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amphtaminedreams · 5 years ago

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50 Films You’ve Got to Watch

Hi to anyone who’s reading,

I thought I’d take a break from the fashion posts to ramble on about something else that I’m really interested in for a hot minute. And I say ramble with intent, because I do go ON.

The topic is film and I thought that I’d make a list of my 50 must watches. These are movies that I feel had the biggest impact on me which means, yes, I do have tattoos referring to a couple of them, lol. My genre of choice is usually horror and although there has been a bit of a “horror renaissance” and a shift towards prioritising good quality storylines over jump scares in recent years, on the whole, they typically aren’t the most highbrow films out there, so there aren’t THAT many on this list. Most of the horror films I listed are just genuinely good quality rather than a straight-up gorefest or anything too terrifying, however, I’m not that easily scared so if you did fancy watching any of the films I mentioned, take that with a slight pinch of salt!

Also, this isn’t anything to take too seriously. I really like movies and cinema but I’m also not a movie critic and this is more of a hobby than something I want to pursue. Like, I’m completely aware of how unrealistic working in TV or film is as a career if your family isn’t loaded. Very aware. Painfully aware you could say (imagine me sighing as I’m writing this). That being said, part of me does want to do a ranking of every film I’ve seen in 2019 at some point this year, so if anybody else is interested in this kinda thing let me know!

Lauren x

50 Films You’ve Got to Watch:

1. Black Swan (2010)

“I felt it. Perfect. It was perfect.”

I watched Black Swan years ago now and I still remember how disturbing I found it and how exciting that was to me. I was probably a bit too young (young enough that my mum felt it necessary to cover my eyes during the Natalie Portman/Mila Kunis sex scene, lol) but even then I could recognise that it was a beautifully haunting film and Darren Aronofsky has gone on to be one of my favourite directors.

2. Jennifer’s Body (2009)

“And now, I'm eating your boyfriend. See? At least I'm consistent.”

Engrave it on my tombstone: JENNIFER’S BODY DESERVED BETTER. I fully believe that if this movie was released in 2019, it wouldn’t have faced half the criticisms it did back in 2009. It genuinely was ahead of its time. Megan Fox? As a boy-eating, demonic cheerleader? And Amanda Seyfried? Some of the most ICONIC DIALOGUE EVER? It should’ve invented a GENRE. Instead it got paid DUST. Yes, when I write in caps lock, my internal voice is YELLING. I feel passionately about this, okay?!

3. La La Land (2016)

“I guess I'll see you in the movies.”

Again, maybe it’s a basic film bitch opinion to have but I adored La La Land. I saw it at the cinema and spent the last 20 minutes of the film sobbing, only to find my mum and sister distinctly underwhelmed. I indignantly ranted back then to them how perfect a film it was and I’m going to do the same thing now so if you are reading and you didn’t like it, then you should probably just move on because I wouldn’t want to read myself banging on about Emma Stone again for several paragraphs either (don’t worry, I’ll try and keep it to one). I can’t help it. This film was just TOO REAL! Like, in every way but the actual plot and characters, La La Land has the dreamlike quality of a fairytale. The colours are rich and thick and always complimentary, the musical sequences are either like Disney songs or lullabies, and Emma and Ryan Gosling are made for each other. But then life and ambitions and resentments get in the way. And that’s the real part! That’s why it’s so bloody good!

4. Easy A (2010)

“People thought I was a dirty skank? Fine. I’d be the dirtiest skank they’d ever seen.”

And so we arrive at the movie that actually began my love affair with Emma Stone. Iconic. Iconic in every way. The bad reputation montage is cinematic excellence. For real, though, this is so underrated as a coming of age movie. Like don’t get me wrong, Mean Girls is everything (I easily could’ve included it on this list but I feel like it’s just a given that anyone who grew up in the noughties loves that film) but Easy A deserves just as much credit. It has Penn Badgley, one of the few celebrity males I care about! Amanda Bynes! Aly Michalka! Lisa Kudrow! Did I mention Emma Stone?

5. Kill Bill (2003)

“Now, if any of you sons of bitches got anything else to say, now's the fucking time!”

If I had to put any of these films as my singular favourite, it would probably be the first Kill Bill. Controversial, I know; even my dad introduced it to me as the weaker of the two. To list any Quentin Tarantino movie as the one that inspired you to want to be a director is probably a very cliche film student thing to say BUT I’m not a film student and I’ve put my directing pipe dream permanently to one side, thus, coming from me it’s not as hackneyed a statement. Or so I tell myself, lol. Basically, I was in awe of Kill Bill from start to finish. The colourisation is a dream, from the crazy 88 scene to the final fight between The Bridge and O Ren Ishii, and I particularly remember loving the animation sequence despite that not really being my kinda thing. I was just so impressed with how seamlessly something so out of place, considering the live action format of the rest of the film, fit in with everything else; even the scenes that should be absurd instead work with the comic book style narrative. Uma Thurman is of course amazing and iconic af but Lucy Liu as O Ren Ishii is my favourite thing about this film and the line I chose gave me all the bad bitch energy I need to, I think, get me through the rest of my time on this planet. If not, the tattooed version of this still I have on my arm should hopefully do the job. Yep, I truly ascended to a divine level of basic film hoe with that life choice.

6. Marie Antoinette (2006)

“This, Madame, is Versailles.”

The first Sofia Coppola film on this list, I love this woman’s work to death. Regardless of the content she’s working with, the end result always gives me the feeling I’m watching an extended music video. They always have this almost dreamlike quality to them and everything from the colour palette to the camera movements to the soundtrack in Marie Antoinette is tied together perfectly.

7. Mother! (2017)

“You never loved me. You just loved how much I loved you.”

I was tense throughout the entirety of Mother. As a socially anxious, obsessively tidy control freak, this whole film was like something from one of my nightmares; think unwanted house party on crack. I was mentally screaming along with Jennifer Lawrence for all of those people to get out, whilst simultaneously just staring at her face because she is so fucking gorgeous! Even when she’s completely lost it! Totally unrealistic but it makes for some really pretty shots! And then there’s the ending which left me kind of like “what the fuck did I just watch?” Which is what Darren Aronofsky films do best. They’re terrifying but also quite beautiful and Mother is no exception.

8. Gerald’s Game (2017)

“Everybody's got a little corner in there somewhere. A button they won't admit they want pressed.”

I finally got round to watching this for the first time the other day and I absolutely loved it. It probably helps that the last Stephen King adaptation I saw was Pet Sematary, so despite the praise this got at the time, my expectations weren’t super high, but I think this really is a perfect horror film. It’s clever, doesn’t rely on jump scares, and the creepy scenes that are in there really get under your skin. It drags a little in the middle though it’s beautifully shot, acted and has one of the few “body horror” scenes in a horror that’s actually made me cringe.

9. A Beautiful Mind (2001)

“I think that's what it's like with all our dreams and our nightmares, Martin, we've got to keep feeding them for them to stay alive.”

I don’t want to say too much about this film and spoil the plot, so I’ll just say that it’s incredible. Devastatingly sad but also wonderfully hopeful at the same time, and solidified my interest in psychology! I could watch Jennifer Connelly all day.

10. Alien (1979)

“This is Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off.”

As a horror fan, I don’t think I need to explain why this film’s on the list. It’s been raved about and video essayed and called a pioneer of the genre ad nauseam. Again, not that this is really anything new but part of what I love about this movie is the context of its release and success; before Sigourney Weaver’s portrayal of Ellen Ripley, it was a rare occurrence to have a female protagonist in an action-based movie. Alien really paved the way for women to take up space in a previously male-dominated genre.

11. 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

“Crazy is building your ark after the flood has already come.”

I saw this for the first time at the cinema and pretty much went in blind. I hadn’t seen Cloverfield but I love Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Final Destination 3 was always my favourite of the franchise, lol) and there wasn’t really anything else on worth seeing, so my sister and I chose this and it was an experience. Like, of all the films on this list, this is probably the one that had me most on edge and I’m not sure watching it on your laptop on Putlocker will do it justice. You need the curtains pulled to, the volume way up and complete silence.

12. American Psycho (2000)

“Try getting a reservation at Dorsia now, you fucking stupid bastard!”

There isn’t a dull moment in American Psycho. Every line is quotable and every scene is straight to the point. I feel like this film is a masterclass in that Stanley Kubrick quote about editing where he says he liked to get rid of everything that was not absolutely vital to advancing the plot or the audience’s understanding of the character in any way. Plus, the ending is trippy af! Or maybe I’m just a bit oblivious to something that was quite obvious throughout, who knows. Either way, what the final scenes really mean are fun to think about.

13. The Descent (2005)

“I'm an English teacher, not fucking Tomb Raider.”

Okay, so I literally just watched this the other day and had to begrudgingly remove Silent Hill to make space for it (I KNOW it was critically panned and I KNOW the video game is better but I liked the visuals, OKAY!?) because The Descent is truly one of the best horror films I’ve ever seen. Before we even get to the supernatural element of the creatures, which are genuinely creepy for once, there’s a party bag of other phobia-inducing sequences that had me emotionally exhausted within the first half hour alone. Claustrophobia, darkness, heights, actual cringeworthy body horror, The Descent has something for everyone. The way it utilises space (or lack of for that matter) and darkness and panicked camera pans makes you feel as if you are really down in the cave with the characters. To add to that, I was actually rooting for all of them too; it probably helped that they were English rather than the typical American slasher cast but I found them to be a believable and likeable group of women. I truly did want them all to get out alive *spoilers*, which only made the ending all the more devastating and although the general narrative is quite predictable, the way in which things get wrapped up left just the right amount of shocks and questions to leave you reeling.

14. Eighth Grade (2018)

“Gucci.”

No film has ever captured what it’s like having social anxiety during “high school” (it’s called secondary school here in England, I know, but you get me) better than Eighth Grade. A tribute to the feeling of never quite fitting in and wishing you knew how to do what everyone else seems to be able to do naturally, it encapsulates that awkwardness with an accuracy that is really impressive considering that 1. it’s Bo Burnham’s first film, and 2. he’s not...like...a 13 year old girl. It is just as funny as it is sad and Elsie Fisher is great and so, so believable. Girl should’ve won some kind of Oscar.

15. American Beauty (1999)

“I don't think that there's anything worse than being ordinary.”

I wavered on whether or not to include this film on the list due to the Kevin Spacey controversy and decided that I had to with the disclaimer that I watched it quite some time before the stories about him came out and won’t ever watch any of the new things he inevitably ends up doing (because Hollywood has a notoriously short memory when it comes to the actions of disgraced male actors, lol). You can’t deny the amount of talent and skill that went into making a film so graceful and elegant and yet in equal parts unnerving, and I don’t think we should refuse to acknowledge the achievements of everyone else on that set because of Spacey’s behaviour.

16. Bandersnatch (2018)

“The past is immutable, Stefan. No matter how painful it is, we can't change things. We can't choose differently with hindsight. We all have to learn to accept that.”

As I was watching/playing through Bandersnatch, I didn’t necessarily love it. I think I’m echoing a common sentiment when I say that I was kinda confused. I was desperately trying to *spoiler* avoid the option of the protagonist murdering their dad (he seemed like a nice guy!?) but somehow always ended up there by their logic. So I watched most of the endings and then I went on and busied myself for the rest of the evening. AND I COULDN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT IT. One minute I was completely deluding myself into believing the whole parallel universes thing was true and that I should test it out (don’t ask), and then the next I was thinking how disturbing it was that we’d been basically been inside the head of a person experiencing a mental breakdown severe enough for them murdering their dad, who had only ever wanted to help when you think about it objectively, to seem rational. The confusion started making sense within the context of the experience of the protagonist and our role as the audience and though I hadn’t realised it at the time, I’d been completely absorbed in the episode. Maybe the confusion wasn’t intentional, maybe I’m giving Charlie Brooker too much credit based on the recent couple of series of Black Mirror BUT I can’t deny that Bandersnatch left a huge mark on me, and after all, this is the man who wrote White Christmas.

17. Get Out (2017)

“White girls. They get you every time.”

Going into this film, I was cocky. I’ve gotten pretty good at predicting what’s going to happen in things, probably just because I watch too much TV, but from the trailer I was sure I knew exactly what was going to happen. And then, I was completely blown away. The ending was SO SMART, in terms of both the within universe storytelling and also the metaphorical narrative/commentary on the way our society treats black men and women. Like those early episodes of Black Mirror, it had me like “how the fuck did Jordan Peele think of that!?”. I can only dream of being as creative in my writing one day. Even little plot points like where the “police” car turns up at the end and your stomach sinks and you realise the intention of that is most likely to help you empathise with what the average African-American person feels in their day to day life when police make themselves present, what with institutional police brutality and racial profiling; it’s clear so much thought went into this script.

18. Ghost Stories (2017)

“It's funny, isn't it? How it's always the last key that unlocks everything.”

I don’t have all too much to say about this one apart from that I love a well-constructed English horror. I feel like it’s something we don’t do all too often and to be honest, I’m struggling to think of many English horror films in the first place. Ghost Stories is a great example of why we need more; it’s smart and spooky and folky without hitting you over the head with all those elements and Andy Nyman is a perfect lead. Love a bit of Martin Freeman too.

19. Girl, Interrupted (1999)

“Crazy isn't being broken, or swallowing a dark secret. It's you, or me, amplified.”

Maybe this is the 13 year old black and white Tumblr girl in me jumping out but I still adore this film. I know it’s not necessarily the most critically well received but Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie and Brittany Murphy are 3 of my favourite actresses and I do love the script. I also like the way that Borderline Personality Disorder was characterised in Winona’s character Susanna (I’m wavering on whether to call her a character as if I recall correctly the book was based on the author’s real experience) in that it was quite subtle and that she wasn’t portrayed as manipulative, or aggressive or basically, as the villain, which I feel is usually the go-to. It focussed more on the mood aspects and the way that people with BPD tend to latch onto and idealise others, as Susanna does with Lisa, and these are both things that I have personally struggled with in the past.

20. Hereditary (2018)

“All I do is worry and slave and defend you, and all I get back is that fucking face on your face!”

It was hard to find a quote that encapsulated what makes Hereditary so great because so much of it is about what isn’t said, if that makes sense. It’s a lot of pained silences and resentful looks and horrified screams, and doesn’t that sound like a fun time? Honestly, it’s not necessarily, lmao. Shocker. It has you feeling like something awful is about to happen the whole time, deep in the pit of your stomach, but I like that in a film, when it does make you properly feel. Ari Aster gets slow-burning dread just right in his exploration of dysfunctional families and grudges, with a few heart-sinking shocks thrown in for good measure all without overdoing the jump scares. There are a lot of deeply unnerving “supernatural” moments but there are just as many horrifically realistic familial conflict scenes that give you that whole “something is wrong” gut instinct in equal measures. It’s been a year and I’m still so angry that Toni Collette didn’t get an Oscar nomination for her performance, because it was really the perfect opportunity to break down the invisible wall between horror and critical recognition. On a more positive note, I loved Midsommar too (not as much as Hereditary but it was still a trip) and I cannot wait to see what Ari Aster does next. Once again, I’ll be in the cinema on opening night.

21. Heathers (1988)

“Dear Diary, my teen-angst bullshit now has a body count.”

Heathers is iconic in every way: the outfits, the cast, the lines. I mean, the acting can be a bit iffy at times but I honestly think that without Heathers, Jennifer’s Body might never have existed and that’s a world I wouldn’t want to live in. There was so much choice when I was picking a line to summarise why I like it so much and of course, “fuck me gently with a chain saw, do I look like Mother Theresa?” deserves an honourable mention. You almost made it bby. The TV remake? We don’t speak of it.

22. Hot Fuzz (2007)

“The way we see it, it’s all for the greater good.”

It might not be the “artiest” movie ever but I’ve seen Hot Fuzz so many times and it never gets old. Though I used to love it when I was younger purely for the PG-13 gore, now I appreciate it for the absurdity and the ridiculousness and to be honest, the total believability of the plot when it comes to towns ruled by low-key hostile, doddery old white people. I should know, I live in one.

23. Inglourious Basterds (2009)

“You probably heard we ain't in the prisoner-takin' business. We in the killin' Nazi business. And cousin, business is a-boomin’.”

I wish I wasn’t a hoe for Quentin Tarantino films (I’ve felt personally attacked by many a poundlandbandit starter pack) but I am. The breakneck pacing, the tongue in cheek dialogue and the gore all make this one of my ultimate favourites. Also, I have a huge crush on Melanie Laurent. Yes, it’s the French accent. No, I don’t know the mechanics of how that works. I hear someone speak French and I want to marry them! I can’t help it!

24. Ingrid Goes West (2017)

“Are you actually insane?”

This seems like a random choice to have on the list seeing as it was never really that hyped up, nor did it receive masses of critical acclaim. It did get positive reviews but that was about it. However, as soon as I saw the trailer, I knew I had to see it. Months, and an £8 purchase from HMV later, I finally got to watch Ingrid Goes West and I loved every moment of it. Whilst Aubrey Plaza’s character, I feel, is an exploration of a lot of young women’s insecurities and self-doubts and fears, blown up to monstrous proportions (or maybe just mine, lol), and a 90 minute film about that doesn’t sound all that revolutionary, this one is as intense as it is stylish and darkly comedic and that’s what puts it on the map for me.

25. Insidious (2011)

“I like to call them travellers.”

So this film scared the ever-living SHIT out of me when I was younger and though I now consider horror my favourite genre and watch it on the regular with absolutely no qualms, 13 year old me was (not to use the world lightly) mildly traumatised. I genuinely couldn’t be home alone by myself or sleep at night without thinking the old woman ghost from the beginning was outside my room for a good 6 months or so. Like it literally exacerbated an already present sleep disorder to the point where my understandably frustrated-at-being-woken-up-nightly-by-her-panicking-daughter mother got me referred for CBT (to reflect on a time when I didn’t know what CBT or CAMHS was is…blissful, lol). And maybe because of that, in my mind, I still conceptualise it as one of the very few horror movies that has actually scared me, hence its place on the list. That scene where we first see that Star Wars looking red faced devil? I’d probably still nope out even now.

26. It Follows (2014)

“It could look like someone you know or it could be a stranger in a crowd. Whatever helps it get close to you.”

There’s not too much to say about It Follows, other than that it’s a good horror film and more importantly just a really good film. I feel it’s a crucial, early part of this warmly welcomed horror renaissance we are now fully in the thick of where writers are focussing less on making people gasp and more on actual good quality cinema. It’s a simple concept that leaves enough room for you to ask your own questions whilst still feeling somewhat complete, and not annoyingly open-ended. The shots are good, the characters are normal enough to be believable, and the colour palette is Fincher-esque; the muted tones perfectly complement the feelings of dread that run throughout. Whilst you don’t need to be concerned with what the whole thing is a metaphor of in order to enjoy the film, the possibility of there being that second reading of the narrative, for me, elevate it to a higher level. In other words, it’s got *Shrek voice* layers.

27. Juno (2007)

“I'm just gonna go ahead and nip this thing in the bud. Cuz you know, they say pregnancy often leads to…you know...an infant.”

I love Ellen Page. I love Michael Cera. Together they are the best thing ever. See, I’m not really much of a rom-com girl but I see this as less of a rom-com and more of a coming of age film with romantic snippets and great one liners. It’s sweet and whimsical and funny but also really fucking real in parts, and it’s definitely what I would consider a modern classic. If you haven’t watched it already, do!

28. Suspiria (2018)

“Love and manipulation, they share houses very often. They are frequent bedfellows.”

Witches! Ballet dancing! Decapitation! Tilda Swinton! What’s not to love? As soon as I saw the trailer for Suspiria, I knew I had to see it. Creepy but also beautifully shot and scored, it was worth the 8 month wait from the Venice Film Festival and eventual caving and watching on 123Movies after I couldn’t find the DVD on Amazon; I finally got to tick it off my watch list only to like it so much I had to add the original Suspiria back on.

29. Mulholland Drive (2001)

“I hope that I never see that face, ever, outside of a dream.”

Another film which had me like WTF by the end, I really recommend Mulholland Drive for anyone who wants to be vaguely creeped out and extremely confused at the same time. See, I really love a film where you spend the next few hours after watching researching all the different interpretations and reading interviews with the director. That sounds sarcastic, but honestly, I love it. It’s a moody, film-noir style mindfuck of a movie and even after doing my research I’m still quite baffled. That’s the best part.

30. Requiem for a Dream (2000)

“Purple in the morning, blue in the afternoon, orange in the evening.”

It took me a while to get on board with seeing Marlon Wayans in a serious role (I’ve seen White Chicks far too many times, clearly), but once I did, I was into it. To be totally honest, I don’t think there’s a single happy moment in this film; it comes up quite frequently as one of the most disturbing of all time, which I’m sure Aronofsky probably thinks of as another notch on his belt. Whilst imo, that’s quite a grandiose claim, Requiem for a Dream definitely stuck in my mind after I watched it. Even if you’ve never watched the film, the ending sequence is notorious for how fucked up it is and I do think it’s earned the infamy. What stuck out more to me, though, was how purposeful every shot and sequence felt in terms of trying to let you into the character’s states of mind, the short lived bursts of euphoria and the panicked downwards spirals. I think it will always be one of the most compelling films about addiction for highlighting how terrifyingly out of one’s control it can be.

31. Room (2015)

“No one is strong alone.”

