUH??? everyones talking to their moms today what the heck do that many people talk to their moms???

jeff hiiiii <333 that maroon suit!!!!! love!!!!!

Dont hurt anders you strange little evil man!!!!!!!!!!! (Adam, for reference)

fallon likes to ~e n u n c i a t e~ her dialogue. Drama Teachers Love Her

FIRBY SCENE! WELL THEY R TALKINF! UWU ! UWU ! smiles:) smiiiiiles:) the height difference i cannot do this😑😊😊😊🕯🕯🕯 BYE

BueirHWIIDWJDIWIFJWIFJWJJFWJFJWJDJWJDJWIFJWJFJWJDKWJDJWDJJWHDWHDHWHEHWHDHWJDJWJRJWJEJWJDJQUEUWJEJWJEJW CRIES SOBS SCREAMS THIS OS SO FUCKING FUNNY

Kirby you dumbass😭😭😭😭😭 ALEXIS WUDIWNDJW JEFF CAN YOU NOT HEF FCANKREMTIWN WHY IS THIS DIALOGUE IM SCREAMIGNRJFJD

kirby babe you are the kist imorjri WHQT? HUH? when all the characters have the maturity of a 13 yr old <33333 DID THE SHOW JUST END?????? OK.... DAMN.... they were really 2 minutes away from the end and remembered that things are supposed to happen in tv show episodes.... i cannot tell whether it os over actually?????? huh??? going to keep watching because it would be so embarrassing if i missed a few minutes oh yeah theres more

IM SORRY WHYBARE THESE PEOPLE SO STUPID. every single one of them. ih my god l. ohhhh my god . “I never meant to hurt you” you cheated on him. both of them are bad people. 🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨 kirby darling what were you thinking . this dress on kirby is STUNNING ugh, she’s so charming . adam Shut the fuck up. He hasn’t said anything but shut the fuck up. OH MY GOD ADAM SHUT THE FUCK UP. OH MY GOD I HATE ADAM SO MUXH. OH MY GOD HOW IS HE THE WORST PERSON TO EVER LIVE 😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶 HES SO EVIL

“I didn’t want to tell you because i didnt want you to think of me as a monster” why did you do that stuff then bro . Kirby you SHOULDNT trust someone after they say that? How naive? Huh ?

omg hello jeffs grandma!!!!! she deserves better than every shitshow in this family... god🤨 dominique being a good person? i like to see that. she seems so genuine. ok this is nice . wait... SAFE? 😳😳😳😳 💴 💵 #money i miss monica

why do they never have sufficient lifhting in WAIT..... HER?????? #dumbofass HI JEFF <33333333 HI you can scam and whatever ur allowed to i support u

ooohhhh GORGEOUS fallon outfit

“Such a fail” IS THIS 2012 . CRINE HEIDJWJFIWNDWJDNWKFJW ENJDJSDJWJNDJWJD they keep saying folklore and im thinking its some sort of reference to the album and i get confused. wheres scheming fallon. need scheming fallon. do a scheme. do it

“We are that lucky couple” press x to doubt .... wait who is this🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔 this seems cincerning im cocnentwd why did it zoom in on this random man

[michelles-garden-of-evil]

Episode 44 Review: The Second Séance

{ YouTube: 1 | 2 | 3 }

{ Full Synopses/Recaps: Debby Graham | Bryan Gruszka }

Hello and welcome back to my Garden of Evil, in time for the final episode of Strange Paradise by its co-creator and original headwriter Ian Martin. This marks yet another milestone in the history of this fun and sometimes perplexing soap opera: a little bittersweet, although I know that, unlike viewers in 1969, I can return to early Maljardin whenever I want.

In some ways, Ian Martin’s departure will benefit the show. Like a traditional soap, his SP scripts were generally slow-paced and heavy on recap, with variations of certain lines (e.g. “we must find the conjure doll and the silver pin”) repeated episode after episode. When Robert Costello replaced Selig Alkon as producer, he mandated several changes to the show. His stated reason: to help SP’s other co-creator Jerry Layton achieve his goal of improving the Gothic soap’s ratings:

"New York and Los Angeles stations took it off the air because ratings were poor.  And because they are the key stations for money purposes, Robert Costello, who did Dark Shadows for four years, was called in," one of the actors said this week. "Costello took one look at several episodes and said he wasn't going to have anything to do with it the way it was.  So the series was changed considerably.”

[...]

In the studio this week, Costello (who produced The Nurses, the Patty Duke Show and Armstrong Circle Theatre) said Strange Paradise was abandoning old voodoo, hallmarks of the first 13 weeks, for heavy occult (witches covens, ESP, apparitions and the like). "The concept, though good, was not completely workable for a day-in and day-out series," admitted its creator and executive producer Jerry Layton.[1]

Naturally, so many changes required a segue from the show’s original format that wasn’t too abrupt, hence the break from Martin’s original plans for the story and the creation of the current weird transitional plotline about the Rabbit of Evil. There are twenty-one episodes of Maljardin left after this one, followed by a shift of setting to Desmond Hall. Like Maljardin, Desmond Hall has its good parts and bad parts, fun characters and not-so-fun ones, but I’ll cover those when I get to them.

Do you remember my Episode 40 review, where I speculated at the end about how the original second séance might have gone? Well, this one is similar in some ways to the séance described in the Lost Episode summaries, but the way it plays out is bizarre. And by “bizarre,” I mean, “What the hell is Vangie thinking, holding it now?”

