#like I didn’t find Billy and daisy fascinating because I ship them

[herefortayloronly]

Nine times out of ten I don’t have a problem with adaptations being slightly different from the original source material as long as they still understand the assignment but I absolutely HATE that they had Billy initiated the kiss!! Because Daisy is the reckless one. Daisy is the messy one. Billy is the one with self control. It just feels out of character because they’ve built up that Billy has a lot of self control (especially after rehab). And not just book Billy versus show Billy either. The show set Billy up as having a lot of control and they just nipped that bud. And god forbid this man loves his wife!!! Like god forbid Billy and Camila really love each other and are devoted to each other!! The whole tension between Billy and Daisy in the book is that they see themselves in each other but they know they are not good for each other! To me the writers completely missed the ball on that.

[douxreviews]

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Review

(This movie review includes big spoilers.)

2001: A Space Odyssey is a difficult masterpiece. There are so many books, documentaries, articles and interviews about it. I'm not sure what a review by little old me will contribute to the zeitgeist, but here we go.

I'm going to date myself, big time. I was an adolescent when I saw this movie in the theater. And it wasn't a tiny cineplex, because we didn't have those back then; it was one of those huge old theaters with an immense screen. 2001: A Space Odyssey blew my mind. My mother, who liked science fiction even though she was never into it as much I was, was blown away, too. As we were leaving, she said something like, "I have no idea what that movie was about, but I loved it." I said, "Me, too." And then we spent a couple of hours talking about how it looked, how it sounded, what might have happened and what it could possibly mean. This movie made us think, and talk. It was one of my most memorable childhood movie experiences, possibly the best I ever had with my mother.

And yet, while 2001 consistently makes top-ten-of-all-time movie lists, some people think it is monumentally dull. I will readily admit that it is 180 degrees away from films like Star Wars. When 2001 was released, the critics fell into separate camps on complete opposite ends of the spectrum, as in either "It's absolutely brilliant," or "It might be the worst movie ever made." I find it fascinating that, even after all these years, people come away from this movie with such vastly different impressions.

2001: A Space Odyssey was produced and directed by the brilliant and controversial Stanley Kubrick, and it was written by Kubrick in collaboration with one of the great science fiction novelists, Arthur C. Clarke. It took a long time to make this movie, and Kubrick was obsessed with getting every detail absolutely perfect, a monumental feat when you consider that it was pre-CGI and every single object and scene in every frame had to be imagined, considered, designed and created before it was filmed.

I feel like my vocabulary is inadequate when it comes to describing how this movie looks. Every shot is so perfectly framed, the photography so stark and imaginative. The space stations and ships, especially Discovery One, look real, functional, and exquisitely beautiful. I've always wondered if Kubrick deliberately created ships that looked like they had faces and space helmets that resembled animal heads, or if it was a happy accident.

Much of the movie has no dialogue and when it isn't silent, it is accompanied by disturbing choral vocalizations, the stunning and majestic "Also Sprach Zarathustra," or exuberant classical music. I'm pretty sure no one had ever paired classical music with science fiction before 2001. There are other memorable sounds, too: alarms, electronic shrieking, the grunting of the apes, the breathing that is all we hear from Dave while he is trying to shut down Hal.

2001 has three distinct sections, with the third being the longest and most memorable.

I don't have a lot to say about the first section, in which a mysterious black monolith somehow changes our starving ape-like ancestors into tool users. Except that the ape man (he has a character name: Moonwatcher) tossing the bone into the air that turns into a spaceship might be the most brilliant segue in the history of the movies.

Four million years later, humans uncover a black monolith buried on the moon that sends a radio transmission to the orbit of Jupiter. The shuttle slowly docking with the partially constructed space station to the accompaniment of a Strauss waltz is spectacular. So is the look of the interior of the space station which is peppered with familiar corporate names, most of which have survived the sixties. I've always loved how the beauty of technology created by human beings is given as much weight and attention in this movie as the beauty of nature, space, the stars and the planets. I particularly liked the symbolism of a pen, another extremely important human tool, floating in the air like the ship floating in space.

Eighteen months later, the space ship Discovery One with five astronauts on board is nearing Jupiter. Three of the astronauts are in suspended animation, so the action centers on the other two: Dr. David Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Dr. Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood), plus the HAL9000 computer, the artificial intelligence that runs the ship. Dave and Frank both come across as real astronauts, highly trained and even-tempered professionals who stay calm even in life and death situations. Which is what they soon find themselves in as Hal's conflicting instructions cause him to go mad.