This film made me cry buckets. Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay are wonderful, and everyone involved deserved all the Oscar hype. Every line was so heartfelt and emotive, and I loved Tremblay’s voiceovers. To translate the stream of consciousness of a kid from page to screen in a way that it remains believable in spite of its wisdom (not like those tweets where people try to make out their kid just casually made some off the cuff scathing political jibe at the dinner table) is quite the feat and similarly, I’m in awe of how the director managed to communicate the pain and confusion of the characters on a level that transcended the physical confines of said room. The escape scene had my heart in my mouth. All this being said, I should really read the book because it’s supposed to be even better.

32. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (2010)

‘When I'm around you, I kind of feel like I'm on drugs. Not that I do drugs. Unless you do drugs, in which case I do them all the time. All of them.”

Michael Cera and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are two of my favourite actors and so it’s a given that Scott Pilgrim is one of my favourite films. It’s such a fun, easy watch and the video-game inspired directorial style makes it, in terms of cinematography, probably the most memorable Edgar Wright film on this list imo. The concept, based on the graphic novel, is quite a simple one but that doesn’t stop it being entertaining from start to finish. The rest of the cast is great too: Brie Larson, Anna Kendrick, Mae Whitman, Aubrey Plaza and Alison Pill (Ivy from American Horror Story, anyone?) All make appearances, plus Chris Evans. He’s Captain America or something, right?

33. Scream (1996)

“No, please don't kill me, Mr. Ghostface, I wanna be in the sequel!”

The Scream movies were my absolute favourite when I was just getting into “horror” as a 13/14 year old because they were always pretty tame in terms of scares but nonetheless, always a trip. Though, controversially, I’d probably say I enjoyed Scream 4 just as much as the first one (I am a bit of an Emma Roberts stan), I chose the first one purely for how iconic it was and how ahead of its time. It mixed satire and horror in a way that hadn’t really been done in such a mainstream way before and made it possible for films like Cabin in the Woods and The Final Girls to do so well.

34. Shaun of the Dead (2004)

“Take car. Go to Mum's. Kill Phil, sorry, grab Liz, go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for all of this to blow over.”

I’ve seen Shaun of the Dead way, way, way too many times and I’ll still probably watch it again the next time ITV decide to show it too. It makes me laugh, it’s got lots of good gore and it’s easy to follow. The perfect film to put on whilst eating a take away, as long as you’re not too squeamish, lol.

35. Silence of the Lambs (1991)

“Well, Clarice. Have the lambs stopped screaming?”

Jodie Foster’s portrayal of Clarice Starling makes her one of my favourite movie heroines of all time; quietly courageous, she was the type of female lead that really hadn’t cropped up all that much in the films that came before Silence of the Lambs. And despite its problematic handling of certain issues, it’s a fucking incredible film. The thing about Hannibal Lecter is that they don’t have to tell you that he’s always one step ahead, you see it for yourself (the elevator scene!) and so it kinda feels like he’s looking into YOUR soul too. The confrontation at the end between Clarice and Buffalo Bill is one of the most nerve-racking 15 minutes or so of film I’ve ever watched, and if I ever get asked to justify why I’m scared of the dark again, I’m going to point straight to this scene. Yes, I’m a baby but my fears are VALID!

36. Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

“I do this! Time after time after time! I do all this shit for other people! And then I wake up and I'm empty! I have nothing!”

As you can probably tell from my inclusion of Mother! on this list, I love Jennifer Lawrence, and this is probably my favourite drama film of hers. The way that she and Bradley Cooper portray two people struggling with mental illness is refreshingly honest in that it shows it can make you quite an unlikeable person at times, albeit someone who is just trying their best to survive. That being said, in spite of the subject matter it’s still a relatively light and easy-to-watch film. The diner scene in particular is a masterclass in realistic conflict and reaction, and I hate to be “ooo, edgy” but several of the lines did strike a really deep chord.

37. The Babadook (2014)

“Sometimes I just want to smash your head against the brick wall until your fucking brains pop out.”

The best thing that the Babadook does, much like It Follows, is instils a sense of deep seated dread in you before you even see the supernatural forces at work. The washed out colour palette, apparent emotional disconnect of Jennifer Kent’s (who also directs!) character, and the disorienting movements of the camera all help to create a lingering unease that is just as effective as the grossly uncanny appearance of the monster/ghost/creature/whatever-you-want-to-call-it himself. It’s obvious that Kent had a very clear vision of the story she wanted to tell and even more so that she is a very talented woman; I hope to see even more female directed horror films in the future if the Babadook is anything to go by. The way this film blurred the lines between the inner struggles of a grieving family and the outside supposedly paranormal influence was unsettling as fuck and to get into the psychology of a mother left on her own to raise a small child and how terrifying that might feel is something only a immensely intuitive and empathetic woman could do. Props to her.

38. The Craft (1996)

“We are the weirdos, mister.”

Not to sound all halloween-is-the-only-day-of-the-year-I-care-about VSCO girl (although that might actually be quite an accurate description of me to be honest), but if there’s one thing that sticks in my mind about the craft, it’s the aesthetic. It’s kind of what I aim to emulate in every aspect of my life, NBD. Seriously, when I was trying to pick a still, I was spoilt for choice. The rituals, the outfits, the witchy interiors; there’s this one GIF of Nancy, Rochelle, Bonnie (and maybe Sarah?) lighting all these gorgeous candles and if I could walk around with it permanently looping on my forehead, I would. And ignoring my shallow reasons for liking The Craft, it’s just a really good film. Nancy Downs is probably one of the most interesting female villains of all time and I’m obsessed with anything that explores magic and the occult. It’s equal parts dark and girly, not to use that in a derivative way at all, in that not only does it teeter on the line of being scary, it’s also a gritty exploration of female friendship, power and jealousy. If you are a halloween-is-the-only-day-of-the-year-I-care-about VSCO girl, definitely watch it; more power to you.

39. The Favourite (2018)

“All I know is, your carriage awaits and my maid is on her way up with something called a pineapple.”

I’d seen The Favourite twice within, like, a month of it being released in British cinemas and I do not have a single regret about that; well, maybe a minor regret in paying over £12 to see it in the Leicester Square Odeon with the assumption that the extra price meant fancy seats (it didn’t), but on the whole, I’m pretty happy with my life choices. Emma Stone, Olivia Colman, and the period Mean Girls comparison drew me in but I came back the second time for the costumes, the dialogue, the editing and Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough. Or Rachel Weiss, in other words. See, The Favourite is superbly casted in that Yorgos Lanthimos must have known we can’t help but see Emma Stone as the “good girl”/protagonist and so it took me a whole second viewing to see her character for what she really was, and realise The Favourite is in some ways less a story of Abigail Masham’s rise to power and more the tragic disintegration of Sarah and Anne’s relationship. I’m sure you can view the film both ways but to view it as the latter brings a whole new dimension to it and the ending, imo. I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t go into the film expecting some vaguely historical lesbianism and that definitely made for a slightly awkward birthday viewing with my family BUT I wasn’t at all disappointed.

40. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

“If you dig a hole in the yard, better make it a big one.”

This film is slow-moving, weird and the acting can be stiff at the best of times, and yet somehow all these things add to the (take a shot every time I say-) dread that builds throughout. You don’t know exactly how things are going to end, but you do know it’s not well. Like in his latest directorial entry of The Favourite, Yorgos Lanthimos excels in the realm of the strange and vaguely fantastical through his script, score and cinematography, and so even though the settings are quite mundane, The Killing of a Sacred Deer kind of feels like some macabre modern fairytale, the moral of which I can’t quite work out. I can’t imagine anyone playing Martin more unnervingly than Barry Keoghan and I’m never going to complain about Nicole Kidman, but it’s the imagery of the tears of blood, Steven’s children dragging themselves along the floor and the ending scene that stuck with me long after the film had finished. If you’ve got the patience and you enjoyed the style of The Favourite, there’ll definitely be something positive for you to take away from The Killing of a Sacred Deer.

41. The Orphanage (2007)

“Seeing is not believing. It's the other way around. Believe, and you will see.”

When I was first told by my year 11 Spanish teacher that we were going to be watching The Orphanage in class, I definitely didn’t foresee myself including it in a top 50 films list 5 years later and yet here we are. I mean, I shouldn’t have been surprised really as she did tell us it was good and I had frequently seen it included in lists of the best horror films but as with pretty much anything our teachers would put on as an excuse not to teach for a few lessons (I’m really NOT complaining here, they deserve the break and I would definitely do the same, lol), my expectations were definitely low. Side note, I also since found out that Bilbao seems like a pretty cool place and there was a reason she kept banging on about that too, and so moral of the story, teachers do sometimes have some decent recommendations BUT my assumption was that The Orphanage must be pretty tame for her to show it to us. Parents-even of 16 of year olds-love to complain, lol. And to be fair, it isn’t so much in your face scary so much as it is kind of tragic with an undertone of spooky but I really enjoyed it. I want to say that part of what I enjoyed about it so much was the mystery element but honestly I think a lot of that comes from the fact that it’s in Spanish so I had to work to follow what was actually going on.

42. The Ring (2002)

“I can't imagine being stuck down a well all alone like that. How long could you survive?”

The Ring does visuals better than any other horror. The contorted faces of Samara’s victims, the infamous tape and the shots of the well all have a staple in pop culture for a reason. Whilst I don’t find Samara herself particularly frightening, the lore and mythology surrounding her feels so authentically creepy; the tape in particular reminds me of the kind of weird YouTube video you might stumble across when you’re supposed to be trying to get to bed late at night and instantly hate yourself for watching. Naomi Watts is a compelling lead and though I was probably rooting for Sarah Michelle Gellar in the American remake of the Grudge more (I still low-key associate her with the live-action Scooby-Doo and I have no shame), to compare other noughties horror classics, on the whole The Ring is definitely the better quality movie.

43. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

“I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living, or get busy dying.”

The Shawshank Redemption is just an unequivocally good film. On paper, it doesn’t necessarily have any of the things that draw me to a movie in it, but it’s brilliantly acted, written and shot. It’s frequently cited as one of the greatest movies of all time and I think that’s a very fair statement.

44. The Shining (1980)

“Wendy? Darling? Light of my life. I'm not gonna hurt ya. You didn't let me finish my sentence. I said, I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just going to bash your brains in!”

I love The Shining. In terms of scares, not all that much happens in it, but what we do see (the corpse in the bath tub is fucking horrifying) undoubtedly leaves an impact. The score is so unnervingly perfect that I can still hear the sound that’s made when we see those 2…puppets? Costumed people? Basically some kind of weird furry activity-which believe me, makes sense if you’ve seen it-going on. And I only need to see a still of the Overlook Hotel and I can immediately feel the sense of claustrophobia and growing tension that Stanley Kubrick so effectively communicated. A lot of people shat on Shelley Duvall’s acting at the time and whilst she obviously didn’t match Jack Nicholson’s energy, she did come across as a woman genuinely traumatised which is sad when you do consider the effect that shooting the film had on her. With that aside, The Shining is a massively pivotal part of horror history and I’m very excited to see Doctor Sleep this year!

45. The Virgin Suicides (1999)

“Obviously, Doctor, you've never been a 13-year-old girl.”

It really is a toss up between Marie Antoinette and The Virgin Suicides when it comes to Sofia Coppola’s best film, and so of course I had to include them both. See, whereas Marie Antoinette could be the visual incarnation of an album like Marina and the Diamonds’ Electra Heart or Charli XCX’s Sucker (if you ignore the less than fortunate ending, lmao), The Virgin Suicides plays out more to the tunes of something less bubblegum pop and more breezy and mellow, maybe LDR’s Ultraviolence or Honeymoon. You could say in a way that this film romanticises suicide and you’d definitely have a point, but I think considering the fact that it’s based on a book and was made in a time when we were less aware of the damage popular media can do (I think there’s a similar point to be made about the way the villain of Silence of the Lambs’s gender is portrayed and linked to his motivation), I give it a pass. It does also kind of make sense for the film to take this approach; the Lisbon girls are viewed through the eyes of a group of boys who are infatuated with them but also ultimately know nothing about them. In a way, it’s almost a critique of the way these boys think and a commentary on just how stifling and confusing young womanhood can be. I think it’s a beautiful film and a perfect adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel.

46. The VVitch (2015)

“Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?”

Is it sad that I have this quote tattooed on my back? Is it biased for me to say no? Because for me, just as much as the Virgin Suicides is about how stifling society’s expectations of young women and how they are supposed to think and act, The VVitch is about the demonisation of girls who go against this and how liberation and sexual freedom for so long were perceived as the result of some kind of satanic and deeply disturbing force at work rather than individual expressions of freedom and femininity. The ending is HAPPY, okay, and if you take away the misty, barren landscapes and the isolation and the paranoia and the baby eating witches and the accusations and the demonic goats, it’s kinda a dark feminist fairy tale to go against puritan panic. I mean, let’s be honest, *spoilers* Thomasin’s siblings were annoying AF. Not that I’m condoning child murder on any level, but you know. In a narrative context was it really so much of a loss when those little shits got the chop?

47. Thoroughbreds (2017)

“At the end of the day, I have a perfectly healthy brain. It just doesn't contain feelings. And that doesn't necessarily make me a bad person. It just means I have to work a little harder than everybody else to be good.”

I love Olivia Cooke. I love Anya Taylor-Joy. I love concise, cutting dialogue, the idea of middle class American social politics, and a little bit of (fictional, of course) murder thrown in there for good measure. Thus, I really love Thoroughbreds. If you watched it with the sound off, it’d be a Polo Ralph Lauren promotional film that gets really dark at the end, and what’s not to like about that?

48. We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)

“What are these people watching, people like me?”

I still haven’t got round to reading the book this film was based on and I feel like that’s something I need to get on top of ASAP, because it’s been sitting on my shelf for a long ass time. However, based on the little I know about how faithful a film adaptation it is, I think Ezra Miller and Tilda Swinton were a wonderful pairing, and this is a film that’s all about the characters, so it’s a good job they were so well cast. Miller does a great job at getting right under your skin and answering a lot of my questions about what leads someone to commit the kind of horrific crime that his character, Kevin, does. Arrogance, done subtly, is hard to pull off but he nails it, and Swinton is very, very believable as a haunted, grief-stricken mother wrestling with the natural question of the part she played in her son’s actions and the scrutiny that comes with it. Not only that but from the offset, every part of the cinematography helps to convey the feeling of impending doom that builds right up until the climax. The colour palette in particular, which for the most part doesn’t stray too far from the mundane greys and bleak washed-out tones perhaps reflective of Eva’s state of mind, does a great job of foreshadowing what to come when it quite purposefully does take a diversion. It’s all about the red, apparently. Take note.

49. Whiplash (2014)

“Any fucking moron can wave his arms and keep people in tempo. I was there to push people beyond what's expected of them. I believe that is an absolute necessity.”

You honestly wouldn’t believe that a film about drumming could feel like a horror and yet here Whiplash is, leaving me on the edge of my seat and wincing for, like, 2 hours straight. Tonally it couldn’t be more different from the other Damien Chazelle film on this list (La La Land), and yet it flows just as seamlessly and has his same impeccable rhythm; every word, yell and snarl slots perfectly into place and every swivel of the camera is flawlessly executed. If you’re looking for an intense and fast-paced drama, I can’t recommend Whiplash enough.

50. Zombieland (2009)

“Twelve's the new twenty. Gun please.”

Zombieland has only one fault: that Jesse Eisenberg’s character wasn’t played by Michael Cera. But it has Emma Stone and Woody Harrelson so I’ll let it slide. Not much to say about this one other than it’s a wild ride from start to finish, but simultaneously easy to watch and probably the most lighthearted zombie film out there. Almost like The Hangover or something along those lines, but with the addition of the undead. It’s a hard film not to enjoy and I’m just really hoping they don’t fuck up the sequel.

DISCLAIMER: 90% of these stills are from Filmgrab, it’s an amazing website!

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echodrops · 6 years ago

Text

Why Do Certain Ships Become So Popular? (And Why Should Writers Rethink When They Do?) - Part 2

<- Start back at part 1 or you’re going to be very confused!

This time my victim of choice example is Klance (and Allurance and Lotura too).

In a previous post, I established the premise that shippers focus their efforts and attention on ships between characters who exhibit the most compelling dynamism, the greatest amount of emotional energy--good feelings or bad--that directly relates to one or more of the characters’ growth arcs... or the two characters whose emotional interactions most significantly affect a story’s main plot.

This idea (that shippers are looking for strong, dynamic emotional interactions that are directly tied to plot) feeds directly into my second premise: part of the popularity of slash ships comes from the fact that, very often, the strongest and most plot-relevant emotional events don’t occur between male characters and female characters, but between male protagonists and other male characters--due to a combination of 1) a much smaller number of female characters, 2) a majority of writers for anime/manga and American shows being male; 3) under-developed or poorly written female characters, and 4) the tendency to situate males in the hero, sidekick, and villain positions, increasing the chance that their actions will have greater importance in the story’s main plot.

In short, writers can unintentionally cause fans to prefer non-canon slash ships by writing more dynamic, better developed, and more plot-relevant interactions between their male leads than between the main character and his designated female love interest.

Now hang on. Before you get all up in arms, yes, I’m perfectly aware there are plenty of other reasons slash ships are popular, including:

A huge desire among LGBT+ fans for positive representation

The fact that m/m interactions appeal to straight women/others the same way w/w interactions are sexy to straight men/others

The tendency of shows, particularly from Japan, to deliberately queer-bait

The fact that many women vicariously ship male characters together because it allows them to imagine a relationship of “genuine equals,” particularly in areas where women feel they are still not treated equally to men

The tendency for “pair the spares” to result in m/m ships simply due to a lower number of available female characters

And so on

This isn’t written to negate any of those reasons or to imply that they aren’t major factors in the popularity of slash ships, not at all, but it has always, always struck me as reductive when I hear things like “Slash ships are only popular because girls think two dudes together is hot” (the fetish argument) or “Girls will ship any two good-looking male characters together regardless of canon. They just hate het ships” (the fetish argument with a side dish of misogyny).

In particular, this last one--an argument I’ve heard from a lot of male fandom members (but of course not all)--has always gotten under my skin, because it implies that girls who ship aren’t capable of critically analyzing the media we consume and identifying characters who have meaningful interactions and interesting potential. That we, unlike those viewers who adhere to the canon (typically heterosexual) relationships, are somehow reading these stories wrong, blind to “real” romance (namely the one between the male hero and his best girl/waifu), and/or misusing male characters with zero regard for their personalities--worse, this argument also implies that female fans deliberately hate or under-appreciate oh-so-perfectly written female characters whose romantic subplots are totally natural and not at all an unfortunate side effect of their position as the token chick on the team...

At its best, the statement: “Girls will ship any two good-looking male characters” is demeaning in its dismissal of a majority of slash shippers and their ability to read characters. At its worse, it’s this exact dismissal that continues to allow so many (primarily male) authors to write under-developed, unimportant, token female love interests: “It’s the girls [or the slash shippers] who are weird; there’s nothing wrong with the way we’re doing things.”

But guess what happens when well-written female characters whose actions are central to a story’s main plot are introduced and highlighted? Guess what happens when the emotional energy between a female lead and her male counterpart is the most compelling and dynamic in the series?

The (often canon) het ship suddenly--somehow--magically becomes well-liked by fans!

Zutara and Kataang vastly out-strip any slash Avatar pairings in popularity. Noragami’s Yatori commands a staggering following in the fandom. Is there anyone in their right mind who thinks Alucard/Integra wasn’t the best pairing to end Hellsing with? No one debates whether or not Ahiru and Fakir from Princess Tutu are true love. In Doctor Who, Rose and the Doctor reign so far supreme in the fandom that none of the other ships even need to exist though I actually prefer River. Terra and Aqua from Kingdom Hearts beat out every other Terra or Aqua ship by a mile (and this is in a series notorious for hating and under-shipping its female characters). Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun has no problem juggling three very well-accepted het ships--even while having a scene in which two male characters sit down and draw a gay manga together. Ain’t nobody suggesting Mr. Bates and Anna from Downton Abbey should be with anyone else, right? And this is just in the handful of shows I personally have time to watch. Anyone who reads or watches a series with well-written female characters can play this exact same game!

The obvious conclusion? Female fans are perfectly willing to ship heterosexual pairings--if they’re well-written.

It’s the same story all over again: when the real emotional energy, the dynamic core, the most plot-relevant interactions occur between a male and female character, they too can become the fan-preferred couple. (Shocking!)

Yes, yes, I hear you saying “B-But wait, sometimes the m/m ship is more popular even though the het love interest is well-written!” or “Sometimes girls ship guy characters who have never even met!” or “So what you’re saying is female fans wouldn’t ship slash if there were better het options available?”

1) Don’t get me wrong--there are certainly always exceptions. I’m pointing out a trend, not a rule. Sometimes a fandom has a separate, specific reason for elevating a non-canon slash ship above a well-written canon het ship. (Someone who is actually in the Fullmetal Alchemist fandom might be able to explain why Ed/Roy is more popular than Roy/Riza, probably?) And in situations where a slash ship and a het ship in a series both have equally strong emotional energy, my bet is that the slash ship will always come out on top because it gets the added benefit of people liking LGBT+ rep and straight girls (and anyone else) who just think m/m is hot.