The (visible) participants of the first séance, from Episode 36 (clockwise from top left): Dr. Alison Carr, Quito, Vangie Abbott, Raxl, Reverend Matt Dawson, and Jean Paul Desmond.

In Episode 36, the choice of who participated and who didn’t participate in the séance followed a certain logic. Four of the six chosen participants had a direct connection to Erica Desmond: her sister Alison, her husband Jean Paul, and her servants Raxl and Quito. The latter two were doubly qualified to participate, both being members of the Conjure Faith, with Raxl helping Vangie determine who could attend and who was forbidden in the previous episode. They excluded Elizabeth, Tim, and Dan for being “disruptive influences” and Holly out of concern for her safety, but allowed Matt because of his strong faith as a man of the cloth. (Remember that, at that point, they still trusted him.) In addition, they left a seventh chair open for Erica’s spirit, making the total number of (invited) participants seven. This, according to Vangie, is one of the ideal numbers for a séance, the other being five. It’s logical, it follows the rules that the author establishes via Vangie, and therefore it makes sense that the second séance would be set up in much the same way.

In my post on Episode 40, I used this logic along with clues from several Lost Episode summaries (including the one for this episode) to try to reconstruct the events of the original second séance, which was slated to take place in that episode before script rewrites. The summaries indicated that Matt would return for the second séance and that Elizabeth would join him, although Vangie’s reasoning for including her in this one is unknown. I excluded Holly from my list because I felt it would be out of character for Vangie to knowingly endanger her life and speculated that Alison may have refused to take part out of justified anger at Jean Paul for making Vangie endanger all of their lives. I also excluded Tim and Dan, because I felt that neither had any reason to participate unless substituting for someone else. In addition, I assumed that Jean Paul would have originally participated in all the séances, being the one who initiated them in the first place, as well as Raxl and Quito for their loyalty to both their dead mistress and to Vangie. I concluded that the most likely participants for the second séance would have been Vangie, Matt, Elizabeth, Raxl, Quito, and Jean Paul: six living/undead participants like the first, but with Alison swapped with Elizabeth.

But what do you do on short notice, while Jean Paul is freaking out in his room, Alison trying to help him calm down, and Raxl and Quito are...sleeping, I suppose? (The episode gives no explanation for their absence, unlike with Jean Paul and Alison.) You hold an emergency séance in the same exact location as before, at a glass-top table identical to the first, with whomever is available. That includes Matt, Holly, and the disruptive influences of Elizabeth and Dan. Vangie claims there’s no time to wait, so emergency séance it is, even if it means breaking all the previously established rules.

Holly lampshading how the second séance comes out of frigging nowhere.

“Jean Paul cannot wait,” says the Conjure Woman. “The need is urgent, the need to find out from whence this locket came. I must choose those of you who will help Jean Paul Desmond contact his wife Erica.”

Holly tries to nope out of it, but Vangie--surprisingly, given her previous concern for her safety--refuses to let her. “You, if the spirits choose,” she insists, “the spirits” here most likely meaning some combination of Robert Costello, Jerry Layton, and Steve Krantz. (Let’s remember that the Serpent previously told her not to invite certain people, Holly included.) It’s a cop-out line, in effect, where the show acknowledges that it’s breaking the previously established rules to obey the new producer’s wish to speed up the action.

The reason why this séance is so urgent? The bloodied locket of Erica’s that Raxl found around the black rabbit’s neck in the previous episode, combined with Vangie’s speculation that the rabbit may be Erica reincarnated. The fact that the locket had blood on it makes Dan even more suspicious of Jean Paul, especially after Matt reminds him that eclampsia (which Jean Paul claims took Erica’s life) is a bloodless death. He begins another tirade about how he thinks that Jean Paul killed both Erica and Dr. Menkin and how he’s going to sail off the island, which Vangie interrupts:

That’s Vangie’s way of saying “shut up.”

Vangie tells the four characters in the room--Holly, Elizabeth, Dan, and Matt--to sit at the table and begin the séance, because a presence has arrived. The first three do, but Dan remains standing and tries to persuade Matt to not take part in the occult ritual.

“You, GO!” Vangie screams at Dan. “PLEASE, GO!” He leaves and, without having anyone join hands, Vangie calls out to her father, the Conjure Man, to ask whose spirit is there. And then she enters a trance and starts screaming, “LET ME OUT!” while breathing heavily. Frightened, Holly runs to her room, while Vangie continues screaming, only to leave her trance a moment later and ask, “Where’s Holly?”

“She couldn’t stand it,” says Elizabeth. “I don’t think that I can, either, or any of us.”

“It was two spirits,” Vangie continues. “One so angry, so confined in some place, in some form.” She rubs her neck as though rubbing scabs left by the chain of an uncomfortable locket. “It’s so dry, so dry!” Elizabeth leaves to get her a drink to quench her thirst.

The way Vangie rubs her neck reminds me of Erica’s bloodied locket.

Their first attempt a disaster, they go their separate ways. Vangie speaks to the portrait of Jacques Eloi des Mondes, demanding an answer to how the rabbit and locket appeared. In her monologue, she reveals that he “[has] always been an enemy” and that he “would laugh at [her] clouded sight”; also that the spirit she felt was “not so much evil as angry, horribly angry and confined!”