Hal is so pleasant and amusing at first with the banter and the chess, although what he is about to do is foreshadowed since Hal's point of view always shows Dave and Frank as distorted. (There is also foreshadowing when Dave and Frank are shown sleeping in their coffin-like beds.) Their extreme isolation is highlighted during the taped interview with the BBC when we learn that Discovery is so far away that it takes seven minutes for a transmission to reach Earth.

The Hal sequence is undeniably the edge-of-your-seat part of the movie, as Dave and Frank slowly realize that their soft spoken, efficient, all-powerful computer is lying to them. Although the constant close-ups of Hal's "eye" are undoubtedly creepy, Hal's voice is so melodious and calm -- an excellent vocal performance by actor Douglas Rain. I remember how shocked I was the first time I saw this movie when Hal eavesdropped on Frank and Dave in the pod by reading their lips. Humans just don't expect the tools they create to turn on them. Does Hal have genuine emotions? Is he just simulating what he was taught? What would be the difference?

After Hal kills Frank, we can see the patterns of light and shadow playing over Dave's face as he nearly succumbs to panic, realizing that he must either expose his naked face to vacuum in order to get back into the ship, or die outside in the pod. I've always loved the disconnect scene where Dave, wearing a mismatched green helmet on top of his red space suit, won't respond to Hal's apologies, questions and suggestions while he carries out the complex actions that will kill Hal. All you can hear of Dave is his breath as Hal degenerates into a baby computer and sings a song ("Daisy") that was taught to him by his creator. Interesting parallel, when you consider what ultimately happens to Dave.

Dave completes the journey alone, and appears to take a pod into the monolith that is orbiting Jupiter. What is Dave seeing during this "trip" in the most bizarre of sixties psychedelic colors? Is he seeing the home world of the beings that created the monolith?

Since the monoliths were deposited in our solar system four million years ago, it seems unlikely that the aliens were still hanging around. I've always assumed that they left their automated monolith "seeds" and moved on. I've also always wondered -- what did the powers that be on Earth think that the astronauts were going to do with that monolith? Go up and knock?

It's also fascinating to conjecture what is happening during the surreal, strangely lit bedroom scene at the end. Dave appears to see older versions of himself, and then he becomes each older version of himself: quite elderly and in a robe eating dinner, visiting what looked like a fully appointed bathroom, in the bed as he breathes his last before turning into a strange space infant floating above the Earth. Did Dave spend the rest of his life in a real place (unlikely) or was it simply a mechanism that took his mind to the end of his life so that he could be reborn?

What does Dave become? Is it the fate of the entire human race, or is it just him?

There is a 1984 sequel to this movie entitled 2010 that doesn't really answer this question. At least it's based on a book also written by Arthur C. Clarke, so there's that.

Bits:

— Even though the five astronauts on the Jupiter mission are all white males, Heywood Floyd runs into several colleagues on the space station, three of whom are women, and obviously some of whom are Russian.

— BBC 12. Loved that.

— I also loved the zero gravity toilet with the very, very long list of instructions on how to use it. Unspoken was how uncomfortable and difficult it would be for the user to absorb and follow all of those instructions when they really had to go.

— Gary Lockwood, who played Frank Poole, was also featured in the second Star Trek pilot. I had a pleasant encounter with him at a Star Trek convention, which I related at the bottom of my review of "Where No Man Has Gone Before."

— Dave: "Open the pod bay doors, Hal." Hal: "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that." I use "I'm sorry, Dave" a lot in my real life.

— Hal: (trying to talk Dave out of turning him off) "I feel much better now. I really do. Look, Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over." Laugh out loud.

Every few years, I watch this movie again. It's such a rich and complex motion picture that I inevitably see something I never noticed before. Four out of four pod bay doors, of course.

Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

[polar-stars]

for the ship ask meme, why don't you tell us the answer to all of them? xD

Oh god….Well okay, you asked for it! So I am gonna do it

As I know myself, I will put this under a Read More since this will most likely get quite long and I will probably escalate

Please note that I am horrible in putting my mind into words and this will include a lot of fangirling as well as tears and other nonsense

Also again, this will 99.95 % be Shokugeki no Soma related 

Now with this basic Introduction over

Let’s start with the

Ship Meme

(Original)

What is your absolute favorite ship?

*poses*

Yes, I am deeply, deeply in rarepair hell

What ship do you hate most?

I can’t believe I am talking about this qwq (I always feel rather mean when talking about NOTPs)..but

1. Rey//lo (Star Wars) 

2. I know I’ll sound really ridiculous but Shun /x/ Yuki & Zenji /x/ Ryoko. These Ships are just such a big no to me and actual reason to stop reading a fan fiction :/ Again, sorry

3. Every Incest and Adult x Minor Ship out there….because…Come On

What was your first ship, and what fandom is it from?