2) Crack ships definitely do exist. But usually when a crack ship actually manages to become popular, it’s because fans have recognized the potential for a strong emotional energy between two characters. If the two characters could reasonably have strong tension because of similarities, differences, or other elements of their characters, then crack ships are still following the trend of aligning with emotional energy, even if that energy is only anticipated at the moment.

3) I definitely don’t mean to suggest that slash ships are shoddy seconds to fans who would “naturally” prefer het ships if good het ships were available. What I’m suggesting is only that it’s no surprise slash ships are so extremely and consistently popular across so many fandoms, because in terms of plot relevance, depth of writing, and meaningful interactions with each other, male characters so rarely have any real competition. A desire for LGBT+ representation and people living out power or equality fantasies through slash are certainly motivating factors and good and worthy reasons to write slash. But one unfortunate contributor to the popularity of slash ships is that male characters continue to occupy a place of privilege in modern narratives. Our heroes remain overwhelmingly male. Our sidekick/lancer/buddy characters remain overwhelmingly male. Our villain characters remain overwhelmingly male. That is to say: male characters continue to dominate all the most “plot relevant” roles in our narratives, and so long as male leads continue to be placed in roles where their most compelling emotional interactions and greatest sources of character growth are other male characters, slash ships will continue to dominate fandoms’ online presences.

(Hilarious: the dude bros who complain about the number of slash ships in their favorite series are often the very same ones supporting and becoming the writers whose shallow portrayals of female characters further bolster the popularity of said slash ships in the first place...)

Okay, I’ve made you wait long enough.

What does all of this have to do with Voltron?

Well, you’ve probably figured that part out already, actually.

If we consider the “emotional energy” and tension among Voltron’s main characters, there’s absolutely no question who is at the core, where the most plot relevant and meaningful emotional interactions have occurred, where the “heart” of the story is, in essence...

Hint: It’s Keith.

(Just a heads up: I’m going to use Klance as the example because it’s the most popular Voltron pairing according to the numbers, but any Sheith fan worth their salt could obviously very, very easily apply these ideas one-for-one to that ship, because clearly Shiro’s interactions with Keith are some of the most emotionally tense and compelling in the entire Voltron series--they are a consistent core of feeling energy for the show which naturally leads many people to support this ship. A large part of the reason that this post is tagged Sheith is because I am absolutely inviting Sheith shippers to use the theory and lens in this essay to analyze Sheith--using this idea to analyze Sheith will reveal a lot of intense emotional energy to discuss and validate that ship. I’m very tempted to put this paragraph in all caps or something so the Sheith shippers will actually read it and stop badgering me...)

Keith (and his relation with other characters) is the core of Voltron’s main plot, both in that he is positioned as the leader/the hero/the protagonist, and because, obviously, almost all of the series’ emotional high points (with the exception of “Crystal Venom” and Pidge’s search for Matt) somehow feature him.

Keith isn’t just central in the main plot though; he’s also central in the individual arcs of two other characters: Lance and Shiro. He’s a motivating and driving factor in both of these characters’ stories and change throughout the series, affecting their actions, attitudes, and self-worth, and so it should come as absolutely no surprise that Sheith and Klance are the series’ most popular ships.

But since Klance is the most popular pairing, the person I really want to talk about is Lance.

You can say a lot of things about Lance and the raging debates that occurred over whether or not Lance is a straight loverboy trope or not, but I don’t think any viewer of Voltron would deny that, if we consider the main cast members (Team Voltron plus Lotor), the core of Lance’s emotional energy and tension is Keith. His interactions with Keith--not even in a romantic sense, simply in a storytelling sense--are more important and dynamic than his on-screen interactions with any other main character.

From his laser focus on Keith at Garrison that caused him to invent a rivalry (this word is basically just a synonym for “emotional energy” at this point):

To comedic banter:

To the infamous bonding moment:

To a fledgling “right hand man” partnership:

To Lance’s insecurities:

The story of Voltron itself continuously reiterates that Lance’s interactions with Keith are more dynamic, more intense (even if we’re talking about “Rawr, I hate you, we’re rivals!” emotions instead of lovey-dovey stuff), and more plot relevant than Lance’s interactions with other characters in the series. Lance’s emotional arc is irrevocably centered on Keith until very, very late in the series.

More importantly: Lance’s motivation and personal plot line as a whole are centered on Keith. At it’s most basic, Lance’s character arc seems like it was supposed to center on Lance’s sense of self-worth--despite acting confident, Lance was actually insecure about his ability to help save the universe. Theoretically, his narrative should have focused on him becoming confident about his place on the team and his value as both a friend and fellow paladin to the other main characters. His arc should have been (and I guess theoretically still is? It’s just not... ever given much attention?) about him overcoming his insecurity by learning to recognize his own unique talents and discovering the things that only he can do to help Team Voltron succeed. (Hell, the entire Allurance thing could have been framed as “She’s completely out of my league” ---> “Whoa, originally I was putting Allura on a pedestal but actually she’s as much a member of this team as me--we’re in this together, side-by-side.”)

Whether or not the semi-incoherent narrative of Voltron actually delivered on this promise is iffy, but the set up in season 1-3ish is all there and all Keith:

At Garrison, Lance viewed Keith as a road block in his quest to becoming a fighter class student. Keith’s achievements and talent became a measuring stick for Lance’s own capabilities. He imagined a rivalry to make himself feel better/less insecure. His drive not to lose out to Keith is what dragged Hunk and Pidge along to Shiro’s rescue and ultimately led to the discovery of the Blue Lion. Lance comparing himself unfavorably to Keith as a paladin and pilot contributed to (mostly) one-sided animosity throughout the early seasons that gave way to a scene of Lance attempting to step down from the team because he didn’t see himself worthy of the position in comparison to Keith:

The logical conclusion that I think most fans would draw from these many scenes is that, as part of Lance’s overall character growth across the whole series, he needed to have a moment in which he recognized that he isn’t--and has never been--inferior to Keith.

Ultimately, the first five seasons continually reiterate the idea that, in terms of interactions, energy, and dynamic character growth, the most important main character in Lance’s story (other than Lance) is Keith.

Keith’s interactions with Lance are directly and immediately tied to Lance’s individual character arc/growth, and Keith is definitely the focus of Lance’s most meaningful emotional tension throughout seasons 1-5 at least.

Which means it shouldn’t come as any surprise that Klance is the most popular Lance ship, particularly when you set it side-by-side with the (increasingly canon) Allurance.

I just want to make this abundantly clear before I begin: I have absolutely nothing against Allurance shippers and, until it was done so poorly in season 5-6 (and potentially 7, I still haven’t even finished that one), I actually was okay with the possibility of Allurance being endgame because I thought there was potential for it to be done well. After what we’ve been given, I actually feel the Allurance shippers have been horribly shortchanged by the show’s real writing, and that I can’t personally support the ship the way it’s being written, but that’s not the fault of the characters themselves or anything inherently “wrong” with the ship. So please don’t take the rest of what I say here as ship hate--this is just observations from a literary analysis standpoint.

What has prevented Lance and Allura from gaining significant traction with the fans despite the fact that it’s edging close to canon territory if it isn’t canon already?

Well, one problem might be that Lance’s emotional energy has no bearing on Allura’s individual character development--and Allura’s emotional peaks have no bearing on Lance’s personal arc either (at least as far as it was established in early seasons and then left essentially unresolved).

Allura’s arc has, throughout the course of the show, centered on her ability to defeat her family’s foes, her grief for her lost people and planet, and her desire to follow in her father’s footsteps as a leader and in the Altean traditions as well. None of this has much of anything to do with Lance. Her growth as a character occurs--with the exception of the single shining scene on Naxela--completely independently of Lance. She lets her father’s memory go on her own in “Crystal Venom.” She faces Zarkon head-to-head by herself after rescuing Shiro. It’s Shiro who stops her from over-working herself to aid the coalition, not Lance. It’s Keith’s whose Galra blood forces her to re-examine and overcome some of her universal hatred for the Galra. It’s Lotor who helps her reach Oriande, and her own ingenuity that allows her to tame the White Lion and learn the secrets of Altean alchemy.

With the exception of the scene on Naxela where it was specifically Lance’s speech that motivated Allura to save the day, virtually all of her most charged emotions occurred elsewhere and with other characters, and there’s nothing in her personal goals--to be a strong leader, to revive her culture, to save the universe--that is intrinsically tied with Lance. He can encourage and aid her in those pursuits, but so can Shiro, Keith, Pidge, Hunk, and Coran. The role of fellow paladin and supporting ally isn’t unique to Lance. His interactions with her don’t fill a niche that drives her personal plot lines outside of the romance subplot.

And the same thing is true in reverse.

We get this nice scene of Allura encouraging Lance and helping him work on his insecurity... And then it is promptly never mentioned again. (Where did the sword go, guys? Where???) Lance gives up Blue to Allura and she’s almost immediately gifted at piloting the Blue Lion, while Lance is shown struggling with Red (once more in Keith’s shadow) and still hadn’t, as of the end of season 6, seemed to have mastered it to the same extent as Keith. It’s Keith, Laika (an alien dog--not Allura guys, an alien dog) and the SPACE MICE that Lance expresses his insecurities to, and it’s Coran who is there for Lance’s touching scene expressing his longing to return to Earth. Lance’s personal arc about growing into the paladin role and becoming a selfless person who puts the team before his own desire for glory once again occurs independently of Allura, with little to no interaction, and even fewer emotional high points between them, in the entire first half of the show.

For both of these characters, their “real emotional energy”--their tension both positive and negative--occurs with other characters. The “believability” and energy of this ship is diminished by the fact that it simply isn’t the most well-written of character pairs in the series. The romance subplot isn’t organically tied to either of their personal plot lines, and the depth of their one-on-one interactions pales in comparison to their, particularly Lance’s, interactions with other characters.

But huh... would you look at that... When a potential romantic interest came along whose interactions with Allura were both directly tied to her personal arc, her central character motivations, and her emotional high points...

Isn’t it amazing how well it was received by the fandom--despite the fact that no one was really sure whether Lotor was evil or not? Now of course, I’m not going to ignore the fact that Lotura was probably helped along by leaving Keith, Lance, and Shiro free to ship elsewhere, but I don’t think the actual chemistry in the series’ writing itself should be ignored.

There was significantly, significantly more tension and nuance to Allura and Lotor’s interactions that any of Allura’s interactions with any of the other main cast, and their interactions operated not just in a romantic capacity, but also as a vehicle for Allura’s personal character growth:

The push and pull of these two characters and their scenes together sparked change in both of them, which augmented and increased the quality of their romantic arc while also furthering both of their own individual goals as characters.

The story painted them as equals with mutual interests, a shared interest in Altean culture, both victims (at least initially) of their parents’ war, both distrusting but ultimately lonely people who were longing for connection to, in Allura’s case, what had been lost, and in Lotor’s case, what he theoretically had never been able to have (except the writers did him dirty so jk).

I just don’t think there are many people who would argue that Allurance--or Allura’s interactions with any other male character--have been written with near as much depth, engagement, and integration with her motivations as Lotor and Allura’s were. Their plot literally got more screen time one-on-one in a single seven episode season than Allura and Lance did in the 43+ other episodes...

And for the the short time that it lasted, this pairing was embraced by many fans. I might be biased because I immediately went out and followed every Lotura blog I could find, but to me it seems like it was well-liked and generally well-regarded among shippers until the colony reveal (and by many still after). I was very excited by the writing of this ship and definitely wanted something meaningful to come out of it. Part of the fandom’s immense outrage at Lotor’s reveal was, I think, linked to the fact that this ship had been so convincingly written into the series before it.

This, to me, is a perfect example of a situation in which the emotional exchange between two characters exceeds the strength and depth of their interactions with others, leading to immediate adoption and approval as a ship by the fandom. Where the real energy is, there are the shippers.

PHEW! Let me take a deep breath and come up for air. There’s a lot going on here, but boiling it down to the basic point I’m trying to make, and which I’ll address in a lot more depth in the third and final part of this: the way that a story is written profoundly affects what ships will or will not become popular with fans. Shipping isn’t an unpredictable beast that grows completely independently of its source material. The ways writers craft interactions between their characters--and the places where they invest the most and infuse the most life--are powerful tools that impact how fans view and come to love seeing characters both separately and in romantic relationships.

To that end, while there are numerous reasons slash ships are popular and continue to grow in popularity, one reason that should be considered seriously by all creative writers--fanfiction authors or aspiring original novelists--is the notion that shipping often aligns with the core of a story’s or character’s emotional energy, the pairs with the highest tension, the electric pulse of the story’s most meaningful moments. Non-canon ships of any sexuality swell to mega-popularity when fans perceive more depth and significance in the interactions of characters outside the canon pair, when the emotional work of the story is happening somewhere outside the intentional romantic plot line. Sometimes this is fine. But more often, this is a bad sign for creators--a sign that you’ve fumbled in the writing of your main romantic leads.

As writers, questions we rarely ask ourselves but often should are: “Where is the core of the tension in my story? Whose interactions are deepest and most central to the development of my main character?”

In other words: Where is the real emotional energy in my story?

In part 3 I’m going to provide one more excellent case-in-point, and then close out with a discussion of some take-aways for writers from all this that might help strengthen your romantic subplots, whatever your genre or whoever your characters.

Go on to Part 3 ->

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back-and-totheleft · 6 years ago

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A test for ‘Platoon’

In January 1987, the Chicago Tribune invited a group of Vietnam veterans, then in treatment for PTSD, to privately screen Platoon and provide their reactions. They were accompanied by a mental health professional for safety and support. As the article notes, “Most of the veterans were visibly shaken or in tears, well after the movie had ended.”

The critics have embraced it; audiences across the country are now flocking to see it. Indeed, the national opening of the Vietnam war film ''Platoon'' was pushed up two weeks in response to intense media coverage of it as a special event.

But the one audience reaction that hasn`t been heard from yet, as Ted Koppel said on a recent ''Nightline'' program devoted to the film, is the Vietnam veteran himself. What do combat veterans think of the film that claims to be the first fiction film to truthfully portray ground fighting in Vietnam?

To find out, we enlisted the help of the Chicago chapter of the Veterans Bedside Network, which assembled a group of six Vietnam combat veterans to watch a private screening of ''Platoon.'' Five men, all of whom saw front-line duty as Marines, were accompanied by a social worker-vet who has been treating them recently for post-traumatic stress disorder, which can strike anyone suffering from trauma.

Warning for frank discussions of violence, combat and mental illness.

Most of the men are 40 years old now, which meant they were about 20 when they saw battle. Each had resentment about how the war was conducted at the command level and how he was treated when he got back home.

More subtle, in some cases, was the barely hidden pain caused by having participated in or at least witnessed the killing of Vietnamese civilians. That nightmare is recalled in ''Platoon'' by a My Lai-style massacre sequence that makes such hideous violence seem reasonable.

For those who have yet to see ''Platoon,'' the movie was written and directed by Oliver Stone, a college dropout, who like the film`s young hero, played by Charlie Sheen, volunteered for infantry action in Vietnam to prove his manhood.

The film follows his bloody tour of duty with a platoon near the Cambodian border in 1967. And Stone`s film did its job extremely well, according to the veterans in our group, providing an eye-popping portrait of what Vietnam combat was all about: the heat, filth, confusion, fear and rotting bodies -- white, black, and yellow.

The veterans watching the movie were told very little about the film before it started. They were simply asked to take notes and to keep their reactions to themselves for a series of individual post-film interviews that would avoid any influence of ''group think.'' Then, they were told, they would reassemble as a unit to discuss the film and just how true-to-life any war film can be.

What follows, first, are the individual reactions of veterans and their counselor. Most of the veterans were visibly shaken or in tears, well after the movie had ended.

THOMAS WILLIAMS

''I served in Vietnam in 1966. I was a scout. And that scene of [the American platoon] being overrun, I've experienced that. The pain and the killing is shown right -- there`s no mercy.

'Having to kill like that and then having to come back here and having to pretend like nothing happened because you can`t tell anyone the horror of what it was like: This is what Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome is all about.

You get flashes of scenes like the ones in this movie, which is the closest I`ve ever seen to the real thing.

It was hell, man. And the first thing they had written on screen before the movie began -- that quote from Ecclesiastes about `losing your youth and becoming old` -- that`s very deep. That`s what happened over there.''

Williams, 39, with tears in his eyes, said he saw combat for 9 1/2 months in Vietnam. The most brutal battle he was involved in was called Operation Hastings.

''We fought the 324th B Division of the North Vietnamese. We fought them for 4 1/2 hours. They cut off our platoon from the rest of the battalion. Thirty-two of us killed approximately 1,000 men. That scene at the very end of the movie with [the overhead shot] all of the dead bodies in the valley -- it was exactly like that. Exactly.''

Tears were running down Williams` face.

''I thought I was going to die [in that battle]. The guy next to me, a round went through his head and blew the left side of his brains and skull onto the right side of my face. The guy carrying the [Vietnamese] flag, I hit him, and the guy next to him I unloaded a magazine [of bullets] in him and he still didn`t want to drop. I reloaded and I threw grenades, and that`s the only way that I made it. Out of 32 Marines, only five lived.

It hurts, man. It hurts. `Cause a lot of guys died for nothing. For nothing. Nothing."

FRANK KAUZLARICH

''The character portrayals were outstanding; they didn't `Hollywood it up,` '' said Kauzlarich, 40, who served in 1968-9 as a helicopter crew chief. ''They had the details right about the leeches--and the dust everywhere when [the college kid] arrived in Vietnam in the very first scene. I saw the same dust and the body bags when I first got there, and I thought to myself, `What the hell am I getting into?`

''The characters were all right on: the good, the bad, and the ugly, you might say. Also it showed the things you had to do -- the people you had to leave behind. As a helicopter crew chief, I saw areas I simply couldn't get into, and we had to leave people behind.''

Kauzlarich was different from the rest of the group in two ways. He didn't want his photograph taken, and he appeared to be the most composed after the movie. His self control, he intimated, grew out of his job in Vietnam.

''As a crew chief, I lived in my chopper. I had to maintain the chopper and make sure I was always ready to take off and get our guys who usually were in deep [shit].

''But my eyes were watered up during the movie. 'I just had a little more time to get myself together. I`ll be keyed up for a couple of days. It`s a good movie. He portrayed it all very well: the noise, the dust, the crap.

He did a good job, but no one could ever tell you about Vietnam in a movie. They can`t show the pain, the absurdities, the horror. You end up being an animal yourself in order to survive. You don`t have time to register the horror, until it just wells up in you. It was 13 years before I began reliving the thing. I got flashbacks of sounds and smells.''

TERRY TIDD

''That`s the most realistic movie I've ever seen,'' said Tidd, a burly, bearded man, who has just turned 40. ''I`m shaking inside."

''One thing that was good about it is that they didn't glamorize the killing and dying. Some of the other movies about Vietnam made it look like it was too much fun.

I just want people to know that [American soldiers] did go back and kill [Vietnamese] people in villages like that. But the people that did it,'' Tidd said, his voice cracking, ''weren`t rotten people. But if you go into a village, and there are no VC, and all you see are women and children, and you step outside of that village and you saw your buddies getting killed, and they`re screaming, well, some guys went back to the village.

''And this film showed it was that kind of a dirty war. I just wish people could know that we weren`t just a bunch of baby killers. We really thought we were fighting for our country and to stop the spread of Communism. And people who died over there, maybe they have an advantage over us who lived through it. Because we know it was a lost cause. They died not knowing it.

''I want to get my ma and dad to see this movie. I got a 13-year-old boy I might want to take. It may be too heavy, but he`s asked me a lot about Vietnam, and I probably should take him to see this.''

Tidd served in 1966 with the Marine I Corps near Da Nang.

''If anyone wants to know what the war is like, this would be a good one for them.''

LARRY BRIMM

"It can`t be fully felt unless you`ve been there. [The taste of death] just stays in your throat. I brush my tongue every morning, but I can`t get rid of it."

Brimm, 40, a 1965-6 Marine Corp veteran, also seemed composed as he stepped out of the screening room to talk. But then he opened his hands. His palms were full of sweat and creases formed by dug-in nails.

''As far as the technical end of the movie is concerned, it was good. It showed that for each man, it really was their own private little war of staying alive. There weren`t a lot of massive sweeps of men.

''When [order] broke down, you counted on your buddy to the left and your buddy to the right, and that was it. There wasn`t another squad, another platoon. There was just you and what was happening within three feet of you. And I got that in this film.''

Brimm also said he found the emotional transitions of some of the characters to be accurate.

''For me in 1965, I went over there idealistic. After a while though, I realized there was no point about fighting Communism. It was all a matter of simply staying alive. And then you start hating yourself for the things you have to do to stay alive -- like killing civilians.

I can really empathize with that scene where [the Americans] burned that village because of all that had gone on before. In 1965, it was more of a booby trap, sniper war of not being able to see the enemy. So to retaliate, you just didn`t care. But now I have to live with that.''

BILL BURTON

"In Vietnam there wasn`t the racism I find here. We called each other names, but we were there for each other when it counted. All of our blood was red."

''It was almost real,'' said Burton, a Marine who fought in a variety of locations in 1968-9. ''There were some things I saw in the film that I did.'' He began shaking his head.

''No, I`d rather not say,'' he said, taking out his handkerchief. ''It affects me to this day.''