Elizabeth offers Vangie some wine. Rather suspicious.

Elizabeth returns with some wine for Vangie’s throat (wouldn’t that only dehydrate her more?) and is about to set it on the séance table when Vangie stops her. “The spirits may not cross it,” she explains, so Elizabeth moves the glass and decanter over to the table where they usually sit.

Vangie picks up the locket and starts thinking out loud about it, when Elizabeth says that she wishes that Jean Paul would just let them open it. This enrages Vangie, who says, “I made a mistake when I asked yo to join the séance. I need all the help I can get, but yours will disrupt!”

“I will not be ordered around!” Elizabeth shouts.

Hearing Vangie scream about how she brings anger, Elizabeth leaves for Holly’s room, where she confides in her about how she doesn’t trust Jean Paul anymore. I think that this is Martin’s subtle way of letting the audience know that her romantic pursuit of Jean Paul/Jacques is over and the new producer and writers have no intentions on continuing it.

Elizabeth’s dress has some interesting pleats/pintucks in the front.

Holly asks her if she believes that the rabbit is Erica’s reincarnation. She thinks it’s ridiculous, but acknowledges that they must humor him while they are stuck on the island because his delusions affect everyone trapped there. “Holly, we need each other,” she says, “if only to exchange notes.” She persuades Holly to return to the séance to keep tabs on what happens.

Elizabeth has come to her senses.

Meanwhile in the Great Hall, Vangie lampshades Jean Paul’s and Alison’s absences again and predicts Dan’s death and Jean Paul’s continued possession. (At least that’s what I think she means by “Jean Paul’s mind and body will hang in the balance by an act of the Devil.”) Still determined to disbelieve in his religion’s personification of evil, Matt accuses either her, Raxl, or someone else on the island of masquerading as the Devil. She starts to try talking him into staying and being part of the séance using his belief in the afterlife, when Dan arrives and announces loudly and in the direction of Jean Paul’s bedroom(!) that he’s going to use one of the boats in the boathouse to escape and tell the police about his suspicions.

That’s when Holly arrives for the séance do-over. This time, it’s four visible characters--Holly, Dan, Matt, and Vangie--plus the spirit, thus making a total of five. Like the first séance, she tells them only to focus on Erica, but this time Dan’s anger disrupts the contact and Vangie flips out on him!

The bad subtitle here, while not especially original, is too perfect.

He storms out and the séance continues. Vangie calls on her father for help, saying, “There is a message...a warning...I cannot bring it through! The path must be clear! What is the warning, Conjure Man?”

And then, all of a sudden, the spirit comes through:

Vangie: (possessed) “Let me out! OUT! Let me out!”

“OUT, OUT, OUT, OOOOUUUUTTT! Is he here yet, Jean Paul? JEAN PAAAAAUUUUULLLL!” [Notice that they’re not touching hands as Vangie insisted that the participants of the first séance do.]

Holly: (possessed) “Out, out, out. Let me out.”

“Out, out, out, OUT, OUT, OUT, AAAAAAAHHHHH!”

Matt directs Dan to the decanter with a tilt of his head and Dan makes Holly drink the wine that Elizabeth poured for Vangie earlier. But, rather than calm her, the wine makes her collapse to the floor in agony:

Holly faints from the poison in the wine.

“If the missing cyanide was in this, I’m afraid Holly is dead!” says Dan after sniffing the inside of the glass. But is it cyanide, and is Holly Marshall dead? I suppose you’ll have to stay tuned for Episode 45 (the episode or the review).

I don’t want you to think that, because I criticized some things about this episode, I must dislike it. Quite the contrary. While some things about this episode do reek of subverting expectations just for the sake of subversion (they didn’t have to film a séance episode on Colin Fox’s day off), the final scene is wonderfully chilling and Angela Roland gets to use her acting chops more in this episode than in any of the previous ones. Also, the missing cyanide subplot finally becomes relevant again at the end with Holly’s collapse after drinking the wine.

Coming up next: A two-part post looking at the best and worst things about Ian Martin’s episodes of Strange Paradise, followed by the Episode 45 review. I’ve been working hard on these and look forward to posting them within the next week.

{ <- Previous: Episode 43   ||   Next: Episode 45 -> }

Notes

[1] Sid Adilman, “TV’s Colin Fox and his Strange Paradise,” Toronto Telegram, November 29, 1969. I omitted part of this passage to avoid spoilers, but the omitted portion is also noteworthy in that it indicates that they had already begun filming Desmond Hall by November 1969.

[queenlua]

book review: Pilgrim in the Microworld by David Sudnow

I enjoy telling stories at cocktail parties about my youthful internet exploits, because I am both a goddamn nerd and a goddamn delight. Explaining the basic shit like Neopets or IRC channel shenanigans is easy enough; most people have some experience with message boards or chatrooms. Explaining play-by-post RPGs is a bit trickier, but still doable—you frame it as a collaborative storytelling thing, compare it to Watership Down, describe your favorite wolf-soap-opera plotline, and at that point, you’ve either confused the shit out of someone or made a friend for life.

But the one thing I’ve never quite been able to describe, to my own satisfaction, is play-by-post horse battle RPGs.