Luigi x Daisy from the Mario series

Sweet, sweet Childhood (◕‿◕✿)

Explain why do/don’t ship [pairing]

You didn’t sent me a certain pairing, so I am just going to answer these asks with the pairings I feel, if that’s okay (￣∇￣) If there is any specific pairing you want to know my opinion of or something, you can ask any time（＾∀＾）

I’ll go with my four major OTPs for this one

Zenji Marui x Yuki Yoshino: Wrote a post about it (shameless self-advertising)

Shun Ibusaki x Ryoko Sakaki: Will also write a more specific post about that..but for now have this answer in another ask meme: https://polar-stars.tumblr.com/post/166422311301/001-with-ryokoibusaki-and-003-with-all-the-psd

Soma Yukihira x Erina Nakiri:��Okay, first off all…I am such a sucker for the dynamics of these two cuties

The scenes that they share are all so adorable and a lot of fun to watch. Every time they interact my love for this ship just grows stronger I swear. 

One of the major thing about them that I love is how much both of them can take from each other. Like Soma’s reckless, but also creative and free-spirited cooking resurrected Erina’s passion for cooking. After all these years, she finally remembered that not everything is supposed to be perfection and that cooking is also supposed to be fun. 

On the other side, Erina’s taste sense as well as her stubbornness cast yet another challenge for Soma that he is desperate to overcome. Challenges like that are what motivates him to strive forward and try even more new things. 

Also I just love how friendly Soma has always been with Erina despite her resentment. I just have the feel, he’s kind off fascinated by her from the very start. 

Takumi Aldini x Ikumi Mito: Now this is the ship that holds the least material to work with and I know that. But despite their lack of interaction, I still feel they could be such a cute couple and the moments that they have..in all honesty just make my heart explode. 

Like how Ikumi acted in the Subaru-vs-Takumi-Shokugeki for example

Look how she invested she was into it, that she even stood up (the only one who stood up as well was Takumi’s brother.)

As well, as the look she casts to him!!

I love that they have a slight touch of a “Love/Hate-Relationship”, you know…Bickers and all that

But in later parts seem to hold a fair respect for each other.

Also, despite I stand very for the idea that there have to be similarities as well as differences in a relationship…In this case….I just somehow love so much, how similar they can be. Also…They do have differences. For example, Takumi has his temper in much better control than Ikumi.  

How did you start shipping [pairing]?

Again, Four Main OTPs for this question

Zenji x Yuki:

Yep, this exact moment. Yuki’s way of waking him up, just rang all of my shipping bells.

Shun x Ryoko:

Hard to give the exact moment, but I think it was their conversation during the night before the breakfast challenge

Soma x Erina:

The ending of episode 9. You know…both of them humming Spice and then bumping into each other! It was so cute!

Takumi x Ikumi:

Is there a ship that you used to ship, but don’t anymore?

I honestly don’t know if this every happened to me O.O

What’s a ship you like that most people don’t?

TakuIku, defiantly

and tons of other strange rarepairs

What’s a ship you hate that most people like?

/sighs

Taku//Megu kind off. Like, no I do not hate it. Absolutely not. I don’t even dislike it. Actually, I low-key ship it and highly enjoy the content that’s provided for this ship.

But I just kind off have a problematic relationship with this ship and I just think it’s a little overrated, for that what it actually is. Also it’s just simply not much of my ship….Again, I actually kind off like it…But there are other Takumi and Megumi Ships that I highly prefer.

Also! Satoshi Isshiki /x/ Nene Kinokuni! I am in general not at all a big fan of “Childhood Friends to Lovers” and I just don’t feel this ship at all :/ Also, I can’t really see Isshiki in a romantic relationship and I hope he stays alone in canon actually. 

What is the most underrated ship, in your opinion?

Tons of ships in this fandom are underrated. 

Like, when you visit fan fiction’s tag for Shokugeki 70% or so are probably Sorina fan fictions. I mean, I like Sorina and everyone is doing great, great work…..But I sometimes feel that this fandom lacks a little of innovation when it comes to ships and it’s quite sad that there is barely any content for some “Non-Soma-Involved-Ships”.

I mean, while Shun and Ryoko are shipped by a good majority of the fandom….There is just….basically nothing…Which is just sad but also kind off confusing. 

What is the most overrated ship, in your opinion?

All of Soma’s ships…kinda?

I mean, every possible match up with Soma has at least one fan fiction and he is basically shipped with every girl in this series (an exception is Yuki…thank god). I mean, I get that Soma is a very shippable character but I am also kind off tired that all of his interactions with girls are immediately romanticized by the fandom, even tough most of the girls share way more meaningful relationships with other male characters than Soma. 