Was he glad he saw the picture? ''Oh, yes,'' he said, ''it might help me. I`ve never seen anything since I`ve been back to compare to this. I could identify with a lot of it. For example, the scene where the [American soldier] shot the [Vietnamese] woman. It happened, man. You saw it happening all around you, and it was scary that it started to make sense.''

RAY BLANFORD

"The emotional side of the experience can never be communicated. If you fought and lived through that war, you were damaged."

Ray Blanford, who served two tours of army duty in Vietnam, now serves as a therapist in the Stress Disorder program at the North Chicago Veterans Hospital.

''I have heard the exact stories that were up on that screen--everything from the blood on the soldier`s face [when his buddy bashes a Vietnamese man`s skull] to the loss of control, the hate, the fear, and finally the killing of the [Vietnamese] guy with one leg. It was so real. The emotions in this film could have been taken right out of what we get in the Stress Disorder unit."

Blanford, 52, said he handled the stress in Vietnam because he was older than the average soldier. ''Most of the guys that fought were pretty young. We`re talking about, in many cases, mere high school kids. Forget the real war, if you simply subjected them to what you saw in this movie, you would have a bunch of traumatized kids.''

Along with the other vets, Blanford took special note of the film`s opening scene. ''I could almost smell the fuel of the C-135 [aircraft] and the dust, as well recall the confusion of the body bags going out and the men coming in.''

Now the men were brought together, and they were first asked to react to the final line in the movie in which actor Sheen, in voice-over narration, speaks, in effect to all veterans, saying that they, as survivors, ''have an obligation to build again, to find a goodness and meaning in this life.''

To a man, the veterans said such noble sentiments were a pipe dream. One exception is a cause promoted by Thomas Williams.

''The goodness and meaning that we`ve found on the ward is to try to find housing for the many homeless Vietnam veterans. Through our own illness and strength we`re trying to help them through an organization called Veterans for Housing, Inc."

But in general the mood of the vets turned dark when they were asked about their chances of ''building again.''

''I find a lot of irony in that,'' said Frank Kauzlarich, ''in that our society doesn`t want to give us a chance to build again. They just want to forget the mistakes that we and our government made over there. We`ve been looked down on since we`ve come back, and consequently we look down on ourselves.''

Bill Burton had a more specific complaint. ''I`ve only been able to hold onto a job for two years since I`ve been back. I just need a chance. I need a job. I live on the North Side, and it really gets me, man, to see these Vietnamese with jobs, but I can`t get one myself."

''It`s funny,'' said Burton, who is black, ''in Vietnam there wasn`t the racism I find here. I mean, we may have called each other names, but we were there for each other when it counted. All of our blood was red.''

At that point, Burton grabbed the hand of Terry Tidd, who was sitting next to him.

''That last line makes me angry,'' said Thomas Williams. ''They don`t try to understand us. They never tried. There were no parades -- everybody knows that. But what they don`t know is the sense of powerlessness we feel.

''I mean there`s a real power you have in `Nam when you have a gun and you`re killing. Then you come back, and you`ve got nothing. You`ve given up your flesh, your blood, and your mind. So that bit about coming up with a new life is bullshit. People just don`t care about us. The government doesn`t have the money to treat us. Thousands of vets are going without help.

''Hell yes I`m angry. Many of us lost our families `cause we couldn`t handle life when we came back. Build again? That`s a joke.''

''You get your ass blown up, they want to give you peanuts,'' said Terry Tidd. ''I got hit twice in my legs, they give me 10 per cent of my pay -- 126 dollars a month -- the absolute minimum for legs that are filled with metal. When I get X-rayed, they ask if I was in a car accident. I`m supposed to build a new life on that?!''

''On a job application,'' said Frank Kauzlarich, ''it`s not too smart to put down that you`re a Vietnam veteran. You`re better off putting down that you`re an alcoholic. Chances are the boss drinks, too.''

''The damage done to the warriors does not always go away,'' said Ray Blanford, the social worker.

The anger of the vets was a surprising turn of events, considering that their praise of the movie had been so effusive.

Some might say the group we interviewed was heavily battle-scarred. That may be true, but realize that only a small fraction of the people who served in Vietnam saw combat, and that combat soldiers is what ''Platoon'' is all about.

As it turned out, the veterans` anger was also rooted in their treatment at home, today. It became apparent when the vets were asked to complete the following thought: ''It`s a terrific movie but, even so, it doesn`t communicate...''

''It can be accurately portrayed on film,'' said Larry Brimm, ''but it can`t be fully felt unless you’ve been there.''

''The movie is missing the taste of death,'' said Bill Burton.

''It just stays in your throat,'' said Larry Brimm. ''I brush my tongue every morning, but I can`t get rid of it.''

''It was so hot in `Nam,'' said Thomas Williams.''The movie didn`t show people tying T-shirts over their face to cut the smell of death. But the smell you can never get rid of. It will always be with you.''

It was up to Ray Blanford to sum up.

''I say to all the veterans: See the movie, but be with somebody you care about so you can talk about the emotions the movie brings back. And if you need help, call us.

'As for the public: See the movie, but know that the emotional side of the real experience can never be communicated. A movie can`t communicate the terror or the lasting damage. If you fought and lived through that war, you were damaged. And I want every kid who sees this picture and thinks that war is exciting to know that.''

-Gene Siskel, “A Test for Platoon,” Chicago Tribune, January 4 1987 [x]

#oliver stone #platoon #ptsd #the vietnam war #mental health #war #violence #survival #chicago tribune #gene siskel

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dcarevu · 6 years ago

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The Last Laugh

“When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping!”

Hey, guys. This is Collin. I know that we’re only four episodes into this blog now, and things are just starting to roll…but unfortunately, I’ve decided that the stress of college and work is too much, so I’m going to have to go on an indefinite hiatus…

April fools!

SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT

Villain: The Joker Robin: No Writer: Carl Swenson Director: Kevin Altieri Animator: Akom Airdate: September 22, 1992 Episode Grade: B

The Joker’s back on the show already, and again, he has formulated an overly-complicated plot which seems to be designed specifically to lead Batman directly to him. We start by seeing a boat full of repulsively green trash chugging through the Gotham river. It’s emitting an absolutely foul stench, and while we aren’t sure if this is a typical occurrence, knowing this city, I wouldn’t doubt it one bit. Char, my girlfriend and watching-buddy got the impression that Gotham is indeed an old, dark, gothic city, but this was her first exposure to the griminess that is often associated with it. This time, however, the griminess seems to be a little bit more pleasant; in fact every citizen who notices it seems to burst out laughing! The garbage is emitting a powerful laughing gas that doesn’t just cause a rush of giggles, but it also seems to send its victims completely out of control, and they start ignoring all of their surroundings altogether. It’s like they’re not even aware of their laughter, as the fumes get them as high as a kite.

Meanwhile, still in Gotham, but away from the city, we cut to a really great shot of Wayne Manor. Inside, Bruce is sprucing himself up, and we discover that it is April Fools’ Day thanks to Alfred once again being the lovable savage that he seems to be. Offering to “draw” Bruce a bath, he quite literally draws him a picture of a bath, hoping to at least get a smile out of him. But alas, when he’s not reaching for his rich playboy persona, we see that Bruce is actually quite the stick in the mud. I love Kevin Conroy’s way of creating two voices for the character, something that had never really been done before this show. I actually believe this was Kevin’s idea, which is no surprise given his acting background. He somehow does it in a way that makes the Bruce Wayne persona seem even more fake, despite that voice being closer to Kevin’s actual voice.

Bruce Wayne dedicating himself to living a lie like that must truly be tough. Think about how that must hamper his relationships, and it starts to explain the social state that he finds himself in later down the DCAU timeline. I’m someone who is an introvert, and sometimes the amount of energy required to socialize is more than I would like to admit. But if I had to pretend to be someone I’m not every day when my true self is as dark as Batman’s character (and let’s be real, Batman is our main character, Bruce Wayne only exists as a name on his legal documents), it would be a lot worse. The seeds were planted this early, and it shows the thought, consistency, and understanding that Radomski, Timm, and co had for the character right away. This wasn’t your average Saturday morning version of Batman.

Obviously as more and more people throughout the city begin to become affected by the laughing gas, it does not go unnoticed by news outlets. Bruce immediately comes to the same conclusion as many of us watching; The Joker. It’s merely a matter of finding him and figuring out what he is up to. Meanwhile back in the city, we find out just that; The Joker and two of his goons are using the gas-induced obliviousness of the citizens on the street to rob them right under their noses. Even police officers are in tears, not paying the least bit of attention. The Joker, of course, is cracking comments and laughing his ass off the whole time. Some of his lines are legitimately hilarious in this episode, I’ve gotta say! While he was entertaining as all hell in Christmas With The Joker, it was more in a simple whacky, over-the-top, cartoon way. He still has some of that aspect here, but a lot more of it comes from genuinely clever writing. Some of his most well known lines from the show come from this episode. “So we’ll just punch some air holes!” and “YOU KILLED CAPTAIN CLOWN!” to name a couple, the latter being downright legendary.

So far, this episode gives the simple vibe of a fun Joker romp without much meat on its bones, and much of it is. But the stakes do raise as we cut back to the Batcave. Batman is analyzing some of the gas, and learning that it causes “permanent insanity”. We’ll come back to this a little bit later, but obviously he has to do something. Not just because of the robberies and accidents happening, but also just because of the mental health factor. Insanity? Not particularly good for you. All of a sudden, however, we hear a crash come from upstairs when he attempts to call Alfred down into the cave. He runs upstairs, and here we see Alfred, smashing artifacts and furniture with a broom as we hear him belt out cackles unlike anything we have heard from him. The gas is inside the house. Batman immediately dons a gas mask and heads out to stop it, presumably taking care of Alfred first. Alfred, and Wayne Manor in general, being the thing in danger isn’t an element the show does a lot, and I think the moderation allows it to stand out a lot more. It can immediately turn a silly episode like this into something much more serious. Char was gasping and worrying the entire time, not wanting Alfred to be hurt. I think she’s growing to really like him. This is helped by the fact that Alfred was recast for this episode, and his new actor, Afrem Zimbalist Jr (unfortunately no longer with us) would remain for the entire rest of the DCAU. Both of us like this change a lot. I think this new voice helps with Alfred’s miniature character evolution, as it just suits this personality more. The first voice (Clive Revill) wasn’t bad by any means. Paired with the version of Alfred that’s a bit more stereotypical “5-star restaurant waiter”, it felt pretty natural. But Afrem…he brings the character to life like no one else can. There’s no way I can picture Clive laughing maniacally the way that Alfred did here. Also…and maybe it’s just me…but even though for the first three episodes Alfred was voiced by a man who was actually English, it sounded more like a fake accent than Afrem’s! And maybe this is because I’m an ignorant American who doesn’t hear English accents every day, nor am I aware of all the regional variations. I don’t know. But virtually everyone who talks about this new portrayal absolutely loves it, so I’m likely not alone with this aspect either.

Back in the river, we see that the garbage boat is fake. Below the water, what looks like the top of a boat is being carried by a submarine. Looking through the periscope of the sub, the Joker catches sight of Batman’s eyes, staring back at him through the lens. Then, BAM. Batman smacks it, causing the entire thing to rattle, and sending the Joker to the floor. Boy are we getting some great drawings in this episode. Batman’s face through the lens looks amazing! We also had some fun, yet purposely ugly shots of people laughing on the streets earlier, and then the Joker getting knocked away from the periscope is gold. After this, we see that Batman is towing around the “boat” with his own Batboat (its first appearance), which pisses the Joker off. So we get a fight scene between the goons and Batman, which is one of the better action scenes we’ve gotten up to this point. Is it still a little bit stilted? Yes, most definitely. But is it Spider-Man the Animated Series level? Not a chance. I did get some excitement here, and the big hunk of metal known in this episode (and throughout the Internet) as Captain Clown is a robot, so we got a little bit of extra fun here. The Fox censors were not as sensitive if the beating was not being done to an actual human being (even if it’s hard to tell whether or not it's human just by looking), and we got to see Batman throw an actual hard punch. The fight against the other two gives me the impression of martial arts and self defense, which also makes sense given Batman’s background (which will be covered later). The scene ends, however, with Batman being locked in a container and thrown into the water, with the container leaking in through the many holes that the Joker stabs into it with a knife. Seeing the Joker whip out a knife like that and puncture it with Batman inside is really jarring given that this is episode four, and we hadn’t really seen that kind of near-violence prior. Yeah, Batman dodged the stabs, but if one of those had hit, he’d be done. Another glimpse into the dangerous psychopath aspect of a character you don’t always expect to fear. To be clear, this was jarring in a good way.

Situations like this are hard to write for, because you have to be able to come up with a solution that isn’t anticlimactic or complete bullshit. Here Batman calls his Batboat with his utility belt and has it slice the container up with its laser gun blast. It was thinking outside the box a little bit (no pun intended), and having the laser miss during the first shot was a good touch. Granted, I also don’t recall this laser getting much use later down the line (you would think a powerful tool like this would be heavily utilized, hinting at it being added just because of this predicament, but then again, welcome to the world of Batman’s gadgets), so overall I don’t think it was perfect. Pretty cool, though, and I’m not gonna complain. I wasn’t expecting it, and I did find it exciting. Also, 12 words: Batman’s anger once he manages to swim back up to the surface.

To speed things up a little bit, Batman gets to the service, finds where the Joker has gone, defeats the thugs by exposing them to their own laughing gas, and even manages to decimate Captain Clown in a trash compactor. After this, the rest of the episode is pretty much just a chase sequence, and it almost reminds me of a video game. Batman is basically going through an obstacle course. We get a couple more really great shots here, one of the Joker creepily riding a conveyor belt through the shadows, and one of Batman sliding down the garbage shoot. I’m surprised this was animated by Akom, as I specifically remember their animation being generally C-tier when I watched the entirety of Animaniacs (with TMS obviously being the best). Perhaps it was all in the storyboards. The more detailed they are, obviously Akom has more to go by with less room to mess things up. Batman ends up confronting the Joker on a walkway above a vat of molten metal, where Joker throws some razor sharp playing-cards at him. He misses once, and then for the second card, Batman manages to catch it. This is a scene that makes you audibly go, “Awww shit”, and you can tell Joker is thinking the same thing. Char brought up something interesting here. The Joker constructs these incredible plans to disrupt Batman’s day. I swear, he plans everything. But only up until a certain point, because he banks too much on certain aspects. He swore that throwing Batman into the river would have finished him. It’s like the SpongeBob episode where Plankton says something like, “I never thought I’d get this far”. Once Batman makes contact with that card razor, Joker panics and immediately tries to run away, ultimately defeating himself as he trips himself up with a rope. He plays with Batman one step too far. He doesn’t realize when to stop. He pokes the bear, and although he may ultimately be a glorified, crazy mobster, he’s not a fighter. Despite this realization of Char’s, which I totally vibe with, just two episodes ago we had the Joker tripping, falling, and being caught by Batman. So overall I do consider this ending a little cheap. A low point to an otherwise entertaining episode.

Well, I guess it’s not quite the ending. Because after this, we are back with Bruce Wayne and Alfred. Alfred seems to be feeling healthy again, but he is distraught since he broke a priceless artifact earlier when he was exposed to the insanity gas. Bruce tells him not to worry, and that it can simply come out of his paycheck, but also assures him that he’s joking, and it’s all an April Fools’ joke. Bruce even chuckles about it. I love this segment, and even though Bruce can be a stick in the mud as I said, every once in a while he can let himself have a little bit of fun.

For some additional things that didn’t quite fit in with the previous paragraphs, I found myself wondering what Joker was exactly planning on accomplishing after the robberies. I almost think that he was honestly expecting to be caught by Batman, or he was at least not planning past the stage of killing him. But I guess with such an unpredictable maniac, you’d have to be able to read his thoughts to really understand a lot of it. Also, Batman’s computer specifically said that the gas causes permanent insanity. Yet at the end, everyone seems to be fine. Does it require more exposure? Does it mean that it’s permanent for just as long as it’s being inhaled? Was it simply wrong? I was a little confused by this. Mark Hamill’s performance was amazing as always, and as I explained the way that Mark tends to almost visually morph into the character while he voices him, Char mentioned something about him and the Joker becoming one like with the Venom symbiote and Eddie. Accurate observation. And lastly, she mentioned something about how this Joker is someone where you never know when you’ll be on their bad side. I got flashes of a certain early scene from Return Of the Joker here, and I cannot wait for her to see that film.

Char’s grade: A

Major firsts: The Batboat, a form of Joker’s laughing gas

Next time: Pretty Poison

By the way, I’m still messing around and trying to figure out the best format for these blog entries. I don’t think I’ve quite found something that works for me yet, so for a bit, the posts may be a little inconsistent in how they’re laid out. Experimentation! I want to try and make them a little bit less like summaries, and more discussion/reaction-based. Thanks for bearing with me! Also, any constructive feedback is appreciated!

#dcau #dc animated universe #batman tas #the last laugh #batman the animated series #batman #joker #the joker #you killed captain clown

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artificialqueens · 7 years ago

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Black Leather Chapter 3 {biadore} - imafuckinglibra

Cluck Cluck Motherfuck. For the person who asked if there can be some smut in this fic…c’mon you know daddy will always supply my loves. Seriously though there originally was smut in the first chapter but idk it didn’t make it in the final draft. To make it up to you here’s some fluff, some smut and some Nirvana. Also unlike my other fics this shit is actually fairly planned out so…there will probably only be 2 more chapters…now is your chance to tell me what you’d like more of in this fic. K bye.

“Oh you bitch.” Roy laughed when Darienne, who he was walking in with their arms linked, pushed him into the pink wall.

He was in pretty much the same outfit as the previous episode but this time in a white polo shirt and brown blazer completely hiding his birth mark on his chest.

Shane and Dela entering with giggles behind them and slowly and silently Danny with a black bandana covering his mouth entered way in the back.

Underneath a black shirt with some dancing skeletons on and a pale red flannel he hid his birth mark too. It wasn’t part of their new arrangement with the producers but they felt more comfortable hiding it for the time being.

The two strange men that Duncan was with the previous day of filming were from the studio. Before letting them return to the hotel after the last episode they had called the couple aside into a strangely eery executive room.

There they, RuPaul included, made the new couple sign a disclosure with all the terms they’d previously discussed as well as a few new compromises.

They would allow the men to continue the last week of filming as if nothing had happened, the only extra benefit they added were allowing them to spend the weekend in the same hotel room.

They just weren’t allowed to discuss the competition of course, not that anyone really thought a new linked couple would have the free time.

The other new compromises were that the queens could be affectionate in the workroom if they pleased, within limits, as long as they allowed whatever was caught on camera be shown at the finale.

They would then dedicate a segment to their relationship and announce their linking at any given moment during it’s filming. Part of that meant Adore and Bianca would have to wear matching outfits.

Roy and Danny however wouldn’t be informed on when the segment would take place. This was to leave the element of surprise in making their reactions more genuine and organic.

They would also have to come back to the studios two weeks prior to it’s taping to film a quick interview of their life after linking and what it was like to experience something that intimate during the show.

Like agreed upon earlier however once filming had ended at the end of each day or when they were dedragging these rules no longer applied. They were then free to go about as they pleased until they got back to the hotel and were quarantined again.

The final part of their terms were that regardless of them being soulmates if one of them got eliminated she would still have to leave. The remaining queen would however get to keep a few of their belongings just for safety reasons.

Danny however had some concerns about the segment, he was afraid they’d manipulate too many things about their relationship for the ratings. He attributed this distrust in producers to his time on American Idol but Roy sat him down and presented him with some pros and cons.

Con, yes they’d use whatever footage they had of them being together for the finale. Pro, they could be together.

Honestly that seemed to be the only pro Roy had to explain because after that Danny happily signed whatever they presented them.

While they were being mic’d for this week’s episode however Danny had explained how determined he was to give them as little ammunition as possible. He was standing his ground. Hence the silently sitting across from Roy at the table playing with his nails.

Roy decided to test his resolve with this whole standing his ground thing and tapped the table to get his attention before anyone could speak. “That’s it fight the man over there fidgety.”

Roy got a couple of confused looks but he saw Danny’s eyes light up which made it worth it. He even pulled down his bandana to reveal a small smile. “Fuck all the way off.”

Roy kept an eye on Danny’s hands examining the skin around his chewed up fingernails that he had been picking at. He really was just a lankly ball of nerves sometimes.

“You are such a liar.” Roy rolled his eyes in response to Shane’s bullshit story about writing down his prediction of them being the top 5.

“I swear to god.”

“You are so full of shit.” He smiled, Danny now smiling too. When one soulmate was happy it was great, but when both were and they could both enjoy each others joy it was down right amazing.

“Well it was the best of a bad bunch really wasnt it.” Shane shrugged making Danny burst into his adorable soft giggle.

“You are starting some shit.” Danny finally spoke.

“Saved by the bell.” Roy gasped when the loud siren went off again.

When they got up to walk away he waited a minute for Danny to catch up, Danny grabbed Roy’s hand giving it a tug when he passed him.

“Love you.” Roy smiled at him walking away.

“Love you too. Kill it today.” Danny peered over his shoulder smiling at him, already in a better mood.

“Now, in the heat of competition a lot of unexpressed feelings can get bottled up…”

Roy’s stomach dropped and his smile fell. Shit

He knew the fact that he and Danny finally had a chance to get to stand together wasn’t just some crazy fluke. His luck was too fucked up for that.