Ostensibly, it’s really similar to the standard play-by-post RPG format. Your horse attacks the other horse; you describe it in a few sentences of prose. Theoretically, this could be as simple as “Smokey pivots on his right forehoof and kicks at Huey,” then “Huey rears up and falls on Smokey’s back,” or whatever, and you go from there.

But that would be too easy.

See, the winner of a horse battle was chosen by a handful of randomly-selected disinterested mods, who graded each post on the basis of (1) quality of prose, (2) effectiveness of attacks, and (3) creativity of attacks. You got points subtracted for godmoding or simply shrugging off damage, but you got points added for clever counterattacks or use of space. Each player had a fixed number of turns, with a fixed number of attacks each turn; each post had to be done within two days; there was a massive hierarchy of special powers/perks your character could get if you advanced high enough through Pony Fight Club; and the ponies who achieved Gold Rank were like. Envied and feared, all over the site.

Which meant, of course, that I needed to be on this list.

It took me a goddamn week to join my first horse game, because I had to read through a whole encyclopedia of horse breeds to determine, empirically, which breed would be the best at beating up other horses. For my first ever horse battle post I wrote 3,000 words to describe “Ska kicks Duplicity in the side” and revised it like 800 times and was physically shaking when I finally hit send. I had a fucking printout of the equine muscular system and the equine skeletal system taped on the wall next to the family computer for convenient reference. I reenacted horse poses in the basement to try and figure out which angle I could attack from. I scared the shit out of my horseback riding instructor by asking all kinds of weird questions about “so like what’s the WORST thing you’ve ever seen a stallion attack do, though.”

And the posts themselves, oh, the posts. See, “quality of prose” in this scene meant “as purple and neurotic as humanly possible (with a very strange set of jargon you will literally never use anywhere else),” and I rose to the challenge ably. We all did, and the results were some of the most tryhard, pretentious writing this side of David Foster Wallace:

Here’s an excerpt from one that I managed to dig up:

the rotation locates the spring action retention of the hind regions, the gashed arenas stretched and pulled with each following spin and force…hind flints echo ‘pon the soil as fores spin effortlessly upon the soil, hinds lifted in mirrored image of first attack by opponent, a similar region seemingly forced to location, but the motion of the receding spook renders the toss to the hock/limb region towards the more deadly region of rib-cage and right lung, knowledge of retractable inhalation essential to the sustenance of battle..forelimbs echo at the joint, bent and snapped back and forth towards this area with explosive force, the verbatim maneuver thusly completed, the fores lift from mud-caked position, crimson liquid staining the glossy extremes of the bloodkissed’s pelt [. . .] accepted plurality of motionless fate, flints return after seeken motions t’wards the murky loam, a snarl exhaled and soft smirk ‘crossed ashen mug... limp is obvious ‘thin hind regions o’ she as darkness reclaims torso, bulwarked vital throat region definitive as pools roam the other..seems more interesting than the others, but hell...when you’re certain that death is on the line anything becomes more interesting..

Did the horse like, kick the other horse? why are its forelimbs echoing; did it hurt itself just kicking the other horse? how did the kick drawblood? Who fucking knows? The important thing is it sounds fly as hell, and the mods will be too embarrassed to admit they don’t fucking understand what is actually happening. That’s gonna be a 10/9/9 score, easy.

But, uh, this is all a bit much to explain at a cocktail party.

So I am delighted to announce that I now have a better shorthand for explaining The Horse Battle Play-By-Post RPG Scene.

This is the horse battle book.

Sure, it’s ostensibly about some dude’s obsession with the classic arcade game Breakout. But the majority of it is a pseudo-philosophical, over-described, tangent-riddled description of the experience of playing Breakout. Which ends up sounding a lot like the horse battle stuff. Here is an excerpt chosen at semi-random:

A long fast volley at the finish was simply too much for me to handle. The more it lasts the more afraid you get it won’t last longer, and layer upon layer of competing advice rapidly piles up to overheat thoughts to an agitated concentration that melts your cool. The whole field of vision frazzles you with temptation, you stiffen up to fight off distractions, and through that very effort their beckoning power becomes even more salient. Anxiety about the future of the gesture flows backwards without really knowing what a hazard is, all while telling yourself not to analyze anything. Work over a long run at the piano, a tricky passage beginning on a certain measure in the music. Now play the entire piece, and that fast messy section is coming up. Now you’re into it, and in its midst you’re feeling a ragged uncertainty in the movements...

The whole book is like this. When I realized that this was what I was reading, I achieved enlightenment. I stopped and put down the book and grinned ear-to-ear at this man, this one goofy sociology-professor man, partaking in the bizarrely niche hobby of some hundreds of teenage horse girls in the early 2000s. What a blessing.

All that being said, I would not recommend this book unless you, too, have some horse battle nostalgia you need to get out of your system.

(crossposted from DW)

[starklore]

Ehhhhh... tell us about a fandom you want to write fic for but haven't yet?

GOOD question! Let me think...I have so many plot bunnies so there’s so many fandoms I want to write for but one I haven’t talked about recently is Teen Wolf? I haven’t watched in ages but I still have an affection for it.

At one point I had planned on writing a Jace Winchester verse where she was Stiles’ twin (originally I had them both as the half-siblings of the Winchesters in a superwolf crossover but eventually dumped that concept, although maybe I’ll bring it back--I’ve been vibing with SPN again lately.) And I actually wrote the first chapter of it and I happened across that the other day and really liked it.