Do you prefer [pairing] as an otp, brotp, or notp?

…

Why do you think [pairing] is so popular?

Let’s go with Sorina here!

So, I think Sorina is as popular as it is because it’s a ship that has lots and lots of “End-Game”-Signs pointing to it, while also providing a lot of material to work with as well as adorable scenes. It also involves the two most important characters, to which the major part of the audience naturally pays the most attention to. 

A major reason is probably also the fact how strongly Soma ties into Erina’s very well-received development. They’re also again, incredible fun to watch and at some point the most of us just want to push them together and get to kiss already. 

Why do you think [pairing] isn’t popular?

Let’s go with my OTP (MarYu ?) here!

Zenji and Yuki are both side characters, not extremely popular ones in addition. They both often get ignored by a huge part of the fandom and don’t even have that much screen time to begin with.

And so a lot of their moments (and they do have quite a few) get overlooked. 

I am not blaming anyone, but I just think that’s the reason….A lot of people just don’t really pay attention to them. 

Rate [pairing] from 1-10 and explain why

…

What’s your favorite headcanon of [pairing]?

I will literally die for the headcanon that Ikumi and Takumi are both excellent dancers and can finish anyone in a dance-off together. 

What’s your favorite canon moment of [pairing]?

Let’s go for RyoAli for a change?

It’s a small thing…but I love how Alice watches Ryo’s and Megumi’s match during the AE, with that special, confident smile that basically says “I know you got this”

Favorite AU ideas for [pairing]?

Okay, but where is my Royalty!AU for Shun and Ryoko

I mean….Aheam

The Prince of Smoke Everybody

I guess, I’ll have to do that myself (I am actually partially working on it)

I am in general a sucker for AUs and I could probably come up with other ones, but this is my major pick for them.

Rant about [pairing]

…

What’s a meme/quote that reminds you of [pairing]?

Can I skip this? 

…..please?

What song(s) remind you of [pairing]?

There are probably millions of other songs that fits them better but “Uptown Girl” by Billy Joel always makes me think of Sorina, for some reason. 

I am honestly not the best with picking out songs…oops

….

Also…..

……

….

“A Whole New World” from Disney’s Aladdin

Disney Princess Shokugeki AU self-advertising!!!

Also kind off “I Won’t Say (I’m In Love)” from Disney’s Hercules 

What kind of dates do you think [pairing] would go on?

I l o v e the idea of Zenji and Yuki going to the aquarium together…without even actually acknowledging that it is the date, and of course only go as “” friends “” while literally all the adults around them watch them with this special “Young-Love”-Glance (You know what I mean?)

I could also see them visiting an observatory. 

Realistically, do you think [non-canon pairing] will ever be canon? why or why not?

I honestly think…that Soma and Erina, Shun and Ryoko and maaybe even Zenji and Yuki have some kind off chance of becoming canon?

Sorina has the biggest chance of course.

Soma and Erina were the first characters to ever be created and also Erina’s introduction was the follow up to Jou’s infamous “Find a Woman to Cook For” quote. Also again, I think they give each other so much and they also get a lot of moments currently in the manga…Also wasn’t it even quite confirmed from Tsukuda’s side that the feelings will defiantly bloom on Erina’s side.

In my opinion the series climax will be Soma creating a dish that beats his father while also being admitted by Erina. 

Shun and Ryoko share a quite meaningful moment in the canon novels, from what I’ve heard and it’s been hinted a lot already that Ryoko understands and can actually read him. 

I mean, come on Tsukuda

This shouldn’t go to waste.

In the case of Yuki and Zenji….I just think they are the most likely end game for each other? Like….Who else could there be? 

And no, I don’t consider Madoka Enomoto an option (the girl from Miyazato Seminar who admires Zenji). She is just simply not important enough and not even an option to vote for in the popularity poll. She appeared one time and had one cameo and was never seen again. Also! Zenji never actually talked to her….heck, even looked at her. Even Takumi has talked to his fan club. So why?? It would just be such a lazy ship in my opinion. 

Other Ships that I ship and that I strongly believe of having a chance to become canon: RyoAli, EiRin, Shinomiya x Hinako

Have you ever written fanfiction/drawn fanart of [pairing]? would you consider it?

Yo! My entire Art Tag is full of my shipping problems.

*crashes together*

Well…and that’s it!

Thanks a lot for the question and I really hope that I could get my points across to y’all.

Also no bad blood to certain ships really….Ship what you want everyone, this is just my personal opinion and preferences. You have every right to your own and remember Shipping is meant to be fun ^w^

With that I sign off.