Ru definitely had a hand in this, Mama Ru had brought something up during there little consultation about knowing too well what the torture of being separated from your soulmate was like.

Mama Ru has a soulmate though? This was new information that honestly was still shocking him.

Lucky for them maybe Roy’s luck wasn’t actually that bad - it was finally the much anticipated puppet challenge.

“Because everybody loves puppets.”

Rumor has it every time a drag queen says the now iconic quote Tammy Faye Messner not just rolls over in her grave, she sometimes even does a death drop.

Danny next to him was mischievously rubbing his hands together as if he was warming them up to avoid giving whatever puppet buddy he got a very cold, unpleasant fist.

He was definitely in MUCH better spirits by the way he made his way over to the big hole in the fake pink wall hopping over first looking like some crippled obnoxiously tall rabbit.

Peering into the hole first before he stuck his arm in he got Dela.

“Dela!” Ru announced.

“Yay.” He cheered shaking poor baby Dela’s head.

Roy strutted over next looking at Danny as he stuck his entire arm in hoping the further he dig the better chance of nabbing a good one.

“I have…Adore.” He growled her name deeply. On one hand this was absolutely fucking perfect but on the other hand he didn’t want to read his soulmate too harshly.

“Oh shit.” Danny nervously laughed.

The other queens went up next one by one making their way to the fake wall. Darienne got courtney, Dela got none other than Bianca, who’s mouth he clamped shut earning a laugh. Courtney obviously got Darienne since she was only one who was left, making a shady comment about the hole being big enough first.

The giggles muffled behind a pair of hands that Roy could hear coming from the giddy giraffe next to him made his heart flutter.

When Ru gave the girls the go ahead Roy and Danny playfully pushed each other’s side, Danny just being plain mean pushed him back to give himself a head start.

“So, Bianca, you giving it a nice hog body?” Shane quipped.

“Oh you think” Roy had a hint of a slight evil chuckle in his voice.

“You are so evil.” Danny looked over to him.

“Darienne you have Courtney’s costume together?” He quickly changed the subject. Not before he and Danny stuck their tongues out at each other though.

“I was hoping I could get someone else to make it for me.”

Roy let out a very loud animated gasp at the shade fest already beginning. He loved Darienne’s shady side he couldn’t deny it.

“Ooh…” Dela and Danny joined in.

“It’s interesting that Bianca, who could’ve taken any of us down, got the absolutely easiest to pick.” Dela decided to chime into the shadiness.

“I did get a easy one.”

“Um, shut up. What is that supposed to mean?” Danny whined in a higher than normal tone.

“It’s nothing bad you’re just basically already a puppet.”

“Ah!” Danny instinctively looked over to Roy clearly hoping he’d defend him but Roy stood his ground smiling brightly.

“That is so rude!”

“No you’re just really easy to imitate where as Biancas hard to imitate because I don’t listen to her.”

Danny gasped again looking back at Roy. ‘This bitch…’

“Oh my god.” Roy laughed more at Danny’s thought in his mind rather than the other queen’s comment. “Pipe down.” He snapped at Danny quickly blushing when he realized it was his annoyingly loud thinking and not something he actually said out loud. Woops.

Danny’s puppet of Dela was unbelievably precious making Roy crack up the moment he opened his mouth.

Playing it safe to avoid hurting his soulmate Roy followed Dela’s advice and turned his puppet of the already very puppet like Danny into basically a glorified caricature of him spitting out catchphrases in the most Adore like voice he could muster.

To nobody’s surprise Dela with her impeccable, big acrylic nail teethed portrayal of Bianca won. Even Bianca thought she was fucking hysterical, but she did make an mental note to maybe accidentally slash her dress before the runway.

The universe yet again smiled down upon the cuban queen proving Roy’s theory of his inhumanly fucked up luck wrong. They’re main challenge this week had Roy Haylock’s name written all over it. They had to make three runway looks.

Bangie girl bling, Platinum Card Excutive Realness & Dripping in Jewels Eleganza.

Roy was already at work and in his element sewing. The one place he felt most at home, in front of the whirring machine where he could create.

“C’mon diamonds.” The voice of Laganja took over Danny as he dropped his mannequin trying to stack him.

After Roy asked Dela if he was okay he walked over to the mirror to test his boat neck puffy frill over his shoulders.

“I like this…To start with.” Roy turned examining his reflection.

Roy turned to Danny asking silently for his opinion as he examined his work from a different side.

“That’s pretty.”

Roy turned back to him. “Yeah.”

“Fuck off.” Roy tried to hide his smile at Danny’s comment as he started hand stitching one of his accessories for his look.

When Roy started inquiring as to how Dela chose who to get what gem and why exactly she got sapphire, which he wasn’t mad about, just curious, Dela explained she didn’t really think about any of them. Except for Danny, she gave him the easiest.

Made sense. Danny was talented in many things but sewing definitely was not one of them, not by a long shot.

“Why not just give her cement shoes and throw her in the water or give her something really rough?” Darienne and her fucked up shady ways came through making everyone look up in utter disbelief.

“Cause shes not a evil cunt.” Danny intervened.

‘That’s my boy.’ Roy thought.

“I mean this is a competition.”

“So? Bitch! I wouldn’t throw you under the damn ocean?” Danny looked up. He made a good point it was just maybe a little…confused, but good

Roy’s protective instinct kicked in ready to defend his love’s honor and glared at Darienne ready to jump in but Danny looked over to him shaking his head. His way of silently saying ‘Down boy.’

“Am I being hateful by saying that?” Darienne spoke up again.

“No you’re being real.” Danny smiled, clearly having been raised right by his mother. Although from what Roy saw in the video she sent Adore and what he’s heard from Danny she probably would’ve been on his side ready to gut the shady elephant.

“And that’s what I am…I real.” Darienne channeled her best inner banjie girl swaying her head.

“And you’re real self…is hateful.” Dela added from under her table where she was working on her…gown? Bedazzled cardboard?

“Meowr.” Roy growled undeniably enjoying the drama.

During Ru’s visit Roy noted a heavy feeling in his chest, so unbearably heavy he was certain his heart would fall out any moment.

He instinctively looked up to Danny’s station and spotted him crying with his hand in front of his mouth, chewing on his nails to hide it.

‘Baby…’ He ceased whatever he was busy with, the idea of work completely leaving his mind being replaced by only the thought of comforting Danny in whichever way possible.

He could physically feel the discouragement radiating from his soulmate, his sorrow digging into his very being.

After Ru had lined them all up and explained the fact that the glitter ball had to be an actual ball with choreography and singing they were all fairly over it. Except when Ru dropped the bomb that Dela had to be in charge of choreographing it.

That little magical bit of information was a god sent that made everything about this ball worth it ten fold. Regardless that gnawing in his chest coming from his love’s depressed state didn’t ease up.

The girls were lined up set to be escorted to the empty main stage for rehearsals when Danny came up to him, grabbing onto of his wrist when he went to fall into the neat little row of queens.

“Hey there leaky.” He swung Danny’s arm in an attempt to lighten the mood, the younger just halfheartedly smiling the same way he did with Ru.

Danny slid his hand down to Roy’s interlocking their fingers. “I going home next, aren’t I?”

“Not over my fucking cold dead body, you’ll turn this out don’t worry. Come here, my angel.” Roy tugged on his hand easily drawing him in for a hug, Danny nearly lost his balance in the process but standing on one leg and with Roy’s help he remained upright. He gave his cheek a few speedy small kisses, smiling when he felt the corners of his mouth forming into a smile as wel. “There’s my favorite fucker.”

The gnawing in his chest easing and turning into gentle butterflies. Everything was still muffled but he’d began developing a system, kind of. Somewhere in the darkness he had found a flashlight if you will, using it to navigate Danny’s emotions flooding through him constantly.

Whenever he got happy it was like a soft tingling, for lack of a better metaphor, butterflies.

“Sorry for being so leaky.” Danny looked up at him pouting.

“Go be leaky under Courtney so the bitch falls on stage. Showgirls that hoe.” This made Danny genuinely laugh and hide his face in Roy’s shoulder.

“How you doin’ over there, Adore?” Roy asked after rehearsals cutting some fabric.

“So far I think so good.” Danny nodded. “I wanted to just drench this in diamonds.”

“Well you have a lot of rinestones?” Roy spotted the glass bowl of sparkling clear gems taking a break from his snipping.

“Kinda?”

“What about that pretty stuff unda’ your table?” He pointed with his giant pair of scissors to the bundles of sparkly fabric.

“That?” Danny followed his pointing.

“Yeah.”

“I was gonna use that to make a tutu but…I don’t know how.”

“Why don’t you gather that up?”

Danny looked up from where he was sitting with the fabric very confusingly smiling ever so slightly at him. “Gather it up?”

“Oh wait I’ll show you.” Everyone looked up knowingly at each other knowing exactly why Roy was really going over to him to help him but fuck them. “What you really could do is cut it evenly.”

“Mh-hm.”

“To a length…and gather it on top.” He held the fabric up against his dress where it had to go.

“Uh-huh.” Danny agreed in a nasally tone brightly smiling at him. Clearly not following as if everything was going directly over his pretty little head.

“Listen.” He scolded flicking his forehead.

“Thank you B.”

“You’re welcome.” He bent down to where he was grabbing the sides of his face. “Mwah.” He gave him a loud kiss and walked back to finish his own dress keeping an eye on his progress every now and then.

“You’re supposed to cut it in strips and just glue it like that right?” Danny asked motioning in the air with some oddly snipped up pieces of the fabric from earlier.

“Oh no…Not like that.” Roy cried out defeatedly from behind his sewing machine hiding his laughter.

“It looks ugly.” Danny whined holding the mannequin with the dress on up high in the air.

“It does.” He broke face at Danny’s bubbly laughing.

In the couple of weeks of filming the sweet sound had become his favorite thing in the entire world. Nothing made him happier than hearing that breathtakingly stupid sound.

“I don’t know how to make a fucking tutu!” Danny laughed turning in a circle with the leftover white fabric he previously destroyed covering his face.

“Oh…you mean like wrap it then…” He motioned with his fingers how Roy gathered it earlier.

Roy pulled a face he knew wouldn’t exactly be helpful in this situation but it was too ridiculous not to cringe at. Poor baby was absolutely useless.

“I don’t fucking make clothes.” Danny pulled the same face at him shaking his head and returned to putting endless sparkles on his dress’s coset.

“Alright ladies! 20 minutes, wrap up what you need to!” A crew member circled the queens reminding them of their time remaining till filming wrapped for the week.

Because they didn’t film on weekends, today being Friday, the queens had to wait two excruciatingly long days to present their ‘Dripping in Jewels Eleganza’.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

Roy liked the part of the dress that he had gotten completed so far, the most important part was basically finished all it needed was some sparkles.

Danny had offered to assist him with it when they returned on Monday but he was concerned for his partner’s tutu and thus declined his help.

His diamond inspired dress didn’t look bad, on the contrary it was actually coming along great and he knew Danny would be looking absolutely enchanting in it. However he knew the judges were unpredictable and could tear anyone, particularly Adore, to shreds in a heartbeat like the vultures they were.

He took a step back to examine his day’s work hanging on the grey mannequin with his hands in his jean pockets, rubbing the small handkerchief of Danny’s that he kept there at all times between his fingertips.

So far it was a strapless smooth, satin like gown with not much detailing but impeccable workmanship. Earlier in the day he had already made what looked like the sapphire version of Danny’s tutu to place around his shoulders with a matching big puffy bracelet.

All he still needed to do was bring in the waist and attach a darker shade of blue belt…and then bedazzle the living Jesus out of everything but that could come later. As long as he had a garment, he was happy.

It was still more than Darienne had.

He shook his head in disgust at the hideous brown, bejeweled body bag Darienne was making and went back to his sewing machine to try and make aforementioned blue belt.

“Duncan!” Danny popped out of his station from underneath his white diamond dress like a tall meerkat. “Since it’s only like 20 left can we play some music?”

“Yes please?” Shane joined in plopping theatrically down on the couch next to his station by the wall of multicolored fabrics.

Even Darienne agreed that it’s been an exceptionally exhausting day and that he wouldn’t mind the small distraction.

“Sure…just this once because it’s almost the weekend, alright.” Duncan reluctantly nodded holding his hands up but they could all see the smile he was hiding when they excitedly cheered for him.

“I call dibs! Me first!” Danny nearly knocked poor Dela to the ground when he rushed to where his iPod was tucked away in his bag.

To no one’s surprise Danny picked a Nirvana song - Lithium. Roy was too lost in the zone to look up from his sewing machine and acknowledge what was happening. If he did he’d have noticed the younger queen holding up his index finger in front of his mouth to silently gesture to the others not to make a peep.

I’m so happy ‘cause today I’ve found my friends. They’re in my head

As the late Kurt Cobain’s smooth vocals filled the room Danny made his way to Roy’s station twirling slightly on the ball of his feet with every step in time with the song

Roy was startled out of his concentration when a pair of scrawny arms with a tattoo of a skull and purple roses were suddenly thrown over his shoulders and a gentle kiss was placed on his cheek. Danny’s lips remained against his dimples cheek as he sang the, slightly insulting I might add, words to him.

I’m so ugly, but that’s okay, ‘cause so are you. We broke our mirrors

“That’s fucked up.” Roy grumbled still focused on the deep blue fabric he was pushing through the machine’s fast working needle. “Can I finish this please? I don’t know how much time we left?”

The other queens looked up from their dresses with strange grins on their faces.

“What I miss?” He worryingly looked around, clearly everyone was in on a joke that he missed.

“Old age is making you deaf, Del Rio.” Dela joked going back to gluing her pink rhinestones and gems onto something that looked like a swirly pizza slice.

“20 minutes, babe.” Danny informed him before continuing singing along with Kurt. His arms now hooked under Roy’s biceps meeting in the middle around his chest. His chin rested on his shoulder next to his face.

I’m so horny but that’s okay my will is good

“Too much information, oh no! My ears!” Shane dramatically cried throwing his hands over his ears.

“Shut up.” Roy hissed in his direction before pulling the blue fabric out under the machine and continuing the rest of the seem with some hand stitching. Danny’s arms still clinging onto him swaying with the music as he worked.

This felt so natural, so at home. Regardless of the cameras and the practically still strangers they were surrounded by, sitting here doing what he loved with the person he loved against him just felt so right.

He had gone from admiring this young man, crushing on him from a distance to now being head over heels in love. Unable to ever see a future without him.

It wasn’t just the fact that they were soulmates it was Danny himself. Even if they weren’t soulmates he’d want to end up with him. His naive, carefree and down right fearless approach to life was something he had lacked.

He was a bitter old man, not old but 37 sure wasn’t a spring chicken, he never thought anyone would want to be with him. But Danny did. He made him feel appreciated and loved, almost needed at times.

I like it, I’m not gonna crack I miss you, I’m not gonna crack I love you, I’m not gonna crack I killed you, I’m not gonna crack

The song finally came to an end and so did the embrace Danny held him in. His eyes followed longingly after the man bunny hopping away, unable to resist staring at the ass as it bounced along.

“Bae!” Danny eagerly shouted looking through something on his iPod. “You done with that?”

“With this part yes, why?” Roy snipped the leftover thread off and walked over to where Danny was gesturing for him closer with a curl of his finger.

Despite the time warning it seemed nobody was in the mood to work. Roy was pretty much the only one still adjusting stuff on his dress but throughout the workroom it was just deserted gowns on mannequins with their makers resting on stools chattering amongst themselves.

“What’s up?” He went up to the table to check what Danny was fiddling with. Probably a song because when Roy reached him soft strumming came through over the speakers.

Danny smiled brightly and went to hug him without warning. With their hands held clasped to the side, Roy’s hand on the small of his back, his in the back of Roy’s jean and their foreheads rested against one another Danny started swaying them to the tranquil music.

Underneath the bridge The tarp has sprung a leak And the animals I’ve trapped Have all become my pets And I’m living off of grass And the drippings from the ceiling But it’s okay to eat fish ‘Cause they don’t have any feelings Something in the way

“You know this is that ammunition you didn’t want to give them right?” Roy tilted his head when he saw Danny reaching to kiss him softly. Longer than their previous rushed pecks. Their lips lingering a second to enjoy the contact.

“I know…I don’t care.” Danny whispered into his mouth.

“I love you.” Roy closed the space between their lips for another kiss.

He meant it. He loved Danny. With every molecule that made up his existence he loved this guy that only seemed to know the words party and fuck.

He nuzzled his head into Danny’s neck to get as humanly close to him as possible. To take in everything he was.

“I love you too…” Danny’s hand reached up to caress the shortly shaved back of his head.

Despite the fabric of their shirts between them Roy could tell their birthmarks were against each other by the stinging radiating from his calling to be closer to its matching one.

They continued disregarding everyone around them and finished the song. Die, Die My Darling by Misfits came on the shuffle next and Roy quickly ducked out claiming it hit too close to home.

It was finally time for their first weekend together, whoever in was that convinced the producers to let them get this chance was a god sent, although Roy had a sneaking suspicion it was Ru…

“You think they know I snuck in here the first time?” Danny asked trailing a finger around Roy’s birth mark.

“Nobody said anything and they wouldn’t have given us this if they knew. Think we’re good.”

After their dinner and showering Roy was laying down on his back with his head resting in his hands against the pillows. Danny sitting on his stomach like during their chase that lead to them linking.

Danny didn’t really seem like he had a plan or a purpose, his hands were just absentmindedly exploring Roy’s body. Running up his shoulders, over his pecs and back down his abdomen.

“You actually have a really fucking rad body.” Danny tilted his head.

“For an old bitch.” Roy snorted.

“Nh-yeah.” He giggled at Roy’s unamused face.

“Hey!” Roy slapped his chest. “I’ll fuck you up, Delano.”

“Pinky promise?” Danny licked the corner of his mouth that was forming into a smile. “You still owe me for the last time you said that.”

He raised his brows mischievously and with his hands on each side of Roy’s face he bent down for a deep kiss.

Their mouths meeting each other slowly at first, the tenderness in which Danny’s soft, full lips brushed over his setting his entire body ablaze. Every hair on his body raising as his skin flared up in goosebumps.

His tongue grazed against Roy’s top lip before he tilted lower and gingerly sunk his teeth into his bottom lip, sucking it into in his mouth.

They resumed their unrushed kissing taking their time in studying each other’s body without the looming fear of sneaking around.

With their lips still tightly locked the hands around Roy’s cheeks moved lower towards his chest. His mouth soon following behind peppering kisses down his neck to his sternum.

“A really. Really. Rad. Fucking. Body.” He emphasized each word with a kiss along his skin. Tracing his crescent birth mark with his tongue.

When his tongue made it’s way to Roy’s nipples the older’s breathing hitched. Danny looked up with a shit eating grin, “A-ha! Found your weakness.”

“Shut up fa…” His voice trailed off when Danny scooted down so he could roll his hips along the length of Roy’s growing erection while taking the other caramel nipple in his mouth.

His tongue twirling around the apparently very sensitive bud taking it between his teeth and pulling on it as he let go. Licking his lips as he scooted down further to straddle his thigh, his hand snaking down further as well onto his stomach.

“I love your little belly.” He smiled taking a second for his fingers to run over the slight fuzz around his navel.

“You’re one to talk, hogbody.” Roy joked, watching Danny roll his eyes sliding down his pants. Right, not the appropriate time or place. Got it.

The tip of Danny’s tongue licking along the small wet stain of pre cum through the charcoal grey briefs he wore made Roy’s eyes fill with lust. His entire body reacting to his touch moving his hips up to meet his tongue.

“And I love your dick, it’s perfect.” Danny admired trailing his index finger down the extreme tightness in the cotton fabric caused by his growing erection.

Even in the horrible dark lighting of the shitty hotel room the big hazel doe eyes staring up at Roy was glittering, pure magic. His hand came up to caress his round cheek, admiring the delicate features of the young man in front if him.

His hips rolling his own growing semi against the thigh he was sitting on following the same smooth rhythm of his hand stroking Roy fully hard.

“Fuck.” Roy let out a deep guttural moan when Danny pulled his foreskin down and wrapped his lips around the overly sensitive head of his cock.

Roy wasn’t joking when he said he really need to get laid. The competition had taken a severe toll especially with no release except for his own hand. I mean 5 weeks of filming and he’s only gotten action once in that time? That has to count as some kind of abuse.

Finally getting to feel Danny’s mouth was well worth the wait though. Roy scooted up so he could sit back against the wall, resting the hand that was caressing Danny’s jaw up to run his fingers through his short dark brunette hair.

With their new position Danny had to abandon his dry humping efforts, now on all fours with one hand resting on Roy’s abdomen he continued his bopping with his ass lifted in the air.

Roy sat up a little more so he could stretch his free arm out to slide along Danny’s back towards his ass. Sinking his hand into the tight grey sweatpants he wore to knead his soft ass while the other hand continued brushing through his hair.

“Wait.” Roy snorted as an attempt to hide his amused shock when he felt skin instead of the cotton he was expecting. “Wait, bitch…” His laughter came through a little more this time.

He got on his knees and made his way over to Danny’s backside pushing him down into the bed to lay on his stomach in the process. With one hard pull he yanked Danny’s pants off so violently it pulled him back up to his knees.