Basically Stiles and Jace are psychically linked but don’t know it, so they’re heavily codependent. Jace is a psychic empath and she was sent to boarding school on the recommendation of her psychiatrist, who wanted her to make friends outside of her brother. But she had a nervous breakdown with all the new people, and the fic starts when she comes back to town, like a week after Scott turns into a werewolf, and Stiles and Scott try to keep it from her to protect her, but it just makes her feel rejected and they end up gaslighting her a lot in the process (not intentionally, but it happens) so when she finds out the truth she’s infuriated and won’t talk to either of them. Obviously they make up eventually. 

Also I had a plot bunny possibly in the same verse as the Jace AU about this OC named Kat who was a necromancer who met Isaac in the cemetery bc she hangs out there and they have this weird friendship and so Isaac knows about the supernatural before he meets Derek but still becomes a werewolf and anyways they’re shipped together...I miss them…

Anyways though yeah Teen Wolf is one that’s been on my mind lately!

I also--like this doesn’t totally count because I did technically write one chapter of a TVD/Heroes fanfic that I then abandoned bc I lost my notes and don’t remember where I was going with it, but I’ve always wanted to write for The Vampire Diaries. I have this fic in my mind that’s kind of its own universe the same way MM is, on a smaller scale (mostly bc the TVDverse also exists on a smaller scale) but it contains basically all my TVD OCs and it would be kind of a rewrite where the show has a structured ~5 season arc (or whatever number I need) kind of like SPN’s first five seasons where it all builds up in a coherent narrative, as opposed to TVD canon or SPN seasons 6+ where it’s just kind of a supernatural soap opera where new baddies come in as necessary until it felt like ending. 

Bc I really believe in the potential of the show and I do love the characters and I feel like it could’ve been a genuinely good show if it had like. A Plotline. 

So yeah those are the ones I’m feeling!

[loopy777]

You've got me curious now as to what anime youve seen, enjoyed and why.

Oof, I don’t track that type of thing. I’ve been asked about anime I like previously, and I feel like I always forget something. I suppose I should start a MyAnimeList one of these days, just for reference.

So let’s list everything I can remember, as well as a pithy reaction.

Baccano!This one is just so much fun. It’s violent and crass in a classy way, it’s funny in a weird way, and it’s a great example of a non-linear narrative. I love it.

Code Geass (Season 1)Ugh, I only watched this one because people solicited my opinion on it. Well, my opinion is that it’s not as smart as it wants to be, there’s too much contrived melodrama (and considering the wild premise, that’s saying something), and Kallen would be a wonderful and interesting character if she wasn’t always being demeaned for fan-service. I quit when the first season finale kicked off, because I felt things were just getting too contrived. I hear it really fell apart in the second season.

Cowboy BebopI found this a bit pretentious. It had good episodes and bad episodes. The production quality is good. But I'm not sure why it's legendary. Still, I liked its sense of humor, and enjoyed it when it wasn’t trying to be super serious. My favorite character is Ed.

Demon SlayerI'm mainly watching this because my brother wanted to give it a try on Toonami, but I kind of checked out when it unceremoniously removed everything difficult about the sister being a demon and made her into an order-following sidekick that fits in a suitcase. Now the latest episode introduced a loud annoying side character, so we may quit. I have no idea why this one is so popular.

Fullmetal AlchemistCovered

Gatchaman CrowdsI was asked to watch this one, as well, but it went a lot better than Code Geass. It’s a bit weird, and I think it's naively optimistic about the internet in many ways, but I still found it's exploration of Internet-age superheroes to be interesting, and it's the best, most mature take on the Power Rangers-style ‘sentai’ genre that I've seen. I don't know how well it matches up with its Gatchaman legacy, but as its own thing, it's pretty good.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (including 2nd Gig)This is another legendary one that I think is good but a bit over-rated. It's a good piece of modern Cyberpunk, but it's very talky, and very jargon-filled. I'm almost convinced that the viewer is not meant to follow half of the conversations, that they're just part of the ambiance. I tended to like the stand-alone episodes better than the storyline episodes. Still, it’s a very smart series, and probably the best thing in the franchise, from what I’ve heard.

Log Horizon (first season only)I’ll tell you what- I think it’s possible to make a good anime with the premise of people from the modern, real world entering a fantasy realm (either another dimension or a VR video game). Log Horizon did not end up being that ideal. The main character is a Gary Stu, his romances with girls who are either ten years old or just look like they’re ten years old are creepy, and it got boring seeing the protagonists’ plans always succeed without much of a hitch.

Lupin III (series 4 and 5)I like this franchise when it's being clever, when it's springing a twist while playing fair. Sometimes, though, it doesn't play fair with its twists, leaving me underwhelmed. And while the regular cast is amusing, they're fairly shallow characters; this isn't always a bad thing, as that allows them to slot into all kinds of genre fare, but does limit the storytelling ambitions. It’s fine.

Macross franchiseSuper Dimensional Fortress MacrossI still like the original, despite how dated it is. It's probably the best possible implementation of 'soap opera in space.'

Macross PlusI'm not sure why this one is so revered. I feel like it doesn't play fair with its mystery, despite being such a short story, and whole thing with the killer popstar AI just left me cold.