“Cute, not faggy at all.” He smiled pulling the strap of the black and grey jockstrap he felt earlier as far back as it could go. He let the waistband go and with a loud slap it hit Danny’s backside making him yelp.

“I like ‘em! Leave me alone.” He whined rubbing the red skin from the sudden snap.

“I do too.” Roy laughed kneading, admiring his bare cheeks. “Well I do now.”

“You do?” Danny leaned down to rest his face against the sheets. Looking back at Roy he bit his lip playfully shaking his ass in Roy’s face.

The older answered him by running his nails up and down from his ass to his thighs, biting at the baby soft flesh first before eagerly diving between his cheeks.

“Oh fuck yeah.” Danny growled sinking further into the white linen sheets when Roy’s tongue flattened out against his entrance.

“Do we have…” Roy’s thought trailed off as he dug through the bag Danny supposedly had snuck the condoms into. He had no idea how or where Danny got them but hey he wasn’t questioning it.

After nearly 30 minutes of foreplay he wasn’t questioning anything except how quickly he can find a fucking condom.

“Where the fuck?” He shouted throwing the contents of the stupid white drawstring bag Danny took on set out onto the grey carpet.

“We could just use spit again?” Danny shrugged.

Wait, was that really how they lubed him up the first time? Roy honestly had no idea anymore, everything of their first night linking was a surreal haze.

“Dirty boy.” Roy teased giving Danny’s ass a very loud slap. “You alright there?”

“Yep.” Danny continued lazily pumping the 2 fingers inside himself as Roy had instructed while he slipped the condom on, discarding the now empty square packet by throwing it over his shoulder.

Despite the effort Roy put into the extra precautions to get Danny ready, seeing as he wasn’t a bottom and Roy sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one doing it, he was worried of rushing him.

Not that it seemed like he needed to be. Holding Danny’s wrist of the aforementioned fingers against his back and with his other hand’s nails dragging up and down along his spine he let Danny push himself back onto his cock.

The younger hissing slightly when his ass reached Roy’s v-line, now fully enveloping him.

“There you go.” Roy leaned forward to lay down on top of him so he could get use to being filled while he kissed the back of his neck.

A few minutes later when Danny had fully adjusted to the tense stretching sensation of being penetrated Roy lifted himself leaving Danny face down with his legs closed so he could pick up his pace.

Roy’s hand was resting to one side of the flustered body beneath him while the other on his hip kept him pinned down. Every time his own hips thrusted back into the gorgeous ass he relished the feel of Danny’s tight unexperienced asshole clenching around him.

Definitely well worth the wait.

“Like that baby?” Roy pulled on his hip and readjusted Danny’s legs so they could be in a new position.

With Danny slightly sideways resting on one elbow they could keep a steady well paced rhythm while he reaching back held onto the side of Roy’s face. Their lips interlocked and their tongues dancing over each other exploring every part of their soulmate.

Growing more ravenous for the other person by the minute.

“You feel so fucking good.” Danny moaned into his mouth giving him the go to increase his speed.

Not pulling all the way out but enough that he could slide in fully again with quite a force he heard Danny’s soft moans soon turn into louder cries making their kissing difficult. He expected the naturally loud younger man to be vocal but not this much, not that he was complaining.

He noticed Danny’s hazel eyes looking slightly glossed over watering up and stopped to lean over him and pull his gaze up to his.

Wiping the single tear from the corner of his eye with the back of the hand he used to lift his jaw he placed a gentler kiss on his puffier than usual lips from the earlier sloppy blowjob. “You still good?”

Danny looked between his deep brown eyes and nodded with a subtle smile. In return Roy resumed his thrusting leaning forward to trail kisses down his temple to his jaw, biting the stubble free skin.

An attempt to help ease the new bottom, which worked better than planned.

“Fuck…baby, more.” The younger dropped his head increasing the volume of his praises that were perfectly in time with his soulmate’s increased movements that were now made easier after relaxing.

His teeth moving to his shoulders and along his neck to graze against the damp porcelain skin, careful not to bite too hard and leave any marks or bruises behind. If he could he’d permanently mark him as his own but not while they still had to walk to dreaded runway.

“On your back.” Danny reached around and tapped Roy’s sweaty thigh.

“What?”

“Your back thank you.” He repeated with a sterner ‘matter of fact’ voice.

Roy sunk his teeth into the soft muscle of Danny’s neck but Danny disregarding him sat up the best he could and pushed Roy down onto his back with his free arm. “Alright, alright. Bossy.”

His fingertips now on Roy’s jaw he bent down and brushed their lips over each other. “I love you.” His voice faint and sincere.

“Love you too.” Roy smiled going in for a kiss, a proper drawn out one, moving his hands to Danny’s thighs.

Now in control Danny rested his palms on Roy’s ribs digging his nails into the skin when he lowered himself back onto Roy.

“I got you.” Roy reassured caressing his smooth sweaty thighs, peering down between them to watch himself enter Danny again. The circular muscles stretching around him as the tip went in till it clenched tightly again when Danny tensed up and his legs trembled slightly. “Give yourself some time it’s all good.”

Reaching between then he steadily started stroking Danny slick pink cock. The younger releasing a low moan when he slid all the way back down thanks to Roy’s expert hand offering a very, very pleasant and welcomed distraction for him.

He wasted no time and slowly but surely started bouncing taking in as much of Roy’s thick cock as possible.

He wasn’t exceptionally long, surely longer than average, but he was thick. Stretching Danny’s tight asshole more every second.

Once he was well readjusted again he matched the pace Roy had prior to their switch moving his hands up to grab hold of Roy’s pecs.

His energetic bouncing making the bed loudly shake. The creaks from the old worn out springs of the hotel bed from years of abuse filling the room.

The sound mixing in with the loud slapping of their naked bodies meeting. Roy’s hand on the naked ass tinted red from his rough slaps earlier when he ate him out to help control his momentum while enjoying the view of his young lover brought to such a gorgeous disheveled mess.

His pale cheeks deeply flushed, his puffy lips swollen, his sweat drenched skin glowing from the cheap bedside table and his gorgeous cock bouncing between them.

The way the young queen licked his top lip as he leaned back resting his shakey hands on Roy’s thighs reminded Roy of the adorable way he licked it in the same manner when he offered him a waist chincher after snatch game.

Soon their unison heavy pants turned into louder moans coming from the younger when he increased his riding’s pace.

Roy’s hands ran down his sides feeling at every soft curve of his exquisite body and the little extra pudge around his waist.

Hogbody. Bullshit.

“You’re perfect.” He thought out loud. Danny leaned down to kiss him when Roy surprised him wrapping his arms around his back to press their birthmarks together.

Easily catching Danny off guard by flipping them so he’d be on top again. “Gotcha’”

“I love you but that’s mean. I was getting so close.” Danny whined dropping his head like a child while declaring his love.

“I love you too. So fucking much, but I did promise to fuck you up.” He bit Danny’s jaw.

Nothing felt as right as this, as absolutely earth shatteringly amazing as this. Linking with someone and getting to feel their emotions in itself was pretty mind blowing.

This was even better though. He could feel Danny’s orgasm building as vividly as he could feel his own. Not just that but on a more almost ethereal level he could feel the love Danny had for him only heightening his pleasure.

Sitting up on his knees Roy returned to smooth, slow idle thrusting to give them both a breather. Danny lovingly guiding his movements with his hands on his hipbones.

“I don’t think you’ve ever looked better.” Roy laughed at Danny’s disastrous appearance.

Danny threw his hands over his already red face turning brighter, so much Roy could swear he saw steam practically coming off his cheeks as he giggled.

Another reason he loved Danny. Reason number 70 million probably. Even during this intimate heated moment he was being the same little goofy idiot.

“Fuck all the way off.” Danny laughed.

“Oh yeah?” Roy cocked a brow, a devilishly wicked grin between those gorgeous dimples forming as he pulled all the way out.

Danny nodded eagerly with the corners of his eyes creasing revealing the smile he was hiding under his hands.

With an aggressive forceful thrust he slammed all the way back into his tight asshole, the hands hiding his blushing moving down to his mouth to muffle the loud cry erupting from his throat.

He repeated this with every thrust causing his grunting to grow louder, Danny’s tightly shut eyes and widely open mouth expression not helping in testing his restraint.

As soon as an almost painful whimper escaped his lips a surge of lighting shot through Roy’s spine straight to his cock.

This could only mean one thing.

“…Roy…” Danny’s voice cracked. “…I’m gonna cum…”

“How close?”

“Really close.”

He sat up hovering over him hooking Danny’s long legs over his elbows to lift his ass so they could kiss as he hammered into him deeper with the new angle making his hard swift thrusts easier.

Feeling the tension building inside both of them pushing him closer to their climax Roy’s own caveman grunts started mixing with Danny’s low cries.

“Ah fuck.” Roy disturbed their kissing nuzzling his head next to Danny’s biting his ear and trying to kiss his neck, which was made difficult by his strained breathing.

Everything turned into a blur. An astronomically amazing blur.

His hips pounding into Danny’s now even redder ass. The room filling with loud grunts, heavy panting, moans, naked bodies aggressively slapping together, the bed’s springs squeaking…All lost to Roy.

All he could focus on was the tightness building in his balls and the nails leaving indents in the tan flesh of his shoulders.

“So…so good.” Those were probably the last understandable words uttered before Danny became seemingly lost except for the whimper escaping with every quick thrust.

His eyes were squeezed tightly shut with his arms nearly choking Roy from the tight hold around his neck.

‘…Gonna cum…’. Roy heard his loud thinking hastily warn.

Roy felt Danny’s asshole tighten as the body pinned under him tensed up with a final barely audible moan right before hot cum shot between them.

The sticky liquid shooting out onto their abdomens between the bodies held clinging together from the sweat.

“Oh…fuck…Danny.” Roy could feel the minute Danny’s orgasm hit him. The ecstasy crashing onto him like a ton of bricks causing him to crumble as well reducing him to nothing as he followed only a second or two after Danny.

Their movements died down gradually after their orgasms and slowly Roy rose so he could look at the cum between them and admire Danny’s heaving young body.

“You’re such a messy slut sometimes.” Roy teased scowling at the cum, slapping his thigh. “High maintenance bitch.”

“Ouch-uh!” Danny faked an adorably hurt look by sticking out his quivering bottom lip.

Roy in turn kissed his way up Danny’s body till he reached the lip in question and gave it a bite. “Be right back. You want some water?”

“No.” Danny whined wrapping his legs around his waist to keep him from getting up. “Stay.”

“I have to get up.” Roy sprinkled kissed along his neck, resisting the urge to bite onto a chunk of it.

“Why?”

“Because.” He finally steadily pulled out of him and got off the bed. “Otherwise we might fuck the sheets up again.”

Danny went pale and rolled over hiding his hysterical laughing in a pillow that he pulled against his face.

“It’s okay, it happens.” Roy tried his hardest but failed to say it with a straight face. He bent back down placing a kiss on his right cheek. “I adore you my messy slut.”

#black leather #imafuckinglibra #biadore #smut #tw swearing #bianca del rio #adore delano #rpdr fanfiction #submission #canon compliant #on set fic #s6

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speeps-highway · 7 years ago

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Something I noticed about the way Sonic is portrayed nowadays is that he is pretty much All Might. Colors and Gens didn't have the plot to fully show it and Lost World put all the blame for his actions. Forces however, he keeps the same careless attitude from Unleashed to Gens, everyone looks up for him as their savior and role model and even when he makes bad jokes against the villains he still ends up recking them like trash. He went from Goku/Luffy type of shonen hero to literally All Might.

I barely watch Anime so I have hardly any idea what you’re comparing him too, but let me make it clear:

Sonic’s portrayal in games suffers in localization a lot.

Adventure -> Shadow Portrayal

From SA1-06 there was a pretty general issue in the main series with unsatisfactory translations - SHtH messes up a lot of lines, and SA2 is almost completely broken at times (Teria, KAFOW, saying a broken version of the Japanese word for “Damn” when getting grabbed by a ghost)

On top of that I’m not sure what exactly went on and if it’s on purpose or not, but there was some kind of this obsession with giving the character cheesy one-liners, like in the 90s cartoons. Lines like this include “Something Buggin’ you”, “Come and get some Eggman” and “Crack that Eggman wide open”.

Sure, you can argue “Western sonic is different” but look at how that’s turned out in the past, not including giving Classic Sonic a mohawk. I’m sure even those people can notice how much lines like “Something Buggin’ You” are made fun of by people both in and outside of the fanbase. They might have worked well for AoStH and Satam, but they certainly don’t in the main series.

Japanese portrayals of Sonic were far less aggressive than their English counterparts. In fact, he keeps his cool pretty well but boy does he sound pissed in the rare event he actually does get angry. He’s been pretty consistent in acting this way in most, if not all of his appearances. In fact, there’s a character script from SA2 describing the character in exactly this way - you can see it here.

In some cases, this causes the games to lose subtle details like nods to other titles. For example a boy in Station Square who references Little Planet, or Sonic’s reaction to seeing Shadow in Heroes.

Secret Rings -> Black Knight Portrayal

Sonic is a depressed lover boy in 06 IMO. I don’t really want to get into that, so let’s skip that one.

Starting around the time of Secret Rings, Sonic games finally started to get localisations that were pretty accurate in both English and Japanese. There’s a reason the storybooks and Unleashed aren’t brought up nearly as much as the other games are for Sonic saying dumb lines. I mean, there’s still word differences, but they don’t go full on adding in random one-liners.

In fact, the only concern seemed to be the voice actors. For Sonic himself, even though Griffith eventually improved he was still nowhere near what Kanemaru (and that guy who voiced the Werehog, but I guess the decision to not have a seperate VA for that in English isn’t his fault) did for the character. (Unleashed example (J) (E), Black Knight example (J) (E))

Colors -> Lost World Portrayal

Starting with Colors though Sonic’s character took a weird turn: He was suddenly shouting cheese more than ever, and they were even showing up in the Japanese version. I think this is largely because they suddenly decided to have Sonic games be written in America by people wholly unfamiliar with the franchise. (Though in defense they’re not the entire problem)

The Japanese/English translation was back to being very different as well, mostly because the scripts included many more jokes and puns that couldn’t be translated well between the two. For instance, Cubot is a Cowboy in the English version but he’s a Ninja in the Japanese one. “Baldy Nosehair” is translated as “Mustached Egg” etc.

In the past, there weren’t a lot of lines you couldn’t easily find a way to translate. I think like, the line that got replaced with Ah Yeah This is Happenin’ is one of the only ones I can think of.

While it’s easy to shit on Colors Sonic, I think he did okay speaking for the game itself - it was lighter than the darker games that had been going on for the last 5 years. The problem isn’t that Colors Sonic existed, it’s that they kept him.

Generations got away pretty easy - there’s not much to even write for that after all. The only real change is the Time Eater scene to omit the reference to Dr. Robotnik.

Lost World is where he really falls apart, that game tried to raise the stakes with the planet draining and Tails kidnapping but in the end he just… couldn’t take himself seriously enough.

For some reason, really starting with Lost World the Japanese script took a wild turn. While Colors and Gens were relatively in the same style, Lost World’s Japanese version improved script in that everyone was generally more in-character. Remember what I said earlier about Sonic getting angry? Compare what he says to the Deadly Six when he sees Robo Tails in the English version to the Japanese one.

Even the jokes in Japanese Lost World are more suited to the character than they are in English. Eggman’s Jetpack at the end for example (J) (E). There’s lots of examples of differences in Lost World, too many to sensibly list really.

Forces Portrayal

IMO Forces has largely the same localization problems as SA1 - the lip syncing is always synced to Japanese (though lip syncing has never been good for both languages in one game) and the English script has a bunch of dumb sounding one-liners that get made fun of.

By now I’m sure you’re probably familiar with the whole “Sonic was tortured” and “Tails went mad” thing, but there’s still a lot of bad apples in the English version that aren’t there in the Japanese version.

The scene where Zavok opens Sonic’s prison cell is very different between the two (J) (E). I mean there’s still the problem about being stuck for 6 months, but Japanese Sonic is notably less fixated on butts here. He also doesn’t mention Chilli Dogs in that scene above while fighting him, or that “It’s been Generations” comment when he meets Classic Sonic.

Forces is definitely a step in the right direction for Sonic compared to Lost World though, even in the English version he’s far less quick to make jokes as he was before.

The game even restores an aspect of Sonic that was absent in Colors and Lost World - starting (and even finishing) the game alone. He was getting kinda circlejerky with Tails in those games, whereas in pretty much every major game other than Sonic 2 and 3 he’s always shown doing his own thing separated from characters like Tails and Knuckles initially and meets up with them afterwards - even if it’s a game like Heroes where it happens all at once in the intro movie.

I don’t know how Forces’ script was made, but if Nakamura is saying that the script was passed between Pontaff and Goya with the two making changes, they need to make sure that they both end up with the same result.

Passing the script between America and Japan is fine, but at the end of the day they need to make sure that both sides have scripts that match each other as close as possible, in order to avoid these character and plot inconsistencies.

Either way, by now presumably Pontaff have had more experience with writing for and have more solid past material for this series than the people who localised the SA1-era games. Considering I’ve heard Pontac refuses to talk about Sonic and Graff’s twitter got trashed by angry fans when he announced writing for the game, surely they should be aware of this characterization issue by now, but I don’t blame them if it ends up being something beyond their control, such as a lack of communication between SoA/SoJ or being forced to write the character that way anyway.

I think ultimately what Sonic the character is dealing with right now is the rotting corpse of 90s American Sonic, who died, came back from the dead, then died and came back again - a zombie that won’t stop falling apart, and the stench is catching up.

#Anonymous

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misomilk · 7 years ago

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hi :) is it possible to get an answer for all of the country questions? if no, can i pls get the answer to what you think of translations to eng, your fave song in your native tongue and fave author?

Hello~! You’re so sweet, anon. Thanks for giving me something to do to pass the time while I ignore what I’m supposed to do. LOL

This was so much fun to answer. I hope you pick up things about where I’m from. :) Have an awesome day!!!

1. favourite place in your country? I really love El Nido. It’s super pretty, and not so tourist-filled the last time I went. (That was many, many years ago…) The water is so clear. The critical spots for animals are properly preserved. Gosh. It was perfect. :’) Arashi’s Aiba Masaki had gone there HUEHUEHUE Too bad I went like, a year before he did. A year before I ever found Arashi. XD The beaches of the Philippines are really super lovely.

2. do you prefer spending your holidays in your country or travel abroad? I prefer traveling abroad. I pretty much fly to Japan every chance I get. LOL But if I were to travel with family, yes. I’d rather just kick back and relax in one of our beaches. We went to Coron last time! It was beautiful, too. But El Nido remains my favorite.

3. does your country have access to sea? Yes! We see the sea all over. (laughs over XV joke)

4. favourite dish specific for your country? Oh, boy, oh boy. I gotta name three of them.1) Kare-kare - I guess?? It’s our version of curry but it’s so different from any other curry. It’s peanut-based, normally soupy, with boiled vegetables and (typically) ox tongue. I love my mom’s take on it. Very thick sauce and very peanut-y. * W * She uses normal beef parts bec I dont eat ox tongue.2) Lumpiang Shanghai - this is probs taken from Chinese cuisine but still. Very Filipino in its own way. Always see it in parties. I LOVE IT.3) Adobo - The #1 Filipino dish, probs. I think there’s no “XXX tastes Filipino Food” video out there that doesn’t include this. Every household has its own take on it—white or brown, sweet or salty, soupy or not. I LOVE IT A LOT. Brown, sweet, and soupy, please.

For desserts, I fuckin love leche flan, ube (purple yam) and pichi-pichi.

5. favourite song in your native language? I fucking love “Ang Huling El Bimbo” (The Last El Bimbo) by Eraserheads and “Beer” by Itchyworms. They’re my go-to karaoke songs, and are very much #hugot—which is the word we use for when we “pull out all them feels”, normally related to heartbrokenness. I’m not particularly heartbroken atm, but these songs are just so good.Lately, I’ve been hearing the song “Tagu-taguan” (Hide and Seek) by Bita and the Botflies. I hear it on the radio. I love it coz it gives me such Shiina Ringo vibes.

6. most hated song in your native language? probably that fuckin moshi moshi ano ne song. it makes fun of those japanese words :/ and any song by william revillame (an asshole gameshow host) or used in Eat Bulaga. hayyyyy :/

7. three words from your native language that you like the most?1) takipsilim - deep word for ‘sunset’2) bukang liwayway - deep word for ‘sunrise’3) ulap - lit. ‘cloud’bonus: nakakapagpabagabag - lit. ‘worrisome’ bec it felt like a tongue twister when i was younger. hahahabonus2: maharlika - lit. ‘nobility’ just bec it sounds cool hahaha

8. do you get confused with other nationalities? if so, which ones and by whom? strangely, though I am Filipino, I get mistaken (by fellow Filipinos) to either be Chinese, Korean or Japanese. I guess it’s in the way I dress?

9. which of your neighbouring countries would you like to visit most/know best? I know Japan best. For sure. Haahaha. I have no other nearby country that I want to travel to.

10. most enjoyable swear word in your native language? ‘pakshet’, which is just ‘fuck shit’ but said tagalog-like? XD

11. favourite native writer/poet? I’m sadly not well-versed in our native prose. See, it’s hard for me to understand my own language sometimes. :’( But I hear Ricky Lee is very good.

12. what do you think about English translations of your favourite native prose/poem? Hmm, strange. I haven’t heard of any English translations of our books, actually???? I think it’d be really cool if there were! But I guess Filipino prose/poetry isn’t popular enough to be translated. XD

13. does your country (or family) have any specific superstitions or traditions that might seem strange to outsiders? I think we have a lot. Like, removing the ring on someone’s finger when you weren’t the one that put it on them means you’ll get in a fight with them. (Personally, I extend it to bracelets. LOL) Or, we can’t take a shower after 3pm on Good Friday bec blood will come out instead of water. xD

14. do you enjoy your country’s cinema and/or TV? No. It has very shallow comedy, or really awful flat storylines. We have really good quality films, but sadly those aren’t the ones that catch attention here. :/

15. a saying, joke, or hermetic meme that only people from your country will get? “susmaryosep”, i guess? (Jesus Mary Joseph) Is that considered a saying? Somehow my first thought was: “bababa ba?” (are we going down?) HAHAHA that cracks me up every time it’s used in the elevator when foreigners are around. They get this look like, “… did they really just understand each other?”

16. which stereotype about your country you hate the most and which one you somewhat agree with? I HATE that people assume when we go to other countries it’s either to be prostitutes, caretakers or maids. :/ What do I somewhat agree with……… that we’re cheerful people.

17. are you interested in your country’s history? yes, but idk where to start. I wish I’d listened more carefully back when I was still in high school or college.

18. do you speak with a dialect of your native language? No TWT I want to speak Kapampangan, which my sisters and my dad speak. By the time I was born, we already moved to the city, so, I didnt have the chance to learn it.

19. do you like your country’s flag and/or emblem? what about the national anthem? The flag, yes. The Anthem, tho there are parts that are iffy, yes.

20. which sport is The Sport in your country? Pacquiao’s boxing. specifically Pacquiao’s boxing. -_- I HATE IT. I wish we had more baseball. I’m glad we’ve been getting more into volleybal in the recent years.

21. if you could send two things from your country into space, what would they be? A Filipino treat, like Napoleones or bibingka or ube. And, an abaca fan.

22. what makes you proud about your country? what makes you ashamed? I’m proud of our beaches. They’re seriously so B E A U T I F U L— go north or south. I’m also proud of the Filipino hospitality, although I for one am not so amazing at that bec of my introvert-ness. LOLI’m ashamed of a whole lot of aspects, sadly. Like how a lot are poor, yet we have a fuckton of malls. The government is shit. (Always has been since I can remember.) Many Filipinos are racist, sexist, homophobic bastards that focus on physical wayyy too much. It’s awful. Just. AWFUL.

23. which alcoholic beverage is the favoured one in your country? San Mig or Red Horse beer, I think. I don’t like those tho.

24. what other nation is joked about most often in your country? Every other nation aside from ours, I think. :/ If there’s one that sticks out more than others, maybe China.

25. would you like to come from another place, be born in another country? YES. I’D ANSWER YES IN A HEARTBEAT. HAHAHA I’d so love to be born Japanese instead. Their values really resonate with mine. Sometimes my mom, my bosses and my friends say that I’m a Japanese spirit lost in a Filipino body.

26. does your nationality get portrayed in Hollywood/American media? what do you think about the portrayal? We get portrayed as the shitty English speaker who’s a maid. I can fuckin speak in an awesome accent, thanks v much. In Japan we’re portrayed as hostesses in a bar and it really disheartens me. I don’t like it at all, but what can we do? sighs

27. favourite national celebrity? uhhhhh She’s not my “favorite” bec I’m not into local showbiz, but I really love seeing Liza Soberano. She’s so pretty (/o\)

28. does your country have a lot of lakes, mountains, rivers? do you have favourites? YES! I guess my favorite would be Taal Lake, since it’s the one I get to see the most. It’s got a volcano in the middle of the lake!!

29. does your region/city have a beef with another place in your country? uhhh I dont think so

30. do you have people of different nationalities in your family? well, technically my family’s a mix of a whole lot of races: Chinese, Spanish, Japanese. Idk if I have American blood, otherwise I’d have the blood of all our conquerors in my system? XDD

Thanks again for asking!!

#aboutme #Anonymous #replies

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 8 years ago

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Considering there's now a Power Rangers movie, do you think it is possible that someone will go out there and make a live-action (or fully animated idk) series/movie out of Animorphs? Would you think it wise? We have the know-how to animate morphing and aliens, and there are probably many people out there who started reading Animorphs 20 years ago who are now working in the animation or film industry so the adaptation probably wouldn't stray too far from the original.

You know, I’m not sure Animorphs ever will get its own show or movie again. I love the current format of turning books or series into entire freaking TV shows (American Gods, Handmaid’s Tale, etc.) and it might be cool to get a second crack at an Animorphs show, but… But I’m conflicted.

Reasons I’d love to see an Animorphs movie or show:

There would be a whole younger generation that we could bring into the fandom! They could share in our hilarity and pain, which would be awesome.

It’s pretty much inevitable that the books would get re-released, which means we’d be able to stop relying on crappy PDFs any time we wanted to reread the series.

Visual media = greater internet fandom.

Seriously, though, TV shows > video games > movies > comics > novels when it comes to online fandoms, and I think a big part of that is the fact that Tumblr, Livejournal, and Reddit are so image-heavy.

And I really WANT this series to be so mainstream there are fandom wars and remixes and hipster-effects. It’s so frustrating right now when people ask what I’m writing and I usually end up telling the truth but telling it slant (ex: “There aren’t enough stories about stereotypically masculine young men working as administrative assistants, so I decided to…” or “Have you ever thought about how demonic possession would affect neurological processes? Because I have.”) And it would be so nice to be able to say “I’m writing about Animorphs,” and have other people go “Oh, that super-disturbing series with the oatmeal jokes?”

There are some REALLY FREAKING COOL images in the series that it would be really freaking cool to see on a screen. For instance: the huge hellish cavern where the yeerk pool is located, the iskoort and their backward knees, Cassie becoming a whale-osprey-human-andalite hybrid for a hot second in midair, Ax jumping backward over a swimming pool by accident, that freaking veleek, etcetera.

Reasons the idea of an Animorphs movie or show fills me with trepidation:

Have you SEEN AniTV? I didn’t think it was possible for writing that good to get turned into scripting that bad, and yet.

Whitewashing. DragonBall-Z, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Ghost in the Shell, Death Note, and Cloud Atlas all took minority characters from the original works and cast white actors. AniTV itself whitewashed Eva and Ax. I’d rather have no screen adaptation at all than one with an all-white cast or one that tokenizes any or all of the characters.

It’d be super-easy for the grey-and-black morality of the books to get lost in translation, which could lead to deeply unfortunate consequences if the kids are shown killing controllers left and right with abandon. (See: Seasons 5 - 10 of Supernatural and the number of completely innocent humans the “heroes” straight-up MURDER because they happen to be in the way.)

Hollywood is allergic to tragedy.

The movie adaptations of Blood and Chocolate, I Robot, Catching Fire, Ender’s Game, Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, A Series of Unfortunate Events, I Am Legend, The Golden Compass, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Ella Enchanted, and Charlotte’s Web all took ambiguous or unhappy endings and made them fit the Hollywood mold, not only by having everything wrapped up with a nice bow (and no dead characters) at the end, but also by back-fitting genuinely original stories into tired and unoriginal tropes.

Animorphs would not be Animorphs if almost every book didn’t end with the characters not sure what they learned this week, outside of “war sucks, and then you die.” It definitely wouldn’t be Animorphs if the last two books weren’t all about how sometimes you have to make terrible sacrifices to stop evil. I have a sneaking suspicion Hollywood would try to sweep all of that under the rug, especially if the screen adaptation was geared for the same audience as the books.

I’d be worried about the portrayal of the hosts.

As it is, AniTV already has some super fridge-horrifying moments that come from the writers’ failure to distinguish between yeerks and yeerk hosts. Tom and Melissa make out and possibly sleep together while he’s definitely a controller and she might be as well, and the way that the series plays it for laughs suggests that no one did the math that 33 - 50% of the individuals in that relationship are physically incapable of giving consent. The series also plays Chapman getting spattered with oatmeal and Iniss 226 going insane for laughs, even though the implications for poor ol’ Henrick are pretty horrifying. The books take the time to have the characters debate whether harming the hosts is worth it to harm the yeerks; the show genuinely doesn’t have the time to do that in its 25-minute run and so leaves those problematic questions out.

Similarly, it is super-easy to slide into victim-blaming where the controllers are concerned. The books can give us moments like Naomi saying “You were Visser One,” and Eva coming back with “I beg your fucking pardon?” (I paraphrase). They can have the heartbreaking scenes with Jake imagining what Tom thinks or feels while some alien acts uses him to try to kill their dad. Visual media can’t necessarily convey that information, and would necessarily have to cast actors as Visser One, Visser Three, etc. who almost never stop to play the parts of Eva or Alloran. As Supernatural demonstrates (sorry to keep picking on this show), it’s really easy to forget there’s an innocent human who doesn’t get a choice about being used as a weapon or being caught in the crossfire. It could be so freaking easy to make Tom or Eva or Chapman or Alloran themselves into villains by just forgetting that the host exists at all.

Anyway, that’s all a very long-winded way of me saying that I DON’T KNOW IF I WANT A LIVE-ACTION ADAPTATION OR NOT. Also that I care too much about the meatsuits, but anyone who follows this blog probably knew that by now.

#asks #answers #anonymous #animorphs #anitv #sol cares too much about the meatsuits

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my-smial · 7 years ago

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Q&A

So @grundyscribbling has tagged me in a Q&A thing with eleven questions to answer (What? People on the internet know I exist? This is bizarre). Thank you! I’ll try my best, though I’m bad at these. Answers under the cut.

1) What’s one thing about you that surprises people?

I don’t know, I’m not this self aware. But if I had to guess, probably the fact that I’m a hobbyist dancer. I’ve done a lot of ballroom dance, as well as jazz, tap, and ballet. I’m not actually good, but I like doing it.

2) Name two books you think everyone should read.

Hmmm. Again, hard to answer, as I have a hard time declaring that this one thing is more important than any other. I may actually bow out of this one. Sorry.

3) Favourite Tolkien character and why.

Galadriel, definitely. This has a couple reasons. First, as an impressionable youngster watching the movies, I was really taken in by the portrayal of Lothlorien; it’s a properly magical place. And the scene at the Mirror of Galadriel, where they turn the colors negative, was amazing to me. It left its mark, and ever since then even if I intellectually might listen to arguments about who’s the most powerful character, or a moral authority, or etc, I’m still remembering the awe I felt watching her. Those scenes, and when she appears as a hallucination/projection in RotK, cemented her in my head as the most awesome (in the traditional sense) character I’d ever seen.

Second, reinforcing that, is that she plays in to my love of mythic characters: saying she’s older than the sun and moon is not a hyperbole. She’s just fun for me to read about.

4) What is an outdoor activity that you enjoy?

Backpacking. Properly just going and living for a week off of what you can carry on your back. It’s amazingly peaceful; nothing like walking in near-silence for five hours to give you time to think. Listening to animals, watching the woods. I like it for the sense of accomplishment it gives you; backpacking pushes your limits and lets you know how little you can live on. When you get back, it also gives you a heightened appreciation for little things, like running water. Additionally, you feel a little bit like an adventurer in a fantasy novel :)

5) Tell me about your favorite* food. Why do you like it?

This is one of those questions for which my response changes daily. Right now, I think the answer is a proper French crepe, with mushrooms, an egg, and an absurd amount of cheese. They taste very hearty and savory, which as someone who’s mostly vegetarian is something I don’t get a lot of. This is also nostalgia, as I just got back from working in France for the summer.

6) Favorite place you’ve been?

Argh, up here with the hard questions. Right now.... France, again; specifically hiking in the southern Alps.

7) What languages do you speak?

As may be obvious by now, English natively and a foreigner’s French - I can live, work, and make friends in French but no one will believe I’m actually francophone.

8) What is your favorite animal (not limited to the real)?

Ooooh. Since it’s not real, dragons. There’s so many variations, and they appeal to my love of myths as well.

9) Drink of choice?

Hmmm.... Right now I’m attached to genmaicha, a type of green tea mixed with rice. It’s very earthy and... ricey. It avoids the grassy flavor some green teas can have, and because it’s cut with rice, the tea itself is very high quality but relatively cheap. I know. Sounds weird. Just try it.

10) Is there a small/obscure fandom you can’t believe more people aren’t into?

Oh my god yes. Probably the smallest is the Goblin Wars series by Kersten Hamilton (there’s like one whole post on Tumblr). The first book is Tyger Tyger. They’re part of the YA fantasy boom; the setting is a fairly standard modern America with a mythical world hiding in the cracks, sneaking through and stirring trouble. This particular world is heavily based in Irish mythology. The premise is that a folktale hero, Fionn mac Cumahill, wasn’t actually mythical, but was instead the first of a family that has since dedicated itself to fighting goblins. His great-great-etc-great-grandson is Finn, who’s making his way through a world that no longer believes in magic. He’s the catalyst that kicks off the story. The main character is Teagan, a girl who’s determined to become a vet. She’s caring in a screw-you-I’m-healing-the-enemy type way, and her method of coping with stress is to spout animal facts. Beside them is a whole cast of funny and interesting characters; my favorite scenes are just when everyone is sitting around having dinner. Basically, read them so you can laugh/cry with me. Also, Irish mythology is awesome in ways these books don’t even get into, so let me know if you ever want to talk about it.

11) If you could go anywhere in the world, with neither money nor safety an issue, where would you pick?

Again with the hard questions. I’m going to have to agree with grundyscribbling and say New Zealand; there’s so many mountains! And cool landscapes! And LotR stuff!

*Question, @grundyscribbling: You spell favorite the American way here but the British way above. Not that I’m not guilty of switching myself (I’m American but have a strange attachment to ‘humour,’) but... which one?

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airoasis · 6 years ago

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The Untold Truth Of Always Be My Maybe

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/the-untold-truth-of-always-be-my-maybe/

The Untold Truth Of Always Be My Maybe

There is no maybe about it: at all times Be My probably is one Netflix long-established film you must undoubtedly watch. Starring Ali Wong and Randall Park, the film has been hailed via critics and viewers alike as a recent and hilarious success. So just how did this gem of a movie come to look the sunshine of day? For those who proposal the on-screen chemistry between Ali Wong and Randall Park was pretty super, you’re not on my own. Correctly, a part of that possibly on account that the comedic duo goes back a very long time, all the means back to school at UCLA, if you can consider that! They met within the late Nineteen Nineties at a pal’s position, the place mentioned pal was once internet hosting a fried rice cooking competition, as pronounced by The Washington put up.The two were additionally part of the LLC Theatre enterprise, a comedic performing arts crew that Park co-established. And in a twist that confirms all too evidently that truth is stranger than fiction, perpetually Be My maybe premiered at the Regency Village Theater in Westwood, which is where UCLA is placed. The surreality of that was not lost on them, either. Wong informed variety that being in Westwood was once, quote, "a trip." "superb. High-quality, as always. Ta-ta, Julianne!" "ok, to start with, you sound like rely Chokula." For as much acclaim as normally Be My perhaps is receiving, the movie could by no means had been made if now not for a fateful 2016 interview Wong did with the new Yorker. Wong used to be riding excessive from the success of her Netflix particular child Cobra, and he or she acknowledged that she and Park had been seeking to make a precise movie for years, their, quote, "version of When Harry Met Sally." Of course, by means of their "variation," Wong presumably intended an Asian take, as there aren’t exactly a ton of rom-coms in the market with Asian-American leads.It didn’t take very long for the phrase to get out about it after that, and boy did the web reply. Vulture even put out a plea to Hollywood, begging to get the movie green lit. Park recalled in an interview with The Washington post: So Wong and Park received to writing the script, along with screenwriter Michael Golamco. The rest, as they say, is history! When Harry Met Sally wasn’t the only movie that Wong and her crew appeared to for inspiration even as birthing always Be My possibly into existence. The 1992 famous person-studded comedy Boomerang, starring Eddie Murphy, used to be additionally a movie Wong had in intellect when fleshing out the characters and meditating on the comedic aspects of the film. She instructed Rolling Stone: moreover, Wong favored that the premise of Boomerang used to be black staff working at a black promoting company, anything she found clean, and, quote, "empowering." She dished: The late 2010s marked an uptick in the amount of movies starring Asian-American actors, like loopy wealthy Asians and To all the Boys I’ve loved before. Continually Be My might be is a welcome addition to these groundbreaking movies, and it quite is the first of its form.Director Nahnatchka Khan gushed in an interview with variety: The equal holds true for Jordan Peele’s Us, a horror movie predominantly starring black actors. Furthermore to that, Park and Wong emphasized that it was equally fundamental that they make a amazing film, as individuals wouldn’t wish to see it in any other case, it had to be great. Wong joked: invariably Be My perhaps is stuffed with many little moments that Asian american citizens resonated with in a specified manner, similar to Judy telling Sasha: "We Koreans use scissors for the whole lot." and Sasha preparing unsolicited mail musubi for dinner. Those moments are major, as they allow families descended from immigrants to peer bits of their possess daily lives on the monitor in front of them. Whilst that used to be certainly intentional, Park additionally desired to make certain that the film wasn’t rife with stereotypes or populated via characters that viewers would expect. The actor defined to The Washington submit: To that end, they sought to make the relationship between Marcus and his dad, who does not speak with an accent, affectionate and close. "howdy. At some point, you are gonna must take a threat on whatever, son." That flies in the face of the stereotypical portrayal, which suggests Asian moms and fathers with thick accents.One of the crucial many hilarious and bitingly smart elements of the movie is Marcus’ band, good day Peril. With intelligent lyrics and fun performances from the actors, you cannot aid but crack a smile when the band takes the stage. And sure, that is the noted Bay discipline rapper Lyrics Born on stage with Marcus. Plus Dan the Automator honestly produced all of the hiya Peril songs, in step with Pitchfork. And get this: Park even wrote his own lyrics. It most commonly helps that he had his own ’90s hip-hop band, unwell again, to use as concept.You might no longer have caught it, however Park very intentionally named the band good day Peril for a purpose. In an interview with Pitchfork, he published: How intelligent are you able to get? It used to be pretty unimaginable to overlook that Daniel Dae Kim performed the role of Brandon Choi, Sasha’s fianc. You would have well-known him from his work in misplaced as Jin-Soo Kwon or possibly as Jack Kang in insurgent, the sequel to Divergent. While we’re over here questioning why he would not have his possess James Bond film but, Kim used to be simply hugely stoked to be cast in Wong and Park’s movie.In an interview with form, he gushed: Plus he says he loved attending to play a jerk. Hey, he possibly the sweetest man in real lifestyles, however Kim seems to be a professional at enjoying jerks! "So, you need me to head to San Francisco alone?" "that’s the great thing about it. We would each be in new environment. We might be aparttogether." And Wong knew what she was doing with this casting, too. The actress shared: You could have noticed some subtle cultural details in continually Be My probably. For instance, within the establishing, Sasha and Marcus remove their sneakers when they come indoors, only replacing them when it’s time to leave. That’s corresponding to Judy pointing out that Koreans use scissors for the whole thing.However a few of these touches were the work of director Khan, whose movie debut is arguably a visionary one. She wanted to make certain that the time and location, the San Francisco Bay discipline in the ’90s, was reflected within the film, mainly for Asian-american citizens. She defined in an interview with the los angeles occasions: So, should you felt transported to a San Francisco where the rent wasn’t so darn excessive and there weren’t hipster coffee shops all over the place, that’s the motive why.Kimchi stew. Lemongrass dumplings. Free shumai. And yes, even venison sous vide, complete with headphones… "Comes with headphones so which you could hear the sound of the distinct animal you might be about to eat, illustrating nature’s life to death cycle." In so many scenes in invariably Be My perhaps, food plays an most important position, each as a marker of cultural identity and a drive that can either convey individuals collectively or destroy them apart.Food is fundamental in each tradition, and, on this film, viewers are treated to the cuisine that’s gigantic in Asian-American traditions, corresponding to Korean and chinese food. Lest we omit that Sasha is a chef, and a very successful one at that! To that end, it makes complete sense that they employed famous person chef Niki Nakayama as a consultant for the movie. Director Nahnatchka Khan advised the los angeles times: Who’s hungry now? All of the places they filmed within the film had a enormous feel of situation, person who felt acquainted, especially when you grew up in the Bay field within the ’90s as Wong did. And although Park grew up down south in l. A., he put a number of himself into his character, Marcus.In an interview with NPR, Park shared: And, you realize what? That fairly comes via. Suppose it or now not, Park actually brought facets of his loved ones onto the film set: above all, these artwork. He defined: All of that helped make things believe as exact and nearly the heart as viable for him. When you saw the trailer before gazing always Be My maybe, you knew Keanu Reeves was going to show up at some factor. But in the event you did not, you might have fallen out of your chair when he turns up as a satirical version of himself as Sasha’s date."Jesus Christ." "Oh my God, you are bleeding!" "You see how convenient that was once, Marcus?" recollect that dinner scene? Yeah, it was once clearly one of the vital funniest moments of the movie, whole with lines from Reeves like the characters’ $6,400 meal costing "not up to a residual paycheck from my hit film speed." Of course, Wong and Park wrote the function explicitly for Reeves with out understanding if he’d simply take it. But much to their shock, he did, and he reportedly was a whole blast to work with. Wong had some unique reasons at the back of this casting, too. In an interview with Vulture, she confessed: verify out certainly one of our newest movies right here! Plus, much more list videos about your favourite stuff are coming quickly. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don’t leave out a single one. .