Macross 7I like the music, but the story really drags for the first half with a formula that’s repeated far too long, and then falls apart in the end. The love triangle isn’t resolved, and in fact I’m of the opinion that two of the participants didn’t even know they were in competition. The bad guys are allowed to sail off into the sunset, forgiven, despite still inhabiting the bodies of kidnapped humans. But this isn't a series you watch for the story; this is a series you watch because you like the idea of a rockstar flying into space in a transforming mecha, controlled by an electric guitar, to sing at alien invaders. Personally, I think the idea is dumb. Plus, this ruins the premise of the original series by adding in what is effectively magic.

Macross ZeroThis is pretty good and has the best dogfights in the series, but it has one of those weird arty endings that anime sometimes likes to do where no one can tell what actually happened and we need to find translated interviews with the creative team to get it explained.

Macross FrontierBy this point, I was wondering why everyone is so eager for the Macross franchise to get American distribution. It’s better than Macross 7, but feels like a first draft of the intended story, and the creative team lost track of their own subplots. The two AU movies do a more satisfying take on the same basic story, but sometimes they come across like an abridged recap of the series, so you really need to watch everything to get a satisfying experience. That said, the final experience was indeed fairly satisfying, making this the second best thing in the franchise for me. Still, I wouldn’t say it lives up to the original in any way.

Macross DeltaBoy, this one was dumb. Everything wrong with Frontier is worse here, with none of the good stuff.

The Melancholy of Haruhi SuzumiyaI still want an ending for this, despite nothing worthwhile coming from it since 2011. It wouldn't even be hard to pick it up again; set it in modern times, and explain the fact that everyone has smartphones now to be a result of some weird off-screen Haruhi antics.

Mobile Suit Gundam franchiseMobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded OrphansI've only ever experienced the Gundam franchise because my brother wants to get into it and he keeps trying to find a vector. This was my first experience with it, and I found it very 'teenage boy,' in both tone and story. I was underwhelmed.

Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn RE:0096Another case where the storytellers reached the end only to have forgotten the rest of the story. Why does that happen so often in anime? And I think it assumes the viewer is familiar with the whole rest of the franchise, because there was a lot that just went straight over my head but didn't seem like it was supposed to. Nice animation and art style, though.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin - Advent of the Red CometEverything I said about Unicorn, only more.

My Hero AcademiaCovered

NichijouThis thing is still hilarious, even after a rewatch. Stick with the sub, as the new dub's voice-acting doesn't have the same range and power of the original, losing a lot of the humor.

Outlaw Star I'm struggling to remember a lot of this one. it’s another I watched because my brother was interested in it. I do recall that it was a fairly standard Space Western that ends in a way that's more like serious science fiction, and that for some reason a Japanese swordswoman in classic clothing was part of the cast. Now I wonder if that was an homage to Lupin III. Or maybe Japan just really loves throwing classic samurai into everything, regardless of setting or genre.

Pokemon (part of first series)I was in high school when this franchise first came to America, and for some reason all the geeks in my high school thought it was the greatest thing. The games were good, yeah, but the anime? I don't think it's bad for a kiddie cartoon, but it obviously has no greater ambitions than pleasantly occupying the kids for 22 minutes. Personally, what I really want is a series about Team Rocket done in the style of Cowboy Bebop.

Princess TutuCo-owner of the Best Magical Girl designation. I forget who asked me to watch this, but I owe them.

Puella Magi Madoka MagicaCo-owner of the Best Magical Girl designation. I still haven't bothered with anything but the original series, and I continue to be happy with that choice.

Samurai ChamplooI liked this better than Cowboy Bebop, but only because its ambitions were lower. It leaned more into its genre, had fun with its style more even when being serious, and as a result became more enjoyable. I overall liked going on a journey with these rascals, but I think it ended at a good point. I don’t need more.

Spice & Wolf (first season)I watched this on someone's suggestion, and found it a little underwhelming. What I really appreciated were the two main characters, especially that they seem to be into each other, romantically and sexually, and aren't freaked out by it while at the same time not being in a hurry to become a couple. It was just a kind of, "Yeah, this could really be something if we ever find the time." It was so amazingly mature and real. Too bad the main Economics plotlines just wound up being tepid.

Tekkaman BladeMy thoughts haven't changed on this.

Tiger & BunnyI'm still fond of this one, and I'm actually kind of curious to revisit it in light of My Hero Academia.

Transformers ‘Unicron Trilogy’These three cartoons are true anime, produced by and for Japan. (The other cartoons in the franchise were written, and sometimes animated, in the west.) It's garbage that assumes its child audience are morons, and on top of that the first two series wound up with laughably bad dubs. How this trilogy revitalized the franchise, I have no idea, and thankfully I'll never have to worry about it.

Volton (original)Either this or Robotech/Macross was my first anime; I was too young to say which I discovered first. I'll admit that the original Voltron isn't good, despite the toy being neat, but I have a soft spot for it. I tried the Netflix reboot, watching the first three episodes, and found it to be vacuous junk. Maybe some day a version of this will come along that will do justice to the toy.

And I think that’s it. If I remember anything I left off, I’ll reblog with the addition.

[youhadmeathohoho]

Does this movie have a good name?

It’s Christmas, Eve is a fabulous name for a movie about a lady called Eve who’s having a gently tedious yuletide experience.

Are we located in a small, picturesque, snow-covered town?