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mastcomm · 5 years ago

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Things to Do in N.Y.C. This February

Looking for even more reasons to get out of the house? Visit our Arts & Entertainment Guide at nytimes.com/spotlight/arts-listings.

Feb. 1

‘Lunar New Year Festival: Year of the Rat’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This daylong celebration includes a parade, performances and family-friendly art activities. (While in the area, head to Rumsey Playfield in Central Park for the free winter sports festival Winter Jam, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.) From 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; metmuseum.org.

Feb. 2

BAMkids Film Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. A range of international works, from live-action features to animated shorts, should appeal to children of all ages. A carnival rounds out the weekend-long festivities. Feb. 1-2; bam.org.

Feb. 3

‘Five Hundred Years of Women’s Work: The Lisa Unger Baskin Collection’ at the Grolier Club. With more than 200 items, the Grolier Club’s latest exhibition documents the history of women making an independent living. Among the works are one of the first books printed by women, a 1478 history of Rome’s emperors and popes, and a copy of Mary Seacole’s 1857 autobiography, the first by a black woman in Britain. Through Feb. 8; grolierclub.org.

Feb. 4

The Moth StorySLAM at Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The writer Dame Wilburn will host this iteration of StorySLAM in which 10 Harlemites will be selected to share their stories on the evening’s theme: “Only in Harlem.” Doors open at 7 p.m.; eventbrite.com.

Feb. 5

Terry Riley’s ‘In C’ at Le Poisson Rouge. The Brooklyn ensemble Darmstadt performs its interpretation of this 1964 landmark composition ahead of the musician and composer’s 85th birthday this summer. At 8 p.m.; lpr.com.

Feb. 6

Art in Dumbo’s First Thursday Gallery Walk in Brooklyn. Galleries will stay open late so visitors can browse the Triangle Arts Winter Open Studios and other galleries on their own, or join an Insider’s Tour, a free guided tour of exhibitions on view at Janet Borden and A.I.R. Gallery. (Then stroll along the East River to take in Antony Gormley’s “New York Clearing,” a monumental public work piece called “drawing in space,” at Pier 3 in Brooklyn Bridge Park.) From 6-8 p.m.; artinDUMBO.com.

Feb. 7

‘Cane River’ at BAM Rose Cinemas. Horace Jenkins died shortly after finishing this 1982 romantic melodrama tackling issues of colorism, the legacy of slavery and deceitful practices against African-American landowners. After a negative was found and painstakingly restored, the film is now getting its theatrical release. Feb. 7-20; bam.org.

Feb. 8

Animation First Festival at the French Institute Alliance Française. Award-winning features, immersive exhibits, video game demonstrations and more are the heart of this festival. For those Academy Award-minded fans of animation, the Oscar-nominated feature “I Lost My Body” will be shown on Feb. 8 at 11 a.m., followed by a behind-the-scenes panel discussion with the film’s editor, Benjamin Massoubre. Feb. 7-10; fiaf.org.

Feb. 9

‘Visions of Resistance: Recent Films by Brazilian Women Directors’ at the Museum of the Moving Image. Stories of resilience and uprising are the focus of this series, which pays particular attention to the lives of black Brazilians. Feb. 8 and 9; movingimage.us.

Feb. 10

‘Hamlet’ opens at St. Ann’s Warehouse. Ruth Negga received rave reviews for her portrayal of Hamlet in Dublin. Now she will reprise the role that she says “cracks you open,” for New York audiences — and it’s a very tough ticket. Feb. 1-March 8; stannswarehouse.org.

Feb. 11

‘The Mother of Us All’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Virgil Thomson’s opera, with a libretto by Gertrude Stein, is rarely performed. All the more reason to see one of the performances of this work this month. Feb. 8, 11, 12 and 14; nyphil.org.

Feb. 12

‘Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures’ opens at the Museum of Modern Art. After its inaugural exhibitions, the newly renovated museum begins its rollout of new shows. Among the first up is Lange’s photographs, which sharply reflect the human condition. It’s the first major MoMA exhibition of Lange’s career in 50 years. Feb. 9-May 9; moma.org.

Feb. 13

Artist Talk and Book Signing: Rachel Feinstein at the Jewish Museum. In her first museum retrospective, the artist and fashion muse Rachel Feinstein presents fanciful works with a core of steel — a balance of the whimsical and the grotesque. On this night she’ll speak about her exhibition, “Maiden, Mother, Crone,” and the inspirations for her art, which underscore that there is no reality without fantasy. From 6:30-8 p.m.; thejewishmuseum.org.

Feb. 14

‘High Fidelity’ premieres on Hulu. The latest adaptation of Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel, Mike Hale wrote, “gender-switches the record-store-owning, Top-5-list-making protagonist, who’s now played by Zoë Kravitz.” She plays a record store owner in the gentrifying Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. hulu.com.

Feb. 15

20th anniversary screening of ‘Love & Basketball’ at BAM Rose Cinemas. Sanaa Lathan, Omar Epps, and teenage hoop dreams: See Gina Prince-Bythewood’s 2000 classic on the big screen as part of the “Long Weekend of Love” series. Make it a Valentine’s double-feature: “The Photograph,” a new Issa Rae-Lakeith Stanfield vehicle reminiscent of 1990s black love stories, arrives in theaters Feb. 14. bam.org.

Feb. 16

Irina Kolesnikova in ‘Swan Lake’ at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The Russian prima ballerina and the St. Petersburg Ballet Theater make their United States debut in Tchaikovsky’s beloved classic. Feb. 15 and 16; bam.org.

Feb. 17

‘Dracula’ and ‘Frankenstein’ open at Classic Stage Company. Kate Hamill reimagines Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” and Tristan Bernays adapts Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” for this repertory cycle of two Gothic tales. In repertory through March 8; classicstage.org.

Feb. 18

Toni Morrison’s ‘The Source of Self-Regard’ at 92nd Street Y. André Holland and Phylicia Rashad perform a dramatic reading of the writer’s 2019 nonfiction collection, consisting of works written over four decades that still resonate socially and politically. Morrison would have turned 89 on Feb. 18. At 8 p.m.; 92y.org/event/toni-morrison.

Feb. 19

‘Jeffrey Gibson: When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks’ at the Brooklyn Museum. For this exhibition, the artist, who is of Choctaw and Cherokee descent, has selected items from the museum’s collection to be presented alongside his recent work. The result: a rethinking of institutional categorizations and representations of Indigenous peoples and Native American art. (Also on view: “Climate in Crisis: Environmental Change in the Indigenous Americas,” an exploration of the effects of climate change on Indigenous communities. It includes more than 60 works spanning 2,800 years and cultures across North, Central, and South America.) Both shows opens Feb. 14; brooklynmuseum.org.

Feb. 20

‘West Side Story’ opens on Broadway. New moves and plenty of tattoos: Ivo van Hove’s approach to this beloved musical is finally here. Jerome Robbins’s choreography has been replaced by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker’s; “I Feel Pretty” is gone; and this production has an intermission-free running time of 1 hour and 45 minutes. Open run; westsidestorybway.com.

Feb. 21

‘It’s All in Me: Black Heroines’ at the Museum of Modern Art. On the heels of Film Forum’s four-week “Black Women” festival, MoMA presents this intriguing series with works both familiar and obscure, including “The Watermelon Woman,” “Support the Girls,” “Sambizanga” and “Lime Kiln Club Field Day.” Feb. 20-March 5; moma.org.

Feb. 22

‘Platform 2020: Utterances From the Chorus’ at Danspace Project. “If contemporary dance holds a certain allure yet still seems intimidating,” Gia Kourlas wrote recently, this series “is a way in.” Ideas about performance and protest will be explored by its organizers, Okwui Okpokwasili, a MacArthur recipient, and Judy Hussie-Taylor, Danspace’s executive director and chief curator. Feb. 22-March 21; danspaceproject.org.

Feb. 23

‘Countryside, The Future’ at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. The museum turns over its rotunda to Rem Koolhaas’s long-awaited exhibition. In addressing environmental, political and socioeconomic issues, it will examine changes to what Koolhaas calls the “countryside” — that is, rural areas not occupied by cities. Feb. 20-Aug. 14; guggenheim.org.

Feb. 24

‘Cambodian Rock Band’ opens at Signature Theater. Lauren Yee’s music-infused work, featuring songs by Dengue Fever, follows a Cambodian-American woman trying to prosecute a Khmer Rouge prison warden. Previews begin Feb. 4; signaturetheatre.org.

Feb. 25

‘Dana H.’ opens at the Vineyard Theater. Lucas Hnath’s latest is personal: It’s the story of how his mother came to be held captive by an ex-convict who kept her trapped in a series of Florida motels, disoriented and terrified — for five months. Previews start Feb. 11; vineyardtheatre.org.

Feb. 26

‘José Parlá: It’s Yours’ at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. For his first solo museum exhibition in New York City, Parlá presents new paintings that explore his connection to the Bronx. Expect works that “address the suffering caused by redlining policies, the waves of displacement imposed by gentrification, and structural racism,” according to the exhibition news release. Feb. 26-Aug. 16; bronxmuseum.org.

Feb. 27

‘Pioneering African-American Ballerinas’ at the Museum at FIT. This event focuses on some of the ballerinas who paved the way for Misty Copeland, who, in 2015, became the first African-American woman to be named a principal at American Ballet Theater. The panelists include Virginia Johnson, now the director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem; Lydia Abarca, first prima ballerina of the Dance Theater of Harlem; Debra Austin, the first African-American female dancer at New York City Ballet; and Aesha Ash, former ballerina with City Ballet. At 7 p.m.; fitnyc.edu/museum.

Feb. 28

‘Intimate Apparel’ previews begin at Lincoln Center Theater. Lynn Nottage’s 2003 play has been adapted into a chamber opera, with music by Ricky Ian Gordon. Nottage wrote the libretto and Bartlett Sher is directing. Set in 1905 New York, the story follows an African-American seamstress who through letter writing courts a laborer working on the Panama Canal. Previews begin Feb. 27; opening night is set for March 23; lct.org.

Feb. 29

‘Brendan Fernandes: Contract and Release’ at the Noguchi Museum. A collaboration with the dance and visual artist Brendan Fernandes is the focus of Saturday programming at the museum this month. Dancers engage with Isamu Noguchi’s works as well as with Fernandes’s “training devices.” Saturdays through February; noguchi.org.

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reviewsfeed-blog · 7 years ago

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Happy Friday folks! I hope you are all looking forward to a fabulous weekend!!

Today I am posting another Down the TBR Hole post, in an effort to clear out my Goodreads list of unwanted books. In case anyone needs a brush up on just what this tag entails:-

This meme was started by Lia @ Lost in a Story to clear out my reading list of unwanted books. Here is how it works:

Go to your Goodreads to-read shelf.

Order on ascending date added.

Take the first 5 (or 10 if you’re feeling adventurous) books

Read the synopses of the books

Decide: keep it or should it go?

Without further ado, here are the next ten books on the TBR:-

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch – Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Goodreads

According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (the world’s only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655, before she exploded), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner.

So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon—both of whom have lived amongst Earth’s mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle—are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture.

And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist…

To be honest, this book was a no-brainer before I even re-read the synopsis. I love Pratchett’s humour, and Neil Gaiman is also an esteemed author in his own right. Whilst I wasn’t so fond of American Gods as I’d have hoped, I did enjoy Stardust. This is an easy keeper for me!

Verdict: Keep!

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon

Goodreads

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, Christopher is autistic. Everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning for him. Routine, order and predictability shelter him from the messy, wider world. Then, at fifteen, Christopher’s carefully constructed world falls apart when he finds his neighbor’s dog, Wellington, impaled on a garden fork, and he is initially blamed for the killing.

Christopher decides that he will track down the real killer and turns to his favorite fictional character, the impeccably logical Sherlock Holmes, for inspiration. But the investigation leads him down some unexpected paths and ultimately brings him face to face with the dissolution of his parents’ marriage. As he tries to deal with the crisis within his own family, we are drawn into the workings of Christopher’s mind.

And herein lies the key to the brilliance of Mark Haddon’s choice of narrator: The most wrenching of emotional moments are chronicled by a boy who cannot fathom emotion. The effect is dazzling, making for a novel that is deeply funny, poignant, and fascinating in its portrayal of a person whose curse and blessing is a mind that perceives the world literally.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is one of the freshest debuts in years: a comedy, a heartbreaker, a mystery story, a novel of exceptional literary merit that is great fun to read.

This is a book I had heard of growing up, but it wasn’t until I understood what was special about it, i.e. that the main character is autistic that I added it to the list.

One of the ladies I used to work with has an autistic nephew, and I’m curious to take a moment and see things from an autistic child’s perspective. I think we could all benefit from gaining some understanding of autism and how people think differently on the whole! It is easy for people to be labelled nowadays, “fat”, “thin”, “simple” etc. I don’t want to use any further slurs, including race and religion because frankly, I don’t condone them. I acknowledge their existence here.

This book is also a keeper!

Verdict: Keep

Six of Crows – Leigh Bardugo

Goodreads

Criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker has been offered wealth beyond his wildest dreams. But to claim it, he’ll have to pull off a seemingly impossible heist:

Break into the notorious Ice Court (a military stronghold that has never been breached)

Retrieve a hostage (who could unleash magical havoc on the world)

Survive long enough to collect his reward (and spend it)

Kaz needs a crew desperate enough to take on this suicide mission and dangerous enough to get the job done – and he knows exactly who: six of the deadliest outcasts the city has to offer. Together, they just might be unstoppable – if they don’t kill each other first.

This is the first book I am resigning from the list. The synopsis sounds perfectly okay and readable, but doesn’t sound WOW! It lacks the pop, so it’s going to drop…

Verdict: Go

Sleeping Giants – Sylvain Neuvel

Goodreads

A girl named Rose is riding her new bike near her home in Deadwood, South Dakota, when she falls through the earth. She wakes up at the bottom of a square hole, its walls glowing with intricate carvings. But the firemen who come to save her peer down upon something even stranger: a little girl in the palm of a giant metal hand.

Seventeen years later, the mystery of the bizarre artifact remains unsolved—its origins, architects, and purpose unknown. Its carbon dating defies belief; military reports are redacted; theories are floated, then rejected.

But some can never stop searching for answers.

Rose Franklin is now a highly trained physicist leading a top secret team to crack the hand’s code. And along with her colleagues, she is being interviewed by a nameless interrogator whose power and purview are as enigmatic as the provenance of the relic. What’s clear is that Rose and her compatriots are on the edge of unraveling history’s most perplexing discovery—and figuring out what it portends for humanity. But once the pieces of the puzzle are in place, will the result prove to be an instrument of lasting peace or a weapon of mass destruction?

An inventive debut in the tradition of World War Z and The Martian, told in interviews, journal entries, transcripts, and news articles, Sleeping Giants is a thriller fueled by a quest for truth—and a fight for control of earthshaking power.

I remember adding this book to my TBR – what drew me to it was how different it was to anything else out there! I also like the idea of the story being chronicled in the manner of articles etc instead of prose.

Verdict: Keep

Join – Steve Toutonghi

Goodreads

What if you could live multiple lives simultaneously, have constant, perfect companionship, and never die? That’s the promise of Join, a revolutionary technology that allows small groups of minds to unite, forming a single consciousness that experiences the world through multiple bodies. But as two best friends discover, the light of that miracle may be blinding the world to its horrors.

Chance and Leap are jolted out of their professional routines by a terrifying stranger—a remorseless killer who freely manipulates the networks that regulate life in the post-Join world. Their quest for answers—and survival—brings them from the networks and spire communities they’ve known to the scarred heart of an environmentally ravaged North American continent and an underground community of the “ferals” left behind by the rush of technology.

In the storytelling tradition of classic speculative fiction from writers like David Mitchell and Michael Chabon, Join offers a pulse-pounding story that poses the largest possible questions: How long can human life be sustained on our planet in the face of environmental catastrophe? What does it mean to be human, and what happens when humanity takes the next step in its evolution? If the individual mind becomes obsolete, what have we lost and gained, and what is still worth fighting for?

I’m a little on the fence about this one. I’ve had to have a good long think about it.

I love the idea of the book exploring advancement in technology and individuality (or the lack of). I feel my reservations are the result of thinking the synopsis isn’t written all that well. I’m going to keep it tentatively based on potential.

Verdict: Keep

Three Parts Dead – Max Gladstone

Goodreads

A god has died, and it’s up to Tara, first-year associate in the international necromantic firm of Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao, to bring Him back to life before His city falls apart.

Her client is Kos, recently deceased fire god of the city of Alt Coulumb. Without Him, the metropolis’s steam generators will shut down, its trains will cease running, and its four million citizens will riot.

Tara’s job: resurrect Kos before chaos sets in. Her only help: Abelard, a chain-smoking priest of the dead god, who’s having an understandable crisis of faith.

When Tara and Abelard discover that Kos was murdered, they have to make a case in Alt Coulumb’s courts—and their quest for the truth endangers their partnership, their lives, and Alt Coulumb’s slim hope of survival.

Set in a phenomenally built world in which justice is a collective force bestowed on a few, craftsmen fly on lightning bolts, and gargoyles can rule cities, Three Parts Dead introduces readers to an ethical landscape in which the line between right and wrong blurs.

Okay, so this was added to the list a year and a half ago. Looking at it now, I can say that my reading preferences have certainly changed. This doesn’t appeal to me anymore, so it’s off the list.

Verdict: Go

Doors of Stone – Patrick Rothfuss

Goodreads

The eagerly awaited third book of The Kingkiller Chronicle.

It is absolutely eagerly awaited – I love this series so far!

Verdict: Keep

Golden Age – James Maxwell

Goodreads

The discovery of a strange and superior warship sends Dion, youngest son of the king of Xanthos, and Chloe, a Phalesian princess, on a journey across the sea, where they are confronted by a kingdom far more powerful than they could ever have imagined.

But they also find a place in turmoil, for the ruthless sun king, Solon, is dying. In order to gain entrance to heaven, Solon is building a tomb—a pyramid clad in gold—and has scoured his own empire for gold until there’s no more to be found.

Now Solon’s gaze turns to Chloe’s homeland, Phalesia, and its famous sacred ark, made of solid gold. The legends say it must never be opened, but Solon has no fear of foreigners’ legends or even their armies. And he isn’t afraid of the eldren, an ancient race of shape-shifters, long ago driven into the Wilds.

For when he gets the gold, Solon knows he will live forever.

This book doesn’t appeal to me much at the moment. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure I could read it… I may even want to in the future, but I’m not feeling the love right now.

I’ll keep it because I bought a copy, but it’s not something I am likely to pick up in the near future.

Verdict: Keep

Children of Earth and Sky – Guy Gavriel Kay

Goodreads

From the small coastal town of Senjan, notorious for its pirates, a young woman sets out to find vengeance for her lost family. That same spring, from the wealthy city-state of Seressa, famous for its canals and lagoon, come two very different people: a young artist traveling to the dangerous east to paint the grand khalif at his request—and possibly to do more—and a fiercely intelligent, angry woman, posing as a doctor’s wife, but sent by Seressa as a spy.

The trading ship that carries them is commanded by the accomplished younger son of a merchant family, ambivalent about the life he’s been born to live. And farther east a boy trains to become a soldier in the elite infantry of the khalif—to win glory in the war everyone knows is coming.

As these lives entwine, their fates—and those of many others—will hang in the balance, when the khalif sends out his massive army to take the great fortress that is the gateway to the western world…

This synopsis really doesn’t say a whole lot about the book, in my opinion. Unless you are die-hard feminist and want to invest into special agent “doctors wife” – nothing stands out about these characters.

It’s a nope from me.

Verdict: Go

The Psychology Book – Nigel C Benson

Goodreads

Clearly explaining more than 100 groundbreaking ideas in the field, The Psychology Book uses accessible text and easy-to-follow graphics and illustrations to explain the complex theoretical and experimental foundations of psychology.

From its philosophical roots through behaviorism, psychotherapy, and developmental psychology, The Psychology Book looks at all the greats from Pavlov and Skinner to Freud and Jung, and is an essential reference for students and anyone with an interest in how the mind works.

I definitely have a kindle copy of this – and I am fairly sure I have read at least some of it. Psychology is a subject I am interested in and like to visit periodically, so I’ll keep.

Verdict: Keep

There you have it!

I only dropped three books of the list this time. I think now I am coming to books that I have added more recently (within the past year and a half or so) there will be less I drop off the list as my reading taste will be closer to it is now.

I’ll still benefit from reviewing, however, as you never know. Plus, doing so gets the books put on the ACTUAL reading list I work from.

Have you reviewed your TBR recently?

Down the TBR Hole is a tag designed to help clear Goodreads lists of unwanted books #bookblog Happy Friday folks! I hope you are all looking forward to a fabulous weekend!! Today I am posting another Down the TBR Hole post, in an effort to clear out my Goodreads list of unwanted books.

#bookblog #books #bookworm #downthetbrhole #fantasyst95 #reading list

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