Why yes we are! Here’s Franklin in all its hackneyed glory:

Is the lead character’s name festive?

I guess it could be argued that Eve is just as much a New Year’s name as a Christmas name, but as far as I’m concerned, it’ll do. Her surname is Morgan though, which is a shame when it could have been Mittens.

How busy is said lady?

Eve is busy running away from her dreams! She was a talented singer, but turned her back on warbling after the death of her musician father. She also fled her beloved hometown Franklin because the memories were too painful. Now she chooses to travel constantly in her career as an “interim school superintendent”. So she’s back in Franklin on a short assignment - but next she plans to hoof it to San Diego, where no-one will nag her about her neglected dulcet tones.

So yeah, Eve is emotionally busy. And further frazzled from trying to squeeze in mentoring a pious child singer; romancing a Matthew-Perry-lookalike; and butchering the local school’s arts program with her proposed austerity cuts.

Recognise anyone?

Did I forget to mention that Eve is played by none other than the original country/pop crossover star, LeAnn Rimes? She’s fine. This whole movie appears to exist so LeAnn could have several featured songs on the soundtrack and release a tie-in Christmas album, also called “It’s Christmas, Eve.” That’s fine too. LeAnn needs the Christmas cash so she can buy new socks for her husband Eddie Cibrian, esteemed alumnus of much-missed soap opera Sunset Beach:

Hi Eddie! You are a weird age now! Good luck with that!

Otherwise, the dude playing Eve’s beau, Liam, might be Chandler Bing’s second cousin:

How are everyone’s Christmas Spirit levels?

Tip top! Eve digs Crimbo, as does her mum, and Liam, and his daughter. Actually, the rest of the town could do with pulling their socks up, now that I think about it - no Gingerbread Contest? No Cookie Crawl? HAVE THEY NO SHAME?

Does anything magical or supernatural happen?

Yes: all adult ladies have exactly the same hair!

Does a misunderstanding threaten the lady’s path to Happy Ever After with the man?

Well, you’d think that Eve rocking up and trying to kill off the art and music departments at the school where Liam TEACHES MUSIC could get awkward quickly. However, everything stays cool between them because, weirdly, Eve both proposes the cuts AND the idea of holding a public fundraiser to make up for the cuts. (n.b. It’s weird and depressing that we are meant to consider citizens paying for the provision of arts in their community to be A Christmas Miracle.)

Is this movie bang on trend?

- The leads meet while observing a meet-cute between two random passers-by. They even say ‘meet-cute’. It’s meta, dontcha know? 

- The fund-raising concert is said to have a live-feed streaming on Facebook, Youtube and Snapchat. 

- Some guy designs a website for the above fundraiser, but warns that it might crash because soooo many people have donated:

Is there a twiiiist?

The twist should be that Eve isn’t unmasked as the budget-slashing superintendent until she and Liam are about to get smoochy, and then he should hate her for 11 minutes. But her secret identity is pointlessly unmasked a few scenes in. Ugh.

Any missed opportunities?

- We find out that Liam stopped writing songs and became a teacher because he had to grow up and be more responsible. He used to be in a band called ‘Bingo Jones’, which is a weird fact to tell us if you aren’t going to show us an old video of him playing a gig in hilarious 90s clothes yet being so soulful and earnest that Leann realises she’s falling for him.

- A boy called Duane Snodgrass seems like he will crash and burn singing a solo at the concert, due to being weird and shifty:

In fact, Duane Snodgrass pulls off a delightful solo rendition of ‘Silent Night’ and everyone is pleased! This plotline is too rushed. Spin-off for Duane Snodgrass next year, please!

Best dialogue?

“The boy is sweet as Christmas candy, but doesn’t know how to amplify his talents.”

On reflection, is this movie about Christmas?

Gosh no.

Overall rating?

[scoutdoesstuff]

INCREDIBLY well said that's not even going into dabb's very particular asian racism but yea. the truth is i have only watched tidbits here and there and i know the storylines and the directions of the characters in s14/15 and just KNOWING about it makes me grind my teeth and refuse to watch it this is why... inherently even if the finale was a happy one it doesn't take away the two seasons of complete character fuckery granted i left at s8 and am hugely biased in favour of early seasons so that's just my overall stance on spn in general but all that said this is why even finale fix its for me don't work unless i inherently ignore............ huge parts of late season canon they did butcher their characters on occasion before that but when i heard about this storyline i Noped outta there before even starting it just sucks! it sucks that a show that relied on character driven narratives spun on its heel on all established prior facts about said characters by doing so it loses its main appeal also in sum: it's a hell nope from me spn meta

adding this tags because YEAH!

(i think it’s also worthwhile to highlight dabb’s racism because it’s glaring and awful. like kevin would’ve had a completely different ending if he’d been kevin williams and not kevin tran)

also want to add -- the dabb era relied on both character assasination AND the character’s frequently holding the idiot ball in order to generate conflict and storylines. and it sucks to watch! even if you’re ok with dean becoming a monster to his sort of life partner/boyfriend’s child (which i’m not lol to be clear), it’s really really dissatisfying to watch people just be unfathomably stupid over and over again. i think the most egregious example of this is when they lost the god gun to lilith because they put it in the glovebox in the implala. like ... what the fuck even was that???

plotlines were sloppily executed. arcs didn’t pay off. characters and even objects of interest were abandoned wholesale after being shoehorned into the plot. and the worst part, for me at least, is that while dabb does some INSANE shit to his characters, almost no one reacts to it like it’s an insane thing to be happening. they bring mary winchester back from the fucking dead and everyone’s like “well that’s weird”. they bring back not!bobby from an alternate universe and sam and dean barely even blink!! their whole ass father figure comes back from the dead -- except it’s not him it’s some dude from another world wearing their father figure’s face -- and they never even discuss this fact! they just roll with it!!!

i’ve seen posts discussing how dean is the only member of the main cast who reacts to any of the insane stuff like it’s insane -- and that’s super true. but honestly? even he reacts to very little of the dabb era craziness. he just ... kinda rolls with it 90% of the time, which gives every new event that happens this weird uncanny valley feeling, almost like it’s a soap opera and the truly otherworldy has become totally normal but in a very twilight zone kind of way.

and as deliberate as they are about destroying dean’s kindness and cas’ backbone, they’re as delibrate about destroying sam as a character with any kind of personality or will or thoughtful feeling. i think you can easily make an arguement that soulless sam had a larger emotional range than sam in the dabb era.

this is all to say, great OG post and great tags. the ending that dean and cas (and sam) got was bullshit, but a happy ending would be equally hard to swallow after the plotlines of seasons 14 and 15 and the general fuckery of the dabb era.

(tags copied from @casenergies​)

A lot of Destiel blogs I look at hate Dabb, I don't really understand why apparently he made Dean too angry?

Ohhhh nonny, it's absolutely not that he made Dean "too angry." It's that during his era the writers routinely shredded Dean's previously established character and ignored or backtracked his prior development in order to create additional tension and conflict where there didn't really need to be additional tension and conflict. I've also seen many people say, and I agree, that Dabb's era kind of flattens Cas out and doesn't allow him to experience emotions other than "sad martyr" nearly often enough.

Dean being angry is in character. Dean reacting to stress and trauma with anger is in character. Dean masking pain with anger is in character. And to be fair, Dabb era does a pretty good job of calling out Dean's anger as a secondary emotion and/or trauma response. Though they don't ever really deal with it, which is another problem for another day.

What's not in character is that Dean would ever treat any child the way he treats Jack in seasons 13-15. What's not in character is that Dean would ever call someone his child, his family, and then turn around and claim they aren't later.

What's definitely not in character is that Dean would ever give up on any member of his family as a lost cause, no matter what they did or how dangerous they were in the moment, or in general. We've seen this to be true with both Sam and Cas, multiple times. We've seen this with John (while possessed) and Mary (while brainwashed). Hell, we've even seen this with characters Dean only interacts with on screen a handful of times, like Claire and Garth.

An in-character Dean would have fought for another way until they found one or it killed him. An in-character Dean would sooner let Jack kill him than put a gun to Jack's head. Hell, an in-character Dean should've been the one to put a bullet in Chuck, and it should've happened the very first second after Chuck suggested shooting Jack.

It's always been a cornerstone of Dean's character that he does not give up on family. He doesn't put anything before his family, whether that's found family or blood family. Not the mission, not the greater good, not the will of his father or God himself. And yet we're supposed to believe that he's willing to do the "hard, ugly thing" with Jack? No, I'm not buying it.

And as for Cas...Cas should have been furious at Dean for locking Jack in the mal'ak box, a fate so awful Dean himself had nightmares about it before it even happened to him. Cas should have been ready to tear Dean limb from limb for even considering putting a gun to their son's head.

That's his baby. That's his son. And I'm sorry, I know first-hand that there are parents who make excuses for shitty significant others and let their kids suffer the consequences, but I don't buy Cas as one of those people. Do you?

No, we should have gotten Alleyway Ass-kicking 2.0 for that shit, but instead? Cas acts like Dean has any right whatsoever to be angry at him, leaves without even giving Dean a well-deserved piece of his mind, and then comes back and accepts Dean's forgiveness like Dean isn't the one who needed forgiving in that scenario.

And really, it all just boils down to Dabb walking this weird line in seasons 14-15 where he was trying to raise the family drama stakes by giving them a kid that they love who might or might not be evil, but also pulling back hard to just-the-brothers state by having no one in this so-called family actually act like a family should. Because seriously, what parent who loves their child wouldn't go absolutely fucking feral at the suggestion of someone harming them in retaliation for an accident? Much less their other parent who's supposed to love them?

Like...I'd say Dabb and whoever else wrote on seasons 14-15 just doesn't understand parenthood, but I'm not even a fucking parent. I have not a single maternal or paternal bone in my entire body, and even I get it better that these chuckleheads, so it can't be that.

And it's just really frustrating because what does it say about Sam and Dean as people if they can sincerely call someone their child and then even consider killing him? If Dean can actively plan to do it and Sam doesn't do anything but look sad and say but no Dean I don't like this? If Cas can even look at the man who put a gun to his baby's head afterward, much less embrace him, much less die for him, leaving said child in the care of the guy who wanted to kill him and the guy who wasn't trying very hard to stop it? What kind of people are they, if they can do those things? To their own child?

It's character assassination for Dean, Sam, and Cas, and completely treating anyone who's not blood kin to the brothers like they're disposable. So that's probably why most Destiel fans, who tend to care a lot about the whole "family don't end with blood" message in the show, don't like Dabb or his era very much.